Mohammed Elshamy/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- President Donald Trump on Wednesday opened his United Nations Security Council speech by taking a shot at China, claiming that it's trying to meddle in the upcoming midterm elections.



"Regrettably we found that China has been attempting to interfere in our upcoming 2018 election, coming up in November," Trump said.



He went on, "They do not want me or us to win because I am the first president ever to challenge China on trade and we are winning on trade. We are winning on every level. We don't want them to meddle or interfere in our upcoming elections."



Trump's comment on election interference was somewhat surprising given that the Security Council meeting tends to focus on nuclear proliferation.



Trump then pivoted to the threats posed by nuclear and chemical weapons and he touted his administration's "bold action" on the issue, saying officials are confronting these "sinister threats."



Trump said the world has been "rightly focused on the dangers of nuclear weapons" but he urged leaders to "never forget the threats posed by biological and weapons."



He specifically mentioned Russia and Iran as being connected to the continuing violence in Syria before reiterating the need for U.S. sanctions on Iran.



"The Syrian regime's butchery is enabled by Russia and Iran," Trump said. "The Iranian regime exports violence, terror and turmoil. It illicitly procures sensitive items to advance its ballistic missile program and proliferates these missiles all across the Middle East. The regime is the world's leading sponsor of terror and and fuels conflict across the region and far beyond. A regime with this track record must never be allowed to possess a nuclear weapon."



Trump made his displeasure with Iran known in his Tuesday speech to the General Assembly as well, calling on "all nations to isolate Irans regime as long as its aggression continues" as part of a "maximum pressure" campaign meant to ultimately drive Iran back to the negotiating table to get a new, more comprehensive deal.

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Sorry, there are no recent results for popular videos.Tiangong-2, China's sole space lab orbiting the Earth, will safely leave its orbit under manual control after July 2019, senior space engineers said on Wednesday.





Launched Sept. 15, 2016, Tiangong-2 has fulfilled all its planned missions within its designed two-year life span. It will now focus on conducting experiments and testing new space applications that can benefit society, said Lin Xiqiang, deputy director of the China Manned Space Engineering Office.





"All of its payload modules are functioning properly and in good condition," Lin said. On Sept. 20, the management committee for the Tiangong-2 space lab had decided the space lab would stay in orbit until July 2019, when it would deorbit under manual control, he added.





Zhu Zongpeng, chief engineer of Tiangong-2, said the space lab has many built-in fail-safes and auto-processing systems that can deal with emergencies and ensure its safe descent and landing.





"Even if it drifted off our detection zone, Tiangong-2 will enter a self-pilot system that can guide it back, ensuring the platform's safety," Zhu said. Tiangong-1, the predecessor, deorbited on April 2 and its remains fell into the southern Pacific Ocean.





Scientists will also monitor more than 300 key data and have developed more than 300 fault countermeasures for Tiangong-2, ensuring the space lab can deorbit safely and in control, he said.Tetra Tech, Inc. isa US Company that is headquartered in California that provides consulting,engineering, program management, and construction management services thataddress fundamental needs for water, environment, infrastructure, resourcemanagement, and energy. Tetra Techs services for consulting and engineeringprojects include applied science, information technology, engineering, design,construction management, and operations and maintenance.Platinum credit is aleading Regional Micro Finance Company providing emergency loans to employedindividuals in Eastern Africa. We have a wide spread branch network in Uganda.Currently we are providing loans to Civil servants and employees of the Privatesector, and Logbook Finance loans.The UN World FoodProgramme (WFP) is the United Nations frontline agency against world hunger. Itis the largest and longest serving humanitarian agency in Uganda. Currently WFPfocuses on three priority areas: Saving lives in Emergencies; BuildingResilience through Predictable Safety Nets; Improving Nutrition &Mother-and Child Health; and Supporting Small Holder Farmers to Access Markets.WFP has operations in various parts of the Country.In a matter of five minutes, a retired old Sanskrit teacher disappears from a waiting car when his daughter goes off to quickly run an errand in the market. The ageing professor chances upon an elephant on a busy street from his car window and is suddenly assailed by an urge to follow the animal like a child. When his daughter comes back to find him missing, the father is already on his way into the unknown, delicately perched on the gentle giant led by a mahout.

In Astu, Sanskrit for 'so be it' the professor never fails to invoke the Upanishadic teachings of being in the moment; sadly, and not without irony, at this point in his life he really can only be invested in the moment. For he suffers from Alzheimer's and is losing grip over his memories and his future course of action. Poignantly laying bare the utter helplessness and gradual disintegration of the human intellect with the onset of dementia, multiple award-winning Marathi film Astu follows this Sanskrit professor and how, fascinated by the elephant, he follows the creature home and is cared for by the impoverished family to whom the elephant belongs, while his own daughter struggles to come to terms with her father's gradual dissipation and her own perceived inability to fully care for him.

Astu was screened as part of Film Festival for Generations, currently showing at India International Centre in Delhi from September 24 to 26. Organised in collaboration with Heidelberg Centre South Asia, the festival brings together a selection of films on ageing-related issues like housing, activity and creativity in old age, dementia and care-giving. Other films in the festival include Adil Hussain-starrer Mukti Bhawan, where a 77-year-old suddenly senses his time is up and prevails on his son to drive him to Varanasi so he can peacefully die there, and the German films Forget Me Not and Sputnik Moment-30 Years Gained. Heidelberg University is also involved in a transmedia project called Elderscapes: Ageing in Urban South Asia. It focuses on the social commitment of older persons, their everyday life and social bonding, on their memories and perspectives and what it means to grow old in a city, at a time when longevity is rising.

In Astu, scenes alternate between Dr Chakrapani Shastri confidently reciting Vedic texts and Zen philosophy, and his steady depletion of mental faculties where in one scene he uses post-its to recall the names of his immediate family members. The film offers a gentle and touching portrait of a family's confusion and their inability to completely fathom the implications of a degenerative mental disease, despite their best efforts: should the daughter let him stay in her own house with her children; should he be sent to live alone in his own house with his books; should he be shipped off to an asylum? Shastri's sudden disappearance for 20 hours precipitates an intense period of soul-searching and a flurry of flashbacks to understand the needs and impulses of an ailing old man. And there is Milind Soman too, playing Shastri's dutiful and level-headed son-in-law.The adage that failures can teach many lessons seems quite...The #MeToo movement saw some of Hollywood's biggest names fall off their pedestals as women opened up about sexual exploitation in the industry. The movement found its reverberations in other countries, too, with women slowly raising a voice.

Though the movement is not as powerful in India, as it was in the West, a few Bollywood actresses like Radhika Apte, Richa Chadha and Swara Bhasker have been vocal about exploitation and casting couch. The latest to join the bandwagon is actress Tanushree Dutta who has made some startling revelations in a candid interview with News18. Tanushree Dutta said that the #MeToo movement has not gained traction in the Indian film industry because of the country's hypocritical nature.

She added that the movement will not happen in India unless people acknowledge what happened to her in 2008. She alleged she was harassed by an actor on the sets of a film in 2008. After her statements went viral, she has now, for the first time, revealed the name of the actorNana Patekar.

The #MeToo happened in Hollywood a year or two back, but in India it happened several years ago. I was probably one of the first people in the history of this country in the media field to speak up and stand up. Everybody saw what happened but the memory and the popular perception of it is that Tanushree Dutta spoke up against harassment and then she was no more, she said.

Tanushree Dutta was referring to a 2008 incident in which she had accused an unnamed actor of misbehaving with her on the sets of Horn 'Ok' Pleassss. In the interview, she opened up further about her harrowing experience. She said that the actor would push her around, grab her arms, and was even interested in doing an 'intimate sequence' with her. She eventually opted out of the special song sequence she was signed for, and added that when she complained about being uncomfortable with the actor's proximity, he allegedly sought help from goons of a political party, who broke her car.

She said, it took her a long time to deal with the post-trauma stress, due to which she recoiled into a shell, denied work offers and eventually moved to the US. While this interview has ruffled some feathers, Tanushree Dutta went on to reveal the name of her 'perpetrator' in another interview with Zoom TV. She said the actor was Nana Patekar and that most people knew about it and the actor's indecent behaviour towards women.

She also called out actors like Akshay Kumar and Rajinikanth who have collaborated with him over the last few years. If such big stars will keep working with these culprits then there's no hope for any movement to happen, Tanushree Dutta said.Two days after the Supreme Court termed as serious the allegations made by Shweta Bhatt, wife of arrested former Gujarat IPS officer Sanjiv Bhatt, that he was not being allowed to sign the documents necessary for approaching the higher court, she expressed hope that justice would be meted out to them.

Bhatt was arrested by Gujarat Police on September 5 in connection with a 22-year-old case. The ex-IPS officer, who was the then superintendent of police in Banaskantha district, is accused of framing a Rajasthan-based lawyer in a narcotics peddling case in 1996.

While lawyer Sumersinh Rajput was then arrested on charges of possessing around one kilogram of drugs, Rajasthan Police, which investigated the case, concluded that the lawyer was falsely implicated to make him let go off a disputed property in Pali, Rajasthan.

In June this year, the Gujarat High Court handed over the case to CID and asked it to complete the probe in three months.

It is strange. Why are we tolerating this (Bhatt not being allowed to sign documents)?, asked Shweta while speaking to THE WEEK. I am expecting justice, she said.

Shweta said the way Bhatt was picked up for questioning and later arrested reflected how helpless the khakhi is. I have never seen khakhi so helpless, she remarked.

Claiming that it was traumatic to face such a situation, Shweta said that people should be questioning this, but unfortunately that was not happening.

Even a 'big culprit' gets time. Justice is expected, she said. Shweta, who in the past unsuccessfully contested the assembly elections on a Congress ticket against Narendra Modi from Maninagar, Ahmedabad, said that this might happen to each of us.

She also said that they were in Ahmedabad all these years and nobody came to question them in connection with the case.

Bhatt had taken on the then Narendra Modi government of Gujarat in connection with post-Godhra riots. He was dismissed from service in 2015 for "unauthorised absence".

Shweta pointed out to the sequence of events that unfolded around the Bhatts. First they (the government) withdrew the security cover given to Sanjiv and then the municipal corporation demolished a portion of the house. We did tell the corporation that a petition was pending in the court and if the verdict came against us, we would ourselves demolish the portion, she said, adding that the kitchen of the house was demolished and they were not allowed to remove their things from the place.

A mother of two, Shweta has been taking to social media to post on Bhatt's accounts for garnering support.The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Gujarat High Court to decide afresh the plea of senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel challenging the maintainability of a petition filed by a BJP leader against his election to the Rajya Sabha.

A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A.M. Khanwilkar and D.Y. Chandrachud said Patel's plea against the petition of BJP leader Balwantsinh Rajput required de novo (fresh) adjudication.

Patel was elected to the Rajya Sabha last year after defeating Rajput, who had quit the Congress to join the BJP.

The win for Patel had come after the Election Commission had cancelled the votes of rebel Congress MLAs Bhola Bhai Gohil and Raghav Bhai Patel. This had brought down the requirement for an outright victory for a candidate to 44 from 45.

Soon after Patel got elected, Rajput filed a petition in the Gujarat High Court challenging the poll panel's decision to invalidate the votes of the two rebel Congress MLAs. Had these votes been counted, he would have defeated Patel, Rajput had contended in the High Court.

Rajput had also alleged that Patel had taken the Congress MLAs to a resort in Bengaluru before the Rajya Sabha election, which, he claimed, amounted to bribing the voters.

Patel had challenged Rajput's plea and sought its dismissal for not serving the respondents an attested copy of the petition as required under the law.

The Gujarat High Court, however, rejected Patel's plea and said the petitioner had substantially complied with the provisions of law and the defects could be easily cured.

Patel moved the Supreme Court against the Gujarat High Court order, saying that Rajput's petition was "devoid of merits" and failed to show any "cause of action".

Patel has challenged the April 22 order of the Gujarat High Court, which had dismissed his plea.

Patel had contended before the Gujarat High Court that the election petition was "not at all maintainable" and should be "dismissed at the threshold" as it violated the provisions of the Representation of the People Act, 1951.

The plea said the decision of the poll panel cannot be challenged in an election petition. "Election application...was preferred by the Petitioner [Rajput] under Order VII Rule 11 of the CPC praying for dismissal of the Election Petition for non disclosure of cause of action," it said, while seeking a stay on the proceedings before the Gujarat High Court.US President Donald Trump's solemn moment in the great hall of the United Nation's General Assembly on Tuesday had an embarassing start as his speech, within a minute into it, resulted in laughter from the other world leaders present.

"In less than two years, my administration has achieved more than almost any administration in the history of our country," Trump boasted, like he does at his campaigns as the mid-term elections get nearer.

As Trump noticed the rising sound of chuckles, he insisted "So true." He then looked around the hall and said with a smile, "I didn't expect that reaction, but that's okay," eliciting louder laughter.

Trump went on to address the assembly for another 34 minutes where he projected low US unemployment rates and talked about why global rules do not apply to the US. He went on to urge international pressure against Iran, after he withdrew from an agreement on curbing Tehran's nuclear programme, and lashed out at the OPEC cartel over oil prices and China over the imbalance in trade.

Though it seemed like a spontaneous moment to those watching, and it really was so, Trump has claimed that his boasts in the speech were meant to get some laughter. But those who have watched the president also know that he does not laugh at himself and never appreciates a joke at his expense.

Twitter users were quick to bring back an old tweet Trump had made in 2014 in reference to former president Barack Obama.

We need a President who isn't a laughing stock to the entire World. We need a truly great leader, a genius at strategy and winning. Respect!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 9, 2014

Twitter users went to town using his own tweet against him.



That he was laughed at one of world's biggest platforms was used by Trump critics to mock him further.New Delhi, Sep 26 (PTI) Hailing the Supreme Court's Aadhaar verdict as "historic", Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said Wednesday the opposition Congress has cut "a very sorry figure" after the apex court upheld the core of national biometric ID programme, which has helped save Rs 90,000 crore every year by plugging leakages in welfare schemes.

Stating that he has not read the full judgement, Jaitley said his understanding of the verdict is that the Supreme Court has barred usage of 12-digit unique identification number by private entities like mobile phone firms in absence of a legislative backing for that.

"Section 57 (of the Aadhaar Act that has been struck down by the Supreme Court) says that there can be special enabling power to allow other entities or body corporate (to use Aadhaar). I can give you my information (about the judgement). That is not permissible unless it is backed up by law. That seems to be the spirit of the judgement," he said.

The Supreme Court while upholding the Constitutional validity of Aadhaar had struck down some of its provisions including its linking with bank accounts and mobile phones.

When asked about the requirement of Aadhaar-linking with bank accounts and mobile phones post judgement, Jaitley said the question was based on without full reading the judgement.

"So let us first read the judgement. There are 2-3 prohibited areas. Are they because they are totally prohibited or are they because they need legal backing. So my answer in general, the generic answer will depend on what is the rationale, for instance on these private entities, it needs to be backed by law. That's my understanding. I still have a detailed reading of the judgement to do.

"Therefore, the prohibited areas do not assume are perpetually prohibited they could be procedurally prohibited or they could be prohibited as such," he said.

His colleague and Law & IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said the court has held that the purpose of issuing Aadhaar to all Indian citizens is legitimate and no surveillance is possible.

"It is a historic judgement and the whole concept of unique identity number that has been accepted after judicial review is an extremely welcome decision," Jaitley told a news conference here.

He said the court has also upheld that the Aadhaar legislation, which mandated assigning unique identification number of Indian citizens, was a Money Bill.

A money bill is to be approved by the Lok Sabha only and the Rajya Sabha, where the ruling combination did not enjoy majority when the Act was passed in March 2016, only returned it after discussion.

"You can always have fringe elements who are opposed to these ideas but you at least expect those in the mainstream to really accept changes that are taking place," he said.

To critics, he said "you cannot defy technology. You cannot ignore it."

"The court while upholding the core of (Aadhaar) legislation and the principal purposes for which it was brought has observed with regard...we will certainly study the judgement and I think its a great step forward for the use of technology in governance," he said.

The Minister, who showered lavish compliments on previous UPA government's Aadhaar-architect Nandan Nilekani and the programmes current head Ajay Bhushan Pandey, said 122 crore people in India now have the unique identification cards that are being used to disperse government subsidy and welfare measures.

"There are no fake or duplicate or non-existent beneficiaries (of government schemes). We are already saving Rs 90,000 crore every year," he said.

"This judgement is a judgement of empowering democracy, good governance, service delivery and also empowering the ordinary Indian," Prasad said.

Responding to the Congress charge that the apex court deleting private usage of Aadhaar is a "slap" on government's face, Jaitley said the opposition party when it was in power brought in the ID programme without any legislative backing and without specifying what it was meant for.

"Obviously, the Congress party cuts a very sorry figure. They introduced the idea and then did not know what to do with it.

"The version they had drafted was there shall be an Aadhaar Card. This is a procedure which it shall be issued, what it will be used for was unclear from the beginning. Now you do not need an Aadhaar card which is not to be used for a particular purpose," he said.

When the government re-drafted the legislation, it replaced the 'pith and substance' that it was for conferring benefits to the deserving. "And therefore if you want these benefits you have to produce some identity," he said.

Noting that technology as a tool of governance as an instrument of conferring benefits to people as an instrument of revenue collection, Jaitley said, "I think is a concept which nobody can deny and the Supreme Court after reviewing this has held this to be constitutionally valid." PTI NKD PRS SR DP ANZ

MRNew Delhi, Sep 26 (PTI) In third incentive package for sugar mills in four months, the Union government Wednesday announced a Rs 5,500 crore package for the sugar industry, including over two-fold jump in production aid to cane growers and transport subsidy to mills for exports.

The measures since June have ranged from higher price for ethanol extracted from sugarcane to financial assistance to sugar mills to create ethanol capacity and are aimed at helping the cash-starved mills clear Rs 13,000 crore they owe currently to farmers before the 2019 general elections.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA), headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Wednesday approved a Rs 5,500 crore package to address the surplus production and stock of sugar in the country.

"Last and this year, sugar production is high. It is expected that sugar output next year will remain high. Therefore, a comprehensive policy has been approved by the CCEA to deal with the excess production," Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told reporters after the meeting.

A total assistance of Rs 5,538 crore has been approved to offset cost of cane and facilitate export, he said.

Food Minister Ramvilas Paswan said today's decisions will help stabilise the domestic market and enable mills to make cane payment to growers.

The government will provide financial assistance of Rs 13.88 per quintal cane crushed in 2018-19 marketing year to offset the cost of cane, as against Rs 5.50 per quintal announced for the current 2017-18, ending this month.

The total expenditure on this account would be about Rs 4,163 crore, an official statement said.

That apart, the Centre will provide assistance to mills by compensating expenditure towards internal transport, freight, handling and other charges to facilitate 5 million tonnes (MT) export during the 2018-19 (October-September).

A transport subsidy of Rs 1,000 per tonne will be given for mills located within 100 kms from the ports, Rs 2,500 per tonne for mills located beyond 100 kms from the port in the coastal states and Rs 3,000 per tonne for mills located in other than coastal states or actual expenditure, whichever is lower.

The total expenditure on this account would be about Rs 1,375 crore, the statement said.

"To ensure payment of sugarcane dues of farmers, both the assistance would be credited directly into the accounts of farmers on behalf of sugar mills against cane price dues payable to farmers against FRP (fair and remunerative price) including arrears relating to previous years," it added.

With assembly elections due in some states and upcoming general polls in mid-2019, the government wants to address cane growers payment issue.

These steps will enable mills to boost sugar exports and clear cane arrears, which currently stand at Rs 13,567 crore. Mills in Uttar Pradesh owe the maximum at Rs 9,817 crore to cane farmers.

On the decision, Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA) Director General Abinash Verma said that the move will help reduce the industry's cane price liability by around five per cent over the next year's FRP of Rs 275 per quintal of sugarcane.

"This is the largest financial assistance towards FRP ever given by the government of India and will substantially reduce expenditure and working capital requirement of sugar mills in the next year," he said, adding that the transport subsidy will encourage mills to export sugar.

The industry is facing a glut-like situation because of record production of 32 MT in the 2017-18 marketing year (October-September), resulting in a closing stock of 10 MT at the end of this month.

India's sugar output is set to increase further to 35 MT in the next marketing year. The annual domestic demand stands at 26 MT.

The government has taken a slew of measures to bail out sugar mills as well as cane farmers in the last one year.

First, it doubled the import duty on sugar to 100 per cent and then scrapped the export duty on it. It also made it compulsory for millers to export two million tonnes of sugar even as global prices were low.

In June, the government had announced Rs 8,500 crore package for the industry, which included soft loans of Rs 4,440 crore to mills for creating ethanol capacity. It will bear an interest subvention of Rs 1,332 crore for this.

An assistance of Rs 5.50 per quintal of cane crushed was announced, amounting to Rs 1,540 crore to mills. Around Rs 1,200 crore was allocated for the creation of 3 MT buffer stock of sugar. The minimum selling price of the sweetener was fixed at Rs 29 per kg.

Earlier this month, the government had approved an over 25 per cent hike in the price of ethanol produced directly from sugarcane juice for blending in petrol, in a bid to cut surplus sugar production and reduce oil imports. PTI LUX NKD MJH ANZ .LUX BAL

BALNew Delhi, Sep 26 (PTI) The Congress on Wednesday accused the Narendra Modi government of bringing India to the "verge of economic collapse" and demanded a Supreme Court-monitored probe into "financial mismanagement" in the Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) group, which has over Rs 91,000 crore in debt.

Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari claimed the company was on the verge of bankruptcy and warned if that happened it would have a domino effect and "far reaching consequences" on the country's economy.

"This could be termed as the 'Lehman Brothers moment of India', as the collapse of Lehman Brothers in United States led to the 'great economic meltdown' of 2008...Something similar is happening in India today," he said, warning that "the Indian economy may plunge into a very deep crises".

The Congress leader alleged that the Prime Minister's Office and the Finance Ministry was putting pressure on the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), State Bank of India (SBI), Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) and National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to bail out the company, and sought to know the rationale behind it.

He said IL&FS is an unlisted infrastructure development and financing company, which is 40 per cent owned by the public-sector LIC, SBI and Central Bank of India.

"Why is the NDA/BJP government going overboard to bail out IL&FS?" he asked.

"The Prime Minister's Office and the Finance Ministry are putting pressure on the Reserve Bank of India, State Bank of India, LIC and NHAI to bail out this company and the logical question is why this is happening?" he said.

The government is trying "to help save foreign investors' money with the help of Indian tax-payers' money", he alleged.

"We demand that there should be a Supreme Court-monitored multi-agency investigation into all issues linked with IL&FS. This is a very serious issue," he said.

"The NDA-BJP government has brought India to the verge of an economic collapse and the manner in which the affairs of IL&FS fanned out is symptomatic of how this government has handled the Indian economy," he said.

According to the Congress leader, "some market analysis have been saying that this requires a very radical solution, it requires almost Satyam Computers like solution."

"But, the problem here is that why did it come to this pass? Why is it, that now LIC is saying that we will increase our stake. It is not the money of LIC boards and it is not private money," he said.

He also took a swipe at the prime minister saying this matter of IL&FS is a clear case of "telephone banking that prime minister Modi was referring to when he recently talked about 'phone a loan' system during the Congress government", referring to political influence in grant of bank loans.

Referring to the prime minister's reference to 'videshi mahagathbandhan', he said, "This is that foreign alliance of the NDA-BJP government, where tax payers' good money is being used to save the foreign bad money".

He described the ILFS issue as a "crisis" in Indian economy and said the Finance Minister needs to answer what the government nominees in the company's board were doing.

"How did the debt of the company jump by 44 per cent in the last three years? The state of affairs in the ILFS is a symbol of the Government handling of the Indian economy," he said.

"This is bigger scam than Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi all rolled into one," he alleged.

The Congress leader said the company has an opaque corporate structure and its profitability has declined 900 per cent and it does not have sufficient reserves and surpluses to service its interest bearing loans and redeemable debentures and pay back its loans.

As of March 2018, LIC and Orix Corporation of Japan were the largest shareholders of IL&FS with 25.34 and 23.54 per cent respectively, while Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, HDFC, Central Bank of India and SBI hold 12.56 per cent, 9.02 per cent, 7.67 per cent and 6.42 per cent, respectively. PTI SKC SMNNew Delhi, Sep 26 (PTI) The government expects to attract USD 100 billion in investments and generate four million jobs in the telecom sector as it Wednesday approved a new policy for the industry.

The policy also envisages 50 Mbps of broadband connectivity to every citizen in five years.

"Cabinet has approved National Digital Communications Policy today," Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha said Wednesday.

He said things have very rapidly evolved in the telecom sector and hence new policy has been made to address emerging technology areas like 5G, Internet of Things and machine to machine communication.

The minister said the government wants to focus on socio-economic growth of the country with the help of the telecom sector instead of seeing it as source of revenue generation.

The NDCP proposes to adopt "Optimal Pricing of Spectrum" to ensure sustainable and affordable access to digital communications. High spectrum price and related charges have been the main concern of the telecom services segment, which is reeling under a debt of around Rs 7.8 lakh crore.

Some of the objectives of the NDCP 2018 include providing broadband access to all, creating 40 lakh new jobs, and increasing India's ranking in the global ICT Index to 50th spot.

"We also expect GDP contribution of telecom sector, which has been around 6 per cent, to grow to 8 per cent... and expect USD 100 billion investment to come in," he said.

The global average of telecom sector contribution to GDP is 4.5 per cent. The sector at present contributes around 6.5 per cent to India's GDP.

The government expects to decide on most of the promises made under NDCP 2018 in a year, Sinha said.

"We will decide on most of the things in a year," Sinha said in response to a query on by when the government will be ready with a roadmap.

The last national telecom policy was issued in 2012.

"We have also changed the name of Telecom Commission to Digital Communication Commission. We will work inclusion of other ministry representatives into it," Sinha said.

The minister said the policy has been formulated after it was felt that a "consumer-centric and application-driven policy" be brought in. The vision, Sinha said, is to have robust communication infrastructure and broadband for all.

The policy promises to promote domestic telecom products and equipment manufacturing with preference to indigenous manufacturers and encourage participation of technology start-ups in the sector.

Industry body COAI said the implementation of NDCP 2018 will have a positive, long-term impact on the sector. It also hoped that the DoT will closely monitor the timely implementation of this policy so that the industry can recuperate from the deepening financial stress.

"Thus, the most important and urgent requirement is to restore the financial health of the sector for which the Policy document envisages the reduction in levies and ease of doing business," COAI Director General Rajan S Mathews said.

This will help the industry in achieving the goals of and fulfilling the objectives outlined in the policy, he said. PTI PRS SR ABM

ABMJohannesburg, Sep 26 (AFP) South Africa said Wednesday it had penned extradition treaties with the United Arab Emirates, a move that could pave the way for the forced return to the country of the Guptas, wealthy businessmen implicated in massive state corruption.

South Africa's Justice Minister Michael Masutha and his UAE counterpart, Sultan Saeed Al Badi, signed the treaties on "extradition and mutual legal assistance in criminal matters in Abu Dhabi" on Tuesday, the government said in a statement.

"The treaties will enable the two countries to assist each other in the investigation and prosecution of crimes through mutual legal assistance and the extradition of fugitives," it added.

One of the three Gupta brothers, Ajay, who now lives in Dubai, has been declared a "fugitive from justice" and is being sought by South African police over alleged graft.

The Indian-born Gupta brothers, who are among South Africa's richest people, are being investigated by police over corruption allegations.

A public inquiry opened last month into alleged corruption under scandal-tainted former president Jacob Zuma, who is accused of overseeing widespread graft during his nine-year reign.

The brothers are at the centre of the probe.

The investigation is looking into allegations that Zuma organised the systematic plunder of government coffers by the Guptas and allowed them to choose ministers in a scandal known as "state capture".

A former minister, a government and ex-ANC lawmaker have given damning testimonies against the Guptas at the inquiry.

Two of the brothers said they wanted to answer those allegations, but on condition they give their evidence from Dubai via video link because they feared being arrested.

But the commission's chief, deputy chief justice Raymond Zondo rejected their application to participate in the inquiry from abroad.

In April UAE authorities arrested a South African man after he filmed Ajay Gupta in Dubai and posted the clip on social media. He was freed a few hours later.

South Africa said the extradition talks with the UAE have been in the making for the past eight years.

Indian tax officials are also investigating the Gupta brothers in their former home town, as part of a money laundering probe. (AFP)

PMS

PMSMumbai, Sep 26 (PTI) Netflix has purchased the rights to "Rajma Chawal", headlined by veteran actor Rishi Kapoor, and the film will be available exclusively on the digital platform worldwide on November 30.

The announcement came before the movie, directed by Leena Yadav, premieres at the BFI London Film Festival in October, the streaming giant said in a press release.

Yadav, best known for 2015's critically-acclaimed "Parched", said she is looking forward to her association with Netflix. Set in the interiors of New Delhi's Chandni Chowk, "Rajma Chawal" is a light-hearted story about family in the age of social media.

Kapoor plays the role of Raj Mathur, the father, whereas debutante Anirudh Tanwar plays the son, Kabir Mathur.

"The father-son dynamic is a universal human theme, and Netflix, with its global reach and ability to address a range of audiences with rich and resonant stories, was the ideal partner for us.

"Being on Netflix invites the whole world into the lives of a family in Chandni Chowk, and we are excited to bring the tumult, colour and vitality of both the family and the area to newer audiences," the filmmaker said.

Swati Shetty, Director, International Originals and Acquisitions, Netflix, said, "'Rajma Chawal' takes the viewer along the highs and lows of of family dynamics... Technology and social media are changing human relationships globally, and we're honoured that the stellar team behind this film chose to partner with Netflix on showing their take on this subject to the world."

The film also features Amyra Dastur and Aparshakti Khurana. PTI RDS

RDSMumbai, Sep 26 (PTI) Alia Bhatt said her upcoming fantasy-adventure trilogy "Brahamastra" will be a step ahead in terms of filmmaking.

Directed by Ayan Mukerji, the series is produced by Karan Johar's Dharma Productions.

"We are very excited for the film. It is a step ahead. This will take cinema to another level. I am excited for next year," Alia told reporters at an event on Tuesday.

The film also features megastar Amitabh Bachchan and will see Ranbir Kapoor playing a character with special powers.

Alia will also be seen working with father Mahesh Bhatt in "Sadak 2", which co-stars Sanjay Dutt, Pooja Bhatt and Aditya Roy Kapur.

Talking about collaborating with Bhatt for the first time, the actor said, "It's beautiful, it's amazing. It's a dream come true.

"My father is directing me. One can't ask for anything better. It's going to be very special," she said.

While first part of "Brahmastra" is slated to be released on August 15 next year, "Sadak 2" will hit the screens March 25, 2020. PTI JUR RDS

RDSColombo, Sep 26 (PTI) An Indian national who was aware of an alleged plot to assassinate Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena has been arrested, a court was told.

The Indian national, identified as M Thomas by Lankan media, was arrested on Tuesday from the residence of the Anti Corruption Movement operations director Namal Kumara, who exposed the assassination plot, CID Chief Inspector Ranjith Munasinghe informed the Fort Magistrate Court.

Magistrate Jayaratne instructed the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) to further interrogate Thomas and report the findings to the court.

Thomas was arrested when he visited Kumara's home at Warakapola in the south western region.

Kumara had revealed that former in-charge of the Terrorist Investigation Division DIG Nalaka de Silva had discussed with him the alleged plot to kill Sirisena and the former Defence Ministry Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, the court was told.

Silva was questioned by the CID on Kumara's revelations. He has been transferred out of the terrorism bureau pending investigations.

Thomas who was taken into custody for his alleged links to Kumara, arrived in the country on a tourist visa, which he overstayed, the court was told.

Meanwhile, the court has ordered to check the authenticity of sound tapes which Kumara had produced purported to be conversations between him and Silva. PTI CORR AMS AKJ AMS

AMS



The terrible attack at a military parade in Iran's south-western city of Ahvaz has thrown up new challenges for regional peace and security. There are telltale signs that the incident is not an isolated one but a part of a dangerous Middle Eastern version of Great Games *.



Two groups claimed responsibility for the attacks  the Ahvaz National Resistance and the Islamic State (IS) group. The former is a local Arab outfit allegedly supported by the countries that want to curtail Iran's influence. It has grievances against the central government, which it believes is being exploited.

The claim by the Islamic State is more of a formality, as these days the group seeks ownership of almost every attack anywhere in the world. It is part of their efforts to boost the morale of its core supporters in the face of unprecedented reversals in its fortunes during the short span of the past year.

Reaction from Tehran shows that the regime is inclined to believe that the Ahvaz National Resistance is behind the mayhem. It also fits into the latest power struggle in the region characterized by the periodic war of words between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

President Hassan Rouhani and his officials pointed the finger at the United States and its regional allies. The U.S. swiftly denied any involvement, and Ambassador Nikki Haley in reaction urged the regime to "look in the mirror."

The exact identity of the "masterminds" of the attack remains a mystery, as terrorism has morphed into a deadly clandestine phenomenon, being widely used by different actors to achieve political and strategic objectives. It needs a new definition and a new terminology because most terrorist attacks can no longer be defined by the classical category of the term.

Unfortunately, the victims and perpetrators of terror strikes are often ordinary people who die for something they hardly have any deeper understanding of. They also have nothing to do with the dirty games that aim to create internal instability within countries to spread chaos and anarchy.

The perpetrators of such policies usually try to bring down the government or force it to change its behavior. The long-term objective is to topple the government, as was the case in Libya.

The situation in the Middle East is quite fluid due to overlapping interests and conflicts. The tension between Iran and its regional rivals is just one part of the wider conundrum. The biggest stakeholder is the U.S. which is also the chief architect of the current security system in the region.

After the U.S. canceled the 2015 nuclear agreement and imposed new sanctions, there was a feeling in the U.S. policymakers that economic hardships of common Iranians will increasing, prompting street protests and demand of political change. So far, not much has happened on this count, but those pulling the strings are still hopeful that eventually it will happen.

That is why every protest and terrorist attack puts the Iranian government back in the spotlight, which is struggling to ease the economic pressure. Strategically, Iran has overstretched itself due to involvement in regional wars and the country's concurrent fear of international isolation only adds to its worries.

The Iranian diaspora in Europe and North America is also an important factor. Reports from the Netherlands and America show that some Iranians living abroad are getting active against the current Iranian government. This was the reason that Iran summoned diplomats from the U.K., the Netherlands, and Denmark on Saturday after accusing their countries of sheltering groups hostile to the government of Iran.

At the regional level, Iran was unhappy with the tweet of an adviser to the UAE crown prince who said the Ahvaz incident was not a terrorist attack and talked about moving the battle deeper inside Iran. Tehran protested with a UAE envoy in response to the "biased statements."

The more serious issue concerns how to handle the local ethnic groups in Iran like the Arabs in Khuzestan province, Kurds in Kurdish areas and Balochs in Sistan-Baluchestan province. It is difficult to gauge the level of their anxieties as even a minor sense of alienation creates vulnerability.

Ahvaz is the second biggest incident of terrorism in Iran after the attack on parliament last year. Future attacks cannot be ruled out. Every incident will spread fear and increase frustration. Iran's leaders should be more sagacious in how they deal with terrorist attacks and threats.

*The great game policy refers to the struggle between Russia and imperial Britain to increase influence in Central Asia. Its middle eastern version is struggle between Iran and Saudi Arabia on one hand and America and Russia on the other hand to increase their influence in the middle east.

Sajjad Malik is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:





http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/SajjadMalik.htm





Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.United Nations, Sep 26 (AFP) US President Donald Trump on Wednesday heaped praise on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the United Nations but called for strict enforcement of sanctions for now.

Chairing a special session of the UN Security Council on non-proliferation, Trump said to expect "very good news" in the coming months and years from North Korea after his landmark summit with the young strongman in Singapore in June.

"Kim Jong Un, a man I have gotten to know and like, wants peace and prosperity for North Korea," Trump said.

"Many things are happening behind the scenes away from the media which nobody knows, but they are happening nevertheless and they are happening in a very positive way."

But Trump also called for the enforcement of sanctions, which the United States has spent years building through the Security Council in response to North Korea's nuclear and missile tests.

"Unfortunately, to ensure this progress continues, we must enforce existing UN Security Council resolutions until denuclearization occurs," Trump said, reading form a prepared text.

"However, we have detected that some nations are already violating these UN sanctions. This includes illegal ship-to-ship transfers which must end immediately," he said.

"The safety of the Korean peninsula, the region and the world depends on full compliance." (AFP)

PMS

PMSUnited Nations, Sep 26 (AFP) US President Donald Trump took his campaign to isolate Iran to the UN Security Council Wednesday, accusing Tehran of spreading chaos at a meeting that laid bare divisions between Washington and key allies.

As chairman of a session of the top UN body, Trump denounced the "horrible, one-sided" nuclear deal with Iran that he ditched in May, to the dismay of European allies.

A gavel-wielding Trump vowed that re-imposed sanctions will be "in full force" and urged world powers to work with the United States to "ensure the Iranian regime changes its behaviour and never acquires a nuclear bomb." Addressing the council after Trump, French President Emmanuel Macron hit back, declaring that concerns about Iran cannot be reduced to "a policy of sanctions and containment" that was in place for years before the landmark deal.

"We need to build together a long-term strategy to manage the crisis that cannot be reduced to a policy of sanctions and containment of Iran," said Macron.

The United States has moved to reimpose sanctions that had been lifted under the 2015 deal to curb Iran's nuclear program and has vowed to punish foreign firms that do business with Iran.

On North Korea, Trump called for sanctions to be strictly enforced against Pyongyang -- a message directed at Russia and China which are pushing for an easing of punitive measures to reward North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Without naming countries, the US president noted that "some nations are already violating UN sanctions" including illegal ship-to-ship transfers of oil and said compliance was "very, very important."

Trump also accused China of working against his Republican Party in upcoming elections, saying Beijing did "not want me or us to win" because of his hard line on trade.

His toughest words were directed at Iran, however.

"In the years since the deal was signed, Iran's aggression only increased," Trump said.

"The regime used new funds from the deal to support terrorism, build nuclear capable missiles and foment chaos." Trump assailed Russia and Iran for backing President Bashar al-Assad in his brutal war in Syria, saying: "The Syrian regime's butchery is enabled by Russia and Iran."

Wednesday's meeting highlighted a rift between the United States and its European allies over the Iran nuclear deal.

On Monday, the five remaining parties to the agreement -- Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia -- defiantly announced that they would set up a special payment system to continue trade and business ties with Iran.

Heading into the council meeting, Sweden's Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom said European Union governments will "stand up" for the nuclear deal and suggested the US approach would fail.

"We have tried sanctions over the years, decades. We tried isolation and it only gave the most conservative forces in Iran more power," she told reporters.

During his address to the General Assembly on Tuesday, Trump assailed Iran's leaders, accusing them of sowing "chaos, death and destruction" and calling on world governments to isolate Tehran.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani shot back in his speech, denouncing leaders who have "xenophobic tendencies resembling a Nazi disposition" and slamming the planned council meeting as a "preposterous and abnormal act." Trump's national security advisor John Bolton warned Tehran of "hell to pay" if it threatens the US or its allies.

"Let my message today be clear: we are watching, and we will come after you." It was only the third time in UN history that a US president chaired a Security Council meeting. Barack Obama presided over two meetings in 2009 and 2014.

The United States had initially said the meeting chaired by Trump would focus on Iran, but later broadened the agenda under the theme of nuclear non-proliferation and weapons of mass destruction.

Iran has not requested to speak at the council meeting, diplomats confirmed Tuesday although Rouhani will hold a press conference soon after it is due to end.

Trump is one of around 130 world leaders attending the General Assembly in New York which formally began on Tuesday.

Speakers scheduled to address the second day of the assembly include the leaders of war-torn Yemen and Afghanistan while May will make her last speech at the world's foremost diplomatic stage before Britain leaves the European Union. (AFP) PMS

PMSNew Delhi, Sep 26 (PTI) Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan Wednesday met Home Minister Rajnath Singh and requested him to expedite the process of giving financial assistance to the state, which faced unprecedented rains leading to floods and massive damage, officials said.

Vijayan briefed Singh about the prevailing situation in Kerala and the steps taken by his government to bring back normalcy in the state.

The chief minister has requested the home minister to expedite the process of giving financial relief to Kerala for the recent floods, a home ministry official said.

Last week, an inter-ministerial team, headed by a special secretary of the Home Ministry, has visit Kerala for five days to assess the damage caused by the recent devastating floods.

The team visited Kerala after the state government had sent a detailed memorandum seeking Rs 4,700 crore as compensation for the damage occurred due to rains and floods, considered to be worst in a century.

At least 488 people have died in Kerala due to the rains and floods this monsoon, which hit 14 districts of the state.

The Kerala government memorandum comprises details about the loss of human lives, properties, infrastructure and crops, another official said.

In case of any natural calamity beyond the coping capacity of a state, the state government submits a detailed memorandum indicating sector-wise details of damage and requirement of funds for relief operations of immediate nature.

Accordingly, the Kerala government sent the memorandum.

As per the existing guidelines, the Inter-Ministerial Central Team (IMCT) visits the state for on-the-spot assessment of damage and additional requirement of funds.

The IMCT report is considered by the Sub-Committee of National Executive Committee (SC-NEC) headed by the Union home secretary in conformity with the norms and then by a high-level committee, chaired by the home minister for approving the quantum of additional assistance from the National Disaster Relief Fund.

On August 21, the central government had released Rs 600 crore to flood-hit Kerala as promised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi (Rs 500 crore) and Home Minister Rajnath Singh (Rs 100 crore) during their visits to the state.

This was in addition to Rs 562.45 crore already made available in State Disaster Relief Fund of the state. PTI ACB RCJNew Delhi, Sep 26 (PTI) The Congress will hold its working committee meeting in Wardha on October 2 to mark the beginning of Mahatma Gandhi's 150th birth anniversary celebrations, and will give a message against the "atmosphere of fear, hate and violence" prevailing in the country, a senior party leader said Wednesday.

AICC Congress general secretary Ashok Gehlot, in a press conference, said party chief Rahul Gandhi will be at the Sevagram Ashram in Wardha, Maharashtra, for the meeting and will give his message on the occasion.

The Congress president has decided that efforts would be made to take Mahatma Gandhi's message to all homes in states, districts, blocks and villages, Gehlot said.

"This will begin from October 2 from Wardha Sevagram Ashram, where the Congress Working Committee will meet. At the ashram, there will be a prayer meeting, a 'shanti' (peace) march, and a public meeting in which Rahul ji will give his message," Gehlot said.

"Now fascist forces have have started taking the name of Mahatma Gandhi. Those who do not believe in democracy, those who believe in violence, these forces are indulging in politics over his name," the senior Congress leader said.

"In my entire political career, I have never seen such a political atmosphere --every family, every household is living in fear, there is an atmosphere of hate, there is an atmosphere of violence, innocents are being killed, economy has collapsed, farmers are committing suicide," he alleged.

Gehlot claimed that messages of hate were being sent "from the top".

He said that it was only befitting that from a place where the Quit India resolution was passed, a message to remove the "atmosphere of fear, hate and violence" is given. PTI SKC/ASK RTNew Delhi, Sep 26 (PTI) Ashi and Shaurya would have still been alive, had they stayed back at their maternal grandmother's place, said their grieving father, Umesh, as he waited for updates about the condition of his other family members, injured in a building collapse in northwest Delhi's Ashok Vihar on Wednesday.

According to Umesh, whose family lived on the second floor of the dilapidated four-storey building, Ashi (3) and Shaurya (2) returned home from their maternal grandmother's house, along with their mother and elder sister, Tuesday evening.

Relatives of those who were killed in the incident said the owner of the building was informed about its poor condition many times, but he always assured them nothing would happen and that everything was fine.

The 20-year-old building collapsed killing four children and a woman while injuring seven people, days after it was inspected by a municipal body team following complaints that the building was in a "dangerous" condition.

The second floor of the building was occupied by Umesh's family. He was inconsolable, while standing outside Deep Chand Bandhu Hospital where his wife Seema was admitted and his two children -- Ashi and Shaurya -- were declared dead.

Seema has been referred to LNJP Hospital since she is in a critical condition. Umesh was at work when the incident happened.

"I work at a men's salon nearby and had left for work. One of my daughters, Rishika, was at school, while Seema, Ashi, Shaurya, my wife's sister, Manju, and their brother Laxman, were at home," he said.

Umesh said it was two months ago, he had informed the owner's son that he would vacate the house since it was in a "bad condition".

"We had informed Sachin, the owner's business partner, that we would vacate the house since the building was in a bad condition. He convinced us that everything was fine," he recalled.

Umesh said the occupants of the first floor had vacated the house a few months ago because the building was not safe for living.

He said Seema, along with her three children, had gone to her mother's house in Majnu Ka Tila on Tuesday.

"Seema's mother wanted her to stay for a few days but she said Rishika's exams were underway and she could not stay back. Had she stayed there, everything would have been fine. Seema's sister Manju had come to our house from Dwarka on Tuesday and was injured in the incident," he said.

Umesh used to pay a rent of Rs 8,000.

The third floor of the building was occupied by Bimlesh's family and his nephew Raj Bahadur's families.

Bimlesh works as a mason under the building's owner Dharmender, and lost his two sons -- Rajnesh (four) and Sumnesh (12) -- in the tragedy.

"As soon as I left home and had barely walked a few metres, I heard a loud noise and when I turned back, I saw the building collapse like a pack of cards. My wife had taken two of our other children along with her while Rajnesh and Sumnesh were at home," he said.

The building's owner did not pay heed to his complaints about the building being weak, Bimlesh said.

"Twenty days ago, after a MCD team inspected the building, I had informed Dharmender that the building has developed cracks and had even asked him to shift us to some other building he owned. But he said, 'Everything is fine and if anything happens, I will get it repaired'," he added.

Raj Bahadur, his wife Sangeeta alias Munni, and two men, Kamlesh and Vijay, who were their guests were inside the house when the incident happened.

Munni was declared dead while the others are currently under treatment.

"My brother's three children were in school while his 14-year-old daughter, who works as a maid, was also out for work. I stay a few houses away in the same locality. We heard a loud noise when the building collapsed," Bahadur's sister Sunita said.

Police have registered a case under IPC Section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), punishable with a maximum term of 10 years, against the owner Dharmender, who had rented out the building in Ashok Vihar, his partner Sachin and Sachin's father. PTI AMP SLB SLB SMN

SMNVaranasi, Sep 26 (PTI) Five hostels of Banaras Hindu University were vacated Wednesday and the security in and around the campus was heightened with the police maintaining security using drone cameras, said officials.

The five hostels whose boarders were ordered to move out were Birla, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Dhanwantri, Ruiya Medical and Ruiya Annexe.

The students of Birla and Lal Bahadur Shastri hostel sat on a dharna on Tuesday, demanding revocation of yesterday's hostel vacation order.

The students' dharna ended late on Tuesday night (around 2 am) after District Magistrate Surendra Singh met them and promised strict action against outsiders who 'instigated' violence in the campus.

The students vacated their hostel rooms by 5.00 pm on Wednesday. "The five hostels have been vacated and the atmosphere in the campus was peaceful after the violence on Monday night," BHU public relations officer Rajesh Singh said.

Meanwhile, the resident doctors have gone on strike in protest of the clash between them and the hostel boarders, sources said. Consequently, medical services were partially affected at Sir Sunderlal Hospital (SSH).

SSH medical superintendent Vijay Nath Mishra said though most resident doctors went on an indefinite strike, a few junior and senior residents had decided to continue their services in their respective departments.

He said an urgent meeting of all heads of the departments of all clinical units of Institute of Medical Sciences (IMS) was convened yesterday in which it was unanimously decided that all OPDs will be functioning as per schedule with limited number of patients -- 100.

Banaras Hindu University has suspended classes on Tuesday and had asked the students to vacate five of its hostels within 24 hours, following which the hostels were vacated by the students on Wednesday.

BHU registrar Neeraj Triptahi ordered closure of the university till September 28, in the wake of violence, arson and vandalism in the campus on Monday night. Varanasi Divisonal Commissioner Deepak Aggarwal, IG (range) Vijay Singh Meena, SSP Anand Kulkarni, DM Surendra Singh had a meeting with BHU vice-chancellor Rakesh Bhatnagar, after which it was decided to close the varsity till September 28.

A large posse of police personnel and the provincial armed constabulary were deployed in and around the campus to prevent any untoward incident. PTI CORR IND

IND\R New Delhi, Sep 26 (PTI) The BJP-ruled North Delhi civic body came under fire from the Aam Aadmi Party and Congress, following the death of six people, including four children, in a building collapse.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who visited the site of collapse at Ashok Vihar and met the injured at a hospital, announced a magisterial enquiry into the incident.

"Municipal corporation has the responsibility of the safety of buildings... They will have to keep their system in order... They (MCDs) will have to strictly enforce their law," Kejriwal told reporters.

Delhi Congress president Ajay Maken slammed the North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC), while expressing shock and sorrow over the loss of life. "The BJP, which has been in power in the municipal corporations of Delhi for the past 12 years, is responsible for the tragedy. The Sawan Park accident clearly shows widespread corruption and inefficient functioning of the corporation."

The Delhi BJP, meanwhile, demanded a judicial probe into the incident from the Lt governor. Delhi party president Manoj Tiwari, along with the NDMC mayor, visited the site and the hospital. Terming the incident an "alarming" situation, Tiwari shifted the blame on the ruling AAP and Congress for "failing" to regularise unauthorised colonies in the city.

"Visited building collapse site in Sawan park.The incident presents an alarming situation in Delhi. Such casualties can be avoided only by regularising unauthorised colonies considering all safety parameters. Sadly @ArvindKejriwal and previous @INCIndia govt failed to take any step (sic)," Tiwari tweeted.

Leader of Opposition in Assembly Vijender Gupta urged Lt Governor Anil Baijal for a judicial probe in the incident. "Only a comprehensive and independent inquiry would be able to reveal the real cause of the building collapse."

He urged Baijal for a comprehensive and effective policy for prevention of collapse of dangerous buildings. PTI NIT VIT

HMBNew Delhi, Sep 26 (PTI) The Missionaries of Jesus congregation of Jalandhar met Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan here on Wednesday and complained against the police team probing the case of alleged rape of a nun by a Roman Catholic bishop.

Fifteen nuns from the Jalandhar congregation came in support of the accused Bishop Franco Mulakkal, a senior member of the country's Roman Catholic clergy, and alleged that the police investigation into the case was "biased".

Bishop Mulakkal was arrested on September 21 amid mounting public outrage over allegations of repeatedly raping and sexually assaulting the nun.

"The bishop has been arrested without any evidence. He is a victim of a witch hunt to tarnish the image of the Missionaries of Jesus," the nuns alleged.

They said the probe team was threatening those who came out in support of the bishop and harassed them.

The nuns also alleged that the investigating team was intruding into the convents without notice.

A magisterial court in Kerala had on September 24 remanded the Kerala priest to 12-day judicial custody.

In its remand report submitted in the court, police had said the victim nun was subjected to rape and unnatural sex 13 times by the accused at the guest house of St Francis Mission Home in Kerala between 2014 and 2016.

In her complaint to the Kottayam police in June, the nun had alleged that the priest raped her at a guest house in Kuravilangad in May 2014 and later sexually exploited her on several occasions. She said she approached the police as the church authorities did not act on her repeated complaints against the clergyman.

The bishop, however, has denied the charges.

Expanding its probe in the case, the Kerala Police had on September 25 issued a notice to the PRO of the Missionaries of Jesus congregation and asked her to appear before it over a complaint about releasing the photograph of the victim.

The congregation had released a photo of the nun seated with her alleged tormentor in violation of the Supreme Court guidelines, which prohibit revealing the identity of a victim of sexual assault.

The congregation had put out the photograph in a release issued to the media for publishing the findings of its internal enquiry commission, which went into the nun's allegations.

The congregation, however, said that it had cautioned against publishing the photograph, maintaining that it could not be held responsible if the press violated the rule.

PTI RRT SRYPatna, Sep 26 (PTI) Posters surfaced in Patna on Wednesday depicting Congress president Rahul Gandhi and leaders of the party's Bihar unit as representatives of their respective caste groups.

The BJP criticised the Congress over the development.

The posters, wherein Gandhi and the AICC in-charge for the state Shaktisinh Gohil were thanked for constituting a new state Congress Committee and "setting an example of social harmony" therein, were put up at a number of places in the city.

The Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee was revamped last week with the appointment of new office-bearers.

While Rahul Gandhi and Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee president Madan Mohan Jha were described as representing "Brahmin community". Gohil's image was labelled "Rajput samuday" (community). Images of campaign committee chairman and Rajya Sabha member Akhilesh Prasad Singh and Congress Legislature Party leader Sadanand Singh were, similarly, labelled "Bhumihar samuday" and "pichhda samuday", respectively.

The posters also had images of a few other prominent party leaders, with their respective caste groups mentioned thereon.

While Congress leaders remained tight-lipped about the posters, BJP state spokesman Nikhil Anand urged the Election Commission to "take note of the brazen attempt at playing the caste card ahead of the Lok Sabha polls".

"In sheer desperation, the Congress has been resorting to gimmicks like proclaiming Rahul Gandhi as one who wears the sacred thread, worships Lord Shiva and goes to Kailash Mansarovar on pilgrimage. The posters mark a new low in the history of the Congress which Mahatma Gandhi had, rightly, wished to abolish after Independence. The party and its national president should apologise to the nation for the antics while the EC should take note of the attempts to whip up caste and religious feelings and initiate appropriate action," Anand said. PTI NAC SMNBengaluru, Sep 26 (PTI) Karnataka would appeal against the Mahadayi River Water Tribunal's verdict on the inter-state water dispute, states Water Resources Minister D K Shivakumar said Wednesday.

He said the government was consulting legal and technical experts on how to go about it and an all-party meet would soon be convened to discuss the further course of action.

He said the government has decided to go before the Supreme Court and the tribunal again for a review.

Claiming that Karnataka did not got justice in the judgment, he said the government would prepare a comprehensive report on all projects and was preparing to file an special leave petition.

The tribunal had in August ruled that Karnataka would get 13.5 TMC of water from the river, while the other two riparian states, Goa and Maharashtra, would be allowed 24 TMC and 1.33 TMC, respectively.

He was speaking to reporters on his way to Kankumbi in Belagavi district bordering Goa.

Shivakumar said he would hold discussions with the technical and legal teams after visiting the spot.

"We will also call an all-party meeting on the issue," he said.

Karnataka had demanded 36.558 TMC of water from the Mahadayi.

Meanwhile, he rejected the suggestion that there were any difference in the Congress-Janata Dal (S) coalition or within the Congress.

"It is your (medias) assumption, he replied to a question. All is well, all is good, and all is fine."

The Congress was recently hit by dissent, with some party leaders openly expressing discontent over issues concerning the party and the functioning of the coalition government. PTI KSU APR APR ASH

ASH Flash

Iran's Intelligence Ministry has arrested 22 people in connection with Saturday's attack on a military parade in Iran's southern city of Ahvaz, the Tehran Times reported Tuesday.

"Weapons, exclusive material and communication equipment were seized" from the people involved in the attack, the report said.

No further details were disclosed about the arrests or the identities of the suspects arrested, but the Intelligence Ministry said that "the terrorists were sponsored by certain reactionary Arab regimes," Tasnim news agency reported on Tuesday.

The ministry said there were five terrorists in the attack, though earlier official reports put the number of the attackers at four. Two of the attackers were killed.

Following the terror attack, the intelligence forces stormed the hiding places and arrested 22 supporting elements involved in the fatal attack in Ahvaz.

Foreign sponsors and masterminds of the terrorist attack have been identified, the ministry said, adding that more details about the incident will be released later.

On Saturday morning, several gunmen clad in the uniforms of Iranian Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) reportedly attacked the military parade in Ahvaz, which marked the anniversary of Iran-Iraq war in 1980-1988.

At least 25 people were killed and 60 others in the attack. Soldiers and civilians were among the victims.

Iran has blamed the United States and its allies in the region for the attack.Mumbai, Sep 26 (PTI) At a time the opposition led by the Congress is mounting attacks on the government over the Rafale fighter jet issue, NCP chief Sharad Pawar has said people "do not have doubts" over Prime Minister Narendra Modi's intentions.

In an interview to a Marathi news channel, former Defence Minister Pawar also said the opposition's demand to share technical details relating to the fighter jet "made no sense".

He, however, said there was no harm for the government to disclose prices of the aircraft.

"I don't think people have doubts about Modi's intentions personally," Pawar told the news channel.

He, however, said the way Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the government's side led to confusion in the minds of people.

"Now, (Union Finance Minister Arun) Jaitley can be seen articulating (government's stand) on the issue (instead of Sitharaman)," he added.

The Congress has launched an offensive against the BJP government over the Rafale deal, alleging corruption and violation of rules by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It has accused the government of causing loss to the public exchequer and endangering national security by bypassing state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) in favour of some businessman "friends" for offset contract. PTI ENM SMN

SMNMumbai, Sep 26 (PTI) Shiv Sena leaders Wednesday exhorted party workers to show their strength during its Dussehra rally on October 19 and bring the party to power on its own in the Lok Sabha elections next year.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), however, said it was optimistic of forging alliance with the Shiv Sena until the end.

Sena leaders and functionaries met at Shiv Sena Bhavan at Dadar Wednesday to plan the strategy over the Dussehra rally.

Industries Minister Subhash Desai and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut addressed party cadres.

Desai asked Shiv Sainiks to prepare for a "big show of strength" and said at least five lakh Shiv Sainiks must attend the traditional Dussehra rally.

"We must come to power on our own strength. The next chief minister should be from Sena. The national executive committee has decided to contest next polls separately. Do not think about what BJP leaders say about alliance. We must focus on our own strength and this is the time to show it to the state," he said.

Raut said Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray was firm on contesting elections separately and there will not be an alliance with the BJP.

Meanwhile, senior BJP minister Sudhir Mungantiwar said, "The alliance between the BJP and Sena is based on ideology.

The executive committee of the BJP is of the opinion that an alliance should be forged between BJP and Sena to keep the

Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) away from the

power.

"If the Congress-NCP will win the election, the state will lag behind in development," he said.

PTI MM SRYYou are here: World

 Flash

The U.S. Treasury announced on Tuesday that it has imposed sanctions on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's "inner circle," including Maduro's wife and other key government officials.

The Treasury said in a statement that it has blacklisted Venezuelan first lady Cilia Flores, Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, Communications Minister Jorge Rodriguez and Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino.

The sanctions would freeze any assets that a blacklisted person holds under U.S. jurisdiction and ban any U.S. individuals or companies from making business transactions with them.

In addition, the United States also put sanctions on a network which it accused of supporting a key front man for President of Venezuela's National Constituent Assembly (ANC) Diosdado Cabello, seizing a 20-million-U.S. dollar private jet that belonged to the front man.

The United States has been stepping up pressure on the South American country by imposing a string of sanctions, including ones on Maduro himself and the senior officials.

Venezuela has said it does not recognize any sanctions imposed on the country without UN authorization.Shameless banks have mounted a secret lobbying campaign to avoid having to refund victims of fraud.

Watchdogs will spell out tomorrow the steps banks must take to tackle scams costing families 1million a day.

It was hoped the measures would include a proper compensation fund.

However a letter leaked to MoneyMail reveals that banks have told regulators and government officials they should not be made responsible. Figures published yesterday show that around 145million was lost to authorised push payment fraud in the first six months of the year. Only 31million was refunded.

Watchdogs are the spell out the steps banks must take to tackle scams costing families 1million a day

Many of the victims were persuaded by fraudsters to transfer cash to another account for safety  only to see it vanish.

The banks are shameless, said Suzanne Raftery, a former Scotland Yard detective and fraud expert at Requite Solutions. They often dont care about the devastation these scams cause for people. They care about money.

Gareth Shaw, of Which? Money, said: Its two years since we highlighted a real lack of protection for people targeted through no fault of their own  but people are still losing life-changing sums of money every day and action from the banks has been woefully insufficient.

The finance industry and regulator must quickly introduce measures to stop these scams from happening in the first place and commit to reimbursing all victims who are not at fault  otherwise they risk further eroding trust in the banking system.

31k fraud forced boss to liquidate his cleaning firm Steven Vallance was forced to liquidate his firm after fraudsters cleared his personal and business accounts of 31,000. He received a text allegedly from NatWest saying his debit card had been used to buy Amazon goods worth 2,499, a transaction he had not made. The text appeared in the same chain of messages he had already received from the bank so he saw no reason to doubt it was genuine. Steve Vallance, 44, with his partner Claire and their 13-month-old daughter Jessica. Mr Vallance is no 31,000 out of pocket after fraudsters targeted him Mr Vallance called a number in the text and spoke to someone purporting to be from NatWests fraud department. He was asked several security questions and was told 2,499 had already left his account but would be refunded. Mr Vallance, 44, who lives in Essex, was asked to enter his card in his card reader and read out a series of codes to confirm the refund. After the call, he spoke to his partner Claire who felt uneasy. So he immediately called NatWest using the real number but an automated message said there was a waiting time of up to two hours due to severe weather. Mr Vallance finally got through on a third number and was told 18,000 had been transferred from his personal account and 13,000 from his business account. The money had been transferred into a Barclays account belonging to a payee he had never heard of. I felt sick. Like Id ruined our future and that of our baby daughter Jessica, he said. He later had to liquidate his commercial cleaning business. The money in the account was for tax I didnt have enough time to build up again, he said. NatWest said that, while its call waiting times were longer than usual, the payment had already been authorised by the time Mr Vallance called. A spokesman said: We sympathise with Mr Vallance and appreciate that this has been a very distressing experience for him and his family. We take our responsibilities to preventing scams very seriously and always support the victim of a scam in the recovery of their funds on a best endeavours basis. Spoof BT caller duped me out of my savings Robin Hirst was duped into handing over almost 10,000 to conmen posing as BT engineers. Mr Hirst and his wife Teresa, 61, of Chelmsford in Essex, received a call from a supposed BT staff member claiming their wi-fi router had been compromised. They were told fraudsters had hacked it and they needed to check their online banking accounts immediately. Robin Hirst, 66, lost 9,500 and 7,000 belonging to his parents Edwin, 91 and Joan, 90, as a result of the fraudsters Mr Hirst, 66, went to his laptop to open his internet browser. A similar page to the BT homepage appeared and he was told to click a black box. Fake Santander accounts showed someone had spent 300 at 1am. The scammers offered to resolve the issue but created a fake web page allowing them to control his computer remotely. He lost 9,500 and 7,000 belonging to his parents Edwin, 91 and Joan, 90, because he had Power of Attorney. Santander offered to pay the money back.

If fraud continued at the current rate, banks would be on the hook for an extra 200million of losses this year.

The biggest five, Lloyds, RBS, Barclays, HSBC and Standard Chartered, made profits of 9.3billion between them in the second quarter of the year.

The Mail is campaigning for clearer rules to protect victims, help them to trace their stolen money as well as get access to compensation.

The leaked letter was sent last month by Stephen Jones, chief executive of trade body UK Finance, to a number of officials including Andrew Bailey, who heads the Financial Conduct Authority.

How to avoid being scammed Hang up on ALL cold callers.

If you are worried that your bank really might need to talk to you, put down the phone and call it using the number on the back of your bank card or on its website.

Use a different telephone from the one the call came in on  fraudsters often remain on the line after people hang up. If you have to use the same phone, wait at least 30 minutes before calling back.

Remember banks will NEVER ask customers to move money to another account to keep it safe from fraudsters.

Be suspicious if the caller seems to be in a rush and eager for the transaction to go through quickly.

Never disclose personal information even if the caller sounds convincing and appears to know personal details.

Never respond directly to unsolicited emails or texts.

Mr Jones said: I speak for all payment service providers (banks) involved to date when I state that they do not believe they should be required to compensate a consumer for the (presently) unquantifiable residual risk to which your letter refers.

This is not because they do not wish a consumer who has acted reasonably to be reimbursed in such circumstances.

They do. It is because PSPs do not accept they should or could be automatically liable for this risk.

He claimed it was not right that banks should be financially responsible for scams that start with data breaches in other sectors such as telecoms and retail.

He warned that a code of conduct that did not put more onus on the customer might lead to more fraud. It is not known whether the rules will demand better compensation for victims.

The code is the result of eight months of work by banks, charities and consumer rights organisations, which were part of a steering group appointed by the Payment Systems Regulator.

The rules are likely to include giving customers timely warnings if they notice suspicious activity on their account and taking measures to prevent criminals opening accounts in the first place.

The idea is that if banks then fail to meet these minimum standards of care they must refund victims.

The proposed code, which should come into force at the start of next year, will be voluntary but it is expected that most major banks will sign up. It will also include a requirement for customers to take reasonable steps to protect themselves against fraudsters.

If they behave recklessly or negligently banks would not be expected to refund them.

What to do if you think you're at risk Call your bank straight away but only on a number taken from your bank card or its website.

Tell the call handler that you think you have been scammed and ask for the money to be recalled straight away.

Do not ask for the fraud team as there may be a queue  the crime can always be investigated later.

If the money has already gone out of your account, tell the call handler to contact the receiving bank and freeze the money so it cannot be cleared from the account.

Note the time of the call and any time spent waiting in telephone queues. If there are delays this could be used to support a complaint later.

Write down everything about the fraud. Ask the bank to explain what happened to the money when it left the account.

However, experts say that most scams these days are so sophisticated that even the smartest of people are at risk of being conned.

But while banks admit that it is right that these victims should be refunded, they refuse to accept this is their responsibility.

Nicky Morgan, the Tory chairman of the Commons Treasury committee, said: As online banking and payments become more prevalent, millions of customers are exposed to the risk of economic crime. As part of the Treasury committees inquiry into economic crime, well look at how consumers are affected, and the response of the regulators and financial institutions, including banks.

Whilst we all have a responsibility to protect ourselves against fraud, financial institutions also have a role to play in stamping out such criminal behaviour.

John Mann, Labour MP for Bassetlaw, said: For too long banks have been able to place the blame on intelligent and careful individuals when they are conned by sophisticated fraudsters manipulating the banks processes.

It is high time the financial services industry faced up to the fact that these people are not wilfully making payments  they are being tricked and the results are devastating.

Banks need to face up to the problem and reimburse their customers when they fall victim to scams instead of washing their hands of them. I am in full support of the Daily Mails campaign.

When the code is published the steering group is expected to continue to work together over the next couple of months in a bid to find a solution for a compensation scheme for authorised fraud victims.

Spokesmen for UK Finance and the Payment Systems Regulator refused to comment.When Clive Allen bought his four-bedroom Victorian property four years ago, it needed a new roof, windows, plumbing and electrics.

Clive, 45, didn't know of any good, local builders in the Somerset area, so he searched online and found a company vetted by the UK's largest professional body, the Federation of Master Builders.

Confident that this meant the firm had been subjected to a series of strict checks, Clive hired White Eagle Modern Building Solutions to do the job.

High and dry: Clive Allen was a victim of rogue builders which has left him some 84,399 out of pocket

But nearly four years on, he is tens of thousands of pounds out of pocket and the house is still not finished.

Clive is not alone. Since the start of the year, Citizens Advice has received 44,600 complaints about home maintenance and building works.

More than two-thirds of these were about substandard service, unsatisfactory work and missed deadlines. A further 18 per cent were about a breach of contract.

Clive had told the firm it was vital the work was completed as quickly as possible because his parents, who were unwell, were moving in.

He gave the builders 13,247 in December 2014 and agreed to pay the rest of the total 74,705 bill in instalments over the following few months.

The work was supposed to be completed in April, but Clive, who runs a business letting properties, quickly began to worry that the builders were falling behind.

'They had started stripping the house but it was a slow start,' he says.

'I couldn't see how they could finish the work when they promised, given the pace they were moving.'

Clive, who was renting a flat in the area while he waited for the house to be finished, visited the site twice a week and noticed the builders often weren't there.

He says they never seemed to finish any one part of the house before moving on to the next and weren't making much progress.

The completion date was pushed back to the end of May, June and then July.

Extra work was carried out, taking the total to 131,139.

In April, Clive was told the work would have to stop altogether for three weeks because the builders had been in a car accident in Trowbridge, Wiltshire.

Two months later, he was told all the builders had gone back to Poland, but that more would be arriving soon.

By June, Clive had paid 90 per cent of the total cost of the work, around 111,899, and estimated that only 25,000 of work had been completed.

He refused to pay any more - but it was too late.

By this point, the company director, Paulina Kubicz, had stopped responding to emails and the phone line was dead.

Mr Allen, 45, searched online and found a company vetted by the UK's largest professional body, the Federation of Master Builders

Clive went to the house and found the site had been completely cleared.

He says: 'I knew that was it, I'd been done.'

Unbeknown to Clive, the directors of the company had resigned and started the liquidation process in January  just a month after agreeing to work on his house.

He discovered this only in July, when the liquidator wrote to all the customers tell them he had been appointed.

Then, last year, Ms Kubicz was prosecuted for fraudulently moving funds from company accounts while the firm was being wrapped up.

After the court case, Clive was awarded 16,207 in compensation.

But when a company goes bust and has no assets, there is often no money left to pay anyone.

To date, Clive has received just 2,500, and doesn't expect to get any more. This means he is still 84,399 out of pocket.

He also had to pay a further 90,000 to another construction firm to finish the work.

Mr Allen has had to pay a further 90k to another construction firm to finish the work

Experts say that Clive's story raises serious concerns about how little protection homeowners have against rogue builders.

Clive had put his trust in the FMB to vet its members by checking their credit history and subjecting each to an inspection by the British Board of Agrement, one of the UK's leading notified bodies in the industry.

Clive adds: 'I could see the firm had lots of experience and it provided references from previous customers. I also checked the company accounts and reviews and nothing appeared adverse.'

After White Eagle Modern Building Solutions dissolved the company, he discovered it had two County Court Judgments, where it had not paid money it owed  which the FMB had failed to pick up.

Andrew Leakey, a consumer rights lawyer at law firm Stephensons, says that failing to spot the firm's CCJs and checking the companies only every three years presents serious gaps in the FMB's verification process.

The FMB says it has the fullest sympathy with Clive and the distress he was put through.

It says its records show it carried out the usual checking procedures but admits it may have fallen short. It refuses to pay Clive a penny to cover losses.

A spokesman says: 'We are a not-for-profit trade association and our business model doesn't allow us to offer compensation to clients.

'We continue to review the robustness of our vetting and inspection regime.

'When it is clear that any firm within our membership does not accord with the standards we set, we can, and do, take action, including expelling them from membership.'

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy says it is committed to ensuring consumers are protected from rogue builders and 'regularly reviews how standards in the sector could be improved'.

a.murray@dailymail.co.ukAs the British investor revolt against Unilevers decision to shift its domicile to the financial backwater of Rotterdam gathers pace, the consumer goods company has sent out its big guns to defend the move.

Virtually invisible chairman Marijn Dekkers and British finance chief Graeme Pitkethly insist the move is what shareholders want because it creates a simpler, unified structure.

The approach follows the lead taken by Anglo-Dutch powerhouses Royal Dutch Shell and media colossus Relx in ending a dual-share structure. The latter chose to keep their main share quotation in London and the FTSE 100.

Damage limitation: Unilever has sent out its big guns to defend its decision to shift its domicile to Rotterdam

Unilevers panjandrums seek to shift blame for the loss of a FTSE 100 quote on the shadowy advisory committee overseeing the index, which ruled it out.

In the interests of transparency, the FTSE 100 should reveal the names of those who reached the decision and the reasons why. In essence, the Unilever board seeks to shift blame elsewhere.

Dekkers says the new arrangements will make it easier to complete corporate deals such as last years demerger of the spreads arm. Truth is that having a London quote and being in the City is far more useful than Rotterdam.

Britain attracts greater inward investment than any other country in Europe, and has the deepest financial markets.

The investment banks are located here and so on. If flexibility for deal-making is what Unilever is really after then it has chosen the wrong place.

The Unilever chairman points out that 60 per cent of the enterprise is also run from London.

Unilever insiders tell me that on current projections, with hygiene and beauty the great growth areas, within a decade some 75 per cent of turnover could be managed from the UK.

Several British funds including Aviva, M&G, Lindsell Train and Columbia Threadneedle have already signalled they will vote against the shift. Legal & General and Standard Life Aberdeen are leaning in the same direction.

In a scheme which requires a 75 per cent majority of shares tendered, the hurdle is starting to look too high for Unilever directors to surmount, hence the assault on the FTSE 100.

Unilever also needs a simple 50 per cent majority of shareholders which includes 35,000 private investors.

If small shareholders want to have a say, they will need to unlock voting powers from platforms such as Hargreaves Lansdown and Barclays Smart Investor.

Shareholders must act urgently to reclaim their voting rights otherwise bureaucracy might render them powerless to keep Unilever on these shores.

Online winner

Of all Britains clothing retailers, Next sets the standard. Not only does it often outperform expectations, it holds little back.

The usual feeble excuses about the wrong weather, Brexit and business rates are foregone in favour of hard numbers.

Other retailers would shrink from precisely quantifying the reasons for a drop in retail net margins claiming commercial confidentiality.

Next breaks it down forensically noting among other things that increased pay rates were offset by a productivity rise.

The groups smooth transfer of the majority of sales from stores to online has to be attributed to the cerebral style of chief executive Lord Wolfson.

As the scion of a great retail dynasty, he has shopping and financial discipline coursing through his veins. There is little of the personality cult that many shopkeepers think is part of the job.

No wonder Next is the comparator that top Marks & Spencer management often refers to. It simply delivers, with profits just up at 311.1million in the first half of the year and the outlook upbeat for the rest of 2018.

A fascinating section of the half-year statement is an analysis of Brexit risks and the steps which have been or could be taken to offset them.

It is suggested, for instance, that income from increased duties on goods imported from the EU could be used by the Government to offset tariffs which would raise prices to consumers.

How much better it would be if other chief executives were less hung up on politics and more focused on finding answers.

Vaping revamp

Normally a leadership change at a top five FTSE 100 company is high drama.

But not at British America Tobacco. Veteran Brazilian boss Nicandro Durante is being replaced with chief operating officer Jack Bowles who is tasked with growing BATs investment and exposure to vaping.

No hint of deserting London, even though almost its entire income is earned outside the UK. Flash

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned on Tuesday that multilateralism is under fire at a time when the world needs it most.

"Our world is suffering from a bad case of 'trust deficit disorder'," Guterres told world leaders attending this year's high-level General Debate of the UN General Assembly. "And multilateralism is under fire precisely when we need it most."

Trust is at a breaking point -- trust in national institutions, trust among states, trust in the rules-based global order, he said. "Within countries, people are losing faith in political establishments, polarization is on the rise and populism is on the march."

Among countries, cooperation is less certain and more difficult. And divisions in the Security Council are stark. Trust in global governance is also fragile, as 21st-century challenges outpace 20th-century institutions and mindsets, said the UN chief.

"We have never had a true system of global governance, and much less a fully democratic one," said Guterres in his "state-of-the-world" speech that preceded those of world leaders at the General Debate.

"Still, across many decades, we established solid foundations for international cooperation. We came together as united nations to build institutions, norms and rules to advance our shared interests. We raised standards of living for millions. We forged peace in troubled lands and, indeed, we avoided a third world war. But none of this can be taken for granted."

The world is becoming multipolar. But multipolarity will not, in itself, guarantee peace or solve global problems, he warned.

A century ago, Europe was multipolar. A balance of power was deemed sufficient to keep rivals in check. It was not. Without strong multilateral frameworks for Europe-wide cooperation and problem-solving, the result was a grievous world war.

Today, with shifts in the balance of power, the risk of confrontation may increase, warned Guterres.

But conflict is never inevitable, he said. "Indeed, with leadership committed to strategic cooperation and to managing competing interests, we can avoid war and steer the world onto a safer path."

Today, the world order is increasingly chaotic. Power relations are less clear. Universal values are being eroded. Democratic principles are under siege, and the rule of law is being undermined. Impunity is on the rise, as leaders and states push the boundaries, both at home and in the international arena, he said.

The threat of terror looms, fed by the root causes of radicalization and violent extremism. And terrorism is ever more interlinked with international organized crime and the trafficking of people, drugs, arms and corruption, he said.

The nuclear peril has not eased, with non-proliferation at serious risk. Nuclear-armed states are modernizing their arsenals. A new arms race could be triggered, and the threshold for their use lowered, said the UN chief.

"We have seen outrageous uses of chemical weapons, in full impunity despite their ban, and protections against dangerous biological weapons are weak."

He said that inequality is undermining faith in the social contract and is a clear obstacle to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Tensions over trade are on the rise, he noted.

Migrants and refugees continue to face discrimination and demagoguery in the context of clearly insufficient international cooperation. And in this year marking the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the human rights agenda is losing ground and authoritarianism is on the rise.

"There is outrage at our inability to end the wars in Syria, Yemen and elsewhere," he said. "The Rohingya people remain exiled, traumatized and in misery, still yearning for safety and justice. Palestinians and Israelis are still locked in endless conflict, with the two-state solution more and more distant."

On the positive side, there is momentum for peace in the Horn of Africa as a result of detente between Ethiopia and Eritrea; in South Sudan; and in Colombia.

The Singapore summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and the top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and a recent summit meeting in Pyongyang between the two Koreas have helped de-escalate the tensions on the Korean Peninsula, he noted.

Hundreds of millions of people have been lifted out of extreme poverty across the world over the past three decades, and drive for gender equality is gaining ground, he observed. "Despite the chaos and confusion in our world, I see winds of hope blowing around the globe."

He called for action by world leaders.

Individual leaders have the duty to advance the well-being of their people. But it runs deeper. Together, as guardians of the common good, leaders also have a duty to promote and support a reformed, reinvigorated and strengthened multilateral system, he said.

"We need commitments to a rules-based order, with the United Nations at its center and with the different institutions and treaties that bring the (UN) Charter to life. And we need to show the added value of international cooperation by delivering peace, defending human rights and driving economic and social progress for women and men everywhere."

In the face of massive, existential threats to people and the planet -- but equally at a time of compelling opportunities for shared prosperity -- there is no way forward but collective, common-sense action for the common good, he said.

As the politics of pessimism spreads, the world must guard against self-fulfilling prophecies, he warned. Those who see their neighbors as dangerous may cause a threat where there was none. Those who close their borders to regular migration only fuel the work of traffickers. And those who ignore human rights in combating terrorism tend to breed the very extremism they are trying to end.

"Our future rests on solidarity. We must repair broken trust. We must reinvigorate our multilateral project," said Guterres.Office politics: Goldman Sachs boss Lloyd Blankfein

Ructions at Goldman Sachs where outgoing chief executive Lloyd Blankfeins new office irritates some of the banks New York staff.

Its claimed the palatial berth, where bearded Lloyd will roost during his new advisory role, is costing upwards of 350,000.

Goldman insists the figure is less than 75,000 but either way its at odds with a recent expenses crackdown.

One banker moans he had a claim rejected for a piece of fruit.

Not a desperately happy ship, by all accounts.

Barclays boss Jes Staley met with the Duke of York this week at Buckingham Palace, an opportunity no doubt for Jes to garner Andrews extensive business insight.

The pair have a mutual friend in former investment banker and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who lobbied unsuccessfully for Jes to be made Barclayss chief back in 2012 after Bob Diamond got canned.

The job instead went to Antony Jenkins, dismissed by Epstein, not entirely groundlessly, as an internal dweeb.

In-the-pink hedgie Crispin Odey remains scornful of David Camerons premiership, telling Financial News: Once you met David, you realised he was going to do absolutely nothing. He was so unbrave.

Will Dave bother to retaliate in his long overdue memoirs? Theyre now rivalling the 55-year wait for Harper Lees To Kill A Mockingbird sequel, albeit without the anticipation.

Debenhamss retail chief Steven Cook yesterday appeared alongside his new menswear head Andrew Lepp, who warned journalists to expect an improvement at the ailing department stores shelves in the coming months.

Cook interjected: Months? Month! Or youre fired.

He was joking of course. Or least we must assume. Outre Mr Cook has a shaved head, a Rasputin beard and that menacing look of a man who delights in strangling poultry.

Comcast boss Brian Roberts is rumoured to be dropping by Skys headquarters today following his 30billion acquisition of the broadcaster.

Certain pinko outlets have claimed the sprawling, West London estate is known as Skyberia. Oddly, nobody I know ever calls it that.

But making the Murdoch Empire sound cold and horrid is compulsory among the liberal media.This may come as a surprise to many property and investment companies, but we are not living in medieval Britain.

So why is it that thousands of hardworking families are still being abused and treated like serfs by greedy landowners?

The leasehold scandal - and it is a scandal - that we describe here is tantamount to racketeering.

Some homeowners are being charged more than most people earn in a year to buy the land underneath their own home.

Trapped: Leaseholders Andrea and Roi Millward with their children Sienna and Isaac

The firms snapping up freeholds admit these have become increasingly valuable because they are viewed as a 'secure investment' by pension funds.

What they're really saying is that investors see leaseholders as lucrative cash cows.

The hundreds or even thousands of pounds leaseholders are trapped into paying each year in ground rent is a reliable little earner for landowners.

So why on earth would they want to make it easy for these people to free themselves from that financial burden?

Homeowners say they were told at the time of their purchase that they could buy their freehold down the line for a few thousand pounds.

They say they were never warned that, in the meantime, the freehold may be flogged to an investment firm which might hike the price ten-fold.

This screams of a mis-selling scandal - particularly when you've got professionals saying they cannot make head nor tail of their leasehold smallprint.

Last year, then Communities Secretary Sajid Javid pledged to liberate leaseholders from 'feudal practices'.

He said: 'It's unacceptable for homebuyers to be exploited through unnecessary leaseholds, unjustifiable charges and onerous ground rent terms. It's clear from the overwhelming response from the public that action is needed.'

Yet while the Government has gone some way towards protecting new buyers, where is the promised help for existing leaseholders? At the very least they deserve their freehold at a fair price.

Ministers say they are working with the Law Commission to make buying a freehold cheaper and easier, but in the meantime, families continue to be held to ransom by the greedy and unscrupulous.

Car cowboys

Hiring a car is like navigating the Wild Wild West - and you don't even need to go abroad to get caught out.

Earlier this month, my partner and I rented a car through Hertz for a couple of days in Scotland.

When we tried to return it, the woman at the desk claimed she had found a tiny chip in the paintwork that was not listed on her damage report.

'That will be 280 plus a 35 admin charge,' she announced. 'Please sign here.'

Imagine our (lack of) surprise when later we pulled up the photographs we had taken of the car when we'd picked it up and found that very same paint chip.

A paint chip, I might add, that did not look like it was even close to 280 worth of damage.

This is the second time in six months that a car hire company has tried to pull a fast one on me.

So at the risk of repeating myself: feeling like you've been ripped off shouldn't be the default experience when renting a car.

When are the regulators going to crack down on these sharks once and for all?

BA's fax faff

When a colleague asked me last week where in the office he might find a fax machine, I was first surprised, then intrigued.

I was under the impression that the advent of email meant no one really needed to use them any more.

It turned out that, on his way home from a family holiday in Italy, his British Airways flight had been delayed and, as a result, he and his brother had to pay for a taxi home from the airport.

When he asked British Airways to reimburse him the 16.07 taxi fare, he was told to fax over a letter from his brother giving permission for him to handle the complaint.

What a faff! Surely a simple email from his brother would have sufficed - especially given that British Airways was willing to accept a copy of the taxi receipt via email?

It's almost as if it's in its interest for you to give up...

v.bischoff@dailymail.co.ukGlencores boss will bag a 90million pay-out tomorrow as the mining group dishes out the second half of a dividend.

Ivan Glasenberg, 61, owns an 8.5 per cent stake in Glencore after he and other bosses snapped up shares in 2015 to pour cash into the firm and help it reduce debt.

His stake is worth more than 4billion with shares having risen almost 400 per cent since lows of around 73p in 2016 to 341p.

The Swiss village where Glasenberg lives has slashed taxes from residents because of the huge sums it earns from the mining tycoon.

Windfall: Ivan Glasenberg owns an 8.5 per cent stake in Glencore after he and other bosses snapped up shares in 2015 to pour cash into the firm and help it reduce debt

He and other shareholders will be getting a pay-out of around 7.64p tomorrow, having received the first half of the payment in May.

Head of zinc Daniel Francisco Mate Badenes, 55, and director Telis Mistakidis, 56, who each own around 3.2 per cent of the firm according to Reuters data, should get around 34million each.

Yesterday the commodities trader and miner also announced plans on Tuesday to buy back a further $1billion (759billion) in shares.

It has already bought back $1billion worth since July in an apparent bid to shore up the share price that has fallen amid a corruption probe.

Glencores stock suffered its biggest one day fall in more than two years in July as the business revealed it had received a subpoena from the US Department of Justice demanding documents about the mining firms business in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Venezuela and Nigeria.

Glencore relies on the DRC as a source of cobalt, a key metal used to make batteries for electric vehicles. But the area is fraught with difficulties.

The US has slapped sanctions on Glencores former mining partner there Dan Gertler, accusing him of getting sweetheart mining deals out of DRC president Joseph Kabila.

Glencore has had to agree to pay his outstanding royalties in euros rather than dollars to avoid US sanctions.

Chairman Tony Hayward, as well as board members Leonhard Fischer and Patrice Merrin, are overseeing Glencores response to the US investigation.

Separately last week, a High Court judge told Glencores lawyers to hand over documents to a Bloomberg journalist, who was covering a commercial dispute at the court between the mining group and Peruvian rival.

Glencores solicitor refused to hand Kaye Wiggins a copy of a written skeleton argument. The reporter raised the matter with Mrs Justice Moulder.

Glencores lawyer said he had instructions not voluntarily to do anything to publicise the matter, but if Your Ladyship were to direct us we would certainly do so.

The judge told him to hand it over, saying: I cant really see any reason to refuse the journalist access.British American Tobacco has named Jack Bowles chief executive.

Chief operating officer since 2017, he will replace Nicandro Durante, 62, who is retiring after nearly 37 years with the cigarette company and eight years at the helm.

Bowles will become chief executive designate on November 1 and will join the board on January 1.

He joined BAT in 2004 as head of its France division before becoming managing director of the groups listed subsidiary in Malaysia.Retirement housebuilder McCarthy & Stone has taken the axe to jobs in a cost-cutting shake-up welcomed by investors.

Releasing its business transformation strategy, McCarthy said it would slash costs by 40million per year by 2021.

A reorganisation of the sales team would be key to this, it added, while it would also simplify its building designs and contract work out where cheaper.

The company has not yet decided how many jobs will be cut or where.

Cost cutting drive: Retirement housebuilder McCarthy & Stone said it would slash costs by 40m per year by 2021

McCarthy blamed political uncertainty following the Brexit vote for its lacklustre recent performance, saying this had made potential house-hunters more cautious about buying.

In reaction, it lowered its housebuilding target from 3,000 properties per year to 2,100.

John Tonkiss, its former chief operating officer who was installed as chief executive yesterday, said the strategy showed a shift in business mindset from pushing for growth to increasing the return on the money it spent.

He added: We are positioning the business to succeed in the current challenging market environment and over the next three years, we will be focusing on increasing shareholder returns.

Shares, which plummeted more than 17.1 per cent over one day in June after a surprise profit warning, climbed 8.1 per cent, or 9.8p, to 131.1p.

Anthony Codling, an analyst at Jefferies, said that though McCarthy may be down it certainly is not out.

But while the firm had one foot out of the grave, Codling added, he also questioned whether the turnaround was bold enough.

Stock Watch - Wandisco A contract win with a global car and truck manufacturer was not enough to drive software company Wandisco out of the doldrums. The group said it had been building its relationship with cloud computing giants, but its revenue for the first half of the year was still down from 7.4million to 5million. It also swung from a 0.2million profit to a 4.5million loss, though it said the 152,000 contract should grow to be in the multi-millions. Shares slipped 13.1 per cent, or 86p, to 570p.

In another blow for the construction sector, building materials company Low & Bonar tumbled as it issued a profit warning.

Though it sold as much as it was expecting to, the firm said prices of key raw materials had continued to rise.

Meanwhile stiff competition from rivals meant it hadnt dared to push up prices for its customers.

Profitability for the full year would be significantly lower than previously anticipated, the company confirmed.

To add to its woes, Lows chief financial officer Simon Webb announced he was jumping ship for personal reasons.

Analysts at Peel Hunt reduced their recommendation from buy to hold, as shares plunged 19.5 per cent, or 10p, to 41.3p.

The FTSE 100 had a moderately better day, rising 0.66 per cent, or 49.15 points, to 7507.56 as promising sales at Next (up 7.7 per cent, or 394p, to 5518p) bumped up the index.

But airlines weighed heavily after being hit with a double dose of bad news.

While the price of oil climbed, spelling increased costs for the sector, global airline industry body IATA warned that the Governments papers on a no-deal Brexit exposed the extreme seriousness of what is at stake.

IATAs boss Alexandre de Juniac said a huge amount of work would be required to maintain vital air links.

BAs owner IAG fell 4 per cent, or 27.2p, to 659.4p, while Easyjet slipped 3.4 per cent, or 47.5p, to 1333.5p.

On Londons junior market Keystone Law, the UKs third-ever listed law firm impressed shareholders as sales shot up 29.9 per cent to 19.9million in the first half of the year.

The firm, which has represented TV presenter Noel Edmonds in his fight against Lloyds Bank, also hired 31 lawyers in the six months to June.

Its flexible working model, which lets lawyers work from wherever they want, has proved popular. Keystone said they received 132 applications for a job.

Shares rocketed by 13.7 per cent, or 45p, to 374p as the firm said trading was ahead of expectations.Consumer goods group Unilever wants to axe its legal headquarters in Britain and base itself solely in Rotterdam

Unilever has criticised its own shareholders for opposing the companys plans to quit the UK.

The consumer goods group, which makes Domestos, Marmite and Dove soap, wants to axe its legal headquarters in Britain and base itself solely in Rotterdam  but there is growing discontent in the City at the proposed move.

Investors are furious because it would see Unilever kicked out of the FTSE 100, forcing many shareholders to sell their stock.

A number of major shareholders have pledged to vote against the move. But Unilever has been accused of seeking to pin the blame on others for its woes.

Unilevers chief finance officer Graeme Pitkethly said those who have voiced concerns are wrong.

He took particular aim at David Cumming of Aviva Investors, which owns 1.4 per cent of Unilever.

Cumming has said the plans offer no advantages to investors who own stock in London, and has pledged to oppose them in a shareholder vote next month.

But Pitkethly said: He is incorrect. There are clear benefits for all shareholders and for UK shareholders in particular.

They get access to a simpler and more dynamic Unilever which is going to be more successful in future.

Unilever has also attacked the London Stock Exchange for threatening to boot it out of the blue-chip FTSE 100.

The firm was told it will lose its listing because the index is for British firms only, and Unilever will no longer count when it axes its UK headquarters.

This will force many large investors to sell their stakes because they are only allowed to hold shares in Footsie stocks.

In a newspaper article yesterday, Unilevers chairman Marijn Dekkers said no jobs will be affected by the change.

For the plan to succeed, investors who own 75 per cent of shares listed on the London Stock Exchange must give their approval.Thousands of people are paying for 'unfair' mobile phone insurance policies with up to 40 exclusions littering the small print.

With handsets costing up to 1,450, one in ten now insures their device against theft, accidental damage and technical faults.

But Money Mail research reveals that even if you have cover, your claim could be refused for dozens of reasons.

Theft: Many insurers exclude instances where a phone was left unattended, you invited guests into your home or no physical force was used

These could include not keeping your mobile within arm's reach at all times, allowing rain or a washing machine to damage it, or losing the device after drinking alcohol.

Many insurers claim to cover you for theft  but exclude instances where the phone was left unattended, you invited guests into your home or no physical force was used.

This means only burglary and muggings are generally covered, while pickpocketing and distraction thefts are not.

Other insurers claim to cover you for accidents  only to insist you take 'all precautions' to prevent it happening, potentially making it hard to claim.

Phone insurance costs up to 120 a year and, if you want to cover other gadgets on the same policy, such as tablet computers or laptops, the cost can rise to more than 300.

But you could be wasting cash if the small print makes it difficult to make a successful claim.

Research for Money Mail, done by Defaqto, found that, of 150 policies, one in five failed to cover theft. One in ten did not cover gadgets stolen from commercial vehicles.

About one in three would not meet the cost of unauthorised calls or data  so you could be left with a big bill if someone makes overseas calls or watches films on your phone.

Exclusions: With some insurers only burglary and muggings are generally covered, while pickpocketing and distraction thefts are not

Two-thirds of policies ban you from making a claim for a certain period  sometimes several weeks  after taking out your policy.

Defaqto analysed 150 different mobile phone insurance policies and identified 25 common exclusions that might prevent a claim being paid, or make it harder for you to claim.

Money Mail also found dozens more obscure terms and conditions in the small print, which sometimes stretched to three pages.

Insurer Cover My had 40 exclusions, Insurancefair 32 and Better Buy Insurance, 30, and Debenhams Gadget Insurance, 34.

Many insurers will not cover stolen phones left 'unattended'  but the definition of this is vague and varies a lot.

Better Buy Insurance says it would turn down a claim where the phone was 'not within your sight at all times and out of your arms-length reach'.

One policy sold through broker HomeRescueCo, states: 'You must keep your gadget within your possession, control and proximity at all times'.

ZugarZnap uses the hashtag #stupidhappenz to advertise its accidental damage cover, but will not cover those who 'knowingly take a risk with your gadget'.

It says examples include, 'in a cafe or pub, you leave your gadget on the table when you go to the counter, the bar or the toilet instead of taking it with you'.

Martyn James, of online consumer complaints service Resolver, says: 'Insurers need to learn there's a big difference between being careless and being robbed. Firms should honour the spirit of the contract and not look for reasons not to pay.'

Mishaps: Some insurers claim to cover you for accidents  only to insist you take 'all precautions' to prevent it happening, potentially making it hard to claim

Others will not pay out for a stolen phone unless a thief broke into a building to get it. They often ask for a crime reference number.

However, Debenhams demands a full crime report  which is often harder to obtain and includes the investigating officer's details and how the crime is being probed.

Debenhams Gadget Insurance will not pay out for theft 'where the gadget has been stolen from any premises unless force, resulting in damage to the premises, was used to gain entry or exit.'

Gadgetinsurance.com and Tinhat will not pay out if thefts happen after inviting even friends and family to your home.

They will not cover claimants for theft 'when in your home with invited guests/tradesmen or other people unless the gadget is concealed on or about your person when not in use, or it is stored in a locked room or secured receptacle (such as a locked safe, locked locker or closed desk drawer)'.

Insurer i-Digital excludes any theft  or even accidental loss  not reported to police in 24 hours.

Cover My says it will not pay out 'where all precautions to prevent any loss or damage have not been taken', a somewhat all-encompassing clause.

HomeRescueCo, a broker, sells a policy that does not insure any 'accidental damage, loss or theft while you were under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs'.

BuyMobilePhoneInsurance.com does not include unfortunate accidents 'where the equipment is placed into a washing machine'.

Research: Defaqto analysed 150 different mobile phone insurance policies and identified 25 common exclusions that might prevent a claim being paid, or make it harder for you to claim

And Simplesurance rules out 'liquid damage caused by rainfall'.

James Daley, of consumer research firm Fairer Finance, says: 'Insurers love to rely on large lists of exclusions and mobile phone policies are some of the worst.

'If an insurer is overly harsh, it may be worth taking your dispute to the Financial Ombudsman who will take a fresh look at your case.'

Often, customers would be better off taking out comprehensive home insurance which covers mobiles away from the home plus accidental damage.

You may need to pay an additional premium to cover items outside your property, but it would likely cover all personal possessions, rather than just your phone. The downside is you will usually pay a higher excess.

A ZugarZnap spokesman says it offers a free basic phone to customers taking out its gadget insurance which they could use on nights out or give to their children for events such as school trips and sleepovers, to avoid risking a costlier device.

Both Tinhat Insurance and Insurancefair say they typically accept over 90 per cent of claims received.

A Tinhat Insurance spokesman says: 'The typical value of a gadget we insure is 750 and as a comparison, we believe that most customers would not leave the equivalent in cash unattended and in view, in the same circumstances.'

Debenhams, Cover My, Insurancefair and Better Buy Insurance say exclusions were clearly stated online and also in policy documents.

Asked why Debenhams needed a crime report, a company spokesman says this is because 'it may assist in the recovery of the lost or stolen item as well as in local crime fighting.'

A spokesman for broker HomeRescueCo says that it does not consider the alcohol clause 'an excessive term'.LONDON / NEW YORK  Thomson Reuters has partnered with Moodys Analytics, a leading provider of financial intelligence and analytics, to offer a classification solution for conducting the Solely for Payment of Principal and Interest (SPPI) tests required under the IFRS9 accounting standard. The solution allows fixed-income investors to automate SPPI tests for securities in their portfolios by providing data on over 1.2 million corporate, government, and structured securities globally.

We are excited to partner with Thomson Reuters to bring fixed-income investors more comprehensive coverage of all asset classes in a single transparent and auditable solution, said Luis Amador, Managing Director at Moodys Analytics.

In addition to securities held in clients portfolios, the solution permits users to conduct additional due diligence on bonds that have not been purchased. Full explanations are provided for returned SPPI pass/fail tests, including the methodologies used, as well as IFRS9 identified criteria and interpretations.

Partnering with Moodys Analytics, we developed a much simpler and more comprehensive solution to help clients manage their SPPI instrument accounting obligations under IFRS9, said Stuart Martin, Managing Director for Risk Information and Learning Services for the Financial & Risk business at Thomson Reuters. We worked together to deliver a seamless experience for clients, built on industry-leading data from both Thomson Reuters and Moodys Analytics.



The SPPI data feed is delivered with an open API and can be integrated into an existing client system or accessed via a web portal. We developed the solution with user experience in mind and are committed to providing expert customer service throughout the product lifecycle, added Mr. Amador.

Click here to learn more about the Moodys Analytics/Thomson Reuters SPPI classification solution for IFRS9.

The Thomson Reuters Financial & Risk business will be known as Refinitiv, following the closing of the strategic partnership transaction between Thomson Reuters and private equity funds managed by Blackstone.

About Moodys Analytics

Moodys Analytics provides financial intelligence and analytical tools to help business leaders make better, faster decisions. Our deep risk expertise, expansive information resources, and innovative application of technology help our clients confidently navigate an evolving marketplace. We are known for our industry-leading and award-winning solutions, made up of research, data, software, and professional services, assembled to deliver a seamless customer experience. We create confidence in thousands of organizations worldwide, with our commitment to excellence, open mindset approach, and focus on meeting customer needs. For more information about Moodys Analytics, visit www.moodysanalytics.com.



Moody's Analytics is a subsidiary of Moody's Corporation (NYSE: MCO). MCO reported revenue of $4.2 billion in 2017, employs approximately 12,300 people worldwide and maintains a presence in 42 countries.

Thomson Reuters

Thomson Reuters is the worlds leading source of news and information for professional markets. Our customers rely on us to deliver the intelligence, technology and expertise they need to find trusted answers. The business has operated in more than 100 countries for more than 100 years. Thomson Reuters shares are listed on the Toronto and New York Stock Exchanges. For more information, visit www.thomsonreuters.com.



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Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Monday that healthy and stable development of China-U.S. relations is critical to both countries as well as both peoples and is also indispensable for international peace, stability and development.

Wang made the remarks at a meeting with representatives from the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations and the U.S.-China Business Council, during which they exchanged views on such issues as China-U.S. relations and bilateral economic and trade cooperation.

Wang said that China and the United States are the world's largest developing country and developed country respectively; the two nations are also top two economies around the globe and both are permanent members of the UN Security Council.

Noting the two countries are going to usher in the 40th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations, Wang said the most important experience gained by the two sides in the past 40 years is that only through cooperation can a win-win situation be attained, and confrontation will certainly lead to a lose-lose scenario.

The two sides must unswervingly move towards in the direction of cooperation, especially when encountering problems and disturbance, said Wang.

Wang pointed out that recently, negative postures of the U.S. policy on China are on the rise. Some forces have repeatedly and groundlessly blamed China in such fields as economy, trade and security, creating sentiments of opposition and poisoning the relationship atmosphere.

The accusations toward China are not true and irresponsible; if left unchecked, they will destroy the achievements of China-U.S. relations in the past 40 years, which is unfavorable for the two countries as well as the international community, said Wang.

China always advocates that any problem between China and the United States can be resolved through equal and frank dialogue, he said.

Wang said that the Chinese and the U.S. economies are highly integrated, and bilateral economic and trade cooperation has brought huge benefits to industries and customers of both sides.

To cut off the economic relationship between China and the United States, which has been claimed by some people, is unrealistic and harmful, he said.

China and the United States are the largest emerging market and the biggest mature market respectively, said Wang, adding that the Chinese market is related to the livelihood of every U.S. family.

If the two sides can cooperate with each other actively, the U.S. economy can attain lasting vitality from the Chinese market, and China can promote its development through the U.S. market, Wang said.

As for questions about China's market access, China's reform and opening-up as well as structural adjustment of its economy, Wang stressed that China will firmly deepen reforms and expand opening-up to the outside world.

China's development has benefited from its reform and opening-up, and the pursuit of further openness is in need of China's development, said Wang.

After its entry into the World Trade Organization, China reduced the average tariff level to 9.8 percent, over-fulfilling its tariff reduction commitments. And the tariff level is below the average of developing countries, Wang noted.

The number of sub-sectors opened by China in service trade market has reached 100, far exceeding the average number of 54 of developing countries and approaching the level of developed nations, he said.

China has implemented local record filing management for over 96 percent of foreign investments and has been implementing a management system of pre-entry national treatment plus a negative list, with the list shortened for foreign investments, said Wang.

Wang said currently, China is seeking development of high quality, and deepening structural reform is part of the endeavor.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has stressed many times that China's door of opening-up will only become wider, and a series of new measures have been and will be continuously launched, Wang noted.

Yet China is still a developing country and it needs to advance the process of reforms based on its national conditions in an orderly and self-determined manner, he added.

Wang pointed out that China has no intention of seeking a trade surplus and is willing to resolve trade imbalances through consultations.

However, dialogue should be built on equality and integrity and cannot be carried out under threats or pressure, Wang said.

The U.S. side launched a larger scale of unilateral tariff-slapping action in the run-up to a new round of dialogue, which indicates that the United States has no sincerity to solve the problem, he said.

Wang thanked members of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations and the U.S.-China Business Council for making long-term efforts in promoting cooperation between the two countries.

He also expressed his hope that they can play a positive role in healthy development of China-U.S. relations and win-win cooperation between the two sides.

Representatives from the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations and the U.S.-China Business Council said good relations between the United States and China are in the fundamental interests of both sides.

Over the past 40 years, both the United States and China have benefited greatly from bilateral relations and cooperation between the two sides, said the representatives.

Most people from U.S. business circle do not agree to solve the current problem by slapping tariffs, and the rhetoric and actions to try to regard China as a hostile force is wrong, said the representatives.

The United States and China need to strengthen dialogue, particularly at this moment, enhance mutual understanding and solve problems in development of bilateral relations through consultations, they said.

In the long run, the two sides need to transcend specific issues such as trade, and conduct strategic communication on the long-term development of bilateral relations, they added.

The U.S. side said that the U.S.-China economic and trade cooperation has been a stabilizing force for bilateral relations for a long time, and the U.S. business circle has been a firm supporter for U.S.-China relations.

The U.S. business circle sincerely hopes to resolve structural problems in bilateral economic and trade relations through pragmatic dialogue and constructive ways including promoting discussion and signing of bilateral investment agreements, said the U.S. side.

The National Committee on U.S.-China Relations and the U.S.-China Business Council are willing to continuously play a role in promoting the development of bilateral relations on a right track, the U.S. side added.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.

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Next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The following companies are subsidiares of Tesco: Adminstore Limited, Adsega Limited, Alfred Preedy & Sons (Trustees) Limited, Alfred Preedy & Sons Limited, Anthony Heagney Limited, Arena (Jersey) Management Limited, Armitage Finance Unlimited, Armitage Luxembourg s.? r.l., BLT Holdings 2010 Limited, Bath Upper Bristol Road Management, Bedminster Estates Limited, Beehythe Estates limited, Berry Lane Management Company Limited, Blinkbox Books Limited, BlinxBox, Booker Group, Brian Fords Discount Store Limited, Broadfields Management Limited, Brookmaker (GP) Limited, Broughton Retail Park Nominee 1 Limited, Broughton Retail Park Nominee 2 Limited, Broughton Retail Park Nominee 3 Limited, Broughton Retail Park Nominee 4 Limited, Buckingham Road (Bletchley) Management Company Limited, Bugden Ltd, Buttoncable Limited, Buttoncase Limited, Canterbury Road Management Limited, Cardiff Cathays Terrace Management Company Limited, Careneed News Limited, Cheshunt Finance Unlimited, Cheshunt Holdings Guernsey Limited, Cheshunt Hungary Servicing Limited Liability Company, Cheshunt Luxembourg S.? r.l., Cheshunt Overseas LLP, China Property Holdings (HK) Limited, Chirac Limited, Cirrus Finance (2009) Limited, Cirrus Finance Limited, Cirrus Luxembourg s.? r.l., Clarepharm Limited, Clondalkin Properties Limited, Comar Limited, Commercial Investments Limited, Crazy Prices, Crest Ostrava a.s, Cullens Holdings Limited, Cullens Stores Limited, Daily Wrap Produce Limited, Day And Nite Stores Limited, Delamare Cards Holdco Limited, Delamare Cards MTN Issuer plc, Delamare Finance PLC, Delamare Group Holdings Limited, Delamare Holdings BV Netherlands, Delamare Luxembourg s.? r.l. Luxembourg, Delamare One Limited, Dunnhumby Ventures LLC, ELH Insurance Limited, Edinburgh Butterfly Farm Limited, Edson Investments Limited, Edson Properties Limited, Ek-Chai Distribution System Co. Ltd., Euphorium (London) Limited, Euphorium (North London) Limited, Euphorium Group Limited, Euphorium IP Limited, Europa Foods Limited, Faraday Properties Limited, Flitwick Pharmacies Limited, Food & Wine Lovers Limited, Forum Liberec s.r.o, Freds Food Construction Limited, Freehold and Leasehold Property Fund, Gain Land Limited, Genesis sp. z o.o., Gibbs News Limited, Gibbs Newsagents Limited, Gida Sanayi A.S., Giraffe, Giraffe Cafe Limited, Giraffe Concepts Limited, Golden Island Management Services Limited, HIT hypermarket Sp. z o. o., Halesworth SPV Limited, Harris and Hoole Holdings Limited, Harris and Hoole Limited, Harris and Hoole Nominees Limited, Homeplus, Hymall Co. Ltd., J E Properties Holdings Limited, Jasper Sp. z o. o. 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Holdings, Retail Property Co. Ltd, S Bottomley & Bros Limited, Sanders Supermarkets Limited, Sandtable Limited, Sarcon (No. 239) Limited, Seacroft Green Nominee 1 Limited, Seacroft Green Nominee 2 Limited, Shire Park Limited, Shuke Advertising (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, Snowman Retail 1 Limited, Snowman Retail 2 Limited, Sociomantic AB, Sociomantic Labs B.V, Sociomantic Labs Inc, Sociomantic Labs Internet Hizmetleri Limited ?ireketi, Sociomantic Labs LLC, Sociomantic Labs Limited, Sociomantic Labs Private Limited, Sociomantic Labs Pte Ltd, Sociomantic Labs S.r.l, Sociomantic Labs SARL, Sociomantic Labs Servicos Web Ltda, Sociomantic Labs Sp.z.o.o., Sociomantic Labs s.r.o., Sociomantic S.L.U., Sociomantic labs GmbH, Spen Hill Developments (Holdings) Ltd, Spen Hill Developments (Portishead) Ltd, Spen Hill Developments (Tonbridge) Limited, Spen Hill Developments Limited, Spen Hill Management Limited, Spen Hill Properties (Holdings) plc, Spen Hill Properties (Southend) Limited, Spen Hill Regeneration Limited, Spen Hill Residential No 1 Limited, Spen Hill Residential No 2 Limited, Station House Welling Management Limited, Statusfloat Limited, Stewarts Supermarkets Limited, Streatham Management Company Limited, T & S Management Services Limited, T & S Properties Limited, T & S Stores Limited, TESCO (POLSKA) sp. z o.o., TESCO Akad?mia K?pz?si ?s Fejleszt?si Kor?tolt Felelss?g T?rsas?g, TESCO MOBILE POLSKA SP. Z O.O., TESCO STORES SR a.s., Tapesilver Limited, Teesport (GP) Limited, Teesport (Nominee) Limited, Telegraph Properties (Kirkby) Limited, Tesco (Foxtrot 1) Limited, Tesco (Foxtrot 2) Limited, Tesco (Fujian) Industry Limited, Tesco (Jersey) Limited, Tesco (Overseas) Ltd, Tesco (Yorkshire) Limited, Tesco Aqua (1LP) Limited, Tesco Aqua (3LP) Limited, Tesco Aqua (FinCo1) Limited, Tesco Aqua (FinCo2) Limited, Tesco Aqua (GP) Limited, Tesco Aqua (Nominee 1) Limited, Tesco Aqua (Nominee 2) Limited, Tesco Aqua (Nominee Holdco) Limited, Tesco Atrato (1LP) Limited, Tesco Atrato (GP) Limited, Tesco Barbers Wood Limited, Tesco Bengaluru Private Limited, Tesco Blue (1LP) Limited, Tesco Blue (FinCo2) Limited, Tesco Blue (GP) Limited, Tesco Blue (Nominee 1) Limited, Tesco Blue (Nominee 2) Limited, Tesco Blue (Nominee Holdco) Limited, Tesco Capital No. 1 Limited, Tesco Capital No. 2 Limited, Tesco Card Services Limited, Tesco Card Services Limited, Tesco Card Services Ltd., Tesco Chile Sourcing Limitada, Tesco Coral (GP) Limited, Tesco Corporate Treasury Services PLC, Tesco Depot Propco Limited, Tesco Distribution Holdings Limited, Tesco Distribution Limited, Tesco Dorney (1LP) Limited, Tesco Dorney (GP) Limited, Tesco Dystrybucja Sp. z.o.o., Tesco EU IT Services s.r.o., Tesco Employees Share Scheme Trustees Limited, Tesco Estates Limited, Tesco Europe B.V. Netherlands, Tesco Family Dining Limited, Tesco Food Sourcing Brazil Representa??o De Servi?os Ltda., Tesco Food Sourcing Limited, Tesco Foundation (Nadacia Tesco), Tesco Freetime Limited, Tesco Fuchsia (1LP) Limited, Tesco Fuel Limited, Tesco Global Employment Company Limited, Tesco Guangdong (HK) Co. Limited, Tesco High Beech Limited, Tesco Holdings BV, Tesco Holdings Limited, Tesco Home Shopping Limited, Tesco Hungary (Holdings) Limited, Tesco International Franchising s.r.o., Tesco International Internet Retailing Limited, Tesco International Services Limited, Tesco International Sourcing Limited, Tesco Ireland Holdings Limited, Tesco Ireland Limited, Tesco Ireland Pension Trustees Limited, Tesco Jade (GP) Limited, Tesco Joint Buying Service (Shanghai) Co Limited, Tesco Kipa Kitle Pazarlama Ticaret Lojistik ve, Tesco Kirkby (General Partner) Limited, Tesco Kirkby (LP) Limited, Tesco Kirkby (Nominee 1) Limited, Tesco Kirkby (Nominee 2) Limited, Tesco Kirkby (Nominee Holdco) Limited, Tesco Kirkby (Unitholder 1) Limited, Tesco Kirkby (Unitholder2) Limited, Tesco Lagoon GP Limited, Tesco Licences Limited, Tesco Lotus Retail Growth, Tesco Lotus Retail Growth Freehold and Leasehold Property Fund, Tesco Maintenance Limited, Tesco Mauritius Holdings Limited, Tesco Mobile (Thailand) Co. Ltd., Tesco Mobile CR s.r.o., Tesco Mobile Communications Limited, Tesco Mobile Ireland Limited, Tesco Mobile Ireland Limited, Tesco Mobile Limited, Tesco Mobile Services Limited, Tesco Mobile Slovakia s.r.o, Tesco Mobile Slovakia s.r.o., Tesco Mobile CR, Tesco Nanjing Zhongshan, Tesco Nanjing Zhongshan (HK) Co. Limited, Tesco Navona (1LP) Limited, Tesco Navona (GP) Limited, Tesco Navona (Nominee 1) Limited, Tesco Navona (Nominee 2) Limited, Tesco Navona (Nominee Holdco) Limited, Tesco Navona PL Propco Limited, Tesco Opticians Limited, Tesco Overseas (Holdings) Limited, Tesco Overseas Investments Limited, Tesco Overseas ULC, Tesco Passaic (1LP) Limited, Tesco Passaic (GP) Limited, Tesco Passaic (Nominee 1) Limited, Tesco Passaic (Nominee 2) Limited, Tesco Passaic (Nominee Holdco) Limited, Tesco Passaic PL Propco Limited, Tesco Pension (Jade) Limited, Tesco Pension Investment Limited, Tesco Pension Trustees Limited, Tesco Personal Finance, Tesco Personal Finance Compare Limited, Tesco Personal Finance Group Limited, Tesco Property (No.1) Limited, Tesco Property (Nominees) (No.1) Limited, Tesco Property (Nominees) (No.2) Limited, Tesco Property (Nominees) Limited, Tesco Property A.S., Tesco Property Finance 1 Holdco Limited, Tesco Property Finance 1 PLC, Tesco Property Holdings (No. 2) Limited, Tesco Property Holdings Limited, Tesco Property Limited, Tesco Property Nominees (No.5) Limited, Tesco Property Nominees (No.6) Limited, Tesco Property Partner (GP No.2) Limited, Tesco Property Partner (GP) Limited, Tesco Property Partner (No.1) Limited, Tesco Property Partner (No.2) Limited, Tesco Red (1LP) Limited, Tesco Red (GP) Limited, Tesco Red (Nominee 2) Limited, Tesco Red (Nominee Holdco) Limited, Tesco Sarum (1LP) Limited, Tesco Sarum (GP) Limited, Tesco Seacroft Limited, Tesco Secretaries Limited, Tesco Services Limited, Tesco Sourcing India Private Limited, Tesco Stores (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Tesco Stores (Thailand) Ltd, Tesco Stores CR a.s., Tesco Stores Limited, Tesco Technology Services HK Limited, Tesco Treasury Services PLC, Tesco Trustee Company of Ireland Limited, Tesco Underwriting Limited, Tesco Vin Plus SA, Tesco Worldwide Limited, Tesco for Thais Foundation, Tesco-Global Stores Privately Held Co. Ltd, Tesco.Com Limited, The Brookmaker Limited Partnership, The Teesport Limited Partnership Limited Partnership, The Tesco Aqua Limited Partnership Limited Partnership, The Tesco Atrato Limited Partnership, The Tesco Blue Limited Partnership Limited Partnership, The Tesco Coral Limited Partnership, The Tesco Dorney Limited Partnership, The Tesco Kirkby Limited Partnership Limited Partnership, The Tesco Navona Limited Partnership Limited Partnership, The Tesco Passaic Limited Partnership Limited Partnership, The Tesco Property (No.2) Limited Partnership, The Tesco Red Limited Partnership, The Tesco Sarum Limited Partnership, Trent Hypermarket Private Limited, Trigger Retail Ltd, Valiant Insurance Company DAC, Value House Properties Limited, Variable Preference, Ventnor High Street Management Company Limited, Verulam Properties (2001) Limited, Verulam Properties Limited, Victoria BB Sp z.o.o., WE7, WSC Properties Limited, Wanze Properties (Dundalk) Limited, Weymouth Avenue (Dorchester) Limited, Whitecastle Properties Limited, Wm. Low Supermarkets Limited, Woolwich Central Residents Management Company Limited, Worple Road Plc, Xiamen Firste Property Limited, Xiamen Firste Property Limited, aAcklam Management Company Limited, dunnhumby (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, dunnhumby (Thailand) Limited, dunnhumby Canada Limited, dunnhumby Consulting Services India Private Limited, dunnhumby Czech s.r.o., dunnhumby Employment Company Limited, dunnhumby Holding Limited, dunnhumby Hungary Kft, dunnhumby IT Services India Private Limited, dunnhumby Inc, dunnhumby International Limited, dunnhumby Ireland Limited, dunnhumby Italia Srl., dunnhumby Limited, dunnhumby Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., dunnhumby Netherlands B.V., dunnhumby Norge A.S., dunnhumby Overseas Limited, dunnhumby Poland Sp z.o.o, dunnhumby Slovakia s.r.o., dunnhumby South Africa (Pty) Ltd, dunnhumby Trustees Limited, and dunnuhumby.NORRISTOWN  A jury has convicted a Limerick man of assaulting another man, who suffered a broken jaw, during a road rage incident in the township.

Anthony C. Lauer, 48, of the first block of Country Club Road, was convicted in Montgomery County Court of misdemeanor charges of simple assault, recklessly endangering another person and disorderly conduct in connection with an October 2017 traffic incident in the township.

The jury acquitted Lauer of a more serious felony charge of aggravated assault, causing serious bodily injury, which could have carried up to a 10-to-20-year prison term.

Judge William R. Carpenter, who presided over the three day trial, deferred sentencing so that court officials can complete a background report about Lauer.

Lauer, who remains free on bail pending sentencing, faces a possible maximum sentence of 21/2 to five years in prison on the charges. However, state sentencing guidelines could allow for a lesser sentence.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Lauren Alessi.

An investigation began about 10 p.m. Oct. 18, 2017, when Limerick police responded to the intersection of North Lewis and Country Club roads for a report of a disturbance involving two males whose vehicles were stopped at the intersection.

When police approached the men, they determined one man was having difficulty speaking and had blood coming out his mouth, according to the criminal complaint filed by Limerick Police Officer Sergio Rodriguez.

The victim, who had been operating a Kia sedan, told police Lauer, the driver of a Hyundai SUV, blocked his path, got of out his car and after a brief argument assaulted him, according to the criminal complaint.

(The victims) jaw appeared seriously injured, his bottom left teeth were hanging loosely and had been split from the rest of his mandible, Rodriguez alleged, adding emergency responders concluded the victim suffered a broken jaw and he was transported to a trauma center for treatment.

The victim claimed an argument developed between the two men when Lauer used his vehicle to block his path at the intersection, according to court papers.

Lauer, according to the criminal complaint, told police that he got angry at the victim while driving behind him so he decided to drive around him and block his path at the intersection with his SUV so he could confront him.

At trial, and in his initial statements to police, Lauer maintained the victim assaulted him first and that he then returned a punch.

The whole defense strategy was self-defense, explained defense lawyer Scott McIntosh. Both sides agree that this was a road rage case.

The victim denied punching Lauer.

McIntosh said Lauer was pleased the jury rejected the aggravated assault charge, convicting him instead of a lesser simple assault charge. McIntosh said he will seek a probationary sentence for Lauer at time of sentencing.

Court papers indicate there were witnesses to the altercation who corroborated the victims account of the incident.ALBANY  Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Wednesday said that Crystal Run Healthcare made outreach to his campaign "months ago" about potential problems with its donations to his campaigns.

Cuomo's campaign on Tuesday admitted to the Times Union that the governor was incorrect when he told the paper's editorial board earlier this month that there had been no such outreach. The donations by Crystal Run and its employees, who have given $400,000 to Cuomo, are the subject of an ongoing federal investigation, according to sources.

The campaign claimed that neither Cuomo nor his campaign spokeswoman Abbey Collins  who accompanied the governor to the editorial board meeting on Sept. 4  had been briefed on the outreach by Crystal Run, despite at that point having received questions about the matter from the Times Union and other reporters for more than a month.

In Buffalo on Wednesday, Cuomo was asked to clarify the timeline of the matter.

"I was asked at the editorial board: Had Crystal Run contacted the campaign?" Cuomo said. "I didn't know that they had, so I said no. Again, this is not the biggest matter in the hemisphere from my point of view.

" ... After the meeting, we went back and checked," he continued. "There had been a conversation with a lawyer for the campaign months earlier, by the counsel to Crystal Run. I did not know that when I said there were no conversations."

Cuomo's campaign continues to refuse to explain when it was approached by Crystal Run about the troubled donations. It has also declined to explain why Cuomo was not apprised of the company's outreach, despite fielding questions about the donations through the summer.

Cuomo and the campaign have also failed to explain why they corrected the record only after the Times Union informed Collins late last week that it was preparing a story casting doubt on the governor's assertion.

Also Wednesday, Cuomo's Republican opponent, Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro, released a statement in which he charged that it was "clear that Andrew Cuomo is under investigation over Crystal Run and now there is proof he's lying about it."

Both the Cuomo campaign and the Executive Chamber have said they have not been contacted by investigators.

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"Andrew Cuomo's reign of corruption is finally catching up to him and his days are numbered," Molinaro's statement continued. "It's time he come clean and tell the people of New York exactly what he knows and when he knew it.

It's an assertion that Molinaro's campaign also made in a television commercial that Cuomo sought  unsuccessfully  to pull from broadcast.

In the editorial board meeting, Cuomo emphatically and repeatedly stated that Crystal Run, a growing Hudson Valley company that in 2016 received $25.4 million in public funds for two projects that that were already under construction, had never warned his campaign of potential problems with its $400,000 in donations.

He also cast doubt on U.S. Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney's assertion that his own campaign had received similar outreach by a Crystal Run attorney in April, prompting Maloney to donate more than $35,000 of the company's donations to the U.S. Treasury. A letter produced by Maloney's office showed such outreach did occur.

The governor said that if the company had made such outreach, Crystal Run would have effectively "admitted to a crime."What's next

Starting at 10 a.m. Thursday, Judge Brett Kavanugh and his accuser Christine Blasey Ford are scheduled to go before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

A Judiciary Committee vote on Kavanaugh's confirmation is scheduled for Friday with full Senate vote possible next week.Stillwater

A groundbreaking ceremony was held Wednesday at the Luther Forest Technology Campus for one of the most cutting-edge energy facilities being built in the Capital Region  a 20-megawatt energy storage battery.

The facility, owned by a company called Key Capture Energy, will be the largest lithium-ion battery project in New York state and will require nine employees and support 25 construction jobs.

Large batteries store electricity on the grid that can be used when it's needed most. The model is required when the state increases its reliance on variable renewable energy sources such as wind or solar farms that don't generate as much power when weather conditions don't allow. One megawatt can supply electricity to 800 homes.

The battery can store excess power as well and is needed for Gov. Andrew Cuomo's goal to reach 1,500 megawatts of energy storage in the state by 2025. That goal is also tied to Cuomo's Clean Energy Standard plan to have half of the state's energy come from renewable sources by the same time period.

The Key Capture Energy facility in Stillwater, known as KCE NY 1, will be built on Substation Road off Cold Springs Road. It is the first real development at Luther Forest that is not related to GlobalFoundries, the computer chip manufacturer. Luther Forest is located along the Malta-Stillwater town lines.

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"We are glad to initiate construction of our KCE NY 1 project," said Dan Fitzgerald, chief development officer of Key Capture Energy. "We are fully committed to supporting the Governor's vision for an aggressive Clean Energy Standard, as well as to bringing local jobs and energy storage solutions to New York state.

The Saratoga County Prosperity Partnership worked with Key Capture Energy to obtain financial incentives for the project.

"We congratulate Key Capture Energy as it launches construction of this next-generation facility, which represents a significant investment in the economic, energy and environmental future of Saratoga County," Saratoga County Prosperity Partnership President Mary Vanags said. "We are delighted to have assisted the company in advancing this important clean-energy project, and especially pleased to be leading the first development on the Luther Forest Technology Campus since GlobalFoundries."Rensselaer

Amtrak's "great dome car," a glass-topped 1950s-era passenger rail car that operates on some of the railroad's most scenic routes and was to begin service out of Albany on Thursday, was damaged in recent days when it struck a low-hanging tree while operating in Maine, an Amtrak spokesman confirmed.

A forward facing glass panel was broken, but it wasn't clear whether there were any injuries or other damage. The Amtrak spokesman, Jason Abrams, said the car was now in a repair shop, although it wasn't immediately clear how quickly, or whether, it will be back in service.

The rail car was scheduled to begin operating on the Adirondack between Rensselaer and Montreal on Thursday, continuing through Nov. 2. The dome car is too tall to operate south of Rensselaer because of low tunnel and bridge clearances. It has operated during fall foliage season on the Adirondack for a number of years.

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The car is popular for the expansive views it provides of Lake Champlain, the Adirondacks and the Green Mountains. It is Amtrak's last remaining dome car, although Iowa Pacific Holdings possesses several dome cars, some of which operated on the Saratoga and North Creek Railway between Saratoga Springs and North Creek when Iowa Pacific was providing service there. It ceased passenger operations locally earlier this year.

The dome cars began appearing on trains between Chicago and the West Coast in the 1950s. The Amtrak dome originally operated on Great Northern Railway and the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad. "Ocean View," the current name for the Amtrak dome car, was built in 1955.Albany

Troubled Monolith Solar has temporarily laid off 58 employees, which appears to be a large chunk of its workforce, as it tries to "stabilize" its operations a week after stopping construction on its new headquarters in Slingerlands.

Monolith was one of the fastest-growing solar installers in both the region and across the state, having edged out bigger firms for market share when it was hit by financial problems that led to it having to conserve cash.

It also appears to have led to the recent departure of CEO Mike Hickey.

In a statement emailed to the Times Union by the company's marketing director, Michael Smith, the company said that on Tuesday it made the "difficult decision" that day to furlough 58 employees "as part of a comprehensive strategy to restructure and stabilize our business operations."

Monolith had two lawsuits recently filed against it in state supreme court, and its building contractor, BBL, told the town of Bethlehem last week that it was told to stop construction on its $4.9 million, 26,000 new headquarters at the Vista Technology Campus in Slingerlands. That project was financed by Pioneer Bank.

"As part of this company wide plan, we have also suspended construction on our planned headquarters building," the statement continued. "We have every intention of completing this important project."

Smith would not say if the 58 workers were the entire Monolith workforce, adding that he would not be able to answer follow-up questions about the company's operations. However when Hickey was hired a year ago, the company said it had 150 employees.

The company has not made Steve Erby or Mark Fobare, the company's founders who ran Monolith before Hickey was hired, available for questions. Hickey is now with Siena College.

Monolith did residential solar installations, but it was best known for large solar farms either in vacant fields or on rooftops. The company's capital was so tied up in those installations that it took the company years to secure construction financing from a bank, in this case Pioneer Bank.

It's unclear what type of reorganization Monolith is facing. The company was founded originally in Rensselaer but had outgrown its operations there. The Slingerlands facility was supported by $600,000 in state and local tax breaks through the Bethlehem Industrial Development Agency, although it is unclear if Monolith had yet claimed any of those benefits since the project has not been completed, with just a steel frame at the site.

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The Bethlehem IDA is scheduled to meet Friday. The IDA's executive director, Tom Connolly, said the IDA has not heard from Monolith and he only knows what he read in the press. However, Monolith is listed on the IDA's agenda for discussion as of now.

About half of the IDA's incentive package for Monolith is in the form of property tax breaks.

"We are working closely with all of our business partners and briefing them on our plans," the Monolith statement continued. "The solar energy industry is a unique and challenging marketplace, and in this intense growth area sometimes corrective actions is needed. This is one of those instances."

Other local solar installers have gone through similar financial problems amid turmoil in the renewable energy sector during periods of cheap fossil fuel prices and changing regulatory incentives and policies.

"Renewable energy, led by solar power, is the future and we have every confidence that Monolith will emerge from this effort better equipped than ever to help lead the green revolution," the Monolith statement concludes.SCHENECTADY  A brewery and the budding neighborhood surrounding it were on full display Tuesday.

A beer company called Frog Alley Brewing is being developed to open late this year as a brewery and taproom in the newly designated Mill Artisan District in downtown Schenectady.

The district, which make over the south side of State Street between Church and Ferry streets, will have Frog Alley Brewing as its centerpiece. The brewery is owned by J.T. Pollard, owner of Schenectady's Re4orm Architecture, which designed the half-billion-dollar Mohawk Harbor development in Schenectady that includes Rivers Casino.

Related: Lower State Street renewal underway in Schenectady

The district, still under construction, will be home to residential, retail, business, manufacturing, social and academic spaces.

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Frog Alley Brewing is named after a Schenectady baseball team that was arrested in 1903 for playing on a Sunday. It will brew 4,000 barrels (124,000 gallons) of beer annually to serve at the on-site Six Pack Taproom, with the capacity to brew another 10,000 barrels/310,000 gallons annually on contract for other beer companies, according to a news release.

Running the brewing operations will be Rich Michaels, most recently the quality and innovation manager at the F.X. Matt Brewing in Utica, and Drew Schmidt, who was head brewer at Oxford Brewing in the Baltimore area. Frog Alley is projected to employ 65 when fully staffed, according to the announcement.Canajoharie

Wanted: Good ideas for reusing a sprawling, century old former baby food factory in the heart of an historic Mohawk Valley village.

That is the message going out from Montgomery County officials on the sprawling former Beech-Nut plant in Canajoharie, as engineers continue surveying how much of the decaying 29-acre property can be reused, how much should come down and how much toxic asbestos must be removed.

Next month, the county is launching a "request for expressions of interest" at the site, where late this year demolition is expected to resume of former warehouses there with little historical value, said Ken Rose, county economic development director.

The focus will then shift to what to do with the four-story headquarters and production facility, which is currently unheated, and has sustained extensive roof, water and mold damage.

"We are looking for good ideas from not-for-profits, community groups, education institutions and others," Rose said. A formal request for proposals on the site could be issued in February 2019 once the county knows what direction it prefers to take, Rose added.

An earlier idea by the county to renovate the building into shared government offices was dropped after it failed to gain a necessary state grant.

The "request for expressions of interest" will be released Oct. 2, Rose said. A tour of the building is set for later that month.

The property is visible from Exit 29 of the state Thruway and dominates the small village of Canajoharie, where officials have been dealing with a polluted eyesore for years after a would-be developer stripped the property of valuable metals, knocked down some buildings and left behind piles of asbestos-tainted debris in the open.

Canajoharie Mayor Francis Avery said he was "very encouraged" by progress made at the property, which was taken by the county in August 2017 for unpaid taxes from a would-be Ohio developer who stripped the property and then left after claiming to have to sold it to an associate.

"We have legitimate firms that are interested in this, but at this point, I cannot say who they are," said Avery. "I would like to see some kind of mixed use here ... we only have one chance to get this right."

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Currently, the property is being studied by LiRo Group, an engineering firm with offices in Long Island. The firm was involved in the cleanup and redevelopment of the 800,000-square-foot former Spaulding Fibre industrial site in Tonawanda near Buffalo.

LiRo has been involved with numerous high-profile projects, including the post-9/11 rebuilding of lower Manhattan, Niagara Municipal Complex and the New York Public Library.

The state has put up $6 million for Montgomery County to support the study, as well as demolition and remediation work. The county has also received an $800,000 grant from National Grid.

Ohio developer Todd Clifford bought the site from Beech-Nut in 2013 amid redevelopment promises. But the village shut down Clifford in 2014 for violations during unauthorized demolition and stripping of valuable metal equipment and fixtures from the factory. Clifford left town, claiming to have sold the building to an associate who subsequently performed no work.

About $2 million in delinquent property taxes had piled up by the time the county foreclosed on the site and took ownership.Henry James. Herman Melville. Bret Harte. Martha Gellhorn. William Kennedy. Albany's literary roots are storied, deep and enduring, no matter the smallness of the burgh or its tendencies toward self-deprecation. The capital city is a city of authors. It's a city of books.

And now it's a city with a full-blown bash celebrating both: the inaugural Albany Book Festival, organized by the New York State Writers Institute, held at the University at Albany Campus Center and brimming with creators and lovers of the bound and printed word.

"We just felt like this was a time to stake out Albany's place in literary history," said Paul Grondahl, director of the Writers Institute. Other places do, he figured: Austin, Miami, Brooklyn. "So why shouldn't Albany have a book festival?"

Judging from the scads of authors who agreed to participate, the answer is: It should.

"It's about time!," said presidential historian, political journalist and festival participant Terry Golway in an email. "When you realize that Albany has been the setting for some of the great American novels of the late 20th century, when you realize that there are literally dozens of writers and poets at the nearby universities, when you think of the great journalism that Albany has produced, you realize that this is something that needed to happen."

Among the many scheduled to speak on Saturday are historian Doris Kearns Goodwin ("Team of Rivals"), novelist and memoirist Jonathan Santlofer ("The Widower's Notebook") and novelist Walter Mosley (best known for the Easy Rawlins mysteries). There are panels on food, history, mystery and "New Americans"  the last featuring Khizr Khan, author of "An American Family" and the Gold Star father who spoke out against Donald Trump at the 2016 Democratic convention.

Also in attendance: Kennedy of "Ironwood" fame, who'll be signing copies of the just-published "Bootlegger of the Soul: The Literary Legacy of William Kennedy" (a career retrospective compiled by Grondahl and Suzanne Lance); and Gregory Maguire, the Albany native, UAlbany alum and deft satirist behind "Wicked" and, most recently, "Hiddensee: A Tale of the Once and Future Nutcracker."

Several other featured authors also boast Albany and regional ties, including Golway ("Machine Made: Tammany Hall and the Creation of Modern American Politics"), a senior editor at Politico overseeing New York state political coverage; Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and photographer Gilbert King ("Beneath a Ruthless Sun"), who grew up in Niskayuna; and bestselling novelist Joseph Finder ("The Fixer"), who grew up in Loudonville.

Finder, for his part, was "surprised and delighted" to hear about the book festival. Having served on the board of the Boston Book Festival at its launch, he was impressed with how quickly it caught on  "and how enthusiastic people were about it, what a deep need it served," he said in an email. "I'll bet the same thing happens in Albany. Anything that brings book people together is a great thing."

Beyond the headliners and panelists, around 88 local writers and 30 exhibitors will hold the fort at tables throughout the day, selling books and chatting with the public. And on the evening before, the Writers Institute will host the Friday installation of Colson Whitehead ("The Underground Railroad") and Alicia Ostriker ("Waiting for the Light") as New York State author and poet, respectively.

"The capital of the state of New York should certainly have a festival that will bring writers and readers to the city," said Frankie Bailey, mystery writer ("Death's Favorite Child"), crime historian and professor of criminal justice at UAlbany, in an email.

The way she sees it, Albany's literary world, and the stories that spawned it, are not far removed from that of a slightly more populous city to the south. "Every force that has shaped New York City literary history has had a similar impact on Albany," she said, noting the effects of "urbanization, industrialization, immigration, black migration from the South, Prohibition, and the Great Depression."

Added Golway: "Albany produces people with a sense of place." And as Kennedy himself has shown, "Writers with a sense of place can produce extraordinary literature. You sometimes get the feeling that every journalist and perhaps even the occasional political spokesperson has a novel just waiting to be written." In a sense, he said, "Albany itself is a great literary character, and that's what it has to offer  it has produced more than its share of colorful people, real and imagined."

Beyond the panels, talks, workshops and signings geared toward adult book hounds, the festival also includes a children's room, events for kids and YA readers and programs partnering with Albany city schools, Albany Public Library and several local organizations. The festival is "really built for families," Grondahl said.

It's also built for the long haul, with an eye toward putting the institute "on the great trajectory .We want to think big," he said. No need for the city to self-deprecate  No, Albany doesn't deserve a book festival. No, Albany's not big enough. "We just think the time was right. ... We think this is a signature event for our organization, the university and for the city."

And in an era of instant gratification, books are a stubborn and lasting reminder that low tech and long reads still have a place: Reports of their death are greatly exaggerated. "I don't believe books are going to die," Finder said. "Books are a great invention, and we're never going to tire of stories."

"People still read," Golway agreed. "People still want to imagine. People still love turns of phrase, memorable characters, astonishing insights. People still love stories. And readers seem to enjoy hearing from writers, meeting them, talking to them about the creative process."

The more people buy books online, Finder theorized, the more they miss the bricks-and-mortar bookstore experience and the inevitable chit-chat that ensues. "Since books are really sold based on word of mouth, that human connection is crucial. And then people are always curious to meet their favorite writers. Even though most of us are actually fairly boring," he added. "All we do is write."

Ultimately, Grondahl said, the inaugural Albany book festival is meant to celebrate everyone involved in the world of books: "People who read them, people who publish them, people who sell them, but also, especially, people who write them. You know, they're beautiful creations that often consume the authors for many years. A book is something really precious and rare  and it takes effort.

"Like a great painting or a great symphony or a great film, it deserves to be celebrated and honored," he said. "And we can at least do that for one day."

abiancolli@timesunion.com  518-454-5439  @AmyBiancolli

If you go

Albany Book Festival and New York State author and poet ceremony

Where: Campus Center, University at Albany, 1400 Washington Ave., Albany

When: New York State author and poet installation ceremony, with Colson Whitehead and Alicia Ostriker: 7:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 28.; Albany Book Festival: 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 29 (full schedule below)

Admission: Free

Info: albanybookfestival.com; 518-442-5620

PARENTS COURTYARD

10 a.m.-11 a.m.: Morning dance party with Radha Agrawal, "Belong: Find Your People, Create Community, and Live a More Connected Life"; book signing to follow in the Great Hall

BALLROOM

Book signings to follow each panel in the Fireside Lounge

11 a.m.12 p.m.: Food panel with Mark Kurlansky, "Milk!"; Francis Lam, host of "The Splendid Table" broadcast; Leyla Moushabeck, editor of "The Immigrant Cookbook: Recipes That Make America Great"; and Michael W. Twitty, author of "The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History in the Old South"

12:15 p.m.1:15 p.m.: History panel with Keisha N. Blain, "Set the World on Fire: Black Nationalist Women and the Global Struggle for Freedom"; Annette Gordon-Reed, "The Hemingses of Monticello"; Gilbert King, "Devil in the Grove"; and Terry Golway, "JFK, Day by Day"

1:30 p.m.2:30 p.m.: Mystery panel with Linda Fairstein, mystery author and former head of the Manhattan District Attorney sex crimes unit; Joseph Finder, suspense author; Laura Lippman, "Sunburn"; Walter Mosley, "Devil in a Blue Dress"

2:45 p.m.3:45 p.m.: Memoir panel on "The New Americans" with Julissa Arce, undocumented Mexican immigrant and author of "My (Underground) American Dream"; Maeve Higgins, New York-based Irish author of "Maeve in America"; Abdi Nor Iftin, Somali refugee and author of "Call Me American"; and Khizr Khan, Gold Star father and author of "An American Family: A Memoir of Hope and Sacrifice"

OUTDOOR TENT

Book signings to follow in the Great Hall

11 a.m.11:45 a.m.: Doris Kearns Goodwin, "Leadership in Turbulent Times"

12 p.m.12:45 p.m.: Gregory Maguire, "Wicked".

1 p.m.1:45 p.m. Memoir panel on "How We Grieve," with Jonathan Santlofer, author of "Anatomy of Fear," and Jeffrey Berman, UAlbany English professor and author of "Dying to Teach: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Learning."

2 p.m.2:45 p.m.: William Kennedy, "Bootlegger of the Soul"

3 p.m.3:45 p.m.: Walter Mosley, "John Woman"

BOARDROOM

Book signings to follow in the Great Hall

11 a.m.11:45 a.m.: Young Adult Fantasy with Kristen Ciccarelli, "The Last Namsara"

12 p.m.12:45 p.m.: Middle Grade Mystery Panel with Linda Fairstein and Lauren Magaziner ("Wizardmatch")

1 p.m.1:45 p.m.: Young Adult Panel with Katie Henry ("Heretics Anonymous") and Lygia Day Penaflor ("All of This is True")

CHILDREN'S ACTIVITY ROOM

12 p.m.: "My Albany, My Story" awards presentation for student-essay contest

TBD: Two author presentations featuring Ty Allan Jackson ("The Supadupa Kid")

WRITING WORKSHOPS:

Campus Center, The Bean

11 a.m.11:45 a.m.: David Pietrusza, presidential electoral historian

1 p.m.1:45 p.m.: Marion Roach Smith, memoirist

2 p.m.2:45 p.m.: Eugene Garber, fiction writer

Campus Center, The Orb

12 p.m.12:45 p.m.: Elizabeth Brundage, "The Doctor's Wife"

1 p.m.1:45 p.m.: Martin Nakell, poet and fiction writer

2 p.m.2:45 p.m.: Workshop on getting published with Mary Valentis, UAlbany professor and author of "Female Rage"Pittsfield, Mass.

The average tenure in the Juilliard String Quartet used to be about 30 years. That figure has gone down considerably with the turnover of first violinists in the past decade. Nick Eanat took the job in 2009 and lasted less than a year. His successor Joseph Lin departed after seven years.

Sunday afternoon Areta Zhulla made her debut as first violinist at South Mountain Concerts, now celebrating its centennial season and where the Juilliard is a well established presence. Zhulla is only the second female member of the quartet in its 62-year history. The first was cellist Astrid Schween who joined in 2016 when Joel Krosnick retired after 42 years.

Only time will tell if personnel matters have settled down for the beloved Juilliard. Likewise it could take a few seasons for a new group sound to fall into place. Judging from Sunday's concert, the members are still getting acquainted. The performances were decent, nothing glaring but nothing particular stirring either.

Beethoven's Quartet in D Major, Op. 19, No. 3 was an understated way to start the afternoon. The players approached it with an attitude that was either relaxed or tentative. Subtle music sometimes demands greater concentration, but there seemed little force or common intent behind the restrained playing. Zhulla's sound often felt dainty and when her phrases ended with upward turns, the effect was squeaky.

Dvorak's Quartet in F Major, Op. 96 "American" ended the afternoon in a more vigorous and reassuring manner. The performance was appropriately bright and clear. The Lento movement received the most coherent and focused playing of the afternoon.

In between Beethoven and Dvorak came a world premiere by the 37-year old Lembit Beecher. Commissioned for South Mountain's centennial, Beecher's "One Hundred Years Grows Shorter Over Time" consisted of three movements of similar content but increasingly smaller scale. The writing was agitated and disjointed, with each instrument on a rather independent and jagged course.

Among the many solos, the cello's swooping phrases played pizzicato were especially beautiful. But the music remained in an emotional state of longing, loss and departure. The spaces between the notes, the composer's deliberate misalignments, seemed to call out. Couldn't these jagged fragments be put back together and healed?

Beecher's inspiration for the piece was a waltz written by his uncle. Finally, as the quartet faded away, violist Roger Tapping played the music intact and in a distant gray voice akin to an old phonograph.

Speaking of long tenures in the music business, South Mountain's director Lou Steigler was honored for his service  37 years and counting.

Joseph Dalton is a freelance writer based in Troy.ALBANY - When Ivan Morales Sr. took over his son's finances after he was imprisoned in Vermont for violently attacking a former girlfriend, he discovered receipts for thousands of dollars in checks made out to his son Martin by a Catholic priest in Greene County.

"I asked him what was a priest doing giving my son all this money," Morales told the Times Union in 2012. "He had no answer."

Martin Morales, who had been an altar boy, eventually told his parents after he attacked the woman in 2011 that the pastor at their church, the Rev. Jeremiah Nunan, had abused him from the time he was 7 until he was 21, the Times Union reported. After Martin's arrest, his brother, Ivan Jr., told their parents he too had been abused by Nunan.

Six years later, this past June, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany permanently barred the priest from ministry after its Review Board found reasonable grounds that he had sexually abused a minor in the early 1990s. The decision was published July 5 in The Evangelist newspaper and announced at weekend Masses at the two churches Nunan had led in Greene County.

The priest's banning came as the Catholic church's clergy abuse scandal has flared up nationally and in other countries. This summer the church in the United States has been roiled by a ground-breaking Pennsylvania grand jury investigation that reported more than 300 priests had abused more than 1,000 children over 70 years.

That report of the grand jury led by Attorney General Josh Shapiro led other states to mount their own investigations. In New York, Attorney General Barbara Underwood has begun a civil investigation with subpoenas to the eight Catholic dioceses in the state. She has enlisted county district attorneys for possible criminal prosecution.

Attorneys general in New Jersey, Illinois, Missouri and Nebraska said they are also launching investigations.

Nunan, 81, was on administrative leave for six years after allegations that he sexually abused the Morales brothers when he was pastor of Sacred Heart parish in Cairo and Our Lady of Knock mission in East Durham.

He joined the Albany diocese in 1963 and also served at St. Henry's parish in Averill Park, St. Mary's in Little Falls, Our Lady of the Assumption in Latham and St. Mary's in Hudson. He was also a chaplain at Columbia Memorial Hospital School for Nursing in Hudson.

The church said Nunan denied the allegations as well as previous abuse accusations that had not been substantiated. It's not clear what evidence was presented to the board that led to Nunan's removal or why it took six years.

He was the first Albany diocese priest to be removed from the ministry since 2014 when Michael Taylor was convicted of endangering the welfare of a child after having inappropriate contact with a 15-year-old.

Mary DeTurris Poust, director of communications for the diocese, said the board's reports on sexual abuse allegations are not made public. She said she was not aware of any other allegations against Nunan since he was placed on leave in 2012.

Martin Morales is still a Vermont state prison inmate. His brother, Ivan Jr., is a New York state trooper.

The Albany diocese is negotiating with Morales' attorney, Mitchell Garabedian. Garabedian represented many victims of pedophile priests in the Boston archdiocese, following a major scandal in 2002 that led to more revelations of widespread abuse across the country.

This summer, shortly before Underwood said she would investigate how the states eight dioceses and other church entities had historically handled allegations of extensive sexual abuse of minors, Albany Bishop Edward Scharfenberger asked Albany County District Attorney David Soares to investigate how the 14-county Roman Catholic Diocese handled past allegations.

The bishop said he requested that Soares review diocesan records of cases and determine to "what extent survivors were heard and believed, what processes were followed, and what consequences resulted."

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His statement in an open letter to the diocese reflected Scharfenberger's approach to clergy sex abuse.

In August, Scharfenberger called for the creation of a commission of Catholic lay people to investigate his "brother bishops" and their handling over the years of abuse.

That followed allegations that former Washington Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick sexually abused minors and adult seminarians for decades. McCarrick resigned as a cardinal and Pope Francis removed him from ministry.

McCarrick's successor called for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to create a panel to look into allegations of sexual misconduct by its members.



Scharfenberger disagreed.

"Bishops alone investigating bishops is not the answer," he said. "To have credibility, a panel would have to be separated from any source of power whose trustworthiness might potentially be compromised."

--------------------------------------------

Victims and anyone with information about abuse can contact Attorney General Barbara Underwoods office at 800-771-7755 or file a complaint online at ag.ny.gov/ClergyAbuse.

The Albany Roman Catholic Diocese is asking anyone who has a child who was sexually abused by a Catholic priest or deacon to report the matter to a law enforcement agency or to the diocese. The dioceses assistance coordinator, Frederick Jones, can be contacted at 518-453-6646 or by email at assistance.coordinator@rcda.org.ALBANY  Court officers say that courthouses across the state are dangerously understaffed, and that "Raise the Age," to be phased in on Oct. 1, will overwhelm the system.

The officers were joined by union leaders and elected officials at a press conference and rally in Brooklyn Tuesday. They are calling for increased oversight over the Office of Court Administration, and for more state resources to be designated toward security at courthouses.

Failing to do so would put the public, jurors, and court staff at risk, according Dennis Quirk, president of the New York State Court Officers Association, and Patrick Cullen, president of New York State Supreme Court Officers Association.

"We are short 350 to 400 court officers .. If we can't feel safe, how can the general public which uses the courts every day feel safe?" Quirk said.

Quirk and Cullen, whose unions represent about 3,500 officers, are frequent critics of OCA's management of the court system and have long called for the Legislature and Gov. Andrew Cuomo to step in. They say New York's Chief Judge Janet DiFiore has been unwilling to meet with union leaders.

"Sooner or later someone is going to be killed and their death will be on the plate of the chief judge and the chief administrative judge," Cullen said, referring to DiFiore and Lawrence K. Marks, the court system's chief administrative judge.

Raise the Age, when fully implemented, will prevent 16- and 17-year-olds from automatically being tried as adults in criminal court and will require them to be housed separately from the adult prison population. The program will be implemented in two phases, with 16-year-old offenders moved through the Family Court system as of Oct. 1 and 17-year-old offenders processed in Family Court starting in Oct. 1, 2019.

To help facilitate the shift, court officers will be moved from criminal courts to family courts, which will make it impossible for officers to guarantee the public's safety, according to Quirk and Cullen.

Union leaders say that court officer levels are down nearly 33 percent in 10 years and that courtrooms which typically had four officers, now have two. They say OCA has hired judges and lawyers instead of court officers, and a $35 million training academy budgeted 10 years ago is still unfinished.

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Violence at courthouses is common; 60 officers in New York City and Long Island are currently on injury leave. New York court officers confiscated a toy hand grenade in June as well as dozens of knives, meat axes, pipes and pistols in a four-week period at just one courthouse in Queens, according to union leaders.

Lucian Chalfen, a spokesman for OCA, said that the safety and security of the state's court facilities is paramount.

"We are extremely confident in the dedication, training, skill and professionalism of all our 4,000 Court Officers throughout New York City and State in maintaining order and keeping the courts safe and secure for the Judges, lawyers, court staff, litigants and jurors who use them on a daily basis," he said.

Chalfen credited the officers' vigilance for catching the toy grenade in Queens, noting that it was just one example of officers handling such situations "with ease on a daily basis."

State Sen. Marty Golden, R-Brooklyn, also participated in Tuesday's rally.TROY  A group of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute alumni, concerned by what they've denounced as widespread mismanagement by RPI leadership, is condemning what they see as the school's attempt to bury a meeting where its issues can be aired.

The group Renew Rensselaer earlier this year published "The Untold Story," which analyzes what the alumni call the financial, educational and institutional problems facing RPI. The lengthy report, posted on the group's website, argued that the university's endowment fund had grown stagnant, its debt load had increased and its academic rankings had declined.

Earlier this year, Renew Rensselaer tried to set up a meeting with the official Rensselaer Alumni Association to address these concerns, but received a less than enthusiastic response.

The group asked for the RAA to schedule it during this weekend's Reunion & Homecoming weekend "to maximize and simplify attendance for alumni," Renew Rensselaer said in a statement.

Instead, the RAA scheduled the meeting for the early morning of Oct. 8  Columbus Day.

" ... The RAA chose to ignore its bylaws and is allowing the administration to hold a 'town hall' type meeting after (homecoming), on a federal holiday, at 8:30 a.m. surely a tactic designed to minimize alumni attendance and turn the meeting into a public relations showcase for the administration," Renew Rensselaer's statement continued.

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"As a result, Renew Rensselaer does not recognize the RAA's meeting as valid and will not be attending it," the group said.

Renew Rensselaer is instead urging alumni to attend its own meeting on Saturday at 3 p.m. at the Oakwood Community Center on 313 10th Street.

RPI spokeswoman Richie Hunter said that the RAA asked the school's administration to participate in the meeting. "The Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute cabinet looks forward to discussing the transformative work occurring on campus as well as the critical issues facing the university," Hunter said.

Renew Rensselaer has been active for almost two years and says nearly 1,000 alumni have signed a petition supporting its platform.

In an email, Hunter pointed to things like RPI's increased investment into research, as well as the development of new classrooms, labs and dorm facilities. Hunter also brought up RPI's consistent standing as a top 50 university by U.S. News and World Report for 19 years.The arrest and resignation of a Schenectady County corrections officer charged with burglarizing a neighbor's home in Colonie brings to about 50 employees at the county jail who have been fired or forced out after allegedly running afoul of the law since 2010.

Sheriff Dominic Dagostino said Wednesday he expects his employees to behave themselves off and off the job.

"We don't put up with nonsense and the unfortunate part is that we can manage our employees when they're here ... but we can't manage their personal life," said Dagostino, who is in his third term and has led the roughly 210-member department for eight years.

Colonie police say Robert Sala, 30, entered a home on Cohoes Road on July 16 and did not find any money. They said a resident woke up and spotted Sala, who ran away.

Sala turned himself over to police on Monday night, according to Lt. Robert Winn, a Colonie police spokesman. Sala was arraigned Monday night in town court on charges of second-degree burglary and petit larceny.

Dagostino noted that most of the incidents that have tarnished his office are related to off-duty conduct or alleged criminal behavior.

He said besides the physical fitness evaluation, the county conducts a comprehensive screening and interviewing process, including in-depth background investigations and psychological evaluation which is punctuated by a face-to-face interview with Dagostino and the administrative staff.

"The problem is even with your best vetting process, you still can't guarantee or predict the future actions of prospective employees or current employees," added the sheriff. "All you can do is manage them and set a level of expectation that they can either choose to live up to or not and if they don't live up to our level of expectation, I think it's been made abundantly clear that we don't put up with it. "

He also said those who have been in trouble with the law run the gamut from newcomers with little or no time or experience to more senior and seasoned employees with decades on the job.

"I would suggest that the majority of our officers are very good and live up to the expectations that we set professionally for them," said Dagostino.

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Sala, who had been on the job since March 2016 and was earning $44,820 a year, resigned Thursday, according to officials.

The Times Union requested court documents on the case early Wednesday from the clerk's office of the Colonie Town Court. Several hours later, as the office was about to close, a Times Union reporter was told to sit tight and wait -- only to see the curtain to the office close. An employee said through a door the office was closed.

In April, four Schenectady County jail officers  Sgt. Lloyd Robistow, Sgt. Richard Cellini and Correction Officers Eric Bailey and Paul Lafreniere -- resigned amid allegations they consorted with a former co-worker, David Garhartt, who was facing a felony drug charge.

The sheriff's office is made up of the jail, civil division, road patrol and specialty units such as the street crimes task force and drug unit among others.NISKAYUNA - A packed Niskayuna public hearing Tuesday on a proposal to make the town's dog-barking law stricter got heated over concerns about wording, enforcement and whether or not it targeted Aqueduct Animal Hospital. Barking at the clinic has provoked complaints from neighbors, but the owner and clients said stricter fines could cripple the 60-year-old business on Balltown Road.

Two dozen residents spoke in Town Hall during the 90-minute hearing on the proposed changes, some brought to tears before the Town Board. Most were loyal clients of the animal hospital who expressed their support for the business and opposition to the proposed changes. Some criticized the wording as vague and said the town fails to enforce the current code. Others faulted the town Planning Board for allowing a developer to build a housing development beside an animal hospital and blamed homeowners for buying there and then complaining.

Three nearby residents on Shwaber Drive voiced their frustrations and expressed hope they could work together for a solution. All are dog owners and one is also a client of the animal hospital.

Tension spiked in the room when the animal hospital's owner, veterinarian Dr. Matthew Pike, said he felt his business was being targeted and demanded that Council member John Della Ratta apologize for a quote that singled out complaints about the animal hospital in a Daily Gazette article. Town Attorney Rob Hess responded that the town had received more than 100 complaints about dog barking in the last two years from 50 different sources.

Current town law fines owners if dogs bark continuously for 15 minutes or more without a gap of 30 seconds and can be heard anywhere beyond the owner's property. Changes would cut the barking time to 10 minutes and fine owners if their dogs barked intermittently over a period of 20 minutes at night and 30 minutes during the day. Fines are $50 for the first offense, $100 for the second offense and $250 for the third and following offenses.

Numerous residents said "intermittently" hasn't been defined. Some said they feared that neighbors could call the cops on them if their dogs barked once or twice over the course of 20 minutes.

Voices on both sides said the current law hasn't been enforced. Andrey Meshkov has lived on Shwaber Drive neighboring the animal hospital for 12 years and said barking wakes up his children at night. He said no complaint about barking at the hospital has resulted in a fine because it's difficult to find out which dog was barking and then penalize the owner.

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Despite high emotions and strong words during the meeting, Meshkov and others said they want to work together to solve the problem.

"It's tough to come up with in one evening," he said, "but hopefully it will be a continued conversation. Whatever happens I hate anyone being forced to do something that hurts a lot of people. Hurting the business hurts a lot of dog owners. We have been hurting for a long time, we've been containing it."

The end of the hearing saw Pike meeting with Meshkov, who had only spoken together over the phone previously. Pike said he has been working for months on planning proposals to expand the business and research methods to reduce barking and wants to collaborate with neighbors.

"I think after tonight I'm more confident that the town won't threaten my business. I'm grateful for the support of my customers who came out and pointed out the obvious flaws in the ordinance," Pike said. "I feel like we were able to come together today."

The Town Board will decide when or if to vote on the resolution to change the town code.A man accused of threatening another person with a frying pan is among the fugitives State Police said they are searching for as part of their Warrant Wednesday initiative aimed at catching fugitives.

Adam L. Delaney, 29, is wanted on a charge of menacing. The warrant was issued on April 23 of this year after Delaney failed to report to court in Skaneateles, Onondaga County, to face the accusation from 2015.

In other cases:

 Amanda Cortes, 27, is wanted by State Police in Coxsackie on a misdemeanor drug charge that troopers said stemmed from the discovery of drugs in a locker at the Greene Correctional Facility.

Troopers said Cortes was visiting the prison when a dog with the Department of Corrections and Community Service smelled drugs in a locker used by visitors, troopers said. Amphetamine and dextroamphetamine were found during the search and Cortes admitted they were hers and she did not have a prescription for them.

Troopers said the warrant was issued after Cortes did not appear in court to answer the charges.

 Elshamar T. Thornton, 25, is wanted by State Police in Livingston on a felony drug possession charge. Troopers said Thornton was arrested in July 2017 and failed to go to court for scheduled appearances.

 David C. Velie, 41, is wanted by State Police in Plattsburgh on a variety of charges that accuse him of having contact with a person despite an order of protection issued in Clinton County Court. Trooper said Velie used a social media app to send messages to the victim in July and August 2016. Troopers said Velie may be living in Florida.

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 Nicholas L. Whitney, 27, is wanted by State Police in Binghamton on a charge of criminal mischief. Whitney is accused of failing to appear in Kirkwood Town Court to answer the charge.

 Chester Ingram, 30, is wanted by State Police in Farmingdale on a charge of driving while intoxicated. Ingram was arrested on June 2, 2018, and the warrant was issued July 13, 2018, after he failed to appear in Nassau County district court.

 Everett S. Ridenour, 33, is wanted by State Police in Buffalo on a drunken driving charge that stems from a Sept. 9, 2006, traffic stop on the state Thruway. Troopers said Ridenour was pulled over for speeding and State Police discovered he was intoxicated.

 William J. Taylor, 39, is wanted by State Police in Cobleskill on a drunken driving charge. Troopers said Taylor was charged after a Dec. 21, 2015 crash. The warrant was issued in January.United Nations

President Donald Trump accused Democrats on Tuesday of orchestrating "a con game" against Judge Brett Kavanaugh in hopes of stopping his confirmation to the Supreme Court and said that one of two women who have accused him of sexual misconduct as a student was "all messed up" and "drunk" at the time.

Lashing out as more stories emerged about Kavanaugh's youth, Trump dispensed with the restraint that advisers have urged him to exercise and adopted the attack mode he prefers. Much as other Republicans have increasingly done in recent days, he portrayed the allegations against Kavanaugh as character assassination.

"I think it's horrible what the Democrats have done. It's a con game they're playing; they're really con artists," he said while in New York for the annual session of the U.N. General Assembly. "They don't believe it themselves. They know he's a high-quality person. They don't believe it. It's just resist and obstruct. They are playing a con game and they are playing it very well. They play it actually much better than Republicans."

He went on to call it a con game several more times, even at one point spelling it out, "C-O-N."

The president's comments came as Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans said that they had retained an outside counsel to aid in Thursday's hearing, when Kavanaugh and his first accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, are scheduled to testify separately. The committee declined to identify the lawyer, who is a woman, citing safety concerns.

Blasey, who also goes by her married name, Ford, had sought to have senators question her rather than a lawyer. But mindful of the backlash after sharp questioning of Anita F. Hill during confirmation hearings for Justice Clarence Thomas in 1991, the all-male group of Republicans on the committee preferred to pass off the task to a professional and a woman.

"We have done it because we want to depoliticize the whole process, like the Democrats politicized the Anita Hill thing," said Sen. Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, the Judiciary Committee chairman.

Grassley said the woman would also question Kavanaugh, although it was unclear if she would be the only one on the Republican side to do so.

"The whole purpose is to create an environment where it's like what Dr. Ford has asked for, to be professional and not be a circus."

For most of the past couple weeks, Trump has stuck to the script of defending his nominee without directly attacking the women accusing him. In recent days, the president has at times gone further, explicitly questioning the credibility of Blasey, saying that if the sexual assault she described happening in the early 1980s "was as bad as she says," she or her parents would have reported it to the authorities.

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His comments on Tuesday, however, went further than before. Even as the president of Colombia sat next to him during what was supposed to be a diplomatic meeting between the two heads of state, Trump expressed aggravation and anger, taking on the latest accuser in more scathing and personal terms.

Without naming her, Trump singled out Deborah Ramirez, who said in an interview with The New Yorker published this week that Kavanaugh exposed himself to her during a drinking party while they were students at Yale University.

"She said she was totally inebriated and she was all messed up and she doesn't know it was him but it might have been him," Trump said. Then, speaking sarcastically, he added, "Oh, gee, let's not make him a Supreme Court judge because of that."

Democrats argued that Trump and other Republicans were casting a verdict without actually hearing from any accusers. "Senate Republicans promised that 'anyone who comes forward as Dr. Ford has deserves to be heard,'" Senate Democrats said in a statement. "Unfortunately, it appears that Republican leaders have prejudged the outcome of Thursday's hearing."

Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, one of the Republicans on the fence, said her colleagues should not prejudge the allegations.One of the dubious advantages of a Supreme Court nomination battle is how it brings into the open some of the vicious ideological arguments that are normally hidden by shame and discretion. That has certainly been true on the right, with some figures demonstrating a callousness toward the charge of attempted rape that would presumably change if their own children were even remotely threatened.

On different issues, this has been a revealing moment on the left as well. Asked this past weekend by CNN's Jake Tapper if Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh deserves a presumption of innocence, Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, offered a curious response. She argued that Kavanaugh's denial of sexual misconduct is less credible because "he has an ideological agenda that's very outcome-driven, and I can sit here and talk to you about some of the cases that exemplify his, in my view, inability to be fair in the cases that come before him." Hirono added: "He very much is against women's reproductive choice. ... So there are so many indications of his own lack of credibility."

It is not easy to unpack an argument that was packed so haphazardly. But Hirono appears to be contending that Kavanaugh is more prone to lie about sexual assault because his approach to judicial interpretation is extreme and deceptive, and because he is probably opposed to Roe v. Wade. These beliefs, she seems to be saying, are indications of bad character.

At one level, this is an indication of an outcome orientation that has seized partisans on both sides (including Hirono) in the Supreme Court/culture war/cage match politics of our day. Given the stakes of the nomination battle, politicians and advocates are willing to wield any charge that comes to hand, from the very serious to the barely coherent.

But why this particular charge? Does Hirono actually believe that being pro-life (something Kavanaugh, by the way, has not acknowledged) and a judicial conservative makes someone more prone to lie about attempted rape? I guess it depends. The argument might go: Conservatives who talk about judicial restraint are really seeking the outcome of making abortion illegal. This is a form of deception. And since violating the autonomy of women (in this argument) is inherently misogynistic, therefore Kavanaugh is naturally an anti-woman liar.

Set aside for a moment the question of Kavanaugh's guilt or innocence. That depends on the facts of the case (or cases), which should be carefully and fairly examined. The question I have for my liberal friends is different: Has Hirono let slip what you really think when people  people like me  call themselves judicial textualists who are also pro-life? Do you think this is not just mistaken thinking but a sign of absent integrity?

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I also want to set aside the merits of the abortion issue itself. I only ask: Is it possible to believe, as a matter of principle, that rootless judicial activism is anti-democratic and dangerous? Is it feasible that some people are genuinely disturbed by a medical procedure that begins with two genetically distinct human beings and ends with one? Is it reasonable to credit the good intentions of millions of men and women who want the circle of inclusion and protection to include every human life, at every stage of development?

There is, of course, a mirror-image problem of pro-life activists who regard pro-choice people as murderers. But that is precisely the point. There is a strong current of dehumanization running in our politics. The rival crew, it turns out, is not only wrong, but evil. And how can mortal enemies embrace the give and take of a shared political project? Only the raw exercise of power can decide between them. The goal is no longer to win arguments but to crush opposition.

This is the moral risk of extreme political polarization: dehumanization. In our circumstance, it has emerged in the bipartisan dehumanization of political opponents and in the nativist dehumanization of certain groups: migrants, refugees and Muslims. This is not politics as usual; it is political pyromania. Our democracy is designed for disagreement. It is broken by mutual contempt.

Just like a five-alarm conflagration is probably the wrong time for a fire-safety class, I'm not sure how it is possible to teach the proper way to argue in a democracy during a nomination battle. But maybe the lesson should begin with members of the United States Senate, who are losing badly in a very different trial.The following editorial appeared in the New York Daily News:

As comebacks go, Wall Street's is a helluva story.

In a death spiral just a decade ago, its giants toppled one by one by their own greed and hubris and leverage piled atop the homes where a nation of little guys struggled to keep the American dream alive.

Now, 10 years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the government buyout of insurer AIG, the banks' rescue by JP Morgan Chase, a pile of capital from Treasury and swift rate cuts from the Fed, New York's financial industry pulses with energies nearing past heights, powering the economies of both city and state with renewed luster.

This is a revival for Gotham to celebrate. And it has a strong supporting role played by federal regulation assailed by the likes of President Donald Trump.

The latest report on the financial sector from state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli bursts with evidence of how much it all matters to New York's success:

To employment, where every one of the 197,300 jobs on Wall Street spurs the creation of three others.

To prosperity, with the average industry salary reaching $422,500.

To state and city tax collections, contributing a record $18.2 billion in 2017, enabling recent expansions of school, police and social service funding.

Sign up for The Knick  Get the latest news and some area history with our afternoon newsletter.

All this while the sector evolved to comply with the Dodd-Frank reform law, designed to stop reckless risk-taking with other people's money and end lending practices that set mortgage borrowers up to fail.

Meantime, the city and state's economies have diversified, so even as Wall Street's total tax contribution has grown, its share of the total has shrunk since the bubble's peak  meaning that New York leans less heavily than it did on the fortunes of this single, cyclical sector.

Yes, super-earners bid up the price of housing and exacerbate nagging economic inequality.

But the alternative  the collapse of New York's most important sector  is unthinkable.September 25, 2018





ZhongAn Technology, a publicly listed Hong Kong-based corporation recently announced the launch of its new blockchain diamond tracking platform. The firm, which is a subsidiary of ZhongAn insurance, Chinas first online insurance agency, believes that blockchain can potentially disrupt the luxury goods market.







The platform, known as Diamsledger, will serve the purpose of much-needed provenance when trading diamonds. The idea of creating better ways to authenticate luxury items goes a long way toward solving one of the markets most distressing problems. Recently, Everledger launched a similar luxury-focused technology which provides solutions to diamond storage. There has also been a significant focus on blockchain applications for provenance and verification in several industries including art and transportation.

According to Diamsledger CEO, Zhang Yongwen, the company has successfully uploaded the data of 760,000 diamonds onto the blockchain platform so far. With this project, it hopes to increase the level of traceability and transparency at every single point of the luxury item supply chain. Using the platform, all relevant stakeholders including customers, diamond dealers, customs, logistics firms, exchange centers, and processing firms can easily view the entire history of a diamond from production to ownership.

Typically, diamond traders and customers are required to present certificates of authentication as proof that the gems being traded are not synthetic counterfeits. Unfortunately, in the face of recent technological advancements, this certificate system is fast becoming outdated. Blockchain technology has the potential to replace this failing system in the future. However, for now, those certificates are still functional and highly regarded.

Why Do Diamonds Need to Be on a Blockchain?

For centuries, global diamonds have represented beauty, luxury and wealth. They are mined and cut into various shapes that make their way onto the bodies of the wealthy and influential. However, not every diamond is really what it seems and beneath the shine is a fake gem and a customer who has been scammed.

This situation in which a customer purchases a luxury item that ends up being a counterfeit happens a lot in the industry. It is a huge challenge to deal with especially considering the lengths that scammers go to and the amount of money at stake. To prove that the gems are authentic, they have to be accompanied by a certificate of authentication from the relevant authorities. These certificates, while verifiable, can also be forged so the best solution may lie in blockchain technology.

As the diamond market becomes more saturated with fake products, increasingly anxious customers require knowledge of where their products came from and what processes theyve passed through so far. There have been reports of cruelty to diamond mine workers and a host of other worrisome practices and customers often demand ethically sourced diamonds.

The technology makes corporations more accountable for errors in their supply chain. Also, such corporations can no longer claim to be ignorant about the sources of their products and the unethical processes used to source them. Using a blockchain platform, this can easily be verified.

A blockchain is a digital distributed ledger, hosted on a peer-based network, which records every single transaction on it. Since blockchains are append-only, new and old transactions concerning a particular diamond cannot be changed. This way, the entire journey of the gem can be traced at every single point. The issue of certificate forgery is also eliminated because a blockchain requires the consensus of its network nodes to append it. No single person can put out a false transaction.

The diamond industry has already started putting the technology to the test as several blockchain firms like Everledger and TrustChain have recently emerged within the space. While these projects have generated a decent amount of buzz and excitement, they were not the first blockchain projects that target supply chain traceability. The technology was once used in chicken farming to track and record progress. Each step of the supply chain was traced from production and processing to the final market.

What is Diamsleger?

During the announcement in August 2018, ZhongAn Technology revealed its partnership with Ediams, a prominent online diamond trading firm. As a result of the partnership between them, Diamsledger will serve as a subsidiary to both firms for the marketing of the project. Together, both companies have created and deployed the blockchain technology platform which is currently built on ZhongAns blockchain and hosted on the Anlink cloud platform.

The Guangzhou Diamond Exchange (GDE), a partly state-owned diamond trading platform has also announced plans to launch on the Diamsledger platform. Being the only government approved online merchant that specializes in rough diamonds, the firm has likely contributed to the large number of recorded diamonds on the platform so far.

How Does the Technology Work?

To ZhongAn Technology, the main aim of the project is merely to provide an immutable and transparent ledger, hosted on a decentralized network that handles easy and accurate tracking for diamonds. This platform will render every single piece of information concerning the gems and be easily retrievable.

Most of the diamonds on the Ediams online trading platform are certified with the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) or National Gemstone Testing Center (NGTC), Chinas state-owned verification organization. Each diamond has its own electronic ID that is linked with its GIA or NGTC certificates.

On the Diamsledger platform, customers can easily search for the GIA, NGTC and HRD information for their diamonds by entering its certificate number. The system also has an advanced image recognition feature to prevent fraud by identifying diamonds using their pictures.

Although the blockchain does not replace the traditional paper certification, it provides even more information than the certificates. For example, users can view mining, cutting, inspection, dealership, logistics, clearance, processing and exchange information which isnt readily available on paper certificates.

When diamond owners sell their gems, the information can be appended to the blockchain, constituting another milestone in its lifespan. Coupled with traditional certificates which contain the origin and physical specifications of diamonds, the authentication blockchain completely assures customers of the authenticity of their diamonds. This type of trade in the luxury goods market could change the way other commodities are traded globally, leading to more open and transparent commerce.

The firm hopes that in the future, customers can easily access information pertaining to luxury items from a smartphone when buying from their favorite retailers like Tiffany & Co. Currently, the WeChat applet can be used for this purpose.

Final Thoughts

For a while, ZhongAn technology has been experimenting with blockchain applications to solve various problems. One significant past initiative is a blockchain tracking application for the food supply chain. The firm has also secured a patent for a solution to media piracy, using the technology.

Diamsledger is the first platform in China that offers this particular service for now, but that may soon change. With the countries population and rate of technological advancement, it may only be a matter of time before more provenance and tracking companies emerge within the luxury goods market.

Globally, other corporations have been taking big steps towards the same thing. One example is De Beers which announced its blockchain project at the beginning of 2018. Another example is IBM (News - Alert) which announced its development of the TrustChain gem provenance platform. Together, these firms are building a solid foundation for a fraud-free market. Hopefully, in the near future, blockchain provenance will become commonplace for any luxury item.[September 25, 2018] depa-HUBBA kicks off "Startup Battleground Hackathon"

BANGKOK, Thailand, Sept. 25, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Digital Economy Promotion Agency (depa), HUBBA Thailand and Techstars jointly announce the grand opening of the 'Startup Battleground' Hackathon in Digital Thailand Big Bang 2018 and boast that over 500 startups have submitted the applications to make a play for the rewards worth more than 1.5 million baht. Eat'em all, a new green tech startup, won the first prize after 5-day long competition. Mr. Chatchai Khunpitiluck, Senior Executive Vice President of Digital Economy Promotion Agency (depa) said that the Startup Battleground Hackathon is one of the highlights in Digital Thailand Big Bang 2018, which is co-hosted by the government's agency (depa), the Thai private sector (HUBBA Thailand) and the world's leading accelerator (Techstars). The objectives of this hackathon is to gather the ideas to create new innovations to support the government's ten targeed industries and to give a chance to new startups to gain experiences with experts in the workshop and the pitching.



"We received a good response from startups as over 500 startups in seed stage paraded to submit their applications to join the hackathon which has award worth 1.5 million baht in total. We are confident that this will be one of the greatest hackathons for the startups, of which the pitched ideas will be further developed in the targeted industries," said Mr. Chatchai The ten topics for the pitching comprise 1. Travel Tech 2. Food Tech 3. Agri Tech 4. Software as a Service (SaaS) 5. Living Tech 6. EdTech 7. Green Tech 8. HR Tech 9. e-Commerce and 10. Health Tech. The top three that have the most applicants are Living Tech, EdTech and e-Commerce, reflecting that there are still a plenty of ideas and pain points to be solved in these three industries.

Mr. Archawat Chareonsilp, Chief Strategy Officer of HUBBA Thailand said apart from the number of participants and the value of the awards, the Startup Battleground Hackathon has invited the experts in both Thai and global startup industries to share their knowledge and experiences to the participants, for example, Mr. Patai Padungtin, CEO and Evangelist of BUILK ONE Group, a construction management platform which has served contractors in five countries, Mr. Chris Chang, Program Manager for Techstars Adelaide Accelerator who has incubated startups across the APAC-region and Mr. Aldrich Huang, CEO and Co-Founder of UX Testing. "Hackathon is generally known as a design sprint-like platform to fuel the potential of new startups. We believe that the sharing from Thai and global experts will grow over 500 participants, strengthen Thai startup ecosystem and be a significant factor to drive the creation of innovation for the country's development," said Mr. Archawat. After 5-day long competition, Eat'em all, a new green tech startup, won the first prize and received 600,000 baht in cash. The team has developed a discount leftovers purchasing platform to help reduce the leftovers in restaurants. Eat'em all is now planning to improve their platform to become an application, increase their amount of active users, and add or develop a delivery system after winning the rewards. Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20180925/2247574-1-a SOURCE depa, Thailand

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][September 25, 2018] Intelsat and Azercosmos Announce Successful Launch of Intelsat 38 and Azerspace-2

Intelsat (News - Alert) S.A. (NYSE: I), operator of the world's first Globalized Network and leader in integrated satellite communications, and Azercosmos, the national satellite operator of Azerbaijan, announced the successful launch of the Intelsat 38 and Azerspace-2 satellite aboard an Ariane 5 launch vehicle from the Guiana Space Center in Kourou, French Guiana. Liftoff occurred at 6:38 pm EDT. The Intelsat 38 and Azerspace-2 satellite separated from the rocket's upper stage at 7:21 pm EDT. Signal acquisition has been confirmed. Intelsat 38 is a Ku-band satellite to be placed at the 45E orbital location. It will replace Intelsat 12 and host Direct-to-Home (DTH) platforms for Central and Eastern Europe as well as the Asia-Pacific region. Intelsat 38 will also provide connectivity for corporate networks and government applications in Africa. Intelsat 38 was built by SSL, a Maxar Technologies Ltd. company (formerly MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd.) (NYSE and TSX: MAXR). "Today's successful launch is a great example of the power and value derived from collaborating with other satellite operators," said Stephen Spengler, chief executive officer, Intelsat. "Intelsat's partnership with Azercosmos reflects a mutually beneficial collaboration that optimizes capital investments, leverages spectrum rights and facilitates refreshed and expanded capacity for customer growth. Intelsat 38's leading DTH platform will provide media customers with an opportunity to further expand their business as well as deliver enhanced services and differentiated content to viewers across Central and Eastern Europe and the Asia Pacific regions. It will also provide fast, resilient and redundant broadband connectivity to enterprise and government customers looking to expand their services in Africa." Azerspace-2 will help Azercosmos meet the growing demand for direct-to-home (DTH) television, government, and network services in Europe, Central and South Asia, the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa. The satellite will also provide high power Ku-band connectivity to the African continent from 45 degrees East. Azerspace-2 is ideally designed for smaller antennas and will deliver cross connectivity between East Africa, West Africa and Central Africa, Europe and Central Asia. "Azerpsace-2 is Azercosmos' second telecommunications satellite and will further expand the service currently available from Azerspace-1," said Rashad Nabiyev, chairman and chief Executive officer of Azercosmos. "The satellite will also enable us to provide more reliable service by serving as back-up for Azerspace-1 located at 46 degrees East, which is only one degree away from Azerspace-2. We are pleased to have collaborated with leaders of the global satellite industry throughout the implementation of this project." Intelsat 38 and Azercosmos-2 are expected to enter into service in the first quarter of 2019. Supporting Resources > Intelsat 38: http://www.intelsat.com/global-network/satellites/fleet/intelsat-38/

http://www.intelsat.com/global-network/satellites/fleet/intelsat-38/ Intelsat Media Solutions: http://www.intelsat.com/solutions/media/

http://www.intelsat.com/solutions/media/ Intelsat Broadband Solutions: http://www.intelsat.com/the-globalized-network/broadband/



About Intelsat Intelsat S.A. (NYSE: I) operates the world's first Globalized Network, delivering high-quality, cost-effective video and broadband services anywhere in the world. Intelsat's Globalized Network combines the world's largest satellite backbone with terrestrial infrastructure, managed services and an open, interoperable architecture to enable customers to drive revenue and reach through a new generation of network services. Thousands of organizations serving billions of people worldwide rely on Intelsat to provide ubiquitous broadband connectivity, multi-format video broadcasting, secure satellite communications and seamless mobility services. The end result is an entirely new world, one that allows us to envision the impossible, connect without boundaries and transform the ways in which we live. For more information, visit www.intelsat.com.

About Azercosmos Azercosmos is the premier satellite operator in the South Caucasus. Azerspace-1, the telecommunication satellite operated by Azercosmos, provides highly-reliable broadband and broadcast solutions to its customers in Europe, Africa, Middle East, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. The satellite, to operate in orbit for at least 15 years, was launched in February 2013 and is equipped with 36 transponders: 24 in C-band and 12 in Ku-band at 46 East longitude. In December 2014, Azercosmos took over the rights to operate and commercialize Azersky, high resolution (1.5m imagery products) optical Earth observation satellite, and entered into the commercial business of Earth observation services, including Geo-Information services. Strategic development plans of the company include enhancing the coverage area and spectrum of services. For this, the company launched the second telecommunications satellite Azerspace-2 at 45 East longitude in 2018. For more information, visit: www.azercosmos.com. Intelsat Safe Harbor Statement: Statements in this news release constitute "forward-looking statements" that do not directly or exclusively relate to historical facts. When used in this release, the words "may," "will," "might," "should," "expect," "plan," "anticipate," "project," "believe," "estimate," "predict," "intend," "potential," "outlook," and "continue," and the negative of these terms, and other similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements and information. The forward-looking statements reflect Intelsat's intentions, plans, expectations, anticipations, projections, estimations, predictions, outlook, assumptions and beliefs about future events and are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors, many of which are outside of Intelsat's control. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the expectations expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements include known and unknown risks. Known risks include, among others, the risks described in Intelsat's annual report on Form 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2017, its quarterly report on Form 6-K for the quarter ended June 30, 2018 and its other filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Because actual results could differ materially from Intelsat's intentions, plans, expectations, anticipations, projections, estimations, predictions, outlook, assumptions and beliefs about the future, you are urged to view all forward-looking statements with caution. Intelsat does not undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180925006265/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][September 25, 2018] Worldwide Converged Systems Revenue Increased 9.9% Year over Year During the Second Quarter of 2018 with Vendor Revenue Reaching $3.5 Billion, According to IDC

According to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Converged Systems Tracker, worldwide converged systems market revenue increased 9.9% year over year to $3.5 billion during the second quarter of 2018 (2Q18). "Datacenter infrastructure convergence remains an important investment driver for companies around the world," said Sebastian Lagana, research manager, Infrastructure Platforms and Technologies at IDC (News - Alert) . "HCI solutions helped to drive second quarter market expansion thanks, in part, to their ability to reduce infrastructure complexity, promote consolidation, and allow IT teams to support an organization's business objectives." Converged Systems Segments IDC's converged systems market view offers three segments: certified reference systems & integrated infrastructure, integrated platforms, and hyperconverged systems. The certified reference systems & integrated infrastructure market generated $1.3 billion in revenue during the second quarter, which was a year-over-year decline of 13.9% and represented 38.1% of total converged systems revenue. Dell Inc. was the largest supplier in this market segment with $639.8 million in sales and a 47.5% share. Cisco (News - Alert) /NetApp generated $481.0 million in sales, representing the second largest share of 35.7%. HPE generated $108.4 million in sales, representing 8.1% market share. Integrated platforms sales declined 12.5% year over year during the second quarter, generating revenues of $729.4 million. This amounted to 20.7% of the total converged systems market revenue. Oracle was the top-ranked supplier of integrated platforms during the quarter, generating revenues of $440.6 million and capturing a 60.4% share of this market segment. Revenue from hyperconverged systems sales grew 78.1% year over year during the second quarter of 2018, generating $1.5 billion worth of sales. This amounted to 41.2% of the total converged systems market. IDC offers two ways to rank technology suppliers within the hyperconverged systems market: by the brand of the hyperconverged solution or by the owner of the software providing the core hyperconverged capabilities. Rankings based on a branded view of the market can be found in the first table of this press release and rankings based on the owner of the hyperconverged software can be found in the second table. Both tables include all the software and hardware revenues, summing to the same market size. As it relates to the branded view of the hyperconverged systems market, Dell Inc. was the largest supplier with $418.7 million in revenue and a 28.8% share. Nutanix generated $275.3 million in branded revenue with the second largest share of 18.9%. Cisco and HPE were statistically tied** for the quarter, with $77.7 million and $72.0 million in revenue, or 5.3% and 4.9% in market share, respectively.







Top 3 Companies, Worldwide Hyperconverged Systems, Q2 2018 (Revenues are in US$ millions) Company 2Q18

Revenue 2Q18

Market

Share 2Q17

Revenue 2Q17

Market

Share 2Q18/2Q17

Revenue

Growth 1. Dell Inc.* $418.7 28.8% $214.5 26.3% 95.2% 2. Nutanix $275.3 18.9% $185.4 22.7% 48.5% T3. Cisco** $77.7 5.3% $53.5 6.6% 45.2% T3. HPE** $72.0 4.9% $32.8 4.0% 119.4% All Others $611.2 42.0% $330.4 40.5% 85.0% Total $1,454.8 100% $816.6 100% 78.1% Source (News - Alert) : IDC Worldwide Quarterly Converged Systems Tracker, September 25, 2018

Notes:

* - Dell Inc. represents the combined revenues for Dell and EMC (News - Alert) sales for all quarters shown. ** - IDC declares a statistical tie in the worldwide converged systems market when there is a difference of one percent or less in the revenue share of two or more vendors. From the software ownership view of the market, systems running Nutanix's hyperconverged software represented $497.7 million in total second quarter vendor revenue, or 34.2% of the total market. Systems running VMware's hyperconverged software represented $495.8 million in second quarter vendor revenue, or 34.1% of the total market. Both amounts represent all software and hardware revenue, regardless of how it was ultimately branded. Top 3 Companies, Worldwide Hyperconverged Systems Based on Owner of HCI Software, Q2

2018 (Revenues are in US$ millions) Company 2Q18

Revenue 2Q18

Market

Share 2Q17

Revenue 2Q17

Market

Share 2Q18/2Q17

Revenue

Growth T1. Nutanix** $497.7 34.2% $263.4 32.3% 88.9% T1. VMware** $495.8 34.1% $252.1 30.9% 96.7% T3. Dell Inc.* ** $79.3 5.4% $69.4 8.5% 14.3% T3. Cisco** $77.7 5.3% $53.5 6.6% 45.2% T3. HPE** $72.0 4.9% $42.3 5.2% 70.4% All Others $232.4 16.7% $136.0 16.0% 70.9% Total $1,454.8 100.0% $816.6 100.0% 78.1% Source: IDC Worldwide Quarterly Converged Systems Tracker, September 25, 2018 Notes:

* - Dell Inc. represents the combined revenues for Dell and EMC sales for all quarters shown. ** - IDC declares a statistical tie in the worldwide converged systems market when there is a difference of one percent or less in the revenue share of two or more vendors. In addition to the tables above, a graphic illustrating worldwide converged systems market share by product category over the previous five quarters is available by viewing this press release on IDC.com. Taxonomy Notes

IDC defines converged systems as pre-integrated, vendor-certified systems containing server hardware, disk storage systems, networking equipment, and basic element/systems management software. Systems not sold with all four of these components are not counted within this tracker. Specific to management software, IDC includes embedded or integrated management and control software optimized for the auto discovery, provisioning and pooling of physical and virtual compute, storage and networking resources shipped as part of the core, standard integrated system. Numbers in this press release may not sum due to rounding. Certified reference systems & integrated infrastructure are pre-integrated, vendor-certified systems containing server hardware, disk storage systems, networking equipment, and basic element/systems management software. Integrated platforms are integrated systems that are sold with additional pre-integrated packaged software and customized system engineering optimized to enable such functions as application development software, databases, testing, and integration tools. Hyperconverged systems collapse core storage and compute functionality into a single, highly virtualized solution. A key characteristic of hyperconverged systems that differentiate these solutions from other integrated systems is their scale-out architecture and their ability to provide all compute and storage functions through the same x86 server-based resources. Market values for all three segments includes hardware and software but excludes services and support. For more information about IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Converged Systems Tracker, please contact Lidice Fernandez at 305-351-3057 or lfernandez@idc.com. About IDC Trackers

IDC Tracker products provide accurate and timely market size, vendor share, and forecasts for hundreds of technology markets from more than 100 countries around the globe. Using proprietary tools and research processes, IDC's Trackers are updated on a semiannual, quarterly, and monthly basis. Tracker results are delivered to clients in user-friendly excel deliverables and on-line query tools. About IDC

International Data Corporation (IDC) is the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets. With more than 1,100 analysts worldwide, IDC offers global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends in over 110 countries. IDC's analysis and insight helps IT professionals, business executives, and the investment community to make fact-based technology decisions and to achieve their key business objectives. Founded in 1964, IDC is a wholly-owned subsidiary of International Data Group (IDG), the world's leading media, data and marketing services company that activates and engages the most influential technology buyers. To learn more about IDC, please visit www.idc.com. Follow IDC on Twitter (News - Alert) at @IDC and LinkedIn. All product and company names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180925006245/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][September 25, 2018] Toshiba's New Global Brand Identity to Promote Growth and Development

Toshiba (News - Alert) Corporation (TOKYO:6502) has today unveiled a new global brand identity the "Essence of Toshiba," a restatement of its abiding purpose and values. The Essence of Toshiba replaces Toshiba's previous Group Management Vision, Brand Statement and Brand Tagline. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180925006288/en/ (Graphic: Business Wire) The Essence of Toshiba will be applied across all Toshiba Group companies and in all markets, as part of an initiatie to harmonize and integrate the Group's diverse businesses and operations around the world.



As a forward-looking and entrepreneurial Toshiba continues its business transformation, the restated corporate philosophy and new brand identity will provide a strong and consistent framework for all communication. A summation of core management values and the DNA that has shaped the company for 143 years, the Essence of Toshiba will guide Toshiba in building a sustainable future by focusing on business domains that support modern life and society, and creating value with reliable technologies. The Essence of Toshiba was introduced in-house throughout Toshiba's global organization on July 1. From October 1, it will be deployed in all of the Group's activities, supported by a new visual identity. The scope of the rebranding will be revealed through a global advertising campaign, a refreshed digital and social strategy, along with a full set of branded communications materials and assets.

Ichiro Hirata, Toshiba's Corporate Vice President and leader of the Brand Project Team, said, "We believe these strategic moves will help us establish strong foundations for Toshiba's future. Our updated brand identity reflects our ambition to contribute to a planet that's safer and cleaner, a society that's both sustainable and dynamic, a life as comfortable as it is exciting, setting us on a path to deliver answers that will bring on a brilliant new day." View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180925006288/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][September 25, 2018] HKCOLO.NET Announces SJC Submarine Cable Is Accessible in Its Data Center Facility in Telehouse Hong Kong, CCC

HONG KONG, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- HKCOLO.NET, one of the members of TELEHOUSE group is delighted to announce that, the South-East Asia Japan Cable System (SJC) submarine cable is now accessible from the Telehouse Hong Kong CCC located at 2 Chun Yat Street, TKOIE, Hong Kong. The SJC cable system has a main span of 8,900 km, which could be extended up to 9,700 km. It connects 7 countries / territories, with landing stations in Singapore, Thailand (planned), Brunei, Philippines, Hong Kong, mainland China and Japan. Designed to meet bandwidth-intensive applications, the SJC cable system consists of 6 fiber pairs with the current design capacity of well over 45 Terabits per second. Mr. Andrew Pang, Managing Director of HKCOLO.NET, stated, "We are delighted to gain access to SJC cable system since July 16th of this year. It marks a huge step forward in achieving one of our missions: providing means for carriers among the major colocation centers operated by our partners to cross-connect. SJC significantly enhances network connectivity and diversity in the region, offering greater cable reliability and resilience to enterprise customers. Thanks to the direct connectivity with SJC and HKIX, local and overseas partner carriers can enjoy upgraded interconnectedness. Through continual advancement and vision to the future, the entire region will better interact and communicate with the rest of the world." Telehouse Hong Kong CCC operated by HKCOLO.span id="spanHghlt8c13">NET is the first data center to obtain the top TIA Tier 4 / Rated 4 data center certificate by TIA-942 in the financial region spanning across China, Japan, Korea and Singapore. It is poised to become the principal hub where HKIX participants, carriers and cloud players can meet, peer and exchange traffic, providing high level of connectivity value both domestically and internationally.



Telehouse Hong Kong CCC will be participating in Peering Asia 2.0. It will be held in Cordis Hotel, Hong Kong from 24-25 October 2018. About Telehouse Hong Kong CCC

Telehouse is the pioneering neutral data center started in 1989. It manages and operates 47 carrier-neutral data centers globally, serving 3,000 companies and hosting some of the world's leading Internet Exchanges. Telehouse Hong Kong CCC is the data center located in TKO industrial estate and is operated by HKCOLO.NET Limited, subsidiary company of KDDI. About HKCOLO.NET Limited The Company was founded in 2009 by the HKCOLO group as a Neutral Data Center service provider in Hong Kong catering to financial institutions and enterprises. In 2011 the group entered into a joint venture partnership with KDDI Corporation of Japan. The data center has become a member of the TELEHOUSE group. In less than 5 years from the commencement of the partnership, it has secured a dominant position with financial institutions and Fortune 500 enterprises. About HKCOLO Group The HKCOLO Group was founded by Mr. Andrew Pang in 1999. Located in Sino Favor Center, the Group has become the first major telecom hotel in the region. As the decade progressed, the Group diversified its client base to accommodate other emerging industry segments. A Cloud Computing Complex setup has since become the leading choice of financial institutions, global solution providers and Cloud Service Providers. The Group regularly holds cross industry "event forums", attracting international clients from across the globe. It is now one of the region's major Data Center Service Providers. Please visit www.hkcolo.com for more information. About KDDI KDDI is a leading Japanese mobile and fixed-line telecommunications and ICT solution provider with over 100 offices in 28 areas around the world and a Fortune Global 500 company. With 39 million subscribers, KDDI is Japan's second- largest mobile operator. Furthermore, together with its subsidiaries, KDDI provides comprehensive services for consumers and corporate clients. With services from fixed to mobile communications and solutions, "TELEHOUSE" data centers and broadcasting, KDDI aims to be a company that creates new styles for customer's lives and corporate activities from local communities to overseas with communication as its base. Please visit KDDI www.kddi.com/english for more information. SOURCE HKCOLO.NET

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][September 25, 2018] CREALOGIX advances in the IDC ranking of the global Top 100 Fintech companies thanks to innovation and sales growth

SINGAPORE, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- IDC Financial Insights has once again included CREALOGIX in the ranking of the world's hundred most important fintech companies. For the Top 100 Fintech Ranking, the market research institute IDC took a close look at the annual sales of global technology providers in the financial services sector for the 15th time. The revenue analysis included industry trends and innovation factor which were then evaluated worldwide by a panel from IDC Financial Insights. CREALOGIX advances CREALOGIX ranks 78th among Fintechs with the highest sales worldwide. The increase from 84th place in the previous year reflects its 16.4% sales growth in the 2017/2018 financial year. The fact that the Group generated 57% of its sales in international markets speaks for its international success. Fintechs: International innovation culture Thomas Avedik, Chief Executive Officer of CREALOGIX sys, "The number of open, digital and mobile banking projects is growing worldwide. Some hotspots such as Singapore and Barcelona are emerging, and we are helping to shape their culture of innovation through our own locations. Whether hybrid approaches or AI (artificial intelligence), we look far into the future to provide banks with the best solutions for digital transformation. To this end, we are constantly increasing our international reach and expanding our product portfolio in line with the requirements of the various markets. The good ranking in the IDC ranking confirms us on this course."



A summary of the results of the IDC Fintech Ranking is available for download. About CREALOGIX

The CREALOGIX Group is a Swiss Fintech 100 company and is among the global market leaders in digital banking. CREALOGIX develops and implements innovative fintech solutions for the financial institutions of tomorrow. Using digital solutions from CREALOGIX, banks, wealth managers, and other financial institutions can better respond to evolving customer needs in the area of digital transformation, enabling them to hold their ground in a very demanding and dynamic market and remain ahead of their competitors. The group, founded in 1996, has more than 700 employees worldwide. The shares of CREALOGIX Group (CLXN) are traded on the SIX Swiss Exchange. The economic projections and predictions contained in this information relate to future facts. Such projections and predictions are subject to risks, uncertainties and changes which cannot be foreseen and which are beyond the control of CREALOGIX Holding AG. CREALOGIX Holding AG is therefore not in a position to make any representations as to the accuracy of economic projections and predictions or their impact on the financial situation of CREALOGIX Holding AG or on the market in which CREALOGIX Holding AG shares and other securities are traded. Logo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20180925/2247715-1LOGO SOURCE CREALOGIX

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][September 26, 2018] Madhya Pradesh Tourism Board Signs MOU With Thrillophilia to Grow Adventure Tourism in State

BHOPAL, India, September 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Thrillophilia and Madhya Pradesh Tourism Board have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to boost, adventure tourism in the state. As part of this MOU, Thrillophilia will act as a knowledge partner to MP Tourism Board in building the state as a hotspot of adventure. Many new camping sites and adventure activities will be built across the state, and besides this a gamut of activities such as jungle safari, hiking, nature trails, trekking, midnight star gazing in the jungle, camping, canoeing and many other signature experiences that Madhya Pradesh Tourism industry has to offer to adventure seekers, will be available on Thrillophilia. The scope of adventure activities in Madhya Pradesh is as vast and diverse as the state itself. The state has many waterfalls, wildlife and national parks, mountains, dense forests and water bodies which provide great outdoor and adventure opportunities for all. As a knowledge partner to MP Tourism, Thrillophilia will work closely with the MP Tourism board to build and boost adventure experiences whilst adhering to high quality services, providing training to the local vendors, building up sustainable adventure tourism for the long run, setting up camping sites and organizing several adventure events which will open channels for the travellers to visit the state. Through their robust platform and technical framework, Thrillophilia will ensure hassle-free onine booking over the website and mobile application which will help in boosting state tourism as well as create a seamless experience for adventure travel operators across the state.



"Our goal is to set-up around 100 adventure campsites in our state, so that everyone can come and experience the great outdoors of MP which has for so long being hidden from the eyes of the globetrotters," says Dr. Manoj K. Singh, Director - Adventure Tourism of MPTB. These adventure and camping sites will be bookable online with various other activities on Thrillophilia's digital platform to help travellers explore various choices of tours, adventures and activities. "The state has gained attention of globetrotters and adventure seekers due to easy accessibility as it's located in the centre of India and its outdoor and adventure friendly terrain which provides great opportunity for diverse activities," says Abhishek Daga, co-founder of Thrillophilia. He further adds, "Our aim is to grow adventure tourism in state to unlock a new destination for all the adventure seekers of the world. Madhya Pradesh has the true potential to become heart of adventure travel and we are glad that we have got this opportunity to work with MPTB on project of this scale."

About Thrillophilia Thrillophilia is acclaimed as Asia's biggest Outdoor Travel Company with its services widespread across 200+ cities in India and 25+ countries of Asia. It is one of the biggest marketplaces and online booking platforms with an inventory of 10,000+ travel experiences. 3 million travellers use Thrillophilia every month to plan trips. With deep expertise in the fields of adventure, online marketing and technology, Thrillophilia is successfully delivering enthralling experiences to its customers for years. The Heart of Incredible India: Madhya Pradesh is a destination of culture and encompasses heritage of various religions such as Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism etc. along with a line of monuments and exquisitely built forts and palaces that are making the state the most happening destination of tourism in India. With majestic forts, colourful streets, scintillating art work, thrilling mountains, picturesque villages and fine history, Madhya Pradesh is truly a destination worth exploring by all travel enthusiasts. Checkout Full story Media Contact:

Himani Gaur

himani@thrillophilia.com

+91-70145-08715

Manager

Thrillophilia



[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][September 26, 2018] Sensorion Announces Publication of Seliforant Phase 1 Study Data in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology

Study of safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics, and pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic modelling of Seliforant

Seliforant was well tolerated, no sedation was reported, and demonstrated a pharmacokinetic profile acceptable for daily oral dosing MONTPELLIER, France, Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Sensorion (FR0012596468  ALSEN), a biotech company specializing in the development of treatments of inner ear diseases, today announced the publication of data in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology from a Phase 1 study evaluating the safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics and pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic modelling of Seliforant in healthy subjects. One hundred healthy volunteers were randomized in a placebo-controlled, double-blind study evaluating single-ascending doses (100 to 500 mg) and multiple-ascending doses (50-150 mg/day for 4 days; 200 to 250 mg/day for 7 days). Seliforant was well tolerated with only mild to moderate adverse events and no sedation was observed. It also demonstrated an acceptable pharmacokinetic profile for daily oral dosing and the pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic modelling determined plasma concentrations and doses for future efficacy studies in patients with vertigo symptoms. Seliforant is currently being studied in an ongoing Phase 2 trial for the treatment of acute unilateral vestibulopathy, a debilitating disease of the inner ear. Some data are expected at the end of 2018. For patients suffering from vertigo crises, there are currently no efficacious treatment options to alleviate the debilitating symptoms characteristic of this condition, said Nawal Ouzren, Chief Executive Officer of Sensorion. The inclusion of our study of Seliforant in a prestigious peer-reviewed publication such as the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, is a valuable recognition of our work. About Seliforant

Seliforant (formerly SENS-111) is the first representative candidate of the histamine type 4 receptor antagonist class to be tested for the symptomatictreatment of vertigo crises. Displaying a neuromodulation effect of the sensorineural inner ear cell function, Seliforant is a small molecule that can be taken orally or via a standard injection, and is currently in a Phase 2 clinical trial, being conducted in the United States, Europe and South Korea.



About Sensorion

Sensorion is a biotech company pioneering novel treatments of inner ear diseases such as severe vertigo, tinnitus or hearing loss. Two products are currently in the clinical development stage: Seliforant (SENS-111), in Phase 2 in acute unilateral vestibulopathy (vestibular neuritis), and SENS-401 which has started a Phase 2 in sudden sensorineural hearing loss (SSNHL) in the second half of 2018. The company was founded by Inserm (the French Institute of Health and Medical Research) and is utilizing its pharmaceutical R&D experience and comprehensive technology platform to develop first-in-class easy-to administer, notably orally active, drugs for treating and preventing hearing loss and the symptoms of bouts of vertigo and tinnitus. Based in Montpellier, Southern France, Sensorion has received financial support from Bpifrance, through the InnoBio fund, and Inserm Transfert Initiative. Sensorion has been listed on the Euronext Growth Paris exchange since April 2015.

www.sensorion-pharma.com Contacts Sensorion

Nawal Ouzren

CEO

contact@sensorion-pharma.com

Tel : +33 (0) 467 207 730 Investor Relations  International

LifeSci Advisors LLC

Chris Maggos - Managing Director, Europe

chris@lifesciadvisors.com

Tel. : +41 79 367 6254 Relations Press - Alize RP

Isabelle Sauval-Dupuy

Tatiana Vieira

sensorion@ali zerp.com





Label : SENSORION

ISIN : FR0012596468

Mnemonic : ALSEN

Disclaimer

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements concerning Sensorion and its business. Such forward looking statements are based on assumptions that Sensorion considers to be reasonable. However, there can be no assurance that such forward-looking statements will be verified, which statements are subject to numerous risks, including the risks set forth in the Document de reference registration document filed with the Autorite des Marches Financiers (AMF French Financial Market Authority) on July 28, 2016 under nR.16-069 and to the development of economic conditions, financial markets and the markets in which Sensorion operates. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are also subject to risks not yet known to Sensorion or not currently considered material by Sensorion. The occurrence of all or part of such risks could cause actual results, financial conditions, performance or achievements of Sensorion to be materially different from such forward-looking statements. This press release and the information that it contains do not constitute an offer to sell or subscribe for, or a solicitation of an offer to purchase or subscribe for, Sensorion shares in any country. The communication of this press release in certain countries may constitute a violation of local laws and regulations. Any recipient of this press release must inform oneself of any such local restrictions and comply therewith.

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][September 26, 2018] UST Global Acquires Pre-Silicon Expert SeviTech Systems

BENGALURU, September 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Elevates UST Global's position as world's most premium VLSI solutions provider and a market leader in pre-silicon engineering UST Global, a California-headquartered leading digital transformation solutions company, today announced the acquisition of Bangalore-based SeviTech Systems, a fast-growing chip design (VLSI) services company which has emerged as one of the top ASIC design solutions firm in India. The acquisition will bring in the advanced technology and deep end-market expertise of the two companies, delivering advanced end-to-end solutions to global semiconductor manufacturers. The acquisition reinforces UST Global's strength and focus in India, and elevates its position as a world's most premium VLSI solutions provider, and a market leader in pre-silicon engineering. (Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/540539/UST_Global_Logo.jpg )

UST Global's Semiconductor business provides an end-to-end engineering and technology services that support the entire silicon lifecycle for original device manufacturer (ODM), original equipment manufacturer (OEM), integrated hardware vendor (IHV), and ASIC (Digital & Full Custom) Design, Verification & Implementation, FPGA implementation along with embedded software development. With the added capabilities and teams from SeviTech, the company will now be able to cater to the large volume of demand from global semiconductor manufacturer.



Commenting on the acquisition, Gilroy Mathew, Global Head of Semiconductor and Head of APAC, UST Global, said, "Globally, our semiconductor business has seen an inspiring and phenomenal growth over the years. The acquisition of SeviTech is an integral part of our plan to strengthen our Technical Centers of Excellence providing RTL to GDSII solutions to our customers globally. With this acquisition, UST is now placed as a leader with expertise in delivering low power, high-performance chipset solutions for Automotive, Communication, Storage and other industries. The acquisition not only reinforces our VLSI capabilities, but also highlights the company as an industry powerhouse focused on the high growth opportunities in the silicon world." "The global presence of UST Global coupled with strong ASIC engineering teams of SeviTech Systems positions us to provide innovative solutions to customers worldwide. It enhances our service portfolio and strengthens our position with customers for the end-to-end chip design solutions," said Prabhu Bhairi, CEO & Co-Founder, SeviTech Systems.

To ensure the continued strong growth of SeviTech and a mutually beneficial association for both parties going forward, UST Global will maintain SeviTech as an independent entity and positioning it further as an expert in pre-silicon engineering services business. SeviTech will continue to operate as a subsidiary of UST Global. About Sevitech Systems SeviTech Systems was founded in 2013 and is one of fastest growing chip design (VLSI) Services Company, working with top IC design companies. The company has about 350 employees expertizing in end-to-end ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) design and embedded solutions. SeviTech has RnD centres in Bangalore and Hyderabad. In 2017, the company was recognized as the 50 best startups to work for by Silicon India. About UST Global UST Global is a leading digital technology company that provides advanced computing and digital services to large private and public enterprises around the world. Driven by a larger purpose of Transforming Lives and the philosophy of 'fewer clients, more attention', we bring in the entrepreneurial spirit that seeks the fastest path to value in today's digital economy. Our innovative technology services and pioneering social programs make us unique. UST Global is headquartered in Aliso Viejo, California and operates in 25 countries. Our clients include Fortune 500 companies in Semiconductor, Banking and Financial Services, Healthcare, Insurance, Retail, High Technology, Manufacturing, Shipping, and Telecom. UST Global believes in building long-lasting, strategic business relationships through agile and client-centric global engagement models that combines local experts & resources with cost, scale, and quality advantages of global operations. For more information, please visit: http://www.ust-global.com Media Contact:

Divya Singh

divya.singh@ust-global.com

+918552944004



[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][September 26, 2018] SMART ASIA India-Expo & Summit Returns to Bangalore

BANGALORE, September 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Aspires to end India's traffic jams, healthcare burden and water and energy scarcity The SMART ASIA India-Expo & Summit, organized by TWTC, a Taiwanese non-profit government-sponsored trade promotion organization, is being held for the second consecutive year at the Bangalore International Exhibition Centre from October 4-6, 2018. This year's event will once again bring together industry leaders in the smart city domain to showcase thousands of smart city solutions, highlighting responses to current urban crises and future Smart Cities development in India. Exhibitors comprise outstanding Taiwanese companies in the fields of 'Smart Transportation', 'Smart Energy & Water management', 'Smart City Development & Environmental Sustainability' and 'IoT Solutions'. For instance, Advantech, the leader in industrial PC with a global market share of 32%, will display its smart transportation solutions, which can help relieve Bangalore of its traffic congestion. Ever Clear Environmental Engineering, an expert in water management developing and implementing patented waste water reactors in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, will present solutions catering to the current needs of Indian industries. H.P.B. Optoelectronics, the third largest automotive optoelectronics manufacturer in the world, provides a total image solution using its intelligent camera monitoring modules, and aims to support India in creating more secure city-living. Moreover, enterprises such as J.S. Power and Fukuta will showcase their e-vehicl solutions, which can serve to empower India toward its goal for green and environmental-friendly mobility.



When promoting the second edition of SMART ASIA India, Mr. James Huang, Chairman of Taipei World Trade Centre, expressed his expectations of the event. "We received a significant level of recognition and active participation from government and industry stakeholders in the first edition. This year we are expecting the number of visitors to increase by 50 percent. Taiwan has been one of India's important trade partners with a total investment of US $602 million as of July 2018. We look forward to further reinforcing the business ties between the two countries through the platform of SMART ASIA." A highlight of SMART ASIA is the 'India-Taiwan Smart City Summit'. This year, the Summit will gather authoritative speakers from across the globe representing India's Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), Asian Development Bank (ADB), Intelligent Transportation Society-Taiwan (ITS-Taiwan), Tata Sons, Cisco, Microsoft, just to name a few, and will focus on topics including India-Taiwan's bilateral collaboration on 'Smart Cities Mission', leveraging data to realize the Smart Cities vision, and future trends and opportunities in the field of smart city.

In order to achieve better integration for the Smart City community, the event has partnered up with the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI), ITS-Taiwan, Advanced Public Transportation Research Center (APTRC) in Taiwan, Federation of Indian Micro and Small & Medium Enterprises (FISME), and World Trade Center Bangalore (WTC Bengaluru). The event will be held from October 4-6, 2018, at the Bangalore International Exhibition Centre (BIEC). About Taipei World Trade Center (TWTC): Taipei World Trade Center is the sister organization of Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA). Founded in 1970, TAITRA is Taiwan's foremost nonprofit trade promoting organization. Sponsored by the government and industry organizations, TAITRA assists enterprises to expand their global reach. Headquartered in Taipei, TAITRA has a team of 1,300 specialists and operates 5 local offices in Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung as well as 61 branches worldwide. Together with Taipei World Trade Center (TWTC) and Taiwan Trade Center (TTC), TAITRA has formed a global network dedicated to promoting world trade. TAITRA's core missions: assisting Taiwanese businesses in developing international market, collaborating with Taiwanese government in trade policy implementation, providing business consultation service and connect international firms with Taiwanese partners, and assuming the role of 'Smart Integrator' to complement government policies, facilitate industry needs and develop new business opportunities around the world. Media Contact:

Parmpreet Kaur

operations@communicateindia.com

+91-9870390819

Communicate India



[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][September 26, 2018] Philippine Ambassador Met 51Talk CEO, Jiajia Huang, a Promising Future for 51Talk in Online English Education Domain

BEIJING, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- On the evening of September 7, 2018, the Philippine Ambassador to China, Jose Santiago Sta. Romana, attended the concluding dinner of the Sino-Philippine Education Cooperation Forum and had a friendly meeting with Jiajia Huang, the founder and CEO of 51Talk, under the cordial introduction by the former Vice Minister of the Ministry of Education of the Philippines, Mr. Antonio AS. Valdes. Guests from China and Philippines gathered together and held a joint discussion regarding their comprehensive, multi-layered and wide-ranging cooperation in the field of education between China and the Philippines in the political context of "One Belt One Road." Ambassador Sta.Romana said that he had long heard about the possibility of the Filipino teachers that can teach Chinese students through online technology and that such an emerging industry has a positive impact both in China and the Philippines.China and the Philippines are close neighbors, separated only by a strip of water and have deep ties that go back to ancient times. During the 2018 Boao Forum for Asia, Philippine President, Rodrigo Roa Duterte, had spoken of his desire to dispatch 100,000 Philippine English teachers to teach in China. Later, a number of bilateral agreements were signed between the two countries which comprised the MOU (Memorandum of Undestanding) for the entering of Philippine teachers into China. Such a welcoming policy regarding foreign teachers has never been carried out by China towards other Asian countries except in the Philippines, thus 51Talk can seize this opportunity and bring its talents into full play.



Mr. Huang shared the excellent work done by 51talk to the Ambassador. When talking about why he founded 51Talk, Mr. Huang said that early in 2011, he had started to focus on the shortcomings and inconvenience of current L2 English (i.e. English as the second language) education. He observed that teaching English to large classes in elementary and secondary schools in China was not beneficial for L2 English learning, given that students were only allowed to speak English for short and infrequent spans of time. Worse still, there weren't many quality native English speaking teachers in China, which made it even harder for parents to cost-effectively select a proficient foreign teacher.

Since its foundation in 2011, 51Talk has known the great advantages of Filipino English teachers, introducing them to online English education one step ahead of the competition. Through years of inspection by the market forces, the pedagogical efficacy brought by Filipino English teachers has been approved by an increasing number of clients. For years, 51Talk has been deeply rooted in the Philippines, which not only brings Filipinos working opportunities but also opens up the channel for in-depth cultural communication between the two countries. 51Talk's ability to create a new online English education business model and strong training program has allowed Filipino teachers to enter the Chinese market at scale. The Ambassador also complimented the proactive efforts made by 51Talk to facilitate the process of introducing Philippine English teachers into China and expressed his willingness to provide his support in promoting the win-win cooperation in the education domain between China and the Philippines. As the dinner drew to an end, Ambassador Sta. Romana accepted the friendly invitation by Mr. Huang to pay a visit to the headquarters of 51Talk in Beijing in the future for further discussion. Besides, the ambassador has also made plans to visit the 51Talk Office located in the Philippines sometime during his visit back in the Philippines this coming October. Mr. Huang expressed his hope that all progress made in the business areas of 51Talk will be able to boost deeper cultural communication between the two countries, and make high-quality English-speaking teachers available to more clients, ultimately equipping every Chinese with the ability to communicate worldwide. Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20180925/2247494-1-a

Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20180925/2247494-1-b SOURCE 51Talk

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][September 26, 2018] SoftAtHome Invests in Quality of Experience for Fixed-Mobile Convergence by Acquiring V3D, Leader in Telecom Data Analytics

SoftAtHome, the software company dedicated to the digital home, and V3D, a leading independent software vendor expert on Telecom data analytics for carrier network operators, announced today the signing of an acquisition agreement. With SoftAtHome acquiring V3D, the company will be able to deliver a full range of solutions around "analytics for Quality of Experience" for its fixed and mobile operator clients, by relying on the millions of data points collected by V3D. Thanks to both companies' expertise, skills and solutions, Carrier Network Operators will benefit from a global value proposition on improving Customer Experience on their fixed and mobile networks. David VIRET-LANGE, Chief Executive Officer of SoftAtHome, commented: "In an increasingly digital world, consumers expect seamless connectivity with their mobile and tablets wherever they are. Quality of Experience will be naturally measured by the same solutions. The V3D solution portfolio and expertise on mobile and fixed network and the skills of SoftAtHome on Wi-Fi and networking will allow our companies to provide the best-in-class Data Analytics and monitoring tools that will help operators deliver an unmatched Quality of Experience for their customers." Philippe VIAL-GRELIER, Co-Founder and Managing Director of V3D, added: "We are plased to join SoftAtHome and combine our skills to facilitate end-to-end access to the entire Customer Experience value chain for carrier network operators. This merger is part of our desire to strengthen our position in the Telecom data analytics for both fixed and mobile markets."



About SoftAtHome

SoftAtHome creates software for operators to deploy services with the best user experience for connectivity, pay TV, Home Networking and Smart Home products. SoftAtHome products are deployed with major operators in over 20 million homes over 18 countries. The company based in France and Belgium is still growing with over 250 employees mainly in software development. We are regularly opening new offices to support our customers. Offices are already in half a dozen European capitals as well as in Dubai, Singapore and Toronto. www.softathome.com About V3D

Specialized in mobile and fixed network technologies, V3D Solutions enable carrier network operators to monitor the true network Quality of Experience (QoE) straight from the subscribers' perspective. This approach to traditional measurement methods of network performance offers technical and business benefits to various departments of an operator, from CEM & Marketing to Network Operations or Customer Care.

V3D product portfolio focuses on customer experience and carrier network service performance. The EQual One solution is based on a combination of Device Quality Agents (DQA) deployed on commercial devices and a powerful server interacting over-the-air with the DQAs and potentially integrated with existing systems. V3D headquarters are based in Lyon, France. For more information, visit: www.v3d.fr

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180926005082/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][September 26, 2018] Sino United Establishes its Fintech Division offering Innovative Services and to Become a Leading Global Platform in the Global Blockchain and Fintech Ecosystem

NEW YORK, NY, Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NEWMEDIAWIRE  Sino United Worldwide Consolidated Ltd. (OTC: SUIC) is pleased to advise that the company has established a FinTech Division in the Asian region, to venture in businesses based on Blockchain technology and in cryptocurrency opportunities The company will become a key contributor and builder of the blockchain and fintech ecosystem. SUIC Blockchain technology will further the effective technological interventions into personal and commercial finance through legal use of Blockchain development applications as FinTech and Financial Services are continuously coming together. The anonymity in an unregulated market that Blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies can offer has attracted many cybercrime and fraud opportunities, coupled with the apprehension of the looming demise of fiat currencies, and the lack of assets backing the numerous cryptocurrencies that have entered the market. SUIC is developing its Blockchain technology that addresses and interlocks these challenges by designing reliable and safe decentralized data storage, cybersecurity and quality FinTech services, as more banks and other financial companies adopt, attracted mainly by its decentralized and transparent nature which translates to less transaction costs and less time consumption. SUIC has identified 7 key market segments that are complementary and will help strengthen our presence in the fintech market. The 7 segments are as follows: Media and Events, Dapps Development, PR/Marketing, ICO Consultancy, Education, Training, Blockchain Development, and Venture Capital. These key projects will be incorporated to be a core organizational strength in the future. SUIC will enter enter into joint venture or investment with companies that specialize in these market segments to provide full range of blockchain services. We believe that under the leadership of Chairman Ong Tee Keat, the former Minister of Transportation of Malaysia and deputy Speaker of the House of Commons of the Malaysian Pariament, SUIC will be able to appeal to a globalized clientele. Thus achieving the status of a leading global platform in the Blockchain and FinTech sector.



About Sino United Worldwide Consolidated Company The Sino United Worldwide Consolidated Company provides Blockchain services to five sectors including: Logistics & Trade, Vehicle & Transportation, Finance & Coin, and Medical & Healthcare, and a new addition, Fintech. The addition of the Fintech sector to SUICs Blockchain services includes a comprehensive update in which SUIC will build up its own internal capabilities by actively starting a Blockchain training program, developing a 3rd generation Smart Contract Blockchain under the SUIC brand, and using these capabilities to offer a comprehensive ICO consultancy. Shareholders of SUIC will be exposed to the diverse application of blockchain services in various parts of the economy. Additionally, existing and potential customers can benefit from this companys diversified portfolio of technologies and consulting services in the four sectors. As one of the first publicly traded technology companies, SUIC serves as an innovative leader by integrating these five sectors. To learn more, please visit www.sinounitedltd.com .

Forward-Looking Statement Certain information set forth herein contains "forward-looking information", including "future oriented financial information" and "financial outlook", under applicable securities laws (collectively referred to herein as forward-looking statements). Except for statements of historical fact, information contained herein constitutes forward-looking statements and includes, but is not limited to, the (i) projected financial performance of the Company; (ii) completion of, and the use of proceeds from, the sale of shares being offered hereunder; (iii) the expected development of the Company's business, projects and joint ventures; (iv) execution of the Company's vision and growth strategy, including with respect to future M&A activity and global growth; (v) sources and availability of third-party financing for the Company's projects; (vi) completion of the Company's projects that are currently underway, in development or otherwise under consideration; (vi) renewal of the Company's current agreements; and (vii) future liquidity, working capital, and capital requirements. Forward-looking statements are provided to allow potential investors the opportunity to understand management's beliefs and opinions in respect of the future so that they may use such beliefs and opinions as one factor in evaluating an investment. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and undue reliance should not be placed on them. Such forward-looking statements necessarily involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, which may cause actual performance and financial results in future periods to differ materially from any projections of future performance or result expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Although forward-looking statements contained herein are based upon what management of the Company believes are reasonable assumptions, there can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements if circumstances or management's estimates or opinions should change except as required by applicable securities laws. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Contacts Sino United Worldwide Consolidated New Release Department 718-395-8706

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][September 26, 2018] Satellite built by Maxar's SSL successfully performing maneuvers

Multi-mission Azerspace-2/Intelsat 38 satellite to provide high-performance for services that inform, entertain and connect people in Europe and Asia PALO ALTO, CA, Sept. 26, 2018 /CNW/ - SSL, a Maxar Technologies company (formerly MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd.) (NYSE: MAXR) (TSX: MAXR), and a leading provider of innovative satellites and spacecraft systems, announced today the multi-mission Azerspace-2/Intelsat 38 communications satellite is successfully performing post-launch maneuvers following launch aboard an Ariane 5 launch vehicle from the European Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. The satellite deployed its solar arrays shortly after launch and will begin firing its main thruster tomorrow to propel toward its final orbit at 45 degrees East. "SSL-built satellites like Azerspace-2/Intelsat 38 help build a better world, making information and communications more accessible," said Dario Zamarian, group president of SSL. "I would like to thank Azercosmos and Intelsat for their trust in SSL. Thank you also to the teams at SSL and Arianespace for the excellent teamwork and commitment making this launch a success." For Azercosmos, the satellite meets the growing demand for direct-to-home (DTH) television, government and network services in Europe, Central and South Asia, the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa. It is the second telecommunication satellite for Azercosmos and will expand on the service currently available from Azerspace-1. "SSL proved to be an excellent and reliable partner to help us make Azerspace-2 a reality," said Rashad Nabiyev, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Azercosmos. "Now that the satellite has successfully launched we look forward to providing enhanced service offerings to our customers." For Intelsat, the satellite provides continuity of service for the SSL-built Intelsat 12 satellite, launched in 2000. At 45 degrees East longitude, it provides DTH platforms for Central and Eastern Europe as well as the Asia-Pacific region. Intelsat 38 also delivers valuable broadband connectivity for corporate networks and government applications in Africa. "SSL has been a trusted and valued manufacturing partner of Intelsat's for many years," said Ken Lee, Intelsat's senior vice president of space systems. "Our customers have benefited from their innovative designs and the new Intelsat 38 satellite payload is no exception. It will enable our media customers in Central and Eastern Europe and Asia to grow their business and deliver fast, reliable broadband connectivity to corporate enterprise and government customers in Africa." The satellite design is based on the highly reliable SSL 1300 satellite platform that provides the flexibility for a broad range of applications and technology advances. Azerspace-2/Intelsat 38 is designed to provide service for 15 years or more. SSL has built more than 275 satellites over its 60 year history. With this launch, there are now 90 satellites built by SSL in geostationary orbit. About SSL

SSL, based in Palo Alto, California, is a leading provider of advanced spacecraftsystems, with broad expertise to support commercial and government satellite operators and innovative space missions. The company designs and manufactures spacecraft for services such as direct-to-home television, video content distribution, broadband internet, mobile communications, in-orbit servicing, space exploration, and Earth observation. As a Silicon Valley innovator for 60 years, SSL's advanced product line includes state-of-the-art small satellites, and sophisticated robotics and autonomous solutions for remote operations. SSL is a Maxar Technologies company (NYSE: MAXR) (TSX: MAXR). For more information, visit www.sslmda.com.



About Maxar Technologies

As a global leader of advanced space technology solutions, Maxar Technologies (formerly MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates) is at the nexus of the new space economy, developing and sustaining the infrastructure and delivering the information, services, systems that unlock the promise of space for commercial and government markets. As a trusted partner, Maxar Technologies provides vertically integrated capabilities and expertise including satellites, Earth imagery, robotics, geospatial data and analytics to help customers anticipate and address their most complex mission-critical challenges with confidence. With more than 6,500 employees in over 30 global locations, the Maxar Technologies portfolio of commercial space brands includes MDA, SSL, DigitalGlobe and Radiant Solutions. Every day, billions of people rely on Maxar to communicate, share information and data, and deliver insights that Build a Better World. Maxar trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange and New York Stock Exchange as MAXR. For more information, visit www.maxar.com. About Azercosmos

Azercosmos is the premier satellite operator in the South Caucasus. Azerspace-1, the telecommunication satellite operated by Azercosmos, provides highly-reliable broadband and broadcast solutions to its customers in Europe, Africa, Middle East, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. The satellite, to operate in orbit for at least 15 years, was launched in February 2013 and is equipped with 36 transponders: 24 in C-band and 12 in Ku-band at 46 East longitude. In December 2014, Azercosmos took over the rights to operate and commercialize Azersky, high resolution (1.5m imagery products) optical Earth observation satellite, and entered into the commercial business of Earth observation services, including Geo-Information services. Strategic development plans of the company include enhancing the coverage area and spectrum of services by launching the second telecommunications satellite Azerspace-2 at 45 East longitude in 2018. For more information, visit: www.azercosmos.com.

About Intelsat

Intelsat S.A. (NYSE: I) operates the world's first Globalized Network, delivering high-quality, cost-effective video and broadband services anywhere in the world. Intelsat's Globalized Network combines the world's largest satellite backbone with terrestrial infrastructure, managed services and an open, interoperable architecture to enable customers to drive revenue and reach through a new generation of network services. Thousands of organizations serving billions of people worldwide rely on Intelsat to provide ubiquitous broadband connectivity, multi-format video broadcasting, secure satellite communications and seamless mobility services. The end result is an entirely new world, one that allows us to envision the impossible, connect without boundaries and transform the ways in which we live. For more information, visit www.intelsat.com. Contact

Wendy Lewis | SSL Media Contact | 1-650-852-5188 | wendy.lewis@sslmda.com

Jason Gursky | Maxar Investor Relations | 1-303-684-2207 | jason.gursky@maxar.com

Nancy Coleman | Maxar Media Contact | 1-303-684-1674 | nancy.coleman@maxar.com Azercosmos Contact

Aysel Soltanova | Azercosmos Corporate Communications Director | aysel.soltanova@azercosmos.az Intelsat Contact

Michele Loguidice | Intelsat, Director of Corporate Communications | 703.558.7372 | Michele.loguidice@intelsat.com Forward-Looking Statements Certain statements and other information included in this release constitute "forward-looking information" or "forward-looking statements" (collectively, "forward-looking statements") under applicable securities laws. Statements including words such as "may", "will", "could", "should", "would", "plan", "potential", "intend", "anticipate", "believe", "estimate" or "expect" and other words, terms and phrases of similar meaning are often intended to identify forward-looking statements, although not all forward-looking statements contain these identifying words. Forward-looking statements involve estimates, expectations, projections, goals, forecasts, assumptions, risks and uncertainties, as well as other statements referring to or including forward-looking information included in this release. Forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties which could cause actual results to differ materially from the anticipated results or expectations expressed in this release. As a result, although management of the Company believes that the expectations and assumptions on which such forward-looking statements are based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements because the Company can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct. The risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations include, but are not limited to, the risk factors and other disclosures about the Company and its business included in the Company's continuous disclosure materials filed from time to time with Canadian and U.S. securities regulatory authorities, which are available online under the Company's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com, under the Company's EDGAR profile at www.sec.gov or on the Company's website at www.maxar.com. The forward-looking statements contained in this release are expressly qualified in their entirety by the foregoing cautionary statements. All such forward-looking statements are based upon data available as of the date of this release or other specified date and speak only as of such date. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements in this release as a result of new information or future events, except as may be required under applicable securities legislation. View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/satellite-built-by-maxars-ssl-successfully-performing-maneuvers-300719052.html SOURCE Maxar Technologies Ltd.

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][September 26, 2018] Ametros CEO Marques Torbert to Describe Life after Settlement at IAIABC

Workers' compensation professionals work so hard to settle claims that they sometimes fail to consider what an injured worker's life is like after settlement. Marques Torbert, CEO of Ametros, will explain post-settlement life with --and without-- a professional administrator to regulators and legislators attending IAIABC's 104th Annual Convention, October 1-4. Starting at 10 a.m. on October 4, the session examines the complexities and challenges injured workers face once claims close and highlights post-settlement patient advocacy services. Without professional administration, injured workers must negotiate medical payments without medical networks or drug discounts, attend to fee schedules, and handle complicated Medicare/CMS reporting on their own. "There are stringent reporting rules and without guidance injured workers may easily misuse medical funds and jeopardize their future Medicare benefits," said Torbert. "There's a reason that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services recommend professional administration." Some professional adminitrators also provide medical networks and discounts to reduce treatment costs. Their advocacy includes someone to answer questions 24/7 and help injured workers navigate the healthcare system along with nurse case managers to support complex cases.



"Workers with serious injuries have come to rely on their attorney, regulators, judges, and claims adjusters - the idea of losing this support can be a barrier to settlement," Torbert noted. "Knowing they'll have advocates working on their behalf can make all the difference." The IAIABC 104th Annual Conference will be held October 1-4 in Williamsburg, Virginia. More information can be found at www.iaiabc.org.

ABOUT AMETROS Ametros is the industry leader in post-settlement medical administration and a trusted partner for thousands of members receiving funds from workers' compensation and liability settlements. Founded in 2010, Ametros provides post-settlement medical management services with significant medical and pharmacy discounts along with automated payment technology and Medicare reporting tools. Headquartered just north of Boston in Wilmington, Massachusetts, Ametros may be reached at 877.275.7415 or via www.ametroscards.com View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180926005186/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][September 26, 2018] Argentine Coast Guard Selects Esri to Monitor Illegal Activities in Waterways

Esri, the global leader in location intelligence, today announced that Prefectura Naval Argentina and Aeroterra S.A. have partnered to implement Esri's ArcGIS platform for a real-time tracking system The new system, called Guardacostas Pro, uses a combination of satellite imaging and signal processing to monitor vessels for illegal activities such as drug smuggling and fish poaching in the coastal waters of Argentina's exclusive economic zone (EEZ). This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180926005209/en/ Esri announces that Prefectura Naval Argentina and Aeroterra S.A. have partnered to implement Esri's ArcGIS platform for a real-time tracking system. (Photo: Business Wire) As Argentina's coast guard, Prefectura Naval deploys patrol vessels, helicopters, and airplane spotters to protect its economic interests and to guard against the decline of its fishery. This year, the Guardacostas Pro system allowed Prefectura Naval to track a Spanish vessel that entered the EEZ and attempted to return to international waters. The coast guard was able to catch the ship, which had poached roughly $380,000 worth of fish; escort it back to port; impound it; and fine the crew. The captain had little ground to refute the charges because the coast guard had the data to prove the illegal activity. "As of five years ago, we had very little information about the use of our seas," said Ernesto Miguel Klocker, Prefectura Naval director of informatics and communications. "Now we have a good picture, which gives us electronic control of the sea, allowing us to send our air and naval units directly to the place where ships operate."



Until recently, its primary enforcement tool was constant patrolling and investigation of all ships. Now Guardacostas Pro monitors signals that every vessel transmits to avoid collision and to provide data on vessel type, speed, and location. It combines this with satellite imaging and Esri's spatial analytics capabilities to give coast guard personnel real-time alerts when a vessel is entering their waters. "Prefectura Naval is setting a truly cutting-edge example of a forward-thinking organization," said Dean Angelides, Esri head of international alliances and partners. "The best way to effectively enforce laws over such a large scale as the EEZ is to know exactly where things are happening and when, and Argentina is now leading the way in data-driven public safety."

After being successfully proven at sea, the Guardacostas Pro system has been moved ashore and is now a multiagency tool to aid Argentina's Ministry of Security's homeland security mission. The Ministry of Security will use the system to track and locate its operative units through mobile phones, radio equipment, vehicles with location sensors, and search and rescue aircraft. To learn more about how Esri supports public safety with enhanced situational awareness, visit go.esri.com/PublicSafety. About Esri Esri, the global market leader in geographic information system (GIS) software, offers the most powerful mapping and spatial analytics technology available. Since 1969, Esri has helped customers unlock the full potential of data to improve operational and business results. Today, Esri software is deployed in more than 350,000 organizations including the world's largest cities, most national governments, 75 percent of Fortune 500 companies, and more than 7,000 colleges and universities. Esri engineers the most advanced solutions for digital transformation, the Internet of Things (IoT), and location analytics to inform the most authoritative maps in the world. Visit us at esri.com. About Aeroterra Aeroterra S.A. is a technology company specializing in the implementation of geographic information systems and related geospatial techniques. Since its creation in 1973, the company has been recognized as the leading provider of geospatial services in Latin America and ISO 9001 certified since 2008. Since 1989, Aeroterra has been the only authorized company to distribute and support the Esri ArcGIS platform in Argentina and Uruguay. In November 2016, Aeroterra became part of the Esri Global Support team, providing services to more than 1,000 users in its region. The company provides geocentric solutions, including GIS software; image processing; digital photogrammetry; system integration; geodatabase design; process reengineering; server, desktop, mobile, and web application development; training; and support. In addition, Aeroterra is responsible for maintaining a network of national and international partners as part of the Esri Partner Network (EPN), whose members are leaders in their respective fields. Visit us at https://www.aeroterra.com. Copyright  2018 Esri. All rights reserved. Esri, the Esri globe logo, ArcGIS, The Science of Where, esri.com, and @esri.com are trademarks, service marks, or registered marks of Esri in the United States, the European Community, or certain other jurisdictions. Other companies and products or services mentioned herein may be trademarks, service marks, or registered marks of their respective mark owners. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180926005209/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][September 26, 2018] RingCentral Enhances Digital Experiences for Customers With ThousandEyes Network Intelligence Platform

ThousandEyes, the company that empowers businesses with Network Intelligence, today announced RingCentral, a leading provider of global enterprise cloud communications and collaboration solutions, has selected ThousandEyes as part of its strategic business initiative to enhance digital experiences for its customers. Using ThousandEyes' Network Intelligence platform, RingCentral (News - Alert) can improve overall service quality, enabling a superior communications experience for customers. With business customers in more than 80 countries, RingCentral's industry-leading cloud communications solution allows customers to unify voice, video meetings, team messaging and integrated contact center capabilities in a single platform. Given the global nature of their customer base and infrastructure, plus the inherently variable nature of the Internet, keeping a pulse on customer experience is critical in helping RingCentral deliver world-class cloud communications services. RingCentral is using ThousandEyes to identify how external service providers impact their global anycast network, allowing them to proactively seek resolution of any potential customer connectivity issues before they are affected. RingCentral is also leveraging ThousandEyes to benchmark performance and proactively identify opportunities for application and service performance improvements through historical data collection of performance metrics using ThousandEyes APIs. "At RingCentral, our top priority is delivering best-in-class cloud communications solutions that enable today's modern workforce to connect and collaborate from anywhere, on any device. We are consistently investing in ways to enhance user experiences, and quality of the service is a key enabler," said Ashu Varshney, VP of CloudService Operations at RingCentral. "ThousandEyes gives us insight into network dependencies outside our network perimeter, enabling us to proactively address issues before they affect customers."



RingCentral is leveraging ThousandEyes' ability to proactively measure performance characteristics of each component of its comprehensive cloud communications offering, like SIP response times, API availability, anycast routing, network latency, jitter and packet loss. This includes tests against their cloud services delivered provisioning portal, soft phone APIs, Session Border Controller availability and response times among other tests. "As the leader in enterprise cloud communications, RingCentral is committed to providing its customers with unparalleled quality of service. Having end-to-end visibility across the entire digital experience delivery chain -- including the Internet, cloud provider networks, corporate networks and all the way to endpoint devices -- is critical to delivering on that promise," said Mohit Lad, co-founder and CEO of ThousandEyes. "We're pleased to provide such a mission-critical Network Intelligence platform to RingCentral that helps them improve overall service quality for their customers' cloud-based communications."

Learn more: ThousandEyes Blog

Network Intelligence

Follow ThousandEyes on Twitter About ThousandEyes ThousandEyes empowers businesses to see, understand and improve connected experiences everywhere. The ThousandEyes cloud platform offers unmatched vantage points throughout the global Internet and provides immediate visibility into experience for every user and application over any network, so companies can deliver superior digital experiences, modernize their enterprise WAN and successfully migrate to the cloud. ThousandEyes is central to the global operations of the world's largest and fastest growing brands, including Comcast (News - Alert) , eBay, HP, 100+ of the Global 2000, 60+ of the Fortune 500, 5 of the 6 top US banks and 20 of the 25 top SaaS companies. For more information, visit www.ThousandEyes.com or follow us on Twitter (News - Alert) at @ThousandEyes. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180926005215/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][September 26, 2018] Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Awards $13.7 Million to Fund New Intercampus Collaborative Research Programs to Advance Human Health

The Chan Zuckerberg Biohub (CZ Biohub), a nonprofit medical research organization, today announced that it is awarding $13.7 million over three years to support cutting-edge biomedical research from seven teams of scientists, physicians, and engineers, with each team including faculty members from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley), and Stanford University. The awards will fund two new programs: the CZ Biohub Microbiome Initiative and the CZ Biohub Intercampus Research Awards. "For the first time, these new awards bring together highly talented investigators from all three campuses to collaborate on promising new approaches to major biomedical problems," said Joe DeRisi, co-president of CZ Biohub. "By drawing on the strengths of all three institutions, we believe these teams will accomplish what is now beyond the reach of individual investigators." CZ Biohub Microbiome Initiative Launched as a pilot program earlier this year, the CZ Biohub Microbiome Initiative provides $4 million over three years to carry out research on the community of microbes within the human body that influence many aspects of health, from nutrition and immune function to drug metabolism. The Microbiome Initiative brings together eight leading microbiome experts from all three campuses based on their highly complementary and synergistic research interests. CZ Biohub Intercampus Research Awards Assembling the Microbiome Initiative team inspired CZ Biohub to create the Intercampus Research Awards. The new competitive awards program promotes collaborative research by bringing together clinicians, biologists, chemists, data scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and bioethicists in teams that each include faculty members from all three campuses. The competition drew applications from 83 teams. CZ Biohub initially planned to support three teams but was inspired to increase the number of awards to six, providing $9.7 million over three years. "This new collaboratie team-based funding allows investigators across the three campuses to tackle demanding problems to enhance health," said Steve Quake, co-president of CZ Biohub. "These research teams will shed new light on a diverse and challenging set of questions that will advance our understanding while developing technologies that open fresh avenues of research."



Statement from Priscilla Chan & Mark Zuckerberg (News - Alert) , Co-Founders, The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative "We launched the Biohub to bring together some of the brightest scientific minds in the Bay Area with world-class engineering teams, in order to help accelerate the pace of discovery and make faster progress in the fight against disease. Just two years after its launch, it is incredible to see how the Biohub has helped spark promising new collaborations, tools, and research to enable and empower the entire scientific community. Breakthroughs occur when researchers work together, within and across disciplines. By creating even more opportunities to do so through these two new programs, we believe we'll get closer to our goal of curing, preventing, or managing all disease by the end of the century," said Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg, Co-Founders of The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

Statements from Stanford, UC Berkeley and UCSF UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ said, "We are thrilled by the extent to which these awards honor and support the notion that our most pressing challenges can only be surmounted by transcending the lines that have too long divided academic disciplines, departments and even institutions. The awards will also help support our efforts to extend the reach of world-class, fundamental research through initiatives that can speed the translation of discoveries into inventions and services for the benefit of all." UCSF Chancellor Sam Hawgood said, "With its unique model of multi-institutional collaboration, the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub has become a keystone of the Bay Area ecosystem of innovation. The new research awards program and the Microbiome Initiative further strengthen the scientific and technological bonds Biohub has already forged among UCSF, Stanford, and UC Berkeley. We look forward to working with our partner institutions on these exciting new projects to advance knowledge and human health." Stanford University President Marc Tessier-Lavigne said, "I am excited that the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub has chosen to fund innovative, high-risk research with great potential for enhancing our understanding of human health. By supporting teams that are collaborating across disciplines and across our three institutions, the Biohub will enable scientific breakthroughs that increasingly require insights from multiple disciplines and perspectives." About the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub The CZ Biohub is an independent non-profit medical research organization collaborating with Stanford, University of California, Berkeley and University of California, San Francisco to harness the power of science, technology and human capacity to cure, prevent or manage all disease during our children's lifetime. For more information about the CZ Biohub, visit https://czbiohub.org. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180926005278/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][September 26, 2018] StratEdge to Display GaN and GaAs Packages at IMAPS, BCICTS and EDI CON USA

StratEdge Corporation, leader in the design, production, and assembly of high-performance semiconductor packages for microwave, millimeter-wave, and high-speed digital devices, will display its high-frequency, high-speed, thermally efficient packages at IMAPS, BCICTS, and EDI CON USA. StratEdge's packages meet the extreme demands of gallium nitride (GaN) and gallium arsenide (GaAs) devices and the critical requirements of the telecom, mixed signal, VSAT, broadband wireless, satellite, military, test and measurement, automotive, down-hole, and MEMS markets. StratEdge will showcase two options for packaging GaN and high-power semiconductor devices, the LL family of leaded laminate copper-moly-copper (CMC) base packages and its off-the-shelf line of molded ceramic packages that can be configured to meet the requirements for chips with frequencies up to 18 GHz. These packages dissipate heat and come in fully-hermetic versions in over 200 standard outlines. StratEdge will also feature its complete line of post-fired and molded ceramic semiconductor packages operating from DC to 63+ GHz. These packages have electrical transition designs that ensure exceptionally low electrical losses and operate efficiently, even at the highest frequencies. All packages are lead-free and most meet RoHS and WEEE standards. "We are excited to participate in these three industry events," said Tim Going, president of StratEdge. "Since StratEdge started manufacturing packages for semiconductor devices in 1992, we have seen the demand for high-speed, high-frequency, data-intensive technologies multiply. This is reflected in the interest in these events." StratEdge will be exhibiting in booth 309 at the 2018 IMAPS Symposium on Microelectronics, which is being held October 9-11, 2018 at the Pasadena Convention Center in Pasadena, California. This year marks the 51st annual symposium for this microelectronics industry event.



StratEdge will be exhibiting in booth 4 at the 2018 IEEE (News - Alert) BiCMOS and Compound Integrated Circuits and Technology Symposium (BCICTS), which is being held October 14-17, 2018 at the Sheraton San Diego Hotel and Marina in San Diego, California. BCICTS is a new symposium that combines the former Compound Semiconductor IC Symposium (CSICS) with the Biploar/BiCMOS Circuit and Technology Meeting (BCTM). StratEdge will be in booth 224 at EDI CON USA 2018, being held at the Santa Clara Convention Center, Santa Clara, CA from October 17-18, 2018. EDI CON USA is the first industry event in the USA to bring together RF, microwave, EMC (News - Alert) /EMI, and high-speed digital design engineers and system integrators for networking, product demonstrations, training, and learning opportunities.

For more information, contact StratEdge at info@stratedge.com, shop at the StratEdge store on Amazon.com, sign up for the StratEdge newsletter, and/or visit our website at www.stratedge.com. Photo available at: https://www.stratedge.com/img/high-reliability-packages.png About StratEdge StratEdge designs and manufactures high-performance semiconductor packages and provides chip assembly and test services. We specialize in packages for high-frequency, very high power, extremely demanding gallium arsenide (GaAs) and gallium nitride (GaN) devices and have a complete line of post-fired and molded ceramic semiconductor packages that operate from DC to 63+ GHz. Our patented electrical transition designs give StratEdge packages exceptionally low electrical losses, even at 63+ GHz. Markets served include telecom, mixed signal, VSAT, broadband wireless, satellite, military, test and measurement, automotive, down-hole, and MEMS. StratEdge is an ISO 9001:2015 facility. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180926005360/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][September 26, 2018] ORHub Announces Agreement with a Northeast Florida Hospital System

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif., Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- ORHub, Inc. (OTCQB: ORHB) (the "Company" or "ORHub"), a HIPAA compliant, physician-driven digital software company focused on improving profitability and the cost effectiveness of hospitals through real-time smart data and analytics, today announces that ORHub has signed an agreement with a large Northeast Florida hospital system. "We are extremely delighted to expand our geographic reach into the Florida region with a system that serves over 60,000 patients annually," stated Colt Melby, Chief Executive Officer of ORHub. "We look forward to keeping our shareholders apprised of new developments in the near future." About ORHub, Inc.

ORHub, born from the Microsoft for Start-Ups program, is an advanced surgical software provider focused on Revolutionizing the Business of SurgeryTM through the foundation of electronic data capture at the point-of- surgical care to improve workflow, simplify work processes and access real-time data intelligence. The Company's suite of products serves the needs of the health care industry including providers, patients, the government and the medical device vendors. ORHub provides a cloud-based software solution that captures inforation before, during and after surgery, filling a void in the current surgical information infrastructure and providing the first process to capture and measure the surgical process -- evolving Big Data into Intelligent Digital Data.



Hospitals and surgeons can make real-time, data-driven decisions to improve business profitability and the quality of patient care. This innovative technology results in hospitals understanding costs and identifying areas of cost reductions, as well as results in increased accountability, automatic creation of comprehensive anatomic implant registries, real-time analytics, improved efficiencies, and compliance with existing government regulations. ORHub has offices in Tempe, Arizona; Newport and Laguna Beach, California; Bellevue, Washington; and Jacksonville, Florida. For more information, visit www.ORHub.com

To view a previously released Microsoft Case Study on HOI and ORHub visit:

https://customers.microsoft.com/en-us/story/hoi-health-azure Forward-Looking Statements: This news release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Although the Company believes the expectations reflected in any forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, it can give no assurances that its expectations will be attained. Such statements are inherently uncertain, and actual results and activities may differ materially from those estimated or projected. Certain factors that can affect the Company's ability to achieve its anticipated results include, among others, uncertainties inherent in the development of a new software product business. ORHub Contact:

Jason Brown, Shareholder Communications

jason.brown@orhub.com

714-228-5667 Media Relations:

Cathy Loos, Senior Media Relations Specialist

cathy.loos@orhub.com

347-334-4135 View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/orhub-announces-agreement-with-a-northeast-florida-hospital-system-300719228.html SOURCE ORHub, Inc.

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][September 26, 2018] Hitachi Vantara Advances IT Infrastructure Portfolio With Updated Converged and Hyperconverged Systems, Enhanced Applications Support

SAN DIEGO, Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Hitachi Vantara , a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (TSE: 6501), today at NEXT 2018 announced technology enhancements across its leading IT infrastructure portfolio to help customers modernize their data centers as part of their digital transformation strategies. These enhancements include Hitachis first all-NVMe hyperconverged system delivering dramatically improved performance and efficiency for Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC (UCP HC) customers. Additional converged infrastructure server options, functionality and applications infrastructure solution updates expand the capabilities of Hitachis solution portfolio to address any workload, at scale, in todays multi-cloud environments.

These enhancements help enterprises deliver business outcomes by maximizing the power of data no matter where it resides  from the data center to the cloud and out to the edge  and move them forward in todays digital, data-driven business landscape. As more enterprises embark on data center modernization initiatives, theyre looking to leverage hyperconverged infrastructures for greater flexibility, increased agility and simpler deployment and management, said Mike Leone, senior analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group. Hitachi Vantaras continued investment in its core infrastructure products and technologies, such as the new all-flash NVMe hyperconverged system, will play a significant role in ensuring organizations are realizing the full value of their hyperconverged platforms for driving digital transformation and cloud-like IT. Enhanced Converged and Hyperconverged Portfolio

The Hitachi Unified Compute Platform (UCP) family of converged, hyperconverged and rack-scale systems provides customers with simplified platforms of pre-tested and validated compute, network and storage that are fast to deploy and easy to manage and expand based on changing business requirements. Enhancements to the UCP portfolio include: Hitachi Unified Compute Platform HC (UCP HC) hyperconverged infrastructure appliance series will include a new all-flash NVMe UCP HC V124N system providing high storage density and capacity in a low-latency 1U form factor housing up to 12 NVMe SSDs (up to four ultra-fast Intel 3D XPoint-based Intel Optane SSDs for cache and eight NVMe SSDs for capacity), delivering a total raw capacity of up to 72 TB. It is designed to address the needs of customers requiring higher IOPS and ultra-low latency for applications such as real-time analytics, stock trading, fraud detection and online transaction processing (OLTP). The all-NVMe hyperconverged system will offer customers dramatically improved performance and efficiencies with a higher ROI by delivering hundreds of thousands of IOPS at sub-millisecond response time, for a 3X increase in IOPS performance and 4X lower latency compared to the prior all-flash UCP HC system. Hitachi Unified Compute Platform Advisor (UCP Advisor) IT management and orchestration software will include new deployment manager functionality that builds on the simplified, automated management and orchestration of UCP Advisor. With automated, rule-based deployment and validation software, the UCP Advisor deployment manager automates hundreds of manual tasks and can reduce deployment times from multiple days to as little as a few hours. Hitachi Unified Compute Platform CI (UCP CI) systems include new support for Hitachi Advanced Server DS7000 series servers for the most emanding scale-up workloads, including SAP and Oracle environments, and the Hitachi Advanced Server DS225 with NVIDIA Tesla GPUs for specialized graphics needs including VDI, CAD, collaborative workplaces and advanced analytics. These new options provide a flexible, low-risk path to modernizing data center infrastructure for a broad set of enterprise applications. New mix-and-match server options increase server flexibility and density to address different environments, use cases and applications.



Hitachi Unified Compute Platform RS (UCP RS) is a rack-scale system designed to simplify the deployment of an agile data infrastructure at scale. UCP RS adds support for the Hitachi DS225 server with NVIDIA Tesla GPU for workloads requiring advanced graphics capabilities. Expanded Applications Infrastructure Optimization for Databases

Hitachi Solution for Databases , powered by UCP systems, expands customer choice for both optimizing and scaling performance of the data infrastructure in critical Oracle environments. Oracle Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) optimization is enhanced with the addition of Hadoop as an offload target. By allowing cold data from a production Oracle EDW to be offloaded to Hadoop, the data set is reduced, resulting in improved EDW performance and lower software licensing costs by minimizing the number of licenses needed for primary database data. The ability to offload Oracle EDW data to MongoDB and now Hadoop, based on Hitachi Unified Compute Platform RS (UCP RS) and Pentaho Data Integration, delivers an infrastructure solution that can blend data from a variety of disparate sources  whether the data is structured as in an Oracle Database, semi-structured as in MongoDB, or from unstructured sources such as social media and web content  to provide a more complete view, find correlations and accelerate time to insight. In addition, Oracle customers deploying the most mission-critical, high-performance database and application environments can now use UCP CI configurations with Hitachi DS7000 series servers to provide the scalability and performance that modern digital businesses require. Hitachi Solution for the SAP HANA Platform now gives customers greater choice and simplified management through newly certified SAP HANA appliances based on Hitachi UCP CI with Hitachi DS7000 series servers, and enhanced management integration via Hitachi storage and server adapters for the SAP HANA Cockpit. UCP CI configurations with Hitachi DS7000 series are also planned to support a broad range of virtual infrastructure solutions, including Virtual HANA (vHANA) and other VMware-based workloads. Hitachi Vantara is committed to providing customers of our IT infrastructure products and solutions with the latest technology innovations to address their evolving business and data requirements with new levels of efficiency, agility and management simplicity, said Bob Madaio, vice president of Infrastructure Solutions Marketing at Hitachi Vantara. With these latest advancements across our leading converged and hyperconverged systems portfolio, we continue to provide customers with an unmatched choice of optimized systems and validated solutions to maximize ROI and unlock data-driven insights for better business outcomes. Availability

UCP CI configurations with Hitachi DS7000 series servers are available now for supported SAP HANA and Oracle environments. The optional all-NVMe chassis for UCP HC systems are expected to be generally available in November 2018, and will be complemented by all-NVMe Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform (VSP) options for standalone deployment or within UCP CI in 2019. The Hitachi DS225 with Nvidia GPU support and new mix-and-match server options for UCP CI and RS will be generally available in November. The latest release of UCP Advisor with new deployment manager functionality will be generally available in October 2018. Additional Resources Blog post: Hitachi + VMware vSAN + Intel Optane NVMe = Turbocharged Hyperconverged Infrastructure, by Dinesh Singh About Hitachi NEXT 2018

NEXT 2018 is the premier event for the digital revolution. Its for data-driven innovators who lead the transformation in their industry. They lead with clear insights drawn from their own data to make the right decisions for the best results. Data changes the way the world works, advancing business and even society itself. There can never be too much data and it can never come too quickly if organizations manage, govern, mobilize and analyze it effectively. At NEXT 2018, leaders see whats next for their data in IT, operational technology and the internet of things, from Hitachi and our many partners. They bring back insights and strategies they can use right away to transform their businesses and build them for tomorrow. At NEXT 2018 we change the way the world works. NEXT 2018 is held September 25-27 at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront in San Diego, California. For more information and to register, please visit HitachiNEXT.com . About Hitachi Vantara

Hitachi Vantara, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd., helps data-driven leaders find and use the value in their data to innovate intelligently and reach outcomes that matter for business and society. We combine technology, intellectual property and industry knowledge to deliver data-managing solutions that help enterprises improve their customers experiences, develop new revenue streams, and lower the costs of business. Only Hitachi Vantara elevates your innovation advantage by combining deep information technology (IT), operational technology (OT) and domain expertise. We work with organizations everywhere to drive data to meaningful outcomes. Visit us at www.HitachiVantara.com .

Connect With Hitachi Vantara Twitter

LinkedIn

Facebook About Hitachi, Ltd.

Hitachi, Ltd. (TSE: 6501), headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, delivers innovations that answer societys challenges, combining its operational technology, information technology, and products/systems. The companys consolidated revenues for fiscal 2017 (ended March 31, 2018) totaled 9,368.6 billion yen ($88.4 billion). The Hitachi Group is an innovation partner for the IoT era, and it has approximately 307,000 employees worldwide. Through collaborative creation with customers, Hitachi is deploying Social Innovation Business using digital technologies in a broad range of sectors, including Power/Energy, Industry/Distribution/Water, Urban Development, and Finance/Social Infrastructure/Healthcare. For more information on Hitachi, please visit the company's website at http://www.hitachi.com . HITACHI is a trademark or registered trademark of Hitachi, Ltd. All other trademarks, service marks, and company names are properties of their respective owners. MEDIA CONTACTS

Brian Garabedian

Hitachi Vantara

Brian.garabedian@hitachivantara.com

+1 408.386.4621 Ashley Paula

Weber Shandwick for Hitachi Vantara

apaula@webershandwick.com

+1 415.262.5975

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][September 26, 2018] Hitachi Vantara Helps Customers Govern and Protect Data in a Multicloud World

SAN DIEGO, Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Hitachi Vantara , a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (TSE: 6501), today at NEXT 2018 announced updates to the Hitachi Content Platform (HCP) portfolio. The updates extend data governance, optimize for cloud and modernize file services to help organizations govern and protect their data in an increasingly complex multicloud environment. These enhancements to the HCP portfolio help deliver business outcomes by maximizing the power of data no matter where it resides  from the data center to the cloud and out to the edge  and move them forward in todays digital, data-driven business landscape.

Organizations recognize that data is the critical element to growth and innovation. HCP is an object storage platform that intelligently manages data as a key business asset and govern it with integrated security to reduce compliance risks. The new updates expand the capabilities of the HCP portfolio to help customers improve business productivity by making information available to users with strengthened security and data governance, while also helping to reduce costs across private and multicloud environments. Hitachi Vantaras continued investment and innovations have placed the Hitachi Content Platform portfolio in a leadership position in the object-based storage market," said Amita Potnis, research manager, file and object-based storage systems at IDC. A recent study shows 56% of respondents plan to use private or multicloud platforms within the next 18 months. The latest software updates give customers the ability to own and control how their data is stored, protected, governed and accessed across workloads, on-premises storage platforms and multiple public cloud deployments. Extend Data Governance To Reduce Risk in Multicloud Environments

HCP is an intelligent object storage platform based on robust compliance features, metadata-driven classification, indexing and full content search designed to lower compliance costs associated with ever-changing regulations, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). HCP makes sensitive data tamper-resistant with the latest governance capabilities including: Compliance enforcement in the public cloud: New Amazon S3 extensions allow the use of HCP compliance capabilities, like retention and privileged delete, for application data ingested via the Amazon S3 application programming interface (API).

New Amazon S3 extensions allow the use of HCP compliance capabilities, like retention and privileged delete, for application data ingested via the Amazon S3 application programming interface (API). Retention enhancements: Improved event-based retention to align with stringent requirements such as DoD 5015.02-STD  Electronic Records Management and SEC17a.

Improved event-based retention to align with stringent requirements such as DoD 5015.02-STD  Electronic Records Management and SEC17a. Replication before tiering: Enhanced tiering-automation capabilities provide a global data protection level across multiple sites and improve data durability, optimize capacity and reduce costs.

Enhanced tiering-automation capabilities provide a global data protection level across multiple sites and improve data durability, optimize capacity and reduce costs. Protection against cybersecurity risks: HCP regularly undergoes third-party security audits and incorporates continuous, incremental updates to stay ahead of the latest threats. Because of this, HCP has won the Fortress Cyber Security and Stratus Cloud Computing awards. Optimized for the Cloud: Drive Down Costs While Increasing Profitability

HCP delivers cost-optimized cloud object storage, performance and scale so that organizations can consolidate multiple application workloads onto a single platform. This enables customers to centralize their data first, inventory it and determine the best location to store the data based on cost, sensitivity or value  on premises, in the cloud or both. HCP can achieve over 60% lower storage costs over five years than using public cloud alone. The latest innovations include: Cloud-native compatibility: HCP now adds even stronger compatibility with the industry-standard Amazon S3 API. This allows HCP to support new application requirements and an expanding ISV application ecosystem. Organizations can now use HCP with leading big data applications to deliver significant cost savings by offloading content from tier-one storage.

HCP now adds even stronger compatibility with the industry-standard Amazon S3 API. This allows HCP to support new application requirements and an expanding ISV application ecosystem. Organizations can now use HCP with leading big data applications to deliver significant cost savings by offloading content from tier-one storage. Flexible deployment options: In addition to software-only and appliance models, new support for VMware vSAN allows HCP to be run in hyperconverged environments such as Hitachi Vantaras Unified Compute Platform (UCP) to ensure availability, peformance and reliability.

In addition to software-only and appliance models, new support for VMware vSAN allows HCP to be run in hyperconverged environments such as Hitachi Vantaras (UCP) to ensure availability, peformance and reliability. Enhanced performance monitoring: With Hitachi Content Monitor, organizations can aggregate and visualize system metrics from multiple HCP clusters into customizable dashboards. This is essential to organizations when managing and governing data at scale and using the delivered insights to maintain optimal performance.



Modernizing File Services at the Edge To Improve Productivity

Updates to Hitachi Content Platform Anywhere (HCP Anywhere) extend the boundaries of the digital workplace to deliver sync-based file services at the edge. HCP Anywhere allows organizations to replace traditional file servers with cloud file storage or cloud home directories. It extends file-sharing data services from core data centers to remote and branch offices and end-user devices. This improves both collaboration and productivity, and enhances data protection against device failure, user error and attacks such as ransomware. The new release of HCP Anywhere includes the following enhancements: Cloud file services: New HCP Anywhere Edge file services bring the innovative sync technology of HCP Anywhere for user devices to remote and branch offices. HCP Anywhere Edge is a cloud storage gateway option that helps right-size and consolidate file servers at the edge by keeping only active data in local storage while allowing easy access to large amounts of data from the private or hybrid HCP cloud in customers data centers.

New HCP Anywhere Edge file services bring the innovative sync technology of HCP Anywhere for user devices to remote and branch offices. HCP Anywhere Edge is a cloud storage gateway option that helps right-size and consolidate file servers at the edge by keeping only active data in local storage while allowing easy access to large amounts of data from the private or hybrid HCP cloud in customers data centers. Native Microsoft Windows compatibility: HCP Anywhere Edge file services natively support Microsoft Windows SMB 2 and 3 to reduce management overhead and eliminate the complexity of integrating, updating, testing and supporting the latest Microsoft Windows updates.

HCP Anywhere Edge file services natively support Microsoft Windows SMB 2 and 3 to reduce management overhead and eliminate the complexity of integrating, updating, testing and supporting the latest Microsoft Windows updates. File data protection: HCP Anywhere Edge provides advanced data protection and easy recovery from user error, device failures and cyberattacks like ransomware, while eliminating the need for traditional backups. It also simplifies and centralizes data protection and management for multiple-user and edge devices from a single point of management. Supporting Quotes

Hundreds of thousands of people across the state of Utah and beyond rely on University of Utah Health for a broad range of health care services. Faced with an increasing number of systems producing an ever-growing pool of data, the IT department needed an agile solution to ensure its data centers could support the organization now and in the future, said Jim Livingston, chief technology officer at University of Utah Health. The new HCP-enabled software-defined environment means we can support growing data volumes without having to invest in additional hardware. Weve seen a tenfold decrease in storage costs, despite storage growth across the organization. We now have the data center efficiency and agility we need to support innovation and future changes within the health care sector. At Flexential, we are a proud Hitachi Vantara Cloud Service Provider Partner and rely on Hitachi Content Platform (HCP) as the foundation for delivering secure and cost-effective content services for unmatched reliability in delivering backup, archive and data governance to our customers, said Mike Fuhrman, chief product officer at Flexential. By bringing together object storage, file sync and share and sophisticated search, our use of HCP creates a tightly integrated, smart cloud storage solution with unique data protection capabilities powered by our people and expertise. The latest innovations to the Hitachi Content Platform portfolio allow customers to better govern and protect their data in a multicloud environment while helping to accelerate productivity from the data center to the edge, said Linda Xu, vice president of Emerging Solutions and Cloud Services Marketing at Hitachi Vantara. As organizations cloud, governance and data accessibility requirements continue to evolve rapidly, HCP provides a highly adaptive, massively scalable and cost-efficient cloud storage platform that helps businesses organize their data, extract intelligence and safely share it with a globally dispersed workforce, all through a single point of visibility and control. Availability Updates to the HCP portfolio are available today. More information is available at https://www.hitachivantara.com/en-us/products/cloud-object-platform.html . Additional Resources Blog post, Leveraging Cloud Services with HCP S3 Tiering, by Hu Yoshida Blog post, Data Tiering from HCP to the Alibaba Cloud, by Jeff Lundberg Blog post, University of Utah Health Partners with Hitachi Vantara to Drive Innovation Through a Hybrid Cloud Environment, by Govanna Flores About Hitachi NEXT 2018

NEXT 2018 is the premier event for the digital revolution. Its for data-driven innovators who lead the transformation in their industry. They lead with clear insights drawn from their own data to make the right decisions for the best results. Data changes the way the world works, advancing business and even society itself. There can never be too much data and it can never come too quickly if organizations manage, govern, mobilize and analyze it effectively. At NEXT 2018, leaders see whats next for their data in IT, operational technology and the internet of things, from Hitachi and our many partners. They bring back insights and strategies they can use right away to transform their businesses and build them for tomorrow. At NEXT 2018 we change the way the world works. NEXT 2018 is held September 25-27 at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront in San Diego, California. For more information and to register, please visit HitachiNEXT.com . About Hitachi Vantara

Hitachi Vantara, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd., helps data-driven leaders find and use the value in their data to innovate intelligently and reach outcomes that matter for business and society. We combine technology, intellectual property and industry knowledge to deliver data-managing solutions that help enterprises improve their customers experiences, develop new revenue streams, and lower the costs of business. Only Hitachi Vantara elevates your innovation advantage by combining deep information technology (IT), operational technology (OT) and domain expertise. We work with organizations everywhere to drive data to meaningful outcomes. Visit us at www.HitachiVantara.com .

Connect with Hitachi Vantara Twitter

LinkedIn

Facebook About Hitachi, Ltd.

Hitachi, Ltd. (TSE: 6501), headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, delivers innovations that answer societys challenges, combining its operational technology, information technology, and products/systems. The companys consolidated revenues for fiscal 2017 (ended March 31, 2018) totaled 9,368.6 billion yen ($88.4 billion). The Hitachi Group is an innovation partner for the IoT era, and it has approximately 307,000 employees worldwide. Through collaborative creation with customers, Hitachi is deploying Social Innovation Business using digital technologies in a broad range of sectors, including Power/Energy, Industry/Distribution/Water, Urban Development, and Finance/Social Infrastructure/Healthcare. For more information on Hitachi, please visit the company's website at http://www.hitachi.com . MEDIA CONTACTS

Brian Garabedian

Hitachi Vantara

Brian.garabedian@hitachivantara.com

+1 408.386.4621 Ashley Paula

Weber Shandwick for Hitachi Vantara

apaula@webershandwick.com

+1 415.262.5975 HITACHI is a trademark or registered trademark of Hitachi, Ltd. Gartner is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. or its affiliates. All other trademarks, service marks, and company names are properties of their respective owners.

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][September 26, 2018]

Fullscope to Host New Webinar: Lessons Learned from 100+ Microsoft Dynamics CRM Upgrades - On Premise to Online

Athens, Alabama , Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- On Tuesday, October 2, 2018, Fullscope, in collaboration with Microsoft, is hosting a free 60-minute webinar on the best practices migrating Microsoft Dynamics CRM On-Premise to Microsoft Dynamics 365 (CRM online). Fullscope will also introduce its new FastTrack migration tool during the informative session.

Based upon hundreds of customer migrations, I will share best practices and lessons learned from these customers, and also answer any questions that companies may have about migrating, says Ryan Casey, VP of Delivery & Consulting for Fullscope,and speaker for the event. This will be a great overview for companies considering the move, and we will also have offline support during the session to thoroughly answer all questions, continues Casey.







For more information, or to register, click here .

About Edgewater Fullscope

Edgewater Fullscope delivers innovative Microsoft ERP, CRM and BI and Digital solutions and services on premise or in the cloud to Manufacturers, Professional Service firms and Equipment Dealers in North America and Europe. The award-winning company is one of the largest resellers of Microsoft Dynamics 365 (formerly Dynamics AX and CRM). For more information, visit www.fullscope.com.





Beth Seitz beth.seitz@fullscope.com (256) 771-7040[September 26, 2018] TapClicks Adds $10M Investment from Boathouse Capital

SAN JOSE, Calif. and WAYNE, Pa., Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- TapClicks , the global SaaS leader in marketing analytics, reporting and workflow, today announced a $10 million investment from Boathouse Capital , a private equity firm with over $350 million under management. The funding will drive customer and revenue growth through product innovations and accelerated sales and marketing. An early innovator in smart solutions for marketing business intelligence, TapClicks will leverage growth capital from Boathouse to expand the integration of artificial intelligence and machine learning technology into its scalable analytics and reporting platform, including the continued development of its proprietary marketing and advertising recommendation engine. "We evaluated several SaaS companies in the digital marketing space and TapClicks outperformed peers due to its rapid growth and large customer base," said Chong Moua, General Partner, Boathouse Capital. "After we invested in TapClicks, Salesforce announced its $850 million acquisition of Datorama, validating our thinking that we invested in the right market and picked one of the top players." "Today's customers demand a single platform to manage their marketing operations, data and communications," said Babak Hedayati, CEO of TapClicks. "TapClicks has disrupted the marketplace through the highest number of pre-integrated connectors, delivering high performance marketing throughout the process. Taplicks is poised to disrupt the market again by providing AI-based insights to optimize marketing budgets, ad quality, media mix and recommend marketing channels and platforms to maximize conversions and ROI."



TapClicks integrates more than 180 sources of marketing campaign data and performance metrics into a unified, scalable, end-to-end marketing analytics, reporting, workflow and order management solution. The company also offers a HIPAA compliant solution to ensure healthcare covered entities and their digital agencies are able to easily maintain regulatory compliance. Serving 5000+ media and advertising agencies and their 500,000 brand clients, TapClicks' solution enables users to analyze data quickly and effectively, delivering powerful automated reports and visualizations to enhance marketing operations and performance while improving sales enablement without the burden of additional IT overhead. About TapClicks

TapClicks, Inc. is the leading marketing performance platform for digital and media agencies and their SMB, B2B enterprise and consumer brand clients. Its pre-integrated, unified platform includes agency orders, marketing workflow, performance analytics, client reporting and data  centralized across a wide range of marketing and advertising tools. TapClicks' unified platform is used by over 5,000 digital and media agencies. The company has been recognized by the 2018 SaaS Awards for the Best SaaS Product for Business Intelligence or Analytics, Best UX/UI/Design in a SaaS Product and Best SaaS Product for Sales / Marketing; the 2018 MITX Best Technology Award; and StreetFight's Local Visionary Award 2018 for "Best Dashboard for managing Local Campaigns ." Additionally, it has been honored for three consecutive years on the Inc. 5000 list as a Fastest Growing Company in Silicon Valley. TapClicks, founded in 2009, is headquartered in San Jose, Calif. with locations in Boston, Nashville, and New York City, as well as international offices in Montreal, Canada; Bogota, Columbia; and Pune, India. For more information, visit TapClicks.com and sign up for a demo or free trial today.

Media Contact:

Samantha Singh

Lumina Communications for TapClicks Inc.

tapclicks@luminapr.com

650-722-0294 View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/tapclicks-adds-10m-investment-from-boathouse-capital-300719262.html SOURCE TapClicks

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][September 26, 2018] FAIR Institute to Hold 3rd Annual Conference as Movement for 'Cyber Risk Economics' Grows

RESTON, Va., Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The FAIR Institute, an expert, nonprofit organization led by information risk officers, CISOs and business executives to develop standard information and operational risk management practices, will be hosting its annual FAIR Conference (FAIRCON18) as a movement central for cyber risk economics, the revolutionary approach to measuring and managing information risk enabled by the Factor Analysis of Information Risk (FAIR) model. The conference will be held October 16 and 17 in Pittsburgh, PA, co-hosted by Carnegie Mellon Universitys Software Engineering Institute and Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy, world centers for information security studies.

FAIR is the most widely accepted cyber value-at-risk (VaR) standard for measuring cybersecurity and operational risk in financial terms, freeing the risk profession from seat-of-the-pants qualitative estimation and opening the door to treating cyber risk on the same economic basis as other risk disciplines. The FAIR Institute is a non-profit, professional organization that shepherds the FAIR standard and spreads the FAIR message through its website, training tools, university program, technology partnerships and extensive speaking engagements. Institute membership passed 3,500 in September of 2018, doubling in just one year. Institute Chairman Jack Jones is the creator of FAIR and author of Measuring and Managing Information Risk: A FAIR Approach . The Institute board recently added two prestigious new members: Zulfikar Ramzan , CTO at RSA Security, and Kim Jones , director, Cybersecurity Education Consortium at Arizona State University.



At current adoption rates, FAIR is projected to be in use at 30% of the Fortune 1000 by 2020, and FAIRCON18 is a strong indicator of that enthusiasm. The agenda includes presentations and participation from TIAA, E*TRADE Financial, MassMutual, Express Scripts, Bank of America, ADP and Fidelity. Some presentations of note include: FAIR Chairman Jack Jones keynote on The Next Frontier in Risk Management

Chairman Jack Jones keynote on The Next Frontier in Risk Management E*TRADE Financial Director and Chairman of the Risk Oversight Committee, James Lams keynote on A Risk Committee Chairs View of ERM and Cybersecurity Oversight

Financial Director and Chairman of the Risk Oversight Committee, James Lams keynote on A Risk Committee Chairs View of ERM and Cybersecurity Oversight Highmark Health CISO Omar Khawajas presentation on Reporting to the Board: What got you here, wont get you there

CISO Omar Khawajas presentation on Reporting to the Board: What got you here, wont get you there Additional panels and presentations covering topics from cyber insurance coverage to ransomware response The conference also offers two days of on-site training in hands-on application of the FAIR model, held on October 14 and 15.

Time and risk wait for no one, and were historically really bad at managing both, said Jack Jones. In terms of risk, time lost in confusion or miscommunication can be an existential threat to business. What has been missing for so many, is a common yardstick for measuring risk, and a common lexicon for communicating whats truly at risk across the business. FAIR has proven itself a lingua franca for risk management, as evidenced by the collection of minds and influencers weve attracted to our organization, and the thirst of practitioners for learning the lessons they teach. Were very much looking forward to the lessons we all learn from each other at FAIRCON18. About the FAIR Institute

The FAIR Institute is an expert, non-profit organization led by information risk officers, CISOs and business executives, created to develop and share standard information risk management practices based on FAIR. Factor Analysis of Information Risk (FAIR) is the only international standard analytics model for information security and operational risk. FAIR helps organizations quantify and manage risk from the business perspective and enables cost-effective decision-making. To learn more and get involved visit: www.fairinstitute.org . Contact:

Luke Bader

Director, Memberships and Programs

lbader@fairinstitute.org

484.885.4144

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][September 26, 2018] Global SVOD Forecasts to 2023: The Worldwide Number of Paying SVOD Subscriptions will Increase by 409 Million between 2017 and 2023 - ResearchAndMarkets.com

The "Global SVOD Forecasts" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The worldwide number of paying SVOD subscriptions will increase by 409 million between 2017 and 2023 to total 777 million. Eleven countries will have more than 10 million SVOD subscriptions by 2023. China and the US will together account for more than half the world's SVOD subscriptions by 2023. China will have the most SVOD subs from 2019 - despite multiple subscriptions being commonplace in the US. China will have 235 million SVOD subscribers by 2023 - up from 97 million in 2017. The US will have 208 million SVOD subscriptions by 2023; up by an impressive 76 million on 2017 despite its relative maturity. Its share of the global market will fall from 36% in 2017 to 27% by 2023. By 2023, Netflix will contribute 192 million (25% of the 777 million subscriptions), Amazon Prime Video 120 million (15%), China 235 million (30%. Neither Netflix or Amazon Prime Video operate in China) and 230 million others (30%). Netflix will add 82 million subs between 2017 and 2023. Amazn Prime Video launched in 200 countries in late 2016 - like Netflix, not in China. We forecast 120 million Amazon Prime Video's subscribers by 2023 - double the 2017 total. However, 110 million of the 2023 total will be in Amazon Prime territories, and therefore will not directly pay for the video platform.



This report contains comprehensive coverage of the SVOD sector for 694 platforms across 138 countries: Executive Summary.

Major SVOD players, including subscriber and revenues estimates by country (2010 to 2023) for the major platforms.

NEW FOR 2018: Insight profiles for the top 10 countries (Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico, South Korea, UK and USA).

Country-by-country forecasts from 2010 to 2023.

NEW FOR 2018: 207-page Outlook report in PowerPoint, with 308 charts that highlight SVOD developments for 138 countries. Bullet point analysis for the top 50 countries and the global slides. Companies Featured

A1 Now

Amazon Prime Video

beIN Connect

Blim

Cell C

Claro (News - Alert) Video

Crackle

Fox

Globo Play

HBO

Horizon

Icflix

Iflix

Iroko

Kwese Play

Maxdome

Megogo

Netflix

NL Ziet

Orange (News - Alert)

Pickbox

RTL

Shahid Plus

Showmax

Sky

Starz

Turkcell

Viaplay

Videoland Unlimited

WAVO

Ziggo (News - Alert) Movies & Series For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/jf9vw4/global_svod?w=4. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180926005625/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][September 26, 2018] Perfect Sense Unveils the Latest Generation of Brightspot, Enabling Leading Media and Brand Publishers, like Sotheby's, to Launch New Enterprise Websites in Less Than 90 Days

Perfect Sense, a technology innovation and digital consulting organization, today announces the launch of Brightspot 4.0, the newest version of the multi-channel content management and distribution engine built for high-volume media and brand publishers. Brightspot 4.0 is the only content management system (CMS) that can have enterprise-level websites launched in under three months. Reaching today's audience is harder than ever. Enterprises must rapidly distribute content across dozens of channels, in multiple languages, and personalize it for each individual consumer. Brightspot was specifically designed to help enterprises achieve this goal. As an API-first platform, Brightspot offers 200+ integrations, easily infusing into any marketing/creative technology stack. It is naturally headless and decoupled, simplifying every channel delivery. The refined user interface introduced in Brightspot 4.0 is intuitive, easy to learn, and more powerful than ever. Key aspects of Brightspot 4.0 include an improved publishing experience, support for Amazon Elemental video, and ready-made, front-end elements to speed the creation of beautiful, customizable content. Editorial teams have more creative control than ever before while affording IT the time needed to solve broader strategic initiatives. Jonathan Pytell, VP and director of Digital Products at Sotheby's, commented, "We're really excited about Brightspot's approach to accelerated development. Almost immediately we moved beyond cntent migration and were discussing how to scale and drive more meaningful experiences very early on. As a result, we've seen a significant increase in user engagement."



"With Brightspot, customers can immediately focus on adding unique value to their end users, not worry about their publishing platform," said David Gang, CEO at Perfect Sense. "We've enhanced our product to provide pre-built, plug-and-play components enterprises need to launch new properties in weeks, not months-and distribute that content across all channels. Your story can find its audience no matter where they are or what device they're using." Gang continued, "Organizations now have the power to 'start-finish-then customize' with Brightspot's rich publishing platform. We spent our time defining an editorial experience to delight users and a powerful development platform to enable organizations to deliver on their brand promises faster than any other platform."

To celebrate the launch of the latest version of Brightspot, Perfect Sense will further its charitable efforts by offering two charitable organizations the opportunity to re-platform on to Brightspot at no cost. The winning organizations will be announced at the company's launch party being held October 9, 2018 at District Winery in Washington, D.C. For more information and to nominate an organization, visit http://pages.brightspot.com/brightspot-launch-dc.html About Perfect Sense Founded in 2008, Perfect Sense is a visionary technology company created to deliver enterprise web publishing solutions and digital consulting services in a more impactful way. Our mission is to empower the art of digital possibility through Brightspot, a content management (CMS) and distribution engine built for high-volume media, brand, and portfolio publishers. Perfect Sense serves many marquee brands including Walmart, Johnson & Johnson, Sotheby's, Amazon, Univision, U.S. News, Politico, and Scripps Networks Interactive. Headquartered in Reston, VA, Perfect Sense maintains a strong focus on giving back to the community by supporting local and national organizations including Special Olympics, The First Tee, YMCA, and Troops First Foundation. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180926005633/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][September 26, 2018] New Cyber Solution from Munich Re Helps Protect Small and Mid-sized Businesses; Offers Turnkey Approach for Regional Insurance Carriers

Munich Reinsurance America, Inc. (Munich Re) is now offering a cyber reinsurance solution for regional property/casualty insurance carriers seeking to provide this coverage and associated services to their small and medium-size enterprise (SME) clients. "Cyber events are a growing threat to businesses of every size," said Annamaria Landaverde, vice president and head of cyber for the US Reinsurance Division, Munich Re. A May 2016 IBISWorld industry report noted that 72 percent of U.S. cyberattacks occurred in SMEs. "A cyber event can have a crippling effect on small to medium-size businesses, which often don't have the resources or insurance protection needed to recover following such an occurrence. Munich Re offers regional primary carriers a flexible, turnkey cyber solution to help protect their small to medium-size commercial customers." Cyber insurance may provide coverage for a loss resulting from a variety of events, such as a denial-of-service attack, unauthorized access, introduction of malicious code, privacy breach, extortion threat, regulatory proceedings, and/or third-party claims and more. Munich Re's cyber solution provides reinsurance capacity for limits up to $15 million, technical expertise, and tools such as a risk management portal and a post-breach services panel to primary insurance carriers that may not have the experience or resources necessary to provide cyber protection to their clients. Insurance carriers participating in Munich Re's cyber solution will retain a portion of the risk. Munich Re's turnkey solution can include ISO's stand-alone commercial cyber policy or the information security protection cyber policy as well as a primary carrier's proprietary cyber product. "We are pleased that Munich Re has recognized ISO's cyber insurance program as part of its turnkey solution, as our program can provide primary carriers with an array of coverage options to help address the growing and diverse cyber market," said Maroun Mourad, president of ISO Commercial Lines. "That's imortant because cyber risk is constantly changing and presenting significant challenges for those looking to insure the wide range of small and midsize businesses in need of coverage."



Munich Re's cyber reinsurance solution is available in all 50 states to primary property/casualty insurance carriers and reinsurance brokers for their SME policyholders. About Munich Reinsurance America, Inc.

Munich Reinsurance America, Inc. is one of the largest reinsurers in the United States. We provide reinsurance coverages, specialty reinsurance, and risk management solutions to commercial and personal lines insurance carriers, agents and brokers, program administrators, and managing general agents. Our admitted and non-admitted insurance company affiliates also offer specialty insurance products. We provide insurance carriers with white label products to help protect against the devastating effects of natural catastrophes and emerging risks, while our Innovation Lab offers client solutions in a rapidly evolving technology risk landscape. We believe that by looking out for our clients' best interests with innovative risk solutions we can help build more resilient communities and close insurance gaps. Munich Reinsurance America, Inc., a subsidiary of Munchener Ruckversicherungs-Gesellschaft Aktiengesellschaft in Munchen ("Munich Re"), earns high ratings for financial strength from A.M. Best Company. We serve our clients from our Princeton, New Jersey campus and regional offices throughout the United States. For additional information visit www.munichreamerica.com. About Munich Re Munich Re is one of the world's leading providers of reinsurance, primary insurance and insurance-related risk solutions. The group consists of the reinsurance and ERGO business segments, as well as the capital investment company MEAG. Munich Re is globally active and operates in all lines of the insurance business. Since it was founded in 1880, Munich Re has been known for its unrivalled risk-related expertise and its sound financial position. It offers customers financial protection when faced with exceptional levels of damage - from the 1906 San Francisco earthquake to the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season. Munich Re possesses outstanding innovative strength, which enables it to also provide coverage for extraordinary risks such as rocket launches, renewable energies, cyberattacks, or pandemics. The company is playing a key role in driving forward the digital transformation of the insurance industry, and in doing so has further expanded its ability to assess risks and the range of services that it offers. Its tailor-made solutions and close proximity to its customers make Munich Re one of the world's most sought-after risk partners for businesses, institutions, and private individuals. Any descriptions of coverage reflected here are meant to be general in nature and do not include nor are intended to include all of the actual terms, benefits and limitations found in an insurance or reinsurance policy. The insurance or reinsurance policy, as applicable, will form the contract between the insured and insurance company, and governs in all cases. Munich Reinsurance America, Inc. and its affiliates disclaim any and all liability whatsoever resulting from use of or reliance upon this material. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180926005126/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][September 26, 2018] GoodFirms Announces Leading IT Development/Designing Companies and Marketing Agencies in Canada for 2018

WASHINGTON, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- GoodFirms unveils the latest research of Top IT Development and Designing Companies as well as Marketing Agencies in Canada. These companies have demonstrated for their strong strategic and technical expertise in assisting businesses to perk up their online visibility. Take a sneak-peek at the Leading IT Development/Designing Companies and Marketing Agencies in Canada: Top Mobile App Development Companies: Swenson He, IndiaNIC Infotech Ltd., Hidden Brains Infotech, VironIT, Simpalm, S-Pro, NMG Technologies, Consagous Technologies, ChromeInfo Technologies, Y Media Labs. Top Software Development Companies: ELEKS, Cyber Infrastructure Inc., iTechArt Group, Parangat Technologies, Finoit Technologies, Inc, West Coast Infotech, Clavax Technologies LLC, Sphinx Solutions, Sunflower Lab, Diceus. Top Web Development Companies: OpenGeeksLab, Zealous System, Cubix, Konstant Infosolutions, INGIC, Dev Technosys Pvt Ltd, Social Media 55, NOTO IT Solutions Pvt. Ltd., Techugo, iQlance Solutions. Top Ecommerce Development Companies: Phase 2, Brainvire Infotech INC., Space-O Technologies, Coruscate Solutions Pvt Ltd, Think Profits, Web Soft Experts, 247 Labs, Iphygenia Solutions Pvt. Ltd., Technorely, Spiria. Top Blockchain Technology Companies: SoluLab Inc., LeewayHertz, Quest Global Technologies, Bitswift, Blockchain Mind, Debut Infotech, Two tall Totems, nuco, Etherparty, Peer Ledger. Top Digital Marketing Companies: SurgeStream, Courimo, Viral In Nature, Foxtail Marketing, Welby Consulting, WillBeCoded, Systronic, MacRAE'S Marketing, LSEO.com, Megrisoft Limited. Top SEO Companies: Gold Mind Digital, Brighter Digital, Eggs Media, Andy Kuiper SEO Services, Let's get Optimized, Search Beast SEO, Boss North SEO Montreal, Ensemble Systems, iHorse Technologies, Guarana Technologies. Top Mobile App Design Companies: Cleveroad, Mobisoft Infotech, Quy Technology, Citrusbits, MindSea, Pieoneers, Creative360 LLC, InikWorld Technologies Pvt Ltd, Uppercut, Cheeky Monkey Media Inc. Top Web Design Companie: Zync Agency, Plank Design, Modern Technolab, Wabes, Akkas Tech, Angels IT, LLC, ThoughtWorks, Icona Inc., Megrisoft Limited, iMedia Designs.



GoodFirms uses a unique methodology to identify top performers in each service segment. This research process maps each firm's industry focus against their quality of work reliability and ability to deliver the project on client expectations. Other factors GoodFirms consider are an agency's market presence, experience in the same domain and client feedback. Here are the inclusive lists of IT Development/Designing Companies and Marketing Agencies in Canada:

Top Mobile App Development Companies: https://www.goodfirms.co/directory/country/app-development/ca Top Software Development Companies: https://www.goodfirms.co/directory/country/top-software-development-companies/ca Top Web Development Companies: https://www.goodfirms.co/directory/country/top-website-development-companies/ca Top Ecommerce Development Companies: https://www.goodfirms.co/directory/country/ecommerce-web-development-companies/ca Top Blockchain Development Companies: https://www.goodfirms.co/directory/country/list-blockchain-technology-companies/canada Top Digital Marketing Companies: https://www.goodfirms.co/directory/country/top-digital-marketing-companies/ca Best SEO Companies: https://www.goodfirms.co/seo-agencies/canada Top Mobile App Design Companies: https://www.goodfirms.co/directory/country/mobile-app-design-companies/canada Top Web Design Companies: https://www.goodfirms.co/directory/country/top-web-design-companies/ca These listed firms have stood out for their industry expertise and not only that but for overall performance. Thus, this has opened up the splendid path for these firms to get indexed in the list of Top IT Development/Designing Companies and Marketing Agencies in Canada. GoodFirms research is on-going for identifying the top IT development companies and best software. You can also Get Listed your firm in the list of front-runners by showing a strong record of your work. About GoodFirms: GoodFirms is a Washington, D.C. based research firm that aligns its efforts in identifying the most prominent and efficient IT development/designing companies and marketing agencies that deliver results to their clients. GoodFirms research is a confluence of new age consumer reference processes and conventional industry-wide review & rankings that help service seekers leap further and multiply their industry-wide value and credibility. Rachael Ray (360) 326-2243 rachael@goodfirms.co SOURCE GoodFirms Related Links https://www.goodfirms.co View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/goodfirms-announces-leading-it-developmentdesigning-companies-and-marketing-agencies-in-canada-for-2018-300719179.html SOURCE GoodFirms

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][September 26, 2018] Infiniti Research Reveals Different Advantages of Competitive Pricing That You Must Know to Maximize Profits

Infiniti Research, a world-renowned market intelligence solutions provider, has announced the completion of their latest article on the different advantages of competitive pricing. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180926005644/en/ Different Advantages of Competitive Pricing. (Graphic: Business Wire) One of the most probable reasons behind the sudden drop in the sales of the products or services is pricing. Additionally, another probable reason is that competitors have slashed the pricing for the same product or service. Although it is not a bad idea to keep own product's price lower than the competitor's, it is always suggested not to keep huge difference. Competitive pricing analysis helps in such situations and can help to respond efficiently and effectively to the strategy of competitors. To know more about our complete portfolio of competitive pricing solutions, Request a proposal "Competitive pricing analysis can be best done by automating the software since it provides an opportunity to increase the price of the product while monitoring the competitor's strategy," says an industry expert from Infiniti. Continue reading to know more about advantages of competitive pricing or get in touch with our analysts for a free consultation.



Different Advantages of Competitive Pricing: Better positioning of the business

Competitive pricing analysis enables the business to manage the competition by preventing loss of market share to competitors and loss of customers. This competitive pricing advantage allows to respond to every strategy of competitors. This can further help in improving positioning of the business. To know more about our portfolio of competitive pricing solutions, Request a proposal Stable customer base

Pricing is a very important factor driving the purchase decisions of online shoppers. According to the pricing facts of e-commerce, before arriving at the final purchase decision, online shoppers visit at least three websites. This shows that for online shoppers, price comparisons and pricing are very important factors. Therefore, competitive pricing analysis helps to keep the customer base stable and allows your business to grow by benchmarking and regulating pricing. To know more about the advantages of competitive pricing, get in touch Maximize profits

Dynamic pricing stands at the top of the competitive pricing analysis methods. Dynamic pricing helps to obtain frequent information on competitors' pricing strategy. This further facilitates to compete in the market in a much better way and maximizes profit as well. This competitive pricing advantage can take business growth to the next level. Get in touch, to know more about the advantages of competitive pricing. Infiniti Research is a global market intelligence company offering strategic insights to help look beyond market disruptions, study competitive activity, and develop intelligent business strategies. Listed below are the common types of market research methods.

View the complete list of the advantages of competitive pricing:

https://www.infinitiresearch.com/thoughts/competitive-pricing-strategy About Infiniti Research Established in 2003, Infiniti Research is a leading market intelligence company providing smart solutions to address your business challenges. Infiniti Research studies markets in more than 100 countries to help analyze competitive activity, see beyond market disruptions, and develop intelligent business strategies. To know more, visit: https://www.infinitiresearch.com/about-us View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180926005644/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][September 26, 2018] Bigtincan Brings Ontologies to Salesforce.com

Bigtincan, the leader in mobile, AI-powered sales enablement automation, today announced the launch of Bigtincan for Salesforce, a new SaaS (News - Alert) solution for Salesforce.com users based on ontologies - a new approach to AI and data science. Ontologies provide an innovative new approach in connecting disparate information sets to provide content recommendations inside Salesforce.com (News - Alert) , and ultimately drive action for today's sales teams. This announcement was made at Dreamforce 2018, taking place September 25-28 in San Francisco. With Bigtincan for Salesforce, companies of all sizes can empower their sales representatives with AI-powered content recommendations, bringing the power of ontologies to any Salesforce object across Salesforce Sales Cloud, Service Cloud and Salesforce Communities. With its flexible configuration and setup, the solution is able to connect directly to existing external content repositories, such as EFSS, SharePoint, Salesforce Files and the Bigtincan Hub, making it easy to implement and maintain. The core technology behind Bigtincan for Salesforce comes from Bigtincan's acquisition of Contondo in 2017. The platform pairs new techniques in data science with Bigtincan's focus on user experience, allowing Salesforce.com customers to better engage with its customers and ultimately win deals.



"Bigtincan for Salesforce brings advanced contextual recommendations using ontologies to sales people where they work," said David Keane, CEO of Bigtincan. "At Bigtincan, it's our mission to arm sales teams with the information they need, at the moment they need it, to best engage with prospects and customers. This Salesforce module adds to our existing AI capabilities to provide sales teams with valuable insights, and support them in driving ROI, whilst giving marketing teams insight into the content that is needed to drive revenue." This Salesforce module adds to Bigtincan's data science capabilities, giving customers immediate results without having to wait for historical data to fuel recommendations. Bigtincan for Salesforce uses ontologies to link information together across disparate systems without the need to ' tag' (News - Alert) individual pieces of content, resulting in improved assisted selling techniques and creating AI-based recommendations and insights that were not possible before.

Key capabilities and benefits of Bigtincan for Salesforce include: Content recommendations inside Salesforce.com to improve a sales person's ability to personalize customer engagement interactions and/or build skills before presenting to a customer or prospect.

to improve a sales person's ability to personalize customer engagement interactions and/or build skills before presenting to a customer or prospect. Content to pipeline gap analysis allows marketing organizations to quickly determine where opportunities and available content are misaligned, enabling them to focus on where content is needed most.

allows marketing organizations to quickly determine where opportunities and available content are misaligned, enabling them to focus on where content is needed most. Works across multiple content sources including Enterprise File Sync and Share (EFSS) systems, SharePoint, Salesforce Files and Bigtincan Hub allowing content to be stored in multiple repositories with no need to move content across boundaries and providing the security and control businesses need.

allowing content to be stored in multiple repositories with no need to move content across boundaries and providing the security and control businesses need. Works anywhere inside Salesforce including working in multiple Salesforce Clouds and across any Salesforce object (Opportunities, Accounts, Leads, Cases, etc.) Bigtincan for Salesforce offers users the productivity they need without the complex setup.

including working in multiple Salesforce Clouds and across any Salesforce object (Opportunities, Accounts, Leads, Cases, etc.) Bigtincan for Salesforce offers users the productivity they need without the complex setup. Customers can build their own ontologies for their business by leveraging the platform's unique approach. Bigtincan for Salesforce is now available for trial by registering at our website, and will be available on the Salesforce AppExchange in 2018. Visit us at Dreamforce 2018 this week, booths #119 and #1711, to learn more. About Bigtincan

Bigtincan (ASX:BTH) helps sales and service teams increase win rates and customer satisfaction. The company's mobile, AI-powered sales enablement automation platform features the industry's premier user experience that empowers reps to more effectively engage with customers and prospects and encourages team-wide adoption. Leading brands including AT&T (News - Alert) , ThermoFisher, Merck, ANZ Bank and others rely on Bigtincan to enhance sales productivity at every customer interaction. With global sales and marketing headquartered in Boston, Bigtincan also has offices across EMEA, Australia and Asia. To discover more about how your organization can benefit from the Bigtincan Hub platform, please visit www.bigtincan.com or follow @bigtincan on Twitter (News - Alert) . View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180926005474/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][September 26, 2018] Evvnt Announces Opening of U.S. Office and Deal with The Bakersfield Californian

Evvnt, an events marketing automation platform, today announced the opening of its U.S. office based in Los Angeles, California, and the signing of one of its inaugural clients, The Bakersfield Californian, an independent newspaper. Evvnt is focused on empowering event organizers and venues of all sizes, to manage and promote events across the industry's largest ecosystem of event listing sites, calendars, directories, ticketing, social networks and search engines from one single platform. Over the last year, Evvnt has worked with 40,000 customers in 139 countries with more than 3,500 of the most visited event listings on the Internet. Earlier this year, the U.K. corporate-based company announced they had entered into an agreement for a $450,000 investment from three U.S. newspapers including TBC Media, Trib Total Media and Sun Coast Media Group. "The moment we started working with news and media companies in the U.S., it was essential to build close relationships and we immediately recognized the clear fit. We now have three leading U.S. news organizations who invest in our business, use our services and have become resellers to their own customers and the round is still open for further interest," said Richard Green, CEO, Evvnt. "We are excited to drive a new era of revenue-generating event listings and introducing ourselves to the almost 10,000 news publishing sites throughout the country." To further this effort, Evvnt hired Kelsey Kearns, a media-veteran to lead the U.S. business development and marketing. A mass communications major, Kearns has a love of journalism and a passion for connecting media with great technology. She is a native Texan and has a media background in film, television hosting, and print publicatons.



Evvnt is working with The Bakersfield Californian to help with premium event promotion, where each event is uniquely targeted and distributed to location-specific event listing sites and calendars, featured on the newspaper and includes print and voice search. The service offers a variety of benefits including exponential audience and event reach, organic search and mobile app distribution, print promotion and voice search capabilities - making the newspaper the go-to source for local event advertising in the Bakersfield area. "We are pleased to partner with Evvnt in this potentially game-changing venture," said Jim Lawitz, TBC vice president and executive editor. "This platform expands our ability to connect customers with a broad audience while still offering tailored solutions to all community groups. We become a one-stop shop for any organization looking to publicize its event."

Evvnt is a dynamic and growing aggregator platform solution in the global B2C and B2B event listings market. The company looks to replace incumbent traditional events listing calendars with a platform dedicated to generating millions of dollars of new business advertising revenue from the events industry, as consumers continue to struggle to find good events at a local level. From a simple event submission, the Evvnt platform based on SaaS (News - Alert) technology automatically creates a selective listing of publishers' specific events with locations attached making it far easier for event organizers to get their events seen and ensuring consumers can find local and relevant events quickly and easily via search. "We are constantly discovering unique opportunities for our clients to build new work flows in to print and even voice. Reverse publishing of curated and paid content into print enables the creation of print-ready content for newspapers - a breakthrough in revenue-generating, time-saving options for the publishing market," concluded Green. Supporting resources Evvnt Blogs

Evvnt Success Stories

Evvnt Video - How it Works About Evvnt A leader in events marketing automation, our mission is to help people promote and find events. To empower people, event organizers and venues of all sizes, to manage and promote events data across the industry's largest ecosystem of event listing sites, calendars, directories, ticketing, social networks and search engines from one simple platform. www.evvnt.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180926005261/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][September 26, 2018] Arbor Networks Replaces VyOS vRouters with 6WIND Turbo Router

SANTA CLARA, Calif. and PARIS, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- 6WIND, a high-performance networking software company, today announced that Arbor Networks, a network security and network monitoring company, successfully replaced its VyOS vRouters with 6WIND Turbo Routers within its private enterprise network. Arbor Networks utilizes the routers as part of an internal training network, called The Wargames Network. The Network is used to simulate DDoS attacks, allowing customers to evaluate and train on its Threat Management Systems (TMS) and Arbor Edge Defense (AED). Arbor Networks was an early adopter of virtualized routing deploying nearly 100 VyOS vRouters for its training network instead of traditional hardware routers. However, performance, reliability and support requirements of the VyOS necessitated a replacement. Arbor selected 6WIND's vRouters for the following benefits: Sustained Performance: 6WIND's Turbo Router, based on DPDK (Data Plane Development Kit), allows Arbor to simulate massive DDoS attacks. The VyOS vRouters would become unresponsive, frequently hanging and requiring resets as the attack traffic climbed toward multiple Gbps, thus hindering the attack simulation. With the 6WIND vRouters, the network functions at Arbor's desired traffic rates above 5Gbps.

6WIND's Turbo Router, based on DPDK (Data Plane Development Kit), allows Arbor to simulate massive DDoS attacks. The VyOS vRouters would become unresponsive, frequently hanging and requiring resets as the attack traffic climbed toward multiple Gbps, thus hindering the attack simulation. With the 6WIND vRouters, the network functions at Arbor's desired traffic rates above 5Gbps. Scalable Features: Historically, specialized hardware has been required to deliver performance with adanced routing capabilities such as sFlow and GRE. 6WIND's software-only implementation enables Arbor with a cost-effective solution to support their advanced DDOS attack and remediation strategies on COTS hardware without sacrificing any performance.

Historically, specialized hardware has been required to deliver performance with adanced routing capabilities such as sFlow and GRE. 6WIND's software-only implementation enables Arbor with a cost-effective solution to support their advanced DDOS attack and remediation strategies on COTS hardware without sacrificing any performance. Reliability: Throughout the simulated DDoS attacks, operational control and visibility into the 6WIND routing network remains fully functional with no impact to performance or command response time enabling Arbor Networks to demonstrate the powerful capabilities of their Threat Management and Arbor Edge Defense Systems.



Rick Jenssen , Senior Director of Consulting Systems Engineering at Arbor Networks. "6WIND's vRouters give VyOS/Vyatta users a high performance, feature-rich, reliable, and fully-supported migration path for their routing needs," said Eric Carmes, Founder and CEO of 6WIND. "We are proud to announce Arbor Networks' successful migration from VyOS to 6WIND vRouters."

6WIND's vRouter is a high performance software router for bare metal and virtual machine deployment on Commercial-off-the-Shelf (COTS) servers. It includes routing, firewalling, NAT and IPsec VPN features with performance scaling from 1G to over 100G. To read the full Solution Brief on Arbor's successful 6WIND vRouter deployment visit: http://www.6wind.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Arbor-Networks-Solution-Brief.pdf About 6WIND

6WIND's networking software solves performance and time-to-market challenges for OEMs and Network Builders. The company's flagship vRouter technology is available in software appliance, source code and hypervisor networking form factors optimized for cost-effective hardware, such as Commercial-off-the-Shelf (COTS) servers. 6WIND is based near Paris, France with regional offices in China and the United States. For more information visit: http://www.6wind.com. Company Contact:

Kelly LeBlanc

VP of Marketing for 6WIND

Phone: +1 (408) 508-6732

kelly.leblanc@6wind.com View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/arbor-networks-replaces-vyos-vrouters-with-6wind-turbo-router-300719188.html SOURCE 6WIND

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]Ixia, a Keysight Business, Delivers Visibility into Network Traffic through Microsoft Azure Virtual Network Terminal Access Point

Keysight Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: KEYS), a leading technology company that helps enterprises, service providers, and governments accelerate innovation to connect and secure the world, announced it has extended the Ixia CloudLens visibility platform to provide packet-level visibility into virtual machine network traffic through Microsoft Azure Virtual Network Terminal Access Point (News - Alert) (TAP).

Cloud adoption is nearly ubiquitous with 92 percent of companies reporting they have adopted the public cloud, according to the RightScale 2018 State of the Cloud Report. As cloud adoption increases, security concerns intensify. According to Gartner (News - Alert) , clouds are secure, but organizations are often not using them securely.1 Further, Gartner states that through 2022, at least 95% of cloud security failures will be the customer's fault.2

In a public cloud environment, traditional methods for gaining packet-level visibility can sometimes be challenging. Users typically installed sensors within their workloads for packet visibility. These agents/sensors compete for resources on the workload for operation and introduce added complexity.

The CloudLens Software-as-a-Service ( SaaS (News - Alert) ) platform was designed from the ground up to retain the benefits of the cloud - elastic scale, flexibility, and agility, while enabling security, analytics, and forensics tools to acquire the needed packet-level data. CloudLens now offers an Azure feature that enables customers to mirror virtual machine network traffic which can then be filtered, replicated and forwarded to the appropriate analysis tools.

"Security is a shared responsibility between the cloud provider and the hosted organization, so we joined with Microsoft Azure and our technology partners to help our customers secure their clouds more effectively," said Scott Westlake, vice president, Alliances for Keysight's Ixia (News - Alert) Solutions Group. "CloudLens enables customers to use the Microsoft Azure Virtual Network TAP to gain network traffic visibility and ensure the security and performance of their Azure cloud-based applications."

CloudLens provides a sensor that can be configured through API's from Azure Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). This enables the user to forward network traffic to the CloudLens Sensor without the need to install a sensor in every workload.

"Deploying RSA NetWitness (News - Alert)  Platform is critical to maintaining consistent security visibility across hybrid environments while customers are in the process o migrating workload to the cloud. Ixia CloudLens works with Azure's new Virtual Network TAP to streamline collection of the necessary packet level data from Azure instances for security monitoring and analysis via the RSA NetWitness Platform." -- Matthew Chase, Senior Manager, Technical Alliances, RSA Security, LLC







"Wire data analysis is vital to monitor and manage applications migrated to Microsoft Azure for IaaS hosting, particularly in hybrid on-premises and cloud deployments. Ixia CloudLens, combined with Azure Virtual Network TAP, provides Dynatrace's Network Application Monitoring solution the complete visibility it needs in an easy to deploy and scalable way. This joint solution complements Dynatrace's agent-based solution for Azure native applications." -- Krzysztof Ziemianowicz, Technology Strategist, Dynatrace

"Eastwind Networks offers customers ubiquitous breach analytics across public Cloud IaaS, private infrastructure, and SaaS. With data collection service powered by Ixia CloudLens, and in concert with Microsoft Azure Virtual Network TAP, our customers gain seamless access to the packet level data required for Eastwind to provide full context and detail into security breaches that occur on their Azure hosted workloads." -- Paul Kraus, CEO, Eastwind Networks

CloudLens is available in the Azure Marketplace. Visit Ixia in booth #1448 at Microsoft Ignite, September 24-28 in Orlando, Florida to learn more about CloudLens and Azure Virtual Network TAP.

About Keysight Technologies

Keysight Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: KEYS) is a leading technology company that helps enterprises, service providers, and governments accelerate innovation to connect and secure the world. Keysight's solutions optimize networks and bring electronic products to market faster and at a lower cost with offerings from design simulation, to prototype validation, to manufacturing test, to optimization in networks and cloud environments. Customers span the worldwide communications ecosystem, aerospace and defense, automotive, energy, semiconductor and general electronics end markets. Keysight generated revenues of $3.2B in fiscal year 2017. In April 2017, Keysight acquired Ixia, a leader in network test, visibility, and security. More information is available at www.keysight.com.

Additional information about Keysight Technologies is available in the newsroom at https://www.keysight.com/go/news, Keysight blog, and on Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube.

1 Gartner, Clouds Are Secure: Are You Using Them Securely? January 31, 2018

2 Gartner, Clouds Are Secure: Are You Using Them Securely? January 31, 2018

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180926005683/en/[September 26, 2018] InsureMyTrip's Machine Learning Technology Finds Travel Insurance For Hurricanes

WARWICK, R.I., Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- InsureMyTrip, the first and only travel insurance comparison site using machine learning technology to create a personalized experience for travelers, released the latest upgrade to its groundbreaking recommendation engine today. The newest version now automatically filters thousands of travel insurance plans in order to predict which plans are most appropriate and relevant for those traveling during hurricane season to storm-prone destinations, like the Caribbean. The technology was first announced by InsureMyTrip CEO Jim Grace to industry leaders during a CES 2018 event. It is the first time predictive models and machine learning techniques are being applied to travel insurance comparison. "Hurricanes have a great impact on travelers and can easily put trips in jeopardy. While there are travel insurance plans with specific hurricane-related coverages, travelers may have difficulty identifying those plans quickly online. Our groundbreaking recommendation tool now automatically showcases plans with robust hurricane coverage, empowering travelers to feel more confident with their travel insurance purchase," says InsureMyTrip CEO Jim Grace. RELATED: InsureMyTrip's groundbreaking recommendation system has the ability to select a specific travel insurance plan based on the user's profile.



In addition to hurricane filtering, this enhanced version also better identifies specific coverages based on the user's profile. For example, cruisers are typically concerned about missing the ship's boarding time due to a flight delay or missed connection. The recommendation engine has already "learned" this attribute and will use this type of data to make a more intelligent decision, on behalf of the customer requesting a quote, and offer a travel insurance plan that will also include various missed connection and travel delay benefits. This tool enables the traveler to easily find the right travel insurance plan 10x faster than comparing quotes manually online.

"As we continue to pioneer the technology in this space, we anticipate continued and highly visible improvement to the comparison and purchase experiences for our end users," says InsureMyTrip Director of Technology & Architecture Andy Bent, who leads the data team responsible for the algorithm tool. How Hurricane Coverage Works Travelers who purchase traditional travel insurance prior to a storm forming may receive reimbursement of pre-paid, non-refundable trip costs if they must cancel a trip due to severe weather-related issues that are covered under the trip cancellation benefit. Here are some examples: Flights are grounded: Many plans may cover a traveler when common carriers such as airlines or cruise lines cease service due to weather. The cessation of services typically must be for a certain number of consecutive hours, usually 24-48. The resort is in the path of a hurricane: A few plans will cover a traveler when the traveler's destination is under a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issued hurricane warning within 24-48 hours of the departure date. Hotel or resort is impacted: Many plans may cover a traveler when a hotel, resort, or vacation rental is devastated and made uninhabitable by a storm. Home is badly damaged: Many plans offer coverage when the primary home of a traveler sustains destructive storm damage that renders the home uninhabitable. Media Contact:

Andy Bent

news@insuremytrip.com About InsureMyTrip It's simple. InsureMyTrip finds you the right travel insurance plan, every time. InsureMyTrip is the authority on travel insurance. We are committed to empowering travelers to make the best possible insurance decisions by leveraging our technology, data intelligence, and expertise. View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/insuremytrips-machine-learning-technology-finds-travel-insurance-for-hurricanes-300719457.html SOURCE InsureMyTrip

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][September 26, 2018] Hormel Foods Expands Our Food Journey with Launch of New Podcast Series

AUSTIN, Minn., Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Hormel Foods Corporation (NYSE: HRL), a leading global branded food company, has launched a new podcast series called Our Food Journey. The podcast series is part of the company's larger Our Food Journey social responsibility efforts inspired by the food the company makes and the difference it makes in the world. The podcast features discussions with renowned master chefs, food entrepreneurs, food scientists and Hormel Foods employees. "The speed of change and innovation in today's food industry is unprecedented," said Wendy Watkins, vice president of corporate communications at Hormel Foods. "The Our Food Journey podcast is a place for thoughtful and in-depth conversations about the opportunities and challenges we're currently facing, with people who are making a difference in how we create and think about food. Everyone  Midwestern farmers, food entrepreneurs, master chefs, parents preparing dinner for their families  is a player in an interconnected food system, and each one deserves a place at the table." Watkins said "inspiring employees to create an impact felt around the world" is tied to the company's mission. "In our day-to-day work with Our Food Journey, we have so many intriguing conversations about food with the most fascinating people. We often found ourselves wishing we could share that experience with everyone. So, we decided to do that." The first season of the Our Food Journey podcast is available on iTunes, SoundCloud and Google Play Music, and has launched with 10 episodes. The series is hosted by esteemed American journalist and author Ethan Watters and Certified Master Chef Ron DeSantis. Their guests include an exceptional lineup of food industr trendsetters, including:



Chef Kenneth Temple

Food Network "Chopped" champion, cookbook author and private chef Wilson Tang

New York City native and well-known restaurateur

Tanya Rodriguez, Ph.D., MSW

Senior cultural anthropologist at Hormel Foods Certified Master Chef Ron DeSantis

Principal adviser for CulinaryNXT Chef Tony Finnestad

Hormel Foods corporate chef, Foodservice division Chef Christina Machamer

Winner "Hell's Kitchen" on FOX, private chef and sommelier

Evan Inada

Customer marketing manager at Columbus Craft Meats Certified Master Chef Adam Busby

General manager at The Culinary Institute of America, Greystone Francisco Parada-Rabell

Director of beverage innovation at CytoSport, Inc. Chef Dominic Orsini

Winery Chef at Silver Oak Cellars in Oakville, Calif. "People are so passionate about every aspect of the food we eat," Watters said. "We wanted to open those discussions up and really dig into the knowledge our experts bring to the table, literally." "As a chef, being able to sit across the table and talk to other chefs, anthropologists and food entrepreneurs was an incredible experience," DeSantis said. "Hormel Foods is doing some remarkable work in the food and culinary world, and I really think people will hear about topics and stories they may not always think about when they sit down to eat a meal." ABOUT HORMEL FOODS  Inspired People. Inspired Food. Hormel Foods Corporation, based in Austin, Minn., is a global branded food company with over $9 billion in annual revenues across more than 80 countries worldwide. Its brands include SKIPPY, SPAM, Hormel Natural Choice, Applegate, Justin's, Wholly Guacamole, Hormel Black Label, Columbus and more than 30 other beloved brands. The company is a member of the S&P 500 Index and the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats, was named one of "The 100 Best Corporate Citizens" by Corporate Responsibility Magazine for the 10th year in a row, and has received numerous other awards and accolades for its corporate responsibility and community service efforts. In 2016, the company celebrated its 125th anniversary and announced its new vision for the future  Inspired People. Inspired Food.  focusing on its legacy of innovation. For more information, visit www.hormelfoods.com and http://csr.hormelfoods.com/. Contact:

507-437-6352

media@hormel.com View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/hormel-foods-expands-our-food-journey-with-launch-of-new-podcast-series-300719458.html SOURCE Hormel Foods Corporation

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][September 26, 2018] Wells Fargo/Gallup: Do Investors See Their Financial Futures Through Rose-Colored Glasses?

According to a new Wells Fargo (News - Alert) /Gallup survey, while individual U.S. investors remain optimistic about the economy, many say they are one emergency away from encountering expenses that could cripple their finances. Barely half of investors, 55%, describe themselves as "very well prepared" to deal with an unexpected $5,000 expense, while 44% are only somewhat prepared or not prepared. Most investors, 83%, feel very well prepared to deal with an unforeseen $1,000 expense, but confidence drops to 33% for a $10,000 expense. While many of these investors have significant investments, that money isn't necessarily available for sudden expenses, particularly if it is locked in tax-deferred retirement accounts that may be subject to taxes and IRS penalties for early withdrawals. The Investor and Retirement Optimism Index was essentially unchanged this quarter, coming in at a relatively positive 98, similar to 103 in the second quarter; however, it was a bit higher throughout most of 2017, ranging from 100 to 117. Prior to 2017, the last time the index was as high as it is now was in November 2000. These findings are based on the third-quarter Wells Fargo/Gallup Investor and Retirement Optimism Index survey, conducted Aug. 13-20, 2018. For this survey, investors are defined as U.S. adults who have $10,000 or more invested in stocks, bonds or mutual funds. "I'm intrigued that the findings show confidence in both the personal and economic dimensions remain high yet close to half would be challenged to handle an unexpected expense of $5,000," said Dan Prebish, director of Life Event Services at Wells Fargo Advisors. "Given the proportion of investors who appear to be cash-strapped and don't have detailed financial plans, I have to believe that many may see their financial futures through rose-colored glasses." Investors Are Goal-Setters, Not Detailed Planners 15% of non-retired investors appear highly proactive and disciplined - setting specific financial goals and detailed plans to reach them. (Financial Dynamos)

49% say they have specific financial goals but rely on broad strategies versus specific plans. (Financial Dabblers)

36% are unanchored, saying they manage their finances as they go. (Financial Drifters) The data suggest that Financial Dynamos benefit from their detailed planning - they are a bit more confident than Financial Dabblers that they will have enough money to maintain their preferred lifestyle in retirement (81% vs. 72%). They are also more likely than the Dabblers to say they are very well prepared to handle an unexpected $5,000 expense (70% vs. 59%). Very few investors seek professional advice when planning: 13% handle their planning by working with a dedicated financial advisor

38 % say they mostly do their own planning with occasional advice from a professional advisor

42% say they do all their own planning with no professional advice

7% say they do no financial planning Do-it-yourself investors, who do all or most of their own planning, don't utilize external tools or sources: 42% rely on their own knowledge or experience for financial planning

20% rely on friends or family

Less than half utilize expert sources such as online financial tools (24%), financial publications (10%) or financial courses/videos (4%). Investors Least Successful at Saving for Children's Higher Education Of five possible savings goals that non-retired investors might have, saving for a child's college education is the one they are having the most difficulty reaching. Among those focused on this goal, 27% have completed or made a lot of progress toward it. Another 35% say they have made some progress saving for a child's college; however, 38% -- the highest for any goal -- have made no progress at all. Beyond buying a home, which most investors have done, investors have been the most successful at saving for a vacation (57% of those with this goal say they've completed saving or made a lot of progress) and building a three-month emergency fund (56%). "We hear about the crippling effects of massive student loa debt, and based upon the difficulties parents are having saving for their child's education, it appears this trend will continue for the foreseeable future," said Prebish.



Investors Anticipate Making Sacrifices to Succeed Financially The poll explored several specific sacrifices investors may have to make to improve their financial goals.

Of 11 different actions that could help non-retired investors improve their balance sheets, holding on to their cars longer than they would prefer is the most common investors foresee taking: 81% say they have already done this or are likely to in the future. Working for more years than they would prefer ranks second, at 70%. Other strategies that majorities of non-retired investors either expect to employ in the future or already have employed are: Cancelling their TV subscription (65%)

Cutting back sharply on their daily living expenses (62%)

Getting a less expensive cellphone plan (57%)

Cutting back on vacations (53%)

Staying in a job or career they don't like (52%) Not only does the slight majority think they will have to stay in a bad job to support their financial goals, but about half of this group (27%) says they have already done this. Adds Prebish, "We all have to make financial tradeoffs from time to time, but it's disheartening to learn that one in four working investors has had to endure a bad job experience for financial reasons. Having a specific plan and building savings creates a 'bridge' that could potentially reduce negative scenarios such as this." Four sacrifices non-retired investors don't anticipate making are downsizing to a smaller home (42%), getting a second job (32%), foregoing saving for a child's education (28%), and delaying having children or having fewer children than they would prefer (26%). About the Wells Fargo/Gallup Investor and Retirement Optimism Index The results of this Wells Fargo/Gallup Investor and Retirement Optimism Index are based on a Gallup Panel web study completed by 1,059 U.S. investors, aged 18 and older, from Aug. 13-20, 2018. The Gallup Panel is a probability-based longitudinal panel of U.S. adults who Gallup selects using random-digit-dial phone interviews that cover landline and cellphones. Gallup also uses address-based sampling methods to recruit Panel members. The Gallup Panel is not an opt-in panel. The sample for this study was weighted to be demographically representative of the U.S. adult population, using the most recent Current Population Survey figures. For results based on this sample, one can say that the maximum margin of sampling error is 5.0 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. Margins of error are higher for subsamples. In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error and bias into the findings of public opinion polls. For this study, the American investor is defined as an adult in a household with stocks, bonds or mutual funds of $10,000 or more, either in an investment account or in a self-directed IRA or 401(k) retirement account. About two in five U.S. households have at least $10,000 in such investments. The sample consists of 75% nonretirees and 25% retirees. Of total respondents, 39% reported annual incomes of less than $90,000; 61% reported $90,000 or more. The Wells Fargo/Gallup Investor and Retirement Index is an enhanced version of Gallup's Index of Investor Optimism, which provides the historical trend data. The median age of the non-retired investor is 44 and the retiree is 69. The Index of Investor Optimism has an adjusted baseline score of 100 from when it was established in October 1996. It peaked at +152 in January 2000, at the height of the dot-com boom, and hit a low of -81 in February 2009. About Wells Fargo Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) is a diversified, community-based financial services company with $1.9 trillion in assets. Wells Fargo's vision is to satisfy our customers' financial needs and help them succeed financially. Founded in 1852 and headquartered in San Francisco, Wells Fargo provides banking, investment and mortgage products and services, as well as consumer and commercial finance, through 8,050 locations, 13,000 ATMs, the internet (wellsfargo.com) and mobile banking, and has offices in 38 countries and territories to support customers who conduct business in the global economy. With approximately 265,000 team members, Wells Fargo serves one in three households in the United States. Wells Fargo & Company was ranked No. 26 on Fortune's 2018 rankings of America's largest corporations. News, insights and perspectives from Wells Fargo are also available at Wells Fargo Stories. About Wells Fargo Advisors With $1.7 trillion in client assets as of June 30, 2018, Wells Fargo Advisors provides investment advice and guidance to clients through 14,226 full-service financial advisors and referrals from 4,796 licensed bankers. This vast network of advisors, one of the nation's largest, serves investors through locations in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Wells Fargo Advisors is the trade name used by Wells Fargo Clearing Services, LLC and Wells Fargo Advisors Financial Network, LLC, Members SIPC, separate registered broker-dealers and non-bank affiliates of Wells Fargo & Company. All data includes Wells Fargo Clearing Services, LLC and Wells Fargo Advisors Financial Network, LLC, as of June 30, 2018. www.wellsfargoadvisors.com About Gallup Gallup delivers analytics and advice to help leaders and organizations solve their most pressing problems. Combining more than 80 years of experience with its global reach, Gallup knows more about the attitudes and behaviors of employees, customers, students and citizens than any other organization in the world. Cautionary Statement about Forward-Looking Statements This news release contains forward-looking statements about our future financial performance and business. Because forward-looking statements are based on our current expectations and assumptions regarding the future, they are subject to inherent risks and uncertainties. Do not unduly rely on forward-looking statements as actual results could differ materially from expectations. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date made, and we do not undertake to update them to reflect changes or events that occur after that date. For information about factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations, refer to our reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the "Forward-Looking Statements" discussion in Wells Fargo's most recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q as well as to Wells Fargo's other reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the discussion under "Risk Factors" in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2017, available on its website at www.sec.gov. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180926005703/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][September 26, 2018] Wells Fargo Donates $500,000 for Atlanta Housing, Neighborhood Revitalization Efforts

Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) today announced $500,000 in donations to six local nonprofits to support affordable, safe housing and community programs for Atlanta residents. "Seeing our local initiative grants put to work to improve lives is exactly the positive change we are all striving for," said Chad Gregory, region bank president of South Metro Atlanta and West Georgia. "The work of these nonprofits will help children, veterans, the elderly and countless others by focusing resources and providing support they so deserve. Together, we are strengthening communities and making progress." The Wells Fargo grants are intended to support neighborhood revitalization efforts through the Wells Fargo NeighborhoodLIFT program funded by the Wells Fargo Foundation. The NeighborhoodLIFT program local initiative grants will be awarded to the following Atlanta nonprofits: Action Ministries will receive $75,000 to support housing programs that serve homeless or at-risk families with safe, affordable housing and ensure they receive the long-term support to help them achieve stability and success.

will receive $75,000 to support housing programs that serve homeless or at-risk families with safe, affordable housing and ensure they receive the long-term support to help them achieve stability and success. Hearts to Nourish Hope will receive $37,500 to provide housing, job training, financial literacy and other supportive services. The grant will provide at least 10 financial literacy workshops for the community and provide 20 families with transitional housing for six to 12 months, with a goal of assisting those families in securing stable housing.

will receive $37,500 to provide housing, job training, financial literacy and other supportive services. The grant will provide at least 10 financial literacy workshops for the community and provide 20 families with transitional housing for six to 12 months, with a goal of assisting those families in securing stable housing. MUST Ministries will receive $75,000 to support the MUST Ministries Elizabeth Inn Shelter, which aims to create stability for people experiencing homelessness. The 72-bed facility offers safe, short-term shelter to more than 900 men, women, and children every year.

will receive $75,000 to support the MUST Ministries Elizabeth Inn Shelter, which aims to create stability for people experiencing homelessness. The 72-bed facility offers safe, short-term shelter to more than 900 men, women, and children every year. Partners for HOME will reeive $200,000 to expand availability of housing for families experiencing homelessness. These funds will be matched dollar for dollar by HomeFirst, the $50 million public-private investment from the city of Atlanta and United Way's Regional Commission on Homelessness. The grant supports a "rapid re-housing intervention program" designed to help individuals and families quickly exit homelessness, return to permanent housing and deter future homelessness by providing flexible rental subsidies and services. These services are designed to meet the unique needs of individual families for up to 24 months.

will reeive $200,000 to expand availability of housing for families experiencing homelessness. These funds will be matched dollar for dollar by HomeFirst, the $50 million public-private investment from the city of Atlanta and United Way's Regional Commission on Homelessness. The grant supports a "rapid re-housing intervention program" designed to help individuals and families quickly exit homelessness, return to permanent housing and deter future homelessness by providing flexible rental subsidies and services. These services are designed to meet the unique needs of individual families for up to 24 months. The Salvation Army will receive $75,000 to assist its sheltering efforts in metro Atlanta including through the nonprofit's Home Sweet Home Gwinnett program. Services range from homelessness prevention, case management, residential drug and alcohol treatment, a savings program, life-skills classes, emergency sheltering in motels, and emergency/transitional housing in a safe shelter. Last year in metro Atlanta, The Salvation Army provided more than 149,000 meals and over 146,000 nights of shelter.

will receive $75,000 to assist its sheltering efforts in metro Atlanta including through the nonprofit's Home Sweet Home Gwinnett program. Services range from homelessness prevention, case management, residential drug and alcohol treatment, a savings program, life-skills classes, emergency sheltering in motels, and emergency/transitional housing in a safe shelter. Last year in metro Atlanta, The Salvation Army provided more than 149,000 meals and over 146,000 nights of shelter. Southern Crescent Habitat for Humanity will receive $37,500 to support a build in Clayton County during Southern Crescent Habitat for Humanity's Beloved Community Build 2018, which celebrates the global vision of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Wells Fargo (News - Alert) team members will volunteer at the build along with other government and local leaders from Clayton County.



More than 500 homeowners created in Atlanta The NeighborhoodLIFT program local initiative grants are part of a $6 million commitment by Wells Fargo to boost local homeownership and revitalize neighborhoods in the Atlanta region. First launched in 2012 and expanded in 2018, the program has assisted more than 500 local homeowners by offering homebuyer education plus $15,000 down payment assistance grants, with an additional 150 homebuyers currently on the path to homeownership. The 2018 Atlanta NeighborhoodLIFT program is a collaboration with NeighborWorks America and its network member, Community Housing Development Corporation.

Since February 2012, LIFT programs have helped create more than 18,375 homeowners in 62 communities. A video about the NeighborhoodLIFT program is posted on Wells Fargo Stories. About Wells Fargo Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) is a diversified, community-based financial services company with $1.9 trillion in assets. Wells Fargo's vision is to satisfy our customers' financial needs and help them succeed financially. Founded in 1852 and headquartered in San Francisco, Wells Fargo provides banking, investment and mortgage products and services, as well as consumer and commercial finance, through 8,050 locations, 13,000 ATMs, the internet (wellsfargo.com) and mobile banking, and has offices in 38 countries and territories to support customers who conduct business in the global economy. With approximately 265,000 team members, Wells Fargo serves one in three households in the United States. Wells Fargo & Company was ranked No. 26 on Fortune's 2018 rankings of America's largest corporations. News, insights and perspectives from Wells Fargo are also available at Wells Fargo Stories. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180926005011/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][September 26, 2018] Vizient and the Huggies Brand Partner to Raise Awareness for Diaper Need at the 2018 Vizient Fall Connections Summit

During its annual fall Connections Summit, being held Oct. 2-4 in Las Vegas, Vizient, Inc. is partnering with the Huggies No Baby Unhugged initiative to donate 10,000 diapers to the Las Vegas Diaper Bank. According to the 2017 study commissioned by Huggies, 36% of U.S. families struggle to provide fresh, clean diapers for their babies. As part of this year's member volunteer activities at the Vizient Connections Summit, attendees can package diapers for delivery to families in need. For each person who volunteers, Huggies will donate an additional day's supply of diapers to the Las Vegas Diaper Bank of up to a total of 10,000 diapers. "This community service project was a huge success at our event last year where a total of 20,000 diapers were donated. We expect to hit that number again this year through the participation of members in this volunteer activity," said Pete Allen, executive vice president, sourcing operations at Vizient. "Kimberly-Clark, parent company of Huggies, is a Vizient awarded supplier and participates in our Preferred Pediatric Program. We are grateful to Huggies for their diaper donation and support for our event." The effects of diaper need lead to increased stress for parents and families on many levels, impacting their physical and mental health. Diapers and baby wipes are not covered under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps, or the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) special supplemental nutrition program. As a result, parents often have to choose between paying for food and purchasing diapers. Additionally, without diapers, babies are not able to be in daycare or participate in early childhood education programs which leads to parents missing work to care for them. "At Huggies we know how critically important diapers are to a family's well-being, and that is why we are committed to working with the National Diaper Bank Network and partners like Vizient to raise awareness for this issue," said Rebecca Dunphey, president of Kimberly-Clark Baby and Child Care North America. "Over the last seven years Huggies has donated more than 200 million diapers and wipes to families in need, and we thank the Vizient team for helping us continue to support these families." Huggies is the founding sponsor of the National Diaper Bank Network (NDBN), a nonprofit organization that works with more than 200 community-based diaper banks around the country and serves nearly 280,000 children each month. More information about the 2018 Vizient Connections Summit can be found here.



About Vizient, Inc. Vizient, Inc., the largest member-driven health care performance improvement company in the country, provides innovative data-driven solutions, expertise and collaborative opportunities that lead to improved patient outcomes and lower costs. Vizient's diverse membership base includes academic medical centers, pediatric facilities, community hospitals, integrated health delivery networks and non-acute health care providers and represents approximately $100 billion in annual purchasing volume. The Vizient brand identity represents the integration of VHA Inc., University HealthSystem Consortium and Novation, which combined in 2015, as well as MedAssets' Spend and Clinical Resource Management (SCM) segment, including Sg2, which was acquired in 2016. In 2018, Vizient again received a World's Most Ethical Company designation from the Ethisphere Institute. Vizient's headquarters are in Irving, Texas, with locations in Chicago and other cities across the United States. Please visit www.vizientinc.com as well as our newsroom, blog, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube pages for more information about the company.

About the Huggies Brand Huggies believes deeply in the Power of Hugs. That's why every Huggies diaper and wipe is inspired by parents' hugs. For nearly 40 years, Huggies has been helping parents provide love, care and reassurance to help babies thrive. No Baby Unhugged is Huggies promise to ensure babies get the care they need to thrive - from innovative everyday products, growing hospital hugger programs and specially-designed products for the tiniest of babies, to diapers and wipes donations. Huggies is the fastest growing diaper brand in hospitals and partners with NICU nurses to develop diapers and wipes that meet the specific needs of pre-term infants. For more information on the Huggies No Baby Unhugged program visit the "Why Huggies?" page at Huggies.com. About Kimberly-Clark Kimberly-Clark (NYSE: KMB) and its well-known global brands are an indispensable part of life for people in more than 175 countries. Every day, nearly a quarter of the world's population trust Kimberly-Clark brands and the solutions they provide to enhance their health, hygiene and well-being. With brands such as Kleenex, Scott, Huggies, Pull-Ups, Kotex and Depend, Kimberly-Clark holds the No. 1 or No. 2 share positions in 80 countries. To keep up with the latest news and to learn more about the Company's 145-year history of innovation, visit www.kimberly-clark.com or follow us on Facebook and Twitter. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180926005273/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][September 26, 2018] Leading M&A Lawyer Ken Lebrun to Join Davis Polk in Tokyo

Davis Polk today announced that Ken Lebrun, a leading U.S. mergers and acquisitions lawyer, will join the firm as a partner in the Tokyo office. Mr. Lebrun's arrival reflects Davis Polk's long-standing commitment to Japan and further strengthens the firm's position among U.S. firms in Tokyo. Mr. Lebrun joins Davis Polk from Shearman & Sterling, where he was a partner in the Mergers & Acquisitions practice based in Tokyo. His practice focuses on public and private cross-border mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, strategic alliances and private equity transactions. He has represented major Japanese companies and financial institutions on many of their largest and most significant transactions. "With the addition of Ken, Davis Polk now has an unmatched combination of premier capabilities in both capital markets and M&A in Tokyo," said Thomas J. Reid, Davis Polk's Managing Partner. "Having someone of Ken's caliber on the ground will further distinguish our practice in Japan, a vitally important market for us. We are thrilled to have him on board." Ken Lebrun said, "I am very grateful for my time at Shearman and my colleagues there. Davis Polk has an impressive and highly regarded team in Tokyo and a preeminent global M&A practice, and joining the firm is a truly exciting opportunity." "Ken is one of the foremost M&A lawyers inTokyo and incredibly well-respected in the market," said Jon Gray, head of Davis Polk's Tokyo office. "He is an excellent fit for the firm and our clients, and will be a tremendous addition to our team."



A Japanese speaker, Mr. Lebrun is admitted in New York and is a Registered Foreign Lawyer in Japan. He serves as Chair of the Foreign Direct Investment Committee of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan. Chambers Asia-Pacific has ranked him in Band 1 for Corporate/M&A: International - Japan for several years. Davis Polk has been active in Japan for over 90 years, with an office in Tokyo since 1987. The firm's Japan practice focuses on major cross-border transactions involving most sectors of the Japanese economy. Davis Polk's lawyers in Tokyo advise a broad range of clients, including major Japanese banks and insurance companies, non-bank financial companies, as well as industrial, retail, technology and pharmaceutical companies. The firm also represents U.S. and other multinational corporations and financial institutions with regard to their Japan businesses.

About Davis Polk Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP (including its associated entities) is a global law firm with offices strategically located in the world's key financial centers. For more than 165 years, our lawyers have advised industry-leading companies and global financial institutions on their most challenging legal and business matters. Davis Polk ranks among the world's preeminent law firms across the entire range of its practice, which spans such areas as capital markets, mergers and acquisitions, credit, antitrust and competition, litigation and enforcement, private equity, tax, financial regulation, investment management, restructuring, executive compensation, FinTech, intellectual property and technology, real estate, and trusts and estates. Davis Polk has more than 900 lawyers in offices located in New York, Northern California, Washington DC, Sao Paulo, London, Paris, Madrid, Tokyo, Beijing and Hong Kong. For more information, please visit: http://www.davispolk.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180926005732/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][September 26, 2018]

Raytheon awarded production contract for Poland's Patriot

TEWKSBURY, Mass., Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The U.S. Army has awarded Raytheon Company (NYSE: RTN) a more than $1.5 billion contract for production of Poland's Patriot Integrated Air and Missile Defense System including spare parts, support and training.

Announced by the Department of Defense on September 25, the contract calls for Raytheon to build and deliver four Patriot fire units for Poland.

"Patriot will enhance Polish, European and NATO security while creating jobs in Poland and the US," said Tom Laliberty, vice president of Integrated Air and Missile Defense at Raytheon's Integrated Defense Systems business.

Patriot is the backbone of NATO and Europe's defense against ballistic and cruise missiles, advanced aircraft and drones. Fifteen other nations depend on Patriot to protect their citizens and armed forces, including the U.S. and six other European nations: Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Spain, Romania and Sweden.

This contract is for Phase I of "WISLA," Poland's two-phase medium-range Integrated Air and Missile Defense procurement. Under Phase II, Poland has the potential to acquire additional Patriot fire units and has expressed interest in gallium nitride-based 360-degree active electronically scanning array radars, and SkyCeptor, a low-cst interceptor missile.







Raytheon's Patriot is a missile defense system consisting of radars, command-and-control technology and multiple types of interceptors, all working together to detect, identify and defeat tactical ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, drones, advanced aircraft and other threats.

About Raytheon

Raytheon Company, with 2017 sales of $25 billion and 64,000 employees, is a technology and innovation leader specializing in defense, civil government and cybersecurity solutions. With a history of innovation spanning 96 years, Raytheon provides state-of-the-art electronics, mission systems integration, C5I products and services, sensing, effects, and mission support for customers in more than 80 countries. Raytheon is headquartered in Waltham, Mass. Follow us on Twitter.

Note to Editors

The 16 Patriot Nations are:

United States of America

The Netherlands

Germany

Japan

Israel

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Kuwait

Taiwan

Greece

Spain

Republic of Korea

United Arab Emirates

Qatar

Romania

Poland

Sweden

http://www.raytheon.com

Raytheon Company

Integrated Defense Systems

Media Contact

Mike Nachshen

+1.520.269.5697

idspr@raytheon.com

View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/raytheon-awarded-production-contract-for-polands-patriot-300719488.html

SOURCE Raytheon Company[September 26, 2018] International Day of Action on October 17 Will Draw Attention to the Growing Threat of Contract Cheating

Students cheat for any variety of reasons, but, in many cases, sheer desperation and fear of failing drives them to hire someone else to write their essay, do their homework, or take their exam. Researchers estimate that 8 percent of students engage third-party individuals or services to complete their work, which is a practice called "contract cheating". On October 17, colleges and universities will draw attention to this problem as instructors, students, and administrators pledge to #DefeatTheCheat and #ExcelWithIntegrity during the 3rd Annual International Day of Action Against Contract Cheating. Click to Tweet. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180926005231/en/ Join with educators and students to take the pledge to #DefeatTheCheat and #ExcelWithIntegrity for the International Day of Action Against Contract Cheating on October 17. (Graphic: Business Wire) The goal of International Day of Action is to unite educational institutions around the world to put an end to the contract cheating industry. It's an initiative founded by the International Center for Academic Integrity (ICAI), whose mission is to support higher education institutions in cultivating cultures of integrity. "Educational institutions, students, citizns and governments must take a stand against the contract cheating industry," says Dr. Tricia Bertram Gallant, ICAI Board Member. "And as educators, we must work diligently to ensure that we are facilitating and assessing learning rather than cheating. It is our ethical obligation to our students and the world."



Turnitin is a leading provider of academic integrity solutions and believes in a balance of human interactions, policies, and technology supports to protect the value of a college degree and the institutions awarding them. "As part of our ongoing effort to bring attention and urgency around the rising threat of contract cheating, Turnitin is once again supporting the International Day of Action Against Contract Cheating," said Turnitin CEO Chris Caren. "Turnitin is committed to providing the most effective educational tools to protect intellectual property, safeguard institutional reputations, and promote academic integrity so that degrees continue to have meaning." Institutions and individuals are encouraged to get involved in the International Day of Action Against Contract Cheating by signing the pledge to raise awareness and drive action about this issue; by publicly declaring their opposition with whiteboard messages that can be shared via Twitter (News - Alert) , Instagram, and Facebook using #defeatthecheat and #excelwithintegrity; and by hosting events that will engage and inform students, faculty, staff, and leaders about the threat of contract cheating.

Turnitin, which is a sponsor of ICAI's International Day of Action Against Contract Cheating, encourages institutions to register their #DefeatTheCheat and #ExcelWithIntegrity activities early at academicintegrity.org/day-against-contract-cheating/ and to join the Facebook event. About Turnitin Turnitin is your partner in education with integrity. Turnitin's originality checking and authorship investigation services ensure academic integrity, promote critical thinking, and help students improve their authentic writing. Turnitin provides instructors with the tools to prevent plagiarism, engage students in the writing process, and provide personalized feedback. More than 30 million students at 15,000 institutions in 140 countries use Turnitin, and over one billion student papers have been submitted since the company's founding. Turnitin is headquartered in Oakland, Calif., with international offices in Newcastle, U.K., Utrecht, Netherlands, Melbourne, Australia, Seoul, Korea and throughout Latin America. @Turnitin For the media - Read commentaries from Bill Loller of Turnitin in EdScoop and MDR Education. Additional assets, ICAI's press release about this event, sources, and background data available here. Executives and academics are available for interviews and commentary. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180926005231/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][September 26, 2018] eWBM unveils FIDO2-Certified Fingerprint Authenticator, eFA500

SEOUL, South Korea, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The fabless SoC company is announcing that the eWBM Golden Gate device (model eFA500) has passed the FIDO2 interoperability test and received the FIDO2 certification. The first Interop testing event for FIDO2 was organized by the FIDO Alliance in the Silicon Valley in August 2018, in which many member-companies participated in validating the compatibility of each implementation. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) accepted the FIDO2 protocol as the standard to provide a simpler but stronger web authentication method for users around the world. The eWBM Golden Gate device is powered by eWBM's security SoC chip, MS500, which provides hardware-based security features such as a secure boot, secure storage, low power crypto engines, true random number generator, and secure digital key management features. The FIDO2-certified authenticator runs with the embedded fingerprint recognition algorithm from Precise Biometrics, the world leader in fingerprint recognition market. The device comes in a handy and compact size of a USB type-A dongle in a silver metallic body and case cover, so that it provides portability for users and easy accessibility to any host machines which runs with Windows 7 and 10, and MacOS. According to Dr. Stephen Oh, CEO of eWBM, "FIDO2 provides the basis of a passwordless web experience. eWBM's FIDO2-certified fingerprint authenticator opens the door to the world of biometric authentication web access. It is a compact and portable security device that provides a superior user experience, thanks to its no-ID and no-password authentication functions."



The FIDO2-certified device also received the FIDO U2F certification from the FIDO Alliance in April 2018. The multi-support feature of FIDO U2F and FIDO2 protocols provides flexibility on choosing FIDO clients as well as seamless transition from one to the other. The device can be utilized for secure access controls to any web-based remote resources, which is an essential feature to a diverse consumer base, ranging anywhere from corporations, commercial banks, government institutes, to anyone in the general population who may require security controls.

About eWBM Co, Ltd.

eWBM Co, Ltd., a system on chip (SoC) solution company, specializes in providing hardware-based low power security chips and related solutions which are optimized for IoT applications. The next generation security SoC chip, called MS1200, is introduced. Designed with a complete root-of-trust HSM, the IoT security SoC chip provides industry's highest level of security to be used in variety of markets such as LoRa, NB-IoT, FIDO authenticators, secure IP camera, industrials, and smart home applications. The brand-new chip is equipped with hardware-based strong cipher algorithms such as RSA, ECC, AES, and SHA as well as governmental standards such as ARIA (Korea) and SM (China). The chip supports the ultra-low power deep sleep mode that is optimized for battery powered IoT applications. Powered by the hardware-based security SoC, the company also provides security solutions in the applications of Secure Sensor to Ethernet, FIDO2/U2F, smart metering, smart homes, security IP cameras, etc. The company was founded in 2009 and is based in Seoul, South Korea. For more information, visit http://www.e-wbm.com. View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ewbm-unveils-fido2-certified-fingerprint-authenticator-efa500-300717258.html SOURCE eWBM Co., Ltd.

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][September 26, 2018]

Cloud Native Computing Foundation Announces Schedule for Largest-Ever Kubernetes Event, KubeCon + CloudNativeCon Seattle

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The Cloud Native Computing Foundation , which sustains and integrates open source technologies like Kubernetes and Prometheus, today announced the session line-up for KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America on December 10-13 in Seattle. Experts from Reddit, T-Mobile, Alibaba, Uber, Airbnb, Microsoft, Google, Intel, and many more will present over 310 cloud native sessions.

As CNCF's flagship conference, KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America will bring together more than 7,000 technologists from thriving open source communities to further education around cloud native computing. Maintainers and end users of CNCF's hosted projects  including Kubernetes, Prometheus, OpenTracing, Fluentd, gRPC, containerd, rkt, CNI, Envoy, Jaeger, Notary, TUF, Vitess, CoreDNS, NATS, Linkerd, Helm, and Rook  and other cloud native technologies will gather for four days to share insights around and encourage participation in this fast-growing ecosystem. Register for KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America by September 28 to save up to $300.

"Since our most recent KubeCon + CloudNativeCon in Copenhagen , the community has shown no signs of slowing down  with a number of exciting new projects and dozens of members joining the Foundation in anticipation of our North American event," said Dan Kohn, executive director of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation. "We look forward to the learnings and contributions these new members and adopters will bring to Seattle."

A program committee of more than 75 experts led by conference co-chairs, Aqua Security's Liz Rice and Google Cloud's Janet Kuo , reviewed more than 1,620 submissions to help create the show's diverse content slate. The agenda features an impressive mix of topics, including technical sessions, deep-dives and case studies covering Kubernetes in production, serverless use cases, automated storage, securing data, machine learning, open source contributions and much more.

"We were blown away by the creativity and in-depth knowledge baked into these Seattle submissions, which enabled the program committee to build an impressive, informative and forward-thinking schedule," said Liz Rice, technical evangelist at Aqua Security and conference co-chair. "We expect this year's attendees to walk away with a wealth of new knowledge and inspiration to build and use new, disruptive technologies."

The community-curated schedule will feature sessions from leading open source technologists, including:

"A Conversation with Kelsey Hightower ," from Dan Kohn of CNCF & Kelsey Hightower of Google

"5 Years of etcd: Past, Present, and Future," from Brandon Philips of Red Hat & Xiang Li of Alibaba

"Kubernetes at Reddit: An Origin Story," from Greg Taylor of Reddit

"How T-Mobile Built and Scaled Kubernetes On-Prem for the 2018 Retail Season," from James Webb of T-Mobile

"Smooth Operator?: Large Scale Automated Storage with Kubernetes" from Celina Ward & Matt Schallert of Uber

"Phippy Goes to the Zoo: A Kubernetes Tale," from Matt Butcher & Karen Chu of Microsoft

"Stories About Kubernetes Beginnings That You've Never Heard," from Brian Grant & Tim Hockin of Google

"Developing Kubernetes Services at Airbnb Scale," from Melanie Cebula of Airbnb

"The Future of Your CRDs  Evolving an API," from Stefan Schimanski of Red Hat & Mehdy Bohlool of Google

"Friends Don't Let Friends Leave Their Kubernetes Data Unprotected," from Rita Zhang of Microsoft

"Container Security and Multi-Tenancy Tales from Kata and Nabla," from Ricardo Araveno of Branch Metrics

"CNCF Project Update," from Liz Rice of Aqua Security

"Kubernetes Project Update," from Janet Kuo of Google Cloud







Monday, December 10

Cloud Foundry Day

DigitalOcean TIDE: Kubernetes Unconference

EnvoyCon

Kubernetes Contributor Summit

Kubernetes Workshop with VMware

OpenShift Commons Gathering by Red Hat

Linkerd in Production 101 by Buoyant

Kubernetes II - Advanced by Heptio

Cloud Native Storage Day

FoundationDB Summit

Observability Practitioners Summit

KubeSec Enterprise Summit

Fast Data (FD.io) Project Mini Summit

Ballerinacon

The full KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America program can be viewed here .

Thank You Sponsors

KubeCon + CloudNativeCon North America is made possible with support from over 150 sponsors: Diamond Sponsors: Cisco , IBM Cloud , Red Hat and VMware ; Platinum Sponsors: AWS , Ballerina , Datadog , DigitalOcean , Google Cloud , Heptio , Intel , Mesosphere , Microsoft Azure , Mirantis , Nutanix , Oracle , Pivotal , Rancher Labs , SAP , Sysdig , Tigera and Ubuntu ; and many more Gold, Silver, Start-Up, and Media sponsors. For more information on sponsorship, please visit here .

Registration and Accommodations

Register here by September 28 to save on passes. Additionally, hotel room rate discounts are available here . Book early, as the discounted rates are based upon availability.

CNCF Diversity Scholarship

The Foundation will be offering scholarships to members of traditionally underrepresented groups in the technology and/or open source communities. Visit here to learn more about scholarship and eligibility requirements. All applications are due by Friday, October 5, 2018.

Additional Resources

About Cloud Native Computing Foundation

Cloud native computing uses an open source software stack to deploy applications as microservices, packaging each part into its own container, and dynamically orchestrating those containers to optimize resource utilization. The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) hosts critical components of cloud native software stacks, including Kubernetes and Prometheus. CNCF serves as the neutral home for collaboration and brings together the industry's top developers, end users and vendors  including the world's largest public cloud and enterprise software companies as well as dozens of innovative startups. CNCF is part of The Linux Foundation, a nonprofit organization. For more information about CNCF, please visit www.cncf.io .

The Linux Foundation has registered trademarks and uses trademarks. For a list of trademarks of The Linux Foundation, please see our trademark usage page: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/trademark-usage . Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.

Media Contact

Kristen Evans

The Linux Foundation

PR@CNCF.io

View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cloud-native-computing-foundation-announces-schedule-for-largest-ever-kubernetes-event-kubecon--cloudnativecon-seattle-300719295.html

SOURCE Cloud Native Computing Foundation[September 26, 2018] Automated Financial Systems, Inc. Announces $300 Billion Record Volume

Automated Financial Systems, Inc. (AFS), is pleased to announce that AFSCommerce- our secure hosted private cloud-based offering for loan processing - reached a record level in loans processed, according to John H. Shain, President of AFS. Since its inception, this market-leading AFS hosted solution has continued to show impressive year-over-year growth, expanding from an initial $3 billion processed to the recent $300 billion record. Fifteen years ago, AFSCommerce was developed as an alternative delivery channel to our traditional Commercial loan processing software license model in order to support the specific and varied growth-oriented business models of our customers. Over the past few years, the flexibility of the hosted private cloud offering has been adopted by a wide range of participants, including specialty lending, new market, and new product offerings, as well as full Commercial loan processing for global banks, money center banks, large regional banks, specialty lenders, and commercially-focused community banks. With AFSCommerce, AFS Business Itelligence Solutions, and AFSVision, the real-time, digital enabled multicurrency and multilingual product that supports all lines of business for Commercial banking, from Small Business to Syndications and Sales and Trading, AFS provides a suite of solutions that enable accelerated growth. As one customer said, "The ultimate benefit of AFSVision is having one version of the truth for all stakeholders to manage across all lines of business consistently, allowing our bank to confidently execute against target markets and strategies, officer coverage rations, pricing discipline and credit strategies, monitoring accountability and having real-time alerts to manage exceptions to bank policies."



"All of our customers have grown their business and commercial assets by leveraging and applying our technology, agile support services, market-leading benchmarking and knowledge, our customers double their portfolios approximately every five years," Shain said. About Automated Financial Systems, Inc. (AFS)

AFS is the global leader in providing real-time, straight-through processing commercial lending solutions to the world's top-tier institutions. Solely dedicated to the financial industry, AFS is uniquely positioned to understand our client's business and technology objectives, evidenced by our solutions processing more than $2.2 trillion in commercial, CRE and consumer loans daily. AFS is headquartered in Exton, Pennsylvania, with a subsidiary office in Vienna, Austria. Please visit www.afsvision.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180926005781/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][September 26, 2018] Intelitek and Connecticut Computer Science Teachers Association Partner to Host Cyber Robotics Coding Competition

This fall, Intelitek and the Intelitek STEM and CTE Education Foundation, in partnership with the Connecticut Computer Science Teachers Association (CTCSTA), will launch a Cyber Robotics Coding Competition (CRCC). The competition is a virtual robotics and coding online experience for middle school students in grades 5-8 beginning in mid-October and going through early December. Organized by Intelitek STEM and CTE Education Foundation, the CRCC is an eight-week virtual coding competition that provides students and educators with the opportunity to build STEM related skills using a cloud-based simulation platform featuring a virtual, 3D-animated robot. The CRCC is open to all middle schools in Connecticut, recognizing the importance of inclusion and diversity in STEM education. "The Connecticut CSTA strives to engage all students in computer science experiences to foster an interest in STEM and coding early on," said Ido Yerushalmi, CEO of Intelitek. "As part of that goal, they have found an opportunity in this collaborative effort with Intelitek to motivate students and offer them more ways to hone in on their computer science skills and STEMinterests."



New Hampshire was the first state to hold a CRCC, partnering with Intelitek in 2017. This launched an international phenomenon that has resulted in more than 60,000 students all over the world participating in similar coding events. Launching for the first time in Connecticut, the cloud-based coding platform invites students to compete in over 80 different and challenging game-like robotics missions. Students who participate in the first Connecticut CRCC will compete to win one of several prizes including the Inclusiveness Award for the school that has the highest ratio of active students participating, the Grace Hopper Award for the school that has the highest ratio of active female students participating, as well as invitations to the in-person finals where gold, silver and bronze awards for the top three team will be presented. "We are excited to be partnering with Intelitek and bringing the Cyber Robotics Coding Competition to students here in Connecticut as a way to further engage them in computer science," said Chinma Uche, President CTCSTA. "Coding is a valuable skill for today's job market, but understanding how computers work is an essential form of literacy, not just for today but for the future. This competition builds a solid foundation for that literacy in our students and does it in an incredibly engaging way. It's a wonderful opportunity for us all."

For more information on CRCC competitions go https://crcc.io/connecticut or contact Danny Watt, Director of CRCC at ISCEF at dwatt@intelitek.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180926005785/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]Copyright Clearance Center Partners with Frankfurt Book Fair 2018 to Highlight the Ideas Changing the Publishing World

Copyright Clearance Center (CCC), a leader in advancing copyright, accelerating knowledge, and powering innovation, has once again partnered with The Frankfurt Book Fair (10th- 14th October). This year at the fair, CCC will help shine a spotlight on the market pressures driving the publishing industry, including big data, open access, research, technological innovation and copyright.

"The Frankfurt Book Fair is known for hosting some of the most thought-provoking and exciting conversations about the world of publishing and this year is no different," said Michael Healy, Executive Director, International Relations, CCC. "We're thrilled to once again be a key part of discussions around the technology and trends that continue to shape our industry and lead us into the future."

As part of the partnership, CCC will participate in talks throughout the week, including:

Getting on the Road to Intelligent Content: No Time Like the Present

Wednesday, 10 October, 11:30 -12:00

Location: Education Stage (Hall 4.2 C 94)

Agile (News - Alert) workflows and easy access to targeted, relevant content have obvious benefits for publishers who have long dreamed of repurposing their catalogs for markets around the world. Transforming content to become "intelligent," however, is no easy task. In this presentation, Carl Robinson, Head of Consulting, Ixxus, and Renee Swank, Senior Director, Sales, Ixxus, will propose a pragmatic, sensible approach to making the most of technologies without significant upfront investment.

Publisher Voices Raised For Copyright

Wednesday, 10 October, 14:30 - 15:00

Location: Academic & Business Information Stage (Hall 4.2 N 101)

A conversation between Michael Healy and Michiel Kolman, President of the International Publishers Association, will address some of the publishing industry's most pressing questions, including: What are ublishers doing to ensure their voices are being heard in Europe, Asia, North America and elsewhere? Who is helping publishers to defend their business and creative interests? How can you make certain your voice gets heard?







Open Access Monographs

Wednesday, 10 October, 15:30 - 16:00

Location: Education Stage (Hall 4.2 C 94)

Open Access is transforming scholarly journal publishing, yet the looming size of the journal ecosystem has thrown into deep shadow an equally remarkable transformation in scholarly books. This panel discussion featuring Brian O'Leary, Executive Director, Book Industry Study Group, Carl Robinson, Head of Consulting, Ixxus and David Worlock, Publishing Analyst and Co-Chair of Outsell's Leadership Programs, will discuss the viability, models and the unique needs of OA books compared to OA journals.

Get Smart About "Plan S"

Thursday, 11 October, 09:00 - 09:30

Location: Academic & Business Information Stage (Hall 4.2 N 101)

"Plan S" was announced just weeks ago and now everyone in scholarly publishing will talk about it at Frankfurt Book Fair. An initiative of 11 European national research funding organisations, "Plan S" puts pressure on Open Access publishing business models by capping article fees, ending embargoes and withdrawing support for "hybrid" OA journals. A panel of publishing leaders and expert analysts offers insights to help prepare for "Plan S" and get smart about the next wave of change in Open Access publishing, featuring Tim Britton, Managing Director, Open Research Group at Springer Nature, and others.

Exhibit Hall

CCC's booth at the Book Fair is in Hall 4.2 Stand E18. For more information, visit www.copyright.com/frankfurt2018.

About Copyright Clearance Center

Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) builds unique solutions that connect content and rights in contextually relevant ways through software and professional services. CCC helps people navigate vast amounts of data to discover actionable insights, enabling them to innovate and make informed decisions. CCC, with its subsidiaries RightsDirect and Ixxus, collaborates with customers to advance how data and information is integrated, accessed, and shared while setting the standard for effective copyright solutions that accelerate knowledge and power innovation. CCC is headquartered in Danvers, Mass. and has offices across North America, Europe and Asia. To learn more about CCC, visit www.copyright.com.

About the Frankfurter Buchmesse

The Frankfurter Buchmesse is the international publishing industry's biggest trade fair - with over 7,300 exhibitors from 102 countries, around 286,000 visitors, over 4,000 events and approximately 10,000 accredited journalists and bloggers in attendance. It also gathers key players from other media, including the film and games industries. Since 1976, the Book Fair has featured an annual Guest of Honour country, which showcases its book market, literature and culture to attendees in a variety of ways. The Frankfurt Book Fair organises the participation of German publishers at around 20 international book fairs and hosts trade events throughout the year in major international markets. With its Business Club, the Frankfurter Buchmesse offers essential services and an ideal setting for the activities of publishers, entrepreneurs, pioneers, experts and visionaries. The Frankfurter Buchmesse is a subsidiary of the German Publishers & Booksellers Association.

Contact for the media:

> Press information online >www.book-fair.com/press_releases

> Photos in print quality >www.book-fair.com/press_photos

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180926005793/en/[September 26, 2018] Solargise has signed contract with the City of Salaberry-de-Valleyfield to purchase land for phase 1 of its solar panel manufacturing project

MONTREAL, Sept. 26, 2018 /CNW Telbec/ - Solargise Canada Inc. announces signing of contract with the City of Salaberry-de-Valleyfield to acquire land large enough to carry out phase 1 of its project for the construction of solar panels without plastic with annual capacity of 1GW. The amount of initial payment for land represents 25% of the purchase price. Estimated at approximately $950 million CAD, the first phase involves the hiring of up to 450 direct employees. It includes the construction of buildings for the production of polysilicon ingots, wafers, HIT photovoltaic cells, as well as plastic-free glass photovoltaic solar panels. The construction of the first phase will require the hiring of 600 workers. The acquired land is zoned industrial, and benefits from clse proximity to railway line, Hydro-Quebec substation and the Port of Valleyfield. The City of Salaberry-de-Valleyfield has ensured complete collaboration in order to facilitate the rapid and efficient implementation of the planned factory. In addition, the City has committed to supporting any high voltage power line projects required to supply electricity to the Solargise endeavor.



Mr. Raj Basu, Executive Chairman of Solargise, is pleased with this important step forward. "We have found a site that meets all of our selection criteria. We intend to begin construction of phase 1 in mid-2019 after obtaining the necessary authorizations". He also thanks the City of Salaberry-de-Valleyfield for its timely, efficient and valuable collaboration. Solargise is currently evaluating sites for the phase 2 of the project, which consists of the construction of an 11N semiconductor grade polysilicon plant, MgSi (metallurgical grade silicon) facilities and glass plant.

Solargise's high efficiency solar panels stand out for their innovative two-layer glass sealing technology on photovoltaic cells, minimizing efficiency losses. For the first time, solar panels will not contain any plastic. Magil Construction, NATIONAL Public Relations, AON Risk Consultants Inc., Norton Rose Fulbright and DLA Piper have supported Solargise with strategic counsel for this green project. SOURCE Solargise Canada Inc.

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][September 26, 2018] AgTech Innovators Wanted: Applications Are Open for First IoT.ATL Challenge

ATLANTA, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The Metro Atlanta Chamber, in partnership with the City of Atlanta, Invest Atlanta, the Atlanta Beltline and Georgia Power, today launched its search for the most innovative AgTech solutions. Applications are now open for the IoT.ATL AgTech Challenge. From seed production to farming to food processing, agriculture technology (AgTech) is fast-becoming an answer to growing global food shortages. By 2050 the projected food demand will increase anywhere between 59 to 98 percent.1 "As Atlanta goes through tremendous growth, we want equity and inclusion at the heart of everything we do," said Cynthia Curry, Director of IoT for the Metro Atlanta Chamber. "The goal of the IoT.ATL AgTech Challenge is to unearth new, viable food resilience solutions for our city and other cities as they scale." To improve food resilience at home and abroad, the IoT.ATL AgTech Challenge will select six solutions to tackle this issue via IoT. Startups are encouraged to collaborate to provide one complete and innovative AgTech solution. The selected startups will get access to a 20-foot shipping container along the Atlanta Beltline to pilot their AgTech over the course of 12-months as part of Atlanta's Demonstration Project program. Duluth-based agricultural equipment manufacturer, AGCO will provide the shipping containers. "We are thrilled about this global smart farming initiative in proximity to our global headquarters in Atlanta and we believe that with our agriculture expertise and resources AGCO can truly help to maximize all efforts for a good cause in our Atlanta communities. Through our Fuse smart farming platform, we welcome opportunities like this to collaborate and exchange ideas with AgTech startups. Our company's vision is high-tech solutions for farmers feeding the world and we are committed to providing basic necessities to a growing world population," said Metti Richenhagen, Manager, AGCO Corporate Social Responsibility. The Metro Atlanta Chamber and City of Atlanta are developing partnerships with community-based organizationsto ensure the fresh produce grown in the IoT.ATL AgTech Challenge pilot is received by those needing it the most.



"Now more than ever, it is critical that we develop an accessible, equitable, and resilient local food system for One Atlanta," said Amol Naik, City of Atlanta Chief Resilience Officer. "We are excited that AgTech has been selected as the first challenge of the Living Labs program and look forward to seeing how innovation and technology will maximize the efficacy of urban agriculture - all while raising awareness of these critical issues on the Atlanta Beltline." In addition to test space along the Atlanta Beltline, winning startups will receive mentorship and guidance from the Atlanta civic, corporate and technology community during the pilot.

"We want each startup to walk away from the pilot experience feeling inspired and empowered to create even more in Atlanta," said Curry. "Invest Atlanta's Demonstration Project provides startups with opportunities for proof of concept, which can be helpful in a critical stage of a startup's life cycle," said Dr. Eloisa Klementich, President and CEO of Invest Atlanta. "Engaging the next generation of agricultural technology startups in the IoT.ATL AgTech Challenge gives entrepreneurs the chance to test and validate their technologies over 12 months in a real-life urban setting. Our partnerships with entrepreneurs have the potential to not only improve our city's health, environment, and economy, but also to change the world." The IoT.ATL AgTech Challenge is the first IoT.ATL Living Labs initiative. "This project brings visibility to Atlanta as a center for smart agriculture and smart technology," said Michael Britt, Vice President of Southern Company's Energy Innovation Center. IoT.ATL Living Labs was developed earlier this year to showcase Atlanta's strengths in IoT and drive technology community collaboration and economic development. Applications are open for the IoT.ATL AgTech Challenge and will remain open until November 2. Interested candidates residing outside of Atlanta are encouraged to apply. For more information and to access the online application, please visit https://www.iot-atlanta.com/ or contact Savannah Homer at SHomer@macoc.com. About Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce

The Metro Atlanta Chamber (MAC) serves as a catalyst for a more prosperous and vibrant region. To advance economic growth and improve metro Atlanta's quality of place, MAC is focused on starting, growing and recruiting companies to the 29-county metro Atlanta region. The Chamber is also focused on growing the region's innovation economy by promoting and strengthening connections to drive Atlanta's innovation and entrepreneurial culture. MAC is committed to being an active voice for the business community, serving as an advocate for a competitive business climate and telling Atlanta's story. For more information, visit www.metroatlantachamber.com. 1 CBInsights - Agtech and the Connected Farm View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/agtech-innovators-wanted-applications-are-open-for-first-iotatl-challenge-300719619.html SOURCE IoT.ATL

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][September 26, 2018] Indeni to Participate in Red Hat Ansible Automation Community

Indeni, provider of the crowd-sourced network automation platform, today announced its sponsorship of AnsibleFest 2018 to showcase the collaboration between Indeni and Red Hat (News - Alert) Ansible Automation around initiatives designed to benefit IT operations and help advance network automation solutions. Automation is a strategic and foundational component of IT modernization and digital transformation. Unfortunately, Enterprises have made limited progress implementing automated solutions for networking devices due to static tools and ad hoc scripting efforts. While these approaches speed up specific tasks in the near term, they may not scale across hybrid environments, nor various levels of IT expertise. To realize the full value of automation, leaders should consider an agile solution designed to address legacy infrastructure and constrained talent resources. Join Indeni at AnsibleFest to learn how to: Identify active and potential firewall and load balancer issues and help minimize unplanned work

active and potential firewall and load balancer issues and help minimize unplanned work Automate verification of infrastructure health across performance and configuration standads prior to implementing changes

verification of infrastructure health across performance and configuration standads prior to implementing changes Analyze the results of Ansible Playbooks post deployment

the results of Ansible Playbooks post deployment Expand your teams' expertise and help improve IT operations



try Indeni for free for 14 days. About Indeni

Indeni makes it easy to manage the infrastructure of digital businesses. With the Indeni Network Automation Platform Enterprises can create an infrastructure that is adaptable to change. Our deep set of integrations to critical devices, crowd-sourced best practices, and easy to read remediation steps arm IT with the knowledge they need to proactively identify and respond to performance and configuration issues in their network. For more information visit www.indeni.com About AnsibleFest 2018 AnsibleFest 2018 is expected to be the largest to date, taking place in Austin, Texas, Oct. 2-3, 2018. This year's event features six different breakout tracks: Network Automation (News - Alert) , Ansible Integrations, Business Solutions, Best Practices, Community and Culture, and Technical Deep Dives. An added area this year is the Getting Started Hub for those just getting started with Ansible and Red Hat Ansible Tower. Attendees will hear talks and success stories from customers and partners including: Chevron (News - Alert) ; Cisco; ING; Microsoft; Service Master, and more. The full agenda and registration for the event is available here. Red Hat and Ansible are trademarks or registered trademarks of Red Hat, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and other countries. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180926005888/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][September 26, 2018] Global Refrigerated Transportation Market 2018-2022 | Introduction of Blockchain Technology Drives Growth | Technavio

Technavio's global refrigerated transportation market research report forecasts the market to grow at a CAGR of almost 7% during the forecast period. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180926005903/en/ Technavio has published a new market research report on the global refrigerated transportation market for the period 2018-2022. (Graphic: Business Wire) The introduction of blockchain technology in transportation services will be one of the major global refrigerated transportation market trends during 2018-2022. The implementation of blockchain technology in the global trade logistics assists in reducing errors and streamlining operations such as transportation management, procurement, customs collaboration, track and trace, and trade finances among the different stakeholders in the supply chain. Several cold chain logistics and retail companies are employing blockchain technology to improve efficiency and data security in the supply chain. This report is available at a USD 1,000 discount for a limited time only: View market snapshot before purchasing According to Technavio analysts, one o the key global refrigerated transportation market drivers is the growing demand for frozen and perishable food:



Global refrigerated transportation market: Growing demand for frozen and perishable food In countries such as the US, the UK, Germany, China, India, Australia, Japan, Brazil, and Canada, factors such as the increasing disposable incomes, changing consumption patterns, and rapid urbanization have been driving the demand for frozen and perishable food products. For instance, in China, there has been an increase in the consumption of meat and dairy products due to the increasing disposable income. As meat and dairy products have a lower shelf life, they must be transported under controlled temperatures. This will drive the global refrigerated transportation market growth during the forecast period.

According to a senior analyst at Technavio for research on transportation and distribution, "The frozen food market is expected to record a CAGR of 6.54% during the forecast period. As the chemical composition of frozen foods should remain intact until the recommended period of consumption, an effective refrigerated transportation and warehousing system is essential. Thus, the rising demand for frozen food will drive the global refrigerated transportation market growth during the forecast period." Global refrigerated transportation market: Segmentation analysis The global refrigerated transportation market analysis report provides market segmentation by mode of transportation (land, waterways, and airways), by end-user (food and beverages industry and healthcare industry), and by region (the Americas, APAC, and EMEA). This refrigerated transportation market forecast provides an in-depth analysis of the prominent factors influencing the market, including drivers, opportunities, trends, and industry-specific challenges. Of the two major end-users, the food and beverages industry held the largest refrigerated transportation market share in 2017, contributing to almost 57% of the market. This end-user segment will dominate the global market throughout the forecast period. The Americas held the largest share of the market in 2017, accounting for close to 37% share. It was followed by APAC and EMEA respectively. The Americas is expected to dominate the market throughout the period 2018-2022. Looking for more information on this market? Request a free sample report Technavio's sample reports are free of charge and contain multiple sections of the report such as the market size and forecast, drivers, challenges, trends, and more. Some of the key topics covered in the report include: Market Landscape Market ecosystem

Market characteristics

Market segmentation analysis Market Sizing Market definition

Market size and forecast Five Forces Analysis Market Segmentation Geographical Segmentation Regional comparison

Key leading countries Market Drivers Market Challenges Market Trends Vendor Landscape Vendors covered

Vendor classification

Market positioning of vendors

Competitive scenario About Technavio Technavio is a leading global technology research and advisory company. Their research and analysis focuses on emerging market trends and provides actionable insights to help businesses identify market opportunities and develop effective strategies to optimize their market positions. With over 500 specialized analysts, Technavio's report library consists of more than 10,000 reports and counting, covering 800 technologies, spanning across 50 countries. Their client base consists of enterprises of all sizes, including more than 100 Fortune 500 companies. This growing client base relies on Technavio's comprehensive coverage, extensive research, and actionable market insights to identify opportunities in existing and potential markets and assess their competitive positions within changing market scenarios. If you are interested in more information, please contact our media team at media@technavio.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180926005903/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]A.M. Best to Sponsor a College Student for the 2018 Chartered Property and Casualty Underwriter Society Annual Meeting

A.M. Best will sponsor a college student's attendance at the 2018 Chartered Property and Casualty Underwriter (CPCU) Society Annual Meeting, Oct. 13-16, 2018, in San Diego, CA (News - Alert) . The sponsorship covers the full cost of registration and travel for an undergraduate currently studying insurance and risk management.

This sponsorship is one of A.M. Best's ongoing efforts to support the development of new talent in the insurance industry. Earlier this year, A.M. Best participated in the Insurance Careers Movement's Open Letter to College Graduates Campaign. A.M. Best Rating Services, Inc. Chairman, Presidnt and Chief Executive Officer Larry Mayewski observed: "Insurance is a purpose driven industry and you can make a positive impact on individuals, businesses and communities around the world." A.M. Best also provides an analyst training program and college internship opportunities.







More information about the 2018 CPCU Society Annual Meeting can be found at http://annualmeeting.cpcusociety.org.

A.M. Best is a trusted source of insurance market insight and data, and the only global credit rating agency with a unique focus on the insurance industry. Best's Credit Ratings are a recognized indicator of insurer financial strength and creditworthiness. Visit www.ambest.com for more information.

Copyright  2018 by A.M. Best Company, Inc. and/or its affiliates. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180926005916/en/[September 26, 2018] Jefferson Financial to Acquire Three Synovus Branches in Mobile and Daphne, Alabama

Synovus Financial Corp. (NYSE: SNV) and Jefferson Financial Federal Credit Union today announced that Synovus Bank, a subsidiary of Synovus Financial Corp., has entered into a purchase and assumption agreement to sell two branches in Mobile, Alabama, and one branch in Daphne, Alabama, to Jefferson Financial Federal Credit Union. The purchase and assumption agreement provides for the transfer by Synovus Bank to Jefferson Financial Federal Credit Union of $138 million in loans, $107 million in deposits, and other assets associated with two Synovus Bank branches located in Mobile, Alabama, and the one Synovus Bank branch located in Daphne, Alabama, in exchange for a deposit premium of $14,500,000. The purchase of the branches is subject to regulatory approval and satisfaction of customary closing conditions and is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2019. The Synovus Bank branches will continue operating as Synovus Bank until the transaction is completed. At that time, the branches will operate under the name of Jefferson Financial Federal Credit Union. The Burke Group, LLC acted as financial advisor to Synovus Financial Corp., and Alston & Bird LLP acted as its legal counsel. Jefferson Financial Federal Credit Union was represented by the law firm of Howard & Howard Attorneys PLLC. About Synovus Financial Corp. Synovus Financial Corp. is a financial services company based in Columbus, Georgia, with approximately $32 billion in assets. Synovus provides commercial and retail banking, investment, and mortgage services through 249 branches in Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, Florida, and Tennessee. Synovus Bank, a wholly owned subsidiary of Synovus, has been recognized as one of the country's 10 "Most Reputable Banks" by American Banker and the Reputation Institute for four consecutive years. Synovus is on the web at synovus.com, and on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.



About Jefferson Financial Federal Credit Union Originally chartered in 1966, Jefferson Financial Federal Credit Union was created to serve the Jefferson Parish Public School System. Since then, the Credit Union has grown to a $947 million dollar, full-service financial institution serving anyone that lives, works, worships or attends school in 12 counties across southern Louisiana and south central Alabama.

Jefferson Financial Federal Credit Union provides an array of financial products and services to meet the needs of consumer and commercial members. Helping members achieve their financial success is not only a mission statement but the driving force behind the Credit Union. Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information This press release and certain of Synovus' other filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission contain statements that constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of, and subject to the protections of, Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. All statements other than statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements. You can identify these forward-looking statements through Synovus' use of words such as "believes," "anticipates," "expects," "may," "will," "assumes," "should," "predicts," "could," "would," "intends," "targets," "estimates," "projects," "plans," "potential" and other similar words and expressions of the future or otherwise regarding the outlook for Synovus' future business and financial performance and/or the performance of the banking industry and economy in general. Prospective investors are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, including, among others, the completion of the branch sale, which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of Synovus to be materially different from the future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on the information known to, and current beliefs and expectations of, Synovus' management and are subject to significant risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those contemplated by such forward-looking statements. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated by the forward-looking statements in this press release. Many of these factors are beyond Synovus' ability to control or predict. These forward-looking statements are based upon information presently known to Synovus' management and are inherently subjective, uncertain and subject to change due to any number of risks and uncertainties, including, without limitation, the risks and other factors set forth in Synovus' filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the prospectus supplement and accompanying prospectus, the automatic shelf registration statement on Form S-3, Synovus' Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2017, under the captions "Cautionary Notice Regarding Forward-Looking Statements" and "Risk Factors" and in Synovus' quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and current reports on Form 8-K. Synovus believes these forward-looking statements are reasonable; however, undue reliance should not be placed on any forward-looking statements, which are based on current expectations and speak only as of the date that they are made. Synovus does not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise, except as otherwise may be required by law. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180926005967/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ][September 26, 2018] Medicrea Announces NASS 2018 Presence And Highlights a Recently Published Study Validating Its Predictive Modelling Approach for AIS Patients

The Medicrea Group (Euronext Growth Paris: FR0004178572 - ALMED, PEA-PME eligible, and OTCQX: MNRTY and MNRTF), pioneering the transformation of spinal surgeries through Artificial Intelligence, predictive modeling and patient specific implants with its UNiD ASI (Adaptive Spine Intelligence) technology, announced today that the Company is attending the NASS 2018 meeting taking place in Los Angeles, California, from September 26th to 28th, where UNiD LAB biomedical engineers will showcase the most recent developments of the Company's UNiD ASI technology. Denys Sournac, President and Chief Executive Officer, stated, "At NASS 2018, our team of biomedical engineers will show attending spine surgeons how the UNiDASI technology answers the gap left by traditional implant manufacturers through a demonstration of the UNiD HUB, a software platform that fully integrates surgical planning through machine learning to generate personalized implants that are adapted to each individual patient and at the same time to each individual surgeon technique." Five years after its initial launch in September 2013, over 2,800 patients have benefited from UNiD ASI 100% proprietary pre-operative planning technologies and services associated with patient-specific spinal realignment rods, with a strong acceleration in adoption rate in 2018 (+60% cases in year-to-date 2018) especially in the USA. Since its inception, the technology supported surgeons specializing in adult indications with planning services and patient-specific implants focused on restoring sagittal alignment. Christopher Kleck, M.D., University of Colorado, Denver, CO, USA, will present during the Innovative Technology Session, on Thursday, September 27, 2:12pm-2:19pm, Room 403A, a paper titled "Patient-Specific Rods Show a Reduction in Rod Breakage Incidence". He will demonstrate the benefits of the UNiD ASI technology in reducing rod breakage by 85% compared to the rate established in current literature with regards to adult spinal deformity, and 78% reduction in procedures involving a PSO. More recently, surgeons have found the technology to be fully applicable to the pediatric population as well. As such, surgeons have increasingly published on the application of UNiD ASI in pediatrics and have begun to demonstrate the importance of respecting sagittal parameters in the pediatric population. Jean-Luc Clement, M.D. of Fondation Lenval (Nice, FRANCE) and UNiDASI user recently published the Article titled "Surgical Increase of Thoracic Kyphosis Increases Unfused Lumbar Lordosis in Selective Fusion for Thoracic Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis". In this article, Jean-Luc Clement emphasizes "...the importance of restoring adequate kyphosis and rspecting the links between sagittal parameters (thoracic kyphosis, lumbar lordosis and pelvic incidence) specifically in adolescent surgery. A task which is close to impossible for a surgeon without the appropriate tools that are now provided by Medicrea through UNID ASI Platform. Data analytics and predictive modeling are topics that surgeons and healthcare professionals recognize will shape the future of care and the way we view spine surgery."



During the Innovative Technology Session, on Thursday, September 27, 2:05pm-2:12pm, Room 403A, Afshin Aminian, M.D., Children's Hospital Orange County, OC, CA (News - Alert) , USA, will demonstrate how the combination of the patient-specific rods and the ST2R technique can decrease rod flattening in comparison to reports of manually contoured rods. This podium presentation will explain how the patient-specific rods designed using the UNID ASI Platform assist in maintaining sagittal profile obtained from pre-operative planning, without sacrificing coronal correction. The presentation is titled "Analysis of Pre-Contoured Patient-Specific Rods in Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis Using Computer Software: Does Rod Flattening Occur After Implantations?" Medicrea's proprietary UNiD ASI technology and services integrates numerous proprietary predictive models, one of which takes into consideration the post-operative compensatory mechanisms occurring on the non-instrumented portion of the spine both above and below the construct. Through the UNiD HUB, the algorithms use large amounts of data to generate intelligent surgical planning through machine learning while simultaneously allowing the surgeon to perform detailed, custom analysis of the cases. Medicrea uses proprietary data science to drive improved outcomes and economic efficiencies in spine surgery.

Meeting attendees are invited to learn more about Medicrea at Booth 1823. Click here to reach the article: JL Clement, Y Pelletier, F Solla, V Rampal. "Surgical Increase of Thoracic Kyphosis Increases Unfused Lumbar Lordosis in Selective Fusion for Thoracic Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis", European Spine Journal, 2018. About Medicrea (www.medicrea.com) Through the lens of predictive medicine, Medicrea leverages its proprietary software analysis tools with big data and machine learning technologies supported by an expansive collection of clinical and scientific data. The Company is well-placed to streamline the efficiency of spinal care, reduce procedural complications and limit time spent in the operating room. Operating in a $10 billion marketplace, Medicrea is a Small and Medium sized Enterprise (SME) with 210 employees worldwide, which includes 50 who are based in the U.S. The Company has an ultra-modern manufacturing facility in Lyon, France housing the development and production of 3D- printed titanium patient-specific implants. For further information, please visit: Medicrea.com. Connect with Medicrea

FACEBOOK | INSTAGRAM | TWITTER | WEBSITE | YOUTUBE Medicrea is listed on

EURONEXT Growth Paris

ISIN: FR 0004178572

Ticker: ALMED

LEI: 969500BR1CPTYMTJBA37 Medicrea is traded on

OTCQX Best Market

Tickers: MNRTY & MRNTF View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180926006069/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]Glancy Prongay & Murray LLP Announces Investigation on Behalf of PPDAI Group Inc. Investors (PPDF)

Glancy Prongay & Murray LLP ("GPM") announces an investigation on behalf of PPDAI Group Inc. ("PPDAI" or the "Company") (NYSE: PPDF) investors concerning the Company and its officers' possible violations of federal securities laws.

If you are a shareholder who suffered a loss, click here to participate.

The Company conducted its initial public offering of 17 million American depositary shares in November 2017 at $13 per share.

Shortly after the IPO, however, Chinese regulators bannd the issuance of new online peer-to-peer licenses, citing illegal practices by companies such as PPDAI. On this news, PPDAI's share price fell $2.62 per share, or more than 24%, to close at $8.18 per share on November 22, 2017, thereby injuring investors.







Then, on December 1, 2017, Chinese regulators issued an order outlining specific guidelines meant to correct improper practices among online lenders such as PPDAI. On this news, PPDAI's share price fell $2.44, or more than 25%, over several trading days, to close at $7.16 per share on December 7, 2017, thereby further injuring investors.

Follow us for updates on Twitter (News - Alert) : twitter.com/GPM_LLP.

If you purchased PPDAI shares, have information or would like to learn more about these claims, or have any questions concerning this announcement or your rights or interests with respect to these matters, please contact Lesley Portnoy, Esquire, of GPM, 1925 Century Park East, Suite 2100, Los Angeles, California 90067 at 310-201-9150, Toll-Free at 888-773-9224, by email to shareholders@glancylaw.com, or visit our website at www.glancylaw.com. If you inquire by email please include your mailing address, telephone number and number of shares purchased.

This press release may be considered Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions under the applicable law and ethical rules.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180926006073/en/(Image credit: Shutterstock | selinofoto)

Imagine youre a sales person, and when you try to visit a clients website, you get a message saying that its blocked because its not on your companys whitelist. Or maybe youre a programmer, and when you go to install the latest version of the Eclipse development software you use to write code, your computer (and your IT department) wont allow it. Every company is worried about cybersecurity, but there is such a thing as being too locked down.

For example, one way IT departments look to curb reckless employee behavior is through blocking websites and non-work-related apps on corporate networks. A10 Networks Application Intelligence Report published earlier this year found that nearly two-thirds of employees (61 percent) say their companies block specific sites or applications.

But preventing employees from having a certain degree of technological freedom-- whether thats installing software, downloading apps or choosing a different web browser--can have a negative effect on their productivity. Some contend that strict security policies are at odds with the current climate for digital disruption and can hinder a business capacity for innovation in an increasingly competitive landscape.

The problem starts when employees, empowered by the always-on availability of IT at their fingertips, want to use their own laptops and other personal devices in the workplace, as well as download the software they believe will make their work lives easier.

It is up to the IT team to decide to what extent it wants to restrict users choices. Securing the organization is the priority, and with cyberattacks escalating in frequency and complexity, its easy to understand the IT departments overwhelming urge to lock everything down.

For example, high-profile ransomware attacks have grabbed headlines over the past couple of years. They are now being overtaken by a rise in fileless attacks as malware developers step up their evasion efforts. Meanwhile, analyst Gartner forecasts there will be 25.1 billion Internet of Things (IoT) endpoints installed by 2021, ramping up pressure on IT teams to secure any devices connected to the corporate network.

The problem, as IT sees it, is that employees are often the reason for such security breaches within an organization. In fact, Shred-its 2018 State of the Industry: Information Security report shows 84 percent of C-level executives and 51 percent of small business owners believe employee negligence to be one of the biggest information security risks to U.S. businesses.

As such, one of the biggest causes of conflict between the IT department and employees is the downloading of unauthorized apps for use in the workplace. The A10 Networks report notes that almost a third (30 percent) of employees say they knowingly use non-sanctioned apps at work or on company-owned devices. However, a third of those downloading unapproved apps claim their hand is forced by their own IT department that often wont give them access to the apps they need to do their jobs.

If you make [technology] so restrictive that you have zero risk, no one will ever use it, David Mayer, who heads Insights Connect Workforce business, tells Tom's Hardware.

(Image credit: Shutterstock | thodonal88)

Striking a Balance

Security experts agree that an organizations security postured should be balanced alongside employee productivity and happiness.

Allowing employees to work the way they want and utilize the tools they want introduces a massive amount of risk into an otherwise secure environment. However, not allowing them to do so can kill your employees productivity, Joey Costa, CEO of Raleigh, NC-based managed security service provider (MSSP) The Tek, tells Tom's Hardware.

The way around this, says Costa, is for a business to focus its security program around the user experience. He advises "working with your users to understand how they want to work, what kinds of applications and operating systems they want to use and designing your security program for enablement and extensibility that will allow you to raise employee productivity and satisfaction while still keeping your overall risk level low."

Jake Madders, director at Hyve Managed Hosting, which has data centers in Los Angeles, Boston and Miami, agrees that IT chiefs should try to strike a balance.

Businesses should seek to empower employees in every sense, including when it comes to technology. Preventing users from making extensive changes to their software is one thing, but placing restrictions on employees making simple changes, such as choosing a different web browser, risks patronizing and ultimately demotivating them, he tells Tom's Hardware. The internet can be a great tool for discovering new and creative ways to save time and increase efficiency through new applications, so allowing employees to have the freedom to do so is key to developing the business internally.

Madders believes that training is key to ensuring that employees do not unwittingly weaken their companys defenses.

The key here is education--teaching team members how to stay secure, as well as what and how company security policies are implemented, he says. After all, adequate security is built from the ground up--starting with the core vulnerability, which is often, arguably, the users themselves.

Independent industry analyst Rob Bamforth agrees with IT departments that the weak link in most security chains is the employees themselves, but getting the workforce on board with good security practices means starting from the top.

Having them understanding, bought into and overall supporting security programs and procedures is critical. Having said that, edicts that come from a security decision-maker that seem at odds with the needs of the business are no good either, he tells Tom's Hardware.

Good CISOs get this. Security has to be engaged with and close to the business and users. Security risk and vulnerabilities need to be understood by all in a business context--whats the impact on the business? Broad understanding aids buy-in and helps the organization adopt a practical security posture that is right for the business, not too painful for users and delivers sufficient protection.

Interestingly, the Shred-it report notes that most North American businesses say they are confident in their employees efforts to safeguard company data, yet most do not provide staff with regular training on information security procedures.

Ironically, many businesses still place responsibility for data security on their employees, it says.

Restricting Risk

Insights Mayer says there is no reason today for an organization to impose overly restrictive security policies, although he acknowledges that sometimes thats the easy way out.

Ultimately, the best security posture for a business to adopt is one that is not about restricting users, but restricting risk.

There is management technology that ensures [unsanctioned] applications dont even get onto the corporate network; they only live on the users machine. Cloud Access Security Broker [CASB] solutions out there can stop you accessing certain sites at work, for example, he says, adding it goes back to balance.

Youre balancing a risk profile. What is the risk youre comfortable taking? Theres no way to make a flexible system that is 100 percent secure. But if you can make it 97 percent secure, and then you can manage and track that last three percent, maybe thats a risk profile youre willing to take.

The answer lies in finding a balance where IT doesnt feel it has to clamp down on users activities or behavior too much, which could ultimately lead to frustration and an inability to evolve as an organization. Security pros should weigh the risks to the organization while remaining flexible to employees needs and expectations of the modern workplace.



Daily Mail: Charlotte McKinney lets her power blazer do the talking as she dons a professional look for visit to talk show in LA





Celebrate Kansas City B-Ball Hype

Council hopes Hy-Vee Arena can revitalize West Bottoms Last year Kemper Arena mostly remained an empty shell, costing Kansas Citians roughly a million dollars in annual maintenance costs despite its lack of use. With a new renovation funded by the Foutch Brothers, the iconic facility has been re-imagined as Hy-Vee Arena.

Daddy Charged After Gunfire

Shawnee father charged after boy shoots sister in leg KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A Shawnee man was charged after a 9-year-old boy shot his 10-year-old sister in the leg in Merriam on Sunday night, according to court records.

Meth Town Mall Stays Losing Money

Independence Center collateral on big loan declines again - Kansas City Business Journal Independence Center's new operator has been working to reinvigorate the mall, but it's fighting against a deteriorating outlook. The underlying collateral for the mall's $200 million loan recently saw a sharp decrease in appraised value, according to September loan records.

Diagnosing KCMO Dumping Crisis

Moving tied to more illegal dumping complaints in Kansas City KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- As our society increasingly becomes more mobile, inspectors say moving is generating a growing number of illegal dumping complaints in Kansas City. Trash piles are not just an urban core problem.

Kansas City Northland Cutoff

Northbound lanes of Buck O'Neill Bridge close for weekend KANSAS CITY, MO (KCTV5) -- If you take the Buck O'Neill Bridge you may have to find another route this weekend. Crews will work on replacing the medians. The northbound lanes will close from 7 p.m. Friday night until 6 p.m. Sunday. Southbound lanes will remain open. Copyright 2018 KCTV (Meredith Corp.)

Deadly Crash Aftermath

Motorcyclist killed after colliding with school bus in KCK A motorcyclist died after colliding with a school bus in Kansas City, Kansas, Tuesday morning. Police said the crash was reported at 8:44 a.m. at Seventh Street and Homer Avenue. Investigators said the school bus, with nine students on board, was heading south on Seventh Street, making a left turn onto Homer Avenue, when the crash happened.

Latest Local Chow Line

Wahlburger fans line up for Olathe grand opening OLATE, KS (KCTV5) -- The new Wahlburgers in Olathe is open for business. The restaurant chain was started by Paul Wahlberg along with his celebrity brothers Donnie and Mark Wahlberg. The Olathe franchise is owned and operated by Hy-Vee, which has mentioned the possibility of a future second location in the metro.

TKC hottie favemade her name and garnered a fashionista career via a social media photo app and now that tech is in transition. Take a peek:Closer to home, these news links attract our attention:And this is thefor right now . . ."Hey TKC, you can tell the real Americans from the liberal traitors today. Remember that President Truman helped to build the UN. But today the organization has outlived its usefulness and didn't just insult the President but also the people of the United States. Kansas City history buffs might appreciate the horrible irony."

SHOULD KC RESPECT THE LEGACY OF PREZ TRUMAN'S VISION FOR THE UNITED NATIONS OR OPPOSE WORLD LEADERS LAUGHING AT PREZ TRUMP???

America First Declaration

Trump challenges UN, boasting of America's go-it-alone might President Donald Trump poured scorn on the ideology of globalism and heaped praise on his own administration's achievements Tuesday in a speech to the U.N. General Assembly that drew headshakes and even mocking laughter from his audience of fellow world leaders.

Melancholy & Infinite Sadness

Trump is a laughingstock. But if we'd not be laughing, we'd be crying | Michael H Fuchs At the UN general assembly, world leaders laughed at the US president after he bragged about his own performance. Perhaps they needed comic relief

Prez Against Group Think

Trump takes verbal sledgehammer to United Nations foundation The president preaches to the U.N. General Assembly that 'sovereignty' and self-interest can solve problems like Iran, China and North Korea: Our view The world's greatest problems - be they climate disruption, terrorism, the spread of nuclear weapons, trade disputes or flows of refugees - require international solutions.

Expect The Unexpected

United Nations Audience Laughs at President Trump After He Boasts About His Accomplishments After the laughs, President Trump said, 'Didn't expect that reaction, but that's okay'

Great Again Push Back

Trump's U.N. Speech Was a Laughingstock Until It Was a Terror Yes, the president* kicked things off in his speech by celebrating the wonder of his own wonderful greatness. And the assembled diplomats laughed and laughed, and that's fairly unprecedented in my lifetime, anyway. But it was the stuff he said that they didn't laugh at, because it wasn't funny at all, that was the meat on which the rest of the world can feast its fear.

World Gone Mad

Donald Trump Issues a Scathing Rejection of 'Globalism' The origins of the "globalist" slur Again and again, Trump gave notice that there was a new sheriff in town-and that it was neither a global policeman nor a guardian of global interests.

Repeating The Past??

Donald Trump's worldview was laid bare at the UN -- and it should worry anyone who understands history US President Donald Trump came late to the podium at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday morning. And within moments, he had the gathered world leaders laughing.

The, a local hero whose legacy was forged in the Kansas City Metro.Sadly, the legend from Meth Townwouldn't be pleased with what the world witnessed today.Also, big up to our blog community for at least trying to make this one local . . .A note from one of our. . .Fair enough . . .And so we ask:News links for background . . .You decide . . .High-level event on Enhancing global partnerships for IDDA III held on the margins of the 73rd UN General Assembly in New York

Heads of States, high-level representatives of governments, development financing institutions and UN agencies together with representatives of the private sector, non-governmental organizations and academia met today at the United Nations Headquarters to discuss how inclusive and sustainable industrial development can support the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement.

The event was organized by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), the African Union Commission (AUC), the African Development Bank (AfDB), the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

In the next decades, Africa is set to become the youngest and most populous continent in the world, with a working age population expected to grow by around 70 per cent to number 450 million people by 2035. Job creation in Africa is not keeping pace with the growing workforce and large parts of the rural population, the urban poor, women and youth have not benefited from recent economic growth. Unemployment and inequality still remain unacceptably high.

Policymakers now acknowledge that the continents economies need to undertake a systematic structural transformation from resource-based economies to more diversified economies, specifically by increasing the shares of manufacturing and agro-related industry in national investment, output, and trade.

The AfCFTA, launched by the AUC in March 2018 in Kigali, Rwanda, has enormous potential for catalyzing this structural transformation, as it will spur industrialization, economic diversification and employment in Africa. It will create a continental market of 1.2 billion consumers and an African GDP of US$2.5 trillion, and is expected to provide great business opportunities for trading enterprises, businesses and consumers.

Welcoming the audience, Amina J. Mohammed, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, highlighted that real output growth is estimated to have increased by 3.6 percent in 2017, up from 2.2 percent in 2016, and is poised to accelerate to 4.1 percent in 2018 and 2019, and added that, despite this positive economic growth, challenges remain for the achievement of meaningful inclusive and sustainable industrial development for Africa.

Addressing the New York meeting, LI Yong, the Director General of UNIDO, which is leading the implementation of the Third Industrial Development Decade for Africa (IDDAIII), said that, if the full benefits of the AfCFTA are to be fully realized, industrialization should be the central focus. He predicted that the successful implementation of the AfCFTA will lead to an increase in demand for goods manufactured by small and medium-sized enterprises.

Also, the African Union Commissioner for Trade and Industry, Ambassador Albert M. Muchanga, emphasized that the African Continental Free Trade Area and IDDAIII are complementary, and the alignment will offer win-win outcomes to Africa and the international community.

All speakers agreed that for the implementation of the AfCTFA to be sustainably successful it will necessarily require further enhanced and concerted efforts by all international and national stakeholders  especially through innovative global partnerships on a multilateral level.

Pierre Guislain, Vice President of the African Development Bank, said that the private sector has a critical role to play in driving Africas industrialization and integration.

He added that boosting intra-African investment was as important as boosting intra-African trade and called on governments to accelerate adoption and implementation of the AfCFTA and create truly integrated regional markets that have the scale needed for large private investments. He indicated that industrializing Africa is one of the African Development Bank's top five lending priorities.

Vera Songwe, Executive Secretary of the UNECA, stressed, if the AfCFTA is to catalyze Africas industrialization through integrated markets then bridging infrastructure gaps and digitalizing economies across the continent is critical!

Noting that the AfCFTA and industrialization strategies will need to exploit the full agribusiness potential of the continent, Jose Graziano da Silva, Director-General of the FAO, said, agro-industrial development that connects family farmers, herders and fisher folks to rewarding markets can create opportunities for young people, stimulate greener practices throughout the food system, and deliver healthier and safer food to consumers.

During the event, it was announced that the following heads of state had agreed to become IDDA III Champions to actively promote the role of inclusive and sustainable industrial development within the IDDA III framework and to increase awareness of this important initiative at the national, regional and global level:

His Excellency Alassane Ouattara, President of the Republic of Cote dIvoire;

His Excellency Uhuru Kenyatta, President of the Republic of Kenya;

Her Excellency Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca, President of the Republic of Malta;

His Excellency Mahamadou Issoufou, President of the Republic of Niger;

His Excellency Macky Sall, President of the Republic of Senegal;

His Excellency Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa, President of the Republic of South Africa; and

His Excellency Edgar Chagwa Lungu, President of the Republic of Zambia.

The meeting concluded with the recognition that the successful implementation of the AfCTFA will require enhanced and concerted efforts to address several critical areas related to industrial development, and issued a call for strategic partnerships with financial institutions and the business sector in order to leverage additional resources for infrastructure, industry and innovation, as well as knowledge, expertise and technology.

Deputy Secretary-General says positive economic growth sign of Africas strong potential

Following are UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammeds remarks at the high-level event on the Third Industrial Development Decade for Africa, in New York today:

I am pleased to join you today as we focus attention on Africas industrial and socio-economic development. I am encouraged by the presence of so many highlevel representatives from both the public and private sectors.

This years event comes when Africas economic growth is beginning to recover after the decline witnessed in 2016. Real output growth is estimated to have increased by 3.6 per cent in 2017, up from 2.2 per cent in 2016, and is poised to accelerate to 4.1 per cent in 2018 and 2019. This is indeed welcome news and a reflection of the continents strong potential.

However, despite this positive economic growth, challenges remain for the achievement of meaningful, inclusive and sustainable industrial development for Africa. The diversification of African economies through value addition is essential for sustainable growth, market resilience and withstanding economic shocks.

To that end, we welcome the launch this year of the African Continental Free Trade Area. This will constitute the worlds largest free trade area in terms of membership and will also create a single market of 1.2 billion people with a combined gross domestic product (GDP) of over 2.5 trillion dollars, which is expected to double by 2050.

Sustainable industrialization is key to the success of the Free Trade Area, with an emphasis on inclusive development that harnesses the energy, drive, creativity and skills of women and youth.

Within the framework of the Third Industrial Development Decade for Africa, commendable efforts are being undertaken by different stakeholders, including within the United Nations. We have a roadmap for its implementation that will form the basis for joint programmes between United Nations agencies and key stakeholders.

This and other achievements are captured in the progress report on the Decade that will be presented to the General Assembly.

Going forward, I would like to highlight five areas for special attention.

First, congruency between alignment and cohesive regional and industrial policies. Trade and industry policies that talk to each other are much more likely to yield positive results than those implemented in isolation.

Second, enhanced focus to investments on infrastructure development. This includes special economic zones and industrial parks, roads, ports, harbours, energy infrastructure, information and communication technologies and digital infrastructure.

Third, enhanced value addition local contacts, with a focus on agriculture and other natural resources. As the mainstay of most African countries, these hold the key for accelerated sustainable growth, diversification and job creation.

Fourth is trade capacity building to facilitate fuller participation in regional and global value chains. Being at the table needs muscle capacity to engage and negotiate the best deals for your country.

And fifth is human capital development and technology with a focus on women and youth to ensure inclusive development.

It is also clear that the agendas set out in the Industrial Development Decade and the African Continental Free Trade Area cannot be achieved by any single entity or country. There is a need to build and strengthen partnerships among all relevant stakeholders.

Finally, creating a space for these partnerships to focus on five areas mentioned and addition, encouraging technology transfer, building productive capacity, creating jobs, promoting international trade, supporting economic diversification, and building green industries.

Creative and innovative approaches must continue to be deployed to mobilize both financial and non-financial resources.

Maximizing financing for development means a number of things. We must mobilize domestic resources alongside international financial resources. We need to harness the role of the private sector in financing development. And we must maximize the use of innovative financing sources and mechanisms including pension funds, insurance and other large pools of private capital.

To do this, it is vital that we share experiences and lessons among countries. We also need to leverage and deepen strategic North-South; South-South and Triangular cooperation.

On behalf of the United Nations, I reaffirm our continued strong commitment and action to sustainable development on the continent and ensuring an inclusive, resilient, and secure future, for all Africans.

I wish you a productive meeting.The Transylvania Community Arts Council has partnered with Brevard artists Bianca Mitchell and Stephen P. Jackson to present the invitational exhibit, Seeking Home. This exhibit will run Sept. 28 through Oct. 19 and will explore art which showcases the inward search for place and belonging.

Mitchell and Jackson have invited Hendersonville artists Costanza Knight and Fred McMullen to join them in exploring this theme. The public is invited to meet the artists at an opening reception at the TC Arts Council on Friday, Sept. 28, from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. during Gallery Walk.

Home is a place where the sweat equity of ones life is invested. Stone by stone we build our homes, our families, our livelihoods, our neighborhoods, and our monuments to future generations as an exclamation, we were here! said Mitchell. My series of map paintings and drawings for the Seeking Home exhibition is a tribute to the men and women who have worked for generations to build Lake Toxaway.

Lake Toxaway has a long and storied history with important significance to Transylvania County. Its ultimate survival following the catastrophic dam burst of 1916 is hinged on the work and labor of many local families and the efforts of the developer, Lake Toxaway Company. My paintings and drawings for Seeking Home, rendered in pointillism, show Lake Toxaway as a shining sapphire floating in the vast forest lands of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The pieces, with sharply rendered highway lines, North arrows, and the river tributaries, also give nod to the exacting work of the surveyor and the weathered aged plats of his trade. I hope my map series speaks to those who have invested their hearts and sweat equity to the place we call home.

Mitchell lives and works in Western North Carolina, drawing inspiration from the natural beauty of the area. She holds a B.A. in art from Brevard College and exhibits her work in many regional and national shows. Mitchell is a member of the Lake Toxaway Art Guild and an active participate in the Transylvania Community Arts Council. She is a former steering committee member for Brevard Colleges Friends of the Fine Arts. To learn more about the artist, visit http://www.Biancamitchell.com.

Another featured artist is Brevards Jackson, who said, For me, seeking home is about both a place being sought, and equally about the person doing the seeking. So I have landscape paintings which evoke the sense of a certain place, especially places of solitude where a person can feel at home with the outdoors. And I have paintings of people who are seeking to find their place, whether that is an actual location or a sense of understanding themselves.

My current exhibit artwork is acrylic on canvas, with the paintings ranging in size from 12 x 12 to large 4 x 4 canvases. As part of my current work, I am doing a series of what I call almost-black-and-white paintings. These are evocative of old black and white photographs that may have been partially hand colored or tinted. We are so bombarded these days with fast-paced, quickly changing images, I like to invite viewers into a more subtle visual world with some of my art.

To see Jacksons work, go to http://www.spjart.com.

Knight, a Henderson-ville painter and printmaker, will be part of this four person exhibition. Knight paints in watercolor and acrylics and does monotypes. She is known for her introspective narrative paintings and her abstract landscapes. New work in her guardian series, including Guardian of the Mountains and Listening to the Bees, will be on view. Since for Knight home is equally as much a place as it is a feeling, her paintings call forth that yearning and seeking for the closeness and connectedness of home. As a former speech and language pathologist, she sees a direct connection between teaching communication and interpreting the human experience through her artwork. To explore her artwork go to http://www.costanzaknight.com.

McMullen started creating art at a young age. Based in East Flat Rock, McMullen now focuses his work on metal, bronze and wood pieces, combining his experience in sculpture and woodworking to create one of a kind pieces.

To see some of McMullens work, go to http://www.bentreestudios.com.

The TC Arts Council is located at 349 S. Caldwell St. in Brevard.

Regular gallery hours are Monday through Friday from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. To learn more, call (828) 884-2787 or go to http://www.tcarts.org.The Pisgah Group of the Sierra Club welcomes Rachel Hillyer, visiting assistant professor of biology at Brevard College, at 7:30 p.m., today. Hillyer's talk will discuss her work in the highly biodiverse forests of the Amazon and tropical Andes, which are threatened by rising temperatures and global climate change. How these forests respond will determine their future role as carbon sinks and cradles of biodiversity. One tool to help researchers understand forest responses to changing climate are transplant experiments. Results from seed and seedling transplants in the Peruvian Andes show that species vary greatly in their fates when moved beyond where they currently grow; and that rodents can play as big a role in limiting tree populations as environ-mental factors like temperature and pre-cipitation. Hillyer earned her doctorate in biology from Wake Forest University, where she had the opportunity to spend several summers in the Peruvian Andes researching the population dynamics of montane palm species. As a plant ecologist, she's interested in how abiotic factors and biotic interactions work together to control species distributions. As a nature enthusiast, she just really enjoys trees and being outside. Currently, she is excited to be teaching biology at Brevard College.

The meeting will be held at the Unitarian Universalist Church at the intersection of South Broad and Varsity streets, with a social time starting at 7 p.m. The meeting will open at 7:15 p.m., with short reports from club committees. Her presentation will begin at 7:30 p.m. For more information, go to http://www.sierraclub.org/north-carolina/Pisgah.About 40 people were present at the Transylvania County Board of Education meeting at Brevard High School Monday evening to hear revised construction options for both Brevard High and Rosman High/Middle schools and ask questions regarding the capital needs bond referendum set for this November.

Board of Education Chair Tawny McCoy said someone had told her in the last few days that the school board had not done enough to sell the bond.

"These are some facts that I want you to think about," said McCoy.

She said people talk about community schools and the schools are used by and importan...How to promote economic growth in North Carolinas rural areas, such as Transylvania County, is one of the focuses of the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina (EDPNC).

During Mondays Board of Commissioners meeting, Commissioner Mike Hawkins, an EDPNC board member, talked about the organization and particularly about the entitys latest focus on rural North Carolina.

The EDPNC was formed in 2014 by Gov. Pat McCrory and is the lead economic development agency in the state, working with the N.C. Department of Commerce to grow the states economy. Its a private...Hyatt Regency Phuket Resort has announced the recent appointment of Mr. Samit Ganguly as General Manager, overseeing all aspects of day-to-day operations at the 201-rooms and suites resort located along Phukets prestigious west-coast at Kamala Cove.



(TRAVPR.COM) THAILAND - September 26th, 2018 - With over 18-years hospitality experience and a comprehensive background in sales and marketing, Mr. Ganguly commenced his career with Hyatt in 2002, progressing through various sales roles before holding positions as Director of Convention Sales at Hyatt Regency Dubai and Director of Sales at Hyatt Regency Kolkata. A tenure with Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group followed as Director of Marketing at their flagship New Delhi property, The Radisson Blu Plaza. Prior to joining Hyatt Regency Phuket Resort, Mr. Ganguly spent six years with The Ritz- Carlton Jakarta, Pacific Place, initially as Director of Sales and Marketing and most recently as Hotel Manager.

We are delighted to welcome Samit back to the Hyatt family and wish him much success with Hyatt Regency Phuket, said Mr. Willi Martin, Area Vice President and General Manager.

I am thrilled to be back with Hyatt Hotels and more interestingly in Phuket, Thailand, the country which is the flag bearer of Asian Hospitality said Mr. Ganguly.

For more information about Hyatt Regency Phuket Resort, please call +66 76 231 234or visit www.hyattregencyphuket.com. Follow the resort on facebook and Instagram.

About Hyatt Regency Phuket Resort

Hyatt Regency Phuket Resort, which officially opened on 24 December 2013, is blessed with one of the best locations on the Thai island. Situated on the exclusive west coastten minutes from both the beach-side restaurants of Surin and the nightlife of Patong, yet only 40 minutes from the international airportthe Hyatt Regency Phuket Resort is nestled on a verdant, terraced hillside overlooking the beach of Kamala Cove. From almost every vantage point of the secluded property, including most of its 201 rooms and suites that each has its private balcony, guests can enjoy unobstructed, cascading views of the Andaman Sea and its spectacular sunsets.

About Hyatt Regency hotels

Hyatt Hotels Corporation, headquartered in Chicago, is a leading global hospitality company with a portfolio of 14 premier brands. As of June 30, 2018, the Company's portfolio included more than 750 properties in more than 55 countries across six continents. The Company's purpose to care for people so they can be their best informs its business decisions and growth strategy and is intended to attract and retain top colleagues, build relationships with guests and create value for shareholders. The Company's subsidiaries develop, own, operate, manage, franchise, license or provide services to hotels, resorts, branded residences, vacation ownership properties, and fitness and spa locations, including under the Park Hyatt, Miraval, Grand Hyatt, Hyatt Regency, Hyatt, Andaz, Hyatt Centric, The Unbound Collection by Hyatt, Hyatt Place, Hyatt House, Hyatt Ziva, Hyatt Zilara, Hyatt Residence Club and exhale brand names.

For more information, please visit www.hyatt.com

###Treehugger and our third-party partners use cookies and process personal data like unique identifiers based on your consent to store and/or access information on a device, display personalized ads and for content measurement, audience insight, and product development. To change or withdraw your consent choices for Treehugger.com, including your right to object where legitimate interest is used, click below. At any time, you can update your settings through the "EU Privacy" link at the bottom of any page. These choices will be signaled globally to our partners and will not affect browsing data. List of Partners (vendors)Climate change models should do more than just predict dire results from rising carbon dioxide levels. They must help guide political choices that could alter disastrous outcomes, or they do little more than help us calculate insurance rate hikes and make emergency plans.

A paper by an international group of University of Maryland-led scientists, counting no less than 5 members of the National Academy of Sciences to their ranks, argues that current climate models will fail precisely because they focus too much on the science and not enough on sociology.

"The Human System has become strongly dominant within the Earth System"

The paper makes two key observations:

Current models may address the influence of projected population growth, GDP growth, or other social factors -- but they do not integrate these factors in a coupled, bi-directional feedback loop. By treating social factors as externalities, climate models reinforce the human tendency to perceive measures taken to control climate change as "costs" rather than as cost effective or good investments.



The solution? Toss the current models, such as the Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs), and create new Earth System Models (ESMs) that can better predict wider factors that can influence climate change.

The concept underlying this recommendation is known as "coupling" - when change in one parameter causes change in other parameters. The IAMs earned the "integrated" in their acronym by including energy and agricultural influences. But they still input factors like population from external reports that may not account for the impact of climate change on population growth.

To see how broader integration is essential, take this example: if we educate women birth rates fall and population growth slows. Education would not be selected as a priority influence in current climate models which do not "couple" social factors with climate outcomes, but could be analyzed more fully in Earth System Models. Perhaps money currently spent subsidizing electric cars would be better spent in educational outreach?

Or the other way around: because education contributes to greater growth in per capita income, the effects of lowering the number of people might be overwhelmed by the vastly higher environmental footprints typical of wealthier populations (the richest 10% of humanity produce over half of greenhouse gas emissions).

In a more critical example, current climate models point to massive reductions in fossil fuel use as a solution. This obvious path forward has consistently failed to gain political traction, though, because it is perceived as "too high a cost" to the global economy. Earth System Models (ESMs) need to show how the use of our air and our rivers as sinks for human outputs also poses "too high a cost" as growth becomes hemmed in by limitations in the earth's ability to process our outputs or supply our needs.

The scientists behind the paper wisely point out that good policy involves more than just perfecting the models, which is hard enough. When it comes to discussing issues such as family planning or displacement of pollution versus growth of developing economies, human rights issues must be considered as well.

It has been officially proposed that we have been living in the Anthropocene epoch since approximately the Industrial Revolution. Whether advocates gain approval for this concept of a new epoch or not, the term is intended convey that we humans are now the most significant influencing factor on the evolution of our planet. It also proves how little we understand that in the end, it will be the earth that influences our evolution.

What remains to be seen: can Earth System Models (ESMs) pierce the denialism and outright apathy about climate change before the Anthropocene turns out to be the shortest epoch?

Read the entire article, Modeling sustainability: population, inequality, consumption, and bidirectional coupling of the Earth and Human Systems, published unlocked in the National Science Review,Blogging like it's 1999 might make sense for a lot of people.

Low-Tech Magazine is a favorite inspiration, as it "talks about the potential of past and often forgotten knowledge and technologies when it comes to designing a sustainable society." Kris De Decker and his team also "questions the blind belief in technological progress," often pointing out that new ways of doing things are not always better.

It is also practicing what it preaches, and has just turned into a low-tech, self-hosted, solar-powered version of itself. It is a model that could be very attractive for other sites that preach sustainability.

Wayback Machine of TreeHugger 2004/Screen capture

One of the problems we face is that the Internet keeps drawing more and more power as data traffic doubles every two years. Kris notes also that our websites have become far more resource-intensive, and the average web page has increased from half a megabyte in 2010 to 1.7 MB today. Just look at an early TreeHugger post; photos were 145 pixels wide to minimize storage and load times. Now they are ten times as big. Most websites today are also generated "on the fly" depending on device or browser setting.

Low-Tech Magazine throws all this modern stuff away, and has cut their page size by a factor of five. It's static instead of responsive: "It's always there -- not just when someone visits the page. Static websites are thus based on file storage whereas dynamic websites depend on recurrent computation. Static websites consequently require less processing power and thus less energy."

 Low Tech Magazine internet setup

They use an obsolete image compression technique called "dithering", which uses a tenth of the resources. They get rid of custom typefaces and logos. It's all basic and simple and so 1999 and it doesn't look bad at all with its own character. But it is responsive in width depending on my browser setting, and it actually looks terrific on my iPhone.

They run the whole website out of a tiny little Olimex computer that looks like a Raspberry Pi, powered by a 50 watt solar panel and an old lead-acid battery. Kris worries that it may go off-line occasionally during bad weather, but he is in sunny Barcelona.

 Low Tech magazine solar panels

The web server is now powered by a new 50 Wp solar panel and a two year old 12V 7Ah lead-acid battery. Because the solar panel is shaded during the morning, it receives direct sunlight for only 4 to 6 hours per day. Under optimal conditions, the solar panel thus generates 6 hours x 50 watt = 300 Wh of electricity. The web server uses between 1 and 2.5 watts of power (depending on the number of visitors), meaning that it requires between 24 Wh and 60 Wh of electricity per day. Under optimal conditions, we should thus have sufficient energy to keep the web server running for 24 hours per day...We expect to keep the website on-line during one or two days of bad weather, after which it will go off-line.

No Third-Party Tracking, No Advertising Services, No Cookies

Most websites make their money from Google ads, which raise data traffic and energy use. Tracking cookies takes energy too, and many people also have privacy concerns. Low-Tech Magazine has now given all that up and gone to a user-supported model. "Advertising services, which have maintained Low-tech Magazine since its start in 2007, are not compatible with our lightweight web design." And, in tune with their low-tech vibe, "We will soon offer print-on-demand copies of the blog. These publications will allow you to read Low-tech Magazine on paper, on the beach, in the sun, or whenever and where ever you want."

It is a fascinating experiment, and I have already signed up on Patreon to support it. Don't expect to see TreeHugger go this route soon; Low-Tech magazine only publishes about twelve stories a year and we do that almost every day. They also can't do comments; you have to send them an email. Right now they are running the site both in the old version (which isn't exactly state-of-the-art) and the new solar powered version until they work all the bugs out.

My last article based on Low Tech Magazine was about sufficiency -- the concept that aiming for efficiency isn't enough; instead, we have to think about what we need, and pick the technology that works best with the lowest embodied and operating energy.

Sufficiency can involve a reduction of services (less light, less travelling, less speed, lower indoor temperatures, smaller houses), or a substitution of services (a bicycle instead of a car, a clothesline instead of a tumble drier, thermal underclothing instead of central heating).

When it comes to the internet, what is enough? What is sufficient? There are millions of little websites chugging away on Wordpress or TypePad or Squarespace all burning megawatts of power that I suspect could probably get by quite comfortably with a little setup like this.

What do you think? While we still rely on cloud servers and fancy plug-ins, here's a poll, check out the original and solar site.

Which website do you rather look at?editorial@tribune.com

PKJaiswar

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, September 26

With the arrest of five persons, the city police on Wednesday claimed to have cracked the robbery case in which a Nepal couple was targeted in posh Rani Ka Bagh by three armed persons on September 8.

Those arrested were identified as Ajay Kumar of Gujjarpura, Mahavir Singh of Chowk Moni, Gagandeep Singh of Gujjarpura Bazaar, Lovepreet Singh of Guru Arjan Dev Nagar and Jasbir Singh of Sultanwind village. The police recovered 20 gm of heroin, two motorcycles and an illegal weapon with live cartridges from their possession.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Amrik Singh Pawar said that during investigations, the police found a mobile phone stolen from the spot from the possession of Ajay. He was taken for interrogation following which he revealed that it was Vijay, lodged in the Amritsar Central Jail, who acted as a middleman to buy the mobile from Mahavir, Gagandeep, Lovepreet and Jasbir Singh.

The police brought Vijay on remand for further interrogation. He confessed that he got the mobile from the four accused. The four accused, somehow, came to know about the Vijays production warrant and planned to flee away.

The police, which had laid a trap, got a tip-off that the accused were about to gather at the Bhagtanwala grain market to flee. The DCP said that police teams in civvies, along with Ajay, were deputed in the grain market. When the four accused came on two bikes, Ajay signalled the police teams who nabbed the accused.

According to the DCP, the main motive behind the robbery was to make the victims terrified and leave the house as the accused wanted to grab the property, which belongs to an NRI.

The victims, Kishan Kumar and Sangita, were alone at home and their son had gone out for some work when the robbers had struck. The couples another son is an Army man. The accused decamped with over Rs 30,000 in cash, earrings of Sangita and other gold jewellery items after pointing a pistol at them.shalender@tribune.com

Mukesh Ranjan

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 26

The government today approved the new telecom policy and named it National Digital Communications Policy (NDCP) 2018, which is aimed at ensuring availability of at least 50 mbps broadband speed to every citizen of the country and at the same time attract $100-billion investment, which will create 40 lakh jobs in the sector by 2022.

Briefing media after the meeting of the Union Cabinet, which was chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha said since communication systems have been evolving at a rapid pace globally, especially in areas like 5G, Internet of Things and Machine to Machine information sharing, there has for long been a need felt to bring a consumer-centric and application-driven policy in the country.

Noting that the main objective of the new policy was to connect, propel and secure India, Sinha said, the policy would strive for universal broadband connectivity at 50 Mbps speed to every citizen, 1 Gbps connectivity to all gram panchayats and ensure connectivity to all uncovered areas.

This is also aimed at attracting investments of $100 billion in the digital communication sector by 2022 besides generating 40 lakh jobs, he said, adding that efforts would be made to increase Indias ranking in the global ICT Index to 50th spot and enhance the sectors contribution to Indias GDP from the current level of around 6% to 8%.rchopra@tribunemail.com

Saurabh Malik

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 26

Less than two months after the Indian Air Force expressed safety and other concerns regarding Chandigarh International Airport, the Punjab and Haryana High Court on Tuesday made clear its intent to take up the issue again on Wednesday. The issue includes removal of encroachments.

The Bench of Chief Justice Krishna Murari and Justice Arun Palli also rapped the authorities concerned for wasting Rs 1,400 crore by not making the international airport fully functional.

The Bench took a serious view of the discontinuation and non-resumption of the Air India flight to Bangkok and directed Punjab, Chandigarh and airport authorities to put their heads together for acquisition of land for the CAT-III facility.

The Bench, at one point of time, made it clear that Zirakpur municipal committee, Greater Mohali Area Development Authority and Chandigarh were required to remove encroachments around the airport; and set two weeks deadline for the purpose.

The Bench, during the course of hearing, was told that no less than 264 structures had been indentified within the 100-metre area of the airport. But counsel for the petitioner, senior advocate Puneet Bali, submitted that some of the structures could be approved.

The Bench, then, deferred the decision before making it clear that further arguments in the matter would be heard the next day.

Visibly miffed over the status of the Bangkok flight, the Bench asserted that Rs 1,400 crore had been spent on setting up the airport, yet adequate facilities were unavailable; and the authorities had no concern for the people and the taxes they paid.

You are trying to put Rs 1,400 crore in waste.At that time, you had not said it was not feasible to run the flight. It even amounted to contempt for misguiding the court. We want details of occupancy of all other sectors, the Bench asserted, adding that the amount had been misutilised. Even the old building, which was almost in new condition and constructed recently, was misutilised.

The Bench also asked Punjab Chief Secretary, UT Advisor and Chandigarh International Airport Limited CEO to hold a joint meeting for acquisition of 0.6 acres essential for providing the CAT-III facility to enable landing during poor visibility.

The Bench directed them to find a solution to the issue before submitting an affidavit within two weeks.

Bali, during the hearing, told the Bench that 80 per cent occupancy was sufficient to sustain the flight operations. He added that the development was not in accordance with the promises made during the past one and a half years.

Referring to a survey carried out by Patiala drainage department, the IAF had earlier told the court that its report revealed that all outlets leading to the main rain drain outside the airfield were blocked due to unauthorised construction and non-clearance of drainage.Abhijit Bhattacharyya

Abhijit Bhattacharyya

Supreme Court Advocate

People of India created, and gave to themselves the Constitution. Constitution created Parliament. Parliament created Aadhaar. Judges of the Supreme Court interpret the legal validity or invalidity of the law created by Parliament. Hence the Constitution of India is supreme, unlike the British system in which Parliament is the creator of the constitution, though unwritten.

Therefore, when Parliament, being the creation of the Constitution, makes law, it has to pass legal scrutiny to ensure that it doesnt override the basic features of the Constitution. The importance of todays court verdict emanates therefrom. Nevertheless, prima facie does exist a real danger of writing on a 1,448-page verdict without fully going through it (it would have taken a minimum of two days to read and digest). Prudence, therefore, demands to refer to salient features which are in public domain.

The most striking feature of the Aadhaar verdict today, undoubtedly, is the sole dissenting voice from the Bench, which stood 4-1. If true, that Aadhaar as a money bill is a wrong perpetrated on the Constitution, being politically expedient but constitutionally impermissible and that Section 139AA of Income Tax is unconstitutional, Aadhaar is likely to re-emerge as live issue for future, and further Supreme Court litigations. Its a situation in which minority logic makes majority language a future cause of legal action.

The stamp of constitutional validity on Aadhaar, however, is the biggest news, striking down of a few sections thereof notwithstanding. In overall perspective, the judiciary has reiterated the supremacy of the States role, rather Parliaments role, in making law, through the government, in certain basic welfare schemes reaching the comparatively marginalised section of society.

In contrast, the striking down of Section 33(2) pertaining to national security exemption for disclosure of Aadhaar information is unlikely to go down well with a section of departments and officials dealing with the issue of State. Prima facie, though it runs in tune with the spirit of democracy of the Indian Union, nevertheless, there also could be situations challenging enough, cropping up before the Supreme Court.

The best part of the verdict emanates from delinking it with the education system. That is a welcome relief for both parents and children as it was creating an incurable headache of sorts all around the countryside. The court certainly deserves a big thank you from millions.

The two most important points around which the entire Aadhaar came up for lengthy litigation now need to be looked into. First, right to individual privacy, which could also be thought of as an extension and continuation of right to individual liberty, falling under fundamental rights as guaranteed by the Constitution vide Articles 12 to 35; and second, the PAN-Aadhaar interfacing which has been raised by the dissenting judge of the 4-1 verdict.

No doubt right to privacy does not have an exclusive and explicit existence in the Constitution, yet the first, third, fourth and fifth Amendment, along with several Supreme Court verdicts, recognise its existence and importance. Articles 19, 21 and 22 constitute a robust enough bulwark against State encroachment into an individuals fundamental rights.

Yet when Aadhaar was introduced, there emerged legitimate concerns pertaining to the intrusion of the State into a citizens right to privacy, linked to fundamental rights. The counter argument here too could be considered, being the points of devils advocate! Which fundamental right be considered eternally sacrosanct and unlimited in a diverse society of historically fissiparous forces? Secondly, did not the fundamental right to property undergo transformation in the past? Between property and privacy, which supersedes whom? Are they contradictory? Or complementary?

Having said that, one is constrained to point out that the very linking or interfacing of PAN and Aadhaar has its own dynamics, which in a way amounts to the indirect entry of Aadhaar in places even when and where it is not required to be present vide the verdict of the Supreme Court.

The question is, how is it possible? It is not only possible, it will be reality, especially for the 5 crore income tax payees, though not necessarily for the rest of the 120 crore heads who fall below the income tax net. Section 139AA of the Income tax Act makes the PAN-Aadhaar link mandatory for annual tax returns for all  company and individual. However, though Aadhaar is not mandatory for opening a bank account, the production of PAN before bank officials would automatically reveal the Aadhaar number and identification of the potential tax-paying client of the bank. That by itself would amount to the entry of the client, with automatic exposure of his Aadhaar to the bank.

To be fair to the law and the verdict thereon, however, the majority of Indians have been exempted from undergoing the process of production of Aadhaar to the banks, which more often than not did not inspire the desired level of confidence, especially among those using small and common banks.

All in all, the verdict cannot be said to be an exercise in futility; all the more because the judiciary has asked the government to ensure that the security of privacy is not breached. The entire issue began with it. Law of the land in India is usually made with the best of intentions, excellent ideas and high hopes. However, the traditionally weak implementation thereof along with a system of non-diminishing corruption (in the past) has ruined many a plan, thereby making law more a liability than an asset. Hope the verdict brings brighter days for the country.editorial@tribune.com

Dipender Manta

Tribune News Service

Mandi, September 26

More than 888 tourists, including five foreigners, have been evacuated during the past two days and over 1,000 are still stranded in snow-hit Lahaul-Spiti district.

As many as 38 persons were airlifted by an IAF team from Lahaul-Spiti. Three stranded persons, including an expectant mother from Nepal, have died. As the weather cleared on Wednesday, the government and the IAF stepped up efforts to airlift tourists. Most have been brought to Manali and Kullu, said Deputy Commissioner Yunus Khan, who is supervising the relief and rescue operation. The IAF has deployed three helicopters while the state is using the CMs official chopper.

Nine persons from West Bengal were airlifted from Stingri and five from Baralacha Pass (16,020 ft). Five tourists from Norway and Denmark were also rescued.

Most people, who got stuck at Baralacha, were travelling to Leh. Heavy snowfall in the higher reaches, cloudburst and heavy rain devastated a large part. Kullu and Lahaul-Spiti were the worst affected.

Heavy snowfall on Rohtang has cut off Lahaul and Spiti valleys. The tourists have been stranded at several isolated locations.

The Border Roads Organisation (BRO) has been clearing the snow from various roads on a war footing. Some stretches have over eight feet of snow. By Tuesday, 457 persons had been rescued from Lahaul through the under-constructed Rohtang tunnel. The rescued persons include the faculty and students from IITs and some foreigners, said BRO Commander Colonel AK Awsathi.

Two victims were admitted to Regional Hospital, Kullu.

PM seeks report from CM on losseseditorial@tribune.com

Pratibha Chauhan

Tribune News Service

Shimla, September 26

Hopes of Himachal getting a favourable allocation from the 15th Finance Commission seem to have brightened with Chairman NK Singh advocating treating hydel-power as a fully renewable form of energy, on a par with solar and wind energy and the Himalayan hill states demand for getting special treatment considering their terrain as legitimate.

Himachal has immense hydro-power potential but the problem is that the Government of India does not consider this as a renewable form of energy. However, we do believe that that it should be treated as renewable, the way it is with solar and wind energy, he remarked. This, he added, could make an enormous difference to the economy of the state and his attitude in this regard was positive.

Singh along with other members of the commission held interaction with the state government, political parties, local bodies and industry players during its two-day stay here. They will visit Dharamsala on Thursday.

The other bright spot for the state which pleaded its case before the 15th Finance Commission was Singhs positive and open attitude towards the demand of hill states for getting special financial dispensation in view of their rugged topography. Hilly and northeastern states require special attention to address their difficulties and in case of HP, the extent of incentives has been abridged. This legitimate need of the Himalayan states will be reflected in our recommendations, he assured.

Singh lauded HP for adhering to the difficult fiscal deficit norms and for according priority to health and education sectors. He advocated that there is need for amendments in the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act.

While understanding HPs limitation of geographical constraints and vulnerability to disasters, he expressed concern over the high debt to GDP ratio despite considerable improvement to 38 per cent in the last 10 years.

The debt to GDP ratio of 38 per cent to my mind is both an area of concern as well an opportunity. However, it is totally unacceptable and there is an urgent need to align debt to GDP and also have a debt reduction plan through a medium term plan he said.

Singh said that revenue from the GST would be an area of continuing worry as the GST regime is still settling own. In the coming years, the buoyancy emanating from the GST seems a bit uncertain and problematic, he opined. He added that 14 per cent buoyancy is guaranteed for five-year period and while two years will cover the reward period of the FC but the remaining three would be a major drag.

Finance Commissions stance favourable

Himachal has immense hydro-power potential but the problem is that the Government of India does not consider this as a renewable form of energy. However, we do believe that that it should be treated as renewable, the way it is with solar and wind energy, Finance Commissions Chairman NK Singh remarked. This, he added, could make an enormous difference to the economy of the state.

Great potential

NK Singh said HPs economy had great potential, but the vulnerability to natural calamities remains a big challenge. We will ask experts to come to HP and hold discussions and study the entire issue so that the issue of disaster management can be addressed appropriately, he said. He also lauded the great gender equality reflected by womens equal participation in decision making in the state.editorial@tribune.com

Rifat Mohidin

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, September 26

On the directions of Governor Satya Pal Malik, the authorities on Wednesday announced the implementation of the 7th Pay Commission in favour of the Sarva Shikha Abhiyan (SSA) teachers.

Addressing a gathering of protesting teachers at Pratap Park in Srinagar on Wednesday, Adviser Khurshid Ahmed Ganai said Governor Satya Pal Malik had a detailed meeting with the teachers representatives during which their demands were discussed threadbare.

The SSA teachers were on a hunger strike at Pratap Park here for the past more than two weeks, demanding the implementation of 7th Pay Commission and delinking their salaries from the Central government funds. They had earlier held a protest in April this year after the 7th Pay Commission was implemented for the state government employees.

The Governor agreed to sanction the implementation of the 7th Pay Commission in favour of the SSA teachers with effect from September 2018, Ganai said.

He said the Governor also assured the teachers representatives that their other demands would be examined by the five-member committee, which has been directed to expedite the process and submit the report at the earliest.

Ganai said the problem had arisen after the Union Government merged the Sarva Shikha Abhiyan and Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan schemes and slashed the funds under them to almost half of the original amount.

It put the state with limited financial resources under a financial burden and then implementing the 7th Pay Commission for the SSA teachers exaggerated the problem, he said.

He said ever since the Governor-led administration had taken over, a committee headed by the Financial Commissioner was formulated to sort out the matter.

Ganai urged the protesting teachers to resume their duties so that the students were not deprived of their basic right to education.editorial@tribune.com

Abhishek Bachchan has hit back at a social media troll which blamed him for the average performance of Manmarziyaan at the box-office. The user tweeted,  #Manmarziyaan tanked at box-office, once again proving @juniorbachchan to be legend with amazing ability to make good film a flop! Kudos to his abilities, not many have it! It time to end #nepotism and for #StarKids to start #Vadapav stall..lol! #Stree proves #TalentCounts!!

Firing back at the social media user, Abhishek Bachchan tweeted, With all due respect kind sir, I would expect an esteemed doctor such as yourself to study all the facts and figures before proclaiming anything. I certainly hope you do so with your patients. Learn the economics of the film before you tweet something that will embarrass you.  ANIeditorial@tribune.com

Jaipur rocks

Sneha Wagh

In India, it has to be the Pink City, Jaipur. I went to the city recently on a weekend and explored the historical Hawa Mahal, City Palace and Jantar Mantar. I love indulging in the authentic Rajasthani food and also got few ethnic jewellery pieces from there.

Singapore fun

Rishina Kandhari

I went to Singapore for seven days with my family, as we all needed a small break from busy schedules. I visited all the tourist places in Singapore and did not leave any spot. The best ones were Universal Studio, Singapore Zoo, Jurong Bird Park and Aquarium.

Kashmir is heaven

Shashank Vyas

Travelling unwinds me completely. I love to meet new people in life. Kashmir was beautiful; I have no words to explain the beauty of the valley. I just feel that the valley has not been explored by so many people as yet.

US sojourn

Sheeba

Travelling to the US was a delight and a beautiful experience. There were scenic locations, clear sky and pollution-free roads. The ambience of peace perks up my attitude and makes it the most preferred location for me. Every year, I go to the US with my family and come back rejuvenated.

Towering above

Ssharad Malhotra

I visited the Eiffel tower recently, which was one of my dreams. They say you should visit it with your loved ones; I visited it alone though. When you travel alone, you explore yourself more as a human being and when you start enjoying your own company, travelling becomes fun.

Nashik rejuvenates

Shivin Narang

I took a small trip to Nashik with my parents recently. I believe an actor should rejuvenate himself before the start of a new project. Its now one of my favourite weekend getaways. I visited a few temples and the journey was really very beautiful.traineesubeditor@tribuneindia.com

Mumbai, September 26

Superstar Shah Rukh Khan, who feels "swept off" his feet by women, believes in gender equality. He says people must be given their due according to merit and not on the basis of their gender.

The third edition of the Lux Golden Rose Awards, to be held later this year, has extended its stage to the global movement for gender equality, UN's HeForShe. The gala will pledge solidarity of male members of the film fraternity with their female counterparts and celebrate their presence and immense contribution.

Shah Rukh, who features in a film wherein he walks down a glorious cinematic lane of iconic Lux divas  from Sharmila Tagore to Kareena Kapoor Khan and Alia Bhatt  has spoken about the pay gap.

"In the past too, I have made my stance on equality of genders clear. I strongly believe dues meted out should be according to merit and not gender.

Both genders have their own plus and minus points, though I love the women who make work so beautiful.

"Women make you think, and make you want to be a better person and for ages, and even now sadly, they do not get the dues or credit they deserve. Often they are served the raw deal, which is unfair for the whole society," the 52-year-old star said in a statement.

The actor, who has featured in a string of romantic, action and emotional dramas on the big screen, enjoys a huge female fan following across the world.

To that, he says, "On celluloid I have swept many women off their feet, but in reality, women tend to sweep me off my feet."  IANS.monicakchauhan@gmail.com

Lucknow, September 26

Ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the key political parties of Uttar Pradesh seem to have chosen their favourite gods.

With the BJP apparently sticking to Lord Ram, the Samajwadi Party seems to have chosen Vishnu and the Congress Lord Shiva to spur their poll fortunes, if remarks by their leaders are any indication.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi, fresh from his Mansarovar Yatra, was greeted in his Lok Sabha constituency Amethi this week by hundreds of 'bol bam'-chanting party activists, all dressed up as "Kanwariyas", the devotees of Lord Shiva.

The BJP's UP chief Mahendra Nath Pandey's reiterated the saffron party's backing for a Ram temple on the disputed site in Ayopdhya. He said the party is trying to ensure that the temple is built in Ayodhya through consensus.

Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav, on the other hand, has pledged to develop a grand city named after Lord Vishnu, complete with a spectacular temple in it on lines of Cambodia's Angkor Wat, in the state, if voted to power.

Uttar Pradesh sends 80 MPs to the Lok Sabha. In the 2014 parliamentary elections, the BJP won 71 seats, its ally Apna Dal got two, while the SP bagged five and the Congress remaining two.

Fresh from his recent Kailash Mansarovar pilgrimage, the Congress chief Monday was presented a portrait of Lord Shiva by Shiva devotees at Fursatganj.

In a video footage that went viral on social media, Gandhi is seen with his forehead smeared with sandalwood paste with a prominent red 'tilak' in the centre.

With a scarf around his neck, he is seen taking part in a 'puja'.

He was greeted with posters hailing 'Shiv bhakt Rahul Gandhi' on his first visit here after undertaking the arduous 12-day pilgrimage in August to Kailash, the abode of Lord Shiva.

The Congress chief had announced his intention to undertake the pilgrimage after a mid-air scare when his plane had plunged hundreds of feet down during one of his flights during the Karnataka poll campaign in April.

The pilgrimage was aimed at seeking the blessings of Lord Shiva for the country's prosperity, Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala had said earlier.

In the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the entire spectacle is being seen by some as the Congress bid to woo Hindu voters.

UP BJP chief Mahendra Nath Pandey, meanwhile, said Sunday, "Ram temple is the centre of faith and devotion for us. It should be built as per the law and we are committed to this."

The BJP is making efforts to build the Ram temple through consensus, he had said.

"The people know Lord Ram was born in Ayodhya and they want a Ram temple there. The feeling of every Indian is the feeling of the BJP," Pandey had said.

SP chief Akhilesh Yadav has declared his intent to "develop a city in the name of Lord Vishnu over 2,000 acres of land near Lion Safari (Etawah)."

"We have a lot of land in Chambal ravines and the city will have a grand Vishnu temple akin to the famous Angkor Wat temple."

Yadav's comments had come in the wake of BJP leader and UP Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya raking up the Ram temple issue and suggesting a legislative route for it.

Yadav, however, has promised that, if voted to power, he would develop a city after the name of Lord Vishnu, with both Lord Ram and Lord Krishna being his incarnations.

A team of experts will be sent to Cambodia to plan the city, which will be a centre for culture and knowledge of our ancient times, the SP chief said.

Angkor Wat in Cambodia is one of the largest religious monuments in the world which was originally a Hindu temple dedicated to the Lord Vishnu but gradually transformed into a Buddhist shrine. PTImonicakchauhan@gmail.com

New Delhi, September 26

The Congress on Wednesday welcomed the Supreme Court decision to strike down Section 57 of the Aadhaar act, which allowed private parties to access Aadhaar data, and termed it a "slap on the face of BJP".

The Supreme Court has declared the Centre's flagship Aadhaar scheme constitutionally valid.

"We welcome the Supreme Court's decision to strike down Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act. Private entities are no longer allowed to use Aadhaar for verification purposes," the Congress said on Twitter minutes after the verdict.

The delinking of Aadhaar from private entities is a 'slap on the face of BJP", added Congress national spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi.

"Slap on the face of BJP. Justice Sikri judgement strikes down Section 57 of Aadhaar Act, 2016, which says private body corporates can seek Aadhaar data. Says it's unconstitutional. All plans to monetise biometric data now fail," he tweeted.

He also hailed the Supreme Court's move to disallow metadata to be stored in current form.

"If the information of a person's personal information is sought to be released, he or she shall have an opportunity to be heard.

"SC rightly appreciated brilliant idea in origin; protected its core; promoted its development and eliminated its flotsam & jetsam. SC brilliantly threw out #bjp #modi accumulated dirty bathwater and saved the baby. Org intent of UPA ie to give identity 2 marginalised ppl now shines (sic)," he said.

TMC hails verdict

The Trinamool Congress said in a tweet: "SC strikes down section 57 of Aadhaar Act, 2016. So you don't need to give your Aadhaar to private bodies like banks, schools, mobile companies. Trinamool and @mamataofficial fought hard for this."

The apex court's five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra said Aadhaar is meant to help benefits reach marginalised sections of society and takes into account the dignity of people not only from the personal but also from the community point of view.

The top court said Aadhaar serves a bigger public interest. Aadhaar means unique and it is better to be unique than be the best, it said. PTIvermaajay1968@gmail.com

Tribune News Service

Ropar, September 25

Shiv Sena leader Nishant Sharma, who was brought to the local jail on Monday after being convicted in a cheating case, was attacked by Ramandeep Singh Bagga alias Canadian, an accused in the killing of RSS leader Ravinder Gosain.

Sharma had three years ago assaulted Babbar Khalsa activist Jagtar Singh Hawara while he was being taken for a court hearing in Chandigarh. On the hit list of Khalistanis since then, he had been given a police cover. On Tuesday, Ramandeep and two other inmates overpowered the sentry deployed at the barrack where Sharma was lodged and broke the lock on three gates to reach their target.

Jail Superintendent Baljeet Singh Vaid said keeping in view the threat to the Sena leaders life, Bagga had been confined to his cell since Monday evening. This morning at 8.30 am, he came out of his cell on the pretext of preparing meals. Soon after, inmates Iqbal Preet Singh and Bahadurjeet Singh positioned themselves in front of Sharmas barrack.

Even as they overpowered the sentry, Bagga broke three locks with a stone and attacked Sharma, he said.

Sharma said he was asleep when assaulted. His mouth gagged, he was repeatedly hit with a sharpened spoon and a brick. He sustained injuries on his hands, chest and shoulders. He was shifted to the Pathankot jail in the evening.

Ropar SHO Sunny Khanna said a case under Sections 307 and 120-B had been registered against Bagga and his accomplices. According to NIA Investigations, shakha leader Gosains killing was part of a transnational conspiracy. It was hatched by the KLF leadership to revive terrorism in Punjab.rchopra@tribunemail.com

Colombo, September 26

An Indian national who was aware of an alleged plot to assassinate Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena had been arrested, a court was told.

The Indian national, identified as M Thomas by the Lankan media, was arrested on Tuesday from the residence of the Anti-Corruption Movement operations director Namal Kumara, who exposed the assassination plot, CID Chief Inspector Ranjith Munasinghe informed the Fort Magistrate Court.

Magistrate Jayaratne instructed the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) to further interrogate Thomas and report the findings to the court.

Thomas was arrested when he visited Kumaras home at Warakapola in the south western region.

Kumara had revealed that former in-charge of the Terrorist Investigation Division DIG Nalaka de Silva had discussed with him the alleged plot to kill Sirisena and the former Defence Ministry Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, the court was told.

Silva was questioned by the CID on Kumaras revelations. He has been transferred out of the terrorism bureau pending investigations.

Thomas who was taken in custody for his alleged links to Kumara, arrived in the country on a tourist visa, which he overstayed, the court was told.

Meanwhile, the court has ordered to check the authenticity of sound tapes which Kumara had produced purported to be conversations between him and Silva. PTIrchopra@tribunemail.com

Ajay Banerjee

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 26

Initial medical tests, including X-rays, done on injured naval officer Commander Abhilash Tomy reveal that he is recovering and doing fine.

Senior officials here spoke to Commander Tomy on Wednesday morning.

A doctor at French-held Islands of Amsterdam located in Indian Oceans remote southern part has examined him and advised him to lie straight on his back. Further assessment will be done on Friday when INS Satpura, an Indian Warship, reaches the islands.

The ship has a doctor on board and also tele-medicine facility through which the doctor on board the ship can connect with specialists in India to consult on the naval officers health.

The Commander was rescued by a French fishing patrol vessel FV Osiris on September 24. He was badly injured incapacitating him when his sail boat SV Thuriya was hit by massive 50-ft-high waves on September 21. The vessels sailing mast broke and he was thrown around resulting in a back injury at a location, some 5,444 km south of Chennai. Commander Tomy was participating in the Golden Globe Race 2018.

He (Commander Tomy) has eaten food and is speaking (both hints of normal neuro-motor functions). Further medical examination is on, Navy spokesperson Captain DK Sharma said.

Navy officials pointed out that detailed test like an MRI or a full body scan are still needed to rule out any long-term impact on his injured back.

Meanwhile, the Navy will take a call on evacuation of the Commander. It could be possible that he reaches India by Monday. INS Satpura is expected to reach the Islands of Amsterdam by Friday morning. The sea state is rough, the temperatures (since its winters in the southern hemisphere) are low.

The Islands are 3,111 kms from the nearest airport at Mauritius. The Satpura, after reaching on Friday, will then travel with the injured officer to Mauritius--almost three days sail time away. From Mauritius he will be transported by air.

The INS Satpura, which was on patrolling duties elsewhere, was diverted immediately on September 21 and sent to rescue the Commander. It was re-fuelled mid-sea by fleet tanker INS Jyoti.

A ship like the Satpura has a top speed of 50 km per hour but due to rough seas the speed is slower. The INS Satpura is the Navys latest frigates commissioned in 2011. It can easily do the distance. Its tested over even longer distances when it sailed to Hawaii islands (some 12,000 km away) in the Pacific Ocean for an exercise.monicakchauhan@gmail.com

New Delhi, September 26

UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law Robert Vadra Wednesday broke his silence on the charges of corruption levelled against him by the BJP and said the ruling party had been indulging in a "baseless political witch-hunt" against him for the last four years.

The ruling party rakes up his name every time it is cornered and this time it stands exposed on the Rafale issue, he said, describing the situation as a "wholesale farce".

"Having all the agencies under their beck and call....no one knows better than the present government and the BJP that they have indulged in a baseless political witch hunt against me for the last four years.

Instead they should man up with their 56 chests and tell the nation the truth about the RAFALE deal, rather than hiding behind a bunch of lies that the people are fed up of hearing them repeat," Vadra said in a statement.

He said in a Facebook post that he was amazed in the beginning. However, it has now become a "wholesale farce" that the BJP rakes up his name every time it is cornered on the falling rupee, soaring oil prices or the latest on the Rafale issue on which it has been "totally exposed", he added.

The BJP dragged the Gandhi family into the intensifying political row over the fighter aircraft deal, with Union minister Gajendra Shekhawat alleging that the UPA government had called off the multi-billion dollar deal after a private company linked to Vadra was not chosen as a broker.

The Rafale controversy took a new turn last week after Francois Hollande, who was French president when the Rs 58,000 crore deal was announced, was quoted as saying by French publication Mediapart that France was given "no choice" on selection of the Indian partner for Dassault and the Indian government proposed the name of Reliance as offset partner for the French aerospace giant.

Modi had announced the procurement of 36 Rafale fighters after holding talks with Hollande on April 10, 2015, in Paris. PTIamansharma@tribunemail.com

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 26

In a major operation carried out on Wednesday, National Investigative Agency (NIA) busted Falah-e-Insaniyat Foundation (FIF) terror funding module as it carried out searches at multiple places in Daryaganj, Nizamuddin and Kucha Ghasiram areas in Delhi.

As per the FIR, some Delhi-based individuals were receiving funds from FIF operatives based abroad and were using the same to further the terror activities.

During investigation, it emerged that Mohammad Salman, a resident of Nizamuddin, New Delhi, is in regular touch with a Dubai-based Pakistani national, who in turn is connected with the Deputy Chief of Falah-e-Insaniyat Foundation, a front-end organisation of proscribed terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).

The accused person has been receiving funds, being sent by FIF operators and his associates, through Hawala operators. Accused persons along with other persons in various countries, including Pakistan and UAE, are sending money through Hawala to India to further their nefarious activities and create unrest in India and carry out the terrorist activities.

Falah-e-Insaniyat Foundation is a Lahore-based organisation established by Jamat-ud-Dawa. It is a front-end organisation of Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), a terror organisation proscribed under UAPA and founded by Hafiz Mohammad Saeed in 1990. Saeed is designated as Global Terrorist by the USA.

NIA, on September 25, conducted searches on the premises of Mohammad Salman, Mohd Salim, a resident of Daryaganj, and Rajaram and Company at Kucha Ghasiram, New Delhi, and seized Rs 1.56 lakh in Indian currency, Rs 43,000 in Nepali currency, 14 mobiles phones, five pen drives and several incriminating documents.

Following the seizure of incriminating material, NIA has arrested three persons if FIF operative Mohd Salman (52), Hawala Conduit Mohd Salim (62) and Hawala courier Sajjad Abdul Wani (34), a resident of Srinagar, J&K, from Delhi.vermaajay1968@gmail.com

Jalandhar, September 25

With the arrest of clergyman Franco Mulakkal last Friday by Kerala Police, some Christian groups have raised the demand for having a Punjabi Bishop here.

Lying low all these years, the Punjab Christian Movement, led by Hamid Masih, has raised the issue of a Punjabi Bishop to cut across the language divide affecting Christians, largely Dalits.

Priests from Kerala do not understand us and we are unable to make out what they say in English or Malayalam, Masih said.

United Christian Front president George Soni, though supportive of the Bishop unlike Masih, too backs the demand for having a Punjabi Bishop. Yet another Punjabi Christian leader, Peter Sahota, a member of the Roman Catholic Union, went to the extent of saying, Bishop Franco is being punished for he has been maintaining that Punjabis are not fit to be appointed to the post of Bishop. Auxiliary Bishop Agnelo Rufino Gracias from Archdiocese Bombay, who has been given the administrators charge here, is yet to take over.

Meanwhile, after the arrest of Bishop Mulakkal in the alleged rape case, not a single organisation has come out in his favour, barring about 20 Valmiki youth who demanded that he be freed.

While some attribute it to groupism, there is also talk of an apparent Punjabi-Malayali divide. Though headquartered in Jalandhar, the Diocese has more than 50 educational institutions in Punjab and Himachal.

Another reason being attributed is that the percentage of Christians in Punjab is just 1.1 per cent, 90 per cent of them being Dalits.  TNSpardeepdhull@gmail.com

United Nations, September 26

French President Emmanuel Macron has said that the Rafale deal was a government-to-government discussion and he was not in power when the multi-billion-dollar agreement for 36 fighter jets was signed between India and France.

Addressing a press conference on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session, Macron was asked if the Indian government had at any point told France or Dassault  the French aerospace major  that they had to accept Reliance as the Indian partner for the Rafale deal.

India had inked an inter-governmental agreement with France in September last year for procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets at a cost of around Rs 58,000 crore, nearly one-and-half years after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the proposal during a visit to Paris. The delivery of the jets is scheduled to begin from September, 2019.

I will be very clear. It was a government-to-government discussion and I just want to refer to what Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi very clearly said a few days ago, Macron told reporters here Tuesday without elaborating.

I dont have any other comment. I was not in charge at that time and I know that we have very clear rules, he said in his first comment on the issue.

Macron, who assumed the presidency in May last year, emphasised that this is a government-to-government discussion and this contract is part of a broader framework which is military and defence coalition between India and France.

This one is very important to me because this is a strategic coalition and not just an industrial relation. That is my point. I just want to refer to what PM Modi said on this situation, he said.

A huge controversy over the Rafale deal has erupted in India after a report in the French media quoted former president Francois Hollande as saying that the selection of the Indian company in the Rafale deal was done at the behest of New Delhi.

Hollande said that the Indian government proposed Reliance Defence as partner for the French aerospace giant in the Rs 58,000 crore Rafale deal and France did not have a choice.

His 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 Limited despite not having any experience in the aerospace sector.

The Congress party recently raised several questions about the deal, including the rates, and accused the government of compromising national interest and security while promoting crony capitalism and causing a loss to the public exchequer.

The report 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. Prime Minister 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 French government has said it was in no manner involved in the choice of Indian industrial partners.

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. PTIrchopra@tribunemail.com

New Delhi, September 26

The Supreme Court on Wednesday said its 2006 verdict putting benefits of quotas in job promotions for SC/ST employees need not be referred to the seven-judge bench.

The apex court also turned down the Centres plea that overall population of SC/ST be considered for granting quota for them.

The unanimous judgement was pronounced by a five-judge Constitution bench.

The bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra said states need not collect quantifiable data on backwardness of SC/ST for giving quota in job promotion to SC/ST employees.

The top court did not comment on two other conditions given in the 2006 verdict which dealt with adequacy of representation of SC/ST in promotion and not to disturb administrative efficiency.

The courts verdict came on petitions seeking that a seven-judge bench reconsider the courts 2006 judgement which had put conditions for granting quota benefits in job promotions for SC/ST employees. PTIamansharma@tribunemail.com

Tribune News Service

Moga, September 26

A low-intensity blast reportedly in a courier agency in Moga city on Wednesday left one person injured.

The explosive was apparently packed in a parcel.

The owner of courier agency, Vikas Sood suffered minor injuries and was rushed to the DMC hospital at Ludhiana.

The parcel containing the "explosive" was reportedly dispatched from Sangrur and was headed for Shahkot in Jalandhar district.

The glass panes of the shop were broken in the blast. The police have started investigations. Forensic experts have been summoned to the spot. The shop has been sealed.editorial@tribune.com

Our Correspondent

Phagwara, September 25

A 42-year-old worker of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Saroop Lal, was murdered with sharp-edged weapons by unidentified assailants at Judga chowk in Apra village near Goraya around 4 pm on Tuesday.

Saroop Lal was working in his cycle repair shop when some unidentified assailants attacked him.

He tried to run away, but the assailants repeatedly attacked him and escaped leaving him in a pool of blood, the police said. Deputy Superintendent of Police, Phillaur, Amrik Singh Chahal rushed to the site.

The police have registered a case and sent the body to the Phillaur Civil Hospital for the post-mortem examination.

The motive of the murder could not be established yet. Bahujan Samaj Party leader MP Singh Goraya has strongly condemned the murder and alleged that law and order in the state has collapsed badly.

Meanwhile, villagers sat on a dharna in front of the Apra police post protesting against the murder.

They demanded immediate arrest of the accused. The protest continued till the filing of the report.uttara@tribuneindia.com

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 26

The central government on Wednesday approved financial assistance worth Rs 825 crore for relining of Sirhind and Rajasthan feeder canals to prevent flooding in Muktsar, Faridkot and Ferozpur in Punjab.

Briefing the press after a meeting of the Union Cabinet, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, said: The government today approved central assistance of Rs. 620.42 crore and Rs. 205.758 crore for implementation of relining of Rajasthan and Sirhind feeder canals, respectively, over five years (2018-19 to 2022-23).

A government statement said the projects would help address the problem of flooding in 84,800 hectare of land in Muktsar, Faridkot and Ferozpur districts in southwest Punjab. The projects, once completed would address the problem of water logging in South-West Punjab and enhance the flows/water availability in the two canals, it said.

The statement said the projects would help improve irrigation in 98,739 hectares of land in Rajasthan and 69,086 hectares in Punjab.

Noting that the funding for central assistance for twin-project will be made through NABARD, the statement said, the total approved cost of relining of Sirhind Feeder Canal is Rs. 671.478 crore and that of Rajasthan Feeder Canal is Rs. 1305.267 crore.

Sirhind and Rajasthan feeders take off upstream of Harike Head works and flow through Punjab before crossing over into Rajasthan. The twin canals have a common bank and were constructed in the 1960s as lined (brick) channels to convey water to command areas in Punjab and Rajasthan.

It is learnt Punjab government has reported considerable seepage loss due to damages in the lining of both Sirhind and Rajasthan Feeders. As a result, apart from reduced flows in these canals, the adjacent areas have been affected by water logging causing huge agricultural losses.

Holding a press briefing of his own to elaborate on Jaitleys announcement, Union Water Resources Minister Nitn Gadkari said he regretted the projects had yet to take off even though the United Progressive Alliance government had approved the project back in 2009.

I do not want to say much further on the issue Had they been implemented, swathes of agricultural land in Punjab would have been saved from water-logging due to seepages in canals over all these years. The danger is that if the water-logged land are not reclaimed soon, they could lose their fertility, Gadkari said.

Crediting former chief minister patriarch Parkash Singh Badal with lobbying for the project, Gadkari said: Badal sahib had talked to me twice regarding the project.

BJP ally Shiromani Akali Dal applauded the central government for sanctioning projects for relining of Sirhind and Rajasthan feeder canals. SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal and his union minister wife Harsimrat Kaur, who flanked Gadkari at the press briefing, took turns to address the press and then fielded questions.

Sukhbir Badal said the projects were the life-line for both Punjab and Rajasthan, and appreciated Prime Minister Narendra Modis government for its sanction.editorial@tribune.com

Majid Jahangir

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, September 25

Para commando Sandeep Singh lived and died for the country. The 30-year-old Lance Naik displayed exemplary bravery when he killed two infiltrators single-handedly before laying down his life on the Line of Control in the dense Tangdhar forests in Kupwara district on Monday.

At least five militants suspected to be foreigners were killed during the three-day-long counter-infiltration operation that began on Saturday at Tangdhar.

Army sources said Lance Naik Sandeep Singh of Special Forces led a search party which launched the operation in the Gagadhri Nar area of Tangdhar on September 22 after an input about infiltration was received. The combing was jointly carried out by the 4 Para commandos and 20 Jat Regiment.

On noticing suspicious movement, Sandeep deployed his squad and moved further to ascertain the presence of militants. He encountered two terrorists at close quarters and a fierce gunfight ensued in which he neutralised both militants. During this daredevil act, he sustained a gunshot wound in his head and succumbed to his injuries as he was being evacuated, the sources said.

An officer privy to the operation details said the commando ensured the safety of his own squad of the Special Forces. With utter disregard for his personal safety and upon noticing that his squad was in danger, the commando eliminated two hardcore foreign militants, ensuring the safety of his four-member squad and the subsequent elimination of all three terrorists, he said.

Lance Naik Sandeep Singh, a resident of the Kotla Khurd area of Gurdaspur in Punjab, is survived by his wife. He had joined the Army in 2007.

Gurdaspur bids adieu to braveheart

Gurdaspur, September 25

Lance Naik Sandeep Singh was cremated with full military honours at his native Kotla Khurd village, 15 km from here, on Tuesday.

Earlier, the body, draped in the Tricolour, was brought from Tibri cantonment where it was placed for the night after being flown in from Kupwara.

The pyre was lit by the martyrs five-year-old son Abhinav and father Jagdev Singh. Senior officers from the district administration, Tibri cantonment and 4 para commandos, were present. SSP Swarandeep Singh had deputed DSP Gurbans Singh Bains to represent the police department. A contingent from Tibri reversed arms as a mark of respect. Sandeep was a part of the Armys special force that carried out the surgical strikes on militant bunkers of Pakistan along the LoC in 2016.  TNSeditorial@tribune.com

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 25

The rebel AAP group led by Sukhpal Khaira on Tuesday constituted a five-member committee to resolve differences with the Harpal Cheema faction.

Cheema, Leader of Opposition, has welcomed the initiative and said he looked forward to a positive development on this front.

Cheema said he along with AAP state co-convener Dr Balbir Singh had already initiated peace efforts to unite the party and met some of the rebels and former leaders.

Khaira said the committee would hold discussions with other group to resolve differences over autonomy for the state unit and other matters.

The five members of the panel are MLAs Kanwar Sandhu, Nazar Singh Manshahia, Baldev Singh and Jagdev Singh and Suresh Sharma. The talks will be based on the six resolutions passed at the volunteers convention in Bathinda on August 2, he said.

Khaira, however, said despite announcements in the media, none of the seven MLAs with him had been approached by the other faction so far. He said they would hold a march from Kotkapura-Behbal Kalan-Bargari on October 7 to press the state government to act on the Justice Ranjit Singh Commission report. He said it was unfortunate that both the Congress and the SAD were holding counter rallies to divert public attention from sacrilege issue. We appeal to the people to give both these parties a befitting reply, he said.

Kanwar Sandhu released copies of the open letter that the AAP had written to Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh demanding a special Assembly session to discuss farm issues. Manshahia, who was a member of the Vidhan Sabha Committee on farmer suicides, rued that despite their painstaking work for more than six months, the report and 69 recommendations of the committee were not even discussed in the House. He said that the government should call a special session and present the action taken report on the recommendations.

NRI chapters revived

Kanwar Sandhu, party spokesman, said they had decided to revive all 43 NRI chapters of the party abroad. These chapters were disbanded by the overseas convener of the party a few weeks ago. Sandhu said the earlier decision of the party disbanding the chapters was taken without consulting them. Since NRIs from Punjab had supported the party in every possible way in the past, the PAC decided to revive them. Wherever such chapters dont exist, these would be constituted, he said.monicakchauhan@gmail.com

Lahore, Septemebr 26

A court in Pakistan on Wednesday summoned all the witnesses next month in the murder case of Indian national Sarabjit Singh, who was killed by his fellow prisoners in 2013.

Two Pakistani death row prisoners - Amir Sarfraz alias Tamba and Mudassar - in May 2013 attacked Sarabjit, 49, in the Kot Lakhpat Jail in Lahore and killed him.

Lahore's additional district and sessions judge Muhammad Moin Khokhar, during the hearing of the case, expressed anger as none of the prosecuting witnesses appeared before the court to record their statement.

"Issuing notices to all the witnesses in the case for next hearing on October 5, the judge directed the prosecutor to ensure their presence (in the court)," a court official told PTI after the hearing.

He said that so far, two witnesses of the Kot Lakhpat Jail had recorded their statements.

"One of the witnesses in the previous hearing had told the court that Sarabjit Singh was brought to the Services Hospital in a critical condition. I wanted to record Singh's statement but the doctors stopped him, terming his condition very serious," the official said.

In the previous hearings, the judge had also admonished the jail authorities for not cooperating with the court.

A one-man judicial commission of Justice Mazhar Ali Akbar Naqvi of the Lahore High Court had initially investigated Sarabjit's murder case before the trial kicked off in the sessions court.

Naqvi recorded the statements of some 40 witnesses in the case and submitted its report to the government which is yet to make its findings public.

The one-man commission had also issued notices to Sarabjit's relatives through the foreign ministry to record their statements and produce any evidence they had regarding his death. However, Sarabjit's family did not record their statements, the officials had said.

Tamba and Mudassar, in their statements to the commission, had confessed to the crime and said they killed Sarabjit as they wanted to avenge the killing of people in Lahore and Faisalabad in bomb blasts allegedly carried out by the Indian national.

Both the alleged killers of Sarabjit were not present in the sessions court on Wednesday because of security reasons, according to their counsel Advocate Usman Waheed.

Sarabjit had been sentenced to death for alleged involvement in a string of bombings in 1990 in the country's eastern Punjab province.

His family, however, said: "He was the victim of mistaken identity and had inadvertently strayed across the border." PTIamansharma@tribunemail.com

Ravi S.Singh

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 26

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday called up Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh and assured him of all Central support to tackle flood situation in the state caused by incessant rain.

A Punjab government spokesperson said, "The Prime Minister spoke to Capt Amarinder Singh on phone of Wednesday evening and inquired about the flood situation in the state, and assured him of all possible help in mitigating the situation arising out of floods and rains."

Briefing PM Modi, Amarinder said he had toured the affected districts of Kapurthala and Tarn Taran and there had been significant damage to crops in areas around the Beas river.

The chief minister informed that the process of the special girdawari, ordered by him to assess the losses, will commence as soon as the waters receded.rchopra@tribunemail.com

GS Paul

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, September 26

A 53-year-old farmer from a border village in this district died after he accidentally fell into the Ravi on Tuesday and swept away towards Pakistan. Pakistan Rangers informed BSF that his body has been recovered.

Local MP Gurjeet Aujla is on way to receive the body.

Hailing from Ghonewal village in Ajnala, Balwinder Singh had gone to take a round of his fields to gauge the situation in the wake of water overflowing from the Ravi and accidentally fell into the river.

The spot where the incident occurred is about 3 km upstream from where the river enters Pakistan.

A missing report was registered with the Ramdas police station. Owing to heavy rain, the water current was swift. Some eyewitnesses later told the police that they had spotted him getting swept away in the river towards the Pakistan side.

The BSF had shared the information details with the Pakistan Rangers.traineesubeditor@tribuneindia.com

LONDON: After decades of conflicting evidence, scientists said Wednesday they have finally put the 'world's largest bird' debate to rest, conferring the title on Vorombe titan  an extinct Madagascan species which was three metres tall and weighed up to 800 kg.

The research, published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, also discovered unexpected diversity in these Madagascan creatures.

It was previously suggested that up to 15 different species of elephant birds had been identified under two genera.

However latest research by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) in the UK shows, in fact, this is not the case.

"Elephant birds were the biggest of Madagascar's megafauna and arguably one of the most important in the islands evolutionary history  even more so than lemurs," said James Hansford from ZSL's Institute of Zoology.

"This is because large-bodied animals have an enormous impact on the wider ecosystem they live in via controlling vegetation through eating plants, spreading biomass and dispersing seeds through defecation. Madagascar is still suffering the effects of the extinction of these birds today," Hansford said.

Researchers analysed hundreds of elephant bird bones from museums across the globe to uncover the world's largest bird, while also revealing their taxonomy is in fact spread across three genera and at least four distinct species.

The research constitutes the first taxonomic reassessment of the family in over 80 years, researchers said.

Elephant birds (belonging to the family Aepyornithidae) are an extinct group of colossal flightless birds that roamed Madagascar during the Late Quaternary, with two genera (Aepyornis and Mullerornis) previously recognised by scientists.

The first species to be described, Aepyornis maximus, has often been considered to be the world's largest bird, researchers said.

In 1894, British scientist CW Andrews described an even larger species, Aepyornis titan, this has usually been dismissed as an unusually large specimen of A maximus.

However, ZSL's research reveals Andrew's 'titan' bird was indeed a distinct species.

The shape and size of its bones are so different from all other elephant birds that it has now been given the new genus name Vorombe by ZSL.

"Without an accurate understanding of past species diversity, we can't properly understand evolution or ecology in unique island systems such as Madagascar or reconstruct exactly what's been lost since human arrival on these islands," said Professor Samuel Turvey from ZSL's Institute of Zoology.

"Knowing the history of biodiversity loss is essential to determine how to conserve today's threatened species," Turvey said.  PTI.monicakchauhan@gmail.com

Los Angeles

Carbon dioxide emissions are costing the Indian economy up to US$ 210 billion every year, according to a global study which found that the country is likely to suffer highest economic damage from climate change after the US.

Previous research has focused on how rich countries benefit from the fossil fuel economy, while damages accrue primarily to the developing world.

However, researchers from University of California San Diego in the US found that the top three counties with the most to lose from climate change are US, India and Saudi Arabia.

"The economic damages model indicates that as temperature rises, economic growth in India will slow," Katharine Ricke, an assistant professor at UC San Diego, told PTI.

Researchers estimated country-level contributions to the social cost of carbon (SCC) using recent climate model projections, empirical climate-driven economic damage estimations and socioeconomic forecasts.

The country-level SCC for the India alone is estimated to be about USD 86 per tonne of CO2.

At current emission levels, the Indian economy loses USD 210 billion annually, said Ricke, corresponding author of the study published in the journal Nature Climate Change.

For US, the cost is about USD 50 billion per tonne. This means that the nearly five billion metric tonnes of CO2 the US emits each year is costing the US economy about USD 250 billion.

The model accounts for everything that happens in the economy today that is sensitive to environmental conditions, said Ricke.

"This includes agricultural yields, vector borne disease, reduced worker productivity due to heat, increased frequency of extreme precipitation resulting in infrastructure damages or any of the other many ways that human systems get impacted by climate conditions," Ricke added.

"The combination and interaction of all these factors translate into an observed effect on the country's economy as a whole," she said.

For the first time, researchers have developed a data set quantifying what the social cost of carbon will be for the globe's nearly 200 countries.

The world's largest CO2 emitter, China, also places in the top five countries with the highest losses.

"We all know carbon dioxide released from burning fossil fuels affects people and ecosystems around the world, today and in the future," said Ricke.

"However these impacts are not included in market prices, creating an environmental externality whereby consumers of fossil fuel energy do not pay for and are unaware of the true costs of their consumption," said Ricke.

For example, claims that carbon dioxide causes relatively little harm to the economy can more easily justify rollbacks on environmental regulation.

"Because this is a macroeconomic model based on empirical observations, this means that everything that happens in the economy today that is sensitive to environmental conditions is reflected in the model," she said.

"This can be agricultural yields, vector borne disease, reduced worker productivity due to heat, increased frequency of extreme precipitation resulting in infrastructure damages or any of the other many ways that human systems get impacted by climate conditions," Ricke added. PTIROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM

Paris, September 26

After decades of conflicting evidence, scientists said Wednesday they have finally put the worlds largest bird debate to rest, conferring the title on Vorombe titan  an extinct Madagascan species which was three metres tall and weighed up to 800 kg.

The research, published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, also discovered unexpected diversity in these Madagascan creatures. For 60 million years the colossal, flightless elephant bird  Aepyornis maximus stalked the savannah and rainforests of Madagascar until it was hunted to extinction around 1,000 years ago.

In the 19th century, a new breed of buccaneering European zoologist obsessed over the creature, pillaging skeletons and fossilised eggs to prove they had discovered the biggest bird on Earth.

The research suggests that one species of elephant bird was even larger than previously thought, with a specimen weighing an estimated 860 kg  about the same as a fully grown giraffe.

They would have towered over people, James Hansford, lead author at the Zoological Society of London, said. They definitely couldnt fly as they couldnt have supported anywhere near their weight.

In the study, published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, Hansford examined elephant bird bones found around the world, feeding their dimensions into a machine-learned algorithm to create a spread of expected animal sizes.

Until now, the largest-ever elephant bird was described in 1894 by the British scientist CW Andrews as Aepyornis titan  a larger species of Aepyornis maximus.

But a French rival of Andrews dismissed the discovery of titan as just an outsized maximus specimen, and for decades the debate remained deadlocked.

Hansford said his research proved titan was indeed a different species. But he also found that its bones were so distinct from other elephant bird specimens that titan was in fact an entirely separate genus. Vorombe titan  Malagasy for big bird the creature would have stood at least three metres (10 feet) tall, and had an average weight of 650 kg, making it the largest bird genus yet uncovered.

At the extreme extent we found one bone that really pushed the limits of what we now understand about bird size, said Hansford, referring to the 860-kg specimen. A close cousin of the now-extinct moa in New Zealand, the elephant bird belonged to the same family of flightless animals that today includes the kiwi, emu and ostrich.  Agencies

A creature that rivalled dinosaurspardeepdhull@gmail.com

Washington, September 26

The US Congress has passed a crucial bipartisan Bill that seeks to impose a visa ban on Chinese officials who deny American citizens, government officials and journalists access to Tibet.

The legislation, passed by a unanimous voice vote, comes amidst the Trump administration imposing massive trade import duties on China that has started impacting the Chinese economy.

The Reciprocal Access to Tibet Act, which seeks to ensure that Americans are given the same access to Tibet that Chinese citizens have to the United States, was passed by the House of Representatives on Tuesday.

The Reciprocal Act to Tibet Act is about fairness, human rights and careful US diplomacy at its core. For too long, China restricted access to Tibet, preventing journalists from observing human rights abuses in Tibet and preventing Tibetan Americans from visiting their home country. This Bill seeks to reset that table, Indian-American Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal said on the House Floor.

The Bill, she said, is premised on the idea that reciprocity forms the basis of diplomatic law and the practice of mutual exchanges between countries. This Bill simply requires that if Chinese officials, journalists and other citizens are able to travel freely in the US, then its only fair that their American counterparts are also able to do the same.

And if Americans are not granted the same access to Tibet that the Chinese enjoy in the United States, then there should be consequences. This is more than reasonable and long overdue, Jayapal said.

Republican Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen worried that in the years as China has grown in strength and power, Tibet has been purchased to the periphery.

I was worried that Chinas bully tactics on display had extended so far that our United States Congress had no longer had the will, no longer had the desire to speak out in support of Tibet, she said.

The Congress is sending a true signal that the US has indeed not forgotten about the people of Tibet, that Congress will not accept Beijings bullying and intimidation and that the US lawmakers will stand up for human rights for the people of Tibet, she said.

Beijings policys on Tibet are not only immoral and unjust, but are threatening the stability of a crucial area for the US interests. So we must put pressure on China to stop its repression, Ros-Lehtinen said.

Congressman Jim McGovern, prime author of the Bill, said that the Bill imposes real consequences for Chinas bad behaviour.

Arguing that the basis of diplomatic law is mutual access and reciprocity, McGovern said that while Chinese diplomats and journalists travel freely in the US, the Government of China has erected many barriers in areas of China inhabited by ethnic Tibetans.

US diplomats and journalists must obtain permission to enter the Tibet Autonomous region, he alleged.

Under this Bill, Chinese authorities who are involved in the design and implementation of policies that restrict travel to Tibetan areas become ineligible to receive a visa or be admitted to the United States. This is a victory for human rights of Tibetans and Americans, McGovern said.

Speaking in support of the Bill, Democratic leader Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi asserted that the issue of reciprocity is not only a human rights issue, but is also a practical matter. It is very important for the US to have a diplomatic presence in Lhasa. The Bill, she said, takes an important step to advance freedom, dignity and prosperity for the Tibetan people.

The Bill, Pelosi said sends a clear signal that Chinas meddling in Tibetan affairs is unacceptable. For six decades, the people of Tibet have stood defiance in the face of oppression and brutality from an authoritarian China, she said.

Senators Marco Rubio and Tammy Baldwin have introduced a companion Bill in the Senate.

The Reciprocal Access to Tibet Act includes a national security waiver, and would require the US Secretary of State to submit to Congress an assessment of the level of access to Tibet granted to American government officials, journalists, and tourists by Chinese officials.

If the secretary determines that there are restrictions on travel to Tibet, the appropriate Chinese officials will be ineligible to enter the US. PTIClose Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!

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Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.Sponsored: Ministry of Planning

With heightened international awareness of the issues relating to hazardous chemicals and waste, ozone depletion and biodiversity conservation, there has been increased global action to address these issues. Trinidad and Tobago has been no different.

More hereCommissioner of Police (CoP) Gary Griffith visited the parents of missing Ria Sookdeo on Tuesday.

He heard the pain her parents have endured since their daughter was dragged out of her vehicle and taken away in September 2016.

Frankie Rajkumar, her father, said he was grateful that Griffith made time to visit the family.

I cannot reveal what was discussed but I want to say thank you to the Commissioner of Police for taking time to visit us and talk about Ria. Since the incident happened we have been pleading with the then Commissioner of Police to speak with us on the incident. I am very thankful to Mr Griffith, he said.

Commissioner Griffith disclosed that he met the Sookdeos while speaking on a morning programme on Wednesday.

He also declined to give details of the meeting or the status of the case.

Rajkumar said his family was hopeful that Griffith would solve the case of his missing child.

I hope something good comes out of this, he said.

Following the safe release of kidnap victim Natalie Pollonais, Rajkumar had made a public plea for Griffith to review his daughters case.

Sookdeo, a mother of two, was abducted near her childrens primary school by men dressed in police tactical gear on September 22. Her handbag, cellphone and one side of a pair of slippers were left behind.

Police interviewed several people in connection with Sookdeos disappearance but no one was arrested.

No ransom was demanded for the 34-year-old hairdresser.

What happened to Ria Sookdeo They say time heals all wounds. It's a lie. For the two young children of missing hairdresse

Rajkumar said he was confident that Griffith would be able to crack his daughters case.

He said, I want my child to come home and I want to know why she was taken. This has been a difficult time for us and we are still praying that she would return home safely.Its not too early to assess the success or failure of COP26, the climate summit that began in Glasgow on October 31.

The first week, while the heads of state are there, is when all the big promises are announced; the second week is devoted to haggling over the details of the deals. So we already know that it hasnt been an absolute failure.I think you could make this is much easier trip with far less driving if you drop Potrero and substitute a beach area on the south or central Pacific. Potrero adds roughly 10 hours of driving as it's so far out of the way based on the other stuff you want to see.

One potential itinerary if you don't want to drive would be: San Jose (1 night), package tour to Tortuguero (2 nights), transfer from the docks directly to Arenal (1 night for the hot springs), taxi-boat-taxi to Monteverde (3 nights), shuttle or private driver to Manuel Antonio (3 nights), shuttle to Sierpe and boat downriver to Drake Bay (3 nights), then fly back to San Jose for a last night.

Another option that substitutes the cloudforest at San Gerardo de Dota for Monteverde and Uvita for Potrero might look like this: San Jose (1 night), package tour to Tortuguero (2 nights), return to San Jose, pick up a rental car & drive 2 hours to San Gerardo de Dota (2 nights), then drive down to Puerto Jimenez or 45 minutes past it to Cabo Matapalo for 4 nights to enjoy the Osa peninsula. On the way back stop in Uvita for 3 nights to check out beaches, whale watching tours and waterfalls before driving 4 hours back toward SJO for a last night.-:- 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.

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We remove posts that do not follow our posting guidelines, and we reserve the right to remove any post for any reason.Many on our flight to Asia had two carry on bags, One a shoulder strap type and the other was one with extended handle and wheels. We never knew the second type was allowed. Since we do not know where our destinations in the future will be then we do not know the largest size we can take and how closely the airlines look at exact sizes. Here is a chart for all countries and you can see there are various sizes.

If we took the smallest size on all 3 sides (height, width, depth) we'd have a very small one. In all your experiences travelling to Asia and other places what size do you have and do they actually measure them as you go through check-in to see if you are 1 inch too large?

And we know that all American airlines honor the policies of the non USA airlines. Example we traveled United and then an Asian airline so United allowed 2 checked bags free since the Asian airline allowed two checked for free.

We want to buy one now for future travels to most anywhere. Buying one 1/2 inch too long is hopefully avoidable.

Thanks.You can use Tokyo Wide Pass for round-trip of Nikko and single-trip to Kawaguchiko. It should be the maximal way to use the pass in your situation. If you do Nikko for a day-trip, you have one extra day left for the pass, in which you can do more day-trip like Karuizawa, or cheaper like Kamakura is also a good deal.

Note that buses for Kawaguchiko to Gotemba to Odawara are not valid.

JR East Pass does not cover Fujikyu trains to Kawaguchiko.

Alternatively, you can use Tobu Nikko Pass instead. You can pick one for your need. In this situation, you won't need any of JR PASS.

If you also interested in Hakone in addition to Kawaguchiko and Gotemba, use the following:We have planned June and July in Japan, Arriving at Narita from US.

We have been Tokyo, Kyoto, Kamakura there before, but want to see more of the country in the south and around Tokyo.

We are in mid 60's in age , Budget/value travelers. Like to travel like locals.

My Questions are:

1. Is it better to go to the furthest locale nd likely more restful- Kyushu first , then make our way up to Tokyo ?

2. We like to go to Fukuoka- any advise, places , lodging, and how much time should we spend there?

3. Also Osaka. any advise, places , lodging, and how much time should we spend there? any advise, places , lodging, and how much time should we spend there?

4. Also Okayama , NAoshima Island for the Art/Architecture.

5. Tokyo and environs likely for 3 weeks in July, yes, we know its HOT, hoping it wont be too bad.

6.Where lese in the south?

7. Any other architecturally significant areas?Emilie,

Congratulations on your upcoming wedding.

I like post #! prefer the Islands than the mainland so my recommendation, for your honeymoon in Fiji, is to get to a couples-only resort, which means your 'bure' often right on a white sandy beach, will ensure absolutely privacy and seclusion. That by itself, is hard to beat.

Check out a few of the Adults only islands like LikuLiku Lagoon Resort, Lomani Resort, Matamanao,Tokoriki Island Resort, Tropica Island Resort ,Qamea Resort, Royal Davui Resort, Tadrai Resort to name someHello!

Relatively last minute, my husband and I had to switch our NYC vacation from March of 2019 to November of 2018. Downside: I was looking forward to seeing the city when it was a little warmer (we went in December last time). Upside? we'll be there for the Thanksgiving Day parade. I'm fully aware of how nuts the city probably gets on this day, which is why we'd like to take the "easy way out" and find a good viewing party to go to. I've SCOURED google and this website and have only found a few. Some are sold out, some are WAY out of price range. This being a bucket list item, we're willing to spend about $300 each and I think I found one, but I'm a little nervous to buy the tickets. I can't find any reviews on past events, or reviews on this company that's putting the event on. Their website is (I had to contact them through Eventbrite to even find out who was putting it on) and below is the link to the Eventbrite page for this event. I've looked at google street views and it looks to be a pretty good spot for viewing. I've heard you don't want to be high, nor too low. So 2nd floor seems good? I don't know, it seems a little too good to be true to me.

Any insight?

thanks!Republicans are learning that were going to plow right through it is a dangerous way to approach a minefield.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., used that agricultural metaphor Friday to promise conservatives the Senate would confirm Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh no matter what. Now, with a second woman accusing Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct and more potentially on the way, Republicans can neither advance nor retreat without risking disaster.

Make no mistake, this is a crisis of the GOPs own making. Republicans are in such a hurry to cement a conservative, anti-abortion majority on the high court  and to do so before the midterm election  that they refused to meaningfully alter their fast-track timetable for Kavanaughs confirmation even after a respected psychologist, Christine Blasey Ford, accused the nominee of sexually assaulting her when they were both in high school.

Now Deborah Ramirez, a college classmate of Kavanaughs, has accused him of exposing himself to her at an alcohol-fueled party when both were students at Yale, a claim first reported Sunday in The New Yorker. And crusading lawyer Michael Avenatti said on Twitter that he has a client with information about misconduct by Kavanaugh in high school.

Kavanaugh vehemently denies any and all allegations. At this point, however, it is obvious that an actual FBI investigation is required  as opposed to the he said, she said hearing the Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hold with Kavanaugh and Ford on Thursday. Ford has asked for the FBIs thorough scrutiny. Kavanaugh, for some reason, has not.

Republican senators are embarrassing themselves by calling the accusations last-minute or eleventh-hour. We are near the end of the process only because McConnell and Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, set arbitrary deadlines to speed things up. The seat vacated by Anthony Kennedys retirement has only been open for eight weeks. There is no reason to be in such a rush to fill it  except political calculation.

Im tempted to say that President Trump, who called the allegations against Kavanaugh totally political, is also embarrassing himself. But of course Trump is beyond shame.

Why are Republicans in such a hurry? Theres a chance that Democrats could take control of the Senate in November, turning McConnell back into the minority leader and dramatically reducing the chance that Trump will be able to appoint another far-right conservative ideologue to the Supreme Court. The odds of the Senate switching hands have been seen as pretty long, however  although the Kavanaugh fiasco seems to be improving them.

GOP senators are primarily motivated by fear. The partys activist base believes Kavanaugh will provide a decisive fifth vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, end affirmative action, and weaken protections for same-sex married couples in the name of religious freedom. Republicans control the presidency and both chambers of Congress. If GOP officials cant deliver now, why should conservatives bother voting for them?

Plowing ahead, however, now looks much riskier than turning back.

The main reason is that Republican senators dont know what they dont know. Two on-the-record accusers have emerged in the past week. Are there facts and evidence that could help establish Kavanaughs innocence or guilt? Will more accusers follow? Were the Supreme Court nominees high school and college years one long re-enactment of Animal House? Did he, at the very least, treat women in ways that he should regret, and for which he should now apologize?

Beyond those issues of substance are questions of appearance. It cannot be an exaggeration to say that millions of American women have had to fight off the unwanted advances of obnoxious, boozed-up frat boys. Are Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, all of whom are male, going to tell women that they were to blame in those encounters? That the frat boys shouldnt be held responsible at all, because they were only 17 or 18 at the time and grew up to hold high-status jobs?

Lots of luck with that message in the first national election of the #MeToo Era.

One thing we should have learned by now is that women do not lightly subject themselves to the exposure, scrutiny and vicious attacks that inevitably come from making public accusations of sexual misconduct against powerful men. Another thing we should have learned is that some men go through life wearing a carapace of entitlement that can render them insensate to womens vulnerability and distress.

Kavanaughs accusers want to be heard and taken seriously. Kavanaugh wants to clear his name. None of this can ever happen without a proper investigation.

Eugene Robinsons email address is eugenerobinson@washpost.com.- Wine said he has plans in place to meet and interact with his Kenyan fans as a way of appreciating them

- The MP was speaking after his arrival from the US where he went for treatment for injuries he allegedly sustained while in custody

- He was welcomed by masses of people who had been camping at his home prior to his arrival

Artists turned politician, Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu, popularly known as Bobi Wine, has sent a message of appreciation to Kenyans who fought for his release during his detention.

Wine, who landed in Kenya first from the US before jetting to Uganda, was more than thankful for the support he received from across the region but most specifically from Kenyans.

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READ ALSO: Absent West Pokot deputy governor to work from US without salary

Bobi said he will announce plans to meet, interact and sing songs of freedom with his fans and supporters in Kenya.

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: Video ya maafisa wa polisi wakicheza 'Kwangwaru' ya Diamond yawaacha Wakenya vinywa wazi

"I will quickly remind you about our Swahili speaking brothers across Africa who stood with us. In a special way, I would like to appreciate the Kenyan brothers and sisters," said the MP.

He was addressing a press conference in Uganda on Monday, September 24, when he said he would announce plans to meet, interact and sing songs of freedom with his fans and supporters in Nairobi.

Specifically, let me assure our dear brothers and sisters in Kenya, as well as other fraternal African countries that I have read your countless messages of solidarity. Very soon, I will announce plans for us to meet, interact and sing songs of freedom," announced Wine.

READ ALSO: Murang'a Governor Mwangi wa Iria's posh school penalised KSh 100,000 for stealing water

The opposition MP arrived in Uganda on Thursday, September 20, from the US after the treatment of injuries he sustained in the hands of police.

Source: Facebook

The Kenyan legislators who stood with us, the Kenyan artistes and the Kenyan writers. That was a reminder that you have always stood with us all throughout history but am glad that you are still standing with us even at this defining point in our history as Ugandans, added the Kyadondo East MP.

He also sent his message of condolences to family and friends of those who lost their lives in the MV Nyerere ferry tragedy in Tanzania which capsized in Lake Victoria on Thursday, September 20.

I want to commiserate with our Tanzanian brothers and sisters, the families and relatives of those who suffered in the boat accident on Lake Victoria. We continue to stand with you comrades poleni sana, Bobi added.

READ ALSO: Abducted Mombasa woman lied to family about miscarriage, police say shes barren

The Opposition MP arrived in Uganda on Thursday, September 20, from the US following hospitalisaton due to injuries he allegedly sustained in the hands of Uganda forces to heavy security at Entebbe International Airport.

He was later chauffeured to his home in Magere, Wakiso District as police denied arresting him upon his arrival and instead claimed they only took him home as promised.

READ ALSO: Makueni police hunt for father who impregnated Class 8 daughter, forced her to abort

Bobi was more than thankful for the support he received from across the region but most specifically from Kenyans.

Source: Facebook

Prior reports by TUKO.co.ke indicated, the pop star politician was welcomed by masses of people who had been camping at his home.

There was tension around Kampala and Entebbe as police blocked and arrested several people including journalists and two of the MP's brothers who were on their way to the airport to receive him.

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 News Today: Migori Residents Demand The Release of Okoth Obado | Tuko TV

Source: Tuko- Influential Migori County Governor Okoth Obado is the chief suspect in the murder case

- His murder charges has so far attracted international media houses which have also covered it extensively

- The court on Tuesday rejected an application by his lawyers to release him on bond

- He has been in police custody since Friday after he was grilled for a second time

The brutal murder of Rongo University student Sharon Otieno will go in history as one among complex cases Kenyan crime investigators have faced in the recent past.

Not only has it dominated headlines in local media outlets for the past three weeks, but it has also caught the eye of international broadcasters.

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READ ALSO: Ujumbe mtamu wa Jacque Maribe kwa mpenziwe kabla ya shutuma za mauaji kumwandama

Influential Migori County Governor Okoth Obado is the Chief suspect in the murder case. Photo: UGC

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: Governor Obado wanted lover Sharon Otieno dead to hide relationship - DPP

The involvement of Governor Okoth Obado who preliminary investigations indicated could be behind the murder of the 26-year-old student could be among the reasons why the case has widely been covered.

Sharon was seven months pregnant at the the time she met her death shortly after being abducted by unknown people.

READ ALSO: My daughter loved Governor Obado a lot but he betrayed her - Sharon Otieno's mother

Among the international broadcasters who laboured in reporting on the case are: Al Jazeera, BBC, Reuters, SABC, and CNN.

1. Al Jareeza

Why are Africa's 'sugar' relationships in the spotlight?

On Tuesday, September 18, the Al Jazeera dedicated a 25 minute program which discussed the death of Sharon.

On Tuesday, September 18, the Al Jazeera dedicated a 25 minute program that discussed the death of Sharon. Photo: UGC

Source: UGC

The interactive program also discussed complexities and risks of consensual relationships where one partner gets money or property in exchange for sex.

Obado had conceded that indeed he was in an intimate relationship with the deceased and DNA tests conducted on her unborn baby revealed he was the father.

2. BBC

Kenyan governor Okoth Obado charged over Otieno's murder

On Monday, September 24, the BBC filed a report on the case shortly after Governor Obado was arraigned in a Nairobi Court and pleaded not guilty.

The London headquartered broadcaster, however, focused on the point that Obado was married but entered into a relationship with a university student.

On Monday, September 24, the BBC filed a report on the case shortly after Governor Obado was arraigned in a Nairobi Court and pleaded not guilty. Photo: UGC

Source: UGC

The embattled governor is married to Hellen Obado whom he introduced to the public during his first press briefing after the case emerged.

3. CNN

Kenyan governor charged in murder of pregnant student

The CNN filed a report on Tuesday, September 25, but centered on fact that the main suspect involved was a senior politician and leader in western Kenya.

The CNN filed a report on Tuesday, September 25, but centered on fact that the main suspect involved was a senior politician and leader in Western Kenya. Photo: UGC

Source: UGC

Obado was elected the first governor of Migori in 2013 after running on a People's Democratic Party (PDP) in the ODM predominant region.

4. Reuters

Kenyan governor denies murdering pregnant lover

The Doha based news broadcaster also reported on the case on Monday, September 24, the day Obado denied having a hand in the murder before a court of law.

The Doha based news broadcaster also reported on the case on Monday, September 24, the day Obado denied having a hand in the murder before a court of law: Photo: UGC

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Governor Obado's aide Michael Oyamo pleads not guilty to murder

5: SABC

Kenyan governor denies murdering pregnant lover

South African Broadcasting Cooperation (SABC) which is owned by the government of South Africa also highlighted the story on Monday, September 24.

Its report was, however, angled similar to the one made by Reuters.

South African Broadcasting Cooperation (SABC) which is owned by Government of South Africa also highlighted the story on Monday, September 24. Photo: UGC

Source: UGC

Obado has since Friday, September 21, been spending his time in police custody.

He spent his weekend at Gigiri police station and from Monday to Wednesday, September 26, he has been a guest at Industrial Area remand prison.

An application filed before Justice Jessie Lesiit on Tuesday, September 25, requesting to release him on bond was rejected.

The court is expected to make a ruling on Thursday, September 27, on whether he will be released on bond or be detained until the case is determined.

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.

Obado to spend more days behind bars | Tuko TV

Source: Tuko Newspaper- Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB) said 20% tax on transactions took effect on September 25

- Other taxes the Act has targeted include mobile money transactions and internet services

- The tax will go into financing the 2018/19 KSh 3 trillion budget deficit and Uhuru's Big Four agenda

Kenyans will start being charged 20% excise duty on all bank transactions as the burden of Finance Act 2018 starts to bite.

This follows the implementation of Finance Act 2018 which President Uhuru Kenyatta signed on Friday, September 21.

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READ ALSO: More pain for Kenyans as Uhuru revises upwards internet, mobile money transaction charges

The Act prescribed several tax increments among them excise duty on bank transactions increasing from 10% to 20%.

READ ALSO: More pain for Kenyans as Uhuru revises upwards internet, mobile money transaction charges

"Dear Customer, effective 25/9/18 and in line with the Finance Act 2018, Excise Duty charged on all bank transaction fees has increased from 10% to 20%," read a mobile notification sent to customers by KCB bank, Kenya's biggest bank by assets.

READ ALSO: Activist Omtatah moves to court after Kenyans fund his petition against new taxes

According to National Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich, the proceeds of similar taxes will go into financing of the 2018/19 budget deficit.

The budget demand stood at at least KSh 3 trillion when CS Rotich unveiled it in June 2018.

Among other taxes the act prescribed is the controversial 8% VAT on fuel and petroleum products which has since left taxpayers bitter than ever before.

Initially, the fuel tax was capped at 16% but Uhuru halved it following public outcry immediately it was implemented on Saturday, September 1.

READ ALSO: Opposition MPs threaten to call for mass protest as new taxes bite

It saw fuel prices sharply hike where a liter of petrol retailed at KSh 127 prompting players in transport sector to increase fares by at least KSh 20.

Those transacting money through mobile platforms are also not spared by the act as it levied mobile transaction excise duty increase from 10% to 20%.

Telephone and internet data services shall also be charged excise duty at a rate of 15% of the excisable value.

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.

Obado to spend more days behind bars | Tuko TV.

Source: TukoDeputy President William Ruto's wife Rachel Ruto is synonymous with prayers, an attribute his husband has numerously praised her for.

The DP, a man who declared he "invests in heaven" and adheres to scriptural principles, definitely observed the Good Book's directive that charm is deceptive, beauty fleeting but precious are women who love God, before he settled down with the prayer warrior that is Rachael.

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READ ALSO: Mama avua nguo nje ya ofisi ya Rais Uhuru kulalamika 8% VAT (picha)

Rachel Ruto leading a cleansing prayer session at Salgaa black spot to tame rampant road carnage. Photo: Daily Nation

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: 10 photos that prove DP William Ruto's wife is a prayer warrior

Often, Rachel throws caution and status to the wind when it comes to prayer, like the instance she was pictured kneeling on a dusty ground as she joined Kisii county residents in prayer for peace ahead of the 2017 General Election.

In her tweet seen by TUKO.co.ke, on Wednesday, September 26, the DP's wife who presided over a cleansing prayer session to tame rampant accidents at Salgaa black spot along Nakuru-Eldoret highway on Saturday, December 6, 2017, invited Kenyans to join her in another round of prayer and fasting.

"Hear my prayer, Lord God Almighty; listen to me, God of Jacob. Look on our shield, O God; look with favor on your anointed one. Psalm 84:8-9. I welcome you to join in fasting and praying tomorrow and every Wednesday from 6am to 6pm," read Rachel's tweet.

READ ALSO: If Ruto will go to heaven, all Kenyans will - Jakoyo Midiwo

Rachel, probably keen to seek divine intervention for the economic turmoil and a spate of bizarre killings in the country, urged Kenyans to join hands with her to pray on Wednesday, September 26 and every Wednesday of the week.

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.

Migori Residents Demand The Release of Okoth Obado - On Tuko TV

Source: Tuko- The online criminals operate suspicious websites and mobile applications

- The authority asked Kenyans to verify authenticity of the online shopping platforms with friends and relatives

- CAK also warned against sending money to mobile numbers of individuals posing as the representatives

The Communication Authority of Kenya has called on Kenyans to verify authenticity of online shopping platforms when transacting online business with strangers.

According to the communications regulator, some notorious online criminals entice unsuspecting buyers through SMS, emails, social media pages and telephone and request for a registration fee for the goods or services.

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READ ALSO: Ujumbe mtamu wa Jacque Maribe kwa mpenziwe kabla ya shutuma za mauaji kumwandama

CAK Director General Francis Wangusi advises Kenyans against transacting online businesses with strangers. Photo: Communication Authority of Kenya/Facebook.

Source: Depositphotos

READ ALSO: Government to begin digital registration of all Kenyans

In a statement seen by TUKO.co.ke on Wednesday, September 26, the CAK confirmed it had received fresh reports indicating emergence of unregistered mobile applications and websites purporting to sell goods and services.

To avoid falling prey to the scammers, CAK warns members of the public to desist from sending money to mobile numbers of individuals posing as representatives such online stores.

"The online criminals entice unsuspecting buyers through SMS, emails, social media pages and telephone and request for a registration fee for the goods or services," read a press release seen by TUKO.co.ke on Wednesday, September 26.

These are how one can spot online shopping criminals:

1. Unavailable registered physical contacts

2.Unavailable customer care helplines

3.Suspicious telephone numbers/websites/social media pages most of which are impersonations

In May, the authority raised a red flag over international call scam targeting mobile users locally.

According to the Authority, the scheme is designed to lure phone users into returning the 'urgent' international calls and in the process their credit gets depleted.

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.

Migori Residents Demand The Release of Okoth Obado - On Tuko TV

Source: Tuko.co.ke- The man was arrested at JKIA while preparing to go to Oman

- Five Tanzanian and two Ugandan girls were rescued by the DCI detectives

- Several cases of human trafficking through Kenya have been reported in recent past days

Detectives from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) have arrested a Kenyan man who was trafficking five Tanzanian and two Ugandan girls to the Middle East.

Geoffrey Mutemi Manzi was arrested on the night on Tuesday, September 25, alongside the girls at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) as they were preparing to leave the country for Oman.

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READ ALSO: Ujumbe mtamu wa Jacque Maribe kwa mpenziwe kabla ya shutuma za mauaji kumwandama

READ ALSO: 12 Chinese nationals arrested in Nairobi engaging in prostitution

There have been several cases of human trafficking through Kenya that have been reported in the recent past days with the victims being flown to Middle East countries.

Mid September 2018, immigration officers at JKIA nabbed 71 illegal immigrants who were being trafficked to Oman using illegal documents.

READ ALSO: Government issues number to report illegal immigrants in Kenya

The officers apprehended 59 Uganda nationals, seven Burundians and five Tanzanians who entered Kenya through the Uganda border with fake entry stamps on their passports.

Ten Ugandan nationals were also apprehended recently at Uhuru Estate in Nairobi while preparing to be trafficked to Middle East.

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: Obado to spend more days behind bars | Tuko TV

Source: Breaking News- Joseph Irungu was charged with the murder of Monica Kimani

- He was arrested after his mobile phone was traced back to the murder scene

- Irungu is also nursing a suspect gunshot wound on his shoulder

- Monica was found dead in a bathtub with his throat cut

Joseph Kuria Irungu, well-known as Jowie, who was earlier this week arrested following the murder of Monica Kimani in Kilimani, Nairobi leads a controversial lifestyle.

Not even his close friends understand the kind of man he is.

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READ ALSO: Ujumbe mtamu wa Jacque Maribe kwa mpenziwe kabla ya shutuma za mauaji kumwandama

Joe Irungu when during his engagement to Jackie Maribe.

Source: UGC

TUKO.co.ke has learnt Irungu, was deported from the United Arab Emirates in 2013 and has ever since been leading a miserable life.

He has been relying on his numerous girlfriends for accommodation as he is technically homeless since he has no house of his own, even a rental.

According to some of his friends who sought anonymity, Irungu was comfortable being housed by a woman instead of the other way round.

In Jowies life, more and more women were paying for his bills. Jowie was very comfortable with this and felt nothing about having a girlfriend supporting him, said one of his drinking buddies.

READ ALSO: TV girl Jackie Maribes lover arrested over murder of woman in Kilimani, Nairobi

He shot to limelight when he engaged TV girl Jackie Maribe at a colourful party that was streamed live on social media platforms.

His friends say he was deported from UAE after being implicated in criminal activities.

Source: Instagram

And according to one of his friends, Maribe had already kicked him out of her house over some differences he said were irreconcilable.

Life for Jowie has not been a walk in the park and when he realised that things went south, he developed a habit of dating single ladies but as you know a woman will only be patient up to a certain point. He was recently kicked out of his latest girlfriend (Jackie Maribes) house following some irreconcilable differences, he said.

READ ALSO: Citizen TV's Jackie Maribe engaged and TUKO.co.ke has photos of the lucky man

In Nairobi, he is only known as a party animal who hops from one drinking joint to the other, but nobody ever knows where he works or where he gets his money.

Irungu's only known occupation in the country is as a WhatsApp administrator for a Jiweke Tavern group that has a membership of 100 people.

The group is mostly used to market the popular joint in Nairobi.

The group is now flooded with goodwill messages following his controversial shooting and later his arrest over the killing of Monica.

Its in Afghanistan where Jowie also trained a s a sharp shooter.

Source: Instagram

READ ALSO: Makueni senator Mutula Kilonzo collapses in Nandi

His friends say he was deported from UAE after being implicated in criminal activities.

The man later went to Afghanistan where he trained as an armed guard with the US army.

Its in Afghanistan where Jowie also trained a sharp shooter and according to pictures shared in his social media pages, he would be seen posing with military gear and sophisticated weapons.

The 28-year-old Monica was found dead in her house a day after jetting in from South Sudan.

She was supposed to fly out the next day for holiday but did not show up at the airport forcing her brother to check on her only to find her dead inside the house.

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 React to Rafiki, First Ever Lesbian Movie Produced in Kenya | Tuko TV

Source: Kenyan Breaking NewsSix Kenyans are set to walk away with millions of shilling ultimately making them the new millionaires in town after they were recognised and chosen for Facebooks first Community Leadership Program.

The participants, who are Facebook admins for various Facebook community groups, are set to take home a total of $1,250,000 ( KSh 125 million) for their various community efforts.

That will not be all for the lucky six as they will also grace the Community Leadership Program summit at Facebook Head Office at Menlo Park, California, USA.

Send 'NEWS' to 40227 to receive all the important breaking news as it happens Read more:

READ ALSO: Makachero wanaochunguza mauaji ya Monica Kimani wakagua gari la Jacque Maribe (picha)

Facebook Community Leadership program is an initiative designed to support the leaders who are innovating ways to better support their communities through Facebook. Photo: Facebook.

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: Kenya pays 50% of budget to just 700k public servants, elected leaders

The six participants who were picked alongside 109 others globally, will also receive training, support and funding to advance further positive social impact through the pages they run.

Facebook Community Leadership program is an initiative designed to support the leaders who are innovating ways to better support their communities through the giant social media platform.

The initiative, whose mission is to give people the power to build communities and bring the world closer together, announced 100 Facebook groups to represent 46 countries globally.

READ ALSO: Banks start charging 20% excise duty on all transaction fees

Six Kenyan Facebook groups made it to the list, making Kenya the only country in Africa with the highest number of groups chosen in two categories of winners; community leaders in residence and fellows.

Leaders in residence included the top five people granted the role of community leaders in residence, which is the highest category, and will each receive up to $1,000,000 (KSh 100 million) in funding to build communities.

Out of the other 100 Facebook fellows category, five Kenyans were selected and will be awarded up to $50,000 (KSh 5 million ) each for their various community efforts.

READ ALSO: Phase II SGR contractor drills East Africas longest railway tunnel in Ngong

The six lucky Kenyans included:

1. Kenyan entrepreneur, Noah Nasiali

Nasiali was recognised for his effort to built a community of 100,000 farmers in Africa through his Facebook group.

Source: Facebook

Nasiali was recognised for his effort to built a community of 100,000 farmers in Africa through his Facebook group called Africa Farmers Club , the only African who made it to the prestigious top five list.

2. Pamellah Oduor

Odur is the 'Lets Cook Kenyan Meals' Founder whose aim is to promote healthy living.

Source: Facebook

She is the Lets Cook Kenyan Meals founder whose aim is to promote healthy living by cooking healthy homemade meals. She was picked in the second category of Fellows.

3. Truphosah Monah

Founder of Facebook group Women and Realities of Disability (WARD).

Source: Facebook

Founder of Women and Realities of Disability (WARD), a Facebook group which seeks to create awareness in Kenya about the lives of disabled women. She was also picked in the second category

READ ALSO: Cost of living to go up following introduction of 8% VAT on petroleum products - CBK report

4. Caroline Wanjiru Kihusa

She is the founder of Still A Mum Trust whose aim is to create an Africa where bereaved parents get outstanding support.

Source: Facebook

She is the founder of Still A Mum Trust whose aim is to create a platform where bereaved parents get outstanding support. She was picked in the second category.

5. Felista Wangari

She is the admin at 52-week money challenge, Kenya, a place to share knowledge and ideas on being an entrepreneur.

Source: Facebook

The journalist is the admin of 52-weeks Savings Challenge Kenya, a place to share knowledge and ideas on being an entrepreneur, investing and money management and was also picked in the second category

6. Asha Mweru

WomenWorkKE!, a group which brings together driven, like-minded Kenyan women with various business and career ambitions.

Source: Facebook

An admin at #WomenWorkKE!, a group which brings together driven, like-minded Kenyan women with various business and career ambitions.

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: Tuko- This will be Melania's maiden trip to Africa and apart from Kenya, she will visit Ghana, Malawi and Egypt

- Melania said she was visiting the countries because they had worked closely with the United States

- During Uhuru's visit to the US, Melania lauded the Beyond Zero campaign, an initiative by Kenya's First Lady Margret Kenyatta

The US First Lady Melania Trump on Wednesday, September, 26, announced her maiden trip to several countries in Africa.

Melania who as a First Lady has previously only traveled overseas while accompanying her husband, announced she would embark on the trip starting October 1, 2018, to Kenyan, Ghana, Malawi and Egypt.

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READ ALSO: Makachero wanaochunguza mauaji ya Monica Kimani wakagua gari la Jacque Maribe (picha)

Majority of American citizens had criticized Melania citing separation of children from parents seeking asylum in America.

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: US First Lady scolded for lauding Margaret Kenyattas beyond zero campaign

Speaking at a reception for the spouses of dignitaries from around the world during the annual United Nations General Assembly session in New York City, Melania lauded the four countries as beautiful and very different.

"October 1, 2018, will mark the first day of my solo visit to four beautiful and very different countries in Africa," said Melania.

The First Lady also said she was visiting the countries because they had worked closely with USAID and other American partners to make great progress in overcoming some of their biggest challenges..

READ ALSO: Mother to Governor Obado's murdered ex-lover demands to know who killed daughter

Melania touted the work the her husband's administration was doing through the work of USAID and others and said she was looking forward to taking the message of her Be Best campaign to many of the countries and children throughout Africa.

"Whether it is education, drug addiction, hunger, online safety or bullying, poverty or disease, it is too often children who are hit first, and hardest, across the globe," she said.

The 48-year-old First Lady launched the Be Best, a childrens wellness and anti-bullying initiative early 2018.

READ ALSO: Makueni senator Mutula Kilonzo collapses in Nandi

"Each of us hails from a country with its own unique challenges, but I know in my heart we are united by our commitment to raising the next generation to be happy, healthy and morally responsible adults," she added.

Melania had earlier on announced she was going to make her first ever solo trip to Africa but she had not confirmed her destinations.

This will be my first time traveling to Africa and I am excited to educate myself on the issues facing children throughout the continent, while also learning about its rich culture and history, the first lady said in a previous statement.

READ ALSO: How international media reported on Okoth Obado and Sharon Otieno case

Prior reports by TUKO.co.ke indicated the First Lady was on the receiving end for lauding the Beyond Zero campaign, an initiative of Kenya's First Lady Margret Kenyatta aimed at mitigating health challenges facing mothers and children in Kenya.

Majority of American citizens criticised Melania, with many accusing her of preaching water and drinking wine, citing the forceful separation of children from parents seeking asylum in America.

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: Obado to spend more days behind bars | Tuko TV

Source: Tuko News- Roads in the old town were impassable forcing many people to stay indoors

- More rain above 50mm was expected in the coastal region on Thursday, September 27

- On Friday, September 28, the rain shall fall below 30 mm

Roads in Mombasa were impassable on Wednesday, September 26, after flash floods swept through the city.

Several residents of Old Town were forced to stay indoors as others devised ways to wade through the floods.

Send 'NEWS' to 40227 to receive all the important breaking news as it happens

READ ALSO: Makachero wanaochunguza mauaji ya Monica Kimani wakagua gari la Jacque Maribe (picha)

READ ALSO: Weather man warns of very heavy rainfall in 6 counties from September 26

The flash floods came after the Kenya Meteorological Department issued a warning to the residents in the coastal region informing them to be aware of heavy rainfall accompanied with strong winds and waves.

More rain is expected in the coming days in the region as the weather man predicted heavy rainfall of above 50mm on Thursday, September 27, for a period of 24 hours.

On Friday, September 28, the rain shall fall below 30mm.

READ ALSO: Meteorological department warns of extremely cold days in coming months

Affected counties include Kwale, Mombasa, Kilifi, Taita Taveta, Lamu and Tana River.

"Residents in all the mentioned areas should avoid driving, wading or walking through any fast-moving waters," warned the weather man.

In April 2018, several parts of the country experienced heavy rainfall that led to flash floods which affected farming, transport and several people were displaced from their homes.

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

Latest Kenya News: Kenyans React to Rafiki, First Ever Lesbian Movie Produced in Kenya | Tuko TV

Source: TukoIn less than three weeks the State of Emergency will be over and citizens will be able to enjoy unrestricted movement across the country.

While the SoE may have helped the Port of Spain Division of the Police Service in reporting a year-to-date dip in crime, those at the helm are prepared for the curfew's expiration.Introduction & Pricing/Availability

It's finally here, like... really, finally here.

VIEW GALLERY - 111 IMAGES

NVIDIA's new Turing GPU architecture makes its first consumer graphics cards with the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti and RTX 2080, and the upcoming RTX 2070 that will launch next month. NVIDIA had only just unveiled the next-gen Turing GPU architecture the month before at SIGGRAPH 2018, where it unveiled new Quadro RTX branded graphics cards that fanned the flames of the rumor mill of a brand change to RTX.

We heard last year that NVIDIA were going to be mixing up the branding of the cards, but not to the extent of retiring the GTX moniker. NVIDIA's new Turing GPU architecture has ray tracing at its soul, with new RT Cores and Tensor Cores that it has borrowed from the Volta GPU architecture. Turing was built from the ground up for ray tracing, and was in development for 10 years alongside the development of previous GPU architectures in Maxwell and Pascal.

NVIDIA's new Turing GPU is the 'greatest leap since 2006 CUDA GPU', with the Turing GPU split into three: the Turing SM, RT Core, and Tensor Cores (NGX).

NVIDIA introduces RTX-OPS with the new GeForce RTX 20 series graphics cards, a way of measuring its ray tracing performance as well as Giga Rays/s to confuse us all. The new flagship GeForce RTX 2080 Ti is a freaking beast with 10 Giga Rays/s and 78T RTX-OPS with 11GB of GDDR6, while the RTX 2080 is knocked down to 8 Giga Rays/s and 60T RTX-OPS and 8GB of GDDR6, while the RTX 2070 that comes out next month will have 6 Giga Rays/s and 45T RTX-OPS with 8GB of GDDR6.

Putting The 'RT' in GeForce RTX

NVIDIA calling their new Turing graphics cards for consumers 'GeForce RTX' is the biggest shift in marketing for the company since the introduction of the GTX brand. RTX has a big road ahead of itself, as now NVIDIA is absolutely 100% committed to the world of ray tracing. We won't see NVIDIA move back to the GeForce GTX branding, ever.

The future of gaming is in real-time ray tracing, where NVIDIA is so far ahead it will be able to define the entire ray tracing industry. This is both a good, and a bad thing... as it gives NVIDIA full control of the entire ray tracing market right now. AMD is a player in the workstation space, but none of its consumer GPU architectures are capable of real-time ray tracing. Radeon is dead in the water for now, but I'm sure that's going to change with Navi... it has to change with Navi.

Pricing & Availability

NVIDIA is pricing its new GeForce RTX 20 series cards at much higher prices than previous-gen launches, but then again the company never launches its 'Ti' variant at launch so these are different times. The new GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition launches at $1199, the same price as the Pascal-based TITAN Xp. But the RTX 2080 Ti overall, starts at $999 while NVIDIA's higher-end Founders Edition knocks the price up to $1199.

GeForce RTX 2080 Ti - $999-$1199

GeForce RTX 2080 - $699-$799

GeForce RTX 2070 - $599

NVIDIA will sell its own Founders Edition cards at higher prices than the standard RTX 20 series cards, with the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition costing $1199, RTX 2080 Founders Edition costing $799, and the soon-to-be-released RTX 2070 costing $599.

This launch is very different to previous launches of GPUs from NVIDIA, with most of the first wave of RTX 2080 Ti and RTX 2080 graphics cards eaten up. We should expect custom RTX 2080 Ti cards to be available towards the last days of September, and more so in October. If you want to grab yourself the new RTX Founders Edition cards (which kick serious ass) it'll depend on your location.

The second wave of RTX Founders Edition cards should be coming in the next few weeks, while custom cards are going to be released throughout this time. The first custom card I have is from ZOTAC in the form of the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti AMP graphics card, which I'll have a review up over the weekend of. There's EVGA, MSI, GIGABYTE, and Palit cards on the way while I'm securing other brands as we speak. Expect a large RTX 2080 Ti/RTX 2080 comparison when they're all here and in my grubby hands.

Specs: Turing GPUs

Detailed Specs

NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 2080 Ti is the biggest and best GeForce ever made, and while that might be true with most launches we never see the launch of the Ti version of the card until many months after. NVIDIA launched the GeForce GTX 1070 and GTX 1080 in May 2017, while the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti was unveiled in March 2018. But the problem was the GeForce GTX 980 Ti was still a powerhouse card, just without a few of the features from the new Pascal architecture.

This time around NVIDIA is launching offensively, almost as if AMD actually hit success with Radeon RX Vega, out and throwing their arms down like Henry Cavill in Mission Impossible: Fallout. The new GeForce RTX 2080 Ti is an absolutely jam packed technological orgy, with the next-gen Turing GPU architecture, on the new 12nm process, and is joined by the first use of GDDR6 memory technology.

The GeForce RTX 2080 Ti has a huge 4352 CUDA cores, 68 RT Cores, and 544 Tensor Cores - some of these new cores that come with the Turing GPU architecture won't be used much with this climate of games but expect that to change very quickly.

TU102/104 vs GP102

TU106 vs GP104

TU102

NVIDIA's new TU102 GPU is an absolute powerhouse of technology, with a huge 18.6 billion transistors on 12nm. TU102 packs 4608 CUDA cores, 72 RT Cores, 576 Tensor Cores, 288 texture units and 12 x 32-bit GDDR6 memory controllers that makes up a 384-bit memory bus.

Each of the 72 SMs on TU102 has 64 CUDA cores, 8 x Tensor Cores, a 256KB register file, 4 texture units, and 96KB of L1/shared memory that can be used in either compute or graphics workloads. Each memory controller has 8 ROP units and 512KB of L2 cache, with the full TU102 GPU packing 96 ROP units, and 6144KB of L2 cache.

TU104

NVIDIA's new TU102 GPU is joined by the cut down TU104 that has all of the new Turing features, as well as GDDR6 memory technology and NVLink. The full TU104 chip features 6 x GPCs, 48 SMs, and 8 x 32-bit memory controllers (for a total of a 256-bit memory bus). TU104 sees each GPC cluster featuring a raster unit and 4 x TCPs, with each TCP containing a PolyMorph Engine and 2 x SMs.

Inside of each SM is the exciting new RT Core, with each SM featuring 64 CUDA cores, 256KB register file, 96KB L1 data cache/shared memory cache, and four texture units. TU104 features 13.6 billion transistors, 3072 CUDA cores, 368 Tensor Cores, and 48 RT Cores. TU104 is the card that powers both the GeForce RTX 2080 and Quadro RTX 5000 cards.

TU106

TU106 will power the upcoming GeForce RTX 2070, and is a direct competitor against the GTX 1070 and will ship in October 2018. TU106 features 10.8 billion transistors, 2304 CUDA cores, 288 Tensor Cores, and 36 RT Cores. The transistor count on TU106 is much greater than its Pascal counterpart in the GP104, with the new TU106 GPU featuring 10.8 billion transistors versus the 7.2 billion inside of GP104.

TU106 has 3 x GPCs, 36 SMs, and 8 x 32-bit memory controllers (for a 256-bit memory bus, the same as the RTX 2080). NVIDIA's new TU106G GPU sees each GPC with a raster unit and 6 x TPCs, with each TPC packing a PolyMorph Engine and 2 x SMs. Each of the SMs inside of TU106 will, like TU102 and TU104, feature the new RT Core for ray tracing. Each SM packs 64 CUDA cores, 256KB register file, 96KB L1 data cache/shared memory cache, and 4 x texture units.

Specs: GDDR6 Memory

Next-Gen Memory: GDDR6

NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 20 series graphics cards are the first ever to make use of GDDR6 memory technology, of which NVIDIA has 11GB on the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti that kicks off at 14Gbps of memory bandwidth.

This type of memory bandwidth is incredibly important as the resolution of your games scale, with 4K really needing the increased GPU horsepower and especially the much faster memory. 11GB of next-gen GDDR6 at 14Gbps is absolutely insane, making the 10Gbps of the GTX 1080 and 11Gbps of the GTX 1080 Ti look slow in comparison.

The 11GB of GDDR6 sits on a large 352-bit memory bus (the same width as the GTX 1080 Ti) with 11 x 32-bit memory controllers providing 616GB/sec of memory bandwidth, a large 27% increase over the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti and its 484GB/sec of memory bandwidth with GDDR5X. NVIDIA is no stranger to the bleeding edge of memory technologies, as they were first to market with GPUs that packed GDDR5X and HBM2 memory. Turing is the first GPU to market to use GDDR6, and it truly is a big leap.

NVIDIA explains GDDR6 as the "next big advance in high-bandwidth GDDR DRAM memory design", something that is enhanced "with many high-speed SerDes and RF techniques, GDDR6 memory interface circuits in Turing GPUs have been completely redesigned for speed, power efficiency, and noise reduction. This new interface design comes with many new circuit and signal training improvements that minimize noise and variations due to process, temperature, and supply voltage. Extensive clock gating was used to minimize power consumption during periods of lower utilization, resulting in significant overall power efficiency improvement. Turing's GDDR6 memory subsystem delivers 14 Gbps signaling rates and 20% power efficiency improvement over GDDR5X memory used in Pascal GPUs".

Turing's package and board designs were "carefully crafted" to handle the higher speed requirements, something that is helped along with a huge 40% reduction in signal crosstalk, which NVIDIA says is "one of the most severe impairments in large memory systems". NVIDIA says that "every aspect of the memory subsystem was carefully crafted to meet the demanding standards that are required for such high frequency operation. Every signal in the design was carefully optimized to provide the cleanest memory interface signaling as possible".

New Look, New Cooler, New GeForce

NVIDIA has put in an incredible amount of effort into the new RTX 2080 and RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition graphics cards. It looks great, and is the best reference GeForce graphics card ever made in my opinion. I really love the look of it over most of the custom cards, but I'm expecting some far better higher-end custom cards from the likes of MSI, ASUS, and ZOTAC in the near future.

As it stands, the new Founders Edition has been fully enveloped by the new-look shroud, providing an overall more stylish design and feel. NVIDIA has even provided a removable cover on the NVLink connector, so that the design aesthetics aren't interrupted. It really is a stunning card. NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX Founders Edition graphics cards feature the first-ever full-length vapor chamber combined with dual axial fans, a huge upgrade over the single-fan cooling solutions of every reference and FE-based card until now.

Inside there is a lot of stuff going on, with the full-length vapor chamber covering the entire PCB of the RTX 20 FE cards. This means heat has much more space to escape the important components like the Turing GPU and GDDR6 memory, with our RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition hitting 76C maximum in heavy loads, compared to 83C on the GTX 1080 Ti and TITAN Xp graphics cards.

The new dual-axial fans were designed to pull heat away from the massive heat sink, and blow it out the back and sides of the card. There's a metal baseplate on the RTX Founders Edition cards, resting on top of the low-profile board components keeping the power circuitry and GDDR6 memory modules as cool as they can.

iMON DrMOS Power Supply

NVIDIA has beefed up the power subsystem on the RTX 2080 Ti FE compared to the GTX 1080 Ti FE, with a new 13-phase iMON DrMOS power supply compared to the 7-phast dual-FET power supply used on the GTX 1080 Ti FE. There's a new dynamic power management system that NVIDIA has capable of sub-millisecond current monitoring and control. This means the RTX Founders Edition cards have more control over the flow of power into the GPU, and giving more headroom for overclocking.

NVIDIA says that the new iMON power supply is "extremely efficient" and can supply the GPU with more power cleanly, with less power wasted as heat. Higher GPU overclocks are the result of this new iMON power supply, where it can dynamically switch to less power phases when the power subsystem isn't fully loaded. This means the power supply can run at peak efficiency when the GPU loads are idle, normal gaming with stock clocks, and then maximum load for intense gaming or GPU/GDDR6 being overclocked.

See what I mean, the GeForce RTX 2080 and RTX 2080 Ti are built for overclocking.

3-Phase Power System Just For GDDR6 @ 14Gbps

NVIDIA's use of the super-fast GDDR6 memory at 14Gbps sees a dedicated 3-phase power system dedicated to the GDDR6 memory.

Detailed Look

The premium look and feel of the new GeForce RTX Founders Edition cards is found not just on the card itself, but on the packaging from NVIDIA.

As you can see, the box has been changed up a bit where it matches the style of the new RTX Founders Edition. I really like the box, with it better matching the NVIDIA marketing overall.

What we've all come here to see: the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition.

The dual-fan cooler on the new RTX Founders Edition card is solid, and is a drastic change to the single-fan blower-style cooler of past FE cards.

The GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition requires dual 8-pin PCIe power connectors.

The backplate of the new RTX Founders Edition cards has been improved, and I really dig the new design. The backplates still get very hot during massive gaming or benchmark sessions. We can see the new NVLink multi-GPU connector, too.

The new RTX 2080/2080 Ti Founders Edition graphics cards both have 3 x DP 1.4, 1 x HDMI 2.0 and the new VirtualLink connector. VirtualLink is a new USB-C standard for next-gen VR headsets and uses up to 30W of the TDP on the card as everything is handled (the VR headset, sensors, USB ports, etc all rolled into a single USB-C).

The new NVLink multi-GPU connector on the RTX 20 series, SLI is now gone in favor of NVLink which has magnitudes more bandwidth.

Turing: NVLink Multi-GPU Tech

NVLink = Huge Multi-GPU Upgrade

Before the previous-gen Pascal architecture, NVIDIA GPUs used a single Multiple Input/Output (MIO) interface as the SLI Bridge technology, which allowed the second/third/fourth GPU to transfer its final rendered frame output to the primary GPU that was physically connected to the bridge.

Pascal changed this with a faster dual-MIO interface that arrived as HB-SLI, increasing the bandwidth between the GPUs. This paved the way for higher resolution output, and multiple high-res monitors to be used in NVIDIA Surround. NVLink takes all of this to the next level.NVIDIA has deployed its new multi-GPU technology NVLink into the new GeForce RTX 20 series, but NVLink is not something new for the company as it has used the high-speed interconnect on its Quadro RTX series cards and was made specifically for the Volta GV100 GPU.

TU102 features two NVLink 8x links that can feed out 25GB/sec of bidirectional bandwidth, while total aggregate bidirectional bandwidth hits 100GB/sec.

NVIDIA's new Turing-based TU102 and TU104 GPUs now use NVLink for all SLI GPU-to-GPU data transfers, with the higher-end TU102 featuring two NVLink x8 links while TU104 has a single NVLink x8 link. Each individual link provides up to 50GB/sec of bidirectional bandwidth (25GB/sec per way) while the two links in TU102 push 100GB/sec in total (50GB/sec per way).

Turing GPUs only support 2-way SLI over NVLink, but 3-way and 4-way SLI configurations "are not supported".

Turing: RT Cores & Tensor Cores

Tensor Cores

NVIDIA's new Turing GPU architecture features some special herbs and spices with Tensor Cores being one of them. Tensor Cores are specialized execution units that have been designed specifically to perform tensor/matrix operations that are the core compute function used in Deep Learning.

NVIDIA had already struck Tensor Core gold with the Volta GPU architecture, but the new Turing Tensor Cores "provide tremendous speed-ups for matrix computations at the heart of deep learning neural network training and inferencing operations".

Turing Tensor Cores offer deep learning-based AI tricks for GeForce RTX series graphics cards and Quadro workstation cards, with a little something called DLSS or Deep Learning Super Sampling. DLSS is powered by Tensor Cores and uses NVIDIA's deep neural network to "extract multidimensional features of the rendered scene and intelligently combine details from multiple frames to construct a high-quality final image. DLSS uses fewer input samples than traditional techniques such as TAA, while avoiding the algorithmic difficulties such techniques face with transparency and other complex scene elements".

Turing is a much more powerful GPU for ray tracing thanks to its RT Cores, as the GPU architecture was developed from the ground up for ray tracing in mind. You can see the software emulation for BVH (Bounding Volume Hierarchy).

As you can see, the RT Cores hardware accelerate what the Pascal GPU architecture does in software emulation.

Sounds like magic, doesn't it?!

RT Cores

Turing features some fresh new RT Cores with the flagship GeForce RTX 2080 Ti packing 68 RT cores for the highest performance in real-time ray tracing games powered by RTX and other compute tasks.

The new RT Cores in the Turing GPU are untapped right now with only a few games able to take advantage of them, but as time goes real-time ray tracing in games will expand into countless titles. As of now, we have a fair few games with some of them being the biggest games of 2018 including Battlefield V, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and Control (which arrives in 2019).

Turing hardware enables real-time ray tracing for lighting and AI in games and other applications, where NVIDIA has created a new rendering model called Hybrid Rendering. Hybrid Rendering uses a combination of traditional rendering, ray traced rendering, and AI that makes images really pop, all in real-time ray tracing. Most of this comes from the power of the Turing GPU, with the flagship GeForce RTX 2080 Ti the perfect card for real-time ray tracing.

The Current List Of Ray Tracing Games

Assetto Corsa Competizione

Atomic Heart

Battlefield V

Control

Enlisted

MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries

Metro Exodus

Shadow of the Tomb Raider

Justice

JX3

Project DH

DLSS: Deep Learning Magic & NGX

Deep Learning Super Sampling

DLSS is some true new magic that NVIDIA has unleashed with the Turing GPU architecture, with Deep Learning Super Sampling being one of the most interesting parts of NGX, or Neural Graphics Acceleration. NGX is a new deep learning-based technology stack that is found inside of NVIDIA's new RTX technology.

NGX uses deep neural networks (or DNNs) as well as a set of Neural Services that will do AI-based functions that not only improve the graphics of supported games, but it also increases the performance. NGX uses Turing Tensor Cores for deep learning-based operations that end up with better-looking games and higher-performing tasks to users.

In most new games, rendered frames aren't displayed directly, they are pushed through post processing image enhancement that combines input from multiple rendered frames, where visual artifacts are hopefully removed, and aliasing hopefully stays in detail. Temporal Anti-Aliasing (TAA) is a shader-based algorithm that combines two frames using motion vectors to work out where to sample the previous frame, which is one of the most-used image enhancement tools used today. NVIDIA notes however, that the image enhancement process is very hard to get right.

This is where NVIDIA researchers thought that using AI to improve this task would come into play, with the company using its DNN (deep neural network) to solve this issue, which is where Deep Learning Super-Sampling (DLSS) was born. DLSS produces a much higher quality output image compared to TAA, with increased performance in some games that'll blow your socks off.

RTX 2080 Ti Is 100% Faster Than GTX 1080 Ti Thanks To DLSS

TAA will render its final target resolution and then combine frames, subtracting detail...compared to DLSS that renders much faster at a lower input sample count, then infers a result that at the target resolution, looks similar to TAA but does half the shading work to get there. In some tests, like the UE4 Infiltrator demo, there's a 100% performance improvement using the RTX 2080 Ti over the GTX 1080 Ti.

Note: I'll be covering DLSS more in the coming weeks, as I didn't have much time before the review to get content running with DLSS without missing embargo. I'll update this section or create an entire new article that looks at DLSS in more detail.

DLSS Feeds NVIDIA's Super Computer

One of the best parts of DLSS is that the results are great for the training process of the DNN, as it gets to stretch its legs on how to best product the desired output image based on large numbers of "super-high-quality" examples. NVIDIA trains its deep neural network by collecting thousands of what it calls "ground truth" reference images that are rendered with the "gold standard method for perfect image quality"... 64x super-sampling (64xSS).

64x super-sampling doesn't shade each pixel a single time, it shades at 64 different offsets within the pixel itself, combines the outputs, and products an image that is with "ideal detail and anti-aliasing quality". NVIDIA also captures matching raw input images rendered normally, where they begin training the DLSS network to match the output frames of 64xSS.

By going through each input, NVIDIA tells DLSS to produce an output and to then measure the distance between its output and the 64xSS image sample, where it "adjusts the weights in the network based on the differences, through a process called back propagation". DLSS will learn after many attempts and tests how to produce results that closely match 64xSS, while also learning how to avoid problems like blurring, dis-occlusion, and transparency that plagues TAA.

This is all under the standard DLSS mode but NVIDIA also has DLSS 2X which sees DLSS input being rendered at the final target resolution and then combined by an even bigger DLSS network that is capable of producing an output image that is close to the look of the 64x super-sampled rendering. NVIDIA notes that this would provide a result that would be "impossible to achieve in real-time by any traditional means".

DLSS Support - More On The Way

There are 15 games with DLSS support, and lots more of them on the way.

NGX Software Architecture

Another new thing inside of Turing is NGX or Neural Graphics Framework, which is where all of the AI models are created, stuffed into the driver and into your shiny new GeForce RTX graphics card.

NGX integration is easy: the AI model trains it, passes it through the neural network into the NGX API alongside the game engine, and into the rendered frame you see on your monitor.

We can expect some cool tricks from this, such as AI Super Rez that takes the image into the deep neural network and then blasts back a Super Res version of it. Imagine the possibilities with images, videos, and most of all gaming - powered by AI and DNNs.

AI To Power The Future Of Gaming

AI Will Eventually Be Better Than You At Games

When I was at the GeForce Gaming Celebration I talked to some NVIDIA staff about what the future of gaming would be like powered by the new AI abilities mixed with the Tensor Cores inside of Turing. The back-and-forth chat was beyond illuminating, really inspiring me that the future of gaming on PC will take things to the next level.

I was told about a game in the future would create scenarios where a player would advance on let's say, a military base with a few AI-based characters standing guard at the entrance. There's a button one of them would press in an emergency to alert the entire base of your presence, so you have multiple options to enter the base.

In this instance you are approaching the guards and want to take one down, so you crawl up the mountain slowly so that they don't see you. Remember, they don't have traditional vision and AI, but we're talking AI hardware that gives them almost individual personalities and human-like reactions to situations.

You pull out your sniper rifle and take out the guard on the left, an action that snaps the other soldiers mind and he panics. His friend has just been killed in front of him, so he looks at the body realistically (leaning over and checking on him) and as he turns to you, through the zoomed-in scope on your sniper rifle, you see his reaction.

The look of anger. The look of someone who has nothing going through their mind but ending your life. The AI would be powering a character in the game that would think like you. Does he begin cover firing and getting out of the way of your next shot, or does he shoot out the lights above him that allow you to see him?

AI will be smart enough to adapt to the situation at hand, so in this instance he shoots the light out above him descending your vision into darkness. The base has been alerted, the lights are out, and you don't have night vision. Your journey into the base just got 10x harder as you have AI that is beyond the levels we play with now, with human-like abilities and thought patterns.

The future of AI won't hide behind a wall waiting for you or running in circles, they're going to hunt you down in packs. You will be versing AI that is being driven by RT Cores and the Turing GPU architecture on NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 2080/2080 Ti (and beyond) that is just as smart, and sometimes even better than good human gamers.

The fun with AI doesn't stop there, as we could see a total resurgence in all genres of games from the help of RT Cores, Deep Learning, and AI. Another genre would be horror. Imagine a next-gen reboot of the likes of Resident Evil or F.E.A.R. - because that's something I could get behind.

A new Left 4 Dead with the AI Director (that is already built in the game and tuning the game dynamically based on players' behavior and advancement in the game) being real AI driven by RT Cores. An AI that is dynamically adjusting the game with individual zombies and larger enemies (Smokers, Witches, etc) with much more powerful AI driving them at human-like levels.

Zombies could hunt you in packs, making them scarier and more dangerous than ever before. They could hunt you like animals using senses that they don't have now... imagine that RT Cores and AI could have them smelling you... yes, smelling you. This would make you have to think much more in the game about what exactly is attacking you, and how best to hide or run from it.

If you can't kill the zombie or animal tracking you, you might have to cover up your footprints through the dirt, sand, or mud. You will be forced to find water to jump into to mask your scent, or deal with a horde of AI-driven zombies that are smashing the house you're in to pieces at all different doors and windows confusing you to where they are and how you'll escape.

NVIDIA has provided the technology for the future of games, and now it's up to developers to tap the power of RT Cores in the Turing architecture. The only thing that I fear is that most games are multi-platform, so this would mean one of two things. First, we have normal games with additional RTX-specific AI features sprinkled on top of existing games and their pre-built AI.

Secondly, developers really tap into the RT Cores and AI power of Turing and make it part of the DNA of the game: truly next-gen AI that is similar to the stories that I heard in Germany at the GeForce Gaming Celebration event, or beyond. I want to sh*t my pants in a horror game that adapts to me... I want to have AI in shooters that is as good as a human opponent, I want to get smashed in RTS games against true AI.

The more exciting thing is that we're only scratching the possibilities of what could be the future of gaming powered by AI... it truly is limitless with NVIDIA's new Turing GPU architecture.

WTF IS RTX-OPS

NVIDIA Defines RTX-OPS

NVIDIA is so far ahead of AMD right now that it's in totally new territory with the Turing GPU architecture, so it has had to use its own "RTX-OPS" when trying to define performance of Tensor-related compute tasks. We won't be using RTX-OPS in our day-to-day benchmarks or RTX 20 series reviews, but it definitely deserves its own page to explain WTF is RTX-OPS.

The way NVIDIA works out RTX-OPS, the company explains that the "peak operations of each type based is derated on how often it's used". NVIDIA cites:

Tensor operations are used 20% of the time

CUDA cores are used 80% of the time

RT cores are used 40% of the time (half of 80%)

INT32 pipes are used 28% of the time (35% of 80%)

For example, RTX-OPS = TENSOR * 20% + FP32 * 80% + RTOPS * 40% + INT32 * 28%.

GPU Boost 4.0 & NVIDIA Scanner

NVIDIA has made the most overclockable GeForce graphics card yet with the new RTX 20 series, with the company openly embracing overclocking as a whole and making it easier than ever to overclock. We have the refreshed GPU Boost 4.0 technology and NVIDIA Scanner, software that will overclock your GPU for you... yeah, and it's not even powered by AI, yet.

GPU Boost 4.0

There have been changes made to GPU Boost technology with NVIDIA introducing GPU Boost 4.0 in the new Turing GPU architecture. GPU Boost 4.0 allows users to manually adjust the algorithms that GPU Boost uses to dial in the GPU clock. This gives users ultimate control over their new GPU, in more ways than one.

GPU Boost 3.0 launched with the Pascal GPU architecture and the GeForce GTX 1080 and GTX 1070 back in May 2017, where the Power Target sets the power limit for the GPU. The diagram above shows how the GPU clock is held back because the total power is already at that level, or lower.

If the power and temperature are below their intended targets, the GPU clock speeds won't hit a ceiling - but it's inevitable. If a typical boost GPU clock is hit and the temperature of the card starts climbing, GPU clocks get capped after the software capping temperature is reached. This all changes with GPU Boost 4.0 technology.

GPU Boost 4.0 takes overclocking to the next level by giving users access to the algorithms for GPU Boost itself, instead of them sitting inside of the driver with GPU Boost 3.0. NVIDIA says the biggest benefit with temperature on GPU Boost 4.0 is that where inflection points have been added.

Previously, the temperature was a straight line that dropped down next to Base Clock, but now it will holy the Boost Clock where you've overclocked it under higher temperatures before a second temp target (now T2) is hit, after which the GPU clocks will drop.

So. Awesome.

This means you can have additional performance from overclocking, and then if you spin the fans up on your GeForce RTX 20 series graphics card or have great airflow in your case, as long as you can keep the temperatures down. This should open up some doors for serious overclockers, with OC records surely reaching new heights with GeForce RTX 2080 Ti and GPU Boost 4.0 technology.

NVIDIA Scanner = Auto OC!

Automatic overclocking... it's here, right now with the new GeForce RTX series graphics cards. NVIDIA will have this technology inside of multiple AIB partners' software, with the company using EVGA's PrecisionX1 (which we had in early form for our review) and it works beautifully.

EVGA did a full re-design of their GPU management tool with PrecisionX1, where all of the inflection points in the Temp Tuner are editable, giving users full control of GPU Boost. We can expect new software to really push overclocking to the next level thanks to GPU Boost 4.0 and NVIDIA Scanner, where it will make it easier than ever for new users to overclock their graphics cards.

Overclocking your new RTX 20 series graphics card can take between 10-20 minutes to run, where it will launch a separate thread to test overclocking on the GPU. It will run a mathematical algorithm that tries to find single- and multi-bit failures so it can provide 100% stability at OC speeds. You can start the NVIDIA Scanner and stop it mid way through it you wanted to play a game, and then resume your overclocking adventures afterwards, too.

The power and temperature sliders have much more control over your maximum GPU clocks than ever before, so be sure to play around with them for maximum OC. I pushed my RTX 2080 Ti FE sample up to 2GHz at the 65-68C range with 100% fan speeds, +123 power and the GPU temps allowed to hit 88C. Not bad for the first few hours of playing with it.

Test System Specs

Our New GPU Test Rig

Welcome to the latest revision of our GPU test bed, with our system being upgraded from the Intel Core i7-7700K to the Core i7-8700K. The CPU is cooled by the Corsair H115i PRO cooler, with the 8700K overclocked to 5GHz. We've stayed with GIGABYTE for our motherboard with their awesome Z370 AORUS Gaming 7.

We approached our friends at HyperX for a kit of their kick ass HyperX Predator DDR4-2933MHz RAM (HX429C15PB3AK4/32), with 2 x 8GB sticks for a total of 16GB DDR4-2933. The RAM stands out through every minute of our testing as it has beautiful RGB lights giving the system a slick look while benchmarking our lives away, while the Z370 AORUS Gaming 7 motherboard joins in with its own array of RGB lighting.

Detailed Tech Specs

CPU : Intel Core i7-8700K @ 5GHz

Cooler : Corsair Hydro Series H115i PRO

MB : Z370 AORUS Gaming 7

RAM : 16GB (2x8GB) HyperX Predator DDR4-2933

SSD : 1TB OCZ RD400 NVMe M.2

SSD : 512GB OCZ RD400 NVMe M.2

PSU : InWin 1065W PSU

Chassis : In Win X-Frame

OS: Windows 10 Pro x64

Additional Images

Benchmarks - Synthetic

3DMark Fire Strike - 1080p

3DMark has been a staple benchmark for years now, all the way back to when The Matrix was released and Futuremark had bullet time inspired benchmarks. 3DMark is the perfect tool to see if your system - most important, your CPU and GPU - is performing as it should. You can search results for your GPU, to see if it falls in line with other systems based on similar hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike - 1440p

3DMark has been a staple benchmark for years now, all the way back to when The Matrix was released and Futuremark had bullet time inspired benchmarks. 3DMark is the perfect tool to see if your system - most important, your CPU and GPU - is performing as it should. You can search results for your GPU, to see if it falls in line with other systems based on similar hardware.

3DMark Fire Strike - 4K

3DMark has been a staple benchmark for years now, all the way back to when The Matrix was released and Futuremark had bullet time inspired benchmarks. 3DMark is the perfect tool to see if your system - most important, your CPU and GPU - is performing as it should. You can search results for your GPU, to see if it falls in line with other systems based on similar hardware.

3DMark TimeSpy

3DMark TimeSpy Extreme

Heaven - 1080p

Heaven is an intensive GPU benchmark that really pushes your silicon to its limits. It's another favorite of ours as it has some great scaling for multi-GPU testing, and it's great for getting your GPU to 100% for power and noise testing.

Heaven - 1440p

Heaven - 4K

Heaven - 3440x1440

Benchmarks - 1080p

1080p Benchmarks

Rise of the Tomb Raider is one of the best looking games on the market, a truly gorgeous game - and a wonder to benchmark. The team at Crystal Dynamics made a very scalable PC game that plays really well testing graphics cards. We've got DX11 and DX12 results in one here, showing the slight strengths of running DX12 mode.

Middle-earth: Shadow of War is a sequel to the popular Shadow of Mordor, which was powered by the Lithtech engine. When cranked up to maximum detail, it will chew through your GPU and its VRAM like it's nothing.

You can buy Middle-earth: Shadow of War at Amazon.

Rainbow Six: Siege has been a strong entry into the franchise, popular for its realistic feel and great graphics. Stable as a rock for benchmarking, right up to 3440x1440 and 4K.

Metro: Last Light Redux comes from developer 4A Games, making the Redux version of Metro: Last Light the 'definitive' version of the game. Redux had a fresh coat of paint on the already impressive 4A Engine, and it really pushes our GPUs to their limits.

You can buy Metro: Last Light Redux at Amazon.

Far Cry 5 was developed by Ubisoft, and is powered the Dunia Engine, an engine that has been modified over the years for Far Cry. Dunia Engine itself was a modified version of CRYENGINE, scaling incredibly well on all sorts of hardware.

F1 2018 is the latest iteration of the super-popular franchise that Codemasters has worked on for close to a decade now, with F1 2009 kicking it all off. The game is powered by the EGO game engine, which is a modified version of the Neon game engine that was developed by Codemasters and Sony Computer Entertainment for Colin McRae: Dirt, which was released in 2007. The revamped EGO engine was developed to give Codemasters the ability of using more detailed damage and physics in the game world, as well as rendering larger-scale environments.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is one of the latest games to join our graphics card benchmark lineup, with the game built using the Foundation engine as a base, the same engine in Rise of the Tomb Raider. Eidos Montreal R&D department made lots of changes to the engine during the development of Shadow of the Tomb Raider to make it one of the best-looking games out right now.

Benchmarks - 1440p

1440p Benchmarks

Rise of the Tomb Raider is one of the best looking games on the market, a truly gorgeous game - and a wonder to benchmark. The team at Crystal Dynamics made a very scalable PC game that plays really well testing graphics cards. We've got DX11 and DX12 results in one here, showing the slight strengths of running DX12 mode.

Middle-earth: Shadow of War is a sequel to the popular Shadow of Mordor, which was powered by the Lithtech engine. When cranked up to maximum detail, it will chew through your GPU and its VRAM like it's nothing.

You can buy Middle-earth: Shadow of War at Amazon.

Rainbow Six: Siege has been a strong entry into the franchise, popular for its realistic feel and great graphics. Stable as a rock for benchmarking, right up to 3440x1440 and 4K.

Metro: Last Light Redux comes from developer 4A Games, making the Redux version of Metro: Last Light the 'definitive' version of the game. Redux had a fresh coat of paint on the already impressive 4A Engine, and it really pushes our GPUs to their limits.

You can buy Metro: Last Light Redux at Amazon.

Far Cry 5 was developed by Ubisoft, and is powered the Dunia Engine, an engine that has been modified over the years for Far Cry. Dunia Engine itself was a modified version of CRYENGINE, scaling incredibly well on all sorts of hardware.

F1 2018 is the latest iteration of the super-popular franchise that Codemasters has worked on for close to a decade now, with F1 2009 kicking it all off. The game is powered by the EGO game engine, which is a modified version of the Neon game engine that was developed by Codemasters and Sony Computer Entertainment for Colin McRae: Dirt, which was released in 2007. The revamped EGO engine was developed to give Codemasters the ability of using more detailed damage and physics in the game world, as well as rendering larger-scale environments.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is one of the latest games to join our graphics card benchmark lineup, with the game built using the Foundation engine as a base, the same engine in Rise of the Tomb Raider. Eidos Montreal R&D department made lots of changes to the engine during the development of Shadow of the Tomb Raider to make it one of the best-looking games out right now.

Benchmarks - 3440x1440

3440 x 1440 Benchmarks

Rise of the Tomb Raider is one of the best looking games on the market, a truly gorgeous game - and a wonder to benchmark. The team at Crystal Dynamics made a very scalable PC game that plays really well testing graphics cards. We've got DX11 and DX12 results in one here, showing the slight strengths of running DX12 mode.

Middle-earth: Shadow of War is a sequel to the popular Shadow of Mordor, which was powered by the Lithtech engine. When cranked up to maximum detail, it will chew through your GPU and its VRAM like it's nothing.

You can buy Middle-earth: Shadow of War at Amazon.

Rainbow Six: Siege has been a strong entry into the franchise, popular for its realistic feel and great graphics. Stable as a rock for benchmarking, right up to 3440x1440 and 4K.

Metro: Last Light Redux comes from developer 4A Games, making the Redux version of Metro: Last Light the 'definitive' version of the game. Redux had a fresh coat of paint on the already impressive 4A Engine, and it really pushes our GPUs to their limits.

You can buy Metro: Last Light Redux at Amazon.

Far Cry 5 was developed by Ubisoft, and is powered the Dunia Engine, an engine that has been modified over the years for Far Cry. Dunia Engine itself was a modified version of CRYENGINE, scaling incredibly well on all sorts of hardware.

F1 2018 is the latest iteration of the super-popular franchise that Codemasters has worked on for close to a decade now, with F1 2009 kicking it all off. The game is powered by the EGO game engine, which is a modified version of the Neon game engine that was developed by Codemasters and Sony Computer Entertainment for Colin McRae: Dirt, which was released in 2007. The revamped EGO engine was developed to give Codemasters the ability of using more detailed damage and physics in the game world, as well as rendering larger-scale environments.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is one of the latest games to join our graphics card benchmark lineup, with the game built using the Foundation engine as a base, the same engine in Rise of the Tomb Raider. Eidos Montreal R&D department made lots of changes to the engine during the development of Shadow of the Tomb Raider to make it one of the best-looking games out right now.

Benchmarks - 4K

4K Benchmarks

Rise of the Tomb Raider is one of the best looking games on the market, a truly gorgeous game - and a wonder to benchmark. The team at Crystal Dynamics made a very scalable PC game that plays really well testing graphics cards. We've got DX11 and DX12 results in one here, showing the slight strengths of running DX12 mode.

Middle-earth: Shadow of War is a sequel to the popular Shadow of Mordor, which was powered by the Lithtech engine. When cranked up to maximum detail, it will chew through your GPU and its VRAM like it's nothing.

You can buy Middle-earth: Shadow of War at Amazon.

Rainbow Six: Siege has been a strong entry into the franchise, popular for its realistic feel and great graphics. Stable as a rock for benchmarking, right up to 3440x1440 and 4K.

Metro: Last Light Redux comes from developer 4A Games, making the Redux version of Metro: Last Light the 'definitive' version of the game. Redux had a fresh coat of paint on the already impressive 4A Engine, and it really pushes our GPUs to their limits.

You can buy Metro: Last Light Redux at Amazon.

Far Cry 5 was developed by Ubisoft, and is powered the Dunia Engine, an engine that has been modified over the years for Far Cry. Dunia Engine itself was a modified version of CRYENGINE, scaling incredibly well on all sorts of hardware.

F1 2018 is the latest iteration of the super-popular franchise that Codemasters has worked on for close to a decade now, with F1 2009 kicking it all off. The game is powered by the EGO game engine, which is a modified version of the Neon game engine that was developed by Codemasters and Sony Computer Entertainment for Colin McRae: Dirt, which was released in 2007. The revamped EGO engine was developed to give Codemasters the ability of using more detailed damage and physics in the game world, as well as rendering larger-scale environments.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is one of the latest games to join our graphics card benchmark lineup, with the game built using the Foundation engine as a base, the same engine in Rise of the Tomb Raider. Eidos Montreal R&D department made lots of changes to the engine during the development of Shadow of the Tomb Raider to make it one of the best-looking games out right now.

Benchmarks - 8K

8K Benchmarks

There are 7 minutes left until this review goes live (I actually typed 8 minutes but in the time of typing it went down to 7, and it'll soon go down to 6) so I simply didn't have time to get the 8K benchmarks in final form. What I can tell you is that the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti kicks ass at 8K.

NVIDIA absolutely dominates every single resolution with the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition, ensuring 4K 60FPS is actually achievable without breaking a sweat. Upping the ante to 7680x4320, aka 8K really sees the card working hard. 8K 30FPS is something achievable with the RTX 2080 Ti FE, and that's pretty damn mind blowing. We have scores that are closer to GTX 1080 Ti SLI than a single GTX 1080 Ti or TITAN Xp.

There'll be a follow up article early next week on 8K gaming performance, check back then.

Overclocking

Overclocking Turing & GDDR6

I've had less than 48 hours in total with the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti at the time of writing, with 16-hour days to get all of the benchmarking and writing done. Overclocking took a back seat until I was finished with all of the results and half the review written, but this is something I'll be playing with in subsequent articles after this one. I have experimented of course, I couldn't have the card here and not OC before the review embargo, right?!

I used EVGA PrecisionX1 software (the early reviewer version) which will be different when the full version is out, and MSI's new Afterburner has Turing GPU support but arrived on the tail end of my review. I will have more detail on all of the NVIDIA Scanner-capable OC software apps from EVGA, MSI, ZOTAC and others in the custom reviews, and a round up at the end.

My sample of the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition could be overclocked between 1995-2100MHz, where it would float between that 100MHz stretch of GPU highway depending on the load of the card. I had the voltage at 100% to allow maximum OC (didn't have enough time to balance this all out), and the GDDR6 overclocked by 1000MHz up to 15Gbps total.

After I wrote this part of the review I played with the GDDR6 overclocking a little more and reached 16Gbps (which is quite crazy when you think about it). I have some OC performance of the overclocked RTX 2080 Ti FE that will follow this review, but we're looking at 5-10% more performance on top which is pretty crazy considering how fast the card is at stock clocks.

I had both of the fans on the RTX 2080 Ti FE at 100% to ensure the card was running cool throughout my OC testing, with it hitting 55-59C and maxing out at 60-61C. The card is loud but not as loud as the fully-spun cooler on the Radeon RX Vega 64 or GTX 1080 Ti FE and TITAN Xp graphics cards. I've got a custom ZOTAC GeForce RTX 2080 Ti AMP on-hand and will be testing that card out after this, but I can tell you this much: the custom cooler on the ZOTAC card is incredible, and keeps the Turing GPU even cooler than the Founders Edition.

At the time of writing I only have a few OC results with the RTX 2080 Ti, but I'll have a follow up article in the next 24-48 hours with OC results which are pretty impressive considering the RTX 2080 Ti already kicks the asses of every other graphics card on the market.

Heat, Power, Noise

Coolest GeForce Yet

NVIDIA has always made good but not great reference cards, putting in the most effort ever with its last-gen GeForce GTX 10 series Founders Edition cards. They were good, but they got super hot - hitting 83C without a problem and were untouchable between testing. It always made it hard doing mass benchmarks because the GTX 10 FE cards would get blistering hot. I'd burn myself every now and again when going between cards, which sucked.

Well, that doesn't happen with Turing. The new GeForce RTX 2080 Ti runs at a maximum of 70-75C during most testing with its fans on auto and only 60C maximum with the fans at 100%. I'll do more testing of the temperature of the GPU in more detail in the coming days, but the GPU doesn't get anywhere near as hot or maintain its heat like Pascal does.

The backplate on the RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition card still stays incredibly hot, so while the GPU is running at a cool 60C with the fans at 100%, the backplate is ridiculously hot. The ends of the card don't run hot so you can still grab it, but that's where the custom RTX cards will come into play. We have one already and multiple others on the way (the typhoons near China aren't helping).

Power Consumption

Stock: I was hitting around 330-350W total under 100% stress loads, around the level of power consumption of the TITAN Xp, but a little more than a fully loaded GTX 1080 Ti. We'll have more on this soon as well.

OC: The new GeForce RTX 2080 Ti uses anywhere between 400-460W of power when overclocked, depending on the game, resolution, frame rate, and temperature of the card. With the Turing GPU and GDDR6 both overclocked, and the fans at 100% we had power consumption of up to 470W peak in Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Power consumption was anywhere between 400-430W in Metro Last Light, while it sat between 420-460W in Rainbow Six Siege.

Quietest GeForce Ever

If you leave the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition to its own, it will run nice and quiet for you - hitting 70-75C. This temperature isn't enough to crank the fans to 100% yet, so it'll be nice and quiet while running over 10C cooler than the GTX 10 Founders Edition cards (GTX 1080/1080 Ti/TITAN Xp).

This was one of the more impressive parts of NVIDIA's new card... it blows the performance doors off the current flagship GeForce GTX 1080 Ti and TITAN Xp graphics cards, while doing so cooler and quieter than both of those cards. Incredible stuff, really. Turing, the new power delivery system, GDDR6, and everything in between has been tuned to perfection for the RTX 2080 Ti.

Unrivaled Performance

NVIDIA is not just throwing punches with the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, its coming through and just punching through walls. After it's punched through the wall, the RTX 2080 Ti steps into the next line in the sand of performance and firmly places its flag. The RTX 2080 Ti absolutely owns all resolutions and games, and is now the fastest graphics card you can buy.

All the hype was worth it for a 30-50% increase in 4K performance over not just the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, but the TITAN Xp which was worth $1199 until the RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition arrived and took its price of $1199. It's a fairer comparison to not judge the RTX 2080 Ti against the GTX 1080 Ti, but more of 'how good is the card for $1199 that replaces the TITAN Xp'.

Looking at the RTX 2080 Ti like this puts it in a class of its own. The RTX 2080 on its own replaces the TITAN Xp in virtually all resolutions and games, but the RTX 2080 Ti is a huge leap up from the already-great performance of the RTX 2080. To put it plainly, I see the RTX 2080 and RTX 2080 Ti like the arms on Henry Cavill in Mission Impossible: Fallout:

The King Of 4K Gaming

NVIDIA's new Turing-based GeForce RTX 2080 Ti kicks f***ing ass at 4K gaming, I've said it elsewhere in the review because that's the only way of explaining it. Holy hell does it throw some punches at 4K, going above and beyond what I expected over the GTX 1080 Ti and TITAN Xp. This is an entire new class of performance for $1199, putting the TITAN Xp to shame really.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider running at 4K on Ultra graphics (AA disabled) we are seeing 58/65FPS on minimum/average, respectively. This is pretty crazy when you think the GTX 1080 Ti is only pushing out 41/47FPS, respectively, giving the RTX 2080 Ti an increase of 38% at 4K.

Far Cry 5 on the RTX 2080 Ti shows similar results, with a 32% increase in performance over the GTX 1080 Ti. Rainbow Six Siege on the other hand is incredibly gracious of all of the new horsepower from Turing and GDDR6 on the RTX 2080 Ti, with a huge 73% increase in performance.

Rainbow Six Siege sees the RTX 2080 Ti pushing out 80/102FPS on minimum/average, respectively, while the GTX 1080 Ti is only capable of 32/49FPS, respectively. 73% increase in performance is absolutely incredible. For comparison, the Radeon RX Vega 64 LCE pushes 50FPS average.

Middle-earth: Shadow of War is another game hard on graphics cards, but at 4K the new GeForce RTX 2080 Ti is pushing out 32/81FPS on minimum/average, respectively. Another huge gain over the GTX 1080 Ti at 4K in Shadow of War with an increase of 42% on the RTX 2080 Ti.

I Really Want To Test NVLink

We're seeing an average of 80-100FPS at 4K on the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, so all I can wonder is how the NVLink multi-GPU performance will be on the new Turing cards.

Even if you were to get 30-50% scaling through RTX 2080 Ti cards on NVLink, you would be pushing well past 120FPS at 4K which is just insane. It really is unheard of, and something that Vega could never come close to. I don't think we'll ever see a current-gen GPU architecture from AMD pushing past 4K 120FPS.

None of our games ran at below 60FPS at 4K on the RTX 1080 Ti, but the same can't be said for the GTX 1080 Ti or TITAN Xp graphics cards. They will drop below 60FPS average at times, but the RTX 2080 Ti just bashes through them all.

All Without DLSS... Yet

This is something I can't wait to get into, either... Deep Learning Super Sampling, or DLSS. We are told to expect a huge leap in performance with DLSS-enabled games, so not only will they look better but they'll run faster as well. These results at 4K can only go up with the adoption of DLSS meaning that your RTX 20 series graphics card can make your games run faster in the future. Awesome!

More Coming Soon & Final Thoughts 1.0

SO MUCH MORE Coming Soon

As I said earlier on in the review, I've only had around 48 hours with the new GeForce RTX 2080 and RTX 2080 Ti graphics cards. I wanted to get the main portion of this review out of the way with the larger of the two cards reviewed, meaning the RTX 2080 gets summed up here quickly in the RTX 2080 Ti review as it's already in our benchmark charts. I'll take a look at the GeForce RTX 2080 in a separate article soon.

I will have more detailed 8K benchmarks with stock and OC results, as well as upcoming NVLink benchmarks when an NVLink bridge and hopefully second RTX 2080/RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition arrive. 4K 144Hz HDR game benchmarks will also happen, as well as more of a look into 3440x1440 performance for 21:9 UltraWide gaming monitors. I wouldn't recommend the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti to anyone on a 1080p monitor, and even a 1440p monitor is pushing it unless it's a high refresh rate 120/144/165Hz panel.

4K is where the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti stretches its legs, something you can see very obviously in our benchmark charts.

Final Thoughts 1.0

NVIDIA has released what is in my eyes, the best graphics card of all time. It's not just a faster card, it's a better card in virtually every single way. If we take the price out of the equation and look at it from purely a technological point of view, the Turing GPU architecture is a work of art. It delivers truly next generation performance and features, something that will only be fully realized in the years to come.

It has been many years since we've had a truly huge GPU architectural shake up from NVIDIA, with Pascal feeling like a more refined Maxwell and that has been the last five years of our lives with the GeForce GTX series. The new GeForce RTX series marks a monumental time: NVIDIA is putting its foot firmly onto the ground and said "this is what we want to do with the future of PC gaming" with its new real-time ray tracing technology, RTX features, and brute gaming performance from the new RTX 20 series graphics card.

So what will AMD do now? Well, if you look at the charts for the most part the highest-end flagship Radeon RX Vega 64 can barely beat the GeForce GTX 1080. Vega 64 can't compete with the GTX 1080 Ti, let alone the RTX 2080 or RTX 2080 Ti. NVIDIA has utterly redefined the high-end graphics card market by pushing the price of their GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition to $1199, effectively killing the TITAN Xp that is the same price.

It also opens up the market for a Turing-based GeForce RTX which could come much closer to $1999 in my opinion, with up to 12-16GB of GDDR6 RAM and a full-blown Turing GPU with every bell and whistle enabled. This would leave the GeForce GTX 10 series on its own between $250-$700 covered by the GTX 1060 through to GTX 1080 Ti. NVIDIA is creating a new market between $700-$1200 that it doesn't just dominate, it's the only player. They have effectively shifted the entire graphics card market on its head and then drawn new lines in the sand with RTX.

I'm utterly blown away by the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti. Totally blown away.

So many people will get triggered over its huge $1199 pricing, but comparing it to the previous $1199 card in the TITAN Xp, it blows it away. If NVIDIA had provided 5-10-15% more performance over the TITAN Xp in the RTX 2080 Ti, I would've been impressed. More performance at that level of the graphics card industry is unheard of. AMD couldn't come close to the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, hell it was blindsided by it when they unveiled Vega at Capsaicin 2017.

NVIDIA held its own surprise launch event for the GTX 1080 Ti blowing everyone away. I knew people at AMD who were shocked at the sudden announcement and release of the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti. AMD knew it could never beat the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti, something that was launched before Radeon RX Vega 56 and 64, and absolutely dominated it until now. HBM2 and HBCC alongside the new Vega GPU architecture weren't enough in that form to compete against Pascal let alone Volta and now Turing.

The use of GDDR6 has been incredible, with NVIDIA the first with the new super-fast memory standard being a big upgrade over GDDR5X on the GTX 1080/1080 Ti and TITAN Xp. AMD went with HBM2 and it ultimately failed on Vega, but the implementation of GDDR6 on the new GeForce RTX cards is a big winner for NVIDIA. Starting at 14Gbps is incredible, as it can scale to 18-20Gbps giving us far more memory bandwidth than even HBM2 in its current form.

Should You Buy It? & Final Thoughts 2.0

Should You 'Just Buy It'?

Should you buy the new GeForce RTX 2080 Ti? For the most part it's a resounding 'YES!!!' but there are a few things to note:

If money was out of the question: Absolutely yes. It costs the same as the TITAN Xp, and offers magnitudes more performance. Most enthusiasts who don't worry about the money aspect of buying hardware (there are plenty, we all know at least one person like that) will find an amazing product with the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti. Unrivaled performance, that no other graphics card on the market comes close to.

1080p/1440p monitor owners: No. I think the new GeForce RTX 2080 Ti at $1199 (at least in Founders Edition form) is too expensive for 1080p monitor owners. 2560x1440 panels with 60Hz refresh rates won't benefit too much from the Turing GPU architecture, unless you cranked every single in-game visual detail up. You could use AA or DLSS (if it's supported) and enjoy massive frame rates at 1440p on the RTX 1080 Ti. I would be checking the performance of the games you play most on the new RTX 2080 Ti. If there's something you want me to test, let me know in the comments below.

DLSS: This is one of the key parts of the new Turing GPU architecture, Deep Learning Super Sampling. DLSS can really change everything for GeForce RTX series graphics card owners, as NVIDIA's own deep neural network will eventually improve DLSS-supported games so that they not only look better, but they have huge performance gains. NVIDIA is practising magic, I know it.

4K monitor/TV owners: Abso-effing-lutely. NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 2080 Ti is almost magic, it is as close to magic in a graphics card we've ever had. 4K performance is out of this f***ing world, there's no other way to explain it. We're seeing 4K 60FPS and beyond with the RTX 2080 Ti, and that's without DLSS enabled. Some games are pushing 4K 120FPS with Ultra detail enabled, so if you knocked some of those down the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti can feed out 4K 120FPS right now. INCREDIBLE.

Upgrading to 4K 144Hz: This is the best use case of the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti... 4K 144Hz HDR G-Sync gaming monitors. They might cost $2000, but if you were spending that much money on a gaming display then outlaying $1199 on a new RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition is no problem, right? It's the only card on the market that offers beyond TITAN Xp performance (for the same price you're getting a HUGE performance increase).

RTX/real-time ray tracing games: OBVIOUSLY. This is the absolute pinnacle of the Turing GPU architecture: real-time ray tracing with RTX supported games. There are gigantic games with the likes of Battlefield V, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Metro Exodus and so many more that are adding RTX support. I expect that post-launch we'll see countless more games announced with RTX abilities.

3440x1440 monitor owners: This is another resolution that has really needed a new card. 3440x1440 is a great resolution, one of my personal favorites, except that it doesn't warrant dropping $1199 on the TITAN Xp for its performance jump over the GTX 1080 Ti. The new GeForce RTX 2080 Ti on the other hand, is worth dropping $1199 on a new 3440x1440 - especially if it can crank to 100-120Hz, which the RTX 2080 Ti can easily provide 120FPS for at 3440x1440.

Enthusiasts: I'm leaving enthusiasts until last. I'm an enthusiast, take my job away from TweakTown and I would've pre-ordered one of these cards on day one. If it was only 10-20% performance leap over the GTX 1080 Ti it would only be 5-10% faster than the TITAN Xp which is replaces in the price stack of cards from NVIDIA. But the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti is something special. Overclocking headroom is awesome on the card, RTX features and AI/deep learning features are amazing, too.

Enthusiasts will feel more at home with the new Turing GPU and GDDR6 memory as there's so many new tricks, games, features, and unrivaled performance inside of the new RTX 20 series cards that we're simply too early to really take it all in. I think enthusiasts will have the most fun with Turing, as NVIDIA is wholly embracing overclocking with the RTX series, a first for the company. One-click OC? That's insane.

Final Thoughts 2.0

NVIDIA has raised the bar on the entire graphics card market with the new Turing GPU and GeForce RTX series of graphics cards. AMD can't just enter with a mid-range Navi GPU and not expect the entire world to ask 'so are you going to compete with NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 2080 Ti graphics card?'. That will happen, and the response from AMD will be a decider on how 2019 will fare for the graphics card market.

AMD's flagship Radeon RX Vega 64 still costs $580 on Amazon at the time of writing, in the form of an overclocked ASUS ROG STRIX Radeon RX Vega 64. AMD has nothing higher than that for gamers, so the new RTX 2080 and RTX 2080 Ti sit alone in their beyond-enthusiast reach from AMD. If you have a 4K gaming monitor you're not hitting 60FPS with everything on Ultra in most games on Radeon, but now there's a card where you can: RTX 2080 Ti.

If you want the best gaming performance, period, then you will want to buy the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti. If you were interested in buying the expensive new 4K 144Hz HDR G-Sync gaming monitor, until now there was nothing that could get close to feeding it 4K at 144FPS... but now there is. I've only had it for a few hours, but I used the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti on my 4K 144Hz HDR G-Sync monitor and played Overwatch at 4K on Ultra graphics (minus AA) and it was sublime.

I've never had a smoother Overwatch experience, especially at 4K than I did with the RTX 2080 Ti. Until the Turing GPU, I had the NVIDIA TITAN Xp in my 8700K gaming rig which was good for 100-120FPS average in Overwatch at 4K on Medium. I'm now running 4K Ultra and hitting 130-150FPS average, while at Medium on the RTX 2080 Ti it was running at 150FPS minimum so it was beyond liquid smooth.

At $1199, the new NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti Founders Edition is the most expensive GeForce ever, but is it all first adopter tax and price gouging because there's no competition? Well, think about it: we have a totally new GPU to manufacture (Turing in TU102 form) as well as 11GB of expensive, and super-fast GDDR6 memory. The GPU is made on the new 12nm process and with 18.6 billion transistors, it's not something that can be mass produced with millions of cards sold per month.

We're walking into new territory right now, and people are going to think "is NVIDIA able to charge $1199 for the RTX 2080 Ti FE because Vega sucked?" and it is a very, very valid question. Yes, NVIDIA can and they should charge $1199. This is a new market, folks. The prices are being set this high because unfortunately NVIDIA can do whatever the hell it wants. They're the ones investing billions and billions into R&D into these new technologies, constantly pushing the envelope further and further.

NVIDIA should be commended with a standing ovation for not just the Turing GPU architecture, but the moves they've been making for the last few years. PC gamers have benefited in so many ways, and I don't think there's a way to even see all of what NVIDIA has done as a whole. It's not just new GPU technology that NVIDIA continues to break new ground in (seriously, a hat trick of GPU architectures in Maxwell, Pascal, Volta - and then it all starts again with Turing) - but it's everything else.

GeForce Experience

ShadowPlay (game recordings)

Ansel (game screenshots/more)

Self-driving car tech

AI/deep learning

BGFD TVs (4K 120Hz HDR G-Sync)

4K 144Hz HDR G-Sync

SLI/NVLink

HairWorks

HBAO+

These are NVIDIA technologies just off the top of my head without Googling more, NVIDIA is pushing the boundaries and creating new products to fill new markets. 65-inch 4K 120Hz HDR G-Sync gaming displays? No one else does that. ShadowPlay is an amazing tool used by tens of millions of gamers. AMD isn't close on that, period. Self-driving car tech might not be heavily used now, but I want a company like NVIDIA doing it simply because they can.

The gaming market for NVIDIA is its most important, with GeForce representing over half of NVIDIA's revenue each quarter. NVIDIA needs to dominate the gaming GPU market because it holds the highest percentage and it eats, breathes, and bleeds gaming as a company. AI is another market that NVIDIA is quickly becoming the king of, powered by its deep learning technology and deep neural networks. The company is firing on all cylinders and is a champion of so many of them. Sometimes, without competition at all... not even a whimper.

If AMD wants to compete in this market they're going to have to join a new price range offering performance at equal to Turing and the RTX 2080 Ti for let's say, $1000. I really can't see this happening as it would mean Navi is scaling from consoles (PS5) through to beyond Vega and into Turing territory. I can't see this happening either, so it could be Vega 20 on 7nm with GDDR6. Until now, Vega was meant to be locked to HBM2 technology - but if Vega 20 was made on 7nm and used GDDR6... we might see Turing level performance.

At that stage, the 7nm production and use of Vega 20 and HBM2 in games comes into play - is Navi the mid-range (1080p 60FPS and 4K 30FPS) while the new Vega 20 with GDDR6 could offer 4K 60FPS and above. No one knows at this point, but I expect an update from the RTG team after the launch of the GeForce RTX cards. I'm hoping it's something, and the tease can't be something they can't deliver - AMD need to either completely leave this new market to NVIDIA to dominate (admitting defeat of the high-end PC graphics card industry) or enter it, and compete or beat NVIDIA.

Vega sucked. We all know it did. AMD - you'll read this, and I want you to know it. You tried, and it failed. Vega can be great, and Vega 20 on 7nm will actually be exciting alongside the current domination with Ryzen/Threadripper, AMD is doing really well. Radeon on the other hand, I'm sorry - but as an enthusiast of over 20 years, Radeon is dead right now. RX Vega 64 doesn't impress me technologically, or in performance. But that doesn't mean Radeon is finished, there is a glimmer of hope from Vega 20 and Navi in 2019.

What Will AMD Do & Final Thoughts 3.0

What Will AMD Do?

If AMD wants to compete in this market they're going to have to join a new price range offering performance at equal to Turing and the RTX 2080 Ti for let's say, $1000. I really can't see this happening as it would mean Navi is scaling from consoles (PS5) through to beyond Vega and into Turing territory. I can't see this happening either, so it could be Vega 20 on 7nm with GDDR6. Until now, Vega was meant to be locked to HBM2 technology - but if Vega 20 was made on 7nm and used GDDR6... we might see Turing level performance.

At that stage, the 7nm production and use of Vega 20 and HBM2 in games comes into play - is Navi the mid-range (1080p 60FPS and 4K 30FPS) while the new Vega 20 with GDDR6 could offer 4K 60FPS and above. No one knows at this point, but I expect an update from the RTG team after the launch of the GeForce RTX cards. I'm hoping it's something, and the tease can't be something they can't deliver - AMD need to either completely leave this new market to NVIDIA to dominate (admitting defeat of the high-end PC graphics card industry) or enter it, and compete or beat NVIDIA.

Vega sucked. We all know it did. AMD - you'll read this, and I want you to know it. You tried, and it failed. Vega can be great, and Vega 20 on 7nm will actually be exciting alongside the current domination with Ryzen/Threadripper, AMD is doing really well. Radeon on the other hand, I'm sorry - but as an enthusiast of over 20 years, Radeon is dead right now. RX Vega 64 doesn't impress me technologically, or in performance. But that doesn't mean Radeon is finished, there is a glimmer of hope from Vega 20 and Navi in 2019.

Final Thoughts 3.0

I didn't think I'd get to 24 pages and over 10,000 words but here we are. NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 2080 Ti is a game changer in more ways than one, and deserves all of the attention it will get. It's bloody expensive, freaking fast, and bursting with so many new features you can't even use them all yet.

The GeForce RTX 2080 Ti is the first graphics card I've ever tested that I've had to go back and re-benchmark a few 3DMark runs and games, because the results seemed off... the RTX 2080 Ti was so much better than the TITAN Xp and even the RTX 2080 that I had to spend hours re-benchmarking to be 100% sure. Once that benchmarking was complete, the numbers lined up and it was just that fast. I've never tested a card that stomps on all the previous cards so much you need to double check the data because it seemed like too far of a jump.

2560x1440, 3440x1440, and 4K monitor owners all have a new card that guarantees the very best performance possible: NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 2080 Ti. Unrivaled performance, a completely relentlessly awesome graphics card that is so good it has raised the bar that high it has set a new standard in not just performance, but price.

At $1199 the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti is the most expensive graphics card on the market, bar the TITAN V - which I don't take into consideration in this review. Gamers will only buy the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti and TITAN Xp, both of which get decimated by the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti in every single test. People were happy buying the TITAN Xp for $1199 and getting more performance than the GTX 1080 Ti. Well, that same money gets you a massive performance over the TITAN Xp, which is insane when you think about it.

NVIDIA can't leave the TITAN brand out there without a Turing GPU inside, which is where I want to see a TITAN RTX released with 12-16GB of GDDR6 and some serious upgrades in performance. We could have the world's first 4K 120FPS graphics card with a purported TITAN RTX as we're so very close as it is with the GeForce RTX 1080 Ti. A purported TITAN RTX could be anywhere between $1499-$1999 if it were to be made a reality, and I don't see why NVIDIA wouldn't do it.

The new TITAN RTX could be an ace up NVIDIA's sleeve for when they launch their Big Format Gaming Displays in 2019. Think about it: BFGDs come in at a huge 65-inch with a super-fast 144Hz refresh rate, as well as HDR and G-Sync technologies. You can't just plug any 'ol graphics card into it and start cranking through the latest games (and in 2019 no less) on a GTX 760.

You're going to need some out-of-this-world graphics card like a purported TITAN RTX that can drive 4K 120FPS in a bunch of games, while dropping details down a little bit on a card as fast as that would ensure most games would run 4K 120FPS on a BFGD. 2019 is going to be a helluva year, that's for sure.

All-in-all, NVIDIA has redefined the enthusiast level of graphics cards with the new Turing-based GeForce RTX 2080 Ti. Even at its swollen $1199, it is amazing value for money considering just a few weeks ago people were buying the TITAN Xp for the same price and were, like me, happy with its performance lead over the GTX 1080 Ti. But now the $1199 spot is dominated by the RTX 2080 Ti, and its worthy of its position.

How long the GeForce GTX 10 series stays on shelves will be the question, or will they fill out the RTX series with more cards next year and have the new minimums of the RTX 1060 start higher at $399+ or so. There are some gamers who don't want to pay the additional costs of AI and RTX technologies on a card, they might want to play other games that don't use these technologies. Why should they be forced into spending more on the card?

But on the flip side, NVIDIA could pump many older and eSports level games through its DNN and give us DLSS support so the games run far better on RTX series cards, and look better than our games now without AA enabled, or with 4x AA. This is where things can get really interesting for NVIDIA, but I do wonder about the GTX 10 series longevity on the market post-RTX launch.

The new king is here everyone, welcome the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti. How long will this be the #1 card? 6 months? A year? 18 months? Longer? At this rate, NVIDIA is the only one that could succeed it, unless Skynet does it first.Roma and Viktoria Plzen both have to recover from chastening matchday one experiences as they meet in the Stadio Olimpico in Group G.

 While Roma slipped to a 3-0 defeat at holders Real Madrid, Plzen looked set to kick off with a victory as they opened up a two-goal lead on CSKA Moskva, only to concede twice in the second period  the equaliser a penalty deep into added time  to be pegged back to a 2-2 draw.

Previous meetings

 Roma will be looking for a repeat of the sides' only previous meeting in Rome, a 4-1 home victory in the 2016/17 UEFA Europa League group stage. Edin Dzeko contributed a hat-trick, with Martin Zeman mustering the sole Plzen reply.

 The reverse fixture in the Czech Republic had finished 1-1. Diego Perotti's fourth-minute penalty was cancelled out seven minutes later by Marek Bakos to earn the home side a point, although it was Roma who went on to win the section with their Czech opponents third.

Watch Roma's opening defeat at Real Madrid

Form guide

Roma

 Third in Serie A in 2017/18, Roma are in the group stage for an 11th time and the fourth in five years.

 Roma, runners-up in the 1983/84 European Cup, reached the semi-finals last season, losing to Liverpool. They finished top of a group including Chelsea and Atletico Madrid, before beating Shakhtar Donetsk and Barcelona in the knockout rounds  the latter particularly memorable, as a 4-1 away defeat was followed by a 3-0 victory at the Stadio Olimpico  before succumbing to Liverpool.

 Roma won all three home matches in last season's knockout rounds and five of their six matches at the Stadio Olimpico, drawing against Atletico Madrid on matchday one. They kept clean sheets in the first five matches, before a 4-2 win against Liverpool in the semi-final second leg.

 However, Roma have won just six of their last 13 home matches in the UEFA Champions League  qualifying included  losing four.

 The Giallorossi's only other home game against Czech visitors was a 3-1 extra-time defeat of Slavia Praha in the 1995/96 UEFA Cup quarter-final second leg, although they bowed out on away goals having lost 2-0 away.

Highlights: Plzen 2-2 CSKA Moskva

Plzen

 Plzen's 2011/12 and 2013/14 UEFA Champions League seasons both ended in the group stage after starting in the second qualifying round. This is the first time they have automatically qualified for this stage.

 In 2017/18, the Czech club lost to Romania's FCSB in the UEFA Champions League third qualifying round (2-2 away, 1-4 home). They went on to finish top of their UEFA Europa League section and beat Partizan in the round of 32, before losing to Sporting CP in the last 16 (0-2 away, 2-1 home aet).

 Plzen's 2-0 victory at Hapoel Beer-Sheva on matchday six of last season's UEFA Europa League group stage is their only win in their last 15 European away fixtures (D6 L8).

 In Plzen's first two UEFA Champions League group campaigns, their away record was W1 L5. Their sole success was a 1-0 victory at BATE Borisov in November 2011.

 The Czech champions have lost two of their three away games in Italy  although the exception was a memorable 3-0 win at Napoli in the 2012/13 UEFA Europa League round of 32, setting up a 5-0 aggregate success.

Links and trivia

 Dzeko played in the Czech Republic for Teplice between 2005 and 2007, having a loan spell at Usti nad Labem in 2005. The Bosnia and Herzgovina striker, who can speak fluent Czech, scored 16 goals in 43 appearances for Teplice.

 Dzeko scored away (3-0) and home (4-2) as Manchester City beat Plzen twice in the 2013/14 UEFA Champions League group stage.

 Roma's Czech international forward Patrik Schick played for Sparta Praha (201315) and Bohemians 1905 (2015/16) before moving to Italy with Sampdoria in 2016.

 David Limbersky played four games for Modena in 2003/04.

Latest news

Roma

 Summer transfers

In: Ivan Marcano (Porto), Ante Coric (Dinamo Zagreb), Bryan Cristante (Atalanta), Justin Kluivert (Ajax), Antonio Mirante (Bologna), Davide Santon (Inter), Javier Pastore (Paris), William Bianda (Lens)*, Nicolo Zaniolo (Internazionale), Daniel Fuzato (Palmeiras)*, Robin Olsen (Kbenhavn), Steven N'Zonzi (Sevilla)

Out: Radja Nainggolan (Inter), Marco Tumminello (Atalanta), Arturo Calabresi (Bologna), Lukasz Skorupski (Bologna), Bruno Peres (Sao Paulo, loan), Alisson Becker (Liverpool), Gerson (Fiorentina, loan), Gregoire Defrel (Sampdoria, loan), Leandro Castan (released), Maxime Gonalons (Sevilla, loan), Kevin Strootman (Marseille)

 Roma picked up only five points from their first five Serie A games  their worst start to a season since 2010/11. However, they were 4-0 winners against Frosinone on 26 September, Cengiz Under scoring the first goal to open his account for the season.

 Eusebio Di Francesco's side were 3-1 winners against Lazio in the Rome derby on Saturday afternoon, Aleksandar Kolarov scoring for the second game in a row and Lorenzo Pellegrini opening his account for the season.

 Against Frosinone, Daniele De Rossi made his 600th Roma appearance in all competitions.

 The Frosinone match is Roma's only clean sheet since the 1-0 win at Torino on Serie A's opening weekend.

 Lorenzo Pellegrini's goal against Lazio made him the tenth different Roma player to find the net in 2018/19.

 Luca Pellegrini made his Roma debut against Frosinone, providing the assist for Kolarov's goal; Nicolo Zaniolo also made his first Serie A appearance.

 Diego Perotti has been out since picking up a thigh injury in a 2-0 loss at Bologna on 23 September.

Plzen

 Summer transfers:

In: Ludek Pernica (Jablonec), Ubong Ekpai (Zlin), Roman Prochazka (Levski Sofia), Pavel Bucha (unattached)

Out: Andreas Ivanschitz (released), Diego Zivulic (Pafos), Vaclav Pilar (Sigma Olomouc), Milos Kratochvil (Jablonec), Marek Bakos (Spartak Trnava)

 Having won their first six league games this season, including three away, Plzen have lost the last two away from home; a 4-0 loss at Slavia Praha in a top-of-the-table contest on 1 September  their heaviest defeat since a 5-0 loss, also at Slavia, in May 2016  and a 3-0 defeat at Jablonec after matchday one.

 Plzen did, however, beat Sparta Praha 1-0 at home on Friday, Roman Prochazka scoring the only goal on his first appeance since 26 August after recovering from a muscle problem.

 Prochazka has made seven appearances for Plzen, and all seven games have ended in victory.

 The club's official shirts for the UEFA Champions League group stage feature a logo promoting the Czech national bone marrow donors register on the back. All Plzen's senior and Under-19 players have joined the register.The US Coast Guard will transfer two Island-class patrol boats to Ukraine during a ceremony in Baltimore on Thursday, September 27.

The U.S. Coast Guard is scheduled to implement the transfer of two former 110-foot Coast Guard cutters, the Cutters Drummond and Cushing, during a ceremony Thursday at Coast Guard Yard in Baltimore, reads the statement posted on website of the United States Coast Guard.

Coast Guard Vice Admiral Michael McAllister, Deputy Commandant for Mission Support and President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko will attend the ceremony.

Island-class patrol boats are equipped with advanced electronics and navigation equipment and are used in support of the Coast Guard's maritime homeland security, migrant interdiction, drug interdiction, defense operations, fisheries Enforcement, and search and rescue missions.

The US transfers two boats to Ukraine amid the increasing tension between Ukraine and the Russian Federation in the Sea of Azov over the last weeks. Ukraine and the United States condemn Russia's harassment of Ukrainian shipping in the region.

olUkrainian Navy vessels Donbas and Korets entered the Sea of Azov to counteract Russia's provocative actions there, according to Maksym Kiriakidi, deputy commander of the Ukrainian Navy.

He told this in an exclusive commentary to Ukrinform's correspondent aboard the Donbas search and rescue ship in Mariupol, where it is currently docked.

"The vessels were deployed to secure Ukraine's sovereign rights of use of the Azov Sea and the Kerch Strait. They will secure the freedom of navigation in the Azov Sea," he said.

Kiriakidi added that the Ukrainian Navy is essential off Ukraine's coast in the Sea of Azov to defend ports and the state's economic interests.

"Locals were very happy [to see us arriving], especially the Ukrainian Sea Ports Authority, the ports themselves, the city council. They were waiting for the Ukrainian Navy to arrive here. They hope we will make Russians restrain from their provocative activities in the Azov Sea. People then won't lose jobs, and the state won't lose money due to provocative actions of the Russian Federation," Kiriakidi said.

The A500 Donbas search and rescue vessel is the first step to create Ukraine's soon-to-be naval base of the Ukrainian Navy in the Azov Sea.

"It will serve as a support vessel, as well as a command vessel for our boats in the sea. It will coordinate the actions of our forces. It will fulfill tasks on securing the independence of our state," the deputy commander added.

Ukrainian Navy vessels Donbas and Korets entered the Azov Sea through the Kerch Strait on September 23 despite numerous obstacles and provocative actions of the Russian Navy. Their transfer from Odesa around Russian-occupied Crimea and under the Kerch Strait Bridge has come as a total surprise for the Russian commandment, which panicked and showed their unpreparedness to it. The operation has been planned and conducted under Ukraine's General Staff command to fulfill an order by Ukraine's president.

Ukraine boosts its grouping to fulfill the decision of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine on improving Ukrainian naval presence in the Azov Sea.Ukraine and Turkey have created a unique platform for dialogue with the involvement of representatives of government and business of both countries to improve the state of economic relations, increase trade turnover and overcome problematic issues in business.

Ukraine's First Deputy Prime Minister - Minister of Economic Development and Trade Stepan Kubiv said this during his visit to Turkey and meetings with representatives of Turkish business, an Ukrinform correspondent reported.

"The Ukrainian-Turkish platform has become the beginning of a new historical period of the Ukrainian-Turkish dialogue and our economic relations. This platform aims at attracting representatives of the authorities and businesses of both sides. When we started to work in this direction, the level of exports grew significantly. Last year, the exports from Ukraine to Turkey amounted to $2.7 billion, and for seven months of this year it was $1.6 billion," Kubiv said.

The minister is sure that an open dialogue between business and authorities of both countries will provide business representatives with an opportunity for long-term planning and defining specific goals.

"Both Ukrainian entrepreneurs in Turkey and Turkish business in Ukraine have ample opportunities. But we need to create comfortable conditions, legitimize principles, minimize risks, and private business will figured it out on its own," Kubiv said.

The ministers visit to Turkey will last two days. This is his third visit this year. The program of the visit includes his participation in the Ukrainian-Turkish business forum, meetings with the official representatives of the Turkish government and the Foreign Economic Relations Board of Turkey, a meeting with the Secretary General of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC), the representatives of the Ukrainian-Turkish Business Council and the Ukrainian community.

ishThe representative office of the center for the development of drones of the South Korean company Safeus Drone in Ukraine has been opened in the Kropyvnytsky (former Kirovograd) Flight Academy of the National Aviation University.

"We have been developing the technology park for almost five years. Today we welcome the representatives of one of the world innovative countries - the Republic of Korea - who have significant achievements in the field of drone manufacturing. Our cooperation will concern the technology park models and we will have many cooperative activities. The professors and students of our university are already working in this center," head of the flight academy Serhiy Nedilko said in a commentary to an Ukrinform correspondent.

The main directions of the cooperation are the development of technologies for the use of drones in various fields; drone and robotics training for students; organization of a network of service centers for drone owners and others.

olChina has allowed to perform regular flights from Ukraine to the cities of Haikou and Sanya located on Hainan Island, the State Aviation Administration of Ukraine reports.

As noted in the letter by which the Chinese side confirmed the relevant decision, the designated air carriers can perform unlimited number of flights to Hainan Island, using the third and the fourth air freedoms. These freedoms provide the rights to carry passengers and goods from Ukraine to China and vice versa.

Three Ukrainian airlines - UIA, Azur Air Ukraine and SkyUp  have submitted applications for obtaining the right to perform regular flights from Kyiv to Haikou and Sanya. The commission of the State Aviation Administration of Ukraine will consider them at a meeting on September 26.

To date, only UIA performs regular flights to China, flying between Kyiv and Beijing.

olIn the first half of 2018, Ukraine recorded an increase in the total volume of provided loans by 14.7% compared with the corresponding period of last year.

Representative of the Association of Financial Institutions Viktoria Volkovska said this at a press conference held in Ukrinform today.

"Non-governmental financial institutions granted loans to the population, as well as small and medium-sized businesses, in the amount of UAH 22 billion, which is 14.7% more than in the same period in 2017," she said.

The lessors concluded financial leasing contracts in the amount of UAH 11 billion, which is 92% more than in the same period last year.

The volume of factoring services provided by financial companies in the first half of the year increased by UAH 14 billion, showing an increase of 9.8% compared to 2017.

The insurance companies provided services to the population in the amount of UAH 8.6 billion (an increase of 22.7%), enterprises - UAH 7.7 billion (an increase of 15.6%).

Insurance payments to the population in the first half of 2018 amounted to UAH 3 billion, which is 25.2% more than in the first half of 2017. Insurance payments to enterprises in the first half of the year amounted to UAH 2.9 billion, which is 29.5% more than in the first half of 2017.

ishUkrainian Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan asks the World Bank to give Ukraine recommendations on attraction of foreign investors to the development of regional airports.

The minister made a relevant statement during a meeting with World Bank representative Karla Gonzalez, the press service of the Infrastructure Ministry of Ukraine reports.

In particular, Omelyan told about the Ukrainian government's vision for developing the network of regional airports and asked the World Bank to provide expert assistance in developing appropriate recommendations on attraction of foreign investors.

In turn, Karla Gonzalez praised the progress of Ukraine in reforming the road, maritime and aviation industries and confirmed the further support for the Infrastructure Ministry of Ukraine from the World Bank.

Omelyan also briefed on the main achievements in reforming the national transport sector, thanked the World Bank for expert assistance in the development and implementation of infrastructure reforms, in particular, concerning the road economy and development of the road network in Ukraine.

olCurrency control will be relaxed from November 1, 2018 for the purchase of foreign currency by non-residents for the purpose of returning foreign investments abroad after transactions with domestic government loan bonds.

Deputy Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) Oleh Churiy said this during a quarterly meeting of the NBU Board with the leaders of the country's 40 largest banks, the NBU's press service reported.

"The National Bank continues to pursue currency liberalization aimed at improving the investment climate. Currency control will be relaxed from November 1 for the purchase of foreign currency by non-residents for the purpose of returning foreign investment abroad after transactions with domestic government loan bonds," Churiy said.

According to him, the easing of foreign exchange control for non-residents will be one of the steps in a package of measures aimed at increasing the inflow of foreign capital into Ukraine's public debt market.

"Together with the law on nominal holders and the opening of an account of an international clearing depository at the NBU's depositary, this will help increase the inflow of foreign capital to the Ukrainian public debt market," Churiy said.

The NBU said in June this tear that the volume of debt securities owned by non-residents was not significant enough to fear the negative impact of their repayment.

In particular, according to the NBU, the peak of the volume of Ukrainian hryvnia government bonds owned by non-residents was about $550 million, which is equal to the daily volume of sale and purchase of the interbank foreign exchange market.

opUkrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin has met with Finnish Foreign Minister Timo Soini at the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly.

"Pavlo Klimkin thanked his Finnish colleague for the continued support of the Finnish side for Ukrainian initiatives within the UN aimed at countering Russian aggression, in particular, when adopting the resolutions of the UN General Assembly on the territorial integrity of Ukraine, the state of observance of human rights in the occupied Crimea, and the inclusion of the item "Situation in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine" into the agenda of the current session of the UNGA," the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry reported.

In addition, the ministers discussed the ongoing aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine and the Russian side's failure to comply with the Minsk agreements, as well as the need to increase pressure on the aggressor to release political prisoners and prevent further provocations by Moscow against Ukraine.

ishNATO will not be seeking Russias permission for Kyiv to join the alliance.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said this in an interview with The Associated Press before the meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in New York.

Its for Ukraine to decide its own path, whether they want to join NATO or not. At the end of the day it will be 29 allies and Ukraine that decides whether Ukraine is ready to meet the standards of joining NATO, he said.

Stoltenberg expressed concern about Russias military interference in Ukraine and Georgia, support for Syrias Bashar Assad, and the buildup of Russias naval forces in the eastern Mediterranean.

At the same time, Stoltenberg called for maintaining a dialogue between NATO and Russia to help defuse tensions as long as conflicts like that in Ukraine remain unresolved.

When we have serious disagreements, when we see increased tensions, when we see more military presence close to our borders, its actually even more important to have dialogue, Stoltenberg said in an interview.The United States has reaffirmed its strong support for Ukraines sovereignty and territorial integrity.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John J. Sullivan said this during a meeting with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, the U.S. Department of State reported.

"The Deputy Secretary emphasized that the United States does not and will never recognize Russias attempted annexation of Crimea and reaffirmed strong U.S. support for Ukraines sovereignty and territorial integrity," the report reads.

In addition, the parties discussed a range of issues, including cooperative efforts against Russias malign influence, Russias use of energy projects to extort and intimidate Ukraine and other European allies, as well as Ukraines progress in implementing political and economic reforms.

ishForeign Minister of Ukraine Pavlo Klimkin and Foreign Minister of Kazakhstan Kairat Abdurakhmanov discussed the deepening of political, parliamentary and economic cooperation.

The Foreign Ministry of Ukraine reported this following a meeting between the ministers at the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly.

"Pavlo Klimkin expressed concern to the Kazakh counterpart about the fact that Kazakhstan did not support the inclusion of the item "Situation in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine" into the agenda of the current session of the UNGA. In this regard, the parties agreed to strengthen interaction between the two states within the framework of international organizations," the report reads.

As Ukrinform reported, the General Debate of the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly with the participation of the heads of state and government was solemnly opened in New York on September 25.

ishThe Russian Federation adamantly refuses to adhere to the international humanitarian law in the occupied Crimea.

Refat Chubarov, the Chairman of the Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar People, said this while delivering speech at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, the Permanent Mission of Ukraine to the UNO Branch and other international organizations in Geneva reports.

"Crimea remains an open wound. It is particularly painful to see the categorical refusal of the Russian Federation, the occupying power, to adhere to the norms of the international humanitarian law on the occupied peninsula. It is most distressing to receive, literally daily, news of how the Crimean Tatars continue to be selectively affected by police raids," Chubarov said.

He thanked the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine for preparing a report on human rights situation in Crimea, noting that only direct reporting from the ground can really reflect the situation in the occupied territory.

The Mejlis chairman believes that the 1944 tragedy of Crimean Tatar people is repeating today.

Widespread violations of fundamental freedoms, including freedoms of peaceful assembly, expression, association, religion and movement. There are neither independent mass media in Crimea, nor free journalism as a whole, Chubarov underscored.

As noted, Russia stubbornly ignores appeals of international organizations, political leaders, civil society to save the lives of Ukrainian citizens unlawfully arrested in Crimea, convicted under trumped-up charges and detained in Russian prisons.

Oleg Sentsov and Volodymyr Balukh have been on hunger strike more than four months and half a year respectively. Despite the promise given by the Russian president, the Ukrainian Ombudsperson was unable to get access to Ukrainian citizens  political prisoners of Russian regime. More than 70 Crimeans  Crimean Tatars, Ukrainians, representatives of other nationalities  are deprived of liberty, Chubarov added.

olThe termination of Russian aggression is crucial for the development of economic cooperation and good neighborliness between the Black Sea region countries.

"Our region is particularly sensitive to the aggression of the Russian Federation," Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Andriy Parubiy said at the meeting of the Economic, Commercial, Technological and Environmental Affairs Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation, the Verkhovna Rada press service reports.

Russian troops now stay in Moldova, Georgia, Ukraine, and, therefore, Russian aggression is in its active phase, he recalled.

"We feel it every day in Crimea, in Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Obviously, in order to ensure the harmonious development of the economies of our countries, it is extremely important to call on the Russian Federation to stop the aggression and move on to economic cooperation and good neighborliness," the speaker emphasized.

The Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada also noted that over 25 years of its existence PABSEC had become "a solid foundation of cooperation between the Black Sea region countries." According to him, Ukraine views the restoration of its territorial integrity as a very important element of this cooperation.

olCountry

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Principe, Democratic Republic of Saudi Arabia, Kingdom of Senegal, Republic of Serbia and Montenegro Seychelles, Republic of Sierra Leone, Republic of Singapore, Republic of Slovakia (Slovak Republic) Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia, Somali Republic South Africa, Republic of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Spain, Spanish State Sri Lanka, Democratic Socialist Republic of St. Helena St. Kitts and Nevis St. Lucia St. Pierre and Miquelon St. Vincent and the Grenadines Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Suriname, Republic of Svalbard & Jan Mayen Islands Swaziland, Kingdom of Sweden, Kingdom of Switzerland, Swiss Confederation Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan, Province of China Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic of Thailand, Kingdom of Timor-Leste, Democratic Republic of Togo, Togolese Republic Tokelau (Tokelau Islands) Tonga, Kingdom of Trinidad and Tobago, Republic of Tunisia, Republic of Turkey, Republic of Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda, Republic of Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom of Great Britain & N. Ireland Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of ZimbabweThe decision to stop aggression and resolve the conflict in eastern Ukraine remains in Russia's hands, the United States Embassy in Ukraine has reported on its Twitter account.

"The JCCC's work began 4 years ago today. Imagine what it might have achieved if Russia hadn't withdrawn in 2017! The decision is Russia's  stop the aggression, respect Ukraine's sovereignty, and participate productively in conflict resolution," the embassy wrote.

As reported, Russian representatives of the Joint Center for Control and Coordination (JCCC) of the ceasefire and stabilization on the contact line in Donbas quit the JCCC on December 19, 2017. The Russian Foreign Ministry explained the move by the "intense moral and psychological situation."Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has met with U.S. business representatives in New York, the press service of the head of state has reported.

"During his working visit to the United States, President Petro Poroshenko met with representatives of American business circles already represented in Ukraine or interested in developing business in our country," the statement said.

The meeting was attended by representatives of well-known American and global companies. In particular, the leaders of such companies as Holtec, AT&T, IBM Corporation, Boeing International, XCoal Energy & Resources, Motorola Solutions, GE Transportation, AM General, Bunge Ltd, Cargill, Inc., Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Citibank, Greenbrier, as well as representatives of the U.S.-Ukraine Business Council, had a conversation with the president.

The press service said that business climate, deregulation, tax policy and the achievements of the last year in the area of legislative reforms were discussed during the conversation that lasted more than two hours. Some business projects to be implemented in Ukraine in the near future were also presented.

During the meeting, the head of state presented in detail the macroeconomic situation and strategy of Ukraine's economic development on the path to European and Euro-Atlantic integration and spoke about the changes that have taken place in the country since his last meeting with American businessmen in 2017.

"Today, one can already see the results of the reforms in Ukraine, which the business itself mentions - the investment climate has been considerably improved, the number of foreign direct investments is increasing, the overall macroeconomic situation in our country has clear signs of stability," Poroshenko said.

U.S. business representatives, in turn, commended Poroshenko's leadership in implementing reforms on the path to a successful country and thanked him for "significant positive changes that the Ukrainian authorities have achieved in relation to business, in particular regarding the implementation of effective anticorruption policies, creation of a favorable investment climate and successful progress in deregulation."

American companies also expressed their willingness to increase investment in Ukraine as a result of tangible reforms in recent years.

Particular attention was paid to the issues of privatization and further attraction of foreign investments into the Ukrainian economy. In particular, representatives of one of the agrarian companies noted that Ukraine is today the most interesting and most competitive market in Europe.In Beijing, Culture Minister of Ukraine Yevhen Nyshchuk and Culture Minister of the People's Republic of China Luo Shugang have officially opened the Days of Ukrainian Culture, which will last until November 19.

"In Beijing, Culture Minister of Ukraine Yevhen Nyshchuk and Culture Minister of the People's Republic of China Luo Shugang officially opened the Days of Ukrainian Culture in China," the Embassy of Ukraine in China reported today, September 25.

The events within the framework of the Days of Culture began with the solemn opening of an exhibition of monuments of culture and arts and crafts from the Ukrainian museums at Chinas largest and most prestigious architectural and art museum complex.

On September 27-28, the Ukrainian delegation will participate in the Silk Road International Cultural Expo in Dunhuang, where Ukraine will be presented as the main guest country.

ishThe United States supports the provision of autocephaly to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

U.S. State Department Spokesperson Heather Nauert made a respective press statement on Tuesday.

"The United States strongly supports religious freedom, including the freedom of members of groups to govern their religion according to their beliefs and practice their faiths freely without government interference. The United States respects the ability of Ukraines Orthodox religious leaders and followers to pursue autocephaly according to their beliefs. We respect the Ecumenical Patriarch as a voice of religious tolerance and interfaith dialogue," reads the statement.

The department also emphasizes that the United States maintains unwavering support for Ukraine and its territorial integrity in the face of Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine and the Russian occupation of Crimea.

"We also support Ukraine as it charts its own path and makes its own decisions and associations, free of external interference," Nauert added.

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew said on Sunday, September 23, that he would not change his position on supporting the granting of autocephaly to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

On April 19, Ukrainian MPs supported President Petro Poroshenko's address to Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew on the provision of a tomos (ordinance) of autocephaly. This idea has long been supported by the leadership of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Kyiv Patriarchate) and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAOC).

The Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople has already begun the procedure needed to grant autocephaly to the new Ukrainian church. The meeting of the Synod, which will address this issue, is scheduled for October.

Recently, as part of preparations for the provision of autocephaly to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the Ecumenical Patriarchate appointed Archbishop Daniel of Pamphilon from the United States and Bishop Ilarion of Edmonton from Canada as its exarchs in Kyiv.

opRussia blocks in every way the decision of the UN Security Council to deploy a peacekeeping force to Donbas as it has fear caused by the fact that it begins to pay for its crimes.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said this at a meeting with representatives of the Ukrainian community in New York on Tuesday, according to an Ukrinform correspondent.

"Today I had the honor to speak at the peacekeeping forum. Together with our great friend Mrs. Chrystia Freeland [Foreign Minister of Canada] we strongly emphasized the demand to deploy a peacekeeping mission to Donbas with the mandate of the UN Security Council," he said.

Poroshenko noted that on the first day of the general debate he "talked a lot" with official representatives of the member states of the Security Council, including the United States, regarding the deployment of UN peacekeepers to Donbas.

"Everyone is 'for' [the deployment of a UN peacekeeping mission], except for Russia. It is afraid. It is already beginning to pay for sanctions, for crimes, and it became possible because we have great solidarity," he said.

The General Debate of the UN General Assembly with the participation of heads of state and government began at UN headquarters on Tuesday. The Ukrainian delegation is headed by President Poroshenko.

opUkrainian President Petro Poroshenko has highly appreciated the efforts of the Ukrainian community in the United States in recognizing the Holodomor of 1932-1933 as genocide of the Ukrainian people.

He said this at a meeting with the leaders of the Ukrainian community in the United States during his working visit to New York, the press service of the head of state reported.

"We have to tell the truth. The truth about the Holodomor. The terrible events of 1932-1933 left a horrible imprint on Ukrainian soul. The Holodomor is synonymous with an unprecedented human tragedy. I thank you very much for making tremendous efforts so that 12 states at the local level could recognize our tragedy as genocide," Poroshenko said.

At the same time, he stressed that Ukraine was waiting for the decision of the U.S. Congress to recognize the Holodomor as genocide at the congressional committee level.

The president also thanked the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America for the steps that have been taken in this regard.

opfacebook like button Tweet tweet button for twitter

September 26, 2018

Suvash Gupta, a junior majoring in art, is the most recent University of Louisiana Monroe student to receive a Sigma Delta Pi scholarship to study abroad.

This year Gupta was one of only two students, nationally, who were awarded the scholarship to study in Spain. He spent four weeks at the University of Alcala de Henares studying Spanish with other students from around the world. Gupta was especially thrilled to attend this university because Miguel de Cervantes, author of "Don Quijote de la Mancha," was born in the town, which is a UNESCO National Heritage Site and draws thousands of visitors every year.



Gupta, the president of the ULM Lambda Sigma Chapter of Sigma Delta Pi, was initiated in the fall of 2017. When he learned of the opportunity to apply to study in Spain, he immediately prepared all the documents, obtained his visa, and made preparations to leave.

He decided to enter Europe through Germany since learning German is another objective of this Nepalese student who already speaks English, Maithili, Hindi, Urdu, and Nepali. Gupta completed his minor in Spanish in the fall of 2017.



Gupta, who is an accomplished artist, reported upon his return that this opportunity not only helped him to improve his Spanish but also helped him grow as a person. He said visiting historical places and museums which have inspired artists from around the world, fortified his knowledge and gave him an unforgettable experience.Ukraine's request to deploy the UN peacekeepers in Russian-occupied Donbas has not been addressed yet.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko says that a UN-mandated multinational peacekeeping operation in Russian-occupied Donbas, eastern Ukraine, could be a decisive factor in ending sufferings of Ukrainians.

"I am confident that a UN-mandated multinational peacekeeping operation with the only clear goal to restore Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity could be a decisive factor in ending sufferings of the Ukrainian people. We believe there is no better way but dispatching such an operation, under the robust UN mandate," Poroshenko said at the General Debate at the high-level event on Action for Peacekeeping within the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly in New York City on September 26.

"As we speak, foreign military aggression against Ukraine, in violation of the UN Charter and contrary to the resolutions adopted by the General Assembly and Security Council, is raging on," he said. "The temporary occupation of parts of Ukraine's territory continues to cause suffering of the Ukrainian people and undermine regional and international peace and security."

According to conservative estimates by the UN, the number of conflict-related casualties in Ukraine currently stands at over 35,000, including more than 10,000 people killed and almost 25,000 injured. The number of internally displaced persons is well over 1.5 million people.

"It could look like yet another dry statistics, which this Organization is full of, but for me and Ukrainians these are scars on the very heart," he said.

According to him, it would greatly assist in making Russia fulfil the Minsk agreements in good faith.

"I am grateful to Germany, France, and the United States for mobilizing international support of this initiative," Poroshenko said.

Read alsoBelarus not to send its peacekeepers to Donbas

Yet, he said, Russia is against the peacekeepers. "One reason for that is that the Kremlin is afraid. It is afraid that the peacekeepers will see Russian troops and military hardware all over the occupied territory. They are also afraid of losing control over the Ukraine-Russia border used by the Kremlin to keep infiltrating its military into Donbas," he said.

"Is it not for the UN to stand up to the challenge with courage?" he wondered.

He recalled that Ukraine's request to deploy the UN peacekeepers in Russian-occupied Donbas had not been addressed yet.

"We see it as a test for the ability of our Organization to act in a challenging conflict situation. A test, which still remains to be taken," he said.Stoltenberg expressed concern about Russia's military interference in Ukraine and Georgia, support for Syria's Bashar Assad, and the buildup of Russia's naval forces in the eastern Mediterranean.

NATO will not be seeking Russia's permission for Ukraine to join the Alliance.

"It's for Ukraine to decide its own path, whether they want to join NATO or not," NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told The Associated Press when asked about Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko's recent comment that his country's military aims to meet the criteria for NATO membership by 2020.

"At the end of the day it will be 29 allies and Ukraine that decides whether Ukraine is ready to meet the standards of joining NATO," he said.

Speaking to The Associated Press shortly before the meeting on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly , Stoltenberg expressed concern about Russia's military interference in Ukraine and Georgia, support for Syria's Bashar Assad, and the buildup of Russia's naval forces in the eastern Mediterranean.

Improving communication between NATO and Russia could help defuse tensions, Stoltenberg said, as long as conflicts like that in Ukraine remain unresolved. "At least to manage a difficult relationship, to avoid miscalculations, misunderstandings that can trigger really serious incidents or accidents and make sure that if they happen, make sure that they don't spiral out of control."

Read alsoMerkel personally supported Ukraine's NATO prospects  Ukraine envoy

As UNIAN reported earlier, Ukraine's parliament on September 20 sent to the Constitutional Court a presidential bill amending Ukraine's Constitution regarding the strategic course of the state for obtaining full membership of Ukraine in the EU and NATO (No. 9037).

The bill proposes that Ukraine's irreversible course toward European and Euro-Atlantic integration be stipulated in the preamble of the Fundamental Law along with the confirmation of European identity of the Ukrainian people.

Article 85 suggests defining that the powers of the Verkhovna Rada include determining the foundations of domestic and foreign policy, implementing the state's strategic course for obtaining full membership of Ukraine in the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Article 102 is supplemented with the provision that "the president of Ukraine is the guarantor of the implementation of the state's strategic course for obtaining Ukraine's full membership in the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization."

Article 116 is amended with a new clause, according to which the Cabinet of Ministers "ensures the implementation of the state's strategic course for obtaining Ukraine's full membership in the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization."

At the same time, Clause 14 of Section 15 "Transitional Provisions" is proposed to be excluded from the Constitution. It says that the use of existing military bases on the territory of Ukraine for the temporary stationing of foreign military formations is possible on a lease basis in the manner determined by international treaties of Ukraine ratified by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.Sullivan reiterated that the United States "will never recognize Russia's attempted annexation" of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula.

A top U.S. official has met with the Ukrainian foreign minister in New York to discuss "cooperative efforts against Russia's malign influence," among other things, the State Department says.

A statement said the September 25 meeting between U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan and Ukraine's Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly also touched upon Russia's "use of energy projects to extort and intimidate Ukraine and other European allies," as well as Kyiv's progress in implementing political and economic reforms, RFE/RL reported.

Read alsoPoroshenko, Volker discuss prospects for deployment of UN peacekeeping mission in Donbas

Sullivan reiterated that the United States "will never recognize Russia's attempted annexation" of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula and reaffirmed "strong U.S. support" for the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity, according to the statement.

Relations between Moscow and the West have deteriorated to a post-Cold War low over issues including Russia's seizure of Crimea in March 2014, its role in wars in Syria and eastern Ukraine, its alleged election meddling in the United States and Europe, and the poisoning of a Russian double agent and his daughter in Britain in March.

Fighting between Ukrainian government forces and Russia-backed separatists has killed more than 10,300 in eastern Ukraine since April 2014.

Moscow's support for the separatists and its illegal annexation of Crimea prompted the United States, the European Union, and others to impose sanctions on Russia.

Washington has also threatened to impose sanctions over the construction of an underwater natural gas pipeline to deliver Russian natural gas directly to Germany under the Baltic Sea, circumventing the traditional route through Ukraine.

Speaking at the UN General Assembly on September 25, U.S. President Donald Trump said that Germany "will become totally dependent on Russian energy if it does not immediately change course" on the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which aims to double the capacity of an already existing pipeline.The president thanked Volker for such a symbolic step and for the clear and consistent U.S. policy of non-recognition of the illegal annexation of Ukrainian Crimea by the Russian Federation.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko had a meeting with U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker, during which the latter handed over a symbolic printed copy of the declaration by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo dated July 25, 2018, which envisages clear and unequivocal position of the United States regarding the non-recognition of the illegal annexation of Ukrainian Crimea by the Russian Federation.

Read alsoPoroshenko, Volker discuss prospects for deployment of UN peacekeeping mission in Donbas

"In that declaration, Secretary of State Pompeo said that the United States does not and will not accept Russia's annexation of Crimea," Volker said and solemnly presented a copy of the declaration to the president of Ukraine during their meeting in the framework of the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly, according to the president's press service.

Volker added that this declaration is similar in spirit and letter to the declaration issued in 1940 by then-Acting Secretary of State of the United States Sumner Welles regarding the U.S. non-recognition of the Soviet occupation of the Baltic States.

The president thanked Volker for such a symbolic step and for the clear and consistent U.S. policy of non-recognition of the illegal annexation of Ukrainian Crimea by the Russian Federation.The minister also said that in his opinion while Ukraine is led by the current president, the incitement of hatred against Hungarians being led and inspires by the Ukrainian state will not cease.

Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has said if Ukraine expels the Hungarian Consul in Berehove, Hungary will also expel a consul.

"If the Ukrainian Government decides to expel the Hungarian Consul in Berehove (Beregszasz), Hungary will immediately expel a Ukrainian consul working in Hungary," Szijjarto announced with relation to his bilateral meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart Pavlo Klimkin on Wednesday in New York on the sidelines of the high-level meeting of the 73rd United Nations General Assembly, according to the official website of the Hungarian Government.

Read alsoKlimkin confirms meeting with Hungarian counterpart after secret citizenship video

"Everything that happened at the Hungarian representation in Berehove and at every Hungarian representation in Ukraine with relation to affording Hungarian citizenship is fully in harmony with both Hungarian and international law," he stressed. "The fact that people who are eligible for Hungarian citizenship according to law are afforded citizenship is not in violation of any Hungarian or international laws. The reference on the part of the Ukrainian party, which is projecting the image that affording Hungarian citizenship to people living in Transcarpathia contravenes some kind of international law, is false and deceptive," Szijjarto said.

The minister also said that in his opinion while Ukraine is led by the current president, the incitement of hatred against Hungarians being led and inspires by the Ukrainian state will not cease, because the president believes this is a way of acquiring some public support, because his current support is very low. "Next year's elections could bring a change in the situation," he added.

Last week, a hidden camera video of Ukrainian citizens taking their oaths of Hungarian citizenship at the Hungarian Consulate in Berehove (Beregszasz) was uploaded to YouTube. Later, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin threatened that Kyiv would expel the Hungarian Consul.The Ukrainian minister said the creation of this post is a "deliberate provocation."

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin has said Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto at a meeting in New York assured that Hungary would change the title of its authorized envoy "for Transcarpathia."

Read alsoSzijjarto: If Ukraine expels Hungarian Consul in Berehove, Hungary will also expel consul

"We've talked for a long time about the post of the Hungarian government's authorized envoy. They confirmed their intention to change the title," Klimkin told journalists on the sidelines of the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly.

The Ukrainian minister also said the creation of this post is a "deliberate provocation."

As UNIAN reported earlier, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine strongly protested against Hungary's decision to create the post of an authorized minister responsible for the development of Transcarpathia (or Zakarpattia in Ukrainian, which is an administrative unit of Ukraine) and develop kindergartens in the Carpathian basin.The president of Ukraine thanked the Croatian side for the consistent support of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has discussed the issue of energy security on the European continent with President of the Republic of Croatia Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic.

Read alsoPoroshenko: UN needs to be reformed for more effective peacekeeping

During a meeting in the framework of the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly, the president of Ukraine thanked the Croatian side for the consistent support of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as for the massive humanitarian and expert assistance of Zagreb to Ukraine, according to the president's press service.

A wide range of issues of bilateral relations and interaction in international organizations was discussed.

Poroshenko expressed hope for the continuation of an active bilateral political dialogue between Ukraine and Croatia aimed at realizing a significant potential of the Ukrainian-Croatian partnership in all spheres of bilateral cooperation.

The president of Ukraine invited the president of Croatia to make an official visit to Ukraine.The channel's signal was cut off across the country.

The European Broadcasting Union (EBU), an alliance of public service media organizations, has called for appropriate funding for the National Public Broadcasting Company of Ukraine (UA:PBC) to restore broadcasting across Ukraine.

"The EBU is extremely concerned about the future of public service media in Ukraine after broadcasts from EBU Member UA:PBC were terminated," the EBU said in a statement.

The state-owned Broadcasting, Telecommunications and Television Company of Ukraine cut-off analogue distribution of UA:PBC across the majority of the country due to the broadcaster's debts.

The EBU has been leading calls to secure appropriate funding for UA:PBC in line with Ukrainian law and European standards. This year the broadcaster, which already has one of the smallest budgets in Europe, only received around half the budget defined by national law.

"It is critical that citizens have access to independent, pluralistic news and information. This is especially important in the run up to next year's Presidential and Parliamentary elections in Ukraine," the EBU said.

"We are dismayed that the authorities have taken the decision to deprive the Ukrainian people of this important public service," EBU Director General Noel Curran commented on the situation. "We urge the authorities to restore transmissions immediately and allocate the necessary funding to allow public service media to fulfil its critical role to society and to democracy in Ukraine."

Read alsoBroadcasts of UA:First national TV channel suspended over debts

As UNIAN reported earlier, broadcasts of the UA:Pershyi (UA:First) national television channel have been suspended over debts.

"The state-owned Broadcasting, Radiocommunications & Television Concern (BRT) switched off the broadcasting of UA:First in the morning today (over the state's debts owed to the state)," Head of the National Public Broadcasting Company of Ukraine (UA:PBC) Zurab Alasania wrote on Facebook on September 25.

The channel's signal was cut off across the country.The baby boxes will go a long way to support low-income families, who often cannot afford to buy many of the items in the box.

The Government of Ukraine's Ministry of Social Policy, UNICEF and UNOPS have launched a pilot project to protect the health and well-being of babies across the country.

The caregivers of every newborn in Ukraine will receive a baby box with essential childcare items. The box itself can be used as a cradle and will include a mattress, thermometer, diapers, blankets, baby linens, toiletries and pamphlets with breastfeeding and childcare tips. The boxes are supplied by a Ukrainian company, which creates jobs and supports the local economy, as reported by UNOPS.

Read alsoMunicipal nanny and baby-box: Cabinet comes up with initiatives to raise birth rate

"It is assembled with love, to make sure that the family of a newborn has everything necessary to take care of the child. It is a high-quality box with high-quality content," said Volodymyr Groysman, Prime Minister of Ukraine.

The baby boxes will go a long way to support low-income families, who often cannot afford to buy many of the items in the box. The informational material will also raise awareness on healthy practices for infant care.

The first 30,000 packages will reach families with new babies by late September. An additional 70,000 boxes will be distributed by the end of this year.

This high-priority initiative is a part of the recently adopted Ukraine National Action Plan on implementing the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

At the request of the Government, UNOPS is supporting the project with the procurement of the baby boxes. Along with partners and experts, UNOPS has identified items for the boxes that will best benefit babies and support their caregivers.

"Employing the highest international standards and led by the best value for money principle, UNOPS has identified and procured the best products for an optimal price. We are proud to support the Government of Ukraine in implementing such a high-profile national priority," said Sergei Volkov, Deputy Head of Office, Head of Programme, UNOPS Ukraine.In total, Russian-led forces mounted 24 attacks on the Ukrainian army in the past 24 hours.

The number of wounded Ukrainian soldiers in Donbas in the past day increased to five people overnight.

"Five members of the Joint Forces have been wounded amid hostilities," the press service of the Joint Forces Operation (JFO) Headquarters said on Facebook in its morning update on Wednesday, September 26.

In its previous Tuesday evening update, the JFO HQ reported about three wounded servicemen.

Read alsoUkraine reports 3 WIA's in Donbas on Sept 25

According to Ukrainian intelligence reports, two members of the Russian occupation forces were eliminated and another six were wounded in the past 24 hours.

In total, Russian-led forces mounted 24 attacks on the Ukrainian army in the past 24 hours.

The enemy attacked Ukrainian positions near the town of Zolote and the villages of Stanytsia Luhanska, Krymske, Katerynivka, Novoluhanske, Zaitseve, Pisky, Taramchuk, Hnutove, Vodiane, Lebedysnke, and Shyrokyne.

Russian-led forces opened aimed fire, using grenade launchers, heavy machine guns and small arms. In particular, JFO positions near Hnutove came under 82mm mortar fire.

Since Wednesday midnight, the enemy has shelled Ukrainian positions near Krymske, using grenade launchers and small arms.

"Heavy weapons have not been used. There have been no personnel casualties [since the beginning of the day]," the JFO HQ said.In December 2014, Colonel Chepiga was awarded Russia's highest state award, Hero of the Russian Federation.

Bellingcat and its investigative partner The Insider  Russia have established conclusively the identity of one of the suspects in the poisoning of Sergey and Yulia Skripal, and in the homicide of British citizen Dawn Sturgess.

Bellingcat has been able to confirm the actual identity of one of the two officers. The suspect using the cover identity of "Ruslan Boshirov" is in fact Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga, a highly decorated GRU officer bestowed with Russia's highest state award, Hero of the Russian Federation. Following Bellingcat's own identification, multiple sources familiar with the person and/or the investigation have confirmed the suspect's identity.

Read alsoBoshirov, Petrov, other GRU officers' passport numbers almost coincide  The Insider

This finding eliminates any remaining doubt that the two suspects in the Novichok poisonings were in fact Russian officers operating on a clandestine government mission.

It is reported Anatoliy Vladimirovich Chepiga was born on April 5, 1979, in the far-eastern village of Nikolaevka in the Amur oblast, population 300, near the Russia-China border. At age 18, he enrolled at a military school just 40 kilometers from his home, the Far-Eastern Military Command Academy in Blagoveschensk, one of Russia's elite training grounds for marine commandos and Spetsnaz officers.

Anatoliy Chepiga graduated the academy with honors in 2001. He was then assigned to serve in the 14th Spetsnaz Brigade in Russia's farthest-eastern city of Khabarovsk, one of the elite Spetsnaz units under GRU command. Chepiga's unit (74854, formerly 20662) played a key role in the second Chechen War, and was also observed near the Ukrainian border in late 2014.

In December 2014, Colonel Chepiga was awarded Russia's highest state award, Hero of the Russian Federation. This award is bestowed personally by the President of Russia "as recognition of services to the state and the people of Russia involving a heroic deed."

Most of the awards are handed out in public ceremonies  and accompanied by a presidential decree, such as the award in 2016 to Russian officers fighting in Syria. Other presidential decrees  when the underlying act of heroism is subject to state secrecy  are kept secret. This is the case with the award to Colonel Chepiga. While there is no publicly issued decree  or reference to him on the Kremlin website  the state-run volunteer website specifies that he received the award "in December 2014for conducting a peace-keeping mission."

Indeed, the fact that Colonel Chepiga was bestowed the Hero of Russia award is announced on the website of his military school. While most other recipients of the award have a detailed description of the acts that resulted in the recognition, the last two recipients  Anatoliy Chepiga and Alexander Popov  received only a terse statement: "by decree from the Russian president." This further implies that the mission he  or they  were awarded for was secret.

The phrasing and timing of the award provides significant clues as to where Colonel Chepiga's mission was. In 2014, there were no military activities in Chechnya. Russia had not engaged militarily in Syria yet. The only region in which Russia was conducting active military operations in secrecy at the time was in Eastern Ukraine, which is the most likely theatre of his mission, as suggested by the secrecy of his award.

To validate the hypothesis that Chepiga is Skripal poisoning suspect "Boshirov," Bellingcat and The Insider obtained extracts from the passport file of Anatoliy Vladimirovich Chepiga  the man born on 5th April 1979  from two separate sources with access to databases dated prior to 2014.

The passport file contained a photograph  dated approximately in 2003, when this passport was obtained  that strongly resembled a younger "Boshirov" as seen in passport photos released by the UK police.UNODC takes E4J's Model UN Guide to India

21 September 2018 - At the invitation of UNODC's Education for Justice (E4J) initiative, in partnership with the organization Worldview Education, more than sixty leading Indian educators met this month in New Delhi, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, and Mumbai for a series of discussions on Model United Nations (MUN), and on E4J's Resource Guide which incorporates crime prevention, criminal justice and other rule of law aspects into MUN conferences.

Stressing the importance of students and teachers in strengthening the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Suruchi Pant, Deputy Representative of UNODC's Regional Office for South Asia, noted: "I believe that change for a better tomorrow is only possible if it is championed by young leaders. In this direction, Model United Nations serves as an exciting platform for teachers, educators and students to promote basic human values of respect, compassion and ethics through the promotion of the SDGs. UNODC calls upon the youth and children of South Asia to join our efforts to make this region safer and peaceful for all."

Participating educators and school principals reflected at length on the need to engage students on human rights, peace and the rule of law, and on the major role schools can play in driving the global SDG agenda, creating young leaders through values-based education. While children are motivated and have an increasing interest in contributing to social causes, the challenge lies in effectively harnessing their energies for greater impact. Innovative and engaging exercises such as MUN Conferences offer tangible opportunities for children at the secondary and tertiary education levels to be educated on the SDGs and the United Nations.

Model @UN trains young leaders around the  to generate ideas for a better & more just world. Recently @UNODC presented its #Education4Justice #MUN Guide to India: https://t.co/td8siMCvSZ pic.twitter.com/gSmMwPMzTl  Doha Declaration (@DohaDeclaration) 21 September 2018

Teachers shared examples of unique projects conceptualized and driven by students in their schools; these included interfaith dialogues to promote harmony, special classes for underprivileged children, anti-corruption awareness campaigns through art and music, participation in MUNs, and even film-making on relevant social issues. Educators also concurred that since discussions about youth and children are often done without them being a part of the dialogue, it was crucial to include them and their perspectives, and to join forces to trigger collective action on SDG16 which promotes peace, justice and strong institutions.

Addressing the attendees, Gilberto Duarte, UNODC Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Officer, explained: "If we want young people to become agents of positive change in their communities, we have to make them aware of the issues and actively involve them from a young age. UNODC is committed to working with youth and educators to promote security, justice and peace in South Asia."

A number of schools in India were said to be embracing new teaching experiences, engaging with children to develop a sense of global citizenship. At the same time, many children are actively participating in dialogues on the issues around them, seeking meaningful platforms to learn about social issues and work towards solving them.

Taking the E4J agenda forward, UNODC has partnered with Worldview Education for the "MUN for India" programme that seeks to strengthen the MUN space in the country. As part of this programme, in 2018, 25 MUN Conferences will be held in 25 cities across India, with an expected attendance of over 6,000 students from more than 250 schools. At least two committee agendas in each of these MUNs will be designed in line with the E4J initiative, with trainers ensuring that all students and educators of participating schools are adequately prepared to educate all participants about issues such as crime prevention, criminal justice and corruption.

The UNODC Regional Office for South Asia is open to collaborate with schools that are interested in implementing the E4J initiative in Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka. For more information, please contact unodc-e4jmun(at)un.org.

Additional information:

E4J MUN

E4J MUN Resource Guide

Worldview Education

Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh will visit Moscow in early October to take part in the Russian Energy Week-2018 forum, according to the event's program.

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 26th September, 2018) Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh will visit Moscow in early October to take part in the Russian Energy Week-2018 forum, according to the event's program.

Zanganeh is expected to join Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak and Qatar's Energy Minister Mohammed Saleh Al-Sada in a panel session on the prospects of the global gas market on October 3.

Iran is facing a second set of US sanctions to be imposed on November 4 as part of Washington's withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal.

The first set of sanctions, concerning Iran's purchase of Dollars, trade in gold and precious metals, as well as sales of commercial passenger aircraft and auto parts and related services, came into effect on August 7.(@rukhshanmir)

Iraqi Oil Minister Jabbar Luaibi said in a message to Prime Minister Haider Abadi about restored oil production at an oil field south of Mosul.

CAIRO (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 26th September, 2018) Iraqi Oil Minister Jabbar Luaibi said in a message to Prime Minister Haider Abadi about restored oil production at an oil field south of Mosul.

"We are resuming oil production at Qayyarah oil field, Nineveh province with the capacity of 30,000 barrels per day after full restoration of the destroyed wells, enterprises and oil pipelines," Luaibi said in the letter obtained by Sputnik.

The ministry also plans to increase oil production to 60,000 barrels per day by the end of this year, according to the telegram.

It is also noted that for the first time in history of the oil field, production will carried out for export. Previously, oil from Qayyarah was used only for domestic needs.

In December, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Abadi declared an end of the country's fight against the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group (outlawed in Russia) as Iraqi troops re-established complete control over the country's Syrian border. This came after years of violent fighting, including operations to liberate the city of Mosul, once the key stronghold for terrorists in Iraq.(@FahadShabbir)

ADNOC LNG, a subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), today signed the Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contract for the second phase of the Integrated Gas Development Expansion (IGD-E) project

ABU DHABI, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / WAM - 26th Sep, 2018) ADNOC LNG, a subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), today signed the Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contract for the second phase of the Integrated Gas Development Expansion (IGD-E) project with a consortium of Spain's Tecnicas Reunidas and Abu Dhabis Target Engineering Construction Company. The contract is valued at AED3.16 billion (US$860 million) of which around half will flow into the local economy through ADNOCs focus on maximising in-country value.

The agreement, between ADNOC LNG and the Technicas Reunida and Target Engineering Construction Company joint venture, was signed by Fatema Mohamed Al Nuaimi, Acting CEO of ADNOC LNG; Arthur Crossley Sanz, General Manager of Tecnicas Reunidas; and Chaouci Yassine, CEO of Target Engineering Construction Company.

Speaking on the occasion, Al Nuaimi said, "This agreement is a significant milestone as we work across the gas value chain to further integrate our offshore and onshore gas systems. It will enable us to deliver greater efficiency and performance, maximise the value of our gas assets and pursue our strategic objective to ensure a sustainable and economic gas supply that meets Abu Dhabis growing energy needs.

"We have awarded the contract after a rigorous tender process that took into account the substantial in-country value benefits that will flow from this project, as we continue to maximize value from our hydrocarbon resources, in line with the leaderships directives, and capture value and financial return here in the UAE for the benefit of the nation."

The second phase of the IGD-E project will take 54 months to complete. It will add 245 million cubic feet per day of associated gas to the 1.4 billion cubic feet per day of offshore gas sent from Das Island to ADNOC Gas Processings Habshan gas facilities to be processed for use in power generation.

The full scope of the contract encompasses engineering, equipment and material supply, construction, installation, testing and commissioning of compression, drying and gas treatment units, as well as power generation and other auxiliary services. It includes the construction and commissioning of new gas facilities on Das Island including construction of a new Booster Compression Train with a capacity of 60 million cubic feet per day, as well as two Feed Gas Compression and Dehydration Trains, each having a capacity of 123 million cubic feet per day and two amine-based Fuel Gas Treatment Units with 80 million cubic feet per day capacity each.

Tecnicas Reunidas will lead the consortium and carry out the engineering and procurement for the project, while Target Engineering Construction Company will lead the construction and commissioning works on Das Island.

Work on ADNOCs AED40 billion (US$11 billion) Integrated Gas Development programme began in 2009, to enable the transfer of one billion cubic feet a day of high-pressure gas from the offshore Umm Shaif field, via Das Island, to ADNOC Gas Processings onshore facilities at Habshan and Ruwais. The programme was completed in 2013.

Subsequently, Phase 1 of the IGD-E project was launched in 2015 and was completed last month, boosting ADNOCs offshore gas processing capacity by 400 million cubic feet per day to 1.4 billion cubic feet per day. Phase I included the construction of a fourth gas dehydration unit and dry gas compression aftercooler on Das Island; gas pipelines, with a 117 kilometer offshore segment and 114 kilometer onshore segment; condensate pipelines; and modifications to the Habshan gas processing complex.UNITED NATIONS, Sept 25 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 26th Sep, 2018 ) ::Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi Tuesday discussed with his Swiss counterpart Ignazio Cassis steps to enhance bilateral cooperation between the two countries.

The two leaders met on the sidelines of the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly taking place in New York.

An official statement said, they discussed a wide range of regional and bilateral issues of mutual interest and expressed satisfaction on the current state of relations.

The two foreign ministers agreed to celebrate the upcoming 70th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries in a befitting manner.

Foreign Minister Qureshi appreciated the development work undertaken by the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation (SDC) in the socio-economic sectors in Pakistan.

He emphasized the need to increase bilateral trade, encourage investment, promote education, augment business linkages and facilitate people to people contacts.

The two foreign ministers agreed to enhance bilateral cooperation in all areas, including political, trade and economic, defence and security, cultural and educational relations, the statement added.A delegation from Jiangxi Company, China, on Wednesday expressed keen interest to introduce ingenious patterns of tableware and crockery in ceramics industry during a meeting at the Pakistan China Joint Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCJCCI).

LAHORE, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 26th Sep, 2018 ) :A delegation from Jiangxi Company, China, on Wednesday expressed keen interest to introduce ingenious patterns of tableware and crockery in ceramics industry during a meeting at the Pakistan China Joint Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PCJCCI).

They visited the factories of Gujrat and Gujranwala to observe the manufacturing techniques and raw material of tableware being used in Pakistan. Mr Robin and Mr Fu, representative of Jiangxi Company and head of the delegation said: "We want to establish industrial incubator for technology transfer and to introduce new contemporary designs and techniques to Pakistan in ceramics and porcelain industry." He added that the city Jingdezhen was the heart and soul of China's Ceramics and about 70 per cent work of Chinese ceramic industry was being done under the expertise of Jiangxi industries.

The products produced in Jiangxi were being exported to US, EU and other cosmopolitan markets, he added.

In view of growth potential available in Pakistan's ceramics and porcelain industry, the delegation leader was passionate to relocate ceramics industry from China into Pakistan for sharing the global demand of ceramics products by exploiting inherent advantages of Pakistan and China.

PCJCCI President SM Naveed said that joint ventures of Pakistani and Chinese businessmen under CPEC (China-Pak Economic Corridor) had attained new heights of mutual confidence that was creating new venues of collaboration in trade and investment areas. He appreciated the Chinese businessmen for paving way to modernize the Pakistani industry and preferring Pakistan to transfer their plants.(@mahnoorsheikh03)

FIA arrested ex-CJPs son-in-law from Dubai after NAB issued his arrest warrants.

Islamabad (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News  26th September, 2018) The son-in-law of former chief justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, Murtaza Amjad, has been arrested from Dubai in the Eden Housing scam.

Speaking to media in Islamabad on Wednesday, Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry revealed that the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) officials arrested ex-CJPs son-in-law from Dubai after the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had issued his arrest warrants.

We have made a big breakthrough in the Eden Housing scam, the minister said.

He further claimed that the father-in-law of Ifikhar Chauhdrys daughter is the owner of the housing scheme which is why Iftikhar Chaudhry had heard the cases pertaining to the housing scheme himself and granted them relief".

Some 200 to 300 families were affected by the scam and thousands of people invested their hard-earned money in it but were deceived, Chaudhry added.

He further said, The ex-CJPs son, Arsalan Iftikhar, his daughter and his son-in-law's father are also accused in the case.

Vowing that all accused in the case will be arrested soon, the information minister said that Prime Minister Imran Khan has summoned a final report in the case within 24 hours.

In June, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) had written a letter to NAB seeking an investigation against the former chief justice and his family for allegedly defrauding people of billions in Eden Housing scheme in Lahore.(@mahnoorsheikh03)

A three-judge larger bench gave a 2-1 verdict, ruling in favour of Sharif brothers

Islamabad (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News  26th September, 2018) The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Wednesday turned down a petition by the Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) seeking to nominate the Sharif brothers and others as accused in the Model Town case.

A three-judge larger bench gave a 2-1 verdict, ruling in favour of former premier Nawaz Sharif, his brother and former Punjab chief minister Shehbaz Sharif, former law minister Rana Sanaullah and half a dozen others.

The bench upheld a ruling of the trial court that excluded them from the list of the accused nominated in the Model Town case.

The petitioners lawyer contended that there was enough evidence to summon 12 political leaders, including Nawaz Sharif, Shehbaz Sharif, Rana Sanaullah and others, to interrogate them in the case.

However, he argued that the trial court overlooked facts and excluded the respondents who had been nominated in the private complaint of his client.

The LHC full bench had on June 27 reserved its verdict on appeals regarding proceedings of Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) on the Model Town killings case.

The bench headed by Justice Muhammad Qasim Khan and comprising Justice Aalia Neelum and Justice Sardar Ahmad Naeem reserved the verdict after hearing detailed arguments of all the parties.

The ATC had dismissed the complaint of Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) to the extent of summoning 12 people including former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, former Punjab chief minister Shehbaz Sharif, former Punjab law minister Rana Sanaullah and other prominent leaders of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz - nominated as accused by the party in its private complaint.

However, the trial court agreed to summon 125 officials of police and the district government for their trial.

Consequently, the PAT filed the appeal challenging ATC decision for not summoning the said 12 people whereas the officials including former inspector general of police Mushtaq Sukhera summoned by the trial court challenged the decision before the high court.

In April, Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar took a suo motu notice of the unnecessary delay in the proceedings of the trial court and the high court relating the Model Town incident cases. The CJP had ordered the trial court and high court for early disposal of the cases.

On July 17, 2014, 14 people were killed and 100 others injured when the police opened fire to disperse protesting PAT workers during an anti-encroachment operation outside the residence of PAT chief Dr. Tahirul Qadri.(@rukhshanmir)

Program Manager of Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC), retired Brigadier Sajid Nadeem said it was essential responsibilities of volunteers to spread precautionary awareness among masses to save themselves during natural disasters.

QUETTA, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 26th Sep, 2018 ) :Program Manager of Asian Disaster Preparedness Center (ADPC), retired Brigadier Sajid Nadeem said it was essential responsibilities of volunteers to spread precautionary awareness among masses to save themselves during natural disasters.

He expressed these views while concluding at ceremony of a three days workshop at Serena Hotel Quetta.

The workshop was organized by National Humanitarian Network (NHN) and National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) with support of Pakistan Resilience Partnership of Asian Disaster Preparedness Center.

Brigadier Sajid Nadeem said we are making endeavors to build the capacity of government officials, members of civil society organization and other stakeholders through capacity building training.

NHN,National Coordinator Sana Zulfiqar said the aim of these training is to enhance their preparedness and response capacity and coordination mechanism for smooth execution of response.

She said NHN is conducting three days training from September 24 to 26 at Quetta in collaboration with Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) in order to educate the government officials, member of civil society organization and other stakeholders of Balochistan province regarding effective response management.

Around 40 participants from various line departments, humanitarian organizations, academia and media area attended the training workshop where they took part in different activities of response management.

Assistant Director of NDMA and Kamran Coordnator official Kamran Khan also highlighted importance of capacity building and response management and thanked participants on attending the workshops.

Provincial National Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) Director and other guests distributed certificates among participants.World Tourism Day will be marked tomorrow (27th September) throughout the world including Pakistan under the theme "Tourism and the Digital Transformation", said Manager, (Publicity & Promotion) Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation (PTDC) Mukhtar Ali here on Wednesday.

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 26th Sep, 2018 ) :World Tourism Day will be marked tomorrow (27th September) throughout the world including Pakistan under the theme "Tourism and the Digital Transformation", said Manager, (Publicity & Promotion) Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation (PTDC) Mukhtar Ali here on Wednesday.

While talking to APP, he said the PTDC is also organizing a Photographic Exhibition on this occasion at the Flashman's Hotel, Rawalpindi. More than 200 representatives of travel agents, tours operators and Hoteliers including students from different schools, colleges, and universities would be participating in the event .

United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO)'s official celebration of the Tourism Day 2018 is also to be held in Hungary tomorrow .

Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation(PTDC) is all set to celebrate the World Tourism Day with rest of the world as a nation proud of its glorious past and custodians of a bright future.

The Manager further added that presently we are devoted to make Pakistan a tourist heaven and to enhance the power of tourism for growth, development and cultural identity.

The European Council on Tourism and Trade (ECTT) has decided "Tourism: Protecting Culture and Heritage" as the theme for 2018 tourism year and world tourism day as celebrated worldwide.

The World Tourism Day at European Council on Tourism and Trade is commemorated usually at the end of September each year and is hosted in the capital of the country, which is crowned as World's Best Tourist Destination of the Year.

World Tourism Day, celebrated every 27 September around the world, is a unique opportunity to raise awareness on tourism's actual and potential contribution to sustainable development, he further added.(@ChaudhryMAli88)

LAHORE, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 27th Sep, 2018 ) :The Punjab Food Authority (PFA) Wednesday started inspection of service and food centres on the Lahore-Islamabad Motorway.

The food safety teams of the PFA under its Director General Capt.

(R) Muhammad Usman inspected many service and food points at Bhara Service area where Food Point was sealed for using expired cooking oil and keeping unhygienic conditions.

Similarly in the same area, the food safety teams imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 on a food point named as KFC Bhara for keeping edible items in unhygienic condition in a deep freezer.

Usman talking to mediamen said that this step was taken to provide healthy and fresh edible items to passengers travelling on the Lahore-Islamabad Motorway.(@mahnoorsheikh03)

Education Minister clarifies that Danish Schools are not being shut

Lahore (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News  26th September, 2018) The Punjab government has decided to abolish the laptop scheme of the previous government.

Provincial Education Minister Murad Ras announced that the government is suspending the laptop scheme, under which laptops were distributed among deserving students to help them in their education.

The education minister said that computer labs will be established instead of the laptop scheme.

Murad Ras further said that Danish Schools are not being shut across the province; however, necessary reforms will be carried out in the schools.

He further said that the culture of receiving heavy amounts in the grab of fee of educational institutions will be ended.

The Prime Ministers laptop scheme (or Prime Ministers National laptop scheme) was an initiative taken by the PML-N government in the budget speech of the Fiscal year 2013-14.

The scheme was launched to facilitate the youth and to provide laptops to those students who were deserving. The laptop distribution took place every year in public and semi-public educational institutes of Pakistan.

A total number of 300,000 laptops have been distributed across different parts of Punjab and Kashmir. However, with the cancellation of the laptop scheme, students will not be able to avail this opportunity anymore.(@ChaudhryMAli88)

The Sindh government has decided to consider auction of over 10 years old luxury cars, but this process would be initiated after deciding on providing a replacement to such officers who are using these cars, and also what impact such a move would have on the national exchequer.

KARACHI, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 26th Sep, 2018 ) :The Sindh government has decided to consider auction of over 10 years old luxury cars, but this process would be initiated after deciding on providing a replacement to such officers who are using these cars, and also what impact such a move would have on the national exchequer.

This was decided at a meeting of a provincial cabinet committee formed to gather details about luxury cars under the use of the Sindh government, said a statement issued here on Wednesday.

The meeting was chaired by Sindh Minister for Mines and Mineral Development Mir Shabbir Ali Bajarani, here.

The committee members including Provincial Minister Local Government, Public Health Engineering and Rural Development Saeed Ghani, Minister for Excise and Taxation and Narcotics Mukesh Kumar Chawala, Additional Chief Secretary Finance Ministry Noor Alam, Home Secretary Sindh Abdul Kabir Qazi and Secretary General Administration Sindh Sajid Jamal Abro attended the meeting.

The meeting sought details of the luxury cars being used by the Sindh government. It was agreed that those luxury cars which are more than 10 years old may be auctioned. However, before such an action, it would be assessed which car would be provided to officers as replacement, and how much it would have burden on national exchequer.

The meeting was apprised that the Sindh cabinet has already imposed a ban on the purchase of new cars in line with the directives of the Supreme Court of Pakistan.

The meeting stressed that complete implementation of the apex court's directives should be ensured. The next meeting of the cabinet committee has been convened again on Friday.Speakers at a seminar Tuesday underlined the need for forging greater unity among Ummah to foil nefarious designs and conspiracies being hatched to fan sectarianism in the society.

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 25th Sep, 2018 ) :Speakers at a seminar Tuesday underlined the need for forging greater unity among Ummah to foil nefarious designs and conspiracies being hatched to fan sectarianism in the society.

They also emphasized to evolve an effective strategy to promote harmony among different faiths and schools of thought.

They expressed these views at a seminar titled 'Wahdat-e-Muslima' organized by the Pakistan Ulema Council (PUC) in connection with 88th National Day of Saudi Arabia.

Minister for Religious Affairs and Interfaith Harmony Noor ul Huq Qadri said " holding of such a conference is a clear message to enemies of islam that Muslims are united." Appreciating the efforts of Maulana Tahir Ashrafi in bringing representatives of different sects at one platform, the Minister said that the PUC would play a crucial role in eliminating sectarian prejudices.

The minister vowed to make the Ulema Council, working under the Ministry of Religious Affairs, a more effective and vibrant body.

He said similar bodies would also be set up at provincial level where religious scholars from various sects could share their religious stance on any issue, besides resolving it.

Interior Minister for Shahryar Khan Afridi said "a man offers a prayer in European Mosques peacefully while in Pakistan the Muslims are forced to worship under a security cover." "Being a state, it is our responsibility to ensure the respect of religious places and Pakistan Tahreek-e-Insaf (PTI) led government will ensure the dignity of Mosques, Seminaries and Imam Imam-Bargahs on priority basis," Afridi said Terming the Muslim countries as true friends of Pakistan, he said, the PTI government would not let anyone interfere in internal affairs of the country.

He also extended the felicitation to Saudi Arabia on its National Day.

The Minister said they were planning to visit every seminary of the country to beware of the real issues being faced by students studying there.

Responding to this, Chairman of PUC Maulana Tahir Ashrafi said, there were some 30,000 Madressahs in the country and the doors of each seminary were opened for the authorities concerned.

He assured that "the state will definitely have our assistance and support for its positive initiatives and deeds." Ashrafi said "We are believer of one God and together we can defeat the evil designs of conspirators to promote extremism and sectarianism among Muslim nations as they are doing in middle East." He urged the civil societies, lawyer communities and youth to join the hands to get rid of this menace by promoting the unity and unison.

Deputy Ambassador of Saudi Arabia Habib Ullah Bukhari stressed for promoting brotherhood in the society, terming the unity a 'blessing' and sectarianism 'hell'.

Saudi government, he said, was making sincere efforts for unity of Ummah and would always stand by Pakistan. He thanked the Pakistani nation for their support to his country.

Senior leader of Pakistan People's Party Fasil Kareem Kundi appreciated the Saudi government support and congratulated them on becoming third partner of game-changer China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

He said it would become a gateway for other Muslim countries and would provide the great economic opportunities due to deep port of Gawader.

Chairman of Islamic Ideological Council Dr Qibla Ayaz hoped that after completionof CPEC, there would be no violent and extreme incidents in the country which are meantto disrupt social harmony.WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 26th September, 2018) US aerospace contractor Raytheon won more than $1.5 billion to provide Poland with missile system radar, the Defense Department said in a press release.

"Raytheon Co., Andover, Massachusetts, was awarded a $1,528,780,740... Foreign Military Sales (Poland) contract for Phased Array Tracking Radar to Intercept on Target (PATRIOT)," the release said on Tuesday.Leading global smartphone giant TECNOs key to success has always been tailoring their marketing strategy according to each countrys specific market needs

Lahore, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 26th Sep, 2018 ) Leading global smartphone giant TECNOs key to success has always been tailoring their marketing strategy according to each countrys specific market needs.

This includes not only bringing cutting-edge devices that help consumers keep up with todays highly technological world but to also help them do so with the utmost ease. Until now tecno mobile has remained an offline brand but now, for the first time ever in Pakistan, TECNO MOBILE has teamed up with Pakistans e-commerce giant Daraz.pk to offer consumers the opportunity to get their hands on the best products TECNO has to offer with just a few taps on a screen.

And not only that! Consumers can also look forward to amazing discounted prices as TECNO offers its hugely successful 5.65, Quad Flash, 13MP TECNO Camon i Air for the spectacular discounted price of PKR 14,499 only! TECNO is brand, a committed to pushing itself to staying up-to-date with the market and doing all it can to help its customers do the same by providing them with all the tools necessary to do so.

By collaborating with a leading e-commerce platform like Daraz.pk, TECNO is making it easier than ever for its customers in Pakistan to achieve all that, especially with the discounted Camon i Air price.

Customers can be sure to expect many more such discounts and offers from TECNO in the future as well, said General Manager for Pakistan Willy Cui. The TECNO Camon i Air features a 5.65 inch Full Vision Infinity Display, a 13MP rear camera with Quad Flash, 3050 mAh battery, is 4g enabled and offers Android Nougat v7.0 all packed into a sleek body available in two colours  Gold, and Black.

The Camon i Air, among other TECNO devices, will be available on Daraz.pk just a few taps or mouse clicks away allowing consumers to purchase these devices from anywhere and at any time without the hassle of travelling.(@ChaudhryMAli88)

Buenos Aires and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will announce a new credit agreement on Wednesday night, Argentine Minister of the Treasury Nicolas Dujovne said.

MEXICO CITY (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 26th September, 2018) Buenos Aires and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will announce a new credit agreement on Wednesday night, Argentine Minister of the Treasury Nicolas Dujovne said.

Dujovne met IMF head Christine Lagarde on Tuesday.

"The fund is now finishing checking the proposal. Tomorrow [on Wednesday], it will be put up for formal discussion, and, if nothing extraordinary happens, we will be able to announce it tomorrow night," the minister said, as quoted by the Infobae outlet.

The Argentine treasury minister believes that the new credit will allow country to pay off its debts in 2019-2020.

Argentine peso has fallen by more than 45 percent against US Dollar since the beginning of the year. The country's Currency further tumbled on Tuesday as central bank head Luis Capito resigned for personal reasons.

In late June, the IMF approved a $50 billion credit for Argentina, allowing the country to receive $15 billion as the first tranche, while the remaining $35 billion would be available throughout the duration of the agreement based on quarter reports.(@rukhshanmir)

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 26th September, 2018) Armenia supports resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict through the format offered by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said during a speech in front of the UN General Assembly (UNGA).

"Armenia will continue its constructive engagement in the peaceful resolution of the conflict within the format of the OSCE Minsk Group... which has the only internationally recognized mandate to deal with the conflict," Pashinyan told the UNGA in New York on Tuesday.

Azerbaijan, Pashinyan added, must change its behavior of disrespect towards the negotiations and abandon the idea of any military solution.

The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry told Sputnik earlier this week that the Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers will discuss the settlement of the conflict in the Nagorno-Karabakh region on September 26 on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

Azerbaijan's Armenian-dominated region of Nagorno-Karabakh proclaimed its independence in 1991, triggering a military conflict that led to Baku's loss of control over the region. The violence between Azerbaijani and Nagorno-Karabakh forces escalated on April 2, 2016, leading to multiple casualties. The sides agreed to a ceasefire on April 5, but sporadic clashes have continued.(@ChaudhryMAli88)

Vienna, Sept 25 (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 25th Sep, 2018 ) :Austria's far-right interior minister, Herbert Kickl, insisted Tuesday that press freedom was "inviolable" as he tried to defuse a storm after his ministry appeared to ask police to limit cooperation with the media.

"Freedom of the press is inviolable and a substantial pillar of a democratic society," Kickl said in a statement.

"A trustful relationship with the media is important to me, particularly in view of the sensitive material that our department handles. Any restriction of press freedom is completely unthinkable," the statement said.

Kickl's response came after the dailies Der Standard and Kurier published an email from his ministry which appeared to instruct the press departments of regional police forces to "limit communication with these media to the minimum legal requirement".

The email -- which the ministry had already confirmed earlier as authentic -- explicitly named Der Standard and Kurier.

It also named the Falter weekly, which has carried out several investigations about the inner workings of the interior ministry in recent months.

The email also suggested that police highlight the nationality and immigration status of suspects in public statements about criminal cases.

The Kurier wrote in an editorial: "Our democracy should not die in darkness because a minister feels too weak to withstand criticism and is clearly unsuitable for this sensitive position." Opposition parties were also up in arms, with members of the Social Democrats (SPOe) calling for Kickl's resignation.

The interior ministry defended the contents of the leaked mail, but insisted that it did not originate from Kickl himself, but from his press spokesman, Christoph Poelzl.

Poelzl was quoted in Kickl's statement as saying that the wording of the email had been "a mistake", and insisted that the proposals had not in any way been intended as an order.

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, currently attending the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, had also said that attempt to "limit press freedom is unacceptable".

"Shutting out or boycotting specific media shouldn't happen in Austria," Austrian media reported Kurz as saying.

Kickl's far-right Freedom Party (FPOe) shares power with Kurz's centre-right People's Party (OeVP) in a coalition that has been in power since December.

Kickl has been dogged by a scandal over government raids on Austria's BVT domestic intelligence agency in February.Eight soldiers were killed on Wednesday in a blast in the troubled north of Burkina Faso, President Roch Marc Christian Kabore announced.

Ouagadougou, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 26th Sep, 2018 ) :Eight soldiers were killed on Wednesday in a blast in the troubled north of Burkina Faso, President Roch Marc Christian Kabore announced.

"I have just learned that eight Burkinabe soldiers died after their vehicle drove over a home-made mine planted by the enemies of our people," he said.

The convoy had been heading from Baraboule in Soum province, where jihadists have carried out a string of attacks since 2015, to the town of Djibo.

"The lead vehicle in the convoy hit the mine" as it was coming off a bridge, a security source told AFP. Kabore expressed his "deepest condolences to the defence and security forces, to the families and relatives of the victims." "These horrible and cowardly attacks will never sap our common resolve to defend our national territorial integrity, to restore peace and security for the happiness and prosperity of the Burkinabe people.

" One of the world's poorest countries, Burkina Faso started experiencing cross-border jihadist attacks in its northern region in 2015 -- an offensive that has now spread to the east of the country.

On Sunday, three miners -- a Burkinabe national, an Indian and a South African -- were seized by armed men between Djibo and a local gold mine.

Hours later, three police officers deployed to help search for the trio were killed in a clash with armed men at Tongomael, about 30 kilometres (20 miles) away.

Abductions include that of Australian Kenneth Elliott and his wife Jocelyn, humanitarian workers in their eighties, who were kidnapped in Djibo in 2015.(@ChaudhryMAli88)

CAIRO (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 26th September, 2018) Cairo is playing a central role in rebuilding the Libyan statehood, particularly through the efforts to create united armed forces capable of protecting the country from terrorism, Egyptian President Abdul Fattah Sisi said, addressing the UN General Assembly.

"Egypt plays a pivotal role in support of rebuilding the [Libyan] state, particularly with regard to the unification of the Libyan armed forces so that it is capable of defending Libya and countering the dangers of terrorism," Sisi said on Tuesday.

Sisi also expressed regret that, even though a year had passed since the adoption of the United Nations Action Plan on Libya, little progress had been made in the crisis settlement.

The president also reiterated his support for UN-led efforts to find political solutions to the crises in Syria and Yemen.

Libya has been torn apart by conflict since the long-time leader Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown in 2011. The eastern part of the country is governed by the parliament, backed by the Libyan National Army (LNA) and located in Tobruk. The UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA), headed by Prime Minister Fayez Sarraj, operates in the country's west and is headquartered in Tripoli.(@rukhshanmir)

An explosion in the northern Burkina Faso's province of Soum has left at least seven members of the country's military forces dead, local media reported on Wednesday, citing a local source.

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 26th September, 2018) An explosion in the northern Burkina Faso's province of Soum has left at least seven members of the country's military forces dead, local media reported on Wednesday, citing a local source.

According to the RTB radio station, the incident occurred in the Soum's settlement of Petogoli at around 09:30 a.m. local time (09:30 GMT). The car which the servicemen were driving was blown up.

The RTB added that around 30 terrorists had been recently killed in the province in the course of an operation by the local security forces.Fiji has contributed a large number of peacekeepers to United Nations' peacekeeping missions over the last 40 years and would welcome increased Russian support for peace efforts around the world, Fijian Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama told Sputnik on Wednesday.

UNITED NATIONS (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 26th September, 2018) Fiji has contributed a large number of peacekeepers to United Nations' peacekeeping missions over the last 40 years and would welcome increased Russian support for peace efforts around the world, Fijian Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama told Sputnik on Wednesday.

"This year, it's 40 years of service from Fijian soldiers for the UN peacekeeping. It's all the cost for peace. It's a big sacrifice from a small country," Bainimarama said on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.

Bainimarama noted that on a per capita basis, Fiji provides more soldiers for UN peacekeeping missions than any other country.

"We are serving now in Iraq, in the Sinai, in the Golan, in Lebanon. In the most dangerous places. We want Russia to support us, to stay there," he said. "We have committed ourselves to make the world a more peaceful place."

He added he hopes to meet with his "friend, Mr. [Foreign Minister Sergey] Lavrov" on the sidelines of the 73rd UN General Assembly in New York.(@ChaudhryMAli88)

Moldova's beleaguered President Igor Dodon urged the cabinet on Wednesday to take his close ties with the Russian leader as an example and work closer with the government in Moscow.

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 26th September, 2018) Moldova's beleaguered President Igor Dodon urged the cabinet on Wednesday to take his close ties with the Russian leader as an example and work closer with the government in Moscow.

"Businesses want to cooperate, but the government needs to - if not help - at least not to stand in their way. I know Russia is open to this. The ball is in our court ...

We need to start working [together] at the government level," he said.

Dodon, who met Wednesday with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak, said that in the past couple of years the relationship between the two nations had been reduced to contacts between the presidents.

The Moldovan leader, who is vocally pro-Russian, has been locked in a struggle with his country's pro-western cabinet and a parliamentary majority who favor a closer relationship with and a possible membership of the European Union.(@ChaudhryMAli88)

Moldovan President Igor Dodon said Wednesday that he had discussed with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak the situation in the breakaway region of Transnistria and options for resolving the problem.

CHISINAU (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 26th September, 2018) Moldovan President Igor Dodon said Wednesday that he had discussed with Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak the situation in the breakaway region of Transnistria and options for resolving the problem.

"We discussed in detail the situation in Transnistria and the prospects for the development of a dialogue in the Transnistrian settlement and expressed our support for measures to build confidence and maintain a permanent dialogue between representatives of both banks of the Dniester," Dodon wrote on Facebook after meeting with Kozak.

During the meeting, the parties also discussed issues relating to the development of Moldovan-Russian relations and cooperation, Dodon added.

"In the course of the meeting, we appreciated the successful Moldova-Russia economic forum and investment and cooperation agreements signed during the forum. We also exchanged views on the possibilities of rendering technical assistance from Russia to Moldovan agricultural producers," Dodon said.

The president confirmed the desire to achieve political and economic balance in Moldova's relations with the countries of the West and the East.

Kozak was appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin as his special representative for the development of trade and economic relations with Moldova on July 11.

Transnistria, a region with a predominantly ethnically Russian and Ukrainian population, seceded from the Soviet Republic of Moldova in 1990, fearing its possible reunion with Romania. The separation led to an armed conflict that ended in a ceasefire in July 1992, although the issue is still unresolved.

Since 1992, peacekeepers have been deployed to maintain stability in the security zone in Transnistria. The mission comprises military personnel from Moldova, Transnistria and Russia as well as Ukrainian observers.(@rukhshanmir)

A Norwegian court turned down the appeal for release by Mikhail Bochkarev, a Russian citizen recently detained on suspicions of spying, local media reported on Wednesday.

MURMANSK (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 26th September, 2018) A Norwegian court turned down the appeal for release by Mikhail Bochkarev, a Russian citizen recently detained on suspicions of spying, local media reported on Wednesday.

Bochkarev, a staff employee of the Russian parliament, was detained at the Gardermoen airport outside Oslo on September 21 following his participation in an IT conference in Norway's parliament, arranged by the European Center for Parliamentary Research and Documentation. The Norwegian security suspects Bochkarev of gathering data via wireless signals and networks in the parliament building. Bochkarev denies accusations.

According to the NRK broadcaster, the court ruled that Bochkarev would remain in custody for two weeks with his communications and visits under control.

The court clarified that the suspect might leave the country or destroy evidence, the media added.

The arrest sparked outrage from Moscow. On Monday, the Russian Foreign Ministry summoned Norway's Ambassador to Russia Rune Resaland to lodge a protest in connection with Bochkarev's detention.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has called the claims against Bochkarev "propaganda." Russian upper house speaker Valentina Matviyenko has sent a personal letter to the Norwegian parliament and said that the incident was "a blatant provocation."Pharmaceutical giant Novartis said Tuesday it will cut more than 2,000 jobs in Switzerland by 2022, while some 400 jobs could go in Britain as part of a global restructuring.

Zurich, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 25th Sep, 2018 ) :Pharmaceutical giant Novartis said Tuesday it will cut more than 2,000 jobs in Switzerland by 2022, while some 400 jobs could go in Britain as part of a global restructuring.

The Swiss group said in a statement there would be a net-loss of 1,000 jobs at different manufacturing facilities across the wealthy Alpine nation, in Basel, Schweizerhalle, Stein and Locarno.

But it stressed that this included the recently announced build up of a cell and gene therapy manufacturing unit in Stein that was expected to create up to 450 new jobs.

Another 700 jobs would be meanwhile be cut over the same period due to a shift in business functions from Switzerland to other Novartis sites around the world, according to the company, which currently employs some 12,800 people in Switzerland.

In a separate release, the company said it planned to exit its manufacturing site in Grimsby in Britain by the end of 2020.

"Three hundred and ninety-five Novartis employees at the Grimsby site are directly affected by the decision, and additional contactors employed through third parties may also be impacted," the statement said.

Novartis has already announced adjustments in its manufacturing units in Japan, the US, and other countries as part of a strategy announced in 2015 amid an increased emphasis on specialised and personalised medicines over high-volume products.

"We are continuing our efforts to globally transform Novartis into a more efficient, agile organisation that can sustainably innovate and deliver breakthrough medicines to patients," company chief executive Vas Narasimhan said in a statement.

"We will do everything possible to help our associates who might be impacted manage through this difficult transition," he said, stressing that Novartis remained "deeply committed" to its presence in Switzerland.

The company, he said, will continue to have its global headquarters, largest research and development centre, as well as a growing "advanced manufacturing footprint" in the country.

The Employe Suisse union meanwhile described Tuesday's announcement as "a bitter pill" and asked Novartis to reconsider moving so many jobs abroad, insisting there was no guarantee this would cut the company's costs.

As for the Grimsby site, Novartis stressed that it was "an effective, well-running operation," and said it was looking at a range of options for it, including divestment, "which could potentially allow the facility to stay open.""We will treat every employee with the utmost respect, sensitivity and fairness during this difficult time," Haseeb Ahmad, Novartis UK Country President, said in the statement.

Following the news, Novartis saw its share price rise 0.9 percent to 82.54 Swiss francs in early afternoon trading, outperforming the overall Swiss stock exchange's main index.VIENNA (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 26th September, 2018) The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe's (OSCE) Representative on Freedom of the Media Harlem Desir criticized on Tuesday the Austrian Interior Ministry for issuing instructions restricting communication with some media outlets and urged the ministry to refrain from attacking the media.

On Monday, Austrian newspapers Kurier and Der Standard reported that the Interior Ministry in an e-mail to police departments of nine Federal states announced its intention to limit some channels of communication with media, which cover the activities of the police and the ministry itself "in a one-sided or negative way."

"While the Interior Ministry subsequently described the instruction as a 'suggestion', I urgently call on the Interior Ministry to immediately and officially revoke this instruction.

I recall that protection of media freedom is key to democracy. Access to information must be provided to all media equally regardless of their editorial orientation," Desir said, as quoted by OSCE press service.

Later, the ministry's spokesperson explained that the controversial e-mail was about developing a unified way of communication between the police and the ministry in certain cases, "especially with regard to the citizenship of foreign suspects and information about sexual crimes, since the regional police departments approached this question in different ways." He noted that the ministry was interested in honest cooperation with the media and will build a line for transparent communication with them.

Commenting on the scandal, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz called any restriction of media freedom in Austria unacceptable.More than 110 people have been charged in Bahrain over creating the Shia organization Bahraini Hezbollah, which is thought to be pro-Iranian, the country's prosecutor, Ahmed Hamadi, said Wednesday.

DOHA (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 26th September, 2018) More than 110 people have been charged in Bahrain over creating the Shia organization Bahraini Hezbollah, which is thought to be pro-Iranian, the country's prosecutor, Ahmed Hamadi, said Wednesday.

"The prosecutor's office completed the investigation into creation of a terror group called Bahraini Hezbollah, the court received documents on accusation of 169 people, with 111 of them having been detained," Hamadi told the Bahrain news Agency.

The detained people are accused of creating a terror organization, planned murders, production and use of explosives, possession of weapons without license as well as financing terror groups.

The court will hear the case on October 3.

Since 2011, the Sunni authorities in Bahrain have been facing a struggle with an opposition movement led primarily by Shias, who form the majority in the country. The opposition calls for political freedom, equality and a parliamentary system that operates independently of Bahrain's Sunni royal family.(@ChaudhryMAli88)

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko supports the country's anti-Hungarian policies which incite hatred among Ukrainians toward the neighboring nation, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told his Ukrainian counterpart Pavlo Klimkin on Wednesday during the bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, according to the Hungarian ministry.

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 26th September, 2018) Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko supports the country's anti-Hungarian policies which incite hatred among Ukrainians toward the neighboring nation, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told his Ukrainian counterpart Pavlo Klimkin on Wednesday during the bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, according to the Hungarian ministry.

Last month, Poroshenko said that Budapest was creating a "parallel reality" in Ukrainian-Hungarian relations. The remark came against the backdrop of deterioration of bilateral relations over Ukraine's education law.

"The incitement of hatred against Hungarians being led and inspired by the Ukrainian state will not cease, because the President believes this is a way of acquiring some public support, because his current support is very low," the ministry said in a statement.

Szijjarto added that next year's presidential elections in Ukraine could change the situation.

Ukraine's new education law, adopted last September, stipulates that national minority children will be able to study in their native language only at the Primary school level, with Ukrainian the sole language for secondary and post-secondary education.

Another issue which contributes to worsening relations between Hungary and Ukraine is reported practice of Hungary to grant citizenship to Ukrainian nationals. Hungary has issued over 100,000 passports to residents of the Zakarpattia region, according to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry. Meanwhile, Ukrainian legislation bans dual citizenship. Budapest maintains that it has the right to issue passports to Ukrainians of Hungarian origin.(@FahadShabbir)

Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to Armenia has been discussed, but it is more likely to take place next year, Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov said on Wednesday.

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 26th September, 2018) Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to Armenia has been discussed, but it is more likely to take place next year, Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov said on Wednesday.

"Indeed, the possibility of arranging our president's visit of to Armenia has been discussed, but the concrete dates are not being discussed yet ... I think that, perhaps, the visit is more likely to take place next year," Ushakov told reporters.Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said on Tuesday that any future talks with the United States should be based on the framework of the international nuclear accord with Iran, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Pal of Action (JCPOA).

UNITED NATIONS (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 25th September, 2018) Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said on Tuesday that any future talks with the United States should be based on the framework of the international nuclear accord with Iran, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Pal of Action (JCPOA).

"Any talks should be within the framework and in continuation of JCPOA and [UN] Security Council Resolution 2231 and not in the framework of breaching them," Rouhani said at the UN General Assembly in New York.(@rukhshanmir)

BRUSSELS (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 26th September, 2018) The European Commission has filed official complaints against Hungary at the Court of Justice that could result in heavy fines, while Open Society Foundations, founded by Hungarian-born business magnate George Soros, is also taking Budapest to court over the law on aid to migrants.

The problem has been festering since 2015, when the European Commission decided that all European countries had to accept a certain number of refugees depending on the size of their population. Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary refused, arguing that it was a breach of their national sovereignty.

The European Commission filed official complaints at the European Court of Justice, so Hungary might end up paying fines amounting to tens of millions of euros. The European Commission triggered Article 7 of the European treaty, which, if applied, could lead to the suspension of some of the country's membership rights.

The process culminated on September 13th, 2018, with a vote on the Sargentini report on Hungary, written by left-wing member of the European Parliament Judith Sargentini (Dutch Green party), and accusing Hungary of refusal to accept migrants, but also of meddling with its justice system and introducing laws against the freedom of education.

Poland is also facing disciplinary proceedings, launched by the European Commission in December last year. The case has yet to reach the European Parliament.

A number of countries in Central and Eastern Europe are relying greatly on the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the Cohesion Fund. The renovation of local infrastructure, from the Wroclaw railway station in Poland to Planica Nordic Center ski complex in Slovenia, has been helped by these funds.

"The European Union hits Hungary and the other Eastern European member states to the wallet! After the threat of political death by the loss of the voting rights inflicted on Hungary with the Sargentini Report, the European Commission is aiming for financial retaliation: with the new version being concocted of the Regional Development Fund, Poland would see its allocation of 'cohesion policy' melt by 23 percent and Hungary by 24 percent," Dominique Bilde, French member of the European Parliament (RN) in the EDF group, told Sputnik.

The proposals for regulations on the ERDF and the Cohesion Fund (Article 2.1) and on the European Social Fund (Articles 4.1 and 7.3) cover specific objectives in this area. For the latter, which already devotes a significant part of its missions to "vulnerable groups," a minimum percentage of 25 percent of shared management resources allocated to the "social inclusion" component, which concerns migrants in particular, is set.

There seems to be a similar reference in the European Semester, a monitoring mechanism through which the European Union regularly challenges states on an ever-wider range of policies. In its recommendations to France of 23 May 2018, it seemed to advocate, in carefully chosen words, the use of positive discrimination in employment for populations "from immigration.

"

The Open Society Foundations is taking Budapest to court over the adoption in June by the Hungarian parliament of a set of laws dubbed "Stop Soros." The laws impose a 25 percent income tax on charities helping undocumented migrants and punishing those who help migrants enter Hungary illegally.

Under the new Hungarian reforms on non-governmental organizations, organizations receiving over 24,000 Euros (about $28,259) of foreign financing have to register as "civic organizations funded from abroad." Meanwhile, the new education law changes the requirements for foreign universities stating that they should offer courses not only in Hungary but also in the country where they are registered. This requirement has been seen as targeting the Central European University founded by Soros.

The European Commission found that the act runs counter to the right to academic freedom. The Open Society Foundation announced in August that its regional headquarters would be moved from Budapest to Berlin, denouncing the measures introduced by Budapest.

CAN EUROPE UNDERMINE HUNGARIAN LEADERSHIP?

The application of Article 7 of the Treaty needs unanimity in the European Council, and several countries, Italy, Slovakia and Poland, have already announced that they would oppose the sanctions against Hungary.

In addition, a European spokesperson told Sputnik it was "not clear what other rights can be suspended."

Mischael Modrikamen, the president of the Belgian Parti Populaire (PP), stressed that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban was not alone in Europe.

"He is a democrat, elected by 52 percent of the citizens of his country, and he was supported in the European Parliament by all the 'populist' parties but also for example by the British Conservatives, who voted against sanctions for Orban, and by several MEPs from the French center-right party The Republicans and others in the [European People's Party] EPP group. The European Union is not a democracy anymore and the role of George Soros at the European Commission level should be investigated," Modrikamen told Sputnik.

When Orban addressed the European Parliament on September 12 in defense of his government, he labeled the threat of censure as "blackmail" and an insult to Hungary. He claimed that the report by Dutch Greens MEP Judith Sargentini was an "abuse of power" and included "serious factual misrepresentations." Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs Peter Szijjarto said on the same day that Sargentini never even went to Hungary.

The opposition to Orban received a boost when Manfred Weber, leader of the European Parliament's center-right EPP group, voted to trigger Article 7. However, several members of the group gave their backing to Budapest, thus creating an internal split.

The Central European countries could be slapped with heavy fines by the European Court of Justice, but it could be reversed after the next European elections in May 2019, in less than nine months now.(@ChaudhryMAli88)

Russian Ambassador to Belarus Mikhail Babich said on Wednesday that Russian-Belarusian trade could reach $50 billion per year by 2025, which would be an over 1.5 times increase compared with the 2017 figures.

MOGILEV (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 26th September, 2018) Russian Ambassador to Belarus Mikhail Babich said on Wednesday that Russian-Belarusian trade could reach $50 billion per year by 2025, which would be an over 1.5 times increase compared with the 2017 figures.

Russian President Vladimir Putin told Babich during their meeting in August that Russia and Belarus should increase their bilateral trade to $50 billion per year.

"In the near future, we will understand the possible growth rate, as well as the efforts which it is necessary to reach to really bring trade to the level designated by the Russian president  these include a harmonized statutory and regulatory base, and investment opportunities ... If the growth rate amounts to 7-8 percent, this [mutual trade reaching $50 billion per year] will happen around 2025, if the growth rate is 3-4 percent, this will happen in 2028-2030," Babich told reporters.

Babich specified that he considered the goal as "quite achievable." The ambassador added that the implementation of joint integrative projects would contribute to the accomplishment of this mission.

Babich went on to say that Russia and Belarus were currently carrying out a detailed analysis of all areas of their cooperation, including machine building, machine tool manufacture, the petrochemical industry and energy resources.

The Russian-Belarussian trade has increased by 26 percent in 2017, amounting to over $30 billion, according to the Russian Federal Customs Service.(@FahadShabbir)

HELSINKI (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 27th September, 2018) Russia and Finland have agreed to enhance their border and innovation cooperation, and to expand their trans-regional cooperation, Russian Minister of Economic Development Maxim Oreshkin told reporters on Wednesday after talks between Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and his Finnish counterpart Juha Sipila in Helsinki.

Oreshkin said that while the Russian-Finnish trade had increased by 30 percent in 2017, the positive dynamics continued this year as well.

"This shows that we are solving the problems that we and Finland are facing, the ones related to barriers, to goods' transfer across the borders, and this results in a positive dynamics. Secondly, [it means] that the Russian economy is growing, the demand is growing, we see both an increase in the Finnish imports to Russia, and in the number of Russian and Finnish tourists' cross-border trips," Oreshkin said.

According to Oreshkin, the two sides have agreed to develop their border cooperation.

"[Russian and Finnish prime ministers] have agreed on a deeper trans-regional cooperation. A big delegation of Finnish companies, 45 companies, will come to [the Russian city of] Kazan soon ... [As for] the innovative cooperation, they have agreed to cooperate more actively, through Skolkovo and VEB Innovations funds.

They have also agreed on the possible implementation of a joint program in the artificial intelligence area," Oreshkin said.

Medvedev said following the talks that Russia and Finland had managed to cope with the mutual trade decline, that was registered just two or three years ago, but had not managed to bring the trade volume back to the 2013 level, registered before a number of European states introduced sanctions on Russia in 2014 connection to the Ukrainian crisis.

"I think that we will have to achieve these aims in the several years to come. Obviously, it will be difficult to continue showing the increase that we see this year, to be showing these figures for several more years, but this is what we should aspire to do," Oreshkin said.

He added that the implementation of the existing joint projects and the expansion of the investment cooperation would contribute to the bilateral trade increase.

While the Russian-Finnish trade amounted to $18 billion in 2013, it fell to $15 billion in 2014 before dropping to $9 billion in 2015. In 2016, it decreased by 7,67 percent, to increase by 36.88 percent and amount to $12 billion in 2017.(@rukhshanmir)

Russia is ready for a full restoration of economic relations with Moldova, but on a mutually beneficial basis, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak said on Wednesday.

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 26th September, 2018) Russia is ready for a full restoration of economic relations with Moldova, but on a mutually beneficial basis, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak said on Wednesday.

"We are ready for a full restoration of relations with the Republic of Moldova, but on a mutually beneficial basis," Kozak, who is also Russian President's Special Representative for Moldova, said at a meeting with Moldovan President Igor Dodon.

Chisinau made decisions that "de facto restricted access to the Moldovan market" for Russian businessmen, and Moscow was forced to take countermeasures, the deputy prime minister noted.

"This is an abnormal situation, the Russian government is ready for cooperation, we are ready to support the zeal and aspirations of businesses," he added.

Russia is ready to fully restore its part of the work of the Russian-Moldovan Intergovernmental Commission, Kozak said.

"The Russian part of the Intergovernmental Commission is fully ready to resume full-fledged work," Kozak said.

The pragmatic position of the Moldovan people to expand cooperation with Europe is understandable, but there is no need to break traditional, established economic ties, he added.

"Because it's easy to destroy them, but it's impossible to restore. It is very important. We have full readiness to expand [ties]," he added.

The work of the intergovernmental commission may resume in October or November, and Moldova fully supports this, Dodon told Kozak.

"I very much hope that negotiations will continue in the near future at the level of the foreign ministries, I know that this will be in October-November, and after this, or in parallel, the intergovernmental commission will begin its work.

On our part, there is full support," the president said.

The intergovernmental commission has not worked since November 2016, he recalled.

"It will be two years soon. We have not had such a break of bilateral relations throughout all the 27 years of independence, so we need to resume the work of the intergovernmental commission, I told the same to the government of the Republic of Moldova," Dodon said.

Moldova, a parliamentary republic, has long been experiencing a stand-off between the president and the government over the country's foreign policy. Dodon, who took office as president of Moldova on December 23, 2016, insists on rapprochement with Russia, while the parliamentary majority and the government stick to a pro-Western course in foreign policy and call for the withdrawal of Russian forces deployed as part of the peacekeeping mission in the breakaway region of Transnistria.

In June 2014, Moldova signed an association agreement with the European Union, which, in particular, created the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) between the country and the union. The DCFTA opened the Moldovan market for goods from EU member states.

Following the ratification of the agreement, the Moldovan-Russian relations deteriorated. To prevent re-export of EU goods to Russia, Moscow introduced import duties for some Moldovan goods, turning the free trade regime between the two countries into most-favored-nation (MFN) treatment.(@ChaudhryMAli88)

UNITED NATIONS (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 27th September, 2018) Issues related to humanitarian assistance to Syrian people should not be tied to the political process, and much more could be done without politicizing this issue, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin said Wednesday.

"Humanitarian assistance should not be linked to political conditions. In order to remove unilateral sanctions from Syria, it seems to us that much more could be done if there is no such politicization of conditions for assistance, including those coming from the EU," Vershinin told reporters.

A Russian representative attended the EU-organized meeting on Syria on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, he added.

"This meeting is still ongoing, we took part in it. This meeting, as you know, is a continuation of EU efforts that they are making, as they say, to help and support the Syrians. We support such efforts and assistance, especially at the present stage, when the time has come for the reconstruction of Syria," Vershinin said.

Since 2011, the European Union has been imposing restrictive measures against the Syrian government officials and entities over "the violent repression of the civilian population in Syria." The latest extension of the sanctions took place in May. The restrictions, which are currently in place until June next year, include an oil embargo, investment restrictions, assets freezes, a ban on selling "equipment and technology that might be used for internal repression" to Syria.

In May, UN rapporteur on human rights Idriss Jazairy expressed concern that the Syrian people were denied their humanitarian needs due to sanctions against the Arab Republic. In July, the Russian Foreign Ministry's spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that Moscow had called on the international community to lift economic and financial sanctions against Syria.

The Syrian civil war has been raging for some seven years with the government forces fighting against numerous terrorist groups and opposition factions.(@FahadShabbir)

During a recent visit of the Iranian defense minister to Azerbaijan, the two sides signed an agreement on establishment of a joint commission, Reza Mozafarnia told Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) on the sidelines of the 3rd Azerbaijan International Defense Exhibition (ADEX) underway in Azeri capital.

BAKU, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 26th Sep, 2018 ) :During a recent visit of the Iranian defense minister to Azerbaijan, the two sides signed an agreement on establishment of a joint commission, Reza Mozafarnia told Islamic Republic news Agency (IRNA) on the sidelines of the 3rd Azerbaijan International Defense Exhibition (ADEX) underway in Azeri capital.

Mozafarnia, who is in Baku at the head of an Iranian delegation to attend ADEX, said that his visit to the Azeri capital is an opportunity for holding talks with defense and industrial officials of the host country.

At Baku exhibition, Iran has put on display its defense equipment and capabilities in different fields, the official said.

Referring to various grounds for cooperation, Mozafarnia hoped Iran will attend other exhibitions to be held in Azerbaijan and across the region.

The 3rd Azerbaijan International Defense Exhibition started work in Baku on September 25 with participation of 200companies from 28 countries including Iran.The senior adviser to Iranian spiritual leader Ayatollah Khamenei said Tuesday the top cleric would never meet with US President Donald Trump.

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 25th September, 2018) The senior adviser to Iranian spiritual leader Ayatollah Khamenei said Tuesday the top cleric would never meet with US President Donald Trump.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Fox News last Sunday that Trump and Khamenei could have an "interesting conversation." He also suggested on another show that Trump wanted to talk to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on the sidelines of the UN meeting in New York.

The spiritual leader's aide, Ali Akbar Velayati, said their dream of meeting with Ayatollah Khamenei will never come true, according to the Mehr news agency, stressing "This is definite.

"

Trump said Tuesday he had no plans to meet Rouhani at the UN General Assembly despite calls. Both leaders were scheduled to speak at the gathering of world leaders.

"Despite requests, I have no plans to meet Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Maybe someday in the future. I am sure he is an absolutely lovely man!" he tweeted.

Trump said on Friday he would chair a UN Security Council meeting this week that he wanted to devote to Iran. The Islamic Republic is not member of the UN executive body but Rouhani will reportedly be permitted to attend if Iran is the main topic of its discussion.(@ChaudhryMAli88)

ROME (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 26th September, 2018) US President Donald Trump will take part in the international conference on Libya in Italy in November provided that he has time in the midst of the midterm elections, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said.

On Tuesday, Italian media reported, citing government sources, that Rome hoped Trump would participate in the conference, which is slated to take place in Sicily in November.

"During the working breakfast, we discussed with Trump various issues, including Libya. You know, there's a delicate moment coming for him with the midterms [congressional elections], we'll see whether he will be able to come [to Italy to attend the conference]," Conte told reporters on the UN General Assembly sidelines.

Conte stressed that the Trump administration paid great attention to the strategic dialogue between the countries on the Mediterranean, announced by the two leaders in July during the Italian prime minister's visit to the United States.

Libya has been in a state of civil war since 2011, when its longtime leader, Muammar Gaddafi, was overthrown. There are two major opposing forces in the country, each fighting for control over Libya  the Libyan National Army (LNA), and the Government of National Accord (GNA) backed by the European Union and the United Nations. The country's eastern regions are governed by the LNA-backed parliament in Tobruk, while the western regions are governed by the GNA, with its headquarters located in the country's capital of Tripoli.(@ChaudhryMAli88)

Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA) completed the restoration of the Al-Nejashi mosque, the tomb of the Abyssinian King Ahmed Nejashi, and 15 tombs of the companions of Prophet Hazrat Muhammed (Peace Be Upon Him).

ANKARA, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 26th Sep, 2018 ) :Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA) completed the restoration of the Al-Nejashi mosque, the tomb of the Abyssinian King Ahmed Nejashi, and 15 tombs of the companions of Prophet Hazrat Muhammed (Peace Be Upon Him).

Located in the town of Wukro, 790 kilometers (over 490 miles) north of Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa, Al-Nejashi is said to be the first mosque in Africa. It is named after Nejashi, who hosted companions of Prophet Hazrat Muhammad (PBUH) who escaped persecution in Makkah tul Mukarama.

In a statement, the TIKA said the restoration is part of a scheme to promote common cultural values and assets abroad and to contribute to the development of inter-governmental cooperation.

As part of the project, the road that leads to the mosque was restored. The path leading to the tombs in the backyard of the mosque is called "Companions street".

"The project restored the tombs and made them fit for visitors.

The design will promote tourism and as a result contribute to infrastructure such as hotels, shopping malls, restaurants and museums in the area," it added.

Al-Nejashi mosque holds an important place in Islamic history. This is where the first hijra (migration) took place by the companions of Prophet Hazrat Muhammad (PBUH) following persecution and torture in Makkah.

On orders of Allah Almighty's last Messenger, they set out on the journey, crossed the Red Sea and reached the Horn of Africa to establish the first Muslim community of Africa.

Al-Nejashi welcomed the immigrants and guaranteed them protection. Influenced by the faith, he soon accepted islam.

Recently, neighbors Ethiopia and Eritrea signed a peace deal after two decades of conflict and Eritrean Muslims made the mosque their meeting point.

The 10th of Muharram was marked at the mosque with attendance of thousands of Eritrean Muslims.(@FahadShabbir)

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 27th September, 2018) US Secretary of Defense James Mattis and his Romanian counterpart Mihai Fifor agreed to continue bilateral military cooperation, Department of Defense spokesperson Dana White said.

"They agreed to continue defense cooperation and to promote security in the Black Sea region," White said on Wednesday after the two defense chiefs met at the Defense Department.

White said that Mattis thanked Fifor for Romania's "continued leadership in NATO and its contributions to the Resolute Support Mission" in Afghanistan.

Mattis also welcomed Romania's military modernization and its defense spending commitment to NATO, White added.(@ChaudhryMAli88)

The United States will not be able to keep its sanctions against Tehran in the long term, since the restrictions disrupt trade and normal business activities and do not bring Washington closer to its goals, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said.

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 26th September, 2018) The United States will not be able to keep its sanctions against Tehran in the long term, since the restrictions disrupt trade and normal business activities and do not bring Washington closer to its goals, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said.

"Sanctions mean breaking the normal cycle of economic trade between firms and countries, and the United States of America, with all of its power, is seeking to disrupt the cycles of trade and economic activity. So in the long term, the United States will not be able to continue this pressure, and this pressure will not in the long term bring America closer to its objectives," Rouhani said in the interview with the CNN broadcaster published on Tuesday.

According to Rouhani, the sanctions burden ultimately falls on ordinary people's shoulders, who "seek to make ends meet.

" It shows that the United States is targeting the people of Iran, rather than the government, he concluded.

Rouhani also expressed confidence that history would judge that the United States made a big mistake.

In May, US President Donald Trump declared the withdrawal of the United States from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and restoration of wide-ranging sanctions on Iran, including secondary sanctions against financial institutions of third countries doing business with Tehran.

The US move faced firm disapproval from other signatories to the Iran nuclear deal, who are seeking to protect their companies from US restrictions and maintain ties with Tehran.A 2014 National Dialogue Agreement in Yemen offers the best chance of ending the nation's civil war, while direct talks with Houthi rebels can never achieve peace, Yemen President Abdrabuh Mansour Hadi told the UN General Assembly on Wednesday.

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 26th September, 2018) A 2014 National Dialogue Agreement in Yemen offers the best chance of ending the nation's civil war, while direct talks with Houthi rebels can never achieve peace, Yemen President Abdrabuh Mansour Hadi told the UN General Assembly on Wednesday.

"Our people is the one that currently struggles to implement the outcome of the national dialogue conference which has enjoyed unanimity by Yemenis of all ilks," Hadi said.

Hadi was apparently referring to a National Dialogue agreement brokered by the United Nations and the Gulf Cooperation Council that allowed Hadi to assume the presidency from longtime leader Ali Abdullah Saleh in early 2012.

When the dialogue was abandoned in 2014, Houthi rebels and forces loyal to ousted leader Saleh seized much of western Yemen, including the capital of Sanaa.

Hadi made no reference to more recent attempts to negotiate an end to Yemen's conflict and instead delivered an address that ruled out direct talks with rebels as a non-starter.

Hadi said the Houthi rebels consider themselves a unique race, have forgone its loyalty to Yemen and become a proxy for Iran and Hezbollah.

"All attempts at peace that are made with this group are doomed to fail," Hadi said.

A United Nations-backed peace conference in Geneva earlier this month collapsed when the Houthis failed to attend.The Popes comments on the Agreement with China were among the most anticipated by reporters on board the return flight from the Baltic countries. Among the other themes touched on by the Pope were the defence of the identity of the three Republics, the condemnation of armaments, and clerical abuse, which he called a monstrosity.

By Alessandro De Carolis

There was more than one aspect to the Popes Apostolic Journey to the Balticsor rather, the experience that has just been lived quickly branches into interwoven themes upon which Pope Francis wanted to express himself, themes that are the keystones of his Magisterium. And so there was a reversal of roles during the press conference. At one point the Pope was prodding the reporters on the flight back from Talinn to ask questions about the trip, holding back others who were fluttering over their notebooks. Because the three questions asked by reporters from the Baltic countries were not enough for the Pope to fully express himself, he took it upon himself to immerse himself in the reality of the three sisters, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, united in the wounds that remain etched in their collective memory. The Baltic nations are currently looking to the west, while rooted in the east, with a future that the Pope has looked forward to with hope.

An identity to be preserved

It is as if Francis were composing a mosaic. First, he insisted, as he has on practically every day of the journey, on the preservation of the respective identities of the Baltic countries, too often trampled on by cruel invaders. The identity of a nation guarded by those who yesterday used it as a shield against dictatorships, and today, by the elderly, who have a duty to transmit to the young the entire heritage of culture, faith, and art. Then, he recalled his visit to the torture chambers in the Museum in Vilnius dedicated to victims, in order to condemn the violence and the scandal of the legal and illegal arms trade. It is licit and honourable, he maintained, to defend the homeland, but States should provide themselves with a rational, and non-aggressive, defensive army. And finally, he recalled once again the principle of prudence with regard to immigration, which in the Baltic nations involves people coming and going; and he noted how the newly appointed heads of state recognized the value of welcome.

China: the Wisdom of the Agreement

The Holy Father then submitted to the duty of responding to current events. The Provisional Agreement with China, coming shortly after his arrival in Lithuania, is the topic that has moved the attention of Vatican experts far to the east. The criticisms of the events that matured last weekend, are well known: some have accused the Vatican of selling out the Church to China. Pope Francis replied calmly, saying of the Agreement, I signed it myself, explaining I am responsible for it. He asked for prayers for those who have lived for years under clandestinity, who today do not understand the import of the deal. In every peace accord, he recalled, both sides lose something. Yet now, he points out, it is the Pope who names the Chinese Bishops. Francis praised the patience and wisdom of the Vatican negotiatorsincluding Cardinal Parolin, Monsignor Celli, and Father Rota Graziosisaying he himself had evaluated all the materials on the Bishops who had not yet received papal approval, and pointing out that the appointment of Bishops would become the exclusive concern of the papacy in the not too distant future.

The great faith of the Chinese people

Remaining on the topic of China, Pope Francis paid tribute to the great faith of Chinese Catholics who have lived under trying circumstances for a long time. There is always suffering with an agreement, he noted, and related an anecdote: on the occasion of the famous statement of a former apostolic nuncio  which had led many episcopates to express their closeness to the Pope  the Chinese faithful, too, whether of the traditional Church or not, had signed a letter to tell the Pope of their solidarity. And for him, Pope Francis said, that was the sign.

Abuses are monstrous

The Pope answered a question by a German journalist inspired by the Popes words to young people in Estonia. It would be monstrous even if only a single priest had committed such crimes. Sexual abuse can be found everywhere, but in the Church, he insisted, they are much worse because priests should bring children to God. And on this point there can be no negotiation. However, Pope Francis observed, one should not commit the error of interpreting the past with the standard of justice, with the hermeneutic of today, when we have different sensibilities. Once these crimes were covered up, but once the the Church became aware of this she responded.During his weekly General Audience of September 26, Pope Francis relived his 4-day apostolic visit to Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia which he concluded on Tuesday.

Pope Francis dedicated the reflection of this weeks General Audience to his apostolic journey to the Baltic nations, September 22-25. He said he visited Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, on the occasion of the centenary of their independence. They lived half of the 100 years under the yoke of occupations, first under the Nazis and then under Soviet rule.

They are peoples who have suffered greatly, the Pope said, and for this reason the Lord has looked upon them with predilection.

The Holy Father expressed his gratitude to the presidents and civil authorities of the three nations or the welcome given him. He also thanked the bishops and all those who have helped to prepare and implement the ecclesial event.

Listen to our report

Gospel and mercy

Pope Francis noted that his visit took place in a context that has greatly changed since the visit of his predecessor 25 years ago, soon after the 3 countries regained their independence from soviet rule. Hence his mission was to proclaim once again to those peoples the joy of the Gospel and the revolution of mercy, of tenderness, because freedom is not enough to give meaning and fullness to life without the love that comes from God.

The Pope noted that the Gospel, which in times of trial gives strength and animates the struggle for freedom, become in the time of freedom the light for the daily journey of individuals, families, societies, and is salt that gives flavour to ordinary life and preserves it from the corruption of mediocrity and selfishness.



Ecumenism

The Pope noted that in Lithuania, Catholics are the majority, while in Latvia and Estonia Lutherans and Orthodox prevail, but many have moved away from religious life. So the challenge is to strengthen the communion among all Christians which already developed during the harsh period of persecution. In fact, the Pope stressed that the ecumenical dimension was intrinsic to this journey, and found expression in the moment of prayer in the Cathedral of Riga and in the meeting with young people in Tallinn.

In addressing the authorities of the 3 countries, the Pope said he stressed on their contribution to the international community, especially to Europe. This contribution is their human and social values passed through the crucible of trial.

Elderly and young

The Holy Father also encouraged dialogue between the elderly and young generations so that their contact with their "roots" continue to enrich the present and the future. He also urged them to always combine freedom with solidarity and welcome, according to the tradition of their lands.

The Pope particularly mentioned his meetings with the young in Vilnius, Lithuania and with the elderly in Riga, Latvia.

The Pope said that in front of the Vilnius cathedral, boys and girls prayed and sang, bringing out the theme of his Lithuanian visit: Jesus Christ, Our Hope. They showed the openness of the soul to God, the joy of serving others, how to come out of the fences of "I" and the capacity to rise after falling.

Later, in a meeting with the elderly in Latvia, the Pope stressed the close link between patience and hope. Those who have gone through hard trials, the Pope said, are the roots of a people that need to be safeguarded with the grace of God, so that the new shoots can draw from them and flourish and bear fruit. The challenge for those who grow old is not to harden within but to remain open and tender in mind and heart. This is possible with the "sap" that the Holy Spirit provides in prayer and in listening to the Word.

Priests and religious

In his meetings with priests, consecrated persons and seminarians in Lithuania, the Pope found that the dimension of steadfastness was essential for hope, in order to be centered in God and firmly rooted in His love.

In this regard, priests and men and women have given and continue to give great testimony. They have suffered slander, prisons, deportations..., but they have remained firm in the faith. The Holy Father urged them not to forget them but to preserve the memory of the martyrs and to follow their examples.

Jewish genocide

The Pope recalled the tribute he paid to the victims of the Jewish genocide in Lithuania, 75 years after the closure of the great Ghetto in Vilnius which was the antechamber to the death of tens of thousands of Jews.

He also visited the Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights. He prayer in the cells where opponents of the regime were detained, tortured and killed.

Years and regimes pass by, but above the Gate of Dawn in Vilnius, the Pope said, Mary, Mother of Mercy, continues to watch over her people, as a sign of sure hope and consolation.

Love and service

The Pope said that a living sign of the Gospel is always concrete charity. Even where secularization is very strong, God speaks in the language of love, of care, of free service to those in need. And then hearts open and miracles happen, sprouting new life in the deserts.

Eucharistic celebrations

The Pope noted that in the three Masses in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, the faithful holy People of God on their way renewed their "yes" to Christ our hope. They renewed it with Mary, who always shows herself to be the Mother of her children, especially of the suffering. They renewed their yes as a chosen people, priestly and holy, in whose heart God awakens the grace of Baptism.Here is the official English language summary of the Pope's catechesis at the General Audience on 26th September 2018

Summary:

Dear brothers and sisters: I have just returned from Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, a hundred years after their independence; three countries which suffered under the yoke of Nazi and then Soviet occupation. The purpose of my visit was to announce once again the joy of the Gospel and the revolution of mercy and tenderness, because freedom alone cannot give full meaning to life without love, Gods love. In times of trial, the Gospel strengthens and sustains the fight for freedom. In times of liberty it is the salt which gives every-day life its flavour and prevents the corruption of mediocrity and egoism. At the meeting with young people in Vilnius there was a palpable presence of Jesus Christ our hope. And in Riga, with the elderly, I underlined the connection between patience and hope which sustains us. This same hope enables priests, consecrated men and women and seminarians to persevere and enabled many martyrs to bear witness to God. The years have passed and different regimes have come and gone, but at Vilnius, above the Gate of Dawn, Mary the Mother of Mercy continues to watch over her people as a sign of sure hope and consolation. In the three celebrations of Mass at Kaunas, Aglona and Tallinn, the faithful, in whose hearts God reawakened the grace of Baptism, were able to renew their yes to Christ who is our hope.

Greetings:

I greet the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors taking part in todays Audience, particularly the groups from England, Scotland, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Nigeria, South Africa, Indonesia, Malaysia, Canada and the United States of America. In a particular way my greeting goes to the new seminarians of the Venerable English College as they begin their priestly formation here in Rome, and to the seminarians of the Pontifical North American College and their families gathered for the ordination to the Diaconate to be celebrated tomorrow. Upon all of you, and your families, I invoke the joy and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ. May God bless you!In a Message to Catholics of China and to the Universal Church," Pope Francis explains the reasons for signing the Provisional Agreement with the Peoples Republic of China: to promote the proclamation of the Gospel, and to establish unity in the Catholic community in China.

The Message of Pope Francisannounced Wednesday morning at the General Audiencebegins with a word of encouragement for Chinese Catholics, who, he says, are daily present in his prayers. He recalls the words of Jesus, earlier quoted by Benedict XVI in his Letter to the Chinese faithful: Fear not, little flock (Lk, 12:32).

Confusion from a flurry of opinions

The Pope immediately goes to the heart of the question:

Of late, many conflicting reports have circulated about the present and, in particular, the future of the Catholic communities in China. I am aware that this flurry of thoughts and opinions may have caused a certain confusion and prompted different reactions in the hearts of many. Some feel doubt and perplexity, while others sense themselves somehow abandoned by the Holy See and anxiously question the value of their sufferings endured out of fidelity to the Successor of Peter. In many others, there prevail positive expectations and reflections inspired by the hope of a more serene future for a fruitful witness to the faith in China.

It is a situation, he emphasizes, that has become more acute with the recent signing in Beijing of the Provisional Agreement on the nomination of Bishops.

Admiration for Chinese Catholics, witnesses of the Gospel

Pope Francis expresses his sincere admirationwhich is the admiration of the entire Catholic Churchfor the gift of your fidelity, your constancy amid trials, and your firm trust in Gods providence, even when certain situations proved particularly adverse and difficult. Such painful experiences, he says, are part of the spiritual treasury of the Church in China and of all Gods pilgrim people on earth. He assures them that the Lord, through the crucible of our trials, never fails to pour out his consolations upon us and to prepare us for an even greater joy, and exhorts them to look to the example of all those faithful laity and pastors who readily offered their good witness (cf. 1 Tim 6:13) to the Gospel, even to the sacrifice of their own lives. They showed themselves true friends of God!

A dialogue begun by John Paul, advanced by Benedict XVI

The Pope clarifies that the Provisional Agreement is the result of a lengthy and complex institutional dialogue between the Holy See and the Chinese authorities initiated by Saint John Paul II and continued by Pope Benedict XVI. Through this process, the Holy See has desired  and continues to desire  only to attain the Churchs specific spiritual and pastoral aims, namely, to support and advance the preaching of the Gospel, and to reestablish and preserve the full and visible unity of the Catholic community in China.

Departing with faith, even when the road is unknown

He then shares a few reflections for the journey we are called to undertake in this new phase. Once again quoting Benedict, the Pope explains that it is a journey that requires time and presupposes the good will of both parties. Pope Francis pointed to the example of Abraham, who, called by God... obeyed by setting out for an unknown land that he was to receive as an inheritance, without knowing the path that lay ahead. Had Abraham demanded ideal social and political conditions before leaving his land, perhaps he would never have set out. Instead, he trusted in God and in response to Gods word he left his home and its safety. It was not historical changes that made him put his trust in God; rather, it was his pure faith that brought about a change in history. Invoking his position as Successor of Peter, Pope Francis says forcefully, I want to confirm you in this faith (cf. Lk 22:32) and to ask you to place your trust ever more firmly in the Lord of history and in the Churchs discernment of his will.

The nomination of Bishops

Pope Francis explains that it was essential, before all else, to deal with the issue of the appointment of bishops. He says:

Regrettably, as we know, the recent history of the Catholic Church in China has been marked by deep and painful tensions, hurts and divisions, centred especially on the figure of the bishop as the guardian of the authenticity of the faith and as guarantor of ecclesial communion.

When, in the past, it was presumed to determine the internal life of the Catholic communities, imposing direct control above and beyond the legitimate competence of the state, the phenomenon of clandestinity arose in the Church in China.

Call for reconciliation and expressions of unity

However, the Pope says, he has nonetheless experienced great consolation in knowing the heartfelt desire of Chinese Catholics to live their faith in full communion with the universal Church and with the Successor of Peter. This, he says, is true even of Bishops, who have damaged communion in the Church as a result of weakness and errors, but also, and not infrequently, due to powerful and undue pressure from without. He assures the faithful that after carefully examining every individual personal situation, and listening to different points of view, I have devoted much time to reflection and prayer, seeking the true good of the Church in China. And he forcefully affirms, Before the Lord and with serenity of judgment, in continuity with the direction set by my immediate predecessors, I have determined to grant reconciliation to the remaining seven official bishops ordained without papal mandate and, having lifted every relevant canonical sanction, to readmit them to full ecclesial communion. At the same time, I ask them to express with concrete and visible gestures their restored unity with the Apostolic See and with the Churches spread throughout the world, and to remain faithful despite any difficulties.

Embracing those who have gone astray

In his Message, Pope Francis now invites Chinese Catholics to work towards reconciliation, recalling his own words at the conclusion of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, that no law or precept can prevent God from once more embracing the son who returns to him admitting that he has done wrong but intending to start his life anew. In this spirit, he says, we can initiate an unprecedented process that we hope will help to heal the wounds of the past, restore full communion among all Chinese Catholics.

Choosing pastors with the heart of Jesus

The Pope explains, that, while the Provisional Agreement is limited to certain aspects of the Churchs life and necessarily capable of improvement, it can, nonetheless, contribute to writing this new chapter of the Catholic Church in China. For the first time, he says, the Agreement sets out stable elements of cooperation between the state authorities and the Apostolic See, in the hope of providing the Catholic community with good shepherds.

In this context, he continues, the Holy See intends fully to play its own part. Yet, he says,

an important part also falls to you, the bishops, priests, consecrated men and women, and lay faithful: to join in seeking good candidates capable of taking up in the Church the demanding and important ministry of bishop. It is not a question of appointing functionaries to deal with religious issues, but of finding authentic shepherds according to the heart of Jesus, men committed to working generously in the service of Gods people, especially the poor and the most vulnerable.

The role of Chinese Catholics in society

Speaking about Chinese Catholics place in society, Pope Francis says:

On the civil and political level, Chinese Catholics must be good citizens, loving their homeland and serving their country with diligence and honesty, to the best of their ability. On the ethical level, they should be aware that many of their fellow citizens expect from them a greater commitment to the service of the common good and the harmonious growth of society as a whole. In particular, Catholics ought to make a prophetic and constructive contribution born of their faith in the kingdom of God. At times, this may also require of them the effort to offer a word of criticism, not out of sterile opposition, but for the sake of building a society that is more just, humane and respectful of the dignity of each person.

Overcoming opposition in order to evangelize

Pope Francis then addresses Bishops, priests, and consecrated persons, asking them to overcome to leave behind past conflicts and attempts to pursue our own interests, in order to care for the faithful. He calls on them to work humbly for reconciliation and unity and, with energy and enthusiasm, to take up the path of evangelization indicated by the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council.

Appeal to young Chinese Catholics

The Pope also speaks to young Chinese Catholics, exhorting them to cooperate in building the future of your country, and to bring, by your enthusiasm, the joy of the Gospel to everyone you meet. He asks them to open their hearts and minds to discern the merciful plan of God, who asks us to rise above personal prejudices and conflicts between groups and communities, in order to undertake a courageous fraternal journey in the light of an authentic culture of encounter.

All Catholics called to be close to the faithful in China

Pope Francis speaks of the important duty of all Catholics throughout the world to accompany our brothers and sisters in China with fervent prayer and fraternal friendship. He says, they need to feel that in the journey that now lies ahead, they are not alone.

Continuing the dialogue with Chinese authorities

Turning then, with respect" to the leaders of the Peoples Republic of China, Pope Francis renews his invitation to continue, with trust, courage and farsightedness, the dialogue begun some time ago in order to overcome past differences, even those of the more recent past, and to open a new chapter of more serene and practical cooperation, in the shared conviction that incomprehension [serves] the interests of neither the Chinese people nor the Catholic Church in China (Benedict XVI, Letter to Chinese Catholics). In this way, he says, China and the Holy See will be able to make efforts to promote the integral development of society by ensuring greater respect for the human person, also in the religious sphere. The Pope also emphasizes that a new style of straightforward daily cooperation needs to develop between local authorities and ecclesiastical authorities  bishops, priests and community elders  in order to ensure that pastoral activities take place in an orderly manner, in harmony with the legitimate expectations of the faithful and the decisions of competent authorities. And he repeats, The Church in China is not oblivious to Chinese history, nor does she seek any privilege.

Prayer to Mary

Finally, Pope Francis implores from the Lord the gift of peace, and invites everyone to invoke the maternal protection of the Virgin Mary. His message ends with a prayer:

Mother of Heaven, hear the plea of your children as we humbly call upon your name!

Virgin of Hope, we entrust to you the journey of the faithful in the noble land of China. We ask you to present to the Lord of history the trials and tribulations, the petitions and the hopes of all those who pray to you, O Queen of Heaven!

Mother of the Church, we consecrate to you the present and the future of our families and our communities. Protect and sustain them in fraternal reconciliation and in service to the poor who bless your name, O Queen of Heaven!

Consolation of the Afflicted, we turn to you, for you are the refuge of all who weep amid their trials. Watch over your sons and daughters who praise your name; make them one in bringing the proclamation of the Gospel. Accompany their efforts to build a more fraternal world. Grant that they may bring the joy of forgiveness to all whom they meet, O Queen of Heaven!

The full text of Pope Francis' "Message to the Catholics of China and to the Universal Church" can be found by following the link to the Holy See website.Former German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel, pictured March 2018, said that Lebanon's neighbors should let the recovering country decide its own fate AFP/John MACDOUGALL

Saudi Arabia, which has increasingly challenged Western governments who speak out on its record, in November recalled its ambassador from Berlin following the eyebrow-raising resignation of Saad Hariri as Lebanon's prime minister while visiting Riyadh.

Sigmar Gabriel, who was then Germany's foreign minister, said that Lebanon's neighbors should let the recovering country decide its own fate, angering Saudi Arabia which like Hariri denied that he was coerced.

Gabriel's successor Heiko Maas, meeting with Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir on the sidelines of the annual UN General Assembly, voiced regret and said the two countries would send back ambassadors.

"In recent months our relations have witnessed misunderstandings which stand in sharp contrast to our otherwise strong and strategic ties with the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and we sincerely regret this," Maas told reporters.

"We should have been clearer in our communication and engagement in order to avoid such misunderstandings."

Jubeir, speaking next to Maas, invited him to visit and affirmed "deep strategic ties" with Germany.

"The kingdom and Germany play a leading role in bolstering international security and stability and the global economy," Jubeir said.

Saudi Arabia, which has especially close ties with US President Donald Trump, has increasingly made clear it would not tolerate reprimands.

Last month Riyadh expelled the ambassador of Canada and froze all new trade after Ottawa denounced a crackdown on activists in the kingdom.

Saudi Arabia similarly pulled its ambassador from Sweden in 2015 over human rights criticism.

Hariri, who eventually returned to Lebanon and reversed his resignation, also holds Saudi and French nationality.

The episode was seen as the latest chapter in Saudi Arabia's intensifying feud with regional rival Iran after Hariri improved ties with longtime rival Hezbollah, a militant Shiite movement backed by Tehran.Grab's acquisition of Uber's Southeast Asian operations is under investigation across the globe

Grab acquired Ubers Southeast Asia business in March, but the Competition Commission of Singapore (CCCS) has declared the deal anti-competitive following an investigation into its impact on Singapore. CCCS levied a combined fine of $9.5 million on Uber and Grab, but it will not unwind the deal.

Jerry Lim, country head of Grab Vietnam, said that they are glad that CCCS has completed its investigations on the Grab-Uber transaction and did not require the unwinding of the transaction. Following the Philippines Competition Commission (PCC)s approval of the legality of the Grab-Uber transaction in July 2018, the decision by the CCCS in not overturning the transaction marks yet another step in the right direction in appreciating the benefits brought about by such a transaction.

Grab proceeded with the transaction in the good faith that there is no breach of competition laws. The key point of contention lies in the difference in the authorities' and Grabs definitions of what constitutes a competitive playing field.

According to Lim, established taxi operators, among other transport operators, remain strong competitors to ride-hailing players like Grab in all countries where it operates. Customers have the choice to switch to other forms of transport, including street-hails and alternative apps, and drivers have the choice to switch to join other companies if prevailing conditions such as pricing and income are not favourable to them.

In Vietnam, taxi companies such as Mai Linh and Vinasun have always considered ride-hailing players as their direct competitors. Vinasun and Mai Linh are two of the largest taxi companies in Vietnam who have invested in their own car and taxi ride-hailing mobile applications to compete.

Under Decision 24, the Vietnamese government has granted e-hailing pilot licences to nine other companies, including established taxi companies, to operate car e-hailing services in five cities and provinces. All companies approved by the pilot licence were given equal opportunity to compete and innovate to maximise the efficiency of public transportation with the best interests of consumers at heart.

He stressed that unlike in Singapore and the Philippines, in Vietnam, Grab can only provide transport connecting services by entering into contracts with eligible transport cooperatives and enterprises, and such transport cooperatives and enterprises will provide transport services to the passengers who book a ride using the Grab app platform. As a technology company, Grab does not own vehicle fleets nor contract directly with drivers.

The Vietnam Competition Authority (VCA) is carrying out the antitrust investigation into Grabs takeover of Ubers business in Vietnam. The investigation is estimated to take 180 days, starting from May 18 to November. Once it is completed, VCA will transfer the case to the Vietnam Competition Council for a resolution.

The representative of Grab Vietnam stated that competition dynamics, market conditions, and the regulatory landscape in Vietnam is unique in Southeast Asia, which Grab believes the VCA will take into consideration in its investigation.Barry Day, the Asia design director of planning and landscape at B+H Architects, speaks about innovative and sustainable landscape resort design at the two-day Second Annual Hotels and Resorts conference which closed yesterday in HCM City.-VNS Photo Bo Xuan Hiep

Barry Day, the Asia design director of planning and landscape at B+H Architects, told Vietnam News on the sidelines of the conference that Vietnams hospitality sector must make more serious preparations for climate change.

The increasing frequency and severity of storms in coastal areas with low-lying land, large population bases and high development densities are costly and are having a major effect on residents livelihoods and hotel guest experiences, he said. They are also affecting safety as well as raising financial costs for resort developers and operators.

While many cities around the world are putting strategies into place to ensure that they are protected against the effects of climate change, in our experience, hospitality developments have yet to address this critical issue in a meaningful way, he said.

Planning and landscape design are key tools to ensure that resort developments, particularly those along the coast, are resilient and are able to withstand the effects of climate change, while also providing the unique amenities and experiences that guests, operators and developers expect, according to Day.

What is often missing in Vietnams hospitality sector is a well thought-out and clearly defined master plan that helps to guide the development that is taking place, he noted.

The lack of this framework is a critical issue that comes up frequently during our discussions with different operators and developers in the region and, we feel, directly affects potential investment in the region.

"A master plan and development guidelines help position individual sites within a larger framework that addresses regional and ecological strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities.

"A master plan also lays the foundation for individual developments that are much more sustainable as they then become part of a larger system that balances the requirements of both development and the local environment and community."

Do Huu Nhat Quang, co-founder of GREENVIET, a local green building consultant, said that going green was urgently needed in the design of hospitality properties.

Who will take the lead in the Vietnamese market? The early bird will get the worm, he said.

Green design could cost a bit more in the beginning, but in the long term, it saves money and improves property branding, Quang noted.

All involved parties reap multiple benefits from a green property that has lower energy and water consumption, less waste generation, and better indoor air.

Property owners and operators, for example, will have lower operation costs, while tourists will have better spaces to enjoy, he said.

Though many hotel chains around the world are applying green building standards, the number is still limited in Vietnam compared to the potential, according to Quang.

Binu John, director of business development for Singapore-based FBEYE International Pte Ltd, said that Asia had not been as aggressive as the rest of the world in green and sustainable architecture and design, especially due to the associated costs used to buy materials.

But its only a matter of time when everyone will be aware of green and sustainable design. Its the only way forward, he said. Vietnam as well as every other country has to think seriously about how we should respond and care for nature.

That is our future. I think everyone has to come together to see how we can reduce energy usage, even with the slight rise in costs in the beginning. In the long run, property owners benefit.

Lian Miew Ching, design director of Singapore-based CHIL Interior Design in Asia, agreed that there was huge potential for the Vietnamese tourism industry to develop resorts and hotels with a focus on sustainability and ecological responsibility.

Vietnam is such a beautiful country. Its so easy to damage it irreparably. Harnessing innovative and sustainable landscape solutions is not only a long-term investment in the future of the tourism industry, it is imperative, he said.

FDI investment

In addition to sustainability in the hospitality sector, the status of FDI investment in Vietnam was also discussed at the event.

Dr Bui Tat Thang, president of the Vietnam Institute for Development Strategies under the Ministry of Planning and Investment, noted that the country had attracted a high level of investment for the last 30 years.

As of July 20, total FDI registered in Vietnam had reached $333 billion, with more than 26,210 projects, of which actual FDI capital accounted for 54.7 per cent of total registered capital.

Of the figure, the real estate sector accounted for 16.9 per cent of the total investment.

To date, 129 countries and territories have investment projects in Vietnam, of which the largest is South Korea, followed by Japan.

In July, the real estate sector ranked second in attracting FDI capital, with a total of 704 projects, according to the Foreign Investment Agency under the ministry.

To continue to improve the investment environment, experts at the event recommended more integrated local supply chains, qualified domestic suppliers, and expanded training for labourers.

The conference also discussed the rising popularity of Airbnb in Vietnam and the role of vocational training in the tourism sector.

The conference was hosted by Bricsa Consulting, which holds high-end networking and knowledge-sharing conferences.According to Toyonori Nishimura, president of Fuki Sangyo Group in Japan, garbage can be a kind of resource by the use of modern technology.

This technology, if applied in Vietnam, will bring benefits to both the people and the economy as the investment costs are reasonable, said Nishimura.

Fuki Sangyo proposed a $30 million high-tech project to Ho Chi Minh City

Specifically, with the waste treatment technology of Fuki Sangyo, garbage from convenience stores and supermarkets can be recycled into animal feed and fertiliser within 24 hours, waste from bread and bran cake into food for pigs, and synthetic waste converted into energy, fertiliser or recycled materials. Similarly, waste from manufacturing brewers can be recycled into liquid food or dried into flour.

With this waste treatment system, tonnes of dead pigs, cows and chicken can be processed into bio-fertilisers and auxiliary energy, while waste from tea and coffee leaves can also be recycled into animal feed, fertilizer, and energy.

"The investment cost for such a plant is about $30 million and the technology is ready and can be installed right away," Nishimura proposed.

Commenting on this proposal, Tu Minh Thien, deputy head of the Management Board of Hi-Tech Park of Ho Chi Minh City, said that Fuki Sangyo's technology has many advantages and will bring many benefits at very reasonable costs.

Meanwhile, Nguyen Van Dung, chairman of Bao Thu Industrial Development and Investment JSCthe Vietnamese partner of Fuki Sangyoremarked that technology could be very useful for Vietnam's agriculture.

If this technology is applied, the waste disposal of the whole city need no longer be centred at one large location, but can be moved to each district to several smaller waste plants, Dung said.

According to Dung, Fuki Sangyo and his company are implementing steps to set up such plants in Vietnam, first in Ho Chi Minh City, Dong Nai and Kien Giang provinces.

High-tech urban agriculture has been identified by Ho Chi Minh City authorities as the main direction of the city's agricultural sector. High-technology from Japanese partners are receiving much attention from the city authorities.

Nguyen Thanh Phong, Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee, said that hi-tech agriculture is the development focus for Ho Chi Minh City in the coming time with the desire to become a centre for the distribution and research of agricultural products for the whole southern region.

Ho Chi Minh City has also approved the plan named Training high-tech agricultural human resources in 2018-2020" with the target of forming and developing hi-tech agricultural human resources who can have in-depth knowledge and experiences in applying research, managing, and transferring skills in agriculture development.

According to this plan, there will be nearly 3,000 agricultural workers trained during this period so that they can participate in each step of the production chain when applying hi-tech agriculture. 20 other post graduates and doctors will also be educated in applying high-technology inside and outside of Vietnam.Luong Thi Hien at her forest, funded by microcredit from Vietnam Bank for Social Policies

Before receiving the microcredit, Vuong Thi Xuan struggled as a Nung ethnic minority woman from Na Cu hamlet, Cam Giang commune, Bach Thong district of Bac Kan province. Similar to other families, Xuan went through a difficult childhood and poverty persisted after she got married.

Xuan and her husband took care of their three children in a run-down house, without any land to call their own. The husband worked odd jobs, while Xuan was a stay-at-home mother due to her heart problems.

Xuans life was changed after she took out a loan from Vietnam Bank for Social Policies (VBSP). At only VND5 million ($215), the loan was relatively small, but enough for Nung to build a pig sty and some pigs to raise. Thanks to her hard-work and help from other farmers, Xuan was soon able to repay the loan and took out bigger ones to raise her expanding herd. The family is now out of poverty and their home has been refurbished.

In 2016, Xuan was granted a VND42 million ($1,800) loan package from VBSP to venture into forestry. The family currently owns 2 hectares of forest and three deer for antlers. The forest is now three years old and ripe for harvest, while the antlers can be sold for VND20 million ($857) per kg.

Deer is easier to raise than cattle, so we hope that the new money from VBSP will help us increase our deer herd, said Xuan.

Similar to Xuan, Luong Thi Hien, an ethnic Tay woman from Bach Thong district, took out a loan from VBSP and transformed her life. Prior to this loan, Hien was a farmer with a small paddy field and some cattle. However, she did not make much money and could not protect her crops or cattle from bad weather or diseases.

Thanks to the money from VBSP, Hien and her family were able to improve the efficiency of their crop and cattle. The family soon became better off and their life improved dramatically.

Most recently, in March 2016, Hien borrowed VND35 million ($1,500) and spent it on forestry. Two years later, this small forest is expected to fetch the family VND60 million ($2,571). The family also has 4,000sq.m of paddy fields, which is another stream of income.

It is estimated that VBSP manages more than 20 credit programmes, with outstanding loans of VND177 trillion ($7.5 million). About 8.4 million loans have been disbursed among 6.7 million customers, about 24.4 per cent of whom are from ethnic minority familieseach family borrowed VND29 million ($1,242) on average.

The money is used for business activities, forestry, husbandry, and agriculture. Families also used the capital to renovate their homes or build clean water systems or send their children to school. The money has indeed transformed the lives of millions of ethnic minority families.

According to Dr Bui Sy Loi, member of the National Assembly, the credit programmes from VBSP are highly regarded by the National Assembly and other governmental authorities.

The programme has helped ethnic minorities to improve their lives, escape poverty, and build a better future for their entire family. Social security also improved due to the decreased crime rates and better education, said Loi.

Changing the poors perceptions on finance Policy credit programmes have helped change the financial perception among the poor on savings, self-raising funds, and accumulating for the future, elevating millions of households ...

VBSP celebrates 15th anniversary Vietnam Bank of Social Policies has enjoyed a successful 2017, celebrating its 15th anniversary. Nguyen Van Ly, deputy CEO of the bank, shared with Ha ...Phu Quoc is attracting an increasing number of visitors and investors.-VNA/VNS Photo Le Sen

Mai Van Huynh, Chairman of the Phu Quoc District Peoples Committee, said to achieve such target the district would continue to review and solicit investment in more projects, tweak investment incentives and preferential policies and streamline administrative processes to attract investors.

Tourism, commerce, healthcare, education, and high-tech agriculture would be the main pillars of socio-economic development, he said.

The district has improved land administration, planning, mining, and environmental protection, and cracked down on violations, Huynh added.

According to the management of the Phu Quoc Economic Zone, the district has 279 potential projects, 215 of them in tourism, 23 in housing, eight each in agriculture, public services and forestry.

The total investment in the projects is worth VND361 trillion (US$15.4 billion)

Of them, 241 involving total investment of VND14.75 trillion ($633.37 million) have received approval with 36 already getting under way.

Phu Quoc is attracting more and more visitors and investors.

Since 2015 it has received 4.7 million visitors, 20.5 per cent of them foreigners. The average revenues from tourism have been increasing by 42.5 per cent.

Pham Van Nghiep, deputy chairman of the Peoples Committee, said eight airlines fly to Phu Quoc International Airport and operate 12 international routes to Russia, China, Korea, and Thailand and also fly to Ha Noi, Hai Phong, HCM City and Can Tho.

This would enable Phu Quoc to promote international co-operation and attract more foreign investors, he said.

The island aims to make tourism a key economic sector by continuing to develop eco-tourism, community tourism and others, he said.Scene at the State Funeral for President Tran Dai Quang (Photo: Zing)

The funeral is held by the Party Central Committee, National Assembly, State President, Government and Vietnam Fatherland Front Central Committee.

President Tran Dai Quang is laid in state at the National Funeral Hall.

The respect-paying ceremony started at 7am. Since early in the morning, delegations from the Party, State, National Assembly, Government, Vietnam Fatherland Front, the armed forces, and crowds of officials, Party members and people of all strata in the capital city and many other cities and provinces nationwide gathered at the National Funeral Hall to pay tribute to the President, who devoted his entire life to the revolutionary cause of the Party and nation.

Family members of President Tran Dai Quang led by his wife Nguyen Thi Hien were the first to offer incense and flowers to their beloved.

(Photo: VNA)

Then, the delegation from the Party Central Committee led by General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong paid homage to the President.

(Photo: VNA)

Writing in the funeral guest book, the Party leader noted that President Tran Dai Quang has made great contributions to the glorious revolutionary cause of the Vietnamese Party, State and people, especially the peoples police force, as well as to national construction and defence.

His passing is a great loss to the Party, State and people of Vietnam, he wrote.

The respect-paying ceremony continued with the Government delegation led by Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, the National Assembly delegation headed by Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, the State President delegation led by Acting President Dang Thi Ngoc Thinh, and the Vietnam Fatherland Front Central Committee delegation led by Vice President and General Secretary Hau A Lenh.

(Photo: VNA)

At the same time, respect paying ceremonies are also taking place at the Thong Nhat Hall in Ho Chi Minh City, and in Village 13, Quang Thien commune, Kim Son district, Ninh Binh province, the home province of the President.

President Tran Dai Quang passed away at 10:05am on September 21 in Hanoi due to serious illness at the age of 62.Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, warns that the rules-based global order is at risk in the opening of the annual UN General Assembly debate AFP/TIMOTHY A. CLARY

Addressing the opening session of the UN General Assembly, Guterres said trust in the rules-based global order and among states was "at a breaking point" and international cooperation was becoming more difficult.

"Today, world order is increasingly chaotic. Power relations are less clear," Guterres told the 193-nation assembly just minutes before President Donald Trump was to take the podium.

"Universal values are being eroded. Democratic principles are under siege."

Guterres did not single out a country for criticism, but there are fears among UN diplomats that the world is being carved up into spheres of influence and a return to great power rivalry.

Trump's administration has made clear its distrust of international treaties, having scrapped the Iran nuclear deal, the Paris climate agreement and cut funding to the United Nations.

UN diplomats say the US stance has emboldened Russia and China to push their view of the global order in which human rights take a second seat to development and sovereignty rights.

"Today, with shifts in the balance of power, the risk of confrontation may increase," warned Guterres.

The human rights agenda is losing ground and "authoritarianism is on the rise," he said

Guterres urged world leaders to renew their commitment to a rules-based order, with the United Nations at its center to confront "massive, existential threats to people and planet."

"There is no way forward but collective, common-sense action for the common good," he said.

Drawing a list of global problems, Guterres acknowledged that peace efforts were failing and that respect for international humanitarian norms was unraveling.

"There is outrage at our inability to end the wars in Syria, Yemen and elsewhere", he said.

"The Rohingya people remain exiled, traumatized and in misery, still yearning for safety and justice."

The two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has become "more and more distant" while the nuclear threat "has not eased".

Guterres zeroed in on climate change as an urgent priority, warning that if no concrete action is taken in the next two years to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the world risks facing runaway climate change.

"Climate change is moving faster than we are -- and its speed has provoked a sonic boom SOS across our world," he said.

About 130 world leaders are attending this year's annual session including Trump and Iranian leader Hassan Rouhani who also speaks on Tuesday. France's Emmanuel Macron, a champion of multilateralism, also has his turn at the podium on Tuesday.United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and his counterparts "reiterated their concern with and confirmed their shared objective to address non-market-oriented polices" AFP/Riccardo Savi

US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, Japanese Economy Minister Hiroshige Seko and European Union Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem "reiterated their concern with and confirmed their shared objective to address non-market-oriented policies".

In a statement issued on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, they said unnamed "third countries" had engaged in "severe overcapacity," while creating unfair competitive conditions, threatening technological development and ultimately undermining global trade.

"The ministers recalled that market-oriented conditions are fundamental to a fair, mutually advantageous global trading system and that their citizens and businesses operate under market-oriented conditions," said the statement.

"The ministers found such practices to be deplorable," it added, noting the three economies were considering "possible measures" that could be undertaken.

Washington has cited precisely these grievances in justifying its escalating trade war with Beijing, which it also accuses of seeking global industrial predominance through theft, coercion, subsidies and state-sponsored acquisitions.

On Monday, the United States imposed tariffs on another US$200 billion in Chinese imports, meaning about half of everything Americans buy from China is now subjected to import levies.Vietnams permanent mission to the United Nations pays tribute to President Tran Dai Quang (Photo: VNA)

Large numbers of overseas Vietnamese, ambassadors and representatives from delegations to the UN, international organisations in New York and local officials came to the missions headquarters to pay respect to the Vietnamese President.

The heads of State and Government along with senior officials of many countries, who are in New York for the high-level meeting of the 73rd UN General Assembly, also paid tribute to President Tran Dai Quang.

Writing in the funeral book, the guests expressed deep condolences to the Government and people of Vietnam over the death of the Vietnamese President.

The people and government of Cuba will always remember President Tran Dai Quang for his contribution to strengthening the historical ties between the two countries, President of Cuba Miguel Diaz-Canel wrote.

President of Cuba Miguel Diaz-Canel pays tribute to President Tran Dai Quang (Photo: VNA)

On September 24, the UN flied the flag at half-mast in tribute to the Vietnamese President. Earlier on September 21, the UN General Assembly held a minutes silence to remember President Tran Dai Quang. The same day, the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres presented 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 be long remembered in his country and beyond, the statement issued by the UN Secretary General spokesperson said.

President Tran Dai Quang passed away at 10:05am on September 21 in Hanoi at the age of 62 due to serious illness.A senior US Embassy official in Cambodia has warned Cambodia over its growing closeness with Beijing.

At a meeting in the capital, Michael Newbill, the embassys charge daffaires, said incurring substantial debts to China has had negative impacts on other countries, such as Sri Lanka and Djibouti.

Cambodias leaders must recognize the risks of relying on only one partner, and whether its people will accept that major change in the countrys orientation, Newbill said.

He went on to call for the Cambodian government to open up political space for Cambodian people to have a voice in their countrys future.

Chinese investment can be beneficial, but these deals need scrutiny and close supervision to make sure the benefits go to the country, not the dealmakers, Newbill said. Transparency is essential for defending sovereignty.

Most countries have fought long and hard to maintain their freedom, their independence  and would never allow their hard-won sovereignty to be sold to the highest bidder.

Cambodian government spokesman Phay Siphan said on Tuesday that the comment by the charge daffaires was a defense of the U.S.s interests which embraced self-isolation amid the Trump administrations switch from multilateralism to bilateralism on trade.

For Cambodia, we always tread carefully. Those past debts are within the repayable boundary and we will not allow those debts to create political influence on Cambodia. The government is absolutely committed to prevent Cambodia from falling into a geopolitical spat.

Newbills remarks came after more than a year of political repression of critics and opposition party supporters in Cambodia that paved the way for the ruling partys controversial July 29 victory that saw it take all seats in parliament.

Amid pressure from the U.S. and the European Union over its democratic decline, Beijing has defended Phnom Penh.

The suggestion by the U.S. official also came amid an escalating trade confrontation between Beijing and Washington, and growing skepticism of Chinas alleged hidden ambition in its signature global development project: the Belt and Road Initiative.

But on a brief trip to China this month  the first trip abroad since the formulation of the new cabinet  Prime Minister Hun Sen sought to reassure Chinese investors by saying the Cambodian Peoples Party was protecting their investments.

Earlier this month, U.S. President Donald Trump granted an audience to Chum Sounry, the new Cambodian ambassador to the U.S.

The Chinese Embassy in Phnom Penh didnt respond to a request for comment as of Tuesday.Parts of an environmental impact assessment for the controversial Pak Lay dam in Laos was copied word for word from an assessment of the equally contentious Pak Beng dam, an advocacy group has claimed.

A statement from Save the Mekong, released last week during a meeting of the Mekong River Commission (MRC) in Vientiane, Laos, claimed that a large portion of the impact assessment was taken from the 2015 Pak Beng assessment.

At least 90% of the Social Baseline Conditions section of the Pak Lay dam is copied directly from the Pak Beng dam assessment, including photos, tables and text, Save the Mekong said in a statement.

The MRC in a statement confirmed that parts of the assessment appear to be similar to those of the Pak Beng project.

The MRC Secretariat will review the extent of the similarities between the Pak Lay and Pak Beng assessments as well as identify any opportunities to improve the assessments by including recent data and information. The Secretariat will document findings in the technical review report, and will highlight whether such shortcomings affect a reasonable and sound assessment of the project, it said.

The forum was held about two months after the Xe-Pian Xe-Namnoy dam in Laos suffered a catastrophic failure, leaving an unknown number of Laotians dead and displaced.

Laos has planned to build 140 dams along the Mekong river system, with five major dams planned for the Mekong mainstream.Australian filmmaker James Ricketson will be banned from returning to Cambodia following his release from jail last week.

Khieu Sopheak, interior ministry spokesman, said Ricketson would have no opportunity to return to Cambodia again.

Ricketson, who was sentenced to six years in August for allegedly spying, had reportedly planned to return to Cambodia to complete a film he had been working on for several years.

Khieu Sopheak added the court based its decision after finding Ricketson was not neutral, not independent.

The 69-year-old used a drone to film an opposition rally in the capital ahead of local elections in 2017.

Ricketson served more than a year in pre-trial detention before his sentencing in August.

Kong Sam Onn, Ricketsons lawyer, said his client would need to decide whether to pursue legal action if he was to be barred from the country.

Phil Robertson, Human Rights Watchs deputy Asia director, said it would be regrettable if the government banned from the country.

"After imprisoning Ricketson on bogus charges, this decision to bar him from Cambodia where he spent over 20 years really adds insult to injury. It's sadly typical that those defending Hun Sen's corrupt, rights abusing government of super-rich elites would want to keep out someone like Ricketson who dedicated his time to helping the poorest of the poor. Ricketson is too good and focused on the needs of others for crude government propagandists like Khieu Sopheak to understand, he said.In Malawi, the U.N. refugee agency, UNHCR, is helping thousands of Mozambican refugees return home after three years in the Luwani refugee camp. The refugees expressed a desire to go home after an easing of tensions between Mozambique's ruling Frelimo party and the opposition, Renamo. Lameck Masina talked to refugees at the camp and reports that they are hopeful for the future, but also, realistic.President Trump denounced globalism in favor of patriotism and an America First foreign policy in a speech to the UN General Assembly, while calling on member nations to defend themselves against "global governance." His speech Tuesday was in sharp contrast to the U.N. secretary-general's call for leaders to strengthen multilateral institutions. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara reports. Milena Gjorgjievska of VOA's Macedonian contributes.NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Tuesday he wants a more constructive relationship with Russia  even as the Western alliance is taking measures to respond to Moscow's increasing military assertiveness.



It's a delicate balancing act. Stoltenberg met Tuesday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and neither side showed signs of backing down from their firm, wary military posture. Such meetings are rare, as NATO-Russia contacts have waned since the Ukraine conflict broke out in 2014.



Speaking to The Associated Press shortly before the meeting on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly , Stoltenberg expressed concern about Russia's military interference in Ukraine and Georgia, support for Syria's Bashar Assad, and the buildup of Russia's naval forces in the eastern Mediterranean.



"When we have serious disagreements, when we see increased tensions, when we see more military presence close to our borders, it's actually even more important to have dialogue," Stoltenberg said in an interview.



Russia is deeply bitter about NATO's expansion since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and sees NATO activity in eastern Europe as unwarranted interference in Russia's geographical backyard.



Improving communication between NATO and Russia could help defuse tensions, Stoltenberg said, as long as conflicts like that in Ukraine remain unresolved. "At least to manage a difficult relationship, to avoid miscalculations, misunderstandings that can trigger really serious incidents or accidents and make sure that if they happen, make sure that they don't spiral out of control."



Asked about Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko's recent comment that his country's military aims to meet the criteria for NATO membership by 2020, Stoltenberg indicated that NATO wouldn't be seeking Russia's permission for Kyiv to join the alliance.



"It's for Ukraine to decide its own path, whether they want to join NATO or not," he said. "At the end of the day it will be 29 allies and Ukraine that decides whether Ukraine is ready to meet the standards of joining NATO.''



Stoltenberg said NATO wants to avoid a return to Cold War days. But he noted that the alliance is deploying battle groups to its eastern members for the first time, stepping up its presence in the eastern Mediterranean and will soon hold the biggest exercise in the Norwegian Sea in a generation  Trident Juncture  involving land, air and naval forces.



Stoltenberg said he told Lavrov of NATO's concerns about Russian aggressiveness abroad, and that they discussed Trident Juncture and Russia's recent Vostok military exercises  their biggest in recent history.



Stoltenberg announced no specific progress after Tuesday's meeting but said they agreed to continue contacts.



Lavrov looked less upbeat, stalking away and refusing to comment on how it went. The Russian Foreign Ministry said they discussed the "current state of political dialogue, and prospects for Russia-NATO relations."

The meeting may have been clouded by Russian anger over Norway's arrest last week of a Russian parliamentary aide accused of spying. Stoltenberg is a former Norwegian minister. Lavrov assailed the espionage accusations as "propaganda" and huffed ironically about "Norwegian hospitality."A gaping ideological divide cuts through this year's gathering of world leaders at the United Nations. It's not between capitalists and communists, rich and poor, East and West. It's between multilateralists who advocate nations working together and unilateralists who are pushing for national sovereignty.

Despite near-universal hand-wringing about the U.N.'s failings, it was clear who was in the minority on Tuesday.

President Donald Trump stood alone in his unashamed defense of the America First agenda that helped propel him to power  an isolationist worldview that questions the worth of international organizations and is embraced by a small but growing number of populist governments.

Trump was surrounded by multilateralists, many of them traditional U.S. allies, who want more cooperation, not less, to tackle global ills such as climate change, poverty and mass migration.

Key quotes from the opening session of this year's U.N. General Assembly:

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres: Multilateralism is under fire precisely when we need it most.

Guterres, who heads the 193-member U.N., warned of the dangers of nations turning inward in a speech that was the inverse of Trump's.

In the face of massive, existential threats to people and planet ... there is no way forward but collective, common-sense action for the common good, he said.

He warned of a pivotal moment in global warming that risks runaway climate change if leaders dont act in the next two years. He urged nations to implement the Paris climate agreement that the U.S. is withdrawing from.

He also warned against rising polarization and populism, saying those who view their neighbors as dangerous may cause a threat where there was none.

Trump: America is governed by Americans. We reject the ideology of globalism, and we embrace the doctrine of patriotism.''

Although it was Trump's chance to speak to the world, he appeared to play to a domestic audience and struck a triumphalist tone.

He boasted that America is a stronger, safer and a richer country than when he took office. He defended his trade protectionism and said the U.S. is taking a hard look at its foreign assistance to countries that dont have American interests at heart.

He lambasted the U.N. Human Rights Council and the International Criminal Court, and rejected a global pact on the rights of migrants.

We will never surrender America's sovereignty to an unelected, unaccountable, global bureaucracy, he said.

Trump didn't mention climate change. He said the U.S. stands ready to export our abundant, affordable supply of oil, clean coal, and natural gas.

Brazilian President Michel Temer: We live in times clouded by isolationist forces. Old forms of intolerance are being rekindled.

Temer urged world leaders to recommit to international cooperation. He said that his administration has done its part by opening Brazils economy and by welcoming Venezuelans fleeing their countrys economic collapse.

He urged reforms of the U.N. Security Council, which is dominated by five permanent members  the U.S., China, France, Britain and Russia.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame: The current two-track system of global governance is unsustainable.

Kagame said the trend in Africa is for more cooperation, not less. He cited the signing his year of the African Continental Free Trade Area, and increased support for African Union peacekeeping operations.

He said multilateralism is critical for the planets future but requires more fairness.

A few get to be the ones to define the norms, by which others shall be judged, he said.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan: If we cannot create a minimum level of peace and prosperity for all, all over the world, no one can live safely within their own borders.

Erdogan highlighted Turkeys aid to 4 million Syrian refugees  a contrast to Trumps defense of securing U.S. borders from undocumented migrants.

He declared the U.N. to be very important for the future of the world but with a caveat: Security Council reform.

Erdogan struck a nationalist note too  warning friendly countries that fail to extradite terrorists wanted by Turkey would carry a hefty price. The increasingly authoritarian leader referred to a U.S.-based Islamic cleric whom he blames for a failed 2016 coup attempt.

French President Emmanuel Macron: Nationalism always leads to defeat.

Macron noted there has been increasing skepticism toward the U.N., European Union and other international bodies. He said that ``you may be tired of multilateralism,'' but urged against complacency and isolationism.

President of the Seychelles, Danny Faure: In this unique forum we have equal representation.

Faure defended the U.N. and said the existence of his Indian Ocean island nation depends on states upholding global commitments to fight climate change.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani: Confronting multilateralism is not a sign of strength; rather it is a symptom of the weakness of intellect.

Rouhanis speech was dominated by Iran's bitter rivalry with the U.S. which under Trump has withdrawn from a 2015 nuclear agreement with world powers that provided sanctions relief to Tehran. The U.S. accuses Iran with supporting terrorists.

Rouhani said Trump seems determined to make international institutions ineffectual which he said, betrays an inability in understanding a complex and interconnected world.After losing his job with a foreign food company in March, Alexander Costa surveyed Brazil's anemic labor market and decided to start selling cheap lunches by the beach in Rio de Janeiro to try and provide for his young family.

"I could have stayed home, looking for work, sending out resumes, with few jobs and things very hard," Costa said. "But I didn't stand still. I decided to create something different ... to reinvent myself."

Many other Brazilians have also had to reinvent themselves in recent years, as Latin America's largest economy struggles to overcome a jobs crisis more than a year after officially exiting recession.

Nearly 13 million people - or more than the entire population of Greece - are out of a job, with the unemployment rate hovering between 12 percent to 14 percent since 2016. As a result, unemployment is among voters' top concerns ahead of next month's election.

The desperate search for work amid a string of political graft scandals and rising violence has soured the mood, polarizing debate and distracting from the country's underlying fiscal challenges.

But only by lowering the unemployment rate will Brazil achieve the rise in household spending it needs to maintain sustained growth, said Marcos Casarin, the head of Latin America macro research at Oxford Economics.

"The only way to have a prolonged recovery in economic activity is if unemployment starts to fall in a substantial way," he said.

However, it could take several years to get the rate below 10 percent, he said, adding: "I'm not very optimistic."

Divisive Figures

With no presidential candidate likely to win a majority in the first-round vote on Oct. 7, it looks increasingly likely voters will face a choice between two candidates in the Oct. 28 run-off: far-right Jair Bolsonaro and leftist Fernando Haddad of the Workers Party.

Both are divisive figures  rejected by nearly half the electorate  making it likely that either one will face an uphill battle to pass ambitious economic reforms that foreign investors have long called for.

Bolsonaro has vowed to erase Brazil's primary budget deficit by 2020 through controversial privatizations and spending cuts.

Haddad has proposed broadening the central bank's mandate to include unemployment, while boosting government-led investments, revoking a spending ceiling and scuttling privatizations.

Both Bolsonaro and Haddad are pitching their proposals as ways to tackle the unemployment crisis, which has pushed many into the informal sector, sapping tax income and leaving workers without paid holidays, salary raises and other benefits.

Outgoing President Michel Temer last year passed an overhaul of the country's labor laws, which was intended to make the job market more flexible and which the government said would help create new jobs, an effect that as yet has failed to materialize.

Bolsonaro supports Temer's labor reform and wants to further cut work regulations to boost jobs. Haddad has suggested putting the labor reform, which was opposed by unions, to a referendum, while also advocating a short-term stimulus program.

Costa, however, was unwilling to wait and see what Brazil's next president comes up with.

His meals-on-wheels business started slowly, selling 13-reais ($3) lunches from the back of his car in Rio's wealthy Barra da Tijuca neighborhood. But business took off when he joined forces with his friend, Stefan Weiss, whose white BMW provides a ritzier shop window from which they now sell roughly 200 hot meals each day.

"At the moment, Brazil faces a big problem in relation to the economy and the lack of jobs," said Weiss, who works on an offshore oil platform but sells meals on days off to earn extra cash. "The people who lost their jobs are trying to find new ways to establish themselves in the market."The gunman in the Las Vegas mass shooting was armed with 23 AR-style weapons, 14 of them fitted with "bump stocks" that allowed them to mimic fully automatic fire.

The devices were little-known before they were used in the Oct. 1 rampage, the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. And in the immediate aftermath, there were calls from a wide spectrum of lawmakers and advocates on firearms issues to have them banned.



Here's what has happened with the devices since the attack that left 58 dead:



Legislative action



In the shooting's immediate aftermath, there appeared to be a growing desire to ban the sale and possession of bump stocks, which federal authorities previously deemed legal and not subject to the same tighter restrictions reserved for fully automatic firearms.



Most notably, President Donald Trump vowed to ban the devices, which attach to the stock end of an AR-style firearm, greatly increasing the rate of fire so it mimics a fully automatic long gun.



Trump in March tweeted: "Obama Administration legalized bump stocks. BAD IDEA. As I promised, today the Department of Justice will issue the rule banning BUMP STOCKS with a mandated comment period."



The government determined in 2010 that bump stocks couldn't be regulated unless Congress changed the law.



But as with many restrictions on firearms in recent years, more action has taken place at the state level than by the federal government.



Ten states and three cities have enacted bans on the devices. California made bump stock-style devices illegal there decades ago.



What has happened at the federal level?



Trump expressed support for banning the devices and directed the Justice Department to rewrite the federal regulations.



The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives this spring sought public comment on a proposal to reclassify bump stocks, but no action has been taken.



The proposed rules drew more than 35,000 comments.



The company



Slide Fire Solutions, America's largest bump stock manufacturer, closed its website in June and stopped taking orders. However, its remaining stock of the devices is now being sold by another company, RW Arms, based in Fort Worth, Texas.



The devices were originally intended to help people with disabilities and were little-known until the Las Vegas shooting.



Gun owners and enthusiasts frequently call bump stocks a novelty item. Gun dealers said very few of the devices were sold before the Las Vegas shooting, but demand soared afterward amid concern they might be banned.U.S. President Donald Trump announced this week he would have a second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in the not-too-distant future. Progress on denuclearizing the peninsula and restarting talks between Kim and Trump garnered much of the attention following the third inter-Korean summit last week.

But a comprehensive military agreement signed the same day by Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, hasnt received as much attention. If implemented, it stands to formulate how future military interactions are to take place between both Koreas.

Security confidence-building measures to reduce the potential for miscalculation and escalation of military hostilities is welcome, wrote Bruce Klinger, Senior Research Fellow for Northeast Asia at the Heritage Foundation, in an email to VOA.

But Moon risks going too far by lowering allied defenses before North Korea's conventional threat to South Korea, and U.S. troops stationed [in South Korea], is reduced, he said.

The readiness of U.S. troops on the peninsula was brought up Tuesday in Washington, where Army General Robert Abrams has been nominated to be the next commander of American forces in South Korea.

He testified before the Senate that suspending the Ulchi-Freedom Guardian joint military exercise has had an effect.

"I think there was certainly degradation to the readiness of the force," Abrams said.

However, Abrams said he was confident the current U.S. Forces Korea commander's mitigation plan would sustain readiness.

Establishing peace through non-confrontation

North and South Korea vowed to completely cease all hostile acts against each other in every domain as part of their comprehensive agreement signed last week in Pyongyang.

To achieve this, both sides promised to resolve any differences peacefully and have consultations on matters including large-scale military exercises and military buildup aimed at each other.

Seoul and Pyongyang plan to employ direct lines of communication, the operation of an Inter-Korean Joint Military Committee, and the adoption of a five-step process to prevent accidental clashes.

Both sides also agreed to cease military exercises inside the demilitarized zone (DMZ) from November on and established a series of no-fly zones and a maritime peace zone in the waters off the peninsulas western coast.

Furthermore, the agreement has the goal of transforming the DMZ into a peace zone by completely removing all guard posts that are within one kilometer of one another as a preliminary step, that ultimately would lead to their complete removal and eventual demilitarization of the Joint Security Area.

Security implications



The agreement reflects a logic of reciprocal restraint, wrote Victoria University of Wellington Senior Lecturer Van Jackson to VOA, who outlined two goals for the security realm: building confidence and managing risks.

If implemented as stated, I think this agreement will go a long way toward managing risk and inadvertent conflict, said Jackson, although he doubts the changes will do little to sway perceptions about each side's intentions.



While fighting on the Korean Peninsula ended in 1953 and in the absence of imminent war, Jackson said removing the guard posts poses little risk other than delaying response time should North Korea move across or attempt to re-occupy it.

Jaeho Hwang, the Director of the Global Security Cooperation Center at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, said the compromises in the agreements made by Seoul and Pyongyang were done to facilitate arms control and de-escalate hostilities.



Hwang said upholding the agreement is also in Kim Jong Uns best interest. He said if Kim were to break the agreement, that could reverse current progress toward eliminating potential conflict.



If a perceived military threat from North Korea would re-emerge, according to Hwang, it could possibly cause Moons popularity to drop and potentially result in a future conservative government that takes a harder line against Pyongyang.



The safe zones outlined in the joint agreement may also reduce uncertainties in the region, even though many of its flash-points are located off the peninsula.



Jackson said that its important not to overstate the positive aspects of the agreement, because it doesnt address all concerns. "Even if it is implemented, said Jackson. He added that everything in it is easily reversible.Danish submarine inventor Peter Madsen, convicted of torturing and murdering Swedish journalist Kim Wall aboard one of his own vessels last year, lost his appeal Wednesday against his life sentence.

The Danish version of a life sentence typically is about 16 years long, but it may be continuously extended if the court rules that circumstances call for it. Madsen had sought a time-limited term. Now the 47-year-old could potentially spend the rest of his life in prison.

His defense had argued that Walls death was an accident, although Madsen himself admitted to throwing her body parts into the Baltic Sea.

The prosecution had argued that Madsens motive was sexual and that the murder was planned.

Im terribly sorry to Kims relatives for what happened, Madsen told the court. Walls parents were not present.

A Copenhagen court ruled in April that Madsen had lured Kim onto his home-made submarine UC3 Nautilus with the promise of an interview, where she then died. The exact cause of her death has never been established.A French man who sexually assaulted a woman on a bus has been sentenced to three months in jail and fined $350 under France's new anti-catcalling law.

The man was arrested last week in the Paris suburb of Evry after he boarded a bus while drunk, slapped a woman on her behind and made lewd remarks about her body.

The driver of the bus closed the doors and called the police.

French justice ministry officials said it was the first time a fine has been imposed under the law, which was designed to deter predatory remarks and harassment such as wolf-whistles.

France's National Assembly enacted the law  passed in July  banning sexual or sexist comments that are "degrading, humiliating, intimidating, hostile or offensive."

Offensive acts include commenting on a woman's looks or clothing, catcalling, intrusive questions, unwanted following, and taking pictures under a woman's dress without her knowing.

Sexual harassment carried out in public can result in immediate fines of $104 to $876.

Equality Minister Marlene Schiappa praised the outcome, saying, "Together we will end sexist and sexual violence."Gay rights campaigners on Wednesday hailed a speech by U.N. chief Antonio Guterres in support of the LGBT community but said words must be followed by action.

In the first address by the head of the United Nations to the U.N. LGBTI Core Group  which was established in 2008 to oversee gay rights globally  Guterres said the multinational body would boost efforts to end anti-LGBT+ abuse and violence.

Concerns are rising about a possible rollback of hard-won LGBT+ rights worldwide  from a U.S. partial ban on transgender individuals serving in the military to a recent first punishment of a Russian minor under a law against so-called gay propaganda.

Amir Ashour, executive director of Iraqi gay rights group IraQueer, said the U.N. secretary-general's comments "normalize LGBT+ rights and acknowledge them as a part of human rights."

Push for change

However, he warned that words alone would have little impact in countries such as his home country of Iraq where the LGBT+ community faces verbal and physical threats on a daily basis.

"The secretary-general and the U.N. need to constantly ... and actively work on encouraging them to change policies," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by email.

Currently, more than 70 countries still criminalize same-sex relationships.

Earlier this month, India's top court scrapped a colonial-era ban on gay sex in a landmark judgment.

Guterres made his statement on the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which enshrined human rights at the core of the United Nations' ethos and work.

"Many ... [LGBTI community] members are imprisoned, abused and even killed simply for who they are or whom they love," he said on the sidelines of the annual meeting of world leaders. "But so long as people face criminalization, bias and violence based on their sexual orientation, gender identity or sex characteristics, we must redouble our efforts to end these

violations."

'Important not to backslide'

Maria Sjodin, deputy executive director of global campaign group OutRight Action International, said it was important to build on the work of former U.N. chiefs to boost LGBT+ rights.

"It's great, as we've been waiting to get something longer and more substantial than just a response to a couple of questions that he's had before," she said. "It's really important not to backslide and to ensure that the human rights of LGBTI people continue to be a priority for the U.N. and the secretary-general."

Also speaking at the event highlighting anti-LGBT+ violence, newly appointed U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said "profound, positive change is possible."

"More than 70 countries criminalize consensual same-sex relationships, and also criminalize transgender people based on their appearance," she said. "These laws subject LGBT people to long prison sentences, and in some cases physical punishment. They also implicitly encourage prejudice, hatred and violence. But laws can change."Germany and Saudi Arabia agreed on Tuesday to enter a new phase in relations after a diplomatic dispute that had soured ties between the two countries.

The spat began in November when Germany's foreign minister at the time, Sigmar Gabriel, condemned "adventurism" in the Middle East, comments that were perceived by some as an attack on increasingly assertive Saudi policies. Arab forces, led Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, are fighting Iran-aligned Houthis in Yemen's war.

Riyadh dismissed the Gabriel's comments as "shameful" and withdrew its ambassador to Germany. German exports to Saudi Arabia fell 5 percent in the first half of 2018.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been trying to ease tensions, speaking to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman by telephone.

"In recent months, our relations have witnessed a misunderstanding which stand in sharp contrast to our otherwise strong and strategic ties with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and we sincerely regret this," German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said alongside his Saudi counterpart, Adel al-Jubeir, at the United Nations, where leaders are gathered for the annual General Assembly.

"We should have been clearer in our communication and engagement in order to avoid such misunderstandings between Germany and the kingdom," he said.

Jubeir said he welcomed Maas' statement and invited him to the kingdom to intensify their ties.

Earlier this month, Germany approved a delivery of weapons to Saudi Arabia, a government document showed, after saying it would halt arms sales to countries involved in the war in Yemen.

Last month, European and U.S. pharmaceutical associations waded into the diplomatic dispute, warning that restrictions on German-made drugs could hurt Saudi patients and dampen future investment in the kingdom.

"We'll do our best to make this partnership with the Kingdom even stronger than before," Maas said.

The dispute was reminiscent of one that erupted between Canada and Saudi Arabia, which was triggered by a post on twitter by the Canadian foreign minister calling for the release of human rights activists in Saudi Arabia.

The kingdom responded by expelling the Canadian ambassador, recalling its own envoy, freezing new trade and investment, suspending flights and ordering Saudi students to leave Canada.An experimental GlaxoSmithKline vaccine could prevent tuberculosis developing in half of those who receive it, making it potentially the first new shot against the global killer in a century, researchers said on Tuesday.

Given the failure of other candidates in recent years, it marks a milestone in the fight against TB, although the 54 percent efficacy rate achieved in adults in a mid-stage clinical trial is low compared to immunizations for other diseases.

The current vaccine called Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG) was developed in 1921 and is given routinely to babies in countries with high rates of TB to prevent severe disease.

However, BCG protection wears off in just a few years and it does nothing to protect against the most common form of TB that invades the lungs of adults and adolescents, and can be transmitted through coughing and sneezing.

A more effective vaccine is viewed by experts as key to controlling TB and fighting the growing scourge of drug-resistant infection. With TB a major focus for global health, the United Nations is holding its first ever high-level meeting on the disease in New York on Wednesday.

GSK's vaccine is designed to stop latent TB from becoming active and causing sickness. An estimated 1.7 billion people - one quarter of the global population - have latent TB infection, putting them at risk of a disease that killed 1.6 million people last year.

Results of an ongoing Phase IIb trial of the vaccine - known as M72/AS01 and developed by GSK in conjunction with Aeras, a nonprofit TB group backed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation - were published online by the New England Journal of Medicine.

After a mean follow-up of 2.3 years, 10 of the 1,786 adults vaccinated twice developed active pulmonary TB compared with 22 of the 1,787 given two placebo injections. The study was conducted in Kenya, Zambia and South Africa.

The vaccine did produce more side effects than placebo, with two-thirds of participants reporting at least one adverse event, typically injection-site reactions or flu-like symptoms.

Most of the volunteers had received the BCG vaccine and all were HIV negative. People with HIV are more vulnerable to TB because their immune systems are weakened.

Areas Chief Executive Jacqui Shea said the results were "ground-breaking" and showed that more effective TB vaccines were achievable.

GSK is confident it can do better in future, with larger trials set to refine the vaccine's dosing schedule and potentially target specific groups of patients who are most likely to benefit.

"It's the first time we really tested the biological potential of our vaccine and we think that there is a lot of additional improvement now that we can bring," the company's head of vaccines research, Emmanuel Hanon, told Reuters.

TB is a particularly tricky disease to vaccinate against because the bacteria that cause it can hide from the body's immune system and scientists lack protective markers in the blood to predict whether a vaccine will work.

As a result, TB vaccines must be tested in big clinical trials, a large and costly gamble.

Mike Turner, head of infection and immunobiology at the Wellcome Trust medial charity, said the encouraging results represented a "landmark moment" and M72/AS01 now needed to be tested in much larger numbers of people.Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales slammed a U.N. anti-corruption body on Tuesday, telling the United Nations General Assembly that the agency that has attempted to prosecute him was a "threat to peace" in the Central American nation.

Morales decided last month to not renew the mandate of the U.N.-backed International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) and banned the body's head from setting foot in the country, on the grounds they violated laws and sowed "judicial terror" with "selective justice."

Morales was scheduled to meet with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday night, Guatemala's government said in a brief statement without providing further details.

The comedian turned politician dedicated more than half his speech at the United Nations to condemning the CICIG, accusing it of abuses of power, violations of human rights and politicizing justice in Guatemala.

He also attempted to blame deaths on the CICIG, saying that it had caused fatalities by pressuring judges to deny five unidentified suspects in custody proper medical treatment.

"In essence, the CICIG has become a threat to peace in Guatemala. The CICIG has created a system of terror, a system wherein those who think differently are persecuted," he said.

The ideals of the CICIG had been lost in U.N. bureaucracy and the "cult of personality, which should never be greater than the institution it represents," Morales said.

CICIG head Ivan Velasquez, a hard-charging Colombian prosecutor, helped bring down and imprison Morales' predecessor as president. Working with Guatemala's attorney general, CICIG in 2017 also sought to prosecute Morales over illegal campaign financing allegations.

Morales' moves to dismantle CICIG have prompted what critics have labeled a "constitutional crisis" in Guatemala.

The nation's constitutional court issued a provisional ruling on Sept. 16 allowing Velasquez to return. But the government has nonetheless refused to let him return to Guatemala, asking the United Nations instead to name a new leader for the mission.

Morales repeated that request in New York in his speech.

The United Nations said on Sept. 19 that it would send an assistant director to lead CICIG as Velasquez remains banned.Sometimes, all the hand sanitizer in the world cannot prevent the inevitable.

College freshmen across the country are being introduced to a whole new world of pathogens and other infections at this time of year.

It starts with just one or two people in a dorm hall, said Dr. David Reitman, medical director of the Student Health Center at American University in Washington. They cough without covering the spray of germs that can reach 30 feet, as measured by Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher Lydia Bourouiba.

Then comes a sore throat and a general feeling of ickiness that lasts a week or so. It spreads slowly but surely, and soon the whole floor of the dorm is a sick ward. Once again, new students have been struck by the freshman plague.

Brendon Gardner, a freshman at Fordham University in New York, had been warned by older siblings and friends about the cesspool of pathogens he was about to enter, but he still wasn't prepared.

"I figured, eh, wouldn't happen to me. But then it did," said Gardner from his dorm after a week of coughing and a runny nose. "And it was so annoying."

Not a specific pathogen

The freshman plague, Reitman said, is not one particular disease or pathogen, but "refers to viruses that are easily transmissible by people who are living in close quarters in which they easily pass from one person to another."

The plague emerges in freshman dorms because of a perfect storm of factors: a large group of people crammed into a relatively small space, often sharing facilities such as showers, kitchens and bathrooms. This makes it easy for viruses to hop from one victim to the next.

The reason these illnesses appear more commonly in freshman dorms than in upperclassman housing is freshman are exactly that  fresh. They are still learning the ropes of dorm living and have not yet mastered the practices and routines that could keep them healthy.

The best way to avoid catching the plague, Reitman said, is to maintain basic hygiene and healthy habits. Wash your hands often, including your wrists. Use a hand sanitizer, especially before eating. This, as well as avoiding behaviors like sharing drinks or food, can improve one's odds against contracting viruses. And don't smoke. It inflames the respiratory system, he said.

Less obvious ways of dodging the plague are to drink lots of fluids and maintain regular sleep and eating schedules. That's easier said than done for college students.

And there's always the flu vaccine. Although 70 percent of college students in the U.S. say they believe it is important to get a yearly flu shot, only 46 percent say they get vaccinated, according to a National Foundation for Infectious Diseases report in 2017. So, the plague persists.

"I just wanted to stay in bed all day but couldn't because I have 8:30 classes every morning. And in class, I didn't want to talk at all because I sounded like a croaking toad," said Arnav Bhutada, another freshman plague sufferer at Fordham.

Tips for coping

Though freshman plague is not a serious or threatening disease, it can really put a damper on those first months of college. To make it more bearable, take ibuprofen to help ease sore throats and general achiness, Reitman said. Get lots of fluids and sleep, and maybe swap out that pizza and fries for soup at the dining hall.

If more serious symptoms appear  fever above 102 degrees or diarrhea  or the illness persists beyond a week, students should consider seeking medical attention.



Students who are bedridden should curl up with a nice mug of tea, catch up on Netflix and wait for the body to cleanse itself of the virus so they can go back to making the most of their college experience.Pope Francis on Tuesday acknowledged that the cover-up of sexual abuse is driving people away from the Catholic Church  just hours before the release of a devastating report that detailed decades of sexual abuse by priests in Germany.

The report by the German Bishops' Conference looks at abuse by Roman Catholic priests over seven decades until 2014. The stories of 3,677 victims are documented, and close to 1,700 clergy are identified who carried out the sexual abuse.

Many records were destroyed. The report said the true number of victims and perpetrators is likely to be much higher.

"For too long, we in the Catholic Church have looked away, covered up, denied, did not want it to be true," Cardinal Reinhard Marx, head of the German Bishops' Conference, said at a news conference. "For all failure and for all pain, I must apologize."

Speaking to several hundred young people in the Estonian capital of Tallinn, Pope Francis acknowledged that the historical revelations were driving people away from the church.

"They are upset by sexual and economic scandals that do not meet with clear condemnation," he said during the final leg of his three-day trip to the Baltic states. "This is very bad when a church, a community, behaves in such a way that young people believe that it cannot give anything to their lives."

Such is the scale of the problem now facing the church. In Chile, all of the country's 34 bishops have offered their resignations over allegations of a cover-up. There have been similar revelations in the United States, Australia and the Netherlands.

Jack Valero of Britain-based Catholic Voices said it is a traumatic time for worshippers, but he welcomed the release of the report.

"We want it to end. We don't want any abuse to happen ever again. We want victims recompensed. We want perpetrators and their enablers to be punished. We want all that to happen. So, these reports are good for us, that everything should come out so we can move on," Valero told VOA.

Francis has summoned top bishops from around the world for a February summit at the Vatican on tackling abuse. Some campaigners are calling for an end to the principle that Catholic priests must remain celibate  an issue that Valero calls divisive.

"Celibacy is not a dogma, you know. It is a discipline of the Catholic Church for priests in the West. But I think it's a great gift for the church. I think that it's looking in the wrong place to try to change that," he said.

But Catholics say the church must change if it is to regain trust, and they hope the pope's acknowledgment of the challenge ahead is the first step on that long road.When Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger sold Instagram to Facebook in 2012, the photo-sharing startups fiercely loyal fans worried about what would happen to their beloved app under the social media giant's wings.

None of their worst fears materialized. But now that its founders have announced they are leaving in a swirl of well wishes and vague explanations, some of the same worries are bubbling up again  and then some. Will Instagram disappear? Get cluttered with ads and status updates? Suck up personal data for advertising the way its parent does? Lose its cool?

Worst of all: Will it just become another Facebook?

Its probably a bigger challenge (for Facebook) than most people realize, said Omar Akhtar, an analyst at the technology research firm Altimeter. Instagram is the only platform that is growing. And a lot of people didnt necessarily make the connection between Instagram and Facebook.

Instagram had just 31 million users when Facebook snapped it up for $1 billion; now it has a billion. It had no ads back then; it now features both display and video ads, although they're still restrained compared to Facebook. But that could quickly change. Facebooks growth has started to slow, and Wall Street has been pushing the company to find new ways to increase revenue.

Instagram has been a primary focus of those efforts.

Facebook has been elevating Instagram's profile in its financial discussions. In July, it unveiled a new metric for analysts, touting that 2.5 billion people use at least one of its apps  Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp or Messenger  each month. While not particularly revealing, the measurement underscores the growing importance Facebook places on those secondary apps.

Facebook doesnt disclose how much money Instagram pulls in, though Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter estimates itll be around $6 billion this year, or just over 10 percent of Facebooks expected overall revenue of about $55.7 billion.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has long seen Instagrams promise. At the time, it was by far Facebooks largest acquisition (although it was dwarfed by the $19 billion Zuckerberg paid for WhatsApp two years later). And it was the first startup allowed to operate mostly independently.

That has paid off big time. Not only did Instagram reach 1 billion users faster than its parent company, it also succeeded in cloning a popular Snapchat feature, dealing a serious blow to that social network upstart and succeeding where Facebooks own attempts had repeatedly failed. Instagram also pioneered a long-form video feature to challenge YouTube, another big Facebook rival.

Recently, Instagram has been on a roll. In June, Systrom traveled to New York to mark the opening of its new office there, complete with a gelato bar and plans to hire hundreds of engineers. Only a month earlier, Instagram had moved into sparkly new offices in San Francisco. In a July earnings call, Zuckerberg touted Instagrams success as a function of its integration with Facebook, claiming that it used parent-company infrastructure to grow more than twice as quickly as it would have on its own.

But Instagram has also been a case study in how to run a subsidiary independently  especially when its parent is mired in user-privacy problems and concerns about election interference, fake news and misinformation. And especially when its parent has long stopped being cool, what with everyone and their grandma now on it.

Instagram's simple design  just a collection of photos and videos of sunsets, faraway vacations, intimate breakfasts and baby close-ups  has allowed it to remain a favorite long after it became part of Facebook. If people go to Twitter to bicker over current events and to Facebook to see what old classmates are up to, Instagram is where they go to relax, scroll and feast their eyes.

So, will that change?

I don't think Zuckerberg is dumb, Akhtar said. He knows that a large part of Instagrams popularity is that its separate from Facebook.

As such, he thinks Facebook would be wise to reassure users that what they love about Instagram isn't going to change  that they are not going to be forced to integrate with Facebook. That'll go a long way, he said.

Internally, the challenge is a bit more complicated. While Systrom and Krieger didnt say why theyre leaving, their decision echoes the recent departure of WhatsApp's co-founder and CEO Jan Koum, who resigned in April. Koum had signaled years earlier that he would take a stand if Facebook's push to increase profits risked compromising core elements of the WhatsApp messaging service, such as its dedication to user privacy. When Facebook started pushing harder for more revenue and more integration with WhatsApp, Koum pulled the ripcord.

One sign that additional integration may be in Instagram's future: Zuckerberg in May sent longtime Facebook executive Adam Mosseri to run Instagrams product operation. Mosseri replaced longtime Instagrammer Kevin Weil, who was shuffled back to the Facebook mothership.

That likely didnt sit well with Instagrams founders, Akhtar and other analysts said. Now that theyre gone as well, Mosseri is the most obvious candidate to head Instagram.

Kevin Systrom loyalists are probably going to leave, Akhtar said.

Which means Facebook may soon have a new challenge on its hands: Figuring out how to keep Instagram growing if it loses the coolness factor that has bolstered it for so long.Senate Republicans have hired an Arizona prosecutor to question a woman accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault.

A press release from committee chairman Chuck Grassley's office described woman attorney Rachel Mitchell as "a career prosecutor with decades of experience prosecuting sex crimes." Mitchell worked in the Maricopa County Attorney's office in Phoenix as the chief of the Special Victims Division, which covers sex crimes and family violence.

Republicans have been keen to hire a woman to question Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused Kavanaugh sexually assaulting her when both were teenagers, to avoid the appearance of bias by the all-male group of Republicans on the Senate panel.

The U.S. Senates partisan brawl over President Donald Trumps embattled Supreme Court nominee intensified Tuesday, fewer than 48 hours before Judge Kavanaugh and Ford were expected to give contradictory testimony on the alleged incident.

Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky accused Democrats of rushing to convict Kavanaugh and destroy his good name with unproven allegations, abandoning any presumption of innocence -- a bedrock principle of American jurisprudence.

Justice matters. Evidence matters. Facts matter, McConnell said. This is America here. ... Everyone deserves better than this, not just Judge Kavanaugh.

Senate Democrats countered that, if Republicans wanted to learn the facts about the nominees past behavior, they would not have rejected calls for an FBI investigation of the allegations against him.

Democrats also accused Republicans of treating Ford dismissively at a time when victims of sexual crimes are speaking out across the nation. Ford accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her at a high school party in the 1980s, a charge the nominee has repeatedly denied.

Labeling this a partisan smear job demeans not only the senators in my caucus, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said. It demeans many, many women who have come forward  to share their stories.

Schumer added, Leader McConnell should rethink what he said in the heat of the moment and apologize to Dr. Ford.

The sharp exchanges on the Senate floor came one day after Kavanaugh appeared on U.S. cable television -- an unprecedented move for a Supreme Court nominee -- to refute all allegations of sexual misconduct.

"Ive never sexually assaulted anyone. Not in high school. Not ever," Kavanaugh told Fox News, adding that he has no intention of bowing out of the nomination.

In New York, President Trump accused Democrats of mounting a con game and heaped scorn on a second accusation leveled against Kavanaugh, that he exposed himself at a college party decades ago.

The new allegation by Deborah Ramirez, reported Sunday by The New Yorker magazine, prompted the Senate Judiciary Committees top Democrat, Dianne Feinstein of California, to call for a postponement of Thursdays highly anticipated hearing where Kavanaugh and Ford are to testify.

Ramirez's lawyer told NBC's Today Show that she is willing to testify publically to Congress.

Republicans have rejected any further delays in the confirmation process. Instead, they scheduled a judiciary committee vote for Friday, which will be followed by consideration by the full Senate.

Kavanaugh, a judicial conservative and Trumps second Supreme Court pick, was nominated to fill the vacancy created by Justice Anthony Kennedy's retirement.

His confirmation by the Republican-controlled Senate had seemed all but assured until allegations of sexual misconduct surfaced nearly two weeks ago.U.S. first lady Melania Trump will visit four countries in Africa next month, on her first major solo international trip.

Mrs. Trump, the wife of U.S. President Donald Trump, will make stops in Ghana, Malawi, Kenya and Egypt during the first week in October, according to a White House statement released Wednesday.

"October 1 will mark the first day of my solo visit to four beautiful and very different countries in Africa," she told a reception in New York on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.

Mrs. Trump said she looks forward to promoting the message of her "Be Best" child-welfare initiative during the trip.

The White House says the U.S. Agency for International Development is helping to coordinate the trip, and notes Mrs. Trump's stops will focus on maternal and newborn care in hospitals, education for children, and the role the United States plays in helping each country to become self-sufficient.Morocco's navy opened fire on a boat carrying migrants off its Mediterranean coast Tuesday, wounding four.

Moroccan officials say the boat's Spanish captain ignored orders to stop.

The wounded migrants were taken to a hospital while authorities seized the boat and opened an investigation. It gave no other information.

Meanwhile, France, Germany, Malta, Portugal and Spain reached a deal Tuesday to take in a boatload of 58 migrants stranded at sea.

The Aquarius will dock in Malta, where the 58 migrants will disembark and head for their new homes.

A dog named Bella is also aboard the ship. Her final destination has not been revealed.

Italy's new right-wing government refused to let the ship dock, saying it has taken in enough migrants over the past several years and other EU members need to help out.

France also denied permission for the boat to go to Marseille, saying under the law of the sea, the ship needs to head to the closest port.

Two well-known charities  Doctors Without Borders and SOS Mediterranee  operate the Aquarius.

The ship picked up more than 600 migrants from the Mediterranean in June. EU nations squabbled for nearly two months over who is responsible for accepting them before several nations gave them refuge.The sunlight is fading, but the children can still make out the lines theyve drawn in the sand. With one leg hiked up, they each hop in between the lines. If you step on a line, youre out. Its a game called egalagala, similar to hopscotch.



The children play in the shadow of the corrugated tin roof of their home. As they play, their mother, who has asked to be called Bintu because she fears being harmed by Nigerian security agents, looks sad.

Two of the siblings are missing. The two older boys, Abuna and Dunoma, were taken in 2013, arrested by Nigerian soldiers.



"One night, soldiers came around 3 a.m., hitting our door and asking, Where are the boys? Where are the boys? Bring out your sons," Bintu explains.



She says soldiers had gone throughout the neighborhood that night, arresting teenage boys. She and the other mothers whose sons were taken followed the soldiers lorry.



"They took them [the boys] to a place and they told the children to lie face down in the ground and they were beating them," she tells VOA. Abuna and Dunoma were high school students when they were arrested.



Bintus story is not unusual.



Forced disappearances

Amnesty International has documented thousands of cases of so-called forced disappearances, people held in secret detention facilities across the country without charge or trial.



"So many families are still searching for loved ones who have not been seen for many years. In some cases, families live with the pain of not knowing whether their loved ones are alive or dead," Osai Ojigho, director of Amnesty International Nigeria, said.

"Its time the government did the right thing  and either release these detainees or charge them with a recognizable criminal offense in a fair trial without recourse to death penalty," Ojigho added.

The Nigerian military has repeatedly denied cases of forced disappearance. It began mass trials last year, however, of more than 2,300 Boko Haram suspects, and even those trials have been shrouded in secrecy.



This month, Human Rights Watch (HRW) raised concerns about the integrity of the trials, describing them as flawed and undermined by legal shortcomings.



"However, to achieve justice and deter extremist attacks, the Nigerian governments overall strategy and trial procedures need to conform with constitutional safeguards and international standards," Anietie Ewang, HRW's Nigeria researcher, said.



Hamsatu Allamin, a local activist, decided to find a way to give a voice to the mothers and wives who havent seen their sons and husbands in years.



She decided to create a network, Knifar Movement and Djere Dole, one for wives and the other for mothers.



"This network is to seek accountability for the whereabouts of these children," Allamin says.



She says the women are, "poor, wretched people. No voices. They dont even know where to go to start asking  the struggle continues."

Allamins aim is to get the authorities to tell these women where their loved ones are so she has equipped them with tools to speak out.

Descriptions of loss

Last year, when the group was formed, Allamin helped the women to release a campaign video that was shared on social media. In the video, some of the women describe the circumstances under which their husbands or sons were arrested.

Earlier this year, they wrote an open letter to Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, asking for his attention toward cases of 1,269 detained loved ones.



"Your Excellency, we know that you are very busy and have serious issues to deal with, but we dont know who to turn to anymore. That is why we respectfully ask for your assistance to intervene, so that our relatives could be released, considering the fact that they are not Boko Haram. They are innocent and were only caught up in the process," the letter read.



But Justice Wakil Alkali Gana said the "loved ones" may not be as innocent as the women are making them out to be.



"People will always say that  theyre innocent, that theyre rights are being abused  when you go through it, youll see the definitely they have reason, they have reasons to be brought here," the judge told VOA.



He works at the High Court in Maiduguri where hundreds of Boko Haram-related cased have been tried.

Allamins network now includes more than 1,300 women. Most of them live in camps for internally displaced people. In Dalori camp, one of the largest in the Maiduguri area, they share their stories once again of how a father or son was taken and what their life is like now.



A reunion

One afternoon, something surprising happened at the camp.



A young, slim man appearing to be in his early 20s walked up to a woman crouched in the entry of a tent. As soon as she saw him, she released a slow, high-pitched wail. She collapsed on the sand. When she composed herself, she and the young man, who happens to be her son, began to talk.

He told her that he had been released from the nearby Giwa military barracks. Years ago, he and his father were arrested upon suspicions of being Boko Haram members. The young man said he was released, but his father is still in detention. It was an emotional reunion. Women comforted her when she began wheezing from crying.



Back at the house the egalagala lines are still drawn, but the children have stopped playing.

Their mother, Bintu, is leafing through papers on her lap. Theyre important documents, all belonging to Abuna and Dunoma. There are birth certificates, old homework assignments, report cards, health records.



A few years ago, someone told her that her sons were dead. She doesn't know whether or not to believe if they are dead but with these documents, she'll keep them alive, waiting for the Nigerian government to tell her where they are.More than a thousand women in the northeastern Nigerian state of Borno are urging the government to free their husbands and sons who have been detained for years on suspicion of being members of the extremist group, Boko Haram. The women say they have not received any information about the whereabouts of their loved ones. Chika Oduah reports from Maiduguri in Borno State.Pope Francis sent a letter to the Chinese faithful Wednesday urging them to overcome past divisions and "initiate an unprecedented process that we hope will help to heal the wounds of the past."

For decades, Catholics in China have been split into two groups, an underground organization that recognizes the pope's authority over naming bishops, and a state-supported "Patriotic Catholic Association" that names its own bishops.

Less than a week ago, the Vatican issued a four-paragraph statement announcing the signing of a "provisional agreement" with Chinese authorities to address a seven-decade dispute over the appointment of Catholic bishops. The pope spoke about that agreement at his Wednesday general audience at the Vatican.

"The Agreement," the pope explained, "is the fruit of a long and thoughtful path of dialogue, aimed at fostering a more positive collaboration between the Holy See and the Chinese authorities for the good of the Catholic community in China and for harmony in the entire society."

Francis also issued a letter urging Chinese Catholics to work toward reconciliation.

"With this," the pope said, "I hope that in China a new phase can be opened, which helps to heal the wounds of the past, to restore and maintain the full communion of all Chinese Catholics."

The pope also urged Chinese leaders to move forward with "trust, courage and farsightedness" to continue a dialogue started when the Vatican and Beijing signed the agreement on the appointment of bishops.

According to the agreement, new bishops in China will be proposed first by members of the local Chinese communities and authorities. Francis made clear on his return flight Tuesday from Estonia that the pope will retain final say on who is appointed a bishop.

Pope Francis said it is a dialogue about eventual candidates, but Rome will make the nominations. "It is the pope who will appoint them, let that be clear."

Francis also recognized the legitimacy of seven bishops that had been appointed by the Chinese government without papal approval.

China and the Vatican still do not have diplomatic relations, which were severed seven decades ago.Pope Francis on Tuesday defended a landmark deal between the Vatican and China on the appointment of bishops, saying he, and not the Beijing government, will have the final say on who is named.

In his first public comments on the deal signed in Beijing on Saturday, he told reporters on the plane returning from a trip to the Baltics that while he realizes not everyone will understand the logic behind the agreement, he was confident in the "great faith" of Chinese Catholics.

"It's not (that the government) names them. It is a dialogue. But the pope will appoint them. Let that be clear," he said of the deal, which was more than 10 years in the making.

The deal gives the Vatican a long-desired say in the choice of bishops in China, though critics labelled the deal a sellout to the Communist government.

In future, new bishops first will be proposed by members of local Catholic communities together with Chinese authorities.

The names of candidates will be sent to the Vatican.

China's approximately 12 million Catholics have been split between an underground church swearing loyalty to the Vatican and the state-supervised Catholic Patriotic Association. The Vatican said the absence of a deal could have led to a schism between Chinese Catholics that would have been difficult to heal.

"I think of the endurance of the Catholics who suffered. It is true that they will suffer. There is always suffering in an accord, but they have great faith," the pope said.

With the agreement, which both sides have said is provisional, the Chinese government effectively recognizes the pope as leader of all Catholics in China.

Even before it was signed, the prospects of such an agreement had divided communities of Catholics across China, some of whom fear greater suppression should the Vatican cede more control to Beijing.

'No Improvisation,' More Than 10 Years of Talks

The pope tried to allay these fears, saying, "When there is a peace accord or a negotiation, both sides lose something ... and we will move ahead."

"This was no improvisation. It is a journey, a real journey," he said.

One of the most vocal critics has been Cardinal Joseph Zen, the 86-year-old former archbishop of Hong Kong.

"They're giving the flock into the mouths of the wolves.

It's an incredible betrayal," Zen told Reuters in an interview two days before the agreement was signed. Its details will not be published.

Asked about such opposition to the agreement, the pope said: "Let us pray for those who do not understand and for those who have been worshiping underground for so many years."

As part of the deal, the pope recognized the legitimacy of the seven remaining state-appointed Chinese bishops who had been named without papal approval and that they had re-admitted them into the Church.

A Vatican statement issued when the agreement was signed on Saturday said it was "not political but pastoral."

It did not mention Taiwan, which the Vatican recognizes diplomatically and which China sees as a renegade province.

However, diplomats have said the accord was a possible precursor to a resumption in diplomatic relations with Beijing after 70 years. Beijing does not allow countries to have diplomatic relations with both China and Taiwan.

Taiwan now has formal relations with only 17 states and the Vatican is the only one in Europe.One of the first things any traveler to North Korea notices is a huge portrait of Kim Il Sung, pictured in front of an airplane and workers alongside the road as you drive out of Pyongyang International Airport. It's an image that soon becomes very familiar.

Millions of portraits, mosaics and paintings of Kim Il Sung, founder of North Korea, and his son Kim Jong Il, the father of current leader Kim Jong Un, offer daily reminders to the public of the central role of the Kim dynasty in their nation's story.

Smiling images of the Kims are everywhere you go. Portraits are mandatory not just in public places like train stations, hospitals, schools and factories, but even in private spaces such as the living rooms of apartments.

Portraits must be hung high, so that no one can stand above the leaders, according to government minders who accompany visiting media and tourists.

As the night falls over Pyongyang, giant portraits on various buildings get lit up.

North Korea remains one of the most tightly controlled societies on earth, with most of the country closed to outsiders, but groups of tourists are allowed to visit Pyongyang and a few other sites, providing the impoverished country with one of its few remaining sources of foreign currency.

For those visitors, another reminder of the all-encompassing influence of the Kim family is the lapel badge, bearing the image of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, worn by all North Korean citizens.

The badge is presented to every North Korean when he or she turns 12, and from then on they are required to wear it whenever they leave their home. The badges are considered sacred and are not for sale, say government minders.

"We, all North Koreans, always wear the portrait badge like this. The most important part of a human body is the heart, right?" said An Sol Yong, a music teacher at a teacher training college in Pyongyang, during a government-organized visit for foreign reporters. All her students wore the badges pinned to their white shirts.

"Being together with our dear leaders through a badge hung on the closest place from our heart means that our belief that we won't be alive if the great leaders had not existed is kept in all our hearts."Ford chief Jim Hackett on Wednesday ramped up his warnings about the tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump, saying his company was seeing profits slashed by $1 billion.

Hackett said the global automaker could face more damage if the trade confrontations were not resolved quickly.

The metals tariffs took about $1 billion in profit from us, Hackett said in an interview on Bloomberg Television. If it goes on longer, there will be more damage.

Trump in June imposed steep tariffs on steel and aluminum and has hit $250 billion in Chinese products with tariffs, prompting retaliation from US trading partners and raising costs for many industries.

The company earlier this year estimated materials costs would be $1.5 billion over 2017, which had already seen a jump.

And in the July earnings report Ford said it lost $500 million in China in the latest quarter due in part to the tariffs.

General Motors likewise warned the current trade wars should cost it $1 billion this year, mainly due to rising input costs.

Ford recently announced it was scrapping plans to import the compact Focus model from Chinese plants into the US market due to the tariffs.

Joseph Hinrichs, Fords executive vice president for global operations, said this week the company was speeding up plans to build some models in China since it was becoming less attractive to export amid the trade tensions.

He also said he did not see any easy resolution to the trade dispute between the United States and China.Russian railway worker Andrey Bugera had a singular goal: get to pension age so he can leave the polluted, frigid coal mining town above the Arctic Circle where he works and move south to live out even a brief bit of retirement in comfort.

But now that President Vladimir Putin has said he plans to raise the retirement age by five years, Bugera fears this will never happen.

In his city of Vorkuta, a place so isolated it cannot be reached by road, temperatures dip below minus 40 degrees Celsius in the winter and clouds of coal dust can turn the white snow black.

Thin, polluted air, scarce sunlight and winters lasting up to 10 months weigh heavily on the average life expectancy in the city, labeled the eighth most polluted in Russia by the government last year.

In June, in the space of two weeks, three of Bugera's friends died before reaching the age of 50.

"One of my colleagues came home from his night shift and just didn't wake up. Left his family, three kids. He was 47 years old. It was his heart, a blood clot. ... So how can they even think about us retiring at 60?" Bugera said.

Though one long-time concession in the far north has been early retirement, to help attract workers to its harsh environment, the government's planned reforms will raise the pension age by five years to 60 for men and 55 for women.

Yet males born in 2005 in Komi Republic, where Vorkuta is located, on average are expected to live to 56, government data shows, or four years short of the proposed new retirement age.

In the rest of Russia, the retirement age is set to rise to 65 for men and 60 for women making matters little better as the nationwide life expectancy for men was 66 years old in 2015, government data shows.

Trapped

Two years ago, Bugera and his wife used their savings to buy an apartment in Sokol, a small, riverside town in the Vologda region, in central Russia.

They have spent their holidays there since, gradually renovating the apartment in the hope of one day leaving the Arctic.

Now, Bugera said he has given up thinking about ever leaving Vorkuta.

"With this pension reform, with everything pushed back, I feel like I'll never get out," Bugera said.

The government's decision to raise the retirement age is part of efforts to balance Russia's creaking finances after four years of weak growth made worse by sanctions but it is proving its most unpopular move in more than a decade.

Putin's vice-like grip on power is not directly threatened because he has no real challengers, but his popularity rating has slipped, and once-loyal Putin voters are starting to express scorn for their rulers.

Dying in a dying town

Around 200,000 people lived in Vorkuta in the 1980s, most coming from across the Soviet Union in search of the high wages miners in the desolate city used to earn.

Now, just four of its 13 coal mines remain, and the population has fallen closer to 70,000.

Districts of empty, blackened apartment blocks with collapsed roofs and yards littered with rubble surround central Vorkuta.

With no roads leading out of the city, it is too expensive for most residents to take their belongings with them when they leave. In abandoned apartments, furniture rots and clothes and books lie strewn across the floor.

"When I leave, I'll take my guns and my guitar, that's it. People drop everything and go," said Sergei, a coal miner, traveling to Vorkuta by train.

A doctor at a district hospital, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said she did not want to stay in a town where everything was being shut.

She was due to retire next year, and like Bugera planned to move to a home she had prepared for her family in the south.

"With this reform, probably none of that is going to happen. I don't know. But I have no more strength, will, anything, to live in a town like this. Where everything is in ruins," she said. "You walk around like a zombie."

Protests

Bugera attended protests in Vorkuta against the pension reforms. The events were relatively small, attracting around 1,000 people in July, and are expected to dwindle as the snows set in next month.

"If we don't manage to change anything with our protests ... at least I'll leave some sort of base for my children," Bugera said.

A muted anger was registered in regional elections on Sept. 9, however. Vorkuta saw a turnout of just 7 percent, election commission data showed.

The presidential election, which took place in March, before the proposed pension reform was announced, saw a turnout of 50 percent.

"This pension reform has become the final straw. People have summed everything up and understood that this is the final straw for them," said former miner and security guard Alexander Golyanchuk, 37, referring to the low election turnout.

"We live in tough conditions and we don't live for very long. Now they're taking away our pensions as well?" he added.

Walking through Vorkuta, Olga Lebedeva, 47, said she previously had four years to go until her pension.

"Now they've added five. So now it's nine. I'll grin and bear it," she said, before pausing. "No ... I'll drink."The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee said Wednesday it is investigating new allegations of sexually abusive behavior by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh on the eve of a high-stakes hearing that will help determine whether he is confirmed to the nation's highest court.

Julie Swetnick alleged in sworn testimony that Kavanaugh was present at an early 1980s house party at which she was a gang rape victim. She said she "became aware" of efforts by Kavanaugh and others to taint the punch at house parties with "drugs and/or grain alcohol" in order to "cause girls to lose their inhibitions and their ability to say 'No.'"

Kavanaugh strongly denied the latest allegations, calling them "ridiculous and from the Twilight Zone."

The latest revelations were submitted to the judiciary committee by Swetnick's attorney, Michael Avenatti, who also represents Stormy Daniels, the adult film actress paid by a Trump lawyer to keep quiet about an alleged affair with Trump in 2006.

In a tweet, Trump referred to Avenatti as "a third rate lawyer who is good at making false accusations."

Thursday's hearing will feature testimony from Kavanaugh and the first woman to accuse him of sexual assault, Christine Blasey Ford. She claims Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in 1982, when they were both teenagers.

Written testimony, statements

One day before the Senate hearing, the committee released Kavanaugh's written testimony. Kavanaugh again denied accusations of sexual assault, noting "There has been a frenzy to come up with something  anything, no matter how far-fetched or odious  that will block a vote on my nomination." He added: "These are last-minute smears, pure and simple."

Attorneys for Ford submitted to the committee Wednesday signed and sworn statements from four people who say they were aware of the allegation before it was publicized.

The lawyers said the documents were signed by Ford's husband, who said she first told him about the alleged assault during a couple's therapy session in 2012. The documents show that friend Keith Koegler said Ford broached the topic with him in 2016 and mentioned Kavanaugh's name three months ago.

Ford, a college professor in California, said when they were high school students in 1982, Kavanaugh forced her onto a bed, groped her and tried to remove her clothes at a house party.

Kavanaugh has denied Ford's accusation, and his attorneys are expected to reinforce his claim he did not attend the party. His lawyers sent the committee five pages from his calendar from the summer of 1982. The pages show Kavanaugh's sleepover with friends, summer parties, a beach trip and a list of chores.

A second allegation by Deborah Ramirez was reported Sunday by The New Yorker magazine. The article prompted the Senate Judiciary Committee's top Democrat, Dianne Feinstein, to call for a postponement of Thursday's hearing. Ramirez's lawyer told NBC's Today show she is willing to testify publicly to Congress.

Partisan brawl

Senate Republicans have hired a female prosecutor in Arizona to question Ford to avoid the appearance of bias by the all-male group of Republicans on the Senate panel.

A press release from committee chairman Chuck Grassley's office described Rachel Mitchell as "a career prosecutor with decades of experience prosecuting sex crimes."

The Senate's partisan brawl over Kavanaugh intensified Tuesday, when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell accused Democrats of rushing to convict Kavanaugh and "destroy his good name" with unproven allegations, abandoning any presumption of innocence  a bedrock principle of American jurisprudence.

"Justice matters. Evidence matters. Facts matter," McConnell said. "This is America here. ... Everyone deserves better than this, not just Judge Kavanaugh."

Democrats accuse Republicans of treating Ford dismissively at a time when victims of sexual crimes are speaking out across the nation.

Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said, "Leader McConnell should rethink what he said in the heat of the moment and apologize to Dr. Ford."

The sharp exchanges on the Senate floor came one day after Kavanaugh appeared on U.S. cable television to refute all allegations of sexual misconduct.

Republicans have rejected any further delays in the confirmation process, scheduling a judiciary committee vote for Friday, which will be followed by consideration by the full Senate.

Trump said Wednesday senators should have fast-tracked Kavanaugh's confirmation process and maintained the Republican lawmakers have been respectful of Ford.

"The Senate, the Republicans, could not be nicer in the way they're handling this. They could have pushed it through two and a half weeks ago ... which is frankly what I would have preferred. But they didn't do that."

Kavanaugh, a judicial conservative and Trump's second Supreme Court pick, was nominated to fill the vacancy created by Justice Anthony Kennedy's retirement.The third super typhoon in a month is heading for Asia, this time setting its aim on Japan.

Super Typhoon Trami, packing sustained winds of 241 kilometers per hour (150 mph), is equivalent to a Category 5 Atlantic hurricane.

According to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center, the storm is expected to weaken over the next 72 hours and hit the Ruyuku Islands south of Japan beginning late Friday.

It is then expected to turn north and northeast causing heavy rains and flooding in Okinawa before moving onto Tokyo late in the weekend.

Weather experts are warning of damaging winds, flash floods, mudslides and widespread disruption of travel across Japan.

The 2018 typhoon season has been particularly active this month. Jebi reached super typhoon status at the tail end of August but it had weakened by the time it hit Shikoku and then the Kansai region of Japan on Sept. 4, killing 11 people.

Some 10 days ago, Super Typhoon Mangkhut slammed into the Philippines, killing at least 70 people before moving on to Hong Kong and mainland China's densely populated Guangdong province.

The super storm affected millions of people in the Philippines and China, causing massive damage to entire villages and destroying infrastructure in vast areas.The Trojan Horse allowed the ancient Greek army to enter the city of Troy and defeat it. A similar strategy could help doctors destroy superbugs that are resistant to current antibiotics.

The decreasing effectiveness of antibiotics is among the most critical challenges facing medicine today, as drug-resistant bacteria resist almost every therapy thrown at them. But researchers at the University of Washington School of Medicine wondered if superbugs could be tricked into taking in a molecule that looks like food but wreaks havoc once inside.

Microbiology professor Pradeep Singh said they focused on iron, which is a critical nutrient for bacteria to multiply and spread. He told VOA that natural binders in the body take up iron, which is also important for our health, and try to keep it from bacteria. But the invaders have mechanisms to get to the bound iron.

So, we were thinking about an alternative way that didn't involve iron binding, he explained. How could we exploit the really high requirement for iron for infecting bacteria? And that's how we came up with the idea of using a chemical mimic to exploit the bacterias own uptake system to get an antimicrobial drug inside.

An iron Trojan Horse

The mimic they chose was gallium, a metal similar to iron. And like many successful antibiotics, Singh notes that gallium targets a number of vital functions in the bacteria.

We know that one of the things it does is it inhibits an enzyme that is involved in producing copies of bacterial cell DNA  that's really important for making daughter cells. If you cant replicate your DNA, you cant multiply. Weve also shown that gallium can inhibit an enzyme that protects (bacteria) from oxidative stress like hydrogen peroxide. It probably does a bunch of other things, too, so it kind of just causes this kind of haywire in the cell for a bunch of those biological functions of iron.

In lab studies, bacteria developed resistance to gallium at low rates, and its potency was increased when it was administered with some existing antibiotics. These factors led Singh and his colleague Chris Goss, a professor of medicine and pediatrics, to do preliminary tests of gallium in mice and humans, with exciting results detailed in the current issue of Science Translational Medicine.

A promising strategy against bad bacteria



In mice, they found that a single dose of gallum cured lethal lung infections.

The human trial  involving 20 patients with the lung disease cystic fibrosis  provided some tantalizing findings. Goss told VOA the gallium was given by infusion over five days. And while it rapidly cleared from the blood, it moved to the lungs, positively impacting patients breathing for up to a month.

The key measure in cystic fibrosis and many lung diseases is forced expiratory volume, which is, you blow in a tube, and we see how much you can blow. And what we found is actually (forced expiratory volume) increased significantly from baseline in the realm of what we would normally see in an antibiotic-treated population. So, a similar effect as giving inhaled antibiotics or some oral antibiotics. And that was what I think made this an unusual finding, that the proof seemed to be there that you can give this drug intravenously, and it would actually impact lung function.

More research is needed to confirm galliums safety and effectiveness as a treatment, but preliminary results suggest that the strategy that ended the Trojan War might be a winning approach to todays battle against superbugs.Israel should think carefully before attacking Syria again once it obtains the sophisticated S-300 defense system from Russia, a Damascus official said.



The warning followed pledges from Moscow to deliver the missile system after last week's downing of a Russian plane by Syrian forces responding to an Israeli airstrike.



Syria's Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad said late Tuesday that the S-300 should have been given to Syria long ago.



Israel, "which is accustomed to launching many aggressions under different pretexts, will have to make accurate calculations if it thinks to attack Syria again," he said.



The Russian Il-20 military reconnaissance aircraft was downed by Syrian air defenses that mistook it for an Israeli aircraft, killing all 15 people on board.



Russia laid the blame on Israel, saying Israeli fighter jets were hiding behind the Russian plane, an account denied by the Israeli military.



On Monday, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced the S-300s will be delivered to Damascus within two weeks. Earlier in the war, Russia suspended a supply of S-300s, which Israel feared Syria could use against it.



U.S. national security adviser John Bolton said the delivery would be a "significant escalation" in already high tensions in the region and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he would raise the matter this week with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov at the U.N. General Assembly.



Mekdad said the missiles are for defensive purposes, adding that "Syria will defend itself, as it always did"  a reference to missiles Syrian forces fired at Israeli warplanes carrying out airstrikes inside Syria over the past months.



Meanwhile, in northwestern Syria, preparations were underway to set up a demilitarized zone around the rebel-held province of Idlib, the last major area controlled by a mix of Turkey-backed opposition fighters and other insurgent groups, including al-Qaida-linked militants.



Two jihadi groups have so far rejected the plan to set up a demilitarized zone by Oct. 15. The al-Qaida-linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, Arabic for Levant Liberation Committee, the largest militant group in Idlib province, has not said yet whether it approves setting up the zone.



A Turkish security official said Wednesday that there were "indications" that some insurgents were leaving the demilitarized zone in and around Idlib but that it was unclear whether a "concrete" withdrawal of radical groups has started. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in line with government rules.



Russia and Turkey agreed last week to set up a demilitarized zone around Idlib to separate government forces from rebels, averting a government offensive on the last major opposition stronghold in Syria.



Also Wednesday, Russian Maj. Gen. Yevgeny Ilyin said more than 3,150 Syrians returned to their homes in the past week, including 494 refugees. The rest were internally displaced people.



Moscow has called for international assistance for Syrian refugee returns, rejecting Western arguments that the Mideast country remains unsafe.



Ilyin, who spoke during a conference call on coordination of efforts to encourage the return of refugees, said the total of more than 1.2 million internally displaced people and more than 244,000 refugees have regained their homes.



In seven years of civil war, some 5.5 million Syrians have fled their homeland and millions more were internally displaced.The challenger skateboards in fast-food parking lots and wears his shirttails over scruffy jeans. He sang in a punk band. Some of his campaign events feature bounce houses.

The incumbent usually wears a dark blue suit with a red tie. The word "liberty" is liberally sprinkled in his campaign materials.

Both candidates are courting young voters in the red state of Texas that, as support for Democrats strengthens, could be turning purple.

But will Democrat Beto O'Rourke, 45, a three-term U.S. congressman, defeat Republican Ted Cruz, 47, the junior U.S. senator, in November?

Millennials only recently elbowed baby boomers to become the largest generation of voters in the United States, according to a Fact Tank study by the Pew Research Center published in June.

O'Rourke has energized a young generation of Democratic voters in the once staunchly Republican state by focusing on topics and behaviors relevant to them. The race has tightened in recent weeks after Cruz, who ran for president in 2016, enjoyed an early lead.

Last week, a Quinnipiac University poll found Cruz leading O'Rourke by 9 percentage points among likely voters. An online poll by Reuters- Ipsos showed O'Rourke 2 points ahead. Last Friday in Dallas, Cruz and O'Rourke engaged in the first of three planned debates. Political analysts are calling the race a toss-up.

O'Rourke, a former businessman, is a different candidate in many ways. His campaign does not accept money from political action committees (PACs) and has raised $26 million in individual donations between Jan. 1 and June 31  $8 million more than his opponent.

"Not taking PAC, not taking corporate money, is really appealing to people," Houston campaign volunteer Clara Goodwin, 25, told VOA. "A lot of people my age feel like we don't have much of a voice, and that's partly because politicians are listening to corporate interests more than us."

That admission was a revelation for O'Rourke.

"I was surprised to hear time after time from young people that the fact that we don't take political action committee money  no corporate help, no special interest contributions  is the reason that they are part of this campaign," O'Rourke told VOA at the opening of his Houston campaign headquarters, a festive event packed with 20-something volunteers eating barbecue and registering voters.

Put simply, PACs are financial contributions pooled from donors that are used to elect and defeat candidates or legislation. Since the Supreme Court's 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission, corporations, which are banned from directly donating to campaigns, are allowed to contribute through PACs.

'Showing up' for young people

O'Rourke said the fact that he is "showing up where young people are" is more important than how he raises campaign funds.

"I would never ask any young person to vote for anyone if no one has shown up to ask what's on their mind, what's important to them, to hear about the most important issues in the country from their perspective," he said, noting that his campaign has done many events at universities across the state.

Cruz, too, has attracted young supporters who are showing up to hear his message.

Karl Schmidt, a 19-year-old Cruz volunteer, said he has supported the incumbent senator since he spoke at his high school in 2014.

"The first time I met him, he came to my high school, and he just felt like a really real guy, you know?" Schmidt told VOA, after controlling a post-rally crowd of Houston supporters waiting to get their photo taken with Cruz.

Schmidt said he cares most about tax reform and health care, specifically opposing the Obama-era Affordable Care Act, because those issues have affected his family the most. He said Cruz's plan to address tax policy and health care most closely aligns with his views.

Deep divide on taxes, health care, economy

Cruz supported the Republicans' trillion dollar tax cut, and drafted a bill that would make those tax cuts permanent. He championed Republican efforts to repeal the ACA, popularly known as Obamacare, and has called for "meaningful reforms" of the U.S. health care system, including expanding health care savings accounts and permitting the sale of health insurance across state lines.

O'Rourke opposed the tax cut, and has focused on creating jobs through increased spending on infrastructure and apprenticeship programs, government deregulation, and expansion of rural broadband service. He favors strengthening the ACA, extending Medicaid to more low-income Texans and eventually creating a universal health care program throughout the U.S.

Despite Cruz's reputation as a divisive politician who is unpopular on Capitol Hill, some younger voters say they like his proposal to increase economic growth through a bill he introduced in 2015 called the American Energy Renaissance Act. The legislation seeks to remove federal restrictions on energy production and create jobs.

Cruz's young supporters also applaud his calls for spending cuts in Washington, which they say take precedence over social issues.

Max Louman, 21, a student at New York University, said he's "more of an economic voter" and would support Cruz in the midterm elections, even though he doesn't agree with all of Cruz's positions on social issues.

"I believe the Republican policies for economics help encourage growth more," Louman said, after attending a Cruz town hall meeting.

According to Pew Research, the top voting issues for all voters in 2016 were the economy, terrorism, foreign policy and health care, in that order.

Like Louman, Cruz said he believes his and Republican economic policies are ultimately better for young people.

"The agenda of the left wing, the agenda of socialists, is absolutely devastating to young people," Cruz told VOA.

O'Rourke cited a number of issues that he said young people have told him are important to them.

"Making sure that the internet is open and works for everyone, regardless of your ability to pay," he said, referring to net neutrality. "Making sure that we have universal health care. Or making sure that we deliver on our promise for leading the conversation on immigration. Or ending gun violence in our schools and in our communities."

Power of the vote

Regardless of political party, many young people advocate open discussion and voting. Just 51 percent of millennials  born between 1981 and 1996  voted in the 2016 elections, compared to 61 percent of the general electorate, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

Houston resident Elvonte Patton, 29, created "The Young and the Politics," a nonpartisan political organization that encourages young people to register to vote.

"Go exercise your right to vote. That's all that matters to me," he told VOA at a local O'Rourke rally where his organization registered new voters. In March, Patton ran for a seat on the Harris County Board of Education and was defeated in the Democratic primary.

Cruz supporter Schmidt said his friends were too young to vote in the most recent elections in 2016. This time, he said, he's "definitely going to make sure all my friends go out and vote."

"I think the young people are going to predict this race," said Patton, who said he is confident that voter turnout, particularly among young people, will grow in the 2018 midterm elections. "Honestly, whoever the young people go and vote for, that's who will win this race," he said.Lots of leaders saying lots of things about lots of topics  topics that matter to them, to their regions, to the world.



That's what the speechmaking at the U.N. General Assembly invariably produces each year. And each year, certain enormous topics and certain louder voices dominate.



Here, The Associated Press takes the opposite approach and spotlights some thoughts you might not have heard  the voices of leaders speaking at the United Nations who might not have captured the headlines and the air time on Tuesday.

"Our nation was forged by the ocean. We are acutely aware of the challenges that poses with the threat of climate change. However, the ocean also presents a myriad of untapped opportunities."

Danny Faure, president of the Seychelles, whose very existence is threatened by the rising seas that accompany climate change.



"Perhaps because I see from this wheelchair, I see through the eyes of the heart. When you have legs, you look ahead of you and above you. However, when you're seated in a wheelchair, you see horizontally, and you see below you. And you discover other realities, other worlds. You see those who only encounter barriers to move forward, to continue, including even to be able to live. Barriers of different types - mistreatments, xenophobia, racism, injustice, machismo, inequality. In other words, to sum it up, exclusion. This story is not only my story. It's the story of billions of people around the world. ... There are so many brothers and sisters who are abandoned and forgotten, and there are so many people who walk right by without even noticing them."

Ecuadorean President Lenin Moreno, who uses a wheelchair after being shot in the back and paralyzed from the waist down during a 1998 robbery.



"My friends, there is no such thing as a unilateral agreement. It takes at least two parties to make an agreement."

King Abdullah of Jordan, on the efforts needed to create statehood for the Palestinian people.



"Migration is a constant in human affairs. We in Africa are grateful to countries who treat migrants with compassion and humanity.''

Muhammadu Buhari, president of Nigeria



"Let us admit that there will always be economic inequality of nations. And yes, we all have something to offer to humanity. But those with more resources and power must step out to offer more. Let us remember  power is not status. Power is responsibility. Leadership is not prestige. Leadership is responsibility. We must define global leadership in terms of global responsibility."President Donald Trump is accusing China of meddling in upcoming U.S. elections.

"Regrettably, we found that China has been attempting to interfere in our upcoming 2018 election coming up in November against my administration," Trump said during an address Wednesday morning as he chaired his first U.N. Security Council meeting.

"They do not want me, or us, to win because I am the first president ever to challenge China on trade. And we are winning on trade. We are winning at every level."

Shortly after Trump's remarks, China's foreign minister rejected his accusations of election meddling.

Foreign Minister Wang Yi told reporters that Beijing follows the principle of non-interference in other countries' affairs and refuses to accept "unwarranted accusations" against China.

Later Wednesday, Trump said in a tweet: "China is actually placing propaganda ads in the Des Moines Register and other papers, made to look like news."

China's state media has been placing paid supplements in major American newspapers for at least several years. Although some journalists in the U.S. have criticized the practice as unethical, it has become common for countries and companies to strike deals for this kind of paid content that does not go through a newspaper's editorial channels.

Trump's accusation of Chinese election meddling further raises pressure against Beijing during an escalating trade war. Last week, he accused China of trying to sway the upcoming U.S. midterm elections by targeting voters who supported him in 2016.

WATCH: Trump on China

"China has openly stated that they are actively trying to impact and change our election by attacking our farmers, ranchers and industrial workers because of their loyalty to me," Trump wrote on Twitter.

Prices for many key U.S. agricultural products have plummeted since the start of the U.S.-China trade war, as Chinese importers look to other countries for their supply.

During a briefing to White House reporters Wednesday afternoon, a senior administration official said that Beijing has been using "political, economic, commercial, military and informational tools to benefit the interest of the Chinese Communist Party" in ways that go beyond how countries normally engage with each other.

The official mentioned Chinese censorship, propaganda, cyberbullying, and China's visa selection process as examples of how China is actively interfering in the American political system. The official said these practices have reached "an unacceptable level."

The official added that Chinese state-run media agencies operating in the U.S. need to be registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, a law that would treat them as lobbyists working for a foreign entity.

Vice President Mike Pence is expected to expand on the administration's complaints over Chinese influence efforts in an address next week in Washington.

China or Russia?

While Russia's role in manipulating the 2016 election in Trump's favor is the subject of the special counsel's investigation, until recently there were no allegations of Chinese political meddling. Beijing has been accused of corporate espionage for years and in 2015 allegedly hacked a database containing personal information on as many as four million people who applied for jobs with the U.S. government.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was also asked about Russia's threat to upcoming U.S. elections, and he responded by mentioning several countries.

"The U.S. government is actively engaged in efforts to ensure that the Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians, the North Koreans, all of those with malintent for America will not have the capacity to have substantial interference in the American elections," he said in an interview with CBS news Wednesday.

On Tuesday, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats warned that China's growing prowess in cyberspace is a bigger, more dangerous threat to the United States than Russia's attempt to undermine U.S. elections.

Speaking at a cybersecurity conference Tuesday at The Citadel, a military college in Charleston, South Carolina, Coats characterized the Chinese threat as deliberate, methodical and subtle, and warned that Beijing is on a path that could lead to global supremacy.

U.S.-China tariffs war

On Monday, a new round of U.S.-imposed duties on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods and a retaliatory set of tariffs imposed by Beijing on $60 billion worth of U.S. goods took effect.

The U.S. has already imposed tariffs on $50 billion worth of Chinese goods, and China has retaliated on an equal amount on U.S. goods.

Earlier this month, Trump threatened more tariffs on Chinese goods  another $267 billion worth of duties that, together with the existing tariffs, would cover virtually all the goods China exports to the United States.For the first time since taking office, President Donald Trump endorsed a two-state solution as the best way to resolve the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, as he met Wednesday at the U.N. with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.



Trump told reporters that he believes that two states  Israel and one for the Palestinians  "works best." He has previously been vague on the topic, suggesting that he would support whatever the parties might agree to, including possibly a one-state resolution, which might see the Palestinian territories become part of Israel.



"I like [a] two-state solution," Trump said as he posed for photographs with Netanyahu. "That's what I think works best. That's my feeling. Now you may have a different feeling. I don't think so. But I think two-state solution works best."



The president added that his much anticipated but still unreleased Mideast peace plan could be presented in the next two to four months but was not specific as to timing.



Trump has been heavily criticized by the Palestinians for a series of moves that they say show distinct bias toward Israel, starting with his recognition last year of Jerusalem as Israel's capital. The Palestinians also claim the holy city as the capital of an eventual state.

Earlier this year, Trump followed up on the recognition by moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a step that was widely protested by Palestinians and others in the Arab world.



His administration has also slashed aid to the Palestinians by hundreds of millions of dollars and ended U.S. support for the U.N. agency that helps Palestinian refugees.



Trump and his national security team have defended their position, saying that decades of attempts to forge Israeli-Palestinian peace have failed.



He said Wednesday that the embassy move would actually help peace efforts by recognizing the reality that Israel identifies Jerusalem as its capital. But, he added that Israel would have to make concessions to the Palestinians in any negotiations.



"Israel got the first chip and it's a big one," Trump said. "By taking off the table the embassy moving to Jerusalem, that was always the primary ingredient as to why deals couldn't get done. Now that's off the table. Now, that will also mean that Israel will have to do something that is good for the other side."



Netanyahu thanked Trump for his support, his decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal and said U.S.-Israel relations have never been better than under his administration.

On Tuesday, Trump attacked Iran in his annual address to the U.N. General Assembly, accusing its leaders of corruption and spreading chaos throughout the Middle East and beyond. He also vowed to continue to impose sanctions on Iran.



"Thank you for your strong words yesterday in the General Assembly against the corrupt terrorist regime in Iran," Netanyahu said. "They back up your strong words and strong actions."U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday his administration is planning a second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and will announce details soon.

"I'll be meeting with Chairman Kim," Trump told reporters at the United Nation's General Assembly in New York. Trump said a date and location of the summit would be announced soon.

Earlier Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he is planning the summit and that it may take place after October.

"We're working diligently to make sure we get the conditions right so that we can accomplish as much as possible during the summit. But we hope it will be soon," Pompeo told CBS This Morning. "It may happen in October, but more likely sometime after that."

Pompeo's remarks came one day after Trump touted his relationship with North Korea, telling the United Nation's General Assembly it has helped ease tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

"The missiles and rockets are no longer flying in every direction, nuclear testing has stopped, some military facilities are already being dismantled," Trump said.

Trump added that "much work remains to be done" with North Korea and said, "The sanctions will stay in place until denuclearization occurs."

His comments about North Korea were in sharp contrast from those he delivered at the assembly last year, when he threatened to "totally destroy" the country and ridiculed North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as "Rocket Man" who was on a "suicide mission."

The two leaders' meeting in Singapore in June produced a broad commitment from Kim to "work toward" denuclearization of the peninsula. Despite Trump's praise of Pyongyang, the Trump administration has said Pyongyang is stalling in meeting the goals set in Singapore. Washington has demanded that North Korea produce an inventory of its weapons programs and that it take irreversible steps to relinquish a nuclear arsenal that poses a potential threat to the U.S.

Pompeo said Kim had agreed to allow international inspectors to review North Korea's nuclear facilities but did not comment on whether they have been allowed to do so.

South Korea's president personally relayed a message to Trump on Monday, telling him that North Korea's leader wants to meet him again soon to make progress on denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

"You are indeed the only person who can solve this problem," Moon Jae-in, who met Kim Jong Un last week in Pyongyang, told Trump.U.S. President Donald Trump says he is willing to meet with Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, while hinting at other avenues for resolving the tension between the two countries.

All options are on the table, he said Wednesday before chairing a meeting of the U.N. Security Council. Every one, the strong ones, and the less than strong ones. Every option - and you know what I mean by strong.

Tuesday, the Trump administration placed sanctions on members of Maduros Cabinet, including his wife, Cilia Flores, while Trump suggested Maduros regime could easily be toppled by a military coup.

Maduro hit back on Venezuelan television, calling the sanctions a badge of honor for those around him.

"If you want to attack me, come at me directly. But don't touch Cilia and my family," Maduro said. "Her only crime is being my wife."A senior United Arab Emirates (UAE) official warned European powers on Tuesday that it was offering Iran a glimmer of hope by trying to keep trade flowing, but that ultimately they would fall behind the United States' tough approach on Tehran.

The UAE, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain swiftly backed U.S. President Donald Trump's decision in May to withdraw from a 2015 international accord with Iran that curbed Tehran's nuclear program in exchange for loosening economic sanctions.

The Sunni Muslim-ruled states are at loggerheads with Shi'ite Iran, fighting a proxy war that has influenced conflicts in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen.

UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash told Reuters at the United Nations General Assembly he was concerned by the public differences between the remaining European signatories to the accord - France, Britain and Germany - and the United States. All of them agree that Iran's long-term nuclear activities should be curbed, its ballistic missile program curbed and its regional influence reigned in.

"The faster we can bridge those opinions the better," Gargash said. "The Iranians are counting on this and perhaps creating a wedge between Washington's approach and the European policy."

U.S. President Donald Trump and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani exchanged taunts at the annual gathering of world leaders on Tuesday with Trump vowing more sanctions against Tehran and Rouhani suggesting his American counterpart suffers from a "weakness of intellect."

The European powers with China and Russia are desperately trying to salvage the nuclear deal and on Monday said they had agreed to set up a special payment mechanism to continue trade with Iran in an effort to skirt U.S. sanctions.

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday the European efforts would not change the mind of companies that had already left Iran, but would try to provide some economic benefits to Tehran.

"Unfortunately the current disagreement over approach is not helpful and it is giving Iran a sort of lifeline and hope that it can skirt the various concerns that everyone has about Iran," Gargash said.

He said he believed that Trump's pressure policy that will see tougher sanctions restored on Nov. 5 would yield results and that within a year Iran could be at the negotiating table.Taking the gavel of the Security Council at the United Nations on Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump devoted the bulk of his remarks on the theme of nonproliferation to criticism of Iran.

Labeling Iran the "world's leading sponsor of terrorism," Trump claimed that "Iran's aggression only increased" after the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, was signed. The Trump administration withdrew from the deal earlier this year.

Trump repeated his frequent assertion that the JCPOA, reached under his predecessor, Barack Obama, was a "horrible, one-sided" deal benefiting Iran.

"They needed cash," Trump said. "We gave it to them."

Trump added that Iran, "a regime with this track record, must never be allowed to possess a nuclear weapon," and warned that Washington would pursue even tougher sanctions against Tehran.

Speaking immediately after Trump, French President Emmanuel Macron said there needed to be a long-term strategy to manage the Iran issue and that it could not be done with just sanctions and containment.

Macron added that all countries shared the objective of preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

Rouhani reacts

Speaking at a news conference shortly after the Security Council session, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said the meeting, which he did not attend, showed how isolated the United States was in its decision to withdraw from the nuclear deal.

"And today in the U.N. Security Council it became clear that America is alone," Rouhani told reporters. "All the countries that spoke in the U.N. Security Council supported the JCPOA, either directly or indirectly, and referred to the American action as an incorrect action."

Rouhani dismissed additional sanctions Trump said would go into effect in early November, saying there was "not much left" for the U.S. to do. He urged nations to "trample upon" the sanctions and ignore them, because they would be "illegal" and would contradict the U.N. Security Council resolution that endorsed the nuclear deal as international law.

Commitment to preservation

"The most important substance of the discussion is that nearly all other council members reiterated their commitment to preserving the Joint Comprehensive Program of Action, despite U.S. opposition, while several members (notably the U.K., France, the Netherlands, Sweden) expressed their strong concern about Irans other destabilizing activities," said Thomas Countryman, former assistant secretary of state for international security and nonproliferation and now chair of the board of the directors of the Arms Control Association.

In addition to controlling the spread of nuclear weapons, Trump  in his remarks on the stated theme of the council's meeting  said, "We must never forget the risk posed by biological and chemical weapons."

The U.S. president noted action he had taken to respond to Syria's use of chemical weapons against civilians during that country's protracted civil war and said, "The Syrian regime's butchery is enabled by Russia and Iran."

But Trump expressed gratitude to Iran, Russia and Syria for slowing attacks in Idlib, saying, "Get the terrorists, but I hope the restraint continues."

WATCH: Trump Rejects Globalism in UN Address

North Korea summit

Trump told the Security Council that "many things are happening behind the scenes" between the United States and North Korea as they pursue denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

Trump predicted that very good news would be coming out of North Korea "in coming days and years."

Earlier Wednesday, Trump said his administration was planning a second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

"I'll be meeting with Chairman Kim," Trump told reporters arriving at the General Assembly. He said a date and location would be announced soon.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he was planning the summit and that it might take place after October. The State Department announced Pompeo would visit Pyongyang next month.

"We're working diligently to make sure we get the conditions right so that we can accomplish as much as possible during the summit. But we hope it will be soon," Pompeo told the program CBS This Morning. "It may happen in October, but more likely sometime after that."

Pompeo's remarks came one day after Trump touted his relationship with North Korea, telling the General Assembly it had helped ease tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

"The missiles and rockets are no longer flying in every direction, nuclear testing has stopped; some military facilities are already being dismantled," Trump said.

Trump added that "much work remains to be done" with North Korea and said, "The sanctions will stay in place until denuclearization occurs."

His comments about North Korea were in sharp contrast to those he delivered at the assembly last year, when he threatened to "totally destroy" the country and ridiculed Kim as "Rocket Man," saying he was on a "suicide mission."

South Korea's president, Moon Jae-in, personally relayed a message to Trump on Monday, telling him that Kim wanted to meet him again soon to make progress on denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

Wednesday's Security Council meeting, with a U.S. president taking the gavel for only the third time (Obama did it twice), came one day after Trump called on world leaders during his address before the General Assembly to "isolate Iran's regime as long as its aggression continues."The United Nations warns escalating human rights violations and restrictions to civil and political rights in the Democratic Republic of Congo are calling into question the credibility of upcoming presidential elections. The U.N. Human Rights Council held a special session in Geneva on the situation in the DRC.

The United Nations report highlights alarming trends of violations and repressive measures against peoples freedom of expression and peaceful assembly since June 2017.

Just three months ahead of crucial presidential elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights notes a 35-percent increase in human rights violations linked to restrictions of democratic space, half perpetrated by the police.

The agencys director of Field Operations and Technical Cooperation, Georgette Gagnon, says demonstrations are being forcibly suppressed. She says opposition leaders, human rights defenders, journalists and activists are being threatened and intimidated. She notes all these violations are occurring in a persistent climate of widespread impunity.

The essence of a democratic society resides in the ability of its citizens  irrespective of their political affiliation  to enjoy the rights and freedoms, without fearing reprisals from the state. Respect for human rights is one of the cornerstones which will determine the credibility of these forthcoming elections, she said.

Gagnon warns the human rights situation in the DRC is likely to worsen as the elections approach. She is calling on the government to reverse these worrying trends.

DRC Minister of Human Rights Marie-Ange Mushobekwa Likulia agrees her country must make more efforts to protect human rights. But, she says much progress has been.

She says elections on December 23 will be free, credible, transparent and without outside interference, adding that restrictions on public protests were lifted for all political parties three months ago.

She notes for the first time since the Democratic Republic of Congo gained its independence 58 years ago, the government will be democratically handing over power. She calls this a historic achievement.China's growing prowess in cyberspace is a bigger, more dangerous threat to the United States than Russia's attempt to undermine U.S. elections, Washington's top intelligence official said, warning that Beijing is on a path that could lead to global supremacy.

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats characterized the Chinese threat as deliberate, methodical and subtle, allowing it to escape the type of notoriety that has followed Moscow's exploits.

Most worrisome, Coats said, is the way in which an increasingly aggressive China is taking advantage of its relative stable relationship with the U.S. and the rest of the world to hone its cyber capabilities internally.

Specifically, he cited China's use of its ongoing crackdown on Muslims in the Xinjiang region as a testing ground for its cyber capabilities.

Intelligence officials and human rights groups estimate that China has rounded up possibly millions of Uighurs and other Muslims minorities, including families and children, sending them to re-education centers, where they are forced to renounce their religion and their culture.

Surveillance measures

But Coats said the re-education centers are just the start.

"Chinese officials in the Muslim northwest have instituted high-tech surveillance measures, including the collection of DNA and other biological data throughout the region, with Chinese technology companies at the forefront of these actions," he told a cybersecurity conference Tuesday at The Citadel, a military college in Charleston, South Carolina.

He said China is also experimenting with a "social credit ratings program," using intrusive surveillance to determine access to bank loans, educational opportunities and even medical care.

"The result of this effort is nothing short of a future that involves the perfection of the surveillance state," Coats warned, adding it also "threatens the export of these tools abroad to other authoritarian regimes."

An attempt to reach officials at the Chinese Embassy in Washington for reaction to Coats' comments went unanswered, though Chinese officials have previously sought to downplay concerns about their use of cybertechnology in Xinjiang.

One Chinese official claimed last week in Geneva that China's use of surveillance is no more intrusive than that used by Western countries like Britain.

Coats is not the first U.S. official to warn about the threat from China, but his warning is among the most dire, and reflects a growing concern that Beijing is poised to outmaneuver the U.S. in the cyber domain.

'Huge concerns'

"Do I have concerns with the Chinese? Huge concerns with regards to their ability to leverage their industry," Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. Robert Ashley said last week in Washington, referencing concerns Beijing could use Chinese-made products to spy on Americans.

Already, the Pentagon has banned the sale of mobile phones by Chinese companies Huawei Technologies and ZTE on its military bases because of the potential security risks. Australia, a key U.S. intelligence partner and ally, also banned the two companies from supplying telecommunications equipment.

And military officials, like Ashley, are increasingly worried about the pervasiveness of Chinese-made components in the supply chain and the impact that could have in a range of both combat and noncombat situations.

"My bigger concern may not necessarily be what's taking place on the battle space if I can't turn the power on," Ashley said.

U.S. lawmakers have voiced similar concerns.

"Imagine a world 15 or 20 years from now where our entire communications network is embedded with component pieces made by a company that can remotely control those component pieces by a foreign adversary," Republican Sen. Marco Rubio said at a conference this past June during a speech about China. "It would be a threat this country has never faced."

Cyber targets

A July 2018 report by the U.S. National Counterintelligence and Security Center found that while China's cyber operations have slowed since a 2015 agreement with the U.S., Beijing "continues to use cyber espionage to support its strategic development goals."

Most of the Chinese operations target defense contractors and information technology, as well as communications companies "whose products and services support government and private sector networks worldwide."

And U.S. officials believe China's malicious cyber activities are growing.

"China is expanding its intrusions," FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich said Tuesday, calling China the No. 1 counterintelligence threat.

"We find them stealing our ideas, our intellectual property, trying to obtain our innovation," Bowdich said, calling the Chinese efforts "incredibly effective."

U.S. intelligence officials are also increasingly concerned that China's efforts, while methodical, are becoming increasingly bold.

China is no longer "hiding its strengths and biding its time," Coats warned Tuesday. "Beijing is working against the values that the international community has championed, including protecting personal privacy, the free flow of information and the protection of commercial secrets."Washington's notification of a second weapons sale to Taiwan in as many years is helping arm the client without, so far, enraging its military rival, China, or exacerbating already strained Sino-U.S. ties.

The Pentagon notified Congress Monday of a $330 million arms package, including parts for American-made aircraft such as F-16s and F-5s. The package omits new fighter jets, such as F-35s, or technology for submarines despite Taiwans requests over the years. But the deal has drawn just a routine protest from China rather than the outrage expected from bigger sales.

China claims sovereignty over self-ruled Taiwan and insists the two sides eventually unify, by force if needed. Taiwanese prefer their autonomy of some 70 years. To resist China, Taiwan has fostered a military ranked by online database GlobalFirePower.com as the worlds 24th strongest. Sino-U.S. ties are already strained by a growing trade dispute.

"Some might see spare parts as a kind of rejection, because what Taiwan really wants from the U.S. is many other larger items," said Sean King, vice president of the Park Strategies political consultancy in New York. "But as I see it, this sale's just another step in President Trump's evolving support for Taiwan over the last 15 months or so."

Gains for Taiwan

Taiwans Ministry of National Defense thanked Washington in a statement Tuesday, adding that the latest arms package would help it keep peace with China. "The arms sale indicates strong concern by the U.S. side toward our security," the statement said.

Local defense ministry contractors have stepped up development of aircraft and missiles, but Taipei still relies on U.S. weaponry for its more advanced systems. China runs the worlds third strongest armed forces, including missiles that Taipei officials believed are aimed at Taiwan, and this year it announced an 8.1 percent defense budget increase.

The type and value of arms in the sale announced this week probably fall short of a laurel for Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, whose party is campaigning now ahead of mid-term local elections, said Liu Yih-jiun, professor of public affairs at Fo Guang University in Taiwan.

But a longer trend of improved relations with the U.S. government  from a $1.42 billion U.S. arms package announced last year to Tsais two high-profile stopovers in U.S. territory last month  has raised hopes in Taiwan as China squelches the islands diplomacy with other countries.

Chinese reaction

In China, a military spokesperson said the armed forces were strongly dissatisfied with and resolutely opposed to planned U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, Beijings official Xinhua News Agency said Tuesday. The military formally protested to Washington, Xinhua said.

"Taiwan is a part of China and the one-China principle is the political foundation of China-U.S. relationship," the spokesperson was quoted saying.

But experts call this type of reaction pro forma, short of retaliating against either the U.S. government or Taiwan. Thats partly because the sale excludes powerful weapons systems, Liu said.

"As long as they dont sell Taiwan some kinds of F-35s and some kinds of most advanced equipment, then that could be a kind of (Sino-U.S. understanding)," he said. They would register as some kind of goodwill on the part of the United States.

When the U.S. government announced a $6.4 billion sale in 2010, Beijing called off scheduled Sino-U.S. military visits and threatened sanctions against American defense contractors doing business in China. After Beijing found out about last years sale, China said it was outraged, according to media reports at the time.

If we (the United States) do end up selling Taiwan aircraft and or subs, I'd expect Beijing to pretty much lose it, King said.

Sino-U.S. ties

Trumps government may not want to anger China either, some scholars believe. The U.S. government has stepped up tariffs against China this year to cover some $250 billion worth of imports as Trump calls Beijing an unfair trader.

But Sino-U.S. trade talks are on hold, with Trump saying last month his government would focus first on North American trade issues. China may be eyeing November mid-term elections in the United States as a bellwether for the popularity of Trump and his trade policies, Liu said.

Taiwan should still brace for a longer-term Chinese reaction to the arms sale, said Andrew Yang, secretary-general of the Chinese Council of Advanced Policy Studies think tank in Taiwan. He said the Chinese government will make it easy for Taiwanese to work, study and invest but could take action against it politically at the same time.

"China will continue to consolidate its two-handed approach," Yang said. "On one hand, attract Taiwanese to engage in China, on the other hand holding a big stick and the stick is getting bigger and bigger."

China has flown military aircraft near the island about a dozen times and persuaded five diplomatic allies to switch allegiance since Tsai took office in 2016. Tsai upsets Beijing because she disputes its formal dialogue condition that both sides belong to a single China.The U.S. State Department is proposing that the United States receive proportionally fewer refugees from Africa and the Middle East in the coming year than it planned to last year, in favor of an increase in refugees from Asia and Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, according to data obtained from the agency.

In a recent email, a department spokesperson confirmed the regional allocations first reported by Politico last week.

The numbers are not final, however. The State Department told VOA last week it was in the process of scheduling the required consultations with Congress before the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30, after which President Donald Trump will issue the annual presidential declaration confirming the so-called refugee ceiling. That is, the maximum number of refugees that would be allowed into the United States in the coming 12 months.

The regional shifts are part of a proposal that would reduce the number of refugees allowed into the country for Fiscal Year 2019 to 30,000, a record low for the program.

As it stands, the proposed amounts for each region, according to the State Department, are:

Africa  11,000, down from 19,000 in fiscal 2018.

Near East and South Asia (includes the Middle East)  9,000, down from 17,500.

East Asia  4,000, down from 5,000.

Europe  3,000, up from 2,000.

Latin America and the Caribbean  3,000, up from 1,500.

"One of the most egregious aspects of this administration's refugee policy is the dramatic regional discrepancies we saw in FY2018," said Matthew LaCorte, an immigration policy analyst at the libertarian Niskanen Center, who has written about regional allocations under the Trump administration. "The 2019 regional ceilings set in stone these regional priorities  moving away from the resettlement of African and Middle Eastern refugees."

The proposed ceiling marks an upper threshold  not a goal. With about a week left in the fiscal year, fewer than 22,000 of a proposed 45,000 refugees had been admitted into the country, according to State Department data.

Moreover, regional allocations don't always align with reality. For example, last year, the president mandated that 42 percent of refugees come from Africa. As of Sept. 21, that figure was 46 percent.

Another region that exceeded its intended allocation: Europe, where a surge in Ukrainian refugees accounted for part of the jump from a proposed 4 percent of refugees to a reality of 16 percent.

The difference in refugee arrivals from the Middle East in the last year was the starkest. The administration capped the number at 39 percent  17,500 Middle Eastern refugees of the 45,000 total; to date for FY2018, it has admitted 3,756 from the Middle East, or about 17 percent.

What the coming year will look like for refugees entering the U.S. depends on two issues.

First will be the results from the meetings between members of Congress and administration officials in the coming week, as Congress could tweak the regional allocations, and the total, in either direction.

Second will be how the refugee admissions program continues. Refugee officials note there is a dwindling staff to handle cases, and additional screening for refugees from 11 countries has affected arrivals from some locations.VOA contributor Greta Van Susteren testified Wednesday before the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee on her experience reporting on the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar.

"These people are forgotten. They're stateless, they're homeless, they're nameless," Van Susteren said of the Rohingya refugees who have sought shelter in neighboring Bangladesh to escape violence in Myanmar. "In Myanmar, the government has rejected the use of the term 'Rohingya.' The Rohingya are non-people to them. They have been dehumanized."

A Rohingya militant attack on Myanmar police in August 2017 sparked a series of reprisals by government security forces, creating a mass exodus of Rohingya from Myanmar's northern Rakhine state and into Bangladesh, mainly Cox's Bazar. More than half of the refugees have been children. Myanmar's military-dominated government denies oppressing the Rohingya.

Van Susteren said she had made four trips to Myanmar and the surrounding region, and that her first trip to the Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh occurred last December, in her own capacity.

WATCH: US Congressional Panel Considers Ways to Respond to Rohingya Crisis

'Horrific' persecution

At the hearing, representatives expressed their anger and horror at the crimes Myanmar authorities are accused of committing.

"Last year, this persecution reached a new low, horrific levels, as the Burmese military drove 700,000 Rohingya from their homes, burning villages, killing scores, doing so-called 'terrorist clearance operations'  that's what the military there calls it as they drive people to their death," said Rep. Ed Royce, a California Republican.

'Extreme brutality'

The U.S. State Department released a report Monday accusing Myanmar's military of targeting Rohingya civilians indiscriminately and often with "extreme brutality'' in a campaign to drive the mainly Muslim minority out of the majority Buddhist country. Extensive media reporting has documented atrocities such as the burning of villages, rape, torture and killings dating to last year.

The Rohingya are considered to be economic migrants from Bangladesh and are denied citizenship, even though most can show that their families have been in Myanmar for generations. They are discriminated against and are not allowed to move freely. They lack access to education and health care.

Earlier this month, a U.N. fact-finding commission called for members of Myanmar's top military command to be investigated and prosecuted for genocide against the Rohingya. In a report, the mission said a yearlong investigation uncovered credible evidence that the Myanmar military has committed the most serious crimes under international law.

The State Department report stopped short of using the term "genocide."

Findings dismissed

Myanmar's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Kyaw Moe Tun, scorned the investigators. He said their findings were one-sided, lacked impartiality and were detrimental to his government's efforts to find long-term solutions to the situation in Rakhine state.

Separately, Burmese army chief Min Aung Hlaing has lashed out at the U.N. and all outside criticism of Myanmar, saying no one has "the right to interfere in and make decisions over sovereignty of a country."

Van Susteren expressed her gratitude for the committee meeting to discuss the Rohingya situation.

"Even hearing that the United States has a congressional hearing gives them a bit of hope, even halfway around the world," she said.Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa is today set to deliver his maiden speech to the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York after toppling former President Robert Mugabe with the help of the army in November last year, and winning an election in July that his main opponent is refusing to concede.

But around the United Nations corridors and perhaps the world, some political analysts are saying he is not generating enough buzz as his predecessor Mr. Mugabe, who despite being loathed by many as a dictator, was a powerful orator and provided memorable moments at the United Nations.

Mr. Mugabe is seen by political analysts as being in the league of former late leaders Cuban Fidel Castro, Venezuela strongman Hugo Chavez, and Libyas Muammar Gadhafi.

FIDEL CASTRO

Castro, who died on November 25, 2016, once took a swipe at Washington in the longest timed speech at the UN General Assembly which lasted 4 hours and 29 minutes on the 26th of September, 1960.

He described his 1959 Cuban revolution during his speech as having ended his Latin American country's status as a colony of the United States and condemned Washington for promoting anarchy in his country, in the mistaken belief that it had the right to promote and encourage subversion in our country.

Wearing his trademark green military fatigues, Castro called then U.S President John F Kennedy an illiterate and ignorant millionaire.

HUGO CHAVEZ

Chavez, an ally of both Castro and Mugabe who succumbed to cancer in 2013, also read from the Castro handbook according to some analysts.

Chavez shocked the world in his 2006 UN General Assembly speech when he sarcastically called former U.S President George W. Bush the devil. Speaking a day after Bush addressed the world body, Castro said, Yesterday the devil came here. Right here. Right here. And it smells of sulfur still today, this table that I am standing in front of.

MUAMMAR GADDAFI

Colonel Gaddafi, who was captured and killed during the battle of Sirte on 20 October 2011, had two years earlier delivered a rambling speech timed at 1 hour and 36 minutes leading to many delegates leaving the room.

He appeared to tear a copy of the United Nations Charter claiming he did not recognize the document.

But even before tearing the UN Charter, Gaddafi had also caused a stir in New York when he brought his traveling Bedouin tent to a property belonging to now U.S President Donald Trump near the UN Headquarters.

Gaddafi, who shunned hotels because he allegedly feared heights and elevators, had also tried to erect the same tent in New Jersey and the Central Park and was barred by U.S authorities.

ROBERT MUGABE

Mr. Mugabe, according to some political analysts, was the defacto spokesman of developed nations when it came to calling for United Nations reforms and also standing up to America.

Last year, President Trump was the target of Mugabes vitriol. After Mr. Trump delivered his maiden speech, threatening to wipe out North Korea and describing its leader Kim Jong Un as Rocket Man on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime, Mr. Mugabe pushed back and attacked Trump in an address that went viral.

Mugabe said, in his last address at the UN before he was toppled, Some of us were, embarrassed, if not frightened, by what appeared to be the return of the Biblical Giant Gold Goliath. He added, Are we having a return of Goliath to our midst, who threatens the extinction of other countries? And may I say to the United States president, Mr. Trump, please blow your trumpet  blow your trumpet in a musical way towards the values of unity, peace, cooperation, togetherness, dialogue, which we have always stood for and which are well-writ in our very sacred document, the Charter of the United Nations.

In his 2009 address, Mr. Mugabe also hogged the limelight when he attacked homosexuals in off the cuff remarks saying at the UN podium, We are not gays! Mugabe accused Western nations of trying to prescribe new rights that are contrary to our values, norms, traditions and beliefs.

MUGABE IMPACT

But despite going overboard in his criticism, former President Mugabe, according to even his strongest critics, was sometimes a voice of the voiceless developing nations especially in his call for United Nations reform. Mugabe forcefully pushed for the elimination of the U.N. Security Council's veto power, which is dominated by five permanent members, the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China.

In 2016, speaking in his capacity as Zimbabwean president and chairman of the African Union, Mugabe called on his Asian and African counterparts to join hands in reforming the UN Security Council to fight against the political domination of the five permanent members of the UN body or seriously considering pulling out of the world body. "One of the essential ingredients in doing so will be the strengthening of our unity in continuing to fight for a United Nations that recognizes all its partners as equal partners," the then president said.

Mr. Mugabe later labeled fellow African leaders cowards for failing to forcefully push for the reform of the Security Council. He said, I dont know if we are going to come up with a common decision. There are other countries that are cowards. Africa is now led by new leaders who are no longer members of the founding fathers of the Organization of African Unity. It is now led by cowards only, without direction  It cannot only be Mr. Mugabe who comes out calling for UN reforms.

Ironically, the AU endorsed the Mugabe soft coup arguing that the Zimbabwe Defense Forces intervention did not constitute a coup detat.

Executive Director of Vanguard Africa, Jeff Smith, a longtime critic of President Mugabes excesses, admits that his sting will be missed by those calling for UN reforms. Despite Mugabe's nearly four-decade rule marked by corruption and widespread human rights abuses, he was often spot-on in terms of the need for reform of the United Nations, especially the Security Council, which is out of step with 21st century realities.

Tswane University lecturer, Dr. Ricky Mukonza, concurs, saying, Mugabe represented that strong Pan African view that got him both admirers and enemies in equal measure.

He added, His courage in speaking truth to some of the global superpowers was necessary, though it came at a great cost to Zimbabwe, and is currently being missed on the global arena.

Mandela Washington fellow, Godfrey Kurauone, is of the same opinion saying Mugabe was very clear and determined in making sure that Africa is recognized by the international community.

Kurauone called other African leaders spineless. The rest of our African leaders are puppets of the West and feel that demanding for their space threatens their relations with the super powers. He, however, says Mugabe was not respected by the West and he was largely dismissed and ignored.

Political analyst and former Zimbabwe National Students Union leader, Avoid Masiraha, says Mugabe will be missed on the international stage. Yes we indeed lost a voice because now no one has the audacity to raise the issues to the level at which Mugabe did. He had his faults but his legacy of pan Africanism will live.

The unwritten rule at the United Nations General Assembly is that leaders speak for a maximum of 15 minutes, but some disregard this recommendation. Brazil speaks first and followed by the host nation, America. But why Brazil first?

United Nations chief of protocol, Desmond Parker told American broadcaster, National Public Radio in 2010 that Brazil earned the honor and right. Brazil, traditionally, has held the first slot because in very early times, when no one wanted to speak first at the General Assembly, Brazil always  offered to speak first. He adds, And so they earned the right to speak first at the General Assembly. And this has been the case since 1955.

The theme for this years global leaders gathering is Making the United Nations relevant to all people: Global Leadership and Shared Responsibilities for Peaceful, Equitable and Sustainable Societies.This content is expired!

Unfortunely this content is expired and cannot be viewed anymore; if You are the owner of this content please login to our Website, go to our access panel and enable this content again.FILE PHOTO: Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee Kevin Brady (R-TX) holds up a sample tax form as he speaks during a media briefing after the House Republican conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., April 17, 2018. (Joshua Roberts/Reuters)

Republican campaigns have largely abandoned touting the GOP tax law ahead of the November midterms, with many pivoting instead to divisive issues such as crime and immigration in an effort to motivate conservative voters.

The decision to play down the top legislative achievement of President Trump and congressional Republicans comes as the laws popularity has eroded and public sentiment has crystallized around the belief that it was primarily a boon for the rich. Democrats, in turn, have gone sharply on offense against the law in a number of races, instead of struggling to defend their no votes as Republicans had predicted would occur.

House GOP leaders, who continue to view the tax law as a positive, will hold a vote this week on a bill to make the laws rate cuts permanent for individuals, not just for corporations as is currently the case. But even as they seek to refocus attention on the law, some are all but conceding that the messaging battle is already lost.

I think the misleading claims out there have taken hold, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Tex.) told reporters Tuesday in the Capitol. I do think just repeating the false narrative of tax cuts for the wealthy is an easy narrative to sell, but its been fact-checked so often that it just simply isnt true.

Brady said that Republicans have worked to promote the laws benefits to the public, but several GOP strategists, frustrated over the laws poor standing and its absence from midterm campaigns, blamed Republicans themselves. They said Republicans have failed to build a sustained positive case for how the tax cuts help middle-class Americans and are missing an opportunity by retreating from a law they could tout as part of a larger economic success story at a time of low unemployment and stock market highs.

Their messaging has been extremely poor, said Steve Moore, who was one of Trumps top economic advisers during the 2016 presidential campaign. Weve got the best economy in 25 years and they arent really talking about it. They are letting Democrats control the messaging.

View Graphic Impeachment, Obamacare and the Supreme Court: What Democratic control of the House means for Trump

The tax law delivered a massive cut to the corporate tax rate. It also cut income taxes at all levels, changed the way taxpayers can lower their bills via deductions, and lowered an inheritance tax on wealthy estates. Multiple independent analyses show that while the vast majority of taxpayers would see a cut, the laws benefits for individuals skew overwhelmingly toward the wealthy.

Instead of trying to reclaim the narrative on taxes, a number of Republican candidates and campaign operatives have made the calculation that shoring up support from their base by tying Democrats to crime or illegal immigration will be more effective than a positive campaign message about tax cuts and the economy.

The outside campaign committees and super PACs that make it their mission to attack opposition candidates have led the way on that strategy. The Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with the House GOP leadership, released a batch of television and digital ads in 15 congressional districts last week on topics including one Democrats arrest record, anothers history with strip clubs, and a third who is allegedly liberal on crime.

The Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC that supports Senate Republicans, released attack ads against five Democrats on Tuesday, including one focused on MS-13 and another on guns.

In many cases, ads released by Republican candidates themselves focus on opponents rather than touting a members own accomplishments. Rep. Kevin Yoder (R-Kan.) accuses his challenger in one ad of wanting to abolish the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, whose mandate includes deporting undocumented immigrants. Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-N.Y.) says her opponent sides with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in favor of illegal immigration. Rep. Bruce Poliquin (R-Maine) deems his opponent too radical and too risky.

When Republicans have touched on taxes in campaign ads, theyve often focused less on their own work to pass the law than on accusing Democrats of wanting to raise taxes, an effort they often connect with Pelosi. The Wesleyan Media Project reported this week that tax reform featured in just 20 percent of GOP House ads; the issue of taxes more generally showed up in 49 percent of ads.

Some Republicans say the party has good reasons for focusing on issues such as crime and immigration.

Thats what motivates the base, those issues that elected Trump, and this is a race that is all about enthusiasm and getting your base out. And Democrats are doing that, too, said former Republican congressman Tom Davis of Virginia, who also is a former chairman of the House GOP campaign committee. Thats basically what motivates the base  not economics.

The tax law peaked in popularity in January, immediately after it went into effect, as a number of companies announced bonuses for their workers that were trumpeted by Republicans on Capitol Hill. Since then, though, some voters have said theyve felt little personal benefit from the law.

In August, a Monmouth University poll found 37 percent of Americans approving and 45 percent disapproving of the law.

David Winston, a GOP pollster who advises congressional Republican leaders, said that Republicans have failed to explain to voters how the law helps them, including by doubling the standard deduction, increasing the child tax credit and lowering individual rates overall. When these provisions are described to voters in focus groups, participants are sometimes surprised to learn of them, Winston said.

And that is completely on Republicans that that is the state of peoples knowledge, Winston said. He added that since people dont understand what it is, they dont understand what it means that Nancy Pelosi is going to take it away.

Winston also questioned the strategy of appealing to the base in an election where independent voters could prove decisive. Those are the voters who could be reached by a positive message on taxes, he says.

Corry Bliss, head of the Congressional Leadership Fund, said in an interview that about half of GOP members running for reelection have done a good job selling the tax cut  but the other half can do better.

The difference between those who win and lose the close races this year will be who gives their constituents a reason to be for them, and theres no greater achievement than cutting middle-class taxes, Bliss said. Despite the focus on other issues in some of its ads, CLF has spent more money on ads on taxes than on any other issue.

Some longtime party members say Trumps lack of focus on the law has made it more difficult for candidates to center their messaging on it. Trump does occasionally tout the tax cuts, but he focuses more on border security, trade, his critics, the Russia investigation and a host of other issues.

The fact that the president is not spending a lot of time talking about this issue but is talking about a whole set of other issues makes it harder, said Rohit Kumar, a former top aide to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and leader of PwCs Washington National Tax Services. Its hard for candidates of the presidents party to be driving a narrative thats different than the narrative that the president himself is driving.

There are examples of Republicans running positive ads on taxes. In Pennsylvania, Rep. Mike Kelly boasts in one ad of working to reform our broken tax code. In Virginia, Rep. Dave Brat says in one ad that he fought for and delivered middle-class tax cuts.

The economy has improved in the past 18 months, although Republicans and Democrats are split on why.

Republicans believe the accelerated economic growth is in part because of anticipation of last years tax cuts and the business-friendly environment Trump has tried to establish throughout the government, stalling or eliminating regulations in a way he has said will increase hiring.

Many Democrats believe the recent economic growth is a continuation of the recovery that began under President Barack Obama, combined with a surge in stock prices because of corporate tax cuts. The unemployment rate, meanwhile, has fallen only slightly since the tax law was passed, from 4.1 percent to 3.9 percent, although the rate was already low by historical standards.

One reason many voters havent warmed to the tax law is because many companies have not turned around and passed along the savings in the form of higher wages.

Instead, many firms have used their tax savings as a way to help themselves and their investors. Goldman Sachs reported this month that large U.S. companies bought back $384 billion of their own stock in the first half of this year, up 48 percent from 2017.The White House now plans to submit a new proposed trade agreement between the United States and Mexico for Congress to begin reviewing as soon as this week. The White House wants this trade deal to replace NAFTA, though it is unclear whether it is legally possible to replace a three-country pact with a two-country arrangement. A number of lawmakers from both parties have pleaded with the White House to try to ensure Canada remains in the talks.An Apple computer built in the 1970s that helped launch the personal computer age, as well as a trillion-dollar company, has sold for $375,000. The fully functioning Apple-1 was auctioned and sold by Boston-based RR Auction on Tuesday. RR said the winning bid was from a U.S.-based business executive who wishes to stay anonymous. The computer is one of 60 or so remaining of the original 200 designed and built by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in 1976 and 1977, and one of 16 that still work. It sold back then for less than $700.The U.S. agricultural community must be breathing a sigh of relief, particularly in light of the hardships farmers are experiencing with the China tariffs, Wendy Cutler, who negotiated the Pacific trade deal for the Obama administration, said via email. Japan is now offering the U.S. agriculture market access in line with what it has already given to the ten other TPP countries, as well as to the E.U.Actually, thats not entirely true. Two other network reboots in the past year came on almost as strong and topically on-the-nose: NBCs Will & Grace arose from the dead to express its dismay at the state of the world since President Trumps 2016 election, and, like Murphy Brown, endeavored to personalize the events of the past year or two for gay man Will and his BFF Grace, who seethe together in snarky disgust from their seemingly elitist perch in Manhattan. Thriving off its resistance energy, Will & Grace almost seamlessly rediscovered its essential humor, building up from its politics rather than getting mired in them.Its also the culmination of his eclectic taste. After calling the festival Multiflora during its inaugural run last year, Thomson chose Flash of the Spirit this year. The name is a nod to the landmark book by Robert Farris Thompson, which examined the African art, music and culture that survived the Atlantic slave trade. I carry that book around with me, Thomson said. He called it a testament to endurance and compared it to the music hes drawn to  the kind he said is at risk of disappearing, too.Thats less true of some other plates. Indeed, whats hearty rains on the party. Roast tile fish matched with crab salad, colored with minced vegetables and zapped with lemon zest (so far, so good), arrives with little towers of shaved cucumber filled with airy lemon foam that has a companion muttering dish detergent under his breath. A verdant but vapid zucchini puree under the fish begs for more of the advertised basil. A duo of pork, lackluster confit belly and sliced roast loin is the dinner guest who comes to the table with nothing to say: boring, and with bland beans and damp Swiss chard to boot. A braised beet resting on cauliflower puree is more about looks than flavor, with the root vegetable beneath a tent of magenta leaves made from beet pulp and tapioca.A hospital news release says the two heads were found to have two tracheas (windpipes that connect to the lungs for breathing) and two esophagi (canals that connect the throat to the stomach). They share one heart and one set of lungs.Whether it is education, drug addiction, hunger, online safety or bullying, poverty or disease, it is too often children who are hit first, and hardest, across the globe, Trump said at a reception at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, where she announced her travel plans. Each of us hails from a country with its own unique challenges, but I know in my heart we are united by our commitment to raising the next generation to be happy, healthy and morally responsible adults.I couldnt be prouder of Ward 4 for stepping up, said Bowser, who represented the ward on the D.C. Council before she was elected mayor in 2014. It takes people saying, You may not have as much money as me, but your hopes and dreams for your children are like me. We need to make policy decisions that reflect the values that we say we have as a county, said Lynne Harris, president of the countywide council of PTAs. We say, All means all. We say we want every student to get the best education. But our schools are segregated. I think we have to be more proactive.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.

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Registration Number: 130349 Registration Number: 130349The Harvard case could offer the Supreme Court a fresh opportunity to revisit its rules governing affirmative action. In 2016, the high court affirmed that schools may take race into account as one factor among many in pursuit of assembling a diverse class, but it put limits on the practice. For instance, it prohibited racial quotas and said schools should consider whether they can achieve their goals through race-neutral alternatives.Meadowpond Ct., 6100 block, Sept. 16. Between 9 p.m. Sept. 14 and 6 a.m. Sept. 15. Officers responded to a report of a burglary. The homeowner had left her purse on the first floor near the front door. The homeowner believes the rear door was accidentally left unlocked and someone entered and stole the purse. No other items were reported missing.At one point, Glaros walked back into the room. After some awkward shuffling of the microphone, Franklin continued leading the meeting. The council members voted 5-2 in favor of moving the new public finance bill straight to introduction, meaning it will be the subject of a public hearing Oct. 23 and will then be considered by the full council.County officials may be within the jurisdiction to pursue such an inquiry and are uniquely positioned to investigate publicly announced allegations of sex assaults that may have occurred within our borders, reads the letter, which was sent to the county chief of police, the county prosecutor and attorneys Michael Avenatti and Debra Katz, who each represent one of the three accusers.Todays Headlines

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By signing up you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy PolicyHis death was confirmed by Bianca Filote, spokeswoman for the government Institute for Investigating the Crimes of Communism. The institute began to pursue Mr. Ficior and other former prison guards in 2013 in a bid to hold them accountable for wrongdoing under the former communist regime.There was a significant decline in blue crab harvests, making it increasingly more expensive to purchase live blue crab, and increasingly more difficult to make a profit from the labor-intensive process of picking blue crab, prosecutors wrote in court documents. As a result, Casey and the company could not and did not process sufficient quantities of blue crab to meet its customers demands.Gaughan sent fraudulent invoices and persuaded his employer to make payments for services that he knew would not be provided, the indictment states. Gaughan then had the checks sent to virtual and private mailboxes before depositing them into bank accounts he controlled and used the money for personal expenses, according to the indictment.Hong Kong community endorses ban of group Updated: 2018-09-25 06:48 By China Daily(HK Edition)

Local community leaders and political organizations voiced their support for the government's decision to ban the operation of the pro-independence Hong Kong National Party.

A total of 34 Legislative Council members on Monday issued a joint statement, expressing their full support of the government's move.

As the HKNP's manifesto called for Hong Kong independence and explicitly pledged to achieve independence from China by "whatever effective means", "we should not see it as just a mere political slogan", the lawmakers argued. The city has to be aware of the threat it posed to public security and order, the statement said.

The lawmakers also criticized the HKNP for spreading separatism among young people and issuing letters to foreign governments asking them to harm the city's and the nation's interests.

Former secretary for security and incumbent member of the nation's top political advisory body - the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference - Lai Tung-kwok said the Security Bureau has taken actions strictly in accordance with the law. It has also followed the rule of natural justice by allowing for sufficient time for representations.

This decision sends a loud and clear message that advocating Hong Kong independence will not be tolerated and those insisting on doing so will face sanction of the law, Lai added.

Local political organizations also expressed their support. Starry Lee Wai-king, chairwoman of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong - the city's largest political party - said the government's decision is based on the consideration of all the facts. It also delivers a message that Hong Kong does not allow advocacy of pro-independence ideas.

"The 'one country, two system' principle must not be a platform for those who conspire to threaten the country," Lee added.

The Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions, the city's major party representing labor sector, in a statement expressed that banning the operation of HKNP is in line with the fundamental interests of the country, Hong Kong and its citizens; it fully supports the government's decision.

The New Territories Association of Societies echoed this view and urged the government to adopt law enforcement actions to regulate other pro-independence groups in the city.

Yang Zekun and Joseph Li contributed to the story.

City residents rally outside Hong Kong Police Headquarters in Wan Chai on Aug 21, demanding the arrest of separatism activist Andy Chan Ho- tin, convener of the Hong Kong National Party, who gave a pro-independence speech at the Foreign Correspondents Club on Aug 14. Parker Zheng / China Daily

(HK Edition 09/25/2018 page2)This was a tragic accident and our thoughts continue to be with the young girl and her family, MGM spokesman Gordon Absher said in a statement. The safety of our guests is something we take very seriously. MGM National Harbor has been working closely with multiple county agencies, including the County Fire Department and independent forensic experts, in their efforts to determine a cause. As this is an ongoing review, we cannot comment until official conclusions are presented and a final report is issued.ACLU attorneys said in court filings that the government has tried to pressure girls to carry their pregnancies to term, including by withholding information about abortion, and has forced minors to visit religiously affiliated antiabortion crisis pregnancy centers. Teens also had been forced to disclose their pregnancies and abortion decisions to their parents and sponsors, according to the ACLU.Hamilton Place, 2600 block, 6:40 p.m. Sept. 18. A masked gunman accosted a food deliveryman, announced a robbery, and struck the deliveryman on the head with a handgun. The assailant continued to assault the man after he fell to the ground, took his wallet, and fled. A 17-year-old Waldorf male, and a 17-year-old White Plains accomplice were arrested and charged as adults with armed robbery, first-, and second-degree assault and related charges.Its indicative of how far we still havent come, Wexton said in an interview. Twenty-seven years after Anita Hill, and Barbara Comstock has an opportunity to be a leader on this issue. She is billing herself as some leader and champion for women. Theres an opportunity to be not only a leader for women but to stand up to her party.Swetnick, through her attorney Michael Avenatti, has been asking for days to talk with the FBI as well. But Avenatti, a possible 2020 presidential candidate who has battled Trump on behalf of adult film star Stormy Daniels, tweeted on Sunday that neither he nor Swetnick had heard from the bureau: Still no word from the FBI. Ramirez was questioned despite never submitting a sworn stmt. Ford was permitted to testify despite never submitting a sworn stmt. My client submitted a sworn stmt and has security clearances, & yet Trump will not allow her to be questioned or testify.The Catholic Diocese of Columbus said Wednesday it would release a list in the next few months that will include the names of clergy who have been credibly accused of abuse, whether they are living or dead. The announcement comes a day after the Steubenville diocese said it will make public the names of abusive priests by the end of October and several weeks after the Youngstown diocese made a similar announcement. Youngstown broke off from the much larger Cleveland diocese, which is Ohios largest with nearly 700,000 members, in 1943.Debate surrounding the ethics of using fetal tissue in research grew more heated after the Supreme Court legalized abortion in 1973, and abortion opponents have long urged the government to ban such research. In the late 1980s, after a federal advisory panel examined the question of transplant research involving fetal tissue and concluded that it was acceptable, but a moratorium was placed on such studies until it was lifted in 1993 by President Bill Clinton. The issue has waxed and waned in prominence ever since.Couple gets probation for hauling pot gift through Nebraska: A California couple who said the marijuana they were hauling through Nebraska was intended for Christmas gifts have been given probation and conditional jail time. York County District Court records say 71-year-old Barbara Jiron and 80-year-old Patrick Jiron were sentenced Monday to three years' probation. They will be supervised at their Clearlake Oaks, Calif., home by California authorities. When the Jirons were arrested Dec. 19, they said they did not know it was illegal to transport marijuana through Nebraska. They told authorities the 60 pounds of pot was intended as presents for family in Vermont and Massachusetts.Both sides say publicly they are far apart, with the sticking point being Chapter 19 of NAFTA, one of those issues that matters immensely north of the border yet barely registers in the public mind south of it. Basically, Chapter 19 allows Canada to bypass U.S. courts and take the United States to arbitration when it attempts to impose penalties for allegedly improper Canadian exports to the United States  especially the perennial bilateral irritant known as softwood lumber. Canada insisted on this as a sop to its own nationalists back when it proposed the first Canada-U.S. free-trade pact during the Reagan administration, and President Ronald Reagan understood the wisdom of meeting Canada halfway on this point. Mr. Trump, by contrast, has insisted on getting rid of Chapter 19 and has succeeded in persuading Mexico to abandon the version that applied to it.However. Ramirez said she was drunk when it happened and, according to the New York Times, recently told classmates she wasn't sure whether Kavanaugh was the student in question. She also initially expressed uncertainty to the New Yorker but somehow became certain enough to go on the record six days later. Her college roommate, who said she was "best friends" with Ramirez, was among those who denied ever hearing such a story; at one point, she speculated that Ramirez might have political motivations. And Kavanaugh's roommate at the time turns out to have been, by his own account, a close friend of Ramirez's  and not, one infers, overfond of Kavanaugh.In fact, two of those allegedly in attendance during the incident disputed Ramirezs account. The New Yorker reported that one of the male classmates who Ramirez said egged on Kavanaugh denied any memory of the party, and another said, I have zero recollection. The article continued, In a statement, two of those male classmates who Ramirez alleged were involved in the incident, the wife of a third male student she said was involved, and one other classmate, Dan Murphy, disputed Ramirezs account of events. Their statement said in part: We can say with confidence that if the incident Debbie alleges ever occurred, we would have seen or heard about it  and we did not. The behavior she describes would be completely out of character for Brett, adding that Some of us knew Debbie long after Yale, and she never described this incident until Bretts Supreme Court nomination was pending.Monday nights mini-mob was like a flock of crows, picking, pecking and screeching at the still very much alive Cruz. All because hes a longtime friend of Kavanaugh and sits on the Judiciary Committee. This is the reward we give to those who choose to serve the public. One female protester who claimed to be a victim of sexual assault demanded to know whether Cruz would vote for Kavanaugh. Let me help you here: Theyve been friends for 20 years, and Cruz is a pro-life Republican, so yes.He is surrounded at almost all times by an entourage of friends and aides: Modrikamen, the Belgian politician who founded The Movement last year; Raheem Kassam, the former head of Breitbart in London; Dan Fleuette, who has been Bannons friend and film producer for 15 years; Benjamin Harnwell, founder of the Institute for Human Dignity, a conservative advocacy group based in Rome; Federico Arata, a former Credit-Suisse banker and writer with strong ties in Italian politics and business; Sean Bannon, the son of Bannons younger brother; and a stocky personal bodyguard who used to be in the British Army. An independent documentary filmmaker also follows Bannon everywhere.When Rod J. Rosenstein reports to the Oval Office on Thursday to be fired, resign or continue tenuously in his post, the deputy attorney general will also be cementing his status as a player in one of President Trumps favorite parlor games: White House Survivor.

Though the outcomes often differ  fired by tweet (former secretary of state Rex Tillerson), permitted to faux-amicably resign (former national security adviser H.R. McMaster) or flayed but never quite offed (Attorney General Jeff Sessions)  one near-certainty for those navigating their departures from Trumps orbit is a prolonged and capricious public humiliation.

Trumps penchant for allowing his underlings to dangle and stew in Washingtons fickle swamp often seems to be a form of psychological cruelty  and also the way he prefers to conduct business, according to the presidents advisers and associates.

The onetime reality-television showman who made his name by declaring Youre fired! has an aversion to in-person conflict, friends and advisers said. Trump believes that by dragging out what ultimately will be a dismissal, he can best gauge the prevailing views in his circle, as well as public sentiment, they said.

I think it pleases him to sort of paw at a wounded mouse in front of him because it asserts his sense of control and authority, and he enjoys that to no end, said Tim OBrien, author of TrumpNation, a biography. Thats classic bullying, where youre sort of tough on the exterior and you enjoy making people miserable, but when push comes to shove, you cant really do what it takes to be brave face-to-face.

Rosensteins saga has followed a familiar pattern. As the Justice Department official overseeing special counsel Robert S. Mueller IIIs Russia investigation, Rosenstein has been a frequent target of Trumps ire, although officials said relations between the two men had been relatively smooth recently.

But whatever detente existed between Trump and Rosenstein risked immediate rupture last Friday, when the New York Times reported that Rosenstein had suggested surreptitiously recording the president and rounding up support in the Cabinet to remove him from office via the 25th Amendment.

Rosenstein denied the report, but still, many in Trumps orbit braced themselves for a presidential eruption that, uncharacteristically, never came.

On Monday, the conjecture over Rosensteins job status began anew after Axios reported that the deputy attorney general had verbally resigned to White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly in anticipation of being fired by Trump. Later reports said he had merely offered to quit. After two hours of feverish speculation and conflicting reports, the White House announced that Rosenstein was staying on the job  at least until he and the president could meet in person on Thursday.

The meeting, at the very least, is likely to be unpredictable. White House aides stress that they believe that the only way Rosenstein would leave his post is if he resigns, while Justice Department officials say they believe he would have to be fired  a potentially problematic action by Trump that could be interpreted by Mueller and his investigators as obstruction of justice.

People close to the president predict that the meeting could be deeply uncomfortable for Rosenstein, especially if Trump presses him on the veracity of the reporting about his alleged disloyalty. As one outside Trump adviser quipped, Rosenstein would be wise to arrive wearing some Depends.

But for now, Rosenstein simply awaits his fate.

In his 20 months as president, Trump has elevated routine, if high-volume, staff turnover into a sport, prompting media outlets to turn every plot twist into a breaking-news headline.

For some senior officials, like Tillerson and Trumps first chief of staff, Reince Priebus  both of whom Trump ultimately fired unceremoniously on Twitter  the president first made them submit to a months-long period of public purgatory. He peppered friends and advisers with questions about whether he should fire the men  private doubts that quickly surfaced in embarrassing news reports  and openly undermined them in internal meetings.

Sean Spicer, the first White House press secretary, resigned before Trump took action against him, but he, too, faced months of humiliating headlines generated by the president himself, who would call Spicer in one moment to reassure him of his job security and rail against and mock him in the next.

The result, in the words of one former White House official, was totally neutering the person.

Chris Whipple, author of The Gatekeepers, a history of White House chiefs of staff, said Trumps management style is detrimental to the proper functioning of the federal government.

Its a recipe for paralysis, Whipple said. This has been the most dysfunctional White House in modern history, and it makes it even more so when you have senior officials who dont know from day-to-day whether theyll be around the next morning.

The presidents behavior also further heightened the existing factionalization in his West Wing. After Trump showed signs of turning on an underling, many staffers would use the opportunity to either further marginalize or mobilize against an aide they disliked.

This happened with Tillerson, who had few natural allies, even in his own State Department. Increasingly, the National Security Council cut him out of deliberations, some foreign leaders stopped interacting with him, and the Foggy Bottom bureaucracy turned against him.

Alternatively, Trumps game of will-he-stay-or-will-he-go has sometimes resulted in bolstered support for the persecuted staffer. This occurred with McMaster, who, despite his sometimes-toxic relationship with Trump, was well respected by many colleagues who worked to help prolong his White House tenure. Yet his ouster, when it finally came last March, was still viewed as inevitable.

Trumps method dates to his earliest days as an executive. At the Trump Organization, his family real estate company, Trump would torment junior executives, both as a means of inspiring loyalty and because he enjoyed exploiting peoples vulnerabilities and keeping them off-kilter, according to Barbara Res, a former Trump Organization vice president who has become a critic of her former boss.

But, she added, he rarely actually fired employees.

He did like to torture people, the way he tortures Sessions  Youre stupid! Youre no good! Youre this, youre that!  Res said, referring to the presidents frequent taunts of the attorney general. But nobody feared they would get fired because he didnt fire anyone.

Other presidents have struggled with dismissing staffers. Presidents historically are terrible at firing people, Whipple said.

Whipple recalled President George H.W. Bushs unwillingness to personally fire John H. Sununu despite his struggles as White House chief of staff, ultimately outsourcing the dirty work. President Bill Clinton, too, was a reluctant executioner, keeping aides on his staff well past what many others felt was their due date.

As the host of NBCs The Apprentice, Trump honed the tactic of teasing and trumpeting coming firings to build suspense  and goose the shows ratings. Similarly, in the White House, Trump likes to air out personnel dramas to gauge public sentiment.

Early in his administration, as Cabinet secretary after Cabinet secretary was ensnared in ethics scandals, the president was sometimes reluctant to let them go, uncertain of what his base might think. This was particularly true in the case of Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, who for months weathered a string of damning controversies until he finally resigned under pressure in July.

Trump has also said he thinks keeping his aides perpetually insecure about their status fosters a cutthroat environment that ultimately inspires loyalty. But in the case of Rosenstein, it may have inspired something more akin to fear.

OBrien, who is also the executive editor of Bloomberg Opinion, said he was struck by descriptions in news reports of Rosensteins hoping to amicably exit the administration  however and whenever he finally goes.

The fact that Rod J. Rosenstein is worried that he may not depart on good terms with Trump, after Trump has done nothing but debase him and the entire Mueller investigation for months, shows that people in the Trump orbit are suffering from Stockholm syndrome, OBrien said, referring to the phenomenon in which captives come to form an alliance with their captors. It was revealing that Rosenstein cared, and I thought to myself, Oh, my gosh, Trump is just going to devour this guy. Has he always behaved himself honorably and the allegations against him [are] manufactured or mistaken? I wish there were a way to know for sure. Perhaps a more in-depth investigation can help answer the question and our political leaders can will themselves to conduct one fairly and thoroughly without delay. How can one oppose that in good faith? he wrote.Trump called the Jerusalem embassy move probably the biggest chip on the negotiating table. By removing it, Trump said, he had cleared the way for talks without one of the major obstacles that have sunk past peace efforts. He did not say how he wants Jerusalems status to be resolved, and he did not mention the Palestinian demand that a future state have its capital in East Jerusalem.She is now a supervisor, where her duties include analyzing legislative changes and managing other attorneys. In an interview earlier this year on a local NPR radio station, Mitchell talked about the nuts and bolts of the offices adoption of a new sex crimes protocol, the first in office history, intended to improve the investigation and prosecution of cases. She said the new manual would ensure prosecutors have something to look at to say, okay, these are the best practices, so that we can do the best we can for victims.House Republicans have been weighing how to respond to reports that McCabes memos indicated Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein suggested secretly recording Trump, potentially as part of a plan to remove him from office by invoking the 25th Amendment to the Constitution. Rosenstein has denied saying such things, but the controversy has fueled calls from conservative Republicans to bring him to Capitol Hill for more questioning about his reported comments. Last week, Rosenstein told White House officials he was willing to resign, prompting a chaotic start to the week as speculation swirled that he might be fired. Rosenstein and Trump are set to meet Thursday when the president returns from the U.N. General Assembly.Theres a risk that, if we dont move through the process and have a vote on Judge Kavanaugh, I think there are a lot of folks who would otherwise vote in the midterm elections who may not vote. Given the importance of turnout and intensity of the vote on both sides, that could be critical, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), one of McConnells top deputies in the last decade, said Tuesday.Checchis team took into account assumptions about what the death rate would have been without civil war to find how many excess deaths the conflict has caused. The researchers factored in the reality that many people have fled or were killed in circumstances that might have been exacerbated by the conflict, such as outbreak of disease or malnutrition, he said. South Sudan experienced a man-made famine last year.They said that Aadhaar was a dangerous Big Brother program and could be used to keep tabs on how citizens spend money, where they travel and whom they call. As the Snowden revelations show, if the state has the power, there is always a temptation, said Nachiket Udupa, one of the petitioners, referring to former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, who leaked details of the U.S. governments electronic surveillance programs.I do understand that there is this potential for rivalry and a kind of a nostalgia on the part of Russia for kind of this great role that it had in the past. And that, too, may shape its behavior, he said, adding that the potential for cooperation may also be constrained by these other factors  the state of our bilateral relations, the vision that President Putin has for Russias role in the region and the world. And you know, well work hard to engage.But Trump said positive developments that have not been made public will prove the wisdom of his nuclear negotiations with Kim. If you saw whats going on behind the scenes, I think youd be very impressed, he said. Ive received two letters from Chairman Kim. . . . Theyre letters that are magnificent in the sense of his feeling for wanting to get this done.Rosensteins job security has been a subject of near-constant speculation almost since the moment he got it in early 2017. But it seemed never more at risk than after a New York Times story last week said the No. 2 official at the Justice Department had once suggested secretly recording the president and mustering support to use the 25th Amendment of the constitution to remove him from office.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.In the eyes of North Sydney mayor Jilly Gibson, "NS" doesn't just stand for the name of her home, but also for "no smoking". By this time next year, she wants to see "NS. NS." stickers everywhere, on doors and letterboxes.

North Sydney Council this week unanimously passed Cr Gibson's recommendation to make its CBD one of the first smoke-free business districts in Australia.

Smokers will be forced off the streets of North Sydney. Credit:Louise Kennerley

"Cigarettes are not only bad for smokers; their cigarette butts litter our streets and the secondhand smoke is detrimental to everyones health," the mayor's minute says.

"It is important that we create a safe environment for our community where everyone can enjoy our outdoor open spaces."Beijing: China rejected a request by a US warship to make a port visit to Hong Kong next month, officials said on Tuesday, as tensions between the two countries flared on military as well as economic fronts.

The cancellation of a planned visit by the USS Wasp, an amphibious assault ship carrying a contingent of Marines, followed China's decision to recall a senior admiral who was in the United States for a naval conference this week.

US officials said China had denied a request for a US Navy ship to make a port visit next month at Hong Kong. Credit:US Navy

Both actions were prompted by a Trump administration decision to impose sanctions on a Chinese state military company linked to the People's Liberation Army for buying weapons from Russia. Although the economic impact of the US action on the Chinese remains unclear, the vehemence of Beijing's response suggested that the move stung.

The mounting military tensions came only three months after Defence Secretary Jim Mattis visited Beijing pledging "to keep our relationship on the right trajectory." Instead, the relationship appears to be veering wildly off track as an escalating trade war becomes conflated with broader concerns in Washington about China's policies.Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.After travelling through the lengths and breadths of Karnataka and the neighbouring states, Abhishek and team are packing their bags to head to Switzerland for the shoot of Nagashekars directorial Amar.

A member of the films team tells us that the cast and crew have applied for their visas, before which they are wrapping up portions within the state. The second part of the film will be shot in Switzerland for 20 days. The script demands the white alps. Sequences on racing will be shot there, says our source.

Made under Sandesh Productions, the film features Tanya Hope as the female lead. Abhishek and Tanya, who play bikers in the film, have ridden through Coimbatore, Belgaum, Manipal, Mangaluru, Madikere, Somwarpet, Gonikoppa, and even through parts of Kerala. Now, the team is set to zoom on roads in a

foreign locale.

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James John Kruse of Black Hill, Texas, passed away on Monday, Nov. 1, 2021, at the age of 81. James...

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Margaret Vega Cresap passed away in San Antonio, Texas, on Monday, Nov. 1, 2021, at the age of 76. She...Mayoral candidate Umar Hayat attempts to convince Don Woodstock to come back to the stage after he dropped his mic and left the stage during a mayoral debate Tuesday.It's shaping up to be an epic battle between the "back to the future" campaign of a feisty challenger and the "lofty ideals" campaign of the incumbent mayor.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 25/9/2018 (1143 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It's shaping up to be an epic battle between the "back to the future" campaign of a feisty challenger and the "lofty ideals" campaign of the incumbent mayor.

With less than a month to go before Winnipeggers go to the polls, the race for the mayor's office has become a high-contrast affair, with eight candidates eligible to have their names on the ballot.

The race, so far, has resulted in viable campaigns offered by some long-shot candidates, including stoic efforts by the irrepressible Don Woodstock (whose intensity of campaigning matches anyone on the ballot) and Umar Hayat, who continues to maintain a significant social-media presence to publicize his campaign.

Jenny Motkaluk has taken a traditional approach, focusing on core civic issues and a rejection of anything that smacks of boutique, progressive urbanist philosophy. (John Woods / Winnipeg Free Press)

However, to date, the clear front-runners have been established as Brian Bowman, the incumbent mayor, and challenger Jenny Motkaluk. They are offering voters radically different campaign messages.

For Motkaluk, the focus has been on core civic issues and a rejection of anything that smacks of boutique, progressive urbanist philosophy, which is Bowman's calling card. It's a decidedly traditional approach, with a healthy dash of animus to keep things interesting.

At a modest rally at a Polo Park-area hotel Monday night, Motkaluk put her back-to-the-future approach of politics on full display.

The topic on this evening was crime, and Motkaluk lustily attacked what she described as Bowman's failure to keep Winnipeggers safe in their own city. "There are people in this room tonight, myself included, who grew up in a Winnipeg where we didn't lock our doors at night... Where leaving your belongings in your car outside your house wasn't an open invitation to vandalism and violence," Motkaluk told 150 supporters.

Brian Bowman has borrowed heavily from his 2014 campaign with a focus on accountability, transparency, diversity, independence and integrity. (Mikaela MacKenzie / Winnipeg Free Press)

She acknowledged Bowman wasn't to blame for all the recent reports on increased crime  right before she blamed the current mayor for the recent spike in crime. She then pulled out a tagline that might make for a great T-shirt one day: "We're done putting Band-Aids on bullet wounds."

Motkaluk is certainly not the first politician at the civic level to seek support by portraying the city as a crime-infested swamp. Former mayor Sam Katz turned this narrative into an art form, despite the fact almost no one would credit him with any measure that directly affected crime levels.

While Motkaluk beats a traditional campaign drum, Bowman has attempted to soar high above the fray, paying little or no attention to his challengers while hammering away at some lofty, almost ethereal, campaign issues.

Bowman's focus has focused on accountability, transparency, diversity, independence and integrity. He has preached the benefits of a modern, progressive urbanist philosophy, which emphasizes things such as walkability and rapid transit, and de-emphasizes things such as building or expanding freeways.

Don Woodstock has run an intense campaign so far. (Ruth Bonneville / Winnipeg Free Press files)

He has borrowed heavily from his 2014 campaign, where he became the most-effective foil for the Katz era of civic politics.

Even though Katz retired from politics before the 2014 election, he was omnipresent in the campaign, as all candidates scrambled to convince voters that, although they may have been many things, they weren't Sam.

In the if-it-ain't-broke-don't-fix-it tradition of electoral politics, Bowman is reminding voters he owes no favours to any individual, organization or special interest. He has, however, warned those individuals, organziations and special interests who had their tentacles deeply imbedded in city hall are trying to make a comeback.

Motkaluk clearly believes Bowman is talking about her. Although she has received public and private support from some sources that would have been associated with Katz, she has been rigorous to deny even the most subtle of allegations she is a shill for any one particular special interest, industry or organization.

Umar Hayat has been busy utilizing social media to publicize his campaign. (John Woods / Winnipeg Free Press files)

In attempting to occupy rarefied ground, however, Bowman's campaign has been extremely light on firm promises.

Motkaluk has been concrete (leave the Portage Avenue and Main Street intersection closed to pedestrians, kill bus rapid transit, put more police in schools); Bowman has been high on concept and low on specific measures.

There's lots of contrast, but is there any substance in the two contrasting visions for the city? To date, not really.

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Motkaluk has been careful not to over-promise, offering ideas that claim to be doable within existing resources. However, as was the case with her attack on Bowman for being soft on crime, there is more political posture than substance.

Crime is a macro-sized problem, while mayors have only micro-sized tools with which to fight it. Any suggestion by any candidate he or she has an antidote for crime, or they alone can return Winnipeg to a mythical past state of public safety, is misleading at best and disingenuous at worst.

When politicians say they are tough on crime, they mostly mean they talk tough on crime.

The same could be said for Bowman's constant pledge to make the city more inclusive and diverse. Those are big, high-ideal goals that largely exist outside the grasp of a municipal leader. It's one thing to promote the principles of inclusion and diversity, and another to promise they are achievable goals within the context of the powers of municipal office.

Winnipeggers can see the contrast between Motkaluk and Bowman, and that's a good thing. We're all still waiting to see if either have the substance that would make them truly worthy of voter support.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.caConstruction workers and labour representatives have launched a public campaign to stop Bill 28, which involves billboards and bus ads decrying the Public Sector Construction Projects (Tendering) Act.

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This article was published 25/9/2018 (1144 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Construction workers and labour representatives have launched a public campaign to stop Bill 28, which involves billboards and bus ads decrying the Public Sector Construction Projects (Tendering) Act.

Manitoba Building Trades chief executive officer Sudhir Sandhu said the bill  which will be debated when the fall legislative sitting begins Oct. 3  will ban project labour agreements (PLAs).

PLAs are used on construction projects to prioritize local jobs, project safety and construction quality, Sandhu said. Past and current examples include the Red River Floodway expansion project and construction of Manitoba Hydro's Keeyask generating site.

"If were going to spend billions of dollars building infrastructure locally  whether thats municipalities, whether thats the province  and we do not leverage those dollars to create employment and opportunities for Manitobas workers and Manitobas youth, then we are falling behind other jurisdictions that are much smarter than we are," Sandhu said at a rally Tuesday.

"In Manitoba, at Keeyask, despite having a project labour agreement in place, right now, only 53 per cent of workers are Manitoban. And imagine what it would be without a PLA."

A government spokesperson said Bill 28 doesn't ban PLAs outright, but assures bidders can't be selected to work on projects solely because they are using such an agreement.

TREVOR HAGAN / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES The Keeyask Dam project site near Gillam, Manitoba in 2016. Despite having a project labour agreement in place, only 53 per cent of workers at the project are Manitoban says Manitoba Building Trades chief executive officer Sudhir Sandhu.

"It will be up to the companies bidding on contracts to determine if they want to use that labour management tool or not," the spokesperson said by email.

"Government can still award points in the grading matrix for (using PLAs). However, this legislation does not affect government and agencies ability to require certain framework, such as use of local labour, indigenous labour requirements, (percentage) of apprentices, etc., when determining what requisites are included in the bidding process."

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Infrastructure Minister Ron Schuler said Bill 28 will ensure "qualified workers and their employers, regardless of union status, have equal access to publicly funded construction projects in the province."

"This proposed legislation is about fairness and ensuring that all workers and employers are treated as such. Our government is focused on building the best product at the best price, and how workers choose to interact with their employer should not be mandated by government," he said in a prepared statement.

Sandhu said PLAs don't disadvantage non-union members and "that's one of the myths that advocates of Bill 28 will advance."

"We are going to present a case to Manitobans based on the economics, based on the business, based on data. We want this to be an argument of fact and we will hear a lot of rhetoric, we will hear a lot of ideology from the other side," Sandhu said. "Bring it on."

jessica.botelho@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @_jessbuWHEN Roy Harper rushed to the Seven Oaks General Hospital to check on his ailing uncle Sunday afternoon, he was told the man was better and had been discharged.

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This article was published 26/9/2018 (1143 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WHEN Roy Harper rushed to the Seven Oaks General Hospital to check on his ailing uncle Sunday afternoon, he was told the man was better and had been discharged.

Turns out the Winnipeg hospital was wrong: Harpers uncle wasnt discharged, he was deceased.

JOHN WOODS / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS David Harper died in hospital Sunday.

David Harper went to the Seven Oaks emergency room for an unknown issue sometime Sunday, his family said.

They are now awaiting an autopsy report to determine the cause of death, and the family  as well as Indigenous leadership at the reserve and the provincial and federal levels  want to find out what happened to the man, who was in his late-fifties.

"We want to see changes made," Roy Harper said Tuesday. "How could this have happened? I was told (at 3:30 p.m.) he was sent home and doing fine. Then I get a call (from a relative), he had died two hours before that.

"I was very devastated by that news."

On Tuesday, executive members at the hospital met with David Harpers relatives and Indigenous leaders.

Afterwards, Roy Harper said the family was pleased it received the two letters it had asked for: one, an apology for the incorrect information on David Harpers health status; the second, to confirm the investigation will continue and that there will be a further meeting between health officials and leadership of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, Assembly of First Nations, Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak, and the Southern Chiefs Organization.

"I think they are sincere, and trying to find solutions how they can better serve people, even Indigenous and non-Indigenous, that use this institution," he said. "I want to find out exactly what happened to my uncle."

Gary Knott, a band councillor at David Harpers home reserve of Wasagamack First Nation, said it is a question being asked by many others, as well.

"Im still trying to figure out what happened," Knott said. "There has been a big communication error... I was told to come, because we want to know what happened."

The Harper family is not the first family to be misinformed by Seven Oaks staff about a patients condition.

Two years ago, Dan Nemis was told three times by a nurse on the phone his then-99-year-old mother had died -- until the nurse suddenly said, "Whoops, wrong person."

"This is unbelievable it is still happening at Seven Oaks," Nemis said Tuesday, adding his mother, Sophie, is now 101. "There are lots of good people there, but then there are others.

"It just baffles me."

A spokesman for the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority said in a statement, staff "deeply regret that a family member received incorrect information regarding the patients status."

"This incorrect information understandably added pain and confusion at an already difficult time, for both the family members who were present when he passed, as well as those who were unable to be there, and for that we have apologized to the family."

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The spokesman said members at the Seven Oaks General Hospitals leadership met with the patients family to discuss the incident.

"A representative from our Indigenous Health team was also present to offer support," he said. "A review of the incident is underway. We will remain in touch with the family to share with them what we learn."

For David Harpers sister, Nora Whiteway, the answers cant come soon enough.

"Im devastated," she said. "It was shocking."

The Seven Oaks ER is scheduled to be converted by provincial officials into an urgent care centre next year.

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.caPremier Brian Pallister's government has deputized a slew of cannabis cops to give front line police officers help in weeding out lawbreakers after legalization next month.

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This article was published 25/9/2018 (1144 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Premier Brian Pallister's government has deputized a slew of cannabis cops to give front line police officers help in weeding out lawbreakers after legalization next month.

On Tuesday, Justice Minister Cliff Cullen announced expanded responsibilities for police cadets, community safety officers, First Nations safety officers and civilian river patrols that will enable them to enforce provincial laws prohibiting cannabis use in public places, possession under the legal age of 19 and distribution to minors.

It's still unclear what the fine will be for consuming cannabis in public in Manitoba after it becomes legal on Oct. 17; consuming the drug in a provincial park could net a $672 fine, as could cannabis possession for those under 19. Providing cannabis to people under the age of 19 could mean a $2,542 ticket.

Cullen said the expanded duties will help spread the workload among police.

Manitoba not alone Click to Expand Manitoba isn't the only province making special law enforcement considerations in response to cannabis legalization  but so far, efforts announced in other provinces appear focused more on rooting out the black market trade in marijuana than enforcing prohibitions against individual cannabis users. British Columbia, for example, is launching a new law enforcement team called the Community Safety Unit with the express purpose of targeting unlicensed cannabis sellers. The unit "will be able to seize product and records without a warrant and impose monetary penalties based on the value of the product seized," according to the B.C. Ministry of Public Safety. In March, Ontario's previous Liberal government announced plans to create a "Cannabis Intelligence Coordination Centre" that would "shut down illegal storefronts and help fight the unsafe and illegal supply of cannabis products." Ontario's new Progressive Conservative government has since pressed pause on hiring for that law enforcement team as it revamps the province's cannabis plans, according to an August report in the London Free Press. In Quebec, the provincial police force Surete du Quebec is launching a new team of 54 police officers dedicated to targeting illegal cannabis sales and production. (Like Manitoba, Quebec is outlawing personal production of cannabis at home.) Under the federal Cannabis Act, only marijuana obtained through government-licensed stores will be legal to possess after October 17. (In provinces other than Manitoba and Quebec, it will also be legal to possess home-grown cannabis.) Possession of small amounts of "illicit cannabis" could be punishable by a $200 ticket under the federal law, with heavier penalties including prison time for more severe offences. -- Solomon Israel

"The intent here is to free up front line police service for more serious crime activity," he said.

Cullen said other regulations are on the way, but offered no details.

He couldn't say how officers will differentiate legal cannabis from the black-market variety, or whether the onus will be on customers to prove their weed is store-bought.

Unauthorized sales of cannabis are subject to $2,542 fines and unauthorized purchases of cannabis could mean a $672 ticket.

"Well thats certainly going to be a problem  to determine what is store-bought versus black-market," Cullen said. "Well have to get into the details on that one.... At the point of sale, there will certainly be some kind of packaging, but what it looks like after the point of sale may be a challenge."

Winnipeg Police Service cadets will have two additional responsibilities beginning Oct. 17  apprehending people who are trespassing and enforcing tobacco-smoking bans in enclosed places.

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The WPS river patrol unit, which has civilian employees working year-round on the Red, Assiniboine, Seine and LaSalle rivers, will also be able to conduct more enforcement, including for offences related to transporting and public consumption of alcohol, plus taking people into custody under The Intoxicated Persons Detention Act.

The WPS public information office issued a statement Tuesday saying it had been fielding numerous media inquires about cannabis and "will not be responding to individual inquiries at this time." The police service expects to make a statement regarding its organizational response to cannabis legalization in the coming weeks.

In a statement prepared by the province, Police Chief Danny Smyth lauded the cadets and assured they will be assets in their new roles.

"The members of our cadets program do amazing work on the streets of our community," he said. "They receive extensive training and have earned a great deal of trust for the manner in which they carry out their duties. They know the community; they know the concerns and they can be counted upon to carry out these duties with the utmost dignity, respect and professionalism."

jessica.botelho@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @_jessbuTen years ago this month, the financial services firm Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy protection, triggering the 2008 crash and the subsequent Great Recession, from which the worlds economies have still not fully recovered. Will we look back on this month as the turning point when U.S. President Donald Trumps trade war with China unleashed the second Great Recession?

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 26/9/2018 (1143 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opinion

Ten years ago this month, the financial services firm Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy protection, triggering the 2008 crash and the subsequent Great Recession, from which the worlds economies have still not fully recovered. Will we look back on this month as the turning point when U.S. President Donald Trumps trade war with China unleashed the second Great Recession?

In the past couple of weeks, the slow dribble of tariffs and counter-tariffs has rapidly grown into a full-fledged confrontation between the worlds two greatest economic powers.

In July, the U.S. imposed tariffs on US$34 billion worth of Chinese exports to the United States, extending them to another US$16 billion of Chinese goods in August. China responded cautiously, announcing roughly comparable tariffs on US$50 billion of U.S. exports to China in August.

Trump deemed that unfair, and last week he slapped a 10 per cent tariff on another US$200 billion of Chinese exports to the U.S. He warned that if China retaliated again, he would impose a similar tariff on all the rest of Chinas exports, another US$267 billion.

Trump also threatened to raise the rate of the tariff to 25 per cent if there is no U.S.-Chinese deal that meets U.S. requirements by the end of the year. Did he imagine that this threat would force an autocratic regime such as Chinas to back down and lose face? Who knows?

The Chinese replied hard and fast, announcing a new tariff on all the rest of Americas exports to China, worth some US$60 billion. So if Trump fulfills his threat and hits the remaining US$267 billion of Chinese exports as well, by this weekend all of Americas imports from China and all of Chinas imports from the United States will be paying tariffs.

China, trying to lower the temperature, is keeping its tariffs on U.S. goods down to five per cent for the moment, but it cant hold that line forever if the U.S. goes on ratcheting up the ones it has imposed on China. Trump has got the trade war he was clearly itching for  and its a much bigger deal than his spat with the European Union or his bullying of Canada.

Were still not talking about cataclysms here: Chinas trade to the U.S. accounts for less than a quarter of its total exports, and its exporters will still get paid for what they sell. (Its the importer who pays the tariffs.) The same goes for U.S. exports to China, which are only one-sixth of total American exports.

In the long run, higher prices for Chinese goods in the U.S. might damage its market share there, with negative effects on employment in China, but thats a slow process. The same applies to potential U.S. job losses due to declining exports to China: they wont happen fast enough to have any impact on Novembers midterm elections in the United States.

Its the long term that counts  and this trade war will probably not be settled for a long time. Multibillionaire Chinese businessman Jack Ma predicts that it could last 20 years, which sounds a bit pessimistic, but as long as it lasts, it will poison relations between the worlds two greatest powers.

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Trump seems to think that Chinas economy is now so wobbly that the tariffs will push it over the edge, forcing it to come to the U.S. begging for mercy. Its true that the Chinese economy is growing very slowly, if at all: nobody believes the official figure of six or seven per cent annual growth. Its also true that the Chinese financial system is as overloaded with bad debts as American banks were in 2008.

But China is only a sham capitalist economy. If lost exports to the U.S. trigger a financial collapse in China  an unlikely but imaginable outcome  Beijing would slam the doors closed on international capital flows, bail out the Chinese banks and flood the domestic economy with cheap credit. In this scenario, its international trade that would collapse, which wouldnt be in anybodys interest.

Meanwhile, Xis regime would be stoking Chinese nationalism and blaming the United States for all the domestic misery. Indeed, Xi and the Communist Party hierarchy are coming to the conclusion that Trumps trade war is designed to "thwart Chinas rise." There can be no compromise with the United States if that is the case.

Thats not just Chinese paranoia. There really are those around Trump (and elsewhere in Washington) who are encouraging his obsession with the American trade deficit with China for exactly that reason. Yet his obsession is completely misplaced: 85 per cent of the seven million American manufacturing jobs lost since 2000 were eliminated by automation, not by trade.

This nonsense is going to go on for a long time and everybody will end up at least slightly poorer, but it probably wont bring on the second Great Recession. It may, however, start the second Cold War.

Gwynne Dyers new book is Growing Pains: The Future of Democracy (and Work).Are Social Impact Bonds (SIBs) a new and useful way to finance development of solutions to social problems, or a dubious scheme to privatize public services while enabling investors to make a profit from helping the poor?

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 26/9/2018 (1143 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opinion

Are Social Impact Bonds (SIBs) a new and useful way to finance development of solutions to social problems, or a dubious scheme to privatize public services while enabling investors to make a profit from helping the poor?

SIBs bring together governments, investors and service-delivery organizations to test the effectiveness of prevention-focused solutions to pressing social challenges. Since their introduction in 2010 in Britain, 120 SIBs have been launched in 15 countries, addressing such issues as homelessness, youth unemployment and chronic disease prevention.

They work like this: government identifies a problem and a desired outcome and selects a service provider to achieve targeted improvement in outcome and apply innovative approaches to delivering that result. Foundations or private investors provide the capital for the service provider to carry out the work, and if targets are met, government repays their investment, plus interest; if targets are not met, interest and part of the capital are forfeited.

The first SIB in Canada was launched in Saskatchewan in 2014, to improve outcomes for 22 children and their single-parent mothers by providing safe shelter, along with parenting skills and assistance in securing employment. By enabling the children to stay with their mothers and out of foster care, the province expects to save between $540,000 and $1.5 million over five years. When improved health, lower costs to the justice system and reduced social assistance payments are factored in, potential savings are even greater. Early results indicate that the project is on track.

Soon, the government of Manitoba will be announcing details about its first SIB in the area of child welfare.

But are SIBs so straightforward? A new Canadian feature documentary, The Invisible Heart, which runs until Sept. 30 at Winnipeg Film Group's Cinematheque, identifies several pitfalls. First, they can be expensive and time-consuming to structure and administer  not surprising for early efforts, and something that should be addressed as governments and intermediaries gain experience with assembling SIB portfolios.

Second, dont governments have the capacity and responsibility to respond to these problems on their own? In fact, government deficits limit the public sectors ability to finance large-scale shifts in social service provision, and bureaucratic oversight is contrary to the spirit of experimentation and innovation. Situating a SIB demonstration project outside of government enables failure and learning at lower cost and with less political risk.

Another objection to SIBs is that investors can pressure service providers to "hand-pick" the easy-to-achieve interventions, and "park" the more difficult outcomes in order to reach performance targets, and thus financial returns. This highlights the need for transparency. Collaborating across three sectors  private, public and civil society  is not something we do a lot of, and so some training and practice guidelines might be useful as the SIB market matures.

The most concerning argument against SIBs is that by turning civic needs into investable products, they are privatizing the social policy process. If, in fact, they were designed to remove responsibility for governance and public accountability from elected officials and hand it to private investors, we would share the concern. However, compared to the magnitude of the problems they are designed to help solve, SIBs are tiny experiments.

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In the Saskatchewan example cited above, a carefully evaluated innovation will provide policy makers with viable policy options, not a mandate to turn child and family services over to private providers. Successful SIBs provide government with proven pathways to liberating people trapped in cycles of dependency, and in time, freeing up large amounts of its own capital for redeployment to other priority areas.

Growing interest in SIBs points to the fact that Canadas social sector is starved of R&D funding. Pinched between declining donation levels and rigid government grants and contribution regimes, our capacity for social innovation lags behind that of other countries. The federal government, recognizing that current regulation and funding of the charitable sector constitute impediments to inclusive economic growth, is developing a Social Innovation and Social Finance Strategy, with input from the community, philanthropic, academic and financial advisors across Canada.

While not recommending SIBs per se, the strategy will address the need for more flexible and diverse funding, capacity building for cross-sector innovation and better use of data for evidence-based decision making.

Like any tool, SIBs can be used well or poorly, for ends that are positive or not. The discussion we should be having is how they are best governed and applied to improving outcomes for people and communities.

Stephen Huddart is president and CEO of the McConnell Foundation and a member of the federal Social Innovation and Social Finance Co-creation Steering Committee. His views on SIBs are his own.

The Invisible Heart runs at Winnipeg Film Group's Cinematheque until Sept. 30. A special screening on Sept. 26 is followed by a panel discussion moderated by the film's director/producer Nadine Pequeneza with panelists: Dennis Burnside, Government of Manitoba; Stephen Huddart, McConnell Foundation; Sandra Oakley, Manitoba Federation of Non-Profit Organizations; and Tara Petti, Southern First Nations Network of Care. Tickets/Info: https://www.winnipegfilmgroup.com/event/the-invisible-heart/2018-09-23/.The Best of Michael Kosta - Saving the Lakes, A Statue Tour & Looking Like Don Jr. | The Daily ShowDemocratic Senate Reelection Bids in Red States: The Case of Heidi Heitkamp and Outside Group Pressure in North Dakota

Democratic Senate Reelection Bids in Red States: The Case of Heidi Heitkamp and Outside Group Pressure in North DakotaThe following companies are subsidiares of Crown: Adularia Inversiones 2010 S.L., Angleboard Sweden AB, Bates Cargo-Pak ApS, Butimove, CMB Machinery and Technology (Shanghai) Co Ltd, CROWN AP (Thailand) Company Limited, CROWN Aerosols & Promotional Nederland, CROWN Aerosols Italia Srl, CROWN Aerosols Nederland BV, CROWN Aerosols UK Limited, CROWN Americas LLC, CROWN Arabia Can Company Ltd, CROWN Asia Pacific Holdings Pte. 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Limited, Foshan Crown Easy-Opening End Co. Limited, Glass & Silice S.A. DE C.V., Globoplastt s.r.o., Gunther S.A.S., Haloila Bulgaria EOOD, Interstrap B.V., Josef Kihlberg AB, Kiwiplan GmbH, Kiwiplan Inc, Lachenmeier ApS, Liljendals Bruk AB, Litec France S.A.S., Mezger Heftsysteme GmbH, Mima Films S.a.r.l., Mima Films Sprl, Mima Packaging Systems S.A.S., Mivisa, Nordic S.A.S., Norsk Signode AS, Oy M. Haloila AB, PT CROWN Beverage Cans Indonesia, Package Design and Manufacturing, Prolatamex S.A. DE C.V., Quandel Verpackungs- und Foerdertechnik GmbH, SMB Schwede Maschinenbau GmbH, SMP Schwede Maschinenbau Weischlitz GmbH, SPG Denmark, SPG France Holdings SAS, SPG Germany Service Management GmbH, SPG Industrial Packaging S.a.r.l, SPG Netherlands B.V., SPG Packaging Ireland Limited, SPG Packaging Systems GmbH, SPG Packaging UK Ltd, Scybele S.A.S., Shippers Europe S.p.r.l., Signode BVBA, Signode Brasileira Ltda, Signode Hong Kong Limited, Signode Industrial Group, Signode Industrial Group AB, Signode Industrial Group Colombia S.A.S., Signode Industrial Group GmbH, Signode Industrial Group Holdings Lux S.a.r.l., Signode Industrial Group Holdings US Inc, Signode Industrial Group Lux S.A., Signode Industrial Group Mexico, Signode Industrial Group Sweden AB, Signode International Holdings LLC, Signode International IP Holdings LLC, Signode International Investment LLC, Signode Kabushiki Kaisha, Signode Korea Inc, Signode NZ Limited, Signode Netherlands B.V., Signode Packaging (Qingdao) Co., Signode Packaging (Shanghai) Co., Signode Packaging Espana S.L., Signode Packaging Group (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Signode Packaging Group Australia Pty Ltd, Signode Packaging Group Canada ULC, Signode Packaging Group NZ, Signode Packaging Systems Limited, Signode Pickling Holding LLC, Signode Polska sp. Z.o.o., Signode Singapore Pte. Ltd., Signode Sweden Holdings AB, Signode System GmbH, Signode System Packaging GmbH & Co. KG, Signode Systems (Thailand) Ltd., Signode US IP Holdings LLC, Silice De Veracruz S.A. DE C. V., Silice Del Istmo S.A. DE C.V., Silices De Veracruz, Societe Civile Immobiliere Rousseau-Ivry, Societe Civile Immobiliere des Baquets, Societe de Participations CarnaudMetalbox, Stopak India Pvt. Ltd, Strapex Austria GmbH, Strapex Embalagem L.d.a., Strapex Holdings Limited, Strapex S.A.S., Strapex Srl, Superior Investments Holdings Pte. Ltd., Superior Multi-Packaging Limited, TopFrame LLC, V.A.C. B.V., Vichisa S.A. de C.V., and Warehouse Automation Iberia S.L..White Mountains Insurance Group Ltd. engages in the acquisition of businesses and assets in the insurance, financial services and related sectors. It operates through the following segments: HG Global/BAM, NSM, Kudu, and Other Operations. The HG Global/BAM segment refers to the White Mountains's investment in HG Global Limited, and the consolidated results of Build America Mutual Assurance Company (BAM). The NSM segment comprises of full-service managing general underwriting agency and program administrator for specialty property and casualty insurance. The Kudu Segment provides capital solutions for boutique asset managers for a variety of purposes including generational ownership transfers, management buyouts, acquisition and growth finance and legacy partner liquidity. The Other Operations segment comprises of the Company, its wholly-owned subsidiary, WM Capital, its wholly-owned investment management subsidiary, WM Advisors, and its other intermediate holding companies, as well as certain consolidated and unconsolidated private capital and other investments. The company was founded in 1980 and is headquartered in Hanover, NH.

Read MoreWells Fargo & Co. is a diversified, community-based financial services company. It is engaged in the provision of banking, insurance, investments, mortgage, and consumer and commercial finance. It firm operates through the following segments: Community Banking, Wholesale Banking, Wealth & Investment Management, and Other. The Community Banking segment offers complete line of diversified financial products and services for consumers and small businesses including checking and savings accounts, credit and debit cards, and automobile, student, and small business lending. The Wholesale Banking segment provides financial solutions to businesses across the United States and globally. The Wealth and Investment Management segment includes personalized wealth management, investment and retirement products and services to clients across U.S. based businesses. The Other segment refers to the products of WIM customers served through community banking distribution channels. The company was founded by Henry Wells and William G. Fargo on March 18, 1852 and is headquartered in San Francisco, CA.

Read MoreThe following companies are subsidiares of Accenture: 2nd Road, 2nd Road Pty Ltd., ?What If!, ?What If! China Holdings Ltd, ?What If! Holdings Limited, ?What If! Innovation Singapore Holdings Pte, ?What If! Limited, ?What If! Shanghai Co. Ltd, ?What If! USA LLC, ACN Consulting Co Ltd, AD Dialeto Agencia de Publicidade SA, AD.Dialeto (Digital Agency acquired by Accenture), AGS Business and Technology Services Limited, ASM Research Inc., ASM Research LLC, ATAN, Accenture (Beijing) Mobile Technology Co Ltd, Accenture (Botswana) (Proprietary) Limited, Accenture (China) Co Ltd, Accenture (Shenzhen) Technology Co. Ltd., Accenture (South Africa) (Proprietary) Limited, Accenture (South Africa) Pty Limited, Accenture (UK) Ltd, Accenture 2 Business Process Services S.A., Accenture 2 LLC, Accenture A/S, Accenture AB, Accenture AG, Accenture AS, Accenture Africa Pty Ltd, Accenture Australia Holding B.V., Accenture Australia Holdings Pty Ltd, Accenture Australia Pty Ltd, Accenture Azerbaijan Ltd, Accenture BPM Operations Support Services S.A., Accenture BPM S.C.R.L., Accenture BV, Accenture Branch Holdings B.V., Accenture Bulgaria EOOD, Accenture Business Services for Utilities Inc, Accenture Business Services of British Columbia Limited Partnership, Accenture Business and Technology Services LLC, Accenture C.A, Accenture CAS GmbH, Accenture Canada Holdings Inc., Accenture Capital DAC, Accenture Capital Inc, Accenture Central Europe B.V., Accenture Chile Asesorias y Servicios Ltda, Accenture Cloud Services GmbH, Accenture Cloud Software Solutions Ltd, Accenture Cloud Solutions Australia Pty Ltd, Accenture Cloud Solutions LLC, Accenture Cloud Solutions Ltd, Accenture Cloud Solutions Pty Ltd, Accenture Co Ltd, Accenture Co Ltd., Accenture Communications Infrastructure Solutions Ltd, Accenture Company Ltd, Accenture Consulting Services Ltd Tanzania, Accenture Consultores de Gestao S.A., Accenture Consultoria de Industria e Consumo Ltda, Accenture Consultoria de Recursos Naturais Ltda, Accenture Credit Services LLC, Accenture Customer Services Distribution SAS, Accenture Customer Services Limited, Accenture Danismanlik Limited Sirketi, Accenture Defined Benefit Pension Plan Trustees Ltd, Accenture Defined Contribution Pension Plan Trustees Ltd, Accenture Delivery Poland sp. z o.o., Accenture Dienstleistungen GmbH, Accenture Digital France Holdings SA, Accenture Digital Holdings GmbH, Accenture East Africa Limited, Accenture Ecuador S.A., Accenture Egypt LLC, Accenture Enterprise Development (Shanghai) Co Ltd., Accenture Federal Services LLC, Accenture Finance (Gibraltar) III Ltd, Accenture Finance GmbH, Accenture Finance GmbH in liquidation, Accenture Finance II GmbH, Accenture Finance II GmbH in liquidation, Accenture Finance II Ltd, Accenture Finance Limited, Accenture Finance and Accounting BPO Services S.p.A., Accenture Finance and Accounting Services Srl, Accenture Flex LLC, Accenture GP LLC, Accenture Ghana Limited, Accenture Global Holdings Ltd., Accenture Global Services Ltd, Accenture Global Solutions Ltd, Accenture GmbH, Accenture HR Services Ltd, Accenture HR Services S.p.A., Accenture Healthcare Processing Inc., Accenture Holding GmbH, Accenture Holding GmbH & Co. KG, Accenture Holding GmbH in liquidation, Accenture Holdings (Iberia) S.L., Accenture Holdings B.V., Accenture Holdings France SAS, Accenture Holdings plc, Accenture Hungary Holdings Kft, Accenture Inc, Accenture Industrial Software Limited Liability Company (Accenture Endustriyel Yazylym Cozumleri Limited irketi), Accenture Industrial Software Limited Liability Company (Accenture Endustriyel Yazlm Cozumleri Limited Sirketi), Accenture Industrial Software Solutions Kft, Accenture Industrial Software Solutions SA, Accenture Insurance Services LLC, Accenture Insurance Services SAS, Accenture Insurance Services SpA, Accenture International BV, Accenture International Capital SCA, Accenture International LLC, Accenture International Limited, Accenture International Sarl, Accenture Japan Ltd, Accenture Korea BV, Accenture LLC, Accenture LLP, Accenture Lanka (Private) Ltd, Accenture Limited, Accenture Ltd, Accenture Ltda, Accenture Maghreb S.a.r.l., Accenture Managed Services SRL, Accenture Managed Services SpA, Accenture Management GmbH, Accenture Middle East B.V, Accenture Middle East BV, Accenture Minority I BV, Accenture Minority III Ltd, Accenture Mozambique Limitada, Accenture Mzansi (Pty) Ltd, Accenture NV/SA, Accenture NZ Limited, Accenture Newco LLC, Accenture Nova Scotia Unlimited Liability Co., Accenture OOO, Accenture Operations Sp. z o.o., Accenture Outsourcing SRL, Accenture Outsourcing Services, Accenture Outsourcing Services S.A., Accenture Oy, Accenture Panama Inc, Accenture Participations BV, Accenture Participations II Limited, Accenture Peru S.R.L, Accenture Peru S.R.L., Accenture Post Trade Processing SAS, Accenture Post-Trade Processing Limited, Accenture Process Ltd, Accenture Product Lifecycle Services, Accenture Properties, Accenture Pte Ltd, Accenture Puerto Rico LLC, Accenture S.A., Accenture S.C., Accenture S.L., Accenture S.R.L., Accenture SAS, Accenture SG Services Pte Ltd, Accenture SRL, Accenture Saudi Arabia Limited, Accenture Sendirian Berhad, Accenture Service Center SRL, Accenture Services (Mauritius) Ltd, Accenture Services AB, Accenture Services AG, Accenture Services AS, Accenture Services GmbH, Accenture Services Ltd, Accenture Services Morocco SA, Accenture Services Oy, Accenture Services Pty Ltd, Accenture Services S.r.l., Accenture Services SRL, Accenture Services Sp. z o.o., Accenture Services Sp. z.o.o., Accenture Services and Technology Srl, Accenture Services fur Kreditinstitute GmbH, Accenture Services s.r.o., Accenture Servicos Administrativos Ltda, Accenture Servicos de Suporte de Negocios Ltda, Accenture Solutions Co Ltd, Accenture Solutions Private Limited, Accenture Solutions Pte Ltd, Accenture Solutions Pty Ltd, Accenture Solutions Sdn Bhd, Accenture Sp. z o.o., Accenture Sp. z.o.o., Accenture SpA, Accenture State Healthcare Services LLC, Accenture Sub II Inc., Accenture Sub Inc, Accenture Sub LLC, Accenture Systems Integration Limited, Accenture Sarl, Accenture Tanacsado Kolatolt Felelossegu Tarsasag, Accenture Tanacsado Kolatolt Felelossegu Tarsasag KFT, Accenture Technologia, Accenture Technologia Consultoria e Outsourcing S.A., Accenture Technology Infrastructure Services Pty Ltd, Accenture Technology Solutions (Dalian) Co Ltd, Accenture Technology Solutions (HK) Co. Ltd., Accenture Technology Solutions (Thailand) Co. Ltd, Accenture Technology Solutions - Solucoes Informaticas Integradas, Accenture Technology Solutions - Solucoes Informaticas Integradas S.A., Accenture Technology Solutions GmbH, Accenture Technology Solutions Oy, Accenture Technology Solutions Pty Ltd, Accenture Technology Solutions S.A. de C.V., Accenture Technology Solutions SAS, Accenture Technology Solutions SRL, Accenture Technology Solutions Sdn. Bhd., Accenture Technology Solutions Slovakia s.r.o., Accenture Technology Ventures BV, Accenture Technology Ventures S.P.R.L., Accenture Uruguay SRL, Accenture Vietnam Co., Accenture Vietnam Co. LTD, Accenture Zambia Limited, Accenture do Brasil Limitada, Accenture plc, Accenture s.r.o., Acceria, Acquity Customer Insight Limited, Acquity Group, Adaptly LLC, Adaptly UK Limited, AddVal Technology, Adqptly, Advantium Inc., Agave Consultants Limited, Agilex Technologies Inc., Allen International, Allen International Consulting Group Ltd, Alnova Technologies Corporation S.L., AlphaBeta Advisors, Altima, Altima Asia Ltd., Altima SAS, Altitude, Altitude LLC, Analytics 8 LP, Analytics 8 Pty Ltd, Analytics8, Aorui Advertising (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Apis, Appaloosa Technology SAS, Arca, Ariba - BPO, Arismore, Aspiro Solutions (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Avanade, Avanade (Guangzhou) Computer Technology Development Co. Ltd., Avanade (Thailand) Co Ltd, Avanade Asia Pte Ltd, Avanade Australia Pty Ltd, Avanade Belgium SPRL, Avanade Canada Inc., Avanade Denmark A/S, Avanade Denmark ApS, Avanade Deutschland GmbH, Avanade Europe Holdings Ltd, Avanade Europe Services Ltd, Avanade Federal Services LLC, Avanade Finland Oy, Avanade France SAS, Avanade GZ Computer Technology Development Co. Ltd. (SH), Avanade Guangzhou, Avanade Holdings LLC, Avanade Hong Kong Ltd, Avanade International Corporation, Avanade Ireland Limited, Avanade Italy SRL, Avanade KK, Avanade Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Avanade Netherlands BV, Avanade Norway AS, Avanade Poland Sp. z o.o., Avanade Poland Sp. z.o.o., Avanade Schweiz GmbH, Avanade South Africa, Avanade South Africa Pty Ltd, Avanade Spain SL, Avanade Sweden AB, Avanade UK Ltd, Avanade do Brasil Limitada, Avanade Osterreich GmbH, AvantBiz Consulting Limited, Avenai, Axia Ltd., BABCN LLC, BCT Solutions, BCT Solutions Pty Ltd, BPO Servicos Administrativos Ltda, BRIDGE Energy Group, Beacon Consulting Group Inc., Beijing Genesis Interactive Technology Co. Ltd., Benext, Bionic, Blue Horseshoe, Boomerang Pharmaceutical Communications, Boomerang Pharmaceuticals Communications Ireland Limited, Bow & Arrow, Brand Learning, Brand Learning Group Limited, Brand Learning LLC, Brand Learning Ltd, Brand Learning Partners Limited, Brand Learning Pte Limited, Bridge Energy Group LLC, Brightstep AB, Byte Prophecy, CAS, CRMWaypoint, CadenceQuest Inc., Capable Marketer Limited, Capgemini - North American health practice, Capital Consultancy Services Inc., Certus Solutions Consulting Services Ltd, Certus Solutions Ltd, ChangeTrack Research Pty Ltd., Chaotic Moon Studios, Chengdu Mensa Advertising Co. Ltd., Cimation, Cimation UK Limited, Cirruseo, Cirruseo SAS, Clarity Insights, Clearhead, Clearhead Group, Clearhead Group LLC, ClientHouse GmbH, Cloud Sherpas, Cloud Sherpas (GA) LLC, Cloud Sherpas (SN) (PTE.) Limited, Cloud Sherpas New Zealand Ltd., Cloud Talent Limited, Cloudsherpas, Cloudsherpas Inc., Cloudworks, Codagenic Pty. Ltd., Computer Research and Telecommunications LLC, Concrete Desenvolvimento de Sistemas Ltda., Concrete Solutions, Concrete Solutions Ltda., Context Information Security, Coritel S.A., Corliant Inc., CreativeDrive, CustomerWorks Europe SL, Cutting Edge Solutions Ltd, D5 Global Holdings LLC, DAZ Systems Inc, DAZ Systems LLC, DAZSI Systems (India) Pvt. Ltd., DMA Solutions Limited, Davies Consulting, DayNine Consulting, DayNine Consulting (Australia) PTY LTD, DayNine Consulting (Deutschland) GmbH, DayNine Consulting (New Zealand) Limited, DayNine Consulting France SAS, DayNine Consulting Japan K.K., DayNine Consulting LLC, Declarative Holdings, Declarative Holdings LLC, Defense Point Security, Deja vu Security, Design Strategy and Research de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Designaffairs LLC, Digiplug S.A.S., Digiplug SAS, Digital Consulting & Software Services LLC, Droga5, Droga5 LLC, Droga5 Studios LLC, Droga5 UK Ltd., Duck Creek Technologies, Duck Creek Technologies LLC, Deja Vu Security LLC, ESR Labs, Elcurator SAS, Enaxis Consulting, Enaxis Consulting L.P., End-to-End Analytics, Energuia Web, Energuia Web S.A., Energy Management Brokers Ltd., Energy Quote Private Ltd., EnergyQuote JHA, EnergyQuote JHA Ltd., EnergyQuote Trading Ltd., Enimbos, Enkitec, Enterprise System Partners, Enterprise System Partners B.V. , Enterprise System Partners Bilisim Danismanlik Ticaret Anonim Sirketi, Enterprise System Partners Global Corporation, Enterprise System Partners Limited, Enterprise System Partners PR LLC, Enterprise System Partners S.A.S., Entropia, Epylon, Ethica Consulting Group, Evopro Group, Exactside Limited, Exton Consulting, Fairway Technologies Inc, Fairway Technologies LLC, Filmproduction ApS, First Annapolis Consulting, First Annapolis Consulting Inc., First Annapolis Consulting LLC, First Annapolis International, Fjord, Focus Group Europe, Focus Group Europe Limited, Formicary, Formicary Holdings Limited, Formicary Limited, FusionX, FutureMove Automotive, Gapso Servicos de Informatica Ltda., Genfour, Genfour Limited, George Group Consulting L.P., Gestalt LLC, Gestion Altima Canada Inc., Gevity, Global Public Firm S.L., GlobalView SAS, GoodFilm GmbH Filmproduktion Stuttgart, H.B. Maynard and Co. Inc., HRC Retail Advisory, Hagberg Consulting Group, Hangzhou Aiyunzhe Technology Co. Ltd., Happen, Hjaltelin Stahl, Hjaltelin Stahl K/S, Hytracc Consulting AS, Hytracc Consulting Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., Hytracc Consulting UK Limited, Hytracc Holding AS, I-Faber S.p.A., IBB Consulting, IMJ Corp, IMJ Corporation, INCAD, INSITUM, IT One Company Limited, ITBS Servicios Bancarios de Tecnologia de la Informacion SL, Icon Integration, Imagine Broadband (USA) Ltd, Imagine Broadband USA LLC, Imaginea Inc, Industrie&Co, Infoman AG, Infoman Schweiz AG, Informatica de Euskadi S.L., Infusion Development Inc., Infusion Development UK Limited, InfusionDev LLC, Innoveer Solutions India Pvt Ltd, Insitum Consultoria Argentina SRL, Insitum Consultoria Brasil LTDA, Insitum Consultoria Colombia SAS, Insitum Consultoria Europa SL, Insitum Consultoria Peru SAC, Insitum Consultoria S.A. de C.V., Intrepid, Intrigo Systems Inc, Intrigo Systems India Pvt. Limited, Intrigo Systems LLC, Inventor Advertisement (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Inventor Technology Limited, InvestTech, Investtech Systems Consulting LLC, Javelin Group, Javelin Group (Bulgaria) EOOD, Javelin Group Limited (UK), Javelin Group SASU, K Comms Group Limited, KCS.net AG, KCS.net AG West, KCS.net Deutschland GmbH, KCS.net Holding AG, KCS.net Osterreich GmbH, Kaper Communications Limited, Karma Communications Debtco Limited, Karma Communications Group Limited, Karma Communications Holdings Limited, Karmarama, Karmarama Comms Limited, Karmarama Limited, Knowledge Rules Inc., Knowledgent, Knowledgent Group LLC, Kogentix, Kogentix LLC, Kogentix Ltd, Kogentix Singapore Pte. Ltd, Kogentix Technologies Private Limited, Kolle Rebbe, Kolle Rebbe GmbH, Kream Comms Limited, Kunstmaan, Kunstmaan NV, Kurt Salmon, Kurt Salmon Canada LTD, Kurt Salmon UKI, Kurt Salmon UKI Ltd., Kurt Salmon US LLC, LEXTA, LINKBYNET, LabAnswer, LabAnswer Government, LemonXL Limited, Logistics Market Place Limited (UK), Loud & Clear Creative Pty Ltd, MAXIM Systems Inc., MCG US Holdings LLC, Mackevision CG Technology and Service (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Mackevision Corporation, Mackevision Japan Co. Ltd., Mackevision Korea Ltd, Mackevision Medien Design, Mackevision Medien Design GmbH, Mackevision Singapore Pte. Ltd., Mackevision UK Ltd, Maglan, Maglan Information Defense Technologies Research Ltd., Maihiro, Matter, Matter Llc, Maud Corp Pty Limited, Maxamine International, Media Audits Ltd., Media Hive, Mediasenz Pty Ltd., Meredith Specialty LLC, Meredith Xcelerated Marketing, Meredith Xcelerated Marketing Corporation, Meridian Informed Purchasing Ltd., Mindtribe, Mindtribe Product Engineering LLC, MobGen, MobGen Technology S.L, Moonrise NV, Mortgage Cadence, Mortgage Cadence an Accenture Company, Most Champion Ltd, Mudano, N3 LLC, NBS Marketing Inc., NYTEC, Nanjing Demeng Advertising Co. Ltd., Nashco Consulting, NaviSys Inc., NellArmonia, Neo Metrics Analytics S.L., Neo Metrics Chile, Neo Metrics Chile S.A., New Content, New Content Chile SpA, New Content Editora e Produtora Ltda., New Energy Aborda, New Energy Associates Ltd, New Energy Group, New Energy S.r.l., NewsPage, NewsPage (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, NewsPage China Ltd., NewsPage Pte Ltd, Nice Agency Limited, Northstream, Northstream AB, Northstream Holding AB, OCTO Technology, OPS Rules Management Consultants, Octagon Research Solutions Inc., Octo Technology LTDA, Octo Technology Pty Ltd, Octo Technology SA, Octo Technology SPRL, Octoman SAS, Odgaard ApS, Olikka, Openmind, Openminded, Operaciones Accenture S.A. de C.V., OpusLine, Orbium, Orbium Consulting Ltd, Orbium GmbH, Orbium Holding AG, Orbium Inc., Orbium International AG, Orbium International sp. z o.o., Orbium Licences AG, Orbium Limited, Orbium Pte. Ltd., Orbium Pty Ltd, Orbium Services sp. z o.o., Orbium Sarl, Origin Digital, PCO Innovation, PCO Innovation Canada Inc., PCO Innovation EURL, PIXO PUNCH Limited, PLM Systems S.r.l, POC Holdings, PRION GmbH, PT Accenture, PT Asta Catur Indra, PT Kogentix Teknologi Indonesia, Pach Invest SARL, Pach Invest SAS, PacificLink Group, PacificLink iMedia Ltd., Paja Finanssipalvelut Oy, Parker Fitzgerald Inc, Parker Fitzgerald Inc., Parker Fitzgerald International Limited, Parker Fitzgerald Limited, Parker Fitzgerald PTY Ltd, Parker Fitzgerald Services Limited, Parker Fitzgerald Solutions Limited, Partners Technology Mexico Holdings BV, Pecaso Ltd., Pegasus Production K/S, Perseroan Terbatas. Accenture, Phase One Consulting Group, Pillar Technology, Pollux, Pragsis Bidoop, Pragsis Bidoop UK Ltd, Pragsis Technologies S.L, PrimeQ, PrimeQ Australia Pty Ltd, PrimeQ Ltd, PrimeQ NZ Pty Ltd, Procurian Germany GmbH, Procurian Inc., Procurian International I LLC, Procurian International II LLC, Procurian LLC, Procurian Singapore Pte. Ltd., Procurian Switzerland GmbH, Procurian USA LLC, Proquire LLC, PureApps Ltd., Qi Jie Beijing Information Technologies Co Ltd, Radiant Services, Radiant Services LLC, Random Walk Computing Inc., Reactive Media Limited, Reactive Media Pty Ltd., Real Protect, Realworld OO Systems Ltd., Redcore, Redcore (Asia) Pte Ltd, Redcore (India) Private Limited (India), Redcore (New Zealand) Limited, Redcore Group Holdings Pty Ltd, Redcore Pty Ltd, Renacentis IT Services, Revolutionary Security, RiskControl, Rothco, Rothco Holdings Designated Activity Company, Rothco Unlimited Company, S.C. EnergyQuote S.r.l., S3 TV Technology Limited, S3 TV Technology Ltd., SEC Servizi, SEC Servizi S.p.A., SOPIA Corp., Sagacious Consultants, Sagacious Consultants LLC, Salt Solutions, Sanchez Capital Services Pvt Ltd, Schlumberger Business Consulting, Seabury Airline Planning Group, Seabury Aviation & Aerospace (UK) Limited, Seabury Aviation & Aerospace Asia (Hong Kong) Limited, Seabury Aviation Consulting LLC, Seabury Cargo Advisory B.V., Seabury Consulting, Seabury Corporate Advisors LLC, Seabury Human Capital LLC, Seabury Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., Seabury Structured Finance LLC, Search Technologies BPO, Search Technologies BPO Inc., Search Technologies GmbH, Search Technologies International LLC, Search Technologies LATAM, Search Technologies LATAM S.A., Search Technologies LLC, Search Technologies Limited, Sente Partners LLC, Sentelis, Servicios Tecnicos de Programacion Accenture S.C., Shackleton, Shackleton Barcelona S.L., Shackleton Chile S.A., Shackleton Madrid S.L., Shackleton S.A., Shanghai Baiyue Advertising Co. Ltd., Shun Zhe Technology Development Co. Ltd., Silveo, Simian Pty Limited, SinnerSchrader, SinnerSchrader AG, SinnerSchrader Commerce GmbH, SinnerSchrader Content GmbH, SinnerSchrader Deutschland GmbH, SinnerSchrader Praha s.r.o., SinnerSchrader Swipe GmbH, Sistemes Consulting S.L., Solutions IQ, Solutions IQ LLC, SolutionsIQ, SolutionsIQ India Consulting Services Private Limited, Storm Digital, Storm Digital B.V., Structure Consulting Group, Structure Consulting Group LLC, Sutter Mills, Systor AG, TQuila Limited (UK), Tadata Creative Unlimited Company, Tara Insurance DAC, Tara Risk DAC, TargetST8, TargetST8 Consulting LLC, Tech - Avanade Portugal Unipessoal Lda, Tecnilogica Ecosistemas S.A., Tecnilogica Ltd., Tecnilogica, The Brand Learning Partners Limited, The Callisto Integration Corporation, The Monkeys, The Monkeys Pty Limited, The Myrtle Group, Total Logistics, Total Logistics Supply Chain Consultants Limited, Tquila, Trivadis AG, Troop Studios Pty Ltd, VanBerlo, Verax Solutions, Verax Solutions Corporation, Vertical Retail Consulting (Shanghai) Ltd., Vertical Retail Consulting Hong Kong, Vertical Retail Consulting Hong Kong Ltd., Vertical Retail Consulting Ltd., Vivere Brasil Servicos e Solucoes SA, Vivere Brasil Solucoes De Credito Ltda., Wabion GmbH, Weblinc Pty Ltd, Wire Stone, Wire Stone LLC, Wire Stone Sarl, Wolox, Workforce Insight, Yesler, Zag, Zenta, Zenta Global Philippines, Zenta Global Philippines Inc., Zenta Mortgage Services LLC, Zenta Recoveries Inc, Zenta US Holdings Inc., Zielpuls, Zielpuls (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Zielpuls GmbH, avVenta, designaffairs, designaffairs Business Consulting (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., designaffairs GmbH, designaffairs group China Co. Ltd., dgroup, i4C Analytics, iDefense, and solid-serVision.com GmbH.The following companies are subsidiares of AMETEK: AMETEK CTS GmbH, AMETEK Germany GmbH, AMETEK Hong Kong Private Limited, AMETEK Instruments Group UK Limited, AMETEK Italia S.r.l., Amekai Singapore Private Ltd., Amekai Taiwan Co. Ltd., Haydon Linear Motors (Changzhou) Co. Ltd., SPECTRO Analytical Instruments Inc., Tubes Holdco Limited, AEM Limited, AIP/MPM Funding Inc., AIP/MPM Holdings Inc., AMESP USVI LLC, AMETEK (Barbados) SRL, AMETEK (Bermuda) Ltd., AMETEK (GB) Limited, AMETEK (Thailand) Co. Ltd., AMETEK Aegis Inc., AMETEK Aerospace & Defense Group UK Ltd, AMETEK Aerospace & Power Holdings Inc., AMETEK Aerospace LLC, AMETEK Aircraft Parts & Accessories Inc., AMETEK Airtechnology Group Limited., AMETEK Ameron LLC, AMETEK Arizona Instrument LLC, AMETEK B.V., AMETEK CTS Europe GmbH, AMETEK CTS US Inc., AMETEK Canada 2 ULC, AMETEK Canada 3 ULC., AMETEK Canada Limited Partnership, AMETEK Co. Ltd., AMETEK Commercial Enterprise Shanghai, AMETEK Costa Rica Sociedad De Responsabilidad Limitada, AMETEK Customer Service S. de R. L. de C.v., AMETEK DE LLC, AMETEK DELCO Inc., AMETEK Denmark A/S, AMETEK Do Brasil Ltda., AMETEK EMG Holdings Inc., AMETEK Elektromotory s.r.o, AMETEK Engineered Materials Sdn. Bhd., AMETEK Europe L.L.C., AMETEK European Holdings GmbH, AMETEK European Holdings Limited, AMETEK Finland Oy, AMETEK Global Tubes LLC, AMETEK Grundbesitz GmbH, AMETEK HSA Inc., AMETEK Haydon Kerk Inc., AMETEK Holdings B.V. also registered as AMETEK Holdings B.V. Delaware Inc.1, AMETEK Holdings SARL, AMETEK Holdings de Mexico S. de R.L., AMETEK Hughes-Treitler, AMETEK Industrial Technology (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., AMETEK Instrumentos S.L., AMETEK Instruments India Private Limited, AMETEK Korea Co. Ltd., AMETEK Lamb Motores de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., AMETEK Land Inc., AMETEK Latin America Holding Company S.a r.l., AMETEK MRO Florida Inc., AMETEK Material Analysis Holdings GmbH, AMETEK Mexico Holding Company LLC, AMETEK Motors Asia Pte. Ltd., AMETEK Nordic AB, AMETEK PIP Holdings Inc., AMETEK Precitech Inc., AMETEK Programmable Power Inc., AMETEK S.A.S., AMETEK S.r.l., AMETEK SCP (Barrow) Limited, AMETEK SCP Inc., AMETEK Singapore Private Ltd., AMETEK Taiwan Co. Ltd., AMETEK Technical & Industrial Products Inc., AMETEK Thermal Systems Inc., AMETEK d.o.o. Subotica., Abaco Systems, Advanced Industries, Advanced Measurement Technology Inc., Aero Components International Corp., Airtechnology Pension Trustees Limited, Akron Standard Bestry (Guangzhou) Measurement Equipment Co. Ltd., Amekai (BVI) Ltd., Amekai Meter (Xiamen) Co. Ltd., Ameron Global Inc, Ametek Advanced Industries Inc., Ametek-Reading Alloys Inc., Amptek Inc., Antavia SAS, Atlas Material Holdings Corporation, Atlas Material Testing Technology (India) Private Limited, Atlas Material Testing Technology BV, Atlas Material Testing Technology GmbH, Atlas Material Testing Technology L.L.C., Atlas Material Testing Technology LLC, Atlas Netherlands AcquisitionCo Cooperatief U.A., Avicenna Technology Inc., Avtech Avionics & Instruments LLC, B&S Aircraft, Brookfield Engineering, CAMECA Instruments Inc., CAMECA SAS, Cameca, Chandler Instruments Company L.L.C., Chandler Instruments Company LLC, Cognex - Surface Inspection Systems Division, Coining Holding Company, Coining Inc., Controls Southeast Inc., Crank, Creaform, Creaform Inc., Creaform Shanghai Ltd., Creaform Software Inc., Creaform U.S.A. Inc., Crystal Engineering Corp, Crystal Engineering Corporation, Direl GmbH, Direl Holding GmbH, Drake Air, Drake Air Inc., Drexelbrook Engineering Company, Dunkermotoren GmbH, Dunkermotoren Taicang Co. Ltd., Dunkermotoren USA Inc., EDAX Inc., EDAX LLC, EGS Automation, EMA Corp., EMA Finance 1 LLC, EMA Finance 2 LLC, EMA Holdings LLC, EMA Holdings UK Limited, EMA MX LLC, EMtest, ESP Holdco Inc., ESP/SurgeX, Electronic Systems Protection Inc., FMH Aerospace Corp., FMH Holdings Corp., FMH Intermediate LLC, Fine Tubes Limited, Forza Silicon Corporation, Frameflair Limited, GS Electric, Gatan, Gatan Inc., Gatan Service Corporation, Gatan U.K. Limited, Glasseal Products Inc., Global Tubes, Grabner Instruments Messtechnik Gesellschaft m.b.H., HCC Industries Inc., HDR Power Systems LLC, HS Foils Oy, Hamilton Precision Metals Inc., Hamilton Precision Metals of Delaware Inc., Haydon Kerk Motion, Haydon Kerk Motion Solutions Inc., Hermetic Seal Corporation, High Standard Aviation, Imago Scientific Instruments, IntelliPower Inc., Land Instruments International Ltd., Laserage Technology Corp, Luphos GmbH, MCG Acquisition Corporation, MOCON Europe A/S, MOCON Inc., Magnetrol International, Micro-Poise Industrial Equipment (Beijing) Ltd., Micro-Poise Measurement Systems LLC, Micro-Poise Measurement Systems LLC, Milmega Limited, Mocon, Motec GmbH, Motec GmbH, Motion Control Group, Muirhead Aerospace Limited, NSI-MI Technologies, Newage Testing Instruments Inc., Nu Instruments Asia Ltd., Nu Instruments Limited, Nu Instruments Ltd, O'Brien Corp, OBCORP LLC., OOO AMETEK, Pacific Design Technologies Inc., Patriot Sensors & Controls Corporation, PennEngineering Motion Technologies, Petrolab L.L.C., Powervar, Powervar Deutschland GmbH, Powervar Inc., Powervar Mexico S.A. de C.V., Precitech, Quizix Inc., RETE Holding GmbH, Rauland-Borg, Rauland-Borg Corporation, Rauland-Borg Corporation of Florida, Reichert Inc., Reichert Technologies, Responder Systems Corporation, Rotron Inc., Rotron Incorporated, SPECTRO Analytical Instruments (Pty) Ltd, SPECTRO Analytical Instruments GmbH, SSH Non-Destructive Testing Inc., Sealtron Inc., Six Brookside Drive Corporation., SkyBitz Inc., SkyBitz Petroleum Logistics LLC, SkyBitz Tank Monitoring Corporation, Solartron Group Ltd., Solartron Metrology Limited, Solidstate Controls Inc. de Argentina S.R.L., Solidstate Controls LLC, Solidstate Controls LLC, Solidstate Controls Mexico S.A. de C.V., Sound Com Corporation, Southern Aero Partners Inc., Southern Aeroparts Inc, Spectro Analytical Instruments Inc., Spectro Holdings Inc., Spectro Inc., Spectro International Holdings Inc., Spectro Scientific, Spectro Scientific (Beijing) Inc., Spectro Scientific Inc., Sterling Ultra Precision Inc., Sunpower, Sunpower Inc., Superior Tube Company Inc., TPM Russia Inc., Taylor Hobson Holdings Limited, Taylor Hobson Inc., Taylor Hobson Limited, Taylor Hobson Trustees Limited, Technical Manufacturing Corp, Technical Manufacturing Corporation, Technical Services for Electronics Inc., Telular Corporation, Telular Corporation, Teseq AG, Thelsha Technical Services, Tritex Corporation, Unispec Marketing Pvt. Ltd., Universal Analyzers Inc., VTI Instruments Corporation, VTI Instruments Private Limited, VTI Integrated Systems Private Limited, Vision Research Europe B.V., Vision Research Inc., Vision Research srl, Zemetrics Inc., Zygo Corporation, Zygo Pte Ltd., Zygo Richmond Corporation, and ZygoLamda Metrology Instrument (Shanghai) Co. Ltd..Synthomer plc operates as a specialty chemicals company in the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Malaysia, China, the United States, rest of Europe, rest of Asia, and internationally. It operates through four segments: Performance Elastomers, Functional Solutions, Industrial Specialities, and Acrylate Monomers. The company offers pressure sensitive adhesives, acrylic polymers, acrylic dispersions, and other adhesives; latices for foamed bedding products and footwear; acrylonitrile butadiene rubber for glove dipping and specific needs of medical, examination, clean room, food handling, medical drug handling, and chemical laboratory applications; and artificial turf and gel foam elastomers for floor coverings, footwear, and mattresses. It also provides latices for medical devices, condoms, and balloons. In addition, the company offers binders, vinyl acetate copolymer dispersions, solvent-borne resins, and other products for various coatings applications; and synthetic binders for graphic, packaging, and specialty paper coating applications. Further, it provides compounds and aqueous curing pastes for carpets and other applications; coalescing agents for enhancing the properties of coatings; and acrylic monomers for enhancing the performance characteristics of polymer formulations. Additionally, the company offers liquid polybutadienes, polyvinyl alcohol suspending agents, polyvinyl acetates, thermosetting resins, butyl ethyl propanediol, and inorganic materials for various industrial applications; and specialty polymers for construction applications. It also provides impregnation binders, polymer dispersions, styrene butadiene copolymers, acrylic and styrene acrylic dispersions, and butadiene-based binders for textiles applications. The company was formerly known as Yule Catto & Co. plc and changed its name to Synthomer plc in 2012. Synthomer plc was founded in 1863 and is headquartered in London, the United Kingdom.

Read MoreYext, Inc. is an emerging growth company engages in software development. It offers a cloud-based digital knowledge platform, which allows businesses manage their digital knowledge in the cloud such as financial information, resources and performance of these resources on a consolidated basis and sync it to other application such as Apple Maps, Bing, Cortana, Facebook, Google, Google Maps, Instagram, Siri and Yelp. It offers the Yext Knowledge Engine package on subscription basis, which has an access to Listings, Pages, Reviews and other features. The Listing feature provides customers with control over their digital presence, including their location and other related attributes published on the used third-party applications. The Pages feature allows customers to establish landing pages on their own websites and to manage digital content on those sites, including calls to action. The Reviews presence enables customers to encourage and facilitate reviews from end consumers. The company was founded by Howard Lerman, Brent Metz, and Brian Distelburger in 2006 and is headquartered in New York, NY.

Read MoreWilliam Lyon Homes (NYSE:WLH) released its earnings results on Wednesday, November, 6th. The construction company reported $0.37 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the Zacks' consensus estimate of $0.30 by $0.07. The construction company earned $466.90 million during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $487.15 million. William Lyon Homes had a trailing twelve-month return on equity of 6.98% and a net margin of 3.04%. William Lyon Homes's revenue was down 12.7% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period last year, the business posted $0.68 earnings per share.

View William Lyon Homes' earnings history.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. Institucion de Banca Multiple Grupo Financiero Santander Mexico, Banco Santander Peru S.A., Banco Santander Rio S.A., Banco Santander S.A., Banco Santander Totta S.A., Banco Santander de Negocios Colombia S.A., Banco de Albacete S.A., Bansa Santander S.A., CCAP Auto Lease Ltd., Canyon Multifamily Impact Fund IV LLC, Capital Street Delaware LP, Capital Street Holdings LLC, Capital Street REIT Holdings LLC, Capital Street S.A., Carfax (Guernsey) Limited (f), Carfinco Financial Group, Carfinco Financial Group Inc., Carfinco Inc., Casa de Bolsa Santander S.A. de C.V. Grupo Financiero Santander Mexico, Cater Allen Holdings Limited, Cater Allen International Limited, Cater Allen Limited, Cater Allen Lloyd's Holdings Limited, Cater Allen Syndicate Management Limited, Centro de Capacitacion Santander A.C., Certidesa S.L., Chrysler Capital Auto Funding I LLC, Chrysler Capital Auto Funding II LLC, Chrysler Capital Auto Receivables LLC, Chrysler Capital Master Auto Receivables Funding 2 LLC, Chrysler Capital Master Auto Receivables Funding 4 LLC, Chrysler Capital Master Auto Receivables Funding LLC, Cobranza Amigable S.A.P.I. de C.V., Community Development and Affordable Housing Fund LLC (g), Compagnie Generale de Credit Aux Particuliers - Credipar S.A., Compagnie Pour la Location de Vehicules - CLV, Comunidad Laboral Trabajando Argentina S.A., Comunidad Laboral Trabajando Iberica S.L. Unipersonal en liquidacion (b), Consulteam Consultores de Gestao Lda., Consumer Lending Receivables LLC, Crawfall S.A. (b), Cantabra de Inversiones S.A., Cantabro Catalana de Inversiones S.A., Darep Designated Activity Company, Decarome S.A.P.I. de C.V., Deva Capital Advisory Company S.L., Deva Capital Holding Company S.L., Deva Capital Investment Company S.L., Deva Capital Management Company S.L., Deva Capital Servicer Company S.L., Digital Procurement Holdings N.V., Diners Club Spain S.A., Direccion Estratega S.C., Dirgenfin S.L. en liquidacion (b), Ebury, El Corte Ingles, Elavon Mexico, Electrolyser S.A. de C.V., Entidad de Desarrollo a la Pequena y Micro Empresa Santander Consumo Peru S.A., Erestone S.A.S., Esfera Fidelidade S.A., Evidence Previdencia S.A., Financeira El Corte Ingles Portugal S.F.C. S.A., Financiera El Corte Ingles E.F.C. S.A., Finsantusa S.L. 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. S.A., PSA Renting Italia S.p.A., PagoFX Europe S.A., PagoFX HoldCo S.L., PagoFX UK Ltd, PagoNxt Merchant Solutions S.L., PagoNxt S.L., Parasant SA, Patagon.com, Pereda Gestion S.A., Pingham International S.A., Popular Spain Holding de Inversiones S.L.U., Portal Universia Argentina S.A., Portal Universia Portugal Prestacao de Servicos de Informatica S.A., Prime 16  Fundo de Investimentos Imobiliario, Punta Lima LLC, Punta Lima Wind Farm LLC, Retop S.A., Return Capital Servicos de Recuperacao de Creditos S.A., Return Gestao de Recursos S.A., Riobank International (Uruguay) SAIFE (b), Rojo Entretenimento S.A., SAM Asset Management S.A. de C.V. 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. S.G.I.I.C., Santander Asset Management UK Holdings Limited, Santander Asset Management UK Limited, Santander Back-Offices Globales Mayoristas S.A., Santander Banca de Inversion Colombia S.A.S., Santander Bank & Trust Ltd., Santander Bank National Association, Santander Bank Polska S.A., Santander Brasil Administradora de Consorcio Ltda., Santander Brasil Gestao de Recursos Ltda., Santander Brasil Tecnologia S.A., Santander Capital Desarrollo SGEIC S.A. Unipersonal, Santander Capital Structuring S.A. de C.V., Santander Capitalizacao S.A., Santander Cards Ireland Limited, Santander Cards Limited, Santander Cards UK Limited, Santander Chile Holding S.A., Santander Consulting (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Santander Consumer (UK) plc, Santander Consumer Auto Receivables Funding 2013-B2 LLC, Santander Consumer Auto Receivables Funding 2013-B3 LLC, Santander Consumer Auto Receivables Funding 2018-L1 LLC, Santander Consumer Auto Receivables Funding 2018-L3 LLC, Santander Consumer Auto Receivables Funding 2018-L4 LLC, Santander Consumer Auto Receivables Funding 2018-L5 LLC, Santander Consumer Auto Receivables Funding 2019-B1 LLC, Santander Consumer Auto Receivables Funding 2019-L2 LLC, Santander Consumer Auto Receivables Funding 2019-L3 LLC, Santander Consumer Auto Receivables Funding 2020-B1 LLC, Santander Consumer Auto Receivables Funding 2020-L1 LLC, Santander Consumer Auto Receivables Funding 2020-L2 LLC, Santander Consumer Bank, Santander Consumer Bank AG, Santander Consumer Bank GmbH, Santander Consumer Bank S.A., Santander Consumer Bank S.p.A., Santander Consumer Banque S.A., Santander Consumer Credit Services Limited, Santander Consumer Finance Benelux B.V., Santander Consumer Finance Global Services S.L., Santander Consumer Finance Oy, Santander Consumer Finance S.A., Santander Consumer Finance Schweiz AG, Santander Consumer Financial Solutions Sp. z o.o., Santander Consumer Finanse Sp. z o.o. (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. Grupo Financiero Santander Mexico, Santander Corredora de Seguros Limitada, Santander Corredores de Bolsa Limitada, Santander Corretora de Cambio e Valores Mobiliarios S.A., Santander Corretora de Seguros Investimentos e Servicos S.A., Santander Customer Voice S.A., Santander Digital Assets S.L., Santander Drive Auto Receivables LLC, Santander Equity Investments Limited, Santander Espana Merchant Services Entidad de Pago S.L. Unipersonal, Santander Espana Servicios Legales y de Cumplimiento S.L., Santander Estates Limited, Santander F24 S.A., Santander Facility Management Espana S.L., Santander Factoring S.A., Santander Factoring Sp. z o.o., Santander Factoring y Confirming S.A. 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).ConocoPhillips engages in the exploration, production, transportation and marketing of crude oil, bitumen, natural gas, natural gas liquids, and liquefied natural gas on a worldwide basis. It operates through the following geographical segments: Alaska; Lower 48; Canada; Europe, Middle East and North Africa; Asia Pacific; and Other International. The Alaska segment primarily explores for produces, transports and markets crude oil, natural gas and natural gas liquids. The Lower 48 segment consists of operations in the U.S. and the Gulf of Mexico. The Canada segment is comprised of oil sands development in the Athabasca Region of northeastern Alberta and a liquids-rich unconventional play in western Canada. The Europe, Middle East and North Africa segment consists of operations and exploration activities in Norway, the United Kingdom and Libya. The Asia Pacific segment has explorations and product operations in China, Indonesia, Malaysia and Australia. The Other International segment handles exploration activities in Columbia and Argentina. The company was founded in 1875 and is headquartered in Houston, TX.

Read More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First Quantum Minerals Ltd. engages in the exploration, development, and production of mineral properties. It primarily explores for copper, nickel, pyrite, gold, silver, and zinc ores, as well as produces acid. The company holds 100% interests in the Ravensthorpe nickel and cobalt mine in Australia; the Sentinel copper project in North Western Province of Zambia; the Las Cruces copper mine in Spain; the Guelb Moghrein copper-gold mine in Mauritania; the PyhAsalmi copper, pyrite, zinc mine in Finland; and the Aayeli copper-zinc mine in Turkey. It also holds an 80% interest in the Kansanshi copper-gold mine and copper smelter in Zambia; and a 90% interest in the Cobre Panama project located in Panama. In addition, the company has interests in copper, gold, and molybdenum projects at various stages of development located in Argentina, Peru, and Zambia. The company was formerly known as First Quantum Ventures Ltd. and changed its name to First Quantum Minerals Ltd. in July 1996. First Quantum Minerals Ltd. was incorporated in 1983 and is headquartered in Toronto, Canada.

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4.1 Community Rank

Outperform Votes HighPoint Resources has received 160 outperform votes. (Add your outperform vote.)

Underperform Votes HighPoint Resources has received 102 underperform votes. (Add your underperform vote.)

Community Sentiment HighPoint Resources has received 61.07% outperform votes from our community.

MarketBeat's community ratings are surveys of what our community members think about HighPoint Resources and other stocks. Vote Outperform if you believe HPR will outperform the S&P 500 over the long term. Vote Underperform if you believe HPR will underperform the S&P 500 over the long term. You may vote once every thirty days.

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NextThe Toronto-Dominion Bank, together with its subsidiaries, provides various personal and commercial banking products and services in Canada and the United States. It operates through three segments: Canadian Retail, U.S. Retail, and Wholesale Banking. The company offers personal deposits, such as chequing, savings, and investment products; financing, investment, cash management, international trade, and day-to-day banking services to businesses; and financing options to customers at point of sale for automotive and recreational vehicle purchases through auto dealer network. It also provides credit cards; real estate secured lending; auto finance; consumer lending; point-of-sale payment solutions for large and small businesses; wealth and asset management products, private banking, investment advisory, and trust services to retail and institutional clients; and property and casualty insurance, as well as life and health insurance products. The company also provides capital markets, and corporate and investment banking services, including underwriting and distribution of new debt and equity issues; advice on strategic acquisitions and divestitures; and trading, funding, and investment services to companies, governments, and institutions. It offers its products and services under the TD Bank and America's Most Convenient Bank brand names. The company operates through a network of 1,085 branches, 3,440 automated teller machines, and 1,223 stores, as well as offers telephone, digital, and mobile banking services. The Toronto-Dominion Bank was founded in 1855 and is headquartered in Toronto, Canada.

Read MoreXtrackers MSCI Europe Hedged Equity ETF's stock was trading at $24.81 on March 11th, 2020 when Coronavirus reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization. Since then, DBEU stock has increased by 47.2% and is now trading at $36.51.

View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19.The following companies are subsidiares of Lloyds Banking Group: A G Finance Ltd, A.C.L. Ltd, ACL Autolease Holdings Ltd, ADF No.1 Pty Ltd, Addison Social Housing Holdings Ltd, Alex Lawrie Factors Ltd, Alex. Lawrie Receivables Financing Ltd, Amberdate Ltd, Anglo Scottish Utilities Partnership 1, Aquilus Ltd, Automobile Association Personal Finance Ltd, BOS (Ireland) Property Services 2 Ltd, BOS (Ireland) Property Services Ltd, BOS (Shared Appreciation Mortgages (Scotland) No. 2) Ltd, BOS (Shared Appreciation Mortgages (Scotland) No. 3) Ltd, BOS (Shared Appreciation Mortgages (Scotland)) Ltd, BOS (Shared Appreciation Mortgages) No. 1 plc, BOS (Shared Appreciation Mortgages) No. 2 plc, BOS (Shared Appreciation Mortgages) No. 3 plc, BOS (Shared Appreciation Mortgages) No. 4 plc, BOS (Shared Appreciation Mortgages) No. 5 plc, BOS (Shared Appreciation Mortgages) No. 6 plc, BOS (USA) Fund Investments Inc., BOS (USA) Inc., BOS Edinburgh No 1 Ltd, BOS Mistral Ltd, BOS Personal Lending Ltd, BOSSAF Rail Ltd, Bank of Scotland (B G S) Nominees Ltd, Bank of Scotland (Stanlife) London Nominees Ltd, Bank of Scotland Branch Nominees Ltd, Bank of Scotland Central Nominees Ltd, Bank of Scotland Edinburgh Nominees Ltd, Bank of Scotland Equipment Finance Ltd, Bank of Scotland Foundation, Bank of Scotland LNG Leasing (No 1) Ltd, Bank of Scotland London Nominees Ltd, Bank of Scotland Nominees (Unit Trusts) Ltd, Bank of Scotland P.E.P. Nominees Ltd, Bank of Scotland Structured Asset Finance Ltd, Bank of Scotland Transport Finance 1 Ltd, Bank of Scotland plc, Bank of Wales Ltd, Barents Leasing Ltd, Barnwood Mortgages Ltd, Birchcrown Finance Ltd, Birmingham Midshires Financial Services Ltd, Birmingham Midshires Land Development Ltd, Birmingham Midshires Mortgage Services Ltd, Black Horse (TRF) Ltd, Black Horse Executive Mortgages Ltd, Black Horse Finance Holdings Ltd, Black Horse Finance Management Ltd, Black Horse Group Ltd, Black Horse Ltd, Black Horse Offshore Ltd, Black Horse Property Services Ltd, Boltro Nominees Ltd, British Linen Leasing (London) Ltd, British Linen Leasing Ltd, British Linen Shipping Ltd, C.T.S.B. Leasing Ltd, CBRail S.A.R.L., CF Asset Finance Ltd, CF1 Ltd, CM Venture Investments Ltd, Cancara Asset Securitisation Ltd, Capital 1945 Ltd, Capital Bank Leasing 12 Ltd, Capital Bank Leasing 3 Ltd, Capital Bank Leasing 5 Ltd, Capital Bank Leasing 9 Ltd, Capital Bank Property Investments (3) Ltd, Capital Personal Finance Ltd, Cardiff Auto Receivables Securitisation 2018-1 Plc, Cardiff Auto Receivables Securitisation 2019-1 Plc, Cardiff Auto Receivables Securitisation Holdings Ltd, Cardnet Merchant Services Ltd, Cashfriday Ltd, Cashpoint Ltd, Caveminster Ltd, Cedar Holdings Ltd, Celsius European Lux 2 S.A.R.L., Central Mortgage Finance Ltd, Chariot Finance Ltd, Cheltenham & Gloucester plc, Cheltenham II Securities 2020 DAC, Cheltenham Securities 2017 Ltd, Chepstow Blue Holdings Ltd, Chepstow Blue plc, Chester Asset Options No.2 Ltd, Chester Asset Options No.3 Ltd, Chester Asset Receivables Dealings Issuer Ltd, Chester Asset Securitisation Holdings Ltd, Chester Asset Securitisation Holdings No.2 Ltd, Chiswell Stockbrokers Ltd, Clerical Medical Finance plc, Clerical Medical Financial Services Ltd, Clerical Medical International Holdings B.V., Clerical Medical Investment Fund Managers Ltd, Clerical Medical Managed Funds Ltd, Clerical Medical Non Sterling Guadalix Hold Co BV, Clerical Medical Non Sterling Guadalix Spanish Prop Co SL, Clerical Medical Non Sterling Megapark Hold Co BV, Clerical Medical Non Sterling Megapark Prop Co SA, Clerical Medical Non Sterling Property Company S.A.R.L., Cloak Lane Funding S.A.R.L., Cloak Lane Investments S.A.R.L., Conquest Securities Ltd, Corbiere Asset Investments Ltd, Create Services Ltd, Credit Card Securitisation Europe Ltd, Dalkeith Corporation, Deva Financing Holdings Ltd, Deva Financing plc, Deva One Ltd, Deva Three Ltd, Deva Two Ltd, Dunstan Investments (UK) Ltd, Edgbaston RMBS 2010-1 plc, Edgbaston RMBS Holdings Ltd, Elland RMBS 2018 plc, Elland RMBS Holdings Ltd, Eurolead Services Holdings Ltd, First Retail Finance (Chester) Ltd, Fontwell Securities 2016 Ltd, Forthright Finance Ltd, France Industrial Premises Holding Company, General Leasing (No. 12) Ltd, General Reversionary and Investment Company, Gresham Nominee 1 Ltd, Gresham Nominee 2 Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 1) Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 10) Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 11) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 12) Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 13) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 14) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 15) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 16) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 19) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 20) Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 21) Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 22) Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 23) Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 24) Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 25) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 26) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 27) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 28) Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 29) Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 3) Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 30) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 31) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 32) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 33) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 34) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 35) Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 36) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 37) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 38) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 39) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 40) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 41) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 44) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 45) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 46) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 47) UK Ltd, Gresham Receivables (No. 48) UK Ltd, Guildhall Asset Purchasing Company (No 3) Ltd, Guildhall Asset Purchasing Company (No.11) UK Ltd, HBOS Covered Bonds LLP, HBOS Final Salary Trust Ltd, HBOS Financial Services Ltd, HBOS Insurance & Investment Group Ltd, HBOS International Financial Services Holdings Ltd, HBOS Investment Fund Managers Ltd, HBOS Social Housing Covered Bonds LLP, HBOS UK Ltd, HBOS plc, HSDL Nominees Ltd, HVF Ltd, Halifax Credit Card Ltd, Halifax Financial Brokers Ltd, Halifax Financial Services (Holdings) Ltd, Halifax Financial Services Ltd, Halifax General Insurance Services Ltd, Halifax Group Ltd, Halifax Investment Services Ltd, Halifax Leasing (June) Ltd, Halifax Leasing (March No.2) Ltd, Halifax Leasing (September) Ltd, Halifax Life Ltd, Halifax Loans Ltd, Halifax Ltd, Halifax Mortgage Services Ltd, Halifax Nominees Ltd, Halifax Pension Nominees Ltd, Halifax Premises Ltd, Halifax Share Dealing Ltd, Halifax Vehicle Leasing (1998) Ltd, Heidi Finance Holdings (UK) Ltd, Hill Samuel Bank Ltd, Hill Samuel Finance Ltd, Hill Samuel Leasing Co. Ltd, Home Shopping Personal Finance Ltd, Horizon Capital 2000 Ltd, Housing Association Risk Transfer 2019 DAC, Housing Growth Partnership GP LLP, Housing Growth Partnership LP, Housing Growth Partnership Ltd, Housing Growth Partnership Manager Ltd, Hyundai Car Finance Ltd, IBOS Finance Ltd, ICC Enterprise Partners Ltd, ICC Equity Partners Ltd, ICC Holdings Unlimited Company, Inchcape Financial Services Ltd, Intelligent Finance Financial Services Ltd, Intelligent Finance Software Ltd, International Motors Finance Ltd, Kanaalstraat Funding C.V., Katrine Leasing Ltd, LB Healthcare Trustee Ltd, LB Motorent Ltd, LB Quest Ltd, LB Share Schemes Trustees Ltd, LBCF Ltd, LBG Brasil Administracao LTDA, LBG Capital Holdings Ltd, LBG Equity Investments Ltd, LBI Leasing Ltd, LDC (General Partner) Ltd, LDC (Managers) Ltd, LDC (Nominees) Ltd, LDC GP LLP, LDC I LP, LDC II LP, LDC III LP, LDC IV LP, LDC Parallel (Nominees) Ltd, LDC V LP, LDC VI LP, LDC VII LP, LDC VIII LP, LTGP Limited Partnership Incorporated, Legacy Renewal Company Ltd, Leicester Securities 2014 Ltd, Lex Autolease (CH) Ltd, Lex Autolease (VC) Ltd, Lex Autolease Carselect Ltd, Lex Autolease Ltd, Lex Vehicle Finance 2 Ltd, Lex Vehicle Leasing (Holdings) Ltd, Lex Vehicle Leasing Ltd, Lime Street (Funding) Ltd, Lingfield 2014 I Holdings Ltd, Lingfield 2014 I plc, Lloyds (Gresham) Ltd, Lloyds (Gresham) No. 1 Ltd, Lloyds (Nimrod) Specialist Finance Ltd, Lloyds America Securities Corporation1, Lloyds Asset Leasing Ltd, Lloyds Bank (Branches) Nominees Ltd, Lloyds Bank (Colonial & Foreign) Nominees Ltd, Lloyds Bank (Fountainbridge 1) Ltd, Lloyds Bank (Fountainbridge 2) Ltd, Lloyds Bank (I.D.) Nominees Ltd, Lloyds Bank (International Services) Ltd, Lloyds Bank (Stock Exchange Branch) Nominees Ltd, Lloyds Bank Asset Finance Ltd, Lloyds Bank Commercial Finance Ltd, Lloyds Bank Commercial Finance Scotland Ltd, Lloyds Bank Corporate Asset Finance (HP) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Corporate Asset Finance (No.1) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Corporate Asset Finance (No.2) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Corporate Asset Finance (No.3) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Corporate Asset Finance (No.4) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Corporate Markets Wertpapierhandelsbank GmbH, Lloyds Bank Corporate Markets plc, Lloyds Bank Covered Bonds (Holdings) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Covered Bonds (LM) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Covered Bonds LLP, Lloyds Bank Equipment Leasing (No. 1) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Equipment Leasing (No. 7) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Equipment Leasing (No. 9) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Financial Services (Holdings) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Foundation for England & Wales, Lloyds Bank Foundation for the Channel Islands, Lloyds Bank General Insurance Holdings Ltd, Lloyds Bank General Insurance Ltd, Lloyds Bank General Leasing (No. 11) Ltd, Lloyds Bank General Leasing (No. 17) Ltd, Lloyds Bank General Leasing (No. 20) Ltd, Lloyds Bank General Leasing (No. 3) Ltd, Lloyds Bank General Leasing (No. 5) Ltd, Lloyds Bank GmbH, Lloyds Bank Hill Samuel Holding Company Ltd, Lloyds Bank Insurance Services Ltd, Lloyds Bank International Ltd, Lloyds Bank Leasing (No. 6) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Leasing (No. 8) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Leasing Ltd, Lloyds Bank MTCH Ltd, Lloyds Bank Maritime Leasing (No. 10) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Maritime Leasing (No. 13) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Maritime Leasing (No. 17) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Maritime Leasing (No.16) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Nominees Ltd, Lloyds Bank Offshore Pension Trust Ltd, Lloyds Bank Pension ABCS (No. 1) LLP, Lloyds Bank Pension ABCS (No. 2) LLP, Lloyds Bank Pension Trust (No. 1) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Pension Trust (No. 2) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Pensions Property (Guernsey) Ltd, Lloyds Bank Properties Ltd, Lloyds Bank Property Company Ltd, Lloyds Bank S.F. Nominees Ltd, Lloyds Bank Subsidiaries Ltd, Lloyds Bank Trustee Services Ltd, Lloyds Bank plc, Lloyds Banking Group Pensions Trustees Ltd, Lloyds Capital GP Ltd, Lloyds Commercial Leasing Ltd, Lloyds Commercial Properties Ltd, Lloyds Commercial Property Investments Ltd, Lloyds Corporate Services (Jersey) Ltd, Lloyds Development Capital (Holdings) Ltd, Lloyds Engine Capital (No.1) U.S LLC, Lloyds Far East S.A.R.L., Lloyds General Leasing Ltd, Lloyds Group Holdings (Jersey) Ltd, Lloyds Holdings (Jersey) Ltd, Lloyds Hypotheken B.V., Lloyds Industrial Leasing Ltd, Lloyds International Pty Ltd, Lloyds Investment Bonds Ltd, Lloyds Investment Fund Managers Ltd, Lloyds Investment Securities No.5 Ltd, Lloyds Leasing (North Sea Transport) Ltd1, Lloyds Leasing Developments Ltd, Lloyds Nominees (Guernsey) Ltd, Lloyds Offshore Global Services Private Ltd, Lloyds Plant Leasing Ltd, Lloyds Portfolio Leasing Ltd, Lloyds Premises Investments Ltd, Lloyds Project Leasing Ltd, Lloyds Property Investment Company No. 3 Ltd, Lloyds Property Investment Company No. 4 Ltd, Lloyds Property Investment Company No.5 Ltd, Lloyds Secretaries Ltd, Lloyds Securities Inc., Lloyds TSB Pacific Ltd, Lloyds UDT Asset Leasing Ltd, Lloyds UDT Asset Rentals Ltd, Lloyds UDT Hiring Ltd, Lloyds UDT Leasing Ltd, Lloyds UDT Ltd, Lloyds Your Tomorrow Trustee Ltd, Loans.co.uk Ltd, London Taxi Finance Ltd, London Uberior (L.A.S. Group) Nominees Ltd, Lotus Finance Ltd, MBNA, MBNA Direct Ltd, MBNA Europe Finance Ltd, MBNA Europe Holdings Ltd, MBNA General Foundation, MBNA Global Services Ltd, MBNA Indian Services Private Ltd, MBNA Ltd, MBNA R & L S.A.R.L., MBNA Receivables Ltd, Mainsearch Company Ltd, Maritime Leasing (No. 19) Ltd, Membership Services Finance Ltd, Mitre Street Funding S.A.R.L., Molineux RMBS 2016-1 plc, Molineux RMBS Holdings Ltd, Moor Lane Holdings Ltd, NFU Mutual Finance Ltd, NWS Trust Ltd, Nominees (Jersey) Ltd, Nordic Leasing Ltd, Ocean Leasing (July) Ltd, Oystercatcher Nominees Ltd, Oystercatcher Residential Ltd, PIPS Asset Investments Ltd, Pacific Leasing Ltd, Penarth Asset Securitisation Holdings Ltd, Penarth Funding 1 Ltd, Penarth Funding 2 Ltd, Penarth Master Issuer plc, Penarth Receivables Trustee Ltd, Pensions Management (S.W.F.) Ltd, Peony Eastern Leasing Ltd, Peony Leasing Ltd, Peony Western Leasing Ltd, Permanent Funding (No. 1) Ltd, Permanent Funding (No. 2) Ltd, Permanent Holdings Ltd, Permanent Master Issuer plc, Permanent Mortgages Trustee Ltd, Permanent PECOH Holdings Ltd, Permanent PECOH Ltd, Perry Nominees Ltd, Prestonfield Investments Ltd, Proton Finance Ltd, R.F. Spencer And Company Ltd, Ranelagh Nominees Ltd, Retail Revival (Burgess Hill) Investments Ltd, SARL Coliseum, SARL Hiram, SAS Compagnie Fonciere De France, SCI Astoria Invest, SCI De LHorloge, SCI Equinoxe, SCI Rambuteau CFF, SW Funding plc, SW No.1 Ltd, SWAMF (GP) Ltd, SWAMF Nominee (1) Ltd, SWAMF Nominee (2) Ltd, Saint Michel Holding Company No1, Saint Michel Investment Property, Saint Witz 2 Holding Company No1, Saint Witz 2 Investment Property, Salisbury II Securities 2016 Ltd, Salisbury II-A Securities 2017 Ltd, Salisbury III Securities 2019 DAC, Salisbury Securities 2015 Ltd, Sandown 2012-2 Holdings Ltd, Sandown 2012-2 plc, Sandown Gold 2012-1 Holdings Ltd, Sandown Gold 2012-1 plc, Savban Leasing Ltd, Scotland International Finance B.V., Scottish Widows Administration Services (Nominees) Ltd, Scottish Widows Administration Services Ltd, Scottish Widows Annuities Ltd, Scottish Widows Auto Enrolment Services Ltd, Scottish Widows Europe, Scottish Widows Financial Services Holdings, Scottish Widows Group Ltd, Scottish Widows Industrial Properties Europe B.V., Scottish Widows Ltd, Scottish Widows Pension Trustees Ltd, Scottish Widows Property Management Ltd, Scottish Widows Schroder Personal Wealth (ACD) Ltd, Scottish Widows Schroder Personal Wealth Ltd, Scottish Widows Schroder Wealth Holdings Ltd, Scottish Widows Services Ltd, Scottish Widows Trustees Ltd, Scottish Widows Unit Funds Ltd, Scottish Widows Unit Trust Managers Ltd, Scottish Widows Fund and Life Assurance Society, Seabreeze Leasing Ltd, Seaspirit Leasing Ltd, Share Dealing Nominees Ltd, Shogun Finance Ltd, Silentdale Ltd, St Andrews Group Ltd, St Andrews Insurance plc, St Andrews Life Assurance plc, St. Marys Court Investments, Standard Property Investment (1987) Ltd, Standard Property Investment Ltd, Sussex County Homes Ltd, Suzuki Financial Services Ltd, Swan Funding 2 Ltd, Syon Securities 2019 DAC, The Agricultural Mortgage Corporation Plc, The British Linen Company Ltd, The Halifax Foundation for Northern Ireland, The Mortgage Business plc, Thistle Financing Holdings Ltd, Thistle Investments (AMC) Ltd, Thistle Investments (ERM) Ltd, Thistle Leasing, Three Copthall Avenue Ltd, Tower Hill Property Investments (10) Ltd, Tower Hill Property Investments (7) Ltd, Tranquility Leasing Ltd, Trinity Financing plc, UDT Budget Leasing Ltd, UDT Sales Finance Ltd, Uberior (Moorfield) Ltd, Uberior Co-Investments Ltd, Uberior ENA Ltd, Uberior Equity Ltd, Uberior Europe Ltd, Uberior Fund Investments Ltd, Uberior Infrastructure Investments (No.2) Ltd, Uberior Infrastructure Investments Ltd, Uberior Investments Ltd, Uberior Nominees Ltd, Uberior Trading Ltd, Uberior Trustees Ltd, Uberior Ventures Australia Pty Ltd, Uberior Ventures Ltd, United Dominions Leasing Ltd, United Dominions Trust Ltd, Universe The CMI Global Network Fund, Upsaala Ltd, Vine Street IX LP, WCS Ltd, Ward Nominees (Abingdon) Ltd, Ward Nominees (Birmingham) Ltd 1, Ward Nominees (Bristol) Ltd 1, Ward Nominees Ltd 1, Waverley  Fund II Investor LLC, Waverley  Fund III Investor LLC, Waymark Asset Investments Ltd, West Craigs Ltd, Wetherby II Securities 2018 DAC, Wetherby III Securities 2019 DAC, Wetherby Securities 2017 Ltd, Wood Street Leasing Ltd, and Zurich Insurance Group - UK Workplace Pensions and Savings Business.Medtronic Plc is a medical technology company, which engages in the development, manufacture, distribution, and sale of device-based medical therapies and services. It operates through the following segments: Cardiac and Vascular Group; Minimally Invasive Technologies Group; Restorative Therapies Group; and Diabetes Group. The Cardiac and Vascular Group segment consists of products for the diagnosis, treatment, and management of cardiac rhythm disorders and cardiovascular disease. The Minimally Invasive Technologies Group segment focuses on respiratory system, gastrointestinal tract, renal system, lungs, pelvic region, kidneys, and obesity diseases. The Restorative Therapies Group segment comprises of neurostimulation therapies and drug delivery systems for the treatment of chronic pain, as well as areas of the spine and brain, along with pelvic health and conditions of the ear, nose, and throat. The Diabetes Group segment offers insulin pumps, coninuous glucose monitoring systems, and insulin pump consumables. The company was founded in 1949 and is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland.

Read MoreMorguard North American Residential Real Estate Investment Trust (the Trust) is a real estate investment trust (REIT). The Trust's investment objectives are to generate stable and growing cash distributions on a tax-efficient basis; enhance the value of the REIT's assets and maximize long-term Unit value through active asset and property management, and expand the asset base of the REIT and increase adjusted funds from operations per Unit primarily through acquisitions and improvement of its properties through targeted deployed capital expenditures. The Trust owns multi-suite residential rental properties in Canada and the United States. The Trust owns interest in a portfolio of over 10 Canadian residential apartment buildings and approximately 30 residential walk-up garden communities in the United States, consisting of over 13,470 residential suites that are located in Alberta, Ontario, Colorado, Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, Florida and North Carolina.

Read MorePembina Pipeline Corporation provides transportation and midstream services for the energy industry. It operates through three segments: Pipelines, Facilities, and Marketing & New Ventures. The Pipelines segment operates conventional, oil sands and heavy oil, and transmission assets with a transportation capacity of 3.1 millions of barrels of oil equivalent per day, ground storage of 11 millions of barrels, and rail terminalling capacity of approximately 145 thousands of barrels of oil equivalent per day serving markets and basins across North America. The Facilities segment offers infrastructure that provides customers with natural gas, condensate, and natural gas liquids (NGLs), including ethane, propane, butane, and condensate; and includes 354 thousands of barrels per day of NGL fractionation capacity, 21 millions of barrels of cavern storage capacity, and associated pipeline and rail terminalling facilities. The Marketing & New Ventures segment buys and sells hydrocarbon liquids and natural gas originating in the Western Canadian sedimentary basin and other basins. Pembina Pipeline Corporation was incorporated in 1954 and is headquartered in Calgary, Canada.

Read MoreSanchez Energy Corporation, an independent exploration and production company, focuses on the acquisition and development of U.S. onshore unconventional oil and natural gas resources. It engages in the horizontal development of resources from the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas. It also holds an undeveloped acreage position in the Tuscaloosa Marine Shale (TMS) in Mississippi and Louisiana. As of December 31, 2017, the company had assembled approximately 285,000 net acres in the Eagle Ford Shale; and owned approximately 37,000 net acres in the TMS. Sanchez Energy Corporation was founded in 2011 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas.

Read MoreThe following companies are subsidiares of Textron: AAI Corporation, AAI Services Corporation, ALSTOM Gears, Able Aerospace, Able Aerospace Services Inc., Able Engineering & Component Services, Aeronautical Accessories LLC, Airborne Tactical Advantage Company LLC, Arctic Cat, Arctic Cat ACE Holding GmbH, Arctic Cat France SARL, Arctic Cat GmbH, Arctic Cat Inc., Arctic Cat Production LLC, Arctic Cat Production Support LLC, Arctic Cat Sales Inc., Arctic Cat Shared Services LLC, Arctic Cat UK Ltd., Arkansas Aerospace Inc., Avco Corporation, Aviation Service servis letal doo Ljubljana, Aylesbury Automation, B/K Navigational Equipment sro, Beech Aircraft Corporation, Beech Holdings, Beechcraft Defense Support Holding LLC, Beechcraft Domestic Service Company, Beechcraft Germany GmbH, Beechcraft International Holding LLC, Beechcraft International Service Company, Beechcraft New Zealand, Beechcraft Service Company UK Limited, Bell Helicopter GK, Bell Helicopter KK, Bell Textron Asia (Pte.) Ltd., Bell Textron Canada International Inc., Bell Textron Canada Limited/Limitee, Bell Textron Inc., Bell Textron Korea Inc., Bell Textron Miami Inc, Bell Textron Prague a.s., Bell Textron Rhode Island Inc., Bell Textron Services Inc, Bell Textron Supply Center BV, Bell Textron Technical Services Inc., Benzlers, Brazaco Mapri Industrias, Burkland, Cessna Aircraft Company, Cessna Citation European Service Center SAS, Cessna Dusseldorf Citation Service Center GmbH, Cessna Finance Corporation, Cessna Finance Export Corporation, Cessna Mexico S de RL de CV, Cessna Spanish Citation Service Center SLU, Cessna Zurich Citation Service Center GmbH, Citation Parts Distribution International Inc., Cushman Inc., Datacom Technologies, David Brown Group, Doncaster Citation Service Centre Limited, E-Z-GO Canada Limited, Energy Manufacturing, Flexalloy, HBC LLC, Hawker Beech de Mexico S de RL de CV, Hawker Beechcraft Argentina SA, Howe & Howe Inc., Howe and Howe Technologies, Industrial Technology Inc., InteSys Technologies, International Product Support Inc., KSB Annecy SAS, Kautex (Changchun) Plastics Technology Co. Ltd., Kautex (Chongqing) Plastic Technology Co. Ltd., Kautex (Guangzhou) Plastic Technology Co. Ltd., Kautex (Pinghu) Plastic Technology Co. Ltd., Kautex (Shanghai) Plastic Technology Co. Ltd., Kautex (Wuhan) Plastic Technology Co. Ltd., Kautex Corporation, Kautex Craiova srl, Kautex Germany Holding GmbH, Kautex Inc., Kautex Japan KK, Kautex Shanghai GmbH, Kautex Textron (UK) Limited, Kautex Textron Benelux BVBA, Kautex Textron Bohemia spol sro, Kautex Textron CVS Limited, Kautex Textron GmbH & Co. KG, Kautex Textron Iberica SL, Kautex Textron Italia Srl, Kautex Textron Management Services Company de Puebla S. de RL de CV, Kautex Textron Portugal  Produtos Plasticos Sociedade Unipessoal Lda., Kautex Textron de Mexico S de RL de CV, Kautex Textron do Brasil Ltda., Kautex of Georgia Inc., Kaywood Products Corp., Klauke, LCI Corporation International, LLC Textron RUS, Maag, McCord Corporation, Mechtronix, Medical Numerics Inc., Midland Industrial Plastics, MillenWorks, MillenWorks Themed Technologies, MotorFist LLC, OPINICUS Simulation and Training Services LLC, OmniQuip International, Opinicus, Optical Boring Co., Opto-Electronics, Opto-Electronics Inc., Overwatch Systems Ltd., PEINER Umformtechnik, Pirelli Tyres - General Rubber Goods (GRG) division, Premiair Aviation Maintenance Pty Ltd, Progressive Electronics, Ransomes, Ransomes Inc., Ransomes Investment LLC, Ransomes Jacobsen France SAS, Ransomes Jacobsen Limited, Ransomes Limited, Ransomes Pensions Trustee Company Limited, Replacement Part Solutions LLC, Response Technologies LLC, Rotor Blades Limited, Sukosim Verbindungselemente, TRU Simulation & Training Spain SL, TRU Simulation + Training Inc., TRU Simulation + Training LLC, TekGPS Engineering Srl, Textron Airland LLC, Textron Atlantic LLC, Textron Aviation Australia Pty. Ltd., Textron Aviation Canada Ltd., Textron Aviation Defense LLC, Textron Aviation Finance Corporation, Textron Aviation Inc., Textron Aviation Prague Service Center sro, Textron Aviation Rhode Island Inc., Textron Aviation Services de Mexico S de RL de CV, Textron Capital BV, Textron Communications Inc., Textron Far East Pte. Ltd., Textron Finance Holding Company, Textron Financial Corporation, Textron Financial Corporation Receivables Trust 2002-CP-2, Textron Fluid and Power Inc., Textron France Holding SAS, Textron France SAS, Textron Global Services Inc., Textron Ground Support Equipment Inc., Textron Ground Support Equipment UK Limited, Textron IPMP Inc., Textron India Private Limited, Textron Innovations Inc., Textron International Inc., Textron International Mexico S de RL de CV, Textron Limited, Textron Management Services Inc., Textron Motors GmbH, Textron Motors North America Inc., Textron Outdoor Power Equipment Inc., Textron Realty Corporation, Textron Shared Service Centre (Canada) Inc., Textron Specialized Vehicles Inc., Textron Sweden AB, Textron Systems Australia Holding Pty Ltd, Textron Systems Australia Pty Ltd, Textron Systems Canada Inc., Textron Systems Corporation, Textron Systems Electronic Systems UK (Holdings) Limited, Textron Systems Electronic Systems UK Limited, Textron Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Textron UK Pension Trustee Limited, Textron Verwaltungs-GmbH, Turbine Engine Components Textron (Newington Operations) Inc., United Industrial Corporation, Westminster Insurance Company, Williams Machine & Tool, Wuxi Textron Specialized Vehicles Co. Ltd., and Zhenjiang Bell Textron Aviation Services Limited.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Vanguard Mid-Cap Value ETF's stock was trading at $91.71 on March 11th, 2020 when Coronavirus (COVID-19) reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization. Since then, VOE shares have increased by 63.7% and is now trading at $150.10.

View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19.The following companies are subsidiares of 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..WABCO Holdings Inc., together with its subsidiaries, supplies electronic, mechanical, electro-mechanical, and aerodynamic products worldwide. The company engineers, develops, manufactures, and sells braking, stability, suspension, steering, transmission automation, and air management systems primarily for commercial vehicles. The company's products include pneumatic anti-lock braking systems, electronic braking systems, electronic stability control systems, brake controls, automated manual transmission systems, and air disc brakes; and various conventional mechanical products, such as actuators, air compressors, and air control valves for medium and heavy-duty trucks, buses, and trailers. It also offers pneumatic and hydraulic braking and control systems for off-highway vehicles; conventional braking systems; electronic and conventional air suspension systems; steering technologies; and vehicle electronic stability control and roll stability support products, and advanced driver assistance systems. In addition, the company supplies electronic suspension controls and vacuum pumps to the passenger car and SUV markets, as well as provides remanufacturing services. Further, it offers replacement parts, fleet management solutions, diagnostic tools, training, and other expert services for commercial vehicle aftermarket distributors and service partners, and fleet operators. The company sells its products primarily to truck and bus original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), trailer OEMs, and car manufacturers; and manufacturers of heavy duty and off-highway vehicles in agriculture, construction, mining, and other industries. WABCO Holdings Inc. was founded in 1869 and is headquartered in Brussels, Belgium.

Read MorePetroChina Company Limited, together with its subsidiaries, engages in a range of petroleum related products, services, and activities in Mainland China and internationally. It operates through Exploration and Production, Refining and Chemicals, Marketing, and Natural Gas and Pipeline segments. The Exploration and Production segment engages in the exploration, development, production, and marketing of crude oil and natural gas. The Refining and Chemicals segment refines crude oil and petroleum products; and produces and markets primary petrochemical products, derivative petrochemical products, and other chemical products. The Marketing segment is involved in marketing of refined products and trading business. The Natural Gas and Pipeline segment engages in the transmission of natural gas, crude oil, and refined products; and sale of natural gas. As of December 31, 2020, the company had a total length of 31,151 km, including 22,555 km of natural gas pipelines, 7,190 km of crude oil pipelines, and 1,406 km of refined product pipelines. The company is also involved in the exploration, development, and production of oil sands and coalbed methane; trading of crude oil and petrochemical products; storage, chemical engineering, storage facilities, service station, and transportation facilities and related businesses; and production and sales of basic and derivative chemical, and other chemical products. The company was founded in 1999 and is headquartered in Beijing, the People's Republic of China. PetroChina Company Limited is a subsidiary of China National Petroleum Corporation.

Read MoreFOCUS ON DEFENSE CAPABILITY DEVELOPMENT IN SOUTHEAST ASIA AND OCEANIASuccess! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup.Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Syria and Iraq are still threatened by Daesh, al-Qaeda, al-Nusra, PKK and PYD/YPG terror groups.

Speaking on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly on Wednesday, Cavusoglu urged the international community to unite, saying "no country can fight these threats on its own".

Cavusoglu underlined a new phase in the fight against terrorism.

"In Syria and Iraq, we are able to deal a major blow to Daesh. We are not talking about the state-like structure with huge financial resources anymore, yet the threat is not over," Cavusoglu said.

"If you dont find sustainable political solutions in Syria, terrorists will continue to exploit the situation."

He added that Daesh and other terrorist groups were only symptoms of a larger problem and its root causes must be addressed.

Recalling the agreement between Turkey and Russia reached on Sept. 17 in the Russian city of Sochi to create a demilitarized zone in Syria's Idlib, Cavusoglu said: "There is another opportunity for the political solution in Syria."

Turkey and Russia also signed a memorandum of understanding on that date calling for the "stabilization" of Idlib's de-escalation zone, in which acts of aggression are expressly prohibited.

Under the pact, opposition groups in Idlib will remain in areas where they are already present while Russia and Turkey will carry out joint patrols in the area to ward off renewed fighting.Wednesday, Sept. 26. 2018

A child in Colorado recently called 911 because he needed urgent help. It wasn't a home invasion or a kidnapping or a fire. It was math. Yes, math.

He was under attack by long division and called for help. Kelly Werthmann talked to the dispatcher who helped save his homework horror.

NATSOT: "911, what's the address of your emergency?"

When a call comes in to 911.

Chris Clow is ready for whatever may be on the other end of the line.

Chris Clow / 911 Dispatcher: "Some people have grown to think that 911 is a catch-all for 'I need help with something; I don't know who to call.'"

But a recent call caught this fort collins dispatcher a bit off guard.

Chris Clow / 911 Dispatcher: "911, what's the address of your emergency?"

Child: "Hi, this isn't an emergency, but I'm 10 years old and I'm working on my math homework right now and I can't figure out what 71 divided by 3,052 is."

Chris Clow / 911 Dispatcher: "I don't generally have a calculator ready to go (laughs)."

Without missing a beat, Chris did what he does best.

Chris Clow / 911 Dispatcher: "I can try to help you. Let me - I don't know how to do that off the top of my head either at the moment."

Child: "Okay, thanks!"

After a quick adjustment of the equation.

Chris Clow / 911 Dispatcher: "At first he was confused because he had it backward."

Chris helped the kid in the midst of a math crisis.

Chris Clow / 911 Dispatcher: "Just doing it on the calculator, it's 42.98, which you would round up to like 43."

Child: "Oh, okay. Thanks. Thank you."

While homework woes are no reason to call 911, Chris is happy he could help.

Reporter: "I don't think a lot of people would've had the compassion or the patience that you did."

Chris Clow / 911 Dispatcher: "Right, it's important to give them that service whenever we can.

Chris: "Is that all you needed?"

Child: "Yeah."

Chris: "All right, I'll let you go."

Child: "K, bye."

Chris: "Bye."

Even though it's a cute story, Fort Collins police want to remind people that 911 should only be used for real emergencies.Questo comunicato e stato pubblicato piu di 1 anno fa. Le informazioni su questa pagina potrebbero non essere attendibili.

The Global Biopreservation Market is expected to grow during the forecast period (20182023) at a CAGR ~11.2%.

Biopreservation plays an important role in healthcare and food industry. It helps to preserve the biological product or material. It uses natural flora of biological material or the products of natural flora to preserve the product. The increasing expenditure on healthcare, a growing number of in vitro fertilization (IVF) centers, increasing awareness about stem cell and its applications are the major factors driving the growth of the global biopreservation market. Additionally, increasing R&D spending and aggressive strategies adopted by the top players, such as mergers and acquisitions are contributing to the growth of the market. For instance, in March 2016, Shanghai Genext Medical Technology Co Ltd announced the acquisition of a US-based Lifeline Scientific for USD 87.8 million this acquisition will help Shanghai Genext Medical Technology to enter into the clinical transplant business.

The high cost associated with biopreservation instruments and its maintenance, stability issues related to the specimen and lack of skilled personnel for handling the biopreservation process may hamper the growth of the market during the assessment period.

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Key Players for Global Biopreservation Market

Market Research Future (MRFR) recognizes the following companies as the key players in Biopreservation Market: There are plenty of large and small market players which operate in this market all over the globe.

Some of the key players in the global biopreservation market are Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc, VWR International, LLC., CUSTOM BIOGENIC SYSTEMS., BioLifeSolutions Inc., BioCision, Sigma-Aldrich Co., QIAGEN, Lifeline Scientific, Cesca Therapeutics Inc., Core Dynamics, Ltd., Princeton CryoTech, Biomatrica, Inc., Panasonic Biomedical, Inc., Chart Industries, and ATLANTA BIOLOGICALS

Segments for Global Biopreservation Market

The global biopreservation market has been segmented on the basis of product, biospecimen, and application.

On the basis of product, the market has been classified as media and equipment. The media subsegment has been further divided into nutrient media, sera, and growth factors and supplements. The equipment segment has been further divided into temperature control systems, accessories, alarms & monitoring systems, incubators, centrifuges, and other equipment. The temperature control systems segment has been further classified as freezers, cryogenic storage systems, thawing equipment, and refrigerators. The biospecimen segment has been divided into human tissue samples, organs, stem cells, and other biospecimens.

The market, by source, has been segmented into regenerative medicine, biobanking, and drug discovery. On basis of regenerative medicine, the market has been divided into cell therapy, gene therapy, and others. Biobanking segment includes human egg, human sperm, and veterinary IVF.

Regional Analysis for Global Biopreservation Market

The Americas are likely to dominate the global biopreservation market owing to the adoption of advanced technology, increasing spending on healthcare R&D, the presence of a well-established healthcare system, and increasing in-house sample storage in hospitals and research institutes. Moreover, presence and recent merger and acquisition activities by market players in the region are contributing to the growth of the market. For instance, in 2017, Cesca Therapeutics Inc. has acquired Sacramentos SynGen Inc. for USD 1 million with this acquisition company has managed to add cell separation and cord blood processing products in their portfolio.

The European market is expected to be the second-largest biopreservation market. The market growth in this region can be attributed to the increasing number of births and with-it continuous increase in demand for umbilical cord preservation. According to the European Commission, in the year 2016 more than 5.1 million babies were born in Europe. Moreover, a growing number of sperm and egg banks is contributing to the growth of the market in this region.

Asia-Pacific is expected to be the fastest-growing biopreservation market during the forecast period owing to the increasing population in the region, increasing awareness about stem cell preservation and continuous development in the healthcare sector due to government funding.

The market in the Middle East & Africa is expected to account for the smallest share of the global biopreservation market due to an underdeveloped healthcare sector, lack of technical knowledge, and poor medical facilities.

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Some Brief Table of Contents of Report

Chapter 1. Report Prologue

Chapter 2. Market Introduction

2.1 Definition

2.2 Scope Of The Study

2.2.1 Research Objective

2.2.2 Assumptions

2.2.3 Limitations

Chapter 3. Research Methodology

3.1 Introduction

3.2 Primary Research

3.3 Secondary Research

3.4 Market Size Estimation

Chapter 4. Market Dynamics

4.1 Drivers

4.2 Restrains

4.3 Opportunities

4.4 Challenges

4.5 Macroeconomic Indicators

4.6 Technology Trends & Assessment

Chapter 5. Market Factor Analysis

5.1 Porters Five Forces Analysis

5.1.1 Bargaining Power Of Suppliers

TOC Continued

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Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.comJoint opposition candidate Ibrahim Mohamed Solih won the presidential election in the Maldives on Sunday defeating President Abdulla Yameen. Solihs victory is the outcome of a regime-change operation backed by the US and India in the strategically-located Indian Ocean archipelago.

Over recent months, the US, India and the European Union have intensified their hypocritical criticism of Yameens anti-democratic methods of rule and his pro-Beijing tilt. Determined that Yameen be ousted, they overtly and covertly supported the opposition.

Yameen acknowledged his defeat in a televised address to the nation on Monday, declaring, [T]he Maldivian people have decided what they want. I have accepted the results.

Although the final result will be announced in a week, the Electoral Commission declared on Monday that Solih had a majority winning 58 percent of the vote with Yameen receiving 42 percent from a turnout of nearly 90 percent.

Solih became the opposition alliance candidate because the Electoral Commission ruled that former President Mohamed Nasheed was ineligible to contest the election. The opposition front included Nasheeds Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), the Jumhooree Party and the Adhaalath Party. Solih has been the MDPs parliamentary leader since 2011.

Nasheed, who was previously jailed by the Yameen government on terrorism charges, is currently in exile in Sri Lanka. Under pressure from the US and Britain, Yameen allowed Nasheed to travel to London in early 2016 for medical treatment. Nasheed immediately stepped up his campaign to oust Yameen.

Addressing reporters in Male, the Maldives capital, Solih said: The message is loud and clear. The people of Maldives want change, peace and justice. Nasheed congratulated Solih via twitter, declaring, You have done an extremely good service not only to the people of Maldives, but also to freedom loving people everywhere. Democracy is a historical inevitability.

While Yameen violated basic democratic rights in order to maintain his rule, all claims that his ousting and the installation of a pro-western president represent the dawn of democracy in the Maldives are far from truth.

The election was held under pressure from the US and the EU, who threatened to impose sanctions if Yameen won. It was a clear attempt to intimidate the population into voting for the opposition candidate.

US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert issued a statement early this month declaring that Washington was concerned about democratic backsliding in the Maldives. She warned that the US would consider taking appropriate measures against those individuals who undermine democracy, the rule of law, and a free and fair electoral process.

In July the European Union warned that sanctions, including travel bans and an asset freeze, would be imposed against those responsible for human rights violations and the undermining of the rule of law in the Maldives.

If Yameen had won the election, the US and the EU would have declared his victory unlawful and refused to recognise his government.

The US and India immediately welcomed Solihs win. The Indian External Affairs Ministry issued a statement complimenting Solih and declaring that it hoped the Election Commission will officially confirm the result at the earliest.

The Maldives Independent reported yesterday that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had phoned Solih to offer his congratulations. The newspaper reported that Modi expressed his wish to repair strained relations and pledged assistance to restore democracy and suggested that they meet soon. Solih immediately accepted the invitation.

US State Department spokesperson Nauert voiced her approval and said the election was calm and respected the will of the people.

The real concerns of the US and India had nothing to do with democracy, but involved the pro-Chinese orientation of the Yameen government which cut across their geo-strategic interests.

The Maldives, which has a population of just 400,000, is strategically located 400 km southwest of India and close to the worlds busiest shipping lanes from the Middle East and Africa to East Asia. The archipelago of a thousand small islands is spread across 35,000 square miles of the Indian Ocean and the focal point of intense rivalry between the US and India on one side and China on the other.

Reporting the election result, the New York Times, a leading mouthpiece for US imperialism, wrote on Sunday that the Maldives has been caught up in recent years in Beijings growing global ambitions, which the United States and its allies have struggled to contain.

In line with Washingtons propaganda against Beijing the newspaper declared China has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on infrastructure projects in the Maldives, which critics, including the political opposition, warn amount to debt-trap diplomacy. These claims have been denied by China and the Yameen government.

Responding to the escalating Western pressure on the Yameen government, the Maldives Supreme Court in February ordered the immediate release of jailed opposition MPs, including Nasheed and eight other political leaders. If this verdict had been carried out, Yameen would have lost his parliamentary majority and could have been impeached by the opposition.

Yameen responded autocratically, imposing a state of emergency, and arrested two Supreme Court judges, including the pro-Indian Chief Justice Abdulla Saeed. Saeed and the other judge were later sentenced to one year and seven-month prison terms, along with former Maldives President Maumoon Abdul Gayooma staunch Indian supporterfor plotting to overthrow the government. Under pressure, the remaining judges invalidated the previous Supreme Court order.

Indian media reports at the time revealed that New Delhi was actively considering directly intervening in the Maldives and that its military had been readied to deploy at short notice. Nasheed openly called on India to invade the Maldives.

India has always considered the Maldives, as well as other South Asian countries, such as Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh, as part of its sphere of influence and is hostile to Beijings influence in the region.

China, which consistently supported the Yameen government, began building infrastructure in the Maldives including ports and roads, and providing loans and investments as part of its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to expand its influence across Asia, Africa and Europe and, in particular, protect vital energy imports.

Beijing, however, confronts Washingtons increasingly aggressive attempts to halt its rise and subordinate it to the US. Control of the Indian Ocean sea lanes, and thus Chinas access to energy and raw materials in the Middle East and Africa, is vital to the US strategy.

Yameens election defeat, which will be used by the US and India to boost their political and strategic influence in the Maldives, foreshadows increasing geopolitical manoeuvres and tensions in the region.Officials of the Michigan Infrastructure and Transportation Association (MITA) representing construction contractors say they are prepared to bring in strikebreakers starting Friday to restart road construction projects halted by an employer lockout of heavy equipment operators.

The MITA locked out some 2,000 workers, members of Operating Engineers Local 324, on September 4 over a dispute on a new contract. The lockout halted work on more than 100 road projects throughout the state. The previous contract expired in June, but Local 324 ordered its members to continue working, despite mounting provocations by the contractors.

The strikebreaking threat follows declarations by Michigan Republican Governor Rick Snyder that he was prepared to use National Guard troops to replace locked out operating engineers to restart work on key road projects. The intervention of Snyder emboldened the MITA, which said it is now looking to hire heavy equipment operators, including workers from out of state.

The locked out workers operate equipment critical for most road operations like earth-movers, front-end loaders, bucket loaders on tracks, cranes and other equipment. They often work 12 hours a day, seven days a week during road building season.

At a press conference Tuesday, Snyder said he had met with union and MITA officers and that neither a short-term or long-term solution could be reached. In comments that dripped with hypocrisy about protecting the citizens of Michigan, he piously asserted that he was not taking sides in the dispute. Instead, he said, he was looking at other options to get road work started before winter conditions made road work impossible.

After lamenting that his administration did not have the legal authority to declare a state of emergency and impose a back-to-work order on the operating engineers, Snyder said he was ready to deploy the National Guard to restart selective highway projects.

We have engineering units in the National Guard that operate heavy equipment and they have been deployed around the world for roadway construction, the governor said. Our goal is not to take over Operating Engineers union or take over all the projects. I have to look were there projects with particular safety and commuter traffic problems. I believe I have the authority to do that.

A spokesman for the National Guard said they are ready to intervene. "It's a mission, and we're going to do all we can do if asked to support the governor and the citizens in the state of Michigan, said Major General Greg Vadnais.

For all the declamations about concern for citizens, it is well recalled that this administration oversaw the devastating water crisis in Flint, that resulted in the lead poisoning of 100,000 residents, including vulnerable children. Leading figures in his administration are facing criminal indictment for abetting this social disaster.

As far as the roads are concerned, the Snyder administration and both parties in the state legislature have handed over huge tax cuts to big corporations while systematically starving the states infrastructure on necessary resources of maintenance and repair. This has led to disastrous road conditions and chronic tire and car damage for commuters.

Several hours after Snyders press conference, Mike Nystrom, vice president of the MITA said, contractors were looking for temporary workers out of state to replace the locked out workers. We're helping contractors find folks from out of state, some unionized and some not, he added. He conceded, however, that finding qualified replacements might be difficult.

A retired heavy equipment operator told the World Socialist Web Site it would be hard to replace locked out workers. Its not an easy profession. People that operate large heavy equipment, it takes a lot of skill and experience. You are running very hard equipment in difficult conditions.

That being said, workers should be under no illusions about the ruthlessness of the employers and the Democratic and Republican political establishment. No resources will be spared to crush the operating engineers. Under conditions of mounting class struggle, the ruling class would like nothing better than to make an example of Michigan heavy equipment operators in order to enforce ever greater levels of austerity on the working class.

For its part, the Operating Engineers union has said it wont negotiate with the MITA, citing its provocative actions, including the withholding of benefit payments, jeopardizing the healthcare and pensions of workers. It has sought instead to negotiate separate deals with individual employers.

Local 324 has desperately sought to avoid a confrontation with the contractors. Last week it agreed to a cooling off period that would have sent workers back on the job without under a contract extension while the Snyder administration mediated talks with the contracts. The mediator that Snyder proposed was one of those that oversaw the Detroit bankruptcy, when the unions signed off on a settlement that looted retiree pensions and public assets.

In a press conference after this early meeting with officials from the governors office, Local 324 said the MITA and the Snyder administration reneged on the agreement. For its part the Snyder administration called the unions statement patently untrue, reiterating its determination to restart road construction work, with the assistance of the National Guard if necessary.

In the face of the mounting attacks on the operating engineers the unions have done everything to isolate these embattled workers and prevent a broader mobilization. Local 324 has not issued a call for support from other construction unions, let alone from the broader working class.

All workers must come to the support of the heavy equipment operators against any attempt to restart operations through the use of strikebreakers or National Guard troops. If the attack on the operating engineers is carried through it will be used a precedent to attack broader sections of workers coming into struggle, autoworkers, teachers, hotel workers and Amazon workers.

It should be remembered that the attack mounted on the PATCO air traffic controllers by President Reagan in 1981, using US military personnel, set the pattern for an unrelenting drive by corporate America against the working class to rip back past gains, which has continued to this day. The watchword must be an injury to one is an injury to all.

Workers cannot look to the corporatist unions to lead this fight. Workers should mobilize now to oppose the strikebreaking operation of the MITA and the Snyder administration by forming rank-and-file committees, independent of the unions, to mobilize support for their struggle. The call must be raised for the preparation of a general strike to oppose the state sanctioned strikebreaking operation against road workers.Questo comunicato e stato pubblicato piu di 1 anno fa. Le informazioni su questa pagina potrebbero non essere attendibili.

Diabetic Lancing Device Market Key Companies Analyzed In Report Are:

B. Braun Melsungen AG, Terumo Corporation, Becton Dickinson, Sanofi, F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, Bayer AG, Novo Nordisk A S, Eli Lilly and Company, Owen Mumford Ltd, Medtronic, Ypsomed Holding AG, Sarstedt AG & Co, Greiner Bio One, Abbott Laboratories, HTL-STREFA S.A, Improve Medical, UltiMed, Inc., Allison Medical, Inc., Artsana S.p.a., VOGT MEDICAL, Perrigo Diabetes Care, MedExel Co., Ltd, ARKRAY Inc., Simple Diagnostics, Stat Medical, Terumo, Trividia Health, and others.

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Market Drivers and Restraints:

Diabetes is a global epidemic affecting an estimated 382 million people worldwide. The WHO projects that diabetes will be the 7th leading cause of death by 2030. An estimated 4 million people die annually from the complications associated with diabetes. Therefore, if the current trend associated with the prevalence of diabetes continues over the coming years, the number of diabetic patients across the globe would be tremendous after a decade. Increasing prevalence of diabetes will result in the rising demand for devices and products to monitor and control diabetes, eventually leading to increased consumption of lancets. Thus, the demand for lancets is expected to be enormous in the coming future.

Lancets are one of the widely used alternative device to obtain the blood samples. These devices are receiving global recognition and acceptance due to its several convenient characteristics which gives them an edge over the traditional methods for vein puncture. Some of the important features of the safety lancets are painless vein puncture, easy handling, and safety while using. The major applications of the lancets are HIV screening test, capillary blood micro sampling and cholesterol test, blood group test, coagulation tests, haemoglobin, allergy tests, and many other blood based tests. According to the International Diabetes Federation (IDF), approximately 29.2 million people in the US are estimated suffer from diabetes in 2015. Japan had approximately 7.2 million. in 2015.

Rising prevalence of diabetic population, increasing awareness for blood glucose monitoring device and increased awareness of safety measures in order to avoid the infectious diseases are some of the significant factors of the increased awareness and use of lancets. However, the price erosion is a major issue that is negatively impacting the diabetes management devices. Moreover, significant changes in reimbursement policies in the US for blood glucose monitors, particularly the ongoing impact to the private insurance sector are some of the factors restraining the growth of diabetic lancing device market.

Market Segmentation:

The global diabetic lancing devices market is segmented on the basis of type, gauge, penetration depth, and end user.

On the basis of type, the market for diabetic lancing devices it is segmented into safety lancets and standard lancets. The safety lancets are further categorized into push-button safety lancets, pressure activated safety lancets, and side button safety lancets. The pen needles is further categorized into standard pen needles and safety pen needles.

On the basis of gauge, the market for diabetic lancing devices it is segmented into 17/18g, 21g, 23g, 25g, 28g, 30g, and others.

On the basis of penetration depth, the market for diabetic lancing devices it is segmented into 0.8 mm to 1.0 mm, 1.1 mm to 1.5 mm, 1.6 mm to 2.0 mm, 2.1 mm to 2.5 mm, 2.5 mm to 3.0 mm, and others.

On the basis of the end users, it is segmented into hospitals & clinics, diagnostic centers & medical institutions, home care & home diagnostics, research & academic laboratories, and others.

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Detailed Regional Analysis:

The global diabetic lancing device market consists of countries namely America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and the Middle East and Africa.

Europe is projected to hold the largest share of the global diabetic lancing device market attributed to change in lifestyle, increase in R&D activities for the development of new drugs. According to the International Diabetes Federation (IDF), in 2015 approximately 59.8 million people had diabetes in Europe. HTL Strefa and Sarstedt are two European companies which have marked their presence on the global level as a major manufacturer of lancets and safety lancets in the world.

The Americas holds a key share in diabetic lancing device treatment market. Moreover, North America dominated the overall market in terms of revenue in 2016. In the U.S., ongoing uncertainty as to the future of the Affordable Care Act and the Trump Administrations repeal and replace initiative may further impact the market.

Asia Pacific is estimated to be the fastest region to grow at a high CAGR during the forecast period, led by an increase in government spending on healthcare services in India and China. A large number of lancet manufacturers are from developing Asian countries such as China, India, Japan and Republic of Korea mainly because of the low labour cost and low R&D cost. China being one of the highly populated and technologically advanced developing countries, has a major number of lancets manufacturers. Some of the renowned Chinese Safety Lancet manufacturers are Guangzhou Improve Medical Instruments Co, Huang and KDL China.

The Middle East & Africa is projected to expand during the forecast period, owing to the rise in investments by market players and increase in prevalence of diabetic lancing devices.

Table of Content

Report Prologue Market Introduction

2.1 Definition

2.2 Scope Of The Study

2.2.1 Research Objective

2.2.2 Assumptions

2.2.3 Limitations

Research Methodology

3.1 Introduction

3.2 Primary Research

3.3 Secondary Research

3.4 Market Size Estimation

Market Dynamics

4.1 Drivers

4.2 Restrains

4.3 Opportunities

4.4 Challenges

4.5 Macroeconomic Indicators

4.6 Technology Trends & Assessment

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Pune - 411028

Maharashtra, India

Phone: +1 646 845 9312

Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.comCHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP)  State officials frustrated by a judges decision to prohibit grizzly bear hunting in the Yellowstone region and put the animals back on the threatened species list will likely appeal but thats not their only option to contest the decision.

They could lean on Congress to exempt the bears from the Endangered Species Act or take a totally new approach by ceasing to coo...Xbox Cloud Gaming is Now Being Tested on Consoles for Xbox InsidersA married Florida father is accused of killing his mistress who was eight months pregnant with a child authorities say he fathered, PEOPLE confirms.

Jose Soto-Escalera, 41, is charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the death of Tania Wise, 23, whose body was found in a ditch in a rural area on Aug. 24, St. Lucie County Sheriffs Office spokesman Bryan Beaty confirms to PEOPLE.

According to Beaty, Wise suffered blunt force trauma to the back of her head as well as trauma to her throat, though authorities have not yet released her cause of death.

An arrest affidavit obtained by PEOPLE states that a witness told police that Soto-Escalera had given Wise $500 for an abortion and was angry that Wise didnt get one.

According to the affidavit, Soto-Escalera denied to police he was in a sexual relationship with Wise and said he was at another persons home fixing a car battery on the night she was killed.

Soto-Escalera was arrested on Sept. 21. A statement from the sheriffs office states that digital forensic evidence connected the suspect to the crime and that an eyewitness confirmed seeing his truck near the crime scene.

Authorities believe Soto-Escaleras wife did not know about his relationship with Wise, the affidavit states.

Jose Soto-Escalera

Authorities are working to identify a motive, says Beaty. Sheriff Ken Mascara told Treasure Coast Newspapers, We know that he was the father of the baby, we know that she had some other individuals in her life, men in her life. We dont know if jealousy was a motive, we dont know if there was other motives involved.

Mascara told the paper that Wise was scheduled to have a cesarean section the week after her body was found. He said Soto-Escalera did not seem remorseful to police when he was arrested.

You have the mother of his child, and the child himself that he is responsible for and showed no remorse, Mascara said.

 Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter.

Story continues

Wise was pregnant with what would have been her second child, her mother told Treasure Coast Newspapers, describing her as a loving, caring mom.

Wises friend, Cassie Adams, described her to the outlet as a loyal friend who was always happy and positive.

She was always there for me when I needed her, said Adams. Without a doubt, I could call her and shed come.

Soto-Escalera is being held without bail in St. Lucie County Jail, jail records show. He has not yet entered a plea, Beaty says.

PEOPLEs call to his attorney, Leonard Villafranco, was not immediately returned.Stephen Colbert relished the moment the leaders of the world united to openly laugh at President Trump on Tuesdays Late Show. Colbert first noted that Trump showed up late to the UN assembly; the president was scheduled to speak second, but Ecuadors president went to the podium in place of the tardy Commander-in-Chief.

Once we actually made it to the U.N., he jumped right into his favorite talking: Himself, Colbert said before a clip of Trumps laugh-inducing boast, In less than two years my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country  Dont worry Mr. President, theyre not laughing at you  theyre laughing with each other at you.

Colbert later tackled some of the more divisive moments of Trumps speech. After explaining to the countries of the world that America would leave them alone, he started picking on them, Colbert said. Hes working the room like an insult comic.

Also at the assembly, Trump stated to the UN that we reject the ideology of globalism and we embrace the doctrine of patriotism  So Trump appeared before the United Nations to reject the premise of nations uniting, Colbert said.

Even Jimmy Fallon teased Trump over his tardiness and laughingstock moment on the Tonight Show. Trump spoke at the UN and halfway through his speech every foreign leader there was begging to be deported After Trump started his speech by bragging about how well hes done as president, the crowd started laughing at him, Fallon said.

Trump hasnt heard that much laughter since his night with Stormy Daniels.ABC News

The Justice Department has charged former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon with two counts of criminal contempt of Congress over his defiance of a subpoena from the select committee investigating the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol. The indictment sets off what will likely be a contentious legal battle with significant ramifications for the Jan. 6 committee as it seeks to compel other witnesses to testify about the events leading up to the attempted insurrection, including any communications they may have had with former President Donald Trump. The case also presents an extraordinary test for the Justice Department under Attorney General Merrick Garland, who has made restoring DOJ's independence from politicization one of the top priorities of his tenure.'They do not want me or us to win': Trump slams China for trying to meddle in upcoming midterms originally appeared on abcnews.go.com

President Donald Trump on Wednesday opened his United Nations Security Council speech by taking a shot at China, claiming, without providing evidence, that it's trying to meddle in the upcoming midterm elections.

"Regrettably we found that China has been attempting to interfere in our upcoming 2018 election, coming up in November," Trump said. "They do not want me or us to win because I am the first president ever to challenge China on trade and we are winning on trade. We are winning on every level. We don't want them to meddle or interfere in our upcoming elections."

When asked for evidence, Trump told reporters while leaving the U.N.: "Plenty of evidence."

He later tweeted photos of a six-page ad in the Des Moines Register newspaper that was bought by the Chinese government-run media outlet China Watch. The ad, which looks like a mini newspaper, touts Chinese business and leadership and criticizes Trump's tariffs on Chinese goods.

A senior administration official said it was just one way China is trying to assert influence globally. Vice President Mike Pence will deliver an address on the scope of China's efforts later this month, the official added.

The Chinese foreign minister denied Trump's claim, firing back during the Security Council session and calling the charge "nonsense."

"We do not and will not interfere in any country's domestic affairs," he said, according to the U.N. interpreter. "We refuse to accept any unwarranted accusations against China and we call upon other countries to also observe the purposes of the U.N. charter and not to interfere in other countries' internal affairs."

Trump's comment on election interference was somewhat surprising given that the Security Council meeting, which was called by the U.S. delegation, was supposed to focus on nuclear proliferation.

Story continues

Trump, in his speech, then pivoted to the threats posed by nuclear and chemical weapons. He touted his administration's "bold action" on the issue, saying officials are confronting these "sinister threats."

PHOTO: Britain's Prime Minister Teresa May, left, and Belgium's Prime Minister Charles Michel, center, greet France's President Emmanuel Macron, right, at the start of the United Nations Security Council meeting in New York, Sept. 26, 2018. (Carlos Barria/Reuters)

The world has "rightly focused on the dangers of nuclear weapons," he said, urging foreign leaders to "never forget the threats posed by biological and weapons."

He specifically mentioned Russia and Iran as being connected to the continuing violence in Syria before reiterating the need for U.S. sanctions on Iran.

(MORE: Trump 'didn't expect' to get laughed at while speaking at the UN)

"The Syrian regime's butchery is enabled by Russia and Iran," Trump said. "The Iranian regime exports violence, terror and turmoil. It illicitly procures sensitive items to advance its ballistic missile program and proliferates these missiles all across the Middle East. The regime is the world's leading sponsor of terror and and fuels conflict across the region and far beyond. A regime with this track record must never be allowed to possess a nuclear weapon."

"For this reason I announced earlier this year that the United States would withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal. This horrible, one-sided deal allowed Iran to continue its path towards a bomb and gave the regime a cash lifeline when they needed it the most. They were in big, big trouble. They needed cash," he said.

PHOTO: President Donald Trump speaks during the General Debate of the 73rd session of the General Assembly at the United Nations in New York, Sept. 25, 2018. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images)

Trump made his displeasure with Iran known in his Tuesday speech to the General Assembly as well, calling on "all nations to isolate Irans regime as long as its aggression continues" as part of a "maximum pressure" campaign meant to ultimately drive Iran back to the negotiating table to get a new, more comprehensive deal.

Between threats to come after you and invitations to sit down with no preconditions, the administrations Iran policy has been driving divisions with and confusion among European allies still rankled by Trumps decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton served as the administrations attack dogs on the issue. While Iran met with the remaining parties of the JCPOA at U.N. headquarters Monday, both men spoke Tuesday off-campus at not a U.N.-sponsored event, but a summit organized by the political group United Against a Nuclear Iran.

Pompeo said he was disturbed and indeed deeply disappointed by the announcement, calling it one of the most counterproductive measures imaginable and accusing Europe of enabling Irans violent export of revolution -- a strong accusation against allies.

Bolton seemed less concerned by it, saying the European Union was strong on rhetoric and weak on follow-through. ... We will be watching the development of this structure that doesnt exist yet and has no target date to be created, he added dryly, before asserting to cheers: We do not intend to allow our sanctions to be evaded by Europe or anybody else.

In fact, enforcement of all U.S. sanctions will be aggressive and unwavering, Bolton said, and he announced the administration would pursue more sanctions on Iran after the second round of nuclear sanctions that were suspended under the nuclear deal are implemented in early November.Yahoo Life Videos

When Suni Lee, 18, delivered several breathtaking performances at the gymnastics individual all-around final at the Tokyo Olympics in July, it didnt take long for the world to fall in love with her. The first Hmong American to ever participate in an Olympic Games, her gold medal-winning attitude was contagious and continues to inspire a generation of young girls. Still, even a gold medalist isn't immune to the gross realities of anti-Asian hate crimes, most of which have been fueled by COVID-19 misinformation.Photo credit: Dirk Heinrich/AP/REX/Shutterstock - Shutterstock

From Town & Country

Prince William is traveling through Namibia this week on a private working trip centered around wildlife conservation, and by the sound of it, his wife Duchess Kate is "immensely jealous" of his visit.

"I am delighted to be visiting Namibia for the first time. I am only sorry my wife Catherine is not able to join me," Prince William said in a speech at a British High Commissioners reception in Windhoek today. "She is immensely jealous, particularly as I am looking forward to a few good, uninterrupted nights of sleep this week away from my wonderful children," he continued.

Did we mention William is also prince of Dad jokes?

My visit to Namibia this week is focused on conservation. This is an issue very close to my heart, and I know is a matter of deep pride to you all as well. - The Duke of Cambridge, at a British High Commissioners reception in Windhoek  pic.twitter.com/hEFQQxtsAk - Kensington Palace (@KensingtonRoyal) September 25, 2018

Duchess Kate is currently nearing the end of her maternity leave, and home with her three royal babies: Prince George, who recently turned 5, Princess Charlotte, who is 3, and little Prince Louis, who is just 5 months old. Hopefully, grandparents Michael and Carole Middleton and Nanny Maria are helping her out while William is away.



William's trip to Namibia this week marks the first official royal visit to the country since the Queen visited in 1991, and while he is officially traveling as the patron of Tusk and United for Wildlife, two conservation groups, the Duke is also taking on a number of engagements during his trip at the request of Her Majesty's Government.

For instance, yesterday, he met with the country's Vice President Nangolo Mbumba about anti-poaching efforts, and also held meetings with the country's Deputy Minister of Environment and Tourism, Bernadette Jagger, and the Minister for Environment and Tourism, Pohamba Shifeta.

Story continues

On Thursday, the Duke of Cambridge will meet with the President of the United Republic of Tanzania, H.E President Magufuli in Dar es Salaam, where they will discuss the issue of illegal wildlife trade. And later in the week, William will visit 1st Battalion the Irish Guards Battlegroup who are training in Kenya, before returning to the U.K. and his three adoring children.

('You Might Also Like',)French finance minister Bruno Le Maire at Downing Street earlier this year (Getty)

Frances finance minister has said the EU forcefully oppose Theresa Mays Brexit plans because they threaten the blocs very existence.

Bruno Le Maire said accepting the prime ministers Chequers plan, which would allow the UK to benefit from the single market for goods without accepting free movement of people, would have been suicidal.

If we give the idea that we can exit the European Union and keep all of the benefits of the single market then it is the end of Europe, he told a group of journalists on Tuesday.

His comments come days after a major row over the Chequers plan at a summit of EU leaders in Salzburg.

The blunt way the prime ministers proposals were rejected prompted her to make an unplanned TV broadcast in which she demanded the UK be showed respect in talks.

MORE: EU blames uncompromising May for Brexit tension

Emmanuel Macrons French government is said to be the main proponents of the EUs uncompromising stance.

Explaining their position, Le Maire said: The British made their choice, thats fine. Excuse me to say so brutally, but there are more important things for us than the future of the United Kingdom  its the future of the European Union.

And he added: Any decision that gives European citizens the impression that you can leave the European Union and keep all the advantages would be suicidal.

Senior MEP Danuta Hubner, a member of the European parliaments Brexit steering group, said on Wednesday that Mays refusal to drop Chequers could lead to a no-deal scenario.

Danuta Hubner, a centre-right MEP who sits on the European parliaments Brexit steering group (European Parliament)

It is frustrating to us that the UK has left the same unworkable arguments on the table for so long without changing them at all, she wrote in an article for the Scottish Centre on European Relations.

The risk is growing that the only option to avoid a no-deal scenario will be to have a rather hollow political declaration on the future EU-UK relationship, which will accompany the withdrawal agreement.

This outcome would not be good for either side, since that might not be acceptable to the UK parliament when it comes to its meaningful vote, or indeed to the European parliament when it must accept or reject the withdrawal agreement.

Story continues

EU ambassadors are meeting in Brussels on Wednesday evening to prepare for this outcome.

They will discuss how they can make mini-deals with the UK to prevent aircraft being grounded and keep goods flowing in the event of no-deal, according to the Times.

MORE: Conservative MEP under fire for displaying ignore the Irish poster amid Brexit tension

EU chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier will meet with Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in Brussels on Thursday.

But Hubner said he needs to spend more time in face-to-face talks with Brexit secretary Dominic Raab in order to reach a deal.

We have heard that the commissions most recent conversation with UK Brexit secretary Dominic Raab was by phone instead of in person, she said.

Let us hope this is not a new trend for the remaining phase of the withdrawal negotiations 

It has become clear that the remaining issues cannot be resolved by civil servants and officials  political engagement from the UK is needed.

MORE: EU slams divisive Brexit coverage of UK newspapers



Kinshasa (AFP) - Four pro-democracy activists in DR Congo have been sentenced to 12 months behind bars for insulting the president and another seven are being held in secret detention, their lawyers told AFP on Wednesday.

The four were arrested in late December as they were going from house to house, urging people to join a march organised by the Catholic church to demand President Joseph Kabila step down.

"The magistrates court on Tuesday sentenced four activists from the Filimbi movement to 12 months' jail for insulting the head of state," their lawyer Jacquemain Shabani told AFP.

The four -- Carbone Beni, Mino Bopomi, Grace Thiunza and Cedric Kalonji -- are members of Filimbi, a grassroots pro-democracy citizen movement involved in the effort to mobilise support for a nationwide rally last New Year's Eve.

A fifth activist arrested with them, Palmer Kabeya, was acquitted, Shabani said.

The prosecution had demanded a three-year jail term for insulting the head of state, publishing subversive literature and incitement of civil disobedience.

Although the demonstration went ahead, police unleashed a crackdown which left six dead and stoked international condemnation.

Meanwhile, seven activists from a pro-democracy movement called Congolese Stand Up! remain in secret detention, their lawyer Herve Diakese told reporters on Wednesday.

"They were arrested on September 12 as they were raising public awareness about voting machines," he said, referring to a controversial touchscreen system planned for the December 23 elections.

The five Filimbi activists were also held without charge by the National Intelligence Agency (ANR) until June before they were brought before a prosecutor, their lawyer said.

Until then, they had had no access to legal assistance nor their families, he said.

Kabila, 47, has ruled the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo for 17 years and should have stepped down at the end of 2016 when he reached a two-term limit.

Story continues

But he stayed on thanks to a constitutional clause enabling the president to remain in office until an election is held, sparking protests that were bloodily repressed.

Unable to run for re-election in December, Kabila has backed Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary as his successor, a hardliner who previously served as interior minister.

On Tuesday, Kabila pledged in a speech to the UN that the ballot would go ahead as planned and "everything will be done in order to ensure that these elections are peaceful and credible."

The Democratic Republic of Congo has not known a bloodless transition of power since independence from Belgium in 1960.Photo credit: Fred Troilo

From Popular Mechanics

The U.S. Air Force finally has a deal for new helicopters that will patrol and protect Americas land-based nuclear weapons. In a surprise, U.S. defense giant Boeing and European defense contractor Leonardo landed the deal to build and deliver up to 84 MH-139 helicopters.

Last month we reported on the competition to replace the Air Forces aging fleet of UH-1N Huey helicopters that currently do the job. Air Force security troops use the helicopters to move quick-reaction forces that respond to security threats against the 400 U.S. nuclear missile silos spread across the American West. The Huey helicopters also do VIP transport and supply duty.

The basic UH-1 design predates the Vietnam War, although the helicopters in service now arent that old, theyre increasingly difficult to maintain and not the sort of aircraft you'd want to respond to a nuclear emergency.

Photo credit: U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Jonathan McElderry

When the Air Force opened a competition for a Huey replacement, Sikorsky offered the HH-60U helicopter, already in use by the U.S. Air Force as a search-and-rescue chopper. Sierra Nevada offered to rebuild old U.S. Army UH-60A Blackhawks to a modern standard.

Boeing, on the other hand, teamed up with European defense contractor Leonardo to offer a modified version of the AugustaWestland AW139 . Their creation, the MH-139, is the largest medium-lift helicopter in its class, with a crew of one or two and room for up to 15 passengers in the rear. In military service this will translate to nine heavily armed passengers. Concept art released by Boeing depicts the MH139 with door-mounted M240 machine guns.

The Air Force will release $275 million right away for the first four helicopters, due in 2021. The overall contract is worth $2.38 billion and includes up to 84 helicopters, plus training devices and associated equipment.

Defense News reports that the Air Force originally anticipated the cost of new helicopters would add up to $4.1 billion and is touting $1.7 billion savings in savings as a result of strong competition. The inclusion of a European brand in an American defense deal came as a surprise to many. However, in a press release Boeing says Leonardo will assemble the MH139s at its Philadelphia plant with Boeing-made military components.

Story continues

This is the Air Forces third attempt to purchase helicopters to replace the Hueys. In August, U.S. Strategic Command commander General John Hyten said "we are going to get a new helicopter if I have to die trying or if I have to kill somebody to do it.

Read more at Defense News .

('You Might Also Like',)American Outdoor Brands, formerly Smith & Wesson, approved a resolution to require the company to report on gun safety

Smith & Wesson revolvers are on display at the 144th National Rifle Association (NRA) meeting and exhibits in Nashville, Tennessee. on April 2015. Photograph: Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images

A group of American nuns has won a second victory in their battle to force gun manufacturers to do more to prevent gun violence, convincing shareholders of American Outdoor Brands  formerly known as Smith & Wesson  to require the company to report on what its doing to advance gun safety.

Shareholders of the gun company formerly known as Smith & Wesson voted on Tuesday to approve a shareholder resolution introduced by a coalition of nuns that will require the company to report on what its doing to monitor how its guns are used in violence, as well as what its doing to make its products safer.

Shareholders of Sturm Ruger, another major gun manufacturer, approved a similar resolution by an overwhelming 69% majority in May, just three months after the Parkland, Florida, school shooting that left 17 people dead.

On Monday, Sister Judy Byron, who introduced the resolution during Tuesdays virtual shareholder meeting, said she was not sure if the political will to hold gun companies accountable had dissipated in the seven months since the Parkland shooting.

The approval of the resolution suggests that concern over gun violence  and shareholders worries about what long-term impact Americas escalating mass shooting problem might have on gun companies  is holding strong.

Both American Outdoor Brands and Sturm Ruger have bristled at the shareholder activism from religious groups, even though the resolution American Outdoor Brands shareholders approved simply requested that the companies report to shareholders about what the company is doing to advance gun safety measures and the mitigation of harm associated with gun products, as well as what reputational and financial risks the company faces as a result of gun violence.

Responding to the voting results at Tuesdays shareholder meeting, American Outdoor Brands CEO James Debney said the resolution was politically motivated and that he was disappointed that shareholders were focusing on the firearms company, rather than focusing their activism on laws, CNBC reported.

Story continues

The resolution noted that the Parkland shooter, like several perpetrators of mass shootings before him, had used a Smith & Wesson AR-15-style rifle.

The proposal requires Ruger to prepare a report. Thats it. A report, Sturm Rugers CEO Chris Killoy said in May, according to National Public Radio. What the proposal does not, and cannot, do is to force us to change our business.

In March, BlackRock, a major investor in both Smith & Wesson and Sturm Ruger, pressed both companies to answer a similar set of questions to the ones religious organizations had posed, including how they were investing in gun safety, and how Americas gun violence crisis might affect their business. A spokesman for BlackRock, which manages more than $6tn in assets, said he could not immediately comment on how the company had voted on Tuesdays resolution.

The Smith & Wesson resolution was backed by 11 religious organizations, led by the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, who are represented by Byron, who is also the director of the Northwest Coalition for Responsible Investment.

The Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, which announced that the measure backed by the religious groups had passed, did not have immediate information on what percentage of shareholders voted to approve it. A spokeswoman for American Outdoor Brands did not respond to a request for comment.

In advance of the vote, Byron told the Guardian that the religious activists were not trying to stop the production of guns, but simply trying to use shareholder power to press companies to do more to make guns safer.

We are not asking that they stop manufacturing guns. We realize that we are going to have guns in our society, Byron said.

Gun companies, she said, should be willing to monitor their distribution chains to see how guns get into the wrong hands, and wed like them to be involved in lobbying more for universal background checks and federal funding for gun safety research, and to also let us know what theyre researching in terms of safer weapons.

We need everyones involvement: legislators, citizens, police, but we also also need the gun manufacturers to be involved in ending gun violence, she added.Anita Hill is sworn in before testifying at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Clarence Thomas in 1991. (Photo: Bettmann via Getty Images)

Anita Hill believes that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaughs upcoming hearing on the sexual assault allegations against him simply cannot be fair.

It cannot be fair and thorough, Hill said during an interview with NPRs All Things Considered published Tuesday.

It cannot provide, not only the senators with enough information to make a reasonable conclusion, but it cannot provide the public with the information that it will need to understand the significance of these charges, she continued.

The attorney and professor is in the unique position of knowing exactly what Christine Blasey Ford, known professionally as Christine Blasey, is going through. Blasey publicly accused Kavanaugh earlier this month of sexually assaulting her at a high school party in 1982. The Palo Alto University professor is set to testify in one last hearing on Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Committee votes Friday on whether to send Kavanaughs confirmation to the full Senate.

Twenty-seven years ago, in 1991, Hill testified to the Judiciary Committee that then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas had sexually harassed her when the two worked together. Similar to Blasey, Hill was harassed and defamed for coming forward.

To do it better, we have to have a fair process, Hill said. And a fair process starts with and becomes framed by a real investigation.

She added that there is an inherent power imbalance when testifying against a Supreme Court nominee.

In a real hearing and a real investigation, other witnesses would be called, including witnesses who could corroborate, witnesses who could explain the context of the experiences of Dr. Blasey Ford and Judge Kavanaugh during that period in their lives, as well as experts on sexual harassment and sexual assault, she said.

In an op-ed for The New York Times published last week, Hill urged the Senate Judiciary Committee to avoid making the same mistakes it did nearly three decades ago.

In 1991, the phrase they just dont get it became a popular way of describing senators reaction to sexual violence, she wrote. With years of hindsight, mounds of evidence of the prevalence and harm that sexual violence causes individuals and our institutions, as well as a Senate with more women than ever, not getting it isnt an option for our elected representatives. In 2018, our senators must get it right.

Story continues

Related Coverage

Joe Biden Says Hes So Sorry For What Anita Hill Went Through

How Little Has Changed Since Anita Hill Spoke Out Against Clarence Thomas

Anita Hill Urges Senate To Avoid 'Sham Proceeding' Against Christine Blasey Ford

Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.President Donald Trump accused China of meddling in the 2018 elections in order to hurt him Wednesday.

Speaking at a meeting of the United Nations Security Council, Trump claimed, without offering evidence, that China was attempting to interfere with the upcoming midterm congressional elections.

Regrettably, we found that China has been attempting to interfere in our upcoming 2018 election, coming up in November, against my Administration, he said.

They do not want me, or us, to win, because I am the first president ever to challenge China on trade, and we are winning on trade. We are winning at every level. We dont want them to meddle or interfere in our upcoming election.

Over the summer, Republicans in Congress introduced legislation that would require an unclassified report on Chinese political influence operations in the United States, driven in part by heightened concern over Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

In August, National Security Advisor John Bolton argued that China, Iran, North Korea and Russia may be seeking to meddle in the 2018 elections, arguing that they are a national security concern. Trump echoed those comments on Twitter.

All of the fools that are so focused on looking only at Russia should start also looking in another direction, China. But in the end, if we are smart, tough and well prepared, we will get along with everyone!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 18, 2018

In recent months, China has responded to the Trump Administrations stricter moves on trade with tariffs that target some key Trump voters, such as soybean farmers in the Midwest.

Speaking with reporters Wednesday afternoon, a senior Administration official cited the targeted tariffs, bureaucratic moves that make it harder for journalists to report in China and attempts to limit the academic freedom of Chinese students studying on American campuses, among other things, as part of this electoral interference.

Story continues

Wang Yi, Chinas foreign minister, later addressed council on what he called the unwarranted accusations against China by saying that Beijing has a policy of non-interference in other countries domestic affairs.

During discussions of Russian meddling, Trump has long argued that other countries might have also meddled, including China, or that Russia might not have interfered at all.

I dont think anybody knows it was Russia that broke into the DNC, he said during the first presidential debate with Hillary Clinton in 2016. Shes saying Russia, Russia, Russia, but I dont  maybe it was. I mean, it could be Russia, but it could also be China. It could also be lots of other people. It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, OK?

 With W.J. Hennigan/WashingtonSea ice in the Arctic has just about melted to its lowest point of 2018, and this reinforces a trend of dwindling ice atop the globe  where the climate is warming two to three times faster than the rest of the planet.

As of last week, it's the sixth-lowest ice extent  known as the sea ice minimum  in nearly 40 years of satellite records, and with the summer's end it's likely to keep that ranking. This statistic alone might not carry the bite of 2012's extreme Arctic melt, in which the ice thawed to its lowest point ever recorded. Yet, a closer examination of what's transpired in the great north this year reveals the Arctic's ever-accelerating disappearance.

"I dont want the story to be 'This was a ho-hum year'," Jeremy Mathis, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientist who has led the agency's Arctic Research Program, said in an interview. "Even though the ice didnt break an all-time record, it was still well below the historical average."

2018 sea ice extent is well below the average.

Image: national snow and ice data center

In fact, each of the last 12 years have been the lowest 12 years on the satellite record, Walt Meier, a senior research scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, said in an interview.

"Twelve in a row," said Meier. "That clearly indicates a change."

And there's more.

SEE ALSO: The wilderness has returned to idyllic Cape Cod. That means great white sharks.

Some of the thickest, oldest Arctic ice, which is anchored in a compacted mass off the frigid north Greenland shore, broke apart this year.

"That was oldest, most stable ice in the Arctic," said Mathis. "Thats the ice that we thought would hold on the longest."

"It even stuck around when we saw all-time record-breaking melt in 2012," he added.

The average thickness of this ice is around 5 meters, or 16 feet thick, but in parts it can reach 20 meters, or some 65 feet, said Meier.

Story continues

In the greater scope of the expansive Arctic, this break-up wasn't extremely large. But it wasn't exactly small, either.

A large pond of melted water on Arctic sea ice

Image: nasa

"It's an area about the size of Indiana, so it's not trivial," he said.

This break-up portends what may eventually transpire in the Arctic  a visible gauge of climate change  in the next four or so decades.

"Something happened this year that is incredibly indicative of just how fast the Arctic is changing," said Mathis. "That could accelerate the timeline for what could be an ice-free Arctic Ocean during the summer months."

"It definitely was a surprise," said Meier.

Though, this may not be the first time such Greenland ice melting has happened, he explained; given the limited satellite records, there's no way to know for sure. In any case, it's still a sign of growing instability.

"Its an indication that it [the ice] was thinner and weaker than it used to be," he said.

When sea ice melts, it contributes to even more ice melting. In contrast to the dark ocean, bright ice reflects sunlight back into space. But as both the warming oceans and atmosphere melt the bright ice cover, the ocean is then able to absorb this energy, which in turn melts more ice, said Meier. It's a continuing, stubborn feedback loop.

The change here, even in non-record breaking years, is stark.

"We're definitely looking at a shift in the climate," said Meier.Bill Cosbys publicist compared the 81-year-old comedians conviction Tuesday to the misconduct allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, saying that were both part of a sex war.

Andrew Wyatt proclaimed that Cosbys conviction was the result of the most racist and sexist trial in the history of the United States in a press conference following Montgomery County Judge Steven T. ONeill handing down a sentence for Cosby of three to 10 years in state prison.

What is going on in Washington today with Judge Kavanaugh is part of that sex war that Judge ONeill along with his wife are part of, Wyatt said.

Kavanaugh is currently facing two accusations of sexual misconduct, which were first made public last week prior to a scheduled vote by the Senate Judicial Committee on his nomination. The first came from Christine Blasey Ford, who claimed that in the 1980s, Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in a bedroom during a party. That was followed by an accusation by Deborah Ramirez, who said Kavanaugh exposed himself to her while she was drunk at a college party. Kavanaugh has denied both allegations, calling them a smear, plain and simple. in a statement released by the White House.

The people who knew me then know that this did not happen, and have said so, Kavanaugh said.

Unlike Kavanaugh, Cosby is now classified as a violent sexual predator following this weeks sentencing and more than 60 women accusing him of sexual misconduct. Many of those cases are past the statute of limitations for Cosby to face charges, but in April he was convicted of three counts of aggravated assault for drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand in his Cheltenham, Penn. home in 2004. Cosbys attorney Tom Mesereau promised to appeal, saying at the time The fight is not over.

Bill Cosby's publicist, Andrew Wyatt, claims both Cosby and Brett Kavanaugh are victims of "a sex war" that is "going on in Washington today." pic.twitter.com/jRHOjzUZD7  Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 25, 2018

According to Wyatt, the sexist and racist mass media did not allow Cosbys record as one of the greatest civil rights leaders in the United States for over the last 50 years to be brought up in court.

Wyatt also accused prosecutors, without evidence, of falsifying evidence.Bill Cosbys fall from grace arrived at a solemn milestone Tuesday in his sexual assault trial. The 81-year-old comedian was sentenced to three to 10 years in prison by a Pennsylvania judge who designated the one time icon as a sexually violent predator. Yahoo comments immediately poured in when the news broke, with the majority condemning Cosby as well as what was perceived as too light a sentence: Had he not been a famous television comedian he would be spending the remainder of his (short) life in prison. At 81, who knows if he even makes it out after 3 to 10 years, but it should have been closer to 30, wrote one commenter. Had this been an average guy, drugging women, he would've gotten life in prison, echoed another top-trending comment. From another: From the beginning, Cosby hasnt shown a second of remorse. 3 years is not enough. The sentence also sparked confusion: Whats 3 to 10? Does he Spin the Wheel to see the exact amount? Largely absent in the Yahoo comments section of related news stories was any sympathy for Cosby, once a beloved TV icon. What do you think of Bill Cosbys sentencing?Ouagadougou (AFP) - Eight soldiers were killed by a blast in northern Burkina Faso on Wednesday, in the latest blow to the poor Sahel country grappling with jihadism.

"I have just learned that eight Burkinabe soldiers died after their vehicle drove over a home-made mine planted by the enemies of our people," President Roch Marc Christian Kabore said in a statement.

The convoy had been heading from Baraboule in Soum province to the town of Djibo.

"The lead vehicle in the convoy hit the mine" as it was coming off a bridge, a security source told AFP.

Kabore expressed his "deepest condolences to the defence and security forces, to the families and relatives of the victims".

"These horrible and cowardly attacks will never sap our common resolve to defend our national territorial integrity, to restore peace and security for the happiness and prosperity of the Burkinabe people."

- Mounting attacks -

In 2015, Burkina Faso, one of the world's poorest countries, joined a string of countries in the Sahel region to come under pressure from jihadists.

Rebels began staging cross-border raids in the north of the country from neighbouring Mali.

Using classic guerrilla tactics, the rebels aim at police and the military with gun attacks and roadside bombs, target buildings and personnel perceived to represent the state, and abduct individuals.

A toll released in April found that 133 people had died in the north in 80 attacks in three years, many of them state officials. Hundreds of schools and town halls have been closed.

On Sunday, three miners -- a Burkinabe national, an Indian and a South African -- were seized by armed men between Djibo and a local gold mine.

Hours later, three police officers deployed to help search for the trio were killed in a clash with armed men at Tongomael, about 30 kilometres (20 miles) away.

In August, 13 people in the north were killed by two improvised bombs, and a customs officer was killed in a raid.

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The jihadists' strategy in the north has now been adopted in the east of the country. In the centre, the capital Ouagadougou has suffered three terror attacks in two years, leaving 60 dead.

- 'Build an army' -

On September 8, Kabore said additional security measures would shortly be unveiled "to eradicate the curse of terrorism".

But analysts say that, on the ground, the resources needed to roll back jihadism in the north are colossal and they require long-term resolve.

Under former president Blaise Compaore, head of state from 1987-2014, the armed forces had a trained and disciplined unit, his personal guard.

But this unit was gutted by Kabore, leaving the country "without a military culture", a senior official from France, which is anxiously monitoring the situation in Burkina, told AFP.

"They have to build an army worth of the name, and this takes time," the source said.

Bakary Sambe, director of the Timbuktu Institute, a Dakar-based centre of research into extreme violence, said political turmoil in Burkina in 2014-15 had been a major factor in delaying the response to jihadism at a critical time.

In some parts of the north and east, there was now a "vacuum of the state", enabling the jihadists to offer protection and basic services to the beleaguered population, he said.

Using an amorphous, non-centralised command structure, the jihadists find it easy to plant bombs when there is negligible security presence, a former French soldier said.

He pointed to the experiences of US forces in Iraq, which lost more men from improvised explosive devices than from actual fighting.

- Domino fears -

Sambe said the escalating attacks in eastern Burkina were especially worrying, as this could herald an extension of the violence to countries to the south such as Ghana and Ivory Coast, which lie hundreds of kilometres (miles) from the epicentre of jihadist revolt in the Sahel.

"In the fight against terrorism, Burkina is a buffer between the Sahel and the coastal countries," Burkinabe Foreign Minister Alpha Barry said. "If it falls, our neighbours will be attacked."If Americans thought the stakes couldnt get any higher than a woman coming forward to accuse a Supreme Court nominee of sexual assault while he was in high school, they have been proven wrong.

After The New Yorker published a new allegation Sunday night  a new woman, Deborah Ramirez, claims nominee Brett Kavanaugh exposed himself to her while she was drunk at a party during college  the confirmation fight reached a new fever pitch, leaving both political parties, all three branches of government and the American people with no good options.

The White House is sticking by Kavanaugh, who has denied both allegations.

The people who knew me then know that this did not happen, and have said so, Kavanaugh said in a statement released by the White House after Ramirezs story surfaced. This is a smear, plain and simple. White House spokeswoman Kerri Kupec simultaneously released a statement saying, The White House stands firmly behind Judge Kavanaugh. When asked by TIME if the White House was giving any thought to withdrawing Kavanaughs nomination, White House spokesman Raj Shah texted a simple reply: No.

If anything, the new accusation against Kavanaugh, which many sources in The New Yorker story dispute, made the White House and Republicans close to Kavanaugh even more frustrated by what President Donald Trump himself called totally political attacks. [Kavanaugh] has a lifelong record of being a person of incredible integrity and good character, a source involved in the confirmation process told TIME Sunday night, calling the latest charge outlandish. I dont think anybody is prepared to say that one or two unsubstantiated, discredited allegations could ruin that, the source said.

In mid-September, California professor Christine Blasey Ford first came forward publicly with a claim that Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed, covered her mouth and attempted to remove her clothing in the 1980s when they were both in high school. Kavanaugh categorically denies the accusation.

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As they strategized about how to handle Ford, senior Republican officials began to worry that she would not be the only woman to surface. After all, one official said late Sunday, there tends to be a pattern of behavior like this. Senate officials, in conversations with White House Counsels Office last week, asked repeatedly if there would be any further allegations or surprises. They were told Fords allegation was garbage and no more were in the offing. Now not only has Ramirez come forward, but Michael Avenatti, the lawyer representing adult film actress Stormy Daniels and teasing a future run for president as a Democrat, has hinted that he has another client with credible information about Kavanaugh and his high school classmate Mark Judge, who Ford says was in the room during her alleged assault.

I represent a woman with credible information regarding Judge Kavanaugh and Mark Judge. We will be demanding the opportunity to present testimony to the committee and will likewise be demanding that Judge and others be subpoenaed to testify. The nomination must be withdrawn.  Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) September 23, 2018

Bring it on, the first official involved in the confirmation process said. I mean, Michael Avenatti? I cant think of a better person to have on the other side. The guys crazy, OK?

But as Republicans huddle to figure out how to get Kavanaugh confirmed by their razor-thin majority  they can only afford to lose one GOP vote in the Senate they have bigger problems than Avenatti.

As of last week, those close to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell advised him  and they believe he shared their views  that public hearings would turn into a circus. These advisers suggested that they plow through with the nomination as planned to energize Republican base voters before Novembers elections, when Democrats stand increasingly better odds of tipping the majority.

The fight inside the caucus, however, was one McConnell seemed to be losing, and he relented. He and Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley agreed, begrudgingly, to investigating these claims again. McConnell and White House Counsel Don McGahn both thought it foolish to subject Kavanaugh to another round of questions, but Fords  and any other witnesses  testimony could not afford to go unanswered.

The nation is set to hear from Kavanaugh himself on Thursday, in a hearing that had been scheduled before Ramirezs allegation came to light. (Dianne Feinstein of California, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, has called for the hearing to be delayed. Not all of the other Democrats on the committee signed on to the letter, and there arent signs that Republicans share her view either.)

But Republicans are clearly nervous. As this weekend rolled through, McConnells orbit realized they were losing control of both the process and the narrative. When Fords attorney sent a letter that was released on Saturday, many media outlets said she had agreed to testify when in fact a strictly literal reading of her attorneys note said they were open to continuing the conversation. At that moment, as Republicans were revisiting talking points for Sunday shows, several aides recognized the ground was shifting. (A day earlier, Grassleys communications adviser for the confirmation hearing resigned amid an NBC News investigation into allegations of sexual harassment  which he firmly denied.)

Then, The New Yorker published its story late Sunday. Frantic Senate aides tried to figure out how to handle it. As a stopgap, it seemed there was nothing to be done but to point out that the allegations were coming from The New Yorker  a publication that won the Pulitzer Prize last year for its coverage of the #MeToo movement but nevertheless was not a credible voice among the GOPs base. Separate but similar memos from the Republican National Committee and the White House both tried to plant seeds of doubt in the new accusers story.

Officials also started to assemble an argument that Democrats were behind these late allegations, and one accusation seemed to follow the other when its credibility came into question. They didnt have to win every argument, but just to make the public think it was Washington-as-usual theatrics and everyone was partisan.

Many top Republicans considered retreat on the nomination unacceptable and a guarantee for Democrats to take the Senate. One of the most compelling arguments Republican candidates have to the GOP base is that the Supreme Court is within reach of a conservative majority for a generation. Thats why GOP candidates in places like Missouri, West Virginia, Indiana, Florida and Wisconsin invoke the Supreme Court at every chance they can. It plays to the base in a way few other issues can this cycle. The GOPs tax cuts were nice, but a conservative five-bloc majority on the Supreme Court would survive even a return to a Senate under Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumers control.

But there are major reasons for Republicans to worry. Democrats enjoy their widest advantage of the cycle in a NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll: by a 52%-40% margin, voters say they would prefer Democrats to control Congress. (One GOP pollster who reviewed the data notes that support for Kavanaughs nomination has actually increased in that poll from 33% to 34% since the August survey  a statistically insignificant change  but at least they were not hemorrhaging support. His polls found that GOP voter interest and intensity growing since the Ford allegations came to light.)

The bigger worry for Republicans right now is women. There is not a single Republican woman on the Senate Judiciary Committee, so it will be Ford  and perhaps others  facing questioning from an all-male GOP slate, unless they work out some other arrangement. Different Republican pollsters are showing wildly different figures, but its generally assumed that women will lean toward Democrats by a 3- to 10-point margin. That number could grow after hours of Republican men grilling a woman who comes forward to allege sexual misconduct.

But if Republicans back down and pull Kavanaughs nomination or dont vote to confirm him, something most of them are loathe to do, they risk alienating the core of their base: white men.

The court nominations are how disruptive Trump keeps the peace with the Christian Right and Federalist Society. If the Republicans cant confirm Kavanaugh because of either allegation, the conservative base is going to be demoralized, said Dan Eberhart, a Republican donor in Arizona.

Its no better for Democrats. Feinstein has been harshly criticized by her own party over her handling of Fords allegation, which she had been aware of for weeks before she alerted the committee and the FBI about it. Now, as she faces a primary challenger in her own reelection fight, Feinstein is facing regular protests by progressive activists outside her Senate office. For the rest of the party, if they lose this fight and Kavanaugh is confirmed, it could dampen the Resistance after expending so much energy fighting his nomination and reinforce Democrats powerlessness. If they succeed in taking down Kavanaugh, Trump will just pick a new nominee off the same Federalist Society-approved list, and Democrats will be back to square one with a new nominee they wont like any better.

Even the Supreme Court itself is getting dragged into the mud, appearing more partisan and unable to stand above politics as the fight in the halls of the Capitol just across the street gets dirtier and dirtier. Speaking in September before the specific details had emerged of Fords accusation, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg talked about the old days of near-unanimous Supreme Court confirmations. Thats the way it should be, instead of what its become, which is a highly partisan show, said Ginsburg, who was confirmed to her seat by a 96-3 margin. The Republicans move in lockstep, and so do the Democrats. I wish I could wave a magic wand and have it go back.

But there is no magic wand, and now individuals, political parties and institutions are all in a fight to the death for their respect and political futures. Its not a zero-sum game: everyone can lose. Everybody I think views it as deplorable and unfortunate that the nominee is going to have to talk about intimate aspects of his life in order to defend his reputation, the source involved in the process said. Everybody deplores where we are right now.

-With reporting by Alana Abramson, Brian Bennett and Philip Elliott/WashingtonLeo Varadkar, Irelands prime minister, speaking at Government Buildings in Dublin. Photo: Getty

The Irish economy will grow by nearly 9% this year and by 4.5% in 2019, but only if the UK manages to strike a Brexit deal with the European Union, according to a new forecast.

Irelands Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), a government-funded but independent thinktank, said on Wednesday (26 September) that strong consumer spending and a decline in imports would help make the country the fastest-growing economy within the eurozone in 2018.

The ESRI noted that, because the outcome of Brexit negotiations is the most substantial risk facing the Irish economy, its revised 4.5% forecast for 2019 was contingent on the UK coming to a European Economic Agreement with the EU.

However, it said that it was prudent to assume that a no-deal outcome is a real possibility. Such a scenario would see Ireland confronted by a highly adverse economic shock, the forecast notes. It also warns that international trade tensions, such as US tariffs, could have negative implications for Ireland.

While the country should ideally run budgetary surpluses, the ESRI says that infrastructural deficits in Ireland, such as in public housing, require significant investment. Irelands upcoming budget should thus be a holding budget and should not look to either inflate or deflate the economy, it advises.

Despite a continued decline in unemploymentmore people are employed in Ireland than ever beforethe countrys agricultural sector has seen declines. Because this sector bears a considerably higher share of exposure to potential Brexit fallouts, it may continue to experience disproportionally larger job losses in the future, the forecast warns.

The revised forecasts, of 8.9% for 2018 and 4.5% for 2019, are based on stronger-than-expected consumer spending and investment in the country in the first half of the year. Some multinational firms had also significantly reduced their imports of research and technology-related services, which had a positive effect on Irelands trade balance.Reuters

NEW YORK (Reuters) -Summer Zervos, a former contestant on "The Apprentice" who accused Donald Trump of sexual assault, on Friday ended her nearly five-year-old defamation lawsuit against the former U.S. president, without receiving an apology or compensation. The abrupt decision to discontinue the case spares Trump from being questioned under oath about accusations he subjected Zervos to unwanted kissing and groping in 2007 after she had sought career advice. Zervos had sued Trump in January 2017 in a New York state court in Manhattan, saying he harmed her reputation by calling such allegations by women "lies" and retweeting a post calling her claims a "hoax."Alphabet executive chairman Eric Schmidt speaks at the 2017 SALT conference in Las Vegas.

Eric Schmidt, the former executive chairman of Alphabet Inc., says there will be room for Canada on the top tier of global technology firms. He insists American giants, like Google (GOOG), are not attempting to smother Canadian-owned innovation by opening offices and striking partnerships north of the border.

Remember, its not a zero-sum game. We can win. The startups can win. And in all cases, Canada wins, Schmidt told the Elevate tech week conference in Toronto on Tuesday. What happens when digital ecosystems thrive is there are opportunities for everybody.

Schmidt, now a technical advisor and Google board member, heaped praise on Canada and Toronto. His enthusiasm, punctuated by a pair of red and white dress socks, follows a warning from one the countries leading technology industry figures.

Shopify Inc.s (SHOP.TO) founder and chief executive officer believes more needs to be done to profit from home-grown intellectual property, and said the expanding footprint of U.S. technology brands in Canada ought to be viewed with more skepticism.

We want them, but it isnt as good as people think it is, Tobias Lutke told The Canadian Press on Tuesday. All of that value will accrue to the U.S. economy.

Canada has recently seen a flurry of investment by U.S. technology companies.

Pinterest announced on Tuesday that its first office outside the U.S. will be located in Toronto. Earlier this month, Uber Technologies Inc. pledged to invest as much as $200 million to expand the companys Toronto operations. Amazon Inc. (AMZN) said in late April that the company would create an additional 3,000 jobs in Vancouver.

Speaking earlier at the Elevate conference alongside Innovation, Science and Economic Development Minister Navdeep Bains, Lutke stressed that Canada needs more of its own large-scale technology companies to advance the sector.

A newly-released government report looking at Canadas competitiveness found 85 per cent of the countrys information and communication technology companies employ fewer than 10 people.

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Schmidt, who championed the high-profile smart-city partnership between Alphabets Sidewalk Labs and Waterfront Toronto, said Canadian technology companies will not be disadvantaged by Googles presence in city.

Sidewalk Labs has been accused of standing to reap the lions share of intellectual property and data from the project aimed at improving urban living, transportation and energy use.

People somehow assume that Google is going to run the city. They city is going to be run by the city, Schmidt said. The data is part of the city.

Asked if the global technology industry is destined to be ruled by a handful of mostly U.S. and Chinese players, he suggested a once in a lifetime transition to a digital world is underway, and predicted the roster companies leading that charge is not set in stone.

My suggestion is that Canada should have a goal of having one or two of those kinds of companies in the next generation cycles, Schmidt said. There is always a next generation.

Download the Yahoo Finance app, available for Apple and Android.United Nations (United States) (AFP) - US President Donald Trump admitted his friendship with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping could be over on Wednesday as he accused Beijing of undermining his prospects in upcoming elections.

With tensions growing sharply between the two sides on a range of issues, Trump said China wanted him to suffer an electoral setback as payback for his hard line over trade.

After accusing the government in Beijing of using a variety of tactics to damage his chances at the vital midterm polls in November, he said that relations with Xi might have taken a permanent turn for the worse.

Trump has spoken many times since coming to office of his friendship with Xi, praising the Chinese leader for his role in helping bring pressure to bear on North Korea over its nuclear program.

But asked at a press conference in New York how Xi could remain his friend given the hike in tensions, Trump indicated that he preferred to be respected than liked.

"He may not be a friend of mine anymore but I think he probably respects me," said the president, who said the US economy was easily weathering the impact of the trade dispute.

Washington this week enacted new tariffs against China covering another $200 billion of its imports, shrugging off threats of counter measures from Beijing.

"We have to make it fair," he said. "A lot of money is coming into our coffers. And it's had absolutely no impact on our economy."

China has vowed to retaliate with duties on $60 billion in US goods, but since the country only imports a total of $130 billion, its ability to hit back with matching tariffs is limited.

- 'Evidence' -

The accusation of electoral interference first came during a meeting of the UN Security Council that Trump chaired himself earlier in the day.

"Regrettably we found that China has been attempting to interfere in our upcoming 2018 election coming up in November against my administration," Trump told the chamber.

Story continues

"They do not want me or us to win because I am the first president ever to challenge China on trade," he added.

Trump later said there was clear evidence to back up his claim.

"We have evidence. It will come out. Yeah, I can't tell you now, but it came -- it didn't come out of nowhere, that I can tell you," he told a press conference.

In a briefing with reporters in Washington, a senior White House official said that China was deploying economic, military and informational tools to spread influence and to undermine the US government.

"The activities have reached an unacceptable level," the official said.

The official said the policy of "actively interfering in our political system includes hurting farmers in districts and states that voted for the president."

The official was referring to China's imposition of tariffs on soybeans -- a hugely important trade in the electorally crucial state of Iowa -- as retaliation for Trump's tariffs on Chinese goods.

- 'Unwarranted accusations' -

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi rejected what he termed "unwarranted accusations."

"China has all along followed the principle of non-interference," Wang said in the same session that was chaired by the US president.

"We did not and will not interfere in any country's domestic affairs. We refuse to accept any unwarranted accusations against China."

But Trump followed up his accusations with a series of tweets accusing China's government of paying for newspaper space in the US state of Iowa to push its message.

These "propaganda ads" are being placed "because we are beating them on Trade, opening markets," he tweeted.

The United States also irked China earlier this week by going ahead with plans to sell a batch of military parts to the self-governing island of Taiwan.

Beijing sees Taiwan as part of its territory awaiting unification, and is deeply suspicious of the island's relations with the United States.

A special prosecutor, Robert Mueller, is investigating allegations that members of Trump's inner circle colluded with Russia to secure his victory in the 2016 presidential election after US security agencies determined that Moscow had sought to influence the outcome.China has pulled the plug on a US warship's scheduled visit to Hong Kong, and scrapped plans for a top admiral to meet with his US counterpart in Washington, officials said Tuesday.

The moves come as trade tensions soar between Beijing and Washington, which this week enacted new tariffs against China covering another $200 billion of its imports.

The USS Wasp, an amphibious assault ship, was due to visit Hong Kong next month. Lieutenant Colonel David Eastburn, a Pentagon spokesman, said the Chinese had scrapped the visit.

"The Chinese government did not approve a request for a US port visit to Hong Kong by the USS Wasp," Eastburn said.

"We have a long track record of successful port visits to Hong Kong, and we expect that will continue."

China's decision comes after Beijing recalled a top admiral who was visiting the US.

A US defense official told AFP that Vice Admiral Shen Jinlong, who commands the People's Liberation Army Navy, attended a naval symposium in Rhode Island last week.

Following the event, he was planning a visit to Washington that would have included meetings at the Pentagon with his US counterpart, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral John Richardson.

"We were informed that Vice Admiral Shen Jinlong has been recalled to China and won't conduct a visit with Admiral Richardson," Eastburn said.

Last week, Washington placed financial sanctions on the Equipment Development Department of the Chinese Defense Ministry, and its top administrator, for its recent purchase of Russian Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets and S-400 surface-to-air missile systems.

Beijing responded by summoning the US ambassador to China, Terry Branstad, to lodge an official protest, while the Chinese military expressed "strong indignation and resolute opposition" to the sanctions.

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 weeklong joint military drills in Moscow's largest ever war games.

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Further inflaming tensions, the US State Department said Monday it was set to approve a $330 million sale of military aviation parts to the self-governing island of Taiwan.

Beijing sees Taiwan as part of its territory awaiting unification, and is deeply suspicious of the island's relations with the US.

China expressed "strong dissatisfaction" on Tuesday over the planned sale and urged Washington scrap the contract.

Beijing has been incensed by recent warming ties between Washington and Taipei, including the State Department's approval of a preliminary license to sell submarine technology to the island.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.Attorneys for Christine Blasey Ford on Wednesday submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee sworn affidavits from four people they say corroborate her sexual assault claim against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

Blaseys husband, Russell Ford, and three of her friends described past conversations with Blasey about the alleged assault in the signed declarations, obtained by HuffPost.

Blasey has alleged Kavanaugh pinned her down, groped her and tried to remove her clothes at a small party in suburban Maryland when they were both in high school in the early 1980s. Kavanaugh, now a federal appeals judge, has vehemently denied the allegation.

Blasey first told her husband she had experienced sexual assault around the time they were married in 2002, according to Fords affidavit. She revealed additional details during a couples therapy session 10 years later, Ford stated.

She said that in high school she had been trapped in a room and physically restrained by one boy who was molesting her while another boy watched, Ford wrote. She said she was eventually able to escape before she was raped, but that the experience was very traumatic because she felt like she had no control and was physically dominated.

He added: I remember her saying the attackers name was Brett Kavanaugh, that he was a successful lawyer who had grown up in Christines home town, and that he was well-known in the Washington, D.C. community.

Blasey was conflicted about whether to go public with her allegations, but ultimately felt it was her civic duty to speak, Ford said.

Keith Koegler, who described himself as a close friend of Blasey and Ford, said he first learned of the alleged assault in the early summer of 2016.

I remember the timing of the conversation because it was shortly after Stanford University student Brock Turner was sentenced for felony sexual assault after raping an unconscious woman on Stanfords campus, Koegler stated.

He continued: Christine expressed anger at Mr. Turners lenient sentence, stating that she was particularly bothered by it because she was assaulted in high school by a man who was now a federal judge in Washington, D.C.

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Blasey did not mention the assault again until June 2018, when Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his resignation, Koegler said. In an email exchange, Blasey told Koegler her assailant was Brett Kavanaugh and that he was on President Donald Trumps short list of potential nominees, according to Koeglers affidavit.

Two other friends, Adela Gildo-Mazzon and Rebecca White, stated in their declarations that Blasey confided in them about being assaulted.

Gildo-Mazzon said Blasey told her about the incident in June 2013 while they shared a meal at a pizza place in Mountain View, California, and believes she still has the receipt.

Christine told me she had been having a hard day because she was thinking about an assault she experienced when she was much younger, Gildo-Mazzon stated. She said that she had been almost raped by someone who was now a federal judge.

After reading Blaseys first-person account of the alleged assault in The Washington Post earlier this month, Gildo-Mazzon contacted Blaseys legal team to advise them that she had told me about the assault in 2013.

White said Blasey told her the story in 2017 while discussing a social media post White had written about her own sexual assault.

She then told me that when she was a young teen, she had been sexually assaulted by an older teen, White stated in her affidavit. I remember her saying that her assailant was now a federal judge. I have always known Christine to be a trustworthy and honest person.

Blasey and Kavanaugh are scheduled to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday. The panel has scheduled a vote for Friday on whether to advance Kavanaughs confirmation to the full Senate.

The New Yorker on Sunday published the account of Deborah Ramirez, who said Kavanaugh thrust his penis in her face at a drinking party when they were freshmen at Yale University in the early 1980s. Kavanaugh has denied the allegation.

Ramirezs attorney suggested on Wednesday that she would be willing to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Hours later, Michael Avenatti, best known as the attorney representing former adult film actress Stormy Daniels, released a signed declaration from a third woman accusing Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct.

Julie Swetnick, who attended high school at the same time as Kavanaugh, said she witnessed Kavanaugh and one of his friends at several house parties in the early 1980s getting drunk and being overly aggressive with girls, according to a declaration she provided to Avenatti.

I witnessed Brett Kavanaugh consistently engage in excessive drinking and inappropriate contact of sexual nature with women during the early 1980s, Swetnick stated. She alleged she was the victim of a gang rape coordinated by Kavanaugh and his friends at one party. She did not name the assailants.

Kavanaugh denied Swetnicks allegations in a statement on Wednesday.

This is ridiculous and from the Twilight Zone, he said in the statement. I dont know who this is and this never happened.

Read the affidavits from Blaseys husband and friends below:

Declarations in Support of Dr. Ford by Hayley Miller on Scribd

This article has been updated to include Julie Swetnicks accusation and Brett Kavanaughs response.

Ryan J. Reilly contributed reporting.

Related...

Sex Crimes Prosecutor Rachel Mitchell Tapped To Question Christine Blasey Ford In Senate

Tucker Carlson Criticizes Rape Victims Who Don't Report: 'You're Part Of The Problem'

Classmates Who Endorsed Brett Kavanaugh Now Say Claims Warrant Investigation

Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.The Senate Judiciary Committees Democratic members on Wednesday urged President Donald Trump to withdraw his nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court or order an FBI investigation into the multiple sexual misconduct allegations against the judge.

Judge Kavanaugh is being considered for a promotion, they wrote in a statement. He is asking for a lifetime appointment to the nations highest court where he will have the opportunity to rule on matters that will impact Americans for decades.

BREAKING: @JudiciaryDems are requesting President Trump immediately withdraw the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh or direct the FBI to thoroughly investigate the multiple allegations of sexual assault. pic.twitter.com/iGF9MbdvCD  Sen Dianne Feinstein (@SenFeinstein) September 26, 2018

The statement continued: The standard of character and fitness for a position on the nations highest court must be higher than this. Judge Kavanaugh has staunchly declared his respect for women and issued blanket denials of any possible misconduct, but those declarations are in serious doubt.

At least three women  Christine Blasey Ford, Deborah Ramirez and Julie Swetnick  have alleged in recent weeks that Kavanaugh engaged in sexual misconduct in the early 1980s. Kavanaugh and Blasey are scheduled to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Wednesday called on Kavanaugh to withdraw from consideration following the release of Swetnicks allegations.

Schumer urged Senate Republicans to immediately suspend confirmation proceedings related to Kavanaughs nomination due to multiple, corroborated allegations against him.

I strongly believe Judge Kavanaugh should withdraw from consideration, Schumer said in a statement. If he will not, at the very least, the hearing and the vote should be postponed while the FBI investigates all of these allegations.

Story continues

He continued: If our Republican colleagues proceed without an investigation, it would be a travesty for the honor of the Supreme Court and our country.

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, on Wednesday echoed Schumers call for Kavanaugh to withdraw.

A Supreme Court nomination is not worth more than the lives of survivors, Booker tweeted.

Mr. President, enough.



A Supreme Court nomination is not worth more than the lives of survivors. There must be a full investigation of these allegations of criminal behavior, and Judge Kavanaughs nomination must be withdrawn.  Cory Booker (@CoryBooker) September 26, 2018

Blasey first identified herself in a Washington Post interview published earlier this month as the author of a confidential letter sent in late July to two members of Congress. She alleges Kavanaugh pinned her down, groped her and attempted to remove her clothes during a small party when they were both high school students.

A week later, The New Yorker reported accusations from Ramirez, who alleges Kavanaugh thrust his penis in her face during a drinking party when they were both freshmen at Yale University in the early 1980s.

On Wednesday, Michael Avenatti, best known as the attorney representing former adult film actress Stormy Daniels, released a signed declaration from Swetnick accusing Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct.

Swetnick alleges she witnessed Kavanaugh and one of his friends at several high school parties getting drunk and being overly aggressive with girls.

I witnessed Brett Kavanaugh consistently engage in excessive drinking and inappropriate contact of a sexual nature with women during the early 1980s, Swetnick stated. She alleged she was the victim of a gang rape where Kavanaugh was present at one party. She did not name the assailants.

Despite the mounting allegations against Kavanaugh and Senate Democrats strong rhetoric again him, the White House said Wednesday that Trump was standing by the beleaguered judge.

Trump responded to Swetnicks allegations by attacking Avenatti on Twitter.

He is just looking for attention and doesnt want people to look at his past record and relationships  a total low-life! Trump tweeted.

Avenatti is a third rate lawyer who is good at making false accusations, like he did on me and like he is now doing on Judge Brett Kavanaugh. He is just looking for attention and doesnt want people to look at his past record and relationships - a total low-life!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 26, 2018

CORRECTION: A previous version of this story indicated that Swetnik alleges Kavanaugh coordinated a rape she experienced at a party. In fact, her sworn declaration says he was present when she was raped.

This has been updated throughout.

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan (European Parliament)

A prominent Brexit-supporting politician has come under fire for displaying a poster that says ignore the Irish in his office.

The placard was spotted propped up against a window in a European parliament office that belongs to Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan.

A photo of it has been posted by Irish senator Neale Richmond, who chairs the Brexit committee of the Irish parliaments upper house.

Richmond said it was worrying that the poster was on display in the office of an arch Brexiteer.

MORE: Conservative MEPs got thank you letter from Orban over solidarity in sanctions vote

Hannan pointed out the placard was made for a protest held shortly after Irelands 2008 referendum rejection of the Lisbon Treaty.

In a statement, he said: Following the 2008 referendum in Ireland, there was a backlash in Brussels, with EU leaders immediately ordering Ireland to vote again.

I was part of a demonstration in Brussels in favour of respecting the result.

As part of it, various people wore the masks of prominent Eurocrats and held up Ignore the Irish placards  making the point that the EU was disregarding the voters again. That looks like a picture of one of those 2008 placards.

But Hannans office couldnt say why the poster was on display again when asked by Yahoo UK.

Worrying poster on display in the Brussels office of arch #brexiteer @DanielJHannan ignore the Irish. pic.twitter.com/CColttfpLm  Sen. Neale Richmond (@nealerichmond) September 25, 2018

Its the sensitive timing of the posters re-emergence that has sparked a controversy.

The photo comes amid a stand-off between the UK and EU over an Irish border backstop which could yet derail Brexit talks completely.

Story continues

And Richmond told Yahoo UK: I find the explanation that the poster would just happen to be lying around to be a bit of a stretch. The campaign referenced by Mr Hannan was over 10 years ago.

In his pursuit of a Brexit at all costs, Mr Hannan has shown a complete disregard for the negative impacts Brexit will have on the UK as well as dismissing the very serious concerns raised by the Irish government and our European negotiating partners particularly when it comes to the issue of the Irish border and the threat Brexit poses to the Good Friday Agreement.

MORE: EU gives May 28 days to change Chequers plan or face no-deal Brexit

The EU and UK have agreed a backstop solution to avoiding a hard border in Ireland must be part of the Withdrawal Agreement.

But failure to find a solution that respects the red lines of both sides has left us on the brink of a no-deal Brexit. Negotiators now have just three weeks to find a workable plan.

Earlier this year, Hannan accused the EU of seeking to use the Irish border to undermine Brexit.

For some Europhiles, this isnt about the practicalities of the Irish border, he said. Its about their unwillingness to accept the Brexit vote.



Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh has been accused of sexual misconduct while drunk by three women  two in high school and one in college. Conservatives are now citing these accusations, which have stalled his confirmation for only one week, as evidence that no men, particularly conservative ones, can ever be nominated to the Supreme Court again because they will all face false allegations of sexual impropriety.

Im thinking, is there any man in this room that wouldnt be subjected to such an allegation? A false allegation? Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) said at an Iowa Faith & Freedom Coalition event on Sept. 22. How can you disprove something like that? Which means, if thats the new standard, no man will ever qualify for the Supreme Court again.

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is one of only two nominees out of 163 in history to be accused of sexual misconduct. (Photo: Chris Wattie / Reuters)

If stupid, bad, or drunken behavior as a minor back in high school were the standard, every male politician in Washington, DC would fail, former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) tweeted on Sept. 17.

I think its like we see over and over again, its character assassination, Rep. Ted Yoho (R-Fla.) said in a Fox News interview on Monday. He added that other conservative men have faced similar allegations. We saw this with Judge Roy Moore. A Republican U.S. Senate candidate in Alabama in 2017, Moore was accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women when they were as young as 13 and he was in his 30s.

If somebody can be brought down by accusations like this, then you, me, every man certainly should be worried, Politico anonymously quoted a lawyer close to the White House as saying. We can all be accused of something.

And then there is this:

The Democrats have been working very hard through the Obama years to now to delegitimize the United States Supreme Court. That's why they don't care about the truth of the Kavanaugh allegations. They want to delegitimize our institutions and would do this to any nominee.  Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) September 26, 2018

This all fits with the centuries-old claim by conservatives that they and the people who hold power are the real victims in society. But it faces the obvious problem that it is false.

Story continues

For example, someone  a quite conservative male someone named Neil Gorsuch  was nominated to the Supreme Court just last year and did not face accusations of sexual impropriety. He was strongly opposed by Democrats after the seat he was appointed to was held open by Senate Republicans for more than 400 days as they refused to offer President Barack Obamas nominee Judge Merrick Garland a hearing, let alone a vote.

Gorsuch was confirmed with the fifth-smallest margin for a Supreme Court nominee in history without ever being accused of anything untoward, aside from being really, really conservative. (There are, of course, numerous nominees over the years who withdrew from consideration, were rejected by the Senate or, in the case of Garland, were ignored entirely.)

Justice Neil Gorsuch, a conservative jurist, was confirmed to the Supreme Court without facing any allegations of sexual impropriety in 2017. (Photo: The Washington Post / Getty Images)

Kavanaugh and Justice Clarence Thomas are the only two high court nominees ever to be accused of sexual impropriety. (Judge Douglas Ginsburg quickly withdrew from consideration after he was accused of smoking marijuana as an assistant professor after President Ronald Reagan nominated him to the court in 1987.)

Perhaps conservatives would like to argue that only nominees who could markedly shift the balance of the court to the right will face these kinds of allegations. Thomas replacement of Justice Thurgood Marshall, a liberal icon, certainly was one of the biggest changes in the Supreme Courts ideological makeup in recent memory.

While Kavanaugh is viewed as more conservative than Justice Anthony Kennedy, whose seat Kavanaugh would fill, his appointment would not be the largest swing in ideology since Thomas. Justice Samuel Alitos replacement of Justice Sandra Day OConnor in 2006 was a bigger swing than a Kavanaugh-for-Kennedy trade would be. And Alito never faced allegations of sexual wrongdoing.

If the argument  which it is not  is that this doesnt happen to liberal men in politics, it does. Al Franken is not a senator anymore. John Conyers is not a congressman. Eric Schneiderman is not New Yorks attorney general. Nor is Eliot Spitzer the governor of New York.

So conservative men can be nominated to the Supreme Court and not face allegations that they drunkenly attempted to remove a girls clothes while holding their hand over her mouth to keep her from screaming  or anything along those lines.

These look like claims about individuals like Kavanaugh and Thomas, not claims against conservative men collectively. That is something youd think Kavanaughs defenders could understand.

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.Disgraced comedian Bill Cosby, before he was led away in handcuffs to begin his prison sentence for drugging and sexually assaulting a woman he was mentoring. (Photo: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI via Getty Images)

NORRISTOWN, Pa.  The judge who sentenced Bill Cosby to prison for sexual assault rejected a prosecution request to allow additional accusers to speak at this weeks sentencing hearing. But that didnt stop some from telling their stories anyway.

Ive waited 32 years for this day hoping my nightmare would go away, Chelan Lashan, who accused Cosby of sexually assaulting her in 1986, defiantly told a small group of reporters and advocates after the comedian was led away in handcuffs on Tuesday.

Cosby, 81, was sentenced by Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge Steven ONeill to three to 10 years in state prison for the 2004 sexual assault of Andrea Constand.

The judges pronouncement sent the courthouse in suburban Philadelphia into a flurry of activity: reporters running to their computers, advocates hopping on calls to share the news, and prosecutors and defense lawyers giving press conferences. Amid the stir was an important and powerful sidelight.

In a bare auditorium less than a mile from the courthouse, 12 Cosby accusers  their allegations of drugging, sexual assault and rape spanning decades  took the podium to tell their stories. The auditorium, named Savior Hall, was dubbed survivor hall for the day, according to victims advocate Jennifer Storm.

It wouldve been really nice to read my witness statement in court, Lise-Lotte Lublin, who accused Cosby of sexually assaulting her in 1989, said before reading her victim impact statement.

Chelan Lasha, who has accused actor and comedian Bill Cosby of sexual assault, speaks at a press conference following his sentencing, in Norristown, Pennsylvania, on Sept. 25, 2018. (Photo: Jessica Kourkounis / Reuters)

Linda Kirkpatrick, who alleges Cosby drugged and assaulted her in 1981, was indignant as she responded to the defense argument that Cosby was too old to serve prison time.

I was 24 years old. My age did not matter to Bill Cosby. So, his age of 81 should not matter, she said. He did not consider my age when he gave me a life sentence of traumatic memories. Dont talk about him being blind to me. I was blind from him making me unconscious.

Advocates and even reporters held back tears as the women poured out their hearts. The dozen accusers included Lili Bernard, Victoria Valentino and Therese Serignese, whose ages varied. Four of the five women who testified at Cosbys April trial to provide evidence of prior bad acts  Lashan, Lublin, Janice Dickinson and Janice Baker-Kinney  were present or had their attorneys read their statements.

Story continues

The most powerful statements came from Sunni Welles and Stacey Pinkerton. Welles, 70, said Cosby drugged and raped her twice, taking her virginity, in 1965 when she was 17. Pinkerton, who spoke publicly about her assault for the first time on Tuesday, said Cosby drugged and raped her in Chicago in 1986.

Welles addressed her victim impact statement directly to Cosby, whom she referred to as BC, she explained, because of post-traumatic stress disorder shes suffered since she says he raped her.

You have in essence destroyed a part of my life. Not only now who I am, at 70 years old, but who I was and who I couldve become, she said, tears streaming down her face.

Cosby accuser Sunni Welles hugs attorney Gloria Allred before reading her victim impact statement on Sept. 25, 2018, in Norristown, Pennsylvania. (Photo: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI via Getty Images)

Welles said she met Cosby through her mother, who was a Hollywood agent in the early 1960s. Her mother trusted Cosby and let Welles hang out with him from time to time. Twice, she said, he drugged and raped her. When Welles told her mother, the single mom of two explained she wasnt able to do anything because she needed to keep her job.

It is because of you, BC, that my ankles and legs must be crossed and locked while I sleep so they cant be pried open, Welles said as she broke into quiet sobs that shook her frail body. You deserve to feel what the rest of the 63 of us have felt our entire life. I hope that when you die, BC, you go to the hell of your making.

Pinkerton also discussed the lifelong effects of being assaulted.

Im here this week to seek closure and justice and send a message after these 32 years, she said. How has it impacted my life? Its impacted it in every way possible.

She moved overseas, but no place was far enough away from Mr. Cosby, she realized.

More than 60 women have accused Cosby of sexually assaulting them, some more than 50 years ago. Cosby denied everything. He will serve his time in Pennsylvanias prison system.

On Tuesday, as survivors shared their anger and sadness and strength since coming forward, one summed up the feeling.

Today, I feel a victory in my soul and in my heart, Sarita Butterfield said. Today, I am free.

Related...

Bill Cosby Sentenced To 3 To 10 Years In Prison For Sexual Assault

Judge Rules Bill Cosby A 'Sexually Violent Predator'

Ahead Of Bill Cosby Sentencing, Andrea Constand And Family Read Impact Statements

Andrea Constand Stood Up To Bill Cosby. Read Her Statement In Full.

Need help? Visit RAINNs National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Centers website.

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Also on HuffPost

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.(Photo: Twitter)

A middle schools spirit week is being called inappropriate by a concerned parent because of its color-themed dress code.

According to a tweet from M.J. Mouton, a father whose 12-year-old daughter is a middle school student in Iowa, La., the Homecoming 2018 Dress Day guidelines included color coding based on the young students relationship status.

My daughter's school has dress up week. Monday is

Wear Red if you are taken.

Wear Green if you are single.

Wear Yellow if it is complicated.

She is in middle school.

Totally inappropriate. Welcome to Louisiana.  M.J. Mouton (@MJ_Mouton) September 22, 2018

The theme was apparently carried over from the high school that shares a campus with the middle school, but Mouton was not OK with the message it was sending to children as young as 11.

Maybe its appropriate for high school, but for middle schoolers, its not, Mouton, who writes science books for kids, tells Yahoo Lifestyle. [My daughter] doesnt really have interest in those things. She also sees that theres going to be some kids who potentially are going to feel bad [about not dating], or kids who are going to participate because they want to feel a part of something.

As his tweet was spreading far and wide, Mouton also went the old-fashioned route and emailed the school about his complaint on Sunday. Are you promoting relationships for kids in middle school? he asked in his letter. Are you setting up boys and especially girls to be targets? Do you understand that if a single kid speaks up about this being wrong, which many do [feel], they fear repercussions from students as well as teachers?

By Monday morning, he received a response.

Our intentions were not to cause undue stress on students or their families, read the letter, which Mouton posted on Twitter in a screenshot. Unfortunately, we did not hear about them until so late in the week that we were unable to change our days. I can assure you that we have plans in the works for next year to avoid a repeat of these circumstances.

Story continues

Moutons interpretation of the letter is that the school received complaints other than his. He also wonders why the school couldnt send out an automated message declaring Monday a free dress day.

Iowa Middle/High School and the Calcasieu Parish School Board have not yet responded to Yahoos request for comment. The school board told local news station KPLC that it had no comment because the issue was handled at the school level.

Mouton, who grew up in the town of Iowa, is slightly worried about his daughter facing the repercussions of this complaint becoming a news story, but he had her blessing before he sent the tweet. Some in the area, he thinks, maintain heirloom ideologies about boys and girls behavior.

I dont think my child wouldve done it if he were in middle school, Doneka Dugas, a mother of a high school student, told KPLC.

Judging by the response to his tweets, many people agree with Moutons assessment that the theme was inappropriate. He also thinks that only about 50 percent of the kids in his daughters school wound up dressing according to the theme on Monday.

If nobody said anything, they would just let this go on for years and years, he says.

Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day.



Copenhagen (AFP) - A Danish court is due to rule on Wednesday on an appeal against a life sentence by Peter Madsen, convicted of the 2017 murder of a Swedish journalist aboard his homemade submarine.

The Copenhagen appeals court is to announce its verdict toward the end of the day, after the defence and prosecution present final arguments.

The verdict had been expected on September 14 but the court had to postpone it after a lay judge collapsed in the courtroom.

"From my own experience I would say that the majority of appeal cases don't result in a shorter sentence," Danish criminal lawyer Mette Grith Stage told AFP.

Madsen, 47, appealed his life sentence but not the guilty verdict handed down by the Copenhagen district court on April 25 for the murder of 30-year-old Swedish journalist Kim Wall.

He has argued her death was an accident but admitted chopping up her corpse and throwing her body parts into the sea in August 2017.

He has asked the court to give him a lighter sentence, arguing that life behind bars was "disproportionate".

Life sentences are rarely handed down for a single killing in Denmark. In the past 10 years, only three people have received such sentences.

A life sentence in Denmark averages around 16 years. Currently, 25 inmates in Denmark are serving life behind bars.

The prosecution has meanwhile insisted that Madsen's life sentence was justified, given the grisly nature of the murder and his meticulous planning.

- 'Danger to others' -

Grith Stage said she believed the court could hand Madsen an alternative sentence known as preventive detention, where an inmate can be held behind bars as long as he is considered a danger to society, on average around 15 years.

"According to Danish jurisprudence... you don't get life 'just' for one murder. Normally it would take two (murders), or at least one murder and one attempt," Grith Stage said.

On August 10, 2017, Wall, an award-winning reporter, boarded the submarine with Madsen, an eccentric and self-taught engineer and a minor celebrity in Denmark, to interview him for an article she was writing.

Story continues

Wall's boyfriend reported her missing when she failed to return home that night.

Her dismembered body parts were later found on the seabed, weighted down in plastic bags.

Madsen changed his version of events several times, but ultimately told the lower court that Wall died when the air pressure suddenly dropped and toxic fumes filled his vessel while he was up on deck.

An autopsy report concluded that she probably died as a result of suffocation or having her throat slit, but the decomposed state of her body meant examiners could not determine an exact cause of death.

Fourteen stab wounds and piercings were also found in and around her genital area.

Psychiatric experts who evaluated Madsen -- who described himself to friends as "a psychopath, but a loving one" -- found him to be "a pathological liar" who poses "a danger to others" and who was likely to be a repeat offender.(Reuters) - Delta Air Lines Inc said it has restored all its systems after a technology issue grounded some flights that had not yet taken off, briefly disrupting travel for its passengers across the country on Tuesday evening.

"All groundstops have been lifted," Delta said in a statement.

There are currently no cancellations following an hour-long groundstop for U.S. mainline Delta flights, while additional flight delays and impact on Wednesday morning's schedule are expected to be minimal, Delta said.

Earlier the company issued a groundstop as its IT teams worked to address a technology issue impacting some of its systems. The Atlanta-based airline said there had been no disruption or safety issue with any of its flights in the air.

Delta did not specify what caused the problem, but said the impact was limited to the United States.

It was not clear how long the stoppage had lasted, but passengers stuck on the ground had already taken to social media to express their frustration.

"If you want to know what hell is like, it's sitting on a plane during a world-wide airline system crash," one customer wrote on Twitter.

Delta said it was working to accommodate customers whose travel plans had been affected.

(Reporting by Philip George in Bengaluru, additonal reporting by Bhargav Acharya; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Gopakumar Warrier)Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell hopes to still have that title when the next session of Congress convenes in January. (Photo: Leah Millis / Reuters)

Democrats, who started this campaign cycle staring at an election map that could keep them out of power in the Senate for a political generation, now have a real but narrow shot to win control of Congress upper chamber in November  a turn of fortune that drastically increases the stakes of the fight over Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaughs confirmation.

GOP operatives argue that the chances of a flip in Senate control are part of whats driving Democrats to push for a full investigation of the sexual abuse allegations Christine Blasey Ford and Deborah Ramirez have lodged against Kavanaugh. The Republicans say Democrats are simply trying to delay any confirmation vote on any Supreme Court nominee until either a lame-duck session of Congress or until the seating of a new Congress in January.

Democrats insist they want to stop Kavanaugh on the merits  hed be bad for womens rights and health care, and someone facing sexual assault allegations shouldnt be fast-tracked onto the nations highest court. But theres no doubt that they are thinking about what could happen if Kavanaughs nomination stalls and their party gains the Senate majority.

The first move under those circumstances needs to be to pressure Republicans to not move ahead with a nominee (from President Donald Trump) during the lame duck, said Brian Fallon, who served as press secretary for Hillary Clintons 2016 presidential bid and now is the executive director of Demand Justice, an advocacy group.

Then, upon Democrats taking control of the Senate in January, their position needs to be anyone on Trumps list is unacceptable, he said, referring to the list Trump released during the campaign, shaped largely by suggestions from the conservative Heritage Foundation.

He said the Democrats shouldnt embrace the 2016 tactic adopted by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) that blocked Merrick Garland, then-President Barack Obamas Supreme Court nominee, from even having a hearing. They should consider a nominee thats a true moderate, Fallon said.

Story continues

Its unclear if Democrats, especially those who have built their careers on claims of political moderation and bipartisanship, would follow Fallons advice.

Still, looming over these various calculations is the escalating battle for the Senate.

If you believe that theres a shot that [Democrats] could take back the Senate, you have to confirm Brett Kavanaugh now, said a former member of Trumps administration who is monitoring Senate races and requested anonymity to comment. There isnt a shot in hell that Chuck Schumer (the New York Democrat who presumably would become Senate majority leader) is going to confirm a Trump Supreme Court nominee.

None of this would matter if Democrats didnt have a chance to win the Senate and claim a mandate. But such a scenario could happen, according to interviews with 10 strategists on both sides of the aisle. None would venture as far to predict a Democratic victory, but all admitted it was a possibility.

If we were gathered here in January 2017, nobody would even be talking about [winning back the Senate], the head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, told reporters last week. There is a credible path to a Democratic Senate majority. Its a narrow path, but its gotten wider as the months have gone on.

Reasons for that include:

* The solid re-election prospects for Democratic incumbents in four rust-belt states  Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin  that Trump carried in 2016.

* The improved re-election chances for Democratic incumbents West Virginia and Montana  states Trump won by double digits.

* The likelihood of a continued close race in Florida, where the GOP had been banking that Democrats would be forced to abandon the incumbent, Sen. Bill Nelson.

* The pickup opportunities that have developed for Democrats in races for open seats in Arizona and Tennessee, and the stunning possibility that Rep. Beto ORourkes could upset GOP Sen. Ted Cruz in Texas.

All of this has Republicans worried, although they insist the Democratic chances for a Senate majority remain low. GOP operatives are guaranteeing Rep. Kevin Cramer will deliver a pickup for the party by defeating Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota. And in that case, Democrats would have to pretty much have to have every other competitive race go their way to overcome the GOPs current 51-49 Senate majority.

Midwest Nice

Sens. Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin are two rust-belt Democrats expected to hold onto their seats in November's elections. (Photo: Bill Clark via Getty Images)

The first requirement for Democrats to take back the Senate is to protect their own incumbents. Twenty-five of the senators who comprise the chambers Democratic caucus are up for re-election this year; just eight GOP seats are on the ballot. Among the seats the Democrats need to hold onto, 10 races are in states won by Trump.

Republicans began this cycle confident they could add  perhaps significantly  to their slim Senate majority and block Democrats from any real chance of controlling the chamber until 2022, at the earliest.

But critically, Sens. Bob Casey in Pennsylvania, Sherrod Brown in Ohio, Debbie Stabenow in Michigan and Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin  all from states Trump won after Obama had carried them twice  are favored to fend off Republican challengers.

So far, neither partys outside groups are spending a dime in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan. And most are steering clear of investments in Wisconsin (though Democrats still have some concerns about Baldwin, given that the Koch network of conservative donors has targeted her and Republican Sen. Ron Johnson defied polls showing him trailing to win re-election in 2016.)

Trump has alienated working-class voters in a lot of these states to a greater degree than people recognized, said J.B. Poersch, a top Schumer ally head of the Senate Majority PAC.

Nelson Stays Alive In Florida

Strategists in both parties think Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum's gubernatorial bid can help his fellow Democrat, Sen. Bill Nelson, by encouraging black voter turnout. (Photo: Joe Raedle via Getty Images)

The money Democrats dont envision having to spend in those four rust-belt states  Ohio was the site of 2012s most expensive Senate race, and Pennsylvania was the costliest contest in 2016  frees up cash to funnel to Florida, one of the nations most expensive locales to run a political campaign.

For months, Republicans had been promising that the fundraising prowess and personal wealth of their Senate contender in the state  Gov. Rick Scott  would force Democrats to abandon Nelson, whos seeking a fourth term.

Come mid-September, national Democrats are going to hand Bill Nelson a canteen and a pistol and leave him for dead, Steven Law, president of the Republican super PAC Senate Leadership Fund, predicted to Politico in June.

Instead, Nelson survived a GOP barrage. Scott and his allies outspent Democrats by about $20 million over the summer, to almost no effect. Polls show a tight race, and Democrats and Republicans are now spending about equally on Floridas airwaves.

Democrats still worry about a last-minute injection of cash from Scott  he spent $14 million in the last week of his gubernatorial re-election campaign in 2014  and Republicans think he has defied the national political environment to keep the race close.

Operatives in both parties agree Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillums triumph in the Democratic gubernatorial primary could help Nelson by increasing turnout among black voters.

To Texas Or Not To Texas

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National Democrats aren't sure if they can afford to spend in Texas to support Rep. Beto O'Rourke's run against GOP Sen. Ted Cruz. (Photo: Sergio Flores / Reuters)

The only state on the Senate map more expensive than Florida is Texas, where a weeks worth of advertising across the states 19 media markets can cost $4 million or more. Despite the high cost, the Democrats main Senate super PAC is now looking at entering the contest.

Its possible, Poersch told HuffPost. Theres no reason to take it off the table.

National Republicans have yet to make a full investment in the race, either, though the Club for Growth made a $1 million buy attacking ORourke in two of the states mid-sized media markets  El Paso and San Antonio.

Right now, however, Texas isnt central to either partys plan for Senate control, even though among the Democratic base, ORourke has emerged as perhaps the cycles most exciting candidate and is generating unheard of amounts of cash for his uphill bid against Cruz. ORourke raised $9 million online in August. That means its possible he could force national Republicans to spend without any response from out-of-state Democrats.

The Goal Line

GOP strategists are certain Rep. Kevin Cramer (center, flanked by allies at a party gathering) will defeat Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota. (Photo: Dan Koeck / Reuters)

Beyond Florida, there are eight states where both parties are spending heavily on Senate races. Democrats are bullish about their prospects in two of those contests  the re-election bids by Sens. Jon Tester in Montana and Joe Manchin in West Virginia.

Trump seems to have maintained his popularity in each state after winning them by overwhelming margins two years ago. But both Tester and Manchin are seasoned politicians, and theyve had success depicting their opponents as out-of-state carpetbaggers.

Other Democratic incumbents face especially tough races in Indiana, Missouri and North Dakota. Of those, GOP strategists are convinced that Cramer will unseat Heitkamp.

Democrats are going to lose North Dakota, said Josh Holmes, a top political lieutenant to McConnell. Thats whats going to happen. And that would mean, he asserted, that Democrats have got to run the table elsewhere to win the Senate.

Holmes is probably right: If they lose their seat in North Dakota, Democrats would need to sweep the GOP seats in Nevada, Arizona and Tennessee to claim a Senate majority  assuming they cant take down Cruz in Texas. This scenario also assumes the Democrats can keep their seats in Indiana and Missouri, which is far from a safe bet.

In Missouri, Sen. Claire McCaskill is under heavy assault from GOP outside groups criticizing her as a corrupt career politician. But she has a major money edge over GOP challenger Josh Hawley and should be able to air more ads in the final weeks of the campaign. In Indiana, some public polls show Sen. Joe Donnelly pulling away from Republican Mike Braun, who as a candidate so far has underwhelmed national GOP operatives.

In Nevada, Dean Heller is the only Republican senator up for re-election this year in a state Clinton won in 2016. Hes in a tight contest with Rep. Jacky Rosen.

In Arizona and Tennessee, meanwhile, GOP incumbents decided against seeking re-election. Each race features Democratic moderates who are two of the partys strongest recruits this cycle: Rep. Kyrsten Sinema in Arizona and former Gov. Phil Bredesen in Tennessee.

The Republicans are guarding the goal line in the Nevada, Arizona and Tennessee races, Poersch said. If Democrats want to win back the Senate, thats where they have to break through.

Republicans are countering Sinema and Bredesen with strong candidates of their own: Reps. Martha McSally in Arizona and Marsha Blackburn in Tennessee, both of whom have been strong fundraisers.

Bredesen has repeatedly told reporters he doesnt believe control of the Senate is at stake in his contest. I really dont think so, when you look at all the things that have to happen, he said in an interview in Nashville earlier this month.

While that might be helpful to his campaigns goal of winning over Republican voters, it has caused Democrats some complications in their messaging.

The DSCCs e-mailed fundraising missives to supporters hype the partys path to a Senate majority as running through the southwest  Arizona, Nevada AND Texas  even though Tennessee is a far more likely pick-up opportunity for Democrats than the Lone Star State. Indeed, the DSCC has yet to indicate it plans on spending money in Texas.

The Kavanaugh Effect

If there remain unknowns in the battle for the Senate, they center around the political impact of the turmoil that has come to surround Kavanaugh. Republicans, for now, insist any move to abandon or withdraw his nomination to the high court would devastate GOP voters morale.

I think most Republican voters will think Whats the point of voting? They didnt even stand by Kavanaugh, the former Trump administration official said.

Democrats have been skeptical Kavanaughs nomination ever had the ability to turn swing voters against Democrats, even those running in states Trump won handily. Polling showed most undecided voters said a Supreme Court nomination wouldnt impact their vote.

But in the wake of the sexual assault allegations, polls have shown that supporting Kavanaugh would hurt Democrats with core voters they need to win.

Even before the allegations, red-state Democrats had more to lose by supporting Kavanaugh then they had to gain, Fallon said. Now that hes been credibly accused of sexual assault, theres no reason for them to consider (backing) Kavanaughs nomination. Theyre risking a backlash from women and progressive voters that they need. Theres nothing but downside to vote for him now.

This story has been updated with detail on the Missouri and Indiana Senate races.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.A key dissenter in the decision to reinstate Russia's suspended drug-fighting operation says athletes must be better heard to restore the World Anti-Doping Agency's credibility.

"They're saying: 'Hello, What are you doing? We've lost faith. We don't believe in you any more,'" Linda Helleland, vice president of the World Anti-Doping Agency, told The Associated Press in a phone interview. "If athletes don't believe us, we need to really consider how to get them more involved."

Helleland cast one of two "no" votes in last week's 9-2 decision by the WADA executive committee to reinstate RUSADA. In Washington on Wednesday for meetings with the U.S. government about the fallout from the decision, she said she is certain as ever that her vote was the right one.

"I don't think I'll be alone in taking this position on the way forward," she said.

Helleland, who is the minister of children and equality in Norway, is a candidate to replace Craig Reedie as WADA president next year.

She said she has been moved by the outcry from hundreds of athletes across the globe who are troubled by the decision. On Tuesday night, members of the WADA athlete's commission released a statement saying they were "devastated with WADA's decision to reinstate RUSADA without completion of the road map."

In bringing RUSADA back into the fold, WADA backed off on demands that Russia publicly accept findings of the McLaren Report, which detailed a government-directed program designed to win Olympic medals, and that Russia turn over data and samples from the Moscow anti-doping laboratory that could be used to corroborate possible doping positives.

Reedie defended the decision , saying WADA now has a hard deadline of Dec. 31 for receiving the data, and if Russia doesn't comply, sanctions will go back into effect.

Helleland's analysis of that compromise: "RUSADA hasn't moved, it's WADA that moved. For me, the road map that we chose to stand by is the one we should stand by. We cannot compromise with that."

The RUSADA decision has underscored a growing consensus that athletes are under-represented on WADA and throughout the Olympic world's decision-making process. A WADA governance-review committee is looking at changes that could increase the number of athletes represented in key decision-making groups. Athletes have only one of 12 spots on the executive committee and four of 38 on the foundation board.

"We also need to discuss how we can bring more independence and transparency and democracy into the process," Helleland said.By Sarah N. Lynch and Eric Beech

(Reuters) - A former U.S. National Security Agency employee was sentenced in a federal court in Baltimore on Tuesday to 5-1/2 years in prison, after pleading guilty last December to illegally taking classified information outside the spy agency, the U.S. Justice Department said.

Nghia Hoang Pho, 68, of Ellicott City, Maryland, removed documents that contained classified national defense information and kept them at his home without authorization, the department said in a statement.

Pho will also be required to undergo three years of supervised release after completing his prison sentence.

Pho worked in the NSAs elite hacking unit and he removed what prosecutors described as "massive troves" of highly classified documents containing top-secret national defense information between 2010 and March 2015

A U.S. intelligence official previously has said on the condition of anonymity that Pho was the same NSA employee who had been identified in media reports for using Kaspersky Lab antivirus software on his home computer.

Some U.S. officials have said software from the Moscow-based company allowed Russian intelligence agencies to pilfer sensitive secrets from the United States through Phos computer.

As a result of his actions, Pho compromised some of our countrys most closely held types of intelligence, and forced NSA to abandon important initiatives to protect itself and its operational capabilities, at great economic and operational cost, said Robert Hur, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland, in a statement.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch and Eric Beech in Washington; Editing by Mohammad Zargham and Lisa Shumaker)London (AFP) - A key figure arrested in Britain as part of a campaign finance probe in France into former president Nicolas Sarkozy has agreed to meet French prosecutors next month, lawyers said at a hearing on Wednesday.

Alexandre Djouhri, who is wanted in France, will be interviewed by French judicial officials on October 16 and 17, Ben Watson, of Britain's Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), told a court considering his extradition.

The meeting, at the CPS offices in London, will take place under a section of British law allowing foreign prosecutors who have issued an arrest warrant to interview the wanted suspects.

"There is anticipation that Mr Djouhri is participating in (this) process," Watson said.

Mark Summers, Djouhri's lawyer in Britain, said his client had long consented to such an interview.

"He offered to speak to French prosecutors... when first arrested in the UK," he told the court.

"He's been prepared to cooperate with any lawful investigation since day one."

Djouhri was detained at London Heathrow airport in January under a European arrest warrant.

Investigators there are examining the 59-year-old businessman's alleged involvement in the 2009 sale of a villa in the French Alps for around 10 million euros.

A Libya investment fund managed by former Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi's ex-chief of staff Bashir Saleh bought the property at a "very inflated" price, and Djouhri is suspected of being its true owner, a source close to the inquiry has told AFP.

Investigators also suspect he helped Saleh get out of France in early 2012, in a private jet headed for Niger, as he faced a Libyan arrest warrant a few months after Kadhafi's overthrow.

Djouhri was released on bail on health grounds in February after suffering from heart problems.

He underwent surgery earlier this year, a source close to the case previously told AFP.

But he has been forced to adhere to strict release conditions, including wearing an electronic bracelet and sticking to a curfew that only allows him out between 2:00 pm and 6:00 pm.

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However on Wednesday Judge Emma Arbuthnot relaxed the curfew to just four hours -- between 2:00 am and 6:00 am -- after French officials offered no objections to the request.

Watson said prosecutors on both sides of the Channel agreed with the curfew reduction, given Djouhri's agreement to an October interview.

"There is a reduction in his risk of flight," he added.

Arbuthnot will consider whether to allow his extradition after a court hearing set for November 5.

Sarkozy faces trial for illegal campaign financing and has been charged with accepting millions of euros in funding from Kadhafi.Paris (AFP) - Reckless exploitation of the environment has taken over from drug trafficking as the top source of income for organised crime syndicates and armed groups, the international police agency Interpol said in a report Wednesday.

Ivory trafficking, gold mining, illegal "taxes" on natural resources and other environmental crimes make up 38 percent of the funding of conflict and armed groups, according to the "World Atlas of Illicit Flows" report.

It added that while groups like the Islamic State grab the headlines, they account for just four percent of the $31.5 billion (26.8 billion euros) generated in conflict zones worldwide each year, with the rest going to organised crime groups.

The report, compiled with the Norwegian risk analysis centre RHIPTO and the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, is billed as the first global overview of trafficking routes used by such groups.

It maps out some 1,000 routes used for the trafficking of everything from oil, gold and diamonds to drugs, people and ivory.

"Organized crime is increasingly undermining peace, security and development," said Mark Shaw, Director of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.

"It has become a global phenomenon, represented in a confluence of conflicts from Africa, to the Middle East and the Americas," he said.

Illegal mining makes up some 17 percent of the funding of armed groups, with gold in the eastern DR Congo and coltan (used in mobile phones) in Latin America among the minerals targeted.

Organised crime groups are also involved in the lucrative trade of poached African elephant ivory as well as rhino horns sold to Asia for use in traditional medicine, though the report stressed the $165 million of such sales made up a tiny proportion of their total earnings.

After "environmental crimes", drug trafficking remains the second biggest source of funding, accounting for 28 percent of the total, according to the report.

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Illegal taxing of civilians, as well as looting and extortion, account for another 26 percent.

In contrast, donations and kidnappings for ransom only made up three percent each.

- Shabaab 'tax collectors' -

Christian Nellemann, Head of the RHIPTO Center, said governments needed to start seeing the fight against organised crime as a key factor that could help end conflicts.

"In many instances, criminal groups, some closely connected to political elites, may have a vested interest in renewed and continued armed struggle to ensure their dominance over natural resources and trade routes," he said.

The report sheds light on how militant groups operate "tax collection" operations to extract money from civilian populations.

In mid-2017, it estimated, the Islamic State group was bringing in around $10 million in taxes from the territory it occupied across Iraq and Syria.

"Today, with dramatic losses of territory, Islamic State probably has at their disposal no more than a quarter of this," it said, while warning the group likely has "considerable reserves".

Similarly the report said Afghanistan's Taliban earned between $75 million and $95 million last year taxing heroin produced from the country's poppy fields as well as land and agricultural output.

In Somalia, Al-Qaeda-linked Shabaab Islamists make around 10 million a year through taxing everything from livestock to drinking water, or extorting "protection money" from companies.

The militants even have "tax collectors, identifiable by their uniforms", the report noted.

People trafficking is also a hugely lucrative source of funding for armed and criminal groups -- the fourth-largest criminal enterprise worldwide with an estimated worth of $157 billion, according to the report.

The smuggling of migrants across the Sahara desert nets armed groups up to $765 million a year, it estimated.United Nations (United States) (AFP) - Germany and Saudi Arabia on Tuesday agreed to return ambassadors some 10 months after the kingdom fumed over criticism about its role in Lebanon.

Saudi Arabia, which has increasingly challenged Western governments who speak out on its record, in November recalled its ambassador from Berlin following the eyebrow-raising resignation of Saad Hariri as Lebanon's prime minister while visiting Riyadh.

Sigmar Gabriel, who was then Germany's foreign minister, said that Lebanon's neighbors should let the recovering country decide its own fate, angering Saudi Arabia which like Hariri denied that he was coerced.

Gabriel's successor Heiko Maas, meeting with Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir on the sidelines of the annual UN General Assembly, voiced regret and said the two countries would send back ambassadors.

"In recent months our relations have witnessed misunderstandings which stand in sharp contrast to our otherwise strong and strategic ties with the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and we sincerely regret this," Maas told reporters.

"We should have been clearer in our communication and engagement in order to avoid such misunderstandings."

Jubeir, speaking next to Maas, invited him to visit and affirmed "deep strategic ties" with Germany.

"The kingdom and Germany play a leading role in bolstering international security and stability and the global economy," Jubeir said.

Saudi Arabia, which has especially close ties with US President Donald Trump, has increasingly made clear it would not tolerate reprimands.

Last month Riyadh expelled the ambassador of Canada and froze all new trade after Ottawa denounced a crackdown on activists in the kingdom.

Saudi Arabia similarly pulled its ambassador from Sweden in 2015 over human rights criticism.

Hariri, who eventually returned to Lebanon and reversed his resignation, also holds Saudi and French nationality.

The episode was seen as the latest chapter in Saudi Arabia's intensifying feud with regional rival Iran after Hariri improved ties with longtime rival Hezbollah, a militant Shiite movement backed by Tehran.San Francisco (AFP) - Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger have announced they are leaving the photo-sharing app bought by Facebook six years ago, setting a new test for the parent company as it works to quell mounting turmoil.

"Mike and I are grateful for the last eight years at Instagram and six years with the Facebook team," Systrom said in a statement late Monday, following a report on the departure in The New York Times.

"We're planning on taking some time off to explore our curiosity and creativity again."

Systrom, 34, created the app in 2010 with 32-year-old Krieger, now the outgoing "chief technical officer," when they were students at Stanford University in the heart of Silicon Valley.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg praised the departing Instagram leaders for "their combined creative talents," saying "I've learned a lot working with them."

"I wish them all the best and I'm looking forward to seeing what they build next," Zuckerberg said in a statement released by Facebook.

Systrom's fortune is valued at $1.4 billion by Forbes.

"Building new things requires that we step back, understand what inspires us and match that with what the world needs; that's what we plan to do," the statement said -- though several US media outlets attributed the split to a disagreement with executives at Facebook.

"We're now ready for our next chapter," the statement continued.

Instagram in June announced it passed a billion active users, and unveiled a new long-form video feature in a bid to attract "creators" like those on YouTube.

It became the fourth Facebook platform to eclipse the billion-user mark, including the namesake social network with more than two billion users, and the messaging applications WhatsApp and Messenger.

Facebook acquired Instagram in April 2012 for a combination of cash and stock worth some $1 billion at the time.

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- Questions of autonomy -

Instagram has been a hit with young internet users, an audience that Facebook is keen to keep in its fold.

The Instagram co-founders have reportedly clashed with Facebook's leadership over the photo-sharing service's autonomy within the company, according to The Wall Street Journal citing people close to the matter.

The departures come as Facebook grapples with the worst crisis in its history, vilified for not more zealously guarding the information which users share.

Many see Facebook as having been a top vehicle for spreading false information in recent years, and of being used by nefarious interests intent on swaying elections such as the poll which put President Donald Trump in the White House.

The Cambridge Analytica public relations disaster -- in which Facebook admitted that up to 87 million users may have had their data hijacked by the British consultancy -- came on top of widespread criticism of the social network's propensity to spread and accentuate large amounts of completely false information.

Facebook is facing multiple inquiries from US and British regulators about the Cambridge Analytica user data scandal, and Zuckerberg was grilled by the European Parliament and the US Congress earlier this year.

WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum earlier this year left Facebook, which had bought the smartphone messaging service for $19 billion.

Koum said in a post on his Facebook page that he was taking time off to pursue interests such as collecting air-cooled Porsches, working on cars and playing ultimate Frisbee.

US media reports indicated that a disagreement with Facebook over the privacy of user data may have also been a factor in Koum's decision to quit his position as a high-ranking executive, and likely leave his seat on the board at the leading online social network.Tehran (AFP) - Iran on Tuesday identified the perpetrators of a deadly attack on a military parade as "jihadist separatists", announcing a series of arrests and appearing to tie the Islamic State group to the bloodshed.

The intelligence ministry published photos of the five men it said carried out the assault Saturday in the southwestern city of Ahvaz that killed 24 people including a four-year-old child and other civilians.

"The five members of a terrorist squad affiliated to jihadist separatist groups supported by Arab reactionary countries were identified," the ministry said in a statement.

"The terrorists' hideout was found and 22 people involved (in the attack) were arrested," it said, adding that explosives were seized along with military and communications equipment.

The attack targeted a parade in Khuzestan province commemorating the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.

The border region, which has a large ethnic Arab community, was a major battleground of the conflict and saw ethnic unrest in 2005 and 2011.

Iranian officials initially blamed Arab separatists, who they claimed were behind previous unrest, for the latest attack, saying they were backed by Gulf Arab allies of the United States.

This version was bolstered when a movement called "Ahwaz National Resistance", an Arab separatist group, claimed responsibility shortly after the assault.

But the Islamic State group (IS) was also quick to claim responsibility and later posted a video of men it said were the attackers.

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on Monday linked the attackers to Iraq and Syria, where IS once had major strongholds.

"This cowardly act was the work of those very individuals who are rescued by the Americans whenever they are in trouble in Iraq and Syria and who are funded by the Saudis and the (United) Arab Emirates," Khamenei was quoted as saying by his official website.

- Saudi, UAE deny -

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Iranian authorities have accused the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates (UAE) of being behind the Ahvaz attack.

Both Riyadh and Abu Dhabi denied any involvement.

Saudi Arabia "completely rejects the deplorable false accusations by Iranian officials regarding the kingdom's support for the incidents that occurred in Iran," a Saudi foreign ministry official said Tuesday.

The UAE's minister of state for foreign affairs, Anwar Gargash, has also dismissed Iran's accusation as "baseless".

"This official campaign launched in Iran against the UAE is regrettable and has escalated since the Ahvaz attack," Gargash tweeted earlier this week.

The photographs of the alleged attackers released by the authorities Tuesday showed the bodies of four men named as Ayyad Mansouri, Fouad Mansouri, Ahmad Mansouri and Javad Saari.

The picture published by the intelligence ministry of an alleged fifth member of the group, Hassan Darvishi, was a screenshot taken from the video put out by IS.

According to local media two of the Mansouris are brothers and the third is their cousin.

Abdullah Ganji, the managing director of the ultra-conservative Javan daily, wrote on Twitter that a Mansouri brother "was killed in a suicide bombing in Syria".

There has been no known presence of Iranian Arab separatist groups in Syria.

Ganji also wrote in an article that the nature of the attack in Ahvaz, in which the assailants died, far more resembled IS than the "bombing or hit and run operations" typical of Arab separatist groups.

"To kill until you are killed, without trying to leave the scene is the method of (IS)," he said, pointing to parallels with a high-profile attack in Iran last year.

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.Tehran (AFP) - US President Donald Trump is the "main culprit" to blame for a recent surge in oil prices, Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said on Wednesday.

"The main culprit of the price hikes... and the destabilisation of the market is Mr Trump and his disruptive and illegal policies," Zanganeh said on state television, after the US president hit out at OPEC accusing it of "ripping off the rest of the world".

"Mr Trump both tries to decrease Iran's oil exports significantly and also wants prices not to go up. These two can't happen together," Zanganeh said, alluding to US sanctions on Iran's oil sales set to take effect in November.

Trump withdrew the United States from the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers in May, and his administration imposed a round of sanctions on the Islamic republic in August.

Zanganeh said if Trump wants prices to ease then he has to "stop his unwarranted interference... in the Middle East and not prevent Iran's production and exports".

"It's interesting that Mr Macron also explicitly pointed to this," Zanganeh said, referring to comments by French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday.

Speaking to reporters after addressing the UN General Assembly, Macron said Iran should be allowed to keep selling oil and called for dialogue as he rejected a US push to isolate the clerical regime.

"It would be good for the price of oil for Iran to be able to sell it," the French leader said. "It's good for peace and it's good for the shape of the international price of oil."United Nations (United States) (AFP) - Iranian President Hassan Rouhani predicted Wednesday that the United States would eventually rejoin an international nuclear deal, saying talks this week at the United Nations showed his counterpart Donald Trump's isolation.

"The United States of America one day, sooner or later, will come back. This cannot be continued," Rouhani told a news conference.

"We are not isolated; America is isolated," he said.

Rouhani pointed to a session of the Security Council chaired by Trump earlier Wednesday, where the leaders of Britain and France backed the nuclear deal, as well as a statement by European powers who say they will find ways to continue business with Iran and evade impending sanctions.

"We do hope with all the law-abiding and multilateral-oriented countries that we can ultimately put this behind us in an easier fashion than it was earlier anticipated," Rouhani said.

The elected Iranian leader said that his government would stay in the 2015 agreement, under which Tehran sharply scaled back its nuclear program in return for sanctions relief.

"Until such time that we keep reaping the benefits of that agreement for our nation and people, we shall remain in the agreement," he said.

"Should the situation change, we have other paths and other solutions that we can embark upon," he said.

Rouhani downplayed the sharp words from the US administration, including a warning Tuesday by Trump's national security advisor, John Bolton, that Iran would have "hell to pay" if it crosses the United States.

"During the past 40 years we have been subjected to that type of language many times," he said.

"In this American administration, unfortunately, the language has been said to be somewhat unique and they speak with a different style, presumably because they are new to politics," he said.Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh put forth an alibi Monday to try to shoot down claims that he sexually assaulted one woman while in high school and another while attending college: At the time of both alleged incidents, he was a virgin.

Were talking about allegations of sexual assault, Kavanaugh told Martha MacCallum of Fox News during a joint interview with his wife, Ashley Estes Kavanaugh. Ive never sexually assaulted anyone. I did not have sexual intercourse, or anything close to sexual intercourse, in high school or for many years thereafter

Kavanaughs comments came in response to a question from MacCallum regarding tweets written by lawyer Michael Avenatti that the high court nominees alleged sexual assault amounted to gang rapes. MacCallum then followed up on Kavanaughs assertion.

So youre saying through all these years that are in question that you were a virgin? she asked.

Thats correct, Kavanaugh replied.

Two women  Christine Blasey Ford and Deborah Ramirez  have come forward to accuse Kavanaugh of sexual assault. Neither has described their encounter as involving sexual intercourse.

In a letter to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Ford described a high school party at which she said Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge locked her in a room at a home in suburban Maryland in the early 1980s.

They locked the door and played loud music, precluding any successful attempts to yell for help, Ford said in her letter. Kavanaugh was on top of me while laughing with Judge, who periodically jumped onto Kavanaugh. They both laughed as Kavanaugh tried to disrobe me in their highly inebriated state.

Ramirez offered her account of sexual assault to the New Yorker magazine. Describing a party at Yale University, where she and Kavanaugh were enrolled at the time, Ramirez claims Kavanaugh exposed himself and thrust his penis in her face before she was able to push him away.

Brett Kavanaugh, with his wife, Ashley Estes Kavanaugh, answers questions during a Fox News interview about allegations of sexual misconduct. (Photo: Jacquelyn Martin/AP)

With what had once seemed a sure-fire confirmation process suddenly thrown into doubt, President Trumps pick for the high court continued to sternly deny that he had acted inappropriately with either woman.

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Im not going to let false accusations drive us out of this process, and were looking for a fair process where I can be heard and defend my integrity, my lifelong record, Kavanaugh said during his remarkable appearance on Fox News, my lifelong record of promoting dignity and equality for women, starting with the women who knew me when I was 14 years old. Im not going anywhere.

Ford will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, after which Kavanaugh will have the opportunity to respond.

_____

Read more from Yahoo News:Dubai (AFP) - The United Arab Emirates, whose troops are fighting Yemeni rebels alongside government forces, said Wednesday it would fully support new peace talks after UN-brokered negotiations broke down earlier this month.

UAE state minister for foreign affairs Anwar Gargash said he had had "very productive discussions" with UN Yemen envoy Martin Griffiths on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

"Reaffirmed strong support for UN-led political process after Geneva setback," Gargash tweeted. "Will fully support UN proposals for new talks soon."

The UN envoy has been shuttling between all sides in the devastating civil war that has killed nearly 10,000 people in Yemen since March 2015 in a bid to get peace talks back on track.

Planned negotiations in Geneva broke down on September 8 after rebel delegates refused to show up until they received guarantees that they would be able to fly home afterwards.

The UAE, Saudi Arabia and their allies have enforced an air and sea blockade of rebel-held areas of Yemen since they intervened in March 2015 when President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi fled into exile.

On September 9, government and UAE troops resumed their deadly offensive on the rebel-held Red Sea port of Hodeida after a brief suspension while the UN attempted to convene peace talks.

The assault on the port city was the trigger for the new peace push.

Hodeida is the point of entry for UN aid shipments and also handles 70 percent of commercial shipping, and the UN warned of a humanitarian catastrophe if the port were put out of use.

Hadi, whose government is recognised by the international community even though the rebels control the capital Sanaa and much of the north, was due to address the UN General Assembly later on Wednesday.

The civil war has pushed Yemen, long the Arab world's poorest country, to the brink of famine.

Human rights groups warned last week that more than five million malnourished children face imminent starvation.New York (AFP) - Heads of state and government on Monday kicked off "Climate Week," held every year on the margins of the UN General Assembly, by urging world leaders to act urgently to reduce global warming.

With Poland hosting the COP 24 climate summit in December, UN climate chief Patricia Espinosa called on nations to unite behind limiting global warming to the less than two degrees Celsius enshrined in the 2015 Paris accord.

"Nations are not living up to what they promised," she said, making no mention of the Trump administration's decision in June 2017 to pull out of the Paris agreement.

"What nations have currently pledged under Paris will bring the global temperature up about three degrees by 2100," she said.

Emergency climate talks in Bangkok earlier this month did not make sufficient progress, she said. "We must therefore work harder than ever between now and Cop 24 to complete this work."

Following a recent climate conference in San Francisco, California Governor Jerry Brown, whose state has taken up the lead abandoned by Washington, made a pitch to the private sector.

"The problem with climate change is that it's about transforming the whole economy," said Brown. "The key part is technological investment and we need big company investment to get the technology."

Hilda Heine, president of the Marshall Islands, which face an existential threat from rising sea levels, officially unveiled a national strategic plan to reach zero emissions by 2050.

"If we can do it, so can you," Heine told representatives from dozens of countries. The Marshall Islands was only the 10th country and the first island nation to make the pledge, she said.

Climate Week, organized by The Climate Group in partnership with the United Nations and the city of New York, is in its 10th annual edition.

Around 150 events are scheduled this year, including a "One Planet Summit" on Wednesday led by billionaire philanthropist Michael Bloomberg and French President Emmanuel Macron, and cultural events, including the Global Citizen Festival with Janet Jackson, The Weeknd and Cardi B.United Nations (United States) (AFP) - French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday urged world leaders to reject "the law of the most powerful," offering a rebuke to Donald Trump's go-it-alone approach to global challenges.

Macron did not refer to the US president by name but his address to the UN General Assembly outlined positions that were polar opposites to Trump's world view.

"Some have chosen the law of the most powerful, but it cannot protect any people," said Macron, who reaffirmed his strong backing for multilateralism embodied by the United Nations and its global peace efforts.

Earlier at the UN podium, Trump vowed to "never surrender America's sovereignty to an unelected, unaccountable global bureaucracy" and to reject "the ideology of globalism."

Since Trump took office in 2017, the United States has ditched the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate deal -- two international accords that France has championed.

The US administration has cut funding to the United Nations, aid agencies and to UN peacekeeping whose missions in Mali and the Central African Republic are working with French troops to bolster stability.

Macron pointed to growing economic inequality as one of the drivers of the crisis in the world order, with some 783 million people living under the threshold of poverty and 250 million children out of school.

Touching on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the French president said there was no credible alternative to the two-state solution that Trump has imperiled with his recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

Macron also touched on climate change and migration as global issues that "no one can tackle" on their own.

There was even a warning that trade agreements could be contingent on membership in the Paris climate pact, in a clear bid to pressure the United States to rethink its intention to quit the accord.

- Addressing Iran -

Defending the Iran nuclear deal, Macron urged dialogue with Tehran, again clashing with the US president who a few hours earlier called on world governments to isolate Iran.

Story continues

"What will bring a real solution to the situation in Iran and what has already stabilized it? The law of the strongest? Pressure from only one side? No!" Macron said in his address.

"We know that Iran was on a nuclear military path but what stopped it? The 2015 Vienna accord."

Trump in May withdrew from the seven-nation agreement negotiated under his predecessor Barack Obama, calling it a "disaster" and instead ramping up pressure on Iran including through renewed sanctions.

Supported by Israel and Saudi Arabia, Trump has sought to roll back Iranian influence around the Middle East, including in war-ravaged Syria.

"We should not aggravate regional tensions but rather through dialogue and multilateralism pursue a broader agenda that allows us to address all the concerns caused by Iranian policies -- nuclear, ballistic, regional," said Macron.

Speaking at a press conference, Macron said Iran should be able to sell oil to bring down prices, challenging Trump's plan to tighten an economic vise around Iran.

"It would be good for the price of oil for Iran to be able to sell it. It's good for peace and it's good for the shape of the international price of oil," said Macron.

France and other European powers are setting up a way to allow businesses to keep doing business in Iran in hopes of avoiding sanctions by the United States.

The French president was due to hold talks later in the day with his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani, who has refused to meet Trump.

Despite their vastly differing world views, Macron and Trump -- both political outsiders who defied the odds in winning power -- have forged an unlikely relationship.

After meeting with Macron on Monday, Trump said the two men have had "some very good experiences" but acknowledged, "on occasion not so good, but 99 percent very good."

And after Trump's latest espousal of his "America First" foreign policy, Macron again painted himself as an upholder of a more internationalist approach to diplomacy.

"Do not accept the erosion of multilateralism," Macron told the gathering on Tuesday. "Don't accept our history unraveling. I'm not getting used to it and I'm not turning my head," he said.New York (AFP) - US First Lady Melania Trump on Wednesday announced that she would visit Ghana, Malawi, Kenya and Egypt next week, kicking off her first major international solo trip to promote child welfare and education.

Trump, 48, made the announcement at a reception welcoming spouses of visiting heads of state and other foreign delegations on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

"October 1 will mark the first day of my solo visit to four beautiful and very different countries in Africa: Ghana, Malawi, Kenya and Egypt," she said.

Trump said those countries had worked alongside the US Agency for International Development, with whom she has been organizing her trip, in making "great progress in overcoming some of their biggest challenges."

She said that she was looking forward to taking with her the message of her signature initiative, "Be Best," which she set up with the goal of focusing on children's well-being, as well as social media use and opioid abuse.

"I am so proud of the work this administration is doing through USAID and others, and look forward to the opportunity to take the message of my Be Best campaign to many of the countries and children throughout Africa," she added.

"Whether it is education, drug addiction, hunger, online safety or bullying, poverty or disease, it is too often children who are hit first and hardest across the globe."

The first ladies of Ghana, Kenya and Malawi attended the reception, as did the wives of US Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Sara Netanyahu, the wife of the Israeli prime minister, was also there.

- 'Love Africa' -

Trump thanked in turn the first ladies of Ghana, Malawi and Kenya, saying how much she was looking forward to visiting their countries. She did not say how long her visit would take.

In Ghana, she said USAID programs have focused on healthcare; in Malawi, on education as key to combating poverty; and in Kenya on programs including early childhood education, wildlife preservation and HIV prevention.

Story continues

US President Donald Trump and Melania hosted Kenyan leader Uhuru Kenyatta and his wife at the White House last month.

In Egypt, the US first lady's final stop, she will highlight tourism and preservation projects as well as issues concerning women and religious minorities.

"Each of us hails from a country with its own unique challenges, but I know in my heart we are united by our commitment to raising the next generation to be happy, healthy and morally responsible adults," Trump told the reception.

Her husband has yet to travel to Africa in office, and fanned major controversy at the start of the year for allegedly disparaging "shithole" countries on the continent.

Earlier on Wednesday Donald Trump trailed his wife's announcement, saying "we both love Africa. Africa is so beautiful."

In September 2017, the mother of one and Slovenian-born former model went alone to Toronto, where she met Britain's Prince Harry and attended the opening ceremony of a games he organizes for disabled and wounded veterans.

Melania Trump has also accompanied the US president on visits to Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

The White House said the trip would take place in the first week of October, and focus on maternal and newborn care in hospitals, education for children, the culture and history of each country, and how the United States is supporting them on their journey to self-reliance.Sydney (AFP) - Three men accused of torturing and killing kangaroos are being hunted by police in Australia, just days after a man was arrested for intentionally mowing down emus in another high-profile animal cruelty case.

Police in Western Australia on Wednesday released images of the men wanted for questioning over separate incidents in June and May during which "two kangaroos were tortured and killed".

A man was seen brandishing knuckle-dusters in one of the pictures, alongside another suspect with his face pixelated and wearing a similar weapon on his hand.

The hunt for the alleged kangaroo killers comes on the heels of an arrest made after sickening footage of a driver running over emus in the outback sparked a social media storm.

The video, described as "horrific cruelty" by animal welfare groups, showed a man ploughing into at least a dozen of the ostrich-like birds in his four-wheel drive, counting and laughing loudly each time he hit one.

A 20-year-old man was arrested in Victoria late Friday over the incident and was expected to face a raft of charges related to animal cruelty.Mexican authorities have taken control of the entire police force in the southern Mexican city of Acapulco, claiming the department has been infiltrated by drug gangs.

Two police commanders have been accused of murder, while the rest of the force officers have been stripped of their guns, radios and bulletproof vests and taken for background checks.

Acapulco  a beach resort  was a fashionable location favoured by movie stars in the 1950s and 60s, but has since been plagued by escalating violence due to warring drug gangs.

State police and the military will now assume the law enforcement responsibilities in the city, which has some 800,000 residents.

The state government said it took the step because of suspicion that the force had probably been infiltrated by criminal groups and the complete inaction of the municipal police in fighting the crime wave.

Last year, Acapulco had a murder rate of 103 per 100,000 residents, one of the highest in Mexico and the world.

The CIA has said the level of violence is comparable with war zones such as Syria and Iraq.

Bodies are regularly dumped on the beachfront or left hanging from motorway bridges, according to reports.

Following the military takeover, the US government repeated its travel warning advising its citizens not to travel in Guerrero state due to the armed groups that are active in the region.

Local police in several parts of Mexico have been disbanded over drug cartel corruption. In Guerrero alone, local police have been disarmed in more than a dozen towns and cities since 2014, although none as large as Acapulco.

In the northern state of Tamaulipas, one of the hardest hit by drug violence, almost all local police forces state-wide have been disbanded since 2011.

With low pay and little training, local police in Mexico are particularly vulnerable to drug cartels, which offer them money and threaten to kill them.

Additional reporting by Associated PressMexico City (AFP) - Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Wednesday promised the parents of 43 students abducted in 2014 to unravel the unsolved case, on the anniversary of a suspected massacre that traumatized the country.

Four years on, Mexico is still haunted by the disappearance of the students from the Ayotzinapa teachers' college in the southern state of Guerrero.

The case has become a symbol of the gruesome violence rocking the country, and a stain on the human rights record of the man Lopez Obrador will replace on December 1, outgoing President Enrique Pena Nieto.

Speaking after meeting with the students' parents, the leftist president-elect vowed he would work to shed light on the crime from the day he takes office.

"On December 1, if it has not already been done, we will sign a decree to create an investigative commission and define the procedures we will follow until the truth is found and justice is done," said Lopez Obrador.

"We also agreed to throw open the doors of the next government and the country to the international human rights organizations that have battled to prevent this case from being closed," he told journalists.

- Unsolved crime -

The 43 young men attended a school known for its tradition of rowdy demonstrations for left-wing causes, the Raul Isidro Burgos Rural Teachers' College.

On the night of September 26, 2014, they commandeered five buses to travel to a protest -- a long-standing tradition at the college -- and were attacked and then detained by municipal police in the city of Iguala, Guerrero.

According to federal prosecutors, corrupt police officers who were on the payroll of the drug cartel Guerreros Unidos mistook the students for members of a rival cartel.

They allegedly handed them over to Guerreros Unidos hitmen, who slaughtered them and incinerated their bodies at a garbage dump.

However, independent investigators from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights who carried out a forensic analysis of the supposed crime scene found that version of events was impossible.

Story continues

There was no sign that such an enormous bonfire had burned at the site, they said.

The government's failure to clarify the case has caused widespread speculation about an elaborate cover-up.

The independent experts hypothesized the students may have inadvertently hijacked a bus loaded with heroin bound for the United States.

In a country known for murky links between powerful drug cartels and corrupt officials, that has raised questions about who could have been behind such a shipment.

The case has drawn international condemnation of Pena Nieto's government, which continues to insist the prosecution's version of events is the "historical truth."

- 'Ray of hope' -

The meeting with Lopez Obrador gave the outraged, grieving parents "a ray of hope," said Maria Elena Guerrero, the mother of student Giovanni Galindes, who was 20 when he disappeared.

"We've been fighting for four years, opening any door we can, and today a door opened on its own," she said, carrying a large photograph of her son.

The pending change in administration "gives us hope we will find out what happened to our children," said a sobbing Epifanio Alvarez, whose son Jorge was 19 when he was abducted.

The investigative commission will comprise victims' parents, rights groups, international organizations and the federal government, said Alejandro Encinas, the man tapped to lead it.

The prosecution's own investigation has been widely criticized.

It led to the arrest of 119 people. But the United Nations alleges many of them were tortured, and says the evidence obtained is irreparably tainted. No one has ever been sentenced for the crime.

The UN repeated its criticism of the government's version of events.

"It is worrying that the government has focused on reiterating the untenable and trying to silence or discredit voices that question it," said the Mexico office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Mexico has seen an explosion of crime in recent years linked to brutal violence by drug cartels.

Last year, the country registered a record 28,702 homicides, and grisly discoveries of mass graves are a regular occurrence.By Giulia Segreti and Agnieszka Flak

MILAN (Reuters) - Michael Kors agreed to buy luxury designer Versace for 1.83 billion euros ($2.15 billion) including debt on Tuesday, as the U.S. fashion group positions itself to take on larger European rivals.

Michael Kors, whose namesake label is best known for its leather handbags, has made no secret of its ambition to widen its customer base and its portfolio of high-end brands after buying British stiletto-heel maker Jimmy Choo for $1.2 billion last year.

The bet on Versace comes as the U.S. group looks to refresh the more downmarket image of the Michael Kors brand and recover some of its pricing power. The move is also aimed at reviving Versace, which returned to a net profit last year.

It is the latest in a string of foreign takeovers of Italian luxury brands in recent years.

Milan-based Versace, known for its bold designs and its Medusa head logo, was one of a clutch of family-owned Italian brands cited as attractive targets at a time when the luxury industry is riding high on strong demand from China.

"With the acquisition of Versace we have created one of the world's leading fashion and luxury groups," said John Idol, chairman and CEO of Michael Kors Holdings.

Michael Kors has agreed to buy all of Versace's outstanding shares for a total enterprise value of 1.83 billion euros ($2.2 billion) to be funded in cash, debt and shares in Michael Kors Holding Ltd, which will be renamed Capri Holdings Ltd.

Idol later ruled out any further acquisitions by Capri, which will focus on developing the three brands.

Talks started before the summer, when Versace was on the radar of several investors, as Blackstone intended to exit the group, a source close to the deal said.

The U.S. private equity firm, which bought 20 percent of Versace for 210 million euros in 2014, will make a 156 million euro capital gain by exiting its investment, Reuters calculations show.

The Versace family, which owns 80 percent of the Milan-based fashion house, will receive 150 million euros of the purchase price in Capri shares.

Story continues

"We believe that being part of this group is essential to Versace's long-term success. My passion has never been stronger," said Donatella Versace, the sister of its late founder who is its artistic director and vice-president.

Versace CEO Jonathan Akeroyd will remain at the helm of the company, while Donatella Versace will "continue to lead the company's creative vision", Idol added.

The deal is expected to close in the fourth fiscal quarter, subject to regulatory approvals. JPMorgan and Barclays were among the advisers.

BIG FASHION

Budding conglomerates like Michael Kors have been trying to make inroads into an industry dominated by European players such as Louis Vuitton-owner LVMH and Kering.

"The Versace brand has strong global growth potential which is untapped across all regions, particularly Asia and North America," Cowen analysts said in a note.

Idol said his group plans to grow Versace's global sales to $2 billion globally, reach profit margins in the "high teens range" and open about 100 new stores as well as bolstering online sales. It also plans to raise the share of higher-margin accessories and footwear to 60 percent of sales from 35 percent.

"Versace is terribly under-developed. That is going to change with the resources of Capri behind them," Idol added, in a call with analysts, explaining that the group's runway line would remain the main "focus".

He admitted that the brand's reach was bigger than its customer base and that "we need to convert those metrics".

Versace does not disclose financial details, but filed documents showing 2017 sales were 668 million euros and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) 45 million euros.

"(In luxury) Americans are the opposite of Italians: Though not excellent in products, they are (excellent) in their approach to the market. The only risk is that they don't give the product their due value," said Giuliano Noci, professor at Milan's Politecnico School of Management.

Michael Kors shares were trading 1.4 percent higher at 1655 GMT, after falling more than 8 percent on Monday when news of the deal emerged.

Versace is the latest Made-in-Italy name to be snapped up by a foreign company. Rome-based Fendi, celebrity jeweller Bulgari and cashmere maker Loro Piana were all bought by LVMH. Gucci is the biggest brand in Kering, which also Bottega Veneta and menswear brand Brioni.

Fans fretted on social media about the red carpet favourite losing its appeal, while Italian politicians mourned the loss of another of the country's cherished brands.

"I am a liberal but I'm tired of seeing the best Italian brands in fashion, food and technology being bought by foreigners," Italy's Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said.

($1 = 0.8495 euros)

(Additional reporting by Sarah White in Paris and Pamela Barbaglia in London; Editing by Kirsten Donovan, Alexander Smith and Adrian Croft)By Tom Polansek

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The Mississippi River closed to vessel traffic north of St. Louis on Wednesday after barges carrying loads of corn broke free from one another and struck a river lock, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said.

The accident took place at Lock and Dam 25 near Winfield, Missouri, and involved a vessel towing 12 barges south on the river, said Army Corps of Engineers spokesman Scott Ross.

"It's a slowdown," he said. "Commerce can't go north or south."

The Mississippi River and its tributaries are a key pipeline for moving grain from Midwest farms south to export terminals along the Gulf Coast, where about 60 percent of U.S. grain and soybean exports exit the country.

The closure at Lock 25 sent spot barge freight rates sharply higher on Midwest rivers, barge brokers said. Spot barges on the Mississippi River at St. Louis jumped 35 points of tariff, while rates at Davenport, Iowa, north of the closure, jumped 85 points.

Workers were inspecting damage at the lock, and the Army Corps of Engineers estimated it would reopen to traffic at about 3 p.m. CDT.

However, operations to recover the barges are expected to start on Thursday and could last several days, according to the Army Corps. The lock will be closed during the recovery operations, which will take place during daylight hours, the Army Corps said.

(Additional reporting by Karl Plume in Chicago; Editing by Tom Brown and Sandra Maler)United Nations (United States) (AFP) - Guatemala's President Jimmy Morales denounced a United Nations-backed anti-corruption commission as a threat to peace Tuesday in his most virulent attack to date on the controversial watchdog.

Morales said last month that he would not ask the UN to renew the mandate of the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala, or CICIG, after it twice asked for his presidential impunity to be lifted in order to investigate graft allegations.

The UN has so far stood behind CICIG, which works with Guatemalan state prosecutors, and its Colombian head Ivan Velasquez who has been banned by Morales from entering the country.

In a speech on the opening day of the annual UN General Assembly in New York, Morales said that CICIG had become an instrument of persecution in Guatemala.

"CICIG has become a threat to peace in Guatemala," said the former television comedian.

"It has established a system of terror, a system where anyone who thinks differently is persecuted or investigated."

He also accused CICIG of violating Guatemala's constitution by "manipulating justice" and undermining the principles of "the presumption of innocence and due process."

Velasquez had politicized justice and was fomenting a atmosphere of instability that undermined national security, he added.

Morales had initially been a supporter of CICIG and promised during his successful 2015 run for the presidency to request an extension of its mandate -- which is currently due to expire next year -- until 2021.

CICIG's investigations into allegations of tax evasion led to Morales's predecessor Otto Perez and former vice president Roxana Baldetti being charged with corruption. They are both currently behind bars awaiting trial.

But Morales turned hostile when CICIG began trying to probe the funding behind his 2015 election campaign.

CICIG and state prosecutors have presented evidence that Morales's FCN-Nacion party failed to report nearly $1 million in financing to electoral authorities.

Story continues

In his speech, Morales called upon UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to appoint a new head for CICIG, saying that Guatemala had become politically "polarized like never before."

Guterres, who is due to meet with Morales at a closed-door meeting later Tuesday, has rejected previous calls to replace Velasquez.

Set up in 2006, the mission is an independent body with investigative and prosecutorial powers. Its success in tackling corruption has inspired calls for similar bodies to be set up in other Central American countries.A coalition of women from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Tuesday urged the Senate Judiciary Committee to suspend any confirmation vote on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh until an investigation is completed into claims of sexual misconduct.

The Mormon Women for Ethical Government, which identified itself as a nonpartisan group comprising about 6,000 members, directed its message at every member of the judiciary panel but specifically called on the four Mormons on the committee, Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Mike Crapo (R-Idaho.)

Our mutual faith teaches that any sexual abuse or assault in any context is contemptible and worthy of the most severe condemnation, the group said in a statement. If these accusations are proved false, an investigation will prevent harm to the courts legitimacy. If they are true, then Judge Kavanaugh must not be confirmed.

Several of the groups leaders furthered that call in an open letter published later Tuesday, in which they said recent allegations by two of Kavanaughs former classmates were serious  no matter when they happened.

Earlier this month, Christine Blasey Ford accused the nominee of pinning her to bed and trying to remove her clothes when they were both at a party during their high school years. A second woman, Deborah Ramirez, came forward Sunday and alleged that Kavanaugh exposed himself and thrust his penis in her face at a party when they both attended Yale University. Both have asked for an FBI investigation into their claims.

Kavanaugh has vehemently denied the allegations.

Such allegations must be taken seriously and thoroughly investigated, Tuesdays letter reads. If we brush them aside, or minimize them, or excuse them away because he was young or he was drunk, we are sending an appalling and incredibly damaging message to both the young women AND the young men of our country.

Sharlee Mullins Glenn, the groups founder and president, told The New York Times that none of the four senators has responded to the letter.

Story continues

Some of the lawmakers the group is targeting have been staunch defenders of Kavanaugh throughout the mounting allegations, including Hatch, who recently accused Democrats of orchestrating a smear campaign against the nominee. The Utah senator slammed the party this week, saying: No innuendo has been too low, no insinuation too dirty. Everything is an excuse for delay, no matter how unsubstantiated.

Blasey is expected to testify in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, and the all-male contingent of GOP lawmakers has hired a female sex crimes prosecutor to question Blasey. Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley has scheduled a vote on Kavanaughs nomination for the following day at 9:30 a.m.

That decision has prompted condemnation, including from the group of women in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS).

Stop pushing forward despite the clear objections of Dr. Blasey Ford, Deborah Ramirez, and millions of other women across the country, the group wrote Tuesday. Women comprise half of your constituents. If you truly respect women, then demonstrate it by honoring our requests to go slowly here. The appalling audacity of some of your colleagues in declaring their intention to simply take this seat with or without the broad support of women everywhere is just as troubling as the allegations against Kavanaugh. In fact, the irony is chilling.

Related Coverage

Second Woman Accuses Brett Kavanaugh Of Sexual Misconduct In New Yorker Bombshell

Senate Judiciary Committee Schedules Brett Kavanaugh Vote For Friday

Sex Crimes Prosecutor Rachel Mitchell Tapped To Question Christine Blasey Ford In Senate

Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.Residents of Georgetown, South Carolina, prepared for the worst while hoping for the best on Tuesday, September 25, as the hurricane-swollen waters of four rivers rolled downstream toward the city.

The Waccamaw and the Pee Dee Rivers were carrying the brunt of the water, and the local utility company said it was shutting off the gas in the low-lying historic district. At Tidelands Georgetown Memorial Hospital, officials evacuated inpatients but said they were keeping emergency operations open. To help that happen, South Carolina National Guard troops began building barriers around the hospital.

Georgetown sits near at the confluence of the Waccamaw, Pee Dee, and Sampit Rivers, and the Black River joins the Pee Dee just above the town. The rivers flow into Winyah Bay, and the bay and surrounding marshes are heavily influenced by the tides. Credit: South Carolina National Guard via StoryfulA Senate hearing is usually a mundane affair. Thursdays hearing with Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford promises to be anything but, although exactly how it will play out is still being negotiated.

As of Tuesday afternoon, both Kavanaugh and Ford were still scheduled to testify on Thursday, a decision capped off after a weekend of intense negotiations between Fords lawyers and staffers on the Senate Judiciary committee.

By Sunday night, everything appeared settled  until the New Yorker published an article that contained yet another allegation. Debbie Ramirez, a woman with whom Kavanaugh attended Yale, told the magazine that he had exposed his penis to her without her consent during a college party.

While Ramirez has said she wants the FBI to investigate  a call Democratic lawmakers have heeded  there has not been the same push for her to testify before the committee the way there was with Ford. (Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the ranking member on the committee, said after Ramirezs allegations were published that Thursdays hearing should be postponed, but Grassley declined that request).

Nevertheless, new tensions between Ford and Senate Republicans arose on Monday when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the allegations were purely political. Even by the far lefts standards, this is a shameful, shameful smear campaign McConnell said on the Senate floor Monday. Senate Democrats and their allies are trying to destroy a mans personal and professional life on the basis of decades old allegations that are unsubstantiated and uncorroborated.

McConnells remarks didnt sit well with Fords attorneys, who promptly sent a letter to Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley, who chairs the judiciary committee, condemning them and deeming them inconsistent with the communication they had received from his committee. You said in your letter that you intend to provide a fair and credible process that provides Dr. Blasey Ford fair and respectful treatment. Yet earlier today the Majority Leader dismissed Dr. Fords experience as a smear campaign,' Fords attorneys wrote in the letter, which was obtained by TIME. This and statements he has made previously are flatly inconsistent with your letter.

Story continues

Less than 24 hours later, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer was echoing similar sentiments, calling on the Senate floor for McConnell to apologize to Ford. It is galling, galling for the Republican leader, who has done more than maybe anyone to politicize the Supreme Court nomination process, to make these trumped up, hyperbolic charges of partisanship by Democrats, said Schumer.

Dissatisfaction with McConnells rhetoric however, was just one of the issues Fords attorneys raised in the letter to Grassley. Grassleys staff had told Fords attorneys on Monday that the Senator had hired a female outside counsel to question Ford and Kavanaugh at Thursdays hearings, possibly in an effort not to repeat the mistakes of the Anita Hill hearings 27 years ago, when the image of an all-male, all-white judiciary committee interrogating a young African-American woman spurred outrage across the nation.

But the committee declined to give the name of the prosecutor to Fords attorneys, simply referring to her as an experienced sex crimes prosecutor. (Republican lawmakers also declined to provide the name to reporters on Tuesday).

Fords attorneys promptly denounced the idea of an outside counsel, calling it contrary to the Senates constitutional obligations, and inconsistent with Fords requests that she be questioned by Senators. This is not a criminal trial for which the involvement of an experienced sex crimes prosecutor would be appropriate, the letter states. Neither Dr. Blasey Ford nor Judge Kavanaugh is on trial.The goal should be to develop the relevant facts, not try a case.

The decision was also greeted with scorn by outside Democratic groups. Its too late for their transparent attempt to hide behind an outside counsel as everyone has already seen Trump and the male Senators spend days lobbing disgusting and sexist attacks at both Dr. Ford and Ramirez, Meagan Hatcher-Mays, counsel at Demand Justice, a group working against Kavanaughs nomination, said in a statement Tuesday.

Grassley named Arizona prosecutor Rachel Mitchell as the committees investigating counsel Tuesday night. Mitchell is the Special Victims Unit chief for the Maricopa County Attorneys office in Phoenix and a registered Republican, according to the Washington Post.

The goal is to de-politicize the process and get to the truth, instead of grandstanding and giving senators an opportunity to launch their presidential campaigns, Grassley said a statement that praised Mitchells experience and objectivity.

Democratic lawmakers, meanwhile, are still lamenting over the fact that no other witnesses will testify at the hearing. In particular, they are incensed that Republicans have not subpoenaed Mark Judge, Kavanaughs friend from high school who Ford alleges was in the room when Kavanaugh assaulted her. To me a central question is why is Mark Judge not testifying? Delaware Sen. Chris Coons, who sits on the Judiciary Committee, told reporters on Monday. There is a whole lot of things in the high school activities  that raise a lot of questions about their activities, their social activities, their drinking in high school.

And of course, there is the question of what happens after the hearing, and whether it will ultimately make any difference at all. Senators wont have long to deliberate on the testimonies: the committee has scheduled a vote on Kavanaughs confirmation for 9:30 a.m. Friday, though Grassley seemed to leave open the possibility of a further delay.

If were ready to vote, we will vote. If we arent ready, we wont, Grassley said.

Were going to be moving forward, he told reporters on Tuesday. Im confident were going to win.

 With reporting by Brian Bennett/WashingtonWASHINGTON (AP)  President Donald Trump denounced Democratic efforts to block Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court confirmation as a cynical "con job" on Tuesday and launched a dismissive attack on a second woman accusing the nominee of sexual misconduct in the 1980s, asserting she "has nothing."

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell predicted that Kavanaugh would win approval, despite the new allegations and uncertainty about how pivotal Republicans would vote in a roll call now expected early next week. Like much of America, lawmakers awaited a momentous Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in which Kavanaugh and chief accuser Christine Blasey Ford are to testify Thursday, though not together.

Hanging in the balance is Trump's chance to swing the high court more firmly to the right for a generation. Despite McConnell's forecast that Republicans will "win," Kavanaugh's fate remains uncertain in a chamber where Republicans have a scant 51-49 majority.

"I will be glued to the television," said Sen. Susan Collins, a moderate Republican from Maine, who has yet to declare her position on confirmation.

Hoping the hearing will yield no new surprises, the Senate Judiciary Committee scheduled its own vote on Kavanaugh for Friday, and Republican leaders laid plans that could keep the full Senate in session over the weekend and produce a final showdown roll call soon after  close to the Oct. 1 start of the high court's new term.

With the Judiciary Committee's GOP members all male, McConnell said the panel was hiring a "female assistant" to handle the questioning for Republicans "in a respectful and professional way." Neither he nor committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, identified the attorney.

"My gut is they're trying to avoid a panel of all white guys asking tone-deaf questions," said Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware.

Each senator on the 21-member panel will be allowed five minutes to ask questions, said committee spokesman Taylor Foy. That's a tight rein for such a major hearing.

Story continues

Meanwhile, the Republicans were still assessing what Kavanaugh's Monday interview on the Fox News Channel  an unusual appearance for a Supreme Court nominee  indicates about how he would do in Thursday's hearing.

During the interview, Kavanaugh denied sexually assaulting anyone. He also denied the account of a second woman, Deborah Ramirez, who told The New Yorker magazine that Kavanaugh caused her to touch his penis at a party when both were Yale freshmen.

Some in the White House expressed relief that Kavanaugh, 53, presented a positive image to counter the allegations. Yet he appeared shaky at times. And there remained concern among aides and Trump himself about how Kavanaugh would hold up facing far fiercer questioning from Senate Democrats, according to a White House official not authorized to speak publicly.

The No. 2 Senate Republican, John Cornyn of Texas, acknowledged that for the nominee "it's extremely awkward to be talking about such private matters on TV." But Cornyn said he thought Kavanaugh "did well and did what he needed to do" in the interview.

Yet Kavanaugh's accounts of his behavior in high school and college have faced intense scrutiny, with some of his former classmates coming forward to challenge his claims. James Roche, a Yale graduate who says he was Kavanaugh's roommate in 1983, issued a public statement saying he was "close friends" with Ramirez and "cannot imagine her making up" the story about Kavanaugh exposing himself.

While a few Republicans have strongly challenged the credibility of Kavanaugh's accusers, Trump's words have been more biting. Last week, he lampooned Ford's allegation that an inebriated Kavanaugh trapped her beneath him on a bed at a high school house party and tried to take her clothes off before she escaped. Surely she would have reported it to police if the encounter was "as bad as she says," the president said.

"It's a con game they're playing," he said Tuesday. "They're really con artists. They don't believe it themselves, OK?"

Trump's latest broadside was aimed at Ramirez, who conceded to The New Yorker that she'd been drinking at the time she says Kavanagh exposed himself. She also said she was uncertain of some details.

"The second accuser has nothing," Trump told reporters at the United Nations. "The second accuser doesn't even know thinks maybe it was him, maybe not. She admits she was drunk. She admits time lapses."

Predictably, that played badly with Democrats.

"How many women have heard that before? How many women have kept their experiences quiet because they knew they would hear that?" Sen. Patty Murray of Washington said of Trump's characterization.

She said Trump's remarks were "disgusting, it's disgraceful and by the way, women are paying attention." She herself was carried to Washington on a 1992 wave of fervor by female voters, a year after the Senate discounted sexual harassment allegations against Clarence Thomas and sent him to the Supreme Court.

In a phone call with Judiciary Committee staff of both parties, Kavanaugh denied Ramirez's story, panel spokesman Foy said.

Ramirez's attorney, John Clune, said his client stood by The New Yorker story and said he and Grassley's committee were trying to decide how to provide more information to the panel. He said an FBI investigation  which Democrats have also sought for Ford and Trump and Republicans have blocked  "is the only way to get the truth."

Aides said Kavanaugh answered questions by Judiciary panel staff members about Ramirez's allegations

Republicans are concerned that, win or lose, the battle over Kavanaugh's nomination is further animating women already inclined to vote against Trump's party in November's elections in which control of the next Congress is at stake.

Treatment of Ford, 51, on Thursday will be watched closely.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, a potentially key Republican vote, said GOP senators need to come into the hearing with open minds.

"It's very important to take allegations of those who come forward seriously, and I think we need to go into this hearing with the view that we will listen," she said.

Grassley is planning to use his committee's modest-sized hearing room instead of a far larger chamber that's often home to high-profile hearings. He said in a recent letter that the smaller room would help avoid a "circus atmosphere," and Ford herself has sought to limit the number of TV cameras and journalists covering the event.

Congressional testimony is often magnified by TV close-ups, and a single moment, good or bad, can have a major impact.

___

Associated Press writers Kevin Freking, Mary Clare Jalonick, Padmananda Rama, Matthew Daly, Darlene Superville, Jonathan Lemire, Zeke Miller and Deb Riechmann contributed to this report.Theresa May has rejected calls for another general election before Brexit day in 2019, insisting it is not in the national interest.

The Prime Minister dismissed reports that an election would be called in November after reports that Downing Street officials had war-gamed a winter vote.

Speaking to reporters as she flew to New York for a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, Mrs May said: What Im doing is working to deliver a good deal with Europe in the national interest.

Theresa May has ruled out another election before Brexit day (Getty)

Jeremy Corbyn confirmed Labour would vote down any deal Mrs May strikes with the EU (PA)

It would not be in the national interest to have an election.

After losing the Conservatives overall majority in the House of Commons in the snap election which she called in 2017, Mrs May is generally thought to be wary of taking the risk of going to the country early again.

Under the Fixed-Term Parliament Act, no general election is due to be held until 2022.

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But there have been reports that some within her administration believe a fresh poll could give her the comfortable majority she needs to drive through a Brexit deal in the face of increasingly robust opposition from both the Leave and Remain wings of her party.

Some Brexiteers have predicted that up to 80 Tories could vote against any deal based on her much-derided Chequers proposals.

There are also believed to be enough pro-EU Tories in the Commons to block a harder Brexit deal by voting with Labour, Liberal Democrats and the SNP.

The Prime Minister said another general election would not be in the national interest (PA)

Some Brexiteers have predicted that up to 80 Tories could vote against any deal based on the Chequers proposals (PA)

Mrs Mays comments come amid increasingly vocal demands from Labour for an early election, with shadow chancellor John McDonnell sending a challenge to the Government to bring it on.

Speaking at Labours annual conference in Liverpool, Jeremy Corbyn confirmed that his party is ready to vote down any agreement Mrs May reaches with Brussels if it does not meet six tests set out by shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer.

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Mr Corbyn told the BBC that in this scenario, the greater likelihood is that the Government will then collapse itself and wed have an election in which I hope the people of this country would make it a choice of a different government that was serious about our relationship and serious about protecting trade.

Shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer said Labour would support a Peoples Vote on the terms of any deal (Getty)

Any Commons vote on a Brexit deal is expected to come after the middle of November, when a special Brussels summit is mooted to try to finalise the UKs withdrawal agreement.

Sir Keir Starmer said yesterday that the option to remain could be included in a Peoples Vote on the terms of any deal struck with the EU.BATESVILLE, Miss. (AP)  Quinton Tellis is the man on trial for killing a Mississippi woman by setting her on fire, but much of the first day's testimony focused on emergency workers' reports that Jessica Chambers told them an "Eric" had attacked her.

That testimony came Tuesday after prosecutors tried to plant doubts about what Chambers really could say with severe burns, calling a speech pathologist to say the 19-year-old Chambers would have lost her ability to speak clearly within minutes of being burned.

Tellis' retrial on capital murder charges began in Batesville after jurors couldn't reach a verdict in a first trial last year. In his opening statement, Panola County Assistant District Attorney Jay Hale urged jurors to look to the other evidence besides what firefighters and paramedics say they heard from Chambers after they found her staggering away from her burning car on a rural backroad in December 2014 near Courtland. She would die hours later in a Memphis, Tennessee, hospital.

"Once you hear all the evidence the state offers, you're going to have plenty of evidence to convict him of capital murder," Hale told jurors.

But the Eric testimony was the cornerstone of Tellis' defense in the first trial and defense attorney Darla Palmer told jurors to trust it.

"This evidence is always going to show, it's always going to say Eric did it, no matter what the state does to diminish that, and we would ask that you find Quinton not guilty," Palmer said.

The testimony of speech pathologist Carolyn Wiles Higdon was the first new wrinkle prosecutors introduced in the retrial. Higdon said Chambers could have made sounds, but wouldn't have been able to control them or pronounce consonants with a swollen tongue and charred lips, testifying that it would have been impossible for her to say "Eric."

"There is no way she could have produced an articulate sound soon after this inflammation started, this burn started," she testified.

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But that was followed with a parade of volunteer firefighters and paramedics. Some say they couldn't understand what Chambers was saying or didn't hear. But six testified they heard her say Eric, identifying words and short sentences even though Chambers was speaking in a quiet, abnormally low voice they described as breathy or raspy.

"It was hard, but what I thought I heard was Eric," said Courtland firefighter Jody Morris. He said when Chambers came shuffling out of the woods, "it looked like Hollywood, like a movie. She looked like a zombie"

Panola County fire coordinator Daniel Cole was among the responders who concluded Chambers was dying.

"I didn't think we'd ever speak to her again after we left the scene," Cole testified. "I was trying to obtain as much information as I could for law enforcement."

He described the word Chambers struggled to get out as sounding like "hair, hair, hairic."

In his opening statement, Hale told jurors in that investigators interviewed many people named Eric or Derek but none "were ever found to be viable suspects in this crime." Palmer, though, said investigators "did not check every viable lead."

Hale said investigators were at a dead end when they re-examined Tellis, who had been an early suspect. Hale said investigators focused on Tellis after he changed his story and admitted he had been with Chambers later on the Saturday of her death.

"Quinton Tellis had not been truthful to investigators," Hale said.

Prosecutors said cellphone locations, video, DNA on a keychain and Tellis' statements link him to Chambers' death. A new witness may testify she picked up Tellis that night near where Chambers was burned. Palmer described that evidence as "speculation" or "unreliable."

The 29-year-old Tellis faces another murder indictment in the 2015 stabbing death of Meing-Chen Hsiao in Monroe, Louisiana. He's already pleaded guilty to unauthorized use of her debit card. The 29-year-old Tellis is currently serving a prison sentence in Mississippi on an unrelated burglary charge.Mexico City (AFP) - Parents of 43 students who went missing in Mexico in 2014 urged President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to unravel the unsolved crime on Wednesday, the anniversary of the suspected massacre.

Four years on, the disappearance of the students from the Ayotzinapa teachers' college in the southern state of Guerrero still haunts Mexico.

It has become a symbol of the gruesome violence rocking the country, and of the problem many experts say is driving it: the murky links between powerful drug cartels and corrupt officials.

The students had commandeered five buses to travel to a protest the night of September 26, 2014, but were attacked by municipal police in the city of Iguala, Guerrero.

According to federal prosecutors, corrupt police handed the students over to drug cartel hitmen, who slaughtered them and incinerated their bodies at a garbage dump.

However, independent investigators from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights who carried out a forensic analysis of the supposed crime scene found that version of events was impossible.

The government's failure to clarify the case has caused widespread speculation about an elaborate cover-up.

The independent experts hypothesized the students may have inadvertently hijacked a bus loaded with heroin bound for the United States.

The case has drawn international condemnation and been a stain on President Enrique Pena Nieto's government.

Parents of the 43 students were due to meet Wednesday with Lopez Obrador, who replaces Pena Nieto on December 1 and has vowed to do justice in the case.

"We're going to ask him to follow through on creating an investigative commission with international backing," said the parents' lawyer, Vidulfo Rosales.

"We'll never find out what happened if we just use the ordinary means of the (Mexican) justice system."

He said there were "promising signs" the incoming administration would try to get to the bottom of the case, but "a lot will depend on this meeting," he said.

The United Nations meanwhile repeated its criticism of the government's official version of events, calling it "untenable."

"It is worrying that the government has focused on reiterating the untenable and trying to silence or discredit voices who question it," said the Mexico office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in a statement.A Philippine lawmaker fiercely critical of President Rodrigo Duterte's drug war was arrested Tuesday on charges for which he had been granted amnesty, a move condemned by watchdogs as persecution of the government's opponents.

Senator Antonio Trillanes was taken into custody and then posted bail in Manila shortly after a court-issued warrant forced him from the Senate building, where he has been holed up for weeks to avoid arrest.

Trillanes is the second senator critical of Duterte's drug war to be detained. Leila de Lima has been behind bars since February 2017 on charges which she says were concocted to silence her.

Duterte earlier this month voided an amnesty granted eight years ago to the senator, a former navy officer, for his role in two coup attempts in the mid-2000s.

"They twisted the law so our democracy and institutions failed," Trillanes told reporters. "This (case) has nothing to do with anything except for the vengeance of Duterte and his underlings."

Duterte issued a decree earlier this month ordering Trillanes' arrest on the grounds that he had not completed the requirements of filing an official application for amnesty and admitting guilt.

The case has prompted concern in the Philippines. Critics have questioned whether presidents have the power to undo amnesties, a repeatedly used tool in a nation plagued by insurgencies and military rebellions.

- 'Hitman mindset' -

"The arrest... is part of the persecution of critics of the Duterte administration, the latest in the relentless campaign to silence those who dared to challenge the president's murderous 'drug war'," said Carlos Conde of Human Rights Watch Philippines.

Bigger legal trouble could await Trillanes because the government is still seeking his arrest on another charge, stemming from a separate coup attempt, which does not carry bail.

The Philippines' creaking legal system is notoriously slow and defendants can remain behind bars for years before they get their day in court.

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After being released on Tuesday Trillanes returned to the safe haven of the Senate, where lawmakers have a certain amount of protection against arrest.

Along with De Lima, Trillanes is Duterte's loudest critic, telling AFP last year: "This man is a sociopath and he has the mindset of a hitman."

Trillanes last year appealed to the International Criminal Court to investigate killings in Duterte's war on drugs and has repeatedly accused the president of being a mass murderer and holding secret bank accounts.

Last year Trillanes also had the president's eldest son Paolo brought before a Senate inquiry to face allegations that he was involved in drug trafficking, which the younger Duterte denied.

Trillanes had faced rebellion and coup d'etat charges for being among military officers who rose up against then-president Gloria Arroyo over alleged corruption and mismanagement.

He led scores of junior officers in taking over part of Manila's Makati business district in 2003 and seizing a luxury Manila hotel in 2007 along with several armed followers as they demanded Arroyo's resignation.Pope acknowledges young people 'put off' by church scandals originally appeared on abcnews.go.com

Pope Francis addressed the sex abuse scandals impacting the Catholic Church and the effect they have had on young people during a speech in Estonia Tuesday.

Francis acknowledged that some young people have been put off religion because they are "upset by sexual and economic scandals that do not meet with clear condemnation."

"We ourselves need to be converted; we have to realize that in order to stand by your side we need to change many situations that, in the end, put you off," Francis said.

PHOTO: Pope Francis greets people as he arrives for a Holy Mass at the Freedom square in Tallinn, Estonia, Sept. 25, 2018. Pope Francis arrived in Estonia for a one-day visit Tuesday. (Mindaugas Kulbis/AP)

"We know - and you have told us - that many young people do not turn to us for anything because they dont feel we have anything meaningful to say to them," the pope said. "In fact, some of them expressly ask us to leave them alone, because they feel the Churchs presence as bothersome or even irritating."

(MORE: Pope Francis to tour Baltics, honor 'those who have suffered for their faith')

"These are just a few of your complaints. We want to respond to them. As you yourselves put it, we want to be a 'transparent, welcoming, honest, inviting, communicative, accessible, joyful and interactive community,'" Francis continued.

PHOTO: Pope Francis leads a holy mass at the Shrine of the Mother of God, Sept. 24, 2018, in Aglona, Latvia. (Vincenzo Pinto/AFP/Getty Images)

The pope made the remarks on the final day of his four-day visit to the Baltic States. He spoke before an audience of young people from a number of Christian religions in a 19th century Lutheran Church in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia.

Earlier this month, the pope met with a small delegation of American Catholic Church leaders amid the sexual abuse crisis that's dominated the conversation about the U.S. church.

The meeting had been requested by Cardinal Daniel Di Nardo following the damaging release of a Pennsylvania grand jury report in July that stated that since 1947, hundreds of priests in the state sexually abused more than 1,000 children and the news that a now-demoted cardinal, Theodore McCarrick, rose through the ranks within the church, despite officials in the Vatican and in the U.S. knowing about sexual allegations against him dating back to 2000.

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McCarrick was removed as a cardinal by Pope Francis in July after a church investigation found recent allegations believable. But, the case has continued to fuel criticism directed at the pope after a statement written by a high-ranking Italian Vatican official called for the Popes resignation over the mishandling of the McCarrick case.

(MORE: Pope meets with top US Catholic Church clergy in 'lengthy, fruitful' meeting about sex abuse)

PHOTO: Pope Francis arrives to celebrate Holy Mass in Aglona, Latvia, Sept. 24, 2018. (Toms Kalnins/EPA via Shutterstock)

Next month, the Vatican is hosting a synod, a gathering of several hundred bishops from around the world, to talk about young people and the church.

In preparation for the synod, the church asked young people between the ages of 16 and 29 from around the world to share their views about the church. Their completed questionnaires were used to prepare the meeting's working document, the church said. One of the working document's findings is that young people see a large disconnect between what the church says and what the church does. The synod will be held from Oct. 3 to Oct. 28.

On Tuesday evening, the pope concluded his trip to the Baltics with a large, open-air mass in Freedom Square in Tallinn. This trip included visits to Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia, which are celebrating their original, hundred-year anniversaries of independence from Russia following World War I in 1918. During World War II, they were occupied by the Nazis and then lived under Soviet rule for almost 50 years until 1990; hard times when people were persecuted for their faith.Pope Francis on Tuesday acknowledged that young people are being driven away from the Roman Catholic Church because of the way it has handled the problem of clerical sexual abuse.

Speaking to a room of young people during his trip to Estonia, Francis said the church needs to change its ways in order to regain the trust of future generations, The Associated Press reported.

Many young people do not turn to us for anything because they dont feel we have anything meaningful to say to them, Francis told the ecumenical Christian gathering at a church in Tallinn, according to a translation from the Catholic News Agency.

The Catholic Church has for months been roiled by renewed calls for accountability regarding clerical sexual abuse. Around the world, victims, advocates, public officials and Catholics in the pews have called out senior church officials for not doing enough to hold accountable predatory priests and the bishops who cover for them. The scandal reached the highest levels of the church this August, when a former Vatican official accused Francis and other high-ranking clergy of covering up the sexual misconduct of a disgraced ex-cardinal.

Francis, who has yet to respond clearly to the accusations, told the gathered Estonian youth that he understands young people are shocked by the scandal and by other failings of the church.

Young people are outraged by sexual and economic scandals that do not meet with clear condemnation, by our unpreparedness to really appreciate the lives and sensibilities of the young, and simply by the passive role we assign them, the pope said.

Pope Francis gives a speech during an ecumenical meeting with young people on Sept. 25, 2018, at the Charles Lutheran church (Kaarli Kirik) in Tallinn, Estonia. (Photo: VINCENZO PINTO via Getty Images)

Francis referred to a research document created ahead of the upcoming Synod of Bishops, a global meeting that this year is dedicated to the youth. The document compiled the opinions of young Catholics around the world on how the church can best serve its young people.

Francis said that its clear from the document that young people want the church to be transparent, welcoming, honest, inviting, communicative, accessible, joyful and interactive.

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We ourselves need to be converted, he said. We have to realize that, in order to stand by your side, we need to change many situations that, in the end, put you off.

The pope met with the youth on his last day of a papal trip to Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. He made his frank comments on the sex abuse scandal the same day the Catholic Church in Germany released a damning report on the abuse crisis in that country. The report concluded that at least 3,677 people were abused by clergy between 1946 and 2014, according to the AP. Most victims were boys age 13 or younger, and one case in every six involved rape, the report found.

Pope Francis waves to the crowd as he heads to the Liberty Square for a holy mass on Sept. 25 in Tallinn. (Photo: VINCENZO PINTO via Getty Images)

The scandal of clerical sexual abuse and cover-up has also rocked the American Catholic Church. In August, a Pennsylvania grand jury identified more than 1,000 victims and 301 predatory priests after a landmark investigation into six of the states eight dioceses.

Katie Prejean McGrady, a Catholic speaker and writer, was one of the delegates sent to Rome by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to offer insights on young people ahead of the Synod of Bishops. She told HuffPost she was moved by Francis words on Tuesday, and hopes its a sign he will respond to particular claims and allegations specifically, and soon.

McGrady said she believes the crisis has caused young Catholics to respond with renewed efforts of prayer, fasting and community building. Young people are demanding transparency and working for justice and healing for abuse victims, she said. But theres also been much confusion and pain, and a lot of lingering questions.

Theres been anger and rage as a result of this hurt, and some young people teeter on the brink of despair, thinking that efforts to evangelize wont work because of the scandal, because of this evil, and because the Church has lost some credibility because of this, McGrady said. Its tough, because were called to be a people of hope, and we know that, but its still a struggle right now.

(Photo: VINCENZO PINTO via Getty Images)

Kaya Oakes is a former atheist who has written extensively about returning to her Catholic roots and struggling to reconcile her liberal beliefs with church doctrine. Oakes told HuffPost that at the moment, she finds her Catholic identity more among laypeople than among the church hierarchy.

Most of us will never meet or interact with a bishop or cardinal. Most of us barely spend time with priests, Oakes said. Thats probably why we feel the abuse crisis more acutely  because it happens to people like us.

Oakes said she thinks younger Catholics are reeling from the crisis.

They feel abandoned by the church leadership and betrayed by the cultures of clericalism and silencing that allowed this to happen, she said. Because of Me Too and a greater openness to victims who come forward as well as a cultural shift toward calling out abusive behavior, younger Catholics are disgusted by the idea that the church treated people like this.

Both Oakes and McGrady said that what young people want from the church now is action, instead of empty words.

Honesty. We want honesty. We want transparency. We want answers, McGrady said. And to rebuild that trust, young people want assurance, and action plans, to ensure this never happens again.

Love HuffPost? Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today.

Need help? Visit RAINNs National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Centers website.

Also on HuffPost

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.Abidjan (AFP) - More than 4,000 prisoners serving time for minor crimes in Ivory Coast are to receive a presidential pardon, the government said following a cabinet meeting Wednesday.

A statement said 4,200 prisoners of a total 19,000 nationwide would received pardons as "an act of clemency," and that, while their crimes would not be expunged from their records, the amnesty would "limit the consequences".

The measure coincided with a declaration by prison administration unions criticising overpopulation and a lack of resources for the system.

The pardons were announced almost two months after President Alassane Ouattara amnestied former first lady Simone Bgagbo, who had served seven years of a 20-year term for political violence that claimed several thousand lives in 2010-11.

Ouattara announced an amnesty for Gbagbo and 800 others in the name of national reconciliation on the eve of national independence day.Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee have hired Rachel Mitchell, a prosecutor from Arizona, to handle questioning in Thursdays hearing about sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

Two other women have also come forward with allegations of sexual misconduct by Kavanaugh since Christine Blasey Ford first claimed the judge pinned her to a bed, covered her mouth and tried to remove her clothes when they were both in high school in the 1980s. Deborah Ramirez, the second woman to speak out against Kavanaugh publicly, claims he exposed himself to her at a party during college. The third woman, Julie Swetnick, said in a sworn affidavit released Wednesday that Kavanaugh was present at a party in 1982 where she said she was gang raped. Kavanaugh has denied the claims from all three women. On Wednesday, Kavanaugh released a statement denying Swetnicks claims, calling them ridiculous and from the Twilight Zone.

Heres what to know about Mitchell, a Republican, whom chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley said has decades of experience prosecuting sex crimes, in a statement announcing her hiring.

Who is prosecutor Rachel Mitchell?

Mitchell has worked as a prosecutor since 1993, according to Grassleys statement. She is the deputy county attorney for the Maricopa County Attorneys Office and chief of the Special Victims Division, two positions from which she is currently on leave, Grassley said.

Prior to heading the Special Victims Division, Mitchell ran the Maricopa County Attorneys Office sex-crimes bureau, which is responsible for prosecuting sex-related felonies, such as adult sexual assault, child molestation and child prostitution offenses. Mitchell supervised the bureau for 12 years, according to Grassley.

She is a widely recognized expert on the investigation and prosecution of sex crimes, and has frequently served as a speaker and instructor on the subject, Grassley said.

Maricopa County attorney Bill Montgomery told the Arizona Republic that Judiciary Committee staffers contacted him about Mitchell over the weekend and commended his deputy, referring to her as a professional, fair, objective prosecutor.

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The people of America are well served with her involvement in this process, he said.

What cases has Rachel Mitchell prosecuted?

One high-profile case Mitchell prosecuted is the sentencing of Paul LeBrun, a former Catholic priest who was accused of molesting six boys in the 1980s and 1990s, to 111 years in prison, according to the Washington Post.

The Associated Press reports that Mitchell in 2014 prosecuted the case of a former church volunteer in Scottsdale, Ariz. who molested children he supervised as a church babysitter and camp counselor over a period of seven years. He received a 30-year prison sentence with lifetime probation.

In a 2012 interview with FrontLine magazine, which is associated with the church group Foundations Baptist Fellowship International, Mitchell said she did not initially plan to go into prosecuting sex crimes but was inspired after working with an attorney who prosecuted a youth choir director.

It struck me how innocent and vulnerable the victims of these cases really were, she said.

Is Rachel Mitchell a Republican?

Mitchell is a registered Republican, according to the Washington Post. The Post reports Mitchell previously donated to the campaign of Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, who is a Republican.

What will Rachel Mitchells role be in the Kavanaugh hearing?

Mitchell is expected to question both Kavanaugh and Ford, who are both set to testify in the hearing on Thursday.

Fords accusations and the Thursday hearing have promoted some to question the optics of the all-male GOP contingent on the Judiciary Committee asking Ford about her claims against Kavanaugh. Im very appreciative that Rachel Mitchell has stepped forward to serve in this important and serious role, Grassley said. Ms. Mitchell has been recognized in the legal community for her experience and objectivity.Money is coming in for the European Team ahead of the weekends Ryder Cup

The Ryder Cup is less than 48 hours away and suddenly punters are backing the European team with the bookmakers.

It is 25 years since the USA won a match on foreign soil, but they have crossed the Atlantic Ocean with one of the strongest teams in living memory.

World No.1 Dustin Johnson, Masters champion Patrick Reed and the resurgent Tiger Woods are just three of the big names taking part, while Phil Mickelson is the only member of the side not currently ranked in the worlds top 20.

READ MORE: Ive proved myself time and time again  Garcia

READ MORE: Reinvented and resurgent, Woods can rewrite own Ryder Cup history

READ MORE: Tiger Woods  I was close to tears on last hole

That is compared to six of the Europeans, but as the tournament nears, punters are going with history, backing the home side and their price is going down.

While this incredibly strong USA team might be the 19/20 favourites, we have certainly seen a real swing in the betting towards Europe this week who are now 11/8 from 13/8 on Betfair Exchange, a Betfair spokesperson told Yahoo Sport UK

We are wondering if this late surge for Europe has something to do with punters perhaps starting to consider the Americans terrible away form in the tournament, of which they havent won outside of the States since 1993, a staggering 25 years ago.





When it comes to player markets, Woods is now third favourite to score the most points, with experienced European players Rory McIlroy and Justin Rose also in the running

One player who doesnt have a particularly good Ryder Cup record is Tiger Woods, but following his recent resurgence, he is now 14/1 third favourite to be top scorer, they added.

Justin Rose is currently favourite to be the top scorer at odds of 10/1, while Rory McIlroy is the most backed player in this market at 11/1.

The US Ryder Cup team are stronger on paper

Phil Mickelson is completely friendless with just 100 bet on him so far out of the 40k bet on this market and at odds of 85/1 perhaps he could be a dark horse to watch out for.

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So far weve seen 2m bet on The Ryder Cup on Betfair Exchange, with 1m of that coming this week alone, and considering we saw 30m wagered in 2016 in what was a particularly one-sided contest, if this one goes down to the wire we could see in excess of 40m bet by the time the trophy is lifted.

Ryder Cup 2018

USA 19/20

Europe 11/8

Draw 12/1The Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday released Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaughs prepared remarks about Christine Blasey Fords sexual assault allegation against him.

Blasey and Kavanuagh are both scheduled to testify before the panel on Thursday.

Blasey has alleged Kavanaugh pinned her down, groped her and attempted to remove her clothing at a small party in suburban Maryland when they were both in high school in the early 1980s. Kavanaugh, now a federal appeals court judge, has vehemently denied sexually assaulting anyone.

Two other women, Deborah Ramirez and Julie Swetnick, have come forward this week with sexual misconduct allegations against Kavanaugh stemming from the 1980s. Both accusers legal teams have suggested their clients would be willing to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Kavanughs written prepared remarks only address Blaseys accusation:

Brett Kavanaugh Written Testimony by Hayley Miller on Scribd

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Brett Kavanaugh And The Men Who Say Nothing

Do Republicans Think Christine Blasey Ford Is Lying? They Can't Say.

Kavanaugh Releases Calendar In Effort To Prove He Didn't Assault Christine Blasey Ford

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.Reuters

South Africa's last white president F.W. de Klerk, who died on Thursday aged 85, stunned the world when he scrapped apartheid and negotiated a peaceful transfer of power to a Black-led government under Nelson Mandela. But while he was feted globally and shared the Nobel Peace prize with the revered Mandela, de Klerk earned only scorn from many Blacks outraged by his failure to curb political violence in the turbulent years leading up to all-race elections in 1994. And many right-wing white Afrikaners, descendants of Dutch and French settlers who had long ruled the country under de Klerk's National Party, viewed him as a traitor to their causes of nationalism and white supremacy.Bucharest (AFP) - The former head of a communist-era prison camp in Romania has died at the age of 90, while serving a 20-year jail sentence for crimes against humanity, officials said on Wednesday.

Ioan Ficior who oversaw the Periprava camp in the country's east between 1958 and 1963, died in the prison hospital of Jilava, outside Bucharest, where he was being treated for "a series of chronic medical problems," a spokeswoman for the national penitentiary authority told AFP.

She did not reveal the exact cause of death.

Ficior, who prosecutors said was responsible for the deaths of 103 prisoners at Periprava -- where political opponents of communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu were interned -- was sentenced last year.

He was the second former prison camp chief to be jailed by the Romanian authorities.

The first, Alexandru Visinescu, is also currently serving a 20-year sentence and is now aged 92. He was head of the Ramnicu Sarat camp in eastern Romania.

Prosecutors say that Ficior's regime in Periprava was inhumane and repressive, but he always protested his innocence.

He was brought to trial in 2014 following legal action by the Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes.

In all, more than 600,000 Romanians were convicted and jailed for political reasons under the communist regime between 1945 and 1989, according to the Memorial Museum for Victims of Communism in Sighet in northwestern Romania.

Romania's communist era came to an end with the fall of Ceausescu in 1989. The country joined the European Union in 2007, along with neighbouring Bulgaria.SOCHI, Russia (AP)  Although Russia claims it has filed an appeal to overturn its doping ban from track and field competition, the Court of Arbitration for Sport said Wednesday it had not received any such document.

Russia's track team was banned by the IAAF in November 2015 after a World Anti-Doping Agency investigation found widespread drug use by elite athletes from the country.

A new legal challenge would follow WADA's decision last week to reinstate the Russian Anti-Doping Agency after compromising on two key criteria  an admission of wrongdoing by the Russian government and access to evidence stored at the Moscow anti-doping laboratory.

The Russian track federation said its appeal asks for the same two criteria to be dropped from the list of demands the IAAF has made.

"In our view it is unjustified (to demand) compliance with these criteria and their inclusion in the road map for reinstating RusAF is illegitimate because they are outside RusAF's purview," Russian track federation president Dmitry Shlyakhtin said in a statement.

CAS, however, said it has yet to receive a filing at its Swiss headquarters.

Also, the IAAF said it received a letter from Shlyakhtin asking for the Russian team to be reinstated "as soon as possible," and saying last week's WADA decision should set a precedent.

"The IAAF has, from the very beginning, been clear on its reinstatement requirements and processes overseen by an independent taskforce. We stand behind the decisions we have made and are very confident of our legal position," the IAAF said in a statement.

"We will put the required resources behind robustly defending any challenge to the suspension of RusAF, whether at CAS or elsewhere. The only way for RusAF to achieve reinstatement is by satisfying the reinstatement conditions to the satisfaction of the IAAF Council."

WADA allowed Russia to accept only an International Olympic Committee report which didn't directly accuse the government of sponsoring doping, instead of a harsher report by WADA's own investigator. WADA also reinstated the Russian Anti-Doping Agency in return for a promise to provide evidence from the Moscow lab at a later date.

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Top Russian athletes have continued to compete despite the ban on the team.

Since the 2016 Olympics, when only one Russian was allowed to compete, the IAAF has certified dozens more to compete as "Authorized Neutral Athletes" after examining their history of drug-testing. Such athletes won six medals at last year's world championships, including gold for high jumper Maria Lasitskene.

___

AP Sports Writer Graham Dunbar in Geneva contributed to this report.

___

More AP sports: https://apnews.com/tag/apf-sports and https://twitter.com/AP_SportsSupreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is facing mounting accusations about alleged sexual misconduct during high school and college. (Photo: Alex Wroblewski / Reuters)

Sexual violence experts slammed Senate Republicans on Wednesday for enlisting a sex crimes prosecutor to question the woman who alleged Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh assaulted her. They say its inappropriate because a full investigation into Dr. Christine Blasey Fords claims has not been conducted.

The woman, who goes by the name Christine Blasey professionally, is scheduled to testify on Thursday in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee about her allegation that Kavanaugh attempted to rape her when they were both teenagers. While the Democrats on the committee plan to interview her themselves, the all-male GOP majority bloc has enlisted a veteran prosecutor from Arizona, Rachel Mitchell, to conduct its questioning.

It makes absolutely no sense for a sex crimes prosecutor to be hired to do the job of the senators on the committee, said Linda A. Seabrook, general counsel at Futures Without Violence, a nonprofit working to end violence against women, calling the arrangement unprecedented.

This is not a criminal case. What is the standard of proof? And what will she be asking exactly when no investigation has been conducted into the allegations? she said. As a former prosecutor, I cant imagine what I would be asking about when I have no investigative material on which to rely.

She added that it was irresponsible to not demand the appearance and questioning of Kavanaughs high school friend, Mark Judge, who Blasey has said was present in the room when the alleged attack occurred.

Blasey has appealed for a full FBI investigation into her sexual assault accusation before testifying before the committee, a request that a number of Senate Democrats support. On Sunday, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, asked for an immediate postponement of proceedings related to Kavanaughs nomination. She also urged the White House to direct the FBI to investigate Blaseys allegations, as well as sexual misconduct claims brought by a second woman. Deborah Ramirez, a classmate of Kavanaughs at Yale University, told The New Yorker that he exposed his penis to her at a party when they were both students.

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On Wednesday, a third woman, Julie Swetnick, came forward, alleging that Kavanaugh was sexually aggressive with girls in high school and was present at a party where she was gang-raped.

Kavanaugh has denied any wrongdoing.

The chairman of the committee, Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), has said an FBI investigation is not warranted and is continuing the proceedings without pause. He plans to hold a committee vote on Kavanaugh at 9:30 a.m. Friday, the day after the hearing.

Grassley explained his decision to hire Mitchell, the chief of the Special Victims Division of the Maricopa County attorneys office, in a statement released on Tuesday night.

Im committed to providing a forum to both Dr. Ford and Judge Kavanaugh on Thursday that is safe, comfortable and dignified, Grassley said. Ive taken this additional step to have questions asked by expert staff counsel to establish the most fair and respectful treatment of the witnesses possible.

Others HuffPost spoke to had a less charitable explanation for his decision.

What I actually think is that they want to ask asshole questions but dont want to do it themselves, so theyre going to have her do it for them, said one longtime advocate for women facing gender violence, who works with Congress and asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation.

Indeed, even Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) implied that Republicans had hired someone else so that they wouldnt be shown on television screwing up.

[A senator] will do something that you guys will run 24/7, and inadvertently somebody will do something thats insensitive, he told reporters Monday.

Bringing in Mitchell is a transparently clumsy attempt to avoid the visual of a panel of all-male Republican Judiciary Committee members grilling a survivor about her sexual assault allegations, said Michael Polenberg, vice president of government affairs for Safe Horizon, a victims advocacy organization in New York. Whereas prosecutors normally put sexual assault survivors on the stand in their capacity as witnesses to a crime, in this case the prosecutor is clearly being retained to malign and cast aspersions on Ms. Fords credibility.

The National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence, a group that represents the leading U.S. organizations working to end violence against women, released a letter last week denouncing the committee for trying to ram through Kavanaughs nomination.

In this very public arena, with these incredibly high stakes, we need to get this right, they wrote. Justice demands a fair process that treats Professor Ford far better than with the derision, scorn, and humiliation to which Professor [Anita] Hill was subjected 27 years ago.

Roger Canaff, a former prosecutor specializing in sex crimes, criticized the Senate Judiciary Committee for rushing the process. He said he knew Mitchell, the prosecutor tapped to interview Blasey, and called her a sincere and serious person. But without a real investigation, he added, theres not much she can do.

Grassley has stated that they are trying to depoliticize this; they are trying to get to the truth, he said. There is no way that that is going to happen  not even close  in the form they are suggesting.

He said if the committee is not going to allow for a full investigation, which could take days or weeks, they may as well do their jobs and question Blasey themselves.

They want to be able to tell the American people, we brought in a female prosecutor with 30 years of experience, and she helped us make a determination, and I just think thats fatuous, he said. It is going to end up being political theater.

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.(Photo: Ethan Miller via Getty Images)

Shareholders of Smith & Wesson, the largest U.S. firearm manufacturer, voted Tuesday to urge the gunmaker to publish a report documenting violent events associated with its products and examining the reputational and financial risks it could face from shootings, as well as efforts the company is taking to make its weapons safer.

The push was spearheaded by a coalition of religious groups organized under The Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility. Sister Judy Byron of the Intercommunity Peace & Justice Center introduced the proposal at a virtual shareholder meeting Tuesday afternoon, arguing that gun violence carried out with Smith & Wesson firearms  including high-profile mass shootings like the one in Parkland, Florida, in February  could damage the manufacturers parent company, American Outdoor Brands Corporation.

The majority of guns used in crimes in major U.S. cities are AOBC guns, Byron said. Each event brings new threats of lawsuits, boycotts, divestment and demonstrations  and along with them, a wave of damaging news stories about gun companies and their inability to make their products safer for civilians, and most critically, to help prevent their misuse by children.

The companys proximity to these events means it is obligated to help find ... solutions to gun violence, Byron added.

In comments after the meeting Tuesday, American Outdoor Brands CEO James Debney disagreed, saying the vote was politically motivated, according to CNBC. He did not publicly commit to commissioning the report outlined in the proposal. Although publicly traded companies are allowed to ignore shareholder proposals, organizers of the campaign were hopeful that American Outdoor Brands would take their concerns seriously.

We dont know yet what, if any, action they will take, said Colleen Scanlon, senior vice president of Catholic Health Initiatives, who was involved in the initiative. One does hope that getting shareholder support for a resolution like this is somehow compelling or influential for the company.

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A spokesperson for American Outdoor Brands did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In previous comments, Debney has claimed that such a report would not be feasible and would do nothing to make our community safer. Hes instead maintained that his company has taken an interest in reducing gun violence by calling for greater vigilance in enforcing the laws and criminal penalties on the books, and the need to meaningfully address the role that mental illness plays in senseless violence.

The American Outdoor Brands shareholder proposal followed a similarly successful effort in May, when investors forced the same sort of report at Sturm, Ruger & Co., the nations second-largest gun manufacturer. Smith & Wesson and Ruger each manufactured more than 2 million firearms in 2016, the latest year for which federal data is available, meaning they were together responsible for more than one-third of all guns produced in the U.S. that year.

In both votes, the smaller blocs of activist shareholders were joined by large institutional investors at corporations like BlackRock and Vanguard, which together own about a fifth of American Outdoor Brands shares. Neither firm would provide additional comment to HuffPost on their support for the proposal.

Gun control advocates said they were encouraged by the vote.

Just one year ago, it was unthinkable that shareholders would demand that gun manufacturers examine their own role in Americas gun violence epidemic. Now, its becoming the norm, said Avery Gardiner, co-president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Violence, in a statement. This vote is proof that the tide is turning, that Americans from all walks of life have had enough of gun violence, and that we all demand the gun industry help stop this uniquely American problem.

John Rosenthal, founder of the Massachusetts-based nonprofit Stop Handgun Violence, said he was particularly surprised that BlackRock and Vanguard had thrown their weight behind the initiative.

These are modest proposals, but this is really a seismic shift that these huge institutional investors are siding with gun safety over purely mercenary corporate greed in an unregulated environment, Rosenthal said.

In August, Rosenthal helped coordinate a student-led march to the Smith & Wesson headquarters in Springfield, Massachusetts, where protesters held a rally demanding accountability from the company on gun violence. Although the gun manufacturer has repeatedly ignored requests by activists, Tuesdays vote suggests investors want to see more from Smith & Wesson, said Rosenthal.

Student activists march the final mile of the 50 Miles More walk against gun violence on their way to a rally at the Smith & Wesson Firearms factory on Aug. 26 in Springfield, Massachusetts. (Photo: Scott Eisen via Getty Images)

Theyre beginning to feel guilty for financing an epidemic of gun violence, Rosenthal said. Theyre big, smart investors who sort of see the writing on the wall, that the gun companies can be part of the solution.

A forthcoming report by American Outdoor Brands could weigh the possibility of investing in controversial smart gun technology, which allows firearms to be operated only by authenticated users.

In 2000, Smith & Wesson agreed to a set of voluntary safety reforms, including a move to begin developing smart guns. The National Rifle Association and other gun groups responded by accusing the gunmaker of running up the white flag of surrender and betraying the interests of U.S. gun owners by selling out to the U.S. government. Boycotts soon followed, spurring crippling losses that would nearly bankrupt the company.

Since then, the gun lobby and firearm manufacturers have worked together to reject any move toward cooperation on issues of gun safety or gun violence prevention. Investors have meanwhile appeared largely willing to accept that dynamic. With a new wave of activism sweeping the nation, that may finally be starting to change, Scanlon said.

While we recognize that companies have a fiduciary responsibility to their investors, we also believe they have a broader responsibility to society and that they need to address the issue of gun safety, Scanlon said. Theyre not mutually exclusive. We actually think the financial and reputational risk for not getting involved in being a part of constructive dialogue and activity around gun safety is quite risky for gun companies.

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.Madrid (AFP) - Spain summoned the Belgian ambassador over a letter sent to jailed Catalan separatist Carme Forcadell by the speaker of the regional Flemish parliament questioning democracy in Spain, a diplomatic source said Wednesday.

The source, who asked not to be named, said the ambassador was summoned on September 20 by the foreign ministry's Europe director-general.

"The aim of the summons was to relay our deep unease over the content and terms of the letter sent by the speaker of the Flemish parliament as an institutional representative to Mrs Forcadell, which was made public in social networks."

A protest letter was also sent to the speaker himself, Jan Peumans.

In his letter, Peumans, a separatist in the Flemish Region of Belgium, described police violence during a banned independence referendum on October 1, 2017 in Catalonia as an "outrageous expression of an undemocratic policy."

"Keeping (Catalan) politicians under arrest for months is an even more insidious act, a proof that the central government in Spain is not able to meet the conditions to be part of a modern democratic European Union," he added.

Peumans is part of the pro-independence Flemish nationalist party N-VA.

His letter was handed to the former speaker of Catalonia's parliament, Carme Forcadell, on September 7 when 13 MEPs visited jailed separatist leaders.

Forcadell is one of nine who have been placed in provisional detention on charges of rebellion as they await trial over their role in Catalonia's failed bid to break from Spain in October 2017.

Their detention has sparked debate in Spain.

New foreign minister Josep Borrell, a Catalan himself, said earlier in September that personally, he "would have preferred" the judge to take another measure rather than provisional detention.

Asked about the affair in New York, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said: "Spain is democratic, it recognises territorial diversity in its constitution and has one of the highest standards of democracy in the world."The defeated strongman of the Maldives, Abdulla Yameen, is welcome in neighbouring Sri Lanka, Colombo said Tuesday, two days after his surprise defeat in presidential elections.

Sri Lanka has long been a haven for dissidents from the nearby Maldives over years of political upheaval, including for hundreds of opponents of Yameen since he became president in 2013.

In a phone call on Monday, Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe "informed Mr. Yameen that he is welcome in Colombo at any time," the premier's office said.

Wickremesinghe made the call after hosting Yameen's arch rival and former Maldives president Mohamed Nasheed at a luncheon meeting on Monday.

Nasheed, the atoll nation's first democratically elected leader, was sentenced to 13 years in jail after narrowly losing the 2013 elections to Yameen.

He fled to London where he sought refuge and now lives in Sri Lanka.

Sunday's election was held with all key opposition leaders behind bars or in exile, leaving the little-known Ibrahim Mohamed Solih to challenge Yameen.

In a major upset, Solih won with 58 percent of the vote.

Solih's victory was greeted warmly by India as Yameen had drifted closer to China, borrowing heavily from New Delhi's regional rival to invest in infrastructure.

Declaring victory, Solih demanded Yameen immediately release all political prisoners in the country. A Maldivian court freed five of them on Monday night.

Many more are still in jail, including Yameen's estranged half-brother and former president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, 80, who is expected to be released shortly.

Under intense international pressure, Yameen conceded defeat and pledged to allow a peaceful transition when he formally steps down on November 17.

Rights group Amnesty International called Tuesday on Solih to "break with the repression and human rights violations of the past and chart a fresh course where human rights are at the heart" of government policy.

The European Union, which had earlier threatened sanctions, said Monday that it would "continue to closely review the situation".Damascus (AFP) - A top Syrian official has said a new air defence system from ally Russia will force Israel to "think carefully" before carrying out any more air strikes in the country.

Moscow announced on Monday it would deliver the advanced S-300 air defence system, a week after the Syrian military downed a Russian plane by mistake following an Israeli air strike.

Russia has blamed the friendly fire on Israeli pilots using the larger Russian plane as "cover".

Late Tuesday, Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal al-Meqdad said Damascus welcomed the delivery of the advanced S-300 system promised to arrive within two weeks.

It replaces Syria's existing Russian-built S-200 system, which dates back to the Soviet era, in a move that had been due to take place in 2013 but was held up by Russia at Israel's request.

"I think that Israel, which is accustomed to carrying out many attacks under different pretexts, will have to think carefully about attacking Syria again," Meqdad said.

In recent years, Israel has carried out repeated air strikes in war-torn Syria against Iranian targets and what is says are advanced arm deliveries to Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah.

Iran and Hezbollah are allies of President Bashar al-Assad in the seven-year civil war.

"Let the Israelis try, we will defend ourselves as we always do," the state SANA news agency quoted Meqdad as saying.

The downing of the Russian plane late Monday last week killed all 15 soldiers on board, after an Israeli plane targeted a military position in the northwestern province of Latakia.

The accident was the deadliest friendly fire between Syria and Russia since Moscow's game-changing military intervention in the war in 2015.

More than 360,000 people have been killed and millions displaced since the conflict erupted in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.AUSTIN, Texas (AP)  Attorneys for a Texas state senator said Wednesday that he didn't send "any inappropriate texts" following a report that the University of Texas is investigating allegations made by a graduate student.

Republican state Sen. Charles Schwertner has denied allegations reported by the Austin American-Statesman that he sent a sexually explicit text message to a student he met this summer during an on-campus event. The report was based on unnamed university sources, and the accuser was not identified.

On Wednesday, two Austin attorneys hired by Schwertner made another denial of the allegations and said they were in contact with the university.

"We have spent hours with Senator Schwertner and others regarding these claims. Senator Schwertner did not send any inappropriate texts as alleged. Period," attorneys Perry and David Minton said in a statement. "The Senator is devastated over these allegations and is concerned for the unnamed victim."

University spokesman Gary Susswein said the school doesn't discuss ongoing investigations and couldn't confirm the newspaper report.

The newspaper cites three "senior UT officials with knowledge of the investigation." According to the newspaper, two of the officials said the student and Schwertner began exchanging messages after she told him at the event that she was interested in working at the Legislature.

The student reported Schwertner to the university after he allegedly sent her a sexually explicit text, officials told the newspaper. The report cites a school official who had seen the exchange and a photo. The newspaper said it had not seen the photo.

Schwertner, 48, was first elected to the Texas Legislature in 2010 and is up for re-election in November. He was appointed chairman of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee by Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who said he was "deeply concerned about the serious allegations."

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He also expressed displeasure at university officials speaking to the newspaper and "potentially jeopardizing the integrity of a serious investigation." Patrick, a Republican, said the Senate would await the conclusion of the school investigation.

Like many statehouses across the country, the Texas Legislature recently strengthened sexual harassment policies amid a mounting nationwide backlash against misbehavior by those in power. Last year, the longtime secretary of the Texas Senate testified that she had never received a sexual harassment complaint against a lawmaker.

Republican state Sen. Lois Kolkhort said at the time that the former policies were so ambiguous that even she would have been hesitant to come forward with a complaint.iStock/Thinkstock(ROME) -- Dozens of distressed survivors aboard a migrant rescue ship in the deadly Mediterranean Sea were in limbo after Panama withdrew the vessels registration amid Italian complaints about such ships that one official has called a taxi service" for migrants.



The Aquarius 2 is the last private rescue vessel to search for shipwrecked migrants on the route from North and Sub-Saharan Africa to Italy, via Libya. The ship, which has made rescues in recent days off Libya, is operated jointly by SOS Mediterranee and Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders).



The two aid humanitarian groups view Italy's complaint as further proof of the extent to which the Italian government is willing to go to, knowing that the only consequence is that people will continue to die at sea and that no witnesses will be present to count the dead.



We are asking E.U. governments to step in and provide the Aquarius 2 with some solution, SOS Mediterranee spokewoman Natalia Lambana told ABC News by phone from Berlin. At the moment we still have Panama flag. We cannot be deflaged at sea.



We are still at sea involved in search-and-rescue operations. We have 58 survivors on board the ship; 17 of them are children and further 17 survivors are women. And we dont have a port of safety yet. Malta and Italy refused to let Aquarius dock, and we made a formal request to France to allow the ship in Marseille.



Matteo Salvini, Italys anti-immigration interior minister, who earlier described the rescue vessels as a "taxi service" for migrants, has denied that his government was behind Panamas decision Sunday to deflag the Aquarius. He tweeted that he doesnt even know the country dialing code for Panama.



SOS Mediterranees Lambana called his denial strange.



Salvini also reportedly said Aquarius 2 had hindered the work of the Libyan coast guard by ignoring instructions. Aquarius 2 was about to have its registration revoked by Panama because it was illegal and does not respect procedures, he told reporters.



But Lambana argued that Aquarius 2's refusal to return migrants to Libya was in compliance with the maritime law because Libya doesn't meet international standards for safe harbor.



More than 1,250 people have drowned while attempting to cross the Central Mediterranean Since the beginning of the year, officials say.

Copyright  2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.Beirut (AFP) - The Islamic State jihadist group on Wednesday threatened to carry out new attacks in Iran, days after it claimed a deadly shooting at a military parade in the country's southwest.

Iran is "flimsier than a spider's web, and with God's help, what comes will be worse and more bitter", the group said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app.

Iranian authorities have blamed "jihadist separatists" for the assault Saturday in the southwestern city of Ahvaz, which killed 24 people including a four-year-old child and other civilians.

The attack targeted a parade in Khuzestan province, commemorating the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.

The border region, home to a large ethnic Arab community, was a major battleground of the conflict and saw ethnic unrest in 2005 and 2011.

Iranian officials initially blamed Arab separatists, who they claimed were behind previous unrest, for the attack, saying they were backed by Gulf Arab allies of the United States.

This version was bolstered when a movement called "Ahwaz National Resistance", an Arab separatist group, claimed responsibility shortly after the assault.

But the Islamic State group (IS) was also quick to claim responsibility and later posted a video of men it said were the attackers.

In a three-minute audio recording released Wednesday, the Sunni jihadist group's spokesman Abu Hassan al-Muhajir said Iran "had not recovered from the fearful shock, which God willing will not be the last".

Shiite-dominated Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on Monday linked the attackers to Iraq and Syria, where IS once had major strongholds.

"This cowardly act was the work of those very individuals who are rescued by the Americans whenever they are in trouble in Iraq and Syria and who are funded by the Saudis and the (United) Arab Emirates," Khamenei was quoted as saying by his official website.

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.United Nations (United States) (AFP) - US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo signaled Wednesday that he will return to North Korea next month to push forward denuclearization talks as President Donald Trump predicted breakthroughs soon.

Pompeo met on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session with his North Korean counterpart, Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho, and agreed to pay his fourth trip to the longtime US arch-enemy.

Pompeo accepted an invitation from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to return to Pyongyang in October to move ahead on efforts for "the final, fully verified denuclearization of the DPRK," the State Department said, referring to the North by its official name of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Pompeo will also try to arrange a second summit between Trump and Kim, whose meeting in June in Singapore was the first ever between leaders of the two states.

Trump has hailed his initiative with North Korea as a signature foreign policy success and heaped praise on Kim.

His speech came just one year after he mocked Kim as a "rocket man" at the United Nations and threatened a forceful military response.

Critics question how much North Korea has actually changed.

The regime, considered by human rights groups to be among the world's most repressive, has carried out six nuclear tests and says it has missiles that can hit the United States, although many analysts doubt its boasts.

- A man 'I know and like' -

"Kim Jong Un, a man I have gotten to know and like, wants peace and prosperity for North Korea," Trump told a special session of the UN Security Council on non-proliferation.

Trump said to expect "very good news" in the coming months and years from North Korea.

"Many things are happening behind the scenes away from the media which nobody knows, but they are happening nevertheless and they are happening in a very positive way," the president said.

Story continues

But Trump also called for the enforcement of sanctions, which the United States has spent years building through the Security Council in response to North Korea's nuclear and missile tests.

"Unfortunately, to ensure this progress continues, we must enforce existing UN Security Council resolutions until denuclearization occurs," Trump said, reading from a prepared text.

"However, we have detected that some nations are already violating these UN sanctions. This includes illegal ship-to-ship transfers which must end immediately," he said.

"The safety of the Korean peninsula, the region and the world depends on full compliance."

- Striking diplomatic shift -

North Korea counts on China as its main economic and political backer.

The startling diplomatic developments have largely pleased China as well as South Korea's dovish President Moon Jae-in, who earlier this month paid his latest visit to Pyongyang.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who rose to political prominence as a hardliner on North Korea, told the United Nations on Tuesday that he too was willing to meet Kim.

But Abe said the focus of any summit would be to resolve the fate of Japanese civilians kidnapped by Pyongyang's spies in the 1970s and 1980s.

Pompeo, in an interview broadcast Wednesday with CBS News, said he believed that North Korea would allow international inspectors to verify any commitments.

"We're not going to buy a pig in a poke," he said.

"We're going to get this right, we're going to deliver on this commitment that Chairman Kim has made to the world, and then there's going to be a brighter future for the North Korean people, and there'll be a more peaceful world."

The diplomatic drive comes as Trump pursues a very different path on Iran, ramping up economic pressure and threatening tougher action after withdrawing from an international denuclearization agreement.Donald Trump has accused China of interfering in the upcoming US midterm elections, but left out any mention of Russia whose alleged election meddling is the subject of a probe by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

The US leader was speaking at the UN Security Council meeting during the General Assembly in New York.

He characterised the alleged "meddling" in the elections set to take place on 6 November as "against my administration," adding: they do not want me or us to win because I am the first president to challenge China on trade".

"We are winning on trade. We are winning at every level. We don't want them to meddle or interfere in our upcoming election," Mr Trump continued, without offering any proof of his accusation against Beijing.

The US intelligence community has also not made public any evidence of the matter. Last month, US National Security Adviser John Bolton told ABC News Russia, North Korea, Iran, and China are all potential election hackers: "I can say definitively that it's a sufficient national security concern about Chinese meddling, Iranian meddling and North Korean meddling that we're taking steps to try to prevent it, so it's all four of those countries, really".

He also did not offer evidence of the claim at the time.

China has denied any wrongdoing when it came to American electoral systems and the 2018 elections. "China has all along followed the principle of non-interference in domestic affairs. We did not and will not interfere in ANY country's internal affairs," Wang Yi, the foreign minister said.

The president, however, made no mention of Russia in this portion of his remarks as the FBI investigation into alleged collusion between Russian officials and the president's campaign team continues.

It was also determined by the majority of US intelligence agencies Russia did indeed hack the 2016 US election and the Trump administration has also issued sanctions of individuals and entities for doing so.

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Mr Trump later elaborated on his charge, tweeting China placed "propaganda ads" made to look like news articles in an Iowa newspaper.

Iowa has been historically been treated as a good indicator of who will win presidential elections.

"China is actually placing propaganda ads in the Des Moines Register and other papers, made to look like news. That's because we are beating them on Trade, opening markets, and the farmers will make a fortune when this is over!, he wrote.

The president has not explained what beating China at trade means and the White House has not immediately responded to a request for comment.

The current US Ambassador to China is Terry Brandstad, the former governor of Iowa.

The meeting was actually being held for an entirely different purpose - to discuss the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, particularly concerning Iran and the nuclear deal Mr Trump had refused to re-certify earlier this year.

The meeting comes just a day after Mr Trump's harsh criticism of President Hassan Rouhani and the regime in Tehran in front of the whole General Assembly.

Irans leaders sow chaos, death and destruction, Mr Trump said yesterday during a speech experts told The Independent was "bleak" and "dark" but altogether less bombastic than his previous appearance at the UN podium.

Echoing those statements in today's appearance in front of the Security Council, Mr Trump said Iran "exports violence, terror, and turmoil" and are the "world's leading sponsor of terror".

He also called the Iran nuclear deal, signed in 2015 as one of the signature foreign policy achievements by President Barack Obama, "horrible" and "one-sided" - a common way Mr Trump describes many multilateral and bilateral agreements of which the US was or is part.

Mr Trump said the nuclear deal was giving the regime a lifeline - they were "in big big trouble, they needed cash. We gave it to them."

Naysan Rafati, an Iran analyst at the International Crisis Group, told The Independent the theme of the administration this entire time at the UN General Assembly was consistent with his remarks today - the the "deal is flawed".

However, he noted it was "striking to see that [Mr Trump's] view remains a minority view in the Security Council," as several countries including Russia, the UK, and France - parties to the Iran nuclear deal - said the opposite.

Other countries see the deal as "a stepping stone...a starting point for continued engagement with Tehran" as does Mr Rouhani, Mr Rafati said.

Me Rafati explained UK Prime Minister Theresa May and French President Emmanuel Macron, among others, see the agreement as something to build upon rather than something to tear down.

He noted the administrations approach has been taken in the hopes that harsh sanctions - particularly the energy-related kind set to take effect in November, will prompt the regime to come back to the [negotiating] table.

The Iranian people taking to the streets in protest over economic conditions and a currency devaluation are effects the Trump administration are hoping will push Mr Rouhani and the regime to compromise, Mr Rafati said.

Irans stance is that youre the ones who left the table, not us, he said.

The government is hoping to muddle through economic turmoil while staying compliant with the terms of the nuclear deal and continuing discussions with the rest of the parties to the agreement, Mr Rafati explained.

However, Brian Hook, the US State Department Special Representative to Iran said the president is pushing other countries to follow the US path of isolating Tehran.

He told The Independent during a briefing that European and Asian corporations and the private sector have already been pulling out of Iran, which could compel their governments to do the same.

"The truth is, the private sector understands sanctions," Mr Hook said.

"They have a choice to do business with the US or business with Iran...and they're making a business decision," Mr Hook said, noting deals with the US and American partners far outweigh anything with Iran financially.

Mr Hook said the Trump administration has not had any private discussions with diplomats regarding negotiations with Iran, "we have said everything publicly".

The State Department has also issued a report - with the telling title of "Outlaw Regime" - detailing all the various actions of the regime the Trump administration has opposed.

Mr Hook noted one of the points of contentions is the regime's "ruining" of the environment and killing of protesters wanting "clean air, clean water, and [arable land".

The point drew some laughter from the gathered journalists given Mr Trump's own controversial stance on the American environment, pushing to deregulate carbon emissions and beginning the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on climate change.President Donald Trump is playing off Tuesday morning's embarrassing moment  in which he was laughed at by the United Nations General Assembly  by saying he totally meant it as a joke.

On Tuesday afternoon, between events at the UN, Trump briefly chatted with reporters and he dropped this nugget, apparently confusing the concepts of "laughing at" and "laughing with."

Trump on laughter at UN during speech: Oh it was great. Well that was meant to get some laughter, but it was great.  Jim Acosta (@Acosta) September 25, 2018

Trump on how his UN speech went:



"I think really well, its gotten very good reviews certainly and I think it went very well."



He said the laugher was intentionally provoked:



"Oh it was great. Well that was meant to get some laughter, but it was great."  Brian Ries (@moneyries) September 25, 2018

On the one hand, that is a pretty even-keeled response from someone as tantrum-prone as Trump.

On the other, it's a lie. If you watch the speech, immediately following the line that got the laugh, Trump says, "Didn't expect that reaction, but that's okay." So clearly not what you'd say if you'd just told an intentional joke.

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As the laughter at Trump's expense  and the implications  made waves across the internet, people were quick to surface old tweets in which Trump bemoaned a president (Obama) who he considered a laughingstock.

We need a President who isn't a laughing stock to the entire World. We need a truly great leader, a genius at strategy and winning. Respect!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 9, 2014

Lets fight like hell and stop this great and disgusting injustice! The world is laughing at us.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2012

Trump has been busy enough at the UN that he hasn't had time to tweet about the speech, but once he gets back in to the warmer comforts of his couch, he'll surely let rip with what will no doubt be a tirade for the ages.



President Trump said he would prefer to keep Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein but may delay his scheduled meeting with him so he can watch Thursdays Supreme Court confirmation hearing for Brett Kavanaugh.

The New York Times reported last week that Rosenstein had suggested recording a meeting with Trump in the context of possibly invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him from office. Rosenstein denied the story. Reports circulated Monday that he was about to be dismissed or resign, but he has remained in the job.

Weve had a good talk, said Trump. He said he never said it. He said he doesnt believe it. He says he has a lot of respect for me, and he was very nice and well see, and hes a member of the Trump administration in that sense, its the Justice Department. I would certainly prefer [not firing him]. There was no collusion, there was no obstruction. Unless you call obstruction the fact that I fight back, I really fight back. If you call that obstruction, thats fine.

After Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from special counsel Robert Muellers investigation into potential ties between Russia and the Trump campaign, Rosenstein took over supervision of the investigation. So far Mueller has issued indictments or received guilty pleas from 32 people, including former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Trump scheduled the meeting for Thursday, the same day that Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault when they were teenagers, are set to testify in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Two other women have leveled accusations against Kavanaugh, but they are not scheduled to testify.

Im going to meet with [Rosenstein] tomorrow, said Trump. I may call Rod tonight or tomorrow and ask for a little bit of delay to the meeting because I dont want to do anything that gets in the way, that gets in the way of this very important Supreme Court pick. So I dont want it competing and hurting the decision, one way or the other decision. Again, I want to hear what she has to say. I may delay that, Im going to see. I dont want to do anything thats going to conflict with that but my preference would be to keep him and to let him finish up.

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Read more from Yahoo News:United Nations (United States) (AFP) - President Donald Trump vowed Wednesday to present a "very fair" Middle East peace plan by the end of the year and endorsed a two-state solution, apparently confident that the Palestinians would return to talks despite his unwavering support for Israel.

Holding talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in New York, Trump said it was a "dream" of his to bring about a peaceful solution to a conflict that has eluded several of his predecessors.

While Trump said he expected Israel to make concessions in any final settlement of the decades-old conflict, the Palestinians said his administration's policies in the Middle East were destroying hopes of peace.

Jared Kushner, who is Trump's son-in-law as well as a senior advisor in the White House, has been working on a peace plan for more than a year, but there have been few clues to date on what he is expected to propose.

"I would say over the next two to three to four months," Trump said, referring to his prospective timetable for presenting a plan.

Trump, who met with Netanyahu on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, said explicitly for the first time that he backed a two-state solution, saying: "That's what I think works best, that's my feeling."

"I really believe something will happen. It is a dream of mine to be able to get that done prior to the end of my first term," added Trump, who was elected to serve four years through January 2021.

"Jared, who's so involved, he loves Israel but he's also going to be very fair with the Palestinians," the US president later told a news conference.

"I think probably two-state is more likely but if they do a single, if they do a double, I'm okay with it if they're both happy. If they're both happy, I'm okay with either. I think the two-state is more likely," he said.

- Palestinians skeptical -

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Middle East peace efforts effectively stalled when the Palestinians broke off contacts with the Trump administration last year in protest at Trump's landmark decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Palestinian foreign affairs minister Riyad al-Maliki was unimpressed with Trump's remarks, saying the US president chose his tone because he was appearing with Netanyahu.

Maliki -- speaking after meeting in New York with representatives from 40 countries but not Kushner or other US officials -- said Trump needed to state clearly that a two-state solution would include a return to borders from before the 1967 Six-Day War and that east Jerusalem is occupied rather than part of Israel.

"These are important statements that President Trump has to say in order just to convince anyone that he is committed to real peace in our region," Maliki told reporters.

Maliki said that the Palestinians met more than 40 times with Trump's envoys only "to discover that they have opted to open that war against the Palestinians to inflict the most damage."

Relations between the Palestinian Authority and the United States plummeted even lower in recent weeks after Washington cut off all funding to a UN agency that helps millions of Palestinian refugees, triggering a budget panic.

Trump said, however, that he was in no doubt that the Palestinians would soon return to the negotiating table. "Absolutely, 100 percent," he said.

"Lots of good things are happening," said Trump, before adding: "Israel will have to do something that will be good for the other side."

- 'Security control' -

Israeli media quoted Netanyahu as saying that Israel must retain security control in any peace deal with the Palestinians west of Jordan to the Mediterranean -- which includes the occupied West Bank.

"Israel will not relinquish security control west of Jordan. This will not happen so long as I am prime minister and I think the Americans understand that," he reportedly said.

Several of Trump's predecessors have played leading roles in trying to bring an end to the conflict, including Jimmy Carter, who brokered the 1978 Camp David agreement, which saw Egypt formally recognize Israel.

Bill Clinton oversaw the Oslo peace accords in 1993 which spelled out the aim of a two-state solution and allowed for the creation of the Palestinian Authority which is meant to rule over the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

But it left issues such as the borders and status of Jerusalem unresolved.

Egypt and Jordan are still the only Arab nations that formally recognize Israel.New York (AFP) - US President Donald Trump confirmed Wednesday that he had refused to meet Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, accusing Canada of treating the United States "very badly."

"Yeah, I did," he told a news conference in New York when asked by a reporter whether he had rejected a one-on-one meeting with Trudeau. "Canada has treated us very badly."

That came after the incident on Tuesday in which Trump appeared to rebuff Trudeau when he approached to shake hands, even though the Canadian leader downplayed the incident.

The two nations have been locked in negotiations for a year on a rewrite of the 25-year-old continental trade deal that Trump blames for losses of US jobs and industry.

But the US leader criticized Canada's trade negotiators and cast doubt on the chances of reaching agreement on a rewrite of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), again threatening to impose tariffs on all auto imports.

"I must be honest with you, we're not getting along with their negotiators we think their negotiators have taken advantage of our country for a long time," Trump said.

Canada's Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland has spent much of the last month in Washington for talks with US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and repeatedly commented on the progress being made and the goodwill in the negotiations.

Trump once again complained about Canada's controlled dairy market, although his comments referred to tariffs that do not apply to US products.

- Tax on cars -

"They have treated our farmers in Wisconsin and New York state and a lot of other states very badly," he said. "How do you sell a dairy product at 300 percent (tariff)?"

US producers actually sell more dairy product to Canada than they import, and the 300 percent tariff only applies to goods above the quota, which the US does not meet, according to trade experts.

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The two sides also are at odds over the dispute resolution provisions in NAFTA.

The White House reached a deal last month with Mexico and informed Congress of the intention to sign a new agreement by the end of November, before the new president takes office in Mexico.

But Lighthizer on Tuesday said time was running out for Canada to be included, and Mexico's trade negotiator Kenneth Smith Ramos said the two countries are ready to proceed.

"Now, if Canada doesn't make a deal with us, we're going to make a much better deal. We're going to tax the cars that come in," he said. "We will put billions and billions of dollars into our Treasury. And frankly, we'll be very happy."

"I don't like NAFTA. I never liked it. It's been very bad for the United States. It's been great for Canada. It's been great for Mexico. Very bad for us," Trump said.The following statements were posted to the verified personal Twitter account of U.S. President Donald Trump (@realDonaldTrump) The opinions expressed are his own. Reuters has not edited the statements or confirmed their accuracy. @realDonaldTrump : - Republican Party Favorability is the highest it has been in 7 years - 3 points higher than Democrats! Gallup [0641 EDT] - Despite requests, I have no plans to meet Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Maybe someday in the future. I am sure he is an absolutely lovely man! [0653 EDT] - Will be speaking at the United Nations this morning. Our country is much stronger and much richer than it was when I took office less than two years ago. We are also MUCH safer! [0914 EDT] - (Video tweet: https://bit.ly/2QZJCPY) [1127 EDT] - Thank you Mark! [1236 EDT] - Thank you Dr. Jeffress! [1237 EDT] - Rush Limbaugh to Republicans: "You can kiss the MIDTERMS goodbye if you don't get highly qualified Kavanaugh approved." [1245 EDT] - "Remarks by President Trump to the 73rd Session of the United Nations General Assembly" http://45.wh.gov/LeUYsH [1319 EDT] - "Remarks by President Trump at a Luncheon Hosted by the Secretary-General of the United Nations" http://45.wh.gov/aVdrKJ [1528 EDT] - "Consumer confidence rose in September, notching its highest level in about 18 years. The Consumer Board's index rose to 138.4 this month from 134.7 in August..." https://cnb.cx/2QZ2COd [1627 EDT] - 73rd Session of the United Nations General Assembly #UNGA (Video tweet: https://bit.ly/2N3zZfB) [1806 EDT] - "These law enforcement people took the law into their own hands when it came to President Trump." @LindseyGrahamSC [2238 EDT] - The Democrats are playing a high level CON GAME in their vicious effort to destroy a fine person. It is called the politics of destruction. Behind the scene the Dems are laughing. Pray for Brett Kavanaugh and his family! [2255 EDT] -- Source link: (http://bit.ly/2jBh4LU) (Compiled by Bengaluru bureau)Two ambulances were pelted with bricks in a shocking attack in Birmingham (PA)

Police are appealing for information after two ambulances responding to an emergency in Birmingham were pelted with bricks.

The vehicles were left damaged by the bricks, that were thrown from a Birmingham overpass in a dangerous and idiotic attack.

The incident which took place on Borchfield Road, at the junction of Aston Lane, between 2.30pm and 3pm on Tuesday.

The first ambulance suffered a cracked windshield while racing to help a patient with breathing difficulties (PA)

Nathan Hudson, emergency services operations delivery director for West Midlands Ambulance Service, said: It is hard to put into words how angry and disappointing these incidents are.

Throwing a brick at any vehicle is dangerous and idiotic, but when it is an ambulance responding to an emergency, it beggars belief.

The first ambulance suffered a cracked windshield while racing to help a patient with breathing difficulties, forcing it to stop and causing a delay to paramedics delivering help.

MORE: Second person found dead in Manchester city centre hotel room after man fell to his death

MORE: Royal Mail tells environmental campaigners to stop posting crisp packets without envelopes

A second ambulance was dispatched and also attacked while taking the same patient to hospital, struck with a brick just above the door in what the service called a bizarre twist.

Both vehicles have been taken off the road for repairs which could cost hundreds of pounds.

Mr Hudson added: The potential for this to have turned into an incident which resulted in serious injury or worse is plain to see.

A second ambulance was dispatched and also attacked while taking the same patient to hospital (PA)

I am therefore asking anyone who was in the area who saw anything or who has CCTV of that area to contact West Midlands Police as soon as possible so that those responsible are brought to justice.

Anyone with information can contact West Midlands Police by Live Chat at www.west-midlands.police.uk between 8am and midnight, call 101 at any time, or contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555111. Quote log number 1364 of September 25.WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. State Department has approved the sale to Taiwan of spare parts for F-16 fighter planes and other military aircraft worth up to $330 million, prompting China to warn on Tuesday that the move jeopardized Sino-U.S. cooperation. U.S. military sales to self-ruled Taiwan, which China claims as its territory, is an irritant in the relations between the world's two largest economies. Taiwan would still need to finalize details of the sale with U.S. companies. "This proposed sale will contribute to the foreign policy and national security of the United States by helping to improve the security and defensive capability of the recipient, which has been and continues to be an important force for political stability, military balance, and economic progress in the region," the Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in a statement issued on Monday. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said that U.S. arms sales to Taiwan were a serious breech of international law and harmed Chinese sovereignty and security interests. China strongly opposes the planned arms sales and has already lodged "stern representations" with the United States, he told a daily news briefing in Beijing. China urges the United States to withdraw the planned sale and stop military contacts with Taiwan, to avoid serious harm to both Sino-U.S. cooperation in major areas, and peace and stability in the Taiwan strait, Geng added. China's Defense Ministry, in a separate statement, also condemned the planned sale, adding that the Chinese military had a "firm and unshakable" resolve to protect the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity. China is deeply suspicious of U.S. intentions toward Taiwan, which is equipped with mostly U.S.-made weaponry and wants Washington to sell it more advanced equipment, including new fighter jets. In a statement on Tuesday, Taiwan's Presidential Office thanked the United States for its support and said the island would continue to "stay in close communication and cooperation" with Washington for issues including security. Military experts said the balance of power between Taiwan and China has shifted in favor of China, which could probably overwhelm the island unless U.S. forces came quickly to its aid. The $330 million request covers spare parts for "F-16, C-130, F-5, Indigenous Defense Fighter (IDF), all other aircraft systems and subsystems, and other related elements of logistics and program support," the Pentagon said, adding that it notified Congress of the possible sale. Lockheed Martin Corp makes the F-16. The Pentagon said the proposed sale is required to maintain Taiwan's "defensive and aerial fleet," and would not alter the military balance in the region. China has never renounced the use of force to bring what it sees as a wayward province under its control. Chinese President Xi Jinping told U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis during a visit to Beijing in June that Beijing was committed to peace, but could not give up "even one inch" of territory that the country's ancestors had left behind. (Reporting by Mohammad Zargham; Additional reporting by Yimou Lee in TAIPEI and Ben Blanchard in BEIJING; editing by Leslie Adler, Lisa Shumaker & Simon Cameron-Moore)By Sarah N. Lynch and Gregory Lacour

WASHINGTON/HICKORY, N.C. (Reuters) - The chief of the U.S. disaster response agency FEMA was riding in a government vehicle last year when it was involved in a collision, but his name was excluded from an official report on the crash, according to people familiar with the matter.

The omission of the name of the Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator, Brock Long, was examined by the internal watchdog at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees FEMA, as part of a wider probe of Long's travel habits.

According to sources, the probe examined Long's use of government vehicles without authorization, including large SUVs, to commute for months on the weekends between Washington, D.C., and his family home in Hickory, North Carolina, at a cost to the government of about $151,000.

A redacted copy of the inspector general's investigative report seen by Reuters late on Wednesday confirmed the details of the probe, including the fact that Long's name was intentionally omitted from the accident report.

The report also lays out evidence in which Long and his family were transported in government cars without authorization, including during a trip to Hawaii that was not for official business.

Long could not be reached for comment on the collision.

A woman who answered the door at Long's home in Hickory declined to answer questions, as did a Homeland Security spokesman and a FEMA spokeswoman. White House officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Last week DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said she ordered Long to reimburse the government for his vehicle misuse.

Long said on Friday: "As the leader of this agency, I accept full responsibility for any mistakes that were made."

It was not clear on Wednesday how important the omission of Long's name might be in the accident report.

When a government vehicle is in a wreck, a government report is supposed to be filed naming all occupants, the sources said.

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As FEMA chief since April 2017, Long, 43, has won praise from President Donald Trump and admiration from FEMA staff. But the inquiry has been a distraction for the agency while it is responding to hurricane damage and heavy rain in the Carolinas.

The government-owned black SUV, with Long as a passenger, collided with another car, a source said.

FEMA Assistant Administrator John Veatch internally reported the accident on Oct. 27, 2017, the report says. Veatch has been put on unpaid administrative leave, Politico reported last week. Veatch declined to speak to Reuters.

An unidentified FEMA official involved in the crash told DHS investigators he omitted Long's name from the official report at the request of a supervisor, sources said.

Long defended his use of government cars in his interview with investigators, saying he needed to have access to secure communications for national security reasons, the report says.

However, lawyers at FEMA had previously informed him he did not have authorization to use government cars for commuting unless he received a waiver.

In addition, they said, using government vehicles for commuting would cause him to incur taxes because it was considered a fringe benefit, according to the report.

When hearing this, Long said he would use the train instead as he could "not afford the additional tax burden," the report says.

Later, when asked about this by investigators, Long denied instructing his staff not to seek permission to use the cars, but also told them he was "going broke and in the hole every month."

Reuters previously reported that the inspector general's report was referred to federal prosecutors, though it is unclear what they might do with the referral.

The House Oversight Committee is also probing the matter.

On Thursday, its ranking Democrat Elijah Cummings lambasted Long for his "apparent violations of federal law" and demanded a briefing on how FEMA will "claw back" the $151,000.

(Additional reporting by Andy Sullivan in Washington; editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Howard Goller)(UNITED NATIONS)  Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is expected to paint a grim picture of the state of the world when leaders open their annual meeting on Tuesday, spotlighting the breakdown of trust around the globe and the need to counter unilateralism and reinvigorate international cooperation which is the foundation of the United Nations.

U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq gave a preview Monday of the U.N. chiefs address saying he will also sound the alarm on climate change and stress that all people must benefit from new technologies while safeguarding against the dangers from malicious acts in cyberspace to the weaponization of artificial intelligence.

Guterres will also appeal to world leaders for greater solidarity in advancing peace, human rights and sustainable development, he said.

This year, 133 world leaders have signed up to attend the General Assembly session which ends on Oct. 1, a significant increase from the 114 leaders last year. Virtually all 193 U.N. member nations will be represented, many of the rest by ministers.

Ahead of the meeting, the secretary-general has been speaking out against the rise of populism and  as Haq said  underscoring the need to reform, renew and reinvigorate multilateralism at a time when it has never been needed more.

Populist leaders attending this years meeting including U.S. President Donald Trump, Polands President Andrzej Duda and Italys Premier Giuseppe Conte along with the foreign ministers of Hungary and Austria.

U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley told reporters last week that Trump, who champions an America First policy, wants to talk about protecting U.S. sovereignty when he addresses the assembly shortly after Guterres.

It is not saying multilateralism cant work, Haley said, but its saying sovereignty is a priority over all of that, and we always have to make sure were doing that  and there are many countries that agree with us.

Chinas Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned at Mondays U.N. peace summit honoring the 100th birthday of South African anti-apartheid campaigner Nelson Mandela that unilateralism and protectionism are on the rise.

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He likely had Trump in mind since the U.S. and China have been engaged in a trade war in recent months, with the two sides imposing higher tariffs on imports from each other.

Wang said the U.N. is the symbol of multilateralism and he urged the international community to stand united under the umbrella of multilateralism, uphold the central role of the U.N. in international affairs, and provide more predictability and stability in this turbulent world.

In speeches and close to 350 meetings on the assembly sideline, the conflicts, hotspots and issues contributing to that turbulence will be debated.

The seven-year-old conflict in Syria and the three-year war in Yemen that has sparked the worlds worst humanitarian crisis and is now seriously threatening large-scale famine are certain to be in the spotlight along with African hotspots including Libya, South Sudan, Central African Republic, Mali and Congo.

French President Emmanuel Macron is expected to be a key voice joining secretary-general Guterres in speaking out against unilateralism and populism, and supporting multilateralism as key to promoting peace.

Macron is scheduled to address the assembly Monday along with Turkeys President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Jordans King Abdullah II.

Irans President Hassan Rouhani, whose country has been a target of escalating U.S. accusations over its nuclear and missile programs and international terrorist activities, is also on Tuesdays speakers list. Iran vehemently denies any nuclear ambitions or involvement in international terrorism.

In speeches and close to 350 meetings on the assembly sideline, the conflicts, hotspots and issues contributing to that turbulence will be debated.

The United States, which holds the rotating presidency of the U.N. Security Council in September, has scheduled two meetings, one chaired by Trump on Wednesday which was initially to focus on Iran but has now been broadened to the topic of nonproliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

The second Thursday chaired by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is on North Korea, the one major issue where there is a glimmer of hope for progress. The 15 council nations have been united in imposing increasingly tough sanctions to try to rein in Pyongyangs nuclear program. But that unity now appears to be at risk over enforcement of sanctions and the broader issues of how to achieve denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, and when sanctions should be lifted against North Korea.A U.S. government investigation concluded that Myanmars military orchestrated a well-planned and coordinated campaign of violence against the countrys Rohingya minority, but stopped short of labeling the atrocities genocide or crimes against humanity.

The State Department probe, released quietly on Monday, included interviews with more than 1,000 Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. Over 700,000 members of the persecuted and mostly stateless minority now languish in refugee camps after they fled a devastating, military-led campaign of mass murder, sexual violence and arson last year. An estimated 10,000 Rohingya were killed in the crackdown, according to U.N. investigators.

The State Departments report underscores both the staggering scale of violence, as well as the militarys chief role in leading it: 84% of interviewees reported witnessing a military-perpetrated killing or injury, while 40% witnessed a rape committed by security forces.

The survey reveals that the recent violence in northern Rakhine State was extreme, large-scale, widespread, and seemingly geared toward both terrorizing the population and driving out the Rohingya residents, the reports summary says.

In some areas, it adds, perpetrators used tactics that resulted in mass casualties, for example, locking people in houses to burn them, fencing off entire villages before shooting into the crowd, or sinking boats full of hundreds of fleeing Rohingya.

The harrowing picture painted in the 20-page report could prompt calls for the U.S. to adopt a more punitive stance toward Myanmar. In December, the U.S. sanctioned one general who oversaw the region where violence occurred. Additional embargoes were added against four commanders and two military units in August.

Yet Mondays report, which was released without any attention-grabbing fanfare like an accompanying press conference or a press release, did not identify further steps for accountability. It also shied away from terms like genocide or crimes against humanity, which could have legal implications committing the U.S. to tougher measures.

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The State Department assessment follows an exhaustive report by a U.N. Fact Finding Mission that recommended Myanmars military leaders be tried for genocide. The U.N. human rights envoy to Myanmar has also said the violence bears the hallmarks of genocide.

The issue of whether the U.S. would follow suit and likewise call the violence genocide proved controversial both inside and outside of Washington, with some activists perceiving the determination as an indication of the governments commitment to seeking justice for the atrocities. According to Reuters, the debate around the designation proved so divisive within the State Department that it delayed the reports release by nearly one month.

One official, speaking anonymously, said it was up to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to make a legal determination that the violence amounts to genocide.

Pressed for comment by POLITICO, a State Department spokesman said the U.S. previously characterized the events described in the report as ethnic cleansing. We believe the findings of this report fully support that conclusion.

Legal action could proceed without American involvement, at any rate. Last week, the International Criminal Courts chief prosecutor announced a preliminary examination into Myanmars forced expulsions of the Rohingya, a first step toward possible prosecutions.

There is recent precedent for the U.S. to use the genocide label. The States investigation was modeled after a probe into mass atrocities committed in Sudans Darfur region in 2004, which prompted the U.S. declaration of genocide and sanctions against the Sudanese government, Reuters reports. And members of the Trump administration, including Vice President Mike Pence, have said ISISs attacks on Christians constitute a genocide.

While the U.S. has yet to make such a designation or outline stiffer penalties in Myanmars case, on Monday, the government announced it is nearly doubling its humanitarian aid for the crisis. An additional $185 million will be allocated to displaced Rohingya in Myanmar and Bangladesh.

In announcing the aid at a press conference ahead of the U.N. General Assembly session this week, U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley called on the Myanmar government to do more to hold those who have engaged in ethnic cleansing accountable for their atrocities?.President Donald Trump on Tuesday attacked Iran in a heated speech at the United Nations General Assembly, in what sounded like an update of an address he made one year ago at the same venue railing against North Korea. But Irans leader made it clear hours later that Trump shouldnt expect similar results when it comes to negotiating with Tehran.

Trump on Tuesday repeated his criticism of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal  which the U.S. withdrew from in May  and accused Iranian leaders of supporting terrorism and corruption and of sowing chaos in the Middle East. He vowed to impose more economic sanctions against Iran and called for the countrys international isolation.

Just as with North Korea last time around, Trumps attacks come as he seeks to negotiate a new nuclear deal with Iran. The presidents rhetoric toward Iran has echoed the threats, insults and occasional diplomatic overtures he used ahead of negotiations with North Korea over its nuclear program earlier this year. In those negotiations, he took an aggressive initial stance before agreeing to a summit and drastically softening his tone on the country.

While the ongoing North Korean nuclear negotiations helped de-escalate a potential military conflict, something Trumps rhetoric stirred widespread concern over, its still unclear what the end result of the process will be. Trump, however, has lauded the negotiations as a major achievement and claimed on Tuesday that talks with North Korea were going great and that he would soon have another summit with leader Kim Jong Un.

President Donald Trump addresses the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday in New York City. (Photo: John Moore via Getty Images)

Trump may be looking for a similar deal with Iran. He has repeatedly promised he will negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran that would be more effective than an agreement engineered by former President Barack Obama and five other nations to lift economic sanctions on Iran in exchange for the country halting its nuclear program.

On Tuesday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani insisted that any negotiations would have to take place in the multilateral context of the 2015 nuclear agreement and blamed the U.S. for failing to uphold the deal.

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No state can be brought to the negotiating table by force, Rouhani said in his U.N. speech Tuesday.

Trumps strategy on Iran is fundamentally flawed, lacks any coherent timeline and misunderstands Iranian domestic politics, experts have warned. The U.S. decision to walk away from the nuclear deal, for example, has already resulted in more hard-line politicians in Irans government gaining ground, as Rouhani tacked to the right to appease backlash over the agreement falling apart.

Europes continued commitment to the nuclear deal has also widened the rift between the U.S. and its allies, as leaders of France, Germany and the United Kingdom have publicly criticized Trump for pulling out of the deal. On Tuesday, French President Emmanuel Macron argued for an approach to world issues radically different from the one Trump outlined  calling for multilateralism and international institutions to deal with problems.

We are pleased that the international community did not acquiesce to the U.S.s illegal and unilateral withdrawal from that agreement, Rouhani said.

But despite European attempts to keep the deal together, companies across the continent have begun to end their work in Iran out of fear of future sanctions. The next round of U.S. sanctions will kick in in early November, adding to the animosity between Washington and Tehran.

Rouhani implied in his speech that Iran would not follow the same course as North Korea and made a veiled reference to the summit between Trump and Kim being a photo opportunity.

Without initially mentioning Trump, he condemned world leaders who gain popular support using nationalism, racism and xenophobic tendencies resembling a Nazi disposition. He further called U.S. opposition to Iran doomed to failure, while claiming the White House is trying to destroy international agreements and institutions.

Tensions between the U.S. and Iran were already high after both countries accused each other of supporting terrorism after a militant attack Saturday at a military parade in Ahvaz, Iran, killed 25 people and wounded dozens more.

The Iranian government vaguely accused Washington-backed governments in the Middle East and their U.S. masters of supporting the militant group that took credit for the attack. In response, Washingtons ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, told Rouhani to look in the mirror instead of blaming the U.S. for terrorism.

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.The secretary-general of the United Nations has warned about the issues created by an increasingly chaotic world in remarks that appeared to be a veiled attack on President Donald Trump.

Antonio Guterres, the secretary-general, warned international leaders on Tuesday that they face a myriad of challenges for continued global security. He said that the world faces the massive, existential threats posed by man made global warming on the planet, and urged leaders to implement the Paris climate change agreement in spite of Mr Trumps decision to pull out.

The world is suffering from a bad case of Trust Deficit Disorder, Mr Guterres said during his speech, pointing to the rise of populism within nations, fragile trust in international systems, and what appears to be a slow down in international cooperation between the worlds nations.

Democratic principles are under siege, he said.

In addressing both climate change and the threat of populism to international cooperation, Mr Guterres was setting the stage for a rift between him and the traditional international order, and the likes of Mr Trump, who has defined his presidency as one in which he will consider American interests above all others.

Mr Trump, who has previously questioned the validity of climate change, has announced that he plans on pulling the US  which played a central role in drafting the Paris agreement  from the international climate agreement that hopes to stymie the impact of human pollution on the planet.

The US president, for his part, praised the work of his administration and international allies during his speech on Tuesday.

The president touted what he claimed that a "booming" US economy was stronger than ever before, and touted several domestic achievements including low unemployment rates and a soaring stock market. Mr Trump claimed that the US has begun working on a border wall on its southern border with Mexico, and praised efforts to pass tax cut legislation in the past year.

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"We are standing up for America, and the American people. And we are standing up to the world," Mr Trump said.

On the international stage, Mr Trump urged the United Nations to respect American sovereignty. He said that all other nations should seek to respect their own sovereignty as well, and asserted that individually strong countries would make for a stronger and better international order.

And, the president suggested that the time when the United States would dole out foreign aide without receiving anything in return is over.

"Moving forward, we are only going to give foreign aid to those who respect us and frankly our  our friends," Mr Trump said. "And we expect other countries to pay their fair share for the cost of their defence".

Mr Trump had few kind words for major allies and international partners, and instead doubled down on criticising other countries he feels are taking advantage of the United States like China and the European Union. He claimed that China is taking advantage of the US with a trade deficit, for instance, and did not back down from his billions of dollars in trade tariffs that his administration has rolled out in the past year.

The president did, however, have kind words for North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, whom he met with earlier this year in an unprecedented meeting between the two super powers. Mr Trump indicated that Mr Kim and his regime have been making good on his promise to stop enriching uranium and launching ballistic missile tests.Donald Trump has chairing a United Nations Security Council meeting - a first for the US president.

It means that most of the attention that would have been focused on events at the General Assembly - where UK Prime Minister Theresa May would later defend the Brexit vote - was instead focused on the UN's most powerful body, where the US currently holds the rotating presidency.

While the meeting of the council addressed the issue of nonproliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, Mr Trump himself used the platform to attack Iran and accuse China - but not Russia - of meddling in 2018 midterm elections.

On Tuesday, during an unabashedly "America First" speech, Mr Trump said Iranian leaders "sow chaos, death and destruction" and "spread mayhem across the Middle East and far beyond." His national security adviser, John Bolton, also warned that there would be "hell to pay" if Tehran crossed the US, its allies or their partners.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani responded by accusing the Mr Trump administration of violating the rules of international law and "state obligations" by withdrawing from the 2015 nuclear deal that Iran signed with the US and five other major powers.

Mr Rouhani did not to attend the Security Council meeting that. The council is populated by five permanent members -- the US, China, Russia, Britain and France -- and 10 other member states, who occupy a council seat for two-year terms. Iran is not among them.

Please allow a moment for the liveblog to load.Chicago (AFP) - A Chinese national who came to the US on a student visa and later enlisted in the army reserves was arrested Tuesday in Chicago and accused of helping Beijing attempt to recruit American scientists and engineers.

Ji Chaoqun was allegedly tasked with providing Chinese intelligence with biographical information about eight American citizens -- some of whom were US defense contractors.

The 27-year-old, who first arrived in Chicago in 2013 to study electrical engineering on a student visa, was charged with one count of knowingly acting as an agent of a foreign government without prior notification to the US Attorney General.

According to a court affidavit, Ji was working at the direction of a "high-level intelligence officer" in China's Ministry of State Security, which "handles civilian intelligence collection and is responsible for counter-intelligence and foreign intelligence, as well as political security."

All eight of the people Ji allegedly researched were naturalized American citizens who were born in Taiwan or China, according to authorities. The targets either currently worked or were recently retired from a career in the science and technology industry.

An affidavit filed in federal court by an FBI investigator specializing in espionage, claims among the people targeted was an engineer at one of "the world's top aircraft engine suppliers for both commercial and military aircraft."

After one of Ji's handlers was arrested, he met with US undercover agents in April and May, and admitted to his work, which included collecting background checks, the affidavit said.

He allegedly told the undercover agents: "They just wanted me to purchase some documents on their behalf. Their reason was just because it was inconvenient for them to make payments from China."

Ji enlisted in the army reserves, according to the US Attorney's office, but failed to disclose his foreign contacts to the military.New York (AFP) - The United States and Mexico could move ahead without Canada in a new version of the North American Free Trade Agreement, US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said Tuesday, according to media reports.

Momentum appeared to have stalled last week in efforts to bridge differences between Washington and Ottawa in negotiations to rewrite NAFTA, which began last year.

Washington and Mexico City last month announced agreement on a new trade pact, but a separate track of intensive talks with Canada have so far failed to produce results.

"There is still a fair amount of distance between us," Lighthizer said at a conference in New York, according to press reports. "If Canada comes along later, then that's what will happen."

President Donald Trump has informed Congress he intends to sign a new deal, with or without Canada, by late November before Mexico's new president takes office.

But Ottawa has resisted pressure to meet Washington's self-imposed September 30 deadline for agreeing to terms to revise the 25-year-old trade deal.

Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said earlier Tuesday that there was "a possibility to build on what they agreed," but that his priority is to reach "the right deal."

Lighthizer said negotiators were "sort of running out of time" to finalized the terms by the weekend, according to The Washington Post.

If differences with Ottawa cannot be resolved by then, the Trump administration will ask Congress to approve a Mexico-only deal, he said.

Remaining sticking points concern Canada's state-managed system of dairy production, protections for Canadian cultural industries and provisions for resolving dispute that arise among NAFTA partners, which Trump is seeking to eliminate.Veteran Labour MP Dennis Skinner brought the house down at the partys annual conference today when he told them he wanted to nationalise something every week.

Mr Skinner  known as the Beast of Bolsover  praised the NHS as he told delegates in Liverpool he would not be alive without the health service.

The 86-year-old, who was elected as an MP in 1970, told the crowd: The reason Im still living is because of the treatment that Ive had at the hands of the National Health Service that was set up by Nye Bevan and his mates in that wonderful government of 1945 to 1950.

Dennis Skinner told the Labour conference that he wanted to nationalise something every week (PA)

Praising Labours leader, Mr Skinner added: And thats why when we talk about Jeremy Corbyn and electing him to power wouldnt it be wonderful to get somebody to mirror what happened in 1945?

I hope that Im still in Parliament because I want to nationalise something every week.

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Mr Skinner received a standing ovation as he took to the stage and repeatedly brought laughter to the auditorium.

He spoke of how he had a heart bypass in 2003, and said: Ill never forget that steady hand of the doctor that found a way from my groin straight into my heart.

Mr Skinner made an impassioned speech about wanting Jeremy Corbyn in Downing Street (PA)

I watched every movement, I thought if ever he makes a slip then thats the end  therell be no more speeches at the Labour Party conference. But he did it and the result was that Im still here.

Then I had a hip replacement and because of the wonderful NHS I can walk backwards.More than 100 students of Yale Law School, the alma mater of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, rallied in Washington, D.C., on Monday, September 24, to protest his nomination.

Meanwhile, about 200 others staged a sit-in on campus in New Haven, Connecticut.

At least 44 students were arrested in Washington, Yale Law Students Demanding Better said.

More than 30 professors cancelled classes on Monday to allow students to take part in the nationwide Walkout Monday to support the two women who accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault and misconduct. Kavanaugh denies all the allegations against him.

This video, shared on September 24, shows Yale students protesting at the Hart Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C. Credit: Veronica Guerrero / Yale Law Students Demanding Better via StoryfulNew Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern has become something of a feminist hero this year. In June, the thoroughly modern, unmarried 38-year-old became only the second woman head of state (after Pakistani PM Benazir Bhutto) to give birth while in office; it was subsequently celebrated that Arderns partner of four years, TV host Clarke Gayford, would be a stay-at-home dad to their daughter, Neve Te Aroha, while she, um, runs the country. Easy to see why her election has sparked Jacinda-mania, even as Ardern brushed off the attention. Im just pregnant, not incapacitated, Ardern told The Guardian earlier this year. Like everyone else who has found themselves pregnant before, Im just keeping on going.

And so she has. Ardern continued making history on Tuesday when she brought 3-month-old Neve to the United Nations General Assembly in New York, making her the first female leader ever to bring an infant to the floor. In a moment that is likely to pluck the heartstrings of working mothers everywhere, Ardern was photographed kissing Neve before addressing the assembly as part of the Nelson Mandela Peace Summit (Neve, for her part, sat on her fathers lap and watched).

Adding to the cute overload, Gayford later tweeted Neves U.N. identification badge, which denoted her as First Baby, and shared that diapers were definitely changed on the premises.

This is all adorable, of course. But its also pretty remarkable. Ardern is a woman with a new baby and an important job, and she didnt feel the need to hide that fact in order to assert herself on the world stage. Thats a notable departure especially for American audiences: Here, women politicians have historically been urged not to play the woman card and to act tough and almost macho to exude power and influencea notable exception (and, hopefully, a sign of progress) was Sen. Tammy Duckworth carrying her 10-day-old daughter, Maile, onto the Senate floor in April to cast a vote, the first senator ever to do so. From all of us who have pumped breast milk on a work trip and transported it back home on an airplane, or conducted a conference call with a baby on her lap: Jacinda, we salute you.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.Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said a Turkish court, not politicians, will decide the fate of an American pastor whose detention on terrorism charges has roiled relations between Ankara and Washington.

In an interview on Tuesday while he was in New York for the annual United Nations General Assembly, Erdogan said Turkey will continue to purchase Iran's natural gas, despite US sanctions on Tehran.

Erdogan said it was impossible for Syrian peace efforts to continue with Syrian President Bashar Assad in power, adding that the withdrawal of "radical groups" had already started from a new demilitarized zone in Syria's Idlib region.White House national security adviser John Bolton on Tuesday dismissed an EU plan for a special payments plan to circumvent US sanctions against Iranian oil sales and pressed the SWIFT global payments messaging system to rethink dealing with Tehran.

Speaking at a conference, Bolton also said the United States would be "aggressive and unwavering" in enforcing economic sanctions on Iran that are resuming after Washington withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. He said the United States would not allow the European Union or anyone else to undermine them.Palestinian leaders said on Tuesday that US President Donald Trump shut the door on peace during his speech to the UN General Assembly, during which he said that his decision to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem was a recognition of obvious facts and a precondition for peace negotiations.

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Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbass spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, said that Trumps speech has intensified the disputes and reduced the chances for peace.

Jerusalem will remain the capital of the Palestinian state within the 1967 borders against the will and despite the wrath of those opposed to it, Rudeineh added.

President Trump and Mahmoud Abbas (Photo: AP)

Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) Secretary General Saeb Erekat also launched into Trump for his speech.

Trump has proved that he has closed the door on peace and that he can no longer fulfil his role of making peace, said Erekat, who has made no bones about his disapproval of Trumps policies in the past.

According to him, Trump is giving a prize and encouraging the violation of international law, colonization, war crimes and apartheid.

Hanan Ashrawi, member of the PLO Executive Committee, accused the US president of delivering a speech that was a display of unilateralism, bullying, isolationism and an arrogant assault on the international system.

The Hamas terror organization also weighed in with its own broadside against Trump, saying that his remarks reflect arrogance and rules of the jungle which increase anger against the American administration.

Trump irked the Palestinians in his 35-minute UN General Assembly speech when he stressed that peace can only be advanced by acknowledging obvious facts.

This year we also took another significant step forward in the Middle East in recognition of every sovereign state to determine its own capital. I moved the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem," Trump said.

Americas policy of principled realism means we will not be held hostage to old dogmas, discredited ideologies and so-called experts who have been proven wrong over the years time and time again.

Trump announced last December that the United States was officially recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and stated his intention to move its embassy there. In May he followed through on his promiseBritain's main opposition Labour Party has passed a motion strongly criticizing Israel, as a senior lawmaker warned the party must root out anti-Semitism.

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Delegates at the party's conference voted Tuesday to criticize Israel's use of force against Gaza protests, almost all of which turn violent as Gazans hurl rocks, improvised explosives, launch incendiary balloons and attempt to breach the security fence.

Jeremy Corbyn at UK Labour Party conference (Photo: AP)

The party conference also urged more UK funding for the UN agency for Palestinians and back a freeze on British arms sales to Israel.

The vote came after a heated debate that saw dozens of Palestinian flags waved in the convention hall.

Labour has been riven by allegations that the party has become hostile to Jews under leader Jeremy Corbyn, a longtime supporter of Palestinians.

Foreign-affairs spokeswoman Emily Thornberry said Labour must kick out "sickening individuals ... who use our legitimate support for Palestine as a cloak and a cover for their despicable hatred of Jewish people."

Last week, UK Prime Minister Theresa May pledged to protect British Jewish identity and Israel's right to defend itself, in an attack on Jeremy Corbyn in the run-up to his Labour Party conference.

May told a United Jewish Israel Appeal dinner she was "sickened" by the idea that some Jews questioned whether Britain was a safe place to raise their children.

Britain's former chief rabbi Jonathan Sacks recently warned that Jewish people are thinking about leaving the country because of anti-Semitism.

Corbyn at an anti-Israel rally

He told the BBC that for the first time in the 362 years Jews have been in Britain many question whether it is safe to raise children there.

He singled out Corbyn for failing to address anti-Semitic attitudes in the main opposition party, saying the Labour leader would pose a danger as prime minister unless he expresses "clear remorse" for past statements.

Sacks said "when people hear the kind of language that has been coming out of Labour, that's been brought to the surface among Jeremy Corbyn's earlier speeches, they cannot but feel an existential threat."Egypt's President Abdel Fattah Sisi told the UN General Assembly on Tuesday that there is no time to waste on arguing" over the Israel-Palestinian conflict, while stressing that the conditions for a final peace accord are known.

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"The final conditions to reach an agreement between Israel and the Palestinians are known," Sisi said at the annual gathering. "The perseverance to renew negotiations and to reach (a peace) agreement is needed here."

Sisi speak at UNGA

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"I reiterate what I've said many times before, including on this podiumthe Arabs are willing to extend their hand to peace. The Arab nations are entitled to turn this tragic page in the history books and the Palestinian people are entitled to implement their legitimate rights," the Egyptian president said.

"We cannot speak of peace agreements as a basic principle of the UN and as a sign of credibility without mentioning the Palestinian issue."

The fact that the conflict has yet to be resolved, Sisi said, was "a perfect example of the international community's failure to find a just solution based on the international legitimacy of the UN resolutions which support the establishment of a Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital."

Egypt's President Abdel Fattah Sisi (Photo: AFP)

It was not immediately clear whether whether Sisi will meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, after an Israeli official told Reuters such meeting would take place in New York.

Journalist Yasser Razaq, chairman of the Egyptian Akhbar El Yom newspaper, said the meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, adding that President Sisi is expected to raise the issue of the two-state solution, which in Egypt presidents opinion, should be an "integeral part of the US peace plan, the journalist stressed.

Both leaders met in public for the first time in September 2017 in New York. Egypt was the first of a handful of Arab countries to recognize Israel under a US-sponsored peace accord in 1979 and the two countries maintain close co-ordination on security.

Last month, Ynet learned that Netanyahu secretly met with Sisi once again but the Prime Minister's Office refused to comment on the issue.

Past meeting of PM and Sisi (Photo: Avi Ohayon, GPO)

Speaking shortly before Sisi, Jordans King Abdullah told the UN General Assembly that only a two-state solution based on the pre-1967 borders with east Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state could produce comprehensive peace deal between Israel and Palestinians.

"Only a two-state solution based on international law and relevant UN resolutions can meet the needs of both sides: an end to conflict, a viable, independent, sovereign Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with east Jerusalem as its capital, and a secure Israel, fully part of its own region, recognized by Arab and Muslim states around the world, Abdullah said in his speech, delivered in English.

The leader of the Hashemite kingdom also categorically rejected the notion of a bi-national state whose very foundation is a rejection of the equality of its own people.

Any peace accord based on a bi-national state, he said, would constitute the ugly, undemocratic reality.

King Abdullah (Photo: AFP)

US President Donald Trump told the General Assembly he is committed to brokering a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians, stressing that the goal can only be advanced by acknowledging obvious facts.

This year we also took another significant step forward in the Middle East in recognition of every sovereign state to determine its own capital. I moved the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem," Trump said in his 35-minute speech.

President Trump at UNGA 2018 (Photo: AP)

In response to Trump's speech, French President Emmanuel Macron delivered an implicit rejection of the US president's initiative, telling the General Assembly that the unilateral initiatives or trampling on the legitimate rights of the Palestinians will not solve the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

There is no credible alternative to the two-state solution, Macron said.

When came the turn of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to speak before the General Assembly, he accused Israel of being a menace to world peace.

Israel, which has a nuclear arsenal and is blatantly threatening others with nuclear annihilation, is the most terrifying threat to the peace and stability of the region and the world," Rouhani said.

President Rouhani (Photo: Reuters)

He also slammed Israels recent passage of the Nation-State Law, saying it was another clear example of the country being an apartheid state.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also took the podium at the General assembly, stating that those who remain silent in the face of repression against the Palestinians only embolden their oppressors.

The remarks appeared to be intended as a swipe against Trump whose series of decisions have angered Palestinians and their allies.

Even if the world turns its back, we will continue to be by the side of the oppressed Palestinians and we will defend the legal status of Jerusalem, Erdogan asserted.A senior Syrian official has warned that Israel will need to think twice before attacking Syrian targets, following a Russian announcement that it will be supplying an S-300 anti-missile system to its ally.

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Moscow made the announcement in response to the downing of the Ilyushin IL-20 Russian spy plane by Syrian air defenses while trying to repel an IAF attack on the coastal city of Latakia.

"Israel, which got used to carrying out many attacks under different pretexts, would have to recalculate and reconsider before attacking again," said Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad, emboldened by the latest development.

S-300 anti-missile batteries (Photo: EAP)

The Russian Defense Ministry announced on Sunday that Israel bears responsibility for the Syrian downing of the Russian reconnaissance plane during the Latakia offensive, despite Jerusalems claims to the contrary.

Mekdad made the comments to the Xinhua news agency on Tuesday and was quoted in the Russian-owned Sputnik news outlet.

It was reported on Tuesday that the first shipment of electronic jamming systems from Russia had already reached Syria, despite Israel and the US warning Moscow against escalating tensions that have arisen from the plane's downing, which Israel attributed to Syrian incompetence.

Israel has cautioned Moscow against supplying the advanced air defense system to President Bashar Assads forces amid concerns that it would compel a revision of the Israel Air Forces strategy and inhibit its freedom in the skies.

Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad (Photo: AP)

Israel has carried out at least 200 attacks in the past year-and-a-half on targets in Syria as part of its declared objective of preventing Iranian military entrenchment in the country and preventing the transfer of advanced weapons to the Iranian-sponsored Hezbollah terror group.

According to Mekdad, the S-300 missiles that the Russians plan to supply within two weeks will be used for defense only. Syria will continue to defend itself as it has done until now.

Mekdad went on to say that relations between Syria and Russia have become even deeper and are guided by loyalty. Every attack on Syria is an attack against all forces operating there against terror, he said.

S-300 in action (Photo: AFP)

Despite the Russian supply of the S-300 system, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that Israel will continue to act in order to prevent Iranian entrenchment in the region.

"In the past three years, Israel has been very successful in preventing the Iranian military from setting up bases in Syria and attempting to supply lethal weapons to Hezbollah. We did this with maximum and successful security coordination with the Russian military, the prime minister said before flying to New York to address the UN General Assembly.White House national security advisor John Bolton on Tuesday dismissed an EU plan for a special payments plan to circumvent US sanctions against Iranian oil sales and pressed the SWIFT global payments messaging system to rethink dealing with Tehran.

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Speaking at a conference, Bolton also said the United States would be "aggressive and unwavering" in enforcing economic sanctions on Iran that are resuming after Washington withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal . He said the United States would not allow the European Union or anyone else to undermine them.

White House national security advisor John Bolton (Photo: Reuters)

In a statement after a meeting of Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and Iran on Mondaythe countries still in the deal, the group said they were determined to develop payment mechanisms to continue trade with Iran despite skepticism by many diplomats that this will be possible.

Bolton, however, was skeptical that the European Union could create a "special purpose vehicle"described by diplomats as a sovereign barter channel much like one used by the Soviet Union during the Cold Warthat would sustain Iran's oil sales.

"The European Union is strong on rhetoric and weak on follow-through," Bolton said. "We will be watching the development of this structure that doesn't exist yet and has no target date to be created. We do not intend to allow our sanctions to be evaded by Europe or anybody else."

Bolton also said the United States expected Iran's oil customers to slash their imports of Iranian crude to zero by November 4 before US sanctions kick back in on November 5. US officials have sent mixed signals on whether the oil purchases needed to be eliminated by then or simply significantly reduced.

EU Foreign Policy chief Mogherini and Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif (Photo: MCT)

"Banks and financial messaging services such as SWIFT must take a good hard look at their business with Iran and ask themselves whether it is worth the risk," Bolton said. "SWIFT should follow the example of a growing number of businesses ... that reexamined their dealings with the Iranian regime."

Iran was barred from SWIFT, the Belgium-based Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, in 2012, crippling its ability to make international bank transfers crucial to foreign trade. After the 2015 nuclear deal , it was reconnected, but European officials have said they expect the United States to apply pressure on SWIFT to once again cut Iran off.Opposition Chairwoman Tzipi Livni urged Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday evening to prevent a security disaster and to give hope for a better future rather than dwelling on the failures of past negotiations by renewing talks with the US.

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The two met in New York where world leaders have gathered for an annual meeting of the UN General Assembly.

According to a statement sent by Livnis office, she urged Abbas to throw his weight behind efforts to find a solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict before Gaza officially turns into Hamastan.

Tzipi Livni and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas

She also told the aging Palestinian leader that he should return to discussions with the US before the two-state solution completely disappears and is rendered unfeasible.

The situation in Gaza is stuck and it can only make progress with the return of the PA to Gaza and not through giving legitimacy to a fanatical and violent terror organization like Hamas, Livni said in reference to Israels indirect negotiations with the Gaza-ruling group to quell the unrest on the border.

Seclusion, unilateral moves against Israel, and the breaking of the tools will be a cry for generations to come, she warned.

This can lead to a deterioration on the ground, the loss of control and the loss of the two-state solution.

The severity of the current climate, Livni told Abbas, demands that everyone search for ways to restore calm, without dwelling on anger and insults.

Violence in Gaza (Photo: AP)

Livni, who heads the Hatnuah party, also implored Abbas to engage in discussions with the US on the two-state solutiona demilitarized Palestinian state alongside Israel, not because of (the USs) punishments and the budgetary reductions but in spite of them, even if you have feelings of anger and you dont agree with the conditions.

The Israeli opposition and the majority of the Israeli public, Livni claimed in her discussions with Abbas, advocate in principle the creation of a Palestinian state based on the two-state solution but oppose all unilateral steps taken by the Palestinians against Israel in international forums.

Giving money to families of terrorists and activities in the International Criminal Court are unacceptable and cause a loss of faith and only strengthen extremists, Livni said, listing her grievances with some strategies to delegitimize Israel which have been employed by the PA and its payment scheme to families of terrorists.

After the meeting, Livni said that security officials are warning that we are at a boiling point in Gaza and Judea and Samaria and it is my obligation to do everything in my ability, with my experience and connections, to contribute to finding a solution to crisis in Gaza, to act against Hamas and to give a chance to the American plan.

Livni lamented the fact attempts so far by the Israeli government, the Americans and the Egyptians had yet to yield results.

Instead of mutual accusations that serve only domestic politics, we must act. The stagnation serves extremists, she continued.

My policy is in accordance with the position of the security establishment. Alliances with the moderates who are against the extremists. Instead of talking to Hamas, speak to the legitimate PA. (Abbas) cooperates with Israel on the security level, and he is preferable to the extremists of Hamas and other terror groups, said Livni, who headed the last round of negotiations with the Palestinians during the Obama administration.

The choice in the Middle East is between terrible options and Abbas is the least terrible option despite the criticism I have about him, Livni added.An interactive IDF exhibition which enables visitors to operate flight simulators and maneuver ground forces while waging a virtual war was inaugurated Thursday in Holon and will be open to the public until October 3.

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Advance registration is required for the free entry into the "Our IDF" exhibition.

(Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit)

"Our IDF" entails an audiovisual display, activities for the whole family, military bands performances, ship sailing, along with weapons and high-end technology displays.

Each visitor will receive an "army ID" upon entry which will allow him to score points as he tries the different activities.

The field in which the visitor will achieve the highest score will determine the position for which he is most compatible in the army.

Visitors will be able to experiment with operating robots, play an interactive game which simulates an Iron Dome interception, and take part in a special intelligence game.

Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eisenkot at "Our IDF" exhibition (Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit)

The navy presents a simulation of a submarine periscope and a sonar system which uses sound to identify naval vessels near it.

In addition, a game developed by the IDF and dubbed "economic water" will allow each player to defend his naval space from threats posed by enemy submarines and missiles.

Interactive IDF exhibition (Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit)

Up to six players can play the "economic water," with each one of them being assigned a specific role.

The section dedicated to the ground forces will have a digital sand table simulating war in which virtual forces can me maneuvered.

Virtual army games (Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit)

The skydiving simulation will allow participants to control the simulator by adjusting his harnesses.

The flight simulation displayed in the section dedicated to the Israel Air Force offers the ultimate flying experience, during which the visitor will navigate the plane and carry out missions in the cockpit.

Flight simulator (Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit)

In addition, an Iron Dome battery game will allow the participant to intercept virtual missiles launched at communities.

The intelligence area gives the visitor the opportunity to operate a system, which processes visual data. A cyber riddle will be presented in the exhibition's application, with clues to it provided as the visitor progresses through the various displays.Donald Trump stood at the rostrum at the UN General Assembly on Tuesday and read word for word from the script of his speech, barely removing his gaze from the teleprompter. During the speech, he removed from his head the crown that belongs to the leader of the free world which has always been reserved for the US president.

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The significance of this crown has been in a precarious position since the day he was elected, but on Tuesday he unambiguously presented the doctrine by which he is guided and which is predicated, first and foremost, on the policy of America First.





Unlike his previous speeches, which were interspersed with fractured and impromptu sentences which bore no correlation with his world view and which were animated with screams, on Tuesday he placed things silently on the table to remove any doubts whatsoever about his position. He is against globalism, he is opposed to foreign assistance unless the US can reap a tangible benefit. He is an advocate of protectionism and a staunch defender of Americas sovereignty.

Rather than addressing those in the General Assembly chamber, Trumps speech was intended for domestic consumption and for his political support base. On the outskirts of Pennsylvania and in the villages of Ohio, residents could hear a fiery speech in which their president kicks the worlds behind and gives them what they have always wantedan isolationist America surrounded by great oceans, and to hell with the rest of the world.

The old American ethos was built upon the idea that the US assists the world not only out of compassion as a rich country but also out of a desire to promote values of liberty and democracy. It is based on the understanding that this assistance can advance the position of patriots who are struggling in other countries and to bring them closer to the US out of gratitude and recognition of its status as a global leader.

America supported globalization because that was more or less the solution, albeit imperfect, to help the poor, to give an opportunity to those who have never been given one. On Tuesday, on the UN General Assembly podium, the president promoted not Americanism, but Trumpism. In his speech, which was full of passages that sounded like they were written by right-wing propagandists, he presented the new America in a defiant mannerthe America that does not extend a helping hand, but rather a clenched fist which the world will slap away.

The speech was not without its embarrassing moment at the beginning when the world showed Trump what they thought of him. The American president boasted that in less than two years he managed to accomplish more than any other president before him. The laughs were indeed restrained, but Trump heard it. However, for him it doesn't matter. He has created a bubble for himself and believes that whatever he thinks about himself is the reality. After all, he does not care about the world, he is focused on the midterm elections scheduled for November and he knows that they will serve as a litmus test, or referendum on his performance.

The UNGA speech was intended as a rally cry to his supporters and to remind them why they love him. He is the one who can threaten Iran with more sanctions. He is the one who can say that Rouhani asked to meet with him only to be refused, even though Rouhani said on the same day that Trump was the one who sought to meet with himeight times.

But what is the truth when it is all fake news anyway and his supporters say in the polls that they are unperturbed when the president lies.

For the first time, Trump laid out a clear political position that will distance the US from the world. In Israel, many were overjoyed when he transferred the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal, but when America forfeits its position as the worlds leader, it is the worst thing that can happen to Israel. It means that America is weak among the family of nations and that someone else will step in to gain control and steer the vehicle of leadership in a new direction, leaving Trump as little more than an angry sheriff in its tracks.French President Emmanuel Macron has sidestepped a question over a controversial multi-million dollar deal to sell 36 fighter jets to India.

In a news conference at the United Nations in New York, Macron said Tuesday he was "not in charge" when the deal was signed in 2016 through "a government-to-government discussion."US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he believes that the two-state solution works best, in what was a first public endorsement of the idea since entering the White House.

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The remarks, which were made during a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, shed light on the possible basis of a long-awaited peace initiative to be launched by the US administration between Israel and the Palestinians.

Trump, Netanyahu at UN

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"I like a two state solution. That's what I think works best ... That's my feeling," said Trump.

Trump also said he wanted to unveil a peace plan in the next two to three months.

"It is a dream of mine to get that done prior to the end of my first term," Trump said. "I don't want to do it in my second term. We'll do other things in my second term," he said. "I think a lot of progress has been made. I think that Israel wants to do something and I think that the Palestinians actually want to do something."

Concluding his opening statement before the floor was open toquestions from journalists, Trump said: We are with you. We are with Israel 100%.

Netanyahu has said that any future Palestinian state must be demilitarized and must recognize Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people.

"I really believe something will happen. They say it's the toughest of all deals," Trump said.

Asked what Israel might have to give up in return for the embassy's move to Jerusalem, Trump replied: "I took probably the biggest chip off the table and so obviously we have to make a fair deal, we have to do something. Deals have to be good for both parties ... Israel got the first chip and it's a big one."

Trump gave his endorsement of the two-state solution moments after Netanyahu praised the American-Israeli alliance as never being stronger under your leadership.

President Trump and PM Netanyahu (Photo: Reuters)

I want to thank you for the extraordinary support that you have shown for Israel in this building in the UN. No one has backed Israel like you do and we appreciate it," Netanyahu told the president in his opening remarks.

This it the first time we are meeting after the American Embassy has been moved to Jerusalem," he added. "Youve changed history and you've touched our hearts."

Trump's statement also comes in stark contrast to the response given to whether he supports the two-state solution during a meeting between the two leader in Washington in February 2017 when he avoided explicitly backing the idea.

"I'm looking at two-state and one-state and I like the one that both parties like. I'm very happy with the one that both parties like," he said at the time.

On Tuesday, Trump indicated in a speech to the UN General Assembly that his peace initiative was moving away from the two-state solution.

Americas policy of principled realism means we will not be held hostage to old dogmas, discredited ideologies and so-called experts who have been proven wrong over the years time and time again, he said in a 35-minute speech.

Speaking shortly after Trump, Jordans King Abdullah told the UN General Assembly that only a two-state solution based on the pre-1967 borders with east Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinain state could produce comprehensive peace deal between Israel and Palestinians.

The sentiment of clinging to the two-state solution was then echoed by Egypt's President Abdel Fattah Sisi at the UN.

Doubts have mounted over whether Trump's administration can secure what he has called the "ultimate deal" since December, when the US president recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital and then moved the US Embassy there.

"It is a dream of mine to get that done prior to the end of my first term," Trump said of an agreement on the conflict.

Jerusalem is one of the major issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Both sides claim it as a capital. Trump's move outraged the Palestinians, who have since boycotted Washington's peace efforts, led by Trump's son-in-law and advisor, Jared Kushner.Britain's Labour Party chairman ,Jeremy Corbyn, said on Wednesday that his party will recognize a Palestinian state should they win upcoming elections.

Speaking at a conference in Liverpool, Corbyn continued to criticize Israeli policies regarding the Palestinians, and condemned the killing of Palestinian demonstrators in the Gaza Strip.At the meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump Wednesday, Trump told Netanyahu that the US stands with Israel "100 percent."

Trump also addressed tensions between Russia and Israel, and promised to "talk with Putin if it's appropriate."

Regarding the US peace plan, the US president said he believes the Palestinians want to come back to the negotiation table, and that the peace plan is moving along very well, adding that Israel will have "to do something that is good for the other side."

In response, Netanyahu thanked Trump and said that "no one has backed Israel like you do and we appreciate it."

The two are meeting in New York, on the sidelines of the annual gathering of the UN General Assembly.Tens of thousands of worshippers gathered at the Western Wall plaza in Jerusalem on Wednesday to receive a blessing from members of Judaism's priestly caste.

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The priests, known as "Kohanim", were joined by US ambassador to Israel, David Friedman.

The Western Wall in Jerusalem (Photo: AFP)

"It's an opportunity to bless the people of Israel," Friedman, an Orthodox Jew, told reporters.

The Kohanim gathered and began chanting the Priestly Blessing.

(Photo: Eli Mendelbaum)

"May the Lord bless you and keep you/ May the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you/ May the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace," the blessing reads.

The ceremony is held during the Sukkot holiday celebrated this week.

According to Jewish tradition, Kohanim are descendants of Aaron, Moses's brother, whose offspring served as priests in the biblical temple in Jerusalem.

Many Jews with surnames such as Cohen, Kahan and Katz are Kohanim.A US decision to remove anti-missile systems from several Arab allies was an "internal and routine procedure", Kuwait said on Wednesday, adding that its defences would not be affected.

"Kuwait's Patriot missile system, independently, protects and covers all its geographical borders," said a statement from the Gulf Arab state's chief of staff. It added that the US decision had been coordinated with Kuwait's military.

An earlier Wall Street Journal report citing US military officials said Washington was pulling four Patriot missile systems from Jordan, Kuwait and Bahrain next month in a shift away from long-lasting conflicts in the Middle East and Afghanistan in order to address tensions with China and Russia.British opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn announced on Wednesday that one of the first steps he would take if elected prime minister would be the recognition of a Palestinian state. "Immediately after I am elected as prime minister, we will recognize a Palestinian state," Corbyn declared.

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Corbyns announcement, delivered during a speech in Liverpool, comes amidst a storm of media coverage of controversial incidents involving the Labor Party leader, such as attending events with known terrorists, that many consider to be anti-Semitic.

Jeremy Corbyn (Photo: AFP)

"Let me say a few things regarding the prevention of justice and rights of the Palestinians," Corbyn said in a speech to Labor Party members at the conclusion of the party's annual convention.

"Our party is united in condemning the shooting of hundreds of unarmed demonstrators in Gaza by the Israeli security forces and the passing of the discriminatory Nation State Law. The continued occupation, the expansion of illegal settlements and the imprisonment of Palestinian children is a scandal. We support a two-state solution  a secure Israel and a secure and feasible Palestinian state, said Corbyn.

"But a quarter of a century after the Oslo Accords, we are no closer to justice and peace and the Palestinian tragedy continues, while the world stands by," Corbyn continued.

"As my good friend Uri Avnery, who passed away this year, said: 'What is the alternative to peace, a catastrophe for both peoples,' and in order to help make the two-state solution a reality, we must recognize a Palestinian state as soon as possible."

Labor Party supporters demonstrating against Israel (Photo: Reuters)

Corbyn also commented on the storm of anti-Semitic incidents in the Labor Party and said that "the conflict over anti-Semitism has caused enormous pain and anxiety in the Jewish community, and we will work together with the Jewish community to eradicate anti-Semitism both in the party and in society as a whole."

Against the background of those incidents, Corbyn said that the Labor Party endured a difficult summer.

Corbyn is known as a strong opponent of Israel, and in the past he has defined Hamas and Hezbollah as "my friends ."

Although his ties with radical Palestinian and Arab elements were published years ago, over the summer, the British media revealed more and more of his lesser known statements and deeds that bore a strong anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli flavor.

For example, it was revealed that in 2012 he attended a conference in which Hamas prisoners released in the Shalit deal spoke and described their words as "fascinating and electrifying."

Corbyn wrote in the Morningstar newspaper in praise of the conference, calling the terrorists "brothers"  and glorified their speeches.

In 2014 he participated in a memorial ceremony for terrorists from the "Black September" organization, responsible for the murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. Following this exposure and the storm it aroused, Corbyn and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had a confrontation on Twitter.

According to the Daily Mail, in a speech delivered in London in 2013 at a conference attended by radical Islamists and published on the website of the Hamas military wing, Corbyn said that "British Zionists" do not understand English humor even though they live in Britain all their lives. The list of speakers at the conference included anti-Semites, homophobes and conspiracy theorists. Two years after the conference, Corbyn was elected leader of the Labor Party.

At the end of August, Frank Field , a veteran member of the Labor Party, announced his resignation from the party. In a statement, Field said that the Labor leadership had become an "anti-Semitic force" in Britain. Field said he had decided to quit the party because of Jeremy Corbyn's "series of attempts" to deny the anti-Semitic statements by party members.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was not surprised by US President Donald Trump's statement at the UN on Wednesday that he "likes" the two-state solution and that he intends to present a peace plan within two to four months.

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"This does not come as a surprise," Netanyahu said at a press briefing in New York after his meeting with the US President and a day before his speech at the UN General Assembly.

PM Netanyahu with US Presdident Trump at the UN (Photo: Gov. Press Office)

Netanyahu said that during his meeting with Trump, whose son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner also took part, Kushner said that "everyone interprets the term 'state' differently." Therefore, the prime minister added, "I am dealing with the essence, not the description. The question is: what is a country? Whether it is Costa Rica or Iran, there are many possibilities," Netanyahu said.

Trump and Netanyahu at a press conference (Photo: AFP)

"I am very pleased with the meeting with Trump and he expressed unqualified support for Israel's right to defend itself in Syria," Netanyahu said of the crisis with Russia following the downing of the Ilyushin aircraft and Russias transfer of the S-300 anti-aircraft system to Syria.

"I submitted specific requests to Trump in the context of recent events in Syria, and I received all I wanted  these are very important things," he added.

A senior political source said that negotiations between Israel and Russia are being conducted at various levels, and that the assessment is that when the mourning is over in Russia and the atmosphere clears, a meeting will take place between Netanyahu and Putin.

"On the one hand, it is vital that we continue to maintain contact with the Russians at all levels; but Israeli freedom of operations will not change, and in this respect we have the full support of Trump," said the prime minister.

(Photo: Gov. Press Office)

According to the source, Israel turned to the Kremlin and suggested the option of a meeting between Putin and Netanyahu  a proposal that was not accepted, but was not rejected out of hand. Upon his return to Israel, Netanyahu is expected to call the Russian president and continue working for a meeting.

Netanyahu refused to comment specifically on the transfer of the S-300 missiles, but said that "the goals are to maintain coordination with Russia, but to allow Israel to defend itself, and this visit is very important in order to advance the second goal."

He repeated several times that he had received from Trump whatever he wanted.

Regarding the possibility that Trump would meet Iranian President Hassan Rouhani , Netanyahu said: "I do not know whether Trump will meet with Rouhani or not, but they are exerting maximum pressure on Iran, and I do not see that this will change. We are focusing on the greatest threat to the State of Israel and it does not come from Syria nor from what Iran is doing in Syria. It comes from what Iran is doing in Iran, and I do not lose focus on this objective."

The Prime Minister announced that he would not attend a UNESCO event being held on the sidelines of the General Assembly in protest of the organization's conduct.

Netanyahu also commented for the first time on the allegations of sexual harassment by his spokesman for the foreign media, David Keyes, and the claims that US Ambassador Ron Dermer should have reported these allegations in real time: "I am sure that Ambassador Dermer acted properly. The matter is being investigated by the Civil Service Commission," Netanyahu said.US President Donald Trump's remark that he endorses a two-state solution Wednesday caused a stir among politicians on both sides of the aisle. The Palestinian envoy to the US said Trump's statement pushes the Palestinians away from the negotiating table, while Education Minister Naftali Bennett asserted his opposition regarding the two-state solution.

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For the first time since taking office, Trump endorsed a two-state solution as the best way to resolve the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, as he met Wednesday at the UN with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.





US President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Photo: Gov. Press Office)

The spokesman for Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, issued a statement saying that "the road to peace requires a two-state solution, a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders and East Jerusalem as its capital. This is the Arab and international position."

In addition, the Palestinian envoy to the US Husam Zomlot, who was expelled from the US following the US decision to shut down the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) office in Washington, slammed Trump's remarks.

"Trump's statements contradict his actions. His policy is destroying any chance for peace," the Palestinian ambassador said.

According to Zomlot, Trump's statements at his meeting with Netanyahu "are not enough to not bring the Palestinians back to the negotiating table."

US President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu

X

Meanwhile, Minister Bennett made it clear that his party strongly opposes the two-state solution.

"The President of the US is a true friend of Israel. However, it is must be emphasized that as long as the Bayit Yehudi Party is part of Israels Government, there will not be a Palestinian state which would be a disaster for Israel," Bennett asserted.

Education Minister Naftali Bennett (Photo: Marc Israel Sellem)

Opposition leader Tzipi Livni also addressed Trump's remarks: "I welcome Trump's statementThe commitment of the United States to Israel's security, and its support for the two-state solution are important for our future."

Trumps' remarks shed light on the possible basis of a long-awaited peace initiative to be launched by the US administration between Israel and the Palestinians.

"I like a two state solution. That's what I think works best ... That's my feeling," said Trump, and added that the US stands "with Israel 100%.

According to Trump, the embassy move would actually help peace efforts by recognizing the reality that Israel identifies Jerusalem as its capital. But, he added that Israel would have to make concessions to the Palestinians in any negotiations.

(Photo: Avi Ohayon/GPO)

"Israel got the first chip and it's a big one," Trump said. "By taking off the table the embassy moving to Jerusalem, that was always the primary ingredient as to why deals couldn't get done. Now that's off the table. Now, that will also mean that Israel will have to do something that is good for the other side."

Trump also said he wanted to unveil a peace plan in the next two to three months.

"It is a dream of mine to get that done prior to the end of my first term. I don't want to do it in my second term. We'll do other things in my second term. I think a lot of progress has been made. I think that Israel wants to do something and I think that the Palestinians actually want to do something," Trump concluded.

Netanyahu thanked Trump for his support and for his decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal, adding that US-Israel relations have never been better than under this administration.

US President Trump speaking at UN (: )

X

On Tuesday, Trump attacked Iran in his annual address to the UN General Assembly, accusing its leaders of corruption and spreading chaos throughout the Middle East and beyond. He also vowed to continue to impose sanctions on Iran.

"Thank you for your strong words yesterday in the General Assembly against the corrupt terrorist regime in Iran. They back up your strong words and strong actions," Netanyahu said in response.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with his Belgian counterpart, Charles Michel, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York Wednesday.

The two discussed strengthening relations between the countries and agreed to cooperate in the field of digital health.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected Wednesday UNESCO's invitation to a conference on anti-Semitism because of the organization's "incessant and shameful discrimination against Israel."

Netanyahu added that "since 2009, UNESCO has adopted 71 resolutions on Israel and only two resolutions that condemn the rest of the world, it's just outrageous. "DAN OBRADOVICH, of Wakefield, stands next to the grave of Peter Gedda, of Bessemer, who was killed in World War I exactly 100 years ago today.

By RALPH ANSAMI

[email protected]

Bessemer - REQUIESCAIT IN PACE (rest in peace) is engraved in Latin on the bottom of a prominent tombstone in Bessemer's Hillcrest Cemetery, where the city's first recognized war hero lies.

Corp. Peter Gedda, of the U.S. Army's Fourth Infantry Division, 39th Infantry Regiment, Company D, died 100 years ago today in France in the Meuse-Argonne offensive. It turned out to be an extended battle which helped bring an end to World War I for France and the Allied Forces against the Germans.

Although the offensive was carried on for two months, Gedda was killed on the first day he arrived for battle.

Dan Obradovich, of Wakefield, a former instructor at Gogebic Community College and a World War I historian, said Monday, "World War I is sort of a forgotten war, like the Korean War."

He said U.S. soldiers were "totally unprepared for the war," but it did help in preparation for the U.S. involvement in World War II.

World War I began in 1914, after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand set off a rapid series of events, and lasted until 1918. Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire (the Central Powers) fought against Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, Romania, Japan and the U.S. (the Allied Powers.)

World War I marked the first combat in which machine guns, airplanes, tanks and mustard gas were used extensively.

Gedda, who was born April 16, 1888, was one of the "Three Doughboys" who entered combat from the Gogebic Range, Obradovich said. He was described as a 30-year-old bachelor who worked in the Wakefield mines.

The Bessemer American Legion Gedda-Cychosz Post 27 is named after him and a World War II veteran. U.S. Navy Seaman First Class Francis Cychosz, of Bessemer, died on board the USS Arizona during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

Pictures of Gedda and accounts of his funeral are framed in the Legion post across from the Gogebic County Courthouse parking lot.

The other two area World War I Doughboys were Fritz Frederickson, of Wakefield, and Jack Toomey, from Marenisco, an uncle of Obradovich.

Frederickson survived the battle, but ironically died of influenza on a ship after coming home from the war in April of 1919.

Toomey returned to Marenisco.

Obradovich said of the 53,000 Doughboys who died in the conflict, around 27,000 succumbed to non-combat illnesses.

Gedda laid to rest

The body of Gedda was disinterred from France and shipped to Bessemer in 1921. He was laid to rest in the cemetery in Bessemer with a great deal of fanfare and community pride.

A newspaper account of the funeral noted Gedda was the first soldier from Bessemer to die in a world war. The funeral was conducted at the St. Sebastian Church, with the Rev. Charles Swoboda presiding.

Spanish American War veterans were among the military representatives making up the color guard.

All commerce in Bessemer was halted for an hour during Gedda's funeral.

The Doughboys were so named for a variety of reasons, according to Obradovich. He said it is an old infantry name, possibly derived because of their lumpy backpacks, the fact they were fed a lot of dough before entering combat by the Red Cross or because they had dust on their uniforms.

The Associated Press reported during seven weeks of combat in France, 1.2 million troops led by Gen. John Pershing fought to advance on positions held by about 450,000 Germans. There were numerous simultaneous attacks by the Allied Forces.

Obradovich, who has trekked to the cemetery in France, said the first American Doughboy to die was buried in Iowa, another place he has visited.

The Germans never took Paris, as they planned, and lost 2 million soldiers in World War I. French, British and Russian casualties were also substantial. More than 16 million people, including soldiers and civilians, died in the war.

The Allies won the war, although "the Germans didn't feel like they had lost," Obradovich said.

A young German named Adolph Hitler suffered gas wounds and was incensed that the Germans signed an armistice. Still, the Germans returned home as war heroes, but their government would soon collapse.By RICHARD JENKINS

[email protected]

HURLEY  While the numbers still arent solid enough to make any decisions, the uncertainty surrounding the campground at Saxon Harbor continued to be the primary topic of discussion at Mondays Iron County Board of Supervisors meeting.

We dont have to make a decision on what were going to do tonight, because we all know were not going to build a campground this year anyway, said Iron County Forestry and Parks Administrator Eric Peterson.

He explained there are still too many details that need to be finalized before the cou...Weeks after the Reserve Bank of Australia warned about increasing mortgage stress levels in the country, it was confirmed through a research that the majority of Australians trying to enter the market are indeed bearing the brunt of loan costs.

A study commissioned by customer-owned Gateway Bank showed that 56% of Aussies consider their home loan to be a burden  defined as limiting their lifestyle.

In the pursuit of getting their foot into the property market, some Aussies have become over-indebted, leading us to record high household debt-to-income ratios of 189%. Add to this the steep decline in household savings, which is currently at 1%, and you have yourself a recipe for mortgage stress, said Gateway Bank CEO Paul Thomas.

Further, it was observed that there is a shift towards an alternative means of property ownership  rentvesting. In fact, this year, 9% of those surveyed were renters who also owned investment properties. Half of those who identified themselves as rentvestors were Millennial, 38% were Gen X and 10% were baby boomers.

Thomas said that a lot of people turn to rentvesting due to increasingly strict lending restrictions and a desire for more affordable routes of property investment. However, he noted that investors opting for this method should make sure they have the proper knowledge to succeed.

The Australian property market is flatlining for the first time in years and lending restrictions are tighter than ever before, so savvy Aussies are looking for other ways to get a foothold into the great Australian Dream.

It seems that for almost 10% of Aussies, rentvesting has presented an opportunity to enter the property market. However, prospective rentvestors should be wary before going down this path, as it does require a lot of consideration. When we look at data from our study this year, rentvestors are under a greater deal of stress (65%) than the general mortgage holder population, which is just a small indication of the challenges presented by rentvesting.

The research also noted that Adelaide residents topped the nation for mortgage stress, with 63% the residents considering their home loans to be a burden. Meanwhile, Sydney saw the lowest percentage of burdened homeowners, with only 54% being weighed down by their home loans. Joining these ranks were Melbourne (58%), Darwin (61%), Brisbane (61%) and Perth (62%).Arizona News

Phoenix, Arizona - The Arizona Historical Society, in partnership with Sandra Day OConnor Institute today announced that they will host Portraits of Courage: A Commander in Chiefs Tribute to Americas Warriors, a special exhibit from the George W. Bush Institute, this fall.

Growing out of President George W. Bushs personal commitment and the ongoing work of the Bush Institutes Military Service Initiative, Portraits of Courage brings together sixty-six full-color portraits and a four-panel mural painted by President Bush of 98 service members and veterans who have served our nation with honor since 9/11, and whom the President has come to know personally since leaving office. The Arizona Historical Societys Arizona Heritage Center at Papago Park in Tempe is one of just four venues nationwide selected to host the paintings this year. Portraits of Courage will be on display from October 19 through December 29, 2018.

Admission to Portraits of Courage is included with tickets to the Arizona Heritage Center at Papago Park (1300 N College Ave Tempe, AZ 85281). Adults are $12; Seniors 65+ are $10; Ages 7  17 are $8; Children 6 and under, Arizona Historical Society members, military and veterans are free. Two-for-one admission is offered on the first Tuesday of the month. To learn more, visit www.PortraitsofCourageAZ.org

Each featured painting is accompanied by the inspiring story of the warrior depicted, written by President Bush. As the stories unfold, readers and visitors will encounter the faces and the hearts of those who answered the nations call and learn of their bravery on the battlefield, their journey to recovery, and the continued leadership and contribution they make as civilians.

In addition to the collection of portraits, the exhibit includes information and resources created by the Bush Institutes Military Service Initiative that visitors can use to learn how to better support post-9/11 warriors in their communities. These resources are intended to help bridge the military-civilian divide.

The paintings featured in Portraits of Courage are also the subject of a hardcover book by the same name, available now in stores and online. President Bush is donating 100 percent of his profits from the book to the George W. Bush Presidential Center, whose Military Service Initiative works to ensure that post-9/11 veterans and their families make successful transitions to civilian life with a focus on gaining meaningful employment and overcoming the invisible wounds of war.Latest News

Washington, DC - The United States congratulates Ibrahim Mohamed Solih on his victory in Maldives September 23 presidential election. The United States commends the Maldivian people for their commitment to the democratic process and exceptional level of participation in an election that has ushered in a new chapter in their countrys history.

We expect all parties to respect the will of the Maldivian people and support a peaceful transition of power through the November 17 inauguration. As a fellow democracy, the United States stands ready to work closely with the next Maldivian government to expand cooperation on our shared interests in an independent and prosperous Maldives as well as a free and open Indian Ocean region.Living Section

Clearwater, Florida - A woman in Pinellas County, Florida woke up one morning recently to find a masked intruder in her bedroom. She, of course, called the cops. But, explains the Association of Mature American Citizens, he didnt mean her any harm. He probably was looking for something to eat as raccoons tend to do.

The Pinellas County Sheriffs office posted photos of the furry critter and the deputy who came to the womans rescue on its Facebook Page.Yuma News

Yuma, Arizona - The Yuma Police Department and LexisNexis Risk Solutions recently partnered to provide a new way for the public to stay informed about crime in the City of Yuma. The Yuma Police Department now has an online crime map called Community Crime Map that maps and analyzes crime data, alerts the City of Yuma citizens about crimes in their area and allows the Yuma Police department to quickly alert the public about crimes as they occur.

Our citizens can view a map and grid with all of the crimes in their area, sign up for neighborhood watch reports that automatically email a breakdown of recent crime activity and submit an anonymous tip about a crime directly to their law enforcement agency. Community Crime Map automatically syncs with the Yuma Police Department records system to keep crime information updated online and in the mobile app. Community Crime Map cleans and geocodes the crime data, then displays all of the incidents on a map, grid and analytics dashboard along with some basic information about the incidents, including the type of crime, location type, block-level address, date and time.

To visit the City of Yuma Community Crime Map, go to:

http://www.communitycrimemap.com/?address=yuma,az

This map is also available on the City of Yuma web page under Yuma Police Department, Services & Programs, and Crime Statistics.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.Brookfield Asset Management, Inc. engages in the management of public and private investment products and services for institutional and retail clients. It operates through the following segments: Asset Management, Real Estate, Renewable Power, Infrastructure, Private Equity, Residential Development, and Corporate Activities. The Asset Management segment includes the management of its listed partnerships, private funds and public securities. The Real Estate segment is comprised of the ownership, operation and development of core office, core retail, LP investments and other properties. The Renewable Power segment encompasses the ownership, operation and development of hydroelectric, wind, solar, storage and other power generating facilities. The Infrastructure segment consists of the ownership, operation and development of utilities, transport, energy, data infrastructure and sustainable resource assets. The Private Equity segment refers to the broad range of industries, and is mostly focused on business services, infrastructure services and industrials. The Residential Development segment represents homebuilding, condominium development and land development. The Corporate Activiti

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The following companies are subsidiares of BorgWarner: B80 Italia S.r.l., BERU AG, BW El Salto S.A. De C.V., BWA Receivables Corporation, BWA Turbo Systems Holding LLC, Borg Warner Europe Holdings (PDS) B. V., BorgWarner (China) Investment Co. Ltd., BorgWarner (Reman) Holdings L.L.C., BorgWarner (Thailand) Limited, BorgWarner Aftermarket Europe GmbH, BorgWarner Alternators Inc., BorgWarner Arden LLC, BorgWarner Arnstadt RE GmbH & Co. KG, BorgWarner Asia Inc., BorgWarner Automotive Asia Limited, BorgWarner Automotive Components (Beijing) Co. Ltd., BorgWarner Automotive Components (Jiangsu) Co. Ltd., BorgWarner Automotive Components (Ningbo) Co. Ltd., BorgWarner Automotive Components (Tianjin) Co. Ltd., BorgWarner Automotive Components (Wuhan) Co. Ltd., BorgWarner Brasil Ltda., BorgWarner Chungju Co. LLC, BorgWarner Comercial e Distribuidora de Pecas para Veiculos Automotores Ltda., BorgWarner Comercializadora PDS S. de R.L. de C.V., BorgWarner Componentes PDS S. de R.L. de C.V., BorgWarner Cooling Systems (India) Private Limited, BorgWarner Cooling Systems GmbH, BorgWarner Diversified Transmission Products Services Inc., BorgWarner Drivetrain Engineering GmbH, BorgWarner Drivetrain Management Services de Mexico S.A. de C.V., BorgWarner Drivetrain de Mexico S.A. de C.V., BorgWarner Electric Motors L.L.C., BorgWarner Emissions Systems (Ningbo) Co. Ltd., BorgWarner Emissions Systems (Ningbo) Co. Ltd., BorgWarner Emissions Systems Holding LLC, BorgWarner Emissions Systems India Private Limited, BorgWarner Emissions Systems LLC, BorgWarner Emissions Systems Portugal Unipessoal LDA, BorgWarner Emissions Systems Spain S.L.U., BorgWarner Emissions Systems of Michigan Inc., BorgWarner Emissions Talegaon Private Limited, BorgWarner Engineering Ketsch RE GmbH & Co. KG, BorgWarner Engineering Kibo RE GmbH & Co. KG, BorgWarner Esslingen GmbH, BorgWarner Europe GmbH, BorgWarner Europe Holding S.a. r. l., BorgWarner Gateshead Limited, BorgWarner Germany Holding GmbH, BorgWarner Germany Holding Services GmbH, BorgWarner Germany REH GmbH, BorgWarner Germany REM GmbH, BorgWarner Germany Verwaltungs GmbH, BorgWarner Global Holding S.a. r. l., BorgWarner Heidelberg I RE GmbH & Co. KG, BorgWarner Heidelberg II RE GmbH & Co. KG, BorgWarner Heidelberg REH GmbH, BorgWarner Heidelberg REM GmbH, BorgWarner Holding Inc., BorgWarner Holdings Limited, BorgWarner Hungary Kft., BorgWarner IT Services Europe GmbH, BorgWarner India Holdings Inc., BorgWarner Investment Holding Inc., BorgWarner Ithaca LLC, BorgWarner Ketsch Plant RE GmbH & Co. KG, BorgWarner Ketsch REH GmbH, BorgWarner Ketsch REM GmbH, BorgWarner Kft., BorgWarner Kibo RE GmbH & Co. KG, BorgWarner Korea Holdings (PDS) B.V., BorgWarner Korea Holdings LLC, BorgWarner Korea LLC, BorgWarner Limited, BorgWarner Ludwigsburg GmbH, BorgWarner Ludwigsburg RE GmbH & Co. KG, BorgWarner Markdorf Plant RE GmbH & Co. KG, BorgWarner Markdorf REH GmbH, BorgWarner Markdorf REM GmbH, BorgWarner Massachusetts Inc., BorgWarner Mauritius Holdings Ltd., BorgWarner Mexico Holding BV, BorgWarner Mexico Holdings II LLC, BorgWarner Mexico Holdings LLC, BorgWarner Morse Systems India Private Limited, BorgWarner Morse Systems Italy S.r.l., BorgWarner Morse Systems Japan K.K., BorgWarner Morse Systems Mexico S.A. de C.V., BorgWarner Muggendorf RE GmbH & Co. KG, BorgWarner NW Inc., BorgWarner Netherlands Holdings (PDS) B.V., BorgWarner Oroszlany Kft., BorgWarner PDS (Anderson) L.L.C., BorgWarner PDS (Changnyeong) LLC, BorgWarner PDS (Indiana) Inc., BorgWarner PDS (Livonia) Inc., BorgWarner PDS (Ochang) LLC, BorgWarner PDS (Thailand) Limited, BorgWarner PDS (USA) Inc., BorgWarner PDS Brasil Produtos Automotivos Ltda., BorgWarner PDS Irapuato S. de R.L. de C.V., BorgWarner PDS Mexico Holdings S. de R.L. de C.V., BorgWarner PDS Technologies L.L.C., BorgWarner Poland Sp. z o.o., BorgWarner Pyongtaek LLC, BorgWarner Romeo Power LLC, BorgWarner Rzeszow Sp. z o.o., BorgWarner Shenglong (Ningbo) Co. Ltd., BorgWarner South Asia LLC, BorgWarner Southborough Inc., BorgWarner Spain Holding S.L.U, BorgWarner Sweden AB, BorgWarner Systems Lugo S.r.l., BorgWarner Thermal Systems Inc., BorgWarner Thermal Systems of Michigan Inc., BorgWarner TorqTransfer Systems Beijing Co. Ltd., BorgWarner Tralee Ltd., BorgWarner Transmission Products LLC, BorgWarner Transmission Systems Arnstadt GmbH, BorgWarner Transmission Systems GmbH, BorgWarner Transmission Systems Korea LLC, BorgWarner Transmission Systems Tulle S.A.S., BorgWarner Trustees Limited, BorgWarner Turbo & Emissions Systems France S.A.S., BorgWarner Turbo Systems Engineering GmbH, BorgWarner Turbo Systems GmbH, BorgWarner Turbo Systems LLC, BorgWarner Turbo Systems Worldwide Headquarters GmbH, BorgWarner Turbo Systems of Michigan Inc., BorgWarner Turbo and Emissions Systems de Mexico S.A. de C.V., BorgWarner UK Financing Ltd., BorgWarner UK Holding and Services Ltd., BorgWarner US Holding LLC, BorgWarner USA Industries L.L.C., BorgWarner United Transmission Systems Co. Ltd., BorgWarner Waterloo Inc., BorgWarner Wrexham Limited, Cascadia Motion LLC, Creon Insurance Agency Limited, Delphi Technologies, Dytech ENSA, Gustav Wahler GmbH u. Co. KG, Haldex, Kuhlman LLC, Kysor Europe Limited, M. & M. Knopf Auto Parts L.L.C., NSK-Warner (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., NSK-Warner K.K., NSK-Warner Mexico S.A. de C.V, NSK-Warner U.S.A. Inc., New PDS Corp., Old Remco Holdings L.L.C., Old Remco International Holdings L.L.C., Remy International, SeohanWarner Turbo Systems LLC, Sevcon, Sevcon New Energy Technology (Hubei) Company Limited, and Transmission Systems AutoForm LLC.Many Ghanaians will agree that there is a trend of massive job losses in the country. This has affected almost every sector of the economy.

The third quarter of 2018 has seen massive layoffs especially in the private sector. YEN.com.gh gathered that major firms, including media establishments, have either slashing down salaries of workers or laying them off completely.

This has lend to fears and instability among Ghanaians. But government has moved to assure the public that what can be done to help the situation will be done.

Here are some of the big-name companies that have had to lay off workers

READ ALSO: Fix your "wele" mouth - Kwaw Kese descend on Shatta Wale

TV Africa

All programs on TV Africa were suspended effective Monday, September 3rd. The owner of the business has told senior management members that he is unable to pay workers going forward.

Later, over 50 workers were laid off due to this financial crisis.

Various banks

Over five local banks have either collapsed or been forcefully merged. This comes as a result of a banking crisis that has hit the country for close to two years.

Close to 3000 people are thought to have lost their jobs in this wave of unfortunate events.

The results of the forced merger of five local banks fave us the Consolidate Bank.

Source: Depositphotos

Vodafone

The Herald newspaper has claimed that management of Vodafone is issuing out dismissal letters to workers as it allegedly prepares to sell the telecom to yet another firm.

The Herald Newspaper claimed that the layoff, became necessary because they wanted the companys balance sheets to look good to the potential buyers.

READ ALSO: Menzgold does not operate in London

Groupe Nduom Media

YEN.com.gh also learned that Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduoms GN Media, a subsidiary of his Groupe Nduom, has laid off about 30 workers.

A letter signed by the head of recruitment and selection at the GN media subsidiary thanked workers for their contribution to the company and also further offered them their one month salary in advance.

Top 3 Ghana Richest Women: Who Are They? | Yen.com.gh

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Source: Yen- It has emerged that some food items recently supplied by Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia to flood victims in the Upper West Region had expired

- The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) first brought the issue to public attention at a press conference

The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has accused Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia of distributing expired goods to flood victims in the Upper West region.

The Vice President was in the region over the weekend and offered to donate relief items, including rice, sachet water, mattresses and cooking oil to the victims.

The items were donated to flood victims in the Wa and Sissala East municipalities.

READ ALSO: Mahama slams Abronye DC for claiming he spent Ghc1m on son's birthday

However, the opposition NDC has accused Dr. Bawumia of distributing expired goods to the flood victims.

The Graphic Online reports that while some of the cooking oil had September 10, 2018 as expiry date, the rice did not have expiry date at all.

Persons who received the items are reported to have suffered health implications, with majority complaining of stomach upset.

Communication officer of the NDC, Prosper Puo-ire, said it is unacceptable that the Vice President will be this careless to distribute expired goods to persons in their time of need.

He therefore called on the government to immediately replace the expired items with wholesome food.

We are yet to come to terms with why our Vice President will choose to exacerbate the suffering of our people by exposing them to unquantifiable health challenges at a time they are grappling with pulling the pieces of their lives together after suffering a disaster, Mr Puo-ire said at a press conference on Tuesday.

READ ALSO: Menzgold does not operate in London - Report

We are calling on the President on whose behalf Dr Bawumia donated the expired consumables to our people and, indeed, the entire (ruling) New Patriotic Party machinery in the region to come out with contrite hearts and apologise profusely to the good people of Upper West Region and particularly the disaster victims whom this particular act has left in greater pain, he added.

Meanwhile, in a related development, the National Disaster Management Organization (NADMO), has taken responsibility for the distribution of the expired food items to flood victims.

Narrating circumstances that led to the incident, the Upper West Regional branch of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), George Ayisi said:

We came here to help bring relief to the people. Unfortunately when we were offloading the items onto the vehicle, we had some expired items that had been stored in the warehouse in Wa, and some of the loaders unfortunately picked some boxes, and added them to the items that were being loaded, and that is why we had this problem.

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READ ALSO: Gun-wielding policemen storm residence of Collins Dauda to arrest him

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Source: Yen.com.gh- Ghana has reached a diplomatic understanding with authorities of the US to deport 7000 Ghanaians from their country

- Dr. Baffour Adjei-Bawuah said there is no longer any dispute with the nationality of the affected persons which had been a bone of contention earlier

The United States has reached a diplomatic agreement with Ghanas Ambassador to the US which will see 7000 Ghanaians deported.

According to Dr. Baffour Adjei-Bawuah, the dispute between the two countries over the nationality of some affected persons has now been resolved.

Addressing journalists on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, he disclosed that American immigration office has every documentation and information that allows the persons to be deported.

When Ghana's new Ambassador to US Dr Adjei-Bawuah met Trump

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Bawumia's food items to Wa flood victims expired - NDC

All that we were talking about was for a certain fairness to be applied and the Embassy not necessarily pressured to agree to see some people deported. This is where we had a difference of opinion with the US authorities, the Ambassador said.

Its not a matter of agreeing to deport people without their endorsement but we have had enough discussion for a certain sanity to prevail, he added.

It will be recalled that Dr. Baffour Adjei-Bawuah had engaged in a standoff with the US government after refusing to sign the deportation forms.

The Ambassador further revealed that the US threatened Ghana with visa restrictions after he refused to append his signature to the deportation.

This was after he admitted earlier in May that it is difficult to sanction the deportation of my citizens and I have been trying hard to explain this to the authorities.

Meanwhile, the Minority has criticised the government for keeping Parliament in the dark over the issue.

READ ALSO: Mahama slams Abronye DC for claiming he spent Ghc1m on son's birthday

A member of the Committee, Dr Clement Apaak, said although he is disappointed with the outcome, he understands how difficult the situation is for Ghanas Ambassador to the US.

I can sympathize with him because it has not been the most pleasant experience as far as he is concerned, he said, adding that in terms of the Americans now taking full responsibility of the 7000 persons and having the documentation to show those involved are Ghanaians who have violated their immigration laws there is no way to fight it.

Ghana News Today: Drivers angry over hike in Fuel price | Yen.com.gh

READ ALSO: Menzgold does not operate in London - Report

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Source: Yen Ghana- The SEC is yet to receive any of the.documents it is expecting from Menzgold

- This was revealed by a deputy director with the commission in an interview

The operations of embattled investment firm, Menzgold Ghana may not resume this week as earlier announced by the company.

This follows latest revelation that the company was yet to provide the necessary documents as required by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

According to the deputy director of the SEC, Paul Ababio, Menzgold has not submitted to them the documents they asked for yet and that they are still waiting them to do so.

Menzgold's office in Accra

Source: Original

The SEC ordered the shutdown of Menzgold last week over aspects of its operations which the commission deemed to be breaching regulations.

READ ALSO: Photos of beautiful nurse who safely delivered a woman in labour on a moving bus go viral

Menzgold issued a press statement agreeing to comply and find an amicable solution. It assured its customers that it will resume its operations on September 28.

Since the suspension of Menzgold's operation, customers have been left worried with many complaining that they have been stopped from retiring their investments.

Speaking in an interview with Joy News, Mr Ababio explained that the SEC's directive does not stop Menzgold from honouring its contractual obligations with its existing customers so it can go ahead and pay them.

The SEC deputy boss stated that his outfit's main objective was to ensure that Menzgold's activities are regulated well since some aspects of the business fall under their jurisdiction and the of Bank of Ghana.

READ ALSO: Kumawood's Lil Win builds plush school 1 month after being made a chief (Photo+Video)

'The SEC has stopped Menzgold from honouring payments to its existing customers. The company can go ahead and pay its customers what they owe them per contractual agreements they have with clients but cannot take in any new deposits or customers until a decision is reached,' he said.

Meanwhile, YEN.com.gh earlier reported that Joy News' Israel Laryea has defended himself against insults from Menzgold CEO Nana Appiah Mensah who is popularly known as NAM 1.

According to the Joy FM/TV presenter, it is highly unnecessary for NAM 1 to attack him instead of focusing on solving problems with the SEC.

His comment followed an attack on his personality by NAM 1 on Instagram over Laryea's video report concerning the activities of Menzgold in London which has gone viral.

READ.ALSO: Princess Shyngle puts her hot body on display in latest wild bikini photos and video

In a related development, a social media user has exposed Afia Schwarzenegger over claims that her mother has.a GHC4m investment with Menzgold.

According to the Instagram user @maame_dora, Afia Schwarzeneggers mother is a very poor woman who cannot boast of even Ghc500 in her bank account and that the investment Afia is ranting about is not for her poor mother.

Ghana News Today: Drivers angry over hike in Fuel price | Yen.com.gh:

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Source: Yen NewspaperYEN.com.gh is in possession of a photo of a mother of 5 children who has returned to the classroom.

Ugwoke Odobo took the decision with the support of her husband.

She enrolled into St. Andrews Secondary School in Nigeria, and is currently in JHS3.

Ugwoke Odobo Source: MyNewsGH.com

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: United States to deport 7000 Ghanaians from the country

Her husband, whose identity is yet to be established, disclosed that he readily bought into the idea of her return to formal education.

Taking to social media, he wrote: We took an epochal decision for her to return to school after closing the chapter on childbearing.

Her aim, she said, is to ensure that she pursues formal education to the highest possible level.

According to her, she has retired from childbirth.

READ ALSO: Ghana still needs foreign aid; It is dangerous to reject it - Kufuor

Top 3 Ghana Richest Women: Who Are They? | Yen.com.gh

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Source: Yen NewspaperGhanaians who want to travel to South Africa will no longer need a visa to make that trip.

In a bid to boost tourism to the country, South Africa is finalising a number of visa waiver agreements with other countries, allowing travelers to enter the country without a visa.

This announcement was made by Minister of Home Affairs, Malusi Gigaba, on Tuesday in Pretoria.

Ghanaian nationals

Source: Depositphotos

READ ALSO: Bawumia's food items to Wa flood victims expired - NDC

Citizens from countries which will now no longer require a visa to travel to SA include Algeria, Egypt, Morocco, Ghana, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Iran, Lebanon, the State of Palestine, Belarus, Georgia and Cuba.

These countries join the UK, US, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Australia, Brazil and Canada whose citizens already have visa waiver agreements.

"We have implemented a visa waiver for all citizens of the Russian Federation and Angola, on 1 April 2017 and 1 December 2017, respectively, to travel to SA without having to apply for a visa," Gigaba said.

READ ALSO: Ghana-U.S. reach diplomatic agreement to deport 7000 persons

Despite being part of the top 10 overseas tourism market, nationals from China and India still require visa to visit SA. Gigaba, however, said his department is simplifying visa requirements for these countries.

This will include taking biometrics on arrival in SA, which will speed up getting through customs for tourists from China and India as well as allowing visa applications via courier and the issuing of five-year multiple entry visas, Gigaba announced.

"Easing movement in this manner will help in attracting larger number of tourists, business people and families."

READ ALSO: GHC4m Menzgold cash Afia Schwar is fighting over is for her boyfriend's mum - Lady claims

Business people from China and India will also be issued with a 10-year multiple entry visa, given within days of application.

"They do not need to apply in person and can use courier services. This arrangement is meant to attract business people and prospective investors."

Furthermore, Gigaba said that the development of the e-Visa is at an advanced stage and will be piloted in New Zealand by April 2019.

"This will significantly enhance efficiency in the issuing of visas to tourists and business people visiting our country," Gigaba said.

Once concerns have been identified and addressed in the pilot phase, it will be rolled out in other countries.

These amendments follow the announcement by President Cyril Ramaphosa on Friday on changes to the visa regime as part of the economic stimulus and recovery plan.

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Source: YenThe founder and leader of Togo-based CCI Temple of Holy Spirit, Pastor Melchizedek Maranatha Mashiah, has put smiles on the face of one staff of the Golden Tulip Hotel in Kumasi by giving her a car and fuel coupon for her kindness.

According to a report sighted by YEN.com.gh on Ghanaweb.com, the popular preacher who was on a trip to Ghana to open a branch of his church in the Ashanti region, was treated kindly by one of by the hotel's waitresses known as Rosina Sowah.

Pastor Melchizedek Maranatha Mashiah who was speaking on why he gave such a gift revealed that he wanted to prove to Africans that being kind to people had a lot of benefits.

Pastor Melchizedek Maranatha Mashiah. Credit: ecitse,l'arene du shekinah glory - WordPress.com

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: I have met Adam and Eve before - Obinim

The preacher revealed that when he checked in at the hotel, a male receptionist he met was rather rude to him and offered him a 'dusty, rat-infested' without sheets room to lodge in even though he was paying $150 per night.

According to the story, the male receptionist reportedly thwarted Pastor Melchizedek Maranatha Mashiah's frantic efforts to report the matter to the hotel's senior management.

The story went on to reveal that the receptionist refused to change the room for the pastor upon his incessant requests and went on to warn other staff of the hotel not to change the room for the pastor.

The Hyundai Sonata gift. Credit: Ghanaweb.com

Source: UGC

Rosina Sowah, who had just began her shift when the issue came up, did everything within her power to change the room for Pastor Melchizedek Maranatha Mashiah and was also very hospitable.

READ ALSO: Photo: Mother of 5 children goes back to JHS after childbirth

She went on to apologize for the inconvenience and was on call to assist the man of God with his needs to make his stay comfortable.

After being treated with kindness after his first encounter with the male receptionist, moved the pastor to reward Rosina for having 'all the patience' in the world to assist a total stranger.

Pastor Melchizedek Maranatha Mashiah, in showing appreciation, called Rosina Sowah, introduced himself as a 'Man from God' and asked what she wanted God to do for her.

Rosina is believed to have requested to be able to conceive and give birth to twins. The pastor however asked what she readily needed and she responded by saying she could do with a car.

The Hyundai Sonata gift. Credit: Ghanaweb.com

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: I have invested a lot in Menzgold - Shatta Wale reveals

Her wish was granted Pastor Melchizedek Maranatha Mashiah out of the goodness of his heart, gifted Rosina a Hyundai Sonata and topped it up with a GHC 10,000 fuel voucher from Goil.

The male receptionist is reported to have disappeared from the hotel. It is yet to be ascertained whether he has been punished by the hotel's management or was on leave.

This is not the first time a pastor is 'blessing' someone with a car gift. Many preachers in Ghana including Reverend Obofour and Prophet Badu-Kobi are noted for also giving out cars to some of their congregants.

Rev. Obofour recently gifted a brand new 4x4 car to Kumawood actor Wayoosi during one of his church services.

READ ALSO: Ex-Obengfo staff reportedly leaks list of top stars who visited the hospital

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Source: YenGhanaian actress, Yvonne Nelson, has commended former President John Mahama for his upgrade on the Terminal 3 at the Kotoka International Airport.

Yvonne Nelson lauded Mahama, for what she believes is a good job done with the new Kotoka International Airport's Terminal 3.

The now famed terminal was one of the showpieces that the Mahama government looked to market for a re-election bid in 2016.

However, this did not materialise as John Mahama and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) were voted out of office. The terminal was however commissioned in the reign of the current president, Nana Akufo-Addo.

READ ALSO: Citi FM boss Sammens leaves Coastal Development Authority

The actress is not known as a big fan of the former president. She once organised and led a demonstration against his administration's handling of Ghana's electricity crisis a few years ago.

She also had a very public feud with her friend, John Dumelo, on his support for John Mahama during the 2016 elections.

READ ALSO: Ghanaians can now travel to South Africa without visa

Nelson wrote in one of the tweets: "I cant believe Im still in Ghana!!!!! Leadership should be all about this Im sooo impressed. Ghana deserves more!!!!"

And then: "Soooo impressed @JDMahama good job "

This would come as a surprise to many. But others may still view Nelson's applause as a sign of her political maturity.

Ghana News Today: Drivers angry over hike in Fuel price | Yen.com.gh

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Source: Yen.com.ghWealth is something almost every one of us aspire to. But it may not come as easily as some of us are led to believe.

Most of us believe that all wealthy people put in so much work and sleepless night to attain what they have. But it turns out that although this may be true for some people, for the majority, it is not.

YEN.com.gh compiles a list of the reasons why the wealthiest people are not necessarily the most hardworking people if their monies were gotten legally.

READ ALSO: Citi FM boss Sammens leaves Coastal Development Authority

1. Generational wealth

According to many great economists including Dr Richard Wolff, a very significant number of today's wealthy people are beneficiaries of money that a previous generation had.

This is not saying that these rich people contributed nothing to their current status. The point however is that, these individuals had so much of their futures shaped by income they had no input in earning.

2. Capitalism

Capitalism is the system that almost all of the world abides by. It is the idea that those with the means (money) set up jobs and employ people pay for a wage.

Through this, it happens that those with money would continue to have money even if they were not hardworking.

The work ethic of job owners would not matter so much especially if the workers themselves know that their lives depend on earning money.

3. Hard work does not pay like people would think

Most of us have been brought up to believe that the harder we work, the more we get profitable results. But this is not universally true.

For if it were true, all hard workers would at least be comfortable. Farmers in Ghana for instance, would have about the same comfort as bankers.

4. Wealth is not a sign of intelligence

Intelligence, they say, is knowledge in action. We have for so long associated intelligence and wealth together.

READ ALSO: Yvonne Nelson praises John Mahama's contribution to terminal at Kotoka

But this is not correct especially when one consider our first two points in this list. It is possible for rich people to continue to earn more even if they do not put their knowledge into work themselves.

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Source: Yen.com.gh- Ghanaians in the Western Region have held the minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Kweku Asoma-Cheremeh and his entourage hostage

- This was as a result of their intent to register their displeasure over the poor road network in the region

- They however allowed the minister's vehicle to move away, as they hooted at him

Residents of the Tarkwa Nsuem Municipality of the Western Region, have registered their displeasure over their poor road network.

According to a report by MyNewsGH.com, they held the minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Kweku Asoma-Cheremeh and his entourage hostage.

They only agreed to calm down and allow traffic to flow after several hours of hot exchanges with armed security personnel.

Kweku Asomah-Cheremeh Source: modernghana.com

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Photo of mother of 5 children who goes back to JHS leaks online

YEN.com.gh understands that despite the use of the road network by mining companies, such firms have refused to honour their corporate social responsibilities to the community.

The minister, who was on a working visit to the area, woke up on the morning of Wednesday, September 26, 2018, to be greeted with the noise of rampaging residents.

The protesters burnt tyres and barricaded the road leading to the hotel in which the minister and his entourage lodged, preventing their vehicles from either leaving or coming in.

In the ensuing melee, they were seen burning lorry tyres, clad in red armbands and chanting war songs to register their displeasure at governments indifferent attitude towards their plight.

Even after the situation had returned to normalcy, the residents hooted at the minister as his vehicle left the scene.

The leader of the demonstrators, whose identity is yet to be confirmed, stated that they will continue to mount pressure on the government to get the roads in the area tarred, or the stop the mining companies from extracting minerals from the municipality.

READ ALSO: Shatta Wale finally opens up on the Menzgold saga

Ghana News Today: Lack of Evidence Against Former GFA President | Yen.com.gh

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Source: Yen.com.ghThe Catholic Bishop of Sekondi-Takoradi Archdiocese, Most Rev John Bonaventure Kwofie, has revealed the corrupt people in Ghana.

According to him, the most corrupt people in the country are the educated class.

I will like to call your attention to something I have found. I will say in this country, most of our educated people turn to be more corrupt than the uneducated ones, said Rev John Bonaventure Kwofie during the launch ceremony of the Association of Catholic Teachers (ACT) held in Kumasi last weekend.

READ ALSO: Ghanaians can now travel to South Africa without visa

He added that, one does not need any analytical tool to ascertain the veracity of his statement.

"Though public and civil services, the security services, businessmen and women, political offices are being headed by educated people and Christians, corruption is still on the ascendancy.

We have found out how corrupt our country is, and its still becoming," He noted.

READ ALSO: Efia Odo and boyfriend share passionate kiss in a new video

Most Rev. John Kwofie emphasized that in the national political history when someone with less formal education appears on political scene vying for the highest office of the land there is a question of how such a person be the president.

In other news:

A mother of five children has returned to the classroom.

READ ALSO: Yvonne Nelson praises John Mahama's contribution to terminal at Kotoka

Ugwoke Odobo took the decision with the support of her husband. She enrolled into St. Andrews Secondary School in Nigeria, and is currently in JHS3.

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Your stories and photos are always welcome. Send us a message via YEN's official Facebook page.

Source: Yen.com.gh- Gold-trading firm, Menzgold Ghana Limited, has issued a statement saying the directive by the Securities and Exchange Commission makes it impossible to pay customers dividends

- Meanwhile, Deputy Director General of SEC, Paul Ababio says the regulator has not stopped the Menzgold from paying its existing customers their entitlements

Menzgold Ghana Limited has explained the reason why most customers are yet to be paid the dividends on their gold investments.

According to the company, it cannot make any payments due to the action taken against it by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

The gold dealership firm has been in the news in recent months following disagreements with the Bank of Ghana (BoG) regarding its operations.

READ ALSO: Ghana-U.S. reach diplomatic agreement to deport 7000 persons

The latest development is that the SEC has asked the company to shut down its gold trading activities.

This led to brewing tension among some customers who stormed the East Legon branch of Menzgold following a delay in their dividend payments.

However, the gold dealership firm has now explained that the actions of SEC is the reason why it cannot make any payments to customers.

In a statement, the company said: The gold collectibles offered for trade by patrons of our gold vault market product are subjected to our quality controls and traded for profit which is shared as extra value with the product owner or trader.

Any act, order or instruction therefore, designed or decreed to forbid Menzgold from trading makes it impossible to generate any revenue whatsoever out of which extra values are charged and paid to those entitled.

The statement was released in response to comments by the Deputy Director General of the SEC, Paul Ababio, who suggested that their directive does not bar Menzgold from paying matured dividends to customers.

READ ALSO: Bawumia's food items to Wa flood victims expired - NDC

The statement from Menzgold said the company finds this position rather surprising as it shows a clear dearth in the SECs understanding of our gold vault market product and raises the question of basis upon which they decided to shut it down.

It added: The leadership of the firm will continue to engage with the relevant bodies to expedite the reimbursement of all entitlements.

Ghana News Today: Drivers angry over hike in Fuel price | Yen.com.gh

READ ALSO: Ghanaians can now travel to South Africa without visa

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Source: YenEditorial

Profits vs People

The sordid tale of residential aged care in Australia is indicative of the privatisation push that is taking place across the board. The apologists for capitalism and privatisation never let up in their claims that private is far more efficient, that it costs less and delivers better services. As the private, for-profit residential aged care demonstrates such claims are manifestly inaccurate and dishonest. Aged care is big business, with profit the driving motive, not the needs of the residents of centres. Profits come at the expense of peoples needs. (See Aged care  Abuse from profit)

Governments spend billions of dollars subsidising privatised services which are run for profit by their corporate mates. They do next to nothing to stem the flow of hundreds of millions, even billions of dollars offshore through various company structures. The aged care sector is a prime example. Some of these companies pay no income tax at all.

Residential aged care is in crisis. The private sector has failed dismally to deliver. The amount presently directed to subsidies would go a long way towards providing quality care once the profit motive was removed. That can only be done by the public sector. The various layers of profit in the private system drive up costs for residents, their families and government.

The Commonwealth audit office recently found that government procurement through contractors, consultants and labour hire  a form of privatisation  totalled nearly $50 billion in 2016-17. Despite this, the Coalition is looking for even more opportunities to line the pockets of private companies through these kinds of arrangements. Transnationals like KPMG, EY, PwC and Deloitte have reaped tens of millions of dollars through Commonwealth contracts, and the government is increasingly turning to labour hire arrangements that are bad for workers and bad for public services.

Plans to privatise the visa system make a mockery of previous government claims that we will determine who comes to this country. If the privatisation goes through it will be their big business mates who control Australias borders and make a mint out of issuing visas.

Contracting out the management of the service to big business would mean the end of what little public accountability and transparency there is. It would also result in higher fees and open the way for large-scale corruption. It is vital that Australias visa system be run by properly trained, publicly accountable public servants of the highest integrity who work in the national interest. Hundreds of public sector jobs are at stake. Those who are able to gain employment in the private take-over would face substantial reductions in their wages and working conditions. Already successive funding cuts have forced cuts in services and huge reductions in staff.

Joe Kelly, writing in The Australian newspaper, outlined some of the vested interests involved in the tender process for the service. One of the members of a consortium, Australian Visa Services, bidding for the contract is Pacific Blue Capital. The CEO of Pacific Blue Capital is a Scott Briggs who also happens to be the president of PM Scott Morrisons local wing of the Liberal Party and director of Morrisons favourite footy club, the Cronulla Sharks. Briggs Liberal Party connections do not stop there. He is a former colleague of Immigration Minister David Coleman and previously worked a venture capital firm managed by Malcolm Turnbull. Other members of the consortium include Qantas, PwC and NAB. (PMs ally the driving force behind bid for $1 billion visa contract, 18-09-2018)

With a federal election looming and the Coalition heading for defeat, now is the time to raise these issues with your local MP and Senators. As a result of public pressure, the government put on hold its plans to privatise Medicare, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, Australian Hearing and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission registry. After the elections, if it is returned to office, they will be back on the agenda. It is important to keep the pressure on the government but also to be conscious that under capitalism gains are not set in concrete, they must be continually defended and fought for. The Communist Party fights for the defence of the public sector for immediate and short-term gains but also looking further ahead to a socialist society with a strong pubic sector serving the people.

The process of privatisation is not only providing new sources of profiteering for big business, but is gradually usurping the role and power of government, strengthening the hand and domination of corporations over society.Coniston Massacre

90 years on and its time to tell the truth

Theres honesty to be found in the desert.

No time for bullshit or excuses.

If you are to survive you need to respect, honour and learn from the past to ensure a good way forward.

Mob from across the central desert region of Australia gathered in the outback for the 90th anniversary of the Coniston Massacre, the theme of which was Time to Tell the Truth.

And they did.

Traditional owner Terry (Teddy) Long Jupurrula.

The stories revolved around Mounted Constable George Murray, who led revenge attacks against Aboriginal people after the killing of white dingo trapper Fred Brooks in 1928.

An official inquiry found 31 people were killed, but the National Museum of Australia puts the figure at more than 60 people who died in the various waves of retribution that followed.

Local people say many more died, and they recalled their stories at the gathering.

Northern Territory Police Commissioner Reece Kershaw offered an apology, saying there was no excuse or justification for what occurred 90 years ago.

A community should never fear their police and police should never fear their community, the Commissioner said. What occurred was the breakdown of law and order, and in turn violent criminal acts of vengeance.

And whilst we cannot go back in time and change what happened here, we can, and must, learn from it.

We have to acknowledge and reflect on these horrific crimes that were committed by one of our own, who was supposed to be there to protect and serve the community. I have no doubt that his actions would have spread fear and mistrust of police amongst Aboriginal people for many, many years. I am sorry that these horrific crimes occurred.

Traditional owner Terry Long Jupurrula said his people had thought long and hard about the best way to move forward. We want to develop a story place here to tell people what happened, and an interpretive display, he said.

Weve been struggling for a long time to set this up here at Yurrkuru. I want to ask for help to get water from somewhere  might be Yurrkuru on Coniston because its my land too.

Yapa land got important history for Australia. Thats why we need to build something there for the future  for Yapa families and white families to come along and see and learn about what happened.

Long said he wanted to see a national Memory Day for Coniston and for recognition of the massacres not only here but all massacres of Aboriginal people that happened around Australia.

We want the government to support these things.

Central Land Council delegate Harry Nelson asked if a National Park could be created around the massacre sites to mark the areas history. Other suggestions were for a national day of commemoration for Indigenous massacres similar to Anzac Day.

The great-niece of Constable Murray, Liza Dale-Hallett, travelled from Melbourne to attend the ceremony. Her brother Chaz Dale and his wife also made the trek.

If we can accept what happened here 90 years ago, we might be able to accept 60,000 years of history, she said.

This is not just a story from the past. It is something that continues to ripple through our families, and for me and Chaz it has shaped our lives as individuals.

Dale-Hallett recalled visiting the area 15 years ago for a commemoration service.

We came together with our shared histories to openly speak about the trauma and suffering of the past, for storytelling, compassion and generosity of spirit which opened our hearts and offered a form of healing and growth, she said.

We are here again because we believe that facing our history, Australias history, is so important to our futures.

These stories are still not being heard. This history is not just yours and ours it is every Australians history. We are here to support the need to share these stories with everyone. To know the past is to step towards being released from it and empowered to create a more positive future.

We have come to honour those killed 90 years ago and the generations that have suffered since then.

We feel your grief and stand with you to acknowledge your stories and to remember. We have come here to listen from our hearts to your truths.

Following the speeches, those in attendance walked to the Memorial Stone that was placed 15 years ago to lay wreathes.

Koori MailRoyal Commission must include people with disability

Disabled Peoples Organisations Australia (DPO Australia) has welcomed last weeks announcement of a Royal Commission into Aged Care, with the inclusion of young people with disability who live in nursing homes, saying that this is a critical opportunity for the many thousands of older people with disability to have their voices heard and obtain justice for the violence, abuse, exploitation and neglect they have experienced.

Unfortunately, there are many more thousands of people with disability who will be dismayed that our ongoing calls for a Royal Commission into violence and abuse against all people with disability have been ignored.

We have been calling for a Royal Commission into violence and abuse of all people with disability, including in aged care, for over five years, Therese Sands, DPO Australia spokesperson, said. In 2015, a Senate inquiry found widespread and prolific rates of violence and abuse against people with disability, and its key recommendation was the establishment of a Royal Commission.

In 2017, over 160 civil society groups and over 100 academics joined DPOs call for a Royal Commission into violence against all people with disability. The Australian Labor Party and the Australian Greens have also supported that call to ensure that people with disability get a chance to speak out and get justice.

In addition, DPO points out that over the past five years, the ABC, through two Four Corners episodes and a Lateline report, has exposed disturbing evidence of the extensive patterns of violence and abuse experienced by people with disability.

We are extremely concerned that none of these reports has warranted the same speedy response by the Australian Government through a Royal Commission announcement, said Therese Sands.

The Prime Minister said that incidences of older people being hurt by failures of care simply cannot be explained or excused and that if you want to deal with a problem, you have to be fair dinkum about understanding the full extent of it. We agree, and the same needs to apply for the thousands of people with disability who have experienced violence and abuse in a broad range of settings.

Violence and abuse of people with disability is systemic. The evidence is extensive and compelling. The violence can no longer be ignored.

Recent data shows that the introduction of the NDIS has meant that only 23 young people with disability have been able to leave aged care facilities. This is a disgrace.

DPO notes that young people do not belong in aged care and that the NDIS is not working to get young people with disability out of aged care and into the community where they belong: The Royal Commission must consider the crucial stories of these young people with disability.

Many people with disability, who are unable to get the essential supports they need under the NDIS, are being pushed into the aged care system. This Royal Commission must look at this vital issue.

People with disability who are over 65 are not eligible for the NDIS, yet the aged care system is not designed to meet their specific disability support needs. They experience considerable inequity in aged care that puts them at significant risk of harm, violence and abuse. Again, the Royal Commission must include these issues.

Critically, the Royal Commission into Aged Care must consider the specific and unique issues, disadvantages and risks that are constantly faced by women, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and those from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds in aged care.

DPO Australia urges the Australian government to ensure that people with disability and our representative organisations are part of the development of the Terms of Reference for this important Royal Commission into Aged Care.Deaths in custody

Hundreds attend memorial

On Monday afternoon, September 10, four Aboriginal youths who had been seen in the area of a failed burglary in the Perth riverside suburb of Maylands, were being pursued by police. To avoid the consequences of being captured the four youths chose to enter the Swan River and swim 120 metres to the southern embankment of the river.

One boy got into trouble and was assisted by police, one boy made it to the other side and was found with relatives the next day and two youths were lost sight of and drowned. A cold front had come through at the time and conditions were cold and windy and the water was quite choppy.

The Aboriginal community in Western Australia had heard and seen it before too many times: Young Ms Dhu who died in police custody in Port Hedland while apprehended for non-payment of fines; Elijah Doughty who died while being pursued on an allegedly stolen motorbike when the owner driving a four wheel drive hit the boy; and Mr Ward, the Aboriginal elder from the Western Desert who died while being transported to Kalgoorlie in searing heat in a prison van with the air conditioning broken down.

The family of the deceased youths understood the feelings were high in the community and to help deal with their own grief and the grief of the Aboriginal community held a memorial to the two 17-year-olds who had been lost to the river that day. Over 500 mostly Aboriginal people turned up to the memorial which was held on the banks of the river near where the boys had entered the water on that fateful day.

They brought flowers, embraced and wept, many draped in Aboriginal flags, and came from around the state, including Yamatji people from the mid-West town of Mullewa, where some of one of the youths family live. The welcome to country was done by Noongar Elder Uncle Ben Taylor who said he had been going to too many funerals of their young people and that these boys had a long life ahead of them cut short.

Other Aboriginal Elders also spoke about how many of them had grown through the turbulent years of youth and made mistakes from which they had learnt and then gone on to lead happy and productive lives.

James Spratt, the grandfather of Trisjack Simpson, one of the boys who had died in the river, acknowledged some people were angry but that they would wait until the enquiries had run their course before pushing for answers to their questions. There will be an inquest which will be treated the same as if the youths were in custody as the deaths were in police presence.

Family friend and Aboriginal activist Mervyn Eades said the community was hurting greatly as they had seen it happen too many times to their people and it is now 2018 and it is still happening. When something like this happens to one of us it happens to all of us, Eades said.

To conclude the memorial there were a few beautiful and heart felt gestures including a smoking ceremony of fresh eucalypt leaves, distribution of rosemary twigs to the crowd, the release of balloons of the colours of the Aboriginal flag but none was more powerful than when two youths waded out into the cold river up to waist high with a white banner.

The Communist Party of Australia joins in the expression of grief and sorrow on the tragic loss of Aboriginal lives and awaits the answers from the enquiries which it is hoped will be thorough yet expedient  which should bring forth truth as well as justice and the necessary changes to ensure the end of the senseless loss of Aboriginal life in these circumstances.Along class lines

The defeat of fascism in WW2

Hitler came to power in Germany in January 1933 and immediately started to suppress all opposition to Nazi rule. Trade Unions were smashed, the Communist Party was banned and all opposition parties and individuals were silenced by the terrorist dictatorship that was imposed. The Nazis preached the superiority of the German race and launched a program of rearmament and preparations for war.

The Soviet Union together with the communist parties around the world launched a campaign to warn that fascism meant war and that if Hitler was to be stopped a world-wide anti-fascist front had to be created. The Soviet Union called for a system of collective security against the rise of fascism.

Unfortunately the western powers, led at that time by the British and French governments and a number of other European countries, encouraged the rearmament of Nazi Germany believing that its virulent anti-communism meant it could be used to attack and destroy the socialist Soviet Union. They rejected any collective security pact with the Soviet Union.

The first example to prove that fascism was synonymous with war came when Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy supported the fascist uprising of some Spanish generals who, after a long and bloody war, imposed the Franco dictatorship in that country.

Of all the European countries, only the Soviet Union came to the aid of the democratically elected Spanish republican government. However, Franco was successful and emboldened by the weakness of the British and French governments, Nazi Germany intensified its war preparations.

Warning

The 7th Congress of the Comintern [Communist International] held in Moscow in 1935 was an important milestone. It warned the world of the real nature of fascism describing it as the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinist and most imperialist elements of finance capital.

All the attempts of the Soviet Union to achieve a united opposition to the expansionism and war threatened by the Nazis were in vain. Instead of invading the Soviet Union immediately as some western leaders hoped, the Nazis first overran the whole of Western and Central Europe, including France and commenced the bombing of Britain.

On June 22, 1941 the Nazis did invaded the Soviet Union and in this very act, created the circumstances that would lead to the defeat of the Nazis and fascist regimes of Germany and Italy and, in the Pacific area, the Japanese militarists. By 1943 the Japanese armies had overrun most of Asia and the islands of the Pacific as far south as PNG which at that time was a British and Dutch colony. The Japanese had invaded China in 1931.

Far from the Soviet Union collapsing under the weight of the Nazi attack, as all other European countries had done, the people of the Soviet Union resisted the Nazi onslaught and, after suffering huge casualties, the Soviet Red Army stopped the Nazi advance on the outskirts of Moscow. It was here that the first defeats suffered by the Nazi armies were inflicted.

It was finally in the crucible of war that the common front against the Nazis for which the Soviet Union had been calling for many years, was achieved.

Mutual assistance

A pact of mutual assistance was concluded between the Soviet Union and Britain which at that time was led by Winston Churchill.

The battles fought on the Soviet front became a legend among those who were involved throughout the world in the struggle against Nazism and fascism.

The scorched earth policy, the formation of the guerrilla units fighting in the rear of the German armies, the transport of whole industries from the western regions of the Soviet Union to the interior, the names of Soviet Army commanders such as Marshalls and Generals Zhukov, Rokassovsky, Sokolovsky, Vassilevsky, Konev and, of course, Stalin who was commander-in-chief of the Soviet armies, became household names.

The sieges of Leningrad and Moscow and the heroic resistance at Stalingrad have gone down in the annals of military history. The Battle of Kursk was the biggest tank battle ever fought by tank brigades. These battles were also the scenes of major defeats suffered by the Nazi armies. These Soviet victories prepared the way for the offensives of the Soviet Red Armies that eventually resulted in the Nazi armies being driven out of the whole of the territory of the Soviet Union, the crushing defeat of the Nazis and the liberation of Eastern Europe.

It was the Soviet armies that liberated Berlin and hoisted the red flag over the German Reichstag in that city. It was the Soviet Red Army that liberated the Auschwitz concentration camp and released from this living hell those who survived in this concentration camp that will forever remain as a reminder of the barbarity of fascism.

The struggle for the defeat of the Nazis last from June 1941 to May 1945. In this time the Soviet Union suffered at least 27 million killed, the total or partial destruction of 1,710 towns and more than 70,000 villages and hamlets and had its industrial capacity wrecked.

Second front

In this period the people of Britain, Australia and other countries campaigned for the opening by the western powers of a second front in Europe. This was eventually achieved and British, Free French, American and other armed forces attacked the Nazis in Western Europe. The US had joined the war in Europe and the Pacific following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour.

The sweeping consequences of the defeat of fascism and the part played by the socialist Soviet Union had far-reaching consequences in Europe and Asia. A number of socialist countries came into existence in Eastern Europe after their peoples drove out the quislings (collaborators and traitors) who had sided with the fascists.

But the consequences were not limited to Europe. The defeat of Japanese militarism in the Pacific, in which the Soviet Armies also played a very significant but often ignored part, resulted in the victory of the Chinese revolution and the formation of the Peoples Republic of China in 1949. Successful revolutions also took place in Vietnam and in part of the Korean peninsula.

The defeat of fascism also led to the intensification of the struggles of the colonial people against the occupation and exploitation of their countries. Indonesia won its independence from Dutch colonialism. India threw off the yoke of British colonialism. Malaysia and Singapore became independent. One after another the many colonial countries in Asia and Africa became politically independent.

Cold war

As a result of these far-reaching developments the western powers which refused to accept the loss of their colonies and the sweep of socialist revolutions in Europe and Asia, launched the Cold War which was a political, economic and military campaign with the aim of restoring capitalism in all the socialist states and re-imposing colonialism in one form or another.

In the post-war period the US has established military bases in over 100 countries and, using modern technology, is attempting to militarise space with the objective of imposing its control over the whole of the world.

Once again there is a major attack being made on the democratic rights of the people. Trade unions are being suppressed, progressive minded individuals are being ostracised in the media and the exploitation of working people, pensioners, the sick and the elderly is being intensified.

Concentration camp type detention centres have been established, in the first place to imprison those seeking asylum and are open to use for the imprisonment of others as the new struggles against war and new forms of fascism arise.

Nazism and fascism was defeated in the 1940s as a result of the struggles of the people of many countries who came to see that fascism meant war, racism, oppression, intensified exploitation and the most barbaric social and political policies.

Today a similar front is needed to defeat the new threat of widespread war, the poverty created by the savage exploitation by the transnational corporations, the attempt to re-impose colonial regimes, the destruction of democratic rights and the terror used against the people by the Nazis in the 1930s and 40s.Shadow of oppression

Last month, British mining company Rio Tinto confirmed plans to sell its US$3.5 billion stake in Grasberg, the worlds largest gold and second largest copper mine in Indonesias remote Papua region. The move came after an attempt to regain trust from investors that dropped the company on ethical grounds. Since it joined its operations in Grasberg with American mining conglomerate Freeport-McMoRan in 1996, Rio Tinto has faced accusations of complicity in environmental devastation and human rights abuses in the area.

Grasberg: Since 1997, over 200,000 tonnes of tailings (mining waste) are dumped into the river ecosystem every day.

Covered by thick tropical rainforest hosting some of the worlds most biodiverse environments, Papua was once considered an untouched paradise. Yet, the political and environmental struggle its inhabitants are facing is hardly known to most, and neither is the role of foreign investors like Rio Tinto and British Petroleum  both of which bear responsibility for this forgotten crisis.

Oppressed and marginalised

Published in July, Amnesty Internationals report said that Papua is a land plagued by poverty, underdevelopment and political oppression. In 2014, Indonesian President Joko Jokowi Widodo committed to improving the regions situation, a test which, according to Amnesty, the government like those before it, has failed.

The report revealed that, between 2010 and 2018, 95 victims of suspected unlawful killings were recorded in Papua, none of which were followed by independent criminal investigation.

A major issue regarding the Papuan crisis has been the culture of impunity surrounding the widespread cases of unlawful killings and abuses against civilians, says Papang Hidayat of Amnesty International Indonesia.

Since it passed under Indonesian control in 1963, following the termination of Dutch colonial rule, Papua has never known peace. A political struggle for self-determination emerged in the early 1960s under the leadership of the Free Papua Movement which was met by Jakarta with growing repression.

It is estimated that between 100,000 and 500,000 Papuans have lost their lives in the conflict, most of which were civilians killed by security forces.

Alongside political repression, the region has also suffered from a long-lasting condition of underdevelopment and marginalisation. Today, of all Indonesian occupied possessions, Papua has the lowest life expectancy and the highest infant and maternal mortality rates.

Earlier this year, the death of over 100 children caused by a measles outbreak in the remote regions of Asmat and Okab sparked worldwide condemnation. Indonesian newspaper The Jakarta Post criticised the governments delayed response to the emergency, pointing out that warnings about low immunisation levels had reached the Health Ministry as early as September 2017.

The shadow of Grasberg

From the very beginning, economic interests in Papua were too high for the Indonesian government to let it go its own way, says Adriana Sri Adhiati, a coordinator at the UK-based Indonesian human rights organisation Tapol.

Military coup leader Mohammad Suharto assumed power after the overthrow of the progressive independence Sukarno government in 1967 and opened up the country to Western investment plunder.

One of the main projects on the table of negotiations was the Grasberg mine located in the Papuan Highlands. There was no space for Papuan claims on Suhartos agenda, says Adriana.

Today, Grasberg represents one of Indonesias biggest tax revenue sources, with mine reserves worth approximately US$100 billion.

Over the decades, Grasberg has turned into a symbol of the Papuan conflict. Freeport spends US$5 million annually for government provided security  a move that has effectively militarised the whole area as clashes between Indonesian forces and local communities continue to grow more violent.

A study published in 2001 by Dr Chris Ballard at Australian National University found evidence of the extrajudicial killing of as many as 200 people between 1975 and 1997, in and around the Freeport contract of work area almost all of them were unarmed civilians.

There has never been consent from local communities as far as the Grasberg site is concerned, says Andrew Hickman of the London Mining Network, an alliance of development and solidarity groups in the UK. This is extremely relevant given the projects environmental and social costs, he says.

When Rio Tinto teamed up with Freeport, it was well aware of the controversies surrounding the site.

Since 1997, over 200,000 tonnes of tailings (mining waste) are dumped into the river ecosystem every day. This mining practice destroys the coastal and river areas in the Mimika regency, said Indonesian environmental campaigner Pius Ginting at the companys annual general meeting held in London last April.

Rio Tinto of course has always denied any responsibility for the situation.

In 2008, Norways pension state fund divested from Rio Tinto by selling its US$650 million stake in the company, justifying their decision on ethical grounds linked to Grasberg.

In an attempt to regain the trust of socially-concerned investors, the company has recently negotiated with Indonesia to exit the mining operations in Grasberg. A move which Andrew Hickman views as an easy way to escape accountability for its past misconduct.

When he asked the company how it intends to address the situation in Grasberg once it has left the mine, chairman Simon Thompson replied: I am not sure I can answer the question.

Despite widespread criticism generated by Rio Tintos policies, the UKs attitude towards the British corporation is lenient if not entirely accommodating. Recent conservative UK governments have focused on supporting British businesses abroad, from the mining to the oil and gas industry. This includes Rio Tinto, says Hickman.

The company, listed at the London Stock Exchange, is hugely dependent on investment from the financial world of the city, which UK governments could have regulated according to minimum ethical standards. But they have deliberately chosen not to do so, he says.

Green light for British Petroleum

In 2002, the UK granted asylum to Papuan leader Benny Wenda, who fled Indonesian jail where he was facing trial for having allegedly led an independence rally. Since then, Britain has attracted a wide array of civil society movements campaigning for Papuan rights. The International Parliamentarians for West Papua, for example, was launched in 2008 by the support of several British MPs, including its co-founder and current Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Despite this, British foreign policy in Papua continues to back Indonesian rule to guarantee its interests in the region, which go well beyond the mineral sector.

There is a deep disconnect in the British political system between economic logics and discourses around political freedom, says Hickman. He highlights then PM David Camerons meeting with Benny Wenda in 2009 to express empathy for his political struggle.

Some years later, in 2015, Cameron visited Indonesian President Widodo in Jakarta and they signed a bilateral agreement to expand British Petroleum (BP)s project in Papua by around US$3.8 billion, he says.

The project was kick-started in in the Bintuni Bay area. BPs Tangguh gas field is now the largest investment in the Papuan region. Since Tangguhs inception BP has endeavoured to distance itself from the controversies surrounding Grasberg.

More than half of our workforce in Tangguh is Papuan, states the company on its website. We are committed to reaching an 85 percent Papuan workforce by 2029.

Yet, in Hickmans view, Tangguh and Grasberg bear a fundamental similarity: Both projects present a scenario where foreign companies have come into Papua to make a deal with the Indonesian government and profit from natural resources. No consensus has been sought from local communities.

But BP has managed to keep criticism away, using great efforts to rebrand itself.

It set up an organisation called the Tangguh Independent Advisory Panel (TIAP) that has acted as a buffer between the company and the civil society. BP is paying for public figures to sit on this panel.

TIAPs previous chairman was US Senator George J Mitchell, Obamas special middle-east envoy.

BP hired Mitchell, a well-respected left leaning politician, to be the public face of corporate responsibility, Hickman continues. But how can the panel claim to be exercising independent scrutiny when its members receive financial remuneration from BP itself?

The Tangguh project, according to studies conducted by the campaign group Down to Earth, has led to profound disruptions to local peoples lives, including loss of traditional land and wildlife, waste generation from industrial activities and restricted access to coastal fishing areas.

Sponsoring repression

The UKs involvement in the region has gone even further. A report published in 2016 by the Politics of Papua Project at the University of Warwick highlighted another serious, yet often overlooked issue.

Britain provides training and delivery of military equipment to Indonesian forces, including units deployed in Papua, the study states. Researcher Connor Woodman, who co-authored the report, explains that the UK has developed a strong relationship with two units, both heavily involved in the Papuan conflict.

The first is Kopassus, an elite force of the Indonesian army that has been accused over the decades of extensive human rights violations in the country. Long-lasting relationships between the UK and Kopassus were interrupted in the late 1990s, when it came out that the unit was the main genocidal force in East Timor, says Woodman. In 2008, Obama restarted training Kopassus; the UK followed shortly after.

He reveals that Cranfield University in south-west Oxfordshire has been running a joint MSc in Defence and Security Management with the Indonesian Defence University in Jakarta.

Since 2009, 53 Indonesian military officers have been trained in the UK as part of the program, supported and funded by our Ministry of Defence. Many of them are Kopassus officers, Woodman adds.

The second, perhaps more controversial Jakarta-Westminster partnership concerns Detachment 88, an elite anti-terrorism squad of the Indonesian Police Force. Formed after the 2002 Bali bombings which killed over 200 people  mostly tourists  the unit has been heavily deployed in the Papuan region, particularly around Grasberg, to counter local separatists.

Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, has criticised Detachment 88 for having an appalling record of human rights violations in Papua, arguing that they treat non-violent political expression as a criminal activity and arresting political activists on dubious charges.

The UK is the second largest trainer and funder of the unit, says Woodman. The British government sends Metropolitan Police officers to train Detachment 88 personnel in Jakarta, he adds.

A few years ago, Woodman made enquiries with the Foreign Office to question the UK governments controversial relationship with the force. They have no interest in seeing how their material support to Indonesia is effectively employed. One of the staff told me: They (Detachment 88) do what they want, we have to care about the security of British tourists in Bali.

A troubled horizon

In recent years, calls for a referendum for Papuan independence have been raised in large numbers. With tensions between Papua and Jakarta remaining high the future of the region looks far from certain.

Today, experiences of terror, violence and discrimination are still part of Papuans daily lives. As remote as these stories may appear, they are in fact much closer than we care to acknowledge.

New InternationalistNATOs fascist wedge in Ukraine

The latest advert for Ukraines armed forces depicts chiselled military hunks over a caption: THEY WILL PROTECT YOUR INVESTMENTS  Ukrainian Army: protecting the borders of civilisation. In reality, Russia was Ukraines largest single investor in the first six months of 2018, comprising 34.6 percent of total foreign direct investment.

Ukrainian servicemen stand in a line during a rehearsal for the Independence Day military parade. (Photo: Gleb Garanich)

Advertising slogans for Ukraines army targeted at English-speaking investors are a sign of increasing desperation within ruling circles. Recent public reports of the mafia running Odessa, Ukraines largest port, were linked via the Paradise Papers in a BBC investigation to money laundering in Londons property market by Alexander The Don Angert and his enforcer Hennady Trukhanov, currently Odessas mayor.

Ukraines real economy meanwhile is flatlining. GDP collapsed from US$183 billion per annum in 2013 to US$93 billion last year.

The average Ukrainian wage today is low. In May rail workers shut down production at Ukraines largest steel mill in wage protests against owners ArcelorMittal.

Daily shelling of urban areas and civilian infrastructure by Ukraines army and their allied fascist paramilitary formations affects 60 percent of the population of the Donbass living along the heavily mined 457 kilometre contact line with the breakaway Donetsk and Luhansk Peoples Republics.

Food insecurity has doubled in Ukraine since 2016, now affecting 1.2 million people, alongside escalating cases of multidrug-resistant TB, HIV and even polio.

According to the UN refugee agency, Ukraine currently has 1.8 million internally displaced persons and the World Health Organisation records 4.4 million affected by the war in the east, of whom 3.4 million require humanitarian assistance and protection. Over 10,000 have died.

In this human catastrophe, it is remarkable that the British governments gift of another 35 million in aid to Ukraines military announced in June 2018 receives so little media attention.

Britains latest donation is in addition to 850,000 of non-lethal military equipment announced by then Tory defence secretary Michael Fallon in March 2015.

Around 100 British military trainers were deployed to run 30 courses for infantry, medical and logistics corps across 14 military sites in the Ukraine.

Britain also installed a senior adviser inside Ukraines defence ministry, no doubt, given Ukraines epically corrupt politics, to ensure British largesse is greasing the right palms.

British military funding of Ukraine, however, is dwarfed by that of Canada and the United States.

In April this year the US supplied Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine and in May 2018 the US Congress approved US$250 million of military funding, specifically including deliveries of lethal weaponry.

On September 1, President Donald Trumps special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker (a neo-con, acolyte of senator John McCain, previously appointed by George Bush as US ambassador to NATO) announced further US arms supplies would follow, boasting of rising anti-Russian sentiment in Ukraine.

One day earlier, a terrorist bomb in a central Donetsk cafe killed Alexander Zakharchenko, leader of the Donetsk Peoples Republic. Ukraine is where the new cold war has tipped into a hot war.

However, Ukraines endemic corruption, state instability and poor-quality armed forces have proved to be constraints on NATO ambitions. These constraints have reinforced a reliance on far-right militias, with links to organised crime and neo-Nazi, white supremacist groups.

Socialists have long warned against the dangers of Western states nurturing far-right Ukrainian political forces. In June 2018, Labour MSP Neil Findlay criticised a visit to the Scottish Parliament by Andriy Parubiy, a founder of the neo-Nazi Social-National Party of Ukraine (SNPU), saying: I would prefer to know the next time I am asked to welcome a racist, fascist Nazi to this parliament.

Predictably, the Labour MSP was accused of having tallied perfectly with Kremlin messaging.

More recently, however, Bellingcat (an open source, social media investigation website with a pronounced pro-NATO reputation) has warned about Western financial, military and political support for Ukrainian neo-Nazis.

This suggests that NATO countries increasing reliance on openly neo-Nazi paramilitaries to maintain the current pro-Western regime in power in Ukraine is causing serious concerns.

On August 30, Bellingcat published a report (Ukrainian Far-Right Fighters, White Supremacists Trained by Major European Security Firm) by Oleksiy Kuzmenko, detailing the sophisticated training geared towards combat application delivered since 2016 by the European Security Academy (ESA) to Ukraines neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, now part of Ukraines National Guard.

Californian Congressman Ro Khanna, a strong critic of Azov, claimed in May 2018 that the battalion has very much engaged in incidents of neo-Nazism.

Khanna characterises Azov as a neo-Nazi battalion and promoted the 2018 US Congressional ban on the use of US budget funds to provide arms, training, or other assistance to the Azov Battalion.

Based in Wroclaw, Poland, ESA is Europes largest private military training agency. Serving British soldiers are sent there on specialist training and security courses paid for by the British government as part of resettlement programmes to prepare them for the world of private security contractors in civvy street.

Azov Battalion veterans and activists in Azovs political party, The National Corps, received special-ops training at ESAs training centre in Poland along with activists of other far-right organisations in Ukraine linked to attacks on Roma, LGBT persons and civil rights activists.

Members of Azovs aggressively expanding street force, the National Militia, which attacks minorities in Ukraine and seeks to mirror law-enforcement to enforce Ukrainian order, also received ESA training.

Yet another, Tradition and Order, an aggressively expanding violent ultra-nationalist organisation, at least one of whose leaders is a self-admitted national-socialist with a penchant for Nazi salutes, also attended an ESA course in Poland.

Politicians like Neil Findlay have shown that it is possible to stand up against the normalisation of the far right in Ukrainian politics.

It is now essential that the Westminster government is held to account for its funding and training of far-right, Ukrainian paramilitaries.

Morning StarIn Yemen, starvation unprecedented

The Western-backed war on Yemen is in danger of leaving a further one million children without enough food to sustain life, Save the Children warns. The humanitarian charity warned of starvation on an unprecedented scale in the Middle Easts poorest country, where 5.2 million children face famine due to a food blockade at the port of Hudayda.

In a new report, Save the Children says an additional one million children are at risk of famine as rising food prices and a drop in the value of Yemens currency cause widespread food insecurity.

Around two-thirds of the countrys population receive food supplies through Hudayda, which has been the scene of intense fighting between Houthi rebels and the Western-backed Saudi-led coalition that is imposing the blockade, despite warnings of a humanitarian catastrophe.

Following the collapse of talks in Geneva earlier this month, the United Nations has warned that, in a worst-case scenario, the battle for Hudaydah could cost up to 250,000 lives. Saudi forces have accused Iran of smuggling weapons to Houthi rebels through the port, though both parties deny the allegations.

And Save the Children warned that any blockade of Hudayda would put the lives of hundreds of thousands of children in immediate danger, while pushing millions more into famine.

War has raged in Yemen since Houthi rebels ousted Saudi-backed President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi in 2014. Riyadh and its regional allies began their bombing campaign in March 2015 aimed at reinstalling Hadis government.

The coalition been accused of war crimes. Last month, it received global condemnation for firing a missile at a school bus, killing more than 40 children as they returned from a picnic.

A total of some 10,000 people, 6,000 of them civilians, have died in the conflict, according to the UN, and, despite claims that only rebels are targeted, much of the countrys infrastructure has been destroyed.

With millions of people on the brink of starvation and a deadly cholera epidemic attributed to the war, Britain and the US have nonetheless continued to provide Saudi Arabia with weapons and military support.

Save the Children chief executive Helle Thorning-Schmidt said: Millions of children dont know when or if their next meal will come. In one hospital I visited in north Yemen, the babies were too weak to cry, their bodies exhausted by hunger.

This war risks killing an entire generation of Yemens children, who face multiple threats from bombs to hunger to preventable diseases like cholera.

Morning StarFilm Review by John Wojcik

Operation Finale

The acting in Operation Finale is so outstanding that it needs to be the first thing mentioned in this review. The most powerful performance is given by Oscar Isaac who plays the role of the man who pulls off a job allowing millions of Holocaust victims, their families, and the world to achieve closure in one of the worst horrors ever to have befallen humanity. The takeaway from Finales powerful acting and a great plot is not nearly as complete as it could have been, however, had there been some better work by the scriptwriter, Matthew Orton, at a key point in the film.

Oscar Isaac as Peter Malkin, the Israeli agent who finds and captures Adolph Eichmann in 1961 in Argentina.

Isaac plays Peter Malkin, the Israeli agent who finds and captures Adolph Eichmann in 1961 in Argentina. Eichmann was perhaps the most notorious of Nazi war criminals, the architect of what the Nazis called the final solution to the so-called Jewish problem  the systematic plan to exterminate every single one of the millions of Jews in Europe.

The film opens with Malkin and a few other Mossad agents closing in on a house in Austria during the Christmas season of 1954. Inside, a man, his wife and their young child are admiring their beautifully decorated tree when there is a knock at the door. Before opening the door, the man hides two beautifully bound, swastika-embossed books behind other manuscripts on a shelf. He is snatched by the Israeli agents as soon as he opens the door and is shot to death as he tries to escape.

While he was a Nazi he was not the Nazi Malkin was assigned to get. Malkin, before he leaves the scene, sees the mother and child looking out the window, with the Christmas tree behind them, wondering what happened, as yet unaware that the man of the house was dead. Isaac portrays at this moment a Malkin haunted by what he sees  a mother and child with a husband and father dead at Christmas.

Its the first time in the film that we catch a glimpse of the mental torment Malkin is living with. He suffers from recurring flashbacks of things he has witnessed in earlier years. The worst of these involve flashbacks of a woman and her children attacked in a wooded area by Nazi soldiers, a scene of the fearful woman carrying a bundled infant and, worst of all, a scene of the woman hanging dead from a tree. The identity of the woman is concealed from the viewer until the very end of the film in a powerful, moving, and memorable clip.

We leave the house where the Mossad agents apprehended the wrong Nazi and enter a movie theatre in Argentina. There, a handsome, blond, Aryan-looking youth named Klaus chuckles out loud when a woman in the film on the screen is exposed by a racist for being an African American passing for white. Klaus and his neo-Nazi friends clearly relish the distress of the African American woman. Sylvia, played by Haley Lu Richardson, is a woman sitting in front of Klaus. She turns around to tell him to quiet down but is attracted to the handsome youth who she doesnt know is Eichmanns son. He is attracted to her too although he has no idea she is Jewish. They start dating.

She eventually realises who Klaus and his father (who he calls his uncle at first) really are and she lets her father know. He informs a Mossad agent and from there the Mossad in Israel go to work on a plan. Malkin, in his head, and the Mossad, as a group, debate whether to just kill Eichmann or capture him and bring him back to Israel. Catch him and bring him to trial is the option they choose.

The plot is amplified by all the main actors. Nick Kroll, as Malkins co-agent, provides comic relief to Isaacs haunting seriousness. Melanie Laurent, who plays a doctor who was Malkins ex, is believable as the anaesthesiologist on the Mossad extraction team who is there to drug Eichmann so he can be transported from his Argentine hideaway to the airport and then flown to Israel.

Ben Kingsley does a powerful and memorable portrayal of Eichmann. You see in Eichmann both a mild-mannered intellectual who says he did nothing more than love his country, and a monster responsible for the most unimaginable crimes against humanity. In the safe house where the Mossad agents hold him until they can transport him to the airport, Kingsley and Isaac go one on one as Malkin tries to get the mass murderer to sign a form they need for their superiors in Israel to go ahead with a trial. The scene where Malkin shaves Eichmann while the war criminal is tied to a chair has you on the edge of your seat as you can just tell what Malkin wants to do with the razor.

As the two go at it, there are flashbacks of mass killings and piles of bodies wrought by the final solution, putting the lie to Eichmanns insistence during the interrogation that he was a man who loved his country and who really was nothing more than a functionary putting people on trains  trains, we know, that brought people to their deaths. The flashbacks become more horrific as the interrogation continues. Im not going to do a spoiler on readers here so I wont reveal what happens from here on out. I will say, however, that it is at this point in the film that the writer falls short of what he could have done to make sense of the Holocaust to the many who will see this film. What better place than here? I asked myself, as I sat watching these flashbacks.

Why not clips of the concentration camps run by the huge corporations as slave labour camps so they could pile up their profits unencumbered by the need to pay any workers? Why not a clip showing how those same corporations profit today as multi-nationals? Why not a flashback of some of the CEOs wining and dining Hitler and his henchmen?

Why not clips of the Vatican emissaries and German bishops who hid and protected Nazi war criminals and how they aided Eichmanns escape from a post-war jail in Germany, funnelling him and others into Argentina in the first place? Why not flashbacks of US officials who helped them out? Why not a clip of Argentinas right-wing populist president Juan Peron meeting with the Nazi war criminals and getting their advice on how to stop communists and other Argentinian leftists?

One movie cant do everything and what this movie does do  show the inhumanity of the Nazis final solution and the humanity of people like Malkin  it does well. But how much better it would be if people could have left the movie theatre understanding a bit more about the responsibility of the capitalist system itself for Eichmann, for the Nazis and for the worst crimes in human history.

Years ago when I left the concentration camp memorial at Buchenwald in what was then the socialist German Democratic Republic (East Germany) everyone in our group with me left the camp with that understanding. Most of the people leaving the theatre with me last Sunday, I fear, left without that understanding. Because the film is so well done many in the theatre were moved to tears at the end when they learned the story of the woman haunting Malkins memory. It would have been nice if they could have understood more about why it all happened in the first place.

Peoples WorldFilm Review by Bill Myer

Fahrenheit 11/9

TORONTO: One of the hottest tickets at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) this year was for the North American debut of Fahrenheit 11/9, Michael Moores latest hopeful offering for creating social and political change. Within the expected style and content of previous Moore docs, this one offers a wide range of subjects centred around the new mess in the White House. At 2:29 am on 11/9 [2016] our new leaders image was projected onto the Empire State Bldg and thats where the title twist of 9/11 comes from.

Moores stunt with a water truck spraying Flint water on Snyders front yard.

But a new development in Moores analysis is that he isnt coat-tailing Hillary and the Democratic Party anymore. Unless you happened to blink just then and missed it, his Michael Moore in TrumpLand, a documentary of public talks he gave in a theatre in Wilmington, Ohio, in October 2016, urgently but alas, too late warned Americans against Donald Trump in the strongest possible terms, saying that his popularity in the Midwest should absolutely not be underestimated.

Now, with the reflection of the last two years behind him, he throws blame at many sectors of the political scene, most heavily at the media  The New York Times, specifically: As the Democrats became more like the Republicans, so did the entire liberal establishment, led by the paper of record: catering to Big Business, minimising social movements like Occupy Wall Street and cheer-leading every war we got into, while also trying to dictate elections.

At one point, Moore confesses his role as unwilling patsy in Trumps rise. This malignant narcissist has always played the media for suckers, and gotten away with it. I should know. He tells of his appearance with Trump on The Roseanne Show in 1998, where he was forced to lay off Trump in order to save the show for Roseanne. Trump actually buddied up to him during filming, admitting that I really liked Roger and Me  but not if I was Roger! I hope he never does one on me!

Well, it appears he finally did.

But Moore is quick to explain that this isnt just an attack on Trump, but a more wide-reaching examination of  in his own street jargon  How the f**k did we get here!? The two-hour rage is couched in his typical bitter satire, taking no prisoners along the way. Obama gets lambasted for his thoughtless performance in the city of Flint when he asked for a glass of drinking water, unwittingly (?) implying that the water was safe to drink. His drone program, enhanced surveillance, Chelsea Manning, healthcare failures, endless wars and much more are not overlooked in Moores defiant challenge to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) as mostly to blame for turning a large part of their supporters away favouring the Trump ticket  and the Bernie snub put the nail in the coffin.

After condemning the electoral college and all the various political parties, he goes after some of his own left allies. Trumps always committed his crimes in broad daylight on TV ... as if by doing it publicly, it was all okay. And in regard to Trumps racist and sexist behaviour on television, Moore scolds us all, saying, Neither you or I called NBC to have a committed racist removed from the air.

Theres an amusing segment where Moore is praised by members of Trumps team. Jared Kushner helped promote Sicko, a film he praised along with its filmmaker. Steve Bannon, whose company sold online copies of Moores films, states, Michael Moore is the master of the craft. I actually admire Michael Moore as a filmmaker. I dont agree with his politics. Which led Moore to reluctantly accept the fact that, it seems like Im too comfortable with the enemy.

During Trumps campaigning the media took notice that Moore was one of the only commentators warning of a Trump win. Many media pundits laughed at the possibility of Agent Orange in the White House. Moore pleaded that he knew the people of Michigan very well and could see how Trump appealed to the majority working class fed up with corporate abuse and the loss of jobs caused by rich Wall Street barons who were in the pockets of the Democratic Party. Workers were impressed by a leader going after the establishment, Big Pharma, Wall Street, et al, hoping to bring jobs back, pull out of wars.

Although Michael Moore in TrumpLand was a dire five-alarm appeal to put Clinton in the White House, Moore nevertheless felt elated by Trumps triumphant eliminations of his Republican contenders. At times, he said, Trump was actually to the left of Hillary with regard to Wall Street, imperialistic wars and healthcare. (Of course, Trump reneged on many of these promises, while sticking to his fascistic ones). Moore also knows that the build-up of fascism didnt start with Trump and that the system was to blame. Interestingly, he avoided going after Hillary (of whom he spoke admiringly in the TrumpLand film), but Bill Clinton receives the force of his wrath because of NAFTA, mass incarceration of Blacks, eliminating welfare for the poor, to name a few choice policies.

Fahrenheit 11/9 is filled with typical Moore jokes  a scene with Trumps voice talking over Hitler speaking to a crowd; an attempt to storm the Michigan Capitol building, hoping to serve a citizens arrest on Governor Snyder for his Flint water crisis; and a stunt with a water truck spraying Flint water on Snyders front yard. This old-style Moore seemed out of place in this more sober analysis of not only how we got here, but how we need to show how we got here.

The film is filled with many examples of how the capitalist system is failing: Loss of jobs, big industry, lowered wages, failing education, healthcare and the infrastructure, while the disparity of wealth is widening. But Moores specific political position is still vague: Whether he supports replacement or reform of capitalism and the DNC is unclear. Dont look for terms like class struggle, Marxism or communism, or even a serious analysis of fascism, imperialism and anti-communism. This is a populist approach, rallying the troops for action on whatever level they exist, and in whatever manner we can move the struggle forward.

Although he goes everywhere to find the causes of how the f**k we got here, he finds hope in many areas. He often gives the stage to progressive activists and politicians, the students from the Parkland school massacre who organised a massive nationwide protest in Washington where only students were allowed on the stage to speak. He spoke to well-informed Flint activists fighting for clean water, and the victorious women political figures poised to challenge the system  New Yorker Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Rashida Tlaib from Detroit, slated to be the first Muslim woman in Congress.

This film recalls the hope we had when we thought a film in 2004 like Fahrenheit 9/11 could stop George W Bush from another four years of madness, but ultimately it made little impact on the election. Can cinema truly make an effect on the world? Does it have the power to bring sanity in times of desperation? Within individuals for sure, but for the masses, well have to wait and see. But no one tries harder than Michael Moore.

Peoples WorldCulture & Life

Socialist Realism

The arts scene in the early years of revolutionary Russia was one of hectic activity and ferment. Initially there were those  mainly youngsters  who thought that anything that shocked their elders must be revolutionary, so obscenity must be super revolutionary! Weve all met revolutionaries of that stamp.

Increase the Productivity of Labour by Yuri Pimenov (1927).

In Russia, that trend fell away in the course of the Civil War that followed the Revolution and the accompanying Intervention by no less than 14 imperialist states. During the New Economic Policy, which followed the victory of the Revolution on the territory of Russia, when limited private enterprise was encouraged while the economy tried to recover from the ravages of war, some revolutionary artists enthusiastically embraced the theory known as Futurism. The Futurists believed that the Revolution required a complete rupture from the past and, therefore, so did Soviet art.

The collection of Futurist art in the Russian Museum in Leningrad (as St Petersburg was still called when I saw it) is breathtakingly brilliant. However, its applicability to the complexities of laying the foundations for building a new society was problematic. The rival trend in Soviet art was realism, which had a lengthy and equally vibrant history of its own. Realism was much more applicable to the needs of a country coping with the complexities and difficulties of building a new society. And it was certainly more useful than Futurism.

By the mid to late 1920s, Soviet art, literature and cinema had matured and Soviet cinema in particular had actually begun to wow the world. Individual artists, however, were still essentially feeling their way. Those who turned to film, for example, had to experiment with and then fortunately discard concepts such as eccentric acting and mechanistic acting, or that films should never have any actors at all.

Then, at the beginning of the 30s, with the collectivisation of agriculture completed, the building of Socialism could begin in earnest and art  in all its forms  was perceived as an extraordinarily valuable means of educating the people of this new society, both for their own intrinsic benefit and as a way of furthering the development of socialism.

The writer Maxim Gorki, whose own life experiences had made him a committed socialist, wrote an article in 1933 entitled Socialist Realism. Gorkis contention was that, in the conditions of trying to build a socialist society while combating imperialist subversion, sabotage and war, committed Communist writers could not afford to waste their artistic gift on producing inconsequential or frivolous works.

If they were serious about Socialism, said Gorki, then they had no option but to dedicate their art to the great cause of the liberation of humanity. Art, as the slogan of the time went, is a weapon! For the artist, that meant embracing Realism, the approach to art that involved peeling back the surface to peer underneath to ascertain what really made something tick, especially social phenomena.

And not just Realism, said Gorki, but Socialist Realism, realism with a political purpose, realism applied to furthering the Revolution. Gorki enlarged on the concept at the Soviet Writers Congress in 1934. The Congress adopted Gorkis proposal, but not all his listeners actually grasped his point. In fact, as subsequent events showed, seldom has such a simple concept been misunderstood  and misrepresented  by so many.

Anti-Communists from the left and the right lampooned the idea. But even more damaging was the way assorted sycophants rushed to demonstrate their revolutionary zeal by defending Socialist Realism without understanding Gorkis argument at all.

They reduced it to a collection of irrational formulae: the central character of a socialist realist story (or film or painting) had to be a worker, preferably a heroic worker such as a tractor driver or a union organiser. Another central character had to be a Communist who could (and invariably did) elucidate the politics of the story for the benefit of the characters and the reader.

In this bastardised version of socialist realism, the workers are always united and they always win, whereas in real life they often arent and they often dont. Ironically, the realistic story of a defeat can be far more illuminating than any number of routine formulaic success stories.

Instead of being an approach to art applicable across all genres, socialist realism was reduced to the status of being just another genre itself. This was frequently the situation in Australia. One artist, who actually taught socialist realism for the CPA, happily admitted in her reminiscences that she did her socialist realist paintings in the morning and her abstract paintings in the afternoon!

The same artist/teacher was told that every work of art had to have a message. Like many others, she took this literally, so literally that whenever she couldnt readily determine what message the image in one of her own paintings contained, she actually wrote an appropriate message across the surface of the painting! Crude? You think? And she taught the subject!

Capitalism, of course, seized on this corruption of Gorkis thesis, which reached its zenith in the 1950s, and relentlessly (and very effectively) used it to discredit Socialism, especially among intellectuals. Communists were left in the embarrassing position of trying to defend the indefensible.

Nevertheless, however much Socialist Realism has been misrepresented  whether deliberately or simply through ignorance  the principles enunciated by Gorki remain sound. Artists committed to Socialism, revolutionary change and the liberation of humanity should use their art to further the cause of Socialist revolution. Its a no brainer.

How you do it, is the question. Not by always making your hero a worker, not by invariably winning every struggle. That is Revolutionary Romanticism, not any form of realism. Socialist Realism is based on truth, truth in the depiction of society, truth in the depiction of human character, truth in the representation of the relationship between people and their work, between people and the means of production. In other words, it is primarily Realist.

When Socialist Realism is sneeringly disparaged by Trotskyists or any other counter-revolutionary elements, dont be shy about defending it. After all, the lies they are peddling originate with the ruling class and should be treated accordingly.Continue Reading Below Advertisement

Of course, even if the company decides to reopen Necco's original New England factory and (hopefully) rehire all those laid-off workers, it will take time to fire up the machines that grind all those diabetic Boston stray cats into the fine powder they make the wafers out of. According to CEO Kirk Vashaw, they're aiming for a "Sweethearts relaunch for the 2020 Valentine season, and hope to reintroduce Necco Wafers to the marketplace in 2019." So it'll still be a while before Spangler assembles the Avengers of disappointing candies.

Meanwhile, the fate of New England Confectionery Co.'s even less popular candies will also be sealed this week, as they will be sold off, in what the industry is calling "the biggest candy auction of the 21st century." And seeing as we're talking about the sale of Mighty Malt Milk Balls, Haviland Thin Mints, Sky Bar, and Peach Blossoms, that's so depressing that Willy Wonka must be Twizzlering in his grave.

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The final phase of joint military training exercise of the Army, 'Cormorant Strike IX - 2018 was held today at Kuchchaveli, Trincomalee with State Minister of Defence Ruwan Wijewardena participating as the chief guest, together with Chief of Defence Staff Admiral Ravindra Wijegunaratne, Navy Commander and, Army Commander Lieutenant General Mahesh Senanayake. A large number of Foreign and local participants and observers joined this years exercise. Pix by Pradeep Pathirana.Megapolis and Western Development Minister Patali Champika Ranawaka, in an interview with Daily Mirror, responds to questions about the current status of politics and the economy.

If executive presidency is abolished, we should reintroduce old electoral system

SLFP is no longer a political force to reckon with

UNP is faced with a severe internal political crisis

Those who came from central colleges dominate other sectors of the country. They have been excluded from politics

Those running economy cannot understand local and global trends

Our geographical location is our advantage

Excerpts of this interview:

Q What will be the future of the present government in a situation where there is a rift between the President and the Prime Minister?

It became clear at the last local government elections that the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) is no longer a political force to reckon with. All the political forces led by SLFP have been absorbed by the political front called Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP). In that sense, SLPP is not a new political force. It is actually the political force previously led by the SLFP. The political alliance led by leaders such as Mahinda Rajapaksa, Vasudeva Nanayakkara and Dinesh Gunawardane, is nothing but an extension of the left of centre political front led by the late Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike. President Sirisena, in fact, leads a new political movement under the SLFP label, though. The SLFP cannot win elections under the current circumstances. That is the reality.

It is one aspect. Despite being the ruling party, the United National Party (UNP), for the first time in history, got thrashed at a local government election. For the first time, a ruling party was thrashed at a local authorities election in this manner. In 2002, the UNP, as the ruling party, won such elections comfortably.

Whatever it boasts about, the UNP cannot afford to lose another election. If it gets defeated at another election, it will signal the political end of the party. The fate that befell the SLFP will befall the UNP as well. The UNP did not read the election results of the 2015 polls and the local government polls this year.

The outcome of the 2015 elections was interpreted as a mandate for the UNP. The middle class of this country wanted to embark on a new political journey. Certain UNP leaders cast aside such expectations of the people. The bond scam and the adoption of age-old economic models are examples in this instance. Our economy is embroiled in a cauldron of issues.

When the late President J. R. Jayewardene opened up the economy, we had cheap labour and resources. There were lenient labour and environmental laws. So, we could attract investors. Actually, 70 percent of the world export market was concentrated in Europe and the United States. That model was successful because of these advantageous conditions. Ground realities are totally different today. We do not have cheap labour any more. We have rigid environment laws today. In the world export market, the share of the United States and Europe accounts for 50 percent only. We have certain restrictions in tapping these markets now. This factor driven model is no longer valid.

It is fiction that the country cannot be developed without abolishing executive presidency

Also, there is a school of thought here now that investors can be attracted by creating liberal socio-economic conditions. They believe investors are attracted to countries where homosexuality is legalized, press freedom is high and minority rights are guaranteed. It was a valid concept when globalization and liberalization were taking place in the world.

Today, investors can only be attracted by creating stability in the country. The United States is no longer following globalization. Investors are not bothered whether people in the country concerned have voting rights or not. They need stability. Today, investors see Sri Lanka as a place inflicted by chaos. We need a new economic way out.

Q Is the government ready for it?

That is the problem with this government. Those who handle the economy in this government have not understood it. They have not understood both international and local phenomena. So, they try to apply the same old economic formula to address the current issues. The models of J.R. Jayewardene, Chandrika Kumaratunga and Mahinda Rajapaksa do not work. We are at a transitional stage now.

Q How do you look to the next presidential election in that context?

It will not be an election to be based on popular ideologies. We have to understand local and international phenomena. The outcome of this election is bound to depend on the level of our understanding on issues at hand in such contexts. It is fiction that the country cannot be developed without abolishing executive presidency and devolving power to the north and the east. Such measures will only destabilize Sri Lanka further. When there is no stability, no investor will come. Investors who are already here will also leave the country then. Our challenge is to understand this global phenomenon. Secondly, we cannot count on post war dividends now. We are faced with the biggest debt burden.

Already, we have pruned the powers of the President. There is nothing left to be pruned.

Q What do you think of the 20th Amendment brought by the JVP?

If it is enacted, the country will be destabilized further. If we do away with the presidential system, we should revert to the old electoral system. That is the only way to stabilize the country. Our judiciary looks old fashioned. All other sectors have improved, but the judiciary has not been modified. It is a place where cases are dragged on for years. So, justice is not meted out. We need total reforms to it.

Before implementing vision 2025, they have to implement vision 2020

Q If the 20th Amendment is taken up for vote in Parliament, will you vote against?

The 20th Amendment is obviously harmful to the countrys stability. If the executive presidency is abolished, the old constituency based electoral system should be reintroduced. There is no room for destabilizing the country.

Q What do you think of the UNP talking about its Vision 2020 programme?

The parties can say whatever they want to boost the morale of their rank and file. That is a different case. Yet, it is not realistic. Before implementing vision 2025, they have to implement vision 2020. The UNP did not do the necessary reforms needed to face elections next year. The UNP is internally faced with a severe crisis.

Politics in our country is also backward-looking. We have a new breed of business leaders in the country today. The wealthiest businessmen belong to this category. They are from ordinary backgrounds. Yet, they are leading the business sector.

Those who are in the highest echelon of the medical profession are from humble beginnings with their school education at ordinary central colleges. It is the same story with regards to engineers, administrative service officials including the Secretary to the President. It is the same story in the world as well. Our politics has not changed though. We have the Rajapaksa family at one end of politics, and a coterie of persons from some elitist schools at the other.

Yet, those who came from central colleges dominate other sectors of the country. They have been excluded from politics, though.

Q What is your plan for the next year?

This country should identify its priorities. One is the economic model we need. Countries such as China, South Korea, Japan and others developed because they realized their comparative advantages and built on them. Our geographical location is our advantage. Also, we have our knowledge workers. We have 20 million brains.

When there is no stability, no investor will come. Investors who are already here will also leave the country then

Q The President recently said that the Prime Ministers post is more powerful than the presidential post. What is your response?

It is true that the executive President got some arbitrary powers under the 1978 Constitution. But, there are checks and balances introduced by the then President J.R. Jayewardene. In this regard, it is the Parliament that is keeping it in check.

The US President can appoint anyone outside the Senate or the Congress as a Minister. There are different ways to ensure checks and balances. Yet, the President of Sri Lanka has to choose the Ministers from among the Members of Parliament only. Parliament is the only body that can legislate. Parliament can decide whether to prune the presidential powers or not. Sri Lanka Parliament is responsible not only for law making but is also having control over police finance. Without parliamentary support, the President cannot govern. In the past, there was no question in this regard because the successive Presidents had their parties controlling Parliament. For the first time, we experienced departure from this when the United National Party took control of Parliament under then President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga from another party. On that occasion, presidency was in the hands of another party. It became apparent then that the Presidents hands were tightened without parliamentary power.

With the enactment of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, the Presidents power was further pruned. Though executive presidency is projected as a dictatorial model, the President is virtually a wing-clipped bird in the absence of parliamentary support. It becomes clear when the President belongs to one party and the Prime Minister to another.Sri Lankas National Mobile Services Provider, recently hosted loyal customers to an unforgettable experience in the skies via a Helicopter ride for the 05th time. The aim of this initiative was to showcase the wide-spread 4G coverage and expansion drive of the Company.

Take off was in Negombo and winners of the 4G Nation Campaign were treated to this once-in a-lifetime experience that allowed them to see the steps taken by Mobitel to set up more towers for easy accessibility in rural areas. Past tours included sight-seeing of Galle, Ampara, Anuradhapura and Trincomalee as a part of this island-wide campaign that is now on its 05th leg. Mobitel constantly lives up to its We Care. Always' brand promise, and the roll-out of 4G LTE is testament to its promise to create equal access to the internet throughout the country at affordable rates. Here, the winners of Mobitel 4G Nation Campaign pose for photographs with the helicopter before taking to the skies.This post comes from Dr. Fabiana Sofia Perera, Assistant Research Fellow at the William J. Perry Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies and a 2016 alumna of Bridging the Gaps New Era Workshop.

Defense Secretaries from the countries of the western hemisphere will convene in Cancun, Mexico next month to talk about the most pressing issues facing defense and security institutions in the Americas. The biannual meeting presents an important opportunity for the US to engage with Latin America as the hemisphere continues to try to work together to address the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela and other challenges. After the underwhelming Summit of the Americas, defense seems like a promising avenue for cooperation. Secretary Mattis already met with a number of his counterparts during his first trip to the region in August promising a closer relationship between the US and Latin America.

Security cooperation between the US and Latin America, however, faces one important obstacle: the definition of developing country. Though scholars think of the region as part of the developing world (studies of Latin American countries are routinely featured in journals and conferences focusing on development), most countries in the hemisphere are middle income. Trinidad and Tobago, and Estonia, for example, have about the same GDP per capita; Uruguay is nearly on par with Croatia; Costa Rica and China are within a few dollars of each other. This is where the US runs into difficulties for carrying out cooperation activities.

US Code, Title 10, Section 312 provides that security cooperation money may be used only for the payment of expenses of, and special compensation for, personnel from developing countries. US Code further stipulates that the term developing country has the meaning prescribed by the Secretary of Defense [in] the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017. The current iteration of that meaning is that countries are considered developing if they are not high income on the World Bank classification of countries. Argentina, Barbados, Chile, and Trinidad and Tobago are all high income this year.

The World Banks definition is not the only option, and may not be the best one for US purposes. In fact, the Banks current approach only dates to 2016, when it abandoned its dichotomous categorization of countries as developed or developing but maintained country groupings by income (lower income, lower middle income, upper middle income and high income). Two other multilateral institutions, the International Monetary Fund and the United Nations, both treat developing as a residual category. The IMF defines emerging and developing countries as a category made up of countries that are not advanced. The United Nations has no established rule for determining whether a country is a developing country or not. It considers Europe, North America, Australia, Japan and New Zealand as developed and all others as developing or in transition. (Both systems are explained in an IMF working paper available here.)

Adopting a wider definition of developing country might give the US more leeway in implementing security cooperation in Latin America. In particular, given that many US partners in the region are middle-income countries it is important for the Department of Defense to adopt a definition that would include them. The hardest tests for this definition are Chile and Mexico, both key partners in the region as Secretary Mattis highlighted in his recent visit. Chile and Mexico are both middle-income countries and members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, another standard sometimes used in classifying countries as developed and developing. (Mexico joined in 1994 and Chile in 2010.)

Given that the intent of US security cooperation is to build the capacity of foreign partners to respond to shared challenges, it is important that DoD adopt a definition that effectively allows it to work towards this goal. One of the broadest possible groupings would be to adopt the World Trade Organizations definition. The WTO doesnt have criteria by which to classify countries and instead relies on each member state to announce for themselves whether they are a developing country are not. Some of the results are odd: Turkey and South Korea are developing countries in the WTO. Yet results might be beneficial for the US relationship with Latin America as Mexico and Chile also announce themselves as developing in this forum. Since the ultimate goal of defining developing countries for US security cooperation is to scope out who wants and needs financial assistance, it might make the most sense to adopt the WTOs definition, which was also driven by a need to distribute benefits.

These definitional challenges will be familiar to scholars, who adopt myriad definitions of developing country in their research and often dont specify what the criteria were for including certain countries in the analysis but not others. Even journals specialized in the study of these cases, such as the Journal of Development Studies, do not provide definitions of what the term means. While adopting one universal definition of developing country seems unlikely, moves in this direction would make it clearer to whom research findings apply, in that way perhaps facilitating the use of these findings in the policy world. The case of US security cooperation suggests why these issues matter, and should encourage both scholars and policymakers to think carefully about the definitions they choose.The Indian High Commission in Colombo on Wednesday said the Indian national, who had been arrested in Sri Lanka over the alleged assassination attempt of President Maithripala Sirisena, his predecessor Mahinda Rajapaksa and family members has had a history of mental disturbance since 2000.

A Spokesperson of the High Commission said they had seen media reports that an Indian national, claiming to have information about the threat to lives of prominent Sri Lankan leaders, had been detained by Sri Lankan Police.

Taking a serious note of the matter and acting on limited information provided to us by Sri Lankan authorities, we immediately alerted Indian counterparts to conduct a background check of the said individual. Preliminary inputs indicate that the said individual has had a history of mental disturbance since 2000. We have shared the details with the Sri Lankan authorities and have assured them of full assistance and cooperation for conducting a thorough and professional investigation into the matter, the Spokesperson said.BEIJING AFP, Sept 25, 2018- China said on Tuesday it was impossible to hold trade talks with the United States while Washington is imposing tariffs that are like holding a knife to someones throat.



Speaking a day after Washington activated tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods, vice commerce minister Wang Shouwen said China is open to negotiations but that the two sides must treat each other equally and with respect.



Now that the US has adopted this type of large-scale trade restrictions, theyre holding a knife to someones throat. Under these circumstances, how can negotiations proceed? Wang told a news conference. US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had invited Chinese officials to hold new talks, but President DonaldBy Rohana R Wasala

The Janabalaya Kolambata held in Colombo by the Joint Opposition (JO) on September 05, 2018 was a roaring success. It was, of course, a foregone conclusion. That it was going to draw huge crowds was clear to all. Through their well attended and meticulously organized demonstration the JO made a direct hit on the government. By trying to forestall it, then to obstruct its progress, and finally to belittle the astounding success that the Janabalaya achieved as a daringly defiant show of people power against all odds, the Yahapalanaya worthies and their cronies have only succeeded in demonstrating their own intransigence against the public will. They have thus scored an own goal in favour of the JO, an instance of poetic justice indeed, in the circumstances! That is locally. Will the deafening roar of protest be echoed in Geneva, where it matters most?

To any fair-minded Sri Lankan whose vision is not clouded by racist hatred, personal prejudice and vain arrogance, the Janabalaya protest was the loudest outcry to date against an incumbent government in post-independence Sri Lanka. What the Janabalaya (Peoples Power Demonstration) achieved was that through it the common people gave the government a severe warning that they were fed up with it. They did this in the hearing of the whole world and expressed their earnest desire and their urgent demand for a democratic change. This is a cry that NO government that abides by, or is morally and legally bound to abide by, democratic norms could turn a deaf ear to.

Opponents of the Joint Opposition (JO) deliberately misinterpret the message of the People Power March of September 5. But the reality that the demonstrators experienced at firsthand in Colombo and that we watched on TV and CP screens across the world is in stark contrast to their devaluing assessment. Their farfetched misrepresentation of what actually happened is not of any significance, though, because the whole kit and caboodle who engineered the change of 2015 are now being blamed for it; and the honest few among them who were duped to join in, now suffer from bouts of self-blame. On the other hand, there is enough unmistakable evidence that the impact of the Janabalaya Kolambata March and Rally has already been felt both within and outside Sri Lanka. A couple of days ago, former president Mahinda Rajapaksa was invited by India and given a reception that, as some in the media said, is normally accorded to a visiting head of state (whether the Indian gesture indicates a positive attitudinal change in respect of Sri Lanka is yet to be seen, though); at the Atakalanpanna Multipurpose Cooperative Society elections, all of the 210 seats have been won by the Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP), with the UNP and the SLFP having won no seats at all. An independent Sinhala language website had a headline which declared Jala Bala Virodhaya Asarthakai (Water Force Resistance Fails). This was a sarcastic reference to the governments alleged failed attempt, as the organizers were quick to charge, to demoralize the Janabalaya demonstrators and to create public misgivings about the bona fides of their declared peaceful intentions, through a massive display of police presence equipped with a fleet of water cannons, and batons and riot shields that suggested that the authorities anticipated violence. The IGP had previously warned that in the event of any violence occurring, he was going to use not minimum force, but required force!

The protest marchers came from every corner of the island: from Jaffna in the north, from Devundara (Devinuwara), Matara, in the south, from Trincomalee and Baticaloa in the east, and converged in Colombo with others from the western province. People from every community, needless to say, thoroughly disappointed with the present state of affairs, participated in the Janabalaya. A large crowd of Sri Lankan expatriates working abroad, intellectuals, professionals and entrepreneurs from Viyathmaga, retired army generals and other veterans of the military (people who normally do not take part in such public demonstrations) were also reported to be taking part in it. So the marchers were not kasippu (bootleg) guzzling tramps as some opponents of the demonstration wanted us to believe. It must be appreciated that those who sought to scuttle it did everything in their power to make the task extremely challenging for the organizers, and for the two hundred thousand who were said to take part in the demonstration. The participants in the events showed the highest level of discipline and restraint in the face of the active hostility of the spoilers who lacked those qualities. (Some detractors in the media falsely and insultingly claimed that the demonstrators good behavior was due to the massive presence of riot police!)

What the Janabalaya (Peoples Power Demonstration) achieved was that through it the common people gave the government a severe warning that they were fed up with it. They did this in the hearing of the whole world and expressed their earnest desire and their urgent demand for a democratic change

The JOs original date for the protest march and rally was August 17, 2018, which was the third anniversary of the present government. However, considering the fact that it could potentially disrupt the movement of students sitting for the GCE (AL) examination due to be ongoing around that date, the organizers changed it to September 5. The massive Janabalaya was organized by the youth wing of the SLPP, led by MP Namal Rajapaksa, former presidents son. As a precaution against possible legal obstructions that could be imposed on the peaceful nonviolent demonstrators, the organizers kept the routes of the march and the venue of the rally and sit-in protest under wraps until the morning of September 5. The marchers were just asked to descend on Colombo from all quarters. Eventually, the protesters marched along five routes in the city (Kandy, Baseline, Negombo, Maligawatte and Town Hall roads) and congregated at the Lake House Roundabout where they held a satyagraha (a non-violent protest based on truth, demanding justice) .

Some incredibly anti-people, anti-social strategies were employed in turn to stop it beforehand, to obstruct it while it was in progress, and to declare the mass protest a failure after it ended. The police were used in several places to try to move court to take out bans on the protests on spurious grounds, but the strategy failed, showing that the judges are not for bending the law for serving the political whims of those in power. To harass protesters, the Road Passenger Transport Authority in various provinces ordered private bus services not to accept private tours during the days that they were expected to travel to and from Colombo (September 3 to 7). Several participants were physically attacked while on the peaceful march. At Nittambuwa a trench was dug under some false pretext using Road Development Authority (RDA) workers, which inconvenienced thousands of normal commuters as well as the marchers, MP Udaya Gammanpila said at a post event news briefing. He also claimed that several young men who were decorating a stage in the city on the night of September 4th, were assaulted by an unidentified gang and were hospitalized; a bus carrying demonstrators to Colombo was intercepted at Hali-Ela in the Badulla area and was attacked by hooligans, inflicting grievous injuries on the commuters, and smashing up the bus beyond repair, Gammanpila said. There was also the case of alleged distribution of poisoned or contaminated milk sachets among the protestors on the march. Media reported that action was instituted at a court in Matara by an individual who was affected by this wicked deed. On September 20th The Islands lead headline was Alleged bid to poison JO supporters  Milco admits its milk was spiked. The news report said: Milco Chairman A.C.M. Zuflikar Cader, yesterday, told a group of Joint Opposition members that a needle had been used to introduce something into the packets of milk, distributed among those participating at Jana Balaya Colombata protest, on Sept 5.

Vain attempts to disparage the Janabalaya demonstration are a part of the third or the postmortem phase of the harassment of the public of the country for trying to exercise their right to freedom of expression, the most important form of freedom in a democracy. This writer deems it a national responsibility he owes to his Motherland as a journalist not to stand by while parties that currently wield power, by means of their falsehoods and false claims, continue to feed and perpetuate the many misconceptions about her that the Tamil racist separatists (a minority among mainstream Tamils in Sri Lanka) have spread abroad including the powerful West, which are so injurious to the Sri Lankan state and people as a whole.

The protestors who came down to Colombo, in brotherhood and humanity, from every part of the island, representing all the ethnic communities that compose the Sri Lankan population, amidst numerous difficulties, in the name of democracy, justice and freedom, demonstrated how peaceful, disciplined, non-violent, but courageous in the face of adversity they are, for all the world to see. They did not come to Colombo to indulge in any fun and frolic as the government media wanted to pretend.

Democracy-loving Sri Lankans deserve better treatment in their own country and at the UNHRC, Geneva.

(The opinions that the writer expresses here are independent personal views presented for what they are worth. Readers are not expected to accept his points of view without examining them for themselves. All the information used in this article is thanks to reliable internet sources.)To be well informed with a balanced awareness of important national issues is not only a right but also the responsibility of citizens who are committed to the goals of eco-friendly, sustainable development and a vision of a just, peaceful and all -inclusive society.

The free media are expected to play a key role in this area which is regarded as one of the four pillars of democracy. Unfortunately some Sri Lankan media groups appear to be playing party politics with their news being spin-doctored on the basis of what contracts they get or what benefits they may obtain if any particular political party is in power. Therefore the people also get a distorted picture of what is happening in the political, socio-economic and other areas. Unfortunately this is happening despite the strict implementation of the right to information law from February 3, last year. Under this law, widely regarded as one of the most progressive pieces of legislation enacted by the shaky coalition government, the people have a right to ask any state institution or its RTI officer for information regarding contracts, tenders and expenditure on various projects ranging from road reconstruction to environmental issues. Most people appear to be unaware if not unconcerned about this vital right and prefer to believe some distorted news given to them by media groups with vested interests.

Thankfully the media ministry from Friday will launch a wide-ranging programme to make the people aware of what they could do under the RTI law and that if the institutions officer refuses to give them all the information within two weeks they could make an appeal to the independent RTI commission which has mandatory powers and is acting in a manner that consolidates democracy.

This issue comes into focus as the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) marks the second year of its International Day for Universal Access to Information. UNESCO says this day has particular relevance with the new 2030 Development Agenda, and in particular with Sustainable Development Goal target 16.10 which calls for ensuring public access to information and protection of fundamental freedoms.

According to Human Rights Watch, Universal Access is bound up with the right to seek and receive information, an integral piece of the right to free expression. It says that for instance in Venezuela, there will be little to celebrate. The Nicolas Maduro administration downplays abuses by security forces and denies the existence of the countrys humanitarian crisis and the exodus of Venezuelans. It also fails to provide information of public interest, such as accurate statistics on the countrys health crisis and is doing its best to ensure no one else does, either.

The Venezuelan NGO Espacio Publico, which monitors free speech, submitted 31 information requests to the government last year under the countrys Constitution, which provides for the right of access to information and implementing laws. The requests asked authorities for information on topics ranging from access to drinking water to the polices budget and the environmental impact of oil spilling by the state-owned company. None has received a response.

Given the increasing difficulty independent media outlets face in operating, Venezuelans are turning to the Internet for news. But the state-owned company CANTV the main internet provider in Venezuela has in recent months repeatedly blocked access to key news outlets according to the Venezuelan NGO Redes Ayuda. The governments grip is making it harder for the millions who remain in Venezuela to know what is happening in their country. Under former president Hugo Chavez Venezuela had a vibrant democracy and was cited as an example not only to South America but to the world.

We hope that Sri Lanka also, now enjoying media freedom and the right to information, will not allow itself to be dragged into the cesspit where Venezuela is today. Responsible, eco-friendly citizens need to stand up and speak out for democracy, the rule of law and the peoples right to information.The 31st commemoration of LTTE member Thileepan AKA Raasaiya Pratheepan, who died following a fast-unto-death- protest against the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF), was held today near the Nallur Kandaswamy Temple, Jaffna under the patronage of Jaffna Mayor.

Political members including members of the Tamil National Peoples Front commemorated the ex-LTTEr by placing his photograph at his monument where it was constructed before.

Civilians from Kilinochchi, Mullaithivu and Jaffna participated at the event.

Thileepan initiated fast unto death protest on September 15, 1987, urging the immediate withdrawal of the Indian Peacekeeping Force (IPKF) from the country.

During the fast LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, who visited him requested him to abandon the fast. However, Thileepan died as he did not abandon the fast.

When Thileepan died, he was a made a Lieutenant Colonel by the LTTE. (Romesh Madushanka)A No-Confidence Motion (NCM) would be brought against IGP Pujith Jayasundera to get him removed over his alleged involvement in the alleged assassination plot on President Maithripala Sirisena and ex-President Mahinda Rajapaksa, the Joint Opposition (JO) said today.

JO Leader Dinesh Gunawardane said they had yesterday requested the Speaker to convene the Parliament next week instead of in two more weeks, to discuss the alleged assassination plot, the IGP and also the current economic affairs.

Meanwhile, MP Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena accused it was the nature of the United National Party (UNP) to assassinate leaders with the help of the Police as it could not win elections.

With the help of the Police, the UNP politicians assassinated one of its leaders in the past. It was not the LTTE that killed him. President Premadasa was about to reveal those, who was behind this assassination but he was killed on May Day. Had he revealed this plot, half of Police and political higher-ups would have been ended up in jail, he said.

He said the same set of events were taking place today and said the JO had no confidence in the investigations into IGP Pujith Jayasundera over his alleged involvement.

The IGP is parading with DIG Nalaka Silva, who is also involved in the alleged plot, all over the countryside, he said. (Lahiru Pothmulla)

Video by SanjeewaUNP needs a dark horse-a candidate whose baggage does not carry within itself dark secrets of corruption and nepotism





A dark horse, which had never been thought of, rushed past the grandstand in sweeping triumph.

~Benjamin Disraeli

In the last few columns, I have tried, maybe in vain, to make a case for a plausible scenario in which a Presidential Candidate representing the same UNP-led coalition that brought current President Maithripala Sirisena to office could be successful again.

Maithripala Sirisena, although he did not seem to be formidable as a Presidential candidate, eventually proved to be above average and an ideal mix which an unsuspecting electorate would accept.

However, the coalition Government that was formed after the electoral victories in January and August in 2015, though it has managed to survive, the breakage of the relationship between the UNP leader and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and President Sirisena who is barely holding on to the leadership of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), seems almost final and done.

That is a very sad ending of a once-promising political partnership that was in the making. The ideological differences alone between the United National Party (UNP) and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party are wide and vast enough and too disparate to survive in nasty and cruel political storms.

The UNP needs a fifth horseman, so to speak who will be seen as a deliverer beyond all expectations

In the meanwhile, the Rajapaksas seem to have woken up from their defeat-ridden slumber that followed the immediate aftermath of the 2015 Presidential Elections.

The sheer magnitude of power and access to the national coffers and the natural proximity to the luxuries of administrative power machinations has apparently awakened them to muster their forces for another game of national ransacking and corruption-ridden governance.

The disqualifying elements of the Rajapaksas and their cohorts have been articulated not only at the last Presidential Elections, the parade of their kith and kin to and from the various investigative bodies has gone a long way to convince a curious electorate as to how and what these political hooligans of the Rajapaksa era corrupted a gullible civil service which ultimately became even more corrupt than their corruptors!

Nevertheless, the following changes and their inescapable cascade of consequential by-events have at times struggled to transform the political landscape of Sri Lanka.

1. The defeat of the Rajapaksa Presidency



2. Election of Maithripala Sirisena as President as a common candidate of a coalition of socio-political forces of Sri Lanka



3. Election of a UNP-led Parliament



4. The evisceration of the 100 Day programme



5. Bond-Scam scandal



6. The eruption of the fissures between President Sirisena and Premier Wickremesinghe



7. Non-event of the Rajapaksa prosecution to an end



8. Local Government Elections



9. Resultant meandering in the political woods

Each of these events and sub-events has engendered another sequence of events which in turn have turned into a cause and thereby producing a never-ending cycle of cause and effect dynamic.

Whatever happens in the aftermath of each event or sub-event, what one must bear in mind is the universal truth of facts and hard cold facts that definitively have had a serious impact on the lives of all Sri Lankans.

Political pundits and statisticians have gone back to their drawing boards. They ponder, more often than not, on the what-if phenomenon of life and in that maddeningly uncertain socio-political drama, they have repeatedly failed to understand one simple and crushingly ugly fact that facts do matter in the ultimate analysis of politics and its history.

In the context of such an unequivocal brutality of the political life of a nation, the current impasse in todays scenario looks natural and inconsequential. A reversal to a once-defeated power-cabal, which is the Rajapaksa rule, seems, at least to their own political friends and supporters, a vindication of their deeds and thoughts.

Sloganeering that consisted of electric chairs, selfless patriotism and sovereignty of the nation that ruled a frenzied world of delusion and cultivated deceit are looming ominously on the horizon again.

It is going to be extremely difficult and practically impossible to confront an emotion-driven mob and convince them that what occurred in the recent past was corruption, nepotism and the avaricious pursuit of power and is no good for the greater good of the country.

It is no secret that given the right social and political milieu, excessive expression of deeply held prejudices and partialities would be welcome as an open invitation for unrestricted assault on reason and justice

Sloganeering and political branding have its own niche and it has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt by Donald Trump in another part of the world- an advanced capitalist society such as the United States of America.

Dont ever forget that just before the Nazi takeover Germany was a well-educated, steeped in high cultural and social values. They were a steeply-read nation that enjoyed Wagners serene music and Van Goughs sensitive lines of painting as their pastime.

It is no secret that given the right social and political milieu, excessive expression of deeply held prejudices and partialities would be welcome as an open invitation for unrestricted assault on reason and justice.

We in Sri Lanka experienced this obscenity of political propaganda under the Rajapaksa cabal. Entrenched in a bubble of all-consuming power and greed, the Rajapaksas released within this bubble a force under the cover of patriotism and partisanship for the land, the race and the faith.

The same forces are threatening to raise their ugly profiles today and the unhindered participation of the mob variety of the average men and women in the country do not seem to care.

Forthcoming Presidential Elections are being planned and scheduled against this backdrop. It is no easy task to challenge them.

The UNPs task looks even more desperate. The repeating mistakes and misjudgments are taking the Party of Ranil Wickremesinghe to the edges of extinction and sure death.

Superficial operational adjustments introduced into the traditional structures of the Party do not seem to produce a fundamental change in its very outlook.

The coalition and its operational arms that delivered the Presidency to Maithripala Sirisena need to be mustered and coalesced to a new Presidential candidate. Who could it be? That is the proverbial sixty-four million dollar question.





Here are some of the would-be contenders:

1. Ranil Wickremesinghe 2. Sajith Premadasa 3. Navin Dissanayake 4. Dark Horse candidate

Arguments for and against the current leader of the UNP and Prime Minister of the land, Ranil Wickremesinghe have been made almost to exhaustive lengths

and breadths.

In fact, they seem to have been foreclosed. The overwhelming loyalty of the Northern and Upcountry Tamils and Eastern Muslims towards Wickremesinghe is beyond doubt.

It is not conceivable that any other aforementioned candidate would enjoy such uncontested loyalty from the minorities, except perhaps Navin Dissanayake.

The leadership of the Tamil communities, both Northern and Upcountry, has been quite vocal about their political grievances and their adherence to the fundamentals of reconciliation and Tamil homeland concepts.

A reversal to a once-defeated power-cabal, which is the Rajapaksa rule, seems, at least to their own political friends and supporters, a vindication of their deeds and thoughts.

Political expediency and misplaced sense of patriotism might derail Sajith Premadasa on these fronts, yet he might be of the opinion that his popularity among Sinhalese Buddhists and especially amongst the Buddhist Clergy, cultivated over a decade or so by giving away goodies of sorts to the temples around the countryside, would overcome the deficit that he has with the Northern Tamils.

Yet, one brutal fact that Sajith needs to confront is, despite all these efforts towards pacifying the Buddhist Clergy, he has not been able to translate that gesture into votes.

Even in the recently held LG Elections, he did not win his electorate, nor could he secure the district.

The argument that he is in the SLFP den- Rajapaksa-led Hambantota- cannot hold water as a leader is supposed to carry his own electorate when all other chips are down.

Navin Dissanayake, on the other hand, did manage to win not only his electorate; he managed to win his entire district, Nuwara Eliya which in the context of a Presidential Election is a microcosm of the country.

Nuwara Eliya within its geographical boundaries has some ancient Sinhalese Buddhist villages. Both Kotmale and Hanguranketha from which Navin Dissanayakes paternal grandmother and grandfather respectively hailed, are steeped in tradition and culture that is unmatched by some other such villages in the country.

If the people of such tradition and culture could depart from the rest of the normal pattern of voting, it certainly speaks volumes for such an allegiance to a political leader in the district. Gamini Dissanayake, Navins father, enjoyed such unquestioned and unquestionable personal loyalty from his supporters. Navin, it looks like, has retained that loyalty.

Yet, both Sajith and Navin might not be able to gather around them the coalition forces that assembled around Maithripala Sirisena in 2015.

That is not due to a special personal attraction of Sirisena; it is solely due to the fact that the coalition Government that was formed after the 2015 elections failed to deliver on its election pledges.

The UNP and its friends need a dark horse; a candidate whose baggage does not carry within itself dark secrets of corruption and nepotism; a fifth horseman, so to speak who will be seen as a deliverer beyond all expectations.

Only Karu Jayasuriya, the current Speaker of the House of Parliament, fits into that module- a dark horse or the fifth horseman.

I will delve into this possible candidate in my next column, yet could not suppress the urge to throw this thought out for our readers to ponder upon. Fifth horsemen or a dark horse candidate who could possibly mount a formidable challenge to any Pohottuwa candidate, a Rajapaksa or any other, has more than an outside chance of victory in the next Presidential Elections.

The writer can be contacted at vishwamithra1984@gmail.comI didnt like dictionaries as a child. I remember being chided by my teachers for attempting to guess the meaning of a word without opting for the Big Book and I remember escaping their censure by guessing correctly.

That was of course rare, but those rarities were (thankfully) enough to convince me that no one, not even self-proclaimed pundits in a language, can claim to know every word and phrase. More than anything else, I came to believe that one could not and would not master a language unless he or she is aware of the need for reference. That obviously needed the Big Book. Needless to say, I eventually took to it.

I remember trying to memorize each and every term in it. I remember failing and I remember trying again and again. I realised soon enough that a dictionary was nothing more than what it was touted as: a reference book, akin to a kitchen utensil and to be privileged for its use. And like all reference books, it was fun and great when it was readily available. For that reason, I despised having to flip through page after page in my quest to understand a word or term I didnt understand. I am still flipping those pages, but thanks to the Internet, Ive come to realise that we dont need to.

Now the Internet is like the Wild West. There are no rules and there is no level playing field. You take things at their face value and if you think you are wrong, well then, theres Google to refer to. Dictionaries have proliferated (as have fact-books and encyclopaedias), and in that free-for-all, interminable world online you never can be too sure about the truth. That, I suppose, is why we need a leveller, some fixed source which can be quoted and looked to in order to ensure that because of our need for a quick reference, we dont shrug off the (as pertinent) need for accuracy. This is especially true for ones mother tongue, more so than for English, I firmly believe.

Madura Kulatunga is a familiar name to most Sri Lankans. He is not too young but he hasnt mellowed with the passing of time. He exhibits a kind of naivete that is, for me, attributable to a sense of simplicity that hes acquired and nurtured over many, many years. That simplicity has won him both friends and enemies. Well, its won him more of the former, but the point is that in a life as carefully sketched out as his its really no surprise to come across various pitfalls which have tripped lesser beings.

Madura, as Sri Lankans who know (of) him know, filled a need. He filled a need for a virtual dictionary, a translator from the mother tongue to the language of the oppressor, English (and vice-versa). We first heard of him when he came up with a program to this tune and we heard of him again when he released it online. He set a standard. Others copied him. Does he lament? Of course not. Still, that doesnt belittle the need for a brief biographical sketch. This is his story.

He was born on March 23, 1980 in Matara. He entered Royal College eventually after his family moved to Colombo. I assume at the beginning that his school would have imparted to him a love for computers, but he is cautious about admitting to such a thing. And its not hard to figure out why: at a time when computers were owned by a few and mastered by even fewer people, schools couldnt really afford to invest on the subject too much. Royal had a Computer Society, but this didnt conceal the class discrepancies among those who owned PCs and those who did not. Because of that, not many from his school managed to master or be conversant in the subject.

He did, however, jaunt off with his friends to Union Place every day to that now rarely seen and even more rarely visited site, the Internet cafe. Being the eager boy he was, he naturally revelled in surfing the web.

He is, admittedly, full of surprises. He didnt take to IT or even Science at Royal. He chose Commerce. Having passed out in 1999, he opted for the field hed fallen in love with, and pursued a Diploma in Computing at the Youth Centre in Maharagama. After completing his course, he got himself enrolled at Abacus Computers in Nugegoda for a Special Diploma in Information Technology, by which time his parents (both civil servants who werent exactly reeking of wealth) bought him a Pentium III 733 MHz desktop: a dinosaur by todays standards but worth its weight in gold back then.

People have their weak points. Madura soon understood, while doing these courses, that he was deficient in English. Being the eager student he always was, he wanted to move beyond his curriculum and learn more. This, he realised soon enough, clashed with his less than excellent command of the language. He realised it even more as he bought a book on an area he felt his classes werent covering properly: Visual Basic.

Naturally, he took to referring the Malasekara English to Sinhala dictionary, through which he was able to understand the intricacies of programming and coding he needed in order for his next endeavour: designing his own program.

Having groped around with various ideas, he eventually hit on designing a dictionary. It was, he tells me quite frankly, a way of giving back. He admittedly had to resort to Malasekara most of the time and this, he argues cogently, was done with no malice or intent to steal. After testing the program when he finally came out with it on his friends computers, he got their feedback, was encouraged by the fact that they loved it, and released it then and there. The date was November 23, the year 2002.

Madura has a knack for numbers and he remembers the cost-and-price structure of his dictionary even now. For printing the CD cover and later packaging it, he had to spend about Rs.75. He sold the programme for Rs. 200 to a retailer who then marketed it for Rs. 300. Maduras profit, after all that, amounted to Rs. 125, which had to take into account various capital equipment, including a CD writer that cost Rs.10,000. The dictionary, given that hed marketed it well through word of mouth, caught on. Soon enough, it became popular.

That was then. Six years later (in 2008), by which time more and more Sri Lankans were taking to the Internet, he made a website out of his program (maduraonline.com) and unveiled it to the world. It continues to gobble up users: as of November 28 this year its the 33, 803rd most visited website in the world and the 109th in Sri Lanka on alexa.com, which as Madura explains takes into account websites visited, not created, in a country (so that these include Facebook and Google).

Despite all these achievements, he did not abandon his personal life. He studied. He passed out as a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer in 2005. He obtained an MSc in Information Technology from Sikkim Manipal University (ICBT Campus) five years later. He was then recognised by the University of Moratuwa, when in 2009 he was invited to address a Symposium by Prof. Gihan Dias (who was instrumental in founding Sri Lankas first email system). Regarding the latter, he told me that while hed been asked to come and present his website, he took the opportunity to instead explain to his audience the nuts and bolts of what hed done.

Madura Kulatunga has more reasons than one to be complacent. He is not. As I talk with him, I realise that despite the many offers that came his way from companies only too willing to buy him out, he stuck to ideals and refused them all. In one sense I believe he is correct: such companies hardly can do the kind of justice to the program that its owner did. He has also been careful in giving credit where its due. That, I suspect, has more to do with his idealism than anything else, a point I discern most clearly when it comes to his openness: the kind that makes him both an optimist and a firm believer in individual effort.

Can he aspire for more? I think so. Should he? Yes. Will we profit by that? Of course. Should we be grateful? By all means.Twenty years have passed since the Colombo Declaration on Media Freedom and Social responsibility was signed by The Editors Guild of Sri Lanka (TEGOSL) in April 1998 together with the Newspaper Society of Sri Lanka and the Free Media Movement.

An international conference has been organized from Sept. 27 (tomorrow) to 30 to mark the 20th anniversary of the Colombo Declaration. It is organized by the Sri Lanka Press Institute (SLPI) in partnership with its constituent partners, UNESCO and the Royal Norwegian Embassy.

The conference will also coincide with the UN designated International Day for the Universal Access to Information (IDUAI). The parley will be formally opened by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe tomorrow, and on Friday, the keynote address on IDUAI will be delivered by Speaker Karu Jayasuriya, followed by an address by Mahinda Gammanpila, Chairman, RTI Commission. Representatives from Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, China, Germany, India, Norway, Pakistan and the United Kingdom will participate. As one can expect one of the items in the agenda is the revisiting of the Colombo Declaration.

Colombo Declaration was a result of a tedious effort by the media community in Sri Lanka after a difficult period with disappearances of journalists, long drawn censorship under the name of national security and law suits against the journalists who performed their duty towards the community. It was signed especially in the backdrop of a campaign launched by TEGOSL and other fraternal media organizations to have the laws of criminal defamation repealed after five TEGOSL members had been indicted under the Penal Code for criminal defamation.

Yet, it did not insist only on the rights of the journalistic community and the media in general, rather it emphasized the responsibility of the industry as well, as its theme Media Freedom and Social Responsibility had signified.

Hence, the industry took steps to overcome some of the problems within it by creating Sri Lanka Press Institute (SLPI) and two arms under it, the Sri Lanka College of Journalism (SLCJ) and the Press Complaints Commission of Sri Lanka (PCCSL) in order to train its members and enhance the ethical standards of them, while continuing to press the governments to take steps to ensure media freedom.

During the initial years of the SLPI, the International Federation of Journalists after a survey said that only 4 percent of journalists in Sri Lanka had been aware of ethics, leave alone having training on the matter. However, the PCCSL has since conducted dozens of workshops on journalistic ethics for the staff members of the mainstream newspapers and for the provincial journalists in all districts in the country. And the SLCJ provided training to hundreds of journalists, in the form of a diploma course and mid-career courses.

One cannot be satisfied with the achievements by the industry for the past twenty years, though it had some remarkable outcomes. The awareness it created among the concerned sections of the society had resulted in the abolition of provisions in the Penal Code and the Press Council Act in 2002, the repeal of Section 118 of the Penal Code which had penalized attempts by contumacious or insulting words or signs, to bring the President into contempt and repeal of the 1978 amendment to the Parliamentary Powers and Privileges Act of 1953 which had given Parliament to deal with serious breaches of privilege. Also with the inclusion of right to information in the 19th Amendment to the Constitution which was passed in April 2015 the right to information has become a constitutional right of the people though with a wide range of restrictions.

Yet the majority of laws, the Colombo Declaration wanted to abolish in the interests of the media in particular and the general public in general are still in force and the media community also had to travel through a period of abductions, killing, torture and arson attacks after the signing of the Declaration and its revision at its 10th anniversary in 2008.

And the industry has to find solutions to the problems such as fake news and hate speech which have taken a dangerous turn after the proliferation of the social media, the politicization of media and the media becoming a tool in the hands of politicians. We hope the three day conference starting from tomorrow would be a milestone in finding solutions to these issues.A female may be the most controversial creation that ever happened on Earth. This is due to several reasons. Although the world depends on women to give birth and create future generations, women have in most instances been deprived of their basic right to live. A persons sexual life is a private affair and this applies to all beings in the world. But when it comes to females, it is once again a public affair in many countries around the world. Although its origin is not known, the practice of female circumcision or Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) has been continued with since ancient times. While circumcision is practised in the Islamic community especially on men as a cultural and an obligatory duty, the same has been suggested and practised on women. However, health experts claim that male circumcision has stark differences in relation to female circumcision. Yet, the debate continues and it has once again become a topic of discussion among Muslim and community groups in Sri Lanka. Hence the Daily Mirror spoke to a few individuals in an attempt to weigh the pros and cons of this practice.

Health experts claim that male circumcision has stark differences in relation to female circumcision

These procedures are done under unhygienic and unsterile conditions and ultimately developes infections

Pieces of a womans body shouldnt be taken away unless theres a medical reason

The joint Muslim groups stated that the Muslim community is very concerned about moves to ban this obligatory Islamic duty

Such a religious obligation practiced by the Muslims in keeping with the requirements of the Islamic faith is not FGM

Types of FGM

As defined by the World Health Organisation (WHO) female genital mutilation comprises all procedures involving partial or total removal of the external female genitalia or other injury for female medical organs for non-medical reasons. The four types of FGM include :

Type I : Also known as Clitoridectomy, this type consists of partial or total removal of the clitoris and/or its prepuce.

Type II: Also known as Excision, the clitoris and labia minora are partially or totally removed, with or without excision of the labia majora.

Type III : The most severe form, it is also known as infibulation or pharaonic type. The procedure consists of narrowing the vaginal orifice with creation of a covering seal by cutting and a-positioning the labia minora and/or labia majora, with or without removal of the clitoris.

Type IV: This type consists of all other procedures to the genitalia of women for non-medical purposes, such as pricking, piercing, incising, scraping and cauterisation.

FGM has nothing to do with religion or culture

-Ameena Hussein

Airing her views regarding FGM, sociologist, novelist and editor Ameena Hussein said that currently Sri Lankan Muslim women dont have a choice on undergoing circumcision or hoodectomy, as some like to call it because it is performed on infant girls or around 7-8 years of age. It is an irreversible procedure. I have heard of the arguments on this subject where it is said that it was done to inhibit the sexual drive of women. But now the pro circumcision lobby public relations bureau says it is for health reasons and to enhance the womans sexual experience. Whatever their reasons we need to ensure it is illegal to be conducted on female infants, or girl children, opined Hussein.

Whatever their reasons we need to ensure it is illegal to be conducted on female infants, or girl children

She further said that if any adult woman, Muslim or otherwise, wishes to undergo the procedure, she should be able to. The age of consent should be 18. This has nothing to do with religion or culture and has everything to do with the protection of the girl child, she added.

Procedures done under unhygienic, unsterile conditions

-Prof.Hemantha Dodampahala

In his comments Consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist Professor Hemantha Dodampahala said that the clitoris is the most important organ in a womans body. It is similar to the phallus (penis) of a male and has all the senses that bring about a sexual drive in a woman. It is rich in nerves and has a definite function in a females sexuality. Hence it plays an immense role in the act of sexual intercourse.

As such in my opinion, circumcision is a cruel, unkind and unfound practice. These procedures are done under unhygienic and unsterile conditions and ultimately developes infections, resulting in the closure of the urethra and the vagina.

In certain instances it may affect child birth due to a massive narrowing of the vagina. As such FGM has an impact on the entire process of a childs delivery, Dodampahala said.

Pieces of a womans body shouldnt be taken away

-Dr. Sepali Kottegoda

Dr. Sepali Kottegoda, Executive Director of the Women and Media Collective, said that female circumcision takes away the sexual pleasure of a woman. From what I have heard, it is being done to keep girls from getting into relationships and is a practice done in Sub-Saharan countries. It shouldnt be done because it is an extremely cruel practice. Pieces of a womans body shouldnt be taken away unless theres a medical reason. Say for example if a person has breast cancer or appendicitis then a surgical procedure could be done, but not otherwise. This push for FGM is alien to Sri Lanka. People trying to come in, to justify an inhumane and unnatural procedure is appalling and disgusting. How can men decide about a womans sexual life? It is the woman who has to deal with it for the rest of her life. However there may be some women who would say that it is good, but we need to ask whether there is an element of choice. From what I see there doesnt seem to be a choice. Hence, in that case are Sri Lankans  those citizens from a secular state- going to sit back and watch?

Call for female circumcision to be medicalised

During early September, a number of Sri Lankan Muslim groups called on the Government to medicalise female circumcision. In representations made to the Parliamentary Committee on Women and Gender, members of the All Ceylon Jamiyathul Ulama, All Ceylon YMMA Conference, Centre for Islamic Studies and United Religions Initiative urged the Ministry of Health to withdraw a recent circular prohibiting medical professionals from carrying out female circumcision.

In their submission, the joint Muslim groups stated that the Muslim community is very concerned about moves to ban this obligatory Islamic duty on the grounds that it is Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). They said that the practice of female circumcision is an obligatory Islamic duty which confers a number of health benefits and that it is not FGM.

As such in my opinion, circumcision is a cruel, unkind and unfound practice

Hence they condemned the move to ban the practice of female circumcision by legislation and/or Government bodies. They further urged that no moves should be

made in this regard in which case they would consider it as an unwarranted intrusion and an infringement of their religious duties guaranteed by the law and constitution of Sri Lanka.

The group further stated that although Muslims wholeheartedly support the abolition of traditional practices harmful to women and children such as FGM, in case it is shown to exist in Sri Lanka, the Islamic practice of female circumcision is vastly different.

As such religious obligation practiced by the Muslims of the country for centuries in keeping with the requirements of the Islamic faith is not FGM.

The submission further stated that since this is a religious obligation, almost all Muslim Women and girls would have to undergo the procedure by hiring the services of traditional female circumcisers known as Ostha Mamis in case doctors refuse to perform this procedure citing the above mentioned circular. This could lead to serious medical complications which would amount to FGM.

How can men decide about a womans sexual life

Long -term consequences

Once the clitoris and the surrounding tissues are removed the girl or woman is at risk of developing infections. Hence there could be long term consequences which include :

Urinary problems (painful urination, urinary tract infections);

Vaginal problems (discharge, itching, bacterial vaginosis and other infections);

Menstrual problems (painful menstruations, difficulty in passing menstrual blood, etc.)

Sexual problems (pain during intercourse, decreased satisfaction, etc.);

Increased risk of childbirth complications (difficult delivery, excessive bleeding, caesarean section, need to resuscitate the baby, etc.) and newborn deaths;

Need for later surgeries: for example, the FGM procedure that seals or narrows a vaginal opening (Type III) needs to be cut open later to allow for sexual intercourse and childbirth (de-infibulation). Sometimes genital tissue is stitched again several times, including after childbirth, hence the woman goes through repeated opening and closing procedures, further increasing both immediate and long-term risks;

psychological problems (depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, low self-esteem, etc.);The chairperson National Logistics platform and board member Private Sector Foundation (PSFUG) Merian Sebunya has asked the residents of Gulu to prepare and position themselves for the opportunities that Gulu Logistics Hub will present.

Sebunya made the remarks onsite inspection ahead of the proposed construction of over Shs30.96 billion ($8.8m) Gulu Logistics Hub. The only way, the community would fully benefit from this project, is by directly involving themselves in pre and post construction process,

According to Gerald Ekinu an official from Ministry of Works and Transport, they finalized feasibility stage, undertaking design. Kintu who appreciated funders of the project said, all stakeholders will be involved in the design stage to ensure sustainability.

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He noted that land within the railway area is government so no one will be compensated by the Chief Valuer but instead other those who land will be encroached will be compensated accordingly if their land is used.

The Gulu Logistics Hub will consist of Custom offices, container cleaning and repair, gate complex, railway siding, vehicle holding area and traffic flows, perimeter walls, access road, weigh in motion bridge, container freight station (CFS), and administration complex.

The Hub is timely coming at a moment when Trade Mark East Africa, UK government and Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) are working on the Elegu- Nimule One Stop Border Post (OSBP), a new facility connecting Uganda and South Sudan.

Site plan covers 20867 square meters container yard, 3091 square meters container freight station, 1385 square meters administration, square meters customs office, 4206 sq. meters railway siding,12.261 square meters vehicle holding area, 500 square meters Container cleaning and repair station.

Acting Country Director for Trade Mark East Africa Damali Ssali underline the significance of the Hub saying it is expected to improve capacity of transport infrastructure in Northern Uganda to serve markets in South Sudan, Northern Uganda and parts of DRC.President Maithripala Sirisena on Tuesday called on the international community to allow Sri Lankan people to solve their problems on their own, and said: as an independent country we do not want any foreign power to exert influence on us.

Addressing the 73rd Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, he said Sri Lanka is taking action to consolidate peace and forge ahead to develop the economy, and such a nation deserves the support and understanding of the international community. I urge the international community to allow Sri Lankan people to solve their problems on their own, he said.

As an independent country, we do not want any foreign power to exert influence on us. We want to appeal to the international community to give us the room to resolve the problems that we are facing so that the right of the Sri Lankan people to find solutions to their problems is respected,| he said.

President Sirisena also called upon the international community to look at Sri Lanka with a fresh perspective and consider the tremendous progress made by the government towards reconciliation, restoration of democratic freedoms, human rights and the rule of law and extend the fullest support to the build a progressive, democratic, free and equal society.

The President said that the government is working to eliminate fear and suspicion among different communities.

Quoting from the Buddhas preaching in the Sallasutta of Samyuktha Nikaye in Thripitaka, he said if a man is pierced with a dart, he will suffer physical pain. When he worries about it, he suffers more pain. Hence, there are two kinds of pains suffered by the man. When it comes to Sri Lanka, it is the people who suffered pain due to war and they continue to feel pain when they think about it. Therefore, I take this opportunity to call upon your support and cooperation, he said.

The President pointed out that the exodus of refugees is a major issue in international politics and urged the United Nations to play a bigger role because of the paramount importance of the issue.

Sri Lanka is following a nonaligned policy. In fact, Sri Lanka hosted the Non-aligned Summit in 1976 and it was the most successful summit. Sri Lanka has a policy of friendship with all and the country does not have any enemy nation in the world, he said.

President Sirisena said that Sri Lankas Executive President had been vested with more powers than any other leader in the world, and he had curtailed those excessive powers of the Executive Presidency and transferred those powers to the Parliament.

President Sirisena emphasized the need to eradicate poverty. At present, the whole world is engaged in an attempt to free itself from poverty and he said the United Nations must play a bigger role in the endeavour.

I must mention that today, the whole world is facing challenges posed by severe changes in climate. I would like to propose that the community of nations must focus on implementing the Paris Accord that the world reached in 2015, by further improving the unity that we reached by signing that accord. We must remember that the Paris Accord is critically important to the future of the entire biosphere and humanity, he said.

The President categorically stated that the government is committed to working tirelessly to achieving reconciliation by fostering understanding among all ethnic and linguistic groups while eliminating mutual suspicion and hatred in order to create a society where all can live freely and harmoniously. Further, we are dedicated to ensuring that the country will accomplish economic prosperity. Especially, my government is committed to the creating a fair and just society by strengthening the rule of law, he said.

He said that during the last three and a half years, the government has taken several important steps that are necessary to consolidate democracy, freedom, good governance, media freedom and independence of the judiciary. Through such transformative steps, we have laid the foundation necessary to forge national reconciliation, communal harmony and ensure non-recurrence of conflict in our country, he said.

As a country that has suffered violent conflict for 30 years, we are drawing from experience and lessons learned to strengthen national reconciliation, and we are determined to prevent the recurrence of conflict. We have given priority in this context to consolidate freedom and democracy in our country, and through a strong foundation of national reconciliation forged through unity and friendship among communities, the President said.

President Sirisena pointed out that the most ruthless terrorists were defeated by the armed forces and the nation honour the valiant soldiers who made many sacrifices to bring peace to the country and safeguarded then unity and sovereignty of the nation with utmost commitment.

He emphasized that the vision of the government is to ensure sustained economic development through the increase of domestic agriculture and industry under an environment-friendly policies and programs. He emphasized the imperative need to adhere to the Paris Protocol on Climate Change for the sake of the future of the human beings as well as flora and fauna.

Sir Lanka has always been a country that has respected its treaties and conventions, agreements and rules and regulations of the United Nations. As such, in our countrys journey where we protect our independence and sovereignty, we respectfully request the support of the international community for us to go on a moderate but steady path to achieve our targets in order to find sustainable solutions to the allegations levelled against us, the President said.

President Sirisena called on the world leaders to take a collective action for the eradication of narcotic drugs and illegal pharmaceuticals. He said he wanted to draw the attention of the respected General Assembly of the United Nations to the problem of drugs that poses a serious threat to human society and asked the world body to play a bigger role in eliminating drugs.

The President said that in the international politics, the issue of Palestine is very important and reiterated Sri Lankas support to the people of Palestine.The opposition was awarded victory in the Maldives presidential election on Monday, in a possible setback for China as the new leaders of the Indian Ocean archipelago nation aim to review major projects agreed with the outgoing administration.



Incumbent Abdulla Yameen, who had cultivated ties with both Beijing and Saudi Arabia, conceded defeat after the Election Commission said opposition leader Ibrahim Mohamed Solih had won Sundays election by a margin of 16.7 percent.



Before the election, the opposition said it would review Chinese investment, partly out of concern over terms, as experts have warned that the Maldives risked falling into a debt trap.



Solihs ally Mohamed Nasheed, an exiled former president who led the country between 2008 and 2012, has repeatedly said he wants to renegotiate the deals.



We have a joint manifesto. We have issues, we have ideas agreed upon. I think we have to review all the agreements we had with China. We have to review them and see what is due, Nasheed told Reuters on Monday in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo.



This election marks not only the triumph of democratic forces in the Maldives, but also reflects the firm commitment to the values of democracy and the rule of law, Indias foreign ministry said in a statement.



India looks forward to working closely with the Maldives in further deepening our partnership. Both New Delhi and Washington had been concerned by Chinas growing influence in the Maldives and its lurch toward more hardline attitudes on religious issues during Yameens five years in power.



China, meantime, has helped build an extension to the international airport in the Maldives, and a bridge linking it to the capital, Male.

MALE REUTERS

Sept 24 2018President Maithripala Sirisena addressed the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York, yesterday. Pix by President MediaAFP, 25th SEPTEMBER, 2018-UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday opened the worlds largest diplomatic gathering with a stark warning of growing chaos and confusion as the rules-based global order comes under threat of breaking down.



Addressing the opening session of the UN General Assembly, Guterres said trust in the rules-based global order and among states was at a breaking point and international cooperation was becoming more difficult.



Today, world order is increasingly chaotic. Power relations are less clear, Guterres told the 193-nation assembly just minutes before President Donald Trump was to take the podium.



Universal values are being eroded. Democratic principles are under siege. Guterres did not single out a country for criticism, but there are fears among UN diplomats that the world is being carved up into spheres of influence and a return to great power rivalry.



Trumps administration has made clear its distrust of international treaties, having scrapped the Iran nuclear deal, the Paris climate agreement and cut funding to the United Nations.



UN diplomats say the US stance has emboldened Russia and China to push their view of the global order in which human rights take a second seat to development and sovereignty rights.This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 14 years and 30,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.SkyHawks pull off upset victory PLATTSMOUTH  The Skutt Catholic football team took another step closer to winning their sixth championship on Nov. 5 when they went on the road and defeated second-seeded Plattsmouth 20-10...

Gretna rallies past Storm in quarterfinals ELKHORN  A strong defensive effort was not enough as the Elkhorn South football team fell to Gretna 14-7 Friday in the Class A State Quarterfinals. They (Gretna) are an...

Badgers shut out Vikings, quest for title continues BENNINGTON  Many times the game of football can flip in the blink of an eye. Thats what happened at Bennington High School on Friday night in a Class B...

Storms title defense ends in semis LINCOLN  The season came to an end for the defending Class A champ Elkhorn South Storm on Friday night when they were defeated in straight sets by top seed...

Wolf upset bid falls short in state semis LINCOLN  The fourth-ranked Elkhorn North Wolves made history on Saturday. The Wolves swept past the Lexington Minutemaids in straight sets at Elkhorn North High School to capture the Class...Carmel Valley flasher Jaysonron Anuran Muncal was sentenced Sept. 24 for indecent exposure and will be required to register as a sex offender and get counseling, City Attorney Mara W. Elliott announced in a news release.

Criminal charges were filed against Muncal following a 2017 incident involving a female jogger who was pushing her two-year-old daughter in a stroller in a Carmel Valley neighborhood in San Diego. A male drove up next to her and asked for directions. When the jogger approached the window of the SUV, she saw that the driver, later identified as Muncal, was masturbating. The victim screamed for help and Muncal drove off. The victim photographed Muncals car as he fled, posted it on the social media site Nextdoor.com and reported the incident to the police.

he following day, Muncal drove up to another woman walking in the same neighborhood and asked her for directions. She recognized the car from the social media posting and called the San Diego Police Department, whose officers quickly located the suspect and questioned him. Muncal, who was then 28 years old, admitted the indecent exposure.

The San Diego City Attorneys Office filed criminal charges against Muncal. On July 17, 2018, Muncal pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge of indecent exposure. On Sept. 24, San Diego Superior Court Judge Cindy D. Davis sentenced Muncal to three years of formal, supervised probation, a waiver of his Fourth Amendment rights against warrantless searches and seizure, and court fines and fees. Additionally, he was ordered to stay away from the locations of his offenses for three years. The court also required Muncal to attend sex offender counseling and to register as a sex offender. Should he violate the terms of his probation, he could face custody of up to six months in jail.

Our office vigorously prosecutes criminals who prey on our community, particularly children, stated City Attorney Mara W. Elliott. Sex crimes terrorize our neighborhoods. Registration as a sex offender gives warning to the community that this person is a sexual predator who could reoffend.

Chief Deputy City Attorney Angela Law prosecuted Muncal for the City Attorneys Domestic Violence and Sex Crimes Unit.A Del Mar company took down its website and Facebook page and had its Twitter account suspended last week after an Oklahoma veteran came forward and accused the company of failing to refund him more than $10,000 for almost two years.

Coty Melancon, a disabled Air Force veteran, purchased a $16,600 tank-like wheelchair from Del Mar-based Iron Horse Devices in December 2016. He did so with $12,000 from the Semper Fi Fund charity, plus $3,700 raised on GoFundMe.

Melancon received his chair on Dec. 23, 2016. He said the chair functioned as advertised at first, then broke down soon after it was delivered. Melancon said he faced months of delays and shifting explanations from the company, then reached out to his local television station in Oklahoma.

After a story aired on Sept. 17, the Del Mar company unpublished its social media accounts and website, according to Kathryn Evans, the companys co-founder.

I took down the Facebook account due to Mr. Melancons negative information about us, she said by email. It caused our FB page to blow up with negative comments asking why we were taking advantage of a disabled veteran.

Evans said she has been threatened on her personal accounts. She also said she has offered Melancon a full refund.

Melancon said his attorney is in negotiations with the company for a settlement, and expects it will wire him the money soon. He has shopped for a replacement off-road chair that costs about the same as the one from Iron Horse Devices, and he plans on buying it as soon as he gets his refund.

The problem with Melancons chair began almost as soon as it was delivered, he said.

After an initial drive the day he received it, Melancon stored the chair in his garage. On New Years Day, 2017, he took the chair hunting. It was the first  and last  time the machine functioned as intended, he said.

I took the chair to go hunting in Wellston, Oklahoma, Melancon said in an email. I returned home and parked (it) in my garage with no issues.

A week later, the next time he went to use his chair, he said the right track was not moving and he called Evans.

She informed me that I would need to send the chair back for them to diagnose, Melancon said.

So he did. Melancon said he kept a log of the dates and all the emails exchanged between him and the company. According to him, from Jan. 30, 2017, to Aug. 28, 2018, the company gave more than a dozen different explanations as to why it could not refund his money or sell his chair on consignment.

Melancon said at that time, the company told him the problem was a broken gear box and a burned motor.

Evans said in an email last week that the company could not determine why the chair stopped working.

We believe it was due to water damage to the electric motors which were washed at a car wash, she said, causing electrical damage not covered by the warranty.

Melancon said he hosed the chair off at his home.

According to him, the company told him it would be replacing all parts on the chair in mid-February 2017.

By March 15, the promised date of repair, the work had not been finished. At this point, he said he decided hed rather have a refund.

Instead of a refund, Melancon agreed to enter into a consignment agreement with Iron Horse Devices on March 23.

We have a signed consignment agreement with Mr. Melancon, said Evans in an email. The company would re-sell the chair for Melancon, and then give him the money.

Over the next 17 months, promised buyers would come and go, and Melancon would be assured his chair was sold  or was in the process of being sold  over and over again, he said.

In September 2017, he received partial payment from the company, he said, in the amount of $3,767.

The new year unfolded much like the previous, Melancon said, as he asked for updates only to be told the chair was being demonstrated, upgraded or in the process of being sold.

By May, Melancon said he asked for a direct refund. In a June email, Evans told him the company did not have the money to give him a refund.

By the end of August, Evans told Melancon there was a delay in the shop, and it would take at least five more weeks for a refund. Thats when Melancon went to his local news station.

Iron Horse Devices was incorporated in 2016 in Del Mar. Its listed business address  1155 Camino Del Mar  is a UPS Store. Correspondence sent to Melancon lists a Rancho Penasquitos residence as the companys address.

We do not have an office, Evans said. The products are manufactured and then assembled at multiple contracted shops.

The company was built on the remnants of another tracked-chair company, Tankchair.

A 2015 story about Tankchair on ITV in the United Kingdom reported on similar issues with a customer trying to obtain a refund for the device.

We do not have any business affiliation or current relation to Tankchair, Evans said. Iron Horse purchased parts and inventory from Tankchair. We invested in engineering to correct the problems.

Evans and an investor, John Pabst  a San Diego real estate agent  separated their ties with Tankchair, Evans said.

Products are being sold as-is and are considered demo units, she said. This is on the invoice we provide to our customers. This project relies on the expertise of the engineers and technicians we contract. Yes, we have experienced prototyping hurdles, and we correct and move forward.Subscriber content preview

SEATTLE  The McBride Construction building, at 224 Nickerson St., has sold for a little over $2.6 million, according to King County records.

The seller was 224 Nickerson LLC, an entity of the McBride family, which acquired the triangular parcel in 1986 for $105,000, then constructed its two-story headquarters there.





. . .Outside of the entire west side of the state of Michigan (DeVos country), the most conservative area in our state is undoubtedly Livingston County, home of Howell and Brighton and a bastion of tea party fervor. Republicans dominate so completely in Livingston County that, in some races, there often isnt even a Democrat on the ballot. Nobody wants to be the sacrificial lamb who gets slaughtered on Election Day.

This one-party dominance has led to Republicans and their corporate benefactors getting away with some egregious things. For example, back in 2012, the year after Republicans passed the Emergency Manager law, former Republican state legislators Cindy Denby and Bill Rogers passed a law that would exempt wealthier, whiter communities from being taken over by Emergency Managers. Denby and Rogers had a personal interest in doing so because their mismanagement as elected officials created a situation in Livingston County that would have led to an Emergency Manager takeover had it happened in a poorer, less white community.

When their new law didnt have its intended effect, Denby and Rogers tried something else:

Cindy Denby and Bill Rogers had, during their time as local government officials, gotten their municipalities and county into severe debt when the housing market crashed. Bad decisions by them resulted in Handy Township where Denby was the Supervisor and Livingston County where Rogers was a Commissioner facing severe financial crises over special assessment districts that were created, paid for, and which then fell apart as developers abandoned the projects. Their financial crises were so severe, in fact, that some feared that these lily white communities may have to be taken over by an Emergency Manager. This was after Denby was overheard saying that the Emergency Manager law was not intended for places like Livingston County. Rogers and Denby tried several times to put a law on the books that would have the state help bail out the municipalities that were put into debt by their mistakes. After three attempts, they were successful. Unfortunately for Handy Township, although they were first in line with their hand out for a state bail-out, they were denied. Well, Denby and Rogers are back again, trying clean up their mess. This time, its by allowing the County to assume the debt and then giving the local municipality a virtually (or in some cases and actual) interest-free loan.

These days, it appears that Livingston County Republicans, who hold every single seat on the County Commission, are, at the very least, mismanaging a program designed to help veterans:

Voters approved a county-wide millage for veterans services in August of 2016. Democratic Party Chair Judy Daubenmier says that the county has failed to live up to the promises made to veterans when they asked voters to approve the millage. She alleges commissioners have failed to oversee implementation of the millage, and have allowed the Veterans Services Committee, whose members they appoint, to stymie attempts to implement more programs and services, including more benefit counselors, mental health services and outreach. She tells WHMI that she surprised at a county commission meeting last week when Veteran Services Committee Chairman Hansel Keene said they only had a balance of $80,000 at the end of the fiscal year. [] Democrats maintain the millage brought in $1,035,190 during 2017 for Livingston County Veterans Services, but the agency spent only $430,792 that year, just 41.5% of what taxpayers shelled out. This year, she says the millage brought in $1,018,000, but the agency plans to spend less than $501,000 this year, based on budget reports dated September 10th.

A little math shows that, rather than Keenes contention that they had a balance of only $80,000 at the end of the fiscal year, they should actually have over $1 million left. It was later revealed that there was, in fact, over a $1 million left in their account, money that is not being spent on veterans services. Keene claims that the unaccounted for funds are for transitional housing for veterans. However, as the Livingston Post points out, no such program is listed on the Countys veterans website.

The Veteran Services Committee is now the subject of a Michigan State Police criminal investigation resulting from a complaint from a woman who donated $400 to the Committee and was unable to get a receipt. When the director of Livingston County Veterans Services, Adam Smiddy, began looking into the matter, he was fired.

Its not just elected Republican officials and their appointees who are abusing their power. The local business community appears to be helping them maintain that power. The Brighton Chamber of Commerce recently sent out a notice about an October event titled The Power Luncheon: Meet the Candidates! The email said that it would include a panel of political incumbents. However, the only people invited were Republicans, some of whom are not incumbents:

The Power Luncheon: Meet the Candidates! event is co-hosted by Ann Arbor SPARK and is set to take place Friday, October 5th at the Oak Pointe Country Club. In an e-mailed invitation to chamber members, the gathering is billed as featuring, a panel of political incumbents including 8th District Congressman Mike Bishop, State Senate candidate Lana Theis, State House candidate Ann Bollin and State Representative Hank Vaupel. But neither Theis nor Bollin are incumbents. Theis is running against Democrat Adam Dreher for the 22nd State Senate seat and Bollin is taking on Democrat Mona Shand for the 42nd State House seat. In addition, a picture accompanying the invitation featured Republican U.S. Senate candidate John James, who is challenging incumbent Democrat Debbie Stabenow. When questioned about the discrepancy, Chamber President Pam McConeghy told WHMI the Political Power lunch is something they do every year with incumbents (and that) whoever is elected in after November will be in our next political power lunch. We are non-partisan, just asking our incumbents to participate. Nothing off the normal. When asked about Bollins participation despite not being an incumbent, McConeghy said she was only representing as a member of our board while James would not be present. She offered no explanation as to Theis participation, despite not being an incumbent.

Notably missing from the list of candidates are Democrats Mona Shand (candidate for State House in MI-42), Colleen Turk (candidate for State House in MI-47), Adam Dreher (candidate for State Senate in MI-22), Debbie Stabenow (U.S. Senator) and Elissa Slotkin (candidate for Congress in MI-08.)

A screenshot of the event webpage posted by The Livingston Post shows that it was originally called Economic Development Power Lunch: Meet the Candidates!, listed John James as a participant, and had the URL https://www.brightoncoc.org/events/details/economic-development-political-power-lunch-21358. However, the event name has since been changed to Economic Development Power Series: Annual Legislative Luncheon, no longer lists James as a panelist, and now has the URL https://www.brightoncoc.org/events/details/economic-development-power-series-annual-legislative-luncheon-21358.

Ann Arbor SPARK pulled their sponsorship of the event when it became clear that it was nothing more than a Republican political event.

All of these things (and frankly many more) show the dangers of one-party dominance in a community. Republicans in Livingston County act with impunity because they have no serious challenges and they are aided and abetted by the business community who stand to benefit from their pro-business owner, anti-worker ideologies.

This year, we have a choice. If you live in Livingston County, consider supporting Elissa Slotkin, Mona Shand, Colleen Turk, Adam Dreher, and Debbie Stabenow with your time and money. Its long past time to end this Republican dominance, dominance which has led to unfortunate consequences for the people of Livingston County.The following guest post was provided by Clean Water Action in Michigan, our states top environmental watchdog and advocate for clean water. If youre not familiar with State Rep. Lee Chatfield, I urge you to read the piece I wrote about him last week titled Northern Michigan Republican Lee Chatfield cant control his guns or his campaign. If youre unfamiliar with why I call Enbridge Energys Line 5 a catastrophe waiting to happen, please read my post After environmental catastrophe near-miss with Enbridges Line 5 pipeline under Lake Michigan, Gov. Snyder issues sternly-worded press release.



Shortly after Representative Lee Chatfields race for re-election chances in the 107th State House district was moved from the Likely Republican column to the Lean Republican column by Gongwer News Service, Representative Chatfield scheduled a last minute hearing of the Michigan Competitiveness Committee, which he chairs, for Tuesday to consider a package of insufficient bills relating to Enbridge Energys Line 5 pipeline in the Straits of Mackinac. Other committee members were not notified of the hearing until 12 p.m. on Monday.

The four bills were hastily introduced in June, shortly before the House left for summer recess. If passed, they would require the Department of Natural Resources to install more buoys and signage in the Straits of Mackinac, warning ships not to drop anchor. They would also set sentencing guidelines for ship captains who drop anchor in the Straits and require any company operating pipelines in the Straits of Mackinac to have oil spill response plans on file with the state, but would exempt those plans from the Freedom of Information Act.

Representatives Abdullah Hammoud and Erika Geiss offered several amendments that would have required any companies that own pipelines in the Straits of Mackinac to carry enough insurance to cover a worst case scenario spill, to expand the bill to cover all pipelines in the state, not just in the Straits of Mackinac, and to remove the oil spill response plan exemption from the Freedom of Information Act. All three amendments were supported by Democrats on the committee, and rejected by the Republican majority in party-line votes.

These bills are mere window-dressing and would do nothing at all to mitigate the dangers posed by a massive oil spill in the Straits of Mackinac. They are not in fact about protecting the Great Lakes, but about being able to assign blame after a massive oil spill, said Sean McBrearty, Michigan Program Organizer for Clean Water Action. This begs the question, if Representative Chatfield and his caucus arent playing politics, and are actually interested in protecting the Great Lakes, why did they reject these reasonable and sensible amendments? We need representatives in Lansing who actually care about protecting our water, not representatives who try to move toothless bills out of concern for their own re-election chances.

Under current state and Coast Guard regulations, dropping anchor in the Straits of Mackinac is already prohibited, and the U.S. Coast Guard, primary responder to an oil spill in the Straits, already has oil spill response plans on file. These bills that would duplicate those regulations now move to the House floor for a vote.Women and people of color have to pay for the mistakes for their whole lives, but rich dudes get to spin between the raindrops

We cannot underestimate how badly Republicans want to confirm Brett Kavanaugh, regardless of what they find out about him.

Sean Trende, the analyst behind the Missing White Voters theory, compares putting a conservative on the Supreme Court before the midterms to the Democrats push to pass the Affordable Care Act, meaning getting it done is essential for the party leadership, regardless of the costs.

I agree but I dont think any conservative would do. It has to be Brett Kavanaugh, even if they dont have the votes yet. Because this isnt about sexual assault and its not even about Roe. Its about the thing that makes whatever Kavanaugh has done fine and the thing that unites someone like Mike Pence who cant be alone with alone with any woman but his wife and Donald Trump who youd never leave alone with your wife.

Its about the right to force your beliefs on your perceived enemies, and only your enemies.

To understand how badly they want to confirm this guy, just pretend that the lie Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski are telling their voters is true  imagine there is any doubt how Brett Kavanaugh would rule when it comes to protecting womens reproductive rights.

Imagine the fury on Fox and the rage on Rush. Even at 88 years old, Pat Robertson would be flipping Humvees.

Last weekend Mike Pence spoke at the Values Voters Summit put on by the Family Research Center. In addition to the FRCs ancient hateful views of gay people and most Americans who have non-marital non-genital-to-genital sex in general, the organization exists to help end a womens control over her own body. The Roe v. Wade decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, declaring abortion to be a constitutional right, was without foundation in the text of the Constitution and thus was wrongly decided, and we look forward to the day when this grave error will be corrected, the groups website reads.

Imagine of there were any doubt at all about how Kavanaugh would rule on Roe or LGBTQ rights, Pence would have been booed into the afterlife. But he was cheered like the Second Coming because he is a human promise that Trump will end Roe and its a promise that will be kept with Brett Kavanaugh.

To keep Trump and Pences promise to the religious right, Collins and Murkowski have to break their promise to uphold Roe, one theyve broken over and over again by appointing federal judges who think women shouldnt even be able to choose their own socks. But this is different. Enough voters are watching that winking is essential. Kavanaugh has to wink to Collins and Murkowski who have to wink back as the Values Voters crowd enjoys the charade knowing its meaningless. With Kavanaugh, Roe is gone. Maybe its just gutted. Maybe its irrelevant as a ban based on the myth of fetal pain grips all 50 states. Thats to be determined, but they consider Roe dead  and they want Kavanaugh to do it.

He wasnt the first choice of the hard right but as a godfather of conservative movement once said, I didnt like Nixon until Watergate. The disgust the left feels for Kavanaugh makes him twice as appealing for the old right  who in Kavanaugh they see a serial liar and sexual predator who, unlike Trump, reminds them of themselves  and for the president, who already defended two of the vilest sickos in politics, Roy Moore and himself.

I posited that Trump wanted Kavanaugh as a human pardon with the kind of views of executive power that only a Richard Nixon could love, but Scott Lemieux pointed out, If the Supreme Court is going to issue a legally shaky pro-Trump ruling, the four other Republican justices have to be on board, and if they are presumably any member of Team Republican would cast the same vote.

He points to Michelle Goldberg who noted, If the Kavanaugh nomination goes forward, its because Trump and his allies believe that a certain class of men accused of sexual assault deserve impunity.

And its not just sexual assault. Whoever was going to be the fifth vote to overturn Roe in a Senate that requires the votes of the two pro-choice Republicans was going to have to a liar, an unrepentant liar.

In Kavanaugh they have found an exemplar of the species, hes someone who lies about almost everything from his role at the Bush White House to why he helped sexually humiliate a high school classmate. He even seems to be lying about his virginity.

Helping Kavanaugh get away with his worst lies has multifarious benefits for the right and Trump.

It helps demonstrate dominance and disrespect for process, which is why Mitch McConnell is all in. It helps silence survivors of sexual violence, Trumps favorite election year activity. And its a reminder that a rich white guy can get away with almost any mistake he made when hes young by lying about it when hes older.

Meanwhile, poor teen girls can be forced to give birth long before theyre ready, either by the law or their lack of birth control and sex education options, and poor black men can lose their freedom forever over something Kavanaugh and his college buddies would consider a typical Saturday night.

This is now about something bigger than Brett Kavanaugh. Its about forcing Brett Kavanaugh on us. And this is why we cant let up now.Blog Archive June 2021 (1) May 2021 (77) April 2021 (77) March 2021 (82) February 2021 (68) January 2021 (64) December 2020 (67) November 2020 (66) October 2020 (66) September 2020 (67) August 2020 (74) July 2020 (83) June 2020 (92) May 2020 (86) April 2020 (104) March 2020 (105) February 2020 (74) January 2020 (75) December 2019 (75) November 2019 (70) October 2019 (89) September 2019 (69) August 2019 (81) July 2019 (77) June 2019 (73) May 2019 (110) April 2019 (110) March 2019 (102) February 2019 (85) January 2019 (123) December 2018 (116) November 2018 (112) October 2018 (121) September 2018 (107) August 2018 (150) July 2018 (163) June 2018 (190) May 2018 (145) April 2018 (112) March 2018 (124) February 2018 (113) January 2018 (164) December 2017 (150) November 2017 (144) October 2017 (169) September 2017 (171) August 2017 (135) July 2017 (131) June 2017 (147) May 2017 (160) April 2017 (138) March 2017 (156) February 2017 (143) January 2017 (203) December 2016 (208) November 2016 (185) October 2016 (173) September 2016 (194) August 2016 (232) July 2016 (225) June 2016 (238) May 2016 (231) April 2016 (215) March 2016 (246) February 2016 (226) January 2016 (252) December 2015 (230) November 2015 (250) October 2015 (234) September 2015 (222) August 2015 (253) July 2015 (275) June 2015 (279) May 2015 (223) April 2015 (226) March 2015 (243) February 2015 (258) January 2015 (281) December 2014 (292) November 2014 (296) October 2014 (413) September 2014 (472) August 2014 (506) July 2014 (483) June 2014 (488) May 2014 (512) April 2014 (497) March 2014 (531) February 2014 (482) January 2014 (535) December 2013 (482) November 2013 (441) October 2013 (416) September 2013 (491) August 2013 (521) July 2013 (491) June 2013 (470) May 2013 (457) April 2013 (426) March 2013 (420) February 2013 (414) January 2013 (489) December 2012 (433) November 2012 (504) October 2012 (469) September 2012 (430) August 2012 (427) July 2012 (360) June 2012 (336) May 2012 (362) April 2012 (322) March 2012 (263) February 2012 (224) January 2012 (291) December 2011 (295) November 2011 (325) October 2011 (330) September 2011 (319) August 2011 (333) July 2011 (318) June 2011 (387) May 2011 (373) April 2011 (389) March 2011 (375) February 2011 (335) January 2011 (400) December 2010 (445) November 2010 (395) October 2010 (312) September 2010 (262) August 2010 (277) July 2010 (323) June 2010 (386) May 2010 (360) April 2010 (333) March 2010 (351) February 2010 (336) January 2010 (384) December 2009 (353) November 2009 (300) October 2009 (308) September 2009 (350) August 2009 (298) July 2009 (255) June 2009 (203) May 2009 (193) April 2009 (186) March 2009 (197) February 2009 (173) January 2009 (148) December 2008 (181) November 2008 (197) October 2008 (236) September 2008 (304) August 2008 (314) July 2008 (273) June 2008 (27) May 2008 (1) April 2008 (6) October 2007 (1) May 2007 (1) April 2007 (6) March 2007 (2) February 2007 (1) October 2006 (1) September 2006 (1) August 2006 (4) July 2006 (4) June 2006 (1) July 2005 (1) May 2005 (2) March 2005 (1) June 2004 (2) May 2004 (1) April 2004 (4) March 2004 (2) February 2004 (2) July 2003 (2) June 2003 (5)President Erdogan met with Trump

Turkeys President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had a "brief chat" with US President Trump. This meeting was also confirmed by Turkish presidency's communications director.

Turkeys President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had a brief meeting with his U.S. counterpart, Donald Trump, in New York, according to the Turkish presidential communications director.

'BRIEF CHAT' AMONG TWO LEADERS

The two leaders had a "brief chat" ahead of Erdogan's address to UN General Assembly, Fahrettin Altun said on Twitter.

MELANIA JOINED THE CHAT

In photographs posted on the social media site, Trump is seen extending a handshake to Erdogan. Trump's wife, Melania, joined their chat. Erdogan then moved inside the General Assembly to deliver his address.

It is the first time the two leaders met after relations soured because of the detention of pastor Andrew Brunson, who is under house arrest in Turkey for terrorism charges.Erdogans emotional meeting with Palestinians in US

Palestinian Abubakir Serag threw his arms around President Erdogan's neck in a warm hug in the Turkish-American Steering Committee in New York.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan received an emotional welcome from hundreds of Palestinians living in the US when he attended the meeting organized by the Turkish-American Steering Committee (TASC) in New York.

"I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS REALLY HAPPENED"

As Erdogan addresses, participants seen holding placards reading "We Love Erdogan". A Palestinian participant, Abubakir Serag, overcome with emotion upon seeing President Erdogan.

I'm so happy, this is more than a dream for me. I can't even believe this really happened. I'm 78 years old, and I've loved Erdogan as I never loved any other leader. If I could, I would wholeheartedly give my life for his safety and well-being, Serag said after meeting the President. "I gave him a three-page letter and told him that the whole community is behind him," he added.

Erdogans emotional meeting with Palestinians WATCH

TASC Co-Chairman Halil Mutlu, "We are witnessing that some states openly support the killing of Muslims as well as crimes against humanity in the name of political interests and global problems," said in a speech. "Mr. President, at this very moment, you have gained the respect and love of 100 million people worldwide, especially in the Muslim world, through your truthfulness and out-of-the-box stance that protects justice and human dignity,"LONDON, September 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

Tishman Speyer, one of the world's leading developers, owners, operators and asset managers of first-class real estate, today announced the final closing of Tishman Speyer European Real Estate Venture VIII ("TSEV VIII" or the "Fund") with equity commitments totalling EUR750 million, exceeding the Fund's target size of EUR600 million. The Fund received commitments from 20 investors from across Europe, Asia and the Americas.

TSEV VIII follows Tishman Speyer's successful European value-add investment programme. The Fund will pursue a value-added investment strategy, focusing on repositioning, developing and redeveloping high-quality office and mixed-use properties in Europe. TSEV VIII will also consider ground-up development opportunities and residential investments with attractive value-creation potential.

To date, TSEV VIII has made a significant investment in Madrid's Las Tablas, marking Tishman Speyer's return to the Spanish market after a decade and also representing an important step in the continued growth of its European business. With the creation of TSEV VIII, Tishman Speyer will seek out new opportunities across Europe with a primary focus on Berlin, Frankfurt, Hamburg, London, Munich and Paris.

Bernard Penaud, Head of Europe for Tishman Speyer commented: "The successful closing of our TSEV VIII capital, with commitments in excess of our original target, is a clear indication of the continued strong levels of investor appetite for the first-class opportunities Europe continues to offer. It also recognises our teams' excellent track record of value creation across the region."

Tishman Speyer first invested in Europe in 1988 and now has EUR7.1 billion in AUM invested in European markets in core and value-added private equity real estate funds and joint ventures.

About Tishman Speyer

Tishman Speyer is a leading owner, developer, operator and fund manager of first-class real estate around the world. Founded in 1978, Tishman Speyer is active across the United States, Europe, Latin America and Asia, building and managing premier office, residential and retail space in 28 key global markets for industry-leading tenants. The firm has acquired, developed and operated a portfolio of over 167 million square feet with a total value of approximately US $88 billion spread over 406 assets. Signature assets include New York City's Rockefeller Center, Sao Paulo's Torre Norte, The Springs in Shanghai, Lumiere in Paris and OpernTurm as well as TaunusTurm in Frankfurt. Tishman Speyer currently has projects at different stages of development in Boston, Brasilia, Frankfurt, Gurgaon, Hyderabad, Los Angeles, New York City, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, San Francisco, Sao Paulo, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Washington, DC. The firm also operates portfolios of prominent office property portfolios in Berlin, Chicago and London.

CONTACT: Richard Holloway, Sard Verbinnen & Co (SIVIC),+44-7342-023-763,RHolloway@SARDVERB.com. Giles Bethule, Sard Verbinnen & Co(SIVIC),+44-20-7467-1050, GBethule@SARDVERB.comIf you are traveling the world, sometimes you want to blend in among the locals and not look like a tourist. To help with this, the British travel magazine Time Out published a list of the worlds coolest neighborhoods, so you know exactly where to stay, eat, drink and just hang out.

To create the list, the editors of the magazine interviewed 15,000 participants around the world and made use of its City Life Index. The editors wanted to know if there is a buzz about an area. What cool new venues are opening? Can most people actually afford to live there? Is it a good place to stay for someone visiting the city? Most importantly, does it feel like a place thats on the up?

Kadkoy, Istanbul (43rd on the list)

The survey ranked Istanbuls Kadkoy district 43rd on their list and heres how they described it, Located on the Marmara Sea coast on the Asian side of Istanbul, the Kadkoy district has soared in popularity over the past few years. Hundreds of new bars, cafes, restaurants, design studios and shops have opened here, making the area a must-see for those really wanting to get a feel of how the city hangs out these days, with a more relaxed vibe than the bustling European side.aktiia, a Neuchatel, Switzerland-based blood pressure monitoring company, raised a CHF4m seed funding round.

The round was led by Redalpine and TransLink Capital.

The company intends to use the funds to further develop and validate its algorithms and product offerings as well as establish strategic third-party partnerships.

Led by Mattia Bertschi, co-founder and CEO, aktiia provides patented technology that combines common optical sensors, widely-known for tracking heart-rate in todays wearables, and clinically validated software algorithms to measure an individuals blood pressure continuously at the wrist.

The algorithms will be embedded in non-medical third-party wearables for preventive purposes to track blood pressure trends, as well as in its medical grade wearable to monitor precise blood pressure values that can be used for the diagnosis and management of hypertension.

FinSMEs

26/09/2018Idinvest Partners, a European SME investor, announced that its Private Debt team has financed three direct lending transactions.

In details, these transactions include:

 Arranging a unitranche loan to translation agency Technicis to support the companys acquisition pipeline and drive consolidation in the European market.

 Arranging a mezzanine facility for Burger King France, alongside Groupe Bertrand and Bridgepoint.

 Arranging a unitranche loan for the acquisition of two public transport system and communications solutions businesses by HQ Equita: r2p GmbH and Open Access Pty Ltd.

These latest financings bring Idinvests total direct lending investments amount to 330m so far this year in 15 companies across continental Europe

In line with this, Idinvest has grown its direct lending team led by Eric Gallerne and Francois Lacoste to 17 professionals covering the European markets, having made two strategic hires earlier this year in the German and Italian markets.

FinSMEs

26/09/2018BridgePoint Financial Services, Inc., a Toronto, Canada-based provider of litigation financing solutions to plaintiffs and lawyers in Canada, received a $50m senior secured credit facility and a separate preferred equity investment, the value of which was not disclosed, from Northleaf Capital Partners.

Northleaf acted as the sole lead arranger to support the recapitalization of the company.

Led by John Rossos, Co-Founder, BridgePoint Financial Services is a Canadian provider of litigation financing solutions designed to meet the specialized needs of plaintiffs, lawyers and the experts involved in advancing legal claims.

The partnership with Northleaf will allow BridgePoint to accelerate growth.

FinSMEs

26/09/2018Twenty Billion Neurons GmbH, a Berlin, Germany- and Toronto, Canada-based provider of real-time, interactive computer vision and artificial intelligence (AI) solutions, raised $10m in Series A funding.

The round was led by M12, Microsofts venture fund, with participation from Coparion, Creative Edge, and MFV Partners.

The company intends to use the funds to scale the business.

Founded in 2015 and led by Roland Memisevic, CEO and CSO, TwentyBN is building an AI system that interacts with humans while looking at them  enabling it to understand their behaviour, surroundings and the full context of the engagement.

At the core of its system is a crowd-acting platform that allows humans to engage with and teach AI about everyday aspects of lives and the physical world, , from workplaces to homes and to the interiors of the vehicles. Through crowd-acting, TwentyBN currently hosts a large dataset with over two million annotated video clips. When combining data with the companys deep neural networks, the solutions provide human-like awareness of everyday scenes and situations  through an RGB camera.

To date, the company has offerings in touchless sensing, scene understanding, and context-aware human computer interaction.

Enterprise customers can license the technology to enable camera-equipped devices to understand and interact with their users in a human-like way.

Outside the commercial world, TwentyBN is a dedicated contributor to academic AI research, including partnerships with the MILA institute in Montreal. The company has also released two large-scale video datasets and baseline code to the public for academic purposes and licensed technology and data to research labs and corporations. More than 42 of the worlds top 100 universities and 2 of the top 50 companies on Forbes Global 2000 already use TwentyBN technology for research and commercial purposes.

FinSMEs

26/09/2018Wagestream, a London, UK-based fintech startup whose Get-Paid-As-You-Go service allows workers to access their monthly wages in real-time, raised 4.5m in funding.

Backers included QED Investors, Firestartr (a London-based early stage venture fund), Village Global (a global VC backed by leading entrepreneurs, including Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos), as well as the London Mayors Co-Investment Fund and the Fair by Design fund, whose social impact charities include Big Society Capital, Nominet Trust and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

Co-Founded by Portman Wills and Peter Briffett, former COO of YPlan and CEO of LivingSocial UK, Wagestream provides a Get-Paid-As-You-Go service that allows workers to access their earned income at any time during the monthly pay cycle.

The service can be implemented by companies without impacting cash-flow, payroll or timekeeping processes, and provides instant financial security to UK workers.

The company  accredited by the FCA  expects its approach will displace the current payday cycle  particularly for employers which operate large numbers of shift and temporary workers, in sectors such as hospitality, security, retail and manufacturing.

Over 20 employers and partners are now piloting the Wagestream platform including Key Security, and Fourth, who provide cloud-based hospitality solutions for a large proportion of the hospitality industry.

FinSMEs

26/09/2018.    ,     ,   80%  . ,     ,        .    ,        .    ,      .     ,          ...The deployment is aimed to strengthen existing defence partnerships and establish new multinational relations in order to achieve greater interoperability and enhanced delivery of defence capabilities for future operations.

During the mission in Tien Sa port in Central Da Nang city from September 26th - 30th, 2018, it is projected with daily events scheduled to support the mission of building and re enforcing international relations.

Group photo

HMCS Calgary crew enjoy time at Tien Sa port

Board press briefing on the visit. (Photo: ATP)

The crew of HMCS Calgary looks forward to our visit to Vietnam. Widely known for its hospitality and a valued Canadian partner in Southeast Asia, Vietnam represents an opportunity for Calgary to work with the local community and demonstrate our commitment to being a valued partner. The highlight will come upon completion of the port visit when we put to sea to exercise with the Vietnam Peoples Navy, so as to extend and improve our network of defence partnerships in the region, Commander Blair Saltel, Commanding Officer HMCS Calgary.





This visit will help celebrate the 45th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Canada and Vietnam, and strengthen its engagement with Vietnam.

HMCS Calgary is a Halifax-class frigate that recently completed an extensive Halifax class modernization/mid-life refit.

It has approximately 230 highly trained and professional sailors who are well prepared to meet the challenges of their deployment on Operation Projection.

HMCS Calgary recently participated in the worlds largest international maritime warfare exercise which occurs biennially off the coast of Hawaii, RIMPAC./.

Eight ports throughout Operation Projection are namely Darwin (Australia), Yokosuka and Yokohama (Japan), Jeju and Busan (the Republic of Korea), Guam and Pearl Harbor (the US) and Da Nang (Vietnam).The race to 300 mph is officially on. Hennessey Performance Engineering plans to begin testing an F5 Venom prototype in 2019, with high-speed validation testing by the end of that year. "We believe our car is capable of going well beyond 300 mph," CEO John Hennessey said.

What will enable the F5 Venom to achieve such a lofty goal?

The F5 Venom will be slippery (for a supercar) with a drag coefficient of 0.33. A 7.6-liter twin-turbo V-8 will blast it toward the 300-mph barrier. The engine is said to be capable of 1,600 horsepower and 1,300 pound-feet of torque, but Hennessey said it might not even require that much power to hit the mark.

"Currently our CFD testing and our engineers tell us we need about 1,520 horsepower to break 300," Hennessey said. The engine has been tested to more than 2,000 horsepower, but there are no plans to go that far any time soon.

Hennessey confirmed to Motor Authority that customer cars will be delivered with the same final power output rating as the record car, whatever that might be.

Venues for testing and the record-attempt are already on Hennessey's mind. The Shuttle Landing Facility in Brevard County, Florida, where NASA landed space shuttles, is 3.2 miles long, and it's where Hennessey set its previous speed record with the Venom GT in 2014. But it took 2.2 to 2.3 miles of acceleration to hit 270.49 mph, and the last mile or so was saved for braking. It's going to take a longer stretch of pavement to break 300 mph.

Testing at NASA's facility isn't out of the question. Hennessey said that's enough room to run in the high 270s or low 280s.

The most likely scenario is shutting down a highway in Nevada, which is what Koenigsegg did for its record run, or Texas.

Hitting the 300-mph mark would obliterate the existing record, but that's just the first step. "Id like to run 500 kph. Which is 311 and change," he said. It's 310.68 mph.

Running that number might require some sort of special edition of the F5 Venom or a version with a lower-drag aerodynamic package than the current car. "After we break 300 well see how much faster we can go," Hennessey said.

Only 24 F5 Venoms are slotted for production, and half will be sold to U.S. buyers while the other half live their best life abroad. Allocations for the U.S. are sold out with a waiting list, but only five international orders have been placed.

A convertible model is also a possibility, but it has not been given the green light yet.

Hennessey has his eye on other performance figures as well. "Ultimately, if Dodge can make a 4,000-pound Demon go 0-60 in 2.3 seconds, I feel pretty good that well have a tire on the F5 at some point that will be running in the high 1-second range, 1.8, 1.9 second range when that time comes," Hennessey said.

The American boutique supercar firm SSC has stepped into the top-speed game with its new 1,750-horsepower Tuatara. Jerod Shelby, CEO of SSC North America said the Tuatara's the only one with a "legitimate shot" at cracking 300 mph.

Hennessey's response? "The bulls--t stops when the green flag drops."

MORE AUTO NEWS FROM MOTOR AUTHORITY



Large numbers of overseas Vietnamese, ambassadors and representatives from delegations to the UN, international organisations in New York and local officials came to the missions headquarters to pay respect to the Vietnamese President.

The heads of State and Government along with senior officials of many countries, who are in New York for the high-level meeting of the 73rd UN General Assembly, also paid tribute to President Tran Dai Quang.

Writing in the funeral book, the guests expressed deep condolences to the Government and people of Vietnam over the death of the Vietnamese President.

The people and government of Cuba will always remember President Tran Dai Quang for his contribution to strengthening the historical ties between the two countries, President of Cuba Miguel Diaz-Canel wrote.

On September 24th, the UN flied the flag at half-mast in tribute to the Vietnamese President. Earlier on September 21st, the UN General Assembly held a minutes silence to remember President Tran Dai Quang. The same day, the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres presented his deepest sympathies to the Presidents family and to the Government and people of Vietnam.

A friend of the UN and an important promoter of Vietnams development, President Quang will be long remembered in his country and beyond, the statement issued by the UN Secretary General spokesperson said.

President Tran Dai Quang passed away at 10h05 on September 21st in Hanoi at the age of 62 due to serious illness./."Sons of Anarchy" actor Paul John Vasquez has died. He was 48.

In a statement to Fox News, Vasquez's rep said: "This news has come as a surprise to us. Our hearts are heavy. He was a kind, creative and loving man. He will be missed."

TMZ, citing sources, said Vasquez died Monday evening from what appeared to have been a heart attack while at his father's house in San Jose, California.

The outlet reported that the star's father found him unconscious; paramedics were unable to revive him.

The cause of death reportedly remains under investigation.

Besides appearing in "Sons of Anarchy" as Angel Ganz in 2011, Vasquez had roles on "ER," "CSI: NY," and "How I Met Your Mother," among other shows, according to his IMDb web page.Industry insiders are accusing ABC of dirty tricks in the war for network news dominance, Page Six has learned.

In 2015  when their evening news broadcasts were locked in a tight battle for the top spot  NBC got caught double-dipping to boost ratings by re-airing the Nightly News at 2 a.m. and then adding the viewers for both broadcasts together.

Now, with the two networks numbers once again locked in close combat, ratings wonks have noticed that ABC has  without fanfare  begun airing David Muirs World News Tonight in LA at 3:30 p.m. (that is, when it airs live at 6:30 p.m. on the East Coast), then also airing the normal taped version at 6:30 p.m. LA time.

ABC touted a major victory Tuesday, when new Nielsen numbers showed that Muir has grabbed the most overall viewers for a second year in a row.

But insiders believe that by quietly adding a second broadcast in LA  the second-largest TV market in the country  back in July, the network has goosed those figures.

Since it started the early broadcasts in July, ABC has netted an average of about 125,000 extra viewers a night.

An industry insider told us, The bottom line is, World News Tonights numbers belong in Disneys Land of Make Believe.

An ABC spokesperson told us, We are thrilled LA asked to air our newscast live at 3:30 in the afternoon. This is not about ratings, we would win handily without it. This is about the hunger for news in this moment and the strength of our newscast.

Meanwhile, an ABC insider told us, Were talking about a 30,000-viewer difference over the course of an entire season. World News Tonight won by nearly a half million viewers.

The network insider sniped, The real story is that both Lester Holts NBC Nightly News and Jeff Glors CBS Evening News just scored their lowest season numbers since Nielsen started keeping records in 1991, while Muirs World News Tonight is the only newscast growing in all major demos.

They said this situation isnt remotely close to NBCs 2015 double-dip, because NBC was secretly airing their newscast in dozens of markets in the middle of the night to boost their ratings.

This story originally appeared in the New York Post.Supermodel Janice Dickinson, one of dozens of women to accuse Bill Cosby of sexual assault, has spoken out the day after the comic, once called Americas Dad, was sentenced to three to 10 years behind bars for another attack.

The harrowing memory of the rape continues to this day, said Dickinson in a statement released Wednesday through her lawyer, Lisa Bloom. At one point, I moved to Milan, Italy, to get away, where I hoped not to see or hear of Cosby again.

But the rape is etched into my soul, Dickinson continued. I was never the same. I will never be the same.

During Cosbys retrial for the 2004 sexual assault of Andrea Constand, Dickinson testified that she was drugged and violated by the disgraced funnyman inside her Lake Tahoe hotel room in 1982.

Dickinson was one of six accusers, along with Constand, to take the stand at the retrial which saw Cosby convicted of sexual assault, and sentenced Tuesday to a minimum of three years in prison.

The model was nearly booted from Cosbys sentencing for laughing loudly during a break in the proceedings.

This story originally appeared in the New York Post.The left's bid to demonize Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh hit a new low Tuesday when a CNN guest compared the federal judge to Bill Cosby, just as the disgraced comic was about to be sentenced to prison time for drugging and sexually assaulting a woman.

The comment by Texas prosecutor-turned-defense attorney Yodit Tewolde went unchecked by the network's anchor. Tewolde said she found it "disturbing" that social media users could cheer Cosby's downfall while defending Kavanaugh from accusations that he sexually assaulted a girl at a high school party during the 1980s.

"Anyone that's defending Kavanaugh could not in the same breath now applaud this verdict that the judge has handed down in the same breath," Tewolde said. "It just doesn't make any sense."

After a beat of silence, CNN host Brooke Baldwin asked another analyst, attorney Mark Geragos, a question about Cosby's sentencing.

While cable news guests make eccentric comments on a regular basis, viewers quickly took Baldwin to task on social media for remaining silent.

Kavanaugh is set to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday about allegations brought by Christine Blasey Ford, a professor and onetime schoolmate who is also scheduled to appear. Ford claims that an inebriated Kavanaugh trapped her beneath him on a bed at a high school house party and tried to take her clothes off before she escaped, an accusation that Kavanaugh has repeatedly and vehemently denied.

Cosby was sentenced to between three and 10 years in prison for drugging and sexually assaulting a woman in 2004. More than 60 women have accused him of similar actions over the past 50 years.

According to her LinkedIn page, Tewolde spent two years and nine months as an assistant district attorney in Dallas County, Texas, before going into private practice. She describes herself as a "nationally renowned criminal defense attorney and legal analyst."

Tewolde defended her remarks on social media, at one point tweeting bluntly, "I said what I said."

Comedian-turned-activist Chelsea Handler also compared Cosby to the Supreme Court nominee on Tuesday.

Bill Cosby is set to serve 3 to 10 years in prison, but when hes released hes expected to be nominated to the Supreme Court, Handler tweeted.

CNN reps did not respond to requests for comment.Jeremy Piven's jokes at a fundraiser over the weekend were well received despite earlier reports that the actor's lines failed to land, and he subsequently went into an expletive-laden tirade.

In a video obtained by Fox News, Piven, 53, who hosted the 9th annual Face Forward Gala at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Los Angeles Saturday, is heard telling jokes about his 13-year-old niece.

"I'm 200 years old. I'm still single. It's awkward. I have a niece though," the former Entourage star said. "My niece Pearl, you probably remember Pearl from the video 'The Landlord' with Will Ferrell."

"You guys remember that? The little baby: 'Give me my money bitch.' That's my niece Pearl," explains Piven, who is met with cheers and applause from the audience. Throughout the video, the crowd continues to laugh at Piven's jokes.

Early reports indicated that the actor went into a tirade at the event, which was held for domestic violence and human trafficking survivors, after his jokes reportedly fell flat.

Piven, who reportedly told jokes about sex acts, Kim Kardashian and Justin Bieber, said f--- you" to attendees, The Daily Mail reported.

He reportedly went on to say that: This is a tough room by the way. Tough room. Oh, I knew it. I knew it. I just decided I'm doing a two-hour set because you're not giving me love. So, f--- you all, Piven told the crowd after failing to get a laugh, according to The Daily Mail.

Piven's reported jokes nor the explectives mentioned by early reports were in the video obtained by Fox News. A rep for Piven did not return Fox News' request for comment.

During the gala, Face Foward Chairwoman, Christina DeRosa, thanked Piven for attending and hosting the event.

"Jeremy cancelled a comedy tour to be at our gala and flew in on a red eye from New York out of his pocket, to support a cause that helps survivors of domestic violence around the world," she said.

"We asked him to make people laugh and he did by being Jeremy. I am honored that Jeremy is a supporter of Face Forward. By him coming to this event demonstrates his commitment to respect and help domestic violence survivors, women and men, around the world. Thank you, my friend."Dame Judi Dench defended her good friend Kevin Spacey and criticized the decision to remove the disgraced actor from the film All the Money in the World.

Spacey, an Academy Award-winning actor, was accused of sexual misconduct late last year by several men in the U.S. and U.K. Officials in both countries opened criminal investigations to further explore the claims.

Following the allegations, he was fired from Netflixs House of Cards and replaced by Christopher Plummer in the Ridley Scott film All the Money in the World. Since the allegations, Spacey has remained away from the limelight.

Dench, 83, discussed Spacey with reporters at the San Sebastian Film Festival in Spain on Tuesday, Variety reported.

HOUSE OF CARDS TEASES DEATH OF KEVIN SPACEYS CHARACTER IN PREVIEW CLIP

I cant approve, in any way, of the fact that  whatever he has done  that you then start to cut him out of the films, the actress said. Are we to do what happened when he was replaced with Christopher Plummer? Are we to do that throughout history? Are we to go back throughout history and anyone who has misbehaved in any way, or who has broken the law, or who has committed some kind of offense, are they always going to be cut out? Are we going to extrude them from our history? I dont know.

Dench recalled working with Spacey on the 2002 film The Shipping News and said the actor was brought her great comfort during a tough time.

I remember just after my husband died, and I was in a bad way, I went to do The Shipping News with Kevin Spacey, and Kevin was an inestimable comfort and never mentioned he knew I was in a bad way, she remembered. He cheered me up and kept me going, she said.

KEVIN SPACEY SEXUAL ASSAULT CASE REVIEWED BY LOS ANGELES DA

The Academy Award-winning actress said she couldnt imagine what Spacey was up to now but called him a most wonderful actor and a good friend.

Dench was asked about the #MeToo movement which she called an extraordinary moment.

I think there are many things to be redressed and made right, she said. It is an extraordinary moment of change, a sea change at the moment. And there many more parts for women, which is very good indeed, and long may that go on.

Fox News Stephanie Nolasco contributed to this report.Dennis Davern, the boat captain who was there on the night Natalie Wood died, is speaking out about the enigmatic death.

During an appearance on "Megyn Kelly Today" on Wednesday, Davern, who was joined by Marti Rulli, co-author of the 2014 book "Goodbye Natalie, Goodbye Splendour," detailed his most recent conversation with police about what happened the night Wood died, noting that it was a "lenghty interview."

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the co-authors, who appeared on the show as part of a promotion for their podcast "Fatal Voyage The Mysterious Death of Natalie Wood," allege that Wagner pushed Wood off the boat.

"I was interviewed by the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department. ... I gave them all the information that I could give them," Davern explained. "After I gave them all that information, they asked me if I'd be willing to take a polygraph from the L.A. Sheriff's Department and I said, 'Yes, I would.'"

Davern, who says he then immediately took the polygraph test and passed with "flying colors," went on to allege that Wood's husband at the time, Robert Wagner, now 88, held him "hostage." (Following Wood's death, Davern continued to work for Wagner for a year.)

"When I was at Robert Wagner's house, I was actually there for just about a year," Davern explained. "Robert Wagner got me a job at the studio. He was doing the TV series called 'Hart to Hart.' If I would have a morning call, or something like that, to go to the studio, his driver would pick me up and take me from the house to the studio."

"At the end of my work day, the driver would bring me back to the house," he continued, alleging that when he "would go to bed for the night, my room, you'd close the door, and there was sort of like a magnetic lock to where you couldn't open the door. I couldn't get myself out of my own room."

"I thought maybe the whole house has a security system," he added. "Whether it did or not, I don't know, but to me it was a very locked-in feeling."

Wagner's representatives did not immediately respond when Fox News asked for comment on Davern's claim.

During the "Megyn Kelly Today" appearance, Rulli came to Davern's defense over not going to the police for years.

"The first year after [Davern] stayed with Wagner, he wanted Dennis under his wing. So it was very hard for Dennis to talk with his family, his friends," Rulli said. "And when I finally did get involved, and that's when [Davern] planned to move away from L.A., we started early. This has been decades of effort."

In 1981, Wood was traveling on the familys yacht, Splendour, with Wagner, as well as Davern and Woods friend, actor Christopher Walken.

The West Side Story stars body was found floating in the water off Santa Catalina Island on Nov. 29, 1981. She was 43."Southern Charm" star Kathryn Dennis is letting everyone know that her two children are her main priority following the news of Thomas Ravenel's arrest.

Hours after it was announced that Dennis' ex-boyfriend and father of her children was arrested on charges of domestic violence, the mother of two took to Instagram and shared a cryptic post of her kids.

The 26-year-old reality star captioned an image of her kids, Kensie and Saint and said, "Everything in life to me."

Following her Instagram posting, the mother then tweeted a message on Twitter which may have alluded to Ravenel's arrest which said, "People are on the side of the road with signs saying '#believesurvivors in mount pleasant.'"

On Tuesday, Ravenel was arrested in South Carolina charged with second-degree assault and battery following an investigation into an alleged sexual assault that occurred in 2015.

The Bravo star was booked into Charleston County jail just after 10 a.m. and is being held without bond, according to Charleston County Sheriff's Office's jail records.

The arrest was in connection with a 43-year-old woman's alleged assault, Charleston police told Fox News. The woman previously revealed herself to People magazine as "Dawn," a former nanny to Ravenels children. She told the magazine that she had filed the police report.

According to an incident report, authorities began investigating the Bravo TV star in May, after the woman claimed she was sexually assaulted by Ravenel in January 2015.

Following the announcement of the investigation into the alleged claims against Ravanel, Dennis addressed the reports while appearing on the "Southern Charm" reunion special in July.

Im not going to comment until, I guess, its resolved, I think," Dennis told Andy Cohen and the rest of her reality show castmates. " What Im going to focus on the children and staying out of it.

After Ravanel's arrest, Bravo announced that the reality star would not return as a cast member of the next season of "Southern Charm."

Fox News' Katharine Lam contributed to this report.As the Oregon wine industry continues to boom, vineyards outside the state hoping to cash in on the regions success are making false links to the state's viticultural areas for their own wines, which might be against the law, experts testified at a hearing Monday.

The state, known for its pinot noir, added 92 vineyards and 44 wineries last year, according to the latest Oregon Vineyard and Winery Report. Total sales grew more than $550 million in 2017, up nearly 4 percent over 2016, according to an annual study by the University of Oregon Institute for Policy Research and Engagement.

'MYSTERY BUYER' OF NECCO WAFERS AND SWEETHEARTS REVEALED AS SPANGLER CANDY CO.

But as the red varietal continues to increase in popularity, winemakers elsewhere are marketing and labeling their wines with inaccurate claims associating them with Oregon, which some argue violates industry regulations.

Rep. David Gomberg of the Oregon House of Representatives said he first noticed the problem when he saw a wine made in California that was labeled as an Oregon coast pinot noir, though that type of grape isnt grown on the Oregon coast.

Witnesses testified on the issue before the House interim committee on economic development and trade, arguing that winemakers need to be careful when making claims, as names that violate the regulations could result in fines up to $25,000.

The idea of geographic standards of identity is a global phenomenon, Tom Danowski, president of the Oregon Winegrowers Association, told the San Francisco Chronicle.

The industry here has spent 53 years creating an image for the Willamette Valley, David Adelsheim, who founded Adelsheim Vineyard in 1971, told the Chronicle. Now our concern is the potential of people who may not have our best interests at heart to take advantage of the brand that is Willamette Valley Pinot.

FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK FOR MORE FOX LIFESTYLE NEWS

While it isnt uncommon for wineries in states like California to import grapes from Oregon to make their wine, winemakers must follow Oregons strict labeling guidelines, which require wine to be at least 95 percent from its listed American viticultural area (federal law requires just 85 percent), and at least 90 percent its listed grape variety (federal law requires just 75 percent), according to the Chronicle.

The Oregon Department of Justice has been asked to investigate specific instances of wine mislabeling from vineyards in California.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.A grief-stricken couple whose daughter lived for just nine days say they are proud that her tiny organs were able to help save the life of another baby.

Jessica and Sampson Shnurman were heartbroken when an ultrasound at 13-weeks showed their unborn child had a large fluid filled cyst at the top of her spine.

Doctors told the couple their daughter, Lilah, was incompatible with life as the birth defect was preventing her brain stem from developing as it should.

Jessica, 30, a surgical nurse, and Sampson, 31, a contractor, continued the pregnancy to term but asked doctors if Lilah might be a suitable candidate for organ donation.

GEORGIA JURY AWARDS $31M OVER BOY'S BOTCHED CIRCUMCISION

The parents, who also have a son, Abel, aged 2, welcomed 6 lbs., 5-oz. baby Lilah on August 29, and say seeing her open her eyes and cry was the most precious moment.

They didn't expect her to be born alive and said they feel blessed that they were able to take her home, where she lived for nine days.

Lilah passed away in her mothers arms on September 7, but the valves of her tiny heart were donated through the Iowa Donors Network to help another baby.

The infant's lungs were also donated to medical research at the University of Iowa and her parents say they feel privileged that their special daughters legacy will live on.

"My husband and I talked about our options and it just didnt feel right to terminate," Jessica Shnurman, of Cumming, Iowa, said. "We wanted to let God make the decision. As soon as Lilah arrived they put her into my arms and she opened her eyes and cried."

"It was so special because we werent sure if she would be born alive," she said. "We spent the whole first day with our family and friends and she was passed from person to person for cuddles."

"My husband brought Abel in right away because we didnt know how long we would have with her," she said. "He immediately wanted to hold her and was kissing all over her."

"In part of my planning I came across a group called Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep and I called them. They sent us a wonderful lady who came and took our pictures together as a family," she said. "We really werent prepared for Lilah to live for long after she was born, but when the next day came they said we could go home."

"We werent at all prepared, we didnt have a car seat or clothes but the ladies at the neonatal hospice were angels and really helped us out," she said. "It was amazing. She opened her eyes and cried. She could hear our voices because she would turn her head, and she squeezed our fingers. I was so grateful for those days. We had nine days at home with Lilah. She died on Sept 7, at 4:07 a.m. in my arms."

CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL DROPS GENDER MARKERS FROM PATIENT WRISTBANDS

"When Lilah opened her eyes and cried, it was a moment I will always remember," Sampson Shnurman said. "It was so nice to go home and get out of the hospital. We were able to feel what it would be like to be a family of four and that was very special."

Soon after Lilah passed away at home, the couple called the Iowa Donor Network, who they had already been in contact with.

"Lilah was able to donate her hearts valves to help another child, and her lungs were donated as well," Jessica Shnurman said. "We feel incredibly blessed that Lilah has the opportunity to live on through someone else. Lilah was able to give something so precious to another family."

Two days after Lilahs precious donation, Jessica, Sampson and 2-year-old Abel marked her life with a funeral.

"She's buried in a small country cemetery near our home," Jessica said. "My husband made her casket himself and my grandma made the lining. A family member gave her a little quilt and it was the most beautiful day outside. My little boy asks about Lilah every day."

Sampson said that the couple would love to one day meet the recipient of Lilahs valves, whose identity they do not know per protocol.

"Someday we would love to hear their story. That would mean so much to us," he said.

"We would love to connect with them," Jessica added. "To know Lilah saved someones life has been such a comfort to us."Overview of the requiem (Photo: vov.vn)

At the ceremony, Venerable Thich Minh Quang from Phat Tich pagoda, said that every year President Tran Dai Quang sent a letter of congratulations to Vietnamese children at home and abroad on the occasion of the Mid-autumn festival.

His letter this year showed the special attention of President Tran Dai Quang for the young generation.

Venerable Thich Minh Quang affirmed that President Tran Dai Quang passed away, leaving sentiment and infinite grief among monks, Buddhists and the overseas Vietnamese community in Laos.

In the solemn atmosphere, the monks and Buddhists of Laos and Vietnam, and the Vietnamese community in Vientiane, prayed for the salvation of President Tran Dai Quangs soul.

After the requiem, Phat Tich pagoda presented 350 gifts to Lao students affected by the Xe Pian - Xe Namnoy hydropower dam collapse in Attapeu province, Laos./.A Texas bride celebrating her dream wedding in Maui was paralyzed in a tragic accident while boogie boarding just four days after saying I do.

Nikki Lewis, who wed husband Will on Sept. 8, was reportedly thrown to the ground by a rogue wave, breaking her neck in two places and leaving her partially paralyzed.

Her fairy-tale wedding trip has turned into a horrible nightmare for herself, her new husband, their children and families, a GoFundMe page set up on behalf of the 34-year-old reads.

PARALYZED PATIENTS TAKE FIRST STEPS AFTER IMPLANT, INTENSE REHAB

According to friends who were with Lewis on Sept. 12, their flight back to Dallas had been delayed for a day, so they took a group outing to Big Beach. The mother-of-two hit the waves while others watched from shore.

I just saw the wave towering over her as she was on the boogie board, JaMikal Moorer, a friend, told WFAA.

The impact reportedly knocked Lewis unconscious, and she was immediately paralyzed.

It took four grown men to get her out of the water, between the waves, the sand, the incline, Moorer told the news outlet.

COLLEGE RUNNING BACK FORCED TO RETIRE OVER NECK CONDITION

An off-duty paramedic reportedly helped stabilize her neck, and she was rushed to a hospital. According to the GoFundMe page, she was later flown to Honolulu for surgery.

Friends of Lewis later started the Nikkis Hope Facebook page, where Will has been posting updates and videos of her recovery. On Sunday, a video of Lewis feeding herself while in her chair was posted, while another showed her working on building strength by using a small pumpkin for wrist curls.

Her relatives are hoping to raise enough money to cover her flight back to Texas, and arrange for her therapy to continue there.A dad-of-two has spoken of his holiday horror after he was diagnosed with a brain tumor during a dream family trip to Florida.

Barry Reid, his wife Gillian and their two young daughters, Chloe and Katie, along with his in-laws, jetted off to their dream vacation last October.

But twelve days into their holiday Reid took a turn for the worse and collapsed at Universal's Volcano Bay Park while waiting to go on a waterslide.

When the 32-year-old woke up, he found himself in an ambulance heading to a local hospital wired up to a host of machines.

Reid, from Ayr, South Ayrshire, says he couldn't believe it when the doctor diagnosed him with a brain tumor.

BABY WHO LIVED JUST 9 DAYS SAVES ANOTHER THROUGH ORGAN DONATION

"I had multiple scans at the hospital in Orlando," he said. "As the results came back it was the last thing I thought the doctor would say, Mr Reid, the MRI scan has shown a frontal lobe brain tumor in the front left of your brain.' This is the point my life changed."

Reid had no previous symptoms other than several headaches he put down to new LED lighting at the high street store where hes a retail manager.

At the time doctors just prescribed him with anti-migraine over the counter medicine.

After his collapse in Orlando, medics stabilized Reid and gave him anti-seizure medication.

He was then flown back home, along with a medical escort for safety, five days later on October 25.

When he returned, Reid was taken straight to Glasgows Queen Elizabeth Hospital to hand over his notes from the American doctors and discuss the next step.

Just two weeks later, Reid was facing an awake craniotomy brain tumor surgery to remove as much of the 3.5-cm mass as possible.

"I was terrified of brain surgery, obviously, I was physically shaking," he said. "The day before my surgery was due, the anesthetist took time to show me around the operating theater to calm my nerves, explaining the procedure, showing me the table Id be lying on  everything to calm me down."

"Ill always appreciate that. I knew I had to put my trust in surgeon Mr Grivas and his team," he said. "Over ten hours later, the operation was complete. Mr Grivas had done an amazing job and only left 3-mm of the tumor in and he was happy with the way the operation had gone."

Reids operation involved him being put under anesthetic but the surgeon would have to wake him during the operation to perform verbal tests to make sure none of his healthy tissue was being damaged.

"As they were working nearer to the speech part of my brain, they said I started stuttering and thats how they knew they could go no further," he said. "At one point, the doctors said I was chirping away like a budgie during the awake part of the craniotomy. I cant remember that, so maybe not a bad thing."

Doctors discovered after the surgery that Reids tumor had grown from a grade two to grade three tumor -- cancer cells appear distinctly abnormal under the microscope.

Five days later, Reid was allowed home to be with his family just a day before his 32nd birthday.

But Reid was then admitted back to the neuro ward two weeks later with a serious skull infection.

He spent more than six weeks in hospital - missing the Christmas holiday with his wife and children.

"That was really tough," he said. "Luckily I had a six-hour window with my family just on Christmas Day between treatment for the infection  just enough time to open presents with them."

Following chemotherapy treatment for the remaining 3-mm of tumor, Reid has spent the last eight months working hard on his recovery and returning to work.

"I would like to thank neurosurgeon, Mr A Grivas and all the ward 63 staff for looking after me and my family during my time in the Queen Elizabeth Hospital," he said. "All the staff were really friendly and always ensured I received the best possible care."

Barry now faces more radiotherapy in mid-February 2019 to shrink the remaining parts of the tumor.

Now the inspiring dad and his family are determined to raise as much awareness of the devastating impact of a brain tumor diagnosis as they can.

On October 20, he will take part in The Brain Tumour Charitys Prestwick Twilight Walk, which brings together the community of all of those affected.

Its part of The Charitys annual Twilight Walks.

PARALYZED PATIENTS TAKE FIRST STEPS AFTER IMPLANT, INTENSE REHAB

"As a family, were looking forward to the Prestwick walk," he said. "You get a diagnosis like this and suddenly you realize that there are others out there going through the same."

"Weve had lovely support from Katie Grier and Heather Dearie, whos also living with a brain tumor and lives just a street away from us, who also work for the charity," he said.

"We always knew we had incredible supporters and Barrys story confirms this," Katie Grier, the charity's community fundraiser, said. "A huge thank you to him and his family for sharing his story and being an invaluable part of our community as we strive to stamp out brain tumors."

"We look forward to joining them and our community on the Prestwick Twilight Walk," she said. "Brain tumors are the biggest cancer killer of the under 40s and survival rates have not improved significantly over the last 40 years. We are leading the way in changing this by fighting brain tumors on all fronts."

The Brain Tumour Charity is one of the UKs largest dedicated brain tumour charities and readers who wish to support the charity can visit https://www.thebraintumourcharity.org/A health worker in northern England has become the third person in Britain to contract a rare illness caused by a monkeypox virus after caring for a patient infected with the disease following travel to Nigeria, health officials said on Wednesday.

The latest patient had been involved in caring for another case at Blackpool Victoria Hospital before monkeypox was diagnosed, Public Health England said in a statement.

Monkeypox is a rare viral infection that does not usually spread easily from person to person. The virus is similar to human smallpox, which was eradicated in 1980. Although monkeypox is much milder than smallpox, with most infected people recovering within a few weeks, it can in rare cases be fatal.

MAN WHO LOST HAND IN SAUSAGE-MAKING ORDEAL CUT OFF OWN ARM

Health officials said earlier this month that two people in Britain had been diagnosed with monkeypox in separate cases thought to be linked to travel to Nigeria, West Africa. These were the first ever cases of monkeypox in Britain.

This third case has been isolated and is being cared for in a specialist unit at Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle, northeast England, the statement said.

This health care worker cared for the patient before a diagnosis of monkeypox was made, said Nick Phin of PHEs National Infection Service.

We have been actively monitoring contacts for 21 days after exposure to detect anyone presenting with an illness so that they can be assessed quickly. It is therefore not wholly unexpected that a case has been identified.

This person has been isolated and we are taking a highly precautionary approach to ensure that all contacts are traced, he added.

Phin had previously said the monkeypox virus was likely to be circulating in Nigeria after a large outbreak there in 2017, and could therefore affect travelers returning to Britain.

MOM'S WARNING ABOUT PUBLIC BATHROOM CHANGING TABLES GOES VIRAL

Jonathan Ball, a professor of molecular virology at Britains University of Nottingham, said that while the infection of the healthcare worker was sad news, the third case should not be a cause of great concern.

The fact that only one of 50 contacts of the initial monkeypox-infected patient has been infected shows how poorly infectious the virus is, he said. It is wrong to think that we are on the brink of a nationwide outbreak.

Ball noted that there are two main strains of monkeypox virus  West African and Central African - it would be a reasonable guess to assume these cases are of the West African strain. The West African virus is normally associated with milder disease, fewer deaths and limited human-to-human transmission, he added.A concerned father in Louisiana father is speaking out about the inappropriate spirit week themes at his daughters middle school in the hopes of raising awareness regarding the style guidelines for young students.

Late last week, M.J. Mouton shared an image of the dress day guidelines for the week-long homecoming festivities at his 12-year-old daughters middle school in the town of Iowa, which included suggestions for "Stoplight Day," during which kids were encouraged to wear stoplight-inspired colors to signify their relationship status, as well as "Boys vs. Girls Gender War" day, which encouraged children to wear pink or blue.

MISS UTAH HOPEFUL TAKES AUTISTIC HIGH SCHOOLER TO HOMECOMING AFTER CLASSMATES PLAY CRUEL PRANK

Monday is  Wear Red if you are taken. Wear Green if you are single. Wear Yellow if it is complicated, Mouton wrote on Twitter, in a post that has since been liked over 147,000 times, shared 19,000 times, and sparked over 4,000 comments. She is in middle school. Totally inappropriate. Welcome to Louisiana.

Twitter users have since described the guidelines as "gross" and "out of touch with reality for young kids.

Mouton later told Yahoo Lifestyle and confirmed on Twitter that the Stoplight Day theme came from the neighboring Iowa High School, where students do it to find who is available for Homecoming, but felt the message was absolutely wrong to impart on grade-schoolers.

Kids should be kids. Sure, some middle school kids are going to have boyfriends and girlfriends and crushes, but I dont think we need the school to play matchmaker for a 10- to 14-year-old, he told KPLC.

Another parent of a child in an Iowa High School similarly agreed that the Stoplight Day theme was in bad taste for young children.

Being that I do have a child in high school, I mean, he does have a girlfriend, so, to me, I was OK with it. But thinking middle school, to me, thats kind of young, and they really dont know anything about relationships and stuff, Doneka Dugas told KPLC of the controversial theme.

Twitter users were largely horrified with both the Stoplight Day and Gender War" themes, and quickly voiced their disapproval.

Id have my kid wear a stop sign. For crying out loud, thats nuts, one commenter felt.

Also unacceptable to divide #gender for pink/blue day. There are tons of fun ideas for students without #sexualizing students or alienating #LGBTQ students, another agreed.

This is bad on so many levels  aside from the bad messages, the stoplight colors will make lonely kids feel lonelier & open others up for humiliation. And 'gender wars'??? Wtf??! one said.

FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK FOR MORE FOX LIFESTYLE NEWS

Reaching out to the schoolboard, Mouton received the following message:

Our intentions were not to cause undue stress on students or their families. Unfortunately, we did not hear about them until so late in the week that we were unable to change our days, reads an image of the alleged letter Mouton received, and later shared to Twitter. I can assure you that we have plans in the works for next year to avoid a repeat of these circumstances.

Because of this, Moulton said he's glad he spoke up.

If nobody said anything, they would just let this go on for years and years, he told Yahoo.NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

Sexual misconduct has nothing to do with political ideology, party identification or occupation. It is wrong, regardless of whether it is committed by a Democrat, a Republican, a celebrity, a member of the clergy, a journalist, an executive or someone in another line of work.

Yet in their zeal to do absolutely anything to keep Judge Brett Kavanaugh off the Supreme Court, Democrats are treating unsubstantiated allegations about his conduct in high school and college as the Gospel truth. At the same time, they have forgiven serious sexual misconduct  proven and alleged  by Democratic men many years older and in positions of power.

The #MeToo movement is important and long overdue. No one  male or female, child or adult  should be forced to endure sexual harassment or assault, and all victims should be encouraged to speak up. But if this righteous movement for justice is allowed to be weaponized for the use of one political party it will implode.

Democrats might find the sketchy accusations against Kavanaugh to be politically useful now, but by overplaying their hand they are actually imperiling the #MeToo movement.

Regrettably, Democrats have a long history of protecting and supporting men accused of sexual misconduct.

President Clinton admitted to a sexual relationship from 1995 to 1997 with White House intern Monica Lewinksy in the Oval Office, yet Democrats successfully fought off an attempt to remove him from office.

But there were other cases in which Clinton denied wrongdoing. Juanita Broaddrick claims Clinton raped her in 1978. A former Arkansas state employee sued Clinton for allegedly exposing himself to her when he was governor of Arkansas. Kathleen Willey has alleged that Clinton fondled her breast and forced her hand up his crotch in 1993 in the Oval Office.

Allegations of sexual misconduct have been made about President John F. Kennedy. His brother, Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, also faced such accusations, and left the scene of an accident where a young woman traveling in his car died.

By turning this issue into a political values test (one where those on the progressive left are good, and all others are bad), Democrats have alienated at least half the country.

And Democratic U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison  vice chair of the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic candidate for Minnesota attorney general  stands accused by ex-girlfriend Karen Monahan of physically and emotionally abusing her over a period of years. He has denied the allegations.

Democratic Rep. John Conyers of Michigan and Democratic Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota resigned from Congress after they were accused of sexual misconduct earlier this year. Both also denied wrongdoing.

And Imran Awan  the former IT aide to Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida and other House Democrats  was accused by multiple women who told police in Virginia he physically abused them and spied on them. One even said he kept her as a slave. I detailed these accusations in my recent book Spies in Congress  Inside the Democrats Cover-Up Cyber Scandal.

Awan recently pleaded guilty to bank fraud charges. Before his plea, Wasserman Schultz  the former chair of the Democratic National Committee  accused those with the gall to investigate Awan and everything he was up to in Congress as being guilty of ethnic and religious profiling.

I dont know the truth about the accusations three women are now leveling at Kavanaugh from his high school and college years. But I know that the allegations are unsupported by any evidence except the allegations offered by his accusers, and that there is contradictory evidence.

The allegations include a new claim made Wednesday by attorney Michael Avenatti that a woman he identified as Julie Swetnick contends that Kavanaugh and a friend were present when she was raped. She did not explicitly accuse Kavanaugh of assaulting her.

Kavanaugh has categorically denied all the accusations against him  by Swetnick, by Christine Blasey Ford and by Deborah Ramirez. Ford alleges Kavanaugh groped her at a high school party and Ramirez has alleged Kavanaugh exposed himself to her when both were freshmen at Yale University.

In a new statement Wednesday responding to Swetnicks claim, Kavanaugh said: This is ridiculous and from the Twilight Zone. I dont know who this is and this never happened.

By embracing the weak accusations against Kavanaugh while ignoring far stronger evidence against prominent Democrats, Democrats are sinking the #MeToo movement in politics. They think this is an effective strategy that will hold together because they blame men in general, or at least manliness, for the alleged atrocities of a few.

Thats a convenient diagnosis for a political movement that views strong men as a constituency that mostly votes for the other team. Its a clever way of turning the issue into a political weapon for the progressive left. Its even a strategy for the left to weaken the very identity of the men who often vote for Republicans.

One problem with this sexist position is that if men believe they are guilty simply because they have Y chromosomes, then they have no incentive to be part of the solution. And it defies logic to say that women tell the truth 100 percent of the time and are incapable of making a false allegation against a man.

Also, if men go along with this anti-masculine logic and so decide to weaken themselves, arent they then less likely to boldly take on someone up the chain of command who might be guilty of sexual misconduct against one or more employees? Weak men, after all, dont stand up to powerful men.

By turning this issue into a political values test (one where those on the progressive left are good, and all others are bad), Democrats have alienated at least half the country. One half of the electorate can virtue signal to each other, while the other half thinks what the hell!

Of course, anyone who can reason knows that by definition a gentleman doesnt behave the way the men caught in the teeth of the #MeToo movement allegedly did. They also know that any young man who behaves in that way must be corrected fast and preferably by the men in their family and life.

Given the obvious fact that strong men must be a part of the solution, why are so many in the media and popular culture unwilling to make an obvious distinction between the men who sexually harass or even rape women and the gentlemen out there who respect women? Dont men now, more than ever, need good ideals and role models to live up to?

Men, after all, to be all they can be, still need to be heroes in their stories (just as women do); they need to be gentlemen and stand-up guys, not weaklings afraid to boldly speak and act, lest they be guilty of mansplaining, microaggressions, or actual sexual misconduct.

Men need to know how to gallantly navigate a world where men and women work together and compete in offices with one another. Men need to know how to be true gentlemen.

By instead arguing that manliness (what they call toxic masculinity) is to blame, those on the left arent just trying to weaken men  they are also dividing women politically.

Suddenly, strong conservative women are treated as enablers of bad behavior in men. The #MeToo movement thus politically weaponized for progressives alienates not only men but also a lot of women.

The important #MeToo movement cant long survive within that dishonest political litmus test. Such treatment will divide and destroy the movement.NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

President Trump gave Republicans a master class in retaliating against the tactics of the left on Tuesday, and GOP senators would do well to take notes.

Undoubtedly weary of watching the daily smear storm buffeting his Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, Mr. Trump decided it was time to do what he does best -- fight back. And he did not mince words.

The Democrats are playing a con game, C-O-N. A con game, he said. "They know it's a con game. They know he's high quality. And they wink at each other. They are winking. They know it's a con game."

President Trump is never going to be content to hang back and play defense when he sees his agenda in jeopardy. He tried that a little bit for a few days last week when Christine Ford's allegation Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in the early 1980s when they were in high school was dropped, and he won praise for being measured and presidential.

These uncivil tactics and slimy smears against good people are exposing just how radicalized, how contemptible some strains of today's Democratic Party has become.

That's nice, but meanwhile, his nominee was under a massive left-wing assault as Republicans on the committee were bending over backwards to accommodate the accuser's demands for delays and various conditions. Well, Trump is back and not a moment too soon.

On Tuesday, he also had this to say, It is a shame that you can do this to a person's life. I will tell you, maybe even more important, who is going to want to go before this system to be a Supreme Court judge or to be a judge or to be even a politician?

It's a great point. Notice how he boils it all down to a stark set of facts that can be understood by all Americans. And he's unafraid, despite the mealy-mouthed protestations of those around him, to throw counter punches.

When a former Yale classmate of Kavanaugh's came forward with a thoroughly unsubstantiated claim that he exposed himself to her at a drunken dormitory party, Trump took the claim apart.

Thirty-six years ago? Nobody ever knew about it, nobody ever heard about it? And now a new charge comes up, and she says, "Well, it might not be him. She thinks, maybe it could have been him, maybe not. She admits that she was drunk. She admits time lapses. There were time lapses.

By the way, it's the same approach President Trump is taking on the world stage. At the United Nations yesterday, as the global elites shifted in their chairs uncomfortably, he delivered a fiercely pro-American, pro-sovereignty message.

We will never surrender America's sovereignty to an unelected, unaccountable global bureaucracy," he said. "America is governed by Americans. We reject the ideology of globalism and we embrace the doctrine of patriotism.

Defiant. Unapologetic. Clear. We need more of that today.

Getting back to Kavanaugh, Trump's approach offers a stark contrast to that of the Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. They walked right into the trap set by the left-wing smear squad.

Republican senators Jeff Flake, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski all felt pressured to give in to the #MeToo militants, forcing Senate Judiciary committee chairman Chuck Grassley to postpone last Thursday's Kavanaugh vote. Democrats, true to form, were given an inch and took a mile. They took the confirmation process hostage.

No accommodation for Ford is enough. She must be believed, and Kavanaugh must be blamed. Never mind the frightening lack of corroboration, evidence or even basic facts to go on. The Democrats have spawned a mob-like circus in the hallways of the senate offices, and now anti-Kavanaugh nasties are targeting and trying to humiliate Republican senators when they are out in public.

Most Americans bristle at this stuff. These uncivil tactics and slimy smears against good people are exposing just how radicalized, how contemptible some strains of today's Democratic Party has become.

But maybe, just maybe, there is something positive that has emerged in all of this.

Republicans are beginning to see what they are capable of actually accomplishing when they work together. Without the interparty fights, the warfare interparty, they can actually do a good deal of good. I am told that President George W. Bush is making calls on Kavanaugh's behalf. And it was very encouraging to see Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stand firm and make a statement like this:

Justice matters. Evidence matters. Facts matter. Vague, unsubstantiated, and uncorroborated allegations of 30 plus-year-old misconduct where all the supposed witnesses either totally deny it or can't confirm it is nowhere near grounds to nullify someone's career or destroy their good name.

Amen. And it's about time all Republicans called this out, what they have done to Brett Kavanaugh for what it is. It's a total disgrace.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley's decision to schedule the Kavanaugh committee vote Friday morning is another positive development. It shows the GOP might actually be following the commander-in-chief's lead.

If Republicans continue to fight for fairness and justice in the way that Trump has on issue after issue, we may not only see a Justice Kavanaugh, we may just hold the majority come November.

Adapted from Laura Ingraham's opening monologue on "The Ingraham Angle, Sept. 26. 2018NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., said Tuesday that the House will subpoena memos drafted by former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe that may indicate Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein discussed secretly recording President Trump.

Goodlatte told reporters that he could issue the subpoena as soon as Thursday, when Rosenstein is scheduled to meet with Trump at the White House.

A source close to Rosenstein has told Fox News that the deputy attorney general was expecting to be fired when he went to the White House on Monday for a previously scheduled meeting. However, any further action was deferred until Thursday after Rosenstein spoke with Trump on the phone.

Rosenstein has been in the spotlight since May of last year, when he appointed special counsel Robert Mueller to oversee the FBI's investigation into Russian activities during the 2016 election, as well as allegations of collusion between the Kremlin and the Trump campaign. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who ordinarily would have overseen the Russia investigation, recused himself citing his close involvement in the Trump campaign.

The New York Times reported Friday that in the same month he appointed Mueller, Rosenstein suggested wearing a "wire" during meetings with the president  remarks his defenders insisted were merely sarcastic  and invoking the Constitution to have the Cabinet consider removing him from office.

The alleged comments were documented in private memos written by McCabe, who was fired this past March after an internal Justice Department investigation determined he had lied about his involvement in a leak to The Wall Street Journal.

Meanwhile, Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, tweeted that Rosenstein should "come before Congress this week, under oath, and tell the truth about his alleged statement."

A Justice Department spokesperson told Fox News that Rosenstein had not been invited to testify before any committee. The spokesperson did not say whether the deputy attorney general would appear voluntarily.

Fox News' Chad Pergram, Jake Gibson, Catherine Herridge and The Associated Press contributed to this report.NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

A lawyer for the second woman who publicly accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct said Tuesday night that the FBI must investigate the accusations of his client, Deborah Ramirez.

John Clune, speaking to CNN's Anderson Cooper, said the accusations put forth by Ramirez have to be investigated by law enforcement officials, rather than lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

"This has to be investigated by meaningful law enforcement. This is not something that can be done by the Senate," Clune said. "This has to be done by FBI who can investigate the matter with the threat of perjury. Our client's willing to do that."

Ramirez, in a piece published by The New Yorker on Sunday, claimed that Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a party while they were students at Yale University 35 years ago  an allegation that the judge has denied and called a "smear."

HOWARD KURTZ: MAJOR PROBLEMS WITH NEW YORKER'S SECOND KAVANAUGH ACCUSER BLUNT IMPACT

Her accusation came days after Dr. Christine Blasey Ford said the judge sexually assaulted her when they were teenagers.

Cooper addressed concerns about Ramirez's allegations, specifically that it took Ramirez  as noted in the article  "six days of carefully assessing her memories and consulting with her attorney" before she felt comfortable coming foward to name Kavanaugh.

Clune said that while he was not representing Ramirez at that time, he's come to know her as "very, very careful and very deliberate" in her effort to accurately recall the situations she claims happened in college.

Ramirez wanted to "make sure that what she was actually going to be disclosing publicly was information that she could rely on, and that she could stand by, and that was accurate"  telling Cooper that Ramirez is "probably the most careful and conscientious client that I've ever represented."

GRASSLEY SAID HE 'IS NOT GOING TO SILENCE' FORD, VOWS KEY KAVANAUGH HEARING WILL PROCEED BEFORE POSSIBLE VOTE

"She is very adamant that she's not going to put forward information that she doesn't actually recall and doesn't think it's something she can rely on," Clune said. Claims that Ramirez consulted with other people to clarify her recollections, Clune argued, "was just smart investigation to make sure that she wasn't remembering things inaccurately or by the passage of time."

Earlier on Twitter, Clune said Ramirez wants to give a sworn statement to the FBI regarding her allegations, and said that the Senate Judiciary Committee has so far "refused to meet all scheduled appointments."

He said that during a previously scheduled phone call with the committee, only Democrats showed up for the call, while Republicans did not.

"We have officially requested an FBI investigation and our client remains adamant that is the appropriate venue for her to discuss her trauma," Clune tweeted.

Kavanaugh and Ford are scheduled to testify in front of the committee on Thursday, and on Friday, a tentatively rescheduled vote on Kavanaugh's nomination is set to take place.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

Just days before Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee plan to hold a critical vote on whether to recommend Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation to the full Senate, a key swing vote Republican senator, Lisa Murkowski, seemed to suggest that her support for the nominee is wavering.

We are now in a place where its not about whether or not Judge Kavanaugh is qualified, Murkowski said in an interview on Monday night. It is about whether or not a woman who has been a victim at some point in her life is to be believed.

Asked Tuesday about whether an FBI inquiry into the decades-old allegations against Kavanaugh should occur -- a repeated demand by Democratic lawmakers -- Murkowski replied, It would sure clear up all the questions, wouldnt it?"

However, Murkowski later told Fox News that she expects Thursday's planned Judiciary Committee hearing, where both Kavanaugh and accuser Christine Blasey Ford are expected to testify, will clear up many of the questions currently surrounding his nomination.

Murkowski's comments seemingly put her at odds with her Republican colleagues in the Senate, including Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who have said the Senate, not the FBI, has the constitutional duty to investigate the Kavanaugh claims.

It would sure clear up all the questions, wouldnt it?"  Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, on an FBI probe

The FBI would need explicit White House instruction to conduct a probe into the allegations against Kavanaugh, Fox News has learned, because they fall well outside any applicable statute of limitations for a federal crime.

The agency already forwarded the allegations to the White House as part of its background check on Kavanaugh.

"It's totally inappropriate for someone to demand we use law enforcement resources to investigate a 35-year-old allegation when she won't go under oath and can't remember key details including when or where it happened," a federal law enforcement official told Fox News.

Murkowski's office did not immediately reply to a request for further clarification from Fox News on Tuesday.

FLASHBACK: BIDEN, IN 1991, SAYS ONLY PEOPLE WHO DON'T UNDERSTAND 'ANYTHING' WOULD CALL FOR FBI PROBE

Republicans hold a slender 51-49 majority in the Senate, with Vice President Mike Pence available to break any ties. That means if Republicans lose Murkowski's vote, they can't afford any additional defections.

Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins, another pro-choice Republican moderate, has also vowed to withhold judgment pending a Thursday hearing into the allegations by Ford, the California professor who says Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were in high school.

Neither Collins nor Murkowski sits on the Judiciary Committee, which is now expecting to decide on Friday whether to recommend Kavanaugh's confirmation. The committee's approval is not required for Kavanaugh to advance to a vote of the full Senate and be confirmed; Clarence Thomas, who was accused of sexual harassment, did not secure the committee's approval in 1991.

TOP DEMOCRATIC SENATOR SAYS KAVANAUGH DOESN'T DESERVE DUE PROCESS BECAUSE HE'S A CONSERVATIVE

Despite Murkowski's apparent misgivings, the already-volatile political landscape surrounding Kavanaugh's confirmation could shift drastically again during Thursday's scheduled hearing.

Fox News expects the hearing to begin with opening statements from Grassley and Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the top Democrat on the panel.

Ford will give an opening statement with no time limit. Then, a five-minute round of questions for each senator will follow. They can turn over questioning to other counsel, and Republicans are expected to allow Rachel Mitchell, an experienced sex-crimes prosecutor, to handle at least some of their inquiries.

WHO IS RACHEL MITCHELL, THE SEX CRIMES PROSECUTOR HEADLINING THURSDAY'S HEARING?

(As recently as Monday night, Ford's attorneys were suggesting that it is inappropriate for outside counsel to ask questions, and they requested the name of the prosecutor.)

Next up, a statement by Kavanaugh with no time limits will precede a five-minute round of questioning for each senator, Fox News expects. Kavanaugh has repeatedly denied all allegations against him.

PURPORTED WITNESS WHO HAD BACKED FORD DELETES ONLINE ACCOUNT, ADMITS 'NO IDEA' IF ATTACK OCCURRED

Ford's legal team has requested that Mark Judge, a Kavanaugh friend Ford says was in the room when he allegedly assaulted her, be subpoenaed to testify. But Republicans have rejected that request, saying he has already provided a statement under penalty of a felony charge, denying any knowledge of the episode.

Feinstein, who received Ford's allegations in July but did not disclose them to her fellow senators or federal authorities until earlier this month, has called for the hearing to be delayed, citing a new allegation made against Kavanaugh on Sunday in The New Yorker.

The magazine published claims by Deborah Ramirez, a Yale classmate of Kavanaugh who says he exposed himself to her while drunk at a college party in the 1980s. Kavanaugh has denied that allegation, as well as Ford's.

Republicans have accused Feinstein of compromising Ford's desire for anonymity by sitting on the allegations and then leaking them at the last minute for political gain, and have suggested that the lawmaker simply wants to stall a vote on the nomination.

Grassley responded to Feinstein in a letter on Tuesday: "I am not going to silence Dr. Ford after I promised and assured her that I would provide her a safe, comfortable and dignified opportunity to testify. ... There is no reason to delay the hearing any further."

On Tuesday, Feinstein admitted to Fox News that she has "no way of knowing" whether Ford will actually testify Thursday. Ford, through her legal team, has said several times this week she would show up at the hearing, following days of delays and setbacks last week in scheduling the proceedings.

The questioning is expected to center on Ford's claim that Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed and tried to remove her clothes at a Maryland house party when they were teenagers. Ford has said she is unable to recall who owned the house or why there was a gathering there. According to Ford, who says she eventually escaped to a bathroom, Kavanaugh covered her mouth briefly as music blared.

FEINSTEIN: 'I HAVE NO WAY OF KNOWING' WHETHER FORD WILL SHOW AT THE HEARING

Ford told The Washington Post last week that there were a total of "four boys at the party" where the alleged episode occurred, and that two -- Kavanaugh and Judge -- were in the room during her attack. She said that her therapist made an error by indicating she told him in 2012 that all four boys were involved.

Those boys purportedly included Kavanaugh, Judge and another classmate, Patrick Smyth -- all of whom have since denied to the Senate Judiciary Committee, under penalty of felony, any knowledge of the particular party in question or any misconduct by Kavanaugh.

However, a woman, Leland Ingham Keyser, a former classmate of Ford's at the Holton-Arms all-girls school in Maryland, has since been identified by Ford as the fourth witness at the party. In a dramatic twist, Keyser, who has never been describable as a "boy," emerged Saturday night to say she doesnt know Kavanaugh or remember being at the party with him.

"Were in the Twilight Zone when it comes to Kavanaugh," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told Fox News on Capitol Hill Monday. Later that evening, in an interview with Fox News' "Hannity," Graham said the allegations against Kavanaugh are "collapsing."

Fox News' Chad Pergram and Samuel Chamberlain contributed to this report.OSLO, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- The Coca-Cola Company has threatened to sue O. Mathisen AS, Norwegian local producer of soda "Jallasprite", online newspaper Vart Oslo reported Tuesday.

The Coca-Cola Company -- which owns the drinks "Coca-Cola", "Sprite" and "Fanta" -- requires all bottles that are labeled "Jallasprite" to be removed from the stores and all labels and marketing materials destroyed.

In case O. Mathisen AS does not remove the name of the product by the deadline on Friday, the case will be processed by the district court in Oslo, the report said.

"The word (sprite) is associated with sprouting something, making it fresher, stronger. We believe that Coca-Cola cannot own this word," Jarle Hollerud, CEO of O. Mathisen AS, told Vart Oslo.

Hakon Tysnes Kaasin, lawyer of The Coca-Cola Company, said that it was necessary to take action once it was discovered that someone was trying to use the trademark as a descriptive name for lemon soda.

The brand would otherwise risk entering the daily language as a term on lemon soda. That is called a degeneration of the trademark and is very harmful, Kaasin explained.

The Norwegian Patent Office has ruled that the possibility of confusion between "Sprite" and "Jallasprite" is high, but the decision can be appealed.

[ Editor: WPY ]NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

Senate Republicans announced late Tuesday that Rachel Mitchell, a decorated career sex crimes prosecutor with decades of experience, will handle some of the questioning of Christine Blasey Ford at a scheduled hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday.

Ford, the California professor accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault decades ago, had requested through her attorneys that only senators be able to ask questions at the hearing, in order to avoid a "trial-like" atmosphere.

Senate Democrats will still able to ask their own questions of Ford and Kavanaugh, who is also set to testify Thursday, and some have said they intend to do so. Connecticut Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a member of the Judiciary Committee and former prosecutor, criticized Republicans for "hiding from their roles as members of the Judiciary Committee" and said he would not "concede or cede" his role as a senator.

"The goal is to de-politicize the process and get to the truth."  Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa

KEY SWING VOTE REPUBLICAN SEN. MURKOWSKI SHOWS SIGNS OF WAVERING ON KAVANAUGH

Saying he wants the hearing to be a "safe, comfortable, and dignified" environment, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley wrote in a statement that retaining Mitchell would help take politics out of the proceedings.

"The goal is to de-politicize the process and get to the truth, instead of grandstanding and giving senators an opportunity to launch their presidential campaigns," Grassley, R-Iowa, wrote. "Im very appreciative that Rachel Mitchell has stepped forward to serve in this important and serious role."

Grassley then took a more explicit shot at the conduct of Senate Democrats at Kavanaugh's confirmation hearings earlier this month. During those proceedings, Cory Booker, D-N.J., suggested that he would be expelled from the Senate for releasing confidential committee documents, and compared himself to the gladiator Spartacus.

WATCH: TOP DEM ASKS KAVANAUGH IF HE EVER HAD IMPROPER MUELLER CONVERSATIONS, REFUSES TO CLARIFY QUESTION

"I promised Dr. Ford that I would do everything in my power to avoid a repeat of the circus atmosphere in the hearing room that we saw the week of September 4," Grassley wrote. "Ive taken this additional step to have questions asked by expert staff counsel to establish the most fair and respectful treatment of the witnesses possible."

Mitchell, who has been a prosecutor since 1993 and won several awards for her legal service, is currently on leave as the deputy county attorney in the Maricopa County Attorneys Office in Phoenix and the division chief of the Special Victims Division, according to Grassley's office. She has overseen prosecutions of a variety of sex-related offenses, including child molestation, sexual assault, and domestic violence.

The county prosecutor's office is entirely distinct from the sheriff's office in Maricopa County, which was led by Joe Arpaio until last year.

Fox News has been told Grassley and Feinstein are expected to give opening statements to kick off Thursday's hearing, followed by Christine Blasey Ford, who would speak with no time limit.

That would be followed by a round of five-minute questioning periods for each senator, who could turn over questioning to other counsel. The process would repeat for Kavanaugh.

As recently as Monday night, Ford's attorneys have suggested that it would be inappropriate for outside counsel to ask questions.

FEINSTEIN CAN'T SAY FOR SURE WHETHER FORD WILL SHOW FOR THURSDAY HEARING



Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins, considered a key potential swing vote on Kavanaugh's confirmation, had suggested the use of outside counsel to question Ford last week, saying the optics of having the all-male Republican contingent from the Judiciary Committee doing so would be undesirable.

Kavanaugh has repeatedly denied all allegations against him. Deborah Ramirez, a former classmate of Kavanaugh's at Yale University who this week also accused him of sexual misconduct, reportedly has not responded to Judiciary Committee inquiries or White House overtures to also testify at the hearing.

The questioning Thursday will center on Ford's claim that Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed and tried to remove her clothes at a Maryland house party when they were teenagers. Ford has said she is unable to recall who owned the house or why there was a gathering there. According to Ford, who says she eventually escaped to a bathroom, Kavanaugh covered her mouth briefly as music blared.

"Were in the Twilight Zone when it comes to Kavanaugh."  Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

DEM ON JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: KAVANAUGH DOESN'T DESERVE DUE PROCESS BECAUSE HE'S CONSERVATIVE

Ford told The Washington Post last week that there were a total of "four boys at the party" where the alleged episode occurred, and that two -- Kavanaugh and friend Mark Judge -- were in the room during her attack. She said that her therapist made an error by indicating she told him in 2012 that all four boys were involved.

Those boys purportedly included Kavanaugh, Judge and another classmate, Patrick Smyth -- all of whom have since denied to the Senate Judiciary Committee, under penalty of felony, any knowledge of the particular party in question or any misconduct by Kavanaugh.

However, a woman, Leland Ingham Keyser, a former classmate of Ford's at the Holton-Arms all-girls school in Maryland, has since been identified by Ford as the fourth witness at the party. In a dramatic twist, Keyser, who has never been describable as a "boy," emerged Saturday night to say she doesnt know Kavanaugh or remember being at the party with him.

Washington Post spokeswoman Kristine Coratti Kelly told Fox News that Keyser went unmentioned in the original story on Ford's accusations because she was unreachable, and that the article was not intended to provide a comprehensive tally of everyone at the party.

GRASSLEY UNLOADS ON FEINSTEIN FOR SITTING ON ACCUSATIONS: 'I CANNOT OVERSTATE HOW DISAPPOINTED I AM'

"We didnt name Keyser in the original story because we had not reached her for comment by that time, as the story indicates," Kelly said in an email. "The story never addressed how many girls were at the party. The story addressed the question of how many boys were in the room with her  in the context of Fords explanation for what she was said was an error in her therapists notes."

However, the letter sent by Ford to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., in July that outlined her allegations said: "The assault occurred in a suburban Maryland area home at a gathering that included me and four others."

Feinstein did not report that letter to her colleagues or federal authorities until earlier this month, after a leak describing the letter appeared in The Intercept. Republicans have accused Democrats of orchestrating that leak for political gain only days before a key vote on Kavanaugh's confirmation.

"Were in the Twilight Zone when it comes to Kavanaugh," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told Fox News on Capitol Hill Monday. Later that evening, in an interview with Fox News' "Hannity," Graham said the allegations against Kavanaugh are "collapsing."

On Friday morning, Judiciary Committee Republicans have scheduled a vote on whether to recommend Kavanaugh's confirmation to the full Senate.

It is not necessary that the committee recommend Kavanaugh in order for him to be confirmed; in 1991, Clarence Thomas did not secure the committee's endorsement before ultimately being confirmed by a majority vote in the full Senate.

Fox News' Chad Pergram contributed to this report.NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

Attorney Michael Avenatti, on the eve of Brett Kavanaugh's high-profile hearing to address sexual misconduct allegations, identified and released a "sworn declaration" from a woman who claims the Supreme Court nominee was involved in "gang" rapes in the early 1980s.

Avenattis client was identified as Julie Swetnick, who further claims in the statement that Kavanaugh and a friend were "present" when she became a "victim of one of these 'gang' or 'train' rapes" in 1982.

Kavanaugh issued a strong denial in response, saying in a statement: This is ridiculous and from the Twilight Zone. I dont know who this is and this never happened.

President Trump, moments later, accused Avenatti of making up claims, tweeting: "Avenatti is a third rate lawyer who is good at making false accusations, like he did on me and like he is now doing on Judge Brett Kavanaugh. He is just looking for attention and doesnt want people to look at his past record and relationships - a total low-life!"

Avenatti, who for days has vowed to release damaging information about Kavanaugh, posted the document a day before Kavanaugh and California professor Christine Blasey Ford are set to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee about an alleged sexual assault while the two were in high school.

He also sent the statement to the committee on Wednesday, calling for the confirmation process again to be delayed.

Swetnick is the third woman to come forward with allegations of sexual misconduct against Kavanaugh that date back to his time at Georgetown Prep high school in Maryland and Yale University.

Taylor Foy, a spokesperson for Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, told Fox News that lawyers for the committee are reviewing Swetnicks declaration.

Grassley later told reporters his attorneys are contacting the individual. Our lawyers are on it right now, our staff investigators. ... I cant say anything until they get done, he said.

Fox News is told the Thursday hearing is still scheduled.

But the details immediately fueled Democratic calls to halt the process. "Republicans need to immediately suspend the proceedings related to Judge Kavanaughs nomination, and the president must order the FBI to reopen the background check investigation," Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement, while urging him to "withdraw from consideration."

Kavanaugh previously has denied these allegations after Avenatti first revealed some of the details earlier this week. When asked Monday during a Fox News interview about the claim he and high school friend Mark Judge had plied women with drugs and alcohol at parties so other men could gang rape them, Kavanaugh called the accusation "totally false and outrageous" and said he never did "any such thing."

Swetnick does not explicitly accuse Kavanaugh of assaulting her but alleges he was involved in these "gang" rapes.

She claims in her declaration that Kavanugh was verbally abusive toward girls, was a mean drunk and would spike the punch at high school house parties so he and his friends could take advantage of girls. Swetnick adds that she remembers seeing Kavanaugh and other boys lined up outside a room at a party waiting for their turn with an inebriated girl.

In approximately 1982, I became the victim of one of these gang or train rapes where Mark Judge and Brett Kavanaugh were present, Swetnick says in her statement. During the incident, I was incapacitated without my consent and unable to fight off the boys raping me. I believe I was drugged using Quaaludes or something similar placed in what I was drinking.

Avenatti, who also represents porn star Stormy Daniels in her case against President Trump and is flirting with a Democratic presidential run, had been under increasing pressure to make public the name of his client amid the allegations against Kavanaugh. Earlier in the week, an anonymous post by a user on the troll den site 4Chan claimed the woman did not actually exist, but was a hoax pulled on the attorney. Avenatti rejected the claim and, on Wednesday, came forward with the statement.

Avenatti said that Swetnick has had multiple security clearances from the U.S. government, including the State Department and Department of Justice.

He added there will be "many, many" corroborating witnesses to confirm the woman's account and that his client will submit to a lie detector test if Kavanaugh agrees to do the same. He also called for an FBI investigation of the woman's allegations.

We demand an immediate FBI investigation into the allegations, he tweeted. Under no circumstances should Brett Kavanaugh be confirmed absent a full and complete investigation.

Kavanaugh has repeatedly denied ever sexually assaulting anyone.

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday released Kavanaughs prepared testimony ahead of Thursdays hearing. In it, Kavanaugh says he never sexually assaulted anyone  not in high school, not in college, not ever.

Sexual assault is horrific, he says. It is morally wrong. It is illegal. It is contrary to my religious faith.

Kavanaugh told Fox News in an interview broadcast Monday night that he has "always treated women with dignity and respect."

Kavanaugh added that he made the unusual decision to do a television interview before a Senate committee votes on his nomination because he wants to clear his name and said he is "looking for a fair process, a process where I can defend my integrity and clear my name. And all I'm asking for is fairness and that I'd be heard."

Fox News Mike Emanuel and Peter Doocy and The Associated Press contributed to this report.NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

A San Diego-area state senator in California threatened to "b---- slap" a female lobbyist and rubbed her shoulders uninvited at a restaurant near the Capitol in Sacramento last month, an investigation released Tuesday found.

Sen. Joel Anderson, R-Alpine, was repriminanded by the Senate this week after a review of his interaction with lobbyist Stephanie Roberson of the California Nurses Association, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported.

The Senate Rules Committee found that Anderson violated the Senate Code of Conduct, the Union-Tribune reported.

Your behavior was completely unacceptable, Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins wrote in the letter of reprimand, according to the Sacramento Bee. The Rules Committee instructs you to interact in a professional manner going forward.

Roberson filed a complaint in August alleging that Anderson rubbed her shoulders for about 10 seconds uninvited and "likely unwelcome," according to the investigation, which found that the lawmaker was "somewhat inebriated" at the time.

Anderson then became agitated during a conversation about his relationship with the nurses association, and told Roberson at least twice that he ought to slap her, or "words very close to those words," the investigation found.

No witnesses said Anderson ever tried to physically hit her.

Anderson denied to investigators that he threatened to slap her. He told investigators he was describing how he is not as anti-union as he is perceived, calling it a real slap.

Four witnesses substantiated Robersons, not Andersons, version of events, according to the investigation.

Anderson was cooperative and, because he was drunk, may not have appreciated the degree to which his words would be considered offensive, according to the findings.

Roberson could not immediately be reached for comment.

Anderson said Tuesday that he stands by his original statement made in August, when he said he regretted his word choice and said it was not directed at Roberson.

Bonnie Castillo, executive director of the nurses' union, told the Times that it was "shocking" that Anderson's behavior was "still part of the status quo."

Hopefully this incident serves as another wake-up call on how much more still has to be done to end the all-too-routine sexual harassment and abuse that stains our politics and other areas of life, she said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

Christine Blasey Ford, the California professor alleging that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a party more than three decades ago, has released prepared remarks she's poised to deliver at Thursday's scheduled hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

In the remarks, Ford acknowleges she never named Kavanaugh as her alleged attacker to anyone outside of therapy until July, when she contacted The Washington Post's tip line and sent a letter outlining her claims to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.

Ford will say that she remembers "four boys" being at the party, including one "whose name I cannot recall." The people she did name -- Kavanaugh and his classmates Mark Judge and P.J. Smyth -- have denied under penalty of felony knowing anything about the alleged episode.

Ford also described one girl, "my friend Leland Ingham," as also in attendance. Ingham, in a statement, has also denied knowing Kavanaugh or having information about the alleged assault.

In Ford's letter to Feinstein in July, however, Ford gave a different tally, writing that the gathering "included me and 4 others."

During the alleged attack, Ford will say, she "thought that Brett was accidentally going to kill me," and "I believed he was going to rape me."

The episode, according to Ford's prepared testimony, "drastically altered my life" and has "haunted me episodically as an adult."

Ford said the assault came up during a therapy session in 2012 because during a remodeling of her house, she insisted on installing a "second front door" -- leaving her husband and others wondering why.

POLYGRAPH APPEARS TO REVEAL KEY INCONSISTENCY IN FORD'S CLAIMS

Ford went public, she said, only after she "faced mounting pressure" as news of her letter to Feinstein leaked to the media. Republicans have accused Democrats of compromising Ford's identity by leaking the letter for political gain just days before a key Judiciary Committee vote on Kavanaugh's confirmation.

In the ensuing weeks, Ford will testify, "my greatest fears have been realized." She is expected to tell senators that her email accounts have been hacked and that she has been forced to leave her home and retain guards because of numerous threats against her.

Also on Wednesday, Ford's lawyers released the results of a polygraph examination she took Aug. 7 -- but a key detail in the report appears to contradict Ford's past claims.

The examination, which was administered by former FBI agent Jeremiah Hanafin, took place in a Hilton hotel in Maryland, according to a "Polygraph Examination Report" compiled by Hanafin.

GOP TAPS EXPERIENCED SEX-CRIMES PROSECUTOR TO PROBE FORD AT THURS HEARING

Hanafin first allowed Ford and attorney Lisa Banks to meet alone to formulate a handwritten statement that Ford signed and provided Hanafin when he returned to the room. Then, without Banks present, Hanafin interviewed Ford about the day of the alleged assault, according to the report.

In the handwritten statement, Ford writes that "there were 4 boys and a couple of girls" at the party.



WATCH: TRUMP CALLS KAVANAUGH ALLEGATIONS A 'BIG, FAT CON JOB'



The apparent disparities in Ford's recounting of the number of people at the party will be among the likely topics of questioning on Thursday. Senate Republicans announced late Tuesday that Rachel Mitchell, a sex crimes prosecutor with decades of experience, will handle some of the questioning of Ford at the hearing.

In her testimony Thursday, according to her prepared remarks, Ford will say that she "hope[s] to engage directly" with each senator, even as she will vow to do her "very best" to answer Mitchell's questions.

Members of Ford's legal team have requested to meet with Mitchell, and have asked the Judiciary Committee whether Kavanugh or his lawyers were able to consult with her. Ford's team said that despite not hearing back, Ford is ready and well-prepared for Thursday's hearing.

Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans met with Mitchell Wednesday night to discuss the hearing, Fox News has learned.

Fox News' Shannon Bream and Jason Donner contributed to this report.NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

If Hillary Clinton plans to make a third run at the presidency in 2020, at least one Democratic pollster might advise her against it.

Molly Murphy, a partner at ALG Research, said last week that recent poll results from American Barometer suggest that Clinton simply lacks enough support to win the White House.

The poll found that 44 percent of voters would back Clinton if the 2016 presidential election were to be held again.

Thats not enough to get you re-elected, Murphy told Joe Concha, host of Hill.TVs What Americas Thinking, the Hill reported.

She said the number seems to reflect only the true believers among Clintons supporters  those who still like her, and still would vote for her again.

But winning a general election demands that a candidate build support beyond the base.

The same poll found that President Trump might struggle to repeat his 2016 success if the election were held today: Just 36 percent of Trump voters said they would support him again.

"I think that what that poll shows is that neither one of those candidates are even within a couple of points of 50 percent," Murphy told Concha.

Meanwhile, a previous American Barometer poll, released in July, raised questions about whether Democratic voters were drifting to the socialist far left following Trumps victory over Clinton.

That poll found that 64 percent of Democratic voters said they would not back a socialist, the poll said, according to the Hill. (The figure was 76 percent for all voters.)

Among voters who said they backed Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, the support for socialists was even lower: Just 59 percent said they would support a socialist candidate.NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

The Democratic nominee for governor in Colorado was involved in a physical altercation with a former female employee in 1999 and pushed her, police records show.

Jared Polis, whos running against Republican State Treasurer Walker Stapleton in the November general election, pushed ex-employee Patricia Hughes after she attempted to leave the office of his company, JPS International LLC, with stolen documents, according to a police report first obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

Polis  who at the time was legally named Jared Polis Schutz  told the police officers that Hughes, who resigned from her position at the company, told him on the day of the altercation she had information to go after him if her departure from the company wasnt smooth.

After hanging up with the dispatcher, Ms. Hughes attempted to leave the office. Mr. Schutz physically blocked the door to prevent her from leaving. She moved toward him again, this time hitting him with one of her bags. Mr. Schutz then put both of his hands on her shoulders and pushed her back to prevent her from leaving, the police report read.

"Mr. Schutz physically blocked the door to prevent her from leaving. She moved toward him again, this time hitting him with one of her bags. Mr. Schutz then put both of his hands on her shoulders and pushed her back to prevent her from leaving."  Police report

Polis' campaign disputes Hughes' version of events. Hughes later faced a deferred sentence for theft of trade secrets stemming from that incident.

Jared Polis was the victim of a crime, was the person who called the police, and was found to have done nothing wrong. Shame on Walker Stapleton for trying to exploit that, Lisa Kaufmann, Polis for Colorado campaign chair, said in a statement.

Campaign Communications Director Mara Sheldon said the ex-employee stole from Polis and, at the time of the altercation, "she was smacking him with [her] purse." That's when he pushed her back, she said, but "not hard."

Another police report detailed Hughes version of the confrontation, alleging that he grabbed her and pushed her back into the office and hurt her leg.

"I did observe two bruise marks on Ms. Hughes left inside bicep and a red welt on her thigh. She stated that the bruises on her arms were from Mr. Schutz grabbing' her with his right hand."  Police report

Hughes said that she then said that she was going to call 911 and went to the phone. Hughes said that she tried calling 911 three times and twice Schutz hung the phone up. The third time Hughes got through, the report said.

The officer who interviewed the woman made notes about her appearance following the altercation, including that she had bruises -- though the origin of those bruises was unclear.

I did observe two bruise marks on Ms. Hughes' left inside bicep and a red welt on her thigh. She stated that the bruises on her arms were from Mr. Schutz grabbing' her with his right hand, the officer wrote in a report. The bruises were not conducive with Mr. Schutz's statement that he pushed her shoulders. Nor were they conducive with Ms. Hughes's statement of Mr. Schutz standing in front of her and grabbing her.

The welt on her thigh she said was from Mr. Schutz pushing her back when she attempted to leave. The welt was conducive with the a [sic] file cabinet in front of the door. There was also a key protruding from the upper right hand corner of the cabinet that could have produced the welt, the notes read.

Two days after the incident, Hughes was granted a temporary restraining order against Polis, according to the Free Beacon. A few weeks later, the order was revoked.

Polis was named as the victim of the incident as the woman was found carrying stolen documents that belonged to the company. Police said Hughes did knowingly and unlawfully take several files with original contracts and other sensitive documents from her former employer. She was later charged and pled guilty to stealing trade secrets.

Following the revelation of the police reports, Polis' Republican opponent released a statement attacking Polis for pushing the woman.

Violence against women is never acceptable and Jared Polis needs to take responsibility for his actions, said Jerrod Dobkin, the communications director for the Stapleton campaign, according to Colorado Public Radio.NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

A pro-gun control super PAC has agreed to amend a political ad after the father of a school shooting victim accused it of politicizing the death of his daughter.

The ad in question, from a super PAC started by former Arizona Rep. Gabby Giffords, hits Rep. Mike Coffman  who is locked in a tight re-election fight  for his ties to the National Rifle Association (NRA).

The ad depicts text messages from a student to her mother, telling her the school is on lockdown because someone with a gun is inside.

Im so scared. I love u. Tell Dad I love him, the student, identified as Emily, texts in the ad before she stops responding to her mother. The ad then goes into Coffmans support from the NRA.

Emily Keyes was fatally shot in 2006 after a 53-year-old man took several female students hostage at Platte Canyon High School in Bailey, Colorado, and sexually assaulted them. She was 16 years old.

Before her death, Keyes texted her family, I love you guys and I love u guys, k?

FOX NEWS MIDTERM ELECTION HEADQUARTERS

Tomorrow is the 12th anniversary of losing Emily and to see that story politicized is disappointing, Keyes' father, John-Michael, told KUSA-TV of the ad.

He said it was problematic the messaging in the advertisement was similar to that of the I Love U Guys Foundation  a group started in Keyes honor that provides educational and training materials to schools or other entities.

A spokesperson for the super PAC told KUSA the ad was not modeled after any one individuals story.

Unfortunately there isnt any name we could have used that wouldnt be similar to a victim somewhere, the spokesperson said.

In a statement to the Denver Post, Giffords Executive Director Peter Ambler said, We are amending the ad, removing a name all together and making clear that it is not connected to any one incident.

MARYLANDS GOP GOVERNOR LOSES SUPPORT OF NRA AFTER SIGNING GUN LAWS

The Giffords PAC said its goal is to sweep out gun lobby politicians and bring in gun safety champions.

Of a possibility of a legal challenge to the ad, John-Michael said, Thats not a battle we can afford, but its one that I think may need to be waged.

I respect Gabby Giffords, but exploiting the name and horrible death of one of our own to try to win an election is beneath basic human dignity, Coffman said in a tweet. I can take the criticism, but this is gross. This ad should be pulled and someone should be fired.

Giffords has become a leading gun control advocate after she and 18 others were shot during a constituent meeting in 2011. Six people died during the assassination attempt.

A spokesperson for Jason Crow, the Democrat challenging Coffman, said the Giffords PAC made the "right" decision.

"Going forward, Mike Coffman should be outraged whenever gun violence affects families, not just when it affects his re-election campaign," spokesman Mitch Schwartz said in a statement to Fox News.

Fox News has ranked the race to represent Colorados 6th congressional district a tossup.NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., announced Wednesday that he is filing a lawsuit against President Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., in a bid to prevent the Senate from taking up Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination until his "full record" is available.

Im suing [Trump] & [McConnell] today to stop the unconstitutional #KavanaughConfirmation process, Merkley tweeted on Monday. They may want to ram through this nomination come hell or high water, but thats just not how our Constitution works.

The statement came amid graphic new allegations that the nominee was involved in "gang" rapes in the 1980s, which Kavanaugh vehemently denies.

Merkley, who called Kavanaughs nomination "an assault on the separation of powers," said he will be filing the lawsuit sometime on Wednesday in federal court in Washington, D.C., and that he wants the court to block a vote until all documents are handed over.

Speaking to reporters in Washington, Merkley acknowledged that he does not know of any precedent where a court blocked the Senate from voting, but added that he doesnt recall a time where the White House had so "profoundly interfered" on a Supreme Court nominee's documents.

"This is unchartered territory," he said.

His office said the suit argues the defendants' handling of the nomination violated the "separation of powers and the advice and consent clause," by withholding documents.

Merkleys announcement comes less than 24 hours before Kavanaugh and California professor Christine Blasey Ford are set to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee about an alleged sexual assault while the two were in high school.

Earlier in the day, attorney Michael Avenatti also identified and released a "sworn declaration" from a woman who claims Kavanaugh was involved in "gang" rapes in the early 1980s.

Avenattis client was identified as Julie Swetnick, who further claims in the statement that Kavanaugh and a friend were "present" when she became a "victim of one of these 'gang' or 'train' rapes" in 1982.

Kavanaugh issued a strong denial in response, saying in a statement: This is ridiculous and from the Twilight Zone. I dont know who this is and this never happened.

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday released Kavanaughs prepared testimony ahead of Thursdays hearing. In it, Kavanaugh says he never sexually assaulted anyone  not in high school, not in college, not ever.

Sexual assault is horrific, he says. It is morally wrong. It is illegal. It is contrary to my religious faith.

Kavanaugh told Fox News in an interview broadcast Monday night that he has "always treated women with dignity and respect."NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., plans to ask the House Ethics Committee to investigate allegations of abuse leveled against him by a former girlfriend.

Ellison, who is running in a tight race against Republican Doug Wardlow for state attorney general, has vehemently denied the allegations and said he wants the entire matter resolved.

Today I am announcing that I will submit a request for a House Ethics Committee investigation into allegations against me raised by a former partner. I am taking this step now because I am innocent and eager to see this entire matter resolved, Ellison said in a statement to BuzzFeed News. In addition to any House ethics investigation, an independent investigation has been conducted by an independent attorney. I have complied fully with that investigation, the results of which should be made public soon.

These allegations have lingered in the public sphere, and remain unsubstantiated. I welcome an investigation by the House to allow us to move on, he added.

A former girlfriend accused Ellison of physical abuse last month, just days ahead of his victory in the crowded Democratic primary for AG. The accuser, Karen Monahan, said Ellison once dragged her off a bed by her feet while screaming obscenities. She claims to have video footage of the 2016 incident but has refused to release it, saying it's embarrassing.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called on the House Ethics Committee Wednesday to conduct its own expedited investigation into the accusations, in addition to the independent investigation.

We must uphold the integrity of the House of Representatives and ensure a climate of dignity and respect, with zero tolerance for harassment, discrimination, bullying or abuse, she said in a statement.

The longtime Minnesota congressman and Democratic National Committee deputy chairman has called the allegations false and tried to ride out a storm of questions after winning the Aug. 14 primary. But the old sexual assault allegations that have thrown Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination into disarray have renewed focus on Ellison and a six-week old investigation into his conduct that has shown few outward signs of progress.

In Minnesota and Washington, Republicans have called Democrats hypocrites for stalling Kavanaugh's nomination in the Senate while failing to address Ellison's situation. Republican Karin Housley, running against Democratic Sen. Tina Smith to complete former Sen. Al Franken's term, bashed Smith for campaigning with Ellison as she calls for an investigation of Kavanaugh.

Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party Chairman Ken Martin said he believes that the investigation has concluded, and that a final report should be issued in the coming days.

"I'm starting to get a little frustrated because it's been a long time now, almost two months," he said. "I hope soon. I hope any day here."

While the state party's attorney initially investigated the allegations against Ellison, Martin decided after the August primary to hire an external investigator to ensure "that it wouldn't be colored by people with associations with the party." Hired was Susan Ellingstad, a partner at a Minneapolis law firm with state party attorney Charlie Nauen.

Democrats in Minnesota are concerned that the allegations against Ellison could impact their chances in November to hold onto an attorney general's office they've controlled for more than four decades. Public polling shows Ellison in a close race with Wardlow, a little-known former state lawmaker who has turned the allegations into a campaign issue.

A recent poll performed for the Star Tribune and Minnesota Public Radio News showed Ellison with just 41 percent of voters' support  a five-percentage point edge over Wardlow  while more than 18 percent of respondents were undecided. The poll surveyed 800 likely voters on Sept. 10-12 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.Farmers and tourists in longquan mountain, zhejiang, the highest peak in the Yangtze river delta, celebrated with eight tons of freshly harvested chili peppers and corn by carving out a giant flag 10 meters long and 6.6 meters wide in the cloud sea at the top of the mountain.via.Chinanews.com

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[ Editor: WPY ]NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

Florida Republicans are distancing themselves from President Trumps remarks on Monday that he doesnt favor Puerto Rico becoming the 51st U.S. state.

Trump declared absolute no on statehood for the island during a radio interview with Fox News Geraldo Rivera. He went on to slam Puerto Ricos incompetent leadership and took a swipe at San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz, whom he said is a grossly incompetent person and a horror show.

With people like that involved in Puerto Rico, I would be an absolute no, Trump said. Puerto Rico shouldnt be talking about statehood until they get some people that really know what theyre doing.

"With people like that involved in Puerto Rico, I would be an absolute no. Puerto Rico shouldnt be talking about statehood until they get some people that really know what theyre doing."  President Trump

TRUMP SAYS US RESPONSE TO PUERTO RICO HURRICANES WAS 'INCREDIBLE, UNSUNG SUCCESS'

The comments prompted top Republicans in Florida, who hope to win the support of Puerto Ricans in the state in the upcoming midterm elections, to distance from Trumps remarks.

Gov. Rick Scott tweeted the same day that he supports statehood for Puerto Ricans, saying the will of the Puerto Rican voters should be respected - and it's clear they have voted in favor of statehood.

According to the recent referendum last year, 97 percent of voters on the island voted to support the statehood, though the legitimacy of the results was called into question as merely 23 percent of people participated in the referendum. The leaders of the Popular Democratic Party, who support the current status as a U.S. territory, urged people to boycott the vote, the Orlando Sentinel reported.

FEMA DIRECTOR SAYS THERE'S 'DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DIRECT DEATHS AND INDIRECT DEATHS' IN PUERTO RICO, FOLLOWING TRUMP REMARKS

According to a Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation survey conducted this summer, nearly 50 percent of respondents said they support Puerto Rico becoming the 51st state of the U.S. A quarter of respondents said the island should keep its current status. Only 10 percent said they would support the island's bid for total independence.

"The conversation does not have to be moving to whether the president says yay or nay on statehood. We all criticize [San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz], too."  Ron DeSantis Puerto Rican outreach chair state Rep. Bob Cortes

ADMINISTRATION OF TRUMP-BASHING PUERTO RICAN MAYOR REPORTEDLY FACING FBI CORRUPTION PROBE

Republican Florida governor candidate Ron DeSantis didnt weigh in on the issue following Trump's remarks, but his Puerto Rican outreach chair state Rep. Bob Cortes minimized the seriousness of the presidents comments, saying the point of his remarks was that the San Juan mayor, who is believed will run for Puerto Rico governor in the future, is not a good leader.

The conversation does not have to be moving to whether the president says yay or nay on statehood, Cortes told the Sentinel. We all criticize [San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz], too.

Alfonso Aguilar, president of Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles in Washington, D.C., shared Cortes sentiments to the newspaper as well. Puerto Ricans know that Donald Trump is not responsible for what happened after Maria, he said. More than statehood, this is an expression against the mayor.

Democrats seized on Trumps anti-statehood comments, with Sen. Bill Nelson, whos being challenged by Scott in the upcoming November general election, saying the president is treating Puerto Ricans as second-class citizens.

Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, the Democrat running for the states governorship, said on Tuesday that he supports equality for Puerto Ricans.

PUERTO RICO GOVERNOR RAISES HURRICANE MARIA DEATH TOLL FROM 64 TO 2,975

Some Republicans also criticized Trump, saying his comments would make it harder for Republicans as a party to support the statehood option for Puerto Rico.

The Republican Partys platform [on statehood] is useless if we dont have a leader that gets behind that, Peter Vivaldi, a former Republican Florida Senate candidate and local community leader, told the Sentinel. If were not going to be treated equally, are you going to cut ties with Puerto Rico, or what are you going to do?

Youre holding hostage the territory of Puerto Rico just because you have a Twitter war with a mayor that doesnt agree with you, Vivaldi added. There cant be conditions.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, on Tuesday demanded that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein testify before the Judiciary Committee, in light of the recent report that claimed he discussed secretly recording President Trump.

Jordan told Fox News' 'The Ingraham Angle' that Rosenstein needs to come in front of the committee and answer our questions."

The New York Times reported that Rosenstein suggested wearing a "wire" to record the president and broached invoking the 25th Amendment to have the Cabinet remove him from office. Rosensteins defenders insisted his remarks were merely sarcastic.

I dont care if its sarcasm or not, Jordan said. You cant be making statements like that even if you are joking around. I want to know who was in that room and what took place.

Rosenstein flatly denies the report.

ROSENSTEIN TO MEET WITH TRUMP IN WAKE OF 'WIRE' REPORT, AMID FIRING SPECULATION

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., said Tuesday that the House will subpoena memos drafted by former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe that may indicate Rosenstein discussed secretly recording President Trump.

Goodlatte told reporters that he could issue the subpoena as soon as Thursday, when Rosenstein is scheduled to meet with Trump at the White House.

Fox News' Samuel Chamberlain contributed to this reportNEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

Lawyers for Christine Blasey Ford, the California professor accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her at a party more than three decades ago, on Wednesday released the results of a polygraph examination she took Aug. 7 -- but a key detail in the report appears to contradict Ford's past claims.



The examination, which was administered by former FBI agent Jeremiah Hanafin, took place in a Hilton hotel in Maryland, according to a "Polygraph Examination Report" compiled by Hanafin.

Hanafin first allowed Ford and attorney Lisa Banks to meet alone to formulate a handwritten statement that Ford signed and provided Hanafin when he returned to the room. Then, without Banks present, Hanafin interviewed Ford about the day of the alleged assault, according to the report.

In the handwritten statement, Ford writes that "there were 4 boys and a couple of girls" at the party.

But in Ford's letter to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., in July, Ford gave a different tally, writing that the gathering "included me and 4 others."

The total number of people at the purported party, and their genders, has been a key area of focus for Senate Republicans investigating Ford's claims. Ford told The Washington Post last week that there were a total of "four boys at the party" where the alleged episode occured, and that two -- Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge -- had been in the room during her attack. (According to The Post, Ford told her therapist in 2012 that four boys were in the room with her during the alleged attack -- a disparity she has blamed on her therapist's recording of her statements).

All of the witnesses Ford has identified at the party, including Kavanaugh, Judge, and another classmate, Patrick Smyth, have denied knowledge of the alleged assault under penalty of felony in statements to the Judiciary Committee.

However, a woman, Leland Ingham Keyser, a former classmate of Ford's at the Holton-Arms all-girls school in Maryland, has since been identified by Ford as the fourth witness at the party. In a dramatic twist, Keyser emerged Saturday night to say she doesnt know Kavanaugh or remember being at the party with him.

The polygraph exam consisted of only two "relevant" questions: "Is any part of your statement false?" and "Did you make up any part of your statement?" (Ordinarily examiners ask a series of irrelevant questions to establish a baseline physiological response, which helps detect deception when relevant questions are asked, experts tell Fox News. According to Hanafin, Ford was also asked some questions to establish this baseline.)

The test measured "thoracic and abdominal respiration, galvanic skin response, and cardiac activity," Hanafin wrote in the report.



The former FBI agent then ran the results of Ford's two "no" responses through three separate scoring algorithms, including one developed by Johns Hopkins University. All three algorithms concluded that Ford's responses did not indicate apparent deception, with one putting the probability that she was lying at .002 and another putting it at less than .02.

KEY DETAILS IN FORD'S STORY APPEAR TO HAVE CHANGED SINCE JULY LETTER

Experts contacted by Fox News warned against reading too much into the results of polygraph examinations.

"It's not the result of the polygraph; it is what polygraph subjects say during the polygraph interview that is most valuable," said Thomas Mauriello, a lecturer in criminology at the University of Maryland who worked as a senior polygraph examiner at the Defense Department.

"The result of a polygraph simply is whether you did or did not respond to a particular question. A response is not a lie, because the polygraph is not a lie detector as most think," Mauriello added. "A response is the activation of your sympathetic nervous system when answering a question asked during the examination."

POLYGRAPH TAKEN BY KAVANAUGH ACCUSER COMES UNDER SCRUTINY

In their letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, Ford's lawyers indicated that they would not release Ford's medical records as he requested, citing privacy. Ford had provided The Washington Post the results of apparently the same polygraph examination earlier this month, as well as notes from her therapist sessions in 2012.

The public release of the documents comes just one day before a scheduled hearing Thursday, at which Ford is expected to testify along with Kavanaugh about her allegations. The Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled a Friday vote on whether to recommend Kavanaugh's confirmation to the full Senate, even as additional uncorroborated allegations against Kavanaugh surfaced Wednesday.

"The polygraph is not a lie detector as most think."  Former DoD polygraph examiner Thomas Mauriello

It was not immediately clear who paid for the polygraph examination, which can cost more than $1,000 -- an issue flagged by Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., on Fox News' "Hannity" last week.

"If Ms. Ford really did not want to come forward, never intended to come forward ... why did she pay for a polygraph in August, and why did she hire a lawyer in August? And who paid for it?" Graham asked.



AVENATTI RELEASES GRAPHIC CLAIMS ABOUT GANG RAPE TRAINS, THROWING VOTE, HEARING INTO DISARRAY

Even well-intentioned individuals who have come to believe that their false stories are, in fact, true -- whether because of therapist-induced memories or other causes -- can sometimes pass polygraph tests, former FBI officials and psychology experts told Fox News.

James Gagliano, a former FBI agent who led a SWAT team in New York for several years and now teaches at St. John's University, told Fox News that while polygraphs are valuable, they "can be beaten."

"In this case, if they want to put this out as irrefutable evidence that this woman is telling the truth because she passed a polygraph -- that's not the way polygraphs work," Gagliano added. "If that were the case, I would've taken every drug dealer, gangbanger, and pedophile I investigated, and I would've thrown them on the polygraph."

Gagliano, who said he was subjected to several polygraphs at the FBI but never administered one himself, said people can sometimes pass polygraphs if they've convinced themselves they are telling the truth: "It's not a lie if you believe it," he said.



"Everyone knows polygraph exams can be beaten," Gagliano added. "If someone is a psychopath or a sociopath, if you don't have a conscience, if you don't know right from wrong -- you can beat it."

The polygraph report raised additional questions that may surface during Thursday's hearing, including how Ford -- a California resident who a friend has said has a significant fear of flying -- was able to make it to Maryland to take the test.

Ford's legal team has dismissed the idea that she has a fear of flying, or that she would use that as an excuse to delay attending a Senate hearing.NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

Christine Blasey Fords attorneys have sent documents to the Senate Judiciary Committee with declarations from four people who they say corroborate her story of sexual assault by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

The declarations, as first obtained by USA Today, are from Fords husband Russell Ford and three friends who stand behind the accusers allegation against Kavanaugh while both were high school students in 1982.

The statements will be used by Fords legal team during the much-anticipated committee hearing Thursday that will examine both the credibility of Fords allegations and Kavanaughs denials.

In a declaration by Adela Gildo-Mazzon, who has known Ford for over 10 years and considers her a good friend, she claims Ford told her about the incident involving Kavanaugh back in June 2013. She contacted the attorneys for Ford on Sept. 16 to inform that she was told about the story.

During our meal, Christine was visibly upset, so I asked her what was going on, Gildo-Mazzon says in her declaration. Christine told me she had been having a hard day because she was thinking about an assault she experienced when she was much younger. She said she had been almost raped by someone who was now a federal judge. She told me she had been trapped in a room with two drunken guys, and that she had escaped, ran away and hid.

"Christine told me she had been having a hard day because she was thinking about an assault she experienced when she was much younger. She said she had been almost raped by someone who was now a federal judge."  Adela Gildo-Mazzon

Keith Koegler, another person who claims to corroborate Fords allegations, says he talked about the alleged assault with her in 2016 in the midst of the sentencing of Stanford University student Brock Turner.

Christine expressed anger at Mr. Turners lenient sentence, stating that she was particularly bothered by it because she was assaulted in high school by a man who was now a federal judge in Washington, D.C., Koegler said.

"Christine expressed anger at Mr. Turners lenient sentence, stating that she was particularly bothered by it because she was assaulted in high school by a man who was now a federal judge in Washington, D.C."  Keith Koegler

Christine did not mention the assault to me again until June 29, 2018, two days after Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his resignation from the Supreme Court of the United States, he continued.

He says that Ford told him in an email that the person who had assaulted her in high school was President Trumps favorite for the nomination of the Supreme Court. After asking to reveal his name, Ford then named Kavanaugh in the email.

Another declaration is from Rebecca White, who has known Ford for more than six years. She says Ford told her about the allegations against her sometime in 2017.

I was walking my dog and Christine was outside of her house, she said. I stopped to speak with her, and she told me she had read a recent social media post I had written about my own experience with sexual assault.

She then told me that when she was a young teen, she had been sexually assaulted by an older teen, White added. I remember her saying that her assailant was now a federal judge.

"She then told me that when she was a young teen, she had been sexually assaulted by an older teen. I remember her saying that her assailant was now a federal judge."  Rebecca White

The last declaration is from Fords husband who reportedly learned about the allegations when they got married, though she shared the details only in 2012 when they were having a couples therapy session.

I remember her saying that her attackers name was Brett Kavanaugh, that he was a successful lawyer who had grown up in Christines hometown, and that he was well-known in the Washington D.C. community, Russell Ford said.

He said his wife was afraid Kavanaugh will become the nominee for the Supreme Court and wasnt sure if she should come forward with her allegations.

However, in the end she believed her civic duty required her to speak out, he added. In our 16 years of marriage I have always known Christine to be truthful person of great integrity. I am proud of her for her bravery and courage.

The declarations of four individuals are sure to strengthen Fords case when she appears before the Senate committee. In recent days, her story took a hit after initially telling the Washington Post last week that here were a total of four boys at the party where the alleged episode occurred and that two  Kavanaugh and friend Mark Judge -- were in the room during her attack.

She claims her therapist made an error when he noted in his notes that she said all four boys were involved in the alleged incident.

Those boys purportedly included Kavanaugh, Judge and another classmate, Patrick Smyth -- all of whom have since denied to the Senate Judiciary Committee, under penalty of felony, any knowledge of the particular party in question or any misconduct by Kavanaugh.

However, a woman, Leland Ingham Keyser, a former classmate of Ford's at the Holton-Arms all-girls school in Maryland, has since been identified by Ford as the fourth witness at the party. In a dramatic twist, Keyser, who has never been described as a boy, emerged Saturday night to say she doesnt know Kavanaugh or remember being at the party with him.

Fox News Gregg Re contributed to this report.NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and the woman who accused him of sexual assault are set to face lawmakers on Capitol Hill Thursday.

The hearing comes after much back-and-forth between the Senate Judiciary Committee majority and attorneys for Christine Blasey Ford, who made the allegation against Kavanaugh.

Kavanaugh has continued to deny he ever sexually assaulted anyone and has said he hopes to use the hearing to defend his reputation.

But if his initial confirmation hearing is any indicator, expect sparks to fly early and often Thursday. Read on for a look at who will play a prominent role in the proceedings.

Brett Kavanaugh  Supreme Court nominee

A federal judge, Brett Kavanaugh was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Trump. After his initial confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, multiple women have publicly accused him of sexual misconduct  stemming from alleged drunken parties in high school and college.

Kavanaugh has denied the allegations. In an exclusive interview with Fox News, Kavanaugh said he hoped for a fair process where I can defend my integrity.

Christine Blasey Ford  Accuser

Christine Blasey Ford is a clinical psychology professor at Palo Alto University in California. First, in a letter to lawmakers  and then publicly  Ford accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when they were at a party in the early 1980s.

THE LATEST DEVELOPMENTS ON THE KAVANAUGH HEARING AND SEXUAL ASSAULT ALLEGATIONS

Both Ford and Kavanaugh were teenagers when she claimed he pinned her to a bed, attempted to forcibly remove her clothes and held his hand over her mouth to prevent her from screaming.

Chuck Grassley  Judiciary Committee chairman

Heading up the Senate Judiciary Committee is Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican.

While Grassley has accommodated some of Fords requests pertaining to the hearing  such as allowing her to testify while Kavanaugh is not in the room  he has continued to press forward with the confirmation hearing despite objections from Democrats.

Dianne Feinstein  Judiciary Committee ranking member

A California Democrat, Sen. Dianne Feinstein first received a letter detailing Fords accusations in July.

THESE ARE THE WOMEN WHO HAVE ACCUSED KAVANAUGH OF SEXUAL MISCONDUCT

Feinstein, a ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, has called for an immediate postponement of Kavanaughs confirmation hearings and asked that the FBI review the allegations of sexual misconduct.

Rachel Mitchell  Sex crimes prosecutor

Just days before the hearing, Rachel Mitchell was hired by the Judiciary Committee to assist Republican lawmakers in questioning the witnesses.

Mitchell has been a prosecutor, specializing in sex crimes, since 1993 and has been largely recognized for her work. She spent more than a decade supervising attorneys who handle sex-related crimes, including sexual assault, child molestation and prostitution and computer crimes against children. She was also in charge of a satellite bureau that prosecuted such crimes, as well as domestic violence and elder abuse.

Kamala Harris  Democratic senator

During Kavanaughs initial hearing before the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., emerged as a prolific lawmaker in opposition of the nominee.

In an especially combative exchange during that hearing, Harris pointedly asked Kavanaugh whether he had discussed Special Counsel Robert Mueller or his Russia probe with anyone at the law firm founded by Marc Kasowitz, a former personal attorney to Trump.

KAVANAUGH CALLS SEX MISCONDUCT ALLEGATIONS AGAINST FORMER MENTOR A GUT PUNCH, POINT TO BROADER ISSUE

Harris, seen as a potential 2020 presidential contender, was also criticized for taking his comments about a birth control case out of context.

Cory Booker  Democratic senator

New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, too, is largely considered to be a potential 2020 presidential contender. And also, like Harris, Booker has vocally expressed his opposition to Kavanaugh.

He brought attention on himself during the initially hearing when he said he was having a Spartacus moment and vowed to release documents that had not yet been cleared for release by the Judiciary Committee  a move he said he made knowingly that it violated Senate rules. Many of the documents he released, however, had already been cleared.

Jeff Flake - Republican senator

A Republican on the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Jeff Flake, of Arizona, has remained noncommittal about his decision on Kavanaugh. He isnt running for re-election this year, and hes often clashed with President Trump.

However this vote goes, Im confident in saying that it will forever be steeped in doubt, Flake said from the Senate floor the day before the hearing.

Mark Judge  Kavanaughs friend

Ford pegged Mark Judge, a friend of Kavanaughs, as a witness to the alleged assault. She said she managed to get away from Kavanaugh when Judge jumped on top of them, toppling them to the ground. Judge has said he has no memory of the alleged altercation.

Over much of his adult life, Judge has dived back repeatedly into his memories of Georgetown Preparatory School student life in the early 1980s, and his two memoirs and a cluster of internet essays provide cautionary takes on his prep school days and boozy weekend rounds as a teen.

A LOOK AT THE CONFIRMATION PROCESS FOR A SUPREME COURT NOMINEE

In his book Wasted: Tales of a GenX Drunk, Judge described a drunken chat with several friends that mentioned what some classmates suggest is a very thinly-veiled reference to Kavanaugh. He wrote that a friend named Bart OKavanaugh threw up in someones car.

Deborah Ramirez  Accuser

Deborah Ramirez was the second woman to accuse Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct. She told The New Yorker he exposed himself to her while at a Yale University party during the 1983-84 academic year. She said she was also made to inadvertently touch his penis during this alleged interaction, but she also admitted to having gaps in her memory about the party because she had been drinking that night.

Kavanaugh dismissed the accusation as a smear, plain and simple in a statement released by the White House and said unequivocally that it did not happen.

Julie Swetnick  Accuser

The day before the hearing, attorney Michael Avenatti released a sworn statement from his client, Julie Swetnick, who alleged Kavanaugh and Judge would spike drinks at parties and participate in gang rapes of inebriated women. She also alleged that Kavanaugh and Judge would drink excessively and would become overly aggressive with girls  not taking No for an answer.

She said Kavanaugh would engage in abusive and physically aggressive behavior toward girls, which included making crude sexual comments in order to demean, humiliate and embarrass them.

Kavanaugh said the accusation was ridiculous, and he does not know who Swetnick is.

Fox News Alex Pappas, Gregg Re, Adam Shaw and The Associated Press contributed to this report.NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

In the midst of his confirmation process, Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is facing multiple allegations of sexual misconduct, including an accusation of assault stemming from when he was in high school.

Kavanaugh and the White House have unequivocally denied the allegations, and the federal judge is expected to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee later this week. One of his accusers, Christine Blasey Ford, has also agreed to testify before lawmakers.

Read on for a look at the women who have accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct  and what exactly they have alleged.

Christine Blasey Ford

Christine Blasey Ford, a California psychology professor, first sent a letter to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, in July, alleging Kavanaugh attacked her at a house party in the early 1980s.

In the letter, Ford claimed Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed during a party in Maryland, attempted to remove her clothes and put his hand over her mouth to prevent her from screaming. She said he and Mark Judge, Kavanaughs friend who was also in the room at the time of the alleged incident, had also turned the music up to a loud volume.

At the time, Ford said she was 15, and Kavanuagh was 17 and allegedly intoxicated. She said she was able to escape when Judge jumped on top of them.

I thought he might inadvertently kill me, Ford, now 51 years old, told The Washington Post. He was trying to attack me and remove my clothing.

Kavanugh called the allegation completely false.

A LOOK AT THE CONFIRMATION PROCESS FOR SUPREME COURT NOMINEES

I have never done anything like what the accuser describes  to her or anyone, the federal judge said in a statement.

Aside from Kavanaugh, three people who Ford said was at the party have told lawmakers they were not aware of the incident she alleged. They include: Judge, Patrick "PJ" Smith and Leland Ingham Keyser.

Ford, on the other hand, has submitted declarations from four people, including her husband, who say they can corroborate her accusation.

Ford is expected to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday morning, with Kavanaugh appearing after her.

Deborah Ramirez

In a second claim of sexual misconduct, Deborah Ramirez told The New Yorker Kavanaugh exposed himself to her while at a Yale University dormitory party during the 1983-84 academic year.

After being contacted by the magazine, Ramirez claimed Kavanaugh exposed himself to her, adding she inadvertently touched his penis while trying to shove him away. However, she also admitted to having gaps in her memory about the party because she had been drinking.

Kavanaugh dismissed the accusation as a smear, plain and simple in a statement released by the White House.

This alleged incident from 35 years ago did not happen, Kavanaugh said. The people who knew me then know that this did not happen, and have said so.

KAVANAUGHS ACCUSER WANTS FBI TO INVESTIGATE ASSAULT CLAIM: WHY THE BUREAU LIKELY WONT

The magazine stated it had not corroborated that Kavanaugh was at the party in question. But an anonymous male classmate said he was told Kavanaugh had exposed himself to Ramirez within the following days.

Still, another male classmate who Ramirez said egged Kavanaugh on during the party has denied any memory of the gathering. In addition, six of Kavanaughs classmates  including some who Ramirez said were involved  released a statement doubting the incident happened.

We can say with confidence that if the incident Debbie alleges ever occurred, we would have seen or heard about it  and we did not, they said. The behavior she describes would be completely out of character for Brett.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said "we would be open" to having Ramirez testify before the same Judiciary Committee hearing at which Ford and Kavanaugh are scheduled to appear, but there is no indication GOP Chairman Chuck Grassley is considering that.

Julie Swetnick

Attorney Michael Avenatti  who represents adult film star Stormy Daniels in a lawsuit against President Trump  said he is representing a woman who has knowledge of Kavanaugh, Judge and others in high school targeting women with alcohol/drugs in order to allow a train of men to subsequently gang rape them.

According to a sworn declaration, Julie Swetnick said she met Kavanaugh and Judge in the early 1980s and would often see them at social events.

"On numerous occasions at these parties, I witnessed Mark Judge and Brett Kavanaugh drink excessively and engage in highly inappropriate conduct, including being overly aggressive with girls and not taking 'No' for an answer," Swetnick said. "This conduct included the fondling and grabbing of girls without their consent."

Kavanaugh, specifically, would "engage in abusive and physically aggressive behavior toward girls, including pressing girls against him without their consent, 'grinding' against girls and attempting to remove or shift girls' clothing to expose private body parts," Swetnick alleged. She also said he would make "crude sexual comments" to young women to "demean, humiliate and embarrass them."

She went on to allege that Judge and Kavanaugh would "spike" drinks at house parties with drugs and alcohol "so as to cause girls to lose their inhibitions and their ability to say 'No.'" They would then "target" certain girls, including ones who were alone or shy, and take advantage of them, Swetnick claimed.

She said girls who became inebriated would be "gang raped" by a "train" of boys at the parties, who would line up outside of rooms to wait their "turn."

"These boys included Mark Judge and Brett Kavanaugh," she said.

"This is ridiculous and from the Twilight Zone. I don't know who this is, and this never happened," Kavanaugh said in a statement to Fox News.

Taylor Foy, a spokesperson for Grassley, told Fox News that lawyers for the committee are reviewing Swetnicks declaration.

Denver allegation

Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., received a letter from an anonymous individual alleging Kavanaugh "shoved" someone up against a wall "very aggressively and sexually" during an outing with four witnesses.

Kavanaugh denied the allegations in the letter, which was received on Sept. 22, and told Senate investigators he does not recall socializing with anyone from Colorado in 1998. At the time, he was a key lawyer working for independent counsel Ken Starr.

"We're dealing with an anonymous letter about an anonymous person and an anonymous friend," Kavanaugh said. "It's ridiculous. Total Twilight Zone. And no, I've never done anything like that."

Recanted claim

Committee investigators have asked Kavanaugh about a call received by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., this week, in which an anonymous constituent claimed in 1985, two "heavily inebriated men" referred to as "Brett and Mark" had sexually assaulted a friend of hers on a boat. The constituent apparently recanted the claim on Twitter ahead of Thursday's hearing.

In response, Kavanuagh categorically denied the claim, saying, "I was not in Newport, haven't been on a boat in Newport. Not with Mark Judge on a boat, nor all those three things combined. This is just completely made up, or at least not me. I don't know what they're referring to."

According to the transcript, the person making the accusation appears to be associated with a Twitter account advocating for the removal of a military coup.

Fox News Samuel Chamberlain, Mike Emanuel, Andrew O'Reilly, Gregg Re and The Associated Press contributed to this report.NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

The confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh was contentious, but still, the federal judge was expected to be confirmed by the Senate  until a psychology professor came forward to publicly accuse him of sexual assault.

Christine Blasey Ford has said Kavanaugh assaulted her while at a house party in the early 1980s, when they were teenagers. She said Kavanaugh held her on a bed, attempted to remove her clothes and held his hand over her mouth to prevent her from screaming.

Kavanaugh has denied the allegations.

After some back-and-forth between Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee and Fords attorneys, both Ford and Kavanaugh appear set to testify before lawmakers Thursday morning.

As the details about the hearing have continued to change, heres an up-to-date look at what to expect from the much-anticipated hearing.

When is the hearing?

The Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled a committee hearing continuation for Thursday, Sept. 27 at 10 a.m. It will be public.

The hearing will be held in the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Who will testify?

Both Kavanaugh and Ford will testify at the hearing. Ford is expected to tell lawmakers about her accusation: Kavanaugh allegedly pinned her to a bed, tried to remove her clothes and covered her mouth with his hand while at a house party in the early 1980s.

KEY PLAYERS IN THE KAVANAUGH, FORD SENATE HEARING

In her opening statement, which has already been released, Ford will testify that she was the most frightened when Kavanaugh allegedly covered her mouth to keep her from screaming. She said it "has had the most lasting impact on my life."

"It is not my responsibility to determine whether Mr. Kavanaugh deserves to sit on the Supreme Court. My responsibility is to tell the truth," she will testify.

Kavanaugh has vehemently denied the allegations and has said he wanted to testify to clear his name ever since the accusation came to light. He told Fox News' Martha MacCallum that he wants a fair process where I can defend my integrity.

What is the format?

Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., will make opening statements.

Ford will testify first and will have the opportunity to give an opening statement without any time limit.

Then, senators will be allotted five minutes to ask questions. They can also defer to a designated counsel during this time.

After Ford is finished and has left the room, it will be Kavanaugh's turn. He, too, will be allowed to give an opening statement without time constraints. Senators will be allotted the same five minutes for questions.

Keep in mind that Kavanaugh's original hearing was derailed multiple times by protesters and Democratic senators.

What were some conditions?

Grassley wrangled with Fords team ahead of the scheduled hearing over the terms of her appearance. He was able to grant some of her requests.

After originally being planned for Monday, the hearing was moved to Thursday. It will take place in a smaller room with only one camera and limited press access. Ford was also guaranteed the ability to be able to testify without Kavanaugh in the room, adequate breaks and security.

However, the committee did not agree to other demands, including: making Kavanaugh testify first and only allowing senators to ask questions.

Who will ask the questions?

Senate Republicans have designated Rachel Mitchell, a decorated career sex crimes prosecutor with decades of experience, as outside counsel who can participate during the hearing.

The GOP side of the Judiciary Committee is made up of 11 men  which could send an unwanted message on live television against the backdrop of the #MeToo era.

KAVANAUGHS ACCUSER WANTS FBI TO INVESTIGATE ASSAULT CLAIM: WHY THE BUREAU LIKELY WONT

Senate Democrats will still be able to ask their own questions, if they so choose, and some have said they intend to do so.

Will there be any witnesses?

Fords lawyers repeatedly requested to pick witnesses for the hearing, but that was left up to the Judiciary Committee to determine who would be called. Specifically, her attorneys demanded Mark Judge  a friend of Kavanaugh whom Ford said was in the room when the alleged incident occurred  be subpoenaed and forced to testify as a witness.

Judge has already denied the allegations before the Judiciary Committee, according to lawmakers. Additionally, the Judiciary Committee does not take witness requests from other witnesses, it said.

Who sits on the Judiciary Committee?

Grassley is the chairman of the committee. Feinstein is the ranking member of the committee.

The Republicans on the committee are: Sens. Orrin Hatch of Utah, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, John Cornyn of Texas, Mike Lee of Utah, Ted Cruz of Texas, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, Jeff Flake of Arizona, Mike Crapo of Idaho, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and John Kennedy of Louisiana.

KAVANAUGH CONFIRMATION DERAILED BY SEXUAL MISCONDUCT ALLEGATIONS: A LIST OF HIS ACCUSERS

The Democrats on the committee are: Sens. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Chris Coons of Delaware, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, Cory Booker of New Jersey and Kamala Harris of California.

Anything else?

The Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled a vote on Kavanaugh for Friday morning.

The typically recommends a Supreme Court nominee to the full Senate for a vote. The committee can give a favorable or unfavorable recommendation  or none at all.

And you can bet that President Trump will be watching. During a news conference the day before, he told reporters that Ford's testimony could prompt him to reverse course on his nominee: "It's possible that I'll hear that, and I'll say I'm changing my mind."

Fox News Chad Pergram, Gregg Re, Brooke Singman and The Associated Press contributed to this report.NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

A top newspaper in Minnesota on Tuesday joined the legal effort to unseal the divorce records of Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., who has been the focus of an investigation into allegations of physical abuse leveled by a former girlfriend.

Karen Monahan said Ellison once dragged her off a bed by her feet while screaming obscenities. She claims to have video footage of the 2016 incident but has refused to release it, saying its embarrassing. She also reportedly told CNN that she misplaced it.

The Star Tribune of Minneapolis joined a right-leaning online news website, Alpha News, in the push to unseal the records. The paper pointed out that  in most cases  divorce papers in the state are considered public information, unless both sides agree to seal them. The paper contends that it is a matter of public interest.

Kim Ellison, his ex-wife, is against the papers being released and said he was never abusive to her. The two will file paperwork to stop the effort, the report said.

Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party Chairman Ken Martin said he believes the investigation has concluded and that a final report should be issued in the coming days. An outside investigator was reportedly hired to conduct the probe.

Ellison, the longtime Minnesota congressman and Democratic National Committee deputy chairman, has called the allegations false and tried to ride out the storm of questions after winning the Aug. 14 primary for Minnesota attorney general. But the old sexual assault allegations that have thrown Brett Kavanaughs Supreme Court nomination in doubt have renewed focus on Ellison.

In Minnesota and Washington, Republicans have called Democrats hypocrites for stalling Kavanaughs nomination in the Senate while failing to address Ellisons situation.

Last week, Monahan said many Democrats haven't believed her claims and said she has been isolated by her own party.

"This is not going away and you are making it worse for you, your family and district by lying, smearing, getting others to do your dirty work, victim shaming, etc.," she tweeted Sunday.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

The voice Thursday of Senate Republicans will be that of an award-winning sex crimes prosecutor, respected by Democrats and Republicans alike for fairness and judgement.

Rachel Mitchell is a deputy Maricopa County attorney and chief of their sex crimes division. In 2003, the state named her Arizonas outstanding sexual-assault prosecutor and Prosecutor of the Year in 2006. She speaks nationally and trains detectives and social workers how to ask sensitive questions of sexual assault victims and those who commit such crimes.

"I would describe her as a poised and pointed cross-examiner," said Phoenix defense attorney Tracey Westerhausen. "I have never seen her try to attack a witness by becoming super aggressive."

Westerhausen is a Democrat. She has faced Mitchell, a Republican, as an adversary in more than 30 cases over 20 years. While Thursdays hearing is as partisan and politically charged as Congress gets, Westerhausen said her friend is all legal  not political  in court.

"My expectation of Rachel and again, I'm speculating because I have not talked to her about this, is she wants to find out the truth," she said. "She wants to find out the truth in her routine cases. I can't believe that her mission will change in this extraordinary situation."

Another collegue, Jerry Cobb, worked with Mitchell for a decade at the county attorney's office. He calls her a prosecutor's prosecutor, an unabashed advocate for victims, unfazed by the rich or powerful  having convicted cops, doctors, teachers and priests from the Catholic Church in assault and abuse cases.

Democrats have criticized Republicans for using an outside counsel, mocking their colleagues for not having the chops to handle the job.

"I think if you are a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, you ought to be able to question Dr. Ford yourself and not either hide behind or outsource that to a hired outside counsel," said Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del.

But Chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said using a trained lawyer allows for less grandstanding by senators with political aspirations.

"The goal is to de-politicize the process and get to the truth, instead of grandstanding and giving senators an opportunity to launch their presidential campaigns," he said in a statement. "Im very appreciative that Rachel Mitchell has stepped forward to serve in this important and serious role. Ms. Mitchell has been recognized in the legal community for her experience and objectivity.

In terms of format, both Senators Grassley and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., are expected to offer their opening remarks, followed by motions by Democrats to postpone the hearing. Republicans will refuse, following up an opening statement by Dr. Ford. Mitchell will speak for five minutes for each Republican senator, but will alternate with Democrats.NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

Republicans signaled Tuesday they arent abandoning Brett Kavanaughs nomination for the Supreme Court as they cast doubt on graphic new allegations made public by attorney Michael Avenatti, and as Kavanaugh insisted hes never been involved in any sexual assault.

Avenatti on Tuesday tweeted a "sworn declaration" from a woman named Julie Swetnick who claimed the Supreme Court nominee was involved in "gang" rapes in the early 1980s. She claimed Kavanaugh was "present" when she became a "victim" of one of those alleged assaults. Swetnicks accusations followed claims of sexual misconduct during high school and college against Kavanaugh from two other women. Kavanaugh has denied all the accusations, and responded to Avenattis claim by saying: This is ridiculous and from the Twilight Zone. I dont know who this is and this never happened.

Late Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that approximately 10 years ago, Swetnick retained the law firm of Katz, Marshall & Banks to represent her in dispute with her former employer, insurance company New York Life, over a sexual harassment complaint Swetnick had brought.

Deborah Katz, one of the firm's founding partners, is currently representing another Kavanaugh accuser, Christine Blasey Ford.

Meanwhile, Politico reported that a former boyfriend of Swetnick had sought a restraining order against her in 2001. In an interview with the publication, Richard Vinneccy said that Swetnick had threatened him after they broke up and he married his current wife.

"I have a lot of facts, evidence, that what shes saying is not true at all," said Vinneccy, who declined to comment further on Swetnick's claims against Kavanaugh.

According to The Washington Post, in 2015, the state of Maryland filed a lien against Swetnick's property, citing more than $30,000 in unpaid taxes dating back to 2008. Court records obtained by The Post showed that the total amount owed, nearly $63,000, was resolved in December 2016, although the paper reported it was unclear exactly how.

And, in 2017, the federal government filed a lien on Swetnick's property, citing a $40,000 unpaid tax bill from 2014, according to The Post. That lien reportedly was released in March 2018, and the debt was similarly satisfied.

Emails obtained Wednesday by Fox News between Mike Davis, the chief counsel for nominations working for Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, and attorney Michael Avenatti showed that Grassley's staff made outreach efforts to obtain a statement from Swetnick.

In response to Avenatti's claim that the committee has "wasted days in your rush to confirm Brett Kavanaugh," as well as his demands for an FBI investigation, a polygraph examination of Kavanaugh, and other requests, Davis outlined the steps the Judiciary Committee took in response to his client's allegations.

"You are simply wrong that the committee investigators are just now starting an inquiry into your allegations," Davis told Avenatti. "Judge Kavanaugh has fully cooperated with committee investigators, including answering every question posed. Is your client willing to have a similar interview with committee investigators?"

For his part, President Trump fired back at Avenatti  who represents adult-film star Stormy Daniels in a suit against the president, and who is flirting with a 2020 Democratic White House bid  as someone with a history of making false accusations.

Avenatti is a third rate lawyer who is good at making false accusations, like he did on me and like he is now doing on Judge Brett Kavanaugh, Trump tweeted. He is just looking for attention and doesnt want people to look at his past record and relationships - a total low-life!

Speaking to reporters in New York, the president expressed hope Kavanaugh would be confirmed by the Senate soon, despite the allegations.

Hopefully over the next couple of days it will be settled up and solved and we will have a Supreme Court justice who will go down as one of our greatest ever, the president said.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, tweeted that he hopes people will highly suspicious of this allegation presented by Michael Avenatti, questioning parts of Swetnicks story.

I have a difficult time believing any person would continue to go to  according to the affidavit  ten parties over a two-year period where women were routinely gang raped and not report it, Graham, R-S.C., tweeted.

Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, a key Republican vote, said Wednesday during a floor speech that he will make up his mind after Thursdays planned committee hearing with both Kavanaugh and Ford.

Ford has accused Kavanaugh of trying to force himself on her during a party while she was 15 and he was 17. Kavanaugh has also been accused by a second woman of exposing himself during a college party at Yale, something he has denied.

I am not psychic, Flake said. I am not gifted with clairvoyance. Given these limitations, I'll have to listen to the testimony before I make up my mind about the testimony.

So far, despite the chaos caused by the Avenatti allegations, the hearing is still scheduled for Thursday morning.

Meanwhile, Democrats seized on Avenattis allegation, with all 10 Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee urging Trump to immediately withdraw the nomination or order an FBI investigation.

We are writing to request that you immediately withdraw the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to be an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court or direct the FBI to re-open its background investigation and thoroughly examine the multiple allegations of sexual assault, the Democrats said.

One Democrat, Sen. Jeff Merkley, said he was going so far as to file a federal lawsuit asking the courts to stop Kavanaughs confirmation process until Kavanaughs full record is available for public scrutiny.

The events of the past ten days have only underscored how critical it is that the Senate conduct a careful and comprehensive review of a nominee before giving its consent, Merkley, D-Ore., said.

MICHAEL AVENATTI RELEASES GRAPHIC KAVANAUGH ALLEGATIONS

In several tweets, Avenatti fired back at the presidents comments about him, saying, Trump pretends he is a tough guy. He is nothing of the kind.

Kavanaugh, in prepared testimony released ahead of Thursdays hearing, describes sexual assault as horrific and morally wrong and says hes never sexually assaulted anyone  not in high school, not in college, not ever.

I am here this morning to answer these allegations and to tell the truth, Kavanaugh says in remarks released by the committee. And the truth is that I have never sexually assaulted anyone  not in high school, not in college, not ever.

In his testimony, Kavanaugh admits to juvenile misbehavior that makes him cringe now but says thats not why we are here today.

What Ive been accused of is far more serious than juvenile misbehavior, Kavanaugh says. I never did anything remotely resembling what Dr. Ford describes.

Ahead of the hearing, the Senate Judiciary Committee released copies of the calendar full of hand-written notes from May, June, July and August of 1982.

The calendar reflects the daily activities of a typical 17-year-old boy: plans to mow the grass, go to the movies, play sports, go to beach week and attend summer camp. It includes mentions of prom, being grounded, birthday parties, lifting weights and interviewing at Yale and Brown universities.

Speaking to the Washington Post, Ford said she believes the allegations she has detailed happened during the summer of 1982, though she cant remember where exactly the party was or how she got there.

Its been suggested that the calendars may be used by Kavanaugh to suggest nothing in it alludes to the type of party described by Ford.

Meanwhile, ahead of the hearing, Fords attorneys have released statements from four other people who recount Ford telling them about the accusations over the last few years. None of those people, though, claim to have had knowledge in 1982. Ford says she didnt tell anyone until 2012.

Fox News Mike Emanuel, Gregg Re, Andrew OReilly and Samuel Chamberlain contributed to this report.CHENGDU, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- An exhibition marking the 40th anniversary of China's reform and opening-up opened in Jianchuan Museum Cluster, China's largest private museum complex, on Tuesday.

Located in Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province, the museum is displaying more than 10,000 objects related to the reform, including photos, historical materials, cultural relics, as well as audio and visual items.

Fan Jianchuan, founder and curator of the museum, said he had spent more than 20 years collecting the items.

Visitors can see photos of iconic moments, including the first national dance competition, in the northeastern city of Dalian; China's first private restaurant, which opened in Beijing in 1980; and China's first color TV production line from Tianjin.

Chen Yongliang, an architectural designer born in 1982, said a scene reconstructing family life in the 1980s impressed him, and the sewing machine, bicycle, watch, recorder, enamel mug and toys reminded him of his childhood.

"I would have forgotten those old days if I hadn't come to the exhibition," Chen said.

Starting in 1978, China's reform and opening-up promoted the development of the private economy, generated many opportunities in the private sector.

Fan said the collections in the museum cluster were witnesses of China's reform and opening-up. The number of museums in the cluster has increased from seven to over 50, scattered in Sichuan and neighboring Chongqing, since the founding of the first one in 2005.

"The private museum complex is an achievement of the reform and opening-up. I, like many others, have realized my dreams and benefited from the economic reform."

[ Editor: Zhang Zhou ]NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

No one knows whether Rod Rosenstein will be deputy attorney general past Thursday, just as no one knew whether he'd been fired or dumped during the media craziness over his sojourn to the White House.

But with his job in jeopardy, to say the least, the stakes remain sky-high.

The original take of much of the media world was that President Trump was pushing out his No. 2 appointee at the Justice Department, and that all hell would break loose. This was obviously a political massacre, the narrative goes, a blatant attempt by Trump to cripple the Mueller investigation, by ousting the man who named the special counsel and is overseeing what the president views as a witch hunt.

And once Rosenstein's acting replacement was named, whether it's Solicitor General Noel Francisco or someone else, that person would be viewed as a hatchet man to rein in Mueller's out-of-control probe.

But now we're learning that the whole episode began with Rosenstein's desire to quit.

Last Friday, says The New York Times, the deputy AG "had become convinced that he should resign, according to people close to him. He offered during a late-day visit to the White House to quit, according to one person familiar with the encounter, but John F. Kelly, the White House chief of staff, demurred."

The trigger, of course, was the Times piece last week that said Rosenstein had talked of secretly taping Trump and polling Cabinet members on the 25th Amendment back in 2017. Rosenstein denied the story, and other news outlets quoted sources as saying he was being sarcastic with the comments about wearing a wire.

But Rosenstein was wary of the Hill summoning him to testify about the story, and raised the issue of resignation on Sunday with White House counsel Don McGahnwho was kinda busy with that Kavanaugh matter.

We learn that as Rosenstein was headed to the White House on Monday  expecting to be fired, according to the leaks that sparked the media frenzy  the Justice Department even drafted a press release about his departure.

"Mr. Rosenstein was emotional, according to people familiar with his meeting with Mr. McGahn. Mr. Rosenstein wanted to leave on amicable terms, not in a manner that would trigger an angry Twitter tirade from Mr. Trump," the Times says.

Which is not that hard to imagine.

Trump can't stand Rosenstein, given his role in the Russia probe. But my sense is that the president is not looking to fire him, at least not right now. He knows it would create a political explosion weeks before the midterms. After that, who knows?

But let's say Rosenstein tells Trump in their Thursday meeting that he wants out. That he's burned out, that he's tired of the criticism, that he feels unfairly targeted, that the press is distorting his record, and it's time to move on.

Some might see that as a windfall for the president, being able to get rid of a nemesis while telling the world it was Rosenstein's idea.

But that's not what would happen.

The media would go into Saturday Night Massacre mode, using whatever day of the week it happened to be, saying that regardless of Rosenstein's wishes he had been forced out by Trump. Most of the commentators would say that Rosenstein was doing his job, Jeff Sessions backed him, but that the president had made his situation intolerable with his constant attacks on law enforcement.

There would be talk of a constitutional crisis and hand-wringing over the fate of the Mueller investigation and how it undoubtedly would be wounded by whatever DOJ underling was now in charge to do Trump's bidding.

Fairly or unfairly, the media widely view Rod Rosenstein  Harvard Law grad, Republican, former U.S. attorney in Baltimore  as the one man who can ensure the integrity of the Mueller investigation.

If Rosenstein is determined to resign, his life would be a lot less complicated. But his departure would be a political bomb exploding right in front of the president, regardless of who lit the fuse.NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

The second woman to accuse Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct remains engaged in a standoff with Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans, even as the panel grapples with two other sets of allegations.

Deborah Ramirez, who claims Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a party in the 1980s at Yale University, has signaled through her attorney she's willing to provide information to the committee but is demanding an FBI probe first.

But the two sides are struggling to agree on the terms for even an initial conversation. This, as the committee prepares to hear Thursday from first accuser Christine Ford, who says Kavanaugh tried to force himself on her at a high school party, and vets the late-breaking accusation from a woman represented by lawyer Michael Avenatti that Kavanaugh was involved in "gang" rapes during that period.

Kavanaugh has denied all the accusations.

Republican staff on the Senate Judiciary Committee first learned about Ramirezs claims from an article published by The New Yorker on Sunday evening.

Fox News obtained an email chain between committee Republicans and Ramirez's legal team regarding how the committee might review her allegations.

Michael Davis, the committees chief counsel on nominations, first reached out to attorneys for Ramirez on Sunday evening, following the publication of the article.

Please let us know when Ms. Ramirez is available for an interview with Senate Judiciary Committee investigators, Davis wrote in the email. We are determined to take Ms. Ramirezs statement and investigate further as necessary and as quickly as possible.

Ramirezs attorney responded, thanking him for the email and saying he would consult with Ramirez and be in touch. Monday afternoon, Ramirez attorney John Clune responded to Davis.

I am responding to your email of September 23 regarding the information that Deborah Ramirez has regarding events at Yale University during her freshman year, 1983-84. Our client has accurately relayed what she recalls to the New Yorker but, as she states in the article, she would welcome an investigation by the FBI into this information and would cooperate with such, Clune wrote. On appropriate terms, she would also agree to be interviewed in person.

Davis replied, asking whether Ramirez had any other evidence, including other statements, in addition to those that are contained in the New Yorker article.

Is Ms. Ramirez willing to provide her evidence, including her testimony, to committee investigators? Davis asked.

A Democratic staffer for committee ranking member Dianne Feinstein weighed in, suggesting they discuss the possibility of Ramirez speaking directly with members, not at the staff level.

Clune and Feinsteins staffer appeared to agree to a phone call, but Davis weighed in again asking that Ramirezs counsel provide answers to his questions, prior to discussing next steps.

There are certainly more witnesses than in the article, Clune replied. That would be the benefit of an actual investigation conducted by the FBI. We dont see how you can get to the root of the matter without that.

Davis then asked for evidence in the form of a letter or email to the Chairman and Ranking Member, a letter or email from counsel to the Chairman and Ranking Member, or a statement to committee investigators.

In a later email, Davis wrote that before we discuss a phone call or any other next steps, again, we need to have the following information, again noting that GOP staff needed an answer to whether Ramirez had any other evidence in addition to the article, and whether she would be willing to provide it, or testimony, to the committee.

The Democratic staffer weighed in again, slamming Davis for [refusing] to talk with Ramirezs counsel, noting that the committee does not usually place preconditions on getting on the phone to discuss next steps.

Davis reached out, via email, requesting information seven times since Sunday.

Staff for committee Democrats held a phone call with Clune and Ramirezs other attorneys on Tuesday evening, which Davis was invited to join. He did not participate in the call.

The difficulty is every time we try to set up a phone call, the majority party either changes the rules of the phone call or they want additional information as a condition of even having a phone call with us, Clune told CNNs Anderson Cooper Tuesday. We finally had a phone call scheduled for 7 oclock Eastern this evening, we got on the phone, and only the minority party showed.  So feels like theres a lot of game-playing thats going on right now by the majority party.

Clune suggested his client is willing to provide information to the Senate if a "meaningful" FBI probe is launched.

A spokesperson for committee Republicans told Fox News on Wednesday that they wanted Ramirezs legal team to provide a statement or further evidence so that they could have a productive phone call.

Weve asked her counsel for statement or evidence regarding the allegation, and theyve just not done that, the GOP committee aide told Fox News Wednesday.

The New Yorker article published Sunday revealed fresh accusations of misconduct against Kavanaugh, alleging that he exposed his genitals in Ramirezs face during a drinking game at a dorm party in the early 1980s.

Kavanaugh has vehemently denied the allegation and the allegation first brought against him by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who said that he pinned her down and tried to remove her clothing at a high school party. Ford considered the incident to be attempted rape, her lawyer said.

But Wednesday afternoon, Kavanaugh faced a new allegation brought forth by Michael Avenatti. His client, Julie Swetnick, alleged that Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge drugged the punch at parties and took advantage of women. She accused Kavanaugh and Judge of being involved in gang rapes and alleged that she was a victim of a rape where Kavanaugh and Judge were present.

Avenatti serves as an attorney for adult film star Stormy Daniels, who was paid $130,000 in the weeks leading up to the presidential election in exchange for her silence about an alleged one-time sexual encounter with President Trump.

Trump blasted Avenatti as a third rate lawyer who is good at making false accusations, standing by his Supreme Court pick.

Kavanaugh also blasted the new allegations as false.

This is ridiculous and from the Twilight Zone. I dont know who this is and this never happened, Kavanaugh said in a statement Wednesday.

At this point, it is unclear whether Ford will appear for her scheduled hearing Thursday. It also remains unclear whether Ramirez will appear before the committee in any capacity.

Clune did not respond to Fox News request for comment.

Republicans on the committee are currently investigating the Swetnick allegations.NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

Tennessee Senate candidate Phil Bredesen promised voters he would not vote for Chuck Schumer as majority leader if hes elected and Democrats take control of the Senate.

We need to get new leadership, Bredesen, Tennessees former governor, said during a debate Tuesday night. I can tell you right now, that if Im elected, and when Im elected and go to Washington, I am not going to be voting for Chuck Schumer.

A Democrat from New York, Schumer is currently the minority leader in the Senate.

Still, throughout the debate, GOP nominee Marsha Blackburn attempted to align the Democratic candidate to Schumer and reiterated multiple times his campaign is bought and paid for by the minority leader.

Later, she doubled down with reporters, claiming Schumer recruited Bredesen to run for the open seat and pointed out hes praised former President Barack Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other prominent Democrats.

After the debate, held at Cumberland University in Lebanon, Bredesen told reporters leadership in both parties is part of the problem, The Tennessean reported.

I think its time to kind of sweep through and get some new people that have got a lot more commitment to trying to solve problems and working in a bipartisan way, he said.

BLACKBURN, BREDESEN FACE OFF FOR TENNESSEE SENATE SEAT: A LOOK AT THE CANDIDATES

Bredesen isnt the only Democratic Senate hopeful who disavowed Schumer. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, who is locked in a tough battle for Senate in Arizona, told Politico in July she would not vote for Schumer.

Bredesen faces Blackburn, a congresswoman, for the seat left open with the retirement of Sen. Bob Corker, a Republican. It is ranked a tossup by Fox News and is among several midterm races deemed crucial for Republicans hoping to hold onto its narrow two-seat majority.

Bredesen, 74, is vying to become the first Democrat to win a Senate campaign in The Volunteer State since Al Gore in 1990. Not hyper-partisan, Bredesen served as Nashvilles mayor before he led the entire state from 2003 to 2011  and hes using that nostalgia in his current campaign.

He told The Associated Press he wants to make clear to everybody my independence from all of the national Democratic stuff. He said the party is becoming elitist and bemoaned efforts to win elections through demographic partitioning.

DEMOCRATS TEST-DRIVE NEW MIDTERM SLOGAN AFTER FIRST ONE IS MOCKED

He says Democrats wouldn't be able to reliably count on his vote in the Senate, and he foresees playing a role like that of Maine Sen. Susan Collins, who has broken with the GOP on several high-profile issues.

I think you can be influential being in that swing position, Bredesen said

If elected, Bredesen, who graduated from Harvard University with a physics degree, would be one of the richest members in Congress, The Tennessean reported. Recent financial disclosures showed he has between $88.9 million and $358 million in total investment assets from January 2017 to February 2018.

Blackburn and Bredesen are scheduled to debate again on Oct. 10 at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

A Republican state senator in Texas is accused of sending sexually explicit messages and photos of his genitals to a University of Texas graduate student, reports said.

The university is investigating allegations made against Sen. Charles Schwertner and could consider banning him from the schools Austin campus, school officials told the Austin American-Statesmen.

Schwertner, who is a practicing orthopedic surgeon, denied the allegations through a spokesman, saying he is eager to cooperate with the University of Texas and hopes to make clear he played no part in the behavior described. He did not immediately respond to a Fox News email for comment.

The officials said the student and Schwertner, a UT alumnus, met at a campus event where she told him she was interested in working in the state legislature. The pair then exchanged messages on the networking site LinkedIn before texting each other on their cellphones, reports said.

Schwertner allegedly texted the student, I just really want to f--- you, and sent her a photo of what appeared to be his genitals in the shower. The image does not show his face, officials said, and the student never responded to the message.

The school initiated an investigation after the student reported the exchange.

A UT spokesman said the school takes all allegations of wrongdoing seriously and encourages members of the campus community to report them immediately.

Schwertner, who chairs the Health and Human Services Committee, was elected to the state House in 2010 and Senate in 2012. Last year, he authored a bill that would severely restrict abortions in the state that was eventually signed into law.

Schwertner is married and has three sons, according to a biography on his website. He is faces Democrat Meg Walsh for re-election this November.

Set against the backdrop of the #MeToo movement, Schwertner is the third member of the Texas Senate to face similar allegations since 2017.

After media reports revealed that women in the Texas Legislature used a whisper network to discuss harassers, the Senate and House revised guidelines regarding sexual harassment training and reporting this year.NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

President Donald Trump late Monday tweeted out support for his embattled Supreme Court pick, and asked his supporters to "pray" for Brett Kavanaugh and his family.

The Democrats are playing a high level CON GAME in their vicious effort to destroy a fine person, Trump tweeted. It is called the politics of destruction. Behind the scene the Dems are laughing. Pray for Brett Kavanaugh and his family!

Christine Blasey Ford has accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault during a party when they were in high school. They are both scheduled to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday. Kavanaugh has denied Ford's allegations.

The New Yorker reported new allegations from a former Yale classmate who claimed Kavanaugh exposed himself to her while drinking at a college party in the 1980s.

In addition, Michael Avenatti, the attorney for porn star Stormy Daniels, said he has information that Kavanaugh, his friend Mark Judge and others in high school had targeted women with alcohol/drugs in order to allow a train of men to subsequently gang rape them."

Kavanaugh has denied all the allegations and told Fox News in an exclusive interview on Monday that he wants a fair process where I can defend my integrity, and I know I'm telling the truth.

Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, rejected a request on Tuesday from Democrats to postpone the scheduled hearing.

In a letter to ranking member Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Grassley wrote: "I am not going to silence Dr. Ford after I promised and assured her that I would provide her a safe, comfortable, and dignified opportunity to testify ... There is no reason to delay the hearing any further."

The committee also on Tuesday tentatively scheduled a vote on Kavanaughs nomination for Friday morning.

In a statement, Feinstein said the committee's action in scheduling a vote was "outrageous."

Fox News Samuel Chamberlain and Matt Richardson contributed to this report.NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

President Trump defended Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh at a news conference Wednesday, saying that Democrats had "destroyed a man's reputation" with sexual misconduct allegations.

In response to a question from Fox News' John Roberts about why the White House did not ask the FBI to investigate allegations made against Kavanaugh by Christine Blasey Ford, the president responded that "there was nothing to investigate."

"They didn't know the location, they didn't know the time, they didn't know the year. They didn't know anything," Trump said.

The president added that even if an investigation found nothing to corroborate Ford's claims, "it's not going to change any of the Democrats' minds."

"They're obstructionists," Trump went on. "They're actually con artists because they know how quality this man is, and they've destroyed a man's reputation and they want to destroy it even more ... And they know it's a big, fat con job. And they go into a room and I guarantee you, they laugh like hell at what they've pulled off on [the media] and on the public."

Trump added that the Democrats' bitter fight against Kavanaugh would backfire on them in the forthcoming midterm elections and predicted that "three, four or five Democrats" would support the judge's confirmation "because they're in states that I won by 30 and 40 points and they're going to give us votes."

The president has supported Kavanaugh repeatedly this week as the federal judge has worked to fend off allegations of sexual misconduct from the early 1980s.

Kavanaugh and Ford are scheduled to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday about her allegations, which date back to Kavanaugh's time in high school.

When asked if he would withdraw Kavanaugh's nomination, Trump answered, "These are all false, to me, these are false accusations in certain cases ... I can only say that what they've done to this man is incredible."

However, the president appeared to leave himself some room to maneuver later in the press conference, saying he was open to "changing my mind" if the evidence against Kavanaugh was sufficiently compelling.

"I'm going to see what happens tomorrow. I'm going to be watching, believe it or not," Trump said. "I'm going to see what's said. It's possible that [Ford] will be convincing."

KAVANAUGH ACCUSER FORD'S POLYGRAPH TEST REVEALED

The president again expressed frustration with the length of time between Ford going public with her accusation against Kavanaugh and Thursday's scheduled hearing.

"I look forward to hearing from her," Trump said. "We could have heard from her last week, we could have heard from her for a long time. It'll be interesting to hear what she has to say."

The president also referenced accusations of sexual misconduct that have been made against him in the past, calling them "false."

"I was accused by, I believe it was four women," Trump said. "I was accused by four or five women who got paid a lot of money to make up stories about me. We caught them and the mainstream media refused to put it on television ... So I've had numerous accusations about me."

"People want fame, they want money, they want whatever," the president added. "So when I see it, I view it differently than someone sitting at home watching television, where they say, 'Oh, Judge Kavanaugh, this or that.' It's happened to me many times."

More than a dozen women came forward during the 2016 presidential campaign, claiming they were assaulted, groped or kissed without consent by Trump.

The president also briefly sparred with CNN reporter Jim Acosta, who requested that Trump call on a woman after him to ask about Kavanaugh.

TRUMP SPARS WITH ACOSTA AT NEWS CONFERENCE

"What does he mean by that?" Trump asked rhetorically before saying, "I wouldn't mind that at all."

Trump also slammed attorney Michael Avenatti, who represents a woman who alleges that she witnessed Kavanaugh "engage in excessive drinking and inappropriate contact of a sexual nature with women in the early 1980s", as a "con artist" and a "lowlife."

Avenatti's client is the third woman to allege misconduct by Kavanaugh. He also represents Stormy Daniels, an adult-film actress who said she had sex with Trump years before Trump became president.

Trump concluded the press conference by calling Thursday's hearing "a very big moment for our country" and reiterating that Kavanaugh was entitled to the presumption of innocence.

"This is beyond Supreme Court. This has everything to do with our country," Trump said. "When you are guilty until proven innocent, it's just not supposed to be that way ... In this case, you're guilty until proven innocent. I think that is a very, very dangerous standard for our country."

Fox News' John Roberts and The Associated Press contributed to this report.NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

President Trump said Wednesday he'd "certainly prefer not" to fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and is considering delaying their scheduled Thursday meeting in Washington, D.C.

Speaking at a rare news conference in New York, Trump said he may push back the highly-anticipated meeting with the Justice Department's second-in-command. That meeting was scheduled after The New York Times reported that Rosenstein allegedly suggested wearing a "wire" while with Trump.

Rosenstein reportedly also suggested invoking the 25th Amendment to remove the president from office last year.

"I'm talking to [Rosenstein], we've had a good talk," Trump told reporters. "He said he never said it. He said he doesn't believe it. He said he has a lot of respect for me. He's very nice, and we'll see."

One media report on Monday indicated the embattled official had already quit as the No. 2 Justice official, while sources told Fox News and other outlets Rosenstein was headed to the White House expecting to be fired.

The White House later announced Rosenstein would meet with Trump on Thursday, when he returned home from the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

CNN REPORTER JIM ACOSTA PROMPTS TRUMP TO CALL ON 'FEMALE REPORTER' AT NEW YORK PRESS CONFERENCE

On Wednesday, Trump said he might postpone the meeting because he's focused on the Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing, also to be held on Thursday, with Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, a woman who accused him of sexual assault.

"I don't want to do anything that gets in the way of this very important Supreme Court pick," Trump said. "I don't want to do anything that's going to conflict with that."

Trump, referencing Rosenstein's authority overseeing special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, said his "preference would be to keep him, to let him finish up."

Fox News' Brooke Singman and The Associated Press contributed to this report.NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

President Trump took aim at China and Iran while chairing a U.N. Security Council meeting on nonproliferation on Wednesday -- accusing China of meddling in the U.S. midterms, and promising sanctions tougher than ever before on Iran.

Trump spoke first and, within minutes, trained his sights on Syria, Iran and Russia. He claimed that the Syrian regimes butchery was enabled by Iran and Russia. He then accused the Iranian regimes of exporting "violence, terror and turmoil."

"It illicitly procures sensitive items to advance its ballistic missile program and proliferates these missiles all across the Middle East," he said. "The regime is the world's leading sponsor of terror, and fuels conflict across the region and far beyond."

While he thanked the trinity for substantially slowing down their attack on Idlib province, he warned: Get the terrorists, but I hope the restraint continues. The world is watching."

TRUMP TRADES FIRE WITH IRANIAN LEADER AT UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY



At the meeting, he defended his administrations decision to pull out of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, and blasted what he called a horrible, one-sided deal [that] allowed Iran to continue its path toward a [nuclear] bomb and gave the regime a cash lifeline when they needed it the most.

They were in big big trouble, he said. They needed cash, we gave it to them.

The Trump administration re-imposed a host of economic sanctions on Iran in August, and plans to impose sanctions on Irans crude oil exports in November.

Trump said that after that, the U.S. "will pursue additional sanctions, tougher than ever before, to counter the entire range of Iran's malign conduct."

"Any individual or entity who fails to comply with these sanctions will face severe consequences," he warned.

Trump then used the meeting to accuse China of meddling in the November midterms, saying it was pushing back against Trump's tariffs that he has placed on goods from China entering the U.S.

Regrettably we found that China has been attempting to interfere in our upcoming 2018 election coming up in November against my administration, he said.

They do not want me or us to win because I am the first president ever to challenge China on trade and we are winning on trade. We are winning on every level.

While Trump did not give any specifics about alleged interference, he seemed to referring back to a point he made in a tweet earlier this month when he accused China of actively trying to impact and change our election by attacking our farmers, ranchers and industrial workers because of their loyalty to me.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi responded to Trump's comments at the meeting, saying that China follows a principle of non-interference in other countries domestic affairs.

"We did not and will not interfere in any country's domestic affairs, we refuse to accept any unwarranted accusations against China and we call upon other countries to also observe the purposes of the U.N. Charter and not interfere in other countries' internal affairs," he said.

Trumps remarks come a day after a fiery speech to the U.N. General Assembly, where he also had harsh words for Iran.

"We cannot allow the world's leading sponsor of terrorism to possess the planet's most dangerous weapons," he said. "We cannot allow a regime that chants 'Death to America' and that threatens Israel with annihilation to possess the means to deliver a nuclear warhead to any city on Earth.

"Just can't do it."



In turn, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani took aim at Trump, and even his decision to call the Security Council meeting.

"It is unfortunate that we are witnessing rulers in the world who think they can secure their interests better -- or at least in the short-term ride public sentiments and gain popular support -- through the fomenting of extremist nationalism and racism, and though xenophobic tendencies resembling a Nazi disposition, as well as through the trampling of global rules and undermining international institutions; even through preposterous and abnormal acts such as convening a high-level meeting of the Security Council," he said.

Fox News' Ben Evansky contributed to this report.NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

Republicans are seizing on a vintage clip of then-Sen. Joe Biden during the 1991 Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings that show him dismissing the usefulness of having the FBI investigate allegations against the Supreme Court nominee.

It comes as Democrats are calling on the FBI to investigate allegations of sexual assault against Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh -- a request that has been rejected by Republicans.

The next person who refers to an FBI report as being worth anything, obviously doesnt understand anything, Biden, then Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said at the time. The FBI explicitly does not, in this case or any other case, reach a conclusion, period. Period.

Biden presided over Thomas confirmation hearings when Anita Hill accused the nominee of making sexually explicit comments to her and unwanted advances while she worked for him. The allegations were briefly investigated by the FBI.

Members of the committee, at the time, called for further FBI investigation into Thomas. But in passionate remarks during the hearing, Biden dismissed those who said the FBI's report was "worth anything."

Addressing Thomas, Biden said, The reason why we cannot rely on the FBI report  you wouldnt like it if we did: because it is inconclusive.

They say he said, she said, they said, period, Biden explained. So when people wave an FBI report before you, understand they do not, they do not, they do not reach conclusions. They do not make, as my friend points out more accurately, they do not make recommendations.

Fast-forward to 2018 and the Senate Judiciary Committee is back in a similar situation as Kavanaugh faces allegations of sexual assault dating back to high school by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. He is also accused of exposing himself at a freshman year dorm party to his Yale University classmate Deborah Ramirez. Kavanaugh has emphatically denied the allegations.

Ford and Ramirez have both called for FBI investigations into their claims. Senate Democrats have also pushed for an investigation, calling for the White House to demand that the bureau open a probe into Kavanaugh.

FBI WILL NOT LAUNCH CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION INTO KAVANAUGH ALLEGATIONS: SOURCES

But Republicans are now citing Bidens 27-year-old remarks as they push back against these demands.

My Democrat friends might want to consider this from then-Judiciary Committee Chairman JOE BIDEN (D-DE) In 1991: The FBI explicitly Does Not, IN This Or Any Other Case Reach A Conclusion, Period, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., tweeted.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who also was on the Judiciary Committee during the Thomas-Hill hearings, called the Biden video valuable.

Valuable flashback from then Chairman Biden, presiding over Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings, on the role of FBI investigations in confirmations, Hatch tweeted.

The FBI conducts background investigations prior to an appointed officials confirmation to determine whether the nominee could pose a risk to the national security of the United States, according to a Justice Department spokesperson.

In an FBI background investigation, the bureau is only responsible for finding information and passing it along, which they have done in the Kavanaugh case, a source told Fox News. The source said the FBI would not investigate the information found.

The FBI does not make any judgment about the credibility or significance of any allegation, a Justice Department spokesperson said in a statement last week.

According to the Justice Department, on Sept. 12, the FBI received a letter dated from July 2018, obtained by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., alleging that Kavanaugh engaged in an incident of misconduct in the 1980s.

The FBI forwarded this letter to the White House Counsels Office, the spokesperson said. The allegation does not involve any potential federal crime. The FBIs role in such matters is to provide information for the use of decision makers.

An FBI spokesperson, last week, said in a statement that Fords Sept. 12 letter was included as part of Judge Kavanaughs background file, as per the standard process.

The FBI does not plan to launch a criminal investigation into the allegations against Kavanaugh, as there are no allegations of a federal crime. The FBI also would only re-open a background investigation into Kavanaugh if the White House requested a follow-up inquiry.

The White House has not requested any such investigation, and sources told Fox News that there was no impetus for them to do so.

Biden, amid the Kavanaugh accusations, has expressed regret over how he handled the allegations brought by Hill. He also says he thinks the FBI should investigate Kavanaugh.

AMID KAVANAUGH CONTROVERSY, JOE BIDEN EXPRESSES REGRET OVER HOW HE HANDLED ANITA HILL ALLEGATIONS

I think they should do an FBI investigation. We did that for Anita Hill, Biden said Friday. Most importantly, Anita Hill was vilified when she came forward by a lot of my colleagues, character assassination. I wish I couldve done more to prevent those questions, the way they asked them.

Kavanaugh, who has vehemently denied the allegations, is expected to testify before the Judiciary Committee on Thursday. Ford is also scheduled to testify.KUNMING, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- Tens of thousands of amateur astronomers gathered in Lijiang, an ancient city with an 800-year history and one of China's largest optical telescopes, to observe the night sky in southwest China's Yunnan Province on Mid-Autumn Festival Monday.

To cater to the needs of different amateur astronomers, a group led by the city's science and technology association set up six astronomical telescopes at the center of Lijiang Gucheng, a popular tourist destination, with dozens of volunteers providing professional assistance.

"People waited in lines to use the equipment for about five minutes each, one by one, and we assisted and explained how to use the telescope and take good pictures," said volunteer Fang Zhou, a senior astronomy expert.

"Cameras, mobile phones and video recorders can all be used to capture the beauty of the moon," he said.

Some amateur astronomers took their own equipment to the spot to have a better view of the full moon.

"Compared with the naked eyes, astronomical telescopes can give us higher resolution, making details on the moon such as lunar mares and craters more clearly presented," said Zhao Yixiong, an expert with the association.

The ancient city was built at the end of the Song Dynasty (960-1279). Listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997, Lijiang is one of the most famous ancient cities in China, and it boasts one of China's largest optical telescope, 2.4 meters in diameter and 8 meters tall, which began operation in 2007.

"With hardly any atmospheric turbulence, the astronomical viewing is excellent in Lijiang, which means the images seen here are less distorted. The city also has ideal weather conditions for sky watching as it has more than 200 clear days a year," Zhao said.

Moon watching is a traditional celebration on Mid-Autumn Festival, which falls on the 15th day of the eighth month on the Chinese lunar calendar, a full moon night between late September and early October.

"The increasing public thirst for knowledge about astronomy has made sky watching a popular activity in China," Zhao said.

[ Editor: Zhang Zhou ]NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin -- who claims to be a conservative -- is under fire for declaring that the woman selected by the clueless old white guys on the Senate Judiciary Committee to assist Republicans in questioning Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's accuser is from Sheriff Joe's operation.

Rachel Mitchell was hired to question both Kavanaugh and his accuser. She works in the Maricopa County Attorneys Office in Phoenix as the chief of the Special Victims Division and deputy county attorney.

Mitchell is a highly decorated prosecutor, but Rubin only seems to care that she is from the same county as a divisive pro-Trump figure.

Only this crowd of clueless old white guys wold [sic] pick someone from Sheriff Joe's operation. I was saying no self-respecting lawyer would take the job of giving cover to GOP cowards. I was right, Rubin tweeted.

Rubin was referring to controversial former Sheriff Joe Arpaio, an ally of President Trump who was sheriff of Maricopa County in Arizona from 1993 to 2016. The self-proclaimed toughest sheriff in America, was pardoned by Trump in August 2017 after he was found guilty of criminal contempt for denying a judges order to stop traffic patrols that allegedly targeted immigrants.

The Maricopa County Attorney's Office is a completely separate agency than the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, Maricopa County Attorney Office spokesperson Amanda Steele told Fox News.

Senator Orrin Hatch took notice, saying Rubin was maligning someone with patently false information.

Mitchell works for the Maricopa County Attorney, not Maricopa County Sheriff, Hatchs office wrote.

The Daily Caller called Rubins tweet fake news."

The Washington Post did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Mitchell works for the Maricopa County Attorney, not Maricopa County Sheriff. Its simple, one user responded to Rubins tweet.

Christine Blasey Ford, a California psychology professor, alleged Kavanaugh assaulted her while at a house party in the 1980s when they were both teenagers. She said he pinned her to a bed, attempted to forcibly remove her clothes and prevented her from screaming.

Rubins misleading tweet had nearly 8,000 retweets and 25,000 likes before noon ET on Wednesday.

Rubin eventually sent a follow up-tweet.

To be clear: The county atty represents the sheriff's office but she did not. She works in sex crimes division, she wrote roughly 12 hours after the initial version.

Kavanaugh has vehemently denied the allegations and the GOP side of the Judiciary Committee  which is made up of 11 men  seemingly selected Mitchell to question Fords accusations to avoid an unwanted message on live television against the backdrop of the #MeToo era.

Fox News Nicole Darrah and Kaitlyn Schallhorn contributed to this report.NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

A first-time Democratic candidate looking to flip a Washington state U.S. House seat appeared to distance herself from party leader Nancy Pelosi during a private fundraiser in the Seattle-area earlier this month.

A spokeswoman for Kim Schrier, who is running against Republican Dino Rossi for the 8th Congressional District seat of retiring U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert, R-Auburn, was recently asked if the candidate attended a fundraiser to support the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

The spokeswoman, Katie Rodihan, responded by pointing to U.S. Rep. Susan DelBene, the finance chair for the DCCC who also hosts a similar fundraiser each year, the Seattle Times reported.

I believe Suzan DelBene had Nancy Pelosi here for a fundraiser, Rodihan said. Were not taking Nancy Pelosis money. We were not hosting the event, not part of it.

When a reporter pressed Rodihan on the question, she said Schrier did stop by and it had not been on her schedule until she was asked to make an appearance at the last minute by DelBene.

Schrier may not be taking Pelosis money, but the DCCC has spent around $1.5 million to help her in the form of negative TV ads against Rossi.

Pelosi, D-Calif., the House Minority Leader, has become a lightning rod for Republicans who seek to tie her to Democratic candidates much in the same way Democrats are doing with Republicans running for office and President Trump.

Kim Schrier would support Nancy Pelosi and raise taxes on hardworking middle-class families, said Michael Byerly, a spokesman for the Congressional Leadership Fund, a Republican political-action committee that spent more than $850,000 in support of Rossi. Washington families deserve better than Kim Schrier.

Shes also faced criticism within her own party.

Rodihan said Schrier didnt want to be drawn into a debate about Pelosi until after the midterm elections but has said she is open to new leadership in the Democratic Party.

I see the party changing a lot  I think that the leadership needs to reflect the new party and that probably means its not going to be Nancy Pelosi, Schrier said in July. I think that it would be nice to have a woman in some sort of leadership position. Shes the only woman in a leadership position, but I think that the leadership really needs to reflect this new, energized, forward-thinking party.

Pelosi has said in past interviews that calls by some for her to relinquish her role in the party are due to sexism.

She still has defenders and has raised millions for the DCCC.

The fundraiser in Washington state drew 70 guests and raised $900,000, a Pelosi spokesman told the Times.

Previously, some other Democratic candidates have shown reluctance when asked if they would commit their support behind Pelosi.

One count in August revealed more than 50 candidates and incumbents would not back her should the party take back the 23-seat majority from the Republicans.NEW You can now listen to Fox News articles!

Rachel Mitchell has been selected by the Senate Judiciary Committee to assist Republican lawmakers in questioning the woman who accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault.

Christine Blasey Ford, a California psychology professor, alleged Kavanaugh assaulted her while at a house party in the 1980s when they were both teenagers. She said he pinned her to a bed, attempted to forcibly remove her clothes and prevented her from screaming.

Kavanaugh has vehemently denied the allegations.

The GOP side of the Judiciary Committee is made up of 11 men  which could have sent an unwanted message on live television against the backdrop of the #MeToo era during the questioning of Fords accusations. Two days before the scheduled Sept. 27 hearing, the committee announced the selection of Mitchell to question Ford.

Im very appreciative that Rachel Mitchell has stepped forward to serve in this important and serious role, said Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. Ms. Mitchell has been recognized in the legal community for her experience and objectivity.

Grassley said he hired Mitchell because he wants a hearing that is safe, comfortable and dignified for both Ford and Kavanaugh. He said the goal of Mitchells hiring is to de-politicize the process and get to the truth, instead of grandstanding and giving senators an opportunity to launch their presidential campaigns.

Read on for a look at Mitchells long career and where she stands politically.

Mitchell has been a prosecutor since 1993

Mitchell works in the Maricopa County Attorneys Office in Phoenix as the chief of the Special Victims Division and deputy county attorney. Maricopa is Arizonas most populous county. She is currently on leave.

She spent more than a decade supervising attorneys who handle sex-related crimes, including sexual assault, child molestation and prostitution and computer crimes against children. She was also in charge of a satellite bureau that prosecuted such crimes as well as domestic violence and elder abuse, according to the Judiciary Committee.

Her boss, Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery, told the Arizona Republic that Mitchell is a professional, fair, objective prosecutor and has a caring heart for victims.

KAVANAUGH CONFIRMATION: THE LATEST DEVELOPMENTS ON CHARGES BY SUPREME COURT NOMINEE'S ACCUSER

Paul Ahler, who formerly worked in the County Attorneys Office described Mitchells life mission as specializing in sex crimes.

The county prosecutor's office is entirely distinct from the sheriff's office in Maricopa County, which was led by the controversial Joe Arpaio until last year.

Mitchell said she became involved with this line of work when she was a law clerk and still awaiting her bar exam results. She had been paired with an attorney who worked to prosecute a youth choir director.

It intrigued me, and I continued to do other work with that bureau chief. It struck me how innocent and vulnerable the victims of these cases really were, she told FrontLine magazine in 2011. I prosecuted other kinds of cases, but I was drawn back to this area.

Shes been recognized for her work

She was named the County Attorneys Office Prosecutor of the Year in 2006; in 2003, she was recognized by then-Gov. Janet Napolitano and Attorney General Terry Goddard as an outstanding sexual assault prosecutor.

Mitchell was also awarded the David R. White Excellence in Victim Advocacy Award in 2013, given by the Arizona Prosecuting Attorneys Advisory Council.

According to the Arizona Republican, Mitchell was on a list of names to be considered for a Maricopa County Superior Court judgeship in 2014.

A LOOK AT THE WOMEN WHO HAVE ACCUSED KAVANAUGH OF SEXUAL MISCONDUCT

In announcing her appointment to the Kavanaugh hearing, the Judiciary Committee noted that as an expert on sex crimes prosecution, Mitchell has also served as an instructor and speaker on the topic. Shes said herself that she works with churches to educate them on mandatory reporting and talks to parents about preventative measures for computer sex crimes committed against children.

Shes prosecuted church members, police officers

Mitchell, in 2015, prosecuted a 13-year veteran of the Mesa Police Department who groped two women, one of whom was passed out at the time.

A year earlier, she prosecuted a former church volunteer in Scottsdale who molested children in his care as a church babysitter and camp counselor over a seven-year period. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison with lifetime probation.

People want to go to a church on a Sunday and feel safe, Mitchell said then.

WHO IS CHRISTINE BLASEY FORD, THE PROFESSOR WHO ACCUSED BRETT KAVANAUGH OF SEXUAL ASSAULT?

In 2005, she led the prosecution of former Catholic priest Paul LeBrun, who was sentenced to 111 years in prison for molesting young boys in Arizona. She called the sentencing "vindication" for the victims.

"It's very hard to comprehend how someone can establish a trusting relationship with a child and then betray it," she said in that case.

Mitchell is a Republican

Mitchell is a registered Republican.

According to The Washington Post, she has contributed financially to the campaign of Mark Brnovich, Arizonas attorney general.

However, Cindi Nannetti, her former boss, told the newspaper Mitchell will handle her new task as a professional with the utmost respect to the committee.

She does not play politics when it comes to anything involving her work, Nannetti said.

Fox News Chad Pergram, Gregg Re and The Associated Press contributed to this report.Massive bombing raids by Allied forces during World War II sent shockwaves to the edge of space, according to stunning new research.

Scientists at the University of Reading in the U.K. have revealed that shockwaves from huge bombs dropped on European cities travelled through the Earths atmosphere. The bombing even weakened the Earths electrified upper atmosphere, the ionosphere, 621 miles away.

The research could provide a valuable insight into how the likes of lightning, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions affect the Earths upper atmosphere.

STERN OF US WW II DESTROYER DISCOVERED NEAR REMOTE ALASKAN ISLAND: SURVIVOR RECOUNTS HARROWING DAY

It is astonishing to see how the ripples caused by man-made explosions can affect the edge of space. Each raid released the energy of at least 300 lightning strikes, said Chris Scott, professor of space and atmospheric physics, at the University of Reading, in a statement. The sheer power involved has allowed us to quantify how events on the Earths surface can also affect the ionosphere.

The study, which is published in Annales Geophysicae, examined daily records complied at the Radio Research Centre in Slough, U.K., that were collected between 1943 and 1945. The Centre sent sequences of radio pulses over a range of shortwave frequencies 62 miles to 186 miles above the Earths surface. The pulses revealed the height and electron concentration of ionization within the Earths upper atmosphere.

Scientists studied the ionosphere response records from the time of 152 large Allied air raids on Europe.

WRECK OF WW II SHIP DISCOVERED 74 YEARS AFTER IT DISAPPEARED DURING A RESCUE MISSION

Influenced by solar activity, the ionosphere impacts radio communications, GPS, radio telescopes and some early warning radar, but the extent of its impact on World War II radio communications was unclear, researchers note. However, by studying wartime records scientists found that the electron concentration in the upper atmosphere decreased significantly as a result of the shockwaves from bombs detonating. This is thought to have heated the upper atmosphere, enhancing the loss of ionization, they say, in the statement.

Allied forces inflicted heavy damage during their bombing raids on Germany, dropping ordnance such as the massive Grand Slam bomb, which weighed up to 10 tonnes. Deployed by the Royal Air Force, Grand Slam was the brainchild of Barnes Wallis, designer of the famous Dambusters bouncing bomb.

Aircrew involved in the raids reported having their aircraft damaged by the bomb shockwaves, despite being above the recommended height, said Professor Patrick Major, University of Reading historian and a co-author of the study, in the statement. Residents under the bombs would routinely recall being thrown through the air by the pressure waves of air mines exploding, and window casements and doors would be blown off their hinges. There were even rumors that wrapping wet towels around the face might save those in shelters from having their lungs collapsed by blast waves, which would leave victims otherwise externally untouched.

HOW ADOLF HITLER'S PLAN TO BUILD AN ATOMIC BOMB AND DESTROY LONDON WAS ONLY THWARTED WHEN FERRY CARRYING KEY INGREDIENTS SUNK

Set against this backdrop, the study of ionosphere response records offers fresh insight into the effects of the bombing campaign, according to Major. The unprecedented power of these attacks has proved useful for scientists to gauge the impact such events can have hundreds of kilometres above the Earth, in addition to the devastation they caused on the ground, he said in the statement.

The shockwaves from major other major wartime explosions have been felt large distances away. During World War I, for example, British forces exploded 19 huge mines under German trenches in Belgium. The resulting explosion was the largest blast of the pre-atomic bomb era, according to National Geographic and was reportedly heard by British Prime Minister David Lloyd George in London, 140 miles away. At the geology department of Lille University in France the shockwave registered as an earthquake.

The ionosphere also featured in a recent research study that cited a devastating volcanic eruption on the other side of the world as contributing to Napoleons defeat in the Battle of Waterloo.

NAPOLEON DYNAMITE: HOW AN INDONESIAN VOLCANO INFLUENCED THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO

For years, historians have cited rainy and muddy conditions on the day of the battle as a factor in the French Armys famous defeat on June 18, 1815. Waterlogged conditions at the battle site prompted Napoleon to delay his troops attack until the ground dried out, widely regarded as a critical error.

In a research study published in the journal Geology, scientists from Imperial College London linked the weather conditions to the eruption of the Mount Tambora volcano 7,680 miles away. The volcano on the Indonesian island of Sumbawa sent electrically-charged volcanic ash into Earths atmosphere when it erupted in April 1815 and short-circuited the ionosphere. This led to a pulse in cloud formation, which in turn brought heavy rain across Europe, according to the study.

Follow James Rogers on Twitter @jamesjrogersNASA has spotted its Opportunity rover on the surface of Mars months after the solar-powered vehicle was enshrouded in a vast dust storms, causing it to go into hibernation. The space agency, however, is still unable to contact the rover.

Lost in the storms that enveloped the Red Planet and prevented sunlight from reaching its surface, the last signal received from the $400 million rover was on June 10.

Last month NASA warned that it may never again have contact with the Opportunity rover.

NASA ADMITS $400M MARS OPPORTUNITY ROVER COULD BE LOST FOREVER

On Sept. 20, the HiRISE high-resolution camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured an image of the rover in Mars Perseverance Valley.

In an attempt to re-establish communication, NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory began increasing the frequency of commands it beams to the rover on Sept. 11.

NASA still hasn't heard from the Opportunity rover, but at least we can see it again, it said, in a statement released Tuesday.

MASSIVE MARS DISCOVERY: ORGANIC MOLECULES 'FUNDAMENTAL TO OUR SEARCH FOR LIFE' FOUND BY NASA ROVER

Oppy, can you hear us? NASA JPL tweeted Tuesday. Active commanding continues in hopes of reestablishing communication.

Opportunity has been on Mars since 2004.

In June NASA announced that its Curiosity Mars rover has found organic molecules on the Red Planet described as fundamental to our search for life.

Fox News Chris Ciaccia contributed to this article.

Follow James Rogers on Twitter @jamesjrogersThe lower part of the Detroit River in Michigan has seen a recent influx of various birds of prey, such as hawks, eagles and falcons as they prepare to fly south for the winter.

In the past three days alone, a mix of an estimated 13,000 broad-winged hawks and turkey vultures have been spotted over the river, swarming above as photographers and bird lovers alike snap photos of the winged creatures, the Detroit Free Press reported.

VIRGINIA POULTRY PLANT INVESTIGATED AFTER 50 WORKERS SICKENED WITH RARE INFECTIOUS DISEASE

The annual event occurs in autumn, when the lower Detroit River between Michigan and Ontario becomes a corridor for the passage of migratory birds, according to the Detroit River Hawk Watch group, which monitors and shares information about the event.

Hundreds of thousands of hawks, eagles and other predatory birds begin their journey to wintering grounds in the southern part of the county and Mexico, the Detroit River Hawk Watch said in a statement last year.

Jerry Jourdan, an adviser with the Detroit River Hawk Watch, told Fox News some cities in Mexico  such as Vera Cruz will eventually see several million birds during their hawk count seasons.

Specifically, upwards of 250,000 Broad-winged Hawks, Turkey Vultures, Red-tailed Hawks, Sharp-shinned Hawks, and even Golden Eagles will funnel southward from Canada and fly over the hawk watch site during their non-stop migration, the group said, adding that one year, in 1999, more than 540,000 broad-winged hawks were counted in a single day.

ANDEAN FLAMINGOS LAY EGGS FOR FIRST TIME SINCE 2003, CHARITY SAYS

Holiday Beach Migration Observatory across Lake Erie also serves as a prime location to monitor local population and flight dynamics of migrating hawks, Jourdan said, noting these locations are just a couple of the roughly 300 hawk watch sites across North America which monitor raptor migration in the spring and fall months.

The concentration of these predatory birds is also a plus for officials with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), the Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge (DRIWR) and the International Wildlife Refuge Alliance (IWRA), the Detroit River Hawk Watch said, as they systematically count the birds each year during the fall event.

"The whole purpose is to generate a Raptor Population Index (RPI) that allows us to monitor the health of populations down to individual species and perhaps try to determine causation for population increases or decreases," Jourdan explained.

Tens of thousands of raptors migrate seasonally through the region. Up to 10,000 birds can be seen in a single day, Jane Ferreyra, executive director of Hawk Migration Association of North America, told the newspaper. You just have to look up!A North Carolina woman never thought completing a simple task such as yard work would result in a near-death experience.

Donna Kearns, of Archdale, was cutting through tall grass with a weed eater Saturday when she accidentally hit a mound of fire ants. The ants then exploded all over her, delivering sharp stings that felt like pins going through you, she told Fox 8.

FLORENCE FLOODWATERS RESULT IN 'ISLANDS' OF FLOATING FIRE ANTS

Panicked, Kearns told the news station she attempted to wash the ants off with water, but began to feel ill before collapsing in her yard.

Moments later, Kearns, who was experiencing allergic reactions from the stings, was saved by a couple who drove by her home and saw her sprawled in the yard. Emergency officials were called and Kearns was rushed to the hospital soon after.

Fire ants are known to sting, especially when their nest is disturbed and the creatures feel threatened. In fact, according to Healthline, the ants attack in swarms, quickly climbing their way up legs and other vertical surfaces.

"Fire ants are notorious for their painful stings. A floating fire ant colony is 10s to 100s of thousands of stinging ants out in the open. Unlike honeybees, an individual fire ant is able to deliver multiple stings," Adrian Allen Smith, research biologist and head of the Evolutionary Biology & Behavior Lab at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, previously told Fox News.

Fire ant stings can be deadly. Anyone can develop an allergic reaction to the stings, though those who are stung for the first time have a higher chance of developing a more serious reaction.

TORNADO IN VIRGINIA CRACKS OPEN TREE FILLED WITH 70,000 BEES: 'IT WAS A CATASTROPHIC SITUATION'

After spending two days recovering in the hospital, Kearns says she's on the mend.

"It was meant to be, I guess it wasn't my time to go. She was in the right place at the right time, and thank God she stopped and I love her to death," she told Fox 8.The U.S. Air Force is taking specific steps to expedite a measured, steady developmental plan for its new, next-generation Intercontinental Ballistic Missile in order to align with the more aggressive U.S. nuclear weapons strategy outlined in the administrations Nuclear Posture Review.

The service is already making initial technological progress on design work and systems engineering for a new arsenal of ICBMs to serve well into the 2070s  called Ground Based Strategic Deterrent, or GBSD.

The most recent Nuclear Posture Review, released earlier this year, calls for an increase in nuclear weapons applications as part of a broader deterrence strategy. The NPR calls for new low-yield, nuclear armed submarine launched ballistic missiles, among other things.

We are taking the NPR of 2010 and turning it on its head.it included no new mission. This new NPR changes that context and calls for deploying more weapons. Lets get things done, execute on time, Gen. Timothy Ray, Commander of Air Force Global Strike Command, told reporters at the Air Force Association Convention.

The Air Force plans to fire off new prototype ICBMs in the early 2020s as part of a long-range plan to engineer and deploy next-generation nuclear armed intercontinental ballistic missiles by the late 2020s  by building weapons with improved range, durability, targeting technology and overall lethality, service officials said

The sum total of what we are doing is a very significant broad enterprise, which reflects the renewed interest, Ray said.

Northrop Grumman and Boeing teams were awarded Technology Maturation and Risk Reduction deals from the Air Force last year as part of a longer-term developmental trajectory aimed at developing, testing, firing and ultimately deploying new ICBMs.

Following an initial 3-year developmental phase, the Air Force plans an Engineering and Manufacturing Development phase and eventual deployment of the new weapons.

The Air Force plans to award the single EMD contract in late fiscal year 2020.

Overall, the Air Force plans to build as many as 400 new GBSD weapons to modernize the arsenal and replace the 1970s-era Boeing-built Minuteman IIIs.

The new weapons will be engineered with improved guidance technology, boosters, flight systems and command and control systems, compared to the existing Minuteman III missiles. The weapon will also have upgraded circuitry and be built with a mind to long-term maintenance and sustainability, developers said.

What is new and different is that we are thinking about all the needed support and sustainment, Ray said.

Initial subsystem prototypes are included within the scope of the current Boeing and Northrop deals, service developers said.

Senior nuclear weapons developers have told Warrior that upgraded guidance packages, durability and new targeting technology are all among areas of current developmental emphasis for the GBSD.

The new ICBMs will be deployed roughly within the same geographical expanse in which the current weapons are stationed. In total, dispersed areas across three different sites span 33,600 miles, including missiles in Cheyenne, Wyoming, Minot, North Dakota and Great Falls, Montana.

We are taking a near, mid and far term assessment to make sure we do not put all the risk into the same bucket, Ray said.

More Weapons and Technology - WARRIOR MAVEN (CLICK HERE)--The mayor of Houston is exploring options in an effort to restrict or regulate the first so-called robot sex brothel in the United States that is slated to open this month in the city.

This is not the kind of business I would like to see in Houston and certainly this is not the kind of business the City is seeking to attract, Mayor Sylvester Turner said in an email statement to Fox News.

His office said it is not accurate to call it a "brothel," and pointed out that Yuval Gavriel, the founder of KinySdollS, calls it a showroom. Gavriel said customers can try out the merchandise.

Gavriel made the announcement last week in The Washington Examiner, telling the paper he plans to expand to 10 locations throughout the U.S. by 2020.

The company opened its first location last year near Toronto, where $60 buys a half-hour alone with a robot sex doll, according to the Examiner. The dolls start at $2,500.

Turner said the city is currently reviewing existing ordinances that may restrict or regulate such businesses as well as looking to upgrade our ordinances to cover these type of businesses.

Residents and activists have expressed their opposition to the brothel, which Gavriel described as a showroom where customers can test and rent dolls before deciding to purchase one.

"There's kids around here and it's a family-oriented neighborhood and I live right here and to have that here is just gross," Andrea Paul told KTRK.

The business does not meet the definition of a sexually oriented business and requires simply an occupancy permit, ABC 7 News reported.

Despite concerns, there are no regulations for the sex robot business, the Examiner reported, prompting calls for legislative action from legal experts and activists.

In June, Congress voted to ban the importation and transportation of sex robots and dolls that look like children.

The Curbing Realistic Exploitative Electronic Pedophilic Robots (CREEPER) Act was introduced by Rep. Dan Donovan, R-N.Y., who said such robots can lead to predators abusing children.

Right now, a few clicks on a computer can allow a predator to order a vile child sex doll. This is not only disturbing  but also endangers the most innocent among us, Donovan said in a statement. Once an abuser tires of practicing on a doll, its a small step to move on to a child.The Navy is firing weapons, engaging in combat scenarios and refining warfighting tactics through a rigorous training regimen aimed at better preparing the sea service for massive warfare on the open ocean.

Described by Navy officials as high-velocity learning, Surface Warfare Advanced Tactical Training (SWATT) is focused on speeding up combat decision making and responding in real time to emerging high-tech enemy weapons such as missiles, lasers, sea mines, long-range anti-ship missiles and torpedoes, among others.

We are focused on the high-end fight Cmdr. Emily Royse, SWATT leader, told Warrior Maven in an interview.

The emphasis also has a heavy academic focus, led by specially prepared Warfare Tactics Instructors, aimed at briefing - and then debriefing - a range of operational maritime warfare scenarios.

For each training type we focus on sea control type events. Warfare units are presented with a scenario and we are there to help them through the decision making process to help them fight that scenario. For surface warfare, for instance, they might plan how they are going to get all their ships through narrow, high-risk straights or how to respond to small boat threats, Royse added.

The training crosses a wide swath of maritime combat missions, to include mine countermeasures, Amphibious Ready Groups, Carrier Strike Groups and other elements of surface warfare. The idea is to further establish and refine tactics, techniques and procedures needed for major warfare on the ocean - against high-tech enemies.

Sea control objective is to ensure that our forces are able to move freely within the sea lanes and ensure that they are free from threats or able to counter threats, Royse said.

Some of the particular kinds of enemy weapons these courses anticipate for the future include a range of emerging new systems - to include lasers, rail-guns and long-range missiles, among other technologies.

Not surprisingly, these courses appear as somewhat of a linear outgrowth or tactical manifestation of the Navys 2016 Surface Force Strategy document. Tilted Return to Sea Control, the strategy paper lists a number of specific enemy threat areas of concern focused upon by course trainers.

Examples of threats cited by the strategy paper include anti-ship ballistic and cruise missiles, integrated and layered sensor systems, targeting networks, long-range bombers, advanced fighter aircraft, submarines, mines, advanced integrated air defenses, electronic warfare and cyber and space technologies.

Much like the training courses and the Surface Force Strategy, the Navys Distributed Maritime Operations Concept also builds upon the Navys much-discussed distributed lethality strategy, in place now for a number of years. This strategic approach emphasizes the need to more fully arm the fleet with offensive and defensive weapons and disperse forces as needed.

Having cyber, space and missile weapons - along with over-the-horizon ship and air-launched weapons - are relevant to offensive attack as well as the distributed portion of the strategy. Having an ability to defend against a wider range of attacks and strike from long-distances enables the fleet to spread out and conduct dis-aggregated operations, making U.S. Navy forces less vulnerable to enemy firepower.

Interestingly, the pressing need to emphasize offensive attack in the Navy fleet appears to have roots in previous Navy strategic thinking.

Part of the overall strategic rationale is to move the force back toward open or blue water combat capability against near peer competitors, such as that which was emphasized during the Cold War. While the importance of this kind of strategic and tactical thinking never disappeared, these things were emphasized less during the last 15-plus years of ground wars wherein the Navy focused on counter-terrorism, securing the international waterways, counter-piracy and things like Visit Board Search and Seizure.

These missions are, of course, still important, however the Navy seeks to substantially increase its offensive lethality given that rivals such as Russia and China have precision-guided anti-ship missiles able to hit targets at ranges greater than 900 miles in some cases. The advent of new cyber and electronic warfare attack technologies, enemy drones and the rapid global proliferation of sea mines all present uniquely modern nuances when compared to previous Cold-War strategic paradigms.

Nevertheless, the most current Naval Surface Warfare Strategy does, by design, appear to be somewhat of a higher-tech, modern adaptation of some fundamental elements of the Navys Cold-War-era approach - a time when major naval warfare against a Soviet force was envisioned as a realistic contingency.

A 1987 essay titled Strategy Concept of the U.S. Navy, published by Naval History and Heritage Command, cites the importance of long-range offensive firepower and targeting sensors in a geographically dispersed or expansive open ocean warfare environment. The paper goes so far as to say the very survivability of U.S. Naval Forces and the accomplishment of their missions depends upon offensive firepower.

Integrated forces may be geographically distant, but their movements, sensors, and weapons are coordinated to provide maximum mutual support and offensive capability, the paper writes.

The Cold War-era Strategic Concepts document also specifies that Naval defensive capability should include long-range detection systems such as airborne early warning, quick reacting command and control systems and effective defensive weapons systems.

More Weapons and Technology - WARRIOR MAVEN (CLICK HERE)--The event continues to affirm Vietnams foreign policy of independence, self-reliance, peace, cooperation and development, diversification and multilateralisation, proactive and active international integration, promoting its effective role at multilateral cooperation mechanisms.

The United Nations was established on October 24, 1945. After more than 70 years, the UN has become the largest and most comprehensive global organisation with the participation of all of the worlds independent countries. The UNs operations are being increasingly expanded in all aspects towards realising its set goals, bringing about positive and significant impacts on each nation and the whole world.

From a membership of 51 countries at the time of its establishment in 1945, the UN now has 193 member countries and is a comprehensive system comprising six principal organs, many subsidiary bodies, 20 specialised organisations and five socio-economic committees in different regions and dozens of funds and programmes. It works in all fields from conflict resolution and prevention, disarmament and non-proliferation, anti-terrorism, refugee protection, environmental protection and sustainable development to the promotion of democracy, human rights and gender equality.

With its significant accomplishments, the UN is recognised by the international community as having an extremely important role in international political life and as an indispensable foundation for a peaceful, prosperous and fair world.

The high-level General Debate at the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly takes place under the theme Making the United Nations relevant to all people: global leadership and shared responsibilities for peaceful, equitable and sustainable societies".

The UN Secretary-Generals report on the organisations tasks in 2018 underlined multilateralisation and the role of the UN in responding to global challenges, especially amid the escalation of a number of conflicts in the world, growing inequality and worsening climate change.

In this situation, all member countries agree that a comprehensive and systematic reform of the UN in line with the new international situation is an urgent and objective requirement in order to increase the role and effectiveness of the UNs operations.

Vietnam officially joined the UN on September 20, 1977. Since then, the relationship between Vietnam and the UN has been growing ever stronger. The Vietnam-UN relationship is a prime example of development cooperation between UN members and the UNs role in promoting international cooperation to resolve socio-economic, cultural and humanitarian issues.

Vietnam actively participates in building and implementing the UNs international treaties, as well as common efforts to help the UN promote its role as an equitable, effective global multilateral institution to meet humankinds shared aspirations.

Vietnam and the UN recently pledged to implement the One Strategic Plan for 2017-2021 between the Vietnamese government and 18 UN agencies. The effective implementation of these initiatives will help Vietnam achieve its goal of more inclusive growth in the future, enhancing the reputation and standing of Vietnam at the UN and on the wider international stage.

In May 2018, Vietnam was nominated by the Asia-Pacific group as its only candidate for the non-permanent membership of the UN Security Council for the 2020-2021 tenure. Such a nomination indicates the strong support and high confidence of regional countries in Vietnams role and capacity.

Attending this UN General Assembly session, PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc carries Vietnams strong message on enhancing the global partnership for a world of peace, equity and sustainable development for all.

As an active member, and a reliable and responsible partner of the international community, Vietnam advocates observing international laws, preventing and resolving conflicts through peaceful and non-violent means, promoting multilateralisation, enhancing global partnership and responsibility sharing, highlighting the role of reforming the UN to make it stronger, more democratic and more effective, while ensuring adequate resources for the UNs operations, especially in providing support for developing countries.

May PM Nguyen Xuan Phucs attendance at the high-level General Debate of the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly be a success, continuing to enhance Vietnams reputation and standing on the international stage, reflecting Vietnams confidence in a world of multilateral dialogue, respect for international laws, peace, equal cooperation and mutual development.A drunk passenger was reportedly kicked off an IndiGo flight Monday after trying to enter the cockpit to charge his phone.

The man, said to be in his mid-thirties, was on the aircraft waiting to head from Mumbai for Kolkata when the incident occurred, according to the South China Morning Post.

MAN WHO BROUGHT BOMB REPLICA TO NEWARK AIRPORT WON'T BE PROSECUTED

After trying to enter the cockpit, the man was removed by the pilot for a security violation. Police then questioned the man and later released him without charge, officials told the Post.

He was drunk and wanted to charge his mobile phone. So he moved towards the cockpit. Police did not find any offence against him to charge a case, a local official told The Tribune.

This is the second bizarre incident to befall an Indian-based airliner in recent days. On Saturday, a first-time flier on a GoAir flight from Delhi to Patna, India, created pandemonium when he tried to open the emergency exit door midflight, claiming he mistook it for the lavatory.

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After the flight landed safely, and the man was taken into custody and questioned by authorities, who deemed the incident to be a genuine mistake.New Zealand shoppers have not responded well to the islands phasing out of single-use plastic bags at grocery stores  and now they're reportedly stealing baskets from supermarkets.

Countdown supermarket in Auckland removed single-use plastic bags from its stores last month, and in the time since, it has gone from 200 shopping baskets to about six, Stuff reports.

VIRAL LOUISIANA SUPERMARKET EMPLOYEE GIVEN A NEW CAR

There's no more than 10 left. It's crazy," Countdown Orewa customer service manager Marlene Williams said to Stuff.

The grocery store said they will continue to provide customers with shopping baskets, but requested customers return the stolen carriers so other customers can use them.

COMERICA PARK PIZZA SHOP EMPLOYEE FIRED, ARRESTED FOR SPITTING INTO FOOD

"[It] is of course disappointing, but we also understand that sometimes change can be tough, Williams said.

Countdown Orewa was one of 42 in the supermarket chain that stopped using plastic bags. Those chain locations now sell reusable bags for customers that cost between 15 cents and $1.

COMERICA PARK EMPLOYEE ACCUSED OF SPITTING ON PIZZA ORDERED TO TEST FOR INFECTIOUS DISEASES: REPORT

Though customers seem to be upset with the change, they have not resorted with the same violence as some did in Australia, when grocery stores stopped providing complimentary plastic bags.

According to DW, 57 out of 132 grocery store employees reported customer abuse after the ban went into effect.

"A male customer in the self-serve area swore loudly at a female worker," the union's assistant secretary Ben Harris told the AFP news agency. "She provided him with some complimentary bags and apologized."

Another reportedly had a customer walk up behind her and put his hands around her throat, after making a mistake with his items at the check-out.

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Australia and New Zealand are not the only areas to ban plastic bags. In the United States, California banned the distribution of free single-use plastic across the state in 2016.A U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge has approved a reorganization plan for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis that will compensate victims of clergy sex abuse.

Judge Robert Kressel approved the $210 million settlement Tuesday. Hundreds of victims voted overwhelmingly in favor of the plan.

Attorney Jeff Anderson, who represented many of the victims, praised the survivors, saying their courage means children are safer.

Archbishop Bernard Hebda apologized in court. Hebda says he hopes the resolution "brings some measure of justice" to victims.

The settlement was reached in May . Proceeds will be disbursed after each claim is reviewed.

The archdiocese filed for bankruptcy in 2015, two years after the Minnesota Legislature opened a three-year window that allowed people who had been sexually abused in the past to sue for damages.A Chinese citizen living in Chicago was arrested Tuesday for allegedly spying on U.S. engineers and scientists, including defense contractors, on behalf of the Chinese government, federal prosecutors said.

Ji Chaoqun, 27, has been charged with one count of knowingly acting in the U.S. as an agent of a foreign government without prior notification of the attorney general, according to a statement from the U.S. attorney's office in Chicago. He allegedly worked at the direction of high-ranking intelligence officials with the People's Republic of China and was tasked with providing information about eight people for possible recruitment.

Ji made an initial appearance in federal court in downtown Chicago, looking tired and fidgeting as he stood before U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael T. Mason. Ji huddled with a Chinese-language interpreter for much of the 15-minute hearing. But when the judge asked if he understood his rights, Ji lifted his head and said in English, "I understand."

If convicted on the one count, Assistant U.S. Attorney Shoba Pillay told the hearing that Ji faces up to 10 years in federal prison.

Through a lawyer, Ji also asked that the Chinese consulate be notified about his arrest. Judge Mason ordered that Ji remain in custody for now, and U.S. Marshal's agents handcuffed him and led him away. No additional hearings were immediately set.

A criminal complaint says Ji came to the U.S. in 2013 on a student visa to study engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. He enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserves in 2016.Philip Roth had it all planned.

"Many years ago, I received in the mail a letter in which he outlined the instructions for his memorial service," his close friend Joel Conarroe told a gathering of hundreds Tuesday during a tribute at the midtown Manhattan branch of the New York Public Library. The author of "American Pastoral," ''Portnoy's Complaint" and other celebrated novels was as precise about his death, Conarroe explained, as he had been about his life and work.

Attendees included Robert Caro, Salman Rushdie, Mia Farrow and Don DeLillo and speakers ranged from Conarroe, president emeritus of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, to fellow authors such as Edna O'Brien, Norman Manea and Judith Thurman. The setting, the library's Celeste Bartos Forum and its glass domed ceiling, was requested by Roth. So were the speakers, even though the list changed over time as such previous choices as Saul Bellow and William Styron passed away. Roth also picked out the music, Gabriel Faure's "Elegie in C Minor, op. 24, which ended the nearly 2 -hour ceremony.

Roth died in May. He was 85.

According to Conarroe, Roth wanted as much laughter as tears, and guests shared memories of his wit and of the surprising tenderness for a man so direct and unsparing in his work. Thurman spoke of driving around Connecticut with Roth as he searched for a proper burial spot, what he called "A tomb with a view." New Yorker staff writer Claudia Roth Pierpont noted that he referred to his Manhattan neighborhood, where other authors lived nearby, as "Writers' Block." Roth never had children, but friends remembered his rapport and sense of play with their kids, whether collaborating through email on stories with them or sitting on the floor of his darkened studio and shining a light on the ceiling to make the room seem like a planetarium.

Roth despised sentimentality nearly as much he hated death, but he apparently had exceptions. Bernard Avishai, a Dartmouth College professor who wrote a book about "Portnoy's Complaint," remembered Roth's improbable joy after adopting two kittens. "I am really hypnotized," he said of them. But his feelings changed and his mood was darker the next time Avishai spoke with him.

"I had to return my dear two kittens," Roth told him. "I fear I have become dependent."

Roth often struggled with depression and physical ailments but his friends described a contented man over the last few years, after he shocked the literary world by revealing that his 2010 novel "Nemesis" would be his last book. Retirement did not leave him helpless, but liberated. He read, swam, walked, socialized and referred to his post-publication years as a welcome return to the rebellious but loving son he had been when growing up in Newark, New Jersey. "I am home," he liked to tell friends. "I won."

His health rapidly failed in 2018 and he spent his final weeks in the hospital, a farewell poignant and comical. Various ex-girlfriends looked in on him. Manea, just three years younger than Roth, recalled that he and his friend competed over who had more stent procedures. Pierpont remembered Roth looking around his hospital room and expressing relief that he didn't have to write about it. Even the nearness of death, what the longtime atheist called "the enemy," did not throw him.

"I have been to see the great enemy and walked around him and talked to him," he told the writer Ben Taylor. "And he is not to be feared. I promise."Marine veteran John Canley is set to receive the nations highest military honor.

Canley led Marines through the streets fighting in the Vietnamese city of Hue more than 50 years ago. The Battle of Hue took place during the Tet Offensive, Jan. 31-Feb. 6, 1968. Canley, now 80 and a retired sergeant major, carried several wounded Marines while under heavy enemy fire and assumed command to maintain the units organization and morale in whats known as the most chaotic battle of the Vietnam War.

Canley was wounded more than once during the fighting, but still continued pushing forward.

So they hear a noise and they look back and theres Canley. Hes walking down, upright, not running, walks over the little berm, picks up the first guy, throws him over his shoulder and walks back, John Ligato, a Marine and FBI agent, told Newsweek about Canleys heroics. So theres two independent eyewitnesses on this. ... Canley says to them, individually, Keep down, theres a lot of incoming.

On Tuesday, President Trump announced that Canley will be awarded the Medal of Honor on Oct. 17 for his conspicuous gallantry.

Canley will be the sixth American to receive the honor from Trump and the third Vietnam War veteran, The Hill reported.

It means a lot to me, Canley told USA Today. Mostly for my Marines because weve had to wait 50-plus years to get any kind of recognition.

Ligato said he was amazed at Canleys Zenlike calm during battle.

He never ran and he never ducked, Ligato told Newsweek. You know, its just amazing. I dont know if he had some sort of death wish or what  Gunny says that he just gets into a zone and does what he has to do. ... I dont know how the bullets didnt hit him.

Canley, who spent 28 years in the service, left El Dorado, Arkansas, at the age of 15 to join the Marines.

He was deployed to Vietnam several times from 1965 to 1970 and his efforts saved the lives of many men, earning him the Navy Cross.

Being a leader is about taking care of your people, Canley said in a news release in February. If you do that, they will take your view, and you dont have to worry about your mission, and it really doesnt matter whether or not its military or civilian: if youre in a leadership position, you should always remember that.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.A North Dakota woman claimed Tuesday she cut a baby from her neighbors womb, ultimately killing the woman, because she felt pressured to "produce a baby" after lying about being pregnant to keep her boyfriend from leaving.

Brooke Crews spoke out in the trial of her now-ex, William Hoehn, in Fargo. Hoehn is charged with conspiracy to commit murder. Crews pleaded guilty last year to murdering 22-year-old Savanna Greywind, and is serving a life sentence without parole.

Crews said she killed Greywind and stole her baby was because she felt pressured from Hoehn to have a child. She told defense attorney Daniel Borgen that she did "not explicitly" tell Hoehn she planned to kill Greywind and steal her baby; however, she said he had presented her with what she believed was "an ultimatum."

Hoehn has admitted he helped cover up the crime but said he didn't know that Crews had planned to kill Greywind and take her baby. The child survived the ordeal and is being raised by family.

Crews described her relationship with Hoehn as rocky and violent, saying it was fueled by drugs and alcohol. She said they broke up at one point, and that's when she lied to him about being pregnant. She went so far as to email him a phony positive pregnancy test and sonogram photo, she claimed.

In early August 2017, Hoehn told Crews he didn't believe she was pregnant and said she needed "to produce a baby." Crews said she believed this was "an ultimatum."

"I took that to mean I better have a baby, no matter how it happened," Crews said.

She said that Hoehn was surprised when she appeared in their apartment later that month with Greywinds baby but that he retrieved a rope and strangled the victim to ensure she was dead.

"If she wasn't dead before, she is now," Hoehn allegedly said, according to Crews testimony.

Crews told police she pushed Greywind down and knocked her out before cutting her open.

However, the medical examiner testified Monday that there was no evidence of any head injuries. The autopsy report could not rule whether Greywind died from blood loss or strangulation.

Greywinds body was found several days after her killing. Police discovered the body wrapped in plastic and dumped in the Red River.

Crews claimed the woman's body was in the bathroom closet of their apartment, something police missed during three separate searches. She said Hoehn eventually moved the body to a hollowed-out dresser and the two of them carried it out of the apartment.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.A century ago Wednesday, the first shots were fired in one of the most important American military engagements ever -- and the deadliest battle in U.S. history.

World War I's Meuse-Argonne Offensive, which involved more than a million American soldiers and claimed the lives of 26,277, was launched in northern France on Sept. 26, 1918 to push the German army out of the country and reclaim a rail network vital to supplying enemy troops. The fight lasted a grueling 46 days and generated scores of stories of heroism and sacrifice.

But most notably, it helped bring an end to The Great War.

In its scale and in the number of American and French troops involved, not only infantry but artillery, tanks, engineers just the logistics in this, made it the largest operation that the American armed forces had been in to that point, Doran Cart, a senior curator at the National WWI Museum and Memorial in Kansas City, told Fox News.

Photos of the battle the museum shared with Fox News provide a glimpse of the emotions and constant threats both sides endured.

In one photo, American troops donning gas masks amid a chemical attack are also seen firing back at the Germans with their own artillery strike. Another shows the sullen faces of German prisoners-of-war as they draw water from a well for their mess hall.

The offensive started Sept. 26, with the French town of Verdun as the centerpiece of the Allied operations, Cart says.

American infantry forces, supported by 2,700 pieces of artillery, 189 tanks, and 821 aircraft, according to the U.S. Army Center of Military History, spread out in an area about 15 to 20 miles wide, bordered by the Meuse River on one end and the thick Argonne Forest on the other.

The Allies mission was to fight northward and break through a heavily-fortified network of German defenses that ran about 15 miles deep.

This was a very well defended area, but it was basically the last well-defended area on the Western Front, Cart told Fox News.

The American forces at the start of the offensive quickly gained ground, but rainy, muddy weather in the following days stalled it and gave the Germans time to regroup.

By the end of September, the U.S. troops pushed eight miles into the German defenses and took 9,000 of them prisoner, the U.S. Army Center of Military History says.

The Argonne Forest and its surrounding areas was one of the focal points of the battle in October, and the rugged, unpredictable terrain contributed to massive amounts of American casualties.

The main factor in all of this was that it was a different kind of fighting than what had occurred before in World War I, Cart told Fox News. This wasnt trench to trench -- this was getting up and attacking the enemy and when you do that you are a lot more exposed.

Cart says 60 percent of all battlefield deaths in World War I were caused by artillery, and the Meuse-Argonne Offensive had plenty of it.

The number of artillery pieces used in this offensive was staggering, he said. So it was everywhere.

By early November, the U.S. forces reached their objective and on the 11th, an armistice was signed between the Allies and Germans, ending the war. That day every year has become the American holiday Veterans Day.

The Meuse-Argonne Offensive, left 28,000 Germans dead as well, according to the Army Heritage Center.

One of the most famous stories to come out of the offensive was the exploits of the Lost Battalion, a group of American soldiers who ended up getting surrounded in the Argonne Forest by the Germans.

During one rescue attempt of the soldiers, American artillery forces accidentally started shelling their own men.

WE ARE ALONG THE ROAD PARALELL 276.4. OUR ARTILLERY IS DROPPING A BARRAGE DIRECTLY ON US. FOR HEAVENS SAKE STOP IT, Maj. Charles W. Whittlesey cried out in a message affixed to a carrier pigeon that flew to his compatriots nearby.

The troops held their position for five days and nights and eventually were rescued, but ended up losing 107 men, according to statistics from the National Archives.

Army Air Force Lt. Harold E. Goettler and Lt. Erwin R. Bleckley managed to assist in the rescue effort by dropping supplies to the stranded troops from a plane  one of first times that American forces did so, Cart says, and both went on to earn the Medal of Honor, along with Whittlesey and other soldiers.

Heroism at that time was recognized as doing something beyond the regard for themselves, Cart told Fox News. They had to do something that took them out of their own safety zone and saving other humans.The liquor license of an ax-throwing bar in Michigan was suspended for a day earlier this month after the state probed the safety of alcohol-consuming customers, reports said Tuesday.

Members of the Michigan Liquor Control Commission (MLCC) ordered a one-day suspension of Hub Stadiums liquor license, which happened Sept. 10, the Detroit News reported. The venue is located in Auburn Hills, about 34 miles north of the Motor City.

The commission launched an investigation into the company on June 21 when they found a safety concern involving its policy of allowing up to 10 customers in enclosed ax throwing lanes, the paper reported.

Investigators saw people jumping out of the way to avoid axes hitting them, the Detroit Free Press reported. They also did not find any strict enforcement of those wandering in and out of the throwing zones.

Investigators also found the 30,000-square-foot venue lacked lane monitoring and did not limit the number of axes that could be thrown at a time, the Detroit News reported.

Patrons of the venue were also taking alcoholic drinks into the ax-throwing areas even though the venue's policy does not allow that, the report said.

Hub Stadium also apparently did not tell the MLCC that it would offer ax throwing as part of its license application, Commission Chairman Andy Deloney said, according to the paper.

"It is our job to make sure that the health, safety and welfare concerns of the public are taken into account wherever alcoholic beverages are sold in the state of Michigan, commission chairman Andy Deloney said in a statement.

"We were not made aware by the licensee during the licensing application process of any plans for ax throwing at the establishment. When it came to our attention, we investigated the licensee thoroughly and took appropriate disciplinary action.

The commission said the suspension would give the company time to make numerous structural changes. But it was not immediately clear what those changes are.

Hub Stadium could not be reached for comment by the Detroit Free Press.U.S. Border Patrol Chief Carla Provost is breaking ground while serving her country.

Provost, who joined the agency in 1995 and became its acting chief in April 2017, took over last month as the first female chief in its 94-year history.

She said being a woman in a largely male organization didnt cause her problems.

Now, Im 6-foot tall. That might help when it comes to my stature. Whether it was the police department or the Border Patrol, I was a police officer, not a female police officer. Im a Border Patrol agent, not a female Border Patrol Agent.

Provost is personable and deeply knowledgeable about the Border Patrol. She started as an agent in Douglas, Arizona, after a short tenure as a police officer in Kansas, where her detail included breaking up fights at bars. She said she wanted to get into federal law enforcement and never had been to the border before joining the agency.

She worked in top management positions in El Paso, Texas, and El Centro, California, before transferring in 2015 to headquarters, where she focused on efforts to clamp down on corruption, misconduct and mismanagement.

I may be the first, but I guarantee you I wont be the last female chief of the Border Patrol, she told Fox News this summer.

Provost said she hopes she can inspire other women to sign up with the agency, which has just one female agent for every 20 men.

If youre a woman in law enforcement, I dont care where youre at, youre a minority, Provost said.

Even without the public pressure, recruiting for the job is difficult, Provost said. Agents must undergo a detailed background investigation, plus a polygraph exam with an average 28 percent pass rate.

Theyre stationed in remote locations along difficult terrain and work grueling shifts in scorching heat or bitter cold, often walking miles alone tracking people who crossed illegally. Sometimes backup is hours away.

The majority of my personnel are working along the southwest border. I cant compete with a police department where you can live in the city you were born and raised in, she said.

Provost said the agency also struggles with available child care, education and access to medical care in the most remote locations. But she said agents now are allowed to move around after a few years, a big change she hopes will result in more people willing to start off in a remote post and transfer to a border city.

Honestly, the fact that Im sitting in the position Im sitting in will help as well, she said.

The Border Patrol and its 19,000 agents have been under a constant spotlight. Curbing immigration remains at the top of President Trumps priorities, and the administration plans to add 5,000 Border Patrol agents.

The agency has come under fire for its checkpoints within 100 miles of the border. And it faced withering criticism for its role in the administrations zero-tolerance policy this spring that resulted in the separation of nearly 3,000 migrant children from their parents. Its the subject of federal litigation on holding facilities where migrants complain of freezing temperatures, inedible food and overcrowding.

Earlier this month, a supervisor in Laredo, Texas, was arrested on allegations he killed four women. Provost placed him on unpaid suspension, and said she was sickened and saddened by the alleged acts of a rogue individual.

I would hate for this to tarnish the great work that those men and women do, she said at a news conference aside Texas law enforcement.

Provost also is dealing with increased arrests at the southwest border  a possible marker that more people are coming in illegally and one that roils the Trump administration and the president himself. But for all the controversy surrounding her agency, she is not a controversial figure. Her appointment didnt require Senate confirmation and immigration advocates and Democratic lawmakers critical of Trumps policies havent criticized her.

Back then apprehension mostly was just returning people over the line. Theyd turn around and come right back, Provost said, and shed catch the same group three times a night. She liked the work, but it was frustrating.

And I think the difference then, too, is we didnt deliver any consequences, she said.

The only way someone was fingerprinted was if the person was recognized to be a smuggler, Provost said.

And you took him into the station, rolled their prints, faxed them off to the FBI, Provost said. What were we really accomplishing then?

But Provost has many in her corner.

There is no one more suited to lead the Border Patrol, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan said after her appointment.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.NDO  Acting President Dang Thi Ngoc Thinh on September 25 extended her condolences to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani over a deadly terror attack in the southwestern city of Ahvaz on September 22, leaving many people dead and injured, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

A Florida driver who pleaded guilty to vehicular manslaughter for a 2014 crash that killed three people  including his sister  was handed an unusual sentence this week.

Erick Betancourt, 24, was ordered by Judge Alan Fine to spend one night in jail every year on the anniversary of the accident for the next 10 years, the Miami Herald reported.

Betancourt was driving when his vehicle veered into the wrong lane on Miamis Krome Avenue and crashed into another car before 2 a.m. in January 2014. Those killed were Betancourts teenage sister and two men in the other car, including 22-year-old electronic music artist Anthony DJ SonicC Rodriguez.

Law enforcement officials said Betancourt was driving nearly 30 mph over the speed limit but was not drunk or otherwise impaired, according to the Miami Herald. He and his sister were returning home from a wedding.

COUPLE EXPECTING FIRST CHILD AMONG 4 KILLED IN STREET-RACING CRASH

Betancourts defense said he veered into the oncoming lane after swerving to avoid hitting another car.

He was also ordered Monday to complete community service and comply with other conditions, including cleaning a memorial site erected for the victims.

Rodriguezs mother called the sentence ridiculous and said Betancourt should face some kind of consequences. He had faced up to 27 years in prison, the Miami Herald reported.

Jonathan Schwartz, Betancourts attorney, called the sentencing incredibly reasoned and creative.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.A Florida history teacher said Monday she was fired for refusing to give half-credit to students who failed to turn in their assignments.

Diane Tirado, 52, said West Gate K-8 School in Port St. Lucie had a no zero policy, requiring teachers to give students no less than a 50-percent grade on assignments.

Tirado posted a photo on her Facebook of a note left on a whiteboard to her students saying she was fired. The photo went viral and was shared more than 1,600 times as of Wednesday morning.

FLORIDA MAN WHO KILLED 3 IN FIERY CRASH HANDED CREATIVE SENTENCE TO MARK ACCIDENTS ANNIVERSARY

Bye kids. Mrs. Tirado loves you and wishes you the best in life! I have been fired for refusing to give you a 50 percent for not handing anything in, the message read.

Tirado told WPTV she has been a teacher for 17 years and was hired by the school in August. She said she was terminated on Sept. 14, but no specific cause was given in her termination letter from the principal at the school, since Tirado was still on probation having been recently hired.

She told the station she assigned her students a notebook project and gave them two weeks to complete the work. She said a few students didnt bring in the assignment, and that's when she learned about the schools no zero policy.

What if they dont turn anything in?" Tirado said she asked the administrators. "'We give them a 50.' I go, 'Oh, we dont. This is not kosher.'

FLORIDA MAN THREW ANOTHER MAN OFF BRIDGE, ARRESTED AFTER SPOTTED BY PASSING OFFICER, COPS SAY

Kerry Padrick, the chief communications officer for St. Lucie Public Schools, told WPTV in a statement Tirado was terminated shortly after one month of classroom instruction.

There is no District or individual school policy prohibiting teachers from recording a grade of zero for work not turned in, the statement read. The Districts Uniform Grading System utilizes letter grades A-F, numerical grades 100-0 and grade point averages from 4-0."

In another statement from the district to WPTV, the school denied Tirados claims and said she was released from her duties as an instructor because her performance was deemed sub-standard and her interactions with students, staff, and parents lacked professionalism and created a toxic culture on the schools campus.

During her brief time of employment at West Gate, the school fielded numerous student and parent complaints as well as concerns from colleagues, the statement read. Based on new information shared with school administrators, an investigation of possible physical abuse is underway.

Fox News request for comment from St. Lucie Public Schools and Tirado was not immediately returned.

Tirado told WPTV she denied any criminal allegations and was looking into suing the district for defamation.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.An immigration enforcement operation over a 10-day period in Texas and Oklahoma led to the arrest of 98 people  29 of whom were previously deported  for drug, sex and weapons crimes, among others, officials said Wednesday.

Suspects busted in the operation, which ended Friday, included illegal immigrants and "immigration violators" from Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, the Marshall Islands, Pakistan and Peru, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced.

Those arrested were taken into custody in 38 cities and towns in North Texas, in addition to Oklahoma City and Tulsa.

Federal officials said the people who were arrested were targeted because of their previous convictions, including assault, DUI, drug trafficking, murder, domestic violence, drug possession and sex offenses against children.

Additionally, five of those taken into custody were "confirmed and documented gang members," according to the federal agency.A New York puppet technician with the longtime Broadway musical The Lion King was arrested last week after he was found inside a theater prop room manufacturing a 3-D printed gun, authorities said.

Ilya Vett, 47, is charged with attempted possession of a weapon, after he allegedly used a 3-D printer to make a plastic gun inside the Minskoff Theatre, where the musical is playing, The New York Times reported.

Security officers at the theatre found a 3-D printer Friday as it was producing a plastic gun in the property room and called the police.

The New York Daily News reported security found the gun because Vett, 47, was about to lose his job and they were helping him clear out the room.

Disney Theatrical declined to comment on the matter, but an unnamed source told The Times that Vett was no longer employed with the company. The paper said he appears to have been part of The Lion King since at least 2008.

According to a criminal complaint, Vett told a detective the printer he used was his and that he had been making the gun as a gift for his brother, who lives upstate and has a firearms license.

I brought the 3-D printer in [to the theater] from my workshop because my workshop is too dusty, Vett told cops, according to the complaint.

Its mine  I was making the gun as a gift to my brother, the complaint said he added.

In the complaint, a New York police officer wrote that he arrived at the theater and saw the printer, with a memory card plugged in, powered on, moving, and in operation.

I observed that the 3-D printer was producing a hard black plastic object which, based on my training and experience, is shaped like a revolver, he wrote in the complaint.

Vett told detectives he found blueprints for printing the gun online.

The arrest occurred as the debate rages over the online publication over 3-D guns.

Gun rights activist Cody Wilson has argued that the First Amendment allows him to publish downloadable blueprints for 3-D printed guns online.

The state Department in July gave Wilson the right to publish his blueprints, but 19 states hve since filed lawsuit against him. As a result, a federal judge blocked his plans.

Critics argue the 3-D printed guns would be untraceable, undetectable and an avenue for criminals to make their own firearms.

Wilson has since resigned from his company, Defense Distributed, after his arrest on charges of sex with a minor.An illegal immigrant from Mexico, accused of killing one person and injuring two others aboard a fishing vessel over the weekend, was reportedly allowed to stay in the U.S. as a DACA recipient.

Fox News has exclusively learned that Franklin Freddy Meave Vazquez, 27, was an illegal alien in the U.S. until he was granted deferred action under the DACA program on Nov. 30, 2013. The program is aimed at children brought to the country illegally by their parents.

Vazquezs legal status was set to expire on Nov. 29, 2015. He applied for renewal but his request was denied on August 16, 2016  almost a year after his DACA status had already expired. Documents say his request was denied for abandonment, meaning he may have failed to respond to an information request or never showed up for a required appearance.

While in the U.S., Vazquez was arrested in March, accused of abduction by force, intimidation or deception -- but he was released on $20,000 bond - despite objections by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT CHARGED WITH MURDER AFTER KNIFE, HAMMER ATTACK ON FISHING VESSEL OFF MASSACHUSETTS

Prosecutors said in a charging document the fishing vessel, the Captain Billy Haver, was sailing some 55 miles off Nantucket with seven crew members aboard when Vazquez assaulted one crew member with a hammer in one hand and a knife in the other.

Two of the wounded crew members were taken aboard a nearby cruise ship that responded to the captains distress call, and one was pronounced dead by the ships doctor.

Vazquez was charged with one count of murder and one count of attempted murder. He appeared in court on Wednesday where he was ordered to be held without bail.

Vazquez's federal public defender requested a probable cause hearing, which was tentatively scheduled for next week

Fox News Gillian Turner, Travis Fedschun and The Associated Press contributed to this report.A man barged into a Connecticut church and confessed to worshipers that he was the fiend who killed a Hartford jogger four years ago  a cold case thats confounded cops.

Michael Trazinski, the pastor at Open Gate Ministries in East Granby, told ABC News on Monday that he and the handful of parishioners with him knew what they had to do after William Leverett told them that he stabbed mom of two Melissa Millan in 2014.

Justice needed to be done, Trazinski said of Leveretts Sept. 19 confession.

So the pastor and two other people took 27-year-old Leverett to the Simsbury Police Department to turn himself in.

Im here to turn myself in for the murder on Iron Horse Boulevard almost four years ago, he told police, according to the arrest warrant affidavit released Monday.

Leverett told cops he went to the running trail the night of Nov. 20, 2014, looking for human contact after attending a treatment meeting for sex offenders, the Hartford Courant reported.

The registered sex offender had been charged with sexually assaulting a child when he lived in Colorado in 2009 and was afraid a woman hed met would find out he was on probation for the crime.

He was embarrassed and scared and figured that if I just killed somebody, it would make all that go away and I wouldnt have to explain myself, he told police, according to the report.

Thats when he spotted Millan, 54, jogging on the trail at about 8 p.m.

Leverett was immediately mentally aroused, he said  but grew angry when he realized I cant have her because she was way out of my league.

I went into a frenzy, he allegedly told police.

He approached her in an unlit area of the trail and stabbed her once in the chest, the warrant states. She pushed him away, causing the knife to pull out of her chest while he was still holding it.

Then she fell back over a guardrail and onto a roadway.

Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, he remembers hearing her say before she fell silent.

Leverett allegedly threw the knife out of his car window into a side street, then went back to retrieve it a few days later and chucked it into a trash compactor. After the confession, he led investigators to a bloody glove with DNA that matched Millan, officials said.

Police charged him Sunday and he is being held on $2 million bail in Hartford.

After the crime, Leverett said, he wrote many confession letters addressed to family and friends but never sent them.

Six months after Millans death, police said they had no suspects and were looking for leads. An anonymous donor offered a $40,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the killer. The FBI and the cold case squad in the Connecticut chief states attorneys office got involved in the investigation over a year ago.

The case appeared stalled until Leverett walked into the church last Wednesday.

Colette Trazinski, a co-pastor, described him as very childlike, very trusting of others.

He opened up to us about his life, his past, what hes gone through, she said of their discussions before last week. We never would have expected this.

He is scheduled back in court on Oct 9.

Meanwhile, Millans brother released a statement on behalf of the family saying the arrest brings renewed grief, heartache and the knowledge that justice can never be served for the senseless act that robbed us of Melissas beautiful presence.

The family, friends and coworkers of Melissa Millan are thankful for the outpouring of love and support weve received since Melissas death in November 2014. Melissa was a loving mother, a devoted daughter, a witty and compassionate sister, a loyal friend, an intelligent, successful businesswoman and mentor to many, they said.A 12-year-old boy stole a patrol car belonging to the City of Flint Police Department in Michigan on Tuesday, authorities said.

The boy, who has not yet been identified, allegedly stole the car after authorities arrived at his home, responding to a domestic disturbance call relating to the boy and his father, local news station ABC 12 reported.

WARNING GRAPHIC VIDEO: FOOTAGE CAPTURES BODYBUILDER PUMMELING GIRLFRIEND IN 'ROID RAGE' ATTACK

When authorities arrived, the boy had locked himself in his fathers car. But as they were speaking with his father, the 12-year-old apparently jumped out of the car and into the driver's seat of a police cruiser.

He took off, leading police on a roughly 1-mile chase before another police vehicle and a Genesee County sheriff's vehicle boxed the SUV in, Flint police Chief Tim Johnson said. The boy crashed with the Genesee County sheriff head-on, ABC 12 reported. No one was hurt.

MICHIGAN RIVER SEES 13,000 HAWKS, OTHER PREDATORY BIRDS WITHIN 3-DAY SPAN

Johnson said the boy will be evaluated, as he could possibly be experiencing a psychological issue.

A spokesperson for the City of Flint Police Department was not immediately available for comment when contacted by Fox News on Wednesday.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.A North Carolina woman was arrested Tuesday after authorities found she had been living for months with her 93-year-old mothers decomposing body because she was curious about the stages of death, according to reports.

Donna Sue Hudgins, 69, of Enfield, reported her mothers death to a funeral home, but said she didnt know where first responders had taken the body, Raleighs News & Observer reported. But when the funeral home couldnt find the body of Nellie May Hudgins either, they called police.

Police Chief Tyree Davis wrote on Facebook that officers went to Hudgins home to conduct a welfare check and found Nellie Mays badly decomposed body.

An investigation revealed the body had been in the home for several months before Hudgins told family members about their mothers death, Davis wrote.

Every time somebody would stop by, [Hudgins] would meet us at the door, say [Nellie Mays] asleep or something like that."  Kenny Velasquez, family member

Every time somebody would stop by, [Hudgins] would meet us at the door, say [Nellie Mays] asleep or something like that, Kenny Velasquez, who is separated from Nellie Mays granddaughter, told Raleigh's WRAL-TV.

Detectives interviewed Hudgins and learned she didn't report the death for months because she was "curious to see the stages of death, Davis wrote.

Although neighbors said they could smell an odor, they dismissed it as something else.

I thought maybe it was a sewer or something, neighbor Edna Burgess told the Raleigh news station.

Hudgins was charged with felony concealment of a death, the Observer reported. She was held on a $5,000 bond and was scheduled to appear in court Nov. 7.A North Carolina woman who was arrested last week after she sheltered 27 cats and dogs during the height of Hurricane Florence had her charges dropped Tuesday, a district attorneys office announced.

Tammie Hedges faced charges of practicing veterinary medicine without a license and soliciting a donation of tramadol  a prescription painkiller sometimes used for dogs and cats  after officials found her with the animals on Sept. 17.

On Tuesday, Wayne County prosecutors said Hedges arrest stemmed from their concern for the well-being of the animals.

The removal of animals from a building that failed to meet suitable standards for license as an animal shelter and away from the control of this defendant who has previously been censured for the unauthorized practice of veterinary medicine was a prudent decision made with the best interest of the animals in mind, Wayne County District Attorney Matthew Delbridge said in a statement.

He added that dismissing the charges will eliminate further distraction. The North Carolina Veterinary Medical Board will determine the next actions on Hedges.

WOMAN WHO SHELTERED HURRICANE FLORENCE ANIMALS IS CHARGED WITH PRACTICING VETERINARY MEDICINE WITHOUT LICENSE

On Sept. 17, Hedges, the founder and director of Crazys Claws N Paws, turned over 27 dogs and cats to Wayne County animal services officers after they determined the non-profit group was operating an unlicensed shelter.

Hedges told the News-Argus of Goldsboro at the time she felt she had to help the animals that were brought to her during the storm. She added she gave amoxicillin to some sick animals, and also used a topical antibiotic ointment.

The owners got to evacuate. They got to save themselves. But whos going to save those animals? Thats what we did, Hedges said. We saved them.

Hedges received support from the public and a GoFundMe page was created to help her pay legal fees. By Wednesday, the fundraising page raised more than double of its $20,000 goal.There may be such a thing as doing it "for the 'gram," but the quest to have daredevil photos on Instagram is keeping first responders across Southern California busy as people keep risking their lives to do dangerous stunts for "likes."

Last year, search-and-rescue teams with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department conducted 681 missions, the most in five years and a nearly 40 percent rise since 2013.

"People have to understand people die up in those mountains," LASD Deputy Stephen Doucette told ABC7. "For every rescue that you see that we do, there are ones that we don't make. They're dead."

Searching on Instagram for locations such as Eaton Canyon, Hermit Falls, and Malibu Creek Rock Pool reveal numerous posts of people taking selfies on steep cliffs, or jumping into pools of water below.

The popular  and often remote  jumping spots tend to fill up on the weekends, and are a close drive from the Los Angeles area.

Two men recently got injured at Hermit Falls after witnesses told police the pair were trying to get videos of themselves diving into the water below, according to CBSLA.

Numerous Instagram posts from Hermit Falls contain videos of people making the dangerous leap.

They go on up there and they do it and they realize wow, that water wasnt quite as deep as I thought. Typically we get the broken leg, broken back, broken head and then theyre in a remote location, Doucette told CBSLA.

CALIFORNIA WOMAN HIKING IN MICHIGAN FALLS TO DEATH WHILE TAKING SELFIE: OFFICIALS

The draw of inexperienced hikers without proper gear to the scenic mountains in the region can also almost cost some their life. Daniel Sedha, whose family ended up on the wrong path three years ago when trying to visit Switzer Falls in Angeles National Path, told the Los Angeles Times he still can't feel above his eyebrow after smashing his face after tumbling from close to the top of the falls.

Sedhe, who was wearing sneakers without a strong grip, slid off a ridge when trying to climb to a flat spot near the scenic falls.

I just remember feeling that sliding sensation, and then it was almost like a feeling of super bliss, like euphoria, that feeling of just lifting up, he told the newspaper. From the slope, I caught air, and thats it. Boom! I fell 50 feet.

Those rescues, which often times involved helicopters, can cost "thousands and thousands" of dollars, according to Doucette.

"If somebody were actually handed a rescue bill, they might change their mind in the future," he told ABC7.Large numbers of overseas Vietnamese, ambassadors and representatives from delegations to the UN, international organisations in New York and local officials came to the missions headquarters to pay respect to the Vietnamese President.

The heads of State and Government along with senior officials of many countries, who are in New York for the high-level meeting of the 73rd UN General Assembly, also paid tribute to President Tran Dai Quang.

Writing in the funeral book, the guests expressed deep condolences to the Government and people of Vietnam over the death of the Vietnamese President.

The people and government of Cuba will always remember President Tran Dai Quang for his contribution to strengthening the historical ties between the two countries, President of Cuba Miguel Diaz-Canel wrote.

On September 24, the UN flied the flag at half-mast in tribute to the Vietnamese President. Earlier on September 21, the UN General Assembly held a minutes silence to remember President Tran Dai Quang. The same day, the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres presented 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 be long remembered in his country and beyond, the statement issued by the UN Secretary General spokesperson said.The number of suicides among younger veterans has increased substantially, according to a report released Wednesday by the Department of Veterans Affairs. (VA)

The latest statistics show that 45 of every 100,000 veterans ages 18-34 committed suicide in 2016  up from around 40 a year earlier.

These findings underscore the fact that suicide is a national public health issue that affects communities everywhere, the VA said in a statement obtained by The Wall Street Journal. Our goal is to prevent suicide among all veterans  even those who do not and may never seek care within VAs system.

The VA found that there were more than 6,000 veteran suicides each year from 2008 to 2016. Veterans accounted for 14 percent of all suicides in the United States in 2016, yet veterans comprise just 8 percent of the population, the report said, according to the newspaper.

In the report, the VA described veteran suicide as an urgent crisis that it can't address by itself. Still, some advocates say the department has not devoted enough resources to this issue.

If any other population of 20 million people were exposed to these threats, it would be considered a public health priority, Paul Rieckhoff, chief executive of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, told the newspaper. There has never been a national call to action.

Last year, the VAs inspector general found the departments suicide hotline had routed a high percentage of calls to backup centers, a major flaw the department says it has resolved.

On Tuesday, the inspector general also released a report after a veteran killed himself less than 24 hours after his departure from a VA facility in Minnesota. The report accused the facility of not providing followup care for the veteran, who was taken into the hospital over suicidal ideation.

Because many veterans do not use VA services and benefits, we must build networks of support, communication and care across the communities where veterans live and thrive, the report states.

The data was released a day before a scheduled hearing by the House Committee on Veterans Affairs. At the Thursday hearing, lawmakers are to discuss veteran suicide prevention efforts.

The VAs confidential Veterans Crisis Line is open 24/7 for vets and those concerned about them. The telephone number is 1-800-273-8255.A Tennessee inmate found escaping prison was the easy part -- getting back in proved much more difficult.

Robert Fusco, who is already serving a 68-year sentence for especially aggravated kidnapping, pleaded not guilty Tuesday to accusations he escaped prison only to attempt to sneak back in days later with a cache of contraband.

Fusco, 37, escaped from the Morgan County Correctional Complex, a minimum-security facility, on Jan. 5 and was captured two days later trying to smuggle drugs, cell phones and tobacco into the prison, the Knoxville News Sentinel reported.

He was reportedly trying to sneak in the illicit items to sell on the prisons black market, the newspaper reported. Neither the states department of correction nor prosecutors have revealed how Fusco escaped the prison.

Fusco was among eight people, including two former correctional officers, indicted earlier this month as part of contraband scheme.

Among those also charged was Fuscos former cellmate, 30-year-old Jarrett Tolley, who is accused of smuggling hacksaw blades into the prison. He now identifies as a woman and lives under the name Alyssa Tolley, the newspaper reported.

William Richard, 68; Cecil Kendall, 35; and Ethan Self, 26  all inmates at the Morgan County Correction Complex  were charged with aiding Fusco in the contraband scheme.

All four inmates made brief appearances during an arraignment Tuesday.

Josh Sexton, 34, who served as a past president of the local correctional officers union, is accused of attempting to smuggle unspecified contraband into the prison by hiding the items under his groin, according to the Sentinel, citing the indictment paperwork.

Twenty-nine-year-old ex-correctional officer Megan Cheryl Jones was charged with having sexual contact with Fusco and also smuggling cell phones into the prison.President Donald Trump poured scorn on the "ideology of globalism" and heaped praise on his own administration's achievements in a speech to the U.N. General Assembly that drew headshakes and even mocking laughter from his audience of fellow world leaders.

"The U.S. will not tell you how to live and work or worship," Trump said as he unapologetically promoted his "America First" agenda. "We only ask that you honor our sovereignty in return."

Speaking in triumphal terms, Trump approached his address to the world body as something of an annual report to the world on his country's progress since his inauguration. He showcased strong economic numbers, declared that the U.S. military is "more powerful than it has ever been before" and crowed that in "less than two years, my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country."

Just sentences into the president's remarks, the audience began to chuckle and some leaders broke into outright laughter, suggesting the one-time reality television star's puffery is as familiar abroad as it is at home. Trump appeared briefly flustered, then smiled and said it was not the reaction he expected "but that's all right."

Later he brushed off the episode, telling reporters, "Oh it was great. Well, that was meant to get some laughter so it was great."

The leaders' spontaneous response to Trump's address only reinforced the American president's isolation among allies and foes alike, as his nationalistic policies have created rifts with erstwhile partners and cast doubt in some circles about the reliability of American commitments around the world.

Barely an hour before he spoke, in fact, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres declared to the assembly that global cooperation is the world's best hope and "multilateralism is under fire precisely when we need it most."

Since taking office, Trump has removed the U.S. from the Paris climate accord, promoted protectionist tariffs and questioned the value of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and other alliances in furtherance of what he termed on Tuesday a strategy of "principled realism."

To that end, Trump flaunted his embrace of negotiations with North Korea's Kim Jong Un just a year after he had warned of raining down "total destruction" on a leader he branded "Little Rocket Man." As Trump praised Kim's "courage" on Tuesday, he unloaded harsh rhetoric on nuclear-aspirant Iran as a persistent malign influence across the Middle East.

"We ask all nations to isolate Iran's regime as long as its aggression continues," said Trump. The president has removed the U.S. from the 2015 nuclear accord with Iran, citing the country's destabilizing actions throughout the region and support for terrorist groups like Hezbollah, and he accused its leaders on Tuesday of sowing "chaos, death and destruction."

His national security adviser, John Bolton, was to go even further in a speech Tuesday, issuing a dire warning to Iran: "If you cross us, our allies or our partners; if you harm our citizens; if you continue to lie, cheat and deceive, yes, there will indeed be hell to pay," Bolton said, according to prepared remarks released by the White House.

In addition to his keynote speech, Trump is to chair a meeting of the U.N. Security Council about nuclear proliferation on Wednesday. His four days of choreographed foreign affairs were designed to stand in contrast to a presidency sometimes defined by disorder, but they were quickly overshadowed by domestic political crises.

The fate of his second Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, was in fresh doubt after a second allegation of sexual misconduct, which Kavanaugh denies. Kavanaugh and his first accuser testify to Congress on Thursday.

Drama also swirls around the job security of Trump's deputy attorney general. Rod Rosenstein was reported last week to have floated the idea of secretly recording the president last year and to have raised the idea of using the 25th Amendment to remove him from office. He will meet with Trump at the White House, also on Thursday.

At the U.N., Trump seized his opportunity to assert American independence from the international body. He showcased his decisions to engage with the erstwhile pariah North Korea, remove the U.S. from the international Iran nuclear accord and object to U.N. programs he believes are contrary to American interests.

"We reject the ideology of globalism and we embrace the doctrine of patriotism," Trump said.

He referenced a list of U.N. bodies, from the International Criminal Court to the Human Rights Council, that his administration is working to undermine.

"America will always choose independence and cooperation over global governance, control and domination," Trump declared. His denunciations of globalism drew murmurs from other members of the organization that stands as the very embodiment of the notion.

Shortly before he spoke, in fact, U.N. Secretary-General Guterres had defended international cooperation as the only way to tackle the challenges and threats of increasingly chaotic times.

"Democratic principles are under siege," Guterres said. "The world is more connected, yet societies are becoming more fragmented. Challenges are growing outward, while many people are turning inward."

On other tense subjects, Trump's criticism of Germany's pursuit of a direct energy pipeline from Russia drew a dismissive headshake from a member of the U.S. ally's delegation, and his mention of the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar all in one breath was received with stone-faced expressions by Saudi officials. The UAE and Saudi Arabia have been boycotting Doha since last year as part of a dispute tearing apart the typically clubby Gulf Arab nations.

The laughter in the first moments of Trump's address evoked a campaign line Trump frequently deployed against his predecessor Barack Obama  who embraced international engagement  suggesting that due to weak American leadership, "the world is laughing at us."

In 2014, Trump tweeted, "We need a President who isn't a laughingstock to the entire World. We need a truly great leader, a genius at strategy and winning. Respect!"

Appearances on the global stage tend to elevate the stature of presidents both abroad and at home. But even before his arrival for the annual gathering of world leaders and diplomats, the desired image was being eclipsed as Trump was forced to confront the salacious and embarrassing in the controversies over Rosenstein and Kavanaugh.

With cable news chyrons flashing breathless updates about both Beltway dramas, news of Trump's foreign policy moves from the U.N., led by a new trade deal with South Korea, struggled to break through.

___

Follow Lemire on Twitter at http://twitter.com/@JonLemire and Miller at http://twitter.com/@zekejmillerPresident Donald Trump on Wednesday defended his work to settle a nuclear deal with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, saying he has given up nothing but his time during a June summit yet stands on the cusp of denuclearizing the North.

In a wide-ranging news conference on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, Trump told reporters that despite tough U.S. sanctions against the North staying in place, he believes that Kim wants to get a deal done because of their close ties.

"We have a very good relationship. He likes me, I like him, we get along," Trump said. "He wants to make a deal and I'd like to make a deal."

He wouldn't put a timeframe, however, on when the two leaders might settle the standoff. "We're not playing the time game," he said.

It has lasted for decades, flummoxed a long line of U.S. and South Korean presidents and had many fearing war last year during a series of increasingly powerful North Korean weapons tests that experts believe put the country close to a long-time goal of viably targeting any spot on the U.S. mainland.

Trump and his top diplomat, Mike Pompeo, are trying to get past the deadlock that has followed the Singapore summit. Pompeo is planning to visit Pyongyang next month to prepare for a second Kim-Trump summit. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe Wednesday also said separately that he wants to meet with Kim though no details had been decided on yet.

Trump's optimistic comments come amid widespread skepticism that Kim will actually relinquish an arsenal that Pyongyang likely sees as the only way to guarantee the Kim dynasty's continued authoritarian rule.

Although Trump maintained that he'd given up nothing in his dealings with Kim, he has faced criticism for his decision during the Singapore summit to scrap annual U.S. military drills with ally South Korea. Critics called it a concession for the North, which has long railed against the drills as invasion preparation and proof of U.S. hostility.

Trump said Wednesday that he'd long wanted to stop the drills, which had always been portrayed by the allies as defensive in nature, because of their high cost and said he could restart them if needed. "For the taxpayer, we're saving a fortune," Trump said.

Trump also made the stunning claim that former President Barack Obama told Trump that Obama was "very close" to going to war with the North.

"If I wasn't elected," Trump said, "you'd be in a war."

The State Department said Pompeo was invited by Kim to Pyongyang, the North's capital, "to make further progress on the implementation" of agreements made during the Singapore summit and to set up another leaders' meeting.

Pompeo met earlier Wednesday with North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho at the U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York. Pompeo said on Twitter that his meeting with Ri was "very positive." There were no details immediately available about what the diplomats discussed.

"Much work remains, but we will continue to move forward," Pompeo said.

Also at the U.N. session, South Korean President Moon Jae-in said high-level diplomacy has "removed the shadow of war" that hung over the Korean Peninsula last year as Kim and Trump threatened each other with destruction during the run of North Korean weapons tests.

"Over the past year, something miraculous has taken place on the Korean Peninsula," Moon said in an address to world leaders. "We have crossed the barriers of division and are tearing down the walls in our heart."

Moon met with Kim in Pyongyang last week and has been the leading force behind the summitry. He and others hope another Trump-Kim summit will lead to disarmament progress.

Diplomacy has stalled following Kim's vague promise at the Singapore summit to work toward "complete denuclearization" of the Korean Peninsula in exchange for U.S. security guarantees.

At the heart of the impasse: a North Korean demand for a declaration to formally end the Korean War before it takes any major disarmament steps. That war ended in 1953 with a ceasefire, not a peace treaty.

Washington wants the North to first provide a list of the contents of its nuclear arsenal before agreeing to that war declaration, which could remove a big piece of diplomatic leverage over the North.

Also Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned that dismantling an Iran nuclear accord would threaten global efforts to halt North Korea's nuclear program.

Lavrov and others defended the 2015 Iran deal at a U.N. Security Council meeting chaired by Trump about non-proliferation. Trump pulled the U.S. out of the accord, arguing it wasn't tough enough on Iran, and is threatening new sanctions.

Lavrov said dismantling the accord would "be counterproductive for the efforts under way now to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula.

___

Follow Foster Klug on Twitter at @APKlug. AP writer Angela Charlton contributed to this report.A Virginia man, drunk on rum after a fight about money with his disabled spouse, poured gasoline on the woman and set her on fire in April, a detective said at a hearing Monday.

Delano Grangruth, 58, reportedly confessed to the murder and was charged with second-degree murder in the death of Kathleen White-Grangruth, 61.

Norfolk police Detective Bill Cogswell testified that Grangruth initially denied knowing about the April 17 fire, the Virginian-Pilot reported. The detective said Grangruth confessed after hours of questioning, telling authorities he had attacked her in a drunken rage after they argued for three days about money.

PIT BULL FORMERLY USED IN FIGHTING RING JOINS VIRGINIA POLICE DEPARTMENT

Grangruth told police he drank for the first time in years after fighting. In a fit of rage, he poured the gasoline over his wife, lit her on fire, panicked and then left, he said.

Firefighters went to the house in Norfolk after White-Grangruths caregiver called 911 when no one answered the door. The womans charred body was found in a chair over a candle. A caregiver said she suffered from dementia and schizophrenia and needed a wheelchair after hip surgery.

Judge Lauri Hogge ruled there was enough evidence against Grangruth to send his case to a grand jury.

STOLEN MILK LEADS TO SUSPECTS DEATH IN SHOOTOUT WITH POLICE, AUTHORITIES SAY

They were very difficult to look at, Hogge said of the photos of White-Grangruths charred body.

Grangruth told reporters in April hes not a monster.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.A South Carolina man who allegedly kidnapped two women and committed sexual assault on one, was arrested Tuesday night, police said.

Columbia police said suspect Gregory Bernard Roberts Jr., 28, faces charges of first-degree criminal sexual conduct, first-degree kidnapping, assault and battery, and possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime, Columbias the State reported.

According to police, Roberts forced a woman into his home at gunpoint in early September before assaulting her. He then threatened to hurt the woman and a relative of hers if she left, according to the report.

The woman managed to escape and flag down a driver who took her to police, the report said.

Roberts previously kidnapped another woman at gunpoint in August, took her to his home and threatened to shoot her if she didnt listen, police said.

The woman was not harmed.

Roberts was being held at the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center. It was unclear if he had a lawyer.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.The police force of the once-glittering Mexican resort town of Acapulco has been disarmed as authorities investigate claims that local cops have strong ties to warring drug cartels in the region.

Officials in the southern state of Guerrero claim the drug cartels Beltran Leyva and Independent of Acapulco have infiltrated the local police force. Two top Acapulco police commanders were arrested and accused of homicide, El Universal reported.

The chief of Acapulcos highway police was also detained after he was allegedly found carrying unlicensed weapons.

MEXICO DRUG CARTEL VIOLENCE HITS TOURIST HOTSPOTS OF CANCUN AND LOS CABOS

The state government said it took these steps because of suspicion that the force had been infiltrated by criminal groups and the complete inaction of the municipal police in fighting the crime wave.

On Tuesday, military and federal law enforcement forces took over control of security of the seaside city of 800,000 residents, El Universal reported.

More than 700 cops were stripped of their guns, radios and bullet-proof vests. They were then taken for background checks.

The U.S. Embassy in Mexico confirmed the operation, saying that armed forces have disarmed the municipal police and have taken over law enforcement responsibilities for the municipality until further notice.

The embassy then repeated its travel alert advising U.S. citizens not to travel in Guerrero state due to the armed groups that are active in the region.

Acapulco, once one of the countrys preeminent tourist hotspots famous as a favorite haunt among movies stars in the 1960s, has turned into one of Mexicos most dangerous cities with dead bodies being hung from bridges and human heads being left in coolers outside city hall.

Mexicos drug war, which began in earnest in 2006 when then-President Felipe Calderon declared an all-out military offensive on the countrys narcotraffickers, has left more than 200,000 dead.

In Acapulco alone, the homicide rate last year was 103 per 100,000 habitants  one of the highest in Mexico and the world. The situation is so dire that in May, clowns marched demanding an end to the citys crime wave, saying they were losing business because residents no longer threw parties out of fear of becoming targets, the BBC reported.

Paramedics also told the BBC that they are struggling to deal with the amount of violence they see as part of their jobs.

Local police in several parts of Mexico have been disbanded because they were corrupted by drug cartels. In Guerrero alone, local police have been disarmed in more than a dozen towns and cities since 2014, though none as large as Acapulco.

In the northern state of Tamaulipas, one of the hardest hit by drug violence, almost all local police forces state-wide have been disbanded since 2011.

Local police in Mexico are easy prey for drug cartels, which offer them more money if they agree to obey gang leaders, or threaten to kill them if they dont.

Fox News' Andrew O'Reilly and the Associated Press contributed to this report.next Image 1 of 2

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The U.N. Security Council tends to proceed in a scripted, measured way. U.S. President Donald Trump does not.

But Trump is set to preside Wednesday over the U.N.'s most powerful body, one that incarnates the very concept of global governing that he swatted aside in a speech Tuesday.

The meeting in the sanctum of shared decision-making will put the "America First" president around a table with representatives from countries with fraught relationships with the United States, including Russia and China. The topic alone has been a matter of dispute.

In the words of Washington's U.N. ambassador, Nikki Haley: "That is going to be the most watched Security Council meeting ever."

Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama, chaired Security Council meetings in 2009 and 2014. But Wednesday will be Trump's first time in the Security Council, where the U.S. holds the rotating presidency this month.

"It tends to be a lot of diplomatic formalities and protocol ... and, obviously, the president is not known for sticking to the script," says Stewart Patrick, a Council of Foreign Relations fellow with expertise in U.S. policy toward the U.N. "You could get a lot of undiplomatic language in a place that is usually associated with tact."

Trump has spoken at the annual U.N. General Assembly meeting of presidents and other world leaders, including a speech Tuesday that trumpeted the United States' might, declared its independence from "global bureaucracy" and espoused a "doctrine of patriotism."

Chairing the Security Council is a somewhat more interactive role.

The 15 members convene around a horseshoe-shaped table to address threats to international peace and safety, with the president generally formally calling on U.N. officials and some other council members before making his or her own statement.

The group's work tends toward calibrated language, careful maneuvering and meticulously curated consensus, though meetings have become more acrimonious in recent years.

It's a setting where a reference to "appropriate measures" is often code for sanctions, and it can be an important signal if a post-meeting rundown comes in the form of a "press statement" as opposed to a "presidential statement." (Essentially, a "presidential statement" reflects a more formal agreement among council members on what to say and archive than a "press statement" does, though neither has the force of a resolution.)

Certainly, the council isn't always harmonious. There can be stinging remarks and symbolic walkouts, not to mention vetoes (the U.S. and Russia have both exercised theirs this year). But disagreement is generally done with a certain decorum.

There's good reason why Security Council diplomats are, well, diplomatic, says Ian Johnstone, a former U.N. official who is now the interim dean of Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

"If it ends up being just an opportunity for scoring political points against your adversaries, it means that scores are going to be settled" and thwart agreement and action down the road, he says.

"You don't want to spoil the sort of diplomatic atmosphere by interrupting or condemning and walking out every time you open your mouth  because it means you're really not going to get anything done," Johnstone says.

Trump left a lasting impression on the international community when he used his General Assembly speech last year to deride North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as "Rocket Man" and threatened to "totally destroy" his country.

This time, Trump praised Kim's "courage" in their countries' ongoing nuclear negotiations. Instead, Trump singled out Iran as a "corrupt dictatorship" that instigates "chaos, death and destruction." Hours later, Trump's national security adviser, John Bolton, warned in a speech in New York that there would be "hell to pay" if Iran crossed the U.S. or its allies.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani had strong words of his own at the General Assembly, accusing Washington of trying to overthrow his government and conducting an "economic war" against it. Trump pulled the U.S. out of the multinational 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, and Washington has since reinstated sanctions that were eased under the pact.

And Wednesday's Security Council meeting happens to be about ... Iran. At least partially.

Haley initially said the topic was "violations of international law and general instability Iran sows" in the Middle East. That brought complaints from Iran, and council member Russia said the spotlight should be on the nuclear deal and the U.S. withdrawal.

The U.S. then broadened the subject to include the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in general. Under the council's complicated rules, the change also leaves less room for members to raise the Israeli-Palestinian issue and potentially criticize Washington's policies, including moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.

But then Trump tweeted last week that he would "chair the United Nations Security Council meeting on Iran next week!" The exclamation point was his.

Rouhani on Tuesday called the planned meeting "preposterous and abnormal."

It wasn't clear whether any country beyond the 15 council nations would be given the floor.

Iran isn't a council member and is very unlikely to speak. But even if it did, Trump wouldn't necessarily have to listen. In fact, he could step away at any time.

Another U.S. official can take his seat at any point. And at that point, something like regular programming would resume.Egypt's Coptic Church said Wednesday that prosecutors are investigating the death of a monk who had until recently served in a monastery northwest of Cairo where the abbot was killed in July, an incident that has brought the woes of one of the world's oldest churches back under the spotlight.

Two monks  one of whom has been defrocked  are on trial for the death of the abbot, Bishop Epiphanius. The trial opened Sunday and was scheduled to resume Thursday when, according to security officials, the deceased monk was to give his testimony.

The monk, identified by the church by his monastic name Zeinoun al-Maqari, was the "confessional father" of one of the monks on trial, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.

The monk's death was announced in a brief statement issued by the Coptic Orthodox Church. It said the cause of his death at the al-Muharraq monastery in southern Egypt remained unknown. However, security and medical officials said they could not rule out suicide. An initial examination of the body suggested that poisoning might have been the cause of death, they said.

A full autopsy to determine the cause of death was due to be performed, they said.

The body was kept under tight security in a hospital in Assiut, the nearest city to Al-Muharraq monastery where the monk served since August. The monastery was also sealed off by police and security officers who were reviewing footage from its security cameras.

The church statement said Zeinoun was transferred to al-Muharraq monastery following Epiphanius' death. That suggested the monk may have been involved in a now-publicized disciplinary dispute between the abbot and several monks at St. Macarious, which required the intervention of the spiritual leader of the church, Pope Tawadros II.

The security officials said Zeinoun's name also came up as a possible accomplice in the abbot's killing during lengthy questioning of witnesses by prosecutors.

Zeinoun was one of six monks transferred out of St. Macarious monastery as part of efforts to instill greater discipline. At the time, the church slapped a yearlong suspension on the admission of novices, threatened to expel monks found to have established "illegal" monasteries and gave monks a month to shut down social media accounts. It also forbade unauthorized media interviews.

Epiphanius' killing has shaken Egypt's Coptic Orthodox Church, which introduced monasticism to the faith, but its monastic desert traditions had largely vanished before being revived over the past century.

The July killing took on added significance because monks were the main suspects. It also exposed a side of the church that few in Egypt  Muslim or Christian  knew existed, including the growing power and independence of monks in remote monasteries who appear to be at odds with Tawadros and the church's central leadership.

The security officials said Zeinoun was dying when monks went to his cell in the small hours to fetch him for vespers. He was rushed to hospital but died before he arrived there, they said. A photo of him released by the church suggests he was in his 30s or early 40s.

News of Wednesday's death broke at a time when the church was in the spotlight again.

An embarrassing video widely shared on social media networks surfaced this week, showing U.S.-based Coptic Bishop Ioannis offering Egyptian Christians in New Jersey free transportation, sandwiches and sodas to travel to New York to cheer visiting President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi.

"Come out for the sake of God, for the sake of the church and your families," he told a gathering assembled at a New Jersey church. "The buses will be free, so come, it would be a change of weather and a chance to see New York. We will also bring you sandwiches and sodas."

El-Sissi is in New York to attend the annual U.N. General Assembly and meet world leaders on the sidelines. Video footage of him in New York show several dozen Egyptian expatriates waving flags and carrying images of the Egyptian leader.

"We need two buses. God will bless them and when they are video graphed they will look like they are 10," he said.The President always cares for policy beneficiaries

President Tran Dai Quang greets Vietnamese Heroic Mothers at a meeting in Vung Tau city on July 19 (Photo: VNA)

On January 30, 2018, President Tran Dai Quang visited Dong Nai province on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Tet Offensive in Spring 1968 and the 2018 traditional Lunar New Year (Tet). It was also the last time that the Party Committee, administration and people of Dong Nai were honoured to receive him. I remember that at the provincial martyr's cemetery, the President reverently offered incense to heroic martyrs and personally presented gifts to families of 11 martyrs who sacrificed themselves in the Tet Offensive in Spring 1968. Then, despite it being late afternoon, th President still spent time visiting and presenting gifts to several typical policy beneficiary families in Tan Hiep ward, Bien Hoa city. President Tran Dai Quang left a deep impression on me and the key officials of the province for his down-to-earth and caring character. He asked Dong Nai to continue to pay more attention to social security and to better care for policy beneficiaries and people who rendered their service to the country's revolution. After the inauguration of the Long Khanh Martyrs' Temple in Dong Nai, President Tran Dai Quang also offered incense to commemorate the martyrs who sacrificed their lives during the campaign to liberate Xuan Loc.

Through the aforementioned events, it is clear that President Tran Dai Quang paid special attention to the work of caring for policy beneficiaries. Through meetings and direct working sessions with President Tran Dai Quang, I personally feel that he was such a simple, open and devoted person.

Nguyen Phu Cuong, member of the Party Central Committee,

Secretary of Dong Nai provincial Party Committee and Chairman of the provincial People's Council

A wholehearted and close leader

As an official in Ban Khoang commune, Sa Pa district, Lao Cai province, I was honoured and fortunate to welcome President Tran Dai Quang to visit and present gifts to the local disadvantaged people, on a misty and cold morning when the 2017 Lunar New Year was very near. I remember that, when informed of the information that a high-ranking Party and State officials were to make a visit to the locale, the Mong and Dao ethnic groups in the most difficult upland commune of Sa Pa district were all eager to meet and talk with the President. People flocked to the hall at the Ban Khoang commune headquarters. The crowd filled every seat and even stood outside. On arriving at the hall, President Tran Dai Quang came to meet, shake hands, and encourage his compatriots in an intimate and friendly style. It is known that Ban Khoang is a highland ethnic commune with many difficulties and had just experienced damage caused by a flash flood. President Tran Dai Quang thoroughly surveyed the lives of the local people, the learning of the local pupils, and especially the way the Mong and Dao people produce and run tourism services to have a stable income, thus promoting effective and sustainable poverty reduction. The State President talked openly but intimately, while paying attention to the commune officials and the locals who expressed their opinions and aspirations. Although it was cold and foggy, combined with bad conditions for travel, the President walked down to visit the resettlement site for the Mong people who had lost their homes due to the impact of the previous massive flash flood. Here, President Tran Dai Quang visited and handed gifts to local disadvantaged and policy beneficiary families.

Hearing that President Tran Dai Quang had passed away, I mourn for the high ranking official of the Party and State, who was close and devoted himself to the people.

Nguyen Viet Anh, Secretary of Ban Khoang communal Party Committee, Sa Pa district, Lao Cai province

The president has always shown special care for the coal industry

President Tran Dai Quang visits and presents gift to workers in Binh Duong province.

Director of Deo Nai Coal JSC, Pham Duy Thanh recalled President Tran Dai Quang's visit to the company to attend the "Tree Planting Festival" on the occasion of the Lunar New Year 2017. During the visit, President Tran Dai Quang held talks with workers at the company and expressed his wish that the coal industry would pay due attention to environmental restoration after mining while ensuring the safety of people and equipment during the exploitation process. He also told the company to care for the material and spiritual life of its workers; enhance the efficiency of its production and business activities, and restructure the coal industry according to the Party guidelines and State policies.

President Tran Dai Quang's special care for workers in the coal industry has always been a great source of motivation for the industry to overcome difficulties and challenges on the path of progress and to contribute to the cause of provincial construction and development of Quang Ninh. Over recent times, the workers in the coal industry, and Vietnamese people as a whole, have always followed and showed concern for the health of President Tran Dai Quang. Despite his serious illness, President Tran Dai Quang did not rest, working until the last moment of his life.

Pham Duy Thanh, Director of Deo Nai Coal JSC

Remembering President Tran Dai Quangs instructions

I and the workers of Hai Phong Port, along with the people of Hai Phong city, am deeply saddened by the passing of President Tran Dai Quang. The simple images of the head of state which we have seen through the media and the President's visit to Hai Phong port city are always carved in our minds. In particular, we always remember the instructions imparted by the President with the Party, government, workers and the people of the city during his visit to Hai Phong before the 2017 Lunar New Year holiday. The President recommended that Hai Phong focus on improving the investment environment; continuing to develop its infrastructure, especially transport infrastructure; build modern seaports; and care for the people's lives. The advice has strengthened the workforce of the Hai Phong port in particular, and Hai Phong city in general, in the expansion and development of Hai Phong, helping it to realise the aim of becoming a modern international port gate, a gateway to the sea of the northern provinces and cities, a growth hub of the North, and an international city in the near future.

To Dinh Son, Chairman of Hai Phong Port Trade Union

Strong attachment with Central Highlanders

President Tran Dai Quang presents gifts to ethnic minority workers in Gia Lai province.

I still remember the day when the State President paid a Tet (New Year festival) visit to the Ko Sier villagers. It was made on the morning of January 25, 2015, ahead of the Year of the Goat, when comrade Tran Dai Quang was serving as a Politburo member, Minister of Public Security and Head of the Central Highlands Steering Committee. I and my fellow villagers woke up early and dressed ourselves nicely in our Ede ethnic groups traditional brocade costumes. When he arrived, the villagers gathered at the villages cultural community house. Serving as a high-ranking official of the Party and State, he looked modest and friendly. He shook hands with us and asked us about the locals living standards and production activities, as well as the academic performance of the children.

During the later talks, I found that comrade Tran Dai Quang gave special attention to the life of the Ko Sier villagers and the ethnic minority groups in the Central Highlands region in general. He kept asking the provincial Party Committee and authorities at all levels to care for the living of the locales and the children in particular so that they wouldnt drop out of school due to their difficult circumstances. He also called for strengthened solidarity and to promote the building of good examples of families and villages, to raise a high sense of vigilance in order to not follow instigations to break the law.After he was elected President, he always spent time visiting local people and villages every time he had working trips to Central Highlands.

Artisan Ymip Ayun, Ko Sier village, Tan Lap ward, Buon Ma Thuot city, Dak Lak provinceThe far-right Alternative for Germany party has announced it will create a Jewish section within the party, drawing widespread criticism by Jewish groups across the country.

One prominent Jewish student group accused the anti-migrant party on Wednesday as being "one of the biggest threats to Jewish ... life in Germany."

"The AfD is not getting a kosher certificate from us," the leader of the Jewish Students Union of Germany said, referring to the nationalist party by its acronym.

Dalia Grinfeld said her group is urging all Jews in Germany to join a protest rally next month in the central German city of Offenbach, where the party plans to launch its new "Jews in the AfD" section.

Despite repeatedly downplaying the horrors of the Holocaust, the far-right party has acquired some Jewish members who are drawn to its rhetoric against Muslim immigrants.

"The AfD is the only party in Germany that makes anti-Semitism by Muslims a topic without trivializing it," Dimitri Schulz, a Jew and founding member of the planned Jewish AfD section, told the German news agency dpa.

Still, it's not clear how many AfD members are Jewish or how many of them plan to participate in the Afd sections founding meeting on Oct. 7.

While there has been a series of violent attacks on Jews by Muslims in Germany recently and anti-Semitism incidents have increased overall in Germany, the majority of Jews, including the country's leading Central Council of Jews in Germany, have warned about the AfD and its anti-Semitic tendencies.

The co-leader of Alternative for Germany earlier this year dismissed Germany's Nazi era as a "speck of bird poop in more than 1,000 years of successful German history." Last year, another prominent AfD member said Germany needs to perform a "180-degree turn" when it comes to remembering its past and said the Berlin memorial to the millions of Jews killed in the Holocaust is a "monument of shame."

At the same time there is widespread ambivalence among Jews in Germany when it comes to the more than 1 million migrants who came to Germany since 2015, the majority of whom are Muslims from countries like Syria or Iraq with attitudes hostile to Jews and Israel.

The head of the Jewish Council, Joseph Schuster has repeatedly warned that Jews shouldn't wear their traditional skullcap, or kippa, in German areas with large Muslim populations.next Image 1 of 2

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Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Wednesday his administration will accept a truth commission to investigate the case of 43 teachers-college students missing since Sept. 26, 2014, drawing rare praise and expressions of hope from the long-suffering parents of the victims.

Wednesday marked the fourth anniversary of the students' abduction by corrupt police in the southern city of Iguala. Prosecutors say the police turned the students over to a drug gang, which allegedly killed them and incinerated their bodies. But apart from charred bone fragments matched to one student, their bodies have never been found.

Parents of the 43 missing youths met with Lopez Obrador, and in a tear-filled news conference afterward said they had hope for the first time in four years.

"This is the first day in all these last four years that we parents feel hope that we will get the truth," said Epifanio Alvarez, his voice shaking. "This is the first day that a government has said to us, 'We are going to help, we are going to get to the truth.'"

"God willing we will get to hug our children, God willing we will arrive at the truth," Alvarez said.

Another parent, Maria Elena Guerrero, said the new investigative commission would be coordinated with a group of experts from the Inter-American Human Rights Commission, the United Nations and Mexico's own Human Rights Commission. "Without truth there is no justice," she said.

Lopez Obrador said he would issue a decree to create the commission when he takes office Dec. 1. He called the parents of the 43 "an example for everyone fighting for justice in Mexico and the world."

It was a break from years of suspicion, deceit and mistrust during which official investigators were accused of manipulating evidence, torturing suspects and trying to channel the entire investigation toward a single, terrible hypothesis: That the students were killed and their bodies incinerated in a huge fire at a garbage dump outside the southern city of Iguala.

But international experts and the victims' parents cast doubt on that theory, and want a more thorough probe of the possible involvement of the army or other authorities.

Meanwhile, students and victims' parents have engaged in a series of violent protests outside army barracks and on highways, in which gasoline bombs have been thrown and trucks and buses hijacked.

In June, a federal court ordered the government to create the truth commission due to doubts about the investigation. But the government of President Enrique Pena Nieto has appealed that ruling, saying there is no provision for such an investigative body in the Mexican legal system.

Pena Nieto tweeted Wednesday, "four years after the regrettable events in Iguala, the government is committed to the victims' families and to justice."

Pena Nieto has said he remained convinced of the massive fire theory. But the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a report saying that 34 of the 129 people arrested in connection with the students' disappearance had suffered torture.The Danish inventor convicted of the brutal torture, murder and dismemberment of journalist Kim Wall aboard his homemade submarine last year lost his appeal Wednesday that was seeking to overturn a life sentence.

Peter Madsen, 47, apologized to Wall's family before Judge Jan Uffe Rasmussen said the high court had reached the same conclusion as the Copenhagen City Court, which sentenced Madsen to life in April after convicting him of murder.

"I'm terribly sorry to Kim's relatives for what happened," Madsen told the panel of judges.

In Denmark, a life sentence is on average 16 years, but can be extended if necessary, according to the Associated Press. Madsen had wanted a time-limited sentence, not an open-ended prison term.

Prosecutors had argued Madsen's life sentence should be upheld, and that he had been planning the murder.

KIM WALL KILLER PETER MADSEN SENTENCED TO LIFE IN PRISON

Prosecutor Kristian Kirk said Wall could not escape and "likely had begged for her life" while Madsen carried out "a sadistic, yes inhuman, sexual fantasy." He also told the panel of judges that violent videos in which women were tortured and killed were found on Madsen's computer, and said he likely filmed Wall's killing.

"I hope we never will see such a case again," he told the court.

KIM WALL'S GRUESOME DEATH DETAILED IN PETER MADSEN MURDER TRIAL: A TIMELINE

Defense lawyer Betina Hald Engmark countered that her client "has a clean criminal record and alone has been convicted for one murder."

Wall, a 30-year-old freelance journalist, set out on the submarine on Aug. 10, 2017 to interview Madsen, the co-founder of a company that develops and builds manned spacecraft. Her remains were found in plastic bags on the Baltic Sea bed weeks later. Authorities have not determined a cause of death for Wall, but said her torso had been stabbed multiple times.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.next Image 1 of 2

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Two Pakistani men went to their embassy in Beijing on Wednesday to lobby for help in reuniting with their wives, who they say are ethnic Uighurs blocked from leaving China, in an example of how a sweeping crackdown has spilled across China's borders.

"I am very, very unhappy," said Mirza Imran Baig, a Pakistani cosmetics trader. His Chinese Uighur wife, Malika Mamiti, was sent to a political indoctrination camp after returning to China's far west Xinjiang region in May 2017, Baig said.

The internment camps , which have alarmed a United Nations panel and the U.S. government, are estimated to hold around 1 million Uighurs and other Muslim minorities. China denies their existence and maintains that current security measures are necessary to combat religious extremism in a region that has previously experienced ethnic unrest.

Xinjiang's security drive has swept up and separated families and also created friction with neighboring Kazakhstan over the internment of ethnic Kazakh Chinese nationals and even Kazakh citizens.

There are at least 38 Pakistani men whose mostly Uighur Chinese wives are detained or unable to leave Xinjiang, according to Mian Shahid Ilyas, a Lahore-based businessman. Ilyas has been tracking such cases since his own wife was detained in April last year.

China's foreign ministry said Tuesday that it was not aware of the situation involving the Pakistani husbands, and reiterated its stance that China's policies are aimed at creating "stability and lasting peace" in Xinjiang.

Baig said his wife has since been released from the internment camp but is confined to her hometown in a southwestern part of the region. He said her passport and that of their 4-year-old daughter, also a Chinese citizen, were confiscated.

He has visited the Pakistani Embassy in Beijing and met with the ambassador, Masood Khalid, several times. Still, he said he believes Pakistan is "not interested" in helping him.

Baig and Muhammed Asif, another Pakistani man whose wife and child are stuck in Xinjiang, met with Khalid on Wednesday afternoon to ask for help in getting China to allow their wives to leave the country. Khalid told them to return to the embassy on Thursday for an update, Baig said.next Image 1 of 2

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Pope Francis on Wednesday urged Chinese Catholics to overcome past divisions and open a new phase of faith following a landmark agreement over bishop nominations aimed at ending decades of estrangement between the Vatican and Beijing that had split the church.

Francis announced that he had written a letter to the Chinese faithful aimed at encouraging them to "heal the wounds of the past and re-establish and maintain full communion." The letter was to be released later Wednesday.

It follows the deal signed Saturday governing the naming of bishops in China. The agreement regularizes the status of seven bishops who had been appointed by Beijing over the years without papal consent, and sets out a process of dialogue going forward to name new ones. Francis says he, not Beijing, ultimately will name new bishops.

While the deal addresses a crucial aspect of church governance in China, it doesn't address more pastoral issues of unifying split communities, which Francis' message on Wednesday presumably will aim to do.

China's estimated 12 million Catholics are split between those belonging to the government-backed Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, which is outside the pope's authority, and an underground church loyal to the pope. Underground priests and parishioners are frequently detained and harassed.

Francis  and before him Pope Benedict XVI  had tried to unite the two communities, including a letter Benedict penned to the Chinese faithful in 2007. Years of negotiations kicked into high gear over a year ago, culminating in the deal signed Saturday.

In comments at his weekly general audience Wednesday, Francis said the agreement was aimed at "favoring more positive cooperation between the Holy See and Chinese authorities for the good of the Catholic community and the harmony of the entire society."

He said his message was one of "fraternal encouragement."

"With it, I hope that a new phase can open in China that helps to heal the wounds of the past, to re-establish and maintain full communion of all Chinese Catholics" and renew a commitment to spread the faith.

He called for all Catholics to accompany the faithful in China with prayers and friendship "so that they don't feel they are alone."

"All the church prays with them and for them," he said.

Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Francis acknowledged that both sides lost something in the talks, and said members of the underground Chinese church "will suffer" as a result of the deal, the text of which has not been released.

"There is always suffering in an agreement," the pope said.

But he took full responsibility for it, and said he had already received messages attesting to the "martyr-like faith" of Chinese Catholics and their willingness to accept whatever was decided. He urged prayers "for the suffering of those who don't understand, or who have so many years behind them of living clandestinely."

It was a reference to the underground faithful who endured decades of persecution for refusing to join the Patriotic Association and staying loyal to the Holy See. Their cause has long been championed by Hong Kong Cardinal Joseph Zen, who has called Francis' deal a sell-out of the church to China's Communist rulers.

The issue of bishop nominations had been the main stumbling block to restoring diplomatic relations that were severed nearly seven decades ago when the Chinese communists came to power. The Holy See insisted on the pope's right to name bishops to preserve the apostolic succession that dates to Jesus' original apostles. China considered the Vatican's insistence as an infringement on its sovereignty.Ion Ficior, who was incarcerated for the deaths of 103 political inmates while in charge of a communist-era labor camp in Romania, has died. He was 90.

Ficior died Wednesday at Jilava prison hospital, according to Bianca Filote, spokeswoman for the government Institute for Investigating the Crimes of Communism. The institute began to pursue Ficior and other former prison guards in 2013 in a bid to make them finally accountable for wrongdoing during the communist era, handing over evidence to prosecutors.

Prison hospital spokeswoman Denisa Ene confirmed to The Associated Press that a prisoner, suffering various chronic medical conditions, had died Wednesday morning, but declined to provide further details, citing privacy rules.

Ficior was serving a 20-year sentence there for crimes against humanity. He was imprisoned in March 2017, but denied wrongdoing and said he was merely following orders.

But Andrei Muraru, who initiated the investigation of Ficior, said he "showed a complete lack of mercy toward his victims, who endured prolonged suffering, were skeletal inmates, or defenseless elderly people," he told the AP.

"They were subjected to a diabolic program of extermination through exhausting work, hunger and physical torture," said Muraru, now an adviser to President Klaus Iohannis.

Ficior was commander at the Periprava labor camp from 1958 to 1963. During his trial, former detainees accused him of beatings, a lack of food and medicine, overwork and unheated cells.

In an interview with the AP in 2013 before he was charged with more than 100 deaths, Ficior claimed "two or three had died" while he was prison commander.

Romania had about 500,000 political prisoners under the Communist regime, about one-fifth of whom died while in detention, according to historians. Many were locked up for merely falling afoul of the communist regime. A general amnesty was granted to political prisoners in 1964.

Ficior is survived by a son.One of the men wanted by British authorities for poisoning Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal earlier this year has been unmasked as a highly decorated colonel in the Russian military who once received a prestigious honor by the Kremlin, a new report claims.

Investigative journalist group Bellingcat reported Wednesday that the real identity of Ruslan Boshirov  one of the men wanted in the nerve agent attack against Skripal and his daughter, Yulia  is actually Colonel Anatoliy Valdimirovhic Chepiga.

Bellingcat said they obtained extracts from the passport file of Anatoliy Vladimirovhic Chepiga, whose photo appears to look like a younger version of the man identified as Rusland Boshirov.

British officials have not commented on the report; however, officials have said in the past that they believe Boshirov and his accomplice, Alexander Petrov, may have travelled to the U.K. using false passports and aliases.

EX-RUSSIAN SPY SERGEI SKRIPAL'S POISONING: WHAT TO KNOW

The two men  under their believed aliases  have been charged in absentia by British authorities earlier this month with poisoning the Skripals by using the Soviet-made nerve agent novichok.

The Skripals survived the March 4 attack, but another woman, Dawn Sturgess, who was not connected to the initial incident, died in July after being exposed to the same substance.

British authorities accused the pair of being undercover officers for the Russian military intelligence, the GRU. They both have denied the accusations and have insisted in a Russia TV interview that they were only on holiday in Salisbury during the apparent poisoning.

Russia has also denied the allegations and any involvement in the poisoning of the Skirpals.

Putin himself said Russian authorities know the identities of the two men but insisted that they were civilians and there is "nothing criminal" about them.

There was no immediate comment from Moscow on Bellingcat's claim.

According to Bellingcat, who conducted the investigation with The Telegraph, Chepiga, 39, is a highly decorated officer with Russian military intelligence who served in Chechnya and was bestowed Russias highest state award  Hero of the Russian Federation  in 2014. It was personally given to Chepiga by President Vladimir Putin in a ceremony shrouded with secrecy.

A former senior Russian military officer told Bellingcat that Chepigas high rank and experience strongly suggests that the job was ordered at the highest level, adding that an assassination attempt of less importance would have been carried out by a lower ranking officer.

Skripal, 66, was a Russian military intelligence officer turned double agent for Britain. He and his daughter were taken to a secret location for their security after being released from the hospital.A World War II-era bomb was discovered in western Germany on Wednesday, prompting evacuations as officials disabled the explosive.

The Bochum fire reported that the explosive was discovered along a road in the city of Herne, about 30 miles east of Dusseldorf, while construction workers were doing exploratory drilling.

The discovery prompted a mass evacuation of people nearby as specialists worked to successfully defuse the explosive. It was not immediately clear how many people were evacuated.

Officials did not immediately reveal the size of the explosive.

26,000 EVACUATED IN WEST GERMAN TOWN FOR WWII BOMB REMOVAL

Even more than 70 years since the end of the war, bombs and other munitions still turn up regularly during construction work in Germany  a testament to the ferocity of World War II.

Just last April, more than 26,000 people were evacuated from the western German town of Paderborn after a 1.8 ton British bomb was discovered during construction work.

In addition to people leaving their homes, two hospitals, a university and several nursing homes were also evacuated.

Fewer than two weeks later, hundreds were evacuated around Berlins main railway station as officials defused a 1,100-pound bomb discovered during construction work.NEWMAN The family of Margaret Newman would like to thank everyone for their kindness shown to us after the passing of our beloved wife and mother. Thank you for all...A President who is dedicated to the nation

Reading news of President Tran Dai Quangs death in prestigious newspapers, I couldnt believe that it was true. Locals in my village looked forward to listening to the loudspeaker in the commune, which broadcast the evenings news with the latest information on the Presidents condition. It was a great loss for the country and is a deep sorrow for the people.

I first learned of President Tran Dai Quang when he was serving as Lieutenant General - Minister of Public Security.

People in An Giang province had the honour of welcoming President Tran Dai Quang one month ago during his attendance at the celebration of the 130th birth anniversary of late President Ton Duc Thang.

Through images on mass media, I recognised that although the President was not in good health, he made the effort to commemorate his predecessor and serve the fatherland and its people.

An Giang people would like to bid a sorrowful farewell to the State President as he goes to his final resting place.

Nguyen Van Nay, a farmer in Phu Hoi commune, An Phu district, An Giang province





President Tran Dai Quang visits residents hit by floods and rains in Hoa Khuong commune, Hoa Vang district, Da Nang city in November, 2017. (Photo: baodanang.vn)

Remember the State Presidents service

On September 22, many people in Quang Thien commune, Kim Son district, Ninh Binh province waited for an official announcement on the national mourning of President Tran Dai Quang. From the early morning, people cleaned up the villages alleys to ensure that the Presidents hometown would be clean during the period of national mourning.

In our eyes, the State President had a modest and friendly lifestyle whenever he visited his hometown. Despite his short trips, he spent time paying care and saluting the poor and policy beneficiary families. He also asked the districts leaders to maintain religious solidarity and further develop the locality.

Minh Phuong, a resident in Quang Thien commune, Kim Son district, Ninh Binh province

A President with close attachment to people

Receiving the news about President Tran Dai Quangs passing away, I and my fellow villagers felt a deep grief. During his many positions, the State President was devoted to his work and received much appreciation from his fellow countrymen and international friends.

I am impressed that during his working visits to the Mekong Delta and other regions, the President always expressed his care for the local people, particularly poor farmers, soldiers and officers in border areas and sea and islands, thus creating a close and sincere attachment and trust with people.

Through these trips, the President further understood the difficulties facing farmers in rural areas, and he worked together with leaders of the Party, Government, and local authorities to complete policies which have supported farmers in production and business, facilitated the building of new rural areas, and improved the livelihood in rural localities.

Nguyen Trong Khanh, a farmer in My Ai hamlet, My Khanh commune, Phong Dien district, Can Tho city.





President Tran Dai Quang surrounded by Hanoi students at the opening ceremony of the 2017-2018 school year in September 2017 (Photo: thieunien.vn)

Caring for the countrys future generation

As the Secretary of the residential areas Party committee, I keep myself updated on daily news and articles on the Party and State leaders activities. A few days ago, I read President Tran Dai Quang letter of congratulations to children on the occasion of the mid-autumn festival. The letter illustrated the Presidents sentiment and care for children as well as his words of encouragement for them to become good citizens who will contribute the the countrys development.

Earlier, he also showed his care for the countrys future generation in a letter to students ahead of new academic year. He also shared the joy with Chu Van An High School students at the opening ceremony of the 2018-2019 school year.

Therefore, I was surprised and upset to hear about the passing away of President Tran Dai Quang on September 21. Although he had fought against a serious illness, he had kept working constantly.

Au Xuan Kien, Secretary of the residential area No.2's Party Committee, Viet Hung ward, Long Bien district, Hanoi

Mourning the State President

I was shocked to hear that President Tran Dai Quang passed away. Less than a year ago, President Tran Dai Quang welcomed the leaders of 21 Asia-Pacific economies in the framework of the APEC 2017 Summit in Da Nang. President Tran Dai Quang used the occasion to demonstrate Vietnam's role in fostering peace and cooperation in the region, affirming the foreign policy of diversification, multilateralisation and proactive international integration.

Major Dang Anh Dung, Battalion Commander, Military Office of Lien Chieu District, Da Nang CityTelltale Games' "majority closure," which resulted in the bulk of its staff being laid off without severance pay, came only a day after potential investors walked away from funding talks.

As reported by Variety, South Korean developer Smilegate and U.S. media outfit AMC were mulling over the possibility of investing in the studio, with Telltale management hoping to hash out a deal that would save the company.

Talks with AMC in particular were perceived to be going well, and internally it was expected that a funding deal would be confirmed within a few weeks - one employee explained the situation was being painted as a 'done deal.'

That wasn't to be the case, however, and both companies eventually pulled out of talks last Thursday, just hours before Telltale announced its closure.

Since breaking the news, Telltale has canceled upcoming titles including Stranger Things and The Wolf Among Us 2, and is currently looking to work with potential partners to finish the final season of The Walking Dead.

The studio has also been hit with a class action lawsuit, with one former employee alleging the company violated California's WARN Act by failing to give 60 days notices ahead of the mass termination.

As it stands, Telltale currently comprises a skeleton crew of 25 developers, who've been kept on for the time being to fulfill the company's obligations to its board and partners.Discover Warframes Thrilling All-Out-War Action and Assemble the Prime Vanguard with the Prime Resurgence to Prepare for a New War with Old Enemies this DecemberThe effort, supporters said, will "dramatically reduce the number of backlogged ships at anchorage" off the two ports as the nation deals with an unprecedented supply-chain bottleneck.Wine tasting, torchlight hikes, music, dance and fireworks : Kick-off to a series of wine festival weekends in Altenahr

Altenahr The scenic wine growing region is a stones throw from Bonn, and now is the time to visit the traditional wine festivals. Altenahr has been been at it for decades and this weekend, a series of festivals will get started.

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Wine festivals have been an Altenahr tradition since the 1930s. About a half hour drive from Bonn, the picturesque wine growing area puts on wine festivals the last weekend in September and the four subsequent weekends in October. Once again this year, the Altenahr Winegrowers Association promises a special theme for each weekend, wine tasting, music and dance.

On every Friday of the wine festivals, there is a mystery hike at 4:30pm and at 7:30 pm a guided torchlight hike offered by the tourist information center Altenahr (located at the train station). It all gets started this weekend, Friday to Sunday, September 28 - 30. Altenahr's wine queen Anna Schmidt and her princess Johanna officially open the wine festival at 4 pm on Saturday. There will be live music, as on all of the following weekends.

The Eifel Club Altenahr invites those who are interested for a hike and social get together on Wednesday, October 3, at the Eifelblick cottage.

"Hiking fun and wine enjoyment, Part I" is the theme for Friday to Sunday, October 5 to 7. The wine and hiking weekend begins on Friday with a crime mystery hike towards Kreuzberg and a guided torchlight hike through the vineyards. For the guided tours on Saturday and Sunday, the meeting place is at the Haus des Gastes at 11am, tourist information center Altenahr. Besides the opportunity to view the gorgeous landscape, there is also information about wine growing, and wine tasting along the way.

On the following weekend, October 12 to 14, the theme is "Rock formations, lights and wine". The Are Castle will be illuminated in Bengali light. Water games on the Ahr River and torchlights on the steep slopes attract many visitors every year.

The second round of "Hiking fun and wine enjoyment" will take place from Friday to Sunday, October 19-21, when there is another opportunity to take part in a crime mystery hike and a torch-lit walk through the vineyards. For the guided tours on Saturday and Sunday, once again the meeting place is at the Haus des Gastes at 11am, tourist information Altenahr.

On the final weekend of October 26 to 28, there will be a firework display at the ruins of the Are Castle on Saturday at around 9:30 pm. On all wine festival Fridays, music and dancing is offered in Altenahr establishments. The wine fountain on the fairground is open on Saturdays and Sundays. For further information, please see www.altenahr-ahr.de.Investor faces criticism : Viktoriakarree: neglected area in Bonn city center

Bonn It is not looking good at Viktoriakarree, a small plaza in Bonn city center that sits between the university and the town hall. Graffiti is smeared on vacant storefronts, making an unpleasant sight for pedestrians. The owner of the property is the investor Signa and it has come under criticism.

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At seven in the morning, when the city awakens, the Viktoriakarree is still in a deep sleep. Only on Rathausgasse is it already busy. A delivery vehicle brings a package to Seluk Yardirgis kiosk and seems to rush away. In the morning light, the graffiti-smeared facades look even shabbier than usual. Not a nice place to be. Like most people who have a business in this little part of the city, Yardirgi wonders why the commercial spaces at ground level have not yet been rented out again.

Investor also owns Karstadt and Kaufhof

His calls to the owner of the property go unanswered and even his e-mails dont get a reply. The buildings with the vacant storefronts are owned by Signa, an investment company held by Rene Benko, the Austrian businessman who owns Karstadt and now Kaufhof as well with the recent merger.

Signa wanted to build a shopping center in this town plaza but it obviously hasnt happened. The plaza is an area situated between Rathausgasse on the one side and Franziskanerstrae on the other. While the situation remains at a standstill, Rathausgasse has become increasingly neglected. According to the city, Signa made the vacated properties available to house refugee families, and eleven families have been temporarily housed there.

A group called Burgerwerkstatt used one of the vacated commercial areas at ground level to meet and try to develop a new concept for the Viktoriakarree plaza. Some might recall that the area was in the news when protestors occupied the space on the upper floors for months until police cleared the building. Graffiti was then cleared away - only to return a few weeks later.

Some against shopping center

Jannika Dauben sells lovely floral arrangements from her shop Die Blute while looking out onto the ugly neglected area every day. She likes the relaxed mood and the special flair of the area and was against a shopping center. Still, something has to change. When she makes her way home after work, she feels uncomfortable. "In the evening, unfortunately, more and more shady characters are meeting up on Rathausgasse," she observed.

Antje Moecke has been managing the Haase Travel Bureau on Stockenstrae, which is nearby, for more than 30 years now and she says all is fine there. There are many small shops bringing life to the street and with the opening of the cafe Brews Lee, its looking young and dynamic. Those commercial spaces have been rented out by Signa. The young people running the businesses keep the street clean, while Rathausgasse looks scraggly. Its such a shame because so many tourists come to the town hall. The city must be ashamed of it.

On the outdoor terrace of the Cafe Blau, which is housed in the former foyer of the Viktoriakarree (closed since 2010), students sit and drink coffee. The autumn sun warms up the area and the chairs and benches outside fill up quickly. At the restaurant next door Iss Dich glucklich ( "Eat yourself happy"), the staff have their hands full. "We are glad that there is no shopping mall here," says Frieda (21). "The whole charm of the district would have been destroyed." She is a regular at Cafe Blau. "The disarray in the square, the colorful mix of shops and cafes and pubs, I think its really cool."

Klingeling is the name of a local bike shop in the area, it has been there for eleven years. As chair of the Viktoriakarree Business Association, owner Johannes Roth and Axel Bergfeld, the owner of a health food store on Stockenstrae, initiated a citizens petition against the Signa plans. We are still waiting for what will happen after the results of the Burgerwerkstatt but we have not heard anything yet, he said. He adds that the situation is intolerable and he wants to initiate a meeting of the business association to discuss what should be done next.The top legislator made the statement while hosting reception in Hanoi for Deputy Chairwoman of the State Duma of Russia Olga Epifanova, who led a high-level delegation to Vietnam to pay last respect to President Tran Dai Quang.

NA Chairwoman Ngan thanked Russian leaders for extending condolences and sending the delegation to Vietnam to attend the state funeral for President Quang, describing this as a vivid illustration for Russias sentiment to Vietnam.

At the meeting, NA Chairwoman Ngan welcomed the Russian officials initiative to set up the Vietnam-Russia Inter-parliamentary Committee, saying that a high-level representative of the Vietnamese NA will be sent to the committee.

She thanked the Federation Council and the State Duma of Russia for inviting the Vietnamese NA to attend regional and international parliamentary conferences and forums. Also, she lauded Russias successful organisation of the Eurasian Womens Forum and the Conference of Speakers of Eurasian Countries Parliaments.

Host and guest agreed to organise activities marking the 25th anniversary of the signing of a treaty on basic principles for Vietnam-Russia friendship in 2019, and the 15th anniversary of the Russian Centre of Science and Culture in October.

They also discussed the roles and contributions made by female parliamentarians to the development of each country and the world.

President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday addressed the United Nations General Assembly during its 73rd Session.

Buhari urged world leaders to end conflicts, support peace and the anti-corruption war. He also discussed the effects of climate change on security in the West African region.Buhari also lamented the continuing plight of the Rohingyas in Myanmar, the protracted Israeli/Palestinian conflict, the wars in Yemen, and Syria, and the fight against international and local terrorism such as Boko Haram and Al-Shabaab.Watch videos below:See full speech below:

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STATEMENT DELIVERED BY HIS EXCELLENCY, MUHAMMADU BUHARI,

PRESIDENT OF FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA AT THE GENERAL DEBATE OF THE 73RD SESSION OF UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY IN NEW YORK,



25TH SEPTEMBER, 2018.



Madam President,

Fellow Heads of State and Government,

Mr. Secretary-General,

Distinguished Delegates,

Ladies and Gentlemen,



On behalf of the Government and people of Nigeria, I congratulate you, Madam President, on your well-deserved election as President of the 73rd General Assembly. As you embark on your assignment, I would like to assure you of Nigerias support in no less measure than that which we extended to your illustrious predecessor, His Excellency Mr. Miroslav Lajcak.



2. We appreciate the effective leadership he gave the 72nd Assembly with such dedication, commitment, and fairness to all member states. I also salute our distinguished Secretary-General, H.E. Mr. Antonio Guterres, who steered the affairs of the Secretariat with focused commitment to the collective United Nations pursuit of global peace and security, equity and justice, inclusiveness, womens empowerment and human rights.



3. It is appropriate at this point to remember with deep sadness our late 7th Secretary-General Mr Kofi Annan who passed away on the eve of his 82nd birthday. Kofis significant contributions to the work of our Organisation have been acknowledged in the well-deserved tributes that poured in from around the world following his death.



4. We in Africa, while mourning the loss of this great son of ours and citizen of the world, take pride in the way he served humanity in a truly exemplary manner. He demonstrated, in his calm but determined manner, the virtues of compassion, dedication to the cause of justice, fairness and human rights. He was a visionary leader who inspired hope even in the face of the most daunting challenges. He devoted his entire lifes career to the UN and the pursuit of its ideals and goals. The world is indeed a better place thanks to his exemplary service.



Madam President,



5. During the past year, the world saw some positive results and encouraging signs from the bilateral and multilateral efforts of the international community to address conflicts, crises and threats to world peace. We particularly commend the efforts of the leaders of the United States, North Korea, and South Korea, to realise our shared goal of a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.



6. In this connection, we acknowledge the commitment to peace shown by President Donald Trump and Chairman Kim Jong-Un by initiating a historic Summit. We urge that they continue this positive engagement.



7. Regrettably, many of the crises and threats to peace and security around the world which we debated last year as we did over several previous years remain unresolved. In some cases, matters got worse. The continuing plight of the Rohingyas in Myanmar, the protracted Israeli/Palestinian conflict, the wars in Yemen, and Syria, and the fight against international and local terrorism such as Boko Haram and Al-Shabaab come to mind.



8. The terrorist insurgencies we face, particularly in the Sahel and the Lake Chad Basin, are partly fuelled by local factors and dynamics, but now increasingly by the international Jihadi Movement, runaway fighters from Iraq and Syria and arms from the disintegration of Libya.



9. In Myanmar, the carnage appears to have thankfully abated somewhat. We commend the United Nations for staying focused on the situation of the Rohingya people, to bring their suffering to an end, and hold to account the perpetrators of the atrocious crimes committed against innocent and vulnerable members of this community, including women, children and the old.



10. The international community should strengthen its resolve to combat ethnic and religious cleansing everywhere. We support the UNs efforts in ensuring that the Rohingya refugees are allowed to return to their homes in Myanmar with security, protection, and guarantee of citizenship. We note the indication by the Government of Myanmar of its willingness to address these issues and we encourage them to do so expeditiously.



11. In this context, Nigeria commends the Government and people of Bangladesh in particular and all other countries and organizations that have contributed to shouldering the burden of providing shelter and other vital assistance to the Rohingya Refugees.



12. The carnage and the worsening humanitarian situations in Syria and Yemen continue unabated. But the international community cannot afford to give up on the Syrian and Yemeni people. We must pursue all efforts to find peaceful negotiated political solutions to these wars which cannot be won by force of arms alone. Regarding Syria, we hope that the UN-sponsored Geneva process and the Sochi initiative, led by Russia, Iran, and Turkey advance this objective.



13. The International community must keep up the pressure to encourage the parties to pursue the path of dialogue, negotiations and inclusiveness in resolving their sectarian divides and bringing to an end the immense human suffering in Syria as well as Yemen. We commend Turkey, Jordan, Greece, Germany, Italy and France for hosting the millions of the refugees fleeing these brutal conflicts.



14. The situation in the Middle East, grave as it has always been, is now worsened by developments since our last meeting. Nigeria continues to call on the Israelis and the Palestinians to make the necessary compromises in the interest of justice, peace and security, in line with our numerous UN resolutions and applicable international laws.



15. Unilateral, arbitrary and insensitive actions only prolong the conflict and undermine world peace and security. The deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza is an appalling result of unrestrained use of power. We urge both parties to re-engage in dialogue on the basis of relevant UN resolutions, the Madrid Principles, the Quartet Roadmap and the Arab Peace Initiative, among others.



16. Nigeria reaffirms its unwavering support for a just two-state solution, negotiated without intimidation and with Israel and Palestine existing side-by-side in peace and security.



17. The crises in the Middle East have deep roots and have remained unresolved for too long. Yet, we should not fall into self-defeating despair and conclude that they are not amenable to solution.



18. We should draw inspiration from the remarkable leadership that got Ethiopia and Eritrea to restore long-lost hope for peace between them, a remarkable show of statesmanship which has now galvanised neighbouring countries, including Djibouti and Somalia to push for peace in the sub-region. I believe that with hard work, commitment, and a disposition to compromise and necessary sacrifices, peace is achievable in the Middle East as well.



19. Most crises usually have a variety of festering causes and effects. It is the failure to address them early and effectively that lead to out- of- control conflicts. Addressing them includes national and international collective actions which positively impact on peoples and communities. Hence, Making the United Nations relevant to all people: Global Leadership and Shared Responsibilities for Peaceful, Equitable and sustainable Societies which is the theme for this years General Assembly, is very apt indeed.



Madam President,



20. A typical consequence of the current conflicts around the world is the irregular migration of affected people from the Middle East, Afghanistan, and Africa to Europe. Irregular migration entails huge avoidable loss of human lives, puts strains on services in host countries and communities, and fuels anti-immigrant and racist sentiments in Europe. That is why we welcome the successful conclusion of the negotiations on the first-ever Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, and we look forward to its adoption in Marrakech later this year. The aim is to protect the rights of migrants worldwide while addressing the concerns of countries of origin, transit, or destination alike.



21. Migration is a constant in human affairs. We in Africa are grateful to countries who treat migrants with compassion and humanity-notably Germany, Italy and France.



22. Irregular migration is not a consequence of conflicts alone, but of the effects of climate change and lack of opportunities at home. Climate Change remains one of the greatest challenges of our time. Very close to us at home, it is our lot in Nigeria, together with our neighbours around the Chad Basin, to live with the Climate change consequences of a drastically shrunk Lake Chad and the parching up of otherwise fertile arable lands.



23. The Lake was a major source of livelihood to more than 45 million inhabitants of the region. Its shrinking meant loss of livelihoods and they are now rendered poor and vulnerable to the activities of extremists and terrorist groups. The instability thus caused in the sub-region intensified internal displacements leading, among other consequences, to intense economic competition especially between farmers and herdsmen.



24. This is why we continue to call for a rededicated international engagement to accelerate the recovery efforts in the Lake Chad Basin to address the root causes of the conflicts in the region. What is required is continuous and robust UN cooperation with national Governments and sub-regional and regional organisations such as the Lake Chad Basin Commission, the Economic Community of West African States and the African Union, to enhance capacity in conflict prevention, conflict management and peace building.



25. With regard to the Lake Chad Basin plight, I extend our heartfelt appreciation to the United Nations, the Governments of Germany, Norway, the United States, Sweden, the United Kingdom, France and a host of other development partners for their laudable support in assisting us to address both the humanitarian challenges and the on-going stabilisation drive in the region.



Madam President,



26. Corruption within countries and illicit flow of funds across national boundaries have huge negative impact on the stability, peace, and economic prospects of millions in developing countries. Corruption significantly deprives national Governments of resources to provide meaningful livelihoods to their populations who are predominantly youths, thus giving rise to more irregular migration.



27. The fight against corruption, therefore, involves us all. It is in our collective interest to cooperate in tracking illicit financial flows, investigate and prosecute corrupt individuals and entities and repatriate such funds to their countries of origin.



28. Fighting corruption or resolving international conflicts, crises and wars; defeating terrorism and piracy; curbing arms trafficking and the proliferation of small arms and light weapons which fuel these conflicts, particularly in Africa; stemming irregular migration by addressing its root causes; and the many other global challenges we are faced with today can only be effectively addressed through multilateral cooperation and concerted action.



29. The only global institutional framework we have to address these challenges is the United Nations System. That is why we continue to call for the strengthening of the Organisation and making it more effective by speeding up the pace of progress towards its reform, including that of its principal organ, the Security Council. The reconstitution of the Council to make it more equitable and more representative of our global community is both a political and m0ral imperative.



30. We believe that a reformed Security Council with expanded membership in both the permanent and non-permanent categories, is in accord with prevailing international consensus and it is in our collective interest to do so. It is high time we stopped skirting round the issue and establish achievable benchmarks and timeframes for these reforms.



31. I assure you all that in this advocacy, I am only reflecting Nigerias deep and abiding commitment to our Organisation and its founding principles and goals. From the date we joined in 1960, we have contributed our quota to the fulfilment of the mandate of the UN. We have been active participants in many Security Council and African Union authorised Peace Keeping operations around the world, beginning with the Democratic Republic of Congo operations in 1960.



32. Furthermore, Nigeria has always mobilised the required human and material resources to achieve set United Nations goals, including the recently adopted 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. We are resolute in complementing the efforts and examples of the United Nations to promote gender equality and youth empowerment as necessary pillars for sustainable development.



33. Without these, there can be neither enduring peace nor security. As we set and implement our national policies to achieve these goals, we, in the spirit of international solidarity, will readily cooperate with other nations seeking to achieve similar goals for their own populations to help ensure that no one is left behind.



34. I thank you all for your attention.Vice President Viphavanh sincerely conveyed the deep condolences and infinite grief of the Lao Party, State, National Assembly, Government, and Lao Front for National Construction to their Vietnamese counterparts over the passing of President Tran Dai Quang.

He reflected on the valuable contributions made by President Quang in Vietnams national defence, construction, and development.

The departure of President Quang is not only a great loss for the Vietnamese Party, State, and people, as well as his family, but also the Lao Party, State, and people have also lost a close friend, he stressed.

President Tran Dai Quang made important contributions to promoting the great friendship, special solidarity, and comprehensive cooperation between Laos and Vietnam in recent years, he noted.

On behalf of the Party, the State and people of Vietnam, General Secretary Trong sincerely thanked the Lao side for offering condolences over the death of President Tran Dai Quang, and especially for assigning the Lao delegation to attend the funeral.

He praised Laos for its observation of the two-day national mourning for President Tran Dai Quang, remarking that this shows the special, loyal, and rare solidarity in international relations between the two parties, states, and peoples.

The Vietnamese Party leader affirmed that the Vietnamese Party, State, and people will do their best in joiningt hands with their Lao peers to preserve and further develop the Vietnam-Laos special solidarity for prosperous development of the two nations, as well as for peace, stability, cooperation and development in the region and the world.

President Tran Dai Quang passed away at 10:05am on September 21 in Hanoi due to serious illness at the age of 62.IRVINE, CA, Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NEWMEDIAWIRE -- Cannabis Science, Inc. (OTC: CBIS ), a U.S. company specializing in the development of cannabinoid-based medicines, is pleased to announce the Company has re-appointed Dr. Brylyne Chitsunge, Pan-African Ambassador for Food Security, and Ms. Julia Royall, noted global health information specialist, to its revamped Scientific Advisory Board.



Dr. Chitsunge and Ms. Royall join a revitalized CBIS Scientific Advisory Board (SAB), led by Dr. Julius Garvey, who was recently announced as the new President of CBIS SAB. I am extremely excited as our new Scientific Advisory Board takes shape, stated Mr. Raymond C. Dabney, CBIS President, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), and Co-founder. While we are in the process of adding a few new experts to our SAB, we are fortunate to retain the participation of Brylyne and Julia. Both are internationally-recognized leaders in their respective fields, and they will have a significant role in providing advice and guidance to CBIS.

Dr. Chitsunge is the first Pan African Ambassador for Food Security, appointed by the Pan African Parliament, the legislative body of the African Union. Additionally, Dr. Chitsunge is one of South Africas most successful female farmers and an internationally acclaimed expert in agribusiness.

Dr. Chitsunge owns and operates a 1,000-acre commercial farm in Cullinan, a small town approximately 30 kilometers east of Pretoria in South Africa. During the recent Global Health Catalyst (GHC) Summit at Harvard Medical School, Cannabis Science announced the signing of an exclusive partnership agreement with Elpasso Farms and American States University (ASU), one of Cannabis Sciences educational partners. Cannabis Science, ASU, and Elpasso Farm will collaborate to implement a phytomedicines initiative in South Africa. Specifically, the parties will establish research, development, cultivation, testing, manufacturing, and production facilities on Elpassos site in South Africa. Over the years, Elpasso Farms has opened Elpasso Farm to decision-makers, heads of government, parliamentarians, European Union delegates, International Federation of Agriculture Journalists, primary, high school and university students so as to give them a profound and educational on-site experience of farming.

This collaboration also calls for the establishment of the Pan-African Agriculture and Commerce University (PAACU). PAACU will specialize in agriculture, medicine, law, and business programs, and will offer a variety of certificate courses and conduct formal research programs using a variety of cannabinoids from associated indigenous plants. Dr. Chitsunge will serve as the Dean of the newly-formed PAACU.

Alongside the iconic, late President Nelson Mandela, she is the only other African to have received the Legion of Honor Bronze Medallion, which is the second-highest accolade given by the Chapel of Four Chaplains in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in recognition of Dr. Chitsunges service to all people regardless of race or faith.

Dr. Chitsunges distinguished affiliations and activities include:

President of the Water Forum;

Representative of the Nigeria-South Africa Group on Agriculture;

Member of the Clinton Global Initiative;

Member of the African Heritage Society;

Director of African Expansion on the Waterway and Environment Transformation (WET) African project;

Partner in Commonwealth Smart Partnership; and

Strategic advisor to decision-makers in several African governments.

Dr. Chitsunge has been a keynote speaker on food security at a number of global forums including:

The Wageningen (Netherlands) Global Science  Agriculture, Food Security and Climate Change (which was the first global science conference ever) in October 2011;

COP17 as the World Bank Delegate elect  Durban, South Africa, December 2011;

The 2 nd Global Conference on Agriculture Food Security and Climate Change in Hanoi, Vietnam, September 2012;

Global Conference on Agriculture Food Security and Climate Change in Hanoi, Vietnam, September 2012; The Global Science Conference at the University of California (UC-Davis), USA, in March 2013;

3 rd Convocation Ceremony at Landmark University, Kwara State, Nigeria, July 2016; and

Convocation Ceremony at Landmark University, Kwara State, Nigeria, July 2016; and South African Dairy Day  Gauteng, August 2017.

As a specialized consultant, Ms. Julia Royall will advise CBIS on health information databases, management systems, and Internet technology. Ms. Royall is a leader in health information and has been working in global health with a focus on Africa since 1990, with more than 40 years of professional experience in the communications field. Ms. Royalls commitment is to bring together information and technology with partners, projects and funding, using a variety of media.

Ms. Royall was recruited to the National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 1997 to create a malaria research communications network (MIMCom) to support scientists in Africa as part of the Multilateral Initiative on Malaria. The first network of its kind, MIMCom comprised 27 research sites in 14 African countries and engaged over 30 partner organizations and institutions in the US, UK, Europe, and Africa.

As Chief of NLM's Office of International Programs, she created innovative programs that focused on Africa and comprised outreach to medical librarians, medical journal editors, researchers, medical students, and health workers at the village level. In addition to adapting NLM databases for use in Africa, her work has encompassed a variety of media -- from web-based interactive digital tutorials to posters and video. Under Ms. Royall's leadership, NLM developed greater focus on global health by piloting demonstration projects that drew strength from one another and tied into NLM's major programs and databases.

Prior to government service, Ms. Royall was Deputy Director of SatelLife, a nonprofit dedicated to satellite delivery of public health and medical information in developing countries. As part of the team setting up the first Internet connections for health in sub Saharan Africa, she initiated and directed the HealthNet Information Service. HealthNet News was the first electronic health publication on the continent, published weekly for 25 years and pioneered digital sharing of medical literature in medical schools of sub Saharan Africa.

In 2007  2008, she was Fulbright Scholar to Uganda, based in the Office of the Dean at Makerere University, and has since served as a Fulbright Specialist at Kenyatta University in the Office of the Vice Chancellor and at Carnegie Mellon University  Africa in Kigali, Rwanda.

Retired from U.S. Government service, Ms. Royall is currently principal investigator for the African Digital Health Library (ADHL), funded by the Office of Global AIDS Coordinator/U.S. Department of State. Based at six universities in five African countries (Zambia, Zimbabwe Kenya, Nigeria, and Mali), ADHL will showcase in-country research previously not digitally accessible. She is also developing an African Student Innovation Fund with Carnegie Mellon University's Africa campus in Kigali, Rwanda.

Cannabis Sciences primary objective is to research and develop U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved, cannabinoid-based medicine to fight a number of targeted critical ailments, including various Cancers, Neurological Conditions, PTSD, Sleep Deprivation, Chronic Pain, HIV/AIDS, Autism, Parkinsons Disease, Epilepsy, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), and others. CBIS and its collaborators are well underway on a number of research projects targeting Lung Cancer, Pancreatic Cancer, Chronic Pelvic Pain, and Oro-bucco-lingual Dyskinesias.

To help accomplish this, Cannabis Science recently launched the Cannabis Science Global Consortium as a framework and platform to cooperate and collaborate with stakeholders worldwide. The Cannabis Science Global Consortium links universities, foundations, corporations, and individuals to share research, ideas, and other relevant information, as well as to implement a cutting-edge research program to develop medicines and delivery mechanisms from bench-to-bedside.

About Cannabis Science, Inc.



Cannabis Science, Inc. takes advantage of its unique understanding of metabolic processes to provide novel treatment approaches to a number of illnesses for which current treatments and understanding remain unsatisfactory. Cannabinoids have an extensive history dating back thousands of years, and currently, there are a growing number of peer-reviewed scientific publications that document the underlying biochemical pathways that cannabinoids modulate. The Company works with leading experts in drug development, the characterization of medicines, and clinical research to develop, produce, and commercialize novel therapeutic approaches for the treatment for illnesses caused by infections as well as for age-related illness. Our initial focus is on cancers, HIV/AIDS, and neurological conditions. The Company is proceeding with the research and development of its proprietary drugs as a part of this initial focus: CS-S/BCC-1, CS-TATI-1, and CS-NEURO-1, respectively.

Forward-Looking Statements



This Press Release includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Act of 1934. A statement containing words such as "anticipate," "seek," intend," "believe," "estimate," "expect," "project," "plan," or similar phrases may be deemed "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Some or all of the events or results anticipated by these forward-looking statements may not occur. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include the future U.S. and global economies, the impact of competition, and the Company's reliance on existing regulations regarding the use and development of cannabis-based drugs. Cannabis Science, Inc., does not undertake any duty nor does it intend to update the results of these forward-looking statements. Safe Harbor Statement. The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 provides a 'safe harbor' for forward looking statements. Certain of the statements contained herein, which are not historical facts are forward looking statements with respect to events, the occurrence of which involved risks and uncertainties. These forward-looking statements may be impacted, either positively or negatively, by various factors. Information concerning potential factors that could affect the company is detailed from time to time in the company's reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.



It is common for companies to organize various informal events where workers can come with their partners. One of those...Myasnikovich is in Vietnam to attend the state funeral of President Tran Dai Quang.

Acting President Thinh said the regular exchange of visits has fostered trust between the two countries leaders, creating a driving force for Vietnam-Belarus ties.

The Vietnamese State will work with Belarus to effectively realise outcomes reached during President Alexander Lukashenkos visit to Vietnam in 2015, and President Quangs visit to Belarus in 2017, contributing to the strengthening of bilateral ties and meeting the aspirations of the two countries peoples and President Quang, she said.

She spoke highly of the close liaison and mutual support of the two countries at international organisations and forums such as the United Nations, the Non-Aligned Movement, and the Inter-Parliamentary Union.

The host stressed that Vietnam wants to foster economic and trade ties with Belarus and work closely together to effectively realise the Vietnam-Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) Free Trade Agreement (FTA).

Vietnam is ready to create favourable conditions for the automobile manufacturing and assembly joint-venture MAZ Asia to operate effectively, as well as push forward links in the fields of national defence-security, science-technology, culture, and tourism, she said.

Lauding the active joint work between Vietnams Lao Cai province and Belarus Brest province, Hai Phong city and Vitebsk province, Hanoi and capital Minsk, and Hung Yen and Minsk province over recent years, the Acting President committed all possible support to the two countries localities, thus making practical contributions to bilateral ties.

Myasnikovich conveyed the profound condolences of President Alexander Lukashenko and Belarusian people to the Vietnamese Party, State, and people, as well as the family of President Quang over the passing of the leader.

He said Belarus will continue actively realising agreements reached during President Quangs trip to the nation in June 2017.

He expressed wishes that the Vietnamese State will continue supporting joint work between the two nations, especially in economy, trade, investment, and people-to-people exchange.

The guest said Belarus imports many Vietnamese goods, believing that the Vietnam-EEU FTA will help boost bilateral trade.

It's not surprising that, as a recent Governing column reported , public workers' compensation and rights as employees have become issues in this year's gubernatorial campaigns. Year after year, government's workforce problems are ignored until they trigger negative headlines.In the private sector, headlines like those were common through the 1970s. The auto industry stands out; its labor-management confrontations were at times violent. But since the 2008-2009 recession, the industry has committed to a version of the German "shared governance" model. Autoworkers now share in corporate profits; early this year, each General Motors worker received a check for $11,750.Today, just about the only employers living with strikes are in the public sector. Strikes in business are at the lowest level since 1947. That's in large part because progressive corporate employers have taken a new path. They now see employees as assets, not costs, and that has opened the door to a different way of managing compensation. These companies realize that attracting well qualified applicants -- "talent" is the current buzzword -- and managing employees as valued contributors produces higher performance levels and better results.In far too many state and local jurisdictions, you would think it's still the 1970s. Government does not need to pay profit-sharing bonuses, but with growing labor shortages and difficult technical problems such as cybersecurity to confront, public employers should commit to enhancing their "brand" as an employer. Pay freezes may win a few votes, but adopting basic ideas from successful companies will produce better performance. The management of compensation is basic to sustaining employee commitment. Public employers need to acknowledge some realities: Employees' perception of their pay and the way its administered is more important than the reality. If they think they are paid fairly, everything is great. But if they are convinced its unfair, regardless of the facts, it's a problem -- and the longer that continues, the more serious the problem. That no doubt was a factor in the recent teacher strikes. Communication should play a major role in compensation management. Pay and the way its perceived are associated with employee engagement. Highly engaged employees are more productive and approach their work in a way that minimizes the costs of turnover, absenteeism or accidents. When employees are disengaged, productive effort goes down and costs increase. Rather than saving money, decisions to deny or minimize pay increases can end up inflating costs. Tight labor markets are limited largely to fields that require specialized knowledge or skills, such as cybersecurity, or jobs that are simply unattractive, such as those of correctional officers. There are other jobs that absolutely need to be filled regardless of the cost. Teaching, for example, was once an attractive choice for women, but the number of graduates has declined steadily as the current workforce has aged. Freezing salaries will have an obvious impact on recruiting and deter students from choosing teaching as a career. Competing successfully for talent requires an understanding of labor-market dynamics and the flexibility to offer salaries to attract needed talent. Population trends and demographics are relevant. People are moving away from urban and rural areas to the suburbs. In some Rust Belt areas, aging populations and the gradual obsolescence of job knowledge are added factors. In my state of Pennsylvania, for example, the salaries for a commonly defined job, registered nurse, range from an average of $82,770 in Philadelphia to a low of $58,880 in Erie. Maintaining a one-size-fits-all statewide salary program that isn't responsive to local market dynamics has to create problems. Applicants in most regions can chose from multiple employers, and the best qualified can command higher starting salaries. Some businesses pay above-average salaries by policy. A client in the past decided to pay new specialized engineers at the 90th percentile. Offering below-market salaries has obvious implications for applicant qualifications. Finally, pay for performance is effectively universal outside of government for white-collar workers. It can gain acceptance in government, but requires leadership and an investment in more effective performance-management systems. Millennials want jobs where they can expect regular feedback and are recognized for their contributions. If public agencies do not adopt policies and practices that are attractive to young workers, the staffing problems will get progressively worse.Traditional government salary systems are incompatible with dynamic labor markets. As long as those systems continue unchanged, public agencies will continue to experience staffing problems. With retirements and loss of talent, performance will deteriorate.To be sure there, are a few public employers that have put modern pay and workforce management programs in place -- Tennessee is a standout -- but far too many have not reconsidered their pay programs in decades. It's something every public employer should do periodically. We know the policies and practices that have been proven to work.Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is defending a state law that requires schoolchildren to say the Pledge of Allegiance by joining a lawsuit that could determine the legality of similar mandates nationwide.On Tuesday, Paxton intervened in a lawsuit that was filed against Cypress Fairbanks ISD in October 2017. Kizzy Landry sued the district and several officials after the principal kicked her daughter, India, out of school for sitting during the pledge.Landry supported her child's decision to sit. And while Texas allows parents to sign a waiver letting their child opt out of saying the pledge, Landry believes the law requiring kids to say it in the first place violates their free speech rights. Paxton disagreed, arguing, "School children cannot unilaterally refuse to participate in the pledge.""Requiring the pledge to be recited at the start of every school day has the laudable result of fostering respect for our flag and a patriotic love of our country," Paxton said in a prepared statement. "This case is about providing for the saying of the pledge of allegiance while respecting the parental right to direct the education of children."The case is going to trial April 15. Experts said its outcome could have ripple effects nationwide."We've only ever seen one case litigated involving the mandate to say the pledge in modern history," Frank LoMonte, one of the nation's foremost experts on free speech and student rights, said in an interview. "If this one were to go up (to the U.S. Supreme Court) it would be quite influential, not just in Texas, but across the country as the first of its kind."By the time she was 17, India said she had refused to stand for the pledge around 200 times. Then, she switched schools to Windfern School of Choice in Houston and began to be disciplined for sitting. When she refused to stand for the pledge while in the principal's office, she was kicked out of school."This is not the NFL," a school secretary told India, according to the lawsuit. "Principal (Martha) Strother suggested that, instead of sitting, India could write about justice and African Americans being killed."For four days, the Landrys were told India, who is black, couldn't come back to school until she agreed to stand for the pledge. They refused and instead went on television to criticize the school's statements. The next day, the principal reversed her decision and let India return.But her mother said her daughter's grades suffered. India, now 18, did not graduate. It's unclear whether Kizzy Landry signed a waiver to allow India to opt out of the pledge.In July, a federal judge refused to throw out the case, saying India could proceed with First Amendment free speech and 14th Amendment due process and equal protection claims against the district and its leaders.The attorney general has the right to intervene in cases when the constitutionality of a state law is questioned. Paxton filed a motion Tuesday to do so.The district, in responding to a request for comment, reiterated that state law requires students to stand for the pledge, unless their parents sign a waiver.The Landrys' attorney, Randall Kallinen, criticized Paxton's statements as "very political." The ACLU of Texas agreed."Once again, it appears that Ken Paxton is using his authority to foster division within our state through political posturing," said Andre Segura, legal director for the ACLU of Texas. "Educators and lawmakers alike should take this as an opportunity to create a discourse on civic engagement, rather than to punish students."Paxton argues the Supreme Court has upheld a parent or guardian's "fundamental interest in guiding the education and upbringing of their children. That interest rightfully includes determining whether their children should participate in the time-honored tradition of reciting the Pledge of Allegiance to the United States flag."LoMonte disagreed, citing other cases.In 1943, the Supreme Court ruled that forcing schoolchildren to salute the flag violates their First Amendment right to free speech. Then, in 1969, the court ruled that school officials can suppress students' free speech rights only if they can prove the conduct would "materially and substantially interfere" with the school's operation.States have tried to skirt these rulings by allowing parents to let their kids opt in or out of saying the pledge. A Florida law similar to Texas' was upheld after its legality was challenged. But the Supreme Court didn't take up the case, meaning the precedent applies only in Alabama, Florida and Georgia.LoMonte said punishing a child for refusing to stand flies in the face of the earlier Supreme Court decisions."A school cannot impose discipline on somebody who does nothing more than quietly sit down," he said. "The issue of the parental waiver certainly muddies the law, as there is definitely some strain of legal authority that says parents have a constitutional right to decide how their kids are raised."LoMonte said the case could imperil compulsory pledge laws across the country if it ends up in the Supreme Court, a process that could take years. With students like the survivors of the shooting in Parkland, Fla., becoming more politically active, LoMonte said the rights of students are ripe for discussion."It really would be interesting to see if this is really the opinion of judges today," he said. "It's kind of hard to tell members of the Parkland generation that they are pieces of property owned by their parents."* Ren Guoqiang, spokesperson for China's Ministry of National Defense said Tuesday that it was strongly dissatisfied with and resolutely opposed to planned US arms sales to Taiwan. Ren's comment came after the US government informed congress of its decision to sell weapons worth about US$330 million to Taiwan on the same day.

* China and Japan on Tuesday held the fifth high-level political dialogue, in the eastern Chinese city of Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, agreeing to enhance strategic communication to develop bilateral ties along a normal track.

* Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov hailed mutual trust in China-Russia ties and called for further cooperation in safeguarding multilateralism during their meeting in United Nations on Tuesday.

* White House national security adviser John Bolton on Tuesday dismissed an EU plan for a special payments plan to circumvent US sanctions against Iranian oil sales and pressed the SWIFT global payments messaging system to rethink dealing with Tehran.

* Germany and Saudi Arabia agreed on Tuesday to enter a new phase in relations after a diplomatic row that had soured ties between the two countries.

* Israel's security cabinet was convened on Tuesday morning amidst new tensions between Israel and Russia over Moscow's announcement to provide an advanced S-300 air defense system to Syria.

* Syria's Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad said Tuesday that the arrival of Russia's S-300 to Syria will push Israel to reconsider before striking Syria again.

* The United States imposed new sanctions on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's wife and several of his top allies on Tuesday as US President Donald Trump urged members of the United Nations to support a "restoration of democracy" in the once-booming OPEC nation.

* The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved the financing of up to US$500 million for a multi-tranche financing facility (MFF) that will develop climate-resilient water supply, sewerage, and drainage infrastructure in at least 10 cities in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, the Manila-based bank said on Tuesday.

* Libyan navy said on Tuesday it rescued 116 illegal immigrants off the country's western coast.

* Egypt signed on Tuesday a deal worth more than 1 billion (about US$1.2 billion) with a Russian-Hungarian rail consortium to import 1,300 passenger cars for the Egyptian railway authority, the Egyptian cabinet said in a statement.

* Belarus wants to have dialogue with all partners without pressure and double standards, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Tuesday.

* Morocco's economic growth will decelerate to 3.5 percent in 2018, down from 4.1 percent in 2017, Moroccan central bank said on Tuesday.

* The United Arab Emirates will support United Nations proposals for new peace talks on Yemen, a senior Emiriati official said early on Wednesday after meeting with UN Special Envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York.SPEED READ:

According to a new report by the Pew Charitable Trusts, pension plans spend at least $2 billion a year on investment fees.

Over the past decade, pension plans have devoted more of their assets to alternative investments, such as hedge and private equity funds.

The shift means that pensions are more vulnerable to stock market swings and are paying far more in fees than ever.

The report recommends pension plans to change their reporting requirements.

Public pension plans spend at least $2 billion a year on investment fees to high-priced Wall Street firms to boost their returns. But, according to a new report, it doesnt appear to be paying off.The report, released Wednesday by the Pew Charitable Trusts, attributes the steep bill to the fact that more and more pension funds are putting money in alternative investments, such as hedge and private equity funds. Over the past decade, the average plan has gone from devoting about 11 percent of its assets to those types of investments to 26 percent.The uptick is part of a larger trend over the past 30 years of pensions reducing their reliance on stable, fixed income investments like bonds in favor of more volatile -- but potentially more lucrative --investments like stocks and alternatives. Since 1986, the latter two have gone from representing roughly 38 percent of pension portfolios to 75 percent in 2016.The shift means that pensions are more vulnerable to the swings of the stock market and are also paying far more in fees than they ever were before. Pews Director of Public Sector Retirement Systems Greg Mennis estimates that, in addition to the $2 billion in fees pension plans do report, Wall Street fund managers are pocketing an additional $3 billion to $4 billion in fees each year. Thats because the majority of funds dont disclose so-called performance fees, which allow investment fund managers to get a cut of the investment earnings if their returns hit a certain target.Meanwhile, pension plan performance has waned over the past decade. Among the 44 funds that the Pew report studied, the average rate of return during that period was 5.5 percent, and no plans average investment return met its target of 7.5 percent. (In general, plans tracked closer to their investment return goals when the years around the 2008 financial crisis are excluded.)Among the plans studied, Mennis says that the ones that had more experience investing in alternative assets tended to do better. For example, South Dakotas pension, which has for more than a decade been investing up to 20 percent of its portfolio in alternatives, averaged a 6.8 annual rate of return. But Indianas public employees fund, which has ramped up its alternative investments rapidly over the past five years to account for roughly 40 percent of its assets, averaged 3.8 percent over the 10-year period.Pension plans reporting requirements havent kept pace with the risk theyve opened themselves up to, according to Pew. To rectify that, it recommends that all plans disclose their net return after feesand include costs like performance fees. The report also suggests pensions implement stress-test reporting, which throws different economic loss scenarios at pension plans to see how each could affect a plans fiscal health and funded status.The report notes that many plans are lowering their assumed rate of return to prepare for a future with lower annual earnings. Over just a two year period, 33 states have done so. Still, Pew estimates that most plans should prepare for an average annual investment return of somewhere near 6.5 percent. Some -- Kentucky and South Dakota -- are at or below that mark, but most still have higher expectations.The new requirement is part of a law rushed through the state legislature after the February shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.On registration forms for new students, the states school districts now must ask whether a child has ever been referred for mental health services.If you do say, Yes, my child has seen a counselor or a therapist or a psychologist, what does the school then do with that? asked Laura Goodhue, who has a 9-year-old son on the autism spectrum and a 10-year-old son who has seen a psychologist. I think that was my biggest flag. And I actually shared the story with a couple of mom friends of mine and said, Can you believe this is actually a thing?'Goodhue said she worries that if her childrens mental health history becomes part of their school records, it could be held against them.If my child was on the playground and something happened, she said, they might think, This child has seen mental health services. This must mean something  more than it really means.The question was largely overlooked until parents started filling out school registration forms this summer. It was one sentence in a 105-page school safety bill that contained such controversial measures as increasing the minimum age to buy a gun and arming school employees.Parents express concern that the information could fall into the wrong hands and may follow children throughout their education, said Alisa LaPolt, executive director of the Florida chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.In a perfect world, getting treatment for mental health challenges would be no different than getting medical treatment for a skin rash or a bad cold or a broken leg, LaPolt said. But thats not the world we live in right now. There is stigma around mental illness and getting treatment for it.School districts say counselors will use the information to help Florida students get the services they need.Some districts will share the information only with psychologists and administrators. Others say they will provide access to teachers and front-office staff as well.School counselors say they understand the stigma surrounding mental illness. Some say the way the law was written doesnt help. The mental health question was grouped with requirements to report arrests or expulsions.I can certainly understand parents having a reaction when they see those questions, sort of, asked back to back, said Michael Cowley, manager of psychological services for Pinellas County Schools.But in order to help students, Cowley said, school officials must first determine who needs mental health services.The process were trying to develop and everything were trying to do is just with an eye toward reducing stigma, increasing awareness and getting students access to more care, Cowley said.The requirement has school districts worried about more than just stigma. The state left implementation of the provision up to local districts.At a meeting in Tampa, Fla., Hillsborough County School Board member April Griffin raised the issue of patient privacy and a federal law that protects it, known as HIPAA.I could foresee some lawsuits around this, Griffin said.Still, counselors say more parents may support the law once they start to see children getting the counseling they need.The school safety law provides nearly $70 million to increase access to mental health services in schools. National experts say the money is long overdue.Florida has historically been among the worst states in terms of providing money for mental health care, said Ron Honberg, senior policy adviser for the National Alliance on Mental Health.We know that the symptoms of mental health conditions and serious mental illnesses in particular tend to surface during the teen years and early 20s, Honberg said. And thats a time when we should be putting the most resources into interventions.In Broward County, where Parkland is located, the district is using part of the $6 million it received to hire 50 staff members  many of them counselors, psychologists and social workers.Their ability to reach students in need could depend on whether parents feel comfortable checking yes on a registration form.Republicans enjoy nearly total dominance of the Midwest. The GOP holds every governor's office in the region, save for Minnesota, as well as every legislature except Illinois.That looks likely to change soon. The Midwest this year offers the Democratic Party its best opportunities for cutting into the Republicans' 2-to-1 advantage among governors nationwide."The Midwest has arguably been the most competitive region in America for a very long time," says Kyle Kondik, an elections analyst at the University of Virginia. "It may be that the Midwest is swinging again."Democrats hold clear leads in the races for governor in Illinois, Michigan and Minnesota. Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker, who is seeking a third term, has been trailing in recent polls by modest but clear margins."Walker seems to be aware this is going to be a tough year for him," says Barry Burden, director of the Elections Research Center at the University of Wisconsin. "He really has not faced an electorate that has been as hostile to his party as this electorate is going to be."The races in Iowa, Ohio and Kansas all look like tossups at this point. The only Republican in the entire Midwest who looks like a certain winner is Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts. Even in South Dakota, which hasn't elected a Democratic governor since 1974, a poll back in July showed Republican Congresswoman Kristi Noem with just a four-point edge over rancher Billie Sutton. That has kept prognosticators from writing off the Democrat's chances entirely."After eight years of Republican governors in most of these states, voters are ready for a change," says Jared Leopold, communications director for the Democratic Governors Association. "Democrats in the Midwest are running on bread-and-butter issues, focusing on jobs and health care and education."President Trump was elected largely because he performed better in the Midwest than prior Republican candidates. He won Michigan and Wisconsin, which hadn't voted Republican since 1984, while easily carrying Ohio and Iowa, which had supported Barack Obama twice. The 206 counties that swung from Obama to Trump in 2016 were heavily concentrated in the Midwest. Iowa had the most, with 31 counties moving from the Democratic column to the Republicans'.But now Trump is a drag on Midwestern GOP hopefuls."The bottom line is you truly have a Trump effect in Michigan," says Ed Sarpolus, a Republican pollster in the state. "Right now in Michigan, they don't like what's happening in D.C."The president's approval ratings are low around the country. In the Midwest, voters aren't happy with the effects his tariffs are having, particularly on agriculture, despite the administration's plan to subsidize farmers who have been hurt."What's happened in China has been just an unmitigated disaster," says Lawrence Jacobs, a political scientist at the University of Minnesota. "Farmers are furious that they've lost these markets that took them decades to build, and now they're losing money." poll released Saturday showed Democratic Iowa businessman Fred Hubbell in the lead -- albeit by a statistically insignificant two points -- over GOP Gov. Kim Reynolds. "To say it's a tossup is good for Democrats," says Dennis Goldford, a political scientist at Drake University in Des Moines. "The fact that [Reynolds] has been running negative ads in her own name suggests that they're nervous."Following in the footsteps of Terry Branstad, who was serving his sixth non-consecutive term as Iowa governor before being appointed ambassador to China last year, Reynolds still faces the challenge of how to "craft her own narrative," says Christopher Larimer, a political scientist at the University of Northern Iowa.She has emphasized her small-town Iowa roots, while seeking to paint Hubbell as an out-of-touch rich guy. "The Democrats still haven't figured out, here at least, how to penetrate these rural areas," says Goldford, the Drake professor. "They won't even listen to the Democratic message, let alone be persuaded by them."Health care has been a resonant issue elsewhere.Republican Attorneys General Bill Schuette of Michigan and Mike DeWine of Ohio, who are now their party's gubernatorial nominees, have both been critical of the Affordable Care Act. Although they have softened their stances since winning their respective primaries, Democrats are warning that they'd put their states' Medicaid expansions at risk. Neither Schuette nor DeWine has been endorsed by the outgoing GOP governor of his state (Rick Snyder in Michigan and John Kasich in Ohio)."Schuette may be perceived as a bit too conservative for the state," says Edie Goldenberg, a public policy professor at the University of Michigan. "He's taken positions that are definitely more conservative than Snyder. That's not going to help him."In the Midwest and across the country, outcomes will be determined by Democrats' ability to win over wavering suburbanites while earning a strong showing from their backers in bigger cities."The main population centers in Minnesota, Michigan and Madison, [Wis.], these are all hotbeds of progressive fury at Trump," Jacobs says.Democrats are hoping that turnout will be stronger among their voters than has been the case in recent midterms. But an NBC/ poll released Sunday showed that 73 percent of seniors are interested in this year's elections, while only 35 percent of young people are."It seems like several groups are interesting in moving younger voters," Larimer says. "In the last midterm in Iowa, their turnout was 23 percent."In short, this year's elections may shape up to be "a slightly more intense plain vanilla midterm election," Jacobs says. "You've got a president who's a bit less popular, and an opposition party that looks pretty intense."The president's party nearly always loses seats in midterms. It looks like that will translate for Democrats into more Midwestern governorships. That's certainly welcome news for the party. Given the party's weakness in the South and Mountain West, if Democrats continue to be shut out in the Midwest, their strength would be almost entirely coastal in nature.But a comeback in the gubernatorial ranks doesn't necessarily predict that they'll reverse Trump's gains in a presidential year, when the electorate will look a lot different."The Midwest frequently swings between the parties, depending on national conditions," says the University of Virginia's Kondik. "If it does, don't assume it won't swing another way in 2020."SPEED READ:

Voters in six states -- Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Nevada, North Carolina and Oklahoma -- voted on a so-called Marsy's Law.

These measures will enshrine crime victims' rights in state constitutions.

Supporters hope eventually to amend the U.S. Constitution.

Constitutional amendments to protect crime victims' rights won approval from voters in Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina and Oklahoma on Tuesday. The measure also just exceeded the 60 percent needed for passage in Florida. It was also on the ballot in Nevada, where results are still uncertain.The amendments are known as Marsy's Law, after Marsy Nicholas, a California woman who was murdered in 1983 by an ex-boyfriend who had been released on bail without her knowledge.The provisions of the law vary by state but often guarantee victims or their families the ability to speak at more hearings and proceedings as well as the right to know a defendant's whereabouts at all points during the legal process. Many of these laws also tighten requirements for parole.The law was pioneered in California a decade ago but has since been adopted by voters in four other states. (It was also approved by voters in Montana in 2016 but dismissed by a judge last year on a technicality.) The group's ultimate goal is to enshrine Marsy's Law in the U.S. Constitution. In Kentucky and North Carolina, these bills enjoyed strong bipartisan support from legislators on their way to the ballot.But a Marsy's Law failed to win approval this year in the Idaho and New Hampshire legislatures.Some members of the law enforcement and legal communities oppose Marsy's Laws, arguing that they put a strain on legal and court systems."We definitely think it will clog the system," says Kate Miller, advocacy director of the ACLU of Kentucky. It would be better if more money was actually devoted to aiding victims than on campaigning for them, she says. "The only victims who are going to have access are those with private attorneys to represent them."After adopting a Marsy's Law, South Dakota considered repealing it, having found that it put a strain on county resources. The law didn't differentiate among victims of different types of crime, so those touched by cases involving petty theft or trespassing had to be accorded the same amount of attention as victims of more serious crimes, such as rape. Lawmakers, however, worked out a compromise with Marsy's Law for All, and a revised constitutional amendment was approved by voters in June.Opponents also argue that Marsy's Laws are redundant -- many of their provisions are already included in state laws. But Henry Goodwin, national communications adviser for Marsy's Laws for All, says those existing protections don't go far enough. Marsy's Laws essentially put victims' rights on par with defendants' rights by enshrining them in the constitution.That's a problem, Miller argues, because it's not clear what would happen when the constitutional rights of the accused and the victims come into conflict. The reason rights are enshrined for the accused is to protect them from the powers of the state. Victims, presumably, need no such protection.Politicians and voters tend to be less concerned about the rights of those accused of crimes, however, and more sympathetic to the victims of crimes. Where voters were offered the chance to decide on something promising to protect victims' rights, comfortable majorities supported it.The primary driver of Marsy's Laws has been Marsy's brother, Henry Nicholas, the billionaire cofounder of Broadcom and founder of Marsy's Law for All, a national group that promotes the cause. Nicholas was arrested in August on suspicion of drug trafficking.Despite his legal troubles, this year's campaigns were well-funded, while the public defenders' and constitutional rights groups that opposed Marsy's Law were barely able to muster a campaign against it. In past years, Nicholas has spent an average of about $2 million supporting each of the successful campaigns.When asked before the election whether he thought Nicholas' criminal record would hurt the law's chances of passage, Goodwin said, "The victims' rights cause is bigger than any one man. It's not going to interfere with the work of advocates. It's not going to affect their hard work and dedication."Cody Wilson, the activist who captured national attention by distributing blueprints of guns that can be made at home with a 3-D printer, has stepped down from the company he founded after his arrest on charges he sexually assaulted a 16-year-old girl.The company, Defense Distributed, will instead be run by new director Paloma Heindorff, who was introduced at a Tuesday morning news conference.Heindorff told reporters that Wilson will not be involved with the company, but said Defense Distributed remains committed to selling blueprints for the do-it-yourself guns over the Internet.Wilson, 30, was arrested on the sex charge at a restaurant in Taipei City late Friday, according to Taiwanese media, and was released on bail of $150,000 from the Harris County jail on Sunday. He was not present at Tuesday's news conference.He is charged with having sex with a 16-year-old girl he met on SugarDaddyMeet.com. They had sex at an Austin hotel in August, according to an arrest report. Wilson allegedly paid her $500 at the hotel before dropping her off at a Whataburger restaurant. The two also traded nude pictures of themselves, the report says.The girl told a counselor about the sexual encounter, sparking an investigation by police.A friend of the 16-year-old girl reportedly tipped off Wilson about the investigation. Wilson then traveled to Taiwan where Taiwanese authorities apprehended him before sending him back to the U.S.Wilson catapulted into the national spotlight in 2013 when he made the first fully 3D-printed gun and posted the blueprints online, downloadable for free. The guns have no serial numbers and can evade some metal detectors.Nineteen state attorneys general have filed suit to stop Wilson from freely distributing the plans, and a federal judge ultimately barred Wilson from doing so. In late August, he announced he would still sell the plans directly online, and buyers could name their price.On Tuesday, Heindorff said the company has received 3,000 orders for the blueprints so far. About 1,500 of those orders have been filled, she said.The company has raised about $400,000 from supporters to fuel its fight in court. Heindorff said none of those funds will go to Wilson's legal defense in the sex assault case.Archbishop William E. Lori has told clergy members of the Archdiocese of Baltimore that state authorities are investigating the archdiocese's records related to the sexual abuse of children.Lori told priests and deacons in a letter Monday that the office of the Attorney General Brian Frosh has informed the archdiocese that it plans to "conduct an investigation and thorough review" of the records."I write today to inform you that the archdiocese has been in discussions with the Maryland attorney general," the archbishop wrote.A spokeswoman for the attorney general's office said Monday that, consistent with policy, it can neither confirm nor deny the existence of such an inquiry.But the letter from Lori appeared to affirm that Maryland has become the latest of several states to open similar investigations in the wake of an explosive Aug. 14 Pennsylvania grand jury report that revealed that more than 300 "predator priests" in that state were credibly accused of sexually abusing more than 1,000 children over seven decades.The Pennsylvania report further concluded that for decades, church officials, including the leaders of archdioceses, covered up crimes such as the rapes of children.Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York and Wyoming are among the states that have opened investigations into how the Catholic church has handled allegations of sexual abuse within those jurisdictions.About two weeks after the Pennsylvania report was released, Frosh's office posted a notice on his office's website suggesting that such a review was under way in Maryland. On Friday, he sent out a tweet that called for victims and witnesses of sexual abuse in schools or houses of worship to contact the office.Lori pledged in his letter that the archdiocese would cooperate in any inquiry."The archdiocese is supportive of the review and will be fully cooperative throughout the process," Lori wrote.Lori wrote that he considered such cooperation the duty of a church that has fallen short -- a conclusion he has said he reached in the more than 20 gatherings he has held with clergy, lay Catholics, parents, teachers and students since news of the Pennsylvania report broke."Based on my conversations with people throughout the archdiocese and from the emails and letters I have received these past weeks, it is clear that we are a church in crisis and that crisis is one of trust," he wrote. "It is my hope and prayer that this independent review and other acts of transparency by the archdiocese will bring about greater trust in the church among those who are understandably skeptical about the church's handling of allegations of abuse."Lori had announced Friday in a letter to local Catholics a plan to create a lay council in the archdiocese through which members of the flock could more easily share their ideas and suggestions. The letter also announced the creation of an ongoing, virtual "town hall" in which Catholics can share their views and keep up with news as the church wrestles with the worldwide crisis.On Sunday night, the archdiocese began using two online communications platforms -- MyParish and Flocknote -- to facilitate conversations and solicit input from the wider archdiocesan community related to the abuse crisis.Sean Caine, a vice chancellor and spokesman for the archdiocese, said Monday that the threads on both platforms have seen "heavy engagement," and that more than 300 people have added themselves to a Spanish-language version of the Flocknote platform.The Catholic Church sex abuse scandal has become an issue in Frosh's race for re-election. After the Pennsylvania report, his Republican challenger, Craig Wolf, called for Frosh to open a similar investigation.Seattle Municipal Court judges have agreed to vacate convictions and dismiss charges for misdemeanor marijuana possession prosecuted before pot was legalized in Washington state.City Attorney Pete Holmes filed a motion in April asking the court to take the historic step for all convictions and charges between 1996 and 2010 "to right the injustices of a drug war that has primarily targeted people of color."All seven of the court's judges signed an order Sept. 11 setting out a process for nixing the cases. As many as 542 people could be affected. The Seattle court doesn't handle felony cases."Insomuch as the conduct for which the defendant was convicted is no longer criminal, setting aside the conviction and dismissing the case serves the interests of justice," the judges wrote.The order directs Holmes to hand over the last known address of each person affected. The court will mail out notices, giving each person 33 days to object or seek an individualized finding.After that, the court will vacate the convictions and dismiss the charges for everyone other than those who have objected or asked for individualized findings.In a statement, Holmes said the city should "take a moment to recognize the significance" of the court's ruling."We've come a long way, and I hope this action inspires other jurisdictions to follow suit," the city attorney said.Mayor Jenny Durkan, who joined Holmes earlier this year in announcing the city's position on the cases, also hailed the ruling."For too many who call Seattle home, a misdemeanor marijuana conviction or charge has created barriers to opportunity -- good jobs, housing, loans and education," Durkan said in a statement."While we cannot reverse the harm that was done, we will continue to give Seattle residents ... a clean slate."The ruling covers cases starting when Seattle took over misdemeanor marijuana prosecutions from King County and ending in 2010, when the city adopted a policy of no longer carrying out such prosecutions.Seattle took an intermediate step in 2003, when voters approved a ballot measure making personal-use marijuana offenses the city's lowest enforcement priority.In 2010, soon after Holmes was elected, he dismissed the city's active marijuana-possession cases and said his office would prosecute no more.Washington legalized the possession and recreational use of marijuana for adults 21 years or older in 2012, when voters approved state Initiative 502.Misdemeanor marijuana prosecutions between 1996 and 2010 disproportionately affected people of color, "and the African-American community in particular," the Seattle Municipal Court judges wrote this month, noting that an estimated 46 percent of the defendants were black.The process of clearing the cases has taken months partly because of the unusual nature of the effort and because the city spent time trying to figure out how to make the dismissals count under federal immigration law.Since 1996, immigration courts have defined criminal convictions more broadly than local courts, so noncitizens can run into immigration problems even after their convictions are vacated.Holmes asked the Seattle court to render the city's marijuana cases moot under immigration law by ruling that any noncitizens involved were, at the time, not adequately advised of the immigration consequences of their convictions.The judges declined to make that ruling. Noncitizens whose convictions are vacated will be able to seek the additional relief on an individual basis, said Dan Nolte, a Holmes spokesman.Seattle isn't the only metropolis addressing old marijuana convictions. Since January, San Francisco has been working to dismiss misdemeanor and felony convictions.Description

GIS 26 September, 2018: The AdaptAction programme of the Agence Francaise de Developpement (AFD) aimed at providing technical assistance to countries seeking technical assistance for the institutional, methodological and operational implementation of their commitments to the fight against climate change was launched yesterday at the seat of the Ministry of Social Security, National Solidarity, and Environment and Sustainable Development in Port Louis. The AdaptAction programme of the(AFD) aimed at providing technical assistance to countries seeking technical assistance for the institutional, methodological and operational implementation of their commitments to the fight against climate change was launched yesterday at the seat of the Ministry of Social Security, National Solidarity, and Environment and Sustainable Development in Port Louis.

The Minister of Social Security, National Solidarity, and Environment and Sustainable Development, Mr Etienne Sinatambou, the Director of AFD, Mr Andre Pouilles-Duplaix, and a team of consultants from AFD in charge of the project implementation in Mauritius were present at the ceremony.

In his address, Minister Sinatambou pointed out that according to the 2016 World Risk Report, Mauritius is the 7th most vulnerable country to extreme climate events. Over the past 15 years, the average number of tropical cyclones has not increased, but they have become more intense, he underscored.

Speaking about the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) of Mauritius, he underlined that they consist of climate change mitigation and adaptation components. The component concerning mitigation aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2030. In terms of adaptation to climate change, Mauritius wants to take action on all fronts: infrastructure, mitigation of risks of climate-related disasters, preservation of water resources, management of coastal areas, agriculture and food security, fishing, biodiversity and health, he said.

The Minister also recalled that Mauritius is among the lowest producers of greenhouse gas in the world, emitting only 0,01%. Hence, he underlined, mitigation measures are less important for Mauritius that adaptation measures. He expressed satisfaction that the AdaptAction programme will focus on the management of coastal zones and drains. He expressed concern that 13 sites and 10 beaches are critically in danger adding that the improvement of the drainage system for flood management is critical for Mauritius.

For his part, the Director of AFD, Mr Andre Pouilles-Duplaix, highlighted that Mauritius is a privileged partner of France while reaffirming his commitment to provide both financial and technical support for the development and promotion of green infrastructure projects in Mauritius.

He underlined that the French Government, through the AFD, has set up the AdapAction Programme to help vulnerable developing countries from Africa and Small Islands Developing States to achieve low-carbon and climate resilient development with a focus on adaptation to climate change.

Under this assistance, Mauritius would benefit in terms of capacity building, feasibility studies and impact assessment worth 2 million euros. The assistance will help Mauritius to access funds from the Green Climate Fund and other funding institutions for the implementation of the Mauritius Nationally Determined Contributions.

The AdaptAction Programme

With an assistance of 30 million euros over a four-year period, AdaptAction will support 15 countries with a priority focus on Africa, the Least Developed Countries (LDCs), and Small Island Developing States (SIDS), which are among the most vulnerable countries to climate change.

The challenge lies in the implementation of the Paris Agreement and the NDCs submitted by 163 countries, following COP21. These NDCs refer to the concrete commitments made by the countries concerned in their fight against climate change.

The assistance programme for Mauritius, spread over 48 months, comprises three axes namely:

 Strengthening of climate governance to ensure effective implementation of NDC by conducting capacity building activities for all sectors;

 Translating measures identified under NDCs into sectoral public policies, combined with concrete action plans focusing on key relevant sectors; and

 Designing transformational climate programmes and projects with a priority focus on adaptation based on a robust analysis of issues concerning vulnerability to climate change and the various potential adaptation solutions, and integrating the management of uncertainty.

The Terms of Reference (ToRs) for the first phase of the project have been prepared by the AFD in concert with the concerned authorities namely; the Ministry of Social Security, National Solidarity, and Environment and Sustainable Development, Land Drainage Authority (LDA), National Disaster Risks Reduction Management Centre, Ministry of Tourism, and Mauritius Meteorological Services.

The ToRs were finalised during the Coordination Committee on the implementation of the Mauritius Nationally Determined Contributions held on 5 July 2018. They are : development of a National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Policies, Strategic Framework and Action Plan for the Republic of Mauritius; provision of technical assistance to the LDA to foster mainstreaming of climate change in public policies; preparation of a project dedicated to flood risk management in the context of climate change which can be submitted to AFD and the Green Climate Fund for a joint funding; and climate change vulnerability assessment and capacity building for integrated flood management and coastal tourism.Description

GIS  26 September, 2018: A Strategic Prioritisation Retreat (SPR) to discuss the development of a Strategic Partnership Framework (SPF) for the period spanning 2019-2023, opened this morning at Le Meridien Hotel, in Pointe aux Piments.

The three-day SPR is organised by the Office of United Nations Resident Coordinator, in collaboration with the Prime Ministers Office through the Economic Development Board. Around 60 participants comprising senior level and technical staff representatives from Government, and other key stakeholders including, bilateral and multilateral organisations, civil society, academia, research institutions and private sector, are attending. The Retreat is being facilitated by a team of four experts.

In her address the UN Resident Coordinator, Ms Christine N. Umutoni, recalled that the UN has about 17 Agencies that work in Mauritius adding that the present Retreat will allow both sides to elaborate a UN/Government Partnership Framework. It is a coordinated approach over our work as the UN supporting the national vision of the country, she said.

According to Ms Umutoni the UN is working together with the Government in this Retreat to identify the priorities are aligned with the national Vision, national strategy, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), African Unions Agenda 2063 and the SAMOA Pathway so as to map out what could be the priorities for the next five years for the UN and Mauritius.

The priorities would depend on the discussions during the Retreat, she said. This is due to the fact that the national agenda of Mauritius englobes various goals which the country wants to achieve such as improving its blue economy, digitalisation of the economy, dealing with its own vulnerabilities of climate shock, expanding markets, improving labour market, working on maritime security-related issues, and ensuring youth engagement.

For his part the Permanent Secretary, Prime Ministers Office, Mr Om Kumar Dabidin, rejoiced that the longstanding collaboration between the Government of Mauritius and the United Nations has been instrumental in assisting our developing nation to achieve its international developmental goals set forth.

According to him, Government, through its National Vision, endeavours to accelerate inclusive economic growth, development and transformation of the economy from an Upper Middle Income status to an inclusive high-income country status. On that score four principal areas of actions have been identified to enable realisation of an inclusive high-income status. These are: addressing unemployment; alleviating, if not eradicating, poverty; opening up our country and new air access policies; and, sustainable development and innovations.

Indeed, there is a pressing need for Government to strengthen its institutional capacity to encourage planning, coordination and monitoring and evaluation at all levels, he added.

Strategic Prioritisation Retreat

The aim is to have a mutual understanding of the development context in Mauritius including trends, key opportunities and challenges. The objectives are to: develop a strategy to effectively position the UN systems contribution in support of Governments efforts to achieve the SDGs targets; and, identify strategic priorities and outcomes for Mauritius/UN SPF, in line with national development priorities as outlined in Government planning documents.

Strategic Partnership Framework

The Framework will be formulated through a participatory consultative process involving the Government of Mauritius and UN agencies and various partners. As one of the key steps in this consultation, the Retreat is being organised.

The SPF 2019-2023 signifies a collective, coherent and integrated response by the UNs System aligned with Mauritiuss national development priorities to ensure greater efforts for coordination to achieve the SDGs.

Mauritius is an upper-middle country aspiring to become a high-middle economy, and the SPF calls on Government and the UN system, in partnership with various players including the private sector, foundations and academia, civil society and communities, to increase commitment to support the country achieve its vision.

The last UN Development Assistance Framework for Mauritius ended in 2003. Since then there has been only sectoral arrangements with the UNDP. Government emphasised the importance to have an overarching UN/Mauritius Strategic Partnership Framework 2019-2023.After Hurricane Florence devastated the eastern part of North Carolina, some of the state's politicians took to social media and politicized the storm. Some comments focused on hurricane relief funding for the state, or the lack thereof. Others mentioned laws they believe made North Carolina more vulnerable during a large storm.How valid are their comments? We've chosen four statements to explore, and see what evidence there is to support these claims.Ryan Watts, a Democratic congressional candidate, is running for office in District 6, which is historically conservative. The 27-year-old is trying to unseat Republican Rep. Mark Walker.As Hurricane Florence was gearing up to hit North Carolina on Sept. 12, Watts slammed his opponent for voting against disaster relief."Our current Representative has voted against disaster relief on multiple occasions and has not held this administration accountable for taking $10 million dollars out of FEMA's fund for hurricane relief to fund the separation of families at the border," Watts said in a Sept. 12 Facebook post, citing an article from Politics North Carolina, a left-leading political news blog.The article said Walker voted against disaster relief twice last year following hurricanes Harvey, Maria and Irma. The article did not specify which bills Walker voted against, but his communications director Jack Minor said Walker has voted for some disaster relief packages and against other larger spending packages.One such vote, taken on Oct. 12, 2017, approved a $36.5 billion disaster aid package to help victims recover from a series of hurricanes and wildfires. The bill was approved by a 353-69 vote margin, with Walker joining eight other North Carolina representatives in voting no.In an op-ed in theWalker explained that he opposed that bill because it raised the debt ceiling and did not include offsetting spending cuts. "Congress should pay for these emergency packages by cutting spending in other areas that are less of a priority," he wrote. "Even during an emergency Washington needs to pay its bills."On Dec. 21, 2017, Walker voted against another bill providing $81 billion in emergency funds to federal agencies for disaster assistance, which passed by a 251-169 vote.Walker also voted in favor of another Sept. 25, 2017, bill that made it easier for retirement plan participants to access their retirement funds when recovering from the hurricanes.As far as Watt's second claim goes, PolitiFact has confirmed that the Trump administration transferred $10 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Immigrant parents separated from their children at the border in June were sent to ICE detention centers, while their children entered into the custody of a separate federal agency.The Trump administration has said the transferred money was not taken out of FEMA's disaster relief funds, NBC News reported. We searched Google, Nexis and Twitter and could not find any statements from Walker on the transfer of funds.The Watts campaign did not respond to multiple emailed requests for comment.State Rep. Billy Richardson, a Fayetteville Democrat, took to Twitter on Sept. 17 to point out that the Republican-led legislature cut funding for a landslide hazard mapping project.In his tweet, Richardson cited an article from NC Policy Watch, the news arm of the left-leaning North Carolina Justice Center."But in 2011, lawmakers cut off funding to the NC Geological Survey, which was in charge of mapping the hazard zones, and the project stopped," Richardson wrote, quoting directly from the NC Policy Watch article. The project in question  the Hurricane Recovery Act of 2005  directed the state to identify and map potential problem areas in mountainous counties that could be susceptible to landslides.This is true. After Republicans took hold of the state legislature in 2011, lawmakers cut funding for the landslide hazard mapping project, aspreviously reported. The state's geologists had only mapped four of the 19 counties they planned to survey before the project was defunded.But the 2018 state budget, which legislators passed in June over a veto from Gov. Roy Cooper, included $3.6 million for the Department of Environmental Quality to restore the landslide mapping program after three people died from mudslides in western North Carolina, according to the Associated Press.After a devastating hog lagoon flood in Onslow County in 1995, North Carolina placed a hold on the construction of new hog farms in 1997. Because of the effects of hog lagoon floods, people are often concerned when a strong hurricane makes its way to North Carolina.State Senator Brent Jackson, a Autryville Republican, shared this NC Pork Council blog post on Twitter on Sept. 12:"Great article by the NC Pork Council dispelling myths about hog farms during hurricanes. I am proud of the hard work and preparations of our family farmers to make sure their farms are ready to weather the storm," tweeted Jackson.The article aims to divert attention away from hogs and on to water treatment plants, which the pork council says spill more sewage and affect a larger number of North Carolinians than overflowing hog lagoons do. It also points out that water treatment plants have spills during regular storms.The North Carolina Pork Council reports there are more than 3,300 active hog lagoons in the state. Hog lagoons, also known as anaerobic lagoons, have a natural system in place to deal with hog waste. The animals release their waste into a hole where a bacteria interacts with the waste so it can then be used as fertilizer.Five hog lagoons have been damaged in the hurricane, according to the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality. The N.C. DEQ also reports 21 hog lagoons either are or were overflowing as a result of the rain Hurricane Florence brought. In addition, 17 lagoons are experiencing inundation, which means "surface water is surrounding and flowing into the lagoon."Spilled waste from these lagoons can be toxic. Hog manure contains pathogens including salmonella and E. coli that have a potential to spread.As for the municipal water treatment plants in the state, they are causing a problem as well.About 5.2 million gallons of partly treated wastewater has spilled into the Cape Fear River.reports the spill was due to a loss of electricity during the hurricane. The back-up generators at the Southside Wastewater Treatment planned failed as well.As of Sept. 19, 300,000 gallons of raw sewage had spilled in Johnston County, according to aarticle. The city of Benson released a statement that the sewage spills were a result of the excessive rain from Hurricane Florence.In addition, 109,200 gallons of sewage spilling into rivers in Johnston County, as reported byIt's spilling into Holt Lake and Neuse River.Nearly half of the state's residents have a private septic tank. Floodwaters not only move solid waste across the area, but they can also pick up animal carcasses  like the 5,500 pigs and 3.4 million chickens and turkeys that have died so far in this storm.At the end of the day, any feces, human or animal, in flooded areas is not a good thing. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a long list of diseases that can spread after a natural disaster.Where does hurricane relief money come from? Some of it comes from the federal government and donations. But states also have "rainy day funds" to help during disasters.North Carolina Rep. Chuck McGrady, a Hendersonville Republican, pointed out on Twitter that North Carolina's rainy day fund is quite "enviable.""This is true. As a percentage of the budget, the $2 billion Rainy Day Fund is relatively small. However, if one compares the reserves that NC has to the reserves that most other states have, NC is in an enviable position," tweeted McGrady on Sept. 11. He is the budget chair.Money from this $2 billion fund could potentially be used during Hurricane Florence recovery.The Insider's Colin Campbell reports North Carolina's rainy day fund is larger than it has been during past storms. The state's savings is proportionally larger when compared to Virginia and South Carolina, as well.The Pew Charitable Trusts, a nonpartisan organization, researches states' rainy day funds annually. In 2018, they found that North Carolina could run for 30.4 days if the government shut down  making North Carolina in much better shape than some other states. Kentucky's rainy day fund would last about nine days, while Connecticut only has enough for four days.But some states do have much larger rainy day funds. The state of Alaska can run for over a year if the government shuts down, and so can Wyoming.This story was produced by the North Carolina Fact-Checking Project, a partnership of McClatchy Carolinas, the Duke University Reporters' Lab and PolitiFact. The NC Local News Lab Fund and the International Center for Journalists provide support for the project, which shares fact-checks with newsrooms statewide.2018 The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.)Visit The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.) at www.newsobserver.comDistributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government said on Monday it has banned a separatist group that advocates "Hong Kong independence".

SAR Secretary for Security John Lee Ka-chiu, who made the decision, said the ban on the "Hong Kong National Party" was in accordance with the Societies Ordinance.

The ban on the HKNP, effective immediately, was made in the interests of national security, public safety, public order and the protection of the rights and freedoms of others, Lee said.

What the HKNP aims to do contravenes the Basic Law and undermines national security, the security chief said.

The secretary for security is vested with the power to issue an order to prohibit the operation or continued operation of a society if it violates stipulations in the Societies Ordinance.

To achieve its goal of splitting Hong Kong from the country, the HKNP has repeatedly called for the "use of all means", including using "force", and has encouraged its supporters to use force, in various social media posts and public statements, the government said.

The ban came after police had given the group about two months, until Sept 14, to submit arguments against the proposed ban. The police extended the deadline three times at the HKNP's request for more time to seek legal advice.

Defying the proposed ban issued on July 17, the HKNP's convener Andy Chan Ho-tin publicly advocated "Hong Kong independence" in a talk at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Hong Kong on Aug 14.

Chan and the FCC were heavily criticized for furthering or aiding the HKNP's separatist agenda.

The HKNP ban received firm support from the central government. The Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council expressed resolute support of the SAR government's decision to put a halt to the operation of the separatist group.

Calling the action "absolutely necessary", the spokesperson of the office said the central government firmly supports punishment for any act that jeopardizes national security in accordance with the law, and has zero tolerance for any organizations preaching "Hong Kong independence" or engaging in activities to split the country.

An unnamed spokesperson for the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in the HKSAR also voiced support. The HKNP has blatantly advocated and spread the notion of separatism in gross violation of the Constitution, the Basic Law of Hong Kong SAR and relevant local laws, the spokesperson said.

The decision was also hailed in Hong Kong society. In a joint statement, 34 lawmakers in the city fully supported the ban, saying it would serve as a warning for separatists.

Starry Lee Wai-king, chairwoman of the city's largest political party in the legislaturethe Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kongsaid the government's decision delivers a stern and clear message that advocating "Hong Kong independence" would not be tolerated.

The Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions said the ban is in line with society's expectations and is reasonable and legitimate.

Starting Monday, Societies Ordinance stipulations on illegal groups took effect on the HKNP. Prohibited actions include running or assisting the operation of the illegal group, acting as a member of the group, providing venues for the group or giving it financial aid. Such acts would incur a fine and a maximum imprisonment of two to three years.

Chan said on Monday that he needed more time before commenting.

The group may appeal the ban within 30 days to the chief executive of the SAR.Replacement of a statewide enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, a major tech initiative in the state of North Carolina, is unlikely to be affected by the Nov. 6 midterm election, but members of a joint IT oversight committee said recently their work could be inhibited by the looming contest.The three lawmakers, all members of the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on Information Technology , joined state CIO Eric Boyette and Shannon Tufts, associate professor and director of the Center for Public Technology at the University of North Carolina, for a panel discussion on Technology and Public Policy during the North Carolina Digital Government Summit last month.Asked byafterward which tech projects were front-and-center, state Sen. Jeff Tarte and Rep. Jason Saine, the committees co-chairmen, agreed the ERP replacement is crucial. The states existing system sunsets in 2023 and our entire financials have to be replaced, Tarte said, calling it such a big deal, and a genuine problem if not converted.Saine said the ERP and cybersecurity are among the committees top priorities, but emphasized the former was at the top of the conversation for the Legislature during its entire session. The biggest hurdle and a key aspect of the committees mission? Educating the Legislature on this and other technology initiatives, he said.Weve got multiple iterations and different departments that need it. So that probably has been the biggest challenge to getting colleagues to even understand what I mean, Saine said in an interview.Tarte and Saine, both Republicans, and fellow committee member Sen. Jay Chaudhuri, a Democrat, all face re-election in November and spoke warmly of working relationships across the aisle in the Legislature, noting the divisiveness of the current political climate and the intense need in IT stewardship to find common ground.As far as relationships, IT, were a nonpartisan, nonpolitical entity. Were here again as a function to serve so that you can do your job better. Thats what we do. And the foundation of it is relationships, Tarte, a three-term mayor of Cornelius, a Charlotte suburb, said during the panel. Saine said theres nothing partisan about technology, and called it agnostic as far as politics go.One thing that I think is very clear to me, we may not agree on tax policy, we may not agree on guns, but we certainly agree on technology being able to achieve us efficiencies in building a smarter, more efficient government, Chaudhuri, who is finishing his first two-year term this fall, told the audience. The Nov. 6 contest complicates relationships emotionally, he added, knowing some of his newfound friends face difficult races.But midterms could also potentially slow the committees work, Tarte and Saine said in conversation as an empty chair on the dais behind them underscored the constancy of change. Democratic Rep. Edward Hanes Jr., scheduled to join the panel, resigned to pursue other opportunities on Aug. 7, as reported by The News & Observer . Regardless of the reason, departures have an impact, Saine said.Just like in IT, youll have retirements or folks who get retired, who have levels of expertise. Election cycle comes and now you start all over again. Well have new folks who then have to be caught up to speed. And then that will take us close to a year and before you know it, were running again for re-election and focus goes on to something else, Saine said, adding he cant fault Hanes for his decision.Saine and Chaudhuri are considered safe and likely to win re-election, they said. But Tarte, founder of multi-million-dollar consulting firm Applied Revenue Analytics, is among the statehouse candidates representing Mecklenburg County  and who, thanks to redistricting, now face re-election in districts won in 2016 by presidential candidate Hillary Clinton according to The Charlotte Observer Tarte toldthe committee would be greatly affected if we lose. He highlighted the singularity of his contest and said: Ive got the governor and the attorney general, who are both friends  the AG is a very close friend, working against me just for the party. Its the nature of the beast. Gov. Roy Cooper, whose remarks opened the event , and state Attorney General Josh Stein are both Democrats.(TNS)  Officials in Potter County, Texas, have approved an agreement designed to enhance emergency response times, with the overarching goal of bolstering community safety and security.During Monday's Potter County Commissioners' Court meeting the body voted 5-0 in favor of an arrangement with AT&T for access to the U.S. Department of Commerce First Responder Network Authority, also known as FirstNet. FirstNet was created to be a force-multiplier for first responders, officials said, providing public safety personnel 21st century communication tools to help save lives, solve crimes and keep emergency responders, as well as the communities they serve, safe.Authorities said in emergencies and at large events, heavy public use can lead to wireless communications networks becoming overloaded and inaccessible, adding when those circumstances occur, public safety users are treated the same as any other commercial or enterprise user and communications can be limited due to congestion and capacity issues. However, officials said the FirstNet Network delivers a dedicated fast lane to public safety personnel, granting highly secure communications daily for every emergency - such as priority access, preemption and more network capacity."Right now we have all of our air cards with Sprint, but in case of an emergency, FirstNet moves you ahead of everybody else," Potter County Chief Deputy Sheriff David Johnson said. "So when you're calling at 5 o'clock going home and get a busy signal and it says try your call later, we would have priority over anyone else should an emergency occur. The main thing is the priority access in the case of an emergency. It will be for any of our vehicles that have computers."FirstNet is delivering more than just a public-safety-dedicated wireless connection, authorities noted, adding it is also creating devices and apps ecosystems connecting first responders to life-saving technologies."What was interesting to me that I didn't know about this program, I think it was in 2012, is Congress took action to say all first responders need to be on some type of common network," Commissioner Mercy Murguia said. "And this partnership is what came together. This seems to be the only partnership that existed on this level for all first responders nationally."All 50 states, five U.S. territories and Washington, D.C., serve as FirstNet participants, per the Commerce Department, which noted locale each has accepted its individual State Plan detailing how the network will be deployed in their state / territory.Paice announced it has reached an agreement to license its patented hybrid technology to Honda.

Paice has now licensed its hybrid vehicle technology portfolio to many of the largest automakers in the worldHonda, Toyota, Ford, Hyundai/Kia, and otherswho collectively account for more than 80% of all hybrid vehicle sales in the United States. Terms of the licensing agreement are confidential.

Dr. Alex Severinsky established Paice in 1992 and was awarded his first hybrid vehicle patent in 1994. During the companys early years, Severinsky worked closely with two experienced automotive veterans: Bob Templin, a Paice board member who had served as chief engineer of Cadillac and technical director of GMs Research Laboratory; and Ted Louckes, a 40-year veteran of General Motors who served as Paices Chief Operating Officer and was instrumental in developing Paices hybrid technology alongside Dr. Severinsky. To date, Paice has been awarded 30 US and foreign patents.In 2014, at KU Leuvens Centre for Surface Chemistry and Catalysis, researchers succeeded in converting sawdust into building blocks for gasoline. A chemical process made it possible to convert the cellulose in the sawdust into hydrocarbon chains. These hydrocarbons can be used as an additive in gasoline. (Earlier post.)

The researchers have now investigated how industry could integrate this process to produce cellulosic biogasoline in large quantities. A paper on their work is published in the journal Nature Energy.

Here we demonstrate the production of biogasoline with a direct upstream integration into processes in existing petrorefinery facilities that targets the 10% bio-based carbon in accordance with the current European Union directives (for 2020) for biofuels. To achieve this goal, we show the valorization of (hemi)cellulose pulp into light naphtha using a two-phase (H 2 O:organic) catalytic slurry process. A C 5 C 6 alkane stream, enriched with bio-derived carbon and compatible with further downstream petrorefinery operations for (bio)gasoline production, is automatically obtained by utilizing fossil light straight run naphtha as the organic phase. The ease of integration pleads for a joint petro/bio effort to gradually produce bio-enriched gasolines, wherein the chemical compounds of the bio-derived fraction are indistinguishable from those in current high-quality gasoline compositions. Deneyer et al.





Schematic representation of a petrorefinery with upstream integration of the LPCtoN technology. LPCtoN enriches a petrochemical stream (gold) with renewable bio-naphtha (C 5 C 6 (green), and thus chemically identical molecules) before its processing in an existing LSR isomerization unit of the petrorefinery. In line with European Union directives, an integration of 10% bio-derived carbon in transportation fuels by 2020 is the aim. Current bio- enrichment is done by ethanol blending downstream (below right). LSR, light straight run naphtha; HSR, heavy straight run naphtha; FCC, fluid catalytic cracking; LPG, liquid petroleum gas; LPCtoN, liquid phase cellulose-to-naphtha. Deneyer et al.

ResourcesToyota announced that it will provide its hydrogen fuel cell technology to Caetanobus SA in Portugal. Toyota will supply its fuel cell systems, including fuel cell stacks, hydrogen tanks and other key components to Caetanobus SAthe Portuguese bus engineering and production companyto build hydrogen fuel cell city buses.





The first fuel cell city buses will roll off the lines of Caetanobus SA in a little over a year, and are to be operated as demonstration buses by Caetanobus SA.

In line with its vision of a decarbonized societyas stated in its 2050 environmental challengeToyota is promoting the application of its hydrogen fuel cell technology beyond passenger cars, including heavy-duty trucks, small delivery trucks, forklifts and buses.

Supplying our fuel cell systems to Caetanobus demonstrates the many practical uses and environmental benefits of hydrogen towards a carbon-free society. Were really excited by the prospect of seeing the first buses of our longstanding automotive partner in European cities. Hydrogen buses have significant advantages compared to other zero emission buses, such as superior driving range and short refuelling time. These benefits allow hydrogen buses to be operated on longer routes and a higher utilization. Dr Johan van Zyl, President and CEO, Toyota Motor Europe

The announcement was made in Lisbon during the visit of the Energy Observer catamaran, the first hydrogen sea vessel powered purely by renewable solar and hydrogen energy.Jessica Ramos, at the Vendys judges tables. Photo: Scott Heins

Luis Alfonso Marin Valencia has sold Colombian arepas from his food cart, El Sabroso de Aracataca, for 30 years. His signature is the arepa de queso, a plump corn cake griddled until golden brown and stuffed with oozing, melted cheese. On any weekend nights, youll see fans gathered around his cart. Yet for most of his career, he was forced to sell his food illegally. I worked 20 years without a license, he says. I applied for a permit 15 years ago and spent eight years on the waiting list. I worried. The police, sanitation workers  theyre all asking for your permits, but the city doesnt want to give them.

We were talking at the 14th annual Vendy Awards, the annual celebration of street food, and fundraiser, put on by the Street Vendors Project. On a lawn on Governors Island, attendees mosied by with food in hand: crunchy homemade wafers with dulce de leche from Delmys Obleas, spongy injera from Makina Cafe, sample-sized portions of outrageously tasty keema palta and coconut soup from Burmese Bites. Malai Ice Cream and Saravanaa Bhavan both sold out before 2:50 p.m., while El Sabroso de Aracataca maintained a Cronut-worthy line for the whole afternoon. Valencia was up for the nights biggest award, the Vendy Cup  recognition that was as much about the quality of his food as it was a testament to his three decades of perseverance.

New Yorks street vendors are an invaluable part of city life, yet the city has never done much to make their lives easier. Most are people of color and immigrants, many of whom are undocumented. They hold little to no political clout, and brick-and-mortar business owners are often hostile to the sidewalk workers. Vendors can be perceived as unscrupulous, unsanitary, and blights on their communities. A 2014 Daily News report makes the entire industry sound like a lawless public-hazard. Vendors have accused police of harassment for years, and dealt with historically unfriendly BID campaigns. In 2016, the president of the 34th Street Partnership told Metro that New Yorks vendors are the worst collection of ugly and poorly run food carts in any city in the country. Vendors also have to contend with ongoing efforts to limit where they can operate: In June, for example, a City Council bill was proposed that would expand the no-vending zone around the World Trade Center.

The citys government, it seems, isnt interested in helping more workers become vendors, either. The city capped food-vendor permits in the early 1980s; there are currently just over 4,000 available, often only on the black market, where they might cost $25,000 (the city, by comparison, charges $200 for two-year permits, which can be renewed indefinitely). And yet a 2015 report found that as recently as 2012, New Yorks vendors contributed an estimated $293 million to the citys economy and $71.2 million in taxes. Dick Carpenter, from the Institute for Justice, told Civil Eats at the time, street vendors are a very vital, dynamic sector of the economy.

Clockwise from top left: Arepas on the griddle. Ramos, addressing the crowd. Plates from Royal Grill Halal Food. Photos by Scott Heins. Clockwise from top left: Arepas on the griddle. Ramos, addressing the crowd. Plates from Royal Grill Halal Food. Photos by Sco... more Clockwise from top left: Arepas on the griddle. Ramos, addressing the crowd. Plates from Royal Grill Halal Food. Photos by Scott Heins.

Yet if the citys vendors are so important to both the culture and the economy of New York, why wont people do more to help them simply work? Jessica Ramos, a Democratic nominee for State Senate, has made this exact question a focal point of her campaign. Shes running in District 13 in Queens, after defeating incumbent Jose Peralta in the Democratic primary. The district includes a stretch of Roosevelt Avenue thats the center of New Yorks street-food world, and houses our only sidewalk night-market. Look, the level of neglect of Roosevelt Avenue from pretty much every level of government is astounding, Ramos says. We actually should be investing in these small businesses.

To offer her support, Ramos had arrived at the Vendys as a guest of Sean Basinski, the founder of the Street Vendors Project. Shed agreed to be a judge and it soon became clear that the demands of the role might require Ramos  not exactly a professional eater  to call in some backup. After getting a platter of Frankys Souvlakis skewers, rice, and pita, she looked at a campaign aide, and asked about her husband: Brendan needs to get over here  this is a lot of food. Ramoss two kids, meanwhile, offered their own support with a chant of Pizza, pizza, pizza for Jianettos Pizza and Catering.

The street vendors in District 13 are, by and large, different from the purveyors that rose to prominence during the food-truck boom of the early-00s. Not all of them have permits, and some of the best food on the streets is made by people with complicated, harrowing stories. They just do such hard work; they dont deserve to have it so hard, Ramos says. Even Maria Cano, the (now retired) Arepa Lady, was undocumented and un-permitted when she started. She was also a refugee of Colombias drug war, a judge in Medellin in the 80s who turned to food to survive in New York.

Street vending is an inherently New York City thing, Ramos said to me. I dont know why there needs to be a cap on permits. She offered an example, another contender for a Vendy award: Royal Grill Halal Food rents their license from another person, and pays $18,000  this is like the taxi situation in many ways. A City Council bill that would have gradually doubled the cap died in December, a bitter defeat. They just make enough to live, Ramos says. Its not an easy way of life.

Ramos wants state government to be doing more to protect people, including food vendors. This means advocating for making New York a sanctuary state, limiting interactions between local law enforcement and ICE (which she supports abolishing), and providing undocumented immigrants with legal representation. She also wants to introduce legislation that would eliminate unsubstantiated 311 and 911 complaints from businesses records. And shes critical of what she sees as police prioritizing ticketing vendors. Bringing more police officers to Roosevelt Avenue isnt exactly the way we avoid the separation of families, she told me.

As the Vendys wore on, a crowd gathered by a stage for the awards ceremony. The nights biggest prize would go to Royal Grill Halal Food, but before that happened, Basinski invited Ramos up onstage. Its not so often that an elected official supports the most marginalized people, he said.

Ramos quickly got to work, telling the crowd, Roosevelt Avenue is all about great food. I always thought it was important to put our food vendors, our street vendors, front and center in our campaign  its important that we keep Queens affordable for working families, and thats exactly why its important to protect street vendors.Photo: Theo Wargo/Getty Images

Its been a rough few weeks for SoundCloud rapper, Lil Xan. He just broke up with his girlfriend of two months, Noah Cyrus, because she either cheated on him or because it was all a ploy by their record company to get some Spotify plays. And now hes been hospitalized after he says he ate too many Hot Cheetos.

In a video shared on Instagram, the 21-year-old rapper says he had to go to the hospital on Monday because he started puking up a little blood after snacking a little too hard.

Flamin Hot Cheetos and the Mexican snack Takis are apparently a leading cause of gastric-related hospital visits among kids, with one Memphis, Tennessee, childrens hospital estimating this year that it sees 100150 patients per year following overconsumption of spicy snacks. Whether this has nothing or absolutely everything to do with the 2012 banger, Hot Cheetos and Takis, is still up for debate.WASHINGTON, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Treasury announced on Tuesday that it has imposed sanctions on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's "inner circle," including Maduro's wife and other key government officials.

The Treasury said in a statement that it has blacklisted Venezuelan first lady Cilia Flores, Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, Communications Minister Jorge Rodriguez and Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino.

The sanctions would freeze any assets that a blacklisted person holds under U.S. jurisdiction and ban any U.S. individuals or companies from making business transactions with them.

In addition, the United States also put sanctions on a network which it accused of supporting a key front man for President of Venezuela's National Constituent Assembly (ANC) Diosdado Cabello, seizing a 20-million-U.S. dollar private jet that belonged to the front man.

The United States has been stepping up pressure on the South American country by imposing a string of sanctions, including ones on Maduro himself and the senior officials.

Venezuela has said it does not recognize any sanctions imposed on the country without UN authorization.Hao Noodle. Photo: Melissa Hom

The Meatpacking District, as its name indicates, was once home to the citys wholesale butchering trade, and some New Yorkers remember the days when the cobblestoned streets smelled of rotten meat, were slick with fat, and were hosed down daily to clean off the animal gore. Following the exodus to new facilities in the Bronx, few meatpackers remain, and a gentrification boom has transformed the enclave sandwiched between the West Village and Chelsea into an epicenter of designer shops, boutique hotels, and glitzy nightlife. Not every restaurant has a Champagne-fueled brunch that ends in table dancing (though one of the bonuses of being in a party-hearty hood is that many spots are open from breakfast until late night). There are still some sane places to eat, and even some great ones. Here are the absolute best restaurants in the Meatpacking District.

The Absolute Best 1. Hao Noodle Chelsea

343 W. 14th St., nr. Ninth Ave.; 646-882-0059 Never mind the name  this second branch of a China-based chain is close enough to the murky border between Chelsea and the Meatpacking District that either neighborhood can rightfully claim it. And both should, on account of its fantastic food, accessible prices, professional service, and comfortable ambience. (They even take reservations!) Like its Greenwich Village predecessor, the kitchen specializes in regional Chinese cooking, particularly in the specialties of Sichuan, with some Shanghainese dishes, too. The ma la is in full effect in the Le Shan chicken, a haystack of shredded poultry tossed with scallion slivers and sesame seeds, and laced through with mouth-numbing house-made chile sauce. From the grill, an oil-slicked eggplant comes to the table splayed, doused in a hot-sweet-sour fish sauce, and soft enough to eat with a spoon. A dish of wood-ear mushrooms, floppy and chewy and tossed with sliced hot pepper and cilantro leaves in a Chinese vinegar dressing, is nothing short of addictive. Dont leave without trying the noodles. The dan dan noodles are a crowd pleaser, but for a regal bowl, sample the lions head meatballs, gelatinously tender spheres of pork and Chinese yam, with wheat noodles, fresh greens, and a poached egg in a rich broth darkened with soy sauce.

2. Toro

85 Tenth Ave., at West St.; 212-691-2360

This cavernous Spanish restaurant buzzes with after-work types who gather at the bar for drinks served in hollowed-out grapefruits, and parties that crowd the communal table in a dining room booming with hip-hop. Legs of jamon hang from the rafters in an industrial space equipped with cement floors and reclaimed-wood surfaces. Chef-owners Ken Oringer and Jamie Bissonnette serve nuanced interpretations of tapas that are a pleasure to eat: The hamachi crudo with dashi gelee, tomato water, Sungold tomatoes, and chile oil has hints of smoke, fruit, and spice. The gambas al ajillo are a generous portion of shrimp cooked on the plancha, coated in a luscious cascabel-chile sauce that upstages the top-billed garlic. And a pressed uni sandwich with miso butter and mustard seeds is like an aquatic grilled cheese  hot and buttery with a custardy center, and just salty enough to lure you into buying another round of drinks.

3. The Wild Son

53 Little W. 12th St., nr. Washington St.; 212-727-7900

Photo: Melissa Hom

The Wild Son is too cool to be in the Meatpacking District. The shabby-chic all-day cafe is low key and well-priced, offering a millennial power menu made with care. The vibe is chill, thanks to plenty of natural light, hanging plants, a friendly staff, and hints that youre in a safe space, like the no sex sign on the bathroom door. A respectable avocado toast (called a green tartine here), the measure of such a place, features an avocado half topped with a runny egg, served on multigrain bread slathered with herbed yogurt, and a thoughtfully placed wedge of lime on the side, which, when spritzed on top, brings the sandwich to life. The All Day, Every Day salad, a cross between a kale salad and a grain bowl, featured kale ribbons tossed with slivers of watermelon radish, cubes of squash, farro, and a savory seeded granola, all flavorful and clean. Wash it down with the obligatory black drink, a charcoal lemonade sweetened with honey, which is tart, fizzy, refreshing, and sipped through a paper straw (natch).

4. Old Homestead Steakhouse

56 Ninth Ave., nr. 14th St.; 212-242-9040

The Old Homestead has everything you want from an old-school steakhouse. Geriatric waiters? Check. Carpeted dining room? Yes. Red leather banquettes? They have those, too. Its no wonder  its the oldest steakhouse in New York, open since 1868, and its location, adjacent to the historic Meatpacking District, feels meaningful. Though the wine list and dessert menus are presented on iPads and there have been inevitable attempts to modernize the menu (lots of truffled things), the place is still legit. The dry-aged USDA prime steak comes in the cuts you want, like the classic porterhouse for two, or a more modest 34-ounce bone-in Gotham rib steak, aged 28 days, nicely charred, cooked to a rosy pink, and topped with frizzled onions. The creamed spinach, which the waiter adorably referred to as healthy, is like the greens version of Robuchons mashed potatoes  suspended in creamy goodness and more dairy product than vegetable.

5. Bubbys

73 Gansevoort St., at Washington St.; 212-219-0666

Photo: Melissa Hom

This Meatpacking outpost of a Tribeca institution is all about comfort food that hits the spot. Which might explain the lengthy menu that includes not one but two types of pancake (the James Beard, enriched with sour cream, and the crazy tangy sourdough), biscuits, burgers, and so much more. Its a casual spot, with a sunny, spacious interior, sidewalk seating, and a lengthy bar  perfect for dinner alone, with the family, or outside with your dog. Its open from breakfast (which is served all day) until late, and prides itself on being wholesome, so the burgers come from grass-fed cows, as does the butter served with the warm biscuits. The delectable fried chicken, with a crust so crisp that its immune to refrigeration, hails from Sullivan County upstate. Though Bubbys makes a big deal about its pies, dessert from the Ample Hills Creamery scoop shop, also located in the restaurant, is the way to go.

6. Santina

820 Washington St., at Gansevoort St.; 212-254-3000

Photo: Melissa Hom

This breezy restaurant from Major Food Group is like Miami on the Hudson. Windows outnumber walls, and while the menu is coastal Mediterranean, the feel is tropical, bolstered by potted palms, a kitschy seaside mural, and pastel-and-white uniforms that resemble yacht-club attire. You almost feel compelled to order an Aperol spritz (served with an olive) and dig into a platter of fritto misto, a hefty appetizer that could easily feed two, chock-full of sundry seafood including tiny squid and gently cooked scallops and shrimp, with tartar sauce. The restaurant claims to be gluten-free, but the extensive pasta offerings do not suffer for it. Spaghetti with blue crab is another huge portion, dressed in a fruity cherry tomato sauce and punctuated with bits of sweet crab.

7. Untitled

99 Gansevoort St., nr. Washington St.; 212-570-3670

Photo: Tirzah Brott

This minimalist dining room, located on the ground floor of the Renzo Pianodesigned Whitney Museum, doubles as a showroom for mid-century furniture  namely, the Eero Saarinen chairs that anchor the spare decor. A meal here wont be the most memorable of your life, but its a cut above most museum food, and with gratuity included, the price is quite reasonable. Chef Suzanne Cupps has designed a menu of small plates that arent so small  the server recommends two to three per person, but two is plenty. One good choice, romaine with bits of Surryano ham, blue cheese, Sungold tomatoes, and a nutty pumpkin-seed mole dressing, is a fresh take on a wedge salad, while tender scallops in a pool of tangy melon gazpacho, dotted with cute Mexican cucumbers, also exhibited some finesse. And if you get the right seat, its a lovely place to catch the sunset over the Hudson.

8. The Standard Grill

848 Washington St., nr. 13th St.; 212-645-4100

The Standard, High Line, the hotel that straddles the elevated park, is vast  theres the biergarten, communal plazas for hanging out, a couple of glitzy clubs, and the Standard Grill, the hotels official canteen. The restaurant itself is sprawling, too, with sidewalk seating and coveted tables in discreet shaded nooks, and two sizeable dining rooms that exude Keith McNallyesque charm, thanks to subway tile, a floor embedded with pennies, and specials written on mirrors, bistro-style. Its not the scene that it was when it opened in 2009, but its still a pleasant perch from which to slurp down a dozen icy Massachusetts oysters (served with droppers of lemon juice, Tabasco, and mignonette), or to dig into a solid burger with well-seasoned shoestring fries and a sour pickle.

9. Simo Pizza

90-92 Gansevoort St., nr. Washington St.; 212-462-2703

Photo: Melissa Hom

This fast-casual Neapolitan pizzeria is what every touristy neighborhood needs  a good-looking space with ample seating that serves delicious food thats quick and cheap. Part of Simos appeal is curation: A short list of salads and pizzas, a few well-chosen wines, and some fizzy Italian drinks make for a stylish menu. The seating is dignified, too, with roomy communal tables, cloth napkins, real flatware, and a bottle of tap water with a Duralex glass, just for you. Order at the counter and wait mere minutes until your pizza is served, blistering hot, from a gorgeous copper oven. The margherita pizza is exemplary, a flavorful crust topped with a bright San Marzano tomato sauce, gooey mozzarella di bufala, a drizzle of olive oil, and fresh basil. And while the cacio e pepe pizza may leave you wanting to dab grease off your slice like mom used to, with its topping of pecorino, black pepper, mozzarella, basil, and olive oil, its a dead ringer for everyones favorite pasta dish.

10. Kobrick Coffee Co.

24 Ninth Ave., nr. 13th St.; 212-255-5588

This first retail location of an old roasting company with roots in New York City is a cafe by day and a bar by night, bolstered by a small menu that is valiantly executed with two panini presses, a convection oven, and an espresso-machine steam wand. Start the day with a quality egg sandwich made with caramelized shallots, chives, and grated cheddar on crusty Sullivan Street Bakery bread, and a coffee-based mocktail like the Lemony Yemeni, a frothy drink made from lemon juice, apple blossom bitters, maple syrup, and cascara  tea brewed from the fruit of the coffee plant  spiced with cinnamon and fresh ginger. (The regular espresso drinks are great, too.) Come evening, the lights at the handsome, old-timey space are dimmed, and cocktails take over. The Three-Hour Kyoto Negroni, a slow extraction of sweet vermouth, gin, Campari, and Burundi coffee, is a balancing act of fragrance and bitterness, a gastronomic retort to Red Bull and vodka. Order the charcuterie board, a tasty variety of cured meats, pickled things, and cheese, and youve cobbled together dinner.Opinion

Johnsons way of seeing life is talk of the town

For a man whos apparently spent a lifetime bending the rules it took some chutzpah to say  as Boris Johnson did last night  that those who break the rules must be investigated and should be punished. His comments came exactly a week after



Haiti - Tourism : Towards cooperation with DR to promote multi-destination tourism





On Tuesday at Haiti's stand at the IFTM Top Resa 2018, in Paris, Marie-Christine Stephenson, the new Minister of Tourism received the visit of her Dominican counterpart Francisco Javier Garcia Fernandez.



The two ministers spoke of promoting and reviving the multi-destination tourism initiated in 2012 by the Minister Stephanie Balmir Villedrouin https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-6030-haiti-tourism-agreements-of-multidestination-tourism.html and have committed to developing joint actions to promote the global tourism of the island. Minister Stephenson wanted tourists visiting Haiti and the Dominican Republic to travel between destinations in both countries without having to pay to cross the border.



Garcia Fernandez added that "the goal is for tourists who visit the Dominican Republic, if they have to make a day trip to Haiti, can enjoy an excursion in a complementary offer, without having to pay any fees to the border."



Following their meeting, Minister Stephenson declared "We want to work together. The first thing to do is to advertise the two countries [...] we must work on the image of security, we have a tourist police (PoliTour) and we are working on the regionalization of tourism, north and south, even if we also want to sell the capital as a tourist attraction" believing that both countries could work together to promote the image of an attractive island for tourists.



Garcia Fernandez announced that in November he would receive his Haitian counterpart, to continue the cooperation talks and that he will then go to Haiti for a visit of the sites accompanied by of entrepreneurs of the tourism sector. He reiterated the desire of the Dominican Republic to provide advice and support so that Haiti can create a tourist promotion office in the Dominican Republic so that "Dominicans and tourists can know the tourist attractions of Haiti" saying "between Caribbean countries, there should be no competition." https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-6962-haiti-tourism-the-dominican-republic-makes-the-promotion-of-tourism-in-haiti.html but that together we should try to attract visitors to the area to strengthen the entire destination, saying, "As we strengthen the regional destination, each country will increase the arrival of its tourists."



See also :

https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-25633-icihaiti-tourism-zero-waste-the-credo-of-the-new-minister.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-25625-haiti-news-zapping.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-25607-haiti-news-zapping.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-22594-haiti-dr-northern-tourism-operators-want-to-establish-a-binational-alliance.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-6962-haiti-tourism-the-dominican-republic-makes-the-promotion-of-tourism-in-haiti.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-6030-haiti-tourism-agreements-of-multidestination-tourism.html



SL/ HaitiLibre





















Haiti - News : Zapping...





Teachers 3 days of demonstrations announced

Several trade union organizations, among others, announce three days of general demonstrations on 28th, 30th September and 5th October (World Teachers' Day) in order to demand that the State assume its obligations towards teachers and obtain better working conditions.



Chancellors : DR-HT : Bilateral meeting in N-Y

On the sidelines of the 73rd regular session of the General Assembly, Dominican Chancellor Miguel Vargas Maldonado met as announced https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-25605-icihaiti-economy-dr-want-the-formalization-of-informal-border-trade-with-haiti.html his Haitian counterpart the new Minister of Foreign Affairs Edmond Bocchit. The two chancellors talked about trade, migration and security among other topics of bilateral interest.



USA : cooperation with Haiti

On Monday, US Ambassador to Haiti Michele Jeanne Sison met with the new Minister of Planning Jean Claudy Pierre, to discuss cooperation between the United States and Haiti to mobilize resources in line with the development priorities of the Haitian Government.



Justice : Margareth Fortune again convened

Margareth Fortune, the Director General of the Haitian State Lottery (LEH), who did not show up for the first time and explained why in a letter, received a new convocation from the Procuratorate of Port-au-Prince for October 24, 2018, to explain allegations of corruption by supposed LEH agents See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-25606-haiti-justice-convened-the-dg-of-the-state-lottery-stands-up-to-the-commissioner-of-the-government.html



CASEC : last days to deposit your projects

The Ministry of the Interior and Territorial Communities informs the Municipal Administration Committees (CASEC), in particular, that arrangements have been made for the files relating to the projects submitted during the 2017-2018 financial year to be processed in the shorter deadline, Also, the Ministry takes the opportunity to invite the CASEC who have not yet submitted their project document, to do it by the end of September.



Haiti victim of greenhouse gas

On the sidelines of the 73rd Ordinary Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations, President Moise took part in the annual Concordia Summit to present Haiti's preparations for disaster preparedness "I will not miss a single opportunity to recall that island countries contribute very little to the emission of greenhouse gases, while they are severely affected by them. This only increases the level of their vulnerability."



HL/ HaitiLibre

















U.S. President Donald Trump and his South Korean counterpart Moon Jae-in on Monday agreed to keep pressure on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and discussed plans to hold a second meeting between Trump and the DPRK's top leader Kim Jong Un.

A statement issued by the White House said that during their meeting at the United Nations, Moon shared with Trump the outcomes of the latest inter-Korean summit.

"Trump commended President Moon on conducting a successful third inter-Korean summit with Chairman Kim, and noted that there remained much work to be done to accomplish their mutual goal of achieving the final, fully verified denuclearization of North Korea," the White House said in the statement.

"The two leaders agreed on the importance of maintaining vigorous enforcement of existing sanctions to ensure North Korea understands that denuclearization is the only path to economic prosperity and lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula," the White House said.

"Both leaders also discussed plans for a second summit between President Trump and Chairman Kim in the not too distant future and committed to closely coordinate on next steps," it said.

Before his meeting with Moon, Trump said that his second summit with Kim will be announced "pretty soon", yet the summit is likely to take place in a different place.

"We'll be having a second summit with Chairman Kim in the not too distant future," he said. "Our Secretary of State will be dealing with that subject. Mike Pompeo has been in touch with them, and we've been in touch with them."

"I think within a fairly -- pretty short period of time, that will be announced and it will be location to be determined," he said.

"We're both very much looking forward to having it. It will be between North Korea and the United States. It will be similar to the format we had before, most likely a different location," he said.

"I think a lot of progress is being made. I see tremendous enthusiasm on behalf of Chairman Kim for making a deal," he said. "We are in no rush. There's no hurry. We got back three months ago or so. I think we've made more progress than anybody has made in -- ever, frankly, with regard to North Korea."

At his meeting with Trump, Moon said: "I had a great trip to Pyongyang. We reached a good agreement between the two Koreas, and achieved progress on denuclearization of North Korea."

"It's hugely significant that Chairman Kim personally expressed his commitment to denuclearization in front of the world media," he said.

"Now, North Korea's decision to relinquish its nuclear program has been officialized to a degree that not even those within North Korea can reverse," he added.

"Chairman Kim also repeatedly conveyed his unwavering trust and expectations for you (Trump), while expressing his hope to meet you soon to swiftly conclude the denuclearization process with you," Moon said. "I look forward to seeing the U.S.-North Korea summit take place, and wish you a great success."

Earlier Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said at a press conference that "to set a date certain would be foolish. But make no mistake about it: The conversations that we're having are important."

"They're -- they're putting the opportunity to complete the denuclearization in place," he said. "If we can continue to make progress and have conversations, I think there's enormous value in that."

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, U.S.-DPRK talks have been stuck in an impasse due to their differences over 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, Moon held talks with Kim, and signed the Pyongyang Declaration on further steps toward 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.

Pompeo added that he had invited DPRK Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho to meet in New York City where they are scheduled to attend the United Nations General Assembly meeting.

He also said on Friday that he hoped to travel to Pyongyang soon to prepare for the second summit between Trump and Kim.(Photo/ The Beijing News)

An online bus-pooling service, which allows passengers share a bus with people heading to the same direction, has started the trial operations in Beijing on Saturday, September 22, 2018, reports the Beijing Morning Post.

Passengers can hail a bus by the "Customized Bus" App or a mini program in Wechat App. The background platform will then arrange a bus for passengers who share a similar route. The passengers need to pay the fare online and show the e-ticket on their mobile phone to the driver when getting on the bus.

During the trial run, the routes center around the Beijing South Railway Station, providing people with bus trips from the station to other urban areas.

The new "taxi-like" service will operate only if there are enough daily passengers along the route.

The fares of the shared bus are lower than that of taxi, but higher than a normal transit bus.

The Beijing Public Transport Corporation, which offers the bus-hailing service, says it expects the service will be more flexible for riders, as they will no longer need to take buses with fixed routes.Trump official accused of violating Hatch Act for speech at Hawaii GOP fundraiser

by Anna Giaritelli, Washington Examiner, September 25, 2018

The Campaign Legal Center filed a complaint with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel on Tuesday morning demanding an investigation be launched to determine if Don Benton, director of the U.S. Selective Service System, violated the Hatch Act by speaking at a Republican Party fundraiser last week.

The CLC sent a letter to Hatch Act Unit Chief Ana Galindo-Marrone asking her office to look at whether Benton's attendance as a speaker at a Hawaii Republican Party fundraiser on Friday was illegal. The letter, obtained by the Washington Examiner, said he should be disciplined if found to be at fault.

"A 'party fundraiser' for the Hawaii Republican Party where the party 'launch[ed] their ... general election campaign' is clearly 'political activity' under the Hatch Act and its implementing regulations," CLC legal counsel Delaney Marsco wrote.

The Hatch Act states all employees of the executive branch, which the SSS falls under, are prohibited from "us[ing] his or her official authority or influence for the purpose of interfering with or affecting the result of an election."

The law also maintains using one's official title while participating in political activity" is not permitted. It defines political activity as activity directed towards the success or failure of a political party, candidate for political office, or partisan political group.

"Therefore, by using his official title while addressing this Hawaii Republican Party event, Mr. Benton violated the Hatch Act. CLC respectfully asks the Office of Special Counsel to investigate Mr. Bentons actions and seek disciplinary or corrective action as appropriate," Marsco stated.

Several online posts and pictures from the Hawaii Republican Party indicate Benton, who is based in Washington, D.C., was featured as a speaker at the organization's dinner event in Honolulu.

The GOP dubbed the event a "party fundraiser" meant to "launch their party's general election campaign, according to a press release issued Sept. 17. Tickets ranged from $200 per person to $10,000 for a VIP table, a local news outlet reported.

When introduced, Benton's full name and official title "Director, Selective Service" were projected on a screen behind the stage.

During his remarks, Benton called Trump a "man of action" who "does what he says he is going to do." Benton also praised Trump for being the "disruptor" America needs, according to local media reports cited in the letter.

The Hawaiian GOP posted a tweet Saturday that said "Don Benton also repped @realdonaldtrump."

Watchdog organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington agreed that Benton's appearance at the fundraiser was likely against the law.

"The Hatch Act prohibits the use of official title in connection with fundraising activities. It appears that Benton may have violated the Hatch Act by speaking at a partisan political fundraiser while using his official title," Jordan Libowitz, communications director for CREW, said in an email to the Washington Examiner.

While some appointees can do fundraisers for the party of the president and its state affiliates, they are generally prohibited from using their federal title and agency or department.

A spokesman for the SSS told the Washington Examiner in a phone interview Tuesday the call was the first time he was learning Benton's attendance was being investigated as a possible Hatch Act violation.

"I cannot imagine that the director would knowingly or willfully violate the Hatch Act in that manner," said Matthew Tittmann, SSS acting chief of public and intergovernmental affairs. "He's been an outstanding director and an outstanding leader."

Tittmann said Benton was in Hawaii on "official business" that included a meeting with Democratic Gov. David Ige and media interviews. Ige's office did not respond to a request for comment.

Other speakers at the dinner included Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk and Heritage Foundation economist Stephen Moore.

---30---The Finnish financial services provider said the negotiations will concern all of the approximately 6,000 people employed by the central co-operative but refrained from specifying the number of redundancies it plans to make.

OP Financial Group on Tuesday announced it will launch consultative negotiations with its staff with a view to reducing the annual costs of its central co-operative by 100 million euros.

The negotiations will not concern the member banks of OP Financial Group. Helsinki OP-Kiinteistokeskus, Pohjola Health, OP Bank Group Pension Fund and OP Corporate Bank Groups Baltic operations have similarly been ruled outside the scope of the negotiations, which are expected to take at least six months.

OP Financial Group said the belt-tightening measures are an attempt to specify the strategic focus, focus on core businesses and optimise the relation between in-house and purchased outsourced work. It also stated that while the strategic shift will result in the termination of some existing jobs, it will also create a significant number of new job opportunities to employees.

Timo Ritakallio, the chairperson of the executive board at OP Financial Group, says the re-organisation signals the beginning of a major cultural change at the financial services group.

We have trialled the agile practice in individual development projects with good results, and now our aim is to gradually extend this practice to cover the entire central co-operative, he states in a press release. The new practice will simplify responsibilities, reduce decision-making levels and guide operations according to customer needs.

The negotiations are to begin on 1 October.

Aleksi Teivainen  HT

Source: Uusi SuomiPulkki told YLE that he does not believe the land areas owned by the company are of great operational importance and urged the debaters for calm.

Arto Pulkki, a military and weapons systems expert, has dashed cold water on speculation about the security threat posed by Airiston Helmi, a Finnish company that reportedly was the target of a series of house searches conducted in South-west Finland between Saturday and Sunday by the National Bureau of Investigation (KRP).

The Port of Turkus significance for Finnish defence and supply security is relatively limited, he commented in an interview on YLE Radio 1 on Tuesday.

He pointed out that it would be rather complicated to utilise the areas owned by Airiston Helmi to, for example, prevent access to the Port of Turku. Even if you succeeded in that, wed still have large port capacity at our disposal, added Pulkki.

I dont see it being of major operational importance.

KRP raided a total of 17 premises in South-west Finland between Saturday and Sunday, seizing a variety of items including documents and flash drives and bringing a total of seven people in for interrogations. Two of them have since been detained on suspicion of aggravated money laundering and aggravated tax fraud.

The authorities have yet to disclose the name of the company under investigation and continued to state that the house searches, seizures and arrests are part of an investigation into suspected economic offences.

The large-scale operation, however, has stirred up concerns about land and property acquisitions made by foreign citizens in Finland.

Mikko Karna (Centre), a former officer at the Finnish Border Guard, for example has claimed citing his own sources that a military dock that is capable of servicing Russian submarines is under construction in Airisto, a 20-kilometre-long area that stretches across the waters of Naantali, Parainen and Turku.

Such claims have been dismissed by both KRP and Pulkki.

Thats a completely absurd notion. Theres one 15-metre lane that you cant even dive with any proper-sized submarine, retorted Pulkki.

Aleksi Teivainen  HT

Source: Uusi SuomiFinalists of the 2018 Miss Tourism International recently arrived in Hanzhong, northwest Chinas Shaanxi province, to learn Chinese calligraphy and local drama. While in Hanzhong, they enjoyed traditional local food, and experienced the charm of traditional Chinese culture.

The competition final will be held on Sept. 27. Candidates from over 60 countries and regions are set to compete.Yang Jiechi (R), a member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the CPC Central Committee, co-chairs the fifth high-level political dialogue with Japanese national security advisor Shotaro Yachi in Suzhou, east China's Jiangsu Province, Sept. 25, 2018. (Xinhua/Ji Chunpeng)

NANJING, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- China and Japan on Tuesday held the fifth high-level political dialogue, in the eastern Chinese city of Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, agreeing to enhance strategic communication to develop bilateral ties along a normal track.

Yang Jiechi, a member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the CPC Central Committee, co-chaired the dialogue with Japanese national security advisor Shotaro Yachi.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Treaty of Peace and Friendship between China and Japan.

Yang called on both countries to cherish and maintain the positive momentum of bilateral ties, jointly plan high-level exchanges for the next stage, firmly abide by the principles agreed in the four political documents between China and Japan, to ensure the steady and healthy development of bilateral ties.

"Both sides need to firmly bear in mind the general direction of bilateral friendship and cooperation, establish correct recognition of each other and strategic mutual trust and make it clear that China and Japan are partners that will not pose threats to each other," Yang said.

He called for exploration of complementary advantages and potential to upgrade economic and trade cooperation, and urged for enhancing people-to-people exchanges.

"Both countries need to promote peace, stability and prosperity in Asia, and multilateral cooperation, as well as jointly safeguard free trade and multilateralism to help international order and global governance develop in a fairer and more rational direction," he said.

Hailing the improvement of bilateral ties, Yachi said Japan was "ready to grasp the hard-won opportunity together with China on the basis of the four political documents, enhance high-level exchanges, consolidate political mutual trust and cooperation in all areas, and safeguard the existing international order together and jointly address regional and global challenges."

The two sides also exchanged views on international and regional issues of mutual concern.President Trump praised North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and hailed ongoing efforts to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula during a Tuesday speech to the United Nations General Assembly.

The president proclaimed that "the missiles and rockets are no longer flying in every direction" and that the "specter of conflict" has been replaced with a "push for peace."

Read Full

Source: Press ReleaseA worker checking the equipment in BorsodChem

A company from China has acquired a Hungarian enterprise, turning the Hungarian business on the verge of bankruptcy into a top local enterprise, highly praised by locals for bringing tangible benefits.

The state-owned Wanhua Industrial Group, a high-tech enterprise focusing on innovation in chemical materials, acquired BorsodChem, the largest chemical company in Kazincbarcika, Hungary, in 2011 in a deal worth 1.26 billion euros ($1.5 billion), at a time when Hungary was suffering the fallout of an economic downturn.

With the acquisition, the BorsodChem Industrial Park changed its name to the China-Hungary BorsodChem Economic and Trade Cooperation Zone.

The newly-acquired enterprise began to make up the deficit, and in 2014 started to make profits, achieving a profit of over 400 million euros in 2017, ranking among Hungary's top five enterprises.

The Chinese enterprise won high praise from locals, as it saved more than 3,000 jobs at BorsodChem through integration and upgrading of technology.

The livelihoods of many people in the town, which has a population of less than 30,000, are closely related to BorsodChem. Without Wanhua, several thousand families would have lost their primary source of income, said an employee who has worked with the company for 20 years.

Local media commented that the Hungarian enterprise, almost forgotten by locals, is fast becoming one of the country's most profitable enterprises.

The International Financial Review also chose the acquisition of Wanhua as the best acquisition project of the year in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

BorsodChems development has brought tangible benefits to locals. For example, the company pays more than 3 million euros in business tax each year to the village where it is based, said Liu Junchang, general manager of BorsodChem.

Additionally, the company supports local research and education in multiple ways and has created cultural and educational exchange opportunities between China and Hungary.

It promoted the establishment of the third Confucius Institute of Hungary at the University of Miskolc, and a cooperative education mechanism between the university and Beijing University of Chemical Technology. The cooperation trains in languages and technical talents for the enterprises future development.

Due to such contributions, the cooperation zone received the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Hungary Award in 2012 and the Chinese-Hungarian Friendship Award in 2013.

This Chinese acquisition is significant for Chinese enterprises trying to enter the European market further, said Liu, adding that Wanhua, relying on its existing advantages, is willing to aid more Chinese enterprises seeking development in Europe.The more I learn about giant pandas, the more interesting they become to me, said 64-year-old Zhou Mengqi, who has dedicated 26 years of his life to photographing giant pandas across China.

The creatures are black and white, resembling the color of the Bagua diagram. Their character of doing things at a leisurely pace also coincides with Chinese Taoist culture, said Zhou.

Over the course of his career, Zhou has taken more than 2,000 photos of wild giant pandas and has had almost 10 photo albums published. His publication Chinas Giant Panda, which won gold in a national book competition, is usually given to foreign guests as a state gift.

Ahead of the 2012 London Olympic Games, 100 copies were airlifted to the UK to be given to foreign friends by the Chinese Embassy.

Although giant pandas are native to China, they enjoy worldwide popularity, Zhou explained, adding that he was astonished by the animal's reputation during a trip to Europe in 2015.

Along the way, some foreigners excitedly took photos with panda toys that Zhou had taken with him, and a few people even asked to purchase them.

Aside from China, Chinese giant pandas are now living in over 20 zoos in 18 countries. Zhou plans to visit all of them in the next few years.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.

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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.LONDONEighty-three animal charities from across the world, including Humane Society International, Change for Animals Foundation, the Jane Goodall Institute, FOUR PAWS, and Animals Asia, have called for stronger action by governments to tackle the significant threat of rabies posed by the brutal and often illegal dog and cat meat trade.

An estimated 50,000  70,000 people die of rabies globally every year, with approximately 90 percent of cases reported from Asia, and the campaigners including the Dog Meat-Free Indonesia coalition, the Asia Canine Protection Alliance, Chinas Capital Animal Welfare Association and the RSPCA, warn that the global goal to end human rabies deaths by 2030 will be impossible to achieve without a robustly enforced ban on the dog meat trade.

The organisations, representing groups from across China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, India, Cambodia, Singapore, Taiwan as well as Europe, the United Kingdom and the United States, are highlighting the significant role that the dog meat trade can play in spreading the lethal rabies virus throughout Asia, across countries, islands and provinces and into densely-populated cities. The World Health Organization and the Global Alliance for Rabies Control have both acknowledged the link between the spread of rabies and the dog meat trade, which sees large numbers of dogs of unknown disease status moved vast distances. The trade operates in breach of rabies control recommendations by all leading human and animal health experts including FAO, OIE, WHO and PAHO1, as well as national disease control and animal welfare laws and regulations.

Donate now to help all animals.

There is considerable evidence spanning decades from throughout Asia of the link between the dog meat trade and rabies transmission. Studies from Vietnam2, China3 and Indonesia4 have proven that rabies-positive dogs and carcasses often appear in markets and slaughterhouses  as high as 16.4 percent in Vietnam5  and the movement of different strains of the rabies virus in dogs being traded for human consumption has also been tracked. There have also been a number of human rabies deaths directly linked to slaughtering, butchering, handling and even consumption of meat from infected dogs. For example in Vietnam, a 2007 rabies outbreak in Ba Vi saw 30 percent of human deaths linked to exposure during the slaughter and butchery of dogs6. And in the same year, research conducted in markets in Indonesias North Sulawesi province demonstrated that between 7.8 and 10.6 percent of dogs being sold for human consumption were infected with rabies7.

Professor Louis Nel of Global Alliance for Rabies Control says: We may not be able to easily change culture or habit, but we should ensure compliance with proven animal disease prevention measures and stop the smuggling of dogs to limit the spread of rabies, an endemic disease across Asia. These traders are driven solely by profit and are disregarding the risks to human and animal health.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of the United States commented in an email to a Dog Meat-Free Indonesia campaigner: There are reports that dog-meat markets have a higher rate of rabies than the general dog population, as people often sell dogs to the markets when they act sick; some of these sick dogs have rabies. Furthermore, there are at least three published reports of humans acquiring rabies from activities associated with the dog meat market, emphasizing that the risk is very real.

The U.S. House of Representatives voted this month to ban the trade of dog and cat meat in the United States.

The groups signing the open letter want governments to not just implement bans on the dog meat trade, but to also take action to ensure these bans are enforced. In the Philippines for example, the trade is banned by law but the consumption of dog meat persists. The Philippines has consistently failed to get to grips with its spiralling rabies crisis.

In Vietnam, Hanois Vice Mayor Nguyen Van Suu recently urged residents to stop eating dog meat because consuming the meat could lead to the spread of diseases like rabies and leptospirosis. The move is part of a nationwide program to stamp out rabies by 2021, but Humane Society International/Vietnam director, Tham Thi Hong Phuong, says the country needs actions not just advertising campaigns.

Phuong says: We estimate that around 20,000 dogs are transported every month from the south to the north of Vietnam for slaughter, creating an easy way for rabies to be spread across the country. Its encouraging to see the Hanoi authorities publicly acknowledge the risk and commit to banning the trade from central districts in Hanoi by 2021, but if they are serious about tackling rabies, they need to get serious about stamping out the dog meat trade across the whole country.

In Indonesia, although the central government made a public pledge in July this year to ban the dog and cat meat trades, the Dog Meat-Free Indonesia coalition is still waiting for Ministers to act, and says that some provincial governments are utterly failing to take the rabies risk or extreme animal cruelty seriously at all.

Lola Webber from Change for Animals Foundation, says: It is estimated that just 7 percent of Indonesias population consume dog meat, but the trade continues to jeopardise the health and safety of the entire nation. It is no coincidence that the provinces and regencies with the greatest demand for dog meat are also those with the highest prevalence of rabies, with devastating societal, economic and animal welfare impacts. Attempts to maintain rabies-free statuses of cities and provinces, and to control and eliminate rabies where rabies is still present, will fail without addressing the trade in dogs for human consumption.

The DMFIs campaign for a ban in Indonesia has received high-profile support from global and Indonesian celebrities including Cameron Diaz, Chelsea Islan, Simon Cowell and Ellen DeGeneres, all calling for urgent action to protect animals and people.

In the Kingdom of Cambodia, rabies remains a major public health burden, killing more than 800 people every year. Dr. Katherine Polak from FOUR PAWS explains, To put it in perspective, the annual incidence of human deaths from rabies in Cambodia is about six per 100,000 citizens. This is comparable to the annual incidence of road deaths in the entire European Union8 in the mid-2000s. In a country with no national program to address rabies and limited post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP), tackling the dog meat trade would be one of the simplest, cheapest, and high-impact interventions the government could take. In neighboring Thailand, we applaud the actions taken by the Thai Department of Livestock to stop the illegal transport of dogs for meat.

Animals Asia Founder and CEO, Jill Robinson MBE said: It is time for Asia to finally wake up to the true cost of the dog meat trade. It is a public health emergency directly responsible for thousands of deaths every year due to the spread of rabies. This is one industry every country can do without. No meal is worth so many innocent lives.

An estimated 30 million dogs are killed each year across Asia for the meat trade. The groups open letter concludes:

Based on mounting evidence from throughout Asia and on decades of experience in successful rabies elimination programs from around the world, it is undeniable that the dog meat trade and rabies elimination efforts are incompatible, and that cities and countries around the world will never be able to maintain rabies-free statuses without addressing the trade in dogs for human consumption. We, the global animal protection community, therefore call on the national and regional governments of all countries where the dog meat trade is prevalent to take strong and urgent actions to end the trade in dogs for human consumption and the sale and consumption of such meat and associated products. If we are serious about eradicating human rabies deaths, we have a global responsibility to end the dog and cat meat trade for good.

ENDS

Download video b-roll here and photos here.

Signatories to the letter are:

Ananta Jyoti Dhayn Kendra

Andhra Pradesh Goshalala Federation

Animal Friends Jogja

Animal Friends Manado

Animal Kingdom Foundation

Animal Liberation Sanctuary

Animal Rescue Cambodia

Animal Rights Committee of Georgia

Animal Rights Hawaii

Animal Sanctuary Trust Indonesia

Animals Asia Foundation

Bali Animal Welfare Association

Bharatiya Prani Mitra Sangh, Hyderabad

Blue Cross of Hyderabad

British Hen Welfare Trust

Capital Animal Welfare Association (China)

Change for Animals Foundation

Coexistence of Animal Rights on Earth

Community Dog Welfare

Compassion Works International

CPR Environmental Education Centre

Department of Livestock Services  Bangladesh

Djurrattsalliansen (The Animal Rights Alliance)

Dog Meat Free Indonesia

Dogstop

Environment & Animal Society of Taiwan

Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organisation (FIAPO)

FLIGHT

FOUR PAWS International

Free the Bears

Friends of the Orangutans

GAIA (Voice of the Voiceless)

Help Animals India

HERD

Himalayan Animal Rescue Trust

Hollow Logs

Humane Society International

Instituto Pasteur de Sao Paulo

International Animal & Birds Welfare Society

International Otter Survival Fund

International Primate Protection League

Jakarta Animal Aid Network (JAAN)

Japan Anti-Vivisection Association

JBF (India) Trust

Korea Animal Rights Advocates

Korean Alliance for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals

Landmark Foundation

Life Conservationist Association

Love Animal House Thailand

moonbears.org

Nepal Street Animal Rescue

Nowzad Dogs

Orangutan Aid

PAWS for Compassion  Vietnam

Pecinta Hewan Surabaya

People for Animals, Trivandrum

PETA Asia 

Philippine Pet Birth Control Foundation, Inc.

Plants and Animals Welfare Society (PAWS Asia)

Pro Natura Foundation

Sahabat Anjing Surakarta

Sahayog Organisation, Andhra Pradesh Goshalala Federation, Hyderabad

Sanctuary for Health & Reconnection to Animals & Nature

Scorpion Foundation Indonesia

Showing Animals Respect and Kindness

Society for the Protection of Animals Ljubimci

Society for Travelers Respecting Animal Welfare (STRAW)

Stray Relief and Animal Welfare

Sun Bear Centre  Kalimantan

Taiwan SPCA

The Cattitude Trust  Chennai

The Jane Goodall Institute  Global

The Kerulos Center Elephant Liberation

The Kerulos Center Science in Service to Animals

Vietnam Cat Welfare

Voice for dogs abroad

VShine (China)

Wild Futures

Wildlife Alliance

Wildlife Salvation

Working for Animals

Zhuzhou Small Animal Protection (China)

Zoocheck Inc.

MEDIA CONTACTS BY COUNTRY:

Lola Webber, Change for Animals Foundation  Indonesia  Lolawebber@changeforanimals.org, +62 813 3740 8768

Wendy Higgins, Humane Society International  UK, Vietnam, China, Philippines, India  whiggins@hsi.org, +44 (0)7989 972 423

Katherine Polak, FOUR PAWS International  Cambodia/ Thailand  Katherine.polak@four-paws.us, +660987077421

Maya Gottfried, Animals Asia  United States  mgottfried@animalsasia.org, +1 347-885-9051

Nancy Hwa, Humane Society International  United States  nhwa@hsi.org, +1 202-676-2337

________________________________________

1Food and Agriculture Organization of the United States; World Organisation for Animal Health; World Health Organisation; Pan American Health Organization.

2Nguyen, A. K. T., Nguyen, D. V., Ngo, G. C., Nguyen, T. T., Inoue, S., Yamad, A., Dinh, X. K., Nguyen, D. V., Phan, T. X., Pham, B. Q., Nguyen, H. T., Nguyen, H. T. H. (2011). Molecular epidemiology of rabies virus in Vietnam (20062009). Japanese Journal of Infectious Diseases, 64, 391-396.

3Hu, R. L., Fooks, A. R., Zhang, S. F., Liu, Y., Zhang, F. (2007). Inferior rabies vaccine quality and low immunisation coverage in dogs (Canis familiaris) in China. Epidemiol. Infect., 136, 1556-1563.

4Adiani & Tangkere (2007), Rabies Case Study On Dogs Head (Canis Familiaris) In Manado, Airmadidi & Langowan Wet Markets

5Nguyen, A. K. T., Nguyen, D. V., Ngo, G. C., Nguyen, T. T., Inoue, S., Yamad, A., Dinh, X. K., Nguyen, D. V., Phan, T. X., Pham, B. Q., Nguyen, H. T., Nguyen, H. T. H. (2011). Molecular epidemiology of rabies virus in Vietnam (20062009). Japanese Journal of Infectious Diseases, 64, 391-396.

6Hampson, K., 2009. Mission Report: Vietnam. WHO (unpublished)

7Adiani & Tangkere (2007), Rabies Case Study On Dogs Head (Canis Familiaris) In Manado, Airmadidi & Langowan Wet Markets

8ERSO. Annual statistical report [Internet]. European road safety observatory. 2008. Available at: http://www. webcitation.org/6XebZzMOP. (Accessed 2015 Apr 9). https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/jtm.12228MEXICO CITYHumane Society International applauds bakery-restaurant corporation Le Pain Quotidien for joining the list of food and hospitality companies in Mexico that are adopting a cage-free egg policy, committing to switch to 100 percent cage-free eggs by 2025 or sooner. This pledge applies to all Le Pain Quotidien locations in Mexico, and the company will work actively with its suppliers to achieve this commitment.

Le Pain Quotidien stated on its website: We are convinced of the importance of promoting a good treatment for animals, and we are happy to contribute to a faster transition to better production practices.

Sabina Garcia, corporate policy and program manager for HSI Farm Animals in Mexico, stated: We congratulate Le Pain Quotidien for joining the cage-free movement in support of farm animals and animal welfare, and for joining hundreds of food corporations in Mexico and around the globe. We invite other companies to adopt similar policies and to have a more responsible supply chain.

END

Media contact (HSI/Mexico): Laura Bravo, 55 5456 1476, laurabravocom@gmail.comLess than 24 hours after Judge Dana Christensens order restoring Endangered Species Act protections to Yellowstone-area grizzly bears, Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo. introduced a bill that would reverse the Yellowstone-area grizzly court ruling, despite the fact that Rep. Cheneys attempt to add the bill to a wolf delisting bill (H.R. 6784) in the House Resources Committee was quashed as non-germane. Rep. Cheneys attempt to amend the wolf delisting bill to add a provisions that would remove federal ESA protections from grizzly bears and prevent any kind of judicial review of that removal is worrisome and the problem is not over.

The Humane Society Legislative Fund and the Humane Society of the United States are criticizing the move and eyeing a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives Natural Resources Committee that would remove Endangered Species Act protection for wolves, despite a similar court ruling that restored protection for wolves.

Kitty Block, acting president and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States, issued the following statement:

Some members of Congress and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are moving to remove federal protections from wildlife threatened with extinction. This is shameful pandering to a vocal minority of special interests and an affront to American taxpayers who have supported and underwritten decades of efforts restoring these species. The duty of the federal government is to protect threatened and endangered species, not to pander to trophy hunters and predator-control agents. Cutting off citizens access to our judicial system is just not the American way.

Sara Amundson, president of the Humane Society Legislative Fund, said:

The Humane Society Legislative Fund is pleased the House Natural Resources Committee struck Rep. Cheneys attempt to legislatively delist grizzly bears from the Endangered Species Act. However, we are concerned Rep. Cheneys standalone bill is an added marker in the quest to delist, but we will continue to fight for these bears to remain protected under the ESA from cruel trophy hunting. Any legislative attempt to overturn a court decision is blatantly disregarding the American publics wishes. Congress and the Administration continue to attempt to dismantle the ESA irrespective of the majority of Americans support for providing protections for imperiled species.The Humane Society of the United States welcomes Susan Atherton to its board of directors. Atherton is an independent philanthropist and long-time advocate for animals at the local, national and global level.

Atherton has extensive experience in the non-profit and for-profit sectors and is passionate about helping all animals. She was deeply moved after accompanying the Humane Society International rescue team on the closure of a dog meat farm in South Korea in 2017, and joined the board of directors for the international affiliate shortly after. She has also served as vice chair of the board of directors of the Humane Society Legislative Fund since 2007. She is vice chair of the board of directors of the San Francisco SPCA and is also chair of the board of trustees of the University of California, Riverside Foundation.

Previously, Atherton served as chair of the board of directors of the American Red Cross Bay Area, co-chairing one of the chapters most successful gala events in 2013. She is a recipient of the American Red Cross Presidential Award for Excellence, Revenue Generation and the American Red Cross Harriman Award, which is the highest award given to a volunteer within the organization.

Im excited to have Susan joining our board, says Kitty Block, acting president and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States and president of Humane Society International. Having worked closely with her in my capacity as president of Humane Society International Ive seen firsthand the value and commitment that she brings, and I look forward to continuing to work together on both national and international issues facing animals.

Atherton served in executive management positions in the enterprise software and cloud computing industries for 25 years, working at NCR Corporation, GE Information Systems, Oracle Corporation, Rightpoint and DoubleClick. She holds degrees in economics from the University of California, Riverside. She lives in San Francisco with her adopted dog Simba, who was rescued from a puppy mill.BEIJING, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- President Xi Jinping has called on the China Media Group (CMG) and people working in the television circle nationwide to strive for building world-class new mainstream media with strong guidance, coverage and influence.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, asked the CMG to be bold in its reform and innovation, and strengthen mainstream public opinion, in a congratulatory letter on the 60th anniversary of China Central Television (CCTV).

The CMG is a new broadcasting platform made up of CCTV, China National Radio and China Radio International.

This year is also the 60th anniversary of television broadcasting following the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.

On behalf of the CPC Central Committee, Xi in the letter extended his sincere greetings to officials and staff of the CMG and people working in the television sector.

Identifying television as an important part of the Party's media work, Xi highlighted television workers' contributions to the cause of the Party and the people.

Under the leadership of the Party, those workers over the past 60 years have been maintaining the correct political orientation and the right tone, while focusing on the major task, serving the overall interests of the country, advocating the Party's ideas, conveying the people's aspirations and spreading mainstream values and positive energy, said Xi.

Xi also noted the achievements of CMG since its establishment in March, especially in regard to promoting in-depth integration and innovation in international communication to present a true, multi-dimensional and panoramic view of China.

Xi said he hopes that CMG and television workers across the country can uphold Party leadership, take a people-centered approach and faithfully fulfill their responsibilities and missions.

Xi also called on those workers to integrate radio and television, domestic publicity and international communication, and traditional and new media, as well as improve their international communication capabilities.

Xi's letter was read out at a commemorative meeting held in Beijing on Wednesday.

When addressing the meeting, Huang Kunming, a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and head of the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee, asked television workers to attentively study and implement Xi's instructions and consciously shoulder new responsibilities and missions, so as to contribute more to the cause of the Party and the state.

Established on May 1, 1958, CCTV now has 41 channels with an annual broadcasting time of 329,000 hours. It is also the only television station in the world that incessantly engages in international communication with the six working languages of the United Nations.The City Council discusses the false-alarm issue Tuesday night.

Pittsfield Council Gets Into Weeds of False Alarm Ordinance

PITTSFIELD, Mass.  The City Council has opened up a can of worms when it comes to false alarms.

The Police Department had come to the council with a fairly straightforward request: require those with burglar alarms to register with the city annually. The department's records are out of date and officials wanted to find a way to keep up with those records.

Chief Information Officer Mike Steben had taken the project on and found that officers were responding to around 1,500 false-alarm calls per year  requiring two officers at a time. Often businesses had moved and taken alarm systems with them, and officers were responding to the wrong address. Other times, officers are going back to the same business every day because of faulty equipment.

The city already has ordinances in place for false alarms: a warning on the first occasion, $25 on the second, $50 on the third, and $100 per incident with the fourth and beyond. However, the department's computer system isn't integrated with the tax collector's system so any fines issued become a nightmare to collect and track. So the city stopped fining people for false alarms.

The city also had a one-time registration fee of $25. Steben first proposed language that would require registration annually instead of just once to help clean up department records. With that, he proposed eliminating the fee. The new language making registration annual and eliminating the one-time fee needs council approval.

Councilors, however, are now having trouble with the rest of the ordinance. In a former job, Ward 4 Councilor Christopher Connell had overseen dozens of convenience stores throughout the region. He knows firsthand that there are so many things that could trigger an alarm.

"I don't want to penalize the businesses for having good equipment," Connell said.

He said strong winds could shake doors and trigger an alarm; motion detectors could be triggered by heating units turning on and blowing merchandise, or rodents can set off alarms. A customer could come to the door just after closing time, try to open it and set off the alarm. If the city does start fining based on the current ordinance, Connell doesn't think giving business only one "one freebie" is enough.

Steben responded that those instances wouldn't be necessarily be counted as a false alarm. However, that determination is made by the responding officers. He said the officers have the option to log the call as a false alarm or not.

"We approach this with reasonableness and fairness, so that would not get coded as a false alarm," he said.

Connell, however, doesn't like the subjectivity still surrounding the issue. The decision on whether or not to fine is in the hands of the Police Department. Another process needing clarification for councilors is how residents and business owners contest such determinations.

Another issue discussed on Tuesday was a requirement in the current law that all alarms are registered with the city. But the language simply calls for all burglar alarms, which doesn't quite fit with the options provided by today's technology. The language dates back to the early 1990s and now residents can purchase alarms that aren't connected with monitoring companies, and be linked to their own phones. Connell asked about solely audible alarms, such as small ones placed under doors, as well.

Steben was under the impression that even those would have to be registered.

"We really need to know where these alarms are so police officers can respond appropriately," he said. "Historically all alarm systems have been registered."

Maggie Gregory, assistant to the chief of police, disagreed, saying only the monitored alarms  with companies automatically calling and dispatching police  would have to be registered. Otherwise, the small home security systems requiring the owner to call if there is an issue wouldn't have to be registered.

As the council began to get into the weeds, Connell and Councilor Melissa Mazzeo suggested tabling the petition in order to get clarification.

Council President Peter Marchetti, however, reminded the councilors that the items under debate are in the existing ordinance so delaying wouldn't change those at all. Instead, the request put forth by Steben was to simply remove the $25 registration fine and implement a free, annual registration process.

"I think the conversation has been great and I think it needs to be explored," Marchetti said but added there is a different process for the items already in place.

Steben said despite the fines being listed in the ordinance already, he said the department wouldn't enforce those until after a significant public awareness campaign.

Eventually, the council approved the proposal but said the rest of the existing ordinance will have the be re-considered.The process of leaving Civil Service will require legislation approved at the State House and the signature of the governor.

North Adams Council OKs Withdrawal From Police Civil Service



Police Director Michael Cozzaglio explains the difficulty in recruiting police officers through the Civil Service list.

NORTH ADAMS, Mass.  The City Council on Tuesday voted to dissolve its Police Department's participation in Civil Service, following in the path of surrounding communities.



City officials have discussed leaving Civil Service in the past, citing difficulties in recruiting officers who are often from the eastern end of the state.



"Civil Service has been here in the city since somewhere around 1940 ... Civil Service in Massachusetts came in 1884 so it's been around 124 years," Police Director Michael Cozzaglio said. "It's old, it's antiquated."



Cozzaglio told the council it was a matter of getting a larger pool of local candidates and giving the department a greater control over their qualification. The biggest components are the written examination for starting officers and the ability to appeal to Civil Service on disciplinary matters. (Civil Service also offers promotional examinations.)



"What we have found is the written examination doesn't cull the qualified candidates, it kind of shrinks the pool for us," he explained, saying candidates from the east aren't usually interested in moving. "Living here in North Adams, it's very difficult for us to recruit good, qualified candidates ... once we get through our local list, which we've done already, there's not one left."



The department would love to look within neighboring communities in Berkshire County to keep it local, he said. Cozzaglio said he's looking for veterans, college-educated officers, first responders, people with fluency in other languages, prior police experience and other translatable skills.



"Civil Service doesn't really look at that, it doesn't matter to them," he said. "You take a written test, you score that test and that's it. You could be extremely intelligent but lack a whole lot of common sense. We have to find that in-between."



The police director said he's tried to stop a "good enough" mindset and seek out qualifed officers. "We can see what's been going on nationwide," he said. "Right now we've got a real good bunch of officers."



Adams, he pointed out, has already left Civil Service and the governor is poised to sign legislation that will remove Williamstown. Both town's police departments listed similar complaints: a limited candidate pool that drew largely from the eastern end of the state and a sometimes lengthy process for hiring.



Civil Service was established largely to prevent patronage and instill a merit system into the procedure of hiring officers and certain other public employees including firefighters, alarm operators, and various state and local policing positions. Tests are given every couple years for different positions.



When a department needs employees, it sends a request with the number of positions available. That number is multiplied by two, one added, and that number of names from the top of the list sent back.



Cozzaglio says if he needs two officers he'll get five names: "I want 15 names."



Civil Service also hampers the department's ability to hire part-time reserve officers because candidates coming from Worcester east simply aren't interested.



In response to questions of how candidates would be ranked absent the Civil Service exam, he said the candidates would be examined by a state-accredited, independent assessment center. Instead of being able to appeal to Civil Service as a last resort on disciplinary action, officers will be able to go to arbitration, something that had always been an option.



"The police union fully supports this," Cozzaglio said. "They want to bring in good people. ... if we lived in eastern Mass we might not have a problem but we have a problem."



Civil Service is a state law so the city would have to have state Sen. Adam Hinds and state Rep. John Barrett III files legislation when the new Legislature goes into session in January. Still, Cozzaglio said he'll have to call for another list soon.



"I have to, I have to and I'm going to have to use Civil Service because this is not going to be gone in time for us to use this," he said. "I'm going to cross my fingers and see what we get."



Buddington pointed out they were at the top of the Civil Service list and so they were the best candidates.



"I understand everybody's concerns but we have two of our department heads here asking for making a recommendation to us," said Councilor Wayne Wilkinson. "We must support the people taking care of our city. If they thought this is the way to do it, this is the best way to do it."



The council voted 8-1 to appoint Meranti and Richards with Harpin voting against.



iciHaiti - Security : DCPA visit to PoliTour





Monday the Inspector General Carl-Henry Boucher Central Director of the Administrative Police (DCPA) went to the Directorate of Tourist Police (Politour) where he held a briefing with the Director of the Politour Police Principal Commissioner, Gary Verdilus, on the current status and prospects of this Unit, for the attention of the Police officers, executives and administrative staff of the PoliTour.



Recall that Inspector General Carl-Henry, one of the designers of the PoliTour project was the first Commander of this Unit (Sept 2013 - April 2016) and that Commissioner Verdilus Gary was his Deputy during this period before being promoted to the head of the PoliTour in May 2016.



In addition, a working session involving the Commander of the PoliTour, the Director General of the Ministry of Tourism and the Director of the Cabinet of the Minister of Tourism focused in particular on the impact of PoliTour in the tourism sector and on some current files concerning the operation of PoliTour in general.



IH/ iciHaiti





















iciHaiti - Croix-des-Bouquets : Central Hospital of the PNH





On September 22, the Mayor of Croix-des-Bouquets Rony Colin accompanied a delegation led by Prime Minister Jean Henry Ceant, as part of an evaluation visit of some public institutions located in the Commune.



The delegation composed inter alia of the First Lady Martine Moise, Marie Greta Roy Clement, the Minister of Public Health, Jean Roudy Aly the Minister of Justice and Public Security the Minister of Justice and Michel Ange Gedeon the Director General of the PNH, visited among others the Central Hospital of the National Police of Haiti (PNH) located in Bon-Repos https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-23454-haiti-politic-the-pm-concerned-about-the-delay-of-the-construction-site-of-the-pnh-hospital.html . Rony Colin welcomed this visit of the Head of Government while wishing that arrangements be made to make functional this Hospital Center that can serve the police and members of the population in case of emergency. Recalling the many interventions of his Administration, to clean up the perimeter of this hospital center which was littered with debris and was occupied anarchically by merchants.



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-23454-haiti-politic-the-pm-concerned-about-the-delay-of-the-construction-site-of-the-pnh-hospital.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-23298-haiti-politic-extraordinary-meeting-of-the-superior-council-of-the-national-police.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-21059-haiti-politics-follow-up-visit-of-the-hospital-s-work-for-the-police.html



IH/ iciHaiti

















Mining Industry in the Barents Euro-Arctic Region: View to the Future

IMIC BEAR-2018 topics are:

Modernization of existing production lines and facilities.

Possibilities of economic support for ensuring the growth of industrial enterprises of the Russian Arctic, especially for enterprises with a high level of redistribution and development of new deposits.

Possibilities of localization as an instrument of international cooperation launching of high-tech enterprises in turn for economic preferences), including TOSER.

Logistics and labour pool.

15 November  Conference begins with the Plenary session , with presentations of Russian and foreign CEOs of mining enterprises, officials, bankers, scientific and research organizations

16 November  discussions will be continued at breakout sessions, roundtables, poster presentations and exhibition.

Deadlines :

01 November 2018  registration for the Conference will be closed

05 November 2018  brief summary of the reports / presentations to be submitted

13-15 November 2018  arrival days, registration

15-16 November 2018  Conference working days

Edo stete governor, Godwin Obaseki has attracted serious backlashing after photos of him sleeping while President Muhammadu Buhari gave his address at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, September 25th, emerged online.

Obaseki, who is on the entourage of the president to the 73rd session of the UNGA holding in New York, slept off right in public glare.

In a statement by his media aide, Crusoe Osagie, the governor only succumbed to fatigue after very long hours of flight. The debunked any attempt to malign the governor, saying that governor wouldnt be the first.

Our attention has been drawn to a mischievous campaign designed to smear the image of the Edo State Governor, Mr. Governor Obaseki.

The disparagers have populated the internet with photographs of the governor when he momentarily succumbed to fatigue after a long flight, preceded by a chaotic itinerary in Edo State before heading to New York for the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly, in the United States of America.

The idle hands and mischievous minds behind the smear campaign against governor Obaseki are clearly not people to be taken seriously.

Well, heres what Nigerians said about the governor dosing off

Gov Obaseki of Edo state sleeping at UN meeting Tell me are these guys fit to rule us? Just see how other countries reps are serious and keen in learning and understanding the new world dimensional rules. If na to cheat for election @inecnigeria n @OfficialAPCNg go pass gan! pic.twitter.com/Rkw0oe94Bc  Lawrencez (@lawrenzez) September 26, 2018

Sleeping Governor Obaseki, sleeping president, sleeping APC, sleeping country, sleeping economy.  OBI 1 (@obieducation1) September 26, 2018

Lifeless #Buhari's speech at #UNGA was lifeless that's the reason Gov Obaseki was sleeping

 He didn't even talk about Leah Sharibu#PMBAtUNGA18 pic.twitter.com/xmMniNwPnm  God Bless Shantel (@SweetShantel) September 26, 2018

While President Buhari was delivering a very Boring and uninspiring speech at the UN general assembly, Governor Godwin Obaseki was sleeping and signing some MOU's in his Dreams in far away Botswana. pic.twitter.com/FeveppVRWt  Pharez Okpere (@pharez_okpere) September 26, 2018

IMAGINE MY GOVERNOR OBASEKI. CONSPICUOUSLY SLEEPING AT UN ASSEMBLY LIKE MUGABE. SHAME  LABOGHINI (@LABOGHINI1) September 26, 2018

Kai APC and inconclusive sleep. While Akange was busy sleeping at New Castle lounge, Obaseki was busy sleeping at UN General Assembly  Dan Mashin (@dan_mashin) September 26, 2018With an event at NUO Hotel Beijing, Carl F. Bucherer and JD.com, Chinas largest online retailer, announced their collaboration and the launch of a limited-edition watch available exclusively from JD.com. Sascha Moeri, CEO of Carl F. Bucherer, and Belinda Chen, General Manager of JD Watch, welcomed around 150 media representatives and influencers as guests. Li Bingbing, Chinese actress and Brand Ambassador for Carl F. Bucherer, also attended the event. The online boutique marks the brands first entry into the Chinese e-commerce market.

 Carl F. Bucherer

Our exclusive online boutique on JD.com perfectly complements our expansion in China, said Sascha Moeri, CEO of Carl F. Bucherer, speaking about the new collaboration.  Besides the opening of new top retail stores, it is important for Carl F. Bucherer to further develop its position in China by entering the countrys e-commerce market. Thanks to this collaboration, discerning Chinese consumers will have easy access to an exclusive selection of our latest high-quality timepieces.

JD.com is the leading trendsetter in Chinas digital transformation. Its infrastructure and technology are also used by a number of renowned international brands, and the company has established strong partnerships with several Swiss luxury watch manufacturers. Customers benefit from the convenience of 24/7 shopping in the online boutique. Carl F. Bucherers foray into Chinas e-commerce market is in collaboration with one of Chinas largest watch retailers, Harmony World Watch Centre, which will operate and maintain the Carl F. Bucherer online boutique on JD.com.

Li Bingbing  Carl F. Bucherer

Launch of a Limited-Edition Timepiece

An exclusive timepiece was launched to honor the collaboration with JD.com: the Patravi ScubaTec Lady Limited Edition  available only at JD.com. The watch is limited to 888 pieces, and a particularly eye-catching feature is the rotating ceramic bezel in red, inspired by JD.coms corporate color. The wave pattern dial is adorned with three diamonds. Beyond that, in addition to the white rubber strap, the watch also comes with an additional red rubber strap that can be fitted free of charge at a Harmony service center of the owners choice at any time.

The Patravi ScubaTec is a watch made for diving and underwater exploration of every kind. In a sturdy case with red highlights and sporty functions, the Patravi ScubaTec is the perfect companion underwater or on land. Carl F. Bucherer has sponsored the Manta Trust, a charity that works to protect the endangered manta ray, for many years. As a sign of the companys commitment, two of these impressive creatures are engraved on the back of every Patravi ScubaTec case. The Patravi ScubaTec is powered by the automatic CFB 1950 movement, which keeps the time precisely and reliably.Nigerians have taken to social media to react to news that Iyiola Omisore, candidate of the Social Democratic Party(SDP) for the 2018 Osun state governorship election has joined forces with the ruling party. The news was received with mixed feelings by many social media commenters.

While some blasted the All Progressives Congress(APC) for going back to beg Omisore to join forces with them in oder to attain victory after calling him a murderers, others were on Omisores side.

There have also been reports that Omisore was bribed with slots in Oyetolas cabinet, senatorial ticket and cancellation of corruption charges among many others.

See reactions below

https://twitter.com/bolanle_cole/status/1044852470567129090

I know a lot of you may want to blame OMISORE for being insensitive if this analysis play out but before you play the hypocritical card recall that PDP had been complacent and irresponsible with the way they handled his exit. He spent money to no avail and they called his bluff. pic.twitter.com/C8mJ62KNcs  SEGA Leveilleur (@segalink) September 26, 2018

APC meeting with Omisore is another low! This is a man you claimed killed Bola Ige, you dragged him when you came to power for his contributions in "rigged" Ekiti election in 2014 & seized his international passport. Now you went to "appease" the same man! Baabu integrity!  Opeyemi Babalola (@CACCOT1) September 26, 2018

https://twitter.com/Kelvin_Odanz/status/1044868243071160321

Oshiobaba Called Omisore a Killer on the Podium while Campaigning for Oyetola just Last Week Tuesday Today, he is a Beautiful Bride Me.

During campaigns we dont have to take @APCNigeria serious any longer. @segalink @OfficialPDPNig @YemieFASH pic.twitter.com/GFCh72yICe  oluyi akintade tayo (@alariwo07) September 26, 2018

https://twitter.com/Kelvin_Odanz/status/1044880295193956352

https://twitter.com/Abdulrahmanleme/status/1044862306948182016Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) chieftain, Femi Fani- Kayode has called out his cousin, Iyiola Omisore for supporting the All Progressives Congress(APC) in Osun state rerun election.

According to Mr Fani-Kayode, Omisores decision to support APC because of money is shameful . The former minister of Aviation, speaking via twitter on Wednesday said Omisore had given him his words but turned against his own people because of money.

He wrote:

Iyiola Omisore's decision to support the APC in tomorrow's rerun is shameful. It is sad that he would seek to deny Ile-Ife the position of Dep. Gov simply for money.He told me he would stand firm 2 days ago and he told our father Baba Ayo Adebanjo the same thing last night..1/2  Femi Fani-Kayode (@realFFK) September 26, 2018

He said he doesnt know why Omisore changed his mind and decided to support APC but expressed optimism that his party will still win the election with or without Omisore.Nigerian Labour Congress(NLC) has said it is hellbent on undergoing its planned strike, talks with Federal government yields no good.

Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, met with the tripartite Committee to look into the issue of the minimum wage but ended up in a deadlock.

Although Nigige told labour union that the Federal Government has plans to look into the minimum wage issue, the NLC President, Ayuba Wabba, said there was no deal and that strike most hold.Jeremy D. Morley concentrates on International Family Law. The firm works with clients around the world from its New York office, with a global network of local counsel. Mr Morley is the author of "International Family Law Practice", the leading treatise on international family law in the U.S., and "The Hague Abduction Convention", published by the American Bar Association. He is a Fellow of the International Academy of Family Lawyers and a former law professor.A new partner of Frieze Masters and Frieze London, Richard Mille began his eponymous brand at the start of the new millennium in 2001. Frieze is the worlds leading platform for modern and contemporary art for scholars, connoisseurs, collectors and the general public alike. Celebrating this vibrant, contemporary history, the brands presence at Frieze Masters has brought together, for the first time in the UK, a museum-level overview of some of the most exceptional, rare, and currently unavailable examples of timepieces generously loaned by private collectors.

RM 052 Tourbillon Skull  Richard Mille

The Richard Mille brands approach to watchmaking has always centred on releasing the watch from it restricted role as a mere tool for timekeeping, augmenting and extending its visual potential by placing it directly in the crosshairs of design, art, sculpture and architecture. In this way, their timepieces make full use of three-dimensionally arching spaces and volumes, both for the watchcase and the movement itself. Even the layout and finishing details of each mechanical part is treated as essential, visually and stylistically, within the scope of Milles holistic approach to watchmaking. Richard Mille: Of course, a watch must be an excellent timekeeping device, with the highest chronometric results achievable. Nevertheless, I see no reason why it should not be fascinating and multi-layered in its visual expressivity, both inside and out, in the same way that a great work of art offers complex layers of comprehension for each particular viewer. Defining these aspects during the design process is not far removed from the world of miniaturist painting, where an entire world can open up within a very confined area of just a few square centimetres.

RM 68-01 Tourbillon Cyril Kongo  Richard Mille

According to this same methodology, Richard Mille collaborated with the street artist Cyril Phan, (aka Kongo), in creating a contemporary horological artwork, the RM 68-01 Tourbillon. The entire front and back of the mechanisms interior have been transformed into riot of airbrushed, rainbow-like hues, and since this includes all moving parts, the watch is a kinetic painting, constantly changing visually as it tells the time. This watchmaking premiere, enabled by Richard Milles visionary aesthetics and a process by which Kongo miniaturised his large-scale working methodsnormally the size of an apartment buildingelevates this timepiece to the realm of fine art.

A part of the Richard Mille group, the Parisian Publishing House Editions Cercle dArt is responsible for the release of all the companys books, magazines and other printed materials. Historically the publishing house of Pablo Picasso and many other great names of the 20th century art world, Editions Cercle dArt connects Richard Mille Watches to the one of the most exciting periods in Modern art, underlining the brands artistic approach to forging a new vision of 21st century horology.

RM 69 Erotic Tourbillon  Richard Mille

About Frieze

Frieze comprises three magazinesfrieze, Frieze Masters Magazine and Frieze Week and four international art fairsFrieze London, Frieze Masters, Frieze New York and Frieze Los Angeles. Additionally, Frieze organizes a program of special courses and lectures in London through Frieze Academy. Frieze was founded in 1991 by Matthew Slotover and Amanda Sharp, with the launch of frieze magazine, the leading international magazine of contemporary art and culture.

In 2003, Sharp and Slotover launched Frieze London art fair, which takes place each October in The Regents Park, London. In 2012, they launched Frieze New York, which occurs each May in Randalls Island Park, and Frieze Masters, which coincides with Frieze London in October and is dedicated to art from ancient to modern. In 2018, Frieze announced the launch of Frieze Los Angeles, which will open February 1417, 2019 at Paramount Pictures Studios, Los Angeles.Focus on Lisa Netz, co-owner of The Lavish Loft

Submitted by Haleh Rabizadeh Resnick, Federation Business and Community Development Director For the Voice What was your path to South Jersey? I grew up in...

Focus on Peter Hecht Partner at Magna Legal Services

Tell me about your connection to the South Jersey Jewish Community? I actually grew up in East Brunswick, Exit 9 off the Turnpike. But weve...

Focus on Abigail Dahan: Owner of the Bake School

Tell me a bit about your life in South Jersey. I grew up in Cherry Hill. We moved here from Paris when I was six...Three new Bucherer Blue Editions by Vacheron Constantin were presented at the sumptuous Hotel Crillon in Paris on 26th September by Patrick Graf, Chief Commercial Officer at Bucherer, Laurent Perves, Chief Marketing Officer at Vacheron Constantin and Christian Selmoni, Style & Heritage Director at Vacheron Constantin. The location could scarcely have been more fitting for either name. The hotel building dates back to 1758, just three years after the foundation of Vacheron Constantin, and Paris is home to Bucherers  and the worlds  biggest multi-brand watch store.

All three new models are in the Traditionnelle collection, the signature elements of which are the stepped case, the slim bezel, the fluted case back, the railway-track minute circle, the carefully applied batons de Geneve index hour markers and the elegant dauphine hands. All three timepieces also bear the Poincon de Geneve (also known as the Hallmark of Geneva)  guaranteeing the origin, savoir-faire, durability and precision of the watch. The Blue Editions introduce a blue dial to this collection for the first time, which has been developed specifically for Bucherer with rose-gold applied hour markers and a matching hand-stitched blue alligator leather strap with rose-gold buckle.

The Vacheron Constantin Traditionnelle Bucherer Blue Editions are prime examples of outstanding technical and aesthetic expertise, said Patrick Graf, Chief Commercial Officer at Bucherer. Vacheron Constantin  founded in 1755 and consequently the worlds oldest watch manufacturer in continuous operation  has developed and perfected these skills over the course of its history, which now spans nearly 300 years. The Bucherer Blue Editions models present a perfect example of the Swiss watchmaking tradition upheld by both companies, which have come to symbolise the pursuit of continuous innovation and unique elegance.

Traditionnelle Small Model

The ladies model has a 33mm diameter case in 18-carat rose gold set with 54 diamonds (approximately 0.87 carats). It is equipped with the brands Calibre 1400 hand-wound in-house movement which displays hours and minutes and offers a power reserve of approximately 40 hours. Price: CHF 30,000.

Traditionnelle Small Model Bucherer Blue Editions  Vacheron Constantin

Traditionnelle

The gents model has a larger 38mm diameter case in 18-carat rose gold and is powered by the in-house Calibre 2455 self-winding movement which displays hours and minutes with a small seconds dial at 9 oclock. It also has a power reserve of 40 hours. Price: CHF 29,000.

Traditionnelle Bucherer Blue Editions  Vacheron Constantin

Traditionnelle 14-Day Tourbillon

The pick of the bunch is the Blue Edition of Vacheron Constantins signature Traditionnelle Tourbillon. It shares the same aesthetics as the other two models but with a larger 42 mm case. Inside, however, things are different. The tourbillon is powered by the hand-wound Calibre 2260, which vibrates at a slower 18,000 vibrations per hour (compared with 28,000 for the other two models). It comprises no fewer than 231 components and four mainspring barrels, mounted in pairs, that offer a total power reserve of 336 hours, or 14 days. Price: CHF 282,000.Ministry of Maritime Affairs Islamabad Commissioner Jobs

Latest Ministry of Maritime Affairs Management Posts Islamabad 2021 Ministry of Maritime Affairs MOPS Islamabad, Government of Pakistan required applications from experienced and dynamic individuals for the posts of Fisheries Development Commissioner.

How to Apply on Ministry of Maritime Affairs Job Advertisement

Apply as per details in job advertisement. In some cases, you may apply online at vacancies after registering at https://www.jobz.pk online.



Company Address: 1st Floor, Shaheed e Millat Road Secretariat, Islamabad

Telephone: 051-9205234

Official Website: www.mops.gov.pk

Note: Beware of Fraudulent Recruiting Activities. If the employer asks you to pay money for any purpose including processing to shortlisting, do not pay at all and report us using our contact us form. Apply as per instuctions & dates mentioned in official job ad. Govt jobs cannot be applied online here. Error & omissions excepted.Emile Chouriets Heritier models are part of the Historical collection. This is the line that best embodies the companys philosophy, and today its one of its bestsellers. Jean Depery, founder of the Emile Chouriet brand, and his daughter Sophie, the companys artistic director, talk about the genesis of the collection and the historical and regional pedigree of the brand, and introduce the two latest Heritier models, which were launched this year.

Jean and Sophie Depery  Emile Chouriet

Importance of local networks

The Historique collection was born six years ago as a result of Sophie Deperys research into historical watch design, particularly watch design in Geneva. We wanted to draw inspiration from the watchmaking heritage of the region, and incorporate some of its details into our watches of today, she explains. One of the things we focused on was the lugs.

In those days cases were round, and the lugs were soldered on, notes Jean Depery. We reinterpreted this detail of the soldered lugs, which also echoes the double lug which is part of our brands DNA.

Limportance de reseautage local

In the mid-18th century, Francois Dagobert Depery, a watchmaker and ancestor of Jean Depery, lived on Genevas border with France. He supplied movements to several Geneva watchmakers, including Emile Chouriet. This harnessing of regional skills is still relevant today within the modern manufacture. We work with various subcontractors in the Geneva region, but also in the Jura, Fribourg and Valais, notes Emile Chouriets artistic director. We couldnt do anything without them, and vice versa. This kind of networking, which seems very contemporary, has in fact existed since the birth of watchmaking. Networks are built up through the generations. Some of the companies we work with are run by the son, who took over from his father, who inherited it from his grandfather. You cant work with companies like this without mutual respect. The Historique collection is dedicated to these, our most cherished values.

Heritier a Guichets and Heritier Black

The new Heritier a Guichets is a 40 mm titanium model with Emile Chouriets signature double gadrooned lugs. On the sunray-brushed and satin-finished anthracite grey dial, the time is read without the aid of hands via three arc-shaped apertures. A traditional square window shows the date. Sophie Depery explains: This model is inspired by handless pocket watches from a hundred or so years ago, but it also has quite a radical and pure design thats in tune with what the new generation of clients is looking for. It houses an ETA movement that we have modified with special discs. It costs CHF 2,120 with a leather strap. We produce timepieces that offer very good value, given the work that goes into them, and their high-quality movements. The movement inside this Heritier is the EC9227, which beats at 28,800 vph and provides a power reserve of 38 hours. The automatic movement is wound by Emile Chouriets bidirectional rotor, and the watch is adjusted via the three-position crown, which governs manual winding, date adjustment and time setting with a stop-seconds mechanism.

The Heritier a Guichets is worn on a black calf leather strap with alligator pattern.

Heritier a Guichets  Emile Chpuriet

The Heritier Black is also a 40 mm model (the maximum size for Emile Chouriet, which has several shops in China, where large formats are less popular), driven by an ETA movement, the calibre EC9316, reworked by Emile Chouriets watchmakers. But thats where the similarities end. This classic stainless steel 3-handed watch with date at 3 oclock comes with a black dial punctuated with slim baton markers in steel, and four subtle red accents. This sporty but classic aesthetic, in a mechanical watch that offers unbeatable value for money, explains the models success. Quality is our watchword, and our clients can take home a fine automatic mechanical watch for under 1000 francs, notes Sophie Depery. The trend for classic minimalism and simplicity has become global  except perhaps for some Middle Eastern markets, where they prefer their watches to have more going on  but the new generation is pretty unanimous in its appreciation for classic design with a sporty twist. I think thats the future, for every brand, she concludes.

Heritier Black  Emile Chpuriet

Heritier a Guichets, leather strap: CHF 1,970

Heritier Black, leather strap: CHF 835; steel bracelet: CHF 910For the unveiling of its Marine Torpilleur Military Semper Fortis model on Friday 14th September, Ulysse Nardin hosted guests in historic Annapolis, Maryland, home of the United States Naval Academy.

Ulysse Nardin has long celebrated its illustrious history in marine chronometers, which were used for naval navigation for centuries before computers took over. But while fans of the brand are aware of that historic lore, denoted by the anchor in the logo, many dont realize that the U.S. Navy was one of its customers. When Francois-Xavier Hotier, president of Ulysse Nardin Americas, learned of this historic nugget, it seemed only natural to create a limited edition Marine Torpilleur to commemorate the special partnership.

Marine Torpilleur US Navy  Ulysse Nardin

The brand will produce 173 pieces of the Marine Torpilleur Military Semper Fortis (USD$7,900), named for the U.S. Navy slogan, which means Always Strong. The number corresponds to the number of years since Ulysse Nardin founded his company in Le Locle, Switzerland, in 1846. Nardin specialized in marine chronometers, and his firm soon dominated the market supplying as many as 50 navies around the world.

Ulysse Nardin

In 1905, the Washington Naval Observatory organized a competition for Precision Torpedo Boat Timepieces to find a manufacturer that could supply its torpedo boat officers with superior chronometers that were as reliable and precise as those on flagship naval vessels. Ulysse Nardin won the competition several years in a row, and established an ongoing relationship as an official supplier to the U.S Navy that lasted until the 1950s.

The brands Heritage Director Massimo Bonfigli presented an in-depth discussion on the history of marine chronometers and their importance as navigational instruments, as well as Ulysse Nardins role as a leading manufacturer. On hand were a marine chronometer from the 1950s and an historic pocket chronometer on which the limited edition was closely modeled.

The history-making chronometer winner of the first Precision Torpedo Boat Timepieces contest in 1905

Semper Fortis really pays tribute to the roots, to the old days, says Bonfigli, who points out the distinctive 24 in red on the power reserve display, just like on the original pocket chronometer. As the watch winds down its 60-hour power reserve, the red 24 serves as an alert to wind the watch before it drops below 24 hours, so that is continues to operate at peak timekeeping performance. For those responsible for maintaining a ships chronometer, it was essential to keep the timepiece wound and running at optimal precision since even a slight discrepancy could have disastrous navigational results.

The 44mm stainless steel case blends satin and polished finishes and is appointed with a classical fluted bezel. Underneath the clean white dial with crisp black Roman numerals and blued steel hands, beats the UN-118 automatic movement, endowed with the brands cutting-edge silicon technology.

Ulysse Nardin timed the launch to the annual Patriot Award gala at the Naval Academy, honoring Congressional Medal of Honor recipients. The Congressional Medal of Honor Society presented Patriot Awards to Defense Secretary James Mattis, Sen. Susan Collins, Fox News journalist Chris Wallace, and entertainer Jay Leno, who dedicated his award to the late Sen. John McCain, who is buried at the Academy. The brand secured a table at this private, patriotic celebration of the U.S. military, in keeping with the spirit of the day.MEDFORD, Ore.  A man who was shot and wounded by a Central Point Police (CPPD) officer after leading the officer on a chase and drawing an firearm has pleaded guilty to weapons charges, according to the Jackson County District Attorney's office. The DA's office says that the man was suffering a "mental health crisis" and wanted to be killed.

According to the DA's office, the incident happened on February 19 of 2017, just before 3 a.m. in Central Point. Officer Brown with the CPPD was stopped at a red light, pointed eastbound at the intersection of E Pine Street and the I-5 northbound off-ramp. A red Camaro  driven by a man who was later identified as now-22-year-old Justin Daniel Lopez  pulled up next to the officer.

After a few seconds, the Camaro began "spinning its tires" and sped through the red-light, heading eastbound on E Pine. The officer turned on his lights and sirens and pursued the Camaro, reaching speeds over 70 miles per hour. Lopez turned northbound onto Hamrick Road, veering into the southbound lane of Hamrick Road and continuing on.

The officer reportedly continued his pursuit on Hamrick Road, until Lopez turned into Don Jones Memorial Park. Lopez suddenly stopped his car, and the officer stopped several car lengths behind the Camaro.

Before the officer could exit his vehicle, Lopez stepped out of the drivers side of the Camaro and pointed a "long-gun" at Officer Brown.

"At this point, the officer feared for his life  believing that Mr. Lopez had a rifle and the officer was in a position in the vehicle with no cover for his safety," said the DA's office statement.

Lopez started walking toward the police vehicle, and Officer Brown jumped from his vehicle, covering behind the car. The officer claimed to see Lopez just fifteen feet away, and believed that Lopez was "racking a shotgun" in an attempt to chamber a round.

Officer Brown reportedly knew that his bullet-proof vest would not stop a shotgun blast at that close of range, and believed his life was in danger. The officer gave Lopez a command to drop the gun, but Lopez continued to approach.

The officer fired six shots  with one striking Lopez in the "pelvic region."

Other officers soon arrived on scene, taking Lopez into custody. The officers said that Lopez was screaming at them to "just kill him." Most of the encounter was recorded on the police vehicles camera.

After the shooting, an investigation led by Oregon State Police (OSP) found that Lopez's shotgun had been empty during the encounter, and he was enduring a "mental health crisis."

"Mr. Lopez had texted family members that night stating he loved them and that he was sorry. The essence of the messages and comments made by Mr. Lopez to officers after being shot implied he was attempting to end his own life that early morning," said the DA's office statement.

A Jackson County Grand Jury indicted Lopez on March 3, 2017, several weeks after the shooting incident.

Lopez pleaded guilty on Wednesday to a charge of Unlawful Use of a Weapon in Jackson County Circuit Court. Judge Timothy Barnack sentenced Lopex to two years in prison, with two years of post-prison supervision.BEND, Ore.  The campaigns of Representative Greg Walden (R-Hood River) and his Democratic challenger Jamie McLeod-Skinner have reached an agreement regarding a proposed televised debate set for Friday, October 5, according to a statement from McLeod-Skinner's team.

The fate of this debate seemed to hang in the balance for the last week. On September 19, Walden announced that he had accepted an invitation to debate McLeod-Skinner at KTVZ in Bend on October 5. When McLeod-Skinner's campaign responded, they indicated that they had not agreed to the debate and took umbrage with the venue and some of the proposed terms, suggesting an alternative.

On Wednesday, McLeod-Skinner released a statement claiming that the two campaigns and KTVZ had negotiated terms.

I thank the leadership of KTVZ Newschannel 21 for its willingness to make modifications to address issues we raised and I look forward to debating my opponent, McLeod-Skinner said.

According to the statement, a live 60-minute debate will broadcast live from KTVZ's studio in Bend on October 5 at 7 p.m. It will also be streamed online. The station will be soliciting questions from the public in their newscasts, or can be submitted on the station's website.

Independent Party candidate Mark Roberts is also scheduled to appear at the debate on October 5.

McLeod-Skinner maintains that her campaign has tried several times to schedule additional debates in other areas of the District, such as eastern and southern Oregon.

"To date, Walden has not responded to any of the proposals, and maintains that the KTVZ Newschannel 21 venue offers a 'central location,' said McLeod-Skinner's campaign in a statement.

Oregon's 2nd Congressional District is easily the largest of the state's districts  comprising all of eastern Oregon, all of central Oregon east of the Cascades, and southern Oregon east of Grants Pass.BEND, Ore. (AP)  The 2018 race for governor is the most expensive in Oregon history, and there's still six weeks until the books will be closed.

The Bulletin newspaper in Bend reports that Gov. Kate Brown has raised about $11.3 million. Her Republican opponent, state Rep. Knute Buehler, R-Bend, has raised about $7.4 million, according to state campaign finance reports filed through Monday.

The record total of about $18.7 million tops the $17.7 million raised and spent in the 2010 governor's race won by Democrat John Kitzhaber over Republican Chris Dudley.

Brown reported a month's worth of campaign finances Monday. Contributions included $250,000 from Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun control group backed by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Brown also received $250,000 from the Democratic Governors Association, which has now given her a total of $353,000.

The true level of 2018 fundraising and spending won't be known until early next month when both candidates will have to adhere to a seven-day period between the time they raise or spend money and when they have to report it.

Currently, candidates have a 30-day window. Brown's updated figures bring her reporting through Sept. 22. Buehler's is through Aug. 22. Both campaigns are complying with state law in the way they are currently reporting their finances.

The totals do not include money raised and spent by outside groups that are running ads against candidates.

Buehler has received a total of $1.5 million from Nike co-founder Phil Knight, the largest donation by an individual to a candidate in Oregon history.

Brown's biggest single contribution is $500,000 from EMILY's List, a national group that backs pro-choice Democratic candidates. She has received a total of $370,000 from Team Oregon, a political action committee created to promote her re-election and to build Democratic majorities in the Legislature. Defend Oregon Values, a political action committee created by House Speaker Tina Kotek, D-Portland, and other top Democrats to promote a Democratic agenda in Salem, has contributed $693,000 to Brown. She received a new contribution of $100,000 from the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, AFL-CIO.

The money to Brown from Everytown for Gun Safety is the second time in two years that Bloomberg has aided Brown. He directly contributed $250,000 to her 2016 campaign to finish out the term of Kitzhaber, who resigned in 2015 and was replaced by Brown, the secretary of state at the time.

Both campaigns have spent heavily on television. Brown's latest filing shows she has purchased a total of $1.8 million in broadcast time through Buying Time LLC, a campaign consulting firm in Washington. Buehler has purchased $2.3 million in broadcast time through Strategic Media Services of Arlington, Virginia.

The Oregonian newspaper has reported that national Republicans say Buehler has received a total of $750,000 from the Republican Governors Association, an amount as yet to show up on Buehler's campaign filings.

The Republican governors' group contributed $2.5 million to Dudley's campaign in 2010, with much of the money coming in the last six weeks of the close race with Kitzhaber. The group contributed only $125,000 to Bud Pierce's 2016 governor's campaign against Brown.Egypts President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi says there is an imbalance in the credibility of the United Nations, especially when it comes to the Arab region and the African continent.

In a speech in front of the 73rd United Nations General Assembly, El-Sisi said he speaks for those who question the integrity and the values of the UN at a time of disintegration and collapse of nation states.

How do we blame an Arab who questions the integrity of the UN and what it represents in values at a time when his region is endangered with dissolution and the collapse of the nation state before a wave of terrorism and sectarian conflicts that drain the capabilities of Arab states? El-Sisi said.

The president added that the same Arabs would wonder why the Palestinian people have not obtained their legitimate rights to live in dignity and peace in an independent state that reflects their national identity, aspirations, and wishes.

Is it possible that an African is seen as exaggerating if he complains about the lack of efficiency of the international order as his continent faces an economic regime that establishes poverty, inequality, and the reproduction of social and political crisis, and does not offer aspect for developments? he questioned.

I present to you the questions of our nations, as Egypt chairs the Group of 77 and China, which constitute the majority of this worlds population, El-Sisi said.

El-Sisi said that developing countries cannot tolerate living amid an international order that is not governed by law and lofty principles, upon which the UN was established; and is in threat of polarisation and attempts by some to dominate the international order based on their affiliations within the international community.

Road to recovering UN credibility

The Egyptian president said there is no room for the international order to function if the principle of the nation state, which is based on the values of citizenship, democracy, and equality, is threated with disintegration.

I speak from the experience of Egypt as a nation that has exerted massive efforts to recover its state and save its identity, and chose its nation state to be the door for reform and the achievement of aspirations for freedom, honour, and development, he said.

El-Sisi added that the disintegration of states in civil conflicts and the relapse of sectarian allegiance as an alternative to national identity is responsible for the modern worlds most dangerous phenomena such as armed conflicts and the outbreak of human trafficking, illegal migration, organised crime and the illegal trade in arms and narcotics.

There is no doubt that the Arab region faces the worst in terms of the fragmentation of nation states and what follows in a rich atmosphere for terrorism and sectarian conflicts, he said.

Political solutions are the only way for Arab states in conflict

The perseverance of states comes as a top priority for Egypts foreign policy in the Arab region, he stressed.

Speaking on Syria and Yemen, El-Sisi stressed the importance of the recovery of the nation state and safeguarding of its sovereignty and the safety of its institutions while meeting the legitimate aspirations of its citizens.

Egypt is a leading supporter of political resolutions led by the UN in the two countries; refusing any exploitation of the hardships of people in Syria and Yemen as a means to serve regional greed and interference, or as an incubator for terrorism, extremism, and sectarianism, he said.

On Libya, El-Sisi said that his country has a pivotal role in supporting the reconstruction of the state, especially when it comes to the unity of its military institutions to offer a structure that is able to defend Libya and face the dangers of terrorism.

A year has passed since the UN adopted an initiative for a comprehensive plan to resolve the Libyan crisis without any progress in executing [the plan], which calls on us to reiterate our commitment to the political resolution as outlined by this initiative, he said, adding that there is no room for incomplete resolutions on Libya, as well as Syria and Yemen.

Moreover, he said that such crises need comprehensive treatments and not partial solutions if we wish to overcome the depletion of human beings and resources and start construction.

The president spoke about the need for commitment to finding peaceful and sustainable solutions for international conflicts, which was a main goal of the initial founding of the UN.

Despite the UNs role in South Sudan and Central Africa; it remains incomplete when it comes to reaching a final settlement for the conflicts. There is a dire need for support for countries surviving past conflicts and rehabilitating their institutions, he said.

Palestine issue, proof of shortfall in intl order

El-Sisi said that the Palestinian case is proof of the international orders shortfalls in finding a fair solution in accordance with international accords, which ensure the establishment of a Palestinian state with its capital as East Jerusalem

There is no time to waste in conflicts regarding the matter. What is needed is a political determination to resume negotiations and hasten reconciliation in accordance with these accords, he said.

The president stressed that Arab states deserve to turn over this sad page of their history.

2030 Development

E-Sisi also spoke about the 2030 development vision by the UN.

Reform of the global economic system cannot be postponed; we look up to the UN as a gateway for ideas to achieve this reform, especially within a mechanism that stops a stream of illegitimate funding in developing countries, he said, adding that these are key principles required to reassert the UNs integrity.

He spoke of a need to boost the partnership between the UN and regional institutions, highlighting the cooperation between the UN and the African Union as an exemplary model in burden-sharing.

As Egypt approaches his chairmanship of the AU in 2019, we look forward to activating strategic partnership between the AU and UN, he said.

Human Rights, fighting terrorism

The president highlighted Egypts domestic efforts, including the comprehensive anti-terrorism Operation Sinai 2018, to fight and eradicate terrorism.

We assert that the magnitude of funding for terrorist groups, as well as the ease by which foreign terrorists travel, indicate that there is no way other than establishing an international anti-terrorism system, he said.

El-Sisi added that the protection of human rights will not be achieved with media campaigns of defamation and a neglect of all fields of human rights, including economic, social and cultural rights.

We have a constitution which is based on preserving human rights, as well as advancing the empowerment of women and youth, he said.

According to El-Sisi, women in Egypt now hold 25 percent of ministerial positions, and more than 15 percent of parliament seats.

Youth are also being relied on in leading positions, as well as conferences on youth to address their challenges and capabilities.

We are keen on putting the issues of women and youth empowerment, as well as scientific research and innovation, at the top of our priorities in the Group 77 and China, he said.

El-Sisi restated the need to recover the integrity of the UN, before ending his speech with his symbolic and well-known Long Live Egypt motto three times.

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Go to formSebelum Anda bermain, Anda perlu mengetahui apa yang Anda butuhkan untuk masuk ke dalam permainan roulette kasino online ini. Jika Anda sudah mendaftar di situs judi casino online dan sudah memberikan user ID, login terlebih dahulu dan pilih menu live casino yang tertera di situs judi tersebut. Pertama pilih dealer dan putuskan sendiri, lalu pilih meja atau kursi di dalam ruangan. Jika namanya tertera dan berwarna coklat, maka kursi tersebut sudah ditempati oleh pemain lain, dan pilihlah kursi kosong berwarna hitam.

Kasino Roulette adalah salah satu permainan paling populer di situs perjudian kasino. Jadi dalam permainan ini kamu harus menebak angka berapa yang akan keluar. Ada 36 nomor berbeda dalam permainan populer ini di mana sebuah bola kecil diputar dan dilemparkan ke dalam mesin roulette. Anda harus menebak dari mana bola kecil itu masuk dan di nomor berapa ia berhenti. Ada banyak jenis pilihan angka dari 0-36, dan mereka dihitung secara berbeda. Sebagai agen casino terpercaya, panduan permainan roulette ini juga memberikan informasi tentang jenis pilihan dan nama permainan roulette casino online sebagai berikut:

Jika Anda ingin bermain roulette di situs kasino online, caranya sangat sederhana. Anda dapat bermain di Kasino ION, Kasino Sbobet, dan Situs Kasino. Di bawah ini adalah artikel panduan bermain di mana Anda dapat mempelajari roulette langsung dan memainkannya di situs judi online mana pun.

tangkapan layar

Sebelum Anda bermain, Anda perlu mengetahui apa yang Anda butuhkan untuk masuk ke dalam permainan roulette kasino online ini. Jika Anda sudah mendaftar di situs judi casino online dan sudah memberikan user ID, login terlebih dahulu dan pilih menu live casino yang tertera di situs judi online tersebut. Pertama pilih dealer dan putuskan sendiri, lalu pilih meja atau kursi di dalam ruangan. Jika namanya tertera dan berwarna coklat, maka kursi tersebut sudah ditempati oleh pemain lain, dan pilihlah kursi kosong berwarna hitam.

Panduan Bermain Online Kasino Roulette

Kasino Roulette adalah salah satu permainan paling populer di situs perjudian kasino. Jadi dalam permainan ini kamu harus menebak angka berapa yang akan keluar. Ada 36 nomor berbeda dalam permainan populer ini di mana sebuah bola kecil diputar dan dilemparkan ke dalam mesin roulette. Anda harus menebak dari mana bola kecil itu masuk dan di nomor berapa ia berhenti. Ada banyak jenis pilihan angka dari 0-36, dan mereka dihitung secara berbeda. Sebagai agen casino terpercaya, panduan permainan roulette ini juga memberikan informasi tentang jenis pilihan dan nama permainan roulette casino online sebagai berikut:

1. Straight Up: Penempatan angka tunggal dari 0 hingga 36. Contoh perhitungan straight up adalah mengalikan taruhan dengan 35. Ini adalah jenis taruhan tertinggi dalam permainan roulette kasino, jadi 50 dikalikan dengan 35 memberi Anda 1750, mengapa jenis taruhan ini menghasilkan pengembalian yang begitu tinggi? Hal ini karena tidak mudah untuk memenangkan pilihan nomor dengan memilih hanya satu nomor dari banyak.

2. Taruhan split: Jenis taruhan yang ditempatkan pada dua angka atau di antara dua angka yang berbeda. Misalnya, menempatkan di sela-sela angka 9 dan 12 atau 13d dan 14 dihitung sebagai jenis taruhan split. Setiap nomor dapat ditempatkan dalam jenis ini selama nomor tersebut berdekatan dan persis seperti Gambar A dan B. Untuk taruhan ini, jika Anda memenangkan contoh dan mengalikannya dengan 850, Anda akan menerima jumlah taruhan yang dikalikan dengan 17. .

3. Taruhan jalanan: bertaruh dengan 3 angka ke bawah, misalnya 1,2,3 atau 10,11,12. Semua taruhan jalan akan menerima kemenangan dikalikan dengan 11. Misalnya, 50 dikalikan 550.

4. Taruhan sudut: Jenis taruhan di mana empat angka ditempatkan saling berhadapan, seperti 13,14,16,17 atau 19,20,22,23. Semua angka valid karena terdiri dari 4 angka yang diisi seperti kotak dan taruhan dikalikan 8 (misalnya 50 kali 800).

5. Taruhan baris: Atau, Anda dapat mengatakan bahwa ada 6 jenis taruhan yang terdiri dari 2 baris, tetapi 6 poin dengan 2 peregangan, seperti taruhan jalanan. Misalnya, jika Anda memilih angka 7 hingga 12 dan 13 hingga 18, taruhan 50 adalah 5 kali dan kemudian dikalikan dengan 250 kemenangan.

6. Kolom Inner Bet: Jenis taruhan vertikal dengan 12 poin berturut-turut, seperti kolom numerik 1,4,7,10,13,19,22,25,25,28,22,24,34 atau kolom lainnya. Dan jika dia memenangkan kolom, 50 taruhan digandakan dan 100 taruhan.

7. Lusin : Jenis taruhan menempatkan 12 angka tetapi menempatkannya pada kotak berbentuk seperti contoh Kolom A dengan angka 1 sampai 12 dan odds dengan kolom lain untuk dipilih dengan memilih 1 kotak pertama untuk Kolom A. Kalikan dengan 2, 50 taruhan 100.

8. Zero part : Cara bertaruh 0.1,2,3 sama persis seperti di gambar, karena berdekatan dengan angka 0, anda hanya bisa bertaruh 0.1,2,3. Menempatkan taruhan ini mengalikannya dengan 50. hingga 8.

9. Zero Corner: Bertaruh pada angka 0.1,2 atau 0.2,3 adalah dua pilihan karena Anda hanya bertaruh mendekati angka nol. Jenis taruhan ini dikalikan 11 jika taruhan menang.

10. Two Dozen: Jenis taruhan dengan hanya dua pilihan: 1-18 atau 19-36. Jika taruhan Anda adalah 50, itu dikalikan dengan 1 hingga 50 jika Anda menang.

11. Merah atau Hitam: Masukkan taruhan Anda dengan memilih Merah atau Hitam sebagai warna angka yang muncul saat taruhan 50.

12. Genap/Ganjil: Pilih angka yang menghasilkan jumlah jenis taruhan ganjil.Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi discussed potential cooperation projects to upgrade the fleet of the countrys flag carrier EgyptAir with Marc Allen, the president of Boeing, during talks in New York on Wednesday, a presidential spokesman said.

El-Sisi and Allen also looked at ways to bolster Egypt's defense fleet, spokesman Bassam Rady added.

He quoted the Boeing official as saying that his company aims to scale up its investments in Egypt.

The pair met on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

EgyptAirs fleet currently contains 39 Boeing 737-800, 777-200ER and 777-200ER aircrafts out of its 72-plane fleet, a source from the company told Ahram Online on Wednesday.

Last December, the airline received its ninth B737-800 aircraft, the last in a $864 million deal signed with Boeing in July 2016.

EgyptAir also bought six Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners as part of a major $6 billion deal signed late last year to expand its fleet with 45 new aircraft, the biggest deal in the company's history. Egypt will receive the first of these aircrafts in March 2019, the company's source said.

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UPDATE: Parents picked up kids around 3:30 p.m. Tuesday afternoon in front Monroe Middle School after a shooting near the school.

The Eugene Police Department advised parents to pick up their students in the west parking lot of the middle school, but parents picked their kids up directly in front of the school.

KEZI 9 News spoke with a father who said he left work early in tears when he found out about the incident. He said he's been on edge all day waiting for the moment he reunited with his two kids.

"It'll be like reuniting after we haven't seen each them for years," said Raymond Reynolds, father of two students at Monroe Middle School. "This felt like days. I'm shaking. My fiance is so worried. We've been pacing in the house all day."

Reynolds said after this incident, he's fearful to let his kids play outside.

Trisha King, a parent of a student at Monroe, said her day started off normal until she found out about the lockdown and she was terrified something was going to happen to her daughter.

"The thought process going through my head was was oh my god...my daughter is going to be shot," King said. "I worried about my close friends."

During the 3:30 pickup time, students, parents and police officers were outside Monroe Middle School.

Parents said they could see officers taking selfies and laughing with the students, and some said this dissapointed them.

King said this incident was too serious for what she called "lax" behavior.

"You don't think that it's gonna happen," King said. "I'm so thankful that nothing happened in the school, but it did happen. There were real fears. One of their good friends had a panic attack in the dark while they were standing in the dark."

_________________________________________________________________

EUGENE, Ore. -- The Eugene Police Department is working with Eugene School District 4J on a plan for the 3:30 p.m. release time for schools near Bailey Lane, where a shooting put schools on lockdown and lockout Tuesday morning.

Officials ask that parents avoid going to the school until the normal release time as the investigation is ongoing. Bailey Lane is closed from Coburg Road to Bogart Lane.

RELATED: Eugene police seek suspect in shooting that put Monroe on lockdown

When Monroe Middle School students are released, parents and buses will come off Coburg Road onto Bailey Lane and enter the school's west parking lot and exit from the same lot back out to Coburg Road.

St. Paul Parish School student families will access their school from Satre Street and Bogart Lane.

Police said patrol units immediately responded to the report of shots fired in the 2900 block of Bailey Lane at 10:05 a.m. Police and a bystander provided immediate aid to the victim, who was taken by Eugene Springfield Fire to a local hospital with a gunshot wound. There is no update on the person's condition.

Monroe was on lockdown and then lockout as a precaution. Sheldon High School, Buena Vista Elementary, St. Paul Parish School and Holt Elementary were all on lockout during part of the day. Those four schools have been released. Monroe remains on lockout. The children inside the school are safe, and students and staff are continuing their school day.EUGENE, Ore. -- A former drug addict is offering his own experiences with addiction after Lane County health officials said emergency rooms in Lane County have seen 21 heroin-related overdoses in just three days.

KEZI 9 News spoke with John Ford, who has changed his life for the better.

He said drug addiction was a constant problem he's dealt with throughout his life, which led him to homelessness and even three arrests.

But after his last stint in jail, Ford said he made a promise to himself he would never be there ever again and he wanted to make an effort to inform others not to follow his path.

RELATED: Lane County Emergency Departments see 21 heroin overdoses in 3 days

Ford is now a certified drug and alcohol counselor with Relief Nursery, a child abuse and neglect prevention agency.

He said he primarily works with parents struggling with drug and alcohol addiction, similar to what he dealt with.

Ford said he has not used drugs or consumed any alcohol since he was last arrested Nov. 18, 2006 -- a day he said changed his life forever.

"I got arrested in 2006, which I now call rescued, Ford said. I was rescued from the lifestyle; I wasn't arrested by the good old Jackson County Sheriff's (Office) down in southern Oregon. And from that point on, I just changed my life around. I was tired living the way that I lived. I wanted something better for myself."

He said after jail, he got in a 12-step recovery program where he was able to do some self-exploration, which allowed him to limit his exposure to drugs and alcohol and the people who were bad influences in his life.

"The message I want to get out there is that we can get clean, stay clean, and lose the desire. Get involved in services here in town, Ford said. Get your Oregon Health Plan, get treatment, reach out, ask for help."

Officials with the county said if you use prescribed opioids or illegal drugs, you should have Narcan with you, which can save your life. They also suggest not mixing drugs.

Officials with the county said they offer help and hope through their Prevention Lane Program.PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- Police say a man was arrested after officers performing a traffic stop in Southeast Portland discovered a woman's body in the stopped vehicle.

Portland Police Bureau Sgt. Christopher Burley says officers stopped the vehicle Monday and saw a dead person inside.

He says 58-year-old Timothy Mackley was arrested on suspicion of murder and booked into the Multnomah County Detention Center.

Burley said Tuesday afternoon that the Oregon State Medical Examiner determined that the woman died of homicidal violence. The medical examiner hasn't yet been able to positively identify the woman.

It wasn't immediately known if Mackley had obtained a lawyer.WARRENTON, Ore. (AP) -- Authorities in northwest Oregon are seeking the public's help to identify an approximately 60-year-old man found dead in the Columbia River Friday.

The Clatsop County Sheriff's Office along with the county medical examiner in Warrenton said Tuesday says authorities don't have missing person reports matching the man's description.

Sheriff Tom Bergin says the man mostly likely was last seen in early September on the Washington side of the river.

The man was described as about 5 foot 7 inches tall, 160 pounds with dark hair, brown eyes and a distinctive beard. Authorities say he was wearing a Patagonia fleece, tie dye and orange T-shirts, jeans, hiking boots and a metal belt with a black lighter leash.

Anyone with information is asked to call the sheriff's office at 503-325-8635.TANGENT, Ore. -- A Tangent man was arrested Tuesday in connection with the death of his uncle, the Linn County Sheriff's Office said.

Chad Adam Cheever, 45, faces charges of first-degree manslaughter and second-degree assault.

Dispatch received a 911 call Friday, Sept. 21, at 4:21 p.m. about a man who was unconscious and not breathing. Paramedics responded to the 31000 block of McLagan Road in Tangent and pronounced Donald Whisenhunt, 61, deceased.

The sheriffs office said the following investigation determined Cheever and Whisenhunt had a physical altercation around 7 p.m. Sept. 20, and the injuries Whisenhunt sustained caused his death.

Investigators located Cheever at the Union Gospel Mission in Salem at 10:50 a.m. Tuesday and interviewed him. Cheever is lodged in the Linn County Jail.

The investigation is ongoing. Anyone with information is asked to contact Detective John Lovik, 541-967-3950.NORTHWOOD, Iowa  A Worth County attempted murder trial is being delayed until December.

Trapp Leroy Trotter, 31 of Northwood, was scheduled to stand trial beginning Wednesday in Bremer County. Hes accused of slashing and stabbing Andrew Nodtvedt of Manly on June 2 and is charged with attempted murder, 1st degree burglary, and 4th degree criminal mischief.

The trial was moved to Waverly due to pre-trial publicity and it has now been postponed until December 12. It is expected to last two or three days.Monk Zaynoun El-Makary was reportedly a witness in the case of the alleged murder of Bishop Epiphanius at Abu Maqar Monastery in July

Egypts Coptic Orthodox Church announced Monday the death of a newly transferred monk after a "sudden health crisis."

In a statement published by its spokesman on Facebook, the Church said monk Zaynoun El-Makary died after he was transferred to St Maria Hospital in Upper Egypts Assiut after a sudden decline in health.

The prosecution is currently investigating the cause of death.

His death took place one month after the Churchs Monastic and Monastery Affairs Committee decided to transfer him to Deir El-Muharraq Monastery in the Upper Egyptian governorate.

The Church did not provide more details on El-Makarys monastic background or the reason behind the transfer to the new monastery. However, several local media reports said that he is the Father Confessor of one of the defendants  defrocked monk Isaiah El-Makary  in the case of the alleged murder of Bishop Epiphanius, who was found dead at Abu Maqar Monastery in July.

Reports said Zaynoun was among witnesses in investigations related to the bishop's death, while others said suicide was the cause of death.

Following the death of Bishop Epiphanius, the Holy Synod issued new decrees prohibiting monks use of social media, media appearances by monks, and the construction of unlicensed sites of worship.

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MASON CITY, Iowa - Election Day is nearly 6 weeks away, and a new plan approved by the Cerro Gordo County Board of Supervisors hopes to give voters a piece of mind.

At Tuesday morning's meeting, the county's updated policy on election security was approved.

The plan covers all facets of elections, from who has access to ballots and voting equipment, software, memory media, the election process and even evacuation of a polling place if needed.

Diane Wilson of Clear Lake will be voting in November's election, and trusts that her vote will be secure.

"I've always felt pretty confident, but I think knowing what steps have been taken, what's in place here, just makes me a little more assured that I have nothing to lose by going in and putting whatever my own determination in is on a card and it's safe and sound," Wilson said.

"Security in any company is pretty much on the forefront right now. My place of employment - that's certainly something we take into consideration. So happening here, in my own neighborhood and our own local facility, I think is a fabulous thing."

The new policy replaces any and all previous versions of the county's election security policy.BOISE, Idaho  A Clear Lake man is pleading guilty to child sex abuse in Idaho.

Charges of child sexual abuse of a minor under 16 and two counts of lewd conduct with a child under 16 were filed in Ada County against Scott Lee Ruby, 58, on February 22. According to court records, Ruby entered a not guilty plea on April 23.

However, court records indicate Ruby reached a plea deal with prosecutors as he entered a guilty plea on August 13 to the sex abuse charge and the two counts of lewd conduct were dismissed.

Ruby is now scheduled to be sentenced on October 15. He is being held in the Ada County Jail on $750,000 bond.ROCHESTER, Minn. - The Destination Medical Center Corporation held its board meeting Tuesday.

Destination Medical Center is a 20-year plan to make Rochester the global destination for health and wellness.

At the meeting they approved funding for 2019, as well as gave updates for several projects going up in downtown.

Executive Director of DMC Economic Development Agency Lisa Clarke tells KIMT the projects are on track and on budget, and that they're more than just buildings.

"There are things like housing and commercial and hospitality and we want to make sure that we are not only on track in terms of the numbers, but we are trying very hard to make sure that we get public realm right so that people can enjoy these spaces," Clarke said.

With the development and expected growth, those with DMC are keeping in mind key issues like housing and the workforce opportunities.

"What is the experience that people have when they come to Rochester, Minnesota," Clarke said. "That's a critical part of DMC and we're playing a big part of moving that forward."

The next regular board meeting is schedule for Nov. 13, where they will discuss funding priorities for 2020.ALBERT LEA, Minn. - Mrs. Cunningham herself, Marion Ross is back in her hometown of Albert Lea this week for a few different events.

The 'Happy Days' star stopped by the Albert Lea Public Library on Tuesday to meet with fans and sign copies of her book, "My Days: Happy and Otherwise." She tells us her son helped convince her to write the memoir about her time on the hit TV series.

"It was fun for me to talk about the 'Happy Days' cast," Ross explains. "Each one of them wrote a chapter, even Garry Marshall before he died, even Erin Moran before she died."

We sat down for an exclusive one-on-one interview with Ross before her signing and talked about the book and her cast-mates, including "The Fonz" aka Henry Winkler. Ross says she and Winkler, who recently won his first Emmy Award, remain very close.

"I was so thrilled to see him, we all cheered him on," Ross says of Winkler's Emmy win. "We all congratulated him early in the morning, we knew he was going to win."

About fifty people lined up to meet "Mrs. C" and get their copies of her book signed. Ross took time to write personalized messages to each person. She tells us why it's so special to her to come back to the town where she grew up.

"It's thrilling to me to come back because everything that I am is from here, you know? This is what I'm made of and I've retained it, I must say." she adds.

On Wednesday afternoon, Ross will meet with more fans for "A Conversation with Marion," which will be held at St. John's on Fountain Lake from 2:00-3:30.MASON CITY, Iowa  A trial is set in a North Iowa road rage incident this past summer.

Theodore Schultz, 62 of Mason City, was arrested after authorities say he got a pistol from his vehicle and began walking toward and yelling at other people on June 24 in Mason City. Authorities say Schultz was apparently upset about being passed in the 400 block of North Illinois Avenue.

Court documents state he had a blood alcohol level of .158 at the time of his arrest.

Schultz is charged with intimidation with a dangerous weapon, carrying a dangerous weapon under the influence, and OWI. His trial is scheduled to begin on October 23.ROCHESTER, Minn.- Now that the Albert Lea City Council decided the new location of their fire station, they're now looking to make room for construction.

Just around the corner on Pearl Street and Newton Avenue South, the city is looking to purchase some of the homes.

The city manager tells KIMT it's in an effort to make room so the fire fighters have enough room to assist citizens.

Albert lea is looking to buy Manny Cortinas home.

He's lived in the home for more than 50-years and thinks its time to downsize.

There's nothing really I can do so...i mind as well go along with it...what they tell me. They say they want to buy this place if the price is right...they got it, said Cortinas.

But he thinks the area isnt the right choice.

It's good for them because it's close to the courthouse but if theres an emergency on the other side of the railroad tracks and the trains be coming how are they going to get across the tracks.After the Salzburg summit, the prospects of the Brexit deal are gloomy as never before. Will gold gain on failed talks between the EU and the UK?

Cake Philosophy and Gold

The Salzburg summit was held last week. It was an informal summit of heads of the EU member states or governments. The participants discussed immigration, internal security and Brexit. The negotiations between the UK and the EU attracted the most attention, as Donald Tusk, the European Council president, said that the Chequers plan for Brexit will not work and mocked Theresa Mays negotiating strategy in social media (he posted a picture of May and himself at a cake stand with the caption: A piece of cake, perhaps? Sorry, no cherries.

May did not like the joke and accused the EU of the lack of respect. She also complained that the EU does not want to negotiate with the UK. But its not true. One year ago, the United Kingdom rejected the proposal that the UK would become a member of the European Economic Area and be associated with the common bloc as Norway or Iceland. May rejected the Norway model, saying that it would be a mockery of the referendum. And six months ago, UK rejected another proposal for an EU trade agreement, i.e. access to the single market (along with Northern Ireland, so that there would be no physical border in Ireland). May rejected the second proposal saying that it would effectively divide the country.

And last week, the British prime minister said that the UK wants to participate only in the free movement of goods, without the free movement of services, capital and people. It is understandable, as about half of the UK exports is going to member countries. However, the EU has been informing for a year that it will not agree to partial access to its market, as it is based on four freedoms, not merely one. There is no cherry picking. We are not big fans of EUs bureaucracy, but we agree that you cannot have the cake and eat it. The UK can either have a loose agreement like Canada, or a close agreement like Norway, but it cannot pick the best bits from both.

Implications for Gold

What does it all mean for the gold market? Well, we do not see a compromise in Brexit talks on the horizon. The British officials live under the illusion and both sides are standing still. If nothing changes, the UK will exit the EU without the deal on March the 29th, 2019. The EU law will no longer apply in the UK. The millions of Europeans working in the UK will need to have permission to work. There will be custom duties for goods (for example, the tariff for food imports will increase from zero to 22 percent), disrupting the trade chains. Britain would fall out of EU regulatory bodies for things like air safety, medicines, or nuclear materials. So if it does not create own regulations on time, the airplanes might be grounded, while some medicines and isotopes might not be imported. And there could be even a hard border on the island of Ireland.

Moreover, there will be no continuity of financial business as British companies will lose their passports allowing them to sell services and products across the bloc under Londons regulations. Its difficult to predict all repercussions, but one thing is certain: there will be a lot of uncertainty and temporary disruptions (we wrote temporary as there is also life outside the EU and the UK is one of the most developed economies, after all). The exit is likely to be disorderly. The price of gold expressed in British pounds should rise then.

The impact on US-dollar denominated price is not so clear. After the surprising outcome of the referendum, the international price of gold soared, as one can see in the chart below.

Chart 1: The price of gold in the U.S. dollar (yellow line), the euro (red line) and the British pound (green line) from 2016 to 2018 (London P.M. Fix).

But where two are fighting, the third wins. Hence, the greenback should take advantage on the divorce between EU and the UK. It could limit the possible gains in the gold prices. Please remember that the EU will be weaker without the UK and its financial contribution to the common budget. We will see, a lot may still happen in that Brexit saga. Now, all eyes are on the FOMC September meeting, which could affect the gold market. The meeting will end on Wednesday and we will cover it on Thursday.

Thank you.By Melanie Burton

MELBOURNE, Sept 26 (Reuters) - The union at Alcoa's aluminium operations in the state of Western Australia said it was meeting with the company again on Wednesday to try to resolve a strike that has lasted more than six weeks, after the firm last week revised an earlier offer.

Unionised workers at two alumina refineries and three bauxite mines walked out on Aug. 8 on worries that a new workplace agreement did not adequately address job security. The strike has come during a period of very tight supply for aluminium-making material alumina, helping prices for the commodity rally by 20 percent over a month.

"(The union's negotiating team) is meeting with Alcoa this Wednesday to discuss a resolution to the dispute," said Australian Workers' Union State Secretary Mike Zoetbrood.

He said that union members had met last Friday and recommended holding further discussions with the company after it submitted an offer on Thursday that aimed to address the union's job security concerns.

"A further (union) mass meeting has been scheduled for this Friday ... where we hope to achieve a fair outcome for our members," he said.

Alcoa did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.

The company said earlier this month that production of alumina at the site had been cut by a total of about 15,000 tonnes in August. The operations normally churn out about 9 million tonnes a year, or 25,000 tonnes a day. The refineries and mines are owned by Alcoa of Australia Ltd, which is part of the AWAC group of companies. Sixty percent of AWAC is held by Alcoa and 40 percent by Alumina Ltd .



(Reporting by Melanie Burton Editing by Joseph Radford)

+613 9286 1421; Reuters Messaging: melanie.burton.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))* Sky, Randgold, Versace deals bolster investor optimism* European takeover activity picking up after summer lull* Value of deals in Europe more than halved so far in Q3 By Danilo Masoni MILAN, Sept 26 (Reuters) - The $40 billion takeover of British broadcaster Sky and other new deals in Europe have broken a summer lull to bolster investor optimism over an M&A revival in the region. Europe has not traditionally been the preferred destination for M&A investors, but 2018 started with a boom that saw activist campaigns targeting big names from food group Nestle to miner BHP Billiton and paints maker Akzo Nobel .

In the last three months, however, the value of transactions more than halved as trade war concerns and political worries gripped markets and M&A bankers waited on the sidelines. But this week's Sky takeover, a merger involving miner Randgold Resources and the acquisition of Italian fashion house Versace showed that M&A in Europe is anything but dead and could help drive positive share price performance. Philippe Ferreira, cross-asset strategist at Paris-based Lyxor, which oversees some $165 billion of assets, said he was "constructive" over the outlook for European M&A. "Even if volumes have come down a bit, activity remains buoyant and is likely to remain so," he said, mentioning Sky and drugmaker Shire in the UK and pointing to Germany and Switzerland as other regions where large deals are in the pipeline. Sky shot up 8 percent after the deal with Comcast was announced and Randgold added 6 percent after saying it would be taken over by Barrick Gold in a deal that Bernstein analysts say could signal the start of renewed consolidation in the mining industry. Shire is being acquired for $62 billion by Takeda Pharmaceutical Co Ltd , the largest overseas purchase by a Japanese company. Dealogic data show the value of deals in Europe more than halved to $182 billion in the third quarter so far from the previous quarter, sliding below year-ago levels. U.S. deals fell at a smaller pace and remained above year-ago levels.

That has fuelled some pessimism about whether the early boom in M&A would continue.

"A lot of deals aren't happening," said a London-based trader, focused on special situations. He cited the lack of any big banking merger and no move by U.S. tech giant Amazon to buy a cheap retailer despite continued speculation. On Wednesday, Deutsche Bank dismissed speculation that it might seek a merger as "fictions", while the Telegraph reported that Amazon made preliminary approaches for online food delivery company Deliveroo that had made no progress. BUMPER YEAR Still the year is set to be a bumper one and dealmaking activity could get a further boost if concerns that the U.S.-Sino trade war could damage Europe's export-oriented economy ease. A softening of political risk would also help, investors said. "We continue to expect M&A as a big driver for European equity markets. A lot of companies have cash and big balance sheets but the problem is it's difficult to announce a big deal in this market which has a lack of visibility," said Societe Generale strategist Roland Kaloyan. "If we see some better newsflow coming on the political side and the macro side, that will be a strong catalyst to see more deals," he added. With nearly $1 trillion worth of deals, European M&A is on track for its strongest year since the 2007-2008 global financial crisis, tracking global dealmaking. An unprecedented record of mega-deals, of which Sky is one, however, has lifted Europe's share of deal values to almost 30 percent, the strongest since 2012. Investor sentiment this month was buoyed by hopes that the United States and China could resume talks on trade, while worries over a no-deal Brexit and the Italian budget eased. A trader at a European bank however said some investors are wary of acquisitions that could hit share prices. The takeover of Monsanto has cost Bayer 18 billion euros of market value so far, but that may be an exception. According to a study by Cass Business School for investment adviser Willis Towers Watson, shares in European acquirers have bucked a negative global trend by outperforming their regional index by 2.8 percentage points this quarter. Over a one-year period, the outperformance was 6.2 percentage points, against a 3 percentage point underperformance worldwide, the study published on Monday showed.

Possible picks range across different sectors. Among the stocks that U.S. bank Morgan Stanley believes are well placed to play the revival in European M&A are retailer Kingfisher , electrical parts supplier Rexel , hotel operator Accor and telecoms infrastructure supplier Nokia . Their break-up candidates include engineer ABB , miner Anglo American and car maker Daimler .

Lyxor's Ferreira said his outlook had not changed much this year and that interest from foreign investors in M&A in Europe had grown and that could support the market. "We talk with several funds investing in M&A and they are pretty much satisfied with the returns they got on European M&A," he said.

(Reporting by Danilo Masoni in MILAN, additional reporting by Helen Reid and Pamela Barbaglia in LONDON; Editing by Adrian Croft)

danilo.masoni.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net; On TwitterBRUSSELS, Sept 26 (Reuters) - EU antitrust regulators will decide by October 30 whether to allow Germany's Thyssenkrupp and India's Tata Steel to create Europe's No. 2 steelmaker, the European Commission said on Wednesday. The companies unveiled their plan for a steel joint venture in July after two years of talks, the sector's biggest tie-up in more than a decade. Steelmakers are battling overcapacity and tariff hikes among other problems. Thyssenkrupp and Tata Steel sought EU approval on Tuesday, according to a filing on the Commission website. Regulators can either wave the deal through with or without demanding concessions or open a full-scale investigation if they have deeper concerns. The new entity, to be based in the Netherlands, will compete with ArcelorMittal . (Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle) Messaging: foo.yunchee.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Kitco Metals Inc. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Kitco Metals Inc. nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Kitco Metals Inc. and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication.Egypt's irrigation ministry says that no concrete results were reached during talks between Irrigation Minister Mohamed Abdel-Aty and his Ethiopian and Sudanese counterparts on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.

In an official statement published by the state-owned MENA news agency, Egypts irrigation ministry said that despite the lack of progress, the three countries reiterated their commitment to continuing talks soon to reach an agreement that is satisfactory for all sides on the filling of the dam's reservoir in accordance with the declaration of principles signed in 2015.

The issue of filling the dams reservoir has been the key disagreement between Egypt and Ethiopia regarding the dam, which Addis Ababa insists will not reduce Egypt's share of Nile water.

Ethiopia is building the dam on the main tributary to Egypt's Nile River.

During the meeting, Egypts Irrigation Minister Abdel-Aty said that Wednesdays gathering reflects the three countries' commitment to finding the best possible scenarios for filing the dam without causing harm to downstream countries.

Addis Ababa says that its $4 billion hydroelectric project is essential for Ethiopia's development efforts.

The visits by the Egyptian minister came a few months after the leaders of Egypt and Ethiopia hinted at a breakthrough to resolve differences over the project. Ethiopias PM Abiy Ahmed said at the time that his country is committed to safeguarding Egypt's share of Nile water.

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Sept 26 (Reuters) - International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde and Argentine Economy Minister Nicolas Dujovne will make a joint statement in New York on Wednesday, a spokesman for the Fund said. The spokesman declined to comment on the content of the statement, which was due at around 4.30 p.m. Eastern Time (2000 GMT). Dujovne said on Tuesday that Argentina should be able to announce on Wednesday a revised version of a $50 billion standby facility agreed with the Fund in June. (Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon Writing by Daniel Flynn; Editing by Sandra Maler)

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and may not reflect those of Kitco Metals Inc. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Kitco Metals Inc. nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Kitco Metals Inc. and the author of this article do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication.LIVERPOOL, England (Reuters) - British opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn said on Wednesday Labour would vote against a Brexit deal based on Theresa Mays proposals, the strongest warning yet to a prime minister whose plan to leave the European Union is hanging by a thread.

On the final day of his partys annual conference, Corbyn sought to show he was ready to take up the reins of power, setting out details of what he called a radical plan to rebuild Britain, including the promise of a green jobs revolution.

Corbyn also made a direct bid for the support of those outside the British capital who voted to exit the EU, often in frustration at feeling left behind by a London-based elite, saying Labour was ready to take over the tortured Brexit talks.

Britain is not due another election until 2022, but Labour is preparing for a possible snap vote. Mays position, already precarious, was further weakened last week when the EU rebuffed her Brexit proposal, known as Chequers, which is also unpopular in her Conservative Party.

Corbyn, a veteran eurosceptic, said Labour respected the outcome of a 2016 referendum when Britons voted to leave the EU, in the biggest shift in foreign and trade policy in more than 40 years.

As it stands, Labour will vote against the Chequers plan or whatever is left of it and oppose leaving the EU with no deal, Corbyn told a packed hall at the conference in the northern English city of Liverpool.

And it is inconceivable that we should crash out of Europe with no deal - that would be a national disaster. That is why if parliament votes down a Tory (Conservative) deal or the government fails to reach any deal at all we would press for a general election, he said to a standing ovation.

Brexit divides Labour just as it does Mays Conservatives and much of the country, but Corbyn has tried to paper over his partys splits by keeping open the option of holding a second referendum on staying in the EU.

REVOLUTION?

His words were greeted with chants of Oh Jeremy Corbyn, a popular refrain since 2015 when he became leader of Labour, a party which seems to be growing in confidence after months of rows over anti-Semitism and other issues.

Corbyn has presided over a marked move leftwards in policy, breaking with what he described as the greed-is-good, deregulated financial capitalism that led to the 2008 financial crisis. He accused politicians, including in Labour, of failing to make essential changes to a broken economic system.

Thats why Labour is offering a radical plan to rebuild and transform Britain, he said.

Corbyn pledged to create more than 400,000 skilled jobs by investing in technologies to cut net carbon emissions by 60 percent by 2030, and to zero by 2050 - a move the Conservatives criticized as Labours 37th unfunded promise.

But pro-EU Labour lawmakers said it is on Brexit where he could falter.

For now, Corbyn seemed to bridge the gap between those in Labour who want a clean break with the EU and others, especially in the parliamentary party, who want the closest possible ties with the bloc, or even to stop Brexit altogether.

By saying he will vote against Chequers, he has thrown down the gauntlet to May, who has promised to press on with her plan to leave the EU, named after her country residence where an agreement was hashed out with her ministers in July.

With a working majority of only 13 in the 650-seat parliament and a former junior minister warning that as many as 80 of her own lawmakers could vote against it, May could have been hoping to secure some support from the opposition.

But Corbyn told May that Labour would only back a sensible deal. If she cannot secure one, she should make way for a party that can, Corbyn added, before leaving the stage to strains of Children of the revolution by rock group T-Rex.UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump accused China of seeking to meddle in the Nov. 6 U.S. congressional elections on Wednesday, saying Beijing did not want his Republican Party to do well because of his pugnacious stance on trade.

China has been attempting to interfere in our upcoming 2018 election, coming up in November. Against my administration, Trump told a U.N. Security Council meeting whose ostensible subject was nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Trump, chairing the Council for the first time since becoming U.S. president, did not provide any evidence for his allegation, which China immediately rejected during the same meeting.

We did not and will not interfere in any countrys domestic affairs. We refuse to accept any unwarranted accusations against China, the Chinese governments top diplomat Wang Yi told the Council.

Trump also used the session to defend the U.S. withdrawal in May from a 2015 international nuclear deal with Iran, hint at progress in U.S. efforts to curb North Koreas nuclear program, and to criticize Iran and Russia for supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the countrys war, now in its eighth year.

The Syrian regimes butchery is enabled by Russia and Iran, Trump said.

Trumps focus on China and his allegation of election meddling came as a surprise during a formal meeting around the Security Councils horseshoe table that was expected to concentrate on the spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

They do not want me or us to win because I am the first president ever to challenge China on trade and we are winning on trade, we are winning at every level. We dont want them to meddle or interfere in our upcoming election, said Trump, who is attending the U.N.s annual gathering of world leaders.

Trump himself is not up for re-election until 2020 but Novembers voting will decide whether his Republican Party can keep control of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate. Some opinion polls show that the Democratic Party could make a strong showing, notably in the House.

TRADE WAR

The United States and China are embroiled in a trade war, sparked by Trumps accusations that China has long sought to steal U.S. intellectual property, limit access to its own market and unfairly subsidize state-owned companies.

In the latest salvo, U.S. tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods and retaliatory taxes by Beijing on $60 billion worth of U.S. products kicked in on Monday, unnerving global financial markets.

During his roughly 10-minute speech, Trump made no reference to U.S. allegations that Russia meddled in the 2016 U.S. election that brought him to power. The allegations have dogged his presidency and have given rise to an investigation by U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller into potential collusion between Moscow and the Trump campaign, which Trump rejects.

In July at a summit in Helsinki, Trump accepted Russian President Vladimir Putins denials his government ran an operation to hack Democratic Party computers and spread disinformation on social media. Trump frequently describes investigations into the interference as a political witch hunt.

On the war in Syria, Trump noted Washington had twice launched airstrikes against the Assad government for twice using chemical weapons against civilians.

He also used the session to defend his May 8 decision to abandon the Iran nuclear deal under which Tehran limited its nuclear program in return for the easing of U.S., European and international economic sanctions.

The core U.S. sanctions that seek to choke off Irans oil exports, the life blood of its economy, will resume in early November and Trump promised that after that the United States will pursue additional sanctions, tougher than ever before, to counter the entire range of Irans malign behavior.

The United States accuses Iran of supporting destabilizing proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iraq.

Trump asked the Security Council to work with the United States to ensure the Iranian regime changes its behavior and never acquires a nuclear bomb.

Chinas Wang encouraged Iran to keep its commitments under the nuclear deal and, in an apparent riposte to Trump, said at the same time, the legitimate right of all countries to normal economic relations and trade with Iran should be respected.

SANCTIONS VIOLATIONS?

While Iran has made clear that it has little interest in opening talks with the United States since Washingtons abrogation of the accord, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un met with Trump in June about his countrys nuclear program.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will visit Pyongyang next month to discuss North Korean denuclearization efforts ahead of a planned second summit between Kim and Trump, the U.S. State Department said on Wednesday.

I think we will make a deal, but unfortunately to ensure this progress continues we must enforce existing U.N. Security Council resolutions until denuclearization occurs, Trump said before Pompeos trip was announced.

Trump told the Council some countries were violating the U.N. sanctions, but he did not name them. The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations accused Russia this month of cheating on U.N. sanctions on North Korea.(Reuters) - Steel and aluminum tariffs imposed by the Trump administration have cost Ford Motor Co (F.N) about $1 billion in profits, its chief executive officer said on Wednesday, while Honda Motor Co (7267.T) said higher steel prices have brought hundreds of millions of dollars in new costs.

From Fords perspective the metals tariffs took about $1 billion in profit from us, CEO James Hackett said at a Bloomberg conference in New York, The irony of which is we source most of that in the U.S. today anyway. If it goes on any longer, it will do more damage. He did not specify what period the $1 billion covered.

Higher U.S. steel prices have resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in additional annual costs, Rick Schostek, executive vice president of Honda North America, told the U.S. Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday, even as more than 90 percent of steel in its vehicles assembled in the United States is made domestically.

Honda is also facing retaliatory tariffs from Canada and China on lawn-mowers it builds in North Carolina and transmissions made in Georgia.

Honda has not boosted U.S. vehicle prices as a result of the higher costs but the issue is certainly part of our thinking as we go forward, Schostek told reporters after the hearing.

While the vast majority of steel and aluminum that Ford uses for U.S. production is made domestically, it has said the tariffs could result in higher domestic commodity prices.

Ford shares dipped 0.4 percent at $9.36.

The United States said in March it would impose a 25 percent tariff on imported steel and a 10 percent tariff on imported aluminum from most countries. The tariffs have allowed U.S. producers to raise their prices.

U.S. President Donald Trumps steel and aluminum tariffs will boost car prices by hiking commodity costs for manufacturers, automakers have warned.

During the presidential campaign, Trump lambasted U.S. trade deficits as detrimental to American manufacturers and workers.

Since taking office, Trump has pursued a policy of escalating tariffs that he says will reverse that trend, including waging an increasingly bitter trade war with China.

The auto industry is bracing for a possible new round of tariffs. On May 23 Trump ordered a Section 232 national security investigation into whether to impose a 25 percent tariff on vehicle and auto parts imported from the European Union and other trading partners.

The section, included in the U.S. Trade Expansion Act, allows the president to adjust imports through tariffs if they threaten national security.

At a briefing in Detroit on Wednesday, officials from analytics data firm IHS Markit said if the Trump administration imposed the Section 232 tariffs globally, it would have far-reaching consequences for the U.S. auto industry as well as the broader economy.

IHS Markit estimates that full implementation of the 232 tariffs would add between $1,800 and $5,700 to a new vehicles price tag and cut new auto sales by around 2.2 million units in 2020 as well as slice total sales to as little as 14.5 million units from expectations of 17 million vehicles this year.

The new tariffs would also cost around 300,000 in auto-related jobs in factories and dealerships across the country, and slash U.S. economic growth by 1.1 percentage points to 2.2 percent, IHS said.

In July Ford lowered its full-year earnings forecast due to slumping sales and trade tariffs on China as well as its struggling business in Europe.

The automakers difficulties in boosting sales in China have showed no signs of ending despite taking steps to bring new products to market.UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump accused China of seeking to meddle in the Nov. 6 U.S. congressional elections on Wednesday, saying Beijing did not want his Republican Party to do well because of his stance on trade.

China has been attempting to interfere in our upcoming 2018 election, coming up in November. Against my administration, Trump told a U.N. Security Council meeting whose ostensible subject was on nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Trump did not provide any evidence for his allegation. Chinese officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the remarks by Trump, who was chairing the Council meeting. He also used the topic to talk about Iran, North Korea and the use of chemical weapons in Syria.

They do not want me or us to win because I am the first president ever to challenge China on trade and we are winning on trade, we are winning at every level. We dont want them to meddle or interfere in our upcoming election, said Trump, who is attending the U.N.s annual gathering of world leaders.

Trump himself is not up for re-election until 2020 but Novembers voting will decide whether his Republican Party can keep control of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate. Some opinion polls show that the Democratic Party could make a strong showing in the elections.

During a roughly 10-minute speech, Trump made no reference to allegations that Russia meddled in the 2016 U.S. election that brought him to power.

The allegations have dogged his presidency and have given rise to an investigation by U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller into potential collusion between Moscow and the Trump campaign.

In July at a summit in Helsinki, Trump accepted Russian President Vladimir Putins denials and the U.S. president describes investigations into the interference as a political witch hunt.

However, Trump did fault Moscow, and Tehran, for their involvement in Syrias civil war in support of President Bashar al-Assad. The Syrian regimes butchery is enabled by Russia and Iran, he said.GENEVA (Reuters) - The supreme court of world trade is close to breakdown after the United States turned down a last-ditch petition to reappoint one of the four remaining judges at the World Trade Organization.

U.S. President Donald Trump has railed against the WTO judges, who have the final say on trade disputes. His ambassador in Geneva has accused them of overstepping their authority, breaking their own rules and interfering in U.S. laws.

Three judges are needed for each case and all 164 WTO members must comply with their rulings. The WTO normally has seven judges but after a U.S. campaign to block appointments and reappointments only four remained.

Wednesdays meeting of the WTOs dispute settlement body was the last chance of reprieve for Shree Baboo Chekitan Servansing, a trade judge from Mauritius, before his term expires on Sept. 30.

U.S. officials told last months meeting they would block Servansing but some diplomats had hoped that offers to amend the judges procedures and other reforms might be enough to persuade Trumps trade negotiators.

Almost 70 countries have repeatedly petitioned the United States to let the appointments go ahead. But a U.S. official again turned down their plea at WTO headquarters in Geneva.

As we have explained in prior meetings, we are not in a position to support the proposed decision, a U.S. official said, according to a transcript of prepared remarks. The systemic concerns that we have identified remain unaddressed.

Servansing declined to comment.

The WTO is presiding over a record number of disputes, many of them triggered by Trumps tariffs on steel and aluminum and his trade war with China.

Trade officials say the lack of judges plunges the organization into crisis because if one of the three remaining judges has to recuse themselves from a case for legal reasons, the system will break down.

The terms of two more judges  Thomas Graham, an American, and Indian chief judge Ujal Singh Bhatia  will end in December 2019, which will leave Chinas Hong Zhao alone in office until her term ends in November 2020.Shenandoah, IA (51601)

Today

Periods of snow and windy. Temps nearly steady in the mid 30s. Winds NW at 20 to 30 mph. Chance of snow 60%. Winds could occasionally gust over 40 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies. Low near 25F. Winds NW at 10 to 20 mph.Egypt's education ministry is investigating a video that went viral online showing a first-grade student crying in a classroom and pleading with his teacher to allow him to have some sleep, a ministry spokesman said.

The 30-second footage, which was shared online earlier this week, shows six-year-old Mohamed crying as he sits at his desk while begging his teacher to allow him to sleep for 15 minutes. The teacher reassured the child that he would be going home soon.

The National Council for Childhood and Motherhood (NCCM) said that the posting of the video online  which has resulted in some people mocking the child  amounts to "cyber bullying," while calling for a probe.

The NCCM has urged TV channels and social media users to stop broadcasting and sharing the video, which it says violates international children's rights.

Education ministry spokesman Ahmed Khairy said in TV comments late on Tuesday that the ministry is investigating the incident, and that it is taking "strict measures" against the use of cell phones and recording devices in schools.

The child's father said in statements to the media that his son has refused to go to school since the incident took place due to bullying he has been subjected to by classmates after the video went viral.

Late last month, the education ministry and NCCM launched Egypt's first national anti-bullying campaign to protect children from peer-to-peer physical and psychological violence, in cooperation with United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF). The initiative is funded by the European Union.

The campaign encourages children and young people across Egypt to share their experiences, views and thoughts on how to end bullying by using hashtag #IAmAgainstBullying.

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By Nam Hyun-woo



The Moon Jae-in administration's campaign to "root out archaic irregularities" appears to have backfired as global private equity funds are rushing to file investor-state dispute settlements (ISDS) over the controversial merger between Samsung C&T and Cheil Industries in 2015.



Following Elliott, which went after the Moon Jae-in government's acknowledgement of the previous administration's intervention in the merger, a separate U.S. private equity fund, Mason, has recently issued a similar claim. Those moves are placing the government in a dilemma over whether it should deny its own rationale or pay more than 1 trillion won (890 million) in compensation.



Mason joins crusade





According to the Ministry of Justice, Mason Management LLC sent a notice of arbitration to the government on Sept. 13. The letter is a notice that the U.S. private equity fund has initiated an "international arbitration proceeding" against Korea over the merger of the two companies.



In the letter, Mason claimed that it was then-President Park Geun-hye and other senior government officials who "subverted the internal procedures of the National Pension Service (NPS) in order to enable the merger being grossly undervalued to Samsung C&T shareholders" and it suffered damages and losses "no less than $200 million."



The NPS was the largest shareholder of Samsung C&T and the merger was expected to help Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong to tighten his grip on Samsung Group.



At that time, Mason, which held a 2.2 percent stake in Samsung C&T, opposed the deal with Elliott, which had a 7.1 percent stake, saying its stake was undervalued in the stock swap between the two companies.



"Through this scheme, Korea acted both by improper means and with improper motives, in breach of the free trade agreement between Korea and the U.S.," Mason said in the letter.



Amid investigations of former President Park's corruption scandal, then Health and Welfare Minister Moon Hyung-pyo was found guilty of abusing his authority in the NPS by voting in favor of the Samsung C&T deal after pressure from Park.



And this appeared to have provided the logic for the private equities. In the ISDS case by Elliott, the fund also used similar logic that the Moon government has acknowledged was used in the alleged intervention by the previous administration, thus the government is responsible for its claimed losses. In its filing, Elliott sought at least $770 million in compensation.



Over the attack by the private funds, the government seems to be trapped in a dilemma. Last month, the government stirred up controversy with liberal pundits after quoting Lee's appeals trial finding no "implicational request" from Samsung asking the government to influence the merger.



It was powerful logic claiming that the government is not liable with Elliott's alleged losses but at the same time interpreted as the government denying its own rationale.



"The legitimacy of rooting out the Park administration's corruption should not be compromised while the government is setting up its defense," said lawyer Song Ki-ho at the law firm Soorun Asia. "Instead, the government should underscore that Elliott's rights as a stakeholder was not damaged whether the NPS okayed the merger or not."



Song stressed that the government's intervention did not hamper Elliott from agreeing or opposing the merger. "If the government or the NPS were to have a direct legal relation with Elliott, the fund's claim may make sense, but the NPS's action did not prevent Elliott from exerting its rights," Song said.



Unlike earlier expectations, both Elliott and Mason opted to take their cases to the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), not the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), where majority of investors resort to for their ISDS cases.



The two rules share the basic principle of appointing three arbitrators -- representing both claimant and respondent and one neutral arbitrator -- as the tribunal. However, the ICSID at least opens what stage a dispute is in, while the UNCITRAL does not disclose its arbitration process. Song said that Mason seemed to choose UNCITRAL because its arbitrator, Dame Elizabeth Gloster from One Essex Court in London, is more familiar with the UNCITRAL procedure.



Law firms rake in profits



Along with the litigation of the two funds, the government is facing an increasing number of ISDS cases this year.



In July, Swiss elevator manufacturer Schindler sent a notice of intent for an ISDS, claiming it suffered damages because the government looked on Korea's Hyundai Elevator's "unfair recapitalization." Schindler is the second-largest shareholder of Hyundai Elevator.



Schindler is yet to commence its ISDS and is instead in negotiations with the government, according to sources. Reportedly, the first round of negotiations with the government went unsuccessfully with both parties failing to narrow their differences.



Also in July, a naturalized U.S. citizen named Seo Jin-hae filed an ISDS with the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre, claiming the government did not compensate her enough when it was expropriating her 188 square meters of her land and house in Mapo-gu, Seoul, for redevelopment. Her property was registered as a subject of expropriation because of her "loss of Korean citizenship."



Adding ongoing ISDS cases sought earlier, such as the 5.3 trillion won Lone Star Funds case, Korea is facing ISDS cases worth more than 6.5 trillion won.



While woes are deepening for the government, law firms are enjoying huge profits coming from the fees for representing each party for ISDS cases, calling it "a market."



The government has poured in more than 40 billion won for the ongoing ISDS case against Lone Star Funds since 2013, with more than 80 percent of the money going to law firms Bae, Kim and Lee (BKL) and Arnold & Porter. BKL is also representing the government in the Schindler case.



Lee & Ko is representing the government in the cases raised by Elliott and Mason. The two funds are represented by KL Partners, which was established in 2015 but growing rapidly as a corporate case specialist.



"Lawyers have to point out problems in ISDS cases, but they created a market dominated by few instead," Song said. "The government should include the state-run Korea Government Legal Service in coping with ISDS cases, rather than making ISDS an industry for large private law firms."



By Jhoo Dong-chan



The unemployment rate for college graduates rose to a record high in the second quarter as companies and small businesses grew more reluctant to hire new workers amid a consumption slump and other unfavorable business conditions.



Due to worsening job market conditions, the number of unemployed university graduates as of June exceeded the figure following the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis.



According to Statistics Korea, Wednesday, the number of unemployed college graduates reached 543,000 in the second quarter, up 2,000, or 0.3 percent, from a year ago.



This was the highest figure since the agency started collecting related data, and was also almost twice the unemployment figure for college graduates immediately after the IMF crisis where 276,000 college graduates failed to land a job in the third quarter of 1999.



The study displayed the number of the total unemployed people reached 1.1 million in the period. Of them, the number of jobless college graduates accounted for 49.1 percent.



The nation's jobless college graduates also outnumbered those of high school and middle school graduates at 447,000 and 116,000, respectively.



"Unemployed college graduates in their 20s occupy large portion of the nation's unemployment rate," said the Statistics Korea in the press release.









By Jung Min-ho







With the death toll rising from bootleg liquor poisoning in Malaysia, the Korean government has warned its citizens there to take extra care.





"Koreans who are living or traveling there should use extreme care when buying liquor," the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Facebook on Sept. 22.





The statement came after dozens of people were hospitalized with methanol poisoning. The latest reports say 29 people died after drinking the contaminated alcohol.





Cheap homemade liquor has become popular among poor migrant workers in the country, which has high taxes on alcohol.





Most victims had shown early signs of methanol poisoning, such as abdominal pain, headache, nausea and blurred vision, with some developing shortness of breath, cramps and sudden unconsciousness.





Police said the victims are believed to have consumed two brands of whisky and a brand of beer. Local reports have identified the three brands as Mandalay Whisky, King Fisher Beer and Grand Royal Whisky.





Nine people have been arrested since police began investigating the cases.

U.S. President Donald Trump addresses the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly, at U.N. headquarters, Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2018. A sound of sudden, loud and unexpected laughter was directed at Trump as he addressed global leaders at the United Nations, and it was witnessed by an audience of tens of millions viewing immediate clips online of a humiliating moment for Donald Trump. The laughter followed Trump's boasts that "in less than two years, my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country." / AP



By Park Si-soo



Will U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un get together again? If yes, where?



With positive signals for a second summit coming from all angles, a guessing game on a venue has begun.



As is the case with Singapore that hosted the historic first Trump-Kim summit on June 12, the location of the second meeting will have the honor of being inscribed in history books for hosting one of the groundbreaking political events of the post-World War II era. Another perk would be a lifted international profile, which would make it easier for the location  a city or a country  to host big international events or attract tourists.





President Moon Jae-in, second from right, and his wife Kim Jung-sook, right, talk with U.S. civil-rights activist Jesse Jackson at the Council on Foreign Relations headquarters, New York, Tuesday, after Moon delivered a speech for local diplomatic organizations. / Yonhap



By Park Ji-won



President Moon Jae-in met with U.S. civil-rights icon Jesse Jackson after making a speech in New York Tuesday and exchanged opinions on the Korean Peninsula saying the North's actions and the U.S.'s corresponding countermeasures would lead to the North's denuclearization.



After delivering the speech at the diplomatic event "A Conversation with President Moon Jae-in" organized by U.S. think tank Council on Foreign Relations, the Korea Society and the Asia Society, Moon said to Jackson that the North's sincere implementation of denuclearization and the U.S.'s countermeasures on the matter would lead to the North's denuclearization, according to a written briefing by Cheong Wa Dae's vice spokeswoman Ko Min-jung.



Praising U.S. President Donald Trump's efforts, Moon said "President Trump's decision led us to the current situation."



Jackson asked Moon whether denuclearization is possible without securing trade and food. Moon said is "persuading Kim" and believes "Kim would think the same." Moon told Jackson that the "U.S. can lead North Korea in making such a decision."



Regarding Moon's efforts to mediate talks between North Korea and the U.S. and establish peace on the Korean Peninsula, Jackson said Moon seemed to be succeeding like South African President Nelson Mandela and South Korean President Kim Dae-jung did. Moon replied that "we are trying to inherit former President Kim Dae-jung's legacy."



Jackson added that he now looks at the North with hope, whereas he used to be cynical and feared it.

By Kim Jae-heun



The Philippines' Bureau of Immigration (BI) arrested 21 Koreans there earlier this month for working and staying illegally, according to the Korean Embassy in the Philippines, Wednesday.



Eight out of 21 Koreans have been released, eight are still being detained, while five are being questioned.



The BI conducted a crackdown mainly in the Paranaque region, where many Koreans reside.



The Ministry of Foreign Affairs took immediate action to request an impartial investigation with the Philippine immigration office.



"We sent our consul stationed there to help the Koreans and provide interpretation services while talking with the local investigators about the case," said a ministry official, Wednesday.



The Korean Embassy in the Philippines held a public hearing inviting 20 representatives of the Korean community there to talk about the crackdown by the local immigration office and check their visa status.



"Four of eight being held are confirmed to be illegal aliens whose stay periods have expired. The other four allegedly worked at places where they were not permitted to work," the ministry official said.



Meanwhile, one Korean resident there posted an online petition on Cheong Wa Dae's website, Tuesday, asking the government to take measures to protect Koreans living in the Philippines.



"I am too scared to go outside. The Philippine government is raiding Korean restaurants, kindergartens, language institutes and food stores and arresting Korean staff randomly. We said we have visas but the immigration officials would put handcuffs on us first and eventually ask for money," the petitioner wrote. "However, the Korean embassy and the consulate are complacent about the case and they are only enjoying the Chuseok holiday here. We are not getting proper protection."



Over 7,800 people have joined the petition as of Wednesday calling for the Korean government to take up the case with the Philippine Immigration Bureau.



An official of the Korean embassy in the Philippines told the local press that it is monitoring the case closely and has not confirmed any illegal arrests or human rights abuses during the arrest.



"We are not sure why the Philippines immigration office is conducting a major crackdown on illegal immigrants but they have arrested more Chinese than Koreans," said a Korean embassy official. "Our ambassador will meet with the head of the Philippines immigration office and exchange opinions about the case tomorrow."





By Park Si-soo







A Chinese man was killed in a fire that destroyed a plastics factory in an industrial complex in Siheung, Gyeonggi Province, Tuesday.







Police, who analyzed CCTV footage, said the man started the fire at 4:10 p.m. after spraying an unidentified flammable liquid on a pile of plastic. The blaze, being treated as arson, destroyed nearly a third of the 2,100-square-meter factory. The fire also damaged nearby buildings.







Forty-three fire engines and 106 firefighters were mobilized. The fire was extinguished at 6:20 p.m.







Police said the man, whose name and other details were withheld, got a job at the factory in 2016 and quit last October. He held permanent residency here.







An investigation is under way to discover why he set fire to his former workplace. Police said there was no record of conflict, such as overdue payment, between the Chinese and the factory.







When the fire broke out, about 20 foreign workers were in a dormitory associated with the factory. They evacuated safely.





Egypts delegation to the United Nations General Assembly has been busy promoting Cairos vision on resolving a host of regional issues

On Wednesday afternoon (East Coast Time) President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi was scheduled to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The meeting offers an opportunity to follow up on regional developments that are the subject of regular consultations between Cairo and Tel Aviv.

One issue high on the agenda of both Al-Sisi and Netanyahu, say informed sources, are Cairos ongoing attempts to foster Palestinian reconciliation and mediate a long-term truce between Hamas in Gaza and Israel.

Egypt has managed to establish  though only in principle, as one Middle East diplomat put it  a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

The fragile understanding was reached against a backdrop of skirmishes that Cairo feared could ignite a new round of Israeli hostilities against the impoverished Strip along Egypts volatile North Sinai border.

The deal could not be translated into a fully-fledged ceasefire partly because of Israeli demands which Hamas was loath to concede immediately, and partly because of what Western diplomats describe as US dislike of the deal.

Cairo tried to convince Washington but it didnt work. The Americans say they are planning to announce a comprehensive plan for the whole Israeli-Palestinian problem in the coming weeks and they did not want any partial deals ahead of their offer, said one European diplomat.

An exchange of Egyptian-American views on the issue took place late Monday between Al-Sisi and US President Donald Trump. Ahead of the meeting, an Egyptian diplomat said US ideas for Palestinian-Israeli peace, and possible diplomatic interventions by Egypt, were to be discussed.

The Americans have been working on restructuring the initial draft of their plan and have been consulting with us and other regional players. The Saudis requested some changes but we dont know exactly how much of the plan that was shared with us was changed and when and how the US is planning to unveil it, said the Egyptian diplomat.

Clearly, Egypt will be a central player in any peace initiative when  or maybe I should say if  it is offered. We already are working to pave the way for possible peace moves but we are not sure how things will develop.

Before arriving in New York late Saturday afternoon (ECT) Al-Sisi was briefed by aides on the latest round of mediation between Hamas and Fatah which included changes to the reconciliation plan Egypt has already drafted in an attempt to bring Fatah on board.

The initial plan was accepted by Hamas but rejected by the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority in Ramallah which said it could create a de facto long-term separation between Gaza and Ramallah.

Cairo is not expecting immediate progress on its plans given Hamas has not been forthcoming about accommodating the changes Cairo introduced to placate Fatah.

Cairo remains hopeful it will win support for its mediation efforts during the talks Al-Sisi is holding with Netanyahu, Trump and European leaders whose countries have a direct interest in and influence on the Middle East on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York.

The US president is consumed with domestic affairs but would still like to secure a foreign affairs success. If Egypt can help secure progress to allow the US to introduce its peace plan later this year it would go a long way to consolidating the ties between Cairo and Washington. Egypt, always very keen on its ties with the US, is perhaps especially so now, said a Cairo-based European diplomat.

In brief statements upon their meeting, both Al-Sisi and Trump affirmed their commitment to work on issues of common interest. Although the Palestinian file was not openly mentioned in the statements, a source in New York following the meeting told Al-Ahram Weekly, but, of course, it was discussed.

Government sources in Cairo said last week that the serious efforts Egypt has been making on the Palestinian front were part of the argument Egypts friends in the US administration used to lift the suspension placed on $195 million of military aid.

Egyptian sources say they hope to see more support from the White House despite sporadic Congressional nagging about governance issues and democracy from some US legislators.

After his meeting with Al-Sisi on the fringe of the UNGA, Trump said the relationship between the US and Egypt has never been stronger and that both countries would continue to work on military and trade and whatever else we could work on.

However, the same Egyptian sources say Cairo is not seeking to win more generous support from the Oval Office and has no intention of offering to play a military role in the management of the situation in Syria or in Yemen as a bargaining chip to this end.

We could still offer expertise and send experts but I know of no change in plans that would involve sending troops overseas, said an informed government source commenting on the outcome of the military meeting that brought together representatives from Egypt, Jordan and the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council earlier this month.

According to the source, the meeting addressed the kinds of security cooperation needed to counter terrorism more effectively.

The necessity of eliminating all terrorist organisations is something Al-Sisi has been promoting since he first attended the UNGA in the autumn of 2014.

In his address this year too, the president said, There is no doubt that the Arab region is one of the most vulnerable to the dangers of nation state disintegration, and the ensuing creation of a fertile environment for terrorism and exacerbation of sectarian conflicts.

Al-Sisi expressed Egypts support to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterras initiative to hold a UN-sponsored conference on combating terrorism.

There needs to be an international approach and mechanism to combat terrorism, the president said in his statement before the UNGA on Tuesday afternoon (ECT).

The importance Cairo attaches to blocking channels for the promotion of political Islam, especially in its more radical versions, underwrites Egypts support of Khalifa Haftar in Libya.

They are arguments that Al-Sisi and Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukri were expected to reiterate in meetings at the UNGA that were designed to address the continued conflict in Libya.

Cairo has made no secret of its scepticism over the French diplomatic initiative launched in the spring of this year, or its dismay at the priorities of Ghassan Salame, the UN envoy to Libya.

Al-Sisi reminded the UNGA attendees that a year after the adoption of the UN initiative on Libya, hardly any progress had been made.

Cairo will also be pushing diplomatic plans to forge an alliance of non-Islamist Syrian opposition groups that could then form an assembly capable of coexisting with the government of Bashar Al-Assad until a new constitution can be drafted and presidential elections held.

Egypt has some very concrete ideas on Libya and on the Palestinian issue and less concrete ideas on Syria. It is not, however, offering much on the management of the worsening situation in Yemen. When all is said and done I guess the consensus is that Egypts regional views reflect a moderating diplomacy, unlike the impulsive views coming from other top regional players, said a Cairo-based European ambassador.

The regional role Egypt plays, not least on the issue of migration which is very important for Europe, encourages our governments to cooperate with Cairo on the economic and development fronts even though we have deep concerns about some of the regimes domestic policies, he added.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 27 September 2018 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: Moderating a volatile region

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By Park Si-soo







A man was jailed for smuggling drugs from Australia using international parcels.







The Daejeon District Court said Wednesday it had sentenced the smuggler to two and a half years in prison for violating laws on narcotics or psychotropic drugs.







He was charged with illegally importing a "significant amount" of the drug on eight occasions between February and April from a drug dealer in Australia who he got to know through a smartphone app. The dealer sent the drugs hidden in snack/ramen packets or envelopes to Korea using international parcels.







"The amount of drug he smuggled in was huge, so he deserves a heavy punishment," wrote Judge Sohn Hyun-chan in a ruling statement. "But the ruling was made after taking into account the facts that only a small portion of the smuggled drug was circulated and he committed the crime to make money for living."

President Moon Jae-in shakes hands with Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in New York City, Tuesday, during a bilateral summit held on the sidelines of U.N. General Assembly. / AP-Yonhap



By Park Ji-won



President Moon Jae-in hinted at disbanding the Japanese-funded foundation for Korean victims of sex slavery under the Japanese colonial rule during a bilateral summit with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in New York City, a Cheong Wa Dae spokesman said Tuesday.



According to spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom, Moon, who is attending the 73rd U.N. General Assembly, met Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and said "in reality, the Reconciliation and Healing Foundation is not functioning and waiting to die due to opposition from the victims and citizens, and many people demand disbanding the organization domestically."



Mentioning that Moon said he will not ask for the abolition of the comfort women agreement and its renegotiation, Kim said "Moon emphasized the necessity of a wise settlement on the matter."



Moon's remarks will likely stir diplomatic controversy as the leader of the South was hinting at the unilateral dissolution of the organization which was jointly made by the two countries.



The organization was founded under impeached President Park Geun-hye in 2015 by receiving the 1 billion-yen ($9.2 million) Japanese contribution. The founding of the organization, which was meant to give support to the victims, drew criticism from the victims, political opponents and citizens for using the victims as political leverage without getting a sincere apology from Japan. Then Moon Jae-in was elected after pledging to nullify the related agreement made between the two countries on Dec. 28.



A senior Cheong Wa Dae official said, however, Moon didn't mean that he would return the fund to Japan.



Kim said Moon made his remarks in response to Abe's comments regarding the victims of sexual slavery and forced labor. The summit between the two leaders was held on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.



Regarding the lawsuit on forced labor, Moon was quoted as saying that "the alleged intervention of the Park Geun-hye government in the lawsuit became an issue. It is necessary that the decision of the judiciary on the lawsuit should be respected based on the separation of powers."



Meanwhile, Moon briefed Abe on his three-day trip to Pyongyang saying he has proposed to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un three times to seek dialogue and improvement in relations between North Korea and Japan.



Kim Jong-un was quoted as saying that he hopes to talk with Japan at an "appropriate time."



During the talks with Abe, Moon also emphasized the necessity of the improvement of North Korea-Japan relations to "open a new era of complete denuclearization and peace and prosperity on the Korean Peninsula."

Differences remain on preconditions of NK denuclearization



By Kim Bo-eun



The Korean War could be declared over this year, as a consensus appears to have been reached between South and North Korea, and the United States.



In an interview with Fox News, President Moon Jae-in, who is on a five-day visit to the U.S., said he had "ample discussions with U.S. President Donald Trump on this issue during a summit and expects plenty of discussions between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in their upcoming summit."



"It is my desire to sign a declaration ending the Korean War as soon as possible to give a sign that hostile relations between North Korea and the U.S. are ending and there is basic sympathy regarding this view," he said.



Moon and Trump met on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, Monday (local time).



Moon said the denuclearization process would be accelerated if the Korean War was declared over.



"It all comes down to whether the U.S. is ready to provide corresponding measures in a swift way. The U.S. promised to end hostile relations with North Korea to provide security guarantees and work toward new U.S. North Korea relations _ these actions need to be taken in parallel," he said.





The set of agreements reached between Moon and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at their summit last week states North Korea will permanently shut down its Yongbyon nuclear facility for a reciprocal measure from the U.S. Yongbyon is believed to be a key facility in the North's nuclear program.



The "reciprocal measure" was not specified, but it is believed to be declaring an end to the war, which Pyongyang has continuously been calling for as a means to protect its regime.



North Korea's Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho arrived in New York, Wednesday. It is yet to be seen when he will meet with his U.S. counterpart Mike Pompeo. After the summit between Moon and Kim last week, Pompeo invited Ri to New York for a meeting. The two are set to discuss follow-up denuclearization measures.



Differences remain on preconditions



While the relevant states may have the idea of declaring an end to the Korean War by the end of the year, the U.S. and North Korea still have differences on what would have to precede the measure.



The U.S. has been calling for Pyongyang to report its nuclear inventory and there had been expectations that the North Korean leader could make a pledge to do so at the inter-Korean summit held last week. However, Pyongyang instead offered to shut down its Tongchang-ri missile testing site in the presence of international experts.



"The U.S. wants North Korea to report its nuclear inventory and for verification to take place. North Korea has stated it would invite international experts to observe the shutdown of its Tongchang-ri site, but observation is different from verification," Shin Beom-chul, a senior fellow at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies, said.



"The U.S. and North Korea still appear to hold different views," he said.



"All we know is that Moon and Trump spoke about declaring an end to the war, that this will be discussed when Trump meets with Kim for the second time, and that the declaration will likely be made within the year," Handong Global University professor Park Won-gon said.



"The key is what North Korea will offer in terms of denuclearization. North Korea needs to pledge to report its nuclear assets. Discussions will take place through various channels _ between Pompeo and Ri in New York, and between U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun and North Korea's vice foreign minister Choe Son-hui in Vienna," he said.



By Kim Bo-eun





Gen. Robert AbramsIbrahim Mohamed Solih, the president-elect of the Maldives interacts with his supporters during a gathering in Male, Maldives, Monday. AP



The opposition was awarded victory in the Maldives presidential election on Monday, in a possible setback for China as the new leaders of the Indian Ocean archipelago nation aim to review major projects agreed with the outgoing administration.

Incumbent Abdulla Yameen, who had cultivated ties with both Beijing and Saudi Arabia, conceded defeat after the Election Commission said opposition leader Ibrahim Mohamed Solih had won Sunday's election by a margin of 16.7 percent.

Before the election, the opposition said it would review Chinese investment, partly out of concern over terms, as experts have warned that the Maldives risked falling into a debt trap.

Solih's ally Mohamed Nasheed, an exiled former president who led the country between 2008 and 2012, has repeatedly said he wants to renegotiate the deals.

"We have a joint manifesto. We have issues, we have ideas agreed upon. I think we have to review all the agreements we had with China. We have to review them and see what is due," Nasheed told Reuters on Monday in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo.

The Maldives, a string of palm-fringed islands and atolls lying 325 miles (523 kilometres) southwest of the southern tip of India, is best known as a luxury holiday destination.

But the Muslim nation of less than half a million people has suffered a turbulent transition to democracy following the end of three decades of authoritarian rule in 2008.

"This is a moment of happiness, a moment of hope," Solih told reporters in the capital Male. "This is a journey that has ended at the ballot box because the people willed it."

India and The United States congratulated Solih, popularly known as "Ibu", on his victory even before Yameen conceded.

"This election marks not only the triumph of democratic forces in the Maldives, but also reflects the firm commitment to the values of democracy and the rule of law," India's foreign ministry said in a statement.

"India looks forward to working closely with the Maldives in further deepening our partnership."

Both New Delhi and Washington had been concerned by China's growing influence in the Maldives and its lurch toward more hardline attitudes on religious issues during Yameen's five years in power.

China, meantime, has helped build an extension to the international airport in the Maldives, and a bridge linking it to the capital, Male.

The Chinese investment in Maldives is seen as part of its "String of Pearls" strategy, developing a network of friendly ports in the region from Sri Lanka to Pakistan.

India and Western nations have worried that the strategy ultimately aims to help China's military extend its reach.

ISLAND PRISON

Since coming to power in a contested election in 2013, Yameen has been criticised for jailing opponents and restricting election observers and the media, and there had been fears that Sunday's election would be an unfair contest.

But Yameen, whose five-year term was set to end in November, soothed concerns over the risk of another messy transfer of power in a televised address to the nation.

"Maldivian people have decided what they want. I have accepted the results from yesterday. Earlier today, I met with Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, who the Maldivian electorate has chosen to be their next president. I have congratulated him," he said.

Later on Monday, a court released a former police chief, three opposition legislators, and a son-in-law of former leader and Yameen's half brother Maumoon Abdul Gayoom who were in police custody facing trials.

Gayoom was not released as he was already convicted, the court said. Yameen jailed Gayoom, who led the country for 30 years. He is being held in a prison on a remote island along with the former head of the top court and ex-ministers.

The opposition has said it would make the release of all political prisoners, including Gayoom, a priority.

Voter turnout was 89.2 percent, the Elections Commission said, adding the official results would be released by Sept. 30.

The country has been in political turmoil since February, when Yameen imposed a state of emergency to annul a Supreme Court ruling that quashed the convictions of nine opposition leaders, including Nasheed, the country's first democratically elected leader and former president. (Reuters)



K-pop supergroup BTS talked about overcoming self doubt and urged young people to love themselves during a speech to the United Nations on Monday (September 24).

Speaking to a group of youth leaders, Kim Nam-joon, better known as RM, the leader of BTS, talked about his own self-doubt and learning to embrace his flaws and fears.

"Today, I am who I am with all of my faults and my mistakes. Tomorrow I might be a tiny bit wiser, and that'd be me too. These faults and mistakes are what I am, making up the brightest stars in the constellation of my life. I have come to love myself for who I am, for who I was and for who I hope to become."

The South Korean boy band's 'Love Yourself' album trilogy has topped the music charts since its initial release in 2017. (Reuters)



By Ted Gover





U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un have both expressed hope for a follow-up meeting to their initial Singapore encounter in June.



While Trump and Kim deserve credit for lowering the temperature between their two countries in recent months, Kim's progress on dismantling his nuclear weapons program has been insufficient, making a second summit between the two leaders premature.



Just as it was appropriate for U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's August trip to Pyongyang to have been cancelled  with President Trump citing scant headway by the North on denuclearization  Trump is right to keep Kim at an arm's length until certain breakthroughs are made.



Certainly, there have been positive steps of late. Pyongyang has engaged in confidence building measures, namely, stopping nuclear and missile tests over the past year, returning the remains of 55 U.S. service members from the Korean War, pledging to allow outside inspectors to dismantle its missile facilities, committing to closing the Tongchang-ri engine test site and suggesting it would scrap the Yongbyon nuclear complex.



Despite these steps and efforts to convince Washington of its commitment to getting rid of its nuclear program, the North has yet to take actions that constitute irreversible denuclearization. Furthermore, Pyongyang has not provided full disclosure of its nuclear and missile facilities, and has failed to reveal the size of its current nuclear stockpiles.



Furthermore, the Kim regime has not shared with the Trump administration a roadmap as to how it plans to dispose of its nuclear arsenal.



All of this while Pyongyang argues it is unable to live up to its denuclearization commitments because the U.S. has not reciprocated the North's self-described good faith measures.



Despite its failure to take the steps specified by Washington, Pyongyang has demanded a declaration of the end of the Korean War, the signing of a peace treaty and normalization of relations with Washington as well as the easing of sanctions.



Many analysts assert that the North's long-held desire to declare an end to the Korean War and to sign a peace treaty with the U.S. is part of its strategy to remove American troops from the peninsula, arguing that the absence of hostilities no longer justifies their presence.



In the backdrop of all of this, the Trump administration remains skeptical of Pyongyang, believing that the regime has undisclosed nuclear facilities. It has been right to call for denuclearization to be completed by 2021, signaling limited patience on the issue.



Trump would be best served by taking a hard line and denying Kim of a second summit until verifiable measures towards denuclearization are forthcoming. Otherwise, his White House is likely to encounter the same North Korean tactics that have bedeviled other administrations  that is, ambiguity, stalling, demands for concessions, accusations and provocations, threats and ultimatums and the unilateral withdrawal from talks and agreements.





Ted Gover (amberjack_shoal@yahoo.com), Ph.D. is director of the Tribal Administration Program at Claremont Graduate University. The views expressed in the above article are the author's own and do not reflect the editorial direction of The Korea Times.

By Stephen Costello





In Seoul this month I talked with government officials, politicians, civic leaders, journalists and infrastructure professionals.



My main impression is that the policy environment in the Korean capital feels different from that of previous years. I've been coming here since 1990, so my contacts form a broad cast of characters. Now that President Moon Jae-in has lobbied President Donald Trump in New York, pressures inside the U.S. government are rising. Three responses from Koreans put the current moment in context.



Excitement



The unprecedented dimensions of inter-Korean contact are both obvious and hard to evaluate. They are obvious because many images since the PyeongChang Olympics are just groundbreaking and myth-challenging.



These images also produce fear and disorientation among important groups in Seoul and Washington. Even non-professional observers in Korea  and a few in the U.S.  are moved and intrigued by the possibilities that have been tantalizingly glimpsed in the past nine months.



Putting aside much overheated rhetoric from interested parties, the economic, security and strategic implications of a cooperating and at-peace Korean Peninsula are staggering. Of course they are.



Such implications were at the heart of the deals successfully reached 20 years ago between the Koreas and between the U.S. and North Korea. That is why those deals were broadly supported by all parties. The prospect that excites so many, and induces fear in so many others, is that this time the key players of Kim Jong-un and Moon-Jae-in will return to those understandings with a greater prospect of success. Moon's efforts at the U.N. this week add to both.



The new U.S. role  ever since President Trump agreed six months ago to meet Kim in Singapore  contributes to this prospect. By doing so, the U.S. president broke the stranglehold that 17 years of disastrous White House floundering had on policy.



Buried amid the Trump theatrics is a rare and probably singular alignment: the U.S. president's reptilian sense of his own interests corresponds significantly  on this issue  with the perceived interests of Kim and Moon, not to mention leaders in Europe, China and Russia. It also corresponds with deep and enduring U.S. interests. There are very solid reasons to be excited about unfolding developments.



Waiting



Many Koreans know  since they have been here before, going back 20 years  that two elements still must fall into place if there is to be real progress on a scale that will improve their prospects for security and economic growth. And for most, that is what inter-Korean rapprochement is all about.



The first element is that their president must demonstrate that he is capable of increasing Korea's role as both broker among parties and leader of policy, so that other actors with far less at stake do not diminish or derail the enterprise. Those other actors include China and the U.S.



Koreans have also just emerged from a decade of corrupt and backward-looking presidents who had little interest in North-South reconnections. After an unprecedented national civic awakening that helped oust President Park Geun-hye from power in March 2017, the return to a more modern and pragmatic government is a relief.



Nevertheless, the Moon administration still must continue growing democratic institutions, empowered only 20 years ago, while at the same time practicing a complex multilateral diplomacy that would challenge any government.



The other element is that the history of the U.S. impact on modern inter-Korean affairs is mixed, and for the past 17 years it has often been as a spoiler of Korean engagement. The U.S. impacts have had much to do with domestic politics back home, and little or nothing to do with North Korea, denuclearization, or South Korea.



If the U.S. had prioritized supporting the South, tension reduction, or denuclearization of the North, the successful agreement of 1994 would have been followed up, and the peninsula could have experienced 20 years of warming relations, with no nuclear weapons to deal with.



Aware of their risk-averse and careful president, and of this history of the U.S. role, many are waiting for concrete indications that this time development and peace will win out over confrontation. Despite President Moon's efforts at the U.N., this waiting may go on for a long time.



Pessimism



Among many policy professionals in Seoul, the concern about President Moon is both that he will go too fast, and cause a break in the alliance with the U.S.; and that he will go too slow, be too timid, and allow the U.S. to once again prevent North-South rapprochement. Sometimes one individual feels both at once.



The bigger fear is that Moon will go too slow. Three leadership changes produced this moment of opportunity. Kim Jong-un seems to have a more realistic approach to DPRK development and security than his predecessors; Moon Jae-in has returned the South to practical agreements with the North after a lost decade of corruption and shallow ideological policymaking; and Trump has shaken off the constraints of 17 years of counterproductive U.S. policy.



And yet people find reasons to be pessimistic in either case. If he goes too fast, the alliance will be damaged, and conservatives in Korea will have ammunition with which to attack the President. He might also make too many concessions to the North, without achieving an end to the nuclear and missile programs.



On the other hand if he goes too slow, he will allow the U.S. to prevent North Korea from realizing the fruits of its steps toward denuclearization. If that happens, Kim Jong-un will lose his reason to cooperate, and this historically precious moment will be lost.



In the end Moon's ability to manage this critical time will depend almost exclusively on whether he chooses to use the U.N. to gather support for relieving some sanctions in exchange for real North Korean moves to disarm. Sanctions are key. A coalition for supporting South Korea already exists.



Much reporting in the past three weeks in the U.S. has revealed how broad and deep the opposition is to any exchange that Moon, Kim and Trump could agree on. That opposition begins with most of the White House staff, and may include Secretary of State Pompeo.



It may be a mistake to think that these forces can be "convinced" that a structured deal will be in the U.S. interest. That has been clear for a long time. The U.S. opponents of a deal apparently want a coerced surrender or nothing  there is no other explanation for their rhetoric of maintaining all U.N. sanctions until the DPRK denuclearizes. This will not realistically happen, yet Moon has helped the opponents of a deal maintain this posture.



Moon may be betting on the wrong horse. Trump would likely agree to a structured exchange with North Korea, but no other figure in the U.S. government agrees with him. A normal president, experienced in Washington bureaucratic battles, might win this fight. Trump may not. How much time can Moon waste finding this out? And what is his Plan B?



Stephen Costello (scost55@gmail.com) is a producer of AsiaEast, a web and broadcast-based policy roundtable focused on security, development and politics in Northeast Asia. He writes from Washington, D.C.

Trump, Kim should make real breakthrough



President Moon Jae-in's summit diplomacy can be seen as successful after U.S. President Donald Trump expressed his desire to hold a second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. During a meeting with Moon at the United Nations in New York, Monday, Trump said he expects another summit with Kim will be announced "pretty soon."



Moon briefed Trump about the results of his third summit with Kim that took place in Pyongyang last week to help revive the stalled nuclear talks between the U.S. and the North. Moon explained Kim's promise to take additional steps toward denuclearization. Such steps include dismantling the Tongchang-ri missile engine test site and the Yongbyon nuclear complex on condition that the U.S. take "corresponding action."



Kim did not explicitly mention what the "corresponding action" is. But he apparently means a formal declaration of the end of the Korean War, which ended in an armistice, not peace treaty, as well as the easing of U.N. sanctions. The North's call for the declaration has so far served as a deadlock to the negotiations with the U.S. since Trump and Kim agreed to the "complete denuclearization" of the Korean Peninsula during their historic summit in Singapore in June.



To break the impasse, Washington and Pyongyang need to narrow their differences on how to denuclearize the North in return for security guarantees. But it is not easy to do so because the North wants to see the U.S. declare the end of the war before starting the denuclearization process. The Trump administration, however, is sticking to denuclearization first before giving any rewards, including the declaration.



It can be said that President Moon has played his role as a mediator to the best of his ability as he helped broker another summit between Trump and Kim. But, Trump has yet to accept the North's condition for "corresponding action." This means that he is not confident about Kim's sincerity on his commitment to give up the North's nuclear and long-range missile development programs.



That's why Trump said Tuesday in a speech to the annual U.N. General Assembly that much work remains to be done, despite thanking Kim for his courage and for the steps he has taken. Trump also made clear that sanctions must remain in place on North Korea until it denuclearizes. This clearly shows his determination to apply pressure on the North while at the same time having dialogue with it.



Trump may feel pressed to produce tangible progress with the North's denuclearization before the November midterm elections in the U.S. But it would be better for him to be more careful to avoid the same mistake he made during the first summit with Kim. The key to success depends on how to prod the North to move toward final, fully-verified denuclearization.



For North Korea, it is necessary to present a list of its nuclear weapons and facilities, and fissile material. It must also allow outside inspections, possibly by experts from the U.S. and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and verification before dismantling its nuclear program. We hope that Trump and Kim will make a real breakthrough in the denuclearization process when they meet for a second time.

By Kim Ji-myung





At the recent pre-summit working level meeting held in Gaeseong, they agreed to carry out an eighth joint survey and historical preservation effort at Manwoldae between today and Dec. 27 this year.



The joint excavation of the Goryeo-era (918-1392) royal palace, Manwoldae, in the old capital city of Gaeseong has become a symbol of non-political and successful heritage activities. Between 2007 and 2015, seven joint excavation efforts were carried out at Manwoldae.



Joint cultural and academic projects and activities continued relatively steadily although inter-Korean political relations affected contact in all areas. Cultural heritage projects, like joint excavations of Buddhist temple sites or palace ruins in the north continued except in 2012 and 2013, despite frequent and long periods of severed dialogue between Seoul and Pyongyang.



Looking back, the first talks on protecting cultural heritage between South and North Korea occurred in 1972, after more than two decades of national division. By the historical July 4 Joint Declaration, South-North Coordinating Committees were set up for political, military, diplomatic, economic, and cultural affairs. However, actual projects on historical relics started in August 1993 and the scholars from both sides first met at the first international conference on Goguryeo culture.



At the Manwoldae site, structures of 40 building wings and terraces have been confirmed. Some 16,500 relics were also retrieved from the site  among them are five Goryeo period movable metal types.



In my February 13 article in 2015, I wrote about the story of 11 pieces of Goryeo period metal types, allegedly "the oldest movable type" created by humankind. The owner presented those types and the bronze kettle that contained them to the public in July 2013. He claimed they had been unearthed near Gaeseong.



The authenticity of the pieces  the accuracy of the carbon dating of the ink, and whether these type pieces were actually used in printing the books they were contended to have printed  were finally were disproved by the government in 2016. South and North Korea has only one metal type each. But if the five metal type pieces retrieved during the Manwoldae project in 2015-16 will be verified, there are now seven of them.



Let me introduce an unrequited South-North heritage project in which I was involved. During the port-opening period for Korea, roughly between 1880 and 1910, there were numerous nationwide movements and campaigns to enlighten the people and to resist against foreigners and maintain independence.



A team of researchers from Kyungpook National University and the Academy of Korean Studies had a plan to survey the North Korean university for an archive of the 1907 National Debt Redemption Movement. As direct cooperation with a North Korean university was found to be impossible, the project was re-designed to included Yanbian University in China as a coordinating institute. The project awaits a new impetus to begin again.



The newspapers from 1907-1910 carry stories of the astonishing campaign throughout the country. Anti-Japanese education campaigns and activities outnumbered those of the southern area in some part of the northern region where many patriotic leaders and activists were produced. As of now, there are few original artifacts from the northern part, and there is high hope to find valuable documents through a joint survey.



The Archives of National Debt Redemption Movement was listed on the UNESCO Memory of the World in October 2017. UNESCO's Memory of the World program and its International Register program began in 1992 first to protect cultural heritage from destruction by war, social upheaval, or neglect and natural disasters, as well as by a severe lack of resources. It also aims to have a valuable and historical memory of the world accessible to all mankind so that they can be shared. A major step was taken in 2015 when documentary heritage in digital form was also included as the target of the programs.



How well are the records of those heroes and events preserved in repositories, archives, or museums of North Korea? There is a discouraging story that almost nothing above ground remains after the heavy bombing during the Korean War. Paper artifacts are vulnerable to moisture, sunlight, and pests. But I still hold hope with my fingers crossed.



The writer (heritagekorea21@gmail.com) is the chairwoman of the Korea Heritage Education Institute (K*Heritage).

Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi said Egypt is looking to boost cooperation with South Korea through bilateral talks with South Korean President Moon Jae-in in New York, Presidential Spokesman Bassam Rady said in a statement.

Rady quoted the South Korean president as saying that his county aims to bolster economic ties and increase Korean investments in Egypt.

The pair met on Wednesday on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

Egypt is home to some 125 Korean projects across various industries including electronics, car parts and chemicals, with total investments of $342 million as of 2014, according to the website of Egypt's State Information Service (SIS). Some of the key South Korean companies in Egypt include Samsung and LG.

Also on Wednesday, El-Sisi discussed Egyptian-Swiss trade and economic ties during talks with President of the Swiss Confederation Alain Berset, the spokesman said in a separate statement.

The duo discussed ways to increase Swiss investments in Egypt as well as cooperation in technical education and combating the smuggling of relics.

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By Jun Ji-hye



Samsung Electronics is expected to post a record operating profit in the third quarter on the back of strong demands for memory chips, analysts said Wednesday.



According to the consensus among local brokerage houses, the Korean tech giant is expected to post 65.2 trillion won ($58.4 billion) in sales and 17.2 trillion won in operating profit.



The company is reportedly planning to announce its earnings guidance report on or around Oct. 5.



The market consensus marks a 5.1 year-on-year increase in the firm's sales and an 18.5 percent year-on-year increase in the operating profit for the July-September period.



If the consensus is correct, the firm's operating profit hits another record high after it posted 15.6 trillion won in operating profit in the first quarter of this year.



After Samsung suffered a series of batteries igniting on the Galaxy Note 7 in the third quarter of 2016, the firm has shown a continuous increase in its operating profit for the six consecutive quarters up to the first quarter this year.



But in the second quarter, the company's operating profit stood at 14.8 trillion won, failing to post record-breaking earnings due to weaker-than-expected sales of Galaxy S9 smartphones.



It has been generally assessed that the Galaxy S9 series, unveiled at Barcelona in February, failed to feature any significant improvements over its predecessors, resulting in a failure to attract more customers despite increasing marketing costs.



In the upcoming quarter, however, the firm is expected to show that it is still going strong, achieving the operating profit in the range of 17 trillion won.



Brokerage firms have analyzed that more than 75 percent of Samsung's earnings are expected to come from its semiconductor business.



"Shipments of both DRAMs and NAND-Flash chips will increase significantly thanks to the operation of new production facilities at the Pyeongtaek campus," said Do Hyun-woo, an analyst at NH Investment & Securities.



DRAMs are crucial parts of computers, while NAND-Flash chips are used for mobile devices such as smartphones.



Meanwhile, the Korean company is forecast to see a decrease in its operating profit in the smartphone segment despite the launch of Galaxy Note 9. This is attributed to a continuous slump in sales of the Galaxy S9 while marketing costs are increasing.



On the yearly basis, the firm will likely record a combined 64 trillion won in operating profit. The firm's yearly operating profit a year ago was 53.6 trillion won.



"By the end of the third quarter, Samsung Electronics' operating profit is expected to exceed 47 trillion won, up by 24 percent compared to a year ago," said Lee Seong-woo, an analyst at Eugene Investment & Securities, noting that there is a possibility for the profit to slow down next year due to a decreasing price of NAND-Flash chips.

Vehicles are lined up for export at the Port of Pyeongtaek in Gyeonggi Province in this file photo. / Korea Times file



By Park Jae-hyuk



Korean carmakers are still facing uncertainties about their exports to the United States even after the signing of the revised Korea-U.S. free trade agreement (KORUS FTA) by President Moon Jae-in and President Donald Trump, industry officials said Wednesday.



"The U.S. is still able to impose high tariffs on imported cars, based on Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, so the government should make every effort for to ensure Korean vehicles are exempt from auto tariffs," the Korea International Trade Association said in a statement.



Section 232 allows Trump to impose unlimited tariffs or create other trade barriers at his discretion if he believes they are needed so that "imports will not threaten to impair national security," which is expansively defined in the section. Trump has threatened to impose a 25 percent tariff on all cars exported to the U.S.



Moon therefore requested Trump to exempt Korea from heavy tariffs on auto imports, during the Korea-U.S. summit in New York on the day of the signing ceremony. Moon cited Korea's declining trade surplus with the U.S. and Americans working for Korean carmakers having factories in the U.S. as reasons for his request, according to presidential spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom.



The U.S. president reportedly ordered his subordinates to review Moon's request.



However, the review of the request does not guarantee the exemption, so Washington can still rely on auto tariffs as its bargaining chip to have an advantage on Seoul.



Against this backdrop, Trade Minister Kim Hyun-jong, who agreed to the revised KORUS FTA, vowed to make every effort for carmakers to be exempted from tariffs.



"Some people wanted the government to get rid of uncertainties about Section 232, before signing the revised KORUS FTA," he said. "However, we prioritized the revision to the KORUS FTA to secure stability, amid the growing expectations of changes in North Korea's relationships with South Korea and the U.S."



Most domestic automakers are taking a wait-and-see attitude, but Hyundai Motor Group is aggressively moving to get a definite answer from the U.S. authorities.



Chung Eui-sun, executive vice chairman of the automotive group, went on a weeklong trip to the U.S. starting Sept. 16 to meet U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and U.S. Senator from Georgia Johnny Isakson to discuss tariffs on imported cars. He declined to join Moon's three-day summit in North Korea because of the trip.



According to Hana Institute of Finance, the 25 percent tariff on cars will raise export prices of Korean vehicles by up to 12 percent, so domestic automakers will collectively suffer a 2.8 trillion won loss.



Lee Hang-gu, a researcher at the Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade, said the U.S. may set a yearly import quota on Korean vehicles instead of imposing tariffs. Import quotas are limitations on the quantity of products that can be imported into a country during a specified period of time.

A Hyundai Oilbank plant in South Chungcheong Province / Courtesy of Hyundai Oilbank



Series of IPO withdrawals cloud Hyundai Oilbank listing



By Nam Hyun-woo



The initial public offering (IPO) market has been losing steam, with the amount of offerings remaining far below that of last year after several large firms have withdrawn their bids.



As firms which had high expectations fold their plan to go public, the outlook is also grim for Hyundai Oilbank, one of the largest companies that heralded an IPO this year, as its listing process is not picking up speed.



According to the Korea Exchange, the amount of new offerings on the main KOSPI and tech-heavy Kosdaq bourses stood at 549.1 billion won ($491.5 million) and 1 trillion won, respectively, so far this year.



Compared to the amount of new offerings last year, the KOSPI amount accounted for 12.3 percent of 4.45 trillion won last year and the Kosdaq amount remained at 28 percent of 3.53 trillion won last year.



Even though more than four months remain this year, the pace seems far slower than that of last year, showing a contrast to the earlier expectation that this year's IPO market would be bullish.



The slump is largely attributable to large firms' withdrawals. By the number of IPOs, the KOSPI already saw seven new listing companies so far this year, which is not far below last year's eight.



Last year, two giants, Netmarble Games and ING Life, each drew 2.66 trillion won and 1.1 trillion won to lead the entire market. This year, however, SK Lubricants, which was expected to offer stock worth nearly 5 trillion won, gave up its bid and was followed by Kakao Games which withdrew its bid this month.



SK Lubricants earlier this year gave up its third IPO bid as its expected offering price fell below the bottom of its desired price range.



With Kakao Games' withdrawal, the company said it prioritized game developing and merger & acquisition deals over listing, but analysts say the company seemed to be pressured by protracted financial review of it.



HDC I-Service, a real estate management service provider, also retreated from its IPO earlier this month because of a lower-than-expected offering price.



Along with those companies, a total of 10 firms canceled their bids so far this year after applying for the bourse operator's preliminary listing review.



Such withdrawals have put more pressure on Hyundai Oilbank.



The refiner, a cash cow of Hyundai Heavy Industries Group, passed the preliminary review last month and is currently under financial review of the Financial Supervisory Service. It was supposed to meet demand forecasted at the end of August but the process is being delayed.



"With Hyundai Oilbank being under financial review, it became uncertain whether the company can debut on the bourse this year," SK Securities analyst Lee Ji-hoon said.



Casting more concern on Hyundai Oilbank's IPO is that the stock prices of the some newly listed firms are showing tepid movement, even though they have offered stocks at prices lower than expectations.



T'way Air joined the KOSPI market on Aug. 1 at 12,000 won per share, which was far below the air carriers' desired price range of 14,600 won to 16,700 won. After the debut, however, the stock sat on a downturn, trading below 10,000 won in recent sessions.



"In the second half of this year, the country's IPO market has been losing steam due to some firms' sluggish return after being listed, SK Lubricants' withdrawal and the controversy over Samsung BioLogics' alleged cooking of the books," Lee said.



"If this trend continues, this year could be the first in five years that no company drew more than 1 trillion won on an IPO."



Kendallville, IN (46755)

Today

A mixture of rain and snow showers. High near 45F. Winds WSW at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 50%. Higher wind gusts possible..

Tonight

Cloudy. Snow showers developing late. Low 31F. Winds WSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of snow 40%.President Al-Sisi used his visit to US and speech at UN General Assembly to underline importance of action to preserve nation states, bolster counter-terrorism efforts and find new ways to finance development

There is a flaw in the international system which negatively affects its performance and casts a shadow over its credibility in the eyes of many peoples, particularly in the Arab and African regions is how President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi began his address to the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) on Tuesday.

Al-Sisi asked why Arabs and Africans should believe in the role of the UN and its values when their regions were threatened by disintegration and the collapse of nation states.

He cited the plight of the Palestinians as a perfect example of the failure of the international system to find a just solution to the conflict, based on international legitimacy and UN resolutions, that guarantees the establishment of a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Al-Sisi spoke not just as the president of Egypt but also as the chair of the Group of 77 and China, a grouping whose members are home to the majority of the population of the planet.

He was also wearing an African hat  Egypt assumes the presidency of the African Union in 2019  when he called for partnerships between the UN and regional organisations to be strengthened to face up to escalating political, economic and development challenges.

We look forward to strengthening the strategic partnership between the African Union and the United Nations through programmes that have a real impact on the continent, and to build on the progress already made in consolidating the African Unions post-conflict reconstruction and development policy, he said.

If African nations are to achieve the ambitious goals set by the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda more resources for development must be made available. This can be achieved, said Al-Sisi, through the creation of an enabling environment which allows for the free flow of resources without imposing conditions, and by supporting national efforts to mobilise the financing necessary for development.

In New York Al-Sisi also attended the Nelson Mandela Peace Summit. The summit, held to mark the centenary of the birth of Nelson Mandela, focused on ways to build world peace. In this context Al-Sisi said the UN must renew its commitment to three basic principles: International commitment to the preservation of the nation state, the peaceful settlement of disputes and strengthening cooperation to achieve comprehensive development and address imbalances in the global economic system are necessary conditions for any serious revitalisation of the United Nations system and the restoration of its credibility, he said.

To implement these principles he argued that a comprehensive international framework to fight terrorism and counter terrorist narratives was needed.

Speaking of Egypts experience Al-Sisi said the level of finance, the sophistication of arms and training, as well as the means of communication used by extremist groups and the way terrorist fighters moved across international borders point to the urgent need to develop a global system to combat terrorism.

Al-Sisi also drew attention to Egypts efforts to empower women and young people, pointing out that women hold 25 per cent of ministerial posts and occupy 15 per cent of parliamentary seats.

We are determined to continue to accord priority to the economic empowerment of women, to building opportunities for young people and developing science, technology and innovation during Egypts presidency of the Group of 77 and China, as a practical example of our commitment to the promotion of human rights in a comprehensive manner, he said.

Al-Sisis speech to the General Assembly was the highlight of a seven-day visit to the US during which he held meetings with US President Donald Trump and other world leaders, the heads of international financial institutions and US business people.

President Trump praised Egypt for the outstanding job it has done fighting terrorism. The two presidents also discussed regional conflicts, including the situations in Libya, Syria and Yemen, the Palestinian issue and ways to revive the peace process.

President Al-Sisi stressed Egypts willingness to cooperate with the US in order to revive Palestinian-Israeli negotiations and reviewed Egypts efforts to mediate a Palestinian reconciliation, a key step towards the resumption of negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis.

While the Trump administration has adopted a number of pro-Israeli moves in recent months, moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem and halting funding of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Al-Sisi underscored that Egypts position on the Palestinian cause remains constant, and that a just and comprehensive solution must ensure the rights of the Palestinian people and allow for an independent Palestinian state to be established in line with international resolutions.

Al-Sisi also stressed that Egypt is committed to upholding equality among all its citizens without discrimination. He emphasised that the Egyptians national unity had held firm over the ages and that Egypt cherishes the values of citizenship, non-discrimination, tolerance and full partnership.

Pushing for a greater share of US investments, Al-Sisi met with representatives of the US Chamber of Commerce and the Egypt-US Business Council and shone the spotlight on major national infrastructure projects as he invited them to bolster their investments.

He reviewed investment opportunities available in the various sectors in Egypt, including infrastructure, communications and IT, energy, pharmaceuticals and the auto industry.

Egypt, he said, is committed to closely engaging with American investors in order to better understand any problems they might encounter while investing in Egypt.

He noted that the Egyptian-American partnership is one of the cornerstones of security and stability in the Middle East and Egypt the largest recipient of US investment in Africa and the second largest in the Middle East. The US, he said, is one of the most important investors in the Egyptian market.

US foreign direct investment (FDI) in Egypt stood at $9.4 billion in 2017 and the trade balance between the two countries reached $5.6 billion according to the US Trade Representative.

Egypts economic reform programme was in the spotlight during Al-Sisis meetings with the business community and heads of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.

Egypt has undertaken unprecedented reforms to complement the programme developed in partnership with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and in line with Egypts Vision 2030 strategy for sustainable development, he said.

Following her meeting with Al-Sisi, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said Egypts economy is showing strong signs of recovery, and its economic growth is among the highest in the Middle East.

Lagarde argued the time was ripe to capitalise on Egypts macroeconomic gains to advance home-grown structural reforms: These reforms will help achieve more sustainable, inclusive and private sector led growth which will help create jobs for Egypts young population while also ensuring adequate resources are available for social protection.

During the presidents visit to New York he met with Bulgarias Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, Norways Prime Minister Erna Solberg, Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiadeson, Lebanese President Michel Aoun and the UAEs Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed.

President Al-Sisi emphasised Egypts keenness to support security and stability in all Arab countries, and reiterated Cairos refusal of any attempts to interfere in their internal affairs.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 27 September 2018 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: Adjusting the compass

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Tuesday was National Voter Registration Day. Have you registered to vote?

That's okay if you haven't yet. About a fifth of eligible voters in L.A. County haven't either. And there's still almost a month left to do it. That's why there were registration drives all over the region. There was even one at the L.A. County Jail.

County officials partnered with The American Civil Liberties Union for its "Unlock the Vote" project. It's all about educating people in the justice system about their rights to vote, and registering them to do it in November.

Rapper Common stands on the steps of the LA County Jail and discusses importance of giving inmates the opportunity to vote. Photo by Caleigh Wells.

Esther Lim is the Director of ACLU SoCal's jail project. She says many jail inmates have misconceptions about their rights.

"Misinformation and lack of information all equate to voter suppression, especially when talking about people who are incarcerated," she says. "Because someone is behind bars does not preclude them from participating in our most important right: the right to vote."

She says because of that, many of the nearly two-thirds of inmates in LA County jails don't realize they can participate in elections. So out of the 17,000 people incarcerated, that's about 10,000 votes.

To help publicize the effort, rapper and activist "Common" also went along to register inmates. He said educating people who are marginalized is especially important.

"I think the vote is one of the first steps that we can do as people in this country to show that we care and people have made mistakes, but we're still reaching out for them. That's what America is supposed to be about."

TO VOTE, YOU MUST BE:

At least 18 years old on Election Day (that's Nov. 6 this year)

At least 18 years old on Election Day (that's Nov. 6 this year) A US citizen

A US citizen A California resident (to vote in California)

TO VOTE, YOU MUST NOT BE:

Serving a federal or state prison sentence for a felony conviction

Serving a federal or state prison sentence for a felony conviction On parole for a felony conviction

On parole for a felony conviction Deemed mentally incompetent to vote by a court

Which means a jail inmate, who's there on a misdemeanor or pending trial, is eligible to register. If you want to know more about voting and having a criminal history, this spells it out pretty well.

Hey, thanks. You read the entire story. And we love you for that. Here at LAist, our goal is to cover the stories that matter to you, not advertisers. We don't have paywalls, but we do have payments (aka bills). So if you love independent, local journalism, join us. Let's make the world a better place, together. Donate now.Freely accessible local news is vital. Please power our reporters and help keep us independent with a donation today.

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By Darby Maloney with Marialexa Kavanaugh

Ed Ruscha moved from Oklahoma to Los Angeles in the 1950s to go to art school. He rose to prominence as one of L.A.'s most respected creators, known for weaving elements of the city's landscape into his work. Ruscha's depictions of the Hollywood Sign and Norm's Diner are considered iconic.

Decades after his westward migration, two of Ruscha's paintings now hang in the Broad Museum's group show, A Journey That Wasn't. We got a tour of Ruscha's studio and spoke with him about both the journey of his career and his current projects.

The studio hides in an industrial, nondescript Culver City warehouse -- indistinguishable on the outside from its neighboring tech startups and insurance companies. But the inside's lined with hundreds of books, bordering art projects in different states of completion.

"The way I approach things is usually like an involuntary reflex," Ruscha said, describing his creative process. "Something will come to me and I've got to make it official, so I end up making a widget out of it. Some kind of artwork. It usually involves words that someone has said or that I heard on the radio."

Thanks for listening, Ed! (We'll pretend he's specifically listening to us.)

Artist Ed Ruscha with the Frame host John Horn.

Ruscha's always been fascinated with words -- he's incorporated them into many of his most notable works. While his practice hasn't changed drastically over the decades, the language has.

Some of his current projects involve recycled drum skins with double-negative statements on them like "I won't never" and "nobody denied nothing."

"Somehow the concept of double negatives came into my life because I grew up with people that spoke this way -- 'I done did that.' 'I never done it.' Things like that," Ruscha said. "I grew up in Oklahoma. There's a particular angle to their dialect there that they have. I was very acutely aware of it and amused by it. It seems like you'd run from incorrect English, but I embraced it. I like seeing it and exposing it."

Most of his latest work has a wider scope than just L.A. The two paintings featured at the Broad, "Azteca/Azteca in Decline," were inspired by a voyage he took to Mexico City.

"I was going to this ruin, Tehotihuacan, and I'm driving along, and I stumbled across this painting on the side of a concrete block wall that was very closely depicted to what you see here in the picture," Ruscha said. "It reminded me of Aztec something-or-other -- you know, rising phoenix, eagles with snakes in their mouths, what have you. It reminded me of this majestic culture that I thought I would interpret. And it caught me kind of off-guard. My response is kind of a gringo's response to Mexico. I'm always thinking about the passage of time, so the second painting sort of has this thing falling apart, and collapsing."

"Azteca/Azecta in Decline" at the Broad Museum.

Editor's note: A version of this story was also on the radio. Listen to it here on KPCC's The Frame .

Not every museumgoer may find the modern art easily decipherable -- his allusions to Mexican history are pretty subtle. Ruscha doesn't mind this. He explained how meaning has changed over the course of his long career, going from something implicit to something a bit more subjective.

"Marcel Duchamp made a very cogent statement about that," Ruscha said. "And that is that the viewer adds something to looking at a picture. So there's a lot of value in that. To be misinterpreted is not really the issue. The first presentation of an image in a painting or a picture is up for grabs. It's for what you want to see in it."

He thinks art is definitely in the eye of the beholder -- or, in the case of selfies, behind them. To Ruscha, it doesn't matter what people do when they are in the presence of his paintings in a museum, from deep analysis to taking a selfie.

"Children are there, people for any number of reasons go there to see what's happening," Ruscha said. "Or maybe to go there or [avoid] hot weather. It doesn't matter. But getting the turnstyle to work and having people come into the museum is a wonderful thing."

You can see "Azteca/Azteca in Decline" at the Broad Museum through February 2019.

You made it! Congrats, you read the entire story, you gorgeous human. This story was made possible by generous people like you. Independent, local journalism costs $$$$$. And now that LAist is part of KPCC, we rely on that support. So if you aren't already, be one of us! Help us help you live your best life in Southern California. Donate now.Freely accessible local news is vital. Please power our reporters and help keep us independent with a donation today.

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A site has been chosen for another one of Mayor Garcetti's bridge housing facilities, part of his push to get new temporary housing built for the homeless in each of Los Angeles' 15 council districts.

This project is specifically for homeless veterans, and it'll be on the West L.A. Department of Veterans Affairs campus in Brentwood.

The facility is slated for an early 2019 opening with a planned 100 temporary beds, along with bathrooms, laundry and "hygiene centers" inside large, industrial tents and trailers. There will be two structures with 50 beds each -- one for female veterans and another for men.

They're modeled after the Veterans Village temporary bridge shelter in San Diego. The city council there just approved more funding to keep its tent facilities open.

The funding model for the VA bridge housing in West L.A. will be slightly different than other proposals: the city and county will pay the estimated $5 million for construction, while the VA has pledged supportive services and case management for residents. The VA will also handle intake, including making sure someone has veteran status, and work to transition veterans into permanent housing solutions.

And unlike other proposed bridge housing projects in Venice, K-Town and Sherman Oaks that have faced neighborhood pushback, Brentwood neighbors have generally been supportive of the goal of housing veterans on the VA campus, said Councilmember Mike Bonin. He introduced legislation on Tuesday to allocate city funds to the project and direct the department to start work. L.A. County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl will do the same for county dollars next week.

"The kind of feedback I've been getting is 'How can I help? How can we get them to move faster, do more?'" Bonin said. "So I think it'll wind up being a very good, supportive relationship."

But in a statement, the councilmember's office also took care to note the bridge housing "will not be visible from the exterior of the campus" --possibly a nod to potential neighborhood concerns. Protesters in other communities have been vocal about their worries over safety, sanitation and damage to property values, issues they claim would follow temporary housing.

So far, one other "A Bridge Home" facility has opened at the El Pueblo site in downtown L.A. near Union Station. (LAist is keeping track of all the proposals, studies and final locations of Garcetti's bridge housing initiative on this handy map.)

"I think the bridge housing is a symbol of the commitment that our community has to this issue," said Heidi Marston, the West L.A. VA's director of community engagement and reintegration. "Hopefully it will set the tone for other communities and show it can be done."

It's happening in the context of a years-long legal battle over housing veterans on the 388-acre VA campus sandwiched between some of L.A.'s ritziest neighborhoods. (You can read more about the odyssey here.)

A 2015 legal settlement with homeless and disabled veterans requires the VA to build 1,200 units of supportive housing on the land.

But so far, just 54 veterans have moved into apartments. Another 110 units are supposed to open in early 2020, but the start of construction -- initially planned for this summer -- has been pushed back, possibly to early 2019.

Most plans to overhaul the campus are still undergoing environmental reviews, and the agency is also in the process of hiring a principal developer to oversee the bulk of new housing, a move officials say will speed up construction.

Marston stressed the new shelter is a temporary solution on the way to the VA's larger goal of permanent housing for veterans, similar to the Safe Parking program the campus opened in April.

"We want to make sure we're doing everything we can in the meantime to get veterans off the street," she said.

Hey, thanks. You read the entire story. And we love you for that. Here at LAist, our goal is to cover the stories that matter to you, not advertisers. We don't have paywalls, but we do have payments (aka bills). So if you love independent, local journalism, join us. Let's make the world a better place, together. Donate now.Freely accessible local news is vital. Please power our reporters and help keep us independent with a donation today.

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On Thursday, Hollywood restaurant Musso & Frank Grill celebrates 99 years in business, an epic achievement for any restaurant.

Musso & Frank opened in 1919, at 6669 Hollywood Blvd., four years before the "Hollywoodland" sign graced the nearby hillside. Nearly a century later, the restaurant is still owned and operated by the same family that bought it in 1927 and moved it next door, to its present location at 6667 Hollywood Blvd.

Tinseltown's oldest restaurant has had a bevvy of famous fans, over the years. It was frequented by Charlie Chaplin, Humphrey Bogart, Marilyn Monroe, Joe DiMaggio, Elizabeth Taylor, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Kurt Vonnegut and tons of other celebrated actors and writers.

Stepping into Musso & Frank is like taking a trip back in time. Much of the original decor, including the light fixtures, the furniture and the infamous Back Room bar, is still in place.

The menu, debuted by French chef Jean Rue 99 years ago, hasn't changed much either. There's the French onion soup, the shrimp cocktail, the wedges of iceberg lettuce drowning in blue cheese dressing and the famous flannel cakes.

Another point of pride is the restaurant's signature martini, which is stirred, never shaken. Drink somewhere else, 007.

You can also step in what is supposedly the first public telephone booth installed in Hollywood.

"We're grateful to our longtime customers and to all our new customers for delivering us to our 99th year,"said Mark Echeverria, Musso's COO and CFO. "And stay tuned! We have big plans for Musso's 100th next September."Freely accessible local news is vital. Please power our reporters and help keep us independent with a donation today.

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It's hard to quantify how many Latinos served in the military during the Vietnam War, because the Pentagon didn't officially keep count-- Latino members of the U.S. military were lumped together with white troops in official documents.

Despite the lack of government data, there is one estimate that Mexican-Americans made up an outsized number of casualties in Vietnam -- close to double their share of the American population.

Cast members rehearsing a scene from Ring of Red: A Barrio Story. LIBBY DENKMANN/KPCC

Still, they're often overlooked in academia and pop culture, according to Professor Tomas Summers Sandoval, who teaches History and Chicanx-Latinx Studies at Pomona College.

"In a demographic way it's sort of a hidden history," he said.

Now, over 40 years since the capture of Saigon by North Vietnamese forces, a play debuting in Los Angeles is shining a spotlight on Chicano veterans.

"Ring Of Red: A Barrio Story" -- which runs through Sept. 30 at the Bootleg Theater -- is part of a years-long effort by Sandoval.

With help from his students, he recorded more than 50 oral histories from Chicano Vietnam War veterans and their families, mostly from Southern California.

Actors are translating those personal histories into a "testimonial style" play that tackles themes of social and economic justice, violence, and the mental effects of war.

The title, "Ring of Red" refers to the clay ring that lingered in the bathtub of one Chicano soldier after he returned from Vietnam -- a residue from the war he couldn't wash off.

Tomas Summers Sandoval is an Associate Professor of History & Chicanx-Latinx Studies at Pomona College. LIBBY DENKMANN/KPCC

"Anytime that I can take peoples stories and put them in front of folks without this voice of a professor telling them what it all means, that's a good thing," Sandoval said.

Veterans not only inspired the play, they're are also part of the cast.

Diana Shield, who served in the Marines for four years, says the play's depiction of returning from war resonates with her.

"Adapting to the civilian part of life after four years? I was shocked," she said. "Hearing the men in the story talk about their PTSD -- even though they didn't know it was PTSD -- that's how it was for me."

Shield's mom is from Guatemala and her dad is from Mexico. She says it's vital for Chicano voices to be reviving their own Vietnam experiences, when they've often been portrayed as outsiders to American history.

Diana Shield is a Marine Corps veteran and actress who stars in "Ring of Red: A Barrio Story." LIBBY DENKMANN/KPCC

"I think we need to be telling our stories. Because we're patriotic too," she said. "That's why my mom and my dad came here. They wanted a better future for their children. That's what I want for my children."

As the war split Americans down ideological lines, the emerging Chicano movement in L.A. linked Vietnam to the struggle for civil rights -- activism that's addressed in the play.

Characters also remember Cesar Chavez's efforts to organize farm workers as a galvanizing force for identifying with burgeoning Mexican-American political activity.

One character muses about life in L.A. in the 1960s, "I started to notice the stuff where I live...How come all the Mexicans lived in the same place? And how come the cops still hassled us and called us greasers?"

Many of the characters in Sandoval's play are conflicted about the war -- they end up enlisting out of patriotism, a lack of economic opportunity, or they're drafted.

The draft caught up with Tomas Sandoval Sr., Professor Sandoval's father.

"I was a combat infantryman. So I was fighting the enemy, so to speak," he said.

After basic training, Sandoval deployed to Vietnam and got assigned "KP" duty on his first night in the country. "KP," short for "Kitchen Police," involved Sandoval washing pots and pans.

Script notes for "Ring of Red: A Barrio Story." LIBBY DENKMANN/KPCC

Soon, he was introduced to the mess sergeant, who's name was Chavez.

"First thing he asked me was, "Where you from, Sandoval?" I said, "Los Angeles." And he goes, "Oh! Do you know Snappy Martinez?" Sandoval remembered. "Now come on, there's gotta be what, 3-4 million people in Los Angeles. But I knew him!"

After 30 years working in telecommunications, the elder Sandoval has found a second career acting in local theater, commercials, and picking up work as an extra. He's the only veteran who both contributed an oral history to the project and joined the cast -- however, a fellow actor delivers this story onstage.

Professor Sandoval has been working on his oral history project for seven years, but he says today's political context makes the work all the more relevant.

"You don't have to look very hard to see the way that Latinos in general are vilified inside of a lot of our popular discourse, a lot of our political discourse," he said. "And these kinds of stories are great reminders of how integrated we've been in this country's history. Really how American generations of us have been and become."

This story was produced by the American Homefront Project, a public media collaboration that reports on American military life and veterans. Funding comes from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Hey, thanks. You read the entire story. And we love you for that. Here at LAist, our goal is to cover the stories that matter to you, not advertisers. We don't have paywalls, but we do have payments (aka bills). So if you love independent, local journalism, join us. Let's make the world a better place, together. Donate now.U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he wanted a two-state solution to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the clearest expression yet of his administration's support for such an outcome.

The Trump administration has in the past said it would support a two-state solution if both sides agreed to it.

Trump, in a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the United Nations, also said he wanted to unveil a peace plan in the next two to three months.

"I like a two state solution. That's what I think works best ... Thats my feeling," said Trump, who is attending the annual U.N. gathering of world leaders.

Netanyahu has said that any future Palestinian state must be demilitarized and must recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people - conditions that Palestinians say show he is not sincere about peacemaking.

The United States' Arab allies are strong proponents of a two state solution.

I really believe something will happen. They say its the toughest of all deals, Trump said.

He added that Israel will have to do something good for the other side without elaborating.

Doubts have mounted over whether Trumps administration can secure what he has called the ultimate deal since December, when the U.S. President recognized Jerusalem as Israels capital and then moved the U.S. Embassy there.

Trumps move outraged the Palestinians, who have since boycotted Washingtons peace efforts, led by Trump's son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner."It is a dream of mine to get that done prior to the end of my first term," Trump said of an agreement on the conflict.

Jerusalem is one of the major issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The Palestinians want to establish a state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. Israel captured those territories in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed East Jerusalem in a move not recognized internationally.

*This story was edited by Ahram Online.

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Whole Foods to pay $1.6M for hazardous waste breach: UTC location implicated

San Diego City Attorney Mara Elliott announced Sept. 21 that, as the result of a lawsuit filed by San Diego and 21 other prosecuting agencies, Whole Foods and two affiliates were found to have disposed of hazardous materials at their stores, including the UTC location, and must pay more than $1.6 million and change its labeling and storage practices to protect employees and customers from exposure, to properly track and document hazardous waste, and to dispose of it only at authorized facilities.

Over a five-year period, Whole Foods disposed of hazardous materials, such as ignitable liquids, aerosol products, cleaning agents, and other flammable, reactive, toxic, and corrosive materials, at each of its facilities. Failure to properly handle and dispose of these items violated the California Health and Safety Code. This code, which includes the Hazardous Waste Control Law, provides a comprehensive framework regulating the generation, handling, treatment, storage, transportation, and disposal of hazardous waste. Whole Foods stores in Hillcrest and UTC were implicated in the complaint.

California has some of the most stringent environmental protection laws in the nation, and for good reason, said Elliott. Companies that handle hazardous waste owe it to their customers, employees, and communities to dispose of this material safely and lawfully. My office works to ensure that all corporations, regardless of size or status, are accountable for their conduct.

Additionally, the companies will pay more than $1.4 million in civil penalties and legal costs, as well as more than $200,000 toward supplemental environmental projects and the prosecution of similar crimes. San Diego will receive approximately $113,000 in civil penalties, including more than $16,000 to support the work of the San Diego County Department of Environmental Health.

 City Attorney reports

Homeless man arrested for battery near drugstore

A local homeless man was arrested for battery Sept. 19, after spitting on someone during an argument. Police report the verbal exchange between the suspect and the victim took place around 10 a.m. Sept. 19 in the CVS parking lot at 7525 Eads Ave.

The suspect, identified as Steven Baumeister, spit on the victim, and was placed under citizens arrest (a citizen may retain another without a warrant, for a crime occurring in their presence) and booked into San Diego Central Jail for battery.

California Penal Code Section 242, defines battery as any willful and unlawful use of force or violence upon another person, and can include throwing objects or projecting bodily fluids, such as spit.

Police Blotter

Sept. 9

Minor in possession of alcohol, 200 block Playa del Norte, 4 p.m.

Sept. 11

Fraud, 8200 block Camino del Oro, 10:30 a.m.

Vehicle theft, 5000 block La Jolla Blvd., 4 p.m.

Petty theft, 800 block Loring St., 6:45 p.m.

Sept. 13

Vehicle break-in/theft, 8800 block Villa La Jolla Drive, 2:30 p.m.

Sept. 14

Vehicle break-in/theft, 8800 block Villa La Jolla Drive, 11:45 a.m.

Vandalism, 8300 block Cliffridge Ave., 8 p.m.

Shoplifting, 8800 block Villa La Jolla Drive, 9:30 p.m.

Sept. 15

Petty theft, 8300 block Via Sonoma, 6:15 p.m.

Sept. 16

Petty theft, 800 block Turquoise St., 2 p.m.

Vehicle break-in/theft, 400 block Bird Rock Ave., 10:15 a.m.

Sept. 17

Battery on person, 7500 block Girard Ave., 9:10 a.m.

Vehicle break-in/theft, 1200 block Prospect St., 9:57 a.m.

Petty theft, 7800 block Girard Ave., 2 p.m.

Vehicle break-in/theft, 8500 block El Paseo Grande, 4 p.m.

Vehicle break-in/theft, 5100 block Los Altos Court, 9 p.m.

Sept. 18

Battery with bodily injury, 700 block Silver St., 6:40 a.m.

Theft, 800 block Nautilus St., 4:30 p.m.

Sept. 19

Residential burglary, 2400 block Sagebrush Court, 11:30 a.m.

Vehicle break-in/theft, 6100 block Camino de la Costa, 7 p.m.

Sept. 20

Fraud, 2400 block Hidden Valley Road, 3 p.m.

Petty theft, 5400 block La Jolla Blvd., 2 p.m.

Sept. 21

Petty theft, 5500 block Thunderbird Lane, midnight

Vehicle break-in/theft, 2000 block Via Ladeta, 2:05 a.m.

Petty theft, 2100 block Avenida de la Playa, 1:20 p.m.

Sept. 22

Grand theft over $950, 600 block Tourmaline St., 8 p.m.

Sept. 23

Petty theft, 7800 block Girard Ave., 10:35 a.m.

Petty theft, 8800 block Villa La Jolla Drive, 10:41 a.m.

 Compiled by Ashley Mackin-SolomonThe first commercial offshore fish farm in the U.S. may open less than four miles off the coast of San Diego. Three miles, the legal definition of offshore, is where federal waters start and regulation by state and local municipalities ends.

The Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute (HSRI), a research non-profit partially funded by SeaWorld, is partnering with unidentified investors in the Pacific Ocean Aquafarms (POA) Project, a complex of open fish pens that could bring more than 10 million pounds of seafood to market every year.



HSRI claims no specific offshore location has been chosen yet. However, during an Aug. 20 briefing delivered by HSRI president/CEO Don Kent to the San Diego Fishermens Working Group, a grassroots lobbying organization, a location was clearly identified in a slide as a half-mile north-to-south, and 1.5 miles east-to-west in an area 3.73 miles off Mission Beach.

This slide, presented at a recent Hubbs-SeaWorld briefing for the San Diego Fishermen's Working Group, clearly shows the fish farm located 3.73 miles off the coast of Mission Beach. COURTESY VICTORIA MINNICH

Open-ocean aquafarms are industrial farms that engage in the mass rearing and harvesting of fish. The fish remain in nets, pods or cages submerged in the ocean  and dangling from floating rings or platforms and anchored to the ocean floor  for up to two years, from the time they are hatched until they attain their desired size and weight.

Aquafarms are typically promoted as environmental solutions by their operators, and POA is no exception.



Whether were producing white seabass and halibut for release into the wild, striped bass and yellowtail for the seafood market or butterflyfish and angelfish for aquariums, we are preserving and renewing wild stocks by providing supplemental sources of fish that are produced sustainably, reads the HSRI website. Help us feed the world, replenish fish populations and provide economic value to American coastal communities.



A statement emailed to the Light by Kent read: The U.S. is far behind other nations in the development of marine aquaculture and we rely on imports for over 90% of our seafood supply, over half of which is farmed. No matter how sustainably we fish our oceans, we cannot catch the needed protein, but we can farm it  Our goal for the offshore farm project is to ensure that as aquaculture continues to develop, it does so in a sustainable manner that respects the environment, provides fishermen with opportunities for job creation and ensures that we do not lose what is left of our vanishing working waterfronts.



The Port of San Diego (PSD) appears to be all-in on this new proposal. Spokesperson Brianne Page emailed the Light that it is a long-time champion and catalyst of the regions blue economy with its shipbuilding, commercial fishing, marine research, cruise, and cargo business lines, and that, in 2016, the Port established its Blue Economy Incubator to assist in the creation, development and scaling of new water-dependent business ventures on San Diego Bay focusing on sustainable aquaculture and blue technologies.

Hubbs-SeaWorld president/CEO Don Kent addresses the concerns of fishermen at an Aug. 20 meeting at Hubbs-SeaWorld. COURTESY VICTORIA MINNICH

Fish story?

According to many environmental organizations, however, open-ocean aquafarms breed trouble as well as fish. The website for Food and Water Watch, a Washington-based non-profit, states that uneaten fish feed, fish waste, and any antibiotics or chemicals used in fish farm operations flow through the cages directly into the ocean. It calls open-ocean aquafarms generally big, dirty and dangerous, just like factory farming on land.

Escaped fish also concern the organization, because they could interbreed with or spread disease to wild fish. And factory fish farms also tend to grow top-of-the-food-chain fish, resulting in several pounds of wild fish required as food for every pound of farmed fish. This undermines the wild marine food chain, Food and Water Watchs website reads.



There are also concerns that marine life will be lured to thousands of caged fish and entangle themselves in nets and ropes. In March 2017, a highly endangered Hawaiian monk seal was found dead, tangled in the nets of a Hawaii fish farm. A year earlier, nets entangled three humpback whales at industrial fish farms in Canada, killing two.

Friends of the Earth  a network of environmental organizations from 74 countries  made its position clear in a 2018 report on the industry: Industrial ocean fish farms are inherently unsustainable and cause extreme harm in countless ways.



But fisherman John Law, part of the San Diego Fishermens Working Group, objects mainly to the fish farms supposed location: smack in the middle of where the Lemon Grove resident has earned his living fishing for rock fish and lobster since 1975. In fact, Laws navigational software is most heavily dotted with promising fishing sites in that location.

The green circles show the best for fisherman John Law. Most are in the location the fish farm was shown in the HRSI diagram. COREY LEVITAN

Im not against Don Kent and his farm, Law said. My customers demand fish that is wild-caught, not farmed. I just want him to take it further out  seven miles or more.

Law is actually entering his 10th year of fighting fish-farm proposals by Kent. In 2009, it was a cage system Kent proposed off La Jolla; in 2012, the Rose Canyon Fisheries Sustainable Aquaculture Project, a partnership between HSRI and private equity firm Cuna Del Mar also located off Mission Beach. Neither project got off the ground.

Theyre not great ideas for anyone except Kent and his investors, Law said.

And Law says he wants La Jolla residents to know that they have skin in this game, too. He took the Light out on his skiff, the Wild West, to make his point. Even through a moderate marine layer, individual houses in Bird Rock and La Jolla were clearly visible from 3.73 miles off Mission Beach.

Thats means the fish farm will be clearly visible to the people in those houses, Law said. They will probably be able to smell it, too.

John Law poses next to the skiff, Wild West, which he's owned since 2000. COREY LEVITAN

A done deal?



Nothing is decided regarding location, Kent wrote in his email. We are looking along the entire Southern California coastline. When we find a site that meets our oceanographic criteria and minimizes impacts with other user groups, we will formally propose that site and begin a rather long and arduous NEPA (National Environmental Protection Act) review process in support of acquiring the needed permits.

According to Diane Windham, coordinator of West Coast aquaculture for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), this project will require permits from the Army Corps of Engineers, the Environmental Protection Agency, the California Coastal Commission and NOAA  none of which have been applied for yet.

PSDs Page confirmed that Kent requested its assistance applying for those permits and navigating the NEPA review process. Port staff was scheduled to bring the proposed agreement to the Board of Port Commissioners on September 12, she said, but Port staff requested more time to allow the details of POAs application for federal permits to develop, and for the process of review by federal agencies under NEPA to become more set.

In the 18 to 24 months it will take to garner approvals, Kent wrote in his email, the public will be afforded extensive opportunity to comment on the proposed farm.Barbara dont surf

At Kellogg Park on Sept. 20, District 1 City Council member Barbara Bry presented a proclamation to Surf Diva Surf School co-owners (and twins) Izzy and Coco Tihanyi.

It was California Surfing Day, which Senate Concurrent Resolution 122 declared after surfing was declared the official state sport last month. Brys proclamation called surfing of significant importance to San Diegos identity and way of life.

It is wonderful that surfing has become the official state sport of California, because it is a very accessible sport, Bry said. After all, the ocean is free, so anyone can participate.

Speaking more candidly, Bry commented: Im one of the few members of my family who doesnt surf. Izzy and Coco have offered to teach me to surf. If they can teach me to surf, they are geniuses.

Despite strenuous provocations to start the lessons then and there, Bry demurred.

Public to decide on vacation rentals, not City Council

Enough valid signatures have been gathered to qualify a ballot referendum repealing the restrictions on short-term rentals voted in 6-3 by the San Diego City Council on July 16. Nearly 36,000 signatures of registered voters were needed to allow a public vote on the regulations, which outlaw vacation rentals in secondary homes and limit short-term stays to ones primary residence only.

The City Council now has the option of either placing the measure on a future ballot  either in 2020 or possibly earlier if a special election were authorized  or withdrawing its action. The regulations will be placed on hold until the issue is decided.

Utility bill reduction set

San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) promises that customers will receive a reduction in their bills in October, as the settlement agreement for the closure of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) takes effect following approval by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC).

Originally set to begin in November, SDG&E has accelerated the reductions to provide relief for customers blindsided by exorbidant energy bills this summer. Were happy to reach the final chapter in the SONGS settlement and provide these savings for our customers, said Dan Skopec, SDG&Es vice president of regulatory affairs.

The bill reductions will include a one-month refund of approximately $13.80 per typical residential customer beginning Oct. 1, and an ongoing average bill reduction of about $1.32 per month per typical residential customer.

The settlement agreement and resulting bill reductions come after a multi-year investigation by the CPUC into the closure of SONGS and related costs. In 2014, the parties reached a settlement regarding the allocation of costs between the utilities and their customers, which was approved by the CPUC. After allegations of improper communications between SCE and the CPUC surfaced, however, the CPUC reopened the proceeding to investigate the claims and determine if the alleged communications impacted the previous settlement.

Bishops makes Merit Scholarship semifinals

Twelve Bishops School seniors have been named semifinalists in the 2019 National Merit Scholarship Competition  nearly 1 percent of the class. They are Maxwell Brown, Graham Cartwright, Bryce Devoe, Isabelle Kenagy, Sarah Mischel, Kai Murray, Jerry Qu, Rohit Raguram, Ivan Savchuk, Elizabeth Szymanski, Athena Tsu and Crystal Wang.

The program recognizes 16,000 semifinalists throughout the U.S for their exceptional academic promise. These students have an opportunity to continue in the competition for some 7,500 National Merit Scholarships  worth about $32 million  that will be offered next spring.

More than 1.6 million juniors in over 22,000 high schools entered the 2019 National Merit Scholarship Program by taking the 2017 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT).

Architect Robert Venturi dies at age 93

Architect Robert Venturi, often referred to as the father of postmodernism, died last week at home in Philadelphia after a brief illness. He was 93.

His death comes on the heels of a controversy over changes being made during the expansion of the San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art in La Jolla that will remove some of Venturi and his wifes  architect Denise Scott Brown  additions to the museum during its last expansion in 1996. That expansion was the only Venturi Scott Brown project ever commissioned in San Diego.

Jewish Film Festivals shorts get bigger

La Jolla will host the first known Jewish short film festival on Oct. 6-7 in the Garfield Theatre at the Jewish Community Center, 4126 Executive Drive. A spinoff of the San Diego Jewish Film Festival, the Joyce Forum Short Film Festival will be the first stand-alone short film festival dedicated specifically to Jewish filmmakers.

With over 130 submissions from 17 countries worldwide, the expansion of the Joyce Forum was a natural evolution, said Joyce Axelrod, founder of the San Diego Jewish Film Festival and namesake of its short sibling. Tickets are $15.25. (858) 362-1157, sdcjc.org/garfield/boxoffice.aspx

Come on and take a free ride!

The San Diego Metropolitan Transit System (MTS) and North County Transit District (NCTD) announced a Free Ride Day on Tuesday, Oct. 2. Fixed-route bus and rail services will be free for everyone to use.

MTS CEO Paul Jablonski said the days purpose was to encourage San Diego residents to shake up their routine and ... provide everyone an easy way to leave their cars at home and discover the advantages of taking transit.

Free Ride Day will be valid on all MTS and NCTD fixed-routes services including buses, the Trolley, Sprinter and Coaster. All services will operate on a normal weekday schedule. (NCTD LIFT and Amtrak R2R trains are not part of this promotion.)Although experienced backpackers and hikers, the young adventurers in La Jolla-based Venture Crew 506 recently completed a trek that would test anyones mettle. The group of 12 traversed the 55 miles of the North Cascade Mountain Range in Washington State over five days in August, and, in addition to the challenge the hike itself presents, faced unexpected obstacles.

The Crew was established eight years ago and is comprised of 12 co-ed members, ages 14-21, sponsored by the La Jolla United Methodist Church. They focus on backpacking and hiking, but also engage in service projects, as a part of the Boy Scouts of America program.

Crew members are extremely enthusiastic and self-motivated, said associate Crew advisor Tiffany Smith. They are all busy with school and other efforts, but it doesnt take a lot for these kids to get excited about a hike! Its really nice; were the lucky ones because we get to spend time with kids who are the best of the best.

Not the least of whom is 18-year-old youth leader, David Edwards, who took the reins on this particular trip.

Ive been on a few backpacking excursions with Venture Crew, he told the Light. Weve been to Yosemite and the Cuyamacas, and I went to Mt. Whitney this summer. I like the big relief of getting away for the day or the weekend. One of my favorite hikes is Mt. Woodson; its very easy to get to and makes for great day trip. The views are good when you get to the top. This trip, with my experience, was a great way for me to test my leadership skills.

From the beginning, the Cascade Mountain trip was different from the other backpacking excursions the Crew has made. It took a year of planning, and they did all the work themselves and really came into their own, Smith said.

To access this remote mountain range, the Crew needed to orchestrate a flight to Seattle, a three-hour drive to a ranger station on one end of the trail, decide how far to go each day, identify safe places to make camp, find a ferry to pick them up on the other end, find another van ride and flight home.

But even the best laid plans often go awry.

We had some trouble with the miles, because the mileage on the maps was off, Edwards explained. We had to stop sooner than we wanted  and as youth leader, that decision was ultimately mine.

Elaborating, Smith added: This was a pretty big deal, the mileage was extremely heavy and the trail was wildly inaccurate. We reported the maps inaccuracies afterward. We had to walk 18 miles the first day, and by Day 2, everyone was so tired they passed out by lunch for a solid two hours. They were really tense because they had so many more miles to do.

We knew the last three days were lighter and we would get there on time. So we adjusted our plans and once we made the decision to not reach camp at Day 2, everything was fine. We knew we could make up the mileage.

Fortunately, the crew could deviate from the planned stops because they always travel with a GPS tracker so they can be located in an emergency, and check in with their emergency contact once a day to let them know they reached camp safely in the deep mountain range. So deep, in fact, the Crew only saw 12 other people over the entire five days.

We arrived on the fifth day in the town of Stehekin, which is only accessible by foot, ferry or float plane. It is the last stop on the Pacific Crest Trail, which runs from Campo (California) to Canada. We were there for a full day because we had to wait for the ferry, which was nice because we were all tired and hungry, Smith said.

But not so spent that they werent eager to plan their next trip: Venture Crew 506 will walk the backbone of Catalina Island in December.

Crew Garage Sale

Venture Crew 506 will hold a fundraising garage sale from 7 a.m. to noon, Saturday, Oct. 6 at La Jolla Methodist Church, 6063 La Jolla Blvd. LaJollaTroop506.comAn estimated 190,000 people have been killed in South Sudan's civil war and when factors such as population displacement, disruption to health facilities and lack of food are included the death toll is at least 383,000, an independent study said.

Fighting broke out in December 2013 after a political disagreement between President Salva Kiir and the former vice president he had sacked, Riek Machar.

A U.N. official said in 2016 that 50,000 people had been killed and nearly a quarter of the population of 12 million uprooted by the fighting, which has often been along ethnic lines.

"About 383,000 South Sudanese have died as a result of the civil war ... The true number may be considerably higher," said the study by researchers at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, released on Tuesday.

"While it is plausible that some insecurity would have persisted in South Sudan even without the civil war, we are confident that a large majority of the 190,000 violent deaths were attributable to the war itself," it said.

Researchers used to focus on those killed in fighting in estimates of the violence of a conflict, but increasingly they also look at how war has impacted overall death rates by increasing factors such as hunger and infant mortality.

The study, which covered the period between December 2013 to April this year, showed that most of the deaths occurred in Jonglei, Unity and the Equatorias states. The rate of deaths from the violence peaked in 2016-2017.

Presidential spokesman Ateny Wek Ateny said he would check government data before making a comment.

Kiir signed a peace agreement with Machar and other rebel factions in the Ethiopian capital this month. A previous peace deal signed in 2015 fell apart a year later after clashes broke out between government forces and rebels.

In a sign of how fragile the situation is, government forces and the largest rebel group, allied to Machar, clashed in the north of the country on Monday.



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Address by H.E. Maithripala Sirisena, President of Sri Lanka at the 73rd Session of the

United Nations General Assembly

25 September 2018, New York

May the Noble Triple Gem bless all of you !

Mr. President,

Mr. Secretary-General,

Distinguished Heads of State,

Distinguished Delegates,

Friends,

I am extremely pleased to participate in the 73rd Session of the United Nations General Assembly representing Sri Lanka for the fourth consecutive occasion. Sri Lanka, as a Member State of the United Nations, is fully committed to adhere to its Charter, Conventions and Agreements and their implementation.

As Head of State, I am pleased to note the progress that has been made by Sri Lanka and my government during the past three-and-a-half years. When I was elected by the people of Sri Lanka as Head of State in January 2015, the Executive Office that I hold today, had excessive powers, which were comparable to those of a king, or even an emperor. I am pleased to state that I was able to relinquish these emperor-like excessive powers and transfer them to the Parliament of Sri Lanka, fulfilling the utmost duty of an elected leader.

During the past three-and-a-half years, democracy has been strengthened in my country. In addition, human rights, freedom of the people and the media as well as the independence of the judiciary have been strengthened. Therefore, the Sri Lanka of today is not what it used to be three-and-a-half years ago. I can clearly state that the Sri Lanka of today is a society which is more inclusive and humane.

We, as Member States of the United Nations, must consider it as our duty and responsibility to comprehensively study and reflect upon the contemporary political developments, economic disparities, and common challenges faced by humanity.When speaking of international political developments and trends, we must in particular focus our attention on refugees that have become a global issue as there are a large number of refugees all over the world. Therefore, I believe that the efforts of the United Nations, its Member States and other organizations dealing with the issues related to refugees must be broader and more effective.

Sri Lanka is a country that follows moderate policies with regard to the exercise of its foreign policy. We are a senior member of the Non-Aligned Movement. The 1976 Non-Aligned Summit, which is considered one of the most successful, was held in Sri Lanka. Within the framework of non-alignment, we consider all nations of the world as friends. I am glad to note that Sri Lanka does not have adversaries in the contemporary world.

When discussing international political issues, we must especially mention the issue of the Palestinian people. I believe that the United Nations and the world powers should approach this issue with greater understanding and attention. Successive governments in Sri Lanka have supported the liberation struggle of the Palestinian people. I believe that the United Nations and all Member States should adopt a more humane approach when advocating for the rights of the Palestinian people, and taking into account the inhumane conditions they face, approach this issue in a broader manner.

We all know that poverty is one of the fundamental problems affecting the world. I am of the view that the United Nations can do more to address the issue of poverty. We know that today, hundreds of millions of people across the world suffer from hunger. Climate change, income disparities, and certain shortcomings of governments to fulfill obligations towards their citizens, are among the key causes of poverty. The negative effects of climate change on economies have further exacerbated this problem. Therefore, it is essential to assist and support countries which are most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. I must mention that just as poverty plays a central role in many problems that plague the world, trafficking in weapons, illicit drugs and narcotics have also become grave threats to humanity.

In this context, I am pleased about the agreement reached under the auspices of the United Nations and the leadership of the US President Donald Trump on a Global Call to Action on the World Drug Problem, yesterday. It is necessary that all countries do more towards combating illicit drugs with the assistance of the United Nations, as a matter of priority.

Within the framework of action of the United Nations, we must all work at national and international levels towards the implementation of the agreed outcomes of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, finalized under the guidance of the former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, for the benefit of humanity as well as other living beings, our streams and rivers, and planet Earth as a whole. I must state that Sri Lanka, as a UN Member State, gives utmost priority to these endeavours.

Speaking of internal matters of my beloved motherland, as I stated earlier, we have broadly strengthened democracy, human rights, fundamental rights and media freedom in the country. We must reflect on the situation of our country that prevailed forty years ago, and on the conflict that lasted for nearly thirty-years. It has been almost ten years since terrorism and armed conflict ended. During these ten years we have undertaken a broad range of reforms. My government in particular, has implemented several important steps in the post-conflict context. We have implemented, and continue to implement many programmes aimed at fostering national harmony and reconciliation, and ensuring non-recurrence of conflict. As a country that has fulfilled and continues to fulfill our human rights obligations, we respectfully request the United Nations and all other countries to continue to assist us in our endeavours.

Sri Lanka's security forces defeated one of the most ruthless terrorist organizations in the world. As a result, Sri Lanka remains an undivided country that enjoys sustainable peace. Therefore, I must respectfully recall the yeoman service rendered by our security forces in defeating a dreaded terrorist organization, and I take this opportunity to thank our security forces for their great sacrifices in ushering peace and ensuring territorial integrity of Sri Lanka. At a time when almost ten years have passed since the end of the conflict, I call upon the international community to look at my country from a new perspective with new ideas. I call on you all to refresh your views on my noble motherland and assist us in our efforts towards achieving economic development, prosperity, and a secure future as a country at peace following a deadly conflict; as a country that is strengthening national reconciliation; as a country where national harmony prevails; as a country that has taken and continues to take every possible step to prevent recurrence of another conflict; and as a country that protects and upholds human rights.

I respectfully request you to allow us the opportunity to resolve our own issues. The independence of a country is of paramount importance. I seek your support in our efforts, including in strengthening democracy and enhancing human development, while respecting our sovereignty. The sacrifices we have made and the initiatives we have taken in this regard are important for us in resolving our issues. As an independent country, we do not require foreign interference or threats. As a strong nation, we request all of you to allow us space to resolve our problems and to progress as an independent country. In this context, once again I wish to reiterate our request for your assistance and support for us to resolve our own issues as Sri Lankans. I further request your support in the efforts of my government to alleviate fear and suspicion among the communities living in our beloved motherland, and to build greater harmony.

As I stated before, it is imperative to accord priority to address the issues of people in Sri Lanka and the world over who are poverty-stricken. We must find solutions to their problems, taking into consideration the ideas and thoughts of the younger generation.

Considering all of the above, I wish to finally reflect on what Lord Buddha stated in the Salla Sutta of the Samyuktha Nikaya in the Thripitaka where it is said that a man pierced by a dart suffers twice: firstly, the physical pain caused by the dart, and secondly the mental agony caused in recollecting the act. Similarly, the people of Sri Lanka have suffered both the physical pain of the prolonged conflict as well as the mental agony caused by the recollection of those unfortunate experiences. Therefore, it is no one else but the people of Sri Lanka who need to be relieved of this pain. In conclusion, I respectfully request all to extend support to my people and country to progress towards a just, fair, equitable and humane society with economic prosperity, alleviating the pain that my people have endured.

Thank you. May the Noble Triple Gem bless you.

Full Statement - Sinhala

Full Statement - Tamil

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Permanent Mission of Sri Lanka

Geneva

25 September 2018Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund announced on Wednesday the launch of a "global leading" tourism project called Amaala on the country's northwestern coast.

"The new destination is a natural extension of the Mediterranean Sea, and dubbed the Riviera of the Middle East," said the Saudi sovereign wealth fund in an emailed statement.

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Its almost October: that magical time of year in Southern California when the tourist high season has finally died down and the weather is at the peak of pleasant. Its the perfect opportunity to pack up some sandwiches, gather up the youngsters, hop in the car, and head out from the Los Angeles area on a weekend road trip of reasonable distance  somewhere not too near, but not so far that youll start hearing the plaintive cries of Are we there yet?! from the back seat.

Allow us to suggest you chart a course to San Diego. With the kids in tow and family-friendly activities in mind, it might just be the perfect destination this time of year.

Why? Because the world-famous San Diego Zoo and its must-see Escondido-located wildlife sanctuary, San Diego Zoo Safari Park, are both open to adult-accompanied children 11 and under for free all month long during Kids Free October, when young visitors are invited to, simply put, Go Wild. The promotion is presented by long-standing local financial institution Mission Fed.

To complement the free admission, both the zoo and Safari Park have designed complimentary on-grounds, kid-focused programming on Saturdays and Sundays throughout October. This includes up-close-and-personal encounters with animal ambassadors  some of the planets most fascinating fauna  and limited-time exhibits, fall-themed special events and many interactive activities and experiences to help your young ones connect with wildlife and nature in exciting and fun ways.

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A refuge for both the familiar and the fantastic

The San Diego Zoo, located at 2920 Zoo Drive in San Diego, is a city institution. An exotic oasis located just north of downtown in Balboa Park, it has long been one of the biggest tourist draws in Americas Finest City, and its a true treat for kids of all ages.

This zoo is an expansive 100-acre natural wonderland plopped down smack-dab in the middle of the urban locale. It features a botanical collection boasting more than 700,000 exotic plants and is populated with such beloved zoological mainstays as elephants, orangutans and giraffes, plus many more animals.

A trip to the San Diego Zoo is sure to beguile your kids  and take you back to your own youthful, magical encounters at whatever zoo you first visited when you were a wide-eyed whippersnapper. But this zoo is more than a traditional zoo; with its mission to help bring back species from the brink of extinction, it is, first and foremost, a nonprofit wildlife conservancy.

That means its home to not just the aforementioned hallmark animals but also to some very special rare and endangered wildlife that you and your kids arent likely to encounter anywhere else, from the African penguin and the bald eagle to the red panda and the giant panda (which the zoo is famous for successfully breeding), and many more.

This trip will be an educational one, too, as the San Diego Zoo emphasizes teaching kids how they can help animals through conservation.

San Diego Zoo Safari Park: Where fun happens

On your way back to L.A., a litany of fun activities and a menagerie of even more rare and fantastic fauna are waiting at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, located at 15500 San Pasqual Valley Road in Escondido (about 35 miles north of the zoo).

You could easily spend a whole day or two just exploring this massive park, and the kids can really stretch out and run off some energy. Safari Park is a wilder and more expansive environment than the San Diego Zoo, featuring zip-lining, play areas, overnight camping, an Africa-themed tram ride, eight different safari experiences, and much more.

But at heart, the park is a wildlife sanctuary. With its focus on African and Asian animals, its possibly the closest thing California has to the savannas of the Serengeti or the outback of the Land Down Under. Rhinoceroses, tigers, cheetahs and zebra are some of the 300 species that make up Safari Parks rich zoological tapestry. The kids are sure to love their no-barrier interaction with kangaroos and wallabies in the new Walkabout Australia exhibit.

Perhaps the best part about Safari Park? With all of the excitement on offer, you can rest assured the kids will be properly conked out  and quiet  for the duration of the drive home.

The San Diego Zoo is open 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily, and Safari Park is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. All children must be accompanied by a paid adult during their visits. More information about Kids Free October is available here.

Alex Weber for San Diego ZooElon Musk says an extreme shortage of car carrier trailers is partly to blame for Teslas delivery woes. And in typical Musk fashion, the answer is for Tesla to build its own trailers.

That has trucking industry executives and analysts scratching their heads.

Theres no shortage that I know of, said Guy Young. As general manager of the Auto Haulers Assn. of America, he would know. Theres a general shortage of drivers, but weve got a lot of members with drivers and car carriers who could supply what they need.

Apologies, were upgrading our logistics system, but running into an extreme shortage of car carrier trailers. Started building our own car carriers this weekend to alleviate load.  Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 24, 2018

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Antti Lindstrom, a trucking analyst for IHS Markit, is flummoxed too. I have never heard of a situation like that, he said. In my experience there is always some available capacity that can be harvested  especially, he said, for a well-known company with a $50-billion market value. Its confusing. It doesnt sound real to me.

Many Tesla buyers complain theyve paid full price for one of the companys new Model 3 vehicles but havent received them, or had planned deliveries canceled. The auto haulers Young said the problem more likely lies with Teslas own logistics operation.

Its like anything else, he said. If you dont start planning ahead of time, building relationships, it can get a little difficult.

Tesla declined to discuss trailer shortages, or details of any plans to build its own, with The Times.

Its the build-your-own part that puzzles Frank Maly, a trucking analyst at ACT Research.

If theyre talking about building [trailers] from the ground up, that would be a surprise to me, he said.

First, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has a long checklist of regulatory information that must be submitted and processed for a new commercial trailer to be used on public highways. Also, materials, tooling, an assembly line and trained employees would be needed to build them.

Its possible, though, to build a system inside a regular enclosed semi-trailer known as a dry van to hold about eight cars without necessitating government approval, Maly said. Its called an upfit and its used by several automakers, he said.

Musk, the chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX, makes cars, he makes rockets, so theres a fighting chance they could get that up, Maly said. But then the challenge is, where do you get the dry vans?

With the U.S. economy humming, new dry vans also are in high demand. If you ordered one today, you might get it in April, Maly said.

Exciting to see some Tesla collision repair operations already completing within 24 hrs. Aiming for same day soon, then under an hour.  Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 16, 2018

Logistics isnt the only challenge Tesla is attempting to solve by taking matters into its own hands. Facing a shortage of body parts to repair Teslas involved in car crashes  some owners have waited months to get their cars back from such fixes  the company this year began opening its own light collision repair body shops. So far, there are nine, including one in Van Nuys.

On Sept. 16 Musk tweeted that Tesla is bringing most collision repairs in-house because delays at third-party body shops are driving Tesla owners (and us) crazy.

He followed with a burst of tweets. Having all parts in stock & not waiting for insurance approval would make a world of difference, one said. In another he said hed reduce body work turnaround time to under an hour.

Asked about the speed claims, Giovanna Tanzillo, co-owner of Uptown Body & Fender in Oakland, said: I do not know how that is possible. Id be interested in knowing more myself.

A basic bumper replacement takes at least 24 hours, she said; You cant rush it without sacrificing quality. A new door could be hung in an hour, but the vast majority of jobs would take far longer, Tanzillo said.

Having Tesla parts in-house could speed the process, she said. It also helps that Teslas come in only a few colors. A body panel could be painted in an hour, Tanzillo said, but most cars get faded by the sun, which means a paint job requires blending and matching. A high-quality job would take hours.

Uptown used to work on Tesla cars, but we do work on them now only when parts are not necessary, Tanzillo said. We cant get parts. When we can, they wont ship them to us. They have us pick them up. They want to control everything. There are plenty of other models out there.

Tesla declined to comment about Musks claims or body shop expansion plans.

russ.mitchell@latimes.com

Twitter: @russ1mitchellRep. Maxine Waters has tried for months to get a House committee chairman to subpoena documents from Deutsche Bank about Russian money laundering and the finances of President Trump and his family.

If Democrats win the House majority in November, the 14-term Los Angeles lawmaker is almost certain to gain the committees gavel. That would give Waters, one of Trumps fiercest critics, the power to issue those subpoenas along with something more  a high-profile platform to battle the administration.

Shes indicated shell do just that. But Waters, whom Trump has publicly derided as crazy and low IQ, said her priorities if she becomes chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee would extend beyond the occupant of the Oval Office.

Our agenda cannot be totally focused on the president or anybody, Waters said in an interview.

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Waters wants to address what she called a national housing crisis, as well as defend the tougher regulations put in place after the financial crisis in 2008 and hold Trumps financial regulators accountable  particularly the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

She hasnt been friendly toward large financial institutions, proposing legislation that would allow regulators to break up big banks that repeatedly harm consumers, such as Wells Fargo & Co. But industry lobbyists said they dont fear her chairmanship because she has been helpful on some issues and listens to their concerns, and because enacting legislation would be difficult with Trump in the White House.

Waters also suggested she would look into Trumps financial dealings, investigations that the panels current chairman, Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), has shown no interest in pursuing.

Were going to review any and all requests we have made to the chairman and were going to determine what information has unfolded in the investigation by the special counsel  and if theres a need to go forward, we will, Waters said, referring to the probe by Robert Mueller into possible collusion with Russia by the Trump campaign.

Republicans have no doubt that Waters, who has called for Trumps impeachment, will zero in on the president if she becomes chairwoman of the committee.

Waters has talked about what she would do and it would be a 24/7 impeachment hearing, Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.) said during a question-and-answer session at the U.S. Chamber of Commerces annual capital markets summit in April.

Privately, White House officials are worried that a Democratic-controlled House would pursue numerous investigations, by Waters and other new committee chairs, stymieing Trumps agenda.

Ed Mills, a Washington policy analyst for financial services firm Raymond James, said the Financial Services Committee doesnt have a strong history of conducting investigations and oversight. But he expects that to change under Waters because such an approach matches her personality.

She becomes a bigger player in some of the geopolitical fights and some of the election proxy fights we find ourselves in, Mills said, noting the committee has oversight of economic sanctions on Russia and Iran.

Waters, 80, already has been a key player in the Democrats resistance against Trump. Shes earned the nickname Auntie Maxine from younger opponents of the president enamored with her aggressive attacks.

The avg. American struggles to pay his/her taxes but Trump's allies can get by for years cheating the IRS, defrauding banks, & laundering millions of $$. Trump is probably hiding his tax returns b/c he's as big a crook & fraud as the top people he chose to run his campaign & WH.  Maxine Waters (@RepMaxineWaters) August 22, 2018

Remember when I said Trump & his allies are scumbags? Trump is an immoral, indecent, & inhumane thug. He loves Putin, genuflects for Kim Jong-un, loves killer Duterte, wants to be in power for life like Pres. Xi, & is willing to sacrifice children. He needs 2B stopped. Impeach45  Maxine Waters (@RepMaxineWaters) June 20, 2018

The longest-serving black woman in the House, Waters refused to attend Trumps inauguration, has talked of impeaching him and sparked sharp criticism  along with death threats  after urging people at a Los Angeles rally in June to confront administration officials in their everyday lives.

Waters criticism of Trump has drawn his ire on Twitter and at political rallies, where he often mentions her name to elicit boos from his supporters.

Maxine, shes a real beauty, Maxine, Trump said at an August rally in Lewis Center, Ohio. A seriously low I.Q. person, seriously.

Crazy Maxine Waters, said by some to be one of the most corrupt people in politics, is rapidly becoming, together with Nancy Pelosi, the FACE of the Democrat Party. Her ranting and raving, even referring to herself as a wounded animal, will make people flee the Democrats!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 3, 2018

Congresswoman Maxine Waters, an extraordinarily low IQ person, has become, together with Nancy Pelosi, the Face of the Democrat Party. She has just called for harm to supporters, of which there are many, of the Make America Great Again movement. Be careful what you wish for Max!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 25, 2018

Former Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who chaired the Financial Services Committee from 2007 to 2011, said Waters has a knack for getting Trumps attention.

She gets under his skin, said Frank, who served for years with Waters. He is not a man who is comfortable with aggressive, intelligent African American women playing a major part in the affairs of this country.

Waters arrived in Washington as a fiery advocate for minorities and liberal causes, such as workers rights and affordable housing.

The fifth of 13 children raised by a single mother, Waters earned a bachelors degree at Cal State L.A. and worked as a teacher and for the early childhood program Head Start before entering politics. She was the chief deputy for a Los Angeles City Council member and in 1977 was elected to the state Assembly, where she rose in power before winning a seat in Congress in 1990.

She became the top Democrat on the Financial Services Committee in 2013 after being cleared by the House Ethics Committee of allegations she improperly helped a bank, in which her husband owned stock, receive bailout money during the financial crisis.

Her committee position puts her in line to be chairwoman if the Democrats take the majority, which many analysts said they have a strong chance of doing.

Waters has continued to be an outspoken critic of big banks but also has become an unlikely champion of the business community on some key issues.

She drew praise in 2015 for playing a pivotal role in reauthorizing the federal Export-Import Bank, which helps U.S. companies sell their products abroad. Conservatives argued the bank provided corporate welfare and successfully shut it down for five months before Waters helped lead a bipartisan effort that reopened it.

Since becoming the panels top Democrat, Waters has received more campaign contributions from insurers, bankers and people in other industries affected by policies under the committees jurisdiction, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan research group.

We have a good working relationship, said Neil Bradley, executive vice president and chief policy officer at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Even where we have differences, like with a lot of people in Washington, we have a very open dialogue.

Before taking the top committee spot, Waters voted with the chamber just 17% of the time in 2012 and 21% over her congressional career. But shes voted with it more frequently since then, including 58% in 2016, and her lifetime score is now up to 27%, according to the latest available data.

Small bankers said Waters has been helpful on their issues. Even though Waters voted against a bipartisan deregulation bill enacted this year that was focused on small banks, her objections were based on provisions that helped large institutions, said Paul Merski, executive vice president for congressional relations and strategy at the Independent Community Bankers of America.

I think shes astute to recognize and has recognized the distinction between trillion-dollar, too-big-to-fail institutions and small community banks, he said.

Waters said that if the Democrats win the House  and if her colleagues select her as committee chairwoman, as expected  she will have an open door to all viewpoints.

Were going to make sure even people we disagree with will be able to talk to us and express their concerns, Waters said.

She also promised to conduct oversight in a respectful manner. Waters was highly critical of Hensarlings contentious hearings with former Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray.

I am not interested in simply having a fight. Im interested in trying to get the job done, she said. I do not intend to disrespect anybody, but I wont let anybody run over me.

Waters biggest impact could be from investigations.

Early last year, Waters and four other top committee Democrats asked Hensarling to probe Deutsche Bank after the German institution was fined about $630 million by regulators in New York and Britain in connection with a $10-billion Russian money laundering scheme. Deutsche Bank was a major lender to Trump for years, and Democrats said they were concerned the president might try to interfere with a reported Justice Department investigation of the bank.

Several months later, Waters and the other Democrats asked Hensarling to subpoena Deutsche Bank documents involving an internal review of the money laundering operation and copies of documents related to two internal reviews the bank reportedly conducted of its Russian money laundering scheme and the personal accounts of Trump and his family.

Hensarling has not acted. Waters most likely would, said Dennis Kelleher, president of Better Markets, a group that advocates stricter financial regulation.

An investigation of Deutsche Bank is not just a get-Trump issue, it is a fundamental issue to the stability of the financial system, he said.

Waters said an investigation is a possibility, and not just because it would target Trump.

To the degree we can cooperate and not get in the way and not duplicate [the special counsels investigation], find a responsible way where we can add to the unveiling of information, we would be open to that, Waters said.

Were not going to rule over the committee just to focus on the president or anybody, she said. Were going to run the committee based on what we think is responsible oversight.

jim.puzzanghera@latimes.com

Twitter: @JimPuzzangheraUber Technologies Inc. will pay $148 million to settle claims related to a large-scale data breach that exposed the personal information of more than 25 million of its U.S. users.

The settlement, spanning all 50 states and the District of Columbia, is the biggest data-breach payout in history, and marks the most sweeping rebuke by regulators against the San Francisco company, which earned a reputation for skirting rules in its push to dominate the ride-hailing market.

The states agreement stemmed from data compromised in 2016 by hackers, who obtained 607,000 U.S. drivers license numbers as well as tens of millions of consumer email addresses and phone numbers, a leak that Uber failed to disclose for more than a year after discovering the attack.

This record settlement should send a clear message: we have zero tolerance for those who skirt the law and leave consumer and employee information vulnerable to exploitation, New York Atty. Gen. Barbara Underwood said in a statement Wednesday.

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The nine-figure settlement will be distributed to the states, rather than directly to those affected in the breach. California will receive a $26-million share of the settlement, which it plans to divide between the state attorney generals office and the San Francisco district attorneys office.

The penalty comes at a pivotal time for Uber Chief Executive Dara Khosrowshahi, who is laying the groundwork for a 2019 initial public offering while working to distance the brand from the controversial growth-at-all-costs approach established under his predecessor, co-founder Travis Kalanick.

Bloomberg News reported in November that Kalanick learned of the 2016 breach just a month after hackers stole the personal data on 57 million of Ubers customers around the globe, including 25.6 million riders and drivers in the United States. But the company concealed the breach from authorities and instead paid the hackers $100,000 to delete the stolen data and keep the incident quiet.

After the episode came to light, Uber ousted its chief security officer and disclosed the breach to the Federal Trade Commission, which had already reprimanded the company for a similar 2014 data breach.

The commitments were making in this agreement are in line with our focus on both physical and digital safety for our customers, as exemplified by our recent announcement of a host of safety and security improvements and our recent hiring of experts like Ruby Zefo as chief privacy officer and Matt Olsen as chief trust and security officer, Uber Chief Legal Officer Tony West said in a statement Wednesday.

As part of the settlement agreement, Uber promised to improve its security policies and hire an outside party to monitor its data-privacy efforts and regularly report on necessary improvements.Representatives of six major technology and communications companies, including Google, Amazon and AT&T, told lawmakers Wednesday that they support federal laws that would safeguard user privacy  though some would rather those laws not be as stringent as rules recently introduced in Europe and California.

The executives, including some from Apple, Charter Communications and Twitter, made their remarks at a hearing before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation that sought to examine the nations patchwork of privacy laws and determine whether Congress should act to strengthen them.



For the record: A previous version of this article implied Apple opposed federal privacy rules that met the standards set by the recently passed California Consumer Privacy Act. Apple said it will support a bill that is as comprehensive as the California law.

The testimony highlighted the battle lines ahead when it comes to regulating the industry. The toll from years of bad news about consumer data being collected, sold or hacked has made new rules almost inevitable. The debate now is over how far-reaching such guidelines should be.

The question is no longer whether we need a federal law to protect consumers privacy. The question is what shape that law should take, Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), chairman of the committee, said in opening remarks.

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Privacy advocates want Congress to take a cue from the California Consumer Privacy Act and the European Unions General Data Protection Regulation. Those laws are designed to give consumers far more control of their data, but companies have opposed them because of compliance costs, expensive penalties for violations and the restrictions on collecting data.

Executives told the panel that the United States needs federal legislation to protect personal data  but told lawmakers not to emulate California and Europe. They said restrictions on data collection would diminish user experience. Personal data are needed to determine which ads and services are most useful to each user, the executives said.

Were urging for comprehensive federal law that looks at both these laws and learns from them, but does better than them, said Len Cali, senior vice president of global public policy for AT&T, who called the European law overly prescriptive and burdensome.

Other executives said the European law would only strengthen incumbent companies such as theirs, given the costs of complying. Were concerned about the small and medium-sized business, said Guy Trimble, Apples vice president for software technology.

Privacy advocates say the companies preference for a federal law is guided by fear that other states could adopt Californias strict rules, which go into effect in 2020.

What they mean is that they want weak federal privacy legislation that preempts stronger state laws, said Christine Bannan, an attorney for the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

The companies uniformly supported introducing federal laws that would preempt state laws on data privacy. However, Apple says it supports a federal law that meets the standards set by Californias new regulations.

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said he hopes any discussion about preemption would come after lawmakers agreed on stronger federal rules. Congress should not make weak laws to preempt strong laws, Markey said.

Alastair Mactaggart, a real estate developer who helped spearhead Californias new consumer privacy law, said in a statement that he opposes federal rules that would supersede Californias. The state will soon mandate that all consumers be able to see which businesses are using their data and be able to decline the sale of that information, among a host of other protections.

To be clear: We will fight back against any attempts to undermine our states ability to provide these fundamental rights to California consumers, and will support further efforts to provide these rights to all Americans, said Mactaggart, who is scheduled to meet with the Senate committee next month.

We are on the right side of history here, Mactaggart added. Europe has just made huge strides forward in consumer privacy. And as goes California, so goes the nation.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center supports a baseline federal law on user data that individual states could choose to enhance. We want to set a floor for the country and not a ceiling, Bannan said.

The proposed baseline would require higher penalties for data breaches, prevent companies from forcing users to sign away the ability to sue them, more transparency in algorithms, and a promise not to collect more personal data than necessary.

Another point of contention is over which federal agency should have authority to regulate consumer data. That role currently belongs to the Federal Trade Commission  an arrangement that executives at the hearing said should stay in place.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center proposes the creation of a separate regulatory agency to oversee the handling of consumer data. It says the FTC is woefully understaffed and lacks the authority to set rules. The FTCs main deterrence tool is consent decrees, with which it can fine companies only after they have been caught violating rules.

It seems absurd, Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) said about the FTCs reactive, rather than proactive, stance on enforcement.

Of all the companies present at the hearing, Google received the most scrutiny. Lawmakers asked about issues including China, sharing Gmail data with outside companies, and political bias.

Keith Enright, the companys chief privacy officer, admitted in his opening remarks that Google had made mistakes in the past in handling user data. He said the company has learned from them and improved its security.

He was later questioned about reports that Google was developing a search engine for China called Project Dragonfly that would comply with censorship rules there and jeopardize privacy.

Enright acknowledged the projects existence but downplayed its viability. We are not close to launching a search product in China, and whether we should or could is unclear, he said.

david.pierson@latimes.com | Follow me @dhpierson

UPDATES:

2:15 p.m.: This article was updated with comments from real estate developer Alastair Mactaggart and Sen. Brian Schatz, and additional comments from Google official Keith Enright.

9:50 a.m.: This article was updated after the conclusion of the hearing with comments from Sen. Ed Markey and Googles Enright.

8:20 a.m.: This article was updated throughout with details from the hearing.

This article was originally published at 6:45 a.m.In 1948, photographer Irving Penn went on a fashion shoot in Peru. When it was over, he traveled to Cuzco where he set about photographing the indigenous people he learned about thanks to the writing of poet Pablo Neruda.

The results presented a stunning ethnographic study of cultural adornment that many people in America and Europe had not yet seen. With his talent for capturing the individuality of his subjects, and his eye for fashion in its many forms, Penn created a portfolio of work that shed light on unfamiliar worlds and ways of life.

Thirty-two of these portraits, half of which are previously unseen, are on display at Fahey/Klein Gallery through Oct. 6 in an exhibition titled, Irving Penn: Worlds in a Small Room, Seen and Unseen.

Man With Pink Face by Irving Penn. (Conde Nast)

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His work distinguishes itself thanks to the traveling studio that Penn set up at each site he visited. It was basically a simple tent that allowed for no outside distractions, says curator David Fahey. By isolating his subjects in a plain environment, he was able to concentrate exclusively on the person sitting in front of him.

There were no distractions or extraneous objects to draw your eye away from the person, the face and what they were wearing, Fahey says. He created simple but telling portraits that really speak to the truth and honesty of the subjects.

The portable studio also presented a neutral meeting place where his world could collide with theirs.

Child Dressed for the Brides Market, Morocco by Irving Penn. (The Irving Penn Foundation)

He wanted to make an authentic record of their physical presence, Fahey says of Penn and the people he photographed on trips to Spain, Morocco, New Guinea and Nepal, among others. They would step into this studio from an old world into a new world.

Penns work, says Fahey, is a marriage of creativity and technical proficiency. Hes a true master.

Child Painted White, New Guinea by Irving Penn. (The Irving Penn Foundation)

Irving Penn: Worlds in a Small Room, Seen and Unseen

Where: 148 N. La Brea Ave., Los Angeles

When: Through Oct. 6

Info: faheykleingallery.comPresident Tayyip Erdogan urged Germany in a newspaper article on the eve of his state visit there to designate the Fethullah Gulen movement, which Turkey blames for a failed 2016 coup, as a terrorist organisation.

Writing on the website of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the Turkish president also said the two allies should prevent the "irresponsible policies" of the United States from setting off a "reckless trade war".

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On Christmas Eve 1985, Mexico Citys world-renowned National Museum of Anthropology was victim to a massive heist, losing 140 Mayan, Aztec and other pre-Columbian artifacts in a single night. The Times reported then that the museum believed that the thieves are professionals who will probably try to sell the artifacts abroad.

But the reality was quite different.

In the new film Museo, director Alonso Ruizpalacios reveals that the thieves werent well-trained, suave and highly-skilled criminal masterminds, the likes of which weve seen in heist movies such as Oceans 8. The real masterminds of the scandalous heist in Museo are just two bored veterinary-school dropouts who hatched their plan after a marijuana-fueled joyride.

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While Ruizpalacios based-in-fact film relates the sometimes funny antics of the two thieves  the Carlos Castaneda-worshipping, Pink Floyd-loving Juan (Gael Garcia Bernal) and his best friend Wilson (Leonardo Ortizgris)  the theft raises big philosophical questions about cultural history: Who are the true keepers of history? How is value ascribed to cultures? And is archaeology a kind of theft itself? As the characters travel around their country trying to sell the priceless artifacts, the film becomes an exploration of cultural appropriation through the lens of 1980s Mexico.

The film has been a critical favorite along the festival circuit leaving Berlin and Los Angeles film festivals with rave reviews, and Sept. 28, it opens in Los Angeles on a limited release before it heads to YouTube as the platforms first Spanish-language original film. Ruizpalacios and Garcia Bernal recently sat down with The Times at the Toronto Film Festival to talk about the film and the deeper cultural questions the movie provoked.

Leonardo Ortizgris and Gael Garcia Bernal costar in Museo as best friends and veterinary-school dropouts who robbed Mexicos National Museum of Anthropology. (Vitagraph Films)

The film is loosely based on the actual heist that happened in Mexico in 1985, but theres deeper message about the theft of Mexican art and culture. How did you develop that message and story?

Alonso Ruizpalacios: I think its in the process of discovery, what the themes in the film are. They kind of reveal themselves, little by little, throughout the writing and the directing and then the shooting and then the editing. It wasnt straight away that I said, Okay, I want to speak about this. It was little by little that we discovered that there was the question of national identity and who defines that, and related to the property of art as well. There was a very interesting way in which those two subjects spoke to each other.

Gael Garcia Bernal: The characters are based on the true story but also with other elements [of] our upbringing [and] our esoteric closeness that we have to our culture.

Simon Russell Beale, from left, Gael Garcia Bernal and Leonardo Ortizgris in Museo. (Vitagraph Films)

The film also raises the question of who should be the keepers of all this art history of our culture? Should the ones that excavate and find these pieces own them, or should they belong to the people?

Ruizpalacios: I do think that the National Institute of Anthropology and History, the NIAH, is a noble institution. It has its many flaws and everything, but on the whole, theyve done very important work of preserving and keeping the memory of what Mexico was.

Garcia Bernal: Really, Mexico has been the one thats made a whole institution of recovering the past.

Ruizpalacios: For sure. The question of whether the pieces should be kept in the place where they were found or they should be taken to a central place like Mexico City where more people can see it, I think thats a more complicated matter.

Garcia Bernal: Theres strong argument on both sides. Leaning towards my personal feeling that I really dont recognize the urge to own things, I believe that everyone should own everything. But its true that if it wasnt for the people that really adore collecting and love those pieces, there wouldnt be people to take care of them.

Mexican filmmaker Alonso Ruizpalacios, director of Museo. (Vitagraph Films)

Ruizpalacios: Theres a line in the film where Frank Graves, the British collector, says, Theres no preservation without looting. I think thats actually true. Sometimes its the private collection thats been responsible for the preservation of art.

Theres no easy answer for that. Museums seem to be the answer, but theyre not the only answer. Many times leaving the artifact in the place where they were found seems to be the answer because theres a relationship between the people and the artifact, like what was the case with the monolith that the movie starts off with. But other times it has been proved that when those things are left there, theyre not taken care of and sometimes they just fade away.

Garcia Bernal: They get destroyed, desecrated. Theres really tremendous extremes to that, like what happens in Syria, for example, because thats young. ISIS is financing their operation by selling those pieces to Europeans, which, I dont know, its an extreme that were not talking about right now but its part of the same line.

I think it also speaks to the fact that we dont recognize the significance of our own pieces of history until someone else comes to claim it.

Garcia Bernal: Exactly, or like, I dont know if youre aware of Mexicos taking back the crown of Montezuma. He had many crowns, but this was the one that he gave to [Hernan] Cortes, and its in Austria, and apparently its always on the verge of almost coming back.

Ruizpalacios: But the Austrian government claims they cant transport it because theres no way that it can make the journey. That if they move it, it will just crumble.

Garcia Bernal: And theres the complication again. They took it long ago, stole it from Mexico essentially, and now its a battle to get it back.

Gael Garcia Bernal in Museo. (Vitagraph Films)

Do you feel this feeds into how Mexican culture  or Latino culture in general  is continuously stolen from, or forgotten, and other people can rewrite who we are?

Garcia Bernal: And getting away with it. Maybe? I have had to administrate my anger, my frustration, my resentment. I have to transfer it to another way and understand it in another way.

I think the people that feel this  and are able to have stronger and more acute analysis of what goes on  are the Mexican Americans and Latinos in the United States; theyre the ones that can probably save and preserve culture, and we need those voices to be heard.Schitts Creek, a comedy about the Roses, a self-centered wealthy family that loses its money and finds itself  and also finds itself -- in an eccentric small town, came out of television and onto the stage of the Theatre at Ace Hotel on Sunday night.

The occasion was Schitts Creek: Up Close & Personal, an evening of conversation a few surprises  some general merriment, hopefully, in the introductory words of its moderator, Dan Levy, who co-created the series with his father, Canadian comedy god Eugene Levy. In a bit of typecasting, the Levys play father and son, Johnny and David Rose. Annie Murphy is Davids sister, Alexis; and Canadian comedy goddess Catherine OHara  the elder Levys partner on SCTV and in a series of Christopher Guest movies  plays Moira, Mrs. Rose, armored against downward mobility in an endless array of wigs and aesthetically aggressive couture.

All were there onstage Sunday, along with Emily Hampshire, who plays Stevie, who runs the motel where the Roses live in two adjoining rooms, and Noah Reid, who plays Davids patient boyfriend, Patrick. (It is a relationship, to judge by the cheers in the room, that makes the fans happy, perhaps because David had so resisted happiness.) They took the stage to ascending waves of delirium, as if every appearance were a delightful surprise, like it was a Christmas when everyone forgot they were getting presents.

Other cast members, including Chris Elliott as mayor Roland Schitt and Jennifer Robertson as his schoolteacher wife, Jocelyn, and Dustin Milligan as veterinarian Ted, Alexis sometime boss and love interest, were present only in film clips. But they got love, too.

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After three increasingly good seasons, Schitts Creek took a leap into loveliness in season four, pushing the Rose family toward acceptance or commitment or self-reliance in a way that has made this strange little comedy one of the most genuinely romantic shows on television. At the same time, the fact that the series  a co-production between the American cable network Pop TV and Canadas CBC  also became available on Netflix has given it new life.

The event, which sold out quickly, stemmed from reading amazing, thoughtful talkback from fans and realizing we dont get to see anybody, Dan Levy told me in a dressing room, not long before he and Eugene would take the stage to a standing ovation. (There would be another, maybe greater, for OHara.) The building blocks of our show have slowly but surely built a really loving fan base, and I think this last season was the most emotional and sensitive and tender. The idea of putting a live show together really stemmed from the enthusiasm of the fans and the desire to provide a venue where we could celebrate the show with them.

As one would expect from Schitts Creek itself, the evening was both hilarious and moving. Dan Levy led his castmates back to the shows beginnings. Murphy and Hampshire had funny, end-of-their-rope audition stories. (Hampshire: I had just gotten divorced, I had 800 dollars  800 whole Canadian dollars  I hadnt worked in almost a year because I could no longer go to auditions because I would break out in full body hives.) Each spoke about his or her character and favorite scenes, as actors often do on panel appearances. But as this was their own, self-created, self-contained Schitts show, it also had the flavor of a family dinner.

Actors Annie Murphy and Dan Levy pose for a photograph backstage before Schitts Creek: Up Close & Personal, at the Theatre at Ace Hotel on Sunday in Los Angeles. (Patrick T. Fallon / For The Times)

Do you remember pitching the show? Eugene asked his son, whom he sometimes refers to as the lad.

I do remember pitching the show, said Dan, who calls his father Dad. Im 35; I have a very clear memory.

Murphy demonstrated a floppy thing Alexis does with her wrists and got much of the audience to do it with her. OHara let her voice slide into Moiras to ecstatic response. There was a slide show of Schitts-themed, fan-made projects. A trivia quiz pitted audience against cast members, including surprise guest Sarah Levy (Eugenes daughter, Dans sister), who plays waitress Twyla in the series. (Try it at home! 1: What gift did Ted give Alexis on the opening night of Rose Apothecary? 2: How does Twyla serve champagne at the diner? Answers at the end.) Reid accompanied himself on guitar, singing the arrangement of Tina Turners Simply the Best he performed in the show last season; it went Top 10 in Canada.

And right before the song, there was a wedding proposal, appropriately capping the question-and-answer section. The groom-to-be, Jake Penzell, told me later he had sent a note to Dan Levys publicist to see if something might be arranged. The bride-to-be, Jaimie Szuhay, was not shocked by the proposal, but surprised by the timing. This is the first thing she ever showed me, pop-culture-wise, he said of Schitts Creek; their mutual love for the series was something by which they understood they were meant for each other.

Annie Murphy flips her wrists for character Alexis Rose as Catherine OHara watches during Schitts Creek; Up Close & Personal at the Theatre at Ace Hotel on Sunday. (Patrick T. Fallon / For The Times)

If it was an opportunity for the cast to see their fans, it was just as much  even more  an opportunity for the fans to demonstrate their love, which does not fully distinguish between the actors and their characters, but lets each magnify the other. (It is true that Dan Levy was asked if hes single during the question-and-answer period; I couldnt be sure with all the screaming, but I believe he said he is.)

I continually fight my Canadian instinct to wonder how and why this is happening, Dan Levy said before the show of the growing Creekmania. Its surreal. Truly. Ive had families from grandparents to grandchildren all come up and say that they watch it together, but I have not found, like, a through line in terms of what that fan base is. Because, especially in America, its Democrats, its Republicans, its people whose beliefs are not necessarily mine or our shows.

Some of the most touching feedback Ive received has been from right-wing religious-based people who have never understood  he paused, searching for the phrase  queer culture. If we can continue to open peoples eyes to realize that everyones deserving of love, thats a wonderful thing.

Jake Penzell proposes to Jaimie Szuhay (she said yes) during Schitts Creek: Up Close & Personal at the Theatre at Ace Hotel on Sunday. (Patrick T. Fallon / For The Times)

I mentioned to Eugene Levy that the show, from being a Little Engine That Could, seemed to be turning into a steaming locomotive.

I still think of it as a Little Engine That Could, he replied. Awareness is starting to percolate. More people are stopping me at airports and saying things about Schitts Creek, and I know thats a great sign.

I know I can come off with a kind of faux sense of humility, Dan Levy told me, but this really did start as just a very small idea up in Canada that we did because we loved it. And to now have a theater full of people showing up just to hear us answer some questions  its wild.

Its a good show, Eugene Levy said. The lad has crafted a very lovely show.

QUIZ ANSWERS: Question 1: A pencil shaped like a twig. Question 2: With a raisin.

ALSO:

Canadian Creek overflows with good humor

Q&A: Eugene Levy and Catherine OHara on comedy, Canada, Creek

Father-son team Eugene and Dan Levy go with the very funny flow on their second season of Creek

Further up the Creek: Eugene and Dan Levy talk more about Canadian comedy

If you missed shows like Schitts Creek and The Detour in the Peak TV deluge, those and more are back, and still good

robert.lloyd@latimes.com

Follow Robert Lloyd on Twitter @LATimesTVLloydWaiting for the Maison Margiela spring and summer 2019 runway show to begin Wednesday, I ran across a TED Talk a friend had posted to her Facebook feed. Titled How Your Language Shapes the Way You Think, the talk featured cognitive scientist Lera Boroditsky explaining how the Kuuk Thaayorre people of Australia dont use the words left or right but rather refer to the location or position of something by using north, south, east or west. (She uses the example of someone saying, Oh, theres an ant on your southwest leg instead of Theres an ant on your left leg.)

People who speak languages like this stay oriented really well, Boroditsky said at one point, an observation I couldnt help but think about after seeing creative director John Gallianos latest collection for the house, a mens and womens collection that was somehow neither and both at the same time  and was full of garments that looked like theyd started life as one thing and then, in the wearing, became something else altogether like the show-opening look that featured a gray herringbone tweed skirt worn as a cape.

Mutiny is in the air, Galliano wrote in the show notes, which described the Co-ed collection as a unification of the labels mens and womens offerings. He expressed [a] desire to break free from binary stigmatization with an assortment of genderless wardrobe staples aimed at a defiant new generation.

This mutinous mood was underscored by looping video that played on LED screens flanking the runway before the show. In it, a handful of models, singers and actresses  Willow Smith, Princess Nokia and Sasha Lane among them  talked about individuality, self-expression and doing things their own way. (Examples included, Be who you are, and it illuminates of you and Being who you really are is an act of defiance.) Each anecdote ended with the hashtag #MYMUTINY flashing on the screen.

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Ever the fashion provocateur, Galliano, seemed to be openly encouraging a revolt against the man (and we mean that in the authoritarian non-gender-specific way). In essence, he was asking who decides what should be deemed menswear and what should be deemed womens wear? (Although gender-neutral and gender-fluid fashion isnt exactly new, it has been more visible on the major fashion runways this season; Telfar at New York Fashion Week being another good example.)

Looks from the spring and summer 2019 Maison Margiela Co-ed collection. (Thierry Chesnot / AFP / Getty Images)

This is where Boroditskys TED Talk came to mind. What if, like the Kuuk Thaayorre, the fashion world spoke a more nuanced, non-binary language? How would that change the way we orient (or reorient) our wardrobes around something other than gender? I dont have a clue what the new vocabulary might sound like, but Im pretty sure it could look a lot like the Maison Margiela Co-ed collection that came down the catwalk Wednesday at the Grand Palais in Paris.

Oh, and those aforementioned #MYMUTINY video testimonials were more than pre-show window dressing. As guests exited the Grand Palais, they were confronted with a giant mobile video screen mounted on top of a bus that looped some of the same clips but, this time, ended with a photo of a perfume bottle. Galliano, it turns out, had created his first fragrance for Maison Margiela.

Its simply called, of course, Mutiny.

adam.tschorn@latimes.com

For more musings on all things fashion and style, follow me at @ARTschornTo make the umami oil used in the Naked Maja cocktail at the new Duello bar in downtown L.A., heaps of sun-dried tomatoes are macerated and poured into avocado oil before being vacuum-packed and left to meld and leech for five days. All that work for just five drops on top of the cocktail, necessary for what bar director Iain McPherson calls mouthfeel.

McPherson, known best for opening the award-winning Panda & Sons cocktail bar in Edinburgh, Scotland, is on a mission to make Duello, the bar inside chef Jessica Largeys new Simone restaurant in the Arts District downtown, more than just a waiting area for your dinner table. And to do so, he looked to the Arts Districts rich history and perpetual reinvention.

I easily spent over 100 hours researching the history of the area, said McPherson, referring to the area, which in another era, was home to hundreds of acres of leafy French Cabernet and Sauvignon Blanc vines. . For a new world country, what I found is that the Arts District had a very concentrated history over a very small space of time.

Firing Blancs cocktail at Simone in Los Angeles, Calif. (Rob Stark)

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Inspired by his surroundings, McPherson composed a bar program that exclusively deals in the history of the Arts Districts metamorphosis from vineyards to citrus fields to the epicenter of local burgeoning artists to one of todays most important culinary epicenters. The restaurant is located less than a mile from Church & State, Bestia and Factory Kitchen.

As an homage to the Arts District as Californias first wine region, patrons can sip a wine-influenced cocktail called the Botta Secreta, made with a peach aperitif, rose vermouth, and orange and grapefruit oleo enlivened with a peaty breath of whiskey. A salted citrus, gin, and Sauvignon Blanc drink receives a jolt of pineapple and lemon to move the menu into the regions citrus-growing chapter. A section of the menu detailing the influx of local artists is distilled into tipples such as the vodka, hemp, Manzanilla sherry and umami oil drink inspired by Francisco Goya. And a complex Mamacita Mole cocktail composed of blanco tequila, mole grenadine, and lime oleo saccharum brings the libations to the present.

The bar, designed by Deirdre Doherty, is outfitted with white marble, dark burgundy, brown leather and accents of gold metal. And painted tile in tones of ocean help create an elegant Art Deco-inspired watering hole.

Though Duello can stand alone, its cocktails are meant to work alongside Largeys dishes, which is just one of the reasons why the full dinner menu is offered in both spaces. Focusing predominantly on California produce, Simones menu may feature dry-farmed tomatoes sitting plump atop red lentil and nasturtium-accented hummus one day, or a bowl of pole beans resting on a pool of startlingly purple tomatillo water as fine as a sheet of newly formed ice the next.

California Calling cocktail at Simone. (Rob Stark)

Where food and cocktails collide, the California Calling, a concoction of reposado tequila, coconut oil and fino sherry, sips strongly alongside Largeys plate of seasonal pickled offerings such as passionfruit and chile turnips or crisp green bites of celtuce. The Lost and Founds beet vinegar, bramble and mandarin accented golden rum is not only a modern tiki tipple but also an elevator for the earthiness of Largeys dish of maitake mushroom with brown butter and shallot-miso.

Theres always been change happening in this area, said McPherson. To me, were still maintaining the spirit of the Arts District  just now its with cocktails and the culinary side of things.

449 S. Hewitt St., Los Angeles, (424) 433-3000, simoneartsdistrict.com.

food@latimes.com

@latimesfoodWith the bullet train project facing titanic legal battles in the San Francisco Bay Area and Central Valley, the last thing the state rail authority needs is a route into Southern California that would galvanize new opposition.

But whether it can avoid such a fight remains uncertain after the California High Speed Rail Authoritys first public briefing Monday about its newly revealed route between Palmdale and Burbank.

For the record: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that the rail line would pass beneath Shadow Hills and Lake View Terrace. The route bypasses those areas entirely.

A throng of 300 somewhat skeptical San Fernando Valley residents and several dozen protesters peppered rail staff at a meeting in Sun Valley with questions about seismic faults, wildlife crossings, ground vibrations, air emissions, truck traffic and myriad other potential effects of the route through the San Gabriel Mountains and residential communities.

The meeting came the night before the rail authority said that Chief Executive Brian Kelly is out on an extended leave of absence for an undisclosed health problem.

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Kelly, who started in February after the agency went eight months without a chief executive, is a highly regarded political and administrative veteran in California. He was selected by Gov. Jerry Brown, in his final year in office, to restore the projects credibility after years of delays and cost overruns. Kelly thought he had a stomach virus last week and had postponed meetings but was later hospitalized, according to an announcement to rail authority employees.

Kellys duties will be taken over for the time being by Joseph Hedges, the chief operating officer for the project who was brought in from Washington states highway department in January, and Pamela Mizukami, a chief deputy who was transferred this year from the Department of Motor Vehicles.

The rail authority disclosed last week that its preferred route between Palmdale and Burbank is a modified version of its original plan to follow the 14 Freeway. The 38.6-mile route that the rail staff favors has more miles underground  25.2 in total  than other options, though it is supposed to be the easiest, fastest and least risky choice.

The rail authority told the crowd the route would have six tunnels varying in length from half a mile to 12.4 miles. The spoils, or crushed rock taken out of the mountain, would amount to nearly 7 million cubic yards  enough to fill the Rose Bowl as many as 10 times, according to The Times calculations. Rail engineers said they have found old quarries that can take all the material, helping restore the sites.

The route would cut through some residential areas of Palmdale, though how many homes would have to be taken is not yet known. It would skirt around Palmdale Lake and enter its first tunnel. It would cross the Santa Clara River on a bridge near Lang Station Road.

The route would pass under Santa Clarita and bypass Shadow Hills and Lake View Terrace, which were all major opponents of the prior options. It would surface in the San Fernando Valley around Montague Street just northeast of San Fernando Road, where it would plow through a junkyard, into some industrial buildings and across a spreading grounds for the countys flood control system.

Michelle Boehm, the rail authoritys Southern California section director, said the goal is to avoid any taking of residences. In an earlier interview, Boehm said the authority is concerned both about the housing crisis and the need to protect jobs, but believes it can more easily locate businesses than housing.

Around Sheldon Street, it would begin paralleling the Metrolink tracks. The right of way, which was originally granted to the Southern Pacific Railroad in the 19th century, is wide enough for two bullet train tracks, the existing single Metrolink track and one future expansion track for Metrolink, she said. But it could involve the taking of some property in some areas, she said.

The bullet train would enter a final tunnel, which was just decided on in the last week, as it enters the future underground Burbank station. The station would be close to the future Burbank airport terminal planned to replace the existing one.

Despite the plans, many attending the Monday night briefing were not convinced about the route or the entire project.

Nani Barnes, who runs the Lake View Farm horse ranch, said she didnt hear anything in the presentation that altered her opposition to the project.

The environmental impact this is going to have on this area is upsetting a lot of people, she said.

ralph.vartabedian@latimes.com

Follow me on Twitter @rvartabedianMedical shows: In the Sept. 25 Calendar section, a review of two new medical shows  NBCs series New Amsterdam and PBS documentary The Mayo Clinic: Faith - Hope - Science  said that the programs would premiere Monday. They premiered Tuesday.

Shared campus: In the Sept. 25 Section A, an article about two Los Angeles schools that share the same campus and compete for students said that enrollment in the Los Angeles Unified School District had increased by about 1,000 students last year. It was the number of charter school students that increased by that amount last year.

Iran military parade: In the Sept. 23 Section A, an article about an attack on a military parade in Iran described the Ahwazi Democratic Popular Front as a Sunni Muslim group. It is not. The article also said the group claimed responsibility for the attack. Although a man claiming to represent the group made that assertion on television, the group later posted a statement on its website denying any responsibility.The Los Angeles school district has selected an FBI veteran stationed in Europe as its next inspector general. William Stern is currently the chief attache to the Netherlands and to Europol, the European Unions police agency.

His contract will pay $179,900 per year and run from Jan. 31 through June 30, 2020. His start date is delayed because of current work commitments and the need to relocate from The Hague, L.A. Unified general counsel David Holmquist said Tuesday. Sterns U.S. residence is in Nevada.

Hes well qualified for the position and were grateful to have him join the LAUSD team, Holmquist said.

The job of the inspector general is to prevent and ferret out waste, fraud and abuse among district employees and contractors. The office conducts both confidential investigations and audits that are made public.

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Sterns pending arrival brings an apparent end to months of turmoil in the inspector generals office.

According to his resume, the new school district watchdog started with the FBI in 1999, working successively as a special agent on white-collar crime, a supervisory special agent on financial crimes and an attache to the United Kingdom, where he helped safeguard the 2012 Olympic Games in London. He then served as special agent in charge of national security within the state of Nevada.

Prior to the FBI, he worked as a senior auditor for the Internal Revenue Service in Los Angeles.

Stern will be joining an office that had been on a roller-coaster ride.

First, Deputy Inspector General Frank Cabibi resigned following complaints that he made racially and sexually tinged comments. At least two lower level employees also faced discipline, according to sources.

Then in June, the Board of Education deadlocked 3-3 on rehiring Cabibis boss, Inspector General Ken Bramlett, whod held the job for five years. Bramlett needed four votes for a contract extension. The seventh board member, Ref Rodriguez, was under investigation by Bramletts office and recused himself from voting.

Rodriguez resigned from the board in July after pleading guilty to campaign money-laundering charges.

A short-term extension for Bramlett for a time seemed likely but then fell through.

The school board then arranged for a former inspector general, Jess Womack, to come out of retirement. But shortly after he accepted the job, Womack abruptly stepped aside.

Deputy Inspector General Austin Onwualu has been managing the office and will continue in that role until Sterns arrival.

howard.blume@latimes.com

Twitter: @howardblumeUniversity of California regents will gather this week to discuss faculty diversity, policies on Native American remains and artifacts and the ongoing effort to add more California students without further squeezing those already enrolled.

At their two-day meeting, which starts Wednesday at UCLA, regents plan to discuss how to significantly increase the number of graduates to help meet the states projected need for 1.1 million more workers with four-year college degrees by 2030.

UC expects to continue adding students to the 10-campus system, which already has upped the number of California undergraduates by more than 15,000 since 2014-15. But the university also will need to find ways to get them to graduate more quickly and hire more faculty in order to help the state meet its workforce needs, according to a UC report.

Students are pushing for a 10% reduction in tuition or an equivalent increase in financial aid. They also want the university system to spend more on mental health services, academic advising and support for immigrant, low-income and underrepresented minority students. The UC meanwhile has a host of pressing needs, including more student housing and classroom space, technology upgrades, building repairs and a way to manage the rising costs of retiree benefits.

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All of it will take more permanent state funding, say UC supporters, who are hopeful the next California governor will be more generous than Gov. Jerry Brown. Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, the front-running gubernatorial candidate and an ex-officio regent, has signaled support for more state funding by opposing tuition increases in the last two years.

To try to manage the competing demands with more stability and predictability, regents will start shaping a multiyear budget and enrollment plan. They plan to share the plans broad outlines in November.

Its balancing the desire for increasing enrollment with the need to properly take care of the students we have, said board Chairman George Kieffer. Thats a major issue for the coming year.

Regents also will review the universitys progress in diversifying faculty, who are disproportionately male and white compared to students. Women make up about one-third of tenured or tenure-track faculty but more than half of undergraduates; underrepresented minorities make up one-tenth of such faculty and more than a quarter of undergraduates.

Recent hires are more diverse, according to an annual report presented to the regents, but it is likely to take time for faculty demographics to come close to mirroring those of students, in part because job turnover is low. The average professor serves 30 years before retiring.

The state has helped accelerate the progress with $6 million in funding since 2016 to support the recruitment of faculty who have promoted diversity. Postdoctoral fellowships offered by the office of UC President Janet Napolitano and campus chancellors  about 70 a year  have widened the pipeline of diverse candidates for faculty positions. This year, more than two-thirds of the presidents fellows are women and more than three-fourths are underrepresented minorities. UC also now requires faculty job applicants to explain how theyve contributed to diversity in past teaching, research and service.

Such combined strategies have helped UC Riverside and UC San Diego in particular make their engineering faculty more diverse, the report said.

The regents also plan to clarify university policies for handling Native American human remains and cultural artifacts. Six campuses currently house them  acquired through archeological digs, transfers from coroners offices and donations  but sometimes clash with tribes over where they should be used and kept.

Some tribes have accused UC of stalling in repatriating remains or placing undue weight on their educational and research potential in decisions over whether they need to be returned.

UC says it does not consider potential educational or research potential in determining whether a tribe has a right to the remains or artifacts under federal and state laws.

teresa.watanabe@latimes.com

Twitter: @TeresaWatanabeJust east of the border fence construction, the Border Patrol has launched Operation Blazing Sands to deter illegal border crossings and thwart human smuggling attempts.

The agency noticed an uptick in smuggling activity along a stretch of the border in the southeasternmost part of the California desert, according to Agent Justin Castrejon.

Agents apprehended 2,427 people illegally crossing that part of the border from October 2017 through July 2018, according to official data. Thats about eight people per day and more than 10% of the 23,452 people caught in the entire El Centro Sector during the same period.

The sector splits its 70 miles of border among three Border Patrol stations. The 20-mile area where Operation Blazing Sands is focused is patrolled by agents from the Calexico station, which is the fifth busiest along the southwest border, Castrejon said.

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About 10 miles outside of the town of Calexico, the landscape turns from farmland to short brush and small mounds of sand. The All-American Canal runs between Interstate 8 and the border, and the canals steep sides and strong currents sometimes trap border crossers.

The goal for many trying to sneak across in the El Centro Sector is Interstate 8, Castrejon said. If the migrants can make it to the car thats supposed to pick them up, they can disappear into traffic.

Near the Gordon Wells exit on Interstate 8, the All-American Canal curves under the highway, removing one obstacle from border crossers path and allowing the freeway to stretch closer to Mexico. The sand begins to mound higher in this part of the desert.

A Border Patrol camera tower stands near the exit, and agents frequently make cuts in the area, checking for footprints where they had dragged the sand smooth earlier.

Just before the canal turns away from Mexico, the border fence changes from 15- to 20-foot bollards used in town to a floating fence that was built about 2009. The floating fence has similar bollards, or posts placed close together, but they are a few feet shorter, and the base allows agents to prevent sand from mounding along the fence  which would make it easier to climb over. If the sand gets too high, the fence can be lifted and set down again on top.

 Border Patrol launches Operation Blazing Sands in California desert

Despite the heat and the sand, the area around Gordon Wells has become a popular place to cross, Castrejon said.

He and fellow Agent Jose Enriquez pointed out footprints on the Mexican side of the fence and a piece of rope tied between bollards that would act as a ladder. Sun-bleached water bottles were scattered on the ground.

Castrejon said that when he was patrolling the Gordon Wells area about a month ago, an agent monitoring the camera tower alerted him to a group that had just crossed  fewer than 10 minutes after he had last checked there.

As much as were watching out for them, theyre watching us, he said.

The group made it to a car and headed west on the freeway. Castrejon responded, arresting one U.S. citizen on suspicion of smuggling and four border crossers.

When border crossers do make it to the highway, agents can try to pull the car over. If the driver refuses to stop, agents collaborate over radios to monitor where the car goes. In some cases, agents will use a spike strip to stop the vehicle, Castrejon said.

After agents make arrests, they backtrack to the border to look for people the group might have left behind. Smugglers often abandon anyone sick or injured because they dont want to slow down the group, Castrejon said.

Smugglers dont have any regard for human life, he said. All they care about is money.

Operation Blazing Sands, a collaboration launched in mid-August between the El Centro Sector and the Yuma, Ariz. Sector, has increased the number of agents operating in the area, borrowing from stations in both sectors, Castrejon said. He was not permitted to say how many agents were involved.

The operations first arrest came two days after the effort began, according to a Border Patrol statement, when an agent spotted five people crossing illegally into the U.S. The group got into a car, and the agent followed and stopped it in Brawley.

Castrejon declined to say how many people the operation has apprehended, but according to agency statements that cited Blazing Sands, at least 10 people, almost all U.S. citizens, have been charged with human smuggling under the operation. They were transporting 23 would-be migrants.

The operation is also intended to prevent migrants from dying in the deserts extreme heat. Temperatures there can reach 120 during summer.

Border Patrol agents in the El Centro Sector have found the bodies of 14 people who died crossing the border so far in fiscal 2018, Castrejon said.

A lot of times, people will get in trouble and underestimate their abilities, he said, adding that agents treat many who cross in this area for heat exhaustion. The terrain is unforgiving.

Castrejon declined to say how long the operation would last because the Border Patrol doesnt want to tip off smugglers.

Its going to be in operation for the foreseeable future, he said.

The agency also plans to gather intelligence on smuggling organizations in the area as part of the project.

Morrissey writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune.Murder charges have been filed against four inmates accused of beating to death another man at a federal prison in San Bernardino County.

Authorities say an indictment unsealed Tuesday in Santa Ana charges the men with first-degree murder and conspiracy in the 2013 killing of a 38-year-old inmate at the Federal Correctional Institution in Victorville.

Prosecutors say the victim, called J.S. in the indictment, was attacked in the prison recreation yard. Authorities say the men kicked and beat him, continuing even after hed stopped breathing.

Three of the men charged in his death were all serving time for drug charges. The fourth had been convicted of being a felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition.

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If convicted of murder, all potentially face the death penalty.While the Palestinian president has rejected US bias towards Israel, he has courted controversy in stating he is open to secret or public negotiations with Israel

Days before his address to the 73rd UN General Assembly on Thursday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas began a European tour to France and Ireland to whip up support for the Palestinian position of rejecting blatant US bias towards Israel.

Abbas arrived in Paris on 20 September for talks with French President Emmanuel Macron on latest developments in Palestine, asking for Macrons support in creating an international umbrella to sponsor the peace process with Israel so that the US is not left in charge.

Abbass statements that he is willing to hold secret or public negotiations with Israel with international mediation were strongly criticised by Hamas, which described them as a stab in the back of the Palestinian people and shows that Abbas doesnt truly reject the USs deal of the century.

At a joint news conference with Macron at the Elysee Palace, Abbas said: We are prepared for secret or public negotiations with Israel through mediation by the Quartet in partnership with other countries The Palestinian side never rejected negotiations. He noted that Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is the one obstructing talks.

Abbas called on the Quartet to mediate between Israelis and Palestinians, and not surrender this role to the US which has taken a hostile position towards Palestinians.

The Quartet, which includes the US, Russia, EU and UN, plays the role of mediator between the two sides.

Before the news conference, Abbas and Macron discussed conditions in the Palestinian territories, the closure of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) office in Washington, accelerated settlement building and measures against Palestinians by Israel, according to the Palestinian news agency WAFA.

On the sidelines of his Paris stop, Abbas met with former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert who asserted Abbas is the only one who can achieve peace with Israel.

Olmert was seen sitting next to Abbas in the Palestinian presidents residence in Paris, and spoke directly to official Palestinian television.

Everyone in the US and Europe, and certainly in Israel, must understand two things: first, there is no alternative to a two-state solution to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Second, this solution is possible. And last but not least, that President Mahmoud Abbas is the only person that can make it happen, Olmert said.

Olmert, who served as prime minister between 2006 and 2009 and led political talks with Palestinians for months in the past, said Abbas is a great political leader, a key figure in future developments and relations between Israelis and Palestinians.

He pointed to Abbas and said: This man is capable of achieving it [peace], and he wants to. He fought against terrorism because that is part of his commitment to achieving peace between us and them.

He added: I am very glad to renew my friendship with President Abbas and meet with him. I am full of hope that next time we meet it will be during negotiations towards this noble goal.

Olmert was released from prison in June 2017 after spending 16 months behind bars in Israel on corruption charges, even though his sentence was 27 months. He is the first Israeli prime minister to go to jail.

Israeli-Palestinian negotiations were suspended in April 2014 after Netanyahus government refused to halt settlement building, recanted its commitment to release old detainees in return for signing the Oslo Accords in 1993, and rejected a two-state solution based on the state of Palestine within the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.

In the last months of Olmerts tenure, there were intense negotiations with Palestinians in an attempt to reach a negotiated two-state solution, which the international community has demanded for decades. However, these attempts failed and Israel at the time blamed it on Abbass rejection of Olmerts plan.

On his second stop, in Dublin, Abbas met with his Irish counterpart Michael Higgins on Saturday at the presidential palace to discuss the USs recent moves against Palestinians in the context of the so-called deal of the century  most notably relocating the US embassy to Jerusalem and recognising the holy city as the capital of Israel.

Also, ending US aid and funding to UNRWA. Abbas briefed Higgins on conditions in the Palestinian territories, as well as Israels actions. They also discussed Irelands official recognition of Palestine.

In December 2014, the Irish parliament issued a non-binding resolution urging the government to recognise the State of Palestine within the 1967 borders with occupied East Jerusalem as its capital.

As Abbas embarked on his Europe trip, US Congress members urged President Donald Trump to reverse recent decisions against the Palestinian people and the PLO.

On 20 September, 40 Congress members signed motions urging Trump to reverse his decision to block financial aid to Palestinian refugees and the Palestinian Authority (PA), hospitals in Jerusalem, and to close the PLO office in Washington.

Ahmed Majdalani, member of the PLOs Executive Committee who is close to Abbas, said that the move reflects growing action in the US against Trumps policies which are isolating the US in the global community and threatening its interests around the world.

Majdalani said in media interviews that the position expressed by Democratic members of Congress, including Jews, is an important indicator of growing opposition to Trumps Middle East policies and his compliance with Israels occupation government.

Since Trump came to power in 2017 he has taken decisions that negate the national rights of Palestinians and gravely threaten the Palestinian cause, undermining key and longstanding principles, including recognition of Jerusalem as Israels capital, relocating the US embassy to the occupied city, ending funding to UNRWA and changing the criteria of recognition of refugee status to reduce their number from more than five million Palestinians to only 10,000.

Trumps administration has also taken punitive measures against Palestinians because they rejected the anticipated deal of the century, most recently expelling the Palestinian Ambassador to Washington Hossam Zolmot, and his family, eliminating $10 million in funds to youth programmes and closing PLO bank accounts in Washington.

Abbass trip coincided with a media war between Fatah and Hamas after conciliation efforts between the two failed.

Sanctions by the PA on the Gaza Strip cast a long shadow on the Palestinian political scene, and his statements about his willingness to hold secret or public talks with Israel added fuel to the fire in the quarrel with Hamas.

The group said Abbas continues to handle the occupation poorly, and his statements do not represent the Palestinian people.

Hamas Spokesman Hazem Qassem said on his Facebook page: Abbass declaration is that he is willing to restart negotiations, even in secret, confirms that this leadership insists on continuing a wretched way in dealing with the occupation.

Qassem believes that secret negotiations confirm that Abbas is always hiding something from the Palestinian people and political players.

He is willing to compromise on national issues. The PA must uphold the choices of the Palestinian people and their principles. It must implement the conciliation agreement, which is the best formula to confront attempts to void the Palestinian cause, most notably the so-called deal of the century.

The Islamist movement said it does not support Abbass address to the UN on 27 September.

Sami Abu Zahra, a Hamas leader, said: We will not provide cover or legitimacy for the address. Anything he says has no legitimacy or national consensus, and does not represent our people.

Abu Zahra added: What has the president of the PA left for our people to support him at the UN? noting that decisions by the Central Committee and National Council of the PLO were not implemented.

The PA wants to meet with Hamas soon to utilise this at the UN, he said, but there will not be a meeting anytime soon with Fatah in Cairo. [Talks there] are a strategic dialogue between Egypt and Hamas about bilateral and Palestinian issues.

Fatah responded to Hamass claims, accusing the group of misleading and deceiving the Palestinian people.

Fatahs media and culture office issued a statement condemning the campaign by Hamas leaders against Abbas, saying it is similar to previous campaigns by the group during late President Yasser Arafats rule, at every crucial crossroads for the Palestinian cause.

Fatah said that Hamass leaders have strayed from the correct path and fallen into the hands of the occupation and are blindly following and implementing the desires of the US and Israel, the masterminds of a plot to end the Palestinian cause.

Hamas sends messages to Trumps administration and Netanyahus colonialist regime confirming they accept the deal of the century based on a state in Gaza under Hamas rule in return for an open-ended truce, read the statement.

This comes at the expense of an independent Palestinian state within the borders of 4 June with Jerusalem as its capital, and the return of refugees.

Fatah said that the campaign against Abbas comes amid a critical political battle he is fighting on behalf of the Palestinian people around the globe, holding steadfast to the principles and goals of the Palestinian people, defending Jerusalem, Gaza and the right of every Palestinian at home or overseas to freedom and independence.

In Israel, Chief of General Staff Gadi Eisenkot warned of the growing possibility of violence in the West Bank due to US measures and decisions on the Palestinian cause.

The private television outlet Channel 2 reported that Eisenkot told a meeting of the security and political cabinet that the possibility of violence erupting in the West Bank is between 60 and 80 per cent.

He added: If there is violence, it will be worse than in the Gaza Strip because more forces are needed to deploy in the West Bank, and due to the difference in the type of interaction with Palestinian citizens there.

Eisenkot anticipated that Abbass UN address will be aggressive against Washington and Tel Aviv, and this will be reflected on the ground through an eruption of confrontations in the West Bank.

* A version of this article appears in print in the 27 September 2018 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: Abbas looks for support

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Three years ago, Los Angeles voters decided overwhelmingly to move city election dates to coincide with higher-turnout presidential and gubernatorial elections. This November, city voters will get to move those dates again  with Charter Amendments E and EE.

These are cleanup ballot measures. They are necessary because the changes approved in 2015 (Charter Amendments 1 and 2) required Los Angeles to hold a primary in June 2020 and a runoff in November 2020 for City Council and school board seats. But last year, California lawmakers moved up the states primary to March 2020 in an attempt to give California more sway in the presidential primaries.

Charter Amendments E and EE would again move the local primary election date  this time to March 2020  to bring the city and state back into alignment. The amendments would also give the City Council the authority  with no need to go back to the voters  to change future election dates if lawmakers decide to move the statewide primary again.

Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute from L.A. Times Opinion 

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In hindsight, city officials should have written Charter Amendments 1 and 2 to say that city and school board elections would be held concurrent with state and federal elections, without setting specific dates. That didnt happen, so now voters have to fix it  at a cost of $3.1 million to place the two measures on the ballot.

As annoying as that may be, Charter Amendments E and EE are still worth yes votes.

The fact is, 77% of Los Angeles voters in 2015 supported changing the election calendar. That is a clear mandate for merging local races with state and federal elections. Requiring fewer trips to the ballot box is not only more convenient for voters, its also proven to significantly boost turnout for local races, particularly among minority, low-income and younger voters. Plus, deciding local, state and national races on the same day saves money.

Thats an important change for local elections, which can sometimes draw fewer than 15% of eligible voters. Democracy is not served when so few Angelenos vote. Low turnout allows the few to make decisions for the many and gives extra power to well-organized special interest groups that know how to get out their vote.

Opponents of Charter Amendment E and EE argue that March 2020 is too early for a local primary. A candidate who secures more than 50% of the vote in March would win outright, but not take office until December. That could leave lame duck officials in office for nine months, unaccountable to the voters. Opponents also argue the city should pursue more radical reforms, such as ranked choice voting.

Neither ballot measure would stop city officials from pursuing other election options in the future. For now, the voters have spoken. They want to punch their ballots for local, state and federal elections all at once.

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and FacebookProposition 8 is a truly odd duck: a proposal that ostensibly seeks to improve dialysis treatment and cut its cost, yet which is opposed by the National Kidney Foundation, the Renal Support Network and other major advocacy groups for dialysis patients.

Thats because these groups worry that Proposition 8, which would cap revenues at dialysis centers, would also end up reducing access to care and possibly even increasing costs. Those are legitimate worries, and voters should heed them by voting no.

The brainchild of the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, the measure ostensibly seeks to force the nearly 600 dialysis clinics in the state to spend more on patient care by limiting their profits. But its real aim is to crimp the earnings of two major chains of dialysis clinics, DaVita Kidney Care and Fresenius Medical Care, that have resisted efforts by SEIU-UHW to organize their workers. Before pushing Proposition 8 onto the ballot, SEIU-UHW tried to move a similar measure through the labor-friendly state Legislature, to no avail.

Dubbed the Fair Pricing for Dialysis Act, Proposition 8 would cap dialysis center revenues at 115% of specified costs related to patient care. Every penny collected above the cap would have to be paid back in rebates to private insurers, which cover less than 10% of dialysis patients (about 90% are covered by Medicare and the rest by Medi-Cal and other governmental insurance programs). Clinic operators who exceed the cap would also have to pay a fine to the state.

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Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute from L.A. Times Opinion 

Note that the measure would cap revenues, not profits. And the cap would be set on an artificially narrow definition of patient-related and quality-improvement costs, apparently excluding such unavoidable expenses as malpractice insurance and janitorial services. Supporters say its not a problem  dialysis is a $3-billion business in California, and the average profit margin for clinics is 17%. Clinic operators counter that the revenue cap is so low, many clinics  particularly those in smaller chains  would be forced to close because theyd no longer be economic.

Given the spread of diabetes and the kidney failure it can cause, the state will need more dialysis clinics, not fewer. But even if the revenue cap doesnt drive clinics out of business, it would give them a perverse incentive to deliver care less efficiently  to raise patient-related spending in order to raise the revenue cap. And despite what supporters claim, theres no guarantee that forcing clinics to spend more would do anything to make care better or more available. The only guarantee is that it would make care more expensive, at a time when our goal as a society must be to bring healthcare costs down while keeping the quality of care high.

If Proposition 8 were truly about improving dialysis care, it would take steps clearly and directly related to quality, such as increasing clinic inspections or boosting competition in the market. It does none of those things. Voters should reject it.

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinionand FacebookThree days after he reportedly went to the White House to turn in his resignation, Deputy Atty. Gen. Rod Rosenstein is finally set to meet with President Trump on Thursday to discuss his continued employment. The right course for Trump is clear: He should tell Rosenstein to remain on the job.

This might seem like counterintuitive advice. Rosenstein is probably the presidents second least favorite appointee at Justice  the least favorite being Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions, who enraged Trump when he took the ethically imperative step of recusing himself from any investigation related to the 2016 presidential campaign, which he served as a Trump adviser.

That set the stage for Rosenstein to take charge and name Robert S. Mueller III as a special counsel to investigate possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign, an inquiry Trump has denounced as a rigged witch hunt even as Mueller has scored a string of guilty pleas and the conviction of Trumps former campaign chairman.

Rosensteins departure would clear the way for Trump to install a more pliable acting attorney general to supervise  or possibly subvert  Muellers investigation. So far, though, Trump has stayed his hand, possibly because removing Rosenstein would be viewed as a transparent attempt to obstruct justice by a president who has not only sought to discredit Mueller, but has threatened to get involved in the Justice Departments operations.

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Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute from L.A. Times Opinion 

Circumstances changed dramatically last week, however. The New York Times reported that shortly after assuming his post last year, the deputy attorney general suggested that he secretly record Trump and discussed recruiting Cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove the president. Rosenstein called the story inaccurate and factually incorrect. Even so, alleged insubordination could give Trump a plausible pretext for getting rid of Rosenstein.

That would be a disaster for the Mueller investigation and the Justice Department. Rosenstein isnt just Muellers protector; he has become a symbol of continuity and institutional integrity at Justice. Those qualities make it imperative that Rosenstein, an experienced prosecutor, remain on the job, despite this latest controversy.

Its conceivable that the Mueller investigation could proceed unimpeded under the direction of another official. (The White House has suggested that if Rosenstein were to leave, Solicitor General Noel Francisco would assume that role, although there is some question about whether he would face a conflict because his former law firm represents the Trump campaign.) But even in the most optimistic scenario Rosensteins departure would be a disaster. Ominously, one of Trumps personal attorneys suggested Monday that if the deputy attorney general resigned, there should be a time out on this inquiry. This is precisely the kind of outcome we should both fear and expect if Rosenstein is successfully pushed out of the way.

Keeping Rosenstein on the job would be good for the country, but (as the president himself might ask), whats in it for Trump? Simply this: Rosensteins departure would be widely viewed  including by many voters in the midterm elections  as a blow to the impartial administration of justice and the principle that the president is not above the law.

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinionand FacebookKevin De Leon should be having the time of his political life right now. Hes become Democratic royalty by turning California into an anti-Trump bastion while president pro tem of the state Senate. He also did everything a modern-day progressive politician should during his career in both chambers of the statehouse: Stand with undocumented immigrants. Promote clean energy. Fight the gun lobby and #Resist at all times.

De Leon frequently cites that record when asking voters to help him topple Dianne Feinstein from her 26-year perch in the U.S. Senate come November. The Democratic Partys progressive wing has never particularly liked DiFi, and right now even her supporters are having a hard time defending her handling of a letter that accused Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh of sexual assault in the early 1980s. (Another woman stepped forward this weekend with a similar claim.)

Still, that hardly matters. De Leon is almost certain to lose the race  and badly. Feinstein has heavily outpolled him in voter surveys since the two made it through the June primary; the latest major poll, released last week by Reuters/Ipsos and the University of Virginia Center for Politics, has 44% of likely voters favoring her, compared to 24% who plan to go with De Leon and more than 30% who plan to pick neither.

Ive thought a lot about De Leons quixotic campaign for Senate since he announced it. I plan to vote for the guy. I hear from pals in Sacramento politics that hes nice enough.

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But the DiFi-De Leon race probably will be taught in future poli-sci classes as a case study in the perils of hubris and the wisdom of waiting your turn in the Golden State.

Like her or not, Feinstein is a lioness of liberalism in the narrative of California. She was one of the women who stampeded into Washington in 1992 in the wake of the Anita Hill fiasco. Feinstein and her colleague, Barbara Boxer, established a liberal beachhead in D.C. at a time when Pete Wilson was Californias governor and the Democrats became a minority in Sacramento. Voters appreciate that fact.

The DiFi-De Leon race probably will be taught in future poli-sci classes as a case study in the perils of hubris and the wisdom of waiting your turn.

In truth, Feinstein aided this leftward tilt almost in spite of herself. Although she opposed 1994s notorious Proposition 187, immigrant-rights activists have never considered her their champion. She supported the Iraq War, the Patriot Act and the 2008 bailout. As far as anyone knew, Feinstein also was in favor of the death penalty until it came out earlier this year that shed changed her mind.

A less-experienced Democratic candidate with this resume would face almost certain defeat in California today  just as similarly moderate Dems lost to younger, unapologetic leftists in primaries this summer in New York City, Boston and beyond.

De Leon has characterized Feinstein as out of touch, and more; he described her handling of the Kavanaugh affair as gross misconduct and a failure of leadership.

Alls fair in politics, and we should never worship longtime legislators as demigods. But De Leon hurts himself when he disrespects one of the pioneers of his party in California. Without Feinstein, De Leon and his fellow Young Turks simply wouldnt exist. The Democratic old guard also still remains in power in California, and doesnt take kindly to attacks on one of their own.

You might feel sorry for him, except that he brought it all on himself through his desire for power.

Critics have pounced on his other perceived failings: The state Capitols #MeToo scandal largely happened during De Leons reign as Senate president pro tem. He forged close bonds with Antonio Villaraigosa and Fabian Nunez, fellow politicians who tried and failed to punch above their weight. The haters also denied De Leon the Assembly speaker seat in 2009, when he was in that body. Too many Assembly members found De Leons ambitious nature grating, eroding his support, this paper wrote in 2014.

In that same article, De Leon said that the experience humbled him.

How quickly he forgot.

The sad thing is that if De Leon loses as expected in November, he most likely says hasta la vista to his political career. If Feinstein leaves office during her term, our likely next governor, Gavin Newsom, will pick anyone but De Leon because he and DiFi are Bay Area allies. If she retires six years from now, De Leon will be long forgotten and yet-younger Young Turks will be itching for their chance.

De Leon just didnt know how to play the waiting game. He easily could have won the lieutenant governors race this year; the top two finishers are first-time candidate Eleni Kounalakis and relatively unknown state Sen. Ed Hernandez (D-Azusa). He couldve pulled a Newsom and bided his time in that role until something better came up than the Shemp of Californias executive branch.

Instead, De Leon is most likely a goner after November. Lo siento, Kevin.

mexicanwithglasses@gmail.com. Twitter: @GustavoArellanoThe Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hear testimony on Thursday from Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused Judge Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault. For many Americans, the hearing will echo Anita Hills testimony in 1991, and it comes as the #MeToo movement continues to reverberate from Hollywood to Capitol Hill.

Like Hill, Ford will face a Senate Judiciary Committee dominated by men. Seventeen of its 21 members are men, and all 11 Republicans on the committee are men. Six of those 11 Republicans voted against the Violence Against Women Act in 2013.

Some Republicans are worried that any attack on Fords character will be viewed as an attack on all women. Surely this is one reason Republicans on the committee have hired a female attorney to question both Ford and Kavanaugh.

Their fears are well-founded. According to our research, the committees gender disparity will send a powerful signal. The signal will not only concern whether Republicans respect women, but whether the committee can be trusted at all.

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Because political scientists link fairness and trust to legitimacy, we concluded that an absence of women made the process appear illegitimate.

In an experiment conducted in 2016, we asked a nationally representative group of 1,000 Americans to read a fictitious news story about a state legislative committee determining sexual harassment penalties.

The stories that our respondents read were nearly identical, but with key variations. One version said the committee was composed only of men. Another said the committee was half men, half women. At the end, we asked respondents to evaluate the committee and its decision.

Respondents who were told the committee was all men were more likely to say that the outcome should be overturned. They were also more likely to say that the committees process was unfair, and that the committee could not be trusted to make the right decision.

The all-male committee was judged more harshly across the board: by men, women, Republicans and Democrats. Because political scientists link fairness and trust to legitimacy, we concluded that an absence of women made the process appear illegitimate.

We also varied the committees decision. Some people read that the committee lowered penalties for sexual harassment, while others read that it raised them. The decision to reduce penalties was viewed as fairer when it was made by men and women than when it was made by only men. This view too was held by both Republicans and Democrats.

We concluded that the decision to repeal penalties for sexual harassment, when made by men only, was considered especially illegitimate.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell insists that Kavanaugh will be appointed, whatever Fords testimony. Although the specifics are different, our research suggests that Republican efforts to jam Kavanaugh onto the Supreme Court will be widely viewed as suspect.

In addition, Republicans would risk inviting even greater losses in the midterm election than they are reportedly facing already. Outrage over the Senate Judiciary Committees interrogation of Anita Hill transformed 1992 into the so-called Year of the Woman. Eleven women ran for the Senate and 106 women ran for the House.

In 2018, a record number of Democratic women filed for candidacy, with 262 still in the running for the House or the Senate. Over the summer, polls showed declining support for the GOP among white women.

If Fords testimony and treatment bring more women to the polls in November, Republicans may well lose their congressional majority.

Although the Ford-Kavanaugh hearing is unlikely to alienate the Republican base, pushing Kavanaugh through Congress would ultimately be a Pyrrhic victory.

The GOPs legitimacy problem will persist until Republicans elect more women. There are currently only six Republican women senators and 29 women representatives. The Democrats have 17 women in the Senate and 78 women in the House.

Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute from L.A. Times Opinion 

Among the Republican Partys core supporters, there is little energy for electing more women. The current surge of women candidates is limited to the Democratic Party. The Pew Research Center reported this week that only 33% of Republican voters think there are not enough women in public office, compared with 79% of Democratic voters.

The representation of women is more than a matter of principle. When it comes to who is in office and what they decide, citizens want more women, and they especially want women when womens rights are at stake.

Talk of the Ford-Kavanaugh hearing has already generated a new wave of outrage over sexual harassment and sexual assault. For many Americans, the Senate Judiciary Committees gender disparity will mean any confirmation of Kavanaugh cannot be trusted.

Jennifer M. Piscopo is assistant professor of politics at Occidental College. Diana Z. OBrien is associate professor of political science at Texas A&M University. Amanda Clayton is an assistant professor of political science at Vanderbilt University.

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion or FacebookDoes anyone remember how difficult it was to talk about sexual assault 40 years ago? I do.

I was raped in 1978, four years before Christine Blasey Ford alleges she was assaulted by Brett Kavanaugh. I was 19, on summer break after my sophomore year at UC Santa Cruz, helping my sister move across the country. Our car broke down. After the mechanic fixed it, I went for a drink with him. It was night by then and my sister and I had rented a motel room. I drank a Scotch, he drank a beer. On our way back, he swerved his truck into a cornfield. We fought. He broke a bottle of beer and held the jagged glass up to my face. I thought I would die, or be cut and disfigured, so I gave in. Then, he said, I wouldnt be embarrassed to take you anywhere, as if this were a date.

Back at the motel, when I walked into the room, his friend was assaulting my sister. Trying to pin her down on the bed. This time I ran for help. Later I understood that the boys separated us to make us more vulnerable. This happened in North Platte, Neb. I cant remember the date, though I do remember the make and model of my sisters cara 1974 Ford Fairlane.

We called the local police and reported the crime. Then the mechanics sister showed up, calling me a slut: I was wearing a T-shirt, no bra. Wed had drinks. Id given in. I felt dirty. Scared, my sister and I fled North Platte and started driving home. Between Nebraska and my fathers house in Berkeley, I stopped only to fill up the tank, use the bathroom and drink chocolate milk. I knew my parents loved me, so I told them. The words came up and out of me: Hello, Daddy, I was raped. My father gasped for breath. When he couldnt get his breath back, we rushed him to the hospital. My mother had nightmares for years. My sister never drove again. I feel responsible for all their pain.

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We called the local police and reported the crime. Then the mechanics sister showed up, calling me a slut.

At college, I sought help, but they didnt offer counseling to victims whod been attacked off campus. I was sent to a crisis center two hours away. The counselor asked me why I was wearing wool in September, during a heat wave. Why, after Id been raped while dressed in a T-shirt and wraparound skirt, was I wearing a calf-length wool dress? I stopped counseling.

Also in 1978  again, just four years before Kavanaugh allegedly pressed his hand over Fords mouth to stifle her screams  the National Coalition Against Sexual Assault was established. Most student-age girls didnt know about coalitions or crisis centers. Heres what we knew: On the immensely popular soap opera General Hospital, Luke Spencer raped Laura Webber to an accompanying up-tempo dance number, Rise. Audiences resonated so much with the couple that ABC rebranded Lauras rape as seduction. Then in 1981, Laura married her rapist Luke on what remains the highest rated episode in soap opera history.

It was only 20 years ago, in 1998, that Mississippi became the last state in our union to drop lack of chastity of the victim as a defense in rape trials  even statutory rape. Victims were required to be virgins previous to their attacks, or it wasnt rape. I was not chaste.

By the late 90s the only time I broached the subject of being raped was when I was so hammered the story vomited out. One guy, after Id slept with him and drunkenly told him, said, If you hadnt been so easy for me, I would have raped you, too. He said it in a throaty voice, as if this was a sexy compliment.

As recently as six years ago the subject of sexual assault was still considered taboo. Id finally written a memoir, but when my female editor read the rape scene she said, Rape stories dont sell  unless I was a movie star or had been kidnapped and held prisoner. I wanted a book deal so I deleted the story. Its there in the blank space on page 276.

Now, on Thursday, Christine Blasey Ford will sit before the Senate Judiciary Committee and, in front of the most public tribunal imaginable, share her story of sexual assault. Its hard enough to describe such events to family and the police, painful to tell friends, uncomfortable to reveal to lovers. To do it in front of 11 Republican men who refuse to call for an FBI investigation or subpoena the only witness, Mark Judge, is an excruciating travesty  one that we all must endure beside her.

Enter the Fray: First takes on the news of the minute from L.A. Times Opinion 

I dont know if her testimony, or potentially that of Deborah Ramirez or Julie Swetnick, will derail Kavanaughs appointment. I do know that shame distorts all of us. At a dinner party in my 20s, when the conversation turned to fears of attacks and Id had too many glasses of wine, I suddenly found myself sobbing, Im a rape survivor. The room went silent. Nobody wants to hear our bad news. As victims, we are doubly shamed. Once for the crime committed against us, and again for daring to talk about it.

Dont think it hasnt occurred to me that I should have kept my mouth shut 40 years ago. My family might have fared better if I had. I might not have felt like such a pariah. I thought I escaped without being disfigured. I havent.

If women havent spoken up for decades, its not because the assaults didnt happen. It was not the #MeToo era. It was the era of #WhyIDidntReport. We were frightened and shamed and denied an audience. And when no one listens, then theres no protection, anywhere, for anyone.

Gabrielle Selz is the author of the memoir Unstill Life.

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinionand FacebookTo the editor: I agree with Jonah Goldberg that in the case of Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh, proof should never be subordinated to mere belief. That is why the FBI should investigate the very serious sexual misconduct allegations against him.

Thursdays scheduled he said, she said circus in front of the Judiciary Committee will not suffice; both Kavanaugh and his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, deserve to be heard by a nonpartisan body that can also question potential witnesses under oath. Otherwise, this allegation of sexual impropriety will forever hang over Kavanaughs head and will taint every decision that he makes as a Supreme Court justice.

One has to wonder why those who say Kavanaugh is innocent are so reluctant to have the FBI conduct an investigation. Is it possible they are willing to tarnish the Supreme Court, one of the bedrocks of American democracy, simply to gain a partisan advantage?

Pamela Eilerson, Malibu

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To the editor: Ive lost count of how many times pundits like Goldberg have used some variation of innocent until proven guilty to defend Kavanaugh.

This is not a criminal trial. Its a job interview. Kavanaugh has no constitutional right to a lifetime Supreme Court appointment. Nobody has ever wrapped up a job interview and said, Well, theres no incontrovertible proof of criminal conduct, so I guess weve got to hire this one.

It is the job of the Senate to determine if a nominee will serve the nation wisely and honorably, and a record of multiple credible accusations of sexual misconduct is highly relevant, even if the charges wont be proved beyond a reasonable doubt in a courtroom.

Add to this the evidence that Kavanaugh may have lied to Congress in previous testimony and thousands of pages of relevant documentation withheld from members of Senate Judiciary Committee, and its already well past time to deep-six this misbegotten nomination.

Branden Frankel, Encino

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To the editor: Goldbergs column on belief trumping facts should be required reading for all senators, both male and female.

Jim Harley, Banning

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To the editor: In an ideal democracy every senator would approach Kavanaughs confirmation process with an open mind. But most senators already have signaled which way they will vote, regardless of testimony they may hear.

The few GOP senators who assertedly remain undecided and seem committed to judicious decision-making doubtless will be pressured to toe the party line. Whatever pressure is applied to them behind closed doors may well trump whatever Kavanaughs accusers tell them.

Its a pity that every senators decision wont be based an even-handed appraisal of proffered testimony. Our nations founding fathers must be rolling over in their graves.

Rona Dolgin, Los Angeles

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To the editor: Goldberg is right about presuming the innocence of an accused car thief unless the evidence proves otherwise.

But we dont blame the victim for being intoxicated while the car was stolen then give her a few days to prove her case without an investigation before the alleged thief gets a seat on the Supreme Court.

Tom Walker, Costa Mesa

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To the editor: Goldbergs column provokes one question and answers another.

If a merchant is interviewing a prospective employee who is otherwise well qualified, yet has been accused by previous employers of stealing, is he required to hire him?

Apparently, those guards we see at high-end jewelry stores are actually there to keep an eye on the employees.

Fred W. Burkardt, Rancho Cucamonga

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and FacebookTo the editor: The Los Angeles Times article on President Trumps speech at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday captures the best of Trump at his bully pulpit, boasting about himself and scorning other countries whose leaders disagree with him.

He came across like the wizard of Oz, as the audiences snickering at his claim of being the among the greatest presidents in U.S. history was like pulling the curtain back to expose a little bully.

The salient words of Benjamin Disraeli, British prime minister in the 19th century and novelist, capture my sentiments: Courage is fire, and bullying is smoke.

Tom Kaminski, Manhattan Beach

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To the editor: After listening to Trump at the U.N. pat himself relentlessly and shamelessly on the back, Im reminded of what my father always said about listening to blowhards.

He said, If youre as good as you say you are, you dont have to tell anyone.

Ted Stulz, Anaheim

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To the editor: U.N. diplomats and world leaders laughing at Trumps boast that his presidency has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country gives Congress and the media an example of the appropriate response to our egomaniacal president.

The rest of us should laugh all the way to the voting booth on Nov. 6.

Fred Fenton, Seal Beach

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and FacebookRepublicans head into Thursdays hearing with Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and California professor Christine Blasey Ford with hopes of shoring up his confirmation for a quick Senate vote.

But just as important, theyll be trying to avoid political embarrassment for themselves.

It will be perhaps the most dramatic congressional standoff since the 1991 Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill hearing, and Republicans are eager to avoid the public backlash that followed that proceeding. A podium of older, white, male senators grilled a young black woman for hours about embarrassing personal and sexual details, and then many dismissed her story as a lie.

Adding to the pressure this time are additional allegations from two other women claiming sexual misconduct by Kavanaugh in the 1980s. And its all coming in the middle of the #MeToo movement against sexual harassment and assault.

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To avoid part of the minefield, all 11 male GOP senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee (there are no women) are expected to give their allotted time to an outside female lawyer, Rachel Mitchell, who has been hired to do their questioning.

Its an uncommon move for lawmakers, who are typically eager to grab the spotlight.

Democrats quickly pounced, saying that GOP committee members are merely scared to ask questions on their own.

They clearly are not confident in their ability to get through questioning without creating embarrassing moments for themselves, said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), calling Mitchell a ringer.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) didnt help his party much by explaining Wednesday that they had hired a female assistant to handle the questioning.

Mitchell is on leave from the Maricopa County Attorneys Office in Phoenix, where she works in a sex crimes and family violence bureau.

Republicans defended their use of Mitchell as an attempt to turn down the temperature in the hearing room and make Ford more comfortable.

The goal is to depoliticize the process and get to the truth, instead of grandstanding and giving senators an opportunity to launch their presidential campaigns, Grassley said. He was referring to possible 2020 Democratic presidential candidates on the panel, including Sens. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.). But Grassley has just as much reason to worry about what some of his own members might say, such as Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch, 84, who is remembered for his aggressive questioning of Hill on the same panel in 1991.

Hatch on Wednesday said he does not plan to ask questions himself but said that could change.

One Republican senator, who requested anonymity to speak freely, acknowledged that some lawmakers risk coming across as insensitive or out of touch.

I think most men  and particularly men my age  have no idea how much this environment has changed just in the last couple of years and you can look pretty foolish, he said.

Republican leaders also plan to hold tighter reins on the hearing. Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) has limited questions to five minutes per senator, which will cap the overall length of the event. He said he is doing so at Fords request.

He also has refused Fords request for an FBI probe and additional witnesses at the hearing, both of which were afforded to Hill in 1991.

Ford alleges that Kavanaugh tried to rape her at a party while they were both in high school in the early 1980s. Kavanaugh has denied the allegations.

Kavanaughs future on the Supreme Court rests on how well he does in the hearing. Several undecided GOP senators who are not on the committee have cleared their calendars to watch. Republicans are projecting confidence going into the hearing. A committee vote on Kavanaughs confirmation has been tentatively scheduled for Friday and full Senate votes on Saturday and Tuesday.

Democrats face risk, too, mainly that they overplay their hand by going after Kavanaugh so aggressively that he elicits sympathy.

Whitehouse downplayed that risk, citing the deposition signed and released Wednesday by a third accuser, Julie Swetnick. There are some really devastating allegations that have been made, in this case by a women under oath who loses her job and security clearance if shes found to not be telling the truth, so the stakes for her  are very very high.

Democratic lawmakers plan to do their questioning themselves, chiding the GOP for handing over their senatorial duties.

Were elected to advise and consent, said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.). Part of my job is to ask questions. Im in no way going to concede or accede my role as a United States senator.

Democrats plan to query Kavanaugh on the allegations brought by Ford as well as by two other women. They also are expected to ask him about his drinking habits.

His simple denial is not the end to the questioning, Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) said.

But they worry that they only have five minutes for questions.

Republicans and Democrats acknowledge that, short of overwhelming proof brought by Kavanaugh or Ford, the public  as well as key senators  are likely to base their opinion on which of the two appears more credible.

To that end, Democrats are already framing the hearing as stacked against Ford.

The set-up for her that has been orchestrated is that she either has to refuse to testify, in which case shell be attacked and criticized for that, or she comes in and testifies without the basic courtesy any prosecutor or lawyer would give any victim, which is a sincere and thorough effort to investigate their claims, said Whitehouse.

Republicans argue that Fords allegation  as well as the claims of the other women  are part of a smear campaign designed to block Kavanaugh from the court.

Times staff writer Sarah D. Wire contributed to this report.

The latest from Washington 

jennifer.haberkorn@latimes.com

@jenhabKen Starr had firm criteria when hiring lawyers for his independent counsel investigation of President Clinton: The attorneys had to be smart, possess sterling credentials and be willing to log long hours.

Another important skill, he said in a recent interview, was harder to assess, but revealed itself as pressure mounted  an ability to tune out the noise.

Few federal inquiries have generated as much controversy and press attention as the one Starr ran, which ultimately led to Clintons impeachment on charges of lying about his affair with Monica Lewinsky.

The experience served as a launching pad for the careers of many ambitious, young conservative lawyers who now, 20 years later, can be found sprinkled through senior positions in Washington.

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Thursday, two of Starrs most prominent proteges are set to have their focus and determination tested almost simultaneously in a cacophonous crucible that resounds with many of the same conflicts from that tumultuous period.

Brett Kavanaugh will seek to salvage his nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court in testimony that will delve into sexual assault allegations dating back to high school.

Rod Rosenstein is scheduled to meet with President Trump to discuss his future as the Justice Departments second-in-command following a tense and tumultuous week that nearly saw him resign, or be fired. The fate of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election could hang in the balance.

At a news conference on Wednesday, however, Trump said he might postpone the Rosenstein meeting so he could watch Kavanaughs hearing.

Colleagues and associates said that the lessons Kavanaugh and Rosenstein learned can be seen as they grapple with the modern media worlds intense spotlight and a hyper-partisan atmosphere that make the 1990s seem slow-paced in comparison.

One of the things I learned from working with Starr, Rosenstein said in a recent interview in his fourth-floor office at the Justice Department, was that when you are assigned a difficult job, you keep your head down and do the job. In a high-profile case, you are going to be criticized and you are not going to make everyone happy. You have to do the right thing and in the right way.

So far, keeping his head down  at least most of the time  has seemed to serve Rosenstein well as he oversees Muellers investigation. But he has, nonetheless, come under intense fire from Trump allies for months.

The president, echoing criticism of the Starr inquiry by the Clinton White House, has repeatedly called the Mueller investigation a witch hunt.

Rosensteins position became more tenuous last week when the New York Times reported that the deputy attorney general last year had suggested wearing a hidden device to record Trump in the Oval Office and had contemplated invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him from office.

The deputy attorney general said the report was inaccurate, but talked with administration officials about possibly resigning, according to people familiar with the matter. He was summoned to the White House early Monday, expecting to be fired, but spoke to Trump and was granted a reprieve until Thursday. Associates expect him to continue in the job at least through the midterm election.

My preference would be to keep him, and to let him finish up, Trump said Wednesday when asked about Rosenstein, adding once again that the investigation is a witch hunt.

Kavanaugh and Rosenstein held very different jobs during their tenure with Starr, but faced many of the same pressures.

A graduate of Yale Law School, Kavanaugh was a top Starr deputy who spent his early time on the independent counsel team reinvestigating the suicide of White House lawyer Vince Foster. Some conservative members of Congress had pushed the theory that Foster had been killed to prevent him from disclosing sensitive information about Bill or Hillary Clinton.

Kavanaugh briefly left Starrs staff in 1997 before returning to help craft the offices final report. In memos, the lawyer advocated that President Clinton should be forced from office for his pattern of revolting behavior and pushed prosecutors to aggressively and explicitly question the president about his sexual activity.

In one of the twists of history, the 53-year-old Kavanaugh now faces the prospect of answering similarly explicit questions about his own history in a televised Senate hearing. A California professor, Christine Blasey Ford, has accused him of sexually assaulting during a party when they were both teenagers. Two other women have leveled other accusations of sexual misconduct. He has denied the allegations.

After leaving the counsels office, he worked closely with President George W. Bush in the White House and was confirmed in 2006 to be a federal appeals court judge in Washington, where he has gained a reputation for being a consistently conservative jurist.

Though he worked for Starr, Kavanaugh has expressed skepticism about the validity of such inquiries since the 1990s. In legal journals, he has argued that special investigations of the president are a mistake and probably unconstitutional.

His views on the subject were a focus in confirmation hearings this month before the Senate Judiciary Committee, where Democrats suggested that Kavanaughs change of heart was politically convenient now that a Republican was in the White House. They expressed concern that if he were confirmed to the Supreme Court, challenges to Muellers authority could end up before Kavanaugh.

Rosenstein played a smaller role in the Starrs office. A Harvard Law graduate and public corruption prosecutor before joining the independent counsels staff, he thrived in the courtroom.

He played a supporting role in the successful prosecution of three onetime associates of the Clintons  Susan McDougal, James McDougal and former Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker. They were convicted in 1996 on charges related to a $3-million conspiracy to defraud two federally backed financial institutions stemming from an Arkansas real estate development known as Whitewater.

Rosenstein also helped investigate whether the Clintons played a role in improperly obtaining FBI background files on Republicans. He interviewed Hillary Clinton about the case in January 1998; the independent counsel ultimately concluded no crime had been committed.

He went on to become a federal prosecutor and enjoyed a 12-year stint as U.S. attorney in Maryland, being appointed to that post by Bush and by President Obama. He was then tapped by Trump to become deputy attorney general.

When Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation, Rosenstein took over supervising the inquiry. He named Mueller as a special counsel to take over the investigation shortly after Trump abruptly fired FBI Director James B. Comey in May 2017.

Rosenstein has been attacked by Trumps allies for his handling of the case. Over the summer, 11 House Republicans introduced articles of impeachment to start the process of removing him from office.

Friends and former colleagues say Rosensteins supervision of Muellers investigation has been informed by what he observed while working for Starr. The independent counsel began with a mandate to investigate the Whitewater land deal, but the inquiry eventually sprawled into matters far afield from that, ending with the accusations about Clintons sexual conduct that led to the impeachment.

Throughout Muellers investigation, Rosenstein has sought to keep it focused on its original mandate  to investigate Russias meddling in the presidential election and potential links between Moscow and Trump associates.

Mueller has referred other matters to federal prosecutors in other offices, including charges related to Michael Cohen, Trumps former personal attorney. Cohen pleaded guilty to charges brought by federal prosecutors in New York that stemmed from the payment of hush money to two women who alleged they had affairs with Trump.

Starr said in an interview that he was impressed by how Rosenstein and Kavanaugh have handled pressures that reminded him of those his office faced.

I tried to have an eye for great talent and great character, and these two met that criteria, he said during an interview as he toured to promote his newly published memoir, Contempt.

Both were also determined to do the job and focus on it, and to seal out the distractions and to be disciplined even in the face of relentless attacks. ... They are doing that today.

Times researchers Cary Schneider and Scott Wilson contributed to this report.

UPDATES:

3:00 p.m.: This article was updated with President Trumps comments about Rosenstein at his news conference.

This article was originally published at 12:50 p.m.A U.S. Justice Department "listening session" with state attorneys general on Tuesday focused on protecting consumer privacy when big technology companies amass vast troves of data, but came to no immediate conclusions, three participants said after the meeting.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions led the discussion with attorneys general or other representatives from 13 states and the District of Columbia, the department said.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood and Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson said after the meeting, which lasted about an hour, that much of the discussion focused on whether concerns about collection of consumer data can be addressed using antitrust law.

The group made no immediate plans to file a case or open any investigation, Becerra said.

The discussion had been expected to focus on companies like Facebook Inc, Twitter Inc and Google owner Alphabet Inc, which have been accused by some conservatives of seeking to exclude their ideas.

Hood said that a "minute" portion of the meeting was focused on the issue of potential, online political bias.

Peterson said talks among the federal and state law enforcers were "at the initial stage," and had been triggered by a presentation about collection of consumer data which was given at a June meeting of the National Association of Attorneys General.

Hood, whose office has already sued Google, said that he would like to see private, consumer information treated like intellectual property.

Becerra said that much of the discussion focused on grappling with how best to use a slow-adapting legal system to address issues related to data use, sale and collection, most of which is invisible to the ordinary consumer.

"There are growing concerns that the sector is moving into spaces that most people couldnt have thought of or imagined and trying to understand what that means. And so whether or not there is a definition within our current legal architecture that fits or embraces what is going on these days is part of the question," said Becerra.

The meeting, first announced on Sept. 5, was called by Sessions to discuss whether social media companies have intentionally stifled "the free exchange of ideas."

Becerra said he expects a larger group of state attorneys general to address the issue at an upcoming meeting of the National Association of Attorneys General.

Ed Black, president of the Computer and Communications Industry Association, said his organization would monitor the group.

"Efforts to use governmental power to pressure or even extort companies to adjust their operations to support parochial partisan positions would be an abuse of power and must be resisted," he said.

Consumer data is a powerful tool that companies use to decide where to place advertisements, what content to feature, and which consumers might be interested in the product.

The easiest step would be for antitrust agencies to consider opposing mergers of companies that combine large caches of consumer data if that data can enhance market power, such as Apples acquisition of the music recognition app Shazam, said Diana Moss, president of the American Antitrust Institute.

Moss also noted that mergers that combine data processing capability, which relies increasingly on artificial intelligence, could also enhance the market power of already powerful companies in a way that could violate antitrust law.

"Data and data processing can absolutely be a strategic asset that can be enhanced by a merger (and) can be used by a dominant firm to exclude rivals," she said.

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Boosted by growing support among suburban women and widespread antipathy toward President Trump, Democrats approach the midterm election poised to make major gains nationwide, a new USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times Poll shows.

Democrats had a 14-point margin, 55% to 41%, when likely voters were asked which partys candidate they would cast a ballot for if the election were held now. If that advantage holds up until election day, just less than six weeks away, it would almost surely be large enough to sweep a Democratic majority into the House.

(Chris Keller / Los Angeles Times)

Voters also oppose Republicans on a number of major issues. But overriding all of them is the president, whose outsized personality has dominated the nations news since he declared his candidacy more than three years ago.

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Roughly 3 out of 4 likely voters said they saw their vote this fall as an opportunity to express a view of Trump. For many, that view is negative: Those saying they planned to register opposition outnumbered Trump supporters, 45% to 29%.

Likely voters disapprove of Trumps overall performance in office by 57% to 39%, the poll found. Almost half of likely voters, 49%, said they strongly disapprove, while just under one-quarter, 24%, strongly approve.

Especially notable are the views of women, whose preferences have expanded the Democratic edge since a USC Dornsife poll surveyed most of the same voters this summer.

In the summer, men were closely divided between the two parties; they remain so now. But women, who already leaned significantly toward the Democrats, have shifted further in their direction, widening a large gender gap. The poll found women now favor the Democrats by 28 percentage points, 62% to 34%, among likely voters.

Three overlapping groups of female voters who have long been important for Republicans have moved away from the party: suburban residents, married white women and white women without college degrees.

Democrats enjoy a 61%-35% edge among suburban women, the poll found  a margin that has grown by 9 points since the summer. Democrats have narrowed the gap with Republicans among married white women, long a mainstay of the GOP, who now favor Republicans by a narrow 51% to 46%.

(Chris Keller / Los Angeles Times)

Those numbers help explain why suburban congressional districts long held by Republicans  from Orange County and Santa Clarita to the suburbs of Dallas and Houston and east to suburban Philadelphia  have become key targets in Democrats effort to retake control of the House.

A similar pattern holds among white women who did not graduate from college. Blue-collar white women gave Trump a crucial margin of support in 2016. A majority continues to support Republicans  by 56% to 39%  but since the summer, Democrats have cut their deficit with that group by a third.

The poll was largely completed before accusations of sexual misconduct against Judge Brent Kavanaugh, Trumps nominee to the Supreme Court, began dominating the news. Many political professionals in both parties think that controversy could further alienate women from the GOP.

Republicans troubles with women get worse after Trump defends Kavanaugh on sexual assault accusation 

Especially striking: Democrats have also made significant gains among older voters, a bastion for Republicans over the last two decades. Among likely voters 65 and older, Democrats lead 51% to 45%.

Thats very disturbing from a Republican standpoint, said longtime party strategist Mike Murphy, the co-director of USCs Center for the Political Future. If Republicans are not doing well with seniors and not doing well with college-educated voters in the suburbs, theres just no good news for the party, he said.

One factor not driving the vote: the economy. Republican congressional leaders had hoped to build their campaigns around the current economic good times, but that message has largely been drowned out by the noise surrounding the White House.

Its striking how little the economy seems to be driving the vote, said Robert Shrum, the Center for the Political Futures other co-director and a longtime Democratic strategist. I cant think of an election in which the economy was less driving the vote.

Voters grade Trump less negatively on his handling of the economy than on many aspects of his presidency, with opinion divided almost evenly, 45% approving and 44% disapproving. On five other areas that the poll asked about  handling of illegal immigration, trade, healthcare, race relations and the investigation into Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 campaign  Trumps ratings were under water.

The share of likely voters approving of Trumps conduct ranged from 39% for his handling of illegal immigration down to just 24% on the Russia investigation. A similar 27% shared Trumps often-expressed view that the investigation by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is unfair. Just less than half of likely voters, 48%, said they viewed Muellers work as fair. About 1 in 4 said they either were uncertain or had no opinion.

Trumps ratings for handling race relations were also notably low, with just 26% approving. Among African American voters, 91% disapproved.

Democrats need to pick up a net of 23 seats to gain a House majority. Their 14-point lead in the poll indicates theyre well positioned to hit that goal. Since congressional races are fought district by district, however, the national preference can provide only a rough forecast.

In recent elections, Democrats have won fewer House seats than their share of the national popular vote. Thats in part because Democrats tend to concentrate heavily in major cities, where their candidates often win huge majorities; the extra votes pad the national total but dont win additional districts. Gerrymanders favoring Republicans in several states also play a significant role.

(Chris Keller / Los Angeles Times)

A strong enough tide for Democrats could also tip control of the Senate their way, although that goal remains more distant because seats up for election this cycle disproportionately lean Republican.

The polls findings line up with some other major surveys conducted in recent weeks, including an ABC-Washington Post poll in late August that also found Democrats with a 14-point lead when voters were asked which partys candidates they expected to vote for, and an NBC-Wall Street Journal survey released Sunday that found a 12-point lead.

Midterm elections usually act as a referendum on the party in the White House. Thats even more true now because of the way Trump has insistently put himself on center stage. For his adopted party, he has become a significant drag.

While Trump has dominated the GOP since he conquered its establishment in the 2016 primaries, a small yet significant share of Republican voters still dissents.

Reflecting that split, Republican-leaning voters show less unity in support of the partys candidates than Democratic-leaning voters show toward that partys choices. The Republican defections are not huge, but could make the margin of victory in close contests.

Nearly 9 in 10 voters who said they typically side with Democrats strongly disapprove of Trump. About 6 in 10 of those who typically side with the GOP strongly approve of him.

Underscoring just how central the president is to the midterm outlook, 8 out of 10 voters who favor or lean toward Democrats said they saw their vote as expressing opposition to Trump, while about two-thirds of voters who favor or lean toward Republicans said the opposite.

The same divisions cropped up when Republican voters were asked about the future. More than a third said they would like to see another candidate challenge Trump for the presidential nomination in 2020. Thats an unusually large figure this early in a presidents term, said Shrum, who worked for Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts when he challenged President Carter for the Democratic nomination in 1980.

Trump has not expanded his base of support. His strongest backing continues to come from white men without college degrees, rural residents and white evangelicals. That last group makes up about 1 in 5 likely voters.

Opposition to Trump  and support for Democrats  hits its peak among women with college degrees, urban residents and minorities, especially African Americans.

Both men and women in rural areas favor the GOP, while in the cities, both favor Democrats. The gender gap is in the suburbs, where most women disapprove of Trump and favor Democrats, and most men take the opposite views.

Voters on either side of the partisan divide have notably different priorities on issues. Asked to pick from a list the one issue they considered most important, Democratic voters put healthcare at the top, followed by the economy and jobs. Republican voters put the economy and jobs at the top, followed by taxes and spending and illegal immigration.

Immigrations ranking as a top priority for many Republicans has put the party in a difficult bind: Several positions advocated by its immigration hard-liners and the administration are rejected by the rest of the country.

Trump, for example, has proposed measures to reduce legal immigration. Thats backed by some of his strongest supporters and key administration figures, but by only about 2 in 10 likely voters.

Roughly half of likely voters want to keep the level of immigration as is, while about 3 in 10 would like to see it increase.

Similarly, by 78% to 18%, likely voters supported allowing people who came to the U.S. illegally as children to stay and eventually apply for citizenship, a position the administration has opposed. More than 4 in 10 likely voters strongly support a path to citizenship.

Voters divided closely on whether illegal immigration is among the countrys most serious problem: 48% ranked it as the most, or one of the most, serious; 44% called it a problem, but not one of the most serious, and 6% said its not a problem at all.

Forget Trump and demonize Democrats as wild-eyed radicals  thats the Republican midterm strategy 

About one-third of likely voters supported the hard-line view that all immigrants in the country without legal authority should be deported. About one-quarter would deport anyone who had been convicted of a crime, while roughly another third would deport only those convicted of serious crimes  roughly the position the government took in the final years of President Obamas tenure. Only 3% said no one should be deported.

Just 40% supported Trumps call to build a wall along the border with Mexico  one of his signature proposals. Support falls slightly, to 37%, if taxpayer money is used.

Trump repeatedly has said Mexico would pay for the wall, but the administration has asked Congress for $5 billion to begin construction. So far, Congress has refused.

The president will need to decide in the next several days whether to sign a government funding bill that would provide money to keep federal agencies open in the new fiscal year, which starts Monday, but would not include funds for the wall. He has periodically threatened to shut down the government rather than accept that, but the poll suggests most voters would object.

This USC Dornsife/Times poll, overseen by survey director Jill Darling and co-sponsored by the universitys Center for the Political Future, was conducted online among 5,045 adult Americans, of whom 2,513 were deemed likely to vote this fall.

The poll respondents were drawn from a probability-based panel maintained by USCs Center for Economic and Social Research for its Understanding America Study. Responses were weighted to accurately reflect known demographics of the U.S. population. The survey was conducted Aug. 22-Sept. 24. The margin of error for the likely voter sample is 2 percentage points in either direction. A full description of the methodology, poll questions and dataare posted on the USC website.

Get the latest news from the nations capital on Essential Washington >> 

David.Lauter@latimes.com

For more on Politics and Policy, follow me @DavidLauterSupreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh was present at a 1982 house party where a Washington woman says she was gang-raped, according to an explosive statement that her lawyer released Wednesday.

The woman, Julie Swetnick, 55, did not accuse Kavanaugh of participating in the assault, which would have occurred at one of many parties that she said they both attended when Kavanaugh was in high school.

But she said she witnessed efforts by Kavanaugh, his friend Mark Judge and others to get girls inebriated and disoriented so they could then be gang-raped in a side room or bedroom by a train of numerous boys.

I have a firm recollection of seeing boys lined up outside rooms at many of these parties waiting for their turn with a girl inside the room, she wrote in a declaration that her attorney, Michael Avenatti, posted Wednesday on Twitter. These boys included Mark Judge and Brett Kavanaugh.

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Kavanaugh and Judge denied the allegations, which The Times has not independently confirmed.

This is ridiculous and from the Twilight Zone, Kavanaugh, 53, said in a statement released by the White House. I dont know who this is and this never happened.

Swetnicks statement upended the already tumultuous Senate confirmation hearings of a nominee who could ensure a conservative tilt to the nations highest court for years to come. She is the third woman to accuse Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct when he was in high school or college.

At a news conference in New York, President Trump defended Kavanaugh and attacked Avenatti as a low-life lawyer.

Its a con job by the Democrats, he said of the womens allegations. They know it.

Avenatti is a third rate lawyer who is good at making false accusations, like he did on me and like he is now doing on Judge Brett Kavanaugh. He is just looking for attention and doesnt want people to look at his past record and relationships - a total low-life!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 26, 2018

Swetnicks allegations came on the eve of a high-stakes Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday. Christine Blasey Ford, a psychologist and professor at Palo Alto University, is scheduled to testify about what she has described as a sexual assault by Kavanaugh when he was 17 and she was 15.

Kavanaugh is now a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Avenatti sent Swetnicks declaration to the Judiciary Committee. Lawyers for the Senate panel were reviewing it Wednesday, and Kavanaugh was going to be asked to respond under oath, according to Republican lawmakers.

Democratic senators and their allies quickly called for a postponement of Fridays planned vote on Kavanaugh in the Judiciary Committee.

Republicans need to immediately suspend the proceedings related to Judge Kavanaughs nomination, and the president must order the FBI to reopen the background check investigation, said Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer of New York.

There are now multiple, corroborated allegations against Judge Kavanaugh, made under the penalty of perjury, all of which deserve a thorough investigation.

A Republican on the Judiciary Committee, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, said Thursdays hearing on Fords allegation should go forward as planned.

These most recent allegations dont have anything to do with Dr. Ford, he said. Weve committed to hearing from her and thats what well be doing tomorrow.

Its unclear whether Senate Republicans will ultimately have enough votes to confirm Kavanaugh. At least two Republicans, Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, remain undecided.

Swetnick has worked on digital and website operations for a variety of U.S. government agencies in the Washington area.

Her declaration says she has held security clearances at the U.S. Mint, the Internal Revenue Service, State Department, Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security.

Swetnick attended Gaithersburg High School in a Maryland suburb of Washington. From 1981 to 1983, she said in her declaration, Kavanaugh and Judge were present at more than 10 house parties that she attended in the Washington area.

Avenatti told CNN that two witnesses can corroborate her statement on being gang-raped, and multiple others can attest to the behavior of Kavanaugh at the house parties. He declined to name them, but said he would provide their names to the FBI and the Judiciary Committee if investigators pursue the matter.

When she was gang-raped, Swetnick said, I was incapacitated without my consent and unable to fight off the boys raping me. I believe I was drugged using Quaaludes or something similar placed in what I was drinking.

Swetnick described Kavanaugh and Judge as joined at the hip. They drank excessively, she alleged, and engaged in highly inappropriate conduct, including being overly aggressive with girls and not taking No for an answer.

This conduct included the fondling and grabbing of girls without their consent, she wrote.

Swetnick said she recalled seeing Kavanaugh press girls against him without their consent and attempt to take off their clothing to expose private body parts.

Kavanaugh, Judge and others tried to spike the punch at house parties with drugs or grain alcohol so girls would lose their inhibitions about sex, Swetnick alleged.

Below is my correspondence to Mr. Davis of moments ago, together with a sworn declaration from my client. We demand an immediate FBI investigation into the allegations. Under no circumstances should Brett Kavanaugh be confirmed absent a full and complete investigation. pic.twitter.com/QHbHBbbfbE  Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) September 26, 2018

Ford has said that Judge, a conservative author and journalist who was Kavanaughs classmate at Georgetown Prep high school, was in the room when Kavanaugh attacked her.

In Wasted: Tales of a Gen X Drunk, his 1997 autobiographical account of party life at Georgetown Prep, Judge, a recovering alcoholic, wrote about a student named Bart OKavanaugh who threw up in someones car and passed out.

Judge has said he never witnessed any assault on Ford by Kavanaugh. His lawyer, Barbara Van Gelder, said Judge also vehemently denies Ms. Swetnicks allegations.

In a Fox News interview on Monday, Kavanaugh was asked about Avenattis initial allegation, without naming Swetnick, that hed attended a party where a gang rape occurred. He called it totally false and outrageous.

Yes, there were parties, and the drinking age was 18, and yes, the seniors were legal and had beer there, and yes, people might have had too many beers on occasion and people generally in high school, I think all of us have probably done things, we look back on in high school and regret or cringe a bit, he said.

But thats not what were talking about., Kavanaugh said. Were talking about an allegation of sexual assault. Ive never sexually assaulted anyone.

Ford has told the Washington Post that Kavanaugh was heavily intoxicated at a party when he jumped on her in a bedroom, tried to remove her clothes and covered her mouth with his hand to stop her from screaming.

Christine Blasey Ford, a psychology professor at Palo Alto University, and Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh will testify Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Committee. (ResearchGate.net)

On Sunday night, the New Yorker published an article in which one of Kavanaughs Yale University classmates, Deborah Ramirez, accused him of exposing himself to her at close range at a drunken dormitory party. Kavanaugh has denied the allegation.

The Judiciary Committee has also asked Kavanaugh privately about two other allegations of sexual misconduct by accusers who declined to be publicly identified.

Shortly after Avenatti released Swetnicks statement, Trump lashed out at the Newport Beach lawyer on Twitter. Trump called him a third rate lawyer who is good at making false accusations, like he did on me, alluding to allegations by Avenattis client Stormy Daniels that Trump had extramarital sex with the porn star in 2006.

He is just looking for attention and doesnt want people to look at his past record and relationships  a total low-life! Trump tweeted.

Avenatti, who says he might seek the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, has declined to say how Swetnick became his client.

For nearly seven months, Avenatti has been one of Trumps most aggressive tormentors on television. Until Wednesday, the president, known for belittling his critics, had painstakingly avoided responding to the provocations.

When Trump finally insulted him on Wednesday, Avenatti quickly mocked the president on Twitter as a global laughingstock and a con admired by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

michael.finnegan@latimes.com

Twitter: @finneganLAT

Times staff writers Jennifer Haberkorn, Victoria Kim, David Savage and Sarah D. Wire contributed to this report.

UPDATES:

4:35 p.m.: This article was updated with comments from President Trump, Michael Avenatti and Brett Kavanaugh, along with details from Mark Judges book.

11:35 a.m.: This article was updated with comments from Barbara Van Gelder and Sens. Charles E. Schumer and John Cornyn.

10 a.m.: This article was updated with comments from Brett Kavanaugh and President Trump.

9:25 a.m.: This article was updated with additional details from Julie Swetnicks declaration.

This article was originally published at 8:45 a.m.On a spring day in the Tasmanian town of Port Arthur, a lone gunman shot an elderly couple at the inn they owned, 22 diners lunching at a nearby tourist spot, two tour bus drivers and several of their passengers, four occupants of a BMW, and two customers at a gas station.

By the time the bullets stopped flying on April 28, 1996, 35 people were dead and another 23 were wounded. It was the worst mass shooting Australia had ever seen.

In a matter of months, Australia rolled out the National Firearms Agreement, which banned the possession of automatic and semiautomatic firearms in all but exceptional circumstances. About 640,000 guns were surrendered through a gun buyback program and another 60,000 were turned in to authorities for free in 1996 and 1997.

Australia has not seen a shooting like the Port Arthur massacre since, and the National Firearms Agreement is widely credited for this success. Gun control advocates in the United States  including former President Obama  have spoken admiringly of the law and suggest it should be a model for reducing gun deaths here.

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That wouldnt do any good, according to the authors of a new study.

Mass shootings get the most attention, but they account for a tiny fraction of total gun deaths in the U.S., data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show. Among the nations 36,252 firearms-related fatalities in 2015, 61% were suicides and most of the rest were ordinary homicides.

Neither of those kinds of deaths actually fell in Australia as a result of the National Firearms Agreement, researchers reported Tuesday in the American Journal of Public Health.

Many claims have been made about the NFAs far-reaching effects and its potential benefits if implemented in the United States, wrote Stuart Gilmour, a statistician at St. Lukes International University in Tokyo, and his coauthors from the University of Tokyo. However, more detailed analysis of the law shows that it likely had a negligible effect on firearm suicides and homicides in Australia and may not have as large an effect in the United States as some gun control advocates expect.

Previous studies have said otherwise. A 2010 report in the American Law and Economics Review concluded that the buyback led to a drop in the firearm suicide rates of almost 80% and had a similar effect on gun-related homicides. But that study ignored the fact that gun deaths were already falling when the program went into effect.

A 2016 study in the Journal of the American Medical Assn. acknowledged that a decline in gun-related suicides and homicides was indeed underway but said these mortality rates dropped more sharply in the aftermath of the NFA. However, the JAMA study failed to consider deaths that had nothing to do with guns. That means they might have given the gun control law credit for something that would have happened anyway.

Gilmour and his coauthors attempted to solve these problems by using a statistical method known as difference-in-difference. This approach turns real-life events into scientific experiments in which one group is subjected to an intervention and another group serves as a control.

In this case, the intervention was the National Firearms Agreement. It could have affected Australians who were inclined to use a gun to commit a suicide or homicide. But Gilmours team assumed it would have no effect on suicides and homicides that did not involve a gun. This was their control group.

Their difference-in-difference analysis revealed that although the rate of gun-related suicides fell steadily after the NFA went into effect in 1997, that decline was part of a larger trend that began in the late 1980s  and wasnt altered by the new law.

Likewise, homicides in Australia were already dropping when the National Firearms Agreement went into effect. The rate of gun-related homicides fell in the wake of the NFA, but the law had no effect over and above a broad decline in homicides involving all kinds of weapons, the study authors wrote.

To test the strength of their results, the researchers repeated their analysis using 1998 (not 1997) as the first year of the NFA era. They also tried using earlier start dates for their pre-NFA period, in case their initial choice happened to skew the results. The findings were mostly unaffected by these changes.

Its not that the National Firearms Agreement was a bad idea. Its that other things going on in Australia must have made a bigger difference  one that swamped any help the NFA might have offered.

The researchers cant say for sure what those other things were, but they have some ideas. They noted that Australia implemented a nationwide youth suicide prevention program in 1995 and one for adults in 2001. Either or both programs could have helped reduce suicides, including suicides carried out with a gun.

In addition, the Australian Institute of Criminology developed gun control policies that were adopted in 1991  five years before the NFA.

It is likely that these more comprehensive and detailed 1991 changes played a greater role in reducing firearms-related suicide and homicide than did the NFA, which was implemented solely for the purpose of eliminating mass shootings, Gilmour and his colleagues wrote.

If that is indeed the case, trying to pass an American version of the National Firearms Agreement could be counterproductive, they added.

It is imperative that this political moment  not be squandered on a law that will have limited impact, they wrote. To achieve real, sustained reductions in the majority of causes of firearm-related mortality, the United States needs a broader, more comprehensive range of gun control measures than those in the NFA.

karen.kaplan@latimes.com

Follow me on Twitter @LATkarenkaplan and like Los Angeles Times Science & Health on Facebook.

MORE IN SCIENCEIn the same week Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a bill advocating a later start time for schools across the state, officials at Monterey High School asked for and received such an accommodation.

The Burbank Unified school board voted 5-0 on Thursday to move back the start of classes by 45 minutes so the continuation school can switch an extra help session from the afternoon to the morning.

Beginning Oct. 9, first period will begin at 8:45 a.m. rather than at 8 a.m. at Monterey High, and students will leave school at 1:40 p.m. instead of 12:55 p.m.

This adjustment means that a tutoring period known as the Extra Help session will now be available from 8 to 8:42 a.m., rather than the current time slot from 12:55 to 1:37 p.m.

The push was primarily driven by the Monterey staff since parent feedback was sparse. Despite a presentation at Back to School Night, only 16 parents responded to a survey, with 13 (81%) in favor of the change.

We originally established an extra-help period so that the kids could feel free to go to whatever teacher they needed help from, Monterey principal Ann Brooks said during the meeting. The only problem was it was at the end of the day and friends leaving campus is just too compelling to stay for extra help. That is one of the reasons wed like to move it to the morning.

Staff suggested that a schedule switch would help students not involved in a help session take advantage of more sleep, give students who struggle to finish homework a chance to complete assignments in the morning and potentially allow clubs and parents to hold meetings earlier.

Its really all about recovering as much instructional time as we possibly can, Monterey assistant principal David Guyer said. All the research shows that students should start later.

Guyer said 15% of Monterey students could not enroll in a first-period class because they do not arrive at school in time.

On top of that, Monterey students posted 445 tardies in the first quarter, which ran from July 1 to Sept. 15. Thirty-four of those arrivals were over 30 minutes late, while students were also responsible for 177 fully unexcused first-period absences.

We have an attendance rate of nearly 90%, Brooks said. So, it isnt that we dont get them there. We dont get them there in the morning.

The effort drew the praise of a couple of board members, including Steve Ferguson.

I really appreciate that as academic leaders you saw a problem, addressed it and said this is the way we can really support our student population in the best way possible, Ferguson said.

Roberta Reynolds, board president, added, I just want to commend you as youre always coming up with innovative ideas and ways you can give your students another chance. The heart is always there.

andrew.campa@latimes.com

Twitter @campadresportsThe owner and an employee of a Fountain Valley-based treatment facility, along with five doctors and four so-called body brokers, have been arrested and charged in what authorities say was a scheme to fraudulently bill insurance companies millions of dollars for experimental, unnecessary and potentially harmful surgeries on recovering addicts, the Orange County district attorneys office announced Wednesday.

The charges against the 11 defendants represent the first major prosecution by the district attorneys Sober Living Home Investigation and Prosecution task force, which was formed this year to investigate potential crimes related to addiction treatment and recovery centers.

Exploiting addicts vulnerabilities to conduct unnecessary and dangerous surgeries for profit is unconscionable, District Attorney Tony Rackauckas said during a news conference in Santa Ana. Its simply wrong to use human beings as ATM machines.

Prosecutors allege that two administrators at Fountain Valley-based SoberLife USA  owner Thuy Rucks, 78, of Mission Viejo and Christianne Tiemann, 66, of Trabuco Canyon  hired four people as marketers, or body brokers, to pay people up to $1,000 to receive surgical implants of naltrexone, a prescription drug used to manage opioid and alcohol dependence.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved use of naltrexone in pill and injectable forms, but the surgical insertion of a pellet of the drug has not yet been sanctioned and is considered experimental, according to the district attorneys office.

According to prosecutors, the marketers  identified as 27-year-old Huntington Beach residents Dylan James Walker and Harrison Anthony Romanowski; John Kahal, 67, of Dana Point and Jordan Tyler Hendrickson, 25, of Studio City  went to sober-living homes and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and used word of mouth to entice people to have the surgery.

Two doctors  David Michael Scarpino, 53, of Huntington Beach and Nabil Charle Morcos, 66, of Irvine  are accused of misleading patients about the safety and appropriateness of the surgery  which involves cutting open a patients back or stomach to implant a naltrexone pellet  and recommending the procedure without proper examinations to determine whether a patient was a suitable candidate for the operation.

Naltrexone is ineffective as a treatment for some addictions, such as to stimulants including methamphetamine, according to the district attorneys office.

The three other doctors in the case  Michael Henry Wong, 53, of Irvine, Gary Lamont Baker, 54, of Tustin and Fritz John Baumgartner, 61, of Rancho Palos Verdes  are accused of performing the surgeries for profit.

A PowerPoint presentation shows the 11 defendants in the case. (Photo by Luke Money)

Rucks and Tiemann are accused of submitting fraudulent billing to insurance companies of $40,000 per surgery, on average.

All told, prosecutors allege, SoberLife USA billed the insurance providers over $6.8 million in healthcare claims for this experimental, non-FDA-approved and potentially dangerous surgery, according to Rackauckas.

This scheme misleads the desperate and creates a hope of recovery when this implant that theyre using might cause greater harm, he said.

The defendants are scheduled to be arraigned Thursday. If convicted of their specific charges, they could face maximum sentences ranging from 10 years and eight months to 43 years and eight months in state prison, according to the district attorneys office.

Rackauckas said investigating insurance fraud allegations can help combat the proliferation of unscrupulous sober-living and addiction treatment operations  an issue thats become so widespread in recent years that Orange County is sometimes referred to as the Rehab Riviera.

Costa Mesa has grappled for years with issues stemming from sober-living homes, which residents say have led to increased crime and noise, worsened parking and traffic woes and harmed their overall quality of life.

Huntington Beach officials this month announced plans to collaborate with the district attorneys office to find ways to crack down on illegal in-home businesses in residential areas.

We really have to protect not just our residents but all recovering users too, said Orange County Supervisor Michelle Steel, whose district includes both cities. So we need a better law to protect us and protect all other Orange County residents.

Supervisor Lisa Bartlett, speaking alongside Steel at Wednesdays news conference, said the county hopes to craft an ordinance to crack down on body brokers and some of these other illegal activities so authorities are empowered to take appropriate action and put these criminals in jail.

luke.money@latimes.com

Twitter @LukeMMoneyTwo men have been sentenced to life in prison for the 2017 murder and robbery of a 67-year-old woman after following her from her business in Lynwood to her La Crescenta home.

James Trotter, a 22-year-old Long Beach resident, was sentenced on Tuesday, while 21-year-old Devon White of Lynwood was sentenced on Aug. 29 for the murder of Hye Soon Oh. They were sentenced without the possibility of parole.

The two were convicted of Ohs murder in August, along with second-degree robbery and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

Oh was shot in the parking garage of her apartment complex in the 2900 block of Montrose Avenue on Aug. 8 after she was on her way home from her business in a Lynwood shopping center. The Glendale Police Department said forensic evidence from the incident linked the men to the crime.

During the pairs trial, it was revealed Whites DNA was found on Ohs purse.

A third person involved in the incident, 23-year-old Tonaye James of Las Vegas, pleaded no contest in July to one count of second-degree robbery. She was sentenced earlier this month to 12 years in prison.

andy.nguyen@latimes.com

Twitter: @Andy_TrucThe La Canada Flintridge City Council took advantage of a special meeting with state Assemblywoman Laura Friedman (D-Glendale) Monday, sharing the citys viewpoints on a number of regional issues and seeking assistance on advancing local priorities.

During a two-hour breakfast meeting city officials covered a range of issues, from identifying state funds available for building sound walls along the Foothill (210) Freeway and restoring an eroding Flint Canyon Trail to regulating sober living facilities and cannabis delivery services.

Friedman and field representative Blake Dellinger took notes and shared updates on state bills that could impact the city, including bills related to safe driving and affordable housing.

In a discussion of sound wall funding, council members updated Friedman on a $5-million grant secured by state Sen. Anthony Portantino (D-La Canada Flintridge) to help the city complete four of 20 previously identified sound walls using funds from SB 1, a gas tax whose repeal is on the November ballot.

State staffers amended Portantinos grant, requiring the city provide matching fees equal to the grant amount and stipulating funds may be applied only to construction costs, not an estimated $2 million in design costs. As a result, the city will have to locate $7 million to receive the $5 million in state funding  if SB 1 survives the election.

Quite frankly, the city doesnt have $7 million in order to match the $5-million grant, City Manager Mark Alexander told Friedman. So we wanted to have a discussion with you this morning about seeking your assistance in maybe identifying some funding  to help us with the match requirement.

Friedman said SB 1 was the best bet for helping La Canada fund sound walls and advised officials to wait until after election night.

After that, Im more than happy to go out and see what I can do in the next couple of cycles of SB 1 funding, she said. Ill also look to my staff to see if theres funding beyond SB 1.

Friedman shared recent legislative efforts to regulate the recent uncontrolled growth of sober living homes in residential neighborhoods by requiring cities be notified when licenses are applied for and putting such businesses into a probationary period, with penalties for noncompliance.

Mayor Terry Walker said shed like to see municipalities have more local control over regulating facilities. Councilman Greg Brown shared his concern about what appears to be an increasing trend of state-issued mandates overriding local authority.

Were seeing more and more of Sacramento, particularly in the zoning area, taking over for local control, he said. That means you end up with a lot of a one-size-fits-all kind of solutions, and we know that doesnt work.

Friedman, who previously served on the Glendale City Council, said tensions between state and local governments are as old as the governmental system itself.

The tension is really the most evident when you see the state stepping in the most with issues that are major issues, where the feeling is that theyre out of control and the cities are not acting, she said. Housing is a statewide crisis  there are a lot of folks in Sacramento who say when you have a statewide crisis, you cant have a piecemeal approach.

Still, she invited city officials to continue to share their local perspective on such matters.

I dont ever want to vote on something and then find out you all hate it, she said. I want to make sure I keep that connection with you. Thats what Im there for.

sara.cardine@latimes.com

Twitter: @SaraCardineWelcome the New Year by saying namaste in Kerala, India, site of an 11-day yoga retreat and tour. Souljourn Yoga, a nonprofit dedicated to raising awareness and funds for girls education through yoga retreats, will host its first event of 2019 in India. Besides daily yoga and meditation sessions, the itinerary includes a boat trip on the backwaters of Kerala, a tour of ancient temples in Thanjavur, a dance workshop and an opportunity to explore the port city of Kochi. The trip will help support the My Name Is Kumar Foundations after-school program for girls.

Dates: Dec. 28-Jan. 7

Price: From $3,230 per person, double occupancy; single supplement $570. Includes accommodations, meals, sightseeing, activities and $300 tax-deductible donation. International airfare not included.

Info: Souljourn Yoga, www.souljournyoga.comThe Los Angeles Times Travel section has won the gold award in the 2018 Lowell Thomas competition, recognized as the most prestigious in travel journalism.

The awards were announced Monday in Bridgetown, Barbados, at the annual conference of the Society of American Travel Writers.

In recognizing The Times as having the nations top newspaper travel section, the judges called it an amazing resource, saying that its articles are, like so much travel, fun, informative and quirky and fling travelers deep into astonishing places.

Cruise columnist Rosemary McClure also received an honorable mention for her article on gentleman hosts on cruise ships.

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The Times Travel section appears in Sunday editions, and additional coverage appears daily on the website. It has been honored with the Lowell Thomas gold award nine times in the last 17 years.

Ride a giant Clydesdale on a weekend escape to Cambria 

The Wall Street Journal won the silver award for newspaper travel coverage, praised for being thoughtfully designed to be both engaging and easy to use.

The New York Times took bronze. Judges called its work meaty, thoughtful and visually spectacular.

Honorable mention went to the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Freelance writer Christopher Solomon of Seattle was named travel journalist of the year.

Outside magazine and the New York Times each earned eight total awards, and National Geographic Traveler won seven.

The competition, for work from spring 2017 to spring 2018, drew 1,275 entries.

Faculty from the University of Missouri School of Journalism judged the awards, which are named for author and travel journalist Lowell Thomas.

A complete list of winners can be found here.

travel@latimes.comIn a blurry security video from the Greek island bar, young men are seen taking selfies with a woman.

Suddenly, one man slaps a taller one. He doesnt immediately respond. Then he throws a punch. Others get involved, jostling and punching. The melee moves off camera.

Two other security videos showing the last few minutes of Bakari Hendersons life are much clearer. In the first, the tall young man in knee-length shorts is seen backing away down the street, his eyes on his encroaching attackers, before aiming a kick at one.

In the next, he darts away to escape, is tackled to the ground and kicked and punched relentlessly by about 10 people.

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Henderson died in July 2017 on the street of the Greek resort town of Laganas on the island of Zakynthos. According to a 55-page indictment, during the final 11 seconds of the early morning beating Henderson received 33 blows and kicks to the head and body  three blows per second.

Why the 22-year-old from Austin, Texas, was battered to death by a mob in a foreign country is the question that his parents, Jill and Phil Henderson, hope to have answered in the murder trial underway in Greece.

Witness testimony scheduled for Thursday is expected to help the court and Hendersons family better understand what happened in the silent videos.

The parents of the victim are looking for justice, said Chryssa Vouldi, one of the lawyers representing the Hendersons. But they are also looking for answers as to how they lost their child in just 11 seconds in the most brutal manner.

Nine people have been charged with involvement in the killing. A 10th man has been identified as being involved but hasnt been arrested. Six of the defendants are charged with first-degree murder, which carries a life sentence. Three others are charged with lesser crimes.

Only a few months after graduating from the University of Arizona with a degree in business, Henderson was planning to launch a clothing line. He was in Greece with friends working on a photo shoot.

Laganas is a party town, known more for its wild nightlife for the 18-to-30 crowd than as the natural nesting place for the endangered loggerhead sea turtle. It was in one of the dozens of Laganas bars that Henderson and his friends encountered some trouble.

The indictment describes a quick escalation that began after Henderson and his friend took a selfie with a female employee of the bar. The bar at the time, according to the indictment, was hosting parties for mainly Serbian tourists.

At one point, according to the indictment, one of the Serbian guests complained about the woman, a Serbian, taking selfies with the Americans.

There are so many Serbs in this bar. Why are you talking to a black? he is quoted as saying in the indictment. The security camera captured the man throwing a glass toward the woman, prompting Henderson, who was black, to respond. The man slapped Henderson, setting off the events that led to Hendersons death.

The indictment said the defendants attacked with murderous intent, continuing to beat Henderson even after he had fallen to the ground.

The 6th defendant kicked him with his right foot in the back and the neck with the victim falling in the street and remaining immobile after having lost consciousness, according to the indictment. Subsequently the 6th kicked him again but this time with his right foot in the head, the 1st leaned over him and hit him repeatedly in the head with brass knuckles, the 7th kicked him with his left foot twice in the head, the 8th kicked him 8 times in the head and the 9th defendant kicked him with his right foot twice in the head while the unknown assailant kicked him with his right foot twice in the head.

The trial began Sept. 21. The Hendersons are represented in Greece by a team of three lawyers, led by Andreas Patsis from Athens.

Fourteen months  weve been waiting awhile for this trial, Phil Henderson said in an interview with Greek Antenna TV. And its something we do every day: Go why?

Petrakis is a special correspondent.US President Donald used his second speech at the United Nations General Assembly to praise his achievements in front of a sceptical audience

After nearly two years of his presidency that has stunned and shaken the world, US President Donald Trump used his second speech at the annual UN General Assembly meeting on Tuesday to deliver the same message: America will act alone to serve its own interests.

Acting like he was speaking at a local rally in front of his own supporters, Trump opened his speech by praising his achievements. Today, I stand before the United Nations General Assembly to share the extraordinary progress weve made, he said. In less than two years, my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country.

There was some muted laughter from the room. So true, Trump said. I didnt expect that reaction, but thats OK, he said, prompting louder laughter.

He then went on to praise stances he took over the past two years, without offering any new initiatives: Trump promised to continue negotiating denuclearisation with North Korea while maintaining sanctions, sharply attacked Iran and its government, said little about the Middle East peace process except for praising his decision to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to occupied Jerusalem, and vowed that he would not continue to provide foreign aid without getting a payback.

In the Middle East, our new approach is yielding great strides and very historic change, Trump said. He added that following his trip to Saudi Arabia, a few months after he took office in January 2017, the oil-rich Gulf countries opened a new centre to target terrorist financing, and took more responsibility for fighting terrorism and extremism and their own region.

He also praised the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar for pledging millions of dollars to aid the people of Syria and Yemen. He added that the United States was working with the Gulf Cooperation Council, Jordan, and Egypt to establish a strategic alliance so Middle Eastern nations can advance security and stability across their home region.

Noting the progress made in ending the presence of the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, Trump said Washington would continue to work with friends and allies to deny radical Islamist terrorists funding, territory or means of infiltrating US borders.

As for Syria, the US president said the goal must be the de-escalation of military conflict along with a political solution that honours the interests of the Syrian people.

Although he did not repeat an old-standing US position demanding the ouster of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, he urged the UN to lead a peace process that would put an end to the ongoing war in Syria.

Meanwhile, he repeated his threat to use military force if chemical weapons were used by the Al-Assad regime in a possible military offensive against the last enclave extremists hold in the border region of Idlib.

His harshest words, however, were saved for Iran. Every solution to the humanitarian crisis in Syria must also include a strategy to address the brutal regime that has fuelled and financed the war in Syria. Irans leaders sew chaos, death and disruption, he said.

Trump charged that Tehran had no respect for its neighbours, borders or the sovereign rights of nations. Instead, they plunder the nations resources to enrich themselves and to spread mayhem across the Middle East and far beyond, he added.

Fuelling claims by Tehran that Washington is seeking regime change, Trump praised the Iranian people for protesting against the regimes policies. The Iranian people are rightly outraged that their leaders have embezzled billions of dollars from the treasury, seized valuable portions and looted the religious endowments to line their own pockets, and to send their proxies to wage war.

He again defended his decision to withdraw from the horrible 2015 Iran nuclear deal and re-impose nuclear sanctions.

The deal was signed by the former Obama administration, together with Russia, China and the European Union. Trump claimed that the Iran deal was a windfall for Irans leaders. In the year since the deal [was] reached, the military budget [of Iran] grew nearly 40 per cent.

The dictatorship used the funds to build nuclear capable missiles, increase internal repression, finance terrorism and fund havoc and slaughter in Syria and Yemen, he said.

He noted that additional sanctions will be imposed on Iran on 5 November, and more will follow. We are working with countries that import Iranian crude oil to cut their purchases substantially.

Contrary to his comprising language on North Korea, Trump said: We cannot allow the worlds leading sponsor of terrorism to possess the planets most dangerous weapons. We cannot allow a regime that chants Death to America and threatens Israel with annihilation to possess the means to deliver a nuclear warhead to any city on earth.

He called upon all nations to isolate Irans regime as long as its aggression continues and we ask all nations to support Irans people as they struggle to reclaim their religious and righteous destiny.

Turning to the Middle East peace process, Trump claimed his decision to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to occupied Jerusalem earlier this year was another significant step forward towards recognising the right of sovereign states to determine their own capital.

The majority of the world countries criticised the US move, seeing it as a violation of UN Security Council resolutions related to Palestine, determining in advance the outcome of a thorny issue that should have been decided through negotiations between Palestine and Israel.

Trump claimed that the United States is committed to a future of peace and stability in the region, including peace between the Israelis and Palestinians. That aim has advanced, not harmed by acknowledging the obvious facts. Palestinians and Arab countries were deeply concerned that the next step by Trump after the decision on Jerusalem was to call for an end to the Palestinian refugee plight, declaring that millions of refugees should be settled in their host countries, such as Jordan and Lebanon, alleging that this was also an obvious fact.

The US president said that Americas policy of principled realism means that we will not be held hostage to old, discredited ideology and experts that have been proven wrong over the years.

Meanwhile, and despite praising Saudi Arabia and UAE minutes earlier for the joint war against terrorism, Trump lashed out at the oil producing consortium OPEC, in which the two countries are among the most powerful members.

OPEC and OPEC nations are ripping off the rest of the world and I dont like it. Nobody should like it. We defend many of these nations for nothing, and then they take advantage of us by giving us high oil prices. We want them to stop raising prices, we want them to start lowering prices, Trump said.

He also asked oil-rich nations to contribute substantially to military protection from now on. We are not going to put up with these horrible prices much longer.

Trump also vowed that the US was going to take a hard look at the foreign aid it sends to other countries and the financial support it provides to international organisations.

Few give anything to us. That is why we are taking a hard look at US foreign assistance. We will examine what is working, what is not working and whether the countries who receive our dollars and our protection also have our interests at heart, Trump said.

Moving forward we are only going to give foreign aid to those who respect us and frankly our  our friends. And we expect other countries to pay their fair share for the cost of their defence.

Promising to make the UN more effective and accountable, Trump also vowed to change how the US funds the international bodys various programmes, and where US dollars are spent. Only when each of us does our part and contributes our share can we realise the UNs highest aspirations, Trump said.

President Trump, claiming the UN Human Rights Council had become a grave embarrassment to this institution, said the US would not return to it without real reform and would provide neither support nor recognition to the International Criminal Court for similar reasons.

He added, We will never surrender Americas sovereignty to an unelected, unaccountable, global bureaucracy.

Trumps comments, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a statement, are music to the ears of tyrants and war criminals. Richard Dicker, director of HRWs international justice programme, said Trumps opposition to justice for victims of mass slaughter is yet another retreat by this administration on human rights. But this attack on international justice will backfire, just as it did under the Bush administration.

In a play on his campaign slogan, President Trump said Tuesday that a global migration crisis can be resolved by making every country great again. He said the US would not sign onto a global migration pact, saying individual nations should instead set their own policies.

Trump also told world leaders that he would continue to renegotiate what he described as broken and bad trade deals. Citing his bids to renegotiate trade deals around the world, Trump said that many nations in this hall will agree the world trading system is in dire need of change.

Singling out China for its trade abuses and theft of US intellectual property, Trump said we will no longer tolerate such abuse. He added: We will not allow our workers to be victimised, our companies to be cheated.

Stressing he still has great respect and affection for Chinese President Xi Jinping, Trump said America will always act in our national interests.

* A version of this article appears in print in the 27 September 2018 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: Trump lauds himself at UN

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An already tense relationship between the United States and China has grown increasingly poisonous this week amid a new spying charge, a rapid escalation of a trade war and an accusation by President Trump of election interference.

The sharpening rhetoric and actions, including an espionage arrest in Chicago and tough words at the United Nations Security Council in New York, are playing out as Americas unease about Chinas global role grows and the Asian giant becomes increasingly confident about projecting its power overseas.

Although the U.S. and Chinese economies are deeply entwined, some fear that the Trump administration is intent on decoupling them, a strategy that would have a seismic effect on the global economy.

In his latest swipe at China, Trump accused Beijing of interfering in the November U.S. midterm election because it does not want him to win after his tough actions on trade.

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Regrettably, we found that China has been attempting to interfere in our upcoming 2018 election ... against my administration, Trump said in a speech to world leaders at the U.N. on Wednesday. They do not want me, or us, to win because I am the first president ever to challenge China on trade.

Later, when asked what evidence he had, Trump said, Plenty of evidence. But he did not elaborate.

We did not and will not interfere in any countrys domestic affairs, Chinas foreign minister, Wang Yi, said in reaction. We refuse to accept any unwarranted accusations against China.

Wang also warned against a Cold War mentality between the U.S. and China.

China and the United States can have competition, but should not use a Cold War mentality to view each other, and nor should they slip into the trap of a zero-sum game, he said. Recently, certain U.S. forces domestically have been continually blackening Chinas name, creating antagonistic feeling, which has caused serious harm to the atmosphere of Sino-U.S. ties.

In recent days, talks to resolve conflicts have been canceled and tension has risen over Chinas territorial claims in the South Chinese Sea and Taiwan. Recent U.S. sanctions on a Chinese military agency for purchasing Russian military aircraft and a missile system, and Chinese anger at the U.S. over its sales of parts for fighter jets to Taiwan, have deepened the antagonism.

The Trump administration imposed tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods Monday while China retaliated with tariffs on $60 billion in U.S. goods as the trade war escalated, with some predicting it could last until next year or even 2020.

A key U.S. complaint in the trade conflict is that China forces companies to hand over trade secrets and steals intellectual property. American officials have accused China of pervasive espionage, unequaled in scope by any other country.

On Tuesday, Chinese national Ji Chaoqun, 27, who joined the U.S. Army Reserve in 2016 after graduating with a masters degree in electrical engineering in Illinois, was arrested in Chicago. He was charged with gathering background material on eight individuals working or recently retired as scientists or defense contractors and emailing it to a provincial Chinese intelligence officer.

Ji, according to a criminal complaint, arrived in the U.S. in 2013 to study at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. Although he denied contact with a foreign government while applying to the reserve program, he is charged with working at the direction of the Chinese officer to obtain the information. He could face up to 10 years in prison for allegedly acting as an illegal agent of China.

Others recently accused of Chinese spying or theft of intellectual property include a former Apple engineer, a former IBM software engineer, a General Electric engineer, a scientist who worked for pharmaceutical company GlaxoKlineSmith and several former U.S. intelligence officers. Those accused included Chinese nationals, naturalized Americans of Chinese descent and Americans not of Asian descent.

The alarms sounded about spying have come from Trump down. At a New Jersey dinner with chief executives last month, the president expressed concern that many foreign students were spies, comments made as part of a long attack on Chinese trade practices, according to media reports.

In February, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray said at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing that espionage by Chinese students, academics and scientists posed a whole-of-society threat that required a whole-of-society response. In July he called Chinese espionage the broadest, most challenging, most significant threat we face as a country.

He said Chinas ambition was to be the dominant economic superpower, adding that investigations of Chinese spying were underway in 50 states.

It covers everything from corn seeds in Iowa to wind turbines in Massachusetts and everything in between, he said. The volume of it, the pervasiveness of it, the significance of it is something that this country cannot underestimate.

Chinese American organizations have warned that the repeated claims of Chinese espionage are having a chilling effect on Chinese Americans, including people born in the United States or those who have lived and worked in the United States for decades.

Disparaging and stereotyping an entire population is wrongheaded and un-American, and especially disturbing when the source is our national leaders, whether in the White House, the Congress or the FBI, said a statement by United Chinese Americans, a federation of Chinese American organizations, last month.

Rep. Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park) called Wrays comments reckless and complained of a growing dangerous narrative in America that Chinese students and scholars be subjected to sharper scrutiny than others.

A Chinese American federation, the Committee of 100, last year released a white paper that reported Chinese Americans were disproportionately targeted in investigations of espionage, with many charges found to be false.

It reported that 52% of defendants charged under the Economic Espionage Act since 2009 are Chinese, and that as many as 1 in 5 Asians charged with spying were found not guilty, a rate twice as high as that for non-Asian people. Those convicted who had Asian names tended to get harsher sentences, it reported.

U.S. agencies have been issuing warnings about Chinese espionage for years. Chinese actors are the worlds most active and persistent perpetrators of economic espionage, a Pentagon report to Congress said in 2012.

A June report by the White House Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy said China deployed more than 40,000 intelligence agents overseas targeting strategic sectors such as electronics, telecommunications, robotics, data services, pharmaceuticals, cellphone services, satellite communications and imagery, and business application software.

There has been a steady stream of arrests and prosecutions, many involving corporate espionage.

Last month, biochemist Yu Xue, 48, a naturalized American citizen, pleaded guilty to theft of cancer research she developed while working for GlaxoSmithKline, to help a Chinese government-backed company she set up in that country. Yu, who said most of the information was open-source data available on the internet, faces sentencing in December.

A General Electric engineer, Xiaoqing Zheng, 55, a U.S. citizen, was arrested in August, accused of stealing GE power turbine technology, encrypting the data and hiding them in a digital image of a sunset.

In July, a former Apple engineer, Zhang Xiaolang, who had worked on the companys self-driving car project, was charged with theft of trade secrets. He denies that he took information from the company to benefit his new employer, a motor company in southern China.

Massachusetts resident Shuren Qin, 41, was charged in June with shipping 78 hydrophones  underwater devices used to detect submarines  to a military research institute in Xian, China.

And in January a former IBM software engineer, Jiaqiang Xu, 32, was sentenced to five years in jail for economic espionage and theft of the IBM computer coding.

Several former intelligence officials have also been charged recently with spying.

A retired officer from the Defense Intelligence Agency, Ron Rockwell Hanson, appeared in court on spying charges in July, accused of planning to sell U.S. military secrets to China.

In June, former CIA officer Kevin Mallory was convicted of spying and selling classified documents on defense to the Chinese. Mallory was approached by a Chinese intelligence operative posing as a headhunter via LinkedIn.

Jerry Chun Shing Lee, 53, an American citizen and ex-CIA officer, pleaded not guilty to spying charges in May and faces trial next year.

robyn.dixon@latimes.com

Twitter: @RobynDixon_LATIt was hardly the first time President Trump had expressed his disdain for globalism  but his latest condemnation made the world sit up and take notice.

America is governed by Americans, he told the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday. We reject the ideology of globalism, and we embrace the doctrine of patriotism.

It went unnoticed by almost no one that Trump chose what Britains Guardian newspaper called globalisms high temple  the world bodys signature gathering, held annually at its New York headquarters -- as a venue for decrying what he described as a harmful ideology that undermines the United States.

Different audiences interpreted his remarks very differently. As is often the case, Trump won plaudits in some quarters for challenging long-held orthodoxy, and was pilloried elsewhere for oversimplifying a complex issue and using false logic to promote an international agenda that parallels his political goals at home.

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Here is some background about globalism and how the concept is interpreted.

WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THE TERM?

Globalism defies easy definition. An entry from the Cambridge Dictionary calls it the idea that events in one country cannot be separated from those in another and that economic and foreign policy should be planned in an international way. But it is often used as a catch-all term to describe the postwar world order  encompassing the policies and practices of international institutions such as the United Nations, the World Bank, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union. And it is also a sometime synonym for a cosmopolitan view of global interconnectedness, and the notion that the common good sometimes outweighs nations narrow self-interests.

HOW DID THE POSTWAR ORDER COME ABOUT?

From the ashes of two world wars came a realization that multilateral institutions might help head off exactly the sorts of disputes  economic, political, territorial -- that could erupt into conflagration. In 1947, then-Secretary of State George Marshall  the architect of the European Recovery Program, widely known as the Marshall Plan  declared that the United States should do whatever it is able to assist the return of normal economic health in the world, without which there can be no political stability and no assured peace. Today, the U.S.-led reconstruction of war-shattered Western Europe is widely regarded as one of the foremost foreign-policy triumphs of the 20th century.

SO WHY WERE TRUMPS COMMENTS SO JARRING?

Because the United States was, in essence, the inventor of globalism, by helping create the multilateral institutions that underpin it. And America has perhaps been globalisms greatest beneficiary; many economists and historians consider the postwar period the springboard for unparalleled U.S. influence and accumulation of wealth.

Some commentators also saw Trumps tirade against globalism  combined with the speechs overtones of isolationism and nationalism -- as a retreat from the principles the United States has long sought to export to the rest of the world, such as individual liberties and human rights.

It very much amounts to an America First foreign policy, in which the most important thing is that values have no place in Trumps view of the world, said Michael Fuchs, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and a former U.S. diplomat.

DOESNT GLOBALISM HAVE DETRACTORS OTHER THAN TRUMP?

Yes, many. International trade policies are often blamed for promoting economic inequity; military alliances can set the stage for seemingly open-ended conflicts like that in Afghanistan, and critics of institutionally driven bureaucracies say excessive rule making stifles entrepreneurial energies.

President Trump participates in a U.N. Security Council briefing at the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday, (Evan Vucci / AP)

IN THE AGE OF TRUMP, HAS GLOBALISM BECOME CODE FOR OTHER ISSUES?

Context is important. Observers noted that the presidents speech bore many rhetorical hallmarks of Stephen Miller, the senior White House aide who has championed some of the White Houses most draconian immigration policies. And using globalism as shorthand for a world trading system that unfairly disadvantages the United States  as Trump tells it  fits neatly with the presidents current campaign of using tariffs as a weapon not only against rivals like China but allies like Canada and members of the European Union.

HOW WERE TRUMPS COMMENTS ON GLOBALISM RECEIVED?

The presidents outspoken mistrust of international institutions has been warmly received among his conservative base at home, and by authoritarian-minded leaders elsewhere. But some of the strongest pushback came from other world leaders who also spoke at the U.N. gathering. At a time when institutions like the European Union face an existential threat, French President Emmanuel Macron cited a crisis threatening the very foundation of todays world.

At the same time, allies warned that new systems and institutions could at least partly supplant the U.S.-led order. Macron pointed out that the landmark Paris climate accord had survived Trumps pullout. And signatories to the Iran nuclear accord, also rejected by the U.S. president, joined Monday in recommitting to the accord.

DOES GLOBALISM CONFLICT WITH SOVEREIGNTY?

The president apparently believes so. Sovereign and independent nations are the only vehicle where freedom has ever survived, democracy has ever endured or peace has ever prospered, Trump told the General Assembly. And so we must protect our sovereignty and our cherished independence above all.

Critics, though, called that a false choice. Global institutions like the U.N. are easy to criticize, and they often deserve it, Daniel Shapiro, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel, wrote on Twitter. But pointing out such shortcomings without acknowledging their core missions, he said, falsely portrays them as threats to U.S. sovereignty.

laura.king@latimes.com

Twitter: @laurakingLATIndias Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the constitutional validity of a controversial national identity program that has built the worlds largest biometric database, ruling that it does not violate privacy rights but curbing some of its sweeping powers.

A five-judge panel ruled that the government may continue to use the database known as Aadhaar  which means foundation  to distribute welfare benefits, including subsidized food grains and employment guarantees for the rural poor. Aadhaar will also be mandatory for filing income taxes, the court said.

But in a majority opinion, the court also ruled that government agencies and private companies could no longer require citizens to provide an Aadhaar number to open or operate bank accounts or mobile phone connections, or to enroll in school.

The ruling by the countrys highest court attempted to strike a balance between improving the efficiency of government welfare programs  the intent of the Aadhaar program when it was launched nearly a decade ago  and addressing concerns from privacy advocates that enrollment was increasingly becoming mandatory and its data could be used to snoop on citizens.

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Data obtained is very, very minimal, [while] the benefits, especially to [the] marginalized, is large, Justice A.S. Sikri wrote in a majority opinion, arguing that while no one should be denied welfare benefits for not possessing an Aadhaar number, the program served a larger public good.

Lot of people who will benefit due to inclusion cannot be denied due to exclusion of a few, Sikri said. We cannot throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Read more: India is building a biometric database for 1.3 billion people  and enrollment is mandatory 

Aadhaar  a unique 12-digit number linked to a persons biometric characteristics, like fingerprints and iris scans  was launched in 2009 as a voluntary system that could protect data and combat corruption in Indias vast welfare programs. The government budget for health, education and social protection programs this year was more than $21 billion.

But civil liberties advocates argued that as use of the database expanded, it had often become a tool of exclusion, denying poor people potentially life-saving benefits.

In several cases, activists said, poor Indians died of hunger after being denied food grains because they didnt have an Aadhaar number or because of technical glitches.

As the database grew to include more than 1.1 billion people  and nearly 99% of Indian adults  more private companies began to use Aadhaar to speed transactions, raising concerns about data protection and privacy.

The publication of Aadhaar numbers on unsecured websites and reported hacks of the database also fueled suspicion on whether Aadhaar could be trusted.

The Unique Identification Authority of India, the government body that oversees the program, maintained that no sensitive information was disclosed and argued in court that information collected for Aadhaar, such as addresses and birth dates, was required for other forms of ID as well, such as passports.

A woman gives her finger impressions for her Aadhaar card at a card enrollment center in Amritsar, India. (Raminder Pal Singh / EPA)

Authorities also said the data was safely stored in a complex with walls that were 13 feet high and five feet thick.

Since January, the court heard more than two dozen public-interest petitions relating to Aadhaar, one of the longest hearings in the courts history.

In a dissenting opinion, Justice D.Y. Chandrachud said that the entire program was unconstitutional, starting from its passage into law using a parliamentary procedure that bypassed the upper house of Indias bicameral parliament.

He also argued that the database violated privacy  which the court held last year was a fundamental right  and made citizens personal information vulnerable.

Constitutional guarantees cannot be left to risks posed by technological advancements, Chandrachud wrote.

Anti-Aadhaar activists expressed disappointment that the court had made Aadhaar mandatory for welfare benefits.

The court has taken away the idea that what is given in the name of welfare is a right, said legal researcher and Aadhaar critic Usha Ramanathan. This is an exercise in paternalism.

Masih is a special correspondent.The 73rd Session of the UN General Assembly could be the most-watched in history because of the policies of the Trump administration

US Representative at the United Nations Nikki Haley said this week that the UN Security Council meeting on 26 September, supposed to be chaired by US President Donald Trump, would be the most-watched Security Council session ever.

However, it seems that not only this particular session, but also the whole 73rd Session of the UN General Assembly, will be the most-watched in history as it will indicate some of the effects of the foreign policies currently being pursued by the US administration.

This General Assembly is the second attended by Trump, but what makes it different from the previous one is what the US has been doing to its allies in the meantime.

The USs Western allies are disappointed at Trumps pull-out from the Paris Agreement on climate change and the nuclear deal with Iran as well as the customs tariffs on their exports put in place by the US.

There are also other issues like the Palestinian-Israeli peace talks, the future of NATO and the NAFTA agreement, which Trump has called unfair to the United States, that Trump has said he wants to change.

There are many unhappy faces at this General Assembly meeting standing around the ever-smiling Trump.

There are also the tariff increases on Chinese imports to the US, with the general rise in US tariffs not even leaving Canada untouched.

Most of the worlds leaders have a reason to be disappointed with the US, but they still have to find a way of keeping going with this superpower and the global economy it dominates.

Perhaps many of them may be tolerating Trump as the investigation into the alleged collusion between Trumps election campaign and Russia continues. Some may privately wish to see Trumps impeachment as a way out of the current deadlock.

However, while such hopes may be expressed privately among some diplomats at the UN, in the streets of New York outside one does not hear such thoughts expressed by ordinary Americans, who do not seem to have concerns about the presidents fate.

Life continues as normal in the US even as many Americans may be tired of hearing about allegations in the press about the current administration.

Meanwhile, Trumps innovations in US foreign policy continue, whether moving the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and cutting off aid to the Palestinians as a way of putting pressure on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to sit at the negotiation table with the Israelis or pressuring the Iranians to renegotiate the Iran deal by implementing US sanctions.

None of these policies have pleased the international community, meaning the Western countries, though some of Trumps allies among the Arab states have seen an opportunity in the policies pursued by this White House to settle regional issues.

Trump is still popular among many Americans, and there is a conviction among those supporting him that he will finish his term as president despite the noises being made against him in Washington.

Yet, this may not lead to an automatic acceptance of Trumps requests of his Arab allies. Saudi Arabia has refused to increase its oil production to the level Trump had demanded, since he wants Americans to have access to cheaper fuel, as the Saudis are not in favour of Trumps plans in this regard, for example.

The Saudi goal is to see a stable international oil market, and the Saudis see the current oil price as both acceptable and realistic.

Saudi Arabias bitterness against Tehran is one story, and its oil policy is quite another. It will not manipulate it if it does not see this as being in its strategic interests even if this is something that its closest ally wishes to see happen.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said that this years UN General Assembly meetings should be focused on advancing key issues such as nuclear non-proliferation, humanitarian assistance and food security, peace and security, counter-terrorism and the reform of the United Nations.

This tells us much about how regional issues from Iran to Syria, Iraq, Yemen and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict count with Trump, and they will likely make the 73rd Session of the UN General Assembly the most-watched ever and not just the Security Council meeting on 26 September.

* A version of this article appears in print in the 27 September 2018 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: The world is watching

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Business Seuss Recruitment appoints Privatimus as exclusive pre-employment screening partner



26.09.2018 16:24:23 - Partnership gives Seuss Recruitment BV access to Privatimus global expertise in pre-employment screening for staffing solutions in the Life Sciences industry.



(live-PR.com) - HAMBURG  Seuss Recruitment BV, a recruitment partner providing recruitment solutions to the Life Sciences industry has appointed Privatimus GmbH, a German security consultancy specializing in strategic security concepts as their partner in applicant pre-employment screening. This partnership provides Seuss Recruitment access to Privatimus global expertise in comprehensive applicant background checks and verification, to assure highly qualified candidates for their - HAMBURG  Seuss Recruitment BV, a recruitment partner providing recruitment solutions to the Life Sciences industry has appointed Privatimus GmbH, a German security consultancy specializing in strategic security concepts as their partner in applicant pre-employment screening. This partnership provides Seuss Recruitment access to Privatimus global expertise in comprehensive applicant background checks and verification, to assure highly qualified candidates for their clients in the Life Sciences industry.



Pre-employment screening is already a standard procedure for hiring new employees in the USA and many other countries, with rapidly growing interest in Europe, said Sven Leidel, Partner at Privatimus. In-depth applicant checks confirming what is stated on a CV, such as duration of employment, job title, description and responsibilities, education credentials, and professional certificates are essential in reducing risks for employers during the hiring process. Statistically speaking, approximately two-thirds of all applications show inconsistencies, at various degrees of severity.



With a vast candidate network uniquely spanning both Europe and North America, Seuss Recruitment has crafted the art of modern match making in providing recruitment solutions to the Life Sciences industry, including pharmaceuticals, biotech, medical device, and nutrition industries.



Few employers will dig beneath the surface to confirm validity of information provided by the candidate, such as their expertise and qualifications, said Sabine Hutchison, CEO of Seuss Recruitment. Some cite ethical concerns and time, while many others are unsure where to begin or where digging is allowed.



This gets especially complicated in an international hiring situation. Which law applies, for example, if the employer is located in Germany, the position is in the Netherlands and the candidate is originally from Russia with work experience also in the US and UK? Now were getting into some murky legal waters, which is why an experienced professional company like Privatimus is critical for us to work with.



Areas of expertise offered by Privatimus in pre-employment screening include verification of certificates and references, comparison of the CV with accompanying documents, Open Source Intelligence, integrity tests and more. Our proven approach to candidate reviews gives Seuss Recruitments clients assurance in protecting their business interests, added Leidel. "Confidence in an applicants presentation on a CV is a starting point, but confirmation of the information is critical in hiring truly qualified employees.



Using a comprehensive background screening program with expert services from Privatimus will increase the quality of new hires, and thus our clients confidence in hiring their next new employee, concluded Hutchison. Talent acquisition can be a struggle for many businesses, and qualifying candidates with accurate information is a great portion of that struggle. New hires are costly, and we believe that much more time should be invested at the beginning of the process, to assure the most synergistic match between candidates and our clients at a global scale.



About Seuss Recruitment BV



At Seuss Recruitment, we have crafted the art of modern match making as a recruitment partner providing recruitment solutions to the Life Sciences industry, including pharmaceuticals, biotech, medical device, and nutrition industries.



We find the most synergistic fit between professionals and forward-thinking companies, with a vast candidate network uniquely spanning both Europe and North America. Via our diverse recruitment services, we create tailored solutions for different levels and phases of recruitment.



Visit Seuss Recruitment BV:



About Privatimus GmbH



We are a company with integrity and extensive expertise. Since 1993, our experts have been concentrating on servicing an exclusive clientele. With our worldwide network of experts, we support our customers nationally and internationally. In this way, we ensure that the best possible support is provided across national and cultural borders and that the business interests as well as the highly personal private interests of our customers are protected.



Visit our new theme homepage:



www.pre-employment-checks.com

clients in the Life Sciences industry.Pre-employment screening is already a standard procedure for hiring new employees in the USA and many other countries, with rapidly growing interest in Europe, said Sven Leidel, Partner at Privatimus. In-depth applicant checks confirming what is stated on a CV, such as duration of employment, job title, description and responsibilities, education credentials, and professional certificates are essential in reducing risks for employers during the hiring process. Statistically speaking, approximately two-thirds of all applications show inconsistencies, at various degrees of severity.With a vast candidate network uniquely spanning both Europe and North America, Seuss Recruitment has crafted the art of modern match making in providing recruitment solutions to the Life Sciences industry, including pharmaceuticals, biotech, medical device, and nutrition industries.Few employers will dig beneath the surface to confirm validity of information provided by the candidate, such as their expertise and qualifications, said Sabine Hutchison, CEO of Seuss Recruitment. Some cite ethical concerns and time, while many others are unsure where to begin or where digging is allowed.This gets especially complicated in an international hiring situation. Which law applies, for example, if the employer is located in Germany, the position is in the Netherlands and the candidate is originally from Russia with work experience also in the US and UK? Now were getting into some murky legal waters, which is why an experienced professional company like Privatimus is critical for us to work with.Areas of expertise offered by Privatimus in pre-employment screening include verification of certificates and references, comparison of the CV with accompanying documents, Open Source Intelligence, integrity tests and more. Our proven approach to candidate reviews gives Seuss Recruitments clients assurance in protecting their business interests, added Leidel. "Confidence in an applicants presentation on a CV is a starting point, but confirmation of the information is critical in hiring truly qualified employees.Using a comprehensive background screening program with expert services from Privatimus will increase the quality of new hires, and thus our clients confidence in hiring their next new employee, concluded Hutchison. Talent acquisition can be a struggle for many businesses, and qualifying candidates with accurate information is a great portion of that struggle. New hires are costly, and we believe that much more time should be invested at the beginning of the process, to assure the most synergistic match between candidates and our clients at a global scale.About Seuss Recruitment BVAt Seuss Recruitment, we have crafted the art of modern match making as a recruitment partner providing recruitment solutions to the Life Sciences industry, including pharmaceuticals, biotech, medical device, and nutrition industries.We find the most synergistic fit between professionals and forward-thinking companies, with a vast candidate network uniquely spanning both Europe and North America. Via our diverse recruitment services, we create tailored solutions for different levels and phases of recruitment.Visit Seuss Recruitment BV: pharma-recruitment.com/services/pre-employment-screening/ About Privatimus GmbHWe are a company with integrity and extensive expertise. Since 1993, our experts have been concentrating on servicing an exclusive clientele. With our worldwide network of experts, we support our customers nationally and internationally. In this way, we ensure that the best possible support is provided across national and cultural borders and that the business interests as well as the highly personal private interests of our customers are protected.Visit our new theme homepage: Contact information:

Privatimus GmbH







Contact Person:

Sven Leidel

Partner

Phone: +49 (0) 40 5272 12210

eMail: eMail



Web: http://https://www.privatimus.com/en/

Author:

Zeeshan Nasir

e-mail

Web: http://www.privatimus.com

Phone: 49040527212210 26.09.2018 16:24:23 -

Disclaimer: If you have any questions regarding information in this article please contact the author. Please do not contact Live-PR.com. We are not able to assist you. Live-PR.com disclaims content contained in this article. Live-PR.com is not authorized to give any information about content and not responsible for content posted by third party.Stock Market News

AAL News - Anglo American becomes latest top miner to land in Ecuador 26-09-2018 03:03



Stock News headlines are gathered from financial news sources around the web. Views and opinions on each item are from their respective authors and website. They are not opinions of LiveCharts.co.ukAn initial public offering (IPO) of some 14.5 million shares of Egypts Cairo for Investment and Real Estate Development company (CIRA) was 18.9 times oversubscribed on Tuesday, traders said.

Ten companies  five state-controlled already trading on the stock exchange and five owned by the private sector  are due to list shares by the end of the year, testing whether Egypt can withstand emerging market contagion after currency crises that rattled Turkey and Argentina last month.

CIRA last month announced it was offering nearly 207.3 million shares, representing around 37.84 percent of the company, for sale in a private and a public offering at a price of six Egyptian pounds ($0.3348) a share.

Bourse officials said that the private offering on Sunday of around 192.5 million shares was 10.6 times oversubscribed.

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A health worker in northern England has become the third person in Britain to contract a rare illness caused by a monkeypox virus after caring for a patient infected with the disease following travel to Nigeria, health officials said on Wednesday.

The latest patient had been involved in caring for another case at Blackpool Victoria Hospital before monkeypox was diagnosed, Public Health England said in a statement.

Monkeypox is a rare viral infection that does not usually spread easily from person to person. The virus is similar to human smallpox, which was eradicated in 1980. Although monkeypox is much milder than smallpox, with most infected people recovering within a few weeks, it can in rare cases be fatal.

Health officials said earlier this month that two people in Britain had been diagnosed with monkeypox in separate cases thought to be linked to travel to Nigeria, West Africa. These were the first ever cases of monkeypox in Britain.

This third case has been isolated and is being cared for in a specialist unit at Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle, northeast England, the statement said.

"This healthcare worker cared for the patient before a diagnosis of monkeypox was made," said Nick Phin of PHE's National Infection Service.

"We have been actively monitoring contacts for 21 days after exposure to detect anyone presenting with an illness so that they can be assessed quickly. It is therefore not wholly unexpected that a case has been identified.

"This person has been isolated and we are taking a highly precautionary approach to ensure that all contacts are traced," he added.

Phin had previously said the monkeypox virus was likely to be circulating in Nigeria after a large outbreak there in 2017, and could therefore affect travelers returning to Britain.

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Home > Archives (2006 on) > 2018 > Rafale Aircraft Deal: A Joint Parliamentary Committee should be Formed to (...)

The following is the press release of a statement by Dr Prem Singh, President of the Socialist Party (India).

The matter of purchase of Rafale fighter aircraft from France has consistently remained within the realm of suspicion. There are allegations that this deal is the largest defence scam so far in India. The Rs 64-crore Bofors gun scam does not stand anywhere in comparison to the Rs 1000-crore scam of the Rafale deal. It is becoming gradually evident by various facts percolating from various sources that the Prime Minister, by violating the norms/rules, has taken a risk with the countrys defence mechanism and has allowed the loot of the government exchequer for the benefit of a particular industrialist. It is also alleged that the government has made contradictory statements in this entire case and has misled Parliament. Prima facie it seems that there are lots of untoward happenings within the deal. The Modi Government does not have a satis-factory answer to the allegations. It has been trying to cover all the facts related to the deal under the cover of the 2008 secrecy provisions. The French Government is doing the same.

The previous UPA Government wanted to buy 126 Rafale aircraft from the French company, Dassault, to strengthen the Air Force. Since the Congress Government had suffered loss of face from the Bofors gun deal, it was over-cautious about this deal. Thats why, for the defence deals, the committees of Defence Ministry and concerned departments of the armies were formed. The recommendations of these committees were mandatory for making any defence deal. Under this arrangement, every defence deal used to pass through several phases. The deal of the Rafale aircraft passed through all these stages and it was decided to purchase 126 aircraft considering the need to renew the Air Forces six squadrons. The Rafale aircraft is capable of carrying nuclear weapons and it has two engines. There is also an inbuilt radar developed in the US.

At that time the governments intention was to bring the technology to the domestic industries to make them self-reliant in defence production. It held long discussions in 2012 to buy the aircraft at reasonable rates. There was a decision that every aircraft will cost Rs 670 crores and 18 aircraft will be brought directly from France, and 108 aircraft will be manufactured in the public sector undertaking, the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), with the parts brought from France. Meanwhile the government at the Centre changed. The new NDA Government continued the talks. In 2015, the CEO of Dassault, the aircraft manufacturer, came to India and stated that the talks have ended and the prices have also been confirmed. But to benefit a capitalist, it is alleged, Prime Minister Narendra Modi overturned all the procedures and conditions of the deal in just two days without taking the Air Force, the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign Ministry into confidence. In the new deal the government decided to purchase 36 aircraft instead of 126. That too at the rate of Rs 1660 crores per aircraft instead of original cost of Rs 670 crores per aircraft. Earlier it was decided that the components of the aircraft will be brought from the outside and HAL will assemble them. It is now decided that technology transfer should not be necessary. All 36 aircraft will be made by Dassault only.

Making fun of the Make-In-India slogan, a public sector company like the HAL was eliminated from the process of the deal and instead Anil Ambanis new and inexperienced company, Reliance Defence Ltd, was created to grab the deal. Reliance owner Anil Ambani constituted a joint venture with Dassault with the tacit help of the Prime Minister. It also came to light that Reliance had signed an agreement worth Rs 20 million to help French President Francois Hollendes actress partner, Julie Gayet, to produce a film.

 There was a plea by the government to justify a sudden increase of Rs 1000 crores per aircraft, stating that special type of equipments had been fitted up in the aircraft specially for the needs in India. But the utility of those equip-ments have not been certified by the Army Committees. The Socialist Party does not want to comment on the statements of Air Chief Marshal and Air Marshal, who came to the rescue of the government on this dispute. But it expresses its concern over openly taking the side of a private company instead of HAL, a public sector undertaking. The governments second plea was that it is urgent to get the aircraft right away. But what is the justification in over-turning the entire process of the deal for this? Despite the all-out overturn of the deal, the first aircraft will come from France in September 2019.

The Socialist Party believes that the truth of the Rafale aircraft deal, that has come under suspicion, should be made known to the people of the country. The first responsibility for this is with the Central Government and the Prime Minister himself. The political parties, who are part of the BJP-led government, also owe a responsibility to the nation. They should come forward to dispel the doubts and suspicions spread about this deal.

The Socialist Party demands that for a fair investigation of the entire matter, the govern-ment should immediately constitute the Joint Parliamentary Committee.The Court of Amsterdam has decided in summary proceedings that the use of trade names Local Affairs and Studio Local Affairs constitutes an infringement of the trade name Local and on the corresponding Benelux device mark.

The claimant uses the tradename Local for activities in the field of the renovation and re-development of real estate in the Randstad, a large urban area in the west of The Netherlands, and has shown sufficient evidence of these activities by means of newspaper articles, flyers and printouts from their website.

As rights on a trade name do not come to existence by the mere registration of the trade name but by doing business under a certain name in a certain territory, the claimant sufficiently showed to have established trade name rights on the trade name Local. The claimant furthermore registered Benelux trade mark rights on its Local device mark in 2012. Only last summer the claimant became aware of the plans for a new architectural firm under the trade name Studio Local Affairs in Amsterdam, also in the Randstad.

Even though the English language is commonly known by the Dutch public, Local is not considered descriptive in any way nor is it a commonly used expression in connection with the area of business of both parties. It can thus be considered distinctive. As the element Studio is commonly used for architectural firms, it is considered rather descriptive. The dominant element in Studio Local Affairs is therefore Local.

In actual use it is even likely that the element Studio will not be used. This is supported by the fact that the defendant uses the email address @localaffairs instead of @studiolocalaffairs. The addition of the element Affairs does not make the overall impression of the trade name Studio Local Affairs very different from Local.

Due to the similarities between the business of re-development of real estate and the business of an architectural firm, both active in the field of real estate, and the fact that both parties operate or intend to operate in the same geographical area, there is a danger of confusion if both trade names were to co-exist. As the claimant has shown to co-operate with architects for their re-developments as well, the parties may appear to be a co-operation or to be somehow related.

The Court has therefore honoured the claimant's claim to have the defendant cease the infringement of its trade name and decided that the defendant should cease all use of (Studio) Local Affairs as a trade name, a domain name or even in an email address. In this case there is no room for two Locals in the same locality.

As for the secondary claim based on infringement of claimant's Benelux trade mark right, the Court refers to the reasoning used in connection with the infringement on trade name Local. Since the element Local is the most distinctive and dominant element in the claimant's device mark, and the defendant intends to use a sign similar to the claimant's device mark for similar services, there is danger of confusion with the relevant public.

Denys Bertels

The material on this site is for law firms, companies and other IP specialists. It is for information only. Please read our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Notice before using the site. All material subject to strictly enforced copyright laws.  2021 Euromoney Institutional Investor PLC. For help please see our FAQs.

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Johan de Wittlaan 72517 JR The HagueThe NetherlandsTel: +31 70 416 67 11Fax: +31 70 416 67 99 info@vo.eu www.vo.euUnited Nations : French President Emmanuel Macron has said that the Rafale deal was a "government-to-government" discussion and he was not in power when the multi-billion dollar agreement for 36 fighter jets was signed between India and France. Addressing a press conference on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session, Macron was asked if the Indian government had at any point told France or Dassault - the French aerospace major - that they had to accept Reliance as the Indian partner for the Rafale deal.

India had inked an inter-governmental agreement with France in September last year for procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets at a cost of around Rs 58,000 crore, nearly one- and-half years after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the proposal during a visit to Paris. The delivery of the jets is scheduled to begin from September, 2019. "I will be very clear. It was a government-to-government discussion and I just want to refer to what Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi very clearly said a few days ago," Macron told reporters here Tuesday without elaborating.

"I don't have any other comment. I was not in charge at that time and I know that we have very clear rules," he said in his first comment on the issue. Macron, who assumed the presidency in May last year, emphasised that this is a government-to-government discussion and "this contract is part of a broader framework which is military and defence" coalition between India and France.Egyptian writer and economist Galal Amin died Tuesday 25 September at the age of 83 after a battle with illness, his family announced.

Galal, who was born in 1935, was best known for his books Whatever Happened to the Egyptians? (2000), Whatever Else Happened to the Egyptians? (2003), Egypt in the Era of Hosni Mubarak (2011), and The Illusion of Progress in the Arab World (2006).

Galal Amin was the son of Egyptian jurist and academic Ahmed Amin, who was an academic rival of one of Egypt's most famous writers of all time, Tahah Hussein.

Amin graduated from Cairo University in 1955 with a law degree, before traveling to Britain to continue his studies at the London School of Economics. He returned to Egypt in the mid 1960s to teach at Ain Shams University, and later American University in Cairo.

Amin was a vehement critic of the former President of Egypt Hosni Mubarak, and was regarded as a prominent opposition figure during his rule, particularly in the final ten years.

In 2012, he published his book "Whatever Happened to the Egyptian Revolution?", which tracked corruption in the Egyptian economy during the rule of ousted President Hosni Mubarak, analysing the reasons behind Egypt's economic collapse, which gravely affected the poor and middle class and paved the way to revolution.

In a public event in 2012 at Cairo international Book Fair, Amin told the audience: "Poverty in Egypt changed its form under Mubarak," explaining that before 1952, "the poor lived in terrible conditions, many without shoes, but at least had a sense of contentment because they believed nothing could be done and everything was decided by fate. Under Mubarak, the poor are better dressed but suffer a deep sense of humiliation and see that their ambitions for a better life are not being met, despite better education. Thanks to television, everyone understands their deficiency and feels more excluded."

Amin was a strong supporter of the 25 January revolution, and believed that the revolution's main achievement was to reinvigorate people's involvement in politics and public affairs.

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5 Weirdly Lucrative Businesses

Nobody doubts that CEOs make a lot of money but most would imagine that companies dedicated to luxury are the ones that make the biggest profits. However, it seems that this is not entirely true, as many businesses that net a high gain are not really what you would describe as glamorous. Let's take a look at five businesses that make their owners rich despite their weird nature.









Pooper Scooper

People love their pets but their pets' waste is another thing! Pooper scooper businesses have been on the rise because owners have shown themselves to be willing to pay for pet-related waste removal and are able to afford it. More and more people are spending more on their pets, so this industry is worth billions at the moment, according to the American Pet Products Association. The businesses might collect and remove the waste from private residences or areas and institutions that deal with pets, like a kernel or a dog park. This business deals with an area of life most people would rather avoid and that makes it profitable!

Animal Control

The pooper scooper businesses are not the only ones making a profit thanks to animals! Animal control specialists suggest such businesses have a wider scope and that only makes them quite profitable. Animal control deals with removing animals from properties and also working to improve the conditions for animal life. Few people want to deal with a rat or skunk infestation on their own and most lack the equipment and resources to do so safely. Another unwanted animal-related business can make quite a profit thanks to the aversion most people feel towards pests.



Crab Fishing

Continuing the trends of animal-related businesses, there is the crab fishing industry. This industry is making quite a lot of money, and even individual crab fishermen can expect to catch a big profit. Doing the fishing itself involves a lot of risk and harsh living conditions but the pay is good for those who catch crabs and those who oversee the process.





Septic Tank Businesses

While animals and animal waste are a business on its own, septic tanks are another profitable industry. Septic tank businesses deal with another side of life people would rather not get involved with and, for that, they are able to rake in a big amount of dough. In this case, it helps that the government is also interested in these services. In 2016, the government spent over $50 million on these services and awarded over 3 thousand contracts with close to $100 thousand per company.



Construction

Construction is, perhaps, the least bizarre of these businesses but it sure comes with its set of problems. Construction involves a significant amount of risk, work, planning, and danger not only for one's finances but also for one's health, depending on how involved one likes to be in the day-to-day operations of their company. Construction involves a lot of materials, heavy labor, dangerous machinery, and, on the business end of things, a significant amount of financial risk due to problems with the market. However, for someone who knows how to play their cards right, construction can pay very well.





While few people dream of scooping poop or fishing for crabs, these businesses can be quite profitable. A lot of their profits are associated with the fact that few want to get involved in these fields but that makes the profits much larger for those who are willing to get their hands a little dirty.

By Dylan M.

 2018 Copyright Dylan M. - All Rights Reserved Disclaimer: The above is a matter of opinion provided for general information purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. Information and analysis above are derived from sources and utilising methods believed to be reliable, but we cannot accept responsibility for any losses you may incur as a result of this analysis. Individuals should consult with their personal financial advisors.

 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.



Americas Fastest-Growing Stocks Have This One Thing in Common

I call them autopilot stocks.



Do you know many of Americas fastest-growing businesses are built on one key principle?



Im talking about disruptors like Amazon (AMZN). Thirteen years ago, it launched its Prime delivery service. Today, there are nearly as many Prime subscribers as there are full-time workers in America.



Or the recently IPOd Spotify (SPOT). Eighty-five million people listen to music on its innovative app.





Or Netflix (NFLX). 45% of all American households now subscribe to its video service.Selling subscriptions is a wonderful business model. Instead of charging a one-time fee, a subscription business collects constant streams of cash from customers.Think about this: More than 57 million Americans have agreed to let Netflix take $10.99 directly from their bank accounts every single month.This is an incredible financial advantage. No other business model can match the big, predictable cash flows that a well-run subscription business can generate.Netflixs monthly charge is small enough that many folks barely notice it. Yet since 2013, it has added up to $37 billion in revenue propelling Netflix to a 2,600% gain.Of course, subscription services are nothing new. But theyre exploding lately thanks to cloud computing As a refresher, the cloud gives businesses cheap access to powerful supercomputers. Businesses can now utilize Amazons servers, for example, for a fraction of the price of buying their own.This may not sound like a big deal. But in fact, cloud computing has unleashed a whole new class of subscription-based businesses. I call these autopilot stocksbecause they rake in cash month after month, as if on autopilot.Wait until you see the huge gains theyre achieving...Consider Adobe Systems (ADBE). Its PDF files are the standard way to view most documents online. It also makes the image editing software Photoshop.Practically everyone with a job has used Adobes software. Yet from 2007 to 2012, its business stagnated. Sales stopped growing, and its stock was dead money from 2000 to 2012.Like most other software companies, Adobe sold its computer programs on physical CDs. But in 2012, it made a change.It decided to stop selling one-off products and began selling subscriptionsto its computer programs. Instead of selling CDs, it asked customers for $30 a month to access its programs on the cloud.Since then, Adobe has exploded for an 830% gain and counting:Prior to the cloud, Adobe had to persuade customers to buy an updated physical CD every few years. Now customers pay $30/month automatically, every month, unless they cancel their subscription.Switching to a subscription model was like a shot of adrenaline right into Adobes veins. Its net profit has surged 170% in the past five years. And its net profit margin has jumped from 19% to 25%. Adobes profits are growing faster than ever today.Ever use TurboTax to file your tax returns? Or QuickBooks to keep your finances straight? Intuit makes both products.Just like Adobe, Intuit used to sell physical CDs. As you probably know, tax and accounting rules change all the time. So every year, accountants and tax preparers had to buy a whole new set of CDs to keep up with the new laws.And as you can imagine, this cost Intuit billions of dollars. Every year it had to pay for shelf space to manufacture CDs to ship CDs to design packaging. Not to mention, it had to hope customers wouldnt switch to a competitor's cheaper software each year.From 20062009, Intuits revenue climbed 35%. But because it was dumping so much cash into operating costs, its net profit rose only 14%.Then in 2014, it launched a cloud-based version of QuickBooks and began offering a subscription option. Since then it has handed investors a 190% gain:YouTube could be the next mega-hit subscription business.It is owned by Alphabet (GOOGformerly known as Google).YouTube makes most of its money selling ads. But its just starting to dip its toe into the subscription waters. It launched YouTube Premium earlier this year, which includes ad-free viewing.This could be the beginning of something really big. You see, YouTubes user base is mind-bogglingly huge1.9 billion people use it every month. Thats more than one in every four people on planet earth! And its 15x larger than Netflixs celebrated subscriber count.If YouTube can convert just 5% of these users to Premium at $11.99 per month itll earn $13.7 billion a year. With that kind of revenue YouTube could easily be a $150 billion company on its own.Yet because YouTube is tucked inside GOOG, investors dont pay it much attention. A few weeks ago, I explained how its self-driving Waymo cars are light-years ahead of the competition . Longer term, I think Waymo could be a subscription service, too. Ridesharing services Uber and Lyft are already experimenting with this model.Can you imagine the profits to be made by combining self-driving cars with the superior economics of a subscription model?I want to own Google stock. But its still a bit expensive, so I havent bought it yet. As I mentioned a few weeks ago , Im waiting for it to dip to around $1,050/share.

By Stephen McBride

http://www.riskhedge.com

 2018 Copyright Stephen McBride - All Rights Reserved Disclaimer: The above is a matter of opinion provided for general information purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. Information and analysis above are derived from sources and utilising methods believed to be reliable, but we cannot accept responsibility for any losses you may incur as a result of this analysis. Individuals should consult with their personal financial advisors.

 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.



Labour Party Chancellor, John McDonnell, set a confident tone in his speech to the 2018 Labour conference. Whereas shadow chancellors normally address conference to dampen expectations, John stated he would do the opposite, because the greater the mess we inherit, the more radical we have to be.

The capitalist system is indeed in a deep crisis, which cannot be solved with moderate policies. Instead, something truly radical is needed: the socialist transformation of society!

The question is, how radical does McDonnell plan to be?

John began by approvingly quoting from Labour's original Clause IV (removed by Tony Blair in 1997), that Labour must:

"Secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange."

McDonnell correctly pointed out that, although this demand is exactly 100 years old, it is more relevant than ever. This is brilliant stuff. We would like to invite John to openly back the Labour4Clause4 campaign, which aims to restore Clause IV to the Labour Party constitution.

Shadow Chancellor @johnmcdonnellMP at #Lab18 "the principles of Clause 4 are as relevant now as they were back then [in 191]" pic.twitter.com/qQXHLaP1G2  Jorge Martin (@marxistJorge) September 26, 2018

The rest of the speech saw John explaining what he means by this. He said that Clause IV is about delivering democratic, collective solutions to society, in particular by extending democratic rights to the workplace.

We welcome his announcement that trade union rights would apply to all workers from day one of employment  whether they be temporary, part-time, or full-time and permanent. We argue that a Labour government should completely abolish all the anti-trade union laws so that workers can struggle unimpeded.

Workers control

But whilst his speech contained this important step forwards, it was also clear from some of the details given that McDonnells plans are not radical enough.

McDonnell embracing Clause IV is a welcome step forward, but his proposals for nationalisation are not radical enough. We must expropriate the fat cats! / Image: public domain

John spent a lot of time explaining that by workplace democracy, he meant such measures as giving workers one-third of the seats on the board of the company, and also that a portion of shares would have to be transferred to an inclusive ownership fund. This would pay out dividends to the companys workers, with another portion transferred to the government to be paid into public services as a social dividend. In essence, this means taxing businesses more.

The rationale for this, according to John, is that employee ownership increases productivity and improves long-term decision making. But whether or not this is true is not the point. If the company remains in the market and is not nationalised, then the workers decisions are inevitably determined by the laws of the capitalist market: the need to make a profit and out-compete others in order to produce big dividend payments. All the problems of the market  its anarchy of periodic crises and mass unemployment  would remain.

If we want the improved decision making of workers to benefit society as a whole, then these companies must be publicly owned, put under workers control, and incorporated into an overall socialist economic plan.

No compensation to the fat cats!

Clause IVs centrepiece is public ownership of the means of production. We enthusiastically welcome Johns statement in his speech that Labour will bring water, rail, energy and Royal Mail back into public ownership.

John made the important point that this nationalisation must not be the same as that of the past  that is, managed by faceless Whitehall bureaucrats. The implication was that the workers and society as a whole would decide, democratically, how these public services are run. But this was not specified. Instead, only a vague plan of action was offered.

How are these important sectors to be nationalised, and when? We say that no compensation should be paid to these fat-cats, who, as John himself stated, have received more in tax credits than they have paid in tax since privatisation! We say that they should be nationalised immediately and with no compensation!

The pendulum swings

Quite rightly, John said that the past period has been one in which the balance of power has swung decisively in favour of the employers. For workers, this has meant longer working hours, fewer rights, zero-hour contracts and chronic insecurity. He said the pendulum now needs to swing back in favour of the workers. Absolutely right!

In this respect, we must also applaud McDonnell's promise that a Labour government would set a real living wage of 10 an hour. If implemented, this would provide an enormous boost to the lives of millions of low-paid, precarious workers.

The workers are more powerful than the capitalists, but only if they realise this and unite and fight for the socialist transformation of society / Image: public domain

But this demand raises the question of how a Labour government could ensure that the bosses pay up and give workers what is legally required. Already, there are plenty of cases in recent years of the capitalists stripping back lunch breaks, holiday pay, and so on, in order to get around the costs of a higher minimum wage.

A capitalist society is inherently one in which the employers hold power. Even in the post-war period  in which the welfare state was built and when inequality was lower  the capitalists remained far more powerful than the workers. That is why they were able to use the state to overturn things and begin privatisation and deregulation.

The workers are more powerful than the capitalists, but only if they realise this and unite and fight for the socialist transformation of society.

Lessons of history

The programme John spelled out is a welcome step forwards and more radical than anything weve seen in British politics for a very long time. But it is not so radical as to propose the abolition of capitalism.

The lesson of history is that if we stop short of really giving the working class power  on the basis of the common ownership of the means of production  then the capitalists will use their economic power to sabotage and reverse the gains of any Labour government.

John joked that hes got tips on how to handle... being called a Marxist. The only way to handle that is by embracing Marxist ideas as the only real and lasting solution to the problems faced by the working class. After all, the greater the mess we inherit, the more radical we have to be.On 3 August, Alberto Garzon, the leader of the Spanish United Left (Izqierda Unida, or I.U.) posted an article entitled "Is Marxism a scientific method?" Under the guise of presenting a 'scientific' critique, Garzon was preparing a break with Marxism. Like every revisionist in history, he disguises this break with the excuse of 'modifying' the ideas of Marx. In reality, he was jumping on the bandwagon of those 'left' leaders who are making a dash for the 'centre ground'.

In their haste to present themselves in a more modern and moderate light, they cast off the theoretical baggage of the past, which they regard as an encumbrance, whereas in fact it is a necessary compass that leads the movement to the correct path.

Alberto Arregui is a member of the Federal Coordinating Committee of the IU. Together with Alan Woods, the political editor of marxist.com, he has produced a detailed reply to the arguments of Garzon. This was published by Cuarto Poder (in parts one, two and three): a daily internet publication that is widely read by the Spanish left. It has caused quite a stir.

We published the reply for the information of our readers, and we invite you to give it the widest circulation.

Alan Woods

The left, and not only in Spain, finds itself in a state of bewilderment before a self-evident paradox: capitalism, the economic system from which has arisen the destructive exploitation of nature and human labour, is passing through what is possibly the most serious global crisis in its entire history. It would seem logical that, in such a moment, an anti-capitalist alternative should be strengthened, since the need for socialism has never been more clearly demonstrated in the whole of history.

Despite this, the main political formations of the left have proved incapable of taking advantage of these favourable conditions and are now plunged in a series of internal struggles, trying to discover who to blame for their failure. Greece is a case in point, but so is the case of Spain, where the experience of the last decade has served to expose the illusory nature of the democratic transition.

It is, of course, the duty of any activist, and not only of the leadership, to attempt to understand the world in which we live and to overcome its self-evident deficiencies in practice. Comrade Alberto Garzon has approached this task, attempting to discover the source of these failures. However, in order to obtain a satisfactory answer, it is first necessary to formulate a satisfactory question; and in order to find something, one has to look in the right places. We very much fear that, by jumping on the bandwagon of the host of professors, parliamentarians and intellectuals engaged in their never-ending efforts to supersede Marxism, he has mistaken both the question to be asked and the places to look. He therefore runs the risk of failing to see the wood from the trees and to analyse his own responsibility, that of the leadership of the United Left on his watch, and of the left as a whole.

Alberto Garzon appears to be sliding onto a slippery slope that, rather than correcting the ideas of Marx and Engels, can lead to a total break with Marxism / Image: Flickr, sevillareport

We believe that our most pressing task is not to discover deficiencies in the writings of Marx and Engels (and exchange them for nothing whatsoever), but to establish the basis for the realisation of socialism. One of the things that unites all the intellectual quacks who serve the interests of the bourgeoisie everywhere, is the constant declaration that Marxism is dead, or at least has been left far behind. Alberto Garzon, in his article, which carries the promising title of Is Marxism a scientific method? appears to be sliding onto a slippery slope that, rather than correcting the ideas of Marx and Engels, can lead to a total break with Marxism.

The comrade writes:

Marxism is not, to sum up, the key that opens all doors. Marxism is rather a humble instrument for the analysis of society and also for political practice.

To the best of our knowledge, nobody has ever claimed that Marxism is the key that opens all doors. But it is most definitely the only consistently revolutionary theory that provides us with a powerful tool for understanding capitalist society, and therefore preparing the ground for its revolutionary overthrow. If that is what Alberto means to say, then we agree with him. Nevertheless, the entire content of his article leads us to the opposite conclusion.

Garzon refers in an ironic tone to sacred scriptures and the altar of Marxian orthodoxy, and other such commonplaces, thereby presenting himself as a courageous innovator engaged in a struggle against ideas that have become ossified into a kind of religion that does not admit any modification or questioning.

Marxism, in our firm opinion, is indeed scientific socialism (without inverted commas) and therefore very far from any kind of religion. It is based on a rigorous scientific method (dialectical materialism) and a scientific interpretation of history (historical materialism).

Like any scientific theory, Marxism can be modified, added to and changed in the light of recent discoveries. But if one examines the fundamental ideas put forward by Marx and Engels, what is surprising is just how little has had to be changed in the course of the last 150 years. This fact is itself a striking indication of the robustness and vitality of Marxism.

Let us submit this claim to a little test. If we go to a library and take out any bourgeois book on sociology, economics or politics written 150 years ago, it will immediately become obvious that this book is merely of historical interest  its application to modern conditions, next to zero. But if we open the pages of the Communist Manifesto, written by two young men in 1847, Marx and Engels, we will find a most astonishing description and analysis, not of the world of 1847, but of the world in which we live today.

The vitality of Marxism

This fact has been noted in recent times by people who have no connection with Marxism, or indeed are hostile to it. Even the official newspaper of the Vatican, LOsservatore Romano, published an article in 2009 praising Marxist analysis of the inequality of incomes, which is a rather surprising recognition of the man who declared religion to be the opium of the people. Capital is now a best-seller in Germany, while in Japan it has been published in a manga format.

Marx and Engels' words retain all of their relevance today / Image: Flickr, IISG

George Magnus, one of the main economic analysts of the UBS bank, wrote an article with the intriguing title, Give Karl Marx a chance to save the world economy. Switzerland-based UBS is a pillar of the financial establishment, with offices in more than 50 countries and over $2tn in assets. Yet in an essay for Bloomberg View, Magnus wrote that todays global economy bears some uncanny resemblances to what Marx foresaw. In his article, he starts by describing policymakers struggling to understand the barrage of financial panics, protests and other ills afflicting the world and suggests that they would do well to study the works of a long-dead economist, Karl Marx:

Consider, for example, Marxs prediction of how the inherent conflict between capital and labor would manifest itself. As he wrote in Das Kapital, companies pursuit of profits and productivity would naturally lead them to need fewer and fewer workers, creating an industrial reserve army of the poor and unemployed: Accumulation of wealth at one pole is, therefore, at the same time accumulation of misery.

He continues:

The process he [Marx] describes is visible throughout the developed world, particularly in the U.S. Companies efforts to cut costs and avoid hiring have boosted U.S. corporate profits as a share of total economic output to the highest level in more than six decades, while the unemployment rate stands at 9.1 percent and real wages are stagnant. U.S. income inequality, meanwhile, is by some measures close to its highest level since the 1920s. Before 2008, the income disparity was obscured by factors such as easy credit, which allowed poor households to enjoy a more affluent lifestyle. Now the problem is coming home to roost.

The Wall Street Journal published an interview with the well-known economist Dr. Nouriel Roubini, who argues that the chain of credit is broken, and that capitalism has entered into a vicious cycle where excess capacity (overproduction), falling consumer demand and high levels of debt, all breed a lack of confidence in investors that in turn will be reflected in sharp falls on the stock exchange, falling asset prices and a collapse in the real economy.

Like all the other economists, Roubini has no real solution for the present crisis except more injections of liquidity by the central banks in order to avoid a collapse. His conclusions could scarcely be more pessimistic:

Karl Marx got it right, at some point capitalism can destroy itself. We thought markets worked. Theyre not working.

The most serious bourgeois economists, particularly since the crisis of 2008, have become increasingly interested in the theories of Marx and Engels. It is therefore ironic that, in this very same period, a growing number of people on the left have decided to throw Marxism overboard. Alberto Garzon runs the risk of joining this camp.

The poverty of Popperism

Although he tries to conceal his abandonment of Marxism by all manner of peculiar circumlocutions, asking questions but giving no clear answers, the thrust of his argument is very clear: Marxism is out of date and no longer serves even as a method of analysis. We must, therefore, find an alternative. But what alternative does he propose?

Comrade Garzon says he is opposed to quoting dead authors to see if our current thoughts fit their words. By dead authors, he clearly refers to Marx and Engels. But then he goes on to quote with approval the words of Karl Popper who regrettably passed away in the year of our Lord 1994, and is therefore precisely a dead author, whom we are told should not be quoted.

Karl Popper (whom Garzon cites) collaborated with arch-reactionaries like Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman / Image: Lucinda Douglas Menzies

The choice of Karl Popper as a point of reference for the so-called philosophy of science is doubly unfortunate in view of the fact that he devoted almost his entire life to vilifying Marxism, communism and socialism. He was a fanatical defender of so-called liberal democracy, i.e. capitalism.

Popper collaborated actively with other arch-reactionary advocates of the free market economy like Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman. His most famous books, The Poverty of Historicism and The Open Society and its Enemies, are libellous attacks against socialism in general and Marxism in particular.

It is frankly incredible that a responsible leader of the Spanish Left can seriously take this reactionary philosopher as the starting point for his argument against historicism, i.e. against Marxism itself. As far as Poppers theoretical pretensions are concerned, these cannot be taken seriously. He proclaimed himself as High Priest of an alleged philosophy of Science. But his attempt to establish an arbitrary definition for what is, and what is not, science (the falsifiability theory) has been comprehensively demolished and is regarded with contempt by most scientists today.

We take the liberty to point out that Poppers absurd theories not only reject Marxism but also the ideas of Charles Darwin, Einstein and modern genetics. Popper stated that Darwinism is not a testable scientific theory, but a metaphysical research programa possible framework for testable scientific theories, and almost tautological. One might add that these false arguments have been utilised by the reactionary right in the USA to defend the ideas of Creationism.

Is Marxism out of date?

Alberto says We cannot forget that Marx and Engels were children of their time. Indeed they were. As were Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Napoleon, Julius Caesar and Jesus Christ. To state this is to state the obvious. But what is meant by this statement? The argument is put forward that Marx and Engels were, to quote comrade Garzon, products of their time. That is a sly way of saying that they are products of the 19th century, therefore old-fashioned, hopelessly out of date and irrelevant to the 21st century. They provide old ideas, whereas what is required in the 21st century are new views.

But wait a minute, comrade Garzon!

An idea is not necessarily false for being old. In the fairy story of Aladdin the wizard promised new lamps for old. A foolish young lady took him at his word and thereby parted with a fortune. She discovered the hard way that new lamps are not necessarily better than old ones, and people hawking such new products in the streets are to be definitely avoided.

Let us take another example. The wheel has been around for many thousands of years and despite its advanced age still functions tolerably well. What would we think about somebody who protested that it was time to dispense with the old wheel and invent a new one, which would obviously be much better for the fact of being new. What shape would this new wheel have? Would it be square, rectangular or octagonal? Whatever the shape, one could be absolutely certain that it would not carry us a single step further.

We wish to make it clear that we do not have a closed mind to new ideas, on the condition that their superiority is proved to us. Let us make an offer to comrade Garzon: if you are able to show us a set of ideas that offers a better explanation than Marxism of the present crisis of capitalism and which offers us a better alternative, we promise to abandon Marxism and embrace the new theory with every enthusiasm.

The problem is that, up to the present day, the critics of Marxism have never been capable of offering anything of the sort. Nor have they been able to explain what these new ideas of theirs really consist of. As a matter of fact, the ideas of Marx and Engels are a thousand times more relevant and correct today than when they were first put forward. The Communist Manifesto is the most contemporary document that one can read. Let us quote just two examples to illustrate the point.

There are two alternatives before the human race: socialism or barbarism. In modern conditions perhaps we ought to modify that to socialism, or the destruction of life on Earth / Image: Adam Jones

Nowadays, globalisation is considered to be a recent phenomenon. Yet it was explained and predicted in the pages of the Manifesto, 150 years before it existed. Marx and Engels explained how capitalism first creates the nation state as a means of developing the productive forces, but the development of the latter outstrips the narrow limits of the nation state, creating a world market. The crushing domination of the world market is the most striking feature of the world we live in.

In recent decades, bourgeois economists assured us that Marx was wrong when he predicted a growing polarisation between rich and poor, and an enormous concentration of wealth and power in a few hands. In Marxs day, there was very little empirical evidence to prove this. Capitalism only existed to any extent in England, and even there, large-scale industry had not yet developed. What is the position today?

The argument of the bourgeois economists that small is beautiful has most certainly been falsified by history. It is a prediction that is in flagrant contradiction with present-day reality. Today, the entire world economy is in the hands of no more than 200 gigantic multinational companies, most of them based in the United States of America.

A mere 147 giant corporations make up a super-entity that controls 40 percent of the worlds wealth. These megacorporations are the real rulers of the world economy. The 10 biggest multinationals, including Walmart, Apple and Shell, earn more money than the majority of the countries of the world combined. The value of the 10 main companies amounts to $285tn, which is greater than the $280tn that constitutes the wealth of the last 180 countries, including Ireland, Indonesia, Israel, Colombia, Greece, South Africa, Iraq and Vietnam.

If one of the requirements of a correct theory is its ability to make accurate predictions, then these very bold and striking predictions have been entirely confirmed by subsequent history.

Referring to the founders of scientific socialism, Alberto Garzon tells us, although it is impossible to know what sources he is using, that both authors believed that the future of society was predetermined. With a certain reluctance, the leader of United Left adds that they claimed that capitalism was pregnant with socialism. This statement is in itself an admission of a rejection of dialectical thought, not understanding that socialism is an historical necessity.

The only way to overcome capitalism in a progressive manner is socialism, but it is the only tendency that it carries in its womb. The internal contradictions are not subject to a predetermined outcome. Perhaps it would be easier for comrade Garzon to understand that pregnancy is a tendency, the preferred result of which is the growth of the foetus and a healthy birth. But there are other possibilities since other forces are at work in nature and in the human body, including those which we regard as accidental factors, that can result in a miscarriage, for example. If the comrade would pay attention to Marx and Engels, then he would know that they also considered the possibility of the mutual destruction of the contending forces. To give a simple example, an acorn can be said to be pregnant with an oak tree, but there exist many possibilities that this magnificent tree will never come into being: some animal might swallow it, without even realising that it has interrupted a dialectical process

History knows a descending line as well as an ascending one. We see this clearly in what happened after the collapse of the Roman Empire. Marx and Engels explained that there are two alternatives before the human race: socialism or barbarism. In modern conditions perhaps we ought to modify that celebrated phrase: the alternatives before humanity are socialism or the destruction of life on Earth. And the result, as ever, will depend on the class struggle.

Is Marxism a scientific method?

Comrade Garzon, blindly following in the footsteps of Karl Popper, wants to exclude Marxism as a scientific method. But Popper's attempt to establish an arbitrary definition of what science is does not correspond to the real world. No scientist feels the need to receive a certificate signed by Mr. Popper in order to continue doing scientific work. Neither do Marxists need a certificate from any living author to continue practising scientific socialism.

It is true that there are sciences, and there are sciences. Some are more exact than others. An astronomer can predict what the precise location of a star or a galaxy will be millions of years from now with absolute certainty. On the other hand, a geologist can be absolutely certain that there will be an earthquake in a certain place, but to this day it is impossible to predict with certainty when an earthquake is going to happen, which does not prevent the majority of people from recognising geology as a science.

Medicine can also be included as a science, although a doctors predictions cannot have the same character as those of an astronomer. A doctor makes a diagnosis based, on the one hand, on his or her knowledge of pathology and similar case studies, on the other, based on the observable symptoms in a specific case. A patient may complain of stomach problems. The doctor (we assume that he or she is qualified and efficient) has to decide if it is a colic, an ulcer, a cancer, etc. Even the most qualified doctor can make a wrong diagnosis. But these errors cannot be used as an excuse to deny the scientific character of medicine.

In the case of psychology, the situation is even more complicated, being a science that is still in its infancy. And when we get to the social sciences, matters get even more complicated, not only because it involves an immense amount of changing factors, but also because the interests of antagonistic classes come into play.

Trotsky: In the eyes of a philistine a revolutionary point of view is virtually equivalent to an absence of scientific objectivity. We think just the opposite: only a revolutionist  provided, of course, that he is equipped with the scientific method  is capable of laying bare the objective dynamics of the revolution." / Image: public domain

It is not difficult to understand that the mask of false academic objectivity serves to conceal the crude reality of a defence of the interests of the bourgeoisie. In contrast to the hypocritical pseudo-objectivity of academic historians, Marxists openly espouse the cause of the working class and socialist revolution.

But does this mean that Marxists cannot approach questions in an objective manner? Is there a contradiction between having a passionate interest in changing society and at the same time being capable of an objective appraisal of historical events and the role of individuals in the historical process? The answer was given by the great Russian Marxist, Leon Trotsky:

In the eyes of a philistine a revolutionary point of view is virtually equivalent to an absence of scientific objectivity. We think just the opposite: only a revolutionist  provided, of course, that he is equipped with the scientific method  is capable of laying bare the objective dynamics of the revolution. Apprehending thought in general is not contemplative, but active. The element of will is indispensable for penetrating the secrets of nature and society. Just as a surgeon, on whose scalpel a human life depends, distinguishes with extreme care between the various tissues of an organism, so a revolutionist, if he has a serious attitude toward his task, is obliged with strict conscientiousness to analyse the structure of society, its functions and reflexes. (Trotsky, The Chinese Revolution, 1938.)

Engels as a scientist

Comrade Garzon will doubtless remind us that the contents of Engels famous book The Dialectics of Nature are a reflexion of the science of the 19th century. In reality, however, Engels was far in advance of the science of his time. He was extremely critical of the mechanistic theories that dominated Newtonian physics. His criticisms were completely corroborated by the discoveries of quantum mechanics and relativity theory at the beginning of the 20th century.

Engels was not a professional scientist, but had a fairly extensive knowledge of the natural sciences of his time. However, based on a deep understanding of the dialectical method of analysis, Engels made a number of contributions to the philosophical interpretation of science that fully retain their importance today, although they have remained unknown to the overwhelming majority of scientists.

In fact, modern science furnishes us with far more proof of the correctness of dialectics than the examples that were available to Engels. In particular, the new field of chaos theory and its derivatives provides a striking proof of Engelss statement that, in the last analysis, nature works dialectically. The dialectical law of the transformation of quantity into quality lies at the heart of chaos theory, and is absolutely fundamental to the study of phase transitions, a most important area of modern physics.

Engels made a number of contributions to the philosophical interpretation of science that fully retain their importance today / Image: public domain

In his book Ubiquity, the American scientist, Mark Buchanan, points out that phenomena as diverse as heart attacks, avalanches, forest fires, the rise and fall of animal populations, stock exchange crises, the movement of traffic, and even revolutions in art and fashion are all governed by the same law, which can be expressed as a mathematical equation known as a power law. This is actually the law of the transformation of quantity into quality.

What about materialism? The materialist method is fundamental to all science. Every attempt to substitute materialism for idealism in the field of science has led to mistake after mistake. This is particularly the case in the study of human origins, which for over a century was hampered by the idealist prejudices of paleontologists, who were looking for the fossil of a human ancestor with a large brain.

They never found it, but were taken in by a fraudster who invented the so-called Piltdown man, which turned out to be a human skull to which the jawbone of an ape had been attached. Scientists believed this fraud because it coincided with their idealist prejudices. But Engels had explained in advance that it was not the brain that created the hand, but the hand that created the brain.

This is what the renowned American scientist Stephen Jay Gould wrote about Engels:

Indeed, the nineteenth century produced a brilliant expose from a source that will no doubt surprise most readers  Friedrich Engels In 1876, Engels wrote an essay entitled, The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man. It was published posthumously in 1896 and, unfortunately, had no visible impact upon Western science The importance of Engelss essay lies, not in its substantive conclusions, but in its trenchant political analysis of why Western science was so hung up on the a priori assertion of cerebral primacy The importance of Engelss essay does not lie in the happy result that Australopithecus confirmed a specific theory proposed by him  via Haeckel  but rather in his perceptive analysis of the political role of science and of the social biases that must affect all thought. Indeed, Engelss theme of the separation of head and hand has done much to set and limit the course of science throughout history Even today, pure researchers tend to disparage the practical, and terms such as aggie school and cow college are heard with distressing frequency in academic circles. If we took Engelss message to heart and recognised our belief in the inherent superiority of pure research for what it is  namely social prejudice  then we might forge among scientists the union between theory and practice that a world teetering dangerously near the brink so desperately needs. (Stephen Jay Gould, Ever Since Darwin, pp. 210-213.)

Goulds fulsome tribute to Engels is a sufficient answer to the nonsense of Karl Popper and everyone else who tries to discredit Marxism by attacking its philosophical basis, dialectical materialism.

Capitalism in a dead end

At the present juncture, capitalism finds itself in a deep crisis. As a socio-economic system, it has long since exhausted any potential for carrying humankind forward.

When a social system enters into terminal crisis, this finds its reflection not only in a failure to develop the productive forces, but also in other fields: culture, art, morality, philosophy, etc.

In the past, when the bourgeoisie was still capable of playing a progressive role, it had a coherent ideology and philosophy. Liberalism presented the capitalist system (the free market economy) as the only possible system, a system that guaranteed progress and constant advances. Today was better than yesterday, and tomorrow would be better than today.

Capitalism finds itself in a deep crisis. As a socio-economic system, it has long since exhausted any potential for carrying humankind forward / Image: Flickr, KOREphotos

After the fall of the Soviet Union, this beautiful vision received a powerful new impulse. Francis Fukuyama proclaimed the end of history. Socialism was alleged to have failed, capitalism was the only possible system. The future would be one of peace and prosperity for all.

25 years later, not one stone upon another is left of these comforting illusions. For 10 years, governments and economists have struggled to pull the system out of the crisis, without any signs of success. The bourgeoisie and its ideological defenders are filled with pessimism about the future. They have no answers to the crisis of their system.

This pessimism finds its reflection in philosophy. Instead of admitting honestly that on the basis of the present system no progress is possible, so-called postmodernism assures us that progress in general does not exist. History cannot be understood, except as a series of accidents. Similarly, ideology cannot exist, for the simple reason that the bourgeoisie itself has run out of ideas.

Clarity, not confusion!

It gives us no pleasure to say this, but comrade Garzons article, far from clarifying the questions it deals with is full of confusion from the first line to the last. It attempts to demolish Marxism, without actually admitting to that intention, or perhaps because Garzon is not even conscious of it.

He fails to make the slightest dent in Marxism, because he never deals seriously with the subject. Instead, he constructs a scarecrow in order to push it over. That is really not a very hard thing to do, and it does not serve to clarify anything or raise the political understanding of members of the United Left. This is doubly unfortunate, because at the present time what is required in order to unite the Left on a sound basis is precisely clarity.

The crisis of capitalism has produced a growing revolt in society. We saw this in the mass demonstrations and strikes for women's rights on 8 March, of pensioners demanding their rights and, before that, in the democratic rebellion of the people of Catalonia.

Everywhere we see the same discontent, anger, rage, and above all frustration  a frustration that is directed to a large extent at the leaders of the Left and the trade unions who, instead of providing the movement with the necessary programme, ideas and organisation, have systematically disappointed the masses and their own members.

Comrade Garzon should not see Marxism as heavy baggage left over from the past, which we would do well to throw off our backs. Marxism is not an onerous load that impedes our progress. Rather it is a compass that is absolutely necessary for us to find the right road. Without the aid of such a compass, we will necessarily lose ourselves in a morass of incorrect and contradictory ideas. We should not allow ourselves to be tempted to fall into a kind of dilettante eclecticism, accepting a quarter or half of Marxism while rejecting the rest, amputating it so as to reduce it to an impotent stump, stripped of its revolutionary essence, wiping out its program and thus transforming it into a religious relic to be brought out for use in processions and saints days, but completely removed from real life.

To see how this ideological confusion ends up, it is only necessary to point to the present crisis of Podemos. Podemos seemed to represent a way out. The radical speeches of Pablo Iglesias inspired hope in the hearts of many people.

But it is impossible to turn ones back so frivolously on ideology, which, when expelled through the front door will fly in through the back window. Politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum. The absence of ideology merely signifies the acceptance of a bad ideology. Ideas as confused as we are neither Left nor Right open the door to an opportunist policy, with disastrous consequences.

The initial hopes are increasingly transformed into a growing disenchantment. This is precisely the result of the ideological confusion and political ambiguity of the leaders of Podemos who foolishly imagined that the way to increase their support was to modify their language in a vain attempt to win over the so-called centre ground. A serious mistake! If people want reformism they have the Socialist Party. They do not need Podemos, which naturally has lost ground to the PSOE.

To see how ideological confusion ends up, look at the present crisis of Podemos / Image: GUE NGL

In such a situation, the United Left has a golden opportunity to win the leadership of the movement. But the first condition is that it should defend firmly the genuine left ideas: the ideas of communism and revolutionary Marxism. In attempting to distance himself from these ideas, comrade Garzon is doing precisely the opposite of what is needed at this time.

We cannot forget what happened in the Transition. The abandonment of Marxism and Leninism, which is part of the same process, expresses itself in the first instance as a confused mish-mash. The following quote serves to sum up the latest articles written by comrade Garzon:

[He] accepts Marxism as a theoretical tool, critical and not dogmatic, for the analysis and the transformation of social reality, embracing different contributions, Marxist and non-Marxist, which have contributed to make socialism the great emancipatory alternative of our times and fully respecting personal beliefs.

But we should fill in the missing part of the first sentence by adding The PSOE, because this is the resolution that was approved by the extraordinary Congress in 1978 in which the party, led by Felipe Gonzalez, formally abandoned Marxism!

Confused ideas can only be combated by ideological firmness and absolute clarity. We are very sorry to say that the ideas expressed by comrade Albertos article do not offer any clarity but represent a clear turn towards the right, not towards the left.

Marxism must change

Marxism has to change, says Alberto. This is a song that is very well known to us. It has been sung for well over hundred years by people like Bernstein, Kautsky and many others. All of these people wanted to change Marxism  into its opposite, to deprive it of its revolutionary identity, to castrate it and reduce it to a harmless kind of parliamentary reformism.

But at least the revisionist thinkers of the past tried to put forward a coherent programme. That, sadly, cannot be said in the present case. The article of comrade Garzon contains many criticisms of Marxism, but when it comes to presenting a coherent alternative, it turns out to be a big disappointment.

The attitude of Garzon towards Marxism, denying that it is a scientific method, and nor does it even provide us with any kind of method, seems to be identical to the attitude of his hero Karl Popper towards Darwinism, i.e. that it is not a testable scientific theory, but a metaphysical research programa possible framework for testable scientific theories.

Philosophers have only interpreted the world in different ways  the task is however to change it. / Image: public domain

As with every other statement by Popper, this needs to be translated into plain English, intelligible to normal human beings. While reluctantly paying tribute to Charles Darwin as a significant thinker of the past (the word past must be heavily underlined), his theories are a complete waste of time.

In the same way, Alberto Garzon is quite prepared to keep Marxs photograph on the wall and the first volume of Capital on his bookshelf (after all, it is part of our tradition) as long as what Marx actually wrote is completely ignored.

Displaying a complete misunderstanding of the ideas of the founders of scientific socialism, he writes:

In the first place, I believe that it is important to abandon the strong determinism that emanates from their conception of history. History is not written in advance by any providential forces and therefore we must not presuppose certain historical developments without the intervention of other variables that are not strictly economic.

Here the comrade is mistaken, and vulgarises Marxism to the point where it is rendered unrecognisable. He carries it to an extreme of economic reductionism and a kind of religious determinism. But this was already brilliantly answered by Engels in his letter to Joseph Bloch:

According to the materialist conception of history, the ultimately determining element in history is the production and reproduction of real life. Other than this neither Marx nor I have ever asserted. Hence if somebody twists this into saying that the economic element is the only determining one, he transforms that proposition into a meaningless, abstract, senseless phrase. () We make our history ourselves, but, in the first place, under very definite assumptions and conditions. Among these the economic ones are ultimately decisive. () Marx and I are ourselves partly to blame for the fact that the younger people sometimes lay more stress on the economic side than is due to it. We had to emphasise the main principle vis-a-vis our adversaries, who denied it, and we had not always the time, the place or the opportunity to give their due to the other elements involved in the interaction. () Unfortunately, however, it happens only too often that people think they have fully understood a new theory and can apply it without more ado from the moment they have assimilated its main principles, and even those not always correctly. And I cannot exempt many of the more recent Marxists from this reproach, for the most amazing rubbish has been produced in this quarter, too

In any case, we are told by Garzon, I do believe that we must recover historical materialism, in a softened version, as a useful instrument for social science and as a way of counteracting the postmodern tendencies whose analysis has been disconnected from the economic base.

But what this softened version of historical materialism consists of, we do not know. No alternative is offered. Marxism must change, but nobody has the remotest idea as to what the change consists of.

We are well aware that the young leader of the United Left is beset by doubts concerning the reality that surrounds us and is attempting to find a way out of the crisis through which the organisation is passing, but before converting these reflexions into authoritative statements, he should first of all follow the advice that Marx gave. He made a magnificent criticism of the philosophy of his own times, and it would be difficult to arrive at the correct understanding of Marxism without a study of the German Ideology, which he wrote together with Engels. But years later Marx himself delivered the following judgement of this work:

We abandoned the manuscript to the gnawing criticism of the mice all the more willingly as we had achieved our main purpose  self-clarification!

Marx analysed the capitalist world, laid bare its internal workings and proposed an alternative. The world today, in all essentials, still remains the same system and the alternatives are also, in all essentials, the same, since the problems of exploitation, poverty, the concentration of capital, the law of value, surplus value and the crisis of overproduction still exist. This not only demonstrates the enormous superiority of Marxist thought, but also indicates the blind alley in which the left has landed by attempting to find an alternative by resorting (while changing the names) to pre-Marxian ideas.

Our discussion must not base itself on rejecting the formulations of Marx and Engels, but rather on finding the way to carry them into practice, while basing ourselves on living experience. We must go back to the study of Marxism with the aim of consigning this system with all its destructive consequences into the dustbin of history.

What the postmodernist economists so critical of Marx fail to understand is that he was not an economist, but a revolutionary. He did not work out an economic theory in order to deliver clever lectures in university seminars, to find a way to run the capitalist system, nor to work out a reformist electoral programme, but to analyse reality in order to carry out a thoroughgoing social transformation. Basing himself on the internal contradictions of capitalist society, he elaborated his perspective for the transformation of society by the working class. This leads us to the essence of Marxist thesis: Philosophers have only interpreted the world in different ways  the task is however to change it."With millions of U.S. tech jobs out there," Interapt Founder Mr. Gopal said, "we could help transform eastern Kentucky. Well, hey  Middle America."

By Arlie HochschildSaid Okasha examines how Cairo and Washington can better promote shared interests and achieve common goals

For decades Egypt has found itself at the centre of protracted battles between successive US administrations and their domestic opponents over the principles and priorities of US foreign policy.

Today, as always happens when Egypts head-of-state visits the US, attempts are being made to undermine Egyptian-US relations.

President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisis visit to New York to attend the opening of this years UN General Assembly session, during which he met with President Donald Trump, has been accompanied by a flood of unsubstantiated allegations.

The anti-Egypt campaign in some US newspapers is even more vicious than its predecessors, lent impetus by Trumps release of US aid to Egypt which had been blocked since 2016.

Next year the two countries will celebrate the 45th anniversary of relations that were restored in 1974, following a seven-year hiatus after the 1967 War.

And it is clear much cooperation will be needed in the future, as attempts grow to forge a peace between the Palestinians and Israel, to battle terrorism and halt Iranian expansion into the Arab region.

Egypt remains instrumental in the process of restoring calm between Israel and Palestinian resistance movements. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recognised how crucial the Egyptian role was during more than a month of confrontations between Hamas and Israel in the summer of 2014 when he admitted that Turkish and Qatari mediation efforts had failed.

At the time, and despite president Barack Obamas unfriendly attitude towards Egypt after the Egyptian people and army overthrew Muslim Brotherhood rule, it was Egyptian efforts that succeeded in bringing an end to confrontations the US feared might jeopardise international peace and security if allowed to continue.

Today, Egypt remains a fundamental partner in the drive to unify Palestinian ranks and to reconcile Hamas with the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah so as to prepare the ground for American efforts to promote a lasting solution to the Palestinian/Arab-Israeli conflict.

Egypts contributions to the fight against terrorism go beyond cooperation with the US and the exchange of intelligence.

Egypt has assumed the lions share of hunting down and eliminating the groups which have proliferated along its borders and jeopardise not just Egyptian security but Americas vital interests across the Middle East.

Irans expansion could also undermine many US interests as Tehran continues to target countries that are friends to both Egypt and the US. Without cooperation between Egypt and the US on this issue Iran could pose a serious threat to the Gulf and maritime trade routes in the Red Sea.

The strength of the US-Egyptian bilateral relationship is anchored in the fact that there is no alternative to Washingtons role in bringing peace and security to the region. US support, in the form of grants, assistance and investment, is also vital to the recovery and development of Egypts economy.

The bilateral relationship will remain indispensable for the foreseeable future given the extent of the two countries overlapping interests.

In his State of the Union address on 30 January Trump said US foreign assistance should always serve American interests and only go to Americas friends.

The principle which has guided US foreign policy since Trump came to power first emerged under president Ronald Reagan (1980-1988). Trumps opponents, however, complain loudly that what it means is that assistance sometimes goes to governments that follow policies and practices inimical to the principles of human rights which Washington regards as an integral part of American values.

It has been alleged that under President Al-Sisi Egypt has seen a rise in grave human rights violations and the number of detainees in Egyptian prisons now exceeds more than 60,000. Yet however many times these allegations are repeated, no evidence is provided to back them up.

There are no detailed statistics provided, no names of the alleged detainees or information about the place and date of their detention.

The organisations making these allegations earlier released reports complaining about the extent of forced disappearances in Egypt. It subsequently came to light that the numbers they cited involved people who had fled the country to fight in the ranks of the Islamic State in Syria, Iraq and Libya.

Another common allegation against Egypt is that restrictions on the press and journalists have stifled opposition voices and dozens of journalists have been arrested and face detention without trial or else are prosecuted in sham trials. It is also claimed the Egyptian authorities arbitrarily shut down bloggers websites and have arrested bloggers on the pretext they pose a threat to national security.

Yet it is impossible to prove that the journalists who left their jobs at newspapers or television stations were forced to do so as a consequence of criticisms they had made against the regime. Parts of the media are public, other parts are controlled by special interest groups.

The views of some journalists may clash with the views held by their publishers, be they state-owned or private, and as a consequence they may have left their jobs. But it remains difficult to identify with certainty who was behind a decision to ban or block a journalist.

As for social media and blogging, it is a field that all governments find hard to monitor and restrict.

In the case of Egypt, where more than 40 million people have Internet accounts, less than 500 sites were closed due to content that spread rumours or incitement against the members of the Armed Forces and police or that communicated with and promoted the policies of hostile entities abroad.

All such actions are crimes punishable under law in the conventional media as well.

Critics have also claimed the government has passed laws that hamper the ability of NGOs and civil society organisations to operate freely. What they fail to note is that these laws were passed under exceptional circumstances.

Their purpose is to control how and why some organisations are funded and ensure that the organisations financial capacities are not used as a cover for illegitimate and terrorist activities. The laws, in any case, can be changed when conditions return to normal.

Preventing the politicisation of an NGO does not infringe on the natural rights of individuals and groups. The financial gains to be had in NGOs have lured many political activists away from political parties, which are the legitimate place for the exercise of political activity.

The activists then politicise a realm that is supposed to be dedicated to apolitical activities, harming both the NGOs sphere of activity and the realm of politics.

Egypt has also been accused of misusing military aid. It is claimed that Egypts security forces use some of the weapons obtained from the US to kill political opponents.

Some even argue that the weapons Egypt obtains from the US in the framework of the military aid programme are redundant given the peace agreement between Egypt and Israel.

The claim that the Egyptian army no longer needs advanced or diversified weaponry now that there is peace with Israel is clearly provocative.

Israel continues to arm itself with the most advanced US-made weapons which are mostly paid for through US military aid to Israel despite the fact that Egypt has a peace agreement with Israel and two of the largest Arab armies that once posed a threat to Israel  Syrian and Iraqi  no longer feature in the equation.

Egypt, which is contending with the threat posed by terrorist groups, is adjacent to countries  Sudan and Libya  that are not in full control of their borders.

It also neighbours an area that is under the control of the military wing of the Muslim Brotherhood  Hamas in Gaza, which has regional backers including Qatar and Turkey.

Those who object to US support for Egypt say Washington made Egypt an aid recipient as a reward for having signed a peace agreement with Israel in 1979 but that the strategic environment has now changed and the rationale for aid no longer applies. Peace with Israel, they insist, serves Egyptian interests above all.

It is clearly unacceptable to maintain that the peace agreement was solely in Egypts interests. It was in the interests of all parties  Egypt, Israel and the US.

Egypt, moreover, had to pay a heavy price for concluding the agreement. In the decade after the accord was signed it lost Arab aid and investments worth more than the total value of US aid from the date it began to the present.

At a time when Egypts vital interests in the Arab region were in peril the US reaped the fruits of the peace between Egypt and Israel in the form of reduced Soviet influence in the region.

The huge defence burden that the US and Israel shouldered began to ease after the Camp David Accord while Egypt, once relations with the Arabs resumed at the end of the 1980s, played a leading role in the drive to promote peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

When terrorism reared its head against Egyptian, US and global interests Egypt became, and remained, a cornerstone in the coalition to fight terrorism.

The principles that underlie Egyptian policy have not changed, even at times when Washington froze part of its assistance to Egypt.

To promote shared Egyptian-US interests officials in Washington, in Congress and the State Department, need to ensure that the NGOs and government agencies issuing reports on the human rights situation in Egypt provide proof of their allegations.

For government bodies to continue to base policy decisions on Egypt on reports that lack factual corroboration will only arouse suspicions concerning their intents and aims.

*A version of this article appears in print in the 27 September 2018 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly under the headline: Towards stronger Egyptian-US relations

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NEW YORK  Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, H.E. Salahuddin Rabbani met with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bulgaria, H.E. Ekaterina Zakharieva at the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

Mr. Rabbani called for supporting compatriot refugees living in Bulgaria and appreciated that countrys security and financial assistance with Afghanistan.

Stressing on continuation of the support, the Bulgarian Foreign Minister expressed her hope for the opening of Bulgarian Embassy in Kabul.NEW YORK  Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, H.E. Salahuddin Rabbani met with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Portuguese Republic, H.E. Augusto Santos Silva at the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

Minister Rabbani appreciated the role of Portugal in Afghanistans security and exchanged views on strengthening of bilateral relations and the mechanism of both sides support with respect to obtaining membership at the UN Security Council for the 2031 and 2033 terms.NEW YORK  Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, H.E. Salahuddin Rabbani met with United Kingdoms Minister of State for Asia and the Pacific, H.E. Mark Field at the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

The Foreign Minister stressed Afghanistans support for the oversight committee on conditions of Rohingya Muslims at the Human Rights Council. The two sides discussed and exchanged views on bilateral relations, the peace process and elections in Afghanistan.NEW YORK  Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, H.E. Salahuddin Rabbani met with the Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, H.E. Dr. Yousef bin Ahmad Al-Othaimeen at the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

Mr. Rabbani appreciated the effective role played by the OIC with respect to holding the Ulema Conference that was recently held in Saudi Arabia. He emphasized, In order to achieve peace, the demands that were put forward during the Ulema meeting, should be followed up. The OIC Secretary General also stressed upon supporting the peace process in Afghanistan and expressed readiness of OIC with regards to following up on the decisions of the Ulema meeting.   

H.E. Foreign Minister Sirodjidin Aslov,

Honorable Foreign Ministers,

Distinguished Colleagues and Heads of Delegation,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a great pleasure to attend the informal meeting of the Council of Ministers.

As always, it provides an opportunity to discuss important issues related to ECOs work.

I join other colleagues in thanking the Chairmanship of the Council of Ministers for convening this meeting and presenting the detailed report on ECOs latest activities.

The Economic Cooperation Organization is playing a major role in advancing regional economic integration, and promoting socio-economic development in its member countries.

Such cooperation is also factoring positively in strengthening ties of partnership and mutual trust - essential ingredients for a secure and prosperous international landscape.

Afghanistan is an active member of ECO. We maintain active participation in the annual meetings of this organisation.

We have also signed and ratified a number of agreements, declarations and treaties related to ECO.

We have done so as a part of our overall commitment to enhance regional trade and improve socio-economic conditions in Afghanistan and our wider region.

Reaping the tangible benefits of trade and other forms of economic activity require sustained focus on meeting challenges present across the region.

Our countries must continue to seek strategies to overcome poor infrastructure, the lack of technical knowledge, and inconsistent economic policies, which have so far prevented us from reaching our full potential.

Afghanistan attaches high value to advancing initiatives within and outside the ECO framework for inter-regional connectivity.

We are proud to have played an important role in this area  through our Afghan-led RECCA Process, which has been a catalyst in propelling mega economic regional projects in the areas of energy, trade, transportation and infrastructure.

As many of you know, projects such as the TAPI, CASA 1000, 5-nation railway network and Lapis Lazuli Corridor have reached a new phase of implementation.

The 7th meeting of RECCA which took place in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan on the 14th and 15th of November 2017 focused on Deepening Connectivity and Expanding trade through Investment Infrastructure and Improving synergy.

We thank all ECO members that took part in that conference and reaffirmed their commitment to the success of the RECCA Process.

Progress within RECCA offers only a fraction of what we can collectively achieve in the area of economic cooperation.

Moreover, the Belt and Road initiative also provides an example of the way in which countries are working together to achieve common economic objectives.

This, among other initiatives, can yield full results if we translate our commitments into reality.

The establishment of the Heart of Asia  Istanbul Process is another Afghan-led forum that is bringing many stakeholders, including ECO member countries, together to advance economic cooperation.

We believe it would be useful to assess and identify synergies between economic projects of those platforms with that of ECO.

Improving trade between member states is consistent with the main objectives for ECO.

The ECO visa exemption sticker scheme will be significant in improving trade between member countries.

This will benefit market accessibility within the region by shortening the time required to cross the borders.

We encourage the removal of trade barriers within the ECO region and believe that this scheme will be beneficial to this aim.

Afghanistan is reviewing and re-examining the modified version of the ECO visa exemption sticker scheme.

We look forward to informing the ECO Secretariat of the outcome of the review in the near future.

We are grateful to the other ECO countries for supporting a secure and prosperous Afghanistan.

We are committed to working closely with the ECO secretariat and other member countries to realize the ECO Vision 2025.

We are pleased that our input and that of other ECO members were reflected in this vision.

This direction will benefit the region by sustaining socio-economic progress in ECO member countries, including through transport connectivity and expanding project-based economic activities.

We also recognize that organizational reform is necessary to strengthen the ECO institutions.

Reform will enable these institutions to play a proactive role in realising the objectives of the organization.

The ECO Advocacy program for Afghanistan, adopted in our last meeting in Dushanbe is a most welcome initiative.

It will assist our efforts to reinforce economic initiatives for sustainable development.

We look forward to the finalisation of the revision of modalities by the ECO Council of Permanent Representative as soon as possible, as an important measure to implement proposed projects.

We welcome the Scale of Assessment and ECO reform process, which has been recently developed by the ECO Secretariat.

The decision to increase our share in the Secretariat is very much welcome.

It will enable us to make a more tangible contribution to the work of ECO.

The tenure of the current Deputy Director General in Trade, Investment, Agriculture, Industry, Tourism, and International Relations will conclude on the 10th of March 2019.

This post will then be transferred to Afghanistan, based on the decision taken at the 2016 extraordinary meeting here in New York.

We are finalizing the process of nominating a candidate for this important position.

Terrorism, violent extremism and the threat of illicit drugs severely undermine peace, security, and the economic and sustainable development of our region.

We must work together to counter this threat and address the conditions, which are conductive to terrorism.

It is imperative that we address these serious threats in a collective manner.

In closing, I would like to take the opportunity to reiterate and assure Afghanistans commitments to the principles and objectives of Economic Cooperation Organization.

I am confident that our collective and coordinated efforts will achieve concrete results.

Thank you.: catcatking (), : Utah

 : 

: BBS  (Wed Sep 26 03:11:40 2018, )







Utah teen shot and killed by stray bullet while driving near target range

A 14-year-old Utah boy was killed after a bullet from a nearby group of

target shooters missed the trees and struck him in the head, police and the

boy's family said.

Zackary Kempke, from North Ogden, was sitting in the back seat of his family

s car with his sister, mom and dad, going through the Monte Cristo trails

on Sunday when he was struck, according to his uncle, Cory Hopkins.

Authorities said the incident occurred at approximately 3 p.m. in a popular

hunting and camping area in the northern part of the state.

They went up for a drive to take pictures of the leaves changing when they

heard an explosion in the back seat, Hopkins told NBC News on Tuesday. 

When my brother-in-law looked back he saw that his son was in his daughter

s lap and there was blood everywhere.

When the family went to look for cellphone service to call 911, they found a

group shooting targets a few hundred yards away.

The individual involved as well as witnesses stated that they did not know

there was a road down range and could not see the vehicle as it traveled on

the road due to thick brush and trees, Sheriff Dale Stacey wrote on the

Rich County Sheriff's Office Facebook page.

The incident is currently under investigation and the name of the individual

who shot the gun has not been disclosed, according to both Hopkins and

police. There was no maliciousness," he said. "The family believes

wholeheartedly that it was an accident."

Kempke was attending North Ogden Junior High and was active in his church

community.

Zack was very spiritual, Hopkins said. He was a role model to his

whole family.

The victim, who was known by his family as being bright and well-rounded,

 had been diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes and celiac disease when he was

younger.

His family first identified him to press, mainly because they want to tell

his story.

The message we want to get out is gun safety," Hopkins said. "We

don't want this to turn into a gun rights issue."

--

 :WWW  mitbbs.com [FROM: 65.]

September 26, 2018 U.S. Scaremongers About Iranian Missiles But Reduces Mideast Missile Defense he propaganda of the Trump administration says that all must fear those ghastly Iranian missiles: Trumps Iran envoy blasts Tehran missile work .. - Sep 19 Brian Hook, the US special envoy on Iran, cited Irans continuing development, testing and transfer of ballistic missile technology as a key flaw of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal that President Donald Trump withdrew from in May. John Bolton warns Iran 'there will be hell to pay' if aggression continues: 'We will come after you' - Sep 24 The Iran nuclear deal, Bolton said Tuesday, "did nothing to address the regimes destabilizing activities or its ballistic missile development and proliferation. Trumps speech to the UN General Assembly - Sep 25 The Iran deal was a windfall for Irans leaders. In the years since the deal was reached, Irans military budget grew nearly 40 percent. The dictatorship used the funds to build nuclear-capable missiles, increase internal repression, finance terrorism, and fund havoc and slaughter in Syria and Yemen. As with any government one must look at what the Trump administration actually does, not what it says. U.S. Pulling Some Missile-Defense Systems Out of Mideast - Sep 26 Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is pulling four Patriot missile systems out of Jordan, Kuwait and Bahrain next month in a realignment of forces and capabilities ..

...

Two Patriot missile systems will be redeployed from Kuwait, and one each from Jordan and Bahrain, officials said. Patriots are mobile missile systems capable of shooting down missiles and planes. The four systems have been taken offline and will be redeployed by next month, officials said. There are no plans for any of them to be replaced, .. The Patriot missile defenses the U.S. kept in those countries were protecting U.S. bases in the region. If these were really threatened by Iranian missiles this reduction of defensive capabilities would be irresponsible. But the simple truth is that Iran's meager capabilities are no threat at all: Patriot systems in the Gulf may not serve the purpose they once did, said Anthony Cordesman, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank in Washington, D.C. That is in part because Iran lacks the kind of missile capability required to level precision attacks. In addition, if the Patriot deployments to the Gulf region were intended mainly for air defenses, that threat simply doesnt exist as it once did, he said. Iran now is no match for U.S. allies in the Gulf region, which have superior air forces. The Trump administration knows well that Iran's missile capabilities are no threat at all. Iran's best defense capabilities are its location next to a major hydrocarbon transport route, the Strait of Hormuz, and its ability to respond asymmetrically through proxy-forces. The hype about "Iran's missiles" is just for show. It is a cheap way to convince the Saudis and the Zionist that Trump is doing something they like. Posted by b on September 26, 2018 at 13:51 UTC | Permalink CommentsSeptember 26, 2018

The Trap Failed - Rosenstein Neither Fired Nor Resigned

Last Friday the New York Times published a story that reflected negatively on the loyalty of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein towards President Trump. Rosenstein, the NYT claimed, suggested to wiretap Trump and to remove him by using the 25th amendment. Other news reports contradicted the claim and Rosenstein himself denied it.

The report was a trap to push Trump towards an impulsive firing of the number two in the Justice Department, a repeat of Nixon's Saturday Night Massacre. The Democrats would have profited from such an 'October surprise' in the November 6 midterm elections. A campaign to exploit such a scandal to get-out-the-votes was already well prepared.

The trap did not work. The only one who panicked was Rosenstein. He feared for his reputation should he get fired. To prevent such damage he offered to resign amicably. He tried this at least three times:

By Friday evening, concerned about testifying to Congress over the revelations that he discussed wearing a wire to the Oval Office and invoking the constitutional trigger to remove Mr. Trump from office, Mr. Rosenstein had become convinced that he should resign, according to people close to him. He offered during a late-day visit to the White House to quit, according to one person familiar with the encounter, but John F. Kelly, the White House chief of staff, demurred.

...

Also over the weekend, Mr. Rosenstein again told Mr. Kelly that he was considering resigning. On Sunday, Mr. Rosenstein repeated the assertion in a call with Donald F. McGahn II, the White House counsel. Mr. McGahn  [...]  asked Mr. Rosenstein to postpone their discussion until Monday.

...

By about 9 a.m. Monday, Mr. Rosenstein was in his office on the fourth floor of the Justice Department when reporters started calling. Was it true that Mr. Rosenstein was planning to resign, they asked.

...

At the White House the deputy attorney general slipped into a side entrance to the West Wing and headed to the White House counsels office to meet with Mr. McGahn, who had by then been told by Mr. Kelly that Mr. Rosenstein was on his way and wanted to resign.

McGhan punted the issue back to Kelly and finally Rosenstein spoke with Trump. Trump did not fire him nor did he resign. It is now expected that he will stay until the end of the year or even longer:

President Trump told advisers he is open to keeping Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on the job, and allies of the No. 2 Justice Department official said Tuesday he has given them the impression he doesnt plan to quit.

The trap did not work. Neither did Trump panic nor did the White House allow the panicking Rod Rosenstein to pull the trigger. The people who set this up, by leaking some dubious FBI memo to the NYT, did not achieve their aims.

There are only six weeks left until the midterm elections. What other October surprises might be planned by either side?

Posted by b on September 26, 2018 at 15:20 UTC | Permalink

CommentsBy Su Xiaohui



Kim Jong Un (right), Chairman of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), together with Moon Jae-in (left), President of the Republic of Korea (ROK), pose for a group photo after signing the September Pyongyang Joint Declaration in Pyongyang, capital of the DPRK, on September 19, 2018. (Photo by Xinhua News Agency).

President Moon Jae-in of the Republic of Korea (ROK) visited Pyongyang and held talks with Kim Jong Un, Chairman of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) from September 18 to 20, 2018.

The two leaders signed the September Pyongyang Joint Declaration and reached new important consensus on improving and developing the mutual relations, easing regional military tensions, and advancing the denuclearization and peace talks process of the Korean Peninsula. The Chinese Foreign Ministry welcomed the progress and appreciated the positive efforts made by the two sides.

The denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula is one of the key topics of the Pyongyang summit. In the joint declaration, the DPRK and the ROK agreed to free the Korean Peninsula from nuclear weapons and remove all nuclear threats and to make substantial progress as soon as possible.

More specifically, the DPRK decided to permanently shut down the Sohae engine test site and missile launch pad in the presence of international experts from relevant countries. The DPRK also intended to take additional measures including permanently dismantling of the Yongbyon Nuclear Complex.

The denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula takes time. Since the beginning of this year, the DPRK has stopped its nuclear tests. In May, the DPRK blasted a number of tunnels and ancillary facilities at the Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site, announcing the formal dismantlement of the nuclear test site. Journalists from different countries were invited to watch the explosions and demolition activities on site. Those actions demonstrated the DPRK's sincerity in seeking the denuclearization. In this regard, China has repeatedly stressed that the positive movements of the DPRK should be welcomed, encouraged, and supported by the international community. Of course, only the efforts of the DPRK are far from enough.

The denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula requires the joint efforts from all parties. In the joint declaration signed by the DPRK and the ROK, the DPRK side proposed conditions for further implementation of denuclearization, that is, there should be corresponding measures from the US in line with the spirit of the DPRK-US Joint Statement issued on June 12.

In fact, Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK), criticized on Tuesday the USs mixed-message policy toward the DPRK. The US requires the DPRK to abandon its nuclear weapons and programs in a complete, verifiable, and irreversible manner before other issues can be discussed.

However, this claim has long been rejected by the DPRK and this is not a consensus reached by the two countries. The DPRK is also not happy with the disproportioned efforts made by the US. The US has increased its sanctions pressure and demanded other parties cooperating with its maximum pressure targets.

Meanwhile, it unilaterally asks the DPRK to make efforts. From the DPRKs perspective, the US side has deliberately ignored the security concerns of the DPRK, which is contrary to the goal of establishing new DPRK-US diplomatic relations agreed by the two leaders at the Singapore summit.

Therefore, the DPRK pointed out that the US side should assume full responsibility for the failure of the DPRK-US consultation.

The denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula will not go smoothly. The recent statements of the DPRK are reminiscent of the recent challenges of the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

In August, the US President cancelled the Secretary of States visit to the DPRK. At that time, all parties were worried about the reversal of the continuous positive momentum made on the peninsula this year.

In response, China promptly voiced its support for the advancing of the process of political settlement in accordance with the consensus reached by the leaders of the DPRK and the US. This once again highlights Chinas firm stance on maintaining peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula.

China has been playing an important role in the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. China has always adopted a fair and just attitude. China has taken care of all parties' legitimate security concerns and addressed issues while resolutely safeguarding the international nuclear non-proliferation system and adhering to denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula.

China also calls on all parties to actively engage and negotiate, take care of each other's legitimate concerns, and show more sincerity and flexibility when it comes to different positions of relevant parties.

Peace and prosperity, reconciliation and cooperation are the common aspirations of the people of the Korean Peninsula and the region. At present, the development of the situation on the Korean Peninsula presents a rare historical opportunity.

Only when the relevant parties make timely political decisions, avoid the inherent vicious circles, and further consolidate and expand the existing efforts, can the process of political settlement on the Korean Peninsula issue become sustainable and irreversible.

Disclaimer: The article was written by Su Xiaohui, deputy director of the Department for International and Strategic Studies of China Institute of International Studies. It is translated and edited from Chinese into English by the China Military online. The information, ideas or opinions appearing in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the views of eng.chinamil.com.cn. Chinamil.com.cn does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same. If the article carries photographs or images, we do not vouch for their authenticity.Welcome to Morningstar.co.uk!

You have been redirected here from Hemscott.com as we are merging our websites to provide you with a one-stop shop for all your investment research needs.To search for a security, type the name or ticker in the search box at the top of the page and select from the dropdown results.Registered Hemscott users can log in to Morningstar using the same login details. Similarly, if you are a Hemscott Premium user, you now have a Morningstar Premium account which you can access using the same login details.A spokesperson for the Chinese military said Tuesday that it was strongly dissatisfied with and resolutely opposed to planned U.S. arms sales to Taiwan.

"The Chinese military lodges solemn representations to the U.S. side over the move," said Ren Guoqiang, spokesperson for China's Ministry of National Defense.

Ren's comment came after the U.S. government informed congress of its decision to sell weapons worth about 330 million U.S. dollars to Taiwan on Tuesday.

"Taiwan is a part of China and the one-China principle is the political foundation of China-U.S. relationship," Ren said.

"The U.S. move has severely violated the one-China principle and regulations of three Sino-U.S. Joint Communiques, interfered with China's domestic affairs and harmed China's sovereignty and security interests, and seriously damaged China-U.S. ties, relations between the two militaries, as well as peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.

"The Chinese military's determination and will to safeguard China's sovereignty and territorial integrity is steadfast and unshakable.

"We strongly urge the U.S. side to abide by the one-China principle and the regulations of the three Sino-U.S. Joint Communiques, immediately revoke arms sales to Taiwan, and stop military contact with Taiwan including arms sales, so as not to further damage the China-U.S. ties, relations between the two militaries, as well as peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait."Taiwan Air Force's F-16 fighter jets fly during the annual Han Kuang military exercise at an army base in Hsinchu, northern Taiwan, July 4, 2015. [Photo/Agencies]

Beijing on Tuesday called on Washington to immediately withdraw its latest planned arms sales to Taiwan and cease military contacts with the island to avoid more damage to Sino-US relations and stability across the Straits.

"The sales severely violate international law and basic norms governing international relations, and severely violate the one-China principle as well as the principles of the three China-US joint communiques," Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said on Tuesday, noting that China has lodged stern representations with the US.

The US State Department approved the sales to Taiwan of spare parts and related support for F-16 fighters and other military aircraft, with an estimated cost of $330 million, the US Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in a statement on Tuesday.

Senior Colonel Ren Guoqiang, a spokesman at the Ministry of National Defense, said in an online statement on Tuesday that China is firmly opposed to US military sales to Taiwan.

"The US behavior interferes in China's internal affairs and damages China's sovereignty and security interests, and it severely damages relations between the two countries and their militaries," he said.

While meeting with members of the US-China Business Council and the National Committee on US-China Relations in New York on Monday, State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said sound and stable development of the China-US relationship is significant for both countries and their people, as well as global peace and stability.

China has always proposed that any problem between the two countries can absolutely be solved through equal and candid dialogue, he said, and urged more efforts to push forward bilateral cooperation.

If the four decades of achievements made since China and the US established diplomatic ties are wiped out in one day, it will not only affect the two countries, but also the whole world, Wang said.

Li Haidong, a US studies researcher at China Foreign Affairs University, said the US is playing the "Taiwan card" through military sales, compelling China to make concessions on other issues such as trade.

"The sales will bring uncertainty to the current tense bilateral ties due to trade frictions and are not helpful for the two sides to solve disputes in a constructive manner," he said.More than 200 Great Lakes researchers will converge at the State of Lake Superior Conference Oct. 9-12, 2018 at Michigan Technological University. Final day to register is Oct. 1.

Though Superior is called a lake, many argue that moniker undervalues what is more accurately called an inland sea. Lake Superior is the largest lake on the planet by surface area, and managing such a large body of water and surrounding watershed requires coordinated and multinational cooperation.

Lake managers, lake ecosystem stewards, university researchers, tribes, government agencies and decisionmakers will convene in Houghton to discuss the results of the latest Lake Superior scientific research and monitoring efforts, and what it signifies to communities and people across the Lake Superior basin.

The State of Lake Superior Conference (SOLS18) is hosted by the International Association for Great Lakes Research (IAGLR), a scientific organization of researchers that encompasses all science disciplines with a common interest in the management of large lake ecosystems. The conference will be held at Michigan Technological University in coordination with the Universitys Great Lakes Research Center, Keweenaw Bay Indian Community Natural Resources Department and Keweenaw Bay Ojibwa Community College.

Public Events

Two evening events, scheduled in conjunction with the conference, are free and open to the public:

Tuesday, Oct. 9 from 6 to 8 p.m., the Lake Superior Lakewide Action and Management Plan (LAMP) public session will provide an overview of stressors and threats to Lake Superior, as well as actions being taken to protect and restore Lake Superior. A group of kayakers who call themselves Four the Water will share stories from their 2018 journey around Lake Superior, including their citizen-science monitoring of microplastics. This session will allow time for networking with various Lake Superior managers who are helping to implement the LAMP. This session will be held in the Memorial Union Ballroom on Michigan Technological University campus.

Wednesday, Oct. 10 from 5:45 to 7:30 p.m., the Scientific Challenges of Developing a Plan to Protect Buffalo Reef session will describe alternatives being considered to protect the reef in the future, provide an open discussion on the challenges, and discuss how to overcome them. A century ago, 23 million tons of mine tailings were dumped into Lake Superior. Wind, waves and currents have pushed these tailings toward Buffalo Reef, a valuable area for fish spawning. This copper-laden waste, also called stamp sands, has covered over a third of the reef and a similar amount of nearby juvenile whitefish habitat. The United States Environmental Protection Agency initiated the Buffalo Reef Task Force two years ago to develop a management plan to preserve and protect lake trout and whitefish populations. The session will be held in Memorial Union Ballroom.

Field Trips

The conference begins Oct. 9 with a number of field trips to local points of interest for registered conference members. Each field trip has a small associated fee.

Quincy Mine Hoist Tour

Pricket Dam: Discussion on the effects of small dams on Lake Sturgeon.

Sand Point: Visit the Ojibwa Public Recreation Area and Great Lakes Restoration Initiative project at Sand Point.

Copper Country Geoheritage Tour: This trip explores the landscape and north shore of the Keweenaw and the Greenstone lava flowthe largest lava flow on Earthto show how vastly different events in Earths extraordinary history have shaped the passage of people throughout this region.

Watershed Restoration Site Visits: Part of the future of Lake Superior hinges on the restoration of degraded ecosystems and populations. This field trip includes site visits to the Pilgrim River and Hills Creek.

Buffalo Reef: Experience 140 years of copper mine tailing migration along the Keweenaw Peninsulas eastern coastal shores of Lake Superior at Gay. This tour will also include a site visit and talk at Torch Lake, a delisted Superfund site and now Area of Concern.

Speakers

SOLS18 features two plenary talks from two Great Lakes researchers and authors who call the banks of Lake Superior home.

Wednesday, Oct. 10, Nancy Langston, professor of environmental history at Michigan Tech, will explore how communities can help sustain the health of Lake Superior in the face of climate change, invasive species and emerging chemicals of concern. The challenges facing Lake Superior are many; yet local, regional and international communities overcame enormous threats to the lake's ecosystems in the past century. This talk explores the lessons we can take from the lakes environmental and social history as we face new interconnected challenges.

Thursday, Oct. 11, Peter Annin, director of the Mary Griggs Burke Center for Freshwater Innovation at Northland College in Ashland, Wisconsin, will present about Great Lakes water tensions in the 21st century. Throughout history, Lake Superior has often been on the frontline of the Great Lakes water diversion debate. Annin's talk will help cut through the confusion surrounding the Great Lakes water diversion debate and help put Great Lakes water tensions in a regional, continental and global context.

SOLS18 Find the full program of events on the State of Lake Superior Conference website.

Michigan Technological University is a public research university founded in 1885 in Houghton, Michigan, and is home to more than 7,000 students from 55 countries around the world. Consistently ranked among the best universities in the country for return on investment, the University offers more than 125 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in science and technology, engineering, computing, forestry, business and economics, health professions, humanities, mathematics, social sciences, and the arts. The rural campus is situated just miles from Lake Superior in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, offering year-round opportunities for outdoor adventure.How do you muffle the roar of a big, industrial heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system using safe, compact, inexpensive technology? With coaxial thermophones.

First there was the technical problem: developing technology to keep an industrial HVAC system quiet. Then came the next challenge: commercializing the technology.

Andrew Barnard, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, and his graduate student, Steven Senczyszyn, who earned his masters degree in May and is now a research engineer in mechanical engineering, joined forces with Great Lakes Sound & Vibration to solve the first problem. They created an active noise control system, which works by playing back the opposite of the sound you are trying to cancel.

This is how noise canceling headphones work, Senczyszyn says. They measure the incoming sound and use a speaker to play back the opposite of that sound, which effectively eliminates the incoming sound before it reaches your ears.

The goal of Barnard and Senczyszyns technology is to do the same thing inside HVAC ducts using coaxial thermophones. A thermophone is a type of loudspeaker that generates sound using heat. Coaxial means that two items share a common axis, so a coaxial loudspeaker fits directly in-line with a duct without obstructing airflow in the duct. Theyre made of carbon nanotubes that are extremely tiny tubes of carbonless than 1/1000th the diameter of a strand of human hair.

Carbon nanotubes get stretched into place. In a coaxial thermophone, they save 90 percent of the space taken up by current noise mufflers in heating and cooling ducts.

A carbon nanotube forest consists of millions of these small tubes, standing up and aligned with each other, Senczyszyn explains. When we pull on one end of these forests, the tubes fall together, creating a film we can wrap to create our speakers.

Having created and tested their technology, Barnard and Senczyszyn faced another, equally challenging problem: how to scale it up and ready it for the marketplace.

NSF Grant to Commercialize New Technology

They have just received a $200,000 grant from the National Science Foundations (NSF) Partnerships for Innovation-Technology Translation program to tackle that challenge. They will use the 18-month grant to develop a prototype, form a business, demo the technology to the HVAC market at trade shows and conferences and disseminate data in trade publications.

The goal is to use their prior research on carbon nanotube thermophonesoriginally designed to muffle automotive noisecoupled with customer feedback from a market study by an NSF-funded I-Corps team, to design and prototype a coaxial active noise control device for the HVAC industry. The research is a prime example of the work done here on Innovation Shore.

Carbon nanotube thin films, with their low-heat capacity properties, have opened the door for an evolutionary change in loudspeaker technology, the acoustic engineering researchers say in their NSF project description.

This technology provides a significant reduction in both the size and weight of the system used to control the noise generated by an air handling unit, as well as improved performance of the HVAC system, due to the coaxial design, Senczyszyn says.

The size and weight reduction makes it much easier to design into new buildings, and it is a great option for retrofitting older buildings with noise problems, he says. The improved performance of the air handler provided by the coaxial design has the potential to save on operating costs as well as extend the life of the air handler.

An anechoic chamber is used for acoustic engineering to test and control noise. Mechanical engineers Andrew Barnard and Steve Senczyszyn used the foam-lined room while developing a new technology to quiet industrial heating and cooling systems.

Smaller, Safer Sound Control

The technology is also safer. Without the need for fibrous materials acting as sound absorbersmaterials that break down over time and can enter the air ductsthe new technology can be used by hospitals, where conventional silencers can pose a threat to patients, Barnard and Senczyszyn explain in their project proposal. They can control low frequency noise while taking up 90 percent less space. They can also adapt to changing sound sources, which conventional silencers cant. The new technology will be valuable not only to hospitals, but to schools and residents in industrial areas as well.

Noise has a known negative effect on student learning, Barnard explains. And community noise in industrial areas can cause sleep interruption and increased stress on residents.

Meeting the Next Challenges

There are still significant technical problems to solve. One is increasing the scale of a demonstration model. Another is long-term durability. And a third, is identifying a material for the diaphragm that protects the carbon nanotube thermophone from airflow in the duct.

There are also business issues. Steve Tokarz, Michigan Techs mentor-in-residence, will advise the team on the commercialization and product development. A patent on the new technology is pending.

Barnard and Senczyszyn are convinced that they can overcome these hurdles.

"This project is significant because it will help us commercialize our technology, says Barnard. Many university technologies die in the laboratory because there is no connection made between the technology advancements and the customer.

He explains the NSF grant will enable the team to develop a demonstrator unit that will be used to pitch the technology to business partners, investors and customers.

We have talked to almost 200 people through our customer discovery process to help us define the value that our minimum viable product must offer, Barnard says. Only by matching the product value proposition to the customer needs can we launch a successful product."

The new grant will help Barnard and Senczyszyn both quiet HVAC systems with carbon nanotubes, and make more noise about their technology as they develop and commercialize their coaxial thermophones.

What do hospitals, industrial complexes and schools need? Quieter heating and cooling with carbon nanotubes.

About the Researcher Steven Senczyszyn

Michigan Technological University is a public research university founded in 1885 in Houghton, Michigan, and is home to more than 7,000 students from 55 countries around the world. Consistently ranked among the best universities in the country for return on investment, the University offers more than 125 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in science and technology, engineering, computing, forestry, business and economics, health professions, humanities, mathematics, social sciences, and the arts. The rural campus is situated just miles from Lake Superior in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, offering year-round opportunities for outdoor adventure.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 []China strongly opposes all sales of military hardware to Taiwan, including the latest that was reportedly approved by the US State Department, a move that seriously violates the foundational one-China principle and damages China's sovereignty and security interests, said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of National Defense on Tuesday.

The US sale of military equipment will do nothing to challenge the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) overwhelming military superiority toward Taiwan, and amounts to yet another provocation that seriously impacts the one-China principle which is a long-standing prerequisite for China-US relations, said Chinese experts, adding that the sale is a potential "time bomb" confronting bilateral ties.

"The move by the US to sell weapons to Taiwan has seriously violated international law and basic norms of international relations, as well as the one-China principle and the three China-US Joint Communiques," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said at Tuesday's routine press conference in Beijing.

The US State Department has approved the possible sale to the island of spare parts for F-16 fighter jets and other military aircraft worth up to $330 million, the Pentagon said on Monday, Reuters reported on Tuesday.

The approval covers a request for spare parts for "F-16, C-130, F-5, Indigenous Defense Fighter (IDF), all other aircraft systems and subsystems, and other related elements of logistics and program support," the Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in a statement.

China expressed its strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to the US' approval of the sale, said Geng. "China urges the US to stop the military sale to Taiwan immediately, and cut off military ties with Taiwan," said Geng.

The three China-US Joint Communiques are a collection of joint statements made by the two countries in 1972, 1978 and 1982, which includes the explicit acknowledgement by the US that "Taiwan is a part of China" and the promise to "gradually reduce its arms sales to Taiwan."

The most serious issue with the sale is more political than military, said Diao Daming, an American studies expert and associate professor at Renmin University of China.

"The US has continuously challenged China's bottom line on the Taiwan question, including passing the 'Taiwan Travel Act' and '2019 National Defense authorization Act.'" These show that the US attitude toward the Taiwan question is becoming increasingly aggressive," said Diao

The US sale will only guarantee the normal use of Taiwan's military aircraft, and will not cause any meaningful impact to the Chinese mainland's overwhelming military advantage over the island, said Song Zhongping, a military experts and TV commentator.

Chinese Defense Ministry spokesperson Ren Guoqiang also said on Tuesday the sale seriously damages ties between Chinese and US military forces, and the peace and stability of the Taiwan Straits. "Chinese military's determination to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity is firm and unwavering," he said.

A time bomb

The Pentagon's statement said that the "proposed sale will contribute to the foreign policy and national security of the US by helping to improve the security and defensive capability of the recipient, which has been and continues to be an important force for political stability, military balance, and economic progress in the region."

The military advantage that the Chinese mainland holds over Taiwan is unchangeable, making the sale nothing more than another provocation that will simply test the patience of the Chinese mainland for peaceful reunification, rather than damaging its ability to realize reunification by other means, Song said.

"If the US continues its provocations or even directly supports 'Taiwan independence,' it could create potential for military conflict between the two countries. It's like a time bomb in the middle of China-US ties, and the fuse is in the hands of the US," Song said.

US President Donald Trump's policy toward China is "playing with fire," Diao noted. "The administration is making an irresponsible move that will impact China-US relations, world peace, and the US itself."MERIDEN  A local man faces charges after police said he broke into three vehicles late Monday and early Tuesday.

Kyle Dumouchel, 21, of 23 Clinton St., was charged with three counts each of third-degree burglary and sixth-degree larceny, and two counts of third-degree criminal trespass.

On Monday around 11:20 p.m. police responded to Pearl Street for a report of a man trying to break into vehicles. Police arrived and found the suspect, later identified as Dumouchel. He had a large purse of change and told police he had broken into vehicles in the area, according to a police report.

Police released him from custody on a non-surety bond and seized about $24 in change.

Just before 1 a.m. Tuesday police were dispatched to the area of Newton Street for a report of a man breaking into vehicles.

Police found Dumouchel with a phone charger, sweatshirt and change and took him into custody.

Dumouchel was arraigned in Meriden Superior Court on Tuesday and released on a promise to appear in court on Oct. 25, with the condition he complies with a treatment program.Regional

NE traders offer support to CAIT bandh

GUWAHATI, Sep 25 (Agencies) | Publish Date: 9/25/2018 12:54:52 PM IST

Business organisations in the Northeast have extended their support to the Bharat Vyapar Bandh called by the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) on September 28 to oppose the Walmart-Flipkart deal besides foreign direct investment in retail trade.

The apex traders body had in its annual general meeting in August this year taken the decision to call the country-wide bandh alleging that the deal would wipe out competition as Walmarts business module entails predatory pricing, deep discounting and loss funding.

An American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets and department stores, Walmart had recently announced its acquisition of 77 per cent stake in Flipkart, an Indian e-commerce firm.

We strongly oppose the acquisition of Flipkart by Walmart as seven crore people who are directly or indirectly related to the countrys retail trade will be affected. This backdoor entry by Walmart would affect small traders in the retail segment and therefore we want the government to immediately scrap the deal, Rupam Goswami, national vice-president of CAIT, told reporters here on Tuesday.

The size of the retail market of India is almost Rs 43 lakh crore. Apart from contributing substantially to the GDP, the retail segment absorbs major human resources and plays a significant role in employment generation.

We cannot deny the fact that big multinationals are equally important for a growing economy. But what we want from the government is to put in place policies, like the US, whereby multinational giants cannot take over the retail trade and the interests of small retailers are safeguarded, Goswami, who is also the state chairman of the Assam Chamber of Commerce, said.

He said that if such FDI is allowed in retail, the sector would be unable to compete with the big multinationals at one point of time while the latter would attain monopoly and start increasing prices of products.

We are neither against the government nor supporting the bandh culture. This is a bandh that will be resorted to only by traders in the interest of the common man. The agitation has been resorted primarily to make the government wary of the perils of FDI in retail. Here, we would like to inform that the bandh will not impact operations of schools and colleges or any other establishment, Goswami said.

Over 40 trade organisations from the Northeast, including Assam Chamber of Commerce, Wholesale General Merchants Association, North Eastern Garments Traders Association, and North East Distributor Association, are supporting the bandh.

Some of the other demands include formulation of a robust and transparent policy for e-commerce, withdrawal of permission of 100 per cent FDI in single brand retail, declaration of a national trade policy for retail trade and constitution of a separate ministry of internal trade for traders.DAMASCUS, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- Syria's Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad said Tuesday that the arrival of Russia's S-300 to Syria will push Israel to reconsider before striking Syria again.

Answering a Xinhua question in Damascus, Mekdad said that the Russian S-300 missile system, which will be sent to Syria soon, would be used only if Syria was attacked.

His remarks come against the backdrop of the recent remarks by Russian officials that Moscow was going to deliver the S-300 long-range surface-to-air missile system to Syria.

The Russian move comes days after Israeli F-16 jets attacked Syrian military positions in Syria's Latakia province and was accused by Russia of being behind the targeting of a Russian aircraft during the attack.

"Israel which got used to carrying out many attacks under different pretexts would have to recalculate and reconsider before attacking again," Mekdad said.

He stressed that "the aggression on Syria is an aggression on the forces that fight against terrorism in Syria."

Asked by Xinhua if Israel would launch other attacks on Syria after obtaining the S-300 system, Mekdad said: "Let the Israelis try and we will defend ourselves as we have done before."

Last week, the Russian Ilyushin Il-20 reconnaissance aircraft was mistakenly shot down by the Syrian air defenses, which were intercepting Israeli missile attack on Syrian basis in Latakia province in northwestern Syria.

All 15 Russian crew members aboard died.

The Russians have accused Israel of failing to give Russia adequate notice of the airstrike.

On Sunday, Russia's Defense Ministry charged that the Israeli F-16 jets had used its reconnaissance plane as cover while carrying out strikes in Syria.

"The actions of the Israeli fighter pilots, which resulted in the loss of life of 15 Russian servicemen, either lacked professionalism or were an act of criminal negligence, to say the least," the Russian ministry said.

Russia, which entered the course of the war to back the Syrian army in 2015, has two Russian-run bases in Syria, the first is an air base in Hmeimim in Latakia countryside and the other is a naval base in the Tartus city near Latakia.Berlin Reporter Opioid, alcohol ordinances on City Council's agenda

by Jody Houle BERLIN  Two ordinances have been tabled for the Oct. 1 City Council meeting  opioid legislation and the sale of closed container alcohol at the Berlin Community Market.



At a city work session last Monday, Sept. 17, Berlin Police Chief Peter Morency updated the council on representation from Napoli Shkolnik PLLC in a class action lawsuit to recover costs due to the opioid crisis. Legislation has been proposed and Morency said that the language would be put into an ordinance that will be the first read at the Oct. 1 City Council meeting.



"It is important that this is passed to emphasize the ongoing problems that are caused by the opioid epidemic," said Morency.



Mayor Paul Grenier asked if the law suit is expected to carry on for years. The Chief stated that there is pressure on the state to settle and that pressure will increase as the lawsuit goes forward.



Management of the Berlin Community Market is asking the city to allow closed container alcohol to be sold at the market. City Manager James Wheeler explained that something would need to be in the ordinance that would allow the sale of unopened alcohol without getting City Council approval each time during the Tuesday markets held on Main Street.



City Councilor Diana Nelson asked if this included events at the Heritage Park and Wheeler replied that it is just for the Community Market.



Councilor Roland Theberge asked if there is a certain limit on the alcohol percentage. Wheeler said that it isn't in the ordinance but that it may be covered by state law. The current ordinance states that the seller has to have permission from the Liquor Commission beforehand.



In other business:



The Mayor applauded students of the After School Program and instructor Naomi Levesque for their efforts in addressing the need for a sidewalk along Hutchins Street between Napert Village and Columbia Avenue. The City has applied for $800,000 form the New Hampshire Department of Transportation to construct the sidewalk.



Several residents addressed the need for road repairs on Bemis Street.



"We have applied to FEMA for reimbursement of 75 percent of the cost," said Wheeler. "If funding comes in as expected, we would then have enough to do Bemis Street. Going forward, this fall Public Works will do some kind of grader patch to make the street better for the winter with a commitment that if there is enough money, grinding and repaving will be done in the spring. If there is not enough money, an appropriation would be budgeted for July 1 of the next fiscal year."



Construction work for the skatepark in community field began. The Public Works Department. and Berlin Water Works are working on the City's in-kind services portion of the project  this includes doing most of the earthwork before the hired firm comes in to construct the park. BERLIN  Two ordinances have been tabled for the Oct. 1 City Council meeting  opioid legislation and the sale of closed container alcohol at the Berlin Community Market.At a city work session last Monday, Sept. 17, Berlin Police Chief Peter Morency updated the council on representation from Napoli Shkolnik PLLC in a class action lawsuit to recover costs due to the opioid crisis. Legislation has been proposed and Morency said that the language would be put into an ordinance that will be the first read at the Oct. 1 City Council meeting."It is important that this is passed to emphasize the ongoing problems that are caused by the opioid epidemic," said Morency.Mayor Paul Grenier asked if the law suit is expected to carry on for years. The Chief stated that there is pressure on the state to settle and that pressure will increase as the lawsuit goes forward.Management of the Berlin Community Market is asking the city to allow closed container alcohol to be sold at the market. City Manager James Wheeler explained that something would need to be in the ordinance that would allow the sale of unopened alcohol without getting City Council approval each time during the Tuesday markets held on Main Street.City Councilor Diana Nelson asked if this included events at the Heritage Park and Wheeler replied that it is just for the Community Market.Councilor Roland Theberge asked if there is a certain limit on the alcohol percentage. Wheeler said that it isn't in the ordinance but that it may be covered by state law. The current ordinance states that the seller has to have permission from the Liquor Commission beforehand.In other business:The Mayor applauded students of the After School Program and instructor Naomi Levesque for their efforts in addressing the need for a sidewalk along Hutchins Street between Napert Village and Columbia Avenue. The City has applied for $800,000 form the New Hampshire Department of Transportation to construct the sidewalk.Several residents addressed the need for road repairs on Bemis Street."We have applied to FEMA for reimbursement of 75 percent of the cost," said Wheeler. "If funding comes in as expected, we would then have enough to do Bemis Street. Going forward, this fall Public Works will do some kind of grader patch to make the street better for the winter with a commitment that if there is enough money, grinding and repaving will be done in the spring. If there is not enough money, an appropriation would be budgeted for July 1 of the next fiscal year."Construction work for the skatepark in community field began. The Public Works Department. and Berlin Water Works are working on the City's in-kind services portion of the project  this includes doing most of the earthwork before the hired firm comes in to construct the park.

China has officially handed over a mid-size transport aircraft to Kazakhstan, the first time that the Chinese aircraft has been acquired by a member of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Produced by Shaanxi Aircraft Corporation, the Y-8F200W is expected to land on Wednesday in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, coming from Northwest China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, according to the corporation's official WeChat account on Sunday.

The mid-size transport aircraft is the most practical and popular transport aircraft on the international market, Fu Qianshao, a Chinese air defense expert, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

There are two mid-size transport aircraft on the market: the Chinese-built Y-8 and the US-made C-130, Fu said,

The Chinese Y-8 is the more cost-efficient choice, according to Fu.

Kazakhstan is now diversifying its source of weaponry beyond Russia, Wei Dongxu, a Beijing-based military analyst, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

Aside from the Y-8, the Kazakhstan military has bought Chinese drones.

"The export shows Chinese military aeronautic products have reached international level," Wei said.

The Chinese four-engined turboprop aircraft is based on the Russian Antonov An-12. It can be used for air delivery, transportation, emergency rescue and marine operation.

Fu said that the successful export to Kazakhstan increases the potential to enter the Middle East and African countries.

The Y-8 transport aircraft has already been exported to Pakistan, Myanmar and Venezuela, according to the experts.Granite State News WWII veteran awarded Congressional Gold Medal

by Thomas Beeler

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen chats with Congressional Gold Medalist Roger G. Campbell following the medal presentation ceremony at the Wright Museum last Friday morning, Sept. 21. (Photo by Thomas Beeler) (click for larger version) WOLFEBORO  Last Friday morning, a Melvin Village resident was officially recognized for his service helping to organize guerillas in Burma during World War II.



In a special ceremony at the Wright Museum, Roger G. Campbell was presented with a Congressional Gold Medal by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen. The Gold Medal is the highest honor Congress can award to recognize individual achievement.



A native of Central Falls, R.I., Campbell had joined the U.S. Army but, in part due to his ability to work with carrier pigeons (learned on the rooftop of the tenement he grew up in), he was asked to become part of an operation in Burma organized and directed by the newly-created Office of Strategic Services (O.S.S.). Technician 4th Grade Campbell volunteered and became part of the most effective combat units fighting against the Japanese during the war. Fewer than 100 members of the O.S.S. are still alive today, and by recognizing the 97-year-old Roger Campbell, the nation honors all who served.



Participating in the presentation ceremony were Wolfeboro's Anne Blodgett, president of the Wright Museum Board of Directors, Brigadier General Bill Conway of the New Hampshire National Guard, Deputy National Guard adjutant Gen. Warren Perry, Commander Wayne Marshall of Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 8270 of Ossipee, and Senator Shaheen.



Also present was the Kingswood Regional High School Current Affairs class, which met with Campbell afterward, and Campbell's extended family.



Campbell was moved to tears when Shaheen presented him with the gold medal. He thanked the senator, her staff, his son Scott and his wife, his grandchildren and nephews and his physician, Dr. Stephen Fleet of Wolfeboro Internal Medicine, who was present.



The O.S.S.



The O.S.S. was created in 1942 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to overcome a lack of American coordinated military intelligence that left us vulnerable to attacks like Pearl Harbor. It was modeled on the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), put under the direct command of the Joint Chief of Staff and headed by William J. Donovan, who had spent 1940 and 1941 in Europe studying intelligence operations. "Wild Bill" Donovan wrote a "Memorandum of Establishment of Service of Strategic Information" and was appointed "coordinator of information" on July 11, 1941, heading the new organization known as the office of the Coordinator of Information (C.O.I.). The 600 members of C.O.I. formed the core of the O.S.S. in 1942.



The O.S.S. was disbanded at the end of the war, but a continuing need to protect the nation through superior intelligence operations led to the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A.) in 1947.



On Dec. 14, 2016, the O.S.S. was collectively honored with a Congressional Gold Medal. Congress voted to award the gold medal to select individuals, including Campbell, on March 21 of this year.



Campbell's role



While the O.S.S. was active in both theatres of the war, its secret efforts in Burma were the most successful, and Roger Campbell was a key member of that select group. The O.S.S. in Burma was charged with organizing, training and arming local resistance units, rescuing downed pilots and harassing the Imperial Japanese Army is all ways possible.



Wayne Marshall, commander of VFW Post 8270 in Ossipee, one of the speakers at last Friday's event, said that the actions of Campbell and others like him saved hundreds of thousands America lives.



A major focus of the Burma unit's efforts was building up a local resistance force among the Kachin natives. According to Wikipedia, "The Kachin people are an ethnic affinity of several tribal groups, known for their fierce independence, disciplined fighting skills, complex clan inter-relations, craftsmanship, herbal healing and jungle survival skills." From 101 Kachins trained and armed, this guerilla army grew to 10,200 rangers. As part of the O.S.S. effort, the Kachins killed 5,428 Japanese soldiers and rescued more than 500 pilots.



Like all O.S.S. operatives in Burma, Campbell wore no uniform and thus was not protected from execution if captured. He also had to survive the rigors of the jungle, catching malaria three times. His carrier pigeons, who could not be detected by the Japanese, kept the flow of information on Japanese troop movements flowing.



According to his daughter-in-law Marie Campbell, his favorite book on the war is "Behind the Burma Road." She cited some statistics from the book. In addition to the 5,428 Imperial solders killed, more than 10,000 were wounded, 51 bridges were destroyed, nine railroad trains derailed, and more than 3,000 tons of supplies were destroyed. Of the pilots rescued, 232 were Americans and 342 were from other armed forces. The losses on the allied side were 22 Americans and 184 natives killed.



Campbell spent two years in Burma in a unit consisting of 131 officers and 558 enlisted men. He is one of a few surviving members of what Senator Shaheen called "the greatest of the Greatest Generation." WOLFEBORO  Last Friday morning, a Melvin Village resident was officially recognized for his service helping to organize guerillas in Burma during World War II.In a special ceremony at the Wright Museum, Roger G. Campbell was presented with a Congressional Gold Medal by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen. The Gold Medal is the highest honor Congress can award to recognize individual achievement.A native of Central Falls, R.I., Campbell had joined the U.S. Army but, in part due to his ability to work with carrier pigeons (learned on the rooftop of the tenement he grew up in), he was asked to become part of an operation in Burma organized and directed by the newly-created Office of Strategic Services (O.S.S.). Technician 4th Grade Campbell volunteered and became part of the most effective combat units fighting against the Japanese during the war. Fewer than 100 members of the O.S.S. are still alive today, and by recognizing the 97-year-old Roger Campbell, the nation honors all who served.Participating in the presentation ceremony were Wolfeboro's Anne Blodgett, president of the Wright Museum Board of Directors, Brigadier General Bill Conway of the New Hampshire National Guard, Deputy National Guard adjutant Gen. Warren Perry, Commander Wayne Marshall of Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 8270 of Ossipee, and Senator Shaheen.Also present was the Kingswood Regional High School Current Affairs class, which met with Campbell afterward, and Campbell's extended family.Campbell was moved to tears when Shaheen presented him with the gold medal. He thanked the senator, her staff, his son Scott and his wife, his grandchildren and nephews and his physician, Dr. Stephen Fleet of Wolfeboro Internal Medicine, who was present.The O.S.S.The O.S.S. was created in 1942 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to overcome a lack of American coordinated military intelligence that left us vulnerable to attacks like Pearl Harbor. It was modeled on the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), put under the direct command of the Joint Chief of Staff and headed by William J. Donovan, who had spent 1940 and 1941 in Europe studying intelligence operations. "Wild Bill" Donovan wrote a "Memorandum of Establishment of Service of Strategic Information" and was appointed "coordinator of information" on July 11, 1941, heading the new organization known as the office of the Coordinator of Information (C.O.I.). The 600 members of C.O.I. formed the core of the O.S.S. in 1942.The O.S.S. was disbanded at the end of the war, but a continuing need to protect the nation through superior intelligence operations led to the creation of the Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A.) in 1947.On Dec. 14, 2016, the O.S.S. was collectively honored with a Congressional Gold Medal. Congress voted to award the gold medal to select individuals, including Campbell, on March 21 of this year.Campbell's roleWhile the O.S.S. was active in both theatres of the war, its secret efforts in Burma were the most successful, and Roger Campbell was a key member of that select group. The O.S.S. in Burma was charged with organizing, training and arming local resistance units, rescuing downed pilots and harassing the Imperial Japanese Army is all ways possible.Wayne Marshall, commander of VFW Post 8270 in Ossipee, one of the speakers at last Friday's event, said that the actions of Campbell and others like him saved hundreds of thousands America lives.A major focus of the Burma unit's efforts was building up a local resistance force among the Kachin natives. According to Wikipedia, "The Kachin people are an ethnic affinity of several tribal groups, known for their fierce independence, disciplined fighting skills, complex clan inter-relations, craftsmanship, herbal healing and jungle survival skills." From 101 Kachins trained and armed, this guerilla army grew to 10,200 rangers. As part of the O.S.S. effort, the Kachins killed 5,428 Japanese soldiers and rescued more than 500 pilots.Like all O.S.S. operatives in Burma, Campbell wore no uniform and thus was not protected from execution if captured. He also had to survive the rigors of the jungle, catching malaria three times. His carrier pigeons, who could not be detected by the Japanese, kept the flow of information on Japanese troop movements flowing.According to his daughter-in-law Marie Campbell, his favorite book on the war is "Behind the Burma Road." She cited some statistics from the book. In addition to the 5,428 Imperial solders killed, more than 10,000 were wounded, 51 bridges were destroyed, nine railroad trains derailed, and more than 3,000 tons of supplies were destroyed. Of the pilots rescued, 232 were Americans and 342 were from other armed forces. The losses on the allied side were 22 Americans and 184 natives killed.Campbell spent two years in Burma in a unit consisting of 131 officers and 558 enlisted men. He is one of a few surviving members of what Senator Shaheen called "the greatest of the Greatest Generation."

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2018-Oct-03 More... Thanks for visiting SalmonPress.comWinnisquam Echo New Assistant Pastor at Praise Assembly already making an impact

by Donna Rhodes write the author

Jordan Cummings is the new Assistant Pastor of Praise Assembly of God church in Tilton, orchestrating music for worship services and overseeing youth programs. (Photo by Donna Rhodes) (click for larger version) TILTON  Pastor Bill Williams is excited to introduce Jordan Cummings to the Winnisquam community as he settles into his new role as Assistant Pastor for the Praise Assembly of God Church on School Street in Tilton.



"Jordan's such a blessing to our church. We'd been looking for an assistant pastor for about two years, and finally found him. He's a man of integrity, a hard worker, and he's doing an awesome job," said Williams



Cummings began his new position with Praise Assembly of God in August, and said he already feels right at home in the area.



"This church is very loving, very welcoming. It's been an easy adjustment," he said.



Raised in Presque Isle, Maine, Cummings is a recent graduate of Faith Bible College in Charleston, Maine, and that is where he first met Pastor Williams.



"He came to school looking for an assistant and stopped in to my last class before graduation," Cummings recalled. "We talked for a while, and he said I was everything he was looking for; we hit it off right away and here I am!"



From Faith Bible College, he received a Bachelors degree in Theological Studies, with a minor in Worship and Music.



"I'm looking to develop a worship team here now, but we only have a few musicians who are interested so we hope a couple more will come forward to join us," he said.



Besides assisting Williams with those duties and others, Cummings orchestrates the music for the weekly worship services where he plays guitar for the congregation. He also recently selected new bible study curriculum for children four to 12 years old.



Another of his responsibilities is to oversee the youth group.



"Our youth group is in a growing period right now. We've have some awesome activities for the kids and we're hoping to branch out to other kids in the community," said Cummings. "Kids in first through 12th grade are welcome to join us each week for food, a message from the bible and games."



Among the activities he leads them in during the youth gatherings are practice sessions for Bible Quiz competitions that take place between several Assembly of God groups.



The Wednesday night youth program runs from 6-8 p.m., and to give parents a break from driving their children to and from nighttime activities, they even have a bus to provide rides for those in surrounding communities.



Cummings' interest in working with the young members of the community doesn't stop there however.



"I'd also like to reach out and partner with some of the other youth organizations in the area," he said.



For the next few weeks, Cummings will be working on the final details and set up for the church's Family Fun Fest, an annual event that was unfortunately placed on hiatus as they searched for a new assistant pastor. With Cummings now on board, the festival is back on though and will take place on Saturday, Oct. 20, from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. at Pines Community Center in Northfield. At the festival, there will be great games and activities for boys and girls, along with prizes, food, and a dunking booth that Cummings has already volunteered for, despite the fall temperatures. Best of all, he added, it's all free.



To learn more about Praise Assembly of God's worship services, youth programs or rides for the weekly youth meetings, interested parties can call 286-3007 for details.



"We really have a lot to offer and we have a lot of fun, too. We hope more kids will join us," said Cummings. TILTON  Pastor Bill Williams is excited to introduce Jordan Cummings to the Winnisquam community as he settles into his new role as Assistant Pastor for the Praise Assembly of God Church on School Street in Tilton."Jordan's such a blessing to our church. We'd been looking for an assistant pastor for about two years, and finally found him. He's a man of integrity, a hard worker, and he's doing an awesome job," said WilliamsCummings began his new position with Praise Assembly of God in August, and said he already feels right at home in the area."This church is very loving, very welcoming. It's been an easy adjustment," he said.Raised in Presque Isle, Maine, Cummings is a recent graduate of Faith Bible College in Charleston, Maine, and that is where he first met Pastor Williams."He came to school looking for an assistant and stopped in to my last class before graduation," Cummings recalled. "We talked for a while, and he said I was everything he was looking for; we hit it off right away and here I am!"From Faith Bible College, he received a Bachelors degree in Theological Studies, with a minor in Worship and Music."I'm looking to develop a worship team here now, but we only have a few musicians who are interested so we hope a couple more will come forward to join us," he said.Besides assisting Williams with those duties and others, Cummings orchestrates the music for the weekly worship services where he plays guitar for the congregation. He also recently selected new bible study curriculum for children four to 12 years old.Another of his responsibilities is to oversee the youth group."Our youth group is in a growing period right now. We've have some awesome activities for the kids and we're hoping to branch out to other kids in the community," said Cummings. "Kids in first through 12th grade are welcome to join us each week for food, a message from the bible and games."Among the activities he leads them in during the youth gatherings are practice sessions for Bible Quiz competitions that take place between several Assembly of God groups.The Wednesday night youth program runs from 6-8 p.m., and to give parents a break from driving their children to and from nighttime activities, they even have a bus to provide rides for those in surrounding communities.Cummings' interest in working with the young members of the community doesn't stop there however."I'd also like to reach out and partner with some of the other youth organizations in the area," he said.For the next few weeks, Cummings will be working on the final details and set up for the church's Family Fun Fest, an annual event that was unfortunately placed on hiatus as they searched for a new assistant pastor. With Cummings now on board, the festival is back on though and will take place on Saturday, Oct. 20, from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. at Pines Community Center in Northfield. At the festival, there will be great games and activities for boys and girls, along with prizes, food, and a dunking booth that Cummings has already volunteered for, despite the fall temperatures. Best of all, he added, it's all free.To learn more about Praise Assembly of God's worship services, youth programs or rides for the weekly youth meetings, interested parties can call 286-3007 for details."We really have a lot to offer and we have a lot of fun, too. We hope more kids will join us," said Cummings.

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2021-Oct-13 More... Thanks for visiting SalmonPress.comBy Express News Service

NEW DELHI: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has asked the Interpol wing of Nigeria to confirm if Nitin Sandesara, the promoter of Gujarat-based Sterlite Biotech, has moved there, officials said on Tuesday.

The move came after reports emerged that Sandesara, accused in a `5,300-crore scam, had fled from the United Arab Emirates to Nigeria along with his family members. India does not have an extradition treaty with the African nation.

The investigation agency, however, said it did not have any inputs about the businessman's whereabouts.

In October 2017, the CBI had booked Sterling Biotech, its directors Chetan Jayantilal Sandesara, Dipti Chetan Sandesara, Rajbhushan Omprakash Dixit, Vilas Joshi, chartered account Hemant Hathi and former director of Andhra bank Anup Garg, apart from others.

The CBI has alleged that the company had taken huge loans from a consortium led by Andhra Bank which have turned into non-performing assets. The FIR says the total pending dues of the group companies were `5,383 crore, as on December 31, 2016.

"The directors of the company connived with the in-house chartered accountant and falsified material records of the company, such as production, turnover and investments in capital assets, the FIR alleged and added that this was done allegedly using various India-based entities and those situated abroad.By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: India is the fastest growing economy, but getting a job here is now harder than ever, as the country has struggled to convert its high economic growth rate into good jobs, says report by Azim Premji Universitys Centre for Sustainable Employment (CSE).

A 10 per cent increase in GDP results in less than 1 per cent increase in employment, and the rate of unemployment among youth and those who have completed higher education has reached 16 per cent, according to the State of Working India 2018 report. The rate of open unemployment is now over 5 per cent.

In comparison, the unemployment rate in the United States is 3.8 per cent, while it hovers around 4 per cent in China.

Total employment in India shrank by seven million between 2013 and 2015, according to the report; and recent data from private sources show that the absolute decline continued past 2015.

The report also criticised a recent study that claimed the economy generated 13 million new jobs in 2017, saying the optimistic conclusion depends on selective use of data and unjustified assumptions.

On average monthly income, it said 82 per cent of men and 92 per cent of women workers earn less than Rs 10,000. The minimum salary recommended by the Seventh Central Pay Commission (CPC), meanwhile, was Rs 18,000 per month.

The report further noted that most sectors, excluding agriculture, saw an increase of at least 3-4 per cent in real wages annually since 2000. Another challenge in the sector is the gender disparity in terms of wages. Women earn 35-85 per cent of what men do, depending on their jobs and level of education, according to the study.

Pay rising

Wage rates have grown in most sectors at 3% per annum or more

But 82% male and 92% female workers earn less than Rs 10,000 a month

From 2010 to 2015, real wages grew at a CAGR of 2% for organised manufacturing, 4% for unorganised manufacturing, 5% for unorganised services and 7% for agriculture

In 2015, 67% households reported monthly earnings of Rs 10,000 or less; 98% earned less than Rs 50,000 a month

Overall, the level of wages in all sectors is still far below a decent wage of at least Rs 18,000 per month as group D salary recommended by the Central Pay Commission

Productivity vs salary

Labour productivity in organised manufacturing increased by six times over the past three decades but wages increased by only 1.5 times

Gender disparity

Women form 16% of all service sector workers, but 60% of domestic workers

Overall, women earn 65% of mens earningsBy Express News Service

BENGALURU: Hospitality firm OYO Rooms on Tuesday said it has raised $1 billion (about Rs 7,280 crore) in its latest funding round led by its major stakeholder SoftBank, eyeing to scale up international business.

The homegrown start-up, which has already earlier raised $800 million, has received a commitment of $200 million from the Japanese funding agency, taking the total capital it received to $1 billion.

According to a statement from the company, its latest funding round was attended by SoftBank Investment Advisers (SBIA) through SoftBank Vision Fund, along with OYOs existing investors Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sequoia and Greenoaks Capital.

We have already started expanding our presence to newer segments with OYO Home, OYO Townhouse and, more recently, Palette Resorts. We will continue to explore newer businesses while remaining focused on both organic and inorganic growth, said Ritesh Agarwal, founder and CEO, OYO Rooms.

The company plans to utilise the fresh capital raised to fund its international expansion plans and also to strengthen its markets in India and China. It will direct approximately $600 million from the present round of financing into strengthening its position in China.

Last week, OYO had announced its UK entry where it plans to invest 40 million. Apart from the UK, in the last 12 months, OYO had widened its international footprint to China, Malaysia, and Nepal.

With this additional funding, we plan to rapidly scale our business in these countries, while continuing to invest further in technology and talent, Agarwal said.

OYO founded in 2013, is one of the latest entrants of the unicorn club. It is currently present in over 350 cities with over 10,000 asset partners.Samuel Merigala By

Express News Service

CHENNAI: Disproportionate allocation of funds for solid waste management operations in the suburbs has left the streets of Tambaram, Pallavaram and Sembakkam filled with overflowing dustbins that are spilling onto walkways.

Solid waste management operations in these neighbourhooods came to a standstill on September 13 after Essel Group, which operates the Vengadamangalam waste management plant, stopped taking trash from the two transfer stations demanding increased tipping fees. The Municipal Administration Department has refused to budge.

This gridlock has filled both the Pallavaram and Tambaram transfer stations, preventing conservancy operation in most areas because of lack of space in the transfer facilities. Since there is no place in the transfer facilities, door-to-door conservancy operations in most areas has stopped or reduced, said a Tambaram Municipality Officer.

Pallavaram and Tambaram transfer stations almost full, door to door collections have also stopped in most areas

Essel Group handles over 6,900 tonnes of mixed waste from Tambaram, Pallavaram and Sembakkam Municipality every month and is paid around `330/tonne as a tipping fee for transfer and processing. However, it is learned that the operator is eligible up to `580/tonne as per the agreement.

Currently we are paid around `17 lakh by the Municipal Administration Department for handling the 6,900 tonnes of waste from these three municipalities, said an official from Essel Group, explaining that rising diesel prices and operational costs have made operations unviable and forced the halting of operations.

The Municipal Administration Department has been citing lack of funds but it spends `36 lakh in disposing just 60 tonnes of plastic waste each month from these three municipalities by taking it to a cement factory in Ariyalur.

It is learned that transporting 10 tonnes of waste over 273 km from Tambaram to Ariyalur costs over `30,000 and that each municipality generates at least 40 tonnes of high-calorific plastic waste each month.

This waste is used to produce Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF) which is used in the factory. While the latest solid waste management rules encourage production of RDF, it mandates that waste should be given to the factories for free.

In this case, the Municipal Administration Department is paying twice as much on transportation of less than one-tenth of the waste being sent to Vengadamangalam facility operated by the Essel Group on a 25-year contract.

The end user, which is the cement company should pay for the transportation of the plastic waste to the factory, said a civic member coordinating source segregation awareness for Pallavaram Municipality.

This cement company which has a tie-up with over 50 civic bodies in the state said that production of RDF is unviable from municipal waste and was taking a hit.

Using RDF to fuel furnaces by itself is making it hard for us to break even. Asking us to pay for the plastic waste we process is unreasonable, said a senior official at the Cement company.

In addition to refusing to increase tipping fees to the operator who is sent the major chunk of municipal waste, the civic bodies are also cherry picking the high-calorific plastic for the cement factories, which pay nothing in return.

The temporary coordinator of solid waste management operations for the three municipalities, Karuppiah Raju, said he would look into the disproportionate allocation of funds, which has resulted in garbage accumulation over the last two weeks.

We will look into the issues and find a solution, said Raju, downplaying the effects of two weeks of garbage spillover on the streets of Tambaram, Pallavaram and Sembakkam.

The Commissioner of Municipal Administration G Prakash was not available for comment despite multiple attempts to reach him.By Express News Service

HYDERABAD: The Detailed Project Report (DPR) for Phase-II of Hyderabad Metro Rail to provide metro express connectivity between Raidurg and international airport at Shamshabad is in the final stage. The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Limited (DMRC), which was entrusted the task of preparing the DPR, will submit the report soon.

We will have an internal discussion and then send it to the State government for green signal, HMRL Managing Director NVS Reddy told newsmen here on Tuesday.

Apart from metro express connectivity to airport, the second phase entails development of other stretches. The HMRL under Phase-II has proposed to take up other routes from BHEL-Lakdikapul corridor via Kondapur, Gachibowli, Shaikpet, Tolichowki, Mehidipatnam and to connect the gap between LB Nagar and Nagole, Falaknuma to Shamshabad airport, he said.

Phase-I of Metro Rail covering 72 km barring Old City would be completed by 2019.

L&T Metro Rail (Hyderabad) Limited would invest an additional Rs 2,500 crore to complete the Hyderabad Metro Rail project. As a concessionaire, LTMRHL invested about Rs 13,000 crore of the Rs 14,132 crore taken up under public-private partnership. And the State government has invested nearly Rs 2,300 crore for land acquisition, right of way and related infrastructure to facilitate completion of the project.

However, another Corridor-II between Jubilee Bus Station and MGBS will be ready by early 2019, minus a 5-6 km stretch that runs through the Old City and connects to Falaknuma. The route relating to six-km stretch in the Old City is faced with the challenge of providing right of way for metro implementation. The HMR took up the survey and marking of properties, Reddy said.

With the latest stretch between Ameerpet and LB Nagar commencing operations from Monday, the Hyderabad Metro Rail project has fully completed the 29-km corridor between Miyapur and LB Nagar of Corridor-1. Governor ESL Narasimhan after inaugurating the 16-km stretch between Ameerpet and LB Nagar on Monday, set December 15 as the target for completion of Ameerpet-Hi-tec city route.

Hyderabad Metro project is very much on track and we have been successful in implementing latest and new technologies and execute the work at a much faster pace, though there have been initial glitches but we have overcome all of them with the assistance of HMRL. We have been updating the State government regularly on the progress of the project, KVB Reddy, L&T Metro Rail (Hyderabad) Limited MD & CEO, said.

Further boost in connectivity

The HMRL under Phase-II has proposed to take up other routes from BHEL-Lakdikapul corridor via Kondapur, Gachibowli, Shaikpet, Tolichowki, Mehidipatnam and to connect the gap between LB Nagar and Nagole, Falaknuma to Shamshabad airportBy Express News Service

KOCHI: ICAR-CIFT, the central university mandated for research and development in harvest and post-harvest technologies of fisheries, is organising a three-day skill development programme on Microbiological Examination of Fish and Fishery Products, at ICAR-CIFT, Kochi, from September 25 to 27. This training programme is sponsored by National Fisheries Development Board (NFDB), Hyderabad.

As many as 25 seafood technologists from different seafood processing plants from different parts of India are participating in this programme.

The programme focuses on improving the skill of seafood technologists and postgraduates for testing the fish and fishery products on microbial parameters to meet the food safety standard. The NFDB-sponsored programme will be held under the personal supervision of CIFT director C N Ravishankar.

The programme was inaugurated by C N Ravishankar, director of ICAR- CIFT. M M Prasad, head MFB Division and course director has given the details of the programme schedule and briefed how it is beneficial to the participants. Earlier, scientist Murugadas welcomed the gathering and scientist Vishnuvinayagam proposed the vote of thanks.By Express News Service

KOCHI:The first Cochin International Boat Show (CIBS) and eighth edition of HotelTech Kerala, the states premier hospitality equipment exhibition, commenced at Bolgatty Palace event centre on Wednesday. The CIBS and HotelTech Kerala were inaugurated by Vice Admiral A K Chawla, Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Southern Naval Command.

Inaugurating the events Vice Admiral A K Chawla said: Kerala has huge potential in the area of maritime tourism. It can attract foreign tourists. Events like the CIBS will play a great role in the promotion of maritime tourism. He said the Navy will extend all support for the promotion of maritime tourism. Speaking at the event, K V Thomas MP said the states culture and cuisine are connected with its long maritime history. Joseph Kuriacose, director, Cruz Expos, also spoke.

The boat show hosts a total of 42 companies from India, the UK, New Zealand, the West Asia and Australia. Apart from 15 boats, marina, engines and navigational equipment are also exhibited in the three-day event.

It is after eight years an international boat show is taking place in India. The boat show is organised by Kochi-based Cruz Expos, which organises the India Pavilion at international boat shows in Sri Lanka and the Maldives, in association with the Kerala Shipping and Inland Navigation Corporation Ltd (KSINC). The eighth edition of HotelTech Kerala, which is taking place alongside the boat show, has 45 exhibitors from across the country. The exhibition, which is also organised by Cruz Expos, showcase sectors such as hotel supplies, hospitality and technology, equipment for hotels and restaurants, cleaning equipment and services, hospitality information systems and other services.

The Kerala Culinary Challenge, which has been taking place as part of HotelTech Kerala, is organised in association with the South India Chefs Association, Kerala chapter. Display competitions and live cooking competitions are being held as part of the three-day event.By Express News Service

VIJAYAWADA: In a surprise raid carried out by the Commissioners Task Force (CTF) police, two persons were caught while transporting ganja from Visakhapatnam to Chennai in a private bus on Tuesday. In the same bus, police also arrested another two persons for carrying Rs 32 lakh unaccounted cash.

According to sources in the CTF, the sleuths intercepted the bus at Ramvarapaddu junction after being tipped off that two men were transporting the banned drug product to Chennai from Visakhapatnam. Officials then officials found the ganja stocks packed in a carton box. The seized product is worth around Rs 5 lakh in the open market.

During searches in the bus, officials also found `32 lakh cash in a bag belonging to another passenger.

When asked about the details of the cash, the passenger failed to produce them. We seized the cash and asked the two persons to submit the proofs from where they got the money, said the sources.KIEV, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- Ukraine has conducted the successful test of a new armored recovery vehicle "Lev," which could be used for towing and repairing battle-damaged military equipment in combat conditions, the country's state defense conglomerate Ukroboronprom said Tuesday in a statement.

Designed by Lviv Armour Vehicle Factory in western Ukraine, "Lev" is based on the Soviet T-72 tank. It is equipped with a crane, which is capable of lifting up to 12 tons of freight, a 200-meter-long towing cable, and electric welding gear.

The vehicle is also fitted with a cargo platform for transporting spare parts for the damaged military hardware and a 12.7-millimeter-caliber machine gun for self-protection.

The three-seat vehicle can reach a top speed of 60 km per hour and has a range of 460 km without fuelling on the unpaved road.

Lviv Armour Vehicle Factory said it plans to launch a serial production of "Lev" soon.Shilajit Mitra By

Express News Service

Sibling relationships often anchor the films of Vishal Bhardwaj. His humble but powerful debut, Makdee (2003), featured the characters of Chunni and Munni  inimical twin sisters in a small village who get entrapped by an impostor. 2009 saw the release of Kaminey, in which Shahid Kapoor doubled as twin brothers  Charlie the lisper and Guddu the stutterer  caught up in the Mumbai underworld. His upcoming film, Pataakha, is also centred on a sibling pair constantly at loggerheads; Chhutki and Badki, though not twins, have little regard for age or seniority when having a go at each other. Based on Charan Singh Pathiks short story Do Behnein, Pataakha equates the war-like equation between the sisters to the love-hate relationship between India and Pakistan.

Stories are made from relationships. My own brother was eight years elder to me; naturally, I was the one getting beaten up all the time. As a writer-director, I get attracted to stories about siblings. Theres ample drama to be explored in a set-up like that, Vishal reasons.

In Pataakha, debutant Radhika Madan plays the role of the elder sister Badki. The 25-year-old actor describes the power equation between siblings as a constantly volatile one. This role was particularly difficult for me to play, since at home I am the younger sibling. Growing up, my brother would always annoy me and treat me as a child, although he is just two years elder to me. I noted down everything he would do or say to me, and applied it to my character, she says.

Dangal-fame Sanya Malhotra, who plays the younger sibling Chhutki, adds, I was the younger sibling in my household too, so I understood my character very well. I used to love hitting my sister. I have no idea why we fought so much. I used to hate my sister and constantly avoided her. Its only after I moved to Mumbai that I started missing her and we became the best of friends.

Curiously, Radhika is three years younger to Sanya in real life. The decision to cast her as Badki was taken after an in-depth look test. There was a lot of confusion about our roles, since we look the same age. So Vishal sir finally decided to do a joint look-test. Thankfully, when I personally met Sanya, I released that she should play the younger one. Personality-wise, I am more aggressive and imposing than her.

Sanya agrees. I am an introvert while Radhika is a full-on Delhi girl. When we first met, I thought she would annoy the hell out of me. Luckily, we bonded a lot during workshops and then on shoot. She is a very positive person to be around. I almost started feeling like her younger sister. It was important to have an emotional connect between us to pull off this film. I am sure all siblings will connect with our relationship.

Pataakha is scheduled for release on September 28. The film also stars Sunil Grover, Vijay Raaz, Saanand Verma, Namit Das and Abhishek Duhan.Pushkar Banakar By

Express News Service

NEW DELHI: A 15-year-old girl with a rare genetic disorder, who has been relentlessly protesting against Aadhaar, on Wednesday expressed her disappointment over the Supreme Court upholding the government's ambitious scheme as legal with few caveats.

"The SC should have clearly made Aadhaar voluntary. How can a free citizen's identity rest on a mere number, a mere fingerprint, and mere probability? I am saddened and this has left me unbelievably worried. After all the hard work that I and so many people did to make Aadhaar voluntary, a defeat of this sort is very hurtful and greatly frustrating," Eidya Pal, who suffers from Marfran Symdrome said.

Marfan Syndrome is a rare genetic disorder that affects the body's connective tissue, the fibers, that support and anchor organs and other structures in the body. It most commonly affects the heart, eyes, blood vessels and skeleton. In India, it affects 10-30 individuals in 1,00,000 people. The most common symptom of the disorder is flexible joints. Other parts of the body which are affected include lungs, eyes and bones. Providing biometrics like fingerprints and iris scan is very difficult for people who suffer from the disorder.

Eidya, who has been home-schooled for her medical condition, has taken part in many protests in the National Capital. "Certainly, the Supreme Court has given us a breather. I don't deny that, but the apex court has also subtly made Aadhaar mandatory for most lawful Indians, and that is a huge disappointment," she said.

The teenager hopes a review plea would help people like her and hopes that the Supreme Court would make Aadhaar voluntary.By Online Desk

On March 3, 2016, during the budget session, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley introduced the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Bill in Lok Sabha as a money bill. Jaitleys decision was criticised by the Opposition parties. The Aadhaar Bill became an Act after it was tabled and passed as a money bill in Lok Sabha as a money bill is only required to pass in the lower house (Lok Sabha).

Later in 2017, the Aadhaar Act came under the scanner of the Supreme Court when pleas challenging the validity of Aadhaar were filed with the right to privacy attached to it. A nine-judge bench then pronounced its verdict saying that the right to privacy was inherent in the right to life, liberty and speech, but not without reasonable curbs when it came to national security, fighting crime and distribution of state benefits.

The judgment became the standard for Aadhaars validity. Critics have since opposed the move as an 'intrusive tool open to misuse' by the government.

The challengers:

In 2012, Aadhaar got its first challenger in former judge in Karnataka High Court justice K Puttaswamy. Justice Puttaswamy challenged the Government of India over making Aadhaar mandatory. He had filed a writ petition in 2012 and over the last five years, 26 other petitions have joined him, challenging the project.

Puttaswamy was appointed judge of the Karnataka High Court in November 1977. He was appointed as the first Vice-Chairman of the Central Administrative Tribunal, Bangalore Bench in September 1986. In November 1989, he was appointed as First Chairman of the Andhra Pradesh Administrative Tribunal constituted under the Uniform Administrative Tribunals Act.

The following year, eight new pleas were filed in the apex court. Four challenges were subquently filed in 2014 and five in 2015.

Another 12 challenges cropped up since the Narendra Modi government passed the Aadhaar Act in 2016.

Some noted personalities also filed petitions against the Aadhaar Act. They are S.G. Vombatkere, Aruna Roy, Shantha Sinha, Kalyani Menon Sen, Binoy Viswam, Mathew Thomas.

Indian Oil Corporation Limited has also filed five petitions against the project. The PSU had knocked the SC door after its earlier verdict which said its direct benefit transfer for LPG consumers (DBTL) scheme can be availed only by those persons who have secured Aadhaar cards. IOCL had filed a plea in the apex court seeking clarification or modification of the order.

West Bengal is the only state to challenge the governments Aadhaar Act.

Interestingly, one plea has been filed by the Aadhaars governing body itself UIDAI, challenging a Bombay High Court verdict which directed the UIDAI to submit biometric information of those accused in criminal trials to the CBI.

Also, there have also been six interventions admitted by the court. Bengaluru MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar has filed an intervention in Aruna Roys case and the Centre for Civil Society has filed one for Puttaswamys case.By IANS

SHIMLA: As rains subsided in Himachal Pradesh on Wednesday, the evacuation of over 1,500 tourists still stranded in snow-marooned Lahaul-Spiti district continued on a war footing, an official said.

"There was no heavy rainfall in the state but precipitation at many places since Tuesday," a Met official told IANS. Most rivers which were in spate saw a decline in water levels. Similar weather was likely to continue till Friday.

The government and the Indian Air Force (IAF) stepped up efforts to airlift the thousands stranded since September 22 after landslides in different spots snapped road links on the hills.

Early snowfall in the higher reaches and cloudbursts devastated large parts of the state between September 22 and 24. Kullu and Lahaul-Spiti were the worst affected districts.

"Once evacuated, the Indian Air Force and the state government helicopters will bring the rescued to Kullu town," Kullu Deputy Commissioner Yunus Khan told IANS.

The IAF has deployed three helicopters.

A total of 300 people were evacuated by Tuesday evening, most of whom were faculty and students from IITs Mandi, Roorkee, Guwahati and Mumbai and some foreigners.

Heavy snowfall on the Rohtang Pass has cut off the Lahaul and Spiti Valleys, affecting a large number of tourists. They have been stranded at a number of isolated locations, the Broader Roads Organisation (BRO) said.

The BRO was clearing snow from roads. Some stretches have over eight feet of snow.

Shimla on Wednesday recorded a low of 14 degrees Celsius, while it was minus 0.7 degrees in Keylong in Lahaul-Spiti district. It was 7 degrees in Manali and 6.4 degrees in Kalpa in Kinnaur district.

The water level in the Satluj, Beas and Yamuna rivers and their tributaries has started to recede, a government spokesman said.By Express News Service

SHIVAMOGGA: The Shivamogga police on Wednesday detained a head constable of New Town police station in Bhadravati for allegedly giving supari to a gang to kill his wife to elope with his girlfriend living in Italy. However, the gang reportedly changed their mind and dropped the plan.

SP Abhinav Khare said, Accused Ravindranath Giri allegedly gave a contract to kill his wife. Giri was in touch with a girl in Italy and had planned to go to Italy to live with her. His wife knew about it and had objected to it. Hence, he gave a supari to kill his wife. Following a tip-off, we nabbed the gang and the constable is being interrogated.

Sources said that Giri had agreed to pay Rs 5 lakh as supari to accused Firoz Khan, Sohail and Irfan and he had paid Rs 20,000 as advance about a month ago. The killers attempted to kill the woman thrice. However, they changed their mind after noticing her eight-year-old son.

While one source said that the accused were caught by beat police while coming back from their third attempt, another report says that the gang approached the police. A case is registered at New Town police station.By Express News Service

MUMBAI: A tribal woman was allegedly stripped naked and beaten up by four people at Bhangaon village in Shrigonda tehsil of Ahmednagar district in Maharashtra when she tried to save her husband whom they were assaulting.

This happened on September 14, but came to light on Wednesday after a video clip of the incident went viral on social media. The video shows the 35-year-old woman, who belongs to the Pardhi community, and her husband being beaten with sticks by the accused.

After an initial delay, police had registered the womans complaint against the four men. But no arrests have been made in the case yet.

According to the woman, her goat entered the farm of one of the accused, Jaysing Wagaskar, leading to an altercation between him and her husband. Three relative of Wagaskar joined him and started beating her husband. When she tried to intervene, she, too, was assaulted, groped and her clothes were torn off.

The accused also passed abusive comments over the couples caste, the police said.

The four accused have been booked under the stringent SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, apart from various Sections of the IPC.

The incident was recorded on mobile phone by an unidentified person and uploaded on social media, the police have said.

The victim in her statement said the local police initially refused to register her complaint. It was registered only after two days when she reached the deputy SPs office.

The Pardhi community has traditionally been a hunting tribe and has been categorised as a nomadic tribe that had been branded as criminals by the British in 1871.Sukshma Ramakrishnan By

Online Desk

The Supreme Court on Wednesday, while declaring that Aadhaar is constitutionally valid with conditions, also upheld the passing of Aadhaar bill as money bill by the Lok Sabha in March 2016.

The Congress, however, has said it would approach the apex court to reconsider the plea against passage of the legislation as a Money Bill.

So, what is a Money Bill?

According to Article 110 in the Constitution Of India, a Bill shall be deemed to be a Money Bill if it contains provisions dealing with all or any of the following matters, namely:

(a) the imposition, abolition, remission, alteration or regulation of any tax;

(b) the regulation of the borrowing of money or the giving of any guarantee by the Government of India, or the amendment of the law with respect to any financial obligations undertaken or to be undertaken by the Government of India;

(c) the custody of the Consolidated Fund or the Contingency Fund of India, the payment of money into or the withdrawal of money from any such Fund;

(d) the appropriation of money out of the Consolidated Fund of India;

(e) the declaring of any expenditure to be expenditure charged on the Consolidated Fund of India or the increasing of the amount of any such expenditure;

(f) the receipt of money on account of the Consolidated Fund of India or the public account of India or the custody or issue of such money or the audit of the accounts of the Union or of a State; or

(g) any matter incidental to any of the matters specified in subclause (a) to (f)

(2) A Bill shall not be deemed to be a Money Bill by reason only that it provides for the imposition of fines or other pecuniary penalties, or for the demand or payment of fees for licences or fees for services rendered, or by reason that it provides for the imposition, abolition, remission, alteration or regulation of any tax by any local authority or body for local purposes.

(3) If any question arises whether a Bill is a Money Bill or not, the decision of the Speaker of the House of the People thereon shall be final.

How is a Money Bill passed?

A Money Bill can be introduced in Lok Sabha only.

Rajya Sabha is required to return a Money Bill passed by Lok Sabha within fourteen days from the date of its receipt. The period of fourteen days is computed from the date of receipt of the Bill in the Rajya Sabha Secretariat and not from the date on which it is laid on the Table of Rajya Sabha.

If a Money Bill is returned by the Rajya Sabha without any recommendation, it is presented to the President for assent.

If a Money Bill is returned by Rajya Sabha with recommendations, it is laid on the Table of Lok Sabha again. Any Minister in the case of a government bill or any member in the case of a private members bill after giving two days notice, or with the consent of the Speaker without notice, move that the amendments recommended by Rajya Sabha be taken into consideration.

After the motion is carried, the amendments are put to vote. If Lok Sabha accepts the amendment recommended by Rajya Sabha, the Money Bill is deemed to have been passed by both Houses with the amendments recommended by Rajya Sabha and accepted by Lok Sabha.

If Lok Sabha does not accept any of the amendments recommended by Rajya Sabha, the Money Bill is deemed to have been passed by both the Houses of Parliament in the form in which it was passed by Lok Sabha without any of the amendments recommended by Rajya Sabha and it is presented to the President for assent.

However, if Rajya Sabha does not return a Money Bill within the prescribed period of fourteen days, the Bill is deemed to have been passed by both Houses of Parliament at the expiry of the said period of fourteen days in the form in which it was passed by Lok Sabha and thereafter it is presented to the President for assent.

Why is it controversial for Aadhaar law to be considered as a Money Bill?

The following are two of the major conflicts when it comes to considering the Aadhaar Bill as a Money Bill:

1. Row over the power of Lok Sabha speaker

Justice DY Chandrachud, a member of the five-judge Supreme Court bench on Aadhaar issue, on Wednesday held that the Aadhaar Act cannot be treated as a Money Bill and passing it as one would be a fraud on the Constitution.

Justice Chandrachud said the decision of the Lok Sabha Speaker on whether a bill can be treated as Money Bill (as per sub-clause (3) of Article 110) can be subjected to judicial review.

"Aadhaar could not have been brought as a Money Bill. The Speaker cannot take away the powers of the Rajya Sabha, a creation of the Constitution. No power is absolute," he said.

In 2016, when originally the Aadhaar bill was passed during the Budget Session in March that year, overruling amendments moved in the Rajya Sabha, Senior Congress leader and Rajya Sabha MP Jairam Ramesh, represented by P Chidambaram, had moved the apex court challenging the decision to treat Aadhaar bill as a Money Bill.

Notably, under Article 110, a Money Bill can be passed in the Parliament even without accepting the amendments given by Rajya Sabha where the current NDA government does not have a majority.

2. Ambiguity over the definition of a Money Bill

On May 2, this year, a five-judge constitution bench headed by Dipak Misra, had not quite agreed with the government's contention that the Aadhaar law was correctly termed as a Money Bill by the Lok Sabha Speaker as it dealt with 'targeted delivery of subsidies' for which funds come from the Consolidated Fund of India.

"The problem arises with regard to section 57 (of the Aadhaar Act). Section 57 snapped the link with section 7 and the targeted delivery of subsidies, benefits and services," the bench, also comprising Justices AK Sikri, AM Khanwilkar, DY Chandrachud and Ashok Bhushan, had said.

The bench said allowing 'anybody corporate or person' to use Aadhaar for establishing the identity for any purpose 'snaps the link with Consolidated Fund of India', indicating that the Aadhaar legislation cannot be called a Money Bill.

However, Attorney General KK Venugopal defended the government's stand. He referred to the preamble and several provisions of the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016 and said the term 'targeted delivery of subsidies' contemplated the expenditure of funds.

"The expenditure has to go into thousands of crores of rupees from the Consolidated Fund of India. This itself brings it (law) into the ambit of Money Bill under Article 110 of the Constitution," he said.

"Not a single provision in the Act is unnecessary or unrelated to the main purpose or the pith and substance of the Act which is giving subsidies, services and benefits," the top law officer said.

However, the bench stuck to its observations on Section 57 and said "there is no distribution of benefits and subsidies under section 57."

Venugopal also referred to Article 110 (1) (g) of the Constitution and said it contained words 'any matter' and the Aadhaar Law fell under this definition and was rightly held as a Money Bill.

(With inputs from agencies)Richa Sharma By

Express News Service

HANUMAN NAGAR: Nearly 2,000 residents of Hanuman Nagar, a tribal village in Maharashtras Palghar district, dread history repeating itself all over again after 36 years. In 1982, they were displaced for a dam construction on Surya river. Now, the bullet train project looms large on them even as several promises made by authorities remain unfulfilled. Hanuman Nagar falls on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train alignment.

Its inhabitants arrived here in 1982 from Saava, a fertile village on banks of Surya, some 30 km away. Interestingly, parts of Hanuman Nagar continue to be forest land in revenue record. Old-timers said they cannot be fooled again, especially when a majority of them are yet to get ownership rights of their lands. The people still dont have possession of land they were rehabilitated to, let aside other basic amenities. A dilapidated primary health centre has no doctor or nurse. There is a small school but till primary level only, and most of the students have to go kilometres away to study further, said Sarpanch Bandu Moy Umbersada.

Despite repeated promises of better development and infrastructure facilities at a new place, villagers have unanimously rejected all proposals of authorities. So strong is the opposition to the project that women have taken upon themselves the responsibility to guard the village for stopping entry of survey teams. Once, a team tried to force its way in, but retreated on facing angry broom-wielding women. They lied to us that time saying some share of water from Surya dam will be provided for irrigation and drinking. We dont get a single drop.

Also Read: Land woes slow down Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project

There is a shortage of water here. Pregnant women and sick people are taken on motorbikes to hospitals, which are some 30-35 km away, said Gulab Devi, a villager. Devi is unable to get a disability certificate for her speech- and hearing-impaired son since she doesnt have residence proof as the land issue remains unsettled. Of late, enticement has been plenty. They (district officials) ask if our children need computer education, a playground and also promise to build the temple of our local deity Bagha on the hills. We told them that for nearly four decades together, we all survived and we will in future, but at no cost give away our land.

The authorities have breached our trust once. How can they even think that we will let them do this again? said Sandeep Ahadi, a farmer. The distrust is understandable given that most farmers claim land provided to them was uneven and not fertile. For 10-15 years, nothing grew on this land. We made all efforts to make it fertile and even. Displacement made us landless. Now from the last few years, we have started getting crop yields, and they want to displace us again. Are we being punished just because we are poor tribals? asked Umbersada. Kaka Kalu Ram Dhodade, founder of the Bhumi Sena and Adivasi Ekta Parishad, who has been fighting for tribal rights for decades, is worried about development at the cost of dwindling forests, ravaged mountains and polluted rivers. More and more indigenous people are being displaced. Nature is being killed.

This will have a long-term impact, and the country has already witnessed natures fury, said the 85-year-old, who frequently visits Hanuman Nagar to hold meetings on the project. Even the second and third generation villagers have their own set of problems regarding education and employment. Many youngsters dont have caste certificates in absence of their land status.

Most of us have studied till Class 12 or graduation, but we dont have caste certificate and end up working in factories. We could have got government jobs, had we been provided with caste certificates, said Ramesh Ahadi, 25, who works as unskilled labour in a Palghar factory.

If that was not enough, the youths lament the absence of public transport connectivity which means they either travel on foot, or wait for some motorists to offer them lift to a nearby city some 25-30 km. To top it all, there are questions about the future of our land now. Our election cards are made showing us as residents of other villages nearby. We have no amenities. But this land is all we have, and once this is gone, we will have nowhere to go, said Ramesh Ahadi.Sumi Sukanya Dutta and Mukesh Ranjan By

Express News Service

NEW DELHI/RANCHI: Within days of the official launch of the Centre's health insurance scheme for 50 crore Indians, two senior government functionaries have come under attack for having put out crucial patient data in the public domain.

On Sunday, the day Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the PM Jan Aarogya Abhiyan in Ranchi, a senior official attached with the programme shared on Twitter details of the medical condition of four patients admitted at Ranchi Institute of Medical Sciences under the scheme.

On Monday, Himanta Biswa Sarma, health minister in BJP-ruled Assam, tweeted details of about 25 beneficiaries hospitalised in Assam under the programme, and was criticised for breaching ethics on patient data privacy.

"Sadly, there seems to be a class bias in tweets that gave out privileged patient information as if it doesn't matter because these are nameless, faceless poor people. Do we know what Manohar Parrikar (Goa Chief Minister) is suffering from officially?" tweeted economist Rupa Subramanya.

In response to a query by this paper, the PMJAY official insisted that he had taken "consent" from the patients before revealing their medical condition on social media, but when Express contacted the patients on Tuesday, they denied having given any such permission.

Vijay Prasad of Latehar and others categorically said that they had not been asked for permission before their names and medical condition were made public.

Indu Bhushan, CEO of PMJAY, however, stressed that "privacy policy is a key feature of the scheme."

"There is a strong privacy policy in the programme and we are writing to all chief secretaries to ensure that it is well-respected by states," he said.

Medico-legal experts pointed out that in India, patient confidentiality, a very strong concept in the West, was not covered under any law and was only governed by Medical Council of India's guidelines on ethics for healthcare providers.

"The MCI code of ethics bars healthcare providers from revealing any patient records or details to anybody else without their permission, but what the bureaucrat and minister have done is completely avoidable," said Shantanu Dutta of Centre for Bioethics.

The ethical violations by the government functionaries have come at a time when the government is in the process of formulating the draft Digital Information in Healthcare Security Act, which says that any health data is the property of the person it pertains to.

The proposed act marks physical, physiological and mental health condition, sexual orientation, medical records and history and biometric information as confidential data, and proposes a five-year jail term or a fine of up to Rs 5 lakh for violators.By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: The Reserve Bank of Indias prompt corrective action (PCA), which is supposed to save weak banks from going bust, is, in fact, stifling growth, according to state-owned banks. PSU banks feel the PCA guidelines are so stringent that they affect the banks lending ability, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told reporters after the annual performance review meeting of state-owned banks here on Tuesday.

Jaitley said the government was all for PSU banks capital requirement and that it would look into their demand to relax some of the PCA guidelines.

PSU banks are estimated to hold 90 per cent of non-performing loans, and 11 of the 21 state-run lenders are under PCA, which restricts new lending, among others.

The government has already requested RBI to review all three trigger points of the PCA framework, namely net non-performing assets, minimum capital requirement and profitability criteria. RBI can impose sanctions on banks for not meeting any of these three clauses in the PCA.

Conceding that the past few years had been challenging for public sector banks as a large amounts were held up in NPAs, Jaitley said bad loans were coming down thanks to better recoveries.

He noted that recoveries were higher as debtors had started making payments because theyre scared of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code.

The FM also launched a portal www.psbloansin59minutes.com, which will enable in-principle approval for MSME loans up to `1 crore within 59 minutes from SIDBI and five PSBs.

Jaitley hit out at former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan for predicting the next banking crisis would be triggered by MSME lending, saying postmortem is easier than taking action when it was required.

Wont let IL&FS down, all options open, says LIC

Life Insurance Corporation, the largest shareholder in IL&FS, said on Tuesday that it would not let down the troubled infrastructure conglomerate. We will ensure IL&FS does not collapse. We will not allow contagion to spread from IL&FS... All options are open (including raising stake in the company), V K Sharma, chairman of LIC, told reporters after a meeting at the finance ministry on Tuesday | P17The Pentagon said Monday that the US State Department has approved sales of spare parts for F-16 fighters and other military planes to Taiwan. The proposed sale will be subject to Congressional approval, with little possibility of a veto.

The proposed $330 million sale is not a big sum compared with $1.42 billion sales to Taiwan last year by President Donald Trump and previous sales by his predecessors. However, China strongly opposes any arms sales to Taiwan. The proposed sale came on the same day that the US' 10 percent tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese exports took effect. The US used to avoid making two such moves on the same day, but it doesn't care now.

Beijing has mastered a whole set of tactics against such arms sales, which will be adopted in accordance with the sales level. The latest proposed sale is not the most serious, but the past year has witnessed a tendency for the US to sell arms to Taiwan in smaller amounts and higher frequencies. Such sales used to occur once every few years.

If the US intends to pressure China with the proposed sale amid ongoing trade friction, it won't work. It's China's strategic determination to never make concessions in an unprincipled manner. The latest arms sales are not heavy enough to shake this determination the way Washington hopes.

Taiwan is an important front in efforts to bar the US from expanding the trade war into other fields. The mainland has been adequately prepared in this respect for any risks with a multitude of countermeasures. Beijing has sufficient strategic will and deterrence in the region. If the conflict escalates, the US will have lower chances of winning than in other areas.

The Chinese side sees both stepped-up arms sales to Taiwan and more military engagement with the island province as provocation. In response, Beijing will not only adopt head-on countermeasures, but take revengeful actions that make the US pay a price.

The Chinese mainland adheres to the policy of addressing the Taiwan question by peaceful means. If Taiwan authorities collude with Washington and touch upon the red line set by the Anti-Secession Law, the mainland will change its method. This deserves the attention of both the island of Taiwan and the US.

It's easier for the mainland to punish pro-independence activists in Taiwan than for the US to support them. As long as the Chinese mainland keeps growing stronger, Washington will find it harder to play the Taiwan card and Taiwan will be unable to bear a real crisis in the Taiwan Straits. Beijing should respond to the proposed sale in just the way it used to, without reading too much into it. Amid frictions between China and the US, we Chinese need to see clearly the big picture and take precise and powerful measures.Kumar Vikram By

Express News Service

NEW DELHI: Following controversy over Prime Minister Narendra Modis statement on Monday that 35 airports had been built in the last four years, the ministry of civil aviation on Tuesday clarified that 33 airports had been connected with scheduled flight operations during that period.

On Monday, the PM had said that there were only 65 airports in the country until the year 2014. However, government data shows that there were 94 operational airports in the country in 2014. The PMO on Monday quoted the PM in a tweet: Today, Our 100 airports have become operational. Out of these, 35 airports are added in last four years.

Since Independence to 2014, over 67 years, there were 65 airports. i.e an average of one airport per year, whereas for the past four years, on average, nine airports have been completed per year. The tweet clearly suggested that 35 airports had been completed or built in the last four years.

However, a reply by the ministry of civil aviation in the Lok Sabha on December 1, 2014 said, Airports Authority of India is managing 125 airports/ civil enclaves in the country. Out of this, 94 airports/civil enclaves are operational and 31 airports/ civil enclaves are non-operational. Another reply by the ministry in the Lok Sabha, on July 19, 2018, said that 101 airports/civil enclaves were operational and scheduled/RCS flights were operating at 86 airports.

On comparing the two replies, it becomes clear that only seven airports/civil enclaves became operational in the last four years. The ministry on Tuesday tweeted: In the last four years, the number of airports connected with scheduled flights (and thus benefitting general public) has gone up from 67 to 100 airports.By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court constituted a three-member committee headed by Justice (retd.) Amitava Roy to look into jail reforms.

A Bench headed by Justice Madan B Lokur said the panel will look into various matters, including over-crowding in prisons, across the country and the issues concerning women prisoners. While hearing a matter relating to inhuman conditions in 1,382 prisons across India, the Bench observed that prisoners also had human rights and could not be kept like animals.

The court had earlier passed a slew of directions over unnatural deaths in jails and on prison reforms across India.By Online Desk

The Supreme Court on Thursday is set to deliver the judgement on the plea challenging the constitutional validity of the penal law on adultery.

A five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra had in August, reserved its order on a batch of pleas challenging the constitutional validity of Section 497 (Adultery) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

During the previous hearing, the Centre had defended the validity of section 497 of the IPC before the Supreme Court, stating that adultery was a crime because it damaged marriage and the family and therefore it was a public wrong.

The court however had questioned the government's stand defending the adultery law, which punishes married men while absolving married women who are involved in a relationship outside their marriage.

The CJI had also asked the Centre how the penal provision preserved the sanctity of marriage when an extramarital affair would be non-punishable if the woman's husband stood by her.

(With inputs from Express News Service)By PTI

SRINAGAR: A top Lashker-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorist of Pakistani origin, who was responsible for gunning down Army Major Satish Dhayia, was among two militants killed in an encounter in the apple town of Sopore in North Kashmir early Wednesday, police said.

With these deaths, the number of ultras killed in the past 12 days in Kashmir has gone up to 18, they said.

Abu Maaz, who had been active since 2015, was killed, along with Abdul Majeed alias 'Sameer', a resident of Bomai in Sopore, they said.

Giving details, the police said during the intervening night of Tuesday and Wednesday a joint search operation was launched with para-military forces and army following a credible intelligence input about the presence of terrorists in the Nowpora area of Tujjer in Sopore.

"During the searches, hiding terrorists fired on the search party, which was retaliated leading to an encounter. In the ensuing encounter, two terrorists were eliminated," a police spokesman said.

"On the basis of materials recovered, one of the slain terrorists has been identified as Abu Maaz of Pakistani origin who had been operating as the top commander of LeT in north Kashmir," the spokesman said.

The spokesman said Maaz was involved in a series of attacks on security forces and killings of civilians.

He was active in North Kashmir, particularly Sopore and Handwara.

Maaz had masterminded an attack on an Army convoy in Handwara in February last year, in which 31-year-old Major Satish Dhaiya was killed.

Three terrorists -- Abu Saad, Abu Maviya and Abu Darda -- were killed in that encounter, but Abu Maaz had managed to escape after gunning down the Army Major.

Since then, he was among the most wanted terrorists in North Kashmir.

With these two deaths, the number of militants killed in the past 12 days in Kashmir has gone up to 18.

Five militants each were killed in Kulgam district of South Kashmir and Bandipore in North Kashmir during this period.

Another five terrorist were gunned down in Tangdhar of North Kashmir and one was killed at Tral in Awantipura of South Kashmir.By Online Desk

It was in Maharasthra's Tembhli village about eight years ago that Aadhaar was first unveiled by then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA Chairman Sonai Gandhi on September 29, 2010. The first Aadhaar could well have been a random number. 782474317884 went to Ranjana Sonawne, a daily wager who used to supplement her income by selling toys.

From there, it has been a rocky ride for the universal id, whose validity now been upheld by the Supreme Court, but with conditions.

Mobile phone companies, schools and banks cannot now insist on Aadhaar, which though will now be needed for PAN and IT returns.

Justice Sikri, who read out the majority judgment of the Supreme Court that had the support of Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra and Justice Ashok Khanwilkar, echoed many views that the not-so-likely big-name supporter from the tech world of Aadhaar Bill Gates had previously shared.

"The benefits of that (basic ID - Aadhaar) are very high," Gates, who runs the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, had said on May 3, 2018. It was reflected in Justice Sikri's judgement which talked of how Aadhaar empowered the marginalised.

The Microsoft founder had then gone so far as to suggest that governments across the world should embrace such technology. "Yes, countries should adopt that approach because the quality of governance has a lot to do with how quickly countries are able to grow their economy and empower their people," he had said in response to a question posed then.

Gates had also revealed that his foundation had "funded the World Bank to take this Aadhaar approach to other countries."

He quickly had wave aside concerns of any information leaks too, stating that "Aadhaar in itself doesn't pose any privacy issue because it's just a bio ID verification scheme." This again was something the Supreme Court's majority judgement echoed when they said that Aadhar's information was stored in silos and safe.

The one-time tech czar might have been happy with the way banks in India have used Aadhaar data.

"The individual applications that use Aadhaar, you have to look and see what's been stored and who has access to that information. And so, application by application, you have to make sure that's well managed. In the case of the financial bank account I think it's handled very well," the soon-to-be-63-year-old billionaire had said.

But the Supreme Court on Wednesday did not feel the need to let the banks handle the biometric data.By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: The Congress onslaught against the government over Rafale deal continued on Tuesday, with the party using an Arabian Nights fable to attack Prime Minister Narendra Modi and ministers.

We have heard about Alibaba and chaalis chor (forty thieves). When will Modi baba and chaalis chor come clean on the Rafale deal? Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala asked. He accused the Centre of taking away 22,000 jobs from HAL which would have come to the public sector unit had it got the offset contract that went to private sector Reliance.

Modiji you should clarify if youre the PM of Ambani or the people of India, said Surjewala. Congress president Rahul Gandhi vowed to ensure justice for the IAF and the HAL. To every Air Force officer and Jawan who has served India.

To the family of every martyred Indian fighter pilot. To every person who ever worked for HAL. We hear your pain. We understand how you feel. We will bring to justice all those who dishonoured and stole from you, he tweeted. Senior leader Kapil Sibal questioned the move to allow 49 per cent FDI through automatic route in the defence sector in June 2016, months before signing the inter-governmental agreement and the offset agreement on Rafale. Slamming Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman for saying that HAL did not have the capacity to make Rafale jets, Sibal cited the remarks of its former chairperson T Suvarna Raju negating the ministers point.

Hitting back, the BJP alleged that Rafale documents were recovered from the residence of arms dealer Sanjay Bhandari, a close friend of Rahuls brotherin- law Rabert Vadra. Rafale documents were recovered from Robert Vadras close friend Sanjay Bhandari during a raid in 2016 at his house. How did these confidential documents reach there? Bhandaris company offset India solutions was red flagged in 2014 by the Modi government, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said.

RAISING QUESTIONS

June 2016: Govt allows 49% FDI through automatic route; foreign firms no longer need prior approval from the government in defence sector

Aug 24, 2016: Cabinet Committee on Security approves the new deal for 36 Rafale jets under intergovernmental agreement

Sept 23, 2016: The intergovernmental agreement and offset agreement signed

Oct 3, 2016: Reliance Aerostructure Ltd and Dassault Aviation form joint venture with 51% and 49% stakes

Oct 3, 2017: Dassault and Reliance lay foundation stone for a manufacturing facility in NagpurBy PTI

GORAKHPUR: A 64-year-old man, who has been pursuing a criminal case in various courts against Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath since 2007, has been arrested allegedly for raping a woman.

Superintendent of Police (City) Vinay Singh said Wednesday the woman was allegedly raped by Pervez Parvaz and another man Mahmood alias Jumman, described as an 'occultist'.

The woman was assaulted when she had come to Jumman for treatment of some ailment, the officer said.

A medical examination has confirmed rape, he added.

He said while Parvaz was arrested Tuesday evening from a house in Nakhas area of Kotwali police station jurisdiction, he was remanded in judicial custody Wednesday.

The police is on lookout for his accomplice Jumman, the officer said.

On instance of Parvaz, a social activist, an FIR had been lodged at Kotwali police station in Gorakhpur against Adityanath and others on January 27, 2007 allegedly for promoting communal hatred between two sections of the society.

It was alleged that Adityanath's "hate speech" had triggered several incidents of violence that day.

The violence had continued for a few days.

Though a magisterial court later had taken cognisance of the chargesheet against Adityanath, the sessions court had set aside the magisterial court's order.

Parvaz then had moved the Allahabad High Court against the sessions court order.

Though the high court dismissed the Parvaz's plea against the sessions court order, he subsequently moved the Supreme Court.

The apex court last month sought the Uttar Pradesh government's stand on his plea challenging the dropping of the 2007 Gorakhpur riots case involving Adityanath.By Express News Service

CUTTACK: A girl student of Uday Nath College of Science and Technology at Adaspur in Cuttack district was critically injured after being stabbed by a motorcycle-borne miscreant while she was on her way home on Tuesday.

The injured student was rushed to Adaspur CHC and later, shifted to SCB Medical College and Hospital where her condition is stated to be stable. As per reports, the victim, a student of Plus Three Second Year Arts was returning to her native Firifira village under Balianta police limits after attending classes on a bicycle when she was attacked by the 21-year-old accused Rajesh Behera, a resident of Nankar-Deuli. The girl was abused and thrown to the ground and stabbed with a knife repeatedly by the accused who fled as some students rushed to the spot. The victim sustained injuries on her hand, leg and waist.

Cuttack Sadar SDPO Jitendra Kumar Dalei said though the exact cause of the attack is yet to be ascertained, one sided love affair is suspected to have led to it. Based on an FIR lodged by Umakant Das, the victims father, a case has been registered and investigation is on, he added.

Following the incident, residents of Firifira village staged a blockade on Phulnakhara-Niali road at Barhipur demanding immediate arrest of the accused. The blockade was withdrawn after the local police assured the agitators that the accused will be arrested within 12 hours.By Express News Service

BHUBANESWAR: Ambassador of European Union (EU) to India and Bhutan Tomasz Kozlowski visited Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS) here on Monday.

Addressing the students as real heroes, Kozlowski emphasised on education of girls and child rights. Education is the only way to eradicate poverty and solve problems affecting child rights and women empowerment, he said.

The EU Ambassador further said through education, one can create a bright future and empower his/her community. I will spend more time with you during my next visit to Odisha, he told the students.

Kozlowski thanked KIIT and KISS founder Achyuta Samanta for his continuous efforts to bring empowerment through these institutes. He also assured the students of all possible support to KISS.

Among others, secretary of KIIT and KISS RN Dash, Vice-Chancellor of KISS Prof Harekrushna Satapathy, CEO Dr PK Routray and Registrar Julius Lakra also spoke.US President Donald Trump delivered a speech at the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, where he uncommonly emphasized the importance of national sovereignty.

"Each of us here today is the emissary of a distinct culture, the rich history, and a people bound together by ties of memory, tradition, and the values that make our homelands like nowhere else on earth," Trump said. "I honor the right of every nation in this room to pursue its own customs, beliefs, and traditions. The United States will not tell you how to live or work or worship. We only ask that you honor our sovereignty in return."

This type of thinking would be worth welcoming if Trump's statements refer to the equality among sovereign nations. It is sincerely hoped that what Trump was advocating can at least drive the US to establish a more equal relationship with the rest of the world.

However, for the last two years the US has not practiced that it wants equal relationships with the international community. Instead, Washington's "America First" policy has been presented to the rest of the world. If most countries - whether they are allies or rivals - were questioned if they feel equal with the US, they would likely answer "no."

Thus, Trump stressed "national sovereignty" in order to avoid fulfilling basic international responsibilities. What Trump really implied in his speech is that the US' sovereignty overrides international rules, higher than any other countries' sovereignty. He wants to have the whole international system revolve around the sovereignty and interests of the US.

The world has seen too many cases where the US sacrifices other countries' interests for its own interests in the past two years. The US has also recently imposed sanctions on other countries much more frequently when compared to the Obama era. Washington has also withdrawn from multiple international organizations and agreements, which has resulted in increasing the cost for other countries to maintain the international order and common interests.

Washington is now claiming that the US has always been "taken advantage of" by China and other countries. Is it really the case, or is the US taking advantage of the rest of the world? One piece of evidence is the fact that the US has always been in the top list in terms of per capita GDP, given its population of 300 million. The US is also the world's largest economy and a leader in technology and military power.

Surely, there are positive aspects as Trump emphasized the idea of national sovereignty in his UN speech. Meanwhile, it is common sense that sovereignty will only play a positive role if it is pre-conditioned on equality, the basic principle everyone abides by. Historically, the concept of sovereignty and equality among nations was born at the same time in the Peace of Westphalia, a peace treaty that first introduced and assured the equality of national sovereignty. Nowadays, the indivisibility of sovereignty and equality bears crucial meanings to the world.

Recently, the US broke some important rules for maintaining the international system and greatly affected the multilateral system - which is a key factor in international peace and prosperity. The achievements publicized by the US are at the expense of many other countries. The US maximized its own interests by hegemony, which will objectively promote the inferiority and barbarization of international relations. The "America First" mindset is a negative approach and the world is seeing this first hand.

It is sincerely hoped that the emphasis on the positive concept of national sovereignty could awaken Washington's reflection on international morality, and liberate it from its current strategic arrogance and egoism. President Trump addressed that the US rejects "the ideology of globalism," but that should not contradict with the US fulfilling its basic international responsibilities. As a country at top of the global economy, the US cannot proper without extensive cooperation with many other countries. Therefore, unilateral winning and winner-take-all strategy - which is the opposite to multilateralism and win-win strategy - will be unrealistic.By Express News Service

ERODE: Besides the sensational Rajkumar kidnapping case, Veerappan also kidnapped and killed Nagappa, a former minister of Karnataka. As many as 132 murder cases were filed against the brigand.

Among Veerappans early victims, killed in 1978, was one Parmasivam, his rival in sandalwood smuggling.

There followed killings of forest guard Chithranaik, killed in Kodagu district, Ranger Chidambaram, at Kongarpalayam, Gobi, forest guard Mohan, five policemen including SIs Dinesh and Ramalingam at Gobinatham, Karnataka, District Forest Officer Srinivasan, five policemen at Ramapuram, six policemen led by SP Harikrishna, 24 police and Forest officials in a bomb blast at Palaru, six policemen in a nearby place, three policemen including sub-inspector Senthil Kumar, and BSF jawan Bhupendra Kumar.

Veerappan kidnapped Forest and police officials in 1994 and 1995 and also attacked the Vellithirupur police station.

Though Tamil Nadu and Karnataka created a joint STF and tried to hunt down Veerappan, their efforts were not successful. Later, the late Chief Minister Jayalaltihaa fully empowered the then DGP K Vijay Kumar to wipe out the gang. Veerappan and three others were shot dead by a police team led by the DGP in an encounter near Papparapatti on October 18, 2004.

Also Read: After 18 years, nine Veerappan gang members acquitted in Kannada actor abduction case

Sensational incident

The kidnapping of Rajkumar had received worldwide attention as the forest brigand Veerappan was already known for such daring actions. The kidnapping took place on the night of July 30, 2000, when Rajkumar, along with his wife and family members, came for a housewarming ceremony to his farmhouse at Thottakajanur. Along with Rajkumar, his relatives Govindaraj and Nagesh and an assistant director, Nagappa, were also kidnapped and taken to the Sathy forests.

The incident worsened the Tamil Nadu-Karnataka relations, already strained over the Cauvery dispute. There was widespread panic among the Kannada matinee idols fans. In fact, the entire film industry in the country was worried.

The then DMK government in Tamil Nadu sent some dignitaries on a peace mission to meet Veerappan and negotiate Rajkumars safe release. Veerappan terms included unveiling of a Thiruvalluvar statue at Bengaluru and some others relating to the Cauvery dispute.

This created doubts among the public that Veerappan was under the control of some Tamil extremists, who had reportedly joined him. It was after 108 days in Veerappans custody that Rajkumar was released. On being freed, Rajkumar came to the house of the then Panchayat president Ramarajans house at Budapadi, near Bhavani. He stayed in the house for the day and left the next day by helicopter to Bengaluru.By Express News Service

CHENNAI:Those from Odisha planning to visit Chennai will no longer have trouble finding comfortable accommodation at a reasonable rate. Odisha Bhawan, the official guest house of Odisha Government in Chennai, was inaugurated by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami and Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Tuesday. Naveen will also attend the roadshow of Make In Odisha Conclave in Chennai on Wednesday.

With the completion of this facility, we have created an institution that will provide a platform for engagement between Odisha and Tamil Nadu, said Naveen while speaking at the event adding that Chennai is one of the most important metropolises in the country that attracts large number of Odias for employment and business. This facility will not only provide accommodation, but also showcase the art and culture of Odisha and facilitate public relation activities in the State, he said.

The guest house is a symbol signifying increased presence of Odia visitors, students and medical tourists in Tamil Nadu. The complex having 16 double-bed rooms and five suites has come up at a cost of `22 crore. There is an auditorium having seating capacity of over 300 people. The Bhawan is located on Velachery-Tambaram Main Road in Pallikaranai.

This will be the fifth official guest house of the State Government outside Odisha. There are Odisha Bhavan and Odisha Nivas in New Delhi while Utkal Bhavan serves the needs of people going to Calcutta. The Odisha Bhavan in Mumbai has eight rooms for cancer patients, and 20 rooms and two dormitories for the general public.

The foundation stone for the Odisha Bhawan was laid in May 2012 by Naveen in the presence of then Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa. Naveen had pointed out that Odisha and Tamil Nadu share a rich and glorious tradition. The two States have dance forms which leave a distinct mark in the minds of people throughout the world, he said.By PTI

NEW YORK: The United States and Mexico could move ahead without Canada in a new version of the North American Free Trade Agreement, US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said Tuesday, according to media reports.

Momentum appeared to have stalled last week in efforts to bridge differences between Washington and Ottawa in negotiations to rewrite NAFTA, which began last year.

Washington and Mexico City last month announced agreement on a new trade pact, but a separate track of intensive talks with Canada have so far failed to produce results.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, center, with Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland, left, and Mexico's Secretary of Economy Ildefonso Guajardo Villarreal, right, speaks during the conclusion of the fourth round of negotiations for a new North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in Washington. U.S. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, center, with Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland, left, and Mexico's Secretary of Economy Ildefonso Guajardo Villarreal, right, speaks during the conclusion of the fourth round of negotiations for a new North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in Washington. U.S. (Photo | AP)

"There is still a fair amount of distance between us," Lighthizer said at a conference in New York, according to press reports.

"If Canada comes along later, then that's what will happen.

" President Donald Trump has informed Congress he intends to sign a new deal, with or without Canada, by late November before Mexico's new president takes office.

But Ottawa has resisted pressure to meet Washington's self-imposed September 30 deadline for agreeing to terms to revise the 25-year-old trade deal.

Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said earlier Tuesday that there was "a possibility to build on what they agreed," but that his priority is to reach "the right deal.

ALSO READ | NAFTA talks likely to continue on sidelines of UN meeting: Justin Trudeau

" Lighthizer said negotiators were "sort of running out of time" to finalise the terms by the weekend, according to The Washington Post.

If differences with Ottawa cannot be resolved by then, the Trump administration will ask Congress to approve a Mexico-only deal, he said.

Remaining sticking points concern Canada's state-managed system of dairy production, protections for Canadian cultural industries and provisions for resolving dispute that arise among NAFTA partners, which Trump is seeking to eliminate.By PTI

BEIJING: China Tuesday extended a guarded welcome to the election of Ibrahim Mohamed Solih - widely viewed as an ally of India - as Maldives' new President, a day after he defeated the pro-Beijing incumbent, Abdullah Yameen, and expressed hope that the new government would keep a conducive environment for Chinese investments.

China is willing to work with Maldives to consolidate "our friendship and deepen the cooperation between the two countries", Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a media briefing here.

The victory of Solih has a geopolitical significance in the South Asian region as the archipelago is strategically located in the Indian Ocean where China is flexing its muscles.

Maldives under Yameen also became an "important partner" in China's 21st century maritime silk road, despite India's serious reservations over its impact in the Indian Ocean.

In 2014, the island nation had signed a MoU with Beijing in support of China's ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a project which is opposed by India as it includes the China Pakistan-Economic Corridor which transverses through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

In this early Monday, Sept. 24, 2018 photo, Maldives' opposition presidential candidate Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, third left, and his running mate

Faisal Naseem, third right, pose for photographers as they celebrate

their victory in the presidential election in Male, Maldives. (Photo | AP)

China had also opposed any external mediation, including by the UN, when the Yameen government early this year imprisoned Supreme Court Chief Justice Abdulla Saeed, former president M A Gayoom and other opposition politicians, saying that the crisis in the nation is its internal affair and should be resolved through dialogue and consultations by all relevant parties.

"China congratulates the Maldives on its successful presidential election as well as Solih's victory," Geng said in a guarded reaction.

"We respect Maldives' people's choice and we hope the country can maintain stability and development," he said.

The comments were China's first reaction to Solih's unexpected victory on Monday. India, US and several other countries had congratulated him on Monday itself.

"China and Maldives enjoy traditional friendship. In recent years, the two countries maintained very sound development momentum and we have conducted mutually beneficial cooperation under framework of the BRI and achieved outstanding outcomes," Geng said.

Responding to a question on strong criticism of large scale Chinese investment in the island nation and the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) by the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), to which Solih belonged, Geng hoped the new government would create enabling environment for the Chinese firms to continue to work in Maldives.

In this 2014 file photo, Chinese president Xi Jinping, left, waves as he walks with Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa upon arrival at the airport in Colombo

on September 16 before his visit to India for talks with Narendra Modi. | AP

"As to the FTA we have always encouraged Chinese enterprises to invest and operate in Maldives in accordance with the market based rules and regulations," he said.

China hopes "Maldives will maintain the consistency and the stability of their policies and create enabling atmosphere for the Chinese enterprises operations there", Geng said.

China will work with Maldives to ensure the sound implementation of the FTA and expand the trade and investment cooperation, he added.

The FTA, which aroused concerns in India, was signed during Yameen's visit to Beijing in September 2017.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry clarified to PTI that the FTA is yet to come into effect.

It has not come into effect from August 2018 as stated earlier.

Former Maldives president and MDP leader Mohamed Nasheed has criticised the FTA and also accused China of indulging in land grabbing, posing a threat to the peace and stability of the entire region.

The large, emerging power is "busy buying up the Maldives", Nasheed, who lives in exile in Colombo, had told media earlier this month.

Analysts say Yameen's defeat is another setback for China after the ouster of former Sri Lanka president Mahinda Rajapaksa and former Malaysian premier Najib Razak from power, which prompted China to reconfigure its investments.

While Geng was guarded in his comments on Tuesday, China's senior strategic analyst Hu Shisheng said the China card is played in Maldives polls not only by the political parties but also by India.

Terming Yameen's defeat as a temporary setback for China, the Director of the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations told PTI there will not be a knee jerk reaction from China on the poll result.

"May be some Chinese projects would be affected. But if the projects are really significant for Maldives' long-term development, I don't think the new leaders will simply cancel them. It could be a temporary setback. If China's projects are affected, there could be short term liability issues," Hu said.

He said there is competition between local parties and between India and China in Maldives.

"It is much more important to be balanced. Only a balanced diplomacy could serve in the long-term development. It should not be pitting one card against the other and take things to ground zero. That would be more disruptive," he said.

Hu is of the view that China should be more cautious about its investments in future.

It should develop more domestic consensus for its projects under the BRI or it should invest overseas in such projects that could be completed during the term of a government in the country concerned.

He also said India and China should work out some understanding for model cooperation in Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka and African countries.

"We should not be living in cold war mentality," Hu said.By AFP

UNITED NATIONS: Jordan's King Abdullah II on Tuesday pleaded for urgent aid for Palestinian refugees to curb the appeal of radicalism after the United States ended all support.

Addressing the UN General Assembly, the Jordanian leader sought a revival of the Middle East peace process and voiced worries about the financial collapse of UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

ALSO READ | US cuts refugee admissions to 30,000 for 2019: Mike Pompeo

"We need to support full funding of UNRWA and other vital efforts to protect families, keep communities stable and prepare young people for productive lives," Abdullah aid.

"It would be a terrible mistake to abandon youth to the forces of radicalism and despair. Such support is urgently needed to ensure UNRWA fulfills its role in accord with its UN mandate," he said.

President Donald Trump, a staunch supporter of Israel, has ended all $350 million provided by the United States each year to UNRWA.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres (R) greets Jordan's King Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein at the United Nations in New York on September 25, 2018. (Photo | AFP)

With the United States traditionally the largest funder of the agency, the move has created a funding crisis, especially in the impoverished Gaza Strip where more than 200,000 Palestinians attend UN-run schools.

Jordan -- which is home to nearly 2.2 million Palestinian refugees, who make up almost half of the kingdom's population -- will convene a meeting during the week of UN diplomacy in hopes of securing funding for UNRWA.

Abdullah, whose kingdom is one of only two Arab states with full diplomatic relations with Israel, rejected the idea of a so-called one-state solution in which Palestinians would be absorbed in the Jewish state.

Abdullah said the proposal had an "ugly, undemocratic reality."

"There is no such thing as a unilateral agreement; it takes at least two parties to make an agreement," he said.

"Helping the parties achieve that agreement, and work together to build a new future, deserves the strong, steady support of all our world."By PTI

COLOMBO: Outgoing Maldivian strongman Abdulla Yameen is delaying freeing high-profile political prisoners despite calls by his successor for their release, the opposition said Wednesday.

Shortly after his shock defeat in the presidential election on Sunday, Yameen freed five prisoners. But scores of others -- including Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, his estranged half-brother and former president -- remain incarcerated.

"We expected president Gayoom to be freed on Monday. Courts brought up administrative issues and put off his release for Tuesday and yet nothing happened," a spokesman for DRP party said.

"We understand reliably that he (Yameen) is mounting pressure on the Correctional Services not to release the political prisoners," the spokesman added.

There was no immediate comment from the government.

Read: All eyes on Maldives strongman Abdulla Yameen after shock election defeat

The DRP spokesman said Yameen was unwilling to give up power without a fight and appeared determined to hold political prisoners till his presidential term ends on November 17.

Yameen, who jailed or exiled most of his rivals during a turbulent five-year term, was unexpectedly beaten by opposition candidate Ibrahim Mohamed Solih. Solih, who struggled to gain coverage from a media cowed by Yameen, immediately urged the ousted president to free all dissidents.

Opposition lawmaker and former police chief Abdulla Riyaz and four others were released by the Criminal Court in the capital Male on Monday. They had been held indefinitely following an alleged plot to impeach Yameen in February that saw dozens detained.

Gayoom, the country's longest-serving leader, was among several political prisoners brought to Male from their prison on the dreaded Maafushi island to lodge appeals against their sentences. But they were turned back. Gayoom, who ruled the Maldives for 30 years before its transition to democracy in 2008, was among those arrested during the February crackdown in the Indian Ocean nation. He was sentenced to 19 months in prison for obstructing an investigation into an alleged plot to oust Yameen.

Yameen, suspecting a plot to impeach him, in February declared a state of emergency, arresting top judges and a host of others. The UN called the purge an "all-out assault on democracy".

Gayoom also faces a separate charge of terrorism, along with Chief Justice Abdulla Saeed and Supreme Court Justice Ali Hameed. That case is still pending.

Solih had the backing of a unified opposition, including Gayoom's DRP. The president-elect garnered more than 58 per cent of the popular vote in the archipelago nation of 340,000 Sunni Muslims, a popular tourist haven known for its white-sand beaches and pristine waters.

Yameen's rule dented its image as a honeymooners paradise and attracted alarm abroad. The US and EU had threatened financial sanctions unless the presidential poll was free and fair.By PTI

UNITED NATIONS: French President Emmanuel Macron has said that the Rafale deal was a "government-to-government" discussion and he was not in power when the multi-billion dollar agreement for 36 fighter jets was signed between India and France, as he distanced himself from the controversy.

Addressing a press conference on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session, Macron was asked if the Indian government had at any point told France or Dassault - the French aerospace major - that they had to accept Reliance Defence as the Indian partner for the Rafale deal.

India had inked an inter-governmental agreement with France in September last year for procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets at a cost of around Rs 58,000 crore, nearly one-and-half years after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the proposal during a visit to Paris.

The delivery of the jets is scheduled to begin from September, 2019.

"I will be very clear. It was a government-to-government discussion and I just want to refer to what Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi very clearly said a few days ago," Macron, who became French President in May last year, told reporters here Tuesday without elaborating.

"I don't have any other comment. I was not in charge at that time and I know that we have very clear rules," he said in his first comment on the issue.

Macron, who assumed the presidency in May last year, emphasised that this is a government-to-government discussion and "this contract is part of a broader framework which is military and defence" coalition between India and France.

"This one is very important to me because this is a strategic" coalition and not just an industrial relation. "That is my point. I just want to refer to what PM Modi said on this situation," he said.

While Prime Minister Modi himself has not yet commented on the Rafale controversy directly, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and other senior ministers have asserted that people of India have put a closure to the issue, saying there were no irregularities.

Prime Minister 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 French government has said it was in no manner involved in the choice of Indian industrial partners.

A huge controversy over the Rafale deal has erupted in India after a report in the French media quoted former president Francois Hollande as saying that the selection of the Indian company in the Rafale deal was done at the behest of New Delhi.

Hollande said 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.

His 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 Limited 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 which negotiated with (Anil) Ambani.

We had no choice, we took the interlocutor who was given to us.

" 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.By AFP

UNITED NATIONS: US President Donald Trump takes his campaign to isolate Iran to the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday, chairing for the first time a meeting that will lay bare divisions between Washington and key allies.

Trump will be wielding the gavel at the top UN body, where the United States this month holds the agenda-setting presidency of the 15-nation council that deals with the world's most pressing security threats.

Trump's appearance in the formal setting of the Security Council chamber could trigger surprises. UN diplomats note that the US president has been known to stray from protocol and procedure.

During his address to the General Assembly on Tuesday, Trump assailed Iran's leaders, accusing them of sowing "chaos, death and destruction" and calling on world governments to isolate Tehran.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani shot back in his speech, denouncing leaders who have "xenophobic tendencies resembling a Nazi disposition" and slamming the planned council meeting as a "preposterous and abnormal act."

Meanwhile, Trump's national security advisor John Bolton warned Tehran of "hell to pay" if it threatens the US or its allies.

"If you cross us, our allies, or our partners; if you harm our citizens, if you continue to lie, cheat and deceive; yes, there will indeed be hell to pay," he said, speaking at a gathering hosted by the group United Against a Nuclear Iran, held on the margins of the General Assembly.

"Let my message today be clear: we are watching, and we will come after you."

Wednesday's meeting will show a rift between the United States and its European allies over the Iran nuclear deal that Trump ditched in May after repeatedly dismissing it as disastrous.

The United States has moved to reimpose sanctions that had been lifted under the landmark deal to curb Iran's nuclear program and has vowed to punish foreign firms that do business with Iran.

On Monday, the five remaining parties to the agreement -- Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia -- defiantly announced that they would set up a special payment system to continue trade and business ties with Iran.

The United States had initially said the meeting chaired by Trump would focus on Iran, but later broadened the agenda under the theme of nuclear non-proliferation and weapons of mass destruction.

- Show of unity -



That opens the door to remarks on chemical weapons use in Syria, the drive to denuclearize North Korea and the nerve agent attack in Salisbury, where the United States and the Europeans can show unity.

The usual practice is for the chair to speak last at council meetings, but in this instance Trump will be the first to address the chamber followed by other heads of state.

One of those will be leftist leader Evo Morales of Bolivia, a non-permanent council member critical of US foreign policy and a close supporter of Venezuela.

After the United States imposed sanctions on Venezuela in May, Morales took aim at Trump, saying he "must understand that the world is not his estate."

French President Emmanuel Macron will address the council meeting as will British Prime Minister Theresa May. Russia and China will be represented by their foreign ministers Sergei Lavrov and Wang Yi.

Iran has not requested to speak at the council meeting, diplomats confirmed Tuesday although Rouhani will hold a press conference soon after it is due to end.

It will be only the third time in UN history that a US president will chair a Security Council meeting. Barack Obama presided over two meetings in 2009 and 2014.

Trump is one of around 130 world leaders attending the General Assembly in New York which formally began on Tuesday.

Speakers scheduled to address the second day of the assembly include the leaders of war-torn Yemen and Afghanistan while May will make her last speech at the world's foremost diplomatic stage before Britain leaves the European Union.By AFP

YAOUNDE: At least 80 inmates in Cameroon's restive English-speaking northwest escaped after gunmen stormed their prison overnight, an informed source told AFP Wednesday.

"There were about a hundred people in the prison and at least 80 have gone," said a source close to security forces in the town of Wum, more than 70 kilometres (45 miles) north of the regional centre Bamenda.

"The gunmen attacked under cover of darkness," the source said, using a ladder to scale the rear wall before battering down the prisoners' cell doors.

English-speaking separatists want to create an independent state, Ambazonia and vow that a presidential election slated for October 7 will not go ahead in their regions.

Eight candidates are running against 85-year-old incumbent Paul Biya, who has ruled the country for 35 years and is seeking a seventh straight term in office.

Separatists say they have suffered years of discrimination at the hands of the French-speaking majority in Cameroon, and two years of violence in western English-speaking regions have killed hundreds of people and displaced about 200,000.

According to International Crisis Group, 170 members of the security forces and "at least 400 civilians" have died in the conflict. Separatists have not issued a reliable toll.By PTI

KUALA LUMPUR: The luxury-loving wife of Malaysia's former prime minister was Wednesday questioned for almost 13 hours by investigators probing the multi-billion-dollar scandal that helped topple her husband's government.

Rosmah Mansor, widely reviled in Malaysia due to her profligate spending on luxury goods and imperious manner, arrived at the anti-corruption agency before 10:00 am (local time).

Wearing a bright green dress and headscarf, the 66-year-old emerged close to 11:00 pm and was whisked away in a car.

Officials are said to be in the final stages of investigating her over the alleged looting of state fund 1MDB and she could reportedly be charged soon.

Rosmah Mansor .(Photo | AFP)

It was the second time she had been questioned by the graft-fighting body since her husband Najib Razak's coalition was unexpectedly ousted from office at elections in May after six decades in power.

A major factor in the loss were allegations that Najib, his family and his cronies looted billions of dollars from 1MDB in an audacious fraud that stretched from Singapore to Switzerland.

ALSO READ | 'Cash is king': The fall of Malaysia's disgraced first couple Najib Razak and his wife Rosmah Mansor

Najib was last week hit with a barrage of money-laundering and abuse of power charges over the scandal.

It is alleged that hundreds of millions of dollars ended up in his personal bank accounts.

He denies any wrongdoing.

Rosmah Mansor, wife of former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, arrives at Anti-Corruption Agency for questioning in Putrajaya, Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2018. Rosmah has already been questioned by the anti-corruption investigators last June about alleged theft and money-laundering involving the 1MDB state investment fund. (Photo | AP)

Rosmah's love of costly overseas shopping trips, designer handbags and jewellery made her a lightning rod for public anger, and fuelled suspicions that she benefited from the plundering of 1MDB.

After the election loss, a stash of cash, jewellery and hundreds of designer handbags worth as much as $273 million was seized from properties linked to Najib in raids around Kuala Lumpur.

Rosmah is often compared to Imelda Marcos, who left behind more than a thousand pairs of shoes after her husband, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, was ousted in 1986.

Najib's fall from grace has been swift since he lost power to a reformist alliance led by Mahathir Mohamad, 93, who is in his second stint as premier.Reporter

Mary Schenk is a reporter covering police, courts and breaking news at The News-Gazette. Her email is mschenk@news-gazette.com, and you can follow her on Twitter (@schenk).Reporter/Columnist

Julie Wurth is a reporter covering the University of Illinois at The News-Gazette. Her email is jwurth@news-gazette.com, and you can follow her on Twitter (@jawurth).One of Editor & Publishers 10 That Do It Right 2021Washington veteran receives VA honors On November 4, Command Sargent Major Samuel Edward Jenkins was awarded a memorial star on the wall of Augustas VA Hospital. The award was dedicated in honor of Jenkins vibrant...

Tigers heading to playoffs as region champions! The Tigers entered their final game of the regular season knowing that to secure a home field advantage in the first round of the playoffs, they had to beat Towns...

City Council approves Covid bonuses and more despite strife Despite strife, the Washington City Council has approved a Blight Property Remediation Program, a contractor to finish the CDBG grant projects from 2019, a resolution to pay covid bonuses to...The People's Liberation Army (PLA) Hong Kong Garrison opened its Sina Weibo account on Tuesday, which gives netizens a glimpse into this "good-looking" garrison.

Called "Zhu Xianggang Budui (People's Liberation Army Hong Kong Garrison Micro-blog account)," the account has registered 31,213 followers as of press time.

"This is a Sina Weibo account that can give people a chance to know more about the PLA Hong Kong Garrison. You can see the 'hormonal' exercises conducted by the military personneland many good-looking sisters and brothers. In short, you can see a different Hong Kong and different PLA Garrison here," the account said.

Netizens welcomed the move, saying the garrison deserves support. Some even said they look forward to "PLA Garrisons in the island of Taiwan."

Sina Weibo is China's Twitter-like platform. Many government agencies, such as the Communist Youth League of China (CYLC) Central Committee, opened accounts on the platform to spread their voice.

The PLA Hong Kong Garrison is responsible for the defense of the Special Autonomous Region since its return to the motherland in 1997.

In the past, in addition to routine training and military missions, the garrison has also participated in Hong Kong's public events.

The troops have planted more than 92,000 trees, donated 3,380 liters of blood and offered help to 4,300 seniors and children in care homes.

By the end of 2017, the garrison had held 28 open houses which attracted 620,000 local people.



A 29-YEAR-OLD woman was trampled to death by an elephant along the Zambezi River near Kariba while walking from a nightclub with her boyfriend.





The identity of the deceased is being withheld as her next of kin has not been advised.





Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (Zimparks) Public Relations Manager Mr Tinashe Farawo confirmed the incident which occurred last Friday at about 3AM.





He said a search team had been dispatched to hunt down the jumbo.

We are currently looking for the problem animal with a view to putting it down, Mr Farawo said.





He said the woman was walking with her partner from a local nightclub at around 3AM when they encountered the wild animal.





The man managed to escape but the woman was attacked. Sources said she called out to her partner for help but he continued running away.





In another incident, a six-year-old boy from Buhera was killed and devoured by a hyena when he hid in the animals den during a game of hide and seek with friends.





The boy, according to sources, allegedly hid in a hyenas cave and was attacked by the carnivorous animal. Friends are said to have gone back home after they could not find him.





Mr Farawo said the boy was laid to rest yesterday.





It is unfortunate that we encountered another sad incident in Buhera, Manicaland Province, where a boy was mauled by a hyena last Saturday while playing hide and seek with friends. We send our deepest condolences to the family and Zimparks officials attended the funeral yesterday.





The boy went missing for two days, with friends telling conflicting stories about his whereabouts. His father saw two hyenas near the homestead and a village search party went searching in the forest. It found the remains of the boy whose body had been dismembered by the animal.





Mr Farawo said Zimparks was looking for the animal with the aim of translocating it to a conservancy.





Our rangers are tracking down the animal and it will be placed in a conservancy, he said.





Mr Farawo urged villagers to stay away from wild animals and to alert Zimparks if wild animals are spotted near communal areas.





He said Zimparks was carrying out educational campaigns across the country on how communities can co-exist with wild animals.





People must stay indoors at night when visibility is low and animals are most active. They must put black plastics around kraals so that wild animals such as lions cannot see what is inside, thereby protecting livestock, said Mr Farawo.



As intensive investigations by the police unfolded, especially on the possible cause of that accident, he then disappeared following his discharge from hospital and fled towards Beitbridge port of entry. The police were then tipped-off, they swiftly responded and subsequently, the driver was caught hiding inside the trailer, trying to illegally cross the border to Zimbabwe.His Odds of Surviving Were

'About Zero,' Yet He DidBy Jia Fangwen and Liu Weiwei

BEIJING, Sep. 26 (ChinaMil) -- The second echelon of the 9th Chinese peacekeeping force to South Sudan consisting of 166 officers and soldiers arrived at Juba International Airport in the capital city of South Sudan on the morning of September 24, 2018 via a flight chartered by the United Nations and reached the mission area. This marks the 9th batch of Chinese peacekeeping force to South Sudan is in position.

The 9th peacekeeping force to South Sudan (Wau) is composed of 331 peacekeepers, including an engineer detachment of 268 people and a medical detachment of 63 people.

The engineer detachment is mostly formed by a brigade of the PLA 83rd Group Army, including three engineering support squadrons, one service squadron and one guard squadron. The medical detachment mainly consists of personnel from the Third Hospital of Zhengzhou Joint Logistic Support Center.

The Chinese peacekeepers will serve on a one-year mission in Wau of South Sudan and their main assigned tasks include building roads, bridges and airports, and construction and maintenance for makeshift barracks as well as carrying out humanitarian aid missions.

It is reported that the former 8th Chinese peacekeeping force to South Sudan has completed their one-year mission and left the country in batches on the 12th and 24th of this month.(Newser)  Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff is taking flak for his tech company's contract with US Customs and Border Protectionand for the way he backed out of a call with a nonprofit group at the height of the family separation crisis. In an email seen by the Guardian, Benioff called off a July 23 call he had arranged with the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal ServicesRaicesbecause he was "actually scuba diving right now" on a family vacation. "The first thought in my mind  was, 'What is this guy thinking?'" says Raices executive director Jonathan Ryan. "It's one thing to be too busy. It's another thing to be too busy because youre scuba diving."

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Ryan says that when he was able to speak to Benioff a week later, he was surprised that the CEO was "largely uneducated" on the issue of family separation. Salesforce has been the target of protests because of its contract to provide technology to help CBP "drive efficiencies around US border activities." "The inhuman practices that are in full effect along our border today are all continuing to be supported by the Salesforce platform," says Ryan, whose group rejected a $250,000 donation from Salesforce because of the contract. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that protesters urging Salesforce to end the contract marched with a giant cage outside the Dreamforce tech conference Tuesday. (Earlier this month, Benioff and his wife bought Time magazine.)(Newser)  Defense Distributed says CEO Cody Wilson resigned Fridaythe same day the 3D-printed gun pioneer was arrested in Taiwan after apparently fleeing sex charges in the US. Paloma Heindorff, the company's former head of product development, announced Tuesday that she is now leading the company because Wilson has "some personal legal effects" to deal with, NPR reports. She described Wilson, who is accused of paying a 16-year-old girl in Texas $500 for sex, as an "incredibly powerful figurehead" and said company morale is "resilient," the Verge reports. The resignation "was his own decision and we support him in it," Heindorff said. Wilson, who was deported from Taiwan to the US to face a charge of sexually assaulting a minor, was released on bail Monday. (Read more Cody Wilson stories.)(Newser)  Bill Cosby was labeled a "violent sexual predator" by the judge who sentenced him to three to 10 years in prison on Tuesday, but his publicist had a different description: one of the "greatest civil rights leaders" in history and one of the "greatest educators of men and boys." Outside the courtroom in Norristown, Pa., publicist Andrew Wyatt claimed the 81-year-old Cosby had faced the "most racist and sexist trial" in American history, the New York Times reports. Wyatt claimed that three psychologists who testified against Cosby in the sexual assault trial were trying to "make money off of accusing black men of being sexual predators." He also read a statement from Camille Cosby, the disgraced entertainer's wife, alleging that an audio recording played in the trial had been doctored.

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Wyatt, who previously called Cosby's trial a "public lynching," accused Judge Steven O'Neill of being part of a "sex war" and linked the sentencing to the treatment of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Vox reports that the strangest moment came when Wyatt likened his client to Jesus. "They persecuted Jesus, and look what happened," he said. "Not saying Mr. Cosby is Jesus, but we know what this country has done to black men for centuries." Cosby, who left the Montgomery County Courthouse in handcuffs, spent his first night behind bars at SCI Phoenix, a state prison that opened two months ago in suburban Philadelphia, reports WPVI. (Cosby's mug shot was released Tuesday afternoon.)(Newser)  A rep for the US Consulate in Hong Kong ended her statement on an optimistic note: "We have a long track record of successful port visits to Hong Kong, and we expect that will continue." But that track record won't involve a port call in October. In her statement, she confirmed that China did not approve a request for the Navy's amphibious assault ship, the USS Wasp, to dock in Hong Kong next month. The AP reports the last time such a denial occurred was 2016, amidst friction over the South China Sea. At the root of the issue is not just tariffs, but Russia: Bloomberg explains that as part of an effort to penalize Russia for election interference, the Trump administration last week sanctioned China's Equipment Development Department and its director over an alleged purchase of Russian aircraft and weaponry.

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"This is a tit-for-tat response, as China and Russia are really very annoyed about it," a senior fellow with a Singapore-based institute tells Bloomberg. The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the news, picks up a quote from Maj. Gen. Huang Xueping of the Central Military Commission Office for International Military Cooperation: He described the country's Russia dealings as in compliance with international law and stated "China demands the US side immediately correct its mistake and withdraw the sanctions, and the Chinese military reserves the right to take further countermeasures." Another countermeasure it has already taken: It axed a high-level military meeting with the US, and recalled Vice Adm. Shen Jinlong, who was in the country. (Read more China stories.)(Newser)  Marines surrounded a facility Tuesday in the Mexican beach town of Acapulco, rounding up hundreds of people and stripping them of "weapons, ballistic vests, cartridges, and communication radios," a spokesman for a joint law enforcement and military task force says, per CNN. Those arrested included Acapulco's entire municipal police force, suspected of having been infiltrated and taken over by drug gangs. The seizure by the Guerrero Coordination Groupmade up of state and federal police, as well as the military, among othersended up with two police commanders under arrest for murder, and the highway police chief hit with charges for carrying unlicensed weapons, Al Jazeera reports. Meanwhile, the rest of the police force, including chief Max Lorenzo Sedano, are now under investigation for their ties to organized crime, per the BBC.

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The GCG decided to move in as "a consequence of the increase in crime that has been registered in the municipality, and the lack of action by the police to deal with it," the government noted in a statement, per Al Jazeera. Acapulco, once a vacation haven, has become mired in violent crime in recent years; last year, the Washington Post deemed it "Mexico's murder capital." Mexico News Daily notes poorly paid municipal cops are often vulnerable to infiltration by gangs, which sometimes offer to pay police and sometimes threaten to kill them if they don't cooperate. The streets of Acapulco won't be unmanned while the investigation is ongoing: State police, federal cops, and military members will take over patrolling duties for now, per the New York Times. (Read more Mexico stories.)(Newser)  Authorities in Australia are investigating after a self-described Danish hunter and adventurer was filmed sitting atop a crocodile in a wildlife park. Niels Jensen, who lives in Australia's Northern Territory and says he works as a hunting guide, is seen in the video coaxing the saltwater croc toward him using a dead wallaby as bait, ABC reports. When the crocodile grabs the wallaby and starts eating it, Jensen straddles the croc so a friend can film the scene. After the video was posted to Instagram over the weekend, the Northern Territory Department of Tourism and Culture said it was looking into the matter, and that "heavy penalties" might apply.

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Specifically, authorities are investigating whether the crocodile was wild or a pet, and they are also probing the wallaby Jensen used, noting that it is "a protected species" and thus illegal to interfere with. "Saltwater crocodiles are large and potentially dangerous animals and we encourage everyone to be crocwise at all times," says a director with the department. "The behavior shown in this video is dangerous and reckless and we do not support this type of interaction with crocodiles." News.com.au says the crocodile in question weighs more than 1400 pounds and is more than 15 feet long, and notes that Jensen, who has a wildlife management degree, has said that friends call him the "Danish Crocodile Dundee." (Read more strange stuff stories.)(Newser)  It's a story that forces Business Standard to state the obvious: "Passengers are prohibited from entering the cockpit of a commercial flight." But what's obvious to most apparently wasn't to one man "offloaded" from a plane in India on Monday after police and airline officials say he tried to bust into the cockpit to charge his cellphone, Sky News reports. An IndiGo spokesperson says the "unruly" passenger, who was also believed to be drunk, caused the ruckus as the plane was getting ready to take off from Mumbai on its flight to Calcutta.

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The man, said to be around 35, was removed from the plane "on the grounds of a security violation," per the airline rep, and was questioned by local police, then released with no charges. Sky notes another problem passenger in India this week, one on a GoAir flight from New Delhi who tried to pull open his plane's rear door, apparently thinking he was entering the lavatory. That man was removed from the plane upon landing in Patna and taken away by police. AFP notes that more people have been flying in India in the past few years due to less-expensive fares and better connection options, leading to more first-time fliers who may be prone to do things like  this. (Read more India stories.)(Newser)  Inmate NN7687, otherwise known as Bill Cosby, spent his first night behind bars at Pennsylvania's State Correctional Institute at Phoenix on Tuesday. CNN takes a look at the maximum security prison, which opened in June in suburban Philadelphia some 20 miles from Cosby's home and has 3,830 beds. The network describes it as "state of the art," with a prison official touting its "advanced security features, environmentally efficient infrastructure, and modern work and housing spaces." While the AP noted the 81-year-old might not serve the entirety of his three- to 10-year sentence there, prison officials on Wednesday announced SCI Phoenix is where he will remain.

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The AP reports he's currently in a cell by himself that's located near the infirmary. Corrections Secretary John Wetzel says the ultimate goal is to move him into the general population, but that his safety is paramount. A rep for the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections tells PennLive the oldest inmates in the state are two 91-year-olds; anyone over 50 is classified as elderly, and most of the state's facilities are Americans With Disabilities Act-certified. (Read more Bill Cosby stories.)(Newser)  The North Dakota woman accused of murdering her 8-months-pregnant neighbor last year told the gruesome story Tuesday of what she says happened. Brooke Crews testified in court that she lied to her then-boyfriend William Hoehn about being pregnant, emailing him a fake pregnancy test and fake sonogram, and that in August 2017 he told her he didn't believe she was really pregnant and that she'd better "produce a baby." Crews said her relationship with Hoehn was rocky and violent, and that she came up with the pregnancy scheme after one of their breakups, to keep from losing him, the AP reports. She described pushing 22-year-old Savanna Greywind, whom she'd lured to her apartment, the Bismarck Tribune reports; Greywind hit her head on the bathroom sink and lost consciousness. Crews said she then cut the baby out of Greywind's body using a box cutter.

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Crews, testifying in Hoehn's trial on conspiracy to commit murder charges, said she never "explicitly" told Hoehn she planned to kill Greywind and take her baby, and that Hoehn appeared surprised when he walked into the bathroom. She said he then got a rope, tightened it around Greywind's neck, and said, "If she wasn't dead before, she is now." She said authorities searched the apartment three times but didn't find her body or the baby, and that Hoehn ultimately disposed of the body. The baby was found days after Greywind was reported missing. The medical examiner who performed the autopsy testified Monday, asserting Greywind had no evidence of head injuries, but that he couldn't be sure whether it was blood loss or strangulation that killed her. Hoehn has admitted to helping Crews cover up the murder but says he had no advance knowledge of the plan. Crews pleaded guilty and is serving a life sentence. The baby survived and is being raised by family. (Read more murder stories.)(Newser)  President Trump on Wednesday accused China of trying to meddle in the 2018 elections in a bid to keep him down. While opening a UN Security Council meeting, Trump put it like so, per the BBC: "In my remarks yesterday to the United Nations General Assembly, I laid out my administration's commitment to building a more just and peaceful future. Regrettably, we found that China has been attempting to interfere in our upcoming 2018 election coming up in November against my administration. They do not want me or us to win because I am the first president ever to challenge China on trade. We are winning on trade. We are winning at every level. We don't want them to meddle or interfere in our upcoming election."

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Foreign Minister Wang Yi, China's representative on the Security Council, responded with a denial, reports CNN: "We do not and will not interfere in any countries' domestic affairs. We refuse to accept any unwarranted accusations against China, and we call on other countries to also observe the purposes of the UN charter and not interfere in other countries' internal affairs." Trump was later asked what proof he had. "Plenty of evidence," he replied, though he didn't offer any. The AP reports a Chinese delegate "shrugged" when the remarks were translated in the General Assembly. (Read more President Trump stories.)The 169 suspects in the case of formation of the so-called Bahraini Hizbollah terror group will face trial before the Fourth High Criminal Court on October 3, Chief of Terror Crime Prosecution Dr. Ahmed Al Hammadi said yesterday.

The suspects, including 111 in custody, were charged with forming and joining a terrorist group, detonating a bomb, attempting murder, training on the use of firearms and explosives and handling, possessing, making and using explosives and firearms and transfer.

Other charges included receiving and giving money allocated to the terrorist group, hiding ammunition and explosives and damaging public and private property. The Public Prosecution had received a report from the Criminal Investigation Directorate (CID) regarding the formation of a terrorist cell inside Bahrain at the behest of Iranian regime leaders who issued their orders to Irans Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to unify the elements of various terrorist factions that carry out terror attacks in Bahrain, it is learnt. Orders included holding intensive meetings with the leaders of the terrorist groups and movements in Iran and coordinate with trained terrorist elements in other countries and providing various forms of financial, logistic and technical support to unite them under the banner of a single terrorist organization, the so-called Bahraini Hizbollah.

The purpose of the merger is to activate all affiliated terrorists who had received military training over the years and who were planted as dormant cells in order to use their capabilities and to offset the shortage in militarily trained leaders in Bahrain because of the arrest of most of them or the escape of some of them abroad.

They were to share their military training on how to use weapons and make or implant explosives and detonate them remotely as well as their experience in setting up secret warehouses in houses and farms and other locations and smuggling, transporting, and hiding weapons and ammunition, materials and tools to manufacture homemade bombs.Bahrain is investing in natural and artificial water channels to irrigate agricultural lands and expand its spaces under cultivation, in a bid to ensure the sustainability of agriculture.

According to the latest official statistics, there are around 185 surface and underground water channels having a total length of 200 km in the Kingdom. Such channels are locally known as Saab and are mostly located in agricultural lands in the Kingdom. Natural or manmade, these channels were vastly used in the past to irrigate farms.

However, the rapid urban development has taken its toll on Saabs, reducing their numbers almost by half. But, the authorities recently announced that more efforts were lately dedicated to increase, maintain and ensure the sustainability of the water channels, considering their important and positive impact on the agricultural lands in Bahrain.

Agriculture and Marine Resources at the Works, Municipalities Affairs and Urban Planning Ministry has provided some of the channels with pumps to strengthen the water flow. Agricultural Engineering and Water Resources Director Shawqi Al Mannai confirmed in recent statements that the ministry has provided 50 pumps at different locations in the four governorates of the Kingdom. Mr Al Mannai also confirmed that more than 80 agricultural lands and farms benefit from the channels that are supported by the pumps. He said: The water channels system, which is locally known as Saabs, contributes to the efforts put to preserve agricultural lands in Bahrain.

Highlighting some of the obstacles and challenges facing the irrigation system, the official said, The ministry is working hard to overcome the obstacles obstructing the water channels irrigation system. Some of the main challenges include the sudden urban development which reduced the spaces for agricultural lands and the uneven lands leading to the unequal distribution of irrigation water.Amidst Bahrains efforts to boost cloud computing, Amazons AWS summit is all set to return to the Kingdom this Sunday after its grand success last year. The event which is part of Amazon Web Services world-renowned global series of summits which takes place all around the world, will focus on cloud computing.

It was one of the high profile events of last year with many important announcements including Cloud First policy as well as plans on launching Mena regions first AWS Region (data center) in Bahrain being made. Bahrains Cloud First policy is estimated to have saved 90 percent in government ICT infrastructure expenditure since the announcement at last years event. The event will be held at The Ritz-Carton and will open its doors at 7:30 am and the featured keynote speaker for the event is Teresa Carlson Vice President, Worldwide Public Sector, Amazon Web Services.

The agenda for the day features sessions including Secure and Automate AWS Deployments with Next Generation Security, Exploring Connectivity in Your Cloud Journey and What Can You Do Today and Tomorrow to Continuously Adapt to Threat. Offering 13 breakout sessions, the Summit is designed to educate new and prospective customers about the AWS Cloud, and offer existing customers best practices and deep technical content to be more successful with their cloud adoption journey.A Bahraini teenager, aged 19, convicted of killing another teenager after accusing him of being a police informant, has had his appeals rejected by the High Appeals Court.

The defendant was sentenced earlier to five years behind bars for his role in the crime. The appellant was among the four who were tried and found guilty for killing Ahmed Musa, aged 17.

Two of them were sentenced to 25 years each in prison for torture, abduction, and theft by the High Criminal Court, while the 19-year-old and the victims friend, aged 18, were sentenced to five years and three years respectively for aiding and abetting.A senior state official yesterday affirmed the importance of free economy in attracting foreign investors. Industry, Commerce and Tourism Minister Zayed Al Zayani underlined the contribution of entrepreneurs from Asia, Arab and GCC states to the growth of the economy and commented that Bahrains economy cannot be limited only to Bahrainis.

The minister was speaking at a meeting hosted by the Bahrain Businesswomens Society. While responding to claims that Bahraini entrepreneurs are suffering from fierce competition from foreigners, who were recently allowed to fully own certain businesses in the Kingdom, Mr. Al Zayani said: Bahrain has never rejected anyone living on its soil. Our focus today is to empower Bahrainis and make them better competitors in the market.

The minister commented further: Empowering Bahraini entrepreneurs should be carried out through a self-motivating act in which ambition, patience, and risk-taking are key elements. Owning a Bahraini passport doesnt necessarily indicate success. Our ancestors suffered and developed the economy from nothing. They didnt have the facilities that are available today, yet they transformed Bahrain into a regional trade hub.

Bahrains generation today is spoilt and expect everything to be ready for them. All facilities including healthcare, education, and liberty are provided. We live an excellent life, but we shouldnt expect everything to be up for grabs. Its time we look within our society and improve it so we can compete with foreign investors and entrepreneurs. If a person is lazy, another person will surely take away the work from him, Mr. Al Zayani said.

The minister insisted on the freedom of the Bahraini economy and said no restrictions should be imposed on it. He also pointed to an important matter, which is renting businesses to foreigners by Bahrainis saying: Why would a Bahraini rent a business for BD200-BD300 to a foreigner who would benefit over BD1, 000 from it. This is the core of the issue. Such practices are more dangerous than the fair competition from the part of non-Bahraini entrepreneurs.Itogon : The death toll in Typhoon Mangkhut hit 74 yesterday, Philippine authorities said, as rescuers used their bare hands to sift through a massive landslide in which dozens were feared killed in the worst-hit region. The typhoon, the most powerful to strike this year, smashed homes and flooded key agricultural regions in the northern Philippines before battering Hong Kong and southern China with fierce winds and heavy rain.

As Hong Kong gradually got back on its feet, residents from teachers to refugees mobilised to help clean up after Mangkhut, which smashed windows, felled at least 1,000 trees and sent skyscrapers swaying. The violent storm killed four in Chinas southern province of Guangdong and the toll rose Tuesday to 74 on the Philippines northern Luzon island according to police, with that number expected to further climb. Up to 40 people are still feared buried in the landslide in Itogon unleashed Saturday as the typhoon stalled over the area and dumped a months worth of rain in a matter of hours.

While I said there is a 99-percent chance that all of them are dead, there is still that one-percent chance, Itogon Mayor Victorio Palangdan told AFP. The rescue effort will continue until the president orders us to stop, he said. Because the landslide destroyed roads, authorities have been unable to bring heavy equipment into the area to accelerate the search. As a result the teams were using human chains to extract debris.

The effort has been getting progressively more difficult because the rain-soaked soil has started to harden in the scorching Philippine sun. Crews have been using water to try to soften up the soil. The area was primed for disaster before Mangkhut hit, as it came on the heels of nearly a month of continuous monsoon rains that left the already hazardous area soggy and dangerously loose. Almost all the storms victims were killed in dozens of landslides unleashed along the Cordillera mountain range, a key gold mining area.Bangkok : The bodies of a wealthy British retiree and his Thai wife were found buried on their own property yesterday a week after an alleged contract killing that implicated the womans brother, police said. Alan Hogg was shot while his wife Nhot Suddaen was bludgeoned to death with a hammer at their villa in the northern province of Phrae by men paid 50,000 baht ($1,540). Their bodies were discovered Tuesday morning in graves two metres deep (around six feet) on their own land, Colonel Manas Kerdsukho, police commander in Phrae, told AFP. Three suspects have been arrested, including Nhots elder brother Varut Rattanasajjakit, the alleged mastermind accused of paying the killers.

The motive for the killings was a long-running internal family conflict, feuds and property, Manas said. He added that prime suspect Varut was arrested later Tuesday and one of the alleged accomplices told authorities he helped carry out the murder. Varut denies all allegations. British media reports described Hogg, 64, as a millionaire from Edinburgh who built a lavish home with a swimming pool in the province not far from the Laos border. A Thai television station showed footage of an excavator digging up mounds of dirt in a search for the bodies.Paris : The French government yesterday unveiled billions of euros in tax relief for businesses and households, alongside further budget cuts, as President Emmanuel Macron struggles to deliver more jobs and higher growth as promised. The former investment bankers poll ratings have dived in recent weeks as growth has slowed despite a series of reforms presented as unavoidable shock treatment for getting France on solid financial footing.

Critics say most people have been left behind by Macrons policies so far, which have seen him raise taxes on retirees while cutting a wealth tax on top earners. Pensions and welfare benefits will be shaved further in the 2019 budget -- Macron complained in June that France spends a crazy amount of dough on social programmes. And 4,100 more public sector jobs will be axed as Macron aims for a deficit of 2.8 percent of GDP, below the three percent limit set for EU members.

Higher taxes on fuel and cigarettes will also hit consumers. But the government says the pillar of the budget will be a combined 19 billion euros ($22.4 billion) of tax cuts for businesses and six billion euros in tax relief for individuals, including a gradual end to an annual housing tax.Officials are betting Macrons tax cuts -- which also include a pledge to cut corporate taxes to 25 percent from 33 percent over his five-year term -- will encourage firms to hire and invest, and consumers to spend.

This is the biggest tax cut for households since 2008, Budget Minister Gerald Darmanin said. Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire meanwhile acknowledged that results from Macrons reform drive so far are unsatisfactory compared with our European neighbours, and we certainly dont intend to stop here. Were doing less well than our European partners on unemployment, growth, the deficit and debt, he said.Manama : Bahrain recorded a massive five-fold increase in FDI inflows in first nine months of 2018 when compared to 2015, as businesses continue to look to Bahrain as the gateway to the $1.5 trillion Gulf economy. When compared to same period last year, the increase in FDI was 138 per cent in the first nine months of 2018, despite global FDI flows falling 23 per cent in 2017 hurt by challenging global economic conditions.

However, while we are excited by this success, we will continue to look towards new initiatives to enhance FDI even further. The Kingdom is introducing a number of key regulatory reforms in the coming months, which will ensure the Kingdom remains competitive and business friendly, said Khalid Al Rumaihi, Chief Executive, Bahrain Economic Development Board. He said that the regions potential is rising with solid investments and a growing number of high-quality jobs for Bahrainis.

According to EDB, a total of 76 companies invested BD305m ($810m) in the Kingdom this year, breaking the 2017 record of 71 companies, and a total investment of BHD276m ($733m). Investments in 2018 are expected to generate more than 4,200 jobs over the coming three years, of which more than 1,100 will be high-quality jobs (defined as providing a basic monthly salary of more than $ 1,850).The U.S. general nominated to be the next commander of American forces in South Korea said the suspension of a major joint military exercise between the United States and South Korea has caused "degradation" to military readiness on the peninsula.

After an unprecedented summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un earlier this year, U.S. President Donald Trump announced Washington and Seoul would not conduct their annual Ulchi Freedom Guardian exercise, one of the largest military exercises in the world.

"That's a key exercise to maintain continuity and to continue to practice our interoperability, and so there was a slight degradation," Army Gen. Robert Abrams said Tuesday at his Senate confirmation hearing.

The general added, however, that he felt the cancellation was a "prudent risk" for the effort to "change the relationship" with North Korea. When asked by Democratic Senator Gary Peters how many large-scale exercises could be skipped before a "significant decline in readiness," Abrams said it was "hard to judge."

"If confirmed, this will be one of my top priorities when I get on the ground on the [peninsula] to do my own personal assessment," Abrams said.

In the meantime, he said he was confident with the current U.S. Forces Korea commander's mitigation plan to sustain readiness until major exercises resume, which included U.S. and South Korean participation in exercises that are smaller in scale, scope and volume.Frankfurt am Main : A German appeals court yesterday ruled that it could not prevent Kuwait Airways from banning Israeli passengers. The case was brought by an Israeli student living in Germany, who in 2016 bought a ticket online to travel from Frankfurt to Bangkok with Kuwait Airways. The state-owned airline cancelled the ticket soon after saying Kuwaiti law prohibits all commercial relations with Israelis and Israeli companies. The court in Frankfurt ruled that because the flight required a stopover in Kuwait City, which is under Kuwaiti jurisdiction, it was factually impossible for the airline to transport the passenger.WeChat has become an indispensable part of life in China. As Chinas answer to WhatsApp, Facebook, Uber and Apple Pay, it has combined all the functions these international brands have to offer into one phone application. People in China use it for everything from sharing updates with their friends, sending messages and group chats to organizing parties and making digital payments.

Despite its considerable utility, however, this app makes me uneasy.

Several years ago, when WeChat was starting to become popular, I posted a photo of a candlelight vigil in Hong Kong, held in memory of Tiananmen Square, to my WeChat Moments (a feature in WeChat similar to Facebook Timelines). Half an hour later, my boss called me, scolding me for my dangerous and improper behavior and ordering me to delete it immediately. I had to comply but couldnt help wondering how it had leaked so quickly. Since Moments posts were supposed to be viewable only by ones WeChat friends, is was obvious that either a friend had reported me or the authorities were monitoring my WeChat activities. Either scenario made me terribly uncomfortable.

I soon realized that mine was not an isolated case. Over the following years, I heard many stories in the news about WeChat users who were interrogated or arrested for things they posted on Moments. Some of the posts were politically sensitive, and others bad-mouthed local police officers.

I have also witnessed censorship firsthand involving two other major WeChat features: group chats and public accounts. Although the Chinese dont usually talk about politics in public, they are quite outspoken in private occasions, and group chats provide a private, informal environment. As people began exchanging political opinions in group chats, the chat groups and participants accounts were removed without warning, with members not knowing which exact lines they might have crossed. This year, three people were blocked for posting an article about power struggles in the Communist Party to their group chat, The South China Morning Post reported. There are also 20 million public accounts on WeChat, which are for those interested in reaching the general public. Articles there are heavily censored, and many accounts with large followings have been temporarily silenced or even permanently suspended.

Over time, many of my WeChat friends have found their accounts blocked for, according to government censors, disseminating malicious rumors. These are mostly apolitical people who simply shared critical articles on scandals that sparked public outrage, like defective vaccines and #MeToo accusations against high-ranking figures; when their accounts were blocked, they werent given any information about which articles they shared were considered fake or malicious. Since most users now have thousands of contacts and even their banking accounts linked to WeChat, having their accounts blocked causes them financial and social distress. As the climate of fear prevails, growing self-censorship follows.

Years ago, people resentful of this kind of ironhanded censorship would go to WeChats foreign competitors, like Facebook, Twitter, Line, Facebook Messenger, Telegram or WhatsApp. As time passed, each of these companies was blocked in China, one after another. By late 2017, WeChat was the only messaging app allowed to operate behind the Great Firewall. According to Tencent, the Chinese tech conglomerate behind the app, by early 2018 it had one billion monthly active users.

In response to increasing pressures from the government, WeChat and similar companies are investing heavily in manpower and filtering technologies to strengthen their ability to censor their users. Global Times, a state-owned media outlet, reported that Chinas huge pool of web moderators are required to have an eagle eye for dangerous content. During periods of heavy traffic, that may involve looking at trillions of posts, voice messages, photos and videos every day.

In September 2017, the Cyberspace Administration, a government agency that regulates the internet in China, issued new rules tightening control over the chat groups, calling on chat group managers to report suspected violations and crimes to the authorities, and demanding cooperation and technical assistance from businesses that offer such services. It also introduced a new mechanism to rein in online discussions: Managers rate chat group users according to a credit system; if, after repeated violations, their credit drops too far, they could have their access to the groups suspended.

In December 2017, when China announced that it was collaborating with Tencent to implement a national identification card system on WeChat, I realized that WeChat had gone beyond being a commercial messaging platform to being part of the states e-governance initiatives.

Thanks to WeChat, everything about our lives has become easily accessible to the state, and Tencent analyzes and monetizes our shopping habits, our travel plans and even our dating preferences without us knowing, let alone consenting.

I have tried to persuade people I know to switch to other messaging services that have end-to-end encryption  to no avail. Since most of their contacts are on WeChat and they are so reliant on its services, they see no reason to leave. Whenever I bring up privacy concerns, the usual response is, If you have nothing to hide, why do you mind the government accessing your data? Sadly, this echoes a statement by Robin Li, the chief executive of the Chinese search engine giant Baidu: If, he said, the Chinese people are able to trade privacy for convenience, for safety, for efficiency, in a lot of cases they are willing to do that.

Over the past several years, I have done my best to stay away from WeChat; I still have the app on my phone, but Ive learned to survive without it. While typical Chinese internet users spend a third of their mobile online time on the app and return to it 10 times or more daily, I check it only once or twice a week. I try to pay with cash or credit cards in China and use WhatsApp and Telegram when abroad. Giving up my privacy and freedom of speech in exchange for convenience is not a trade Im willing to make.

(Audrey Jiajia Li is a freelance journalist.)When President Jimmy Morales of Guatemala announced last month that he would not reauthorise a joint United Nations-Guatemala anticorruption commission to remain in the country, he set in motion what some are calling a slow-motion coup.

The International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, known as Cicig, has been operating there since 2007. In the mid-2000s, Guatemala was on the verge of becoming a narco state  and Cicigs international prosecutors and investigators, and their Guatemalan counterparts, were tasked with fighting organized crime and ending the institutional impunity that gave free rein to powerful criminals and corrupt officials.

Cicig has become especially effective since Ivan Velazquez, a renowned Colombian prosecutor, was appointed commissioner in 2013. In the last five years, more than 60 criminal groups, many deeply embedded in the government, have been exposed, and some 680 people have been jailed for corruption and related crimes.

In 2015, President Otto Perez Molina was imprisoned, along with his vice president, for presiding over a corruption network. Nearly 70 per cent of Guatemalans view Cicig favorably.

President Morales, a former television comedian, is widely regarded as corrupt. His government is backed by a so-called juntita of retrograde military officers and a bloc in the Guatemalan Congress derisively known as el pacto de corruptos for its efforts to pass legislation granting members impunity from prosecution for corruption and other crimes.

Cicig has been investigating Morales for accepting undeclared campaign contributions, and the commission recently asked Congress to lift his immunity from prosecution. In response, Morales not only refused to extend Cicigs right to operate in the country, but he sent armed military vehicles to the United States Embassy to intimidate the American ambassador, who publicly supports Cicig.

Earlier this month, Morales barred Velazquez, who was in Washington for meetings, from re-entering the country. Last week, Guatemalas Constitutional Court ruled that Morales had to readmit Velazquez. The Morales government responded by demanding that the United Nations nominate a new commissioner.

The United States supplies 40 per cent of Cicigs funding, and historically Cicig has received firm support from American presidents, both Republican and Democratic. But as tensions have risen between Morales and the commission, the Trump administration has been too quiet.

The administrations tough-talking foreign policy chiefs  including President Trumps national security adviser, John Bolton  are not standing up to a leader who faces credible accusations of corruption and is aggressively defying a United States ambassador.

After a recent call with Morales, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo failed to condemn him. And the United States refused to join 12 other Cicig-donor countries in issuing a statement in support of the commission. There are even signs that the bipartisan consensus in Washington to support Cicig is fraying.

The administrations silence helps pave the way for a possible coup, and chaos and violence that would most likely result. One firm step by the Trump administration could be enough to stop Moraless dangerous gambit. Trump or his lieutenants could join the United States Congress in threatening to cut off economic assistance to Guatemala. They could slash military aid. They could reiterate their support for Cicigs anticorruption work, including its investigation of Morales.

Some commentators say that the Trump administration wants to reward Morales for moving the Guatemalan Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. Others speculate that Trumps advisers fear provoking Morales into swapping American patronage for that of China.

But its important to remember why Cicig was founded. In the post-civil war period, elite Guatemalan military officers, politicians and other powerful groups and individuals, recognizing that the era of Cold War American largess and unconditional support was over, found a new master: organized crime. And the country remains a key transit point in the drug corridor between Colombia and Mexico. As recently as 2014, the State Department estimated that as much as 80pc of the cocaine that eventually reached the United States passed through Guatemala.

An international solution is needed to fight transnational crime. This insight led to the establishment of Cicig.

The American ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, wrote in a Sept. 10 article for CNN: Corruption spurs revolutions, enables extremist groups and fuels civil wars. Combating corruption is not just about good governance, its about maintaining peace and security.

Those are important words. But when it comes to Guatemala, the Trump administration appears to have a different standard. Instead, in his silence, Trump is embracing corruption and organized crime.

(Francisco Goldman is a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard.)The last thing dementia patients want to forget is memories of their family, especially their children, a survey shows.

Pharmaceutical company Handok asked 373 dementia patients at community health centers in 25 districts of Seoul what memory they wish to retain the most.

Some 66 percent said memories of their family members are the most cherished. Next were memories of their own lives (12.5 percent), their home towns (3.5 percent) and friends (3.2 percent).

Among memories of their family, 38 percent want to cherish memories of their children the most, followed by their family (28 percent), spouse (12.3 percent), parents (12 percent) and grandchildren (7.4 percent).Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo is currently presiding over the federal executive council (FEC) meeting attended by few cabinet members. ...

Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo is currently presiding over the federal executive council (FEC) meeting attended by few cabinet members.





Only 14 ministers were at the council chamber of the presidential villa when the meeting started with the rendition of the national anthem at 11am.





Some council members are currently in President Muhammadu Buharis delegation to the 73rd session of United Nations General Assembly (UNGA 73).





Those who attended the meeting were Audu Ogbeh, minister of agriculture; Heineken Lokpobiri, minister of state for agriculture; and Mansur Dan Ali, minister of defence.





Others are Osagie Ehanire, minister of state for health; Chris Ngige, minister of labour; and Adebayo Shittu, minister of communication.





Opening Muslim prayer was said by Mohammed Bello, minister of the federal capital territory (FCT), while the Christian opening prayer was said by Lokpobiri.







The Chief of the Army Staff, Lt Gen Tukur Buratai, has said that a special court-martial has been established to try soldiers who are found to be supporting political parties ahead of the 2019 general elections.Buratai said on Tuesday that the military division and field commanders must, therefore, warn officers and soldiers under them not to be sympathetic to any political party or ethnic group ahead of the election.The army chief noted that any soldier who was willing to participate in politics should voluntarily retire from the army to pursue his or her political passion.Buratai spoke in Abuja at the 2nd and 3rd Quarters Chief of Army Staff Conference, saying that army personnel must shun politicians who were likely to approach them during the elections.He said, As political activities unfold towards the 2019 general elections, the General Officer Commanding and the Field Commanders are enjoined to continue to remind officers and soldiers under their commands to remain non-partisan and be guided by the stipulated code of conduct in the discharge of their duties. As professional soldiers, none of us should be sympathetic to any political, religious or ethnic cause. Any personnel of the army who is interested in politics should voluntarily retire to pursue his or her political passion.Furthermore, there is the prohibition of army personnel from any form of worship outside the established barracks worship areas, except those permitted for some peculiar social functions. I want to reiterate that the special court-martial to try defaulters is already in place. I enjoin you to refrain from any occult, ethnic, political or religious extremism as these would distract us from our constitutional responsibility.The army chief said the conference was to also appraise the performances of the army in the past few months in view of the insecurity challenges facing the country.There are ongoing operations to curtail the activities of Boko Haram terrorists, farmers and herdsmens clashes and others. The security situation in the North-West and North-Central states of Kaduna, Zamfara, Benue, Plateau and Taraba has necessitated the deployment of troops by the army and there is progress.The issue of drugs and other substance abuse is an area that could pose a serious threat to the operational capabilities and effectiveness of the army if the extra commitment is not taken towards eliminating it, Buratai added.The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Owerri zone, has called on the Federal Government to urgently open renegotiation on the 2009 agreement with the union to avoid industrial disharmony.Coordinator of the zone, Dr Uzo Onyebinama, read out the position of the union to journalists after meeting of the executives held at the Nnamdi Azikwe University Awka on Wednesday.Onyebinama stated that after the 2009 FGN/ASUU agreement, there was a provision for the renegotiation of the agreement every three years, but regretted that it was in March 2017 that the first renegotiation was held.He added that the meeting broke down since May 2018, because of what he tagged deliberate tactics adopted by the leader of government team to scuttle the renegotiation.The unionist said that government team was rooting for funding of education via diverse sources with the proposal for the establishment of `Education Bank and students loan scheme.Students loan scheme is a deliberate effort to commercialise public universities and an incentive for private universities to thrive and untimely deny the children of poor Nigerians access to university education, he said.Onyebinama maintained that the unions call for the reopening of meeting between it and the Federal Government was a clear demonstration in ASUUs belief in dialogue and due process.He however, said that if government failed to do the needful, the members of the union might be forced to embark on industrial action.Onyebinama gave breakdown of issues in dispute as follows; non-implementation of components of the 2017 memorandum of action, non-release of over N1 trillion arrears or revitalisation fund owed public universities from 2014 to 2018.Others are: non release of the forensic audit report on earned academic allowances and non-payment of arrears for 2009 to 2017, failure to mainstream the payment of earned academic allowances into the annual budget.He said that the union was equally worried over failure to pay arrears of shortfall in salaries in universities that have been verified under the presidential initiative, on continuous auditing among others.Responding to questions, Onyebinama said that the union was not worried over possible political coloration of their action, adding, that was the same false accusation we faced in 2015 and should it come again this time, it makes no meaning.The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has called on Federal government to fulfil its side of agreement or face strike action. ...

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has called on Federal government to fulfil its side of agreement or face strike action.





The National President of the union, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Lagos.





According to him, no meaningful development will be achieved if government fails to put issues concerning education in the front burner for global reckoning and competitiveness.





Ogunyemi said reneging on agreements the government willfully entered into with ASUU had remained a major setback to the unions efforts in taking the system to its deserved height.

He stated that just like the Nigeria Labour Congress would not be held responsible for any action it may take, should government failed to do the needful.





We are very saddened at the way government is handling the various agreements and Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) it has entered into with us.





We have remained focused and committed on our part to ensure that we keep our own side of the bargain, just as we have equally been patient.





Now, in the face of all this, we still discover that government seems not bother about what might happen, and that is why we are stating categorically that we will not hesitate to take necessary action to get government to understand us in our struggle to revitalise our universities.





It is on this premise that we are calling on government to take immediate and active steps to restore the much needed sanity in our university system as well as the process of renegotiation with the union, to avert any possible act that could disrupt the academic calendar of Nigerian universities.



1st China-Europe Talent Forum opens to boost exchange, cooperation

From:Xinhua | 2018-09-26 01:03

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ZURICH, Switzerland, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- The first China-Europe Talent Forum was jointly hosted in Zurich, Switzerland, on Tuesday by the Chinese embassy in Switzerland and the Swiss Adecco Group.

The forum gathered more than 100 senior executives from over 40 Chinese and European companies to exchange their views on three topics: European labor market and its laws and regulations, international talent acquisition, and staff management and training.

Geng Wenbing, Chinese ambassador to Switzerland, said at the forum that since the beginning of the 21st century, talent has become the key factor for the development of all countries and business. After 40 years of reform and opening up, China's economy, now shifting from high-speed growth to high-quality development, is at a key phase of changing patterns, optimizing economic structure, and transforming growth momentum.

An economy driven by innovation is, after all, one driven by talent, which is why the Chinese market has a huge demand for high-level talents, Geng said.

He added that the Chinese government has always attached great importance to the work related to talent, including the international cooperation in this field. China and Europe are the world's two major economies, showing a broad prospect for cooperation in the area.

The forum aims to promote the exchange and integration of all talent by building an open, pragmatic and future-oriented Sino-European talent exchange platform that will help Chinese enterprises operating in Europe actively participate in international cooperation, the ambassador concluded.

Rolf Dorig, chair of the board of directors of the Adecco Group, said as the economic relations between China and Europe are developing constantly and the global work changing rapidly, talent is now the currency of success, and is ever more valuable, but also ever more scarce.

The forum, he added, thus offers a platform to share experience, build cooperation, promote talent exchange and enhance companies' competitiveness. It also demonstrates the shared commitment, from both Chinese companies and the Adecco Group, to build bridges and help each other proper.Mr. Yusuf Bichi, the New Director General of the Director of State Services (DSS), is reported to have met with the Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, at the state house in Abuja on Tuesday.The details of the meeting are yet unknown as Bichi declined to speak with the media, Channelstv reports.Mr Bichi was appointed on September 13 to replace Mr Matthew Seiyeifa, who has been in the acting capacity after the dismissal of Mr. Lawal Daura.Daura was fired by the then Acting President Osinbajo on August 7, when President Muhammadu Buhari was on vacation.Dauras sack was sequel to the unauthorised blockade of the entrance to the National Assembly by some hooded operatives of DSS.Mr Matthew Seiyeifa, a DSS staff, was appointed to act pending the appointment of a substantive Director General.President Buhari thereafter approved with effect from 14 September, the appointment Bichi, as new Director-General of the Department of State Service (DSS).Bichi is a core secret service operative, according to a statement by Garba Shehu, senior special assistant on media, to President Buhari.Bichi attended Danbatta Secondary School, the Kano State College of Advanced Studies and the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria where he graduated with a degree in Political Science.The new Director-General began his career in the security division of the Cabinet Office in Kano, from where he joined the defunct Nigerian Security Organization (NSO), the precursor of the present DSS.Mr. Bichi has undergone training in intelligence processing analysis, agent handling recruitment and intelligence processing in the UK, as well as strategic training at the National Defence College.The new DSS boss comes to the job with skills in intelligence gathering, research analysis, conflict management, general investigation, risk and vulnerability operations, counter intelligence and protective operation and human resources management.In the course of his career, Mr. Bichi has worked as the State Director of Security in Jigawa, Niger, Sokoto and Abia States.He was at various times the Director, National Assembly Liaison, (National War College), Director at National Headquarters in the Directorate of Security Enforcement, Directorate of Operations, Directorate of Intelligence, Directorate of Inspection and Directorate of Administration and Finance.President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday in New York called for global action on corruption, security and UN reforms. The Nigerian l...

President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday in New York called for global action on corruption, security and UN reforms.





The Nigerian leader said this in his address to world leaders at the ongoing 73rd session of the UN general assembly.





Buhari, who was the 14th speaker on the first day of the general debate, also unfolded Nigerias positions on international matters before the global audience.





Buhari in his Nigerias national statement, painted a distressing picture of the Lake Chad, saying the shrinking water body meant loss of livelihoods to the 45 million people in the area.





On corruption, the Nigerian leader called for measures by the international community to stem illicit flow of funds within countries and across national boundaries.





According to him, corruption has a huge negative impact on the stability, peace, and economic prospects of millions in developing countries.





Corruption significantly deprives national Governments of resources to provide meaningful livelihoods to their populations who are predominantly youths, thus giving rise to more irregular migration, Buhari said.





He noted that the fight against corruption was a collective assignment involving all stakeholders adding, it is in our collective interest to cooperate in tracking illicit financial flows, investigate and prosecute corrupt individuals and entities and repatriate such funds to their countries of origin.





Fighting corruption or resolving international conflicts, crises and wars; defeating terrorism and piracy; curbing arms trafficking and the proliferation of small arms and light weapons which fuel these conflicts, particularly in Africa; stemming irregular migration by addressing its root causes; and the many other global challenges we are faced with today can only be effectively addressed through multilateral cooperation and concerted action.





The only global institutional framework we have to address these challenges is the United Nations System.





He called for the strengthening of the UN and making it more effective by speeding up the pace of progress towards its reform, including that of its principal organ, the Security Council.





According to him, it is high time we stopped skirting round the issue and establish achievable benchmarks and time frames for these reforms.





I assure you all that in this advocacy, I am only reflecting Nigerias deep and abiding commitment to our Organisation and its founding principles and goals, he said.





From the date we joined in 1960, we have contributed our quota to the fulfilment of the mandate of the UN. We have been active participants in many Security Council and African Union authorised Peace Keeping operations around the world, beginning with the Democratic Republic of Congo operations in 1960.





Furthermore, Nigeria has always mobilised the required human and material resources to achieve set United Nations goals, including the recently adopted 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.





We are resolute in complementing the efforts and examples of the United Nations to promote gender equality and youth empowerment as necessary pillars for sustainable development.





The Nigerian leader expressed regrets about some lingering threats to peace and security around the world, noting that in some cases, matters got worse.





The terrorist insurgencies we face, particularly in the Sahel and the Lake Chad Basin, are partly fuelled by local factors and dynamics, but now increasingly by the international Jihadi Movement, runaway fighters from Iraq and Syria and arms from the disintegration of Libya, he said.





He called on the international community to strengthen its resolve to combat ethnic and religious cleansing everywhere, expressing Nigerias support for the UNs efforts in ensuring that the Rohingya refugees are allowed to return to their homes in Myanmar with security, protection, and guarantee of citizenship.





The Nigerian leader commended the efforts of the leaders of the United States, North Korea and South Korea, to realise our shared goal of a nuclear free Korean Peninsula.





He also acknowledged the commitment to peace shown by U.S. President Donald Trump and North Koreas leader Kim Jong-Un by initiating a historic Summit, urging both leaders to continue with the positive engagement.



The Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, in Benue State, yesterday expressed shock over the alleged withdrawal of the final tranche of the Pari...

The Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, in Benue State, yesterday expressed shock over the alleged withdrawal of the final tranche of the Paris Club refund earlier paid to the state government.





Governor Samuel Ortom had last Thursday confirmed the receipt of N 14.9bn Paris Club refund.





Also on Monday, the governor directed the state Ministry of Finance to commence the payment of workers salary arrears and allowances to pensioners.





But in a new twist, the federal government allegedly recalled the Paris Club refund for yet-to-be disclosed reason.





Everybody has been expecting to be paid because the governor on Monday directed the payment of salary arrears.





I dont know the reason for that nonsense; I dont know where this country is heading to.





Meanwhile, the convener of the Middle Belt Movement for Justice and Peace, Joe Bukka, yesterday, also described the decision of the Federal Government to recall the Paris Club refunds paid to Benue and four other states as the height of impunity, executive recklessness and a witch  hunt against ordinary Nigerians.





Speaking also in Makurdi, Bukka insisted that the Federal Government had embarked on a systematic witch-hunt of some state governments probably for political reasons at the detriment of the ordinary Nigerian and civil servants.





He said: In the first place, it is not the responsibility of the Federal Government to monitor how states disburse and utilise their funds. Moreover, the Paris Club refund was only warehoused by the Federal Government on behalf of the states; it is not a gratification or loan.





So, the Federal Government lacks the powers to recall the money, which belongs to the state from the onset. As far as we are concerned, this is the height of impunity, executive recklessness and a witch  hunt against the ordinary Nigerians who were expecting to get the backlog of their salaries from the fund.





We just wonder if this Federal Government has the interest of the ordinary people at heart. Just take for instance a state like Benue that has over time been contending with socio-economic and security challenges as a result of the lingering herdsmen killings, and you want to treacherously sit on their legitimate funds.





No doubt, this directive will cause collateral damage to the socio- economic life of the government and people of the affected states. Hence, it should be reversed without further delay because even if the states fail to transparently appropriate the funds, they would have the people to contend with.





The Federal Government must realise that this move will deepen the animosity of the people of the states like Benue towards the APC-led Federal Government because they will be hurt the more and obviously unhappy.President Muhammadu Buhari reportedly instructed the Governor-Elect of Ekiti State, Dr Kayode Fayemi, to return to Nigeria over the Osun...

President Muhammadu Buhari reportedly instructed the Governor-Elect of Ekiti State, Dr Kayode Fayemi, to return to Nigeria over the Osun governorship rerun election.





The Independent National Electoral Commission ((INEC) will Thursday conduct supplementary election in four local governments.





Fayemi, who accompanied Buhari on his trip to the United Nations General Assembly, was asked to come back home to meet with governorship candidate of the Social Democratic Party, SDP, Senator Iyiola Omisore.





The sole agenda of the meeting was to seek his support for the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Alhaji Gboyega Oyetola.





Omisore is popular in areas where the election would hold especially at Garage Olode in Ife South Local Government Area where his father, Oba Olajide Omisore, is the traditional ruler.





On Tuesday, Fayemi visited Omisore in Ile Ife to woo him ahead of the rerun holding in seven polling units in four local government areas of Osun State on Thursday.





Omisore also met with APC national chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, Reps Deputy Speaker, Yusuf Lasun, Governors of Jigawa (Muhammad Badaru), Oyo (Abiola Ajimobi), Kano (Umar Ganduje), Ogun (Ibikunle Amosun), Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, among other top chieftains.





A source close to Fayemi told Punch that the discussion was fruitful.





The source said, Dr. Kayode Fayemi went to discuss with Senator Omisore in Ife today. The meeting was not unconnected with the Osun rerun poll.





Dr. Fayemi travelled to the US with President Buhari to attend the UN General Assembly and it was Buhari that asked him to return home to hold a meeting with Omisore on the matter.





One vote is very important in this election, so every vote is important and that is the reason for the visit.



The immediate past governor of Kano State and presidential aspirant on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Senator Rabi...





The immediate past governor of Kano State and presidential aspirant on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso has said that he has the solution to the spate of insecurity ravaging the country.





Kwankwaso was speaking in Lokoja, the Kogi State capital, on Wednesday shortly after meeting with PDP delegates in continuation of his consultations with party members in a bid to realise his presidential ambition.





He pointed out that the experience he gathered over the years as minister in charge of Police affairs and a Defence, has equipped him with the knowledge needed to address the security challenges in the country.





Kwankwaso, a serving senator, said that for anyone to sufficiently address the security challenges in the country, he must first identify the different types of insecurities such as food shortages, poor health facilities, poor infrastructure all of which contributed to the security challenges.

According to him, poor roads were often referred to as death traps, just as food insecurity leads to hunger and starvation with the attendant crimes, while poorly equipped hospitals leads to avoidable deaths.





So for anyone to sufficiently address the security challenges, he must address all these and the security situations will improve dramatically, he said.





Senator Kwankwaso also said that he had no problems with restructuring as long as it represented the view of majority of Nigerians.





When people asked me what I think about restructuring, I also asked them the type of restructuring they meant. Is it the type where we go back to the old regional system of government? he asked



Aisha, wife of President Muhammadu Buhari, has spoken on the arrest of Sani Baban-Inna, her aide de camp (ADC). In a statement iss...





Aisha, wife of President Muhammadu Buhari, has spoken on the arrest of Sani Baban-Inna, her aide de camp (ADC).





In a statement issued on her behalf by Suleiman Haruna, her media aide, the presidents wife said the police arrested Baban-Inna to investigate the allegations leveled against him.





She alleged that he used his position to defraud unsuspecting associates and government officials.





Buharis wife appealed to those who might have fallen victim of his antics to come forward and disclose what he collected from them.





The attention of wife of the president, Dr. Mrs. Aisha Muhammadu Buhari has been drawn to some media publications and releases purporting illegal detention of her aide de camp (ADC) over allegations of fraud, the statement read.





The story as it pertains to her ADC, chief superintendent of police (CSP) Sani Baban-Inna has it that he has been detained on the orders of Her Excellency for dropping her name and defrauding unsuspecting officials and associates.





She wishes to use this opportunity to refute such allegation and to state that she has no hand in his arrest and detention. CSP Sani Baban-Inna has been her ADC since 2016 and has been associated with her ever since. To the utter dismay of Her Excellency, he has used the opportunity to defraud unsuspecting associates and officials as initial investigations have shown.





The Nigeria Police Force, his employers arrested him to investigate the allegations leveled against him, this, being within their jurisdiction.





She therefore wishes to use this opportunity to inform the general public that she has never sent any of her staff to collect any favours on her behalf or on behalf of her children and will never do so.





She is therefore imploring anyone that has been defrauded by Mr. Baban-Inna to get across to him to retrieve whatever he took from them. Mrs. Buhari wishes to reiterate that she will not condone fraudulent behavior by any of her staff.



Ahead of the September 29, 2018 governorship primary of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in Lagos State, Governor Akinwunmi Ambodes support group has embarked on moves seeking to lobby the Governors Advisory Council, GAC, and 57 council chairmen in the state.This was as yesterdays rescheduled screening of aspirants into the Lagos State House of Assembly, has been suspended indefinitely, over logistic challenge.The move by Ambodes foot soldiers laid to rest the speculation making the rounds that Ambode was planning to withdraw from the race due to unfavourable indices against him.Majority of the 22 man council which is the highest decision making organ of the party, headed by the National Leader of the APC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu had expressed dissatisfaction against the governor and pledged to have him replaced in 2019.It was gathered that some members GAC are still making last minute efforts to reach out to other members in order to prevail on them to have a rethink before Saturdays governorship primary.However, the council had promised to provide a level playing field for all the aspirants.The council, however, insisted that: The adoption of the direct primary is to further democratise the election process in the party and do away with the usual belief of anointed candidate(s). This will also ensure credible exercise.Every aspirant should go to the field and test their popularity, the people will decide.Similarly, it was learned that some of the 57 local government chairmen were been approached to support Ambodes second term ambition.One of the council chairmen, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said: Ambodes group had approached me with cash inducement to prevail on other chairmen to sway support for the governor who has promised to change if given another chance, but I told him that it may not be possible because party leaders have made up their minds on Sanwoolu.The council chairman further disclosed that majority of the chairmen, at a hotel in Ikeja, yesterday evening, formally endorsed Sanwoolu for the governorship ticket by raising his hands up.Meanwhile, House of Assembly aspirants, who converged at the party secretariat, were turned back atthe proposed screening centre.Over 230 aspirants, including sitting members of the Lagos State House of Assembly are jostling for the available 40 seats in the state.Speaking on the suspension after an executive meeting, spokesperson of the party, Mr. Joe Igbokwe, said: The screening could not hold again today because the panel from Abuja did not come. They are in charge and they have to be around to conduct the exercise.Rebecca Sharibu has sued the federal government for failing to secure the release of Leah, her daughter. Leah Sharibu was among th...





Rebecca Sharibu has sued the federal government for failing to secure the release of Leah, her daughter.





Leah Sharibu was among the 119 students of Government Girls Secondary School, Dapchi, Yobe state, abducted by Boko Haram in February.





All the abducted girls were subsequently released, except five who reportedly died in detention.





Leah was held back by the insurgent group for refusing to renounce her faith.

In a suit filed at the federal high court in Lagos, Rebecca sought N500 damages over the governments dereliction of duties.





Joined as defendants in the suit are Ibrahim Idris, inspector-general of police, and Abubakar Malami, attorney-general of the federation.





The suit was jointly filed with Daniel David Kadzai and Lift-Up-Now Incorporation, a US-based organisation.





A copy of the suit dated September 19, 2018, with no FCH/L/cs/1528/18, was made available to journalists on Tuesday.





Among the prayers the plaintiff sought from the court is an order directing and mandating the defendants to secure the immediate and unconditional release of the plaintiff from the custody of her captors forthwith.





The plaintiff is also seeking an order compelling the defendants to employ every means in securing the plaintiff from the custody of her captors; an order compelling the defendants to pay the plaintiff the sum of N500 million being compensation for the indignities and human deprivations suffered by the plaintiff as a result of the defendants dereliction of statutory duties in securing her release from her captors since the month of February, 2018 till date of this action.





The Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), a faction of Boko Haram, has kept Leah in captivity for seven months, sparking public outrage.





In August, an audio of Sharibu appealing to President Muhammadu Buhari to rescue her was released.





The federal government had said it was making efforts to secure her release.





But in a recent interview with Voice of America (VOA), Nathaniel Sharibu, the girls father, said no government official has reached out to the family since the kidnap incident.



The Presidential Support Committee, an umbrella body for all support groups rooting for the reelection of President Muhammadu Buhari has described those fiercely working against the reelection of the president as looters who want to return the nation to Tue dark days of the Peoples Democratic Party PDP.This was as the committee hailed the president for prioritizing the completion of most of the over 15 million abandoned projects in the country.At a news briefing Wednesday in Abuja, facilitator of the committee and Senior Special Assistant to the President on Political Matters, Gideon Zamani said: the president has done creditably well that many of those working against him, participated in the looting of this country in the past administration.He added that four years was not enough for the president to completely turn around the country, saying that was why many Nigerians are realigning to give the president another chance.On their part, National Coordinator of the Committee and former Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Michael Kaase Aondoakaa SAN as well as its Conference Committee Chairman, Umaru Dembo noted that the committee was created as the singular umbrella that accommodates all the Buhari support groups in Nigeria with a common purpose geared towards reelection of Mr. President and also showcasing to Nigerians and the world the laudable achievements of President Muhammad Buhari.They said the massive corruption freely demonstrated during the previous administration was unprecedented and has never happened in the history of Africa, where the revenue generated from our abundant natural resources was not invested in the Nigerian people, or the economy, instead these funds were redirected into personal accounts leaving our hospitals with inadequate and obsolete facilities to treat our citizens. Our institution's workshops/laboratories were left unfurnished and left with scanty and obsolete facilities during the past administration.Because the past administration did not invest in the economy, the cost of living increased steeply. Our foreign reserves and internally generated revenues were depleted, looted and shared among members of the PDP, the consequences of this outrageous and uncontrollable act led to the great depression of our economy. We have not completely recovered from it, but it is a miracle about the extent the economy has recovered so far, following the strict measures and policies developed and applied. This administration needs more time to perfect her good works.Nigeria used to be the country with the highest abandoned projects in the world estimated to be more than 15 million projects. When President Muhammadu Buhari came on board, his decision first was that all abandoned projects be completed. And that is how our journey to greatness began, they added.The Federal Government is currently meeting with the leadership of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC). The meeting is sequel to the ...

The Federal Government is currently meeting with the leadership of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC).





The meeting is sequel to the declaration by the union to commence an indefinite strike starting from Wednesday midnight.





NLC President had on Wednesday directed all labour unions and civil society groups to embark on an indefinite nationwide strike after the expiration of the 14-day ultimatum issued on September 12.





According to the NLC, the decision to embark on the strike action followed the refusal of the Federal Government to reconvene the Tripartite Committee on a new National Minimum Wage.





NLC is demanding an upward review of the current N18,000 minimum wage to N56,000.



Sydney, September 26

The New South Wales state government of Australia says it has taken initiatives to gift a pair of kangaroos to Nepal*.

The state government says it is positive about Nepals request for the gift as Nepals Ambassador to Australia Lucky Sherpa made her first formal visit to the state on Tuesday and Wednesday.

The state governor David Hurley told the ambassador that his government would begin talks with zoo authorities in the state about gifting the animals to Nepal so as to take the bilateral relations to a new height, according to Deepak Khadka, Nepals Counselor General for New South Wales.

The process related to obtaining kangaroos will be quite complex. There are many other issues that would need to be considered, Khada says quoting NSW officials, Negotiations can take years.

Meanwhile, Sherpa adds that she also agreed with the NSW officials to partner with judicial bodies of the state, and establish sisterhood relations between Nepals provincial governments and Australian states.

Sherpa also informs that she raised concerns about problems of Nepali students during her meetings with state officials.

*The news report has been updated from its previous version after verifying information from Deepak Khadka, Nepals Counselor General for New South Wales. The inconvenience caused by the previous report is regretted.  EditorAhead of the Thursdays governorship rerun, the candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the Osun State governorship election, ...

Ahead of the Thursdays governorship rerun, the candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the Osun State governorship election, Iyiola Omisore on Wednesday told his supporters to vote any political party that believes in the SDP stands for.





Recall that Adeleke of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, led the race on Saturday with 254,698 votes, 353 votes more than Oyetola.





The margin was, however, less than the 3,498 votes in the polling units where voting was cancelled.





Consequently, the Returning Officer for the election, Professor Joseph Afuape, declared the poll inconclusive.

Since INEC declared the saturday governorship election inconclusive, top members of the APC and PDP have been having series of meeting, seeking for Omisores support.





However, Omisore in a statement on Wednesday by his media aide, Jide Fakorede, said he would not negotiate for personal gains and abandon my people.





The statement reads, After over 72 hours of pressure on him by both the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and All Progressives Congress (APC), the Social Democratic Party (SDP) governorship candidate in Osun State, Senator Iyiola Omisore, has said that what is paramount to him is the practice of true democracy in Osun State,





Omisore firmly states that he will never renege on his promise of good governance, accountability and human dignity in Osun state.





Osun state has always been a stellar example of democracy where the people have consistently and freely expressed their franchise to determine who governs them.





This should remain so. Osun people have shown that it is not business as usual. It is a positive deviation from what was hitherto the norm.





I am telling my people that they should go with any political party that believes in what we in the SDP stand for: good governance, social justice and accountability. I have already detailed how we planned to restore Osun to the path of good governance through the five thematic pillars in the manifesto I shared during the electioneering. I will not negotiate for personal gains and abandon my people.





My alliance is with the people of Osun state irrespective of the political party they belong. I want my people to be treated with the dignity they deserve. I desire that they have a government that will be accountable to them. I want them to experience the good governance the founding fathers of this state envisaged. I have told the parties that have solicited for my support to approach the electorates and ask for their mandate as I have assured them that I will not coerce them for political or social power. It is because I have kept my promise that has made me enjoyed their unalloyed support all these years.





As highlighted in SDP manifestos, the five thematic pillars the SDP had hoped to implement to improve governance, eliminate financial reckless and reposition the economy of Osun state include: economic management and accountability; professionalism and performance; equity in access to service; local content and innovation and security.





It is the right and democratic freedom of people to choose of their own free will. Their votes should not be coerced by money, vote buying, intimidation in form of militarisation, and political and social power, he added.



High-ranking All Progressives Congres (APC) members have met with Iyiola Omisore, candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the ...

High-ranking All Progressives Congres (APC) members have met with Iyiola Omisore, candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the Osun governorship election.





Among those present in the meeting were Adams Oshiomhole, national chairman of the APC, Abdullahi Ganduje, Kano governor, Lai Mohammed, minister of information and culture.





The meeting held in the early hours of Wednesday at the home of Omisore in Osun state.





The Osun governorship rerun election is scheduled for Thursday.



The SDP candidate in last Saturdays governorship election in Osun state, chief Iyiola Omisore, has agreed to work with the APC in Thursdays rerun, a member of the APC who did not want to be named revealed.





The deal was sealed after a meeting with chief Omisore and the APC team led by chairman Adams Oshiomhole in Osogbo early Wednesday.





The meeting comes a day after Senate President Bukola Saraki met with Omisore.





Saraki is also seeking the support of Omisore for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) ahead of the rerun.





Thank you your excellency the senate president, senator @bukolasaraki for the visit, together we shall make Osun great again. #OsunDecides2018 #goodgovernanceinosunstate, the SDP candidate tweeted after the meeting.

Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar had also asked Omisore to support the PDP.





Ademola Adeleke, candidate of the PDP, had polled 254,699 ahead of Isiaka Oyetola of the All Progressives Congress (APC) who had 254,345 votes.





Omisore polled 128,049 to come third.





However, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared the poll inconclusive because the number of cancelled votes, 3,498, exceeds the difference between the two leading parties. The margin is 353 votes.A former Minister of Aviation, Femi Fani-Kayode, on Wednesday, alleged that the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, AP...





A former Minister of Aviation, Femi Fani-Kayode, on Wednesday, alleged that the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Adams Oshiomhole offered the Social Democratic Party, SDP, candidate in the Osun State governorship election, Iyiola Omisore N480m.





Fani-Kayode claimed that Oshiomhole also offered Omisore a senatorial ticket.





Oshiomhole alongside some APC chieftains had yesterday visited Omisore in a bid to lure him into the ruling party.





However, the former Minister warned Omisore, saying dining with the devil is a risky business. 





In a tweet, Fani-Kayode wrote: On Saturday, Adams Oshiomole called Iyiola Omisore a murderer and by Wednesday, he offered him 480 million and the APC senatorial ticket.



The Muslim Rights Concern, MURIC, has said it has the information that Senator Ademola Adeleke, the governorship candidate of the P...





The Muslim Rights Concern, MURIC, has said it has the information that Senator Ademola Adeleke, the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has pledged to return mission schools to their owners if he becomes governor of Osun State.





The governorship election which was held in Osun State on Saturday was declared inconclusive by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, and Thursday(tomorrow) has been fixed for a re-run.





MURIC, in a press statement signed by its director, Professor Ishaq Akintola, said its office has been inundated with complaints from its members in the state who fear a raw deal in the event of Senator Adeleke emerging winner after the re-run.





MURIC said, Our members are apprehensive. There is this information that Senator Adeleke pledged to return mission schools to their owners if he becomes governor of Osun. We dont peddle rumour. We are therefore using this medium to ascertain the veracity of the report. The distinguished senator has ample time to issue a disclaimer now.

The question is very simple, did you promise to return mission schools to their owners? The implications are very serious when considered against the background of the running battle over the mission schools between the Christians and Muslims in the state in the past eight years.





To assure Nigerians that this is not just a conjecture of MURIC or our concern alone, the Muslim Community of Osun State had earlier raised the alarm on this matter. In a widely publicized press conference of 8th September 2018, the president, Osun State Muslim Community, Alhaji Mustapha Olawuyi, said inter alia:





One of them has been using return of schools to missionaries as one of his campaign promises. We are aware that this is a gimmick to swindle the public. You cant return the property that belongs to all of us to a mission just because such schools bear mission names. We are all aware of massive investments of public fund in these schools after it had been taken over soon after independence with full compensation. We have told him to forget it. Even if he has a pact with any group, it wont fly. Any politician that tries it will regret it.





As far as MURIC is concerned, we see a big threat to religious freedom for Muslims if a candidate has entered into a pact with Christians leaders to return schools to the missions. If Adeleke has a pact with Christian leaders, what agreement does he have with the Muslims? He may be taking Osun Muslims for a ride. He has to explain.





He was only known as Senator Ademola Adeleke prior to his emergence as candidate but suddenly he became Nurudeen. Our strong suspicion is that this Nurudeen converted to Christianity a long time ago but he now finds it mandatory to portray himself as a Muslim in order to deceive gullible Muslims. He appeared on Id ground during Salah. But that should not surprise anyone because even Fayose attended Salah prayer wearing a turban. But why must politicians deceive Muslims this way? We charge Senator Adeleke to elucidate on this.





A second poser to which the distinguished senator must respond before the re-run on Thursday is the repression of Muslim students in Adeleke University, Ede, Osun State. MURIC has petitions from Muslim students in the institution. They complain of religious discrimination, forceful attendance of church services and refusal to allow them to worship as Muslims.





Our question to Senator Adeleke on this is also very simple. Distinguished Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria sir, what is your connection with Adeleke University? We are aware that Dr. Deji Adeleke who happens to be the senators brother, is the Pro-Chancellor of the institution.





Given the passion with which members of the Adeleke family have thrown their weight behind the senators political ambition, can the distinguished senator separate his policies on education as a prospective governor of Osun State from that of the university? Are Muslims in the state not going to come under the sledge hammer just as Muslim students are facing persecution in Adeleke University?





MURIC also raised issues on the hijab affair. The road to freedom to use hijab in public schools was rough and hard. We doubt if Muslims in the state will be ready to tolerate a reverse in case an anti-Muslim governor emerges winner. The president of Osun State Muslim Community expatiated on this:





Again, this is a backdoor approach to banish hijab from public schools. We have seen hate and lack of religious tolerance displayed in the Adeleke University Ede and the Bowen University in Iwo. And as the majority group in Osun, we will not fold our hands and allow that happen in our schools.





It will be resisted with full force. We just fought for hijab for three years, so anyone who intends to mitigate our rights or oppress us should forget his ambition to become a governor in this state. In Osun State, we are aware of our rights and we have enlightened populace.





If it is true that a pledge was made to return schools to the missionaries, then religion has been introduced into the politics of Osun state. Therefore, nobody should tell MURIC not to intervene in the politics of Osun state. This is not about supporting any political party. Our members are spread across all the political parties but our interest lies in the protection of the Allah-given fundamental rights of Muslims.



The military says soldiers on the front-line in the war against insurgency should not expect to live in luxurious condition. John ...





The military says soldiers on the front-line in the war against insurgency should not expect to live in luxurious condition.





John Agim, spokesman of defence headquarters said this in response to an investigation carried out by TheCable on how soldiers in the north-east beg for food and sleep inside classrooms.





Soldiers had narrated their experiences with some of them wearing bathroom slippers to the battlefield and begging enemies for food.





On this first assignment to the bush, some died and, luckily, some of us returned alive. If you see the kind of food they would eventually give us, you will weep for us, one of the soldiers had said.

Outside a classroom where soldiers sleep





This is my own self-contain apartment. I built this place myself, with my money and my hands. A sheet of fairly used zinc sells for N700, while the new goes for N1,000, we can only afford the former. And to put this whole structure together, you will spend at least N31,000 on zinc alone, another soldier had said.





On one of the trips to Maimalari, The reporter saw rusty zinc houses where hundreds of soldiers rest their heads.





But Agim described this as a price to pay in the profession.





It is a known fact that all over the world, the battlefront is not a playground. What differentiates soldiers from civilians is the ability to endure hard conditions and make sacrifices, the statement released by the defense headquarters on Wednesday read.





That is the reality and price of the military profession. There is no easy way.





He said there are no barracks in Sambisa forest and several other troops locations in the northeast, and that troops are promptly paid approved operational allowances aside other welfare and administrative arrangements.





Dismissing the report that has picture and video evidence of the poor condition of soldiers, the military said it is one of the strategies at breaking the fighting spirit of the troops.





general public to activities of fifth columnists whose only objective is to collaborate with enemies of our nation to prolong their own organisational interests, he said. The Defence Headquarters hereby draw the attention of the media and thegeneral public to activities of fifth columnists whose only objective is to collaborate with enemies of our nation to prolong their own organisational interests, he said.





The story/video is one of their many strategies targeted at breaking the cohesion and the fighting spirit of the troops.

A soldier on his bed inside one of the classrooms where he and his colleagues sleep



The story is a failed attempt to distract the purposeful direction in the counter-terrorism fight. The Nigerian Armed Forces is stating categorically here that its fighting spirit is indomitable and no amount of falsehood can distract the military from fighting terrorism to a conclusive end. The public is hereby enjoined to disregard the publication and continue to give the military the needed support and cooperation. Together we shall bring total peace and security to our fatherland. The story is a failed attempt to distract the purposeful direction in the counter-terrorism fight. The Nigerian Armed Forces is stating categorically here that its fighting spirit is indomitable and no amount of falsehood can distract the military from fighting terrorism to a conclusive end. The public is hereby enjoined to disregard the publication and continue to give the military the needed support and cooperation. Together we shall bring total peace and security to our fatherland.





Twice, a freedom of information (FoI) request to the Nigerian army finance corps for a breakdown on the fund releases for soldiers welfare, but there was no response.





The information requested from the army were; a breakdown of amount released for the construction/rehabilitation of barracks across Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states; the name of each construction/rehabilitation project for which funds were approved from January, 2014 to October, 2017; a breakdown of total amount released to kit soldiers and officers in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states from January, 2014 to October, 2017; a breakdown of total amount released as operational/danger allowance for soldiers and officers drafted into the Operation Lafiya Dole across Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states.





Interestingly, however, in the 2017 appropriation, the ministry of defence earmarked N20 million for a line item it called implementation of FoI.





In its reaction, the military admittted there are challenges and that it would be addressed.





Whereas there may be challenges in the battle-space which is normal, appropriate measures are being taken to address them, Agims read.Ian King, a UK business analyst and Sky News presenter, has described Kingsley Moghalu as the most intriguing candidate in the 2019 pr...





Ian King, a UK business analyst and Sky News presenter, has described Kingsley Moghalu as the most intriguing candidate in the 2019 presidential election.





A former deputy governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Moghalu is seeking to unseat Buhari under the platform of the Young Progressive Party (YPP).





Among his key manifestos are fight against poverty and unemployment, as well as moving the economy away from dependence on oil to more innovative policies.





Writing on The Times of London on Tuesday, King said Moghalu is Nigerias self-styled Emmanuel Macron  French President  who has presented himself as a thoroughly modern presidential candidate.





The would-be president also has controversial views on Chinese investment in Africa. He says that many African nations have not benefited as they should have done, arguing that a lot of the continents leaders have lacked the intellectual soundness to drive a harder argain with the Chinese.





Moghalu is one of those who believe China has exacerbated debt traps around Africa and increased dependency on foreign loans.





King further said believing that Nigerias education and legal systems prevent too many women from reaching their potential, Moghalu has promised a 50-50 gender balance in his ministerial appointments.





But is Nigeria ready for a technocratic president?, he asked.





Mr Moghalu, who points to his work nation-building in Rwanda, Angola and the former Yugoslavia during his time at the UN, insists that it is.





Many will wish him luck. If this is to be the African century, the continents biggest country must fulfil its economic potential. If it does not and poverty continues to grow, the chances are that an increasing proportion of Nigerias growing population will head elsewhere, adding to the global migration crisis.The federal government has vowed to pursue a prosperous and just Nigeria and never allow our checkered history to determine our future.The Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo made the pledge Tuesday, while declaring open, the Photo Exhibition to mark the 2018 Independence held in Abuja.Osinbajo, who described our history as the beginning of great Nigerian story noted that our history is the least that we can ever be.He insisted that our future holds much more and is a precursor to a prosperous, united and where all of us are treated fairly and justly.I am pleased to say on behalf of the Nigerian government and people that we have chosen to say that our history will not determine our future; our history is the least that we can ever be; our future is much greater; our history is only a precursor to a greater Nigeria; to a Nigeria that is prosperous, united and where all of us are treated fairly and justly.Our history is only the beginning of that great Nigerian story that all of these people who have won awards represent; that they are going to be better than those of us who sit here today, these young people represent that history and pride that our nation represent..The Vice President, who commended the ministry of Information and Culture for the innovation justified the exhibition under three reasons.There are three reasons at least why this historical excursion is important. The first is that it helps us to recognize the incredible leadership of our political leaders, from the colonial days till the moment. All of these incredible leaders  men and women who have shown such great wisdom and wit at various times; such dedication and courage at various times; this exhibition celebrates them.The second is that we are reminded of the twists and turns of our history. The colonial phase, the independence, the first republic, the political crisis, the coups and countercoups, the civil war, the short restoration of civil rule and another military incursion and then civil rule since 1999.Each phase has tested our resolve to remain united, to maintain the integrity of the country known as Nigeria. Each phase has tested the commitment of our leaders to the Nigerian project; it has tested their ingenuity and their wisdom in navigating the frequently tortuous and turbulent waters of our national story.With the benefit of hindsight, I think that it is evident that at every turn we clearly saw strength of the Nigerian resolve to build a nation and the valiant attempts of the leadership at state building.We have not always excelled or have not always done as well as we should. But that is not the story. The story is that we have never lacked the courage and will to keep trying, and to do so with greater resolve and greater commitment.The third reason for the importance of this historical excursion is perhaps the most important. How we approach history. History could be a crutch; it could be an excuse for not doing as well as we could, or a strong shoulder to stand on. It could be a tyrant reminding us of how we got it wrong; or it could be a reminder that our future is greater than our history, he added.Earlier, the minister of Information and Culture, Alh. Lai Mohammed said the day was special to every Nigerian as it was a day to reflect on our unity, patriotism and commitment to nation building.Over the years, the country has gone through trials and tribulations, but the 1st of October is always a day for celebration and thanksgiving, because it occupies a very important place of pride in the political history of our country. It also serves as a poignant reminder and appreciation of the Labours of our heroes past.For those who were not old enough to have witnessed Nigerias Independence in 1960, they can at least look at the pictures of pre-independent Nigeria and the handing-over ceremony of the colonial masters to the Nigerian leaders to have an idea of how things were and the hopes for a bright future ahead.He encouraged participants, especially the youth, to spend time to view and savour this significant and historical exhibitionThe exhibition showcased Nigerias political history from pre-colonial era till date, as well as Nigerias rich cultural heritage.Highlight of the event was presentation of plague to award winners. They include: John Chinyere of Federal Government Boys College, Gudu; Eunice Shagu, Stella Maris College, Garki; and Vincent Davies of the Model Secondary School, Maitama.The event marked the commemoration of Nigerias 58th Independence anniversary celebration with the theme: The Footprints of Nigerias Political Leaders.The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) says it is confident that God will grant the party victory in the Osun state governorship rerun ele...





The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) says it is confident that God will grant the party victory in the Osun state governorship rerun election scheduled for Thursday.





During the first ballot conducted on Saturday, Ademola Adeleke, the partys candidate, polled majority vote of 254,698 while Isiaka Oyetola, candidate of the APC, had 254,345 votes, leaving a margin of 353.





The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared the poll inconclusive and fixed a rerun election in polling units where votes were cancelled.





Addressing journalists in Abuja on Thursday, Eddy Olafeso, PDP national vice-chairman (south-west), said the party has already won the supplementary election.





For us, we are very confident that victory will be ours tomorrow. We already won anyway, he said.





On the outcome of the meeting with Iyiola Omisore, candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the election, Olafeso said the party is hoping on God, not individuals.





We met with the leaders but victory is in the hands of God even if people play around, God will not play around. Hell determine the outcome of the election, he said.





Accusing the APC of taking the state backwards, he appealed to the people to support his party.





What is on ground is clear to all: eight years of total profligacy in Osun state. We will continue to speak with leaders, some of them will listen to us while some will do their own thing, he said.





PDP is not bothered because our people are resolute. And they are desirous in ensuring that the victory denied us on Saturday will eventually be ours.



Segun Agbaje, resident electoral commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Osun state, has clarified the...





Segun Agbaje, resident electoral commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Osun state, has clarified the controversy surrounding the election result of Ayedaade local government area in the governorship election.





One Mutiu Salawu, an official of the commission, had been assaulted by a mob for allegedly tearing election result at St. Patrick Grammar School, Gbongan.





In a video which went viral, Salawu was heard saying a senior official of the commission asked him to tear the sheet.





This sparked a controversy, while some activists and groups asked INEC to prosecute those involved in the act.





But at a press conference on Tuesday, Agbaje said the sheet which was torn had an erroneous result and that the electoral official was acting on a directive to replace it with the correct one when he was attacked.





He said the local government security chief had informed Aderinoye Olukemi, electoral officer for Ayedaade, of the error on the form pasted at the collation centre and that she handed down the instruction afterwards.





The Commission wishes to put the record straight in respect of the issues that have gone viral on the conduct of one of our staff, Mutiu Salawu, in Ayedaade LGA on Sunday 23 September 2018 at the St. Patrick Grammar School Gbongan around 8am after the submission of Results of the Election by the Ayedaade Local Government Collation Officer at the State Collation Centre, he said.





The Electoral Officer for Ayedaade LGA Mrs. Aderinoye Olukemi Alice, on the information she received from the Local Government Security Chief (LGSC), that there was an error on the Form EC 60 (E) INEC PUBLICATION OF RESULT OF POLL Poster, pasted at the Local Government Collation Centre i.e St. Patrick Grammar School Gbongan, and after crosschecking the results sheet for the collation EC 8C to confirm the information, called her staff Mutiu Salawu, to remove the pasted EC 60 (E) poster with error and replace it with a correct one.





Mr. Mutiu Salawu being a dutiful staff went to carry out the lawful instruction of his boss when he was accosted by a mob that rough handled him before they took him to Adelani Rafiu Oyediran Ajanakus house along the New Gbongan Osogbo Road. There he was humiliated, harassed and subjected to take manipulated photographs that were sent to various social digital platforms. He was then brought to the INEC State Office where he was harassed by some section of the media.





Agbaje said the action of Salawu did not affect the result collated at the INEC head office, affirming that Dele Adeleke, agent of the PDP at the state collation center, attested to the fact that the result announced tallied with what he recorded ahead of the announcement.





Let me at this juncture put the record straight and inform the good people of Osun State and Nigerians, the correct position of the event, he said.





The LGA Collation Officer Prof. Adeagbo accepted the fact that there was an error in the EC 60 (E) pasted at the LGA Collation Centre especially the figure (10,836) recorded for PDP on the poster which is different from the actual votes scored (9,836) by the PDP.





It should be noted that the INEC staff, Salawu, Mutiu Kolawole did not destroy the Result Sheet for the said election for they are intact in the custody of the Commission and copies of same are with agents of the 48 Political Parties that contested the Governorship Election.





The Commission is displeased with the conduct of a section of the press that repeatedly broadcast the event maliciously without proper investigation to know the true position of things. This attitude has misinformed the public and INEC has been misrepresented in the narrative.





Agbaje also went into details on the polling units where the rerun election would hold on Thursday.





In Adereti Village, there was disruption of election by hoodlums who shot sporadically and in the process of scampering for safety, the Presiding Officer misplaced the form EC8A for the PU and all efforts to get it proved abortive, he said.





Ife South Osi Ward 8 PU10, Aluti Erin Primary School, Albert village, election was conducted with manual accreditation.





In Orolu Ward 08 PU001, Kajola village, there was hijacking of materials by thugs. The case was not different in Ward 08 PU004 Idi Iya village and Ward 09 PU 003 Gbogbo Primary School in Orolu. Presiding Officer absconded in Osogbo Ataoja Ward 05 PU 017 Adewole Street.



Kathmandu, September 25

The multi-billion dollar Budhi Gandaki hydropower project was re-awarded to Chinas Gezhouba Group out of compulsion, says Energy Minister Barsa Man Pun.

Minister Pun, who was addressing a meeting of Parliaments Agriculture, Co-operatives and Natural Resources, said that there was no option but to call in the Chinese firm as Nepal did not have the capacity to develop such a mega project.

The projects returns are not lucrative and that is why we cannot use public money to build the project, said Minister Pun. The money we collected by taxing petrol consumption is not enough to provide compensation to families living in project-affected areas, added the minister.

The minister, however, said that the Chinese company that holds the permit to build West Seti hydel will not go ahead with construction.Major Nepali and English broadsheet dailies published from Kathmandu on Wednesday have covered a host of issues on their front pages. Almost all newspapers have included reports about the submission of an investigation report over the rape and murder of Nirmala Pant, and an acid attack on a woman in Nawalpur district on their front pages. Likewise, newspapers have covered contracts awarded to notorious Pappu Construction by various government agencies from different angles.

Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli is currently in New York for the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly. He has met leaders of various countries on the sidelines of the event; and they have also been featured on the cover pages.

Few other political, sociocultural and economic issues have made it to the front pages today.

Important

No one knows whats in Pant murder probe report

Whereas the investigation team led by Joint Secretary Hari Prasad Mainali submitted its report to Home Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa yesterday, the Ministry has not made it public hence no one officially knows what is there, according to newspaper reports.

Some newspapers claim that the report has pointed its fingers at police, but has failed to name who committed the crime.

House panel summons Minister over Pappu assignments

The Development and Technology Committee in the House of Representatives has summoned Minister for Physical Infrastructure and Transport Raghubir Mahaseth to clarify the panel about why the controversial Pappu Construction is getting construction assignments, reports Republica.

Meanwhile, members of the panel have demanded that the companys owner and lawmaker Hari Narayan Parasad Rauniyar among three be removed from the Committee as they may adversely influence discussions and decisions of the panel, according to Gorkhapatra.

Transport syndicate back to business

Rajdhani and Republica have reported that the monopoly of transport syndicates has been revived after the government signed a contract with the federal of transport entrepreneur committees which were scrapped by its earlier decision.

The agreement gave the validity to such committees registered as NGOs again, the newspaper reports say, suggesting the governments inability to implement its own decisions resulted into the monopoly again.

Meanwhile, members of the Development and Technology Committee in Parliament expressed concerns over the revival, according to Rajdhani.

Ignored

47 Nepali workers arrested in Malaysia

The Nepali Embassy in Malaysia informs that 47 Nepali immigrants working for a Malaysian company have been arrested on the charge of staying there illegally, according to a three column story in Gorkhapatra.

Total 338 staff were arrested from the company by police who launched a special campaign to crackdown illegal workers, according to the report.

The Malaysian government had urged illegal workers to return their homes from June to August. Then, the government in the second week of September launched a crackdown targeting those denying the order, the report adds.

Nepal Army refuses to get designs of barracks approved

The national military organisation has denied giving details about structures of its official buildings in the Kathmandu Metropolitan City and getting them approved by the local government, according to Karobar.

Nepals building laws have authorised the local governments to approve the designs for all buildings in their jurisdiction. Accordingly, the KMC had demanded the details, according to the report.

Supreme Court scraps Sajha appointments

Nagarik reports in a snippet that the Supreme Court has cancelled the appointment of Dolindra Prasad Sharma as the Chairperson and General Manager of Sajha Prakashan. In a verdict on Sunday, the apex court said the Prakashan was under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Agriculture; hence the appointment made by the Ministry of Education was invalid.

The verdict ordered that Tej Kumar KC, appointed by the Ministry of Agriculture, be reinstated. KC, however, refused to join back the office as it term is expiring after two weeks.

Special Court jails 9 PAF officials for corruption

The Special Court has sent nine officials of Poverty Alleviation Fund to jail convicting them in a corruption case, according to Kantipur. Those convicted also include then Executive Director Raj Babu Shrestha.

The officials have been given different jail terms from three to seven months.

Five of the accused, however, were acquitted.

You need to verify your economic status for overseas visit

The government of Nepal is preparing to make it mandatory for citizens to verify their economic status from concerned local governments to apply for a visit visa of any country, according to a report in Naya Patrika.

The preparation follows complaints that loose provisions for visit visa helped human traffickers use the legal loophole for criminal activities.

Medical education bill stuck in House

Going against their own repeated commitments, major parties in the Federal Parliament are seen reluctant about endorsing the new Medical Education Bill from this session, according to The Kathmandu Post.

Owing to repeated hunger strikes of medical education reform activist Dr Govinda KC, the government introduced the bill, but it has not moved ahead since then.

Interesting

Oli, Trump discuss high level visit exchange

Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli held a two-minute meeting with the United States President Donald Trump in New York on Monday evening, on the sidelines of the 73rd session of UN General Assembly. During the meeting, the two leaders reportedly discussed exchanging high level visits between the two countries, reports Annapurna Post.

Customarily, the US President visits every chief of delegation of the UNGA for around two minutes.Kathmandu, September 26

The Korea International Agency (KOICA) of Republic of Korea has agreed to provide Rs 550 million to Nepal the project for enhancing the quality of technical and vocational education and training (TVET) through capacity building of TVET Instructors in Nepal.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to this effect was signed and exchanged at the Ministry of finance, Kathmandu, today.

Rok (South Korea)s Ambassador for Nepal, Park Yong Sik and Finance Secretary Rajan Khanal signed on the document on behalf of their respective sides.

The overall goal of this project is to improve the quality of the TVET System of better TVET education in Nepal by enhancing the competitiveness of TVET Instructors and technical institute for technical Instruction (TITI). It aims at to strengthen the capacity of TVET instructors as well as TITI Trainers and establish an Information Technology center in TITI for enhancing technological capacity of TVET human resources in Nepal, the Ministry said in a press statement.

This project is a technical cooperation from the Government of Korea to the Government of Nepal. The Ministry of education, Science and Technology will be executing agency of the project. KOICA and CTEVT/TITI will be the implementing agency. The duration of the project will be from 2018 to 2020 AD.

The Government of Nepal has expressed its appreciation to the government of Korea for this assistance and its continued support in the socio-economic development of Nepal.Home  Just In  Nepal launching feasibility study from November to open waterways in key rivers

Kathmandu, September 26

Nepali officials have said they will carry out an onsite feasibility study from November in a bid to open waterways in key rivers of the country.

The decision was made after a team visited various places in neighbouring India to study the operation of ships in the rivers there.

Joint Secretary at the Water and Energy Commission Secretariat, Madhav Belbase, who led Nepali officials study visit to India, says, An Indian team will come to Nepal and we will carry out the study jointly.

The team had visited India upon an invitation of New Delhi officials. Before that trip, some Indian officials had come to Kathmandu to discuss possible cooperation on waterways.

Belbase hopes Nepals first ship will come into operation by the end of 2019. So far, Narayani River has been found most practical to launch the service.

Following an instruction from Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli, the government had formed a committee under the leadership of Belbase to make preparations for the introduction of water transport system in Nepal.Butwal, September 26

Students affiliated to the Nepali Congress-aligned Nepal Student Union have torched and vandalised Butwal Lumbini Banijya campus protesting the recruitment of 11 new staffers.

NSU campus unit chief Suraj Chhetri and central committee member Tanka Pandey led a group of students who also vandalised the colleges Scorpio car.

The students have accused the campus administration of recruiting teachers and staffers by resorting to unfair means. The administration even resorted to leaking question papers to recruit the people they wanted, said Pandey. We will announce further protests if the college does not rectify its decision.

The college administration, meanwhile, said it followed the due process in the recruitment.#Samsung Samsung nears selection of site for new U.S. chip factory Samsung Electronics Co., the world's biggest memory chip and mobile phone maker, is inching closer toward the selection of the site for its new chip plant in the United States, ind...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.AIPPM Names Brad Perry of Boise Paper as Its 2018 Peyton Shaner Award Recipient Brad Perry, Director of Sales, Merchant & Converting for Boise Paper. Sept. 26, 2018 - The Association of Independent Printing Paper Merchants (AIPPM) announced that Brad Perry, Director of Sales, Merchant & Converting for Boise Paper has been selected as the recipient of the 2018 Peyton Shaner Award. The presentation will be made at the 2018 AIPPM Fall Conference, September 26-29, at the Grand Marriott Resort in Point Clear, Alabama. The Peyton Shaner Award was established to commemorate the founder of the Association of Independent Printing Paper Merchants. Past recipients include Doug Adams and Bill Stemmerman of Appvion, Bill Frohlich of the NPTA Alliance, Jeff Kirchmer of National Envelope, Morris Dennis of Dennis Paper Co., Charlie Peth of Wausau Paper, Alain Villemure of LECTA, Bill Koehn of Domtar, and Tom and Ted O'Connor of Mohawk Paper Mills. A graduate of Linfield College, Perry has spent his entire 28 years in the paper industry with Boise. He began as a sales representative in the merchant channel in 1990. He was then promoted to Midwest Regional Sales Manager and Product Manager. In 1998, Perry was named facility manager of the Vancouver Specialty converting plant and then became General Manager for the Salem Corrugated plant in 2000. He returned to Sales and Marketing in 2002, initially as General Sales Manager and later to his current position of Director of Sales, Merchant and Converting. Perry served on the Board of Directors of the NPTA Alliance from 2013 to 2015. Throughout his career, Perry has earned the respect of his customers and his peers at Boise Paper. Dan Steinke of WCP Solutions said, Brad is a positive person, always greets you with a smile, a fantastic listener who truly acts as the advocate of the customer, said Dan Steinke of WCP Solutions. Paul LeBlanc of Boise noted, Brad has the most incredible customer focus, but doesn't lose sight of company deliverables. Barbara Clemens of Boise added, He delivers on his commitments in a collaborative and inclusive manner. He embraces change and is Boise Paper's 'go to' guy when unexpected challenges arise that need to be resolved. Please join the AIPPM in congratulating Brad Perry for earning this worthy recognition that honors its founder. The purpose of the Association of Independent Printing Paper Merchants is to bring growth and value to its members by leveraging its purchasing and marketing opportunities, sharing and encouraging the use of best business practices, and promoting the healthy exchange of ideas. To learn more, please visit: www.aippm.com . SOURCE: Association of Independent Printing Paper Merchants (AIPPM)Lord Ivar Mountbatten has become the first member of the extended royal family to marry a same-sex partner. Mountbatten is the younger brother of the Marquess of Milford Haven. He's a descendant of Queen Victoria, Grand Duke Michael Mikhaelovitch of Russia and the poet Pushkin.

Mountbatten was married and has three daughters with Penelope Thompson. He came out as gay two years ago and began a relationship with James Coyle, a flight attendant. It's a very modern arrangement which has the support of Mountbatten's former wife. Penelope even walked the groom down the aisle for the wedding.

Related | The New Royals

Mountbatten is one of the godparents of Lady Louise Windsor, the daughter of Queen Elizabeth's youngest son, Edward, Earl of Wessex. The Earl and his wife are godparents to two of Mountbatten's daughters. The Wessex's were unable to attend to the wedding but sent congratulations. The couple plans to honeymoon later this year in Croatia or Greece.

One strong indication of how times have changed is the press coverage the wedding has received. Even conservative news outlets like the Daily Mail have treated the wedding in a supportive way. It will be interesting to see if a member of the royal family attends a same-sex marriage in the future.

Mountbatten's glamorous grandmother Nada, Lady Milford Haven was rumored to be bisexual and allegedly the lesbian girlfriend of Gloria Vanderbilt, Sr. Vanderbilt (the grandmother of Anderson Cooper) was mentioned in the famous custody trial of Gloria Vanderbilt, Jr when Gloria Sr's maid testified in court that she walked in on Mrs. Vanderbilt and Lady Milford Haven kissing like lovers. As a result Mrs Vanderbilt, Sr lost custody of her daughter to Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, little Gloria's aunt.

The last time an LGBTQ member of the extended royal family was in the news was the Queen's nephew, the Earl of Snowdon (then Viscount Linley) was being blackmailed by two men who claimed to have a video of Linley having sex with a male aid. Linley reported the blackmailers to the police and they were each sentenced to five years in prison.PAPER has always been a place of opportunity, a place that spotlights new talent and people who are doing tremendous things. We've spent over 20 years bringing you the Beautiful People issue, which identified amazing people who were doing things differently and using their creativity, ideas and success to transform culture and create new opportunities for artists, audiences and fans. This year, we have decided to rename the portfolio and call it exactly what it is: PAPER People.  Drew Elliott, Editor-in-Chief

Related | Meet the 2018 PAPER People

For husband-and-wife design duo Kristopher Brock and Laura Vassar of Brock Collection, a little distance is a good thing. That's why for the last three years they've designed their ready-to-wear label from the sunny, if slightly off-piste, calm of Los Angeles "Being here allows us to come from a place of clarity," Vassar, a Newport Beach native, explains, and with the noise of NYC a continent away, that clear vision comes through in the clothes. Brock, which took home the prestigious CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund award in 2016, can swan comfortably between, say, Belle Epoque heroine and Beach Blanket Bingo, old-world glamour mixed with a dash of California ease. Their signature florals are instantly recognizable on any red carpet (fans include Emily Ratajkowski and Lily James), and their penchant for unabashedly feminine corseting is now a mainstream trend. If there was any fear that romance is dead, then Brock Collection is a much-welcome lifeline.



Running a ready-to-wear company out of LA has its pros and cons. What are the pros and cons you've noticed since moving out West about establishing a brand in LA?

LV: We started the company in New York, then when we had our son we moved out to California. It was definitely scary at first and we were thinking what are are we doing? But for the creative process, it's almost like a blessing because we're kind of out of everything that's happening. You're able to think on a whole different level. I can think more creatively from Newport  think on a different path. You're out of what's happening in New York and you're out of what's happening in L.A It does comes with its minuses. We were so lucky to partner with a luxury group, Onward, that is based in Italy. We go there six times a year. We're doing fittings, production, sales, development and selling the collection, all with Onward so we go there and hammer it out.

KB: Going to Italy for fittings and all of that doesn't matter if we're based in New York or LA, Texas or Chicago, we're still going to the same place for development and production. But then you also have the social scene of New York, all the parties and events so we're missing out on that. You don't really get that social element. LV: Which is almost better! KB: There are some events that we still just have to fly to New York for a day [to go to]. It would be amazing if it were just leave our house, go to it, and come back home rather than sit on a plane for six hours. But it is a nice little community here in LA as well. It's fun. We love it. LV: There is a nice camaraderie in LA  everyone really connects and works together. But it's really cool when you move some place and there are people in the same field.



Speaking of parties in New York, I was wondering if you had any thoughts on the CFDA / Vogue fashion fund finalists that were just announced. LV: It's so exciting for everyone. KB: It's a great group.

Having gone through that and winning, of course, do you have any advice for them? LV: Just go for it! That time in our lives was one of the most influential on our business, on our brand, on ourselves personally. It really challenged us to come forward, push ourselves to build and grow the business. Looking back, we put our hearts and souls into every single step of that. It was life changing. The outcome was life changing, and the experience of it was so impactful. Just experience [the moment] would be the best advice. KB: We learned so much throughout that process. And continue to learn from the advice given. My one pice of advice would be to go into it with a completely open mind. The top people in the industry are the judges and the mentors and they have so much to offer.



On Laura: Dress Brock Collection On Kris: Clothing Tom Ford

The vision for the brand was so clear so early  how did you arrive there so quickly?

LV: It was something that we really focused on in the beginning. So, you start a brand, you have an idea of it, and then you have to get it across to the world, which is a totally different thing than just visualizing. Who are we? What are we doing? What sets us apart? Why are people coming to us? We had to dive deep and ask ourselves all of those questions. What is it that we want to portray? We went to our own hearts and thought about who is Brock. We did that during the CFDA process and after and our mentor gave us the best advice ever: the brands that do well are the ones that are really specific. We dove down and the answer was there. It was one of those things that the answer was there all along but you didn't really know exactly how to say it. We always come back to the notion of romance and clothes that you are emotionally connected to and you feel romantic in. American raw romanticism. If it's not that, then it shouldn't be in the collection. KB: I think that it is ever evolving for us. What that means to us right now, next year, five years from now. It changes a little bit but it always goes back to that... if it doesn't scream raw romanticism then it's not Brock and we don't need it.



What does this idea of 'romanticism' mean to you exactly? LV: When we do anything, we think what does ["romantic"] mean? What is a "romantic" pair of jeans? It's like a 100% cotton raw, Japanese, high waisted denim that makes [the Brock customer] feel secure. What's a romantic sweater? It's a 100% cashmere chunky sweater that she can wear by a bonfire. What's a romantic dress? It's corseted and maybe has frayed edges and is an antique jacquard but is strapless so she can show off her collar bone. What is a romantic evening gown? It's black lace and it's a little sheer. It's applying romance to every piece we make. Romance means something different to every woman. For our woman it's about all of those wardrobe essentials. And how she wants to feel in each one.

KB: What it really means for us is an emotional connection. It doesn't have to be a princess neckline or cliche romance. It's more an emotional feeling to timeless pieces.



You have such a strong red carpet presence, how do you approach that?

LV: We've been so happy by women wearing our dresses. It's been a dream come true. So exciting and so cool. The approach is always just the dress. We have to make a dress that someone's going to feel their most beautiful self in. Something that is going to stand out and that no one else has. If we make sure that the cuff is just right and the waist is just right and it's in a beautiful fabric and it's different from anyone else... We drape all of the fabric on the models by hand to make them really special and stand out. It is totally a dream come true to see the women supporting us.

Some people live their whole lives in fear of death, others laugh in the face of it. It turns out Will Smith is the latter. The actor took to the skies over the Grand Canyon today to bungee jump 1,000 feet out of a helicopter in honor of his 50th birthday.

While others are content with just a party or a little get together, Smith, ever the thrill-seeker, chose to stream the daredevil stunt after being challenged by Youtube Channel Yes Theory. Before boarding the helicopter Smith admitted that he was a little bit scared, recounting a visit to the Grand Canyon in his youth and being unable to muster up the courage to peer over the edge. "I've made it a point in my life to attack anything that I'm scared of," Smith said as his entire family and Fresh Prince of Bel-Air co-star, Alfonso Ribero, looked on.

As the moment of truth came, Smith was given a few words of encouragement from a stunt coordinator, "in all the years I've known you, you are physically and mentally ready for this. So have fun." However, it was not Smith's first rodeo, the actor had previously bungee jumped off the top of Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe last year which clearly went well enough that he felt confident in his ability to take on a jump twice as high. Related | Lil Xan Eats Too Many Hot Cheetos, Ends Up In Hospital

Photo via YouTube

Falling backwards out of the helicopter, Smith screamed and hollered in an adrenaline-fueled euphoria. After cementing both feet back on terra firma, the actor reflected on the jump, "nothing, nothing will ever be scarier than that. It goes from complete, absolute terror to the most magnificent bliss you've ever felt in your life."

In true Will Smith fashion, before leaving the actor offered some sage advice for those who were tuning in, "the commitment is real, the commitment is real. It's like you meet somebody, and you like her and she likes you and you hesitate. Don't hesitate! Commit!" We're just glad Smith didn't wind up like a certain Fresh Prince fiance...

Praying Will Smiths jump goes better than Trevors #WillSmithTheJump pic.twitter.com/c1IqOThsig  K E V I N (@KevChestnut) September 25, 2018

Photo via GettyYou have permission to edit this article.

Edit CloseThe U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published a patent application from Samsung earlier this month that generally relates to a possible new future User Interface (UI) mode. According to Samsung's patent application there are limits to capacitive touch used on today's smartphone and tablets when in very cold like in Russia or at a ski resort. It's also impractical to reach a touch screen that's on your car's infotainment system. Samsung's new invention will allow a touch device to also work with a motion based interface.

According to Samsung, a portable device comprises a display unit; a sensor unit for sensing a user's motion; and a processor configured to control, if the user's motion is sensed by the sensor unit, the display unit to release a standby mode of the portable device and output a User Interface (UI) mode screen corresponding to a type of the sensed motion.

Samsung's patent FIG. 6 presented below is a flowchart illustrating a method of providing a UI mode of a portable device.





Samsung's patent FIGS. 4A to 4D below are diagrams illustrating a proximity UI mode in action; FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating a proximity input method.





As noted earlier, if the display can't use touch to control the display, the system could us motion in-air gesturing that in-depth cameras could support. In patent FIG. 5 we some of the motions that the smartphone's camera would be able to understand as a motion-control to make a web page scroll up or down and other motions to trigger other actions mimicking button controls like adjusting audio or t take a photo.

In March of this year Apple's VCSEL Partner Finisar revealed that future gesture recognition and autonomous vehicle applications will drive this technology that is built into Apple's TrueDepth camera.

Evidently the top two smartphone makers are aiming to bring in-air gesture recognition to their respective future smartphones.

Apple's Israeli team that includes the original PrimeSense team who worked on the TrueDepth camera has been working for more than a decade on in-air gesture systems for computers including desktops and TVs. Below is just one example of a patent-pending invention with others that could be reviewed here: 01, 02, 03, 04 and 05.





As competitors, Apple and Samsung are constantly going head-to-head on many feature fronts for future smart phones, tablets and watches. We pointed out two of them earlier this month regarding sleep monitoring apps and devices as well as health sensors for smartwatches.

So at the end of the day it's not surprising to see Samsung wanting to play catch with Apple on the future use of in-air gestures for mobile devices and other computers.

While Apple's Israeli team is likely a decade ahead of Samsung on in-air gesturing technology, you could never tell. There could always be an upset if one team is hungrier than the other in bringing this feature to market first. So only time will tell who the winner will be in bringing their respective in-air gesturing patents to life.





Patently Mobile presents a detailed summary of patent applications with associated graphics for journalistic news purposes as each such patent application is revealed by the U.S. Patent & Trade Office. Readers are cautioned that the full text of any patent application should be read in its entirety for full and accurate details. About Posting Comments: Patently Mobile reserves the right to post, dismiss or edit any comments. Those using abusive language or behavior will result in being blacklisted on Disqus.Finishing up with some very basic notes.

Differences (concluded):

Evangelization, in the Islamic view, tends to be a one-way street. People can and should convert to Islam. If a person converts from Islam to some other (necessarily inferior) religion, many Muslims will deem that person worthy of death. The view that apostasy is a capital offense has been represented in Islamic law since roughly 800 A.D. That is, it is a post-Muhammadan development, but nonetheless very old and deeply ingrained. This represents an obvious problem for Latter-day Saints, who, by contrast, place heavy emphasis on religious freedom and agencywhich, in our view, was a primary issue in the grand premortal council. A related matter is the fact that Islamic cultures tend to emphasize social controls (for example, in segregating men and women, and covering women from head to toe), whereas Latter-day Saints are willing to pay certain costs (in allowing sin, to put it bluntly) in order to preserve the opportunity for freely-chosen virtue.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is hierarchical and centralized. Authority flows, and direction is given, to local leaders from those holding the keys. Islam, in contrast, and especially in its majority Sunni form, is extremely decentralized. In fact, one cannot legitimately speak of a Muslim church or anything like it. There is no Muslim priesthood (although the several Shiite movements, notably the so-called Twelvers who dominate Iran, sometimes come close). Instead, in the absence of a living prophet or even an analogue to the pope, leadership of the Muslim community has fallen into the hands of the so-called ulama, whose authority flows from their knowledge of the Quran and the other authoritative texts of Islam. (They are roughly comparable to rabbis, in that regard.)

Authority, in Islam (and, again, particularly among its Sunni majority) resides in the past. Knowledge of that past, and of the legal and doctrinal precedents to be found therein the form of what are called hadith, or, roughly, traditionsgives the individual religious leader his power and authority. This means that there is little room for innovation within Islam. (The Arabic word bida means both innovation, or novelty, and heresy.) If innovation occurs, it requires a re-reading and re-interpretation of the already available canonical texts. This is quite different from authority among the Latter-day Saints, where changes in practice, etc., can come quite suddenly, as in the case of the 1978 revelation on priesthood. Islams solid base in the past, and the diffusion of interpretive authority among tens of thousands of rabbis from Indonesia to Morocco, from Saudi Arabia to Nigeria and Canada, makes it very difficult to hijackand very difficult to reform or adapt.

Islamparticularly in its Iranian Shiite formplaces considerable emphasis on the idea of martyrdom, while Latter-day Saints, by and large, do not. We do not believe, for example, that Joseph Smith went to heaven because he was murdered by an anti-Mormon mob.[excerpts from reference sources will be in blue ; Bible verses (NASB) will be indented]

*****

I. THE WORD

The English gospel is derived from the Anglo-Saxon godspell, which meant good tidings and later, the story concerning God. Gospel is the usual English translation, in the New Testament, of the Greek euangelion (pronounced yoo-ang-GHEL-ee-on), from which, in turn, we get our English words evangelical, evangelist, etc. The Greek euangelion means, literally, good message or good news. Seven definitions from standard Protestant reference works, follow:

In the N.T. it denotes the good tidings of the Kingdom of God and of salvation through Christ, to be received by faith, on the basis of His expiatory death, His burial, resurrection, and ascension, e.g., Acts 15:7; 20:24; I Peter 4:17. (Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, W. E. Vine, Old Tappan, New Jersey: Fleming H. Revell, 1940, under heading Gospel)

The term comprises the preaching of (concerning) Jesus Christ as having suffered death on the cross to procure eternal salvation for men in the kingdom of God, but as restored to life and exalted to the right hand of God in heaven . . . it may be more briefly defined as the glad tidings of salvation through Christ; the proclamation of the grace of God manifested and pledged in Christ. (Rom. 1:16; 10:16; 11:28; I Cor. 4:15; II Cor. 8:18; Gal. 2:2; Eph. 3:6; Phil. 1:5, etc.). (Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, Joseph H. Thayer, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1901, 257)

The gospel is the good news that God in Jesus Christ has fulfilled His promises to Israel, and that a way of salvation has been opened to all . . . The use of Gospels as a designation of the first four books of the N.T. is post-biblical (2nd century A. D.). (New Bible Dictionary, edited by J. D. Douglas, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1962, 484)

The central content of the Christian revelation, the glad tidings of redemption. Hence Christs own preaching is a Gospel (Mk. 1:14 f.). The use of the word in Christian vocabulary probably comes from the OT . . . Is. 61:1 . . . (The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 2nd edition, edited by F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone, Oxford University Press, 1983, 583)

The message of Gods redemption in Jesus Christ, which lies at the heart of the NT and the churchs faith. In the NT it is, first, the proclamation by Jesus that the kingdom has drawn near and, then, the proclamation by His disciples that in His life, death, and resurrection the kingdom has been established and that salvation and forgiveness are offered to all who believe. (The New International Dictionary of the Christian Church, general editor: J. D. Douglas, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1974, 424)

Good news, specifically the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ (Matt. 11:5 par. Luke 4:18; Heb. 4:2,6; 1 Pet. 1:12 . . . Paul most thoroughly treats the nature of the gospel . . . For Paul, the good news was that God had bought salvation through the death of Jesus Christ independent of the rules and regulations that characterized Judaism . . . The apostle Paul . . . proclaimed the incarnate, crucified, and resurrected Christ (Rom. 1:3; 1 Cor 1:17) who appeared to his followers after his resurrection (15:1-8) . . . Paul stressed that the gospel is Gods power unto salvation for all believers, manifesting the righteousness of God, but veiled to all those who do not believe (Rom. 1:16-17; cf. 2 Cor. 4:3-4). (The Eerdmans Bible Dictionary, edited by Allen C. Myers, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1987; based on Bijbelse Encyclopedie, edited by W. H. Gispen, Kampen, the Netherlands, revised edition, 1975; 432-433)

Two passages summarize the content (Rom. 1:1 ff. and 1 Cor. 15:1 ff.), and cf. Rom. 2:16; 16:25; 2 Tim. 3:8. From Rom. 1:1 ff. we learn that the preexistent Son has become man, is as such the expected Davidic Messiah, and has been exalted as kyrios with his resurrection. The resurrection presupposes the death and passion. As the message of Jesus, the gospel brings peace (Eph. 6:15), but judgment is also part of its content (Rom. 2:16). The gospel also brings strength (Rom. 16:25) as the revelation of Gods saving counsel concurrent with the preaching of Jesus. (Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, edited by Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich, translated and abridged in one volume by Geoffrey W. Bromiley; Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1985, 271)

II. THE MESSAGE

(Bible verses from New American Standard Bible)

1. St. Peter, in Jerusalem, speaking to the Jews of Israel and from many of the surrounding districts (Acts 2:6-11); c. A.D. 30-33:

Acts 2:22-24, 32-33, 36, 38-40 Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know  this Man, delivered up by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death. And God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power . . . This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses. Therefore having been exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured forth this which you both see and hear . . . Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Messiah  this Jesus whom you crucified . . . Repent, and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and your children, and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God shall call to Himself . . . Be saved from this perverse generation.

2. St. Peter, in Jerusalem, to the Jews; c. A.D. 30-33:

Acts 3:13-15, 18-21, 26 The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified His servant Jesus, the one whom you delivered up, and disowned in the presence of Pilate, when he decided to release Him. But you disowned the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, but put to death the Prince of life, the one whom God raised from the dead, a fact to which we are witnesses . . . But the things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Messiah should suffer, He has thus fulfilled. Repent  therefore and return, that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord; and that He may send Jesus, the Messiah appointed for you, whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time . . . For you first, God raised up His servant, and sent Him to bless you by turning every one of you from your wicked ways.

3. St. Peter, in Jerusalem, speaking to the rulers, elders, scribes and priests of the Jews (after healing a lame man: Acts 3:2-8); c. A.D. 30-33:

Acts 4:8-12 (quoting Psalm 118:22) Rulers and elders of the people, if we are on trial today for a benefit done to a sick man, as to how this man has been made well, let it be known to all of you, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead  by this name this man stands here before you in good health. He (Jesus) is the stone which was rejected by you, the builders, but which became the very corner stone. And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men, by which we must be saved.

4. St. Peter and the apostles, in Jerusalem, speaking to the Sanhedrin, or, Council of the Jews; c. A.D. 30-33:

Acts 5:30-32 The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you had put to death by hanging Him on a cross. He is the one whom God exalted to His right hand as a Prince and a Savior, to grant repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses of these things; and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey Him.

5. St. Peter, in Caesarea, on the Mediterranean shore 65 miles northwest of Jerusalem, speaking to Cornelius, a Roman centurion, his relatives and his close friends (Gentiles); c. A.D. 38:

Acts 10:34-43 I most certainly understand now that God is not one to show partiality, but in every nation the man who fears Him and does what is right, is welcome to Him. He sent the word to the sons of Israel, preaching peace through Jesus Christ (He is Lord of all)  you yourselves know the thing which took place throughout all Judea, starting from Galilee, after the baptism which John proclaimed. You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how He went about doing good, and healing all who were oppressed by the devil; for God was in Him. And we are witnesses of all the things He did both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem. And they also put Him to death by hanging Him on a cross. God raised Him up on the third day, and granted that He should become visible, not to all the people, but to witnesses who were chosen beforehand by God, that is, to us, who ate and drank with Him after He arose from the dead. And He ordered us to preach to the people, and solemnly to testify that this is the One who has been appointed by God as Judge of the living and the dead. Of Him all the prophets bear witness that through His name everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins.

6. St. Paul, in Pisidian Antioch, in what is now central Turkey, speaking to the Jews in the synagogue; c. A.D. 46:

Acts 13:23, 26-33, 38-39 . . . From the offspring of this man (David), according to promise, God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus . . . Brethren, sons of Abrahams family, and those among you who fear God, to us the word of this salvation is sent out. For those who live in Jerusalem, and their rulers, recognizing neither Him nor the utterances of the prophets which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled these by condemning Him. And though they found no ground for putting Him to death, they asked Pilate that He be executed. And when they had carried out all that was written concerning Him, they took Him down from the cross and laid Him in a tomb. But God raised Him from the dead; and for many days He appeared to those who came up with Him from Galilee to Jerusalem, the very ones who are now His witnesses to the people. And we preach to you the good news of the promlse made to the fathers, that God has fulfilled this promise to us, their children in that He raised up Jesus . . . . Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through Him forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and through Him everyone who believes is freed from all things, from which you could not be freed through the Law of Moses . . .

7. St. Paul and Silas, in Philippi, in Macedonia (Greece), speaking to the jailer in whose jail they were being held; c. A.D. 49:

Acts 16:31 Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you shall be saved, you and your household.

8. St. Paul, in Athens, Greece, at Mars Hill, a marketplace and meeting-grounds northwest of the Acropolis, speaking to Epicurean and Stoic philosophers, civic leaders, Athenian citizens and visitors; c. A.D. 49:

Acts 17: 22-31 Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects. For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. What therefore you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; neither is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all life and breath and all things; and He made from one, every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times, and the boundaries of their habitation, that they should seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, For we also are His offspring. Being then the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man. Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all everywhere should repent, because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.

9. St. Paul, in Jerusalem, to the Jews; c. A.D. 59 (Paul converted to Christianity around A.D. 34-35):

Acts 22:3-4, 6-8, 10, 12, 14-16, 21 I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city, educated under Gamaliel, strictly according to the law of our fathers, being zealous for God, just as you all are today. And I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and putting both men and women into prisons . . . And it came about that as I was on my way, approaching Damascus about noontime, a very bright light suddenly flashed from heaven all around me, and I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me? And I answered, Who are You, Lord? And He said to me, I am Jesus the Nazarene, whom you are persecuting. . . . And I said, What shall I do, Lord? And the Lord said to me, Arise and go into Damascus; and there you will be told of all that has been appointed for you to do. . . . And a certain Ananias, a man who was devout by the standard of the Law, and well spoken of by all the Jews who lived there . . . said, The God of our fathers has appointed you to know His will, and to see the Righteous One, and to hear an utterance from His mouth. For you will be a witness for Him to all men of what you have seen and heard . . . Arise, and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on His name. . . . And He (the Lord) said to me, Go! For I will send you far away to the Gentiles.

***

(January 1988; expanded and revised on 7-8-02; the original idea and article likely dated from the early 80s)

Photo credit: Apostle Peter Preaching (c. 1370), by Lorenzo Veneziano (b. 1336) [public domain / Wikimedia Commons]

***U.S. Iran Policy And Misusing The Fear Of Terrorism

09/26/18

By Paul Pillar (source: LobeLog)

The history of U.S. administrations manipulating the issue of terrorism for purposes unrelated to terrorism predates Donald Trump's presidency. One reflection of this history is the official U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, which has never tracked very closely with the reality of specific states being complicit or not complicit in international terrorism. Some complicit states have never appeared on the list because they were considered U.S. friends or allies-such as Saudi Arabia with its nurturing of Sunni radicalism, Pakistan with its support to extremist groups in Afghanistan, or left-wing governments in Greece that condoned radical leftist terrorism. Other states have been taken off or put on the list to send messages on topics other than terrorism. Iraq, for example, was taken off when the United States was tilting toward Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War, then returned to the list when Iraq invaded Kuwait. North Korea was belatedly taken off the list 10 years ago and put back on last year, again not because of any change in terrorist behavior but for other reasons-in this case having to do with the objective of denuclearization.

The most flagrant and damaging manipulation of the issue of terrorism was the George W. Bush administration's exploiting of American outrage over 9/11 to muster support for the Iraq War by conjuring up an "alliance," which in fact never existed, between Saddam Hussein's regime and al-Qaeda. The promoters of that war went so far as to establish staff inside the Pentagon to discredit relevant work of the U.S. intelligence community, which had correctly concluded that there was no such alliance.

Now the Trump administration is similarly manipulating the terrorism issue, to stir up as much hatred as possible against Iran rather than to convey an accurate picture of international terrorism today and where and how Americans are most likely to fall victim to it. This was evident in the rollout last week of the latest edition of the congressionally mandated annual report on international terrorism.

Past Involvement

Iran certainly has done terrorism and has given good reasons to be placed on the list of state sponsors, although one must reach back into an ever-receding past to find those reasons. (Saddam Hussein's Iraq also had done some real terrorism, but not with al-Qaeda.) The first big encounter between the United States and the new Islamic Republic of Iran was a major act of terrorism: the taking of hostages at the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979. Also early in the Islamic Republic's history, Iranian assassins periodically killed dissident Iranian expatriates in Europe and elsewhere, but those murders ceased years ago. The last time Americans became victims of an incident that meets the State Department's legally codified definition of terrorism (which involves violence against noncombatants) and in which Iran probably played a role was more than two decades ago: the bombing of the U.S. military installation at Khobar Towers, Saudi Arabia in 1996. (The U.S. servicemen who were the targets of that attack were deemed noncombatants because they were resting in their barracks at the time-although some observers skeptical of this coding note that the servicemen were part of a larger military mission.)

The phrase "leading state sponsor of terrorism" has become a label that rolls easily and automatically off the lips of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other U.S. politicians. The label has become an almost de rigueur attachment to any American mention of Iran. As with other such labels that are automatically invoked, this one has become a substitute for, rather than an accompaniment to, careful attention to facts and evidence.

The administration's attempt to paint Iran as a major problem in international terrorism is badly misleading. This is readily apparent in looking at any picture of terrorism that includes the groups that have to be in the center of that picture-al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (ISIS or iS)-and that necessarily are mentioned up front in the up-front part of the State Department report. Iran is on the opposite side from these groups on almost any political, ideological, and sectarian divide that matters. Iran also is on the opposite side from those groups on multiple Middle Eastern battlefields. This is true in Iraq, where Iran has provided more help than any other outsider in freeing western Iraq from the grip of IS. It is true in Syria, where Iran aids a Syrian regime that is now targeting the rebel redoubt in Idlib province in which the most powerful group and de facto local government is the Syrian affiliate of al-Qaeda. It is true in Yemen, where the Houthi movement that has received Iranian aid is one of the fiercest opponents of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the group that has come closest to accomplishing a post-9/11 mass-casualty attack in the United States.

Iran has paid a price for its opposition to these terrorist groups, most dramatically in June of last year, when an IS attack on the Iranian parliament and the mausoleum of Ayatollah Khomeini in Tehran killed 17 civilians and wounded dozens more. An equivalent in the United States would be an IS attack on the U.S. Capitol and the Washington Monument. Against the backdrop of such a revenge attack, think of how inappropriate, not to mention outrageous, it would be to talk of the United States as being on the wrong side of international terrorism.

Stretching the Story

The Trump administration's new terrorism report and the accompanying pitch by Coordinator for Counterterrorism Nathan A. Sales illustrate how much the administration tries to stretch the canvas to put Iran in the center of the picture of international terrorism. The administration reaches, for example, back into the past. Sales, in trying hard to come up with any specific incidents, mentioned an attack attributed to Lebanese Hezbollah against an Israeli tourist bus in Bulgaria in 2012. (The State Department report, being annual, is supposed to describe current international terrorism, not just be a history of what happened years ago.)

The section about Iran in the portion of the report on state sponsorship of terrorism is unable to name any specific, current or recent, attack that Iran instigated or executed. The observations in that section, when not immersed in generalities such as "provide cover for associated covert operations, and create instability in the Middle East," fall mainly in two categories. One includes references to Iran's aid, partly furnished through supported militias, to sides it favors in a conflict such as the Syrian civil war. Of course, many other parties, including insiders as well as outsiders, are fomenting and executing grievous amounts of violence in that war. Most such politically motivated violence is open warfare-and as such will not show up in the State Department's statistics about terrorism-even though, as with Saudi Arabia's indiscriminate bombardment of Yemen, it kills far more innocent civilians than anything that does show up in those statistics.

The other principal type of observation concerns Iran's alliances with groups such as Hezbollah and the Palestinian group Hamas. Those groups certainly have done terrorism, but they are much more than terrorist groups and are part of broader political conflicts and political systems where Iranian motivations for the alliances are to be found. Hamas won the last free and fair election held among Palestinians, and it represents the side in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that most Arabs support (which is partly why Iran supports it as well). Hezbollah is one of the most important political actors in Lebanon, where it has seats in the legislature and has participated in governing coalitions.

The report states, without elaboration, that Iran "sponsored cyberattacks against foreign government and private sector entities." When it comes to Iran and cyberattacks, occupants of the U.S. glass house probably need to be careful about throwing that particular stone in a report about terrorism, especially given the direction the Trump administration appears to be heading on that subject.

The report also states that Iran "remained unwilling to bring to justice" al-Qaeda members in Iran, with a further suggestion that Iran somehow had been facilitating that group's operations. Left unstated is that al-Qaeda members who turned up in Iran were kept under a kind of house arrest. If Tehran did not turn them over to someone else it was because the Iranians hoped to use them as bargaining chips to bring to justice violent members of the cult/terrorist group known as Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), whose attacks (besides claiming American victims) have been responsible for years of bloodshed in Iran.

Sales stated, "The threats posed by Iran's support for terrorism are not confined to the Middle East; they are truly global," and made reference to "caches" of weapons and explosives in disparate places. Regardless of this assertion, Iran is no global power and has consistently demonstrated that its interests are sharply focused on its own region. Violent actions it has taken or abetted farther abroad-going back to those assassinations of dissidents in the early years of the Islamic Republic-have been intended to meet what it sees as threats closer to home. Rather than Tehran looking for trouble far afield, any long-distance terrorism involving Iran has been in direct response to political violence that others have inflicted back in the Middle East. Hezbollah's bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992, for example, was in retaliation for Israel's assassination of the group's secretary general. Some other attacks against Israel-related targets early in this decade (including that bus bombing in Bulgaria) were attempts to respond directly to the serial assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists. According to the State Department's definition of terrorism, if not its policy-guided pronouncements, those assassinations were every bit as much terrorist acts as were the attempts to retaliate for them.

The arrest in Germany earlier this year of an Iranian official for alleged involvement in a plot to attack a meeting in France leaves unanswered questions about how far such a plot may have gotten. But taking the reports at face value, if such an attack had occurred, it too would have been retaliation for violence, including terrorist violence, inflicted against Iranians. The death toll from attacks inside Iran by the MEK-a meeting of which reportedly was the intended target of the plot-numbers in the thousands and by some estimates reach five figures.

Iran Again a Target

This past week, Iran again became the victim of mass-casualty terrorism. An attack during a military parade in the southwestern city of Ahvaz killed at least 25, including civilians, and wounded dozens more. The Trump administration could barely bring itself, before a belated State Department statement, to get away from its posture that Iran should always be considered a problem in terrorism and never a victim. Nikki Haley said Iran should "look in the mirror" for the causes of the attack.

Again, imagine that an equivalent attack occurred in the United States. (Imagine also that an Iranian government response, instead of expressing sympathy for the victims, as Iran did after 9/11, was to say "look in the mirror.") American public and political demands would require whatever administration was in office to strike out forcefully somewhere, against someone. The United States undoubtedly would use the most modern military hardware to do so.

Iran, too, will try to respond to the Ahvaz attack (responsibility for which currently is unclear), and already has promised to do so. Lacking cruise missiles and modern attack aircraft, Iran will use the means available to it. This likely means methods that, unlike overt military attacks, would meet the terrorism definition. But this will still be a response to someone else's violence, not a rogue state looking for trouble.

The Bush administration's misuse of the post-9/11 fear of terrorism to drum up support for the Iraq War carries a final lesson about the costs and counterproductivity of such misuse. Before the war there was no alliance between Iraq and al-Qaeda, and the group al-Qaeda in Iraq did not exist. As a direct result of the U.S. invasion and subsequent occupation and turmoil, al-Qaeda in Iraq was born. After a change in name and leadership, it became the Islamic State.





About the author:



Paul R. Pillar is Non-resident Senior Fellow at the Center for Security Studies of Georgetown University and an Associate Fellow of the Geneva Center for Security Policy. He retired in 2005 from a 28-year career in the U.S. intelligence community. His senior positions included National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia, Deputy Chief of the DCI Counterterrorist Center, and Executive Assistant to the Director of Central Intelligence. He is a Vietnam War veteran and a retired officer in the U.S. Army Reserve. Dr. Pillar's degrees are from Dartmouth College, Oxford University, and Princeton University. His books include Negotiating Peace (1983), Terrorism and U.S. Foreign Policy (2001), Intelligence and U.S. Foreign Policy (2011), and Why America Misunderstands the World (2016).

Iran Should Fulfill Its UN Commitments and Recognize Sign Language

09/26/18

Source: Center for Human Rights in Iran

September 25, 2018-On the occasion of the International Day of Sign Languages and International Week of the Deaf, the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) urges the Iranian government to officially recognize sign language and introduce legislation guaranteeing deaf and hard of hearing citizens access to professional sign language interpreters.

"It has been nearly a decade since Iran endorsed the CRPD and yet the government has still not carried out its commitments to support Iranian sign language," said CHRI's Executive Director Hadi Ghaemi. "This prevents deaf and hard of hearing people from accessing their basic rights of health, education, independent living and freedom from violence and abuse."

According to Article 21 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), ratified by the Islamic Republic of Iran in 2008, Iran is required to accept and facilitate "the use of sign languages, Braille, augmentative and alternative communication, and all other accessible means, modes and formats of communication of their choice by persons with disabilities in official interactions."

According to Article 9, the government should "provide forms of live assistance and intermediaries, including guides, readers and professional sign language interpreters, to facilitate accessibility to buildings and other facilities open to the public." Article 24 also calls for "facilitating the learning of sign language and the promotion of the linguistic identity of the deaf community."

According to the World Health Organization's 2018 estimates, five percent of the world's population lives with some form of a hearing disability. Iran does not compile statistics on this segment of its population but according to the State Welfare Organization's (SWO) latest figures, 220,000 individuals are registered with some form of a hearing impairment. According to activists, three to five percent of Iran's student population of an estimated 15 million is also believed to be hard of hearing.

Deaf people in Iran encounter frequent discrimination and neglect by educational and state institutions. According to CHRI and Human Rights Watch's wide-ranging report on disabilities in Iran released in 2018, most SWO branch offices do not have sign language interpreters and the staff often treat people with disabilities and their families with disrespect.

The report, which includes dozens of interviews and eyewitness reports, also shows how the lack of sign language interpreters at the SWO prevents people with disabilities from accessing health care.

"Iranian sign language is being suppressed," an advocate for the rights of people with disabilities told CHRI. "The government is making every effort to prevent the growth and spread of sign language."

"On the one hand, huge budgets are granted to cochlear implantation, but on the other hand, nothing is allocated to train professional sign language interpreters, to codify Iranian sign language, or to make public information available in sign language," said the activist who requested anonymity for security reasons.

"Even emergency services such as the police, emergency medical assistance, and fire stations are inaccessible to the deaf," added the activist.

The UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has expressed serious concerns regarding the lack of action by the Iranian government in officially recognizing sign language and providing professional interpreters for the deaf.

It has also called on Iran to "Recognize Persian Sign Language as an official language and its use in schools, and establish, jointly with organizations of deaf persons, a mechanism to certify the quality of interpretation services and ensure opportunities for continuous training for sign language interpreters."

"The government of Iran should immediately end discrimination against Iranian sign language and make plans to implement its commitments to the deaf and hard of hearing in accordance with the CRPD," said Ghaemi.

"The deaf and hard of hearing and their families should have access to sign language educational services and be able to use sign language in their daily lives without barriers," he added.Families of Iran's Detained Environmentalists Urge Supreme Leader to Release Their Loved Ones

09/26/18

Source: Center for Human Rights in Iran

The families of environmentalists who have been detained for nearly eight months in Iran on unsubstantiated accusations of espionage have sent a letter to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei calling for the detainees to be released.

"We beseech you to immediately order the release of our loved ones and pave the way for a fair judicial process with access to legal counsel," said the letter, a copy of which was sent to the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) on September 18, 2018.

"We are wholeheartedly certain that our children have not committed the slightest wrongdoing, let alone the terrible crimes they have been accused of," said the families.

Eight former and current staff members of the Persian Heritage Wildlife Foundation (PHWF) have been detained in Iran's Evin Prison since being arrested by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) since late January 2018: Sam Rajabi, Niloufar Bayani, Morad Tahbaz (also holds American citizenship), Amir Hossein Khaleghi, Taher Ghadirian, Houman Jowkar, Sepideh Kashani and Abdolreza Kouhpayeh.

The PHWF's chairman, 63-year old Iranian-Canadian sociology professor Kavous Seyed-Emami, died under suspicious circumstances on February 9 while he was being held in Evin Prison for interrogations.

Judicial officials claimed Seyed-Emami had committed "suicide" before there was an autopsy.

Opposition-run websites have reported that the environmentalists were arrested for opposing the state's building of missile sites on environmentally sensitive land in Iran.

In August 2018, the families sent a letter to the heads of the country's three branches of state calling for the environmentalists to be allowed access to counsel and for their freedom.

The detainees have not had access to lawyers and been denied regular visitation and contact with the outside world while being held for long periods in solitary confinement.

"Your Excellency is well aware of the hardships associated with solitary confinement, the pressures from lack of contact with relatives for long periods and various difficulties and illnesses caused by the prison environment," the families said in their letter to Khamenei.

"All of our detained loved ones are among the best and brightest activists and experts in the field of environmentalism. For love of nature and their country, they have sacrificed their youth without any material gain to protect the environment within the framework of the law."

The chief of Iran's Department of Environment, Vice President Isa Kalantari, told state media in August 2018 that the judiciary has warned him to stop inquiring about the environmentalists.

"The judiciary has ordered us not to get involved," Kalantari said in an interview with the Islamic Republic News Agency on August 13, 2018. "They told us this is none of our business and we shouldn't pursue it."

"The esteemed intelligence minister has repeatedly said there is no evidence that the detainees had spied and yet the judiciary has still not resolved their situation," Kalantari added. "Almost all of our NGOs are at a standstill because they don't know to what extent they can operate without being accused of spying."Former President Jerry John Rawlings has described the late Supreme Court Justice, Vincent Cyril Richard Arthur Charles Crabbe, as an institution that carried the true essence of respect and human dignity.



He likened the demise of Justice Crabbe to the falling of a great tree, a statement issued by the Office of the Former President has said. He was 94.



The statement said Mr Rawlings made the remarks during a courtesy call on him by the family of Justice Crabbe, last Tuesday.



The Constitutional expert, who was for many years the Sole Commissioner of Statute Law Review in Ghana, also helped to draft Ghanas Constitution, and that of the Zambia, Kenya, Uganda and South Africa, among others.



He also founded the Electoral Commission and co-chaired the Coalition of Domestic Election Observers.



The former President said he had revered the departed constitutional expert for so long and was recently honoured to have sat close to the late jurist when he led a delegation of Ga Dangme chiefs to call on him, told the delegation.



I have always respected the man from a distance. I dont think theres anybody in this country who does not think highly of Justice Crabbe. He was a quiet, very pensive, and very methodical person. Wisdom sat well with him.



Justice Crabbe, former President Rawlings stated, had remained prominent for so long and was always alive to issues even as he aged and represented the past all the way to the present.



He said people like Justice Crabbe, Justice Annan and Nathan Quao were a huge source of inspiration to their community and society.



The former President said it was hard to come by personalities of Justice Crabbes kind who did not belong to any political, economic or social constituency yet had so much to impart to society.



Former President Rawlings said when he last met Justice Crabbe, he had a grand plan to exorcise the anger and discontent within the Ga community in a bid to instill a sense of unity within the Ga State, the statement said.



I was preparing myself to see how best I could help in my small way, but the problem solver is gone.



A nephew of Justice Crabbe, Richard Crabbe, who led the family delegation, said the elderly statesman passed away after a short illness, on Friday, September 7, 2018.



He will be buried at a private ceremony after a State Funeral Service on Thursday, October 4.

Source: GNA









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Featured VideoFormer President Jerry John Rawlings has assured Ghanaians that he is in good health.



This comes after he was reportedly admitted at the cardiothoracic unit of the Korle Bu Teaching hospital a week ago as a "precautionary measure to manage a low blood count condition".



According to a statement issued by his Communication Directorate and copied to Peacefmonline.com, Mr. Rawlings "has no immediate plans of seeking medical treatment outside the country".



"The former President is grateful to all well-wishers who have called or sent messages of concern. He is also thankful to doctors and nurses at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital for their care during his stay at the hospital", the statement further read.



Read full statement below:



FORMER PRESIDENT RAWLINGS IN GOOD HEALTH



The office of His Excellency Jerry John Rawlings wishes to assure the general public that the former President is in his usual state of good health and is able to meet the demands of his daily routine activities.



As reported on his Facebook page a couple of days ago, former President Rawlings was admitted to the Cardiothoracic Unit of the Korle Bu Teaching hospital a week ago as a precautionary measure to manage a low blood count condition.



The primary cause has since been detected and managed.



He was not rushed to the hospital as erroneously published in a newspaper on Wednesday, September 26, 2018.



The Medical team who managed him has not recommended any further treatment outside the shores of Ghana.



The former President has no immediate plans of seeking medical treatment outside the country.



The former President is grateful to all well-wishers who have called or sent messages of concern. He is also thankful to doctors and nurses at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital for their care during his stay at the hospital.







Issued By:



Kobina Andoh Amoakwa



(Communications Directorate)





Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured VideoChief Executive Officer of Gold dealership company, Menzgold, Nana Appiah Mensah has berated popular radio and TV personality Israel Laryea for what he describes as a smear campaign against his business.



A post put up by the embattled businessman describes a report by Mr. Laryea who visited the UK office of Menzgold to ascertain the truth or otherwise of a claim that the company had indeed set up an office for its activities in the United Kingdom as a pursuit of this evil smear campaign agenda.



According to Nana Appiah Mensah popularly referred to as NAM 1, business is not a thing for the pope, in a clear response to Mr. Laryea whose report sought to suggest there may not necessarily be a UK branch of the now distressed Menzgold as had been touted earlier in the year.



Israel Laryea said in his report that the only thing that suggested there may be an office space rented out to the Ghanaian company in the plush Berekely Square House building was perhaps, the sight of two black ladies, whom he presumed to be Ghanaian during his visit.



But NAM1 who appears enraged by the report a section of Ghanaians have already described as shoddy as can be seen in several comments on the post on the JoyNews facebook page has gone all out to attack the sanity of the rather popular radio and television presenter. He has further challenged the broadcaster to set up a provision store today in a kiosk and employ just one Ghanaian.



Nana Appiah Mensah posted on instagram saying, Hello Israel Laryea, today I celebrate your stupidity and retarded mindedness. set up a provision store today in a kiosk and employ just one Ghanaian. That is more than the pursuit of this evil smear campaign agenda. Maybe you need to be reminded, I am a businessman and not a politician. You cant break me! Business is not a thing for the pope. Think about it. God bless you.



Nana Appiah Mensah and Menzgold have been in the news in recent time. The company has been in a fight with the Bank of Ghana and more recently, the Securities and Exchanges Commission over the legitimacy of their business operation in the country.



VIDEO-

MENZGOLD GHANA SAGA: JoyNews checks at the UK office of Ghanaian gold dealer, Menzgold shows it does not operate the same business model, which has gotten it into trouble with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The London office, JoyNews discovered is a rented space in the massive Berkeley Square House block which houses about a thousand or more businesses, mostly seeking short term leases. JoyNews Editor, Israel Laryea on a recent trip to the UK reports, the Menzgold London office is also without the usual highly visible displays the company is known for in Ghana.

#JoyNews









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Featured VideoThe governments of Ghana and the United States of America (USA) have come to a compromise in their efforts to deport undocumented Ghanaian immigrants.



This follows the U.S. governments concern that the government of Ghana was not complying with international obligations regarding the issuance of travel documents to Ghanaians awaiting deportation.



The U.S. Embassy in Accra followed up with a statement saying the U.S. will be forced to begin implementing a visa restrictions regime in accordance with their laws as a responsibility owed to the American people if the government of Ghana did not play ball.



Ghanas Ambassador to the U.S.A., Dr Baffour Adjei Bawuah told Class FM on the sidelines of the 73rd UN General Assembly on Monday, 24 September 2018 in New York that both governments have reached an agreement.



What unfortunately turned out to be some kind of a tussle was the fact that the [Ghanaian] Embassy was having a difficulty just endorsing, as it were, a documentation when the embassy would not even have a basic information about the people who are being deported.



He said: It was quite unfortunate Ghanaian citizens with all the encouragement we are giving them dont register with the embassies even though the passport says that whenever you travel, register with the nearest embassy.



So, if we are asked to sign up to documentation to have them deported, in fairness to everybody, there ought to be a significant assumption that the embassy accepts that the person is a Ghanaian, the embassy understands that there has been an infraction of the law and the embassy understands that whatever the process was, was fair on the Ghanaian.



But we are not in a position to testify to the fact that the Ghanaian had an infringement, the due process was applied to the person and, therefore, the person in fairness to America could be deported.



We were not in the court when the proceedings were going on, so, we cannot testify to the fairness of the lawso to just be given names and asking for proper documentation for them to be deported was a bit tough for any embassy



If the person came in on an accepted documentation at the port of entry, there ought to be the documentation that allowed the person to be brought in. So, whatever basic information that was necessary, the American system should have it, so, if they do have it then they dont have to come to us to ask if the person is Ghanaian



So, all we were talking about was for a certain fairness to be applied and the embassy, not necessarily pressured to agree to see some people deported, and this is where we had a certain difference of opinion but we have had enough discussions for a certain kind of sanity to prevail.



I can, at least, confirm that we do have a certain kind of understanding on the process and we dont have any tension with America anymore.







Source: classfmonline.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How did CubeSats evolve from a dumb idea to interplanetary capable missions in just 15 years? Unlike large, expensive spacecraft that rely on proven technology, CubeSats have the flexibility to be riskier and try things that aren't guaranteed to work. This has allowed the industry to learn from mistakes and evolve new technologies quickly.

This is important for agencies like NASA that seek space hardware with a high technology readiness level, or TRL  a metric that assesses the maturity level of a particular technology. NASA supports the CubeSat industry through programs like ELaNA (Educational Launch of Nanosatellites), which helps CubeSat providers find free rides to orbit as secondary rocket payloads. To date, ELaNA has helped 18 groups of CubeSats get to space (including The Planetary Society's LightSail 1).

Another NASA program, SIMPLEx, funds CubeSats to fly on planetary exploration missions. The agency's current SIMPLEx solicitation is looking for SmallSats  which could include CubeSats  to fly on the upcoming Lucy and Psyche missions.

It didn't take long after CubeSats first launched in 2003 for some people to see they could be used in deep space. Robert Staehle, who is now the assistant instruments division manager for advanced concepts at NASA's Jet Propulsion laboratory, attended a Nov. 2010 workshop called GAINSTAM (Government and Industry Nano-Satellite Technology and Mission) in Huntington Beach, California. The Boeing-sponsored event hoped to raise awareness of the potential for small spacecraft.

At GAINSTAM, Staehle said he listened to a presentation by Tomas Svitek, the founder of Stellar Exploration, Inc., on The Planetary Society's LightSail 1 mission. At that point, the spacecraft had passed its critical design review.

LightSail was designed to demonstrate the feasibility of solar sailing for small spacecraft. Its key technology was the ability to package a 32-square-meter Mylar sail, deployment motor and sail booms into a 10-by-10-by-30-centimeter spacecraft  and still have room to spare for batteries, avionics, and cameras. Staehle, who had also taken notice of early JPL efforts to miniaturize spacecraft components, was intrigued. He knew propulsion was a key technology holding CubeSats back from a broader range of usages. Might solar sailing be a key piece of the puzzle?

"I thought, if I scale up what [Svitek] is doing by a little bit, I can get more out of it  a few kilometers per second, per year, maybe," recalled Staehle, referring to the change in velocity gained by solar sailing. "I thought, I bet you can do interplanetary.

Staehle assembled a team of experts and came up with a reference design for a solar sailing, 6-unit CubeSat measuring 30-by-20-by-10 centimeters. It was just double the size of the diminutive LightSail 1 spacecraft, yet it would be capable of conducting an interplanetary mission. He pitched the idea to Puig-Suari, the CubeSat co-inventor.

"I said, 'We can do this in 6U,' and Jordi's jaw dropped," Staehle said. "He said, 'You're right, we can do this."

The group prepared an abstract for a presentation to be delivered at an upcoming SmallSat conference. They figured it was an easy sell, but to their surprise, the abstract was rejected.

Just two days later, Staehle said, NASA put out a call for proposals for NIAC, the NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts program. NIAC provides seed funding to help mature next-generation technology projects. It was the first NIAC call in years, so the competition was fierce. But Staehle's team turned their SmallSat abstract into a proposal, submitted it for a NIAC grant, and won $100,000 to study CubeSats for interplanetary missions. The team concluded their work with a final report in 2012. Two Planetary Society staff members co-authored the report: Bruce Betts, who is now the Planetary Society's chief scientist, and Louis Friedman, the executive director emeritus.KAMPALA  When Ms Aisha Nakato heard about the official handover of Mulago specialised Women and Neonatal hospital to government by the Arab Contractors, she sighed with relief.

It sounded like a miracle and she remarked, At last government has started thinking about us ordinary citizens who pay tax, our children will no longer die and our women will no longer die while delivering.

Like many ordinary women in Uganda, Nakato knew that women and their newborns in need of specialised services would check into the Mulago Specialised Maternal and Neonatal Hospital for medical attention.

She also knew that women and children with high-risk antenatal care, delivery and postnatal services and gynecology services, surgical, ureteric reimplantation, complex fistula surgeries and vaginal hysterectomies reconstruction after female genital mutilation would now be treated here.

But, just a few days after the handover, government announced that the facility is only expected to handle referral cases from other hospitals and that the patients are expected to pay for the services.

According to Dr Jane Aceng, the minister of healthpatients seeking treatment at the new Mulago Specialized Women and Neonatal Hospital will part with Shs50,000 as doctors consultation fees while those seeking in-vitro fertilization (IVF) will pay Shs13 million.

Although the 450-bed capacity hospital was meant to handle women with complex reproductive health problems and also reduce referrals abroad for specialised reproductive and Neonatal treatment, the charges at the facility make it impossible for ordinary women to afford it.

On September 11, the health minister defended the new charges saying government had made thorough consultations on the charges after visiting other countries offering similar services.

The services will be classified as standard, VIP and VVIP; Clinical services offered to all patients at all levels irrespective of pay will be the same, Dr Aceng said while addressing the media.

Patients accessing the services should be referred patients from our referral facilities except for those that are exclusively offered at Mulago Specialised women and neonatal hospital such as IVF, laparoscopic surgery, Dr Aceng added.

According to the minister, an antenatal package which will have a maximum of eight visits will also include baseline laboratory tests,13D/4D, 2 ultrasounds, essential drugs for antenatal and immunization.

She explained that patients will be required to part with shs13 million for specialized treatment, Neonatal follow up per visit or immunization will cost shs70,000, patients will pay shs80, 000 per day for accommodation and this includes food, utilities and linen.

She revealed further that examination under anaesthesia will cost Shs800,000, Fistula reconstruction is Shs 2.500,000, a Caesarian section will go for Shs 2,000,000, Epidural and spinal analgesia will cost Shs 1.600,000 while Sperm injection will cost Shs 14,000,000, DNA testing will cost shs500,000 and Antenatal cost Shs 890,000.

Uganda largely operates as a cash economy. We expect foreigners to pay. We can no longer depend on the government budget to provide services. The doctors at the hospital will also want payment. If you need high-quality services. You must pay, she said.

Ms Nakatos relief has now turned into despair because she can not afford the consultation fee to talk to a doctor about her situation.

In the village, I use Shs1000 to treat myself and I find it expensive, so how will I pay for Shs 50,000 to just talk to a doctor without treatment, God should just have mercy on us rural women, said Ms Nakato.

Ms Nakato is not alone; people across the country now think government is interested in saving the rich from diseases and leaving the poor to fate.

Mr Nathan Nandala Mafabi, the FDC Secretary-General says the costs are too high for an ordinary woman in the village and that many of them will just die in rural areas because they cant afford these costs.

He said no one chooses to get sick but that once we do, we should all be treated equally in the eyes of the Constitution and that we all deserve medical care to the highest possible standards.

He explained that the financial burden of paying directly for health services is one of the big hurdles standing in the way of Uganda achieving universal healthcare and that the other two major contributing factors are low allocation to health in the national budget and lack of access to quality treatment.

Several legislators have protested the application of medical fees on the services saying that the government facility will not benefit majority of the women who can not afford the cost and are living in rural areas.

The first priority at this new health facility should be provision of health care, but not asking for payments and this is being done to continue suppressing the poor taxpayers because they cant afford private medical bills as well as going abroad, Mr James Baba, Koboko County MP said.

Although families have to pay directly for medication and treatment, accounting for a quarter of total spending on health, experts say payment of medical bills from personal funds might prevent people from seeking care and also lead to impoverishment.

Policy makers are calling upon government to balance between dimensions while maximising the magnitude to which peoples needs are met without impoverishing them.

Universal healthcare ensures everyone gets quality health services where and when they need them without suffering financial hardships, said Dr Sam Lyomoki, [MP Workers].

Mr Emma Ainebyoona, the ministry f health senior Public Relations officer says there should be no reason for alarm because the poor will also receive services at the new facility as long as they have to go through the referral system.

There will also be a committee that will vet the patients and recommend them for treatment at the facility at no cost, said Mr Ainebyoona.

Dr Sam Wajega, the acting DHO Budaka district says in his years of practice as a medical worker, as a general practitioner, the one thing he has never quite gotten over is just how much people take their health for granted.

This happens uniformly across all Ugandans, irrespective of their walks of life and I am taken aback by a woman who suffers from post-menopausal bleeding for two years without going to the doctor because she has no money, let us go to hospital and be referred to the new facility for treatment, said Dr Wajega.

Dr Ekwaro Obuku, 40, the president of Uganda Medical Association (UMA) said health care is utterly; totally expensive whichever way one wishes to look at it and that someone somewhere pays for it even when the recipient of the services may not pay directly.

He revealed that although the facility is expected to reduce maternal mortalities which the ministry confessed remains high at 336/100,000 compared to the global rate of 216/100,000 live births, the situation in rural areas among the poor might remain the same.

Mr Ainebyoona says that part of the cost includes health worker remuneration, which should be commensurate to work done and skill set applied.

He added that the new hospital will have services classified as standard, VIP and VVIP and that the difference in the costs will be on accommodation.

There will be suits for those patients who wish to be treated as VIP or VVIP with Dstv services and that foreigners would be charged differently from Ugandans, said Mr Ainebyoona.

About the Hospital

The new Mulago specialized Women and Neonatal hospital was funded using a $25m loan from the Islamic Development Bank and is designed to accommodate 450 patients with one attendant each. The hospital is all piped to enable medical gases, nitrous oxide and oxygen to be pumped directly to patients on their beds without using an oxygen cylinder. There is also a laboratory where urinal tests and cancer screenings can be conducted. The facility is expected to reduce maternal mortalities which the ministry confessed remains high at 336/100,000 compared to the global rate of 216/100,000 live births.

The 9-storey hospital has specialised equipment installed in the hospital cost at a cost of $8m and the hospital offers services for complicated pregnancy cases, urinary complications, reproductive system and early cancer detection and In-vitro fertilisation (IVF) among others and according to government will help decongest the old Mulago National Specialized hospital

===================================================================

RelatedA judge has cleared 18 more men of drug convictions that resulted from investigations by a reportedly corrupt sergeant with the Chicago (IL) Police Department, according to CBS Chicago.

The exonerations brought to 42 the total number of overturned convictions linked to Ronald Watts since 2016, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Joshua Tepferof the Exoneration Project at the University of Chicagorepresented 12 of the men exonerated on Monday. He said he has determined from public records requests that more than 1,000 people were arrested by Watts or his team members from 2004 to 2012. Based on the same data, Tepfer estimates as many as 500 of those cases resulted in convictions.

Watts and another officer were arrested in 2012 when they shook down a drug courier who turned out to be an FBI informant. Both pleaded guilty and were sentenced to federal prison. Watts, who received a 22-month term, was released in 2015 and later moved to Las Vegas, records show.

The latest reversals all involve drug cases brought between 2003 and 2008, court records show, according to CBS Chicago. The defendants received sentences ranging from probation to four years in prisonany who were imprisoned were released years ago.Maintenance of International Peace and Security:

Non-proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction

Nowy Jork, 26 September, 2018

The current security situation is not encouraging. Tensions at the global and regional level threaten the existing international order, including non-proliferation and arms control regimes. In fact, we have been witnessing their progressive decomposition. They have been regularly challenged by non-state actors, but, what is of even more concern, they are also being undermined by individual states.

Before I address the problem of nuclear weapons, I first would like to draw your attention to another type of Weapons of Mass Destruction that made their way back to the top of the global agenda. I am referring to chemical weapons.



Let me be clear: every use of a chemical weapon is a crime. It does not matter whether it is used on a mass scale by undemocratic regimes against their own people to secure their power or it is used in a state terrorist manner against individuals abroad on whom a certain state wants to take revenge. And if it is a crime it means that the principal obligation of the international community is defined by the rule-based order: criminals must be brought to justice.

No single act of use of chemical weapon can be left unanswered since it undermines not only the basic sense of justice, but also leads to the erosion of the non-proliferation and disarmament regimes and, in consequence, threatens the security of all of us.

Brutal attacks, directed mostly against civilians, all have the same aim  to intimidate the international community. The community of the UN cannot accept such methods. Our inaction will only encourage perpetrators.

I hope that the finalization of the new EU sanction mechanism, completed in the framework of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, will allow us to exercise appropriate pressure on current and future perpetrators, as well as deter them from these unacceptable actions.



We all hoped to have chemical weapons effectively banned by the Chemical Weapons Convention. We must stand firmly behind our own rules and norms, which are the pillars of the international order. In this context, let me mention that, as in the previous years, Poland will introduce in the United Nations General Assembly a Draft Resolution on the Implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention. It is of great importance to preserve the integrity of this regime. Therefore, we call on all Member States to ensure a strong, clear and united message of support of the whole international community for the integrity of the Chemical Weapons Convention and the efforts of the Organization for the Prohibition of the Chemical Weapons.

The second issue I would like to highlight is the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Permit me to make three points regarding this matter.

Firstly, we all know that nuclear weapons cannot be bought on the free market. Therefore, every act of proliferation of these weapons is a failure of both the international community and the rule-based world order. And we must remember that it always involves not only the state that develops nuclear capacity, but also those who provide it with means to achieve it, namely: technology, materials and resources.

It is of utmost importance for every agreement that aims at controlling nuclear programs to guarantee that they are used solely for peaceful purposes. We have an obligation to evaluate those agreements against the purposes and to act accordingly. We should not turn our heads back from those who act against the Non-Proliferation Treaty by providing means to develop nuclear weapon capacity or assist in other ways in developing it.

Good and effective export controls mechanisms should be upheld by all countries involved in nuclear, chemical and biological trade for peaceful purposes in order to maintain the appropriate control level of dual use goods and to make non-proliferation efforts more effective.

n this regard, we welcome the International Atomic Energy Agencys efforts to strictly monitor and verify Irans commitments. Let me also use this opportunity to commend the vital role the Agency plays in the non-proliferation area. The Agencys system of safeguards is a fundamental component of the nuclear non-proliferation regime and plays an indispensable role in the implementation of the NPT.

Secondly, I would like to welcome the prospect of the process of denuclearisation on the Korean Peninsula. We have seen some encouraging developments, such as the inter-Korean summits, and the meeting of Kim Jong Un with President Donald Trump. This led to the stopping of the missile tests. However, the decisive steps are yet to be made. The lasting peace will not be achieved without the denuclearization of the DPRK in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner. Until then, the international community must remain united in maintaining real and consistent pressure on the DPRK, including by upholding UN sanctions regime.

Thirdly, for the credibility of international community it is vital to stand firmly behind duties and obligations we took on our shoulders. In that context, let me sadly reflect on the concerning developments of security situation in our region: Central and Eastern Europe. Only in the last few years, we have witnessed the clear breach of the Budapest Memorandum that guaranteed territorial integrity of Ukraine in exchange of its peaceful and voluntary denuclearization. We have also heard about the use of nuclear weapons to end conventional conflicts. Equally alarming was the deployment of dual capable means of delivery close to our borders. All these actions have significantly contributed to the deterioration of the security environment.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

What should be our response to the challenges, I have just listed?

First: The full and firm implementation of the well-established, and widely recognized treaties and norms of the international law.

Second: Support and full confidence for the work of international mechanisms responsible for preventing of the use of WMD.

Finally: Proactive and constructive engagement in initiatives which aim at fighting with proliferation efforts and promoting transparency and verification.

In 2018, my country assumed the chairmanship of the Second Preparatory Committee for the 2020 Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and chaired the Hague Code of Conduct against Ballistic Missile Proliferation. Our efforts have been focused on strengthening these regimes, their universalization, securing the widespread and credible verification mechanisms, implementation of good practices as well as tightening the international cooperation. These actions constitute long-term objectives of the Polish security policy.

In conclusion, let me stress once again that non-proliferation is a collective effort. To uphold the security architecture which we have built for decades, and to prevent the nightmares of recurring uses of WMD, we need full commitment of all of us, without any exception, to observe all norms and obligations in this field.



Thank you very much.Topic of the debate: Making the United Nations relevant to all people: Global leadership and shared responsibilities for peaceful, equitable and sustainable societies

New York, September 26, 2018

Distinguished Madam President,

Excellencies,

Esteemed Delegates,

I congratulate Ms. Maria Fernanda Espinosa Garces, the President of the 73rd Session of the UN General Assembly, on her election to this honourable function. I wish to assure you, Madam President, about Poland`s full support for the measures you will take. At the same time, I wish to express my gratitude to Mr. Miroslav Lajcak for his active chairmanship over the 72nd Session of the UN General Assembly.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

This year Poles celebrate the centenary of regaining independence. In 1918, after 123 years of bondage, Poland returned to the map of Europe. The restoration of an independent, free and sovereign state became a reality mainly due to three factors: the desire of the Polish nation to have its own state, the heroic sacrifice of the battling soldiers, and the determination of courageous leaders, who convinced politicians across the world that without a restored Poland, Europe would not be just and safe. Both then and today, the will of the nations and of the political leaders remains crucial. Both then and today, Europe will not be just and safe without sovereign Poland.

See also: Statement of the President of RP at the UN Security Council Session 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly Each September the Heads of State meet here, in New York, to engage in an in-depth reflection on the most crucial issues affecting our globe. Hence, it is us with whom a particular responsibility lies. It is us who are rightly expected to be courageous and active, able to rise above divisions, determined in our search for solutions to the most pressing issues of the contemporary world.



Ladies and Gentlemen,

Our world is full of threats. We are witnessing a very dynamic development of the international situation. There are reasons to be hopeful, such as a potential change in the situation on the Korean Peninsula and the ongoing de-escalation of tensions there. But there are also problems that persist and remain unresolved. In order to sort them out, we undoubtedly need the cooperation of as many countries as possible today. To make it effective, two conditions need to be met.

Firstly, we must all comply with the international law, which was the main theme of the Polish Presidency of the Security Council in May this year. I had the privilege of holding a high-level open debate at that time, the conclusions of which were that only

- cooperation among countries within the rule-based global order will provide an opportunity to resolve frozen conflicts and prevent us from the emergence of new ones,

- the rule-based global order requires strong institutions to enforce the international law and

- no violation of the law can be justified or distorted by a whole range of language definitions.

Today the map of the world is full of flashpoints. As part of the rule-based global order that we are promoting, I would like to draw your attention to one fundamental principle that will be our priority throughout the second year of Poland's membership of the Security Council. I am thinking of the sovereign equality of states, as referred to in Article 2 of the United Nations Charter.

If we want to be the advocates of multilateralism, and the UN is, after all, its source, we must bear this principle in mind. In other words, not everyone who claims to be a proponent of multilateralism thinks of it in terms of the equality of states. One can say that there is a negative multilateralism, which boils down to the concert of powers, a division into spheres of influence and the conviction that the fate of others can be decided without their participation. Europe and Poland were often victims of this kind of multilateralism, starting from the 18th century, throughout the 19th century, to the times of the Cold War.

Multilateralism and the rule-based global order are there not just for the chosen ones. The same principles must apply to all and to the same extent. Everyone has equal rights and proportional obligations. This is how I define the positive multilateralism, which Poland stands for. The multilateralism of equal states and free nations, not the multilateralism of usurpation and hierarchy. We are committed to relations in which every state enjoys equal rights. This however does not imply a naive perception of the world, a world devoid of differences among states. What it means is that the states which have an advantage, in terms of potential and power, should not deprive others of their equal right to independence and subjectivity. Only with such equality ensured, are we able to fully use the potential of states for the common good and according to the rule of fair play. This applies both to political and economic relations, since only if the principle of the equality of states is respected, are we able to talk about the exchange of interests and real alliances.

However, the concept of the positive multilateralism, which Poland subscribes to, goes one step further. It claims that, wherever possible, weaker countries should be given additional opportunities to make an impact, in order to make the equal rights of states more realistic. Such opportunities can encompass an additional voting power, or an additional territorial representation in the decision-making bodies. To me as President of the Republic of Poland, two areas of application of this principle are particularly close:

1) the awaited reform of the Security Council, which we support, and want to participate in, and which should include among its leading themes: expanding the field of equal rights and competences of all Council members;

2) a reform of the European Union as returning to its origins, which emerged from the concept of positive multilateralism, and which today are repeatedly violated.

Next year Poland will organize a series of initiatives centred around the idea of sovereign equality. The aim of that effort is to win over as many supporters of our vision as possible.

Secondly, it is important that multilateralism serves a certain system of values, instead of being just an element of a political technology and a game of interests. Such system of values is reflected in the Charter of the United Nations. Negative multilateralism, which contravenes these values, may only result in the exacerbation of global problems. On the other hand, a voluntary cooperation of states, equal in their rights, can bring lasting peace to Europe and the world. Every time a temptation of a concert of powers is born, the global stability is undermined. Whoever promotes negative multilateralism contributes to the disintegration of the global order. Multilateralism is meant to be a commitment to respect for values, especially the fundamental ones, such as respect for human dignity and life. It is about the values which go beyond the political order and are not politically defined, for they are the foundation of the global political order.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

International relations do not serve states only, they serve the entire humanity. Therefore, sovereignty of a state should be fundamentally linked to responsibility for the respect of norms which are common for the good of us all. Every violation of the norms must bear consequences. Wherever leaders might infringe fundamental human rights, use tortures, persecute their political opponents or use weapons of mass destruction, the international community, including the Security Council, should respond swiftly and decisively.

Being a nation with a unique experience of a peaceful democratic transformation and a struggle for fundamental freedoms, Poland attaches particular importance to protection and promotion of human rights, as exemplified, among others, by my country`s bid for membership in the UN Human Rights Council, for the 2020-2022 term. Our potential membership in this body, unique for the global human rights protection system, will complement, in a natural way, our current membership in the Security Council, in accordance with the fundamental UN triad of peace and security, human rights and development.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The UN Charter endows the Organization, and especially its Security Council, with special responsibility for matters pertaining to peace and international security. As a non-permanent member of the Security Council we deem this task to be of crucial importance.

Poland actively supports all actions and initiatives aimed at preventing the use and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery, as well as bringing the perpetrators using such weapons to justice.

I wish to announce that Poland intends to return to an active participation in the UN peace-keeping missions. We have submitted a formal application to the Secretariat in this regard and are looking forward to its positive evaluation. Given our experience in this field, extending over many years, we are convinced that it will positively contribute to the peaceful resolution of conflicts.

Poland is involved in the process of stabilization and building of lasting security on the Korean Peninsula, not only now, in its capacity as non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, but also as a member of the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission in Korea. I am convinced that the NNSC experience could potentially be applied while establishing foundations for peace and stability on the Peninsula.

Given its extensive experience accumulated during the period of political transformation, Poland stands ready to get actively engaged in the international peace rebuilding and consolidation programmes in the Middle East. In all the places where, after the end of conflicts, it is necessary to restore stability and provide development opportunities.

At the same time, Poland regards it as its duty to draw the attention of the international community to the sources of threats to world peace resulting from frozen conflicts, occupation and shifting of borders by force, which is happening in Eastern Europe. International community must not allow a return to business as usual, and the actions of the aggressors should be confronted with a relevant response.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

This December Poland will have an honour to host the 24th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 24), in the city of Katowice. The primary goal of the meeting is to finalize works on the provisions implementing the Paris Agreement.



A complete and effective implementation of the Paris Agreement is inextricably connected with the attainment of the UN sustainable development goals. Therefore, the global climate action should bring together the economic, social and environmental dimensions, while at the same time, be conducive to stopping the global warming and eradicating the most serious problems of the modern world.

See also: Statement of the President of RP at the UN Security Council Session 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly The implementation package, planned to be adopted in Katowice, provides an essential basis for action to be taken by state entities and NGOs, including international financial institutions, the private sector, local authorities and civil society organizations. Only provisions applicable in the long-term and accepted by all actors, are able to guarantee transparency, legal security, and sustainability of rules, which is indispensable for the implementation of the adopted obligations and for the strengthening of global ambitions.

COP 24 will be launched with the Leaders` Summit, which is scheduled for December 3rd and 4th, and offers an excellent opportunity to express our common and responsible political will. It will also send a clear messege to the world that the efforts we make are aimed at securing a safe future. Once again, I wish to invite you to attend the Katowice summit and ensure a high-turn out for the event.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The centenary of Poland regaining independence makes us reflect on the fate of the world, Europe and on my country`s difficult road to freedom. Simultaneously, it is a reason to look into the future and an inspiration to sensibly shape our common, international reality based on historical experiences, values and aspirations.



I encourage all member states to work even closer together on the initiatives aimed at achieving the objectives which guide the United Nations Organization. Only the decisions taken jointly by political leaders are able to address challenges faced by the globalized world.



Poland subscribes to the view that our common future requires a strong and effective international community, which will better accommodate the needs of humanity. This however is going to depend mainly on us, since the United Nations Organization is not an abstract entity, it is the common achievement of us all. It is up to us how effective we will be in using it for the sake of building peace, ensuring justice and sustainable development, in other words: building a better world, worthy of the 21st century  for us, but first and foremost, for the future generations.

Thank you very much for your attention.BANGALORE, September 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

- New office in Bangalore to build on existing data and analytics expertise in India -

In a move to expand its presence in India, global sales and marketing firm ZS announced its plan to open an office in Bangalore. This is the global consulting firm's third office in India and its 23rd office worldwide. ZS has a strong presence in the life sciences and healthcare area, and this expansion will help deepen its commitment to current and potential business lines in India.

(Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/750147/ZS_Logo.jpg )



For more than 35 years, ZS has been dedicated to helping companies around the world and across multiple industries address a wide range of sales and marketing issues. Currently, ZS' New Delhi and Pune offices have more than 3,900 employees who work across the business consulting, business operations, and business technology and software development spaces. ZS will invest in its Bangalore office as the advanced analytics sector continues to boom in the region.

"We are excited to be part of the India growth story. With over 65% of our talent in India, our local team is actively driving innovation and client solutions in collaboration with our global colleagues," said Sanjay Joshi, Managing Principal for ZS' Asia region. "Our plan to inaugurate a new office in Bangalore is further testament to our investment in strengthening our capabilities in big data and artificial intelligence. This will continue to deepen our partnership with clients in helping them navigate their digital transformation journey."

ZS Principal Shankar Viswanathan will lead the Bangalore office. He currently leads ZS' advanced data science group in India. The group leverages diverse data, AI platforms and the latest machine learning algorithms to solve their clients' complex problems. Prior to his current role, he was the office Managing Principal for ZS' largest office in Pune and led its pan-India business consulting group. During his more than 18 years at ZS, Viswanathan has helped many global life sciences companies enhance their customer effectiveness using data-driven approaches, increase patient access to novel treatments, optimize the patient experience, improve retention and realize better health outcomes. Bringing data science to life sciences is his passion.

"The investment in our new location will build on our strategic success and allow us to grow our unique talent and capabilities in advanced analytics and technology," said Viswanathan.

The Bangalore office infrastructure will be a visual representation of ZS' culture: smart, effective, agile and collaborative. ZS continues to be one of the top-ranked consulting firms and has been formally recognized as a great place to work by Consulting magazine.

About ZS

ZS is the world's largest firm focused exclusively on helping companies improve overall performance and grow revenue and market share through end-to-end sales and marketing solutions, from customer insights and strategy to analytics, operations and technology. More than 6,000 ZS professionals in 22 offices worldwide draw on deep industry and domain expertise to deliver impact for clients across multiple industries, including consumer products, energy, high-tech, insurance, medical products and services, and pharmaceuticals.

For more information, visit- https://www.zs.com/ , https://www.zs.com/About/News-and-Events/News/Global-Consulting-Firm-ZS-Announces-New-Office-in-India?utm_source=golin&utm_medium=pressrelease&utm_campaign=bangalore%20office%20news&utm_term=25sept&utm_content=branding

Media Contacts:

Jagruti Saxena

Corporate Communication Manager

ZS Associates India Pvt. Ltd.

[email protected]



Soundhariya Viswanathan,

[email protected]

+91-8030558718

Senior Manager

GOLINOPINION



SOURCE ZSMUMBAI, September 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

~ Holistic plan to sensitize stakeholders on sustainable workspaces ~

~ Under the leadership of Group Chairman Mr. C.L. Raheja, the Company leads the way with 3.91 cr sq ft of green commercial footprint ~

'Our goal is to create sustainable habitats that will stand the test of time.' Inspired by this adage, India's leading real estate developers K Raheja Corp, pioneers in creating green and sustainable workspaces, celebrates one of its core business offering 'green', this #WorldGreenBuildingWeek.

As a holistic outreach program multiple initiatives have been earmarked through the week:

Effective multi-city knowledge series: Hosted across key centers of Mumbai , Pune and Hyderabad , in partnership with the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and Green Business Certification Institute (GBCI). These will focus on merits of selecting green workspaces, and its benefits to employees and businesses.

Hosted across key centers of , and , in partnership with the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and Green Business Certification Institute (GBCI). These will focus on merits of selecting green workspaces, and its benefits to employees and businesses. Coffee Table Book: Which showcases the extensive and meticulously created business parks which are centered around green from the site selection, to waste management and from open landscapes to steps taken to save water and power, the book is a glossary for healthy workspaces.

Which showcases the extensive and meticulously created business parks which are centered around green from the site selection, to waste management and from open landscapes to steps taken to save water and power, the book is a glossary for healthy workspaces. Social Media Plan: Multiple engaging videos have been created for social media, which showcase best practices at the business parks. These will be released across the Company's social media handles, phased out during the week.

'World Green Building Week' is observed globally and is a platform to deliberate green building practices, and sustainable initiatives that are good for people and business. This annual event motivates and empowers organisations vying to become environmentally and green building friendly. With a mission and commitment to provide a sustainable environment to all its stakeholders, all of K Raheja Corp's properties in the residential, commercial, retail and hospitality segments are following the green building standards, particularly the LEED rating program, created by USGBC.

Speaking on the initiative, Mr. Shabbir Kanchwala, Sr. Vice President, K Raheja Corp, said, "At K Raheja Corp, green workspaces, is part of our very ecosystem and ethos and reflected in each structure we curate. From organizations opting for their first green workplace, to those wanting to take their green practices to the next level, K Raheja Corp has been a valued partner to the ever evolving green needs of discerning corporates, pacing them at every step. Bringing in the expertise, we couldn't have had a more be-fitting partner than USGBC to reach this message out through the knowledge series."

Sharing his view on sustainability, Mr. GopalaKrishnan Padmanabhan, Managing Director - APAC & Middle East, Green Business Certificate Institute (GBCI), said, "Sustainability is a way of life and today there is an increasing demand from corporates for sustainable and healthy workspaces. We are happy to partner with K Raheja Corp, who provide such workspaces across their real estate portfolio. With this exercise we hope to raise awareness on simple measures that will help create a better working and living environment."

Some key highlights:

K Raheja Corp's green building footprint stands at 4.57 crore square feet as on Sept 2018 (across commercial and residential).

All commercial buildings constructed since signing an MOU with the CII-Indian Green Building Council in 2007 have been LEED certified.

Green workspaces lead to substantial savings in operating costs for clients as much as 30-40%.

31 LEED-certified commercial buildings across the country, and 69 commercial projects registered with LEED rating system by the U.S. Green Building Council.

Below is the break-up of the number of commercial buildings and the built up area overall Pan India.

Commercial LEED (by USGBC) Nos Built up Area (sq ft) Completed / Certified as on date 31 1,24,03,147 cr sq ft. Pre Certified 7 43,53,172 L sq ft Ongoing 37 2,23,48,239 cr sq ft. Total 75 3,91,04,558 cr sq ft.

About K Raheja Corp

K Raheja Corp is a success story spanning six decades and stands today as one of India's leading developers, having pioneered the concepts of self-contained townships and commercial business districts in the country. Premeditating the changes in the industry, the Company continually crafts state-of-the-art spaces to meet the ever-changing demands of the market. With business diversified across realty, hospitality retail and malls, K Raheja Corp has extensive acumen in all sectors of development.

From exquisite residences to adaptive workplaces, skilfully created hotels and convention centres, to extensive retail destinations, the Company has made a significant impact on the evolution of modern-day living. K Raheja Corp delivers aspirational spaces with distinct characteristics and attributes, making each of its offerings inimitable.

For more information, please visit us at http://www.krahejacorp.com and follow us on Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter

About the U.S. Green Building Council

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) is committed to a prosperous and sustainable future through cost-efficient and energy-saving green buildings. USGBC works toward its mission of market transformation through its LEED green building program, robust educational offerings, a nationwide network of chapters and affiliates, the annual Greenbuild International Conference & Expo, the Center for Green Schools and advocacy in support of public policy that encourages and enables green buildings and communities. For more information, visit usgbc.org and connect on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

About Green Business Certification Inc. (GBCI)

GBCI is the premier organization independently recognizing excellence in green business industry performance and practice globally. Established in 2008, GBCI exclusively administers project certifications and professional credentials and certificates within the framework of the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) green building rating systems, as well as the PEER standard for power systems, the WELL building standard, the Sustainable SITES Initiative (SITES), Parksmart, EDGE (Excellence in Design for Greater Efficiencies), TRUE Zero Waste certification, Investor Confidence Project (ICP) for energy efficiency retrofits and the GRESB benchmark, which is used by institutional investors to improve the sustainability performance of the global property sector. For more information, please visit http://www.gbci.org/india and follow @GBCI_India on Twitter.

For more information, please visit http://www.gbci.org/India. Follow @GBCI_India on twitter and tag photos with #LEEDOn on Facebook, Instagram, and twitter.



SOURCE K Raheja CorpMUMBAI and NEW YORK, September 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

New York Festivals Global Awards, honoring the World's Best Healthcare and Wellness Advertising, announced the 2018 Global Awards live judging session in India. The first Global Awards live judging session in India will be hosted by the Akali brothers - Amit and Praful Akali - from Medulla Communications.

The brothers have recruited a panel of industry experts who will assemble on Wednesday, 3rdOct, 2018 to review entries. The panel includes India's biggest creative leaders from mainline and healthcare advertising including Kainaz Karmakar, Group Creative Director, Ogilvy India (West); Parixit Bhattacharya, Managing Partner - Creative, TBWA\India; Pallavi Chakravarti, ECD, Taproot; Rajesh Rai, ECD, India, McCann Health; Managing Partner, Havas Life Sorento; Jaideep Mahajan, National Creative Head, Rediffusion; Abinandan Bose, Creative Director, Medulla; and others.

"India is really shining on the global healthcare advertising stage. For a country with probably less than 3% of the global healthcare advertising revenues, three Indian campaigns have won a Grand Prix at the top three healthcare advertising award shows in the last two years alone, we've had agency of the year showings at these award shows, and a lot more," said Mr. Praful Akali, the Founder & Managing Director of Medulla Communications.

Mr. Amit Akali, the CCO of Medulla Communications added, "There is a vast variety of talent in healthcare advertising in India and we felt it would be really interesting and a great learning experience to have all these people in one room discussing some of the best work in healthcare advertising through the Global Awards."

"There is breakthrough work coming out of India and the Global Awards is thrilled to have Medulla host our first live session in Asia. Praful and I discussed it immediately after last year's Executive Jury session and I'm happy that it came to fruition. The expansion of the Global Awards live sessions expands our roots a bit further around the world so entries from all over can be viewed and discussed by the top minds in healthcare & wellness and pharma advertising by region and varying cultures. The result is an exported version of their bar for creative excellence, with the side benefit of collaboration and potential future partnerships to tackle additional local or continental issues and initiatives," said Mr. Fran Pollaro, Executive Director, Global Awards.

The Globals organize annual live judging sessions around the globe to review digital-based works and collateral materials that support a campaign, and which cannot be judged online. Live sessions are hosted at prominent international healthcare communication agencies and allow jurors to examine in detail multi-paged works including: sales kits, direct mail, brochures, point of purchase displays, and annual reports and select entries that will achieve shortlist status. This will be the first live judging session for the Globals in Asia.

Jurors participating in the Global Awards live session will review innovative entries from the healthcare and wellness space representing emerging trends that push the creative envelope and advance the brand. For 2018, the Global awards has organized 5 additional live Grand Jury sessions with international healthcare agencies in Chicago, Johannesburg, London, Sao Paulo, and Sydney.

2018 Global Award winners will be announced this November at celebrations in New York City and Sydney, Australia.

For more information, and to enter the 2018 Global Awards, please visit the competition website at http://www.theglobalawards.com.

All press inquiries are welcome and should be directed to Gayle Mandel: [email protected].

Phone: 212 643 4800

About the New York Festivals Global Awards:

Now in their 24th year, The Global Awards are dedicated to excellence in healthcare and wellness communications on an international basis. The Global Awards receives entries from healthcare corporations, hospitals, advertising agencies, production companies, and design studios that produce communication for medical, pharmaceutical, healthcare & wellness related products and services.

About Medulla Communications:

Medulla is one of world's most awarded healthcare advertising agencies. Being awarded as the healthcare agency of the year 2016, at Cannes Lions Health and being the only agency worldwide to be in the top three healthcare agencies of the year each of the first three years of the Lions Health from 2015-2017. Amit and Praful Akali from Medulla have been a part of several advertising juries across the world.

The New York Festivals International Family of Award Competitions

Celebrating the World's Best Work since 1957!

AME Awards | Advertising & Marketing Effectiveness

Global Awards | Healthcare & Wellness Advertising

Midas Awards | Financial Marketing & Advertising

New York Festivals | International Radio Program Awards

New York Festivals | International Advertising Awards

New York Festivals | International TV & Film Awards



Entries to each of the competitions are judged around the world by panels of peers in their respective industries. For more information, go to http://www.newyorkfestivals.com.

Contact:

Gayle Mandel

New York Festivals

260 West 39th Street, 10th Floor

New York, NY -10018

212-643-4800

[email protected]

Rohan Talukdar

Account Executive, MediaMedic Communications

+91-8689826350

[email protected]



SOURCE Medulla Communications and New York FestivalsThis new Malaysian image-improving multimedia campaign was launched first on social media over the past weekend, to be followed on international television early this week and print starting with a full-page ad in The New York Times this Friday the 28th of September when the Prime Minister delivers his UN General Assembly address in New York. The campaign is also being timed to coincide with the Prime Minister's upcoming visits to other European and Asian countries before the year-end.

This campaign will cover TV, Print and Social Media in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, South Asia and the USA. It is targeted to run for a solid three months following Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad's initial visits to Japan and Indonesia, and his first visit to China and prior to his subsequent attendance of the UN General Assembly's opening this week.

For television, the international campaign will run worldwide on Bloomberg and CNN International and USA. For print, it will run in The Economist, Fortune, The New York Times, Nikkei Shimbun, China's Economic Observer and Time USA. And for social media, the campaign will be on eSimon, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube.

The creation and production of this campaign is being provided pro-bono by the ISC Innovators agency, the same group that also produced on a pro-bono basis the successful economic confidence-restoring campaign called "Malaysia: Bullish on Bouncing Back" during the 1997-98 Asian Economic Crisis.

As was done also 20 years ago for "Malaysia: Bullish on Bouncing Back", the media cost for this new image-improving international campaign is being borne by the sponsors for a total of MYR12 million. A handful of Malaysian private corporations -- led by Berjaya, Naza and U Mobile -- are sponsoring this global campaign.

"You have to be a hermit to miss the New Malaysia's message to the world," said one of the campaign's main sponsors, as the campaign is being shown to world leaders, captains of industries, business leaders, potential foreign direct investors (FDIs), relevant influencers as well as the media and general public around the world.

(Note: the picture attached/above shows the full-page, full-colour print advertisement.)

For more information head to www.facebook.com/NewMalaysiaToday/

YouTube Video (60 sec): www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nn--FWCXXTI

About ISC Innovators Sdn Bhd

ISC Innovators is an award-winning, integrated marketing communications agency offering branding, strategy, creative, production, digital/social media, PR/activation and media services. We have a proud history in Malaysia, having won over 120 local and international awards for creativity and marketing effectiveness in all major industry categories since our beginnings in 1975. In addition to our membership in ICOM -- a network of independent agencies with more than 80 agencies in more than 60 countries -- our own expert, extensive network of business allies and associates in Asia-Pacific and around the world provides an extensive resource platform for clients looking to expand beyond Malaysia. We are perhaps best known for our conception and work on the multi-awarded "Malaysia: Truly Asia" international campaign for Tourism Malaysia, quadrupling annual visitors to Malaysia and quintupling annual tourism earnings for the country in the campaign's first 12 years.

SOURCE ISC Innovators Sdn BhdBANGALORE, September 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

Aspires to end India's traffic jams, healthcare burden and water and energy scarcity

The SMART ASIA India-Expo & Summit, organized by TWTC, a Taiwanese non-profit government-sponsored trade promotion organization, is being held for the second consecutive year at the Bangalore International Exhibition Centre from October 4-6, 2018.

This year's event will once again bring together industry leaders in the smart city domain to showcase thousands of smart city solutions, highlighting responses to current urban crises and future Smart Cities development in India. Exhibitors comprise outstanding Taiwanese companies in the fields of 'Smart Transportation', 'Smart Energy & Water management', 'Smart City Development & Environmental Sustainability' and 'IoT Solutions'.

For instance, Advantech, the leader in industrial PC with a global market share of 32%, will display its smart transportation solutions, which can help relieve Bangalore of its traffic congestion. Ever Clear Environmental Engineering, an expert in water management developing and implementing patented waste water reactors in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, will present solutions catering to the current needs of Indian industries. H.P.B. Optoelectronics, the third largest automotive optoelectronics manufacturer in the world, provides a total image solution using its intelligent camera monitoring modules, and aims to support India in creating more secure city-living. Moreover, enterprises such as J.S. Power and Fukuta will showcase their e-vehicle solutions, which can serve to empower India toward its goal for green and environmental-friendly mobility.

When promoting the second edition of SMART ASIA India, Mr. James Huang, Chairman of Taipei World Trade Centre, expressed his expectations of the event. "We received a significant level of recognition and active participation from government and industry stakeholders in the first edition. This year we are expecting the number of visitors to increase by 50 percent. Taiwan has been one of India's important trade partners with a total investment of US $602 million as of July 2018. We look forward to further reinforcing the business ties between the two countries through the platform of SMART ASIA."

A highlight of SMART ASIA is the 'India-Taiwan Smart City Summit'. This year, the Summit will gather authoritative speakers from across the globe representing India's Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), Asian Development Bank (ADB), Intelligent Transportation Society-Taiwan (ITS-Taiwan), Tata Sons, Cisco, Microsoft, just to name a few, and will focus on topics including India-Taiwan's bilateral collaboration on 'Smart Cities Mission', leveraging data to realize the Smart Cities vision, and future trends and opportunities in the field of smart city.

In order to achieve better integration for the Smart City community, the event has partnered up with the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI), ITS-Taiwan, Advanced Public Transportation Research Center (APTRC) in Taiwan, Federation of Indian Micro and Small & Medium Enterprises (FISME), and World Trade Center Bangalore (WTC Bengaluru). The event will be held from October 4-6, 2018, at the Bangalore International Exhibition Centre (BIEC).

About Taipei World Trade Center (TWTC):

Taipei World Trade Center is the sister organization of Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA). Founded in 1970, TAITRA is Taiwan's foremost nonprofit trade promoting organization. Sponsored by the government and industry organizations, TAITRA assists enterprises to expand their global reach. Headquartered in Taipei, TAITRA has a team of 1,300 specialists and operates 5 local offices in Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung as well as 61 branches worldwide. Together with Taipei World Trade Center (TWTC) and Taiwan Trade Center (TTC), TAITRA has formed a global network dedicated to promoting world trade. TAITRA's core missions: assisting Taiwanese businesses in developing international market, collaborating with Taiwanese government in trade policy implementation, providing business consultation service and connect international firms with Taiwanese partners, and assuming the role of 'Smart Integrator' to complement government policies, facilitate industry needs and develop new business opportunities around the world.

Media Contact:

Parmpreet Kaur

[email protected]

+91-9870390819

Communicate India



SOURCE Taipei World Trade Center (TWTC)JAKARTA, Indonesia, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Archipelago International, Indonesia's largest hotel group, today announced the signing of a long-term Master Franchise Agreement, with Jeddah based Warifat Hospitality Limited, a subsidiary of Jabal Omar Development Company (JODC), one of the largest listed companies on the Saudi Tadawul Stock Exchange.

This multi-hotel agreement grants development and branding rights to Warifat Hospitality for three of Archipelago's hotel brands: Grand Aston, Aston and Harper and will enable the roll out of these brands, not only at JODC's flagship development in Makkah but throughout the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The first hotel being developed under this agreement will be the 560-room Jabal Omar Grand Aston which is due for completion in July 2019. This 5-Star hotel is located in a prime location within walking distance to the Grand Mosque and will be Archipelago's first hotel in Saudi Arabia, a market it views as one of the most important in its continued expansion internationally.

"In strategic terms, this is an historic agreement for our company and indeed for Indonesia, as we will be the first Indonesian based hotel company to enter the Kingdom's hotel market. Our hotel brands are the most widely recognized in Indonesia, which is the largest source market for pilgrims to Makkah and Madinah. This agreement foresees and caters for significant growth from the Indonesian market and it recognizes Archipelago as the hotel group best positioned going forward to cater to the growing numbers of Indonesian and Southeast Asian visitors to the Kingdom," said John Flood, President and CEO of Archipelago International.

Yasser Faisal Al-Sharif, Chairman of Warifat Hospitality and CEO of JODC said: "We are excited to expand our partnership with an established and leading home-grown Indonesian hotel brand, as its Master Franchisee for the Grand Aston Brand in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. We are committed to offering our guests from Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and S.E Asia superior hospitality experiences that are customized to their specific needs whilst they visit the Great Mosque of Makkah, Masjid Al Haram and the holy capital. As a part of Jabal Omar Developments strategic growth plan, we believe that by choosing a brand with a proven track record, The Grand Aston Hotel at Makkah shall be a catalyst for growth from the Indonesian and S.E Asian countries for our Hajj and Umrah pilgrims."

A photo from the signing ceremony can be downloaded from the link below.

About Archipelago International

Archipelago is Indonesia's largest hotel group with 137 operational hotels (19,000 rooms) across its nine core brands and a further 100 hotels under various stages of development in Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, the Caribbean and the Middle East. Its hotels range from ultra-luxurious villas and 5-star hotels to economy hotels and serviced apartment residences.

About Warifat Hospitality

Warifat Hospitality is a newly formed subsidiary of Jabal Omar Development Company (JODC), one of the largest real estate developers in the Middle East and one of the largest listed companies in the Saudi Tadawul Stock Exchange. JODC's flagship project Jabal Omar, is an integrated real estate development within walking distance of the Grand Mosque in Makkah, incorporating commercial malls, luxurious residential units and premium hotels.

For more information please visit www.archipelagointernational.com

Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20180925/2247508-1

Logo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20180425/2114636-1LOGO

Related Links

https://www.archipelagointernational.com/



SOURCE Archipelago InternationalJI'NAN, China, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The 2018 Shandong Conference on Confucian Entrepreneurship will kick off in Ji'nan, east China's Shandong Province, on September 28. The organizing committee held a news conference to brief on the preparation for the event three days before the opening ceremony.

Some 1,200 representatives have confirmed attendance, over 200 more than expectation, according to the news brief. Nearly 70 percent of the participants come from other provincial-level regions, overseas areas, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and foreign countries.

"Foremost research institutions, prestigious academicians and experts, specialists and representatives from companies of Fortune Global 500 and private sectors will meet and share their wisdom on how to better facilitate the conversion of economic growth drivers and achieve high-quality development," said Sun Laibin, deputy chief of provincial office for the conversion of growth drivers, at the news conference.

Local government plans to promote 600 major projects among global businesses and talents in an effort to foster 10 industries as the new economic growth drivers. Agreements on 130 projects with a total contract value of 536.62 billion yuan will be signed during the event. "All projects should be carried out in one year. And a follow-up mechanism will be established to track and supervise the implementation," Sun said.

An online platform for investment and recruitment is to be launched at the opening ceremony of Conference. By means of cloud computing, big data, and other technologies, demands and supplies of potential projects, talents and capitals in the 10 major industries and over 180 industrial development parks in 17 cities across the province have been integrated on the platform. Visitors can select specific business sector, investment intent, recruitment description or other preferences to find a perfect match. The online service is available both on laptops and mobile devices.

The organizing committee of the Shandong Conference on Confucian Entrepreneurship has established a talent pool specifying information on some 2,000 experts and researchers and released more than 1,500 key job vacancies in 539 organizations and companies. There will also be a pamphlet explaining incentives and career prospects for high-level talents to work in Shandong. Local government also encourages businesses to take the initiative and explore partnerships with academicians in terms of commercializing their technological achievements.

To keep investment and talents attracted via the platform, Shandong proposed a long-acting mechanism by institutionalizing the conference as a biennial event. With the secretariat for the Conference on Confucian Entrepreneurship as a standing body when the event is not on, competent government departments and leading business insiders will convene special committees on topics like business and commerce, technology, education, tourism, healthcare, finance and young startups. Each committee will launch exchange programs on a regular basis and offer services to facilitate entrepreneurial endeavors.

The 2018 Shandong Conference on Confucian Entrepreneurship sends a robust signal to the whole nation and the entire world that Shandong is determined to open wider to the outside world and spares no efforts in attracting businesses and talents for high-quality development.

SOURCE Information Office of the People's Government of Shandong Province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Welcome Guest! You Are Here:Marathon 2021 Runners of all racing stripes took part in the 2021 TCS New York City Marathon on November 7. Racing categories in this, the largest marathon...

Mount Sinai Queens Opening New Infusion Center The last week of October was marked by an expansion of health care capacity in the borough, as Mount Sinai Queens celebrated the opening of...

The Unofficial Election Results The unofficial election results from the general election on November 2, 2021, with well over 90% of scanners reported: MAYOR: Eric Adams (D) decisively...State Duma adopts President Putins amendments to pension system bill

 RIA Novosti, Vladimir Fedorenko

12:59 26/09/2018

MOSCOW, September 26 (RAPSI)  The State Duma on Wednesday adopted amendments proposed by Russian President Vladimir Putin to a pension system change initiative.

The pension system bill is being considered in the lower house of parliament in the second reading.

Thus, lawmakers adopted a proposal to set 65 years as a retirement age for men, and 60 years for women.

An amendment giving mothers with many children a right to early retirement, at 50-57 years, was also backed by the State Duma. The document also lowers a labor experience term enabling to retire on a pension earlier, from 45 to 42 for men, and from 40 to 37 for women.

Moreover, unemployment allowance is to be increased for persons nearing retirement age starting 2019.

On July 19, the State Duma passed the pension system bill in the first reading. Initially, the document, which was suggested in mid-June by the government, provided a gradual increase in the retirement age of up to 65 years for men and up to 63 years for women.

The President issued a set of suggestions on the pension system change on August 29. Putin proposed to lower the womens retirement age to 60 years. Moreover, he made several proposals aimed to strengthen guarantees for persons nearing retirement age, in particular to protect them from discrimination and dismissal without a valid reason.

Lawmakers in September also issued a package of bills. In total, about 300 amendments to the pension system change draft law reached the lower house of parliament.

On Wednesday, the State Duma adopted in a final third reading a presidential bill on punishment for unjustified denial of employment and dismissal of persons nearing retirement age.

Moreover, several other bills to protect soon-to-retire persons are pending in the State Duma. Regional authorities have additionally supported a presidential proposal on retention of a right to benefits for preretirement citizens.Investigators authorize additional examination in case of alleged Norwegian spy

 flickr.com/Victor Velez

15:36 26/09/2018

MOSCOW, September 26 (RAPSI)  Russian investigators have authorized a supplementary expert examination in a criminal case against Norwegian citizen Frode Berg charged with espionage, the defendants attorney Ilya Novikov has told RAPSI.

According to the lawyer, Bergs defense team considers authorization of a new examination to be either an additional reason for extension of the defendants detention or indication of investigators poor job. Nevertheless, Novikov refused to disclose a subject of the expertise.

Novikov also noted that there is a high chance of his client being exchanged with Mikhail Bochkarev, a Russian citizen arrested in Norway, who is suspected of espionage there. The attorney said that the matter of exchange is still up in the air as Norwegian authorities are yet to bring charges against the Russian citizen.

According to media reports, Berg was arrested when he received secret documents containing information on Russian navy in December 2017. These papers were allegedly given to him by Russian national Alexey Zhitnyuk, who was detained in December 2017 on suspicion of treason.

Berg has pleaded not guilty.Brother of ex-Dagestan head arrested on suspicion of participation in gang

 TASS, Musa Salgereyev

16:59 26/09/2018

MOSCOW, September 26 (RAPSI)  Radzhab Abdulatipov, the brother of ex-head of Dagestan Ramazan Abdulatipov and lawmaker of the republics People's Assembly, has been arrested on suspicion of participation in a criminal gang, the Investigative Committees press service reports Wednesday.

Charges will be brought against Abdulatipov soon, the statement reads. If convicted, he could face up to 10 years in prison.

According to investigators, gang members took bribes for illegal disability confirmation for people.

Earlier, the chief of the republican medical and social assessment service Magomed Makhachev was arrested as part of the case.The final policy may be out only after formation of the new government, according to sources

Ilustration: Uttam Ghosh/Rediff.com

The proposed e-commerce policy, aimed at streamlining and regulating the digital business ecosystem, may not fructify this year, say sources.

The government was forced to go back to the drawing board after an initial discussion paper on the proposed policy was criticised by traders bodies and consumers for being heavily tilted towards e-commerce firms such as Ola, MakeMyTrip and Paytm, among others, rather than consumers and small businesses.

With dates not yet being set for a new set of stakeholder discussions, and general elections round the corner, the final policy may be out only after formation of the new government, senior officials from the commerce department and other ministries said.

With multiple ministries arguing against the proposal and the Prime Ministers Office overseeing the deliberations, a new standing committee of secretaries held its first meeting last week.

The decision to create a new committee was taken after it was found that meeting the initial October deadline for the policy would be untenable, an official said.

Also, for the last one month, foreign investors, venture capital funds and private equity players have been rushing to secure their investments.

According to industry estimates, these run over $75 billion, having been pumped into different digital commerce firms over the last decade or so.

According to sources, SoftBank Group, one of the biggest investors in the country, which has invested in companies including Paytm, recently wrote to the Niti Aayog and the commerce and finance ministries.

Added to this, a delegation of representatives from as many as 20 international funds, including Tiger Global, Sequoia Capital and PE investments firms based out of the United States, United Kingdom, Singapore and United Arab Emirates, among others, have also met officials across ministries.

SoftBank reached out to the government and is asking it to make a fair and balanced e-commerce policy. In a scenario where almost 95 per cent of the capital in a company is pumped in by investors, they not having any say is a matter of grave concern for these global players, said a senior vice-president of a US-based investment firm.

Smaller venture funds also said they are in touch with representatives of major investors such as SoftBank Group and Tiger Global to rope them in the discussions they plan to have with the government.

The government wants to ensure that it takes recommendations from foreign investors and international e-commerce firms.

"If you go through the list of companies and individuals involved in the making of the draft policy, you'll only see people from Indian companies, an industry insider added.

However, the commerce department has said that the new committee headed by department of industrial policy and promotion secretary Ramesh Abhishek will only look into overall issues in the e-commerce space from now.

It will meet every month but the date of the next meet has not been decided, a senior government official said. Ministries of electronics and information technology, defence and finance, along with the Reserve Bank of India and Enforcement Directorate are part of the body.

Trader bodies such as Confederation of All India Traders and Swadeshi Jagran Manch have put pressure on the government, especially with regard to a proposal allowing limited foreign direct investment or FDI in inventory model based e-commerce.

In 2017, almost $21 billion worth of PE investments made its way into e-commerce companies and startups.

Experts believe that if the policy gives liberty to only the founders to call the shots, then the investors would not be able to recover their investments and earn a profit.Rising fuel prices, intense competition and inability to pass on spiralling expenses have been negatively impacting the domestic airlines.

With the government imposing customs duty on aviation turbine fuel, airlines are likely to pass on higher costs to passengers as peak travel season is round the corner.

Rising fuel prices, intense competition and inability to pass on spiralling expenses have been negatively impacting the domestic airlines.

The latest decision to impose 5 per cent customs duty on ATF, which is a major component of an airline's operational costs, would add to the woes, according to experts.

In recent weeks, airline industry has indicated that air ticket prices could go up in October when the peak travel season begins.

Travel portal Yatra.com's COO (B2C) Sharat Dhall said the imposition of 5 per cent customs duty on ATF is bound to have a "negative impact" on the carriers.

"However, the silver lining to the situation is that with the peak season kicking in, we are likely to see increase in prices and strong loads as well. This would provide relief to the airlines," Dhall said.

On Wednesday, the government raised import duties on ATF and 18 other items, as it looks to check the widening current account deficit.

Grappling with soaring costs, airlines have been seeking reduction in taxes and duties related to the aviation sector.

On September 10, SpiceJet's chief Ajay Singh indicated that fares could be hiked in the next few months.

"It is also important that we increase yield and pass on some of the costs increases to the customers. We hope that can happen in the next few months," he had said.

Generally, yield refers to average fare paid per passenger.

On September 4, IATA director general and CEO Alexandre de Juniac said the steep rise in fuel prices and fall in the rupee value are putting "acute pressure on profits" of airlines in the country.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) is a grouping of more than 280 airlines.

Photograph: Amit Dave/Reuters'Completely disregarding ground reports of starvation deaths owing to Aadhaar and potentially disguising these deaths to look like accidents appears brutal,' says Rajendran Narayanan.

Illustration: Dominic Xavier/Rediff.com

There have been repeated comparisons between Aadhaar and the Social Security Number (SSN) in the United States. Such attempts don't just compare the ideas of identity but also distinguish between the origin of the dissenting voices against Aadhaar and SSN.

It has been argued by some that the opponents of SSN were informed by right-wing ideology while those opposing Aadhaar are being led by a small group of Left-leaning activists.

First, there is a big difference between SSN and Aadhaar.

Till 1961, just like Aadhaar, the Internal Revenue Service used SSN to identify taxpayers without any legal framework.

In 1977, under the presidency of Jimmy Carter, SSN stopped being used as an identification document. It has since been used as a permit to work.

SSN does not establish anyone's identity. There is no correlation between the identity of the person presenting the card and the owner of the card.

However, Aadhaar is a unique digital identity that is being used to authenticate people.

Given that Aadhaar is a central compass connecting all data silos, it precludes the choice of an individual to exist in data silos.

The idea of transparency dictates that the State needs to be transparent to citizens and not the other way around.

This is at the heart of the 'Right to Privacy'.

Second, there is a misplaced notion that Left-leaning activists, a term perhaps used pejoratively in this context, are the only ones resisting the blind imposition of Aadhaar.

Such a one-dimensional categorisation of Aadhaar's opponents lacks nuance and obfuscates the core issues thrown up by Aadhaar.

It is important to frame the debate in the context of more democratic governance and no exclusion, as opposed to false binaries and collapsing unaries.

Sometimes, simpler existing systems produce better results than a blind move towards technocracy without testing the validity and reliability of one-size-fits-all technocratic solutions such as Aadhaar.

There is a high incidence of individuals' biometrics being used by operators to siphon off pension money and NREGA money from rural citizens.

The Web sites, in this situation, would indicate that money has been successfully paid to the beneficiaries; but in reality, it is held by payment intermediaries.

Take another example -- getting rations.

Aadhaar was meant to eradicate fraud in rations. However, it is common knowledge that the primary kind of fraud in the Public Distribution System is quantity fraud and not identity fraud.

Aadhaar has absolutely no way of checking quantity fraud, because there are numerous situations when the biometric authentication indicates a success but the dealer does not give rations to beneficiaries.

A utopian techno-fix like biometrics has meant that several old women and people with vulnerabilities have to walk several kilometres to their dealer.

Assuming that there is electricity when an old woman visits the dealer, assuming that there is network connectivity, assuming her fingerprints haven't eroded, and assuming the dealer is fair, she will be able to draw her entitlement.

Failure of any one of these steps means that she is denied rations. The side-effects of such so-called teething problems can be as innocuous as death.

There has been a spate of starvation deaths in the last few months owing to such technical glitches. Earlier, a woman would have sent somebody with her ration card without problems.

Consider the case of Premni Kunwar who died of starvation on December 1, 2017 in Jharkhand.

Despite successful biometric authentication, she was not given rations in November. Her Aadhaar number was linked to the pension account of a dead person (Santi Devi) in a different SBI branch in September 2017.

Santi Devi had died 25 years ago.

At the time of my visit to the SBI branch on December 22, the last update of the KYC details of Santi Devi's bank account had taken place on December 7.

The official UIDAI inquiry on this matter took place on December 8.

Completely disregarding ground reports of starvation deaths owing to Aadhaar and potentially disguising these deaths to look like accidents appears brutal.

The implications of such a callous approach to techno-centric policy-making violates Constitutional principles of Right to Life and is at odds with the Directive Principles of State Policy -- a set of fundamental guiding principles for the country which state that 'it shall be the duty of the State to apply these principles in making laws'.

In particular, the Right to Adequate Means of Livelihood and Right to Work are significant in this context. It is explicitly spelled out that it is the duty of the State to create a social order to promote the welfare of the people.

There is much at stake for a flourishing democracy when under-trial inmates of prisons are allegedly coerced to get Aadhaar numbers.

The Big Brother-style panopticon isn't fictional any more. It is alarming that the present government continues to trample on the fundamentals of our Constitution.

Rajendra Narayanan is Assistant Professor, Azim Premji University.'You want poor people who take 5 kg rice to produce an Aadhaar card.'

'The poor man may or may not have Aadhaar.'

'Poor people are losing their food and dying.'

In 2012, Bezwada Wilson was among those who filed a PIL challenging Aadhaar for violating citizens' right to privacy. This was ultimately upheld by the Supreme Court in August 2017.

On Wednesday, September 26, 2018, soon after the apex court declared Aadhaar to be Constitutional, Wilson, national convener of the Safai Karamchari Andolan and a winner of the Magsaysay Award, spoke to Rediff.com's Syed Firdaus Ashraf.

Your first reaction to the Supreme Court judgment upholding Aadhaar.

It is disappointing because we said in our petition that privacy is important and we cannot reveal our details unnecessarily to the State. And now the judgment is saying that it does not affect privacy.

Secondly, we are talking about the most marginalised sections and the court is saying that the majority got benefits (from Aadhaar). So what?

The court is not here to protect the majority or minority. They are not forming a government, but giving a judgment.

You have to give justice to the least.

Why do you think revealing details to the government is a problem?

There is no need to give so much information to the State, there is no point in it.

Individuals must have the freedom to hold their information and must decide what to reveal and what not to reveal.

We Indian citizens are not some foreigners who are coming from outside and need to be accountable (to the State). We don't need to do that.

I don't need to give so much information to the State.

Different ministries of the government are taking my (personal) information, like the external affairs ministry issues passports because of Aadhaar.

So the State is telling every citizen that it will give passports only if they give all their (personal) details. But why?

What is wrong if the government asks for such details while issuing a passport? That is how democracy works, isn't it?

No, democracies don't work like that.

Democracies work with the willingness of the people and not by imposing something on the people. It does not work that way.

Aisa nahi hota hai na, the government comes and says that you cut your hair and trim your beard because they want you to look good.

It is my wish whether I want to trim my beard or cut my hair.

How did Vijay Mallya go out of the country in spite of Aadhaar?

Will Aadhaar stop all this nonsense?

Will Aadhaar stop all the non-performing assets?

Why is Aadhaar so important for giving subsidies to the poor?

You want to streamline the subsidies of the poor. Why not begin with the rich people?

The government is completely suppressing the poor and their aspirations. Let them have their freedom.

Why do you want to have such kind of judgment?

Linking Aadhaar with subsidies is good because it can stop leakages.

Do you mean to say we never gave subsidy without Aadhaar in this country?

Aadhaar is going to control food?;

Digitalisation is not a solution for corruption.

What is the solution then? India has tried different methods to stop corruption in the last 70 years.

We have not done anything wrong with the poor and their subsidies. We made a mistake with the rich people.

You find out how much benefit rich industrialists are getting from the government. Show some courage, as nobody is asking these questions.

You want poor people who take 5 kg rice to produce an Aadhaar card. The poor man may or may not have Aadhaar.

Thumb impressions are not matching and the government wants an Aadhaar card.

Poor people are losing their food and dying.

Even if one person dies because of Aadhaar, you scrap Aadhaar.

The government is not here for a benefits business. It is here to reach the poorest.

Aadhaar originally came about because there was corruption in the subsidy system and it was seen as a route to plug it.

Then catch hold of the corruption of industrialists, why are you going after food subsidy?

Why do you want to start with the poor?

How many politicians use Aadhaar?

In the name of the poor they are playing this game!

Do you feel the government has no right to ask questions of citizens?

My privacy is my right. That is my fundamental right and they have already sold (my) information, which has been proved.

They will only come with one or two examples how Aadhaar is good, but one or two instances mean that these kinds of things (selling personal information) can happen.

Photograph: PTI Photo'What was said about Muslims was the most important part of the three-day RSS 'seminar'.'

Photograph: Anindito Mukherjee/Reuters

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat, in his speeches at last week's 'Future of Bharat: An RSS Perspective' event, declared that a 'Hindu rashtra' doesn't mean that there will be no place for Muslims in it.

Some observers argue that Bhagwat's comments are a reflection of a perceived shift in RSS thinking.

Walter K Andersen has explored the changes underway in the RSS in a new book The RSS: A View to the Inside, co-authored with Sridhar D Damle, with whom he wrote the seminal The Brotherhood in Saffron: The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Hindu Revivalism in 1987.

In the first part of his interview with Rediff.com's Utkarsh Mishra, Dr Andersen explained why the RSS will not play a major role in the 2019 Lok Sabha election.

"The key is to see if this verbal call for tolerance is followed through by the various affiliates," Dr Andersen says as he explains Bhagwat's remarks at last week's event in the second part of a multi-part interview.

How do you interpret Mohan Bhagwat's comments at last week's RSS event?

Was it just an image makeover exercise? Or was it a veiled threat to the BJP, telling them who is the boss?

On the general significance of Mohan Bhagwat's comments, I don't think it was either of the two options you mention.

It was more than just an image makeover, though there is something to that objective.

It was definitely not an effort to show who was 'boss'.

The RSS affiliates (and that includes the BJP) are autonomous.

As explained in one of my book's case studies, the RSS gets involved in electoral politics where the party is weakly organised (as in rural Bihar as our book explains).

But the involvement is within the context of the BJP. I have written elsewhere that I think it had an inward audience (the Sangh family) and an outward one as well.

On the inside, to warn that violence is not acceptable and that Muslims should be considered Hindu (which in fact meant to mean they should be considered fellow Indians and what was said about Muslims in my view was the most important part of the three-day 'seminar').

The key is to see if this verbal call for tolerance is followed through by the various affiliates.

On the outside, it seems to also convey a similar message, though with the added element of pointing out that the RSS is not a political party.

Notice how Bhagwat went out of his way to praise the Congress's role in the freedom struggle.

His 2017 Vijayadashmi speech is quite critical of the BJP's economic policies as insufficiently populist.

Some BJP leaders say it was the RSS chief's warning to the party that their polity is not Hindu-centric enough. Do you agree?

I do not read the speeches as a criticism (of being) insufficiently Hindu-centric.

Hinduism is hierarchical and Hindutva at least in theory subscribes to social equality.

In fact, one might say it was advice to follow Hindutva more closely and the most reliable exponent of that is Deendayal Upadhyaya in Integral Humanism.

Notice that the more hardline (the RSS's second Sarsanghchalak Madhav Sadashiv 'Guru') Golwalkar was barely mentioned at all during the 'seminar'.

Bhagwat's speech was testimony of how the RSS wants to bring uniformity in India. He rejected the term 'Hinduism' and said it should be called 'Hindutva' or 'Hinduness' instead.

His approach to the majority versus minority question was also puzzling.

He completely rejected the notion of 'minority' and said it was a concept imposed by the British.

Doesn't all this say that the core of the RSS is the same, only the language has been euphemised because they are no more a fringe now?

I have explained why Hindutva as a term is preferred to Hindu.

The rejection of the term minority seems to be a way to tell both those within and outside the family that Christians, Muslims etc may have different religious doctrines (a situation that exists within religious Hinduism, as he notes), but they are, in fact, fellow Indians by ethnicity and politics.

He is not, as you suggest, ambiguous on this point -- and has already been criticised for taking such a strong stand on this issue.

This is a major evolution from what was the case when The Brotherhood book was written three decades ago.

There is no doubt that many (maybe even most) swayamsevaks still have a hardline view toward Muslims, but this word from on top is to reject that view.

Now we can judge sincerity by the steps taken to push this advocacy of greater tolerance from within.

Has the RSS abandoned the idea of a Hindu rashtra or do they still strive for it?

To be quite frank, I prefer the word 'Hindutva' to 'Hindu rashtra'. And they tend to use Hindutva more -- it is my experience -- than the phrase 'Hindu rashtra'.

Now as I mention in the book, the phrase (Hindutva) has come to being something more inclusive that it once did.

In the early days, it referred to people who could be categorised as Hindu by religion. It doesn't mean that anymore, at least for most.

One of the things I've mentioned in the chapter on Hindutva is that there are many definitions of Hindutva. But it now refers to, basically, people who are Indian, whatever their religion, but who -- hopefully, in their view -- subscribe to a culture that is Hindu.

And they often refer to Indonesia as an example of what they would like to see.

Here's a country that is, what, 80 per cent Muslim? Yet the predominant culture is Hindu, in Indonesia.

The Indonesian embassy here in Washington has a 30 feet statue of the goddess Lakshmi. The Indian embassy doesn't have anything like that (laughs).

The national epic in Indonesia is a version of the Mahabharat. Look at the names of the leaders, Sukarno etc. All have a very Sanskritic basis. So that's what they (the RSS) say they would like to do (in India).

Now that doesn't mean that the Christians, Muslims and others subscribe to it because there's lot of opposition from these communities to that.

But one has to keep in mind that there has been a changing view of what Hindutva means.

Photograph: Shailesh Andrade/Reuters

When the RSS says that all who live in India are culturally Hindu, it seems like more of a co-option than acceptance of minorities.

I like that term 'co-option'. I wish I had thought of it earlier when we wrote the book.

That's a very good term to use, that they prefer co-option.

The RSS seems to categorise only one kind of Muslims and Christians as Indian. It is not ready to accept the minorities the way they are.

Actually they can't because of their Hindu background.

Hinduism is so complex that it is impossible to come to a single vision of it that will be acceptable all over the country.

Therefore, because Hinduism is so diverse, many in the RSS look at Christians and Muslims almost like another sect. And there are Muslims who go to (RSS) shakhas.

The RSS opened itself to non-Hindus in 1979. And I am told there's no effort to identify a person by their religion. And the demand is not made of Muslims and Christians who attend shakhas that they convert.

In fact I wrote in the book that there are some prominent RSS people who commented that we don't insist that they come to shakhas, therefore they have to become Hindu.

(But) some might, and undoubtedly there might be a sense that this is the thing to do.

Don't miss the final part of the interview. Coming Friday!United Progressive Alliance chairperson Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law Robert Vadra on Wednesday broke his silence on the charges of corruption levelled against him by the Bharatiya Janata Party and said the ruling party had been indulging in a 'baseless political witch-hunt' against him for the last four years.

The ruling party rakes up his name every time it is cornered and this time it stands exposed on the Rafale issue, he said, describing the situation as a 'wholesale farce'.

'Having all the agencies under their beck and call....no one knows better than the present government and the BJP that they have indulged in a baseless political witch hunt against me for the last 4 years.

'Instead they should man up with their 56 chests and tell the nation the truth about the RAFALE deal, rather than hiding behind a bunch of lies that the people are fed up of hearing them repeat,' Vadra said in a statement.

He said in a Facebook post that he was amazed in the beginning.

However, it has now become a 'wholesale farce' that the BJP rakes up his name every time it is cornered on the falling rupee, soaring oil prices or the latest on the Rafale issue on which it has been 'totally exposed', he added.

The BJP had dragged the Gandhi family into the intensifying political row over the fighter aircraft deal, with Union minister Gajendra Shekhawat alleging that the UPA government had called off the multi-billion dollar deal after a private company linked to Vadra was not chosen as a broker.

The Rafale controversy took a new turn last week after Francois Hollande, who was French president when the Rs 58,000 crore deal was announced, was quoted as saying by French publication Mediapart that France was given 'no choice' on selection of the Indian partner for Dassault and the Indian government proposed the name of Reliance as offset partner for the French aerospace giant.

Modi had announced the procurement of 36 Rafale fighters after holding talks with Hollande on April 10, 2015, in Paris.American comedian Bill Cosby was sentenced to three to 10 years in state prison for sexual assault. Furthermore, the 81-year-old was denied bail and led out of the courtroom in handcuffs.

IMAGE: Bill Cosby departs the Montgomery County Courthouse in handcuffs after being sentenced in his sexual assault trial. Photograph: Mark Makela/Pool/Reuters

The Montgomery Court judge pronouncing the judgment said, I am not permitted to treat him any differently based on who he is or who he was. No one is above the law, and no one should be treated differently or disproportionately.

The 81-year-old actor was also categorised as a sexually violent predator, which means must undergo counselling for life and be listed on the sex offender registry.

Cosbys sentencing comes after a lengthy trial in which he faced accusations from former Temple University employee Andrea Constand and was found guilty.

Cosby was found to have drugged and raped Constand at his Philadelphia home in 2004. Since then, multiple women have come forward against The Cosby Show star and levelled similar allegations.

Kathy McKee, a former actress who also accused Cosby of raping her, told CNN that she is happy and grateful to Andrea Constand for standing strong.

Cosbys trial was heralded as the first major celebrity trial of the #MeToo movement and the first to result in a conviction.Political reactions poured in shortly after the Supreme Court declared the Centres flagship Aadhaar scheme constitutionally valid.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi thanked the Supreme Court for its verdict, saying Aadhaar was an instrument of empowerment for his party, but a 'tool of oppression and surveillance' for the Bharatiya Janata Party.

'For Congress, Aadhaar was an instrument of empowerment.

'For the BJP, Aadhaar is a tool of oppression and surveillance.

'Thank you Supreme Court for supporting the Congress vision and protecting India,' he said on Twitter.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee hailed the verdict, saying not linking it to mobile phones and bank accounts was a great relief for the common people.

"We welcome the verdict by the Supreme Court. It is a victory of the people of this country and we are very happy," Banerjee told reporters in Milan, Italy, where she is on an official tour.

"Days of the BJP government are over in the country," she asserted.

'From day one, we have fought for this. Not linking Aadhaar to mobile phones, bank accounts and others is a great relief for the common people. My best wishes to all,' the chief minister said in a tweet later in the day.

Hailing the Supreme Court verdict, senior Congress leader P Chidambaram said it has retrieved the UPA's original idea of the scheme after the National Democratic Alliance government tried to convert it into a 'monster'.

Chidambaram said the Aadhaar remains work in progress and a future government will surely bring in amendments.

"For now, we can be satisfied that a rampaging government has been restrained and the reach of Aadhaar has been contained to benefits, subsidies and services paid out of the Consolidated Fund of India, he said.

In a series of tweets, the former Union minister said the Aadhaar was meant to be a 'benign instrument' to deliver benefits, subsidies and services to the poor and the majority judgment in the Aadhaar case has retrieved the UPA government's original idea of Aadhaar.

'The NDA tried to convert Aadhaar into a monster that will rule every aspect of a person's life. And the NDA had been firmly rebuffed... Glad that the UPA's policy has been vindicated,' he said.

The former finance and home minister said several provisions of the Act and the regulations have been struck down as unconstitutional and it was a humbling lesson for the Union Ministry of Law.

'The Act came perilously close to being struck down on the ground it was passed as a Money Bill when it was not. The Act was saved by judicial forbearance. The dissenting judgment of Justice Chandrachud has many valuable lessons for all governments, especially the imperious NDA government. They would do well to heed those lessons,' he said.

The Congress said the Supreme Courts decision to strike down Section 57 of the Act, which allowed private parties to access Aadhaar data, is a 'slap on the face of the Bharatiya Janata Party'.

'We welcome the Supreme Court's decision to strike down Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act. Private entities are no longer allowed to use Aadhaar for verification purposes,' the Congress said on Twitter

The delinking of Aadhaar from private entities is a slap on the face of BJP, added Congress national spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi.

'Slap on the face of BJP. Justice Sikri judgment strikes down Section 57 of Aadhaar Act, 2016, which says private body corporates can seek Aadhaar data. Says its unconstitutional. All plans to monetise biometric data now fail,' he tweeted.

He also hailed the Supreme Courts move to disallow metadata to be stored in current form.

The Trinamool Congress also hailed the Supreme Court judgment, saying, 'SC strikes down section 57 of Aadhaar Act, 2016. So you dont need to give your Aadhaar to private bodies like banks, schools, mobile companies. Trinamool and @mamataofficial fought hard for this,' the party said in a tweet.The Supreme Court is likely to pronounce on Thursday its verdict on a batch of pleas by Muslim groups on the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid title dispute seeking reconsideration by a larger bench, the observations made by it in a 1994 verdict that a mosque was not integral to Islam.

A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices Ashok Bhushan and S Abdul Nazeer will pronounce the verdict, which had reserved it on July 20.

M Siddiq, one of the original litigants of the Ayodhya case who has died and is being represented through his legal heir, had assailed certain findings of the 1994 verdict in the case of M Ismail Faruqui holding that a mosque was not integral to the prayers offered by the followers of Islam.

It was argued by the Muslim groups before a special bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices Ashok Bhushan and S A Nazeer that the 'sweeping' observation of the apex court in the verdict needed to be reconsidered by a five-judge bench as 'it had and will have a bearing' on the Babri Masjid-Ram Temple land dispute case.

Senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan, appearing for legal representative of Siddiq, had said that the observation that mosques were not essential for practising Islam were made by the apex court without any enquiry or considering the religious texts.

The Uttar Pradesh government had earlier told the top court that some Muslim groups were trying to delay the hearing in the 'long-pending' Ayodhya temple-mosque land dispute case by seeking reconsideration of the observation in the 1994 verdict that a mosque was not integral to Islam.

Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Uttar Pradesh government, had said this dispute has been awaiting final adjudication for 'almost a century'.

He had also said that the issue of the observation was neither taken up by any litigant since 1994, nor in the present appeals which were filed in 2010 after the high court's verdict.

The state government had said the law decided by the top court in the Ismail Farooqi case was 'the correct law which does not deserve to be disturbed either by referring it as belatedly prayed for or otherwise'.

Earlier, Hindu groups had opposed the plea of their Muslim counterparts that the 1994 verdict holding that a mosque was not integral to the prayers offered by the followers of Islam be referred to a larger bench.

The observations were made in the land acquisition matter pertaining to the Ayodhya site and the apex court had to consider two aspects as to whether a mosque could be acquired at all and whether a religious place of worship like a mosque, church or temple was immune from acquisition if it was a place of special significance for that religion and formed its essential and integral part.

The special bench of the apex court is seized of a total of 14 appeals filed against the high court judgement delivered in four civil suits.

A three-judge bench of the Allahabad high court, in a 2:1 majority ruling, had in 2010 ordered that the land be partitioned equally among three parties -- the Sunni Waqf Board, the Nirmohi Akhara and Ram Lalla.

*****

SC also to decide on plea challenging adultery law

The Supreme Court is likely to pronounce on Thursday its judgment on pleas challenging the constitutional validity of the penal law on adultery.

A five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra on August 8 had reserved its verdict after Additional Solicitor General Pinky Anand, appearing for the Centre, concluded her arguments.

The hearing in the case by the bench, which also comprised justices R F Nariman, A M Khanwilkar, D Y Chandrachud and Indu Malhotra, went on for six days and had commenced on August 1.

The Centre had favoured retention of penal law on adultery, saying that it is a public wrong which causes mental and physical injury to the spouse, children and the family.

"It is an action willingly and knowingly done with the knowledge that it would hurt the spouse, the children and the family. Such intentional action which impinges on the sanctity of marriage and sexual fidelity encompassed in marriage, which forms the backbone of the Indian society, has been classified and defined by the Indian State as a criminal offence in exercise of its Constitution powers," the Centre had said.

Section 497 of the 158-year-old Indian Penal Code says: 'Whoever has sexual intercourse with a person who is and whom he knows or has reason to believe to be the wife of another man, without the consent or connivance of that man, such sexual intercourse not amounting to the offence of rape, is guilty of the offence of adultery.'

On January 5, the apex court had referred to a five-judge Constitution bench the plea challenging the validity of the penal law on adultery.

The court had taken a prima facie view that though the criminal law proceeded on 'gender neutrality', the concept was absent in Section 497.IMAGE: Commander Abhilash Tomy undergoing treatment. Photograph: Courtesy @indiannavy/Twitter

Commander Abhilash Tomy, undergoing treatment in a remote Indian Ocean island after being rescued mid-sea, Wednesday said he survived in the storm hit ocean because of his sailing skills and Naval training.

Thanking all those responsible for saving him, the Naval officer said the sea where his non-motorised yacht was damaged in a storm on Friday while competing in the Golden Globe Race was very rough.

'The sea was unbelievably rough. Me& my boat Thuriya were pitched against nature's might. I survived because of my sailing skills, the soldier bit in me and my Naval training cut-in for that fight - Cdr Abhilash Tomy.

'Very thankful to #IndianNavy & all who rescued me,' Tomy was quoted as saying in the Indian Navy spokesman's tweet.

Tomy will possibly be taken to Mauritius when naval vessel INS Satpura reaches him on Thursday.

A defence official said in Mumbai that the vessel was expected to reach Ile Amsterdam, a French territory, on Thursday and the Indian crew would meet Tomy, a Kirti Chakra awardee.

The 39-year-old sailor had reached there on Tuesday after being rescued by a French vessel, the official said.

His non-motorised sailing yacht was damaged in a storm Friday while competing in the Golden Globe Race.

A Navy official said Wednesday that their priority was to shift Tomy to Mauritius, where the Indian Navy has a physical presence.

"He will be taken to a hospital, and if permitted, he would be flown back to India," he said.

A defence spokesman said Tomy suffered some 'blunt injuries', but there was no sign of permanent damage to any body part.

"The decision on shifting him back to India will be taken only after his thorough medical check-up at Mauritius," he said.

Vice Admiral Ajit Kumar P, the vice chief of Naval staff, spoke to Tomy.

"He is doing fine and recovering fast under medical supervision. His medical reports are also fine," he said.

Navy spokesperson D K Sharma said the options were open on making arrangements to shift him to India.

Tomy's mentor and race manager Commander (Retd) Dilip Donde had said earlier the sailor was stable and in safe hands at the tiny island, which had sound medical facilities.

The island does not have an air strip and Tomy would have to be taken by the sea route itself to either Mauritius, the Reunion Island or Australia, he had said.

Tomy was drifting for nearly three days in his 32-feet long yacht, Thuriya, which was damaged in a storm.

Vessels and naval assets in the vicinity were deployed for his rescue.

Tomy texted through a satellite-based device, requesting for evacuation, stating that his back was injured and he was unable to move.

He was participating in the Golden Globe Race, where 11 participants are using 1968 vintage boats and technology to circumnavigate solo and non-stop.

The race is being held to celebrate the golden anniversary of the first such solo circumnavigation in 1968.

Videos and pictures of Tomy's evacuation by the crew of Osiris were released by the Indian Navy and the Australian authorities, whose reconnaissance aircraft were in the skies whilst the rescue happened.

The pictures show Tomy being pulled out on a stretcher from the cabin of Thuriya and then carefully lowered into a small raft which had come to fetch him from the Osiris located nearby.

Tomy was placed third in the race when he faced the storm.In a reputed school in Delhi, two sets of parents rushed to get Aadhaar cards made on being told that without them their children would not be allowed to appear for the final Board examination.

In Bengaluru, a techie was unable to withdraw his provident fund because he did not have an Aadhaar number.

And a father from Mumbai knocked on the court's doors after his son was denied admission to a college for want of this contentious card.

Veenu Sandhu glimpses the Aadhaar nightmare.

Photograph: Kind courtesy Akshay Mahajan/Creative Commons. Please note the image has been published only for representational purposes.

In a nation divided by many things, the 12-digit unique identity number is holding lives to ransom.

With opinion about Aadhaar often oscillating between two extremes, a small -- and shrinking -- group of individuals across the country has chosen not to equip themselves with the identity number that requires them to share their biometric and demographic data.

At least not until India's apex court mandates them to do so.

Meanwhile, the unique ID number, which was originally proposed in 2009 as a voluntary welfare tool that would help the State reach every last, poor citizen of the country, has assumed a form that few seem to be clear about.

Despite the interim order of the Supreme Court in 2013, stating that 'No person should suffer for not getting Aadhaar', the scheme was being interpreted arbitrarily by agencies and institutions such as banks, insurance and credit card companies, school boards, universities, mobile service operators and even hospitals.

If not their top managements, then the junior staff that deals directly with people invariably pushes customers, clients and applicants to cough up their Aadhaar numbers.

Caught in this ever-increasing confusion are those who have either voluntarily chosen to live life without Aadhaar (subject to the court ruling) or those who are simply uncomfortable sharing their or their children's sensitive data with anybody who demands it for a service.

Some are holding out. Others have been pushed to a point where they no longer can.

Sibal Sridhar, who has been working in Delhi for over two decades, went without salary for three months after joining a new organisation because of the difficulties in transferring his employee provident fund account for lack of an Aadhaar number.

This was despite the Employee Provident Fund Organisation clarifying in March this year that employees like him will have to give a written undertaking to their employer stating that they do not have an Aadhaar number.

The undertaking would then be forwarded to the regional provident fund commissioner's office for processing.

After some back and forth, the employer told Sridhar that it would be best for all if he simply applied for an Aadhaar number, which he has now unhappily done.

This is one reason that Gurugram-based Abhineet Mohan is dreading the time he decides to switch companies. He has already had bitter experiences for not possessing the unique identity number.

"My wife and I wanted to upgrade our car, so I approached a bank for a loan. I had every possible document -- my career record (salary slips), gas bills, property papers, bank account details, and so on," he says.

Everything was on track, till the bank asked for a copy of his Aadhaar card.

"When I said I didn't have one, they said they could not sanction a loan."

So he approached another bank, and then another.

Frustrated, but determined not to succumb, Mohan called the car dealership to cancel the booking.

The dealer, also determined to make a sale, contacted the bank and convinced it to sanction the loan.

"I have a credit rating score of over 750. All my earnings and savings are in the bank. I pay my bills online, and on time," says Abhineet.

And yet it was the car dealer, and not he, who finally got the bank to do the job without an Aadhaar number, he adds, appalled.

This wasn't, however, the only problem he faced as an Aadhaar-less citizen of India.

"People who are resisting Aadhaar are like those tribes who live hidden in the Andaman and Nicobar forests. They don't want to come out and embrace the modern world."

When his new car met with an accident, the insurance company refused the claim because he could not furnish an Aadhaar number.

"'It will cost you Rs 60,000 to get the car fixed, Sir. Just get an Aadhaar,' the insurance guy told me," says Mohan.

He dug in his heels and demanded that the company put the reason for denying the claim in writing on its letterhead or he would go to court.

The company buckled. "Every step of the way is a fight now," he says.

A senior official with a leading insurance company, who does not wish to be named, says a premium amount or claim above Rs 100,000 requires the claimant to submit Anti-Money Laundering documents, including proof of residence.

An Aadhaar card as proof of residence is only one of many documents that can be submitted.

"But why not just get an Aadhaar number?" he adds. "To my mind people who are resisting Aadhaar are like those tribes who live hidden in the Andaman and Nicobar forests. They don't want to come out and embrace the modern world."

The mother of a Class 3 student in Noida said the class teacher told her that failure to submit the Aadhaar number would affect the child's promotion to Class 4.

This is one of the sentiments that is pushing Aadhaar.

"And so is ignorance at the junior staff level," says a high-ranking bank official. He, too, does not wish to be named -- a recurring request from officials in matters concerning Aadhaar.

The banker, too, has found himself at the receiving end of this Aadhaar-for-service frenzy. During a routine annual medical check-up, the woman at the cash counter of the diagnostic centre insisted that he produce his unique ID card.

"She said her seniors had directed her to ask for it," he says.

Hospitalisation of a loved one -- and children's education -- are emotional areas that force Aadhaar compliance.

Several school boards, both central and state, have been instructing affiliated schools to collect students' Aadhaar numbers.

The mother of a Class 3 student in Noida said when she got such a notice from school, she called the class teacher who told her that failure to submit the Aadhaar number would affect the child's promotion to Class 4.

Another parent said his daughters, in classes 4 and 8, were humiliated by their teachers because of his resistance to Aadhaar and lack of Aadhaar cards. He has now filed applications for the unique ID for them.

A circular from Gerry Arathoon, chief executive and secretary, Council for Indian School Certificate Examination, to principals of affiliated schools spelt out that students in Classes 9 and 11 who do not have an Aadhaar card should obtain it by July 31, 2018.

If they failed to do so, the circular added, the 'schools will not be allowed to confirm their candidature for the Year 2019 Examinations and their admission cards will not be issued as their names will be automatically withdrawn'.

Arathoon confirmed that such a circular has been issued. "Aadhaar is compulsory for everybody now," he says.

The Central Board of Secondary Education also requires students to submit their Aadhaar number to be allowed to sit for their Class 10 and 12 final examinations.

Bengaluru-based Amit Bansal, co-founder and CEO of NextElection, a new community-driven town hall platform for politicians, journalists and citizens, is waiting for the Central Board of Direct Taxes to comply with the recent Delhi high court order so that he can file his IT return.

In July this year, the court asked CBDT to accept e-filing of returns without quoting an Aadhaar number or Aadhaar enrolment number.

The court said there should be an 'opt out' option for people filing their returns online, says Tripti Poddar, the Delhi-based advocate for the petitioners in the matter.

Like Sridhar, Bansal has had trouble with his employee provident fund as well.

The alumnus of the Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore wanted to withdraw his PF when he was launching his own company, but has not been able to do so without an Aadhaar number.

He also wants to register his company and apply for a Director Identification Number (DIN) -- a unique number given to an existing or potential director of any incorporated company. While the form for this puts an Aadhaar card in the list of conditional (optional) documents, the experience is that the form does not get uploaded without the Aadhaar number attached.

"The system is booby-trapped," says Delhi-based Siddhantrao Hemant who has had a DIN for 17-odd years and holds statutory positions as director in some companies. He has been resisting Aadhaar all this while, but no longer.

"Now if my DIN goes into default, then every company of which I am a director runs into a problem," he says. "So, for someone like me the stakes of resisting Aadhaar have gone up exponentially. I am willing to stick my neck out, but when other people are involved, it is not fair for me to continue doing so."

His voice drops as he says that now he has no choice but to get himself an Aadhaar number. "I feel really bad because it has taken a huge emotional cost."

The list of stories is long. On a visit to London, one person found that his forex card would not work. His bank told him that was because he had not submitted his Aadhaar number.

Another could not get a pre-paid phone connection converted to post-paid.

Yet another opted out of her mobile wallet when it insisted on an Aadhaar number.

"What they are doing is limiting our options, excluding us, slowly but steadily," says Abhineet Mohan.

Meanwhile, far away from the courts, at the Tirumala temple, flocks of the devout, too, are told that an Aadhaar number is a must for sarva darshan and that voter ID cards can be submitted only if they don't have Aadhaar.

Thus putting god, too, on the side of Aadhaar card-holders.

Some names have been changed on request.Fond du Lac, WI -- (ReleaseWire) -- 09/26/2018 --Behnke Insurance, Inc. is a well-known insurance company that offers premium quality auto insurance in Plymouth and Oshkosh Wisconsin. The primary objective of the company is to offer the best insurance policy that will provide a lot of benefits in the form of coverage but at an economical price rate. The company offers insurance policies throughout Waupun, Fond du Lac, Plymouth, Oshkosh, Ripon, and across the great state of Wisconsin.



The extensive range of auto insurance coverage that Behnke Insurance, Inc. offers include personal watercraft, motorcycle, RV's, boats, trailers, classic cars, and ATV's / Off-road vehicles. The company also provides insurance policies for high-risk drivers as well as on the spot SR-22 forms. Besides specializing in car insurance policies, the company also offers other types of policies such as life, homeowner's, personal health insurance and business policies.



The competent and knowledgeable team of insurance agents here can guide the customers in finding the best insurance policy that will suit them the most and will offer lots of benefits but at an affordable price rate. As a premium independent insurance company, Behnke Insurance, Inc. has tie-ups with many well-known insurance service providers. The well-informed agents here have assisted many families to gain the security by investing in the right kind of insurance policy.



To get more details about insurance in Waupun and Ripon Wisconsin policies that the company offers one can right away call the company at (920) 922-3850. One can also request for a no-obligation, free of cost auto, business, health, home as well as life insurance quote by calling on the phone as mentioned above number or just by logging on the website of the company. The professionals within the company are always ready to assist the customers with whatever questions or queries that they may have.



About Behnke Insurance, Inc.

Behnke Insurance, Inc. is renowned insurance company that has been serving the customers since several years now.Savannah, GA -- (ReleaseWire) -- 09/26/2018 --Established in the year of 1998, Coastal Empire Fire and Security Inc. was started by a veteran industry worker with more than three decades of experience, named Larry Anderson. This enterprise of late has emerged as one of the top full-service fire and safety companies operating in its locality. The proficiency of this company lies in designing, planning, servicing and installing high-quality alarm monitoring in Rincon Georgia and Summerville South Carolina. The company can provide turnkey solutions to their clients, in addition to update and integrate their current systems too, depending on the requirements and needs. Coastal Empire Fire and Security maintains a good rapport with their suppliers and vendors which help them to offer an integrated security system to their clients.



Coastal Empire Fire and Security offers its services to the large industrial organizations, military, hotels, homeowners associations, apartment complexes, hospitals, and numerous other commercial spaces. Their highly competent and trained staff is entirely devoted to offering state-of-the-art services to its clients. This company aims at providing their clients with the top quality of services while meeting the high standards of the competitive industry.



Offering the best alarm systems in Bluffton and Hilton Head South Carolina, Coastal Empire Fire and Security boasts of providing innovative and advanced technology to their clients, together with superior customer service. This company uses the most recent tracking software and in-camera resolution to deliver crisp and clear images to their clients that maximize their surveillance capabilities. They stay at par with the latest technological advancements and aim at introducing continuous innovations into their systems. Coastal Empire Fire and Security also offers customized CCTV security system as well, to meet the distinct requirements of each of their clients.



To get the extensive range of security and surveillance services offered by this company, one can call Coastal Empire Fire and Security at 912-925-1324.



About Coastal Empire Fire and Security Inc.

Coastal Empire Fire and Security Inc. is a well-known fire and safety company operating in Beaufort, Brunswick, Hilton Head, Savannah, in addition to the neighboring states. This company has been established in 1998.Saco, ME -- (ReleaseWire) -- 09/26/2018 --In an era when many textiles are manufactured overseas, more Americans are seeking out American-made textiles in order to support local businesses. Many are also concerned with global climate change, choosing local manufacturers to reduce the impact on the environment of transporting goods.



Maine Dye & Textiles is a dyehouse in the United States that has been experiencing steady growth in recent years. The company dyes high-quality yarns to be used to make clothing and other textile products. The team has spent the last five years working with the best yarns, dyes and other materials to ensure their products are of superior quality. Maine Dye & Textiles dyes yarn and thread from a variety of materials, both natural and synthetic, to achieve beautiful, rich colors. As the business continues to expand, it will be able to incorporate even more textiles and dye colors to increase its offerings.



Since the company's start in 2012, its revenues have been increasing year-over-year, with the company bringing in more than $640,000 in 2017. The company is on pace to come close to $1 million in revenue this year. Because of its success thus far, the company intends to expand in the coming months, hiring more employees to more than double its staff and extending hours of operation to three shifts in order to produce more products. This will enable the company to further solidify its position in the global market and continue to grow.



To help achieve this goal, the Maine Dye & Textiles team has launched a crowdfunding investment campaign on GrowthFountain. The campaign has a funding goal of $100,000, and investors can get a piece of the company for a minimum investment of just $200. The campaign will run until November 6, 2018. The company has a pre-money valuation of $2.3 million for the purposes of the campaign.



All investors will receive a personalized "thank you" card from the team, and those who invest $600 or more will also get two skeins of high-quality Black Fly Yarn for their own use. Those who invest more than $5,000 will receive a $250 travel voucher in order to visit the facility for a tour of the premises. All investors will receive a share of future profits in proportion to their initial investment.Springfield, MO -- (ReleaseWire) -- 09/26/2018 --In celebration of National Manufacturing Day, the Missouri Association of Manufacturers (MAM) is hosting its 15th Annual Manufacturing Summit & Expo in St. Louis, Missouri on Thursday, September 27, in St. Louis, Missouri at the Renaissance St. Louis Airport Hotel. Missouri Manufacturers and assemblers are invited to attend. This event will provide direct interactive opportunities with manufacturing professionals and opportunities to promote and showcase products and services.



The keynote speaker for the Manufacturing Summit will be Rebecca Taylor, Senior Vice President for the National Center for Manufacturing Sciences (NCMS), the largest not for profit research and development consortium in North America focused on manufacturing. Taylor will be presenting on "Cybersecurity in Manufacturing."



The Executive Breakfast will explain how the State Treasurers office is promoting and expanding the Missouri FIRST program to help grow business in Missouri. He will also talk about two initiatives recently launched, Show-Me Checkbook and Economic Dashboard, both designed to provide more transparency and economic information for Missouri residents.



Topics concerning manufacturers of today will be discussed in the breakout sessions and during the open discussion panel, Manufacturing Matters. Scheduled topics will include: Employee fraud, state resources for international business, export & trade, health care costs, employee health plans, workforce and skills training in manufacturing, energy efficiency, cyber risks for manufacturers, tax reform and it's impact on Missouri manufacturers, updates on 2018 Federal and State elections and their impact on policy in Missouri.



The MAM Manufacturing Summit & Expo is open to the public. Registration is available online at www.mamstrong.org or by calling 417-863-7262. Online registrations available through Wednesday September 26 and day of event attendees may register at the door. Media is welcome to attend.



The Made in Missouri Leadership Awards (MMLA) will be hosted on September 28 at 5:00 pm. The Made in Missouri Leadership Awards (MMLA) are designed to honor manufacturing companies and individual leaders that are shaping the future of global manufacturing. The MMLA program recognizes Missouri manufacturers as leaders in all segments of manufacturing. Innovative companies and individuals in the manufacturing industry from around the state are showcased at the Made in Missouri Leadership Awards & Appreciation Event.



Reservations for the MMLA can be made online at www.mamstrong.org or by calling 417-863-7262. Deadline is Thursday September 27.Los Angeles, CA -- (ReleaseWire) -- 09/26/2018 --Yesterday, Stris & Maher LLP filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States (VFW), the nation's leading military and veterans advocate. The case is Republic of Sudan v. Rick Harrison, et al.



The VFW brief supports sailors injured in the terrorist attack on the USS Cole. That attack was carried out by Al-Qaeda suicide bombers who, led by Osama Bin Laden, received funding and other critical support from the Republic of Sudan, a long-time state sponsor of terrorism. The horrific attack left 17 United States sailors dead and 42 injured. When the injured sailors sued Sudan, the country refused to show up. After an evidentiary hearing, a United States court entered a multimillion-dollar default judgment.



Now, Sudan is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to set that default judgement aside. Sudan is supported in the case not only by Libya and Saudi Arabia, but also by the Trump Administration, a fact which the VFW views as a "profound disappointment." As the VFW brief explains: "It is shocking and deeply dismaying that our government would stand with the nation that facilitated the Cole bombing, and against the surviving American sailors and their families."



"On behalf of the 1.7 million-member Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States and its Auxiliary, I want to express my sincere appreciation for the outstanding work of Stris & Maher on this important case," stated VFW National Commander B.J. Lawrence. "It is critical that the U.S.S. Cole victims and their families know that we support their case, particularly when, as here, our own government will not do the same."



A copy of the VFW brief can be found here.Consumer confidence data from France is due on Wednesday, headlining a light day for the European economic news.

At 2.00 am ET, Statistics Norway publishes unemployment data for July. The jobless rate is forecast to drop marginally to 3.8 percent.

At 2.45 am ET, France's Insee is scheduled to issue consumer sentiment survey results. The corresponding index is seen unchanged at 97 in September.

At 3.30 am ET, Sweden's foreign trade data is due for August.

At 4.00 am ET, IHS Markit releases Austria's manufacturing Purchasing Managers' survey data.

Half an hour later, UK mortgage approvals data is due from UK Finance. The number of approvals is seen at 39,700 in August versus 39,584 in July.

At 6.00 am ET, the Confederation of British Industry is set to publish Distributive Trades survey results. The retail sales balance is forecast to fall to 17 in September from 29 in August.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business NewsBrazil's biggest independent brokerage Grupo XP plans to enter the cryptocurrency market with the opening of an exchange for Bitcoin and Ethereum in the coming months, Bloomberg reported.

At an event in Sao Paulo, Chief Executive Officer Guilherme Benchimol talked about the launch of the new platform, which will be called XDEX, with 40 employees.

According to him, around 3 million Brazilians have exposure to Bitcoin, compared to only around 600,000 that invest in stocks.

The new exchange by Grupo XP, the owner of XP Investimentos SA, will be excluded from XP's other brokerage businesses.

XP is aiming to have 1 trillion reais or $245 billion under custody by 2020, which is four times than its expectation for the year-end. The brokerage also intends to launch a bank in the next few months.

In April, Grupo XP reportedly had announced its plans to launch an over-the-encounter BTC exchange.

Brazilian regulators recently released certain rules to allow funds to invest in crypto-assets abroad, with some limitations.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business NewsA US-based Chinese citizen has been arrested in Chicago Tuesday for allegedly spying on US engineers and scientists on behalf of China.

Ji Chaoqun, 27, residing in Chicago, has been charged with acting as an illegal foreign agent in the US, the Department of Justice said.

If convicted, he could get a maximum sentence of ten years in prison.

Ji arrived in the United States in 2013 to study electrical engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. In 2016, he enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserves as an E4 Specialist under the Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest (MAVNI) program, which authorizes the U.S. Armed Forces to recruit certain legal foreigners whose skills are considered vital to the national interest.

Ji is accused of working at the direction of a high-level intelligence officer in China's Jiangsu Province. He was tasked with providing information on eight individuals for possible recruitment by the provincial department of the Ministry of State Security, according to a criminal complaint filed in District Court in Chicago.

The targeted individuals included Chinese nationals who were working as engineers and scientists in the United States, some of whom were U.S. defense contractors.

The arrest comes at a time when US-China trade relations are getting strained.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business NewsCryptocurrencies, led by Bitcoin, rebounded Wednesday underpinned by some positive news that boosted market sentiment.

Google partially scrapped a ban on cryptocurrency advertisements and the Intercontinental Exchange confirmed that the first product offering from its crypto platform Bakkt would be physical Bitcoin futures.

Overall cryptocurrency market capitalization was $214.71 billion and the Bitcoin dominance rate 52.4 percent as of 10.40 am ET on CoinMarketCap.

Here is a wrap of the main news from the cryptocurrency and blockchain space over the past 24 hours.

Google To Allow Regulated Crypto Exchanges To Advertise In US, Japan

Google, which banned cryptocurrency related ads earlier, is now planning to allow regulated cryptocurrency exchanges to advertise in the United States and Japan. The Google Ads policy on Financial products and services will be updated in October 2018, the company said in a post.

Coinbase Announces Faster Crypto-Asset Listing Process

US-based cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase announced a faster process for listing new crypto-assets that meet its standards and are compliant with local law. The exchange already supports five of the leading cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Ethereum Classic, and Litecoin. It is now looking to add new digital assets such as coins, tokens, forks, stablecoins, and collectibles.

FSA Issues Business Improvement Order To Hacked Japanese Crypto Exchange

Japan's top financial regulator Financial Services Agency (FSA) has sought explanation from the operator of hacked cryptocurrency exchange Zaif regarding how the breach occurred, and what steps it will take to re-compensate customers who were the vctims of the hack. Osaka-based Tech Bureau Inc., which operates Zaif, reported last week that Zaif lost 5,966 bitcoins worth 6.7 billion yen ($60 million) after hackers illegally accessed the server of Zaif and transfered money.

Brazil's Grupo XP Brokerage To Launch Exchange For Bitcoin, Ethereum

Brazil's biggest independent brokerage Grupo XP plans to enter the cryptocurrency market with the opening of an exchange for Bitcoin and Ethereum in the coming months, Bloomberg reported. At an event in Sao Paulo, Chief Executive Officer Guilherme Benchimol talked about the launch of the new platform, which will be called XDEX, with 40 employees.

Thailand's Kasikornbank Joins Visa's Blockchain-based B2B Payments Pilot

Major Thai bank Kasikornbank (KBank) joined the Visa B2B Connect blockchain platform for cross-border -to-business payments, becoming the first Thai financial institution to join Visa's blockchain pilot program. The project was launched in October 2016.

Current Prices

As of 10.40 am ET, Bitcoin was up by 1.11 percent at $6,486.51 and Ethereum was higher by 1.75 percent at $214.00 on Coinbase.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Forex NewsDemocratic Senator Bill Nelson, D-Fla., has climbed into the lead in the Florida Senate race against Republican Governor Rick Scott, according to the results of a new Quinnipiac University poll.

Fifty-three percent of likely Florida voters support Nelson in the latest poll compared to 46 percent that said they would vote for Scott.

The results of the latest poll compare to a Quinnipiac poll released earlier this month showing Nelson and Scott tied at 49 percent.

Nelson's lead in the latest poll reflects a 58 percent to 41 percent advantage among women as well as strong support among black and Hispanic voters.

Meanwhile, Scott has a 53 percent to 45 percent lead among white voters and a slim 51 percent to 47 percent advantage among men.

"A Nelson win would be a big boost for Democratic hopes of wresting control of the U.S. Senate from the GOP," said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll.

The Quinnipiac survey of 888 likely Florida voters was conducted September 20th through 24th and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

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Sep-25-2018 22:46 TweetFollow @OregonNews Oregon Teachers Underpaid by 9 percent vs Comparable Workers Disconcerting results reported by the Oregon Center for Public Policy

Photo: OCCP

(SALEM, Ore.) - Teachers in Oregon earn significantly less than similar workers in the private sector, even after taking into account benefits such as retirement and health care, according to a report by the Oregon Center for Public Policy. Oregon teachers deserve a raise, said OCPP policy analyst Daniel Hauser. Few professions are more vital to the well-being of children and communities than teachers, and yet Oregon is not compensating them adequately. Public-school teachers in Oregon earn 22 percent less than workers in the private sector with similar levels of education and experience, according to the Center. To account for the fact that teachers generally are not paid to work during the summers, the report compared how much teachers and private-sector workers earn in an average weeks worth of work, not annually. The compensation of teachers still lagged behind that of comparable workers by about 9 percent after factoring in benefits, which tend to be more generous for public-sector workers, the report found. This figure, Hauser explained, is conservative. Due to data constraints, the Centers analysis allocated to current teachers the full cost of the Public Employee Retirement System (PERS) and all other benefits for both past and current teachers, to produce an average per-teacher cost to the school district. Newer teachers likely suffer from a larger compensation gap, said Hauser. That does not bode well for Oregons ability to continue attracting and retaining talented teachers. The report noted that high-quality teachers are one of the most important factors in student achievement. Adequate compensation, the Center said, is crucial to recruit and retain the very best teachers. Cutting PERS, as some policymakers have proposed, could make the compensation of teachers fall even further behind, according to the report. The Oregon Supreme Court has ruled that cuts to PERS can only be made on a going forward basis, so cuts to retirement benefits would fall entirely on current teachers. The under-compensation of Oregon teachers is consistent with findings in national studies and, to some extent, continued discrimination on the basis of gender, the report said. Teachers are overwhelmingly women, and the research has shown that female-dominated professions pay less, Hauser said. Oregon children deserve a quality education, and getting there requires increasing the compensation of teachers, said Hauser. The Oregon Center for Public Policy is a non-partisan, non-profit institute that does in-depth research and analysis on budget, tax and economic issues. The Centers goal is to improve decision making and generate more opportunities for all Oregonians. ### Read the report Oregon Teachers are Underpaid. _________________________________________

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Articles for September 25, 2018 | Articles for September 26, 2018A glimpse of the Nofotane* story is attached to all the products created by the empowered nofotane women, which are now shared by anyone who wears the products.

The most popular are the red lopa seeds sewn into lanyards, in addition to the hand printed materials (elei), sewn into bags, suitable for meeting, conferences, trainings and other similar occasions.

The latest were 400 participants to the Cutting Edge Conference held in New Zealand from 12  15 September 2018, who wore the popular lopa seeds, sown into lanyards by close to 20 self-employed nofotane women (2 from Manono-tai, 1 from Luatuanuu, 1 from Pata Falelatai, and more than 15 women from Foailuga Savaii).

Its unique, its innovative, and its specific to the empowered nofotane women and their story of hardship, which makes their empowerment all the more rewarding.

Similarly in Samoa, the nofotane products will be worn by 50 participants to the Pacific Judicial Conference hosted by the Samoa Judiciary this week.

The products include lopa lanyards and printed handbags that will be worn by the 50 participants from New Zealand, Australia, United States of America, Papua New Guinea, Guam, Fiji, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Palau, Niue, Kiribati, the Solomon Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia.

The extent of the nofotane womens story of empowerment will now reach the Pacific region through word of mouth, and through the products worn by the participants to these international conferences.

This is part and parcel of the sustainability support Samoa Victim Support Group continues to provide for the newly self-employed nofotane women in Samoa.

*The nofotane is a woman who marries into a family and stays with her spouses family



The payment of $622,500 tala for a piece of land at Olomanu has come under the scrutiny from the Parliament Finance and Expenditure Committee.

This is because the payment is additional to a separate payment of $9 million tala the Ministry of Police had made earlier for the same portion of land.

The Committees concerns were highlighted in the Government Response to the Finance and Expenditure Committees Report issued in 2015-2016.

The report consolidates responses from Government Ministries, Corporations and Authorities to the recommendations raised by the Finance and Expenditure Committee during their review of the Public Account 2015/2016 and was compiled by the Ministry of Finance.

The Parliamentary Committee has recommended that the Ministry investigates the $622,500 payment for the same parcel of land at Olomanu.

But to date there has been no updates from the Ministry on whether an investigation was done, in line with the recommendations of the Parliamentary Committee.

Emails to the Prison Services deputy Commissioner, Levaopolo Rosa Mene, were acknowledged.

But there has been no response from Prison Services by the time this newspaper went to press last night.

Another issue highlighted by the Parliamentary Committee is for the Attorney General to formulate guidelines to minimise the high staff turnover rate in his Office, which has been marked as a key challenge faced by the Office.

The Committee noted that the Attorney General has the power to reclassify its operations and to restructure salaries within the principal level scale from $45,000 to $75,000. Increasing staff retention will ensure the Office is able to continually provide its services and assist the Governments work.

In response, the Attorney General indicated they were working on staff retention strategies, through a restructure proposal that is currently in the pipeline and will be submitted to Cabinet for approval.

The Attorney General further notes that, pursuant to FK (17)31 issued on 23 August 2017, Cabinet has given instructions for all salary reclassifications and entitlements for Ministries not under P.S.C but are under M.O.F. regulations, regardless of their respective Acts and/or Boards, to seek Cabinet approval prior to any salary reclassifications or changes to entitlements/benefits being made effective as these are public monies. Therefore, all efforts to increase salaries, are subject to MOF approval before Cabinet considers, stated the report.More than 50 students graduated from 14 different programmes at the Australia Pacific Technical Coalition (A.P.T.C.) yesterday.

Held at the Tui Atua Tupua Tamasese Efi Building, the occasion was well attended by family, friends and special guests of the A.P.T.C.

The students graduated from light vehicle mechanical technology, plumbing, tourism, business, commercial cookery, education sport, engineering in fabrication trade, engineering in mechanical trade (diesel fitting), hospitality, wall and floor tiling and training an assessment.

Amongst the graduates 15 were police officers who received Certificate IV in training and assessment.

Deputy and Acting Prime Minister Fiame Naomi Mataafa congratulated the graduates.

These graduates will join over 1,500 Samoan citizens who have trained at A.P.T.C. and close to 700 are women.

Your achievements are not only proud moments for yourself, but also for your loved ones and anyone who played a part in your journey to this day, she told the graduates.

She also acknowledged the contribution of the graduates families, guardians and employers.

I also recognize with applaud the sacrifices and hard work shown by you in completing your studies.

Many of you have had to travel beyond Samoa to study at A.P.T.C. campuses in Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu.

Despite the challenge you have all come out on top. I am also pleased to note that 32 women are graduating today and this includes the largest group of students to graduate at this ceremony.

Nineteen women who will receive their qualification or certificate III in education support, she added.

Soogapuai Tupai, who graduated with a Certificate III in Education Support, acknowledged the work of the A.P.T.C. during the address on behalf of his cohorts.

We came here with so many questions in the beginning of a six months training but in the end the skills and knowledge that we gained will continue to improve changes in our work places.

While we are witnessing this special day we are surrounded by people who have inspired us throughout our lives, our friends, family members and our parents especially.

Thank you for your ingoing support to maintain great opportunities for our people here in Samoa as well as the pacific region, he added.

He conveyed his peers sincere appreciation to both the Samoa and Australian governments for funding and providing the training through the A.P.T.C.A convicted thief has escaped Tafaigata Prison and is at large.

Namaia Paono, a 19-year-old male of Tiavea, Aleipata, escaped from prison on Wednesday.

The Samoa Prisons and Correctional Services (S.P.C.S.) reported to the Samoa Police Service this afternoon 26th of September 2018 the escape of a prisoner from Tafaigata prisons, the Samoa Police Service said.

The escape prisoner is serving time for burglary and theft.

The public is advised not to approach the prisoner but please contact a nearest police station or call 22222 immediately to report any information that may lead to his arrest.Two new holders for the titles Tuiataga and Falepauga were bestowed at Moataa yesterday morning.

Taumeasina Island Resort general manager, Nathan Gary Bucknall, was bestowed the Tuiataga title while former Manu Samoa player Filipo Saena was bestowed the Falepauga title.

The intricate ceremony was held at the home of former police commissioner Asi Tuiataga Blakelock and was well attended by family, friends and relatives of the new holders.

Amongst the guests to witness the special ceremony was the Associate Minister for Prison and Correction Facility, Lenatai Victor Tamapua and Supreme Court Justice, Leiataualesa Daryl Clarke.

In an interview with Samoa Observer, Asi Tuiataga Blakelock said the decision by the family to have the titles bestowed have been in the pipeline for some time.

Falepauga Filipo and Tuiataga Nathan are our family members and so we thought hard about and decided that its time for them to take the next step by bestowing them with some family titles."

This has been in the family pipeline for so long but these two are always busy and thats why it took ages to have this done."

Falepauga Nathan has just arrived back from overseas on Sunday so we visited him on Monday and told him that the ceremony will be done today. So its really good that we got this out of the way so we thank God for today and all that He had done, he said.

Tuiataga Nathan told the Samoa Observer that he is honored to have the title from the village of Moataa as well as the family.

Its a huge honor to be asked and offered a name by Asi. Ive been part of the village but I have always been a part of the family but now I think its official now.

Moreover, he said he is looking forward to what laid ahead for him in the future.

There are a lot of works at Taumeasina and we have taken the morning off for this so after now we will be heading back to work soon."

But Im proud to be part of this village and the family Im looking forward to whats ahead of me and I will serve the family, village and church in any way I can, he said.

Falepauga Filipo echoed similar sentiments.

Its a great honor and privilege to be honored by the village and family as its something that not everybody often gets this kind of blessing."

But I want to acknowledge everyone here as well as my family for this great honor. I am ready to serve my family as well as my village and church in any way I can possibly can, he saidUNITED NATIONS (AP)  Taking center stage at the United Nations, President Donald Trump on Wednesday accused China of trying to interfere in the upcoming U.S. congressional elections because it opposes his tough trade policies. The White House provided scant evidence of anything akin to the level of Russia's meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

"They do not want me or us to win because I am the first president ever to challenge China on trade," Trump said as he chaired the U.N. Security Council for the first time. He made his accusation against the backdrop of the special counsel's investigation into Russian interference in the last election to help him and amid concerns that this November's elections also could be vulnerable.

Asked later what evidence he had, Trump said there was "plenty" but didn't provide details. Instead, he zeroed in on China's propaganda efforts to flood the heartland with ads and statements against Trump's hundreds of billions of dollars in punishing tariffs

Trump added: "I don't like it when they attack our farmers and I don't like it when they put out false messages. But beside that, we learned that they are trying to meddle in our elections and we're not going to let that happen just as we're not going to let that happen with Russia."

China's foreign minister shrugged when he heard Trump's statement via translation at the Security Council.

"We do not and will not interfere in any countries' domestic affairs," said Foreign Minister Wang Yi. "We refuse to accept any unwarranted accusations against China, and we call on other countries to also observe the purposes of the U.N. charter and not interfere in other countries' internal affairs."

A senior Trump administration official who briefed reporters about Trump's comments said China was stepping up covert and overt activities to punish those who support Trump's tough trade stance and interfere in the political system. The only specifics given by the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, were that China is hurting farmers and workers in states and districts that voted for Trump.

The official said China stifles free speech on U.S. campuses and punishes or rewards businesses, think tanks, movie studios and political candidates for criticizing or supporting Chinese politics. The official added that more information would be declassified in coming days and that Vice President Mike Pence was expected to speak on the issue next week.

Democrats on the House intelligence committee requested information from the Trump administration on the Chinese efforts.

Trump leveled his charge against China amid a whirlwind day of diplomacy at the United Nations, where he had meetings with Japan's Shinzo Abe, Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu and Britain's Theresa May. Alongside Netanyahu, Trump offered his most explicit endorsement yet of the two-state solution to bring an end to the decades-long conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

The president also used his moment chairing the Security Council meeting on nuclear proliferation to issue a strong warning to nuclear-aspirant Iran, which he deemed the "world's leading sponsor of terror" fueling "conflict around the region and far beyond."

Trump, in his meeting with Abe, warned China again that "they can't get involved with our elections," strong rhetoric that stood in stark contrast to his reluctance to acknowledge or condemn Russia's efforts to interfere with the 2016 election. Trump has repeatedly cast doubt on the conclusions of U.S. intelligence agencies and refused to chastise Russia's Vladimir Putin during their summer summit in Helsinki.

There is extensive evidence linking Russia to attempts to penetrate U.S. elections systems and to influence U.S. voters. Facebook announced in July that it had uncovered "sophisticated" efforts, possibly linked to Russia, to influence U.S. politics on its platforms. Thirty-two accounts were removed from Facebook and Instagram because they were involved in "coordinated" political behavior and appeared to be fake. Nearly 300,000 people followed at least one of the accounts.

Microsoft also said it had discovered that a fake domain had been set up as the landing page for phishing attacks by a hacking group believed to have links to Russian intelligence. A Microsoft spokesman said Monday that additional analysis had confirmed that the attempted attacks occurred in late 2017 and targeted multiple accounts associated with the offices of two legislators running for re-election.

With the elections less than two months away, U.S. intelligence and election-protection officials have not cited any specific, credible Chinese efforts.

Officials say China's cyber-espionage operations targeting U.S. defense and commerce have been formidable, however. And Trump's claim comes amid an escalation of tensions between Washington and Beijing, spurred by their growing trade dispute.

Each imposed tariff increases on the other's goods Monday, and Beijing accused the Trump administration of bullying. A Chinese official said China cannot hold talks on ending the trade dispute while the U.S. "holds a knife" to Beijing's neck by hiking tariffs. Trump later tweeted out a photo of an advertising insert called "China Watch," saying China was placing propaganda ads in the Des Moines Register and other papers to make it look like news.

U.S. intelligence officials have said they are not now seeing the intensity of Russian intervention registered in 2016 and are also concerned about activity by China, Iran and North Korea. Trump's statement caught lawmakers and some national security officials off guard as Beijing has not been singled out as the most worrisome foe.

"I haven't received any briefing on this and would have if it was a serious threat," said Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., a member of the House intelligence committee. "If the president really wants to protect elections, there are many bipartisan bills he could support."

Thomas Rid, a Johns Hopkins cybersecurity expert, said, "I am not aware of any evidence of Chinese interference in the midterm elections." He added: "Chinese influence operations tend to be more subtle, less public, and business-related."

China has been accused of interfering in an election before, although not in the United States. Cybersecurity firm Fire Eye released a report in July describing "active compromises of multiple Cambodia entities related to the country's electoral system," including the National Election Commission, before the country's July 29 general elections.

The hackers' methods matched a Chinese-linked hacking group tied to multiple cyber operations that have breached U.S. defense contractors, universities and engineering and maritime technology development firms.

"I've seen zero evidence in our own monitoring work that China is doing anything like that," said Jake Williams, president of Rendition Infosec, a Georgia cybersecurity firm, "and none of the people in industry I share threat intelligence with have had a whisper of that."The city of San Diego and port are poised to take actions next month that will clear the way for a $5 million down payment on a bayfront leasehold crucial to expanding the citys convention center.

The payment, which will be made by the Port of San Diego, is one of the terms of a deal negotiated several months ago to enable the city to regain control of a 5-acre site where an expansion of the convention center has long been planned.

The deal between the port, the city and the leasehold  Fifth Avenue Landing  had been struck on the presumption that there would be an initiative on this Novembers ballot asking voters to increase San Diegos hotel room tax to underwrite the project.

Backers of the measure, which would also raise revenues for addressing homelessness and street repairs, failed to qualify it in time for this Novembers election. But a full verification of all signatures that were collected concluded last week that the initiative could be placed on a future ballot.

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That has set in motion renewed talks to update the original deal that called for a more than $33 million payment to Fifth Avenue Landing for its leasehold where it has been processing plans for a $300 million hotel project.

While it is still unclear when the citizens initiative will be placed before voters, city and port officials say they are on track for making the initial $5 million payment to Fifth Avenue Landing sometime next month.

The City Council is expected to take action Oct. 8 to place the initiative on a future ballot, although the specific date will not be set at that time. Port commissioners will also take action next month acknowledging that the measure has qualified for a public vote. There has been some talk of trying to push for a special election sometime early next year, given that the next regular election is not until 2020.

Once those votes are taken next month, the port will make the first $5 million payment to Fifth Avenue Landing, Mayor Kevin Faulconers office said Tuesday. Should the initiative fail at the ballot box, the city of San Diego would be on the hook for repaying the port the $5 million, plus interest, and Fifth Avenue Landing would be allowed to move forward with processing its hotel project.

What still remains uncertain is whether all three parties will stick to the original total payment of $33.2 million, which is conditioned on the initiative being approved by voters. Under the deal, which needs to be revised because of a now later election date, all but the $5 million down payment would be covered by funds generated by the initiative.

The measure is backed by a broad coalition of tourism and business leaders, organized labor and homeless advocates.

Longtime port tenants Ray Carpenter and Art Engel, who control the Fifth Avenue Landing property, are not commenting on what they will be seeking in a revised agreement.

Port of San Diego Chairman Rafael Castellanos would not discuss future negotiations, acknowledging only that more discussions will be needed in light of revived plans for a convention center expansion.

As a longtime supporter of this economic development project, the Port plays an important role in the financing plan that will help make the Convention Center Expansion a reality, Castellanos said. Following action by the San Diego City Council, the Board of Port Commissioners will take action at its Oct. 23 meeting to acknowledge that requirements related to the purchase and sale agreement have been met. In the meantime the Port will collaborate on determining next steps with our partners at the city and Fifth Avenue Landing.

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lori.weisberg@sduniontribune.com

(619) 293-2251

Twitter: @loriweisbergOrganizers of the Miss La Mesa and Miss Santee Scholarship program are holding an orientation on Oct. 28 to talk about the pageant.

Pageant director Sierra Billock said the meeting will start at 2 p.m. in building 8 at Santee City Hall, at 10601 Magnolia Ave. Girls and young women ages 6-26 living in La Mesa or Santee are eligible.

The pageant will be held Saturday, March 2, at Helix Charter High School in La Mesa.

The program, a tradition in both cities since the late 1960s, is sponsored by the local Chambers of Commerce and focuses on community service, networking, and improving public speaking and interview skills.

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The goal is for everyone to walk away on pageant night feeling accomplished and having gained lifelong skills, Billock said.

Three rehearsals are held leading up to the pageant, with all participants receiving training and pointers on interview preparation, stage presence, public speaking, wardrobe consultation and more.

The groups Princess and Junior Miss program is open to girls 6-12 and there is no competition for a title. Those enrolled in that program receive a sash and crown and will be invited to participate in the March pageant. They also attend community events throughout the year.

Contestants ages 12-26 will be scored on personal interview, speech, physical fitness, poise and personality, evening gown, and an on-stage impromptu question.

Pageant photographers will present a Miss Photogenic award, contestants will vote for the Miss Congeniality award, and a local educator will choose a winner for an essay-writing contest.

Miss La Mesa and Miss Santee winners will receive a prize package including a minimum $500 college scholarship, photo shoot and a year of serving as an ambassador for their city.

Winners attend grand openings, parades, concerts, charity events and chamber functions.

For more information on the program, visit 4PointsEvents.com

karen.pearlman@sduniontribune.comHot on the heels of the rest of San Diego County  and the state of California  El Cajon is moving toward creating a climate action plan.

By next spring, the city expects to complete a comprehensive policy outlining what it will do to align with statewide targets intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

El Cajon is asking residents to join the conversation about reducing greenhouse gases and moving to energy efficiency. Next month, the city is holding its first public outreach event on climate action, and will continue to seek residents input on all things sustainability-related moving down the road.

El Cajon plans to roll out information on the subject at the annual Heartland Fire Station Open House, held the first Saturday in October. The event will run from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 6, at El Cajon Fire Station No. 6, 100 East Lexington Ave.

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Information and a link to El Cajons most recent report on Greenhouse Gas Emissions Inventory and Projections, which came out in July, can be found at: cityofelcajon.us/home/showdocument?id=19228 . The inventory gives a snapshot of emissions from a variety of sources, including wastewater, water, solid waste, natural gas, electricity and transportation.

City staff shared general information on the citys plan for sustainability with the El Cajon Planning Commission earlier this month. It will give more details at the Planning Commissions Oct. 16 meeting.

El Cajon Director of Community Development Tony Shute said the commission will get details of the July report, find out where the city is headed, some of El Cajons strategies and what the city can expect next. Shute said the City Council would likely not be presented with more information until 2019.

According to the The Center for Sustainable Energys Equinox Project, 18 jurisdictions in San Diego County have committed to developing a climate action plan. Only Poway has not yet committed to developing a CAP.

El Cajon has been working with several groups for more than five years on a plan, including the San Diego Association of Governments, Ascent Environmental, Inc., Energy Policy Initiative Center and Newcomers Support & Development, partnering to develop a Climate Action Plan.

Although the October outreach event is the first time El Cajon has committed to sharing information with the public about its plan, the city did complete a SANDAG Energy Roadmap in 2013 and offered a previous GHG inventory in 2016.

El Cajon, which has an Urban Forestry Ordinance and has been a Tree City USA for 21 years, has done work on energy efficiency over the years, including replacing 1,200 street lights and all traffic signal leads with LED, upgrading its traffic signal system to improve vehicle flow and putting solar panels on its new Animal Shelter.

Sophie Wolfram, director of programs for the San Diego-based Climate Action Campaign, said the group hopes El Cajons climate action plan will include steps to create housing near public transportation and close to work hubs.

karen.pearlman@sduniontribune.comTheres a certain conversation that transpires time and again, says the writer Douglas McGrath, when a woman who has just seen Beautiful: The Carole King Musical approaches him about the show.

And once he hears her first few words, McGrath says, I can finish the rest.

What these fans tell him almost without fail is how, in their younger days, they used to sit on the bedroom floor  for some reason nobody had chairs, McGrath says with a gentle laugh  and listen to Kings landmark Tapestry album over and over and over.

McGrath, who wrote the book for the hit Broadway musical that returns to San Diego on tour next week, calls those moments one of the joyful things about doing the show.

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But hes quick to add that women who came of age during the Tapestry era of the 1970s  when such King songs as Youve Got a Friend, I Feel the Earth Move and (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman ruled the airwaves  are hardly the only natural audience for the Tony Award-winning show.

Whats been great is that when they come and (like it), they come back with their children, says McGrath. Thats the thing I most want to encourage, because its a very positive story for young people.

This is the second swing through San Diego for Beautiful, which documents Kings rise from teen-age songwriting prodigy to hit-making heroine, as well as the hardships and heartaches she endured along the way.

Much of the latter revolved around Kings fraught bond with the brilliant but troubled Gerry Goffin, her husband and crucial creative partner, who died in 2014; the two teamed to write such classics as The Loco-Motion and Will You Love Me Tomorrow during the 1960s.

The touring cast of Beautiful: The Carole King Musical performs The Loco-Motion. (Joan Marcus)

In Beautiful, those struggles are leavened with the saga of a spirited pop rivalry between the dynamic King/Goffin duo and their Brill Building pals Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann, whose hits together included On Broadway and Youve Lost That Lovin Feeling.

McGrath likens the creative beehive of the Brill Building  a crucible of American pop music at the time  to his own (brief) experiences at Manhattans celebrated 30 Rockefeller Center as a writer for Saturday Night Live in 1980.

He has gone on to a distinguished career in film, writing and directing Emma and Infamous (among many others) and earning an Oscar nomination. But while McGrath also has theater experience  his play The Big Day got a reading three decades ago at San Diegos Old Globe, and his adaptation of Edith Whartons The Age of Innocence just opened at New Jerseys McCarter Theatre  Beautiful was his first stage musical.

What continues to fascinate McGrath about King is not only her prodigious talent but her drive to succeed.

I find it amazing that she had the courage and the confidence to get on the subway (as a teen-ager) and come into the city and sell songs, at a time when, if you think about it, there were no major women composers, he says.

Eventually, King got everything she wanted  and then she lost everything, when she and Goffin split. Her heart was broken, and she thought shed lost her career.

And whats so great about her story is that (it shows), if you just hang on and keep trying, not only have you not lost everything, but sometimes, something even better is coming.

Beautiful: The Carole King Musical

When: Opens Oct. 2. 7 p.m. Tuesday-Wednesday; 7:30 p.m. Thursday; 8 p.m. Friday; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday; 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sunday. Through Oct. 7.

Where: San Diego Civic Theatre, 1100 Third Ave., downtown

Tickets: About $32-$159

Phone: (619/858/760) 570-1100

Online: broadwaysd.com

jim.hebert@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @jimhebertSeptember 26, 1939 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.

Tuesday, September 26, 1939

In 1939 a tropical storm nicknamed El Cordonazo or The Lash of St. Francis, made landfall near Long Beach. Although San Diego avoided serious damage, the storm brought record winds and the heaviest September rainfall ever recorded to the area.

Across Southern California the storm caused 93 deaths; 45 people died in flooding on land and another 48 were lost at sea.

Here are the first few paragraphs of the story:

43 Dead in Storm; Damage Million

Storm Disrupts Train Service

Moderate Winds Forecast Today

Whistling winds and driving rain of a tropical storm which disrupted wire utilities, halted Santa Fe trains service at San Clemente, started run-off into reservoirs and piled debris in streets and alleys, died to a murmur last night after a new September wind record was set.

Rumor of another storm on the way were dispelled by the weather bureau forecast of moderate westerly winds, accompanied by cloudiness and showers.

Extra crews of telephone, electric company and municipal workers toiled throughout the day, getting the city back into shape after the worst September windstorm in San Diegos history.

WIND RECORD SET

An official record of 34 miles an hour for a five-minute period was hung up by the wind, which was at its high point at 3 a.m. yesterday. Gusts of much higher velocity were reported. Singles were torn from roofs. Rain which followed gave the city a storm total of .53 of an inch. bringing the September total to 2.86 inches, or 2.78 inches above normal.

The city had one of the shortest thermometers of the year with only three degrees between the 70 high and 67 low.

Rain leaked through the roof and walls of San Diegos new police headquarters in many places. A tin roof on the old courthouse was ripped partly off and windows were broken.

COAST GUARD BUSY

The sun came out briefly at 3 p.m., but hid its face after a brief peek at things. The moon rode fleecy clouds during the early evening hours, a promise, so amateur weather prophets said, of the storms end.

The coast guard cutter Perseus raced along the coast chasing down reports of stranded or or foundered craft, without confirming any of the rumors.

A flock of cormorants arrived at El Cortez hotel at dark. The birds bedded down on the roof and huddled around the big electric sign, obviously tired out after a terrific battle with sea winds.

What appeared to be a small navy target raft sank off Coronado, while small boats were bushed around in the bay, several going ashore.

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 Long Beach man was indicted by a federal grand jury in connection with possession of child pornography and molesting a girl in Mexico, the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department said Tuesday.

Jonathan Sandoval-Lepe, 31, has been under investigation since September 2017, when an undercover detective obtained child pornography from him over an online program he used to exchange porn with other users, according to Kent Wegener, captain of the L.A. Regional Human Trafficking Task Force.

Officials later found additional evidence in Sandoval-Lepes home, including electronics containing child pornography, Wegener said. During an interview with Sandoval-Lepe, detectives began to suspect that he had molested a child in Mexico.

He asked questions regarding his contact with a minor and provided some details to indicate a crime had occurred, Wegener said.

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With help from the FBI, L.A. authorities located and interviewed the girl, who was between 12 and 16 at the time of the alleged attack, as well as her parents.

We found that the suspect had somewhat of a relationship with that family, Wegener said. I cant go into detail, other than he knew the family and made trips to Mexico on several occasions. On a couple of those occasions, there was sexual contact with a minor female.

Investigators also said Sandoval-Lepe had social media conversations with the girl.

On Friday, a federal grand jury returned a five-count indictment against Sandoval-Lepe in connection with possession of child pornography, traveling with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct and engaging in illicit sexual conduct in a foreign country. He was arrested Monday and is scheduled to appear in court for a bail hearing Wednesday.

He is scheduled for trial in October and if convicted, faces a maximum sentence of 130 years in prison. If he were given a lesser sentence, Sandoval-Lepe would remain supervised as a sex offender, Wegener said.

The investigation was a collaboration between the FBI and the L.A. County Sheriffs Departments Human Trafficking Bureau, which houses the L.A. Regional Human Trafficking Task Force.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Human Trafficking Bureau at (323) 526-5156.

alejandra.reyesvelarde@latimes.com

Twitter: @r_valejandra

UPDATES:

10:30 a.m.: This article was updated with the suspects age.

This article was originally published at 10:20 a.m.At 9 a.m. on Sept. 25, 1978, rookie flight attendant Kate Fons was at work aboard San Diego-bound PSA flight 182.

Martin Kazy Jr. and David Boswell were practicing landing approaches at Lindberg Field in a Cessna 172.

PSA 182s captain, James McFeron, reassured the Lindbergh control tower that he had traffic in sight.

In less than two minutes  at 9:01:47  PSA 182 and the Cessna would collide in midair, 2,600 feet over San Diegos North Park neighborhood.

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The impact ripped apart the smaller plane and damaged the jets right wing. Both aircraft fell from the sky, slamming into residential streets, showering residences, cars and pavement with airplane parts, corpses and flames, destroying or damaging 22 homes.

There would be 144 dead: seven on the ground, the Cessnas two occupants and all 135 aboard the jet.

It was awful, said Verna Huger, now 85, who opened her front door to find a neighboring house ablaze, smoke and ash choking the sky.

Tuesday was the 40th anniversary of the PSA crash. For those who were there, the memories remain vivid.

I spent 30 years in the naval reserve and was deployed four times to the Persian Gulf, said Dr. Jerry Wisniew, who worked in the temporary morgue established that day. I saw a lot of trauma, but nothing like what I saw with that airplane crash.

The disaster cast a long shadow. Wrongful-death lawsuits tied up courtrooms for months as relatives sued the federal government, Pacific Southwest Airlines and Gibbs Flying Service, the flight school that operated the Cessna and employed Kazy.

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And the crash would change aviation in San Diego. An investigator fought for revisions to the official National Transportation Safety Board report, leading to new rules governing flights operations here.

Among aviators, theres a grim saying: Aviation regulations are written in blood.

In the air

In the doomed jets flight recording, a key exchange takes place in the cockpit roughly half a minute before the collision.

Are we clear of that Cessna? asks First Officer Bob Fox.

Supposed to be, replies Flight Engineer Martin Wahne.

I guess, says McFeron.

I hope, says Spencer Nelson, an off-duty PSA pilot hitching a ride to San Diego.

In fact, they were rapidly bearing down on the plane. The initial NTSB report focused on PSAs failure to track the Cessna.

That was a grievous error, said Stephen K. Cusick, who was a naval aviator before becoming a flight safety expert  though pilot error is too simplistic an explanation.

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People think it is binary, either you crash or you land safely and thats it, Cusick said. But its not like that.  A pilot must use every means to mitigate safety problems, i.e., to close all the holes in the Swiss cheese.

The Swiss Cheese theory of accident avoidance argues that every person and system is fallible. Disaster is avoided by recognizing inherent weaknesses and countering them, sealing the holes in the Swiss cheese.

Catastrophic failures occur when holes in numerous slices overlap. Thats what happened over San Diego 40 years ago, said Cusick.

The Swiss cheese holes, he said, kept opening up.

PSA 182 originated as an early Sacramento-to-Los Angeles flight, then continued from L.A. to San Diego. On that fall morning, Santa Ana winds had blown away the usual marine layer. This may have been the first slice of Swiss cheese: the glare in that cloudless sky impeded visibility.

Another slice: Air traffic controllers stressed see and avoid, relying on pilots to visually track other planes and keep a safe distance. Whatever the men in the PSA cockpit thought they saw, it wasnt the Cessna safely passing the jet.

Another slice: Nineteen seconds before the collision, an alarm blared in the San Diego Approach Control Facility at Miramar Naval Air Station, while an instrument panel blinked the letters CA, meaning Conflict Alert. The alarm had been automatically triggered by radar showing the flight paths of PSA 182 and the Cessna converging.

Neither aircraft was warned, though. The system had been commissioned just seven weeks earlier and already averaged 13 conflict alerts a day  and in every case pilots had taken steps to avoid calamity without any nudging from the control tower.

Another slice: For unknown reasons, the Cessna veered off its approved course, turning into the path of the descending PSA 182.

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Another slice: Almost a minute before the collision, PSAs message to an air traffic controller was unclear.

Was it Think hes passing off to our right, or Think hes passed off to our right? The former would indicate that the airliner could see the smaller plane.

PSA said he had the aircraft in sight, then the controller relaxed and didnt worry about it anymore, Cusick said. There are a lot of blind spots out there  you see something for a moment and then you lose track of it. And the Cessna couldnt see because the PSA was coming down on top of him.

More slices piled up: The Cessna was yellow, hard to see if you were gazing down on roofs and roadways; PSA may have mistaken another small plane for the Cessna; PSAs crew was preparing to land, a busy time aboard an airliner.

Moreover, they were preparing to land in San Diego.

Lindbergh Field is a dangerous airport anyway. Cusick said. Youve got a very steep glide slope coming down the hill. Its very tight.

Four seconds after the moment of collision, the men in the cockpit can be heard realizing that a tragic mistake had been made.

What have we got here?

Its bad.

Huh?

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Were hit, man, we are hit.

Cockpit audio

On the ground

The Cessna disintegrated on contact with the jet, a Boeing 727-124.

Steve Howell, covering a nearby press conference for the local NBC affiliate, trained his camera upward and caught fragments of the Cessna  and what looked like a body  falling. One of the Cessnas occupants smashed through a roof over the porch of a home on Polk Street; the other was still in the cockpit when it hit the pavement.

Hans Wendt, then the chief photographer for the county of San Diego, also was nearby. He snapped PSA 182 tilted at a sickening 50-degree angle, its right wing in flames.

PSA Flight 182 moments before impact (Hans Wendt)

During the jets 17-second descent, the voices in the cockpit reflect chaos, fear, resignation.

This is it baby.

Bob.

Brace yourself.

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Hey, baby.

Ma, I love yah.

Below the stricken airliner, Cheryl Walker had just delivered her 3-year-old son, Derek, to the daycare center in Nancy Stouts home.

PSA 182 sliced the roof off a house on Nile Street and exploded onto the intersection of Dwight and Nile.

The force of the impact killed everyone aboard the jet. Three engines, landing gear, portions of the wing, body parts and other debris burst from the 727, then fell as a fiery rain. Some houses caught fire; others, including the one occupied by Stouts daycare center, were ripped by shrapnel.

Stout and her 4-year-old son, Robert, were killed, as were the Walkers.

Dwight Street and Nile Street street sign in North Park, which is the site of the PSA Flight 182 crash. (Hayne Palmour IV / San Diego Union-Tribune)

Huger, whose house is less than half a block from the crash site, saw her neighbors house to the south engulfed in flames. There were fires all around her home.

On Boundary Street, Officer P.L. Thornton came upon a sedan that had crashed when a body fell through its windshield.

The glass just exploded and everything inside was covered with bits of glass and blood, Thornton told a reporter. We thought everybody was dead.

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But when the police pulled the torso aside, they found the driver  Mary Fuller of Lakeside  and her infant son. Cut by the glass, they were bleeding but alive.

Preventing more casualties was Vernon Francks job. With three fellow Seabees, he had sped from Coronado to North Park to help. Stationed at the end of an alley, he was ordered to prevent people from getting closer to the fires.

I remember stopping a woman who was pleading with me that her mothers house was burning, he said. We can see it roaring up, just totally exploding, ripping right behind us and you could feel the heat.

As billowing black clouds rose over North Park, Deirdre Kavanagh Bramberg did not realize she had lost a friend.

The year before, she and fellow University of San Diego freshman Kate Fons did all the good, fun freshman things  we went down into the canyon with the fraternity guys, had kegger parties, Bramberg said. The coeds talked of how they would change the world. Or perhaps see the world, as Fons decided to leave college and become a PSA flight attendant.

She thought she could travel all around the world and have this fabulous life, Bramberg said.

Fons was 20 when she went down aboard PSA 182.

At St. Augustine High, the gym was commandeered as an emergency morgue. Wisniew, who volunteered as a team physician at the Catholic school, raced over to lend a hand.

The first body bags arrived around 10 a.m., Wisniew remembered, and the charred corpses were still hot. Trying to identify the bodies, he looked for scars, tattoos, earrings. The most obvious clues  drivers licenses, credit cards, articles of clothing  had been destroyed.

Most were naked, Wisniew said. The force of the impact had blown everything off them. And then there was the fire.

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With other doctors and nurses, Wisniew worked into the night. As the day wore on, there were fewer bodies and more grisly relics.

This is all I could find, said one apologetic volunteer, handing Wisniew a jawbone.

Less than 24 hours after the accident, investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board began scouring the scene.

The team interviewed witnesses, pored over maintenance records, listened to the tapes from PSA 182s cockpit voice recorder, quizzed air traffic controllers, questioned everyone involved in Lindbergh Fields flight operations.

Two months after the accident, the board convened a five-day public hearing. Testimony was gathered from Federal Aviation Authority officials and members of the Airline Pilots Assn., among others.

Dated April 20, 1979, the official report found a probable cause of the accident: The failure of the flight crew of Flight 182 to comply with the provisions of maintain visual separation clearance, including the requirement to inform the controller when they no longer had the other aircraft in sight.

The report listed other contributing factors, but the bulk of the blame was placed on the men who had died in PSA 182s cockpit. It was adopted by a 3-1 vote.

The dissenter was Francis H. McAdams, a former World War II naval pilot and lawyer. His six-page dissent acknowledged that the airliners crew was partially to blame  but so were the inadequacies of the air traffic control system. He blasted the see and avoid system and slammed the decision to ignore the alarms blaring in Miramars San Diego Approach Control Facility.

The NTSB board majority, McAdams noted, for some unknown reason ignored the Cessna pilots decision to abandon its flight plan and veer into the airliners path. PSA 182 hadnt even been told which direction the Cessna was traveling in, a critical omission the majority did not mention.

Still, the majoritys findings prevailed  until August 1982, when the board was persuaded to adopt McAdams positions in total.

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San Diego Police patrol officers, witnesses and victims speak about the impact of the PSA flight 182 crash had on them and the negiborhood of North Park during a memorial ceremony for those who died in the 1978 catastrophe.

In the courtroom

Jury selection in the first crash-related lawsuit began Nov. 5, 1979. The husband and daughter of Rosalia Lococo, a PSA 182 passenger, sought $750,000 to $1.4 million in damages from Pacific Southwest Airlines and Gibbs Flying Service.

More than 70 similar cases would be heard over the next year, and most were wrapped up as quickly as this one. The four-day trial ended in a $200,000 award.

Month after month, judges and juries were asked by bereaved relatives to set a price on the loss of loved ones. The sad calculus took into account the victims ages, professions, earnings potential, dependents and a range of unstated factors.

Pam Colarich, 23, an archeologist at the dawn of her career? $150,000.

Lee H. Thompson, 36, a La Jolla developer, whose wife was pregnant with their sixth child when he died? $3 million.

Azmi David Taha, 16, a Vista High school junior? $76,000.

Today, aircraft entering the area above San Diego International are more closely monitored before entering the control zone for a landing.

The air traffic controller takes responsibility for you, Cusick said. He knows where you are.

Another critical reform is the Traffic Collision Alert and Avoidance System, first adopted by the FAA in 1981.

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Lets say PSA and a Delta jet get too close to one another, Cusick said. The TCAS automatically tells one plane to pull up and go right, the other to drop down and go left.

Most of the people now living in the neighborhood moved there after the PSA 182 crash.

In 2001, one man bought a bungalow on the 3600 block of Nile Street. This was my first house, said the buyer, a surveyor. I drove over there one evening  when I noticed the disparity in the architecture.

Thats when it hit Franck  he had been there before, as a 19-year-old Seabee, surrounded by a scene of death and destruction.

When Im asked where this house is, I say over in North Park, where the plane went down, he said of the place he has kept as a rental since his family outgrew it. And people know.

peter.rowe@sduniontribune.com

Rowe writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune.San Diego County long has been a hotbed of independent voter activity.

The number of voters with no official political affiliation began to rise quickly in the county years ago, often outpacing the trend in the state.

So there was little surprise that no party preference last week surpassed the Republican Party as the second-most-popular designation among registered voters in the county, behind the Democratic Party. So-called NPPs became the states second-largest political group in the spring.

The San Diego-based Independent Voter Project was co-founded by former Democratic state legislator Steve Peace, a leading author of the nonpartisan top-two primary system used in California after it was approved by voters in 2010. That gave voters less reason to belong to a political party.

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San Diego is also home of the late Lucy Killea, the popular state senator who shook up Californias political world in 1991 when she left the Democratic Party to become an unaffiliated independent. She cited public frustration with politics and government as her motivation.

 Whats driving San Diegans to become untethered to political parties?

The reasons voters increasingly are untethered from political parties are open to interpretation. San Diego County in the past was often described as conservative, though its politics seemed more moderate than, say, Orange Countys. Though Democrats now dominate city and county voter registrations, San Diego wouldnt be mistaken for Los Angeles or San Francisco. At the local level, San Diego County had a history of bipartisanship, though thats changed as it has seemingly everywhere. All that might suggest the area was fertile ground for voters abandoning political parties.

Some of this also has to do with the flagging fortunes of the California Republican Party (not to mention the surge in Democratic voter registration).

Nationwide, a large portion of Americans identify as independents, much more than those who consider themselves Democrats or Republicans, according to The Gallup Poll. But that doesnt mean theyre all moving to the political center. As the Union-Tribunes Charles T. Clark reported last week, party affiliations, or the lack thereof, and voting patterns are two different things.

The Gallup Poll seems to back this up. In a survey released early this year Gallup reported that 42 percent of Americans identified as independents, compared with 29 percent as Democrats and 27 percent as Republicans.

But how independents lean, an indicator of how they might vote, tells a different story. According to Gallup, 18 percent of independents identified themselves as Democratic-leaning and 15 percent identified as Republican-leaning.

Party registration alone does not win elections, said Ron Nehring, former chairman of the San Diego and California Republican parties.

Despite the Democratic and nonpartisan trend in registration, Republicans hold key positions in San Diego, including the entire county Board of Supervisors, sheriff, district attorney and mayor of the city. Officially, those are nonpartisan offices, but political parties are deeply involved in the elections.

Peace said whats going on is more than politics.

The societal moves happens first, the political moves happen later, he said.

People have become accustomed to moving away from traditional institutions either because of more options, distrust or both. Major news organizations, for example, have felt this dramatically. This might suggest people splintering into a lot of smaller political parties. But thats not really viable in politics today. Its more voters acting as free agents.

Californias primary system facilitates that. It wasnt that long ago that California political parties had closed primary systems for state races, meaning, if you didnt belong to one you couldnt participate, at least in partisan candidate races. (Presidential primaries in California are still closed on the Republican side, while Democrats allow independents to vote in their presidential primaries.)

The state primaries list candidates on one ballot, allowing all voters to choose among them. The two candidates with the most votes advance to the fall election, regardless of party affiliation.

Peace, the former legislator, was an high-profile supporter of an earlier primary change. For a very short time, California had blanket primary that allowed voters to participate in any primary race. Approved by voters in 1996, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down that system in 2000, ruling the political parties had the right to exclude non-members from participating in their nominating process.

Were not about independent candidates, Peace said. Were about independent voters.

Yet Peace said the nonpartisan movement across the nation could be boosted by the fortunes of two candidates this fall. Steve Poizner, a former Republican California insurance commissioner, is running to regain that post more than a decade later as a NPP. In Kansas, businessman Greg Orman, who has been a Democrat and Republican, is running for governor as an independent.

Some analysts have suggested that if one or the other wins, that could spur other candidates to shed party labels  and attract voters. That will still be tough to do because parties provide considerable financing and campaign infrastructure usually not available to unaffiliated candidates, unless they have personal wealth.

The independent voter trend has continued despite what has been a confusing registration process for many. No party preference is a relatively new term, though hardly any more scintillating than the previous decline to state handle.

Also, voter registration forms have contributed to potentially tens of thousands of voters unwittingly joining a political party. Registration forms have been changed, but few think that will eliminate the problem entirely. Moreover, the Department of Motor Vehicles also has found errors in the processing of motor voter registrations.

The American Independent Party for decades has benefited from voter confusion. Membership here and elsewhere has swelled because people thought they were registering as independents. Segregationist and former Georgia Gov. George Wallace ran for president in 1968 under the banner of the newly created AIP. The party now takes a hard line against illegal immigration, seeks cutbacks on legal immigration and opposes same-sex marriage and abortion.

The AIP currently includes about a half-million voters in California. Yet a survey conducted for the Los Angeles Times in 2016 found 73 percent of AIP registered voters who were contacted believed they were not affiliated with any party.

Nonpartisan elections and improved voter registration forms may be part of whats driving the independent voter movement. But the major cause and effect seems to be disillusionment with political parties and distrust of government. Its something voters have been feeling for a while.

Thats why Lucy Killea broke away 27 years ago.A man accused of killing or wounding a dozen homeless people around San Diego in 2016 will have a trial to determine whether he is mentally competent to face criminal charges in what could be a death penalty case, a judge ordered Wednesday.

Jon David Guerrero, 41, remains at Patton State Hospital and was not present in San Diego Superior Court as his attorney asked for the mental competency trial.

Guerrero is suspected of driving railroad spikes into several of his victims and setting two on fire in a six-month spree of violence that left three men and one woman dead.

A prosecutor said on Wednesday that the District Attorneys Office has not yet decided whether it would seek the death penalty against Guerrero for the multiple murder charges.

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He has been charged with four counts of murder, two arson counts, three counts of attempted murder and five counts of assault likely to cause great bodily injury.

No preliminary hearing has been held yet to determine whether there is enough evidence to send Guerrero to a criminal trial.

Since his arrest two years ago, criminal proceedings against Guerrero have been halted twice while he was sent to Patton for treatment.

Doctors at the state psychiatric hospital in San Bernardino found in April that Guerrero was competent to assist in his own defense and understand proceedings against him.

Based on that finding, a judge could have resumed the criminal case against Guerrero.

However, Deputy Public Defender Dan Tandon challenged the doctors finding and asked Judge Margie Woods to conduct a competency trial, which effectively delays the criminal case once again.

The competency trial date was set for Nov. 13, over Tandons objection that it wasnt enough time for him to prepare.

Guerrero was arrested on July 15, 2016, after San Diego police found 55-year-old Michael Papadelis in East Village, screaming and bloodied from a major wound. Officers found Guerrero in the area on a bicycle with a large mallet and three railroad spikes in his backpack.

Authorities say the first attack in the series occurred on Feb. 8 that year, when a victim sleeping on a sidewalk awoke to being stabbed in the face and neck. The victim chased away the attacker, who dropped a flashlight.

On July 3, the burned body of Angelo DeNardo, 53, was found under a freeway bridge in Bay Park. A railroad spike had been driven into his head and chest, then he had been lit on fire.

Manuel Mason, 61, survived an attack in the Midway District on July 4, when a railroad spike was driven into his sinus cavity. He was left blinded.

Also on July 4, a railroad spike was found in the body of Shawn Mitchell Longley, 41, at an Ocean Beach park.

Dionicio Derek Vahidy, 23, died several days after a July 6 assault near some downtown San Diego condominiums, where a burning towel was draped over him.

Molly Simons, 83, was attacked July 13 while she walked to a bus stop in North Park. She had been on her way to a YMCA where she volunteered several days a week.

At a brief court hearing in April, Deputy District Attorney Makenzie Harvey said Guerrero rode by on his bike and struck Simons in the head, knocking her to the ground. Simons suffered a skull fracture and died at a hospital about three weeks later.

Harvey said other victims who survived were mostly homeless men, causing difficulties for her office to keep track of them as potential witnesses if a criminal trial against Guerrero ever goes forward.

During the investigation into several early attacks, police arrested one man with a previous arrest for setting someone on fire and who looked similar to a sketch police made of the spree assailant.

However, the man was released when he was found to have a valid alibi. When Guerrero was arrested later, he looked similar to the police sketch, including a cap that he wore backwards.

His attorneys raised the issue of Guerreros mental competency last fall and again earlier this year. Both times he was sent to Patton State Hospital for treatment, and doctors there have now twice judged him to have returned to mental competency.

In legal terms, people are determined mentally incompetent if they cant understand the court proceedings or assist in their own defense.

It is separate issue from the question of a defendants state of mind at the time the crime was committed, or whether a defendant is considered found to have been insane when he or she committed the crime.

Guerrero, a Coronado native who was considered odd by his classmates, has long history of mental illness and crime, according to court records.

Between 1999 and 2008, he was convicted of burglary, grand theft and possession of stolen items and drugs. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia and had mental health cases filed in 2008, 2009 and 2011.

In 2008, his mother tried to get him psychiatric treatment in jail, saying his self-destructive behaviors included inserting foreign objects into his body orifices.

After spending some time at Patton State Hospital and until his arrest, Guerrero stayed in independent living facilities in downtown San Diego.

pauline.repard@sduniontribune

Twitter: @pdrepardA La Jolla real estate agent and former guitarist for local tribute band Fooz Fighters had thousands of child pornography images on his phone and computer, a prosecutor said in court Tuesday.

Donald Edward Hickey, 61, appeared in a San Diego Superior Court pre-trial arraignment and pleaded not guilty to 14 charges involving internet porn and sex acts on two girls.

One girl was under age 10 and one under age 14, Deputy District Attorney Stephen Marquardt said.

Hickey has been in county jail, with bail set at $1 million, since his arrest on Feb. 25 by San Diego police.

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He is accused of downloading, possessing and creating child porn videos and photographs between 2009 and 2017.

The public is safer having him off the streets, Marquardt said outside the courtroom.

Hickey was ordered to stand trial at the end of a Sept. 11 preliminary hearing. On Tuesday, his trial was set for Feb. 4. He faces up to life in prison if convicted of all charges.

State records show that Hickey, a Clairemont resident, registered Aloha Don Inc. as a La Jolla investment company in 2009. The company was noted in the records last year as a real estate firm.

Hickey has taught guitar and played in local bands for many years, including Legal Tender, formed with several attorneys.

Attorney Dave Siegel, one of the founders, said Hickey played with Legal Tender for about 10 years but left three years ago. The group has since disbanded.

Hes very good, Siegel said of Hickeys musical ability. Hes a bright guy. Im so surprised by the allegations. There was nothing to indicate he would do anything (wrong) to anybody.

Hickey also co-founded and played guitar for Fooz Fighters, a Foo Fighters tribute band formed in San Diego in 2014. The group has played festivals across the nation.

The band manager, Brent Wright, said in an email that Hickey left Fooz Fighters in December.

Prosecutors say an internet server noting questionable sexual content alerted the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children about two years ago. The center referred the matter to San Diegos Internet Crimes Against Children task force.

Investigators traced images to Hickey, searched his house and seized his cellphone, computer and hard drive, Marquardt said.

He said they found thousands of videos and photographs of pornography involving children. Investigators identified two girls in images in which Hickey can also be seen or heard, Marquardt said.

A criminal complaint was filed against Hickey on Feb. 23 and he was arrested days later.

Among the charges are one count of oral copulation on a child under 10 and five counts of committing a lewd act on a child. Another six counts involve making photos or videos of a sexual conduct with a child.

Two final counts allege Hickey possessed images of minors engaged in sexual conduct.

pauline.repard@sduniontribune

Twitter: @pdrepardDAngelo Charon died on the side of a rural North County road, his skull cracked open before he was shot three times.

The liquor-store receipt in the 21-year-old San Diego mans pocket helped lead homicide investigators to his suspected killer.

The last thing he saw in this world was his very best friend  standing over him with a loaded gun, Deputy District Attorney Keith Watanabe told the jury of 10 women and two men.

Opening statements and testimony in the trial of that friend, Sheryhl Wesley, started Tuesday in a Vista courtroom.

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Wesley, 21, has pleaded not guilty to murder and charges of being a felon in possession of a gun and ammunition.

Wesleys defense attorney, Jeremy Burland, used his opening statement to tell the jury that Wesley and Charons bond exceeded that of best friends, that the two considered themselves brothers.

Shortly before 5:30 a.m. on July 12, 2017, a passerby found Charons body slumped along Twin Oaks Valley Road, not far south of Gopher Canyon Road in unincorporated Vista.

Before the end of the day, Wesley, then 20 and a parolee, landed in custody, suspected of murder.

Also behind bars and also accused of a role in the killing: Sheffah Chevis, a promising 18-year-old woman who had just graduated from Madison High School, where she had been a varsity cheerleader and honor-roll student. She was also secretly dating the parolee.

During opening statements, the prosecutor said Charon had looked up to the popular Wesley, an aspiring rapper.

Watanabe told the jury that Wesley killed Charon because the victim had disrespected him. He did not say when or how.

Receipts in Charons pocket from a San Diego liquor store led sheriffs homicide detectives to uncover surveillance video of the victim with Wesley and Chevis a few hours before the killing.

Investigators later searched Wesleys phone, finding that someone had searched phrases such as open areas in San Diego with no police. The search was made a day before the death.

There was also an earlier search for deadly poisons.

Watanabe also told the jury about Chevis, whom he called a unique and unusual person in this story.

He said Chevis had started seeing Wesley  whom she did not know was already married and had two other girlfriends, one of them pregnant.

Initially after her arrest, Chevis said the killing happened during an argument between the two men. But in April, facing a charge of murder, Chevis pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter.

She admitted intentionally driving both men to the remote Vista spot, knowing that Wesley planned to kill Charon, according to the prosecutor.

Chevis will testify against Wesley. She will be sentenced to either six or 11 years in prison. A murder conviction carries sentence of up to life in prison.

Wesleys defense attorney pointed to Chevis as a paid witness for the prosecution.

At the time of Charons killing, Wesley was on parole for a 2014 armed robbery, at an El Cajon gun store. He was a juvenile at the time of that heist.

teri.figueroa@sduniontribune.com

(760) 529-4945

Twitter: @TeriFigueroaUTAmericans under the age of 45 have found a novel way to rebel against their elders: Theyre staying married.

New data show younger couples are approaching relationships very differently from baby boomers, who married young, divorced, remarried and so on. Generation X and especially millennials are being pickier about who they marry, tying the knot at older ages when education, careers and finances are on track. The result is a U.S. divorce rate that dropped 18 percent from 2008 to 2016, according to an analysis by University of Maryland sociology professor Philip Cohen.

Demographers already knew the divorce rate was falling, even if the average American didnt. Their question, however, was why? And what do current trends mean for the marital prospects of todays newlyweds?

One theory is that divorce rates are falling largely because of other demographic changes-especially an aging population. Older people are less likely to get divorced, so maybe mellowing boomers were enough to explain the trend. Cohens analysis of U.S. Census Bureau survey data, however, suggests something more fundamental is at work. Even when he controls for factors such as age, the divorce rate over the same period still dropped 8 percent.

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The change among young people is particularly striking, Susan Brown, a sociology professor at Bowling Green State University, said of Cohens results. The characteristics of young married couples today signal a sustained decline [in divorce rates] in the coming years.

READ MORE: The science behind why we love shows  like This Is Us  that make us cry 

Young people get the credit for fewer divorces because boomers have continued to divorce at unusually high rates, all the way into their 60s and 70s. From 1990 to 2015, according to Bowling Greens National Center for Family and Marriage Research, the divorce rate doubled for people ages 55 to 64, and even tripled for Americans 65 and older. Cohens results suggest this trend, called gray divorce, may have leveled out in the past decade, but boomers are still divorcing at much higher rates than previous generations did at similar ages.

Todays young couples dont seem to be following the same path.

One of the reasons for the decline is that the married population is getting older and more highly educated, Cohen said. Fewer people are getting married, and those who do are the sort of people who are least likely to get divorced, he said. Marriage is more and more an achievement of status, rather than something that people do regardless of how theyre doing.

Many poorer and less educated Americans are opting not to marry at all. Theyre living together, and often raising kids together, without tying the knot. And studies have shown these cohabiting relationships are less stable than they used to be.

Fewer divorces, therefore, arent only bad news for matrimonial lawyers but a sign of Americas widening chasm of inequality. Marriage is becoming a more durable, but far more exclusive, institution.

Where in the world is Millennial-ville? Chicago ZIP code has largest percentage in U.S. 

Got a friend whos divorced? You may be next, according to science A federal judge on Tuesday rejected an attempt by parents to shut down San Diego Unified School Districts anti-Islamophobia efforts, saying that they could not prove that the districts program was unconstitutional and favored Islam over other religions.

While Tuesdays decision did not close the case, the judge indicated in her 54-page ruling that she thinks the school district is likely to prevail.

The controversy began in 2016, when the school district decided to develop an initiative to address anti-Muslim bullying.

In April 2017, the school board voted to make a policy to protect Muslim students from bullying and increase education about Islam. It planned to do so while in partnership with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a group that works to combat Islamophobia.

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Six parents and two organizations, Citizens for Quality Education San Diego and San Diego Asian Americans for Equality Foundation, sued the district in May 2017 in response.

They claimed that the initiative and the districts proposed partnership with CAIR gave a discriminatory preference to Muslim students and Islam over other religions. They argued that the district was violating the establishment clause of the constitution, which has been found to prohibit the government from preferring one religion over another.

In response to the lawsuit, San Diego Unified backed off from a formal partnership with CAIR and instead partnered with the Anti-Defamation League on a broader anti-bullying program that included anti-Islamophobia efforts.

In her ruling Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Cynthia Bashant wrote that the districts anti-Islamophobia efforts could benefit not just Muslim students, but students overall by working to combat bullying.

Based on plaintiffs own definitions, the initiatives focus is not on religion, but on conduct and behavior, Bashant wrote.

Bashant also wrote that there was no evidence that the school district was treating Islam more favorably than other religions.

It is simply not accurate for plaintiffs to suggest that the district excludes organizations with focuses on other religions or religious groups from the district, Bashant wrote.

The school districts revised policy should clear any remaining doubt about the districts secular purpose, Bashant wrote.

The plaintiffs are not satisfied with the school districts revised anti-bullying program because the district still included CAIR in its anti-bullying efforts, said Daniel Piedra, executive director of the Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund, which is representing the parents and two organizations who sued.

The courts comprehensive ruling rightfully recognized the sensitive First Amendment concerns in the public schools, Piedra said in a statement Tuesday. But the judge failed to address the critical facts and well-established constitutional law proving that the district is clearly discriminating in favor of one religious sect. Despite todays ruling, our clients remain fully confident they have the Constitution on their side.

Tuesdays ruling did not end the case. Bashant only denied the parents motion for a preliminary injunction, which was an attempt to stop the school districts anti-Islamophobia efforts immediately before moving forward with the rest of the case.

But in her ruling, Bashant said she does not think the plaintiffs are likely to succeed in proving their case. Because of this, the San Diego Unified School District expects to prevail, District General Counsel Andra Greene said Tuesday.

Were very pleased that the judge thoroughly analyzed the issues and saw it our way, Greene said.

On Wednesday, CAIR-California released a statement praising the ruling.

We appreciate that the Court recognized this for what it was  an attempt to further marginalize Muslims by rejecting the very idea that they can be victimized by Islamophobia, CAIR-California Board Chair Omar Hassaine said in a statement. As a resident of San Diego and a parent, I am personally gratified to see the measures implemented to prevent Muslim students from being bullied will continue.

Kristen Taketa

Email: kristen.taketa@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @Kristen_TaketaSan Diego County Supervisors are gearing up for a vote on the Newland Sierra housing project following a contentious court hearing Tuesday over whether approval of the development could land the county in contempt of court.

The Sierra Club and Golden Door Spa, a luxury resort located adjacent to the proposed project site, have sued the county over its plan to allow developers, including the 2,100-unit Newland Sierra project, to buy carbon offset to cancel out new tail-pipe emissions.

San Diego Superior Court Judge Timothy B. Taylor recently issued a stay to halt the countys carbon offset program while the court case plays out.

However, Taylor denied on Tuesday a request by the plaintiffs for hearing to hold the county in contempt of the injunction, an effort aimed at derailing the vote.

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The judge said the hearing couldnt be scheduled ahead of the projects approval and that such a proceeding could needlessly derail the court case.

An order holding the county in contempt will not, in and of itself, save one acre of coastal sage scrub, he wrote in an order released Tuesday. An order acquitting the county will not, in and of itself preserve or clarify the property rights of a single developer. What will accomplish these things is a prompt decision from this court 

The Sierra Club and Golden Door Spa have argued that the use of out-of-county offsets violates the countys Climate Action Plan, which calls for reductions in greenhouse gases to occur locally.

Offsets can be purchased through online marketplaces from businesses, such as nonprofits that place land in conservation, timber companies that use specified logging techniques and dairy farms that install devices that capture methane from manure pits.

The lawsuits are the latest development in a years-long court battle over whether the county is doing enough to reign in emissions under its climate blueprint. A hearing on the merits of the case is scheduled for Dec. 21. Both sides are expected to appeal to the state Supreme Court, with no signs of a settlement in sight.

On Tuesday, lawyers for the Sierra Club and the Golden Door Spa urged Taylor to consider holding the county in contempt following Wednesdays vote.

Your honor, this courts injunction means something, and the county is pretending that the injunction means nothing, said Josh Chatten-Brown, a lawyer for the Sierra Club. In fact, its willfully disobeying.

Lawyers for the county argued that their program to limit greenhouse gases using carbon offsets is separate from Newland Sierras proposal, and thus should not be subject to the courts injunction.

The county has been consistent that Newland Sierra does not rely on (the Climate Action Plan) mitigation measure, said Joshua Heinlein, deputy county counsel arguing the case.

To bolster his argument, Heinlein pointed out that the projects environmental analysis, which calls for using carbon offsets as mitigation for greenhouse gas, was released last year several months before the county released its guidelines for reducing emissions.

Chris Garrett, an attorney for Latham & Watkins representing the Golden Door Spa, suggested that the developer and the county worked together on the strategy behind closed doors.

What Newland did was go to the county and get them to put this out-of-county offset mechanism into their general plan, he told the judge.

However, Taylor expressed little interest in discussing the issue.

Whether there was some smoke-filled room where this was all cooked up would be the subject of the (contempt) hearing, he said before cutting off discussion.

In a previous ruling,Taylor indicated the county was likely to lose the court case, and that projects approved before the final judgment could be required to restart the environmental approval process.

However, lawyers for the Sierra Club and Golden Door Spa said Tuesday they were taking no chances and would file separate lawsuits against the Newland Sierra project if the county approved it Wednesday.

The Sierra Club has also individually challenged several other developments this year that plan to use offsets, including Valiano and Harmony Grove Village South, both located near Escondido, as well as Otay 250 Sunroad near Otay Mesa.

The county is aiming to approve more than 10,000 units of housing this year using carbon offsets. The credits would account for about 77 percent of the greenhouse gases generated, almost entirely from new vehicle trips.

At an average of $10 a credit, project developers need to purchase roughly $45 million worth of offsets collectively to pull all the permits required for the new housing.

Twitter: @jemersmith

Phone: (619) 293-2234

Email: joshua.smith@sduniontribune.comPublic health officials are warning anyone who visited Viejas Bingo near Alpine on a range of dates from May to August that they may have been exposed to tuberculosis.

According to the county Health and Human Services Agency, a person who regularly visited the bingo hall tested positive for the bacterial illness and could potentially have exposed others who were in close and prolonged contact with the individual. Citing privacy concerns, the persons identity  including gender, age and occupation  were not released.

Located across the street from Viejas Casino just off Interstate 8, the bingo hall is in the Viejas Outlets shopping center on Willows Road.

Possible exposure dates are May 10 to May 24, May 25 to July 26, Aug. 9 and Aug. 18. Anyone who visited the bingo hall during the afternoon or evening hours on any of those dates, or who traveled on Sun Charters San Diego North Line bus service, is encouraged to contact their health provider or the county health department for tuberculosis testing.

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The disease is transmitted through the air when spores travel inside tiny water droplets released when people sneeze and cough. Contact with just a few droplets is generally harmless. Transmission is more likely with prolonged contact.

Tuberculosis symptoms include persistent cough, fever, night sweats, unexplained weight loss, chest pain, lack of appetite and weakness or fatigue. However, because the bacteria often lies dormant for years, even those without symptoms who have had close and prolonged contact with an infected person should be tested.

Free testing will be offered to Viejas Bingo staff on Sept. 24.

Tuberculosis can be cured with antibiotics, though the strain detected at the bingo hall, the county says, is resistant to isoniazid, an antibiotic commonly used to treat tuberculosis infections. Anyone who tests positive for tuberculosis infection in connection with the Viejas bingo case should make sure their doctor knows about the isoniazid resistance so a different medication can be used.

Anyone who needs more information can call the countys Tuberculosis Control and Refugee Health Program at (619) 692-8621, Viejas Bingo Risk Management at (619) 659-2422 or Sun Charter of San Diego at (619) 336-9206.

To date, 131 tuberculosis cases have been reported in San Diego this year. There were 237 cases last year and 258 in 2016.

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paul.sisson@sduniontribune.com

(619) 293-1850

Twitter: @paulsissonSome Mission Hills residents say an increased number of aggressive homeless people in their neighborhoods have left them afraid to let their children play in local parks or even walk their dogs near their homes.

I recommend that, as a council member, you declare this a disaster zone to get federal funds, Mission Hills resident Lance Pelky said to City Councilman Chris Ward, who organized the forum. And lastly, if that doesnt work, we secede from the United States of America, go to war, get money, and come back and fix this problem.

Pelky, a 58-year resident of the area, wasnt serious about leaving the union, but was frustrated at what he and his neighbors see as a growing problem.

We laugh, but we need to do extreme measures to get attention, he said. Were not going to stand for this anymore.

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About 150 people packed a meeting hall at Francis Parker School for the forum, which Ward said he called in response to community concerns.

They were seeing and feeling an uptick of homelessness in Mission Hills, and its a scary sub-population thats infringing on their safety, Ward said after the forum. Its really reached a point that they want to know what they can do and whats really going on.

There was no easy answer. San Diego police officers at the meeting said the increased numbers of homeless people in the neighborhood could be a result of people being displaced from sweeps of encampments in the San Diego River area or because of people moved north from downtown.

Officers also suggested the more aggressive behavior could be a consequence of Proposition 47, the 2014 state ballot initiative that, among other things, lowered the sentences for certain drug offenses from a felony to a misdemeanor.

Ward, whose district includes Mission Hills, chairs the citys Select Committee on Homelessness and urged people to report all incidents they see.

How many people are concerned about Presidio Park? he asked at meeting. Most hands in the room raised.

We pulled the data about reports from the last 12 months, he said. There were 12 calls for service within that area. I know the problem is much, much bigger than that.Ward said it was important for people for report incidents because the data would help him convince the mayor that more resources and policing is needed in the area. Reports can be made through the citys Get It Done app, by e-mailing neighborhoodpolicing@pd.sandiego.gov or through the San Diego Police Departments website.

Ward also said more patrol units were on the way in January and again next July, when a new crop of officers would graduate from the academy following a recruitment effort for more police.

Several people at the meeting said they have seen more homeless people in the past few months going through trash, harassing residents and defecating and urinating in public.

One woman said she and other parents of young children feel public parks are not safe, with Pioneer Park a specific concern because it is next to an elementary school. She also said she and her children may not go to a new library in the neighborhood when it opens in the near future because of concerns about homeless people in the area.

Another woman said she almost struck a homeless man who ran across four lanes of traffic on Washington Street near Interstate 5, and another who has lived in the neighborhood since 1986 said she no longer walks to Hillcrest because of homeless people. One woman said her husband now follows her in his car when she walks their dog.

Id be lying if I said things arent getting a little worse here, said Police Officer David Surwillo. But bear with me when I say that theyre not that bad yet, and I say were not going to let them get that bad.

Surwillo said he believes Proposition 47 has resulted in more homeless addicts and fewer people going into treatment. When possession of certain drugs was a felony, he said, defendants sometimes were offered rehab rather than prison, and many would take the offer. Now that the penalty is just a ticket, people are more likely to stay on the street and not get treatment, Surwillo said.

This was the second meeting within two weeks where community members told city officials about concerns about homeless people. Several Sherman Heights residents last week said they had seen more homeless people causing problems on their street since the opening of a nearby storage center that serves the homeless.

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gary.warth@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @GaryWarthUT

760-529-4939Eleven days after Hurricane Florence arrived on the coast, and more than a week after it blew north and dissipated, rivers swollen by its relentless rains are still flooding homes and businesses in their paths as they make their way to the sea.

Some residents have no idea when they will return home. One of them is Vivian Chestnut, who evacuated her home in inundated Conway, S.C., six days ago.

The Waccamaw River, which flows through the city of 23,000, had already reached more than 21 feet  far surpassing the previous record high of 17.9 feet set by Hurricane Matthew two years ago  and it was still rising Tuesday afternoon.

The waterway was expected to crest on Wednesday, but not to drop below 18 feet or so until sometime next week. The river floods at 11 feet.

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You find yourself sitting around a lot and thinking, What if? or, I wonder what things are like right now, said Chestnut, who is staying with family in the area. And wondering what you are going to find when you finally get back.

Its a scene repeating itself across eastern South Carolina, where rivers swollen from what one meteorologist calculated is the nations second-rainiest storm in 70 years slowly make their way down the states gentle sloping coastal plain.

If that werent bad enough, more weather was forming off the coast in a hurricane season that still has two months to go. National Hurricane Center forecasters watching a low-pressure area about 260 miles south of Cape Hatteras, N.C., said it could become a tropical depression as it approaches the coast before moving quickly to the north.

Although it will probably dump some additional rain on the Florence-battered city of Wilmington, it wasnt expected to be significant enough to worsen the flooding.

It shouldnt put much of a dent in the rivers, said Reid Hawkins, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Wilmington.

Florence was also having an enduring effect on the environment. A power outage at a wastewater station combined with heavy rain caused about 128,000 gallons of wastewater to spill into a river at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, the U.S. Marine Corps said Tuesday. The military said the spill wont threaten residential water supplies, however.

Officials at South Carolinas state-owned utility were still warily monitoring two coal-ash ponds near Conway. Santee Cooper officials said that floodwater from the Waccamaw River had already made it into one pond, but that most of the ash had been removed during an earlier cleanup project.

The river is likely to flood the second pond soon, but the utility promised it has taken steps to lessen the environmental impact, such as installing silt fencing and a floating containment boom.

Not far from the ash ponds, engineers are keeping an eye on U.S. Highway 501, the main link to Myrtle Beach. Water is touching a temporary barrier of sand and plastic that has been erected to keep water off the bridge. Called the Lifeline, the temporary wall will remain effective if the water doesnt rise more than an additional 5 feet from its current level, according to the state Department of Transportation.

A preliminary analysis of Hurricane Florence has determined that the slow-moving storm dumped more than 17.5 inches of water on a region stretching from Fayetteville, N.C., to Florence, S.C. Hurricane Harvey delivered 25.6 inches, said Ken Kunkel, a meteorologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and North Carolina State University.

In North Carolina, where Florences floodwaters temporarily cut off Wilmington and inundated several other cities, the rivers have stopped rising, but the recovery process is really just beginning. Gov. Roy Cooper has estimated billions of dollars in damage.

In rural Jones County, two of its six schools will have to be demolished after floodwaters left mold and mildew in their wake, schools Superintendent Supt. Michael Bracy said.

Housing also looked to be scarce for flood victims. In rural areas where so many single-family and one-story structures were susceptible to flooding, even those that were untouched will not provide nearly as many options for evacuees as an urban area with multiple-story apartment buildings would, said Brad Kieserman, vice president of operations and logistics at the Red Cross.

That will present a challenge for flood victims who initially fled to relatives homes but will probably need to find other shelter before their homes are ready for their return.

Staying with family is going to get a little old for everybody, he said.Cadillac is putting the brakes on its move to New York and rerouting its headquarters back to Detroit after a failed bid to lure in more luxury buyers.

Parent company General Motors wants the vehicle brands executives to be near the corporations designers and engineers in Michigan as Cadillac is set to launch several new models over the next couple of years.

Cadillacs move to Michigan will further support one of the most aggressive on-going product expansions in the brands history, with the introduction of a new vehicle every six months through 2020, GM spokesman Patrick Morrissey said in a statement. The move will place the Cadillac brand team closer to those responsible for the new Cadillacs, including design, engineering, purchasing and manufacturing, ensuring full integration of Cadillacs global growth strategy.

Cadillac moved its home base to the Big Apple about three years ago when then-head Johan de Nysschen, who was pushed out this past spring, hoped the shift would set the brand apart from the rest of Detroit-based GM, which also owns lower-end lines like Buick and Chevrolet.

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Steve Carlisle, who was appointed head of Cadillac in April, is behind the end of the companys stint in Manhattans Soho neighborhood.

Cadillac will maintain a brand presence in New York City with the Cadillac House, an experiential brand center which serves as a public space for events, concerts and collaborative partnerships until longer term brand plans are in place, Morrissey said.

Caddy has struggled to hold its own as a luxury brand against more esteemed car companies like BMW and Audi.

Cadillacs new headquarters will open in the Detroit suburb of Warren.A Chinese national living in Chicago was arrested Tuesday for allegedly spying on U.S. engineers and scientists on behalf of his country.

Ji Chaoqun, 27, allegedly gave information to an intelligence officer in the Jiangsu Province Ministry of State Security about people who could be recruited, according to the Department of Justice. Among those possibilities where some U.S. defense contractors.

He was charged with one count of acting as an agent of a foreign government knowingly on U.S. soil.

According to the DOJ, Ji was born in China and came to the United States in 2013 on a student visa to study electrical engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology. He enlisted in the Army Reserves in 2016, when he failed to disclose his relationship with the intelligence officer during an interview.

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Ji could face up to 10 years in prison if convicted.Disturbing video shows a police officer in Washington state kicking a teen in the back after he had been pepper sprayed.

The video recorded by a bystander at the Central Washington State Fair in Yakima on Sunday night shows cops trying to break up a brawl that seemed to involve about 15 people. One teen can be seen covering his eyes before an officer kicks him in the back, knocking him to the ground.

The officer, identified by the Yakima Herald as Ian Cole, has been placed on desk duty.

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Maintaining public trust is one of our highest priorities, and in doing so, investigators will be collecting all available evidence as it pertains to a use of force review, interim Yakima Police Chief Gary Jones said in a statement on Monday. Police officers are often faced with difficult situations that require immediate assessment of circumstances in order to protect the community and themselves.

The department is encouraging anyone with information about the incident, which went viral on social media, to come forward.

A witness told ABC News that the teen who was kicked attends Wapato High School in nearby Wapato. Jasmin Hernandez Cervera, who shared the video on Facebook, told the network that about 15 boys were involved in the melee.

They were young, she told ABC News. She said there no weapons, just kids swinging at each other.

Its not known if charges were filed against any of the teens, but Cervera told ABC News that the teen who was kicked was taken away by police.

I dont know if (he) was one of the primary aggressors. Thats something the investigation will determine, Chief Jones said.

The police chief said the video may not tell the complete story of what happened that night.

Anytime you only see a snippet of a video, youve got to look at the totality of what was going on  what was going on around the officer, he told the Herald. With a very short amount of video, it doesnt give us all the information.

A lawyer for the teens family told the Herald that the Yakima officers conduct was abusive and unacceptable. The attorney intends to file a claim against the city.

The family wants justice, he told the newspaper. They need to know that they are heard, and they need to know that this type of conduct is wrong and they need to know that this is going to stop.A sexual assault victim is never to blame, an expert says, no matter how much he or she has had to drink  or what the President says.

President Trump on Tuesday dismissed Deborah Ramirezs claims that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh exposed himself to her during a Yale University party, saying that her accusations should be discredited because she was drunk at the time.

The second accuser has nothing. She admits that she was drunk. She admits time lapses, Trump said while speaking to reporters at the United Nations General Assembly. She said she was totally inebriated and she was all messed up, and she doesnt know it was him but it mightve been him.

Laura Palumbo, the communications director for The National Sexual Violence Resource Center, said that Trumps line of reasoning is flawed.

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Its not uncommon for alcohol to have a role in sexual assault. Its often described as the most common date-rape drug because of how it is used to enhance someones vulnerability and exploit someone, she told the Daily News.

We firmly believe it is never the responsibility of the victim, even when alcohol is involved. Whenever someone experiences sexual harassment, assault or abuse, what has happened to them is not the result of their actions.

President Trump said Tuesday that Deborah Ramirez cannot be trusted because she was drunk at the time of the alleged assault. (Richard Drew / AP)

In the 2015 Association of American Universities Campus Survey on Sexual Assault, several decades after Ramirez and Kavanaugh attended Yale, 28% of female undergrads at the university said they had been victims of non-consensual sexual contact either through force or while they were incapacitated and unable to consent.

Nationwide, 23% of more than 150,000 respondents from 27 colleges across the country said they had been assaulted. Of those, less than 28% reported the assault, while about half of the victims said they didnt report the incident because they didnt think it was serious enough, saying they were embarrassed, ashamed or (thought) that it would be too emotionally difficult.

People arent intentionally putting themselves in unsafe situations, including when they drink, Palumbo told The News. Whether youre drinking or not, youre never expecting or preparing for someone to take advantage of you and ignore your right to consent.

Ramirez, who attended Yale University with Kavanaugh, told the New Yorker that the future judge exposed himself to her, thrust his penis in her face, and caused her to touch it without her consent as she pushed him away.

1 / 8 President Donald Trump introduces Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh as his nominee to the United States Supreme Court during an event in the East Room of the White House on July 9, 2018 in Washington, D.C. If confirmed, Kavanaugh would succeed Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy, 81, who is retiring after 30 years of service on the high court. (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images) 2 / 8 Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh arrives for testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee during his Supreme Court confirmation hearing on Sept. 4, 2018 in Washington, D.C. (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images) 3 / 8 The hearings lasted for three days and the committee was scheduled to vote on Sept. 21, 2018. (Andrew Harnik / AP ) 4 / 8 A week after Kavanaughs final day of testifying, Christine Blasey Fords allegations against him were made public. Ford, who was originally not named, alleged that she and Kavanaugh attended a high school party together, where he pinned her down on a bed and tried to remove her clothes while holding his hand over her mouth to stop her from screaming. I thought he might I thought he might inadvertently kill me, she told the Washington Post in a Sept. 16 article. She sent a letter detailing the assault to Sen. Dianne Feinstein on July 30, but asked it was not made public. Kavanaugh denied the allegations. Both will testify on Sept. 27, 2018. Another woman, Deborah Ramirez, later came forward and said she too was assaulted by the SCOTUS nominee. Ramirez said the two were at Yale together when a drunken Kavanaugh thrust his penis in her face, and caused her to touch it without her consent as she pushed him away. (researchgate.net / HANDOUT) 5 / 8 Calendar entries from the summer of 1982 that will be submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee were released on Sept. 26, 2018. Kavanaugh said the calendars do not corroborate Fords allegations against him. (Handout) 6 / 8 Calendar entries from the summer of 1982 that will be submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee were released on Sept. 26, 2018. Kavanaugh said the calendars do not corroborate Fords allegations against him. (Handout) 7 / 8 Calendar entries from the summer of 1982 that will be submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee were released on Sept. 26, 2018. Kavanaugh said the calendars do not corroborate Fords allegations against him. (Handout) 8 / 8 Calendar entries from the summer of 1982 that will be submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee were released on Sept. 26, 2018. Kavanaugh said the calendars do not corroborate Fords allegations against him. (Handout)

Brett was laughing, Ramirez said. I can still see his face, and his hips coming forward, like when you pull up your pants.

Kavanaugh denied Ramirezs allegations.

This alleged event from 35 years ago did not happen, he told the magazine. The people who knew me then know that this did not happen, and have said so. This is a smear, plain and simple. I look forward to testifying on Thursday about the truth, and defending my good name  and the reputation for character and integrity I have spent a lifetime building  against these last-minute allegations.State Sen. Joel Anderson (R-Alpine) was reprimanded by the Senate this week after an investigation found he probably threatened to bitch slap a female lobbyist, according to documents released on Tuesday.

Stephanie Roberson, a lobbyist with the California Nurses Assn., filed a complaint in Augustalleging that Anderson threatened and made harassing comments to her at a Capitol-area bar.

The resulting legislative investigation found that Anderson had consumed alcoholic drinks in the lead-up to the encounter and that during the course of his interaction with Roberson, he likely became increasingly agitated.

The investigative report said Anderson likely said I oughta bitch slap you, or a similar phrase, at least twice. While the investigation said Anderson did not attempt to physically strike Roberson, it did note that two individuals physically intervened after his comment.

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The Senate Rules Committee determined Anderson violated the Senate Code of Conduct.

Your behavior was completely unacceptable, Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) wrote in the letter of reprimand.

Anderson, who is termed out of the Senate, is currently running for the Board of Equalization.

At the time the complaint was filed, Anderson said he regretted his word choice which was not directed at [Roberson].

As the report states, at issue was the context of our conversation, Anderson said in a statement on Tuesday. The investigation doesnt substantiate all the wild claims reported in the press, and I stand by my original statement.A documented gang member whod been deported from the U.S. six times and was wanted by Escondido police is suspected of unintentionally shooting and killing his older brother during an early Saturday morning bar fight, police said Tuesday.

Investigators had previously identified the suspect in the slaying as Manuel Eliseo Martinez, 32, of Escondido. On Tuesday, police identified the victim as 35-year-old Antonio Martinez.

A second man was shot and wounded while trying to break up the fight the Martinez brothers were involved in with another bar patron, Escondido police Lt. Chris Lick said. That man, whose name was not released, was expected to survive.

The events that led to the shooting began a little before 1 a.m., when the Martinez brothers were leaving Pounders on West Grand Avenue near South Broadway, Lick said. The brothers were in a vehicle that quickly accelerated and screeched away from the bar, prompting a person there to yell at the men for speeding.

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A short time later, Manuel and Antonio returned to confront that same patron, Lick said in a statement. Manuel pointed a firearm at the patron as Antonio punched and attacked the patron.

Another person jumped into the melee, grabbing hold of Antonio Martinez to try to break up the fight, according to Lick.

Manuel fired two rounds, striking Antonio and the third party who had intervened, Lick said. Antonio died from his gunshot wounds.

When officers arrived, several people at the scene identified the younger Martinez as the suspect, and he took off running, police said. Officers chased Manuel Martinez for several blocks and got into a brief struggle before arresting him.

Lick said that while police categorized the shooting as gang-related, the man who was wounded while trying to break up the fight had no gang affiliation.

The suspected shooter, Manuel Martinez, is a documented gang member who was wanted by Escondido police as a suspect in three other violent crimes dating back to last October, Lick said. Police had been actively searching for him since that time.

Martinez, who has reportedly been deported six times, most recently in 2016, was also wanted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement since last October, Lick said.

Martinez remained in custody Tuesday on suspicion of 10 felony charges, including murder and attempted murder with gang and weapon enhancements. He was being held without bail.

Twitter: @Alex_Riggins

(619) 293-1710

alex.riggins@sduniontribune.comFamily members of Alfred Olango, who was fatally shot in 2016 by an El Cajon police officer, gathered outside police headquarters Wednesday morning to mark the second anniversary of his death and renew their calls for action.

Olango, 38, was shot to death in a taco shop parking lot by El Cajon police Officer Richard Gonsalves, who opened fire after Olango pointed what turned out to be a metal vaping device at the officer.

The death prompted weeks of protests and demonstrations, some linked to the Black Lives Matter movement.

Alfreds youngest brother, Tony Abuka, recounted how his sister phoned 911 three times on Sept. 27, 2016, asking for help for Olango, who was acting erratically and apparently suffering from an emotional breakdown.

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Alfred Olango didnt deserve to die. He deserved to live, said Abuka, who runs the Alfred Olango Foundation. He was a father, a son, a brother, an uncle, a cousin and a true friend. All of that was wiped away in just seconds.

In this file photo from January 2017, then-San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis showed video from the officer involved shooting of Alfred Olango. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune)

Olangos father, Richard Olango Abuka, said talking with reporters about his sons death was painful  like opening a new wound on an old scar  but said it is important that solutions are found to address police shootings and faulty procedures.

They were supposed to send help. Instead they send (a) 911 squad. I call them (a) firing squad, he said, standing with other family members and supporters in front of the police headquarters.

Olango Abuka said he believed the killing of his son was racially motivated  Alfred Olango was black  and that police training needs to be changed to prevent shootings like the one involving his son from happening.

Why is it one police officer used a Taser and the other police officer used a gun? he asked.

Family members were joined by The Rev. Shane Harris, an activist who called on El Cajon Police Chief Jeff Davis to fire Gonsalves.

Harris also called for an increase in funding for the countys Psychiatric Emergency Response Team, which pairs clinicians with trained officers. Harris told reporters he is stepping down as the president of the National Action Network San Diego and was attending the news conference as a civil rights leader.

Gonsalves has been sued by Olangos family members, including a wrongful death lawsuit filed in federal court by Olangos father that has been set for trial in April. Former District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis found that the shooting was justified and determined that Gonsalves would not face criminal charges.

Cellphone and security camera video released by authorities showed Olango pulling a shiny object  which turned out to be an e-cigarette device  from his front pants pocket and aiming it at Gonsalves in what police described as a two-handed shooting stance.

Dumanis said the video showed Olango had made a motion appearing to fire a gun.

Gonsalves fired his gun four times, fatally wounding Olango. Another officer at the scene, Josh McDaniel, shot a Taser.

An El Cajon police spokesman could not be reached Wednesday to confirm Gonsalves current employment status or to comment on the statements made by the Olango family.

Olangos family members are inviting the public to join them in a march and candlelight vigil Saturday, with the march starting at the taco shop and ending at a downtown park. The group plans to meet at 7 p.m. at 777 Broadway.

Family members say it is a chance to remember Olango, a Ugandan refugee, and to remember others who have died at the hands of police.

According to its website, the Alfred Olango Foundation was founded to research and find areas in law enforcement procedures and training that need to be addressed and to ensure officers are held accountable for their actions.

Twitter: @karenkucher

(619) 293-1350

karen.kucher@sduniontribune.comEight adults suspected of entering the country without permission were arrested on a boat found off the coast of La Jolla early Sunday morning, officials said Tuesday.

A U.S. Coast Guard vessel spotted the panga-style fishing boat illegally entering the U.S. on Sunday around 5:15 a.m. near La Jolla.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers aboard a boat from the agencys Air and Marine Operations unit were dispatched to intercept the single-engine panga, which they did around 6 a.m.

All eight people on the boat were determined to be Mexican nationals. Border Patrol agents identified two of the men as being suspected smugglers.

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The passengers included three men and three women, two of whom claimed to be pregnant and suffering stomach pains. The two  ages 18 and 20 -- were immediately taken to a nearby hospital for observation, officials said.

This month alone, more than 60 people have been taken into custody in connection with a series of smuggling attempts along the coast.

On Sept. 15, two marine smuggling incidents  one off the coast of Windansea Beach in La Jolla and the other north of Mexican waters  resulted in the arrests of 27 people.

Less than a week earlier, on Sept. 9 and 10, another 26 people were arrested in connection with smuggling attempts off Mission Beach and Pacific Beach.

Border Patrol agents were also sent to investigate an incident in Pacific Beach on Sept. 6, after witnesses reported seeing dozens of people walking away from a beached fishing vessel.

As of August, smuggling incidents involving panga-style boats had jumped 70 percent over fiscal year 2017, according to CBP officials.

Staff writers Lyndsay Winkley and Alex Riggins contributed to this report.

Twitter: @karenkucher

(619) 293-1350

karen.kucher@sduniontribune.comA 69-year-old woman suffered an apparent medical emergency Tuesday, causing her SUV to hop a curb and plunge roughly 500 feet down a canyon in Poway, authorities said.

The woman, who was found conscious and alert in her 2006 Honda CRV, was later airlifted to a nearby hospital and expected to survive her injuries, San Diego County sheriffs Sgt. David Toner said.

It happened about 1 p.m. as the woman was driving south on Tech Center Drive toward Kirkham Way, Toner said. The three-way-stop intersection is where Tech Center Drive ends and motorists must turn east or west on Kirkham Way.

But the Honda failed to stop at the stop sign, continued through the intersection, struck the curb and launched over the curb and down a steep canyon, Toner said.

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Emergency crews found the driver conscious inside her SUV and she was airlifted to Palomar Medical Center with injuries that were not expected to be life-threatening, Toner said.

Investigators dont believe alcohol or drugs were involved in the crash. Witnesses said it appeared the driver had a medical emergency prior to driving through the intersection.

The crash remained under investigation Tuesday evening by traffic investigators from the Sheriffs Departments Poway substation.

Twitter: @Alex_Riggins

(619) 293-1710

alex.riggins@sduniontribune.comSan Diego school police have stepped up their patrols around a Mira Mesa middle school after children walking home reported two separate instances of men in cars committing what the principal called lewd acts earlier this week.

The two incidents were reported Monday by students walking home from Wangenheim Middle School according to a letter that Principal Matt Fallon sent to student families, asking them to be on the alert.

The first incident happened on Black Mountain Road around 2:35 p.m., and it involved a man driving a black Dodge sedan, according to the letter.

The second happened on Dunholme Street around 2:42 p.m. In that case, the driver was in a navy blue sedan, possibly a Honda, Fallon said.

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Neither driver approached or spoke to the students, he said.

The principal said school police were stepping up surveillance and increasing neighborhood patrols.

He asked that students who witness lewd or inappropriate acts call San Diego police, and the school.

teri.figueroa@sduniontribune.com

(760) 529-4945

Twitter: @TeriFigueroaUTWill you be watching the Senate Judiciary Committee as it questions Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who has accused him of sexually assaulting her in 1982?

Will you be gathered with others to watch the hearing?

The Union-Tribune is gathering reaction for a story about the hearing and would like to hear from you. Please give us some detail about where you plan to be tomorrow and a contact number where you can be reached and we may be calling you.

Please e-mail enterprise editor Mark Platte at mark.platte@sduniontribune.com if you are interested in talking.San Diego city officials allowed hundreds of employees to remain in leased office space despite months of construction that exposed workers to cancer-causing asbestos, according to a legal claim filed on behalf of a longtime building inspector.

Weeks after employees were moved from a rented high rise south of City Hall early this year, Deputy Chief Operating Officer Ronald Villa told employees a planned relocation had been delayed so the city would not be on the hook for $1 million or more for breaking the lease.

The city exposed its employees to deadly asbestos for months while they occupied the 1010 Second Ave. building, and then the city concealed the significance of the asbestos exposure its employees suffered, the claim states.

City officials declined to discuss specific allegations in the legal claim, a formal filing that is generally required before a public agency can be sued in court. But they issued a statement saying that protecting employees from any dangerous work conditions is a top priority.

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The city takes the workplace conditions of its employees seriously and thats why action was taken to remove all employees from the building once potential asbestos was discovered, the statement said. City employees were instructed to leave all their equipment and personal belongings inside to prevent additional contamination.

City leaders said they expect to sue the building owner on behalf of the city and its employees.

The employee claim was filed Sept. 14 on behalf of city building inspector Bryan Monaghan. It was signed by San Diego attorney Maria Severson, who said up to 550 employees may eventually join the litigation.

Theyre nervous, Severson said of the city employees. Some people have acute illnesses and symptoms as a result of the exposure but what the majority of them have is a fear of cancer, which is a recognizable claim.

They are forced to live their life wondering if it is going to materialize.

The two-page claim seeks unspecified damages. A 16-page attachment details the history of the building renovations and a timeline showing asbestos-removal work and subsequent complaints from employees about headaches, nausea and other symptoms.

According to the attachment, the city began moving employees into the building in January 2016. They came from the planning department, auditors office, homeland security, information technology and other offices.

In July 2017, the county Air Pollution Control District was notified by Clauss Construction that the building owners, Tower 180 Owner LLC, planned to remove approximately 5,000 square feet of asbestos-containing fireproofing.

It was not immediately clear whether the county or contractor alerted the city or other tenants in the building to the removal project. Clauss Construction did not respond to a message Tuesday and a county spokesman said the county is not required to make such notifications.

By August, city employees in the tower known as the Executive Complex began complaining about side effects of the construction work, the claim says.

In January, county air-pollution officials received an emergency notification that asbestos had been disturbed during renovation work in the building lobby -- and the material required immediate removal.

During subsequent inspection and air-testing, county officials noted that poorly constructed polyvinyl sheeting containing holes was all that separated the construction zone and the occupied office space, the claim states.

Samples from late January tested positive for two types of asbestos, the claim alleges.

Between Jan. 25 and Jan. 29, seven separate samples came back with asbestos contents of 20 to 65 percent in fireproofing material and wall debris, the claim said. Four of those samples were taken on floors that were occupied, results showed.

On Jan. 31, the city announced that in an abundance of caution it was moving 550 employees from the high rise.

The citys lease of Executive Complex was slated to terminate on June 30, 2019, the statement said. However, the city has an option to terminate sooner and planned to shift all operations currently located at Executive Complex to 101 Ash St., which the city leased-to-own and is starting renovations in the next few months.

Five weeks later, at a March 2 meeting with city workers called to address health concerns of the asbestos exposure, Villa told employees something different.

The reason why it took so long is there was no way for us to break the lease and we would have been held liable for all of that, he said, according to a transcript of the meeting cited in the claim. Now that is over $1 million. Is that worth everybodys whatever? Maybe, maybe not.

The fact is there is a cost to that and we would have been in litigation over that, added Villa, who also pledged to post test results on the city website and provide copies of a pending report to employees when completed.

Also attending the March employee meeting were an environmental services expert and an occupational medicine physician, each of whom told workers that their long-term health risks were minimal.

Everything was within tolerable levels, breathable air levels that would be just as safe as for a hospital or school, the environmental services expert said.

The city did not explain the discrepancy between its Jan. 31 press release stating the lease was breakable and Villas comment to employees in March. Additionally, no test results were posted online and no report was given to employees, the claim alleged.

Plans to move hundreds of city employees into the office tower at 101 Ash St. also hit a snag.

Last year the city agreed to spend just over $200 million on a lease-to-own deal to acquire the building, former headquarters for Manchester Financial and, before that, Sempra Energy.

Aides to Mayor Kevin Faulconer told the City Council the building just needed a $10,000 power wash before hundreds of employees could be moved in by July 2017. That schedule was delayed amid design changes and unexpected renovations.

The city has been paying $18,000 a day to lease that vacant building since January 2017, with move-in expected late next year. In August, the council agreed to spend an additional $30 million on renovations for the Ash Street high rise.

Tower 180 Owner LLC issued a statement Tuesday saying the company responded prudently to the exposure.

Once notified of the environmental issues on the evening of Friday, Feb. 9, the owners immediately began working closely with the tenants and regulatory agencies to address the concerns surrounding the building, the statement said. Tenants were notified via an official notice by email on the morning of Feb. 10, 2018.

In a report earlier this year, the county Air Pollution Control District said it was gravely concerned for the potential of repeated and ongoing exposure of the public to harmful asbestos debris both inside and outside the building, the claim states.

County spokesman Michael Workman said the asbestos-removal project was written up by air-pollution inspectors for multiple violations.

They were cited and now are in compliance and are checked routinely, Workman wrote in an email.

Many of the workers exposed to asbestos in the Executive Complex are represented by the San Diego Municipal Employees Association.

Michael Zucchet, the former councilman who now runs the union, said even before he and his members learned about the asbestos exposure in January, working conditions inside the Executive Complex were difficult.

It wasnt just about the asbestos, he said. There was dust and noise and walled-off windows. Anybody who has lived through a home remodel knows its terrible. The city just kept saying they had nowhere else to place the employees.

Watchdog Videos On Now Sexual misconduct accusers worry deputy is being protected 6:16 On Now City funded $2-million waterfront bathroom 1:26 On Now Public water district charges customer for legal work, response to records request On Now Video: Tiny homes won't be reused amid housing, homeless crisis On Now Attorney General seeks documentation for Miss Middle East On Now Rep. Hunter probe covers possible fraud On Now Video: SDG&E delaying solar credit for some low-income housing tenants On Now Video: Former San Diego Junior Theatre teacher sentenced for sex with teen girl 0:24 On Now Video: Shelter volunteers believe they were fired for finding a dog a home 0:49 On Now McKamey Manor is leaving San Diego 3:35

jeff.mcdonald@sduniontribune.com (619) 293-1708 @sdutMcDonaldPolitical correctness running amok in California

Re Scrutiny of Serras legacy returns after Stanford re-brand decision (Sept. 24): Mission San Diego de Alcala in Mission Valley celebrates its 250th year of founding by Saint Junipero Serra in 2019. So why not celebrate this momentous occasion by removing his name from everything we can find?

Lets rewrite the history books to keep out the things that arent politically correct 250 years after the fact. In fact, the truth is that we should name more things in his honor. Father Serra made it his lifes works to serve the poor and attempted to make thousands of people better off than when he found them.

Bob Seelos

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Mission Hills

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.THUMBS UP and a well done to Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 7907 for holding a public Prisoners of War/Missing in Action recognition event Friday at Poway Veterans Park. It was the first time the annual observance of POW/MIA Recognition Day held each year by the post was made into a public event. According to organizers, it was an attempt to keep the topic in the publics mind, especially among children.

THUMBS UP to the North San Diego Business Chamber for putting on the seventh annual Heroes Award luncheon, held at Sony Electronics in Rancho Bernardo. Twenty-one first-responders and others involved in law enforcement were recognized by several hundred of their professional peers for going above and beyond the call of duty. A special award was presented to Poway resident Diane Craig for stopping to performing CPR on Phil Worthington, whom she noticed laying on a street near his Poway home. Worthington, a San Diego Police Department detective, shared with stage with her at the luncheon.

THUMBS DOWN to challengers in local elections who use the public comment portion of governing board meetings to either push their candidacies or criticize an incumbent against whom they are running. Everyone has the right to stand up during a public meeting to and have his or her say on a topic that comes under the boards jurisdiction, but the actions of these candidates seem to cross the line of appropriateness. The public meetings are recorded for public view. Perhaps they are playing to a perceived audience of viewer/voters? They are also taking advantage of the states open meeting law because sitting board members are generally prohibited from responding to remarks made during the public comment period.

THUMBS UP to Rancho Bernardo resident Lilia Montiel for her efforts to help poor children in San Diego who have no bed to sleep upon. The 13-year-old eighth grader at Bernardo Heights Middle School started a nonprofit organization this summer called ZZZs4Kidz. By talking with friends, businesses and launching a fundraising website at gofundme.com/zzzs4kidz, as of Sept. 21 she had raised $3,473 of her initial $4,000 goal. That is enough to provide 10 children with a mattress, bed frame and bedding. Her long-term goal is to provide bedding sets for 1,000 children in San Diego. She was inspired to take on this project after her father, a speech and language pathologist, told his family about one of his students who was bitten on the arm by rats while sleeping on the floor because he had no bed.

THUMBS UP to Wylie Avinion, owner of The Country Club Barber Shop in Carmel Mountain Ranch, and his employees for providing free monthly haircuts to the homeless in downtown San Diego. Their charitable efforts over the past four years have been through the nonprofit organization Streets of Hope San Diego. Its volunteers assist the homeless each Monday evening by handing out food, clothing and other necessities. The haircuts for men, women and children were the idea of Tammy Nguyen, a former Rancho Penasquitos resident. Up to 80 homeless individuals have received haircuts and beard trims.

THUMBS UP to Westview High School teacher Katie Wu, announced Saturday as one of five teachers earning the 2018 San Diego County Teacher of the Year recognition as part of the 28th annual Cox Presents: A Salute to Teachers. The five will represent the county in the California Teacher of the Year program, with state winners being announced later this year. The fact the Poway Unified School District usually has an annual county winner speaks to the quality of education offered by the district.

Email: editor@pomeradonews.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.Rockville, WA -- (SBWIRE) -- 09/26/2018 -- Carotid artery stenting (CAS) is an endovascular procedure to treat narrowing of the carotid artery, which reduces the risk of transient ischemic attacks (TIAs) or strokes. It involves the placement of a stent in the carotid artery to treat narrowing of the carotid artery and decreases the risk of stroke. A stent is a metal or plastic tube inserted into the lumen of the carotid artery to avoid its narrowing and thereby keeping the passageway open for blood flow. Carotid stenting is the preferred therapy for patients, who do not want to undergo carotid surgery.



Carotid Stenting Systems Market: Drivers and Restraints



The increasing graph of cardiac diseases such as atherosclerosis, coronary artery diseases driven by growing risk factors such as high consumption of cholesterol rich foods, sedentary lifestyles, substance abuse, diabetes, obesity and high blood pressure is the key driver for the growth of the global carotid stenting systems market. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, coronary artery disease (CAD) is the most common heart disease in the U.S. and is the leading cause of deaths, claiming over 370,000 lives annually.



Request Sample of this Report @ https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=S&rep_id=1025



Technological advancement in stents such as drug eluting stents, use of biodegradable, and bio-absorbable materials for stent construction, improvements in stent design such as bifurcated stents and others are driving the growth of the global carotid stenting systems market owing to greater efficiency and efficacy. Improvements in implantation techniques and development of complementary technologies such as real-time diagnostic imaging such as computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging and others have resulted in greater confidence and concurrent number of stenting procedures performed. Another advancement is the development of stent coatings to combat stent-based trauma, and restenosis.



The restraining factors of the global carotid stenting systems market are high cost of the procedure, risk of infection and stent failure, thrombosis, restenosis or the re-narrowing of the arteries, and lack of of trained manpower and specialty hospitals. The global carotid stenting systems market also faces competition from balloon angioplasty, coronary angioplasty, and carotid endarterectomy.



Carotid Stenting Systems Market: Segmentation



The global carotid stenting systems market is segmented based on components, route of administration, animal models, clinical indications, study design, and region.



Carotid Stenting Systems Market: Overview



The global market for carotid stenting systems is consolidated with a few large players dominating the scene. The market trends include a definite shift in favor of developing regions of Asia Pacific, such as India and China. There is also a strong trend of collaboration between large hospitals and third party payers owing to growing adoption of healthcare insurance.



Request for Brochure on this report @ https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=B&rep_id=1025



Carotid Stenting Systems Market: Regional Outlook



The global carotid stenting systems market is classified into regions viz. North America, Latin America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia-Pacific, Japan, Middle East and Africa. North America is expected to account a large share in the global carotid stenting systems market owing to concentration of key market players, consolidation of healthcare, and large research and development expenditure.



The Asia Pacific excluding Japan carotid stenting systems market is expected to grow at a significant CAGR owing to growing healthcare expenditure. China and India are expected to drive a lion's share of the market growth owing to growing healthcare infrastructure and expenditure. The expanding number of cases owing to growing risk factors is another driver of the market. Europe carotid stenting systems market is expected to be led by Germany, France and the U.K. The Middle East and Africa carotid stenting systems market is expected to be skewed in favor of the gulf economies of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar. The development of large medical complexes such as the King Fahd Hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, coupled with the large public healthcare share of which is approximately 75 % of the total healthcare expenditure is expected to drive the market for carotid stenting systems in the MEA.



Carotid Stenting Systems Market: Key Players



Examples of some of the major players operating in the global carotid stenting systems market are Abbott Vascular, Boston Scientific Corporation, Cardinal Health Company, Medtronic, Silk Road Medical, InspireMD, Balton Sp. z o. o., etc. Collaboration between players and strategic business partnerships are the strategies that can yield premium.



The global carotid stenting systems report is a compilation of first-hand information, qualitative and quantitative assessment by industry analysts, inputs from industry experts and industry participants across the value chain. The report provides in-depth analysis of parent market trends, macro-economic indicators and governing factors along with market attractiveness as per segments. The report also maps the qualitative impact of various market factors on market segments and geographies.



Read Report @ https://www.factmr.com/report/1025/carotid-stenting-systems-market



About Fact.MR

Fact.MR is a fast-growing market research firm that offers the most comprehensive suite of syndicated and customized market research reports. We believe transformative intelligence can educate and inspire businesses to make smarter decisions. We know the limitations of the one-size-fits-all approach; that's why we publish multi-industry global, regional, and country-specific research reports.Vilnius, Lithuania -- (SBWIRE) -- 09/26/2018 -- Lipogems is a medical treatment that uses a person's own fat to help heal his or her damaged tissues in a minimally invasive way, or improve post-operative healing for those who have undergone surgery. People go abroad for Lipogems to benefit from the medical breakthrough at an affordable price.



Lipogems is a procedure that uses the body's fat tissues to support its natural healing process. Lipogems has helped patients heal and get back to do the things that they love to do, whether with or without surgery.



"I was unsure of getting Lipogems until I talked to a doctor who explained to me that my fat tissues can form into various organism's cells and regenerate my damaged tissues. I finally decided to go for it, and I couldn't be happier." - says Brian Walker, a 46-year old engineer from Wakefield, England.



Brian decided to undergo Lipogems for hips procedure instead of undergoing a replacement surgery when he found out that the Lipogems cost abroad is not as high as he thought. He booked a complete package to lessen his stress.



"Our Lipogems procedure is safe and minimally invasive, performed under local anaesthesia. Although being extremely effective, Lipogems is not a procedure that patients could get at any hospital  only certain hospitals in Europe perform Lipogems, and our hospital is one of the few." - says Kardiolita Hospital CEO Andrius Kostogriz.



International patients heading to Vilnius, Lithuania where the hospital is located enjoy no waiting times. Since the hospital is in a good geographical location, their travel is short and inexpensive.



Kardiolita Hospital is one of the few world-class hospitals in Europe performing Lipogems procedure for patients from all over the world. Patients coming to Kardiolita Hospital for Lipogems report exceptional results  they can finally walk without pain and discomfort, without joint replacement surgery.



Visit http://www.kardiolita.com/our-services/service-centres/93/lipogems/service-1645 for more information.



To schedule an appointment or with any questions, send a message to: http://www.kardiolita.com/contact-us/130. Alternatively, please call +370 694 70170 to get all your questions answered.



About Kardiolita Hospital

Kardiolita Hospital is the leading private general hospital in Lithuania, accredited by the JCI and working by the highest industry standards. Established in 1998 Kardiolita Hospital provides full range of medical services  from comprehensive diagnostics to various surgical treatments within many medical areas. Kardiolita Hospital employs 200+ highly qualified Lithuanian doctors with extensive international experience and treatment performance of more than 45+ medical areas. The hospital has long-term experience in treating international patients.



Contact Information:

Kardiolita Hospital

Phone: +370 694 70170

Laisves Av. 64a, Vilnius, Lithuania

http://www.kardiolita.comAlbany, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 09/26/2018 -- Personal protective equipment market includes various kinds of protective instruments used for workplace safety. There are various types of personal protective equipment used presently including head protection, eye and face protection, protective clothing, respiratory protection, professional footwear, hearing protection, fall protection, hand protection and others. The others segment includes neck protection, protection against prolonged immersion in water and other equipment used during emergency. Protective equipment finds application across various industry verticals which include construction, chemicals, manufacturing and mining among others. Increasing awareness about workplace safety is one of the major factors fueling the demand for personal protective equipment in Turkey.



Get PDF Sample Of Research Report@ https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=4098



Istanbul, Ankara, Mersin and Kayseri among others are some of the major cities fueling the demand for personal protective equipment in Turkey. EU Workplace Health and Safety Directive acts as Turkish Health and Safety Legislation. The effect of these regulations is expected to be high in the coming years boosting the demand for personal protective equipment. Increasing awareness about workplace safety and strict government mandates is fueling the demand for personal protective equipment in Turkey. Apart from this, increasing number of workplace accidents is also boosting the demand for personal protective equipment. The OHS law governs occupational safety and health in Turkey. Low quality and inexpensive products coupled with rising popularity of automation across different industries are some of the key restraining factor for the market. However, in the coming years, these safety mandates are expected to be more strict making it compulsory for business utilities to follow safety regulations.



The application of personal protective equipment in the manufacturing segment held the largest market share in Turkey. Increasing awareness about workplace safety and stringent government regulations are the major factors fueling the demand for personal protective equipment in manufacturing sector in Turkey. The increasing workforce in the petrochemicals sector is boosting the demand for personal protective equipment in petrochemicals sector. Rapid industrialization coupled with increasing amount of foreign investments is one of the prime factors fueling the demand for personal protective equipment in Turkey.



Head protection equipment is one of the major personal protective equipment used in Turkey. However, the personal protective equipment market in the professional footwear segment held the largest market share in 2013 and is expected maintain its position over the forecast period. The hand protection equipment segment is one of the fastest growing personal protective equipment. The hand protection equipment finds application across various application sectors including construction, manufacturing, transportation, chemicals and pharmaceuticals among others.



Istanbul is one of the major regions supporting the demand for personal protective equipment in Turkey. Istanbul employs a major portion of the workforce in employed in Turkey. In addition, Ankara and Mersin among others are also some of the major cities fueling the demand for personal protective equipment in Turkey.



Some of the local players operating in Turkey include Kaya Group, Yakupogullari and Ismont among others. The business utilities in these regions tend to buy products from the local players due to lack of stringent regulations putting pressure on the major players to compete with the local brands. However, increasing awareness about workplace safety and upcoming government regulations is expected to boost the demand for personal protective equipment in accordance with the international standards.



Download ToC Of Research Report@ https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/report-toc/4098



New product development through research, merger and acquisitions are some of the key business strategies complied by major players in order to strengthen its presence in the personal protective equipment market. 3M Co. (U.S.), Ansell Ltd. (Australia), Avon Rubber p.l.c. (U.K.), JAL Group (Italy), COFRA Holding AG (Switzerland), Oftenrich Holdings Company Limited (Golden Chang) (Taiwan), Honeywell Safety Products (U.S.), Rahman Industries Ltd. (India), Elten GmbH (Germany) among others are some the key companies operating in this market.Nearly 77,000 passengers carried

Norwegian Cruise Line's newest ship was christened in Seattle on May 30 before commencing weekly Alaska cruises. Nearly 77,000 passengers sailed on 17 voyages calling at Ketchikan, Skagway, Juneau and Victoria, BC.

'Thanks to partners like Norwegian Cruise Line, Seattle is proud to be a sustainable leader in cruising while creating more economic opportunities for businesses in our region,' Port of Seattle Commission president Courtney Gregoire said. 'We appreciate the efforts of Norwegian Bliss to conserve water, reduce waste and make cruising healthy for our environment and communities.'

Alaska encore

Norwegian Bliss returns to Seattle on May 5, 2019, for a second Alaska season. At that time, the ship will be joined by Norwegian Joy sailing from Seattle and Norwegian Jewel cruising from Vancouver, BC, and Seward, Alaska.

The success of Norwegian Bliss 'surpassed anything we could have imagined, and as a result, we are very enthusiastic about our decision to introduce her sister ship, Norwegian Joy, to the US market in April 2019,' Norwegian president and CEO Andy Stuart said.

Mexican Riviera in October

As the largest and one of the newest ships to cruise from the Port of Los Angeles, Norwegian Bliss will offer seven-day cruises to Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan and Cabo San Lucas, from Oct. 527.Press Release

September 25, 2018 Villanueva: Fresh grads, out-of-school youth to benefit from First-Time Jobseekers Bill Senator Joel Villanueva, chairperson of the Senate committee on labor, employment, and human resources development, on Tuesday welcomed the Senate approval on second reading of Senate Bill No. 1629 or the "First-time Jobseekers Assistance Act" which exempts fresh graduates and out-of-school youth from paying government fees and charges on documents needed for their job application. "We thank our colleagues in the Senate for supporting this measure. We hope that our counterpart in the House of Representatives will soon pass a similar measure that will ease the burden of our first-time jobseekers," said Villanueva, author and sponsor of the measure. First-time jobseekers include fresh graduates, students who have taken leaves of absence and out-of-school youth. The measure, which the senator dubbed as "Kontra-Tambay" bill, aims to address the uncertainty being faced by fresh graduates on their school-to-work transition, and to shoulder the cost of fees and charges in acquiring government documents. According to a study conducted by the Asian Development Bank entitled, "Are Filipino Youth Off to a Good Start?", the school-to-work transition for many young Filipinos is associated with change, waiting, and uncertainty. Villanueva further shared that it usually takes a high school leaver up to 3 years to find a first job while it takes a college graduate 1 year to find a first job. The ADB study also said that regulations and restrictions on employment arrangements is one of the strong factors influencing their school-to-work transition. The senator further cited some of the pre-employment documents a fresh graduate needs which include: (1) Police Clearance Certificate; (2) NBI Clearance (3) Barangay Clearance; (4) Medical Certificate; (5) Birth and/or Marriage Certificate; (6) Tax Identification Number; and (7) Other documentary requirements issued by the government that may be required by employers for first-time jobseekers. Villanueva noted that fees and charges for the said documents may cost up to P2,000. This does not include other expenses for food, fare, printing, and appropriate clothing for job interviews. The bill, if passed into law, would greatly benefit around 600,000 fresh graduates annually. "Kung magkakatrabaho po kaagad ang ating mga kabataan at hindi sila tambay, makikinabang po ang lahat, lalo na ang kanilang pamilya na umaasa sa kanila, at mas sisigla pa ang ating ekonomiya," Villanueva said.Press Release

September 26, 2018 Accede to int'l human rights covenant's protocol, De Lima urges DFA To show the country's strong commitment to human rights, Senator Leila M. de Lima has urged the Department of Foreign Affairs to accede to the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (OP-ICESCR). De Lima filed Senate Resolution No. 898 urging the DFA to seriously consider adhering and adopting the OP-ICESCR which provides for a communications and inquiry procedures for individuals and groups whose rights may have been violated. "Certain individuals and sectors are vulnerable to civil and political rights violations given their economic, social, and cultural conditions," she said. According to her, the lack of educational opportunities, unavailability or poor employment environment, and inadequate social protection mechanisms, among others, are more than enough proofs that certain rights may have been violated in our country. "Grinding poverty still persists in our country, despite the considerable economic growth rate in recent years," she added, mindful that an estimated 21.9 million Filipinos do not even have enough income to afford basic food and non-food needs. In 1974, the Philippines became one of the 184 member-states of the United Nations that ratified the ICESCR which provides economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR) to individuals and groups and guarantees enjoyment without discrimination. As a main treaty in the United Nations human rights system, ICESCR also sets favorable work conditions, social security, protection of the family, adequate standards of living, education and benefits related to scientific and culture. The OP-ICESCR, however, provides for communications and inquiry procedures allowing individuals and groups whose ESCR are violated to lodge complaints before the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and allow it to initiate investigation. "This means," De Lima continued, "that if national courts fail to protect against specific violations of their economic, social and cultural rights, the people will be able to raise their case before the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights." De Lima, a former chair of the Commission on Human Rights, pointed out that the OP-ICESCR will clarify the State's obligations with regard to human rights and contribute to the adoption of positive policy measures and access to justice at the national level. "The OP-ICESCR can provide further impetus to the development and crafting of more meaningful laws and policies that uplift the dignity of all and strengthen the existing legal system that addresses the myriad issues related to the economic, social and cultural rights of the Filipinos," she said.Villanueva welcomes 2nd-reading approval of bill institutionalizing social welfare attaches in countries with high concentration of OFWs

Senator Joel Villanueva, chairperson of the Senate committee on labor, employment, and human resources development, on Wednesday welcomed the approval on second reading of a measure institutionalizing social welfare attaches as a permanent component of Philippine foreign posts in countries or jurisdictions with the highest concentration of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) or cases of Filipinos being trafficked.

"It is high time that we pass a measure deploying more social welfare attaches amid the numerous cases of abuses against OFWs especially in the Middle East," said Villanueva, author and sponsor of Senate Bill No. 1819 or An Act Establishing The Office For Social Welfare Attache.

Data shows that from 2013 until the first semester of 2017, our Social Welfare Attaches served a total of 61,131 distressed OFWs who were victims of physical, sexual and psychological abuse, maltreatment, trafficking and marital conflicts, as well as abandoned or neglected children and other vulnerable sectors.

However, Villanueva noted that only eight social welfare attaches were deployed in several parts of the world as of May 2018.

The Social Welfare Attache Bill provides: a) adequate and timely social, economic and legal services to OFWs; b) deployment of social welfare attaches to manage cases of OFWs in distress; and c) ensures coordination among agencies and various groups to address the psychosocial needs of distressed OFWs.

"We have over 10 million Filipinos spread out in more than 170 countries. Malaking bagay po na makapagdeploy tayo ng sapat na social welfare attaches para mabigyan ang ating OFWs ng lakas ng loob, tamang pag-iisip at desisyon, positibong pananaw, ispiritwal na paggabay, at psycho-social support para ma-empower sila at nang makaiwas sa anumang kapahamakan," Villanueva said.Press Release

September 26, 2018 Villar pushes cheaper certification cost for organic produce Saying more Filipinos should have access to healthy and safe farm products, Sen. Cynthia Villar has pushed for a system of organic products certification which small farmers can also afford. During the Committee on Agriculture and Food hearing on bills amending Republic Act 10068 or the Organic Agriculture Act of 2010, Villar said "farmers find the cost of third party certification with the tag price ranging from 42,000 to 150,000 per crop, valid for only one year to be exorbitant." "This amount is way beyond the purse of small farmers who have perennial problem to access for even a small capital for production. Only rich farmers or corporations can afford third party certification. The provision has become a deterrent and disincentive for small farmers comprising a large percentage of the farming population," Villar said. To address this, Villar authored Senate Bill 1911 which proposes the establishment of the Participatory Guarantee System (PGS) as an alternative to third-party certification. PGS, which will only cost farmers P600 to P2000, is built on trust and integrity of farmers and consumers who conduct the certification process themselves through adherence to certification standards, guidelines, regulation and processes, similarly observed by third party certification. Villar also noted that PGS is now widely adhered to and accepted by international organic movements, such as the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movement. It is also recognized by the Food and Agricultural Organization as a pro-small farmer alternative to third party certification. "Aside from environmental protection, increased farmer profitability is also a great motivation to promote and develop the organic industry. It promotes the use of natural and farm-based resources and inputs like organic fertilizer, which would yield to less input cost on the part of the farmers," Villar said. "Syempre gusto nating ma-avail at ma-aaford ng small farmers ang certification. Without them, organic farming will not really take off or further develop," she added. Government officials and organic practitioners who attended the hearing also expressed their support to PGS as a certification system. "We support the PGS because to say that we encourage farmers to be organic and to charge them more than hundred thousand is quite contradictory. There's a secondary advantage. It encourages farmers to organize cooperativism, aggregation of lands and farmers which I think, is key to raising productivity, not only of organic farms but all farms including rice farm, for example, which is the issue hot issue today," said Jose Gabriel Lavina, alternate chair for the National Organic Agriculture Board. Among the resource persons were Indira Bagatsing (kahariam Realty and Farms, Inc.), Henry James Sison (All Seasons Nature farms), Ian Basa Cabriga (Teofely nature Farms), Mara Pardo de Tavera (Mara's Origanal Market), Girlie Sarmiento (Organic Producers and Trade Association), Carmen Cabling (PGS Pilipinas), and Cris Panerio (MASIPAG).NZ Windfarms says it will look at any strategic options, including sale of its Te Rere Hau project, in order to deliver the best value to its shareholders.

The firm, which has cut annual operating costs by about $2 million, developed a new turbine operating regime and adopted a hedging strategy, can expect to be consistently and moderately profitable, chairman Stuart Bauld told shareholders today.

The company has good assets, a good location and now gets on with its neighbours, but is never going to be a major player in the industry, he said, while options the company has been considering to improve the stability of its earnings, including a partnership with a retailer, or investment in back-up generation, are all risky and expensive.

Without a significant capital infusion the company is unlikely to fully use its existing assets, he said. Given existing shareholders are unlikely to fund that, the company has begun a strategic review of its operations and intends to appoint a financial adviser to review the firms capital structure and look at wider strategic options, Bauld said.

There is nothing that is off the table but youve got to be realistic, he told BusinessDesk after the firms annual meeting in Palmerston North today. Some of those may be more achievable than others.

The firms shares were unchanged today at 12.3 cents, giving it a market value of $35.4 million.

At that price the 48 MW Te Rere Hau project - the firm's sole asset - could be an attractive addition to an existing generator, particularly given consents the company has for expansion.

But the 97 two-bladed 500 kilowatt Windflow turbines are the only ones of their kind operating in New Zealand and the industry is increasingly looking to larger, lower-cost turbines for the next major generation investment, expected after 2021.

Te Rere Hau lies south-west of Tilts Tararua windfarm and Meridian Energys Te Apiti project. To the south lies the site for Mercury NZs consented Turitea project.

NZ Windfarms chief executive John Worth said the Tararua range is recognised as having the countrys best wind resource. With 2021 approaching, an operating wind farm with scope for additional development should be attractive, he said.

Other firms, including King Country Energy, have previously looked at NZ Windfarms. A perceived obstacle previously was former major shareholder Vector. Vector sold its 22 percent stake in February.

During the past two years, NZ Windfarms has reduced its staff, settled consent disputes with neighbours, bought the projects lines and transformers from Powerco and changed its operation to avoid running turbines at times of low power prices or in damaging, turbulent wind conditions.

June year earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation jumped to $3.95 million from $280,000 a year earlier.

Worth said the company has spent the past 18 months addressing its structural issues. But he said being a merchant wind generator in the New Zealand market remains tough.

Independent power retailers are also finding it tough, but the company will continue to look at the potential for retail partnerships, he said.

Acquiring back-up generation  through contract or purchase - also remains an option but assets tend to be highly prized and highly priced. That tends to limit the potential savings available, Worth said.

(BusinessDesk)

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Bollywood actress Tanushree Dutta who was last seen in the 2010 film, opened up about being harassed on the sets of a film ten years ago. In a recent interview, theactress said she was harassed by actor Nana Patekar on the sets of 2009 film

More and more Bollywood actors and actresses are calling out sexual harassment in the industry, courtesy of Sri Reddy. The actress took the Telugu and Tamil industry by storm when she stripped in front of the Telugu Film Chamber of Commerce protesting against sexual exploitation in cinema. The actress even took to social media, narrating her experiences with actors, directors and producers.

Taking a page from her book, the Chocolate actress revealed her story. Tanushree said that the celebs who are speaking about women empowerment today were quiet when she spoke about sexual harassment. The Dhol actress alleged that Nana Patekar tried to intimidate her and pushed her around; she also said that he wanted to do an intimate scene with her and when she objected, she was cornered and he got his way. The actress alleged that when he protested his advances, Nana called members of a political party who came and broke her car.

The 36 China Town actress said that she filed a complaint with Cine and Television Artistes Association for damage to her property and reputation. When she brought to light the issue of her co-star's misbehaviour, she was replaced by Rakhi Sawant in the movie.

Tanushree Dutta feels that the #Me Too movement that took Hollywood by storm will never happen in India, unless people acknowledge what happened to her in 2008.When you think of Morocco, your mind will probably go straight to the food. A totally unique cuisine that blends Arabic, Andalusian, and Mediterranean cuisines and mixed meat, seafood and vegetables with olive oils, dried fruit and spices. With so much choice of restaurants in Marrakech, we were lucky to have our Local Concierge, Jessica from Original Travel on hand to give us plenty of recommendations for fantastic restaurants in the city. I thought Id share with you the places that we tried.

1. The Selman

Jessica recommended lunch at The Selman, a five star palace hotel that was a little out of the city but only a short fifteen minute drive from our hotel. The interior of the hotel is plush and decadently designed by architect Jacques Garcia, inspired by Moroccan style.

Guests looking for a more gourmet dinner can dine in the hotels main restaurant, Le Selman, but for a more casual lunch we booked into the Pool Bar which is located by the hotels 80 metre swimming pool.



The restaurant serves a combination of Mediterranean and international flavours dishes and we opted for tuna nicoise salad to start for Mr S and poached egg and asparagus for me. There is also a chef preparing fresh barbecue food  Mr S couldnt resist the lure of a mixed grill while I had a very beautifully cooked salmon.



2. Villa Des Orangers

With our own hotel being a Relais & Chateaux propery, food is taken very seriously and French Chef Jean Claude Orly uses local ingredients to create a menu with both International and Moroccan choices.

Lunch was eaten in a shady spot by the pool at Villa Des Orangers under orange trees and we sampled local Moroccan salads and the chefs tagine.



Dinner was a beautiful set up of romantic twinkling lanterns with private tables for couples and the menu is a small but perfectly formed list of elegant gourmet choices.

Check out my review of Villa Des Orangers to read about this meal in full.

3. La Grande Table Marocaine at the Royal Mansour

The La Grande Table Marocaine is one of the best restaurants in Marrakech and it is located at the Royal Mansour, one of the most luxurious properties. Commissioned by King Mohammed VI, who often hosts his guests there, the hotel is utterly gorgeous. I highly recommend a little look around the rooms and grounds before heading in the for dinner.



The restaurant dining has a gorgeous ambiance, inspired by Moroccan culture and the service is second to none! The chef patron is multi-Michelin starred Yannick Alleno (we went to his three star restaurant Le 1947 earlier this year) so there is no doubt the food is going to be good! Guests can choose from an a la carte menu or several different tasting menu, we went for a classic version of the latter.



As usual romantic lighting doesnt aid photography but we ate an array of Moroccan salads followed by Royal Mansour Pigeon pastilla. Next we a whole sea bream and veal shoulder Mechoui style finishing off with frosted water melon and milk cream pastilla.

PIN FOR LATER:

I travelled to Morocco as part of a press trip with Original Travel and my meals at Villa Des Orangers and The Selman were complimentary.US arrests Chinese national on spying charge



Chicago, Sept 26 (AFP) Sep 26, 2018



A Chinese national who came to the US on a student visa was arrested Tuesday in Chicago and accused of helping Beijing attempt to recruit American scientists and engineers.

Ji Chaoqun was allegedly tasked with providing Chinese intelligence with biographical information about eight American citizens -- some of whom were US defense contractors.

The 27-year-old, who first arrived in Chicago in 2013 to study electrical engineering on a student visa, was charged with one count of knowingly acting as an agent of a foreign government without prior notification to the US Attorney General.

According to a court affidavit, Ji was working at the direction of a "high-level intelligence officer" in China's Ministry of State Security, which "handles civilian intelligence collection and is responsible for counter-intelligence and foreign intelligence, as well as political security."

All eight of the people Ji allegedly researched were naturalized American citizens who were born in Taiwan or China, according to authorities. The targets either currently worked or were recently retired from a career in the science and technology industry.

An affidavit filed in federal court by an FBI investigator specializing in espionage, claims among the people targeted was an engineer at one of "the world's top aircraft engine suppliers for both commercial and military aircraft."

After one of Ji's handlers was arrested, he met with US undercover agents in April and May, and admitted to his work, which included collecting background checks, the affidavit said.

He allegedly told the undercover agents: "They just wanted me to purchase some documents on their behalf. Their reason was just because it was inconvenient for them to make payments from China."

Ji also enlisted in the US Army Reserves, according to the US Attorney's office, but failed to disclose his foreign contacts to the military.Trump takes aim at Iran, China at UN Security Council



United Nations, United States, Sept 26 (AFP) Sep 26, 2018



President Donald Trump on Wednesday accused Iran of spreading chaos and China of meddling in US elections at a UN Security Council meeting that laid bare divisions between the United States and other world powers.

Presiding for the first time a meeting of the United Nations' body, Trump denounced the "horrible, one-sided" nuclear deal with Iran that he ditched in May, to the dismay of European allies.

A gavel-wielding Trump took a swipe at China, accusing Beijing of working against his Republican Party in upcoming midterm elections as payback for their growing trade war, a charge China's foreign minister said was "unwarranted."

Wednesday's meeting highlighted a rift between the United States and its European allies over the Iran nuclear deal.

Trump vowed that re-imposed sanctions will be "in full force" and urged world powers to work with the United States to "ensure the Iranian regime changes its behavior and never acquires a nuclear bomb."

Addressing the council after Trump, French President Emmanuel Macron hit back, declaring that concerns about Iran cannot be tackled with "a policy of sanctions and containment."

Also defending the deal that was endorsed in a Security Council resolution, British Prime Minister Teresa May said it "remains the best means of preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon."

The United States has moved to reimpose sanctions that had been lifted under the 2015 deal to curb Iran's nuclear program and has vowed to punish foreign firms that do business with Iran.

Trump argued that since the deal was signed in 2015, "Iran's aggression only increased" and that funds released from the lifting of sanctions had been used "to support terrorism, build nuclear capable missiles and foment chaos."

Iran did not request to speak at the council meeting, but Iranian President Hassan Rohani told a news conference that the United States would eventually rejoin the nuclear deal and pledged Tehran's continued commitment to the accord.

"The United States of America one day, sooner or later, will come back. This cannot be continued," Rouhani said.

Turning to Syria, Trump assailed Russia and Iran for backing President Bashar la-Assad in his brutal war in Syria, saying: "The Syrian regime's butchery is enabled by Russia and Iran."

China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi stressed that the "rights of all countries to trade with Iran should be respected" after the European Union said a special payment system would be set up to keep alive business ties with Iran.



- 'Unwarranted' accusations -



In a blunt attack on China, Trump told the council that China wanted to see him suffer an elections setback because of his hard line on trade.

"Regrettably we found that China has been attempting to interfere in our upcoming 2018 election coming up in November against my administration," he said.

"They do not want me or us to win because I am the first president ever to challenge China on trade."

The Republicans could lose control of both the Senate and House of Representatives in November's elections, further imperiling Trump's chances of chalking up legislative achievements.

The Chinese foreign minister responded flatly that Beijing strictly adhered to a policy of non-interference.

"We did not and will not interfere in any country's domestic affairs. We refuse to accept any unwarranted accusations against China," said Wang.

Tensions have soared between Beijing and Washington after Trump this week slapped new tariffs covering $200 billion in Chinese goods exported to the United States.

On North Korea, Trump called for sanctions to be strictly enforced against Pyongyang -- a message directed at Russia and China which are pushing for an easing of punitive measures to reward North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Without naming countries, the US president noted that "some nations are already violating UN sanctions" including illegal ship-to-ship transfers of oil and said compliance was "very important."

His comments came shortly before his top diplomat, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, signaled Wednesday that he would return to North Korea next month to push forward denuclearization talks.

It was only the third time in UN history that a US president chaired a Security Council meeting. Barack Obama presided over two meetings in 2009 and 2014.Chinese interference in US at 'unacceptable level': W.House



Washington, Sept 26 (AFP) Sep 26, 2018



Chinese government interference in US politics, media and business has reached an "unacceptable level," a White House official said Wednesday.

Signalling that Washington's trade war with Beijing has spilled into an ever growing number of areas, the official, who asked not to be named, told journalists that China was deploying economic, military and informational tools to spread influence and to undermine the US government.

"The activities have reached an unacceptable level," he said.

The official said the policy of "actively interfering in our political system includes hurting farmers in districts and states that voted for the president."

He was referring to China's imposition of tariffs on soybeans -- a hugely important trade in the electorally crucial state of Iowa -- as retaliation for Trump's tariffs on Chinese goods.

In New York on Wednesday, Trump also spoke out, accusing China's government of paying for newspaper space in Iowa to push its message.

"They don't look like ads, they look like editorials and they're not -- they're by China," Trump said. "They don't want me to get elected."

Trump tweeted earlier that these "propaganda ads" are being placed "because we are beating them on Trade, opening markets."

The White House official said that China's push for influence over the United States also targets "political candidates, depending on whether they criticize or support Chinese policies."

He said that Chinese media organizations were used as fronts, while "some of these activities are actually covert."

The Chinese government "employs cyber, it employs in some cases corruption and it employs propaganda," he said.

Vice President Mike Pence is due to make a speech on the growing controversy next week.System error

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/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(0x7f3fe0c27cc8)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 951 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fe79d1050)', '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(0x7f3fe0c27cc8)') 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(0x7f3fe79d1050)') 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(0x7f3fe7ce3988)') 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(0x7f3fe79d1050)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fe79d1050)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fdf4d4b18)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fe3578c60)') called at (eval 487) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fe3578c60)') 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: </%method> 22: 23: % foreach my $c (@categories) { 24: <%perl> 25: my $category_id = $c->get_id(); 26: my @stories = Bric::Biz::Asset::Business::Story->list ( { element_type_id=>1148, category_id=>$category_id , Order=> 'cover_date', publish_status => 't' , OrderDirection=> 'DESC' , Limit=>10 } ); 27: </%perl> 28: <table width="90%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> 29: <tr> ... code stack: /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html:25

/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(0x7f3fdadf2310)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 951 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fdaf8b800)', '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(0x7f3fdadf2310)') 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(0x7f3fdaf8b800)') 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(0x7f3fdae00468)') 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(0x7f3fdaf8b800)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fdaf8b800)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fda1fa2a8)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fdafab388)') called at (eval 487) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fdafab388)') 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: </%method> 22: 23: % foreach my $c (@categories) { 24: <%perl> 25: my $category_id = $c->get_id(); 26: my @stories = Bric::Biz::Asset::Business::Story->list ( { element_type_id=>1148, category_id=>$category_id , Order=> 'cover_date', publish_status => 't' , OrderDirection=> 'DESC' , Limit=>10 } ); 27: </%perl> 28: <table width="90%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> 29: <tr> ... code stack: /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html:25

/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(0x7f3fdabd5198)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 951 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fdabfd960)', '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(0x7f3fdabd5198)') 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(0x7f3fdabfd960)') 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(0x7f3fdabddf80)') 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(0x7f3fdabfd960)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fdabfd960)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fda1f93d8)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fdab1ab68)') called at (eval 487) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fdab1ab68)') called at -e line 0 eval {...} at -e line 0Europe's Ariane 5 rocket blasts off for 100th time



Paris, Sept 26 (AFP) Sep 26, 2018



A European-made rocket has blasted off from French Guiana for the 100th time, in a symbolic landmark for its manufacturer as it comes under increasing pressure from Elon Musk's SpaceX programme.

The Ariane 5 spacecraft took off from the Caribbean launch site on Tuesday at 19:38 (22:38 GMT), propelling two telecoms satellites into orbit.

In service for more than two decades and capable of blasting heavy payloads into the sky, the Ariane 5 has become the workhorse of European space launches under the guidance of the European Space Agency (ESA).

But it will soon be replaced by an updated model, the Ariane 6, which will be an estimated 40 percent cheaper to make.

This is partly in response to SpaceX's arrival on the commercial space flight scene, with its reusable Falcon 9 rocket holding the potential to undercut rival programmes.

SpaceX has outpaced European manufacturer Arianespace in terms of number of launches for two straight years.

"We are having to face unprecedented competition," Arianespace head Stephane Israel told AFP.

Since it was first launched in 1996, the Ariane 5 has put 205 satellites into orbit including for Europe's Galileo GPS system.

pcn-pg/mh/dcr/aphTrump administration messages open-ended Syria presence



Washington, Sept 26 (AFP) Sep 26, 2018



Six months after President Donald Trump said he wants US troops out of Syria, his top officials are hammering home what has become increasingly obvious: the US isn't going anywhere.

Trump administration members say there can be no troop pull-out until the Islamic State is permanently defeated -- a subjective metric for a stubborn insurgency where the jihadists have shown tenacity in clinging to their last pockets of terrain.

The US military has been involved in Syria since late 2014 and now has more than 2,000 troops in the country, mainly working to train and advise local Kurdish and Syrian Arab fighters.

With broad gains on the battlefield and the defeat of IS looking inevitable, Trump in March said he wanted US troops out of Syria "very soon," later adding the mission would come to a "rapid end."

But Defense Secretary Jim Mattis warned that quitting Syria too fast would be a "strategic blunder" and James Jeffrey, the US special representative for Syria engagement, this month said the US was "not in a hurry" to leave the war-torn nation.

"Getting rid of the 'caliphate' doesn't mean you then blindly say okay, we got rid of it, march out, and then wonder why the 'caliphate' comes back," Mattis told Pentagon reporters this week.

"This is not a conventional war where you raise a flag over the enemy's capital and they sign a peace treaty. It's not that kind of an enemy."



- 'Perpetual' war -



Then on Monday, Trump's national security advisor John Bolton, a long-time Iran hawk, pushed the idea of a US withdrawal even further off, tying such an event to Iran's actions in Syria.

"We're not going to leave (Syria) as long as Iranian troops are outside Iranian borders," he told reporters.

"That includes Iranian proxies and militias," he added.

With war still raging in Afghanistan 17 years since the US-led invasion, and thousands of US troops stationed in Iraq after the US invaded in 2003, the prospect of a yet another open-ended engagement worries some.

"US policy is now to stay in Syria as long as Iran stays, and Iran doesn't seem to be in a hurry to leave, and there is the chance for escalation, or accidents, involving Russian forces," Andrew Parasiliti of the RAND Corporation told AFP.

On September 17, Syrian air defenses accidentally shot down a Russian military plane over the Mediterranean, killing all 15 crew members, as Israel was carrying out a raid on a Syrian army facility.

Moscow has blamed Israel for the incident, saying its pilots used the Russian plane as "cover" while conducting the air strike.

France on Monday warned that the Middle East risks endless war unless a peace agreement can be reached in Syria.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and "those who support him have a responsibility to work for a political solution," French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told reporters at the United Nations.

"If not, we risk heading toward a sort of perpetual war in the area," he said.10 Afghan children, 2 women dead in air strike: UN initial report



Kabul, Sept 26 (AFP) Sep 26, 2018



An air strike appears to have killed 12 members of an Afghan family, most of them children, the United Nations said, citing preliminary findings, as US and Afghan forces ramp up aerial bombardments against militants.

The latest incident brings to at least 21 -- including 14 children -- the number of civilians killed in air strikes in recent days, according to the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA).

Sunday night's air strike destroyed a house in Wardak province near Kabul, killing 12 members of a family, UNAMA said in a statement late Tuesday.

The victims included 10 children aged six to 15 and two women.

The findings support earlier comments from provincial council member Ahmad Jahfari, who told AFP that 12 members of a family had been killed in an air strike targeting Taliban fighters.

A villager called Abdullah told AFP that two of his sisters died in the attack that he said claimed the lives of more than 12 civilians.

"Three other houses were also destroyed," Abdullah said.

"They wanted to bomb a Taliban prison about 100 metres (330 feet) from our house."

UNAMA is also reviewing reports of civilian casualties from "a number of alleged air strikes in other parts of the country", its statement said.

That includes "credible reports" that nine members of a family, including four children, were killed in an air strike on Saturday in the eastern province of Kapisa.

US Forces confirmed it had carried out an air strike in support of Afghan ground troops in Kapisa, but killed "only militants", spokesman David Butler said earlier.

It is not clear if the air strike in Wardak was carried out by US or Afghan forces.

Afghanistan's defence ministry is investigating both incidents, spokesman Ghafor Ahmad Jawed told AFP.

US Forces said it was reviewing "relevant and credible information" relating to its operations in Wardak.

"It isn't uncommon for insurgents to use these accusations to drive a wedge between the military and the population," US Forces spokesman Commander Grant Neeley added.

UNAMA expressed its "strong concern" at the rising number of civilian casualties from air strikes this year.

Air strikes killed or wounded 353 civilians in the first half, up 52 percent from the same period in 2017.

The figure accounted for roughly seven percent of total civilian casualties for the six-month period.

One of the worst incidents was in the northern province of Kunduz in April, when an Afghan air strike on an outdoor religious gathering in Dashte Archi killed or wounded 107 people, mostly children, a previous UNAMA report found.

The government and military said the strike had targeted a Taliban base where senior members of the group were planning attacks.

US and Afghan forces have dramatically increased air offensives against Taliban and Islamic State insurgents in the past year as they try to get the upper hand in the 17-year war.

US forces employed 746 weapons in July, which was the highest monthly total since November 2010, the most recent US Air Forces Central Command data shows.

That is more than double the 350 munitions used in July 2017, a month before US President Donald Trump announced his new strategy for Afghanistan that gave American forces greater leeway to go after militants.

Afghanistan's fledgling air force has also accelerated bombardments as the United States beefs up the country's aerial capability with more aircraft and better weapons.Skripal poisoning suspect is colonel in Russian GRU: report



Moscow, Sept 26 (AFP) Sep 26, 2018



A suspect in the nerve agent poisoning of a Russian ex-spy in Britain in March is a colonel in Russia's GRU military intelligence agency, investigative website Bellingcat alleged on Wednesday.

Bellingcat, a Britain-based team of investigators that specialise in trawling through online data to expose Russia's involvement in foreign conflicts, said the man identified as "Ruslan Boshirov" by Britain is in fact named Anatoly Chepiga.

British security services in September named Boshirov and Alexander Petrov as suspects in the nerve agent attack on former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia using a nerve agent called Novichok, but said these were likely to be aliases.

After they were identified, two men using these names appeared on Russian television to insist they were mere tourists to the English city of Salisbury. "Boshirov" denied working for the GRU.

The new report says Chepiga is a highly-decorated GRU officer with the rank of colonel, who assumed the identify of Ruslan Boshirov for his undercover mission in Britain.

The report included a passport photo of Anatoly Chepiga from 2003. It resembles a younger version of the photo of "Ruslan Boshirov" provided by British authorities.

British Prime Minister Theresa May has said that the men suspected of the poisoning were members of Russian military intelligence acting on orders from a "high level."

Chepiga was born in 1979 in the village Nikolayevka in the Russian Far East and finished a prestigious military academy in the region, said Bellingcat.

He then served in the special forces of the GRU.

A regional branch of the paramilitary organisation DOSAAF states on its website that Chepiga went on three tours in Chechnya while in the special forces, and was awarded the Hero of Russia award in 2014.

There is no official record of him receiving the award, traditionally issued by the Russian president, suggesting it was for a classified mission.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said this month he knew who the two suspects were, and that they were "civilians, of course."Optimization

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Try SLOW-PCfighter to speed up boot time on a slow PC, or try a free scan of FULL-DISKfighter to recover space on a full disk. The latest offering is DRIVERfighter to update your driver updater. Get complete PC optimization and extend the life of your PC with these must-have software tools.Algiers, Sept 26, 2018 (SPS) - The Ambassador of the Saharawi Republic in Algeria, Mr. Abdelkader Taleb Omar has reviewed with Ms. Asha Ramgubin, human rights activist and head of the Human Rights Organization for Development in South Africa, the human rights situation in the occupied areas of Western Sahara

Sahrawi Diplomat revealed to his interlocutor on the violations of human rights and repressive policies against Sahrawi citizens by the Moroccan occupation authorities.

Abdelkader Taleb Omar also asserted the importance of protecting human rights in Western Sahara in accordance with UN resolutions, as one of the guarantees of stability and peace in the region.

Ms. Asha Ramgubin spoke about the role played by the Human Rights Organization for Development in the defense of human rights and its work in the African Union in this direction and other themes related to human rights. SPS

125/090/TRANew York, Sept 26, 2018 (SPS)  the president of the the Republic of Namibia, Mr. Hage g. Geingob has called for the implementation of the UN resolutions and decisions, which will lead to a positive, peaceful and permanent solution that meets the aspirations and will of the people of Western Sahara in his speech at the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly held in New York

Namibia is a child of international solidarity, midwifed by the UN. We relied on the solidarity of the nations of the world to call on South AMca to give us our right to self-determination. Equally, we call on the implementation of the UN resolutions and decisions, which will lead to a positive, peaceful and permanent solution that meets the aspirations and will of the people of Western Sahara. Hage g. Geingob said in his address

The annual General Debate of the United Nations General Assembly is the occasion for world leaders to gather at UN Headquarters to discuss global issues, such as peace, stability, security and development in the world. SPS

125/090/TRABerlin (Germany), 26 SEP 2018 (SPS) - Human rights activist Claude Mangin Asfari has begun a awarenee visit to Germany on the human rights situation in the Occupied Territories of Western Sahara

The activist of the Saharawi cause participated in the 16th edition of the African Film Festival in Cologne. She was one of the guests of honor where the film Dis-Leur I Exist and 4 short films Three Stolen Cameras, Cast in Sand, Barber Shop Skeikima and elsewhere were screened.

In the Municipality of Bremen, Claude Mangin Asfari, was received at the seat of the Land Parliament by the Deputy, Vice President of the Foreign Affairs Committee Mrs Grotheer and by Hermann Kleen, the Chief of Staff of Christian Weber the President of the Parliament. It was a question of how to continue the already active support of Bremen to the Parliament in Berlin.

In this context, the human rights activist met with the municipality of Gottingen, the director of the Association of Endangered Peoples, Ulrich Delius where he promised to continue to redouble the efforts especially to organize concerts with the other German associations to obtain support of the Saharawi cause from the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs and to be a spokesman of the Saharawi cause in (OHCHR), The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva thanks to its ECOSOC status.

In this context, Claude Mangin Asfari has held several meetings and talks with Germany official from the Municipality of Bremen and Gottingen , she has also interviewed by four regional and national newspapers and recorded three radio programs on the human rights situation in Occupied Western Sahara, in order to sensitize civil society, the media and the institutions around Germany of the situation of Saharawi political prisoners expressing their "deep concern" at the "critical" situation in which the Saharawi political prisoners of the "Gdeim Izik" group are.

She is a wife of Saharawi activist Naama Asfari, a Saharawi political prisoner, who has been detained since November 2010 and sentenced to 30 years in prison for defending the self-determination of the Saharawi people. Claude was prevented by the Moroccan authorities from visiting her husband and expelled for the fourth time SPS

125/090/TRAEnglish25/09/2018

KUZMANOVIC BELIEVES THAT THE US ADMINISTRATION WILL SOON LIFT SANCTIONS AGAINST SPIRIC

BANJALUKA, September 25 /SRNA/ - The president of the Republika Srpska Academy of Science and Arts /ANURS/, Rajko Kuzmanovic, believes that the US administration will soon realize its mistake and lift sanctions against Nikola Spiric, a member of the BiH House of Representatives, and his family members.



Regarding sanctions the US administration introduced against Spiric, Kuzmanovic has told SRNA that the whole academic community is surprised by sanctions introduced against Spiric for an imaginary and unproven deed.



It is inappropriate to introduce sanctions during the election campaign since this not only resembles to a planned activity, but confirms that this is a planned activity directed against deserving persons in Republika Srpska, Kuzmanovic has said.



He has stressed that any sort of sanctions, particularly political ones, are a negative social occurrence. /end/sgThe Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) and the Pirbright Institute identified the Bluetongue Virus in the animals when they were brought to Yorkshire from an assembly centre in Central France.

Defra reports that the infected animals have been humanely culled and testing is continuing on the additional cattle in the consignment, with further results expected through next week. Movement restrictions are in place at the affected premises.

The British Veterinary Association (BVA), the British Cattle Veterinary Association, Sheep Veterinary Society and Goat Veterinary Society have stressed the importance of careful animal sourcing and highlighted the vital role played by veterinary surveillance in identifying potential disease risks in the UK.

Commenting, BVA Senior Vice President John Fishwick said:

We are reassured to see that the systems we have in place for post-movement testing have led to this disease being detected quickly, and appropriate action has been taken to safeguard animals in the area.

However, this should act as a reminder that farmers, vets and government agencies must remain vigilant to the threat of disease spread. All livestock keepers should be reminded of the vital importance of responsible sourcing of animals, and of fully understanding the potential disease risks of importing from areas where disease is known to be circulating. Farmers should always consult their vet and act within their farm health plan when sourcing new animals. They should also discuss options such as vaccination as one of the main methods of disease control.TO VIEW MORE NEWS STORY, PLEASE CLICK ON NEWS TAB ON MAIN MENU BARShares is the leading weekly publication for retail investors. It is packed with investment ideas, news and educational material to help build and run portfolios and get more from your money.

Shares puts on free Investor Events throughout the year across the country. They provide an opportunity for investors to learn more about companies on the stock market and hear from a range of investment experts including fund managers and Shares journalists.By the end of 2018 China is receiving the last ten of the 24 Su-35 fighters it has purchased from Russia. China had the Su-35s already received in service by April 2018. These Chinese Su-35s have been seen flying off the coast near Taiwan. China seems to be pleased with their new acquisition. Terms of the sale are still something of a mystery. In 2015, after more than three years of haggling over the details, Russia signed the contract to sell China 24 Su-35 fighters for $105 million each. The big obstacle to this sale was the Chinese inability to assure Russia that the new Russian technology in these aircraft would not be stolen by Chinese aviation firms.

Apparently, a mutually agreeable compromise was worked out. Or maybe not because the initial price was $85 million per aircraft. At first, China refused to buy Su-35 fighters from Russia if a "no unauthorized duplication" clause was included in the contract. The Chinese wanted to buy the Su-35s but were not willing to sign a binding agreement to not copy the Russian tech. China is already producing unauthorized copies of the Russian Su-27, as the J11 and Russia is not happy with that at all. China has since designed a two-seat fighter-bomber version (the J16), a stealthy version (J17), and obtained an aircraft carrier version of the Su-30 (the Su-33) from Ukraine and are producing a copy (as the J15). Russia protests and China insists the similarities are a coincidence. Russia can no longer threaten China like it did several times during the Cold War. During the two decades after the Cold War ended in 1991 China became an economic and military superpower and is now much more powerful than Russia. Times change and losers must adapt.

China insists these are all Chinese designs that just happen to bear some resemblance to Russian fighters. In response, Russia halted combat aircraft sales to China but still sold jet engines for these aircraft. So far, China has been unsuccessful in building copies of these engines. The engine sales are too lucrative for Russia to pass up, as they enable the Russian engine manufacturers to continue developing new designs. The Chinese plan to steal these as soon as they figure out how to handle the exotic manufacturing skills required to build these engines. This has proved a major problem for the new Chinese J20 stealth fighter, which is using locally built WS-10B engines now, which are much less powerful than the AL-41F1S engines used in the Su-35 and the Russian Su-57 stealth fighter. China has been developing a more powerful engine, the WS-15, which is similar to the AL-41F1S. Now China has AL-41F1S engines to examine closely, in detail and in operation. The latest word out of China is that the WS-15 finally (or close to finally) ready for use in the J20. Russia delivered the first four Su-35s to China in January 2017 so the Chinese have had a lot of time to check out details of how the AL-41F1S engines and figure out how that could help with their WS-15.

The Su-35 is an impressive piece of work. It is a 34 ton fighter that is more maneuverable than the original, 33 ton, Su-27 and has much better electronics. It can cruise at above the speed of sound. It also costs at least fifty percent more than the Su-27. That would be some $60 million (for a barebones model as sold to the Russian Air Force), about what top-of-the-line F-16s cost. The Su-27 was originally developed to match the F-15, which is larger than the single-engine F-16. The larger size of the Su-27/35 allows designers to do a lot more with it in terms of modifications and enhancements.

The Su-35 has some stealth capabilities (or at least be less detectable to most fighter aircraft radars). Russia claims the Su-35 has a useful life of 6,000 flight hours and engines good for 4,000 hours. Russia promises world-class avionics, plus a very pilot-friendly cockpit. The use of many thrusters and fly-by-wire will produce an aircraft even more maneuverable than Su-30s (which were Su-27s tweaked to be extremely agile). The Su-35 was in development for two decades before it was declared ready for production in 2005. But even then there were problems with the new engines that gave it its superior performance. Russia says the engine problems are solved, but only time will tell if that is true.

The Su-35 is not meant to be a direct rival for the F-22 because the Russian aircraft is not nearly as stealthy. The Su-35 carries a 30mm autocannon (with 150 rounds) and up to eight tons of munitions, hanging from 12 hard points. This reduces stealthiness, which the F-22 and F-35 get around by using an internal bay for bombs and missiles. But if the maneuverability and advanced electronics of the Su-35 live up to the promises, the aircraft would be more than a match for every fighter out there except the F-22. Since the Su-35 is to sell for well under $100 million each, there should be a lot of buyers.

Meanwhile, China has not had an easy time with its Su-27 clone, the J11. This aircraft entered service in 1998, but production was very slow and only a hundred were produced. It was during this process that the Chinese mastered many of the technical details of building and modifying the Russian aircraft. China then modified the Su-27 design and produced at least a hundred of the 33 ton J11A. This model was equipped with modern, Chinese made, electronics and is capable of hauling eight tons of radar guided air-to-air missiles and smart bombs. Then came the J11B, which was the same size and weight as the J11A but had a more capable AESA radar and is intended to specialize in air-to-ground missions, while also being able to take care of itself in air-to-air combat.

The Su-35 would give China a lot of ideas (and technology) for the J11C, as well as the J20 no matter what promises were made to the Russians.Iraq has a rapidly growing population. It is about 40 million now and growing at nearly a million a year. A growing portion of the population has no memory of life under Saddam (where demonstrations or any dissent was forbidden) but do take for granted that they can now protest against corrupt or incompetent government officials. That is changing politics in Iraq, where elected officials find they can be called out, or lose elections, over poor performance. This is something quite different, and often hard to handle, for older politicians.

Most young Iraqis see no future in Islamic radicalism and terrorism, which has, for most of their young lives been more of a threat than a source of salvation. Down in Basra the ongoing riots and demonstrations are about basics, like clean water and regular electricity supplies. The Basra unrest has been going on for ten weeks and at least 25 protestors have been killed and many more wounded or arrested. Dozens have disappeared and feared dead. The protestors note that Iran backed militias are also involved in attacking the demonstrators. This, for many young Iraqis, confirms suspicions that Iran is not their friend. The government has promised to improve living conditions in Basra but that slow in coming.

Iraqi anti-government demonstrators were always angry at Iran. In part this was because of the Iranian backed PMF (Peoples Mobilization Forces) militias in Iraq, whose leaders often speak of imposing a religious dictatorship in Iraq and generally ignored all the corruption. Protestors in Shia majority Basra are also criticizing Iran for halting electricity exports in early July. Iran cut the electricity because corrupt Iraqi officials had not paid for much of it. Moreover there was an electricity shortage developing in Iran. It was necessary for Iraq to import electricity because for a long time (the Saddam era) there were not many electric power plants in Basra because it was a Shia majority area and Shia were starved for resources before 2003 (when the Sunni Arab minority ruled). But after Saddam was overthrown in 2003 and Shia politicians gained power, corruption prevented the construction of power plants. Iran thought cutting the power, especially since they had a good reason, would increase the anger against the Iraqi government. But the protestors saw through the Iranian intentions and added that to the long list of reasons why Iraqi Shia do not like Iran. After a few weeks Iran restored the electricity exports.

The current Iraqi enthusiasm for battling corruption is hurting Iranian efforts to expand its influence inside Iraq. Thats because pro-Iran groups in Iraq have long justified outlaw behavior in order to serve their mentor Iran. This has led to Iraqi army commanders being more aggressive in dealing with Iran backed PMF units. Most of the PMF units were formed in late 2014 to fight ISIL. Since then the PMF has been put on the government payroll, despite the fact that nearly half of them are also supported by Iranian cash and equipment. Since the government began paying PMF militiamen the PMF became part of the defense forces. Technically the army can order PMF units around but until recently the Iran-backed PMF would often ignore those orders. In some cases PMF commanders would threaten army officers. Given the results of the recent elections (pro-Iran parties did poorly) and the growing popular unrest in Iran attitudes have changed. Iraqi army officers are not just ordering pro-Iran PMF units to back off but using force to make the PMF comply. So far this has not go much beyond armed confrontations (which often work) and arresting (kidnapping according to pro-Iran Iraqis) PMF men who disobey army orders. Apparently the anti-Iran election results have led to pro-Iran PMF commanders being advised (by Iran) to play nice with the army and back off. This is seen as temporary as there is no sign that pro-Iran PMF groups will cease to take orders from Iran. Iraqis believe the pro-Iran PMF units are backing off as part of an Iranian effort to persuade Iraq to oppose the renewed American economic sanctions on Iran. Iraqi leaders were under a lot of political pressure from Iran to ignore the American sanctions, if only because complying would hurt the Iraqi economy. That pressure caused some hesitation by Iraqi leaders until they realized that most Iraqis preferred the Americans to the Iranians. After all, when Iraq asked the Americans to leave in 2011 they did. Iranians are not very cooperative in that respect and for centuries have been trying to get its way in what is now Iraq.

And then there is the oil price issue. As the revived American sanctions take effect Iranian oil exports decline. OPEC, which is dominated by Arab oil states, refused to increase production to make up for the missing Iranian oil. This refusal angers oil importers who have become accustomed to cheaper oil. The major oil exporters have had a hard time since 2013, when oil tumbled from over $100 a barrel to a third of that. But now the price is on the way up and the Iranian loss becomes a plus for Arab oil states, including Iraq. Since 2013 the Americans have again (because of fracking) become a major oil exporter so the U.S. wins whichever way the oil price goes.

Ill ISIL

As ISIL personnel are now generally in hiding it is difficult to get an accurate count. Official mid-2018 estimates were about 17,000 in Iraq and 13,000 in Syria. But that implies that the number of armed men ISIL had in Iraq by 2014 is the same as mid-2018. How can that be given the relatively low level of ISIL activity since early 2018. The answer is that the official estimates include a lot of unarmed supporters, including family members. Captured ISIL members will often exaggerate the size of the group he belongs to as will ISIL members delivering threats to local civilians who the Islamic terrorists are trying to intimidate into compliance (not informing on ISIL). Cooperative civilians are immune to ISIL attacks so there is that. But the ability of ISIL to enforce the cooperation is often an illusion because ISIL tries to appear more omnipresent than they actually are.

A population of cooperative civilians is essential for ISIL to survive as guerillas and that is why there are probably more ISIL operating in Iraq than in Syria. The civilians not only provide some cover but are also a source of supplies (which ISIL strives to pay for, in order to build more loyalty.) This is all basic guerilla tradecraft that is made more difficult when there are a lot of cell phones around. That increases the risk of some angry (or not even local) civilian making a call to the police to report possible ISIL activity. ISIL leaders noted that a key factor in the loss of control in an area was the local civilians retaining some access to Internet and cell phone service as well as satellite TV receivers. ISIL (and other Islamic radicals) have long tried to control use of all three of these items but have been unable to completely eliminate them from populations they control. Once ISIL was driven out of an area the cell phone companies were eager to rebuild their cell phone and Internet service and as people in those areas of restored cell phone service became more confident that reporting on remaining ISIL activity would not get them killed the calls started coming. These phone calls have become more frequent and has led to the growing number of arrests or discovery of ISIL hideouts and the destruction of active ISIL terrorists. This has led to a decline in terror related deaths and more violent encounters between security forces and the many sleeper cells ISIL deliberately left behind when they lost control of an area. What has kept ISIL going are Sunni Arab areas where they still have some support, at least as someone who will fighting hack against the Kurds and Shia Arabs. There are fewer Sunni majority areas in Syria for ISIL to get support from.

Oil Works

Despite the continuing violence in the south continues to increase. Continuing the July-August trend production so far in September keeps inching higher looks like it will average 3.6 million BPD (barrels per day). The rate at which production is growing could mean production of nearly four million BPD in the next month. The 2016 OPEC limits set on Iraqi production are 4.35 million BPD. Since late 2017 oil production from the southern oil fields has averaged over 3.5 million BPD. In early 2017 Iraq, as a founding member of the OPEC oil cartel, had agreed to reduce its oil production by over a million BPD to help increase the world price for oil. Iraqi production hit a peak 3.51 million BPD at the end of 2016. Iraqi production increased in 2017, often to take advantage of the production cuts the Saudis had agreed to and were making.

Iraq has ten percent of the world's oil reserves and 2017 exploration efforts have that increased by 10 billion barrels. That makes 153 billion barrels, which more than a third larger than it was after the resumption of oil exploration a decade ago. Iran has reserves of 158 billion barrels, Saudi Arabia 266 billion and Venezuela 300 billion. These four nations have the largest reserves which are about 60 percent of the world total. What is keeping the world oil price low is fracking. That new American technology is making much more oil and gas available and it is expected that the U.S. and Canada will soon have proven reserves equaling a third of the current world total. The fall in oil prices since 2013 (from over $100 a barrel to as low as $30) cut foreign currency reserves to about $48 billion by the end of 2017, compared to $53 billion in mid-2016. By early 2018 the price of oil had climbed to $60 a barrel mainly because OPEC members were not cheating on their quotas and several members were producing less than their quota because of internal security problems. The ISIL crisis forced Iraq to be more prudent with its finances, and government operations in general. The Americans are no longer being blamed for all that goes wrong. Taking responsibility does indeed make it easier to deal with problems. But many Iraqi leaders and politicians still prefer to blame all the problems on America, Israel and so on.

Foreign Troops

There are about 6,000 American troops in Iraq as well as about 2,000 from other Western nations (mainly Britain, France, Italy and Germany). Iran has no soldiers in Iraq but does have several hundred advisors and trainers from the IRGC (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps). In Syria there are about 5,000 American troops in 22 bases, all of them near the Iraqi border, mostly in the northeast where they advise the Kurdish forces that control the Syrian northeast (which is adjacent to the Kurdish controlled areas of northern Iraq). Some of the U.S. troops in Iraq are in the Kurdish north where American and British troops have been operating since the early 1990s.

September 22, 2018: In the east, just across the border in Iran (Khuzestan province) four gunmen fired on a parade killing 30 (including at least eight IRGC men) and wounding even more. Local Arab separatists (al Ahwaz National Resistance, a coalition of several groups) took credit as did ISIL. Over the next three days more than 20 people were arrested and Iran blamed Saudi Arabia, Israel and the United States and threatened to take revenge by attacking American forces in Iraq and Syria. The U.S. responded by reminding Iran that it has only itself to blame and most Iranians would agree. Since 2003 the Iranian Arabs in Khuzestan have been increasingly vocal, and often violent, about the harsh rule of the Iranian Shia. Iran is acutely aware of how unruly its own Arab minority (a few percent of the population) can be. There are a growing number of terrorist incidents inside Iran traced to Iranian Arabs. Most Iranian oil is pumped from the ancestral lands of these Arabs, who are bitter about how they receive little from all that oil income. The three million Arabs in Khuzestan province (formerly Arabistan) are Shia and have been ruled by non-Arab Iranians for centuries. Arab unrest here has grown since 2003, when the Sunni dictatorship was overthrown in Iraq and the Shia majority won elections to take power. Iranian Arabs noted that the Iraqi Shia were now getting most of the Iraqi oil income, unlike just across the border in Khuzestan. Since 2003 hundreds of Iranian Arabs have been arrested for separatist activities. Many are still in prison and over 30 have been executed.

September 21, 2018: In the northwest (Nineveh province) police arrested two men illegally crossing the border from Syria. The two later admitted they were ISIL members and headed for nearby Mosul to help organize new attacks. The security forces regularly find and arrest ISIL members in the area, largely because of tips from residents who do not want ISIL to reestablish themselves in Mosul or anywhere else in Nineveh province.

September 20, 2018: In the west (Anbar province) troops and militiamen, with some air support, found and killed seven ISIL men near the Syrian border.

In the northwest (Nineveh province) an ISIL gunman, wearing a police uniform, went to home of the mayor of a rural village and killed the mayor, wounded his son and then killed another civilian as he made his escape.

September 19, 2018: In the west (Anbar province) troops killed 15 ISIL men hiding out in a large cave, which turned out of be one of their bases. Troops found explosive vests and numerous weapons and lots of equipment in the cave. This comes after six ISIL members were arrested in different parts of Anbar in previous five days. All those arrested were seeking to recruit and organize new ISIL cells that would plan and carry out attacks.

September 18, 2018: In the north (Kirkuk province) a roadside bomb hit a police bus, killing five policemen and wounding several others. Later that night an Iraqi airstrike killed six ISIL members in the same general area.

September 17, 2018: The government has agreed to send border patrol troops to guard the Iraq-Turkish border. In the past most of this had been handled by Iraqi Kurdish forces, who were likely to allow PKK (Turkish Kurd separatists) to pass freely. The new non-Kurd border guards will not do any favors for PKK personnel trying to sneak in or out of Iraq.

September 15, 2018: The new parliament (elected in May) finally agreed on a new speaker of parliament; Sunni Arab Mohammed al Halbousi. He was promptly accused of spending $30 million in bribes to secure the needed votes (169 out of 298). Halbousi is from Anbar and a former defense minister. Current custom dictates that there be a Sunni speaker, a Kurdish president, and a Shia prime minister.

September 10, 2018: In the northwest (Mosul) police arrested three ISIL members.

September 9, 2018: In the west (Salahuddin province) three ISIL suicide bombers attacked some troops searching an area. All three attackers died as did one soldiers.

September 8, 2018: In the northeast (Erbil province) Iran fired long range rockets and some Fateh 110 ballistic missiles at targets in the town of Koya (halfway between the Kurdish capital of Ebril and the Iranian border). The missiles were aimed at the headquarters of two Iranian Kurdish separatist groups (KDPI and PDKI). At least 17 were killed and dozens wounded by the rockets. Some of the rockets landed in or near a refugee camp outside the town. The Fateh 110 is a solid fuel missile that can be launched from trucks that carry them and have a range of 300 kilometers. The guidance system enables them to his a specific building, which one of them did in the Koya attacks. The next day Iran admitted it made the missile attack.

In the north (Kirkuk province) two bombs were used to set fire to an oil pipeline. ISIL was suspected.

September 7, 2018: In the south (Basra) the general in charge of security forces for the province was replaced. The reason was the inability of the security forces to reduce the growing violence, including recent attempts to shut down the main airport with mortar fire. In this incident four mortar shells landed and exploded just outside the airport fence. Since July the anti-government (and corruption) violence has left fifteen dead and nearly 200 wounded.

In Baghdad three mortar shells were fired at the U.S. embassy (located in the Green Zone). The mortar shells came close but missed the embassy compound. Several days later the U.S. told Iran there would be military if Iran kept up these attacks or escalated them (by attacking American troops in Iraq). The American retaliation would include going after the several dozen short range ballistic missiles Iran has sent to its most trusted Iraqi militias, to be used when Iran believed necessary.

September 2, 2018: In August 90 civilians died due to Islamic terrorist violence. Some 27 percent of the deaths occurred in Baghdad while Nineveh province (including Mosul) accounted for 32 percent and the rest were north of Baghdad and in Anbar. In July 79 died compared to 76 in June and 95 in May which was an increase from the 68 April deaths. March, when 104 died had been the deadliest month so far in 2018. That was up a bit from the 91 killed during February. The government has still not resumed reporting casualties among the security forces (military and militias). Based on local reports the Islamic terrorists, mainly ISIL, are suffering much higher death tolls each month, in addition to nearly as many lost to arrest or capture.

September 1, 2018: In the west, just across the border in eastern Syria (Homs province) an Iranian military convoy was hit by an airstrike. This killed four Syrians, one Iranian and three foreign mercenaries. At least eleven people were wounded. The airstrike may have occurred because the convoy was too close to the American special operations base of Tanf, on the Syrian side of the Iraqi border near the Jordan border. The American forces there reported they had been fired on by unknown forces but there was no damage and they did not return fire. So it remains a mystery whose warplanes did the deed. The Americans have some support from Sunni tribes in Syria and Iraq and that is mainly to keep informed on what is going on in the area around Tanf. Iran has assisted (with its mercenaries) Assad forces in trying to eliminate the Tanf base but these effort have failed. The Americans have too much airpower and too much aerial and ground surveillance around Tanf. The U.S. has declared a free fire zone that means any Assad/Iranian forces getting within 30 kilometers of Tanf are automatically attacked. Iranian and Assad forces rarely test this free fire zone. They know it works. While no one took credit for the airstrike it is now believed to be Israeli, but the Israelis often try to hide their involvement.

August 28, 2018: In the northwest, across the border in eastern Syria (Deir Ezzor province) Iranian mercenaries have been fighting with Syrian Army (Assad) troops for control of the Al Bukamal crossing into Iraq and the fighting has been going on, sporadically, for weeks. Apparently there is a dispute between the Assads and Iran over who will control border crossings for routes that are part of the Iran to the Mediterranean land route. This route is essential to supporting any Iranian military expansion in Syria and Lebanon.The Moslem violence in the south is 14 years old now and slowly fading away after causing at least 7,000 dead. The violence has been less and less each year for nearly a decade. In 2017 a record low 235 people were killed down there and that trend has continued into 2018, even though it is getting more difficult to determine which incidents are actually related to Moslem separatism. In 2017 there were 489 violent incidents compared to the peak year (2010) when there were 2,061. These incidents now tend to arrive in clusters rather than randomly throughout the year.

Since the military took over the government in 2014 the security forces have received more resources to deal with the violence. This has included economic aid as well as better intelligence collection and analysis along with an expansion of the village defense volunteer program. Thus it has become more of a problem to determine if murders of village defense volunteers or bombings are the work of separatists or Islamic terrorists or something more mundane like gangsters for a local feud.

Yet efforts to achieve a permanent fix for the resentment of a Moslem majority population in the three southern provinces remains out of reach. This is all mainly about cultural differences (religion, ethnicity). Thailand has few (about three million) Moslems and while some of the separatist Moslems in the south (where most live) have tried to link their independence efforts to religion, its mostly about ethnic differences because 95 percent of Thais are ethnic Tai and the southern Moslems are nearly all ethnic Malays. The Tai people are mainly in Thailand but many also live in southern China, Laos, Cambodia and India. The farthest south the Tai got was where the three Moslem provinces are.

The "terrorists" are a combination of Islamic radicals, Malay nationalists and gangsters (smuggling has long been a big business down there). The ethnic Thai majority refused (as they usually do) to back down in the face of Malay Moslem violence. After years of futile violence the Moslem minority became increasingly hostile to the Islamic terrorists, and more frequently cooperated with the police. This happened gradually as it became obvious that the Thai government was never going to give in. As a result of this, the militants turned on the Moslem civilians, which was a downward spiral that is gradually destroying the remaining popular support they have. That led to the current decline in violence. The new pattern for the violence is for a few violent individuals operating together as a gang to carry out attacks in batches and then go silent (or get arrested). If one of these gangs is active they will account for most or all the terrorist violence in the south. The police and military go after these gangs as soon as they appear and several of them have responded to the investigations, and locals providing tips, by going inactive and either eventually disbanding or staying until the police attention subsides. At the moment the gangs are losing and even ones that have gone silent are being found and arrested or killed. Another trend is for much of the violence to come from a few individuals (gangster or separatist). In September a lot of the violence was related to attacks on rubber plantations and the people who work there. This is seen as something of an extortion effort but it is hard to tell is the attackers are gangsters or separatists. Sometimes the perpetrators are both.

There are other problems. The Moslem fanatics are hostile to secular education while most Moslems in the three provinces want their children to get a secular education because that is obviously the key to a better life for the kids. Moslem majority Malaysia next door encourages secular education and Moslem Malaysians have done well as a result. Because of the lack of education the southern Thai Moslems have been unable to make the most of over two decades of dramatic economic growth in Thailand. For over a decade the Thai government (elected and military) has concentrated on education and economic development in the south while also improving security. Progress has been made but it has been slow, as these changes usually are. Despite that the separatists (although not the Islamic terrorists) retain a lot of popular support in the south. The separatists are demanding a federal form of government that would give the three southern provinces a lot of autonomy. The Thai generals are unwilling to consider that and so the peace negotiations are stalled.

The Slight Of The Generals

The military government used cleaning up corruption as one of its justifications for taking power in 2014. To the surprise of no one the military government proved quite corrupt and the military response was to try and suppress embarrassing news of this. The censorship and failed efforts to curb corruption were disappointing to many Thais. An early 2018 opinion poll showed that 20 percent of Thais believed the corruption problem could be handled if a government made enough of an effort. For most Thais the military is seen as all talk and little action in the anti-corruption department. That same opinion poll also revealed how difficult the corruption problem is. Thus the poll revealed that 48 percent of Thais believed the corruption problem cannot be fixed because it is so deeply ingrained in Thai culture. Asked to name the main causes of corruption 69 percent said greed and selfishness, 28 percent said it was loopholes in the audit (monitoring) systems, 19 percent blamed it on lenient punishment of offenders, 17 percent thought it was changes in social values and 14 percent attributed it to poverty. Despite those attitudes corruption has turned into a focal point of visible opposition to the military government. That can be seen by the growing presence of clever graffiti portraying the corrupt generals pretending to be determined foes of corruption.

September 12, 2018: The king has approved new laws mandating that national elections be held by May 2019. At the same time the military government has not lifted rules prohibiting public activities by political parties.

September 11, 2018: In the south (Pattani province) an army patrol was ambushed, leaving two soldiers dead and four wounded.

In the capital the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand had, for the sixth time since the 2014 coup, one of its events shut down by the police. This event was a panel discussion of the misbehavior of the Burmese generals next door. The Burmese officers ran a military government for decades until they were forced to allow elections again in 2011. That was arranged via a deal that left the Burmese generals with a lot of political power and that enabled the Burmese to military and Buddhist militants to expel over a million Burmese Moslems. This sort of bad behavior is being described as a war crime. Some of what the Burmese generals did is similar to what the Thai generals are trying to do during this period of military government. The military government censors ordered it shut down when it was apparent where the discussion was probably going (towards comparison of military governments in Burma and Thailand).

September 9, 2018: In the south (Pattani province) a veteran village defense volunteer was murdered by a drive-by shooter. Local separatists are suspected.

September 8, 2018: In the south (Narathiwat province) two village defense volunteers were killed and two wounded when five gunmen attacked a building used by the defense volunteers for training. The attackers also set fire to a vehicle before fleeing. Local separatists are suspected.

September 4, 2018: In China construction began on the first of three submarines purchased by the Thai Navy 18 months ago. That deal was not explained in much deal other than that the three subs would cost $1.3 billion and only the first one was actually on order. Actual purchase orders for the other two were expected in 2021 and 2022, when an elected government would be back in charge. If all three subs were actually bought Thailand would be making payments into the late 2020s. The military government got a lot of criticism for this deal, especially from retired generals and admirals who were unafraid to point out that the military had more pressing and practical needs (like new patrol boats and helicopters for the navy) than submarines. Officially the navy defends the purchase as necessary because Thailand has to defend its Andaman Islands and all its neighbors have submarines. But Thai naval officials admit that most Thai coastal waters are too shallow for most submarine operations. Historians point out that every time there is a military government the military takes advantage of it to get major purchases made. Every year since the 2014 coup the military budget has increased. Some of these additional defense spending involved corruption opportunities because buying stuff that is not needed is nothing new. In the 1990s a military government approved the purchase of an aircraft carrier that became infamous for never having anything to do and absorbing so much of the navy budget to maintain that the admirals gradually diverted money away from the carrier and the expensive ship spent most of its career (which has not yet ended) tied up in port without any aircraft or even a full crew. In the spirit of that carrier the navy has long sought money for submarines. In mid-2016 the navy revived its plan to buy three submarines from China. The navy had first proposed this in June 2015 but withdrew the proposal a month later because of so much opposition. Most Thais oppose the navy submarine proposal and believe that the $1.3 billion needed to buy the three Chinese subs would be better spent on updating the rest of the navy and buying for patrol boats to improve security along the coasts. The sad shape of many Thai warships, especially the sole aircraft carrier, is a national embarrassment. Each of the three Chinese submarines costs more than the carrier did. Another factor (that can get you arrested if discussed openly in Thailand) is the Chinese frequently using bribes to expedite major weapons sales.

August 30, 2018: In the south (Pattani province) in a crowded market a village defense volunteer was shot dead (and his pistol taken) by two men. A civilian was killed by the gunfire. The defense volunteers wife and another woman were wounded. Police are trying to determine of the attack was caused by a personal dispute or, more likely, the years of service as a local defense volunteer.The upcoming documentary MY IRELAND was shot in locations across Ireland using two JVC GY-LS300 4KCAM Super 35 camcorders.

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JVC Professional Video, a division of JVCKENWOOD USA Corporation, has announced My Ireland, an upcoming feature-length documentary focused on Irish displacement, was shot on location across Ireland with two JVC GY-LS3004KCAM Super 35 camcorders.

Based in St. Louis, Mo., Dancing Fox Pictures was hired by Monaghan Productions, also in St. Louis, to serve as cinematographers and crew for the production. Dancing Fox specializes in multi-camera event coverage, promotion videos, and cinema services. The company purchased its GY-LS300s in June just prior to the shoot.

Dancing Fox co-founder Elliott Geolat went to Ireland in June and July, conducting interviews and collecting B-roll footage across the country, from remote rural villages to Dublin. We needed something portable and cinematic, and something that would be fast to use, said Geolat, who shot most of the footage. The GY-LS300 is a cinema camera that handles like an ENG camera. It was fast and handy, but delivered an image that was filmic.

The upcoming documentary My Ireland was shot in locations across Ireland using two JVC GY-LS300 4KCAM Super 35 camcorders.

The documentary, which should be completed in early 2019, explores several causes of Irish displacement, including emigration to other countries to seek employment, mass evictions by vulture funds, a growing homeless crisis, and citizens with low-paying jobs who are unable to afford housing. The story reflects the life of My Ireland director and producer Anthony Monaghan, who left the country when he was 15 to find employment.

Most of the interviews were scheduled, but some were added during the shoot. For the impromptu interviews, Geolat needed to be able to setup quickly, often in locations where lighting was far from ideal. Its a compact camera, but all the external controls are at my fingertips. Its so fast to setup, he said. I spent more time leveling the tripod than prepping the camera for a shot.

For My Ireland, Geolat paired his GY-LS300s with three Rokinon Cine DS prime lenses. To create a cinematic look, My Ireland was shot in 4K/24p in J-Log mode, which expands dynamic range by 800 percent with film-like latitude. I didnt want to make a documentary with a small-chip look, Geolat explained, so that Super 35 sensor gave plenty of depth of field. Its as shallow as youd ever want it.

While Geolat avoided on-screen zooms to maintain a more cinematic look, he did use the cameras Prime Zoom feature, which allows fixed-focal lenses to zoom in and out without losing resolution or depth of field, for some shots. The Prime Zoom feature is amazing, he noted. If I needed to zoom in a pinch, I could get closer without moving the tripod.

Geolat recently shot additional footage for My Ireland in St. Louis with Dancing Fox co-founder Christopher Gibbs, and is already planning to use the cameras to shoot a full-length narrative feature next year. He praised the GY-LS300s streamlined menu, built-in neutral density filters, and low-light performance. Usually the words cinema and budget dont go together, but they do in this camera, Geolat said. At its price point, it offers a set of features that you just dont find. This is the best budget cinema camera in the world.

# # #

ABOUT JVC PROFESSIONAL VIDEO

Headquartered in Wayne, New Jersey, JVC Professional Video is a division of JVCKENWOOD USA Corporation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of JVCKENWOOD Corporation. The company is a leading manufacturer and distributor of broadcast and professional video equipment, as well as D-ILA front projection systems. For more information, visit JVCs website at http://pro.jvc.com or call (800) 582-5825.NOT FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES OR FOR DISTRIBUTION TO U.S. NEWSWIRE SERVICES AND DOES NOT CONSTITUTE AN OFFER OF THE SECURITIES DESCRIBED HEREIN.

SHERMAN OAKS, Calif., Sept. 25, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Petroteq Energy Inc. (the Company) (TSXV:PQE; OTC:PQEFF; FSE: PQCF), a fully integrated oil and gas company, announces that it has agreed to complete warrants for debt transactions, pursuant to which it will issue an aggregate of 918,355 common share purchase warrants in satisfaction of US$927,544 of indebtedness currently owed to 17 arms length service providers. Each warrant shall entitle the holder thereof to acquire one common share of the Company at a price of US$1.01 per share until the date that is 24 months from the date of issuance.

The Company also proposes to issue 28,880 common shares in satisfaction of US$23,393 of indebtedness currently owed to Robert Dennewald, a director of the Company. The shares for debt transaction with Mr. Dennewald is a related party transaction as defined under Multilateral Instrument 61-101 (MI 61-101). The transaction is exempt from the formal valuation approval requirements of MI 61-101 as none of the securities of the Company are listed on a prescribed stock exchange. The proposed transaction is exempt from the minority shareholder approval requirements of MI 61-101 as at the time the transaction was agreed to, neither the fair market value of the transaction, nor the fair market value of the consideration for, the transaction, insofar as it involves interested parties, exceeded 25% of the Companys market capitalization.

The Company determined to satisfy the foregoing indebtedness with securities in order to preserve its cash for use on its extraction technology in Asphalt Ridge, Utah, and for working capital. The securities will be issued upon execution of definitive agreements, acceptance by the TSX Venture Exchange and approval by the directors of the Company. The securities issued in satisfaction of the indebtedness will be subject to a four month hold period from the date of issuance.

About Petroteq Energy Inc.

Petroteq is a fully integrated oil and gas company focused on the development and implementation of a new proprietary technology for oil extraction. The Company has an environmentally safe and sustainable technology for the extraction of heavy oils from oil sands, oil shale deposits and shallow oil deposits. Petroteq is engaged in the development and implementation of its patented environmentally friendly heavy oil processing and extraction technologies. Our proprietary process produces zero greenhouse gas, zero waste and requires no high temperatures. Petroteq is currently focused on developing its oil sands resources and expanding production capacity at its Asphalt Ridge heavy oil extraction facility located near Vernal, Utah. In addition, the Company, through its wholly owned subsidiary PetroBLOQ, LLC, is seeking to develop the first blockchain based platform created exclusively for the supply chain needs of the oil & gas sector. For more information, visit www.Petroteq.energy and PetroBLOQ.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements contained in this press release contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the U.S. and Canadian securities laws. Words such as may, would, could, should, potential, will, seek, intend, plan, anticipate, believe, estimate, expect and similar expressions as they relate to the Company, including: closing of the above noted transactions; and the Company successfully developing block chain technology for the oil and gas industry and the anticipated benefits of such technology, are intended to identify forward-looking information. Readers are cautioned that there is no certainty that it will be commercially viable to produce any portion of the resources. All statements other than statements of historical fact may be forward-looking information. Such statements reflect the Companys current views and intentions with respect to future events, based on information available to the Company, and are subject to certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions. Material factors or assumptions were applied in providing forward-looking information, including: execution of definitive agreements with respect to the foregoing transactions; receipt of approval of the TSX Venture Exchange and the directors of the Company for the transactions; closing conditions being met; and PetroBLOQ successfully developing and implementing a blockchain-based supply chain management system. While forward-looking statements are based on data, assumptions and analyses that the Company believes are reasonable under the circumstances, whether actual results, performance or developments will meet the Companys expectations and predictions depends on a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause the actual results, performance and financial condition of the Company to differ materially from its expectations. Petroteqs proprietary solvent based extraction technology is unproven to produce on a commercial basis 1,000/bpd. Commercial production of 1,000/bpd at its existing plant is unproven and expansion at the existing plant or a new larger plant is subject to financing, development and testing to prove it is achievable and commercial. Certain of the risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the Companys forward-looking statements in this press release include, without limitation: uncertainties inherent in the estimation of resources including whether any reserves will ever be attributed to the Companys properties; since the Companys extraction technology is proprietary, not widely used in the industry, and has not been used in consistent commercial production, the Companys bitumen resources are classified as a contingent resource, because they are not currently considered to be commercially recoverable; full scale commercial production may engender public opposition; the Company cannot be certain that the bitumen resources will be economically producible and thus cannot be classified as proved or probable reserves in accordance with applicable securities laws; PetroBLOQ not having the expertise and/or funds necessary to develop and implement a blockchain-based supply chain management system; PetroBLOQ not being able to develop the blockchain technology to completion; blockchain technology not being adopted by the oil and gas industry; changes in laws or regulations; the ability to implement business strategies or to pursue business opportunities, whether for economic or other reasons; status of the world oil markets, oil prices and price volatility; oil pricing; state of capital markets and ability by the Company to raise capital; litigation; the commercial and economic viability of the Companys oil sands hydrocarbon extraction technology, and other proprietary technologies developed or licensed by the Company or its subsidiaries, which are of experimental nature and have not been used at full capacity for an extended period of time; reliance on suppliers, contractors, consultants and key personnel; the ability of the Company to maintain its mineral lease holdings; potential failure of the Companys business plans or model; the nature of oil and gas production and oil sands mining, extraction and production; uncertainties in exploration and drilling for oil, gas and other hydrocarbon-bearing substances; unanticipated costs and expenses, availability of financing and other capital; potential damage to or destruction of property, loss of life and environmental damage; risks associated with compliance with environmental protection laws and regulations; uninsurable or uninsured risks; potential conflicts of interest of officers and directors; and other general economic, market and business conditions and factors, including the risk factors discussed or referred to in the Companys disclosure documents, filed with the securities regulatory authorities in certain provinces of Canada and available at www.sedar.com.

Should any factor affect the Company in an unexpected manner, or should assumptions underlying the forward-looking information prove incorrect, the actual results or events may differ materially from the results or events predicted. Any such forward-looking information is expressly qualified in its entirety by this cautionary statement. Moreover, the Company does not assume responsibility for the accuracy or completeness of such forward-looking information. The forward-looking information included in this press release is made as of the date of this press release, and the Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking information, other than as required by applicable law.

The securities referred to in this news release 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 within the United States or to, or for the account or benefit of, U.S. persons absent U.S. registration or an applicable exemption from the U.S. registration requirements. This news release does not constitute an offer for sale of securities, nor a solicitation for offers to buy any securities. Any public offering of securities in the United States must be made by means of a prospectus containing detailed information about the company and management, as well as financial statements.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

Petroteq Energy Inc.

Alex Blyumkin

Executive Chairman & Founder

(800) 979-1897VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- FinCanna Capital Corp. (FinCanna) (CSE: CALI) (OTCQB: FNNZF) a royalty company for the US licensed medical cannabis industry, is pleased to announce that its investee company Refined Resin Technologies Inc. (Refined Resin) of Oakland, California has received its first purchase order for THC distillate in the amount of US$840,000. Refined Resin is a cannabinoid research and refinery company that provides B2B products and services to licensed brands, dispensaries and distributors in the medical cannabis supply chain.



This purchase order was received from a high volume, top California cannabis brand that manufactures a diversified product line, which is distributed across the state. The purchase order of $840,000 is specified as a minimum annual amount with the expectation that monthly volumes and associated payments could escalate based on consistent delivery and performance.

Refined Resin continues to meet with suppliers, contractors and potential customers in support of its commercial launch expected in early 2019. The company anticipates that this will be the first of a series of purchase orders it will acquire based on advanced discussions in progress with a number of interested parties.

Refined Resin is currently retrofitting a legally zoned, state-of-the-art medical cannabis extraction laboratory, in Oakland, California. Accordingly, this purchase order is non-binding as the Refined Resin facility is under construction and Refined Resin must also complete the licensing process. The facility is targeted to be fully operational by early 2019.

To secure a large purchase order from a top California brand is a testament to the stature of the Refined Resin team and bodes well for future demand, said Andriyko Herchak, President and CEO of FinCanna Capital. Refined Resins principals have extensive experience in extraction, manufacturing, business operations and marketing that is evidenced by their ability to obtain an order of this size while still completing their production facility. This accomplishment is a clear demonstration of their ability to grow a lucrative business which should be highly rewarding for the Refined team and our FinCanna shareholders.

It is Refined Resins intention to become a premier producer of bulk quantities of THC distillate and various high value concentrates produced via hydrocarbon-based solvent extraction. The company plans to provide white-labeling services to licensed brands and infused product manufacturers.

About Refined Resin Technologies Inc.

Refined Resin Technologies, based in Oakland, California, is a cannabinoid research and refinement company focussed on the medical cannabis industry to provide B2B products and services to licensed dispensaries, infused product manufacturers and numerous others in the medical cannabis supply chain.

About FinCanna Capital Corp.

FinCanna provides financing to top-tier companies in the licensed medical cannabis industry in exchange for a royalty on revenues. FinCanna, led by a team of finance and industry experts, is building its diversified portfolio of royalty investments in scalable, best-in-class projects and companies in U.S. legal states, with a focus on California. For additional information visit www.fincannacapital.com and FinCannas profile at www.sedar.com.

FinCanna Capital Corp.

Andriyko Herchak, CEO & Director

Investor Relations:

Arlen Hansen

Kin Communications

1-866-684-6730

CALI@kincommunications.com

Forward-Looking InformationOur media anchors were sure to congratulate Victor Caminada, Marketing Director for Amels, on the incredible feat of completing 100 years in the shipbuilding industry. Caminada relayed that the team at Amels were exceptionally proud of such a special landmark and assured us that despite her age, the company is very healthy and constantly growing and getting stronger.

We asked Caminada what was required to keep a shipyard running so successfully for so many years and he replied: "As times change you need to adapt as a company and a brand. We had a large innovation in 2005 which saw the introduction of the Amels Limited Edition concept. This has proven to be an enormous success with our clients, and we now have six limited edition models which can be modified and customised to the owner's discrepancy."

Amels are also renowned for their exceptional turnaround time from conception to completed build, with Amels' next yacht deliveries scheduled for 2020, which is reasonably quick.

When we asked for further information on current builds and projects, Caminada divulged: "Our current projects are one of our Limited Edition models and working on the range as a whole, as well as an incredible 78m custom yacht with Espen Oeino, of which the hull is expected to arrive at the yard by the end of this year."

Caminada then described what he felt to be some of the factors that affected Amels' design and direction: "Owners now want to have their yachts delivered faster without compromising on quality. We can also see the younger generation beginning to buy and of course, these owners have very different needs and requirements than the older generations."

Amels have identified these growing trends in their client base and have created a new model to cater to this. The SeaXplorer 75 will be showcased at MYS this week and is a 75-metre motoryacht which will come with two helicopters. The yacht will also have an incredible autonomy of 40 days. To conclude, Caminada identified the trends that are taking over the entire industry and should be noted by all:

"Owners want more toys, more entertainment, more autonomy and also more capability in all capacities."Albuquerque, NM, Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Addiction Policy Forum, a leading addiction nonprofit, has expanded its Addiction Resource Center (ARC) to include a database of treatment resources, facilities, and healthcare providers specific to New Mexico.



We lost 499 lives in New Mexico last year due to overdose, according to the recently released and underreported CDC data, said Jessica Hulsey Nickel, Addiction Policy Forum President and CEO. Our goal in adding these new resources for New Mexico is to save more lives in the state and see that number go down.

The ARC includes a comprehensive, interactive website to help individuals and families struggling with addiction learn about substance use disorders and access critical resources. This platform dispels harmful myths about addiction by presenting the science behind the disease in easy-to-read formats, guiding concerned individuals through a self-assessment tool, helping to develop an action plan and providing a database of local treatment providers. The ARC also includes a resource line staffed by addiction counselors, licensed social workers, and peer recovery support advocates that provide callers with substance use disorder information, education on treatment options, and telehealth support. New Mexico residents can call the line at 1-833-301-HELP (4357), Monday through Friday from 7 AM to 4 PM MT.

New Mexico residents can now benefit from the ability to search through a researched, unbiased database of healthcare providers and treatment centers in their state. They can filter by payment method and type of treatment needed as well. In their moments of crisis, the ability to quickly find this information will be critical for those in New Mexico who are concerned about substance use, says Danielle Tarino, Addiction Policy Forum V.P. of Health Information Technology.

Addiction Policy Forum, which has chapters in 38 states and a national office in Washington, D.C., plans to continue adding state-specific resources to its database throughout 2018. In addition to addressing addiction through community resources, APF is committed to affecting policy change at the local, state and national levels and raising awareness of the nationwide addiction crisis.

###

About Addiction Policy Forum

Addiction Policy Forum is a 501(c)(3) organization established in 2015 as a diverse partnership of organizations, policymakers, and stakeholders committed to working together to elevate awareness around addiction, and to improve programs and policy through a comprehensive response that includes prevention, treatment, recovery, and criminal justice reform. Jessica Hulsey Nickel, whose own family was devastated by addiction, is the founder of a coalition of 1,700 families impacted by substance use disorders and is available for further explanation and interviews by media.

More information on our mission and projects is available at http://addictionpolicy.org.



Helsinn Group supports Satellite Symposium at EORTC CLTF 2018 Annual Meeting

Lugano, Switzerland, September 26, 2018  Helsinn, a Swiss pharmaceutical group focused on building quality cancer care products, today announces they are supporting an educational satellite symposium on: Expanding the options in MF-CTCL: changing the present, shaping the future. The symposium will be held at the EORTC CLTF 2018 Annual Meeting in St. Gallen, Switzerland, taking place 27-29 September 2018.

The symposium will take place on Thursday 27 September, 12:45  13:45, Hall 9.2, Olma Messen, St Gallen, Switzerland.

This educational symposium will bring together a panel of leading experts in the treatment of Cutaneous Lymphoma, to compare and provide an update on the current treatment options of Mycosis Fungoides Cutaneous T-cell lymphoma (MF-CTCL).

The event will outline the current landscape of MF-CTCL treatment and will provide with a better understanding of the planned and ongoing research in this specific area. Moreover, the future of MF-CTCL treatment options will be deeply discussed. This session will also highlight new potential treatment options, as well as research on the mechanism of action of chlormethine.

The full programme for the event is below.

Silvia Sebastiani, Head of Medical Affairs at the Helsinn Group, commented: Helsinn remains committed to improve the life and well-being of cancer patients. We are delighted to support and bring together this educational symposium to make an overview on the latest research on MF-CTCL, with the final aim of expanding and improving treatments options for patients living with this type of cancer.

Julia J. Scarisbrick, University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, Birmingham, UK, said: We are very pleased to have the support of the Helsinn Group in bringing together this expert panel at the EORTC annual meeting, and to have put together a stimulating and educational symposium. Over half of CTCL patients are diagnosed with MF-CTCL, and there is no cure for this rare skin cancer. This symposium will be important for the future exploration of treatment options for these patients.

The full program is available at the following link .

About Ledaga

Ledaga gel is an alkylating drug indicated for the topical treatment of mycosis fungoides-type cutaneous T-cell lymphoma (MF-CTCL) in adult patients. Ledaga is a gel which is applied topically once a day. The drug has been approved by the European Commission (for MF-CTCL patients in all stages) and received Orphan Drug Designation. It will be commercially available upon completion of Post Authorisation Measures. In France it is provided through an Autorisation Temporaire dUtilisation (ATU) de cohort.

For additional information please see the EU Summary of Product Characteristics .

About Mycosis Fungoides

Mycosis fungoides (MF) accounts for almost 60% of all primary cutaneous T-cell lymphomas, a form of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. The cause of MF remains unknown and there are no curative treatments. MF has an indolent clinical course, slowly progressing from patches to thicker plaques and eventually to tumours over years or decades. Signs include rash, patch and plaques with severe itch. MF typically affects older adults (median age at diagnosis: 55-60 years) with male predominance. However, people of all ages can be affected. Depending on the stage and diagnosis at presentation, life expectancy can vary from less than five years after diagnosis to full life expectancy. Evidence from seven global studies (US, n = 4; Europe, n = 3) indicated that the incidence of CTCL has increased over time, reaching 10 cases per million individuals per year.

About the Helsinn Group

Helsinn is a privately owned pharmaceutical group with an extensive portfolio of marketed cancer care products and a robust drug development pipeline. Since 1976, Helsinn has been improving the everyday lives of patients, guided by core family values of respect, integrity and quality. The Group works across pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, medical devices and nutritional supplements and has expertise in research, development, manufacture and the commercialization of therapeutic and supportive care products for cancer, pain and inflammation and gastroenterology. In 2016, Helsinn created the Helsinn Investment Fund to support early-stage investment opportunities in areas of unmet patient need. The company is headquartered in Lugano, Switzerland, with operating subsidiaries in Switzerland, Ireland, the U.S., Monaco, and China, as well as a product presence in approximately 190 countries globally.

To learn more about Helsinn Group please visit www.helsinn.com

For more information:

Helsinn Group Media Contact

Paola Bonvicini

Group Head of Communication

Lugano, Switzerland

Tel: +41 (0) 91 985 21 21

Info-hhc@helsinn.com

For more information, please visit www.helsinn.com and follow us on Twitter , LinkedIn and Vimeo .

MECH-US-0004Cincinnati, OHIO, Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- IncludeHealth, an internationally awarded digital health & wellness company, announced today the formation of its Medical Advisory Board (MAB) to aid in expanding the Companys current operations, technology advances and initiatives in the preventative medicine, health and wellness space. Renowned neurosurgeon and University of Cincinnati College of Medicine professor Dr. John M. Tew helped found the board, which is tasked with developing and broadening the medical applications and research aspects of IncludeHealths digital platform. Under him, the board will specifically evolve the scope and applicability of IncludeHealths technology in the areas of exercise, nutrition, social connectivity and life purpose.



The vision for the IncludeHealth MAB is to diversify the thinking and further the health capabilities and initiatives to drive substantial impact in the medical and wellness industries, said Dr. Tew. The best companies have boards that push them to be the best they can be, and we hope to do this for the IncludeHealth team.



Dr. Tew is internationally renowned for his more than 45 years of medical leadership as a neurosurgeon at the Mayfield Clinic, as well as his work in cerebrovascular disease, brain tumors, trigeminal neuralgia, and Chiari malformations. The first Frank H. Mayfield Chair for Neurological Surgery, he was essential to the development of the University of Cincinnati Department of Neurosurgery where he was Chairman and a professor for two decades before co-founding the UC Neuroscience Institute. His work has been published in nearly 200 peer reviewed medical publications, and he remains strongly connected and involved with the UC College of Medicine as a tenured professor of neurosurgery, while also providing consultative services to the international neurosurgery community.



We were thoughtful & diligent in launching our Medical Advisory Board, and are honored to have Dr. Tew be a formal part of IncludeHealth. We believe Dr. Tew is an ideal fit, as he brings a tremendous wealth of neurological experience and knowledge in the health and wellness space, said Ryan Eder, founder of IncludeHealth. Dr. Tews leadership in the medical community is invaluable and we look forward to working together in the relentless pursuit of providing transformative technology in health & wellness.







ABOUT INCLUDEHEALTH

IncludeHealth is a Cincinnati-based digital health & wellness company delivering exercise as medicine. Offered through a monthly subscription, The Include Platform pairs HIPAA compliant cloud software with inclusive strength equipment to produce better outcomes with lower barriers and costs.. This unique pairing provides breakthrough capabilities such as outcomes-based data collection, automated documentation, cloud connectivity and inclusive design. IncludeHealths proprietary technology has been recognized with 28 international innovation & health awards and is utilized in orthopedics, neuroscience, pediatric care, senior care, government, and general wellness. To learn more, visit includehealth.com or connect via twitter (@includehealth) or Facebook (IncludeHealth, Inc.).

AttachmentsFramestore has promoted Anthony Gibbs to Creative Director, from his previous position of Design Director.

Gibbs first joined Framestore in 2007 in London, relocating to the creative studios Los Angeles office in 2016 to help expand its Design presence.

Gibbs said: I am grateful for the ability to work in such a collaborative nature, not only on traditional projects, but also on the expanding number of jobs where I have the opportunity to explore new artistic philosophies to find more creative solutions for our clients. I want to develop ideas that enhance the way we tell stories and experience content, making them more evocative, artful, and memorable.

His standout work includes Framestores work for Valentino Master of Couture, on which he led as Art Director, helping to develop content for an exhibition space at Somerset House in London which celebrated Valentinos career. Most recently, he oversaw the CG and motion graphics for the youth-focused anti-tobacco campaign, Fresh Empire. The first spot, Level Up,

Says James Razzall, US President, Integrated Advertising: Anthony is a perfect fit for Framestore in America; his eye for detail and passion for finding creative solutions strongly resonates with our clients. It gives me great pleasure to promote from within, and Anthonys career growth over the last decade is testament to his can-do attitude and hard work. I am excited to see what the future holds for him and the rest of our creative leadership team.

Share this storyLONDON, Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Wealth management is already an extremely important part of the financial services industry, but recent developments suggest that the sector is only going to become more competitive  particularly at the top level. Last year, the total wealth of the worlds high-net-worth individuals surpassed $70trn for the first time.



With the market growing, there are plenty of firms trying to bolster their client-base. The organisations recognised by the World Finance Wealth Management Awards 2018 have not only been able to do so, theyve also helped the industry overcome a number of emerging challenges.

Technology is bringing disruption as well as opportunity to wealth management firms. Automation and artificial intelligence tools are helping existing players to modernise their operations, but they are also encouraging digital firms based in other sectors to enter the arena. The wealth managers that are able to use their knowledge and experience, in combination with new digital tools, will be best placed to hold off these industry entrants.

In particular, wealth management companies need to maintain and, where possible, improve upon their existing client relationships. Keeping clients informed of the latest industry advances will prove crucial in this regard, with recent research showing that the majority of high-net-worth individuals have not spoken with their wealth managers about cryptocurrencies. These customers are likely to wonder what other cutting-edge developments are similarly passing them by.

The future-ready firms highlighted by World Finances Wealth Management Awards 2018 are already prioritising both digital development and personal relationships. In doing so, they remain well positioned to take a leading role in one of the fastest moving sectors of the financial industry.

To see the full list of this years winners, pick up the latest issue of World Finance, available both in print and online now.

http://www.worldfinance.com

World News Media is a leading publisher of quality financial and business magazines, enjoying a global distribution network that includes subscriber lists of the most prominent and senior decision-makers around the world, as well as comprehensive airport, hotel and conference site distribution.CALGARY, Alberta, Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Canadian Natural Resources Limited (Canadian Natural" or the "Company") announces that Canadian Natural's offer to acquire all of the issued and outstanding common shares (the Laricina Shares") of Laricina Energy Ltd. (Laricina) for $0.0815 per Laricina Share by way of a take-over bid (the "Offer"), as extended on September 13, 2018 for the mandatory 10-day extension period, expired at 11:59 p.m. (Mountain Daylight Time) on September 24, 2018.



Since Canadian Natural's initial take up of 568,724,430 Laricina Shares on September 13, 2018, Computershare Investor Services Inc., the depositary, has reported that as at 11:59 p.m. (Mountain Daylight Time) on September 24, 2018, an additional 3,594,872 Laricina Shares (the "Additional Shares") were validly deposited under the Offer and not withdrawn. Canadian Natural has taken up and accepted for payment all such Additional Shares and payment for such Additional Shares will be made as soon as practicable, and in any event not later than September 27, 2018. If Additional Shares were tendered through brokers or financial intermediaries, holders of such Additional Shares will receive payment for their Additional Shares through their broker or financial intermediary.

With the take up of the Laricina Shares on September 13, 2018 and the Additional Shares, Canadian Natural will have acquired an aggregate of 572,319,302 Laricina Shares pursuant to the Offer, being all of the Laricina Shares validly deposited pursuant to the Offer, representing approximately 99.3% of the Laricina Shares.

Canadian Natural has notified Laricina that it intends to carry out a compulsory acquisition of all the remaining issued and outstanding Laricina Shares that are not currently owned by Canadian Natural following completion of the Offer (the "Compulsory Acquisition") pursuant to Part 16 of the Business Corporations Act (Alberta) (the Act). Under the terms of the Compulsory Acquisition, and subject to the provisions of the Act, the holders of the remaining Laricina Shares not currently owned by Canadian Natural will be entitled to receive the same consideration per Laricina Share as paid under the Offer, being $0.0815 in cash.

A notice of Compulsory Acquisition will be sent by Canadian Natural to the remaining holders of Laricina Shares concerning, amongst other things, the process and schedule for completion of the Compulsory Acquisition and the associated actions that remaining holders of Laricina Shares are required to take.

Canadian Natural is a senior oil and natural gas production company, with continuing operations in its core areas located in Western Canada, the U.K. portion of the North Sea and Offshore Africa.

CANADIAN NATURAL RESOURCES LIMITED 2100, 855 - 2nd Street S.W. Calgary, Alberta, T2P4J8

Phone: 403-514-7777 Email: ir@cnrl.com

www.cnrl.com

STEVE W. LAUT

Executive Vice-Chairman



TIM S. MCKAY

President



COREY B. BIEBER

Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice-President, Finance



MARK A. STAINTHORPE

Vice-President, Finance  Capital Markets



Trading Symbol - CNQ

Toronto Stock Exchange

New York Stock Exchange



Certain information regarding the Company contained herein may constitute forward-looking statements under applicable securities laws. Such statements are subject to known or unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated or implied in the forward-looking statements. Refer to our website for complete forward-looking statements www.cnrl.comSellbyville, Delaware, Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --



Global Commercial Water Heater Market is expected to cross USD 7 billion by 2024, as reported in the latest study by Global Market Insights, Inc. Ongoing investment by respective government authorities toward development of smart cities will stimulate the global market. Growing demand for hot water primarily across hotels and office buildings coupled with rapid adoption of advanced technologies will enhance the business outlook. In 2017, the government of Canada has introduced ecoENERGY program which provide incentives for the deployment of efficient heating systems across educational institutes and other commercial establishments.

U.S. market is set to surpass USD 850 million by 2024. Rapid expansion of service sector along with stringent mandates for deployment of efficient heating systems will encourage the product penetration. Upgradation and replacement of existing models with more efficient and compact products will further augment the industry landscape.

Request for a sample of this research report @ https://www.gminsights.com/request-sample/detail/2910

Compact design, low standby loss and point of use application are some the key features which will stimulate the instant water heater market growth. In addition, low power consumption coupled with fast turnaround time will positively influence the business outlook. Significant cost savings along with shifting focus of industry players to limit carbon footprint will encourage the product penetration.

Increasing demand for energy efficient heating systems along with growing consumer inclination toward energy saving will foster the commercial water heater market. Replacement of existing systems on account of their high-power consuming property leading to high maintenance cost will positively influence the industry outlook. In addition, introduction of digital technologies enabling remote monitoring and control will augment the business landscape.

Browse key industry insights spread across 980 pages with 2484 market data tables & 36 figures & charts from the report, Commercial Water Heater Market in detail along with the table of contents:

https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/commercial-water-heater-market

Persistent need for hot water owing to extreme climatic conditions will accelerate the Russia water heater market growth. Abundant availability of gas across Russia makes the gas variants highly economic and reliable. In addition, government mandates for replacement of existing heating systems along with stringent environment norms will complement the business landscape.

Ongoing investment toward the development of green buildings along with sustainable building codes and standards will foster 100-250 liters water heater market. Government policies pertaining to the deployment of advanced heaters across new constructions along with increasing demand for space heating will enhance the industry outlook.

China market will grow on account of significant investments toward development and expansion of existing infrastructure. Huge potential for growth and lucrative investment opportunities will boost the product demand. In addition, availability of low-cost labor and mass production capabilities provide added advantage to the investors and operating companies across the region.

Instant recovery rate, mass flow and limited operational cost in comparison to the available counterparts will drive the gas water heater market growth. Installation of gas water heater can result in cost saving across gas abundant regions including Russia, Qatar and Iran owing to low natural gas price. Faster water heating capability along with suitability for commercial application will accelerate the industry growth.

Eminent participants across the global commercial water heater market include A.O Smith, Rinnai Corporation, Bradford White, Bosch Thermotechnology, Ferroli, Rheem, State Industries, Saudi Ceramics, Haier, Jaquar, Hubbell, Ariston Thermo, Vaillant, Whirlpool, Kanch Water Heaters and Viessmann.

Make an inquiry for purchasing this report @ https://www.gminsights.com/inquiry-before-buying/2910

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Water Heater Market Size 2018  2024

Global Water Heater Market revenue for 2017 was at over USD 25 billion and the annual deployment is set to exceed 150 million units by 2024. Rapid urbanization coupled with growing demand for energy efficient heating systems will drive the global market outlook.

https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/water-heater-market

Solar Water Heater Market Size 2017  2024

Solar Water Heater Market revenue for 2016 was valued at over USD 2 billion and is predicted to surpass 2.5 million units by 2024. Increasing demand for reliable, environment friendly and cost-efficient technology for hot water preparation will drive the global industry outlook.

https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/solar-water-heater-market

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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.English French

MONTREAL, Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Alderon Iron Ore Corp. (TSX: IRON) ("Alderon" or the Company) is pleased to announce that it and The Kami Mine Limited Partnership (The Kami LP) have received the results of the updated Feasibility Study (FS) on the Rose Deposit of the Kamistiatusset (Kami) Iron Ore Project in western Labrador. The updated FS was completed by BBA Inc. (BBA), located in Montreal, Quebec. The updated FS once again demonstrates the strong economics of the Kami Project which will produce a premium-quality iron ore concentrate with higher Fe content and ultra-low impurities relative to the 62%-Fe grade benchmark. Coupled with the sustained demand for high-grade iron ores, the robust project economics form the foundation of Alderons relaunch of its project financing efforts.



The Technical Report (the Report) summarizing the results of the updated FS and prepared in accordance with National Instrument (NI) 43-101 will be filed on SEDAR and Alderons website within 45 days of this news release. The results of the updated FS are based on 100% ownership of the Kami Project. The Kami Project is held through The Kami LP, as to 75% by Alderon and 25% by HBIS Group Co. Ltd. (HBIS). The results of the updated FS disclosed in this news release are expressed in US Dollars and pre-tax (except where otherwise indicated).

Highlights of the updated September 2018 FS include:

NPV at 8% discount rate $ 1,698 M IRR 24.6% Projected Years to Payback 4.0 years Total Estimated Capital Cost (excluding sustaining capital and closure costs) $ 982.41 M Average Estimated Operating Costs (loaded in ship Port of Sept-Iles) $/dmt 30.72 CFR Concentrate Sales Price Forecast - based on three year trailing average

CFR benchmark price of $63.30/dmt @ 62% Fe, adjusted for Kami Fe grade,

and HBIS and Glencore agreement terms $/dmt CFR $89.67

(FOB $73.17) Estimated Mine Life 23 years Final Product Iron Grade (%Fe) 65.2% Measured and Indicated Resource of the Rose Deposit

(COG=15%, 29.6% Total Fe) 1,093.2 Mt Proven and Probable Mineral Reserves (COG=15%,

28.8% Total Fe, 3.4% Dilution, 2.5% Ore Loss) 517.2 Mt Annual Concentrate Production Rate (average life of mine, post ramp-up year) 7.84 Mtpa

All of the planned production from the Kami Project has been pre-sold under the terms of off-take agreements with HBIS and a subsidiary of Glencore plc. The FOB concentrate sales price used in the financial analysis in the updated FS reflects the terms of these off-take agreements. Further details regarding the concentrate sale price are set out below in this news release.

The updated FS is the final de-risking event prior to project finance that can be added to Alderons achievements, which include release from the Federal and Provincial environmental assessments, agreements for Power Purchase with Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro and for ship-loading services with Port of Sept-Iles, off-take agreements for 100 per cent of production, and a strategic partnership with HBIS, stated Tayfun Eldem, President and CEO of Alderon.

Chinas drive to curb air pollution has led to significant steel sector restructuring and supply side reforms resulting in a steady demand for higher-grade and lower-impurity ores as steelmakers strive to lower emissions and boost blast furnace efficiency. The projected quality of Kami concentrates with 65.2% Fe-grade and ultra-low levels of alumina and phosphorus is perfectly positioned to meet the needs of Chinese steelmakers and serve as a sweetener for the base load of lower-grade ores from Australia, explained Mr. Eldem.

Timing of this milestone for Alderon cannot be better as it brings us closer to advancing the premium-grade iron ore project into production, at a time when high-grade material is selling at a strong premium, stated Mark Morabito, Chairman of Alderon.

Financial Analysis

IRR 24.6% Payback 4.0 years Discount Rate



0%



$ NPV

(Million $)

5,616 5% $ 2,626 8% $ 1,698 10% $ 1,270

Total capital expenditures (including contingency) are estimated at $982.4 million. The capital cost estimate excludes closure costs and sustaining capital, which are expected to be in the order of $42.7 million and $449.1 million respectively for the life of the project. These costs are included in the financial analysis for the project. The updated FS capital cost estimate is based on an EPC (Engineering, Procurement and Construction) project execution strategy. The EPC portion of the total capital costs is estimated at $900.74 million. This was developed in collaboration with Duro Felguera (DF), which is a potential provider of EPC services to the project should The Kami LP decide to proceed with this project execution strategy.

On a post-tax basis, the updated FS shows an NPV of $866 million at a cash flow discount rate of 8%. The post-tax IRR for the project is 18.2% and the payback period is 4.9 years.

Summary of Estimated Initial Capital Costs (Million $) Mining $ 72.20 Mineral Processing Area $ 302.81 TMF Area (Initial Dykes) $ 23.66 Site Infrastructure and Utilities $ 309.90 Other EPC Costs (Indirects, Guaranties, Insurance) $ 192.17 TOTAL EPC COSTS $ 900.74 Pre-Operational Capitalized Costs $ 26.90 Owners Costs $ 30.98 Mine (Waste Rock Pre-Stripping by Kami) $ 23.79 TOTAL $ 982.41

The updated FS assumes a Concentrate CFR selling price of $89.67/tonne. This price was calculated at a reference date of June 26, 2018, using the 3-year trailing average price of $63.30/tonne for the Platts IODEX 62% Fe, CFR North China, adding the spot Fe premium of $27.52/tonne and applying the discounts and premiums allowed by the HBIS and Glencore agreements (60% HBIS - 40% Glencore). The final price of concentrate loaded in ship (FOB) at Port of Sept-Iles assumed in the financial analysis is $73.17/tonne. The final price is determined after applying shipping costs estimated at $16.50/tonne.

Average life-of-mine (LOM) operating costs are estimated at $30.72/tonne of concentrate. During the life of the project, leased equipment are replaced as they reach the end of their service life and these replacement costs are capitalized and reflected as part of the sustaining capital expenditures. Average LOM operating costs are based on the following:

Summary of Estimated Average LOM Operating Costs ($/t of concentrate) Mining (including mining equipment leasing costs) $ 11.25 Mineral Processing $ 5.72 General Site $ 0.50 General Administration $ 2.26 Environmental & Tailings Management $ 0.37 Rail Transportation and Port Services (including railcar leasing costs) $ 10.62 TOTAL $ 30.72

Mineral Resources

The Mineral Resources and Proven and Probable Mineral Reserves are reported in accordance with Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (CIM) Definition Standards for Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves and their Guidelines, and are prepared in accordance with NI 43-101.

The Mineral Resource estimate for the Kami Project is set out below. Mr. Michael Kociumbas, P.Geo is a Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101 and is responsible for reviewing and approving this Mineral Resource estimate and the QA/QC associated with the estimate. He has verified, reviewed and approved the technical data contained in this news release and underlying sampling, analytical and test data. The Mineral Resource estimate has been prepared using a 15% Total Fe cut-off grade, is effective December 17, 2012 and inclusive of Mineral Reserves.

Zone Category Tonnes

(Million) TFe% MagFe% HemFe% Rose Central Measured 249.9 29.4 17.6 8.1 Indicated 294.5 28.5 17.7 5.9 Total M&I 544.4 28.9 17.7 6.9 Inferred 160.7 28.9 16.9 7.1 Rose North Measured 236.3 30.3 13.0 14.7 Indicated 312.5 30.5 11.8 17.1 Total M&I 548.8 30.4 12.3 16.1 Inferred 287.1 29.8 12.5 15.5 Mills Lake Measured 50.7 30.5 21.5 7.0 Indicated 130.6 29.5 20.9 3.9 Total M&I 181.3 29.8 21.1 4.8 Inferred 74.8 29.3 20.3 2.7

MagFe% = percentage of the Fe present as magnetite;

HemFe% = percentage of the Fe present as hematite.

The Mineral Resource estimate for the Kami Project was completed in Gemcom using block sizes of 15 m x 15 m x 14 m for Rose Central and Rose North and 5 m x 20 m x 5 m for Mills Lake and is based on results from 209 diamond drill holes at Rose Central and Rose North (170 holes) and Mills Lake (39 holes) zones totaling 62,247 m. These holes were drilled within the iron mineralization for approximately 2,000 m of strike length and a range of 200 to 400 m of width for Rose Central and Rose North. The holes were drilled on section lines that were spaced 100 m apart for both deposits in the main area of mineralization. For the geological modelling, 3-D bounding boxes defining the maximum extents of the Rose and Mills Lake deposit areas were created. The boxes extended approximately 200 m along strike from the outermost drill holes in each area. Mineralized boundaries extended up to a maximum of about 400 m on the ends of the zones and at depth where there was no/little drill hole information, but only if the interpretation was supported by drill hole intersections on adjacent cross sections or by solid geological inference.

Proven and Probable Mineral Reserves

The mining engineering work performed for this updated FS was based on the 3-D block model provided by Alderon. Pit optimizations were performed on the Measured and Indicated Resources and the pit shell that resulted in the maximum discounted NPV was selected as a guide for the pit design. The final Mineral Reserves were estimated after applying engineering and operational design parameters and include mining dilution and ore losses. BBA is of the opinion that the Mineral Reserve estimate derived in this updated FS reasonably quantifies the economical ore mineralization of the Rose Deposit. The Mineral Reserve estimate is effective as of August 12, 2018. The Proven and Probable Mineral Reserves presented in the table below are derived from the December 17, 2012 Mineral Resource estimate set out above. Only the Measured and Indicated Resources within the Rose Central and the Rose North Deposits have been considered in the updated FS and have been used for the estimation of Proven and Probable Mineral Reserves. The Mineral Resources within the Mills Lake Deposit have not been considered in the FS.

Material Tonnes

(Millions) TFe% WREC% MagFe MAG% Proven Mineral Reserve 392.7 29.0 34.7 15.0 20.8 Probable Mineral Reserve 124.5 28.2 32.0 11.1 15.3 Total Mineral Reserve 517.2 28.8 34.1 14.1 19.4

TFe = total Fe grade; WREC% = the weight recovery; MagFe = Fe present as magnetite;

MAG% = the percentage of magnetite in the Proven and Probable mineral reserves.

Project Summary

The updated FS is based on the same mineral processing flowsheet as the previous technical reports including the 2012 FS. The major infrastructure required to support the Kami Project, as stated in the updated FS, includes the following components:

Mining of the Rose open pit and adjacent crushing plant at the Kami mine area.





Crushed ore conveyed from the crusher to the crushed ore stockpile, ahead of the concentrator, to the east of the Waldorf crossing.





Concentrator consisting of autogenous grinding, gravity and magnetic separation and dewatering and utilizing the autogenous and ball mills that already have been procured.





Tailings disposal in the designated area on the Kami Project, in the location which was identified during the 2012 FS. In this updated FS, the Tailings Management Facility (TMF) and tailings deposition plan have been redesigned to conform to current industry standards and in accordance with the Canadian Dam Association Dam Safety Guidelines.





Concentrate load-out located at the new Kami rail loop, connecting to the QNS&L main rail line by way of a new railway constructed as part of the Kami Project.





Rail transportation of concentrate from the Kami rail loop to the common port terminal facilities at Pointe Noire near Sept-Iles, Quebec (owned and operated by third parties).





Ship-loading services provided by Port of Sept-Iles.





Electrical power supplied by Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro (NLH) based on the terms set out in the power purchase agreement between NLH and The Kami LP.

Project Schedule

Prior to construction commencing, the Company intends to re-assemble the owners team, award an EPC or EPCM contract, resume detailed engineering, and have construction financing in place. Construction is expected to last 26 months.

Technical Report and Qualified Person

A NI 43-101 Technical Report is being prepared under the supervision of Mr. Angelo Grandillo, P.Eng, of BBA, a Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101, with contributions from Mr. Jeffrey Cassoff, P.Eng, of BBA, Mr. James Powell of Gemtec, Mr. Peter Merry of Golder and Mr. Kociumbas. Mr. Grandillo is a Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101 and is independent of Alderon. Mr. Grandillo has reviewed and approved the technical information contained in this news release, with the exception of the Mineral Resource estimate which was reviewed and approved by Mr. Kociumbas and the Mineral Reserve estimate which has been reviewed and approved by Mr. Jeffrey Cassoff, as noted above. Mr. Grandillo has verified all the data underlying the technical information disclosed in this news release.



About Alderon Iron Ore Corp.

Alderon is a leading iron ore development company in Canada. The Kami Project, owned 75% by Alderon and 25% by HBIS through The Kami Mine Limited Partnership, is located within Canadas premier iron ore district, the Labrador Trough, and is surrounded by two producing iron ore mines. Its port handling facilities are located in Sept-Iles, the leading iron ore port in North America. HBIS is Alderons strategic partner in the development of the Kami Project and Chinas second largest steel producer.

For more information on Alderon, please visit our website at www.alderonironore.com .

ALDERON IRON ORE CORP.

On behalf of the Board

"Tayfun Eldem"

President & CEO, Director

Alderon is part of the King & Bay group of companies. King & Bay is a merchant bank that specializes in identifying, funding, developing and supporting growth opportunities in the resource, aviation, and technology sectors.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information

This press release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act and Canadian securities laws concerning anticipated developments and events that may occur in the future. Forward-looking information contained in this press release include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to (i) future demand for production from the Kami Project; (ii) the next steps in the development of the Kami Project; (iii) the completion of project financing; (iv) the market and future price of iron ore and related products; (v) the estimation of Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves; and (vi) the results of the FS including statements about future production, future operating and capital costs, the projected IRR, NPV, payback period, construction timelines and production timelines for the Kami Project.

In certain cases, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "budget", "scheduled", "estimates", "forecasts", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or state that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will be taken", "occur" or "be achieved" suggesting future outcomes, or other expectations, beliefs, plans, objectives, assumptions, intentions or statements about future events or performance. Forward-looking information contained in this press release is based on certain factors and assumptions regarding, among other things, receipt of governmental and other approvals, the estimation of Mineral Resources, the realization of resource estimates, iron ore and other metal prices, the timing and amount of future development expenditures, the estimation of initial and sustaining capital requirements, the estimation of labour and operating costs, the availability of necessary financing and materials to continue to explore and develop the Kami Project in the short and long-term, the progress of exploration and development activities, the ability of the Company to use the multi-user terminal facility at the Port of Sept-Iles, the receipt of necessary regulatory approvals, the estimation of insurance coverage, assumptions with respect to currency fluctuations and exchange rates, environmental risks, title disputes or claims, and other similar matters. While the Company considers these assumptions to be reasonable based on information currently available to it, they may prove to be incorrect.

Forward-looking information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking information. Such factors include risks inherent in the exploration and development of mineral deposits, including risks relating to changes in project parameters as plans continue to be redefined including the possibility that mining operations may not commence at the Kami Project, risks relating to variations in Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves, grade or recovery rates resulting from current exploration and development activities, risks relating to the ability to access rail transportation, sources of power and port facilities, risks relating to changes in iron ore prices and the worldwide demand for and supply of iron ore and related products, risks related to increased competition in the market for iron ore and related products and in the mining industry generally, risks related to current global financial conditions, uncertainties inherent in the estimation of Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves, access and supply risks, reliance on key personnel, operational risks inherent in the conduct of mining activities, including the risk of accidents, labour disputes, increases in capital and operating costs and the risk of delays or increased costs that might be encountered during the development process, regulatory risks, including risks relating to the acquisition of the necessary licences and permits, financing, capitalization and liquidity risks, including the risk that the financing necessary to fund the exploration and development activities at the Kami Project may not be available on satisfactory terms, or at all; risks related to disputes concerning property titles and interest, risks related to disputes with Indigenous governments and organizations, risks related to insufficient capacity being available for the Company to access the multi-user terminal facility at the Port of Sept-Iles, environmental risks and the additional risks identified in the Risk Factors section of the Companys Annual Information Form for the most recently completed financial year, or other reports and filings with applicable Canadian securities regulators. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The forward-looking information is made as of the date of this press release. Except as required by applicable securities laws, the Company does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking information.As some readers may know, an American Studies professor at the University of Michigan recently rescinded his agreement to provide a study-abroad reference letter for a student, once he realized that she was planning to go to Tel Aviv University. There was no question about the student's academic qualifications -- he specifically offered to write her a letter for any other destination -- but he explained that his commitment to the BDS movement precluded any support for study in Israel. This action was wrong in many ways, but it does expose the hypocrisy of the American Studies Association and others who claim that the Israel boycott is aimed at institutions and not individuals.

[UPDATE: the professor's email rescinding reference offer is now at the end of this post]

The Alliance for Academic Freedom (of which I am a member) has issued the following statement, which has also been published in the Chronicle of Higher Education:

In July 2014, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel published guidelines, including one instructing professors to refuse to write recommendations for students applying to study in Israel. The guidelines were immediately adopted by the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. Ever since, BDS members have said that this would affect institutions, not individuals. However, the case this month of a professor refusing to write a letter of recommendation for a student wishing to study in Israel exemplifies the personal consequences of such actions.



John Cheney-Lippold, an associate professor in the department of American culture at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, emailed an undergraduate student to say he had just realized she was applying to study abroad at Tel Aviv University, and therefore, in compliance with the boycott movement, he was withdrawing his offer to write a recommendation on her behalf to that university. He added that he was happy to write other recommendations for her, thus confirming that he had no doubts about her academic record, which would be a valid justification for refusing to write a recommendation.



Faculty members are free to decline requests to write recommendation letters for many reasons. They may feel they dont know the student well enough, or they may not consider a student strong enough to earn a letter that is both honest and favorable. A faculty member is also entitled to share with a student ethical or political objections to study in a given country. Although institutions have a responsibility to warn students traveling to foreign countries about risks and to determine which institutions they will and will not establish formal relations with, individual faculty members dont bear such responsibility. In any case, it is students who must ultimately decide whats in their best interest.



For a faculty member to impose a political litmus test on recommendations and refuse to write to a program because it is based in a particular country violates a students right to apply for admission to his or her program of choice. That is what happened here.HOUSTON, Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Superior Energy Services, Inc. (NYSE:SPN) announced today that it will release its third quarter 2018 results on Monday, October 22, 2018 after the market closes. In conjunction with the release, the Company has scheduled a conference call, which will be broadcast live over the Internet, on Tuesday, October 23, 2018 at 9:00 a.m. Eastern time. Investors may participate either by phone or audio webcast.



By Phone: Dial 800-949-2175 (International dial-in 323-994-2131) at least 10 minutes before the call. A replay will be available through October 30, 2018 by dialing 844-512-2921 (International replay dial-in 412-317-6671) and using the pin number 5309015. By Webcast: Connect to the webcast via the Investor Relations section of Superior Energys website at www.superiorenergy.com. Please log in at least 10 minutes in advance to register and download any necessary software. A replay will be available shortly after the call.

About Superior Energy Services



Superior Energy Services (NYSE:SPN) serves the drilling, completion and production-related needs of oil and gas companies worldwide through a diversified portfolio of specialized oilfield services and equipment that are used throughout the economic life cycle of oil and gas wells. For more information, visit: www.superiorenergy.com .

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Paul Vincent, VP of Investor Relations, (713) 654-2200Share this article Whatsapp

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Linkedin Editorial Board (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, September 26, 2018 08:31 1143 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b3087748dc2b 4 Editorial #Editorial,Tuberculosis,TB,communicable-disease,health,healthcare,Indonesia Free

A diagnosis of tuberculosis is among the most dreaded statements that anyone wants to hear. Apart from the likely risk of losing a promising job, TB is among the diseases that carries stigma because it is potentially highly contagious. In Indonesia it is an old scourge; we have joined the G20, but it is deeply ironic that the nation ranks second in the world in contributing to the global burden of TB, and is a leading cause of death in the country.



Although the latest estimates show about 1 million TB cases in Indonesia, hundreds of thousands are grouped as missing cases, as patients have forgone the requirement of periodical treatment, while one carrier could spread the disease to up to 15 people through the air.



Eliminating TB is among the priorities of the 2015 to 2019 national development blueprint, part of the nations policies and action plans to reach its sustainable development goals target. Toward the goal of Ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being at all age, Indonesia simultaneously focuses on improving vaccination coverage, which is struggling with resistance against immunization; and also on reducing the prevalence of stunting.



Despite these seemingly insurmountable challenges, along with other nations we have a better chance of reducing TB, at least, with the first ever High Level Meeting on TB taking place on Sept. 26 at the ongoing United Nations General Assembly in New York. Indonesias delegation, led by Vice President Jusuf Kalla and Coordinating Human Development and Culture Minister Puan Maharani, is set to join a global pledge of national leaders to end TB by 2030. This should boost commitments at all levels; including on educating families and communities on preventing TB and convincing people that it is curable with disciplined treatment.



Public education of TB is increasingly urgent because of the attached stigma leading to self-denial, or our tendency to ignore bad coughs. Public health experts fear many do not report related symptoms such as weight loss, shortness of breath, chills and other ailments. As a result, thousands of cases go unreported, and many more are categorized as multidrug resistant, while an effective vaccine for adults is yet to be developed.



Decision makers increasingly realize that all our public health problems are intertwined with other issues such as overcoming the challenges of poverty and the gap among provinces, including the gap regarding access to clean water and health services.



Poverty in the household means less priority on continuing treatment among TB carriers as the focus is on short-term earnings even when one may feel unwell; while prosperous-looking cities may blind us to the fact that TB can spread faster in dense, polluted areas.



One contributor of pollution is our infamously high rate of smoking. A few local leaders have indeed made progressive steps in addressing smoking-related diseases; such as enforcing no smoking areas. Our participation at the New York panel to end TB will need to be substantiated by consistency, including much more concerted policies in curbing tobacco consumption.Share this article Whatsapp

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Linkedin Bjorn Lomborg and Aaron Motsoaledi (The Jakarta Post) Prague  Wed, September 26, 2018 15:20 1143 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b308774a0bbd 3 Opinion Tuberculosis,health,#health,healthcare,stigma Free

On Wednesday, heads of state will meet at the United Nations for their first-ever meeting dedicated to ending tuberculosis (TB) as a public health threat.



This is expected to result in the adoption of an ambitious political statement. This high-level attention is long overdue, but there is a compelling moral and economic case for this to be matched by resources, which are currently sorely lacking.



Over the past two centuries, TB has caused far more deaths than smallpox, malaria, the plague, influenza, cholera and AIDS, combined.



This year, the toll from TB surpasses that of HIV/AIDS, making it the planets most deadly infectious disease.



The development of a vaccine, albeit 97 years ago, and the availability of affordable drugs mean we have the technical ability to eradicate TB  just as we wiped out smallpox and rinderpest  and have nearly ended polio and river blindness.



But instead of making TB history, global dithering has allowed it to become a silent killer of the worlds worst-off. Even in poor countries, where the wealthier can afford treatment, it is the poorest, most disconnected and disadvantaged that suffer.



Insidiously, TB mostly hits young adults at an age when they have just become parents and are ready to contribute productively to their societies. The result is that families lose incomes, and children lose their parents.



Many poor people understandably postpone a visit to the doctor, because seeking treatment means lost time and wages, along with social stigma.



Even when they go to a local, often private doctor, in many countries this doesnt mean they will be timely and correctly diagnosed  since symptoms overlap with many other, less dangerous diseases, resulting in patients in need possibly being prescribed just cough medicine.



In the meantime, the infection spreads.



When diagnosis finally occurs, medicine isnt a one-off solution, but a regime that takes half a year or more. Having to keep filling prescriptions (again losing income and time) and taking pills  even after feeling better  is a big task.



Eventually, many people who start treatment just stop especially as symptoms decrease.



This leads to drug-resistant TB, which results in more serious consequences for the patient, and higher costs for society.



A global analysis of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals by a team of Nobel laureate economists for the Copenhagen Consensus found that controlling TB is one of the 19 most phenomenal development investments that should be prioritized globally.

Every dollar spent investing in TB control would generate benefits to society worth around US$43



They based this conclusion on research by Anna Vassall of London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.



She researched the case for investment and concluded that, at a global level, every dollar spent investing in TB control would generate benefits to society worth around US$43.



If we look at an area with a very high prevalence, it is clear that getting people diagnosed faster, and encouraging adherence to drugs, will not only save lives but will also generate huge economic gains.



India has the greatest TB burden in the world. Recent research for the Copenhagen

Consensus and Tata Trusts looking at several Indian states found that huge societal returns could be generated by focusing on TB: In Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh, each dollar spent on improved TB detection and treatment would generate benefits worth more than $100.



The benefit firstly comes from saving many lives. But by treating people faster and more efficiently, we also avoid many more infections  essentially saving future TB victims from ever getting sick and possibly dying.



Ensuring that effective treatment is initiated as early as possible would mean almost eradicating drug-resistant TB.



In India, although just 4 percent of TB cases are drug-resistant they absorb almost half the TB budget. This is the case in all countries with high levels of drug resistant TB.



There is vast untapped potential that can be unlocked by focusing more development resources on TB.



Yet, the worlds deadliest infectious disease right now gets a paltry $1.5 billion in development funding  a full $1 billion lower than the amount spent combating malaria, and one-sixth of the amount spent fighting HIV/AIDS.



Including domestic spending by poorer countries, about $6.9 billion was spent on TB last year. However, according to the international Stop TB Partnership, we need to almost double spending by 2020 to $13 billion per year to end TB.



An increase of $5.4 billion is less than 4 percent of global development spending. The United States spends three times more just on Fathers Day gifts.



The attention of world leaders is an excellent first step.



But both morally and economically we need to follow that with concrete steps and funding that will finally end TBs heavy burden.



***

Bjorn Lomborg is president of the Copenhagen Consensus Center. Aaron Motsoaledi is South Africas Minister of Health and chairman of the Stop TB Partnership Board.

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

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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, September 26, 2018 11:31 1143 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877497609 1 Lifestyle bali,fashion,Wakai,counterfeit,fake-products,shoes,footwear Free

Indonesian footwear company Wakai and the Bali Police destroyed 600 counterfeit goods in May, parent company Metroxgroup said in a statement.

The fake Wakai-branded goods were confiscated from outlets in Bali.

They were destroyed to eliminate the goods function and original character to prevent them from being reused. If previously we burned the counterfeit goods, now we rip or cut the goods into pieces, said Metroxgroup legal representative Cesar Resha.

Aside from handing over all fake Wakai goods in their possession, the sellers and manufacturers were required to make public apologies and pay compensation for losses.

Read also: Wakai releases special Independence Day shoes

Previously, the brand confiscated thousands of counterfeit Wakai goods in West Jakarta, Bandung and Banten from October to November 2017. The goods were subsequently destroyed.

Assed Lussak, Metroxgroups head of marketing, said fake goods posed a threat to customers as well as the company. Customers could get low-quality goods if they dont know they purchased fake goods, and that in turn will harm the companys image, he added.

He said Metroxgroup would carry out spot checks for counterfeit goods at malls and online marketplaces.

The Indonesian footwear brand, known for its slip-on trademark shoes, was founded in 2012 and is said to be inspired by Japanese lifestyles. (wng)Share this article Whatsapp

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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, September 26, 2018 08:02 1143 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b3087748bac5 1 City parking,illegal-fees,Central-Jakarta,parking-attendant Free

Four Pak Ogah (voluntary parking attendants) have been arrested for asking for parking fees in Tanah Abang, Central Jakarta.

The Jakarta Polices mobile detective unit chief Adj. Comr. Mugia Yarry Junanda said on Monday that the suspects often forced motorists to pay for between Rp 2,000 [13 US cents] and Rp 5,000 for parking in Tanah Abang.

Residents have also felt troubled by their presence, Mugia said as quoted by kompas.com.

The police found the Pak Ogah were carrying Rp 244,000 in cash, which they seized as evidence on Saturday. Pak Ogah is a nickname for voluntary traffic attendants who usually operate in areas where police personnel are absent.

If convicted, they could be sentenced to a maximum of nine years imprisonment under Article 368 of the Criminal Code on extortion, Mugia said. (srz)Share this article Whatsapp

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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, September 26, 2018 06:25 1143 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b3087748a285 1 National student-protest,Pekanbaru Free

The Pekanbaru Police are investigating allegations of sexual abuse and assault involving university students during a rally in front of the Riau Legislative Council in Pekanbaru, Riau, on Monday.

The rally, held to commemorate National Farmers Day, was attended by thousands of university students who clashed with security personnel after they tried to enter the compound.

The police said the students molested seven on-duty policewomen during the altercation.

When they tried to force their way through the blockade, the protestors faced the policewomen, who were the first layer of security, Pekanbaru Police chief Sr. Comr. Susanto said on Tuesday as quoted by kompas.com. At that point, the university students molested and assaulted the policewomen, who were securing the demonstration.

Susanto said some of the policewomen fainted, experienced chest pains and sustained injuries to their lips, arms and legs.

The injured policewomen were taken to the hospital, he said, adding that the case was being investigated.

Meanwhile, Riau University student president Randi Andiyana said seven protestors had been injured in the clash.

One Riau Muhammadiyah University student is in the hospital, he said. We have lodged a report. (kmt/swd)Share this article Whatsapp

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Linkedin Ruslan Sangadji (The Jakarta Post) Palu, Central Sulawesi  Wed, September 26, 2018 13:20 1143 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b3087749c4a4 1 National #CentralSulawesi,#earthquake,CentralSulawesi,earthquake Free

The Palu Meteorological, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) in Central Sulawesi says the region has been rocked by around 30 earthquakes daily over the last four months.

The numerous daily quakes are caused by shifts in the Palukoro fault, which extends from Poso to the waters of Tolitoli regency and branches off to the Matano fault in South Sulawesi.

"The magnitudes of the tremors vary. Some were undetectable while others could be felt by in the region," Cahyo Nugraha, head of the BMKGs geophysics department, told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

A 5.2-magnitude earthquake destroyed houses, churches, mosques and schools in North Lore district, Poso, Central Sulawesi, last year.

Tadulako University seismologist Abdullah said because it sat on top of one of the most active faults in the country, Palu in Central Sulawesi was considered to be among areas that were most prone to earthquakes and tsunamis in eastern Indonesia.

The first tsunami in the area was recorded in 1927 when a 15-meter wave slammed into the city, killing 15 people and injuring 50.

A 1938 tsunami killed 16 people and destroyed piers and a lighthouse on the Parigi shore, while another tsunami in the city of Tambu in 1968 followed a 6.0-magnitude quake. (ris)Share this article Whatsapp

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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, September 26, 2018 14:55 1143 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b3087749f0e7 1 City sexual-abuse,molestation,child-abuse,Depok Free

A man identified as R has been reported to the police in Depok, West Java, for sexually abusing the 7-year-old friend of his granddaughter.

The victims lawyer, M Syarifudin Amin, escorted her and her mother to the Depok Police on Monday to file the report.

I came here to ask the police to immediately arrest the perpetrator. We came here with a witness who was nearly a victim of R, Syarifudin said as quoted by kompas.com.

According to Syarifudin, R raped the victim a few months ago in an empty house not far from Rs own home in Pancoran Mas, Depok. He added that R had lured the young girl to the location by promising her Rp 5,000 (34 US cent).

R is a married man, he is around 50 years old and works as a civil servant in Jakarta, Syarifudin said.

The case was revealed after the victim told her cousin about what R had done to her.

Meanwhile, the police have not released any official statement regarding the case.

Syarifudin said if the Depok Police did not respond to the report, he would proceed to National Police and Indonesian Children Protection Commission (KPAI). (gis)Share this article Whatsapp

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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, September 26 2018

Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan reinstated and rotated numerous mid-level city officials on Tuesday.

Anies said the rotation was aimed at speeding up and improving public services in the city.

[The rotation] is part of the dynamics of an organization aimed at improving its services. It is normal to always ensure such refreshment for the organization to grow, he said after inaugurating the officials at City Hall, as quoted by kompas.com.

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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, September 26, 2018 16:08 1143 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b308774a1491 4 Business tourism-industry,investment,coordination-meeting,Arief-Yahya Free

Tourism Minister Arief Yahya said on Wednesday that the country needed to invest Rp 500 trillion (US$ 33.49 million) to develop tourism in 2019.

As a leading sector, all ministries and institutions are required to support the program. We are targeting tourism as the largest foreign exchange contributor, said Arief after attending the third national coordination meeting on tourism in Jakarta as quoted by kompas.com.

He said to boost tourist arrivals from 2019 to 2024, the country needed 120,000 more hotel rooms, 15,000 restaurants, 100 recreational parks, 100 diving operators, 100 marinas, 100 tourism special economic zones and 100,000 homestays.

He said meeting participants tried to map out the investment needs and financial resources.

The government projects that it will obtain $20 billion from tourists in 2019.

Arief said balance of payment in the tourist sector posted a surplus in the last four years, meaning that the amount of money spent by foreign tourists was higher than the amount spent by Indonesian tourists abroad.

Previously, President Joko Jokowi Widodo decided on 10 tourist destinations that would be developed by the government.

Arief said the funding would be used to develop the 10 tourist destinations and finance homestays and small and medium enterprises focusing on tourism.

For homestays, we need Rp 2 trillion, while for SMEs we need Rp 25 trillion, he said. (bbn)Share this article Whatsapp

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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, September 26, 2018 09:18 1143 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b3087748f317 4 Business Indosat-Ooredoo,Joy-Wahyudi,resignation Free

Telecommunications company Indosat Ooredoo announced on Wednesday that president director Joy Wahyudi had resigned, however he would continue to work for the company in some capacity.

We will still work with him to ensure the transition takes place smoothly, said Ooredoo Group CEO HE Sheikh Saud bin Nasser Al Thani in a statement.

Nasser said Joys resignation was part of the companys plan to welcome the golden period of the telecommunications industry in Indonesia.

He said the structural change at Indosat Ooredoo was an opportunity for the company to grow.

We express our gratitude for his valuable contribution while holding the top position at Indosat Ooredoo, Nasser said as quoted by kontan.co.id.

Joys replacement has not been announced, however the company is scheduled to hold an extraordinary shareholders meeting on Oct. 17 to discuss its leadership and transformation. (bbn)Share this article Whatsapp

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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, September 26, 2018 13:32 1143 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b3087749dcc2 1 World JusufKalla,Mike-Pence,Indonesia,UnitedStates,bilateral-cooperation,conflict,resolution,Trade Free

Vice President Jusuf Kalla met with his American counterpart Mike Pence to talk about intensifying bilateral relations on the sidelines of a United Nations event in New York on Tuesday local time.

"We talked about our good relations, as next year will be the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations [between Indonesia and] America, so we will intensify our relationship," Kalla said after the meeting at the Lotte New York Palace, as reported by Antara news agency.

The Indonesian vice president said Indonesia had the opportunity to deepen trade relations with the United States despite an escalating trade war between the US and China, citing good relations between Jakarta and Washington.

Kalla and Pence also discussed the latest political developments and regional security in the region, such as security on the Korean peninsula, the human right crisis in Myanmar and ongoing conflict in Afghanistan.

As the country with largest Muslim population in the world, Indonesia had a big and important role in conflict resolution, Kalla said.

"And [Pence] agreed that Indonesia has that role," he said.

A statement from the US vice presidents office said Pence had congratulated Indonesia on its election to the UN Security Council and encouraged Indonesia to continue to be a voice for peace and stability in the region.

Kalla is leading Indonesias delegation at the 73rd UN General Assembly, the largest UN event of the year where heads of state from 193 countries have the opportunity to speak about various international issues. Kalla is scheduled to give a speech on Thursday. (dis/ahw)Share this article Whatsapp

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Linkedin Apriadi Gunawan (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, September 26, 2018 10:33 1143 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877495bab 1 National Medan,police,blasphemy,quran Free

The Medan District Court in North Sumatra has sentenced a police officer to 16 months in prison for shredding and dumping copies of the Quran into the gutter.

The officer, Tommy Daniel Patar Hutabarat, was found guilty of blasphemy as stipulated under Article 156 of the Criminal Code.

"We sentenced the defendant to one year and four months in prison," presiding judge Sibarulina Ginting said on Tuesday.

Tommy was recorded by a CCTV camera when he stole copies of the Quran from a mosque at Adam Malik Hospital in Medan in May.

After he went in to use the bathroom, Tommy was seen taking four copies of the Quran and taking them back into the restroom, where shredded two copies and dumped them in the gutter.

He left the other two copies on top of a concrete hedge beside it.

Tommy then left the mosque and went to his car to retrieve his bags and accompany his wife who was going into labor.

His motives remain unclear, but he claimed that he had heard voices in his head telling him to destroy the holy books.

However, the judges agreed that the defendant did not suffer from a mental illness because he still worked at the Police's Medical Department. (ris/ahw)Share this article Whatsapp

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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, September 26, 2018 10:05 1143 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b30877492096 1 City murder,South-Jakarta,Navy,Veteran,verdict Free

A 20-year-old man, Supriyanto, was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment on Tuesday for killing a Navy veteran.

Navy veteran Hunaedi, 83, died of stab wounds at his house in Pondok Labu, South Jakarta.

Hunaedis daughter, Tisa, said she was disappointed with the South Jakarta District Courts verdict, which she considered too lenient.

I cant accept the last point that he was only sentenced to 12 years, she said as quoted by kompas.com.

The verdict was three years lighter than that demanded by public prosecutors.

Supriyanto knocked on Hunaedis door on April 4 asking for directions, while Hunaedi was distracted he stole Rp 3.2 million that was on a table.

He visited Hunaedi again the next day and when asked him why he was there Supriyanto suddenly pushed the victim to the ground, took another Rp 200,000 from the table and stabbed the veteran to death. (srz)Share this article Whatsapp

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Linkedin Catherine Triomphe (Agence France-Presse) United Nations, United States  Wed, September 26, 2018 09:29 1143 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b3087748ff3a 2 World #NewZealand,#UnitedNations,NewZealand,Prime-Minister,general-assembly-meeting Free

New Zealand's prime minister has been proclaimed a history maker for taking "first baby" -- daughter Neve -- into the United Nations General Assembly hall, shaking up what is still a boys' club of world leaders.

Photographs of Jacinda Ardern, 38, kissing and bouncing her three-month-old in the main hall at the Nelson Mandela Peace Summit on the eve of the General Assembly have gone around the world and taken the internet by storm.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric confirmed on Tuesday that it had been the first time in the organization's 73-year history that a woman leader had taken her newborn into the assembly room.

"It's altogether a good thing and we were delighted to have Neve in the General Assembly hall. With only five percent of world leaders women, we should do everything to make them feel as welcome as possible," he added.

The sight of Neve and her father, who is her chief care giver, watching Ardern at work has attracted plenty of positive commentary in a United States, where many worry the Trump administration imperils women's rights.

"I cannot stress how much the UN -- and the governments that comprise it -- need this," tweeted former US ambassador to the United Nations turned Harvard professor Samantha Power, herself a mother of two.

Ardern, currently the youngest woman leader in the world, is only the second female prime minister to give birth while serving in office, after Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto in 1990. She says she wants to blaze a trail for other women.

"I want to normalize it," Ardern told CNN.

"If we want to make work places more open, we need to acknowledge logistical challenges... by being more open it might create a path for other women."

She's also the first to admit she's not a typical working mother.

- Media darling -

"What I consistently acknowledge is that I have assistants who help Clarke with the ability to juggle his career and be our primary caregiver," she was quoted as saying by CNN.

Her television presenting partner has also been feted on American social media, fueling the love by tweeting a photograph of his daughter's UN ID designating her "New Zealand First Baby."

"I wish I could have captured the startled look on a Japanese delegation inside UN yesterday who walked into a meeting room in the middle of a nappy change. Great yarn for her 21st," he wrote.

Pregnancy, motherhood and governing have turned her into a poster child for feminism against the backdrop of the #MeToo movement in the United States.

Her first UN General Assembly outing has turned her into something of a media darling, conducting a whirlwind of television interviews, with a slot on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" still to come Wednesday.

Through it all, she has chosen to champion the modernity of a country of fewer than five million residents, already on its third female premier.

"I never grew up believing my gender would stand in the way of doing anything I wanted," she said.

"I credit the women who came before me and credit New Zealanders for welcoming me having a child... I'm proud of the nation."

Its a popularity she's no doubt enjoying. In power just under a year, she has been troubled by political difficulties at home in recent weeks following the resignation of two cabinet ministers.Share this article Whatsapp

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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, September 26, 2018 12:35 1143 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b3087749a4fb 4 Business rupiah-against-dollar,weakening,FOMC,meeting Free

The rupiah further weakened on Wednesday morning ahead of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting in which the United States Federal Reserve is slated to decide whether it will increase its reference rate.

According to Bloomberg, the currency was quoted at Rp 14,941 per US dollar at 10 a.m. at the spot market on Wednesday, or 0.16 percent lower from its position the day before. And according to the Jakarta Interbank Spot Dollar Rate (JISDOR), the exchange rate stands at Rp 14.938 per US dollar, or 3 percent lower than Tuesdays position.

Monex Investindo Futures analyst Ahmad Yudiawan said the rupiah was under pressure as the Fed was expected to increase the Fed Fund Rate on Thursday.

The Fed Fund Rate hike will boost the demand for US dollar, he said as quoted by kontan.co.id.

Ahmad said market players would still wait for Fed officials to announce whether the US central bank would make another reference rate hike this year and subsequently further strengthen the US dollar.

Meanwhile, domestically, no significant event could produce positive sentiments that could help the rupiah, Ahmad said, adding that the only possible positive sentiment would be the result of Bank Indonesias (BI) boards of governors meeting.

We are just waiting for a response from the BI board of governors meeting on whatever decision is made in the FOMC, Ahmad said, adding that if BI increased its seven-day reserve repo rate (7DRRR), it would be an effort to stabilize the rupiah exchange rate. (bbn)Share this article Whatsapp

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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, September 26, 2018 13:36 1143 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b3087749e359 1 Business US-Indonesia-investment-summit,AmCham,Sri-Mulyani-Indrawati,Ignatius-Jonan Free

Six economic ministers are scheduled to speak in the United States-Indonesia Investment Summit, the sixth such event held under the auspices of Initiative Indonesia, a joint project of AmCham Indonesia and the US Chamber of Commerce, on Sept. 27 in Jakarta.

They are Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati, Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Ignasius Jonan, Industry Minister Airlangga Hartarto, Communications and Information Rudiantara, Manpower Minister Hanif Dhakiri, National Development Planning Minister Bambang Brodjonegoro and Trade Minister Enggartiasto Lukita

The ministers will join with numerous business leaders and other government officials for what has become the premier bi-lateral US-Indonesia private sector event of the year, according to a press statement issued by AmCham received on Wednesday.

US Ambassador to Indonesia Joseph Donovan is scheduled to give his remarks in the summit, while Sri Mulyani and Jonan are among its key speakers, along with John Goyer, head of US Chamber of Commerces Southeast Asia office.

The annual investment report titled Indonesias Journey, which covers the countrys reform agenda over the last 20 years with a special focus on the first four years of President Joko Jokowi Widodos administration, will be published during the event.

The report also compares Indonesia with the other ASEAN-5 countries (Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam) in indicators related to the ease of doing business, attracting foreign investors and economic cooperation with the US. It also looks specifically at Indonesia's sectoral issues (agriculture, consumer goods, extractive and so on) and includes interviews with key industry players. (bbn)Share this article Whatsapp

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Linkedin Stefanno Reinard Sulaiman (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, September 26, 2018 11:05 1143 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b3087749696a 1 Business coal-power-plants,funding,termination,standard-chartered Free

British financial giant Standard Chartered announced on Tuesday that it would stop financing new coal-fired power plants as part of its effort to address climate change.

In a statement posted on the companys website, it said that it will not directly finance any new coal-fired power plant projects, including expansions, in any location.

We have made the decision following an extensive consultation process with all of our stakeholders, including clients, employees, shareholders, NGOs and governments, Standard Chartered chairman Jose Vinals said in the statement.

Standard Chartered said further that it would not withdraw from coal-fired power plant projects that had already been financed. The company also said that it would encourage clients to move toward more sustainable forms of energy.

Were committed to support our clients and markets in developing alternate sources of power generation. [] Future low-carbon requires significant changes in energy systems across our markets. Weve an important role to play in this process, the company says in a statement.

Standard Chartered is financing and facilitating clean technology by allocating US$4 billion up to 2020, which the company says has reached more than half of the target. (bbn)Share this article Whatsapp

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Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Geneva, Switzerland  Wed, September 26, 2018 21:29 1143 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b308774a9202 2 Sports #sports,#Chelsea,#Swiss,Swiss,police,rejection,Chelsea,Abramovich Free

Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich had sought to move to Switzerland but withdrew his residency bid when it looked set to be rejected, a Swiss migration official said Wednesday.

The saga surrounding the Chelsea owner's attempt to relocate to the wealthy Alpine nation was first reported by the Tribune de Geneve (TdG) newspaper, which claimed Abramovich was turned away after Swiss police claimed he posed a security risk.

Abramovich had applied for residency in Valais canton, which includes the luxury ski resort of Verbier, Jacques de Lavallaz, the head of the cantonal migration service, told AFP in an email.

Valais gave Abramovich the green light, de Lavallaz said, but federal authorities have the final say on Swiss migration decisions.

"The (federal) secretariat of migration was going to make a negative decision but Mr. Abramovich's representatives withdrew their client's application before a decision was issued," de Lavallaz said.

The migration secretariat's decision was based on an analysis conducted by Swiss federal police, de Lavallaz explained, without discussing details of their conclusions.

He stressed that the application was withdrawn before a final decision was rendered.

According to the TdG, Abramovich applied to move to Verbier in 2016.

The newspaper said that police argued he was linked to "alleged money laundering and alleged contacts to criminal organisations."

Police claimed "that Abramovich's presence in the country would constitute a reputational risk for Switzerland - and possibly even a public security risk," the newspaper further reported.

The newspaper also posted a statement from an individual identified as Abramovich's lawyer, criticising Swiss officials and the release of his personal information.

"We have filed a request for correction of facts to the Swiss Federal Police and will be filing a criminal complaint against unknown persons responsible for dissemination of this confidential information," the lawyer, Daniel Glasl, said in the statement.

"Any suggestion that Mr. Abramovich has been involved in money laundering or has contacts with criminal organisations is entirely false," he added.

It also noted that Abramovich has no criminal record.

The TdG said Swiss police raised concern over a commodities trading company that had been controlled by Abramovich called Runicom, which was the subject of a money laundering investigation by Geneva prosecutors in the 1990s.

Glasl stressed that the company was "long-ago cleared of any wrongdoing."

The TdG said that Switzerland's federal court gave it permission last week to publish the story, after a seven month legal battle with Abramovich's lawyers.

Abramovich, who bought Chelsea in 2003, was granted Israeli citizenship earlier this year after the British authorities reportedly delayed approving a visa for him.English French

TAMPA, Fla., Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- (NYSE: CAE; TSX: CAE)  CAE today announced that CAE USA has been awarded a United States Air Force (USAF) contract to provide comprehensive C-130H aircrew training services.



The eight-year contract, awarded as a three-month transition effective October 1, 2018 with a one-year base period and seven additional option periods, is valued at a total of more than US$200 million.

The formal training unit for U.S. Air Force, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard C-130H training is based at Little Rock Air Force Base (AFB) in Arkansas. Training under the C-130H Aircrew Training System (ATS) program is also provided at Dobbins Air Reserve Base (ARB), Georgia; McChord AFB, Washington; Minneapolis Air National Guard Base (ANGB), Minnesota; and Cannon AFB, New Mexico. Each year, more than 11,000 crewmembers from the U.S. Air Force, other U.S. military services, and over 30 other countries are trained under the C-130H ATS program.

Winning the C-130 Aircrew Training System program to support the United States Air Force is a significant achievement and further testament to CAEs experience as the worlds leading provider of training systems and services for the enduring C-130 Hercules aircraft, said Ray Duquette, President and General Manager, CAE USA. We have played a role on this program as a subcontractor for almost 20 years, and we are honored the Air Force has now placed its trust and confidence in CAE to lead the program that supports the preparation and readiness of C-130 aircrews for their critical missions.

CAE USA will be the C-130H ATS prime contractor responsible for providing classroom and simulator instruction, training device modifications and upgrades, systems engineering support, program management and contractor logistics support. CAE USA will also manage the C-130H Training Systems Support Center (TSSC) located at Little Rock AFB. Currently there are 11 C-130H full-mission simulators and more than 50 additional aircrew training devices used as part of the C-130H ATS program.

About CAE

CAEs Defense & Security business unit focuses on helping prepare our customers to develop and maintain the highest levels of mission readiness. We are a world-class training systems integrator offering a comprehensive portfolio of training centers, training services and simulation products across the air, land, sea and public safety market segments. We serve our global defense and security customers through regional operations in Canada; the United States/Latin America; Europe/Africa; and Asia-Pacific/Middle East, all of which leverage the full breadth of CAEs capabilities, technologies and solutions.

CAE is a global leader in training for the civil aviation, defense and security, and healthcare markets. Backed by a record of more than 70 years of industry firsts, we continue to help define global training standards with our innovative virtual-to-live training solutions to make flying safer, maintain defense force readiness and enhance patient safety. We have the broadest global presence in the industry, with over 9,000 employees, 160 sites and training locations in over 35 countries. Each year, we train more than 120,000 civil and defense crewmembers and thousands of healthcare professionals worldwide. www.cae.com

Follow us on Twitter @CAE_Inc and @CAE_Defence

PHOTO 1: CAE USA will be the prime contractor on the C-130H Aircrew Training System program that supports the training of U.S. Air Force C-130H aircrews. U.S. Air Force photo.

PHOTO 2: As part of the C-130H Aircrew Training System program, CAE USA will provide simulator instruction, maintenance support services, and deliver modifications and upgrades for C-130H aircrew training devices.

CAE contacts:

Helene V. Gagnon, Vice President, Public Affairs and Global Communications,

+1-514-340-5536, helene.v.gagnon@cae.com

Trade media:

Chris Stellwag, Director, Marketing Communications  Defense and Security,

+1-813-887-1242, chris.stellwag@cae.comShare this article Whatsapp

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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Wed, September 26, 2018 13:32 1143 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b3087749cf57 1 City stabbing,teenagers,love,girlfriend,Bekasi Free

The Bekasi Police have detained a 17-year-old student from a vocational high school for assault after he allegedly stabbed another teenager over a girl.

"The victim was stabbed in the abdomen," Bekasi Police crime unit chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Jarius Saragih said on Wednesday as quoted by tempo.co.

The victim had reportedly accused the suspect of stealing his girlfriend. The suspect retaliated in anger by stabbing the victim in Duren Jaya, East Bekasi, West Java, on Sunday.

The two boys started quarreling via text messages and WhatsApp.

They agreed to meet but instead of coming alone, the suspect arrived with several friends.

"[The victim] is still receiving treatment in the hospital," Jarius said, adding that the boys legs had been severely injured.

The suspect was later detained at his home in the Wismajaya housing complex.

"We're still looking for the sickle he used [to stab the victim] because he said he had thrown it into a river," Jarius said. (vla)Share this article Whatsapp

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Linkedin Christian Otton (Agence France-Presse) United Nations, United States  Wed, September 26, 2018 08:28 1143 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b3087748d39b 2 World #USA,#Iran,DonaldTrump,Iran,president,UnitedNations Free

US President Donald Trump called for Iran's international isolation in a combative and unashamedly boastful speech at the United Nations on Tuesday, prompting accusations from his Iranian counterpart that he was trying to topple his government.

In his second appearance before the General Assembly, Trump also lashed out at other adversaries such as Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro and took aim at international institutions such as the UN-backed world court.

He even provoked derisive laughter from fellow leaders at the normally staid assembly by trumpeting the performance of his administration whose "America First" foreign policy continues to cause alarm.

But Trump also had warm words for the main target of his rhetoric at his UN debut last year as he praised the "courage" of North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un.

Hours before Iran's President Hassan Rouhani spoke from the same rostrum, Trump denounced the clerical regime in Tehran for sowing "chaos, death and destruction" as he defended his decision to ditch an internationally-brokered nuclear deal.

"We cannot allow the world's leading sponsor of terrorism to possess the planet's most dangerous weapons," Trump said, alluding to Tehran's support for Islamic militant movements such as Hamas and Hezbollah.

"We ask all nations to isolate Iran's regime as long as its aggression continues."

Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal in May, to the dismay of the other parties that had invested years in negotiations to keep Iran's nuclear ambitions in check.

In his address, Rouhani stressed Tehran's continued commitment to the deal and ridiculed Trump as a "preposterous" leader who was himself isolated.

- EU rejects sanctions -

In a sign of how some allies are unwilling to automatically follow Trump's lead, the five remaining parties to the agreement -- Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia -- announced Monday plans to keep business ties alive with Iran, staring down Washington's move to impose sanctions.

Trump's Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, addressing an anti-Iran pressure group, said he was "disturbed and indeed deeply disappointed" by the EU announcement.

"This is one of the of the most counterproductive measures imaginable for regional and global peace and security," Pompeo said.

Rouhani poured cold water on the idea of resuming talks with Washington, saying US claims that it was not seeking regime change fooled no one.

"It is ironic that the US government does not even conceal its plan for overthrowing the same government it invites to talks," Rouhani said.

"For dialogue to take place, there is no need for a photo opportunity. The two sides can listen to each other right here in this assembly."

French President Emmanuel Macron used his speech to urge "dialogue and multilateralism," crediting the 2015 accord with curbing Tehran's nuclear program.

Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan, another ally whose relations with Trump have cooled, did not mention the US president by name but there was little doubt who he had in mind when he said it was "very easy to create chaos but difficult to re-establish order."

And South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa said it was important to "resist any and all efforts to undermine the mulilateral approach to international trade" at a time when Trump is hoisting tariffs against a variety of trading partners.

In his opening speech, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said trust in the rules-based global order and among states was "at a breaking point" and international cooperation was becoming more difficult, again without specifically mentioning Trump.

"Today, world order is increasingly chaotic," Guterres told the 193-nation assembly.

US President Donald Trump sits before speaking at the General Debate of the 73rd session of the General Assembly at the United Nations on September 25, 2018 in New York. Bryan R. Smith / AFP (AFP/Bryan R. Smith)

- Trump denounces 'globalist' view -

Trump robustly attacked "globalist" views and vowed that "America will never apologize for protecting its citizens."

He said that the UN-backed International Criminal Court has "no jurisdiction, no legitimacy and no authority."

His administration -- which has recently choked off aid to the Palestinians -- will only support "our friends" in the future, he added.

Boasting that his team "has achieved more than any administration in the history of our country," Trump was met with laughter.

"I didn't expect that reaction, but that's okay," he responded.

While he praised China's President Xi Jinping for his role in the North Korea peace process, Trump had harsh words for Beijing amid a growing trade war, saying the commercial imbalance with the Asian power "cannot be tolerated."

Venezuela's "repressive regime" was another target of Trump's invective, held responsible for a "human tragedy" in the once oil-rich nation.

Trump then openly mused that Maduro "could be toppled very quickly" if his military chiefs turned on him.

He also reserved harsh words for OPEC, the global oil cartel that includes both US allies and foes.

"OPEC and OPEC nations are, as usual, ripping off the rest of the world, and I don't like it. Nobody should like it."Share this article Whatsapp

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Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) United Nations, United States  Wed, September 26, 2018 09:09 1143 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b3087748f22f 2 World #Turkey,#USA,Turkey,Erdogan,USA,DonaldTrump,sanctions Free

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday sharply criticized the use of economic sanctions "as weapons" in his address to the United Nations, in an implicit swipe at the United States.

"None of us can remain silent to the arbitrary cancellation of commercial agreements, the spreading prevalence of protectionism and the use of economic sanctions as weapons," Erdogan told the UN General Assembly.

Ties between Washington and Ankara hit a low in August when President Donald Trump announced steep new tariffs on Turkish steel and aluminum in response to the detention of an American pastor in Turkey.

The Turkish lira has taken a beating on the currency market, sparking fears in Turkey of a full-blown economic crisis.

"Nobody wants the world to experience a new economic rupture," said Erdogan.

He did not accuse the United States directly but pointed to "countries that are persistently trying to create chaos."

"It is very easy to create chaos but it's difficult to re-establish order, and today some countries are persistently trying to create chaos."

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Monday he was hopeful Turkey would release this month the American pastor, Andrew Brunson, who has been detained for nearly two years on terror charges.

Erdogan urged world leaders to crack down on followers of Fethullah Gulen, a US-based Turkish preacher whom the president has accused of backing a failed coup in 20016 and considers the leader of a terror organization.

Calling once again for his extradition, Erdogan alleged that Gulen was living in Pennsylvania "in a very well-off fashion."Share this article Whatsapp

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Linkedin News Desk (Reuters) Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia  Wed, September 26, 2018 10:10 1143 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b3087749587f 2 World #Malaysia,#corruption,Najib-Razak,wife-profile,investigate,1MDB Free

Rosmah Mansor, the wife of former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak, arrived on Wednesday at the country's anti-graft agency for a second round of questioning over a corruption probe at state fund 1MDB.

Her questioning comes amid indications that more charges could be filed in the investigation into how billions of dollars went missing from 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).

Najib, who was ousted in a general election in May, has already been charged with money laundering, abuse of power and criminal breach of trust. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges and has consistently denied wrongdoing.

Rosmah arrived at the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) headquarters around 0200 GMT, flanked by her lawyers and looking solemn.

Her first round of questioning in June lasted three hours.

Last week, an MACC official said more charges could be brought against individuals over 1MDB.

When asked if Rosmah could face charges, the official said: "I'm not denying that".

Rosmah, 66, has long been in the public eye for flaunting a range of Hermes Birkin handbags and showy jewellery, and spending thousands of dollars in shopping sprees around the world.

Her penchant for designer goods has raised eyebrows in Malaysia, with many asking how she has been able to afford the luxury items on her husband's government salary.

The couple's world has been turned upside down since Najib suffered a shock election defeat on May 9 to his one-time mentor Mahathir Mohamad, who swiftly reopened a probe into 1MDB.

The U.S. Department of Justice has alleged more than $4.5 billion was misappropriated from 1MDB and that about $680 million ended up in Najib's personal bank account.

Najib and Rosmah have both been barred from leaving the country and their home and other properties linked to them have been searched by the police as part of the 1MDB investigations.

The haul seized from their homes - Malaysia's biggest and worth up to $275 million - included 567 handbags, 423 watches and 12,000 pieces of jewellery, including 1,400 necklaces, 2,200 rings, 2,800 pairs of earrings and 14 tiaras.

Rosmah has drawn comparisons to Imelda Marcos, who left behind more than 1,200 pairs of shoes when her husband Ferdinand Marcos was ousted as president of the Philippines in 1986.

Najib has said most of the items seized from his houses were gifts given to his wife and daughter and had nothing to do with 1MDB.Share this article Whatsapp

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Linkedin Dian Septiari (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Thu, September 27 2018

US tour: Vice President Jusuf Kalla meets with United States Vice President Mike Pence at Lotte New York Palace, New York, on Tuesday. (Courtesy of Setwapres)

Indonesia is preparing for its upcoming stint on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) by holding meetings with foreign diplomats during the UN General Assembly in New York.

Jakarta is set to become a non-permanent member of the council in January, but Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi said Indonesia, along with the other four new members, would attend council meetings as observers without voting rights next month.

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Linkedin News Desk (Agence France-Presse) Helsinki, Finland  Wed, September 26, 2018 16:04 1143 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b308774a112f 2 News finland,indigenous-people,tourism,Sami,Lapland,minority-groups Free

Representatives of Finland's indigenous Sami said Tuesday they would urge holidaymakers to stop visiting igloos and riding husky sleds in Lapland, claiming non-Sami traditions are being passed off as authentic thereby exploiting their culture.

"The widespread, inaccurate and primitive image of the Sami which comes across in exploitative tourism is at best objectifying and offensive to the Sami community," Finland's Sami parliament, a representative body in the nation's northernmost town of Inari, said.

"The repeated, public, inaccurate image and the spreading of incorrect information are harmful both to the Sami community and to the vitality of Sami culture," added the representatives who want to sanction tour operators who do not comply.

The Sami, formerly known as Lapps, are spread out across the northern parts of Sweden, Finland and Norway and the Russian Kola peninsula, in a region known as Lapland.

According to the Finnish Sami parliament, there are 10,000 Sami in Finland.

The proposal lamented the spread of non-Sami traditions being passed off as authentic, such as husky rides and igloos, and the widespread sale of low-quality handicrafts.

Finnish Lapland has become an increasingly popular destination for holidaymakers, who flock to the Arctic Circle in winter to meet the 'real' Father Christmas and engage in winter pursuits such as husky sledding.

Last year, visitors spent 3.5 million nights in Lapland, up from 2.6 million a decade earlier, according to Finland's tourist board.

But some of the area's indigenous population feel the growth has been at their expense.

Read also: 'Game of Thrones'-inspired ice hotel opens in Finland's Lapland

- 'Long and sad history' -

"There is a long and sad history of how Sami culture has been used in tourism," Kirsi Suomi, leader of the Culturally Responsible Sami Tourism project and lead author of the proposals, told AFP.

The project, funded by Finland's culture ministry, gathered testimony from Samis about the impacts of tourism on their culture.

Among the practices causing offence highlighted by the proposals were tourism workers pretending to be Sami when they're not, and products or tourist attractions portraying Sami people as magical and primitive.

The proposal recommended that outside designated tourist zones, visitors should be banned from approaching -- and potentially distressing -- reindeer, a source of livelihood for many Sami.

Holidaymakers should also be urged not to photograph Sami dressed in their national costume, apart from those at tourist sites.

"If for example one person refrains from wearing Sami dress because they do not want to be photographed by tourists, that is one person too many," the proposal stated.

Instead, the document advocated offering visitors a more authentic and culturally sensitive view of the Sami.

"Sami tourism should above all support the preservation of Sami culture and ways of life for future generations," the proposal said.

The Sami share a common culture based on their closeness to nature, traditionally involved in reindeer herding or coastal fishing, fur trapping, and sheep herding. They have strong cultural traditions, notably handicrafts and the singing of 'yoik' song chants, and speak related dialects of their Sami language.Share this article Whatsapp

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Linkedin Saritha Rai (Bloomberg)  Wed, September 26, 2018 07:01 1143 882ab4bc56dbda08a069b3087748a9e5 2 News Oyo,Indian-startup,travel Free

Oyo Hotels, an Indian startup for booking reliable rooms in the countrys chaotic lodging market, is raising $1 billion to fund expansion into China and other global regions.

Existing investors including SoftBank Vision Fund, Sequoia Capital and Lightspeed Venture Partners have put in $800 million, with commitments for another $200 million, the company said on Tuesday. About $600 million of the total will be plowed into China where Oyo began operations only 10 months ago. The funding values the startup at $5 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified because the matter is private.

Ritesh Agarwal, a 24-year-old college dropout, founded Oyo five years after traveling around India on a shoestring budget. He discovered wildly unpredictable standards for hotels and guest houses, and decided to start an online service to bring more reliability to the travel experience. In the past two years, Oyo has expanded beyond India into China, Malaysia, Nepal and Britain.

With this additional funding, we plan to rapidly scale our business in these countries, while continuing to invest further in technology and talent, Agarwal said in the statement. We will also deploy fresh capital to take our unique model that enables small hotel owners to create quality living spaces, global.

His startup, whose official name is Oravel Stays Pvt, signs on hotel owners and then gets them to upgrade everything from linen, toiletries and bathroom fittings to its specifications. It also equips hotels with staff training and standardized supplies.

It then brings them on board its hotel website, where rooms start at $25 per night. Hotel owners pay Oyo a 25 percent commission.

Budget travelers are consistently shortchanged by the lack of trust, quality, and consistency, said Bejul Somaia, managing director of Lightspeed India, explaining that Oyo can change that dynamic.

At a $5 billion valuation, Oyo would be Indias most-valuable startup after One97 Communications, the parent of digital payments pioneer Paytm. Flipkart Online Services Pvt had been the most valuable startup in the country, but the online retailer has been acquired by U.S. retail giant Walmart Inc. earlier this year.

Indias hotel industry includes large chains with dependable hospitality experiences at the mid to top end. But the business also includes thousands of unbranded, ramshackle hotels and lodges with broken beds, yellowing linen and stinking bathrooms. Oyo is trying to make hotels easier to find through its site and more predictable as well.

Its criteria are exacting -- from the thickness of the mattress to the placement of the light switches to the size of the showerhead in the bathroom. Agarwal has said that he wants the Oyo brand to convey a superior experience.

Read also: NusaTrip.com seeks to help foreign travelers explore Indonesia

Oyo began with one hotel in Gurgaon and has grown to 125,000 rooms in India, where it says its tripling year-over-year in terms of transactions. In China, where it began operations last November, it has expanded to 171 cities with 87,000 rooms. It is now in over 350 cities with 211,000 rooms.

The Flipkart acquisition was seen in India as an example of the countrys growing success in building valuable startups. Walmart acquired 77 percent of the business for $16 billion as the U.S. retailer seeks to compete with Amazon.com Inc. in the country.CHICAGO, Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Striking the delicate balance between customer experience and fraud prevention is not an easy feat. This was a common theme among newly released Forrester Consulting global studies exploring fraud in the financial services, insurance and single and multi-family rental industries.



TransUnion commissioned Forrester to conduct studies focusing on these industries in the August/September 2018 timeframe. Each study can be downloaded at the TransUnion Fraud Trends 2018 website. Register for a webinar to learn more details about the financial services and insurance studies here .

The studies come at a time when TransUnions own proprietary fraud data found that outstanding balances of suspected synthetic fraud for auto loans, bankcards, retail cards and personal loans have now surpassed $1 billion as of Q2 2018. Insurers and large and small property managers also face new fraud schemes as the prevalence of online applications continues to rise.

Increases in fraud are corroborated by the research conducted by Forrester.

Nearly all financial services firms (94%) in the study recognized that they have experienced some sort of fraud, whether its identity theft/new account fraud, synthetic identity fraud, or account takeover fraud in the past two years.

Almost two-thirds of insurance companies (62%) have seen an increase in soft fraud and 57% have seen an increase in identity fraud in the past year.

Virtually all property management companies (97%) have experienced fraud in the properties they manage in the past two years.

Its clear that a major hurdle for decision makers in industries such as financial services, insurance and the rental market is how to fight fraud while ensuring prospective customers have a good experience. Consumers are demanding a better experience and those businesses that are not delivering on this are losing out to their competitors, said Geoff Miller, head of global fraud and identity solutions for TransUnion. Its also apparent that many of the same fraud issues that plague American financial services and insurance companies are impacting similar businesses in Canada, India and likely other countries around the world.



Exceptional customer experience is critical for most decision makers featured in the studies. Nearly three in four financial services firms (71%) said customer expectations influence the methods they use to detect fraud. About two-thirds (65%) of insurance professionals agree that the tactics they have in place to weed out fraudsters can negatively impact their good customers.

Executives also lamented that a major problem in fraud prevention and detection is that many fraud solutions lack the flexibility to adjust in real time. As well, the end user verification process is too complicated, resulting in poor customer experience.

To effectively fight fraud, businesses cannot wait days, hours or even minutes to make the right decision. They need effective tools that utilize evolving, overlapping networks of physical and digital risk signals that will inevitably help both businesses and the consumers they serve, said Miller.

Forrester study participants included 465 decision makers from the financial services, insurance and property management industries. Executives from the United States, Canada and India participated in the financial services and insurance studies while leaders from the United States contributed to the property management research.

More information about the Forrester studies can be found here . Continue to read for in-depth study highlights about the insurance, financial services and single and multi-family rental industries.

Fraud Costs Insurers Billions of Dollars Annually; Negatively Impacting Customer Experience

The Forrester insurance study,  Insurers: Strike The Right Balance Between Fighting Fraud And CX,  found that 66% of insurance firms revealed that fraudsters are evolving their tactics, threatening customers and their bottom line.

According to a government study1, in the US alone, the total cost of property-casualty and auto insurance fraud is estimated to be more than $30 billion per year.2

1 https://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/insurance-fraud

2 https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/12/you-could-be-committing-insurance-fraud-heres-why-you-should-care.html

One of the biggest problems identified by insurers is the verification of identities as fraudsters are exploiting weaknesses in the application process through three main types of fraud, including:

Identity theft: compromised or stolen identities are used to apply for insurance or to file a claim;

compromised or stolen identities are used to apply for insurance or to file a claim; Soft fraud : applicants or policy holders deliberately alter or omit information to obtain a lower premium or misrepresent the value of a claimed item;

: applicants or policy holders deliberately alter or omit information to obtain a lower premium or misrepresent the value of a claimed item; Hard fraud: applicants or policy holders deliberately stage or embellish a loss for financial gain.

The types of fraud we see in the insurance industry have serious economic implications for both insurance providers and their customers, said Mark McElroy, executive vice president and head of TransUnions insurance business unit. Customers are demanding exceptional experiences throughout the insurance process. This means that false alerts, detection, prevention procedures and the investigations that go with it can negatively impact their customer experience.

As more consumers expect to receive frictionless, high quality interactions, fraud continues to threaten insurance firms. In fact, 49% of insurers are not confident in their ability to detect soft fraud, 40% are not confident in their ability to detect identity fraud, and 55% are not confident in their ability to detect hard fraud.

The study also revealed that in the past year:

62% of insurance firms saw an increase in soft fraud;

57% saw an increase in identity fraud;

34% saw an increase in hard fraud.

Every stage of the customer journey is susceptible to fraud, but identifying the types of fraud and detecting it as early as possible is key, said McElroy. Misidentified or undetected fraud can have a major impact to insurers reputations and ultimately their bottom line.

When insurance carriers were asked What impact does fraud have on your business?

57% cited damage to brand/reputation;

52% cited fines/lawsuits for non-compliance with regulations;

49% cited fraud loss write-offs.

While fraud is hard to eliminate completely as fraudsters evolve their tactics, there are ways to alleviate fraud risk in the insurance industry. Its important for insurers to combat fraud by arming themselves with solutions that bridge the gap between customer experience and fraud prevention.

Taking a pre-emptive strike against insurance fraud will serve to help prevent bad debt, fraudulent claims and losses down the road, McElroy concluded.

Increase in Digital Intensifying Rise in Financial Services Fraud

The Forrester financial services study,  Fraud Detection and ID Verification in Financial Services, found that fraud is a widespread issue in the industry with 94% of firms experiencing some sort of fraud in the past two years. Not only is the fraud becoming increasingly more difficult to prevent and detect, it poses a new challenge to financial institutions  how to maintain a competitive edge without sacrificing the customer experience.

Approximately 70% of financial services firms reported their customers prefer to use digital channels over other channels. While this trend is nothing new, the shift in consumer behavior has made way for new types of fraud to emerge. Financial institutions now encounter fraudulent activity such as synthetic fraud and loan stacking, where sophisticated technological capabilities such as real-time insights, machine learning and predictive analytics are necessary to flag the suspicious activity, quickly.

What types of fraud, if any, has your company experienced in the past two years?

Issue Percentage Identity theft / new account fraud 65 % Synthetic identity fraud 58 % Account takeover fraud 56 % Card-not-present fraud 46 % Loan stacking 46 % None; we have not experienced fraud in the past two years 6 %

*Base: 153 professionals involved in the evaluation/ selection of fraud detection technology.

Consumer behaviors are changing; savvy fraudsters have recognized that and they have evolved their tactics to mimic those of legitimate customers, said Steve Chaouki, executive vice president and head of TransUnions financial services business unit. Financial institutions need to ensure their legacy systems are keeping up with fraudulent activity without negatively impacting their customer experience.

To combat the rise in digital fraud, advanced technologies are needed to identify red flags at the first warning sign. The majority of fraud tools, however, do not bring both fraud detection and ID verification solutions into one seamless experience. Nearly six in 10 decision-makers noted that their company currently has three or more fraud detection or ID verification solutions  yet less than one-third are confident in their ability to identify fraud.

The study also found that customer experience correlates strongly with brand loyalty and the likelihood of consumers coming back for more products. Customers have also come to expect that every digital interaction, customer service call and application process should be seamless and consistent.

More than half (54%) of financial institutions indicated that their current identity verification and fraud detection processes are too complex and burdensome  not only for customers to conduct transactions, but also for the organization to maintain. Furthermore, half of financial institutions are not satisfied with the capabilities that they currently have in place.

When financial services customers feel they are burdened with extra steps to verify their identity, it increases abandonment and reduces future engagement, said Chaouki. A poor verification experience can turn away good customers and increase the risk of customer defection and lost revenue.

The implications of fraud can be felt across the business, with high costs for victim remediation, fraud loss and legal complications for non-compliance. Financial institutions must take all of these factors into account while also keeping costs down. Forrester estimates that fraud claims 2.39% of revenue for financial services firms, costing companies billions every year.

Evolving Fraud Schemes Impacting Property Managers

The Forrester rental housing industry study,  Misunderstanding and Inconsistency: The State of Fraud In The Rental Housing Industry, found that certain forms of fraud are increasingly putting pressure on property managers.

These forms of fraud include synthetic, digital and true name fraud. Synthetic fraud, in particular, has become a new weapon of choice as fraudsters can use manufactured identities during the application process. Unless sophisticated technology is in place to flag suspicious information as part of the verification process, the fraud may not be realized until months after approval.

The impact of such fraud is real. More than eight out of 10 decision makers at property management companies have experienced fraud up to 20 times within the past two years.

The study found that the advent of online rental applications is a primary driver for the fraud that exists in the rental housing industry today. Online applications are now outpacing those that are submitted in-person, with nearly 59% of applications taking place online. As a result, more than half of property management companies surveyed identify online applicant-based fraud as a critical or near-critical issue.

As the rental housing industry continues to move to a digital application process, we are working closely with many property managers to better understand the new risks that are out there, said Mike Doherty, senior vice president in TransUnions rental screening business. Its critical that they are more effective in getting the right renters as this will reduce involuntary turnover cost while increasing cost efficiency.

Please click here to secure the complete Forrester studies on the financial services, insurance and the single and multi-family rental industries.



About TransUnion (NYSE:TRU)



Information is a powerful thing. At TransUnion, we realize that. We are dedicated to finding innovative ways information can be used to help individuals make better and smarter decisions. We help uncover unique stories, trends and insights behind each data point, using historical information as well as alternative data sources. This allows a variety of markets and businesses to better manage risk and consumers to better manage their credit, personal information and identity. Today, TransUnion has a global presence in more than 30 countries and a leading presence in several international markets across North America, Africa, Latin America and Asia. Through the power of information, TransUnion is working to build stronger economies and families and safer communities worldwide.

We call this Information for GoodSM.

http://www.transunion.com/businessActor and rapper, Hamilton star Daveed Diggs adds writer and producer to his list of talents with the Sundance Grand Jury Prize nominated Blindspotting, which he co-wrote, co-produced, and co-stars in alongside friend and collaborator Rafael Casal.

Directed by Carlos Lopez Estrada, this film really is a love letter to Oakland, California  the hometown of both the creators and the characters Collin (Diggs) and Miles (Casal). Working as removal men, Collin is trying got stay out of trouble for the last three days of his parole, while Miles juggles his troublemaking tendencies with caring for his girlfriend Ashley (Jasmine Cephas-Jones) and son.

The episodic nature of the film keeps it distinctly indie, and allows it to fluctuate effortlessly between stomach-churning tension and gut-busting humour. Its no mean feat to balance the two and maintain a consistent tone, but Blindspotting does it with flair.

The drive of the piece comes when Collin witnesses a police shooting, and the visceral effect it has on him changes his perceptions about his friendship with Miles.

Interwoven with the impact of PTSD on a black man in relation to race related police violence, we see the vibrancy and immediacy of Oakland culture in all its facets. Tisha Campbell-Martin is hilarious as bargain-driving hairdresser Mama Liz, while Utkarsh Ambudkar (Pitch Perfect) and Lance Holloway deliver some of the best comedic moments.

A story about insiders and outsiders in various ways, those comedy characters have us laughing with them, while the gentrifying force of hipsters overrunning the neighbourhood definitely have us laughing at them. The community is sacred in this film, but while for some outsiders appropriating a sense of belonging is a fun cultural pastime, for Collin that belonging is both his greatest strength and a potential death sentence.

Diggs and Casal are electric on screen together  their long standing real life friendship makes for an ease together on screen which is a joy to watch. Their easy camaraderie and quick fire freestyling give way to a sharp and distinctly dangerous energy as tensions rise between them.

Janina Gavankar is understatedly instrumental in her role as Collins ex-girlfriend Val, whose own immigrant identity adds another layer to the theme of belonging. The chemistry between her and Diggs is sweet, and both Gavankar and Cephas-Jones girlfriend characters have a satisfying depth, with three dimensional lives outside of the men in their lives.

The urgency of the film ebbs and flows, with absolutely nail-biting tension spaced out just enough to leave you exhausted from hanging on the edge of your seat. There are some weaker moments  thoroughly unsubtle dream sequences which could have been left out, and a weird dragging of pace in the third act  but the explosive climax makes up for it all. Diggs is at his absolute best  a true powerhouse of a performer who really has only just begun.

Alongside the film itself, Diggs and Casal have released The Collin EP (and are working towards releasing The Miles EP) - with the two of them rapping and collaborating with other artists in a way that expands upon the characters. The last song on The Collin EP (by Marc Bamuthi Joseph) sums up the work done in this film with these lines:

And that's the kind of artist that I am:

Someone that maybe does not just tell stories,

But tells stories in service of freedom.

Expect great things in future from both Diggs and Casal. Read our interview with Diggs here.

Blindspotting arrives in UK cinemas on October 5th, distributed by Lionsgate.Young woman is accepted to the University of Sussex and this is in her welcome bag. WTF @SussexUni Do you have any respect for women? This is sexual harassment. pic.twitter.com/IeKzvHX4KC  Untameable Shrews (@untamableshrews) September 20, 2018

The beer mats, which were produced by the toothbrush subscription company Brushbox, feature an image of a woman's open mouth with a frothy white substance dribbling out. Both the product and company behind it have since received widespread criticism for 'degrading women' to a porongraphic image', due to the way the mats have been designed to look as if a woman is giving oral sex. Perhaps even more shocking, is the hooked hole on the top of the mat, designed to fit over the nose.We spoke to Sussex fresher, Teeva Tamali, who received the beer mat in her welcome pack and was appalled" by the product."I can't believe this [was] seen as acceptable advertisement, she told us. Adding: "(the mats) will lead to girls feeling pressured to give oral sex and to men expecting it. In a time of progressive change, the last thing we need is advertisement that degrades women and ultimately promotes rape culture."

Speaking to TNS, another female fresher at the University of Sussex, said:

I did a double take when I saw it! This would have been seen by designers, ad regulators, the university and the students packing the boxes. A single complaint during production would have surely gotten this pulled from the boxes. I cant believe no one spoke up?

As a marketer, this campaign is a total disgrace. Yes #BrushBox has some limited brand recognition but for all the wrong reasons. Who will proclaim or show they buy their product. Yes, I also assume that a young group of non-informed males came up with the campaign  Conor C (@Capital_FinServ) September 20, 2018

Imagine being a bright and eager female student excited to have been accepted into one of the UK's leading research universities (@SussexUni) and you find this in your welcome bag: https://t.co/wfKdr0ODd4



Sexism is sexism even when it's "a joke." Women deserve better than this. pic.twitter.com/Q8epaGuvM8  RaquelRosarioSanchez (@8RosarioSanchez) September 19, 2018

Angry that @SussexUni would put this in womens welcome packs. It makes young women feel objectified & fearful of what is expected of them. There are a million ways to get the message of oral health across that dont make women feel like receptacles for men. This is porn culture. https://t.co/T9kM9NTHNn  TheHeroineCollective (@TheHeroineColl) September 20, 2018

This is totally unacceptable material to be included anywhere let alone for new students arriving - what does it say about the environment they are coming into - @SussexUni https://t.co/6ITKlAAKW3  Prof Clare McGlynn (@McGlynnClare) September 20, 2018

The beer mats wording refers to whether you "spit or swallow". Many have reacted with shock that the the marketing team even managed to come up with the imagery and wording for these beer matts.

We asked Brushbox, who descirbe their toothbrushes as being "trendy (and) eco friendly", what they were thinking. They told us: "We are really sorry if anyone has been offended by the promotional image used on the beer mat which was distributed to Universities. We now realise it was inappropriate and misguided of us to use this type of image as a way to raise awareness of dental health issues.

We completely understand that the image could be deemed as derogatory to women and for that we are truly sorry - this was never our intention, and we take full responsibility for any upset it has caused.

The welcome boxes are provided by Dig-In who supply boxes to universities and student accommodation providers across the UK, including Glasgow, Keele, Plymouth and other cities. They have assured consumers that the Brushbox beer matts will now not be included in the remaining 400,000 boxes it is distributing.

Dig-In would like to apologise unreservedly for its part in distributing Brushboxs promotional material. This insert, distributed in our freshers boxes, does not in any way reflect our high ethical standards and we have put immediate measures in place to ensure this doesnt happen again, the company said.

In a statement, Sussex University Student Union apologised for the sexist Brushbox material in the welcome box. They said: "The Students Union at Sussex does not condone the inappropriate material distributed on behalf of Brushboxes which was found in the Dig-In Boxes delivered to all Freshers this year." They also described how their Students Union "promotes equality and providing a safe and inclusive environment for all, and we are let-down by the events that have occured".In this week's tech news we're exploring an app that allows blind people to receive expert assistance in their daily lives. We'll also be looking into the future of mind-controlled technology.

Space exploration

NASA has planned to make use of the  Lunar Orbital Platform Gateway , a station that would orbit the moon.

The gateway would be inhabited, so humans could develop their skills and adapt to the conditions in space, potentially paving the way for future exploration of the solar system. The project will begin in 2022.

Apps

The app enables individuals to connect with experts who can use the individuals camera to assess the situation and provide assistance through their speech. The app can be used to carry out tasks from reading recipes to navigating and in many different environments including parks, schools and some shops.

Flight

Researchers from universities in the US and Italy utilised machine learning to teach an algorithm to allow a plane to take advantage of air currents, as birds do in flight.

Birds take advantage of convection currents to travel long distances without exerting much energy. Capturing this ability in technology could allow planes to travel autonomously over longer distances with minimised fuel use.

The future of gaming

Researchers at Stanford have developed technology that allows people with paralysis to communicate by typing a message with their mind . It

uses an electrode placed in the brain to allow users to communicate clearly.

Further developments in brain-machine interface have the potential to enable individuals to interact with technology in a different way. For example, altering their movement in a game merely by imagining their actions.English French

GATINEAU, Quebec, Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- HEXO Corp. (HEXO or the Company) (TSX: HEXO ) plans to establish a Eurozone processing, production and distribution centre in Greece. The partnership with Greek company Qannabos (QNBS) will catalyze a vertically integrated cannabis enterprise to capitalize on the current medical markets. HEXOs plan to establish operations in Greece marks the Companys first foray into the European cannabis market. The move will provide the company presence in Europe to supply a full suite of brands in France, the United Kingdom, and other European markets once regulations permit.



Im excited to add European distribution capabilities for HEXO and its joint venture partners, said Sebastien St-Louis, HEXO Corp.s CEO and co-founder. By bringing brands powered by HEXO, our infrastructure and our know-how to Europe, we will be well prepared to serve a burgeoning market. This new capability will allow us to bring even more value to our hub and spoke partners in the beverage, cosmetics, and food space by giving them access to licensed cannabis infrastructure and brands in Europe. Additionally, HEXO believes that we will quickly be able to leverage our joint venture partners networks to take significant first mover advantage and market share.

The agreement between HEXO and QNBS plans for the development of 350,000 sq. ft. of licensed infrastructure that will be used for manufacturing, processing and distribution of medical cannabis products, powered by HEXO, destined for the European market.

We are thrilled to be partnering with HEXO to bring legal medical cannabis expertise to Greece, said QNBS co-founder, Leonidas Garyfallos. Our goal is to create high-quality products and to build relationships with clients that are based on trust; trust in our quality, trust in our approach to business, and trust in our ability to deliver on our commitments. These are values that HEXO prioritizes and we look forward to working with them to serve the European market for years to come.

HEXOs plan to establish operations in Greece is the Companys first step to seeking significant first mover advantage and market share in the adult-use cannabis market in Europe, which is estimated to reach approximately $110 billion annually by 2028. Greece legalized cannabis for medical use in March 2018 but has yet to license any cannabis producers in the country.

Closing of the transaction is subject to the satisfaction of certain conditions including satisfactory due diligence, negotiation of definitive agreements and receipt of any required regulatory approvals.

About HEXO Corp.

HEXO Corp. creates and distributes innovative, easy-to-use and easy-to-understand products to serve the Canadian cannabis market. One of the countrys lowest-cost producers, HEXO is rapidly increasing its production capacity in the lead up to the adult-use cannabis market. The Company currently operates with over 310,000 sq. ft. of production capacity with construction on another 1,000,000 sq. ft. expansion set to be complete by year end. HEXO will serve the adult-use market under the HEXO brand, while continuing to serve its medical cannabis clients through the well-known Hydropothecary brand.

About QNBS

QNBS is a medical cannabis company based in Greece. It is QNBSs vision to develop Europes highest quality, lowest-cost producer and distributor of medical grade cannabis. Combining the skills of a multidisciplinary team with the latest technology in the industry to standardize the cultivation and production process, QNBS aims to gain its clients trust while shaping the European medical cannabis industry. QNBSs local network and trusted service providers forms the backbone of its success.

Forward-Looking Information

This press release may contain forward-looking information that is based on certain assumptions and involves known and unknown risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events to differ materially from current assumptions and expectations. These statements should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from those implied by such statements. A more complete discussion of the risks and uncertainties facing the Company appears in the Companys Annual Information Form and continuous disclosure filings, which are available on SEDARs website at www.sedar.com. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this press release. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation, except to the extent required by law, to update or revise any forward-looking statements as a result of new information or future events, or for any other reason.

Neither the Toronto Stock Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Toronto Stock Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Investor Relations:

Jennifer Smith

Senior Manager of Investor Relations

1-866-438-8429

invest@HEXO.com

www.THCX.com

Media Relations:

Sarah Brown

sarah.brown@hexo.com



Director

Adam Miron

819-639-5498When choosing a new city to live in there are so many factors to consider, from political stability and crime levels to the culture and quality of public transport, that it may seem impossible to find the perfect location. Fortunately, The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) has come to the rescue with the release of the 2018 edition of its annual Global Liveability Index.

The Global Liveability Index ranks 140 cities from around the world based on over 30 metrics which cover five extensive categories: stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure. After in-depth research and analysis, each metric is scored from one to 100, with 100 considered as representative of an ideal level of liveability.

This year, several contenders from Australia, Canada, and Japan are high up in the rankings, but European countries have also scored highly. If you have ever considered moving abroad, get packing, because these cities are the world's most desirable destinations to live in.

10) Adelaide, Australia

The capital city of South Australia comes in at number ten with full marks for its healthcare and education system.

People are drawn to Adelaide by its Mediterranean climate accentuated by its

proximity to stunning beaches

, affordability (weekly rent is nearly half the price of that in Sydney), and world-class wineries.

9) Copenhagen, Denmark

Credit: Pixabay on Pexels

As well as its education system, Copenhagens infrastructure is considered to be ideal.

In other words, if you are looking for a city with perfect public transport, high availability for good quality housing, excellent telecommunications, and other significant social factors, Copenhagen is the place to live.

7) Tokyo, Japan and Toronto, Canada

Tokyo and Toronto receive equal scores in the overall liveability ratings, and each has been awarded full marks for stability, healthcare, and education.

This means that the Japanese mega-metropolis and Canadas most populous city are both deemed to have notably few incidences of petty or violent crime and a low perceived threat of terror, military conflict, and civil unrest.

Tokyo. Credit: Ben Cheung on Pexels

6) Vancouver, Canada

In sixth place is another Canadian gem, the coastal city of Vancouver. It is the only city to receive the maximum score of 100 for culture and environment, which means that it is considered to have a perfect climate, low level of corruption, and social or religious restrictions. Furthermore, there is a great sporting and cultural availability. It is rated highly for food and drink, perfect for the gourmands among us!

Vancouver offers something for both the cosmopolitans and the outdoorsy types, all thanks to its 30 kilometres of pathway along the seafront and its renowned Stanley Park, stationed not far from the bustling metropolis.

5) Sydney, Australia

Credit: Patrick McLachlan on Pexels

Despite its high living costs, the most populous Australian city, Sydney, comes in at number five due to its ideal healthcare and education systems and infrastructure.

Why is Sydney so enticing? Simply put, the sun is dazzling most days, contributing to an infectious healthy culture and countless beaches waiting to be discovered.

4) Calgary, Canada

The third and final contender from Canada sees itself in fourth place. Calgary, a lesser known Canadian city, obtains full marks for all categories bar culture and environment.

The city prides itself on its beauty, clean air, and the notable can-do attitude of its residents.

3) Osaka, Japan

Credit: Amy Chandra on Pexels

In third place is the third-largest city in terms of its population. Japan's Osaka is an

economic hub, very well-connected, and offering a vibrancy which will ensure you never bore of the bustling city.

2) Melbourne, Australia

After seven years as the worlds most liveable city according to the EUI, Melbourne has finally been knocked down to second place.

Nevertheless, the city is an extraordinary place to live. Its desirable features are endless: an outstanding cafe culture, the balance of nature and city, fascinating open-air markets, an accessible tram network, sporting events, and friendly residents are just a handful of reasons why Melbourne is the ideal place to live.

1) Vienna, Austria

Credit: Aneta Pawlik on Unsplash

The top spot is won by Austrias capital Vienna, which scores a huge 99.1 points out of 100.

Vienna's impressive score reflects its relative affordability compared to the likes of London, thriving music and nightlife culture, and extraordinary Viennese cuisine. The city is notably safe to live in, also presentable in its cleanliness and beautiful architecture. With international accessibility and residents keeping a liberal, open-minded outlook, Vienna is the most liveable city in Europe and in the world.Unfortunately, The Content Is Not Here

You have arrived at this page because the page or post you were looking for no longer exists. Please check our main navigation pages for other content: 

Home PageDENVER and VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Sandspring Resources Ltd. (TSX-V: SSP, OTCQX: SSPXF) (the Company) is pleased to announce that it has completed an updated Mineral Resource Estimate (the 2018 MRE) for the Toroparu Project located in Guyana, South America.



Highlights to the 2018 MRE include an increase of 459,000 ounces of Measured and Indicated and 60,000 ounces of Inferred Gold Resources compared to the previous Mineral Resource Estimate provided in the 2013 Toroparu Prefeasibility Study (the Prefeasibility Study).

Upper Puruni Concession - Total Resources 1 SRK- 9/20/2018 In-Pit Resources @ .30 Au(g/t) Cutoff ($1,350/oz Au Resource Pit) Gold Resources Copper & Silver Resources Measured & Indicated Tonnes Gold Tonnes Silver Copper Resource Pit ('000 t) (g/t) ('000 oz) ('000 t) (g/t) ('000 oz) % Mlbs Toroparu 227,416 0.90 6,556 227,416 0.84 6,130 0.086 433 SE Zone 13,383 0.94 403 13,383 0.35 152 0.036 11 Sona Hill 11,772 1.04 394 0 n/a n/a n/a n/a Concession 252,571 0.91 7,353 240,799 0.81 6,282 0.084 444 Inferred Tonnes Gold Tonnes Copper Resource Pit ('000 t) (g/t) ('000 oz) ('000 t) (g/t) ('000 oz) % Mlbs Toroparu 116,629 0.74 2,776 116,629 0.07 266 0.040 103 SE Zone 686 0.83 18 686 0.45 10 0.049 1 Sona Hill 11,630 0.95 356 0 n/a n/a n/a n/a Concession 128,945 0.76 3,150 117,315 0.07 276 0.040 104

Sensitivity Analysis

A sensitivity analysis of gold ounces, grades and mineralized tons contained in the resource estimate at various cutoff grades (within the resource pit volumes) above and below the 0.30 g/t gold cutoff grade used to calculate the 2018 MRE, corresponding to a range of gold prices, illustrates the consistent nature of the grade-tonnage relationship over various gold price assumptions.

Upper Puruni Concession - Gold Resource Sensitivity SRK- 9/20/2018 Measured & Indicated in-Pit Resources @ .30 Au(g/t) Gold Price CoG Ore Gold ($/oz) (g/t) ('000 t) (g/t) ('000 oz) 1,507 0.25 272,430 0.86 7,529 1,450 0.26 268,745 0.87 7,499 1,397 0.27 264,866 0.88 7,466 1,347 0.28 260,843 0.89 7,431 1,300 0.29 256,698 0.90 7,393 1,258 0.30 252,571 0.91 7,353 1,218 0.31 248,572 0.91 7,314 1,180 0.32 244,502 0.92 7,273 1,145 0.33 240,379 0.93 7,230 1,112 0.34 236,296 0.95 7,186 1,080 0.35 232,181 0.96 7,140





Upper Puruni Concession - Total Resource Comparison 2 SRK- 9/20/2018 & 3/31/2013 In-Pit Resources @ .30 Au (g/t) Cutoff (in $1350/oz Au Resource Pit) Gold Resources Copper & Silver Resources Measured & Indicated Tonnes Gold Tonnes Silver Copper Effective Date ('000 t) (g/t) ('000 oz) ('000 t) (g/t) ('000 oz) % Mlbs March 31 2013 240,240 0.89 6,894 240,240 - - 0.084 444 Sep 20 2018 252,571 0.91 7,353 240,799 0.81 6,282 0.084 444 Concession 12,331 0.02 459 559 0.81 6,282 - - Inferred Tonnes Gold Tonnes Silver Copper Effective Date ('000 t) (g/t) ('000 oz) ('000 t) (g/t) ('000 oz) % Mlbs March 31 2013 129,525 0.74 3,090 129,525 - - 0.042 120 Sep 20 2018 128,945 0.76 3,150 117,315 0.07 276 0.040 104 Concession -580 0.02 60.0 -12,210 0.07 276.0 (0.002) (16)

Rich Munson, CEO stated: The 2018 MRE for the Toroparu Project incorporates all the drilling results since the Resource Estimate in the Prefeasbility Study, including, most notably the work at Sona Hill. Sona Hill has added significantly to the project, both in terms of the additional 394,000 Measured and Indicated Gold resources, but also in terms of additional production flexibility from the shallow depth and low strip ratio of the deposit as well as the increase in the higher-grade portion of the project amenable to leach process recovery. As noted in our September 11, 2018 press release, these attributes of the Sona Hill Deposit improve the potential for startup of the project with a smaller production profile offering reasonably attractive economics in the current gold market environment while preserving the opportunity to expand the Toroparu Project in the future to the large-scale development potential outlined in the Prefeasibility.



Notes to Release: Reader is cautioned that Mineral Resources are not Mineral Reserves and do not have demonstrated economic viability. There is no certainty that all or any part of the Mineral Resources estimated will be converted into Mineral Reserves

1 All resources in the June 26, 2018 mineral resource statement are in-pit resources reported within an optimized pit shell above an economic cut-off grade of 0.30 g/t Au. The optimized pit shell was determined for Measured, Indicated and Inferred resources using a gold price of US$1,350/oz, a copper price of US$3.00/lb; an average metallurgical recovery of 88.2% for gold, and 81.5% for copper mill feed sent to the copper flotation circuit. The optimized pit shell was determined using an average mining cost of US$1.60/t mined, saprolite processing cost of US$2.50/t, CIL processing cost of US$8.50/t, flotation processing cost of US$10.47/t, and G&A cost of US$1.24/t processed. Other costs included US$125/oz Au for gold refining and royalties, and US$1.036/lb for copper concentrate transportation and smelting with 97% pay for terms. Pit slopes used in the pit optimization were 45 degrees. Copper and Silver resources have not been estimated at Sona Hill

2 All resources in the March 31, 2013 mineral resource statement contained in the Toroparu Pre-Feasibility were reported as InPit resources within an optimized pit shell above an economic cutoff grade of 0.30 g/t Au. The economic cutoff grade was determined using a gold price of $1,350/oz. Au, an average metallurgical recovery of 95.9% for gold, processing and G&A costs of $11.49/t processed, and includes $112/oz. Au for freight, smelting, refining and royalties. Copper metallurgical recovery used was 91%. Pit slopes used in the pit optimization were 45 degrees, and the mining costs used were $2.06/t mined for fresh rock. The NI 43-101 Technical Report, Prefeasibility Study, Toroparu Gold Project, Upper Puruni River Area, Guyana prepared by SRK Consulting (USA) (the Prefeasibility Study) has an Effective Date of May 8, 2013 and a Report Date of May 24, 2013 and is available on Sandprings website and on www.sedar.com.

Mineral Resources are reported in accordance with Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) National Instrument 43-101 (NI 43-101) and have been estimated in conformity with generally accepted Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (CIM) "Estimation of Mineral Resource and Mineral Reserves Best Practices" guidelines. Mineral resource tonnage and contained metal have been rounded to reflect the accuracy of the estimate, and numbers may not add due to rounding. The quantity and grade of reported Inferred resources in this estimation are uncertain in nature and there has been insufficient exploration to define these Inferred resources as an Indicated or Measured mineral resource and it is uncertain if further exploration will result in upgrading them to an Indicated or Measured mineral resource category.

The statistical analysis, geologic modelling and resource estimation were prepared by Frank Daviess, RM SME and Allan Moran, AIPG CPG, SRK Associates. Mr. Daviess and Mr. Moran are the Qualified Persons who have reviewed and approve the content of this release under National Instrument 43-101 guidelines.

On behalf of the Board of Directors of Sandspring Resources Ltd.

Richard A. Munson

Director and Chief Executive Officer

About Sandspring Resources Ltd.

Sandspring Resources Ltd. is a Canadian junior mining company currently moving toward a feasibility study for the multi-million-ounce Toroparu Project in Guyana, South America. A prefeasibility study completed in May 2013 (NI 43-101 Technical Report, Prefeasibility Study, Toroparu Gold Project, Upper Puruni River Area, Guyana, dated May 24, 2013 completed by SRK Consulting (U.S.), Inc., available on SEDAR (www.sedar.com) outlined the design of an open-pit mine producing more than 200,000 ounces of gold annually over an initial 16-year mine life. Sandspring and Wheaton Precious Metals (formerly known as Silver Wheaton) entered into a gold and silver purchase agreement for the Toroparu Project in 2013. Sandspring also holds a 100% interest in the Chicharron Gold Project located near Segovia, Antioquia Department, Colombia. Additional information is available at www.sandspringresources.com or by email at info@sandspringresources.com.

Contact Sandspring Resources Ltd.

Richard A. Munson

Chief Executive Officer

Tel: +1 (303) 991-5683 or via email at sandspringinfo@sandspringresources.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.

Forward-looking Statements

This news release contains certain forward-looking information and statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws. The use of any of the words potential, suggesting, indicating, will, plans and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking information and/or statements. Forward-looking statements and/or information are based on a number of material factors, expectations and/or assumptions that Sandspring has used to develop such statements and/or information, but which may prove to be incorrect. Although Sandspring believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements and/or information are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking statements since Sandspring can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Such information and/or statements, including the assumptions made in respect thereof, involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results and/or events to differ materially from those anticipated in such forward-looking information and/or statements including, without limitation: the speculative nature of mineral exploration and development; risks associated with the uncertainty of exploration results and estimates; results from drilling and exploration activities; the ability of Sandspring to complete the Transaction; Sandsprings future plans; the availability of financing and/or cash flow to fund current and future plans and expenditures; the impact of increasing competition; fluctuating commodity prices; the general stability of applicable economic and political environments; the general continuance of current industry conditions; uncertainty regarding the market price for gold, silver and copper; uncertainty of conducting operations under a foreign regime; uncertainty of obtaining all applicable regulatory approvals and related timing matters; Sandsprings dependence on management personnel; and/or certain other risks detailed from time-to-time in Sandsprings public disclosure documents. Furthermore, the forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as at the date of this news release and the Company does not undertake any obligations to publicly update and/or revise any of the included forward-looking statements, whether as a result of additional information, future events and/or otherwise, except as may be required by applicable securities laws.Pittsburgh, Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- TeleTracking Technologies, Inc., dedicated to providing solutions that improve the patient experience across the care continuum, will present three days of engaging round-table discussions, interactive workshops, product boot camps, outcomes-driven client success stories, one-on-one consultations with experts and a live operational command center at its Annual Client Conference [TeleCon18], October 14-17, 2018 at the Hyatt Regency Hill Country Resort & Spa in San Antonio, TX.



TeleTrackingsetting trends nationally and internationally in providing centralized care that addresses patient and health system needs regardless of where care is being delivered will focus on initiatives that support the organizations mission to ensure that no one will ever have to wait for the care they need. Topics include physician engagement, IT innovation and collaboration, disaster/emergency preparedness, change management, and the components to build and manage operational command centersalong with insights into the strategic milestones TeleTracking is planning for the next 18 months.

The main stage events include:

A keynote address by Jake Poore, President & Chief Experience Officer, Integrated Loyalty Systems. Jake spent nearly two decades at the Walt Disney World Company in Florida helping to recruit, hire, train and align their 65,000 employees toward one end in mind: creating memorable experiences for individuals. Poore now does that in healthcare by helping health systems build world class patient and employee experiences.

Presentation of the second annual DAISY Award for Patient Flow Excellence. The award recognizes nurses, and teams of care providers who are led by a nurse, for their work in transitioning patients through the care delivery system.

Eric Epley, Executive Director from the Southwest Texas Regional Advisory Council (STRAC) leadership team, responsible for a massive effort in 2017 to save lives during Hurricane Harvey, will discuss how health system collaboration and coordination benefited patients and maintained the integrity of healthcare for the community. A key asset available for deployment during such events is the AmBus, an ambulance-bus that is capable of caring for up to 20 patients at a time. The AmBus will be on display and available for touring during TeleCon18.

An in-depth disaster preparedness workshop designed to prepare and empower participants to handle the multitude of challenges that occur in a disaster situation. The topics addressed include regulatory compliance, technology and workflows to improve communication and efficiency, state and federal reporting requirements and case studies from Carilion Clinic, Methodist Healthcare, Health First and CHRISTUS Health who have dealt with recent disasters.

TeleCon18 also features interactive, engagement experiences:

Live Command Center: A popular addition last year, the live command center is back for 2018. Participants can walk through at their own pace, ask questions and learn how with the right workflows and technologyalong with analytics to predict future censuscan solve everyday problems across the care continuum.

A popular addition last year, the live command center is back for 2018. Participants can walk through at their own pace, ask questions and learn how with the right workflows and technologyalong with analytics to predict future censuscan solve everyday problems across the care continuum. Innovation Lab: Another popular addition to last years conferencethe Innovation Lab returns this year offering a new phase of collaboration. Last year was focused on information gatheringthis year is focused on applying those insights. For example, a project is currently under development to create a real-time, automated communication solution to expedite the clinical caregiver to transport handoff within TeleTrackings patient transport mobile app.

Another popular addition to last years conferencethe Innovation Lab returns this year offering a new phase of collaboration. Last year was focused on information gatheringthis year is focused on applying those insights. For example, a project is currently under development to create a real-time, automated communication solution to expedite the clinical caregiver to transport handoff within TeleTrackings patient transport mobile app. TeleBar: TeleTracking patient flow experts will be available for one-on-one consultations. All appointments will be scheduled using TeleTrackings newest solution Community Scheduling and Workflow, which makes it possible to schedule both the appointment and receive updates on the appointment statusincluding any delays.

Finally, representatives from eighteen hospitals and health systems from across the country will present their successful, innovative approaches to using TeleTracking to drive positive outcomessome of which include: David Chou, Chief Information & Digital Officer of Childrens Mercy Hospital, Kansas City, MO; Tom Stafford, VP & CIO of Halifax Health, Daytona Beach, FL; Christina McGuirk, RN, BSN, MSHA, NEA-BC, CENP, Chief Nursing Officer of Orlando Health-Health Central; Dr. Eric Brown, FACEP, Physician Executive of Palmetto Health, Columbia, SC; Patches Pace Haynes, MBA, MHA, RN, BSN, Director, GoodHealth Solutions Center of Seton Ascension, Austin, TX; Shanna Hall, MBA, BSN, RN, NEA-BC, VP, Nursing of Torrance Memorial Medical Center, Torrance, CA; Rob Leeret, BS, BSN, Sr. Director, DocLine of UCHealth, Aurora, CO; Laura Duncan-Graham, MHA, Director of Behavior Health Services of Western Psychiatric Institute & Clinic of UPMC, Pittsburgh, PA, among others.

The conference is free to all TeleTracking clients and includes all course materials and networking events. For more details about TeleCon18, October 14-17, 2018, at the Hyatt Regency Hill Country Resort & Spa, click here. Media is also invited to attend to learn more about TeleTracking and/or to coordinate an interview with one of the presenters. Click here to send an inquiry.

About TeleTracking Technologies, Inc.

For every hour patients wait for care, they face objectively worse outcomes. TeleTracking believes it is unacceptable that patients are not able to access the care they need, when they need it, due to operating inefficiencies and unnecessary cost barriers. Our mission is simple, to ensure no one waits for the care they need. Named one of Becker's "Great Places to Work" in 2017 and 2018 and a Pittsburgh Business Times Corporate Citizenship Award winner, TeleTracking delivers extraordinary outcomes that have been the subject of study by the RAND Corporation, in addition to being the perennial KLAS Patient Flow Category Leader.Get the local news in these turbulent times straight to your inbox at 3 p.m. daily

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Sign up now>Montreal, CA (H4T1V6)

Today

Periods of rain. High near 10C. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 100%..

Tonight

Clear to partly cloudy. Low 3C. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph.CARLSBAD, Calif., Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Aurora Spine Corporation (TSXV: ASG) announced today that it will be participating at the 2018 North American Spine Society ("NASS") Annual Meeting, September 26-29, 2018 at the Los Angeles Convention Center, Los Angeles, California at Booth 1625. The North American Spine Society is a global multidisciplinary medical society that utilizes education, research and advocacy to foster the highest quality, ethical, value and evidence based spine care.



Aurora Spine will be showcasing its Screwless Procedure and highlighting its latest fusion technologies, including the patented ZIP MIS Interspinous fusion systems with its ONE-STEP locking mechanism, which eliminates the use of a set screw. The Screwless Procedure product portfolio consists of the innovative ZIP ISP Product Line, TiNano Interbody cages, Biologics, and Surgical Tools. All Aurora Spine spinal implants are pre-packaged sterile to provide the best products possible for both surgeons and patients alike.

"We are excited to demonstrate the Screwless Procedure featuring our TiNano MIS titanium coated interbody cages, our patented innovative ZIP MIS Interspinous fusion systems, all designed to improve spine patient outcomes, drive continued surgeon interest and provide benefits that deliver value to hospitals and patients, said Trent J. Northcutt, President and CEO of Aurora Spine. We are very pleased with the strong sales of our expanding product portfolio, and more importantly, the level of adoption we are seeing by surgeons in surgery centers, and hospital systems nationwide. We look forward to demonstrating our cutting-edge portfolio to spine surgeons and distributors attending the world's largest spine exhibition in Los Angeles."

About Aurora Spine

Aurora Spine is an early stage company focused on bringing new solutions to the spinal implant market through a series of screwless, innovative, minimally invasive, regenerative spinal implant technologies. Aurora Spine continues to position itself at the forefront of spinal surgery procedures, focusing on minimally invasive spine surgery technologies. Aurora Spine is changing spine surgery by focusing on disruptive technologies following the Companys commitment to  Simplifying the Complex.

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains forward-looking information that involves substantial known and unknown risks and uncertainties, most of which are beyond the control of Aurora Spine, including, without limitation, those listed under "Risk Factors" and "Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Information" in Aurora Spine's final prospectus (collectively, "forward-looking information"). Forward-looking information in this news release includes information concerning the proposed use and success of the companys products in surgical procedures. Aurora Spine cautions investors of Aurora Spine's securities about important factors that could cause Aurora Spine's actual results to differ materially from those projected in any forward-looking statements included in this news release. Any statements that express, or involve discussions as to, expectations, beliefs, plans, objectives, assumptions or future events or performance are not historical facts and may be forward-looking and may involve estimates, assumptions and uncertainties which could cause actual results or outcomes to differ unilaterally from those expressed in such forward-looking statements. No assurance can be given that the expectations set out herein will prove to be correct and, accordingly, prospective investors should not place undue reliance on these forward looking statements. These statements speak only as of the date of this press release and Aurora Spine does not assume any obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances.

For more information, please contact:

Aurora Spine Corporation

Trent Northcutt

President and Chief Executive Officer

(760) 424-2004

Sarina Mason

Chief Financial Officer

(760) 424-2004

www.aurora-spine.comOnce the REM station becomes a central pool for commuters, there will be even more congestion due to no cars allowed on the boulevard and that proposal does not fit the West Islands needs, Daniel Elie Khoury said, referring to the city of Montreals proposed urban boulevard that will not allow cars.

remaining of

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HOLLYWOOD, Calif., Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- nFusz, Inc. (OTCQB: FUSZ), the leader in business-focused interactive video and the pioneer of augmented sales intelligence software, announced its expansion into the nonprofit market with the launch of its notifiNPO platform.

nFusz is debuting its new service with the Utica Zoo, a 104-year-old wildlife conservation and education institution, which will utilize notifiNPO to launch its Excitement is Building fundraising campaign to support the Zoos $3.13 million expansion of its White Handed Gibbon and Spider Monkey exhibit spaces.

There are more than 1.5 million nonprofit organizations in the U.S., according to the National Center for Charitable Statistics (NCCS) . Many nonprofits rely on fundraising from individuals, corporations, foundations and other charitable contributors. Charitable giving is big business; according to Giving USA , it exceeded $400 billion in 2017. While overall giving in the U.S. grew 4.1 percent year-over-year according to Blackbaud Institute , online giving grew by 12 percent and now represents 7.6 percent of overall fundraising.

The fact that our interactive video technology can help increase online fundraising efforts in a multibillion-dollar sector is exciting, stated Rory J. Cutaia, CEO of nFusz. Utica Zoo is a pioneer in driving online donations through interactive video engagement. Its rewarding to know that our interactive video technology can help Utica Zoo and the important work of other deserving non-profit organizations in a meaningful way.

In the Utica Zoos Excitement is Building video, viewers can click interactive buttons to make a donation or request additional information for the new primate building while they watch the fundraising video. Typically, donation instructions are included at the end of a video which are not seen when donors abandon the video before it is complete.

The nFusz technology lets viewers make a donation with the click of an on-screen button while theyre watching our videos before they are distracted, stated Andria Heath, Executive Director of Utica Zoo. We believe the nFusz notifiNPO interactive video platform will be a big boost to our online fundraising efforts.

To experience Utica Zoos interactive Excitement is Building video fundraising campaign, click here .

About Utica Zoo

Located on 80 acres in Oneida County, New York, the Utica Zoo is a 104-year-old wildlife conservation and education institution. The Utica Zoos Excitement is Building video fundraising campaign is part of their Dream BIG master plan, a $75 million plan to transform Utica Zoo into a premier regional destination. The Utica Zoo has been experiencing a resurgence in attendance and has garnered broad community support and public awareness. For more information on the Utica Zoo, visit: uticazoo.org

About nFusz, Inc.

nFusz, Inc. (OTCQB: FUSZ) is a recognized leader in business-focused interactive video and the pioneer of augmented sales intelligence software. The companys flagship product, notifiCRM, is the first interactive video-based customer relationship management (CRM) platform that allows anyone to create, distribute, post, track, and measure interactive videos that increase engagement and conversion rates by up to 600 percent. Video viewers can respond to one or more calls to action by clicking within video while its playing  no download required. nFusz products are cloud-based, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), available by subscription for individuals to enterprise organizations, and accessible on all mobile and desktop devices. The companys newest products, also based on its interactive video technology platform, include notifiMED, for the healthcare industry, and notifiEDU, for the education industry. For more information on nFusz, Inc., visit: www.nFusz.com .Pune, India, Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The global floating power plant market is projected to experience a CAGR of 10.35% from 2017 to 2023 (forecast period), according to a new report by Market Research Future (MRFR). Factors driving the market demand include rising population, rapid urbanization, rising demand for uninterrupted power supply, and lack of adequate lands for construction of renewable energy plants. But high construction costs may act as a growth deterrent. Moreover, new mandates outlining the demand for clean energy sources and implementation of energy efficiency standards in industries are likely to elicit the floating power plant market demand over the forecast period. The market size can touch USD 1,769.7 million by 2023.

Market Scope

The demand for energy and electricity in remote areas have found a solution in the form of floating power plants. Floating power plants, also known as power barges, are ships which have been modified to function as source of energy. The first instance of these was known via a project, Power of Friendship, which can provide 2,010 megawatt (MW) of electricity to energy-deficit countries.

Industry News

Island nations find it difficult to build power plants owing to lack of adequate lands. The prospect of renewable sources of energy production seem lucrative but seem a far-away dream owing to the lack of connectivity between islands. Floating power plants seem the best viable and feasible option in this scenario. For instance, Rosatom, the Russian federal nuclear company, has built a floating power plant to tackle fluctuating power supply problems for regions relying solely on wind and solar energy. The reactors can generate 70 MW of electricity monthly. Seeing Russias success, China and France are also planning to construct power plants within the next two years.

The Seafloat team of Siemens are developing ideas to create a floating power plant. Unpredictability of natural calamities such as tsunamis and typhoons can disrupt the power supply of island nations, but these power plants can resurge these economies till they become financially active again.

Request a Sample Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/3788

Key Players and Competition Analysis

Prominent floating power plant market players include ROSATOM State Atomic Energy Corporation, Principle Power, Inc., Vikram Solar Pvt. Ltd., Ciel & Terre International, Floating Power Plant A/S, Kyocera TCL Solar, Power Barge Corporation, MAN Diesel & Turbo, Wartsila, Waller Marine, Inc., and Karadeniz Holding A.S.

Segmentation Analysis

The global Floating Power Plant Market is segmented by power plant type and platform type.

By power plant type, the market is segmented into floating solar power, floating wind power, floating wind and wave power, floating nuclear power, and others. Others include coal, diesel, heavy fuel oils, and natural gas. The floating solar power segment is expected to expand at a 9.50% CAGR over the forecast period. It accounted for close to a quarter of the market share in 2016. The floating wind power segment is the second-largest after floating solar in the same year. But the floating nuclear power segment is anticipated to grow at a rapid clip with a CAGR of 11.47% throughout the forecast period.

By platform type, the market is segmented into power ships, power barges, and floating structures. The floating structures segment accounted for 67.14% share in 2016. Development of technologies to support the production of renewable sources of energy is likely to drive segment demand over the forecast period. In addition, incentives offered by nations to construct renewable power plants to reduce their carbon footprint coupled with rapid upgrades in wind & wave technology, wind technology, and solar panel technology are factors expected to attract interested investors.

Browse the market data and information spread across 135 pages with 38 data tables and 29 figures of the report Floating Power Plant Market Research Report - Forecast 2017-2023 in-depth alongside table of content (TOC) at: https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/floating-power-plant-market-3788

Regional Analysis

Regions taken under consideration with respect to the floating power plant market include North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Rest-of-the-World (RoW).

The RoW had dominated the floating power plant market with a 40.90% share in 2016. It is projected to grow at a CAGR of 7.48% during the forecast period. This can be credited to nations undergoing development in the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. For instance, Lebanon received its third floating power plant from Turkish firm, Karadeniz, to take care of its energy demands.

The APAC region was the second-largest in 2016 and predicted to grow at a 11.78% CAGR over the forecast period. But the Europe region can surprise the market with a 12.03% CAGR thanks to sustainable energy policies mandated by the European Union.

Browse Related Reports:

Virtual Power Plant Market Report by Technology (Distribution Generation, Demand Response, and Mixed Asset), End-User (Commercial, Industrial and Residential), and Region - Forecast till 2023

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/virtual-power-plant-market-5583

FSRU (Floating Storage and Regasification Unit) Market Research Report Information by Construction (Newly built and Converted), Storage (Small, Medium and Large), Application (Industrial and Power Generation), and Region - Forecast till 2023

https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/reports/fsru-market-6158

About Market Research Future:

At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), & Consulting Services.

MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by products, services, technologies, applications, end users, and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.

In order to stay updated with technology and work process of the industry, MRFR often plans & conducts meet with the industry experts and industrial visits for its research analyst members.MANZINI - Production at Zheng Yong Garments and Fashion International factories will be affected today and tomorrow respectively.

This comes after the Amalgamated Trade Union of Swaziland (ATUSWA) served both textile factories with notice of a strike action on Monday morning. Zheng Yong Garments Factory is located in Nhlangano while Fashion International is at the Matsapha Industrial Sites. According to ATUSWA Secretary General Wonder Mkhonza, following the companies decision of refusing to grant the workers an offer of E15 per hour as they had demanded through the union, they have resolved to down tools.

He said workers at Zheng Yong Garments Factory would down their tools from today at 11am while those at Fashion International would embark on their legal industrial action from tomorrow at 6am. Since the strikes are legal, workers will only go back to work once the employers have met their demands, Mkhonza said.

He said from both factories, the workers, through the union, were demanding E15 per hour, an amount which could see them earning something closer to the proposed minimum wage of E3 500 per month.

Mkhonza said when they tabled the demand at Zheng Yong Garments, the employer allegedly offered them zero per cent. He alleged that the employer told them that the company had just increased workers salaries by eight per cent in the beginning of 2018/19 financial year as per the gazette. Thereafter, Mkhonza said the parties reached a deadlock and they took the matter to the Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration Commission (CMAC), where a certificate of unresolved dispute was issued after they failed to reach an agreement.

He said after the deadlock, the employer allegedly had a change of heart as he offered the workers 10 per cent but asked to give them seven per cent this year and add the three per cent in March 2019.

MANZINI  MTN Eswatini network issues in some of the sites countrywide, could be because some people have been allegedly stealing batteries used in aerials (towers) belonging to the company.

Many countries have recorded an increase in the theft of cellphone tower batteries and Eswatini is no longer an exception following the arrest of a man suspected to be behind this crime. The Serious Crimes Unit (Lukhozi) last week arrested a suspect, Bongani Velaphi Magagula (40) of Kaphunga and charged him with 10 counts of theft of powerful batteries found in site aerials belonging to MTN Eswatini and the Eswatini Posts and Telecommunications Corporation (EPTC). The suspect was apprehended while at his home at Kaphunga last Wednesday, after the police had received a tip-off about the theft.

MTN Eswatini was aware of the theft before the accused person was arrested, as there were reports that the signal was bad in the affected areas. Upon investigations, it was gathered that 192 batteries had been stolen in eight MTN Eswatini aerials situated in sites which included Lucolweni, Gucuka, Siteki, Nkangala and Sicunusa, among other areas. While going about investigations, the police allegedly discovered that some of the batteries had been sold to different scrapyards in the country, mainly those located in Matsapha.

Their investigations, after questioning some people, led them to where the suspect stayed and he was arrested. Magagula allegedly stole 24 batteries from each of the eight towers belonging to Eswatini MTN, making the total number of batteries 192 and they are all valued at E2 million. He is alleged to have further stolen 48 batteries from two aerials belonging to EPTC valued at E1 million. The total amount of the 240 batteries belonging to both companies is E3 million. The suspect made a court appearance before Magistrate Sebenzile Ndlela last Thursday, where he informed the court that he would hire the services of an attorney during trial.MANZINI  Seemingly, teachers are not ready to abandon their proposed strike action over the cost-of- living adjustment (CoLA).

This, after some members of the Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT) General Council (GC) revealed that in their branches, teachers feel that calling off the strike action could be an unpopular decision. The SNAT GC members revealed this during their meeting which was held at SNAT Centre yesterday, which was a build-up gathering to todays mass extraordinary general meeting to be held at the same venue. Insiders revealed to this publication that according to the GC members, the general membership of SNAT was aware that they could face serious consequences if they decided to go ahead with the proposed strike action.

As a result, the GC members asked the national executive committee (NEC) to highlight all possible consequences which they can face if they go ahead with the strike, the insiders said. They said this could help the teachers to make an informed decision during their meeting today, as they were keen to pursue their fight for 2018/19 CoLA. Furthermore, the insiders said there was also a suggestion that if teachers decide to abide with the court order and wait for November 23, 2018, the NEC should lead them in organising activities to be held at least weekly as a build-up to the new date.

Again, the inside sources said the GC also suggested that if the status quo remains, the entire plus or minus 14 000 members of the teachers association should not partake in the upcoming internal and external examinations. The suggestion is that SNAT members should not participate in setting, invigilation and marking of both the internal and external examinations, they said. In fact, the insiders said the proposal was that all SNAT members should boycott and disrupt the examination process. According to the sources, the teachers proposed that they should not allow any other people to do their job during the examinations.

Above all, the sources further said the meeting noted that the court ruling was that the proposed strike action was legal, but overstepped by postponing it. Meanwhile, SNAT outgoing Secretary General Zwelithini Mndzebele, said yesterdays meeting was a preparatory gathering for todays discussions.NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES



VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Namaste Technologies Inc. (TSXV:N) (Frankfurt: M5BQ) (OTCMKTS: NXTTF) (Namaste or the Company), is pleased to announce that it has entered into a letter of engagement with Eight Capital, under which Eight Capital has agreed to purchase, as co-lead underwriter and joint bookrunner with Canaccord Genuity Corp., 15,000,000 units of the Company (the Units), on a bought deal basis pursuant to a filing of a short form prospectus, subject to all required regulatory approvals, at a price per Unit of $3.00 (the Issue Price) for gross proceeds of $45,000,000 (the Offering).

The Company has agreed to grant the Underwriters an over-allotment option to purchase up to an additional 15% of the Units at the Issue Price, exercisable in whole or in part, at any time on or prior to the date that is 30 days following the closing of the Offering. If this option is exercised in full, an additional approximately $6,750,000 will be raised pursuant to the Offering and the aggregate proceeds of the Offering will be approximately $51,750,000.

Each Unit will be comprised of one common share of the Company (a Common Share) and one-half of one Common Share purchase warrant (each full warrant, a Warrant). Each Warrant shall entitle the holder thereof to purchase one Common Share at an exercise price of $3.50, for a period of 48 months following the closing of the Offering.

The Company intends to use the net proceeds of the Offering to fund inventory and for working capital and general corporate purposes.

The closing date of the Offering is scheduled to be on or about October 17, 2018 and is subject to certain conditions including, but not limited to, the receipt of all necessary approvals, including the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange and the applicable securities regulatory authorities.

This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of the securities in any state in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. 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 absent registration or an applicable exemption from the registration requirements of the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and applicable state securities laws.

About Namaste Technologies Inc.

Namaste Technologies is Your Everything Cannabis Store. Namaste operates the largest global cannabis e-commerce platform with over 30 websites in 20+ countries under various brands. Namaste's product offering through its subsidiaries includes vaporizers, glassware, accessories, CBD products, and the company will soon be selling medical cannabis through its wholly owned subsidiary CannMart in the Canadian market. Namaste has developed and acquired innovative technology platforms including NamasteMD.com, and in May 2018 the Company acquired a leading e-commerce AI and Machine Learning Company, Findify AB. Findify uses artificial intelligence algorithms to optimize and personalize a consumer's on-site buying experience. Namaste is focused on leveraging its cutting-edge technology to enhance the user experience throughout its platforms. Namaste will continue to develop and acquire innovative technologies which will provide value to the Company and to its shareholders as well as to the broader cannabis market.

On behalf of the Board of Directors

Sean Dollinger

Chief Executive Officer

Direct: +1 (786) 389 9771

Email: info@namastetechnologies.com

Further information on the Company and its products can be accessed through the links below:

www.namastetechnologies.com



NamasteMD.com

NamasteVapes.ca

Everyonedoesit.ca

Forward-Looking Information

FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION This press release contains forward-looking information based on current expectations. These statements should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from those implied by such statements. Although such statements are based on management's reasonable assumptions, Namaste assumes no responsibility to update or revise forward-looking information to reflect new events or circumstances unless required by law. Although the Company believes that the expectations and assumptions on which the forward-looking statements are based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements because the Company can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct. Since forward-looking statements address future events and conditions, by their very nature they involve inherent risks and uncertainties. These statements speak only as of the date of this press release. Actual results could differ materially from those currently anticipated due to a number of factors and risks including various risk factors discussed in the Company's disclosure documents, which can be found under the Company's profile on www.sedar.com. This press release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended and such forward looking statements are made pursuant to the safe harbour provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

Neither the TSXV nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSXV) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release.Kyle Titus swears in as Titusville Police Departments newest patrolman, Tuesday. Titus was sworn in only a day after former detective Dustin LeGoullon served his first day as the departments police chief.Spoken word poet Carlos Andres Gomez addresses a crowd at the University of Pittsburghs Titusville campus on Tuesday. He encouraged the students to applaud each other, listen to each other, and, perhaps most importantly, learn from each other.By Trend





Iranian President Hassan Rouhani met with President Emmanuel Macron of France at the UN headquarters in New York Tuesday evening, IRNA reports.

The meeting was held at a time when both the Iranian and French presidents in their speeches at the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly earlier in the day took stance against the policies of the US administration against the 2015 nuclear deal struck between Iran and six world powers and the country's unilateralism.



Rouhani arrived in New York Sunday evening to attend the high profile meeting.



During his stay in New York, Rouhani has already held meetings with American political elites, his Cuban, Bolivian and Turkish counterparts, head of the International Olympic Committee, director of the International Monetary Fund, Chief Executive of Afghanistan and Norwegian prime minister.VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Trevali Mining Corporation (Trevali or the Company) (TSX: TV, OTCQX: TREVF, Frankfurt: 4TI) announces that operations at the Santander Mine in Peru have been temporarily halted as a result of an illegal blockade. Main road access was temporarily blocked by a small group of community members and other persons not affiliated with the Santander Mine, and the Company was unable to complete a scheduled delivery of supplies. The protesters allege that Trevali has failed to satisfy its community investment obligations under its agreement with the Santa Cruz de Andamarca community.



The Company has complied with all of its contractual obligations to the community and fully cooperated with government departments and other authorities regarding the blockade, which has now been lifted. Necessary supplies are now being delivered to the mine and full production is expected to resume within the week. The Company expects that production and sales for the quarter will be negatively impacted; however, the Company remains on track to achieve 2018 zinc production guidance at Santander. The Santander senior management team is proactively engaging with the local community and is in ongoing consultation with elected community leaders to discuss their concerns and ensure that mine operations continue without further interruption.

It is unfortunate that a small group of individuals chose to act in this manner instead of through open dialogue, said Mark Cruise, President & CEO of Trevali. We have enjoyed tremendous support from the local communities at Santander over the years and will continue to work diligently with the community to strengthen our commitment to a mutually beneficial relationship.

ABOUT TREVALI MINING CORPORATION

Trevali is a zinc-focused, base metals company with four mines: the wholly-owned Santander mine in Peru, the wholly-owned Caribou mine in the Bathurst Mining Camp of northern New Brunswick, the 90% owned Rosh Pinah mine in Namibia and the 90% owned Perkoa mine in Burkina Faso.

The shares of Trevali are listed on the TSX (symbol TV), the OTCQX (symbol TREVF), the Lima Stock Exchange (symbol TV), and the Frankfurt Exchange (symbol 4TI). For further details on Trevali, readers are referred to the Companys website (www.trevali.com) and to Canadian regulatory filings on SEDAR at www.sedar.com .

On Behalf of the Board of Directors of

TREVALI MINING CORPORATION

Mark D. Cruise (signed)

Mark D. Cruise, President

Contact Information:

Steve Stakiw, Vice President - Investor Relations and Corporate Communications

Email: sstakiw@trevali.com

Phone: (604) 488-1661 / Direct: (604) 638-5623

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains forward-looking information within the meaning of Canadian securities legislation and forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, Section 21E of the United States Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, or in releases made by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, all as may be amended from time. Statements containing forward-looking information express, as at the date of this news release, the Companys plans, estimates, forecasts, projections, expectations, or beliefs as to future events or results. Such forward-looking statements and information include, but are not limited to, statements relating to discussions with community leaders and the lifting of the blockade, the ability of the Company to resupply the Santander Mine in a timely manner, the timing of resumption of normal operations at the Santander Mine, and the impact of the blockade on production levels and the ability of the Company to achieve its annual production guidance.

These statements reflect the Companys current views with respect to future events and are necessarily based upon a number of assumptions and estimates that, while considered reasonable by the Company, are inherently subject to significant business, economic, competitive, political and social uncertainties and contingencies. If any assumptions are untrue, it could cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such statements. Assumptions have been made regarding, among other things, present and future business strategies and the environment in which the Company will operate in the future, including commodity prices, anticipated costs and ability to achieve goals.

Forward-looking statements are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other important factors that may cause the Companys actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, including but not limited to: risks related to joint venture operations; fluctuations in spot and forward markets for silver, zinc, base metals and certain other commodities (such as natural gas, fuel oil and electricity); fluctuations in currency markets; risks related to the technological and operational nature of the Companys business; changes in national and local government, legislation, taxation, controls or regulations and political or economic developments in Canada, the United States, Peru, Namibia, Burkina Faso, or other countries where the Company may carry on business in the future; risks and hazards associated with the business of mineral exploration, development and mining (including environmental hazards, industrial accidents, unusual or unexpected geological or structural formations, pressures, cave-ins and flooding); risks relating to the credit worthiness or financial condition of suppliers, refiners and other parties with whom the Company does business; inadequate insurance, or inability to obtain insurance, to cover these risks and hazards; employee relations; relationships with and claims by local communities and indigenous populations; availability and increasing costs associated with mining inputs and labour; the speculative nature of mineral exploration and development, including the risks of obtaining necessary licenses and permits and the presence of laws and regulations that may impose restrictions on mining; diminishing quantities or grades of mineral resources as properties are mined; global financial conditions; business opportunities that may be presented to, or pursued by, the Company; the Companys ability to complete and successfully integrate acquisitions and to mitigate other business combination risks; challenges to, or difficulty in maintaining, the Companys title to properties and continued ownership thereof; the actual results of current exploration activities, conclusions of economic evaluations, and changes in project parameters to deal with unanticipated economic or other factors; increased competition in the mining industry for properties, equipment, qualified personnel, and their costs, as well as other risks as more fully described in the Companys annual information form for the year ended December 31, 2017, which is available on the Companys website ( www.trevali.com ) and filed under our profile on SEDAR (www.sedar.com). Investors are cautioned against attributing undue certainty or reliance on forward-looking statements. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated, described or intended. The Company does not intend, and does not assume any obligation, to update these forward-looking statements or information to reflect changes in assumptions or changes in circumstances or any other events affecting such statements or information, other than as required by applicable law.

Source: Trevali Mining Corporation



If the issue is only present with a stream via Kodi, and not via any other app (Netflix et al), then it's almost certainly related to either the addon, or the stream source.



If this is illegally streamed content.... that's kind of the price of entry IMO (and we cannot assist there).



If it's just the interface, for an account you sign into and access via Kodi (NHL, HBO, Netflix, Youtube etc can all be accessed inside Kodi), the issue may sit with the addon itself.



If that's the case, reach out to the addon developer (found in 'settings' or 'configuration' for any given addon).

If it's an official addon, your chances of a fix are fairly high.

If it's an unofficial addon, I wouldn't be holding my breath.Greek archaeological sites and museums will be open to the public for free from September 28 to 30 to celebrate European Heritage Days, the Ministry of Culture said on Wednesday, according to ANA:

The Ministry announced that events at 106 locations in Greece will include music and dance performances, plays, book and photograph exhibits and tours, among others. "Through stories big and small, visitors will learn more about cities and sites and discover stories hidden in the heart of cities, in their neighborhoods and in their streets," it said.

A small sample of some of the site-related events follows, with details provided in the Ministry's full program (in Greek), at https://www.culture.gr/DocLib/programma_ekdhloseon__ehpk_2018.pdf:

-  Found in Athens: Stories of the city through its antiquities, a tour by archaeologists of the National Archaeological Museum

- Underwater archaeological tours of Aegina antiquities

- Tours of Vravron site and museum in Attica

-  A walk in ancient Patra following in the footsteps of Pausanias

- A concert at the silver crafts museum, Its Kale Fortress, Ioannina

-  The children and Larissa of the hidden secrets, a sample excavation for children aged 10-12

-  The Anatolian Army in Thessaloniki, 1915-1918, a photo exhibit and lecture series at the Byzantine Culture Museum of Thessaloniki

- An evening concert at the Archaeological Museum of Chania, Crete with Medieval and Renaissance music

-  In Cornaros neighborhoods, celebrating 16th-century Cretan author Vincenzo Cornaro with a couplet competition, including music and dance in Piskokefalo Sitias, Crete

RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report

Photo Source: Wikimedia Commons Copyright: arjenD License: CC-BY-SAThe most difficult project tackled by the council in decades

The mayor of Chania, Tassos Vamvoukas, is aiming to start work on the restoration of the municipal market, a 15 million euro project, in the next year, he said on Tuesday, ANA reports.

The project is being supported with five million euros from Greece's public investment program, with the remainder of the amount coming from the council's budget that could include bank funding.

RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report

Photo Source: Wikimedia Commons Copyright: Lapplaender License: CC-BY-SAThe funds raised will be invested in entrepreneurial programs and economic development opportunities in Greece and also will provide crisis relief for underserved communities in Greece

On Friday September 21, The Hellenic Initiative (THI) held their 6th Annual Gala in New York City, greekcitytimes.com reports:

It truely was a night to remember with more than 750 guests participating and a total of 2 million dollars raised. The funds raised will be invested in entrepreneurial programs and economic development opportunities in Greece and also will provide crisis relief for underserved communities in Greece, particularly for children.

The Gala is the biggest and most successful Greek Diaspora fundraising event, which is attended by Greeks from the U.S., Canada, UK, Europe, and Australia.

This years Gala also honoured two distinguished individuals and their respective organizations committed to supporting the well-being of Greece and Greeks: Mrs. Corrine Mentzelopoulos, philanthropist and owner of Chateau Margaux along with Mr. Paul Polman, CEO of Unilever and THIs Regeneration Program partner.

The Master of Ceremonies for the event was actor Chris Diamantopoulos, who is known for playing Russ Hanneman in Silicon Valley, and is also the voice of Disneys Mickey Mouse.

Read more at greekcitytimes.com

RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism reportThe Delphi Bank 25th Greek Film Festival runs 9  21 October 2018 at Palace Norton Street and Palace Central Sydney, and also travels to Melbourne, Adelaide, Canberra, Brisbane and Perth

The Delphi Bank 25th Greek Film Festival Announced its 2018 Program, so take a look and save the dates!

The Australian premiere of The Last Note, a drama by award-winning Greek filmmaker Pantelis Voulgaris, will kick off the Delphi Bank 25th Greek Film Festival in Sydney on October 9.

From the acclaimed Australian indie drama West of Sunshine, to TV royalty in Jamaica, international award-winner Smuggling Hendrix and a retrospective full of laughs, The Delphi Bank 25th Greek Film Festival (GFF) will again showcase the unique perspectives and talents of modern Greek storytellers.

With 16 films including new offerings and old favorites, the Festival will screen 9 to 21 October 2018 at Leichhardts Palace Norton Street Cinema and Palace Central Sydney, with tickets on sale today here.

Were so pleased to celebrate 25 years of incredible Greek cinema, says Festival Chair, Nia Karteris.

The talent in Greece is so rich and vibrant, and thats really reflected in the quality of films we have in the program. Theres something in here for everyonefrom the goofy, the dark, and the heart-wrenching.

Opening and Closing Night

From the award-winning Greek filmmaker Pantelis Voulgaris, the heart-rending drama The Last Note will open the Festival. Co-written by Voulgaris wife and acclaimed novelist Ioanna Karystiani, the film recounts the lead-up to the mass execution of 200 Greek war prisoners in Chaidari concentration camp in retaliation to the ambush of four Nazi officers.

Closing the Festival is Jamaica, the crowd-pleasing and touching directorial debut from TV director, Andreas Morfonios. Greek TV superstars Spiros Papadopoulos and Fanis Mouratidis star in the bittersweet comedy about two estranged brothers who are forced to reunite after a family tragedy.

Features

 Happy Birthday (2017)  Inspired by the Athenian street demonstrations of 2008 captured in his documentary, Children of the Riots (GFF 2012), writer-director Christos Georgiou returns with a fictional exploration of a family on the precipice of being torn apart.

 Jamaica (2017)  Taking the jump from the small screen, director Andreas Morfonios crowd-pleasing and touching directorial debut stars Greek TV royalty Spiros Papadopoulos and Fanis Mouratidis in a bittersweet comedy about two estranged brothers who are forced to reunite after a family tragedy.

 Pity (2018)  Fresh off the international festival circuit, written by its director with co-scribe Efthimis Filippou (The Lobster, Dogtooth) this distinctly Greek black-comedy depicts a lawyer living a dark existence in a sun-drenched world.

 Polyxeni (2017)  Inspired by true events, Dora Masklavanous Polyxeni (writer Unfair World, GFF 2012) is an epic and engrossing exploration of trust, tragedy and love set to the backdrop of Greek aristocracy in 1970s Istanbul.

 Rosemarie (2017)  Winner of Best Film at the 2017 Cyprus Film Days International Festival, Adonis Florides intelligently teeters between comedy and thriller in this telling of a burnt-out soap opera writer taking inspiration from his neighbours.

 Smuggling Hendrix (2018)  Winner of Best International Feature at Tribeca Film Festival, and debut feature from Marios Piperides, this touching comedy-drama heroes one mans unwavering commitment to his dog after it runs away and crosses the UN buffer zone.

 Success Story (2017)  With some of the biggest names in Greek cinema, including Konstandinos Markoulakis (The Telemachy) and Tonia Sotiropoulou (Skyfall), Nikos Perakis dark comedy chronicles conspiracy and betrayal as a passionate affair devolves into a toxic battle for dominance.

 The Bachelor 2 (2017)  The blockbuster comedy hit is a uniquely Hellenic take on The Hangover franchise, reuniting the cast of the 2016 original for another night of madness and mayhem in Crete.

 The Last Note (2017)  From the award-winning Greek filmmaker Pantelis Voulgaris, the heart-rending drama recounts the lead-up to the mass execution of 200 Greek war prisoners in Chaidari concentration camp in retaliation to the ambush of four Nazi officers.

 West of Sunshine (2017)  In Australian director Jason Raftopoulos impressive debut feature, a working-class dad must settle a crippling debt in this punch slice of Australian social realism, starring Damien Hill (Pawno) alongside his real life step-son Ty Perham, and Kat Stewart (Offspring).

 Retrospective  From the anti-establishment jibes of Nikos Perakis to mob bosses and human cloning, the curated LOL @ GFF Retrospective program samples the breadth of humour that keeps Greeks smiling even when faced with hardship. Prepare to laugh so hard youll cry!

 First Time Godfather (2007)  Based on an autobiographical short story by Nikos Papandreou, son of a former Greek prime minister, this uproarious tale dives into Greek culture with the same unbridled humor as My Big Fat Greek Wedding but with extra realism.

 I Love Karditsa (2010)  Cloning, millions in missing organised crime money and a couple of hit men on a mission combine to create this anarchic comedy farce from celebrated Greek filmmaker Stratos Markidis.

 Kiss of Life (2007)  A chance encounter on the way to his wedding destroys the best laid plans of a bored, thirty-something groom in this side splitting romantic comedy loaded with amusing mishaps and endless intrigue.

 Loafing and Camouflage (1984)  Heralded as a cult-classic and perhaps the best Greek film ever made, this semi-autobiographical film from Nikos Perakis is a satirical catch 22-esque take on his time in Greek military service.

 Nisos (2009)  After a sudden death, an islands richest man reveals himself as a mischievous troublemaker from beyond the grave, with scandalous affairs, unsolved crimes, hidden double lives disclosed one-by-one.

 Sirens in the Aegean (2005)  The biting and sardonic follow-up to Perakis Loafing and Camouflage (also screening at GFF 2018), the comedy classic attracted an audience of over 1.5 million viewers, placing it (at that time) behind only James Camerons history-making Titanic in terms of popularity.

The Delphi Bank 25th Greek Film Festival runs 9  21 October 2018 at Palace Norton Street and Palace Central Sydney, and also travels to Melbourne, Adelaide, Canberra, Brisbane and Perth.

EDITORS NOTES:

WHAT: The Delphi Bank 25th Greek Film Festival Sydney

WHEN: Tuesday 9 October  Sunday 21 October, 2017

WHERE: Palace Norton Street

99 Norton Street, Leichhardt, NSW 2040

Palace Central Sydney

3/28 Broadway, Chippendale, NSW 2008

Read more at greekreporter.com

RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism reportLarissa is the fourth largest city in Greece and is located in Thessaly, between Athens and Thessaloniki. Even though it isnt very touristy, it has an energetic vibe and cool cafe scene, that sets it apart.

Here, you will find locals sipping on coffee all day long, including mornings, lunchtime and evenings. Many admit they consume three cups of coffee a day, be it a Freddo Cappuccino, a Greek coffee and now they have a variety of new cafes serving international styles including Latte, Espresso, Macchiato, Ristretto, Picollo and everything in between.

Residents, especially university students, as there is a vast campus here in the central mainland grab their coffee to go, or you can catch many sitting down in between classes, enjoying their caffeine hit while socialising with their classmates.

Larissa has always been known as Greeces coffee city nevertheless recent research has actually confirmed that people of Larissa are the number one coffee drinkers in Greece.

There are around 162,000 residents in Larissa yet here you will find over 1,600 cafes, bars, restaurants, taverns and other stores that serve coffee, confirming there is a huge coffee culture here.

In fact, it is said that people from areas around the city go to Larissa on a daily basis to enjoy the cafe scene and on any given day there is up to 200,000 people in Larissa, including the 40,000 visitors who just come here to grab a coffee and a dessert.

According to Chamber of Commerce data in Larissa, there is a total of 16,308 registered companies in the city and 1,600 of which sell coffee, showing that 10% of local businesses are coffee-related.

Read more at greekcitytimes.com

RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report

Photo Source: Wikimedia Commons Copyright:  s License: CC-BY-SAA project, which would would generate 1,000 additional jobs during the construction phase and an average of 700 direct jobs for the next 20 and more years of operation

The reasons why Eldorado Gold Corporation proceeded with the recent Application for Payment towards the Greek State explains Mr. Christos Balaskas, Vice-President and General Manager, Greece of the company in an interview to Capital.gr.

As Mr. Balaskas underlines that instead of proceeding with the full development of the project - which would bring huge economic benefits to the national and local economy - after 21 months the case is pending for the second time before the Council of Stat and adds:

"I would like to elaborate on the importance of the full restoration of the mining activity areas, since the practice of rehabilitating an area in parallel with the mining activity until its full restoration, is among the best practices globally and a high investment few companies decide to implement. Eldorado is not only committed towards that direction, but also proves practically its intention in the Olympias region, where the company reclaims an area of 260.000 sqm, having already removed 2.6 million tonnes of wet tailings from the previous mining activity. Additionally, the company started a nursery of 150.000 sqm with more than 300 different species of local plants, which addresses the needs of the mines reclamation works as well as those of the region."

Read full interview at capital.gr

RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism reportThe proceeds will be used to finance future investments by Grivalia Properties

Grivalia Properties REIC on Tuesday announced it has reached a deal with Piraeus Bank Group for a credit line worth up to 75 million euros, ANA reports.

The credit line will be in the form of a common, secured bond loan up to 75 million euros and will be disbursed gradually. The loan will be fully covered by Piraeus Bank and Piraeus Leasing.

RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism reportDubai Investment Development Agency (Dubai FDI) and the US-based Alliance Business Centres Network (ABCN) have partnered in a global-first move to enable investors globally to start their business in Dubai without having to be in the UAE.



Dubai Investment Development Agency (Dubai FDI), an agency of the Department of Economic Development (DED) in Dubai, and the US-based Alliance Business Centres Network (ABCN) have partnered in a global-first move to enable investors globally to start their business in Dubai without having to be in the UAE.



The partnership will enable investors overseas to use a network of 650 business centres spread across 85 cities in 45 countries to start a business in Dubai. The initiative is part of Dubai FDI's continuing efforts to attract sustainable foreign investment in line with the goals of the Dubai Plan 2021 and promote the emirate as a competitive destination to do business.



Through the agreement, Dubai FDI seeks to attract international companies to Dubai and enable them grow and expand their business by leveraging a full range of professional services provided by ABCN. The partnership comes at a time when global investors and major multinationals are looking to capitalise on the prospects in Dubai, including its vibrant lifestyle, modern facilities, cultural diversity and openness, in addition to the highly competitive business environment.



Known to be the largest global network of serviced offices, Alliance Business Centres is also one of the leading providers of investor and corporate services for more than 50,000 clients and manages 15 million sq ft of serviced offices worldwide.



ABCN operates its businesses in the Middle East, Africa and Russia through its regional headquarters in Dubai. The professional services portfolio of Alliance Business Centres covers various legal forms of business as well as a wide range of commercial and investment activities available in Dubai.



Fahad Al Gergawi, CEO of Dubai FDI, said: This initiative is in line with Dubais objectives to reach out to international investors and companies, remove hurdles for those looking to benefit from investment opportunities and economic development in Dubai, and sustain economic growth. Dubai's strategy, supported by free and open economies policies and competitiveness, allows companies to benefit from the movement of goods to various regional and international markets, which is positively reflected on the promotion of global trade.



Al Gergawi added: Dubai FDI continues to develop strategies that would enhance Dubais appeal as a global investment haven. The agreement with Alliance Business Centres provides a new channel to attract foreign investments towards achieving economic growth and sustainability in Dubai and the UAE in general. Those seeking to know more about the business rules and regulations in various sectors in Dubai will find the required support as a result of this agreement. It will also allow investors and business owners to be updated on economic activity, opportunities and expansion potential in Dubai.



The business centres network will particularly cover GCC countries such as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait, in view of the close relationship between these countries and Dubai and the importance accorded to regional co-operation in the vision and directives of the UAE leadership, Al Gergawi stated.



He also underscored Dubai FDIs efforts to boost public-private partnerships and reinforce the role of global investment in economic development, as reflected in the agreement with ABCN.



Sherif Kamel, regional president, ABCN in RMEA, said: The new strategic partnership will further stimulate economic activity, attracting new investors to capitalise on the opportunities in Dubai, which is emerging as a preferred global investment destination.



Dubai has a solid economic foundation, based on advanced legislations that allow it to keep pace with rapid global changes. The emirate has developed clear policies and laws that serve its goals in attracting investments, facilitating business and offering an integrated package of innovative services that support business growth and expansion.



We are committed to developing our global network to serve the needs of investors and help Dubai FDI deliver innovative and reliable services that meet the expectations of global investors who want to grow and expand their business locally and regionally through Dubai, Kamel added.



ABCNs service centres around the world offer solutions and important information about the various economic sectors in Dubai, in addition to facilitating constant communication and follow-up to ensure uninterrupted processes.



Kamel said: We also assist them throughout the process up to the company's arrival in Dubai - from the beginning of the application until the completion of the process of starting the business. The service is available in many countries, including the US, Germany, Russia, China, India, Switzerland and other commercial and industrial centres.



The agreement seeks to build on the growing interest in Dubai and the UAE worldwide as a growing number of multinational companies are attracted by the UAEs political and economic stability, rapid population and economic growth, and efficient and fast-growing capital markets.



The ambitious infrastructure projects Dubai has launched ahead of the Expo 2020 and the whole new world of opportunities the emirate has opened for world-class expertise, entrepreneurial excellence, and innovation are expected to accelerate investment inflows into the emirate.  TradeArabia News ServiceThe Islamic Financial Services Board (IFSB) and Bahrain Institute of Banking and Finance (BIBF) have announced the speakers line-up for the third joint IFSB-BIBF Islamic Finance Executive Programme (IFEP) series, which will be held on October 17 and 18 in Manama, Bahrain.

The programme with the theme Fintech, Regtech and Islamic Finance will focus on the role of FinTech in the Islamic finance industry, the threats and regulatory challenges that FinTech impose on the industry.

Among confirmed speakers are: Ashar Nazim, chief executive, Waqfe, Bahrain; Shiraz Ali, chief executive officer, Arab Financial Services, Bahrain; Asim Khan, chief executive officer, Khalij Islamic, UK; Ahmed Al Balooshi, senior vice president / head of IT, Al Baraka Banking Group, Bahrain; Yasmeen Al Sharaf, head of FinTech, Central Bank of Bahrain; and Sheikh Esam Mohamed Ishaq, shariah scholar, Bahrain.

Session discourses which will be expounded during the two-day IFEP are:

* Digital Products and Islamic Finance

 Application of Blockchain in Islamic Finance

 Moderated Session: Regulatory and Legal Framework for Fintech

 Fintech and Risk Management

 Cybersecurity Threats and Protection of Financial Assets and Consumer Protection in Fintech

 Panel Discussion on Digitisation of the insurance industry and learnings for the Takaful industry

The IFEP is an ideal platform for regulators and supervisors of the FinTech sector and of Islamic financial institutions (IFIs); chief executive officers and board members of IFIs, regulators and supervisors of the Islamic capital market, regulating P2P exchanges and crowdfunding platforms; senior managers in risk management, Shariah governance and compliance functions; middle management of IFIs involved in product development, technology banking, and corporate strategy; auditors, lawyers, academicians and researchers in the FinTech sector and Islamic Finance. - TradeArabia News ServiceNOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO U.S. NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES

TORONTO, Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Canada House Wellness Group Inc. (Canada House - CSE: CHV), one of Canadas leading vertically integrated providers of medical cannabis products and services, announced today the hiring of Marigold Marketing & PR (Marigold), a top Cannabis PR firm and known specialists in initiating and developing medical and recreational cannabis brands.



Marigolds hiring comes at a time when Canada House has undergone significant change and success in creating a unique medically oriented integrated cannabis firm with a strong board and leadership team.

Marigold is recognized as a leader and innovator in the cannabis marketing space, specializing in the development and execution of integrated marketing and PR campaigns, product development, and social media management for a number of medical and recreational cannabis brands across North America.

We believe Canada House has a tremendous value proposition that has not been effectively communicated to the market in the past. We owe it to our shareholders and to the Corporation to make sure our story is told properly and transparently. Hiring Marigold accomplishes just this. We look forward to working alongside Bridget Hoffer, Katie Pringle and their team and growing Canada House into a global industry leader said Chris Churchill-Smith, CEO, Canada House Wellness Group Inc.

Marigold will be working with CHVs senior leadership team to further develop the Canada House brand in the medical cannabis market as well as supporting Canada Houses growth going forward.

"We are delighted to be working with the team at Canada House Wellness Group Inc. They put their patients first and are setting the global standard for clinical cannabis. We believe CHV is poised to make significant impacts in the Canadian medical cannabis market said Bridget Hoffer, Co-Founder, Marigold Marketing & PR.

About Canada House Wellness Group Inc.

Canada House is an experienced, integrated medical cannabis company providing patient-specific cannabinoid therapy products and services through its clinics and licensed producer. Canada House is the parent company of Marijuana for Trauma Inc., Knalysis Technologies and Abba Medix Corp. For more information please visit http://www.canadahouse.ca or www.sedar.com

About Marigold Marketing & PR

Marigold Marketing & PR is an industry-leading firm that specializes in driving awareness for licensed producers and national brands. Marigold has launched a division specifically focused for cannabis clients called, Cannabis Communications. Cannabis Communications focuses on serving the legal medical and recreational markets. For more information please visit http://marigoldpr.com/ or https://cannabiscoms.com/

For further information, please contact:

Boom Capital Markets

Steve Low

647-620-5101

steve@boomcapitalmarkets.com

Canada House Wellness Group Inc.

Chris Churchill-Smith, CEO

514-313-0102

chris.smith@canadahouse.ca



Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward Looking Information. This press release contains forward-looking statements, including statements that relate to, among other things, the Companys clinic, production and technology businesses, its future plans, the Companys markets, objectives, goals, strategies, intentions, beliefs, expectations and estimates, and can generally be identified by the use of words such as may, will, could, should, would, likely, "possible", expect, intend, estimate, anticipate, believe, plan, objective and continue (or the negative thereof) and words and expressions of similar import. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, such statements involve risks and uncertainties, and undue reliance should not be placed on such statements. Certain material factors or assumptions are applied in making forward-looking statements, and actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in such statements. Material assumptions used to develop forward-looking information in this news release include, among other things, the regulations related to cannabis use under the Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations and the act respecting cannabis and to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, the Criminal Code and other Acts, passed by the Canadian Federal government, making cannabis legal for recreational use by October 17, 2018; Company liquidity and capital resources, including the availability of additional capital resources to fund its activities; level of competition; the ability to adapt products and services to the changing market; the ability to attract and retain key executives; and the ability to execute strategic plans. Additional information about material factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations and about material factors or assumptions applied in making forward-looking statements may be found in the Companys most recent annual and interim Managements Discussion and Analysis under Risk and Uncertainties as well as in other public disclosure documents filed with Canadian securities regulatory authorities. The Company does not undertake any obligation to update publicly or to revise any of the forward-looking statements contained in this document, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

Neither the CSE nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the CSE) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.The demand for dairy products in Iraq is expected to rise at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8 per cent by 2025, according to a recent study conducted by Frost & Sullivan, a business consulting firm involved in market research and analysis.



The dairy industry in Iraq holds lucrative prospects for global players and investors as a result of post war, growing population and new economic reforms, said the report, titled Dairy Perception and Opportunities in Iraq.



The countrys gross domestic product (GDP) and household disposable income is expected to grow at CAGR of 6 per cent between 2018 and 2025, it added.



High percentage of the youth population is one of the economic strengths of the country, and with almost 60 per cent of the population under the age of 25, Iraq is uniquely positioned to harness the potential of its young generation to promote prosperity despite the multiple challenges it faces.



Ali Mirmohammad, senior consultant and business development manager at Frost & Sullivan, said: In the post war era, the demand for dairy products is expected to grow, with supporting plans by large international organisation such as United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Industrial Development Organization, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Food and Agriculture Organization and World Health Organization.



It is estimated that the average per capita consumption of dairy products will increase from 52 litres to above 60 litres within the next three years and then to over 90 litres by 2025, he added.



Iraq holds immense business opportunities for market participants, especially international players, with advanced technology upgrades that will help to expand the sector and enhance productivity.



Moreover, local companies seek to partner with global companies to benefit from their best practices in the dairy industry.



Mirmohammad continued: The dairy market in Iraq opens up more than 4 billion investment opportunities in cattle breeding farms, and plant management to improve production capacity, storage and distribution logistics , utility and transportation facilities , technology upgrading as well as retailing.



Iraqs dairy market is highly import-dependent as the countrys local manufacturers are only capable to meet less than 10 per cent of the domestic demand. Also, the country is also among the biggest importers of powdered milk in the Middle East to produce reconstituted milk as it contributes to 75 per cent of the countrys market, said the report.



Increasing population and urbanisation combined with limited best practices among local players in the industry make the Iraqi dairy industry a booming opportunity for international players and investors, it added.  TradeArabia News ServiceAbu Dhabi Fund for Development (ADFD), the leading national entity for development aid, has allocated nearly Dh3.2 billion ($871.18 million) towards development projects in the agricultural and irrigation sectors in developing countries.

Representing 7 per cent of the total financial assistance contributed by the fund in supporting developing countries to date, this assistance has allowed several developing countries across the world to fulfil their sustainable development objectives as 40 per cent of the world's population relies on agriculture for its livelihood, said a statement.

In its report marking Arab Agriculture Day, which is commemorated on December 27 every year, ADFD highlighted that the agricultural sector, which is closely associated with the growth of many other vital sectors such as health, education and environment, is one of the priority sectors identified by the United Nations towards achieving the sustainable development goals (SDGs).

Through supporting the agricultural sector, ADFD plays an important role in achieving food security that is the cornerstone of building successful economies, ensuring wide-spread social and economic development and generating additional revenues for the beneficiary countries from food and agricultural exports.

Mohammed Saif Al Suwaidi, director general of ADFD, said: "ADFD has placed great importance on the agricultural sector since its inception more than four-and-a-half decades ago. Our funding efforts in this regard are focused on projects that significantly improve people's livelihood and fulfil their daily needs in terms of food and water, allowing us to eradicate poverty and create jobs for the population in developing world.

Al Suwaidi added: The importance given to agricultural projects allows us to create safe and prosperous societies capable of achieving development in other sectors. As part of this priority, we need to step up concerted global efforts to develop more agricultural projects, reclaiming vast expanses of agricultural land and improving our irrigation systems. Doing so will allow us to support farmers and achieve food security for developing countries.

ADFD has funded more than 20 projects in the agricultural and irrigation sectors that have touched the lives of millions of people across the developing world. Furthermore, it has actively contributed to the expansion of large swathes of agricultural land, provided effective irrigation systems, and implemented several rehabilitation programmes that benefit a growing number of farmers.

Notable among the projects funded by ADFD in the agricultural sector are the south valley development project in Egypt, integrated development of south rift valley in Jordan, irrigation system development in Western Morocco and the rural development project in Tunisia.

The international community seeks to assist developing countries in meeting the basic food needs of their population. In order for countries to achieve food security, they need to boost their food production by prioritizing the agricultural sector in economic and social development programmes. Additionally, the development of effective agricultural policies, utilisation of latest technologies in the investment process, and increased agricultural investment are imperative for augmenting agricultural production. - TradeArabia News ServiceKanoo Travel, a division of Yusuf bin Ahmed Kanoo group and one of the largest travel companies in the region, has been named the Best Travel Management Company and the Best Corporate Incentive Tour Operator at the 2018 Arabian Travel Awards.



Representatives of Kanoo Travel offices from Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman, and Bahrain received the awards during a prestigious ceremony in Dubais JW Marriot Hotel, which was attended by the regions travel and hospitality industry experts and investors.



"It's a great honour to be recognised twice at this year's Arabian Travel Awards", said Nabeel Khalid Kanoo, Board Member.



These awards are a testament to Kanoo Travel's professionalism, our passionate team who deliver world-class solutions to a regional client base of loyal customers, and our strong focus on innovation and technology. I'd also like congratulate the wider YBA Kanoo Group which provided all the needed support for the business.



The Arabian Travel Awards, which were contested by companies from the Mena region, celebrate the best in the travel and hospitality industry. They are judged to the most rigorous standards by an independent panel of industry experts.



Kanoo Travel boasts a wide market presence with offices in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman, Egypt, and the UK. It also prides itself in solely representing American Express Global Business Travel, one of the largest travel management companies globally. - TradeArabia News ServiceData Privacy Named as Key Cloud Worry

As financial firms rapidly increase their investment in public cloud to manage their financial data needs, a global survey of senior technologists and market data managers in the financial services sector found that security is no longer a top concern. A survey from the Financial & Risk business of Thomson Reuters found that currently, firms top three concerns when using public cloud are: data residency (24%), data privacy (19%) and losing control over data (18%).

Such is the turnaround in financial firms attitudes that 82% of firms surveyed believed the need for greater security would be a positive driver towards the adoption of public cloud, while only 12% believed it was a factor inhibiting cloud adoption. Financial institutions are increasingly leveraging the cloud as a key technology to manage the financial data that powers their business decisions, with financial firms planning to ramp up their investment on cloud from 30% of IT budgets to 47% by 2019.

As a heavily regulated industry which holds highly sensitive information about clients, financial institutions have historically been wary of using the cloud because of security concerns. Public cloud providers have adapted accordingly, and invested heavily in industry-leading security, allaying firms concerns and turning security from a blocker to a driver. However, recent data regulations, such as GDPR in Europe, and high profile global data privacy scandals mean that firms are increasingly focused on issues like data privacy and data residency (where sensitive data is stored).

As financial institutions increasingly leverage cloud technology to manage their financial data needs, firms will always need to ensure that sensitive data remains completely safe, says Brennan Carley, Global Head of Enterprise Proposition & Product for the Financial & Risk business at Thomson Reuters. Regulations like GDPR and high profile data privacy scandals have increased the focus on data privacy. The cloud is increasingly seen as part of the solution, thanks to the dramatic improvements to cloud security.

Cloud technology is opening up new opportunities for financial firms to experiment and create value by combining data at scale with other emerging technologies such as AI and machine learning. Ultimately, whatever technology financial institutions use to manage data, they are responsible for ensuring robust controls are in place.

Thomson Reuters Financial & Risk recently announced plans to deliver all its financial data and tools in the cloud.

The Thomson Reuters Financial & Risk business will be known as Refinitiv, following the closing of the strategic partnership transaction between Thomson Reuters and private equity funds managed by Blackstone.

Methodology

The survey consisted of telephone interviews with 250 senior figures across buy- and sell-side financial institutions, in the roles of Chief Technology Officers, Chief Information Officers, Chief Data Officers and Heads of Market Data. It was a global survey, with respondents split equally between North America, Europe and APAC.

For more information on related topics, visit the following channels:VANCOUVER, British Columbia , Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Sirona Biochem Corp . (TSX-V: SBM) (FSE: ZSB) (Xetra: ZSB) (the Company) is pleased to report further progress regarding the clinical development of its lead skin-lightener, TFC-1067.



In parallel with ongoing partnering discussions, Sirona has completed steps toward the clinical trial for TFC-1067. A toxicologist, from CEHTRA in Paris, was hired to approve Sironas compound for clinical use. From the pre-clinical data, the toxicologist established a clinical dose for the compound and further confirmed that it does not degrade into toxic metabolites such as hydroquinone and benzoquinone.

The Company also contracted formulation expert Gael Boutry of Global Beauty Consulting in France to develop a formulation acceptable for clinical use. The formulation (face cream) containing TFC-1067 has already been prepared, packaged and tested in an accelerated stability test to ensure shelf-life.

Over the past two months, safety studies with the formulation have been ongoing at Dermscan, Poland, and continue to provide positive data for TFC-1067. The first study, a human patch test on 10 people, confirmed TFC-1067 as a non-irritant, in contrast to many other skin-lighteners.

In early August, a second clinical trial for the Human Repeat Insult Patch Test (HRIPT) which assesses sensitization on a larger group (110 people) began, in preparation for future efficacy trials. Initial results from the panel show TFC-1067 as a non-sensitizer. With these tests completed, Sirona will begin their proof of efficacy clinical trial in October, at a center in the United States, led by an acclaimed dermatologist.

The significance of the data that supports the formulated TFC-1067 cream as a non-irritant, non-sensitizer cannot be understated, as many common skin-lighteners, like hydroquinone, resorcinol, and Kojic Acid, have known toxicities at effective doses, said Dr. Howard Verrico, CEO of Sirona Biochem. The market has an unmet need with the safety and efficacy problems associated with the currently available skin lighteners and we are confident that TFC-1067 will meet this need. With an inventory of formulated product, we are primed to start the trial in October.

The planned clinical trial does not prevent negotiations of a definitive agreement in the interim. Advancing the development continues to add value to TFC-1067 and shorten the time to full commercialization. This improves our future potential partners ability to share our confidence in the commercial opportunity we are creating. In parallel, meetings with North American and Asian cosmetic companies continue to move forward.

About Sirona Biochem Corp.

Sirona Biochem is a cosmetic ingredient and drug discovery company with a proprietary platform technology. Sirona specializes in stabilizing carbohydrate molecules with the goal of improving efficacy and safety. New compounds are patented for maximum revenue potential.

Sironas compounds are licensed to leading companies around the world in return for licensing fees, milestone fees and ongoing royalty payments. Sironas laboratory, TFChem, is located in France and is the recipient of multiple French national scientific awards and European Union and French government grants. For more information, please visit www.sironabiochem.com .

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

For more information regarding this press release, please contact:

Christopher Hopton, CFO

Sirona Biochem Corp.

Phone: 1.604.282.6064

Email: chopton@sironabiochem.com

Sirona Biochem cautions you that statements included in this press release that are not a description of historical facts may be forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are only predictions based upon current expectations and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of release of the relevant information, unless explicitly stated otherwise. Actual results, performance or achievement could differ materially from those expressed in, or implied by, Sirona Biochems forward-looking statements due to the risks and uncertainties inherent in Sirona Biochems business including, without limitation, statements about: the progress and timing of its clinical trials; difficulties or delays in development, testing, obtaining regulatory approval, producing and marketing its products; unexpected adverse side effects or inadequate therapeutic efficacy of its products that could delay or prevent product development or commercialization; the scope and validity of patent protection for its products; competition from other pharmaceutical or biotechnology companies; and its ability to obtain additional financing to support its operations. Sirona Biochem does not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as required by law.New York The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Administrator Achim Steiner and the Swiss Federal Councillor and Head of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, Ignazio Cassis, signed today a three-year funding agreement. This new contribution to UNDPs regular resources (core funding) builds on years of Swiss support for the work UNDP does throughout the world to end poverty and reduce inequalities.

Under this agreement, UNDP will receive CHF 156.4 million (approximately US $160 million) for the period 2018-2020, including CHF 3 million per year for the UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF). This multi-year contribution will enhance the predictability of UNDP support to governments and partners and the implementation of integrated solutions to their biggest development challenges.

Switzerland is a vital partner to UNDP and the UN in realizing the vision and goals of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and we welcome this multi-year agreement Switzerland is making to UNDP and to the wider UN development system, said UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner during the signing on the margins of the UN General Assembly.

Core financial support pays for essential UNDP work on the ground in over 170 countries and territories. Critically, it allows the organization to respond to crisis in a timely and flexible manner. Regular resources also guarantee the high quality, efficiency and accountability of UNDPs work, recognized with UNDPs ranking as one of the worlds most transparent development aid organizations.

In the context of a repositioned UN development system, the Swiss core contribution will enhance UNDPs capacity to work closely with other UN entities towards stronger collective impact at country-level, including through strengthening links across humanitarian, development and peace efforts.

This re-affirmation of Switzerlands commitment to UNDP core funding complements the additional and extensive collaboration between UNDP and the Government of Switzerland on specific projects in countries such as Afghanistan, Albania, Bangladesh, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Burundi, Cambodia, Georgia, Honduras, Jordan, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Lebanon, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Pakistan, Syria, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Ukraine and many more.As prepared for delivery



Excellencies,

It is a pleasure to address the Annual Ministerial Meeting of the Least Developed Countries.

Three years into the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and just two years before reaching the completion of the Istanbul Declaration and Programme of Action (IPOA) for the Least Developed Countries (2011-2020), it is timely to, first, take stock of progress towards graduation from the LDC category. And, second, to reflect on what can be done to accelerate this long-standing aspiration of the United Nations since the LDC classification of countries was established in 1971.



Taking Stock

The pace of progress towards LDC graduation has been slow  with only 5 countries fully graduating since 1971. But the progress has accelerated rapidly over the last few years: the Committee for Development Policy assessed that an additional 12 LDCs had met graduation thresholds. Since 1990 the LDCs have experienced the highest rate of growth of the Human Development Index (at 51.4 percent). This accelerating rate of progress is expected to continue this, and into next year, with GDP growth in the LDCs forecast to reach 5.2% in 2018 and 5.5% in 2019  a significant improvement over 2015-2016.



But more needs to be done. Rates of economic growth in LDCs are, on average, well below the SDG target of 7%. Whereas per capita economic growth in LDCs is steadily rising, it is still at levels insufficient to eradicate extreme poverty: based on current trends, 35 per cent of the population in LDCs would be expected to remain in extreme poverty by 2030. This is not inevitable: some large LDCs are growing at or above 7% a year, including Bangladesh, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Myanmar and Tanzania.



Accelerating Progress

So what needs to be done to further accelerate progress? I would like to offer three suggestions, aligned with the priorities of the Istanbul Programme of Action.



First, LDCs need not only faster GDP growth, but also to ensure that growth is inclusive and sustained. For growth to be inclusive, a significant reduction in income inequality will have go along with faster growth rates. In addition, LDCs have to snap out of the boom and bust cycle of high growth volatility that affects so many countries.



An important factor in this pattern of volatility and non-inclusive growth is the dependence of so many on commodity exports: in 38 of the 47 LDCs for which data are available, commodities accounted for more than two-thirds of merchandise exports in 20132015. Commodity-linked sectors tend to be capital-intensive, generating little employment and opportunities for inclusive growth. When commodity prices change this is reflected in growth volatility. A priority, therefore, is to diversify towards more labor-intensive and higher value added activities. Yet, only five LDCs have reduced their dependence on primary commodities significantly since 2000, with a quarter have seen increases.



Second, the integrated approach called for in the 2030 Agenda needs to be fully internalized in LDCs development strategies. While the Istanbul Programme of Action does identify priority areas, with the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs we have the opportunity to explore interlinkages and self-reinforcing synergies across sectoral interventions. Let us recall that the Istanbul Programme of Action was agreed several years before the SDGs were adopted, and thus we need to imbed the 2030 Agenda into the programme of support for the LDCs



As an example, which was also emphasized in a recent UNCTAD report, consider improving access to energy. It would carry multiple benefits across a wide range of SDGs  from reducing poverty, to enhancing access to health and education services. Today, 62 per cent of people in LDCs have no access to electricity, compared with 10 per cent across other developing countries. The majority of people worldwide who lack access to electricity live in LDCs  a proportion that has grown steadily from less than one third in 1990.



But we need to face the challenge in ways that go beyond providing more than access to energy for basic household needs. Access to energy is critical for productive capacity, for manufacturing, for irrigation  for the essential activities that will enable the LDCs to make progress in the SDGs linked to employment and industrialization. Without adequate and reliable energy supplies, the labor cost advantages that many LDCs still have will be washed away, because the overall costs of production  accounting for power supply blackouts and volatility  increase dramatically.



Finally, the third set of challenges that LDCs need to confront are the dramatic changes to our economies and societies.



The combination of technology and globalization has driven an explosion in international trade, much of which linked to global value chains. More than 80% of global trade flows through multinational corporations, and one in five jobs around the world is tied to global value chains. Developing countries rode these trends, banking on labor cost advantages, to expand their economies and lift people out of poverty at unprecedented rates. A typical pathway was characterized by a transition from agriculture to labor-intensive, but low value, manufacturing  eventually evolving to more complex manufacturing tasks. Production was meant not for relatively small  though growing  domestic markets, but for the much larger international demand.



This is still the development pathway implicit in the Istanbul Programme of action for the LDCs, but the opportunities are narrowing.



Geopolitical dynamics are changing the policy environment of borders open to the flow of goods and capital, potentially making it harder to export to international markets and to integrate in global value chains. Escalation of trade wars will limit opportunities for LDCs, not only on the trade side, but also in limiting investment flows. Already, this year, we have seen very sharp devaluations in several developing country currencies (linked also to the normalization of monetary policy in the US) and reversal of capital flows.



In addition, and more long term, LDCs have to confront the technological revolutions that are happening at the moment. Sometimes, the technologies of what is often called the fourth industrial revolution seem relevant only in the most advanced economies. But it would be misguided to ignore the major trends that are happening globally, and not to reflect on their implications for LDCs.



There are, naturally, immense opportunities. The way in which access to mobile phones has enhanced financial inclusion  through mobile banking as well as peer-to-peer money exchanges  is one example. On energy access, that I have mentioned before, technological advances in renewable energy  especially sharp drops in prices and increase in efficiency of wind and solar  offer more and more affordable, scalable, and rapidly deploying options. In fact, renewable energies are expected to capture three-fourths of the $10 trillion the world will invest in new power generation through 2040. The LDCs need to ride this wave of technological progress, as recognized in the Istanbul Programme of Action, and for which the Technology Bank can make important contributions.



LDCs need to not only seize these opportunities but also manage risks of new technologies. With automation and artificial intelligence, labor can be replaced at faster rates than has already happened. Labor cost advantages may be eroded, with manufacturing by robots cheaper in advanced economies than in low-labor cost developing countries. The World Bank has estimated that two-thirds of all jobs in developing countries are susceptible to automation, with numbers as high as 85 percent vulnerable in some countries.



Even if these estimates are controversial and may seem exaggerated, there is no question that the global decrease in the price of investment goods relative to labor, driven by computerization, the Internet, and digital technologies, will likely continue, and will have implications for LDCs.



Over the last couple of decades, technology and globalization has driven an explosion in international trade, much of which is linked to global value chains. More than 80% of global trade flows through multinational corporations, and one in five jobs around the world is tied to global value chains. Developing countries rode these trends, banking on labor cost advantages, to expand their economies and lift people out of poverty at unprecedented rates. However advances in artificial intelligence and automation may close opportunities to explore labor cost advantages in the LDCs.



UNDPs Role

Let me conclude with some short observations on the role of UNDP in supporting LDCs. Our contribution is in part linked to our programmatic activities. Just because I emphasized the example of energy, let me share that we have a large portfolio of sustainable energy projects in at least 32 LDCs to accelerate access to electricity in rural off-grid areas, deploying renewable energy-based solutions where possible. UNDP has supported more than 140 countries, including all LDCs, to access more than USD3.2 billion in grant finance since 2008 to develop and implement climate change initiatives. This includes the Low-Emission Capacity Building (LECB) Programme supported by the European Union (EU), Germany and Australia that has assisted 9 LDCs - Bhutan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Zambia, Lao PDR, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Tanzania and Vanuatu - to transition to a low emission pathway.



Another relevant initiative is Tax Inspectors Without Borders, jointly organized by UNDP and the OECD, which supports improvements in tax administration  a critical requirement to increase domestic resource mobilization. We are working with 10 LDCs to enhance tax audit knowledge and skills in line with the Addis Ababa Action Agenda.



Beyond programmatic activities, UNDP has long been an advocate for LDCs and an active partner in implementing IPOA and the 2030 Agenda. We urge all partners to ensure tailored support to LDCs, from resource mobilization to the development of productive capacities and stronger and more transformational mechanisms for implementation at national and regional levels.

Our global policy expertise, country support platforms, and innovative approach to development that follows a model of open collaboration and scalability will facilitate new ways of collaborating within and across government and society in pursuit of greater development achievements in this networked age.



I wish you successful deliberations in your meeting today, and I wish to conclude by reaffirming UNDPs commitment to accelerating development progress by LDCs, towards the implementation of the 2030 Agenda.







TORONTO, Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- MVC Technologies Inc. (MVC), a leading cannabis-focused technology and services company, today announced that it has acquired customer loyalty, retention and engagement platform, TokeIn. TokeIn enables dispensaries and other cannabis retailers to engage with their customers with the industrys only mobile app-based platform. The acquisition was completed earlier this month.



Currently available on iOS and Android, dispensaries are able to target customers through building their own branded rewards program, opt-in customized deals and other engagement tools pushed through a variety of communication channels. The platform moves MVC further upstream in the cannabis value chain, adding to the companys cannabis EMR platform (Sail) and multi-state cannabis evaluation and education centers (Canna Care Docs).

TokeIn entered the market less than a year ago and has already proven that it is the exact consumer engagement tool that the industry requires with retailers in multiple states choosing the platform, said Prad Sekar, Chief Executive Officer, MVC Technologies. As various retail models begin to evolve within Canada, the US and abroad, dispensaries, licensed producers and other cannabis retail channels are seeking ways to acquire and retain customers in ways that traditional retailers currently find enormous success with. We are thrilled to add TokeIn to our portfolio of data-centric products and services to meet this immediate industry need.

TokeIn was designed, developed and deployed by a team led by cannabis entrepreneur Peter Barbosa. Barbosa had previously built a full-scale cannabis seed-to-sale software platform, Grow One, that was subsequently acquired by cannabis technology firm in 2017. Throughout the due diligence process, it became evident to MVC that the ability to acquire the talent associated with TokeIn was as significant as the platform itself. As such, Peter Barbosa will join MVC as its Chief Technology Officer, overseeing the development of TokeIn and all other software products the company offers.

We built TokeIn with a very defined goal, to give cannabis retailers the tools they needed to interact with their customers in a more meaningful and lucrative way, said Barbosa, Chief Technology Officer, MVC Technologies. Now being apart of the mission of MVC only solidifies that calling to advance the way that cannabis industry stakeholders use data that can not only meet their immediate needs but propel them to higher levels as the market grows.

MVC Technologies is the parent company of a series of brands which serve each vertical within the cannabis value chain. Its data-driven software and services help licenced producers, clinicians, patients, consumers and now retailers better manage their business or simplify their needs in the market. The company and its brands have supported more than 280,000 patient encounters across 18 jurisdictions including in Canada, the US and international markets.

About MVC Technologies

MVC Technologies has a mission to simplify the medical cannabis journey across the value chain through a suite of technology products and services delivered through three distinct brands  each serving a unique vertical. Sail offers a comprehensive cannabis EMR platform and patient engagement tools to support clinics and clinicians across multiple countries. Canna Care Docs is a leading cannabis group of evaluation and education centres operating in 12 jurisdictions. Canna Care Docs serves more than 65,000 patients annually looking to integrate cannabis into their treatment regimen. TokeIn is the industrys only mobile app-based customer loyalty and engagement platform used by cannabis retailers. The parent brand, MVC, works to build predictive analytics tools based on the controlled data input ingested from each of its sub-brands which are used to deliver actionable insights both to its customer base and the industry at-large. For more information please visit www.sailcannabis.co , www.cannacaredocs.com and www.tokein.com .

Forward Looking Statement

This news release may contain forward-looking statements that are based on the Company's expectations, estimates and projections regarding its business and the economic environment in which it operates. These statements are not a guarantee of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties that are difficult to control or predict. Therefore, actual outcomes and results may differ materially from those expressed in these forward-looking statements and readers should not place undue reliance on such statements. Statements speak only as of the date on which they are made, and the Company undertakes no obligation to update them publicly to reflect new information or the occurrence of future events or circumstances, unless otherwise required to do so by law.UNDP is honoured to welcome you together with Impact Hub, the International Trade Centre, the Government of Finland, GIZ and the Swiss Development Agency to this discussion about the 2030 Agenda, the potential of social entrepreneurship and the role of innovation ecosystems.

Today we want to emphasize two distinct points:

One, entrepreneurs, particularly social entrepreneurs, play a vital role in the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Two: to thrive, social entrepreneurs require conducive ecosystems. Governments and development organizations need to further embrace a systems-view on how to unfold the potential of entrepreneurship.

Let me briefly touch upon the first point-

With the 2030 Agenda, we have a set of ambitious targets that require moon shots, that is radically new innovations to help transform our economies into sustainable systems that provide opportunities for all. Entrepreneurship is key to this. It provides an opportunity for the growing number of young people on this planet, who in turn precisely are already or will be the next-gen entrepreneurs.

I am pleased that we have some of you with us today. I am also pleased to have Jon Stevers with us, representing a movement to inform policy on social entrepreneurship from the bottom-up.

We see a new group of development actors emerging. UNDP is excited to partner with this group as we aim to identify and scale solutions from unusual suspects and, importantly, to bring actors together. This is at the core of UNDPs Country Platforms and of our new work stream on SDG Acceleration Labs.

As these labs and platforms convene different actors across sectors, including governments, allow me to elaborate on the second point.

Innovation and social entrepreneurship require a multitude of policy interventions, some of them not directly linked to entrepreneurship. To frame the argument, I would like to quote one of Kenyas best-known tech investors: Ory Okolloh. She stated three years ago that you cant entrepreneur around bad leadership, we cant entrepreneur around bad policy. As an investor herself, she warns of a fetishization of entrepreneurship and neglect of fundamental gaps in governance and policy that hamper the establishment of a conducive environment.

In UNDP, we are increasing our support for social entrepreneurship across regions. For example, the initiative YouthConnekt started in Rwanda and focuses on providing young women and men with skills to become entrepreneurs but also to engage in political processes and become agents of change in their communities. YouthConnekt has been designed with youth. Between 2013 and 2015, it reached more than 10,000 young women and men with skills building services and resulted in the creation of about 2,518 permanent and 5,791 temporarily jobs. Today, UNDP and its partners are scaling the approach across six countries in Africa, seeking to create 10 million jobs for youth and to close the gender gap.

Let me also emphasize the importance of supporting nodes in the network, such as Impact Hub, with whom we partner to accelerate and scale solutions from entrepreneurs. I look forward to presentation of our joint initiative Accelerate 2030 today and to learn more about the work directly from some of our finalists.

Recent studies on innovation ecosystems  for example in Nigeria, India and China -- found that the existence of incubation and acceleration spaces that are led by experienced entrepreneurs is a key factor for the success of new entrepreneurs and a thriving ecosystem.

Essential about these findings is their context-bound applicability. When it comes to supporting thriving innovation ecosystems, there is no global best practice. This is one of the key findings of the Innovation Growth Lab, supported by Nesta. We are honored to welcome Nestas CEO Geoff Mulgan as our keynote speaker today to learn more about the importance of experimental approaches to policy design.

To conclude: at UNDP, we share with our partners a vision of social entrepreneurship as a means of empowering people, especially youth, to improve their lives. It is our collective responsibility to work for conditions which are conducive to entrepreneurs and enable the ones furthest left behind to obtain opportunities.

Thank youSomali refugee Sabriina stands by a solar power installation provided by IKEA Foundation's development project in Hilaweyn camp, Ethiopia.  UNHCR/Diana Diaz

NEW YORK  For an increasing number of companies and investors, the refugee crisis is becoming both an economic and philanthropic opportunity. During the UN General Assembly in New York, over 20 companies affirmed new commitments to help refugees by establishing partnerships with UNHCR and other humanitarian organizations.

We have historic records of people on the move today, but we can see this as an opportunity, said UN Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees Kelly T. Clements, highlighting the important role of the private sector in the global refugee response. But it cant be an opportunity if we dont have everyone involved. We cant do this alone.

From employing thousands of refugees to investing millions of dollars in skills training, technology and educational equipment, this week big companies like Microsoft, IKEA, H&M, Sodexo and Hilton publicly announced concrete plans and benchmarks to help thousands of refugees, sparking their hope to thrive.

Microsoft announced that the IT giant will invest in a partnership with UNHCR to develop a new model for digital literacy training and skills development over the course of three years. The partnership will focus on strengthening market-oriented training opportunities at Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya, where it aims to empower 25,000 refugees and host community youth by 2021.

"It cant be an opportunity if we dont have everyone involved."

All refugees, and the communities that host them, should have access to accredited, quality, and relevant digital learning and market-oriented training opportunities, said Brad Smith, president and chief legal officer of Microsoft, at the Concordia Annual Summit.

Chobani CEO Hamdi Ulukaya is a long-time, passionate refugee advocate. He was not satisfied with only offering job opportunities: We dont just want to hire refugees, we want to do more.

His commitment to helping refugees inspired him to create the Tent Partnership for Refugees, a coalition that has rallied support for refugees from over 100 businesses in less than three years.

In todays world, the private sector is the most effective change-maker, Ulukaya said.

At an event organized by Tent and the World Bank, 20 companies announced that they will put into place initiatives to support refugees and host communities in Jordan and around the world, including jobs, training, investments, and new business lines.

It's not a choice, but a responsibility, he added. I hope today inspires many more companies to do their part and help give the millions of men, women, and children who've lost everything the future they deserve.

"In todays world, the private sector is the most effective change-maker."

Refugees are people just like you and me, said the CEO of IKEA Foundation, Per Heggenes, at the Concordia Global Summit. They want a purpose in life. They have goals, they have skills. All they want is to have a job.

Heggenes explained how IKEA Foundation has invested US$100 million in a multi-year sustainable development plan in Ethiopia, which benefits both refugees and their hosts by strengthening the regions infrastructure and services. We want to create solid communities that can live in harmony, Heggenes added.

See also: Innovative investment transforms lives in Ethiopia

Many other business leaders echoed Heggeness call for sustainable, long-term goals for private sector support to refugees. Refugees are the hardest workers I have ever met. They are loyal and smart, said the CEO of Hissho Sushi. The sushi provider will help 1,250 refugees become franchise owners by 2023 as it expands its locations across the United States.

Sodexo, an international provider of life services, committed to hiring 300 refugees in the United States, Canada, Brazil and Sweden by 2020. It is the smart thing to do, it is in our business interest, said Rohini Anand, Sodexos senior vice-president for corporate social responsibility.

The need to mobilize the private sector in support of the refugee crisis is of critical importance today, said Concordia Senior Programming Advisor Kevin Wenzel. The private sector has an enormous contribution to make, not only in terms of financial resources, but also in terms of proposing long-term business models that focus on reintegrating refugees into society in an effective way.

"Refugees are the hardest workers I have ever met."

Facilitating the movement of capital into the countries hosting the highest numbers of refugees is a priority for the World Bank, said its president, Jim Yong Kim. The donor community has a responsibility to set incentives so that more companies will do it, Kim said. We can still find ways to create the right incentives.

UNHCR Deputy High Commissioner Clements pointed at the fact that a refugee will remain an average of 25 years in a refugee camp: Thats why the private sector is an essential partner. It is not a temporary situation anymore, its a long-term investment.

UNHCR's #WithRefugees coalition currently includes more than 400 universities, foundations, faith-based organizations, youth groups, UN agencies and NGOs. Learn more about it here.WHO says new 2mln COVID cases in Europe last week marked highest weekly rise since 2020 12 Nov 2021 | 11:37 PM Washington, Nov 12 (UNI/Sputnik) The nearly 2 million cases of the coronavirus reported last week in Europe marked the highest increment in a single week in the region since the pandemic began in early 2020, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Friday. see more..

US envoy on Afghanistan meets Gen Qamar Bajwa 12 Nov 2021 | 11:34 PM Kabul, Nov 12 (UNI) The United States Special Representative on Afghanistan Thomas West called on Pakistan Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa on Friday at the General Headquarters, Rawalpindi. see more..

Biden nominates Robert Califf to head US Food and Drug Administration - White House 12 Nov 2021 | 11:28 PM Washington, Nov 12 (UNI/Sputnik) President Joe Biden has nominated Dr. Robert Califf to be the next chief of the US Food and Drug Administration, the White House said on Friday. see more..

UN says released staffer in Ethiopia detained again, 9 others remain in detention 12 Nov 2021 | 11:22 PM United Nations, Nov 12 (UNI/Sputnik) The Ethiopian authorities have detained again a United Nations staff member who was arrested and released earlier, while nine other local employees still remain under arrest, UN spokesperson Farhan Haq said on Friday. see more..License to build Hanhikivi-1 nuclear power plant expected next year

Moscow, Sep 26 (UNI) Russias state nuclear corporation Rosatom and its Finnish partners may soon receive a license to build the Hanhikivi-1 nuclear power plant (NPP) in Finland next year.

According to materials prepared in the run-up to the Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedevs visit to Finland on September 26, "The project of building the Hanhikivi-1 NPP is now at the stage of licensing. The construction license is being obtained by the contractor and the future NPP operator Fennovoima. The Finnish partners in the project, Fennovoima, name 2019 as a target for obtaining the license to build the NPP, and the Russian partners share this opinion".

Earlier, the Rusatom Energy International, a company that manages Rosatoms foreign NPP projects, said it expected to obtain the license in 2018, although their Finnish partners have been clear that the license should be expected no earlier than 2019, Russian news agency TASS said in its website.Maldives to restore ties with India: Nasheed

Male, Sep 25 (UNI) Former Maldives President Mohammed Nasheed said that victory of Ibrahim Mohamed Solih in Sunday's presidential election will restore Maldives relationship with India.

In an interview to DW, Nasheed said: The people have made their decision. They have clearly said how they want the Maldives to be. This was a vote for democracy, which will put the country back on the path of reforms. We'll now be able to strengthen our democratic institutions.

Answering about the Maldives ties with Beijing after Solihs victory Nasheed said: It is difficult for command economies to understand democratic processes. The Maldivian people suffered a lot and they came out to make their voice heard. China can't understand this. The Maldives is not an authoritarian country.Nepal PM Oli to address UNGA on Sept 27

Kathmandu, Sep 26(UNI) Nepal Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli will address United Nation General Assembly on September 27, Nepal Foreign Ministry said in a statement issued here on Wednesday.

Earlier a meeting on Action For Peacekeeping (A4P) was organized by United Nations Secretary General in order to promote and maintain international peace and security. PM Oli who also participated in the meeting assured the secretary general that Nepal will keep providing troops and police personnel for the United Nations peace keeping forces even at the time of national difficulty. He also paid poignant accolades to the brave peacekeepers who had given supreme sacrifice in the line of duty.

PM Oli also took part in the opening of annual general debate of this session which was first addressed by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and the President of the General Assembly Maria Fernanda Espinosa Garces. After the inaugural address, a short sustainable development goal (SDG) which is a part of resolution 70/1 of UNGA was also highlighted giving the importance of investing and achieving these goals.One nation, one citizen: Afghans, Bengalis might have equal rights in Pakistan

Islamabad, Sep 25 (UNI) A new dawn for Bengalis and Afghans seems to be emerging in Pakistan.

Awami National Party on Tuesday supported Prime Minister Imran Khans decision to grant citizenship to Bengalis and Afghans born in Pakistan.

It is a normal practice all over the world that a child born in a country is given its citizenship. Pakistan should also grant citizenship to Afghans, who were born here, if it can give nationality to others. It is a humanitarian issue and not a political one, Awami National Party central president Asfandyar Wali Khan said.Pulwama shuts after family claims militant killed in Bandipora encounter their son

Srinagar, Sep 26 (UNI) Normal life was crippled due to a spontaneous strike on Wednesday in some areas in south Kashmir district of Pulwama, where security forces resorted to aerial firing and burst teargas shells to disperse demonstrators, who took to streets after a family claimed that one of the five militants killed in Bandipora gunfight was their son.

Scores of protestors, mostly youth, hit the streets in main Pulwama town, demanding body of a slain militant after a family from Kongan village claimed that their son, identified as Abdul Rashid Lone, was among the five militants killed in an encounter with security forces in Bandipora.

Right and far-rights parties join hands to oust Sweden Prime Minster

Sweden, Sep 25 (UNI) Both the Swedens centre-right and far-right parties have come together to oust countrys Prime Minister, Stefan Lofven, in an unavoidable no-confidence vote after the general elections that has left none of the main political parties with a majority.

No-confidence votes means that Lofven will have to step down from the administration and stay there as a caretaker till a new government is formed. The current Prime Ministers centre-bloc had won 144 seats against 143 of centre-right in parliament in early September.

Speaker of the parliament, Andreas Norlen will soon meet the leaders of all eight parties to determine the best one to form the countrys next government.Venice, FL, Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NEWMEDIAWIRE -- Advanced Credit Technologies, Inc. ("CyberloQ" or the "Company") (OTCQB: ACRT ) is pleased to announce the following update on the Company's business and information objectives going forward.



Advanced Credit Technologies (ACRT), software developers of the proprietary CyberloQ Multifactor Identity Verification cybersecurity solution, are pleased to announce the completion of the onboarding process into IT distribution and completion of a formal partnership with Miami based Kairos facial recognition software.

Kairos (www.kairos.com) is a leader in artificial intelligence specializing in face recognition. Through computer vision and a deep learning model, Kairos can recognize faces in videos, photos and the real world, making it easier than ever to transform the way all types of businesses interact with people. CyberloQs identity verification application will offer a Kairos integrated solution and stand-alone CyberloQ branded facial recognition solutions to resellers through IT distribution.

ACRTs President Chris Jackson says, Our partnership with Kairos is strategically important for two very distinct reasons. First, and foremost, from a philosophical perspective both companies have identified the need to keep their customers personally identifiable and other private information anonymous by offering integration via APIs. That means both CyberloQ and Kairos will never store or collect any of their customers information on their servers. Secondly, facial recognition in combination with the CyberloQ identity verification solution app offers a veritable silver bullet to the number one reason why companies and other institutions lose billions of dollars every year  identity fraud.

In addition, our distributor and strategic partnerships will provide ACRT with a solid platform to market the CyberloQ suite of Identity Verification solutions globally and gain exposure to the types of IT reseller and software integrators who specifically focus on security solutions. Cyber Security is projected to reach $281 billion dollars by 2021 and Identity Governance is a large part of that growth. We feel that partnering with both Karios and IT distribution are strategically sound decisions which will help ACRT capitalize on the type of rapid growth currently forecasted by industry experts in the Identity Verification space.

Advanced Credit Technology (ACRT) is the developer of CyberloQ a proprietary Multifactor Authentication (MFA) Identity Verification Application. CyberloQ uses unique identifiers from any mobile device in combination with the users PIN or biometric markers and geofence. CyberloQ automatically disables a users account if they breech the secure perimeter. (see www.cyberloq.com for more information).

Safe Harbor:

From time to time, the Company may issue news releases that contain "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, and is subject to the safe harbor created by those sections. This material may contain statements about expected future events and/or financial results that are forward-looking in nature and subject to risks and uncertainties. For those statements, the Company claims the protection of the safe harbor for forward-looking statement provisions contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and any amendments thereto. Any statements that express or involve discussions with respect to predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, goals, assumptions, or future events or performance are not statements of historical fact and may be "forward-looking statements." "Forward-looking statements" are based upon expectations, estimates and projections at the time the statements are made that involve a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from those anticipated.

The Company discourages any and all promotional activity by non-Company actors, and encourages investors and potential investors to review the Company's public filings, its website and its press releases, and to discuss these matters with their personal legal and financial advisors. Non-Company newsletters/recommendations, websites or general stock symbols/classifications or other identifiers regarding our securities, whether positive or negative, should not be relied on because these items are simply opinions/policies of a third party. These third parties are, in many instances, paid by the publisher or other third parties and the Company believes that they profit from the publication of this literature and the results on the market. These materials should not be a substitute for investors' research and/or independent decision-making.



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.TORONTO, Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- STORAGEVAULT CANADA INC. (StorageVault) (SVI-TSX-V) is pleased to announce that, further to its July 26, 2018 news release, it has completed the acquisition of $27,650,000 of the $43,700,000 previously announced transactions. The purchases were made in two separate transactions and are comprised of five self storage stores (the Acquisitions) located in the Ottawa and Windsor markets. Each of the Acquisitions is an arms length transaction.



StorageVault now owns 34 stores in the strong Ontario market and has reached the 100th owned store milestone across Canada for a total of 158 stores when including StorageVault managed stores.

The purchase price for the Acquisitions was paid for with cash on hand and first mortgage financing.

About StorageVault Canada Inc.

StorageVault owns and operates storage locations in the provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, and Nova Scotia.

For further information, contact Mr. Steven Scott or Mr. Iqbal Khan:

Tel: 1-877-622-0205

ir@storagevaultcanada.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.Marty Butts Foodpreneur Tour of Wyoming Canceled

Marty Butts

Due to unforeseen circumstances, the Marty Butts Tour of Wyoming has been canceled. The series of workshops was scheduled for Sept. 26-28 in Cody, Lander, Laramie, Casper and Gillette.

The Wyoming Small Business Development Center (SBDC) Network, with the main office located at the University of Wyoming, will work with Butts to bring his training sessions to Wyoming in the future. Participants wishing to be notified can sign up for the Wyoming SBDC Networks event newsletter at https://bit.ly/2Ifdjbx.

Refunds for those who have already registered will be automatically processed. Participants with questions about the refund can call the Wyoming SBDC Network at 1-800-348-5194.

This cancellation does not affect the Wyoming Farmers Market Conference, which is scheduled Sept. 28-29 in Casper. For more information, go to www.wyomingsbdc.org and click on the Events and Classes section.UW Geology Professor Makes Most of Russian Collaboration

Members of the international team touring the renovations for a new laboratory at Siberias Tomsk State University (TSU) in 2017 are, from left: John Cottle, New Zealand; Svetlana Gertner, Russian translator; Platon Tishin, TSU professor; Kevin Chamberlain, UW professor; and Xia Ying, China. (Kevin Chamberlain Photo)

Science brought University of Wyoming geochronologist Kevin Chamberlain to Siberia, but it was the Russian people and culture that impressed him the most.

Chamberlain, a member of UWs Department of Geology and Geophysics faculty, is part of a five-scientist international team recruited to help Tomsk State University (TSU) design and install a Laser Ablation Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry facility -- in short, a laser to help scientists in the region determine the ages of rocks.

TSU, located in Tomsk, Russia, was awarded a megagrant from the Russian government worth 90 million rubles (about $1.3 million) to establish the laboratory, but involvement of foreign scientists was a necessary aspect of the grant. Chamberlains name was known in the field, and his work with a geochronology lab at UW made him a shoo-in. The only American scientist in the group, he is joined by experts from Canada, China, New Zealand and Spain.

Chamberlain twice visited TSU for extended stays and has provided consulting on a monthly basis through email. In the next few weeks, the laser installation will be finished, and the lab will begin analyzing standards to test and calibrate the instrument. It is expected to be fully functional when Chamberlain returns for his final visit in December.

Chamberlains visits have focused principally on the facility, but learning about and building relationships with the Russian people have been rewarding, according to him. Tomsk, with a population just over half a million people, is considered one of the oldest cities in central Siberia, while TSU is known as the oldest university east of the Ural Mountains. That rich tradition is something Chamberlain appreciates.

Members of the international team assembled at TSU in 2016 are, from left: Xia Ying, China; Richard Ernst, Canada; and Kevin Chamberlain, UW. (Kevin Chamberlain Photo)

They have been great hosts, Chamberlain says. The Russian people have a culture, in my experience, of being very generous and warm. We were treated like honored guests.

Chamberlain specifically noted the winter component of their culture. He grew up in upstate New York, so heavy snow is nothing new to him, but a Russian winter is unlike any other in terms of snowfall and temperatures. Tomsk also is nearly the same latitude as Anchorage, Alaska, so the city doesnt get much sunlight during periods of the year.

That doesnt stop the Russians from enjoying the outdoors, though. One of Chamberlains visits corresponded with a winter festival in the city, during which many elaborate ice sculptures were constructed around TSU.

From a cultural perspective, I appreciated learning about Siberia, specifically the Russian people and their scientists, he says. In terms of science, Im proud that this facility is in a position to be successful and that I was able to help expand their infrastructure. My interest in the rocks that are in Siberia is ongoing.

That interest, and this collaboration with the Russians and other international scientists, already are beginning to pay dividends. Chamberlain, along with the Canadian and TSU scientists, has been awarded a second grant from the Russian government to study Siberian rocks potentially associated with a mass extinction event. Chamberlain says the research is promising, but further study is needed.NEW YORK, Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via CannabisNewsWire  CannabisNewsWire ("CNW"), a multifaceted financial news and publishing company, today announces the publication of an editorial featuring Marijuana Company of America Inc. (OTC: MCOA), a client of CNW that focuses on product research and development of legal hemp-based consumer products containing CBD under the brand name hempSMART, an affiliate marketing program to promote and sell its products, as well as leasing of real property and expansion of business into ancillary areas of the legalized cannabis and hemp industry.



To view the full publication, titled Something for Everyone: Baby Boomers Signify Shift in the Cannabis Market, visit: http://cnw.fm/7G3nB

For companies such as Marijuana Company of America (OTC: MCOA), baby boomers are an increasingly important market sector. A recent survey of nearly 18,000 adult Americans found that cannabis is becoming increasingly popular among the older generation. The number of cannabis users in the United States has nearly doubled over the past decade, despite it still being illegal in several states and only available for medical use in most. Around 9 percent of those aged 50 to 64 had used cannabis at some point in the year preceding the survey. Among those aged 65 and above, the figure was 3 percent. And while those numbers may not seem impressive, they are steadily growing and represent an increasingly large market for MCOA and its competitors to tap into. Whats causing this growth in older cannabis users? One of the reasons for the success of cannabis companies is their ability to manufacture and distribute CBD-related products for vastly different purposes. MCOAs hempSMART product line shows how these companies build up a range of distinct but related products. hempSMART makes use of cannabidiol (CBD), a non-psychoactive chemical found in cannabis and widely used in health and wellness products.Wyoming Latina Youth Conference Oct. 12-13 at UW

Ada Montano Mushati

When Ada Montano Mushati attended her first Wyoming Latina Youth Conference as an eighth-grader nearly a decade ago, she was shocked to see a room full of young women with the same skin color as hers.

When I went the first year, it was eye-opening for me to see a bunch of women who looked just like me in a state where there are a lot of people who dont look like me, says the University of Wyoming student from Sheridan. To go to a conference where everyone looked like me, to see a lot of people who had similar stories and backgrounds as mine, and then to see the older versions of us in the future say, I have this degree, I did this with my life -- this is what Im working for now.

For Mushati, who is pursuing her second bachelors degree in sociology after receiving a degree in psychology, the goal is to give back to young Wyoming Latinas, telling them they can achieve anything in life through academics. That is what she personally learned attending the Wyoming Latina Youth Conference (WLYC) for five years, beginning as a Sheridan eighth-grader.

To be in a position now, where I get to do that for someone else, is really exciting for me, Mushati says. For me to be able to tell girls its not going to be easy -- I can now tell them it was hard, but I did it and you also can.

She will take that message to the 18th annual statewide WLYC Oct. 12-13 on the UW campus.

It is very empowering for me to sit there in a room and see all these women who look like you and who are doing all these great things; you feel so powerful. Its a feeling that you dont get very often in your regular school setting, Mushati says. Growing up, sometimes you go unnoticed. You dont get the same experiences as everyone else. Youre not going through the same things as everyone else at home.

The Latina culture is very different, she continues. There are just a lot of things in the mix that when you go to this conference and see all these people, that its such a great experience to feel that empowered. Its a completely different experience from anything that you will see.

The WLYC is an annual celebration of "the power of choice, says WLYC Executive Director Cecelia Aragon, a UW professor of theater and dance and head of UW Latina/o Studies.

The conferences Friday, Oct. 12, banquet and the Saturday, Oct. 13, daylong workshops are specifically geared toward Latina students in grades 5-12.

However, we welcome any and all young women who may be interested in participating, Aragon says.

WLYC is an educational pipeline program at UW focused on empowering at-risk young Latinas through mentorship and exposure to higher education. After many years being held in Cheyenne, the conference has permanently moved under the umbrella of UW. Nearly 200 young Latinas from throughout the state are expected to attend this year.

The theme for this falls conference is Embracing Leadership, Science and Creativity. Students will participate in a variety of workshops to discuss topics in science, technology, engineering and mathematics; healthy relationships; identity; creativity; and leadership.

Mushati serves as an administrative assistant for the WLYC as part of her undergraduate internship, working with Aragon. One of her roles will be to assist in organizing the conference and serve as a mentor for attendees.

I am now in a position where I can be an example for achieving academic and professional goals, she says. Its being in that position where I can show girls that it can be done. Its hard, but it can be done.

Aragon says Mushati and her sister, Heidi Montano, are models for WLYC. Both are high-achieving, highly motivated, ambitious young Latinas. Mushati plans to attend graduate school when she graduates from UW and wants to become an elementary school counselor. Montano received her undergraduate degree from UW and masters degree from the University of Southern California. She is the addiction disorder services intensive outpatient program coordinator at the Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in Sheridan.

Mushatis parents are supporters of WLYC. Her father, Mario Montano, a Sheridan High School Spanish teacher, has helped to support Sheridan-area Latina youth to attend the conference, and her mother, Maria Montano, will chaperone students for the latest event.

The conferences keynote speaker at the banquet is Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodriguez, a storyteller, theologian and feminist from Nashville, Tenn., and owner and founder of the Latina Rebels blog. She also is a contributing writer for Huffington Post. She received her master of divinity degree from Vanderbilt University.

WLYCs guest artist is Jay Martis, from El Paso, Texas. Her artwork will be highlighted at the conference, and she will conduct a workshop for attendees.

Registration for the WLYC is $35 for students before Oct. 4 and $50 after that date. The fee includes all conference events, an evening banquet dinner, and breakfast and lunch Oct. 13.

The registration form and full schedule of events are available online at www.uwyo.edu/wlyc/.

The banquet, which begins at 6 p.m. in the UW Conference Center, is open to the public at a cost of $50 per person. Reservations are required by emailing ccaragon@uwyo.edu.

For more information, call Aragon at (307) 766-2164 or email ccaragon@uwyo.edu.VANCOUVER, B.C., Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- New Age Farm Inc. (CSE:NF) (OTC:NWGFF) (FSE:ONF) (New Age Farm or the Company) is pleased to announce that, further to its news release dated September 24, 2018, the Company has signed a definitive agreement dated September 25, 2018 (the Agreement) to acquire 100% of Drink Fresh Water LLC (DFW), a CBD infused beverage company. Pursuant to the Agreement, consideration for the acquisition will be USD$1,275,000, with USD$75,000 payable in cash and USD$1,200,000 being issuable in common shares of the Company. The day to day operations of DFW will continue to be operated by the DFW team while the back-end operations will transition over to the New Age Farm team. Additionally, New Age Farm will take over marketing of the company as well as immediately inject it into the current established distribution lines through the Companys wholly owned subsidiary, We Are Kured LLC (Kured).

DFW was established in California by a group of industry leaders. Their flagship product, a CBD infused, nano amplified alkaline water has continued to grow steadily and can now be found throughout the nation in over 100 unique retail stores. New Age Farm feels confident they can drastically increase that distribution. Additionally, the company looks to expand on the current success by adding additional SKUs in the very near future.

Joshua Bartch, New Age Farms Chief Executive Officer, stated: We are incredibly pleased with the acquisition of Drink Fresh Water LLC. We have been in talks with the company for some time regarding the potential to work together in some capacity. I was always impressed with the product, branding and overall concept of the company. Weve known the team at Fresh Water for some time and I have personally worked with them in various capacities. We are excited to join forces and work together to expand this industry leading company into a true industry giant.

Benjamin Martch, New Age Farms Chief Marketing Officer and founder and Chief Executive Officer of Kured stated: After seeing the success of Fresh Water, the recent hype around CBD infused beverages, the New Age Board of Directors have all decided that Drink Fresh Water LLC is a great addition to the New Age portfolio. The current team of industry professionals running Drink Fresh Water LLC is nothing less than impressive and with our help with production and international marketing we feel this will be a win for New Age.

Nam Tran, Brand Manager of DFW, stated: We have known Josh and Ben for some time now and having worked with them on various other projects, we know what they can bring to the table. So when the opportunity to become a part of New Ages great portfolio of brands, we jumped on. Their expertise in production will help make Fresh Water CBD a house-hold name in CBD beverages. 

About New Age Farm

New Age Farm is an agricultural services company offering unique turnkey growing infrastructure and services for licensed growers and processors of luxury marijuana crops at its agri-campuses in Washington State. In November 2012, the Washington State Liquor and Cannabis Board (WSLCB) passed Initiative 502 (I-502). I-502 authorized the WSLCB to regulate and tax recreational marijuana products for persons over twenty-one years of age and thereby created a new industry for the growing, processing and selling of Washington State-regulated recreational marijuana products. New Age Farm provides innovative solutions for growers and processors in this burgeoning industry.

About We Are Kured, LLC

Kured is a wholly owned subsidiary of New Age Farm, acquired in December 2017. Kured is building an innovative online CBD and lifestyle company. Kured has partnered with best in class hemp cultivators, edible manufacturers, cutting edge product formulators to develop, market and distribute multiple lines of CBD products including, but not limited to, CBD vaporizer pens, topicals, gel capsules and more. All of We Are Kureds products are 100% THC free and will be available for purchase internationally. THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, is the primary active ingredient in cannabis.

For further information about New Age Farm, please consult the Companys profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com or visit the Companys website at www.newagefarminc.com . For further information about We Are Kured, please visit their website at www.wearekured.com .

On Behalf of the Board of Directors For Further Information Contact Joshua Bartch Corporate Communications Chief Executive Officer corpcom@newagefarminc.com info@newagefarminc.com 888-871-3936 We Are Kured Contact: Ben Martch Founder & CEO www.wearekured.com

The Canadian Securities Exchange has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this news release and accepts no responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy hereof.

This news release contains forward-looking statements, which relate to future events or future performance and reflect managements current expectations and assumptions. Such forward-looking statements reflect managements current beliefs and are based on assumptions made by and information currently available to the Company. Readers are cautioned that these forward looking statements are neither promises nor guarantees, and are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause future results to differ materially from those expected including, but not limited to completion of planned improvements at both the Canadian and US sites on schedule and on budget, the availability of financing needed to complete the Companys planned improvements on commercially reasonable terms, planned occupancy by the tenant-growers, commencement of operations, differences in yield on expected harvests, delays in obtaining statutory approval for marijuana production plans, issues that may arise throughout the grow period, outdoor crops affected by weather, the ability to mitigate the risk of loss through appropriate insurance policies, and the risks presented by federal statutes that may contradict local and state legislation respecting legalized marijuana. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof and the Company does not assume any obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances save as required under applicable securities legislation. This news release does not constitute an offer to sell securities and the Company is not soliciting an offer to buy securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of such jurisdiction.

This news release does not constitute an offer of securities for sale in the United States. These securities have not and will not be registered under United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold in the United States or to a U.S. Person unless so registered, or an exemption from registration is relied upon.In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate

Praise be to God, the Lord of the universe and Peace and Blessings be upon the Messenger of God and his Family and Companions

Madam President,

I take this opportunity to felicitate your election to the presidency of the 73rd Session of the United Nations General Assembly.

We have assembled here today as the world is suffering from the recklessness and disregard of some states for international values and institutions. The message of our presence here is that the preservation of interests and security in the world in the least costly manner is solely possible through the cooperation of, and coordination among, countries. However, it is unfortunate that we are witnessing rulers in the world who think they can secure their interests betteror at least in the short-term ride public sentiments and gain popular supportthrough the fomenting of extremist nationalism and racism, and though xenophobic tendencies resembling a Nazi disposition, as well as through the trampling of global rules and undermining international institutions; even through preposterous and abnormal acts such as convening a high-level meeting of the Security Council.

This illusion should be cast away, once and for all, that one can aspire to securing more peace and security at the cost of denying others peace and security. We should not allow the breathing space for and growth of the line of thinking that holds others to ransom through the artificial creation of insecurity. Along this tack, confronting multilateralism is not a sign of strength; rather it is a symptom of the weakness of intellectit betrays an inability in understanding a complex and interconnected world.

Under such circumstances, negligence or inefficacy of international institutions can endanger world peace. Those seeking dominance and hegemony are enemies of peace and the perpetrators of war.

The government of the United Statesat least the current administrationseems determined to render all international institutions ineffectual. This government, having withdrawn from a multilateral agreement adopted by the Security Council, in contravention of the rules and norms of international law, invites the Islamic Republic of Iran to bilateral talks. An administration that is inviting Iran to engage in talks is not ready to consult its own experts nor willing to recognize the requirements of a modern state, including the paramount principle of continuity of state responsibility, and hence openly violates state obligations undertaken by its predecessor.

On what basis and criteria can we enter into an agreement with an administration misbehaving such as this? Any talks should be within the framework and in continuation of the JCPOA and Security Council resolution 2231, and not in a framework of breaching them and reverting to the past. It is ironic that the US government does not even conceal its plan for overthrowing the same government it invites to talks!

Distinguished Colleagues,

The approach of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the field of foreign policy has been based on multilateralism and compliance with the recognized principles of international law. Our respect for the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the long and difficult negotiations with the Group of 5+1, which led to the conclusion of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Actionthe JCPOAillustrates a clear manifestation of this approach.

We are pleased that the international community did not acquiesce to the US governments unilateral and illegal withdrawal from the JCPOA, and adopted a categorical position vis-a-vis that decision. The JCPOA is the outcome of more than a decade of diplomatic efforts and a period of intensive negotiations to resolve an artificial crisis. This document was unanimously approved by Security Council resolution 2231 and codified into an international obligation. According to this resolution, all countries and international and regional organizations were called upon to support the implementation of the JCPOA, and to refrain from any actions that undermine implementation of commitments under the JCPOA..

Based on 12 consecutive reports of the International Atomic Energy Agency  the IAEA  Iran has thus far complied with all of its commitments. However, the United States, from the very beginning, never remained faithful to its obligations. Later, the current administration, resorting to flimsy excuses and in open violation of its commitments, finally withdrew from the accord. The United Nations should not allow its decisions to fall victim to the domestic election and propaganda games of some of its members, and should not allow any Member State to dodge the execution of its international commitments.

Additionally, the United States also pressures other countries to violate the nuclear accord. And more dangerously, the United States is threatening all countries and international organizations with punishment if they comply with Security Council resolution 2231. It is the first time in the history of the United Nations that such a general invitation to violation of law is coupled with threatening law-abiders with punishment. This is not just peculiar to the JCPOA, but a pattern that even applies to the US approach to the International Criminal Court.

We appreciate the efforts of the international community, the European Union, Russia, and China in supporting the implementation of the JCPOA and consider the full realization of the commitments stipulated in it a precondition for the survival of this significant accomplishment of diplomacy.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Unlawful unilateral sanctions in themselves constitute a form of economic terrorism and a breach of the Right to Development. The economic war that the United States has initiated under the rubric of new sanctions not only targets the Iranian people but also entails harmful repercussions for the people of other countries, and that war has caused a disruption in the state of global trade.

The Iranian people have demonstrated their unwavering resilience during the past forty years despite the difficulties and constraints caused by sanctions, and have shown that they can overcome this difficult phase as well. The multi-millennial history of our country demonstrates that Iran and Iranians have never broken in the face of a storm of eventsnot even been bowed. I state here, in clear, unambiguous terms, that the United States policy vis-a-vis the Islamic Republic of Iran has been wrong from the beginning, and its approach of resisting the wishes of the Iranian people as manifested in numerous elections is doomed to failure. Iran, with its historical and civilizational longevity, rich cultural heritage, and foremost geopolitical position, is an undeniable reality. The policy of engagement and cooperation with Iran has produced positive outcomes for other nations, as best reflected in Irans cooperation with friendly countries in the fight against terrorism.

The United States understanding of international relations is authoritarian. In its estimation, might makes right. Its understanding of power, not of legal and legitimate authority, is reflected in bullying and imposition. No state and nation can be brought to the negotiating table by force, and if so, what follows is the accumulation in the grapes of wrath of those nations, to be reaped later by the oppressors.

We concur that, at the end of the day, there is no better way but dialogue. However, dialogue is two-way: it should be based on equality, justice, and human integrity and honor, and conducted in accordance with the rules and norms of international law. UN Security Council resolution 2231 is not a piece of paper. We invite you to return to that Council resolution. We invite you to come back to the negotiating table you left. If you dislike the JCPOA because it is the legacy of your domestic political rivals, then we invite you to come back to the Security Council resolution. We invite you to remain in the international institutions. Do not engage in imposing sanctions. Sanctions and extremism are two sides of the same coin: Extremism involves negating the thinking of others, and sanctions negate the life and prosperity of people.

For dialogue to take place, there is no need for a photo opportunity. The two sides can listen to each other right here in this Assembly. I am starting the dialogue right here, and statein unequivocal termsthat the question of international security is not a toy in American domestic politics. The United Nations is not a part of the United States administration. Dialogue can resume in this Assembly from the same point and by the same person who left the dialogue table, and walked away from the accord. Beginning the dialogue starts with ending threats and unjust sanctions that negate the principles of ethics and international law.

Our proposal is clear: commitment for commitment; violation for violation; threat for threat; and step for step, instead of talk for talk.

What Iran says is clear: no war, no sanctions, no threats, no bullying; just acting according to the law and the fulfillment of obligations. We support peace and democracy in the entire Middle East. We consider nuclear knowledge an imperative and nuclear weapons prohibited.

As victims of terrorism in the past and today, we have always been and will always remain in the forefront of genuine confrontation with terrorism. Today, we mourn the martyrdom of tens of innocent people, who were recently murdered in cold blood by terrorists who shamelessly accepted responsibility from a number of Western capitals for their heinous crime in interviews with some Western-based broadcasting outfits that are financed by petrodollars. In Iran we have condemned all acts of terrorism without equivocation and will continue to do so. We welcome the strong statement from the Security Council on this issue. But why can the leaders of these terrorist operations  including the organization that has publicly claimed responsibility for Saturdays crimelive and operate freely in Western countries, and even openly solicit funds? Are these activities not in violation of international counter-terrorism norms? Why have the official State-financiers of anti-Iranian terrorist organizations with their record of financing Al-Qaeda, ISIS and al Nusrahnot only been spared any punishment but are supported and armed? If you want the world public to take your claim of fighting terrorism seriously, it is imperative to start a joint global campaign to fight this scourge, irrespective of the victims or culprits.

Distinguished Colleagues

In the same vein, from the very beginning of the crisis in Syria, we have warned against any foreign intervention in the internal affairs of this country and the use of unlawful means, including supporting extremist and terrorist groups in order to exert pressure on the government of Syria, and have consistently emphasized that the crisis can only be resolved through intra-Syrian dialogue. To this end, the presence of our military advisors in Syria has been at the request of the Syrian government and consistent with international law, and has aimed at assisting the Syrian government in combatting extremist terrorism. Iran, Russia, and Turkey, in cooperation with the government of Syria and other Syrian parties, have succeeded through the Astana Process, the third summit meeting of which took place in Tehran earlier this month, in playing a positive role in reducing tension in Syria, and in their last common effort have prevented escalation and bloodshed in the Idlib region.

We have witnessed a tragic humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen over the past three years which has caused the destruction of infrastructure, the killing and injury of hundreds of thousands, the displacement of millions of innocent people, and the occurrence of widespread famine and chronic diseases. These inhuman acts represent clear examples of crimes against humanity and war crimes. The crisis in Yemen can be resolved solely through intra-Yemeni talks and without foreign interference. And to this end, we are ready to assist in any possible way.

The most pressing crisis in the Middle East, however, is the question of Palestine. The passage of time cannot  and must not justify occupation. The innumerable crimes of Israel against the Palestinians would not have been possible without the material and military assistance, and political and propaganda support of the United States. Israel, equipped with a nuclear arsenal and blatantly threatening others with nuclear annihilation, presents the most daunting threat to regional and global peace and stability.

The abhorrent U.S. decision to transfer its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, and the recent enactment of the racist Jewish State law are violations of international law and norms, and unmistakable manifestations of apartheid.

Madam President,

The expansion of relations with neighbors and the creation of a more secure and more developed region are among the main priorities of Irans foreign policy. A few weeks ago Iran, along with the other four coastal states, signed the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea, which will strengthen good-neighborliness and bring prosperity and progress for all of the coastal states. We also desire the same relations with our southern neighbors in the Persian Gulf. We believe in the formation of a collective mechanism for the Persian Gulf region with the presence and participation of all regional countries. The security of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz has always been important for us, and just as we defended this security during the war imposed on us by Iraq, we will confront any and all disruptive efforts in this critical waterway in the future.

We espouse a peaceful view in political and international issues and have not sought, nor do we seek, war with any country. Iran does not need an empire. Iran is an empire in terms of its civilization and its culture; not through political domination.

Iran has served as the link between east and west and will continue to do so; remaining a meticulous guardian for a world free from violence.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is the same state that understood the fascistic nature of the Baathist regime in Iraq before anyone else in the world, and bravely resisted its aggression against us. We fought against the Baath Party of Iraq before Kuwait was occupied by it.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is the same state that was on the forefront of the struggle against Taliban terrorism, and gave up martyrs in that struggle. We fought against Al-Qaida and the Taliban before the attacks on New York and Washington.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is the same state that fought against Daesh  a fake, distorted representation of Islam. We were engaged in the fight against Daesh before their operations in Paris, London and Brussels.

Appreciate these historical realities about Iran. Quit imposing sanctions and end extremism. The world will not have a better friend than Iran, if peace is what you seek.

I thank you for your attention.Madame President,

I would like to congratulate you on assuming the presidency of the 73rd session of UnitedNations General Assembly, and to express myappreciation for the efforts of Mr. Miroslav Lajcak, the president of the former session.

I also commend you onyour choice ofthe theme of this years session, for we are in dire need for renewing ourcommitment and contributions towards enhancing the United Nations role, as a foundation for a just and effective international order.

A world order that is based on the balance of interests and responsibilities, the respect for state sovereignty, the dissemination ofa culture ofpeace, as well as one that rises above racism, extremism and violence, and achieves sustainable development.

These are the values that shape Egypts vision towards the United Nations, since our participation in the inception ofthe organization seven decades ago, and throughout the six terms during which Egypt served on the UN Security Council, the latest of which was in 2016-2017. These values are also the driving force behind Egypts active contribution to UN Peacekeeping operations, rendering Egypt the worlds seventh largest troop contributing country.

With such solid belief in the values and role of the United Nations, and in all frankness, we have to admit that there is a flaw in the international system, which negatively affects its performance, and casts a shadow over its credibility in the eyes of many peoples, particularly in the Arab and African regions, wherein Egypt lies.

For how can we blame an Arab who questions the credibility of the United Nations and the values it proclaims, at a time when his region is threatened by the disintegration and collapse of the nation state, to give way to a wave of terrorism and sectarian conflicts that deplete the capacities of the Arab peoples ? Or how can we blame an Arab who wonders why the Palestinian people were denied their legitimate rights lo live in dignity and peace, in an independent state that reflects their national identity, hopes and aspirations ?

Can we consider an overstatement an Africans complaint regarding the ineffectiveness of the world order, when his continent suffers from an economic order that perpetuates poverty and inequality, reproduces social and political crises and provides noprospects for progress and development ?

Madame President

I raise these questions, as Egypt chairs ofthe Group of77 and China, which constitutes the majority of the population of this planet, and thus has the greatest interest in enhancing the role of the United Nations. For the developing countries can ill afford to exist in an international order, which is not governed by laws and the lofty principles upon which the United Nations was founded, or one that can be subject to polarization or attempts by some to dominate over it and impose their will on the members of the intemational community.

I would hereby like to summarize Egypts vision in three key principles to which we ought to renew our commitment, and three causes to which we must accord priority, for the United Nations to regain its effectiveness and role.

The first such principle is that there can be no way forward towards achieving an effective intemational order, if its main constituent unit, the nation-state, which is premised on the notions of citizenship, democracy and equality, is in danger of disintegration. I speak out of Egypts unique experience, where its people have exerted tremendous efforts to restore their state and save their identity. They chose the nation state to be their vehicle for reform and to realize their aspirations for freedom, development and dignity.

The disintegration ofnations as aresult ofcivil strife or regression to sectarian loyalties is responsible for the most dangerous phenomena in our contemporary world, including armed conflicts, human trafficking, irregular migration, organized crime and illicit trade in arms and drug trafficking.

There is no doubt that the Arab region is one ofthe most vulnerable to the dangers of nation state disintegration, and the ensuing creation of a fertile environment for terrorism and exacerbation of sectarian conflicts. Thus, preserving and reforming the foundations of the state is a fundamental priority of Egypts foreign policy in the Arab region. There can be no way out ofthe crisis in Syria and the plight of Yemen, except by restoring tlie nation state, preserving its sovereignty and state institutions, as well as realizing the legitimate aspirations of its people. Egypt fully supports aUN-led political solution in these two countries, and rejects any exploitation ofthe these crises to create footholds for regional interventions, or enable an environment for terrorism, extremism and sectarianism.

This same principle applies to our policy in Libya, where Egypt plays apivotal role in support ofrebuilding the state, particularly with regards to the unification of

the Libyan aiTned forces so that it is capable ofdefending Libya and countering the dangers of terrorism.

We should not forget that a year has passed since the adoption of the United Nations action plan on Libya, which sought to comprehensively address the Libyan crisis, without achieving progress in its implementation. This requires us to renew our commitment to a comprehensive political solution, assetforth in the said United Nations Action Plan. If we are to halt the loss of life, the depletion of Libyas resources, and move towards the reconstruction phase, then there is no room for partial solutions neither in Libya nor in Syria or Yemen ; crises ofsuch magnitude require comprehensive and not partial solutions.

Mr. President

The second principle is the commitment topeaceful and sustainable solutions to international conflicts. This is the raison detre ofthe United Nations. Yet, despite the commendable efforts of the UN in numerous conflicts, including South Sudan, the Central African Republic and Mali, they have so far fallen short of finding permanent settlements to such conflicts.

There is also an urgent need to mobilize resources to help countries in postconflict situations to rehabilitate their institutions and commence reconstruction and development. The fundamental issue here is to translate this principle into tangible support for national efforts, so as to overcome conflicts and build states in accordance with their priorities, while avoiding the imposition of alien models of governance and development, or intervening in the internal affairs of states and violating their sovereignty.

We cannot talk about the peaceful settlement of disputes as a founding principle ofthe United Nations and an indicator ofits credibility, without citing the Palestinian cause. It stands as a perfect example of the failure of the international system to find ajust solution to the conflict, based on international legitimacy and United Nations resolutions, that guarantees the establishment of a Palestinian State with East Jerusalem as its capital.

The terms of reference of this just solution and the determinants of a final settlement are well known. There is no time to waste on such a debate. What is required is the political will to resume negotiations and achieve a settlement in accordance with these determinants. I repeat here what I have said in previousyears on this platform, the Arabs are still stretching out their hands in peace. Our peoples deserve to turn this tragic page in history, and the Palestinian people deserve to exercise their legitimate rights.

Madame President,

The third principle is the commitment to achieving sustainable development as a necessary precondition for a stable world order, and the best way for the prevention of armed conflict and humanitarian crises.

While we welcome the consensus reached on the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, we note however that he implementation of the goals set forth in this ambitious plan require that we tackle the financing for development conundrum. This can be achieved though the creation ofan enabling environment which allows for the free flow of resources necessary for development, without imposing any conditionalities, and supporting national efforts to mobilize financing for development. The reform of the global economic and financial architecture cannot be delayed. We look forward to the United Nations to serve as a platform for developing ideas to achieve this reform, in particular with regards to the creation of mechanisms that would help halt illicit financial flows out of the developing countries, and facilitate the return of these vital assets to their rightful owners.

Madame President

The international commitment to the preservation of the nation state, the peaceful settlement ofdisputes, strengthening cooperation to achieve comprehensive development and addressing imbalances in the global economic system are all necessary conditions for any serious consideration of the revitalization ofthe United Nations system and the restoration of its credibility.

In order to implement these three aforementioned principles three main priority areas also need to be addressed, in order to ensure the credibility and the future of the United Nations and the international order as a whole.

First : We need to strengthen partnerships between the United Nations and regional organizations, to meet the rising challenges the international community faces at the political, economic and developmental levels, as well as the security threats, including protracted conflicts and the proliferation of terrorism. Here, I would particularly like to emphasize the successful partnership that exists between the United Nations and the African Union, as a model for burden sharing and leveraging the comparative advantages of each organization to address the complex challenges facing our continent, particularly in the fields of peacekeeping, peace building, as well as humanitarian and developmental assistance. As Egypt will shortly assume the presidency of the African Union in 2019, we look forward to strengthening the strategic partnership between the Union and the United Nations, through programs that have a real impact on the continent, and building on the progress made to consolidate the African Unions post-conflict reconstruction and development policy. This is in addition to Egypts hosting of the African Union Center for Post-Conflict, Reconstruction and Development and the Community of Sahel-Saharan States Counter-terrorism Center.

Second : We need to continue our efforts to implement the initiative launched by Egypt during its membership of the UN Security Council, to put in place a comprehensive International framework to develop policies and bolster cooperation, in order to counter terrorism and terrorist narratives. In this context, we welcomethe Secretary-Generals initiative to convene the United Nations Conference on Counter Terrorism last June, following the periodic review of the United Nations Counter- Terrorism strategy.

As you are well aware, Egypt is engaged, since the beginning of this year in the comprehensive operation "Sinai 2018" to combat and decisively eradicate terrorism. This is taking place through a comprehensive strategy that integrates the security, ideological and developmental dimensions. Based on this experience and on Egypts overall experience in supporting counter- terrorism efforts in the Middle East and North Africa, I can assure you that the level of finance, the sophistication of arms and training, as well as the means of communication obtained by these extremist groups, and the facilitation of movement and travel of foreign terrorist fighters, point to the inevitable need to develop a global system to combat terrorism wherever it exists, and to counter whoever provides it with support in any possible way.

Third : We need to address the major shortcomings in the international communitys handling of human rights issues. The credibility of the United Nations cannot be restored, as long as millions continue to suffer from extreme poverty, live under foreign occupation or fall victim to terrorism and armed conflict.

The protection ofhuman rights will not be realized through media defamation orthe politicization ofHuman Rights mechanisms, while ignoring the need to tackle all human rights in an equitable manner, including economic, social and cultural rights on equal footing.

Egypt has a solid constitutional foundation for the protection ofhuman rights. Major strides have been achieved in the field of women and youth empowerment.

Women hold 25% of the ministerial posts and more than 15% ofseats in parliament. International youth conferences, which are held annually in Egypt in November, have also become a regular forum for the youth to communicate and raise their concerns. We are determined to continue to accord high priority to the issues of women economic empowerment, and the causes of the youth, science, technology and innovation during Egypts presidency of the Group of 77 and China, as a practical example of our commitment to the promotion of human rights in a comprehensive manner.

Madame President,

Egypt, like the vast majority ofthe worlds peoples and nations, has avested interest inrestoring the credibility ofthe multilateral system with the United Nations at its forefront. Webelieve that the Organization can overcome skepticism over its merits and credibility by restoring the lofty principles upon which its charter was premised, and acting according to the priorities I addressed, which reflect the aspirations of our peoples. Only then will our organization reclaim its credibility, and our peoples regain their confidence in a future ofpeace, cooperation and respect of one another.

Thank you for listening. May God help us and you for the good ofall our peoples.In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate,

Madam President,

Mr. Secretary General,

Your Excellencies,

Thank you. It is an honour to take part, once again, in this great General

Assembly.

The United Nations was bom in the ashes of the Second World War, out

of a deep desire to protect new generations from suffering, destmction, and

want. Today, these hopes still face challenges; peace and stability have met

threats in every region; too many people remain excluded from the promise

of prosperity, and global terror continues to target all nations. Here in this

chamber, Eve called it a third world war.

My friends,

These challenges do not make collective action and mutual respect less

important. They make our partnership more important. Because what is the

alte ative? A world without the peace and accord we need to work together,

trade together, expand opportunity together? A world where crises are not

resolved, but magnified? Violence spreads, more refugees flee, because we

cant work together to help people stay safe and thrive?

We have a long way to go to deliver global opportunity and hope, but we

can t simply give up because the task is hard. All our countries benefit when

we unite in common cause. I am compelled to talk about this today because

of the critical role of collective action in ending the serious crises in my

region, and especially the key crisis the long denial of a Palestinian state.

Every UN resolution since the beginning of this crisis every resolution,

whether from the General Assembly or the Security Council recognises the

equal rights of the Palestinian people to a future of peace, dignity, and hope.

This is the heart of the two-state settlement, the only pat to a comprehensive,

lasting peace.

Only a two-state solution based on international law and relevant UN

resolutions can meet the needs of both sides: an end to conflict, a viable,

independent, sovereign Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East

Jerusalem as its capital, and a secure Israel, fully part of its own region,

recognised by Arab and Muslim states around the world.

Arab and Muslim countries are committed to a comprehensive peace; the

Arab Peace Initiative has been on offer for more than 16 years. Indeed, every

major country in the world, the UN, the European Union, all have worked to

help the parties reach a durable peace that can last. The US administration has

long been committed to peace, and has a leading role in our progress going

forward.

Yes, we have a long way to go, but we can t give up because the task is

hard. Because, what is the alternative? Can we afford to let one of the worlds

most strategic regions be tied to an endless cycle of violence in its midst? How

long must Jerusalem, a holy city to more than half the worlds people, face

dangers to its multi-faith heritage and identity? How can we accept a status

quo of continuing crisis and bigotry? Palestinian families displaced for

generations, their childrens very identity denied. Israeli families, living in

continuing national self-isolation; without the security of peaceful

relationships worldwide.

And what could possibly be the f ture of what some propose: a single, bi-

national state, whose very foundation is a rejection of the equality of its own

people? Thats the ugly, undemocratic reality of the one-state idea. It is by no

means an alternative to a two-state peace settlement, it is an abandonment of

peace, a new way to go AWOL from the work of reconciliation, and the

opposite of what both sides need, and have sought for so long.

My friends,

There is no such thing as a unilateral agreement; it takes at least two parties

to make an agreement. Helping the parties achieve that agreement, and work

together to build a new future, deserves the strong, steady support of all our

world.

Our countries need to pull together to get this peace process back on track.

That means utterly rejecting actions that jeopardise negotiations, whether by

illegal encroachments, land confiscations, or threats to the welfare of

innocents, especially children.

We need to support full funding of UNRWA and other vital efforts to

protect families, keep communities stable, and prepare young people for

productive lives. It would be a terrible mistake to abandon youth to the forces

of radicalism and despair. Such support is urgently needed to ensure UNRWA

fulfils its role, in accord with its UN mandate.

Above all, we need to safeguard the heritage an peace of Jerusalem, a

holy city to billions of people around the world. The Hashemite Custodianship

of Islamic and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem is a duty that Jordan is proud

to carry, and we will counter any attempts to change the holy city s historic

Arab Christian and Muslim identity.

But Jerusalems future is not Jordans concern alone; it is yours. There are

global implications when religious worship is threatened and international law

is undermined.

My friends,

Collective action is also vital when it comes to resolving other conflicts

and crises that threaten our world. Jordan will continue to support all

multilateral efforts to help Syria achieve a political solution, based on the

Geneva process, and UN Security Council Resolution 2254, to safeguard the

countrys unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity, and create the conditions

for stability and rebuilding.

An effective global response to terror also requires continued collective

action. Lets be clear about it: for all our victories, the fight against these

outlaws, the khawarej of Islam, is not over. Winning the war demands a long

term, holistic approach, one that pairs security measures with strong initiatives

that support inclusion and hope. Online and offline, we must counter all I

say all ideologies of hatred, including Islamophobia. Jordanians have led

efforts to unite the world in mutual respect and understanding.

Finally, we must also strengthen our collective response to the global

refugee crisis.

As many of you know, Jordan has carried a massive, disproportionate

burden as a refugee host. Our people have opened their homes, schools, public

services, hospitals. We have shared our country s scarce resources, our food

and energy, our precious water. The crisis has held back economic growth and

job creation, jobs urgently nee ed by our young people, more than 60 percent

of our population.

Jordanians have borne this refugee burden in full accord with our country s

long humanitarian traditions, but we know, and the world knows, that this

crisis is a global responsibility. The sacrifices we and other host countries

make every day can only continue if donor nations hold up their side of the

partnership. That means continued, multi-track efforts in development support

and humanitarian assistance; efforts which not only prepare refugees to retu

home and rebuild their countries, but also give hope to the people of host

countries, who have sacrificed so much.

My friends,

The world cannot address the refugee crisis, or any global crisis, unless we

work together to support those who are doing the right thing for the future we

all share.

Peace and prosperity demand constant, collecti e action. The alternative is

to fail our history, and fail our future.

Let us choose, instead, to succeed, to give the worlds people, especially

young people, confidence in global justice, hope for new opportunity, and

international laws and agreements and institutions that everyone can rely on.

Thank you.In the Name of God, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate

Your Excellency the President of the General Assembly,

Your Excellency the Secretary-General of the United Nations,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

At the outset, I am pleased to extend congratulations to Mrs. Maria Fernanda Espinosa Garces on assuming the presidency of the 73rd Session of the General Assembly, wishing her success.

I express also our appreciation to His Excellency Mr. Miroslav Lajcak for his valuable efforts in managing the affairs of the 72nd Session of the General Assembly.

I avail also myself of this opportunity to commend the relentless efforts of the Secretary-General Mr. Ant6nio Guterres, to promote the role ofthe United Nations and realize its lofty goals.

From this platform I extend my sincere condolence to the family of Kofi Annan and to the United Nations Organization on the passing away of the former SecretaryGeneral, who was one of the most prominent of those who carried the banner of this organization in the service of international cooperation, development and peace among peoples.

Madam President,

The world faces serious security, political and economic threats and challenges that do not respect national borders of countries and put to the test the United Nations as a framework for collective security.

If the international community wants to achieve global security and stability, it should go beyond managing crises and seek comprehensive and just solutions to them in accordance with the provisions of international law and resolutions of international legitimacy, away from selectivity, double standards and policy of imposing a fait accompli by force.

We realize and appreciate the great importance of the existence of a comprehensive international reference reflected in a legitimate international order in which the rule of law prevails. It has become necessary to expedite the reforms required for the United Nations organizations to shoulder their responsibilities to achieve the noble goals of the organization and to respond to the ambitions and aspirations of peoples to achieve peace to enable them to realize sustainable justice, which is the theme chosen for discussion at this session by Her Excellency the President of the General Assembly.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

More than a year after the illegal blockade imposed on the State of Qatar, many facts were revealed about a pre-arranged campaign of incitement against it, beside the insinuation and fabrications used to create the crisis.

In the meantime, the international community recognized the falseness of the allegations that had been propagated against my country to justify the premeditated measures taken under the pretext of these invented and untrue allegations, in a flagrant violation of the international law and the basis of relations between nations, and the values and norms of our peoples.

Despite all the measures taken to inflict harm on Qatars security and stability, and create hardships for its people in addition to the economic warfare launched to hinder its development process, yet the period that followed the unjust siege has witnessed the strengthening of the status of the State of Qatar and consolidation of its role as an active partner in the regional and international arenas, and Qatars economy continued its growth as a proof of its vigor and consistency. The State of Qatar has also maintained its advanced and leading rankings vis-a-vis the countries of the region in global indicators, especially in the areas of human security and human development.

This has strengthened the Qatari peoples faith in their potentials, values and principles, and cemented cohesion of their unity.

Believing in the soundness of our legal position, and in the necessity of peaceful settlement of disputes, and in dialogue as the best way to resolve crises, we have been, and still are, positively responsive to all the appreciated efforts of brotherly and friendly nations to end this crisis through an unconditional dialogue based on mutual respect for the sovereignty of nations.

In fact, it is not reasonable that differences in views about handling some regional issues lead to paralyzing the effectiveness of an important regional organization such as the Gulf Cooperation Council. The blockade on Qatar has harmed the reputation of the GCC countries, and the ensuing paralysis has reflected negatively on the Councils aspired role towards regional and global issues.

We hope that we will all transform the Councils current plight into an opportunity for reforming it and putting forward binding mechanisms to resolve the differences among its states through intra-dialogue, to avoid any similar recurrence in the future.

It is not sensible for our Arab region to remain a hostage to some marginal differences, which are fabricated in our case, and which consume efforts and energies and waste funds exceeding what we need to allocate to the just causes that are supposed to be agreed upon by us.

Madam President,

Only a little progress has been made on the lingering issues of the Middle East, especially the Palestinian cause, which is the last vestiges of a colonial past in our world.

The political process, which began twenty-five years ago, presented an example of a departure from the United Nations terms of reference to frameworks outside the UN

 some had perceived that as the best and fastest way in settling and finding solutions to it - supported by the Arab states in line with respecting the Palestinian decision, but that has resulted in further stalemate and complexity. Now we are witnessing attempts to liquidate the Palestinian cause through the liquidation of issues relating to the permanent solution such as Jerusalem, refugees, sovereignty and borders.

Just national issues cant be solved by being subjected to the balance of power between the occupier and the occupied, but can only be solved in accordance with principles such as the right to self-determination and inadmissibility of annexation of territories of others by force, which have become part of the international legitimacy.

The deterioration of the situations in the Palestinian territories, particularly the inhumane conditions in the Gaza Strip, the suffocating siege it reels under, and the continued construction of settlements in the occupied Jerusalem and the West Bank, portend grave consequences and lay a historic responsibility on the Security Council.

We reaffirm the importance of negotiations and the resumption of their tracks, but that will require commitment to the resolutions of international legitimacy, foremost of which is the two-state solution, and the Arab peace initiative, on the basis of East Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian State, on 1967- borders. Moreover, there can be no solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict without a just and lasting solution to the Palestinian cause.

We abide by this position, which is consistent with international legitimacy and dictated on us by the human conscience. But Israel rejects this just settlement. The State of Qatar will spare no effort to provide various forms of material and political support to the brotherly Palestinian people and to continue to work with all the international actors in the Middle East peace process to clear the difficulties that obstruct the resumption of the peace negotiations, in accordance with the terms of reference and resolutions of international legitimacy.

Madam President,

After the elapse of more than seven years, the international community is still unable to find a solution to the exacerbating Syrian crisis with all its aspects and dangerous consequences. In addition to the tragedies experienced by the Syrian people, they are worried and frustrated that the crimes of genocide, mass displacement and wholesale death in prisons under torture could become a common practice that the international community can get accustomed to.

The failure to deter the Syrian regime from committing crimes through the war waged against its people on the one hand, and not to be held accountable after committing them on the other hand, would render the provisions of international law and the human rights law devoid of any meaning.

This will have serious consequences on the prevailing values in our world by raising the existing ceiling for using violence to suppress the aspirations of peoples and trampling on the rights of citizens and people in our region.

We are facing a humanitarian, moral and legal catastrophe that obligates the international community to speed up reaching a political solution that sterns the Syrians bloodshed, fulfills their aspirations for justice and freedom, maintains Syrias unity and sovereignty and achieves security and stability in Syria and the region in accordance with the Geneva-1 Communique and relevant Security Council resolutions. We emphasize the necessity to abide by the International Humanitarian Law to protect civilians.

Regarding the Yemeni issue, we confirm the firm position of the State of Qatar, which is keen on the unity, independence and territorial integrity of Yemen. We call upon all the Y erneni parties to the national reconciliation to end the conflict on the basis of the Security Council Resolution 2216, the Gulf Cooperation Council Initiative and the outcomes of the National Dialogue.

From this platform, I appeal to active states in the international community to help the brotherly Y emeni people to overcome these conditions, which we hope would end soon and to work for taking all measures to address the grave humanitarian situation and to facilitate free access for humanitarian assistance to all areas in Yemen.

On this occasion, I announce Qatars agreement with the United Nations to fight cholera in Yemen by supporting projects related to combating the causes ofthe disease and to halt its spread. We call upon other countries to join us in supporting this vital effort.

As for the Libyan crisis, which has recently witnessed developments that place the security of this country and its territorial integrity at stake, we look forward to restoring security and stability despite the enormous challenges facing the Libyan brothers. We note that foreign intervention in Libyan affairs further complicates the crisis and prevents reaching a national consensus sought by the Libyan brothers, and contradicts the Security Councils resolutions. We reiterate our support for the Skhirat agreement signed in December 2015 and all its outcomes. We call upon all Libyan brothers to uphold the national interest and abide by dialogue without excluding any of the components of the Libyan community, to reach a comprehensive political settlement that preserves Libyas sovereignty and territorial integrity and realize the aspirations of its people for security and stability.

In brotherly Iraq, we once again express our appreciation of the efforts of the Iraqi Government to restore stability and achieve national reconciliation by collaboration of all political parties and all components oflraqi community and we value the successes and sacrifices of the Iraqi people in the fight against terrorism and extremism in all its forms.

We reaffirm our keenness to support the brotherly Iraq in the process of reconstruction and development, and to assist every effort seeking to ensure its unity and sovereignty and to enhance its security and stability.

Madam President,

There is consensus that terrorism has become one of the most outstanding challenges facing the world because of the real threat it poses to international peace and security. We affirm the firm position of the State of Qatar in rejecting all forms and shapes of terrorism anywhere in the world, regardless of the reasons and pretexts.

The fight against terrorism is among the priorities of the State of Qatars policy at the national, regional and international levels. We have developed legislative and institutional systems, fulfilled . international obligations related to the fight against terrorism and its financing, and participated in all relevant international and regional efforts.

In our view, there are necessary prerequisites to make the war on terrorism achieve its goal and not to turn into a self-contained goal :

 1. International cooperation in combating violence resulting from extremism and violence directed against civilians to terrorize them and to damage civilian facilities for political ends. These phenomena must be addressed firmly and rigorously.

 2. Unifying the standards of fighting terrorism so as its definition does not selectively depend on the religious or ethnic identity of the perpetrator.

 3. Addressing its roots and causes and researching in the political, social and cultural backgrounds that contribute to its breeding, and working earnestly to achieve just settlements of lingering issues that feed the feelings of anger and frustration.

 4. A void giving partisan connotation to the term terrorism through tailoring it to fit into the narrow interests of some nations by using it to justify tyranny and repression of political opponents, which affects the credibility of combating terrorism and harms the international efforts exerted thereof.

In this context, the State of Qatar believes that educating youth and their comprehensive participation represents the first line of defense for the collective security system and an important factor in fighting terrorism and building peace and stability.

Thus, we have committed ourselves to educating ten million children and providing economic empowerment to half a million young people in our region and in collaboration with the United Nations we carried out projects to promote employment opportunities for young people through capacity-building and the launching of programs to prevent violent extremism.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Human development and the protection and promotion of human rights are in the forefront of the priorities of the State of Qatar which pursues its efforts at the legislative and institutional levels to implement its National Vision 2030 that emphasizes human development. I refer here that this month the State of Qatar has acceded to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

The State ofQatar has recently promulgated a law regulating the issue of political asylum in the country to follow suit the developed countries, and another law granting the right to permanent residence in the State under conditions prescribed by law. It has also decided to invite several international human rights organizations to establish regional offices for them.

Madam President,

No one doubts the utmost importance of the development of information and digital technology and digital means of communication, etc. The economy and day to day life have become inconceivable without them.

However, a series of events recently experienced by several countries reminded us that new needs have emerged that were previously unknown, such as the freedom of access, and the need to protect the private sphere of citizens from the risk of hacking. It also alerted us to the cyber security of nations. These are cross-border issues because of the nature of the technology itself. Accordingly, it is necessary to regulate dealing with these issues and control their risks internationally. Qatar and other countries have suffered from digital piracy and digital espionage, and that has prompted us to strongly emphasize this issue and to be willing to work with United Nations organizations to regulate it legally. We propose convening an international conference to examine ways to have this matter regulated by international law. We express our readiness to host this conference.

Thank you, and may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon you.Your Excellency Mrs. Maria Fernanda Espinosa Garces, President of the General

Assembly,

Your Excellency the Secretary General of the United Nations Mr. Antonio Guterres,

Ladies and gentlemen the heads of States and Governments,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

At the onset, I would like to congratulate Your Excellency on chairing the seventy-third session

of the United Nations General Assembly, wishing you success in this mission. I would also like

to thank His Excellency Mr. Miroslav Lajcak for his efforts in the conduct of the previous

sesswn.

It gives me pleasure to also laud the efforts of His Excellency the UN Secretary General Mr.

Guterres for his endeavors, in particular his reform project at the top of the international

organization.

Madam President,

You proposed as a theme for the general debate: "making the United Nations relevant to all

people: global leadership and shared responsibilities for peaceful, equitable and sustainable

societies". It is indeed a commendable proposition because it means that the United Nations is

aware that its present reality requires a serious improvement of the future role expected from it.

According to its objectives and founding principles, the United Nations must be the global

conscience that preserves balance, prevents aggression, establishes justice and protects peace.

Indeed, at many junctions, the Security Council failed to adopt fair, and sometimes defining,

resolutions for some people, due to the right of veto, or because some States abstained from

implementing resolutions that do not suit them, even if they were binding and immediate,

without any accountability or sanction.

Let me give you a few examples from the very heart of our regions suffering:

Security-Council Resolution 425 of 1978, which called Israel to withdraw its forces from all the

Lebanese territories immediately, was only implemented 22 years later, under the pressure of the

resistance of the Lebanese people.

In contrast, we see that the General Assemblys Resolution 181 of 1947, stipulating the division

of Palestine, took a binding character although it is not binding, and it was immediately executed

while Resolution 194, also adopted by the General Assembly in 1948, calling for the return of

the Palestinian Refugees to their home as soon as possible, remained as mere ink on paper for

seventy years.

In this context, the right of veto or the right of objection, has undoubtedly many considerations

and grounds at its origin, but its consequences affected adversely many countries and peoples,

especially in our region, and deprived them from fundamental rights.

Therefore, for the United Nations to be "a global leadership and to be relevant to all people ... ",

there must be a reform project that sets out the enlargement of the Security Council, the increase

of the number of Member States and the adoption of a more transparent, more democratic and

more balanced system. On another hand, it is of paramount importance for the General Assembly

to express better the effective orientation of the international community.

The United Nations is also invited to promote the protection of human rights in the world.

Having made a remarkable contribution to the setup of the "Universal Declaration of Human

Rights", and having committed itself expressly to them in the preamble of its Constitution,

Lebanon affirms that it regards human rights as it does the freedom of the individual in society,

and that any assault against human rights today, in any country, paves the way for tomorrows

disputes.

It is worth noting in this respect that Lebanon is steadily moving forward in the promotion of

human rights at both legislative and executive levels. Indeed, the Lebanese Parliament has

already adopted the law on the establishment of the national commission for human rights,

including a committee to investigate the use of torture and the mistreatment.

In a related context, we are on the verge of finalizing a national action plan pertaining to the

execution of Security Council Resolution 1325 which called on the member States to set action

plans to enable women to take part in decision-making processes, negotiations and countering

conflicts. The Lebanese action plan has indeed introduced the four axes of this Resolution, and it

included the guarantee of women participation in decision-making at all levels, as well as the

activation of their role in conflict prevention, adopting the laws to ban discrimination against

women, and to protect them from violence and abuse.

Madam President,

Honorable assembly,

In Lebanon, we are groping our way to rise from the consecutive crises that stroke us at various

levels;

In security, Lebanon managed to consolidate its security and stability after having abolished the

agglomerations of terrorists from its Eastern and Northern barrens, and after having dismantled

their sleeper cells.

In politics, Lebanon held its parliamentary elections according to a law based on proportionality

for the first time in its history, which led to a fairer representation of all the components of the

Lebanese society. Today, the formation of a government is under way, based on the outcome of

the elections.

In economy, the guidelines of an economic recovery plan which take into account the resolutions

of the CEDRE Conference, based on activating the productive sectors, modernizing the

infrastructure, and bridging the gap between revenues and expenses in the budget.

Nevertheless, the neighborhoods crises still weigh heavily upon us with their consequences.

With the break out of the events in Syria, the displacement waves fleeing the hell of war began to

pour into Lebanon, which tried, to the greatest extent possible, to ensure the conditions of a

dignified decent life for the displaced. Yet, their large numbers and their fallout on the Lebanese

society from various perspectives, from a security perspective through the increase in regular

crime rate to more than 30%, economically through the increase of the unemployment rate to

21%, demographically through the increase in population density from 400 to 600 people per

square kilometer, in addition to our limited resources, and the scarce international assistance for

Lebanon, which makes it impossible for us to keep shouldering this burden, especially that most

of the Syrian territories have become safe. I therefore called for the safe return in my address

from this very rostrum last year, and I differentiated between the safe return and the voluntary

return; the Syrians who have taken refuge in Lebanon are not political refugees, except for a few;

most of them were rather displaced due to the security situation in their country, or for economic

motives, and these from the majority.

Let me present to you, Madam President and Honorable assembly, this Map issued on 2014 by

the United Nations High Commission For Refugees (UNHCR), showing the evolution of the

numbers of registered displaced from 25.000 in 2012 to more than a million in 2014, precisely

over a span of two years barely, and their repartition on the Lebanese territories; and this is the

best illustration of what I am trying to explain to you. (map enclosed)

Here, I would like to note that the United Nations has stopped counting the displaced in 2014.

After that date, the Lebanese General Security continued its counts which showed that, since that

date and on till the moment, the numbers have exceeded 1.5 million displaced.

Against this background, I reiterate the stance of my country which seeks to consolidate the right

of dignified, safe and sustainable return of the displaced to their land, rejecting absolutely any

project of settlement, whether for the displaced or the refugee. In this context, we wish to note

our favorable welcome of any initiative which seeks to resolve the issue of the displacement,

such as the Russian initiative.

Madam President,

Esteemed audience,

History has taught us that oppression induces explosion, and the absence of justice and the

double-standards create a feeling of grudge, and fuel all the tendencies of extremism, and the

violence and terrorism they entail.

Unfortunately, the international political approaches for the Middle East region still lack justice

and use double standards, which makes our peoples question the concept of democracy in the

States considered as pioneers in thls respect. The Palestinian cause is the best reflection of this

picture; for the absence of justice in addressing it triggered many wars in the Middle East and

created a resistance that will only end by eliminating oppression and establishing justice .

The world has voted lately, at the Security Council and the General Assembly, against the

proclamation of AL-Quds (Jerusalem) as the capital of Israel. Despite the results of the two votes

which reflected the will of the international community, some embassies were transferred to it.

Then the law on the "Jewish nation-State of Israel" was adopted, thls displacing law which relies

on the rejection of the other, expressly undermines all the endeavors of peace and the two-State

project.

And to complete the landscape, there came the decision to withhold the assistance for the

UNRWA which by definition stands for the "United Nations Agency for the Relief and Work of

the Refugees of Palestine in the Near East, in addition to ensuring assistance and protection for

them pending a solution for their suffering".

Has their suffering ceased so that UNRWAs role comes to an end? Or does the neutralization of

its role pave the way to taking the status of refugee away from them and integrating them in the

host countries to wipe away the Palestinian identity and impose settlement?

Madam President,

Ladies and gentlemen,

A people just found itself overnight who found themselves overnight with identity and with no

nation, by the decision of those who were supposed to be the defender of weak countries.

Let each one of us imagine for a moment that an international resolution about which they have

no say, rips their land and their identity off; and while they are trying to hold on to them, the

strikes befall them from every side to make them give up ... this is the case of the Palestinian

people today, wandering stateless in the four corners of the world. Do we accept this situation for

ourselves or our peoples? Does the worlds conscience accept this? Is this what is stipulated by

the international laws and charters?? And what guarantees that small peoples, notably the

Lebanese people, do not face the same fate?

Simultaneously, the Israeli violations of Resolutions 1701 persist, by land, sea and air, exceeding

100 violations a month, despite Lebanons total commitment to it.

Madam President,

Esteemed audience,

Our world suffers today from a crisis of extremism and fanaticism, manifesting itself in the

rejection of the different "other", the rejection of their culture, religion, col or and civilization, the

rejection of their very existence in absolute; this crisis is likely to aggravate, and no State is any

longer safe from it, with all the devastating effects it has on the societies and States because it

causes their implosion.

The United Nations, and before it the League ofNations, failed to prevent wars, establish peace

and restore right, especially in our region, and one of the major reasons thereof is not forming a

global culture for peace, based on the knowledge of the different "other" and the practice

coexistence.

This is why the need is pressing for the dialogue of religions, cultures and races, and for building

international cultural institutions specialized in spreading the culture of dialogue and peace.

With its plural society where Christians and Muslims live together, eo-govern and share the

administration, with the expertise of its citizens spread all over the globe, and with what it stands

for as the essence of the civilizations and cultures it represents and which it embraced throughout

the eras, Lebanon is considered exemplary to establish therein an international academy to

disseminate these values, the "Human Academy for Encounter and Dialogue".

From this podium, I launched last year an initiative to make Lebanon an international center for

the dialogue of religions, cultures and races, and we aspire to see this initiative materialize today

with a multilateral convention to establish the Academy in Lebanon, serving as an international

project for permanent gathering and dialogue, and for the promotion of the spirit of coexistence,

in line with the objectives of the United Nations and the adoption of preventive diplomacy to

avoid conflicts.

Your Excellency,

Esteemed audience,

Humans are the enemies of what they ignore, and the road to salvation resides in convergence,

dialogue, the rejection of the language of violence, the establishment of justice between the

peoples, and it is the only path that brings back stability and security to our societies, and

achieves the sustainable development that we aspire to.

Thank you.New York, NY, Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NEWMEDIAWIRE -- Weyland Tech Inc. (OTCQX: WEYL) (Weyland or the Company) announced today a further update regarding the spin-off of its Weyland AtoZPay subsidiary (WAI), which holds a 49% equity ownership interest in PT Weyland Indonesia Perkasa, a limited liability company organized under the laws of the Republic of Indonesia (WIP). WIPs primary business operations include a digital financial transactions app serving the rapidly growing Indonesia e-commerce and e-payment markets (eWallet).

The Companys shareholders of record as of the close of trading on September 28, 2018, the record date for the spin-off, will receive a pro-rata distribution of one (1) share of common stock of WAI for each five (5) shares of the Companys common stock held as of the record date. Fractional shares of WAI common stock will not be issued in the distribution. The spin-off is expected to be effective as of the end of the day on November 15, 2018, the new distribution date for the spin-off.



After its last press release, the Company has received a number of inquiries from shareholders, questioning the status of the Companys spin-off processing instructions to the DTC Participants (Spin-Off Processing Instructions). As mentioned in the Companys last press release, the Spin-Off Processing Instructions have been made available to the Companys transfer agent and DTCC, and the transfer agent is currently working with DTCC to ensure a full understanding of the Spin-Off Processing Instructions, so those requirements can be fully communicated to all relevant DTC Participants.



As the spin-off shares are not DTCC eligible and the spin-off is being processed outside of DTCC, the Spin-Off Processing Instructions provide DTC Participants with instructions for receiving the distribution for their beneficial owners directly from the Company. The instructions provide, in part, that:





In order to obtain the spin-off shares for their clients, each DTC Participant must submit to the Company, no later than October 15, 2015, a beneficial owner list, as of the record date.





The spin-off shares will be issued by the Companys transfer agent in physical certificate form.





Certificates for each non-objecting beneficial owner (NOBO) will be issued in the name of the NOBO and mailed directly to the NOBO at their account address provided in the beneficial owner list.





Certificates for each objecting beneficial owner (OBO) will be issued in the name of the DTC Participant, for the benefit of the OBO, and mailed directly to the DTC Participant, in accordance with the OBO delivery instructions contained in the DTC Participants Beneficial Owner List Transmittal, for further processing in accordance with their OBOs instructions.





With respect to WEYL shares held in retirement accounts, the Company will issue certificates for the spin-off shares in the name of the respective DTC Participant, as custodian for, and for the benefit of, the particular retirement account (e.g., Participant Name, Custodian FBO John Smith Roth IRA), and such shares will be mailed directly to the DTC Participant, in accordance with the retirement account delivery instructions contained in the DTC Participants Beneficial Owner List Transmittal.





If you are a registered shareholder of the Company and hold your shares in WEYL, as of the record date, in certificate or book-entry form through the transfer agent you need not do anything to receive your spin-off shares, as the transfer agent will automatically issue your spin-off shares directly to your account and deliver the certificate to your address of record with the transfer agent.



DTC Participants should refer to the full Spin-Off Processing Instructions for complete details regarding the spin-off processing procedures. Inquiries from DTC Participants or shareholders regarding the spin-off can be directed as follows:



Email: spin-off@weyland-tech.com

Tel: 347.566.4334



If any DTC Participants have not yet received the Spin-Off Processing Instructions they can also request a copy directly from the Company, by email to the above email address, while they are awaiting formal notice of the spin-off from DTCC.

Further details regarding WAI and WIP (and its Indonesia eWallet business) will be provided in a Current Report on Form 8-K, which will be filed on the SECs EDGAR reporting system prior to the distribution date for the spin-off.



About Weyland Tech Inc.



Weyland Tech is a global provider of mobile business applications. Its CreateApp platform offers a mobile presence to businesses in emerging markets, with partnerships on 3 continents and growing. This DIY mobile application platform, offered in 14 languages with over 35 integrated modules, enables small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) to create native mobile applications (apps) for Apples iOS and Google Android without technical knowledge or background, empowering SMBs to increase sales, reach more customers and promote their products and services in an easy, affordable and efficient manner.



In May 2018, the Company expanded its portfolio to fintech applications with the launch of its AtozPay mobile payments platform. The mobile wallet launched in the worlds 4th most populous country, Indonesia, and is already experiencing rapid growth in transactions taking place on the platform.



Follow Weyland Tech online at:

Weyland Tech Facebook Page (https://www.facebook.com/weylandtech)

Weyland Tech Twitter Feed (https://twitter.com/weylandtechinc)

Weyland Tech LinkedIn Page (https://linkedin.com/company/weylandtech)

Brent Suen, CEO Public Facebook Page (https://www.facebook.com/BrentSuenWEYL)

Brent Suen, CEO Public Twitter Feed (https://www.twitter.com/BrentSuenWEYL)

Safe Harbor Statement



This release contains certain forward-looking statements relating to the business of the Company. All statements, other than statements of historical fact included herein are forward-looking statements including statements regarding: the continued growth of the e-commerce segment and the ability of the Company to continue its expansion into that segment; the ability of the Company to attract customers and partners and generate revenues; the ability of the Company to successfully execute its business plan; the business strategy, plans, and objectives of the Company; and any other statements of non-historical information. These forward-looking statements are often identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as believes, expects or similar expressions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, they do involve assumptions, risks, and uncertainties, and these expectations may prove to be incorrect. Investors should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this news release. The Companys actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of a variety of factors, including those discussed in the Companys periodic reports that are filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and available on its website (http://www.sec.gov). All forward-looking statements attributable to the Company or persons acting on its behalf are expressly qualified in their entirety by these factors. Other than as required under the securities laws, the Company does not assume any duty to update these forward-looking statements.



Gibraltar Represented at Seatrade Cruise Med and 53rd MedCruise General Assembly

Gibraltar participated at the Seatrade Cruise Med cruise and shipping convention and the 53rd MedCruise General Assembly in Lisbon, Portugal from 18th to 20th September.

Seatrade Cruise Med brought together representatives from all sectors of the cruise industry and a team from the Gibraltar Tourist Board (GTB) and the Gibraltar Port Authority (GPA) was based in the Gibraltar booth on the MedCruise stand during the event. GPA representatives also attended the Portugal Shipping Week convention.

During the event Nicky Guerrero, Chief Executive of the Gibraltar Tourist Board acted as moderator for a discussion session entitled Meeting Future Demand in the Med and its Adjoining Seas in the Conference Theatre at the event.

The Gibraltar brand featured heavily at the event with all delegate bags and badges carrying the Gibraltar Tourist Board and Gibraltar Port Authority logos.

https://www.seatradecruiseevents.com/med/

http://www.medcruise.com/Photo: Gilbert Carrasquillo/Getty Images

When Bill Cosby was led out of the Montgomery County Courthouse outside of Philadelphia in handcuffs after being sentenced to three to ten years in state prison for three counts of felony sexual assault, people naturally had a lot of questions. As the comedian awaits word of his pending appeal, which could cut his sentence short, we looked at what happens next in this famous case, like how long Cosby will likely serve behind bars and what its really like being one of the worlds most famous inmates.

What was Cosbys actual sentence?

Cosby was sentenced to three to ten years in state prison for all three felony convictions, but the time he actually spends in prison could depend on a number of factors (more on that below). The sentence was handed down by Judge Steven ONeill at the Montgomery County Courthouse outside of Philly yesterday. Initially, Cosby faced a maximum of 30 years (10 years for each count) but the prosecution and defense successfully negotiated rolling all three charges into one for the sake of a swift sentencing. The charges in which hes been convicted carry mandatory jail time in the state.

When making his ruling, the judge likely took into account Cosbys age, health, criminal history, and state recommendations. The state said during sentencing that Cosby should be classified as a dangerous sexual predator, and that if given the chance, he would likely offend again.

Up until yesterday, Cosby had been under house arrest on $1 million bond.

Whats the statue of limitations on sexual assault?

In Pennsylvania, a person who alleges child sexual abuse typically has until age 30 to file a civil suit. For adult rape or sexual assault, an accuser has two years from the date of injury to file a civil suit.

In criminal court, a sexual offense against a minor can be prosecuted up until the accuser turns 50 years old. In all other sexual abuse cases, there is a 12-year statute of limitations.

In Cosbys case, Constands 2004 assault just qualified under the states statute of limitations. Each state has different statutes, and several states have eliminated the statutes all together.

What happened when Cosby left the courthouse yesterday?

Cosby, in handcuffs, was taken by sheriffs deputies from the Montgomery County Courthouse to the nearby Montgomery County Correctional Facility, where he was officially processed as an inmate.

What happened when he got to jail?

At the county jail, Cosby would have been asked to hand over all personal items (like jewelry, keys, his wallet, and even his shoes). He also would have been searched for any illegal or dangerous items. His mug shot was also taken.

Was he strip-searched?

Most likely. All new inmates go through routine bodily inspections to ensure they are not bringing weapons or contraband into the facility in their oral or anal cavities. In Cosbys case, he would have been searched by a male officer before being outfitted with a prison regulation jumpsuit. There have been issues in the past when celebrity inmates have not been subject to the same processing as other inmates.

What happened next?

Next, Cosby would have been subjected to both physical and psychological exams. A medical assistant at the facility would be expected to take Cosbys blood pressure and ask about any medical conditions. He would also be asked a series of questions to help gauge his psychological state, namely if hes suicidal. He would also be fingerprinted at this time before being taken to a jail cell where he would spend his first night.

Is he sharing a cell with someone?

Probably not. Because Cosby is a celebrity, he will likely be placed in a single cell while awaiting transfer. If its determined that he is depressed or may be a threat to himself, he could be placed under suicide watch.

Whats suicide watch?

Inmates who are on suicide watch are put under continuous or frequent watch by a guard, prison officer, or other security personnel at the facility. For most people, this simply means being housed alone in a cell without any potentially threatening items, and with ongoing periodic checks. It also means that any items that could be used to harm oneself would be taken away (like shoelaces, sheets, and even underwear).

How long will Cosby stay at the county prison?

According to TMZ, Cosby has already been transferred from county prison directly to a maximum-security prison in Schwenksville, Pennsylvania, where he is expected to remain for the duration of his sentence. Another mug shot was taken of Cosby at Schwenksville. He was also given the inmate number of NN7687.

Why was he sent to a maximum-security prison?

The decision to incarcerate Cosby in a maximum-security facility is somewhat surprising. Most older offenders like Cosby are sent to Laurel Highlands, the same correctional facility where Jerry Sandusky, George Feigley, and Ira Einhorn are or have been housed.

According to Nellie Fitzpatrick, a crime-victim attorney with Laffey, Bucci and Kent in Philadelphia, All inmates are processed into an intake institution and then most are assigned to another institution to serve their sentence. For Cosby, this happened very quickly  in less than 24 hours.

Before his transfer, Cosby would have been evaluated based on danger level, health, and age. A big part of the decision, says Fitzpatrick, would have come down to the danger posed to and by an individual serving a sentence within a state correctional institution. Numerous factors such as age, disability, mental-health needs, notoriety, gender expression, and sexual orientation have a major impact on assessing the safety of the individual inmate. The institutions must evaluate each inmate and work to ensure their safety during their period of incarceration, she explains.

The maximum-security facility where Cosbys been transferred houses some of the most violent offenders in the state. The prison, says TMZ, currently has 3,830 beds.

Will Cosby share a cell with anyone else?

Theres always a chance that an inmate could spend time in a cell with another inmate or multiple inmates. Cosbys housing assignment should be based solely on what the correctional staff deems necessary to keep him and all other inmates safe and healthy, says Fitzpatrick. Cosby will likely have some level of interaction with other inmates, as complete isolation is not an acceptable form of incarceration. Again, who and how Cosby interacts with while serving his sentence will be governed by safety and health concerns.

Because he is housed in a maximum-security facility, it could be challenging to have Cosby interact freely with inmates. He could conceivably have a chosen inmate assisting him as he adjusts to this new arrangement. Because Cosby is legally blind, he may require additional assistance from either inmates or staff.

How long will Cosby actually serve?

It depends on several factors, including his behavior while incarcerated, as well as his health and age. Most legal experts anticipate that Cosby will serve at least three years of his three-to-ten-year sentence. After three years, he will be considered for parole, assuming hes been a model prisoner. If he has any serious health issues, these could also be taken into consideration before the three years are up, though inmates who are sick or dying generally remain incarcerated in a unit with medical treatment. Being old and sick doesnt necessarily mean an inmate will be released early.

Could Cosby be released on appeal?

Sure. Cosbys defense team has already appealed the verdict as of yesterday and will likely be in court soon (possibly even within the next ten days) to argue that Cosby was unjustly incarcerated. Technically, the attorneys could not appeal the conviction until their client was sentenced, and they did so quickly. In Pennsylvania, the court is required to rule on post-sentencing motions within 120 days. After the ruling, the defendant has another 30 days to appeal.

What we can expect next is that the appeals court, essentially a court that reviews any errors during trial, will review whatever objections the defense presents. In this case, the defense is arguing that evidence in the Cosby case was tampered with, specifically a recorded conversation between Cosby and Constands mother. The defense is arguing that the recording was made illegally and may have been edited. They are also calling into question the legality of making such a recording without the permission of all parties.

Whatever happens, Cosby will remain in prison for the duration of the appeals process.

Is this the same argument Cosbys wife Camille is making?

Yes. In a statement from Camille Cosby, which was read on the steps of the courthouse yesterday, she accused the prosecutors of ignoring concerns that the recording of her husband may have been tampered with and/or edited. She said unequivocally, The Montgomery County DA used falsified evidence.

Does the appeal have a chance of succeeding?

Thats hard to determine at this point. If the defense can prove that the audio recording in question was tampered with and (this is key) ultimately presented an unfair advantage to the prosecution, they could be successful. But they would need to prove that the recording had a direct impact on the unanimous decision by the jury. Its not an easy case to make, but certainly defense attorneys have succeeded with much less.

What happens if Cosby dies in prison?

Because Cosby is 81 years old and will be serving at least a three-year sentence, it is certainly possible that he could die in prison. If this happens, an autopsy is likely to be performed. The state would want to determine if the inmate died by natural or unnatural causes. It would then be up to the deputy warden or chaplain to inform the family about their loved ones death.

There would also be a report from a doctor presented to the family, who would be permitted to claim the body or have it sent directly to a funeral home. If no one claims the body, some prisons have graveyards or storage facilities. In this case, a body is usually turned over for cremation and either buried or stored until the time that a family member or friend would want to claim the remains.

How are celebrities usually received in prison?

Like everywhere else, celebrities usually have an unfair advantage in prison, starting with the fact that they are most always given a cell to themselves. For security reasons, they are also generally kept away from the most dangerous inmates in the general population.

Its not unusual for other inmates and even prison staff to be starstruck when someone as famous as Cosby shows up. Other celebrities who have served time admitted to being treated a little better than most. They certainly have their pick of the commissary.

Having extra attention as a celebrity can sometimes work to ones advantage behind bars, especially when it comes to getting urgent medical treatment. Because of his fame, all eyes will be on him. Guards are likely going to ensure that nothing happens to their famous inmate under their watch, whether by natural or unnatural causes.

The downside for anyone, Cosby included, is that inmates convicted of sexual assault are not always looked upon favorably by other inmates (its even worse for pedophiles and serial killers).

Cosby could potentially find some supporters in prison  his fame and money will go a long way toward making new friends. When Martha Stewart was incarcerated, she said she got to know her fellow inmates and even provided mentoring and cooking lessons. For his part, Cosby could either keep to himself or capitalize on his fame by entertaining and even mentoring other inmates. Like anyone, hell be craving human interaction. And as a star, hell likely want an audience.Photo: Mario Tama

This afternoon Bill Cosby was sentenced for drugging and convicted of drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand in 2004, and he will now officially be designated as a sexually violent predator. Even before the sentence of three to ten years was delivered today, though, calls for Cosbys star to be removed from the Hollywood Walk of Fame have gotten louder, and a petition was even circulated to that effect. But the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce has issued a statement saying the star will stay, because it is the policy of the body to not remove stars at all. You can read the full context in a tweet posted today.Photo: CGV Arthouse

Will this finally be the year a Korean film gets an Oscar nomination? Despite having a rich and influential film tradition with murderers row of directors like Park Chan-wook (The Handmaiden; Oldboy), Bong Joon-ho (The Host; Okja), and Kim Jee-woon (A Tale of Two Sisters), no Korean film has ever received a Best Foreign Film nomination at the Academy Awards  never mind recognition in other categories. Burning, by the director Lee Chang-dong (Secret Sunshine, Poetry) might be the peninsulas best shot yet since premiering at Cannes to critical acclaim, and perhaps more importantly, because it stars Steven Yeun as one of the leads in a Korean-speaking role.

Burning, an adaptation of a Haruki Murakami short story Barn Burning, takes place in modern-day Seoul, and begins when childhood neighbors Lee Jong-su (Yoo Ah-in) and Shin Hae-mi (Jeon Jong-seo in her film debut) reconnect in Seoul in an are-they-or-arent-they kind of relationship. She goes on a trip to Kenya only to bring back a charming neer-do-well, Ben (Steven Yeun), throwing their relationship into an unnerving triangle. Without getting too much into the plot, Steven Yeun is very creepy and very handsome. Heres an exclusive look at the official U.S. trailer for Burning, which comes out in theaters October 26.

And the official poster:

Photo: CGV ArthouseDamon Wayans and Seann William Scott. Photo: Ray Mickshaw/FOX

Obvious spoilers to follow.

For those of you who thought Clayne Crawfords Lethal Weapon character, Martin Riggs, would dust off his leather boots and get some sort of saccharine farewell after getting fatally shot by his half-brother  we have some terrible, no good, very bad news for you. (Side note: The Riggs family is messed up!) In Tuesdays third-season premiere, Riggs is pronounced dead within the first few minutes due to anaphylactic shock from the bullet wound. Its a short scene, but enough for an intense gurney-through-the-ER moment and a doctor expressing his sympathies to Damon Wayanss Roger Murtaugh, Riggss partner at the LAPD for more than two years. Make no mistake, all you Fox conspiracy theorists out there: Riggs is definitely dead, and they rip off that hey, maybe hes still alive band-aid quickly and painfully.

As for how Riggss death affects Lethal Weapons plot, a six-month time jump is implemented to show a grieving, depressed Murtaugh having not returned to work at the LAPD following the shooting. Hes still hanging on to the idea that a bigger conspiracy, potentially involving some Chechnian fellas, are at the heart of the murder, but thanks to his new, ex-CIA partner Wesley Cole (played by Seann William Scott), hes able to complete his five stages of grief and return to the department full time. (Oh yeah, and they stop the Chechnians from robbing a bank!) I heard I have some very big shoes to fill. I can never replace him, so I wont even try, Cole says during their end-of-episode bonding session. But I want to make this work.

For viewers shocked or caught off guard by Crawfords departure, he was fired by Fox in May due to repeated instances of toxic on-set behavior with fellow actors and crew members. (He even got into a heated spat with his co-star Wayans, which was likely the final straw with the network.) Crawford admitted at the time that these reports were indeed true, and that Fox formally reprimanded him on two separate occasions prior to his firing. However, last month he changed his tune a bit, saying some claims were a blatant fucking lie and that the studio president pressured him to make a public apology to Wayans, which he refused to do.

Regardless of where your loyalties lie, give a 21-gun salute to our dearly departed Riggs. He was able to solve 40 episodes worth of cases, after all.Joe Regalbuto, Grant Shaud, Candice Bergen, and Faith Ford in Murphy Brown. Photo: Jojo Whilden/CBS

Television is awash in reboots, remakes, and revivals right now. This fall alone brings us a new Magnum, P.I., another Charmed, a slightly retuned Last Man Standing, and The Conners, the reinvention of Roseanne, which just got revived less than a year ago. But theres something about bringing back Murphy Brown, which makes its much-heralded return to CBS on Thursday night, that feels right, even if it does add one more resurrected sitcom to the heap.

When Murphy Brown first hit its pop-cultural and ratings stride in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the White House was occupied by a conservative Republican president and vice-president, one of whom was known for misspelling things; signs of a rising wave of feminism in Congress were beginning to reveal themselves; and the nation became consumed by the debate over a Supreme Court nominee accused of harassment by a woman who publicly testified before Congress. The new Murphy Brown debuts in a landscape that contains some parallels. The first episode will actually air on Thursday night, the same day that Dr. Christine Blasey Ford is slated to testify before Congress regarding allegations that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh assaulted her during high school. If these factors dont add up to a win in Circle of Life Bingo, Im honestly not sure what would.

Its obvious from the get-go of Murphy 2.0 that series creator Diane English and her fellow writers welcome these kinds of connections. The initial episodes of Murphy Brown not only announce that Murphy is back by putting her present in a historical context  the first time we see Candice Bergen as the Murphy Brown of now, shes wearing a sweatshirt emblazoned with the phrase Original Nasty Woman  they immediately establish the comedys intention to pit Browns brand of outspoken feminism against the politicians of today. Oh, you bring it on! Brown shouts in the first episode of her new cable news show, Murphy in the Morning, when Donald Trump suddenly starts trolling her on Twitter. Lest that anyone forget that this journalist has famously exchanged barbs with high-ranking administration officials before, she adds, Hashtag Dan Quayle!

Unlike the most recent Roseanne, which was a largely political series that frequently tried to bill itself as something other than that, Murphy Brown declares its intentions to challenge the current Republican Establishment and the way the news media covers it. It is a partisan show and I respect it for not softening its edges in an attempt to appeal to the masses, especially on CBS, the network responsible for NCIS-ing the nation into a near stupor. At the same time, Murphy Brown is so determined to tear into Trump and other aspects of contemporary culture that it sometimes feels as if the series is being gerrymandered to allow for that, as opposed to organically telling stories that touch on current events.

On the positive side, the natural chemistry between the core cast members is still alive. Just about everybodys back: Bergen as Murphy; Joe Regalbuto as investigative reporter and Browns best friend, Frank Fontana; Faith Ford as fellow journalist Corky Sherwood, whos gotten less vapid with the passage of time; and Grant Shaud as Miles, the television producer whos somehow managed to grow even more neurotic. (Anchor Jim Dial, played by Charles Kimbrough, isnt a regular, but he will make at least one appearance this season.)

That quartet, originally thrown together by their work on the network news program FYI, reconnect to share seats at the glass table on Browns new morning cable program. The catch? Murphy in the Morning is slated to air in the same time slot as the new show thats just been given to Murphys now grown son, Avery Brown (Jake McDorman, who starred in Limitless), a progressive-minded guy whos been granted a platform on the Wolf Network. (Thats supposed to be a riff on Fox News, in case you couldnt tell.) Its an amusing conceit thats also a little hard to believe: Theres no way that Fox News or even a Fox news knockoff would hand one of the most valuable sections of its schedule to a guy who walks around D.C. wearing a Pod Save America T-shirt. But that setup allows Murphy Brown to create some conflict between mother and son, a dynamic heightened by the warm yet competitive vibes generated between Bergen and McDorman. The two complement each other quite nicely.

That said, theres still a lot that doesnt quite work  or at least not yet  in this new Murphy-verse. The first episode is definitely the bumpiest of the three provided to critics, mainly because its fixated on setting up the circumstances that bring the FYI team back into each others orbit, and also on introducing a couple of additional new characters. (Tyne Daly joins the cast as Phyllis, now the owner and operator of Phils, Murphys hangout of choice, along with Nik Dodani of Atypical, who plays the social-media editor for Murphy in the Morning.) While the actors mesh well, the pacing is sometimes off, and the jokes are a little too hell-bent on staying topical. In general, the comedic targets in the new Murphy Brown can be a bit obvious side: Murphy is a Luddite when it comes to social media, Miles is so freaked out by the chaos in contemporary America that he holes up in an apartment inside the Watergate, Frank gets triggered by the word Nazi, etc. etc.

Its obvious that English & Co. are champing at the bit to give Murphy the opportunity to lay into Trump and other members of his administration, and they orchestrate the first few episodes with that in mind, sometimes at the expense of logic. In the second episode, I (Dont) Heart Huckabee, Murphy, having been banned from the White House, fakes her way into the press room so she can ask Sarah Huckabee Sanders  who makes a cameo appearance via the magic of interspersed, real-life news footage  an extended monologue of a question. Its a risk that someone as smart and ethical as Murphy probably wouldnt take, but Murphy Brown is willing to do so because it gives Candice Bergen, still sharp as ever in her career-defining role, the chance to stand up and say to the Trump spokeswoman, Why do you lie?

Things go more smoothly in episode three, the best of the initial batch, in which Murphy wrestles with whether or not to interview Ed Shannon, an obvious stand-in for Steve Bannon played by David Costabile of Billions and Breaking Bad fame. It helps that the situation in this chapter of the comedy is more believable  its easy to imagine Murphys bosses wanting her to interview Shannon for ratings purposes  and that Murphys eventual face-to-face with Shannon is less melodramatic than her confrontation of Sanders. Theres also a valuable conversation at the heart of this episode about the responsibility journalists should carry in this bizarre political environment. As Jim, who pops up to offer some advice, sagely puts it: You dont have to give equal time to someone who claims Tom Hanks is running a shadow government. Its clear that Murphy Brown has the potential to become a more astute, well-oiled machine as the new season progresses and the cast and crew establishes firmer footing.

Vintage Murphy Brown  thats what I wanted to see on TV, Miles says to Murphy after observing her conversation with Shannon. Thats what I expect longtime fans of Murphy Brown will want to see, too, and theyll probably be pleased on that front. Murphys attitude and the sensibility of the series havent changed too much, even though the times most certainly have. The appearance of a special guest star  whose scene was purposely left out of the first episode shown to critics to maintain the surprise  may also turn the premiere into something of a talker.

Plus, Bergen looks like shes having a ball. In the kicker that ends the first episode  the one where Trump refers to Brown as Old Murphy during their live-televised Twitter war, which results in strong ratings out of the gate for Murphy in the Morning  Murphy says to herself with a sense of deep satisfaction, Old Murphy, my ass. She understands a truth that so much of the current TV landscape is reflecting: Everything old apparently has the capacity to be at least somewhat new again.The Chase Photo: Courtesy Everett Collection/Courtesy Everett Collection

Robert Redford is done. After nearly 60 years in the movie business, the 82-year-old veteran is calling it a day, at least as far as acting goes. Hes bowing out with a starring role in David Lowerys new film The Old Man and the Gun, the fact-inspired story of Forrest Tucker, a lifelong bank robber who continued his career deep into his senior citizen years. Except  maybe hes not done. Redford announced his imminent retirement in August but September has found him walking it back when pressed by Variety, saying hed like to keep the mystery alive.

The film works as a capper to Redfords career, but so does the walk back. From a poster modeled after the one used for Jeremiah Johnson to some flashback inserts that include footage from Redfords films, The Old Man and the Gun plays like a valedictory coda, a loving last look at a big-screen icon. But its a fitting farewell in other ways, an homage to and continuation of a certain type of character Redford has returned to throughout his career, rogues and rascals who invest criminality with a kind of nobility, view straight life as a kind of death, and dont know when to quit. Like Redford, they only know one way of living, and though they might think of stepping away from it, leaving isnt really an option.

It didnt have to be that way. A California kid blessed with all-American good looks, Redford became a hard-drinking University of Colorado frat boy. But his heart wasnt in it. He left school, not by choice, and drifted, studying painting and acting, and finding his way to the theater  where he enjoyed great success as the star of Neil Simons Barefoot in the Park  television, and the movies. He could easily have taken on a succession of handsome leading-man parts, but his heart wasnt in that either. When he took something close to such roles, it was usually to subvert the type, as in Downhill Racer and The Candidate, a pair of Michael Ritchiedirected films that reached some pretty unflattering conclusions about what it takes to make it in America.

From the start, outlaws suited him better. In Arthur Penns 1966 film The Chase, an adaptation of a Horton Foote play, Redford plays Bubber Reeves, who returns to his small southern city after escaping from prison. Bubbers less a protagonist than a catalyst for the underlying tensions of a town where everybody seems to be secretly sleeping with everyone else and the good ol boy contingent is looking for a flimsy excuse to lynch their black neighbors, but Redford invests him with a soulfulness thats not evident in the script. Bubbers not bad. Hes honest and forgiving in ways the towns upstanding citizens could never be. When he learns his wife Anna (Jane Fonda, in the first of several pairings) is sleeping with his best friend, he rolls with it. He knows that escaping from prison will mean hell never have a respectable life again and hes accepted this. Respectable life, after all, doesnt look that respectable.

The role that would Redfords association with outlaws  the one whose name he borrowed to name a film festival and all its associated offshoots  would come three years later. In Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Redford plays the quieter, moodier sidekick to Paul Newmans gregarious Butch Cassidy, a charming robber of banks and trains who slowly comes to realize that the Old West in which hes thrived is coming to a close. Directed by George Roy Hill from a script by William Goldman, its a lighthearted elegy to a bygone age, a celebration of living outside of polite society shot through with a pessimism that polite society ultimately squashes what it cant understand. (That it was released, and became hit, at the end of the 60s is an example of the right movie arriving at the right time.)

Like his character, Redford often cedes the spotlight to Newman, balancing his lightness with weight. Here they have a particular, fascinating chemistry, the sort of lived-in rapport to which all buddy comedies aspire. They talk all the time  well, Butch talks and Sundance mostly listens  but much between them remains unspoken. Sundance has a steady relationship with Etta Place (Katharine Ross), but Etta has much more romantic chemistry with Butch. The three have an understanding that works for them, yet when Etta leaves the picture, Butch and Sundance carry on without her, whatever bond they share surviving her departure. What they have wouldnt work in the straight world but, more than any tracker or lawman, its the straight world thats their enemy.

You couldnt really go straight, a prison warden tells Robert Redfords John Dortmunder in the 1972 film The Hot Rock. Dortmunder quietly agrees, replying, My heart wouldnt be in it. Scripted by Goldman and directed by Peter Yates, the film adapts the first of Donald Westlakes many comic crime novels centered around Dortmunder, a criminal whose brilliance is matched only by his bad luck. Redford doesnt seem like a natural fit for Dortmunder, who on the page calls out for an actor whose face suggests he was born under a bad sign. (He was played in subsequent adaptations by George C. Scott, Paul Le Mat, and Martin Lawrence, but its a minor tragedy that Walter Matthau never got a shot.) Yet Redfords instincts to underplay serve him as well here as they do in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, where a flick of the eye and a wary expression say more than dialogue could. He begins the film exhausted, then grows increasingly exasperated as one attempt after another to procure a precious jewel coveted by a fictional African nation are thwarted. Redford may look like someone born to win, but he usually seems more comfortable playing losers and underdogs.

That tendency served him well again the following year in The Sting, a second team-up with Newman under the direction of George Roy Hill (both would go on to work with Hill separately as well). Redford plays Johnny Hooker, a small-time con artist in Depression-era Joliet, Illinois, who loses his mentor Luther (Robert Earl Jones) and finds his own life endangered when he accidentally robs a numbers runner connected to Irish gangster Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw). Fleeing to Chicago, he learns the long con at the hands of Henry Gondorff (Paul Newman), who conspires with Johnny to relieve Lonnegan of a small fortune as an act of revenge. Its a blow directed not just against Lonnegan, but at the corrupt system that allows him to thrive. Lonnegan might be an outlaw, but hes the wrong kind of outlaw, a murderer (and card cheat) who can bribe his way into passing himself off as a solid citizen. In the end (spoiler ahead, naturally), Hooker, Gondorff, and a crew of like-minded con men succeed, even if they recognize the futility of it all. Youre right, Hooker tells Gondorff, its not enough. Then, after a short beat, he continues, But its close. When trapped in a fixed system, in a long con where the little guy is always the mark, maybe the small victories matter even more.

And maybe its that attitude that provides the clearest indication as to why Redfords sympathies lie with outlaws, even when hes playing lawmen. The 1980 film Brubaker opens with a nearly 30-minute sequence that follows Redfords almost wordless character as hes sent to an Arkansas prison and forced to live in dehumanizing conditions. Its only when he cant keep up the charade any longer that he reveals himself as the prisons new warden, having arrived undercover to see what needs to be done from the ground level. Based on a true story, the Stuart Rosenbergdirected film doesnt sentimentalize the prisoners or soft sell what led to their incarceration, but it broadens its scope to explore the corruption of the prison and the wider network of favors and backroom deals that profits off the misery of those lowest on the social ladder.

Here and elsewhere, the line between the projects Redford chooses and his offscreen interests start to blur. Brubaker works as a tense, stirring drama, but it also works a political agenda. An unabashed liberal, Redford let his politics float even closer to the surface in the 1992 film Sneakers, playing a 60s-radical hacker whos had to reinvent himself under a new identity and now runs a firm testing the effectiveness of security systems. Directed by Phil Alden Robinson, the film connects a couple of strands running through Redfords work: a distrust of the government and its shadowy network of uncaring operatives (evident in such quintessential 70s films as All the Presidents Men and Three Days of the Condor) and the sympathy for rebels and outlaws evident in all of the films above. Maybe they were the same strand all along.

As gentle as it is, that same rebel spirit is the engine that drives The Old Man and the Gun, and the same outlaw impulse that animates Sundance and Johnny and the others is what keeps Forrest going. That he cant stop, even as age and the law encroach, even as he finds a woman who understands him and offers him an off-ramp from a life of crime, is both tragedy and triumph  and Lowerys treats it with bittersweetness. Its a fine farewell, and an appropriate one that draws on Redfords career-long ability to find the soul of characters whose refusal to be penned in doubles as a moral stance. But is it really good-bye, or will his satisfaction in channeling this spirit draw him back? Redford could fade away quietly, sure, but would his heart be in it?Photo: Thomas Trutschel/Photothek via Getty Images

Changes are coming to Spotify, the biggest music-streaming service on the market. In a way, they always have been. Streaming services are always in flux, adapting to our needs as we adapt to needing what they have to offer. While most of the disruption and constant change has tended to matter only to its growing user base, Spotify is now upping the stakes. Last week, Spotify began beta testing a new feature that allows independent artists to upload their own music directly to the platform, completely bypassing the old label or distributor model thats existed as the barrier between artist and consumer since the music business infancy. Its not Spotify morphing into its own record label, per se, but its also not not that. Its also not quite Spotify advocating for artists rights either, as theyve so often been accused of neglecting. So what is it? And how might this next move affect you, the music listener?

So anyone can just put their music on Spotify?

Not quite. Right now, the direct upload option is available as an invite-only beta feature on its Spotify for Artists platform  which includes about 200,000 verified users, accounting for 72 percent of all streams  and only a few hundred U.S. based artists got the invite. But, according to Spotify, in the next few months, more artists will get in. So far, the biggest name to use it is Chicago rapper Noname, who independently self-released her new album, Room 25, on Spotify without any middleman.

Is it free?

For now, yes, and thats the main appeal. Typically when an unsigned artist wants to get their music on any streaming service, they have to do so via a distributor like TuneCore, but that comes with a fee and, sometimes, a cut of your revenue. Spotify says it isnt charging just yet and you get to keep all the money you earn off streams, rather than having to give a large percentage to a record label. Most importantly, theres no cap on how much music or how often you can release through the service. Just like releasing through any other partner, youll get paid when fans stream your music on Spotify. Your recording royalties will hit your bank account automatically each month, and youll see a clear report of how much your streams are earning right next to the other insights you already get from Spotify for Artists, they say. Uploading is free to all artists, and Spotify doesnt charge you any fees or commissions no matter how frequently you release music.

Are they the only ones doing this?

Nope. SoundCloud and Bandcamp pretty much built their DIY reputation by allowing artists to directly upload to their sites without a label. (Its what birthed SoundCloud Rap and SoundCloud R&B, more or less.) But unlike Spotifys new feature, they offer the direct upload in tiers. Its free on SoundCloud, but there is a cap (three hours of music) until you have to upgrade to a paid Pro subscription, which can give you unlimited upload bandwidth for a price. Bandcamp doesnt charge for its artist accounts, but if youd like access to more of your consumer data, itll cost you with premium accounts. And then theres YouTube, which remains free to upload but is also extra vigilant about copyright violations. (That makes it much harder to use samples in your music.) Another point in Spotifys favor is that you get access to all of Spotifys coveted data for free.

Spotify also isnt the first major streaming service to bypass labels. Chance the Rapper, who remains label-free, signed an alleged $500,000 deal with Apple Music in 2016 to exclusively release his album, Coloring Book, without any label meddling or outside distribution. When Frank Ocean released his visual concept album, Endless, on Apple Music to fulfill his record contract, he then went on to release Blonde exclusively via Apple Music under his own label, Boys Dont Cry.

But will you own your own music?

Thats tricky. Artists rarely own the rights to their own music when released via a record label; its why Spotify and all the streaming services have had to contentiously re-up their licensing deals with the Big Three labels to have continued access to their catalogues. On the beta page for Spotifys new service, theres mention of artists having to sign a content license agreement, but the terms of that agreement arent stated. Its referenced merely to reiterate that artists get to keep their royalties and that Spotify isnt charging fees or commissions; youre just granting Spotify permission to license, a.k.a. stream, your music. And any artist that wants to use the service must own the copyrights to the music they upload. Both the New York Times and Billboard have reported that Spotify has been quietly signing licensing deals directly with artists or their representation over the last year, allegedly offering advance payments of tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. It could become possible that, like Facebook and Twitter, when you upload content directly to the service, you forfeit ownership, but so far that does not appear to be the case.

There is certainly a catch and that has to do with publishing. According to Spotify, Publishing royalties for songs underlying the sound recordings released through Spotify for Artists will still be paid to appropriate rightsholders through existing relationships with local and international performing rights societies (e.g. ASCAP, BMI), mechanical rights societies (e.g. Harry Fox), and/or music publishers. And they strongly encourage songwriters to register their work with the appropriate societies. In other words, if you dont own your publishing, you still dont own your songs, regardless of if theyre self-uploaded or done so via a label or distributor. Spotifys new initiative doesnt change that.

Wait wait wait but whats this I hear about Spotify owning my DNA?

Hoo boy. This week Spotify announced a new partnership with Ancestry.com, which would allow users to input their genealogy findings into Spotify so they can explore the soundtrack of their heritage, or whatever. But no, that does not mean Spotify suddenly owns your DNA. They dont even have access to it, according to a statement. Relax for now.

Hmmm. Anyway! How exactly does an artist get paid using this?

According to Spotify, via Spotify themselves. Only music thats been released through Spotify for Artists will receive recording royalty payments directly from Spotify, the say on the beta info page. Publishing royalties to various third-party rightsholders, however, are generally not paid to songwriters by Spotify directly. One Spotify exec broke it down to the Verge like this: We created a pretty simple and fair deal for uploading music where artists receive 50 percent of Spotifys net revenue, and Spotify also accounts to publishers and collection societies for additional royalties related to the musical composition. But every artist has the opportunity to rake in 100 percent of their royalties. Artists will be asked to submit their bank information for direct deposit of royalties via Spotifys payment service, Stripe. (Similarly, Bandcamp asks for your Paypal information.) It appears artists will be paid based on the number of times listeners streamed your music, calculated at the end of each month, and then paid in the second half of every month. There is apparently also a way to register yourself as a business, which makes payments a bit murkier. At the end of the year, Stripe will send you an email containing information for filing your taxes.

Will Spotify let you upload just anything?

Nope. Though Spotifys Hate Content and Hateful Conduct policy was a bust, it still maintains some unclear guidelines for whats considered acceptable content. But its more an issue of ownership versus subject matter. Like YouTube, Spotify wont let you upload anything that contains a copyright violation. Content that infringes on copyright is not allowed on Spotify, and we may prevent you from uploading potentially infringing content through Spotify for Artists, they state. If your upload is blocked, youll need to contact support before you can submit your release. If your content is found to be infringing on copyright after it goes live, it will be removed.

Is Spotify basically a record label now?

If you ask Spotify, theyll deny it. Licensing content does not make us a label, nor do we have any interest in becoming a label, Spotifys CEO Daniel Ek said earlier this summer. We dont own any rights to any music, and were not acting like a record label. (Billboard noted in their report that Spotify isnt buying the copyrights to any of the music it directly licenses.) Spotifys CFO Barry McCarthy doubled down on that point earlier this month, saying Spotify still maintains a you scratch our back and well scratch yours dynamic with the record business. Were not trying to be a label, and were not trying to compete with the labels. We have what I would describe as a co-dependent relationship, he said. There are three labels who own most of the marketplace, and they have oligopoly power, and we cant be successful without them as partners  Its important for both of us that we never allow the relationship to become a zero-sum game. To date, Spotify hasnt actually signed or developed any artists  and has reportedly told artists not to say theyre signed to Spotify  but they have been accused of gaming their own system by planting fake artists in their playlists by paying producers to create music with that intent in mind, which Spotify has denied.

Whats the benefit of releasing via Spotify instead of a label?

Thats a question a lot of artists are going to have to seriously consider as this new feature rolls out. On the one hand, it cuts out the middleman, giving artists full control over the release of their music and seemingly the full cut of their royalties (publishing rights notwithstanding), and makes it easier for artists to remain unsigned. Its that freedom of choice thats most attractive, since it appears that music uploaded direct to Spotify doesnt also have to be exclusive to Spotify; artists can put it on competing services, too. But sometimes the middleman is necessary. Every record label has a set marketing budget, chunks of which are allocated to promoting their signed artists. Without a label, its up to the artists to promote themselves and pay for it, too (that means music videos, ads, appearances, etc.). With Spotifys direct upload service, they arent promising anything more than the opportunity to put your music on Spotify. They do note, though, that artists need to submit music seven days ahead of release to be ready for opportunities like Release Radar and editorial playlist consideration. Meaning Spotify could promote your songs on its playlists if it feels like it, but youre not paying for that added bonus so theyre not obliged to do so.

That said, there are exceptions. This summer when Drake dropped Scorpion and decided not to make it a streaming exclusive, Spotify rewarded him by launching an unprecedented takeover, promoting his music and his face on all of its playlists  even the ones that didnt make sense for him to be on. (And, in some cases, Spotify will promote artists on billboards.) But its a gray, potentially unethical area: Spotify users subscribed to its premium tier pay to not have ads, but a Drake takeover is essentially one giant advertisement for Drake. For that reason, some users demanded refunds and got their wish.

Okay okay, so how will any of this actually affect me?

If youre not an artist, dont worry about it. Its likely most consumers already cant tell the difference for how their music got onto their preferred streaming service anyway; Spotifys direct upload wont change that, unless more artists start speaking up about it. But if youre an artist, it means this: You could soon have the option to upload your own music, on your own time and your own dime, directly to Spotify. No label, no distribution, nada. Just you and your computer, essentially. You will have to sign up on the free Spotify for Artists platform (which means youll have to be a Spotify user), then get on the email waitlist for the beta version until it becomes widely available, then voila, the power is yours. For now.

RelatedThe Purge Release the Beast Season 1 Episode 4 Editors Rating 4 stars * * * *  Previous Next Photo: USA Network/Patti Perret/USA Network

Were in the thick of Purge Night now and a sense of urgency and desperation is starting to sink in for our protagonists, most of whom are starting to realize theyve made some questionable choices about how to spend the evening. And as their situations have grown more intense, the show has begun to broaden its scope, showing us more of life during Purge time and how those living through it have changed. Some have grown stronger and more resolute in their beliefs. Others have taken advantage of the Purge and the lowering of inhibitions. After all, if its legal, it cant be wrong, right? At heart, The Purge franchise is a series of morality plays and this fourth episode, Release the Beast, leans into that, exploring what its like to make moral choices under a government thats taken to normalizing the unthinkable.

But that doesnt make the unthinkable normal. The episode opens with Alison suddenly realizing that killing Mark is still committing murder, even if its not against the law. (Poor, sweet, unsuspecting Mark, whod taken off his pants not suspecting that Alisons offer to celebrate would include stabbing him with a pair of scissors.) Alisons shock at whats shes done got a laugh last week with her line about whether she or Jane needed to notify HR about her promotion, but stretched out further, it becomes tragic as she considers the consequences. Will she have to tell her parents about what shes done? Does Mark have a family? Alison! Everyone has a family, Jane replies, but when Alison confirms that she knows Jane has hired an assassin to kill David, Jane realizes she doesnt have the moral high ground here.

So, after leaving a message for her mother saying that she loves and forgives her (Im guessing well find out whats being forgiven in a future flashback), she heads out into the night to stop the murder, unprepared for what shell have to face. Shes quickly attacked by a would-be rapist, but saved by the Matron Saints, some well-equipped female avengers who protect the females of this fair nation for the gendercide of Purge. Over the course of four movies, The Purge franchise made it increasingly clear that the New Founding Fathers of America instituted the Purge to thin the ranks of Americas minorities. This new wrinkle brings gender into the equation, with the alarming statistic that three women are killed for every man each Purge Night, to say nothing of the spike in sexual assaults, reported and otherwise. As in the world we know, its tough for everyone but tougher for women, especially when the government itself seems not to care.

Its certainly plenty tough for Penelope, whose dream of a quiet, peaceful, meaningful martyrdom takes yet another turn for the worse when the creepy glowing nuns deliver her to the Carnival of Flesh, a bacchanal that allows participants to kill Purge victims in a variety of historical settings. The Carnival of Flesh owes a lot to the Flesh Fair of Steven Spielbergs A.I., but in bare description it could be one of Stefons clubs. This place has everything: Simulated Salem Witch Trials, a firing squad, a reenactment of the Fall of Saigon, circus food 

It also includes cattle pens filled with victims desperate to escape (including a poor guy who mistakes Penelope for his granddaughter) and an auction. If Penelope was questioning whether or not she had the right idea about the Purge before, the abuse she witnesses only intensifies that questioning. Then, when shes sold at auction to a creepy guy she recognizes from her past (surely the subject of another future flashback), her faith in the Purge cult seems to shatter in front of our eyes. Shes not having a great night.

Meanwhile, Miguel continues to search for her, doubling back to the bar where Pete the Cop puts him in touch with Rex the Cowboy (were only four macho occupations away from a full Village People set at this point) who promises to get him into the creepy nuns ultimate destination: the Carnival of Flesh. Along the way, Miguel and Rex encounter some red armband-sporting Purge participants who only target rich NFFA types. (Welcome to #ThePurgeResistance?) They also bond a bit. Miguel points out the various foster homes in which he was raised and Rex (played well by hard-working character actor Christopher Berry) tells him he needs to think about the future and what he really wants. After all, he used to be a Verizon call-center employee. Now hes reinvented himself as a modern-day buckaroo and lives exactly the life he wants. Miguels on board, too, until a thump in the back reveals the source of that independence: He rounds up victims on Purge Night and then sells them.

Living the dream dont come cheap, Rex reminds his new friend. Is Miguel convinced? Is it foolish not to take advantage of the moral gray area opened up by the Purge? Is it just a matter of survival? The episode ends with a big TBD for Miguel, but elsewhere Rick seems to be slipping. We see him looking awfully chummy with the guests at the Stanton party, and Jennas disappearances to hang out with Lila arent exactly shoring up his beliefs that they remain a team in keeping their distance from the Stantons underlying beliefs and the recruitment efforts of the NFFA.

Rick and Jenna are the subjects of this weeks flashbacks, which dont so much fill in the blanks as confirm what the show has long hinted: They hooked up with Lila for an experimental threesome to revive their sagging marriage, but then things got complicated. Specifically, Jenna came to realize that she enjoyed spending time with Lila away from Rick. Then Lila started to act unstable, in his words. Now shes back in their lives, and as Rick increasingly looks like easy pickings for the NFFA, Lila becomes more appealing. But maybe she has bigger things to worry about. As the episode draws to a close, Catalina warns her to leave this house. Clearly, others have plans for her and her unborn child, but is it the Stantons, Rick, Lila, or someone else?

In Release the Beast, the show finds another gear, which it needed to do after the relative slow burn of the first three episodes. Were suddenly introduced to big, new, intriguing elements of the NFFA-ruled world like the Flesh Fair and the Matron Saints, and its characters are facing hard choices about how best to live in this awful world rather than seeming like cogs in the series machine. (Except for Penelope, who seems destined to life as a cog.) The most promising aspect of this series has always been the chance to expand on the implications raised by The Purge film at extended length. Release the Beast makes good on that promise, both in the creative ways it expands that world and the time it spends getting in the heads of its characters. Hopefully the remainder of its ten-episode run reaches the standard its set.

Survival Tips

 Continuing a trend of putting the episodes in assured hands, actor/director Clark Johnson (S.W.A.T., The Wire, The Walking Dead) directs tonights installment.

 Creepy Mask Guy only shows up at the end, where we again get evidence that hes on some kind of laudable quest to save potential Purge victims, even if this week he fails and then howls in frustration. Also this week: We get a look behind the mask, and he doesnt seem all that creepy. Whats he up to? And which, if any, of the series protagonists will he meet first?

 Is the series trying to make Colin Woodell, who plays Rick, look more like Jared Kushner the deeper he gets in with the NFFA, or am I just seeing things?BOAZ, Ala. -- One man was killed and another person was injured in a single-vehicle crash in Marshall County Tuesday night.

The crash occurred on Summerville Road three miles east of Douglas at about 7:20 p.m. Tuesday.

According to the law enforcement, Brandon Lee Paul, 24, of Boaz, was driving a 1997 Nissan Sentra on Summerville Road, when the vehicle left the roadway, struck a ditch and overturned.

Paul, who officials said was not wearing a seatbelt, was ejected and transported to an area hospital where he later died from his injuries.

An unrestrained passenger in the vehicle was also ejected and transported to an area hospital for treatment.

No further information is available as Alabama State Troopers continue to investigate.DENVER, Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Phoenix Life Sciences International Limited (Phoenix Life) (OTCMarkets: MJMD), an adaptive global healthcare solutions company, today announced that its Chief Executive Officer Martin Tindall will be speaking on an expert panel about pharmaceutical cannabis research at the Cannabis World Congress and Business Expo, taking place in Los Angeles on Thursday, Sept. 27, at 2 p.m. PT.



As cannabis research and innovation continues to flourish in the U.S. and throughout the world, I am proud to be at the forefront of this conversation and help people understand the many underutilized tools and resources that are available with plant-based medicines, said Martin Tindall, incoming Chief Executive Officer of Phoenix Life Sciences International. We hope that Phoenix will soon become a widely recognized leader in this space and help improve global healthcare.

The Cannabis World Congress and Business Expo is one of the largest business-to-business trade show events for the cannabis industry, with entrepreneurs, investors, media and other stakeholders from all over the country in attendance. The panel, titled Pharmaceutical Research will feature several industry experts and will explore the many facets of current cannabis research and the gaps which still need to be filled. The panelists, including Tindall, will also discuss the challenges of doing research in the U.S. versus in other countries around the world.

Currently, Phoenix Life Sciences International is working to become the leader in outdoor-grown pharmaceutical cannabis-derived drugs targeted at diabetes. The company is working with the Republic of Vanuatus governmental agencies to help the nation treat its more than 35,000 diabetes patients with a low-cost alternative natural treatment. Once the companys diabetes drug has undergone several clinical studies, the company plans to then align with federal and state single-payer healthcare systems in established and emerging economies in order to bring it to market.

The Cannabis World Congress and Business Expo Exhibit Hall will be open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 27, and Friday, Sept. 28, and from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 29.

For more information about Phoenix Life, please visit https://www.plsi.co/ .

About Phoenix Life Sciences International Limited

Phoenix Life Sciences International Limited is an adaptive global healthcare solutions company. Our business is to advance research and integrate programs and manufacturing of products that target and treat diabetes, pain, cancer, and address psychological, gastrointestinal, autoimmune, neurological and sleep disorders. We strive to create partnerships and integrate these programs for human health into communities worldwide as part of our Global Health Initiative.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

Information contained in this press release regarding Phoenix Life Sciences International, Limited and its subsidiaries, (the Companies) may constitute forward-looking statements or statements which may be deemed or construed to be forward-looking statements. The words plan, forecast, anticipates, estimate, project, intend, expect, should, believe, and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements involve, and are subject to, known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which could cause the Companys actual results, performance (financial or operating) or achievements to differ from the future results, performance (financial or operating) or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. The risks, uncertainties and other factors are more fully discussed in the Companys filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. All forward-looking statements attributable to the Companies herein are expressly qualified in their entirety by the above-mentioned cautionary statement. The Companies disclaim any obligation to update forward-looking statements contained in this press release, except as may be required by law.

FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION (FDA) DISCLOSURE

These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA and therefore the products sold by Phoenix Life Sciences International are not available on U.S.

LEGAL DISCLOSURE

Phoenix Life Sciences International does not sell or distribute any products in the United States that are in violation of the United States Controlled Substances Act (US.CSA). This company does grow, sell, and distribute cannabis-based products in the United States and is solely involved with the legal distribution of medical cannabis-based products within certain international markets outside of the United States.

Investor Contact:

Phone: 1.888.717.5655 or international +1.720.699.7222

E-mail: investor.relations@phoenixlife.coBOAZ, Ala. -- A dog who was dumped on the side of the road a few months ago is now ready to find her forever home.

In July Tawanda and another dog were left on Highway 168 in Boaz not far from the 2nd Chance Shelter. The dogs were dumped by their owner, but they chased after the car that left them behind.

The other dog was hit by a car and died, but the 2nd Chance Shelter found Tawanda after days of trying to catch her.

"We couldn't catch her and finally we got a live trap and put it at our house which is just up the road and put some moist wet dog food in there and it took about three days but she finally went in the that trap," said 2nd Chance Shelter owner Doug McGee.

Tawanda was in bad shape when the shelter took her in. She didn't trust anyone and tried to bite the workers when they came near. After several weeks of love and care Tawanda began to come around and is now known for her face kisses.

"She was really really a distressed dog and for her to turn around it was kind of like a miracle story in a way."

McGee said Tawanda is now ready to go to a permanent home. He said she would do good in a home where she can be active.

"These puppies die today unless we do something. And so we took them and we really didn't intend to start the shelter then but it just started exploding," said McGee.

Since then McGee, his wife, and lots of volunteers have worked to save the lives of hundreds of dogs housing around 250 dogs at any given time. Tawanda is just one of the many they've saved and McGee said it was a challenge to get her.

McGee said that while Tawanda's story is heartbreaking, it's actually quite common.

"In Alabama it is an illegal act but people do it regulary. Especially the mentality, 'Well at least they threw it out at the animal shelter,'" McGee said.ATHENS, Ala. -- An Athens man accused of trying to pull a gun during a church service in July was indicted on multiple charges relating to the incident.

On Tuesday, a grand jury in Limestone County indicted 34-year-old Thomas Zebulun Lewter and charged him with two counts of third-degree domestic violence, menacing, one count of attempting to commit a miscellaneous felony, and four counts of menacing.

Investigators told WAAY 31 in July that Lewter had to be restrained after he approached the pulpit of ONeal Church of Christ while talking about his pending divorce, and attempted to pull a handgun.

In an affidavit, Lewters wife said he announced that he, "was sorry he was going to have to do what he had to do," as he walked up to the pulpit.

According to Limestone County Jail officials, Lewter was released on a $25,000 bond. It was not immediately clear when he would next appear in court.Nathan Boyd has been re-sentenced to life without parole for the 1999 murder of local restaurant owner, Danny Sledge.

Boyd was 17 when he and his brother, Eric Boyd, committed the murder. He was convicted in 2001 to serve life without parole. A 2012 Supreme Court decision stated that it's unconstitutional to sentence a minor to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, which led to a re-sentencing hearing that began on September 6, 2018.



Nathan Boyd (right) and Eric Boyd (left) Nathan Boyd (right) and Eric Boyd (left)

The Supreme Court ruling has caused at least one other re-sentencing hearing in Alabama in a murder case in Lawrence County. The judge has yet to make a ruling in that case.

Boyd does have the option to appeal the ruling today, but there is no word from his attorneys if they plan to do so.

Danny Sledge's sister, Mary Rippey, said that Sledge's family has been waiting on this day for six years.

"It's a never ending nightmare for us, but we're hoping this will close the door, so we can grieve my brother properly," Rippey said.A man accused of intentionally and seriously injuring his infant daughter will head back to court on Wednesday.

Robert Elliott III faces two counts of aggravated child abuse, one count of first-degree assault and one count of reckless endangerment. After being continued six times, Elliotts jury trial began on Monday, according to court records.

On May 31, 2014, Elliott brought the limp, dying body of his daughter to Athens-Limestone Hospital. Court records state that the baby had multiple, life-threatening injuries including bruises, contusions, hematoma, brain bleed and broken ribs.

As hospital personnel notified law enforcement, the baby was rushed to Huntsville Hospital for treatment and survived her injuries. Medical personnel at Huntsville Hospital determined that the child was the victim of Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS).

Elliott was taken into custody and charged with aggravated child abuse after denying no fewer than a dozen times that he shook his daughter.

After several days, court records state that Elliott requested a second interview with investigators during which he admitted to shaking his baby. However, he claimed that he didnt mean to harm her.

He also told investigators that he was putting the baby down and picking her up too roughly and dropping her on the floor, all of which he explained were accidental.

Elliott was later indicted on all four charges on August 15, 2014. A few months later, on December 14, 2014, court records show he waived his right to an arraignment hearing and entered a plea of not guilty.

He was then released on a $31,000 bond on October 26, 2015.

Just over a year later, as Elliot awaited his trial (which had been continued four times by mid-September), he was arrested in Boonville, Missouri and charged with for possession of 0.5 ounces of methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia.

That arrest caused the judge in Elliotts aggravated child abuse case to revoke his bond and he was brought back to the Limestone County Jail.

Fast forward almost two years, Elliotts attorneys attempted to prevent more than 1800 pages of medical records and corresponding testimony from being used in the trial.

In a Motion to Suppress filed on September 18, 2018, defense attorney Lucas Beaty argued that there wasnt enough time for them to be able to comb through and understand all the records in time for the trial set to begin on September 24, 2018.

Beaty stated in his motion that prosecutors provided them with 1843 pages of medical records starting on September 7, with the final 199 pages being delivered on September 13.

He argued that Given the late nature of their disclosure, the defense cannot be expected to gain an adequate working knowledge of this amount of material. As such, the Defendants right to cross examine witnesses called against him would be infringed.

Prosecutors challenged the defenses motion in a formal response stating that they were prompt in turning over copies of the medical records they requested as they received them. They state the original case file produced by prosecutors was handed over to the defense around October 14, 2014.

They also state that after they subpoenaed the medical records of the victim from Huntsville Hospital on July 24, 2018, they provided a copy to the defense as soon as they got it. Prosecutors further argue that the defense didnt do their due diligence and request medical records prior to September 2018.

In his motion, Deputy District Attorney James Ayers Jr. states that over the four years that this case has been pending, the defense has never specifically requested medical records from anyone...The defense has never at any time sought the Huntsville Hospital record despite the fact that [the victim] has been treated there for the SBS and resulting horrific disabilities and brain damage for over four years.

Judge Chadwick Wise ultimately agreed with prosecutors and dismissed the defenses Motion to Suppress on September 21, 2018.

That same day, Judge Wise also rejected a motion made by prosecutors asking to amend the indictment and increase the level of severity on the charge of aggravated child abuse from basic, which is a Class B Felony, to enhanced, which is a Class A Felony.

Elliotts trial is set to continue Wednesday morning.TRINITY, Ala. -- A city in north Alabama passed a budget Tuesday night that includes a raise for employees.

Trinity City Council passed the budget that includes a new police car and $25,000 toward a new fire truck.

According to the Decatur Daily, employees will receive a 25-cent per hour raise, which will go into effect on Oct. 1.

Stay with WAAY 31 News for additional information as it becomes available.Wednesday, one family in the Shoals said they got a victory when their loved one's killer's original sentence was upheld by a judge, despite a Supreme Court Ruling.

Nathan Boyd and his brother Eric were both convicted of murdering Danny Sledge in 1999. Nathan was 17 at the time and got life without the possibility of parole, but a 2012 Supreme Court ruling stated it's unconstitutional to sentence a juvenile to life without parole. After days of a hearing, a judge ruled that Nathan Boyd will serve life without parole.

Sledge's family's fight for justice isn't over. Eric Boyd was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole, and in about six months, he will be eligible for parole.

Sledge's family told WAAY31, they are terrified with the new policies and procedures put in place at the parole board. Many other families have reached out to WAAY 31 saying they have no confidence in this parole board after they paroled a life long criminal who now stands accused of murdering three people in Guntersville.

"I am scared to death after that man just murdered three people in Guntersville," said Danny Sledge's sister, Mary Anne Rippey. "I am scared they are going to let Eric out."

Lawmakers passed the Prison Reform Act, also known as the Justice Reinvestment Act in 2015, which says on the parole board's website that the laws were designed to reduce prison population. The parole board started using an analytical tool to evaluate a parolee's chance of re-offending. The parole board said the analytical tool is merely a guideline. Rippey, who fought against parts of that legislation, said things have completely changed.

"How it was five years ago is totally different. We fought really hard to keep some rights," said Rippey. "They don't take into account the crime and the victims anymore."

Senator Cam Ward, who was the leader on the Prison Reform Act, said the act does not govern who the parole board lets out.

Jimmy Spencer, a man with a violent history, was paroled in January 2018. He walked away from a re-entry facility he was supposed to be at for six months in only three weeks, had multiple run-ins with police and was even arrested on drug charges; yet, he never went back to prison for parole violations. Spencer now stands accused of murdering three people, including a seven year old child.

Rippey tells us the Spencer case and the current laws make the families of victims doubt the ability of the parole board.

"We've lost all voice at the parole board. Used to, we would go down there on a regular basis because when we had a voice. We don't go as often with other families now, because they don't let us speak," said Rippey.

Eric Boyd was sentenced to life with parole. He's served 19 years of his sentence and has a parole consideration date of April 1, 2019. Sledge's daughter says they will fight for the rest of their lives to keep him in prison.

"We will have to deal with his brother the rest of his life and our life. We're willing to do that. We aren't going anywhere. We're gonna fight for justice for daddy for however long it takes."

Even though Danny Sledge's family will have to go to Montgomery to ask the parole board to keep Eric Boyd in prison, they said at least Nathan Boyd will not be eligible for parole.Shattered Shield



'I Had A Funny Feeling in My Gut' By David Hoffman

Washington Post Foreign Service

Wednesday, February 10, 1999; Page A19 Sidebar MOSCOW  It was just past midnight as Stanislav Petrov settled into the commander's chair inside the secret bunker at Serpukhov-15, the installation where the Soviet Union monitored its early-warning satellites over the United States. Then the alarms went off. On the panel in front him was a red pulsating button. One word flashed: "Start." It was Sept. 26, 1983, and Petrov was playing a principal role in one of the most harrowing incidents of the nuclear age, a false alarm signaling a U.S. missile attack. Although virtually unknown to the West at the time, the false alarm at the closed military facility south of Moscow came during one of the most tense periods of the Cold War. And the episode resonates today because Russia's early-warning system has fewer than half the satellites it did back then, raising the specter of more such dangerous incidents. As Petrov described it in an interview, one of the Soviet satellites sent a signal to the bunker that a nuclear missile attack was underway. The warning system's computer, weighing the signal against static, concluded that a missile had been launched from a base in the United States. The responsibility fell to Petrov, then a 44-year-old lieutenant colonel, to make a decision: Was it for real? Petrov was situated at a critical point in the chain of command, overseeing a staff that monitored incoming signals from the satellites. He reported to superiors at warning-system headquarters; they, in turn, reported to the general staff, which would consult with Soviet leader Yuri Andropov on the possibility of launching a retaliatory attack. Petrov's role was to evaluate the incoming data. At first, the satellite reported that one missile had been launched  then another, and another. Soon, the system was "roaring," he recalled  five Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missiles had been launched, it reported. Despite the electronic evidence, Petrov decided  and advised the others  that the satellite alert was a false alarm, a call that may have averted a nuclear holocaust. But he was relentlessly interrogated afterward, was never rewarded for his decision and today is a long-forgotten pensioner living in a town outside Moscow. He spoke openly about the incident, although the official account is still considered secret by authorities here. On the night of the crisis, Petrov had little time to think. When the alarms went off, he recalled, "for 15 seconds, we were in a state of shock. We needed to understand, what's next?" Usually, Petrov said, one report of a lone rocket launch did not immediately go up the chain to the general staff and the electronic command system there, known as Krokus. But in this case, the reports of a missile salvo were coming so quickly that an alert had already gone to general staff headquarters automatically, even before he could judge if they were genuine. A determination by the general staff was critical because, at the time, the nuclear "suitcase" that gives a Soviet leader a remote-control role in such decisions was still under development. In the end, less than five minutes after the alert began, Petrov decided the launch reports must be false. He recalled making the tense decision under enormous stress  electronic maps and consoles were flashing as he held a phone in one hand and juggled an intercom in the other, trying to take in all the information at once. Another officer at the early-warning facility was shouting into the phone to him to remain calm and do his job. "I had a funny feeling in my gut," Petrov said. "I didn't want to make a mistake. I made a decision, and that was it." Petrov's decision was based partly on a guess, he recalled. He had been told many times that a nuclear attack would be massive  an onslaught designed to overwhelm Soviet defenses at a single stroke. But the monitors showed only five missiles. "When people start a war, they don't start it with only five missiles," he remembered thinking at the time. "You can do little damage with just five missiles." Another factor, he said, was that Soviet ground-based radar installations  which search for missiles rising above the horizon  showed no evidence of an attack. The ground radar units were controlled from a different command center, and because they cannot see beyond the horizon, they would not spot incoming missiles until some minutes after the satellites had. Following the false alarm, Petrov went through a second ordeal. At first, he was praised for his actions. But then came an investigation, and his questioners pressed him hard. Why had he not written everything down that night? "Because I had a phone in one hand and the intercom in the other, and I don't have a third hand," he replied. Petrov, who was assigned to the satellite early-warning system at its inception in the 1970s, said in the interview that he knew the system had flaws. It had been rushed into service, he said, and was "raw." Petrov said the investigators tried to make him a scapegoat for the false alarm. In the end, he was neither punished nor rewarded. According to Petrov and other sources, the false alarm was eventually traced to the satellite, which picked up the sun's reflection off the tops of clouds and mistook it for a missile launch. The computer program that was supposed to filter out such information was rewritten. It is not known what happened at the highest levels of the Kremlin on the night of the alarm, but it came at a climactic stage in U.S.-Soviet relations that is now regarded as a Soviet "war scare." According to former CIA analyst Peter Pry, and a separate study by the agency, Andropov was obsessed with the possibility of a surprise nuclear attack by the West and sent instructions to Soviet spies around the world to look for evidence of preparations. One reason for Soviet jitters at the time was that the West had unleashed a series of psychological warfare exercises aimed at Moscow, including naval maneuvers into forward areas near Soviet strategic bastions, such as the submarine bases in the Barents Sea. The 1983 alarm also came just weeks after Soviet pilots had shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007 and just before the start of a NATO military exercise, known as Able Archer, that involved raising alert levels of U.S. nuclear forces in Europe to simulate preparations for an attack. Pry has described this exercise as "probably the single most dangerous incident of the early 1980s." Page One | Printable full text

 Copyright 1999 The Washington Post Company Back to the top

RENO, Nev., Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Filament, provider of comprehensive blockchain solutions for the Internet of Things (IoT) and the enterprise, today announced that it has won the Silver 2018 IoT Innovator Award for Best IoT Hardware  Commercial and Industrial . Each year, IoT Innovator, a publication dedicated to the IoT market, honors the best IoT businesses and products worldwide.



Recognized for its Blocklet Chip, Filaments first-of-its-kind Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) blockchain hardware technology extends the value of the IoT beyond traditional connectivity, and enables companies to securely transact value and achieve monetization of connected equipment. In its Blocklet USB Enclave form factor, the Blocklet hardware is designed to help companies with existing IIoT machines get started with blockchain projects by plugging the secure device into any connected USB port.

Every year, our judging panel finds it increasingly difficult to whittle down the list of applicants and this year is no exception. Our 2018 finalists and winners are continuously raising the bar when it comes to connecting billions of devices in a truly transformative way, said Kim Kay, editor-in-chief of IoT Innovator. We applaud this years winners, who are doing so much more than just connecting things; theyre effectively enabling users to make informed, data-driven decisions about the valuable resources we share across communities.

Filaments Blocklet solutions, designed for industries with connected assets including mobility, renewable energy and supply chain, enable e-commerce for machines. The blockchain-native technology allows connected physical assets to become direct participants in blockchain applications by providing a means to securely generate cryptographic identities and sign transactions.

We are honored to be included among this group of leaders and visionaries, said Allison Clift-Jennings, CEO, Filament. Our blockchain technology creates inherent trust and thereby improves both the value and economics of the digitally connected world. We firmly believe that the impact of the convergence of the IoT and blockchain will be widespread, transforming business models in many industries.

Winners of this years IoT Innovator Awards include Avnet, Western Digital Corporation and more. See the full list of winners at: http://iotinnovator.com/winners-revealed-for-the-2018-iot-innovator-awards/

About Filament

Filament builds comprehensive blockchain systems for the enterprise and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). Its hardware, software and service solutions allow connected devices and machines to securely interact with and transact value against distributed ledger technology such as a blockchain. Filament is headquartered in Reno, Nevada with offices in Denver, Colorado and Saint Paul, Minnesota. Learn more at filament.com .

About IoT Innovator

IoT Innovator is the brainchild of WestWorldWide, LLC, a venerable IT publisher that has been covering the best of IT since 1980. WestWorlds flagship and IoT Innovators sister publication, Computer Technology Review, is one of the most respected editorial authorities in the IT industry. For more information, including how to enter next years awards, visit IoT Innovators Awards page.

Filament and the Filament logo are registered trademarks of Filament in the U.S.A. and other countries. Blocklet and Blocklet Chip are trademarks of Filament in the U.S.A. and other countries. All other trademarks mentioned herein are the property of their respective companies.... but you will need to show proof of jab get into bars STUDENTS heading to college in September will not have to be vaccinated...WATERFORD is the most sunny city in Ireland and the county is second in the sunshine league, being pipped to first place by our...The team at Waterford Walls has hardly been able to contain its excitement this week as it brings another exciting artwork to the city....A WATERFORD GP has claimed we are now experiencing the worst level of Covid-19 in the country because we were effectively spared the brunt...HOT on the heels of Waterford City being named the Best Place To Live, it was announced this week that 27m is to be...THE road to the classroom is to be made safer and easier for four Waterford primary schools. They have been selected for inclusion in...Its that time of year again! Summer in Waterford, with plenty of sunshine, and if you look carefully you may spot the odd artist atop...TORONTO, Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- iLOOKABOUT Corp. (TSXV:ILA) (iLOOKABOUT or the Company) today announced it has executed a multiyear Data Collection and Street-Level Imagery Software Agreement with Lexur Appraisal for services to Montgomery County, Ohio (Dayton). The Montgomery County Auditors Office provides assessment services covering more than 274,800 properties throughout the County with a primary responsibility to identify and appraise all real property and certify the annual tax roll in accordance with Ohio State law.



In partnering with industry leader, Lexur Appraisal Services, iLOOKABOUT will provide a market-leading data collection and verification through its award-winning data collection platform, GeoViewPort (GVP) in conjunction with its StreetScape solution  a dynamic street-level image service.

We pride ourselves on using the best technology available in the marketplace to deliver our appraisal services. We have partnered with iLOOKABOUT for over 10 years now, utilizing their GeoViewPort suite of software applications and their StreetScape image gathering process, stated Robert Fry, President of Lexur Appraisal Services. It enables us to manage the entire process, and ultimately ensures we deliver a quality product to the Montgomery County Auditors Office and the taxpayers of the County.

We are exceptionally pleased that the Montgomery Ohio Auditors Office has selected iLOOKABOUT and Lexur Appraisal to deliver our software and services for its Countywide reappraisal, stated Jeff Young, iLOOKABOUTs President. Its a further testament from the markets we serveboth to the value of our data collection platform, GVP and StreetScape; and to the strength of the partnerships we have built in the market with partners like Lexur Appraisal, and with our customers. We look forward to building strong relationships while supporting the Auditors Office service to the citizens of Ohio.

About iLOOKABOUT

iLOOKABOUT is a software, data analytics, data aggregation and visual intelligence company focused on real property. The Company primarily serves the property assessment, property taxation, municipal, insurance, and appraisal sectors, both public and private, in North America. iLOOKABOUT provides powerful data analytics to the real estate industry through its Real Property Tax Analytics software offering. The Companys proprietary StreetScape imagery and real property focused web-based application, GeoViewPort unifies property related data and enables desktop review of properties. iLOOKABOUT has integrated analytics and workflow management applications into GeoViewPort which create highly valued service offerings for its clients. To augment its technology-based offerings, the Company provides real estate consulting services, with a focus on the Property Tax and Valuation sectors.

iLOOKABOUTs common shares are traded on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol ILA.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Rennova Health, Inc. (PINK: RNVA), (PINK: RNVAW), (Rennova or the Company) a vertically integrated provider of industry-leading diagnostics and supportive software solutions to healthcare providers that acquired its second rural hospital in Tennessee on June 1, 2018, releases a podcast of Seamus Lagans interview with Stock Days Everett Jolly, discussing the Companys progress as it comes to the end of the third quarter.

Mr. Jolly started by asking Mr. Lagan if Rennova would meet the previously mentioned expectation of collecting $2 million a month from current business by the end of this quarter.

Mr. Lagan answered saying, Im happy to report that we are right there, we are on target. Right now, we are collecting more cash monthly than the company has achieved in almost 3 years. I do believe our recovery is well underway.

Mr. Jolly then pressed Mr. Lagan about plans for additional acquisitions and if there would be any more hospitals acquired this year.

Mr. Lagan indicated they are always looking at opportunities and said, because of the financial situation we have to balance the capital needs of an acquisition with the benefits but we are looking quite extensively at one situation that may be very viable. He continued with, I just want to be clear that we do not have any definitive agreement, if we do reach a definitive agreement youll be the first to know. Mr. Lagan went on to note that any new acquisition being considered would be close to the existing Tennessee hospitals.

Mr. Jolly also brought up the plans for a reverse split on the Companys shares.

This is always a sensitive area for shareholders explained Mr. Lagan. We find ourselves in a position where we dont have a choice with the current sub-cent share price. He went on to explain that the Company is starting to demonstrate in its filings an uptick in business and that they want to be in the best position for investors and shareholders to participate in the public market, which is difficult and costly when a share price is below $0.01.

For more on Rennova Health Inc.s outlook and future plans you can listen to the entire podcast here:

https://upticknewswire.com/featured-interview-ceo-seamus-lagan-of-rennova-health-inc-otcqb-rnva-8/



About Rennova Health, Inc.

Rennova provides industry-leading diagnostics and supportive software solutions to healthcare providers, delivering an efficient, effective patient experience and superior clinical outcomes. Through an ever-expanding group of strategic brands that work in unison to empower customers, we are creating the next generation of healthcare. For more information, please visit www.rennovahealth.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results may differ from expectations and, consequently, you should not rely on these forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. Words such as expect, estimate, project, budget, forecast, anticipate, intend, plan, may, will, could, should, believes, predicts, potential, continue, and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements involve significant risks and uncertainties that could cause the actual results to differ materially from the expected results. Additional information concerning these and other risk factors are contained in the Companys most recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Company cautions readers not to place undue reliance upon any forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date made. The Company does not undertake or accept any obligation or undertaking to release publicly any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statements to reflect any change in their expectations or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is based, except as required by law.If you have an event you'd like to list on the site, submit it now!

SubmitBy Leah Long Sep. 25, 2018 | 08:55 PM | PADUCAH

Paducah's city commissioners held a public hearing Tuesday evening regarding the property tax rate levy for Paducah.City Finance Director Johnathan Perkins told commissioners the proposed rate of 26.1 cents is much less than what the rate was more than twenty years ago in fiscal year 1995. At that time the real estate rate was 43.8 cents per $100 assessed value.Revenue generated by the property tax is the city's second highest revenue source behind the payroll tax.The commissioners introduced an ordinance later in the meeting setting the real estate and personal property taxes for fiscal year 2019. The city's real estate tax levy is proposed to be set at 26.1 cents per $100 assessed value, a 2.3 percent change as compared to the fiscal year 2018 rate of 25.5 cents.The city's compensating cate, the rate that would keep the revenue at the same amount as this fiscal year, is 25.1 cents per $100 assessed value. Kentucky Revised Statutes permit a city to adjust the rate upward by not more than 4 percent of the compensating rate. With the proposed 26.1 cents, the city would be taking the 4 percent allowed by KRS.Recently, the Paducah Independent School District voted to set its tax rate at 84 cents per $100 of assessed value which is up from last year's 79.7 cents. The city collects the school tax but passes the funds along to the district.In other actions, Greg Carlton and D.J. Story with Peel & Holland along with Human Resources Director Martin Russell provided an overview of the City of Paducahs 2019 health insurance plan through Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield as the citys third party administrator. Those who participate in the Citys health plan will have no change to their health insurance premiums as compared to this current year.The city has maintained the same health insurance premium rates since 2013 which they noted is quite unusual and an indication of the good management of the health plan and the citys dedication to employee wellness. The dental rates will increase 3 percent with a 3.5 percent increase to the vision plan. This is a self-insured health insurance plan which means the premiums paid into the plan by the employees are used to pay the claims.The commissioners also approved a motion to apply for the National Park Service African-American Civil Rights Grant on behalf of the Hotel Metropolitan. "This is the first in our hopes of securing grants for this incredible community gem," said Planning Director Tammara Tracy. The grant request is for $50,000 and would be used to amend the Hotel Metropolitan's current National Register of Historic Places designation to expand it to include another building. No local match is required for the grant.In other commission business, the board: Approved municipal orders authorizing and declaring the sale of the following city-owned surplus properties: 222 Ashbrook AvenueJames and Sandra Faulkner submitted a $2500 bid for the property with plans to renovate the home; and 1131 Flournoy Street  Cameron Brewer submitted a $450 bid for this vacant lot which is adjacent to his property. Approved accepting the Kentucky Transportation Cabinets Kentucky Office of Highway Safety grant award in the amount of $25,050. The funds will be used by the Paducah Police Department to reimburse the department for traffic enforcement activities. Approved an ordinance introduced for the partial street closure of DAV Drive also known as Green Street. The adjacent property owner Mid-South Energy Properties, LLC requested the closure which received a positive recommendation from the Paducah Planning Commission. The commission will vote on this ordinance on Oct. 9. And, heard from Randy Beeler, with Sons of the Confederate Veterans of Paducah, who said he and his group still want to find a resolution to their situation before the upcoming Veterans Day Parade. A parade board meeting, which will be a working, closed meeting to the public will be held on Thursday, Oct. 4. Beeler asked for the commission to rescind the resolution it passed last year and he and his group would not ask to be in the parade. Mayor Brandi Harless said the board passed a resolution stating that one of six armed forces flags are to be flown during the Veterans Day Parade and said those are the rules. But she told Beeler the commission has never said his group could not be a part of the parade. They can be, as long as one of the six designated flags is flown.

On the Net:By West Kentucky Star Staff Sep. 26, 2018 | 06:06 AM | PADUCAH





Randy Beeler with the Sons of the Confederate Veterans of Paducah says the group wants the city to reconsider a policy banning the Confederate flag from being flown at its annual Veterans Day parade.Beeler spoke at the Paducah City Commission meeting on Tuesday, asking for commissioners to rescind the resolution. Beeler said he and his group, who have been working to change the policy since it was implemented last May, still want to find a resolution to their situation before the upcoming Veterans Day Parade.Beeler asked for the commission to rescind the resolution, and said he and his group would not ask to be in the parade.Mayor Brandi Harless said the resolution states that one of six armed forces flags are to be flown during the Veterans Day Parade and said those are the rules. But she told Beeler the commission has never said his group could not be a part of the parade. Harless said they can be, as long as one of the six designated flags is flown.A parade board meeting, which will be closed to the public, will be held on Thursday, Oct. 4.Advertisement

By West Kentucky Star Staff

Sep. 26, 2018 | PADUCAH

By West Kentucky Star Staff Sep. 26, 2018 | 10:49 AM | PADUCAH

Discussion continues among Paducah city leaders about the future of the Keeton Corrections halfway house, after recent escapes have put the facility at 621 Clarence Gaines Street in the spotlight.



Commissioner Richard Abraham has been vocal in bringing the Keeton issues to light, introducing an ordinance passed on Aug. 28 that requires private correctional facilities to notify area residents and law enforcement within 30 minutes of a reported escape. He has expressed a desire to see the facility eventually closed, citing public safety and property concerns.



Abraham inquired at Tuesday's Paducah City Commission meeting about why a letter he wrote Aug. 19 to Kentucky Justice and Public Safety Secretary John Tilley and Gov. Matt Bevin regarding concerns about escapes from the facility wasn't ever sent. He asked Mayor Brandi Harless to explain why it was held up.



Youre not going to get any response from my letter, because its on your desk," Abraham said. "Where might you get that authority to hold up my letter that I sent to Frankfort as a Commissioner of the City of Paducah? Explain to me how you hijacked my letter.



"With all due respect, I definitely did not hijack your letter," Harless responded. "Because we are on a team, it means we typically act as a team. I never wielded authority over this decision. I asked the question to our other commissioners on our team: Do you feel comfortable with this letter? And the resounding answer was: No, I do not." Harless added that Abraham was the only one to sign the letter, which was drafted on city letterhead, and some other commissioners were uncomfortable with his unilateral approach.



Commissioner Sandra Wilson weighed in, saying that she thinks it's better for all commissioners to be on board before sending a letter out to state government officials.



"In my humble opinion, when we're dealing with the state government or the federal government, we do have so much more strength when we appear as a united community. If that letter is going to be sent, to me it should have been sent from the City Commission." Wilson said.



Commissioners did agree to draft an open records request to the State of Kentucky to ask what is contractually required regarding the operations of the Keeton facility. Abraham said the request will help the commission look into exactly what is required by the state, and which of these policies may need to be addressed further.Email To : Multiple e-mail addresses must be separated with a comma character(maximum 200 characters) Email To is required.

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Your Email Address: Your Email Address is required.CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via OTC PR WIRE -- Mobicard Inc. aka Peer-To-Peer Network (OTC:PTOP) is pleased to announce it has completed its internal review of Think Latitudes comprehensive code analysis of its Mobicard product and has already begun to take the next steps. The team at Think Latitude recommends that we strategize for the future of the Mobicard application to address several components that include, but are not limited to, the following:



Robust web application for Mobicard that includes the current functionality of Mobicard along with full implementation of the 25-action items, several of which were crucial to the original functionality of Mobicard along with enhancements. This will be built on new supported framework for modern web browsers i.e. Laravel, CodeIgniter, Ruby, Python, etc. One native iOS application for Mobicard which can run on Apple-based smartphones. One native Android application for Mobicard which can run on Android-based smartphones. A master admin panel which allows respective business decision-makers from Mobicard to fully analyze their customer base. A customer portal which allows users of the Mobicard application to see their Mobicard activity from the user base they send it to.

Joshua Sodaitis has been Mobicard CEO for a little over two months, and has initiated a complete reorganization, vision shift, and a restructure from the ground up of all former management & CEOs former processes. The new vision is to offer two versions of Mobicard. This new vision includes top of the line technology on a new and improved platform.

(1) A free version that would allow Mobicard to demonstrate its tremendous value to businesses of all sizes and industries, in order to expand the user base of Mobicard more rapidly. This free version could drive revenue to the company, allowing for monetization through banner ads and other forms of advertisements.

(2) A paid for subscription-based version that will be ad-free.

CEO Joshua Sodaitis said, The former application and process was flawed. Through my efforts of improving the product with the right team and people, we will clean up the process and make it more efficient. I think this will allow us to sell more, scale faster, improve margins, and lower our expenses.

Mobicard plans to create all new marketing materials to reflect a new improved platform. This would include social media account(s) to separate entirely form all the former managements efforts.

Mobicard, under the new CEOs management, intends to create an entirely new website, reestablish former relations, and create and balance new relationships for the progression of the company.

In my short time as CEO I have been dedicated to advancing the interests of shareholders, with an emphasis on improving and modernizing the fundamentals of the company through the core business product. After reviewing Think Latitudes comprehensive code analysis, and many hours of deliberation, I have decided it will be a better business decision for the company by time, and cost, to develop a new improved platform with new features as well as upgrading previous features. Additionally, the web application can serve as the key backend to developing a native application, which can be cross-implemented to lower the time frame compared to implementing them separately. It will also cost less to develop the fundamentals of the core business product in this manner. Estimation for the recommended items will require ongoing communication and specific recommendations and requirements between Mobicard and Think Latitude, and can be done in a phase-based approach to meet any specific deadlines that we may decide for the calendar/fiscal year, stated Josh Sodaitis.

After we redesign Mobicard to a new technologically advanced platform and migrate existing users appropriately as per the discretion of Mobicards management, we can determine a phase out approach to shut down the existing AWS servers where the current Mobicard website and application reside. With the new Mobicard application, there will be a complete revamp of the Mobicard website where users can seamlessly access the Mobicard application from any platform including mobile devices, tablets, and computers. Our strategic initiative for developing the new Mobicard applications will not only include plans to improve the performance, but will also provide a vastly improved user experience for the customers, expressed Andy Sajnani, CEO of Think Latitude.

Joshua Sodaitis, CEO of Mobicard, went on to articulate, I believe with my vision implemented properly, I should easily be able to expand revenues, but more importantly with the proper planning, management, numbers, data and team, we should be able to increase the overall valuation for long-term strategic expansion. Whats important to me is that this company will survive and eradicate the former management teams mistakes, thrive in saturating the market, and be able to grow exponentially in the future.

Mobicard Inc. has submitted a PowerPoint presentation to Think Latitude that will be used as a template for Think Latitude to put together a Statement of Work proposal in order to determine cost, timeframe for completion, and new feature additions including expanding to native applications. After the SOW is submitted to Mobicard Inc. from Think Latitude, they will enter into negotiations between the two companies. After these negotiations are completed, the two companies will settle on an arrangement based upon equity and cash to have the new improved vision and product completed. Both companies would like to pursue a continued relationship and advance the technology together.

Joshua Sodaitis, CEO, concluded: My persistent, continuous action and dedication to removing previous inefficient management that do not perform, and by bringing the right people to the team, coupled with my dedication to advancement and implementing my new vision, is what will continue to advance the company forward. I look forward to the next steps with Think Latitude in our negotiations going forward.

MobiCard owns and markets its core technology, a SaaS mobile solution branded C2A MobiCard, a scalable mobile business card software platform that enables users to create a customized web-based personalized mobile app that is sharable by text SMS, email, digital and social media. Subscribers are able to track when the card opens, views and shares all while validating and analyzing new leads and referrals in real time, thereby knowing who and when to follow up www.freemobicard.com

Safe Harbor Statement:

This release includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. The Company invokes the protections of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements regarding our expected future financial position, results of operations, cash flows, financing plans, business strategies, products and services, competitive positions, growth opportunities, plans and objectives of management for future operations, as well as statements that include words such as "anticipate," "if," "believe," "plan," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "could," "should," "will," and other similar expressions are forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements involve risks, uncertainties and contingencies, many of which are beyond our control, which may cause actual results, performance, or achievements to differ materially from anticipated results, performance, or achievements. Factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements include those set forth in our filings at www.sec.gov . The company is no longer a fully reporting SEC filing company. We are under no obligation to (and expressly disclaim any such obligation to) update or alter our forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Joshua Sodaitis, CEO

MobiCard, Inc.

45 Prospect Street, Cambridge, MA 02139

Phone: 1-617-651-2460

Email: info@freemobicard.com



Advertisement

By West Kentucky Star Staff

Sep. 25, 2018 | PADUCAH

By West Kentucky Star Staff Sep. 25, 2018 | 04:53 PM | PADUCAH

West Kentucky Community and Technical College's (WKCTC) 2018 West is Best Barbecue and Scholarship Auction at the Julian Carroll Convention Center September 20 raised more than $64,000 for student scholarships, bringing the total raised since January for the College's merit and endowed scholarships to $138,000.



Paducah Junior College (PJC), the foundation supporting WKCTC, hosts the scholarship auction each year with a dinner featuring a live and silent auction that raises money to help deserving students from throughout the region pursue a college education. WKCTC Vice President for Advancement and PJC Executive Director Lee Emmons said the turnout for the event was wonderful and other scholarship donations continue to come in to her office.



"Through the West is Best event, we were able to nearly double in one evening the amount raised thus far in 2018 for general and donor-endowed scholarships," Emmons said. "We're so very grateful to the event sponsors, donors, and participants who made this possible, along with all the donors who contributed prior to the event and those who continue to give so that area students can pursue their education right here at WKCTC."



For the second consecutive year, the scholarship auction featured the West is Best theme, emphasizing the college's focus on regionalism and highlighting regional favorites, including West Kentucky barbecue. Each of the counties in WKCTC's 10-county service region in Kentucky and its five county partners in southern Illinois were highlighted at the event.



WKCTC President Anton Reece thanked the West is Best donors for their support and emphasized the importance of their contributions to the success of WKCTC students.



"You are making a difference in the lives of our students with your continued support of this auction," said Reece as he addressed the crowd. "Thanks to you, we are able to continue to help students afford a college education; you help ensure better lives for a better Kentucky."



Anyone interested in more information about contributing to scholarships for WKCTC students can contact Emmons at 270-534-3084 or lee.emmons@kctcs.edu.Expert at Rittenhouse trial zeroes in on just a few minutesBy West Kentucky Star Staff Sep. 25, 2018 | 10:15 PM | GRAVES COUNTY

Graves County Schools raised its tax rate on Monday.

The tax increase is 3.9 cents per $100 of assessed valuation, with 1.1 cents to go into the general fund and 2.8 cents to go into the building fund.

Superintendent Kim Dublin says the increase in a resident of Graves County's total tax bill should be in the neighborhood of $3 to $6 a month for most people.

School districts are not allowed to raise their tax rates by 4 percent without recall. They are allowed to set a rate that produces 4 percent more revenue than the year before. In Graves County's case, this amounts to 1.1 cents per $100 of assessed valuation. That amount of the tax increase cannot be recalled by a vote. The additional 2.8 cents of the 3.9 cent total is the recallable portion.

Of the proposed tax increase, Dublin said the 1.1 cent portion will go toward new student resource officers. The 2.8 cent recallable portion will go to renovate Lowes Elementary School and replace the HVAC at Farmington Elementary. Without the increase, Dublin says renovations to Lowes will not happen.

A small group of Graves County residents has formed a committee to petition against the tax hike. They want to put the issue on the ballot and give voters a chance to repeal the tax hike. The committee needs 1,680 valid signatures in the next 30 days, and then the process for verification can begin.

On the Net:By Paul Schaumburg, Graves County Schools Sep. 26, 2018 | 06:02 AM | GRAVES COUNTY

The Graves County elementary schools' score for proficiency, measuring reading and math, is 84, well above the statewide score of 70.5 on the Kentucky Department of Education accountability assessment for the 2017-18 school year. Graves County elementary schools' score on a separate academic indicator of science, social studies, and writing at 80.2, also is well above the state score of 64.8. The growth score, which KDE calculates and projects for the state, at 17.1, is a slim margin above Graves County elementary schools' 16.9.

Graves County Middle School scored 84.5 on proficiency, reflecting major growth from previous school years on that indicator and outdistancing the state score of 72.8. The GCMS separate academic indicator score of 73.4 also is significantly higher than the statewide score of 66.8. Graves Middle's growth indicator score of 10.5 was just below the state score of 12.1.

Graves County High School scored 68 on the proficiency indicator, far surpassing the state score of 59.3 A high school's transition score measures elements formerly known as college and/or career readiness. Graves High's transition score of 77.4 significantly surpasses the statewide score of 60.9. Graves County's graduation indicator score of 95.8 far exceeds the statewide graduation indicator score of 90.8.

KDE designates the bottom 5 percent of Kentucky schools as needing "Comprehensive Support and Improvement" or "CSI." No Graves County school is so designated.

"Targeted Support and Improvement," or "TSI," is another of three possible categories. Kentucky Interim Commissioner of Education Wayne D. Lewis previously has said, "To be clear, a school's designation as TSI does not mean the school is failing or a low-performing school. It does mean that work remains to be done with raising the achievement levels for all groups of students, and it makes reducing the disparities between the performances of student groups a top priority."

KDE calls the performance of the remaining Kentucky schools "Other." That makes "Other" the highest designation a school can receive. All seven Graves County elementary schools earned the designation of "Other."

"Our designation of 'Other' gives us some insight into the new assessment," said Graves County elementary instructional supervisor Amanda Henson. "The fact that all seven Graves County elementary schools earned the highest designation reflects how closely and how well our district team collaborates. It also is a tribute to the efforts of teachers, administrators, parents, and  of course  our students."

This assessment feedback is based on the 2017-18 school year and the measurement of only three indicators is part of the transition from one system to the next. The first results from the entire standardized testing model Gov. Matt Bevin commissioned are expected to be released a year from now. That expanded model will be comprised of seven indicators, each measured on a 5-star rating system. They include achievement, gap, growth, transition readiness, proficiency, separate academic, and graduation rate.

"Every time we receive data measuring student performance, we examine it thoroughly, collaborate on how to improve, and then work hard to ensure student success," said Graves County Schools secondary instructional supervisor Abbie Morris. "Early indications are that TSI will help us to more quickly identify areas targeted for improvement."

"Along with our instructional supervisors, Ms. Morris and Ms. Henson, I am very encouraged," said Superintendent Kim Dublin. "We are very proud of the dedication and hard work of our teachers, students, principals, and parents. Children are our greatest resource and their education is our most important investment."Advertisement

By West Kentucky Star Staff

Sep. 25, 2018 | MURRAY

By West Kentucky Star Staff Sep. 25, 2018 | 09:01 PM | MURRAY

High school students looking to learn more about scholarships and receive financial assistance have an added resource to prepare for admission to Murray State University: a new partnership with RaiseMe.



RaiseMe gives high school students the ability to earn micro-scholarships for college starting as early as ninth grade. The incremental micro-scholarships can be earned for numerous categories, including academic achievements, classroom attendance, extracurricular activities, community service and even by scheduling a campus visit to Murray State.



The partnership is the latest in a series of University initiatives that make a Murray State education more accessible to students. To date, more than 1,000 high school students are connected with Raise Me through the University's web page at raise.me/join/murraystate.



"Murray State University's innovative partnership with RaiseMe allows us to provide a valuable tool that motivates and rewards students who work hard both inside and outside of the classroom to prepare them for a transformative experience at Murray State," said Don Robertson, vice president of student affairs.



In order to be eligible for scholarships, soon-to-be high school graduates of the Class of 2019 are encouraged to create an account as soon as possible, and begin applying for scholarships.By West Kentucky Star Staff Sep. 21, 2018 | 02:02 PM | HICKMAN COUNTY







UPDATE: The name of an accident victim in Hickman County has been releasedKYTN is reporting that Hickman County Sheriff Mark Green said 54-year-old Arthur Dale Hanks was killed when his vehicle left the roadway on Highway 307.The accident occurred around 4:15 Friday morning, with Hanks vehicle striking a tree and coming to rest on its side.Reports indicated Hanks was from Obion County, TN, but was living near a location of a relative in Hickman County.The cause of the accident is not known, and Hanks was not wearing a seat belt at the time of the crash.ORIGINAL STORY:A single vehicle accident in Hickman County has claimed the life on one person.KYTN reports that Hickman County Sheriff Mark Green said the vehicle was discovered around 4:15 Friday morning on Highway 307.Sheriff Green explained that the vehicle had left the roadway and was on its side when discovered.The identity of the victim is not being released at this time, pending notification of family members.By West Kentucky Star Staff Sep. 25, 2018 | 05:36 PM | WESTERN KENTUCKY

Students at area schools will meet Wednesday for prayer before classes begin at school.See You at the Pole is a global day of student prayer that began in 1990 as a grass roots movement with ten students praying at their school. Twenty years later, millions pray on their campuses on the fourth Wednesday in September.See You at the Pole is nothing more than a prayer rally where students meet at the school flagpole before class to lift up their friends, families, teachers, school, and nation to God. It is a student-initiated, student-organized, and student-led event.This year's theme is "Broken," with Ephesians 3:14 as the focus. It says, "I fall on my knees before the Father."The Fellowship of Christian Athletes of Western Kentucky has compiled this list showing when students will be meeting at area schools.Feel free to submit photos from any area school prayer events to news@wkyx.com.OVERLAND PARK, Kan., Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- DataLocker, Inc., a leading provider of encryption solutions, today announced that the companys recently announced DataLocker Sentry K300 encrypted flash drive is in stock and now available for order. When the company first introduced the K300 at RSA 2018, attendees gave the company a very positive reaction to the industrys first menu driven encrypted keypad flash drive featuring AES 256-bit encryption, an alpha-numeric keypad, enhanced security features, and up to 256GB capacity, all developed around DataLockers Simply Secure design principles. Since RSA, the K300 has passed FIPS 197 and IP57 certifications.



The Sentry K300 is available for purchase from major resellers and distributors worldwide.

The Sentry K300 is the industrys only platform-independent and OS agnostic keypad flash drive which incorporates an OLED display and represents the next generation of encrypted data storage products. In addition to the displays true alpha-numeric password-based authentication, the Sentry K300 offers users a full featured, visual based menu driven system to easily change passwords, set password policy and enable other security features without needing to consult a user manual. The Sentry K300 utilizes micro SSD flash memory to offer unparalleled speed and performance.

The Sentry K300 is the next generation of DataLockers flagship encrypted storage solutions that uses alpha-numeric keypads for secure access to data. This drive is the perfect tool for security conscious mobile users who require a bootable and fast encrypted storage device for BYOD environments. The K300 can be used with absolutely any device, tablet, mobile phone, computer, or kiosk that supports USB mass storage, said Jay Kim, CEO, DataLocker.

The Sentry K300 requires no software or special drivers and easily works with Windows, Linux, Mac, Android phones and tablets, Chromebooks, and embedded systems that can use USB mass storage. The K300 has its own power supply and can be used as a bootable device running Windows to Go, Ubuntu Linux, or local operating systems. The Sentry K300 offers User and Admin roles, read only mode, an Admin configurable password policy, an auto-lock feature, and rapid secure wipe in case the drive is lost or stolen. The Sentry K300 is designed to be managed by SafeConsole, DataLockers flagship central management platform.

For more information on the Sentry K300, go to datalocker.com .

NOTE TO EDITORS/REVIEWERS

Limited samples of the Sentry K300 are available for editorial review; please send a request to review the product to Katie Leverman at DataLocker via email to katie@datalocker.com . Please include the name of the publication/website, a shipping address, and a contact email/phone number.

About DataLocker

DataLocker (datalocker.com) is an innovative provider of encryption solutions. DataLocker offers encryption products such as external storage, cloud encryption gateways, and central management services for governments, military, and enterprises around the world. DataLocker owns leading encryption solutions under the DataLocker, DataLocker Sentry, SafeConsole and IronKey EMS brands. Headquartered in Overland Park, Kansas, DataLocker products combine superior convenience and usability with state-of-the-art security. DataLocker is "Simply Secure."

Press Contact:

Dan Chmielewski

Madison Alexander PR

+1-714-832-8716

+1-949-231-2965

dchm@madisonalexanderpr.com

Photos accompanying this announcement are available at

http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/2dc3d0d2-ca2f-4674-957f-f9b530f9cf31

http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/3278b29d-cd9d-49d3-885a-96ac2e0d6465

http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/d6849437-bd5b-4c23-99fe-1541b2a391b1By: Paige Cline Sometimes I am asked to reprint a column from the past. Here[Read More]Pune, India, Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Global Surgical Equipment Industry has grown considerably due to the rise in the healthcare sector especially the surgery segment. The Surgical Equipment Market is anticipated to develop with a CAGR of 6.2% in the forecast period. The necessity to conduct major surgical procedures in hospitals to treat diseases and various trauma cases has grown at a tremendous pace in the past years due to a higher number of patient volumes. The wide range of applications of surgical equipment in ophthalmic surgery, cardiovascular surgeries, wound closure, orthopedic surgery, urology and others.

The rising incidence of chronic diseases such as obesity, skin diseases, growing number of surgeries in ambulatory surgical centers and hospitals, and the mounting geriatric population is fuelling the overall market growth in the forecast period for surgical equipments. In addition, the progress of the medical device market, a growing number of surgical centers, and government initiatives have also reflected positively on the market. Moreover, the development of the market is also controlled by numerous factors such as the elevated cost of surgical devices and stringent regulatory policies for several regulatory authorities. The emphasis on effectiveness and precision by medical professionals worldwide is fuelling the demand for precise and superior quality equipments.

Get Exclusive Sample Copy of Surgical Equipment Market Report Explores Industry Size, Status and Forecast 2023 which is spread across 130 Premium Pages and Provide Exclusive Vital Statistics Data Information, Geographical Trends and Landscape Details at https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/556

The escalated level of research and development activities in the market are improving the quality and the range of functions that can be performed by the equipments which will reduce healing times and recovery of patients undergoing elective and lifesaving surgical procedures which will improve market growth over the forecast period.

Surgical Equipment Market Segmentation

The segmentation of the surgical equipment market is carried out on the basis of application, product type, and end-user. On the basis of application, the market is segmented into wound closure, urology, cardiovascular surgeries, orthopedic surgery, neurosurgery, and others. On the basis of product type, the market is segmented into handheld instruments, surgical sutures and staplers, electrosurgical devices, monitoring devices, electrosurgical generators, and others. Handheld instruments are further segmented into sutures, forceps, visual scope, and others. Surgical sutures and staplers are further segmented into non-absorbable and absorbable sutures. Electrosurgical devices are further segmented into electrosurgical instruments such as electrosurgical pencils, HET bipolar system, electrosurgical generators, smoke evacuation system, and others. On the basis of end-user, the market is segmented into ambulatory surgical centers, hospitals and others.

Key Players

The eminent competitors in the Surgical Equipment Market for the surgical equipment market are B. Braun Melsungen AG (Germany), Ethicon US, LLC. (US), Integra LifeSciences Corporation (US), Covidien (US), CONMED Corporation (US), Erbe Elektromedizin GmbH (Germany), Medicon (US), Stryker Corporation (US), Smith & Nephew (UK), Synergetics USA, Inc. (US), KARL STORZ & Co. (US), and KLS Martin (Germany).

Latest Industry News

Stryker Corporation is acquiring Invuity for USD 190 million. The company manufactures a line of surgical tools with built-in headlights, that make it easier for surgeons to see what they are doing during minimally invasive procedures.

A UK-based medical equipment maker, CMR Surgical has revealed a next-generation surgical robotic system, called Versius, to deliver a portable option for minimal access surgery. The robotic system is designed to address the difficulties and offer better access during minimal access surgeries.

The Fast-Paced Technological Reforms in Surgical Equipment to Brighten Market Outlook

The Americas region holds the main share of the surgical equipment market. The development of the medical device sector, growing emphasis on quality care, and the accessibility to technologically-advanced surgical devices are the chief drivers for the progress of the market. The North American region holds the chief share, with the U.S. being the chief contributor to the progress of the market. In the U.S., the existence of major companies in the medical device industry and the widespread use of surgical devices will motivate the market. The South American region also exhibits great progress prospects with an upsurge in the demand for surgical devices.

In the European region, the U.K., Germany, and France are the key suppliers to the development of the market. The growing number of market companies producing surgical equipment, rising government support, and surge in the outpatient surgeries will drive the market in the European countries. Furthermore, growing healthcare expenditure by the European nations also contributes to the growth of the market.

The Asia Pacific, Surgical Equipment Market, is fueled by the vast demand for surgical devices and instruments, growing awareness around quality care in surgical centers and hospitals, and the increasing incidence of chronic diseases such as cardiovascular diseases. Australia and India show the most rapid growth in the market due to the accessibility to competent and skilled medical specialists and expanding healthcare expenditure. In the Middle East and Africa, the market growth is ascribed to the developing availability of specialty care services in countries such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The African region displays stable growth with the demand for primary care services rising in the region.

Get Discount on Surgical Equipment Market Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/check-discount/556

Related Report:

Veterinary Surgical Instruments Market- Global Forecast to 2023

Global Veterinary Surgical Instruments Market Information; by Types (Scalpel handles, Forceps, Dressing, Scissors, Needle holders, Retractors); by Applications (Orthopedic, Sterilization, Ophthalmic, Dental); by Animals (Canines, Felines, Large Animals) - Forecast to 2023.

Surgical Robots Market Research Report - Global Forecast To 2023

Global Surgical Robots Market Research Report, by Control Mechanism (Direct Telemanipulator and Computer Control), by Robotic Surgery Approach (Supervisor-Controlled Robotic Surgical System, Shared Control Robotic Surgical Systems, Telesurgery Systems, Robotic Radiosurgery Systems), by Application (General Surgery, Cardiac Surgery, Gynecologic Surgery, Colorectal Surgery, Urologic Surgery, Head and Neck Surgery and other) - Forecast to 2023.

About US:

Market Research Future (MRFR), enable customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.



RALEIGH, N.C., Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- LandStar, Inc. (OTCPK: LDSR) (LandStar or the Company), the parent company of Data443 Risk Mitigation, Inc. (Data443), a leading data security and privacy company, confirmed today that Data443 has partnered with It4us Big Data Security Analysis, a Brazilian information technology solutions and services provider focused on cybersecurity, data privacy compliance, and cloud management services for the corporate market. The partnership accents the value of Data443s award-winning data classification and governance technology ClassiDocs to the Brazilian market as the country readies its General Data Privacy Law (LGPD), which will take effect in February 2020. Like the EUs General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the LGPD has deep and complex requirements that will challenge companies to respond. ClassiDocs is purpose-built to deliver industry-leading data security and accurate privacy compliance that address LGPD requirements such as data mapping, data protection impact assessments, mandatory breach notifications, and individual rights to access and erase personal data. Data443 anticipates demand for products like ClassiDocs will increase as the LGPD enforcement deadline draws near.



The GDPR sparked a worldwide trend toward more stringent protection of personal data, said Jason Remillard, CEO of LandStar and founder of Data443. Brazils new law mirrors the GDPR in its complexity but takes it a step further by requiring companies to respond in 15 days instead of 30. The LGPD  as well as an increase in similar regulations worldwide  underscores the market potential of our partnership with It4us. By combining their technological and service expertise with Data443 product solutions like ClassiDocs, we will work together to help customers prepare quickly and respond effectively to the LGPD and other regulations.

According to a Zion Market Research study published in May, cybersecurity market revenue is expected to grow rapidly across Latin America over the next five years, with Brazil seen as having the most potential for business sector growth in the category. The advent of the LGPD is the likely driver of this growth for the Brazilian market based on the fact that Gartner projects regulatory compliance will become the prime influencer for IoT security spending by 2021. It4us aims to capture this growth by offering product solutions such as Data443s ClassiDocs to help customers assess network vulnerabilities and establish a best-practice response to the LGPD.

We are excited to bring ClassiDocs to our customers, said Fabio Pamio, CEO at It4US. It4us has completed more than 600 successful projects to date and we are ready to help our customers move forward under the LGPD. Data443 and ClassiDocs will enable us to do this with an impressive range of capabilities that make it easy for companies of all sizes to adapt to the new security requirements.

ClassiDocs deploys in hours to provide continually up-to-date data classification across the entire data estate, including all endpoints, cloud storage, databases, email, structured and unstructured data, and data at rest or in flight. Upon deployment and without specific training, users can:

Discover confidential information such as PII, PCI, and HIPAA

Report on and remediate security access controls

Respond to DSARs and remediation actions

Enable customer eDiscovery

Comply with regulation requirements such as those outlined by the LGPD

To learn more about Data443 and ClassiDocs or to schedule a demonstration, Brazil-based customers may contact It4us at +55 (11) 4063-4363 or email contato@it4us.com.br.

About LandStar, Inc.

LandStar, Inc. (OTCPK: LDSR), through its wholly owned subsidiary Data443 Risk Mitigation, Inc., enables secure data  across local devices, network, cloud, and databases  at rest and in flight. ClassiDocs, the companys award-winning data classification and governance technology, provides GDPR compliance and DSAR management coupled with DLP, CASB, SIEM, and cloud solutions to provide user-enabled, governance-enabled, up-to-date security for every data point, every time. The WordPress-based GDPR Framework enables organizations of all sizes to comply with the GDPR and other privacy frameworks. ClassiDocs for Blockchain provides an active implementation for the Ripple XRP that protects blockchain transactions from inadvertent disclosure and data leaks. For more information, please visit www.data443.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

The statements contained in this release that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as may, will, could, should, expect, plan, project, intend, anticipate, believe, estimate, predict, potential, pursuant, target, continue, and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. The statements in this press release that are not historical statements, including statements regarding LandStars plans, objectives, future opportunities for LandStars services, future financial performance and operating results and any other statements regarding LandStars future expectations, beliefs, plans, objectives, financial conditions, assumptions or future events or performance that are not historical facts, are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. These statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond LandStars control, which could cause actual results to differ materially from the results expressed or implied by the statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to the operations of LandStar; results of litigation, settlements and investigations; actions by third parties, including governmental agencies; volatility in customer spending; global economic conditions; ability to hire and retain personnel; loss of, or reduction in business with, key customers; difficulty with growth and in integrating acquisitions; product liability; cybersecurity risk; and, anti-takeover measures in our charter documents.

Additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements is contained, from time-to-time, in LandStars filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and postings on the OTC Markets news and information website. LandStar undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement.

For Further Information

Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/data443Risk

Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/data443/

Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/data443-risk-mitigation-inc/

Signup for our Investor Newsletter: https://www.data443.com/investor-relations/



Contacts

Main Press Contact:

Susan Payne

susan.payne@data443.com

919.526.1070 Ext. 103

Investor Relations Contact:

Matthew Abenante

Porter, LeVay & Rose, Inc.

data443@plrinvest.com

212.564.4700

///***ClassiDocs Classification: PUBLIC ***///Awards for Wits researchers advancing science for society

The National Research Foundation has recognised Wits researchers for advancing their fields.

The annual NRF Awards recognise research excellence in South Africa and progress in building an inclusive scientific community. The 2018 awards, in Port Elizabeth on 26 September, were themed Advancing Science for Societal Benefit.

Mrs. Natalie Benjamin-Damons, a lecturer in Physiotherapy in the School of Therapeutic Sciences at Wits won the Next Generation Researcher Award for outstanding academic performance in her final year as a doctoral student.

Benjamin-Damons research focus is paediatrics, child health, and development in children living with HIV. In particular, she is interested in the physiotherapeutic management of children living with HIV, due to the limited literature on the topic.

"Dr. Natalie Benjamin-Damons' achievement was made in the face of strong national competition and augers well for Wits and its quest to grow new waves of research excellence. Please join me in wishing Natalie well, and in congratulating the School for supporting our early career academics," said Dr. Robin Drennan, Director of Research Development at Wits.

Two Wits researchers were awarded NRF A-ratings for the first time. An A-rated researcher is defined as someone who is recognised by their peers as a leading international scholar in their field for the high quality and impact of their recent research outputs.

The NRFs first A-rated political scientist

Professor Lawrence Hamilton is the first political scientist in the history of the NRF rating system to receive an A-rating. Hamilton is the NRF/British Academy Bilateral Research Chair in Political Theory at Wits University and Cambridge University. This programme aims to balance historical colonial power relations by empowering the global South through research and engagement.

Reviewers described Hamiltons work as cutting edge and having a major international impact. It is shaping the discourse on needs, power and freedom, and offers a genuinely novel theory of political power and democratic practice. It has created fresh dialogue across disciplines, particularly political theory, philosophy, and development economics.

Father of Green Chemistry A-rated

Roger Sheldon, Distinguished Professor of Biocatalysis in the School of Chemistry at Wits was also newly A-rated. Sheldon is a recognised authority on green chemistry and renowned as a founding father of this field. His expertise in green chemistry includes the development of methods for quantifying the environmental impact of chemical processes, such as E factors (which refers to the two measures of the potential environmental acceptability of chemical processes), and atom utilisation.

By using biocatalysts to improve the production of chemicals, Sheldon and his colleagues have made several major breakthroughs in green chemistry, even developing magnetised enzymes, which could be recycled out of liquids (and re-used), by separating the magnetised enzymes from the liquids.

Wits University boasts 28 A-rated scientists and five of these A-ratings were renewed at the awards:

A lifetime of stargazing

Wits alumnus Dr. Bernard Fanaroff, Special Adviser and Former Director Square Kilometre Array South Africa (SKA-SA) received the NRF Lifetime Achievement Award, which recognises the lifelong research achievements of individuals together with their impact on society. Fanaroff was recognised for his scientific contribution; his activism as an anti-apartheid activist; his contribution as a public servant and as the Director of SKA-SA. In the latter role, he successfully led the bid for South Africa to host the SKA and the design and construction of the Meerkat Telescope. Wits awarded Fanaroff an honorary doctorate in 2013 for his contribution to SKA-SA.UPDATE: Rome police say a man shot his friend with a pellet gun on Tuesday night and then lied to police about it.

Police say three men were hanging out at an apartment near the Burger King in the 100 block of South Madison Street when one of them, who is 34 years old, walked to Burger King to get food. Police say one of the mans friends shot him in the back with a pellet gun on his way into Burger King, and as he was walking back to the apartment with the food, his friend shot him again, this time in the chest.

The man fell to the ground and his friends then called 911, and police say the two friends who were in the apartment made up a story to tell police so that they wouldnt be implicated. The men told police that they heard a bang while they were inside the apartment, then saw their friend lying in the parking lot, and they said they didn't know who had shot him.

The victim is currently in stable condition at St. Elizabeth Medical Center, but he is not cooperating with police.

Police say charges are pending, and they are not yet releasing the identities of the three men involved.

Well provide more information as it becomes available.

____________________________________________________

ROME, N.Y. - The Rome Police Department is investigating a late night shooting in the city that sent one person to the hospital with a gunshot wound to the chest.

The shooting happened around 8:30 p.m. Tuesday in the area of South Madison Street, near Burger King.

Police tell us that one male victim was taken to St. Elizabeth Medical Center in Utica with non-life threatening injuries, and he is currently in stable condition. His identity is not being released at this time.

As of Wednesday morning, no arrests have been made.

Rome police are asking the public to come forward with information. If you saw anything out of the ordinary around the time of the shooting, you are asked to call police at 315-339-7715.

We will provide more information as it becomes available.Twenty-five-year-old Brandon Zakris is a New York State Trooper. The New York Mills resident and Westmoreland High School graduate also answers the need when called by the New York Army National Guard, where he's a First Lieutenant. It was in that capacity that the pilot lowered medics onto rooftops in Wilmington, North Carolina, after Hurricane florence decimated parts of the city.

"I've never been to an area affected like this by flooding before. This was really my first stateside mission in the aviation world," said Lt. Zakris.

Lt. Zakris used iPad programs for navigating and flight planning and street-level and satellite imagery to find people who needed rescuing. The assignments piled up. He flew four of the six days he was deployed in Wilmington. Some simply needed to be removed because they were cut off from the rest of the world, without any electricity or communication. For others, the situation was much more dire.

"We did evacuate one ... he was a 78-year-old gentleman off of a rooftop using a basket. The floodwaters were at the rooftop level and a boat crew had found him and they were having trouble because the current was so strong," said Lt. Zakris.

It wasn't only people who Lt. Zakris helped to rescue. There were also roughly 20 dogs and 18 cats. For many families, it was, "all of us go, or none of us go."

"A lot of families wouldn't leave without them, so, it was either they were gonna stay, or they had to take their animals, and we made the decision to take the animals as long as they were well secured and kind of held down by the crew," said the Lieutenant.

The roar of the helicopter was deafening. But the gratitude of those rescued was unmistakable.

"We would take these people from their flooded areas and we land at a shopping mall and drop them off in the parking lot of the shopping mall,to set up evacuation collection point for these people and they'd get out and they'd turn around and give you a big thumbs up and a smile and, you know, that felt really good."OTTAWA, Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Eclipse Foundation today announced that it is collaborating with the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) on a new Kubernetes IoT Edge Working Group to address the surging demand for Kubernetes in IoT cloud and edge environments. IDC forecasts worldwide spending on IoT to reach $1.2 trillion in 2022, and Kubernetes footprint is rapidly expanding in large-scale IoT deployments. The Kubernetes IoT Edge Working Group will focus first on evolving Kubernetes to support IoT workloads at the edge (a $2.1 billion market by 2021, according to IDC ), and will define key use cases and requirements alongside CNCF, Eclipse Foundation members, and the entire ecosystem and community of users.



Kubernetes in IoT is still new on the adoption curve, but already showcases impressive success stories. Earlier this summer, Chick-fil-A wrote about deploying mini data centers at 2,000 restaurants with 6,000 devices at the edge running Kubernetes -- which served to remove the dependency on Internet connections and to support low latency requirements for business critical IoT. Bosch Software Innovations also uses Kubernetes to automate the deployment, scaling, and management of containers across its Bosch IoT Suite and leverages Eclipse Hono and Eclipse Ditto to reliably scale to millions of connected devices.

Similar to the role that the LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl/PHP/Python) played as the open source backbone of commercial web applications, the IoT industry is collaborating on open source and rushing to form a stack of complementary technologies for building IoT systems. The new Kubernetes IoT Edge Working Group is the collaboration between the Eclipse IoT Working Group and its 40 member companies and 35 open source projects, and the Kubernetes ecosystem to define terminology, identify gaps in deployment and management, educate the market on common use cases and typical scenarios for IoT solutions, put standard metrics in place, and identify open source projects that could help.

"Companies with commercial interests in IoT are facing a common set of infrastructure challenges at the edge, said Dejan Bosanac, Engineer at Red Hat, and lead for Kubernetes IoT Edge Working Group. IoT and edge applications have many distributed components that don't usually sit together within the same datacenter infrastructure. There are messaging challenges, security has to be re-invented for every application and service, and there are integration and data locality issues with sidecar services. These are issues that shouldn't have to be re-invented every time -- they should be open source infrastructure with broad industry support. Red Hat and this working group see Kubernetes and other cloud-native projects in its orbit as having broad potential sitting between gateways, edge nodes and cloud platforms. Much like the LAMP stack was instrumental to the web-applications era, this group is focused on accelerating a Kubernetes stack for running cloud infrastructure and distributed components at the IoT edge."

The collaboration between the Kubernetes and Eclipse IoT communities will enable the development of a truly open ecosystem for distributed IoT edge computing, said Eclipse Foundation Executive Director, Mike Milinkovich. The complexity of orchestrating IoT systems is a problem domain that Kubernetes is a perfect fit for, and many complementary open source projects are under the Eclipse IoT umbrella, so were very excited to work with the CNCF to support this surge of interest around Kubernetes in IoT.

Kubernetes is the orchestration platform of choice for building hybrid cloud services, and we see it playing a major role in future IoT and Edge deployments, said Chris Aniszczyk, COO of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation. CNCF is proud to collaborate with the vibrant Eclipse community through the newly formed Kubernetes IoT Edge Working Group to accelerate innovation and market adoption of cloud native IoT.

By joining the Kubernetes IoT Edge Working Group, companies and individuals can participate in an open process that encourages contributions from all to define priorities and deliver the roadmap. For more information, please visit the Kubernetes IoT Edge Working Group community page .

About Eclipse IoT

The Eclipse IoT Working Group is a collaborative working group hosted by the Eclipse Foundation , that is working to create open source software for IoT solutions. Eclipse IoT is made up of over 40 member companies and 35 open source projects.

About Cloud Native Computing Foundation

Cloud native computing uses an open source software stack to deploy applications as microservices, packaging each part into its own container, and dynamically orchestrating those containers to optimize resource utilization. The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) hosts critical components of cloud native software stacks, including Kubernetes and Prometheus. CNCF serves as the neutral home for collaboration and brings together the industrys top developers, end users and vendors  including the worlds largest public cloud and enterprise software companies as well as dozens of innovative startups. CNCF is part of The Linux Foundation, a nonprofit organization. For more information about CNCF, please visit www.cncf.io.

_________________________________

Quote Sheet Addendum

List of quotes from interested parties stating their support for the initiative.

Bosch Software Innovations

Bosch Software Innovations has been a leading adopter of Kubernetes for IoT cloud services. Being an innovator of IoT solutions, Bosch IoT Suite makes extensive use of Kubernetes to scale and manage a comprehensive set of IoT cloud services. The collaboration between the Eclipse IoT WG and CNCF to extend the usage of Kubernetes in IoT use cases is something we support. Bosch Software Innovations views open source as being a critical driving force to the IoT industry.

-- Caroline Buck, Product Owner Bosch IoT Suite, Bosch Software Innovations

Eurotech

As a founding member of the Eclipse IoT Working Group, Eurotech is excited to contribute to this new initiative in order to advance the adoption of Cloud technologies into IoT solutions. As firm believer of modular IoT Edge Frameworks, Eurotech is welcoming the opportunity of bringing containerization and service orchestration to the Edge. The efforts of the Kubernetes IoT Edge Working Group will aim at leveraging this technology as a unified management and orchestration layer for IoT Cloud Services and IoT Edge nodes.

-- Marco Carrer, CTO, Eurotech

InfluxData

As active members of the community and members of Eclipse and CNCF, InfluxData is deeply committed to lending its expertise around metrics and events, and other time series data. As the leading time-series database we are excited to help contribute to the reference architectures that enable seamless data collection and actionable analytics from the edge to the cloud.

-- David G. Simmons, Senior Developer Evangelist for InfluxData

Red Hat

The Internet of Things is first and foremost a cloud-based computing paradigm, and with Linux containers and Kubernetes emerging as a de facto foundation for building and orchestrating hybrid cloud services we expect to see more and more IoT applications deployed in Kubernetes environments. We are excited to be part of the new Kubernetes IoT Edge Working Group and look forward to helping advance both technologies.

-- James Kirkland, Chief Architect for IoT, Red Hat

Siemens

Siemens as a leading player in Industrial IoT (IIoT) welcomes the collaboration and set-up of the new Kubernetes IoT Edge Working Group to jointly address next steps in digitalization of the industrial space. The special interest of Siemens in this new group is on requirements and extensions of Kubernetes to orchestrate IIoT systems in mixed cloud and industrial edge environments. Secure and automated deployment and management of industrial IoT applications from cloud to edge will benefit from results of this working group.

-- Marquart Franz - Senior Principal Key Expert, Siemens AG

Vapor IO

Kubernetes will undoubtedly play a critical role as Vapor IO deploys a nationwide Kinetic Edge. Scheduling and scaling workloads across thousands of Kinetic Edge nodes will not be performed by humans; orchestration systems like Kubernetes must automate edge scheduling, analyzing dozens of data sources and applying specific policies in real time. As the Kinetic Edge blurs the line between the wireless and wireline worlds, we must extend Kubernetes to support edge native applications. Were thrilled to be part of The Kubernetes IoT Edge Working Group and look forward to bringing these ideas to light.

-- Cole Crawford, founder and CEO of Vapor IO

VMware

Centralized data centers and public clouds have been a limitation on the current generation of IoT. Locality of devices from data centers and scale has so far limited the fidelity of information made available. Kubernetes and its ability to dynamically manage applications at the edge is a huge evolutionary step for IoT. Extending cloud platforms in these environments to enable enhanced IoT services will make way for the next generation of IoT devices. VMware is excited to join the efforts and to see communities connect to accelerate the development of edge computing.

-- Clint Kitson, director of engineering, Cloud Native Applications Business Unit, VMware

For the Eclipse Foundation

Contact:

Lonn Johnston

lonn@flak42.com

+1 650.219.7764



UPDATE: A judge has dismissed the charges against the Rome teachers aide who was accused of excessively disciplining a seven-year-old special needs student at John E. Joy Elementary School.

Four witnesses testified in Rome City Court on Wednesday for Maria Fountains trial, including an alleged eyewitness who said Fountain slammed the students arms on a desk, then told the crying student that there was more where that came from.

The judge then dismissed the charges against Fountain, saying the prosecution failed to prove their case.

The Oneida County District Attorneys Office is reviewing the case and requesting a transcript of the proceedings to get an understanding of why the case was dismissed.

Ashley Rasbach, the teacher who was also charged, is due back in Rome City Court for a conference on Oct. 10.

___________________________________________

(Previous coverage)

ROME  A trial is underway in Rome City Court for the teachers assistant who is accused of excessively disciplining a student at John E. Joy Elementary School.

Maria Fountain, 47, of Rome, is charged with endangering the welfare of a child and second-degree harassment. Shes accused of grabbing a special needs student by her arms and slamming them onto a table.

Fountain was charged back in June along with 30-year-old Ashley Rasbach, a teacher who is accused of grabbing a student by the hair and spraying them with a water bottle, and in another incident she allegedly squeezed a student between an open door and the wall, then picked the student up and dropped her onto the floor.

Fountain rejected a plea offer and requested a bench trial, which means a judge rather than a jury will decide whether or not she is guilty.

The trial began Wednesday in Rome City Court, where the prosecutor said that Fountain broke the golden rule: treat others like you would want to be treated. The defense, however, said that in a special education classroom, physical contact isnt always abuse.

We will continue to follow this trial and provide updates as they become available.CRAWFORDSVILLE, Ind. (WLFI)  A local mayor's 6-year push to increase fines for stopped trains is thwarted.

This is after the Indiana Supreme Court struck down the 150-year-old law that made fines possible in the first place.

It allowed local governments to fine railroads when a stopped train blocks a street for more than 10 minutes.

Mayor Todd Barton of Crawfordsville says that new decision is doing nothing to help the problem in his town.

"Ultimately the real losers in this whole thing are the citizens," said Barton.

Mark Cox, an Indiana State University student who works in Crawfordsville has had his fair share of waiting for trains.

"At first you get really really upset when you're not used to the trains, but then over time it becomes a normal sadly," said Cox.

This normal has caused the Crawfordsville Mayor to spend his entire time in office dealing with the issue.

"You know we've dealt with this for a long time," said Barton. "We've not been issuing citations here for some time because it seems pointless."

That's why Barton wanted to increase the penalty for trains that violate the ten-minute rule.

All that stopped when the Indiana Supreme Court overturned the rule altogether.

Railroad company Norfolk Southern challenged the law after receiving multiple fines from Allen County.

Now the mayor and people in Crawfordsville feel helpless.

"Blockages downtown on the state highway can last anywhere from you know an hour to they've lasted as long as six hours," said Barton.

The stopped trains are causing community members to be late for work.

"I've missed meetings and stuff like that," said Cox. "I know I've been docked pay before because I didn't make the hours."

"Minutes truly do count," said Barton. "I mean its more than just inconvenience. If somebody's not breathing or a house is on fire, minutes are absolutely critical."

There are possible solutions to the problem.

"Long term what we've done is we have submitted funding applications to build a bridge across those state highways and just eliminate the problem by separating the two," said Barton.

For Mayor Barton's solution to work he says they need to start a partnership with railroad company CSX.

Crawfordsville will hear back toward the end of fall if its funding will be approved.LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WLFI) - Indiana Secretary of State Connie Lawson is traveling across the state to help candidates with their campaigns at her Candidate School.

She came to the Tippecanoe County Library Wednesday afternoon, however no candidates from the area showed up.

It was a free event for all candidates and campaign staff to attend. This was her seventh stop across the state and the only one so far where no one attended.

She had just come from Valparaiso where she said she presented to a full crowd.

We sent out 2,700 letters to different candidates saying you are welcome to this Candidate School, it's free of charge, we want you to leave with the information you need to be an informed candidate, she said.

She would have shared important aspects of campaigning like financing, disclosing information and avoiding conflicts of interest.

As a veteran public official who has been a candidate several times in her life, she said she is sharing the kind of information she wished would have been told to her in the beginning of her career.

She said this years Candidate School has a new component: cybersecurity principles. The goal is to make sure candidates know of detail methods that campaigns can use to protect themselves from cyber attacks and hacking attempts.

It's human error that makes us most at risk, to be very careful about phishing emails that they might receive, and making sure that they have good cyber hygiene practices, she said.

Other places she stopped included Vigo County (Terre Haute), Vanderburgh County (Evansville), Jeffersonville, Allen County (Fort Wayne), and Elkhart County. She said some of those places had low RSVP numbers, but there were others that would show up.

She is going to Indianapolis on Thursday to speak to candidates in the area. She is also hosting a webinar at 1 p.m. that day that anyone is welcome to tune into. Click here to sign up.

She also wanted to take time to inform viewers that October 9th is the deadline to register to vote. Click here to register.Severe T'Storm Watch is up for White, Pulaski, Fulton, Cass, Miami counties until 12 a.m. & until 11 p.m. for Newton, Jasper. However, threat will end in Newton & Jasper by 9:30.

This is watch is for line of storms, with history of wind damage to our northwest, moving through our northern counties.

The main threat in our southern counties is becoming heavy rainfall.

Any severe risk should exit by 11 p.m., but remainder of broken line of storms will pass through the rest of the viewing area overnight. Still thinking a some rain may linger into tomorrow morning.

We should start in the mid 50s to 60 & heat for mid 60s. There will be lots of clouds, but a PM clearing trend. How about some lower to mid 40s tomorrow night for a taste of fall?!



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THIS NEWS RELEASE IS INTENDED FOR DISTRIBUTION IN CANADA ONLY AND IS NOT INTENDED FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES.



VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Green Thumb Industries Inc. (CSE: GTII) (GTI or the Company) is pleased to announce that, due to strong demand, it has agreed with a syndicate of underwriters led by GMP Securities L.P. (GMP) as lead underwriter and sole bookrunner, (collectively with GMP, the Underwriters), to increase the size of its previously announced $65,000,000 bought deal offering. Pursuant to the upsized deal terms, the Underwriters have agreed to purchase, on a bought deal basis, 4,420,000 subordinate voting shares (the Offered Securities) of the Company at a price of $20.00 per Offered Security (the Offering Price) for aggregate gross proceeds to GTI of $88,400,000 (the Offering).

The Company has agreed to grant the Underwriters an over-allotment option to purchase up to an additional 663,000 Offered Securities at the Offering Price, exercisable in whole or in part, at any time and from time to time on or prior to the date that is 30 days following the closing of the Offering. If this option is exercised in full, an additional $13,260,000 in gross proceeds will be raised pursuant to the Offering and the aggregate gross proceeds of the Offering will be $101,660,000.

The Common Shares will be offered by way of a short form prospectus to be filed in all provinces of Canada (except Quebec). The Company intends to use the net proceeds from the Offering for business development, including wholesale capacity, strategic initiatives and general corporate purposes. The Offering is expected to close on or about October 17, 2018, and is subject to certain conditions including, but not limited to, the receipt of all necessary regulatory and stock exchange approvals, including the approval of the Canadian Securities Exchange (CSE) and the applicable securities regulatory authorities.

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 PRESS RELEASE SHALL NOT CONSTITUTE AN OFFER TO SELL OR THE SOLICITATION OF AN OFFER TO BUY THE SECURITIES IN THE UNITED STATES NOR SHALL THERE BE ANY SALE OF THE SECURITIES IN ANY U.S. STATE IN WHICH SUCH OFFER, SOLICITATION OR SALE WOULD BE UNLAWFUL.

About Green Thumb Industries:

Green Thumb Industries (GTI), a national cannabis cultivator, processor and dispensary operator, is dedicated to providing dignified access to safe and effective cannabis nationwide while giving back to the communities in which it serves. As a vertically integrated company, GTI manufactures and sells a well-rounded suite of branded cannabis products including flower, concentrates, edibles, and topicals. The company also owns and operates a rapidly growing national chain of retail cannabis stores called RISE dispensaries. Headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, GTI has eight manufacturing facilities and licenses for 59 retail locations across eight highly regulated U.S. markets. Established in 2014, GTI employs approximately 400 people and serves thousands of patients and customers each year. GTI was named a Best Workplace 2018 by Crains Chicago Business. For more information visit GTIgrows.com.

Forward Looking Statements:

This press release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation which are based upon GTI's current internal expectations, estimates, projections, assumptions and beliefs and views of future events. Forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "expect", "likely", "may", "will", "should", "intend", "anticipate", "potential", "proposed", "estimate" and other similar words, including negative and grammatical variations thereof, or statements that certain events or conditions "may", "would" or "will" happen, or by discussions of strategy.

Forward-looking information used in this press release includes statements relating to the timing for the completion of the Offering and the use of proceeds therefrom. The forward-looking information in this news release is based upon the expectations, estimates, projections, assumptions and views of future events which management believes to be reasonable in the circumstances, including those relating to: general economic conditions, the expected timing and cost of completing the Offering, and the Company's intentions with respect to the use of proceeds from the Offering. Forward-looking information includes estimates, plans, expectations, opinions, forecasts, projections, targets, guidance or other statements that are not statements of fact. Any forward-looking information speaks only as of the date on which it is made, and, except as required by law, GTI does not undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. New factors emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for GTI to predict all such factors. When considering these forward-looking statements, readers should keep in mind the risk factors and other cautionary statements in GTI's Annual Information Form dated July 10, 2018 and filed with the applicable Canadian securities regulatory authorities on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.

The CSE does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

For further information:

Investor Contact:

Jennifer Dooley

VP, Investor Relations, Corporate Development

InvestorRelations@gtigrows.com

310-622-8257 Media Contact:

Linda Marsicano

VP, Corporate Communications

lmarsicano@gtigrows.com

773-354-2004







How safe do you feel in Wrexham?

This article is old - Published: Wednesday, Sep 26th, 2018

How safe do you feel in Wrexham?

That is the crux of the question being asked by The Community Safety Partnership (CSP)  who want to find out how safe you feel when you are spending time in and around the county borough.

The partnership aims address community safety issues across Wrexham and to help make the area a safe place to live, work in and visit.

As part of their work CSP are asking residents to take part in a survey to help find out about feelings of safety in Wrexham and the issues that have an impact on this.

As part of the survey participants are asked which part of Wrexham they live in, how safe they feel walking / travelling in the area, if they have experienced or witnessed any crime in the past 12 months and feelings of the town centre.

There are also questions asking how people would rate your fear of crime in Wrexham, compared to other UK towns and what has influenced that view.

The findings of the survey will tell the partnership how safe you feel and what it is that makes you feel less safe or more safe when you are out and about.

The Wrexham Community Safety Survey 2018 is available here or you can pick up a paper copy in Wrexham Library or Wrexham Contact Centre, Lord Street.

You have until November 8th 2018 to take part and have your say.Welsh language hub takes leading role in increasing number of bilingual speakers in region

This article is old - Published: Wednesday, Sep 26th, 2018

A pioneering Welsh language hub has reiterated its commitment on helping increase the number of bilingual speakers across north east Wales.

Coleg Cambria Camu has unveiled a series of new courses at a range of levels including foundation, intermediate, proficiency and advanced.

Based at the colleges Yale site in Wrexham, the facility is held up as a beacon of best practice in developing the Welsh language in the workplace.

The college has led the way in pioneering Welsh programmes and been celebrated for a culture of inclusion in Wrexham and its other sites in Deeside, Llysfasi and Northop.

Its Camu hub is focused on increasing opportunities for people living in north east Wales to use the Welsh language naturally in all aspects of their everyday life.

Llinos Roberts, head of corporate communications and Welsh language, said the college takes a leading role in helping to cultivate a bilingual workforce.

Camu continues to provide a programme of Welsh language courses specifically tailored for the workplace in partnership with local employers who want to improve their bilingual customer service, said Mrs Roberts.

The centre also provides a focal point for Welsh language vocational training in programmes such as care and public services.

Our community has embraced the projects we have rolled-out, particularly the Paned a Sgwrs (Cuppa and Chat) and drop-in sessions, language clinics, Welsh classes and our very successful summer school.

She added: Coleg Cambria is committed to raising the profile of the Welsh language as a valuable skill for employment and will focus on creating a strengthened bilingual workforce enabling individuals and communities to use the language across a full range of normal daily situations, becoming the norm rather than the exception in this area of Wales.

In the long term, a centre of this kind will strength the position of Welsh as a vibrant, living language, a valuable skill for the workplace and a real boost to the local economy in this area.

Camu was opened with funding support from the Welsh Government in 2015, by Wales First Minister Carwyn Jones.

The name was chosen as camu in Welsh means step, implying that a visit to the centre is taking a step towards improving and using your Welsh language skills.

From there, the college has established programme to provide public sector organisations and local businesses with courses for their employees and was praised by the First Minister for supporting both sectors.

The centre is a great resource for Wrexham town and surrounding areas, to promote the language as a language for the workplace amongst people of all ages, said Mr Jones.

Mrs Roberts added: We currently deliver Welsh for Adults classes and Welsh in the Workplace provision for more than 1300 learners a year across north east Wales on behalf of the National Centre for Learning Welsh.

We are working hard to make sure that numbers continue to rise with this raft of new courses and the support of our partners and Welsh Government.

We will continue to strive for improvement but are delighted with the progress made so far, both at the college and in our wider community as we begin this new academic year.

To enrol on Welsh courses at Coleg Cambria Camu and other venues across north east Wales visit www.learnwelsh.cymruWrexham Glyndwr University students offer their support to towns choir festival

This article is old - Published: Wednesday, Sep 26th, 2018

A key organiser of Wrexhams Singing Streets Festival and a student who helped film 2017s event praised their university studies for boosting their work.

John Jones  who runs John Jones Quality Acoustics, a cornerstone of the live sound for the festival  studied a sound technology degree at Wrexham Glyndwr University and used the experience to add to his business  as well as to help run events like Singing Streets.

Meanwhile Kara Davies, who is currently about to start the third year of a Broadcasting, Journalism and Media Communications BA, found herself involved when a first-year project she picked up to film the festival got turned into a half-hour television documentary on the festival.

John said: I worked on Wrexham Industrial Estate for 27 years, and when I finished in industry in 2003 I decided I wanted to study for a degree. Alongside my main occupation, I had quite a successful DJ business, always bought good quality equipment and felt that this could be developed more.

I did not follow the normal education path  from school to university then the job, but embarked on a university degree course at the age of 46.

So in September 2003, I met up with Mike Wright, the programme leader, and that was it  three weeks after finishing work, I was starting at university!

Coming to Glyndwr University allowed me to refocus my life  after my time in industry, when I graduated from Glyndwr, I came out a lot fresher and Ive got a different mindset now.

I got my degree when I was fifty, and it has changed so much for me. Glyndwr is particularly strong at widening access to university  and Im really glad they are.

John has since applied his studies to his businesses, John Jones Quality Acoustics, and has helped to the Singing Streets festival for the past three years.

He said: Im really looking forward to it this year and were really busy organising the finishing touches  Ive sent 25 emails this morning alone. Its all in place now and I hope we can keep it going for years to come.

Its all about putting Wrexham on the map, getting people into the town centre  and making sure they return.

Another Glyndwr student who has helped spread the word about Wrexham and the Singing Streets festival is Kara Davies, who helped produce a film shown across North Wales about the 2017 festival.

She said: In the second semester of my first year, we were given a project for one of our broadcasting modules to produce some work on Singing Streets.

It started off as a project just for the course, but some of us decided to take it further, and we went round Wrexham, meeting up with the choirs who were set to take part in the festival and filming them.

We worked on it through the summer, and then were introduced to Rob Corcoran, a filmmaker, by one of our lecturers. By the time of last years festival in September, we were out around the town filming as many of the choirs taking part as we could. These were then edited together and made into a half-hour film, which was shown on Made in North Wales television.

I just couldnt believe that all the little bits we filmed were turned into a television documentary and shown on television  seeing that final product made all the hard work worthwhile. It was a really good experience  I was a first year broadcasting student but my studies had helped me get my first credit on TV.

Id definitely encourage others to volunteer for opportunities like this  its a great experience and you get to meet all kinds of people.

Associate Dean for the Faculty of Arts, Science and Technology, Colin Heron, said: The Singing Streets festival is a real community event and its great that students from Glyndwr have been so involved.

John has applied his studies in sound technology and is now at the heart of one of the festivals bringing people into the area  and Kara was able to gain first-hand broadcasting experience with her work on the festival last year.

The Singing Streets team are still looking for volunteers for this year  so do get in touch with them via their Facebook page if you want to help.

Wrexham MP Ian Lucas, whose idea it was to start up the Wrexham Singing Streets event in 2016, said: Were always grateful to the staff and students at Wrexham Glyndwr University for their involvement in the festival. The enthusiasm, expertise and energy they bring is invaluable.

Its heartening to hear that students  past and present  have gained valuable experiences from the event.

This years Singing Streets promises to be the biggest and best yet, with more than 1,000 performers attending on the day. It will be some spectacle!

Singing Streets takes place on September 29 this year. Of the 27 choirs due to attend, this many are from the Wrexham area while others are coming from further afield. Performances will take place at Wrexham Museum, Argyle Arch on Regent Street, Lord Street by the Arc sculpture, Queens Square, Ty Pawb and Eagles Meadow.

They begin at 11am and will run through until 4pm. At 1pm, there will be a mass big sing featuring the choirs and any members of the public who wish to join in.

Glyndwr University play a key role in delivering the event, along with its organiser, Wrexham MP Ian Lucas, John Jones Quality Acoustics, Wrexham Community Choir volunteers, Gateway Church and Wrexham Business Group CIC. The festival is sponsored by Wockhardt, Wrexham Crime Link, Hays Travel and Gateway Church.On September 13, several hundred soldiers from The Black Watch, 3rd Battalion of The Royal Regiment of Scotland marched through the streets of Inverness in full battle gear. The battalion had recently returned from a six-month tour in Iraq training Iraqi security forces. In a series of homecoming parades, the battalion marched over four successive days through towns and cities in Black Watchs traditional recruiting areas, including Forfar, Dunfermline and Perth.

The Black Watch played a critical role in the war against Iraq, as British imperialism escalated its intervention after the illegal 2003 invasion. In October 2004, the regiment was moved 380 miles north from southern Iraq to Camp Dogwood, 20 miles (32 km) southwest of Baghdad. This was done in order to allow the UKs main partner in crime, the US, to concentrate its forces on the bloody suppression of Fallujah.

Within 48 hours of arriving at their new base, the regiment suffered its first fatalities, as five members of the 850-strong Black Watch were killed and several others seriously wounded. The deaths led to growing opposition to the war, which the year before had sparked an anti-war march by some 2 million people in London.

The Inverness event was clearly intended to provide an intimidating display of firepower. Soldiers on the march wore body armour and carried assault rifles with bayonets attached. Some wore camouflage and carried sniper rifles. The soldiers marched alongside several large armoured vehicles equipped with manned, high-calibre machine guns. A section of the march appeared to be mimicking the routines of a live patrol.

The show of force in Scotland is one particularly extreme example of a succession of military parades that have taken place across Britain in just the last few months.

Many of these demonstrations have been held in connection with the awarding of the freedom of the city, town or borough to a particular regiment. Voted on by local councils, this is the highest honour a local authority can award.

In the case of military units, it gives the soldiers in question the right to march with drums beating, bands playing, colours flying and bayonets fixed through the streets of the town. There are roughly 640 such freedoms currently awarded to military bodiesat least 280 of which have been given since 2008.

* In February, the Royal Marines were granted the freedom of Birminghamthe UKs second largest cityin a ceremony in its central square, followed by a parade along its main streets.

* On June 3, soldiers from the 21 Engineer Regiment exercised the Corps of Royal Engineers freedom to march in Ripon, Yorkshire.

* Earlier this month, 500 soldiers of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers were allowed to march from the Tower of London to Guildhall. The City of Londons Square Mile was closed while the parade took place.

* The 75 Engineers Regiment marched through Warrington, Cheshire last Saturday, having been awarded the Freedom of the Borough in 2013.

In many places, Freedom of the Borough parades were held in connection with Armed Forces Week. The Yorkshire Regiment marched through Redcar and Stockton in the North East of England on June 28 as part of a series of events, including a drill display and flyover by a Dakota Royal Air Force plane. Redcars high street was decked in red, white and blue bunting for the occasion.

Two days later, St Ives hosted 120 soldiers of the 42 Engineer Regiment for the same occasion, after which residents were encouraged to get to know the regiment at a local museum. In July, plans were announced for hundreds of soldiers from the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers to march in Nuneaton on June 9 next year, to mark the 75th anniversary of D-Day and celebrate Armed Forces Day. The town closed its streets for a march by soldiers from the 30 Signal Regiment in 2015.

Some army units are marching through Britains streets on multiple occasions. Earlier this month, The Rifles regiment exercised the Freedom of the Town of Wakefield, Yorkshire. They will do the same this month in Sherborne, Dorset, and again in Lyme Regis, as part of an event to commemorate the centenary of the ending of the First World War.

The Duke of Lancasters regiment, having marched through Blackpools city centre some months ago, visited three additional towns and cities this year. On June 30, soldiers carried out a 40 minute march through Preston, protected by armed police. On September 15, the regiments 2nd Battalion participated in a 200-strong Battle of Britain parade through the centre of Barrow. Another march, this time through the town of Wyre, was announced for sometime this month.

The British people are being inured to the regular presence of the armed forces on the streets. In recent weeks, the crisis over Brexit has seen numerous warnings that such could be the economic tumult and civil unrest following the UKs formal exit from the European Union next March that plans are in place to put troops onto the streets.

The regular presence of serving soldiers in public spaces is intended both to glorify the military and intimidate the population. The ruling class is deeply concerned by the growth of anti-war sentiment and widespread revulsion at the actions of British imperialism around the world over the past 15 years, since the invasion of Iraq.

Armed Forces Day was established in 2009 by the Labour government of Gordon Brown to counteract this sentiment, replacing Veterans Day, which had been observed since 2006. The parades and ceremonies are an attempt to create a bond between the population and their local regiments.

The aim is to assert the centrality of the military and its interests in British political life. The event in Inverness indicates that this purpose is to be pursued more aggressively in the future.

In conducting these parades, the armed forces have the full support of the whole spectrum of bourgeois political parties, not least the Labour Party. Barrow, Birmingham, Redcar, Stockton, Nuneaton, Preston, Warrington and Wakefield are all governed by majority-Labour councils, whose members hail the presence of the military on their streets.

Labour Councilor Karen Mundry, mayor of Warrington, said of the towns march: The men and women of the 75 Engineers Regiment have long had a close association with Warrington. We were delighted to bestow upon them our highest honour by granting them the Freedom of the Borough in 2013.

She added, We are very proud of the regiment and this is a fantastic opportunity to thank them for the work they do Id urge everyone to come along, show their support and see this magnificent regiment in all its glory.

The Labour leader of Wakefield Council, Peter Box, enthused: It is a great honour to welcome the men and women of the Rifles Regiment, who are the largest regiment in the British Army. Please come along, welcome them to the city and celebrate our servicemen and women by lining the streets and enjoying the military displays.

Barry Longden, a Labour member in Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough Council, described a planned march through Nuneaton as a fantastic day out for all of the residents in the borough and further afield, so I hope we will all support this.

For all the talk of support and celebration, the truth is that the imperialist violence and banditry carried out by Britains armed forces over the last two decades are widely opposed by the population. The spree of military parades reflects the deep concerns of the ruling elite over this opposition, which stands in the way of the militarist agenda shared by both main parties.

In recent years, the armed forces have intervened in political affairs in Britain in a manner unprecedented in modern history. Only a week after Jeremy Corbyn was first elected as Labour leader, Murdochs Sunday Times reported the threat of a mutiny by a senior serving general in the event of his becoming prime minister. This was due to Corbyns professed opposition to nuclear weapons and war.

Lord West, the former first sea lord and ex-Labour minister, declared that Corbyn should not lead the nation. West warned that Corbyns criticisms of militarism might get the unthinking masses to vote for him.

The author also recommends:

Economist magazine calls for soldier MPs to lead UK

[18 September, 2018]Eleven days after Hurricane Florence made landfall in North Carolina, rivers are continuing to surge as a result of record rainfalls, forcing more evacuations in the Carolinas and threatening to poison water supplies with coal ash and hog waste.

According to official estimates, the storm has already killed 43 people across the states of North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. It unleashed record rainfalls in the Carolinas, dumping nearly 8 trillion gallons of water there, with another tropical weather system heading to the region this week.

Hundreds of roads in North Carolina remain closed, thousands of residents remain out of their homes and hundreds are still being rescued from rising waters. Estimates of property damage are in the range of $50 billion.

The areas around Conway and Georgetown in coastal South Carolina continue to see massive flooding as the Waccamaw, Great Pee Dee, Lynches and other rivers surge. On Monday, authorities in Georgetown County called on some 8,000 residents to evacuate and opened two shelters.

A new and potentially more dangerous health hazard has emerged with floodwaters engulfing coal ash deposits and pig farms, spreading toxic ash and pig manure in North Carolina waterways and polluting sources of drinking water.

On Friday, Duke Energy said that flooding could be causing coal ash to spill from a pond near Wilmington into the Cape River. Lake Sutton, once a cooling pond for a coal-fired power plant and now a coal ash waste site, has overflowed more than once as a result of Hurricane Florence. Duke Energy has three coal ash pits at its H.F. Lee power plant near Goldsboro, all of which were inundated by the floodwaters of the Neuse River.

Coal ash contains dangerous heavy metals such as mercury, lead and cesium. Duke Energy agreed only to clean up its coal ash pits by 2029.

Meanwhile, officials say that 13 pits filled with pig waste have overflowed, with dozens more likely to follow. On Tuesday, the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality said that another hog lagoon had breached about 60 miles north of Wilmington.

There are 3,300 such lagoons in North Carolina, which is the second largest hog-farming state in the country. The danger of them overtopping in a hurricane has long been known, but nothing has been done to avert a mass poisoning of water supplies. During Hurricane Floyd in 1999, tons of hog excrement leeched into rivers, wiping out fish.

Activists have been campaigning for years against the collection of hog waste. Last July, Smithfield Foods, the worlds largest pork producer, was ordered to pay $473.5 million to people living near three of its North Carolina farms after residents sued over the health effects resulting from the companys massive concentrations of pig excrement.

In the days before Florence made landfall, the nonprofit group Waterkeeper Alliance surveyed the coastal area of New Bern, North Carolina, by airplane. The group found dozens of hog farms illegally spraying waste lagoon contents onto fields that were drenched in record flooding soon thereafter.

Open-air waste lagoons pose enormous environmental hazards, even under normal weather conditions, exposing nearby residents to noxious odors, swarms of insects and dangerous microbes in their drinking water.

The multibillion-dollar livestock industry has lobbied the North Carolina legislature to eviscerate the state Department of Environmental Quality. The departments budget has been cut by more than 40 percent since 2012. This policy has continued under Democratic Governor Roy Cooper.

Images taken from a NASA satellite showed dark, polluted water flowing out of the New River, the White Oak River and Adams Creek south of Cape Lookout, North Carolina, into the Atlantic Ocean.

The dark blue plumes indicate high concentrations of colored dissolved organic matter (CDOM), which typically leads to mass fish kills. The discharges contain animal waste from low-lying hog and poultry farms and human waste from sewage systems that went offline as a result of power outages.

In another example of the role of corporate domination of the political system in the damage caused by Hurricane Florence, residents of badly flooded Lumberton, North Carolina, asked a federal judge on Tuesday to allow them to file a class action suit against the railroad giant CSX. They say CSX blocked attempts to build a floodgate system at a spot on its route through Lumberton that would have averted much of the flooding that has left the town largely underwater.

The complaint by the residents charges that CSXs conduct endangered the health and safety of a large region and population, caused and increased the risk of serious injury and bodily harm, and affected a financially vulnerable population.Hearings at the ongoing Royal Commission into financial services have revealed that some of Australias largest insurance companies routinely use aggressive tactics to sell products to people who do not require them, do everything they can to avoid paying claims, and operate with impunity in the increasingly unregulated sector.

The testimony in recent weeks follows exposures of the parasitic activities of the countrys banks, which are among the most profitable in the world. Like the Royal Commission as a whole, however, the hearings on the insurance industry are an exercise in damage control.

The Commission was called by the federal Liberal-National government to assuage widespread public anger. Its aim is to present the activities of the financial institutions as the result of mistakes and isolated cases of wrongdoing. This is to obscure the fact that they result from the ever-greater dominance of the financial sector over the economy, which has been promoted by successive governments, Labor and Liberal-National alike.

The hearings have nevertheless pointed to systematic malpractice across the insurance sector. In an indication of the scale, the Commission received over 8,700 public submissions, only a fraction of which will be the subject of testimony.

Almost 10 percent of the submissions related to the rapidly growing life insurance market.

Among the most explosive revelations at this months hearings was that AMP continued to charge at least 4,656 life insurance holders a total of $1.3 million after they had died. Company representatives acknowledged that the deductions had not ended, and up to $1 million in owed payouts had not been made, despite the fact that AMP had been notified of the deaths. The company claimed that this was the result of systems errors.

In other cases, health risks were apparently exaggerated to justify maximum premiums. One worker was overcharged $76,700 in life insurance premiums deducted by AMP from his superannuation. When he complained the company refused to repay him.

The worker, along with many others, had been incorrectly labelled as a smoker when he had left one employer and moved to another. If they did not reaffirm that they were non-smokers, AMPs systems automatically assumed that customers who changed employers were now smokers. This resulted in premiums of at least $1,000 more per month.

The hearings also heard testimony that major funds sought to avoid paying out when their clients suffered life threatening illnesses.

In one instance, TAL Life Limited, one of the countrys largest providers of life insurance, terminated $5,000 per month payments to a customer who had been diagnosed with cervical cancer five months before.

After the womans cancer diagnosis in late 2013 the company had apparently sought to find grounds for withholding payments. Its investigators found that the woman had sought professional help for depression, between 2007 and 2009, and used the fact that she had not declared this on her application as grounds for cancelling her coverage. The woman was compelled to take action through the Financial Services Ombudsman to seek recompense.

Testimony also documented an aggressive sales culture driven by commissions. According to senior counsel assisting Rowena Orr, ten of the largest life insurance companies had paid $6 billion to financial advisers in commissions over a five-year period. In comments to the press, former employees stated that they could make up to $8,000 per week on their base salary in commissions.

This has included cold-calling the vulnerable and the poor. In a particularly egregious case in 2016, a Freedom Insurance representative sold a policy over the phone to a 26-year-old man with Down syndrome. During the call, the man was clearly unaware of what he was agreeing to. When his father complained, Freedom Insurance initially refused to cancel the policy before subsequently issuing an apology.

It emerged at the hearing that the sales representative had been the subject of multiple complaints for predatory calls. He had, however, been praised by managers for the volume of his sales. An April 2016 email from his team leader congratulated the representative for smashing over 200 lives and earning amazing commissions.

ClearView Wealth acknowledged that it may have breached anti-hawking provisions in federal legislation over 300,000 times by trying to sell life insurance through cold calls.

The companys chief actuary and risk officer Gregory Martin acknowledged that poor people had been targeted. When asked about the precise demographic, however, he stated, Id emphasise lower, not lowest. After all, there was no point selling to customers who couldnt afford the product or were too poor.

Among the litany of issues covered at the hearings, it has again been underscored that the largest insurers seek to avoid payouts after natural disasters. In one case, Suncorp offered a couple with home insurance just $30,000 after their property was inundated by flooding in the Hunter Valley in 2015. The damage cost them $744,000.

After Victorias 2015 Christmas Day bushfires, Suncorp and its subsidiaries offered cash payments to insured customers hit by the disaster that were hundreds of thousands of dollars below the value of what they had lost. The company was fined just $43,200 for misleading advertising, well below the possible sanction of $7.2 million contained in legislation.

Throughout the hearings, it has been clear that regulation is largely for appearances. Rules are rarely enforced, and breaches infrequently penalised with more than a slap on the wrist.

Orr stated last week, for instance, that general insurance companies had breached their own self-regulations over 31,000 times without penalty. The industry lobby group, the Insurance Council of Australia, responded by declaring that this was because they were more concerned with customer remediation than with punishing constituent companies. In other words, nothing is done to prevent the same practices being repeated.

The parasitic activities of the insurance companies are the direct result of the economic deregulation carried out by the Labor governments of prime ministers Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, in office from 19831996.

Responding to the globalisation of production, Labor junked previous regulations on the money markets and sold off the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. This was part of a broader program, aimed at attracting international investment and removing any barriers to maximum profit-accumulation by the largest financial operators.

A 2004 study by Deakin University academic Monica Keneley noted that in the life insurance sector this was accompanied by a decline in earlier mutual funds that were less profitable, and an increase in the direct involvement of the banks. In 1980 there had been no bank-owned life insurance companies. In 1990 banks controlled 9 percent of the market, while in 2000 the figure was 44 percent.

The banks turn to life insurance was part of a diversification of their operations that included the provision of speculative financial services and exorbitant housing loans. As a result of thisand the fact that they have been effectively propped-up by successive governments, including during the 2008 financial crisisthe profits of the four largest banks have risen almost six-fold from $5.4 billion to just under $30 billion over the past two decades.On Monday, after months of division on the Brexit policy to be adopted, Labour Party conference delegates by a large majority passed a compromise motion stating: If we cannot get a general election, Labour must support all options remaining on the table, including campaigning for a public vote.

The motion was the product of an intensifying struggle within the party, shown in the series of claims and counter-claims over Labours Brexit policy made by leading party figures during the conferences first days.

On Monday morning, Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell echoed Unite union leader Len McCluskeys Sunday speech to the conference suggesting that any referendum on the terms of a Brexit deal should not include an option to remain in the European Union. This was a reaffirmation of Labours official line since the 2016 Brexit referendum vote. The party, under Jeremy Corbyn, campaigned for Remain, but its official position since then has been to respect the result of the referendum, and Britain is leaving the EU.

A few hours later, the Blairite shadow Brexit secretary, Sir Keir Starmer, insisted that Labour had not ruled out the option of a second referendum that could reverse the decision to leave the EU.

McDonnell then spoke again to state, Keir is right. We are keeping all the options on the table.

Starmer claimed Tuesday that the confusion was the result of fatigue on McDonnells part, because John did a number of interviews yesterday

This is nonsense. McDonnell had been asked repeatedly for clarification of the point he was making and he had restated a position opposed to a second referendum of the issue of leaving the EU or remaining in it. The newly minted statements of unity and coming together come in the midst of continuing bitter factional infighting over the best policy to pursue in the interests of British capital.

Starmer, speaking for the Blairites and dominant sections of British business, sees the compromise embodied in the conference motion as a step towards committing Labour to retaining membership of the EU and access to the single market and customs union.

McDonnell and the majority of those around Corbyn share the desire to maintain a relationship with the EU acceptable to British business. Corbyn dropped his lifetime opposition to the EU to campaign for Remain in 2016, but shifted to a position of deliberate ambiguity in its aftermathmaking any shift in line dependent on a parliamentary vote on whether the deal struck with Brussels by Conservative Party Prime Minister Theresa May was acceptable in maintaining access to European markets.

The aim was to avoid alienating the broad sections of Labours base that supported Brexit and thus prevent the party forming a government able to rescue British imperialism from its deepening crisis. Corbyn and McDonnell fear losing vital seats in the north of England, with many deindustrialised towns and cities in Labours heartlands voting strongly to leave.

To counter such fears among Labour MPs, in the run-up to the party conference the Blairites commissioned a poll purporting to show that Labour could gain as many as 1.5 million additional votes by switching to a pro-EU policyignoring the reality of the UKs first past the post voting system, in which more overall votes does not equate to more seats in parliament.

The final wording of the resolution reflected the desire to bridge these divisions, placing the issue of a general election first but then listing a second referendum as one option, should this fail. In his speech to the conference Tuesday, Starmer pressed the advantage with an unscripted statement that nobody is ruling out Remain as an option. The line was not in the speech approved by Labour headquarters.

The fiercely pro-Remain Guardian wrote of Starmer receiving wild applause from conference delegates, with Martin Kettle waxing lyrical about a response that came from deeper in the hall, and somehow also from somewhere deeper in the gut of the party conference, which produced cheering, prolonged and surging, and then the standing ovation.

Sections of conference delegates did indeed stand, but others remained seated and silent. Corbyn has signaled his own readiness to switch position should the need arise. He told the BBCs Laura Kuenssberg that Labour would decide whether to back any deal to leave the EU agreed by March 29 based on its merits.

Mays government has agreed that parliament will vote on the outcome of the talks, but only to choose between supporting her deal and leaving without one. Corbyn effectively backed Starmer in rejecting this scenario.

He said that if Mays deal was rejected by MPs, the government would have to go back to the EU and say our parliament cant agree to this. He predicted the government would collapse itself, triggering a general election. But the option of a referendum must be considered if and when this government collapses or its negotiations collapse, he added.

Leading factions within the pro-Corbyn Momentum group have been maneuvering for such a change for months, working together with both the pro-Remain Another Europe is Possible and Labour for a Peoples Vote groups, which were instrumental in the drafting of a majority of the 151 motions to the Labour conference on the subject of Brexitout of a total of 272 motions.

In addition, the major trade unions are supportive of such a shift.

Earlier this month, the Trades Union Congress voted to keep the option open for a peoples vote. The TSSA and GMB unions have officially backed a new referendum on any Brexit deal reached, while Unite, led by McCluskey, has said the option must be considered.

The Sunday Times reported that plans for a snap general election in November to solve the Brexit dilemma were being raised by key Conservative aides to May, prompting denials from Tory quarters. But the report comes amid rumours of a leadership challenge against May coming to a head by next March, the deadline for Britain to formally exit the EU.

Under these conditions, the British ruling class is desperate to bring Labour around to a definitively pro-EU position. Though Corbyn and McDonnell are more than ready to add to their numerous capitulations since taking the party leadership by falling into line on Brexit behind the Blairites, there is no readiness on the part of Corbyns opponents within the party to accept his leadership, given the mass support he has won among working people seeking a means of opposing austerity and war.

The retreats of the Corbynites will only embolden the right wing in their efforts to remove Corbyn, drive out his supporters and return Labour to the firm control of MPs and trade union bureaucrats who are deemed by the ruling class to be more reliable in safeguarding the strategic interests of British imperialism.There is great interest in socialism in the US, but little understanding of what the struggle for socialism entails. The capitalist media is trying to channel pro-socialist sentiment toward the Democratic Party and portray it as a mildly reformist program that involves no fundamental change in the allocation of wealth, let alone the overthrow of existing property relations. It is a socialism that can even attract the support of thoughtful and socially conscious investment bankers.

But socialism can only be realized by the conscious political mobilization of the American and international working class in the greatest revolutionary struggle in history. The working class must prepare itself for this struggle by learning the lessons of the 20th century, which was the scene of the greatest revolutionary upheavals of history. It must learn the history of the Fourth International, the revolutionary socialist opposition to Stalinist counter-revolution.

Either the working class carries out the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism or it will be subjected to fascistic dictatorships and catastrophic wars. The political alternative that stands before humanity is not mild reform or the status quo, but revolutionary socialism or capitalist barbarism.

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Wednesday, November 7, 6:00 p.m.

MIT

Boynton Hall, 6-120

New York City, New York

Thursday, November 8, 6:30 p.m.

New York University

Kimmel Center, Room 405/406

Chicago, Illinois

Monday, November 12, 6:30 p.m.

University of Illinois at Chicago

Lecture Center B, Room 101

Portland, Oregon

Tuesday, November 13, 7:00 p.m.

Portland State University

Smith Memorial Student Union, Room 298

Speaker: Joseph Kishore

Berkeley, California

Wednesday, November 14, 6:00 p.m.

UC Berkeley

126 Barrows Hall

San Diego, California

Thursday, November 15, 5:00 p.m.

San Diego State University

Student Services East, 1401

About the speaker:

David North is chairperson of the Editorial Board of the World Socialist Web Site and the national chairman of the Socialist Equality Party (US). North is the author of many books on history and Marxist theory, including The Heritage We Defend: A Contribution to the History of the Fourth International; In Defense of Leon Trotsky; A Quarter Century of War: The U.S. Drive for Global Hegemony19902016; The Russian Revolution and the Unfinished Twentieth Century; and The Frankfurt School, Postmodernism, and the Politics of the Pseudo-Left: A Marxist Critique.

(All are availble at Mehring Books)

Completed Meetings:

Ann Arbor, Michigan

Monday, October 22, 7:00 p.m.

University of Michigan

Angel Hall Auditorium C

Detroit, Michigan

Tuesday, October 23, 7:00 p.m.

Wayne State University

Bernath Auditorium in the Undergraduate Library

Gainesville, Florida

Monday, October 29, 6:00 p.m.

University of Florida

Reitz Union, Room G310

Speaker: SEP National Secretary Joseph Kishore

Tampa, Florida

Tuesday, October 30, 7:30 p.m.

University of South Florida

Marshall Student Center, Room 3711

Speaker: Joseph Kishore

Annandale, Virginia

Thursday, November 1, 3:30 p.m.

Northern Virginia Community College, Annandale

CA 303

Speaker: Joseph KishoreOn Saturday night, the Trump administration quietly announced a change to immigration regulations that will effectively bar immigrants from acquiring legal status if their families have used social programs.

The change, which will go into effect after a pro-forma 60-day public comment period, is a monumental attack on the international working class. The explicit formalization of a class-based immigration system marks a turning point that will substantially alter the state of social relations in favor of the rich.

The new policy labels all undocumented immigrants who have ever used cash- or non-cash benefits as public charges. Working class immigrants whose families have used programs like food stamps, Section 8 housing assistance, subsidized housing under the Housing Act of 1937, Medicaid or health care subsidies under Medicare Part D will now be relegated to permanent illegality.

According to the new rule, an income below 125 percent of the federal poverty level ($31,400 for a family of four) will be a negative factor in considering a green card or a visa application. On the contrary, an income over 250 percent of the federal poverty line will count as a strong positive factor. In other words, wealthy immigrants will be approved to travel and immigrate while the working class will be forced to live in the shadows.

Tens of millions of workers will be affected by the change. Just under 10 million undocumented workers, most of whom have escaped brutal poverty and violence in countries devastated by US imperialism, have already used the benefits outlined in the rule.

Beyond this 10 million, almost all non-citizen immigrants, including those who already have legal permanent residency, will likely forego future use of social services, with disastrous implications for health and nutrition. In addition, 18 million US citizen children with at least one immigrant parent will now go without access to necessary public programs, since immigrants will be penalized for allowing even citizen children to use social programs.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) callously states in its proposed rule that the policy will lead to worse health outcomes especially for pregnant or breastfeeding women, infants, or children, increased use of emergency rooms, increased prevalence of communicable diseases, increased rates of poverty and housing instability, and reduced productivity and educational attainment.

These are not undesired consequences, but deliberate goals.

The rule change is a maneuver to establish a permanent underclass of deeply impoverished workers, largely in the service and agricultural industry, too fearful of deportation to demand higher wages or better conditions.

Both parties will cite the inevitable drop in overall reliance on social programs to justify further cuts aimed at all workers. In announcing the policy change, DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen echoed the corporate-speak used by politicians to demand cuts to social programs: The rule change would promote immigrant self-sufficiency and protect finite resources by ensuring that they are not likely to become burdens on American taxpayers, she said.

Starvation, homelessness and disease will become more widespread. Immigrant neighborhoods in major US cities will increasingly resemble the slum areas of megacities in Latin America, Africa and Asia.

Immediately after the policy change was announced, a wide array of national medical associations, including the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American College of Physicians, the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association denounced the plan, warning it will cause a public health crisis.

The Democratic Party is itself responsible for passing the statute that Trump and DHS are using to justify their expansion of the public charge rule.

In 1996, Congress passed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRAIRA), which required that immigrants prove that their sponsors have income above 125 percent of the poverty line in order to immigrate. Without the 88 yes votes from congressional Democrats, the measure would not have passed. Democratic President Bill Clinton signed the measure into law. Three years later, Clinton published a guidance establishing that immigrants could be considered public charges if they were primarily dependent on government cash assistance.

Today, Democrats have remained silent on the rule change and have instead focused all their political capital on portraying Trumps reactionary Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh as a sexual criminal based on unproven allegations from the early 1980s. The aim is to divert public attention from the pressing class issues, including the attack on immigrant workers, on which both parties are fundamentally agreed.

Workers of all nationalities, regardless of immigration status, must recognize the attack on immigrant workers as an attack against the working class as a whole.

No worker stands to gain by allowing the government to strip millions of people of social programs without even the formality of a vote or public debate. No worker will benefit by giving the government the power to conduct military raids on workplaces to drag undocumented workers away to internment camps. No worker will gain from the ruling classs efforts to expand the reserve army of undocumented labor that will work any job at any wage and be too fearful to speak up.

The clearest 20th century parallel to the present rule change provides an important historical lesson for the working class.

The 1924 passage of the Johnson-Reed Act, which established quotas for immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe, was enacted following one of the largest strike waves in US history.

Passed with overwhelming bipartisan support, the Johnson-Reed Act was aimed at blocking the growth of the class struggle and halting immigration by European workers influenced by the Russian Revolution of 1917, where the working class overthrew the 300-year-old Romanov dynasty and established the worlds first workers state. Fearful of the growing popularity of socialism, the ruling class attempted to divert social opposition in a right-wing direction by fanning the flames of racial and national hatred in order to divide and weaken the working class.

Workers today must not fall into the same trap! The first half of 2018 saw the highest level of strike activity in years, but to build momentum in the struggle for social equality, workers must recognize that their strength lies in their international unity. It is urgent that US citizen workers come to the defense of their immigrant brothers and sisters and link up in a common fight against their common enemy: the American ruling class.EDMONTON, Alberta, Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- A September 20 news release regarding the Alberta Medical Associations 2018 Medal for Distinguished Service awards contained a factual error. Due to a missed step in our review process, the biographical information regarding recipient Dr. John Kortbeek incorrectly stated that he is a founder of the Advanced Trauma Life Support Program. Please note this error was made by the Alberta Medical Association and Dr. Kortbeek in no way misrepresented his credentials or accomplishments.



An updated version appears below.

Dr. John Kortbeek has been repeatedly honoured for his work as a teacher, as a surgeon and as a clinician in the areas of trauma, surgery and critical care. His career has been dedicated to the care of patients and their families, to continuously raising the standards of care in surgery, and to teaching and training young physicians and surgeons. He has led or co-led many improvements in the organization and processes of care in Alberta, including developing and implementing trauma center standards; establishing a trauma system with adult and pediatric tertiary trauma centers in Edmonton and Calgary and five provincial regional trauma centers; and introducing trauma system accreditation standards across Canada. His influence has been felt outside Canada also. He served for 15 years on the Committee on Trauma (COT) of the American College of Surgeons (ACS), eventually becoming chair and then international director of the ACS Advanced Trauma Life Support subcommittee for eight years. During his tenure, the ATLS program and the COT introduced a number of changes to update the program, curriculum, policies and procedures. These changes helped ensure the ongoing success and promulgation of a program which has had tremendous impact on trauma care around the world. Dr. Kortbeek has personally taught and lectured in over 30 countries. He is regularly in demand as a visiting lecturer and professor across the country.

For more information, please contact:PART ONE | PART TWO | PART THREE | PART FOUR | PART FIVE | PART SIX

This is the second in a series of articles published by the Socialist Equality Party (SEP) in Sri Lanka to mark the 50th anniversary of its foundation in June 1968. Established as the Revolutionary Communist League (RCL), the Sri Lankan section of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), it was renamed the Socialist Equality Party (SEP) in 1996. A statement has already been published to mark the RCLs founding congress on June 1617, 1968.

These articles will elaborate the RCLs principled foundations and draw the essential political lessons from the struggle for these principles over the past 50 years. The RCL was founded on the program and perspective of socialist internationalism that the Lanka Sama Samaja Party, which claimed to be a Trotskyist party, had betrayed by entering the bourgeois government of Madam Sirima Bandaranaike in 1964.

Central to the work of the SEP has been the fight for Trotskys Theory of Permanent Revolution, which established that in countries of a belated capitalist development only the working class is capable of leading the struggle for the basic democratic and social rights of the workers and rural toilers as part of the fight for socialism internationally. These lessons are critical for the emerging struggles of the working class, not only in Sri Lanka, but throughout Asia and the world.

In the immediate aftermath of the Great Betrayal in June 1964, when the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) joined the bourgeois government of Sirima Bandaranaike, the political landscape of Sri Lanka was inundated with a flood of political confusion and frustration among every section of workers, the poor and the youth.

However, even though the LSSP had called off the powerful 21-demands movement, unrest slowly began to re-emerge, among workers and particularly among university students and youth.

Private sector strikes broke out, including at the Velona garment factory, where more than a thousand workers, mostly female, faced police harassment by the coalition government. Thousands of students from Peradeniya University marched to the nearby city of Kandy, in support of the strike.

Bandaranaikes coalition government, which the LSSP and Stalinist leaders falsely promised would bring socialism, did not even last until the end of 1964. It was brought down in a parliamentary coup, organised by the right-wing United National Party (UNP).

With the UNP in power, the political radicalisation continued. Several petty-bourgeois political groups emerged among students and rural youth, such as Peradiga Sulanga (Eastern Wind), Gini Pupura (Spark), and Rathu Tharuwa (Red Star).

Prominent among these groups was the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) led by Rohana Wijeweera, who had studied at the Lumumba University in the Soviet Union. Its ideology was derived from a mixture of Maoism, Castroism, Che Guevarism and Sinhala populism. All these groups rejected the international character of the political crisis that was developing in Sri Lanka and internationally, and the revolutionary role of the working class.

The main political party claiming to represent the working class was the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (Revolutionary), or LSSP (R), founded by those LSSP delegates who had voted against entering the Bandaranaike government.

The resolution of the anti-coalition faction at the June 1964 LSSP congress branded collaboration with Bandaranaikes bourgeois SLFP government as a gross contravention of the partys revolutionary program. However, by characterising the treachery of the LSSP as acceptance of portfolios in the coalition government, it justified the LSSPs opportunist backsliding, including its no-contest electoral pacts with the Sinhala populist SLFP, and its entry into the United Left Front with the communalist MEP.

Moreover, the LSSP (R) remained within the Pabloite United Secretariat, which was politically responsible for the LSSPs retreat from the principles of socialist internationalism over the previous decade. Central to Pabloite opportunism was the rejection of the revolutionary role of the working class and the necessity of establishing Bolshevik-type parties to fight for its political independence against all the agencies of the ruling class, including bourgeois nationalism, Stalinism and Social Democracy.

The founding members of the Revolutionary Communist League (RCL) had initially looked to the LSSP (R), which claimed it was fighting for Trotskyism against the LSSPs betrayal. Only on the basis of the analysis advanced by the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) was it possible for those who went on to form the RCL in 1968 to understand that the political roots of the LSSPs betrayal lay in its Pabloite perspective.

The Historical and International Foundations of the Socialist Equality Party explained: The ICFIs interventions in Sri Lanka through the SLL [British Socialist Labour League]first by Gerry Healy in June 1964 and then by Mike Banda, editor of the SLLs Newsletter, in December 1964resulted in the formation of a pro-ICFI grouping inside the LSSP (R). The LSSP (R), however, was a hostile political environment At the first LSSP (R) conference, the entire leadership combined to block a resolution by an ICFI sympathiser to debate the international questionthat is, the struggle waged by the ICFI against Pabloite revisionism.

Gerry Healy, who travelled to Sri Lanka to politically intervene in the LSSP Congress of June 1964, stated in his Ceylon: The Great Betrayal: The LSSP revolutionary wing has now the historic task of reconstructing the revolutionary party in Ceylon (Sri Lanka). They will do this all the better when they understand its relationship to the past and break completely from the Unified Secretariat in Paris.

Wilfred Spike Pereira

The one person who took this advice seriously was LSSP (R) Central Committee member, Wilfred Pereira, known as Spike, a veteran Trotskyist who had been a member of the Bolshevik Leninist Party of India during the Second World War.

The youth who joined the LSSP (R) had to learn, through their own experiences, the farsightedness of the ICFIs analysis. During the campaign for the 1965 general election, they found they had no answers when asked why the LSSP (R) leaders had not warned about the LSSPs betrayal until it finally happened.

The LSSP (R)s poor election result exacerbated the crisis in the party. Leading LSSP (R) member, V. Karalasingham, exploited the situation to cultivate close relations, particularly with Peradeniya University students. In December 1965, he had provided legal aid to those being tried for their role in leading a student strike.

In his pamphlet, Senile Leftism, Karalasingham castigated the two LSSP (R) parliamentarians for joining with the UNP in voting against the 1964 December Throne Speech and bringing down the Bandaranaike government, as a Himalayan Blunder. He organised a new centrist group within the LSSP (R), comprised mainly of students, who began publishing a newspaper called Shakthi .

The Shakthi group continued the Pabloite politics of trying to pressure the LSSP and CP, which were part of the SLFP-led coalition, to the left. On May Day 1966, Karalasingham issued an Open Letter, published in Shakthi, arguing that a new SLFP-LSSP-CP coalition government would be a progressive alternative to the existing UNP regime and would be a step on the path to a real revolutionary government.

Spike subjected the article to withering criticism. He pointed out that Karalasinghams proposed intermediate regime was nothing but a sequence of bourgeois governments, and represented a capitulation to the existing level of consciousness of the most backward layers of the anti-UNP masses.

Exposing his real intent, Karalasingham organised a secret meeting between leading members of the Shakthi group and LSSP secretary Leslie Gunawardena. A package was worked out, deceitfully claimed to be favourable to Shakthis members and its political line if they rejoined the LSSPwhich meant becoming part of its reactionary coalition with the SLFP.

Calling a meeting of the Shakthi group, Karalasingham claimed its members could obtain leading positions in the LSSPs unions and youth organisation. He falsely likened this to an entry tactic, as sanctioned by Leon Trotsky.

Wije Dias

Wije Dias, with the support of another Shakhti member, rejected the proposal, insisting it would amount to a reversal of the decision taken in June 1964 to oppose the LSSPs betrayal. He explained that the LSSPs support for a racist, anti-Tamil demonstration, organised by the SLFP in January 1966, was enough to confirm the coalitions utterly reactionary role. The meeting broke up without taking a final decision.

Several members of the Shakthi group had the opportunity to meet with Tony Banda, a leading SLL member, who was in Colombo at the time. Banda explained the opportunist character of Karalasinghams entry politics and brought the Shakthi members into contact with Spike, who was conducting a struggle for the ICFI and genuine Trotskyism within the LSSP (R).

Those who were attracted to the ICFIs perspective formed a new group, named Virodhaya, after the newspaper that it published. Banda remained in Sri Lanka for several weeks, introducing the group to the essential history of the ICFIs struggle against Pabloism, including the split in the Fourth International in 1953 and the SLLs political fight against the US Socialist Workers Partys reunification with the Pabloites in 1963.

Keerthi Balasuriya

In these discussions, Keerthi Balasuriya, the youngest member of the Virodhaya group, aged just 19 years, emerged as the sharpest theoretical and political fighter for Trotskyism and, by the time the RCL was founded, he was indisputably regarded as the groups chief leader.

Banda insisted that special attention had to be paid to Lenins What Is To Be Done? in which he had grappled with the problem of building a genuine revolutionary party of the working class. It was necessary to counter the myriad petty-bourgeois radical groups flourishing at the time, which all claimed to be adapting Marxism to the national environment. Their nationalist outlook was underpinned by a contempt for theory and their insistence that what was important were practical successes not loads of theory.

Answering an opportunist group of his day, Lenin declared: We can judge how tactless Rabocheye Dyelo is when, with an air of triumph, it quotes Marxs statement: Every step of real movement is more important than a dozen programs. To repeat these words in a period of theoretical disorder is like wishing mourners at a funeral many happy returns of the day.

The Virodhaya group repeatedly intervened to expose the opportunism of the Pabloites. Its members challenged USec leader Ernest Mandel at his public lecture in Colombo in 1967. Asked what was the greatest political crime of the 20th century, Mandel ignored the assassination of Leon Trotsky in 1940, and named the 1963 murder of US president John Kennedy, a political representative of American imperialism.

Spike used a membership meeting of the LSSP (R), in which Mandel participated, to confront the USec leader. He accused USec of being directly responsible for the degeneration and ultimate debacle of the LSSP. Mandels response was to launch a witch hunt against Spike, over an editorial he had written six months previously, condemning Castro for his rabid attack on the Fourth International at a Tri-Continental Conference.

Bala Tampoe

Spike stoutly defended himself, declaring that LSSP (R) leader Bala Tampoe and the Central Committee were accusing him of lese-majeste against Fidel Castro for presuming to doubt his revolutionary bona fides. He declared that he had criticised Castro, not as an ordinary individual, but as a proud member of the Fourth International, the world party of socialist revolution which was founded by Leon Trotsky I have dared to criticise Castro for trying to deceive and disorient the international working class and indirectly instigating a witch hunt of Trotskyists.

At the LSSP (R) Congress in April 1968, Spike moved a resolution for the party to break from the revisionist politics of USec and to join the International Committee. When the resolution was defeated, Spike split from the LSSP (R) and participated in the founding of the RCL.

This was a period of deepening political and economic crisis for world capitalism, which impacted Sri Lanka through a devaluation of the rupee in 1967, falling living conditions, growing social unrest and a wave of public sector strikes.

These struggles in Sri Lanka coincided with powerful class battles internationally. Beginning with the 1968 MayJune general strike of French workers against the De Gaulle regime, revolutionary struggles swept across Europe in the period from 1968 to 1975, not sparing Stalinist Eastern Europe, with the Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia in 1968. US military forces were driven out of Vietnam. In India, in 1975, the Gandhi government resorted to emergency rule to crush the strikes and protests of workers and the rural poor.

The RCLs founding Congress was held on June 16 and 17, 1968. It discussed a report from the Third Congress of the ICFI, which had been held in 1966 in Britain. At the Third Congress, the SLL had opposed a tendency that declared that the Fourth International had been liquidated and had to be refounded. The SLL insisted that the continuity of the Fourth International had been preserved through the continuous political struggle against all forms of opportunism. The establishment of the RCL was living proof of the central importance of the ICFIs struggle against the Pabloite revisionism of both the LSSP and the LSSP (R).

At the RCLs founding congress, the key issue that was debated was the conception that the formation of the RCL represented the fusion of a national revolutionary current in Sri Lankatracing its history through the LSSP, LSSP (R) and Shakthiwith the ICFI.

Keerthi Balasuriya strongly argued against this position, emphasising that the continuity of the political movement lay in the ICFIs international struggle against Pabloism, not in a national tendency. He made clear that the founding of the RCL was only possible through the intervention of the SLL, the leading section of the ICFI, which had explained the LSSPs betrayal as part of the broader impact of Pabloism internationally.

The RCL Congress unanimously adopted a resolution declaring its full agreement with the SLL resolution that had been adopted at the Third Congress of the ICFI. It stated: This Congress expresses its complete faith in the competence of the ICFI, acquired through its consistent struggle for the program and method of the Fourth International, to meet the new challenges of building the Fourth International as the centralised proletarian leadership.

This Congress dedicates itself firmly to the task of building the party of the proletarian revolution in Ceylon as the section of the ICFI in the intransigent struggle against all forms of revisionism and declares that this task is inseparably bound up with the active intervention in the class struggle to the maximum possible extent in every place and under all circumstances.

The founding Congress unanimously elected Keerthi Balasuriya as the RCLs first general secretary.

To be continued



The author also recommends:

The lessons of the Lanka Sama Samaja Partys Great Betrayal

[24 September 2018]China has ruled out any further trade talks with the United States as long as the Trump administration continues to threaten and impose further tariffs on its exports.

The latest round of measuresthe imposition of a 10 percent tariff on $200 billion worth of goods, set to escalate to 25 percent next yearcame into effect on Monday. Just an hour after the new tariffs were enacted the official Xinhua newsagency published a white paper setting out Beijings position.

The door for trade talks is always open, it stated, but negotiations must be held in an environment of mutual respect and could not be carried out under the threat of tariffs.

In addition to the escalation of the latest tariffs to a rate of 25 percent, Trump has also issued a threat to strike levies on an additional $267 billion worth of Chinese goods, meaning that, if implemented, all of Chinas exports would carry some form of tariff.

Tensions have been further heightened by the imposition of sanctions by the State Department on a Chinese military agency for its purchases of equipment from Russia in defiance of a unilateral ban imposed by the US over Russias alleged interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Speaking to Fox News last Sunday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made clear that the US intends to escalate its actions, saying that Trump was not starting a trade war but engaging in one that was already underway. The Trump administration considers that since China joined the World Trade Organisation in 2001 it has benefited to the detriment of the US.

The trade war by China against the United States has been going on for years, Pompeo said. To the extent one wants to call this a trade war, we are determined to win it.

US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer is on record as saying that the US decision to support Chinas accession to the world trade body was a mistake.

The escalation of the conflict and the growing recognition that it is not a temporary spat, able to be solved through negotiation, has led to expressions of concern in sections of the financial media.

In a comment piece, Financial Times columnist Rana Foroohar wrote that while it would be easy to see the latest round of tariffs as just another provocative shot fired off by a president in need of overseas distractions, that would be wrong.

In fact, far from being an ill-advised and hasty policy decision emanating solely from Donald Trumps White House, this latest tariff round represents something much more dangerous and lasting: a true reset of economic and political relations between the US and China, and the beginning of something that looks more like a cold war than a trade war.

Foroohar went on to point out that the reset is supported by sections of the political establishment extending well beyond Trump, including the Pentagon and what she called the labour faction of the progressive leftthat is, the trade unions. To this list could be added the Democrats who are just as bellicose towards China as Trump, if not more so.

They have different agendas, but coalesce around the idea that the US and China are in a long-term strategic rivalry, and that, as a result, US trade policy and national security policy should no longer be separated, she wrote.

This connection has already been made clear in the latest National Defense Strategy issued by the Pentagon in January which labelled China a strategic competitor of the US using predatory economics to advance its regional and global position.

Viewed in this context, to label the conflict with China as simply the start of a cold wardrawing a parallel with relations between the US and the former Soviet Unionis misleading. The US never regarded the USSR as an economic threat that could undermine American hegemony. But that is a central concern of the anti-China hawks in the administration and their supporters in the wider political establishment.

They fear that the tides of economic development, which has seen the rapid expansion of China, especially since its entry into the WTO, are moving against the US, threatening its economic and ultimately military dominance. This must be prevented by all means necessary.

Chinas entry into the WTO was promoted by the Clinton administration and carried through in 2001. The view at that time was that the low-cost manufacture and assembly of consumer goods by China, which had proved very beneficial to the US during the 1990s, would continue, and that China would remain at the bottom of global value chains.

However, capitalist economy has its own inherent objective logic and China has not remained in that position. It continues to supply cheaper consumer products, but the past decade and a half has seen it move rapidly up the value chain.

China overtook Germany as the worlds top exporter of goods in 2009 and its share of global manufacturing exports has expanded from 12 to 18 percent over the past decade.

Xu Bin, a professor at the China Europe International Business School told the Financial Times: Chinese companies are abandoning low-end goods to move to middle-range goods, its actually a very fast change.

The newspaper reported: China is now the dominant producer in medium high-tech industries, with its global share nearly tripling in the past decade to 32 percent, according to the US National Science Board, surpassing the US in the late 2000s, and the EU this decade.

Telecommunications, transport equipment and auto parts have grown as a proportion of Chinas exports to the US, while the share of textiles and footwear has contracted. According to the World Bank, Chinas share of the global capital goods market rose from 5 percent to 20 percent between 2007 and 2016.

The trade war launched by the US is driven by a determination to halt the next stage of Chinas economic expansion as it moves to expand its industrial and technological base under the Made in China 2025 plan.

The official position of the White House was set out by White House deputy press secretary Lindsay Walters in a statement last Saturday as the latest trade measures were due to go into effect. We remain open to continuing discussions with China, but China must meaningfully engage on unfair trading practices, she said.

Such meaningful engagement goes far beyond any action by China to reduce its trade deficit with the US. China has already advanced proposals to increase its exports from the US but they have been rejected as inadequate.

The central demand of the US administration is that China ceases its alleged theft and acquisition of intellectual propertya practice no doubt engaged in by China as it has been by other capitalist powers, including the USand ends state subsidies to key industries, via the promotion of national champions and other so-called market-distorting policies: in other words, that Beijing essentially scraps its central economic strategy.

At this point, China still lags behind the US and other major powers in the next stage of technological development. However, on the basis of the vast changes over the past decade and a half, the fear is that this situation could rapidly change and pose a direct threat to US economic dominance.

This is the essential driving force of the US trade war which it intends to prosecute by all means at its disposal, both economic and, if necessary, military.In his second appearance before the United Nations General Assembly Tuesday, US President Donald Trump delivered a fascistic tirade, threatening military aggression and all-out trade war, while invoking retrograde nationalism, sovereignty and patriotism as the only way forward in confronting the immense problems confronting humanity.

A year ago, the American president shocked the world body by announcing from the podium that he was ready, willing and able to totally destroy North Korea and its 25 million people, while referring to the countrys leader Kim Jong-un by the imbecilic nickname of Rocket Man.

This time around, the reaction to his megalomaniac remarks was somewhat different and, in its own way, expressed the deep-going breakdown of the global capitalist order.

Trumps address began with what amounted to a campaign stump speech to the world body, claiming to have made extraordinary progress in the year since he last appeared there. His boast that he had accomplished more in his period in office than almost any administration in the history of our country provoked open and derisive laughter from assembled diplomats and heads of state, forcing him to depart from his prepared text and acknowledge, I didnt expect that reaction.

The reaction underscored the near universal recognition that the United States is no longer a guarantor of a global capitalist order, but rather a kind of rogue state spreading chaos and disruption, both militarily and economically, across the globe. Trump is not the cause of this transformation, but rather the personification of the protracted degeneration of American capitalism over a period of decades.

In his speech, Trump reveled in his administrations repudiation of international institutions, from the UNs Human Rights Council, from which the US is the first country to withdraw, to the International Criminal Court, which Washington has threatened with sanctions if it attempts to hold US officials responsible for war crimes, to the UN global compact on migration, which cuts across the Trump administrations systematic persecution of immigrants and refugees.

Undeterred by the derisive response to the opening of his speech, Trump went on to spell out his measures of progress, pointing out that the US stock market is at an all-time high, citing the biggest tax cuts in US history, the beginning of construction on a border wall and the enactment of a $716 billion military spending billall manifestations of the vast social inequality, police state repression and unbridled militarism that characterize a crisis-ridden American capitalist society.

He claimed that his negotiations with North Koreas Kim had replaced the specter of conflict with a bold new push for peace, while reiterating that US sanctions against the country will remain in place until Washingtons version of denuclearization is completed, a process that can quickly snap back to military confrontation on the Korean peninsula.

Trump reserved his most bellicose threats for Iran. He boasted of his decision to unilaterally abrogate the 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1, the US and the other permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany. This action, a direct violation of international law, resulted in the re-imposition of punishing unilateral sanctions that amount to a state of war between Washington and Tehran.

More punishing sanctions are set to go into effect on November 5, including the attempt to enforce a complete embargo on Iranian oil exports and the exclusion of Iran from the US-dominated international banking system, measures aimed at fully crippling the countrys economy, bringing down the existing regime and installing a client state that would assure unfettered control of the countrys oil wealth by US-based energy conglomerates.

Trump delivered a blistering denunciation of Irans leaders, declaring that they sow chaos, death, and destruction." He continued: "They do not respect their neighbors or borders, or the sovereign rights of nations. Instead, Irans leaders plunder the nations resources to enrich themselves and to spread mayhem across the Middle East and far beyond.

The Iranian people are rightly outraged that their leaders have embezzled billions of dollars from Irans treasury, seized valuable portions of the economy, and looted the peoples religious endowments, all to line their own pockets and send their proxies to wage war. Not good.

Very little from these passages needs to be changed outside of substituting US for Iran to provide an accurate description of the rule of the United States by a government representing Wall Street and the military-intelligence apparatus, a government that has waged illegal wars of aggression in the Middle East that have killed and maimed millions, and armed and funded Al Qaeda-linked militias to carry out regime-change operations. At home, Americas financial oligarchy has looted the social wealth of the country to make good on its losses in the financial meltdown of 2008 to the tune of tens of trillions of dollars.

In his own address to the UN General Assembly, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani charged that Washington is waging a form of economic terrorism against Iran and is pursuing a foreign policy based upon the principle that might makes right, leading to a practice of bullying and imposition.

Rouhani rejected overtures from Washington for talks aimed at renegotiating the Iranian nuclear accord. It is ironic that the US government does not even conceal its plan for overthrowing the same government it invites to talks! he said.

Trump also singled out Syria for denunciation, reiterating US threats of military intervention in response to the use of chemical weaponsan invitation to Western-backed Islamist militias to stage such an incidentwhile reiterating Washingtons demand for regime-change.

The US president reaffirmed the centuries-old Monroe Doctrine used to assert US hegemony over Latin America, declaring that we reject the interference of foreign nations in this hemisphere and in our own affairs. The reference was clearly to growing Chinese investment and trade in the region. He also reiterated Washingtons aim of regime-change in Venezuela, which, his administration has repeatedly made clear, does not exclude direct US military intervention.

Trumps speech included a bellicose denunciation of China and a celebration of $250 billion worth of tariffs imposed by his administration against Chinese goods, igniting a dangerous trade war.

He demagogically postured as a defender of American workers, claiming that the US had lost over 3 million manufacturing jobs since China joined the World Trade Organization and declaring that the US will no longer tolerate it and we will not allow our workers to be victimized. The prospect of all-out trade war between the worlds number one and number two economies creating more jobs for American workers is delusional at best.

There was a pervasive element within Trumps speech of portraying the US as a country besieged, with its workers to be victimized, our companies to be cheated and our wealth to be plundered.

OPEC, he said was ripping off the United States with high oil prices and I dont like it.

The US, he said, was the largest donor of foreign aid, but few give anything to us. From now on, he said, Washington would provide aid only to those countries that upheld US interests.

This portrayal of the US as the victim of the world was combined with the promotion of a kind of volkisch nationalism, which was the thread that ran throughout Trumps address, recalling nothing so much as the rhetoric of Hitler and Mussolini in the 1930s:

Inside everyone in this great chamber today, and everyone listening all around the globe, there is the heart of a patriot that feels the same powerful love for your nation, the same intense loyalty to your homeland. The passion that burns in the hearts of patriots and the souls of nations has inspired reform and revolution, sacrifice and selflessness, scientific breakthroughs and magnificent works of art.

Our task is not to erase it, but to embrace it, to build with it, to draw on its ancient wisdom and to find within it the will to make our nations greater The task, he said, was to protect our sovereignty and to stand for our peoples and their nations.

Nations, homeland, patriotism, ancient wisdom, sovereignty, will: all the ingredients that went into the rise of fascism and the eruption of world wars twice in the 20th century.

A significant part of Trumps speech was devoted to the denunciation of socialism. Using Venezuela as a strawmana country where the domination of finance capital is greater now than it was three decades agoTrump declared, Socialisms thirst for power leads to expansion, incursion and oppression. All nations of the world should resist socialism and the misery that it brings to everyone.

That the US president finds the threat of socialism a principal preoccupation in his reactionary diatribe before the United Nations is an unmistakable indication of the advanced state of the political and social tensions within the United States itself. It expresses the fears within the financial and corporate oligarchy that it is facing a revolt from below by masses of workers and youth who are growing intensely hostile to the existing capitalist system.CLAY COUNTY, Ind. (WTHI) - Thanks to your generosity, the Clay County Humane Society will be able to better take care of its dependents.

On Tuesday, News 10 stopped by Brazil's city hall.

That's where we found Mayor Brian Wyndham celebrating the success of a local fundraiser.

Earlier this month, Brazil held the Mayor's Ride.

The event was canceled due to weather conditions, but it was later rescheduled.

Last year, the fundraiser raised about $7,000...this year it raised $14,000.FREELANDVILLE, Ind. (WTHI) - Bethel church in Freelandville is sending a group to help those in need. The church has been hosting mission trips to the Dominican Republic. Groups began mission trips in 2014.

The church partners with Foundation for Peace.

Mission trips began as medical missions. These were known as Nurses on a Mission.

The church now sends a group called Carpenters on a Mission. Carpenters on a Mission helps to rebuild and repair facilities in the community. The group is heading on another trip this November.

Jane Tiek with Bethel church says, "We feel called to go. So it's extremely important. And to have the backing of our church and the community and to have people willing to go. It's just amazing. And it truly has blessed us."

Group members are volunteers. Each volunteer pays for their own trip. The church is holding a cornhole tournament fundraiser Sunday, September 30th. All proceeds go to Carpenters on a MissionTERRE HAUTE, Ind. (WTHI) - Indiana State University hosted a special guest on Tuesday evening.

The school hosted Spencer Stone as part of their Speaker Series.

Stone is known as an American hero after he helped to stop a terror attack in Paris, France.

Organizers say his story is inspiring.

Dwayne Betts will be the next person to take part in the program.

He is scheduled to visit in October.TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (WTHI) - A federal judge has outlined new requirements for Vigo County leaders regarding the Vigo County Jail.

The parties involved in the lawsuit over conditions at the jail appeared in court on Friday for a hearing on a partial summary judgment. This kind of judgment can allow for disputes to be settled without a trial.

Former inmate, Jauston Huerta, and others filed the lawsuit against Sheriff Greg Ewing and other county leaders in 2016. The plaintiffs have maintained the conditions at the jail are unconstitutional, leading to injuries and other issues.

A Minute Entry filed on Monday, show the court granted the plaintiffs' motion for a partial summary judgment, "...To the extent that it found that conditions at the Vigo County Jail were unconstitutional."

Magnus-Stinson ordered county leaders to prepare a timeline which details when the new jail will be operational. The defendants must file the report by October 15, 2018.

Under the order, the parties involved must also plan how to correct issues causing violations of inmates' federal rights. The documents filed on Monday state county leaders should increase staffing at the jail. The addition is expected to further the goal of increasing recreation for inmates, and improve jail staff's ability to perform medical and safety checks.

According to the documents filed on Monday, the court will soon issue an order discussing the relief available to the plaintiffs due to the conditions.

PREVIOUS STORY | DOUBLE THE BEDS AND DO IT NOW: RESULTS COME IN FROM NEW JAIL STUDY

Magnus-Stinson is also requiring the entities involved to report to the court periodically on the progress of the new jail and how constitutional violations are being addressed. The first report of this kind is set for November 13. 2018 at the Federal Courthouse in Terre Haute. Sheriff Ewing, the leaders of the Vigo County Commissioners and Vigo County Council must be present.

The court notes it is relying on the Vigo County Council's approval of a Local Option Income Tax to show county officials are serious about addressing the issues at the jail.

The order notes that solving the issues at the jail is best done by local officials, but the outlined steps in the order "do not begin alleviate the problem to the court's satisfaction."

The court has the ability to appoint a three-judge panel to consider whether a prisoner release order and other measures are appropriate.

News 10 spoke with Attorney Michael Sutherlin, who is representing the inmates in the lawsuit. He told us Friday's hearing should serve as a "come to Jesus moment" for the county, that's as the federal courts have lost its patience.

"It's a sad fact that you're an economically depressed area, which is one of the factors that sort of leads to a lot of crime," said Sutherlin, "but it's not an excuse for the government to sort of duck their responsibilities."

News 10 also reached out to County Attorney Michael Wright and Sheriff Greg Ewing on Tuesday, but they were unavailable for comment.A man is in custody after allegedly attacking three of his shipmates with a hammer and knife -- one of them fatally -- before scrambling up the mast of a fishing boat miles off the Massachusetts coast.

Mexican national Franklin Freddy Meave Vazquez, 27, faces one count of murder and one count of attempted murder and will appear in a Boston court at a later date, US Attorney Andrew E. Lelling said in a statement Monday.

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The US Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts could not say if Vazquez has been assigned legal representation.

Vazquez was one of seven crew members sailing Sunday aboard the Captain Billy Haver, a fishing vessel about 55 miles east of Massachusetts, according to an affidavit filed by a special agent in the US Coast Guard.

According to the affidavit, a crew member said he heard yelling coming from the boat's deck and ran to investigate. He was struck in the back of the head three times and fell down.

The crew member said he looked up to see Vazquez with a knife in one hand and a hammer in another, the affidavit said. Vasquez told him, "Just stay there," according to the affidavit.

Another crew member was lying on the deck, just feet away, with blood coming out of his mouth, the crew member said.

Still holding the knife and hammer, Vazquez then allegedly struck a third crew member with a hammer before climbing up the ship's mast to escape other crewmen who tried to capture him, according to the US attorney's office. He later threw the knife to the deck.

A German cruise ship, the Mein Schiff 6, responded to a distress call from the fishing boat's captain, the affidavit said.

Two of the wounded crew members were taken aboard the cruise ship. One of the victims, who had suffered a head injury and stab wounds to his torso, was pronounced dead at the scene, according to the affidavit.

The German ship responded as it was the nearest vessel with "a medical supply option," said Nathalie Holst, spokeswoman for TUI cruises. The Mein Schiff 6 took the victims aboard after consulting with American authorities, she said. The ship arrived in Boston on Monday.

"They bring back two persons. One was sitting and bleeding at the head ... and everywhere was blood, all over the face. And one person was lying there, and I don't know what happened to him," Alex Goebbels, a witness aboard the German ship, told CNN affiliate WBZ in Boston.

WBZ reported that the fishing boat was based in Virginia.

Court documents indicate that Vazquez was in the United States illegally, according to court documents and the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In March, Vazquez was arrested in Newport News, Virginia, and accused of abduction by force, intimidation or deception, according to the affidavit. He was released on bond. On April 2, he was placed in immigration proceedings but released from ICE custody April 23, the affidavit said.

ICE released a statement saying its agents "encountered" Meave Vazquez at the Norfolk City Jail in March 2018 and took him into custody upon his release.

"Despite ICE's objections, an immigration judge granted (Meave Vazquez) bond. ICE had to release him from custody April 27 after he posted bond," said the statement from ICE spokesman John Mohan.

The statement did not identify the judge, and ICE did not immediately respond to a CNN email seeking the judge's name.

If convicted, Vazquez faces up to life in prison for the murder charge and up to 20 years in prison for attempted murder. Lelling's office said Vazquez would be subject to deportation proceedings after completing any sentence imposed.The US Coast Guard plans to transfer two former 110-foot Coast Guard ships to Ukraine during a ceremony on Thursday in Baltimore.

Coast Guard Vice Adm. Michael McAllister and Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko are expected to attend the transfer ceremony.

Continents and regions Eastern Europe Europe North America Russia The Americas Ukraine United States

The transfer of the two armed Coast Guard cutters come as tensions between Ukraine and Russia in the Sea of Azov have increased in recent weeks, with Kiev and the US accusing Moscow of interfering with Ukrainian shipping in the region.

"The United States condemns Russia's harassment of international shipping in the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait," State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said in a statement late last month.

"Russia has delayed hundreds of commercial vessels since April and in recent weeks has stopped at least 16 commercial ships attempting to reach Ukrainian ports," she added.

A US defense official told CNN that the cutters Drummond and Cushin were purchased by Ukraine from the Pentagon's Excess Defense Articles program.

The Island-class cutters are typically armed with a 25 mm machine gun mount and four .50-caliber machine guns.Iranian President Hassan Rouhani flatly denied Tuesday that he has asked for a meeting with President Donald Trump.

"Not this year, nor last year," Rouhani told CNN. "We have never made such a request for a meeting with the President of the United States."

Continents and regions Donald Trump Government and public administration Government bodies and offices Hassan Rouhani Iran Middle East Middle East and North Africa Political Figures - Intl Political Figures - US US federal government White House

Trump started his second day at the UN General Assembly in typical fashion, with an early morning tweet. He wrote, "Despite requests, I have no plans to meet Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Maybe someday in the future. I am sure he is an absolutely lovely man!"

Live updates: Trump at the United Nations

Rouhani told CNN's Christiane Amanpour that while Iran received eight requests from US officials for a meeting last year, he did not think talks between the two leaders were "appropriate," then or now.

And as for being called "a lovely man" by someone who labeled his country "the leading state sponsor of terror," Rouhani dismissed the comment, saying Trump is "playing with words and will not get us to any solutions."

Attempts to save the Iran nuclear deal

The United States and Iran have been at a standoff since Trump announced his decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal in May, pitting him against other signatories.

The nuclear accord was one of President Barack Obama's crowning achievements, and Trump's swift exit delivered a powerful blow to his legacy.

The rest of the deal's signatories, which include US allies Britain, France and Germany, have been scrambling to save what is known officially as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Rouhani acknowledged that together with Russia and China, the signatories have proven they want to salvage the agreement, but he said they have fallen short of expectations, and he has not seen any results in a "tangible fashion."

Jailed dual nationals in Iran

Pressed on the fate of dual nationals still jailed in Tehran's Evin Prison, Rouhani said Iran has its own citizens imprisoned in Western countries. Those jailed in Iran include British-Iranian mother and charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

Rouhani told Amanpour that "all prisoners must be freed and returned to their families, but it must be a path that travels both ways."NEW YORK, Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Guggenheim Securities, the investment banking and capital markets division of Guggenheim Partners, announced today that four senior research professionals have joined the firms Technology, Media, and Telecom (TMT) equity research practice. The TMT equity research practice launched new and differentiated coverage of companies in the software sector last month with plans to expand further in coming weeks. Nandan Amladi, Imtiaz Koujalgi, and Kenneth Wong have joined as Directors, and Robert Harrington has joined as a Managing Director and Software Product Manager.



We are excited to launch a new approach to covering software companies at Guggenheim that will drive more relevant content for our clients and allows us to develop a deeper level of research, said Stefano Natella, Co-Head of Equities. Rather than a large- and small-cap combined approach, we will instead focus on the different software segments with one analyst responsible for all companies in each vertical, such as human resources, security, digital design, and cloud.

Robert Harrington has two decades of experience in software research. He will be the teams Product Manager. He most recently worked at Sapinda Invest, USA where he was the Senior Global Technology Analyst. Prior to Sapinda, he was a TMT analyst at Esaplier Global Management. He began his career at Credit Suisse research. Mr. Harrington holds a B.A in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from Oxford University.

Nandan Amladi has more than 25 years of experience in software research and the software industry. At Guggenheim, his focus will be on Human Capital Management and Communications Software. He joined most recently from Deutsche Bank where he was a senior analyst. Before Deutsche, he was a Director in Strategy and Planning at Alcatel-Lucent and NCR. Mr. Amladi received his MBA in Finance from the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business, his M.S. in Computer Engineering from the University of Cincinnati, and his B.E. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Mumbai.

Imtiaz Koujalgi has more than 20 years of experience in the technology industry. In his role at Guggenheim, he will be focused on Security and Data Analytics Software. Prior to joining, Mr. Koujalgi was a Director at Aurmedis Global, a TMT focused hedge fund. Before Aurmedis, he covered software in the Deutsche Bank equity research group. Mr. Koujalgi is a CFA Charterholder, and he received his MBA in Finance from the NYU Stern School of Business and his B.S. in Electronics Engineering from Shivaji University, India.

Kenneth Wong has more than 13 years of experience in software research. At Guggenheim, his focus will be on Vertical Applications and SMB Software. He joins most recently from Citigroup where he was a senior analyst in Citi Investment Research. Before Citigroup, he worked at Cowen and Company, and he began his career at Bear Stearns. Mr. Wong is a CFA Charterholder, and he received his B.A. in Political Economies from the University of California, Berkeley.

Messrs. Harrington, Amladi, Koujalgi, and Wong are based in Guggenheims New York office.

About Guggenheim Securities

Guggenheim Securities is the investment banking and capital markets business of Guggenheim Partners, a global investment and advisory firm. Guggenheim Securities offers services that fall into four broad categories: Advisory, Financing, Sales and Trading, and Research. Guggenheim Securities is headquartered in New York, with additional offices in Chicago, Boston, Atlanta, San Francisco, and Houston. For more information, please contact us at GSinfo@GuggenheimPartners.com or 212.518.9200.

About Guggenheim Partners

Guggenheim Partners is a global investment and advisory firm with more than $265 billion1 in assets under management. Across our three primary businesses of investment management, investment banking, and insurance services, we have a track record of delivering results through innovative solutions. With over 2,300 professionals based in more than 25 offices around the world, our commitment is to advance the strategic interests of our clients and to deliver long-term results with excellence and integrity. We invite you to learn more about our expertise and values by visiting GuggenheimPartners.com and following us on Twitter at twitter.com/guggenheimptnrs.

1Assets under management are as of 06.30.2018 and include consulting services for clients whose assets are valued at approximately $66bn.

Media Contact

Steven Lee

Guggenheim Partners

212.293.2811

Steven.Lee@guggenheimpartners.comThe US Marine Corps' stealth F-35B Lightning fighter jet could fly its first combat mission within days, according to several US defense officials, who told CNN that the fifth-generation aircraft are currently aboard the USS Essex amphibious assault ship and should soon be in a position to conduct airstrikes over Afghanistan.

The USS Essex has already sailed from the Gulf of Aden into the North Arabian Sea and is expected to move into the Persian Gulf in coming days, one official said.

Aircraft Armed forces Aviation and aerospace industry Business and industry sectors Business, economy and trade Continents and regions Government and public administration Government bodies and offices Government organizations - US Military Military aircraft Military operations North America The Americas United States Unrest, conflicts and war US Department of Defense US federal departments and agencies US federal government US Marine Corps Marine transportation Marine vessels Military vessels Transportation and warehousing

F-35 pilots have been conducting intelligence and surveillance missions in Somalia while on standby to conduct air support for US troops on the ground there if needed.

While available for support, the advanced fighter jet was not used in an airstrike over Somalia on Saturday that killed 18 militants after US and local forces came under attack.

In May, Israel Defense Forces said they were using their version of the F-35 in operational missions, striking at least two unspecified targets in the region.

That announcement marked the first time that the F-35 had been used in an actual combat situation -- a significant moment given the program's checkered past.

The F-35 fighter jet is touted as the future of military aviation; a lethal and versatile aircraft that combines stealth capabilities, supersonic speed, extreme agility and state-of-the-art sensor fusion technology, according to Lockheed Martin, the plane's primary contractor.

The F-35B is one of three variants of the F-35 aircraft and the only one with the ability to land vertically like a helicopter. It can also takeoff in a much shorter space than other fighter jets, which is why it can operate off the Essex, a warship only half the size of the 100,000-ton aircraft carriers in the US fleet.

However, the aircraft, which is the most expensive weapons system in history, has also drawn sharp criticism in recent years after facing a long list of setbacks -- including problems with software, engines and weapon systems.

And critics have continued to express skepticism about the F-35's combat capability despite reassurances by US military leaders who say the kinks are being worked out.

The US Marine Corps declared it's first squadron of F-35s ready for deployment in July 2015. The Air Force said its version of the aircraft was combat ready in August 2016.

The Marine Corps accomplished a significant milestone last year by deploying its variant to Japan -- the aircraft's first permanent overseas deployment.

The F-35 has been a favorite of President Donald Trump who has lauded the aircraft several times for being 'invisible." The aircraft has reduced capability to be seen by adversary radars but is not invisible.

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that the US Marine Corps was the first military service to declare their F-35s combat ready.OXFORD, Miss. (WTVA) - A Corinth man has pleaded guilty to federal charges he illegally was in possession of a firearm.

Justin Darrell, 38, entered the plea in U.S. District Court in Oxford Monday.

Darrell was arrested in September of 2017 on drug charges by the Alcorn County Sheriff's Department.

Deputies also recovered a semi-automatic handgun with the serial numbers removed during this arrest.

Darrell pleaded guilty to possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

He will be sentenced at a later date.NEW ALBANY, Miss. (Press Release/WTVA) - New Albany's school bond issue passed overwhelmingly.

New Albany voters went to the polls Tuesday.

Of 877 total votes cast, 811 voted in favor of the bond issue and 66 voted against, a 92.47 percent approval rate.

With the passing of this bond issue, it shows that the New Albany community, once again, has placed a high emphasis on our school district, said Superintendent Lance Evans.

With the passing of the $8.5 million bond, school board and administrators will begin planning immediately so that renovations and repairs can begin in May 2019 as soon as the 2018-2019 school year concludes.

Through the summer of 2019, repairs and renovations will occur on all school campuses to include New Albany Elementary School, New Albany Middle School, New Albany High School, New Albany School of Career & Technical Education, and the Alternative School.

Repairs and renovations will include roof repairs and replacements; HVAC replacements; and security upgrades. The focus of the renovations will address safety and security; student comfort; and energy efficiency.

We are so appreciative of our communitys support of our school district in this bond issue, Evans said. It will help us in achieving our strategic plans goals and core values.JACKSON, Miss. (WTVA) - Popular ride-sharing company Uber will pay the state of Mississippi $716,861.15 after reaching a settlement over its 2016 data breach.

This is part of an overall settlement with each state totaling $148 million.

Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood says Uber failed to address a data breach to its affected drivers for an entire year after becoming aware of the incident.

This affected 1,230 drivers in Mississippi and 600,000 nationwide.(WTXL) - One Florida city is receiving a big grant from the state to create new jobs.

WTXL ABC's Jada Williams talked with the Mayor of Sopchoppy to find out how the city plans to spend that money.

Sopchoppy is small and its quaint. And Mayor Lara Edwards says that even with the money from a state grant, that won't change.

Sopchoppy is one of 11 cities across the Sunshine State and the only city in the Big Bend to be awarded the Competitive Florida Partnership Grant.

The grant allows the cities to work alongside the Department of Economic Opportunity to identify areas of growth and ways to propel the local economy.

"We don't want to make our city bigger," Edwards said. "We like being a small city. But we want to improve what makes us unique. So we want to be able to provide more assistance to our existing businesses, some of our amazing local businesses, and then be able to improve some of our historic buildings and areas in our downtown that would be viable commercial spaces for anybody looking to bring a business into Sopchoppy."

Edwards says the city is also looking at ways to increase tourism and get more people stopping into the small town just to see all that it has to offer.A British woman went to an emergency room on Tenerife, the largest of Spains Canary Islands, because she had a strong pain in her genitals.File Photo: Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi (R) meets with his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif in Shanghai, east China, May 21, 2014. (Xinhua/Zhang Yuwei)

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 24 (Xinhua) -- China's State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif discussed bilateral commitment to the international deal on Iran's nuke issue during their meeting here on Monday.

Wang extended condolences to the victims of the latest terrorist attack in Iran, and strongly condemned it.

Speaking of Iran's nuke issue, Wang said that China supports Iran to defend its own legitimate rights, opposes unilateralism and hegemonic moves, and calls for upholding the comprehensive deal on Iran's nuke issue.

He said that China encourages all the parties concerned to take a right stand on this issue, and appreciates the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)'s recognition that Iran has fulfilled its obligation under the deal.

Wang added that it is in the interests of Iran to continue implementing the deal.

Zarif spoke highly of China's important role in upholding the international nuclear deal on Iran's nuclear issue, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), noting that Iran believes most members of the international community would continue to support the deal.

Iran is willing to maintain communication with China and other nations on the preservation and implementation of this deal, so as to properly handle the current situation, he said.

He also said that Iran values its ties with China and appreciates China's efforts to promote bilateral economic and trade cooperation.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 02:53:25|Editor: yan

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KHARTOUM, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said on Tuesday that Britain contributed 13.5 million pounds (about 17.8 million U.S. dollars) to support its resilience projects in Sudan.

"The UK is contributing an additional 13.5 million pounds to support WFP resilience projects as well as food and cash assistance in Sudan till March 2019," said the WFP in a statement.

"The UK's contribution will enable the WFP to continue its support to 93,000 smallholder farmers across Sudan, providing them with storage systems that reduce crop waste. Crop waste is a significant problem in Sudan," it added.

The WFP would also use the funds to create income opportunities for a further 24,000 families to boost their resilience during challenging agricultural seasons, according to the statement.

Britain's aid has been pivotal in helping the WFP to broaden its programmes and committed to long-term and predictable funding in November 2017.

Since then, the Department for International Development, a British government department responsible for administering overseas aid, has increased its funding for the WFP in Sudan from 35.7 million pounds to 49.2 million pounds.WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- One deserving Palm Beach County nonprofit will win $100,000 in marketing services  which could include research, branding, collateral development, creative campaign, website and/or photography  through a new contest sponsored by Ideabar, a marketing + media agency owned by Cox Media Group.



The Ideabar $100k Nonprofit Giveaway exemplifies Cox Media Groups continued support of Palm Beach County, as well as its investment in Ideabar, which has added a dozen new positions in its national headquarters in West Palm Beach over the past year.

The contest also serves as a testament to Ideabars commitment to its home base.

Ideabars growth is fueled by a mix of clients, from international consumer product good brands like Canopy Growth in Toronto to local institutions like Palm Beach State College, says Amy Royster Bridger, Ideabar Founder and Managing Director of Agency Strategy for Cox Media Group.

Our team offers world-class marketing and media services from our West Palm Beach headquarters. And since home is where our heart is, we are thrilled to announce the Ideabar $100k Nonprofit Giveaway to help one local nonprofit tell a powerful story in 2019.

Highlights of the contest:

Entry period: December 1st  January 15th

Finalists notified by February 1st

Winner notified by February 15th

Services rendered in 2019

Ideabar encourages all interested Palm Beach County-based nonprofits to share their story and start preparing an entry:

Submit a short essay (up to 600 words) on the local impact your organization or program will make when your story is powerfully told with the help of Ideabar.

Describe how you would use $100,000 in marketing services to help tell that story.

Include three testimonials from board members or leaders in the organization and three testimonials from people who benefit from the work you do.

A panel of Ideabar employees and community leaders will judge all entries. No purchase of services is required to enter or win.

For more information, nonprofits are invited to visit https://ideabar.agency/nonprofitgiveaway/ and sign up for contest updates.

About Ideabar

Ideabar, powered by Cox Media Group, is a media + marketing agency headquartered in West Palm Beach, with locations in Atlanta, Dayton, Miami and Orlando. We tell powerful brand stories through integrated marketing + media services, including Research + Branding + Creative + Digital. We believe every organization has a powerful story to tell  one that impacts the bottom line. An idea powerfully expressed incites action. Buyers decide, tickets sell, people enroll, minds change, and markets move.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 03:13:32|Editor: yan

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RIYADH, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- Saudi Arabia rejected on Tuesday Iranian accusations of its involvement in the deadly Ahvaz attack, Saudi Press Agency reported.

A senior official at the Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the kingdom completely rejects the deplorable false accusations by Iranian officials regarding the kingdom's support for the incidents that occurred in Iran last Saturday.

He added that the policy of his country is clear about its non-interference in the domestic affairs of other countries.

"The Iranian regime......has wasted its people's resources in its aggression and reckless behaviour that has brought nothing but chaos and destruction to the region," the official said.

The attack took place in Iran's southwestern Ahvaz city earlier Saturday when four armed men targeted a military parade marking the anniversary of the Iran-Iraq war in 1980-1988.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 04:23:54|Editor: yan

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UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- Uphold multilateralism, tackle climate change, keep the perils of new technologies at bay. These are the messages from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to world leaders who gather in New York for the high-level week of this year's UN General Assembly.

"Our future rests on solidarity. We must repair broken trust. We must reinvigorate our multilateral project," Guterres told the leaders on Tuesday before the leaders made their own speeches from the marble podium.

"Our world is suffering from a bad case of 'trust deficit disorder'," Guterres said. "And multilateralism is under fire precisely when we need it most."

Trust is at a breaking point -- trust in national institutions, trust among states, trust in the rules-based global order, he said. "Within countries, people are losing faith in political establishments, polarization is on the rise and populism is on the march."

Among countries, cooperation is less certain and more difficult. And divisions in the Security Council are stark. Trust in global governance is also fragile, as 21st-century challenges outpace 20th-century institutions and mindsets, said the UN chief.

"We have never had a true system of global governance, and much less a fully democratic one," said Guterres.

In the face of massive, existential threats to people and the planet -- but equally at a time of compelling opportunities for shared prosperity -- there is no way forward but collective, common-sense action for the common good, he said.

Together, as guardians of the common good, leaders have a duty to promote and support a reformed, reinvigorated and strengthened multilateral system, he said.

"We need commitments to a rules-based order, with the United Nations at its center and with the different institutions and treaties that bring the (UN) Charter to life. And we need to show the added value of international cooperation by delivering peace, defending human rights and driving economic and social progress for women and men everywhere."

He called the attention of the world leaders to two particular dangers: climate change and the abuse of new technologies.

"We have reached a pivotal moment. If we do not change course in the next two years, we risk runaway climate change," he said. "Climate change is moving faster than we are, and its speed has provoked a sonic boom SOS across our world."

According to the World Meteorological Organization, the past two decades included 18 of the warmest years since record-keeping began in 1850. The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is the highest in 3 million years -- and rising, he noted.

Making matters worse, world leaders are not doing enough, he said, asking for greater ambition and a greater sense of urgency.

He asked for the implementation of the Paris Agreement. "It has immense potential to set us on the right course, but its targets, which represent the bare minimum to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, are far from being met."

"Our future is at stake. Nothing is immune -- climate change affects everything and everything can be undermined. Keeping our planet's warming to well below 2 degrees (from pre-industrial levels) is essential for global prosperity and the security of nations," said the UN chief.

He asked world leaders to embrace new technologies for climate action.

"Clean energy is more affordable and competitive than ever. If we pursue the right path, climate action could add 26 trillion U.S. dollars to the global economy by 2030. Green economy policies could create 24 million new jobs."

Far from being a fundamental threat to the economy, climate action is generating new industries, new markets, more jobs and less dependency on fossil fuels, he said. "The real danger is not the threat to one's economy that comes from acting. It is, instead, the risk to one's economy by failing to act."

Guterres warned world leaders of the downside of new technologies, such as artificial intelligence.

"The impacts of new technologies on warfare are a direct threat to our common responsibility to guarantee peace and security," said Guterres.

The weaponization of artificial intelligence is a growing concern. The prospect of weapons that can select and attack a target on their own raises multiple alarms, and could trigger new arms races, he warned. "Let's call it as it is. The prospect of machines with the discretion and power to take human life is morally repugnant."

"Heaven forbid, any new war could very well include a massive cyber-attack not only targeting military capacities, but also critical civilian infrastructure," he said.

At the same time, technology is being misused by terrorists and for sexual exploitation and abuse, he noted.

Malicious acts in cyberspace, such as disinformation campaigns, are polarizing communities and diminishing trust among states. And more and more people are getting their information from news or social media feeds that echo their views, reinforce tribalism and assure people that they are right and the other side is wrong, he said.

Technological advances may disrupt labor markets, bringing about socio-economic impacts, as traditional jobs change or disappear, even as the number of young job-seekers continues to grow, he observed.

With technology outracing institutions, cooperation between countries and among stakeholders will be crucial, including UN member states, the private sector, research centers, civil society and academia, said the UN chief.

More work on these issues, aimed at building trust between and within nations, will be needed to ensure the responsible use of new technologies, he said. "I urge you to use the United Nations as a platform to draw global attention to these crucial matters and to nurture a digital future that is safe and beneficial for all."Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 04:43:58|Editor: yan

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KAMPALA, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- Uganda's Vice President Edward Ssekandi said Tuesday that Uganda hopes to see more tangbile results of win-win cooperation with China.

Speaking at a Chinese National Day reception, Ssekandi said Uganda appreciates the role China is playing in its development, including road construction, hydropower plant constructions, among others.

He said Uganda looks forward to evolving more people-to-people programs between Chinese and Ugandans in tourism and sports.

"In the spirit of the Beijing Forum on China-Africa Cooperation Declaration, we wish to see more tangible results of China-Africa win-win cooperation and common development realized in Uganda," he said.

Chinese Ambassador to Uganda Zheng Zhuqiang said China has always considered Uganda a key cooperation partner in Africa.

He said the development strategies of both countries are compatible and present each other with important opportunities.

"China is working hard to realize the Chinese dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. Uganda has reached a take-off point with the best chance unprecedented in the last 500 years," he said.

He said under the Belt and Road Initiative, China hopes to create new drivers to power common development.

"China will work together with Uganda to form synergy between our two economies, enhance policy coordination and deepen mutual beneficial and practical cooperation, with a view to realizing joint development and common prosperity for both China and Uganda," said the ambassador.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 09:34:56|Editor: Liangyu

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Nepal's Minister for Industry, Commerce and Supplies Matrika Prasad Yadav (C) takes part in the Mid-Autumn Festival celebrations held by the Chinese business community in Nepal in Kathmandu, capital of Nepal, on Sept. 25, 2018. Chinese business community in Nepal celebrated the Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the Moon Festival, in Kathmandu on Tuesday evening at the presence of Nepal's Minister for Industry, Commerce and Supplies Matrika Prasad Yadav and Nepali business community. (Xinhua/Sunil Sharma)

KATHMANDU, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Chinese business community in Nepal celebrated the Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the Moon Festival, in Kathmandu on Tuesday evening at the presence of Nepal's Minister for Industry, Commerce and Supplies Matrika Prasad Yadav and Nepali business community.

Mid-Autumn Festival is considered as the second largest festival after the Chinese New Year. With growing presence of the Chinese nationals in Nepal as tourists or entrepreneurs, Chinese festivals are being celebrated more visibly than before nowadays in Nepal.

China is the second largest source of tourists to the Himalayan country after India, the largest source of foreign direct investment (FDI). China is also the second largest trading partner of Nepal, according to statistics of Nepali government agencies.

In an event organized by Xinhua News Agency Kathmandu Bureau, to celebrate the festival, Yadav said that Nepali people have the tradition of celebrating festivals of all countries as their own.

"Nepal is a country of diversity but there is unity in that diversity, Nepalis share happiness to each other's festivals," he said.

On the occasion, the minister also urged more Chinese investment in Nepal, saying that the investment climate in Nepal is better than many other countries.

"After completing the fight for people's rights for long, Nepal has entered into the phase of movement for development. The Nepali government has adopted the policy of 'prosperous Nepal, Happy Nepali'."

He sought increased investment from China in order to help the Nepali government to achieve the goal of prosperous Nepal. "We are in favour of giving equal opportunities to all foreign investors and do whatever necessary to attract more investment," he said.

The FDI commitments from China stand at 84 percent of the total FDI pledges that Nepal received in the last fiscal 2017-18 which stands at 404 million U.S. dollars, according to Nepal's Department of Industry, which registers industries. The FDI commitment was the largest from China in the previous two fiscal years too.

Speaking on behalf of Chinese communities, Jun Zhu, site manager (Asia Pacific Division) of China CAMC Engineering Co. Ltd, which is involved in building an international airport at tourism city of Pokhara in western Nepal, said that Chinese companies in Nepal were alleviating power shortage, improving the infrastructure and promoting the progress of Nepal's communication facilities. "Each step is to improve Nepal step by step," he said.

Speaking to Xinhua, he said that he felt the business environment in Nepal has improved compared to the past. "But, procedure delay in clearing documents still exists," he said.

Rajesh Kaji Shrestha, president of Nepal-China Chambers of Commerce and Industry said that Nepal is yet to bring large scale Chinese investment in Nepal.

"Nepal has the stable government now which is supportive to invest in Nepal. Now, the country should be able to attract large scale investment now," he said.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 10:10:08|Editor: Shi Yinglun

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U.S. President Donald Trump addresses the General Debate of the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly at the UN Headquarters in New York, Sept. 25, 2018. (Xinhua/Li Muzi)

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- In face of blank stares, headshake, and frowning, U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday delivered a speech at the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), touting his America First foreign policy and trade stance, while attacking globalism.

Trump highlighted his commitment to "putting sovereignty above global governance" and defended several of his highly controversial diplomatic decisions.

He attacked several international organizations and treaties, such as UN Human Rights Council, International Criminal Court and the Iran nuclear deal, all of which his administration has announced to exit or sanction against.

He lashed out at Iran, Venezuela and Germany, among others, boasting about the just-announced U.S. sanctions on Venezuela earlier on Tuesday.

Regarding the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Trump said his meeting with the country's top leader, Kim Jong Un, is productive. However, Trump added that sanctions on the nation will stay in place "until denuclearization occurs."

The speech, meeting with blank stares, headshake, and frowning all over the process, has ended "in polite, muted applause," according to several media outlets on-site.

This was the second time for Trump to address the UNGA since he assumed office in 2017.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 11:40:23|Editor: Yurou

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Zhang Ming, head of the Chinese mission to the European Union, makes remarks at a reception celebrating the 69th anniversary of the founding of People's Republic of China, on Sept. 25, 2018. In the past 40 years, China's development has brought huge opportunities for the world to achieve common prosperity, Zhang Ming, head of the Chinese mission to the European Union, said on Tuesday. (Xinhua/Ye Pingfan)

BRUSSELS, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- In the past 40 years, China's development has brought huge opportunities for the world to achieve common prosperity, Zhang Ming, head of the Chinese mission to the European Union, said on Tuesday.

Zhang made the remarks at a reception in Brussels celebrating the 69th anniversary of the founding of People's Republic of China which falls on Oct. 1.

The ambassador said that in the past 69 years, China has made strides toward greater prosperity and contributions to global peace and development.

"For years, China's contribution rate to global growth has remained above 30 percent," Zhang said in his welcoming speech.

This year also marks the 40th anniversary of China's reform and opening-up.

The ambassador said that the reform and opening-up policy was key to China's economic development in the past 40 years, and the high-quality development of China's economy in the future "can only be achieved through greater opening-up."

China's GDP expanded 6.8 percent in the first half of the year. The growth has remained between 6.7 percent and 6.9 percent for 12 consecutive quarters, highlighting its economic resilience.

Zhang stressed that despite rising unilateralism and protectionism in some parts of the world, China remains determined to pursue greater opening-up.

Since the beginning of this year, China has introduced new measures to strengthen intellectual property rights protection, ease market access, improve business environment and boost imports.

"China will firmly uphold WTO rules and the multilateral trading system, and strive to build an open world economy," Zhang added.

To achieve common development and prosperity, China has advanced the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in the spirit of consultation, cooperation and benefit for all.

"China has been working hard to build a new type of international relations and a community with a shared future for mankind," Zhang said.

He emphasized that the development of China-EU relations has been maintaining a sound momentum.

China and the EU agreed to forge synergy between the BRI and the EU's strategy for connecting Europe and Asia, which will "not only create more opportunities for China and the EU, but also contribute to global growth," the ambassador said.

"China and the EU are major supporters of multilateralism and a rule-based multilateral trade system. It is in the interests of China and the EU to jointly uphold multilateralism and contribute to global peace, development and stability," he added.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 12:25:31|Editor: Liangyu

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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 Laotian President Bounnhang Vorachit, who is also the general secretary of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party (LPRP) Central Committee, in Vientiane, Laos, Sept. 24, 2018. Zhao Leji paid an official good-will visit to Laos from Sept. 23 to 26. (Xinhua/Ding Lin)

VIENTIANE, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Senior official of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Zhao Leji on Wednesday concluded his official good-will visit to Laos, where he and Laotian officials agreed to deepen bilateral ties and cooperations between the two countries as well as ruling parties.

Zhao, also 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, started visiting Laos on Sunday.

During his meeting with Laotian President Bounnhang Vorachit, who is also the general secretary of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party (LPRP) Central Committee, Zhao said his visit was aimed at implementing the important consensus reached by both general secretary of two countries, so as to enhance strategic communication, consolidate political mutual trust and deepen substantial cooperation between the two countries.

China attaches great importance to the construction of the China-Laos railway, which is regarded as a model project of the Belt and Road Initiative, and China is willing to deepen and develop the bilateral comprehensive strategic partnership of cooperation by pushing forward the cooperations on major projects, Zhao said.

Zhao also introduced the exercise of strict self-governance of CPC in every respect and said the CPC is willing to further strengthen exchange and cooperation on discipline inspection with the LPRP in a bid to guarantee the development of respective party and country.

Bounnhang Vorachit, for his part, expressed gratitude to China's long-term assistance to Laos and spoke highly of China's historic achievements.

He said Laos is willing to enhance party exchanges with the CPC in various fields including discipline inspection, continue to make the LPRP-CPC relations to lead the Laos-China ties, and build an unbreakable Laos-China community of shared future.

During talks with Lao Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith, Zhao said China is willing to speed up the strategic alignment between the Belt and Road Initiative with Laos development strategies, and promote the construction of China-Laos railway and the China-Laos economic corridor.

Extending thanks to China's prompt assistance in fighting flood in the southern part of Laos, the Lao prime minister said that China's achievements inspire Laos' confidence in the friendship with China and further cooperation on the Belt and Road Initiative with China.

During his four-day visit, Zhao also met with Phankham Viphavan, Vice President of Laos and a Standing Member of the LPRP Secretariat, and Bounthong Chitmany, member of Central Committee of LPRP and chairman of the LPRP Inspection Committee.

Phankham Viphavan said the traditional Laos-China friendship is at its best time in history and the Lao side is ready to work closely with China to make best the positive role of Laos-China railway in the construction of Belt and Road.

Noting that the friendly exchanges between inspection committees of the two parties have scored effective coordinations on anti-corruption, Zhao said he hopes the two sides will continue to deepen exchanges on discipline inspection, enhance cooperation on fugitive repatriation and asset recovery and advance the steady development of relations between the two parties and the two countries.

Bounthong Chitmany spoke highly of the outstanding fruits resulted from CPC's enforcement of strict self-governance in all respect and the friendly cooperation between the two parties on discipline inspections, on which the Lao side is willing to work with China for further exchange and cooperation.

During his tour in Laos, Zhao and Bounthong Chitmany also visited workers undertaking the China-Laos railway construction.

Laos is the second leg of Zhao's three-state tour. He finished visiting Belarus on Sept. 22 and is expected to visit Vietnam on Wednesday.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 13:20:43|Editor: Yang Yi

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by Raimundo Urrechaga

HAVANA, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), along with its fruitful results, was introduced to the Cubans on Tuesday at an exhibition that revealed the breakthroughs of the initiative proposed by China five years ago.

The event, inaugurated at Cuba's National Library "Jose Marti," exhibited 60 photos that illustrate from the beginning the results in various areas with the BRI framework, which Chinese Ambassador to Havana Chen Xi says "helps the whole world."

The BRI not only promotes China's development but also accelerates the development of the countries that join the initiative, including the Caribbean island.

Chen said the Chinese government appreciates Cuba's efforts in advancing the initiative and hopes to "have concrete projects in the near future."

"In the past five years, this initiative has received great attention and has been well received by many countries in the world, including Latin American nations," he said.

The ambassador said Beijing attaches great importance to cooperation with Cuba.

"We have advanced conversations with the Cuban side so that this initiative can also achieve success in this country," Chen said.

The exhibition, which will run until late October, displayed photos of cooperation projects established within the BRI framework that have helped lift hundreds of thousands of people out of poverty.

It also exhibited photos themed "Events of the Belt and Road," which highlighted Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation held in May last year.

The photos also show the routes once used by Chinese merchants hundreds of years ago to conduct businesses with the West.

Meanwhile, the Chinese embassy in Havana donated televisions, computers and Chinese books published in Spanish to the National Library in Cuba.

"The books about China are very important for us because they can help us learn about that nation," said Lourdes de la Fuente, deputy director of Cuba's National Library.

According to official data, as of July 2018, more than 100 countries and international organizations had signed Belt and Road cooperation documents with China, extending the initiative's scope from the Eurasian continent to Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the South Pacific region.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 14:10:53|Editor: Shi Yinglun

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U.S. President Donald Trump addresses the General Debate of the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly at the UN Headquarters in New York, Sept. 25, 2018. (Xinhua/Li Muzi)

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- In face of blank stares, headshake, and frowning, U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday delivered a speech at the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), touting his America First foreign policy and trade stance, while attacking globalism.

Trump highlighted his commitment to "putting sovereignty above global governance" and defended several of his highly controversial diplomatic decisions.

"We will never surrender America's sovereignty to an unelected, unaccountable, global bureaucracy," he noted. "We reject the ideology of globalism, and we embrace the doctrine of patriotism."

"OPEC and OPEC nations, are, as usual, ripping off the rest of the world, and I don't like it. Nobody should like it. We defend many of these nations for nothing, and then they take advantage of us by giving us high oil prices. Not good," he said.

He attacked several international organizations and treaties, such as UN Human Rights Council, International Criminal Court and the Iran nuclear deal, all of which his administration has announced to exit or sanction against.

"I have told our negotiators that the United States will not pay more than 25 percent of the UN peacekeeping budget," he said. "This will encourage other countries to step up, get involved, and also share in this very large burden."

Saying that "I honor the right of every nation in this room to pursue its own customs, beliefs, and traditions. The United States will not tell you how to live or work or worship," Trump seemed to have failed to explain the contradictions between this claim and his administration's behaviors against Iran and Europe, among others.

He lashed out at Iran, Venezuela and Germany, among others, boasting about the just-announced U.S. sanctions on Venezuela earlier on Tuesday.

"We ask all nations to isolate Iran's regime as long as its aggression continues," he said.

As for the U.S. policy regarding Israel-Palestine peace, Trump said "America's policy of principled realism means we will not be held hostage to old dogmas, discredited ideologies, and so-called experts who have been proven wrong over the years, time and time again."

Regarding the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), Trump said his meeting with the country's top leader, Kim Jong Un, is productive. However, Trump added that sanctions on the nation will stay in place "until denuclearization occurs."

"We have engaged with North Korea (DPRK) to replace the specter of conflict with a bold and new push for peace," he said.

The speech, meeting with blank stares, headshake, and frowning all over the process, has ended "in polite, muted applause," according to several media outlets on-site.

This was the second time for Trump to address the UNGA since he assumed office in 2017.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 14:15:54|Editor: mym

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NEW YORK, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo here on Tuesday blast EU's recent decision to set up a legal entity to circumvent the U.S. sanctions against Iran.

While speaking at the United Against Nuclear Iran Summit, Pompeo said that he "was disturbed and, indeed, deeply disappointed to hear the remaining parties in the deal announce they're setting up a special payment system to bypass U.S. sanctions."

"This is one of the most counterproductive measures imaginable," he said, stressing that it is unacceptable.

The EU foreign and security policy chief Federica Mogherini said on Monday that the EU will set up a legal entity to facilitate legitimate financial transactions with Iran in light of the U.S. withdrawal from the international agreement on Tehran's nuclear program and the re-imposition of sanctions.

The legal entity will allow European companies to continue to trade with Iran in accordance with EU law and could be open to other partners in the world, Mogherini told reporters at the UN Headquarters in New York after she attended a meeting of foreign ministers from Iran and from Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia -- the five remaining powers of the 2015 agreement after the withdrawal of Washington.

Mogherini said participants of Monday's ministerial meeting were supportive of such a measure.

For his part, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani earlier on Tuesday blasted the U.S.-led sanctions against his country as "economic terrorism."

"World security is under threat by some states' recklessness and disregard of international values and institutions," Rouhani made the remarks at the ongoing General Debate of the 73rd UN General Assembly.

"Confronting multilateralism is not a sign of strength. Rather, it is a symptom of the weakness of the intellect. It betrays an inability in understanding a complex and interconnected world," he said.

The Iran nuclear deal was reached in Vienna in 2015 between Iran, the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council - China, France, Russia, Britain, the United States - plus Germany).

In May, U.S. President Trump announced Washington's withdrawal from the landmark Iranian nuclear deal. Since then, the Trump administration has slapped a number of sanctions on Iran while vowing to apply more.BIRMINGHAM, Ala., Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Command Alkon , the global leader in integrated supply chain technology solutions for the Heavy Building Materials industry, is pleased to announce Seth Mattison as the opening keynote speaker at ELEVATEThe Command Alkon Conference. Seth is an internationally renowned expert and author on workforce trends, generational dynamics and business strategy.



We couldnt be more excited to welcome Seth Mattison to Austin, Texas and experience his contagious zest for talent management, change and innovation, leadership and the future of work, said Ed Rusch, VP of Marketing at Command Alkon. Im certain he will really set the tone for an inspiring, forward-looking conference that will leave us all with new energy and ideas to continue moving forward in our industry.

As Co-Founder and Chief Movement Officer of Luminate Labs, Seth advises many of the worlds leading brands and organizations on the role individuals can play in internationally creating careers and companies that bring deep value to the world.

Seths ideas have been featured in such publications as The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The Huffington Post, and The Globe and Mail, and he was recently named to the Editors Picks for Speakers to Watch in 2017.

Seth has shared his insights with business leaders world-wide and has been commended by many of the worlds top brands including: MasterCard, Johnson and Johnson, Microsoft, Kraft Foods, AT&T, PepsiCo, GE Energy, Cisco, State Farm, Merrill Lynch, Down and Disney.

Download the ELEVATE Electronic Brochure and check out the event website for more information on the conference. Additional keynotes and other details regarding the event will be announced in the coming weeks.

ABOUT COMMAND ALKON

At Command Alkon, we believe in building an amazing world with solutions that deliver automation, visibility, collaboration and simplification to the Heavy Building Materials industry. Our integrated, digital supply chain solutions create an ecosystem for producers, suppliers and haulers of ready-mixed concrete, aggregates, asphalt, cement, and manufactured concrete, where operational transparency and efficiency drive profits. For over 40 years, our people, software and automation have kept clients moving to build the things that matter. Command Alkon is headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama and has offices in locations around the globe. For more information, visit commandalkon.com .

For More Information, Contact:

Becky Boyd

MediaFirst PR

(770) 642-2080 x 214

Becky@MediaFirst.Net

Ed Rusch

Command Alkon

(205) 879-3282 x 2965

erusch@commandalkon.comSource: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 14:41:01|Editor: Yang Yi

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A delegation, headed by Koncho Gyaltsen, deputy to the People's Congress of China's Tibet Autonomous Region and chairman of the Standing Committee of the Qamdo People's Congress, meet with local politicians in New South Wales, Australia, Sept. 25, 2018. A National People's Congress (NPC) delegation of legislators from southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region on Wednesday concluded a three-day visit to Australia. (Xinhua/Bai Xuefei)

CANBERRA, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- A National People's Congress (NPC) delegation of legislators from southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region on Wednesday concluded a three-day visit to Australia.

The delegation, headed by Koncho Gyaltsen, deputy to the People's Congress of Tibet Autonomous Region and chairman of the Standing Committee of the Qamdo People's Congress, met with local politicians in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory, as well as Tibetans in Australia.

Koncho Gyaltsen said that members of the delegation are all witnesses of the development and changes in Tibet. He hoped that through face-to-face exchanges, the delegation could help enhance understanding between the two sides and boost cooperation of the legislators with their Australian counterparts.

He noted that Tibet has always been an inseparable part of China, adding that Tibet's economy grows steadily, the society is stable, and people from all ethnic groups help each other, enjoying religious freedom, better environment and improving living standard.

During the talks, Australian officials expressed their wishes to continue exchanges between the two sides, boost mutual understanding and deepen trade and economic cooperation.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 14:41:03|Editor: Liangyu

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XI'AN, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- The saline soil rice R&D team of Yuan Longping, the prestigious pioneer of hybrid rice, is expecting a harvest from a test field in the Loess Plateau, the world's highest soil erosion area.

The test field in Nanniwan, about 50 km away from the city of Yan'an in northwest China's Shaanxi Province, is among six testing bases selected in May to pilot the team's rice growing technique.

Liu Zhaoliang, from the Qingdao Yuance Biological Group Co. Ltd., said the team has grown the rice in 53 hectares in Nanniwan, and the harvest will be made this week.

He said based on the current rice growing momentum, the per-hectare yield is estimated at 6,000 kg, which can meet the target for the pilot project.

"The barren land has been treated using a soil improvement technique. We have also introduced smart farming technology to help control the growing conditions," said Liu.

The team is known for developing saline-alkali tolerant rice in China's coastal city of Qingdao and completing the first batch of drought-resistant rice varieties in Dubai.

Nanniwan is a highland area, where late Chinese leader Mao Zedong mobilized a campaign in the 1940s, urging a revolutionary spirit to reclaim farmland from the dry soil to become self-reliant on the grain supply.

However, rice fields in Nanniwan have declined from 467 hectares to 20 hectares due to low yield, as traditional farming can only reap about 3,000 kg of rice per hectare, which is far lower than the averaged yield in plain areas.

Liu said the team plans to take three to five years to recover the rice fields back to 467 hectares in Nanniwan and achieve a per-hectare yield of 9,000 kg.

About two-thirds of the people in China depend on rice as a staple food. Yuan, who developed the world's first hybrid rice in 1974, has set multiple world records in hybrid rice yields in previous years. The latest record was set in the super hybrid rice field in southwest China's Yunnan Province -- 17 tonnes per hectare.

Yuan's team selected six testing bases this year with different soil conditions in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, as well as Shandong and Zhejiang provinces in east China.

The pilot is aimed at introducing smart farming techniques and drought-resistant rice strains to develop water-saving farms suitable for areas with harsh soil conditions.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 14:41:04|Editor: Liangyu

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BEIJING, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- China firmly objects to U.S. arms sales to Taiwan under any pretext, a spokesperson said Wednesday at a press conference.

China resolutely opposes any form of official or military contact between Taiwan and the U.S., said An Fengshan, spokesperson with the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office.

An's comment came after the U.S. government informed Congress of its decision to sell weapons worth about 330 million U.S. dollars to Taiwan on Tuesday.

"Those who rely on foreigners to build themselves up and undermine the peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait will certainly pay a price for their deeds," he said.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 14:46:05|Editor: mmm

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Afghan security force members take part in a military operation in Kunar province, Afghanistan, Sept. 26, 2018. At least 14 militants of Islamic State (IS) outfit have been killed following airstrikes in Afghanistan's eastern province of Kunar, the country's Defense Ministry said Wednesday. (Xinhua/Emran Waak)

KABUL, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- At least 14 militants of Islamic State (IS) outfit have been killed following airstrikes in Afghanistan's eastern province of Kunar, the country's Defense Ministry said Wednesday.

Afghan Air Force launched the strikes on IS hideouts in Chawkay and Dara-e-Pech districts within the past 24 hours, killing 14 IS militants, the ministry said in a statement.

The mountainous province, 180 km east of Kabul, has been the scene of clashes between security forces and IS militants from time to time.

The IS group, which emerged in neighboring Nangarhar province in early 2015, has yet to make comments on the report. EnditemSource: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 15:06:07|Editor: mmm

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MAZAR-E-SHARIF, Afghanistan, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- A total of seven militants have been confirmed dead and five others injured after government forces ambushed a convoy of Taliban fighters in Dawlat Abad district of northern Balkh province on Wednesday, an army spokesman in northern region Mohammad Hanif Rezai said.

"A group of Taliban rebels were crossing a road in Jaghal area of Dawlat Abad district early today morning and security personnel at nearby conducted ambush killing seven insurgents on the spot and wounding five others," Rezai told Xinhua.

The security forces also seized the arms and ammunitions of the defeated militants, the official asserted.

Taliban militants haven't commented.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 15:21:09|Editor: mmm

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NEW DELHI, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- At least seven people were feared killed in a building collapse in Indian capital Wednesday, officials said.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 15:26:10|Editor: Yurou

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HONG KONG, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- The government of China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Wednesday welcomed that the Fraser Institute once again ranked Hong Kong as the freest economy in the world in its latest report on economic freedom.

The Economic Freedom of the World 2018 Annual Report covers five areas of assessment and Hong Kong was ranked top in "freedom to trade internationally" and "regulation."

"The hard-earned results vividly reflect Hong Kong's steadfast commitment to building a free economy with a level playing field," a government spokesman said.

"The government will continue to build a robust institutional framework, uphold the fine tradition of rule of law and maintain an efficient government, so as to provide a level playing field. This should provide a favorable environment for our economy to thrive," the spokesman said.

The Fraser Institute is a research and educational organization based in Canada.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 15:41:12|Editor: mmm

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ISTANBUL, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Turkish police on Wednesday detained at least 39 people, including soldiers, over their alleged link to a U.S.-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, who is accused of masterminding a failed coup in 2016.

Police launched simultaneous operations against 71 suspects in 23 provinces across the country, state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

Of the detained people, 36 were on active duty in the military, Anadolu said.

Earlier this week, Turkish authorities arrested 108 people, including soldiers, former teachers and former police officers in operations conducted in Ankara and Istanbul, over their alleged link to Gulen, who lives in exile in the United States.

Ankara blames Gulen and his network for the July 2016 coup attempt, in which 250 people were killed.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 16:01:18|Editor: mmm

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NEW DELHI, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- At least two children were killed and seven people injured in a residential building collapse in India's capital New Delhi on Wednesday, officials said.

The mishap occurred in northern Delhi's Ashok Vihar area.

"The three-storeyed residential building caved in this morning. While two children were buried alive under the debris, seven people have been pulled out," a local civic official said.

The seven people who were injuries have been admitted to a nearby hospital, he added.

Local TV channels showed footage of the National Disaster Relief Force and fire brigade carrying out rescue operations at the site and looking for survivors.

"A probe has been ordered into the incident," the official added.

Building collapses are common in India during monsoon season every year because of poor construction standards and lack of regards for basic safety norms.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 16:01:18|Editor: Yurou

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BEIJING, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- President Xi Jinping has called on the China Media Group (CMG) and people working in the television circle nationwide to strive for building world-class new mainstream media with strong guidance, coverage and influence.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, asked the CMG to be bold in its reform and innovation, and strengthen mainstream public opinion, in a congratulation letter on the 60th anniversary of China Central Television (CCTV).

The CMG is a new broadcasting platform made up of CCTV, China National Radio and China Radio International.English French

MAGOG, Quebec, Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Magog located company recently acquired the Montreal-based company ADzif Inc., aiming for a clientele expansion and looking forward to working with a great team of creators.



There is now a new partnership in the world of decoration! SMART TILES, a Quinco & Cie trademark well known in Quebec, France and in the US, joins forces with ADzif and Gautier Studio. This recent acquisition allows SMART TILES to add new wall appliques to its adhesive tile collection, in addition to childrens furniture and accessories.

A new mission is emerging in front of us, focusing on an accessible and innovative vision of interior design. I was looking for an addition that would be similar to us, who could fill this 3D side of decor and who would also be able to distribute in different markets than hardware stores, in which we are currently well represented said Elaine Paquin President of Quinco & Cie Inc.

Founded in 2006 by Maryline Lambelin and Pierre Pare, ADzif Inc. specializes in creating and manufacturing all types wall appliques. As for Gautier Studio, the brand was born in 2016 and works in the world of small furniture and accessories for children.

About Quinco & Cie Inc.

Quinco & Cie Inc. (SMART TILES) started its activities back in 1999 in Magog. The company designs, manufactures and distributes adhesive tiles. Real expert and leader in the field of decoration, the company founded by Elaine Paquin and Ginette Pouliot offers a high-end peel and stick tiles for kitchens and bathrooms, with a vast choice of colours and styles.

For any additional information, please contact:

Luce Robitaille

lrobitaille@thesmarttiles.com

1-877-784-2733Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 16:56:29|Editor: huaxia

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HANOI, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam has so far this year lured foreign direct investment (FDI) of 19.6 billion U.S. dollars, showing a year-on-year decline of 8 percent, according to its Foreign Investment Agency on Wednesday.

Specifically, the country licensed 2,182 fresh FDI projects with a total registered capital of some 14.1 billion U.S. dollars, down 3 percent in registered capital, while seeing 841 operational FDI projects increase their capital by 5.5 billion U.S. dollars, down 17.9 percent against the same period last year.

In the period, foreign investors also spent nearly 5.8 billion U.S. dollars buying shares or contributing capital to Vietnamese firms, up 36.8 percent.

Among the total foreign investment of nearly 25.4 billion U.S. dollars in the nine-month period, 44.6 percent was poured into the local processing and manufacturing sector, 23 percent in real estate trading, and 8.3 percent in wholesales and retails, said the agency under the Ministry of Planning and Investment.

Among localities nationwide, the capital city of Hanoi got the biggest amount of foreign investment of 5.8 billion U.S. dollars, accounting for 22.9 percent of the total, followed by Ho Chi Minh City with 16.6 percent and the southern province of Ba Ria Vung Tau with 8.5 percent.

Japan was the biggest investor with 7 billion U.S. dollars, making up 27.6 percent of the total, tailed by South Korea with 22.4 percent, and Singapore with 14.4 percent.

From January to September, realized capital of FDI projects in Vietnam stood at nearly 13.3 billion U.S. dollars, up 6 percent on-year, the agency said. EnditemSource: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 17:16:38|Editor: mmm

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WASHINGTON, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- The Republican-held Senate Judiciary Committee said Tuesday that it would vote on Supreme Court Justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh's nomination Friday, one day after a hearing to determine the credibility of his sexual misconduct allegations.

The result of Friday's vote will decide whether the nominee will receive positive recommendations in the following senate floor vote.

A hearing will be held Thursday in which Kavanaugh will defend accusations from Christine Ford, a university professor, that he had forced himself on her in a party during their high school years in the 1980s.

The 51-year-old Ford made the accusation in a letter to Democratic lawmakers after Kavanaugh was shortlisted for the Supreme Court opening vacated by Justice Anthony Kennedy.

Ford, who originally wished to stay anonymous, came into the spotlight in September after her allegations were leaked to the press. Kavanaugh has denied Ford's accusations, and has expressed wish to defend his "good name" in a hearing.

In addition to Ford, another female has told the press that Kavanaugh revealed his private parts to her while they were both in Yale University.

The accusations have prompted U.S. President Donald Trump to weigh in Tuesday, saying the Democrats were playing "a con game," and that Kavanaugh was "a wonderful human being."

The allegations have generated much uncertainty over Kavanaugh's confirmation, with a handful of Republican Senators expressing their doubts in his character.

Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska has suggested having the Federal Bureau of Investigation probe the allegations before the Senate proceeds to a vote.

But the Republican leadership is hoping for a swift vote, eyeing a floor vote as early as next week.

Senator John Cornyn, the number two Republican in the chamber, told reporters Tuesday he hope the floor vote can be scheduled for "the first part of next week."Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 18:01:48|Editor: mmm

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RIO DE JANEIRO, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- Brazilian presidential candidate Ciro Gomes was admitted on Tuesday to the Sirio-Libanes Hospital in Sao Paulo and underwent a medical procedure on his prostate.

"The procedure was successful and was carried out by urologist Muguel Sourgi. As it was a simple procedure, Ciro Gomes will be able to return to his regular routine as quickly as possible," said an official statement of Gomes' campaign office.

Gomes, who currently ranks the third in all election polls for presidency, campaigned in Rio de Janeiro state in the morning and then traveled to Sao Paulo, where he was admitted to the hospital after feeling pain and discomfort.

He is expected to be released on Wednesday.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 18:06:50|Editor: mmm

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KUNDUZ, Afghanistan, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Up to 22 militants have been killed as the government forces have been targeting Taliban positions in Chardara district of the northern Kunduz province since Tuesday, said Abdul Hadi, the deputy to Pamir 20 Corps here on Wednesday.

The government forces, according to the official, have pounded Taliban hideouts and positions in several villages of Chardara district during which six more insurgents sustained injuries.

Without providing information on the casualties of security personnel, the official contended "No civilian has been hurt" in the ongoing operations.

Disputing the claim, Mohammad Ashraf, a resident of Nahr-e-Sufi village, has claimed that an airstrike targeted residential area killing two women civilians and injuring eight others.

Taliban militants are yet to make comments on the situation.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 18:06:50|Editor: mmm

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TEHRAN, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- The Iranian and Iraqi business sectors reviewed the ways of expanding bilateral trade and banking cooperation, Financial Tribune daily reported on Wednesday.

The issues were raised in the joint meeting between Chairman of Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture (ICCIMA), Gholamhossein Shafei, and President of the Federation of Iraqi Chambers of Commerce, Jaafar al-Hamdani, at a joint economic forum in the capital Tehran on Tuesday.

Iraq's private sector's commercial delegation headed by al-Hamdani arrived in Tehran on Monday for a four-day visit, according to Iran's commercial attache to Baghdad, Nasser Behzad.

The visiting delegation consists of Iraqi traders "in the fields of plastic products, electrical equipment, real estate, agricultural equipment and general commerce who will be holding meetings with their Iranian counterparts as well as economic officials," Behzad said.

According to the report, the meeting has been jointly organized by ICCIMA, the Trade Promotion Organization of Iran and the Iran-Iraq Chamber of Commerce.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 18:11:52|Editor: Lu Hui

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U.S. President Donald Trump addresses the General Debate of the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly at the UN Headquarters in New York, Sept. 25, 2018. (Xinhua/Li Muzi)

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday delivered his speech at the UN General Assembly (UNGA), which U.S. experts say is indicative of a zero-sum worldview to the detriment of the world stability and prosperity.

Trump touted his America First foreign policy and defended actions under this belief.

While highlighting his commitment to "putting sovereignty above global governance," he attacked globalism, and lashed out at several international organizations and treaties, such as UN Human Rights Council, International Criminal Court and the Iran nuclear deal, all of which his administration has announced to exit or to sanction against.

Kyle Ferrier, an analyst for the Washington-based Korea Economic Institute, told Xinhua that "Trump's speech attempted to reframe his 'America First' foreign policy into something that would be more universally understandable: patriotism."

"Dressing up his foreign policy, however, is not going to allay widespread concerns about U.S. withdrawal from global governance," Ferrier said.

"Trump's foreign policy is a mixture of anti-globalism and traditional conservativism, which don't often align," the expert said.

Dan Mahaffee, senior vice president and director of policy at the Center for the Study of Congress and the Presidency, told Xinhua that "in his speech, President Trump drew on his own belief in American sovereignty, as well as the advice being given to him by advisors like John Bolton and Stephen Miller."

"In this framework, international institutions present a threat to American sovereignty, especially at a time when issues like immigration, trade, and the role of frameworks such as alliances and multilateral institutions limit American freedom of action," he said.

"While they espouse a belief in the sovereignty of nations, they also acknowledge that there are instances where another nation's reliance on the United States for military protection or economic ties presents an opportunity for the United States to have legitimate grievances about those policies that they pursue that are counter to U.S. interests," he added.

"It does shift significantly away from the benefits that the United States has achieved in its partnerships and alliances with other countries as it better reflects President Trump's zero-sum worldview," he noted.

Christopher Galdieri, assistant professor at Saint Anselm College, said that "since his first flirtations with running for office, Trump has seen the United States as getting the short end of the stick when it comes to relations with other countries, particularly in the realms of trade deals and multilateral agreements."

"Trump appears to view relations with other countries in zero-sum, bilateral terms - there should be two parties to agreements, and the United States should get the better of the other country in the deal," he said. "Similarly, he dislikes groups like NATO because he sees them as somehow taking advantage of the United States."

However, Douglas Paal, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said that Trump's speech "is a campaign statement for the mid-terms, making incredible claims for success."Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 18:21:55|Editor: Yurou

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Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi (2nd R) meets with Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela (3rd L) in New York, on Sept. 25, 2018. (Xinhua/Li Muzi)

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- China is willing to tap the cooperation potential with Panama and make more achievements to benefit the two peoples, said Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi here Tuesday.

Wang made the remarks at a meeting with Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela while attending the United Nations General Assembly.

The care and support from Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Panamanian counterpart Varela have injected strong impetus into exchanges and cooperation between the two sides, said Wang.

Noting that since the two countries established diplomatic relations 15 months ago, bilateral relations have been developing with a good momentum and cooperation in wide fields has been advancing rapidly, Wang said China is confident about the prospect of bilateral relations.

Varela said Panama is satisfied with the fast development of bilateral relations over the past year and that with the joint efforts from both sides, their cooperation is producing positive results, which has proved again that establishing diplomatic relations with China is a right choice.

Panama speaks highly of and is willing to participate in the Belt and Road constructions, which is believed to be a strong impetus for bilateral cooperation, said the president.

China and Panama established diplomatic relations in June last year.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 18:26:59|Editor: zh

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HARARE, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Zimbabwe will seek the help of Estonia to explore the possibility of implementing an e-voting system that would allow Zimbabweans based in the Diaspora to participate in national elections, a senior government official said on Tuesday.

Diaspora-based Zimbabweans have long clamored to be given the chance to vote in national elections from their bases but this has not been possible.

The calls grew louder in the July 30 harmonized elections, culminating in some Zimbabweans based in the Diaspora approaching the courts to compel the government to facilitate their participation in the polls.

However, the Constitutional Court threw out the application.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who is in New York for the 73rd UN General Assembly, promised Zimbabweans resident in the US that his administration would look into the possibility of implementing e-voting in the near future, the state-run news agency New Ziana reported.

Mnangagwa, meanwhile, met Estonian Prime Minister Juri Ratas on the sidelines of the UNGA to discuss wide-ranging issues including how Zimbabwe could tap into Estonian knowledge on e-voting.

Deputy Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet responsible for presidential communications George Charamba told Zimbabwean media traveling with Mnangagwa that the choice of seeking assistance from Estonia was informed by the fact that the country was a leading Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) powerhouse.

"Estonia is in fact a leader in terms of ICT development and for Zimbabwe we looked at three critical areas of ICT cooperation with Estonia, e-health, e-governance but more critically e-voting. You are aware that we do have a big Diaspora community whose fervent call has been for them to be given the power to vote except the logistics of it has been forbidding," Charamba said.

The European country has implemented e-voting since 1997, having started aggressively pursuing a national ICT education strategy since the mid 1990's.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 18:27:00|Editor: Yurou

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PARIS, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) urged world leaders to further promote education of young girls around the globe to "leave no girl behind."

Along with French President Emmanuel Macron, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, British Prime Minister Theresa May and Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg, UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay "reaffirmed their political and financial commitment to undertake individual and collective action to break the barriers to girls' education by 2030," the Paris-based organization said in a statement released on Tuesday.

"Girls' education is the most powerful driver for global transformation. It is also a fundamental right and a matter of human dignity," said Azoulay.

"UNESCO can serve as a coordinating hub. We must work in synergy and on a sustained basis over time if we are to collectively deliver on our ambition," she added.

On the sidelines of the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, the UN body had organized three panel discussions that underscored determination to energize efforts for the education of girls in conflict zones and crisis affected countries.

In this context, UNESCO noted the vital role of education to counter sexual and gender-based violence, forced marriage and early or unintended pregnancy.

The UN educational and scientific agency also urged the international community "to realize the commitment to provide 12 years of free quality education to all girls and boys by 2030 and the need for legislation at the national level to guarantee the right to education."

UNESCO's data showed 132 million girls are not in school.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 18:37:04|Editor: Yurou

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YAOUNDE, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- 14 Cameroonian migrants trapped in an enclosed building in Kuwait have been rescued, a senior official said in a statement on Tuesday.

Felix Mbayu, minister delegate in the ministry of external relations of Cameroon, said the migrants "are now under the care of the Department of Social Affairs of Kuwait."

The minister's response came four days after an emotional video of a young Cameroonian woman in distress in Kuwait went viral on social media.

"We abandoned our families, brothers and sisters to come to Kuwait. We were told by our brothers that we will work and make a lot of money here. When we arrived, we were sold to families where we work like slaves," the young woman said.

"We don't sleep and we are beaten every day. We work like robots. We are somewhere called Shelter. We don't eat well. We want to go home. We have been imprisoned here for five months. We need laissez-passer to go home. Please help us," the woman was seen pleading in the video.

Mbayu said necessary measures have been taken to bring the Cameroonians back home safely.

"The Cameroonian authorities in collaboration with the authorities of Riyadh have issued laissez-passer to the entire group to permit them to travel back to Cameroon by Oct. 10," he said.ATLANTA, Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Last night, UPS (NYSE: UPS) was recognized by the Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA) with a 2018 Sustain: ABLE Award at PVAs annual Mission: ABLE Awards ceremony in Washington, D.C. The company was acknowledged for leadership and support of the Paralyzed Veterans of America mission, programs and services. UPS and PVA have collaborated on initiatives to better the lives of veterans since 1988. By the end of 2018, UPS committed to hiring 50,000 veterans and pledged to donate 50,000 employee volunteer hours helping veterans/Veterans Service Organizations (VSOs). In September 2016, UPS reached its 50,000 hiring goal - two years earlier than planned. Since its pledge, UPS has hired more than 86,000 veterans and logged more than 183,000 volunteer hours for veteran connected activities.

About The UPS Foundation

UPS (NYSE: UPS) is a global leader in logistics, offering a broad range of solutions including the transportation of packages and freight; the facilitation of international trade, and the deployment of advanced technology to more efficiently manage the world of business. Since its founding in 1907, UPS has built a legacy as a caring and responsible corporate citizen, supporting programs that provide long-term solutions to community needs. Founded in 1951, The UPS Foundation leads its global citizenship programs and is responsible for facilitating community involvement to local, national, and global communities. In 2017, UPS and its employees, active and retired, invested more than $118 million in charitable giving around the world. The UPS Foundation can be found on the web at UPS.com/Foundation and @UPS Foundation on Twitter. To get UPS news direct, follow @UPS_News on Twitter.

AttachmentSource: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 18:57:10|Editor: Lu Hui

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by Xinhua writer Yang Shilong

NEW YORK, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- The white paper just released by China on its trade friction with the United States has been "quite effective" in defending the legitimacy of its positions on trade and innovation while highlighting U.S. trade bullying and intimidation, experts said.

"The Facts and China's Position on China-U.S. Trade Friction," released on Monday, outlines the Chinese government's response to criticisms leveled against the world's largest developing country by the United States, including those with respect to the perceived trade imbalance, the subsidy policy and alleged intellectual property theft.

The key message is that China's trade and investment policies and practices are "anchored in international law and economic reason" and that China "stands ready for principled win-win compromise on this basis," Sourabh Gupta, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Institute for China-America Studies, said in an interview with Xinhua via email on Tuesday.

However, the same cannot be said of Washington, Gupta said.

"Its attempt to re-write the rules of law and reason in its economic intercourse with China on the basis of unilateralism, protectionism and self-centeredness is an abdication of global public goods responsibilities and poses a grave threat to the international economic order," he said.

The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has leaned heavily towards unilateralism and tried to use coercion in its trade negotiations with China to get what it wants, while China has said it is willing to negotiate on an equal basis but rejected unilateralism. China has also made it clear that it will adhere to the policy of reform and opening-up to further develop its economy.

Gupta said the white paper released by China is well-timed.

The white paper was released at a time when unilateral tariffs on an additional 200 billion U.S. dollars worth of goods imported from China took effect. China responded in a steadfast but measured way by subjecting about 60 billion dollars worth of U.S. imports to retaliatory tariffs.

Gupta said that the explicit purpose of China in releasing the White Paper is to offer a "robust defense" of its liberalization policies and practices since its accession to the World Trade Organization, and challenge Washington's narrative "head-on" on topics ranging from the bilateral goods trade deficit to so-called "fair trade" and alleged intellectual property rights infringements.

"By detailing the U.S.' own hypocritical set of policies that discriminate against Chinese goods and investments and run afoul of international law, the intent is to apply the adage 'the best defense is a good offense,'" he said.

Gupta said the document also serves the purpose of sending a "signal that China has not got -- and will not get -- weak-kneed in the face of unjust and escalatory U.S. trade enforcement actions."

"If there were expectations in Washington that China would bow to pressure because U.S. has more items on which it can impose tariffs, then those expectations are misplaced. China is prepared to play the long game with the U.S. until such time that its international legal rights as well as its right to development is respected," he said.

Zhu Zhiqun, a professor of political science and international relations at Bucknell University, said it is necessary for China to release the white paper and "set the record right" as the trade friction keeps escalating.

It shows that China hopes the United States will "fully understand China's position" before going to the negotiating table, thus laying a sound foundation for the next round of negotiations, he said.

"Of course, the key is that the U.S. is willing to talk about resolving differences through rational consultation on an equal basis, instead of coercing China to accept the unilateral requirements and conditions set by the U.S.," Zhu added.

Stephen Roach, a senior fellow at Yale University's Jackson Institute for Global Affairs known for advocating effective communication between China and the United States, said the white paper as a response of China to U.S. accusations is "long overdue."

The former chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia even went on to suggest that it is helpful to include a ranking of issues that "are most important -- and least important -- in driving a wedge between the U.S. and China."

"I think this white paper is quite effective in offering a detailed response by China to U.S. charges and counter-charges," he said.

Related:

China releases white paper on facts and its position on trade friction with U.S.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 19:22:18|Editor: Yurou

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Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi (L) shakes hands with UN General Assembly President Maria Fernanda Espinosa Garces in New York, on Sept. 25, 2018. (Xinhua/Wang Ying)

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Tuesday told UN General Assembly President Maria Fernanda Espinosa Garces that the international community looks to the current session of the assembly for a powerful voice in support of multilateralism.

Meeting with the fourth woman in history to chair the assembly on the margins of its high-level week, Wang said the world "hopes the current session of the General Assembly will send a powerful voice to uphold multilateralism, safeguard the Charter of the UN, and uphold the norms governing international relations."

The top Chinese diplomat expressed his belief that under Espinosa's leadership, the 73rd session will promote the UN's role in addressing global challenges and maintaining the multilateralism process, as desired by UN member states.

Also, Wang hailed the theme of this year's General Debate -- Making the United Nations Relevant to All People -- as in accordance with the current circumstances.

He noted that China, the largest developing country, is making efforts in implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and reiterated support and understanding to Espinosa, a representative from a developing country -- Ecuador, who puts emphasis on promoting developing countries' benefits and South-South cooperation.

Espinosa, for her part, recalled her visit to China last month, saying the trip is conducive to exercising her responsibilities as the president of the General Assembly.

She agreed that given the current circumstances, the UN more than ever needs to promote multilateralism and maintain a rules-based international system, pledging to keep close communication with the Chinese side during her term.

Congratulating China on its accomplishment in advancing the 2030 Agenda, especially poverty reduction, she expressed hope that China will continue to play an important role in promoting sustainable development.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 19:52:27|Editor: mmm

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NEW YORK, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- South Korean President Moon Jae-in said here on Tuesday that U.S. President Donald Trump and the top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), Kim Jong Un, could meet before the end of this year.

In an interview with Fox News, Moon said he believed the meeting could take place before the end of this year, noting "I look forward to a summit meeting taking place between Chairman Kim and President Trump in the not-too-distant future."

Moon claimed that he felt he had "ascertained Chairman Kim's commitment to complete denuclearization."

"If the United States could take corresponding measures, then I believe we will be able to expedite North Korea (the DPRK) by further denuclearization measures," Moon told Fox News.

For the United States, they promised to end its hostile relations with the DPRK to provide security guarantees and also work towards a new U.S.-DPRK relations, Moon said. "So, although, all these actions would not happen simultaneously, broadly I believe that these actions need to be taken in parallel."

"So if the United States could provide this kind of trust, I believe that we will be able to accelerate the denuclearization process. This is why I believe that the denuclearization is achievable within the first term of President Trump's term," the South Korean president noted.

Earlier on Tuesday, Moon, speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations, a U.S.-based think tank in New York, said that the current diplomatic engagement with the DPRK is "completely different" with the previous ones.

He said that declaring to end the 1950-53 Korean War in a formal manner would encourage the DPRK to speed up denuclearization.

Setting a timetable for U.S. "corresponding measures" and the DPRK's denuclearization process would be "a task for the second U.S.-North Korea summit," Moon said.

Trump said Tuesday that his second summit with Kim will be announced "pretty soon," yet the summit is likely to take place in a different place.

Moon said that "now, North Korea's decision to relinquish its nuclear program has been officialized to a degree that not even those within North Korea can reverse."

"Chairman Kim also repeatedly conveyed his unwavering trust and expectations for you (Trump), while expressing his hope to meet you soon to swiftly conclude the denuclearization process with you," Moon said. "I look forward to seeing the U.S.-North Korea summit take place, and wish you a great success."

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, U.S.-DPRK talks have been stuck in an impasse due to their differences over 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, Moon held talks with Kim, and signed the Pyongyang Declaration, an advancement towards the Korean Peninsula's denuclearization and concrete measures to end hostile acts near the 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 he had invited DPRK Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho to meet in New York City where they are scheduled to attend the United Nations General Assembly meeting.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 19:57:29|Editor: mmm

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SKOPJE, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- The number of local and foreign observers in the polling stations on Sept. 30 to follow the process of the name referendum in Macedonia goes over 12,000, Macedonian State Electoral Council (SEC) said.

The official number of local observers from the SEC is 11,907, whereas foreign observers are 493, and international organizations have accredited 194 interpreters.

Along with local journalists, SEC has accredited 83 foreign journalists from 32 media outlets to follow the referendum.

Moreover, the name referendum will be monitored by 197 OSCE/ODIHR monitors on Sunday, while they have accredited 129 interpreters.

International non-governmental organizations, foreign embassies in Macedonia, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the Delegation of the European Union and the International Human Rights Association in Macedonia will have their observers as well during the referendum elections.

On Sept. 30, Macedonia will hold a referendum on NATO and EU membership bids and on its agreement with Greece on the country's name.

Macedonian citizens will vote in the referendum on the question: "Are you in favor of NATO and EU membership, and accepting the name agreement between Macedonia and Greece?"

Macedonia is formally called the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) by the United Nations. Macedonia is also the name of a northern province in Greece. Athens is worried that the use of the same name by the neighboring state could lead to territorial claims.

The solving of the name row that has existed between two countries is seen as the main obstacle Macedonia has to overcome in order to make progress towards the European Union (EU) and NATO integration.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 20:02:32|Editor: Yang Yi

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Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi (R2) poses for a photo with foreign ministers from the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) "Quartet" in New York, on Sept. 25, 2018. (Xinhua/Qin Lang)

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Tuesday said China is willing to work together with the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) to deepen their all-around cooperation and put forward a four-point proposal for the aim.

Wang made the remarks while meeting with foreign ministers from the CELAC "Quartet."

The Quartet comprises the current, previous and next rotating chairs of the CELAC, as well as the current rotating chair of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).

In the past five years, Chinese President Xi Jinping have paid three visits to Latin America and met with leaders of almost all countries having diplomatic relations with China in the area, said Wang, noting that the comprehensive cooperative partnership between the two sides has stepped into a new stage.

After more than three years' development, the China-CELAC Forum has become a major platform for both sides to carry out comprehensive cooperation and is serving as a strong support for the building of a community of shared future for China and the CELAC, said Wang.

Specifically, the Chinese foreign minister put forward a four-point proposal for deepening the all-around cooperation between the two sides.

First, the two sides should lead their cooperation with political consensus, promote mutual understanding and firmly support each other's core interests and major concerns, Wang said, calling for a firmer position against unilateralism and trade protectionism and support for multilateralism and free trade system.

Second, concrete actions must be taken to optimize their cooperation. Both sides should accelerate the alignment of their development strategies, deepen their pragmatic cooperation in various fields and push forward the implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in the area, Wang said.

Third, Wang called on the two sides to strengthen people-to-people bond by strengthening cooperation in fields like education, technology, culture, teenagers, tourism, media and hygiene.

Fourth, the two sides should perfect the mechanism within the framework of the China-CELAC Forum to safeguard their cooperation, said Wang.

Next year marks the fifth anniversary of the establishment of China-CELAC Forum. China hopes that both sides take the anniversary as an opportunity to improve the forum, so as to contribute to the higher-quality development of China-CELAC relations.

The Quartet foreign ministers expressed the CELAC's willingness to work together with China to implement the results of the second ministerial meeting of the China-CELAC Forum and broaden their cooperation in fields of trade, investment, poverty reduction, innovation and infrastructure construction.

The CELAC appreciates the China-proposed BRI. Incorporating the CELAC into the construction of the initiative will bring about tangible benefits to the two sides, according to the Quartet foreign ministers.

Representing English-speaking Caribbean countries, Jamaica, the current rotating chair of CARICOM, reiterated their adherence to the one-China policy.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 20:02:33|Editor: mmm

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HARARE, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Zimbabwe has asked Britain to help it revive and implement a debt arrears clearance plan, dubbed the Lima plan, agreed with global lenders including the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the African Development Bank (AfDB) in 2015.

Under the plan, Zimbabwe committed to paying off its debt arrears with the global lenders as a pre-condition for accessing new lines of credit, but has so far only managed to clear overdue amounts owed to the IMF.

Zimbabwe owes the World Bank and the AfDB over 1 billion U.S. dollars in arrears, but despite committing to paying these off, funding challenges have stalled the Lima plan.

In an effort to see through the plan, President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who is in New York for the 73rd UN General Assembly, met British Minister of State for Africa Harriett Baldwin and asked for London's support at the 2018 annual meetings of the IMF and the World Bank in Bali, Indonesia next month.

"We have had a very important meeting with the British government and this is in the context of the re-engagement strategy that we have embarked upon since the inauguration of the President and essentially we looked at three critical areas which are of a national interest," Deputy Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet (Presidential Communications) George Charamba told Zimbabwean media traveling with Mnangagwa.

"We looked at the support that Britain can extend to Zimbabwe in the context of the Lima process. You recall that has to do with the multi-lateral re-engagement so that Zimbabwe can again be considered suitable for credit lines from multi-lateral agencies," official news agency New Ziana reported Wednesday.

"There is a way in which British support is actually critical especially against the background of the forthcoming meeting in Bali which is going to be attended by the Finance minister we thought that the British could put in a word for Zimbabwe so that those relations can be restored," Charamba added.

Under the Lima plan, Zimbabwe also has to undertake a raft of economic reforms, including reducing the fiscal deficit to sustainable levels through the alignment and re-organization of the public service.

Currently, the government wage bill gobbles up more than 90 percent of the national budget, which is funded entirely on taxes.

The government is also expected to strengthen and restore confidence in the financial sector as well as accelerate ease of doing business reforms and reduce the cost of doing business.

Charamba said Baldwin had promised to take up the matter with her superiors and counterparts back home.

He said Mnangagwa had expressed eagerness to mend relations between the two countries and the two had also discussed progress made in Zimbabwe's quest to rejoin the Commonwealth.

"We also engaged the British in respect of our wish to re-join the Commonwealth. You will recall that the Commonwealth did send an observer mission in the just ended harmonized elections. They had certain benchmarks which they were pursuing and assessing to gauge our suitability to re-join the Commonwealth. Happily the report itself is fairly positive and we think the way is open for us to re-join the Commonwealth," he said.

Also in the context of the Commonwealth, the two sides discussed the possibility of resuming the Commonwealth scholarship program in order for Zimbabweans to acquire new and better skills.

The two countries, Charamba said, also discussed the possibility of resuming security cooperation.

Charamba said during the meeting, Mnangagwa had informed Baldwin of Zimbabwe's intention to appoint at least two British experts into an international advisory committee that his government intended to set up.

The international advisory board will assist government in coming up with competent decisions to assist steer Mnangagwa's vision to transform the country into a middle income economy by 2030.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 20:27:42|Editor: Yurou

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Denis O'Donovan (C), chairman of the Seanad Eireann (Irish Senate), the upper house of the Irish Parliament, visits a photo exhibition at a reception in Dublin, Ireland, Sept. 25, 2018. Denis O'Donovan has called for efforts to deepen the Ireland-China relationship. He made the remarks in a speech delivered at the reception that the Chinese embassy in Ireland hosted here Tuesday night to celebrate the 69th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China on Oct. 1. (Xinhua)

DUBLIN, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Denis O'Donovan, chairman of the Seanad Eireann (Irish Senate), the upper house of the Irish Parliament, has called for efforts to deepen the Ireland-China relationship.

He made the remarks in a speech delivered at the reception that the Chinese embassy in Ireland hosted here Tuesday night to celebrate the 69th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China on Oct. 1.

Conveying congratulations and best wishes of Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar, the Irish government, and the Irish people to the Chinese people on the important anniversary celebration, O'Donovan said 2018 had been a year of increased connectivity and impressive cooperation between Ireland and China across many platforms and at every level of government and society.

Next year marks the 40th anniversary of diplomatic ties between the two countries. O'Donovan said this is an important milestone in the bilateral relationship between the two nations, adding that both sides should seize the opportunity to further deepen the bilateral relationship and grow towards the future.

Over three hundred guests attended Tuesday's event, including top Irish officials, diplomats from various embassies in Ireland, representatives from Chinese institutions and companies based in the country as well as as representatives from the local Chinese community and Chinese students studying here.

Chinese Ambassador to Ireland, Yue Xiaoyong, in his opening speech at the reception, said over the past few years, the Chinese-Irish relationship has witnessed a strong growing momentum and substantial progress had been made in different fields of exchanges and cooperation between the two countries.

He said that the upcoming 40th anniversary of the establishment of the diplomatic ties, which falls in June 2019, will provide an even greater opportunity for the two sides to further develop their relations.

He called for a concerted effort to build a closer relationship between the two countries.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 20:32:44|Editor: zh

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HARARE, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- President Emmerson Mnangagwa's plan to give official recognition to the leader of the opposition in Zimbabwe, is not meant to appease any particular individual but is an effort to create strong institutions which help entrench democracy and political inclusivity in the country, a senior government official has said.

Mnangagwa announced plans to officially recognize the leader of the opposition in the same manner that the British Parliamentary system works, but local media said that the move was meant to pacify opposition leader Nelson Chamisa who is disputing the President's election victory in July.

In Britain, the Leader of the opposition is normally viewed as an alternative prime minister, and leads an official opposition shadow cabinet which scrutinizes the actions of the Cabinet and offers alternative policies.

The British Leader of the Opposition, currently Jeremy Corbyn of the Labour Party, is entitled to a salary in addition to his salary as a Member of Parliament.

Deputy Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet George Charamba told Zimbabwean media traveling with Mnangagwa in New York that the plan was not meant for any particular individual.

He said this in response to reports that leader of the biggest opposition in Zimbabwe, Nelson Chamisa, had said he had not been approached by government over the matter.

Charamba said the plan was not specifically targeting Chamisa, but was instead an institution building process and was also in line with practices in the Commonwealth which Zimbabwe wants to re-join.

Charamba said the recovery of Zimbabwe's economy was not a burden for the ruling party alone, but was instead for all Zimbabweans regardless of political affiliation.

A good starting point towards economic recovery, he said, was putting politics aside and working both individually and institutionally with a sense of purpose.

"The President has seen it fit that we build this new office and institution which brings the opposition on board so that as an institution we move forward as a country." he said.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 20:37:45|Editor: zh

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DHAKA, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- A Bangladeshi US-Bangla Airlines plane on a domestic flight with 171 passengers and crew on board made an emergency landing on Wednesday with no one hurt, the airline's spokesman said.

Kamrul Islam, general manager of US-Bangla Airlines, told Xinhua that the plane took off from the capital of Dhaka at 11:30 a.m. local time Wednesday for sea-beach town Cox's Bazaar, some 292 km southeast of Dhaka.

It flew to the seaport city Chittagong, 242 km southeast of capital Dhaka, and made an emergency landing there at Shah Amanat International Airport at about 1:10 p.m. local time.

He could not tell immediately the exact reason for emergency landing.

But an airport official who did not like to be named told Xinhua that the aircraft landed with a malfunctioning front wheel.

"So far we came to know that the plane's front wheel closed during the landing at Cox's Bazar. So, it flew back to Chittagong for an emergency landing safely," he said.

According to the official, the malfunctioning front wheel caused the aircraft's nose to hit the runway at Shah Amanat International Airport.

TV footage also showed the plane in a nose-dived condition on the runway.

Islam, however, claimed that the plane made the emergency landing with all passengers and crew onboard safe. He said the flight BS141 was carrying 164 passengers and seven crew members.

In March, a plane of the Bangladeshi US-Bangla Airlines crashed during landing in the Nepali capital of Kathmandu, leaving at least 51 people dead.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 20:42:46|Editor: Yurou

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BEIJING, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- China will make more efforts to encourage foreign investment, with faster approval procedures and better intellectual property protection,according to a statement released after a State Council executive meeting Wednesday.

Premier Li Keqiang presided over the meeting.

To maintain stable and healthy economic development, a more proactive opening strategy would be implemented to create an investment environment for foreign businesses that is more fair, convenient and predictable, while expanding domestic demand, the statement said.

Foreign investors will continue to be treated equally compared with domestic peers, was said in the meeting.

Foreign-funded projects meeting requirements will be put on the list of major construction projects and enjoy support in the use of land and sea areas, quicker environmental reviews and approval procedures and lower logistics costs.

The government will also expand its tax reduction to encourage foreign investment in more industries and channel more energy into the protection of intellectual property.Hartford, CT, Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Citing errors by the Connecticut Superior Court and New York judges recent embrace of nonhuman animal legal personhood and rights, the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) has filed a brief in The Appellate Court of Connecticut, where it is seeking review of the lower courts dismissal of its petition for a common law writ of habeas corpus on behalf of Beulah, Karen, and Minnie, three elephants held captive at a traveling circus based in Goshen.



The Connecticut Superior Courts assertion that the NhRPs lawsuit is wholly frivolous on its face contrasts sharply with the increasing receptivity to nonhuman animal legal personhood and rights in neighboring New York State. In June, just weeks after New York Court of Appeals Judge Eugene Fahey issued an historic opinion criticizing the lower courts for holding that only human beings could be persons with rights, New Yorks Fourth Judicial Department unanimously accepted the claim the NhRP has made to the New York courts for almost five years: nonhuman animals can be legal persons, said Steven M. Wise, founder and president of the NhRP.



Citing to the NhRPs chimpanzee rights case on behalf of Kiko, the Fourth Department wrote in its decision in People v. Gravesa case about the vandalizing of cars belong to an auto dealershipthat it is common knowledge that personhood can and sometimes does attach to nonhuman entities like corporations or animals. The individual alleged to have committed the crime that was the subject of the appeal claimed that the dealership whose property he damaged was not a person, as only human beings can be persons, and therefore he could not be convicted of damaging the property of a person. The court disagreed.



This decision is tremendously promising, Wise said. In the NhRPs view, the Fahey opinionthe first from a high court judge anywhere in the United States to hold that there is no doubt that [a chimpanzee] is not merely a thingtogether with the Graves decision constitute a breakthrough in the worldwide struggle for legal personhood for nonhuman animals.



In May, Judge Fahey opened the door to nonhuman animal legal personhood in New York and throughout the United States. A month later, this New York appellate court walked right through that doorway, Wise said.



The NhRP argues that the Connecticut trial court erred not only in dismissing the NhRPs petition on the grounds that is frivolous, but also in claiming that the NhRP lacked standing to bring the claim because it lacked a relationship with the elephants. The NhRP points out in its brief that, for two centuries, Connecticut courts have permitted anyone to seek habeas corpus on behalf of someone who is imprisoned and unable to seek habeas corpus herself. The NhRP is asking the appellate court to reverse the trial courts decision and remand with instructions for the court to issue the writ and proceed according to the Connecticut Practice Book, which outlines habeas corpus procedure.



No case has been brought in Connecticut seeking habeas corpus relief for any nonhuman animal, let alone an autonomous being such as an elephant, and the Trial Court offered no persuasive reason why the principles underlying the Connecticut cases concerning human petitioners cannot and should not extend to the case at bar, writes the NhRP in its brief.



These elephants have been deprived of their freedom and forced to work for their whole lives, said Elizabeth Stein, a staff attorney with the NhRP. The law is clear that they deserve their day in court.



Connecticut common law, numerous cases from other jurisdictions, and diverse expert opinions all bolster the NhRPs legal argument that Beulah, Karen, and Minnie are entitled to recognition of their legal personhood and fundamental right to liberty and should be released to an elephant sanctuary, the NhRP maintains.



Through Sept. 30th, the Commerford Zoo will compel the elephants to give rides at The Big E, a fair held at a stadium in West Springfield, MA, and attended by over a million people each year. A Facebook post of elephant Minnie giving rides at the fair went viral this week.



About the Nonhuman Rights Project

Founded in 1996 by attorney Steven M. Wise, the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) works to secure legally recognized fundamental rights for nonhuman animals through litigation, advocacy, and education. Our mission is to change the legal status of at least some nonhuman animals from mere things, which lack the capacity to possess any legal right, to persons, who possess such fundamental rights as bodily integrity and bodily liberty and those other legal rights to which evolving standards of morality, scientific discovery, and human experience entitle them. Our current plaintiffs are members of species who have been scientifically proven to be autonomous: currently, great apes, elephants, dolphins, and whales. We are working with teams of attorneys on four continents to develop campaigns to achieve legal rights for nonhuman animals that are suited to the legal systems of these countries. We filed our first cases in December of 2013, and our work is the subject of the 2016 Pennebaker Hegedus/HBO documentary film Unlocking the Cage, which has been seen by millions around the world.

About NhRP President Steven M. Wise

Steven M. Wise began his mission to gain rights for nonhuman animals in 1985. He holds a J.D. from Boston University Law School and a B.S. in chemistry from the College of William and Mary. He has practiced animal protection law for four decades and is admitted to the Massachusetts Bar. Professor Wise taught the first class in Animal Rights Law at the Harvard Law School and has taught Animal Rights Jurisprudence at the Stanford Law School, as well as the University of Miami, Vermont Law School, St. Thomas, and John Marshall Law Schools, and is currently teaching Animal Rights Jurisprudence at the Lewis and Clark Law School. He is the author of four books: Rattling the Cage  Toward Legal Rights for Animals; Drawing the Line  Science and the Case for Animal Rights; Though the Heavens May Fall  The Landmark Trial That Led to the End of Human Slavery; and An American Trilogy  Death, Slavery, and Dominion Along the Banks of the Cape Fear River. His TED Talk from the TED2015 Conference in Vancouver, Canada was released in May of 2015 and has over one million views.

AttachmentSome of the SOS Children's Village in Kakiri attend the launch ceremony of a Chinese-aided satellite TV project in Wakiso District, Uganda, July 20, 2018. (Xinhua/Joseph Kiggundu)

KAMPALA, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Uganda's Vice President Edward Ssekandi said Tuesday that Uganda hopes to see more tangbile results of win-win cooperation with China.

Speaking at a Chinese National Day reception, Ssekandi said Uganda appreciates the role China is playing in its development, including road construction, hydropower plant constructions, among others.

He said Uganda looks forward to evolving more people-to-people programs between Chinese and Ugandans in tourism and sports.

"In the spirit of the Beijing Forum on China-Africa Cooperation Declaration, we wish to see more tangible results of China-Africa win-win cooperation and common development realized in Uganda," he said.

Chinese Ambassador to Uganda Zheng Zhuqiang said China has always considered Uganda a key cooperation partner in Africa.

He said the development strategies of both countries are compatible and present each other with important opportunities.

"China is working hard to realize the Chinese dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. Uganda has reached a take-off point with the best chance unprecedented in the last 500 years," he said.

He said under the Belt and Road Initiative, China hopes to create new drivers to power common development.

"China will work together with Uganda to form synergy between our two economies, enhance policy coordination and deepen mutual beneficial and practical cooperation, with a view to realizing joint development and common prosperity for both China and Uganda," said the ambassador.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 21:02:52|Editor: Yurou

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BEIJING, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- China has called for joint efforts to safeguard the improving situation on the Korean Peninsula, according to a foreign ministry spokesperson Wednesday.

"The Chinese side expounded our consistent and clear stance on the Korean Peninsula issue," said Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Geng Shuang at a regular news briefing.

Geng responded to a question about a meeting between Yang Jiechi, a member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the CPC Central Committee, and Japanese national security advisor Shotaro Yachi. The two officials held the fifth China-Japan high-level political dialogue in Suzhou, east China's Jiangsu Province, Tuesday.

"The two sides exchanged views on China-Japan relations as well as international and regional issues of common concern in a candid and in-depth way," Geng said.

"China is committed to the goal of denuclearization of the peninsula, safeguarding the peace and stability of the region and solving problems through dialogue and consultation.

"Meanwhile, China maintains that UN Security Council resolutions should be implemented in a comprehensive and balanced way.

"Under the current circumstances, all relevant parties should cherish and safeguard the hard-won momentum of improvement of the situation on the peninsula, and play a constructive role in advancing the political settlement of the peninsula issue."Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 21:22:58|Editor: mmm

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TIRANA, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Starting from Jan. 1, 2019, the Albanian government will offer a bonus of 40,000 Albanian lek (372 U.S. dollars) for each baby born, eight times higher than the current bonus given to couples, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama declared on Wednesday.

According to Rama, the new policy aims to help Albanian families, as well as growing the population in Albania.

Rama underlined that under the new regulation, the first child of a couple will receive 40,000 lek as a bonus, up from 5,000 lek.

Meanwhile, for a second child, couples will receive 80,000 lek and for a third child 120,000 lek.

"The whole bonus will be extended over a year. We are also studying the option to give it at once," Rama said.

The current baby bonus came into force in 2000.

According to the Albanian National Institute of Statistics (INSTAT), the number of births in Albania, during the second quarter of 2018 decreased compared with the second quarter of 2017.

Translated into figures, the population of Albania shrunk by 0.2 percent, or nearly 15,000 people. (1 U.S. dollar=107.6 albanian lek)Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 21:22:58|Editor: mmm

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MOGADISHU, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- The World Bank has approved two investment programs worth about 80 million U.S. dollars for Somalia as well as the first four-year Country Partnership Framework (CPF) to help spur inclusive growth and resilience.

Bella Bird, the World Bank's Country Director for Tanzania, Burundi, Malawi and Somalia, said the strategy will support the government's goal to expand service delivery, build resilience to climatic shocks, and boost economic opportunities in Somalia.

"For this CPF, our focus is to support Somalia's institutions to extend their reach in providing services to citizens and to scale up our interventions that will open up economic opportunities," Bird said in a statement released on Tuesday evening.

She said the strategy for 2019-2022 reflects the progress in economic reforms and institution building since 2013, and marks the first International Development Association (IDA) financing for government in more than 30 years.

Bird said the World Bank's role since reengaging has been to help Somalia rebuild core institutions that can restore citizens' trust and redistribute resources to address extreme poverty and begin to create opportunities for those who have been excluded.

Hafez Ghanem, Vice President of the World Bank for Africa, said Somalia's stability and prosperity are key to the stability of the region as a whole and lauded the government for their commitment to reform and the steps taken towards building a better future for the country.

"Somalia provides a global example for how the Bank can operate in the most challenging contexts where our help is needed most," said Ghanem.

The lender said the Horn of Africa nation has made progress in building institutions and improving economic performance through legislation, revenue mobilization, and engagement with the private sector since its reengagement.

It said political, economic and security reforms achieved over the last five years have led to an opportunity to address structural drivers of fragility.

The CPF will help increase revenue, build capacity of municipalities for urban resilience and improve delivery systems for more inclusive social services, said the World Bank.

It said the strategy also aims to improve the business environment and increase access to finance for greater inclusion and increase access to energy and water for rural resilience and productivity.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 21:33:04|Editor: mmm

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by Peter Mertz

COLORADO SPRINGS, the United States, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- The world's biggest gold merchants have given two thumbs up to China's increased involvement in the World Gold Council (WGC).

"This will benefit all players in the gold industry," said Chris Niu, vice-president of the Toronto-based investment group Gravitas Mining Corp.

"It is very important for China's involvement because the demand for gold is high in China," Niu told Xinhua.

On Monday, the WGC officially accepted the Shandong Gold Group as its 25th member, and announced that Song Xin, the current chairman of the China Gold Association, would chair a new China Chapter of the WGC.

The news did not come as a big surprise to the WGC, whose members mine 92 percent of the world's gold.

"It is very clear that gold flows have been moving eastward for some time," said Timothy Wood, executive director of the Denver Gold Group.

"Price formation is the most important thing, and it is only a matter of time until gold is listed in RMB instead of (U.S.) dollars," Wood predicted. "It may take several decades, but it is going to happen."

Wood, a South African native and gold expert, explained the need and desire to put China in the driver's seat of the global gold freight train.

"It's just a factor of the global markets, and that change is going to push us more to need Chinese investors, both retail and institutional," Wood said.

With Song anticipating that two more Chinese gold mining giants will soon join the WGC, industry experts see China's increasing involvement as good news in an industry that has seen some volatility in recent years.

The increased China presence may have triggered other industry activities and consolidation, experts told Xinhua.

"Chinese consumers bought 1,000 tons of gold for personal consumption last year, which is just tremendous -- much bigger than any other market in the world," Wood said, whose WGC Denver Group relies on proprietary software and a skeletal staff to model industry efficiency.

The WGC, founded in 1987, has seen the world's most populous nation becoming the world's largest gold producer and top gold consumer in three decades.

In 2017, China's gold production reached 426 tons, while gold consumption reached 1,089 tons, figures that stunned industry experts and necessitated China's heightened involvement in the WGC.

"It will be good to stabilize pricing and create better liquidity," Minaurum Gold's Darrell Rader told Xinhua.

Minaurum, a Canadian company, is mining gold, silver and copper in Mexico.

Benefits to China's escalated involvement in the global gold world may also be measured in terms beyond money.

Wood noted that with increased contact and communication between Asia's new mineral giant and traditional Western power brokers, detente and cooperation are inevitable byproducts of such alliances.

"Mutual cooperation is just a natural byproduct of these business relationships -- they are fantastic at reducing misunderstandings and enhance cultural exchanges that help people understand each other," he said.

In the past, it was the Western powers that have dominated the search for the precious metal and have profited from it.

"The British, South Africans and Canadians have put together some real global powerhouses, and it's just a matter of time before we see one of those rise out of China," Wood said.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 21:38:05|Editor: mmm

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TOKYO, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Nissan Motor Co. said Wednesday that inspectors giving priority to meeting shipment schedule while having insufficient recognition of the importance of inspection were among the major reasons behind its data fabrication scandal revealed in July.

The Japanese automaker said in a report to the Transport Ministry that "due to prioritization of the need to meet production and shipment plans, the importance of inspections was not sufficiently recognized at plants."

The report also cited the insufficient number of final inspectors and their lack of training as well as the managers' lack of knowledge about the inspection rules as reasons for the improper inspections.

"The root of the problem lies in the morale of employees as well as in the management structure and ability," Nissan President Hiroto Saikawa told reporters after handing the report to the Transport Ministry.

But he refused to comment on whether he would step down to take responsibility, saying he would like to focus on countermeasures for the time being.

The company pledged to increase the number of inspectors while upgrading test equipment and improving the working environment to prevent such misconduct from recurring and restore trust of the clients.

On July 9, Nissan admitted fabrication of data involving car exhaust emissions tests at five of its domestic plants, affecting 1,171 vehicles.

The automaker said that data based on emissions and fuel economy tests had either been falsified, or the tests themselves had been conducted in inappropriate environments.

The report released on Wednesday said that the misconduct involved a total of 1,205 vehicles, up from 1,171 vehicles previously announced.

According to the report, besides data related to exhaust emissions and fuel economy, inspection data on other 11 items such as vehicle width and horn volume had also been revised or fabricated.

The scandal followed another misconduct of Nissan revealed last year as the second largest automaker in Japan was found to have routinely allowed safety checks on finished vehicles to be carried out by uncertified inspection staff, which led to the recalling of 1.2 million vehicles.

The incident, following a series of similar ones involving some major Japanese manufacturers such as Kobe Steel Ltd. and Mitsubishi Materials Corp., cast doubts over corporate governance in the manufacturing industry and beyond in Japan.

Industry experts said the scandals in the auto industry had also cast serious aspersions over Japan's once stellar reputation for high-quality and safe manufacturing standards.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 21:38:05|Editor: mmm

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MOSCOW, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- The Russian State Duma, or lower parliament house, passed a softened version of a bill on raising the retirement age Wednesday in the second and most important reading.

During the vote, 326 supported the bill, while 59 opposed it and one abstained.

The bill proposed by the Russian government and passed by the State Duma in the first reading on July 19 aimed to gradually extend the retirement age to 65 from 60 for men and to 63 from 55 for women starting in 2019.

The bill triggered protests throughout the country and President Vladimir Putin on Aug. 29 proposed several amendments to cushion the effect of the reform.

His proposals included lowering the retirement age for women to 60 years but keeping that for men at 65.

The proposals also included the possibility for mothers of multiple children to retire before the age of 60, and citizens, who under the current legislation will retire in the next two years, could get their pension six months before the new retirement age.

After being passed in the second reading, the bill cannot be amended. Now the document awaits a third or final reading in the State Duma and then it has to be approved by the upper house before being signed into law by Putin.

Russia faces a gradual decline in its native population, which could lead to a labor shortage.

In addition to raising the retirement age, the Russian government has rolled out measures to encourage births.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 21:38:05|Editor: Yurou

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China's research icebreaker Xuelong is seen at a dock in east China's Shanghai, Sept. 26, 2018. Researchers on China's research icebreaker Xuelong returned to the home port in Shanghai Wednesday after finishing the country's 9th Arctic expedition which lasted for 69 days. (Xinhua/Fang Zhe)

SHANGHAI, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- China's research icebreaker Xuelong returned to a base in Shanghai Wednesday after finishing the 9th Arctic research expedition.

The Icebreaker, also known as the Snow Dragon, carrying a research team, spent 69 days on its journey.

Scientists and researchers have conducted a series of investigations into the marine environment, submarine topography, ecology, fishery, sea ice and shipping routes in areas including the Bering Sea, Chukchi Sea, Canada Basin and the central Arctic Ocean.

The expedition team has also deployed its first homegrown unmanned ice station and other unmanned observation equipment including underwater gliders, which enable China to extend its research on the Arctic Ocean into the winter, according to Zhu Jiangang, leader of the team.

The Icebreaker traveled over 12,500 nautical miles, including 3,815 through ice, reaching 84.8 degrees north latitude.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 21:43:07|Editor: mmm

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BEIRUT, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- A Lebanese military prosecutor started on Wednesday the investigation into a dispute between police and army personnel at the Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport (RHIA).

The dispute took place between members of the Internal Security Forces (ISF) and the Lebanese Army, causing the ISF personnel who check the passports of departing passengers to withdraw from their positions, according to a statement carried by Elnashra, an independent online newspaper.

Army personnel then took over after ISF personnel left, said the statement.

However, the army personnel were not familiar with how the inspection equipment at the airport operates, causing the interruption of security check of departing passengers, it added.

"After a few minutes, the activity at RHIA went back to normal following the withdrawal of the army personnel from the inspection points at the airport," the statement noted.

Lebanese caretaker Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk, who visited the airport, said the problem was caused by a misunderstanding between the army and ISF but solved later.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 21:52:27|Editor: zh

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Artists from the Yunnan Culture and Art Troupe perform dance during the Mid-Autumn Festival celebration in Cairo, Egypt, Sept. 24, 2018. As the moon became full on Monday, Chinese and Egyptian artists celebrated this year's Mid-Autumn Festival in Cairo. Amid joyful atmosphere at the Chinese Cultural Center in the capital, dozens of Chinese and Egyptians marked the Chinese festival with bands from southwest China's Yunnan Province performing artistic and folkloric shows. (Xinhua/Meng Tao)Hong Kong, Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- CyberMiles (CMT*), an e-commerce blockchain that recently introduced a new programming language for developing smart contracts, has revealed initial performance metrics of its virtual machine compared to Ethereums.

According to DappRadar, the entire Ethereum blockchain ecosystem has less than 10,000 daily active "DApp" users. One of the main barriers in DApp adoption is the slow performance of the underlying blockchain infrastructure, which results in a high-cost, poor user experience. For example, it has been widely reported that the Ethereum platform can support only 25 transactions per second (TPS) globally  far fewer than even a typical website. As a result, much of the early effort in blockchain infrastructure technology has focused on increasing TPS. The CyberMiles blockchain platform, by contrast, is fully backward compatible to Ethereum but is 100 times faster than Ethereum in terms of TPS. Why? Because CyberMiles adopts a DPoS consensus mechanism instead of Ethereum's PoW.

TPS is analogous to I/O throughput (i.e. network bandwidth) in a computer system. A fast I/O is necessary but, without a fast CPU, insufficient for a fast user experience. The "CPU" in the blockchain world computer is the "virtual machine." As a global leader in blockchain virtual machine technologies, CyberMiles has achieved a performance gain up to 20,000 times greater than Ethereum, while maintaining full backward compatibility.

"The 'apples-to-apples' performance tests demonstrate that the CyberMiles Virtual Machine (CVM) can be 10 to 200 times faster in terms of basic arithmetic operations," Dr. Michael Yuan, CyberMiles' Chief Scientist, said. "When coupled with a throughput gain of 100 times the TPS, the CyberMiles platform is up to 20,000 faster than Ethereum."

PROCESSING TIME COMPUTATION QUANTITIES ETHEREUM/EVM CYBERMILES/CVM RATIO Addition 20,000,000 35.30 seconds 3.26 seconds 11.5 times faster Multiplication 10,000,000 35.33 seconds 2.96 seconds 12.8 times faster Bubble Sorting 60,000 48.10 seconds 0.45 seconds 199 times faster Scrypt 1 15 mins. 20 secs. 0.051 seconds 18,039 times faster

The CVM's high performance enables applications that previously were impossible (or, at least, impractical). Take, for example, the classic conundrum in the Ethereum community: cross-chain verification of Bitcoin transactions via a smart contract. A conservative estimate shows that the Ethereum blockchain requires 46 consecutive blocks of computing resources (i.e. gas) in order to complete the scrypt operation required for verifying a Bitcoin transaction. (Ethereum's co-founder, Vitalik Buterin, himself has noted that it takes ~370 million gas to verify one instance of scrypt.) On CyberMiles, this same scrypt operation can be completed within 51 milliseconds, representing a 18,039 performance gain.

CyberMiles achieves this level of performance because it has a different world view than Ethereum. Instead of a Turning-complete world computer, CyberMiles has built a blockchain platform specifically optimized for e-commerce. Instead of a centralized software release process, CyberMiles strives for a decentralized software development and release process governed by the blockchain itself.

Through a technical innovation called the "libENI," the CVM can delegate computationally intensive tasks to the underlying native operating system. The libENI functions, implemented in native and high performance C++, can be developed by the community at large, and the CyberMiles blockchain validators (i.e. "super nodes") vote to accept them as modular components. These, in turn, can be added to the CVM without stopping, forking, or upgrading the blockchain software itself.

There may be thousands of community developed libENI functions. The CyberMiles validators will accept and incorporate e-commerce related functions into the platform, creating a blockchain ecosystem optimized for e-commerce applications.

"In a world of 'application specific blockchains,' we envision that more and more blockchains will optimize for their own business use cases through technologies like the libENI," Dr. Yuan said. "The CyberMiles blockchain works to become the application protocol for e-commerce."

To learn more about CyberMiles, go to cybermiles.io. For more technical information about the CVM and Lity, CyberMiles' new programming language, visit litylang.org.

*Note: CyberMiles Token, known as CMT, should not to be confused with Comet Coin, also listed on some crypto exchanges as CMT.



About CyberMiles

Smart contracts for e-commerce, CyberMiles is a decentralized blockchain protocol specifically designed and optimized for online marketplaces. Established in 2017 and incorporated in Hong Kong as the non-profit CyberMiles Foundation, CyberMiles uses innovative smart business contract modules to facilitate and process transactions simply, effectively and with transparency. This technology focuses on commercial applications with protocols that ensure the appropriate balance between vertical effectiveness and network compatibility.

With the October 2018 release of its Travis MainNet, CyberMiles is on track to provide a strong alternative choice for Ethereum application developers, particularly for decentralized e-commerce apps. To learn more about the CyberMiles blockchain network, go to cybermiles.io.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 21:53:10|Editor: mmm

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BERLIN, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Angela Merkel (CDU) has rebuffed calls on Wednesday for her to offer her resignation to the federal parliament after a close confidant of the German chancellor was surprisingly defeated in a contest for the leadership of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/ Christian Social Union (CSU) joint parliamentary faction.

Merkel saw no need to formally request delegates to reiterate their support for her as the head of Germany's federal government, the chancellor's official spokesperson Steffen Seibert told the press.

The comments were made in response to demands by Free Democratic Party (FDP) leader Christian Lindner and FDP parliamentary secretary Marco Buschmann for the CDU leader to hold a parliamentary vote on her own future in response to what was seen by some as a further sign of the stateswoman's loosening grip on German politics.

Earlier, Volker Kauder (CDU), the incumbent of 13 years and a long-standing ally of Merkel, was unexpectedly defeated in a contest for the position of CDU/CSU parliamentary faction leader by fellow CDU politician Ralph Brinkhaus. The development was interpreted by parliamentary vice-president Thomas Opperman (SPD) as a "revolt against Merkel", with the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) going as far as to describe the chancellor as a "lame duck" following the vote by delegates.

However, Brinkhaus himself has criticized calls for Merkel to offer her resignation as "nonsense" and vowed to "support her (and) strengthen the government" in his new role. Speaking to the public broadcaster "ZDF", Brinkhaus emphasized that there were no major political differences between him and his predecessor Kauder while insisting that the government would benefit from the personnel reshuffle.

"This is not a big drama. In the midterm this is a strengthening of the government and the (parliamentary) faction)," the 50-year-old said. Brinkhaus further announced that he would seek to forge close ties with German Social Democrat (SPD) leader Andrea Nahles, as the CDU, CSU and SPD all had a mutual interest in the success of the ruling "grand coalition".

As of this November, Merkel will already have held the post of German chancellor for 13 consecutive years. She has hereby recently experienced declining support levels in opinion polls after cabinet clashes with her interior minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) and is widely expected not to stand for elections again following the conclusion of her current legislative term in 2021.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 22:08:15|Editor: mmm

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BERLIN, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Terminal 2 of Munich Airport in Germany was temporarily closed on Wednesday after a security check problem.

The reason of the lockout was not immediately clear.

The federal police, who were dispatched to the terminal, later tweeted on its official account that some travelers had "probably" entered the security area without being properly checked.

It is the second time the airport has encountered this problem.

On July 28, the same terminal was evacuated when a women passed the security gate without being checked.

More than 300 flights were canceled and about 31,000 passengers were affected over that weekend.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 22:08:16|Editor: mmm

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BERLIN, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Eastern Germany remains considerably poorer than the country's western half, an official report published on Wednesday by the federal government revealed.

According to the "annual report on the state of German unity", East-West economic convergence is far from complete, despite 28 years having passed since German reunification. While living standards in the East moved closer towards those in the West during that period, wages and gross domestic product (GDP) were still considerably lower in parts of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR).

The report further lamented a relatively low concentration of corporate headquarters and large companies in the East. The ruling "grand coalition" cabinet of Chancellor Angel Merkel is scheduled to assess the findings during the course of Wednesday following an official presentation on the subject by Christian Hirte, the federal government's official commissioner for eastern German affairs.

Among others, the structural inequality between Germany's two halves is reflected in weaker research and innovation-related activities, as well as less internationalization in the operations of local companies. "Lower productivity and an absence of top-tier wages are added to this picture," the report read.

These regional issues were at least partially attributed to a "dramatic decline" in eastern Germany's birth rates witnessed during the 1990s and large-scale movements of young and well-qualified workers to western German towns and cities following reunification. As a consequence, the eastern Germany's population is now ageing faster than the national average, further contributing to differences in wealth, living standards and the availability of skilled labor.

At the same time, however, Hirte also pointed to positive developments in the East which were identified in his report. The unemployment rate differential between East and West has fallen from more than 10 percentage points in the 2000s to 2.3 percentage points in 2017. Additionally, the East scores more favorably than the West in terms of workers' ability to combine raising a family and having a career, with women accounting for nearly half of the overall labor force.

In light of such findings, Hirte complained to the Funke media group on Wednesday that many citizens still had a biased perspective on East Germany, only regarding it as a problem. "This is disappointing, because it does not accurately reflect the everyday life and reality of people (living there)," the commissioner said.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 22:27:05|Editor: mmm

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Chinese teacher Li Yan introduces Chinese food to pupils at the First Primary School in Lodz, Poland, Sept. 25, 2018. A Chinese primary school on Tuesday signed a friendly school cooperation agreement with a counterpart in central Poland's Lodz, enabling their students to experience cultural exchanges in the future. The cooperation deal was signed between Chengdu Qingbaijiang Foreign Language Primary School from southwest China and the First Primary School in Lodz. (Xinhua/Chen Xu)Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 22:28:23|Editor: yan

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JINAN, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- A forum on Confucius culture opened Wednesday in east China's Shandong Province.

The 5th Nishan Forum on World Civilization drew 263 scholars from home and abroad to the city of Qufu to discuss Confucianism, international politics, religion and humanity.

The forum coincides with the China Qufu International Confucius Cultural Festival.

During the event, there will be three high-level dialogues, four themed speeches and a series of sub-forums.

"Shandong is the home of Confucius and an important source of Chinese traditional culture," said Liu Jiayi, secretary of Shandong Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China. "We shoulder the responsibility to creatively pass on traditional culture, and need to enhance communication between Chinese civilization and the rest of the world."

Confucius (551-479 B.C.), an educator and thinker, has influenced countless generations of Chinese society.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 22:33:26|Editor: yan

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KIGALI, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Limited Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure has hindered Africa's efforts to achieve the fourth industrial revolution, experts said Wednesday.

They were speaking at the opening of 13th International Conference and Exhibition on ICT for Education, Training and Skills Development held in Kigali, capital of Rwanda.

The small central African country hosts the forum from Sept. 26 to 28, which seeks to discuss key issues affecting education, training, skills and technology in Africa.

Digital innovations are disrupting life on the African continent to catch up with the rest of world due to lack of adequate ICT infrastructure in place, said Elliott Masie, founder and president of the Masie Center of U.S., an international learning lab.

Infrastructure, especially connectivity, plays an increasingly critical role in accelerating Africa's efforts to bridge the global digital divide, he said.

The fourth industrial revolution is characterized by a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres, according to Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of World Economic Forum.

Access to internet remains one of the greatest obstacles for Africans who want to embrace the global digital revolution, according to Frank Tumwebaze, Ugandan minister of ICT.

"The question today is to harness ways to increase investments in ICT infrastructure in Africa in order to position our continent in fourth industrial revolution," he said.

African governments need to scale up investments in ICT infrastructure in order to seize opportunities presented by the digital age, said Roland Lindenthal, head of the division for education at Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development of Germany.

Africa should also invest in people in the form of digital literacy to enable them to be part of the growing global technology sector, said the official.

The conference has brought together more than 1,000 high-level policy and decision makers and practitioners in the sectors of education and business from Africa and beyond.

The meeting will showcase stories, experiences, research, best practice, thinking and expertise that are central to ICT for education, training and skills development in Africa.Motorcyclists crowd at a petrol station amid a fuel supply shortage in Sanaa, Yemen on Sept. 17, 2018. (Reuters photo)

ADEN, Yemen, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- A severe fuel crisis hit Yemen's southern port city of Aden, allowing black market traders a golden chance to prosper but extremely exacerbating the suffering of Yemeni people.

The situation in Aden, where Yemen's government is based, led some petrol vendors to exploit the crisis through a thriving black market to sell fuel subsidies with skyrocketing prices.

BASIC LIFE STANDARDS LOST

Hopeless Yemeni citizens were forced to buy petrol from black market traders to continue their life despite exaggerated prices.

Arwa Abdullah, a female accountant at a local bank in Aden, expressed her desperation as a woman to use the balckmarket oil.

"I refuelled my car from the black market because I have work and cannot join the long queues to get fuel like men," she complained.

Abdul-Raqeeb Musa, another Yemeni ordinary citizen, said the country's recent fuel crisis is "a fresh curse" added to the already miserable life of Yemenis in the war-torn Arab country.

"The cost of basic commodities, transport, and many other things have gone up sharply as a result of the fuel crisis," he said.

"All aspects of life in Aden are affected badly by the severe fuel crisis and citizens can do nothing about it," Musa concluded.

In the Yemeni coastal city, the main streets appeared empty, as vehicles and motorcycles formed long lines outside petrol stations, waiting for their turn to refuel.

Meanwhile, thousands of Yemeni citizens, including students and employees, found it more difficult to reach their destinations or workplaces.

ANGER OVER SKYROCKETING FUEL PRICES

Frustrated drivers and motorcyclists expressed their anger, calling government authorities to provide solutions to the fuel crisis at the soonest.

"Instead of struggling to meet livelihood and other basic needs for my family, I have been waiting in the queue since last night to refuel my car," Ahmed Rashid, an Aden-based driver, told Xinhua.

"The oil crisis aggravated at an unbelievable rate and getting 20 liters of petrol has become a dream in these days," Rashid said, standing behind his vehicle.

"The role of the government authorities is totally absent and the citizens are left alone to confront numerous crises," he lamented.

Cars queue outside a petrol station amid a fuel supply shortage in Sanaa, Yemen, on Sept. 19, 2018. (Reuters photo)

Some Yemeni citizens blamed the Ministry of Oil and Minerals for refraining from explaining the severe nationwide fuel shortage.

"Fuel shortage in northern provinces is caused by the ongoing fighting and blocking main roads there, but in Aden we actually don't understand what's going on," said Saleh Mohammed, a Yemeni citizen in Aden.

He demanded reasonable explanations from the government about the current fuel crisis and even worse economic situation in Aden where "no fighting is taking place."

Many southern citizens said Aden and other main neighboring provinces, controlled by the internationally-backed government, witnessed no progress in living conditions.

The government-controlled southern provinces seem to have not economically benefited from the interference of the Saudi-led Arab coalition, and remain as destitute as their northern counterparts ruled by Iran-backed Houthi rebels, they said.

YEMENI CIVIL WAR

Yemen has been locked into a civil war since Iran-backed Shiite Houthi rebels overran much of the country militarily and seized all northern provinces, including the capital Sanaa, in 2014.

Saudi Arabia, along with several other Arab countries, intervened militarily and began pounding the Houthi-controlled capital Sanaa in March 2015 in response to an official request from Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to protect his country.

The internal military conflict between Iran-backed Houthis and the Saudi-backed Yemeni government recently entered its fourth year, aggravating the suffering of Yemenis and deepening the world's worst humanitarian crisis in the country.

Three quarters of the Yemeni population, or more than 22 million people, urgently need humanitarian assistance, including 8.4 million people who struggle to find their next meal.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 22:53:35|Editor: yan

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TEHRAN, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Germany's plastics and rubber machinery exports to Iran amounted to only 18.07 million U.S. dollars in the first six months of 2018, a news website reported Wednesday.

The figure registered 30.9 percent decline in value compared with the corresponding period last year, said Eghtesadonline.

Germany's machinery exports to Iran in 2017 stood at 44.58 million dollars.

The decline comes amid U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw Washington in May from the 2015 Iranian international nuclear agreement and re-impose in August economic sanctions on the Islamic republic.

Iran is currently hosting a plastic exhibition in the capital Tehran, which has brought together representatives from 15 countries, including Germany, Switzerland, Cyprus, Belgium, India, Turkey and the Republic of Korea.

The four-day exhibition, which will conclude on Sept. 27, is hailed as the biggest plastic industry event in the Middle East.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 23:18:43|Editor: yan

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CHANGCHUN, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- About 30 injured or dead chickens and a injured dog signal that a rare Amur leopard has visited a vineyard in northeast China.

According to the Hunchun Siberian Tiger National Nature Reserve in Jilin Province, Yu Yanqi, a resident from Dongfanghong Village, reported the sighting of the Amur leopard, a critically endangered leopard subspecies, Wednesday.

"I was having lunch with my friend in my house at noon when the dog suddenly started to bark," Yu said, adding that about 30 of the more than 100 chickens on his vineyard were injured or killed. "The dog also suffered injuries to the neck after fighting with the leopard."

Based on its footprints, local authorities have determined that it was a young Amur leopard that had just left its mother.

"It is possible that the leopard did not have enough hunting experience, and hunger or curiosity drove it to the vineyard," said Lang Jianmin, a local wildlife expert.

Amur leopards, also known as the Far Eastern leopard, are one of the most endangered feline species in the world, and have been listed as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

It is believed that there are about 50 Amur leopards living in the wild, mostly in China-Russia border areas.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 23:28:44|Editor: yan

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KIEV, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has called on the United Nations (UN) to deploy peacekeeping troops to Ukraine's conflict-hit eastern region of Donbas, the presidential press service said in a statement on Wednesday.

"I am confident that the UN-mandated multinational peacekeeping operation with the only clear goal to restore Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity could be a decisive factor in ending the sufferings of the Ukrainian people," Poroshenko was quoted as saying at the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly.

Poroshenko said that the conflict that has been underway in eastern Ukraine since April 2014 has claimed the lives of more than 10,000 people and left almost 25,000 others injured.

In addition, over 1.5 million Ukrainians have been internally displaced as a result of the conflict, the Ukrainian leader said.

The 73rd session of the UN General Assembly is being convened at the UN headquarters in New York from Sept. 18 to Oct. 1.EDMONTON, Alberta, Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Trailcon has officially announced that Dave Ambrock, its Edmonton Branch Manager, will be retiring on December 31, 2018. Ambrock will be replaced by Laine Hrechuk, who will begin work with Trailcon on October 1, shadowing Dave until the end of the year when he will assume the title of Branch Manager, Edmonton.



Trailcon President Al Boughton commented on Dave Ambrocks retirement, saying:

Dave has been an integral part of Trailcons beginnings and its success in Edmonton  there is no doubt he will be missed by the entire team. We all wish him the best as he enjoys retirement and have comfort in knowing that hes just a phone call away if we need him."

Dave Ambrock has served with Trailcon Edmonton for 11 years, credited with being a hard worker who has been fully committed to the success of the Edmonton branch. Before leaving his post, Dave will be the first Trailcon Edmonton employee to put the keys in the door of the newly completed Edmonton facility, which is set to open in December 2018.

Laine Hrechuk, Ambrocks replacement, comes to Trailcon with many years of experience, previously serving as a Transport Division Manager and Transport Sales Manager for Edmontons Thermo King Western Inc., and in Sales with Pro-West Refrigeration and Epoch Western Canada Inc.

Laine will be an excellent addition to the Trailcon team, and will begin his tenure as Branch Manager, Edmonton on January 1, 2019.

About Trailcon Leasing Inc.:

Founded in Mississauga, Ontario in 1992 by President Al Boughton, Trailcon Leasing has become an industry leader in trailer rental, maintenance, and leasing. Trailcons head office is located in Brampton, and the company has expanded across the country with service branches in Cornwall, Edmonton, Calgary, and Surrey that offer nationwide coverage. Trailcon hosts the largest mobile repair fleet in the country, with nearly 100 licensed trailer technicians working alongside service providers around North America, and 15 MTO-licensed stations in Greater Toronto.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 23:28:44|Editor: yan

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SINGAPORE, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Singapore and China are working towards an early conclusion of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) which will demonstrate their shared commitment to free trade and liberalization, a Singaporean official said on Wednesday.

Singapore's Minister for Education Ong Ye Kung made the remarks while delivering a speech at the reception to mark the 69th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.

China has scored remarkable economic progress during the four decades since the initiation of its reform and opening-up, ranking as the second largest economy in the world and serving as one of the major engines for regional and global GDP growth, according to Ong.

Speaking on behalf of the Singaporean government, Ong noted that China has close trade and economic ties with many countries in Asia and beyond. Singapore welcomes China pursuing the policy of continuing reform and opening-up, and looks forward to China's further development, he added.

In his speech, the minister mentioned the 14th Joint Council for Bilateral Cooperation (JCBC) meeting which was concluded last week in Singapore.

The meeting affirmed the good progress made by the three government-to-government projects between the two countries and their growing cooperation under the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative, the minister noted.

Singapore and China enjoy an all-round cooperative partnership progressing with the times, and share common interest in peace, prosperity and security in the region, Ong said.

As this year's chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the country coordinator of ASEAN-China dialogue relations earlier this year, Singapore has worked closely with China and other ASEAN member countries to promote a closer and mutually-beneficial cooperation, he said.

The reception was hosted by Chinese Ambassador Hong Xiaoyong, and was attended by hundreds of people from all walks of life in Singapore.

RCEP is a proposed free trade agreement between the 10 member states of the ASEAN and the six Asia-Pacific states with which ASEAN has existing free trade agreements - Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 23:28:44|Editor: yan

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U.S. President Donald Trump addresses the General Debate of the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly at the UN Headquarters in New York, Sept. 25, 2018. (Xinhua/Li Muzi)

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday delivered his speech at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), which U.S. experts say is indicative of a zero-sum worldview that is detrimental to world stability and prosperity.

Trump touted his "America First" foreign policy and defended actions under this belief.

While highlighting his commitment to "putting sovereignty above global governance," he attacked globalism, and lashed out at several international organizations and treaties, such as the UN Human Rights Council, the International Criminal Court and the Iran nuclear deal, all of which his administration has said it would exit or impose sanctions against.

Kyle Ferrier, an analyst for the Washington-based Korea Economic Institute of America, told Xinhua that "Trump's speech attempted to reframe his 'America First' foreign policy into something that would be more universally understandable: patriotism."

"Dressing up his foreign policy, however, is not going to allay widespread concerns about U.S. withdrawal from global governance," Ferrier said.

"Trump's foreign policy is a mixture of anti-globalism and traditional conservativism, which don't often align," the expert said.

Dan Mahaffee, senior vice president and director of policy at the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress, told Xinhua that "in his speech, President Trump drew on his own belief in American sovereignty, as well as the advice being given to him by advisors like John Bolton and Stephen Miller."

"In this framework, international institutions present a threat to American sovereignty, especially at a time when issues like immigration, trade, and the role of frameworks such as alliances and multilateral institutions limit American freedom of action," he said.

"While they espouse a belief in the sovereignty of nations, they also acknowledge that there are instances where another nation's reliance on the United States for military protection or economic ties presents an opportunity for the United States to have legitimate grievances about those policies that they pursue that are counter to U.S. interests," he added.

"It does shift significantly away from the benefits that the United States has achieved in its partnerships and alliances with other countries as it better reflects President Trump's zero-sum worldview," he said.

Christopher Galdieri, assistant professor at Saint Anselm College, said that "since his first flirtations with running for office, Trump has seen the United States as getting the short end of the stick when it comes to relations with other countries, particularly in the realms of trade deals and multilateral agreements."

"Trump appears to view relations with other countries in zero-sum, bilateral terms -- there should be two parties to agreements, and the United States should get the better of the other country in the deal," he said. "Similarly, he dislikes groups like NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) because he sees them as somehow taking advantage of the United States."

However, Douglas Paal, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said that Trump's speech "is a campaign statement for the mid-terms, making incredible claims for success."

"Trump really does not care about other country's systems, so he means not to interfere in that. But if a country poses a threat -- military or economic -- to the U.S., the U.S. will work against it," he said. "The speech is about equally uninformative about policy, although we should be glad he is less belligerent regarding North Korea (the DPRK)."

In his speech, Trump said that his meeting with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)'s top leader, Kim Jong Un, was productive. However, he added that sanctions on the nation will stay in place "until denuclearization occurs."

"The biggest difference between Trump's 2018 and 2017 UNGA speeches is how he characterized North Korea (the DPRK)," said Ferrier.

Last year, Trump used the derogative nickname of "rocket man" for Kim and called the DPRK regime a "band of criminals." This year, Trump thanked Kim for his courage in taking recent diplomatic steps. Comparing the two speeches is a reminder of how much the Korean Peninsula issue has changed in a year, Ferrier said.

(Matthew Rusling in Washington also contributed to the report.)Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 23:43:51|Editor: yan

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by Jamil Bhatti

ISLAMABAD, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Once was a small backward fishing town off the Arabian Sea in Pakistan's southwest Balochistan province, Gwadar now is rising fast at the economic landscape of the country and is attracting more businessmen for emerging business opportunities.

The deep-water port has become fully functional since late 2016 under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and embraced its first liner in March 2018.

According to the port's operator, China Overseas Ports Holding Company (COPHC), some 20 companies in different businesses have already joined the Gwadar free zone with direct investment of around 460 million U.S. dollars.

Planning to open a fast food chain restaurant in Gwadar, Muhammad Umair, an American of Pakistani origin, heard about the rise of Gwadar a lot from media as well as from his friends in Pakistan.

"So, I conducted a survey and decided to establish an international fast food chain restaurant in Gwadar," Umair told Xinhua recently during his business visit to Gwadar.

Umair migrated to the United States in 1996 and now is the owner of a couple of pizza restaurants and a superstore in Houston, Texas.

"I chose Gwadar because it is a growing port city with enormous opportunities which can give me good earnings. This restaurant will be a start. I have the plan to invest in other businesses also. It might be a factory," said Umair, who looked very optimistic after visiting the modernly developed port and other ongoing development projects in Gwadar.

The development of Gwadar is laying a strong infrastructural foundation for the future development as well as creating new employment and business opportunities. The continuous progress through swiftly completed projects has increased Pakistanis' trust in Gwadar.

Dostain Jamaldini, chairman of the Gwadar Port Authority, told Xinhua that "with the development of the port, a number of business people are showing their interest to start their new businesses in Gwadar. China has helped us develop port as well as the city, resultantly the businesses of locals are flourishing."

Gul Zamir, who first migrated from Pakistan's Punjab province to the U.S. in 2010 to run a business but returned home after one year when he failed to adjust abroad, has been running a real estate and construction business in Gwadar since 2014.

"On the return, I didn't know what to do, but finally, a friend guided me to Gwadar and I started a construction business in partnership with a local partner. Now, I am very happy with my work," said Zamir, who is also planning to establish a private college in the city of Gwadar.

Zamir told Xinhua that he was very disappointed when he first reached Gwadar, but he remained persistent and, finally, opportunities started knocking on his door.

"There was nothing near my office except a poor road and several shabby houses. But now, a big number of modern houses have been built on both sides of the fully carpeted road," Zamir talked about the big change in Gwadar, adding that "more and more people are coming to Gwadar for investment and for businesses which is boosting my construction business."

The fast development has also caused a surge in Gwadar's population as it has increased from some 85,000 in 2007 to around 140,000 currently. Seeing the influx of a big number of people in Gwadar, the telecom companies have also started upgrading their services there and now people can enjoy the speedy 4G mobile connections.

Khurram Khan, another businessman from Pakistan's eastern city of Lahore, shifted to Gwadar in 2014 on his father's advice and started his own business as a supplier of construction material.

Khan said his father urged and facilitated him to start the new venture, saying "it would be good for your future" and the veteran's words become true. "It has been proven right as my business is picking up day by day."

Chinese companies have changed Gwadar within a short period. People can now see a well-developed port, business center, free zone, water desalination plant, improved health and education facilities, a change which is laying a foundation for Pakistan's prosperous future, said Khan.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-26 23:58:54|Editor: yan

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PHNOM PENH, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- China on Wednesday donated material and equipment to Cambodia for its 2019 general population census, officials said.

The donation included cars, motorcycles, desktop computers, laptop computers, printers, photocopiers and tablets.

Economic and Commercial Counsellor of the Chinese Embassy to Cambodia Li An handed over those material and equipment to Cambodian Senior Minister and Minister of Planning Chhay Than at a ceremony in Phnom Penh.

Li said China was pleased to help Cambodia in the statistical sector, saying that the upcoming census was crucial to following up on Cambodia's development and gathering statistics for development purposes in the future.

Chhay Than expressed gratitude to the Chinese government and people for constantly supporting Cambodia's development in all fields.

"The donation today opens a new chapter of cooperation in statistical sector between Cambodia and China," he said.

Cambodia is going to conduct a general population census on March 3-13, and some 50,000 census workers will be deployed to collect the demographic, social and economic statistics, including births, deaths, migration, education and employment status among others.

He said the census is estimated to cost 8.5 million U.S. dollars.

The Southeast Asian nation conducted a general population census once a decade. The 2008 population census found that Cambodia's population was 13.4 million, up from 11.4 million in 1998.

Chhay Than said the country's current population is estimated at about 16 million.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-27 00:03:56|Editor: yan

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CAIRO, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Egypt aims to reduce the public debt to 70 percent of the GDP in four years, Finance Minister Mohamed Maait said Wednesday.

Maait's remarks came during his meeting with members of the French Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Egypt, where he pledged that the Egyptian government will not increase taxes or impose new ones, according to a statement from the Egyptian Ministry of Finance.

The finance minister said in August that the government aims to reduce its public debt to 92 percent of GDP in the budget of the current fiscal year 2018-2019.

Egypt's government debt totalled 108 percent of the GDP in the fiscal year 2016-2017, according to a statement from former Finance Minister Amr el-Garhy in May, where he said the government aims to reduce it to 80 percent of GDP by 2020.

The lowest ratio of Egypt's public debt to GDP was 73.3 percent in 2009.

Earlier in September, Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly said the country's foreign debt rose 17.2 percent to 92.64 billion U.S. dollars by the end of June, compared with 79.02 billion dollars last year.

Egypt is implementing an economic reform program which started with floatation of local currency in late 2016 to deal with dollar shortage, reduce budget deficit and boost the economy which has been in recession after years of political instability.

The Egyptian reform program is being supported by a 12-billion-dollar loan from the International Monetary Fund, two thirds of which has been delivered to the most populous Arab state.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-27 00:08:58|Editor: Yang Yi

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Chinese Ambassador to Malaysia Bai Tian (C), Malaysian Transport Minister Loke Siew Fook (2nd L) cut the ribbon at the launching ceremony of Guidebook for Consular Protection and Assistance for Chinese Travelers in Malaysia by the Chinese embassy, at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Sepang, Malaysia, Sept. 26, 2018. Malaysia will provide greater assistance to tourists from China to enhance their experience in the country, a senior Malaysian official said Wednesday, as many Chinese tourists are travelling overseas during the upcoming National Day holiday. (Xinhua/Zhu Wei)

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Malaysia will provide greater assistance to tourists from China to enhance their experience in the country, a senior Malaysian official said Wednesday, as many Chinese tourists are travelling overseas during the upcoming National Day holiday.

The Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Malaysia's major gateway, will add more staff to provide assistance to Chinese travelers, while assigning volunteers who can speaks Chinese, said Transport Minister Loke Siew Fook.

The airport will also continue to provide space for the Chinese tourists help desk, which was jointly set up by the Chinese embassy in Malaysia with the cooperation of Malaysian authorities and Malaysia China Welfare Advisory Society, said Loke at the launching ceremony of Guidebook for Consular Protection and Assistance for Chinese Travelers in Malaysia by the Chinese embassy.

These measures will better facilitate the Chinese tourists and provide better experience to them, said Loke, adding that he hope more Chinese will visit Malaysia during the upcoming golden-week holiday.

Tourism could help strengthen the bilateral relations between Malaysia and China, said Loke.

"I hope we can continue to flourish our relationship and to strengthen our Malaysian-China friendship," he said. "We are confident that relationship between both countries will continue to strengthen under the new government, and this will bring the two countries together and more importantly, to bring the people of the two countries together."

Concurring with Loke, Chinese Ambassador Bai Tian mentioned that during the recent visit by Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad to China, both countries agreed to designate the year 2020 as Malaysia-China Cultural Tourism Year in a bid to strengthen people-to-people ties.

Some 3 million of Chinese tourists are expected to visit Malaysia this year, attracted by the beautiful scenery, delicious food and wonderful culture, said Bai.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-27 00:14:00|Editor: yan

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NAIROBI, Sept.26 (Xinhua) -- Kenyan scholars have praised China's white paper published Monday that clarifies facts about China-U.S. economic and trade relations, and demonstrates China's stance on trade friction with the United States while offering reasonable solutions.

The white paper is meant to clearly state China's position with regard to growing protectionist policies espoused by the United States, reaffirming that China remains a defender of a global multilateral trading system in which members are guided by World Trade Organization (WTO) rules and principles, said Gerishon Ikiara, an international economics lecturer at the University of Nairobi.

"By releasing the white paper, China's views will become clearer to a global audience that is increasingly worried about the retreat of the United States on the defense of global free trade and investment based on efficiency tests," Ikiara said, stressing that global trade relations play a crucial role in today's globalized economic dynamics.

Ikiara said the absence of good trade relations between Beijing and Washington could destabilize the global trade environment and cause "huge, negative consequences."

Acknowledging that the China-U.S. trade friction is "part of the worrying trend across the world," the scholar emphasized the crucial role of WTO rules and principles in global growth as well as international trade. "It is crucial that the global community pushes for the need of all WTO members to operate within the established global trading framework."

Peter Kagwanja, chief executive officer of the Africa Policy Institute, said the white paper proposes a peaceful pathway to global relations, especially in trade relations, and offers hope for a framework underpinning global prosperity.

Kagwanja said he believes that strong trade relations between China and the United States are not only necessary for ensuring the rapid growth of the world economy, but also contribute to industrialization and poverty eradication in the developing world.

Regarding U.S. President Donald Trump's trade policies, Ikiara said the president has been inaccurately arguing that the nation is a victim of global trade.

"The protectionist measures, which have, to a large extent, been used to intimidate some trading partners such as China, Canada and Mexico, are likely to make the United States lose important global support," Ikiara said.

Meanwhile, Kagwanja said Trump's "America First" policy has fueled isolationism, protectionism and anti-globalization tendencies.

"The United States should recommit to a flexible global trade regime," he said.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-27 00:14:01|Editor: yan

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TRIPOLI, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Libya's Ministry of Interior on Wednesday approved a new cease-fire agreement in the capital Tripoli.

The new agreement, approved by Minister of Interior Abdussalam Ashour, was signed between the cities of Tripoli and Tarhona, in order to "stabilize the cease-fire agreement signed in Zawiya City," the ministry said in a statement.

The agreement requires the warring parties not to attack public or private properties and refrains them from inciting violence.

According to the statement, a joint military force will be formed to secure southern Tripoli, while withdrawal of armed groups from conflict areas should be overseen by the tribal mediators.

Libya has been suffering insecurity and escalating violence since the fall of former leader Muammar Gaddafi's regime in 2011.

Since Aug. 26, violent clashes erupted between forces allied with the UN-backed government and armed militias in the capital Tripoli, causing hundreds of casualties.

Earlier in September, a UN-brokered agreement was signed in the western city of Zawiya, some 45 km west of Tripoli, to end the violence in the capital. However, the agreement was violated and the fighting continued.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-27 00:14:01|Editor: Xiang Bo

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NASHVILLE, the United States, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- "They should put a 'federal tariff tax' on receipts, so people can understand that they are ultimately paying for the price of trade wars," Glenn Anderson, who runs the Tennessee Medical Cannabis Trade Association, said at a recent gathering here.

The gathering, held at the Tennessee Brew Works last Thursday, was aimed at voicing concerns and raising awareness over recent tariff measures from Washington.

During the event, speakers as well as members of the audience shared personal experiences, observations, and at times satire regarding how the tariffs negatively impacted their lives.

One speaker on the podium was 38-year-old farmer Brandon Whitt, who manages a 200-year-old farm, Batey Farms, not far from Nashville.

Whitt, an eighth-generation farmer, said the abrupt imposition of tariffs this year made him fear that he might have to give up his farm.

Batey Farms produces a variety of crops, such as soybeans, corn and wheat, and raises a large number of pigs. A large part of the farm's produce ends up in overseas markets.

But due to the trade frictions the United States has initiated with other countries, overseas demand for U.S. agricultural products has tanked, driving down the prices for soybeans and pork, among others.

"I'm making 50 bushels an acre of soybeans, but that's 50 bushels per acre at a two-dollar decrease," Whitt said. "I've done absolutely nothing wrong and lost 100 dollars an acre in profit."

"I'd like to carry our administration with me when I go to cash my grain checks and watch me deposit those checks and then immediately turn around and drive across town to my lender, whom I have to pay off except I'm missing 20, 30, 40 percent of that money to be able to pay off that operating loan," Whitt lamented.

Aside from damages, the uncertainties that come with the tariffs are also making farmers very uncomfortable.

"Nobody has a crystal ball. I don't think our officials in Washington have a crystal ball at all at this point right now. I think we're just kind of flying by the seat of our pants," Whitt said, in an apparent jab at the U.S. government.

The situation is almost like before the 2008 recession, Whitt said, adding that now people are just as discouraged to invest and hire as they were 10 years ago.

Whitt said that as a farmer, he shouldn't be diverting his energy to learn about foreign policy or trade, but the status quo has left him with no choice.

"I don't like politics, but I have to get into politics," Whitt said, adding that Washington's ever-changing positions and frequent threats have made the situation more challenging.

Whitt also rejected the idea of subsidies, calling them a "band-aid handout."

Accompanying Whitt on stage was Steven Livingston, a professor of political science at Middle Tennessee State University, who said farms are not the only ones hit by the tariffs in the state.

All the leading industries in the state, such as the automotive, chemicals, paper, plastic and boat manufacturing industries will all be negatively impacted by higher trade barriers, Livingston said, estimating a 1-billion-dollar loss for the state in foreign trade.

The message resonated with those off stage.

Josh Beatty, who owns a real estate company, said he came to the event to learn more about the potential damage of tariffs.

"A lot of the lumber and steel I use in construction are imported, so I want to be prepared for any potential changes," Beatty said, who was on his first visit to Nashville from Minneapolis.

The gathering, one in a series of town hall meetings under the banner "Tariffs hurt the Heartland," was organized by the activist groups Americans for Free Trade and Farmers for Free Trade.

Brian Kuehl, executive director of Farmers for Free Trade, told Xinhua that the purpose of the meetings was to raise awareness of the impacts of tariffs and trade frictions and provide a platform for people to share their opinions and stories.

"The reason we are focusing on the heartland is because the heartland is hurt by the trade war and in the 2016 elections the heartland supported President (Donald) Trump. We hope President Trump will also support the heartland," Kuehl said.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-27 00:19:05|Editor: Li Xia

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By Eric J. Lyman

ROME, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Italy, which already has one of Europe's most restrictive set of rules governing divorce, is mulling a set of rules that could make the process even more challenging for those involved.

Divorce only became legal in Italy in 1970, and even now couples who wish to end their marriages can do so only after filing a formal statement on the reasons for the divorce and a trial separation period.

The process of dividing assets is complicated, sometimes including mediation and counseling. Child custody laws generally favor the mother unless she is demonstrably unfit to be a parent.

If the Five-Star Movement -- the populist, anti-establishment party and one of the two parties that make up the Italian government -- has its way the process could become even more onerous.

The Five-Star Movement's proposal, which political analysts say is likely to become law in some form, would eliminate child support payments and remove custody from parents who speak badly about the other parent.

In lieu of child support payments the plan would require the children of divorced parents to spend precisely half the time with each parent, with each parent responsible for expenses incurred while with the child.

If one parent cannot pay for something the child needs, the proposal says, the wealthier parent would pay directly for that expense, rather than handing the money over to the less-wealthy former spouse. The proposal calls this idea "perfect co-parenting".

As it is, most children of divorced parents spend most of their time with the mother, with the father paying for child support at a level determined by the courts or mediation.

Supporters of the law say it will remove a bias toward mothers when a couple separates and eliminate the possibility that child support payments would be used to help cover expenses not directly related to the child.

But critics have been vocal, saying the proposal discriminates against mothers and, because it would make divorce more painful, it could act as an incentive for couples to remain in bad marriages or for them not to marry at all.

"A law like this would undo many of the advances women in Italy have made over the last generation," Manuela Ulivi, a family law attorney and president of the Home for Abused Women in Milan, told Xinhua. "Very few advanced countries have policies that would treat women's rights in the way."

Nadia Somma, from Demetra, an anti-domestic violence shelter in Turin went even further: "If this enters into force it would turn the clock back on women's rights 50 years," Somma wrote after the proposed law was released.

But Paolo Scotti, a psychologist and president of MEDEFitalia, an association of mediators, told Xinhua the details of the proposed law will determine its impacts.

"We really have to see what the final law will say," Scotti said. "Yes, it will give more power to what parents decide when they sit down and talk in a mediation process. People ask me: will this make divorce even more difficult? If it does, maybe it will make couples put more thought into whether or not to get married and have children."COLORADO SPRINGS, CO, Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NEWMEDIAWIRE -- Gold Resource Corporation (NYSE American: GORO) (the Company) declares its monthly instituted dividend of 1/6 of a cent per common share for September 2018 payable on October 23, 2018 to shareholders of record as of October 11, 2018. Gold Resource Corporation is a gold and silver producer, developer and explorer with operations in Oaxaca, Mexico and Nevada, USA.



The Company has returned $111 million to its shareholders in monthly dividends since commercial production commenced July 1, 2010 and offers its shareholders the option to convert their cash dividends and take delivery in physical gold and silver. For more information on Gold Resource Corporations physical dividend program, visit the Company website at http://www.goldresourcecorp.com/gold-silver-dividends.php.

Dividends may vary in amount and consistency or be discontinued at the Board of Directors discretion depending on variables including but not limited to operational cash flows, Company development requirements and strategies, construction, spot gold and silver prices, taxation, general market conditions and other factors described in the Cautionary Statements below and the Company's public filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

About GRC:

Gold Resource Corporation is a gold and silver producer, developer and explorer with operations in Oaxaca, Mexico and Nevada, USA. The Company targets low capital expenditure projects with potential for generating high returns on capital. The Company has returned $111 million back to its shareholders since commercial production commenced July 1, 2010 and offers its shareholders the option to convert their cash dividends into physical gold and silver and take delivery. For more information, please visit GRCs website, located at www.goldresourcecorp.com and read the Companys 10-K for an understanding of the risk factors involved.

Cautionary Statements:

This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. The statements contained in this press release that are not purely historical are forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act and Section 21E of the Exchange Act. When used in this press release, the words plan, target, "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "intend" and "expect" and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements include, without limitation, the statements regarding Gold Resource Corporations strategy, future plans for production, future expenses and costs, future liquidity and capital resources, and estimates of mineralized material. All forward-looking statements in this press release are based upon information available to Gold Resource Corporation on the date of this press release, and the company assumes no obligation to update any such forward-looking statements. Forward looking statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties, and there can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate. The Company's actual results could differ materially from those discussed in this press release. In particular, there can be no assurance that production will continue at any specific rate. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, those discussed in the Companys 10-K filed with the SEC.



Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-27 00:19:05|Editor: yan

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GABORONE, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- The Confucius Institute at the University of Botswana (CIUB) has opened a Chinese language teaching point in Francistown, Botswana's second largest city.

The teaching point is the second of its kind established in the country of about 2.1 million people, after the first one was set up early last year at the Botswana International University of Science and Technology (BIUST) in the central town of Palapye.

On Tuesday, the Francistown teaching point was initiated with close to 50 students at the University of Botswana (UB)'s Centre for Continuing Education in Francistown.

"Embracing Chinese language is important, especially in the 21st century," Olekantse Kuswane, UB's Francistown centre manager, told Xinhua after attending the first lesson of the 12-week session.

Kuswane said it had never crossed her mind that she would enroll for the course.

However, when a lot of people, including senior government officials registered for the program, she was compelled to register.

Eatlametse Olopeng, Senior Superintendent of the Botswana Police Service (BPS), said he enrolled for the course because "China is the future in trade, security, international relations and the growth of industrialization."

"Everyone is looking to the East these days," said Olopeng. "It is imperative to study the Chinese language."

Another student, Sharon Moloi, a waitress at one of the leading hotels in Francistown, said her dream is to become a Chinese interpreter during international meetings since they sometimes host Chinese nationals at the hotel she works for.

"I am really thankful to the Chinese government for coming up with Confucius Institute and allowing its language to be an universal language that can be taught in interested countries across the globe. My dream has finally come true," she said.

CIUB provides local students with an opportunity to attend two-week summer or winter camps and four-week summer school in China and also helps locals to win scholarships to study in China for four weeks, one term, a year or for a degree.

In addition, CIUB organizes special cultural activities, such as the "Chinese Bridge," a Chinese language proficiency competition for foreign college and secondary school students, Chinese culture tour around Botswana, Confucius Institute Week and Chinese Talent Show.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-27 00:24:07|Editor: Li Xia

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Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Hor Namhong speaks at the Boao Forum for Asia-Phnom Penh Conference in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on Sept. 26, 2018. Cambodian and Chinese business leaders met here on Wednesday at the first-ever Boao Forum for Asia-Phnom Penh Conference, exploring ways to bring the China-Cambodian economic cooperation and trade into a new era. (Xinhua/Phearum)

PHNOM PENH, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Cambodian and Chinese business leaders met here on Wednesday at the first-ever Boao Forum for Asia-Phnom Penh Conference, exploring ways to bring the Sino-Cambodian economic cooperation and trade into a new era.

Co-organized by the Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) and the Cambodia Chamber of Commerce, the two-day event brought together 34 Chinese business leaders and about 70 Cambodian counterparts.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the conference on Wednesday afternoon, Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Hor Namhong said the conference would contribute further to strengthening business relations between Cambodia and China.

"I believe that the conference today will significantly contribute to attracting more Chinese investors and providing real information on Cambodia's investment potential to foreign investors," he said.

He said China is the largest source of both foreign direct investment and tourists to Cambodia, and is also a leading trading partner of Cambodia.

According to the Cambodian government figures, the country welcomed 1.2 million Chinese tourists in 2017, up 46 percent year-on-year, as the two-way trade volume was valued at 5.8 billion U.S. dollars last year, up 22 percent from the year before.

Namhong said China had invested in a number of sectors here, including banking and finance, construction, telecommunication, garment and textiles, agriculture, infrastructure, hydropower plants and special economic zones.

"China is Cambodia's close and most reliable friend," the deputy prime minister said. "Grant aid, non-interest and low-interest loans, and huge amount of investment from China have played an important role in Cambodia's socio-economic development."

He said assistance and investment from China had greatly helped sustain Cambodia's economic growth of 7.6 percent per annum in the last two decades.

Namhong said under the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative, cooperation between Cambodia and China in investment, trade, industries, infrastructure development, tourism, and agriculture had been further strengthened and expanded.

Chinese Ambassador to Cambodia Xiong Bo said the conference provided a good opportunity for business leaders of the two countries to exchange views on further promoting economic cooperation and trade, and to strengthen communication.

"We hope that the conference will help Asia and the world to learn more about Cambodia's investment potential and to attract more foreign investors to Cambodia," he said.

BFA Secretary General Li Baodong said Cambodia is one of the fastest growing economies in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and is also one of Asia's most attractive countries to investors.

He said the BFA is the most prestigious and premier forum for leaders from government, business, and academia in Asia and other continents to share vision on the most pressing issues in the dynamic region and the world at large.

He added that the BFA is to promote regional economic integration and to bring Asian countries even closer to their development goals.

Kith Meng, president of the Cambodia Chamber of Commerce, said the conference marked historic relations between the BFA and the Cambodia Chamber of Commerce and set milestone for strategic cooperation between the two organizations.

"I strongly believe that this conference would serve as an excellent platform for Chinese entrepreneurs to obtain insights on business environment and related policies of Cambodia, while introducing Boao Forum for Asia to the Cambodian government and business community," he said.

Kith Meng added that Chinese investment played a vital role in socio-economic and infrastructure development in Cambodia.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-27 00:34:09|Editor: yan

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TRIPOLI, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Libya's UN-backed government on Wednesday released 83 illegally detained prisoners in the capital Tripoli, the government spokesman said.

"According to decision No. 1304 regarding illegally detained prisoners, 83 were released from Metiga rehabilitation prison in coordination with the Attorney General and the Ministry of Justice," Mohamed Sallak said on Twitter.

Libya's UN-backed government recently issued a decision to release illegally detained prisoners, excluding those accused of terrorism, murder, armed robbery, banditry and drug trafficking.

Notably, the Libyan UN-backed government has not been able to impose its authority on all prisons and detention centers in the country.

Libya has been plagued by insecurity and chaos since the uprising that toppled former leader Muammar Gaddafi's regime in 2011.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-27 01:34:28|Editor: yan

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MOSCOW, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Nearly 1.5 million internally displaced people and overseas refugees had returned home in Syria thanks to international efforts, a Russian military officer said Wednesday.

Nearly 250,000 of them returned to Syria from abroad, said Yevgeny Ilyin, a representative of the Russian Interdepartmental Staff for Return of Refugees in Syria, according to a press release of the Russian Defense Ministry.

At a meeting of the interdepartmental coordination headquarters of Russia and Syria, he said the growing support of foreign countries and international organizations had helped restore social facilities and infrastructure in the war-torn country.

Schools, bakeries, water-pump stations, electric substations and medical institutions among other facilities have been rebuilt in 216 settlements, Ilyin said.

"Chinese entrepreneurs joined in this work and the restoration of a number of infrastructure facilities was started with their participation," he said.

Russian diplomatic institutions will continue active work to mobilize international efforts to facilitate the return of Syrian refugees to their places of residence, Russian Foreign Ministry representative Nikolai Burtsev said at the meeting.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-27 01:44:32|Editor: yan

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DUBAI, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) on Wednesday reached a gas devlopment deal with a consortium of Spain's Tecnicas Reunidas and Abu Dhabi's Target Engineering Construction Company, ADNOC said in an e-mailed statement.

The agreement, signed by ADNOC LNG, a subsidiary of the United Arab Emirates' oil giant, is an engineering, procurement and construction contract for the second phase of the Integrated Gas Development Expansion (IGD-E) project located at Abu Dhabi's Das Island.

"This agreement will enable us to deliver greater efficiency and performance, maximize the value of our gas assets and pursue our strategic objective to ensure a sustainable and economic gas supply that meets Abu Dhabi's growing energy needs," Fatema Mohamed Al Nuaimi, acting CEO of ADNOC LNG, said after the signing ceremony.

The second phase of the IGD-E project, valued at 3.16 billion dirhams (860 million U.S. dollars), will take 54 months to complete.

Tecnicas Reunidas will lead the consortium and carry out the engineering and procurement for the project, while Target Engineering Construction Company will lead the construction and commissioning works on Das Island.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-27 01:54:34|Editor: yan

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RAMALLAH, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- A senior Palestinian official said on Wednesday that the road to peace requires the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.

The remarks by Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesman of the Palestinian Presidency, came in response to the earlier two-state solution statement by U.S. President Donald Trump.

"It is not the Palestinian position only, but also the Arab and international positions," Rudeineh said.

"There is a need to resolve all final-status issues in accordance with the resolutions of international legitimacy," he noted, referring to the UN Security Council Resolution 1515 and the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative.

Following a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in New York on Wednesday, Trump told reporters that his administration intends to present a new peace plan for the Middle East within two to four months.

The meeting between Trump and Netanyahu was held on the sideline of the United Nations General Assembly meeting, where Trump said he is 100 percent certain that the Palestinians will return to the negotiation table.

According to Israeli media, Trump expressed his support for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the basis of the two-state solution, describing it as "the best option.

The Palestinians has been boycotting the United States since Dec. 6, 2018 when Trump declared Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, especially after May 14, the day the U.S. embassy to Israel was moved to the disputed holy city.

The last round of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians, sponsored by the United States, collapsed in April 2014, after nine months of futile efforts.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-27 02:04:37|Editor: yan

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ADDIS ABABA, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- The Peace and Security Council of the African Union (AU) has warned those actors hindering lasting peace and security in Darfur region.

In a statement on Wednesday, the Council said its latest meeting has considered the situation in Darfur and the ongoing withdrawal process of the AU-UN Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID), whereby it acknowledged the improved situation in Darfur.

Established in 2007, the UNAMID was deployed in Darfur in early 2008, a region which has been witnessing military clashes between the Sudanese army and the rebels since 2003, which according to UN statistics has left 300,000 dead and displaced around 2.5 million others.

The AU Peace and Security Council expressed concern over ongoing clashes between the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM)/Abdul-Wahid faction and the Sudanese security forces, causing deaths and displacement of civilians.

Stating that the search for peace in Darfur is prolonged unnecessarily in the midst of loss of life and civilian displacement, the Council said it would seriously consider taking appropriate action against those who continue to obstruct efforts towards lasting peace and security in Darfur.

It expressed concern over the on-going clashes between the Sudan Liberation Army/Abdul Wahid and government security forces in the Jebel Marra area which continue to bring untold pain and suffering to vulnerable people in the region.

Condemning the attacks in the strongest terms possible, the Council called on members of the Sudan Liberation Movement/Abdul Wahid (SLM/AW), in particular its leader Abdul Wahid, to cease and desist from engaging in deadly clashes as they continue to cause unnecessary deaths and displace civilians.

It further called on the UN Security Council and the larger international community to do the same in order to restore peace in Darfur.

It demanded Abdul Wahid, members of the SLM/Abdul Wahid and other armed movements who have not yet done so, to finalize their on-going negotiations and join the peace process by December 2018, without any further delay, as failure to do so will lead to strict measures being taken by the PSC.

The Council urged the Sudanese government, working with the United Nations and the international community, to act with speed and determination to stabilize Darfur by addressing the root causes of the conflict.

Stating that the root causes of the conflict remain largely unaddressed, the Council said the underlying conflict drivers include land issues and resource distribution.

It called on the government of Sudan and UNAMID to cooperate and work closely together to ensure a smooth exit of UNAMID, guided by existing benchmarks and indicators which take into account the political, human rights and security situation on the ground so as avoid relapse into conflict.

Stating that the improved situation has contributed to the creation of an environment conducive for economic development in Darfur, the Council expressed its full support for UNAMID transition plan, outlining priority areas of rule of law, durable solutions for internally displaced persons (IDPs) and host communities, immediate service delivery to IDPs, and human rights.

The Council urged the government of Sudan and the humanitarian actors to work together in order to ensure unhindered and timely access to the affected population.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-27 02:04:38|Editor: yan

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LISBON, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Seven Portuguese supermarket managers and five others of Portuguese origin have been released after they were arrested by Venezuelan authorities for "breach of law", according to Portuguese media reports on Wednesday.

Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa said Wednesday he was pleased to note the release.

"I welcome the release of our compatriots in Venezuela. I congratulate the Embassy of Portugal in Caracas and the entire team of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that have contributed to the successful resolution of this situation," wrote Costa on his Twitter account.

Portuguese Foreign Minister Augusto Santos Silva warned on Monday that the Venezuelan move would have consequences in bilateral relations.

The Portuguese nationals and descendants were arrested last week and accused of overcharging basic items.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-27 02:24:44|Editor: yan

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By Stefania Fumo

ROME, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Contemporary Italian society is awash in resentment and fear, and this mindset is an obstacle to economic growth, Italy's Center for Social Investments Studies (CENSIS) said in a statement on Wednesday.

According to the latest CENSIS survey unveiled in the Italian capital, 95 percent of Italians believe they need the right connections in order to get ahead in life.

Meanwhile, 88 percent Italians think being born into an affluent family is the only ticket for success, comparing to 61 percent of Germans, 54 percent of British respondents, and 38 percent of Swedes, according to CENSIS.

As well, seven out of 10 Italians object to marriage between people with a 20-year age difference, between people of the same sex, and between people of different religious faiths, especially the Muslim one. Another four out of 10 are opposed to marriage with Asian or African immigrants.

The study "reflects an image of a country that harbors a strong sense of unease in the present, a powerful nostalgia for the past, and that is incapable of investing in its own future", according to CENSIS.

The think tank attributed this mindset to the poverty of young families headed by individuals under 35, whose average income is 15 percent lower and whose personal wealth is 41 percent lower than the national average.

It also pointed to a generalized loss of the culture of personal risk-taking, which it says is a key element of economic growth and upward mobility.

"Acrimony, annoyance towards others, especially if different from oneself, and many fears: this is the collective feeling of Italians today, when every challenge is perceived as a threat, never as an opportunity," commented CENSIS General Director Massimiliano Valerii.

"This is the opposite of the myths, dreams and desires ... (at the basis of) development, reconstruction, and the economic miracle: a social progress that was interrupted by the great (economic) crisis of 2008," the CENSIS chief said.

Valerii also pointed out that while traditional media such as TV, cinema and the press were once the main purveyors of positive myths, collective objectives and rituals, today most people are stuck in a self-referential social media universe, where they share "resentment and fear."

However, Professor Lorenzo Cannavo' from the Department of Social and Economic Sciences at Rome's La Sapienza University begged to disagree.

"I could only give an opinion on the results if I could assess the methodologies used," Cannavo' told Xinhua.

"Overall, it appears to me to be a highly emotional approach to the problem -- which has been ongoing for the past 50 years -- of the mismatch between education and jobs, compounded by the impossibility of making projects for the future."

"Because my students... are aged 20 to 30 years, I can only tell you that I see a lot of skepticism, a lot of disenchantment (and) low expectations, but not 'resentment'," the professor added.

Founded in 1964, CENSIS is a socio-economic think tank that analyses education, labor, welfare, public health, media, government, and security, among other social issues.

Its studies are commissioned by government ministries, regional and local authorities, chambers of commerce, professional associations, banks, private companies, international bodies, and the European Union, according to its website.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-27 02:24:44|Editor: yan

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JERUSALEM, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Israeli medical device company Keystone Heart announced on Wednesday that it is being sold to Chinese company Venus Medtech, in a deal estimated at 100 million U.S. dollars.

This is the second exit deal of an Israeli medical equipment company within a week, after Mazor Robotics was sold to American-Irish giant Medtronic for a record of 1.6 billion dollars in Israel.

Keystone Heart was established in 2004 and headquartered in the coastal city of Caesarea.

It has developed a cerebral embolic protection device designed to provide complete coverage to all brain regions for patients undergoing cardiac procedures, especially surgeries for heart valve replacement.

Founded in 2009 and headquartered in China's eastern city of Hangzhou, Venus Medtech has developed a minimal invasive technology to replace heart valves.

"By offering the brain protection filter, Venus Medtech can differentiate itself as a valve replacement market leader," said Keystone Heart CEO Chris Richardson.

Eric Zi, CEO of Venus Medtech, said the acquisition can not only help the company "reduce the risk of brain injury during surgical procedures, but also provide "a presence in the United States and Europe."

Keystone Heart's product is not yet approved for marketing, but it is currently in a multicenter trial, hoping to receive marketing authorization in the United States in the next year.

The company also expects to get marketing approval in Europe by the end of 2018.Reflects Shift in Strategy to High Growth Opportunities in Cannabis

CARSON, CA , Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NEWMEDIAWIRE - Solis Tek Inc. (OTCQB: SLTK) (the Company), a vertically integrated cannabis technology innovator, manufacturer and distributor, has announced a name and ticker symbol change, its final step in the rebranding of its corporate identity. The new name is Generation Alpha, Inc. and the new ticker symbol is GNAL. The name and symbol change will be effective with the start of trading on Thursday, September 27, 2018.

Generation Alpha reflects managements strategy to leverage business opportunities in legalized cannabis jurisdictions, such as cultivation, processing and retail facilities. The Company will continue to aggressively develop and innovate its lighting division as Solis Tek Digital Lighting and its agricultural products division as Zelda Horticulture.

The Companys Chief Executive Officer, Alan Lien, commented, We are excited with the transformation of our business strategy, our progress at our Arizona facility and the additional growth opportunities our team has identified elsewhere in the cannabis industry. While we are pleased with our innovation and progress in our Solis Tek lighting and Zelda Horticulture divisions, we believe Generation Alpha represents our philosophy of bringing the best cannabis products and services to the market. We are confident that this shift in our business strategy will create long-term shareholder value through diversified segments in the legalized cannabis industry.

About Solis Tek Inc.

Solis Tek Inc. (OTCQB: SLTK) is a vertically integrated technology innovator, developer, manufacturer and distributor focused on bringing products and solutions to commercial cannabis growers in both the medical and recreational space in legal markets across the U.S. For nearly a decade, growers have used the Companys lighting solutions to increase yield, lower costs and grow better to maximize their return on investment. The Companys customers include retail stores, distributors, ecommerce, and commercial growers. In 2018, the Company expanded into the touch-the-plant side of the cannabis business under a contract with an Arizona licensee and its ongoing build-out of a cultivation and processing facility in Phoenix, AZ. For more information, please visit our website, www.solis-tek.com.

Safe Harbor Statement

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. These forward-looking statements are based on the current plans and expectations of management and are subject to a number of uncertainties and risks that could significantly affect the Companys current plans and expectations, as well as future results of operations and financial condition. The Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.A Syrian refugee child waits as refugees prepare to leave the Lebanese capital Beirut to return to their homes in Syria on September 9, 2018. (AFP Photo)

MOSCOW, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Nearly 1.5 million internally displaced people and overseas refugees had returned home in Syria thanks to international efforts, a Russian military officer said Wednesday.

Nearly 250,000 of them returned to Syria from abroad, said Yevgeny Ilyin, a representative of the Russian Interdepartmental Staff for Return of Refugees in Syria, according to a press release of the Russian Defense Ministry.

At a meeting of the interdepartmental coordination headquarters of Russia and Syria, he said the growing support of foreign countries and international organizations had helped restore social facilities and infrastructure in the war-torn country.

Schools, bakeries, water-pump stations, electric substations and medical institutions among other facilities have been rebuilt in 216 settlements, Ilyin said.

"Chinese entrepreneurs joined in this work and the restoration of a number of infrastructure facilities was started with their participation," he said.

Russian diplomatic institutions will continue active work to mobilize international efforts to facilitate the return of Syrian refugees to their places of residence, Russian Foreign Ministry representative Nikolai Burtsev said at the meeting.U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a bilateral meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the sidelines of the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York, U.S., September 26, 2018. (Reuters photo)

JERUSALEM, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday he accepts a self-ruling Palestinian authority but only if Israel will retain the security control over such territory.

The remark was made during a briefing to Israeli reporters at the United Nation after Netanyahu met U.S. President Donald Trump, during which Trump for the first time explicitly endorsed a two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Netanyahu said Trump's endorsement did not come "as a surprise," according to Israel's Ynet news site.

"I am prepared for the Palestinians to have the ability to defend themselves without the ability to threaten us," he said. "Except for Gaza, security control over west of the Jordan River to the sea will remain in our hands. That is non-negotiable and will not change as long as I am prime minister. I am confident that any American initiative will include this principle."

Netanyahu said that at his meeting with Trump, which was attended also by Trump's son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner, Kushner said that "everyone interprets the term 'state' differently." Netanyahu echoed his remark, saying "I am dealing with the essence, not the description. The question is: what is a country? Whether it is Costa Rica or Iran, there are many possibilities."

Previously, Trump was unclear on his stance on the preferable solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Last February, during a press conference with Netanyahu, he said, "I am looking at two-state, and one-state, and I like the one that both parties like... I thought for a while the two-state looked like it may be the easier of the two. But honestly, if Bibi (Netanyahu,) and if the Palestinians, if Israel and the Palestinians are happy, I'm happy with the one they like the best."

In his landmark speech in 2009 at the Bar Ilan University outside Tel Aviv, Netanyahu pledged his support to a two-state solution based on a territorial compromise.

He withdrew his support for Palestinian statehood during his re-election campaign in 2015, in a last-minute attempt to draw more votes. He backtracked on this statement after winning the elections several times and then again said he will never accept a Palestinian state.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-27 04:20:20|Editor: Li Xia

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NEW YORK, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Wednesday said that as long as the Iran nuke deal meets with Iran's interests, his country will remain in the deal.

Speaking at a press conference in New York, Rouhani said that "as long as the deal serves our interests we will remain in the pact."

"Remaining members of the deal have taken very good steps forward but Iran has higher expectations," he said. "We do hope with all the law-abiding and multilateral-oriented countries that we can ultimately put this behind us in an easier fashion than it was earlier anticipated."

"Should the situation change, we have other paths and other solutions that we can embark upon," he said.

Earlier on Wednesday, leaders of France and Britain, while speaking at the UN Security Council (UNSC) meeting on non-proliferation, vowed to defend the Iran nuke deal.

Earlier on Monday, European Union (EU)'s foreign and security policy chief Federica Mogherini said that the EU will set up a legal entity to facilitate legitimate financial transactions with Iran in light of the U.S. withdrawal from the international agreement on Tehran's nuclear program and the re-imposition of sanctions.

All these showed that Washington, by exiting the deal and sanctioning Iran, has put itself in isolation, Rouhani said.

"The United States of America one day, sooner or later, will come back. This cannot be continued," Rouhani said. "We are not isolated; America is isolated."

U.S. President Donald Trump said in the same Security Council meeting earlier on Wednesday that the United States will impose "tougher than ever" sanctions on Iran after the punitive actions against the country slated in November this year.

Rouhani said that the expected U.S. sanctions in November on Iran were illegal and "nothing new."

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted later that "once again, the U.S. abused the UNSC only to find itself further isolated in its violation of #JCPOA and SC resolution 2231. When will it learn its lesson?"

Rouhani, however, added at the press conference that Tehran had no intension to go to war with U.S. forces in the Middle East.

The Iran nuclear deal was reached in Vienna in 2015 between Iran and the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council - China, France, Russia, Britain, the United States - plus Germany).

In May, Trump announced Washington's withdrawal from the landmark Iranian nuclear deal. Since then, the Trump administration has slapped a number of sanctions on Iran while vowing to apply more in November.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-27 05:05:34|Editor: yan

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DAMASCUS, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Dozens of Syrians returned to their homes Wednesday in government-controlled areas in the southern countryside of Idlib Province in northwestern Syria, state news agency SANA reported.

The people crossed the Abu al-Duhur crossing between rebel-held areas and government-controlled ones in the southern countryside of Idlib, which is the last major rebel stronghold in Syria.

It's the latest in a series of civilian batches that started returning to their homes as the situation in Idlib has started cooling down.

Earlier this month, Turkey, a backer of the opposition, and Russia, which is the key backer of the Syrian government, agreed to establish a demilitarized zone between the Syrian forces and the rebels in Idlib.

The deal averted Idlib a wide-scale military offensive by the Syrian army.

According to the deal, the rebels would withdraw from the demilitarized zone along with heavy weapons.

The establishment of the demilitarized zone is set for Oct. 15.

Earlier in the day, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said none of the rebel groups in the planned demilitarized zone have withdrawn from that area, contrary to some reports that claimed otherwise.

Some al-Qaida-linked groups have already declared they would not abide by the deal.

Throughout the more than seven-year-long war, Idlib has emerged as the main destination and stronghold for the rebels fleeing other parts of Syria through deals or surrender.

The al-Qaida-linked groups, including the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, otherwise referred to as the Nusra Front, are the most powerful among other rebel factions in Idlib.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-27 05:20:37|Editor: yan

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DOHA, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- China is deepening its opening-up to boost cooperation with all parties and will remain committed to building a new type of international relations, Chinese Ambassador to Qatar Li Chen said.

Li made the remarks during a reception hosted by the Chinese embassy on Tuesday evening to celebrate the 69th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China which falls on Oct. 1.

China's tremendous achievements and rapid developments over the past 40 years benefit from its reform and opening up policy, Li explained.

''Facing complicated situations, China's development still needs reforms and opening up. Nowadays, China is deepening reforms unswervingly and comprehensively, building a modern economic system, steadfastly extending the opening up strategy, and strengthening international cooperation," he said.

China has become the main stabilizer and power source for global economic growth, with significant contributions to the promotion of world peace and development, the Chinese ambassador noted.

Commenting on the ongoing Gulf crisis, Li said China has always devoted itself to maintaining peace and stability in the region and advocates resolving differences through dialogue and friendly negotiation.

China maintains that all parties should resolve their differences through dialogue on the basis of mutual respect and non-interference in internal affairs, he added.

In July, China and Qatar celebrated the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

The trade between China and Qatar reached 5.5 billion U.S. dollars in the first half of 2018, with a remarkable year-on-year increase of 70 percent, according to Li.

He called for more cooperation between China and Qatar under the Belt and Road Initiative to start another 30-year splendid diplomatic relations.

Proposed by China in 2013, the Belt and Road Initiative, formally known as the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road, aims to build a trade and infrastructure network connecting Asia with Africa and Europe along the ancient trade routes of the Silk Road.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-27 05:30:41|Editor: yan

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KIEV, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Ukrainian opposition politician Yulia Tymoshenko leads the list of the potential candidates for Ukrainian presidency six months before the scheduled elections, a public opinion poll showed on Wednesday.

According to the survey conducted by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology, Tymoshenko, the leader of the Fatherland party, would receive 10.6 percent of voter support if the elections take place in the near future.

According to the poll, 6.5 percent of respondents would vote for the incumbent Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and the same number of voters would support actor Volodymyr Zelensky.

Anatoly Hrytsenko, the leader of the Civil Position party, and famous rock musician Svyatoslav Vakarchuk have 6 percent and 4.6 percent of voter support respectively.

The other candidates have lower percentage of support among those surveyed.

The survey was carried out from Sept. 8 to 23 among 2,026 adults living in 110 cities and villages across Ukraine.

The presidential election in Ukraine is scheduled for March 31, 2019. To win the race in the first round, the candidate should earn more than 50 percent of the votes.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-27 06:10:57|Editor: yan

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MINSK, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Russia will increase supply of oil products to Belarusian oil processing plants by 10-15 percent, Russian ambassador to Belarus Mikhail Babich told journalists on Wednesday.

Russia will supply oil products to Belarus without restrictions within the framework of the indicative balance sheets signed by the two countries, the newly-appointed ambassador said while visiting Belarus' city of Mogilev.

The relevant negotiations are almost finished, he added.

The ambassador said Russia will supply the necessary volume of oil products which the industrial enterprises need for development purposes. An agreement has been reached to increase the delivery of oil products to petrochemical enterprises by 10-15 percent, he added.

The agreement also stipulates a procedure, which can be used to revise the balance figures if an increase in the consumption of oil products is justified, Babich said.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-27 06:21:01|Editor: yan

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HAVANA, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Cuba and the United States will establish a historic first biotech joint venture based in Cuba to develop new cancer treatments, official sources said on Wednesday.

"The first Cuban-American biotechnology company: Innovative Immunotherapy Alliance S.A., is born," said the Cuban state-owned Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Industries Group "Biocubafarma."

The new company will be based in the Mariel Special Development Zone, some 50 kilometers west of the Cuban capital, Havana. The zone is the island's major international trade and companies headquartered there operate under separate tax and trade laws to the rest of the country.

Innovative Immunotherapy Alliance S.A., which will hope to develop treatments to fight different types of cancer, is the result of cooperation between the commercial subsidiaries of two research centers: the Cuban Molecular Immunology Center in Havana and the Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in Buffalo, New York.

"This historic scientific collaboration between the two countries will allow advancements in the research and development of new anticancer treatments, which can improve the survival rates in U.S. patients," said the statement.

The new company plans to manufacture several Cuban developed anticancer products, including the CIMAVax-EGF, a known therapy against lung cancer.

The partnership is aiming to prove to American authorities that Cuban biotech drugs meet the high regulatory safety standards of the United States and are effective in fighting disease.

Treatments are to be marketed in the United States once the company receives the required U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) permits.

Cuba-U.S. relations are currently tense following the decision of U.S. President Donald Trump to reverse much of the progress made under the previous president, Barack Obama.

On Tuesday, at the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly in New York, several Latin American leaders publicly rejected the ongoing American embargo on Cuba.Source: Xinhua| 2018-09-27 06:36:03|Editor: yan

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NEW YORK, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Wednesday that China is willing to boost communication and coordination with Germany at the UN Security Council in efforts toward international peace and security.

Meeting with his German counterpart Heiko Maas, Wang said China is willing to strengthen exchanges with Germany on World Trade Organization (WTO) development and reform, so as to better safeguard its core values, the international trade rules and order as well as the legitimate rights and interests of the developing countries.

"We firmly uphold the multilateralism process, firmly uphold the UN-centered international system, firmly uphold international law and international rules, and firmly uphold the international trade system with the WTO at the core," said Wang, also a Chinese state councilor.

Aiming to make the international system work better, China has launched a number of international and regional cooperation initiatives, including the Belt and Road Initiative, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and the 16+1 Cooperation, which are all open and transparent, he said.

"We are glad to see that adherence to multilateralism has become the mainstream voice of this session of the General Assembly," Wang said.

Maas, for his part, said German Chancellor Angela Merkel visits China on a yearly basis, which demonstrates that Germany attaches great importance to German-Chinese relations.

Both Germany and China support multilateralism, and share similar positions on major international issues including free trade, climate change, and the Iranian nuclear issue, he said.

The German diplomat expressed his hope that China will play a greater role in international affairs, and that the two sides will strengthen communication and coordination in multilateral institutions such as the UN Security Council.

Noting international relations are undergoing structural changes, he stressed that all parties should uphold and maintain jointly established international rules.

While affirming the EU does not appreciate using sanctions and tariffs as main diplomatic tools, Maas said Germany advocates strengthening communication and cooperation between the EU and China on major international issues.XpatLoop Media Partner

Launched in January 2014, this newsletter published on week days covers 'everything you need to know about whats going on in Hungary and beyond', according to its publisher the state media agency MTI.NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO U.S. NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES

CALGARY, Alberta, Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Point Loma Resources Ltd. (TSX-V: PLX) ("Point Loma" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has entered into an engagement letter with Mackie Research Capital Corporation (the "Agent"), pursuant to which the Agent has agreed to offer, on a commercially reasonable efforts basis: (i) up to $2,750,000 in units ("the "Units") of the Company at a price of $0.29 per Unit (the "Unit Offering"); and (ii) up to $1,250,000 million in common shares in the capital of the Company (the "Common Shares") to be issued as "flowthrough shares" within the meaning of the Income Tax Act (Canada) (the "Flow-Through Shares") at a price of $0.33 per Flow-Through Share (the "Flow-Through Offering", and together with the Unit Offering, the "Offering"). The Offering will be conducted by way of short-form prospectus, and is expected to close on or about October 22, 2018 (the "Closing Date").

Members of the Point Loma board of directors and management team plan to participate in the Offering alongside investors.

Each Unit will consist of one Common Share and one Common Share purchase warrant ("Warrant") of the Company. Each Warrant will entitle the holder thereof to acquire, subject to adjustment in accordance with the indenture governing the Warrants, one Common Share (each, a "Warrant Share") at an exercise price of $0.39 per Warrant Share, at any time prior to the date that is 24 months following the Closing Date. The Warrants will be governed by a warrant indenture to be entered into between Point Loma and Computershare Trust Company of Canada on or before the Closing Date. The Company will apply to list the Warrants on the facilities of the TSX Venture Exchange (the "TSXV").

The Company intends to use the net proceeds of the Offering, including any proceeds received upon the exercise of the Over-Allotment Options (as defined below), for: (i) the drilling of a high impact program starting in Q4 2018 focused on unlocking the Corporation's Banff oil exposure, a Rex (Upper Mannville) oil play that was recently captured (see press release dated September 24, 2018) and/or a new Lower Mannville oil pool to the south of the Company's existing oil development; (ii) qualified exploration expenses; and (iii) general corporate purposes. The Offering is subject to certain conditions including, but not limited to, the receipt of all necessary regulatory and stock exchange approvals, including the approval of the TSXV.

The Agent has been granted over-allotment options, exercisable in whole or in part, at any time up to 30 days after the Closing Date, to offer for sale up to an additional: (i) 15% of the Units sold pursuant to the Unit Offering on the same terms as described above (the "Unit Over-Allotment Option"); and (ii) 15% of the Flow-Through Shares sold pursuant to the Flow-Through Offering on the same terms as described above (the "Flow-Through Over-Allotment Option", and together with the Unit Over-Allotment Option, the "Over-Allotment Options").

The Company has filed a preliminary short-form prospectus with the securities regulatory authorities in each of the Provinces of Canada except Quebec.

Point Loma has provided notice of the Offering to Evenergy Company Limited ("Evenergy") in accordance with the terms of the investor rights agreement dated May 29, 2017 between Point Loma and Evenergy (the "Investor Rights Agreement"). Under the Investor Rights Agreement, Evenergy has the right, through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Loyal Petroleum Corporation, to acquire from the Company such number of Common Shares as will allow Evenergy to maintain its 19.9% ownership interest in the Company following completion of the Offering. Evenergy is a Hong Kong registered company, a subsidiary of Zhongcheng Group, one of the largest privately owned independent petroleum refinery, oil products and LPG distribution and retail companies in China.

The proceeds from the issue and sale of the Flow-Through Shares pursuant to the Flow-Through Offering, including any proceeds received upon the exercise of the Flow-Through Over-Allotment Option, will be used to incur Canadian exploration expenses ("CEE") as defined in the Income Tax Act (Canada) and the Company will renounce to each subscriber, on or before December 31, 2018, such CEE in an amount equal to the subscriber's aggregate purchase price under the Flow-Through Offering. In the event that the Company fails to renounce CEE corresponding to the aggregate purchase price of the Flow-Through Offering on or before December 31, 2018, or if there is a reduction in such amount renounced pursuant to the provisions of the Income Tax Act (Canada), the Company shall indemnify the purchasers for an amount equal to the amount of any tax payable or that may become tax payable under the Income Tax Act (Canada) by the purchaser as a consequence of such failure or reduction.

The securities described herein have not been registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act"), and may not be offered or sold in the United States or to, or for the account or benefit of, U.S. Persons (as defined in Regulation S under the U.S. Securities Act) absent registration or an applicable exemption from the registration requirements. This news release shall not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of the securities in any jurisdiction where such offer, solicitation, or sale would be unlawful.

About Point Loma Resources Ltd.

Point Loma is a public oil and gas exploration and development company focused on conventional and unconventional oil and gas reservoirs in west central Alberta. The Company controls over 160,000 net acres (250 net sections) and has a deep inventory of oil opportunities in the Mannville (Upper and Lower), Banff, Nordegg, and Duvernay Shale formations. Point Loma's business plan is to utilize its experience to drill, develop and acquire accretive assets with potential for horizontal multi-stage frac technology and exploit opportunities for secondary recovery. For more information, please visit Point Loma's website at www.pointloma.ca or Point Loma's profile on the System for Electronic Document Analysis and Retrieval website at www.sedar.com .

For further information, please contact:

Terry Meek

President and CEO

Telephone: (403) 705-5051 ext. 444

tmeek@pointloma.ca

Kevin Angus

Vice President, New Ventures

Telephone: (403) 705-5051 ext. 440

kangus@pointloma.ca

Randall Boyd

Vice President Finance and CFO

Telephone: (403) 705-5051 ext. 443

rboyd@pointloma.ca

A Note Regarding Forward-Looking Information

This press release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws, including without limitation, statements pertaining to Point Loma's expectations as to the anticipated terms, conditions, size, pricing and closing date of the Offering; approval by the TSXV of the Offering; approval by the TSXV to list the Warrants; the amount and use of proceeds from the Offering; and the focus of Point Loma's management team and go-forward strategy. Such forward-looking statements are based on a number of assumptions, including the timely receipt of all required regulatory approvals for the Offering, the satisfaction of other closing conditions pertaining to the Offering, and the marketing and pricing of the Offering.

The use of any of the words "will", "expects", "believe", "plans", "potential", "intend", "may", "believe" and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements or information. Although Point Loma believes that the expectations and assumptions on which such forward-looking statements and information are based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements and information because Point Loma cannot give assurance that they will prove to be correct.

Since forward-looking statements and information address future events and conditions, by their very nature they involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially from those currently anticipated due to a number of factors and risks. These include, but are not limited to: the risks associated with the oil and gas industry in general such as operational risks in development, exploration and production; delays or changes in plans with respect to exploration or development projects or capital expenditures; the uncertainty of reserve and resource estimates; the inability of Point Loma to bring additional production on stream or in the anticipated quantities disclosed herein; the uncertainty of estimates and projections relating to reserves, resources, production, costs and expenses; health, safety and environmental risks; commodity price and exchange rate fluctuations; marketing and transportation; loss of markets; environmental risks; competition; inability to retain drilling rigs and other services; incorrect assessment of the value of acquisitions; failure to realize the anticipated benefits of acquisitions; ability to access sufficient capital from internal and external sources; general economic conditions; changes in legislation, including but not limited to tax laws, royalties and environmental regulations; and estimates being greater or less than actual production from any acquired assets. Management has included the above summary of assumptions and risks related to forward-looking information provided in this press release in order to provide security holders with a more complete perspective on Point Loma's future operations and such information may not be appropriate for other purposes.

The forward-looking statements and information contained in this press release are made as of the date hereof and Point Loma does not undertake any obligation to update publicly or revise any forward-looking statements or information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, unless so required by applicable securities laws.CNCAV: 97.711 persoane vaccinate impotriva COVID in ultimele 24 de ore

Un numar de 97.711 doze de vaccin Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca si Johnson & Johnson au fost administrate in ultimele 24 de ore, dintre care 27.793 reprezinta prima doza, 43.701 - doza a doua si 26.217 - doza a ... [citeste mai departe]Five venture-capital firms have invested $8.3 million in Proscia Inc., a Philadelphia-based automated medical-test-processing software business started by three recent college grads in a Baltimore dorm room.

The new money "will fuel the development and commercialization of new, clinical artificial intelligence-enabled workflows targeting high-volume, high-impact cancers, the first of which will be available later this year," promising to "greatly enhance pathologists' productivity," Proscia said in a statement.

The lead investor is Flybridge Capital Partners, Boston, whose investments include Codecademy, a developers' school, and Jibo, a "social robot," among others. Other firms backing Proscia's venture capital round include Emerald Development Managers, New York; Fusion Fund, Palo Alto, Calif.; Razor's Edge Ventures, Reston, Va.; and Robin Hood Ventures, Philadelphia.

Flybridge general partner Chip Hazard said in a statement that Proscia is enjoying "unprecedented momentum in the digital pathology space" and has " the potential to change cancer research."

The company, backed by an earlier $2 million in "friends and family" investments and buoyed by early revenues from its cloud-based digital-pathology platform, employs 25 at its headquarters in the BB&T (formerly IBM) tower at 17th and Market in Center City, where the founders moved it after two of them graduated from Johns Hopkins two years ago.

"Philly's home, and it's a stone's throw from our networks," including key customers and initial investors, said David West, cofounder and chief executive. West says Proscia products are in use at the Johns Hopkins department of pathology, at Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals, and the Henry Ford Health System, among others.

West and cofounder Coleman Stavish met in kindergarten at St. John Neumann Catholic elementary school in Bryn Mawr and attended St. Joseph's Prep in Philadelphia together. West and cofounder Nathan Buchbinder, a North Jersey native, majored in biomedical engineering at Hopkins. Stavish studied computer science at the University of Pittsburgh.

Unlike digital-lab developers such as Theranos, the West Coast medical-testing start-up that attracted Silicon Valley investors and a valuation of billions before its founder was charged with fraud, Proscia doesn't collect blood. Its software is designed to sort information collected on digital imaging and testing equipment and move that data efficiently among labs, doctors, insurers, and patients so they can make accurate decisions fast, according to its founders.

"Labs are moving away from a piece of tissue on a piece of glass under a microscope, toward digital workflow," West said. Commercial and hospital labs in the last two years have migrated toward larger digital scanners and specialty hardware that produces large volumes of data, creating an opportunity for software that can run that equipment efficiently.

The group began offering an initial, free tier of its test management software while the founders were still in school, in 2014. The company claims 4,000 pathologists and researchers are now using its cloud-based digital-pathology platform.VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Colonial Coal International Corp. (TSX-V: CAD) (the Company or Colonial) is pleased to announce the results of the Companys annual general meeting (the AGM) held on September 26, 2018, in Vancouver, British Columbia.



The Company is pleased to report that, at its AGM, the shareholders voted to elect David Austin, Ian Downie, Anthony Hammond, John Perry, Wayne Waters and Gregory Waller as directors of the Company for the ensuing year.

In addition, at the AGM the shareholders also approved the re-appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, Chartered Accountants, as the Companys auditor, and authorized the directors to fix the auditors remuneration, together with the continuation of the Companys current Share Option Plan. For more information on these matters please refer to the Companys AGM Management Proxy Circular which is available on SEDAR (www.sedar.com).

Following the AGM the Board of Directors (the Board) met and confirmed the appointment of the following Company executive officers:

David Austin: President and Chief Executive Officer; John Perry: Chief Operating Officer; and Matt Anderson: Chief Financial Officer and Secretary;

and the re-appointment of the following members to the Companys current Audit Committee:



Ian Downie (Chairman); David Austin; and Wayne Waters.

The Board would like to thank the shareholders for their ongoing support.



About Colonial Coal International Corp.

Colonial Coal is a publicly traded coal corporation in British Columbia that focuses primarily on coking coal projects. The northeast Coal Block of British Columbia, within which our Corporations projects are located, hosts a number of proven deposits and has been the subject of M&A activities by Xstrata, Walter Energy, Anglo-American and others.

Additional information can be found on the Corporations website www.ccoal.ca or by viewing the Corporations filings at www.sedar.com.

For further information please contact:

Colonial Coal International Corp.

David Austin, President and CEO

604.568.4962

daustin@ccoal.ca

www.ccoal.ca

Forward-Looking Information

Information set forth in this news release involves forward-looking statements, including statements relating to the Corporations potential sale of an interest in its Flatbed Property. Forward-looking statements are statements that relate to future, not past, events. In this context, forward-looking statements often address a Corporations expected future business and financial performance, and often contain words such as anticipate, believe, plan, estimate, expect, and intend, statements that an action or event may, might, could, should, or will be taken or occur, or other similar expressions. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause our actual results, performance or achievements, or other future events, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, among others, the following risks: risks associated with marketing and sale of securities; the need for additional financing; reliance on key personnel; the potential for conflicts of interest among certain officers or directors with certain other projects; and the volatility of common share price and volume. Forward-looking statements are made based on managements beliefs, estimates and opinions on the date that statements are made and except as required by law, the Corporation undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements if these beliefs, estimates and opinions or other circumstances should change. Investors are cautioned against attributing undue certainty to forward-looking statements.

THE FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION CONTAINED IN THIS NEWS RELEASE REPRESENTS THE EXPECTATIONS OF THE CORPORATION AS OF THE DATE OF THIS NEWS RELEASE AND, ACCORDINGLY, IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE AFTER SUCH DATE. READERS SHOULD NOT PLACE UNDUE IMPORTANCE ON FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION AND SHOULD NOT RELY UPON THIS INFORMATION AS OF ANY OTHER DATE. WHILE THE CORPORATION MAY ELECT TO, IT DOES NOT UNDERTAKE TO UPDATE THIS INFORMATION AT ANY PARTICULAR TIME EXCEPT AS REQUIRED IN ACCORDANCE WITH APPLICABLE SECURITIES LEGISLATION.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

The intersection of State Street and Main Street in downtown Doylestown Borough, which fought Crown Castle and Verizon over small antennas. A new rule at the Federal Communications Commission would take away many local zoning powers over the placement of those antennas. There will be an estimated 800,000 new antennas by 2026 in the United States. Read more

Verizon and AT&T won big at the Federal Communications Commission on Wednesday as the agency voted to make it easier and cheaper to place 800,000 small antennas for super-fast 5G services on utility poles, traffic lights, sidewalks, and other public areas.

Philadelphia; Santa Barbara, Calif., and other municipalities have blasted the new rules as subsidies to profitable wireless companies through low fees and mandated quick response times for 5G antenna applications that will flood local government offices. A top Philadelphia official said Wednesday that the financial impact from the FCC's action "could be substantial."

The boxy 5G equipment sprouts five-foot antennas on poles or buildings. They will proliferate like weeds throughout the nation over the next decade.

"The rhetoric is that towns want to hold up this new network," John Davis, the manager at Doylestown Borough in Bucks County, which spent about $150,000 fighting 5G antennas proposed there, said Wednesday. "And that's not so at all."

Pennsylvania and other state governments also have passed, or are considering, wireless-friendly legislation to help the companies upgrade their networks with the use of public rights-of-way.

Introduced this summer, proposed Pennsylvania legislation would strip local towns of much of their zoning authority over small-cell antenna placements in public rights-of-way. The measure would be another blow to local towns that would like to retain control over the antennas when they are proposed for historic districts, in neighborhoods without utility poles, or in front of residential homes.

The new FCC rules do not diminish local zoning authority over placement of the antennas but instead set deadlines for towns to process applications and fees. FCC officials warned that local red tape and exorbitant fees would slow 5G for years and cost billions of dollars as town officials look at the antennas as revenue sources.

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, the prime backer of the new federal rules, said Wednesday that the favorable treatment for wireless companies was "about economic leadership for the next decade. Those are the stakes."

Carr compared the potential of 5G to the innovation related to the current 4G wireless network that unleashed the "app economy" and services such as Uber and Lyft in recent years. He also warned that the U.S. was losing out to China in developing a 5G network and that the nation had to close the gap.

Wireless firms and their infrastructure providers, such as Crown Castle, are expected to install the antennas over the next decade in the next wave of wireless-technology upgrades, leading to driverless cars, internet-of-things devices that will automate daily life, and high-speed wireless broadband services to compete with Comcast Corp. and other cable companies.

"At the FCC, we're working hard to ensure that the United States leads the world in developing this next generation of wireless connectivity so that American consumers and our nation's economy enjoy the immense benefits that 5G will bring," FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said in a statement.

FCC rules force a shot clock on towns, making them respond to wireless companies requests for 5G antennas within 60 days. They also have a deadline of 90 days for new utility poles with 5G antennas. The rules set $270 annual fees for each antenna or pole and a $500 application fee per antenna, though this can be slashed if a wireless company seeks antennas in batches, or multiple ones at the same time, according to the FCC website on Wednesday.

Verizon was pleased. "Today's action by the Federal Communications Commission to accelerate small-cell deployment is another critical step toward making our nation's 5G future a reality, sooner than later," said Nicola Palmer, Verizon's head of wireless networks.

The "order will significantly boost 5G deployment by adopting common-sense guidelines, modeled on state legislation, that reduce the time and cost of small-cell deployments while accounting for legitimate local interests," Palmer added. "We would like to thank the FCC for demonstrating vision and determination  as we enter the 5G age."

Philadelphia wasn't so ebullient.

"Today's actions by the FCC ignore longstanding local authority to manage the public rights-of-way. The city has agreements in place for service providers to pay up to $3,000 per year per site with a 3 percent annual escalator, consistent with city ordinance. To incentivize development, the fee starts at $3,000 but falls to $250 to reflect economies of scale," Michael Carroll, the city's deputy managing director for transportation, said Wednesday after the FCC vote.

"Today, the FCC declared that service providers should be charged a flat annual fee of $270 per site, leaving the city's existing agreements and ordinance subject to judicial challenge," Carroll added. "The financial impact to the city could be substantial."

Santa Barbara Mayor Cathy Murillo said in a letter filed with the FCC that the rules "effectively give access to public property to for-profit companies to install their equipment and to sell their private services, while limiting the ability of jurisdictions to recover their costs through the collection of rents and fees for the use of their public right-of-way."

The new FCC rules make it impossible for towns to do what Doylestown Borough officials have done over the last year: force Crown Castle to pay the borough what they consider appropriate fees for the use of the public rights-of-way.

When Doylestown finally settled with Crown Castle in July, the borough won the right to reduce the number of poles as well as camouflage and relocate some of them. It also won a 5 percent share of the revenues for the services Verizon or other companies sell through some of those Crown Castle small cells and $750 a year for other antennas.

The Doylestown deal with Crown Castle  which will lease the small-cell antennas to Verizon and other wireless carriers  should be grandfathered, thus not jeopardized by the new FCC rules, Davis said. But other towns will miss out on a similar lucrative deal.Community Health Systems Inc. has agreed to pay $260 million to settle fraudulent-billing allegations at Health Management Associates, which Community Health acquired in 2014, after the alleged misconduct occurred, the U.S. Department of Justice said late Tuesday.

The settlement includes $55 million related to two former Health Management Associates hospitals in Lancaster County, Lancaster Regional Medical Center and Heart of Lancaster Medical Center, which Community Health has since sold.

The alleged fraud in Lancaster involved the payment of kickbacks to doctors in return for patient referrals between 2009 and 2012.

"In one instance, HMA bought two businesses from a physician group for grossly inflated amounts. HMA also paid that same physician group under a contract that was styled as payment for services that were never performed or that neither party ever had any intention of performing," the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania said.

Community Health last year sold the Lancaster hospitals to Harrisburg's Pinnacle Health, which was subsequently acquired by UPMC.

Also last year, Community Health sold five community hospitals in Southeastern Pennsylvania to Tower Health, of West Reading, Pa.Project planned for 4300-4326 Ridge Ave., as seen from corner of Ridge Ave. and Calumet St. Read more

Developer David Grasso and Onion Flats Architecture are taking a third crack at an apartment building proposal for the East Falls property they own between Kelly Drive and Ridge Avenue near the Falls Bridge.

The group's latest design for the 4300 Ridge Ave. site calls for a five-story, 142-dwelling-unit project, according to a presentation posted to the website of the Philadelphia Civic Design Review board, which is scheduled to consider the plans Tuesday.

Past versions of what Grasso and Onion Flats had previously called their "Ridge Flats" project were presented to the CDR board in 2014 and 2016. As part of Philadelphia's planning process, the panel offers nonbinding suggestions on the biggest development proposals.

The 2016 plan was for a six-story, 206-unit building with a largely glass facade. The newer design deploys a "glass-and-metal-panel system" for its exterior walls instead, said Howard Steinberg, an Onion Flats co-owner.

Grasso said in an email that the changes were necessary to develop a financially viable project that balances city-imposed development restrictions for the site, community concerns about its scale and the accommodation of lower-story retail.

The group plans to break ground before the end of March, he said.President Donald Trump participates in a United Nations Security Council briefing on counterproliferation at the United Nations General Assembly, Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2018, at U.N. Headquarters. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) Read more

The most disturbing point in President Trump's speech to the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday was not when the audience laughed at him.

That's not to say the laughter  at Trump's egotistical (and fact-challenged) list of his domestic achievements  wasn't justified. We Americans have gotten used to Trump's ceaseless boasts that turn every speech into a pitch to his domestic base. Foreign leaders are less inured.

So it's disconcerting to hear an audience of prime ministers and presidents, including many longtime allies, snicker at Trump. It tells us that after a year on the world stage, the president's self-aggrandizement has made him a global figure of fun.

Even more disturbing was Trump's embrace of the kind of populist nationalism that led to world wars in the last century and ethnic civil wars in this one. "We reject the ideology of globalism and accept the doctrine of patriotism," the president said. "America will always choose independence and cooperation over global governance, control, and domination."

This formulation is not only ignorant of history but undercuts Trump's own goals.

Let's start with history. As French President Emmanuel Macron pointed out, in a speech that rebuked Trump, rabid nationalism led to two world wars.

To prevent a third such war, the United States helped build multilateral political and economic institutions. These included the United Nations and the precursors to the European Union, which helped keep the peace in Europe for 70 years. They also included NATO.

"Nationalism always leads to defeat," Macron said passionately. "If  the international order becomes fragile  this can lead, as we have already seen twice, to global war. We saw that with our very own eyes."

So the "ideology of globalism" is not some nefarious plot by Lilliputians to trap an American Gulliver. Not only did Washington create the postwar order, it has a veto over just about every multilateral group to which it belongs.

The idea that such institutions exert "global domination" is the kind of nonsense that used to be propagated by nutcase militias that believed unmarked U.N. "black helicopters" were secretly patrolling America as a prelude to a takeover. Perhaps this phrasing isn't so surprising, considering that much of Trump's speech was written by Stephen Miller, a xenophobic conservative who has spearheaded the president's immigration policy. This rhetoric is being fed daily to Trump's base.

Yes, postwar multilateral organizations badly need reform. But Trump makes clear his disdain for anything multilateral, including NATO. He actively undercuts the European Union and wants to blow up multilateral pacts in favor of bilateral deals. He prefers one-on-one summits with adversaries like North Korea, Russia, or China, where he thinks he can best their leaders (and can ignore his briefers).

And his fetish for unilateralism undercuts the goals he set out in his U.N. speech.

Let's start with Iran, the main target of Trump's wrath this week. The president has pulled the United States out of the nuclear deal negotiated with Tehran by Washington and its European allies, and endorsed by the U.N. Security Council. Trump's rationale: The deal failed to address Iran's work on missiles or its aggressive behavior in the region, and had a sunset clause that would eliminate key curbs on Tehran's nuclear program after 10 to 15 years.

Trump wants the European allies to restore sanctions against Tehran, as Washington will do in early November. But they have so far refused, saying (correctly) that Iran hasn't violated the pact's terms.

More to the point: At Trump's request, the Europeans had been working hard on a second deal with Tehran, trying to address Trump's concerns. Key Trump advisers proposed giving the Europeans a chance; had they failed, they would have been open to restoring sanctions.

Instead, Trump stiffed the allies and went it alone. Now he must battle the Europeans, along with China and Russia, on the sanctions issue  undercutting the united front needed to curb Iran in the region.

Similarly, Trump has undercut global cooperation needed to keep tight sanctions against North Korea. His one-on-one lovefest with Rocket Man led Russia and China to weaken sanctions pressure before Kim Jong Un shows any readiness to eliminate his nukes.

Moreover, as Macron rightly noted, global cooperation is vital to curbing Russian digital warfare and Moscow's support for chemical-weapons use in Syria and against its political opponents abroad. (Trump barely mentioned Russia at the United Nations.)

And why would Trump start trade wars with European allies and China at the same time when he needs a united trade front to have any chance against Beijing?

Answer: Trump's "doctrine of patriotism" is an ego trip, drawn from his core belief that everyone is out to take advantage of America. It ignores the need to uphold international rules used to confront adversaries. It undercuts America's standing as a global leader.

The tittering U.N. audience got it. Rather than putting America First, the president's speech was all about Trump.Members of H-CAN, a Haverford community group, meet at the Whole Foods in Wynnewood to discuss numerous racial incidents in the Haverford School District and an upcoming townships Human Relations Commission forum. Clockwise from top left: Alana Carroll, Sarah McCafferty, Joanna Branch, Jenifer Anderson-Smith, Yvonne Fabella, Krista Malott, Allie Armstrong, Khalilah Carmichael, and Christa Kerber. Read more

Gigi Peterkin said she had planned to raise her two kids in Haverford Township because "it was a great school district," but by 2017, she felt the climate was so hostile toward her biracial children that the family packed up and moved.

Peterkin said her children were called the N-word, and her son was punished for the same behavior as white kids but they weren't sanctioned.

"You're hitting a kid in a primal place when you're hitting them in their identity," said Peterkin, whose son is now "thriving" as an eighth grader in the Upper Darby School District, more racially diverse than predominantly white Haverford. "There's something to be said for inclusion."

Peterkin's issues with the Haverford School District were highlighted in an April report by the activist group Havertown-Area Community Action Network, or H-CAN, that claimed widespread racism in the Delaware County community and focused on issues within the schools, including bullying and hate crimes, an absence of nonwhite teachers, and lack of diversity in the curriculum.

The Human Relations Commission of Haverford has slated its first-ever public forum  Oct. 17 at 7 p.m. at the township's administrative building  to discuss the issue and launch a more productive conversation around race.

"We want to make sure that everybody is being listened to," said Jen Leith, commission chairperson. She said she hoped the forum would help Haverford leaders think better about what she called "ingrained policy and practice" that doesn't promote diversity.

Superintendent Maureen Reusche declined to be interviewed. But spokesperson Anna Deacon said a report from the district's Belonging and Sociocultural Identities in School committee listed several action steps, including cultural sensitivity training for students and staff and diversity hiring.

The allegations of systemic racial discrimination have inflamed the township of 48,000  which includes middle-class neighborhoods and pockets of affluence, and is overwhelmingly white even as it has grown more diverse in the last decade. The epicenter of controversy is the highly rated 6,000-student school district.

Activists say school leaders have failed to act on key recommendations in the April report, such as hiring a chief diversity officer or involving parents and community members on its inclusion committee.

"I definitely hoped there would be more plans" to implement the recommendations, said Sarah McCafferty, chair of the group's racial justice action group, who helped create the 30-page report with input from community members and the Main Line NAACP. She said racial problems persist in the district, including a black seventh-grade immigrant student who in May was beaten up by another middle-schooler and told to "go back to Africa."

Police Chief John Viola said the student throwing the punches and kicking also hurled racial insults. He was charged with harassment and sent to the township's Youth Aid Panel, a program for first-time offenders.

The school year started with a new, black principal at Chatham Park Elementary, a breakthrough for a district where 98 percent of the teaching staff was white two years ago, according to the state Department of Education.

Like many Philadelphia suburbs, Haverford has been growing more diverse. Census data show the percentage of Caucasians falling from 94 percent in 2000 to 89.8 percent in 2016; its schools are 84.6 percent white.

The H-CAN report chronicled problems in Haverford beyond the schools, citing racial profiling by police  29 percent of drivers stopped for traffic violations were black  and a series of hate crimes, such as a swastika painted on a train station bench in 2017 and a photo that same year of an immigrant family posted on a community Facebook group indicating they might be child molesters.

The study also documents complaints about treatment of African American students, including one who said he was told by a substitute teacher he'd be called "cave man" because his name sounded like a recent hominid found in Africa. Two biracial students reported teachers and students touched their hair without permission. Students said they were called the N-word or other derogatory names.

"Because these incidents happen in the school setting and involve staff with authority over students, they can be perceived as behavior sanctioned by the school system, creating a system that feels exclusionary and abusive, to the students and the parents," the report said.

Krista Malott, who trains school counselors around diversity issues and helped prepare the report, said Haverford's racial tensions aren't unique, but "that doesn't excuse it."

Diana Robertson, president of the Main Line NAACP, said lack of staff diversity is a problem.

"If you have a diverse staff, you would tend to have a better understanding of what that means," she said, citing the touching of students' hair. "Then you have folks at the table who would immediately say, 'Nah, that's not appropriate.' "

William Wechsler, president of the Haverford Board of Commissioners, conceded that he's heard of kids using the N-word but that he believes any racial episodes are problems with individuals.

"I grew up here  I really don't perceive a big issue, but I'm not a minority," he said. "If you talk to teachers and principals at the school, we don't think we have a problem."

Yvonne Fabella, a parent who helped prepare the report, said Haverford is showing progress  such as the black principal  but that "change is going to be slower than we want."

"Part of the problem is that these are big, systemic problems," Fabella said. "One of the issues is the implicit bias that we all have, including our teachers and administrators, and parents and students. That is not something that we can quickly turn around."At the University of Pennsylvania, students will be required to live on campus through sophomore year beginning in 2020. Read more

In a bid to provide more support and respond to concerns about student wellness, the University of Pennsylvania, beginning with the freshman class entering in 2020, will require students to live on campus through sophomore year.

They currently are allowed to move off after freshman year.

It's not a unique move; several other Ivy League universities already require students to live on campus beyond freshman year. Some colleges, including Susquehanna University, in Selinsgrove, even require students to live on campus all four years.

"The thinking is that they will have better overall academic success if they stay on campus and that they will be more connected to the campus community and the faculty and staff on campus," said Emily Glenn, librarian for the Association of College and University Housing Officers  International.

Penn's change was recommended by two university task forces on student wellness, which outlined problems students faced when they moved off campus and barriers the college had in providing support to students once they were gone.

It also follows concerns in recent years about student suicides at Penn and questions on whether the university does enough to help troubled students. More than a dozen Penn students have died by suicide since 2013.

Calling it "The Second Year Experience," the university will offer students programming in academics and research, "social standing and community," personal finances and budgeting, and pre-professional exploration, the school said in a news release.

"Penn is dedicated to the safety and well-being of its students, faculty, and staff and has committed significant time and expert resources in evaluating the best ways to promote the academic success and personal wellness of its student body," Penn president Amy Gutmann said in a statement. "Expanding the College House system through the Second Year Experience is the single most important way we can add to our students' success at Penn and beyond."

The move, according to the Daily Pennsylvanian, the student newspaper, already has raised concerns about cost  some students feel they could find cheaper housing off campus. Some within the sorority and fraternity community also have objected, given that many Greek-life houses are filled with sophomores.

"There are large contingents of the student population who are not in favor of the policy change, especially those who are involved in Greek life," said senior Michael Krone, Undergraduate Assembly president.

But the economics and political science major from Lafayette Hill said other students likely would be in favor of some of the goals of the policy change, which are supposed to make the living experience better for students. He said students should speak up and offer their input as the university makes the change.

"The what of this decision and when are not negotiable," he said. "But the how is really up for interpretation and influence. The actual implementation is what people are concerned about but also have a lot of opportunity to engage with."

One of the task forces that recommended the change was created after an off-campus "underground" fraternity, not sanctioned by the university, in 2016 sent a sexually suggestive party invitation to freshman women. Penn announced last spring that it would take more steps to monitor behavior by the off-campus groups and require them to follow the same behavioral standards as recognized Greek organizations or their members could face discipline.

Gutmann said in the statement that the new sophomore requirement, which will take effect for the first sophomores in 2021, can be accommodated as the university finishes building two new college residences, including New College House West, which will open that year with capacity for 450 upper-class students. The university will be able to house all freshmen, sophomores, and 20 to 25 percent of juniors and seniors who want to stay on campus.

University officials declined to be interviewed.

"We believe strongly that, over time, these new programs will significantly enhance the well-being and sense of community not only of our second-year students but also of our entire campus," provost Wendell Pritchett said in a statement. "We welcome an ongoing conversation about how we can continue to make Penn a leader in sustaining the wellness of our community and the personal and academic development of our outstanding students."Davelle Barnes, left, helps fellow artist Afaq as she takes measurements before hanging up her art work at the Juniata Park Boys & Girls Club on Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2018. The Women's Mobile Museum is a collection of work by a group of artists who are women of color, and whose work tries to answer the question, "Who is art for?" The exhibit will be around Philadelphia until March 2019. Read more

When South African artist-activist Zanele Muholi accepted her residency program at the Philadelphia Photo Arts Center last year, she made one request. Muholi wanted her time in Philadelphia to benefit not only her own career, but also the careers of women of color in the area.

That led in February to the creation of the Women's Mobile Museum, a yearlong residency and apprenticeship program led by Muholi.

Ten female artists selected for the residency completed photography and digital media projects that grapple with how inaccessible certain types of art can be for women of color, both as artists and as consumers of art, by asking the question, "Who is art for?"

"We never really see ourselves in museums," Afaq, a Sudanese American writer, said. "Or if we do see ourselves, it's in ways that seem mocking or exotifying. I never really took photos of myself before because I was told that I was ugly for so many years of my life, so this was really challenging for me."

The artists' projects are on display at various sites around the city for the next six months, in hopes of making art more accessible in areas underserved by traditional institutions. Visitors can see them at the Juniata Park Boys and Girls Club until Oct. 13, Dixon House in Point Breeze from Oct. 27 to Nov. 17, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts from Dec. 22 to March 30, and the Philadelphia Photo Arts Center from Jan. 10 to March 30. The exhibit is free.

"Our intention was for each artist to leave the residency with a foothold in the Philadelphia art world that they didn't have before," said Lori Waselchuk, exhibitions and programs coordinator at the Philadelphia Photo Arts Center. "This wasn't a training program. This was about giving these women tools so that they can move into a sustainable career path as an artist."

The 10 projects covered a wide range of topics and subjects. Danielle Morris explored memory and nostalgia through images from her childhood. Andrea Walls documented her response to the separation of children from their parents at the border through photos of clothing in nature. Tash Billington paid homage to Philly natives who have survived obstacles such as racism and violence through a portrait series.

Afaq said conceptualizing her project was difficult at first. It was only through conversations and workshops with Muholi and the other artists that she came up with her idea  a series of self-portraits exploring the identities she embodies and challenging the Western standard of beauty.

Afaq said she ultimately overcame her reluctance to take portraits of herself because she realized that was something she wished she could have seen growing up.

"I'm not used to thinking of myself as beautiful," she said. "So for me, this was radical."

Davelle Barnes drew upon her time in the U.S. Army for her photo series, which critiques the racist, body-shaming rules and regulations she experienced then. She said narratives of women of color in the military are often excluded from mainstream media.

"We got to work with artists at the top of their craft," Barnes said. "I came into this program right after I lost a grant, and I was really bummed about that. But this has been an amazing time."

ARTS

Women's Mobile Museum(Left to right:) Andre Brockenbrough, Jr., Domenica Passio, Melina Cruz, Immanuel Rimmer, and McKenna Ruelan in Disney's Aladdin, Jr. at the Walnut Street Theatre. Read more

Disney has awarded a $120,000 grant to the Walnut Street Theatre to administer the Disney Musicals in Schools program in Philadelphia. Developed by Disney Theatrical Productions, the program supports sustainable theater programs in under-resourced elementary schools.

The Walnut will select up to five local schools for the 2018-19 school year and another five for 2019-20. Selected schools will take part in a free 17-week musical theater residency, led by a team of teaching artists trained by Walnut and Disney Theatrical Productions.

The aim is to produce a 30-minute Disney KIDS musical at the various schools. All Philadelphia public and charter elementary schools can apply. Applications are now being accepted for 2018-19 school year. The deadline is Friday, Oct. 12.

Each school that's selected will receive performance rights, education support materials, and guidance from the teaching artists.

In a statement, Bernard Havard, president and producing artistic director at the Walnut, called the grant "the next step in the Walnut's continuing commitment to our community and to our mission to foster the next generation of musical theatre artists and audiences."

For more information or to apply, visit the Walnut Street Theater web site here or e-mail Tom Quinn, director of education at the Walnut, at education@walnutstreettheatre.org.I can almost hear the clank and shudder of the machinery in the hulking, turn-of-the-century brick shed tucked onto a forgotten, cobbled stub of Hamilton Street  a stretch that, until very recently, there was not much cause to visit. This place is a sort of urban archaeological site, where evidence of the building's history, as a machine shop and later a food-packing plant, remains in the form of picturesquely crumbling brick and chipped plaster and exposed steel support structures.

Its current incarnation, as Love City Brewing, is, thankfully, its most visitor-friendly.

"There's a real industrial history, and we still use it for manufacturing. We're using it for its original purpose," said Melissa Walter, who opened the place in April with her husband, Kevin, a former Iron Hill brewer who decided to strike out on his own. (Melissa is a former therapist, which is theoretically good training for a bartender, though she mostly handles back-office work.) It was the building that sold them on this burgeoning neighborhood, which is often called Callowhill, but which newcomers such as the Walters tend to call by its Realtor-friendly rebrand, Spring Arts.

It took almost a year of renovations to repurpose the cavernous space, which was a mixed-martial-arts gym when they took it over  all drop ceilings and gym mats and stale sweat.

These days, hopheads crowd around the long, polished-wood bar or pitch darts at a board on one of the abundant, unfinished walls overlooking the shiny fermentation tanks and sampling brews.

In the case of Love City, the brews are meant to be accessible, including everything from lagers to stouts to (God forgive them) a pumpkin seasonal. The flagship is the Eraserhood  a hazy, juicy IPA whose popularity surpassed the Walters' expectations. "We call it Northeast-style IPA. I can't in good faith name something 'New England-style,'" Walter said. Because, Tom Brady.

Under recently reformed state liquor laws, they're able to offer a full bar as long as it's all Pennsylvania wine, spirits and beers. The most dangerous offering (sobriety-wise) is probably a "boilermaker flight," a $12 sampler of three shots of liquor accompanying three 5-ounce beer chasers. I opt for the Love Dog, a cocktail made with IPA, Philly-made Rowhouse gin and grapefruit juice; it's pleasantly tart and refreshing once I get past the inexplicable salt rim.

The food menu here is scant, though a rotating crew of food trucks pull right up inside, bringing, alternately, burgers, barbecue, sushi or ramen. Or, customers are welcome to bring in takeout, such as the excellent tacos from El Purepecha just down the street, and set the Styrofoam containers right on the bar.

Though a handful of area residents have become regulars, many more visitors crowd in on weekends for brewery crawls, also stopping nearby at Roy-Pitz Barrel House or Yards. Another addition, Triple Bottom Brewing, is also on the way.

"It created a destination: it's the new Brewerytown," said Melissa  who then, considering those are fighting words, carefully walked it back. "It's like, possibly, a second Brewerytown."

Love City Brewing

1023 Hamilton St., Philadelphia, 215-398-1900, lovecitybrewing.com

When to go: It's a babies-and-beers scene on weekend afternoons, with a livelier (and older) crowd as the day wears on. It's open 4 p.m. to midnight, Monday through Friday, and noon to midnight on weekends.

Bring: Your date to a show at Union Transfer around the corner, or anyone who refuses to go to a bar with fewer than three IPAs on the menu.

What to order: My favorite is the Unity IPA, which is balanced and slightly citrusy  but go for a flight of four pours ($8) to choose yours.

Bathroom situation: A hallway of narrow stalls, each with its own unique (and, in some cases, nightmarish) artwork, plus one of those awkward communal trough sinks. There are also baby-changing tables (see: when to go).

Sounds like: On my visit, a noisy 92 decibels of what appeared to be a Clash greatest-hits album playing start to finish.Some of the dishes in the "Crazy Rich Asians" dinner spread are pictured at Sate Kampar in South Philadelphia on Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2018. The restaurant is offering a reservation-only "Crazy Rich Asians" themed dinner. Read more

When Angelina Branca watched Crazy Rich Asians for the first time, she was thrilled to see the foods and flavors of her home, Malaysia, featured front and center on the big screen.

In the film, when Rachel Chu and Nick Young land in Singapore, they head to the Newton Food Centre for succulent sate and bowls of laksa. During Eleanor Young's Bible study, she puts out colorful trays of kuih talam pandan, a Malaysian gelatinous rice and coconut milk dessert. And, of course, there's a pivotal dumpling scene during which  no spoilers  tensions come to a boiling point.

But Branca, who co-owns the much-beloved Malaysian BYOB Sate Kampar in South Philly (1837 E. Passyunk Ave.), said she didn't conceptualize a Crazy Rich Asians feast until a close friend, who had watched the movie with her, requested it for her birthday.

"She wanted to try all the food in the movie," Branca said. "So I told her I would do it. Her entire family came up from Texas and really enjoyed the experience, as well. I had so much fun with it that I thought, 'Why not offer it to more people?'"

So Branca put together a three-course menu, which includes making dumplings by hand at the beginning of the meal; plates upon plates of street food meant to be shared among friends and family; and ends with sweet, creamy kuih talam pandan decorated to look like mah-jongg tiles, another reference to an important scene in the movie. The Crazy Rich Asians feast costs $48 a person and is available by reservation only.

When I brought my friends to try Branca's menu, I knew that communal eating was going to be a big part of the experience. Sharing food is integral in most Asian cultures, an expression of love and care meant to bring friends and family together. And, sure enough, within five minutes of our being seated, Branca appeared with dumpling wrappers, plump nuggets of dumpling filling made with pork, water chestnut, wood ear mushrooms, and chives, and a bowl of water.

"For Asians, wrapping dumplings is something we're used to," she said. "But for many Americans, this will be their first time experiencing that."

We dutifully rolled up our sleeves after Branca demonstrated how to wrap dumplings properly, crimping the edges skillfully. (We were not as skilled. My friend described Branca's dumpling as "the one that went to Harvard" next to our less impressive efforts.) The dumplings were boiled and served as our appetizer. While they were perfectly tasty, the best part was undoubtedly reliving all the childhood memories I have of making dumplings alongside my family.

For the main course, we tried all the kinds of sate the restaurant offers, including beef, goat, chicken in two different ways, pork and tofu. All of Branca's sate is marinated for 24 hours, grilled over coconut shell charcoal, and served with kajang, the house-made peanut sauce.

Curry laksa, the first Malaysian food to appear in the film, takes three days to make at Sate Kampar. Branca uses chicken and shrimp to make the broth and tempers it with sambal before adding the noodles and various toppings, such as shrimp, tofu puffs, and bean sprouts. We also tasted nasi lemak, Malaysia's national dish made with coconut rice, peanuts, anchovies, cucumbers, egg and sambal, as well as otak-otak, a fish souffle made fluffy with the addition of egg and steamed with betel leaf.

"My grandmother always added the betel leaf in for a signature flavor," Branca said. "So I started doing that, too."

But the two most memorable dishes of the feast were the rojak buah, a Malay fruit and vegetable salad with pineapple, jicama, green mango, and cucumber tossed in spicy fermented shrimp paste that may require a few bites to get used to, and chai tau kueh, stir-fried steamed daikon and rice flour cake with egg, bean sprouts, and soy caramel. Branca described soy caramel as the sticky, flavorful residue you get from the bottom of a container of soy sauce.

We also indulged in kopitiam, various coffee and tea drinks found across Malaysia and Singapore, at the end of our meal. (But be warned: The teh-ais, or iced tea with condensed milk, kept me up until 5 a.m., so if you're sensitive to caffeine, you may want to pass.)

You don't have to be crazy, or rich, or even Asian to enjoy the Malaysian and Singaporean foods featured in the historic romantic comedy. You just have to have a table full of friends with adventurous palates who don't mind getting a little more hands-on with their food and a few ice cold Tiger beers.

Microwave Weapons Are Prime Suspect in Ills of U.S. Embassy Workers



Doctors and scientists say microwave strikes may have caused sonic delusions and very real brain damage among embassy staff and family members.



By William J. Broad





U.S. Marines outside the embassy in Havana in February. Diplomats working here reported strange noises and mysterious symptoms that doctors and scientists say may have resulted from strikes with microwave weapons.CreditCreditAdalberto Roque/Agence France-Presse  Getty Images





During the Cold War, Washington feared that Moscow was seeking to turn microwave radiation into covert weapons of mind control.



More recently, the American military itself sought to develop microwave arms that could invisibly beam painfully loud booms and even spoken words into peoples heads. The aims were to disable attackers and wage psychological warfare.



Now, doctors and scientists say such unconventional weapons may have caused the baffling symptoms and ailments that, starting in late 2016, hit more than three dozen American diplomats and family members in Cuba and China. The Cuban incidents resulted in a diplomatic rupture between Havana and Washington.



The medical team that examined 21 affected diplomats from Cuba made no mention of microwaves in its detailed report published in JAMA in March. But Douglas H. Smith, the studys lead author and director of the Center for Brain Injury and Repair at the University of Pennsylvania, said in a recent interview that microwaves were now considered a main suspect and that the team was increasingly sure the diplomats had suffered brain injury.



Everybody was relatively skeptical at first, he said, and everyone now agrees theres something there. Dr. Smith remarked that the diplomats and doctors jokingly refer to the trauma as the immaculate concussion.



Strikes with microwaves, some experts now argue, more plausibly explain reports of painful sounds, ills and traumas than do other possible culprits  sonic attacks, viral infections and contagious anxiety.



In particular, a growing number of analysts cite an eerie phenomenon known as the Frey effect, named after Allan H. Frey, an American scientist. Long ago, he found that microwaves can trick the brain into perceiving what seem to be ordinary sounds.





Developing a new class of weapons

The episode in Cuba

The HypothesisWhen the hospital thought Annette Alexanders daughter was uninsured, they sent her a bill for $821. Once they realized she had insurance the price went up  to $1,214. Read more

It was 2 in the morning when Annette Alexander rushed her daughter Cherie to Abington-Lansdale Hospital with throbbing head pain.

The 24-year-old's two-hour visit for what turned out to be a migraine headache led to a bill of $1,642.

But in her haste, Alexander had left the family's new insurance card at home. The Montgomery County hospital discounted the bill under its uninsured patient program, to $821.

Realizing the error, Alexander called the hospital to provide the insurance information and soon got a new bill. The $1,642 charge had again been reduced, but this time to the insurer's negotiated rate: $1,214.

So in this case, being covered by insurance cost the Alexanders an extra $393.

"I wanted to go back and ask if I could pretend I didn't have insurance anymore," said Alexander, 48, of Lansdale.

No wonder. The Alexanders, like a growing number of Americans, have a high-deductible health plan. And until their expenses exceed that deductible, they are paying health bills out of pocket.

What's more, those who read their insurance statements  which prominently display negotiated rates as far less than the hospital's charges  would think they're getting the best possible deal.

Alexander would by no means be better off without insurance. A serious medical situation, such as cancer or a car accident, could bankrupt the family. And once the deductible is met, her out-of-pocket costs will be far lower than an uninsured patient would face.

But high-deductible health plans are exposing what used to be a well-kept health-care secret: An insurance card  and your insurer's negotiating clout  are not necessarily a ticket to the best price. That's one reason why more insured people, as well as the uninsured, need to know cash prices, which is the focus of Philly Health Costs, the Inquirer's project aimed at making medical billing more transparent.

"With these high-deductible plans, the curtain is pulled back and you see some of these nonsensical calculations going on," said Ron Peck, a health-benefits lawyer with the Phia Group, a health-cost consulting firm based near Boston.

Patients are catching on

Prices for hospital services, including an emergency department visit, vary widely, depending on which hospital you go to, and which insurance plan you have. Health systems commonly charge more to private insurers in order to make up for lower payments from Medicare and Medicaid, as well as charity care.

The practice is not new, but largely went unnoticed when insurance plans and employers covered a greater share of patients' health expenses, Peck said.

Patients are increasingly catching on, as they take on responsibility for a growing share of their health expenses under high-deductible plans.

Cherie and Alexander's husband, Jeff, are covered by a high-deductible Aetna health plan through his employer. Alexander has a separate policy through her employer. Aetna spokeswoman Shelly Bendit said the company could not speak to this case because of patient confidentiality rules. In general, she said, while the company "works with hospitals to negotiate the best rates for our members, there are many factors which contribute to a member's ultimate cost," such as plan type and how costs are shared.

"Additionally, Aetna has no control over a hospital's billing policies and whether they're determined by coding, charitable missions, or any other policy that the hospital may apply," Bendit said in a statement.

Nonprofit hospitals are required to have financial-assistance programs to cover care for uninsured patients who are unable to pay. In an effort to curtail unpaid bills, hospitals will often include a discount in uninsured patients' initial bills. Some offer discounts for prompt payment and may even knock down the price for those who pay in cash up front, or promptly after the service.

"If you're not going to be compensated at all or it's going to be administratively burdensome to recoup that, it's far more advantageous to resolve the issue with the patient as timely as possible," said Paula Bussard, chief policy officer for the Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania.

So much for conventional wisdom

Abington-Lansdale Hospital, which is part of the Jefferson Health System, discounts emergency department bills by 50 percent when the patient is uninsured, with a maximum charge to the patient of $1,600. Patients may qualify for additional discounts based on financial need.

"Abington-Jefferson Health's financial assistance policy is an institutional effort not to overburden our uninsured or underinsured patients and to encourage everyone  regardless of their ability to pay  to access quality health care in their time of need," John Brand, a spokesman for Jefferson Health, said in a statement.

Brand also cited patient confidentiality rules to explain why he couldn't speak about Alexander's case specifically.

It's not just hospital services that may cost more with insurance. Price-tracking tools, such as website and mobile app GoodRx, have exposed wide variation in prescription drug costs, with the cheapest prices frequently available to customers paying without using insurance.

That's not what most people assume, said Jeff Kullgren, an assistant professor of internal medicine at the University of Michigan.

"The conventional wisdom most people understand is that when a large insurance company has a lot of members, they have more power to negotiate lower prices," Kullgren said. "Most people would expect that the price would be less than what an individual without any insurance at all would pay."

It's true that private insurance companies use their heft to negotiate on behalf of their members in a way individual patients can't.

But insurance doesn't exist to get members better rates on routine services. Rather, it exists to protect members from crippling expenses in the instance of an emergency, Peck said.

What's changed, Peck said, is that more of the routine expenses, such as doctor's visits, are coming out of members' wallets.

As a result, he said, "you care what the price is."

Press the issue

Patient advocates advise shopping around for services, asking about cash prices and understanding the details of what your health plan covers.

Alexander and her husband received that advice when they switched to high-deductible plans a couple years ago, and have tried to follow it.

"But when someone bangs on your bedroom door at 2 a.m. and says I need to go to the hospital, you're not going to start making calls to see who's most efficient," Alexander said.

Once they had the bill, Alexander saw two options: Fight to pay the $821 she was initially billed outside of her insurance plan or pony up the $1,214 and have it count against her daughter's $2,500 deductible.

She decided to pay the $1,214.

There could have been a third option, Peck said.

Had Alexander taken the $821 bill and paid it, without submitting insurance information to the hospital, she may have been able to submit it to her insurance company for reimbursement and the amount could have applied to her deductible.

Ellen Magenheim, of We Care Advocates in Marlton, helps consumers navigate medical bills. In her experience, hospitals are often willing to negotiate if it means they'll get paid something.

"You have a voice," Magenheim said. "If you feel it's not just, talk to somebody."

Change will come, she said, if patients continue to press the issue.

Alexander didn't think it was right to be charged more for having insurance. But she didn't think it was an argument she'd win.

"Whether you have insurance or don't have insurance," she said, "it just seems as though the system is rigged against patients."Most Philadelphia hospitals will be spared thousands of dollars in federal penalties after regulators updated a policy that critics said was unduly harsh on hospitals that treat a high number of low-income patients.

Medicare penalizes hospitals when too many of their patients return to the hospital within 30 days of being discharged. The initiative, which began in 2012 as part of the Affordable Care Act, is intended to get hospitals to take better care of patients so that they don't need to be hospitalized again so soon.

But beginning Oct. 1, the start of fiscal year 2019, regulators will assess the penalties differently, by evaluating hospitals' readmission rates against others with a similar proportion of low-income patients, according to a report by Kaiser Health News. The change, ordered by Congress, addresses a longstanding criticism of the readmission penalty program: Hospitals that treat lots of low-income patients are likely to have higher readmission rates not because of anything the hospital did wrong, but because of the other challenges their patients face in maintaining their care plan, such as paying for medications.

Instead of evaluating all hospitals against each other, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services divided hospitals into five "peer groups." Group 5 has the greatest proportion of low-income patients; Group 1 has the least. Hospitals with the most poor patients will see their penalties decrease.

About 2,599 hospitals will be penalized a total of $566 million during the fiscal year, according to Kaiser Health News.

The number of hospitals penalized and the average penalty, 0.7 percent of each payment, are about the same as last year, KHN found.

In Philadelphia, seven of the 13 hospitals assessed readmission penalties fall into Group 5 and all will see their penalty decline in the coming year. They are:

Chestnut Hill Hospital

Temple University Hospital

Albert Einstein Medical Center

Nazareth Hospital

Penn Presbyterian Medical Center

Hahnemann University Hospital

Roxborough Hospital

Readmission penalties declined the most, by about 0.59 percentage points, at Chestnut Hill Hospital (which has a penalty of 0.79 percent of each payment) and Penn Presbyterian Medical Center (0.77 percent).

"The CMS readmission penalty program provides only one snapshot of an individual hospital's performance, based on a limited number of patient conditions," said Patrick J. Brennan, Penn Medicine's chief medical officer, in a statement.

The hospital system "continuously evaluates" its quality metrics to ensure best practices are followed and to develop new approaches to reduce readmissions, such as enhancing home care and using telemedicine to monitor patients, Brennan said.

Across all hospitals in Philadelphia, penalties increased for only two. Pennsylvania Hospital, a Group 4 hospital that is part of Penn Medicine, has a readmission penalty of 1.23 percent of each payment, up 1.18 percentage points from last year. The readmission penalty at Jefferson Torresdale Hospital, which is part of Aria-Jefferson Health, increased 0.31 percentage points to 2.31 percent of each payment. Torresdale Hospital has the highest readmission penalty in the city.

Maria Slade, a spokeswoman for the hospital, said in a statement that the three Aria-Jefferson hospitals in Northeast Philadelphia, which also include Jefferson Bucks Hospital and Jefferson Frankford Hospital, have taken a number of steps to improve patient care and reduce readmissions. Examples include adding staffers dedicated to patients' transition from the hospital to their home or a skilled nursing facility, scheduling primary care follow-up appointments for patients, and bringing on registered nurses to focus on reducing hospitalizations and readmissions among high-risk patients.

You can find an interactive chart, searchable by state and city, at www.khn.org.George Hahn holds the two bills from his health care providers, one for $339.44 and the other for $3,101.13, for two identical echocardiograms a year a part  both at Paoli Hospital. The cheaper one was done by a cardiology group, the second was considered a hospital procedure. Read more

A riddle: George Hahn had two echocardiograms, a year apart. His insurance plan remained the same and both tests, scans of his heart, were done at the same hospital.

The first cost him $170, the second $3,101.

"In my wildest dreams I would never have thought this would be allowed," said the 61-year-old Malvern resident.

So, how did this beyond-wildest-dreams scenario become reality?

The answer is infuriating, seemingly arbitrary, and all too common in our health system.

Hahn's first scan was done by an independent cardiology group with offices at Paoli Hospital with whom Hahn's insurer, Independence Blue Cross, negotiated a heavy discount. The second scan was performed by the hospital, also in the insurer's network, but for a far heftier fee that wasn't slashed nearly as much by insurer bargaining.

Prices for even basic medical procedures vary widely from one provider to the next, in part because of the complex  and largely proprietary  negotiations between insurers and providers. Hospitals are notorious for charging many times more than independent doctors, and insurers negotiate deep discounts with certain providers to steer members toward lower cost options.

Quality and patient experience can also skew prices. But those arguments don't hold water for a patient such as Hahn, who received identical procedures under one roof, albeit by two different providers.

"This situation is, unfortunately, too easy for patients to fall into," said Jeffrey Kullgren, an assistant professor of internal medicine at the University of Michigan. "A tenfold difference in price would be surprising to nearly anyone when you're getting the same service."

>>READ MORE: When medication prices are unaffordable, patients travel abroad for a better deal

Hahn certainly wasn't expecting it.

In February 2017, Cardiology Consultants of Philadelphia's office at Paoli, which is part of Main Line Health, billed Hahn's insurance plan $1,335 for an echocardiogram, a procedure his doctor had ordered to test for a heart defect. Cardiology Consultants has its own ultrasound machines within its office at the hospital.

Independence reduced the rate to $339 and because Hahn had met his deductible, the insurance plan paid half. Hahn paid $170.

The scan revealed a small hole in his heart, so Hahn was referred to a specialist at Lankenau Medical Center, also part of Main Line. After surgery, the Lankenau surgeon told Hahn to schedule a second echocardiogram at Paoli, the hospital closest to his home, to confirm that the procedure was successful.

Paoli billed Independence $3,484 for the scan in April, which the insurer reduced to $3,101. Because he had not yet met his deductible, Hahn got a bill for the full $3,101.

Hospitals generally charge more than doctor groups because they have more administration and operating expenses, such as operating rooms and an emergency department, said Bonnie Graham, vice president of finance for Main Line.

"Understanding that this is complicated, we try to work with the individual," she said.

Hahn still had questions. Even if the hospital wanted to charge that much, why didn't his insurer negotiate a better rate, the way it did with the independent cardiology group?

"I'd love to sit across from someone who negotiated this and say, 'How in the heck did that happen?'" Hahn said.

>>READ MORE: When insurers drop medications for cheaper alternatives, the effects can be devastating for some patients

Often, wide variations in price stem from who has the upper hand in negotiations, Kullgren said.

Health systems with lots of patients may have more power to negotiate a higher payment for their services, whereas independent doctor groups may need to bend to insurers' lower rates in order to be included in the network, he said.

Independence acknowledged that the range of prices for any given procedure can be confusing and frustrating.

"We want to give our members options by providing a broad network of participating providers, and the ability to go to different sites for services. At the same time, we try to make our members aware that it almost always costs more for non-complex, routine procedures to be done at a hospital," Anthony Coletta, president of Facilitated Health Networks at Independence Blue Cross and a physician, said in a statement.

"We are addressing this issue head on," Coletta said, with initiatives such as Facilitated Health Networks, which aims to reduce members' costs by paying doctors and hospitals based on the quality of care they provide rather than the number of procedures they perform. Independence introduced the program in 2017.

In September, Independence plans to update its cost estimator tool, available online so members can find out what a test or procedure will cost beforehand, to offer prices based on members' specific plans, rather than generic estimates.

Over the past year and a half, Main Line has also taken steps to make prices more transparent, with itemized bills that spell out every charge and a website button to request a customized quote in advance of a procedure.

Still, Kullgren said,"it remains all too difficult for most people, when they're having to pay for care to find out how much it's going to cost. Health systems have to do a lot more to help people."

Main Line's price tool, for example, is not on its homepage, but rather on the billing department's page, where many patients don't turn until they've already received a bill.

Hahn said he knows now to do his research before agreeing to any procedure, though that won't help with his outstanding bill.

But now, with reminders from Paoli piling up, Hahn recently paid $500 toward the $3,101 he owes. But he's waiting for a better explanation for the charge before paying the rest.Looking for a restaurant recommendation? A hair salon? A tailor?

Online review sites such as Yelp have become the go-to places to research so many kinds of businesses.

But what about hospitals? Can you click your way to the best hospital for you?

A new study out of Indiana University suggests that when it comes to patient experience, crowdsourced review websites are a decent barometer. But although Yelp may be able to tell you how friendly the staff was or how responsive the billing office was, these reviews won't do much to help you gauge other important qualities, such as patient safety and quality of care.

Still, patients are increasingly turning to social media and crowdsourced reviews to inform their decisions about where to go for care. That  as well as increased attention by Medicare to patient surveys  is changing how hospitals factor patient opinion into their business models.

Hospitals are hiring patient experience officers and building up social media teams to use such platforms to promote their brand, fend off negative publicity, and learn from feedback they may not be receiving directly through more formal patient surveys.

"The social sentiment can be extremely powerful when it comes to health-care decision-making, when it comes to health-care reputation," said Dwight McBee, the chief experience officer at Temple Health. "There's a lot of power in word of mouth, and we see that playing out in the online environment."

Theres no great tool

Researchers at Indiana University aimed to compare hospital ratings from Yelp, Facebook, and Google against the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' Hospital Compare, a federal data-driven evaluation of hospital performance based on self-reported metrics and patient surveys.

Review sites, such as Yelp, are known for their hot and cold entries from people who had either a great or terrible experience, not so much for middling reports. That could make them unreliable.

"We typically think when people write about other kinds of businesses, it's because they had an extreme experience  either they loved it or they hated it," said Victoria Perez, an assistant professor at Indiana University's School of Public and Environmental Affairs, who co-authored the study.

But researchers found that hospitals' crowdsourced rating lined up pretty well with their patient experience rating in Hospital Compare, Perez said.

The highest-ranked hospitals on crowdsourced sites were also the highest ranked in Hospital Compare's patient experience ratings 50 percent to 60 percent of the time, according to the study published in the peer-reviewed journal Health Services Research.

The federal patient survey asks questions about how well medical staff communicated with patients, whether they adequately explained medication and recovery instructions, and how quickly staff responded to requests for help  all experiences often described in Yelp reviews, too.

But researchers also found that 40 percent of the time, the hospitals with the highest crowdsourced ratings had among the lowest scores for patient safety and quality in Hospital Compare, such as pneumonia death rate and the number of patients who returned to the hospital within 30 days.

"When we think about what is a good hospital or a bad hospital, it's easy to get distracted by amenities that make your experience better," Perez said. "People may think those things are correlated, but we find, in fact, they're not correlated at all."

Hospital Compare may be a better source for information about important features such as infection rates, but the tool can be cumbersome for users who aren't sure how to navigate the dozens of metrics measured.

"There's no great tool. The lesson in all this is there's difficulty with all these reviews and comparison tools. There isn't a one-size-fits-all, but it's important for patients to do their homework," said Michael Consuelos, senior vice president of clinical integration for the Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania.

Using data from Hospital Compare, the association developed its own database of Pennsylvania hospitals, called Care in Pennsylvania, where patients can compare hospital performance in specific areas, such as cardiac care or obstetrics.



Hospitals use Yelp, too

Still, the trend of social media and online reviewing shows no sign of ending.

Main Line Health's social media team is constantly scanning such sites as Twitter and Facebook, as well as Yelp and other review sites, for patient comments. They respond to patients as quickly as they can  even if only to say "we're looking into it"  and relay comments to the relevant care units.

The real-time responses ensure that patients know that their concerns are being taken seriously. More important, listening to patients is crucial to safety and quality, said Barbara Wadsworth, senior vice president of patient services and chief nursing officer at Main Line.

"You can have the best doctor or best nurse, but if they're not kind to the patient and the patient doesn't feel comfortable asking questions," they may not get the care they need, Wadsworth said.

Penn Medicine decided to "get ahead" of online review websites by integrating the reviews it collects from third-party patient surveys into doctor's profiles, said Craig Loundas, an associate vice president who leads patient experience.

A review committee weeds out comments deemed "slanderous," that call into question a doctor's clinical competency and could damage a reputation, so patients aren't getting a completely unfiltered view. This type of comment accounts for about 4 percent of 165,000 comments gathered. Any serious concerns are investigated internally, even if the comment isn't posted, Loundas said.

Online reviews often capture feedback that hospitals won't get from the scripted patient surveys they ask some people to complete, said Raina Merchant, director of Penn Medicine for Digital Health, who has studied how health systems can learn from Yelp.

For example, Yelp reviews are often written by the person who brought a friend or relative to the hospital. Caregivers are easy to overlook in a patient experience survey but could be crucial in deciding where a family goes for care, such as if an adult child is bringing a parent to the hospital.

"What these more crowdsourced sites add is additional, sometimes more nuanced, information that's also important," Merchant said. "We don't have a standardized way for asking about the views of the support people who come with you to the hospital."

Earlier this year, Temple Health launched a new "social listening" campaign that monitors 60 social media platforms and websites where patients may be talking about their experience at Temple. The exercise has produced some helpful lessons for staff, such as how much patients value even fleeting interactions with medical and administrative personnel.

"We've leaned into this new change and found it extremely beneficial," McBee said. "Those who don't choose to embrace this leave a lot of valuable feedback from their patients on the table."

  

 READ MORE: CMS Hospital Compare

The online tool allows you to compare up to three hospitals. Charts compare local hospitals' ratings with state and national averages.Bill Cosby is escorted by police in handcuffs as he exits the Montgomery County Correctional Facility in Norristown on Tuesday. Read more

"America's Dad" is now known as inmate NN7687.

Bill Cosby spent his first night behind bars Tuesday, marking the start of his three-to-10-year prison sentence for sexually assaulting Andrea Constand in 2004.

After leaving the courthouse in Norristown, Cosby was transported to the Montgomery County Jail in Lower Providence Township. He later spent the night at the State Correctional Institution Phoenix in Collegeville.

And there he will stay, corrections officials say.

Where he will serve his punishment was uncertain at his sentencing  prosecutors suggested a prison on the other side of the state  but a corrections spokesperson said Wednesday that the decision had been made to keep Cosby at SCI Phoenix for the duration of his term.

He was booked into SCI Phoenix and was initially given a single cell "adjacent to the infirmary" with no cellmate because he is a high-profile inmate, said Department of Corrections spokesperson Amy Worden.

Prison officials said they hope Cosby will eventually join the general population of inmates at SCI Phoenix, which has nearly 4,000 beds.

Cosby will meet with staff from the prison's medical, psychology, and records departments, as part of standard practice to assess new inmates, Worden said. That evaluation process may take several weeks.

"We are taking all of the necessary precautions to ensure Mr. Cosby's safety and general welfare in our institution," said Corrections Secretary John Wetzel. "The long-term goal is for him to be placed in the general population to receive the programming required during his incarceration."

Because Cosby was designated as a "sexually violent predator," he must attend sex-offender counseling sessions while in prison. Judge Steven T. O'Neill said Cosby is "in need of correctional treatment" that can be provided in state prisons.

Cosby will be allowed phone calls, but visits during the first 10 days will be limited to lawyers and religious advisers. After that, Worden said, Cosby can submit a list of as many as 50 people to be approved as visitors.

SCI Phoenix is the state's newest and most expensive prison, opened on the campus of SCI Graterford, which has since closed.

Meals vary depending on the day, according to the Department of Corrections summer and fall 2018 menu. Inmates can choose between a meat or vegetarian entree for lunches and dinners. One dinner, for example, is roast pork with gravy, whipped potatoes, greens, bread, and applesauce. The dessert menu sometimes includes pudding (though the prison system doesn't serve Jell-O, the brand Cosby famously hawked, Worden says).

Cosby's lawyers had argued during his sentencing that he should stay out of prison because he is 81 and legally blind.

"I don't remember anyone ever sentencing a blind octogenarian who is a first-time offender to state prison," his lawyer Joseph Green told the judge.

District Attorney Kevin Steele had suggested the prison could accommodate him, noting that SCI Laurel Highlands in Somerset County, 230 miles west of Philadelphia, is equipped to care for elderly or sick inmates.

Cosby is not the only octogenarian or blind inmate in the state prison system.

There are about a dozen inmates with visual impairments in Pennsylvania, said Department of Corrections spokesperson Susan McNaughton, and some of them have inmate guides to help lead them around.

McNaughton said the state prison system has 86 inmates who are age 80 and older. There are two inmates who are 91, she said  the oldest in the state.

Cosby's lawyers, meanwhile, have vowed to appeal his conviction.

"They persecuted Jesus and look what happened," his publicist Andrew Wyatt said outside the courthouse Tuesday. "Not saying Mr. Cosby is Jesus, but we know what this country has done to black men for centuries."

Kristen Feden, one of the Montgomery County prosecutors who worked on the case against Cosby, called such a comparison "just offensive."

Speaking Wednesday on NBC's Today Show, Feden said justice was finally served for Constand.

"I asked her is she happy with the sentence," Feden said. "And she said yes."Galloway Police Chief Donna Higbee, retired Atlantic City Police Sgt. Joseph Iacovone, and retired Pleasantville Lt. Christopher Taggart testify before the New Jersey State Commission of Investigation about gang violence. Read more

Street gangs are growing at an alarming rate across the state, and the members are young, wielding guns, and taunting their enemies through social media, experts told the New Jersey State Commission of Investigation during a hearing Wednesday in Trenton.

Teens are committing murder and sometimes dying as they try to prove their loyalty to the gangs, earning respect through their willingness to commit acts of violence. These neighborhood gangs are different from larger, more organized gangs and harder to identify because they have few rules, and change structure and leadership often.

Instead of associating with well-known gangs such as the Crips, these teen gangs are organized around small communities where the members live. They seek social status through violence, and the slightest sign of disrespect can trigger a deadly response.

"It is a chaotic world where law enforcement is struggling to catch up, and it is a world where kids grow up expecting to die in violence," said Lee C. Seglem, SCI executive director.

From Atlantic City to Newark, law enforcement officials spoke of teens bringing guns to school, shooting up houses, or engaging in gun battles in public places where innocent bystanders were caught in the crossfire. Eleven experts testified about horrific situations involving the streets, courts, and juvenile detention centers. Although few statistics were quoted, all of the experts had strong anecdotal cases they shared with the commission, which is to issue a report next year.

"As we speak, communities across this state are confronting a resurgence of street violence  but not in the hands of adult gang-bangers in known and readily identifiable groups like the Bloods and Crips," Seglem said. "We are here to talk about children, children as young as 12 or 14 years old. Children who are picking up guns to kill and maim each other and anyone who might get in the way."

The dynamics of these gangs are different from older gangs whose activities often focus on drug activity that can be targeted by law enforcement, said Edwin Torres, an SCI investigator. The teens are using extreme and random violence to establish a powerful hold on smaller geographic areas, he said.

Torres said that instead of tagging buildings with graffiti, gang members use the internet to brag about their violence and taunt other gangs. The commission watched a brief slideshow of disturbing posts that included pictures of kids pointing guns. The last slide was of a young teen now dead.

Marian Galietta, another SCI investigator who had served as a prosecutor in Camden and Philadelphia, said prosecutors are frustrated that judges are ordering home monitoring of violent juveniles who should be placed in detention.

"They're just kicking the can down the road," Galietta said. The teens need intervention that can give them help before they hurt others, become adult offenders, or are killed, she explained, and laws need to be strengthened.

Trenton Juvenile Police Officer Steven Smith said that some of those arrested, as young as 8 years old, cannot be handcuffed because their wrists are so small.

The experts agreed that gang violence is on the rise, as those arrested are released and placed on pretrial supervision or probation upon conviction.

Retired Atlantic City Sgt. Joseph Iacovone said the street gangs in his city may join with gangs from nearby Pleasantville because they have a common enemy  rival gangs.

"Almost all acts of violence are with firearms," Iacovone said, noting the teens have easy access to guns that are stolen and passed around on the street. Twice, Iacovone said, gang members burglarized the homes of Atlantic City police officers to steal their guns. The teens have also found online sources to buy guns.

Galloway Police Chief Donna Higbee displayed a picture of an assault rifle that was purchased as a kit by a juvenile who was on probation. The youth used his mother's credit card and a neighbor's address. When the mother saw her son stuff his backpack with the gun and hollow-point bullets, she called police, Higbee said.

Other gang incidents included a crossing guard caught in crossfire, a woman shot while at a birthday party, a gun battle on the 47th floor of the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, and an exchange of shots from cars on the Atlantic City Expressway.

From 2015 through 2017, there was a 26 percent increase of juveniles charged with gun offenses statewide. In Camden County, during the same time period, there was a 53 percent increase in juvenile arrests for gun possession. And in Trenton, there was a 200 percent increase in juvenile shooting victims.

Capt. Loretta Nichols of the Camden Juvenile Detention Center said she sees the same teens return to the system with escalating behavior. If 40 males are arrested, she said, 40 will return. It's slightly less for girls, but not considerably less, she said.

Of the 45 detainees in the juvenile center this week, Nichols said, 25 were identified as gang members.

"We have a lot of females tell us they are not gang members, but they are owned by gang members," Nichols said, adding that the girls are sometimes forced into the sex trade.Hassan Bennett in a photo taken recently with his mother, Josette Bennett, at a state prison where he was held in Waynesburg, Greene County. Read more

A single holdout juror prevented the acquittal this month of a West Philadelphia man who represented himself in a retrial after serving 12 years for a murder he says he didn't commit, according to two of the panel members.

Because the juror  the foreman  was unconvinced, the judge declared a mistrial on the fourth day of deliberations Sept. 13, and Hassan Bennett remains jailed awaiting another retrial.

"If the defendant knew how close he was, he would have been crushed," said juror David Scott, a college professor.

The foreman, who agreed to speak to the Inquirer and Daily News on the condition that he not be publicly identified, called the deliberation process "one of the hardest things" he ever had endured, but stood by his decision.

"When just looking at the facts and the testimony that was presented to us at the trial, the prosecution proved the defendant's guilt without a reasonable doubt," said the man.

The final vote  two of the jurors interviewed said it was 11-1, but the foreman remembered it as 10-2  seems to validate Bennett's unusual decision to represent himself, and it could raise new questions about the District Attorney's Office's plan to retry him for a fourth time, when Bennett again could call a controversial officer as a key witness.

Bennett, 35, is charged with second-degree murder and related counts in the slaying of Devon English, 19, and the shooting of Corey Ford, 18, who were ambushed as they sat in a car parked near 61st Street and Lansdowne Avenue in the early morning of Sept. 22, 2006.

Trial testimony indicated that the shooting stemmed from a grudge over $20 lost in a dice game.

Another man, Lamont Dade, pleaded guilty in 2008 to taking part in the shootings and is serving a 25-to-50-year prison sentence.

Bennett could not be reached for comment after being returned to prison.

During the two-week trial at the city's Criminal Justice Center, he chose to wear a blue prison uniform rather than street clothes. He impressed jurors with his courtroom prowess when questioning and cross-examining witnesses, the three jurors said in interviews this month with the Inquirer and Daily News.

He was particularly harsh toward homicide detective James Pitts, whom he accused of coercing Ford and other witnesses into falsely incriminating him in the shootings. Similar allegations have been made against Pitts in unrelated cases.

"We all thought [Bennett] did a good job representing himself," said juror Scott, the professor. "It's not that we didn't think he was guilty of something. It's just that the prosecutor did not present a case that was without reasonable doubt."

A second juror, Robert Reeves, said the case presented by Assistant District Attorney Tracie Gaydos was hobbled by too many unanswered questions. He noted that the search warrant executed by police at the West Philadelphia home where Bennett was living at the time of the shootings failed to yield the gun and clothing they sought.

"They couldn't even prove that he was really there, as far as I'm concerned," said Reeves, 47. "I think the young man was there [at the crime scene], but they just didn't prove it. It's all about proof. What Tracie produced to us was not enough of anything. If she had the evidence that he was guilty, we would have found him guilty."

Of Pitts, Reeves said: "I believe he was being rough with those guys. He was being nonchalant [on the witness stand] trying to play down his role. But I honestly believe he was using his physical stature and his badge to try to get the truth out of those guys and was being real abusive with them."

The foreman said that although he was outnumbered in the final vote, the environment in the jury room remained respectful. "Considering what was at stake, I think everybody was rather civil and pretty good with each other about letting each other voice their thoughts," he said.

Pitts appeared credible, and the initial statements some witnesses gave police implicating Bennett  which they recanted at the retrial  were also credible, said the foreman.

The jury had nine women and three men. Five jurors were white, five were African American, and two were of other races.

In a statement to the Inquirer and Daily News, the District Attorney's Office noted that Bennett's first trial resulted in a mistrial because of jury tampering by the defense and the second was a conviction later overturned because of mistakes by his lawyer.

"The Philadelphia District Attorney's Office feels, based on the overwhelming evidence and the facts of the case, that a fourth trial is necessary to protect the public and give the victim and the victim's family justice," the statement said.

Tina Lee, an aunt of the homicide victim, said Bennett's courtroom skills and his ability to get witnesses, including Ford, the surviving gunshot victim, to recant their initial statements, was the result of his having spent 12 years in the prison library polishing his act and the fear engendered by him and his associates on the streets of West Philadelphia.

"If I was in for 12 years, I'd be in that library too, trying to find a loophole to get my butt out of there," said Lee, who added that the jury was "confused" to the point of nearly letting Bennett walk.

Lee, who said she promised her late sister and her nephew's mother that she would attend the trial and see to it that justice is done, hopes the next jury will close the prison doors on Bennett for good.

"This boy done murdered my nephew three times," she said, referring to the number of trials. "How many times can you kill a person? How many times do I have to hear how many times he was shot? How many times do I have to look at pictures of that car? Let him rest, and stop digging him up. This is deplorable."

A pretrial hearing for a fourth trial is set for Monday.Lawyer Justin Danilewitz on Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2018, in Philadelphia City Hall after arguing before the state Supreme Court for priest names that were redacted in the interim grand jury report to remain redacted. Read more

Lawyers for clergy whose names were redacted from a scathing grand jury report on child sex abuse released last month argued before the state Supreme Court on Wednesday that the high court should adopt the interim redacted report as final, contending that the grand jury process denied the accused their due-process rights and a meaningful opportunity to challenge the allegations.

"We don't think there is a remedy" to now safeguard their constitutional right to defend their reputations, attorney Justin Danilewitz argued before the seven justices during a hearing at Philadelphia City Hall. He repeatedly referred to the "shaming and naming" of priests in the report who he said had not had a chance to cross-examine their accusers.

But Ronald Eisenberg, senior appellate counsel in the state Attorney General's Office, which spearheaded the two-year grand jury investigation, argued that remedies addressing due-process concerns are available and could be ordered by the court.

Their arguments represented the latest salvos over the explosive Aug. 14 report that singled out more than 300 priests in six of the state's eight Roman Catholic dioceses accused of preying on more than 1,000 child-sex-abuse victims by being an offender or failing to report abuse.

About 30 clergy members' names were redacted amid legal wrangling over the fairness of the office's investigation and the public report. The Attorney General's Office wants all the names released. The justices gave no indication how or when they would rule.

As he had written in a Sept. 18 court brief, Eisenberg proposed that the grand jury could be recalled for the limited purpose of addressing the clergy members' disputes in the report, or that a new grand jury could be impaneled to hear the claims.

He also proposed that the clergy petitioners could testify before a recalled or new grand jury "if those witnesses choose to testify" or have their lawyers submit briefs. Then the names could be included.

"Why do you have to name names?" Justice Christine Donohue asked.

Eisenberg responded that anonymous findings have less value than those that are not anonymous and it's important to name names so the public knows who is being accused or referenced in the report.

Danilewitz, who represents petitioners, would not say after the hearing how many of them his firm and other firms represent before the high court, nor would he say if all the petitioners were priests whose names had been redacted.

But he indicated in a July filing that he was writing on behalf of nearly two dozen current and former clergy members. They remain anonymous.

Regarding Danilewitz's argument that redacted names should remain so, Justice Max Baer responded that "your average Pennsylvanian" wouldn't be able to name five priests who were named in the report.

"They're not Bill Cosby. They're not Jerry Sandusky. So how are they tainted?" Baer asked.

Danilewitz replied that he shuddered to think what would have happened if the court hadn't previously ordered the redaction of some names in the report. He mentioned a priest in Indiana who was attacked by someone last month after the release of the Pennsylvania report. That priest was not named in the report and, according to other priests, hasn't been accused of wrongdoing, according to the Washington Post.

Danilewitz's cocounsel Christopher Hall argued that the "power of the internet  makes it impossible" to safeguard clients' due-process right to defend their reputations if they were named in a report even if they were to proceed with new procedures proposed by the Attorney General's Office.

When Justice David Wecht asked Hall why he didn't just ask the justices to adopt the interim report as the final report and then seek new grand jury procedures through the state legislature, Hall replied: "That's exactly the relief we're seeking."

The justices also weighed whether the high court was the appropriate branch of government to adopt new grand jury procedures as opposed to the legislature.

The grand jury probe exposed 70 years of abuse in nearly every Catholic diocese: more than 1,000 victims, 301 predator priests, and dozens in the church hierarchy who knew about the abuse but buried it to shield the institution.

The report focused on the Dioceses of Allentown, Erie, Greensburg, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, and Scranton. It excluded Philadelphia and Altoona-Johnstown because previous grand juries already had scrutinized their handling of clergy-sex-abuse claims.

In an emailed statement after the hearing, Attorney General Josh Shapiro said he "supports the release of a full, unredacted report by the grand jury in its entirety. Every name of a predator priest left redacted means the silencing of a victim's voice."Demonstrators mass outside the Illegal Tacos restaurant on South Broad Street on Tuesday. Read more

Let's just say it wasn't a great night for Illegal Tacos, the restaurant on South Broad Street.

It started when about 35 demonstrators showed up around dinnertime Tuesday, parked themselves at the front door, and loudly decried what they saw as the racism of the eatery's name.

It got worse when the protesters brought in a local taco truck and parked it outside the restaurant.

Turns out, if there's one thing people love more than tacos, it's free tacos  and demonstrators could have their pick.

"This is crazy," said Dan Loper, 33, who walked by the scene as Tex-Mex, cumbia, and rancheras music blared from the activists' sound system. "I didn't think [the business] would have this backlash."

A protest dance party broke out on the sidewalk. People sang. They dedicated the song "Rata de dos patas" ("The Two-Legged Rat") to restaurant owner Florian Furxhiu.

But while parts of the demonstration were playful  "no taco is illegal!" people chanted  the message was dead serious. The name of the nine-month-old restaurant is hurtful and harmful, activists said, and makes a mean joke of people of Latin American descent and the tense political climate surrounding the Trump administration's immigration policies.

"Illegal Tacos does not have a place in Philly," said Olivia Vazquez, 24, who works in the food and hospitality industry. "We are the City of Brotherly Love, and I feel as a Mexican that they are using the labor of my people and my culture to profit, while using a name that is super disrespectful."

The goal of crowding the sidewalk, said organizers from the advocacy group Juntos, was to hit the restaurant not just in the media but in its wallet.

Owner Furxhiu, 32, said he lost no money on Tuesday evening.

"These kids and social media have misunderstood my work here," he said, claiming the name was not political and that he aimed to promote Mexican food and culture.

He also said he had no respect for the marchers, that they had turned down a request to meet and talk. He's an immigrant himself, coming here from Albania in 2000, and hiring employees from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Colombia, and China, giving jobs to other newcomers, he said.

The restaurant's name has been controversial from the start, Furxhiu said, but things got worse this summer after he posted what became a viral Instagram photo: a group of Homeland Security officers having lunch at his restaurant.

" 'Tacos are so good, that they are illegal.' That's my tagline," Furxhiu said. "If people want to take it the wrong way, they can take it the wrong way."

The demonstration started more than a mile away, near Eighth and Cherry Streets, outside Gov. Wolf's district office in Center City. The building also houses Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE. In a pouring rain, protesters called on the governor to stop "the countless abuses" committed by the local ICE office, among the most aggressive in the nation.

The local rally was part of a multicity, traveling movement led by the activist group Mijente and christened with the hashtag #ChingaLaMigra. (Yes, Chinga La Migra suggests a particular act and attitude toward the border patrol. Don't look, kids.) Demonstrations have taken place in Chicago, Seattle, and other cities where immigrant communities have actively resisted ICE enforcement.

In Philadelphia, Mijente joined forces with Juntos, a human-rights organization for Latino communities.

The demonstrators marched west in soggy shoes, closing John F. Kennedy Boulevard and then parts of Broad Street south of City Hall, escorted by police.

When the restaurant opened in January, its sign featuring a sombrero and a red-and-green chile-pepper mustache, people condemned the name and started petitions to have it changed.

At the time, owner Furxhiu said he needed a catchy name for his restaurant. He hired Mexican cooks, he said, to execute a simple menu of tacos, burritos, taco bowls, and rice bowls.

On Tuesday evening, the protesters jeered customers who entered the restaurant and cheered a man who approached and then turned away.

"I'm surprised people are still going in when they are protesting right in front," said Madeline Dahlin, 22, of West Philadelphia.

The restaurant visitors were mostly white.

"People are not illegal, though their actions might be," said Sandra, an 18-year-old Bryn Mawr College student who declined to give her surname because she's in the United States without official permission. "But, now, we are also talking about illegal food? That just makes no sense."

One diner flashed a big thumbs up as he left the restaurant  provoking a cascade of boos. Civil-affairs police quickly directed him to move on, lest trouble start.

A thin, blond woman, heading south with a bag of Illegal Tacos take-out, showed the demonstrators her two middle fingers. Three young men left the restaurant laughing at the demonstrators.

"Don't be laughing," a woman in the crowd called after them. "You guys are racist for eating here!"

The Mi Pueblito taco truck arrived at 7:20 p.m., three hours after the protest began and long after people had gotten hungry.

The marchers ate for free, given the option of chicken tacos or tacos al pastor, with pineapple, hot peppers, raw onions, and cilantro. Juntos paid for the food.

"It's really good," said Jennifer Caceres, an 18-year-old Temple University student, as she bit into a soft-shell taco. "I didn't mind the wait."

Her friend, Meztli Cardoso, 21, who also attends Temple, loved the food, and supported the protest against the restaurant and its owner.

"He's a white man, saying he can say this because he has immigrant workers," she said. "If the community says this isn't OK, he should stand with us."Philadelphia International Airport workers, part of 32BJ SEIU, march outside of the airport in the summer of 2017. They became the face of the fight for a minimum wage for city subcontractors. Read more

Four years after the City of Philadelphia first mandated a $12-an-hour minimum wage for its contractors and subcontractors, Mayor Kenney is asking for more.

Councilman Mark Squilla plans to introduce a bill Thursday on the mayor's behalf to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour incrementally over four years for its workers and city contractors and subcontractors. Kenney will formally announce the bill at a news conference Wednesday afternoon.

The city does not know how many workers employed by contractors and subcontractors would be affected by this law, but mayoral spokesman Mike Dunn said most of the city's spending on professional services contracts goes to social service agencies, so the change would most likely impact those workers: For example, after-school aides and custodians.

But the bill could also affect others, from the staffers at the city's animal-control contractor to, most visibly, wheelchair attendants, cabin cleaners, and baggage handlers at Philadelphia International Airport. They recently ratified a contract that would give them up to $13.60 an hour in two years.

"Poverty works its way into households in insidious, subtle ways  including when residents discover that their hard-earned dollar buys less," Kenney said in a statement, describing the law as a solution to the city's "pervasive poverty." He encouraged employers to follow the city's lead.

Municipal socialism

It's a bill that's very of the moment, coming on the heels of the nationwide, SEIU-backed "Fight for $15," which focused on fast-food workers and had a local base.

This summer, Gov. Wolf raised the minimum wage for state workers and employees of state contractors to $12, with plans to increase to $15 by 2024.

It also fits into a pattern of worker-oriented laws passed by City Council in the last decade, including laws mandating paid sick leave, increasing penalties for wage theft, and barring employers from asking about wage history in an effort to close the gender wage gap, a law that was challenged in court by the Chamber of Commerce. This fall, Council is also set to discuss what's been branded as the "Fair Workweek" bill, which would regulate scheduling practices for retail and fast-food businesses.

On this front, Philadelphia is part of a national trend. Seattle, New York, San Francisco, and other cities are taking action to fight poverty with workplace laws in lieu of any federal movement. Seattle Councilwoman Kshama Sawant has called it "municipal socialism" and it usually comes paired with anger from the business community.

In Philadelphia, it's no different. Rob Wonderling, CEO of the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, has decried what he calls Philadelphia's antibusiness legislation and said City Hall is increasingly trying to act as the human-resources department for local businesses. Yet it's still not clear if these laws are truly driving businesses out of the city.

Meanwhile, in Harrisburg, state lawmakers are considering a bill that would stop cities from creating their own workplace rules. State Rep. Seth Grove (R., York) has said these worker-oriented laws cause "multiple human-relations problems and compliance issues."

Why is the city raising the minimum wage for its contractors but not doing it citywide?

Philadelphia does not have the authority to raise the minimum wage citywide because of a state law, said a city spokesperson. (Though in 2014, amid a national push to raise the minimum wage in cities across the nation, advocates, with the backing of some in City Council, pushed the city to investigate the state law to see if it could raise a legal challenge on the issue.)

When a minimum-wage law works, and when it doesnt

If you want to see an example of the impact of this kind of legislation  and also how it can fall short, the airport workers are a good place to start.

Over six years, those workers, represented by union 32BJ SEIU, doubled their hourly wages to $12 in large part because of the minimum-wage legislation. (Their employers are subcontractors of American Airlines, which contracts with the city-run Philadelphia Airport.) But the legislation was not a silver bullet. When the workers' employers did not comply with the law, 32BJ and the advocacy group POWER, one of the main advocates for the $12-an-hour minimum wage and the latest $15 bill, organized protests and lobbied city government to get American Airlines to compel its subcontractors to follow the law.

American Airlines said it couldn't comment on the bill until it was introduced.

The airport workers' story raises questions about enforcement of the law and what happens when you don't have a team of advocates fighting for your cause. Currently, the Mayor's Office of Labor enforces the $12-an-hour law. But there are challenges: Robust enforcement requires resources and staffing. The city did not immediately answer the question of whether a list of all its subcontractors exists. It will rely on city departments to provide the rates being paid to their contractors and subcontractors, Dunn said.

In an interview earlier this year, Councilwoman Helen Gym suggested that it might be time to create a new office charged with enforcing all the workplace laws on the books, instead of housing enforcement in a few different places.

Philadelphia Media Network is one of 21 news organizations producing Broke in Philly, a collaborative reporting project on solutions to poverty and the city's push toward economic justice. See all of our reporting at https://brokeinphilly.org.Shelley McDonnough, product development coordinator for Tastykake, shown here with fresh Kandy Kakes, at Tasty Baking Company's Navy Yard bakery. Read more

Meet Shelley McDonnough, product development coordinator with Tastykake's research and development unit.

 We knew it: "People are eating cake here every day."

 On sprinkles vs. jimmies: "They are called jimmies in this bakery. It's a Philly jawn."

When people from Philly meet Shelley McDonnough and find out she works for Tastykake, they feel compelled to share their sweetest desires with her.

"They react by just blurting out what their favorite Tastykake is and then almost expecting I would just have it," she said. "It's like I need to walk around with a backpack full of Tastykakes."

For McDonnough  who remembers going to the Wawa near her home in Yeadon as a child to get her own favorite, cherry pie Tastykakes  working for such an iconic Philly brand is a sweet gig.

"A lot of folks grew up on Tastykakes. Moms would buy cakes and put them in their lunchboxes for their kids. It's something that's passed on generation after generation," she said. "It actually is very fulfilling to know that I come to a place that treats me like family where I can have something that I grew up with  like the cherry pie  every day if I want to."

Founded in 1914 in Philadelphia, Tasty Baking Co. was sold to Flowers Foods Inc. of Thomasville, Ga., in 2011 to avoid bankruptcy. Today, Tasty Baking employs 533 people  including McDonnough  at its Navy Yard bakery.

A graduate of Penn Wood High School, McDonnough attended West Chester University, where she majored in biology and microbiology. She intended to pursue pharmaceutical science but when she saw a classified ad in the Inquirer for a senior lab technician at Tastykake, she applied and never looked back. That was 24 years ago.

McDonnough spent eight years in quality assurance and then was asked if she'd like to work in Tastykake's research and development unit. Her supervisors thought she'd like the variety and being required to sample new products.

"I love dessert, so I accepted and joined the department," she said.

McDonnough's job in R&D is to formulate and develop new Tastykake products, as well as new flavors for existing products. Lemon cupcakes? Those were hers. Pumpkin spice cupcakes, sweet potato pie, caramel apple pie, chocolate Kreamie Juniors  she had a hand in all of those creations, too.

Ideas for a new product or flavor can come from anywhere in the Tastykake team. The ideas get vetted in-house and with consumers before the marketing department gives the R&D team an idea of how they imagine the product, McDonnough said.

The R&D team then asks a lot of questions about the product  How big should it be? What should it taste like? How should it feel?  before they go about making and tasting concept samples.

For every thousand samples made, two may become products, McDonnough said.

>> MORE WE THE PEOPLE: Italian Market butcher has meat-cute story

"It might take us a lot of iterations to hit that mark," she said. "If you just say 'lemon,' there are various nuances about lemon. Do you want it tart? Do you want it sour? Do you want it sweet?"

The process has given McDonnough an appreciation for other new products she sees on menus and shelves, because she knows how much works goes into them. At Tastykake, it can take six months to two years for a product to go from R&D to store shelves, she said.

But not every product hits the mark. Once, McDonnough was asked to help create a watermelon pie, which made it on store shelves. But consumers didn't love it, and the product was discontinued.

"We have to listen to our customers," she said.

>> MORE WE THE PEOPLE: Society Hill's 'Queen of Sushi' says she invented the Philadelphia roll.

"People in Philadelphia tend to give me ideas. They're like, 'I think you should do a mocha chocolate chip Kandy Kake'  or they'll say, 'Oh, my favorite product is this and you should make this all the time,' " she said.

Given that her job description requires McDonnough to have her cake and eat it too, she makes it a point to hit the gym often and lace up her sneakers for long runs. Once a week, she even teaches a body sculpting class.

"I eat a lot of cakes and icings, so work-life balance is important," she said.

Want more We the People?In this Sept. 5, 2018, file photo, President Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh listens to a question while testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington. Read more

WASHINGTON  Republican senators have selected Arizona prosecutor Rachel Mitchell to question Judge Brett Kavanaugh and the woman who has accused the Supreme Court nominee of sexually assaulting her when they were teenagers, a top senator announced Tuesday.

Mitchell, the sex crimes bureau chief for the Maricopa County Attorney's Office in Phoenix, will query the two at Thursday's highly anticipated Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. A registered Republican, Mitchell has worked for the Maricopa County Attorney's Office for 26 years.

In enlisting Mitchell to join their staff, Republican senators are taking an unusual step. They are turning to her to ask what are expected to be personal and potentially painful questions about the woman's youth on live television, sparing the all-male panel of 11 Republican senators on the committee some uncomfortable exchanges that could sway the public's opinion about the session.

"The majority members have followed the bipartisan recommendation to hire as staff counsel for the committee an experienced career sex-crimes prosecutor to question the witnesses at Thursday's hearing," Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said in a statement. "The goal is to de-politicize the process and get to the truth, instead of grandstanding and giving senators an opportunity to launch their presidential campaigns."

He added, "I'm very appreciative that Rachel Mitchell has stepped forward to serve in this important and serious role."

Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when they were both in high school, will testify under oath on Thursday. Kavanaugh will testify separately on the same day.

Mitchell did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Representatives for Kavanaugh and Ford did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The division Mitchell heads deals with family violence, physical and sexual abuse of children, and sex offenses, including sex assault cases. Mitchell oversees about 40 to 50 people in the division, said Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery. Mitchell has a long history of investigating years-old sex crimes and allegations that are difficult to corroborate, including in her role re-examining hundreds of cases that were unresolved and inadequately investigated by the sheriff's office, Montgomery said."

Over the course of Rachel's career, she has dealt with victims in this very circumstance of delayed disclosure and circumstances where allegations were difficult to corroborate," Montgomery said. "She has had to make a decision as a prosecutor whether or not those cases can move forward."Senate Judiciary Committee staff contacted Montgomery over the weekend asking about her experience, and Montgomery encouraged the staff and Mitchell to communicate directly, he said.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said earlier Tuesday that Republican lawmakers hired "a female assistant" to "ask these questions in a respectful and professional way. We want this hearing to be handled very professionally, not a political sideshow."

In a 2011 interview, Mitchell said she was drawn to sex crimes work after she was paired with a senior lawyer prosecuting a youth choir director after joining the office as a law clerk awaiting the results of her bar exam. "It was different than anything that I would have ever imagined it being," she said in an interview with FrontLine Magazine, which is affiliated with the conservative Christian group Foundations Baptist Fellowship International. "It struck me how innocent and vulnerable the victims of these cases really were."

She is now a supervisor, where her duties include analyzing legislative changes and managing other attorneys. In an interview earlier this year on a local NPR radio station, Mitchell talked about the nuts-and-bolts of the office's adoption of a new sex crimes protocol, the first in office history, intended to improve the investigation and prosecution of cases. She said the new manual would ensure prosecutors "have something to look at to say, okay, these are the best practices, so that we can do the best we can for victims."

Tracy Westerhausen, a Phoenix defense attorney who has gone up against Mitchell in 30 cases, over more than 20 years, said she has developed a close friendship with Mitchell over their time on opposite sides of the courtroom.

"Part of the reason we're very good friends, she is a very nuanced and wise prosecutor," she said. "She doesn't pigeon-hole defendants. In my experience, she is a very pointed questioner of adverse witnesses. But she is also very fair."

Westerhausen, who called herself a lifelong Democrat, said she has never discussed politics with Mitchell but considers her a good choice for the high-stakes job. "As an American, it would make me more comfortable to see her selected. I really do think that she's a very professional person, who is out to make sure the right thing is done," Westerhausen said.

Bruce Feder, a defense attorney in the county, said that as a manager, Mitchell spends less time now in the courtroom but had plenty of experience questioning both victims and people accused of wrongdoing.

He helped represent a priest who was prosecuted by Mitchell in 2004 for abusing a boy. Media reports indicated that the priest, the principal of a local school, was one of the first to be prosecuted for sex abuse in the county. The priest pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated assault with sexual motivation on the first day of his trial.

"She's been either a trial lawyer or a supervisor for decades. I'm guessing she knows what she's doing," he said.

As the head of the sex crimes unit, Mitchell was one of the prosecutors tasked with finding out why hundreds of sex crimes were unresolved or not adequately investigated by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, said Cindi Nannetti, former county prosecutor and Mitchell's predecessor at the unit. The controversy had roiled the sheriff's office for years and were unearthed after reports by victims and the media, and an internal audit.

"She is one of the finest prosecutors in the country," Nannetti wrote in a text message.

Jerry Sheridan, former county chief deputy sheriff who oversaw the re-examination of unresolved cases, said the unit under Mitchell had a key role in establishing protocols and victims crisis centers across the Phoenix metro area to in the wake of the controversy.

"The deputy county attorneys were assigned to the crisis centers to help all the law enforcement agencies in the East and West Valley," Sheridan said. "They had a very active role."

Congressional hearings are typically plum opportunities for lawmakers to grab the spotlight, draw attention to the issues they care about, and on occasion, create a moment that goes viral online.

But this time, Republicans on the committee prefer to keep lower profile.

"I'm going to let the professional person do it," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said he expected the counsel would conduct all questioning of Ford, "although I'm very capable of doing it."

Grassley said he appointed a woman from the outside in order to "depoliticize" the process and prevent a rerun of Anita Hill's testimony at Justice Clarence Thomas's 1991 confirmation hearing.

"The whole point is to create an environment where it's what Doctor Ford has asked for, to be professional and to not be a circus," said Grassley.

Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., who is not on the Judiciary Committee, said, "Inadvertently somebody will do something that's insensitive. I would not be wanting to ask questions about something like this."

Before Mitchell's name was revealed, Democrats criticized their Republican colleagues for leaving them in the dark and accused them of shirking their senatorial duties.

"Who is going to speak for all of the 11 Republican senators? We don't have the name, do we?" said Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. "Someone has been given a new job, a person we don't know. At some point, that secrecy has to be unveiled. We should at least know who's going to take the place of 11 duly-sworn senators of the United States."

The Washington Post's Seung Min Kim, Michelle Ye Hee Lee, Alice Crites, Gabriel Pogrund and Emma Brown contributed to this report.Julie Swetnick, whose work history include employment across various federal agencies, has come forward to claim she was drugged and "gang raped" at a party where Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh was present. Read more

Attorney Michael Avenatti on Wednesday produced an explosive claim from a woman named Julie Swetnick, who said she was drugged and raped by a "gang" of boys at a high school party where Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh was present, though she did not say that Kavanaugh participated in the alleged rape.

The disclosure of new allegations came the day before Kavanaugh and another woman who has accused him of sexual misconduct are set to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee and hours before President Trump lashed out about the accusations at a news conference, calling them false but saying he could be convinced otherwise after hearing testify.

In the latest set of accusations to emerge, Swetnick said she was first introduced to Kavanaugh and his friend, Mark Judge, at a house party "in approximately 1980-1981," and she observed Kavanaugh engage in abusive and physically aggressive behavior toward girls, which included "attempting to remove or shift girls' clothing to expose private body parts."

Swetnick also alleged that she witnessed both Kavanaugh and Judge spiking the punch at house parties with "drugs and/or grain alcohol" to target specific girls "so they could then be 'gang raped' in a side room or bedroom by a 'train' of numerous boys." Swetnick claimed she was the victim of one of these rapes in 1982. Both Kavanaugh and Judge were present, Swetnick said, but she did not contend that Kavanaugh participated in the alleged rape.

"Shortly after the incident, I shared what had transpired with at least two other people," Swetnick said in a signed declaration submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, another woman who has accused the Supreme Court nominee of sexual misconduct, are scheduled to testify before the committee on Thursday. "During the incident, I was incapacitated without my consent and unable to fight off the boys raping me. I believe I was drugged using Quaaludes or something similar placed in what I was drinking."

In a statement released by the White House Wednesday afternoon, Kavanaugh denied the claims made by Swetnick. "This is ridiculous and from the Twilight Zone. I don't know who this is and this never happened," Kavanaugh said. Judge also denied the allegations,

Judge also denied the allegations, referencing Swetnick by name in a statement from his lawyer to NBC News. "Mr. Judge vehemently denies Ms. Swetnick's allegations," the attorney said.

Swetnick's allegations align with comments made by Elizabeth Rasor, a former girlfriend of Judge, who told the New Yorker that Judge told her "of an incident that involved him and other boys taking turns having sex with a drunk woman."

A spokesman for Senate Judiciary Committee said in a statement that "Michael Avenatti provided a declaration to the Judiciary Committee. Committee lawyers are in the process of reviewing it now." The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment, though President Trump dismissed Swetnick's allegations as "false" on Twitter.

Kavanaugh has vehemently denied previous claims of sexual misconduct made by two women  Ford and Deborah Ramirez. He also claimed in a Fox New interview on Monday night he was a virgin during and after high school.

There is no statute of limitations for felony sexual assault in Maryland.

Here's what else happened Wednesday surrounding Kavanaugh and his Supreme Court nomination:

Trump criticizes accusations but says hed be open to changing his mind on Supreme Court pick, depending on evidence at Thursdays hearing

In an afternoon press conference, Trump slammed the accusations against his Supreme Court nomination but said he could still be persuaded. The president also suggested an FBI probe into the allegations against Kavanaugh wouldn't have changed the mind of Democrats. He said he believed the accusations were part of "a big fat con job."

However, the president added that he'd be open to changing his mind about his Supreme Court pick, depending on what happens at Thursday's hearing.

Trump also faced questions from reporters about the numerous women who have accused him of sexual misconduct. Trump insisted the allegations against him were false and said his experience influences how he views Kavanaugh's situation.

White House releases letter refuting Swetnicks allegations

The White House attempted to push back on the third accuser's claims, releasing a letter it said was from more than 60 men and women who knew Kavanaugh in high school, according to NBC.

"In the extensive amount of time we collectively spent with Brett, we do not recall having ever met someone named Julie Swetnick," the letter said. It added, "he is a man of honor, integrity, and compassion. These shameful attacks must end. This process is a disgrace and is harming good people."

Kavanaughs attorney: Swetnick witnessed gang rapes and never came forward?

Beth Wilkinson, Kavanaugh's attorney, questioned Swetnick's explosive claims that she witnessed Kavanaugh and Judge spiking the punch at multiple house parties with the intent of targeting specific girls and gang raping them.

"It's outrageous. Really? You witnessed gang rapes and you never said anything? You've never come forward?" Wilkinson said on CNN, pointing out that her client has been under intense scrutiny for months.

"As a parent of a daughter and two sons, I can not imaging not coming forward when this man was named." Wilkinson said.

>> READ MORE: Have young men's attitudes toward sexual violence changed since Kavanaugh's youth?

In her signed declaration submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Swetnick, who the New York Times reported graduated three years ahead of Kavanaugh, claimed she had "a firm recollection of seeing boys lined up outside rooms at many of these parties waiting for their "turn" with a girl inside the room." She was unclear on the number of parties where she witnessed alleged incidents of rape.

All 10 Democrats on Judiciary Committee call for Kavanaughs withdrawal

In the wake of Swetnick's explosive allegations, all 10 Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee are calling for Trump to either withdraw Kavanaugh's nomination or order the FBI to conduct an investigation of all three women's allegations of sexual misconduct.

"Judge Kavanaugh is being considered for a promotion. He is asking for a lifetime appointment to the nation's highest court where he will have the opportunity to rule on matters that will impact Americans for decades," the senators wrote. "The standard of character and fitness for a position on the nation's highest court must be higher than this. Judge Kavanaugh has staunchly declared his respect for women and issued blanket denials of any possible misconduct, but those declarations are in serious doubt."

Trump dismisses Swetnicks allegations as false

Trump dismissed Swetnick's allegations as "false" in a sweeping attack on Twitter of her attorney, Michael Avenatti.

Trump had been in meetings at the United Nations most of the morning, but he was remaining defiant as some Democrats call for Kavanaugh to withdraw his nomination. "Nothing's changed," an official traveling with the president told CNN when asked if Trump was standing by Kavanaugh.

"A Supreme Court nomination is not worth more than the lives of survivors," Sen. Cory Booker (D, N.J.), a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, wrote on Twitter Wednesday afternoon. "There must be a full investigation of these allegations of criminal behavior, and Judge Kavanaugh's nomination must be withdrawn."

>> READ MORE: Amid Kavanaugh controversy, conservatives attack Cory Booker's 1992 admission to 'groping' a high school friend after a kiss

>> READ MORE: 'So much is at stake': Why Cory Booker has shed his nice guy image in Brett Kavanaugh hearings

Kavanaugh says he was not perfect in high school

In his prepared testimony for Thursday's Senate hearing, Kavanaugh admitted he drank "too many" beers at times and that he was "not perfect" in high school, but once again denied claims he sexually assaulted Ford during a high school party.

"What I've been accused of is far more serious than juvenile misbehavior," Kavanaugh said. "I categorically and unequivocally deny the allegation against me by Dr. Ford. I never had any sexual or physical encounter of any kind with Dr. Ford."

Kavanaugh added that he wasn't questioning that Ford "may have been sexually assaulted by some person in some place at some time," but reiterated it was not him.

"I am innocent of this charge," Kavanaugh said.

Kavanaugh accuser produces four affidavits corroborating her sexual assault claims

With Christine Blasey Ford scheduled to testify Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, her legal team has produced four affidavits from individuals to back up her allegations of sexual assault against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

The four individuals  Adela Gildo-Mazzon, Keith Koegler, Rebecca White and Ford's husband, Russell Ford  all claim that prior to President Trump nominating Kavanaugh to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court, Ford revealed to them he had sexually assaulted her at a party while the two were in high school.

Kavanaugh has repeatedly denied the claims made by Ford and a second accuser, Deborah Ramirez, who says he exposed himself to her at a party while they were classmates at Yale University.

In his affidavit, Russell Ford, who married Christine in June 2002, said his wife shared the details during a couple's therapy session in 2012, noting that the incident with Kavanaugh was traumatic for her because "she felt like she had no control and was physically dominated."

>> READ MORE: Gloria Allred, a Girls High grad, warns that things won't go well for Kavanaugh's accuser | Jenice Armstrong

"Christine was very conflicted about whether she should speak publicly about what Mr. Kavanaugh had done to her, and she knew it would be emotionally trying for her to relive this traumatic experience in her life and hard on our family to deal with the inevitable public reaction," Russell Ford said in the affidavit. "However, in the end she believed her civic duty required her to speak out."

The historic hearing is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. and will be open to the public. There will be three cameras in the courtroom to provide live coverage of the hearings, according to CNN's Sunlen Sefaty. Both Ford and Kavanaugh will face five minutes of questions from each senator on the committee, though Republicans have indicated they would yield their time to an outside prosecutor, who will question the the witnesses on their behalf.

Earlier developmentsSo far 17,000 mail in ballots have been processed at the Camden County's early voting center Friday Oct. 14, 2016. Read more

Have some plans on Tuesday, Nov. 6, that will keep you away from home base all day? No worries  there's still time for you to get an absentee ballot in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, or Delaware.

There's a lot on the line during this year's midterm elections, so you'll want to make sure you aren't missing any important deadlines if you want a say in who will be representing you in national and local governments.

Below, you'll find some useful information if you're planning on voting absentee. But before you can even consider that option, you'll want to make sure you're registered to vote by your state's deadline.

What is absentee voting?

Casting an absentee vote is an option for those who wish to vote but aren't physically able to make it out to the polls.

Do all states have absentee voting?

Yes, but not every state is the same. There are three basic ways that states have in place to allow voters to cast their ballot ahead of Election Day, including early voting, absentee voting and mail voting, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, a bipartisan organization that works to improve state legislatures.

What about Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware?

In Pennsylvania, you are eligible to vote by absentee ballot if you are registered to vote and are a college student, have a physical disability or illness, a member of the military, have a work conflict, are on vacation, or are celebrating a religious holiday or occasion. Pennsylvania's "Votes PA" website outlines more specific information on eligibility.

In New Jersey, all registered voters are able to vote by mail.

>> SIGN UP: Get informed with daily text messages from the Inquirer about key issues in the election

In Delaware, you can cast an absentee ballot if you're registered to vote and are in the military, your schooling or job prevents you from making it to the polls on Election Day, you're sick or physically disabled, you're on vacation, or the "tenets or teachings of your religion prevent you from coming to the polls." Delaware further outlines its rules and regulations for voting by absentee ballot in a pamphlet found online.

Vote.org also has a handy state-by-state breakdown on how absentee voting works in each state.

When are deadlines to request an absentee ballot?

In Pennsylvania, voters have until Oct. 30 to apply for an absentee ballot, while New Jersey voters will need to make sure their county clerk gets their "application for vote by mail ballot" seven days before the election. Voters can also apply in person until 3 p.m. the day before the election, according to the New Jersey Department of State.

Voters in Delaware have until Nov. 2 to request an absentee ballot from the Department of Elections.

When do I have to return the ballot?

In Pennsylvania, you'll have to return your absentee ballot by 5 p.m. Nov. 2. Members of the military and those voting overseas will need to make sure their ballot is postmarked by Nov. 5.

New Jersey voters can hand in their ballots by the time the polls close or have them postmarked by Nov. 6, according to NJ.com. Delaware offices will need to receive absentee ballots by 8 p.m. on Election Day, as outlined in the state's voter deadline calendar.

>> VOTERS GUIDE: View candidates in the 2018 midterm election based on your address, or browse all the action in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and DelawareSweet potatos for Nauti Spirits vodka are growing at the Nauti Spirits Distillery in Cape May on July 20, 2017. A new farm-to-bar distillery in Cape May, situated on a 60-acre farm, where the owners are growing the stuff they're using in their distillates  growing and harvesting the sweet potatoes for their flagship vodka, to start (rum and gin is next up). ( ELIZABETH ROBERTSON / Staff Photographer ) Read more

The slow sloughing away of good-paying, blue-collar life in rural areas made white middle-aged America's suicide rate tick upward and tipped the country toward electing Donald Trump.

That narrative has been rehashed often since Trump's victory in November 2016, despite evidence that his supporters were not mostly working-class.

One statistic that helped drive home the despair was a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of 17 states from 2016, which showed that those who worked in farming, fishing, and forestry had the highest rate of suicide overall. The study has been cited in hundreds of reports, particularly in connection with farmers and falling dairy prices, plummeting income, and tariffs.

But this summer, the CDC retracted those numbers, saying "some results and conclusions might be inaccurate as a result of coding errors for certain occupational groups."

The CDC's retraction came after a June report published on NewFoodEconomy.org, a nonprofit newsroom. It was titled "How a simple CDC error inflated the farmer suicide crisis story  and led to a rash of inaccurate reporting." That report found that the CDC's study did not include farm owners or even managers, but rather exclusively agricultural workers.

"These laborers tend to engage in repetitive manual tasks like planting, picking, and packing crops," authors Bryce Wilson Stucki and Nathan Rosenberg wrote. "They make little money  their median household income is between $20,000 and $25,000 a year, according to the latest National Agricultural Workers Survey  and are 80 percent Hispanic. They are often employed by farmers, whose median family income is around $79,000."

With September being Suicide Prevention Month, it's important to ask: Does the CDC error mean everything is fine on the farm?

No. There is real despair in rural America.

"This is very serious, because the retraction has the potential to send out the wrong message that there is nothing really out of whack 'down on the dairy farm,' but there surely is," Brenda Cochran, a Pennsylvania dairy farmer with Farm Women United, told Mother Jones in July. "I find it reprehensible that they issue a retraction but leave us 'hanging' until they [the CDC] get their statistical act together."

Those professions may still rate among the top occupations at risk for suicide, once the data are recalculated. All three are ranked among the most dangerous jobs in the United States, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Last month, the Inquirer and Daily News wrote about workers in building trades having a higher risk for heroin overdoses, often because of the injury rate.

Two stars of National Geographic's reality show Wicked Tuna, which follows fishermen seeking to catch lucrative bluefin tuna in New England, died from opiate overdoses.

Despite the CDC retraction, the nonprofit Farm Aid noted that calls to its farmer hotline increased 30 percent in 2018 and that net income for farmers has dropped more than 50 percent in the last five years.

"Rural families, particularly those in agricultural communities, are suffering no matter which way you slice the data. It is also deeply concerning that farmworkers are so vulnerable to suicide," Farm Aid said in a statement.

In Pennsylvania, the suicide rate in rural areas is 26 percent higher than urban areas, according to the Center for Rural Pennsylvania. Wayne County, in the northeastern part of the state, and Elk County, to the west, had suicide rates of 29.3 and 26.3 per 100,000 population. Philadelphia had a rate of 10.9.

In recent months, the Inquirer and Daily News have written about the plight of dairy farmers who have had to sell their entire herds as prices continued to tank, as well as soybean farmers who feared Trump's tariffs would forever alter the market.

"It's getting harder and harder to find anything easy in farming," one soybean farmer said.Bill Cosby is escorted out in shackles from the Montgomery County courthouse in Norristown, PA on September 25, 2018. Read more

With yesterday's sentencing, Bill Cosby's dramatic fall from grace is complete, making him the first male celebrity of the #MeToo era sent to prison for sexual misconduct. For his accusers, it was a day of reckoning, and reactions to the legal battle's conclusion are still pouring in. As for this morning's other top stories, we must make a hard pivot towards two completely different topics: whether social reviews are right for hospitals and whether free municipal IDs are coming to our region.

Reading this online? Sign up here to get this newsletter delivered to your inbox every morning.

 Aubrey Nagle (@aubsn, morningnewsletter@philly.com)

A three-year legal battle ended Tuesday will Bill Cosby being led out of a Norristown courtroom in handcuffs. Hes been sentenced to three to 10 years in state prison for his 2004 assault on Andrea Constand, who described the effect of the crime in a victim-impact statement.

Once a comedic icon and trailblazer, the 81-year-old entertainer was denied bail and could spend the final stage of his life behind bars labeled as a sexually violent predator.

The first accusation against Bill Cosby was leveled more than a decade ago. At a news conference with several of Cosby's accusers Tuesday, one said, "I have waited 32 years for this day."

Online review sites like Yelp are well known for recommending hair salons and restaurants. But what about hospitals?

As we do with so many aspects of our lives, patients are increasingly turning to social media to inform their decisions about where to go for health care.

Crowd-sourced reviews may not always be accurate, but they provide insights that hospital-sponsored surveys do not.

Think about all the things you need an ID for: looking for a job, housing, government services, health care. Countless people nationwide dont have basic identification cards, and the cost of supporting documents and the ID itself are often to blame.

Fees exist for copies of birth certificates in Pennsylvania, which are needed to get an ID, and a state ID costs $30.50. In New Jersey it's $24.

At least eight states issue free or discounted IDs to low-income or homeless residents. Could it happen here?

What you need to know today

Through Your Eyes | #OurPhilly

Whoa. You almost need shades for those leaves, @eastfallslocal.

Tag your Instagram posts or tweets with #OurPhilly and we'll pick our favorite each day to feature in this newsletter and give you a shout out!

Thats Interesting

Opinions

"My grandfather respected his fans, and he embraced their style. Gritty aims to do the same, but it unfortunately misses the mark. Beyond his concerning appearance, Gritty's name represents a flawed approach to honoring the quality of our fans."  Garrett Snider, grandson of Flyer franchise founder Ed Snider,  Garrett Snider, grandson of Flyer franchise founder Ed Snider, on the team's new mascot, Gritty.

Development in Philly is booming, but something is often missing when a new building opens, writes Diana Lind, managing director of the Penn Fels Policy Research Initiative: all the promised (and much-needed) trees.

The controversy surrounding Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's past looks like a revenge attack on a civilization deemed too male, writes Heather MacDonald of the Manhattan Institute.

What were reading

Your Daily Dose of | Bliss

Thats it, its settled. Shelley McDonnough has the best job ever. She works in Tastykakes research and development unit and yes, she gets to taste-test them.Councilwoman Cindy Bass, right, listens during city council hearing on the opioid crisis at City Hall in Philadelphia, PA on March 12, 2018. Read more

On Sept. 13, during the first fall Council session, I introduced Bill 180751. The bill, which modifies the zoning code for several types of businesses including day cares, was modeled after a law sponsored by Councilwoman Cherelle Parker and enacted in the Ninth District. Councilwoman Parker's bill applies to certain residential areas, while the intent of my bill is to address both residential and commercial corridors.

I think it's important to provide background and context for this proposal. I introduced the bill after years of meetings and feedback from constituents, business owners, community leaders and groups, and commercial corridor organizations in the Eighth District. They shared concerns about the oversaturation of day cares inadvertently affecting business corridors. Bill 180751 is intended to address their concerns and support vibrant, diverse economic development.

However, I have decided to hold the bill to allow more time for my constituents to review it and offer feedback.

>> READ MORE: Why are day-care centers being banned in one district? | Editorial

According to a report by the Reinvestment Fund, there are more day-care spaces than children in the Eighth District. Ask anyone who lives, works, and walks these communities, and I think they'll concur.

There are misconceptions about what the bill does and does not do. Bill 180751 does not ban the opening or expansion of day cares; day cares can continue to open in the Eighth District. Additionally, no existing day care would be affected by this legislation.

What this bill does is create a zoning overlay that would require business owners seeking to open new day cares or expand existing centers to go through the same zoning process as required of most Philadelphia businesses. This process includes applying for a zoning variance, talking with neighbors at a community meeting, and getting approval from the Zoning Board of Adjustment. A zoning overlay is an accepted community development tool used by City Council; my bill would also apply to tire shops. The Eighth District has a thriving and growing business sector, and this process has not been, and will not be, a barrier to entry.

The intent of Bill 180751 is to encourage community involvement and give all residents in the district the opportunity to have a voice regarding the development and diversity of business in their neighborhoods. Anyone who is active in his or her neighborhood knows how important community involvement is. I believe community involvement strengthens neighborhoods. Strong, well-informed communities help businesses thrive. I can't imagine a well-intentioned business owner wanting to open a child-care facility, or any other business, without getting to know and hearing from future neighbors.

While I have already had ongoing conversations with neighborhood stakeholders, I am always open to more dialogue. I plan to continue this dialogue and assess whether any amendments should be made to the bill before moving forward.

I believe Bill 180751 is commonsense legislation that advances my goal as a city councilwoman to improve the quality of life for residents and businesses in my district.

Cindy Bass is a member of City Council of Philadelphia. She represents the Eighth District.Flyers center Jori Lehtera skates against the Boston Bruins in a preseason game Monday, Read more

Jori Lehtera, a veteran center who is battling to win a roster spot with the Flyers, is one of 23 suspects involved in a cocaine ring in Finland, according to Finnish news outlet MTV.

Lehtera, 30, denies any involvement, the news outlet reported. MTV said that about two kilos of cocaine were involved, and that some of the suspects were arrested at Lehtera's summer home.

The NHL is investigating the matter.

Lehtera, a Helsinki native, did not participate in the Flyers practice Wednesday in Voorhees.

Flyers general manger Ron Hextall issued a statement about the situation: "We have spoken with Jori Lehtera and the league office regarding the reports out of Finland, and will reserve any further comment on the matter at this time."

After practice Wednesday, Hextall said: "I don't know any details, so there's nothing to comment on."

Acquired from St. Louis as part of the deal that sent Brayden Schenn to the Blues in the summer of 2017, Lehtera is starting his second season with the Flyers. He had three goals and eight points in 62 games last season.

Lehtera is considered on the roster bubble, and there's a chance the Flyers will send him to the AHL's Phantoms.

He is in the final year of a contract he signed with St. Louis, and his $4.7 million salary-cap hit this season is the fifth highest on the Flyers. He signed a three-year, $14.1 million deal with the Blues.Coun Perez reiterates warning to barangay leaders involved in drugs

07 Aug 2017 Hits:37 Comments(0)

Liga ng mga Barangay President, Councilor Jerry Perez yesterday reiterated his warning to all barangay officials from using or selling drugs. Perez said he is closely monitoring the activities of all the barangay officials and vowed sanctions against erring leaders. Aqui gane na mio barangay ya quita ya iyo na puesto cunel dos barangay leaders quien mas temprano ya sale positivo na...United Nations: US President Donald Trump on Wednesday heaped praise on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the United Nations but called for strict enforcement of sanctions for now.

Chairing a special session of the UN Security Council on non-proliferation, Trump said to expect "very good news" in the coming months and years from North Korea after his landmark summit with the young strongman in Singapore in June.

"Kim Jong Un, a man I have gotten to know and like, wants peace and prosperity for North Korea," Trump said.

"Many things are happening behind the scenes away from the media which nobody knows, but they are happening nevertheless and they are happening in a very positive way."

But Trump also called for the enforcement of sanctions, which the United States has spent years building through the Security Council in response to North Korea's nuclear and missile tests.

"Unfortunately, to ensure this progress continues, we must enforce existing UN Security Council resolutions until denuclearization occurs," Trump said, reading form a prepared text.

"However, we have detected that some nations are already violating these UN sanctions. This includes illegal ship-to-ship transfers which must end immediately," he said.

"The safety of the Korean peninsula, the region and the world depends on full compliance."MOSCOW: A 25-year-old woman, who was buried in a graveyard in the Russian city of Ufa, was given a bizarre tribute  a five-feet high tombstone in the shape of her favourite iPhone.

When mourners turned up to mourn the passing away of Rita Shameeva, little did they know that the 25-year-old has been given a bizarre tribute in the graveyard of the oil-rich Russian city.

In what came as a shock to many, the mourners saw a five-foot-high tombstone erected over the woman's burial plot in the shape of her favourite iPhone, according to Daily Mail.

It is believed that the tombstone, made from basalt in the shape of a black iPhone showing a picture of the woman, was installed by her grieving father Rais Shameev long after her death in January 2016.

While the cause of Shameeva's death is not known and her father also did not comment on the unusual memorial, which is higher than other gravestones erected in the Yuzhnoye cemetery.

Shameeva, who had close friends in Germany, was said to be a frequent traveller.

Local headstone maker Ilgam Galliulin, who make monuments on order, denied that he designed the memorial.Mumbai: Anupam Kher has urged Manmohan Singh to watch "The Accidental Prime Minister", in which the actor essays the former Prime Minister.

Anupam, who has wished Singh on his 86th birthday on Wednesday, tweeted: "Respected Dr Manmohan Singh! Here is wishing you a very happy and healthy birthday. Maybe I will get an opportunity to have a cup of tea and a piece of cake with you if you ever watch our film. I promise, you will like my portrayal."

The 63-year-old actor said that his portrayal as Singh is "full of sincerity and honesty".

The film is based on a book by Sanjaya Baru, a former media advisor to Manmohan Singh. Akshaye Khanna features as Baru, and Divya Seth Shah plays Manmohan Singh's wife Gursharan Kaur in the movie.

It is directed by debutant Vijay Ratnakar Gutte, along with Hansal Mehta as the creative producer.

The script of "The Accidental Prime Minister", produced by Bohra Bros, is written by Mayank Tewari. It is slated to release on December 21.New Delhi: State-owned insurer LIC Tuesday said it will not allow debt-ridden IL&FS to collapse and explore options to revive it.

The Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) has the largest shareholding in IL&FS.

IL&FS Financial Services, a group company of IL&FS defaulted on one of its commercial paper (CP) issuances due for repayment on Monday. This was the third default by the company.

LIC Chairman V K Sharma, after a meeting at the finance ministry, assured that efforts are being made to keep IL&FS afloat.

"We will ensure IL&FS does not collapse. We will not allow contagion to spread from IL&FS...All options are open (including raising stake in the company)," he said.

The infrastructure development and finance group has been facing liquidity issues for some time and had defaulted on a Rs 1,000-crore debt from Sidbi earlier this month. On September 14, it had again defaulted on a repayment of Rs 105 crore CPs and the next day, it had defaulted on Rs 80-crore inter-corporate deposits (ICDs).

Meanwhile, the finance ministry has maintained that IL&FS Group is independent of the government and the company needs to resolve its issues.

Although the government has no holding in the company, some of the state-owned financial firms, including LIC and SBI, are shareholders of the non-banking financial company (NBFC).

"IL&FS is independent of the government. It has independent board and shareholders. So, IL&FS needs to resolve its issues on its own and I think it is capable of doing it," Economic Affairs Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg had told PTI.

"It has assets, it has liabilities to take care. There might be some temporary mismatch, so it is IL&FS, which will deal with the problem. The government is not involved directly," Garg had said.

IL&FS, which is credited for building the longest tunnel in the country (the Chenani-Nashri tunnel), is 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.

State-owned LIC is the largest shareholder with a fourth of the firm's equity, while Orix Corporation of Japan owns 23.5 percent.

Other shareholders include Abu Dhabi Investment Authority with 12.5 percent stake, IL&FS Employees Welfare Trust with 12 percent, HDFC with 9.02 percent, Central Bank of India with 7.67 percent and State Bank of India (SBI) with 6.42 percent at the March-end 2018.

In a letter to its employees, IL&FS had claimed that if funds worth Rs 16,000 crore stuck with concession authorities were released on time, it would not have landed in this mess.

Meanwhile, IL&FS Financial Services informed stock exchanges that Infrastructure Leasing & Finance Services Limited (IL&FS), the promoter and majority shareholder of the company, has filed an application with the National Company Law Tribunal, Mumbai Bench on 24 September 2018 seeking certain reliefs in connection with filing of a scheme of arrangement under Section 230 of the Companies Act, 2013 in respect of IL&FS.

The company and certain subsidiaries /joint ventures/ associates of the Company (details of which are listed out in the Annexure) which scheme will be prepared in compliance with applicable law and subject to necessary consents of the shareholders, creditors, regulators and the board of directors of the respective entities, it had said.New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday greeted former prime minister Manmohan Singh on his birthday 86th birthday and prayed for his long life and good health. "Greetings to our former prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh ji on his birthday. I pray for Dr Singh's long life and good health," Modi tweeted.

Born on September 26, 1932, in Punjab Gah's (now Pakistan), Singh was the prime minister for two consecutive terms from 2004 to 2014 during the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi too wished Manmohan Singh on his birthday. Appreciating his selfless service to the cause of nation-building, the Gandhi scion said, "Manmohan Singh ji's birthday is an opportunity for us to appreciate and remember his many years of selfless service and dedication to the cause of nation-building. I wish him a very happy birthday and good health and happiness always."

Singh, who was the first Sikh in office, was also the first prime minister since Jawaharlal Nehru to be re-elected after completing a full five-year term. The former prime minister is an economist who became a politician to serve the country. He has served in various positions, including as RBI chairman and finance minister.

Singh's political career began in 1991 when he was appointed as the country's finance minister under the leadership of late prime minister PV Narasimha Rao. It was the same year during which he helped usher in ' liberalisation and privatisation' to the Indian economy.

(With inputs from agencies)United Nations: In a big boost to the Narendra Modi-led NDA government, French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday reaffirmed that the Rafale fighter jet deal between India and France was a government-to-government deal.

Extending support to PM Modi, who is at the centre of Opposition attack over the controversial defence deal, Macron also said that the Indian PM is right in claiming so.

However, he refused to say more on the defence deal.

#WATCH: PM Modi is right. That's a Govt to Govt discussion.We have a very strong partnership between India and France regarding Defence. I dont want to comment on any other thing, says French President Emmanuel Macron on #RafaleDeal pic.twitter.com/J9DugZIxnQ  ANI (@ANI) September 26, 2018

''PM Modi is right. That's a Govt-to-Govt discussion. We have a very strong partnership between India and France regarding Defence. I dont want to comment on any other thing,'' French President Emmanuel Macron told ANI.

The French President had earlier distanced himself from the controversy, saying he was not in power when the multi-billion dollar agreement for the 36 fighter jets was signed between New Delhi and Paris.

While addressing a press conference on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session, Macron was asked if the Indian Government had at any point told France or Dassault - the French aerospace major - that they had to accept Reliance Defence as the Indian partner for the Rafale deal.

India had inked an inter-governmental agreement with France in September last year for procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets at a cost of around Rs 58,000 crore, nearly one-and-half years after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the proposal during a visit to Paris.

The delivery of the jets is scheduled to begin from September 2019.

"I will be very clear. It was a government-to-government discussion and I just want to refer to what Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi very clearly said a few days ago," Macron, who became French President in May last year, had told reporters here on Tuesday without elaborating.

"I don't have any other comment. I was not in charge at that time and I know that we have very clear rules," he said in his first comment on the issue.

Macron, who assumed the presidency in May last year, emphasised that this is a government-to-government discussion and "this contract is part of a broader framework which is military and defence" coalition between India and France.

"This one is very important to me because this is a strategic" coalition and not just an industrial relation. "That is my point. I just want to refer to what PM Modi said on this situation," he said.

While Prime Minister Modi has not spoken on the Rafale controversy himself, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and other senior ministers have asserted that people of India have put a closure to the issue, saying there were no irregularities.

Prime Minister Modi had announced the procurement of a batch of 36 Rafale jets after holding talks with the then French president Francois Hollande on April 10, 2015, in Paris.

The final deal was sealed on September 23, 2016.

The French government has said it was in no manner involved in the choice of Indian industrial partners.

The Rafale deal has landed in the trouble waters after a report in the French media quoted former president Hollande as saying that the selection of the Indian company in the Rafale deal was done at the behest of New Delhi.

Hollande said that the Indian government proposed Reliance Defence as the partner for the French aerospace giant in the Rafale deal and France did not have a choice.

His 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 Limited 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 which negotiated with (Anil) Ambani. We had no choice, we took the interlocutor who was given to us."

In its statement, Dassault Aviation said the contract for the 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 percent 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.

It is to be noted that the Congress has been demanding a JPC probe into the Rafale deal, which it said was the biggest defence scam of the country.

However, after the French President's confirmation, the ruling BJP has hit back at the Congress party and accused it of running a smear campaign to defame the Modi government at the international level.

(With PTI inputs)NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Emmanuel Macron were on Wednesday awarded the ''Champions of the Earth'' award by the United Nations.

PM Modi and Macron were recognized in the Policy Leadership category.

The two world leaders were awarded for their outstanding work in championing the International Solar Alliance and promoting new areas of levels of cooperation on environmental action, according to the UN.

Four other environmental changemakers were also awarded by the UN.

Emmanuel Macron, President of France and Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, are recognized in the Policy Leadership category for their pioneering work in championing the International Solar Alliance and promoting new areas of levels of cooperation on environmental action, including Macrons work on the Global Pact for the Environment and Modis unprecedented pledge to eliminate all single-use plastic in India by 2022, the United Nations said in a press release.

PM Narendra Modi and French President Macron get UNs highest environmental honour, Champions of the Earth. They are recognised in the policy leadership category. pic.twitter.com/OhP8jrPW8z  ANI (@ANI) September 26, 2018

The Prime Minister's Office also took to Twitter to confirm the development.

''President @EmmanuelMacron and Shri Modi have been awarded in the Policy Leadership category, for their efforts regarding the International Solar Alliance,'' it said.

PM @narendramodi has been awarded the prestigious @UN Champions of the Earth Award. President @EmmanuelMacron and Shri Modi have been awarded in the Policy Leadership category, for their efforts regarding the International Solar Alliance. https://t.co/zSNk3lS3uy  PMO India (@PMOIndia) September 26, 2018

''The UN has also noted PM Modi's efforts towards eliminating single-use plastic in India by 2022,'' the PMO said in another tweet.

It is also a matter of great joy that the Cochin International Airport has been awarded the @UN Champions of the Earth Award for its leadership in the use of sustainable energy.  PMO India (@PMOIndia) September 26, 2018

''It is also a matter of great joy that the Cochin International Airport has been awarded the UN Champions of the Earth Award for its leadership in the use of sustainable energy,'' it said in the third tweet.

The announcement of the award was made shortly after French President Emmanuel Macron confirmed that the Rafale fighter jet deal between India and France was a government-to-government deal.

Extending support to PM Modi, who is at the centre of Opposition attack over the controversial defence deal, Macron also said that the Indian PM is righting in claiming so.

However, he refused to say more on the defence deal.

''PM Modi is right. That's a Govt-to-Govt discussion. We have a very strong partnership between India and France regarding Defence. I dont want to comment on any other thing,'' French President Emmanuel Macron told ANI.

The French President had earlier distanced himself from the controversy, saying he was not in power when the multi-billion dollar agreement for the 36 fighter jets was signed between New Delhi and Paris.

While addressing a press conference on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session, Macron was asked if the Indian Government had at any point told France or Dassault - the French aerospace major - that they had to accept Reliance Defence as the Indian partner for the Rafale deal.

India had inked an inter-governmental agreement with France in September last year for procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets at a cost of around Rs 58,000 crore, nearly one- and-half years after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the proposal during a visit to Paris.

The delivery of the jets is scheduled to begin from September 2019.Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi by connecting the Rafale fighter jets deal controversy with lack of job opportunities in the country. Hitting out at Prime Minister Modi, the Gandhi scion referred to the formers actions as PMS-kill India programme, mocking the Skill India scheme of the central government.

Sharing a report by The Huffington Post on microblogging site Twitter, the Congress chief pointed that millions of skilled youngsters are facing the highest employment rate in the country in 20 years, adding that Rs 30,000 crore was stolen from Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and given to man with no skills in making aircraft.

PM'S-KILL India Program 30,000 Cr stolen from HAL and given to a man with no SKILLS in making aircraft. Meanwhile, millions of SKILLED youngsters face the highest unemployment rate in twenty years.https://t.co/1it0SCaYu5  Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) September 26, 2018

The Gandhi scion tweeted, PM'S-KILL India Program. 30,000 Cr stolen from HAL and given to a man with no SKILLS in making aircraft. Meanwhile, millions of SKILLED youngsters face the highest unemployment rate in twenty years.

The Huffington Post report cited the findings of a study by Centre for Sustainable Employment, which said that unemployment levels have been rising steadily and is currently the highest in India in the last 20 years.

The survey findings further say that the GDP growth did not result in increase in employment opportunities.

Rahul Gandhis latest attack comes after he suggested in Amethi that the Congress would corner government on a range of issues such as Rafale, demonetisation, escape of Vijay Mallya and GST.

Addressing social media volunteers of the Congress party, the Gandhi scion had said, The misdeeds of Modi government  Rafale, Vijay Mallya, Lalit Modi, demonetisation, Gabbar Singh Tax (GST)  there has been theft in all these cases. One by one we will show that Narendra Modi ji is no chowkidar, Narendra Modi ji is a thief.

The man who had come to power promising a fight against corruption, he himself gave Rs 30,000 crore to Anil Ambani. This is just the beginning, there will be more fun ahead, he had further said.New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Gujarat High Court to decide afresh the plea of senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel challenging the maintainability of a petition filed by a BJP leader against his election to the Rajya Sabha.

A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud said Patel's plea against the petition of BJP leader Balwantsinh Rajput required "de novo" (fresh) adjudication.

Patel had moved the top court against the high court order, saying that Rajput's petition was "devoid of merits" and failed to show any "cause of action".NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday struck down the Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act which permitted private entities to use Aadhaar information to authenticate the identity of the person. While reading out the judgement on the validity of the constitutionality of Aadhaar, Justice AK Sikri said that Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act is unconstitutional.

With the SC striking down Section 57, private bodies like telecom companies, e-commerce firms, private banks and other such firms will no longer be able to ask for biometric details from consumers. "Data vulnerable to misuse by third party, private vendors, that too without consent of an individual," Justice Chandrachud said.

Section 57 read: Nothing contained in this Act shall prevent the use of Aadhaar number for establishing the identity of an individual for any purpose, whether by the State or any body corporate or person, pursuant to any law, for the time being in force, or any contract to this effect.

Asserting that Aadhaar is violative of Article 14 of the Constitution, Justice Chandrachud said, "It has been admitted by UIDAI that it stores vital data and it's violative of right to privacy. There is no institutional responsibility of UIDAI to protect data of citizens."

The apex court has declared the Centre's flagship Aadhaar scheme as constitutionally valid but struck down some of its provisions. A five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra held that Aadhaar would remain mandatory for the filing of IT returns and allotment of Permanent Account Number (PAN).

It would also not be mandatory for school admissions, as also for the examinations conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Examination, National Eligibility cum Entrance Test for medical entrance and the University Grants Commission.

The bench also struck down the national security exception under the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act. It said Aadhaar is meant to help the benefits reach the marginalised sections of society and takes into account the dignity of people not only from personal but also community point of view.

The court said that Aadhaar is serving a much bigger public interest. "Aadhaar means unique and it is better to be unique than being best," the SC said.

There are three sets of judgements being pronounced. The first of the three verdicts was pronounced by Justice A K Sikri who wrote the judgement for himself, CJI and Justice A M Khanwilkar. Justice Chandrachud and Justice A Bhushan, who are part of the bench, have written their individual opinions.Shimla: Nearly 200 people on Wednesday are still stranded in various parts of Himachal Pradesh's Lahaul and Spiti district.

Two Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH) and one Medium Lift Helicopters (MLH) have been deployed in Bhuntar. The ALH rescued seven people from Patsio on Tuesday, five from Bara-Lacha Pass and14 people from Stingri on Wednesday. It dropped 1000 food packets for those stranded in Rohtang.

#HimachalPradesh: Tourists who were stranded in Lahaul-Spiti district being airlifted to Kullu pic.twitter.com/GBqfh2wEpx  ANI (@ANI) September 26, 2018

The Border Roads Organisation (BRO) has rescued the 35 IIT Roorkee students who went missing in Lahaul Spiti while returning after trekking from Hampta trekking pass in Kullu. The students are at Mountaineering Institute in Manali.

Two Israeli nationals - Nitzan Shmueli and Nimrod Pitussi - have also been rescued in a private helicopter from Jammu's Kurgiakh.

Most of the 600 roads of the state reopened after being blocked following the recent snowfall, officials said. An official of the Himachal Pradesh State Disaster Management Authority said most of the 600 roads, including the Chandigarh-Manali road, of the state, have been reopened.

He also said about 300 people stranded at various places of Lahaul and Spiti district have been rescued. Around 200 people are still stranded there, the official added.

Keylog Sub Divisional Magistrate Amar Negi said eight persons, hailing from West Bengal, were airlifted to safer places in Stingri in Lahaul district and Bhuntar in Kullu district on Wednesday by 11 am, while five were airlifted to Stingri on Tuesday evening.

Five of total eight persons airlifted on Wednesday have been taken to Bhuntar in adjoining Kullu district in IAF helicopters directly, he added.

Negi told PTI that two IAF helicopters are continuously airlifting people stranded in various areas including Koksar and Baralacha.

The weather conditions are favourable now and BRO personnel are on their job to clear the roads of debris, he said hoping that most of the roads would be opened by Thursday morning, the SDM said.

Himachal Pradesh has been reeling under heavy showers since the last few days. Landslides were reported in several parts of the state with many roads getting blocked. Rivers in the state were flowing at danger levels with authorities on high alert.

(With inputs from agencies)NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday decided that it would start live-streaming of some of the cases in order to avoid overcrowding in the courtroom.

The court released a 106-page order and said that the decision is been taken in public interest. "Live-streaming of court proceedings is manifestly in public interest," the order said.

Adding that it will lead to more transparency the order stated that "It can epitomize transparency, good governance and accountability, and more importantly, open the vista of the courtrooms."

A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud, in two different but concurring judgements, said "we hold that the cause brought before this court by the protagonists in larger public interest, deserves acceptance so as to uphold the constitutional rights of public and the litigants in particular".

"Above all, sunlight is the best disinfectant," Justice Chandrachud, writing a separate concurring verdict, said, adding that live streaming "as an extension of the principle of open courts will ensure that the interface between a court hearing with virtual reality will result in the dissemination of information in the widest possible sense, imparting transparency and accountability to the judicial process".

The bench said that for live-streaming, the permission of the concerned court will have to be sought in writing, in advance, in conformity with the prescribed procedure.

Consent from the litigants will be obtained and only a few cases of constitutional and national importance will be live-streamed initially.

It said "the focus of the cameras in the courtroom will be directed only towards two sets of people--the judges hearing the matter and at such an angle so as to only show the anterior-facing side of the Justices, without revealing anything from behind the elevated platform/level on which the Justices sit".

The cameras would also show the arguing advocates from such an angle that it does not reveal in any way the contents of notes or reference material being relied upon.

The bench said that the copyright over the broadcasted material will be retained by the court which will have the final say in respect of use of the coverage material.

At first, the video will be streamed to screens in other areas within the court complex following which the plan will later allow live-streaming over the internet.

The court asked the federal government to frame rules for the project, said Shraddha Deshmukh, a government lawyer involved in the case.

According to news agency Reuters, Deshmukh added that some sensitive cases, such as those related to sexual assault or child abuse, would be excluded.

The measure will also allow litigants to follow some parts of the proceedings from home without having to travel long distances.

"The time has come for this Court to take a step further in adopting technology and to enable live-streaming of its proceedings. Live-streaming of courtroom proceedings is an extension of the principle of open courts. Live-streaming will have the ability to reach a wide number of audiences with the touch of a button," Justice Chadrachud said.

He justified live-streaming by saying that "the technology of live-streaming injects radical immediacy into courtroom proceedings. Each hearing is made public within seconds of its occurrence".

"It enables viewers to have virtual access to courtroom proceedings as they unfold," he said and added that the introduction of live-streaming will effectuate the public's right to know about court proceedings.

The two separate verdicts of the judges relied on the practices adopted in various courts in the world and said it appeared that broadcasting of courtroom proceedings emerged in several countries through judicial decisions.

The practices in countries like Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, England, European Court of Human Rights, Germany, Ireland and Israel were relied upon by the top court.

The Supreme Court had 54,013 pending cases as of May this year, according to data available on its website.

(With Agency Inputs)JPMorgan Chase & Co is in talks about leading Lyft Inc`s upcoming initial public offering as an underwriter, after rivals Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Morgan Stanley decided not to pursue such a role out of loyalty to another IPO hopeful, Lyft`s larger competitor Uber Technologies Inc, according to people familiar with the matter.

The move illustrates the calculations that often inform the pursuit of such mandates by the world`s biggest investment banks. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have helped ride-sharing company Uber raise money in the past, and are in pole position to secure top roles in its IPO, the sources said.

Reuters first reported last year that Lyft was seeking to hire an IPO adviser that would help it select underwriters and coordinate the process.

Since then, Lyft has hired IPO advisory firm Class V Group LLC, and is eyeing a stock market flotation sometime in 2019, according to the sources. Uber has also said it is aiming for an IPO in 2019, though it is further behind in its preparations and is not yet seeking to hire underwriters.

Several other investment banks are expected to join JPMorgan as underwriters for Lyft`s IPO. There is no certainty the bank will secure the coveted "lead left" underwriting position, the sources said.

Lyft plans to interview investment banks next month as it puts together its roster of IPO underwriters, the sources added, cautioning that no roles have formally been awarded.

The sources asked not to be identified because the matter is confidential. Lyft, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Class V Group all declined to comment, while Uber did not respond to a request for comment.

Lyft`s and Uber`s IPOs will test investor tolerance for lack of profitability when it comes to iconic technology unicorns. Both companies have taken hits in their bottom lines in order to attract drivers and enter new markets, although they have made strides in recent years in narrowing their losses.

Like Uber, Lyft offers an app that lets passengers request rides on their smartphones. It was founded in 2012 by technology entrepreneurs John Zimmer and Logan Green, three years after Uber.

Lyft raised $600 million in its most recent funding round in June, led by Fidelity Management, doubling its valuation to $15.1 billion in little over a year. It operates in roughly the same number of U.S. cities as Uber, as well as in Toronto, Canada.

Investors in Lyft, which has 35 percent market share in the United States, include AllianceBernstein, Baillie Gifford, and KKR & Co Inc.

Uber, under the leadership of Dara Khosrowshahi, who became chief executive a year ago, has juggled investing in new markets while retreating from others, where it was losing millions of dollars. It is building up services like food delivery and freight hauling as it seeks new revenue, and possibly a path to profitability, outside its core business.

Last month, Toyota Motor Corp agreed to invest $500 million in Uber to jointly work on developing self-driving cars. The investment values Uber at $76 billion, a step up from the $72 billion valuation Uber received in a deal with Alphabet Inc self-driving unit Waymo this year.SOPORE: Security forces in Jammu and Kashmir met with a big success after Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorist Abu Maaz along with his associate were killed in the encounter in Sopore.

Maaz was one of the longest surviving terrorists of the terror outfit. He was involved in the deaths of civilians in Sopore. He was also in charge of receiving infiltrators from across the border and positioning them in different parts of Kashmir.



The security operations in Sopore ended late on Tuesday night. The bodies were identified as that of Maaz and his local associate. "On the basis of materials recovered, one of the slain terrorists has been identified as Abu Maaz of Pakistani origin who was operating as the top commander of LeT in north Kashmir," a police spokesman said.

The other terrorist who was killed in the operation in Bomai area was identified as Abdul Majeed Mir alias Sameer.

The spokesman said Maaz had a criminal record since 2015 and he was involved in series of terror activities in the area, particularly in Sopore and Handwara. "He was involved in several attacks on the security forces and killings of civilians in the area. Several cases were registered against him in police stations across the valley for terror activities," he added.

The spokesman said Maaz was involved in at least a dozen attacks on civilians.After months of strongly hinting that he was interested in the position, Queens councilmember Rory Lancman has announced this morning that he is running for Queens District Attorney. Lancman, who represents neighborhoods in central and eastern Queens, and chairs the Councils Justice System committee, said that as DA, he would stop prosecuting low-level offenses, launch a wrongful conviction unit, and no longer ask for cash bail.

Our district attorneys office has refused to decline to prosecute low-level, non-violent, victimless offenses like marijuana possession and fare evasion, Lancman, 49, said in an interview on Tuesday. Hundreds of thousands of people a year, thousands in Queens, are funneled into the criminal justice system, given criminal records that saddle them for the rest of their lives, and make it hard to go to school, get a job. Thats whats called the New Jim Crow. Tearing that down starts at the Queens DA office, by refusing to prosecute those offenses.

The incumbent, Richard Brown, has not faced an opponent since his election in 1991, when his Democratic rival was kicked off the ballot after the county machine challenged his petition signatures. Brown, 85, is the longest-serving District Attorney in New York City. He has yet to announce if hell be running for reelection next fall.

While every other borough has instituted a conviction review unit, Brown has refused, saying that prosecutors are capable of reviewing their own cases without the need to create a separate unit. During the first six months of this year, Queens has put more people into jail on misdemeanor charges than any other borough.

The DAs office in Queens is sort of like the land that time forgot, Lancman said. Brooklyn was electing Ken Thompson, and Staten Island is asking for funding to start a wrongful conviction review unit, and Manhattan is declining to prosecute fair evasion offenses, and Darcel Clark in the Bronx is trying to build out open-file discovery machinery, and Queens just keeps stubbornly clinging to an outdated model of criminal justice.

In a statement, Brown said, "My present term does not expire until December 2019 and I will make no decision about the future until sometime next year." His office did not comment on Lancman's description of Brown's tenure.

Lancman has long been an outspoken critic of Mayor Bill de Blasios policy of quality-of-life policing, calling the NYPDs focus on low-level offenses like turnstile jumping and marijuana possession unfair for how it disproportionately impacts New Yorkers of color.

These types of low-level prosecutions, like misdemeanor drug possession, theft of services, or trespassing, represent nearly 40 percent of prosecutions that resulted in pre-trial detention in the borough during the first half of this year. And they have consistently placed the boroughs immigrant population in harms way, by making non-citizens vulnerable to deportation for non-violent offenses that often arent charged elsewhere in the country (or city).

My idea of justice is every man or woman stands before the bench judged on their individual culpability and individual circumstances, Lancman said. If the thing that I did will get me a misdemeanor and requirement to participate in a program, but the next person, who is not a citizen will get deported, I think its fair to charge that other person a different way so that theyll have the same culpability that I have, but they wont end up getting kicked out of the country.

Earlier this month, Lancman debated Queens Assistant District Attorney James Quinn about the possible closure of Rikers Island. Lancman, who is in favor of replacing Rikers Island with four smaller jails located in every borough besides Staten Island, has said that the Queens DAs insistence on asking for cash bail, as well as its charging of low-level offenses, has kept Rikers Island filled with New Yorkers and derailed thousands of lives.

Quinn, in defending Rikers, drew condemnation for arguing that Kalief Browder, the Bronx teen who spent three years on Rikers (with significant parts of that time spent in solitary confinement) only to have his charges dismissed, had killed himself long after his release from Rikers, not during his confinement.

I do not know what satisfaction you get by the potential fact that he killed himself two years after he was in Rikers Island, Lancman said at the debate in response. And not in Rikers Island itself.

In a video announcing his candidacy, Lancman is endorsed by Gwen Carr, the mother of Eric Garner. Lancman has also been endorsed by Valerie Bell, the mother of Sean Bell, who was killed by NYPD officers in Queens in 2006. DA Brown failed to win any guilty verdicts against the officers involved.

As next year's election draws closer, the race is likely to become more crowded, but Lancman told Gothamist that he will be the most progressive candidate  I guarantee it. Other possible candidates include former Queens Supreme Court Justice Gregory Lasak, who recently retired ahead of a possible run, current borough president Melinda Katz, who is term-limited in 2021, and Judge George Grasso, who currently heads the Bronx Criminal Court.

But Lancman is not immune to criticism from the left. In 2015, he voted in favor of a city budget that added close to 1,300 police officers to the NYPD, which many felt only exacerbated tensions between the city and communities that have been the target of disproportionate policing.

The police can only police what prosecutors are willing to prosecute, Lancman replied when asked about how prosecutors can impact how communities are targeted by police officers.

You look at how fare evasion arrests plummeted in Manhattan as a result of Cy Vance saying, Were not going to prosecute fare evasion cases. I think youre going to see the same impact on the qualified decisions in Manhattan and Brooklyn to not prosecute marijuana cases.

Lancmans support of the Rikers replacement plan could also place him in conflict with many of the groups that led the movement for closing Rikers, who believe that more jails will do little to end the burden placed on low-income communities of color by the citys criminal justice system.

Lancman counters that if we elect the right people, then we dont need to fear that these smaller jails will then become the benchmark for how many people we need to incarcerate each year.

Lancman, the first official entrant into the race, says he will spend the next year talking to voters about the role of the District Attorneys office ahead of the likely extremely low-turnout September 2019 primary, where the DAs race might be the only issue on the ballot. Since 1977, the boroughs District Attorneys have been first appointed by the governor during a vacancy, and have faced no significant challenges when facing their first election and subsequent ones.

This will be the first actual District Attorneys race in Queens in our lifetime, Lancman said.SRINAGAR: A top terrorist of Pakistani origin belonging to the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), who was responsible for killing Army Major Satish Dhayia, was among two terrorists killed by the security forces in an encounter in north Kashmir's Sopore town on Wednesday.

According to the police, the two terrorists were identified as Abu Maaz of LeT and Abdul Majeed alias 'Sameer'.

Abu Maaz, who was active in the region since 2015, was involved in a series of attacks on security forces and killings of civilians.

He was active in North Kashmir, particularly Sopore and Handwara.

While the other terrorist - Abdul Majeed - hailed from Bomai in apple town of Sopore, the police said.

With these deaths, the number of terrorists killed in the past 12 days in Kashmir has gone up to 18, the officials said.

The security forces had launched a joint search operation on the intervening night of Tuesday and Wednesday after receiving a credible intelligence input about the presence of terrorists in the Nowpora area of Tujjer in Sopore.

It was a joint operation by para-military forces and the army.

During the searches, terrorists hiding in the area fired upon the search party, which retaliated leading to an encounter. ''In the ensuing encounter, two terrorists were eliminated," a J&K Police spokesman said.

"On the basis of materials recovered, one of the slain terrorists has been identified as Abu Maaz of Pakistani origin who had been operating as the top commander of LeT in north Kashmir," the spokesman said.

Maaz had masterminded an attack on an Army convoy in Handwara in February last year, in which 31-year-old Major Satish Dhaiya was killed.

Three terrorists - Abu Saad, Abu Maviya and Abu Darda - were killed in that encounter, but Abu Maaz had managed to escape after gunning down the Army Major.

Since then, he was among the most wanted terrorists in North Kashmir.

With these two deaths, the number of terrorists killed in the past 12 days in Kashmir has gone up to 18.

Five terrorists each were killed in Kulgam district of South Kashmir and Bandipore in North Kashmir during this period.

Another five terrorist were gunned down in Tangdhar of North Kashmir and one was killed at Tral in Awantipura of South Kashmir.

(With PTI Inputs)New Delhi: Actress Tanushree Dutta, who has been away from the limelight for years, took the entire industry by storm when she accused a famous veteran actor of sexual harassment. The actress was speaking about her #MeToo moment during an exclusive interview with News18 when she said that during the shooting of a song on the sets, she was harassed by the actor.

'Times of India' quoted choreographer Ganesh Acharya reportedly stating that he choreographed a duet song for Horn 'Ok' Pleassss which did not involve any indecent step. However, he said that he cannot confirm or deny if Tanushree was heckled by anyone during the shooting of the song. Acharya also said that the senior actor calling members of a political party on the sets never actually happened. He, however, admitted that there was some sort of misunderstanding due to which the shooting of the song was stalled for over three hours.

In the interview, Tanushree had also alleged that she was subjected to political intimidation after she made the allegations against the senior actor during the shoot.

"The thing is that our country has become so hypocritical, and people constantly ask why #MeToo movement is not happening in India, it wont happen unless and until youll acknowledge what happened with me in 2008," Tanushree said.

Not many would remember, Tanushree had accused a famous actor of harassing her during the shoot of a dance number on the sets of Horn Ok Please. She had alleged that the actor made her stay uncomfortable and she eventually had to opt out of the song.

"The entire industry saw what happened but there was not one word of condemnation from anybody. Every single person in this country remembers my incident and this was something on national TV for three days but even today theres a stoic silence on that. So, my question is, Who is going to believe these hypocrites? These are the people who stand up and raise their voice against women empowerment," she told the news website.

Talking about the actor's unruly behavior, she said, "He was trying all kind of intimidation tactics to rattle me. He was grabbing me by the arms, pushing me around then he would ask the choreographers to move and teach me how to dance, and the next thing I know he wanted to do an intimate sequence with me. It was ridiculous.

Post the controversy, Tanushree vanished from the world of glamour. The actress was last seen in Jag Mundhra's 'Apartment' in 2010.AMRITSAR: In yet another shocking case of police brutality, a middle-aged woman was forcibly tied to the roof of an official jeep as a 'punishment' after she objected to her husband being taken away by the policemen in Punjab's Amritsar district.

According to reports, the woman fell from the jeep and suffered serious injuries in the head. She was rushed to a nearby hospital in the Amritsar district with the help of local residents, who saw her falling from the roof of the police jeep.

It has emerged that the woman was tied on the roof of the police jeep as a 'punishment' since she had objected to her husband being taken away by the cops.

The police had gone to the woman's house in the Chawinda Devi locality of Amritsar to question her father-in-law in connection with a property dispute case.

Since the victim's father-in-law was not in the house, the cops wanted to take away her husband which she vehemently opposed. Angered with this, the Punjab Police Crime Branch officials then forcibly tied the woman on the roof of their jeep and paraded her throughout the town.

The matter came to light after several video clips of the shocking incident emerged showing the woman being carried on the roof of the speeding police jeep.

In one of the videos, she can be seen falling from the roof of the jeep as the speeding vehicle took a sharp turn in an area of Amritsar district.

The woman can be seen trying to get up and then fleeing from the scene.

No action has been taken against the guilty Punjab Police personnel in this connection as yet.

The shocking incident has, meanwhile, triggered a war of words between the Shiromani Akali Dal and the ruling Congress party over growing lawlessness in the state.

The incident has also put the Punjab Police under scanner over its style of functioning.

It may be recalled that a prominent SAD activist was shot dead along with his wife in Sangrur town earlier this month.

The Amritsar incident came to light a day after three cops, including a woman constable, were caught on camera abusing and slapping a Hindu woman for being friends with a Muslim man in Uttar Pradesh's Meerut.

The video went viral on the social media and evoked a sharp criticism of the UP Police.Chennai: Families of some of those killed along with Rajiv Gandhi Wednesday urged Tamil Nadu Governor Banwarilal Purohit Wednesday to put on hold sanction for release of seven convicts till disposal of their plea in the Supreme Court against the state cabinet's recommendation.

The attack on May 21, 1991, killed the former prime minister and 15 people, including LTTE suicide bomber Dhanu, at nearby Sriperumbudur.

Families of four victims and two survivors called on Purohit at the Raj Bhavan, where he met them individually.

"We requested the Governor not to take any decision on the release of convicts till our petition in the Supreme Court in this connection is disposed of," S Abbas said.

Son of Mahila Congress functionary S Samdhani Begum, who was among those killed, Abbas said the Governor "assured" the delegation that he would act in deference to their request.

Abbas said his childhood had been a painful one as he lost his mother when he was barely eight years old and life became a battle for him since his father predeceased her.

"I had to drop out of school when I was in class 10. I am running a shop for my survival...Making ends meet is a challenge."

"The fact that their death sentences were commuted to life imprisonment (for four, including Nalini and later her husband Sriharan) itself is a humanitarian gesture," he told PTI.

In their petition to the Governor, the kin of 11 victims requested the Governor to send a committee to study the sufferings of these 14 innocent victim families.

"Can we get back our dear ones who died on May 21, 1991? We sincerely feel that terrorism should not be condoned."

The families pointed out that they filed a review petition in the Supreme Court in 2014 and that the top court had on September 17 had given them three weeks time to submit their plea, opposing the release of the convicts.

On Sept 9, the Tamil Nadu Cabinet had recommended to the Governor that all seven Rajiv case convicts be released.

Meanwhile, pro-Tamil outfit Tamizhaga Vazhvurimai Katchi staged a protest demonstration here, urging the Governor to release the convicts in deference to the Cabinet decision.

The outfit wanted the Tamil Nadu government to mount pressure on the Governor "to take a positive decision to release the convicts and not wait."An Indian national who was aware of an alleged plot to assassinate Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena has been arrested, a court was told.

The Indian national, identified as M Thomas by Lankan media, was arrested on Tuesday from the residence of the Anti Corruption Movement operations director Namal Kumara, who exposed the assassination plot, CID Chief Inspector Ranjith Munasinghe informed the Fort Magistrate Court.

Magistrate Jayaratne instructed the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) to further interrogate Thomas and report the findings to the court.

Thomas was arrested when he visited Kumara's home at Warakapola in the south western region.

Kumara had revealed that former in-charge of the Terrorist Investigation Division DIG Nalaka de Silva had discussed with him the alleged plot to kill Sirisena and the former Defence Ministry Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, the court was told.

Silva was questioned by the CID on Kumara's revelations. He has been transferred out of the terrorism bureau pending investigations.

Thomas who was taken into custody for his alleged links to Kumara, arrived in the country on a tourist visa, which he overstayed, the court was told.

Meanwhile, the court has ordered to check the authenticity of sound tapes which Kumara had produced purported to be conversations between him and Silva.American model and author Padma Lakshmi has revealed after almost 32 years that she was raped when she was 16. In an opinion piece in the New York Times, the American TV anchor penned down the reasons that made her remain silent about it for so long.

It was in a suburb of Los Angeles that she had just started dating a charming and handsome 23-year-old man. According to Padma Lakshmi, she was raped by him just few months after they started dating, on a New Years Eve.

What compelled Padma Lakshmi to come out of the closet was recent accusations of sexual assault against US Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. In the writeup in the New York Times, the American model, who is the former wife of noted author Salman Rushdie, says she understands why the women  Christine Blasey Ford and Deborah Ramirez  talked about their experience so late.

To explain the same, she referred to a recent tweet by US President Donald Trump, who had questioned as to why Dr Ford did not reveal or file a complaint about her ordeal years ago. Trump had 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!

Narrating her ordeal, Padma Lakshmi said that one reason that made her remain silent and not share the same with even her mother was an incident that occurred when she was seven. She was touched inappropriately by a relative of her stepfather, and when she told her mother about it, she was immediately sent to India for a year to live with her grandparents.

The lesson that she drew from her experience was  if you speak up, you will be cast out, thereby affecting her ability to trust.

Padma Lakshmi, who wrote that she was a virgin before she was raped, said that she was opening up about the unfortunate incident because she wanted our daughters to never know this fear and shame.French President Emmanuel Macron has said that the Rafale deal was a "government-to-government" discussion and he was not in power when the multi-billion-dollar agreement for 36 fighter jets was signed between India and France.

Addressing a press conference on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session, Macron was asked if the Indian government had at any point told France or Dassault - the French aerospace major - that they had to accept Reliance as the Indian partner for the Rafale deal.

India had inked an inter-governmental agreement with France in September last year for procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets at a cost of around Rs 58,000 crore, nearly one-and-half years after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the proposal during a visit to Paris. The delivery of the jets is scheduled to begin from September 2019.

"I will be very clear. It was a government-to-government discussion and I just want to refer to what Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi very clearly said a few days ago," Macron, who became French President in May last year, told reporters on Tuesday without elaborating.

"I don't have any other comment. I was not in charge at that time and I know that we have very clear rules," he said in his first comment on the issue.

Macron emphasised that this is a government-to-government discussion and "this contract is part of a broader framework which is military and defence" coalition between India and France.

"This one is very important to me because this is a strategic" coalition and not just an industrial relation. "That is my point. I just want to refer to what PM Modi said on this situation," he said.

A huge controversy over the Rafale deal has erupted in India after a report in the French media quoted former president Francois Hollande as saying that the selection of the Indian company in the Rafale deal was done at the behest of New Delhi.

Hollande said 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.

His 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 Limited despite not having any experience in the aerospace sector.

The Congress party recently raised several questions about the deal including the rates, and accused the government of compromising national interest and security while promoting "crony capitalism" and causing a loss to the public exchequer.

The report 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."

Prime Minister 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 French government has said it was in no manner involved in the choice of Indian industrial partners.

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.The Police consider five theories for the attack on public activist Oleh Mykhailyk in Odesa

September 22, Oleh Mykhailyk, Head of city organization of the party "The Power of People," Odesa public activist was shot. His shoulder and chest were injured, and he is in serious condition. Find out brief information on his public activity and why someone could with his death

Open source

On the eve of a large rally in Odesa: about 200 representatives of patriotic organizations, public figures, and ordinary citizens picketed the regional National Police headquarter. In their opinion, law enforcers lack the responsibility in performing their duties; they often allow attacks against activists. "Attacks have become systemic, and the police do nothing to catch the attackers," people claimed.

Those who gathered even intended enter the headquarter building without permitting to force commander-in-chief Dmytro Golovin to clarify the situation, in particular how the investigation of the last egregious case - the attempt on the life of Oleh Mykhailyk is proceeding. The commander-in-chief went to the scene of another crime, and the protesters had to calm down a bit. The protesters began an open-ended rally.

Bullets fired at the chest and shoulder

The public activist, head of city organization of the party "The Power of People," and the TV presenter of "7 Channel" Oleh Mykhailyk was attacked on his way home.

According to preliminary data of law enforcers, between 20:30 and 21:30 the man had been hit by seven bullets. One of the bullets hit the shoulder and his chest.

As Dumska reported, Mykhailyk first turned to the policemen who passed by, then the ambulance arrived and other services came to the spot as well.

The man was immediately hospitalized, the doctors tried to stabilize his condition, as the patient arrived in a state of clinical death: he lost more than a liter of blood, and his arterial blood pressure was critically low (30/10).

On the morning of the next day, Mykhailyk came to his senses and even managed to talk to his wife and law enforcers. His state is assessed as stable heavy, and doctors do hurry to remove a bullet from his chest (it occurs after the patient's condition is stabilized, after two or three months).

Mykhailyk is guarded by the police.

5 versions of the motives for the attack

Criminal proceedings were opened on part 2 of Art. 15, part 1 of Art. 115 of Ukraines Criminal Code (complete attempt at an intentional homicide).

Law enforcers assure an extensive set of investigative actions is made. Currently, the police are preparing for a series of forensic examinations, including ballistic to establish weapons, used for shooting Mykhailyk. To investigate the attack, a special reinforced investigative and operational group was created, engaging experienced investigators and employees of the Security Service (SBU).

At the moment, law enforcement officers are considering five main versions of the commission of this crime.

"The first version is connected with public activities, the second one is related to the problems with the "Gold Coast" project (Mykhailyk was a cheated investor and he organized protest rallies - Ed.). The third one is connected with the "Success" car market (fought against new owners of the car market  Ed.). The fourth version relates to some personal relationships, and the fifth - an attempt was committed by unidentified persons with some hooligan motives," the head of the Odesa region police, Dmytro Golovin, explained in an interview with 112.ua.

Dmytro Golovin

According to him, Mykhailyk was shot only once. The shell was not found at the scene, so there is a suggestion that the killer used Nagant M1895 Revolver.

At the same time, Mykhailyks supporters believe that local authorities stand behind the attempts on his life and their motives are very clear.

"The attempt on the life of Oleh Mykhailyk was made... Why? Because the criminal power of Odesa is afraid of progressive leaders and of changes in the city. Because of the public events against the mayor, exposing his corrupt and criminal activities. Because of defending the cultural and architectural heritage of Odesa. Because of the fight against illegal construction. and most importantly because of the struggle for a decent life of Odesa and Ukraine," Odesa organization of the party "The Power of People" says in its official statement.

Protests and training: Mykhailyks activities

Shortly before the attack, Oleh Mykhailyk, along with other activists, participated in the demolition of the fence around the construction of the Langeron beach near the dolphinarium. The building, which Odesa activists consider illegal, involved the deputy of the city council, the deputy military commissar of the Prymorsky district, Andriy Kyslovsky, who is also the owner of the Nemo dolphinarium. 150 Odesa residents joined the rally.

Social media

Mykhailyk took part in numerous protests: he fought for the preservation of Odesa Summer Theater; opposed the zoning of the city and illegal construction; repeatedly criticized the work of Odesa city government, in particular, Mayor Gennadiy Trukhanov.

In addition, Mykhailyk was famous for organizing the first in Odesa and Ukraine "School of Local Government" for training citizens, social activists, public figures, deputies of local councils, and their assistants.

This year, he has created an open public platform "Odesa 2020," uniting several diverse public organizations and charitable foundations to solve social problems, fight corruption and conduct educational events without budgetary support from Odesa city authorities.

Social media

The political party "The Power of People," Mykhailyk is its member, stands for ideas of decentralization with the preservation of unitarity, the middle class as the state basis, the cult of the child and the family, a visa-free regime with the USA and Canada, open electoral lists, NATO, etc.

Social media

Meeting of the National Security and Defense Council and the report of Ombudswoman Denisova

After the attack and protests outside the building of the regional police chief Odesa, activists have made a joint statement. In it, in particular, they appealed to:

President Petro Poroshenko with an urgent call to discuss the situation at an extraordinary meeting of the National Security and Defense Council and create a single headquarters to monitor the investigation of all the facts of the attack against journalists and activists;

Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov, SBU Chief Vasyl Hrytsak, and Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko with a request to dismiss the heads of the Odesa Police Headquarters, the Security Service, and the Prosecutor's Office, as well as their deputies;

Commissioner of the Verkhovna Rada for Human Rights Liudmyla Denisova with a demand to provide a report on the state of affairs in Odesa region on the observance of the rights of journalists, social activists and the investigation of the relevant criminal proceedings;

Verkhovna Rada with an ask to create a special investigative commission on the situation in Odesa, to protect the rights of representatives of civil society.

At the moment about 50 organizations of Odesa have signed this statement.

This was not the only attack against Ukrainian activists that happened these days. September 23, in Lviv, about 20 neo-Nazis armed with knives and telescopic batons have attacked a group of left-wing social activists. Young men and women received numerous wounds including life-threatening ones. One of the victims, being out of consciousness, was transferred to the reanimation, he was stabbed near the heart area. The activists recognized faces of the aggressors, who were members of the National Corps, a far-right party based on the Azov military regiment. This incident was given much less publicity in Ukraines media.

Read the original text at 112.ua.Last year Ukraine and Hungary could not find common ground due to Ukraines new "language policy," now the situation has been significantly aggravated by more sensitive issue  dual citizenship

For the second consecutive year, autumn is contentious for Ukraine- Hungary relations. Last year the states could not find common ground due to Ukraines new "language policy," now the situation has been significantly aggravated by even more sensitive issue  dual citizenship

112 Agency

100 thousand people loyal to Hungary: How it began

Ukraine is a multiethnic state, and this is not a secret. Its territory is inhabited by Ukrainians, Russians, Byelorussians, Moldovans, Crimean Tatars, Bulgarians, Hungarians, Romanians, Poles, and other ethnic groups.

Regardless of nationality, the rights of all citizens of Ukraine are equally protected by the current legislation, but every year under the sensitive leadership of neighboring countries, ethnic minorities are striving for ever greater liberties.

Hungary is particularly successful in this issue; from time to time, it supplies the Zakarpattia region (the heart of the Hungarian diaspora in Ukraine) with passports and stands (unofficially) for the creation of its autonomy in the state.

Budapest draws attention to the fact that citizenship and the second passport are the foundation of the unity of the Hungarian nation, ties of foreign Hungarians with their homeland, and autonomy is a means of protecting the interests of the Hungarian community in the Ukrainian parliament. Kyiv considers such a position as a threat to the territorial integrity of Ukraine, its sovereignty and the Constitution, since it already has a bitter experience with its northern neighbor  obtaining Russian passports preceded the annexation of Crimea and the armed conflict in Donbas.

Open source

Until recently, these disagreements were resolved only in words: Budapest secretly gave out a certain number of passports to Ukrainian citizens of Hungarian origin, or certain politicians allowed themselves to make some statements about the creation of autonomies. Official Kyiv has learned about this, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed protests, and the Hungarian party allegedly accepted this is taken into account, and any sanctions were imposed.

So, according to the Zakarpattia Regional State Administration, in recent years, about 100,000 inhabitants of the region have received Hungarian citizenship, pledging fealty to the neighboring state.

The situation has worsened

Today the situation is completely different, and as Ukraines Minister of Foreign Affairs Pavlo Klimkin has made clear, the retaliatory measures would be taken.

A video appeared on the network, showing how the citizens of Ukraine receive the second citizenship in the Hungarian consulate in Berehove (Zakarpattia region). First, the embassy officials issue a passport, and then an oath of allegiance to the neighboring state is heard. The ceremony ends with drinking champagne. In addition, the consul advises newly-appeared "double citizens" to conceal from the Ukrainian authorities the fact of receiving a Hungarian passport.

In particular, the head of the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs stressed that Ukraine was aware of Hungarys periodical passportization of Zakarpattia, and warned of responsibility. Then they had no evidence for retaliatory measures, but now the evidence is obvious.

The Hungarian party continues to insist on the absence of violations on its part, allegedly Ukrainian legislation does not provide for a clear legal ban on second citizenship, and Ukrainian Hungarians do not use the Hungarian passport in Ukraine, only outside it.

Dual citizenship: What Ukrainian legislation says?

According to Art. 4 of the Constitution of Ukraine: There is unique citizenship in Ukraine. The grounds of acquisition and stopping of citizenship of Ukraine are determined by a law.

But the Hungarians persuade this also does not directly mean that Ukrainians are forbidden to have citizenship of other states. This wording means that the second citizenship and documents confirming it in Ukraine will be deemed not valid.

Ukraines law "On Citizenship" gives the following definition: "If a citizen of Ukraine has acquired the citizenship of another state or states, then he is recognized only as a citizen of Ukraine in legal relations with Ukraine. If a foreigner acquired the citizenship of Ukraine, then in legal relations with Ukraine he is recognized only as a citizen of Ukraine." However, by acquiring the citizenship of another state, a person can lose the Ukrainian one. Only notification can be considered a ground for termination of Ukrainian citizenship, it does not happen automatically. The second citizenship in Ukraine is not recognized, but there is no punishment for the corresponding violation. Therefore, it is often found that citizens have several passports.

Two, three, four passports per person

The practice of the dual (multiple) citizenships is currently used by many countries. For example, the UK has a treaty on mutual recognition of citizenship with Canada, India, Australia, and others, France - with Canada, Portugal - with Brazil, Spain - with a number of Latin American countries.

Most of all, it is opposed by the African states and the countries of Asia. For example, dual citizenship is prohibited in Japan, China, India, Thailand, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Angola, Congo, Botswana.

Open source

In red are countries, where dual citizenship is prohibited, in green - dual citizenship is allowed, gray - no data

At the same time, each country has its own position regarding the second, third and other citizenship. Some of them grant their citizenship only by receiving a certificate of renunciation of another citizenship (for example, Germany), in the legislation of others, as in Ukrainian, the second citizenship is not directly prohibited, but is also not recognized.

In a number of countries in the Caribbean, a second passport can be obtained in exchange for investments in the country's economy (from $ 100,000). Similar offers are used by some EU countries, but the cost of granting citizenship is much higher there. For example, the passport of Malta will cost more than 1 million euros.

By the way, Hungary allows dual citizenship only for those foreigners who receive it for investment, but ethnic Hungarians, citizens of other states, can obtain a Hungarian passport in a simplified procedure, which came into effect in 2011.

To do obtain it, they need to apply for citizenship and register after an interview with a representative of the Hungarian state, which, among other things, will check the knowledge of the Hungarian language. An applicant needs to bring a completed questionnaire, an autobiography and, most importantly, proof of his ethnicity.

Like in Ukraine, Hungarian citizenship is formally granted and deprived of by the president, but this procedure involves a long vertical. Based on the documents on acquired citizenship, a person can apply for the issuance of both a Hungarian internal passport, which has the form of an ID-card and a Hungarian foreign passport (Utlevel). The latter is of particular interest to Ukrainian citizens because it gives the right to visa-free trips to the US or free employment in any of the EU countries.

In addition, ethnic Hungarians can formalize an official residence permit in Hungary and preserve their Ukrainian registration. This is done mainly for the sake of social payments, primarily grants and pensions. Or in order to register a car with Hungarian car plates and avoid crossing the border every five days.

Priorities and perspective: How to solve the problem of dual citizenship

Experts believe that in order to overcome once and for all the dual citizenship challenge, Ukraine must first clearly state the rules on entry and exit from citizenship. Since May 1, 2016, according to the law "On Civil Service," a civil servant who has a different citizenship, other than Ukrainian, cannot claim civil service. This is justified by the fact that citizens of other countries should not have access to state secrets.

However, it is also known that media often publish information that some mayors, peoples deputies, and officials, having two or more foreign passports, are running for elections, hold high posts and benefit from their situation.

Also, experts add, Ukraine cannot ignore developing a single long-term policy in this field. That is, the state should clearly formulate whether it recognizes the dual citizenship as legal or not. How to deal with millions of Ukrainians who have gone abroad - to the US, Canada, Italy, Spain, and Poland? Maybe, Ukraine should sign the bilateral agreements with some countries or start attracting investments in exchange for granting one's citizenship.

Read the original text at 112.uaThe conflict between Ukraine and Russia has so far been restricted to ground battles over control of eastern Ukraine. Recent developments, however, suggest that the war  now in its fifth year  could soon spread to the sea. On Sept. 16, the Ukrainian government announced plans to create a naval base in the Sea of Azov before the end of the year, four days before President Petro Poroshenko confirmed Kiev's intentions in a speech to parliament. The statements come amid military buildups by both Ukraine and Russia in the Sea of Azov, which have been provoked in part by Moscow's construction of a bridge between Crimea and mainland Russia. The bridge has allowed the latter to harass Ukrainian vessels as part of larger restrictions on its shipping. As a result of the growing tensions, a flare-up is now entirely possible on the Sea of Azov, especially if the United States also brings its weight to bear in the conflict.

Deploying the Navy

Ukraine announced the deployment of two armored artillery boats to the port city of Berdyansk on Sept. 8, about a week after a Ukrainian naval commander said the country would send more vessels, marines and artillery to the sea. And to support the naval buildup, the commander of the Ukrainian Ground Forces, Col. Gen. Serhiy Popko, announced on Sept. 12 that Ukraine would bolster its ground forces near the sea amid plans to establish permanent territorial defense structures and deploy missile and artillery forces, as well as the air force, to the region "to provide reliable coastal defense." For its part, Russia has reportedly redeployed at least 10 warships and up to 40 patrol boats from the Caspian Sea to the Sea of Azov in recent months.

In terms of overall naval deployments, Russia is in a much stronger position than Ukraine in the area around the Black Sea. The Ukrainian navy possesses 66 combat and auxiliary naval units, as well as about 11,000 service members. In contrast, Russia's Black Sea Fleet, which is headquartered in Sevastopol, boasts more than 2,800 vessels and 25,000 service members. And the disparity is not just in quantity but in quality as well: On average, Ukraine's vessels are much smaller and weaker than those of their Russian adversaries.

Forty Russian warships are currently on the Sea of Azov, although Moscow has not permanently stationed the vessels there. Instead, it can move its warships between the Azov and Black seas as necessary. At the same time, Russia has also stationed 40,000 troops in Crimea.

Kiev suffers from the added disadvantage that it lost the port city of Sevastopol after Moscow annexed Crimea in the wake of the Euromaidan uprising in 2014, forcing Ukrainian authorities to shift their primary naval base to Odessa. At present, Ukraine does have a presence on the Sea of Azov, but the deployments are relatively small, featuring just two coast guard detachments in Berdyansk and Mariupol that use only small and outdated patrol boats.

The Bridge Putting Up Barriers

The Sea of Azov is of critical importance to Ukraine's economy  perhaps even more so since Kiev lost Crimea  because 80 percent of the country's exports now pass through the body of water. After Moscow annexed Crimea, Berdyansk and Mariupol began to receive some of the cargo traffic that previously went to Ukrainian ports in the peninsula. But Moscow's construction of the new bridge across the Kerch Strait, the only passage between the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea, has cut cargo shipments to the Ukrainian ports  and triggered the military buildup by both countries.

The Sea of Azov is of critical importance to Ukraine's economy  perhaps even more so since Kiev lost Crimea, because 80 percent of the country's exports now pass through the body of water.

Technically, both Ukraine and Russia enjoy free use of the Sea of Azov under a 2003 agreement, but Moscow has subjected Ukrainian vessels to its own authorization procedures to traverse the strait since construction began on the bridge in April 2015. The Russian Transport Ministry has periodically closed access to all Ukrainian ships after a July 2017 order that enabled Russia to deny access to the Sea of Azov to any vessels except Russian warships during certain timespans. Russia duly shut off access during Aug. 27-29 and Oct. 11-13 last year. (Compounding Ukraine's problem is the design of the bridge, which is too low for Panamax vessels, which accounted for about 23 percent of all ship traffic in the area in 2016, to pass through.)

As a result, cargo flows from Mariupol have dropped 27 percent, from more than 8.9 million tons in 2015 to 6.5 million tons in 2017; from Berdyansk, they have fallen 47 percent, from 4.5 million tons in 2015 to just 2.4 million tons in 2017. Before the Ukraine conflict, freight traffic was much higher, with 15 million tons of cargo passing through Mariupol in 2013 alone.

In recent months, Russia has been interrupting even more freighter traffic from Ukraine, stopping as many as 148 ships sailing to Ukrainian ports between May and mid-July, according to Ukraine's infrastructure minister, Volodymyr Omelyan. In total, Russia's actions are costing Ukraine $20 million to 40 million every year, and although they have not yet led to supply shortages, the costs could pile up in the future. In response, Poroshenko has accused Russia of violating international law, prompting Ukraine to file a case against Moscow in international arbitration courts in addition to deploying more naval forces to the area.

The Sea Between East and West

The military buildups and growing tensions between Russia and Ukraine on the sea come amid a broader standoff between Moscow and the West over Ukraine. The United States and the European Union have extended and increased sanctions against Russia over the conflict in Ukraine. At the same time, the various sides to the conflict have failed to make progress on negotiations over a U.N. peacekeeping force in Donbas due to differences between Russia and the West over its objectives and limits.

In the meantime, fighting in eastern Ukraine has been increasing after the assassination of Donetsk leader Alexander Zakharchenko at the end of August  an incident that disrupted a cease-fire agreement to mark the start of the school year. As a result of Zakharchenko's murder, Russia has said it no longer has immediate plans to meet in the Normandy Four, a grouping that brings together Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France as part of a broader political component of the negotiations, although it confirmed that it would not entirely abandon the Minsk process  the tactical component of the negotiations featuring Russia, Ukraine and the West.

Meanwhile, Ukraine has been revising or terminating many of its agreements with Russia as it pursues the longer-term aim of severing its links with Moscow. As part of a first step, Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin has said Kiev plans to terminate the agreement on the use of the Sea of Azov.

There is little the United States can realistically do with regard to the Ukrainian navy in the short term, because the force is simply too weak in comparison to its Russian counterpart.

Enter Washington?

As with the conflict in eastern Ukraine, the U.S. position in supporting Ukraine in its military buildup on the Sea of Azov will be critical in managing the growing tensions in the Ukraine conflict. Since the Euromaidan uprising, the United States has increased its security assistance to Ukraine, sending the country lethal weaponry  particularly the anti-tank Javelin missile systems  while also participating in joint military exercises with the Eastern European ally. On the Sea of Azov, the U.S. State Department has denounced Russia's alleged "harassment of international shipping," while the department's spokeswoman, Heather Nauert, accused Russia of attempting to destabilize Ukraine through its interference with ships. Amid such a backdrop, U.S. special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker visited Kiev last week and said that Washington was considering sending more lethal weaponry, although it is not yet clear if such arms would have a direct connection to the Sea of Azov.

Ultimately, however, there is little the United States can realistically do with regard to the Ukrainian navy in the short term, because the force is simply too weak in comparison to its Russian counterpart. Washington, as well as Brussels, could potentially help Kiev in others ways through the provision of financial assistance or port investment to compensate Ukraine for some of its losses. Alternatively, if the United States decides to demonstrate its support for Ukraine in a more physical manner  such as by sending naval vessels to visit the country's Azov ports, for instance  it could upend the nature of the conflict.

Just as the risk of an escalation in the ground conflict in eastern Ukraine is growing, the potential for maritime flare-ups between Kiev and Moscow is rising as both deploy naval forces to the Sea of Azov. As Ukraine chafes at the restrictions Russia has imposed on its shipping, questions over the use of the sea will loom large in the broader standoff between the Kremlin and the West over Ukraine  particularly as Washington mulls whether to enter the conflict more forcefully on Kiev's side.

Read the original text at Stratfor.

Related video:Earlier, it was reported that since the beginning of 2018, 31 civilians died in Donbas conflict zone

More than 350 Kyivans have died since the beginning of the combat actions in Donbas, one woman was among them, as Svitlana Nazarenko, Deputy Head of Social Policy Department, said, 44.ua reports.

Since the beginning of 2014, 351 Kyivans, who participated in the Anti-terrorist operation, have died. One woman was among the deceased, Nazarenko stated.

In total, more than 26,000 participants of the Anti-terrorist operation were registered in Kyiv. Around 1,000 of them are women. Since 2014, $14,2 million was paid to the soldiers and their families. Around $71,4 thousand was allocated for burial of the combatants.

Reportedly, according to the decision of Kyiv City Council, the days when Kyivans, who died is Donbas, are buried, would be declared the days of mourning. The state flags with a mourning ribbon would be slightly lowered on the buildings of local self-governance, public utilities, and other institutions in the sign of grief.

Earlier, Petro Poroshenko stated that 2911 Ukrainian soldiers have died in Donbas since the beginning of combat actions.

In early June, Ukraines Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin stated that since the beginning of combat actions in the east of Ukraine, more than 240 children have died.

Related video:Since Tuesday morning, pro-Kremlin armed gangs landed 24 attacks on the emplacements of the Ukrainian military in Donbas; that included the use of Minsk-banned weaponry. The press service of the Joint Forces Operation HQ reported this on Facebook.

The skirmishes took place in the areas of Stanytsia Luhanska, Krymske, Zolote, Katerynivka, Novoluhanske, Zaitsevo, Pisky, Taramchuk, Hnutove, Vodyane, Lebedynske and Shyrokyne.

The enemy used grenade launchers, heavy machineguns and small arms. On one occasion, 82 mm mines hit the vicinities of Hnutove.

Five Ukrainian servicemen sustained combat injuries in action. The casualties of militants totaled two people dead and six wounded.

Since Wednesday morning, the enemy opened fire near Krymske (Luhansk region), using grenade launchers and small arms. No heavy weaponry use was observed.The Deputy Head of the OSCE SMM thinks that the increase in the number of OSCE SMM observers will not settle the conflict

One of the main reasons for the ongoing violence in Donbas is hidden in politics, as Alexander Hug, Deputy Head of the OSCE SMM, said in the interview for Kommersant.

Its the 14th time (of the school ceasefire, - ed.) when the sides reconfirm their commitment to the Minsk Agreements and announce a ceasefire. This figure speaks for itself. Just think about it: the signatories of the Minsk Agreements have promised to fulfill the obligations taken four years ago 14 times, Hug noted.

According to him, since the beginning of the new ceasefire, the number of the attacks has decreased rapidly, but then it returned to the same level.

As a rule, the relative ceasefire lasts no longer than two-four weeks. One of the reasons of the ongoing violence is that Ukraines Armed Forces and the armed formations (the so-called DPR and LPR, - ed.) are still located too close to each other along with their military equipment. Yet, even these basic items are not fulfilled completely, the Deputy Head of SMM said.

Besides, he thinks that the reason the attacks resumed is related to the political level.

There is also an idea that the main reason may be hidden in politics and not only in Ukraine's. As I have said, I am absolutely convinced that the situation could be taken under the control if there is a political will, Hug suggests.

At the same time, he thinks that the increase in the number of OSCE SMM observers will not settle the conflict.

I am not sure that the increase in the number of the observers will improve the situation in the region. The reaction of the sides in terms of this is more important, Hug stressed.

He noted that there were no days without attacks during the conflict.

The violations of the ceasefire occurred every day. Over the past four years, there were no days without violation of the ceasefire and each shot threatens the innocent civilians, Hug said.

The Deputy Head of OSCE SMM also supported the idea of the negotiations on bringing the peacekeepers in Donbas.

I can only say that I consider the discussion about the peacekeepers useful. It shows that the present efforts taken to settle the conflict are not enough. Besides, the debates on the peacekeepers broght Donbas on the international media headlines, which is also important, he concluded.

Reportedly, Oleksandr Hug resigns from the office of OSCE SMM Deputy Head.

Alexander Hug joined the OSCE SMM in Ukraine in late March 2014.

Related video:Open source

The pro-Russian militants in Donbas carried 24 attacks on September 25, including the use of the 82-mm mortars banned by the Minsk Agreements. In the result of the shelling of Sakhanka village, Donetsk region, two persons were injured. The Joint Center of Control and Coordination (JCCC) claimed this as the Headquarters of the Joint Force Operation reported on Facebook.

"On September 25, the OSCE SMM spotted the shelling of Sakhanka village with the use of AGS-17. As a result of the attack, the married couple (a man and a woman) sustained shrapnel wounds," the message said.

Ukrainian JCCC note that according to the analysis of the open information and Google Maps data, the positions of the armed formations of the Russian Federation are located near Sakhanka; the distance between them and the shelled building is 1,400  1,700 meters. The distance between it and the position of the Armed Forces of Ukraine exceeds 2,500 meters.

"The effective range of AGS-17 according to the tactic and technical characteristics is 1,700 meters. So, the involvement of the particular side in the attack is obvious," the JCCC concluded.

On August 22, the Trilateral Contact Group agreed to begin the school ceasefire in Donbas on August 29.

However, already on the first day of the agreement, the OSCE has fixed more than 70 violations of the ceasefire regime.

Related video:In July, 2014, while carrying out the evacuation of the injured colleagues near Shakhtersk, the husband of the claimant was blown up on a landmine of Russian armed forces

A widow of the died soldier in Donbas appealed to court with a lawsuit against Russian seeking moral damages of $70 thousand in her and her daughters interest, as the press office of Ukraines Judicial authority reports.

The claimant noted that the man was completing the tasks of Ukraines Border Guard Service Administration  he was enhancing the security of the state border in the maneuvering force on the territory on Donetsk region.

In July, 2014, while carrying out the evacuation of the injured colleagues near Shakhtersk, the husband of the claimant was blown up on a landmine of Russian armed forces, the message says.

Her husband and another soldier died as a result, eight more were wounded.

At the same time, Khmelnytsky City Court determined that the husband of the claimant died on duty in Shakhtersk, Donetsk region as a result of Russian armed aggression against Ukraine.

The woman noted that the fact of Russias armed aggression against Ukraine, as a result of which her husband die, is known, so Russia has to be responsible for the military actions when Ukrainians are dying, so this country has to recover the moral damage in her favor, caused by the death of the husband and the father.

The court opened a criminal proceeding on the case.

It should be noted that the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine began in April, 2014. The combat actions are being conducted between the Ukrainian Armed Forces and pro-Russian militants, who control the part of Donetsk and Luhansk regions.Shumkov turned 29 on 19 September, with this his second birthday in Russian imprisonment. While the details remain unclear, Shumkov he appears to have been abducted in late August 2017 from the Kherson oblast and taken by force to Russia

The prosecution in Russias trial of 29-year-old Oleksandr Shumkov has finished presenting its evidence against the young Ukrainian who was abducted to Russia to face charges of involvement on Ukrainian territory in a movement which is legal in Ukraine. As if this were not surreal enough, the prosecution witnesses have proven no more than what Shumkov himself does not deny  that he was, in 2014, a member of the right-wing and nationalist Right Sector, a movement which is legal in Ukraine, but which Russia has constantly demonized.

Like most of Russias political trials of Ukrainians, the case is built out of testimony from secret witnesses, as well as from a person who has a vested interest in saying what the prosecution demands. Even the secret witnesses voices are distorted although the prosecution was unable to provide any real grounds for justifying such secrecy. It is, in fact, Shumkov himself who has on repeated occasions been threatened by prison staff with violent reprisals because of his staunch pro-Ukrainian position.

Shumkov turned 29 on 19 September, with this his second birthday in Russian imprisonment. While the details remain unclear, Shumkov he appears to have been abducted in late August 2017 from the Kherson oblast and taken by force to Russia. He is charged under Article 282.2  2 of Russias criminal code with taking part in Right Sector in Ukraine, with this treaten as involvement in an extremist organization which has been banned by a [Russian] court/ . The report from Russias Investigative Committee makes no mention of the fact that these extremism charges are for actions on another countrys territory which did not violate the latter countrys legislation. .

Darya Kostromina has been following the trial and believes it could end in the next few weeks. At present the defence has been given until 25 September to prepare their evidence. This is a political trial, and neither Shumkovs family nor human rights activists have any illusions about it ending in anything but a conviction. The authoritative Memorial Human Rights Centre has already declared Shumkov a political prisoner, finding cause for concern both with respect to how he came to be in Russian detention and in the charges themselves.

The charges could not be much more absurd since the prosecution is trying to prove what Shumkov has no intention of denying, and, according to Kostromina, Google has provided one of the prosecutions main sources of evidence.

FSB officer Ruslan Kokulov, for example, told the court that Shumkov had told him at the border that he had been a guard to Dmytro Yarosh, in 2014 the head of Right Sector. Kokulov had, accordingly, Googled the combinations Shumkov + Yarosh and Shumkov + Right Sector and, lo and behold, come upon proof. These were photos of Shumkov with Yarosh, and a video of a press conference given by Yarosh in April 2014.

At one of the hearings, Shumkov thanked the prosecutor, Vladimir Minakov, for helping to prove his innocence through such prosecution exhibits. Right Sector was only banned in Russia in November 2014, so even if one ignores the fact that it was and remains legal in Ukraine, any evidence from April 2014 is entirely meaningless. As Shumkov notes, by November 2014, he was serving in the Ukrainian Armed Forces and had no connection with Right Sector.

Two secret witnesses

As mentioned, Russia makes extensive use of such anonymous figures in its political trials, and there is no way of verifying whether the individuals are who they claim to be. In many cases, the defence believes that they are in fact FSB operatives. In theory, the judge carries out a check of the persons identity, however none of the political trials of Ukrainians to date have given any grounds for confidence that the judge would reject suspect witnesses, or allow the defences application for their identity to be revealed.

In fairness, it should be noted that when the defence asked for official documents from Right Sector regarding both Shumkov and a third witness to be added to the case and the prosecution objected, judge Viktor Rukhmanov did agree to include the material. Shumkov had spoken out in support of the defences application, pointing out, quite correctly, that the prosecution expected the testimony of totally anonymous individuals to be believed, while questioning the reliability of formal documents issued by the organization.

The first secret witness, referred to as Ivanov, claimed to be an adviser to a Kharkiv MP from the Party of the Regions (the ruling party under President Viktor Yanukovych), and now the Opposition Bloc in the Verkhovna Rada.

He asserted that he had seen Shumkov at the Chonhar checkpoint on the administrative border with Crimea during the Crimea Blockade, and that Shumkov had been giving instructions to 7-10 people. It transpired that he had not heard these instructions, but claimed to know that this was what Shumkov had been doing because he was told this by an SBU [Ukrainian Security Service] officer who infiltrated Right Sector. How the latter was supposed to have known is not revealed.

The nearest this witnesss account came to evidence was when he claimed that Shumkov had been surrounded by people with Right Sector symbols on their clothes. Although the written testimony claimed that Shumkov had been in military gear with a Right Sector chevron, in court Ivanov said he didnt know whether Shumkov had had such a symbol. This would be the only indicator of anything given that different groups took part in the Crimea Blockade, initiated in September 2015 by Crimean Tatar leaders Mustafa Dzhemilev and Refat Chubarov with human rights demands.

The second secret witness, Petrov, claims that as a Russian citizen, he had joined Right Sector in 2014. His testimony was even more garbled, and confused, especially with respect to whether he had seen Shumkov on a video during the Blockade in military uniform with Right Sector chevrons, or had merely been told that he had been thus dressed.

Deserter facing criminal charges in Ukraine

The prosecutions key witness is a Ukrainian from Kherson called Mykhailo Allanazarov who claims that Shumkov took part in Right Sector protests (around five) in the Kherson oblast right up till 2017.

It is questionable how incriminating such testimony would be even if it had not been clear that Allanazarov is facing criminal charges in Ukraine for trading in weapons and drugs. Under such circumstances, it is likely that he would be loath to annoy the Russian occupation authorities.

Doubts about the witnesses must be secondary to the more fundamental lack of any possible substance to this case altogether. Although there were doubts about some of the actions of Right Sector and other organizations who joined the Civic blockade in the autumn of 2015, the behaviour was not criminal in Ukraine. Shumkov could have been covered in Right Sector insignia and colours and it would still not justify his prosecution in Russia.

Yet the Russian prosecution is based solely on this. Investigators from the Bryansk Oblast Investigative Committee assert that Shumkov took an active part in the activities of the Ukrainian extremist organization Right Sector directed against the interests of the Russian Federation and encroaching upon its territory integrity.

Shumkov is said to have taken part in September 2015 in the blocking of roads, obstructing the supply of food and other vital goods to the Republic of Crimea, as well as in actions aimed at intimidating residents of the Kherson oblast protesting against the Crimea blockade and calling for the reestablishment of economic and political relations with Russia.

The Investigative Committee claims that Shumkovs significant role in Right Sector is indicated by the fact that he was for some time the bodyguard of former Right Sector leader Dmytro Yarosh.

It is asserted that in August 2017 Shumkov was detained by Russian border guards at a border crossing in the Bryansk oblast as he tried to enter Russia, with the FSB [Russian security service] involved in the criminal proceedings.

Even had Shumkov really been trying to cross into Russia, he should have simply been refused entry. He would have needed to be on a wanted list for his detention to be possible, and then only with Ukraines notification.

There is nothing to suggest that he was on any wanted list, and there are serious grounds for believing that he was abducted from close to the Ukrainian-Russian border, on the Ukrainian side.

Shumkov was serving in the Ukrainian Armed Forces. At the time of his disappearance in August 2017, he was working as an investigator for the military prosecutor of the Kherson Garrison. All of this, as well as his former involvement both in Euromaidan and in Right Sector, make it simply inconceivable that he would have tried to enter the Russian Federation, given the number of Ukrainians imprisoned on politically motivated charges. Shumkov was doubtless aware of the trial and huge sentences passed in Russia on Crimean filmmaker Oleg Sentsov and civic activist Oleksandr Kolchenko, despite the lack of any evidence at all of the Right Sector terrorist plot they were accused of.

In his capacity as investigator for the military prosecutor, Shumkov is believed to have set off for a meeting with an informer who was supposed to provide information about supplies of drugs smuggled from the Kremlin-backed republics in Donbas to government-controlled oblasts. The car in which he was driving came under attack near the Russian-Ukrainian border. A taser gun was used against Shumkov, who was taken, unconscious, across the border into Russia.

Memorial HRC has pointed to evident political moves behind Russias persecution of Shumkov. They write that It reflects the essence of the Russian-Ukrainian armed conflict. On the one hand, Russia officially denies any part in the conflict, while on the other it takes an obviously anti-Ukrainian position reflected in propaganda; in the unofficial military support for the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk peoples republics, in the political persecution of people supporting Ukraine and Ukrainian citizens; and in the ban of a number of Ukrainian nationalist organizations around half a year after the beginning of the war.

Oleksandr declared hunger strike on 24 May in solidarity with Oleg Sentsov who has been refusing any food since 14 May. It is next to impossible to concentrate on court hearings after months on hunger strike, and he did at one point suspend the hunger strike. He is believed to be on it now and looks terrible thin and drawn.

Read the original text here.

Related video:It is reported that he has transferred classified data to home computer with installed Kaspersky software

A worker of the U.S. intelligence was sentenced as he transferred the top-secret data to the home computer with Kaspersky software that provided the access to the Russian intelligence as Radio Liberty reported.

68-year-old Nghia Hoang Pho, the veteran of the National Security Agency's (NSA) was sentenced to 66 months in prison on Tuesday, September 25 after he admitted his guilt in the disclosing of the classified data to the Russians.

The prosecution found that the incident took place between 2010 and 2015, when the convict opened the classified data at the home PC and the Russian had got the access to it via Kaspersky software.

It is also noted that this data leak is one of the most horrible incidents for the NSA, which is highly important spy agency.

"As a result of his actions, Pho compromised some of our country's most closely held types of intelligence, and forced NSA to abandon important initiatives to protect itself and its operational capabilities, at great economic and operational cost," U.S. Attorney Robert Hur claimed.

Official representatives of Kaspersky deny any connection with the Russian agencies. However, the software needs the blanket permission of the PC owner to work properly.

It is also stated that as a result of this incident, Russia has got the information on NSA ways of protection against the cyber-attacks.

Earlier Donald Trump, the US President, signed a law that bans the use of the software of the Kaspersky Lab at the governmental system. This step was grounded by the concerns that the Russian software was used by the Russian special services for the espionage.

As we reported, the international organization of the criminal police (Interpol) and Kaspersky Lab signed the agreement on the cooperation in the sphere of the fight against cybercrimes. It is reported that the Russian company agreed to share the information on the cyber-threats.

Related video:Ukraines Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin met with Timo Soini, Finlands Internal Minister, at the 73rd UN General Assembly, as the press office of Ukraines Internal Minister reported.

Pavlo Klimkin thanked his colleague for Finlands ongoing support of Ukraines initiatives within the UN aimed at the counterwork of the Russian aggression, the message says.

In particular, its about the adoption of the UN General Assembly resolution on the territory of Ukraine, the status of implementation of human rights in occupied Crimea, and the inclusion of the new item into the UN General Assembly session agenda  The situation on the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.

The Ministers discussed the ongoing aggression of Russia against Ukraine and violation of the Minsk Agreements and the need to enhance the pressure on the aggressor to release the political prisoners and prevent Moscows further provocations.

The 73rd session of the UN General Assembly is being held in New York. Petro Poroshenko will deliver a speech at the session at 4pm New York time.Sigmar Gabriel, former Foreign Minister of Germany, in his interview stated that at the G7 meeting which took place on April 11, 2017 Rex Tillerson, former Secretary of State of the U.S., claimed that Donald Trump was not interested in Ukraine

At the G7 meeting which took place on April 11, 2017 in Italian Lucca Rex Tillerson, former Secretary of State of the U.S., that Donald Trump was not interested in Ukraine, as Sigmar Gabriel, former Foreign Minister of Germany, said in the interview for Spiegel.

According to Gabriel, then, he was surprised with the statement of the American State Secretary, and told him: You cant be serious. And Tillerson replied: I just wanted to prepare you for how my president thinks. He isn't interested in Ukraine.

It also has a good side, if we Europeans are forced to take our fate into our own hands, Gabriel thinks.

Besides, Gabriel was asked about his positions concerning the gradual cancellation of anti-Russian sanctions together with the deployment of UN forces in Ukraine.

If Russia is willing to pull back heavy weapons and agrees to a blue-helmet mission, then the logical next step would be to dismantle the sanctions, former Foreign Minister of Germany said.

Answering the question about Germanys role in the settlement of the conflict in eastern Ukraine, Gabriel specified that Once Germany takes on the temporary seat in the U.N. Security Council (at the beginning of 2019), it should be our focus to push through a blue-helmet mandate. The proposal for it is already on the table from President Petro Poroshenko and from Putin. They differ on the conditions. Negotiating those conditions, I believe, is the right thing to do.

The meeting of the Foreign Ministries of G7 (U.S., Great Britain, Canada, France, Italy, Germany and Japan) was held on April 11, 2017. In a joint communique, they declared their unity concerning the anti-Russian sanctions till the country fulfils the Minsk Agreements completely. On the same day, Rex Tillerson, the then Secretary of State, before his visit to Moscow, asked his European colleagues from G7 why the American voters should worry about the conflict in Ukraine.

It should be noted that the first Trump-Poroshenko meeting was held after Trumps inauguration on June 20, 2017.

On September 20, Trump has enhanced the sanctions regime against Russia again for Russias aggression in Ukraine, in particular.The note will be distributed as an official document of General Assembly and UN Security Council

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko handed over a note on the decision of Ukraine about non-extension of the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Partnership between Ukraine and Russia to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres. Svyatoslav Tsegolko, Spokesperson of the State Leader claimed this on Twitter.

The President handed over a note on Ukraine's decision not to extend the operation of the Treaty of Friendship with Russia. Our note will be distributed as an official document of General Assembly and UN Security Council, Tsegolko said.

Ukraine-Russia Friendship Treaty of 1998 fixes the principle of strategic partnership, the recognition of the inviolability of existing borders, respect for territorial integrity, and mutual commitment not to use its territory to harm the security of each other. The treaty automatically renews on each 10th anniversary of its signing, unless one party advises the other of its intention to end the treaty.

Related: Ukraine remains reliable partner in joint peacekeeping efforts, - Poroshenko

Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council approved the initiative of President Petro Poroshenko, who offered to discontinue the Treaty on Friendship, Partnership and Cooperation with the Russian Federation for ten years-long period.Ukraine needs UN peacekeepers to be deployed in Donbas, President Petro Poroshenko said during his speech, as he joined the 73rd UN General Assembly session.

The event featured Poroshenko's address to the UN leadership, as his press service reported on Wednesday morning.

'It is evident that the world has not become a safer place in the 21st century. We still witness wars and aggression, even on the European continent. As we speak, the foreign military aggression against Ukraine, in violation of the UN Charter and contrary to the resolutions adopted by the General Assembly and Security Council, rages on,' the Ukrainian leader said.

Watch the video:

He added that by the most careful estimates of the UN, the number of victims in this conflict made about 35,000 people, including 10,000 fatalities and 25,000 wounded. The number of internally displaced people exceeded 1.5 million.

'I am confident, a UN-mandated multinational peacekeeping operation with the only clear goal to restore Ukraines sovereignty and territorial integrity could be a decisive factor in ending sufferings of Ukrainian people. We believe that there is no better way but dispatching such an operation, under the robust UN mandate,' Poroshenko said.Volker has also handed over a symbolic printed copy of the declaration by the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo of non-recognition of Russian annexation of Crimea

President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko had a meeting with US Special Representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker in the framework of the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly, the press service of the President reported.

They discussed the latest developments in Donbas and the prospects for the deployment of a multinational peacekeeping mission under UN auspices on the occupied territories in Donbas.

Particular attention was paid to cooperation in the field of security and defense between Ukraine and USA, as well as interaction on further implementation of reforms in our country.

Kurt Volker also informed the Ukrainian President of increasing the sanctions pressure against the Russian Federation, in particular including 12 more Russian companies into the list of sanctions, according to the press service.

The Special Representative has also handed over a symbolic printed copy of the declaration by the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo dated July 25, 2018, which envisages clear and unequivocal position of the United States regarding the non-recognition of the illegal annexation of the Ukrainian Crimea by the Russian Federation.

"In that declaration, Secretary of State Pompeo said that the United States does not and will not accept Russias annexation of Crimea," Kurt Volker said and solemnly presented a copy of the declaration to the President of Ukraine.

As we reported earlier, Poroshenko said during addressed the delegates with a speech, as he joined the 73rd UN General Assembly session. Among other messages he said that Ukraine needs UN peacekeepers to be deployed in Donbas.Open source

'The United States strongly supports religious freedom, including the freedom of members of groups to govern their religion according to their beliefs and practice their faiths freely without government interference. The United States respects the ability of Ukraines Orthodox religious leaders and followers to pursue autocephaly according to their beliefs. We respect the Ecumenical Patriarch as a voice of religious tolerance and interfaith dialogue', the statement says.

Besides, the U.S. authority once again reiterated that the White House still offers the 'unwavering support for Ukraine and its territorial integrity in the face of Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine and the Russian occupation of Crimea'.There is an unconfirmed information that Russia is intended to reconsider the existing legislative framework on the navigation in Ukrainian maritime areas

Open source

The Russian Federation is intended to reconsider a legislative framework with Ukraine. Adviser of Prime Minister for International Issues Serhiy Popyk claimed this on the air of 112 Ukraine.

Earlier, the Russian MFA claimed that the non-extension of Friendship Treaty provided the impetus for the continuation of the process of cleaning up the entire legislative framework between Russia and Ukraine.

According to the claim of the Russian side, it means that the Russian Federation is intended to review the existing legislative framework between the two countries with the aim of its limitation. I suspect that Russia is not interested in the removal of the regulations and treaties, which regulate those things, Popyk noted.

For instance, we hear about their intention to review the existing legislative framework, which concerns the navigation in our maritime areas. It means that Russians prepare, create the necessary legal preconditions for the escalation of the situation. No more or less, the Adviser of the Prime Minister claimed.

As it was reported earlier, the Ukraine-Russia Friendship Treaty of 1998 fixed the principle of strategic partnership, the recognition of the inviolability of existing borders, respect for territorial integrity and mutual commitment not to use its territory to harm the security of each other. The treaty automatically renews on each 10th anniversary of its signing, unless one party advises the other of its intention to end the treaty. Related: Ukraine to reconsider treaty and legal basis with Russia, - Foreign Minister

Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council approved the initiative of President Petro Poroshenko, who offered to discontinue the Treaty on Friendship, Partnership, and Cooperation with the Russian Federation for ten years-long period.Ukraine's Armed Forces and the Border Guard detachments have conducted a tactical exercise that included a simulated aggression from the sea. The drills involved the use of tank units and other armored vehicles, the press service of Ukraine's State Border Guard reports.

"Crews of the Border Guard's armored cars and tank detachments of Ukraine's Armed Forces that act together within the Joint Forces Operation have improved their skills in the teamwork, while completing the tasks to defend the coastline and to destroy the hostile naval targets and the naval assault groups," the message said.

The drills were held both in the daytime and in the nighttime.

The State Border Guard added that the exercise involved active use of snipers, machinegunners and Humvee armored cars. 'Special attention was paid to tactical medicine, as the troops practiced in administering early medical assistance and evacuating the wounded under attack,' the press office concluded.The question of the gas price will be agreed with the international partners if the agreement is not reached

Open source

Social Policy Minister Andriy Reva supposes that the Cabinet of Ministers might refuse from the advance in gas price since October 1, as he told the journalists in the lobbies of the Government, 112.ua reports.

The gas price will be changed in compliance with the law, with the decision the Government makes, since the date which will be mentioned there. The regulation of a special obligation has been prolonged several times, if the new price for gas is not agreed  it will be agreed with the international partners. As far as I understand, there is a possibility that the validity of this regulation will be prolonged. So, we dont exclude any options here, Reva said.

According to the Minister, the advance in gas prices within the growth of the salary and pension amount will not entail any additional expenses from the 2019 budget for the housing subsidy.

If the increase of gas prices is within the growth of salaries and pensions in 2018, and it is taken into account since October 1, 2018, this ratio of the wage and tariff increase will not entail additional means required by the budget for the program of housing subsidies in 2019, Reva said.

Earlier, Ukraines Government reached a principal agreement during the talks with the IMF on a gradual increase of gas prices to the level of import parity till 2020.During the speech at the 73rd UN General Assembly on the maintenance of peace, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko has claimed the necessity to reform the UN to increase the effectiveness of the peacekeeping activities, as the Presidents Administration reports.

The new quality of the peacekeeping has to comply with the worlds expectations and hopes. The initiative of the UN Secretary-General on the enhancement of the interaction between all the participants involved in the peacekeeping activity is exactly what our Organization needs to provide more of the effectiveness and reliability of this important tool, Poroshenko stated.

The President expressed hope that the Declaration adopted today by many states, including Ukraine, as an active contributor to the peacekeeping process, would enhance the mutual efforts.

I would like to emphasize one of the items of our joint declaration: its very important that the reform would lead to the improvement of the UN capacity to complete the primary tasks, he said.

Besides, Poroshenko has urged the UN to bring the peacekeeping mission to Donbas.The clash over consumers demand for fast food chains to improve the animal welfare requirements that they use when sourcing meat hit new heights last week when the third-largest public pension fund in the US, New York State Common Retirement, penned a letter to McDonalds warning it about potential financial and reputational risks associated with McDonalds chicken welfare practices. New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli signed the letter, which Bloomberg released last week.

We are not surprised by the letter as around the world we are seeing more and more pension funds and big investors concerned about the way meat is produced who are engaging major food companies to manage the environmental, social and ultimately financial risks meat production is causing, Maria Lettini, director of the $8 trillion FAIRR investor network wrote to AgFunderNews.

For example, this letter follows the scandal with Brazils BRF, the worlds largest poultry exporter, earlier this year. BRF shares plummeted by 6% after the European Union banned exports of chicken processed in three of its plants, following an investigation by Brazilian authorities on food safety checks and levels of salmonella.

In the letter, DiNapoli applauds McDonalds for updating its chicken welfare policies in 2017, but notes that they fall short of the best practices imposed by competitors like Burger King, Subway, Sonic, Jack in the Box, and 80 other fast food retailers. During recent years, these restaurants have announced new mandates that require their chicken suppliers to comply with standards from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) or the Global Animal Partnership (GAP) by 2024. McDonalds 2017 policy changes fall short of either standards requirements, says DiNapoli.

NYPF is not the first funding outlet to quantify animal welfare. In April 2016, a group of institutional investors worth $1 trillion and led by Coller Capital joined forces to lobby 10 publicly-traded food companies over the use of antibiotics in their supply chains.

Tyson Ventures, the investment vehicle of the worlds largest poultry company, has made sustainability a central component of its strategy, backing plant-based meat companies like Beyond Foods and Memphis Meats. And two years ago, a 40-strong investor coalition including Swedish state pension funds, put pressure on food companies to diversify their offerings to provide more plant-based options.

Consumers Continued Appetite for Improved Animal Welfare

The growing tide of scrutiny against mega fast food chains is nothing new in recent food news, but the addition of a powerhouse like New York Pension Fund, which holds nearly $350 million of McDonalds stock, shows that fast food vendors may start to feel pressure from other channels as opposed to just consumers. Celebrities, athletes, and other public figures have also used their platforms to help consumers voices be heard, but investors and financial outlets may be able to pressure companies in more direct ways.

Investors are significant because they are the ultimate owners of listed companies. That means they have tremendous influence with companies to make change happen. This is especially the case when investors collaborate together through networks such as FAIRR, says Lettini. I think well also see more, and stronger action because its becoming easier for investors to spot the problems in their portfolio. New tools such as the Coller FAIRR Protein Producer Index are now emerging which provide freely-available information on the sustainability performance of the worlds biggest meat, fish and dairy companies. That is closing a blind spot for investors and catalyzing action.

McDonalds, which feeds an estimated 68 million people or 1% of the worlds population each day, has followed suit when it comes to standards for egg-laying hens, committing to phasing out the use of battery cages, which are small cages allotting each bird less square-footage than a sheet of paper, by 2025. Its also committed to using pork produced without gestation cratesrestrictive cages used to separate sows during their pregnancy to the point of preventing them from being able to turn aroundby 2022. But when it comes to conditions for meat birds, referred to as broilers in the poultry industry, McDonalds has lagged.

The February 2018 Business Benchmark on Farm Animal Welfare (BBFAW) report ranked McDonalds as having a high level of animal welfare compared to 110 other international fast food chains. McDonalds scored higher than other mega restaurants like KFC, Burger King, Subway, and Starbucks on the subject of animal welfare. The aspect that set it apart during the analysis was the companys decision to make animal welfare and addressing consumers concerns a key aspect of its business operations.

In October 2017, it announced eight commitments designed to improve chicken welfare throughout its supply chain, which includes providing housing that allows chickens to engage in natural behaviors and the implementation of on-farm monitoring systems as well as third-party audits. The announcement also called for the creation of an independent Global Chicken Sustainability Advisory Council.

As the letter notes, however, McDonalds does not require its suppliers to comply with GAP standards, which primarily focus on providing chickens with better living conditions like less crowding in confinement houses and access to the outdoors.

There is a business-related benefit to improved animal welfare beyond the ethical aspects, DiNapoli writes in the letter. Consumers are showing an increased demand for improved animal welfare in the ballot box and the drive-through and they are willing to seek out products that meet their animal welfare expectations.

DiNapoli closes his letter by calling on McDonalds to provide a response detailing its efforts to improve its chicken welfare policies so that they meet RSPCA and GAP standards. According to Lettini, this probably wont be the last time we see finance-backed pressure on companies to address animal welfare.

Investors are increasingly recognizing the long-term risks associated with intensive factory farming. Last years, rotten meat scandal sparked consumer outcry, numerous import bans on Brazilian beef and a single-day fall of 11% in the share price of the worlds largest meat processor JBS. The global meat industry is plagued by a complex and opaque supply chain, switching hands and crossing borders multiple times before reaching our plates. With limited traceability, an export ban for poor animal welfare and hygiene can cause tremendous financial losses. So, it is really becoming part of responsible asset management for investors to take action on animal welfare issue.AP Photo

I'll beat you to the punch here, Hal Buell said over the telephone line, our connection between New York City, where Buell is currently based and Albuquerque, where I was, had a touch of static that underscored the classic newsman gravel in Buell's voice. As promised, he got to the punchNews photography is not an art. It's not an art, Buell continued, because photojournalism, when done right, has to be underpinned by a different code of ethics, a journalist is restricted not to telling his or her story, but telling the story. Buell has spent most of his life culling authentic stories from rolls of film. For 40 years he worked at The Associated Press, 25 of which he headed up the photo department. In that time many iconic photos landed on his desk before entering our collective memory, including, for example, Nick Ut's capture of a girl running from her home near Trang Bang after a South Vietnamese plane accidentally dropped napalm on its own troops and civilians in 1972 (sometimes simply called Napalm Girl). This is one of a handful of images that have become epochal and enduringit is also one of the exemplary photos honored with the Pulitizer Prize.

On Thursday, Sept. 27 at 6pm, Buell will share his vast knowledge of photojournalism and its role in shaping our understanding of historyeven as it unfoldsin a free talk at the KiMo Theatre (423 Central Ave. NW) called Shooting the Pulitizer. The event is sponsored by the New Mexico Humanities Council and puts Buell in conversation with Tony and Emmy award-winning writer, director and producer Cyma Rubin. Buell is uniquely positioned to explore the stories of Pulitizer-winning photography and the ways in which photojournalism informs our understanding of vital issues both contemporary and from the past. During his tenure at AP, Buell covered stories from more than 35 countries, and under his lead as editor, AP staff was awarded 12 Pulitzers. He is also the author of numerous books, including Moments: The Pulitzer Prize-Winning Photographs and has served on the jury that selects winning photos for the award.

AP Photo

I think photography can be an art, Buell said, but I'm not interested in photography as an art; I just don't care. What has long-interested Buell, is the story in both its complexity and its authenticity, so much so, that he had it in his mind to become a reporter when he was younger. But, formal coursework in photography and two years as an army photographer set him on a different path. I was not the kind of writer I had dreamed of becoming, that's the best way to put it, he explained. I felt like my inherent talentsas opposed to my learned talentswere for photography and image-making. In the late '50s and early '60s Buell saw an opportunity to carve out a career in that arena as journalistic photography was becoming increasingly emphasized by publications like Life and newspapers across the globe.

AP Photo

The talents of a good photo editor, Buell described as more instinctive than planned, adding, that might get me in trouble,an aside he tagged on to a few of his strong opinions on what he described as the craft as opposed to the art of news photography. You can't be educated formally in visual literacy, you have to pick it up as you go along, he elaborated on the expertise necessary to fill the position. The proper visual isn't always the best visualit's the one that tells the story accurately and directly and simply. That commitment to the storythe story, the accurate one as best as journalism can tell itis inherent as Buell described his career, and it is an idea he returned to often. Being an editor, he summarized, I felt I could do more for telling stories.

Telling these stories through imagery is a difficult job requiring both technical ability, artistic insight, effort and serendipity. Frankly, it is tough, Buell said. It's physical. You have to be there at that time to get the picture. Sometimes it's just a fluke, but most of the time its not. Most times it is a result of preparation and editing, [and when] some photographer intersects the historic moment and a picture comes about that lasts forever. But that process is a selective one, where decisions are made on the flywhere to be, what lens to use, scrutinizing the scene before you, and then you apply the proper technology to capture what's important.

Buell sees a danger when that selectivity becomes personal selectivity and not professional. He pointed to the rise of citizen photography as tenuousthere's no ethical control, he explained. The manipulation of photographs on scales both micro and far-reaching is another issue. He described, for example the way Time magazine tampered with O.J. Simpson's mugshot before running it on the cover in 1994 as an example, it was said to be racist, and it was definitely terrible and prejudicial.

The media'sand consumers of the mediasproblems are even more far-reaching than just that, however. Publications are folding or scaling down. While the internet gobbles up photos at a voracious rate, as Buell put it, they can't pay professionals reasonably. And our world that we've built over the last two centuries has been greatly dependent on a free and healthy media. Increasingly, Buell sees a growing crisis because it seems to me that the ends of the spectrum are becoming more accessible and common than the middle of the spectrum, meaning straight, or balanced journalism is rarer. I think that's really heavy stuff, he said, very heavy stuff.

Buell said that he intends to tell audiences in Albuquerque not just about the nuance of photojournalism, or the beauty that the Pulitizer Prize has honored in the past decades, but the limitations of media, too. In news photography, it is sometimes hard to grasp the context in which an individual picture appears, for example. Moreover, Buell emphasized, that you, the audience, the individuals, bear a responsibility to know who your information providers are. You have to find something balanced and truly informative. If you just listen to and read things that agree with you, you're missing part of the story, part of the context. As ever, the story in fullness, is at the forefront of Buell's mind.

There are two opportunities to connect with Buell in Albuquerque. In addition to the conversation at the KiMo on Sept. 27, Buell will also deliver a talk at UNM's George Pearl Hall on Wednesday, Sept. 26 from 6:30 to 8pm. Full details on both events can be found on the New Mexico Humanities Council's webpage at nmhum.org.Stacey Piotrowska

Georgia's Mariah Parker, AKA Linqua Franqa is a powerhouse. You could describe her work through many channelsshe is a hip-hop artist, a poet, a writer, a linguist (holding a masters, currently working on a PhD) and a legislator as the Athens-Clarke County District 2 County Commissioner (she was sworn in not on the Quran or Bible, but a copy of). Her convictions are powerful, and translate to her work in each and every field.

On Saturday, Sept. 29 she brings her wisdom, energy and words to The Tannex (1417 Fourth Street SW) at 7:45pm supported by a troupe of talented locals ($10). Ahead of that event, she exchanged a few e-mails with us.

Alibi: Have you always been a creative? Do you have any distinct first memories of discovering the joy of creation?

Linqua Franqa: I have written and wanted to be a writer for as long as I can remember. I wrote poems, stories, plays, played journalistyou name it, I was running around writing it or writing about it from the moment I learned to write. It's not a memory of the joy of creation so much as a memory of discovering the power of language and the beginning of my relationship with it. But my mom would take me to Barnes & Noble just to run around and look at the books as a kid, and I vividly recall getting so overwhelmed by the possibilities of language by browsing all the different kinds of information and the infinite ways of presenting itthat I'd become nauseous and dizzy and upset and sit, staring in catatonic wonderment for the whole drive home and sometimes for what felt like hours afterward.

Why did you choose the name Linqua Franqa?

A lingua franca is a language used to communicate across cultural boundaries. English is a lingua franca, thanks to imperialism and the internet. I think hip-hop is a lingua franca, tooand I hope my particular brand of hip-hop [can] be a lingua franca of a different kind, communicating across worlds of music to also reach the indie pop sad kids and white liberal resistance moms and the like. Lingua franca also means frank language or frank tongue in Spanish and Portuguese. Given the ubiquity of the phrase in linguistics, anthropology and various romance languages, I also wanted to adopt the two q's to differentiate myself. I want my music to be a lingua franca, but it's also my music.

Stacey Piotrowska

To this day I think of myself more as a writer than anything else. Put me in the room with [performance series] Apartment Sessions or in the studio with Joel Hatstat and I'm pretty instantly slump-shouldered, profusely apologizing that I can't make a song work, that I can't really sing, that I don't really know what I'm trying to make happen sonically 'cause I'm not really a musician.

How does your study of linguistics inform your music?

I think having studied the stress patterns of Englishthat we preSENT a PRESent, obJECT to OBjects, perMIT a PERmitas well as the combinability of affixeshow to turn horizon into horizontal into horizontalityas well as sociophonetics. For example, that a lot of times black folks collapse the distinction between aye and ah in our pronunciation, which enables us to rhyme rhymin with ramenI think studying all this for me has been like practicing scales and arpeggios on the piano. Once you control the basics, it's crazy what you can do with them.

You were sworn in as commissioner on a copy of The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Are there other texts that have been foundational for your life and work?

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, Aesop Rock's Skelethon, Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, Angela Davis' Are Prisons Obsolete?, A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket.

Do you see your work as commissioner and as an artist as different means to the same end? Or do they function differently in your life?

It's all to the same end. Performance is more transgressivejust purely to poke holes in the system as it iswhile politics is more hegemonic deliberately and thoughtfully and strategically trying to break down that system entirely and put something new and better in its placebut it's all to the same end.

What is your highest aspiration for what someone might walk away from one of your shows experiencing?

The anger you feel about all that constricts yoube it racial or gender microaggression, police violence in the news, your shitty job, your access to healthcarethat anger is power and the world needs you to channel it.Courtesy of Chemi Rosado-Seijo

For many years Puerto Rican artist Chemi Rosado-Seijo has worked in the mountains of Naranjito with the local community on an expansive art project. It has been effectively a collaboration between Rosado-Seijo, the residents of El Cerro and the landscape as the people have transformed their houses by painting them different shades of green and participated in a series of creative workshop that examine relationships to the physical place, as well as themes of belonging and collective identity.

Juan D. Gonzalez is a powerhouse in the field of journalism, also hailing from Puerto Rico. Many of us are familiar with his voice as it streams over the late afternoon airwaves on Democracy Now!, which he co-hosts, or have read thousands of his words during his long tenure as a reporter for the New York Daily News. His investigative pieces have been extremely influential across the nation and have won him a great deal of admiration as well as formal accolades like the George Polk Award.

On Friday, Sept. 28 these two brilliant individuals working in different fieldsyet fields that very much speak to one anotherwill be in conversation thanks to a program hosted by 516 ARTS and supported by the Lannan Foundation. Held in conjunction with 516's exhibition, Puerto Rico: Defying Darkness, Gonzalez and Rosado-Seijo will discuss a variety of topics that are currently shaping the figurative and literal landscape of Puerto Rico. These topics are set to include the continued effects of Hurricane Maria, the debt crisis, a history of colonialism and resilience and unique power of the island's artists and activists.

This event, held at the KiMo Theatre (423 Central Ave. NW) offers up a portion of its proceeds to benefit the UNIDOS Disaster Relief & Recovery Program in Puerto Rico. The conversation, which begins at 7:30pm, will be followed by a reception and a book signing. General admission tickets are $12, and a host of details can be found on 516 ARTS' website, 516arts.org.

This evening offers a unique opportunity to listen in on a conversation between two brilliant minds who are interpreting and shaping our understandings of complex issues, and how these can be explored through many channels. Get your tickets online or at the door.Rob M.

Last week both New Mexico gubernatorial candidates faced off in a televised debate on KRQE. When questioned about recreational cannabis Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham took a huge swig from her water bottle and Rep. Steve Pearce just smirked.

The first question: Have either of you smoked pot? Both answered they hadn't (a little irritably, I might point out).

With that out of the way, Anchor Dean Staley cut to the quick and asked about the legalization of cannabis. Commenting first on medicinal cannabis, Pearce growled, I was suspicious of that for many years. He said some close friends had convinced him, though, and he'd come to terms with it. With clear discomfort, he said, Medical marijuana. Fine. We will do it. There maybe should be more oversight.

He then tried to explain his bizarre reasoning behind denying recreational legalization. I've mentioned it a few times, but it's worth remembering that back in April, Pearce told a crowd of voters that legal cannabis would be one more obstacle in front of people who are struggling to get out of poverty. It was one of the weirdest lines of thought I've encountered.

I was interested to hear his rationalization this time around. The new answer: When I say that we've got to cure povertywhen we've got to cure mental behavior health [sic] and drug addictionopioid addictionall of those kind of merge together. Okay, I'm following you so far, Pearce. I do not see how putting one more obstacle in front of people helps them to get out of poverty and get back on their feet. I really don't.

So there you have it. All cleared up.

Lujan Grisham reiterated her support of legalization. She pointed out that it was an economic boost in all the states where it's been implemented and the benefit New Mexico has with the nine states that have legalized recreational marijuana is that we can learn from their successes and their mistakes. Quite rational.

She pointed out that she helped get medical cannabis approved and chided Pearce for voting against veteran access to medical cannabis. She also criticized Governor Martinez for doing everything she can to minimize access and make it difficult to obtain both a license to produce and get access as a patient.

She struck me as quite passionate about the question, which I like. I noticed she was hardly able to contain her shocked sighs while listening to Pearce's bizarre rhetoric. Her opponent, meanwhile, maintained a super creepy beatific smile and stared directly into the camera while Lujan Grisham promised to sign any bill that protects the medical cannabis programmakes sure that patients don't lose any of their access to the products that they need, deals with workplace intoxication and public safety, deals with underage consumption and prevention and regulates productively edibleswhich can get in the hands of underage usersthen I'm inclined to sign that bill.

Pearce interjected before the next question was asked to say that Colorado is facing problems with lessening performance (whatever that means), more drugged driving (a misleading statistic, since the only current testing method will give a positive result 30 to 120 days after it was last ingested), and younger kids taking it.

He went on to describe a nameless single mother who supposedly moved back to New Mexico from one of the states and said to him, How dare you put an obstacle in front of me trying to raise my family. He sure talks to a lot of people with obstacles in front of them.

Lujan Grisham cut in once more to say that she has identified those very issues and can plan to deal with them better now that we know of the concerns. To minimize that as an economic driver doesn't make any sense. Classy.

Have a Coke and Smile

Last week I was bombarded with links about Coca-Cola hopping on the CBD bandwagon.

Last month Molson Coors Brewing Co. Canada (one of the largest beer producers in the world) partnered with The Hydropothecary Corporation to produce non-alcoholic, cannabis-infused drinks. The new company they created will operate independently from its parents.

And US-based alcohol company Constellation Brands Inc. also made headlines last month for investing in Canadian cannabis producer Canopy Growth Corp. The company dropped $5 billion into Canopy, a number which made the market sit up and pay attention.

So while I normally just chuckle and roll past a headline like Coca-Cola says it's looking at potential cannabis drinks business, this time I decided to pause and consider the ramifications. The brand new cannabis marketplace suffered some trouble recently when the US Customs and Border Protection agency announced it would permanently ban all Canadians working for or investing in cannabis companies if they try to cross the border. The confidence shown by those two alcohol companies in using the cannabis industry as an avenue to new revenue streams implies a different strategy might be employed by the entire alcohol industrywhich has reportedly seen some troubling revenue losses in states where recreational cannabis is legal. That vote of confidence was like a shot in the arm for cannabis stocks. What effect would Coca-Cola have on the market?

According to Bloomberg, the soda pop maker is currently in talks with Canadian-based Aurora Cannabis Inc. Although they refuse to state how serious the discussions are, Coca-Cola representatives did tell reporters that they are closely watching the growth of non-psychoactive CBD as an ingredient in functional wellness beverages around the world.

It's far from a definitive announcement, but it was enough to make Aurora's stocks jump. Me, too.The University of New Mexicos Athletic Department has recently begun featuring a new series titled, Get to know your Lobos, where, throughout the remainder of the off season, golobos.com will be making its way across the men's basketball roster; asking personal questions of each individual player. So far the first installments contain arguably the three most highly-anticipated players for the 2018 season: Dane Kuiper, Anthony Mathis and Vance Jackson. As the first game approaches, players will continued to be featured by the site in order to provide fans an insight to our beloved Lobo athletes' interests and preparation heading into the season. Whether it relays a player's educational focus, a recreational activity or his preference in red or green chile, fans have also been encouraged to join in on the action by sending their direct questions to @UNMlobosMBB on Twitter.Day Tripper

Gallup

El Rancho Hotel & Motel

Gallup is filled with timeless landscapes, vibrant cultures, historic buildings and locations and one-of-a-kind eateriesas well as an Old West railroad stop feel that persists to this day.

Gallup was founded on the backbone of the transcontinental railroad. Rich coal veins in the mountains surrounding the area provided fuel for the iron horses and helped build a town populated by miners and serviced by all means of camp followers. A nearby US Army installation, Fort Wingate, provided security for much of the area and is still a site for ballistics research.

As time passed, immigrant families from Asia, Latin America, Utah and Eastern Europe settled in Gallup, although Native Americans still make almost half of the city's population. And the railroad still forms the center of this far Western outpost; the agriculture and animal husbandry taking place on the nearby Navajo nation contribute to Gallup's economy too.

More than 80 years ago, Gallup was a favorite location for a nascent film industry spreading east from California. In the '40s and '50s, the burg and its spectacular surrounding environs became a favorite location for genre films featuring Hollywood heavyweights like William Holden, Errol Flynn, Lee Remick and Suzzane Pleshetteall of them stayed at the small city's favorite hotel and motel. The joint's rustic ambiance, including a player piano, authentic Navajo rugs, and a stone fireplace in the lobby make for a uniquely interesting headquarters while traveling through or staying a few days to see all that Gallup has to offer. Some of the rooms and suites are named after the bright likes of Ronald Reagan, Kirk Douglas and Katherine Hepburn. A Western saloon-themed loungeThe 49ermovie star memorabilia and exhibitions of paintings by notable Southwestern artists add to the experience. Oh, and they have a sweet swimming pool; imagine Spencer Tracy and Jane Wyman floating around that pristine piscina! Room prices at El Rancho start at about $80 per night through Expedia and Travelocity.

For local eating, it's a toss up: Genaros Cafe, the home of some of the meatiest, mightiest country fried steak and home fries this side of Denver, a place where theyre also always busy plating up the best in Nuevo Mexicano vittleshas a reputation for fresh ingredients, damn hot green chile and a variety that's a hit with visitors from all over the globe.

One of the best things about Gallupdespite the widely held, but mythical belief that the city on the edge of Dinetah is faraway and isolatedis how easy it is to access by a variety of physical linkages. Gallup is on I-40, on what was once called Route 66. Historic Route 66and to a lesser extent, Coal Avenue are the main drags in Gallup and this is also where you'll find authentic representatives of the local cuisine and hangouts. Dinetah, the Navajo Nation, is all around Gallup. The surrounding environment is considered holy to its inhabitants and should be approached with a dignified sort of curiosity and wonder. Traveling north 20 minutes from Gallup leads to the heart of Dinetah and its capital, Window Rock, Ariz.

The natural-landmark named city is an entrance to fascinating and beautiful country and the road west from the capital city to the Grand Canyon is peerless, as it winds through Canyon De Chelly, the Hopi mesas and Tuba City, a Dine desert outpost where heavy metal is king. And Amtrak's storied Southwest Chief still passes through Gallup twice per day, giving visitors from both east and west entrance to a small city that travel writers of yore called The Indian Capital of the World. ( )Day Tripper

Alamogordo

Courtesy Alamogordo CVB

Nestled in the Tularosa Basin, at the top end of Mexico's Chihuahuan Desert, Alamogordo has its most prominent link to our country's military history. It has been the home to Holloman Air Base (and its various historical predecessors) since World War II and serves as the gateway to White Sands Missile Range. This makes it, of course, the birthplace of the atomic bomb. The A-bomb was conceived up in Los Alamos, N.M. But J. Robert Oppenheimer and his colleagues conducted the first explosive test of a plutonium-based weapon (code name Trinity) in the desert north of Alamogordo. The Trinity Test Site is opened to the public just two days a yearthe first Saturday in April and the first Saturday in October. (Go to wsmr. army. mil/ Trinity/ Pages/ Home. aspx for more details on that.)

Walk into any bar or restaurant in Alamogordo and you're likely to be greeted by the logos of various Air Force units that have been stationed in the area over the decades. Since 1996, the German Luftwaffe has maintained a German Air Force Tactical Training Center at Holloman. Unfortunately that contract is coming to an endand the German Air Force hosted its last community Octoberfest celebration in 2017. (Sorry you missed it.) Still, Alamogordo serves as home base to countless retired military folks. And if you head a short distance out US82, you can hit the American Armed Forces Museum. This DIY exhibit spotlights all kinds of military memorabilia. Another local highlight is the rocket-filled New Mexico Museum of Space History, located at the base of the Sacramento Mountains, an essential stop that fully emphasizes the town's link to high-altitude history.

Back in the '90s, the old Sierra Theater in downtown Alamogordo was renovated into the Flickinger Center for Performing Arts. A variety of plays, concerts, musicals, dance recitals and beauty pageants are held there these days, making it the hub of the city's art scene. (Check out flickingercenter.com for a schedule of upcoming events.) Given the city's military history, it's not surprising that Alamogordo is a conservative place. (In 2001 the local Christ Community Church sponsored a public book burning of the Harry Potter series.) Perhaps that's why it's home to The Shroud Exhibit and Museum. This tiny, highly focused institution is described as an interactive exhibit, featuring a full-sized, backlit picture of the Shroud of Turin.

Even if your aren't into militaria, the natural wonders of the Tularosa Basin are abundant. Take a trip to White Sands and you can body-surf down towering sand dunes of glistening white gypsum. (Be sure to bring plenty of water and sun protection. There ain't no water at this beach.) Head in the other direction, drive to the top of the Sacramento Mountains, and you'll find yourself in the cool, pine-covered, ski area environs of Cloudcroft, N.M. Head a little deeper into that forest and you'll find yourself at the Mescalero Apache-maintained Inn of the Mountain Gods Resort & Casino, one of the state's most beautiful Native-owned resorts. ( )Thursday 27

The Good Place (KOAT-7 7pm) Season 3 of ABCs brilliant afterlife comedy shakes things up again by heading to  Earth of all places.

Murphy Brown (KRQE-13 9:29pm) A scant 20 years after going off the air, CBS newsroom comedy returns, original cast intact, for Season 11.

Friday 28

King Lear (Netflix streaming anytime) Netflix gets all kinda high-tone with this version of Shakespeares classic adapted and directed by Richard Eyre (Iris, Notes on a Scandal) and starring the likes of Anthony Hopkins, Emily Watson, Jim Broadbent, Emma Thompson and Christopher Eccleston.

The Cool Kids (KASA-2 7:30pm) A rowdy, opinionated bunch of elderly folks (including David Allan Grier, Martin Mull, Leslie Jordan and Vicki Lawrence) shake up their retirement community in this sitcom created by Charlie Day (star of Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia).

Under the Sea: A Descendants Short Story (Disney 8:40pm) Dont get too excited, Disneys Descendants fans, this live-action short is only 10 minutes long. This time around, the teenage sons and daughters of famed Disney villains are clashing underwater, Little Mermaid-style.

Saturday 29

All Of My Heart: The Wedding (Hallmark 7pm) Its taken three while movies for Jenny and Brian (Lacey Chabert and Brennan Elliott), co-owners of a romantic country bed and breakfast, to get around to falling in love and getting married. This is the most painfully stretched-out rom-com since Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux.

Sunday 30

Halloween Wars (Food 7pm) Halloween is only a month away. You might as well get in the decorating mood by watching teams of talented pumpkin carvers, cake artists and sugar sculptors create elaborate, edible, holiday-themed displays. It should kill any lingering hopes that youll do something cool by the 31st.

Monday 1

Us & Them (Sony Crackle streaming anytime) Alexis Bledel (Gilmore Girls) and Jason Ritter (Parenthood) star in this 2013 remake of the British series Gavin & Stacey, which was commissioned byand then dumped byFOX. After five years of sitting in a vault, Sony dug it up. Enjoy!

The Neighborhood (KRQE-13 7pm) A white dude (Max Greenfield from New Girl) moves in next door to a black guy (Cedric the Entertainer). Oh, just imagine the subtle cultural differences that are going to be highlighted!

Happy Together (KRQE-13 7:30pm) The life of a happily married couple (Damon Wayans Jr. and Amber Stevens West) is turned upside down when the husbands biggest accounting clientthe worlds most popular, Harry Styles-esque pop star (Aussie kid Felix Mallard) unexpectedly moves into their basement. You know. Like ALF.  Is it just me or does this sound more like a Disney Channel sitcom?

Tuesday 2

Trans Am (Discovery 8pm) This new muscle car docuseries centers on brothers Scott and Tod Warmack, who bought the rights to the legendary automotive brand and are trying to revive it in a post-Bandit world.

Wednesday 3

Expedition Unknown: Hunt For the Yeti (Discovery 7pm) I have full confidence thatjust like every other televised hunt for Bigfoot, The Loch Ness Monster, Al Capones vault, ghosts and various buried treasuresthis special will result in conclusive proof of the Yetis existence.Dateline: Maine

A restaurateur's choice to expose lobsters to cannabis smoke before boiling them for service has been decried by PETA. According to The Washington Post, Charlotte Gill, owner of Charlottes Legendary Lobster Pound in Southwest Harbor, wanted to make the preparation of lobsterwhich involves boiling or steaming the crustacean alivemore humane. Gill is also a licensed medical marijuana caregiver with the state of Maine, and has reportedly been experimenting with exposing the animals to cannabis smoke before preparing them. Her first experiment consisted of blowing cannabis smoke into a tank with a solitary lobster named Roscoe before returning him to the tank with the other lobsters. Gill says Roscoe was much less aggressive after the treatment. She plans to offer the stoned lobsters to diners as an option alongside the traditional method. However, she insists the psychoactive substance associated with cannabisTHCwill not remain in the final dish, as high temperatures will cause it to be broken down during the process. But People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) made a statement last week that condemned the entire practice. It is highly unlikely that getting a lobster high would make a lick of difference when it comes to the full-blown agony of being boiled or steamed alive, a representative told the Marijuana Moment.

Dateline: Pennsylvania

A man was arrested for walking his wife with dementia on a dog leash. Penn Live reports Walter W. Wolford, of Maryland, was seen leading his wife around the York Fair attached to an 8-inch red nylon dog leash. A police officer on the scene reported finding Wolford's wife in a confused state. He said she was unable to communicate and had red marks on her throat. Witnesses told police that the marks had been made by Wolford, who repeatedly pulled on the leash. When questioned, Wolford said he never pulled too hard, and only uses it to make sure his wifewho suffers from dementiadoesn't wander away. He said the couple visited the fair last year, and his wife had become lost for 90 minutes. He claimed he had originally attached the leash at her waist, but that it had somehow made its way to her neck. West Manchester Township Police consulted with the York Area Agency on Aging and the district attorney's office on the case and eventually charged Wolford with simple assault.

Dateline: United Kingdom

An online company that facilitates divorces says addiction to Fortnite has been cited in a large number of divorces so far this year. Divorce-Online says it began analyzing data after agents noticed an increase in inquiries mentioning the video game. The company offers clients the ability to undertake their own divorce proceedings in the UK without needing to use lawyers. In a blog post, the company said that since the beginning of the year, it has received at least 200 divorce petitions listing addiction to Fortnite and other online games as one of the reasons for divorce. A spokesperson for Divorce-Online said addictions to drugs or gambling are often cited as reasons for divorce. They said digital addiction is a natural result of technological proliferation. The company says divorce petitions citing Fortnite addiction make up roughly five percent of the total petitions filed so far this year.

Dateline: South Korea

An Uncle Service is offering South Korean parents the chance to hire a large and intimidating man to pose as their child's uncle and scare away bullies. According to allkpop, the Uncle Service offers three different packages. The Uncle Packagewhich costs around $443 a daywill provide clients with a large man in his 30s or 40s who will pose as the student's uncle and will accompany them on their trip to and from school. The uncle will give any bullies bothering the student a stern warning. If clients choose the Evidence Package, an uncle will obtain footage of any bullying with a camera and will bring the evidence to the school. He will then demand the school take care of the problem. This package costs around $354 a day. The Chaperone Package will bring an uncle to the workplace of one of the bully's parents, where the uncle will protest outside the building and shout, A parent of a bully works here. This package costs around $1,772 and will cover 4 visits.

Dateline: Texas

Great-grandmother and Livingston Mayor Judy Cochran shot and killed a large alligator that she believes ate her miniature horse. KPRC in Houston reports Mayor Cochran's miniature horse went missing three years ago. She highly suspected that an alligator was responsible. Worried about the other animals on her property, the mayor wanted to track down the animal and kill it, but was required to receive a hunting permit and tag first. According to Polk County laws, hunters are also only allowed to hunt alligators between Sept. 10 and Sept. 30. After getting the permit and tag, Cochran hired a nuisance trapper to help catch the alligator. After numerous attempts, the trapper was able to catch the animal on a line and called the mayor out to shoot it. After wrapping up her mayoral duties, she went to the site of the alligator's capture and allegedly killed it with one shot. The alligator was reportedly 12 feet long and weighed 580 pounds.PRINT | EMAIL | PERMALINK Newscity Foster Care System Under Fire A lawsuit has been filed against the state's Children, Youth and Families Department and Human Services Department, alleging that New Mexico's foster care system is a failure and needs to provide better treatment to children. According to KOB4, the lawsuit was filed on behalf of 13 foster children and accused the state of removing children from dangerous or abusive living situations only to place them into unstable foster homes. The suit details numerous cases in which children in foster care have allegedly been abused, restrained or drugged by their state-assigned caretakers. The suit also claims that state agencies regularly fail to provide the proper medical, mental and behavioral health screenings and treatment required by children suffering through trauma. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit say they never received treatment while in CYFD custody and have been negatively impacted by the state's failure to provide trauma therapy. A CYFD spokesperson told reporters that the department is continuously working to improve the system overall.

N.M. Unemployment Continues to Drop Statewide unemployment figures have dropped since the year began, but still lag behind national rates. The New Mexico Department of Workforce Solutions reported last week that the number of employed residents was 845,200 in August, an increase of 7,400 over July and 16,000 more than a year ago. The supersector-level industry to see the largest numeric and percentage increase was leisure and hospitality employment. While the improvements show promise, the state's unemployment rate of 4.6 percent is still higher than the national average of 3.9 percent in August. A more detailed analysis of the state's employment figures is slated to be released this week in the Department of Workforce Solution's Labor Market Review. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate in Albuquerque is also dropping. According to the US Bureau of Labor, the rate of unemployed city residents in July was 1.5 percent lower than at the same time last year; the employment rate was 2 percent higher.Sunday morning was the day we were traveling just a bit south to Tillamook. The Cheese Factory Visitor Center had just reopened earlier in the summer so we thought it would be a great time to check it out. We hadn't been to the Cheese Factory since 2003.













Welcome to Tillamook!













Giant blocks of fake cheese!





There was a timeline area right when you walked in that us adults took the time to read. Michael gets tired of those things so he took the kids upstairs to see the action.













Right at the top of the stairs is the cheese tasting area. It wasn't busy at all so we decided to jump in the line. We were super glad we did because later the line was atrocious!

















Don't mind if I do!

















Yummy!













There was this one kind of cheese that I'd never had before....Cape Meares. It was delicious.













From the cheese tasting area you can see down to the gift shop. I tried to find the Cape Meares cheese, but they were all sold out. An employee said I could buy it online. I was able to find it, but it would cost $16 for ground shipping or $26 for air shipping. I love cheese, but I'm not that crazy!













It was so fun walking through the factory and reading about what's going on.













There was this fun area where you got to time yourself to see how fast you could hook up a milking machine to a cows utters. There was also this wall that had all sorts of different cows on it. When you picked up the cow it talked about the breed and their temperaments.













Getting to feed a baby cow!













Having so much with our family!!!

















Of course you cannot go to the Cheese Factory without having ice cream. The funniest thing happened while we were waiting for our ice cream. There was a guy working in the back behind the counter and the song Hello by Adele came on and he was lip-singing it. It was so much fun! I even asked if they had a tip jar because he totally deserved a tip!

















You scream, I scream...everyone screams for ice cream!

















Once we all got our ice cream we went outside to eat since it was really crowded inside. The kids were a bit chilly so we didn't stay out there long.

















I guess Ga-Ga "owed" Ella a present for some reason so Ella picked this cute pink pig at the gift shop.













Dad thought this sign was quite appropriate concerning Mom and him. :)





Right after this we said goodbye to Ga-Ga & Pa. My mom's dad had recently fell and broke his kneecap so they wanted to go out to Wyoming to help in anyway they could. They were out there for 2 weeks. During that time my grandpa was moved from Cody, WY to Casper WY and he got all settled into his new care facility. Unfortunately on the night of September 15th he had a major heart attack and passed away. I'm so thankful that my mom and dad had recently gotten to see him as did my Uncle and Aunt from Minnesota. My parents will be heading out there next month to bury my grandma and grandpa next to each other in their plots in Gillette.













We had actually eaten ice cream before we even had lunch and I knew I just had to have a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup. Michael got two orders of sandwiches and soup and then a pizza for the kids. Oh my this was SO yummy. The best part was they put cheese curds in the tomato soup. Speaking of soup this was the best tomato soup ever....perfect amount of sweetness. My mouth is watering!





After lunch we went over to this other building that had a sign on it saying 'Farm Experience'. I think this was the building they used while the visitor center was being redone. It doesn't really need to be there since it doesn't add much to the experience. After that we got in the van and headed back to the campsite.





Bill and Christina hadn't had lunch so they wanted to roast hot dogs for their kids. This campground didn't have fire pits, but there was a specified area with a pit and they even provided the wood. Nice right! We all hung out there for a bit until it started to sprinkle.













I wanted to play 5 Crowns, but it was just too wet outside so we hung on in the trailer playing.













The next morning we packed up camp and headed home. Michael wanted to drive to Hwy 30 and go home that way so that's what we did. About 6 highways later we were finally at Hwy 30. It was hilarious. We saw interior parts of Oregon that I didn't know existed. We were on these bouncy, curvy roads that just seemed ridiculous. We did get home by 2pm so that was good.



AllAfrica publishes around 700 reports a day from more than 100 news organizations and over 500 other institutions and individuals, representing a diversity of positions on every topic. We publish news and views ranging from vigorous opponents of governments to government publications and spokespersons. Publishers named above each report are responsible for their own content, which AllAfrica does not have the legal right to edit or correct.

Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica. To address comments or complaints, please Contact us.I was born in 1956 in Madison, Tennessee, while my parents were attending Madison College. I grew up along the Front Range in Colorado, attending schools in Longmont, Brighton, Boulder and Loveland, Colorado. Two years after graduating from Campion Academy, I married my sweetheart, Regina. We lived in Loveland, Colorado for six years before moving to Mena in western Arkansas.





I love the people of Mena and the friendly easy going way of life here. I have owned and operated my own business since moving to Mena. I enjoy the natural beauty of western Arkansas and being out of doors.



El presidente @MartinVizcarraC participa en la reunion de alto nivel "Accion por el Mantenimiento de la Paz", actividad que se encuentra enmarcada en la Asamblea General de las Naciones Unidas. #AGNU #ActionForPeacekeeping pic.twitter.com/0U1zOTacRV15:26 | New York (U.S.), Sep. 26.

The cabinet member informed textiles, processed and metal-mechanic goods are among the value-added products.

"This year, Peru's general goal is to reach US$51 billion in total exports," the official told Andina news agency.

Furthermore, the Inca country's shipments to fellow members have increased more than 10% so far in 2018. Yet, this figure is expected to expand between 12% and 14% in the coming years by including small- and medium-sized (SMEs) exporting enterprises.

"In this sense, a digital agenda has been agreed on. It is based on generating e-commerce opportunities for Pacific Alliance countries' SMEs," he expressed.Continuando con sus actividades en Nueva York, el presidente @MartinVizcarraC participo en la sesion informativa de alto nivel del Consejo de Seguridad sobre Armas de Destruccion Masiva en el marco de la Asamblea General de las Naciones Unidas. #AGNU pic.twitter.com/kJJqSjYsvH12:40 | Arequipa (Arequipa region), Sep. 26.









According to Colca Autonomous Authority (Autocolca) Manager David Valdivia, the place welcomed 221,394 tourists in 2018, a higher number over last year (165,179).













The majestic flight of the condor is one of the most eagerly awaited spectacles by visitors to the area.













"Autocolca works on tourism promotion to increase the inflow of visitors to Colca Valley, both on a national and international scale, which has provided satisfactory results statistically speaking and we'll continue along that path," he affirmed.









Valdivia recalled that a number of activities are being organized on the occasion of World Tourism Day on September 27, which will bring in more domestic and foreign travelers.





Finally, he informed more than 30,000 visitors are expected in September, a higher number from the same month last year.

(END) RMC/MAO/RMB/MVB

Colca Valley's tourist inflow grew 20% between January and September 2018 compared to the same period in 2017, thus consolidating its position as the most-visited destination in southern Arequipa region.Published: 9/26/2018Thank you for reading!

Please log in, or sign up for a new account and purchase a subscription to continue reading.Peru ????, Argentina ????, Canada ????, Colombia ????, Chile ????y Paraguay ???? solicitaran investigacion a la Corte Penal Internacional sobre crimenes de lesa humanidad en #Venezuela. pic.twitter.com/TeYTlB6o6aEl presidente @MartinVizcarraC participo en la sesion de alto nivel de Lucha contra la Tuberculosis, con el objetivo de intensificar los esfuerzos para poner fin a esta enfermedad y prestar servicios de prevencion y atencion a todos los afectados. #AGNU pic.twitter.com/usULOkF8AFEl presidente @MartinVizcarraC sostuvo una reunion con el presidente del @EUCouncil, Donald Tusk, en la que abordaron temas referentes a la crisis migratoria de Venezuela, apoyo al Peru para su ingreso a la OCDE, lucha contra las drogas y mejora del TLC con la Union Europea. pic.twitter.com/19ujwkptvIYEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 26, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan attended a workshop, entitled Leaving No One Behind in an Age of Technological Revolution, hosted by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) at the UN headquarters, the PMs office said.

The participants discussed ways and possibilities for exchanging know-how and developing cooperation in the era of technological revolution.



Prime Minister Pashinyan stressed the need to develop and expand cooperation between Armenia and UNDP, consistently enhance partnerships in a bid to rebuild Armenias governance system, promote the reform process and exchange experience. The Premier said his government firmly determined to reorganize Armenias economy with a bias on the development of high technologies.

Our objective is to turn Armenia from agrarian into a highly technological country by means of a technological breakthrough in the economy: this is one of our most important priorities, Nikol Pashinyan said, adding that upon successful completion of the ongoing processes, the Government will implement drastic changes in the economy by boosting the role of newest technologies, improving the governance system and education.

The head of the Armenian government hailed the programs implemented by the UN Development Program in our country and expressed confidence that they will promote sustained development and progress in Armenia. The Premier made a point of tapping the countrys technological potential, realizing the existing opportunities, promoting and propagating innovative technological approaches among young people, enhancing investment opportunities and so on.YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 26, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan today met with African Union Commission Chairman Moussa Faki at the UN headquarters, the PMs office said.

The sides discussed the ongoing preparations for the Yerevan Summit of the International Organization of La Francophonie (OIF).



Nikol Pashinyan assured that Armenia is doing its best in order to hold the Summit at the highest possible level and bid a warm welcome to the high-level delegations of OIF-member nations from the African continent. Moussa Faki expressed conviction that the Summit will help develop multifaceted relationships between Armenia and the African countries.

The parties stressed the importance of the business forum due to be held within the framework of the Summit, which may propel the expansion of business ties.YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 26, ARMENPRESS. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan today met with EU Commissioner for European Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn at the UN headquarters in New York City, the PMs office said.

The parties discussed a broad range of issues related to the furtherance of EU-Armenia relations, expansion of cooperation. They touched upon the steps aimed at implementing the Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement (CEPA).

Nikol Pashinyan pointed out that the Armenian government has embarked upon the path of upward democratic development with a view to enforcing the rule of law, promoting human rights and building a competitive and business-friendly environment. The Premier attached importance to EUs comprehensive support for democratic reforms in Armenia.

Touching on the Yerevan City Council elections, Nikol Pashinyan said that more than 80 percent of the votes cast had gone to My Step Alliance, which means that people have voted for snap parliamentary elections. The Premier noted that the latest elections proved free and transparent, and the defeated political forces congratulated the winning candidate which, according to Nikol Pashinyan, is unprecedented in Armenia and can set a good example of political culture. The head of the Armenian government also said that he was going to negotiate with other political forces the necessity of holding early parliamentary elections in Armenia.



Johannes Hahn noted that the European Union will continue its programs and activities aimed at promoting cooperation with Armenia as part of the programs envisaged under the EU-Armenia Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement in an effort to develop democracy, enforce the rule of law, protect human rights and reform the judiciary. Johannes Hahn stressed that Armenia can expect continued assistance on the part of the European Union in tune with the Governments priorities.

Edited and translated by Stepan KocharyanYEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 26, ARMENPRESS. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has delivered a statement at the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York City.

Below is the official UN transcript of the Armenian PMs speech:

Distinguished President of the General Assembly,

Excellences,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

First of all, I would like to congratulate Her Excellency Maria Fernanda Espinosa Garces upon her election as the President of the 73rd Session of the General Assembly and wish us fruitful deliberations under her able leadership. Ladies and Gentlemen, It is a great honor to address you as a leader, who has recently become the Prime Minister of Armenia as a result of people's revolution, which is now known as the Armenian Velvet revolution. I would like to take a minute to share the story of our victory over the authoritarian rule. The people of Armenia succeeded in unpredicted and unprecedented revolution, without any violence, any victims or public disorder. And it was not a coincidence. Our intention was to make a revolution of love and solidarity. From the very beginning, we declared that we ruled out any violence. We declared that, even if violence was used against us, we would not respond with violence. We declared that our response would be with raised and open hands, smile and love. When we started this political process, there were only dozens of us marching from the second biggest city of Armenia, Gyumri to the capital Yerevan. When we reached Yerevan, and showed our determination and devotion to the principle of non violence, our entire nation rose against the ruling regime, in unity and solidarity. And we won without a single shot and without any victims only through the peaceful demonstrations. We succeeded against all expectations: even well-known experts and think tanks were skeptical about our victory. Against all odds, I was elected Prime Minister. I was elected in a Parliament, where I had only four reliable votes, including my own. Yet it was possible. It happened, because people were firm in their demand and the parliament, elected just a year ago, had no other choice than to follow the people's will. Today, that parliament continues to work, however it does not represent our people's will, as it was not before and during the revolution. Why is it so? The answer is short. Because it was elected through the elections with massive vote buying process and use of administrative resources and oppression. An important test for holding genuinely free and fair and competitive elections was the Yerevan city council election which took place just before my departure to New York.

The fact that all the candidates for the first time since Armenia's independence congratulated the winning candidate, speaks about the establishment of a completely new political culture in Armenia. In the same spirit We are now getting ready for snap parliamentary elections in Armenia. Free, fair and transparent elections will become an irreversible reality in Armenia and will bring strong and vibrant democratic institutions, the functioning system of checks and balances. Protecting our citizens' rights and ensuring freedom of speech, expression and assembly is very high on our government's agenda. From now on, there will be no possibility to manipulate the electoral process and undermine the trust of citizens. I would also like to stress that the current situation in Armenia is not just a change of a government or a ruling party. It is an establishment of a new political and governance system, which we name people's direct rule and people's direct governance. In order to institutionalize this system we intend to guarantee expression of the people's will not only through elections, but also through local and national referenda, to engage our people into the decision-making process. Having been a political prisoner myself, I do understand how significant it is to be able to speak out and decide your own future. Having assumed the responsibility, our team has a clear vision and strong political will to launch fundamental reforms aimed at eradicating corruption, creating transparent, accountable and efficient governance, safeguarding human rights and the rule of law, ensuring independence of judiciary and advancing economic growth through a free and competitive business environment and a favorable atmosphere for investments. Madam President, Despite the radical transformations in the internal political life, our foreign policy agenda does not have U-turns. The continuity of Armenia's foreign policy depicts Armenia as a predictable and reliable partner. Our international commitments are not subject to revision. Our position is clear - Armenia stands ready to have a constructive dialogue and cooperation with all partners. However, we do not intend to develop our relations with one partner at the expense of another. We underline the role of multilateralism on global and regional levels. Armenia's cooperation under the umbrella of the United Nations is both comprehensive and vibrant. Without entering into all the details, let me mention our contribution to the global peace under the auspices of the UN led and UN supported peace operations in an impressive geographical scope that extends from Afghanistan to Lebanon, Kosovo and Mali.

This has a particular importance to our country: while itself facing serious security concerns, it realizes that the security of one country is inseparably linked to that of all others, and that the global peace requires concerted actions. We have a truly global nation with hundreds of communities all around the world. Hence comes the sensitivity of Armenia to the global threats that may put our fellow Armenians at risk in different parts of the world. The sizable Armenian community in Syria faces an existential threat from the ongoing crisis. Armenia has tried to contribute through dispatching humanitarian assistance to most vulnerable regions. We stand ready to enhance Armenia's humanitarian mission aimed at meeting the most pressing needs of our community in Syria. As a nation that has passed through the horrors of Genocide, Armenians have higher security consciousness when it comes to our fellow people and are ready to do their utmost for their protection.

Madam President, The peaceful resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict continues to prevail our foreign policy agenda. The status and security of the Republic of Artsakh is an absolute priority of the Republic of Armenia in the negotiation process. Any attempt to resolve the conflict through military means represents a direct threat to the regional security, democracy and human rights. Armenia will continue its constructive engagement in the peaceful resolution of the conflict within the format of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs, which has the only internationally recognized mandate to deal with the conflict Azerbaijan should change its behavior of disrespect towards the negotiations and abandon the idea of any military solution and implement all the previous agreements. Furthermore, if Azerbaijan is truly committed to the peace process it should start talking to the main subject of this conflict - Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan declares on every occasion that Karabakh should be a part of its territory. At the same time it announces that it will not negotiate with Nagorno Karabakh. The question is how Azerbaijan can make a claim over Nagorno-Karabakh without even speaking to NK? Is that possible? This is possible only if Azerbaijani government wants the territory and not the people. Thus, it becomes obvious that the intention of Azerbaijani leadership is to cleanse Armenians from Karabakh, like they did in Nakhijevan. This entitles Nagorno-Karabakh to make the argument, that to be a part of Azerbaijan for Karabakh means to be totally exterminated. Hence Karabakh must not be a part of Azerbaijan, unless one wants to trigger a new genocide of Armenian people.

Summing up, let me reiterate: the conflict can and should be settled only through mutual compromises by all sides, in an atmosphere conducive to peace and not war. Last but not least; let me also express my satisfaction to the Secretary General of the United Nations for his unwavering support to the efforts and approaches of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairmanship Madam President, The topic of our deliberations "Making the United Nations relevant to all people: Global leadership and shared responsibilities for peaceful, equitable and sustainable societies" demonstrates our consistent approach to the Agenda 2030 and the sustainable development goals. Indeed, the United Nations and its Development Agenda should be relevant and accessible for all. No one should be left behind as we keep repeating in our collective efforts. Earlier in July this year, Armenia presented its first Voluntary National Report on the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals at the High Level Political Forum. This important exercise coincided with the decisive political period determined by vibrant democratic processes and the launch of a wide-range of reforms. Armenia is committed to the creation and development of knowledge-based and innovative platforms that will leverage the impact and accelerate the implementation of the development agenda. In this regard, we recognize the indispensable role of the UN and its specialized agencies as well as the role of the cooperation with other potential partners. As a newly-elected member of the ECOSOC and a candidate for the Human Rights council for the term 2020-22 Armenia will do its utmost to contribute to the realization of Sustainable Development Goals and to protection and promotion of human rights and fundamental freedoms.

Ladies and Gentlemen, 2018 is the year when we will mark the 70th anniversary of two of the most important human rights documents - the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Each of these documents has its own history and each of them has become a cornerstone for the development of international law. They served as a basis for Armenia to start the series of Global Forum Sessions against the Crime of Genocide. This year it will be dedicated to the issues of genocide prevention through education, culture and museums. I encourage you to bring your contribution to the work of the Forum.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Mesdames et Monsieur  Vivre ensemble  est le theme du 17 Sommet de I'Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie qui va se tenir en octobre prochain a Erevan, Capitale armenienne, agee de deux-mille-huit-cents ans. C'est un grand honneur et un privilege pour TArmenie de faire partie de la grande famille francophone, de promouvoir la tolerance et le respect mutuel a travers la cooperation dans le domaine de la culture, de I'education et de I'innovation. Je reitere une nouvelle fois nos invitations au Sommet de la Francophonie avec plusieurs manifestations prevues dans le meme cadre.

Thank you,

Edited and translated by Stepan KocharyanYEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 26, ARMENPRESS. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan had a meeting with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in New York City on the sidelines of the 73rd UNGA, Pashinyans office said.

Pashinyan and Rouhani discussed various agenda issues of the Armenian-Iranian relations. They attached importance to developing economic cooperation and noted that there is great potential to enhance it. The sides agreed that practical steps are necessary to be taken for boosting commercial ties and realizing the existing potential.

PM Nikol Pashinyan emphasized that the Armenian-Iranian relations have unique nature and that the ties must continue developing on the basis of firm friendly ties.

Irans president noted that a high level of trust exists between the two peoples. According to President Rouhani, the Armenian community in Iran has an important role and enjoys great respect among Iranians.

Speaking about economic partnership, President Rouhani expressed conviction that the agreement on creating a free trade zone signed with the Eurasian Economic Union will in turn enable to enhance the Armenian-Iranian economic partnership even more.

Pashinyan and Rouhani addressed issues relating to various fields such as cooperation in energy, road construction and improvement of logistic conditions.

Rouhani invited Pashinyan to visit Iran and expressed conviction that the visit will enable to more comprehensively discuss ways for expanding bilateral cooperation.

Edited and translated by Stepan KocharyanYEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 26, ARMENPRESS. Armenias Minister of Foreign Affairs Zohrab Mnatsakanyan has met with the Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group (Igor Popov of the Russian Federation, Stephane Visconti of France and Andrew Schofer of the United States of America) in New York City on the sidelines of the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly.

During the meeting the Armenian foreign minister once again reiterated Armenias commitment to the exclusively peaceful solution of the Nagorno Karabakh (NK) conflict, the foreign ministry said.

FM Mnatsakanyan stressed the importance of developing an atmosphere contributing to peace, emphasizing the need to refrain from steps aimed at escalation of the situation and aggressive rhetoric.

In this context the Armenian FM drew the Co-Chairs attention on Azerbaijans periodical attempts to escalate the situation both at the border with Armenia and the line of contact with Artsakh, as a result of which two servicemen of the militaries of Armenia and Artsakh have been killed. He noted that civilians have also been targeted by Azerbaijan. The minister stressed that this kind of actions of Azerbaijan pose serious danger to the peaceful process, especially on the eve of an upcoming meeting between himself and his Azerbaijani counterpart, at the mediation of the Co-Chairs.

The sides also exchanged ideas over the upcoming foreign ministerial meeting and other steps which are included in the agenda of the Co-Chairs.

Edited and translated by Stepan KocharyanYEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 26, ARMENPRESS. The peaceful resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict continues to prevail in our foreign policy agenda, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said in his statement at the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York City.

The status and security of the Republic of Artsakh is an absolute priority of the Republic of Armenia in the negotiation process. Any attempt to resolve the conflict through military means represents a direct threat to the regional security, democracy and human rights. Armenia will continue its constructive engagement in the peaceful resolution of the conflict within the format of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs, which has the only internationally recognized mandate to deal with the conflict Azerbaijan should change its behavior of disrespect towards the negotiations and abandon the idea of any military solution and implement all the previous agreements, he said.

The Prime Minister added that if Azerbaijan is truly committed to the peace process it should start negotiating with the main subject of this conflict - Nagorno-Karabakh itself.

Azerbaijan declares on every occasion that Karabakh should be a part of its territory. At the same time it announces that it will not negotiate with Nagorno Karabakh. The question is how Azerbaijan can make a claim over Nagorno-Karabakh without even speaking to NK? Is that possible? This is possible only if Azerbaijani government wants the territory and not the people. Thus, it becomes obvious that the intention of Azerbaijani leadership is to cleanse Armenians from Karabakh, like they did in Nakhijevan. This entitles Nagorno-Karabakh to make the argument, that to be a part of Azerbaijan for Karabakh means to be totally exterminated. Hence Karabakh must not be a part of Azerbaijan, unless one wants to trigger a new genocide of Armenian people. Summing up, let me reiterate: the conflict can and should be settled only through mutual compromises by all sides, in an atmosphere conducive to peace and not war.

The Armenian PM also expressed satisfaction to the Secretary General of the United Nations for his unwavering support to the efforts and approaches of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairmanship.

Edited and translated by Stepan KocharyanYEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 26, ARMENPRESS. Despite the radical transformations in the internal political life, our foreign policy agenda does not have U-turns, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said in his statement delivered at the 73rd General Assembly of the United Nations.

The continuity of Armenia's foreign policy depicts Armenia as a predictable and reliable partner. Our international commitments are not subject to revision. Our position is clear - Armenia stands ready to have a constructive dialogue and cooperation with all partners. However, we do not intend to develop our relations with one partner at the expense of another. We underline the role of multilateralism on global and regional levels, he said.

The PM noted that Armenia is involved in comprehensive and vibrant programs under the umbrella of the United Nations.

Without entering into all the details, let me mention our contribution to the global peace under the auspices of the UN led and UN supported peace operations in an impressive geographical scope that extends from Afghanistan to Lebanon, Kosovo and Mali.

This has a particular importance to our country: while itself facing serious security concerns, it realizes that the security of one country is inseparably linked to that of all others, and that the global peace requires concerted actions. We have a truly global nation with hundreds of communities all around the world. Hence comes the sensitivity of Armenia to the global threats that may put our fellow Armenians at risk in different parts of the world, the PM said.

Pashinyan added that the Syrian-Armenian community faces an existential threat because of the Syrian crisis.

Armenia has tried to contribute through dispatching humanitarian assistance to most vulnerable regions. We stand ready to enhance Armenia's humanitarian mission aimed at meeting the most pressing needs of our community in Syria. As a nation that has passed through the horrors of Genocide, Armenians have higher security consciousness when it comes to our fellow people and are ready to do their utmost for their protection, PM Nikol Pashinyan said.

Edited and translated by Stepan KocharyanYEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 26, ARMENPRESS. Lt. Gen. Levon Yeranosyan, the former commander of Armenias police troops, also known as the Interior Troops, who also served as Deputy Chief of Police of Armenia, has been charged with misconduct, the Special Investigative Service (SIS) told ARMENPRESS.

According to the indictment, Yeranosyan allegedly illegally deployed stun grenades during the 2018 April mass demonstrations in Yerevan. The stun grenades injured more than 40 people, according to the charges. Yeranosyan is suspected in violating the rules of deploying the special measures and lacked qualification for similar orders.

Yeranosyan has been banned from leaving the country.

The SIS said that an investigation is ongoing.

Edited and translated by Stepan KocharyanYEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 26, ARMENPRESS. It could take the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) approximately two years to be granted an observer status at the World Trade Organization (WTO), Chairman of the Board of the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC), the executive body of the EEU, Tigran Sargsyan said in an interview to TASS.

First of all we must get the agreement of our countries, and then we will submit this proposal to the heads of states. After they will give consent, we will address the World Trade Organization. I believe this will take maximum two years, he said.

Sargsyan emphasized that four of the five members of the EEU are full members of the WTO. This means that whenever there is a debate at the WTO on customs tariffs or any issues relating to mutual trade obstacles, these countries cannot undertake such negotiations on their own because this authority is vested in the EEC.

Our countries, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, also invite us to take part in those debates for the EEUs general stance to be presented, because now they cannot make decisions on decrease or increase of tariffs. And because both Kyrgyzstan and Armenia have initially been members of the WTO, and then became participants of the EEU, certain issues arise here which require agreed decisions with all countries. And from this perspective, certainly, our participation in WTO debates will be productive and useful for all, Sargsyan said.

Edited and translated by Stepan KocharyanYEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 26, ARMENPRESS. A meeting of Armenian and Azerbaijan leaders shouldnt be an end in itself, but it should have content, Armenian foreign ministry spokesperson Tigran Balayan said at a news conference today. At the same time he stressed that Armenia doesnt put forward any preconditions for the meeting. Balayan emphasized that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has numerously stated his willingness to meet with the Azerbaijani President and negotiate on behalf of Armenia. But this meeting must have content. And we expect this meeting to bring results also in terms of implementing the previous agreements. In the event of a content, agreements about the principals of the [conflict] settlement should be reached. We have a decades-old bitter experience how were reaching agreements and then Azerbaijan was refusing [the agreements]. Now, indeed, Pashinyan has stressed that all agreements that were reached should be implemented. This is about the agreements which were reached during the summits that took place after the [2016] April aggression, Balayan said.

He specified that this particularly concerns the introduction of an investigative mechanism for incidents and the expansion of capacities and staff of the office of the OSCE Personal Representative of the Chairperson in Office. Weve had numerous occasions to say, and now unfortunately we must note that Azerbaijan is hampering the implementations of these agreements. Azerbaijan is hampering the implementation since 2016 to this day. During debates at the OSCE financial committee, which must make a decision on increasing the funding for the office of the OSCE Personal Representative of the Chairperson in Office, Azerbaijan is the only country to hamper this decision from being made. I am speaking about these agreements, and yes, we believe that it is necessary to create the kind of conditions which will create favorable conditions for advancing the peaceful settlement process of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, Balayan said.

Edited and translated by Stepan KocharyanYEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 26, ARMENPRESS. Armenias new permanent representative to the CIS Permanent Mission to the Treaty and other bodies Armen Ghevondyan has presented his credentials on September 24 to Sergey Lebedev, the CIS Executive Secretary and chairman of the CIS executive committee.

During a meeting afterwards, Lebedev highly appreciated Armenias constructive involvement in the CIS and praised the level of cooperation.

Ghevondyan comprehensively presented the domestic political developments in Armenia and the foreign policy priorities of the Armenian government. Ghevondyan reiterated Armenias commitment to continue active participation within CIS frameworks, including the cooperation in political, economic, humanitarian and other fields.

Edited and translated by Stepan KocharyanYEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 26, ARMENPRESS. The Assembly of Armenians of Europe has addressed the international community, the Council of Europe, the European Parliament and EU agencies with a request to support the new government of Armenia.

On behalf of the Assembly of Armenians of Europe and the general forum held in the German town of Cologne on the 2nd of September, we appeal to the Council of Europe, the European Parliament and EU agencies with a request to support and assist the new people's Government of the Republic of Armenia to ensure final victory of the solidarity and love revolution.

As you may know, an unprecedented, unique, velvet, and peaceful revolution with no single drop of blood took place in the Republic of Armenia this May, and the newly "born" government unconditionally supported by the whole nation both in Armenia and in Diaspora is currently vigorously fighting corruption and all types of injustice. Today human rights and fundamental freedoms are the core values of the new and young Government and the people of Armenia. The absolute majority of Armenians living in Europe support the democratic policy adopted by the new Government to ensure ongoing and smooth growth and development. Therefore, we wish the European Union, loyal to its universal value system, would show broad-based support to the Republic of Armenia to the benefit of justice, freedom, as well as development of bilateral relations and strengthened cooperation.

The EU-Armenia Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement was concluded this March and now, following the Velvet revolution, this partnership, as a matter of course, should be carried into effect with new magnitude and depth. Today Armenia needs broad support and economic investments from the EU to ensure all-compassing development: there are all preconditions to develop education, culture and science - it is only a matter of realizing this potential with EU support. Armenia has always sought to live in harmony and peace with all its neighbours; however, the autocratic and anti-democratic authorities of Turkey and Azerbaijan, hand in hand, explicitly and implicitly, implement a policy of annihilating the Armenians in both Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. We expect the leaders and authorities of the European Union to demonstrate impartial and broad-based support and fair policy in this exceptionally new and bright period of history for Armenia and the Armenian people.

The Assembly of Armenians of Europe and the participants of the general forum, who represent the approaches and opinions of the majority of Armenians living in Europe on the above-mentioned issues, makes this appeal to the EU agencies and the international community and urges not to leave the Republic of Armenia alone in this democratic struggle, the Assembly of Armenians of Europe said in the appeal.YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 26, ARMENPRESS. Lead by the CEO Mr. Armen Avak Avakian, the Business Armenia team was on an outreach mission to Lebanon on September 22-26, 2018, Business Armenia said in a press release.

Within the framework of the visit, agreements on investments have been made. This is the third outreach mission to Lebanon. Business Armenia team has transferred the previous agreements to a new level of implementation as well as made new connections. The team has met a number of Lebanese businessmen and leaders of the partner organizations.

"With every business mission, we renew the old connections. We bring the previous agreements to a practical phase of implementation and attract new investments stated the CEO of Business Armenia Mr. Armen Avak Avakian. During the meeting with Business Armenia, the Chairman and CEO of Chedid Capital Holding Mr. Farid Chedid stated his plans on opening an Armenian branch of the insurance company. Chedid Capital Holding has branches in 5 different countries in the world. Within the scope of the business visit to Lebanon, the CEO of Makytech SARL Mr. Karo Mateos Matossian has expressed his interest in investing up to $ 250,000 in the production of plastic molding and industrial machine components in Armenia. MAC Agrochemicals company is considering to open a branch in Armenia. The company produces fertilizers and pesticides. A number of businessmen will visit Armenia to study the potential of starting new projects right on spot. "With the support of the official representative of Business Armenia Mr. Haroutioun Koundakjian, the Armenian Embassy in Lebanon and the Ambassador Mr. Samvel Mkrtchyan our delegation has visited several factories, met the business communities as a result of which we launched the Armenian-Lebanese new cooperation stated the International cooperation manager of Business Armenia, Ms. Alina Yeghiazaryan.YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 26, ARMENPRESS. The 16-year-old Turkish boy who was arrested by Armenian authorities for illegally crossing the Armenian-Turkish border has been released, foreign ministry spokesperson Tigran Balayan told ARMENPRESS.

We had announced this yesterday also, and I confirmed at todays briefing that the father had arrived to take the boy, he said.

Earlier the foreign ministry had said that the criminal case against Umur Ali Uzmen, 16, was dropped on humanitarian grounds. The foreign ministry had notified Turkey about the development through diplomatic channels. Umut Ali Ozmens return to Turkey will be arranged upon receiving a respective reaction, the ministry had said.

Specific details werent immediately clear.

Edited and translated by Stepan KocharyanArmenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan yesterday met with EU Commissioner for European Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn at the UN headquarters in New York and the two discussed the prospects for expanding EU-Armenia relations.

The parties, according to an Armenian government press release, touched upon the steps aimed at implementing the Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement (CEPA).

Nikol Pashinyan pointed out that the Armenian government has embarked upon a path of democratic development seeking to enforce the rule of law, promoting human rights, and building a competitive and business-friendly environment. Pashinyan stressed the importance of EU support for democratic reforms in Armenia.

Touching on the Yerevan Municipal Council election, Pashinyan said that more than 80% of the votes cast had gone to My Step Alliance, which means that people have voted for snap parliamentary elections.

Pashinyan said that he was going to negotiate with other political forces the necessity of holding early parliamentary elections in Armenia.

Johannes Hahn noted that the European Union will continue its programs and activities aimed at promoting cooperation with Armenia as part of the programs envisaged under the EU-Armenia Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement in an effort to develop democracy, enforce the rule of law, protect human rights and reform the judiciary.

Johannes Hahn stressed that Armenia can expect continued assistance on the part of the European Union in tune with the Governments priorities.YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 26, ARMENPRESS. President of Russia Vladimir Putin will soon arrive to Armenia on an official visit, Armenian foreign ministry spokesperson Tigran Balayan told a news conference today.

Discussions about the Russian presidents visit continue, the date is not specified. I can only say that both the Russian side and we have confirmed that this visit is planned soon, he said, adding that it will be an official visit.

Edited and translated by Stepan KocharyanYEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 26, ARMENPRESS. The 4th session of the Joint Council of Rescue Agencies of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia took place September 25 in St. Petersburg, Russia.

The Armenian delegation of the ministry of emergency situations, led by Minister Hrachya Rostomyan, took part in the session.

Issues related to developing partnership between participating countries, exchange of experience and increasing security jointly were discussed. The scientific-technical session was followed by the 6th joint session of the Board of the ministries of emergency situations of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia. Armenia took part in the session as an observer.

Within the framework of the working visit to Russia, the Armenian minister also held a meeting with Russian counterpart Yevgeny Zinichev.

Zinichev thanked the Armenian delegation for participating in the session as an observer and noted that the Russian ministry of emergency situations highly values enhancement of bilateral cooperation.

For more effective cooperation a reliable mechanism has been created, which functions 24/7, I am referring to the Russian-Armenian humanitarian response center, the Russian minister said, expressing hope that joint efforts will contribute to the centers development.

Edited and translated by Stepan KocharyanYEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 26, ARMENPRESS. On the sidelines of the 2018 UN General Assembly (UNGA), the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative (AHI), RefugePoint and the Womens Refugee Commission partnered to host a forum titled, Better Lives Now: Leveraging Refugees Talents to launch the Refugee Self-Reliance Initiative, a joint effort by a coalition of organisations, government agencies, foundations, research institutes and other partners focused on promoting opportunities for refugees to become self-reliant. The Refugee Self-Reliance Initiative announced its aim to reach five million refugees, in five years, with a specific focus on self-reliance. The organisation will also create and validate a new measurement tool - the Self Reliance Index - to raise awareness about and to chart progress of refugees towards self-reliance. Noubar Afeyan, Founder and CEO, Flagship Pioneering; Co-Founder, Aurora Humanitarian Initiative said: We strongly believe in the great potential of refugees to positively transform the world  especially those who experience horrors and violence. I know because our Armenian ancestors did it. We are pleased to be part of The Self Reliance Initiative as it is a powerful humanitarian initiative that will raise awareness about refugees as a most invaluable resource in addressing the issues facing them globally. According to the UNHCR, the average length of refugee displacement is 20 years, with 80% of refugees hosted in developing countries. This event highlighted the steps that can be taken by the private sector, host and donor governments, refugee self-help groups and aid community to help refugees participate economically and socially in their host countries to live better lives. Vartan Gregorian, President, Carnegie Corporation New York; Co-Founder, Aurora Humanitarian Initiative said: We are pleased to support the Self-Reliance Initiative because it aligns closely with the goals and objectives of the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative, a commitment to our shared humanity and to provide support and hope to those in urgent need of basic humanitarian aid in the world. Its important to raise awareness of thoughtful, innovative global solutions about the needs of refugees to ensure we all find ways to help. Sasha Chanoff, Founder and Executive Director, RefugePoint said: The world needs new solutions for refugees at this time of unprecedented crisis with more than 25 million displaced for an average of 20 years. With innovative programming and measures for success, The Refugee Self Reliance Initiative aims to reach five million refugees in five years, putting them on a path to self-reliance and making concrete the aspirations of The Global Compact on Refugees. Sarah Costa, Executive Director, Womens Refugee Commission said: Promoting self-reliance for refugees and displaced populations matters now more than ever. It is what refugees want. It is the part of the change the humanitarian system needs. The Better Lives Now launch event intended to build on and respond to the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR), which will be considered for adoption by member states during the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly and includes enhancing self-reliance for refugees as an objective.YEREVAN, 26 SEPTEMBER, ARMENPRESS. The Central Bank of Armenia informs Armenpress that today, 26 September, USD exchange rate stood at 481.66 drams. EUR exchange rate down by 0.04 drams to 566.58 drams. Russian Ruble exchange rate stood at 7.32 drams. GBP exchange rate up by 0.29 drams to 633.82 drams.

The Central Bank has set the following prices for precious metals.

Gold price down by 13.16 drams to 18612.3 drams. Silver price down by 0.39 drams to 221.29 drams. Platinum price down by 46.45 drams to 12806.7 drams.

She may have met her prince husband in a bar, but Princess Mary proved beer isnt her choice of drink when she struggled to open a can yesterday.

The 46-year-old Crown Princess of Denmark is in New York to attend UN Week, and while she was there, she decided to crack into the popular Danish drink, Carlsberg.

However, when it came down to the moment the Tassie-born star went to open the can, she just couldnt seem to do it and pulled a funny face in front of photographers.

Princess Mary was seen struggling to open a can of Carlsberg at a UN event yesterday. Photo: AAP

She eventually managed to snap it open and toasted, while everyone laughed along.

Princess Mary is a known supporter of being sustainable and told Vogue in 2016 that it will require a continuous effort and patience, and strong and authentic leadership: it takes time to create real and sustainable change.

It will require a continuous effort and patience, and strong and authentic leadership: it takes time to create real and sustainable change.

The mum-of-four is also the patron of Copenhagens annual Fashion Summit, which is one of the biggest sustainable fashion events in the world.

Later, Mary was seen sitting beside Melania Trump at the UN General Assembly, looking thoroughly unimpressed. Photo: AAP

During the 2018 event, Princess Mary was seen wearing a stunning blue and white skirt made from recycled bottles and a green dress from H&Ms Conscious Collection, which is made using recycled materials.

Later on, Mary was seen sitting alongside Melania Trump during Donald Trumps speech at the UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday.

In the pictures, Mary could be seen folding her arms, closing her eyes and playing with her hair, seemingly uncomfortable at the experience.



Got a story tip? Send it to tips@yahoo7.com.au

Want more celebrity, entertainment and lifestyle news? Follow Be on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr and Instagram.Retirees could lose the equivalent of 9 per cent in super savings under proposed Labor reforms.

Also read: How much do you need to retire?

The Labor Partys proposal to cut cash refunds paid to retirees would effectively reduce the spending power of retirees by as much as 6 per cent over the course of their retirement, according to a report by the Australian National University.

Its a pretty hot button issue amongst retirees at the moment, researcher and associate professor Geoff Warren said.

Currently, investors who pay no income tax, like retirees, receive cash refunds instead of tax credits on their investments. This is to avoid the double payment of tax, first by the corporation and then by the individual investor.

Noting this, Warren said, By buying Australian shares that are fully franked people actually end up with a real kicker to their investment return.

Also read: Where do Australias richest retirees live?

However, under the Labor policy the payment of cash refunds would be abolished.

According to the ANU researchers, associate professors Warren and Adam Butt, and Dr Gaurav Khemka, this will trigger an income loss equivalent to a 9 per cent reduction in superannuation savings.

Its a pretty large number, so threatening to take it away is quite significant for some, Warren said.

However, the value to retirees comes at a cost to the Australian economy.

Announcing the policy in March, Labor leader, Bill Shorten and Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen said limiting cash refunds would free up $10.7 billion over the federal budgets forward estimates.

Introduced under Prime Minister Paul Keating, Australias franking credit regime was amended by the Howard government to allow individuals and super funds to receive a cash refund rather than a tax credit, in instances where they werent paying tax.

Bowen claimed some self-funded retirees were receiving refunds of more than $2.5 million a year.

Noting the history of the policy, the researchers described the reversal as a threatening development.

Story continues

Also read: Another blow for the Aussie property market

They also noted that as it stands, a retiree with $100,000 at retirement will receive on average $30,000 in cash refunds over the course of their retirement, and a retiree with $500,000 will receive around $80,000.

While this may seem relatively expensive, it also offers social benefits, the researchers emphasised.

First, it either raises potential consumption during retirement at a given balance, or alternatively

reduces the amount needed to be placed into superannuation during the working phase thus increasing potential consumption prior to retirement.

Speaking at a media briefing this week, fund manager Stephen Hiscock from SG Hiscock said SMSFs in particular will be significantly concerned by Labors policy.

Also read: This is how long it takes for big banks to pay you back after a breach

While full and part-pensioners are exempt from the touted reform, self-funded retirees who dont claim the pension wont be.

If they remove it [the policy], its going to be very difficult for retirees to generate the same income, SG Hiscock portfolio manager, Hamish Tadgell added.Teslas massive lithium ion grid battery in South Australia made its French owner Neoen up to $US17 million ($AU23.4 million) revenue in just six months, according to a report in Electrek magazine.

The numbers are revealed in a prospectus Neoen recently filed ahead of an initial public offering and listing on the Paris stock exchange.

Neoens Hornsdale Power Reserve  which sits 220km north of Adelaide and can power up to 30,000 homes  is the worlds biggest lithium-ion battery.

In its prospectus, Neoen revealed Hornsdale cost 56 million euros (about $91 million) and had made about 14.8 million euros in its first six months.

The cost of operation are not made clear in the filings, but we would assume that they are fairly low, which would make the return on investment extraordinary quick for the massive project, Electrek reported.

If accurate, the favourable economics represent a huge boost to the stationary storage market and for battery metals stocks covering lithium, cobalt, graphite, nickel and vanadium.

Stationary storage systems are big batteries often designed to store excess power from the power grid  including from renewable sources  for use during expensive peak demand periods.

Speaking at this months Benchmark Minerals Intelligence World Tour, Cairn Energy Research Advisors managing director Sam Jaffe said that about 87Gwh of batteries will be sold for stationary storage by 2027  in 2010, that number was zero.

Half this will be lithium-ion and 25 per cent vanadium flow, or VFRB.

The price has come down for these cells so dramatically over the last eight years that it is now affordable to use batteries for grid storage, Mr Jaffe said.

Mr Jaffe said Hornsdale was the worlds largest storage facility  but within two years its probably going to be 20th or 30th on the list, in terms of what is being built today.

Teslas Elon Musk also said at a shareholder meeting earlier this year that the rate of stationary storage is going to grow exponentially.

Story continues

And Wood Mackenzie have stated that batteries overtaking peaker [plants] may be a common occurrence in the US in as little as four years.

Peaker plants  usually gas powered  run only when there is a high demand. Because they supply power only occasionally, the power supplied commands a much higher price per kilowatt hour than base load power.

But holding a slightly less bullish view was energy analyst Dylan McConnell from the University of Melbourne, who told Stockhead that while Hornsdale has performed crucial services  at impressive speeds  battery costs still needed to fall to compete without subsidies.

He said a number of other upcoming stationary storage installations  such as the 25MW/50MWh Tesla battery at the 60MW Gannawarra solar farm, and the 30MW/30 MWh Ballarat terminal station battery in Victoria  still needed subsidies, just like Hornsdale.

In the short to medium term batteries becoming economic and replacing larger peakers partially depends on what happens with battery costs, Mr McConnell said.

People keep saying that battery costs are coming down, but battery prices are pretty much where they were two years ago  the cost reductions that we have been promised have yet to be realised, he said.

South Australian minister for energy Dan van Holst Pellekaan, and Neoen were both contacted by Stockhead for comment.

This article first appeared at Stockhead, Australia's leading news source for emerging ASX-listed companies. Read the original here. Follow Stockhead on Facebook or Twitter.A Danish court is due to rule on Wednesday on an appeal against a life sentence by Peter Madsen, convicted of the 2017 murder of a Swedish journalist aboard his homemade submarine. The Copenhagen appeals court is to announce its verdict toward the end of the day, after the defence and prosecution present final arguments. The verdict had been expected on September 14 but the court had to postpone it after a lay judge collapsed in the courtroom. "From my own experience I would say that the majority of appeal cases don't result in a shorter sentence," Danish criminal lawyer Mette Grith Stage told AFP. Madsen, 47, appealed his life sentence but not the guilty verdict handed down by the Copenhagen district court on April 25 for the murder of 30-year-old Swedish journalist Kim Wall. He has argued her death was an accident but admitted chopping up her corpse and throwing her body parts into the sea in August 2017. He has asked the court to give him a lighter sentence, arguing that life behind bars was "disproportionate". Life sentences are rarely handed down for a single killing in Denmark. In the past 10 years, only three people have received such sentences. A life sentence in Denmark averages around 16 years. Currently, 25 inmates in Denmark are serving life behind bars. The prosecution has meanwhile insisted that Madsen's life sentence was justified, given the grisly nature of the murder and his meticulous planning. - 'Danger to others' - Grith Stage said she believed the court could hand Madsen an alternative sentence known as preventive detention, where an inmate can be held behind bars as long as he is considered a danger to society, on average around 15 years. "According to Danish jurisprudence... you don't get life 'just' for one murder. Normally it would take two (murders), or at least one murder and one attempt," Grith Stage said. On August 10, 2017, Wall, an award-winning reporter, boarded the submarine with Madsen, an eccentric and self-taught engineer and a minor celebrity in Denmark, to interview him for an article she was writing. Wall's boyfriend reported her missing when she failed to return home that night. Her dismembered body parts were later found on the seabed, weighted down in plastic bags. Madsen changed his version of events several times, but ultimately told the lower court that Wall died when the air pressure suddenly dropped and toxic fumes filled his vessel while he was up on deck. An autopsy report concluded that she probably died as a result of suffocation or having her throat slit, but the decomposed state of her body meant examiners could not determine an exact cause of death. Fourteen stab wounds and piercings were also found in and around her genital area. Psychiatric experts who evaluated Madsen -- who described himself to friends as "a psychopath, but a loving one" -- found him to be "a pathological liar" who poses "a danger to others" and who was likely to be a repeat offender. A person believed to be Swedish journalist Kim Wall stands next to a man in the conning tower of the submarine "UC3 Nautilus" made by Peter Madsen who was convicted of her murder. Peter Madsen in a court drawing by Anne Gyrite Schutt made available by Danish news agency Ritzau SCANPIXIlluminated under a spotlight at London's British Museum, hand-drawn sketches of Hong Kong's 2014 Umbrella Movement are part of a new exhibition on dissent that offers a rare glimpse of the artworks produced during the pro-democracy rallies. The months-long demonstrations, which kicked off on September 28 four years ago, brought parts of the city to a standstill as protest camps took over areas normally clogged with traffic and commercial hustle. Images of some of the thousands of posters, banners, drawings, sculptures, shrines and caricatures that adorned walls, bridges and roads in the tent-filled camps have been gathered online and in library archives. But the original works have largely fallen out of view. With Beijing tightening its grip on the semi-autonomous city and fears that freedom of speech is being curtailed through moves such as a ban on a pro-independence party and the prosecution of Umbrella Movement leaders, some feel it is safer to send the art abroad. Fong So was one of dozens of local artists who sketched the protests and his works are on display as part of the British Museum's "I Object" exhibition. He has given his entire collection of more than 100 Umbrella Movement sketches to the museum. A yellow umbrella, symbolic of the protest, printed with the lyrics of John Lennon's "Imagine", is also on display at the current show from an anonymous donor. The movement earned its name after protesters used umbrellas to defend against police tear gas on September 28. "I consider the collection of sketches a documentation of a piece of contemporary history. So, it's good to see it enter a museum", Fong told AFP. He describes the political situation in Hong Kong as "more and more suffocating" and says he plans to send away other politically sensitive works. Alvin Wong, founder of Hong Kong's Urban Sketchers group, brought together hundreds of sketches by 31 artists in a book entitled "Sketches under the Umbrella", published in 2015. "All these sketches belong to Hong Kong people. We shouldn't keep them in our own sketchbooks. We have to tell everybody what we saw," Wong told AFP. He has sent copies to libraries around the world, mainly in the United States, and says only a few bookstores in Hong Kong would stock it. Politically sensitive titles have been steadily removed from many city bookshops, particularly since the disappearance in 2015 of five booksellers -- known for publishing gossipy accounts of China's political leaders -- who resurfaced in custody on the mainland. - In storage - Although Umbrella art and memorabilia were part of local exhibitions soon after the movement, the largest trove is now in storage at the Chinese University of Hong Kong's (CUHK) library, where the public can only view it as a digital catalogue. The majority of works were donated by artists and activists who rescued them from the protest camps to create the Umbrella Movement Visual Archive. The library collection ranges from scrawled slogans on placards to bags, jewellery, kites and sculptures, reflecting the fact that the public, not just accomplished artists, created the ad hoc landscape that became a hallmark of the movement. But the whereabouts of some major pieces, including the famous 12-foot-high (3.6-metre) wooden "Umbrella Man" statue, remain a mystery. Artist Sampson Wong, co-founder of the visual archive group, said they handed over the collection because they lacked the funds and manpower to preserve it. The library is a "reliable institution", Wong told AFP, adding: "It preserves a part of the movement that in some years could be overlooked." With the democracy camp still on the back foot after the protests failed to win political reform, there is little appetite among activists to mount a public exhibition of the works. And with concerns over the erosion of freedoms, some who created or collected pieces may prefer to keep them to themselves, says Clarisse Yeung, co-founder of the visual archive, and now a district councillor. Online photo collections like the wide-ranging Umbrella Movement Art Preservation Facebook page, put together by Hong Kong artist Kacey Wong, also provide a shareable digital resource. But some feel the physical works should go on show once more. Oscar Ho, Associate Professor of Practice in Cultural Management at CUHK, says Hong Kong's new government-funded art museum M+ should devote a gallery to the artworks. "It's like the whole world is interested except the institutions of Hong Kong," says Ho, who has delivered lectures globally about Umbrella art. M+ told AFP it was still "carefully evaluating this recent past" and would not currently consider Umbrella Movement works for its collection. Hong Kong-born academic Dan Tsang, a former visiting Fulbright scholar at CUHK researching how to archive protest culture, says he is concerned that works not yet gathered from the public may be thrown away or sent out of the city. "I think people like to touch and see the real thing, the actual artwork -- it's different from just looking at a digital image on a computer screen or phone," he said. Artist Alvin Wong, founder of Hong Kong's Urban Sketchers group, poses with a drawing that he produced during the 2014 Umbrella Movement pro-democracy protests in the Admiralty district of Hong Kong Fong So poses next to an artwork he produced during the 2014 pro-democracy rallies at his studio in Hong Kong Fong So shows artworks of his that appear in the British Museum's 'I Object' exhibition An artwork by local artist Alvin Wong, founder of Hong Kong's Urban Sketchers groupA former National Security Agency hacker whose leak of extremely top secret online spying materials led to the US government ban on Kaspersky software was sentenced to 66 months in prison Tuesday. Nghia Hoang Pho, 68, a 10-year veteran of the NSA's elite Tailored Access Operations hacking unit, pleaded guilty in December to one count of willful retention of classified national defense information. Authorities discovered that between 2010 and 2015, he had taken home with him substantial TAO materials, including programs and data, that eventually ended up in the hands of Russian intelligence. Vietnam-born Pho put the information on his home computer, which was protected by the popular Kaspersky anti-virus program. US authorities believe that Russian intelligence was able to access his computer through Kaspersky. In order to function, the Kaspersky program needs a computer owner's blanket permission to access the machine's systems. It then communicates the results of its anti-virus scans to Kaspersky headquarters -- in Moscow. The Wall Street Journal reported last year that the 2015 penetration of Pho's computer led to the Russians obtaining information on how the NSA itself infiltrates foreign computer networks and protects itself from cyberattacks. Kaspersky itself later confirmed that its software in 2014 automatically detected and downloaded suspicious files on Pho's computer that appeared to contain data and source code for so-called Equation Group hacking software from the NSA. After being examined by Kaspersky analysts, the files were deleted, the company says. Kaspersky denies that Russian intelligence obtained the files from it. The leak was one of the most devastating ever for the NSA, one of the US government's most important spy agencies, and significantly set back its operations against foreign targets' computers. "As a result of his actions, Pho compromised some of our country's most closely held types of intelligence, and forced NSA to abandon important initiatives to protect itself and its operational capabilities, at great economic and operational cost," said US Attorney Robert Hur. The incident was a key reason for the US government's ban on using Kaspersky anti-virus software on government computers, warning that the company has suspect links to Russian intelligence. Kaspersky denies any ties to the Russian government or its spies. The National Security Agency, the US government's premier signals intelligence agency, has its headquarters in Fort Meade, MarylandPrime Minister Nikol Pashinyan met with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani yesterday in New York and discussed the need to increase economic cooperation, this according to an Armenian government press release.

Highlighting the importance of economic cooperation, the two noted that such cooperation lagged far behind the ongoing political dialogue between the two countries. They deemed it necessary to take effective steps to boost trade and economic ties and tap the existing potential.

Nikol Pashinyan stressed that Armenian-Iranian relations are of a special character and therefore should continue to develop on the basis of strong ties of friendship.

Hassan Rouhani noted that the two countries share a high level of mutual trust, and that the Armenian community is playing an important role in his country and enjoys great respect among the Iranians.

Hassan Rouhani expressed confidence that the agreement on establishing a free trade zone with the Eurasian Economic Union would help further deepen the Armenian-Iranian economic cooperation.

Nikol Pashinyan and Hassan Rouhani discussed a broad range of issues, including cooperation in energy, road construction and logistics.

Hassan Rouhani invited Prime Minister Pashinyan to visit Iran.When heading out onto the open water, many hope theyll be able to catch a glimpse at some of the marine life in the waters below.

But one kayaker in New Zealand got more than he bargained for after he was hit square in the face with an octopus launched by a mischievous seal.

Remarkable GoPro footage captured off the coast of Kaikoura on New Zealands South Island over the weekend shows Kyle Mulinder paddling among fellow kayakers when a ferocious altercation between two predators appears to his left.

We were just sitting out in the middle of the ocean and then this huge male seal appeared with an octopus and he was thrashing him about for ages, Mr Mulinder told Yahoo7 News.

The seal appears by Kyle Mulinders side with the octopus gripped firmly in his mouth. Source: GoPro

Mr Mulinder said the fight disappeared under water before the pair reappeared by his side.

The video then shows the seal breaching the waters surface, with the octopus in his mouth, before flicking its neck and wrapping the live octopus around Mr Mulinders face.

He thrashed it in mid fight and my face happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, he recalled.

A stunned Mr Mulinder can be seen wincing from the impact before the two animals disappear into the water.

The seal wraps the octopus around the face of Mr Mulinder. Source: GoPro

I was like mate, what just happened? It was weird because it happened so fast but I could feel all the hard parts of the octopus on my face like dum dum dum.

He can then be seen letting out a defiant roar amid a raucous response from his peers.

The group, content creators for GoPro, were out kayaking to test the companys latest model Hero7 in the picturesque area when they captured the amazing moment.

A stunned Mr Mulinder winces after being caught square in the face. Source: GoPro

Its famous for its wildlife  albatross and seals and things like that but that s*** does not happen everyday!

Mr Mulinder revealed despite the seals apparent dominance in the scrap, the octopus came out victor.

He said the octopus clung to the end of his kayak after the fight and only managed to release it with the help of their instructor.

While his encounter may have been frightening at the time, it was a far cry from the horror of one kayaker who was pursued by a shark at Coffs Harbour in July.Two patients in an experimental US rehabilitation program for paralyzed people have been able to walk again thanks to electrical stimulation of their spinal cords, and two others have been able to stand or sit, according to newly published results. The results were published Monday in the New England Journal of Medicine, at the same time that the journal Nature Medicine reported on another paraplegic treated at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota who succeeded in walking again also thanks to an electrode implanted in his spinal cord. The Kentucky Spinal Cord Injury Research Center at the University of Louisville had previously reported in 2014 that some paralyzed patients had regained feeling thanks to electrical stimulation. This time, the center announced that after months of retraining two participants in its experimental program were able to walk with the support of a walker or a cane, stimulated with an electrode in the spinal column linked to an implant in the abdomen. Two other participants were able to stand up or sit down. "All four participants could not do these actions in trials when the stimulator was off," the study's authors said. The researchers said the physiological mechanisms at work were not fully understood. But they suggested this could be linked to the fact that despite being completely paralyzed, the two patients who were able to walk had retained some sensation below the level of their injury. "The spinal cord can relearn to walk independently," Susan Harkema, the center's leader told NBC News. "We can retrain it to function even though there is that injury disconnecting it from the brain," she said. Kelly Thomas, one of the two patients who learned to walk, said her first steps were "an emotional milestone in my recovery that I'll never forget." "One minute I was walking with the trainer?s assistance and, while they stopped, I continued walking on my own," she said. She now lives at home, where she is able to move from room to room or go outside with the help of a walker. To do so, she must activate the electric stimulator using a small remote. Each step she takes still requires a monumental effort. "It's not a quick fix to being paralyzed," she told CNN. But she added: "Nothing's going to be able to stop me in life, because I took something that was thought to be impossible and I turned it into possible." The Kentucky Spinal Cord Injury Research Center announced that after months of retraining two paralyzed participants in its experimental program were able to walk with the support of a walker or a caneFrance's far-right National Rally on Wednesday won back half of the two million euros in public subsidies that had been withheld as part of an EU funding probe, in a boost for beleaguered party leader Marine Le Pen. The Paris court of appeal ruled that the judges investigating the party formerly known as the National Front had been within their rights to seize the subsidies but reduced the amount to one million euros. Le Pen reacted furiously to the June 28 cash freeze, calling it a "death sentence" for her cash-strapped party which has been struggling to rebound from her defeat by Emmanuel Macron in last year's presidential election. Her lawyer Rodolphe Bosselut hailed the partial restoration of the RN's funding on Wednesday as a "first victory" and said he was considering another appeal to recover the rest of the money. The judges had seized the subsidies as part of an investigation into claims that RN members of the European Parliament defrauded the EU of millions of euros in funding between 2009 and 2017. Le Pen and 12 other people, as well as the party itself, are specifically accused of using funds available to members of the European Parliament towards parliamentary assistants to pay for France-based staff instead. They deny the charges. In confiscating the party's French subsidies, the judges said they wanted to ensure it could pay up if ordered by a court to repay 7 million euros to the European Parliament. Such subsidies are common in European countries, which see them as a way of ensuring a level playing field for political parties while limiting the risks of corruption or illegal funding. Le Pen had presented the seizure of the funds as a politically-motivated attempt to ruin her party and said that the political movement would be insolvent by September unless the decision was annulled. In July, she launched an appeal for donations to help the National Rally pay salaries. Le Pen's party has had a series of financial setbacks in recent years, with Le Pen claiming in November that it was the target of a "banking fatwa" after HSBC and Societe Generale closed her personal and party accounts. In 2014, the then National Front took a nine-million-euro loan from a Russian bank, claiming it was unable to borrow in France. Le Pen reacted furiously to the June 28 cash freezeGermany and Saudi Arabia on Tuesday agreed to return ambassadors some 10 months after the kingdom fumed over criticism about its role in Lebanon. Saudi Arabia, which has increasingly challenged Western governments who speak out on its record, in November recalled its ambassador from Berlin following the eyebrow-raising resignation of Saad Hariri as Lebanon's prime minister while visiting Riyadh. Sigmar Gabriel, who was then Germany's foreign minister, said that Lebanon's neighbors should let the recovering country decide its own fate, angering Saudi Arabia which like Hariri denied that he was coerced. Gabriel's successor Heiko Maas, meeting with Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir on the sidelines of the annual UN General Assembly, voiced regret and said the two countries would send back ambassadors. "In recent months our relations have witnessed misunderstandings which stand in sharp contrast to our otherwise strong and strategic ties with the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and we sincerely regret this," Maas told reporters. "We should have been clearer in our communication and engagement in order to avoid such misunderstandings." Jubeir, speaking next to Maas, invited him to visit and affirmed "deep strategic ties" with Germany. "The kingdom and Germany play a leading role in bolstering international security and stability and the global economy," Jubeir said. Saudi Arabia, which has especially close ties with US President Donald Trump, has increasingly made clear it would not tolerate reprimands. Last month Riyadh expelled the ambassador of Canada and froze all new trade after Ottawa denounced a crackdown on activists in the kingdom. Saudi Arabia similarly pulled its ambassador from Sweden in 2015 over human rights criticism. Hariri, who eventually returned to Lebanon and reversed his resignation, also holds Saudi and French nationality. The episode was seen as the latest chapter in Saudi Arabia's intensifying feud with regional rival Iran after Hariri improved ties with longtime rival Hezbollah, a militant Shiite movement backed by Tehran. Former German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel, pictured March 2018, said that Lebanon's neighbors should let the recovering country decide its own fateIts fast become a familiar sight, bikini-clad tourists roaming the streets and posing for photos in front of Balis sacred temples  but officials say they are fed-up.

More than five million tourists visited the island in 2017 but politicians are now calling for a sweeping change to the iconic holiday hotspots regulations, following what they described as a decline in the quality of tourists.

Balis deputy governor Tjokorda Oka Artha Ardana Sukawati, better known as Cok Ace promised change, saying the temples need to be preserved.

The quality of tourists is now different from before, he said at a recent regional council meeting.

A young woman in a bikini looks out to sea at a temple at Padang Padang beach. Image: Getty

Bali officials said the quality of tourists has decreased in recent years. Image: Getty

It is because we are too open with tourists, so too many come.

The decline in dress code and behaviour could now see those tourists not only banned from entering in bikinis and other revealing garments but banned from visiting the temples unaccompanied.

This is the governments attempt to maintain the Pura (temples), he said.

The temples need to be preserved since they are the spirits of Balis cultures and customs.

A young woman visits Balis Tirta Gangga temple. Authorities could soon ban tourists from visiting temples unaccompanied. Image: Getty

His demand for action follows a string of recent incidents where scantily dressed foreigners have posed inappropriately in front of the islands many temples.

Most recently, a Danish tourist caused outrage when he squatted and posed at a plinggih padmasana shrine. It is meant to be left empty for Balinese Hindu deities.

In 2016, a young woman was inundated with abuse after she performed a downward facing dog yoga pose at the door to a Balinese temple.India's top court Wednesday upheld the legality of the government's Aadhaar national ID scheme, the world's largest biometric database, but imposed new restrictions on how the personal details of more than one billion citizens can be used. The ruling by a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court draws a line under many years of legal challenges from critics, who said Aadhaar threatened individual privacy and risked turning the world's second-most populous nation into a surveillance state. The government had insisted Aadhaar, which issues every Indian with a unique 12-digit ID linked to fingerprints and iris scans, would streamline welfare services and root out fraud. It was also pitched as a transparent way to ensure that government handouts of food, fuel and other essentials to India's poorest would not be siphoned off by corrupt middlemen, a huge problem in the vast country of 1.25 billion. In its ruling the Supreme Court upheld the legality of the scheme, saying the benefits far outweighed any risks. The judges ruled that anybody drawing on government services -- from filing tax returns to accessing pensions or welfare -- would by law require an Aadhaar number. "Supreme Court judgement on Aadhaar is a big win for the government," said Amit Malviya, a spokesman for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Twitter. But the bench said corporations could not force customers to hand over their Aadhaar data -- a key complaint from privacy advocates who say the programme had gone too far. "I am happy with the Aadhaar ruling. It should be made mandatory only where it is really needed," said senior BJP figure Subramanian Swamy after the ruling. - Balanced verdict - Indians will no longer be compelled to provide their unique ID to register for services like mobile phone numbers or bank accounts, something critics said gave companies undue access to private data. "It is a balanced verdict," Ritesh Bhatia, cyber crime investigator and data privacy expert, told AFP. "The big thing is we don't have to give our personal details to mobile phone companies, which is a big relief as I won't be harassed with texts and calls any more." The scheme was rolled out under the previous Congress Party government in 2010, but grew in scope under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose BJP swept to power in 2014. Initially a voluntary programme, it evolved into a national ID mandatory for those wishing to access government services. Even schoolchildren wanting free lunches provided by the state needed an Aadhaar -- a controversy the court struck down in its landmark ruling. "No child can be denied any scheme if they are not able to bring their Aadhaar number," the court said. It also said students could not be denied enrolment if they did not possess the ID, saying a right to education was fundamental to all Indians. The scheme has been dogged by controversy. In October, an 11-year-old girl from an impoverished part of eastern India allegedly died of starvation after her family were unable to link their ration card to Aadhaar. There were also scandals around Aadhaar data being allegedly sold online by criminals, and journalists being pursued over reporting on these breaches. "India shouldn't be conditioning access to government necessities on possession of a biometric ID, nor should it be targeting journalists and researchers who write about vulnerabilities in the system's privacy protection," Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, tweeted after the verdict. Last year, in a case linked to the biometric database, the government went to the Supreme Court to argue that Indians did not have a fundamental right to privacy -- a case that it lost. The Supreme Court in January began hearing a series of challenges to the constitutional validity of Aadhaar, a Hindi word meaning "foundation". The government claims the Aadhaar scheme, which issues every Indian with a unique ID linked to fingerprints and iris scans, will streamline welfare services and root out fraudPresident Hassan Rouhani said Wednesday that Iran was not seeking conflict with the United States in the Middle East and questioned why US forces remained in the region. President Donald Trump's administration has withdrawn from a nuclear deal with Iran, slapped back sanctions and vowed to roll back the Shiite power's role in the region including in Syria, Yemen and Iraq. Attending the UN General Assembly, Rouhani defended Iran's military support for the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is a member of the minority Alawite sect, as a bulwark to defeat the Islamic State extremist group. "Our presence in Syria will continue for such time that the Syrian government requests our presence," Rouhani told a news conference. "We do not wish to go to war with American forces anywhere in the region. We do not wish to attack them; we do not wish to increase tensions. "But we ask the United States to adhere to laws and to respect national sovereignty of nations," he said. The Trump administration enjoys close relations with Iran's regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Israel and has warned Tehran that it is closely watching its actions. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, addressing a pressure group on Tuesday, vowed to act "swiftly and decisively" to any Iranian action that damages US interests in the region. Rouhani quipped: "When the secretary of state says we will be held to account, why have they gone to Iraq in the first place?" President Hassan Rouhani defended Iran's military support for the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-AssadIranian President Hassan Rouhani predicted Wednesday that the United States would eventually rejoin an international nuclear deal, saying talks this week at the United Nations showed his counterpart Donald Trump's isolation. "The United States of America one day, sooner or later, will come back. This cannot be continued," Rouhani told a news conference. "We are not isolated; America is isolated," he said. Rouhani pointed to a session of the Security Council chaired by Trump earlier Wednesday, where the leaders of Britain and France backed the nuclear deal, as well as a statement by European powers who say they will find ways to continue business with Iran and evade impending sanctions. "We do hope with all the law-abiding and multilateral-oriented countries that we can ultimately put this behind us in an easier fashion than it was earlier anticipated," Rouhani said. The elected Iranian leader said that his government would stay in the 2015 agreement, under which Tehran sharply scaled back its nuclear program in return for sanctions relief. "Until such time that we keep reaping the benefits of that agreement for our nation and people, we shall remain in the agreement," he said. "Should the situation change, we have other paths and other solutions that we can embark upon," he said. Rouhani downplayed the sharp words from the US administration, including a warning Tuesday by Trump's national security advisor, John Bolton, that Iran would have "hell to pay" if it crosses the United States. "During the past 40 years we have been subjected to that type of language many times," he said. "In this American administration, unfortunately, the language has been said to be somewhat unique and they speak with a different style, presumably because they are new to politics," he said. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, at a New York news conference on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, says the US is isolated in its withdrawal from a 2015 accord that curbed Tehran's nuclear programJapanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a longtime hardliner on North Korea, said Tuesday he was willing to meet Kim Jong Un after the once reclusive leader's historic summit with US President Donald Trump. Abe, who one year ago warned at the United Nations that the window for diplomacy with North Korea was closing, took a more open but still cautious tone in his latest address to the world body. But he said that any summit would be devoted to resolving a decades-old row over North Korea's abductions of Japanese civilians -- a deeply emotive issue for much of the Japanese public on which Abe built his political career. "In order to resolve the abduction issue, I am also ready to break the shell of mutual distrust with North Korea, get off to a new start and meet face to face with Chairman Kim Jong Un," Abe said in his UN address. "But if we are to have one, then I am determined that it must contribute to the resolution of the abduction issue." He stressed that no summit was yet in the works -- and appealed to Kim to show his own readiness. "North Korea is now at a crossroads at which it will either seize or fail to seize the historic opportunity it was afforded," Abe said. - Fast-changing diplomacy on North - North Korea kidnapped scores of Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s to train the regime's spies in Japanese language and culture. Japan's then prime minister Junichiro Koizumi traveled to Pyongyang in 2002 and 2004 to seek a new relationship with the current leader's father Kim Jong Il and was told by North Korea that remaining abduction victims were dead -- a stance adamantly rejected by Japanese family members and campaigners. Speculation has been rising that Abe could meet with Kim, who reportedly told Trump during their summit in June in Singapore that he was willing to talk to arch-enemy Japan. With South Korea's dovish President Moon Jae-in also courting Kim, fears have risen in Japan that it could be shut out of any ultimate resolution on North Korea if it refuses dialogue. Trump in his own UN address earlier Tuesday pointed to his "bold and new push for peace" and saluted Kim's courage. It was a far cry from a year ago, when Trump stunned assembled leaders by threatening to "totally destroy" North Korea and belittling "rocket man" Kim. Despite Trump's upbeat assessment of his own diplomacy, many analysts are skeptical on how much North Korea has changed, saying the regime has already conducted the tests it needed to build its nuclear and missile programs. North Korea would be sure to press its own demand in any summit with Japan -- an apology for Tokyo's harsh 1910-1945 colonial rule over the Korean peninsula. Beyond any moral dimension to an apology, North Korea would be hoping to secure badly needed cash. Japan paid South Korea some $800 million in loans, grants and credits when it established relations in 1965. - Hoping to avoid trade friction - Abe will meet Wednesday with Trump, with whom he quickly formed a bond after the tycoon's shock election victory. But Japan fears growing friction with Trump over trade. While Trump has directed his fury on China, he has frequently complained about a deficit with Japan. US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Japanese counterpart Toshimitsu Motegi have been meeting to address US complaints about trade barriers. Abe devoted much of his address to trade, saying that Japan supported 856,000 jobs in the United States -- more than any country except Britain. Noting Japan's limited natural resources, Abe said: "The very first country to prove through its own experience the principle that exists between trade and growth -- a principle that has now become common sense -- was Japan." Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said any summit with North Korea would be devoted to resolving a decades-old row over its abductions of Japanese civiliansCyprus PIO: Turkish Cypriot and Turkish Media Review, 18-09-26 Cyprus Press and Information Office: Turkish Cypriot Press Review Directory - Previous Article - Next Article From: The Republic of Cyprus Press and Information Office Server at <http://www.pio.gov.cy/> Turkish Cypriot and Turkish Media Review-26.09.18 No. 186/18 [A] TURKISH CYPRIOT / TURKISH PRESS Contents [A] Turkish Cypriot Pres [01] Dherynia crossing point is ready to be opened [02] The five Egyptian fishermen will continue to remain in custody for three more days [03] Water to agricultural land in occupied Morfou [B] Turkish press [A] TURKISH CYPRIOT / TURKISH PRESS [01] Erdogan: UNSC standing idle to oppressions in world [02] Erdogan meets world leaders in New York [03] Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu is visiting the US to attend the 73rd Session of the UN General Assembly [04] New Dutch Envoy to Turkey vows to play 'positive role' [05] Turkey, Azerbaijan to cooperate in defense, aviation [06] Ruling AK Party, MHP agree in principle to continue alliance [A] Turkish Cypriot Press [01] Dherynia crossing point is ready to be opened Turkish Cypriot daily Kibris newspaper (26.09.18) reports that the mobility, which was observed during this week at the north side of Dherynia's crossing point, has raised the hopes of the inhabitants of occupied Famagusta town and especially of the shopkeepers and craftsmen within the old walled city of Famagusta. It was reported that the booths, which are necessary for the "immigration's employees" for identification and controls have been constructed in the north side of the crossing point and the electricity has been secured. According to the paper, two booths have been placed at the Dherynia's crossing point and were connected with electricity from the military zone in the occupied area of Cyprus. However, the two military posts that belong to the Turkish and Greek Cypriot army have not been removed from the area, as it had been agreed. The Famagusta Initiative, in a post at the social media, called Tolga Atakan, self-styled minister of transport, to continue to have a will to complete quickly the construction of Dherynia's crossing point in order to open soon. Replying to the post, Atakan argued that the will and the efforts come from all the "government" and not only from the "ministry". (DPs) [02] The five Egyptian fishermen will continue to remain in custody for three more days According to Turkish Cypriot daily Haberator newspaper (26.09.18), the five Egyptian fishermen, who were arrested last week with the pretext for violating the territorial waters of the breakaway regime in the occupied area of Cyprus, were brought before the "Keryenia district court" again yesterday. The paper reports that "the principal investigator has asked the renewal of the three days-demand on all five fishermen in order to carry safely on with the investigation. Meltem Dunmdar, Keryneia district court's judge, ruled that the fishermen will remain in custody for three more days for the security of the investigation". (DPs) [03] Water to agricultural land in occupied Morfou Turkish Cypriot daily Yeni Duzen newspaper(26.09.18) reports that the inauguration of the "irrigation project" of occupied Morfou area was held yesterday at the installations of occupied Syrianochori village in the presence of Tufan Erhurman, self-styled prime minister of the breakaway regime in the occupied area of the Republic of Cyprus. During the first phase of the project 10 wells were put into use in occupied Syrianochori installations, 350 cubic meters of water per hour were added to the system, providing water to 6,000 donums of agricultural land started and a pipeline of 1,800 meters was built. During the second phase of the project, a pipeline of 3,200 meters will be built and 2,000 more donums of land will be irrigated. The length of the new pipeline, which will be built afterwards, will reach 10,000 meters and 3,500 donums of land will be irrigated with this pipeline. According to the paper, with the water from Turkey 18,000 donums of agricultural land will be irrigated. Addressing the ceremony, Erhurman argued that if the Turkish Cypriots work and produce more, they will continue to eternally exist as economically and socially developed "people", who feel proud with themselves under all conditions. He expressed the view that they cannot reach anywhere by crying and that there is a road which they have to walk all together by working and producing. (I/Ts.) [B] Turkish Press [01] Erdogan: UNSC standing idle to oppressions in world Turkish Hurriyet Daily News (26.09.18 http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/erdogan-calls-for-security-council-reform-in-un-address-137228) reports that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the UN Security Council currently serves the interests of five permanent members holding veto rights. The five members of the Council, the U.S, Russia, China, France and Britain, are "standing idle to the oppressions in other parts of the world," Erdogan said in his address to the 73rd session of UN General Assembly. Erdogan said the UN has carried out work and achieved considerable successes over its 73-year history. "However, it is also a fact that over time the United Nations moved away from meeting the expectations of humanity for peace and welfare," he added. Erdogan said past "massacres" in Bosnia, Rwanda and Somalia, recent ones in Myanmar and ongoing ones in Palestine, have all taken place before the eyes of the Security Council. "Those who do not raise their voices against the oppression of the Palestinians, their efforts even to reduce assistance for them, are only increasing the courage of the oppressors," he added, referring to the recent U.S. decision to cut aid to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees. Turkey will continue to stand with the "oppressed" Palestinians and will protect the historical and legal status of Jerusalem, Erdogan said. He underscored there needs to be "comprehensive reform" in the structure and functioning of the UN, particularly the Security Council. "And we believe that when we say 'the world is bigger than five,' we become the voice of the common conscience of humanity," Erdogan said. Limiting the reform of the UN to the budget only will neither contribute to the solution of real problems nor make anybody happy, he said. The Turkish President added there is a need for increasing UN efficiency "which I find very important for the future of the world, on its fundamental areas of duty which are security, development and social equality." "When the assets of the wealthiest 62 people in the world amount to the assets of the half of world's population of 3.6 billion people, this means there is a problem," Erdogan said. 'More abundant, flexible support' Erdogan said Turkey continues its efforts towards a fairer world while implementing a global humanitarian diplomacy. He recalled that Turkey hosts 4 million refugees, 3.5 million of which are Syrian, and provides them with services that are "incomparable" elsewhere in the world. The total amount Turkey has spent for Syrian refugees alone is at $32 billion. Hinting at U.S. support for PYD/YPG, the Syrian affiliate of the PKK terror organization, Erdogan said: "Those who equip terrorists with tens of thousands of trucks and thousands of cargo planes load of arms for the sake of their tactical interests will most definitely feel sorrow in the future." Erdogan said all terrorist organizations do not obtain their power from their armed actions, rather some hide behind "glossy concepts" such as education, welfare and dialogue, and continueoperations as NGOs or businesses. Turkey is in favor of solving problems through conducting a constructive dialogue on equal terms and expects responsible action in matters of economy, he said. And he called for an institution within the UN for the youth. "As Turkey, we propose establishing a UN Youth Organization as soon as possible and suggest Istanbul, one of the symbolic cities of the world history, as its headquarters," he added. He called for establishing a new global system at the UN that will be the voice of the implementer of humankind's expectation for justice. [02] Erdogan meets world leaders in New York Ankara Anatolia news agency (26.09.18 https://www.aa.com.tr/en/americas/erdogan-meets-world-leaders-in-new-york/1264923) reports that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met Tuesday with world leaders in New York, including his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Theresa May. The meetings came on the sidelines of the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly. Erdogan first met with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras behind closed doors and later held similar meetings with Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, Mozambique President Filipe Jacinto Nyusi and Slovenian President Borut Pahor. Treasury and Finance Minister Berat Albayrak, National Defense Minister Hulusi Akar, Trade Minister Ruhsar Pekcan, Presidential Spokesman Ibrahim Kalin and Presidential Communications Director Fahrettin Altun accompanied Erdogan when he met with with the leaders of France and the UK. In addition, Ankara Anatolia news agency (26.09.18 https://www.aa.com.tr/en/todays-headlines/erdogan-trump-briefly-meet-ahead-of-un-address/1264692) reports that Erdogan had a brief meeting with his U.S. counterpart, Donald Trump, in New York, according to the Turkish presidential communications director. The two leaders had a "brief chat" ahead of Erdogan's address to UN General Assembly, Fahrettin Altun said on Twitter. In photographs posted on the social media site, Trump is seen extending a handshake to Erdogan. Trump's wife, Melania, joined their chat. Erdogan then moved inside the General Assembly to deliver his address. It is the first time the two leaders met after relations soured because of the detention of pastor Andrew Brunson, who is under house arrest in Turkey for terrorism charges. [03] Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu is visiting the US to attend the 73rd Session of the UN General Assembly The official site of the Turkisg Foreign Ministry brodcat the follosing as regards the Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu in New York (26.09.18 http://www.mfa.gov.tr/disisleri-bakani-mevlut-cavusoglu-nun-bm-73-uncu-genel-kuruluna-katilimi-24-9-18 en.en.mfa): "Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu is visiting the US to attend the 73rd Session of the UN General Assembly, 24 September 2018 During his visit to New York for the 73rd Session of the UN General Assembly, in which President Erdogan participates, Foreign Minister Cavusoglu attended the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) on September 24, Monday. Minister Cavusoglu stated that as a founding member, Turkey will continue to support all efforts to strengthen CICA. Minister Cavusoglu attended the high level session entitled 'Global Compact on Refugees', and emphasized that Turkey hosts the largest refugee population, and did not leave innocent people to the hands of a brutal regime or terrorist organizations such as DAESH, PKK/PYD/YPG, but the humanitarian crisis in Syria has been left to Turkey's shoulders, and that the international community needs to strengthen responsibility sharing. On the sidelines of the 73rdSession of the UN General Assembly, Minister Cavusoglu held bilateral meetings with Secretary General Thorbjorn Jagland of the Council of Europe, Foreign Minister Tudor Ulianovschi of Moldova, Secretary General Dr. Yousef bin Ahmad Al-Othaimeen of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Foreign Minister Taro Kono of Japan, Foreign Minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo of Colombia, and Foreign Minister Ditmir Bushati of Albania. Minister Cavusoglu attended the OIC Contact Group meeting on the Armenian aggression towards Azerbaijan, and the working lunch on Rohingya crisis, co-organized by Foreign Ministers of France and Britain at which the state of Rohingya Muslims were evaluated. Minister Cavusoglu emphasized that the international community must increase humanitarian aid and that Rohingya Muslims' voluntary, dignified and safe return from Bangladesh to Myanmar must be ensured. Minister Cavusoglu also attended the inaugural meeting of the OIC Contact Group on Friends of Mediation, established with the initiatives of Turkey. At the meeting, Minister Cavusoglu noted that the OIC will play a more active role in the field of mediation in the upcoming period. On the same day, Minister Cavusoglu accompanied President Erdogan at his meetings with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan and President Hassan Rouhani of Iran." [04] New Dutch Envoy to Turkey vows to play 'positive role' Turkish Hurriyet Daily News (26.09.18 http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/new-dutch-envoy-to-turkey-vows-to-play-positive-role-137193) reports that the Netherlands' newly appointed Ambassador to Turkey expressed hope to play a positive role in Turkey-Netherlands relations. "I am happy to be here [in Turkey]. This is a very important moment. I hope to play a positive role in Turkey-Netherlands relations," Marjanne de Kwaasteniet told reporters upon her arrival at Ankara's Esenboga airport. Appointed as Ambassador to Turkey on Sept. 7, Kwaasteniet previously served as the Netherlands' Permanent Representative to NATO. Former Justice and Development Party (AKP) lawmaker and former deputy leader Saban Disli was appointed on Sept. 7 as Turkey's Ambassador to The Hague. [05] Turkey, Azerbaijan to cooperate in defense, aviation Turkish daily Yeni Safak newspaper (26.09.18 https://www.yenisafak.com/en/news/turkey-azerbaijan-to-cooperate-in-defense-aviation-3441920) reports that the Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) signed a cooperation protocol with Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences (AMEA) in capital Baku on Tuesday to combine efforts in the fields of defense and aviation. The protocol aims to establish a mutual sustainable cooperation in the defense and aviation area through the academic programs of AMEA, to accelerate the research and development activities by sharing the knowledge, as well as boosting the mutual exchange of ideas. "The cooperation is not limited to an academic framework, but covers a wide range of science and technology ecosystem," Mustafa Akkurt, the TAI's Human Resources Vice President, told Anadolu Agency. Akkurt said the TAI desired to adopt the Azerbaijan's knowledge, especially in fundamental sciences, which will contribute to the development of the aerospace industry, and to share its design, production, quality and certification capabilities with Azerbaijani academy. He also added that the protocol with AMEA pawed the way for the cooperation with various universities in Azerbaijan. The signing ceremony took place on the sidelines of the the 3rd Azerbaijan International Defense Exhibition (ADEX) between Sept. 25-27, a three-day event to showcase the force and power of Azerbaijan's military and industrial complex, as well as modern weaponry and equipment. The TAI exhibited product models for the aerospace industry in the ADEX, such as TF-X aircraft, HURKUS basic trainer, ANKA-S medium altitude long endurance unmanned aerial vehicle, T625 multi role helicopter, as well as the GOKTURK-1 and Turksat 6A satellites. The Turkish Aircraft Industries Corporation -- today known as Turkish Aerospace Industries -- was established in 1973 under the auspices of the Ministry of Industry and Technology in order to reduce the foreign dependency in the defense industry of Turkey. [06] Ruling AK Party, MHP agree in principle to continue alliance Turkish daily Sabah (26.09.18 https://www.dailysabah.com/elections/2018/09/25/ruling-ak-party-mhp-agree-in-principle-to-continue-alliance) reports that the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) agreed Tuesday in principle to continue their alliance in the upcoming local elections. The two parties, which previously formed the People's Alliance for the June presidential elections, will continue their alliance on cooperation in the March 2019 local elections, AK Party vice chairman Mehmet Ozhaseki said Tuesday, adding that meetings between the delegations would be held soon. "The MHP will continue its reconciliatory and common-sense approach in a period when Turkey struggles for its survival. We do not desire the gains in the June 24 elections to be lost on March 31," MHP Chairman Devlet Bahceli said earlier this month. In the 2014 local elections, the MHP won three metropolitan municipalities with around 10 % of the total votes, while AK Party won 18 out of the 30 metropolitan municipalities with around 60 % of the votes. The AK Party and the MHP decided to form a political alliance for the presidential and parliamentary elections when Bahceli announced that his party would not name a candidate for the 2019 presidential elections and would support the re-election of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan instead. As a result, the alliance, named the People's Alliance, won 340 seats in Parliament, 290 by the AK Party and 50 by the MHP. TURKISH AFFAIRS SECTION (CS/ AM) Cyprus Press and Information Office: Turkish Cypriot Press Review Directory - Previous Article - Next ArticleConvicted paedophiles in Kazakhstan are facing chemical castration after the government provided funding for some 2000 injections.

One man from the Turkestan region will receive the first injection in a process supervised by the health ministry, following the $37,000 allocation from Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev, News Corp reports.

At the moment there has been one request for chemical castration in accordance with a court ruling, Deputy health minister Lyazat Aktayeva said.

Funds have been allocated for more than 2000 injections, Ms Aktayeva said.

Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, pictured in Washington earlier this year, has allocated funding 2000 injections. Image: AFP

The process uses anaphrodisiac drugs to reduce the offenders libido and sexual activity.

Unlike surgical castration, chemical castration does not remove organs, nor is it a form of sterilisation.

Senator Byrganym Aitimova initially stated that castration would be temporary, consisting of a one-time injection, describing it as a necessity to prevent a man from committing sexual violence.

Child sex crimes in Kazakhstan carry prison sentences of up to 20 years in prison.The United Arab Emirates, whose troops are fighting Yemeni rebels alongside government forces, said Wednesday it would fully support new peace talks after UN-brokered negotiations broke down earlier this month. UAE state minister for foreign affairs Anwar Gargash said he had had "very productive discussions" with UN Yemen envoy Martin Griffiths on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York. "Reaffirmed strong support for UN-led political process after Geneva setback," Gargash tweeted. "Will fully support UN proposals for new talks soon." The UN envoy has been shuttling between all sides in the devastating civil war that has killed nearly 10,000 people in Yemen since March 2015 in a bid to get peace talks back on track. Planned negotiations in Geneva broke down on September 8 after rebel delegates refused to show up until they received guarantees that they would be able to fly home afterwards. The UAE, Saudi Arabia and their allies have enforced an air and sea blockade of rebel-held areas of Yemen since they intervened in March 2015 when President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi fled into exile. On September 9, government and UAE troops resumed their deadly offensive on the rebel-held Red Sea port of Hodeida after a brief suspension while the UN attempted to convene peace talks. The assault on the port city was the trigger for the new peace push. Hodeida is the point of entry for UN aid shipments and also handles 70 percent of commercial shipping, and the UN warned of a humanitarian catastrophe if the port were put out of use. Hadi, whose government is recognised by the international community even though the rebels control the capital Sanaa and much of the north, was due to address the UN General Assembly later on Wednesday. The civil war has pushed Yemen, long the Arab world's poorest country, to the brink of famine. Human rights groups warned last week that more than five million malnourished children face imminent starvation. The United Arab Emirates, whose troops are fighting Yemeni rebels alongside government forces, says it will fully support new peace talks after UN-brokered negotiations broke down earlier this monthMexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Wednesday promised the parents of 43 students abducted in 2014 to unravel the unsolved case, on the anniversary of a suspected massacre that traumatized the country. Four years on, Mexico is still haunted by the disappearance of the students from the Ayotzinapa teachers' college in the southern state of Guerrero. The case has become a symbol of the gruesome violence rocking the country, and a stain on the human rights record of the man Lopez Obrador will replace on December 1, outgoing President Enrique Pena Nieto. Speaking after meeting with the students' parents, the leftist president-elect vowed he would work to shed light on the crime from the day he takes office. "On December 1, if it has not already been done, we will sign a decree to create an investigative commission and define the procedures we will follow until the truth is found and justice is done," said Lopez Obrador. "We also agreed to throw open the doors of the next government and the country to the international human rights organizations that have battled to prevent this case from being closed," he told journalists. - Unsolved crime - The 43 young men attended a school known for its tradition of rowdy demonstrations for left-wing causes, the Raul Isidro Burgos Rural Teachers' College. On the night of September 26, 2014, they commandeered five buses to travel to a protest -- a long-standing tradition at the college -- and were attacked and then detained by municipal police in the city of Iguala, Guerrero. According to federal prosecutors, corrupt police officers who were on the payroll of the drug cartel Guerreros Unidos mistook the students for members of a rival cartel. They allegedly handed them over to Guerreros Unidos hitmen, who slaughtered them and incinerated their bodies at a garbage dump. However, independent investigators from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights who carried out a forensic analysis of the supposed crime scene found that version of events was impossible. There was no sign that such an enormous bonfire had burned at the site, they said. The government's failure to clarify the case has caused widespread speculation about an elaborate cover-up. The independent experts hypothesized the students may have inadvertently hijacked a bus loaded with heroin bound for the United States. In a country known for murky links between powerful drug cartels and corrupt officials, that has raised questions about who could have been behind such a shipment. The case has drawn international condemnation of Pena Nieto's government, which continues to insist the prosecution's version of events is the "historical truth." - 'Ray of hope' - The meeting with Lopez Obrador gave the outraged, grieving parents "a ray of hope," said Maria Elena Guerrero, the mother of student Giovanni Galindes, who was 20 when he disappeared. "We've been fighting for four years, opening any door we can, and today a door opened on its own," she said, carrying a large photograph of her son. The pending change in administration "gives us hope we will find out what happened to our children," said a sobbing Epifanio Alvarez, whose son Jorge was 19 when he was abducted. The investigative commission will comprise victims' parents, rights groups, international organizations and the federal government, said Alejandro Encinas, the man tapped to lead it. The prosecution's own investigation has been widely criticized. It led to the arrest of 119 people. But the United Nations alleges many of them were tortured, and says the evidence obtained is irreparably tainted. No one has ever been sentenced for the crime. The UN repeated its criticism of the government's version of events. "It is worrying that the government has focused on reiterating the untenable and trying to silence or discredit voices that question it," said the Mexico office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Mexico has seen an explosion of crime in recent years linked to brutal violence by drug cartels. Last year, the country registered a record 28,702 homicides, and grisly discoveries of mass graves are a regular occurrence. Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has promised to do justice in the case of the 2014 Ayotzinapa massacre in which 43 students went missingMoroccan authorities are probing the phenomenon of people smugglers using high power speedboats, as favoured by drug traffickers, to transport migrants across the Mediterranean to Europe, a top official said Wednesday. On Tuesday, Morocco's navy opened fire on a "go-fast" speedboat off the coast of the North African nation, killing one person onboard and wounding three others. The authorities said they detained a Spanish citizen who was driving the boat. Khalid Zerouali, head of immigration and border surveillance at the interior ministry, told AFP that authorities were investigating an "emerging phenomenon" that has seen smugglers switch from inflatable dinghies. "These powerful motor boats were until now used for trafficking of drugs in the Mediterranean," Zerouali said. Zerouali said that footage posted on social media appeared to show traffickers offering to take people to Europe for free. He said the smugglers could be seeking to lure victims onto the boats to take them hostage or that drug-runners might need the passengers to add weight and stabilise their vessels. Morocco said this month it has foiled 54,000 bids so far in 2018 by illegal migrants to cross the Mediterranean to Europe. Zerouali said the authorities had dismantled 80 smuggling networks this year, including 23 in August alone. Moroccan authorities are investigating an "emerging phenomenon" that has seen smugglers switch from inflatable dinghies to "go-fast" speedboatsHong Kong's firebrand Cardinal Joseph Zen warned Wednesday the Vatican would abandon official ties with Taiwan after sealing a historic accord with China. Zen, the former Bishop of Hong Kong, is well-known for his vocal opposition to political suppression and his support for democratic reform. He has consistently spoken out against any agreement between the Catholic Church and China, saying it would be a betrayal of the persecuted unofficial church on the mainland. Zen said the new deal, announced Saturday, indicates the Vatican is willing to break ties with Taiwan, its only ally in Europe. "The Holy See, the Vatican, is ready to abandon Taiwan," he told reporters at a press conference at the Salesian House of Studies, a training school for clergy, where Zen lives. "I'm afraid the people in Taiwan may not understand because it looks like a betrayal of a friend." Beijing demands any country that has relations with China must forfeit recognition of self-ruling Taiwan, which it sees as part of its territory to be reunified. Taiwan officials say the Vatican has assured them the agreement will not affect diplomatic ties as Beijing makes a concerted effort to poach their dwindling allies. Zen added the deal had also caused "spiritual suffering" in China's underground church. "They fear that the Holy See is betraying the faith and that they want them to join this betrayal," he said. The landmark accord centres on the appointment of bishops in China in what could pave the way for the normalisation of ties between the Catholic Church and the world's most populous country. China's roughly 12 million Catholics are divided between a state-run association whose clergy are chosen by the government and an unofficial church which swears allegiance to the pope. The Chinese Communist Party is officially atheist and religious groups are tightly controlled by the state. Churches have been destroyed in some Chinese regions in recent months, and there has been a clampdown on Bible sales. Crosses have been removed from church tops, printed religious materials and holy items confiscated, and church-run kindergartens closed. "In a situation of increased repression of religion, how can you think you have a good deal with them?" Zen asked. Soon after the deal was announced, Pope Francis recognised seven bishops who had been ordained in China without the Vatican's approval. The pope said Tuesday he would have the last word on naming bishops, but admitted members of the underground church would suffer because of the deal. Beijing and the Vatican severed diplomatic relations in 1951 and although ties had improved as China's Catholic population grows, they had remained at odds over the designation of bishops. Cardinal Joseph Zen, former Bishop of Hong Kong, has consistently spoken out against any agreement between the Catholic Church and ChinaThe Pentagon is pulling Patriot missile systems from three countries in the Middle East as part of a "rebalance" away from the region, a US official said Wednesday. The move comes as the United States switches its focus towards countering Russia and China in an era of "great power competition." Speaking on condition of anonymity, the US official told AFP that the Pentagon is pulling a total of four Patriot missile systems from Kuwait, Jordan and Bahrain. The missiles will be returned to the US "in the next month or two" for a refit and modernization, the official said, noting that the countries have access to other defensive capabilities so will not be left vulnerable. Patriots are designed to intercept tactical ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and other airborne threats. The redeployment of the missiles, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, is happening at a time of increased tension between the US and Iran, which President Donald Trump and his national security advisor John Bolton this week assailed at the United Nations. The official said the decision to pull the Patriots was made before current tensions with Tehran, which US officials say has large stockpiles of missiles that threaten neighbors. "This is part of a rebalance away from the Middle East, and that decision was made long before the current back and forth with Iran," the official said. When approached by Pentagon reporters, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis declined to comment on the matter. Pentagon spokeswoman Commander Rebecca Rebarich said that due to operational security "we're not going to discuss the movement of specific capabilities into and out of the US Central Command area of responsibility." Patriot missiles seen during an exercise in Poland in 2015The former head of a communist-era prison camp in Romania has died at the age of 90, while serving a 20-year jail sentence for crimes against humanity, officials said on Wednesday. Ioan Ficior who oversaw the Periprava camp in the country's east between 1958 and 1963, died in the prison hospital of Jilava, outside Bucharest, where he was being treated for "a series of chronic medical problems," a spokeswoman for the national penitentiary authority told AFP. She did not reveal the exact cause of death. Ficior, who prosecutors said was responsible for the deaths of 103 prisoners at Periprava -- where political opponents of communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu were interned -- was sentenced last year. He was the second former prison camp chief to be jailed by the Romanian authorities. The first, Alexandru Visinescu, is also currently serving a 20-year sentence and is now aged 92. He was head of the Ramnicu Sarat camp in eastern Romania. Prosecutors say that Ficior's regime in Periprava was inhumane and repressive, but he always protested his innocence. He was brought to trial in 2014 following legal action by the Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes. In all, more than 600,000 Romanians were convicted and jailed for political reasons under the communist regime between 1945 and 1989, according to the Memorial Museum for Victims of Communism in Sighet in northwestern Romania. Romania's communist era came to an end with the fall of Ceausescu in 1989. The country joined the European Union in 2007, along with neighbouring Bulgaria. In this file picture, Ioan Ficior is seen leaving the building of the General Romanian Prosecution in Bucharest on October 24, 2013 after being charged with "genocide"Seagulls whirl over the docks of Ukraine's port of Mariupol on the Sea of Azov as huge cranes once used to unload ships' cargoes stand idle. The uncharacteristic quiet is the product of rising tensions in the small sea, the waters of which Russia and Ukraine agreed to share more than a decade ago, but is now the latest theatre in the bitter conflict between the two nations. Russia's annexation of the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 means ships must now pass through a narrow strait bordered by Russian-controlled territory on both sides, while Kremlin-backed rebel regions of eastern Ukraine are uncomfortably close to Mariupol. In a growing crisis, Kiev and the West accuse Russia of deliberately blocking ships from entering the sea. "The whole time I've worked here, I've never seen anything like it," said Sergiy Kostyrko, a tanned foreman who has worked at the Mariupol docks for 23 years. "Ships have become very rare visitors to our port." Ukraine criticises what it sees as a deliberate move by Moscow to block the Kerch Strait, the only shipping route into the Azov Sea, where Ukraine's commercial ports of Mariupol and Berdyansk are crucial gateways for its metallurgy industry exports. - 'Military operation' - Kiev has warned that Russia could even launch an attack on Mariupol. Russia is trying to block Ukraine's ports on the Sea of Azov acting "to escalate tensions and, it cannot be ruled out, to carry out a military operation (including) attacks on Mariupol", Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko declared in July. In a sign of the conflict's growing scale, the United States has condemned Russia for impeding maritime transit as part of a campaign "to undermine and destabilise Ukraine". "We call on Russia to cease its harassment of international shipping in the Sea of Azov," the US Department of State said in a statement late August. The European Union's delegation to Ukraine said earlier this month that Russia "has increasingly and deliberately hindered and delayed the passage of vessels, including vessels from EU member states". Foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova insisted this week that "Russia's actions in checking ships are aimed solely at security." "It is precisely Kiev's actions, those of its uncontrollable radicals, that force Russia to strengthen security measures," she said. - Five-day checks - The problems started upon Russia's completion this spring of a bridge over the Kerch Strait connecting its southern mainland to Crimea. The link spanning 19 kilometres (12 miles) was one of Moscow's mega-projects personally endorsed by President Vladimir Putin, who opened it in May at the wheel of a lorry. The bridge's 35-metre arches are too low for some ships to pass under and there are also restrictions on length. In addition, ships heading under the bridge now face lengthy checks by Russian maritime border guards, causing additional financial losses for both ports and shipping companies. "The check takes three to four hours but waiting for the inspectors takes up to five days," said Mariupol port director Oleksandr Oliynyk. Previously "the ships would be stopped for maybe 10 hours." The result for Ukraine is a significant drop in shipping traffic and subsequent economic losses. Shipping companies lose between $5,000 and $15,000 with each day of delay for a cargo in the Kerch Strait, Oliynyk said. "At some point, the ship's owner will say 'That's it, I'm not interested'." Ukrainian media reported that the ports of Mariupol and Berdyansk saw earnings fall by almost a quarter during the first seven months of this year, compared with the same period last year. - Risk of military conflict - So far this is purely a trade conflict, but there is a risk it could escalate into a military standoff between Ukraine and Russia, on top of Kiev's ongoing four-year war with Kremlin-backed rebels in the east that has claimed more than 10,000 lives. Mariupol is located just 20 kilometres west of the frontline with Russian-backed separatists. Russia moved an additional five ships into the Sea of Azov in May, the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington-based research institute, wrote in a report. Kiev in July claimed Russia had some 40 warships in the Sea of Azov. This month, following an emergency meeting of Poroshenko's top brass, Ukraine bolstered its naval force in the Sea of Azov with two gunboats. The gunboats were deployed "to prevent the illegal stopping of ships by an aggressor country," deputy infrastructure minister Yuriy Lavrenyuk said. is-dg-ml-gmo/am/rl The port of Mariupol has gone quiet since Russia's annexation of Crimea Ships must now pass through a narrow strait bordered by Russian-controlled territory on both sides to get to the Sea of Azov Kiev fears that Russia might even launch an attack on Mariupol Kiev and the West accuse Russia of deliberately blocking ships from entering the Sea of AzovDePaul University professor David Lay Williams apparently found a Jesus intent on reducing the corrosive effects of wealth, greed, and inequality and condemning those with great fortunes as unworthy inhabitants for the kingdom of God.

The professor based his lecture on Pope Francis' claim that "inequality is the root of all social evil."

DePaul's Faculty Scholarship Support Center defended Williams' lecture, telling Campus Reformthat its purpose is to "support, encourage, and disseminate faculty in their research projects."

More HERESaudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF) announced plans Wednesday for a luxury tourism destination on its northwestern coast, the latest in a series of mega projects as the oil-reliant kingdom seeks to diversify. The project called "Amaala" would be "a natural extension of the Mediterranean Sea, and dubbed the Riviera of the Middle East", the country's top sovereign wealth fund said in a statement released by the information ministry. The development will feature hotels, private villas, an arts academy and a yacht club, PIF added. It did not reveal any timeframe or the size of the investment, saying only that the "initial funding for the project will be provided by PIF". Saudi Arabia has dazzled investors with plans for a series of "giga projects", funded in part by its sovereign wealth fund, but sceptics question their viability. The kingdom has already unveiled blueprints to build NEOM, a mega project billed as a regional Silicon Valley, in addition to the Red Sea project, a reef-fringed resort destination -- both worth hundreds of billions of dollars. "Amaala will sit alongside NEOM and the Red Sea project as part of the giga-projects investment portfolio, helping to... (support) economic diversification," PIF said. Such projects are the brainchild of Prince Mohammed, architect of a sweeping reform programme dubbed "Vision 2030". The reforms stem partly from a motivation to boost domestic spending and attract foreign investment as the kingdom reels from an economic slowdown. Kickstarting tourism is one of the centrepieces of Vision 2030. On Tuesday, Saudi Arabia said it will begin issuing visas to visitors to attend sporting and cultural events from December, a first for the kingdom as it seeks to lure international tourists. Participants watch a movie advertising Saudi Arabia's Red Sea project in 2017, another "giga project" in the series funded in part by its sovereign wealth fundSouth Korean President Moon Jae-in on Wednesday urged world governments to encourage North Korea to advance toward denuclearization by "responding positively" to leader Kim Jong Un's "new choices". Addressing the UN General Assembly, Moon praised his North Korean counterpart -- with whom he has held three summits -- saying he had "changed the direction of the political situation" on the Korean peninsula. "North Korea moved out of longstanding isolation on its own initiative and stands before the international community once again," Moon said. "Now it is the international community's turn to respond positively to North Korea's new choices and efforts." Moon, who has embraced dialogue with the North, advocates a step-by-step approach that would push Pyongyang to scrap its nuclear and ballistic missile programs in exchange for a gradual easing of sanctions. That stance, however, is challenged by the United States and Japan, which maintain that North Korea must have fully dismantled its weapons programs before any of the sanctions can be lifted. Moon argued that it was time for a gesture toward Kim. "We must assure Chairman Kim that he has made the right decision in committing to denuclearization," he said. "We must encourage North Korea to stay on the path that leads to permanent and solid peace." US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo earlier met with his North Korean counterpart Ri Yong Ho in New York and later announced that he will return to Pyongyang next month to push ahead with denuclearization. Pompeo will also try to arrange a second summit between Trump and Kim, whose meeting in June in Singapore was the first ever between leaders of the two states. Led by the United States, the Security Council last year slapped three rounds of sanctions targeting North Korea's economy with the aim of cutting off sources of revenue for Pyongyang's weapons program. The United States is facing calls from Russia and China to consider easing sanctions to create an incentive for Pyongyang to move forward. Pompeo on Thursday will address a Security Council meeting on North Korea. Despite the warming of ties, there has been little concrete action towards denuclearization and there remains skepticism about Kim's intentions. At the last Kim-Moon summit in Pyongyang, the North Korean leader agreed to close a missile test site in the presence of international monitors and offered to shut down the Yongbyon nuclear plant if Washington takes "corresponding measures." South Korean President Moon Jae-in urges support for North Korea's moves to end its isolation, in a speech to the UN General AssemblySpain summoned the Belgian ambassador over a letter sent to jailed Catalan separatist Carme Forcadell by the speaker of the regional Flemish parliament questioning democracy in Spain, a diplomatic source said Wednesday. The source, who asked not to be named, said the ambassador was summoned on September 20 by the foreign ministry's Europe director-general. "The aim of the summons was to relay our deep unease over the content and terms of the letter sent by the speaker of the Flemish parliament as an institutional representative to Mrs Forcadell, which was made public in social networks." A protest letter was also sent to the speaker himself, Jan Peumans. In his letter, Peumans, a separatist in the Flemish Region of Belgium, described police violence during a banned independence referendum on October 1, 2017 in Catalonia as an "outrageous expression of an undemocratic policy." "Keeping (Catalan) politicians under arrest for months is an even more insidious act, a proof that the central government in Spain is not able to meet the conditions to be part of a modern democratic European Union," he added. Peumans is part of the pro-independence Flemish nationalist party N-VA. His letter was handed to the former speaker of Catalonia's parliament, Carme Forcadell, on September 7 when 13 MEPs visited jailed separatist leaders. Forcadell is one of nine who have been placed in provisional detention on charges of rebellion as they await trial over their role in Catalonia's failed bid to break from Spain in October 2017. Their detention has sparked debate in Spain. New foreign minister Josep Borrell, a Catalan himself, said earlier in September that personally, he "would have preferred" the judge to take another measure rather than provisional detention. Asked about the affair in New York, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said: "Spain is democratic, it recognises territorial diversity in its constitution and has one of the highest standards of democracy in the world." Former speaker of the Catalan parliament, Carme Forcadell, is one of nine separatists placed in provisional detention on charges of rebellion over their role in Catalonia's failed bid to break from Spain in October 2017US President Donald Trump said Wednesday he would present a two-state peace plan for the Middle East in the coming months, voicing confidence the Palestinians would return to talks despite his unwavering support for Israel. Speaking before entering talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in New York, Trump said that it was a "dream" of his to bring about a peaceful solution to a conflict that has eluded several of his predecessors. "I would say over the next two to three to four months," Trump said, referring to his prospective timetable for presenting a plan as he met Netanyahu on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. Trump for the first time said explicitly that he backed a two-state solution that would create an independent Palestine, saying: "That's what I think works best, that's my feeling." "I really believe something will happen. It is a dream of mine to be able to get that done prior to the end of my first term," added Trump, who was elected to a four-year term through January 2021. The Middle East peace process has effectively been stalled since the Palestinians broke off contacts with the Trump administration last year in protest at the US president's decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state. The Palestinians also want Jerusalem to be their capital and have long argued that the status of the holy city should only be settled as part of a larger peace agreement. Relations between the Palestinian Authority and the United States have fallen even lower in recent weeks after Washington cut off funding, including to a UN agency that helps millions of Palestinian refugees. Trump, however, said that he was in no doubt that the Palestinians would soon return to the negotiating table. "They are absolutely coming back to the table," he said. "Absolutely, 100 percent." US President Donald Trump (R) meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on September 26, 2018 in New York on the sidelines of the UN General AssemblyMacedonians are casting ballots on Sunday on whether to add "North" to their country's official name. - Why? - The name change is an effort to overcome a 27-year-old argument with neighbouring Greece, which has refused to recognise Macedonia's name since the Balkan country declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1991. Athens argues that the name belongs solely to its own northern province called Macedonia, and accuses its Balkan neighbour of harbouring territorial ambitions. In protest, Greece has blocked Macedonia from NATO and the EU. Athens has also forced the country to use the clunky name FYROM (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) in the UN. The animosity deepened when Macedonia's former premier Nikola Gruevski went on a construction spree in the capital Skopje, erecting massive statues of Alexander the Great -- a hero both countries claim as their own -- and plastering government buildings in Hellenic-inspired facades. Athens, fiercely proud of its ancient history, blasted the moves as cultural appropriation. But Gruevski's downfall and the arrival last spring of a new government led by Macedonia's Social Democrats, allowed for an opening. Prime Minister Zoran Zaev and his Greek counterpart Alexis Tsipras met several times and inked an agreement in June that voters are now being called upon to approve. - What is in the deal? - It is not just about the country's official name. The deal also delves into history, language and identity. The key clause is Article 7, which says the terms "Macedonia" and "Macedonian" refer to "a different historical context and cultural heritage" for each country. For Skopje, a core victory was maintaining that their language can be called Macedonian, plus guarantees that Athens would stop blocking the path to NATO and the EU. But Macedonians will no longer be able to claim ties to the "ancient Hellenic civilization, history, culture and heritage" of Greece's Macedonia province, according to the deal. In recent years, Macedonian textbooks were rewritten to draw a link between present day Macedonians, who are ethnic Slavs, and the ancient Kingdom of Macedon which was led by Alexander the Great. Macedonian officials say history books will likely have to be revised and that explanatory plaques will be laid before statues of Alexander the Great and other contested monuments. Passports and car plates will also have to change. - Does a 'yes' vote solve the issue? - No. The referendum is only "consultative," according to Prime Minister Zaev. The next hurdle will be getting two-thirds of parliament to ratify the agreement and make necessary changes to the constitution. Currently, the right-wing opposition VMRO-DPMNE party is standing in the way. The nationalist party has criticised the deal, though they have stopped short of publicly calling for a boycott. They have instead come out to announce their positions individually, with President Gjorge Ivanov, from VMRO-DPMNE, saying he personally will not vote. Zaev is hoping a strong approval from the public will make it difficult for the party to ignore the people's will. Surveys suggest the referendum has a strong chance of passing, despite a lack of enthusiasm about the new name. For many Macedonians, the key driver to the polls is their desire to start EU accession talks in hopes of injecting life into a flat economy. - Is Russia meddling? - The US has accused Russia -- which is openly opposed to NATO's enlargement -- of running a disinformation campaign pushing for the referendum to fail. "No doubt that they have transferred money and that they are also conducting a broader influence campaign," US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis said in visit to Skopje this month. Premier Zaev played down the allegations, saying, "we don't have proof about Russian influence". Historically, Moscow has less clout in Macedonia than in other Balkan neighbours such as Serbia and Montenegro. But Russians have been accused of fomenting protests against the deal in neighbouring Greece, forcing Athens to expel two diplomats over the allegation in July. - Where is the 'no' campaign? - For now, mostly on social media, trailed by the hashtag #Bojkotiram", which means "boycott" in Macedonian. Thousands of fake accounts on Facebook and Twitter are helping amplify its affect, according to Macedonia's Investigative Reporting Lab, an NGO. Macedonia was notorious as a hub for fake news producers who tried to influence the 2016 US election. In August a story went viral alleging NATO would use depleted uranium at a Macedonian army base. The Defence Minister later denied the report, calling it "fake news". - What happens if the vote fails? - In an interview this month with AFP, Zaev warned that a failure to pass the referendum would isolate the country and could open a new "chapter of insecurity and instability in the whole region". The fragile Balkans are home to a host of complex disputes, some of which date back to the brutal 1990s wars that undid Yugoslavia and left 130,000 dead. Zaev is hoping that a successful vote could make the deal a role model for other regional disputes. "It would just be a real setback, on all sorts of levels, if this didn't go through," said James Ker-Lindsay, a Balkans expert at the London School of Economics. "We know that there won't be any going back to the table," he added. People wave Macedonian flags at a "yes" campaign rally in Skopje ahead of the referendum on whether to change the country's name to "Republic of Northern Macedonia" US Defense Secretary James Mattis, speaking after talks in Skopje with Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev earlier this month, accused Russia of meddling in the referendumA seven-year-old girl swinging in a hammock has been killed after the tree supporting her weight came crashing down on her.

Sabina Surjit Henderson was enjoying a family gathering at a property in Loudoun County, Virginia when the tree attached to the hammock collapsed on Saturday afternoon.

Sabina, who was playing in the hammock with her eight-year-old cousin at the time, was airlifted to a nearby hospital where she later died of her injuries.

The second child was treated for minor injuries.

The seven-year-old was described as a talented pianist with a powerful personality. Image: Henderson family handout

Sabinas heartbroken father, Ben Henderson, described his daughter as a smart and witty girl who loved to make other people laugh.

She was a powerful personality that lit up the room and was a memorable force for all those that met her, he said in a statement.

She was amazingly kind and thoughtful to her friends and family. Sabina was genuinely and completely loved by all that knew her.

Its understood Sabina was playing on a hammock with her cousin at their grandparents property when the tragic accident unfolded on Saturday afternoon. Image: Fox 5 News

Her loss tore a giant hole in our lives that will never be mended.

We will never recover from this, we will only survive.

Kraig Troxell of the Loudoun County Sheriffs Office said they were investigating what led to the tragic accident.

There have been some questions about whether rain played a factor. I think theres probably a couple of factors, but the ground is very soft right now, he told People.

A woman has embarked on an anti-manspreading campaign by splashing a mix of water and bleach onto offenders crotches.

Accusing men of gender aggression, 20-year-old Anna Dovgalyuk claims her native Russia is slow to counter the problem.

Men sitting with their legs spread wide on public transport are guilty of a disgusting act that is being fought around the world  but hushed up here, she said.

Ms Dovgalyuk, who studies law, went into battle against manspreading in the St Petersburg metro underground train system splashing a mix of 30 litres of water and six litres of bleach into the groin areas of men she deemed to be sitting in an offensive manner.

Anna Dovgalyuk has filmed herself splashing a combination of bleach and water on mens crotches on St Petersburg metro underground train in Russia to protest manspreading. Source: East2West/Australscope

This solution is 30 times more concentrated than the mixture used by housewives when doing the laundry, she warns targets in a video.

It eats colours in the fabric in a matter of minutes leaving indelible stains.

She added people can now tell who the manspreading culprits are due to their identification spots.

So, everyone can immediately understand which body part controls the behaviour of these men, Ms Dovgalyuk said.

She claimed her video was dedicated to all men for whom manspreading is the norm of conduct and to be acting on behalf of everyone who has to endure the manifestations of you declaring your macho qualities on public transportation.

A Russian news outlet claims the men featured in her video are paid actors, she denies this. Source: East2West/Australscope

Calling herself a social activist, Ms Dovgalyuk has previously achieved worldwide attention by flashing her underwear to commuters to raise awareness for up skirting laws in Russia.

Critics asked how she was helping counter the menace of up skirting by flashing her undies.

I am a social activist who advocates for womens rights and against discrimination in any form, she said.

However, Russian news outlet Rosbalt claims her video was a sham and that she had used actors.

But the campaigning student denies this.

My action is absolutely real, she said.

She added that no commuters had sued her so far.

I dont think people are going to go to the police to file a report about jeans, she said.

With East2West/AustralscopeThe metals tariffs took about $1 billion in profit from us -- and the irony is we source most of that in the U.S. today anyways, Hackett said in an interview on Bloomberg Television. If it goes on longer, there will be more damage."

Despite a reported net income in 2017 of $7.6 billion, the most since 2013, Ford CEO Chief Executive Officer Jim Hackett said this week the Chinese tariffs cost the company $1 billion in profit loss last year.

Industry Week reported Wednesday that Ford and other global automakers have opposed the presidents use of tariffs and the retaliation they spur:

Last month, Jim Farley, Fords president of global markets, described Trumps tariffs on steel and aluminum as a significant headwind for us. A few weeks later, the second-largest U.S. automaker canceled plans to import the Focus Active crossover from China, citing Trumps vehicle tariffs. What were urging our administration to do -- where were in China and in Europe -- we say, you need to come to agreement quickly, Hackett said.

The news seemed to have little effect on Ford's shares Wednesday, but they have dropped 25% in value since the first of 2018.

Reuters reported Wednesday that China unveiled plans to cut tariffs for products including machinery, electrical equipment and textile products beginning on Nov. 1, as the country braces for an escalating trade war with the United States.World number two Caroline Wozniacki and Wimbledon champion Angelique Kerber were stunned at the Wuhan Open in China on Wednesday, both suffering shock defeats at the hands of less fancied opponents. Olympic champion Monica Puig gave herself an early birthday present, beating Wozniacki 7-6 (12-10), 7-5 to reach the quarter-finals. She was joined in the last eight by in-form Ashleigh Barty, who upset world number three Kerber 7-5, 6-1. The 51st-ranked Puig was more than a match for Australian Open champion Wozniacki, who missed an opportunity to narrow the gap at the top after world number one Simona Halep was knocked out on Monday. It was the second time this year that Puig defeated Wozniacki, who made a solid start to the match, winning the first three games. But the Puerto Rican Puig quickly fought her way back to win two gruelling sets, the first of which was decided through a tie-breaker. Puig, who turns 25 on Thursday, appeared unfazed by her opponent's stature, and kept the Dane under pressure throughout with her aggressive play, especially during the tie-breaker, when control swayed between the two. "I feel like we both know each other's game well," said Puig, who made it to the main rounds in Wuhan through the qualifiers. "I just had to try and stay focused and be really aggressive at certain key points." Puig has been plagued by inconsistency since her Olympic gold in 2016, and vowed that she has dealt with the difficult aftermath of the Rio Games. "I think I let the pressure get to me," Puig said. "I was... not really feeling comfortable with myself." "Now I'm really just trying to take care of all the little stuff... (to make) the big picture seem a little bit easier to manage. "My lesson from Rio has been learned." - Barty time! - Germany's Kerber was downed 7-5, 6-1 by Australia's Barty, last year's runner-up in Wuhan. Barty came storming out of the blocks, taking a 3-0 lead in the first set before the German offered some resistance to make it 5-5. But it was a short-lived fightback as Barty, Australia's top-ranked player, quickly regained control while Kerber struggled to contain unforced errors. The Aussie wrapped up the match in just over 75 minutes, setting up a quarter-final against Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova. "I feel like by far this was my best match," said Barty, who is looking to end the 2018 season on a high. "I set myself that goal at the start of the year, that I want to stay top-20. I feel like I'm a top-20 player. Obviously I would love to push towards the top 10," she added. "It's been a really exciting year and hopefully there is a couple of big tournaments left." Olympic champion Monica Puig will head to the quarter-finals of the Wuhan Open after beating Caroline WozniackiYemen's president on Wednesday dismissed UN-led attempts to bring Huthi rebels to peace talks as "doomed to fail," telling the United Nations that a firm stance was needed to end the war. Earlier this month, the Huthis failed to turn up at talks convened by a UN peace envoy in Geneva, leaving peace efforts in disarray as Yemen's humanitarian crisis worsens. "All attempts at peace that are made with this group are doomed to fail," President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi told the UN General Assembly, describing the Huthis as "extremists who employ gangster-like tactics" and "create hate." "Peace cannot be obtained by cajoling those gangsters as some member-states do," he said. The United Nations invited Hadi's government and the Huthis to Geneva to re-start talks that broke down in 2016. But the Iran-aligned Huthis refused to leave the capital Sanaa, which they hold, and put forward a series of last-minute demands for the evacuation of wounded and the release of prisoners. Hadi said the international community must be "resolute" and stick to Security Council resolutions that call on the Huthis to withdraw from territory they have seized. Since 2015, Saudi Arabia has been leading a military campaign to restore Hadi's internationally recognized government to power and push back the Huthis. The war has left nearly 10,000 people dead and unleashed what the United Nations describes as the world's worst humanitarian crisis. The United States, along with France and Britain, have supported the Saudi coalition in Yemen, but the western powers have expressed concern over the heavy toll on civilians. The UN aid chief warned last week that relief agencies were losing the fight against famine in Yemen, where 3.5 million people may soon be added to the eight million Yemenis already facing starvation. Renewed fighting near the key port city of Hodeida combined with a sharp drop in the value of Yemen's currency have worsened the humanitarian crisis. Hodeida's port is a vital lifeline for aid shipments to Yemen, the most impoverished country in the Arab world. Yemen's President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, pictured in 2017, said the international community must be "resolute" and stick to Security Council resolutions that call on Huthi rebels to withdraw from territory they seizedIn a follow-up to a television commercial released last week, Democratic challenger Dana Balter is once again criticizing Republican U.S. Rep. John Katko for supporting a tax overhaul that she says led to higher health care premiums.

The charge, which is highlighted in a new TV ad released by Balter's campaign, stems from Katko's vote for the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, legislation signed by President Donald Trump in December that reduced corporate and income tax rates. The measure included a provision eliminating the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate penalty.

The Affordable Care Act, a 2010 health care law pushed by Democrats and signed by then-President Barack Obama, required individuals to buy health insurance. If they failed to enroll in a plan, they would be fined.

For 2018, the individual mandate penalty is $695 for adults or 2.5 percent of household income, whichever is greater. Beginning in 2019, due to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, there won't be a penalty for not having health insurance coverage.

With the elimination of the individual mandate penalty, insurance companies are seeking higher premium rates in 2019. State regulators have reported that insurers cite the individual mandate's repeal for the need to significantly increase premiums.

One insurance company, Fidelis, proposed a 39 percent rate hike. Other insurers suggested rate hikes in the 20 to 30 percent range. The rates must be approved by state regulators.

The repeal of the individual mandate penalty could lead to higher premiums for older Americans. The AARP estimated that premiums for those in the 50-64 age group could go up by as much as $1,500 next year.

Balter also explained that the repeal of the individual mandate penalty could threaten protections for those with preexisting conditions. With the elimination of the fine, some Republican attorneys general are using it in an attempt to have the entire Affordable Care Act dismantled.

If that happens, key provisions that most Republicans support  keeping children on their parents' health insurance until age 26 and protections for individuals with preexisting conditions  would be gone.

"People of this district deserve access to high quality, affordable health insurance and health care," Balter said in a statement. "John Katko's vote for the tax bill gutted the ACA which is the exact opposite of what we should be doing for the families of central and western New York. We need solutions that will reduce costs and ensure that everyone has coverage for care no matter their pre-existing conditions or economic status."

Katko has defended his tax vote by maintaining that it will benefit a vast majority of his constituents. He believes his position on the individual mandate was consistent, even though he has long opposed efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act unless there was a suitable replacement.

Following the tax vote in December, Katko outlined his stance on the individual mandate penalty.

"I don't think there is a time or place where we should impose mandates on people where basically, if they don't do something that is strictly a voluntary thing like get insurance, they are going to be penalized for it," he said. "I just don't think we should do that. I've voted that way in the past and my vote on this bill is consistent with that."

On Wednesday, Katko campaign manager Jeff Bishop accused Balter of "distorting the facts" about the congressman's vote.

"Congressman Katko has a strong record of standing up against attempts to dismantle access to health care," Bishop said. "It's clear Visiting Professor Balter is trying to distract voters from her plan to double taxes on every American and every business to fund her radical government takeover of health care."

The television commercial is the latest in the 24th district race. A few of Balter's ads have focused mainly on Katko's tax vote and the impact on health care. Some of Katko's commercials have criticized Balter's support of Medicare-for-all.

The candidates are vying for the 24th district seat, which Katko has held since 2015. He is seeking a third term in Congress. This is Balter's first run for political office.

The general election will be held Tuesday, Nov. 6.

Love 2 Funny 1 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 3A group founded by former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords that advocates for stricter gun laws is supporting Democratic challenger Dana Balter in New York's 24th Congressional District race.

Giffords, which was launched by the former congresswoman and her husband, Mark Kelly, announced Wednesday that it has endorsed Balter, D-Syracuse, in her race against U.S. Rep. John Katko, a Republican.

"Voters are ready to elect Dana Balter because she will always put protecting their communities over helping the gun lobby make a profit," Giffords said in a statement. "Giffords is proud to endorse her for Congress because she will never stop fighting for what's right."

Balter supports universal background checks for gun purchases. Polls have shown a vast majority of Americans support universal background checks, but Congress hasn't acted.

Another proposal Balter endorsed is the repeal of the Dickey Amendment, a provision that dates back to the 1990s. The amendment aimed to prevent the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from conducting gun violence research.

She wants the CDC to study the effects of gun violence and Congress to ensure that the agency receives the funding it needs to conduct the research.

Balter and Katko, R-Camillus, are on opposite sides of the gun debate. Katko has received the National Rifle Association's support in past elections and boasts an "A" rating from the group.

When asked about the NRA's support earlier this year, Katko said he's "not beholden" to the gun rights organization.

In a news release, Giffords singled out Katko's support for the Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act, which would allow individuals permitted to carry firearms in one state to cross state lines with their weapons.

Giffords opposes the measure and believes it would "endanger New York law enforcement by making it legal for dangerous out-of-staters to carry hidden firearms in public."

The endorsement was announced a few weeks after Katko introduced legislation that would encourage states to adopt "red flag" laws. The bill would give states priority for federal grants if they enact laws that provide a mechanism for removing guns from individuals who are deemed to be a threat to themselves or others.

Katko's bill has bipartisan support, but Balter has dismissed it as "toothless" and "weak."

Balter is seeking to unseat Katko in the 24th district race. There have been two public polls released. One showed Katko leading by 15 points. Another found Balter up by four points.

Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 6.

Love 1 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 2CAMILLUS  At a town hall meeting Tuesday, John Mannion sought to make connections with 50th Senate District voters he hopes to represent.

Mannion, D-Westvale, answered questions for 45 minutes at the Maxwell Memorial Library in Camillus. It was the first of five town hall meetings he plans to hold in as many weeks. The first gathering drew nearly 30 people.

The question-and-answer phase of the forum opened with an inquiry about his position on charter schools and teacher evaluations. While he believes charter schools were originally an innovative idea, he questioned why public funds are given to the schools when they dont have to abide by the same guidelines.

As a biology teacher at West Genesee High School in Camillus, Mannion is familiar with the current teacher evaluation system. He believes state testing, which is main part of how teachers are evaluated, is flawed.

There is a bill in the state Legislature that received bipartisan support and would alter the existing teacher evaluation system by allowing for local control. It would prevent state tests from being used in the evaluation of teachers. The measure passed the state Assembly, but didnt receive a vote in the state Senate.

The tests need to change and the evaluation system needs to change, Mannion said.

There were multiple questions about water quality during the town hall meeting. Harmful algal blooms have been spotted in Owasco and Skaneateles lakes, both of which provide drinking water to Auburn, Syracuse and other municipalities within the 50th district.

To address the problem, the state has allocated $65 million for the development of plans to combat algal blooms on lakes throughout New York. But Mannion believes more should be done to protect the lakes, especially here in central New York. He supports a comprehensive plan that would include an educational component, more state funding and greater coordination with other communities working to eliminate algal blooms.

We have to do better, he said. Its our drinking water. Its our greatest resource.

Mannion reiterated his support of a community grid to replacing the existing Interstate 81 viaduct in Syracuse. There has been much debate in the region about the project because of the pros and cons of each proposal.

The community grid would utilize the street system in the city and remove the elevated highway. Interstate 481 would be used for through traffic, such as large trucks and motorists traveling north on I-81.

Mannion acknowledged that there are other alternatives for the project. The viaduct could be rebuilt and reconfigured. A tunnel combined with a community grid is a possibility. But both would cost more than the community grid on its own. The grid would cost an estimated $1.3 billion. Rebuilding the viaduct would cost at least $1.7 billion. The hybrid tunnel-grid option would exceed $3 billion.

The tunnel option was initially eliminated from consideration because the state determined it wasnt feasible. But after another study was completed, the hybrid option will be included in the options that the state Department of Transportation considers. Mannion believes that decision is irresponsible due to the maintenance the tunnel would require, the infrastructure it would affect and the citys high water table.

The community grid, he argued, could spur economic development and help connect the downtown area to University Hill.

The grid is not a boulevard, he said. The grid is a more comprehensive plan that can improve access to those areas.

Mannion concluded the town hall meeting with an outline of his five-point ethics reform agenda. He wants to ban outside income for state lawmakers and end whats known as the LLC loophole, which allows wealthy individuals to create multiple limited liability corporations that can donate to candidates. He also supports limits on donations from soft money campaign committees.

He endorsed legislation that would restore the state comptrollers authority to oversee certain state economic development projects. And he supports establishing a truly independent redistricting commission.

He also believes there should be term limits for state lawmakers. There isnt a cap on how long a legislator can serve in the Assembly or Senate. For state senators, he supports imposing a limit of seven terms, or 14 years.

Mannions ethics reform plan builds on one of his core beliefs  that there needs to be more common people in the state Legislature. If that happens, he believes that it may help restore faith in government.

I think theres less of it than its ever been, he said. Thats why I think we need regular people  We need people to come in, serve and then pass the torch onto the next folks.

Mannion is vying for the 50th district seat against Republican nominee Bob Antonacci, the longtime Onondaga County comptroller. They are hoping to succeed state Sen. John DeFrancisco, a Republican who has served in the state Senate since 1993.

Online producer Robert Harding can be reached at (315) 282-2220 or robert.harding@lee.net. Follow him on Twitter @robertharding.

Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0The first negative campaign literature in the 50th Senate District race slams Republican candidate Bob Antonacci for supporting Donald Trump and labels him a "career politician."

The cover of the mailer, which was sent by the New York State Democratic Committee in support of John Mannion, declares that "the contrast for state Senate is clear." Mannion, a Democrat, is a teacher and a reformer, the mailer notes. Below, a less-than-flattering image of Antonacci is shown with the words, "Bob Antonacci: Career Politician. Trump Extremist."

The inside of the mailer expands on the claims by explaining that Antonacci was an early supporter of Trump's who "tried to land a patronage job with the administration  and failed."

That's an apparent reference to reports before Trump took office in 2017 that Antonacci was considered a candidate to become the next U.S. attorney for the Northern District of New York. Trump never nominated Antonacci for the post.

Antonacci, the mailer continues, is a "career politician who opposed banning outside income for Onondaga elected officials." He has served as Onondaga County comptroller since 2008. Last year, he opposed an ethics reform package proposed by Onondaga County Executive Joanie Mahoney that would ban outside income for county elected officials.

The mailer also criticizes Antonacci for being endorsed by the "extremist" Conservative Party, a minor party that typically backs GOP candidates in New York.

The literature contrasts Antonacci's views with Mannion's, including the Democratic candidate's support for banning outside income. Mannion, the mailer outlines, is "an independent reformer, not a politician."

But Republicans believe the mailer is negative and an attack on Antonacci.

"John Mannion says he's not a typical politician, but he sure is acting like one," said Scott Reif, a spokesman for the Senate Republicans. "Right out of the gate, his desperate campaign is slinging mud and engaging in false and negative attacks meant to distract from the serious issues facing central New York families."

Reif added, "The bottom line is a vote for John Mannion is a vote to put the New York City politicians in control of our entire state government. If that happens, upstate gets nothing."

Antonacci has used similar language in the past to warn voters about what would happen if Mannion is elected to the state Senate. He believes that it would result in a New York City takeover of state government because the governor's office and state Legislature would be controlled by Democrats.

The race for the 50th Senate District is expected to be one of the most competitive in the state. Antonacci and Mannion are vying to succeed retiring state Sen. John DeFrancisco, a Republican who has been in office since 1993.

Love 0 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1Three volunteers in the Cayuga County area were honored by the New York State Office of the Aging for their service to older adults in the comMORAVIA  Megan Newhouse employs a repertoire of contorted facial expressions, animated voices and swift movements in her role as a science teacher.

Newhouse, now in her 10th year at Moravia Middle School, said her father, Donald Walker, once told her she was well-suited to be a teacher: "'It's like you're on stage every day.'"

Walker, a school drama director and chemistry teacher, fueled Newhouse's passions for science and performance as she grew up in Bradford, Vermont. She played the lead in several high school productions, and is known to sing in the Moravia halls and during class, she said. Before teaching, Newhouse worked as an analytical chemist for a Syracuse business. The job became too monotonous, she said, so she eventually took on education full-time. She said she doesn't regret the switch, as she has found that no two days are the same for a teacher.

Those passions led to Newhouse winning the Science Teachers Association of New York State Excellence in Teaching Award at the intermediate level in August. Newhouse said she spent much of that day thinking that she lost, worried that she wasted hours upon hours working on her 56-page application for the award.

"I pour so much of my life into teaching, so to have some external validation that I'm doing a good job does feel good," she said.

At her general science class Thursday, Newhouse matched colorful theatrics with a vocal tone that was playful. Yet she suggested the class was going to largely stay on the topic at hand, which was how Earth's continents spread out hundreds of millions of years ago to take their current forms. She often paused while leading up to when she wanted students to finish her sentence with the right answer to her statement, comedically straining her jaw before bursting into a smile after hearing the right word. At one point, upon saying the word "dig," she put her arms into a sharp downward motion as if she was burying a shovel into the ground.

Each of the eight students in the class often chimed in with different answers, instead of a couple students dominating the classroom. At one point, student Dakota Stairs casually mentioned, without prompting, that the extinct Glossopteris plant could grow up to several feet tall. The smile on Newhouse's face doubled in size.

"I'm so glad you remember that," she said.

Newhouse later said she was thrilled Dakota recalled that factoid from three days earlier, as it showed her students are engaging with the material. She said that back when she was in school, science was treated as a list of facts one was expected to simply memorize. Now, she continued, science is not only fun, but a process. The point is to encourage students to think like scientists, asking their own questions as they pore over data. Middle school students possess an innate curiosity, Newhouse said; it's just a matter of tapping into it.

She refuses to take all the credit, however. She said Moravia Middle School's program and culture encourages students to participate instead of being "jaded and checked out by now." Principal Bruce MacBain said Newhouse is constantly interacting with students, whether it's during class, lunch or after-school programs. Her passion for both science and building relationships with students is "an incredible combination," MacBain said.

One way Newhouse reaches students, she said, is constantly reassuring them of their own worth. Even while disciplining a student, she said, she will say she still likes them. Newhouse said middle school can be a particularly rough period in a person's life, so encouragement is key. Newhouse wants to serve as a role model for students to show they can be passionate about science  especially girls, as she noted some studies indicate many girls lose interest in STEM-related fields as teenagers. So Newhouse wants to continue that interest.

"Part of what makes students willing to participate is feeling that they're safe and they're real and worth something," she said.

Newhouse said she often tries to connect students with real science, such as taking them to Cornell University to study hydroponics and having them video-conference with graduate students working in Antarctica and the Falkland Islands. She said she believes these learning experiences demonstrate to students that scientific work includes ongoing efforts across the globe that they can be a part of. While she has large goals in mind, Newhouse said she is utterly unafraid to make herself look silly in order to get a point across.

"I can put on a show and get them drawn in," she said.

Staff writer Kelly Rocheleau can be reached at (315) 282-2243 or kelly.rocheleau@lee.net. Follow him on Twitter @KellyRocheleau.

Love 3 Funny 0 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 0

Be the first to know Get local news delivered to your inbox! Sign up! * I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy.The Seward House Museum announced Wednesday afternoon that its talk by Dan Abrams, scheduled for Thursday at Auburn High School, has been postponed.

Abrams, the chief legal affairs anchor for ABC News, had to postpone because he has been called to his news desk to cover the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on Thursday. Both Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blaisey Ford, who has accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault, are scheduled to testify before the committee that day.Nearly all of the Republican members of Congress were attentive to a ceremony that honored their departed colleague  Sen. John McCain. However, it was also obvious to most of us watching on our TVs that nearly all of them who attended the service were there for show because ... that's politics as we've come to know it!

It was when Meghan McCain rose and spoke that she showed everyone just how tough she can be! (Surely the Republicans in attendance knew exactly what she was referring to.)

Her words were clear to everyone who heard them. She reiterated her father's disdain for those who abuse their power and she made clear that it was time to reject the hateful, petty, law-defying politics" of this president. When she finished speaking, the vast majority in the cathedral broke into applause ... not exactly a common occurrence during a eulogy.

In his final book, McCain described Trumps behavior as disturbing and appalling. More recently he called out Trumps naivete, egotism, false equivalence, and sympathy for autocrats.

Most Americans are genuinely concerned about President Trump's refusal to defend our national security in the face of Russian attacks. But even more alarming is the lack of the Republican Party to defend the FBI, the Justice Department and the First Amendment whenever the president attacks them ... which is far too often!

Despite their coming to honor John McCain, what we're increasingly becoming aware of is that despite being entrusted with power, the Republican Party has chosen complicity.

What is apparent also  to those who acknowledge John McCain's contributions to this nation  is that his final public act was to turn his memorial service into a wake-up call about a president of the United States who is damaging and threatening his own country.

Joyce Hackett Smith-Moore

Auburn

Love 4 Funny 7 Wow 0 Sad 0 Angry 1Idstein responded by condemning the illegal destruction of property committed against a senior citizen in Grayslake and called on his opponent to join him in putting an end to this behavior. Despite Yingling being the fourth openly gay legislator elected to the Illinois General Assembly, he did not respond to Idstein's call.

GRAYSLAKE -- Every election season there's incidents of campaign sign vandalism - especially if a race is contentious. Apparently, the Republican House challenger Ken Idstein is annoying Democrat State Rep. Sam Yingling in the north suburban 62nd District. Vandals spray painted vulgar terms on Idstein's signs.

"These despicable attacks have no place in our community. I am running because the current political leaders have failed us. When we stand up to them, they unleash the vilest attacks. We won't be bullied. We won't be intimidated.

"My opponent has used $1.5 million from Speaker Madigan, the most money taken by any candidate, to send political attack mailers and divide our community. It is time we stand together as a community against the politically powerful. I call on my opponent, to cease with his extreme political attacks aimed at distracting from his record, and publicly condemn this illegal behavior. I'm going to Springfield to save our homes by ending this Chicago-style political culture, not bring it to Lake County."

Over the weekend, a yard sign on the private property of a Larry Leafblad, former County Board Member, was defaced with a slur written across it.

"This tactic is a gutter tactic. If this has become the norm, good luck. But I know it doesn't represent the values of our community. It just confirms the need to change the culture in politics and confirms that we need someone like Ken who has the character to stand up for what is right," said Larry Leafblad.

The 62nd House District includes parts of Avon, Fremont, Grant, Lake Villa, Warren and Wauconda.Michael Avenatti, best known as the lawyer for AVN Hall of Famer Stormy Daniels, released the name of a client, Julie Swetnick, who accuses Donald Trumps Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of repeated sexual misconduct, includng a gang rape in which she was the victim, according to a post on Avenattis Twitter account Wednesday morning.

The allegations are the third on-the-record sexual assault-related allegations against Kavanaugh, and appear to be the most explosive so far.

In her affidavit, which she has submitted under oath, Swetnick says that in 1982 she was drugged at a party and raped by multiple boys. While she did not allege that Kavanaugh was among the boys who raped her, as USA Today reported, she does say that Kavanaugh was present as she was gang raped.

During the incident I was incapacitated without my consent and unable to fight off the boys raping me, Swetnick wrote in the affidavit posted by Avenatti. I believe I was drugged using Quaaludes or something similar placed in what I was drinking.

Though Swetnick does not name Kavanaugh as one of her rapists, she says that sometime in 1981 or 1982, she became aware that Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge made efforts to spike punch at house parties with drugs or grain alcohol to cause girls to lose their inhibitions and their ability to say No.

Swetnick is reported to be 55 years old, two years older than Kavanaugh, and according to NBC News a 1980 graduate of Gaithersberg High School in Maryland. She has has held multiple work clearances for work done at the Treasury Department, U.S. Mint, IRS, State Department and Justice Department, among others, CNBC reported in its account of the Swetnick affidavit.

Kavanaugh, according to NBC News, said that the incidents described by Swetnick never happened, and are from the Twilight Zone." A lawyer for Judge said that Kavanaghs high school friend vehemently denies the allegations contained in the Swetnick affidavit, according to CNBC.

Swetnick also said that she was aware of other, apparently similar incidents involving Kavanaugh and Judge.

"I have a firm recollection of seeing boys lined up outside rooms at many of these parties waiting for their 'turn' with a girl inside the room, she says in the affidavit, as reported by CBS News. These boys included Mark Judge and Brett Kavanaugh."

Photo via Michael Avenatti TwitterWASHINGTON, D.C.The legal battle against FOSTA, the law passed earlier this year supposedly to curtail online sex trafficking, but which sex workers say has made their jobs more dangerous and some law enforcement authorities say has made tracking down actual sex traffickers more difficult, is over. And the law won. At least for now.

The federal district court in Washington D.C. on Monday dismissed a lawsuit filed in June by the online civil liberties group Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), together with the Woodhull Sexual Freedom Alliance, Human Rights Watch and a group of other plaintiffs.

Though the court did not make a decision on whether or not the law is constitutional, in a 29-page ruling, United States District Judge Richard Leon, who was appointed to the court in 2002 by President George W. Bush and was the judge who threw out obscenity charges against Evil Angel mid-trial, found that none of the plaintiffs had standing to sue the government to stop the FOSTA laws implementation.

In other words, none of the plaintiffs, Leon ruled, can demonstrate that they have been damaged by FOSTA, or that invalidating the law would help them correct the injuries they say they have suffered as a result of the law.

The Woodhull Foundation claimed in the lawsuit that due to its mission of advocating for sexual freedom, it might be open to prosecution under FOSTA which prohibits online activity promoting or facilitating prostitution, sections of the law that Woodhull said were overly broad and vague.

But Leon ruled that FOSTA clearly targets only specific offers of prostitution services, not the abstract topic of prostitution or sex work. In response to Woodhulls claim that by operating its online site it could be targeted by the law, Leon ruled that established law bans only speech that in intended to commence or induce illegal activities. As a result, the judge ruled, Woodhull has no standing to challenge the FOSTA law.

But according to EFF, FOSTA could chill free speech, which would also violate the First Amendment.

Were disappointed and believe the decision is wrong, EFF said in a statement in response to the judges decision. For example, the court failed to apply the standing principles that are usually applied in First Amendment cases in which the plaintiffs speech is chilled.

In his ruling, Leon said that allegations of a subjective chill are not an adequate substitute for a claim of specific present objective harm or a threat of specific future harm.

EFF appeared ready to continue with the case, however, saying that Woodhull and the other plaintiffs were considering their options for their next steps.

UPDATE: According to First Amendment attorney Reed Lee, "There is more to this opinion than 'case dismissed.'

"It is critically important to understand why this anticipatory challenge to FOSTA has been dismissed. So far, from looking in what I think will turn out to be the right places, it looks like ALL of the decision says that FOSTA is simply not as broad as the challengers feared (and many proponents claimed or hoped). This is not bad news but very good news, as it indicates that, yet again, prosecutors and anti-prostitution forces may have failed to get what they hoped for.

"It looks like the trial judge has held, with respect to every single challenger separately, that FOSTA, properly interpreted, simply cannot reach what [plaintiffs are] doing. Again, that is not bad news at all.

"For this kind of lawsuit, a dismissal for want of a case or controversy does not mean that the lawsuit was for naught. If, as appears here, it results from a narrow reading of the statute, that shows that some antagonists didn't get what they wanted in the statute. (As many of us predicted all along)."

Lee expects to analyze this decision further in the near future.

Photo By Agnostic Preachers Kid / Wikimedia CommonsIn 2017, ManyVids inaugurated its glam MV Loft in the heart of Montreal, Canada, and invited four MV stars per week to join in celebration. Each guest spent five days in the 3,500 sq. ft. sanctuary, situated in one of the hippest cities in the world.

As the MV stars enjoyed their time in the city, the MV Marketing Team stood by to put the models through MV's Promo Machine. There were professional photo shoots and solo vids, live interviews via the MV Podcast, and additional fun vids that appeared on the MV Pop YouTube channeland of course, the MV stars were plastered all over the company's social media accounts.

Over the course of 12 weeks, the MV Loft established itself as a great location for MV stars to let their hair down, relax in luxury and experience the freedom to create the type of quality content that propels them to MV stardom.

With 2017 such a success for the loft, naturally, the company is launching Season Two of its "MV Loft Event," but this time bigger, better and more inclusive than ever. Six weeks of activities are scheduled, which began September 3, 2018. Within the first four weeks, the company will host MV girls on rotation at the rate of four per week, followed by a week featuring four MV Trans models and finally a week showcasing four MV boys. To top it off, the MV boys are scheduled to shoot content for the very first issue of MV Mag featuring men. While enjoying Montreal nightlife and lots of loft playtime, the models will be actively creating content for their MV profiles and reveling in the process of becoming MV famous.

ManyVids is primed to show its 24 MV stars an amazing time. Fans should be prepared to witness even more glamor and fanfare than last year.Sugary puddings should be dropped from school lunch menus, according to the Faculty of Dental Surgery of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow.

The faculty has revealed it made the call in its submission to a consultation by the Scottish government on the nutritional requirements for food and drink in schools. The consultation closed last month.

Puddings only provide excess free sugar, salt and fat, said the faculty, adding that children should instead be encouraged to increase their vegetable intake.

It stated the choice of soup or pudding was common on menus and suggested this be changed for soup or fresh fruit as either would provide at least one additional portion of fruit or vegetables.

Children should have greater access to more fruit and vegetables as part of their school day, but increasing access does not necessarily increase consumption, said faculty dean Professor Graham Ogden, adding that the Scottish governments guidance should include an evidence-based plan to ensure young people consume larger amounts of healthier food during school meals.

The facultys submission called for action to ensure children had access to facilities in schools to brush their teeth after meals.

Some primary schools already provide excellent facilities where pupils can brush their teeth with fluoride toothpaste after eating school meals, and so we feel that this approach should be available more widely, added Ogden.

The faculty also suggested proper kitchens should be established in all schools and should favour local food producers to reduce consumption of processed and ultra-processed foods.More than 600 attendees joined Gateway Eagle Council XLVII in St. Louis over a three-day period from Friday, September 14 to early afternoon on Sunday, September 16. Jim Hoft, Gateway Pundit , one of the most influential conservative websites in US politics, joined Eagle Council XLVII, founded by Phyllis Schlafly in 1972, for this leading mid-America conservative conference. See here this years lineup of top American and European conservative leaders who provided amazing insight about issues facing this nation and in Europe.

The tone for the late Phyllis Schlafly's amazing 47th Eagle Council was set from the start, when five well known conservatives spoke in succession under the heading "President Trump is Winning." This year's event was held in what the Marriott St. Louis Airport hotel refers to as the "Grand Pavilion", but Eagle Council referred to it as the "Presidential Pavilion" because of the many presidential hopefuls it hosted there in 2015.

Three of the five notable speakers appear below in order of their presentations: Ralph Reed, Stephen Moore, and Sam Clovis. Part 2 will feature James O'Keefe and Charlie Kirk. All offer rare insights into Trumps pre-election campaign, with speculation as to what lies ahead.

Jim Hoft of Gateway Pundit introduced the speaker.

Ralph Reed, Faith and Freedom Coalition

The 2018 Election: A Call to Action

Ralph Reed , in speaking about what happened at the 1996 Republican Convention in San Diego, spoke of an attempt to water down the pro-life plank of the Republican Party by presidential candidate Bob Dold. Reed related how the tolerance plank amendment Dold wanted to attract more moderate voters was withdraw due to a lack of votes. As Reed said: "When you have the votes you can do whatever you wish. When you don't have the votes, you are powerless and limited as to what can be done.

As to Reed's support of candidate Trump, Trump was never the lesser of two evils for him. Reed went on to state three significant (pivotal) moves Trump made as a candidate to secure his election.

May of 2016 - Trump released his Supreme Court judge list with its 21 names from which he would fill the existing Supreme Judge vacancy. And Trump has kept his word to the American people. Trump has appointed 99 District Court Justices; 26 Appellate Court justices; and is on the way to appointing two Supreme Court justices.

Oct. 10, 2016 - The St. Louis debate between Trump and Hillary, which occurred around the time of the Hollywood tape release. Chris Wallace asked about late term abortions. Hillary didn't give an inch. Trump in responding to Hillary said: "She (Hillary) just said that she's ok with ripping a baby from a woman's womb before born."

July 15, 2016 in Cleveland - Trump selected Mike Pence to be vice president. Trump is the first president to address the March to Life by video

In speaking about the Democrat Party, Reed mentioned these two main goals:

Impeaching Trump.

Blocking every Trump nominated judge.

Reed is determined to bring out the largest church vote ever in November, targeting 30 millions voters. He is also sending out millions of Voter Guides and will be tracking early voting for key House races in ND, MO, MT, IN, FL, NE, TN, and TX. In the 2016 elections, 81% of Christian conservatives voted for Trump. As Reed said, "We must make sure that the media is shocked one more time at the mid-terms."

Stephen Moore, Heritage Foundation

Trump Wins on Economics

As one who worked in the Reagan White House, Steve Moore revealed that prior to Trump's election he worked in the Trump campaign, often with the next featured speaker, Steve Clovis, as his partner. Moore is known for his humor, which was reflected by the following incident related by him. Moore was on CNN the night Stormy Daniels charges broke against candidate Donald Trump. When Moore was asked about the charges, not having had a chance to process the claim, Moore blurted out the first thing that came to his mind: "Who would have thought a stripper would want attention?", to which no liberal laughed.

Steve gave thanks to Sam Clovis for getting him involved in the Trump campaign in January of 2016. Clovis and Moore did many events together for Trump, such as seeing only Trump signs when driving together through small communities in Ohio.

Early on Moore learned that "Government is not the solution, but instead the problem." According to Moore: "Never again should we ever bail out a bank or an industry." Said Moore: Because Obama added $10 trillion to the debt after eight years in office, we are now $20 trillion in debt. According to Moore, growth is what the Trump economy is all about, citing an economy that is growing at a rate of 4-1/2%.

Just what does Moore call the Trump effect? The day Trump was elected president, only 3 out of 10 thought the economy was great. Today it's 7 out of 10. Moore feels if the economy continues to do well, Trump could win 40 states in 2020. Deregulation by 30% has helped spur the economy.

Moore described Trump as a master deal maker, and he's winning on trade. As Moore stated: "The world is laughing at us for our existing lopsided trade practices. We want trade, but fair trade." Trump realizes that China is not a friend or an ally; it's an enemy. Moore predicts that by the end of the year China will come to us and make a deal to reduce our $300 billion trade deficit. We produce more oil and gas than any country in the world, but Trump isn't looking for "enemy independence"; he wants "energy dominance." We have plenty of natural gas which is clean burning.

Moore spoke of the DMC as just "a line in the sand." North and South Korea are the same in every way. 50 years ago, one went the way of Socialism, the other embraced capitalism. According to Moore: "Thirty Democrats are running as Socialists today."

Trump has also succeeded in reducing business tax rates, which were way too high. He saw how other countries had cut their tax rates to 20%, while ours remained at 40%. Trump initially wanted a corporate tax rate of 15%, not 20%. As a master negotiator, Trump started at 15% and finally ended up at 20%. Trump's tax cuts were never about the rich, but about helping the middle class. Moore gave credit to Sam Clovis for drawing up the tax cuts, realizing that if tax rates go down, revenues go up.

Sam Clovis, Co-Chair of Donald Trump 2016 Presidential Campaign

The Search for Accountability in the Swamp

Sam Clovis became an admirer and friend of Phyllis Schlafly's years ago, as she was a conservative and not afraid of being one. Clovis was initially helping Rick Perry when a call came from the Donald Trump campaign asking for his help. Trump respected Clovis' decision, telling Clovis that if Perry's campaign ever went south, he should remember him. With Perry's withdrawal as a candidate, Clovis' work for Trump started early on. Clovis even had his own introductory music for his Trump speaking engagements: "Bat Out of Hell". Clovis spoke of a Sept. 2015 interview with Anderson Cooper in which he was asked to speak about Trump. Never having done an interview before, Sam was told to just stand there and talk, which he did. This is important, because the only guidance Clovis ever received when working for Trump was to do what is in the best interest of the candidate.

Sam Clovis never dreamed of being part of the Donald Trump experience. He had the opportunity to work hard and long and to witness Trump's victory. Clovis sees Trump as one who will change this nation. He also believes Trump is more conservative than Ronald Reagan.

Clovis related how accountability within a swamp is a difficult task. He then spoke about our written Constitution as a document that sets forth the law of the land and provides order through checks and balances. "If the Constitution were followed", said Clovis, "we wouldn't have the problems we are now facing."

As to Clovis' biggest disappointments, he stated two:

The media. Those we send to Congress to represent us in the Senate and the House aren't willing to fight. Promises made by them should be promises kept. Trump is the only president in Clovis' lifetime who keeps his promises.

Clovis believes that accountability rests with "We the People." To drain the swamp, we must make the people we elect accountable to their promises. Clovis, when sitting down with Trump (his boss), informed Trump to "always tell the truth. The people will respect you for it. If there are questions, go to your people to find out what they want. They will inform. We are working for you because you scared the hell out of Hillary Clinton."

President Donald Trump nominated Sam Clovis to be USDA undersecretary for research, education and economics , but Clovis had to withdraw his name from consideration before the Senate Agriculture Committee could hold a confirmation hearing, after a torrent of criticism from Senate Democrats and environmental advocates.

Part 2 will feature the final two of the fabulous five speakers who opened Phyllis Schlaflys Gateway Eagle Council XLVII: James OKeefe, Project Veritas and Charlie Kirk, Turning Point, U.S.A.

Phyllis Schlafly Gateway Eagle Council XLCVII article by Thorner about Lieutenant General Michael FlyShould Beaufort County's commissioners be resolved to ask the federal government to defend our Southern Border by ending the Biden /Harris Open Border policy in regards to that one border that is intentionally made OPEN?

Yes, Illegal Migrants are a huge expense to local governments.

No, the cost of Undocumented Immigrants is insignificant in our providing a pathway for the "Browning of America".I don't pretend to know all that traverses the collective mind of the U.S. Senate body politic, but the vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee to approve Brett Kavanaugh to move forward to the entire senate for the affirmation of their duty to advise and consent will be rendered this week. This is just one small man's prediction.The core Democrats have made such a caustic spectacle of their Circus of Hypocrisy with these waves of women making specious allegations against this good man is so calculated, so transparent, even "The Creepy Porn Lawyer", Michael Avenatti, is sleazing about the edges of the People's government; which should alarm these Senate Republicans to rise up now to put down this Democratic version of the Idiot Rebellion.The scheduled hearing by the Senate Judiciary Committee to hear Christine Ford will be held Thursday as agreed upon by the all parties; however, one sticky negotiating point by the core Democrats: Democrat activists Ms. Ford and her Democrat funded gang of lawyers, the Senate Democrats and the Democrat Media had all publicly conspired to have the Republican Senators on the committee - heretofore described by all these core Democrat parties as- would only be interview Ms. Ford.Since these core Democrats had publicly stated that the Ford /Kavanaugh hearing was primarily a, Senate Republicans elected to bring in outside counsel to interview both witnesses to the alleged unwanted fondling by 17 year old Brett Kavanaugh alleged to have been committed 36 years earlier.Because Senate Republicans appears to have successfully countered these core Democrats, and their propagandists in the Democrat Media, by using outside counsel to thwart their, lead core Democrat, Senator Diane Feinstein, has stated Tuesday that "she can not gurantee that Ms Ford will show to be heard".Since the accuser may not take advantage of her opportunity to have her one day in the court of the United States Senate, with the whole nation watching, it is apparent that the alleged 36 year old fondling incident may not really have been such a big deal as promoted by co-conspirators: Ms. Christine Ford, core Democrat Senators, and the Democrat Media after all.Tariffs will make reconstruction more expensive and possibly slow efforts to rebuild after Hurricane Florence, builders and economists say.As the Trump administration remains locked in escalating trade disputes with China, North Carolina faces higher costs from existing tariffs on steel and Canadian lumber.Before the hurricane hit the East Coast, builders were already estimating the tariffs added $9,000 to the price of the average home, according to the National Association of Home Builders.Wake Forest University adjunct professor Anthony Penry said.Hurricane Florence caused some $38 billion to $50 billion in damage and disruption, says an estimate by Moody's Analytics. The estimate ranks Hurricane Florence among the top-10 costliest hurricanes.Under the tariffs, federal money won't stretch as far, says Richard Ebeling, professor of Ethics and Free Enterprise Leadership at The Citadel.Ebeling said.Making matters worse, builders have faced a national labor shortage of construction workers since the economy recovered from the recession. In North Carolina, where the economy is robust and labor markets are tight, the latest hurricane will exacerbate the shortage, Mike Carpenter, executive vice president of the N.C. Home Builders Association, says.Carpenter said.Both economists and builders predict fewer residents will be able to rebuild.Carpenter said.Those higher prices could also lower the quality of raw materials used in reconstruction.Ebeling said.As builders and residents watch the trade dispute, the added uncertainty could delay efforts to repair devastation left by Florence, Ebeling said.Ebeling said.President Trump imposed new tariffs worth $200 billion on China on Sept. 24, after blaming the measures on that country's unfair trade practices.The tariffs cover a sweeping list of goods, and they have retailers worried. For retailers with merchandise damaged by the hurricane, replacing their inventory could cost more, said Andy Ellen, N.C. Retail Merchants Association president.Ellen said.The Buy American Act already requires the government to prefer domestic materials in infrastructure projects. The tariffs extend that protectionism to the all residents looking to rebuild, says Roy Cordato, John Locke Foundation senior economist and resident scholar.Cordato said.But despite the added cost from the tariffs, Sweet expects North Carolina to rebound from the devastation. Builders in Wilmington remain undaunted by both the hurricane and the tariffs, said Cameron Moore, Wilmington-Cape Fear Home Builders Association executive officer.Moore said.It's doubtful that many of you readers would recommend raising income tax rates by 90 percent to help communities coping with the impact of Hurricane Florence.Yet one of the state's loudest left-of-center advocacy groups implies that a major tax hike is one of the best steps state government could take in the face of a natural disaster.In an email to reporters last week, N.C. Policy Watch suggested the following story idea: "Will legislators rethink tax cap amendment in aftermath of Hurricane Florence?"The amendment in question appears on the November ballot. Voters will decide whether to lower the state constitution's existing cap on the state income tax rate. The cap stands now at 10 percent. The amendment would drop that cap to 7 percent.For perspective, North Carolina has not assessed an income tax rate higher than 7 percent since 2013. At that time, any taxable income higher than $10,625 faced a 7 percent rate. Taxable income of more than $50,000 faced a 7.75 percent rate.For 2014, the Republican-led General Assembly scrapped both of those rates (along with a lower 6 percent rate on income less than $10,625) and adopted a single flat tax rate of 5.8 percent. In successive years, lawmakers have dropped the rate three more times. By 2019, the rate will stand at 5.25 percent. (At the same time, legislators raised the standard deduction - or "zero tax bracket" - to ensure taxpayers with the lowest incomes saw proportionally greater cuts to their income tax burdens.)So lawmakers have shaved roughly one-third (32 percent) off the state's top income tax rate in six years. Many have expressed interest in continuing down that tax-cutting path. Some even profess a long-term goal of eliminating the state's personal income tax completely, following the lead of Texas, Florida, and neighboring Tennessee.While cutting tax rates, lawmakers have continued to increase state government spending each year. They also have built up North Carolina's "rainy-day" savings reserve. Even after pulling roughly $100 million from that reserve in 2016 to deal with the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Matthew, the fund has grown to about $2 billion today. A state law adopted with near-unanimous support calls on lawmakers to continue building that fund.It's clear that lowering tax rates has not stopped lawmakers from setting aside money to address a literal "rainy day" - even the multiple rainy days associated with Florence.Yet some left-of-center activists seem to ignore these facts. In nudging media outlets toward its favored hurricane-related follow-up story, Policy Watch argues:The group cites "real costs" associated with lowering the cap, "most notably by limiting a key revenue source available to policymakers to support communities across the state," according to a budget analyst.It is correct that if voters approve the amendment, the state would face a new limit on a potential revenue source. That's the intent. Supporters want to block future legislatures from imposing tax rates so high that as much as 10 cents of every dollar earned would head to the tax man in Raleigh.But other aspects of Policy Watch's argument prove more suspect. First, there is no "real cost" associated with the constitutional amendment. The 2019 tax rate of 5.25 percent falls far below the current cap. It also falls far below the proposed cap. Lowering the cap, by itself, has no impact on the state's tax rate.In fact, ideological allies of these left-of-center activists made this exact argument in a lawsuit challenging the amendment. They contended that the ballot language would mislead voters into thinking they were voting for a nonexistent tax cut. Judges dismissed the argument. Now the amendment's critics seem to be making a 180-degree turn to complain about the amendment's "real costs."Next, let's explore the degree to which the amendment would "hamstring" future legislatures. There is no question that the current income tax cap leaves future legislatures a great deal of latitude to raise rates. Raising the rate to the current cap would represent a 90 percent income tax hike. No serious observer is recommending that course of action today.Even an increase to the proposed 7 percent cap would amount to a 33 percent income tax hike. Some activists might prefer that option. But they're keeping their opinions to themselves - at least during this election campaign season.If a tax cap that preserves the possibility of a 33 percent tax hike creates an obstacle that "hamstrings" future legislatures, one shudders at the prospects of a future legislature with more leeway, less fiscal restraint, and taxation ideas consistent with those espoused by left-of-center activists.As for "supporting communities across the state," one suspects that many voters would argue that recent tax cuts have done much more to achieve that goal than a tax hike ever could. Lower tax rates have attracted more entrepreneurs to North Carolina and encouraged existing businesses to expand. Tax revenue generated in a growing economy has helped produce the $2 billion rainy-day fund that will help the state pay bills related to its latest natural disaster.That's why legislative leaders are unlikely to rethink their tax cap amendment. Voters will share their own thoughts about the amendment in November.Tom Campbell

When President Trump visited North Carolina he assured our state that the federal checkbook would be opened and that we would get almost anything we wanted from FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency. We're pretty good at spotting political hyperbole, but still hope these promises are fulfilled. There is pause for concern after we learned that FEMA recently transferred $10 million in funds designated for emergency response to ICE (Immigrations and Customs Enforcement). FEMA officials denied that disaster response money was transferred.But FEMA wasn't the only program moving funds to ICE. NBC News reports that some $169 million has been transferred, including $29 million from the U.S. Coast Guard and more than $34 million from several TSA programs. Why so much money, why now and for what purpose?We don't much believe in coincidence, especially when evidence suggests otherwise. Let's begin with the 19 indictments handed down in Wilmington of foreign nationals who allegedly voted illegally in the 2016 NC elections. Days later, the Justice Department subpoenaed, on behalf of ICE, as many as 20 million documents from state and 44 local election boards, going back as far as eight years. These election boards were flabbergasted, coming so near the November elections. ICE didn't explain why they wanted the records, what they were looking for or why they issued subpoenas from mostly eastern counties.Our State Board of Elections protested not only the timing, but also the motive behind these subpoenas. DOJ relented and delayed the deadline for responding until January. The elections board also requested that our Attorney General file a motion to quash the subpoenas altogether. Speaking for the Board, Vice Chair Joshua Malcolm said the requests wereHistorically whenever there was any indication of past voting impropriety, he explained, the State Board has initiated a request to the U.S Attorney's office for investigation and stands ready now to assist in an investigation if there is sufficient reason.Gerry Cohen, for many years legal counsel to our legislature, called this a "fishing expedition." There might be some justification for such an unprecedented request if we were given some indication of potential fraud or irregular voting procedures, however an ICE spokesman said he couldn't comment on an ongoing federal investigation.We don't want anyone who is not supposed to vote casting ballots in our elections, however a pretty extensive study of the 2016 election - instigated by our Republican governor and legislature and conducted by our elections board - found only 500 ineligible votes cast from among 4.8 million statewide ballots. That's not significant enough to influence any election or cause great concern.We are left to form our own conclusions, and we conclude this is part of an ongoing political agenda from an administration that has made it clear it doesn't like immigrants. Further, these subpoenas were filed in Eastern Carolina because the president has a large base of support there.If ICE can substantiate the need for further investigation, perhaps a test of records in a small number of counties could prove or disprove the justification for more. But not in 44 counties all at once.Absent further evidence this is nothing more than a politically motivated ICE fishing expedition.The New Yorker published new accusations on Sunday from a second woman who alleges that Judge Brett Kavanaugh acted sexually inappropriate towards her at a party during their college years.Deborah Ramirez, 53, alleges that while she was at a Yale party, intoxicated to the point that she was on the ground in a "foggy" state "slurring" her words, Kavanaugh pulled his pants down and exposed himself to her.The New Yorker report and a subsequent report from The New York Times both raise multiple red flags about the credibility of the allegations. Here are 10 key points compiled from both reports that raise serious questions about the claims:who could put Kavanaugh at the alleged party.Buried more than 1,000 words into the report, Ronan Farrow and Jane Mayer wrote:a single person who could corroborate Ramirez's claims.The New York Times likewise could not find a single witness to backup her allegations:The Times had interviewed several dozen people over the past week in an attempt to corroborate her story, and could find no one with firsthand knowledge.denied Ramirez's allegations and vouched for Kavanaugh's character.Buried more than 1,400 words into The New Yorker story, Farrow and Mayer provide a quote from one of the men named by Ramirez:One of the male classmates who Ramirez said egged on Kavanaugh denied any memory of the party.he said. Asked why he thought Ramirez was making the allegation, he responded,The other male classmate who Ramirez said was involved in the incident commented,was at the party says she was not there for the alleged incident.The classmate, who was not named, said thatasking about the incident, and admitted she was not sure that Kavanaugh was the male who exposed himself.The Times' report states:says Ramirez never mentioned the story and initially said her friend's accusations against Kavanaugh might be "politically motivated."Buried nearly 1,700 words into the New Yorker piece, the report states:The former friend who was married to the male classmate alleged to be involved, and who signed the statement, said of Ramirez, "This is a woman I was best friends with. We shared intimate details of our lives. And I was never told this story by her, or by anyone else. It never came up. I didn't see it; I never heard of it happening." She said she hadn't spoken with Ramirez for about ten years, but that the two women had been close all through college, and Kavanaugh had remained part of what she called their "larger social circle." In an initial conversation with The New Yorker, she suggested that Ramirez may have been politically motivated. Later, she said that she did not know if this was the case.is a registered Democrat and is dedicated to leftist causes.Farrow and Mayer note more than 1,800 words into their report that "Ramirez is a registered Democrat," noting that she "works toward human rights, social justice, and social change."- until she spent six days going over it with her Democrat lawyer.The New Yorker waits for more than 2,100 words to inform readers that Ramirez's lawyer isdue to how much she drank at the party.The New Yorker report states in the second paragraph.Ramirez said that at the party, where students were playing a drinking game, shesay that she never once mentioned the incident - until Kavanaugh's nomination was pending.More than 1,500 words into the article, The New Yorker report states:The digital enterprise: Moving from experimentation to transformation

This in-depth report from the World Economic Forum explains how companies can make sure their digital transformation projects are a success. Although enormous resources are being spent on digital transformation programmes by the private sector, the results have often been underwhelming. This report  a practical guide to envisioning, structuring and sequencing successful digital transformation projects  is designed to help companies avoid the pitfalls, and make sure their digital transformation programmes really do benefit their business.

Successful companies embrace digital strategies that can thrive in uncertainty and succeed through a test and learn mindset

Instead of focusing on what they are selling, successful companies focus on the needs of the customer they serve and constantly iterate their product or service to better address that need.

Successful companies invest in developing systems, technology and talent that can help them achieve their digital objectives.

Successful companies focus on implementation to ensure that successful experiments can reach scaleIn study after study, qualified biologists have expressed their alarm about hunting and predator control of large carnivores like bears. Above, Snow, a bear who lives in Yellowstone. Photo by Wendy Keefover/The HSUS

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Less than 24 hours after a court order restored Endangered Species Act protections for Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem grizzly bears, the mischief in Washington, D.C. has begun again. The ink was hardly dry on Judge Dana Christensens order before Congresswoman Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., last night advanced a measure to remove federal ESA protections for grizzly bears, and bar citizens from filing lawsuits to challenge this action, regardless of the threats that face the population.

Rep. Cheneys measure, a proposed amendment to an existing bill that would delist wolves, has since been deemed not relevant and will not be added as an amendment to the bill. However, Congress still needs to hear from citizens who understand that this is no way to conduct the nations business.

Why the rush by Congress to delist Americas most famous bears and its wolves too? Its a matter of pure and simple political pressure from trophy hunting, shooting and ranching interests.

The bears of the Northern Rocky Mountains are in trouble even without a trophy hunt. Because of food shortages within the Glacier, Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks, more bears are crossing park boundaries to scour for food for survival, and that puts them directly in the crosshairs of elk hunters and ranchers. And its late fall, so the problem is especially acute. All bears be they black or brown  need to gain huge amounts of weight each and every day during the late summer and fall so they can survive wintertime hibernation, during which they are dependent solely upon their body fat for survival.

This is also the time of year when most incidents of human-grizzly-bear conflicts occur, like predation of unsecured livestock and irresponsible elk hunters in the field who use deadly force instead of pepper spray during bear encounters. Tragically, since January 2015, an unprecedented 223 Yellowstone-area grizzly bears have perished, and most from human causes.

As Judge Christensen noted in his Monday evening order, Yellowstone-area grizzly bears have not reached recovery level, not least because they remain genetically isolated from all other populations of bears in the lower 48 states. Despite 50 years of monitoring, not one single bear has entered the Yellowstone Ecosystem from the Glacier population, the next nearest population.

In study after study, qualified biologists have expressed their alarm about hunting and predator control on large carnivores like bears. Ive been thinking about this a lot since the news came out earlier this summer about the father and son who killed a mother bear in her den in Alaska, and its shocking to me that anyone would want to hunt bears. Bears may be the most sentient of any large carnivore. Mother bears are endlessly patient with their cubs, with whom they form strong bonds. A mother grizzly bear can spend up to four years with her cubs.

We need your help urgently to stop this threat. It is crucial that you call you U.S. Representative immediately and tell them that you want wolves and grizzly bears protected under the Endangered Species Act.In 1769, a Peruvian noblewoman set out with 41 companions to join her husband in French Guiana. But a series of terrible misfortunes left her alone in the Amazon jungle. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll follow Isabel Godin des Odonais on her harrowing adventure in the rain forest.

We'll also learn where in the world "prices slippery traps" is and puzzle over an airport's ingenuity.

Show notes

Please support us on Patreon!Continuing to be blind to their own contradictions, Melania is off to visit Africa.

Via Talking Points Memo:

Mrs. Trump will travel next month without President Donald Trump, who raised ire across Africa this year after his private complaint about the continent's "s-hole countries" was leaked to journalists. He said earlier Wednesday that he and his wife "love Africa."

Trump later offered a partial denial in public but privately defended his remarks, The Associated Press reported in January. Trump also didn't deny the comment when he was asked about it while hosting Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari at the White House in April.

While the first lady tours the vast African continent, the president is expected to be in the midst of aggressive campaigning for November elections in which his Republican Party's control of both houses of Congress is at stake.Surya Raghavendran started fixing phones when Apple tried to charge him $120 to fix the defective screen they'd installed in his phone; instead, he followed online instructional videos and fixed it himself.

That was in ninth grade. Now, Raghavendran is 17 and runs his own business, SKR Screen Repair.

But SKR Screen Repair is in trouble: Apple's newest Ios version uses DRM to prevent third party screen repairs, locking out third-party screens.

The change prompted Raghavendran to branch out into politics and advocacy: he's joined with Environment Michigan and US PIRG to advocate for a Right to Repair bill (previously) in Michigan. Raghavendran meets with state lawmakers and has circulated a petition and compiled personal stories about the need to protect independent repair.

Repair services account for 4% of US GDP, and they create community jobs that let neighbors help each other get more use out of their own property, while diverting electronics from landfills.

The new laws would be about more than just getting companies like Apple out of the way of scrappy businesses like SKR Screen Repair. Right to repair activists want big companies to turn over diagnostic information, repair manuals, and anything else that would help consumers repair their own devices. For Proctor, every teenager like Raghavendran who gets involved in the fight for the right to repair brings that change one step closer to reality. "This is an all hands on deck project," Proctor said. "That includes hands like Surya's, which are being blocked by policies which refuse to allow him access to things he needs to properly fix stuff. We want to be able to build a society where the expectation is that we can fix broken things."

This 17-Year-Old Has Become Michigan's Leading Right to Repair AdvocateNews / National

by Staff reporter

BULAWAYO industries need more than $1 billion to retool and improve operational efficiency that will match market expectations.Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) Matabeleland Chapter president, Mr Joseph Gunda, revealed this ahead of the prime industrial manufacturing convention being hosted by the industry body in the city starting today.With focus now on transforming industry operations - financing, retooling and new technology are critical in boosting capacity utilisation."We have looked at the congregated figure, which is about $2 billion for retooling, but obviously Bulawayo, since it used to be the industrial hub of the country, requires over $1 billion," said Mr Gunda."In the programme for the CZI annual congress and international investment forum, we have a session for business to discuss the available funding options with international financiers and investors."At the business event, there will be presentations from local and international financiers that include ZB Bank, CABS, Takura Capital Power, IDC South Africa, Botswana Financial Group, Africa Export and Import Bank (AfreximBank) and African Development Bank."All these financial institutions we have called them to say 'what is your role in retooling Bulawayo industries?" said Mr Gunda.As a result of the antiquated equipment, local factories' operations have largely been marred by constant breakdowns, rendering the industries uncompetitive when compared to foreign companies who are exporting their products into Zimbabwe resulting in stiff competition.Once the industrial hub, Bulawayo housed key industries from textile, food manufacturing, and engineering, among others and used to employ over 20 000 people. Due to massive de-industrialisation in the past years, the city suffered severe job losses.News / National

by Staff reporter

ZIMBABWE Banks and Allied Workers Union (Zibawu) will next week stage a demonstration in Harare against police's heavy-handedness in dealing with members of the public.The planned demonstration comes in the wake of Zibawu members being caught up in the disturbances that rocked Harare central business district when police, who were trying to evict vendors from the streets, reportedly ended up indiscriminately assaulting residents going about their business.In a letter to the officer commanding Harare Central, Zibawu said around 100 of its members will peacefully gather and demonstrate at Police General Headquarters on October 2 to register their complaints."This action is to show our displeasure in the recent indiscriminate brutal assaults of citizens by the police within Harare CBD which resulted in our executive member being assaulted without reason as she was coming from work on the 21st of September 2018," said Zibawu in the letter also copied to the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission and signed by secretary-general Peter Mutasa."The trade union believes that police must be maintaining law and order, protecting and securing lives and not to act as a threat to the peace and life of the citizens.We intend to hand over a petition to the Commissioner-General (Godwin Matanga) and the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission thereafter."News / National

by NewZimbabwe.com

Peter Mutasa, the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) president has requested President Emmerson Mnangagwa to invalidate the appointment of Registrar General (RG) Clemence Masango, NewZimbabwe.com reported.Masango took over from Tobaiwa Mudede who was retired as part of a shake-up of the civil service.Mutasa said Masango's engagement as RG is wrong because sexual harassment accusations raised in his previous role as immigration head have yet to be settled."We regard the appointment or reassignment as lack of judgment by the appointing authority," said Mutasa."While we respect the fact that every accused person is innocent until proven guilty, the elevation is actually a direct interference with the Gender Commission's investigation."Mutasa said Mnangagwa's promotion of Masango weakens the Constitutional Commission's work and trivialises the severe accusations established by workers.News / National

by Simbarashe Sithole

Two Guruve women appeared before Guruve resident magistrate on Monday for allegedly unlawfully entering a man's bedroom and stealing his underwear there-by central locking his manhood.The duo Chipo Katembo (28) and Tabeth Nyamurusa (30 pleaded guilty to the charge before magistrate Shingirai Mutiro and were remanded to 18 October for continuation of trial.The state alleges that on 1 December last year Chipo Katembo (28) ex-wife to Moses Chido (50) the complainant together with her maid Tabeth Nyamurutsa (30) used duplicate keys to gain entry into Chido's bedroom at number 220 Guruve Growth point and stole three panties and an HP laptop all goods valued at $286.In her defence Nyamurutsa said she did not commit the case and the investigating offer only identified as constable Machete demanded sex to Katembo to sweep the case under the carpet."Your worship I am surprised that we are summoned to this honourable court for a case that we did not commit above all my co accused told me that the investigating officer (Machete) demanded sex and was given to let the case rest, so being here again today is really an abuse," said Nyamurusa.Albert Mazhindu represented the state.In another case a suspected Harare robber Denford Kwande (32) appeared before the same magistrate for trial and was remanded in custody to 2 October 2018.Public prosecutor Albert Mazhindu alleges that on 8 September 2018 Kwande who is a ring leader of robbers, popularly known as "Boko Haram" named after a Nigerian terrorist group robbed Kemashenjere mine of its gold ore valued at $6000 and Innocent Mandere of his $100 and cell phone at gun point.News / Press Release

by Israel Dube

Israel Dube

MLO Secretary for Information and Public Affairs

MLO was shocked but not surprised to see genocidist, Emmerson Mnangagwa, display hypocrisy, double standards and tribal biasness on international media outlets while in New Yoke.That Mnangagwa hates the people of Matabeleland with a passion is a well known fact that can be backed with undisputable evidence. At the height Matabeleland genocide he once referred to Matabeles as cockroaches that needed to be exterminated using DDT (National Army 5th Brigade). But no one amongst us could guess or even think that Emmerson Mnangagwa would show his tribal side on international media.He told the CNN that what happened two days after the Zimbabwe elections was regrettable. "A day before I came here I appointed a commission of enquiry to deal with that because I felt that it would not be proper for ourselves to investigate ourselves. I felt that it was necessary to have an outside enquiry," he said.Of Matabeleland genocide he said, "I have appointed a Peace and National Reconciliation Commission".Make no mistake, he was referring to the very commission that was chased away from three venues in Matabeleland because it is dominated by shona people. The very people who are direct or indirect beneficiaries of Matabeleland colonisation and shona supremacy system. Despite the fact that Mnangagwa's commission was chased away from Matabeleland because of its unneutral nature he insisted that the government will comply with its reports and recommendations.Outside enquiry for six shona people who were killed by the National Army after 30 July elections because "I felt it was improper for ourselves to investigate ourselves"? The issue is given priority and urgency. In a short space of one month the neutral international commission led by former President of SA Halima Motlante is in place. Is it because those who died belong to the superior tribe in Southern Africa?A commission composed of shonas only, Zanupf apologists and beneficiaries of shona supremacy system for Matabeleland genocide " because I felt that we must bring finality to this issue". Here he finds it very proper for perpetrators to investigate themselves. What double standards! What selective justice!What tribalism and hate! What is not proper for shonas is not proper for Matabeles.It shows that President Mnangagwa like former President Robert Mugabe treats shona people and Matabeles differently. When it comes to more than 40 000 Matabele civilians that were killed by the National Army 5th Brigade, over 100 000 that were raped, over 100 000 that lost their homes and over a million that were displaced, the government of Zimbabwe can investigate itself, something that they cannot do with 6 shona people who were killed after elections? And President Emmerson Mnangagwa had the guts to say it publicly before international news outlets. What is this if it is not discrimination? What is this if it is not tribalism, selective justice and oppression?Shame on him! We are watching and we know that the shona only commission was was given the task to use the so called 1870s raids and what they term as "1980s disturbances" to justify Matabeleland genocide and that leading questions are being asked by the commission to achieve predetermined results. That is why Emmerson Mnangagwa confidently said he will make the findings of the commission public. The perpetrator appointed the commission after all and he knows the results already because they are predetermined.Matabeles must reject the report of the tribally unbalanced and unuetral commission and appoint their own neutral commission that will produce genuine findings.Above all let us join hands with MLO in our struggle for the restoration of Matabeleland statehood and sovereignty. Under shona supremacist government there will never be justice and freedom for Matabeles but more bondage, more tribal discrimination, more anguish and more tears.Izenzo Kungemazwi!The emerging themes of resurgent U.S. housing starts and increased infrastructure spending have brought the unloved and unglamorous basic materials sector back in focus. The sector comprises a wide spectrum of companies that mine and refine metals, supply construction materials and forestry products, and process commodities. These companies become more profitable when strong economic growth and government spending trigger greater demand for their products.

The ongoing recovery of U.S. construction spending, spurred by public and private sector demand, bodes well for companies that produce a range of goods for residential, commercial and infrastructure construction. In no small measure are the prospects of these companies tied to the public infrastructure spending, which is set to grow at a rate of 6% per year in the U.S., compared to an annual growth rate of 3.5% over the past decade and a half, as projected by Morningstar equity analyst Kristoffer Inton.

Private-sector demand, which consists of residential and non-residential construction, is another source of revenue for companies that provide building materials such as cement, gravel, stone, lumber and sand. The basic materials sector also includes companies that mine metals and are beneficiaries of consumer trends such as electric vehicles and smartphones that rely on lithium for longer battery life.

Select basic materials companies boast strong growth prospects, wield meaningful pricing power and cost advantages, are well positioned to benefit from larger infrastructure investment, and are trading at a sizeable discount to their fair value, according to Morningstar equity research.

Vulcan Materials Co. Ticker: VMC Current yield: 0.94% Forward P/E: 21.8 Price: US$114.12 Fair value: US$138 Value: 17.3% discount Data as of Sept. 24, 2018

The largest producer of construction aggregates -- industry jargon for stone, sand and gravel -- in the United States,

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Vulcan Materials ( VMC ) sold 183 million tons aggregates, along with 10 million tons of asphalt mix, in 2017.

Vulcan is well positioned to exploit the pickup in U.S. construction activity. The company stands to particularly benefit from stable public-sector demand which accounts for roughly half of shipments as projects such as highway construction are more aggregate-intensive. "At a national level, we expect public infrastructure spending to grow by 6% per year on average," says a Morningstar report, noting that this benefits Vulcan as its key markets -- Texas, California, Virginia, Georgia and Florida -- have significant road spending needs and strong finances to support high growth.

The company's geographic footprint is particularly attractive in the South region (stretching from Texas to Florida and on to the Bahamas and Mexico), where it has nearly 3.8 billion tons of aggregates reserves and more than 100 operating facilities. Shipment growth in this region is expected to outpace the national average, says Inton, adding that while the region isn't as rich in aggregate deposits as other parts of the country, the company's significant presence there and its ability to supply those parts enables it to capture the region's growth.

Given scarcer resources, the firm's South region operations are well protected from new entrants, creating a competitive advantage that could last for more than 10 years. "With most aggregates producers lacking efficient water or rail alternatives, markets tend to be extremely localized, with high barriers to entry," says Inton, who appraises the stock's fair value at US$138, prompted by robust demand for road network in its key markets.

Martin Marietta Materials Inc. Ticker: MLM Current yield: 0.94% Forward P/E: 16.7 Price: US$190.90 Fair value: US$265 Value: 28.0% discount Data as of Sept. 24, 2018

The second-largest producer of construction materials in the U.S.,

Martin Marietta Materials ( MLM ) sold 158 million tons of aggregates in 2017. The company's key markets -- California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Iowa and Texas -- account for nearly 60% of sales.

"Martin Marietta is well-positioned to benefit from the ongoing recovery of U.S. construction spending," says a Morningstar report, citing "strengthening demand growth for the public sector and modest growth for the private sector" as key drivers.

The aggregates producer, which also has profitable cement production capacity in Texas, boasts strong pricing power in each of its local markets, a source of its competitive advantage. "The low value/weight ratio of cement and aggregates establishes Martin Marietta's cost advantage against out-of-market competition," says Inton, noting that the company also benefits from intangible assets built on high barriers to entry, as opening new quarries near populated areas is incredibly difficult.

A recovery in construction remains in the early stages, and building materials consumption is still to take off from its current levels. "Moreover, current demand doesn't even include the backlog of projects created from the recession and from years of underspending on infrastructure," says Inton, who pegs the stock's fair value at US$265, prompted by solid demand for road work, driven by growing populations and a significant backlog of repair. "Historically, limited funding has prevented this demand from being unleashed, but based on two key factors [increased federal funding and drive for better infrastructure], the money will be there."

Inton expects Martin Marietta's EBITDA to surge 140% by 2022 as strong demand pushes higher volume. "A combination of robust price increases and the benefits of operating leverage as production volume rises should drive materially higher profits," he forecasts.

Albemarle Corp. Ticker: ALB Current yield: 1.26% Forward P/E: 17.5 Price: US$104.70 Fair value: US$135 Value: 22.4% discount Data as of Sept. 24, 2018

The world's largest lithium producer,

Albemarle ( ALB ) controls around one third of the lithium carbonate market. Albemarle produces lithium from its salt brine deposits in Chile and the U.S., and its joint-venture mine in Australia. The firm's Chilean assets are among the world's lowest-cost sources of lithium and make up approximately 80% of its lithium profits.

Albemarle is well positioned to benefit from a robust lithium demand growth led by a rapidly burgeoning market for electric vehicle batteries. Morningstar projects lithium demand to grow at a 19% annual rate from 220,000 metric tons in 2017 to 1.5 million metric tons through 2028, as electric vehicle adoption increases. "Albemarle's Chilean expansions and its Talison joint venture [in Australia] will ramp up production to help meet strong market demand growth," says a Morningstar report, noting lithium has "one of the best growth profiles among commodities."

Albemarle's assets will be able to fulfil a sizable portion of demand growth through major production expansions. "Albemarle is looking to grow its Chilean brine lithium production capacity from 27,000 metric tons in 2016 to over 140,000 metric tons over the next decade," says Morningstar equity analyst Seth Goldstein. "Furthermore, the company's Talison joint venture will triple its spodumene capacity [from which lithium is derived] from 80,000 metric tons to 250,000 metric tons," of which Albemarle will continue to receive roughly half."

The firm generates 20% of lithium profits from its Australian joint venture, but large-scale capacity overhaul will increase this number to roughly 45% by 2025. "A combination of higher lithium prices and [additional] volumes will help Albemarle increase EBITDA by double-digits annually for the next decade," says Goldstein, who recently upped the stock's fair value from US$125 to US$135.

Albemarle will also to continue to generate profits from its bromide and chemical production segments, he forecasts.FILE PHOTO - U.S. President Donald Trump talks via speakerphone to Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto to announce a deal to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) at the White House in Washington, U.S., August 27, 2018. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

By Dave Graham

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A day after winning the Mexican presidential election, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador took a congratulatory call from U.S. President Donald Trump. But Trump had something more important on his mind: Would Mexico's new president consider a bilateral trade deal?

Lopez Obrador responded he would be "open to the possibility in the absence of a trilateral agreement that also included Canada, said Hector Vasconcelos, a foreign policy advisor to Lopez Obradors campaign who listened to the call on July 2.

Lopez Obrador's answer marked a pivotal moment after a contentious year of negotiations between the United States, Canada and Mexico to rework the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the framework for more than a trillion dollars in annual trade between the three.

Until then, Mexico and Canada had worked together to counter the economic and political clout of the United States as Trump demanded more favorable terms for the world's largest economy and repeatedly called NAFTA a disaster for U.S. workers. But the election victory for Lopez Obrador, a leftist opposition candidate, gave Trump an opportunity to divide Mexico and Canada and cut a deal the way he wanted - one-on-one.

"I think I'm doing better with (Lopez Obrador) than the capitalist," Trump told his supporters at a West Virginia rally last month, referring to Mexicos outgoing president, Enrique Pena Nieto.

The shift in Mexico's position came as the rival incoming and outgoing administrations realized that a deal with the United States before the presidential changeover would suit them both, according to interviews with more than a dozen people familiar with the talks.

Lopez Obrador's new government was eager to sidestep conflict with Trump and focus on domestic issues. The president-elect - who has little enthusiasm for foreign relations - wanted to avoid the headache of navigating a complex trade negotiation left over from a previous presidency, said three senior officials with the incoming administration.

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"The best foreign policy is domestic policy," Lopez Obrador has said several times publicly.

Pena Nieto's outgoing team wanted to rescue a tangible achievement from two years of bruising negotiations, which overshadowed the last third of his presidency, hampered investment and roiled Mexicos currency, according to the sources familiar with the talks. While Mexican law doesnt allow presidents to seek re-election, the candidate Pena Nieto backed lost by a wide margin.

Throughout most of the talks, Pena Nietos administration had reasoned that, together, Canada and Mexico had more leverage in negotiations that were stacked in Trump's favor. Both economies depend heavily on U.S. customers, with Mexico sending about 80 percent of exports to the United States and Canada sending about 75 percent. Together, Mexico and Canada account for slightly more than a third of U.S. exports.

But on Aug. 27, less than two months after Trumps call to Lopez Obrador, negotiators for the United States and Mexico struck a deal.

Mexico had to look out for Mexico, said Moises Kalach, head of the international negotiating arm of the CCE business lobby, which represented Mexico's private sector at the NAFTA talks.

Mexican officials point out that Canada had previously signaled that it might take the same path. Early last year, the Canadian ambassador to Washington, David MacNaughton, said publicly that Canada would act trilaterally or bilaterally depending on its interests.

Canadas office of Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland declined to comment on the U.S.-Mexico deal or its impact on Canadas ongoing talks with the United States. The White House did not comment in response to Reuters questions.

LEFT OUT

The U.S.-Mexico pact has prompted many of Canadas business and political leaders to ramp up pressure on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to cut his own deal with the United States.

Mexico weakened Canada's negotiating leverage when it conceded on some issues important to Ottawa, including a mechanism to resolve disputes between NAFTA members known as Chapter 19, which Canadian officials say offers protection from unfair trade practices. Canada used the process to defend its lumber exports in the face of U.S. charges that the timber is unfairly subsidized.

Canada is also resisting U.S. demands to open the protected dairy industry to U.S. competitors.

Canadian officials believe Mexico gave up too much in the deal, said an influential private sector union leader with close ties to Canadas negotiators.

Theres a general feeling that the Mexicans capitulated in some key areas, Unifor president Jerry Dias said in a phone interview.

DEADLINE FOR A DEAL

Pena Nieto needed an agreement by the end of August. Any later would have meant that he wont be able to sign it before leaving office on Nov. 30 because it could take 90 days for the U.S. Congress to review and approve the deal.

Trump, a Republican, still faces opposition from some members of his party in Congress who favor a trilateral agreement, along with the risk that Republicans could suffer defeats in the upcoming mid-term elections on November 6 and lose their majority in the U.S. House or Senate.

Trumps deal with Mexico could help his party in the elections because many states that helped elect the president in 2016, particularly in agricultural regions, would have been hurt by a breakdown in trade with Mexico, said Kalach of the CCE business lobby.

Personal connections also smoothed the path to a deal. Among those tasked with leading the Mexican negotiation was Luis Videgaray, foreign minister for the outgoing administration, who forged a relationship with Trump's son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner. The two men had met through Wall Street connections before Trumps inauguration in 2017.

The arrival of Lopez Obrador's chief negotiator, Jesus Seade, also accelerated the process, officials familiar with the talks said. Videgaray told Mexican television it was Seade who broke the deadlock over a U.S. demand for a so-called "sunset clause" that could kill NAFTA if it was not reworked in five years.

Videgaray's connection to Kushner, a regular participant in the talks, proved vital in containing tensions and sustaining negotiations, said Gustavo de Hoyos, head of Mexican employers' confederation COPARMEX.

"Videgaray has had the most access to the White House of any Mexican foreign minister in years," he said.

TRADING CONCESSIONS

With a mutually agreeable end-of-August deadline in place, both sides came away from negotiations with some victories.

Mexico's negotiators convinced Washington to drop a demand for curbs on seasonal food imports and to retain an exemption granted under NAFTA from industrial tariffs imposed by the United States under World Trade Organization (WTO) rules.

The United States will likely retain more auto-industry jobs after Mexico agreed to impose minimum salary requirements on the sector  at least $16 an hour for between 40 and 45 percent of workers, five times what most earn now.

Pena Nieto had resisted that request as a protectionist intrusion into Mexican labor issues. Lopez Obrador was more supportive, said Dias of the Canadian Union Unifor.

Lopez Obrador wants to improve wages and persuade Trump to help foster economic development in Mexico as a way to curb Mexican immigration to the United States.

For Mexico, pressing on without Canada would prove one of the most important concessions in opening the path to a deal.

"We had to decide whether we wanted to move forward with a deal which protected our country's interests, or put those very interests at risk by waiting for Canada, said Kalach of the CCE. I think Canada would have acted similarly.

(Reporting by Dave Graham; Additional reporting by David Ljunggren in Ottawa, Roberta Rampton in Washington, Frank Jack Daniel, Ana Isabel Martinez, Anthony Esposito and Sharay Angulo in Mexico City; Editing by Simon Webb and Brian Thevenot)PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - Cambodians threw rice on the ground on Tuesday to mark the 'Festival of the Dead' or Pchum Ben and feed the spirits of the dead. Cambodians visit pagodas across the country during the 15-day festival that takes place annually to offer prayers and food to the spirits of their deceased relatives, who they believe only emerge to eat the food during this period. At Tuol Tumpoung pagoda in the capital Phnom Penh, hundreds of people crowded the temple complex to offer food and money to Buddhist monks to the backdrop of chanting. "During the first day of Pchum Ben, our dead relatives came to find us for food," Mang Noy, 74, told Reuters at Tuol Tumpoung pagoda. For many, it is a time to remember the victims of the 1975-1979 Khmer Rouge regime. At least 1.8 million Cambodians - about a quarter of the population - were killed by the Khmer Rouge. Most of the victims died of starvation, torture, exhaustion or disease in labor camps or were bludgeoned to death during mass executions. Mang Noy said her family's food offerings were for more than 20 relatives killed by the regime. "We came here today to offer food to all our relatives who passed away so that they can have enough to eat and so that they can also wish us well," she said. (Reporting by Prak Chan Thul; Editing by Amy Sawitta Lefevre and Michael Perry)Canada will join five South American nations in signing a formal request for the International Criminal Court to investigate the Venezuelan government of Nicolas Maduro.

It marks the first time Canada has tried to take another country before the ICC in its 20 years as a member. Based in the Netherlands, the court prosecutes war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

Canada joins Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Paraguay and Peru in signing the referral. Each of those countries has received migrants fleeing the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela, with Colombia and Peru receiving the lion's share.

There will be a signing ceremony for the referral on Wednesday morning at United Nations headquarters in New York.

Government sources told CBC that Canada's decision to refer Venezuela is also meant as a show of support for the ICC, an institution this country believes in that is under attack.

The U.S. joined the court in 2000 under the Clinton administration, but two years later, President George W. Bush "unsigned" the treaty and informed the UN that the U.S. would neither recognize nor co-operate with the ICC.

Bush's UN ambassador, John Bolton, was well known for his hostility to the institution, and now that he has returned to government as President Donald Trump's national security adviser, the U.S. administration has become openly hostile to the court.

(Watch: U.S. national security adviser John Bolton says U.S. won't co-operate with the ICC)

On Sept. 10, Bolton threatened U.S. sanctions against the court and its judges and prosecutors should they ever pursue a case against Israel or the U.S.

Calling the ICC an "illegitimate court," Bolton told Washington's Federalist Club:

"We will let the ICC die on its own. After all, to all intents and purposes, the ICC is already dead to us."

The threat came as ICC judges mulled whether to investigate the U.S. for alleged war crimes in Afghanistan.

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Some African governments have also recently threatened to withdraw from the ICC, accusing it of taking up a disproportionate number of cases from that continent.

Two strikes for Venezuela

In the Americas, the only countries that have declined to join the court are the U.S., Cuba and Nicaragua.

Venezuela is a signatory, and that makes it subject to the court's jurisdiction.

Amr Alfiky/Reuters

This past summer, the Organization of American States brought forward a complaint against the Maduro government based on a report prepared by three respected international jurists, including Canada's former justice minister, Irwin Cotler.

The complaint details cases of alleged torture as well as politically motivated killings and disappearances for which it blames Venezuela's socialist government. It documents 8,292 extrajudicial executions, mostly of poor Venezuelans caught in police sweeps, as well as 131 killings of regime opponents and critics. It also accuses Venezuela of holding 1,300 political prisoners, and of having arbitrarily detained 12,000 citizens since 2013.

The ICC referral from the six American nations, including Canada, is expected to focus on the same allegations.

U.S. unlikely to object

Although the Trump administration is hostile to the ICC, it has said it will only impose sanctions if the court pursues cases against the U.S. or its allies. That clearly does not include Venezuela.

On Tuesday, Trump used his speech to the UN General Assembly to excoriate the Maduro regime and announce new sanctions against its leaders.

"More than two million people have fled the anguish inflicted by the socialist Maduro regime and its Cuban sponsors," he said.

"Not long ago, Venezuela was one of the richest countries on Earth. Today, socialism has bankrupted the oil-rich nation and driven its people into abject poverty."

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza, also in New York for the General Assembly, hit back at Trump, accusing him of presiding over "a dictatorship."

"They are withdrawing from international organizations," he said. "They are withdrawing from multilateral agreements, climate change, Human Rights Council, migration compact, and many others. Because they don't believe in the multilateral system. They believe in unilateralism. They believe in domination, as if they owned the world."

Venezuela has yet to react officially to Canada's decision to refer it to the ICC.

 With a file from ReutersMP drops F-bomb in Commons, accuses Trudeau of not caring about Indigenous rights

The tone of debate in the House of Commons hit a low for the second time in two weeks Tuesday when an NDP MP from Quebec used the F-word during question period.

Asking a question about the Trans Mountain pipeline, Romeo Saganash, a First Nations NDP MP from AbitibiBaie-JamesNunavikEeyou, accused Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of not caring about the rights of Indigenous peoples.

"When the prime minister says that this pipeline expansion will be done no matter what, and his minister adds that Canada will not be able to accommodate all Indigenous concerns, what that means is that they have decided to wilfully violate their constitutional duties and obligations," Saganash told the House.

"Mr. Speaker, sounds like a most important relationship doesn't it? Why doesn't the prime minister just say the truth and tell Indigenous peoples that he doesn't give a fuck about their rights?"

Speaker Geoff Regan immediately stood and told Saganash that, as an experienced member of the House of Commons, he should have known better. He invited the MP to apologize and withdraw the word.

"Mr, Speaker, what is happening is so insulting, it makes me so angry, but I do withdraw the word," Saganash said.

Last week, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was forced to apologize for using unparliamentary language in his reply to a Conservative question about military procurement.

Trudeau was attempting to turn the question around and accuse the Conservatives of failing to provide the Canadian military with the tools it needs, instead using soldiers "for photo ops ... every damn time."

Regan did not intervene to ask the prime minister to apologize or take back his words, but Trudeau stood at the end of question period on a point of order to apologize.

"Mr. Speaker, it was brought to my attention that in an outburst of enthusiasm I may have used a word that was unparliamentary. I withdraw that word and apologize to anyone who was offended."

Story continues

That wasn't the first time Trudeau used unparliamentary language in the House.

In 2011, before becoming Liberal leader, Trudeau swore at then Environment Minister Peter Kent.

The commotion began when NDP MP Megan Leslie was questioning Kent about Canada's withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol.

Kent suggested that Leslie should have been in Durban, South Africa, for the recent UN climate change conference, which prompted howls from the opposition benches because opposition MPs were banned from being part of Canada's delegation at the conference.

Kent's response was interrupted by heckling, and Trudeau could be heard shouting, "You piece of shit" at the environment minister. Trudeau later apologized for the language.

"I lost my temper and used language that was most decidedly unparliamentary and for that I unreservedly apologize and withdraw my remark," Trudeau said after question period had concluded.

Trudeau's words to Kent led inevitably to comparisons with a notorious Commons incident involving his father.

In February 1971, Conservative MP John Lundrigan accused Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau of mouthing an obscenity at him.

A fellow Tory MP, Lincoln Alexander, later told reporters, "The first [word] started with the letter F, the second word the letter O."

When pressed outside the Commons by reporters, a clearly perturbed Trudeau made a joke about "lip-readers ... crying to mama" and denied saying "anything" before finally admitting, "Yes I moved my lips"  and uttering a phrase for which he became famous.

"What is the nature of your thoughts, gentlemen, when you say 'fuddle duddle' or something like that?"

The use of rude or unparliamentary language by public officials hasn't been confined to the House of Commons lately.

Conservative MP Michelle Rempel aimed a number of insults and strident language at Liberal Veterans Affairs Minister Seamus O'Regan via Twitter Tuesday.

The Opposition critic for immigration called O'Regan a "ridiculous coward" and a "disgrace" in a tweet that used the word that most recently got Trudeau in trouble: "damn."

Rempel has not issued an apology.

A review of Hansard, the official record of parliamentary debates in Canada, reveals that the F-word has been dropped in the Commons on two other occasions since January 2001.

The first instance was in 2003, when Bloc Quebecois MP Michel Gautier in 2003 rose on a point of order to accuse the finance minister of saying "fuck off." And in 2014, the NDP's Isabelle Morin said in the Commons that "Canadians have been fucked over by the government."

According to the Library of Parliament, variations on the F-word were spoken at committee 25 times during the same period.The Ontario government has "gutted" climate change programs that were beginning to reap benefits and a new "meaningful" law is needed to replace them, the province's environmental commissioner says.

In a report released on Tuesday, "Climate Action in Ontario: What's Next?," Dianne Saxe says such a law is required immediately to lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and provide solutions to environmental problems.

Cancelling the cap-and-trade program was not a good business idea because it was working, she says.

"Most of the cap-and-trade money was funding energy efficiency programs in Ontario communities in schools, public housing, transit and hospitals, for example, that would have reduced GHGs and saved millions of dollars in energy costs," she said.

The report notes that greenhouse gas emissions went down in the province from 2005 to 2016 after the previous Liberal government closed coal power plants. In 2016, emissions were the lowest since reporting began, it says.

"Dismantling a climate change law that was working is bad for our environment, bad for our health and bad for business," she said. "The Cap and Trade Cancellation Act, the government's proposed replacement climate law, is much too weak."

Province living up to promises, minister says

But Ontario Environment Minister Rod Phillips, in a scrum at the legislature, said the government is carrying out its promises and he disagreed with many of the commissioner's conclusions. The Progressive Conservatives promised to scrap cap-and-trade during the election campaign.

CBC

"As I said to her directly when we met, respectfully, we do not take well to folks telling us that we should not live up to the promises that we made," he said.

"We do not think the cap-and-trade was effective. We do not think that a carbon tax from the federal Liberals is effective. And again, we respectfully disagree with the environmental commissioner."

Story continues

In the report, Saxe says the province needs a law to avoid more "climate disruption," climatic events brought about, in part, by increases in temperature.

"A meaningful climate law needs science-based emissions budgets, a legal obligation to stay within those budgets and credible, transparent progress reporting. Ontario can still choose sensible solutions that help families make ends meet while bringing climate pollution down," she said.

"Polluter-pay tools, for example, give people more choice and a fair reward for reducing their emissions, and can help reduce other taxes they pay."

CBC

As for climate change itself, Saxe says the government is not preparing for the impacts of it already evident in the province.

Ontario residents can expect wilder, warmer weather, stronger storms, heavier flooding, heat waves and more health risks due to climate change, she says.

"Ontarians tell me they are ready to act on climate change, but the government needs to lead. Our window for action is closing  soon it will be too late."

Since it was elected, the Doug Ford government has taken a number of steps to dismantle Liberal climate change programs:

In July, it introduced legislation that will wind down the province's cap-and-trade program. The program was brought in by the previous Liberal government.

In September, it introduced legislation to repeal the Green Energy Act, a bill that aimed to bolster the province's green energy industry, and after it cancelled 758 renewable energy contracts in July.

Also in September, it said it has filed a statement with the Ontario Court of Appeal that summarizes the arguments it will make when it challenges the constitutionality of the federal carbon tax.

Sean Kilpatrick/THE CANADIAN PRESS

Phillips, interviewed on CBC Radio's Metro Morning on Monday, acknowledged that the province needs to ready itself for climate change and said it has begun work on a new plan that will not include cap-and-trade, green energy legislation from the previous government, or carbon pricing.

"Absolutely, I see the connection between what we are doing to the environment and these extreme weather events. We need to prepare for the changes that are coming," he said. "These kinds of severe weather events are going to continue to happen."

The plan is to be rolled out this fall after public consultations.

"We are out talking to people about the approach we're going to take," he said. "That approach won't include a carbon price. But we do, for example, plan, as we said during the election, to have an emissions-reductions fund to fight climate change."

Phillips said "there are a number of mechanisms" to make larger polluters pay, but he did not say how exactly the fund will work.

Details have to be worked out, but the fund will focus on reducing greenhouse gases, he added. "We are focusing on the polluters, in terms of people producing the most emissions, not on individual families and people."

Chris Young/The Canadian Press

Phillips said the plan is necessary because building resilience is important.

As for carbon pricing, Phillips said the province believes it is not an effective way to change behaviour.

Phillips insisted the province is willing to work with the federal government on climate change, despite vowing to do everything in its power to fight a federal carbon tax. But he said he does not want to see the federal government fail in its attempt to address the problem and that governments do need to work together.

"I don't want the federal government to be unsuccessful," he said. "But that approach, pricing carbon, obviously isn't popular ... with Canadians."

Catherine Cullen/CBC

Phillips said he has talked to his federal counterpart, Environment Minister Catherine McKenna, about other ways to tackle the issue.

Saxe encouraged Ontario residents to comment on the Cap and Trade Cancellation Act on the province's environmental registry before the Oct. 11 deadline.Ontario's environmental commissioner Dianne Saxe speaks to reporters at a press conference at Queen's Park in Toronto on Sept. 25, 2018.

With a photo of last year's flooding in Rockland, Ont. behind her, the province's environmental commissioner slammed the new Progressive Conservative government's repeal of the Liberals' cap-and-trade program.

"We had a climate law and programs that were working. Now we don't," Dianne Saxe told reporters at Queen's Park. The commissioner released her latest report, Climate Action in Ontario: What's Next? on Tuesday.

"We're going to get farther and farther from where we need to be, just as climate change begins to really punish the people of Ontario," she said.

Doug Ford promised his first move as premier would be to cancel Ontario's carbon pricing plan. His government introduced a new law, the Cap and Trade Cancellation Act, on July 25, 2018.

A photo of flooding in Rockland, Ont. is shown during a press conference at Queen's Park in Toronto on Sept. 25, 2018.

"Bill 4 has none of the features of a good climate law," Saxe said of the act. "It's a licence to do little or nothing in the face of our largest threat."

Saxe said that the floods, forest fires, heat waves, tornadoes and windstorms that are uprooting Canadians and destroying property will only get worse.

Bill 4 has none of the features of a good climate law. Dianne Saxe

"What used to be 'normal' weather is gone, and cannot come back."

Saxe called Bill 4 "weak" in a press release about her report, because it lacks a cap on emissions that's based on science, a legal obligation to stay within that cap, and a reporting process that keeps the government transparent.

Minister of the Environment Rod Phillips said that Ontario's new plan to tackle climate change is still on its way.

"Our Bill 4 specifies that there will be targets," he told reporters. "It specifies that we will have a plan. That plan will be out this fall."

Ontario Environment Minister Rod Phillips talks with media after at the Ontario legislature in Toronto on Aug. 2, 2018.

He said his party had no choice but to repeal cap-and-trade because that's what it promised to do during the election campaign.

Story continues

"She has the luxury of advocating for higher taxes," he said of Saxe. "We have a requirement, and we take it very seriously, to live up to the promises we made."

At her press conference, Saxe pointed out that a cap-and-trade program is not the only type of law that makes polluters pay for the harm they do to the environment. She noted that some carbon tax programs charge businesses to pollute but then give citizens a cheque, leaving individuals better off financially. One study suggests that the federal government's carbon tax, hated by Conservatives, in one such plan. It could leave average families with more money in their pockets.

Watch: Ontario will challenge federal carbon tax in court. Story continues after video.

"Cap-and-trade lasted only 18 months in Ontario," Saxe said. "Not long enough for a $2-billion-a-year program to turn around an $800-billion-a-year economy. But even in that very short period of time, we saw encouraging signs."

She said that hospitals were on track to slash operating costs by $60 million per year through energy efficiency, which would leave more money to be invested in patient care.

One chapter of her 242-page report is called "2018: A wrenching halt."

Ontario's progress on climate change came to an abrupt end when Ford was elected, the report says. Asked if Ontarians would suffer from a "lack of progress on emissions," Saxe said our new situation is "worse than that."

Not only was the cap-and-trade system cancelled, the new government also cancelled 758 renewable energy contracts and ordered an end to a wind farm that was ten years in the making and just weeks away from completion.

"Many parties who, in good faith, invested time, money, expertise and credibility in Ontario emission reduction projects have been left with damaged relationships and uncompensated losses," Saxe's report says.

CLARIFICATION: A previous version of this article said Premier Doug Ford's government cancelled Ontario's "carbon tax." The cancelled program was cap-and-trade, which put a cap on the amount of carbon emissions allowed and let businesses buy credits to pollute.Pinterest will open its first Canadian office in Toronto on Oct. 1 as part of an ongoing effort to expand the platform's presence outside of the United States.

The San Francisco-based technology company runs an online platform that allows users to create digital boards to which they can pin aspirational photos.

It says it has 12 million Canadian users, who save 4.5 million photos on the platform daily.

Pinterest says it hopes the Toronto office will help spur the business's international growth and serve local advertisers.

"We have a strong, passionate user base in Canada and there is a great opportunity for businesses to connect with these people that are actively considering what to do or buy next," Pinterest's head of global partnerships Jon Kaplan said in a statement announcing the move.

Localize ad program

The Toronto office will be run by country manager Erin Elofson, who previously led Facebook Canada's sales team and spent 11 years at Microsoft Canada.

Pinterest says Elofson will help the country localize its offerings, including an ad program, which it says advertisers will be able to use to target French-speaking Canadians by the end of the year.

Elofson said in the statement that "Pinterest is already deeply embedded" in Canadian culture.

"Canadian businesses have the opportunity to offer the right products and services to Pinners to help them realize those aspirations and I'm looking forward to working with these businesses."

Jeff Chiu/Associated Press

Paula Coop McCrory, a social media consultant and Pinterest influencer with more than four million followers on the platform, welcomed the news Tuesday.

"Pinterest has opened up a lot of different initiatives and they really are trying to reach out to businesses on every level, from those that are hugely established to those starting up," she said.

Coop McCrory said she hopes that having a physical presence in Canada will not only facilitate more relationships between Pinterest, brands and influencers, but also help educate users on how best to optimize the platform for business.

Story continues

For ideas and inspiration

She said the key thing for people to understand is that "Pinterest is not a social engine; it's a search engine."

People go to Pinterest for solutions, ideas and inspiration, often tied to a purchase decision  "be it a renovation, or a vacation, or even the meal they're going to make this coming Friday night."

And because of the way people interact with content on the platform, she said posts have a much longer active life on Pinterest than they do on other platforms. That's good return on investment for the company whose pin gets added to a board and referenced later when the consumer is ready to start that bathroom reno or book a wedding photographer, she said.

Coop McCrory said she's curious to find out the location of the new office, which has not yet been announced.

She said the San Francisco headquarters are often used to engage the user community with talks and demonstrations, something she hopes will also happen in Toronto.

With files from The Canadian PressRiver Jordan draining into the Dead Sea

Historical evidence for the biblical account of the Exodus might be located at a site near the Jordan River, according to a recently announced discovery.

Exodus, the second book of the Bible, has been a subject of much debate over its historical accuracy, as some scholars have questioned the claim that the ancient Israelites immigrated from Egypt during that time period.

However, at the Jordan Valley site of Khirbet el-Mastarah, archaeologists Ralph K. Hawkins and David Ben-Shlomo have said that there is evidence of ruins from a nomadic people believed to be the Hebrews coming from Egypt.

Ben-Shlomo said in comments quoted by the U.K. Daily Express on Tuesday that the ruins offer potential evidence for the biblical account.

"We have not proved that these camps are from the period of the early Israelites, but it is possible," noted Ben-Shlomo.

"If they are, this might fit the biblical story of the Israelites coming from east of the Jordan River, then crossing the Jordan and entering into the hill country of Israel later."

Ben-Shlomo and Hawkins had their findings published in the July/August 2018 edition of Biblical Archaeology Review, noting that the ruins appear to date to the Iron Age, which would be around the time of the Exodus.

In comments given to the Biblical Archaeology Society during the summer, Ben-Shlomo and Hawkins said their findings came from research on the site conducted in the summer of 2017.

At Khirbet el-Mastarah, they found among other things stone ruins and pottery fragments dating to either the Late Bronze Age (14001200 B.C.) or the Iron Age (12001000).

"By the end of our 2017 season, we were struck by the fascinating picture that had begun to emerge in the Jordan Valley, a region that up until recently has been virtually unknown archaeologically," said Ben-Shlomo and Hawkins.

"Within a range of just a couple of miles, we may be able to see the evolution of early Israel from a domestic-scale culture [at Khirbet el-Mastarah] to a political-scale culture [at Khirbet 'Auja el-Foqa]."

The aforementioned Khirbet 'Auja el-Foqa has been identified by researchers with the ancient city of Ataroth, as referenced in Joshua 16:5.

This article was originally published in The Christian Post and is re-published here with permissionPhoto - Depth Charge at Albany Museum

Dr Brendon Nelson the Director of the Australian War Memorial was speaking at the Australian Press Club last week and in the question time he was asked, as a former Coalition (Liberal Party) Opposition Leader, any advice to former leaders.

Dr Nelson was deposed as Opposition Leader in the party room ballot by Malcolm Turnbull in 2007 when Labor under Kevin Rudd took power at the ballot box.

Kevin Rudd in turn was by deposed by Julia Gillard before fulfilling a full term, and she in turn was deposed and it was back to Kevin Rudd before the 2013 election. Meanwhile with the Liberals, Tony Abbott deposed Malcolm Turnbull and in 2013 Abbott won the election in a landslide.

Welcome to recent Australian politics. Before Tony Abbott could complete a full term, Malcolm Turnbull came back and deposed Abbott in a party room ballot. Turnbull just managed to scrape back into power by one seat losing 17 federal seats.

Turnbull in turn found himself for the second time being deposed when his poll figures dropped and dropped and dropped and at his own hand, calling a spill, surprising all, found himself in an impossible position with 34 votes against him. The commentators called him a dead man walking (politically). He was.

Federal Treasurer Scott Morrison came up trumps 45 to 40 and became Australias 45th Prime Minister, and on one of the papers that Malcolm Turnbull demanded with 43 signatures to call a second ballot, was scrawled  This is for Brendon Nelson.

In the light of former leaders offering oodles of unhelpful and destructive advice and commentary in these past few years - at the Australian Press Club, Brendon Nelsons advice to former leaders  Dont give any.

Victors tell the story

It has been said since time immemorial that in politics whether it be the ancient or modern worlds, the victors tell the story. Tony Abbott having won the Federal Election in 2013 described the previous government as wacko.

Tony Abbott as reported in the article said he thought it was the most incompetent and untrustworthy government in modern Australian history. the former government made a whole lot of commitments, which they scandalously failed to honour.

He continued in that they did a lot of things that were scandalously wasteful and the actual conduct of government was a circus. They were untrustworthy in terms of the carbon tax. They were incompetent in terms of the national broadband network, they were a scandal when it came to their own internal disunity. Moreover, he said they made a whole lot of grubby deals in order to try and perpetuate themselves in power. It was an embarrassing spectacle.

As to their incessant claim about climate change, Tony Abbott said we've had much bigger floods and fires than the ones we've recently experienced. You can hardly say they were the result of anthropic global warming. Indeed, the victors write the history.

Now, new Prime Minister Scott Morrison has his own victors stories. He has shown a steadfastness in this  I have been Prime Minister for 3 weeks, I can only speak on my decisions in this time.

Victors tell the story in politics.

Photo - ANZAC memorial  Albany WA - from where the ANZACS sailed WWI

What of church / mission parallels

The question is put therefore, is there a parallel analogy in the local church / mission situation where the congregation has gone through a woeful experience where specific members of the congregation and the minister of the time did not see eye to eye. What about missions and Christian agencies where the CEO walks after a long and bitter dispute over policies and personalities and take-over scenarios.

In both situations, the local church and that of missions, a new minister enters the scene, or a fresh CEO comes into the life of the mission and the start of a new beginning is announced.

Its claimed Victors tell the story in churches and missions too.

Sad to say, there are some local congregations that have a bit of a history in seeing off their minister, especially when the congregations King Masker (the person who is the real power) falls out with the minister. The pathway is fraught with turmoil and heartache and can go on for a year or more, but usually, the King Maker triumphs yet again.

Reverend Dr Rowland Croucher of John Mark Ministries has specialised in this area of pastoral disaster for over 40 years where he and his team pick up the pieces of the Minister. There are 14,000 pastors today in Australia who have faced such diabolical trauma and have simply moved on in their lives away from pastoral ministry.

Many of these live with their pain and anguish for years. No one came to their aid. Congregational members who had seen this all before were too weak to do anything about it or did not have the numbers on the floor (as it were) to right the wrongs.

The new minister coming into such congregations come with high hopes, there is very little forewarning as such situations only raise their head when a dispute of some fashion down the track occurs and unless handled with great care, it becomes a repeat process. But until then, the new minister and the church deacons / elders write the history. Welcome to church land.

Photo - Albany Waterways from where the Anzac in 1914 sailed (1)

Mission organisations

Mission organisations have all the same hallmarks as a local church in terms of disputes with board members and / or associates, but there are two significant differences.

First, how the money is raised? If the money is raised through the founder and that person is the CEO, then the paper work and accounts will inevitably be spotless. If the CEO goes, more questions of propriety get directed to the trouble makers and their careers are placed in jeopardy or at least it is their reputations are up for grabs. Some trouble makers quickly resign afterwards so as to avoid this very scrutiny.

Second, once the CEO goes, every eye will be on the trouble makers as to whether they can make a go-of-it as compared to the person whom they saw off. The common outcomes is that those people themselves slowly but surely depart the scene and sometimes it takes two of three cycles of board members before they get back on track.

And of course, everyone on each side of the argument believe they are right! But in mission life, you at least can look at the evidence of what happens after the event: Has the founder or the CEO of that mission body who left, has that person forged ahead with astonishing blessings  if so, then it might be wise to check out those who were in leadership in the troubles and look at their outcomes. Youll soon see a pattern emerge in which-ever-way. Therein the story is re-written.

Reverend Dr Rowland Croucher John Mark Ministries has a host of research on all these issues, and from all sides of the equation. It is rarely as pretty picture. People are cut to the quick on all sides. Wounds last for life times. Those in party of the deceit by their silence, often years later, reveal more of the truth of what occurred behind the scenes but it is too late and too little.

One thing is for certain. Those in leadership who have gone through their dark night of the soul rarely, if ever, trust again. The social sciences call this aggrievement syndrome. Ive written of this particular thing previously where the intricate accountability to which they were held was somehow not required of those who came against them.

There will come a time when at the end, the true eternal victor will tell the story. It is this in hope that we commit our lives.

Photo - Albany Waterways from where the Anzac in 1914 sailed (2)

Dr Mark Tronson is a Baptist minister (retired) who served as the Australian cricket team chaplain for 17 years (2000 ret) and established Life After Cricket in 2001. He was recognised by the Olympic Ministry Medal in 2009 presented by Carl Lewis Olympian of the Century. He mentors young writers and has written 24 books, and enjoys writing. He is married to Delma, with four adult children and grand-children. Dr Tronson writes a daily article for Christian Today Australia (since 2008) and in November 2016 established Christian Today New Zealand.

Mark Tronson's archive of articles can be viewed at http://www.pressserviceinternational.org/mark-tronson.htmlPhoto - 2018 young writers conference

Press Service International is a ministry of Well-Being Australia which mentors young people who contribute a 'comment article' once every Cycle of 5 weeks - for publication in Christian Today.

That all sounds a very simple process but in reality there is a host to engage to see it all happen - this articles provides a glimpse of this.

There are five parties involved

1 Christian Today the publisher

2 The young writers

3 The coordination and editing process

4 Distribution

5 The Panellists who mark the articles

Photo - Ethan Miller and Matthew Thornton, Kiwi young writers

Christian Today

Christian Today is part of the Christian Media Corporation (CMC) based in Washington DC but with the subsidiary mast heads around the world, such as the highly recognised Christian Today UK based in London.

Christian Today Australia and Christian Today New Zealand are part of this 100 mast head network which includes the US Christian Post, the world's largest Christian news provider.

Each morning Christian Today Australia / Christian Today New Zealand sees the process of uploading the day's articles onto these two sites. Since 2009 Christian Today Australia / New Zealand and Press Service International have developed a young writer ministry whereby these young people have provided 'Comment article' column space  the philosophy is as to give the next generation on Christian leaders their own 'Voice'.

Photo - Esther Koh, Kristen Dang, Conor Ryan at the 2018 young writer conference

The Young Writers

These young people comes from a broad cross section  education, socio-economic, short term mission experience, Christian service and employment.

They are Australians, New Zealanders, along with a sprinkling from England, Canada, USA, West Indies, Africa, Korea, South Africa, China, Asia and elsewhere.

They came to PSI through recommendations, searches, one to one contacts, personal knowledge and the like. They come from cities, regional and rural communities. They each write a 'comment article' once every 5 weeks which is published in Christian Today that provides them this Voice.

Photo  Roydon Ng with Ethan Miller at the 2018 young writers conference in Christchurch

Coordinating process

The young writer program is divided into Cycles of 5 weeks. This 5 week period allows the space and time for every young writer to be published. There are up to 6-7 articles published each day.

Each of the 5 weeks in the Cycle has a coordinator who collates the articles (ie, send out the reminders) and each week has its own editor. It is a smooth running process.

As long as the young writers get their articles in on time there is no problem. The late comers create havoc and if it continues they themselves recognise they have an issue with time management.

Each week is like this

Articles arrive to their coordinator by the Friday evening

Coordinator forwards them to the week editor

Week editor do their thing and forwards them to PSI

PSI does a final check and then forwards them to Christian Today

Its obvious that late comers muck-up the system..

Photo - Joseph Kolapudi at the 2018 young writer conference

Distribution

Each morning the published articles in Christian Today are hyperlinked to the PSI site which then serves as the PR circulation process. Moreover each young writer has their own web presence CV site which also needs to have their articles hyperlinked.

Emails are sent Christian media across Australia and New Zealand and on Friday's additional Emails are sent to the PSI International data bases. Likewise each Thursday to Well-Being Australia support network.

Each young writer whose articles have been published that day are sent a copy of their hyperlink of their article requesting they in turn circulate their link to their own network. It's a fun routine with the Lord. And it functions well.

Panellists

There are separate groups of Panellists who mark each of their respective articles for the annual Basil Sellers Young Writers Awards. One set of panellists mark New Zealand young writer articles, another group the Australians and a third Panellist group the Sport articles, then the Over 31s .. many remarkable volunteers.

At the end of each Cycle (5 weeks) the Panellists send in their Points where various statisticians become involved who tally the points for the annual awards. The 2018 awards were presented at the conference in Christchurch on Saturday 1 September and next year, the 2019 conference is in Melbourne.

Young people interested in becoming a young writer with your own international column please contact Press Service International timeout@bushorchestra.com or 0419 917 713

Photo - Biship Brian Carrell with Tim Newman at the 2018 Christchurch young writer conference

Past Annual Young Writer Conferences

2018 - Christchurch

2017 - Sunshine Coast

2016 - Sydney

2015 - Sydney

2014 - Gold Coast

Also - Wellington for NZ young writers

2013 - Melbourne

Also - Auckland and Christchurch  NZ young writers

2012 - State conferences

2011 - Tweed Heads

2010 - Gold Coast

After each conference a short video is produced and they might be viewed

Dr Mark Tronson is a Baptist minister (retired) who served as the Australian cricket team chaplain for 17 years (2000 ret) and established Life After Cricket in 2001. He was recognised by the Olympic Ministry Medal in 2009 presented by Carl Lewis Olympian of the Century. He mentors young writers and has written 24 books, and enjoys writing. He is married to Delma, with four adult children and grand-children. Dr Tronson writes a daily article for Christian Today Australia (since 2008) and in November 2016 established Christian Today New Zealand.

Mark Tronson's archive of articles can be viewed at http://www.pressserviceinternational.org/mark-tronson.htmlIndia and Morocco have agreed to enhance bilateral cooperation in the field of defence and security. Decision in this regard was taken at meeting between Moroccan Defence Minister Abdeltif Loudyi and Defence Mnister Nirmala Sitaraman in South Block in New Delhi. This was first ever visit of Moroccan Defence Minister to India.

Highlights of meeting

Both countries agreed to enhance bilateral cooperation in field of defence and security. They identified fields of hydrography, peacekeeping, telemedicine, information technology and communications as well as counter Terrorism and counter insurgency as potential areas for bilateral engagement. They also discussed cooperation in defence industry including collaboration in ship building and manufacturing.

Two MoUs signed

Both countries also singed two bilateral MoUs, (i) Cooperation in the area of Cyber Security between Computer Emergency Response Team (CERTIN) and Moroccan Computer Response Team (ma-CERT) and (ii) Cooperation in Peaceful Uses of Outer Space between Indian SSRO and Moroccan Centre of Remote Sensing.Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated Sikkims first-ever airport at Pakyong. Prior to this airport, Sikkim was only state in India remaining without functional airport. Pakyong airport is Indias 100th functional airport and one of the countrys five highest airports.

Pakyong airport

The airport is spread over 201 acres and was constructed by Airports Authority of India (AAI). It is located on top of hill about two km above Pakyong village at 4,500 feet above sea level. It was carved from mountain side using massive geo technical cut and fill engineering works.

It is located around 60 km from Indo-China border and around 30km away from Gangtok, capital city of Sikkim. It has 1.75 km long runway. It has capacity to handle 50 in-bound and as many out-bound passengers flights.

Initially, this airport will cater only to domestic flights, but later provide international flight services connecting Sikkim with other countries (especially neighbouring) like Paro (Bhutan), Kathmandu (Nepal) and Dhaka (Bangladesh).

Significance

Operationalization of Pakyong airport will give huge big boost to connectivity and tourism to north-eastern state of Sikkim. It will cut down air travelling time to Sikkim by almost 5 hours because, earlier, nearest airport for connecting Sikkim was at Bagdogra in West Bengal. It will be major booster for Sikkims tourism sector, as it will help to improve air connectivity and save travel time for the tourists. Its location also makes it strategically relevant from the countrys security point of view. Indian Air Force (IAF) can use this airport for landing and taking off of its aircrafts during critical situations.Tonight, in an exclusive interview with 60 Minutes reporter Tara Brown, West Australian based GP Alida Lancee is putting her reputation, her livelihood and  most importantly  her freedom on the line by identifying the patient who requested her help in assisted dying.The never-before-made admission will most likely spark a police investigation and a possible murder charge.The Confession' airs this Sunday on Channel 9 following The Block. For more on 60 Minutes, head to the official website.'I'm not wimping out now. I'm going to take this all the way,' she tells Brown, in a preview for tonight's report.'Deal with me as you see fit.'Dr Lancee, a long-time campaigner for euthanasia, was investigated by police in 2016 over the death of one of her patients.The investigation established that Dr Lancee's patient had died naturally and that no wrongdoing was found.But what police didn't realise is that they were investigating the wrong patient.Now, Dr Lancee has decided to set the record straight once and for all, in a brave bid to change Australia's euthanasia laws.'Right now, behind closed doors in Australia, hundreds of people are begging for help,' she tells Brown.'This is no minor issue. This is not something that you can just say, Oh, it's not happening 'cause I can't see it'.''If this requires a challenge in the court system, I have medical opinions who will back me up.'The police investigation has seen Dr Lancee face very public scrutiny being labelled 'Dr Death', but as Brown reveals, she is not without support.In an incredibly risky move, two additional Australian doctors have come forward to 60 Minutes and admitted to assisting terminally ill patients end their life.Dr Frank Kotai tells Brown he has assisted in half a dozen deaths.And Dr Rodney Syme admits to a staggering 300.It's an admission that could land them in jail, but one they say is worth the risk if it results in their patients having control over the end of their lives.'We recognise her courage and her enthusiasm,' Dr Kotai says.'(Dr Lancee is) courageous enough to go out there in the public space.'Not many doctors are willing to do it, and so she's quite unique.'In June 2019 new laws will make Victoria the only state in Australia where it is legal for doctors to assist terminal patients who seek their help to end their lives.Dr Lancee, Dr Kotai and Dr Syme are hopeful that by airing their stories, Australians will support them in their campaign to allowing for an end of life choice.Hearing from not only the doctors, Australians will see firsthand the perspectives of terminally ill patients and their families  those who have lost loved ones and been in the position of begging their doctors to assist.Theresa May's cabinet ally Chris Grayling has said Britain is heading for a no deal Brexit unless Euroocrats change their minds on the Irish borderThe Transport Secretary says the Government will not drop its Chequers plan despite a disastrous summit in Salzburg leaders where EU leaders threw it back in Mrs May's face.She was ambushed in Austria yesterday when No 10 had hoped there was going to be breakthrough in negotiations.Last night Chris Grayling said the EU knew Mrs May's red line was the Irish border issue and warned them without a softening of position by Brussels there will be no deal.He told Newsnight: 'We are in the midst of a negotiation where people are setting out robust, firm positions  and this is often the way with the European Union. They build up, there's tough language and actually a deal is done at the last. And I'm still confident that we will reach agreement.'He added: 'We have put forward the only proposal that we believe meets the UK's red lines and also provides the right solution for the Irish border. At the moment what the European Union is asking in and around Northern Ireland is actually impossible for the UK to accept. If they stick with that position, there will be no deal.'No UK government, certainly not this one  and the Labour party have said the same  could possibly accept any border in the Irish sea, between northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.'At an extraordinary press conference in Salzburg, a visibly furious Prime Minister rounded on EU leaders for hanging her out to dry as she battles to keep her Chequers plan alive in the face of fierce Tory criticism.Emmanuel Macron branded the leaders of the pro-Brexit campaign 'liars' for telling voters it would be easy to leave the EU.The French president said the decision was 'not without costs' and 'not without consequences'.'Brexit is the choice of the British people and it is a choice pushed by certain people who predicted easy solutions,' he said in Salzburg.'Brexit has shown us one thing  and I fully respect British sovereignty in saying this  it has 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.'This is all the more true because they left the next day, so they didn't have to manage it.' Mr Macron said it was true that Brexit negotiations had been complex and lengthy.But he added: 'That fact must not be exploited by those very people who are the cause of this problem, who got us into the Brexit situation and who now tell us that Europe is going from crisis to crisis.'His claim the leaders of the Brexit campaign 'left the next day' after the vote appeared to confuse them with David Cameron, who quit as PM after calling on voters to back Remain. By contrast, Brexit supporters David Davis, Boris Johnson and Liam Fox were brought into the Cabinet.Mrs May said she still believed a deal was possible, and offered a fresh concession on Northern Ireland - but acknowledged there was 'a lot of hard work to be done'.In a blunt assessment, EU president Donald Tusk said the other 27 leaders 'all agreed' that the complex plans at the heart of the Chequers deal 'will not work'.Mrs May acknowledged she had had a 'frank' meeting with Mr Tusk shortly before she faced the press - diplomatic code for a blazing row.In a warning to EU leaders that she cannot be pushed much further, she added: 'Let nobody be in any doubt... we are preparing for no deal so that if we get to a position where it is not possible to do a deal then the British people can have confidence that we will have done what is necessary to ensure we make a success of leaving the European Union regardless of the terms on which we do so.'Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith accused the EU of 'bullying' Britain.'This demonstrates that the EU are behaving like bullies, throwing their weight around and using the Irish border as an excuse,' he said.'This will demonstrate to so many people why we need to leave. Mrs May should go for free trade, and call their bluff.'The Prime Minister also angrily rejected calls for a second referendum, after the prime ministers of Malta and the Czech Republic publicly backed the idea. She said: 'There will be no second referendum.'Mrs May had travelled to the EU summit in Austria hoping for warm words from fellow leaders to give her political cover for the Chequers plan, which is set to be savaged by critics like Boris Johnson at next month's Tory conference.But despite a personal plea from her over dinner, the EU leaders issued a humiliating rebuff designed to hand fresh ammunition to her critics.Mrs May suggested that yesterday's rejection of Chequers was a negotiating 'tactic' designed to wring further concessions from her.Privately, aides said they had expected a similar 'stunt' at some point in the negotiations, but had not anticipated EU leaders deserting her in her hour of need.Mr Tusk, who came under pressure from Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel to adopt a tough stance, said the two sides now faced a 'moment of truth' next month, which would decide whether a Brexit deal was possible or not.He also cast doubt on whether a special Brexit summit pencilled in for November would take place at all unless Britain changes course.Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban said EU leaders were split between those who want a pragmatic Brexit deal and those who want one that 'punishes' the UK.He said some leaders believed 'Britain must suffer', adding: 'I don't like that approach at all. What we need is a fair Brexit and good cooperation between the UK and EU in future.'Asked if more people were coming round to his camp, he said he was 'getting a majority'.But hours later, President Macron, Chancellor Merkel and the EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier persuaded the bloc to toughen its stance.Mr Macron made it clear he wanted to punish Britain to dissuade other member states from heading for the EU's exit door.The French President branded pro-Brexit politicians as 'liars' who had 'left the next day, so they didn't have to manage it'.He added: 'Brexit shows that it is not easy to leave the EU. It is not without costs. It is not without consequences.'Mrs May insisted that Chequers was 'the only proposal' that would deliver frictionless trade with the EU and keep the UK's pledge to avoid a hard border in Northern Ireland.She said EU leaders were wrong to believe that her controversial plan for a 'common rule book' on goods would undermine the single market - a point made specifically by Mr Tusk yesterday.'Yes concerns have been raised,' she said. 'I want to know what those concerns are. There is a lot of hard work to be done. But I believe that there is a willingness to do a deal.'The hardline approach from Brussels prompted an angry reaction in the UK.Former Tory chairman Grant Shapps said the PM was right to stick to her pledge to leave without a deal if Brussels continued to act unreasonably.Mr Shapps said: 'I'm no Brexiteer - in fact I voted Remain - but we may fast be approaching a situation where our handling over 39 billion [in 'divorce' payments] won't work for us either.'Fellow Remainer Tory MP Anna Soubry said it was clear the Chequers deal was 'bereft of life' and urged the PM to pursue membership of the EU single market after Brexit.Meanwhile, Eurosceptic MPs stepped up their vows to kill off the Chequers deal at the Conservative conference and force Mrs May to pursue a free trade deal.Former Brexit minister Steve Baker said he was 'entirely unsurprised' by the EU's position as Brussels had always been clear it would only accept the UK being in the single market or subject to a standard free trade deal.He added: 'The Prime Minister has tried to go through the middle. It was obviously never going to work. It is time now for everyone to focus on pragmatic solutions.'Jacob Rees-Mogg, chairman of the European Research Group of Eurosceptic Tory MPs, said: 'Everyone expected that there would be some softening of Mr Barnier's line. That hasn't happened, it has been made firmer.'I think Chequers now has no supporters at all. I doubt even the Downing Street cat is any longer backing the Chequers plan. I think the time has come for Mrs May to say, 'This is not going to work'.'Henry Newman, director of the think tank Open Europe, said it was now impossible for Mrs May to argue that the Chequers deal could still succeed.He added: 'Theresa May cannot simply claim that 'nothing has changed'. She will need to re-asses her Brexit policy and use this opportunity to shift position at party conference, healing divisions which opened in the Conservatives after Downing Street's botched handling of Chequers.'It's also now time to abandon the fanciful Facilitated Customs Arrangement.'Five people have been shot, including an eight-year-old girl, in Syracuse, New York, the city's police chief has said.Police responded to a shooting in the city in upstate New York shortly after 9 pm local time, the department said in a statement posted on Twitter by a producer for National Public Radio.'This is very tragic event,' Syracuse Police Chief Frank Fowler said during a news conference.'This is something that cannot occur in our community.'Fowler did not disclose the condition of the five wounded people.The Syracuse Firefighters union reported earlier that seven people were shot on Midland Avenue in the city, according to a Facebook post.News website Syracuse.com reported that the shooting took place at a family gathering to remember a person who died of cancer.The website said ambulances were seen driving away from the scene with a police escort at about 9:15 pm.Syracuse is about 402 km northwest of New York City.Arsenal's star striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was fined 1,250 yesterday after he was caught speeding in his Lamborghini.The Gabon star was doing 99mph and was given six penalty points after being snapped by a speed camera on the M1.The striker, who is a known fans of super-cars, was thought to be driving his 270,000 silver Lamborghini Aventador.He appeared at Willesden Magistrates court in North London on Monday to receive his punishment.According to the Sun, prosecutor Alison Larkin told magistrates: 'The defendant was stopped and asked why he was speeding and made no reply.'Aubameyang's lawyer Robert Morris said the Gunners ace admitted speeding and added: 'He is very sorry he is in this position. He accepts he has no excuse.'He uses his car to attend training and matches. It is the top of the bracket but is not by any stretch of the imagination the worst case of speeding.'Aubameyang is believed to be earning 180,000-a-week after signing for Arsenal from German side Borussia Dortmund for 56 million in January.His car collection, which he has previously shown off, is thought to include a Porsche, Ferrari and a gold Range Rover.It is believed to be worth more than 3m.Aubameyang could have also been banned for up to 28 days by North London's Willesden magistrates.Porsche Panamera Turbo Techart - 140,000Lamborghini Aventador - 270,000Ferrari 812 Superfast - 250,000Range Rover Sport Mansory - 150,000Audi R8 V10 Plus - 128,000Aston Martin DB9 Volante 2 - 140,000Ferrari 488 Spider - 205,000Porsche Panamera Mansory C One - 113,000Read more: Arsenal's Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang caught doing 99mph on M1 in 275,000 Lamborghini - Mirror OnlineApp-based fintech firm Revolut has vowed to keep its headquarters in London despite repeated approaches by the French government to move to Paris in the wake of Brexit.Revolut, one of Britain's fastest growing financial technology companies, revealed it has received periodical approaches by France over the past 12 to 18 months as president Emmanuel Macron tries to lure UK firms with cuts to tax and red tape.But the popular start-up, founded and run by Russian-born Nikolay Storonsky, has repeated that from its perspective it's 'business as usual' and confirmed today: 'London will remain our headquarters'.'What I love about London is it's so international. Paris is not international at all,' Storonsky was quoted saying last year.It comes as France sees Britain's expected departure from the EU as an opportunity to lure some of its fintech companies - which are seen as crucial to the future of financial services and hence key to economic growth - to the country.President Emmanuel Macron, a former investment banker, pledged 10billion to an innovation fund to help turn France into a 'start-up nation' after he was elected last year.But while Revolut says it has no plans to abandon the UK, it is making plans to hedge against the risk of Brexit.The firm, which offers current accounts but doesn't have a full banking licence nor 85,000 Financial Services Compensation Scheme cover, has tripled customer numbers from 450,000 to 1.3million it revealed in results today.It said it is also planning to apply for an electronic money institution license (EMI) in Luxembourg.Revolut is a digital wallet that looks and acts much like a current account. It offers two accounts, a free version and premium version costing 6.99 per month.Similar to the likes of Monzo and Starling Bank, Revolut's accounts can be opened via its app and offer perks including fee-free spending and withdrawals abroad (up to 200, 400 or 600 per month depending on which account you have).Revolut comes with a slick mobile app which categorises spending and offers money transfers to 120 different countries without loading the exchange rate.The major difference is that while they are regulated by the FCA, it is under Electronic Money Regulations. This means that your money isn't covered by the FSCS. Instead, customer funds must be ring-fenced in a separate account with another bank.Revolut already has a UK EMI licence issued by the Financial Conduct Authority, which gives it so-called 'passporting rights' to do business in the European Union.But with Brexit, Britain is expected to lose these rights and Revolut said it 'had to hedge against that risk'.It said Luxembourg could be a 'good choice', but insisted it has not yet applied for a licence there.It comes as the bank released its 2017 financial results showing revenues increased almost five-fold from 2.4million to 12.8million, while pre-tax losses more than doubled to 14.8million.Revolut, which offers a basic, a premium and now also a 'metal' account, expects to quadruple revenues this year after signing up 80,000 people to its new metal card.The new card, which costs 12.99 a month, offers extra services such as travel insurance and additional cash withdrawals.Among Revolut's services are also money transfers into 24 currencies and cryptocurrency exchange.Storonsky said the company had shown 'no signs of slowing down' and will soon be launching their new 'commission-free' trading platform.The company has recently been dealing with angry customers locked out of accounts, many of whom have been stranded overseas without funds.Barclays Bank offers cash loyalty rewards as part of its Blue Rewards scheme including 7 per month for having two direct debits from your account. The feature comes with a 3 monthly fee and you must pay in 800 a month.First Direct's First Account offers a choice of freebies to sign up, including a 150 Expedia voucher , online development courses or free tech worth up to 170. It comes with a 250 free overdraft and requires a 1,000 monthly deposit to avoid a 10 monthly fee.Natwest's Reward Account pays 2 per cent cashback on your household bills - worth an average 83 per year. The banks will also waive overseas spending fees until the end of August. You need to pay in at least 1,500 per month and there is a 2 monthly fee.Nationwide's FlexPlus is one of our favourite package bank accounts . It pays 3% interest on up to 2,500 and comes with family worldwide travel insurance and breakdown and mobile cover for 13 per month. The account also comes with a 250-free overdraft.M&S Bank's Current Account has a 125 gift card for joining , plus you get an extra 5 a month top up for the year . It has a 100 fee-free overdraft and no miniumum deposit criteria.Unai Emery has won more games in the Europa League than any other manager after claiming the 32nd of his career with Arsenal's 4-2 win over Vorskla Poltava.The Gunners boss has a great pedigree in the competition after he lead Sevilla to three successive Europa League titles between 2014 and 2016.After a spell with Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League, Emery has now returned to the Europa League with Arsenal and will be hoping to add to his trophy haul.Emery is the first manager to win 32 games in the competition but it was his first time doing so with the Gunners.Arsenal put in a fine display at the Emirates as they won their opening clash 4-2, with Pierre Emerick Aubameyang scoring twice.Emery made eight changes to the starting 11 that beat Newcastle last weekend, but the Gabon striker kept his place along with Nacho Monreal and Sokratis.Danny Welbeck scored Arsenal's third after being handed a rare start, while Mesut Ozil came off the bench to make it four late on.Vorskla pulled two goals back late on in a disappointing end to the match for Emery, but the three points will be all that matters as Arsenal look to top the group again.32 - Unai Emery recorded his 32nd victory in the Europa League this evening; the most of any manager in competition history. Command. pic.twitter.com/vs5Qdi2Fm0 OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) September 20, 2018Aubameyang was happy with the performance but urged his team to improve and not concede sloppy goals late on'I think we played well in the first half and in the beginning of the second as well,' he said. 'We have to improve and try to fight not to concede a goal like we did in the last minute.'I didn't play the Europa League last year with the guys so I am really happy to be back in this competition. We want to go to the final of course.'I hope we can do well in the next few games. We know the Premier League is long. We have to win these games straight away and perform quickly. It is good to start with a win.'Tamil Nadu: Centre for Sustainable Aquaculture to be set up in Tiruchi

by R. Krishnamoorthy

September 26,2018 | Source: The Hindu

The Tamil Nadu Dr. J. Jayalalithaa Fisheries University (TNJFU) has been sanctioned land in Tiruchi district for establishing a freshwater ornamental fish brood bank for sustainable aqua farming.



The district administration has understandably granted enter upon permission to the university to establish the States seventh Centre for Sustainable Aquaculture on a 50-acre site near Jeeyapuram. In the next phase, more land will be required for establishing a fish farm, the Director of Directorate of Sustainable Aquaculture (DCeSA), Thanjavur, J. Stephen Sampath Kumar said.



The six other CeSAs under the control of the university's Directorate of Sustainable Aquaculture exist at Soorakkotai in Thanjavur district, Mandapam in Ramanathapuram district, Ganapathipuram and Prakkai in Kanniyakumari district, Barur in Krishnagiri district, and Bhavanisagar in Erode district.



The Directorate, a nodal agency for implementing the TN irrigated Agriculture Modernisation Program until 2023, has been providing on- campus and off-campus training programmes regularly for the benefit of the farmers, entrepreneurs, women SHG members, fisher women, and rural unemployed youth on freshwater fish farming, carp seed production, ornamental fish farming, and preparation of value-added fishery products.



The Thanjavur centre grew into a production centre with fish production and marketing through retail sale outlet (Kayalaham). Last year, the Kayalaham sales outlet was started in the campus of Fisheries College and Research Institute, Ponneri, for sale of fish products: Masala Flavour Nethili dried fish, plain Nethili dried fish, prawn pickle, dried prawn(big), Fish & Prawn kurkure and other products.



Formed to enhance aquaculture production in the State, the DCeSA is mandated with the tasks of developing and running the production centres at outstations of the University for the benefit of conducting research and experiential learning of the students; establishing new stations with focus on economically important species for the development of culture technology for adoption, establishing and running farms in the strategic locations and forming platforms for the students and staff research; and transferring the viable technologies through demonstration and training to the stakeholders.



Last year, the DCeSA had trained close to 400 persons in basic shrimp culture techniques, application of electronic equipment in fishing, basic techniques in ornamental fish culture and breeding, and basic pre and post processing techniques for fish processing workers.



Earlier this year, the TNJFU signed a MoU with National Fisheries Development Board, Hyderabad, paving way for the former to function as a Regional Training Centre to conduct various skill training in fisheries.Pakistan: Fish farmers opt for herbal feed

by Minna Zutshi

September 26,2018 | Source: The Tribune

Fish farmers in Punjab are experimenting with therapeutic wonders such as garlic, ginger and aloe vera. They are growing these plants on the banks of their fish ponds. These plants serve a twin purpose  the farmers use them for their own consumption and also to improve the nutritional value of traditional fish feed. Folk medicine speaks about the health-enhancing value of these plants and now fishery experts too are endorsing their health-augmenting qualities. According to experts, parts of these plants used in powdered form improve the quality of fish feed.



Jasvir Singh, a fish farmer from Khanna, grows garlic on the banks of his fish pond in his ancestral Karodian village. Garlic is grown without the use of any chemical, hence its organic. He uses its powder to feed his fish. I add around 20 gm organically-grown garlic powder to 1kg fish feed. It gives good results in terms of better fish health which means better quality of fish meat, says Jasvir. According to experts, supplementing fish feed with herbal ingredients like garlic, aloe vera, ashwagandha (Withania somnifera), amla (Indian gooseberry) and ginger enhances the quality of fish meat. A mix of these in powdered form is combined with the regular fish feed. Around 10-20 gm of this herb powder is added to 1 kg fish feed.



These plants are natural immune-stimulating growth promoters. They help in developing resistance of fish to various diseases. They also enhance the quality of fish meat in terms of its protein nutrient. Besides, they are cost-effective, eco-friendly and hardly have any side-effect, says Dr Meera D Ansal, Head, Department of Aquaculture, Guru Angad Dev Veterinary and Animal Sciences University (GADVASU), Ludhiana.



According to Dr Ansal, the meat of the fish fed with natural immunostimulants tastes no different from the regular fish meat. However, the flesh quality of the fish administered such herbal feed is much better. Fish farmers in Punjab are fast adopting such easily-implementable ideas, say experts from the vet varsity. The Innovative Fish Farmers Association encourages farmers to adopt new and innovative practices in their farming.



Natural growth promoter



- According to experts, supplementing fish feed with herbal ingredients like garlic, aloe vera, ashwagandha (Withania somnifera), amla (Indian gooseberry) and ginger enhances the quality of fish meat

- A mix of these in powdered form is combined with the regular fish feed. Around 10-20 gm of this herb powder is added to 1 kg fish feedMyanmar: Illegal fishing batters small-scale fishermen in Myeik

by Zaw Moe Oo

September 26,2018 | Source: Eleven Myanmar

Myeik region faces a shortage of fish resources, and local fishermen find it difficult to survive as the authority turns a blind eye to the voices of local small-scale fishermen, according to local fishermen.



Small-scale fishermen are finding it increasingly harder to practice their trade due to illegal onshore fishing by big fishing vessels, illegal fishing methods and the fixed laying of fishing nets in the sea. Local fishermen had to rely on other jobs as they are unable to survive just by fishing. Thin Tin Maw, a villager from Payaytaung village said: This year, small-scale fishermen are facing difficulty due to a scarcity of fish resources. We have no place to catch fishes on the sea as fishing nets are occupied in almost all areas. Many villagers face this problem.



According to fishermen, there is a shortage of fish resources in Yaypyaeaw and Sakanthit in Myeik Archipelago. Local fishermen can do fishing only when the authority designates fishing areas for fishing vessels and orders them to remove fishing nets placed near villages.



Aung Soe Lin, an activist working for fishing workers said: The governments action against illegal onshore and offshore fishing is very weak. The life of onshore small-scale fishermen will return to normal soon when the government controls illegal onshore and offshore fishing in an effective manner. We have reported it to the Fishery Department and parliamentarians. But there is no any action against illegal fishing. The government needs to conserve fish resources by enacting an onshore law. In addition, the government should extend a helping hand to onshore small-scale fishermen. For instance, small-scale fishermen can survive if the government grants low-interest loans to them. Villagers want the government to carry out the marine territorial water conservation from Payee Island to Done Island. Thanks to it, there will be ample fish resources.A 26-year-old East Palo Alto man was convicted Friday of second-degree murder in the beating death of his former live-in girlfriend s 2-year-old daughter.





A San Mateo County jury also found Adair Jeru Enriquez Zevallos guilty of felony assault on a child causing death in the killing 2 years ago of Leia Kiele Panduro.





The jury reached its verdict after deliberating for 5 1/2 hours, prosecutors said.





Zevallos now faces a sentence of 25 years to life in prison.





On Nov. 27, 2016, East Palo Alto police responded to the girl's home in the 300 block of East OKeefe Street at about 1 p.m. on a report that she was "in distress and having trouble breathing." When police arrived, they found Leia not breathing and without a pulse.





The girl was rushed to Stanford Hospital, where she was pronounced dead about one hour later. An autopsy revealed Leia died of blunt force trauma, prosecutors said.





Prosecutors said the girl, who had been left in the care of Zevallos, was beaten to death and died of blunt force trauma.





Zevallos did not testify during the trial, and his defense attorneys argued that prosecutors did not present "evidence to establish it was not an accident."





"A helpless child, to die from those types of injuries, goes so contrary to basic human instinct," Wagstaffe said. "It remains a mystery on how somebody could do something like that to a child."





Zevallos is scheduled to return to court Nov. 7 for sentencing.





The San Mateo County District Attorney's Office is currently prosecuting three other cases involving the murder of young children, including a death-penalty case, Wagstaffe said.





Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against Daniel Contreras, 30, a Redwood City man accused of sexually assaulting and killing a 17-month-old girl left in his care in August, 2015.





Contreras has been charged with murder with the special circumstance that he killed the girl - identified by prosecutors as Evelyn - while committing a forcible lewd act, assault on a child causing death, and forcible lewd acts on a child.





The case against Contreras is scheduled for trial in April.





Marco Antonio Alvarado-Cisneros, a 27-year-old Redwood City resident, has been charged with murdering his then girlfriend's 18-month-old son in September, 2016.





The case is set for jury trial in February.





Fabian Zaragoza, 24, was charged in the gang-related shooting at an occupied car that killed a 3-month-old boy in June, 2011.





Prosecutors said 15 shots were fired at the car.





Zaragoza was 17 at the time of the crime but is being charged as an adult.





Zaragoza is next scheduled to appear in court on Oct. 19 to set a jury trial date and pretrial conference date.

 | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com



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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,

but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar WildePRATTVILLE  Two Montgomery teenagers are charged with capital murder in connection with a May 2016 homicide in Prattville.





One of the teens was 14 at the time of the homicide, which makes him one of the youngest people in the state to be charged with capital murder.





Lil Roderick Williams, 16 and Devonte Raymon Hill, 17, were each indicted on capital murder charges by the Autauga County Grand Jury.





On May 21, 2016, John Michael Taylor, 57, of Prattville, was shot and killed. The capital murder charges were filed because prosecutors feel the murder was committed during the commission of a robbery, said Chief Assistant District Attorney C.J. Robinson.





Both Williams and Hill are being held without bond.





Taylor went to a convenience store in the 1900 block of Cobbs Ford Road in the early morning hours of May 21, previous testimony at preliminary hearings and court documents show. He was found by a passing motorist as he laid on Cobbs Ford Road. Taylor told the first-responding officers that three men forced him into a minivan, drove him behind the store, and shot him, Police Chief Mark Thompson said at the time. He walked back to Cobbs Ford Road after being shot, records show.





The teens co-defendant, Santwone Cornelius Jones, 24, also of Montgomery, was indicted on capital murder charges in the case in 2017. Jones is in the custody of the Alabama Department of Corrections on an unrelated robbery conviction, court records show.





Grand jury action involving Hill and Williams was delayed, because they were charged as adults. Williams was 14 and Hill was 15 at the time of the shooting. Autauga County District Judge Joy Booth adjudicated the teenagers as adults. Her ruling cleared both the Court of Criminal Appeals and the Alabama Supreme Court on review, records show.





Williams is the youngest person to be charged with murder or capital murder in the 19th Judicial District, Robinson said, which includes Autauga, Elmore and Chilton counties. Under Alabama law, the minimum age a person can be charged as an adult is 14.





That would have to make Hill one of the youngest in the state to be charged as an adult in a capital murder case, Robinson said. Just procedurally, there cant be that many 14-year-olds charged as adults.





Capital murder is the highest charge sought by the state. The only sentencing options upon conviction are the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole.





The United States Supreme Court has ruled that juveniles, people under the age of 18 when convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death, cannot be executed. That leaves life without the possibility of parole as possible sentences for Williams and Hill. Even then, getting the sentences to pass court muster is iffy, Robinson admits.





In dealing with juveniles and capital murder sentences, there are a few more hurdles, a few more court proceedings that you have to go through, he said. We felt in this case that Williams and Hill needed to face the same charges as Jones.





The prosecution has not released who allegedly fired the shot that killed Taylor.





Thats evidence that will come out at trial, Robinson said. But under Alabamas accomplice law, they are all equally criminally culpable.

 | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com



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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,

but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar WildeThe East Texas man convicted of drowning a former housemate and stuffing her body into a barrel of lime is slated to die Wednesday in the first of two consecutive executions in the Lone Star State.





If both punishments go through as planned, it'll be the first time in just over six years that Texas has put to death two prisoners in two nights.





Both men say they're innocent, and the pair of impending executions - first of Troy Clark, then of Daniel Acker - has attracted attention from actress Susan Sarandon, author Mary Buser and renowned death penalty abolitionist Sister Helen Prejean.





"Texas plans to execute Troy Clark on Wednesday but there are some serious problems with his case," Prejean tweeted. "Troy has always maintained his innocence. Someone else made a detailed confession and then completely changed her story in exchange for a reduced sentence."





Clark was sentenced to die in 2000 for killing Christina Muse out of fear the young mother would snitch on him for his drug use, according to court records. He was convicted in part due to the testimony of his then-girlfriend Tory Bush, who admitted to the crime then fingered Clark - even though there was no physical evidence connecting him to the murder.





The May 1998 slaying came just after Muse moved out of the Smith County home where Clark and Bush lived and sold meth.





READ MORE: Execution date set for northeast Texas man convicted of strangling girlfriend





One day when Muse stopped back at the home to visit, she and Clark started talking and at some point in the conversation, according to court records, he used a stun gun to take her down, then duct-taped her arms and legs and left her in a closet for hours. Then, he moved her into the bathtub and ordered Bush to get a board so he could beat the bound woman.





After drowning Muse, according to court records, Clark ordered his girlfriend to go get lime. When she got back, he dumped the slain woman's body in a blue barrel filled with lime, cement mix and water.





Later, according to the state's theory, Clark and some friends loaded the barrel into a truck and ditched it in a remote spot on his landlord's property.





When authorities found the gruesome remains, they also discovered the body of Tracy Mize decaying in a septic tank on the same property.





In trial, the jury also heard evidence that Clark allegedly killed two other people and robbed others.





But Clark denied his involvement, saying he wasn't at home at the time of the slaying, and that he was out delivering drugs. No physical evidence linked him to the crime, defense lawyers pointed out.





In the years since he was sent to death row, Clark has argued that he suffered bad lawyering, didn't get to show evidence rebutting claims he would be a future danger to society, and that his girlfriend's testimony was self-serving and unreliable - especially considering she once confessed to the crime herself.





"Clark's death sentence is the product of the largely uncorroborated testimony of an incentivized co-defendant and a trial attorney whose performance was abysmal," attorneys David Dow and Jeff Newberry wrote in a clemency petition, alleging the trial team failed to present evidence of Clark's traumatic childhood and Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Disorder.





But the Board of Pardons and Paroles on Monday afternoon denied his request for clemency. As of early Tuesday, he had no pending appeals, his attorneys said.





A day after Clark's scheduled date with death, Acker is slated for execution. The Sulphur Springs man was sent to death row in 2001 after he was convicted of strangling his girlfriend and pushing her from a moving car - though the state abandoned the strangulation theory after trial.





The Lone Star State has already executed eight men this year, and another nine death dates are on the calendar.

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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,

but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar WildeLucknow: The Uttar Pradesh government on Tuesday decided to provide soft loans worth Rs 4,000 crore to sugar mills through the nationalised and other banks. A decision in this regard was taken in the Cabinet meeting presided over by chief minister Yogi Adityanath.

The chief minister said, "In order to immediately clear pending farmers' dues of the crushing season 2016-17 and 2017-18 to cane growers, the Cabinet approved Rs 4,000 crore soft loans to private sugar mills through nationalised and other banks," Adityanath said. Budgetary provisions of Rs 4,000 crore for soft loans were made in the supplementary budget for payment of cane dues.

This amount will be extended to mills though the banks which they will provide to farmers directly in their bank accounts through RTGS and NEFT, he said.

Briefing about the other decisions in the Cabinet, state government spokesman Siddhartnath Singh said that a bridge on Ganga in Kunda assembly segment of Pratapgarh at a cost of Rs 248.9 crore was also approved.

This bridge, giving an alternative connectivity between Allahabad and Kaushambhi districts, will come up in three years' time, the minister said.Tomy's non-motorised sailing yacht was damaged in a storm Friday while competing in the Golden Globe Race. (Photo: ANI/Twitter)

Kochi/Mumbai: Commander Abhilash Tomy, undergoing treatment in a remote Indian Ocean island after being rescued mid-sea, Wednesday said he survived the storm-hit ocean because of his sailing skills and Naval training.

Thanking all those responsible for saving him, the Naval officer said the sea where his non-motorised yacht was damaged in a storm Friday while competing in the Golden Globe Race was very rough.

"The sea was unbelievably rough. I and my boat Thuriya were pitched against nature's might. I survived because of my sailing skills, the soldier bit in me and my Naval training cut-in for that fight," said Commander Abhilash Tomy.

"Very thankful to #IndianNavy & all who rescued me", Tomy was quoted as saying in the Indian Navy spokesman's tweet.

Tomy will possibly be taken to Mauritius when naval vessel INS Satpura reaches him Thursday.

A defence official said in Mumbai that the vessel was expected to reach Ile Amsterdam, a French territory, Thursday and the Indian crew would meet Tomy, a Kirti Chakra awardee.

The 39-year-old sailor had reached there Tuesday after being rescued by a French vessel, the official said.

His non-motorised sailing yacht was damaged in a storm Friday while competing in the Golden Globe Race.

A Navy official said Wednesday that their priority was to shift Tomy to Mauritius, where the Indian Navy has a physical presence.

"He will be taken to a hospital, and if permitted, he would be flown back to India," he said.

A defence spokesman said Tomy suffered some "blunt injuries", but there was no sign of permanent damage to any body part.

"The decision on shifting him back to India will be taken only after his thorough medical check-up at Mauritius," he said.

Vice Admiral Ajit Kumar P, the vice chief of Naval staff, spoke to Tomy. "He is doing fine and recovering fast under medical supervision. His medical reports are also fine," he said.

Navy spokesperson D K Sharma said the options were open on making arrangements to shift him to India.

Tomy's mentor and race manager Commander (Retd) Dilip Donde had said earlier the sailor was stable and in safe hands at the tiny island, which had sound medical facilities.

The island does not have an airstrip and Tomy would have to be taken by the sea route itself to either Mauritius, the Reunion Island or Australia, he had said.

Tomy was drifting for nearly three days in his 32-feet long yacht, Thuriya, which was damaged in a storm.

Vessels and naval assets in the vicinity were deployed for his rescue. Tomy texted through a satellite-based device, requesting for evacuation, stating that his back was injured and he was unable to move.

He was participating in the Golden Globe Race, where 11 participants are using 1968 vintage boats and technology to circumnavigate solo and non-stop.

The race is being held to celebrate the golden anniversary of the first such solo circumnavigation in 1968.

Videos and pictures of Tomy's evacuation by the crew of Osiris were released by the Indian Navy and the Australian authorities, whose reconnaissance aircraft were in the skies whilst the rescue happened.

The pictures show Tomy being pulled out on a stretcher from the cabin of Thuriya and then carefully lowered into a small raft which had come to fetch him from the Osiris located nearby.

Tomy was placed third in the race when he faced the storm.It may be tempting for official India to take seriously US President Donald Trumps words of praise for India in his UN General Assembly speech on Tuesday, marked by intense self-praise, an unrestrained attack on Iran with which India has much to do, and scorning of unaccountable global bureaucracy, meaning the UN system.

Mr Trumps remarks on India were of a general nature and didnt refer to a particular period, but they may be taken as a sign of continuing US interest in India, though its hard to say anything with the Trump administration.

The US President called India a free country which has succeeded in bringing millions out of poverty. The others he praised are Saudi Arabia, Israel and North Korea, the nations hes had his greatest success with in his highly controversial stewardship of the US since 2016. This is not the most glittering company to keep.

Underlining his so-called America First idea, Mr Trump said: We reject the ideology of globalism and we embrace the doctrine of patriotism. Seeing the two as separate categories is a characteristic of the chauvinist right, which the US President exemplifies, and for which he is widely excoriated at home. In India we have been familiar with a similar strain of thought in recent times.

Retreating into silos of narrow nationalism cant hold much appeal for India, whose ambitions need global cooperation in trade and investments, technological exchanges, an overall exchange of ideas on peace, security and economic development, and an atmosphere free of political, military or other kinds of tension or rivalry.

With Mr Trumps America, we can have a transactional relationship in our mutual interest. But his definition of the world and ours diverge.Vietnamese food and agriculture firm PAN Group Jsc has sold a 10 percent stake to Japans Sojitz at a price of VND61,000 ($2.61).

The private placement of 13.4 million shares fetched PAN almost VND820 billion ($35.14 million) and increased its charter capital to VND1.34 trillion ($57 million).

The money will allow PAN to pursue acquisitions in the agricultural sector and food industry.

The company eyes M&A deals that will ensure revenue growth of 70 percent and profit growth of 50 percent per year.

Its revenue and net profit targets for this year are VND8.77 trillion ($376 million) and VND538 billion ($23 million).

Vietnam is a major exporter of a range of farm produce including rice, coffee, pepper, and cashew.

The country is currently ranked second in Southeast Asia and 13th in the world in agriculture production, according to Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Nguyen Xuan Cuong.

Vietnam exported about $36.37 billion worth of agriculture and fisheries products last year.A woman rides a bicycle past a logo of Vietcombank, in front of the State Bank building in central Hanoi. Photo by Reuters/Kham

Three top Vietnamese banks have been struggling to increase their capital to meet international adequacy norms.

The second Basel Accords, or Basel II, prescribe capital of 8 percent of risk-weighted assets for all financial institutions, including in Vietnam, to cover operational risks.

The National Financial Supervisory Commission found that Vietnamese banks need to increase their charter capital by 1.8-2 times to meet the Basel capital adequacy ratio (CAR).

They include three of the four biggest lenders, BIDV, Vietcombank and Vietinbank.

BIDV, Vietnam's biggest bank by assets, currently has total assets of VND1,270 trillion ($54.3 billion) but capital of nearly VND34.19 trillion ($1.46 billion), which has remained unchanged since 2015.

BIDVs CAR is now only 9 percent according to leading broker VietCapital Securities, which is close to dangerous if compared to Basel II standard, the banks CEO, Phan Duc Tu, said.

In the last three years the bank has been making three or four plans each year to increase charter capital, but none of them have been successful.

In 2016 BIDV and Vietinbank had offered to pay its largest shareholder, the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), the previous years dividends in stocks and not cash to increase its capital.

But the central bank rejected it saying it needed the cash.

Last year BIDV had made several plans like initiating an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP), selling shares to existing shareholders, paying dividends in stocks, and private placement of shares to strategic shareholders.

Again all of them fell through.

The public bank with the highest state ownership - of over 95 percent - has been looking for strategic investors it can sell stakes to but in vain.

In 2016 Vietcombank, the third largest bank by assets, signed a deal with Singapore sovereign wealth fund GIC Private Limited to sell a 7.73 percent stake. The deal has yet to be consummated, with the banks chairman, Nghiem Xuan Thanh, saying they have been unable to agree on a price.

Vietcombanks charter capital has remained since 2016 at VND35.98 trillion ($1.54 billion).

The SBV recently gave the lender approval to increase its charter capital by 10 percent to VND39.58 trillion ($1.69 billion).

Vietcombank plans to make a private placement of 10 percent of its stake and has received approval from its shareholders for this.

Should its plan succeed, Vietcombank will surpass Vietinbank as the bank with the largest charter capital.

Vietinbank, the countrys second largest lender by assets, has seen state ownership fall to the minimum permitted level of 65 percent, and so can no longer issue more shares.

Its charter capital has remained at VND37.23 trillion ($1.59 billion) since 2014.

A masterplan, approved by the Prime Minister early last month, targets to have 3-5 banks listed on foreign stock exchanges.

The plan, which covers the banking sector's development until 2025 with a vision to 2030, also set targets to reduce the state capital ownership in three major banks: Vietcombank, BIDV and Vietinbank.

In 2018-2020, the state will reduce its shares in those banks to at least 65 percent and in 2021-2025, the figure will be 51 percent.

Vietnam has nine wholly-owned foreign banks, four state-owned banks and 31 joint-stock banks.Roman Zmajkovie (R) stands in court next to an intepreter in Hanoi on Tuesday. Photo acquired by VnExpress

A Hanoi court Tuesday sentenced a Slovakian man to three years in jail for having sex with a 13-year-old boy.

Roman Zmajkovie, 33, was charged with "Having sexual intercourse with children," a crime punishable by imprisonment of up to 15 years.

He should be deported after serving his term, the court said.

According to the indictment, Zmajkovie entered the country on a tourist visa late last year, but did not leave when it expired and continued to stay on.

He took advantage of knowing a little Vietnamese and went to Thien Quang Lake in Hai Ba Trung District to make the acquaintance of the boy.

He promised him money in exchange for a sexual relationship, and gave him VND300,000 ($12.8) after having sex for the first time early this year and VND500,000 the next time.

The police caught him red-handed May 4 when he was having sex with the boy at a hotel in Hoan Kiem District.

The boy refused to undergo a medical examination or treatment but asked Zmajkovie for VND105 million ($4,489) in compensation for his physical and mental damage.

The United Nations had said last year that one in four children in Vietnam is a victim of abuse and at least 1,300 cases of sexual violence against children are reported each year.

While official statistics are unavailable, the U.N. estimates the true numbers are consistently alarming.Leaders from Cambodia, China, Laos and South Korea are among some 50,000 paying their respects to President Tran Dai Quang at memorial ceremonies on Wednesday.

The state funeral for President Quang started at 7 a.m. Wednesday at the National Funeral Home at 5 Tran Thanh Tong Street in Hanoi, one hour after the country officially entered two-day state mourning by flying flags half mast at all government buildings and public places.

Quang's family members, led by the First Lady Nguyen Thi Hien, are the first to burn incense and lay flowers on his coffin.

Quang's eldest son Tran Quan and his wife Nguyen Thi Hien receive mourners to the funeral.

Vietnam's Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong (L, 4th) and Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc attend the funeral with other former and current top government officials. The funeral also received delegations led by National Assembly Chairwoman Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan and Acting President Dang Thi Ngoc Thinh.

Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong writes in the condolence book at the funeral. "Your passing is a great loss to the Party, the government and the people, leaving deep sorrow in all of us," he wrote. Photo by Vietnam Government Portal

Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen pays his respect at around 10:30 a.m.

The funeral also received Zhao Leji, Secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the top anti-corruption body of China's Communist Party, Laos' Vice President Phankham Viphavanh, Cuba's Vice President Roberto Morales Ojeda and Olga Nikolaevna Yepifanova, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma, Russia.

South Korean Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon and his delegation pay respects at the funeral. Top diplomats from Germany, Malaysia and the U.S. also came to pay tribute to the late president.

Ho Chi Minh City's Party Secretary Nguyen Thien Nhan (F) led a delegation of the city's officials to pay tribute to President Quang at the Independence Palace in HCMC, followed by military and student groups.

A memorial ceremony is held at Quang's hometown in Ninh Binh Province, south of Hanoi.

President Quang is lying in state at the National Funeral Home at 5 Tran Thanh Tong Street, Hanoi, for people to pay their respects.

A memorial ceremony will be held at 7:30 a.m. Thursday, and Quang will be buried in his hometown Ninh Binh at 3:30 p.m. the same day.

President Quang died at the 108 Military Hospital in Hanoi on September 21 after battling a serious illness for more than a year. He was 62.

For his state funeral, several major streets near the funeral home will be closed on Wednesday and Thursday.

Photos by Giang Huy, Ngoc ThanhThe National Security Agency, the U.S. government's premier signals intelligence agency, has its headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland. Photo by AFP

A former NSA hacker whose leak of extremely top secret online spying materials led to the US government ban on Kaspersky software has been jailed.

Nghia Hoang Pho, 68, a 10-year veteran of the NSA (National Security Agency)'s elite Tailored Access Operations hacking unit, pleaded guilty in December to one count of willful retention of classified national defense information.

He was sentenced to 66 months in prison on Tuesday.

Authorities discovered that between 2010 and 2015, he had taken home with him substantial TAO materials, including programs and data, that eventually ended up in the hands of Russian intelligence.

Vietnam-born Pho put the information on his home computer, which was protected by the popular Kaspersky anti-virus program.

U.S. authorities believe that Russian intelligence was able to access his computer through Kaspersky.

In order to function, the Kaspersky program needs a computer owner's blanket permission to access the machine's systems.

It then communicates the results of its anti-virus scans to Kaspersky headquarters -- in Moscow.

The Wall Street Journal reported last year that the 2015 penetration of Pho's computer led to the Russians obtaining information on how the NSA itself infiltrates foreign computer networks and protects itself from cyberattacks.

Kaspersky itself later confirmed that its software in 2014 automatically detected and downloaded suspicious files on Pho's computer that appeared to contain data and source code for so-called Equation Group hacking software from the NSA.

After being examined by Kaspersky analysts, the files were deleted, the company says. Kaspersky denies that Russian intelligence obtained the files from it.

The leak was one of the most devastating ever for the NSA, one of the U.S. government's most important spy agencies, and significantly set back its operations against foreign targets' computers.

"As a result of his actions, Pho compromised some of our country's most closely held types of intelligence, and forced NSA to abandon important initiatives to protect itself and its operational capabilities, at great economic and operational cost," said U.S. Attorney Robert Hur.

The incident was a key reason for the U.S. government's ban on using Kaspersky anti-virus software on government computers, warning that the company has suspect links to Russian intelligence.

Kaspersky denies any ties to the Russian government or its spies.Saigon customs seize over 250 iPhones smuggled from the US

Smuggled iPhones are seized at Tan Son Nhat Airport on Wednesday. Photo courtesy of Tan Son Nhat Customs

Customs officials at Tan Son Nhat Airport found more than 250 smuggled iPhones in the luggage of four American passengers Wednesday.

The passengers, who had arrived at the Ho Chi Minh City airport from the U.S., were unable to provide valid documents for the phones.

The haul of iPhone XS Maxs, estimated to be worth nearly VND7 billion ($300,000), has been seized.

A spokesperson for Tan Son Nhat Airport customs said: "This is a new product that Apple has just released. There is a very high risk of this type of product being illegally imported or smuggled at the moment, so we have many measures in place to prevent [it]."

Vietnamese regulations require mobile phone importers to register for quality inspections with the Department of Telecommunications.

Importers who fail to do so will be fined and ordered to re-export their goods.

However, passengers arriving in Vietnam are allowed to freely carry a second mobile phone with them if it is for personal use. The second phone is still subject to duties if its value exceeds VND10 million ($430).

Authorities are investigating the source of the phones and the four American passengers attempt to smuggle them in.Government offices and public places in Vietnam started to fly the national flag at half mast from 6 a.m. Wednesday to commemorate the late president.

Soldiers perform a flag ritual to start two-day state mourning for President Tran Dai Quang at Ba Dinh Square in Hanoi. President Quang passed away at 10:05 a.m. Friday at the 108 Military Hospital in Hanoi after battling a serious illness for more than a year. He was 62.

Soldiers tie a band of black cloth to the national flag as Vietnam enters two-day state mourning for President Quang Wednesday morning.

The national flag is flown at half mast at the Presidential Palace in Ba Dinh District, Hanoi, on Wednesday morning.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the same district also pays tribute.

At the top of the Flag Tower of Hanoi

A police officer stands guard, with a flag flying at half mast in the distance on the roof of Hanoi Opera House.

Several houses in Hanoi hand the national flag with funeral black band during the state funeral.

In remembering Quang, Laos has also declared two days of state mourning starting 6 a.m. Wednesday after Cuba did the same until 11 a.m. Monday (Hanoi time). Thailand has also joined the mourning by having all government offices fly the national flag at half mast for three days starting Monday.by Bernardo Cervellera

For the optimists the provisional agreement is "historic"; for the pessimists it is the beginning of the total sell out of the Church to the Party. The Pope is involved in naming bishops. But we know nothing of a right of veto. The lifting of excommunications is good, but the faithful expect a public request for forgiveness. China has not asked for a break with Taiwan as a prior condition. Praise for Lithuanian martyrs, amid silence on the Chinese ones.

Rome (AsiaNews) - Two days after what so many have called a "historic agreement" between China and the Holy See on the appointment of bishops, attempts to understand and evaluate its scope continue. The sober announcement of the Vatican Press Office - while all the journalists were busy elsewhere, on Pope Francis' journey to Lithuania - was greeted with a mix of optimism and dark pessimism.

Among the optimists, the adjective "historic" abounded, forgetting that the agreement has been labelled "provisional", subject to "periodic evaluations", and that the Holy See Press Office director spoke of the "beginning" of "a process" and not of its "end".

For the pessimists, it is "the beginning" of a total sell out of the Chinese Church to the State which, as is already the case, will do what it wants, that is, transform it into a Party instrument. They also point out the silent suffering that Catholics official and unofficial have had to bear for almost 70 years.

We have already stated on many prior occasions that we at AsiaNews are neither optimists nor pessimists, but realists. What this realism does, is allow us to see the positive and the negative present in this fragile and "provisional" agreement.

The Pope and naming bishops

The agreement contains a novelty: in some way  which we are not a part to, because the text of the agreement has not been made public, nor will it ever be - the Holy See will be involved in the naming of bishops. This, at least on paper, means the end of the "independent" Church, greatly heralded in all these years, and the recognition that the bond with the Pope is also necessary for a Chinese bishop to exercise his ministry. According to the agreement it will no longer be possible to appoint and ordain a bishop without papal mandate, even if the government, or the patriotic association, or the council of bishops can propose their candidate. This is the optimistic part.

But there is also a pessimistic side: what will happen if the candidate proposed by China is rejected by the Pope? Until now there was talk of a temporary power of veto of the pontiff: the Pope would be able to give the reasons for his refusal within three months, but if the government found the papal motivations inconsistent, it would continue with the appointment and the ordination the chosen candidate. Not having the text of the agreement, we do not know if this clause has been maintained, if indeed the pontiff will have the last word on the appointments and ordinations, or if instead his authority is only formally recognized.

A canonist friend of mine is "certain" that the Pope will have a permanent power over the final word on candidates "because the Church cannot do otherwise". In any case, this is one of the points that - in the absence of the text on the agreement - we will have to verify in the coming months, with the possible appointments and ordinations that have been stalled for years.

The lifting of excommunications

Another positive element is the lifting of the excommunication from seven bishops, ordained without papal mandate between 2000 and 2012. It is a positive fact because at least in principle it will help Chinese Catholics towards greater unity. These excommunicated bishops were used by the Patriotic Association to divide the Church, with police forcing them to preside over ceremonies and episcopal ordinations. It must also be said that many of them have made a journey of repentance and have been asking for years to be reconciled with Rome. The lifting of excommunication is not part of the "package" of the agreement, but it is an internal gesture within the Church, although - perhaps with a somewhat naive attempt at political strategy - the announcement of reconciliation was announced on the same day as the news of the agreement.

But among the Chinese faithful - part of that "holy faithful people of God" whom the Pope asks us to listen to - there is disillusionment and sadness because some of these reconciled bishops are known to have lovers and children and to be "collaborators". Many others wonder if the reconciled bishops will express a public request for forgiveness before the people they have scandalized with their "independent" action. In fact Card. Pietro Parolin, in his commentary on the agreement, called for "concrete actions that help overcome the misunderstandings of the past, even of the recent past".

A "pastoral" and "non-political" agreement

Another positive element of the agreement is its "pastoral" and "non-political" character. And indeed the agreement was signed without China demanding the breaking of diplomatic relations with Taiwan as a precondition. For decades and even in the last years of dialogue at the time of Pope Francis, China's refrain was that if the Vatican wanted to improve relations with Beijing, it would first have to interrupt relations with Taiwan and not meddle in China's internal affairs. With the "pastoral" agreement these two conditions are skipped: the Vatican is introduced into the bishops' appointments and there is no break with Taiwan, with much appreciation of the island's foreign ministry and the ambassador to the Holy See .

The unspoken persecution

However, there is another element that is overwhelmingly negative: neither in the news of the agreement nor in its explanations is there even the slightest reference to the persecution that Catholics and all Christians are sustaining in present times.

As our news agency has borne witness to many times on recent occasions, in the name of "sinicization", crosses are burned and destroyed, churches demolished, faithful arrested and young people under 18 years banned from worship and religious education in China.

In addition there are bishops and priests who have disappeared in police custody; bishops under house arrest; unofficial bishops considered as criminals; checks of all kinds in community life. Added to all of this is the persecutions to which other religious communities are subject (Buddhist, Taoist, Muslim, ...), which show the negative view that China has of religions, and its plan to assimilate or destroy them.

This makes the provisional agreement look like a strange result, a little unexpected and temporary, without a future, because it casts a shadow of suspicion on the interlocutor with whom the Holy See has decided to dialogue. Comments from China express satisfaction with the agreement, but also sadness because the Chinese do not trust their political authorities.

In this regard, months ago in an interview, Pope Francis said that "dialogue is a risk, but I prefer the uncertain risk to the defeat of not talking". It is therefore better to start a dialogue with an unreliable interlocutor, than to remain still. From this point of view, the agreement, even if temporary, is certainly a new page.

The Lithuanian and Chinese martyrs

The fact of silence on persecution remains. In all these years the Holy See has been silent about any persecutions: the killing of priests; the destroyed churches; the arrested bishops ... This gave many the impression that the dialogue was more "political" than "pastoral". Just yesterday Pope Francis, in Vilnius, recalling the victims of the Nazi and communist genocide, expressed a prayer in which he asks the Lord that we do not become "deaf to the cry of all those who today continue to raise their voices in heaven". And that's exactly what Chinese Catholics are asking for.

I wondered why the Holy See wanted to communicate the signing of the agreement just as Pope Francis in Vilnius remembered the great witness of Lithuanian Catholics under Communism, their resistance and faith under torture, their being the seed of a freer and more welcoming society. Even then the Catholics discussed and were divided between denunciation and resistance and the Vatican Ostpolitik. If you look at the agreement only as a bad thing, then the memory of the Lithuanian martyrs could give rise to an interpretation of the "two weights and two measures" that diplomacy often implements and the celebration of the martyrs in Vilnius would be a mockery of the suffering of Chinese Christians.

But if in the agreement, although provisional, we can see even a glimmer of positivity, then the Lithuanian celebrations are a sign of hope: communism, "the delirium of omnipotence of those who claimed to control everything", did not win. And this also gives us hope for China.Visas have been refused for 165 international students, a majority of them Vietnamese, admitted to a vocational school in Japan.

The Japan-China Cultural Art School in Osaka had already been informed by the city Immigration Bureau that the visas could not be renewed due to over capacity last year, the Nikkei Asian Review reported Tuesday.

Yet it continued to admit students and had 580 by last May.

Students take the entrance examination last year at Japan-China Cultural School in Osaka, as shown in a photo shared on Facebook.

A spokesperson claimed the school had informed the Osaka city government about its plan to build a new school building to accommodate all the students.

In the meantime, the person in charge is absent and so cannot respond, the spokesperson told the newspaper in response to an interview request.

The students whose visas have not been renewed had their residence status expire in July.

While some students have sent applications to other vocational schools and received a visa extension, some had to return home.

The school mainly recruits Vietnamese and Chinese students.

The Japan-China Cultural School (white building) in Osaka, as shown in a photo on Facebook.

Some of the students are reportedly planning to take the school to court for compensation.

The Japan-China Cultural School, founded in 2015, lists a number of programs on its website, including tourism interpreter and guide training.The ancient town is ranked the fifth cheapest global destination in the Post Offices annual Long Haul Holiday Report.

Hoi An ancient town is a top tourist attraction in Vietnam. Photo acquired by VnExpress

The report considered 34 destinations, comparing the average price of 10 travel essentials including food and drinks. It said in Hoi An the average cost is 75.52 ($99.26).

The report does not take into account flight and accommodation costs.

Topping the list is Cape Town (South Africa), with Tokyo (Japan), Bali (Indonesia) and Mombasa (Kenya) rounding off the top five.

Hoi An, an old town in Vietnams central Quang Nam Province, constantly earns plaudits for its unique, well-preserved beauty.

It preserves the ambience of an old trading port and diversity of its range of foreign cultural influences, namely from Japan, China and Europe, reflected in centuries-old houses, pagodas and superb food.

You can get around on cyclos in Hoi An. Photo acquired by VnExpress.

Within close proximity is a range of other picturesque landscapes and destinations. For instance, visitors could go to An Bang or Cua Dai beach just 2-3 miles away for a relaxing time by the sea.

It is also worthwhile to pay a visit to several ancient craft villages in the area like Thanh Ha pottery village and Tra Que vegetable village.

Hoi An is a UNESCO world heritage site. It was recently ranked among the 10 safest destinations for solo travelers by U.K. travel site Momondo, and the 15 best cities in the world by readers of New York-based Travel + Leisure.The bike ride from north to south takes cyclists through glamorous beaches in central Vietnam. Photo by VnExpress/Le Minh

British newspaper The Telegraph has listed 20 of worlds most popular charity challenges, including a bicycle ride from Vietnams north to south.

The 2,000-km (1,242 miles) ride between the capital Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City through "beaches, temples and rice paddies" would be an unforgettable experience, it said.

The journey from Hanoi heads first for Hue, which has gained fame for "ancient temples and tombs" before stopping at Hoi An, an ancient town lined with "riverside cafes, colonial architecture and a patchwork of rice paddies and sandy beach."

The cyclists continue by pedaling down to Da Nang and My Son, which is a UNESCO heritage site in the central province of Quang Nam and home to Cham remains, before dropping by Nha Trangs beaches.

Da Nang, a top destination in central Vietnam, is famous for the icon of Dragon Bridge.

"The last stop is Ho Chi Minh City where theres time to reflect on your achievement," the newspaper said.

The Telegraph list of 20 must-try charity challenges also include a trek up the Atlas Mountains in Morocco, a nine-day trek along the Great Wall of China and a bike ride from London to Paris.

Readers of leading global travel website TripAdvisor last month ranked Vietnam third in the 10 top adventure destinations around the world.

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.People walk outside the main branch of Standard Chartered in Hong Kong, China August 1, 2017. Photo by Reuters

Standard Chartered said on Tuesday it will stop financing new coal-fired powerd stations.

The company wants to join the growing ranks of lenders and financiers in ending support for the dirtiest fossil fuel amid rising concerns about climate change.

StanChart said in a statement on its website that save where there is an existing commitment, it will cease providing financing for new coal-fired power plants anywhere in the world.

Burning coal to generate power produces large quantities of carbon dioxide and other so-called greenhouse gases responsible for climate change. An international agreement reached in Paris in 2015 committed signatories to cutting fossil fuel use.

Many global banks have exited or cut support for coal.

Europes largest bank HSBC said in April it would mostly stop funding new coal power plants, along with financing for oil sands and Arctic drilling.

Japans Marubeni Corp, a major investor in coal-fired power stations, said last week it would no longer start any new such projects and will halve its generating capacity using the fuel by 2030.Brent is on course for its fifth consecutive quarterly increase, the longest such stretch for the global benchmark since early 2007, when a six-quarter run led to a record high of $147.50 a barrel.

Oil benchmark Brent traded little changed on Wednesday after rising to its highest in nearly four years in the previous session while U.S. crude futures fell as United States' officials tried to assure that the market would be well-supplied before sanctions are re-imposed on producer Iran.

Brent crude futures were down 4 cents at $81.83 a barrel by 0342 GMT, after gaining nearly 1 percent the previous session, Reuters said.

Brent rose on Tuesday to its highest since November 2014 at $82.55 per barrel.

U.S. crude futures were down 13 cents, or 0.2 percent, at $72.15 a barrel. They rose 0.3 percent on Tuesday to close at their highest level since July 11.

Read alsoReuters: Oil just below four-year high as producers resist output rise to offset Iran sanctions

The United States will apply sanctions to halt oil exports from Iran, the third-largest producer in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), starting on November 4. The pending loss of Iranian supply has been a major factor in the recent surge in crude prices.

U.S. officials, including President Donald Trump, are trying to assure consumers and investors that enough supply will remain in the oil market while requesting producers raise their output.

"We will ensure prior to the re-imposition of our sanctions that we have a well supplied oil market," Washington's special envoy for Iran, Brian Hook, told a news conference at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday evening.

In an earlier speech at the UN, Trump reiterated calls on OPEC to pump more oil and stop raising prices. He also accused Iran of sowing chaos and promised further sanctions on the country.

The so-called 'OPEC+' group, which includes other oil producers, including the world's biggest Russia, as well as Oman and Kazakhstan, met over the weekend to discuss a possible increase in crude output, but the group did not see the need to add new output as the market is well-supplied currently.

Oil prices, however, have trended higher amid concerns about supply. Brent is on course for its fifth consecutive quarterly increase, the longest such stretch for the global benchmark since early 2007, when a six-quarter run led to a record high of $147.50 a barrel.NBU Governor: Talks with IMF continue

Smolii says the dialogue with the Fund is constructive.

If you see a spelling error on our site, select it and press Ctrl+EnterNaftogaz doesn't rule out sale of Nord Stream 2 AG shares at auctions to recover debt from Gazprom

At the end of 2018, a hearing is to be held in the court of Great Britain on the enforcement of the arbitration award.

If you see a spelling error on our site, select it and press Ctrl+EnterThe Secretariat underlines the need to respect the role of NEURC as an independent regulator.

The Secretariat of the European Energy Community has analyzed amendments to the gas transmission tariff methodology published by Ukraine's National Energy and Utilities Regulation Commission (NEURC) for public debates. The Secretariat broadly welcomes the proposed changes as another step towards increasing transparency of tariff setting.

Read alsoUkraine's NEURC to consider new tariffs for heating in Kyiv

"Having in mind the diversified transportation routes that can bring natural gas to Europe and the central role of Ukraine in this context, the Energy Community Secretariat advises NEURC to consider implementation of benchmarking methods in the process of tariff determination, at the same time keeping transparency, non-discrimination and cost-reflectivity as the main principles of tariff setting," reads a statement on the Energy Community's website.

At the same time, the Energy Community Secretariat underlines the need to respect the role of NEURC as an independent regulatory body in charge of designing the transmission tariff methodology.

"The Secretariat welcomes the interest of Ukraine's stakeholders in the tariff methodology reform process as a necessary and inseparable contribution to reflecting market conditions. The discussion thereto should be streamlined to enable the most effective solution, which has the highest social welfare and is compliant with the gas acquis. Still, it has to be clear that the final decision-making power remains with NEURC and is not to be influenced by regulated companies," it said.

As was reported, Ukraine extensively uses the methods of pegging to European benchmarks in prices of energy resources. In particular, on April 27, 2016, the Cabinet of Ministers adopted Resolution No. 315 and determined the price formula for gas based on quotations in the European NCG hub (near the German city of Dusseldorf) plus delivery to the Ukrainian-Slovak border.

On March 3, 2016, NEURC adopted Resolution No. 289 "On Approving the Procedure for the Formation of the Projected Wholesale Electricity Price," known as the "Rotterdam Plus" formula. According to this methodology, the coal component in the electricity tariff is based on the quotations of the coal hub ARA (Rotterdam) plus delivery to a Ukrainian port.Naftogaz sees over $110 mln in losses over Gazprom's refusal to comply with arbitration award

Gazprom has failed to fulfill its obligations.

If you see a spelling error on our site, select it and press Ctrl+EnterUkraine imports cars worth almost US$1.4 bln in Jan-Aug

Car exports from Ukraine over the period under review are estimated at $5.25 million.

If you see a spelling error on our site, select it and press Ctrl+EnterZohrab Mnatsakanyan meets with Co-Chairs of OSCE Minsk Group

Armenias Minister of Foreign Affairs Zohrab Mnatsakanyan has met with the Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group (Igor Popov of the Russian Federation, Stephane Visconti of France and Andrew Schofer of the United States of America) in New York City on the sidelines of the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly. During the meeting the Armenian foreign minister once again reiterated Armenias commitment to the exclusively peaceful solution of the Nagorno Karabakh (NK) conflict, the foreign ministry said. FM Mnatsakanyan stressed the importance of developing an atmosphere contributing to peace, emphasizing the need to refrain from steps aimed at escalation of the situation and aggressive rhetoric. In this context the Armenian FM drew the Co-Chairs attention on Azerbaijans periodical attempts to escalate the situation both at the border with Armenia and the line of contact with Artsakh, as a result of which two servicemen of the militaries of Armenia and Artsakh have been killed. He noted that civilians have also been targeted by Azerbaijan. The minister stressed that this kind of actions of Azerbaijan pose serious danger to the peaceful process, especially on the eve of an upcoming meeting between himself and his Azerbaijani counterpart, at the mediation of the Co-Chairs. The sides also exchanged ideas over the upcoming foreign ministerial meeting and other steps which are included in the agenda of the Co-Chairs.Meeting of Nikol Pashinyan and Hassan Rouhani takes place (video)

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan had a meeting with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in New York City on the sidelines of the 73rd UNGA, Pashinyans office said. Pashinyan and Rouhani discussed various agenda issues of the Armenian-Iranian relations. They attached importance to developing economic cooperation and noted that there is great potential to enhance it. The sides agreed that practical steps are necessary to be taken for boosting commercial ties and realizing the existing potential. PM Nikol Pashinyan emphasized that the Armenian-Iranian relations have unique nature and that the ties must continue developing on the basis of firm friendly ties. Irans president noted that a high level of trust exists between the two peoples. According to President Rouhani, the Armenian community in Iran has an important role and enjoys great respect among Iranians. Speaking about economic partnership, President Rouhani expressed conviction that the agreement on creating a free trade zone signed with the Eurasian Economic Union will in turn enable to enhance the Armenian-Iranian economic partnership even more. Pashinyan and Rouhani addressed issues relating to various fields such as cooperation in energy, road construction and improvement of logistic conditions. Rouhani invited Pashinyan to visit Iran and expressed conviction that the visit will enable to more comprehensively discuss ways for expanding bilateral cooperation.New investments expected from Lebanon

Business Armenia team headed by executive director Armen Avak Avakyan was in Lebanon on September 22-26 with a business mission. Agreements on new investments have been reached in Armenia during the visit. This is the third business visit to Lebanon. The business Armenia team has put into practice the investment agreements made during previous visits. A number of meetings were held with Lebanese investors and heads of partner organizations. At the meeting with the business Armenian team, Chedid Capital Holding head Farid Chedid has expressed intention to open a branch of insurance company in Armenia. To note, Chedid Capital has branches in 5 countries around the world. As a result of another meeting, Garo Matosyan, executive director of Makitek, expressed his intention to set up production of plastic molding and industrial machine components in Armenia with investments of $ 250,000. MAC Agrochemicals company considers to open a branch office in Armenia, which deals with the production of fertilizers and pesticides. A number of businessmen will visit our country in the near future to study projects.UCOM keeps on supporting the 42 YEREVAN programming school

Recognizing the One-Year Anniversary of the Ceasefire Declaration Between Armenia and Azerbaijan

They should not be positioned near civilian communities neither in Armenia nor in Artsakh

Humanitarian and human rights protection needed following the 2020 outbreak of hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh

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Ameriabank has Raised USD 17.5M Tier 2 Capital

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Ameriabank and HSBC Armenia to provide their customers access to each others ATMs without additional fees

Ameriabank. 62.5% Growth in Taxes YOY

Mikayel and Karen Vardanyans have provided 300 million AMD to overcome the infertility in Armenia

UCOM has officially launched the sale of IPHONE 13

Six servicemen were wounded by the attack of the Azerbaijani armed forces in Artsakh, two of them in critical condition

S&P Improved the Outlook on Ameriabank to Positive

Ararat Mirzoyan to visit to Minsk

Foreign Minister of India visits the Memorial of Armenian Genocide

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Global Finance Names Ameriabank the Safest Bank in Armenia

Statement by the Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group

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"Fall forward": Gurgen Khachatryan, the Co-Founder of the Galaxy Group of Companies, addressed a message to young people in Armenia

UCOM hosted interns of Russian CBOSS corporation for a month

The 20-episode Bloody bet thriller to be broadcast on Ucom's Armenia Premium TV channel

Statement by the Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group

UCOM offers affordable gadgets at bigger discount

Foreign Minister of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan will pay a working visit to New York

Governments preventing publication of Haykakan Zhamanak newspaper during state of emergency

UCOM prolongs the unlimited internet offer for the level up 4700 and level up 5500 subscribersParisian Meetings of Armenian President

As part of a working visit to France, Armenian President Armen Sarkissian had meetings with executives of a number of major French enterprises. The president has held a meeting with Olivier Dassault, an executive of the Dassault Group, Sarkissians office said. The sides have reached an agreement over a specific joint partnership, details of which will be discussed and presented soon. The president also met with executives of the Thales Group, a French multinational company that designs and builds electrical systems and provides services for the aerospace, defence, transportation and security markets. The companys leadership will take part in the upcoming business forum during the La Francophonie Yerevan summit. He also met with the leadership of Orano, the nuclear power and renewable energy company. The sides concurred that Oranos presence in Armenia should be expanded, namely its participation in raising the safety level of the Armenian Nuclear Power Plant. The president also presented Armenias investment appeal and business climate to the leadership of ADS. The sides reached an agreement on establishing a regional financial service center in Armenia. An agreement was reached with SODIAL executives for a delegation to visit Armenia to study food production and prospects of exports.Sergey Bagratyan: I am not in court to agree or disagree with the prime minister (video)

Sergey Bagratyan, a member of the Tsarukyan faction, expressed an opinion that the current parliament does not express public perceptions. "It's obvious, the RPA is the majority, but it is not involved in the Yerevan Council of Elders," says the MP. The PAP MP, however, avoids evaluating the prime minister's statement that the previous parliament was elected through administrative resource and pressure. "The Prime Minister should justify his statements, I am not in court to agree or disagree and have no right to express a subjective opinion." Sergey Bagratyan says that PAP was ready for early parliamentary elections, but now he does not know why the prime minister's opinion has changed on the terms of the elections. Republican MP Samvel Farmanyan claims the RPA has no position on snap parliamentary elections. However, Samvel Farmanyan is ready to express his personal position. "The negotiation is the best option and the ultimate national interest should be the base." More details are in the video.Seven locomotives General Electric (GE) TE33AC Trident (Tryzub) arrived in Chornomorsk (Odesa region), and the arrival of the next batch is expected in two weeks, acting Board Chairman of Ukrzaliznytsia Yevhen Kravtsov has said.

"Another seven GE diesel locomotives arrived in Chornomorsk at night. They left the United States about a month ago and in a few days they will be sent for installation of the remained equipment in Ukraine," Kravtsov wrote on Tuesday on his Facebook page and posted a short video from the port.

According to Kravtsov, in November, eight GE Evolution locomotives will operate in the railway: "We plan to use them for transportation on southern routes."

He expressed hope that Ukraine will be able to receive the first 30 diesel locomotives before the end of this year.

"We are waiting for the next batch in two weeks," he added.

As reported, in the beginning of August General Electric Transportation sent the first of 30 locomotives GE TE33AC to Ukraine. On September 11, it arrived in Ukraine.

The framework agreement between Ukrzaliznytsia and GE envisages a 15-year partnership in updating and modernizing traction rolling stock, the first stage of which is the delivery of 30 new diesel locomotives GE TE33AC to Ukrzaliznytsia under leasing terms with a localization level of 10%.

GE Transportation and Kriukov Car Building Works early June signed an agreement on the localization of production of 30 locomotives TE33A of the Evolution series. It was planned that Ukrzaliznytsia will receive the first locomotives late 2018.SFS levies UAH 843 mln in fines for salary payment violations for eight months this year

Ukraine's Fiscal Service of Ukraine (SFS) has levied a total of UAH 843 million for salary payment violations during Janaury-August 2018 and has identified 5,100 employees hired without labor agreements.

SFS official website reports breaches of tax legislation in 46% of business entities for eight months of this year.

SFS said that according to fiscal checks almost UAH 642 million in personal income tax, UAH 173 million of single social contributions and UAH 28 million of military taxes have been paid to budget.

During January-August, 2018 SFS identified 11,000 citizens who were involved in non-registered business activities.Touchstone Capital Group (the U.K.) is interested in a project to build an offshore combined solar and wind power plant in Ukraine, the press service of Ukraine's Energy and Coal Industry Ministry has reported after a meeting of profile specialists of the ministry with a delegation of the company.

"At the meeting, representatives of the company presented a project for the offshore combined solar and wind power plant with a gigawatt power capacity, which is unique not only for Ukraine, but also for the nearest neighboring countries. Its additional advantage is the availability of its own balancing capacities, which will ensure a more even schedule of electricity production. The project also envisages the use of a significant (more than 30%) share of components of Ukrainian production," the ministry said in a statement.

The ministry said that it is important that the implementation of these large projects occur in accordance with the actual state and the plan for the development of the electricity transmission system, and does not lead to deterioration in the operational security of the country's power grid.

In turn, representatives of Ukrenergo at the meeting reminded: 70-80% of the projects for the construction of "green generation" is being implemented in the southern region of Ukraine (Zaporizhia, Kherson, Mykolaiv and Odesa regions), which is energy-efficient and simultaneously lacks maneuvering capacities.

Touchstone Capital Group is engaged in property management, development of projects in the field of renewable energy. The group operates funds from Chinese and other international investors.President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko is confident that a UN-mandated multinational peacekeeping operation with the only clear goal to restore Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity could be a decisive factor in ending sufferings of Ukrainian people.

"I am confident, a UN-mandated multinational peacekeeping operation with the only clear goal to restore Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity could be a decisive factor in ending sufferings [from Russian aggression] of Ukrainian people. We believe that there is no better way but dispatching such an operation, under the robust UN mandate," the president of Ukraine noted.

Poroshenko expressed gratitude to Germany, France and the U.S. "for mobilizing international support of this initiative."

"One reason for that is that the Kremlin is afraid. It is afraid that the peacekeepers will see Russian military manpower and military assets all over the occupied territory. They are also afraid of losing control over Ukraine border with Russia  a hostage taken by Kremlin to keep infiltrating its military in Donbas," Poroshenko said.

The head of the Ukrainian state reminded that he had applied to the UN with a request to deploy peacekeeping forces in the occupied Donbas, but his request was not granted.

He noted that according to a conservative estimate by the UN, the number of conflict-related casualties in Ukraine currently stands at over 35,000, including more than 10,000 people killed and almost 25,000 injured. The number of internally displaced persons is well over 1.5 million. "It could look like yet another dry statistic, which this Organization is full of, but for me and Ukrainians these are scars on the very heart," the president said.

Poroshenko noted that UN peacekeeping activities badly need to be reformed, like the entire UN system, and should become more qualitative and effective. According to the president, Ukraine is ready to help in this matter.Statements by the Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) urging the Exarch of the Ecumenical Patriarchate leave Ukraine seem to be an attempt to artificially stir up conflict, the press service of Ukraine's Culture Ministry has said.

"Categorical and intolerant statements of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate), which contradict Ukrainian traditions, looks like an attempt to artificially stir up conflict, instead of peaceful dialogue and condoning the desperate attempts of the Russian aggressor to obstruct the free formation of a single local Orthodox church in Ukraine," the press service said.

The ministry said attempts by members of UOC-MP Synod to obstruct the activities of representatives of other churches, in particular, the Exarch of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, are unacceptable.

According to the press release, "Neither Ukrainian legislation nor traditions of inter-church relations in Ukraine provide for the right of bodies of one church to dictate their will to another church or its representatives."

"The European principle of interreligious relations, based on the principles of religious pluralism, will always operate in Ukraine ... Nobody ... has the right to dictate his will to other structures or religious organizations in an open society, and especially towards the activities of representatives of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople - the Church, the blessing of the first hierarchs of which appeared and the Kyiv Metropolis, and its branches, now known as the Russian Orthodox Church, " the press service said.Poroshenko thanks Ukrainian Diaspora in U.S. for efforts in recognizing Holodomor as genocide of Ukrainian people

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has thanked the Ukrainian community in the United States for its efforts in the issue of recognizing the Holodomor of 1932-1933 as genocide of the Ukrainian people, Ukraine's presidential press service has said.

"I am very grateful to each of you who made great efforts to ensure that 12 states at the local level recognized our tragedy as genocide," Poroshenko said, addressing the leaders of the Ukrainian community during a working visit to the United States.

"We will not stop and now we are waiting at the level of the Congressional Committee for the decision of the United States Congress on recognizing the Holodomor as genocide," Poroshenko said.Five Ukrainian troops injured amid 24 enemy attacks in Donbas over past day

Russian-backed militants have launched 24 attacks on positions of Ukrainian troops, wounding five Ukrainian servicemen, the Joint Forces Operation (JFO) has reported.

"In total, Russian-led forces mounted 24 attacks on the Ukrainian army, including from the weapons banned by the Minsk Agreements. Five members of the Joint Forces have been wounded amid hostilities," the JFO staff said on Facebeook on Wednesday morning.

The enemy attacked Ukrainian positions near Stanytsia Luhanska, Krymske, Zolote, Katerynivka, Novoluhanske, Zaitseve, Pisky, Taramchuk, Hnutove, Vodiane, Lebedysnke, and Shyrokyne.

Russian-led forces opened aimed fire, using grenade launchers, heavy machine guns and small arms. In particular, JFO positions near Hnutove came under 82mm mortar fire.

According to the intelligence, two militants were killed, six more were wounded.President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko sells his Kuznya on Rybalsky Shipbuilding Plant to the domestic buyer after the consent of the Antimonopoly Committee, press secretary of the Ukrainian president Svyatoslav Tsegolko has said.

"Prime Time Assets Capital, which manages Poroshenko's assets, said it had reached a principled agreement on the sale of the Kuznya on Rybalsky Plant to the domestic buyer. And if the Antimonopoly Committee agrees and all procedures are resolved, the agreement will be signed and implemented," he wrote on Facebook.

He also recalled that in January 2016, Poroshenko handed over his biggest asset, Roshen company, to the trustee of Rothschild, a global company with an impeccable reputation. In April last year, the management of Roshen closed the Lipetsk confectionary factory and closed its production. And in Crimea, the Sevastopol Marine Plant was confiscated by the invaders.

"Poroshenko does not have any businesses in the Russian Federation, of which opponents unjustly and falsely say," Tsegolko stressed.Kyiv's Shevchenkivsky District Court has declined prosecutors' motion to limit the time given to Ukrainian parliamentarian Nadiia Savchenko and her lawyers to read the case materials.

The court began considering the issue on September 19.

The prosecutors had asked the court to limit the period in question to 25 calendar days in the so-called Savchenko-Ruban case. The two are suspected of trying to change or overthrow the constitutional system or seize state power by force.

Oleksandr Tananakin, a lawyer for Savchenko, told Interfax-Ukraine earlier that that period of time would be insufficient.

On August 1, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office said the investigation into the case had been completed.

Valentyn Rybin, a lawyer for Volodymyr Ruban, told Interfax-Ukraine he had finished reading the case materials, of which he notified the investigators on August 30.

Savchenko has been in custody since March 23. On March 22, the Verkhovna Rada supported the recommendations of Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko and authorized the prosecution, detention, and arrest of Savchenko. She is suspected of trying to change or overthrow the constitutional system or seize state power by force, trying to kill statesmen and public figures, preparing to carry out a terrorist attack, creating a terrorist group or terrorist organization, and handling weapons, munitions, or explosives illegally.

Ruban was detained in possession of a weapons arsenal in Donbas on March 8.Iran's President Hassan Rouhani has expressed a new view about negotiations between Iran and the United States during his speech at the UN General Assembly. "For dialogue to take place, there is no need for a photo opportunity. The two sides can listen to each other right here in this Assembly. I am starting the dialogue right here," he said.

Referring to the United States' withdrawal from the nuclear deal with Iran, Rouhani added: "Dialogue can resume in this Assembly from the same point and by the same person who left the dialogue table, and walked away from the accord."

But President Donald Trump clearly repeated the U.S. demand that Iran must change its behavior in refraining from adventures in other countries.

Rouhani pointed out that the two sides can make a new deal if it is in continuation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). This suggest that the solution to the Islamic Republic's biggest foreign policy problem and the deadlock in the ties between Iran and the United States could be returning to the JCPOA where it was left off.

"Beginning the dialogue starts with ending threats and unjust sanctions that negate the principles of ethics and international law."

However, the war of words between Iran and the United States continued in the speeches of their presidents at the 73rd UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday September 25, as Rouhani warned "in unequivocal terms," that "the question of international security is not a toy in American domestic politics. The United Nations is not a part of the United States administration."

He also called "Unlawful unilateral sanctions a form of economic terrorism," and "breach of Iran's right to development."

Rouhani further reiterated that What Iran says is clear: no war, no sanctions, no threats, no bullying; just acting according to the law and the fulfilment of obligations.

Reminding Tehran's contribution to the international campaign against Al-Qaeda, Taliban and Daesh, Rouhani concluded: "Appreciate these historical realities about Iran. Quit imposing sanctions and end extremism. The world will not have a better friend than Iran, if peace is what you seek."

Apart from suggesting resumption of dialogue between Tehran and Washington from where they left off, most of what Rouhani were not new. Even the seemingly new suggestion was briefly mentioned in previous exchange of words between the two sides.

Trump who had called Rouhani "an absolutely lovely man," in a tweet earlier on Tuesday, described Iran in his speech as "a corrupt dictatorship, whose leaders sew chaos, death and disruption."

More than a few observers have hinted that Trump's comment about Rouhani could have been sarcastic, though.

Trump added: " They do not respect their neighbors, borders, or the sovereign rights of nations. Instead, they plunder the nations resources to enrich themselves and to spread mayhem across the Middle East and far beyond. The Iranian people are rightly outraged that their leaders have embezzled billions of dollars from the treasury, seized valuable portions and looted the religious endowments to line their own pockets and to send their proxies to wage war."

"The Iran deal was a windfall for Irans leaders. In the year since the deal has been reached, the military budget grew nearly 40%, adding, "The dictatorship used the funds to build nuclear capable missiles, increase internal repression, finance terrorism andslaughter in Syria and Yemen."

Regardless of Rouhani's not so generous offer of dialogue, what can practically come up in the next chapter of relations between Tehran and Washington, depend to a great extent on what will happen at the UN Security Council meeting on Wednesday September 26 which is to be chaired by Trump.

Whether Rouhani or his Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif do or do not take part in the meeting would indicate how serious Rouhani's offer of dialogue with Washington might be.Meticulously planned, orchestrated and choreographed, official ceremonies attended by the Islamic Republics Supreme Leader are also a barometer to measure the guests intimacy with the host, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

One of the annual ceremonies held on September 19, mourning the violent death of the Shiites third Imam in 680, in city of Karbala, central Iraq, was not an exception.

Political analysts affiliated with the two main camps of the ruling establishment in Iran particularly zoomed on the spot designated for the former hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. This is reminiscent of the Cold War era, when Kremlinologists carefully studied the public appearances of top Communist leaders to assess the power structure within the ruling elite.

The pictures of the ceremony show that Ahmadinejad was given a place much farther from Khameneis seat than where he used to sit in previous gatherings.

The images clearly depict nine intelligence and security officials sitting between Khamenei and Ahmadinejads spot, which is at very end of the top row. Whereas, during his two terms as president, Ahmadinejad was always given a seat next to the Supreme Leader.

But lately, he is being moved farther and farther from Khamenei.

As a result, Ahmadinejads supporters and opponents rushed to social media to enthusiastically elaborate on the development.

Some argued that the place allocated to Ahmadinejad was in fact Khameneis response to his former proteges recent news making videos attacking the establishment and lambasting the Islamic Republics judicial system and its Chief-Justice, Ayatollah Sadeq Amoli Larijani.

Ahmadinejads opponents insisted that the vociferous former president is losing Khameneis support so swiftly that he might be soon silenced by being placed under house arrest.

From the time Ahmadinejads close allies, former Chief of Staff, Esfandyar Rahim Mashshaei and Deputy President for Executive Affairs, Hamid Baqaei were thrown behind bars, he has turned into an unstoppable critic of the regime, calling for the immediate resignation of the heads of the three branches of the government; President Rouhani, the Speaker of parliament, Ali Larijani and his younger brother Sadeq Amoli Larijani who is in charge of the countrys judiciary.

Furthermore, Ahmadinejad has directly bombarded Khamenei with open letters, implicitly threatening him personally.

Nevertheless, Khamenei has apparently decided to avoid any response, at least publicly.

A supporter of Ahmadinejads former ally and successor as Mayor of Tehran, IRGC commander General Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, and manager of conservative website, Farda, Mohammad Saleh Meftah was the first person to highlight the fact that Ahmadinejad was given a lower seat at the annual ceremony.

Ahmadinejad has come for mourning to the Leaders House. He is sitting farther; but probably they have not allowed him to sit near the Leader. The guests were told to refrain from chanting for or against each other, Meftah tweeted.

Another social media user, introducing himself as Zanjan University student, Saeed Najafi Asli, fired back, Out of an army of officials, why the media have focused only on Ahmadinejads place at the ceremony? It shows that Ahmadinejad is the most effective politician in Iran.

In a sarcastic tweet, Yousef says, Ahmadinejad is getting farther from the Leaders chair and soon, he will be placed outside the door.

The managing editor of a pro-reform website, Bahar News, Mansour Ghanavati has gone further by maintaining, After heavy verdicts issued against Ahmadinejads close allies, he was officially pushed into a marginal place and, as a rule, the next step will be placing him under house arrest.

Moreover, Ghanavati has argued that Ahmadinejads membership in the influential Expediency Council will not save him from house arrest; as [the former PM] Mir Hossein Mousavi, a member of the same council, has been under house arrest since 2011.

Meanwhile, Ahmadinejads official Twitter account has published one of the images of the ceremony, without any comment.BISHKEK -- Some 2,000 Russia and Kyrgyz troops are getting ready to launch joint counterterrorism exercises in eastern Kyrgyzstan.

The September 26 maneuvers at the Edelweiss training ground will involve nearly 400 pieces of military hardware, including 30 Russian aircraft and Iskander-M ballistic missile systems, Russia's Defense Ministry said in a statement.

The drills are part of the Commonwealth of Independent States' (CIS) Issyk-Kul Antiterror 2018 exercises, which started earlier this month.

On September 25, Kyrgyz special forces foiled a simulated terrorist attack on the Issyk-Kul international airport in the resort city of Cholpon-Ata, according to the Kyrgyz State Committee for National Security.

Addressing a meeting of counterterrorism officials from CIS member states in Cholpon-Ata, Kyrgyz Deputy Prime Minister Zhenish Razakov said that "the terrorist threat coming from Afghanistan is intensifying."

"What is especially worrisome is that terrorist and other extremist forces, acting in close interaction, are not giving up their attempts to cross into the territory of the Central Asian region from northern Afghanistan with the aim of destabilizing the situation," Razakov said.

Andrei Novikov, head of the CIS Antiterrorism Center, said the Issyk-Kul Antiterror 2018 drills were aimed at countering the threat of Islamic terrorists trying to gain a foothold in Central Asia.

"We see attempts by international terrorist organizations to set up a new foothold of the so-called 'caliphate' in the region and also form [new] 'sleeper' [cells] and invigorate existing ones," Novikov said.

Full members of the CIS include Russia and eight former Soviet republics -- Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

With reporting by InterfaxU.S. authorities have unsealed an indictment against a Turkish-American businessman charged with lying to congressional investigators regarding a trip by U.S. lawmakers to Azerbaijan five years ago.

The indictment, which was handed down in April, was released on September 24, about three weeks after the businessman, Kemal Oksuz, was arrested in Armenia on a U.S. warrant.

Oksuz, a Houston-based businessman who used to run two organizations -- Turquoise Council of Americans and Eurasians and the Assembly of the Friends of Azerbaijan -- was charged by the grand jury with lying on congressional disclosure forms regarding the 2013 all-expenses-paid visit to Azerbaijan made by 10 members and 32 staffers of Congress.

According to the five-count indictment, the trip was funded with the help by Azerbaijan's state-run SOCAR oil company, which provided $750,000 toward the effort.

Armenian police announced last month that Oksuz had been detained in the country, and they later released a video of his police interrogation. In the video, Oksuz said that SOCAR covered the travel expenses of the U.S. officials and gave them expensive gifts in 2013.

"That may have been corruption, I don't know," he said.

It was not immediately clear when Oksuz fled to Armenia, or why; Armenia has long had strained relations with both Azerbaijan and Turkey.

As of September 26, Oksuz remained in police custody in Armenia.

After U.S. news reports in 2015 raised questions about the funding of the trip, several of the U.S. lawmakers returned some of the gifts that they had received as part of the trip.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Armenian and Azerbaijani servicesBaku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 26

Trend:

Over the past 24 hours, Armenian armed forces have 91 times violated the ceasefire along the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said Sept. 26.

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. 26

By Fikret Dolukhanov  Trend:

The four California state elected officials, illegally visiting the Armenian-occupied Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan, are performing as what Vladimir Lenin infamously called useful fools or useful idiots, Raoul Lowery Contreras, an American political scientist, said in his article titled Opinion: Do California Legislators Support Militarism & Terrorism? published in The Daily Caller.

Contreras said that assuming the American officials didnt pay for the trip themselves, they help spreading Armenian corruption in Californias state capital.

The most significant feature of modern Armenia is its continual loss of population as Armenians leave for Russia or Los Angeles in order to escape pervasive poverty The second massive feature is political corruption as evidenced by wide-spread criminal charges being pressed by the new government of Armenia. Unfortunately, Armenian corruption has spread out from Yerevan to Los Angeles and, it appears, to Californias capital, Sacramento, the author says.

According to Contreras, the worst is that State Senator Anthony Portantino thumbed his nose at official and long-standing bi-partisan United States foreign policy by undermining its Caucasus-region policy.

The United States recognizes the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Republic of Armenia. The United States does not recognize an occupied Nagorno-Karabakh region as an independent state as it is proclaimed by occupying foreign Armenian forces, Contreras underlined.

He reminded that no country in the world, including Armenia, officially recognizes the occupational regime in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Portantino didnt just visit Armenia; he left Armenia and illegally crossed into the internationally recognized sovereign territory of Azerbaijan without a visa from its government. Just like the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan et al, Azerbaijan requires any visitor to have an official visa to visit its territory, the author said.

Contreras noted that Portantino has done this twice before and, like previous American politicians, he has been banned from visiting Azerbaijan.

Hosted and taken care of by ANCA (Armenian National Committee of America)  Armenias political arm and lobby in the United States  does Portantino know about or care about the corruption in Armenia that paid for his junket? Or about the state-directed terrorism Armenia supports against its next door neighbor? the author wrote.

He emphasized that Portantinos previous visits to Armenia and the occupied territories in Azerbaijan were organized by corrupt government of former Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, who was not only a wartime leader of Armenian forces when they invaded Azerbaijan in the early 1990, but was also guilty of war crimes committed by his forces in the massacre at Khojaly (town in Azerbaijan) in February 1992.

The author concluded his article by wondering, whether support for a country that favors massive terrorism and illegal military occupations and aggression the United States opposes should define American elected officials in the California Legislature in Sacramento?

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @FDolukhanovBaku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 26

Trend:

Azerbaijan is an important economic partner of Russia, including in military-technical cooperation, Director General of Rosoboronexport JSC Alexander Mikheev told reporters in Baku Sept. 25, RIA Novosti reported.

He said that the development of military-technical cooperation with Azerbaijan is facilitated by the absence of a language barrier, similar state and industry standards, as well as the availability of production and military personnel trained on general principles.

The press service of Rosoboronexport JSC said in a statement that the first facilities of Azerbaijans defense industry were created back in 1918. These were workshops for the repair of various military equipment and small arms.

However, during the years of the Great Patriotic War two aircraft factories operated there, where fighter planes were manufactured and repaired, the statement said. Rockets for the legendary Katyusha multiple rocket launchers were also manufactured in Baku. Considering strong traditions of defense production in Azerbaijan, Rosoboronexport JSC offers Baku to continue their development together."Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 26

By Elchin Mehdiyev - Trend:

The international defense exhibition ADEX-2018 is an important event in terms of demonstrating Azerbaijan's military potential and power, a member of the Azerbaijani Parliament, political scientist Elman Nasirov told Trend.

Azerbaijan not only conducts international humanitarian forums, intercultural dialogue, other important events, but also holds significant international events in military sphere, Nasirov said.

"In the world, there is a growing interest in the third Azerbaijan International Exhibition ADEX-2018, which started on September 25 in Baku. The constant increase in the number of companies participating in the exhibition can be regarded as a confirmation of this," the MP said.

The MP said that Azerbaijan's military-industrial complex is developing rapidly.

"Azerbaijan produces 1,200 titles of military products. These products are also demonstrated at exhibitions held in foreign countries. The ADEX-2018 exhibition is a very important event in terms of demonstrating military potential, strength and products. Under the leadership of President of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, Ilham Aliyev, special attention is paid to military construction and strengthening Azerbaijani army," Nasirov added.

It is no coincidence that the military expenditures of Azerbaijan's state budget for 2018 come first and amount to about 2.7 billion manats, according to Nasirov.

"This exhibition has demonstrated to the whole world that Azerbaijan has a strong economy and a strong military-industrial complex is being formed in the country. Azerbaijan not only produces military products, but also became an exporter," the MP added.Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 26

Trend:

Azerbaijans Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Cooperation and Communities of the Democratic Republic of Sao Tome and Principe Urbino Botelho had a meeting in New York, Azerbaijans Foreign Ministry said in a message Sept. 26.

As part of the meeting held on the sidelines of the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly the sides signed Joint Communique on the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Republic of Azerbaijan and Democratic Republic of Sao Tome and Principe.Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 26

Trend:

A conference on The 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic and relations of strategic partnership between the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Italian Republic was held at Giustiniani palace in Rome on Sept. 25.

First Vice-President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Mehriban Aliyeva and President of the Senate of the Italian Republic Maria Elisabetta Alberti Casellati attended the opening of the conference.

Opening the conference, head of the Italy-Azerbaijan interparliamentary friendship group at the Italian Senate Rossana Boldi highlighted the importance of the event. She hailed the development of Italy-Azerbaijan ties and stressed the significance of the bilateral strategic cooperation.

Noting that relations between the two countries have been developing in all fields, Rossana Boldi praised Mehriban Aliyeva`s role in developing Azerbaijan-Italy relations. She said that the projects implemented by the Heydar Aliyev Foundation in Italy are important in terms of protecting the country`s cultural heritage.

It is an honor for us to mark the 100th anniversary of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic in Italy, President of the Italian Senate Maria Elisabetta Alberti Casellati said, stressing the significance of holding such an important conference in Italy.

Holding this event here is of great importance because the Constitution of Italy was signed in this building. This year we celebrate the 70th anniversary of the signing of the Constitution.

Touching upon Azerbaijan-Italy ties, Casellati noted that relations between the two countries have an ancient history.

Highlighting the projects implemented by the Heydar Aliyev Foundation to restore historical and cultural monuments, which are of special importance to Italy, the president of the Italian Senate thanked First vice-president of Azerbaijan, President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation Mehriban Aliyeva for her role in developing cultural relations between the two countries.

Today Azerbaijan, as a country in the Caucasus, plays a key role in the life of the Mediterranean countries both politically and economically, Casellati said, pointing out that the Azerbaijani pavilion at Milan Expo 2015 international exhibition was one of the most visited and praised ones.

Italy is one of the first countries to import energy from Azerbaijan. Today Italy plays a very important role in diversifying the economy of Azerbaijan and particularly gives impetus to the development of the oil industry, she said.

The president of the Senate expressed confidence that the activities of Italian companies in Azerbaijan will be further expanded. Maria Elisabetta Alberti Casellati highlighted Azerbaijan`s role in European energy security.

First Vice-President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Mehriban Aliyeva addressed the conference.

The conference continued with panel meetings.

A short film on the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic was screened at the event.Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 26

Trend:

Opening of the "Azerbaijani Room took place at the Headquarters of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Rome.

Vice-President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, Goodwill Ambassador of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Leyla Aliyeva took part in the opening.

FAO Deputy Director General Laurent Thomas welcomed the Vice-President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation Leyla Aliyeva. They exchanged views on a number of issues.

At the meeting, cooperation of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation and the IDEA Public Association with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations was highly appreciated. The sides had discussions concerning further extension of contacts.

The FAO Deputy Director General was informed that within the joint project realized by IDEA, FAO and the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Azerbaijan, orchards in 11 regions of the country have been laid out for needy families.

Then, opening of the Azerbaijani Room took place.

Vice-President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation Leyla Aliyeva and Deputy Director General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Laurent Thomas cut the tape symbolizing opening of the Room.

Laurent Thomas, having noted that in this remarkable room which is a joint project of FAO and Azerbaijan, there are all conditions for activity of the organization, said that the staff of the Organization will be able to use all modern opportunities here.

In the room, along with the most advanced processing equipment, there are objects reflecting the ancient culture of Azerbaijan, Laurent Thomas stressed. In this sense, the walls of the room, reminding fire flames, represent the Land of Fire.

He, in particular, noted design of the room in style of buta patterns.

Laurent Thomas emphasized that the "Azerbaijani Room answers the highest security measures applied to UN buildings. He, on behalf of the FAO Director General expressed gratitude to the Government of Azerbaijan for this useful contribution to implementation by the organization of effective activities for achievement of its important goals.

Addressing the opening ceremony, Vice-President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation Leyla Aliyeva expressed gratitude for the created opportunity, saying:

I believe that this opening represents the beginning of a new stage of our relations with FAO. Existence of a part of Azerbaijan in the FAO Headquarters, reflection of the Azerbaijani culture and national spirit, will, undoubtedly, inspire the people to visit our beautiful country, to know our hospitable people closer. Sure, this office will bring many positive changes. Thank you very much.

It was reported that the Azerbaijani Room at the Headquarters of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in Rome was founded with financial support of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation. The FAO Headquarters includes rooms of various countries. Azerbaijan, for the first time among the CIS countries, has its room here.

The Azerbaijani national ornaments, musical instruments, carpets have been used in design of the room. Such projects are important from the point of view of promotion of Azerbaijans ancient history, its rich cultural heritage.

Azerbaijan is the member of FAO since 1995. The design-coordination office of FAO functions in the country since 2007. In Azerbaijan, there is also the first coordination and partner office of the Organization.

It is worthy to remind that Leyla Aliyeva has been awarded the title of Goodwill Ambassador by FAO for activity in humanitarian and ecological spheres.

The goal of FAO is solution of such tasks as fight against hunger in the world, ensuring food security, increase in efficiency of agriculture, forest and fish farms, creation of healthy food systems. Activity of the Vice-President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation Leyla Aliyeva makes certain contribution to achievement of these goals.

Then, the participants had their pictures taken in memory.Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 26

Trend:

The OSCE monitoring held on the border between Azerbaijan and Armenia on September 26 passed without incidents, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said.

The monitoring was held under the mandate of the OSCE chairperson-in-office personal representative in the direction of Azerbaijans Gadabay district.

On the Azerbaijani side, the monitoring was held by Ognyen Yovic and Simon Tiller, field assistants of the OSCE chairperson-in-office personal representative.

On the Armenian side, the monitoring was held by field assistants of the OSCE chairperson-in-office personal representative Gennady Petrica and Mikhail Olaru.

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. 26

Trend:

Azerbaijan`s Azerspace-2 satellite was sent into orbit from Guiana Space Center in French Guiana on September 26.

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev congratulated the nation on this occasion.

Dear fellow countrymen, today is a landmark day in the life of our country, the president said. Azerspace-2 was sent to orbit today. I wholeheartedly congratulate the people of Azerbaijan on this occasion. This is another triumph of our country, another success of our state.

Azerbaijan has managed to put three satellites into orbit in the past five years, he said. Azerbaijan is today a member of the space club and is strengthening its standing in the world space industry. The launch of the satellites demonstrates the power of our state, it demonstrates our policy. We already have three satellites: Azerspace-1 telecommunications satellite, Azersky observation satellite and Azerspace-2.

As you know this year marks the 100th anniversary of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, he added. Under my order, 2018 was proclaimed the Year of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic. At the same time, next month we will celebrate the 27th anniversary of the restoration of our independence. We dedicate the launch of Azerspace-2 to the centenary of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, to state independence of Azerbaijan.

These satellites are of huge importance, the president said. First and foremost, Azerbaijan is taking a more crucial step in terms of information security. Through these satellites Azerbaijani television channels can today present their programs to the world.

Azerbaijan today completely eliminated dependence on foreign partners in the field of telecommunications, he said. At the same time, the development of Azerbaijan`s space industry plays a significant role in human resources development. Specialists managing the satellites are Azerbaijanis, and most of them are young.

The development of space industry deepens our international cooperation in this field, he said. We are closely cooperating with leading companies across the world, which have extensive experience in this area.

The satellites have also a commercial side, he said. Azerbaijan is today exporting its products, and revenues are flowing to Azerbaijan thanks to the operation of the satellites. Azerbaijan's achievements in space industry are at the same time developing our non-oil sector and moving our non-oil industry forward. It`s not a coincidence that according to the statistics of the eight months of this year, the non-oil industry grew by about 11 percent in Azerbaijan.

At the same time, through Azersky observation satellite we are always able to regularly monitor and control all the events that happen not only in our country, but also in any part of the world, the president said. Azersky satellite is playing a special role in strengthening defense and military potential of Azerbaijan. As a result of the operation of this satellite, we have completely eliminated foreign dependence in this area and are now providing satellite services for many countries.

The satellites are of crucial importance to the implementation of our infrastructure projects and protection of the existing infrastructure, the president said. Azersky observation satellite plays a special role in a number of areas, including the development of agriculture, control over the ecological situation and effective exploitation of lands.

In short, dear citizens, dear friends, today is another landmark day in the life of our country, the president said. Azerbaijan has become a valuable member of the world space club in a short period of time. Azerbaijan is successfully fulfilling all the tasks set.

Our way is the way of development, the way of progress, and Azerbaijan today has its worthy say in the development of advanced technologies in the world, he stressed. The launch of Azerspace-2 telecommunications satellite is our yet another historic triumph. Azerbaijan will continue moving forward only on the path toward success and victories.

Once again I would like to wholeheartedly congratulate you on this remarkable occasion, and wish each of you the best of health and happiness, he added. Thank you.Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 26

Trend:

Baku Higher Oil School's Student Sona Mehdizada who earned 700 points at the entrance exams has answered a couple of questions about herself.

 Sona, please tell us a bit about yourself.

 I was born in Baku on November 26, 2000. I started school in 2007 and received my primary education at the school 56. Since 2011, I studied at the Technical and Humanitarian Lyceum 147. This year, I graduated with a gold medal from the secondary school 58. In 2007-2014, I attended piano classes at the musical school 13 named after Sayid Rustamov.

 Who made the most significant contribution to your success at the entrance exams?

 Ultimately, it is my family. They have always provided me with necessary support and assistance. I want to thank my schoolteachers, too. I am also grateful to my tutors who were teaching me last two years. So, everyone has contributed to my success.

 Why did you select the first group of specialties?

 When I was in the upper school, I became more interested in technical disciplines. Most of all, I liked math, physics and chemistry.

 What do you like doing in your leisure time?

 In my leisure time, I play piano, read books or go in for sports. I also like walking and being outdoors.

 Why did you decide to study at BHOS rather than elsewhere?

 Since 9th grade, I was gathering information about national universities and seeking advice from parents and friends. I decided to study at BHOS during the entrance exams. I believe that it is the best higher educational institution for those young people who choose engineering profession.

 What profession do you want to obtain at BHOS?

 I will study Process Automation Engineering.

 Was it your own choice? Or did you seek advices from your parents and others?

 It was my own choice. As for my parents, they have always supported me in making choices and decisions.

 Is it difficult for a woman to be an engineer?

 Think that gender equality shall be achieved in every profession at every workplace. The number of women in engineering is growing, and the Baku Higher Oil School has greatly contributed to this change by raising girls interest in this profession.

 What makes you different from others?

 I am perfectionist. I must do everything perfectly; otherwise, it is better not to do it at all. Sure, nothing is hundred percent ideal and people do make mistakes. However, it is important to learn lessons from them not to make the same mistakes again.

 What profession has the most promising future, in your view?

 In my opinion, all computer-related sciences including information technologies and process automation have the most fascinating perspectives.

 Where would you like to work and at what position?

 To be honest, I do not like to think about the future. Of course, I would agree with the old saying, Well-planned is half done. But nobody can foresee or predict the future.

 Does success entirely depend on a person? Or is it just a result of sheer luck?

 First of all, you need to set a goal. Then you have to find a correct path and work hard to achieve your goal. Luck is also important, but it cannot be the most crucial factor of the success.

 What would you advise prospective students?

 They need to choose their future profession before the entrance exams, not after them. When you make the decision, try hard to make it happen. At the same time, find time for recreation. Do not isolate yourself from the rest of the world and do not be fully absorbed by the preparations to the exams.Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 26

By Ilhama Isabalayeva - Trend:

There are proposals to charge fees for mandatory medical insurance in Azerbaijan in the form of percentage from salaries for employees, and in the amount of 120 manats for other citizens, Department Head of the Agency for Mandatory Medical Insurance under the Cabinet of Ministers of Azerbaijan Araz Nasirov said Sept. 26.

He said that in European countries, an employee and an employer are charged 5-15 percent for mandatory medical insurance. In Azerbaijan, at the preliminary stage, it is proposed that the amount of insurance premiums would be about 3 percent, where 2 percent will account for the share of the employee and 1 percent for the share of the employer.

Nasirov noted that these fees will make it possible to improve healthcare services and increase the salaries of health workers.

He reminded that presently, Azerbaijani government is financing the system of mandatory medical insurance.

In turn, Vugar Gurbanov, the agencys department head, said that changes will be made to the basic package of the mandatory medical insurance system.

Regarding the ongoing test project in the mandatory medical insurance sphere in Azerbaijan, he noted that some diseases in the territories where the project is being implemented werent included in the basic package, so they will be provided in a new package.

Gurbanov added that the new basic package will also contain diagnoses and the related medical prescriptions and treatment. He added that the existing basic package contains only medical services.

He noted that the new package will be ready by the end of this year.

Gurbanov said that since 2019, the mandatory medical insurance system is planned to be applied throughout Azerbaijan.

Earlier, Director of the State Agency for Mandatory Medical Insurance under the Cabinet of Ministers of Azerbaijan Zaur Aliyev said that the approximate amount of insurance premiums for obtaining mandatory medical insurance services is set at 120 manats.

He said that a number of categories of Azerbaijani citizens will be exempt from paying insurance premiums.

These are children, pensioners, disabled people and low-income families, Aliyev said. The state will pay their expenses.

The State Agency for Mandatory Medical Insurance began operating in Azerbaijan in February 2016.

Since the end of 2016, Azerbaijan has been implementing a test project on mandatory medical insurance, which presently covers the city of Mingachevir, as well as the Yevlakh and Agdash districts of the country.

(1.7 manats = 1 USD on Sept. 26)Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 26

Trend:

The European Investment Bank (EIB) may provide financial support for the construction and reconstruction of roads and railways in Azerbaijan, EIB Vice President Vazil Hudak said Sept. 25 at a meeting with Azerbaijans Economy Minister Shahin Mustafayev, the economy ministry said in a message.

During the meeting it was noted that in 2013 Azerbaijan and the EIB signed a framework agreement. It was said that the bank took part in the financing of TANAP and TAP projects, and allocated loans to Azerbaijani banks as part of cooperation with the private sector.

Mustafayev said that the Agency for the Development of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SME) was created in Azerbaijan in order to support SMEs, and noted the possibility of considering cooperation with the bank in this area.

In addition, it was noted that cooperation with the bank is possible in the areas of direct financing of private sector projects, implementation of infrastructure projects, alternative energy, waste management and restoration of lakes on Absheron Peninsula.

The vice president of the bank said that the EIB provides not only financial support, but also conducts examination, provides technical and consulting services.

The representative of the bank also spoke about the possibility of cooperation in the areas of alternative energy, clearing lakes, supporting the private sector, especially SMEs, and about the opportunities for cooperation of the Agency for the Development of SMEs with Azerbaijans Entrepreneurship Development Fund.

Hudak added that the EIB delegation will visit Azerbaijan in October.Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 26

Trend:

A new vice-president of the Azerbaijan Banks Association (ABA) has been appointed, the association said in a message.

The decision on the appointment was made during the meeting of the ABA Presidium in an expanded format.

Khalid Ahadov, who was ABA vice-president, was replaced by Acting Chairman of the Board of International Bank of Azerbaijan Abbas Ibrahimov.

During the meeting, an appropriate Working Group was established to develop proposals on the part of banks to improve the financial intermediation capacity of banks.

The chairman of the Expert Group on Risk Management was also appointed at the meeting.

Deputy Chairman of the Board of the International Bank of Azerbaijan Agshin Amirov was appointed as chairman of the expert group.

The purpose of creating the expert group is to study new challenges and best practices in risk management, study the possibilities of applying this experience in Azerbaijans banking system, strengthen mutual cooperation with regulatory and supervisory bodies, etc..

In addition, the chairman of the Expert Group on Trade and Projects Financing was appointed. The purpose of the group is to analyze the compliance of Azerbaijani legislation on letters of credit, guarantees, encashment and other transactions with the requirements of international law, discuss potential problems in the field of the mentioned banking services.

The group also has to investigate the possibility of applying international standards in this area and provide relevant proposals during amending the regulatory acts by the bodies that regulate banking activities in Azerbaijan, etc..

Yasin Jalilov, the director of the corporate business development department of VTB Bank (Azerbaijan) OJSC, has been appointed chairman of the expert group.Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 26

By Fikret Dolukhanov  Trend:

The Law on Public Procurement helped save over 113.2 billion soums (over $14 million) in three months, Uzbek media reported referring to the "Public procurement and provision of services to citizens" workshop at the Turin Polytechnic University in Tashkent.

The event was organized by the World Bank with participation of the National Project Management Agency (NPMA) under the president of Uzbekistan.

Anna Palvanova, head of the Office for Harmonization of Legislation of NPMA, noted that the said law came into force in April 2018 and after almost six months a positive effect is evident.

According to the representative of the agency, during the period of budgeting all subjects of public procurement need to pay special attention to the planning of purchases for the next year, as well as provide training to government buyers, since this is a new profession requiring special training.

Since March 1, 2019, the procedure for compulsory certification of specialists in the sphere of public procurement has been introduced. Free courses on Public procurement management are being taught in the Higher School of Business and Management.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @FDolukhanovBaku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 26

By Anvar Mammadov - Trend:

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) plans to launch implementation of three projects in Azerbaijan by the end of November 2018, the Head of the Partnership and Liaison Office of FAO in Azerbaijan Melek Cakmak told Trend Sept. 26.

The head of the office said the projects will be implemented within the framework of the FAO-Azerbaijan cooperation program signed in 2016 and scheduled for the period until the end of 2020.

"In October, we plan to start implementing the program of development of sheep breeding and the creation of a value chain in this area. In addition, in the same month it is planned to start the implementation of the program of development of the livestock sector, by expanding knowledge in the field of artificial insemination and improving the feed base. In addition, we have proposed a project regarding potato seed production to Azerbaijan. Its implementation will also start, at the latest, until the end of November," Cakmak said.

The head of the office noted that FAO is also engaged in the elaboration of several projects aimed at strengthening the sphere of agriculture in Azerbaijan.

"We are currently elaborating several more projects. One of them is aimed at the development of hazelnut industry. Hazelnut is one of the main non-oil export goods of Azerbaijan, and we want to help the development of this sector, in particular, to increase the production of traditional varieties for Azerbaijan," she noted.

"In addition, it is planned to implement two projects in rural areas aimed at the development of self-employment of women and youth, respectively. The project will enable women and young people to increase self-employment by expansion of knowledge and vocational education in agriculture. The project will cover the population engaged in agriculture or having received agricultural education, both special secondary and higher. This will increase the income of the population and diversify the sources of income," Cakmak said.

Azerbaijan has been a member of FAO since 1995. The organization's office in the country has been operating since 2007.Baku, Azerbaijan, Sep. 26

By Ilkin Shafiyev  Trend:

Azerbaijans Pirallahi solar power plant is preparing to connect new solar panels, Azalternativenerji LLC under the State Agency on Alternative and Renewable Energy Sources told Trend Aug. 28.

"In general, 4,400 solar panels have been installed here, 1,920 of them have been already connected, the remaining 2,480 are being prepared for connection," the company said.

The solar power plant generated 1.9 million kilowatt-hours of electricity worth about 86,000 manats from May 22, 2014 to July 1, 2018.

Moreover, 1.816 million kilowatt-hours of electricity of that volume were sold.

The contract cost of the solar power plant project is 14.7 million manats.

In January-July 2018, Azerbaijans wind farms produced 14.1 million kilowatt hours of electricity, which is 63.9 percent more than in January-July 2017, while solar power plants generated 23.4 million kilowatt hours of electricity, says a report of the State Statistics Committee.

According to the State Agency for Alternative and Renewable Energy Sources, the countrys wind energy potential is 350 megawatts, 50 megawatts account for solar energy, and during the next few years it will be possible to reach the level of 20 megawatts in bioenergy.

Azerbaijans power plants generated 13.5 billion kilowatt hours of electricity in January-July 2018 that is 2.6 percent more than in the same period of 2017, according to the report.

The report says that 12.99 billion kilowatt hours of the total electricity generated in January-July 2018 accounted for commercial electricity, which is 3.1 percent more than in January-July 2017.

(1.7 manats = $1 on Aug. 28)

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Follow the author on Twitter: @IlkinShafiyevBaku, Azerbaijan, Sept.26

By Leman Zeynalova  Trend:

The implementation of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), which envisages transportation of Azerbaijani gas to Europe, can help to reduce the cost of gas for Italian families, said TAP Managing Director Luca Schieppati.

Italian families pay 19 percent more for natural gas than European families. TAP, which represents around 12 percent of Italian gas demand, can help reduce this gap, he said, according to a message from TAP AG consortium.

Schieppati added that more gas means more competitiveness and reduced costs.

TAP worth 4.5 billion euros is a part of the Southern Gas Corridor, which is one of the priority energy projects for the European Union. The project envisages transportation of gas from Azerbaijan's Shah Deniz Stage 2 to the EU countries.

The pipeline will connect to the Trans Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) on the Turkish-Greek border, run through Greece, Albania and the Adriatic Sea, before coming ashore in Italys south.

TAP will be 878 kilometers in length (Greece 550 kilometers, Albania 215 kilometers, Adriatic Sea 105 kilometers, and Italy 8 kilometers).

TAPs shareholding is comprised of BP (20 percent), SOCAR (20 percent), Snam S.p.A. (20 percent), Fluxys (19 percent), Enagas (16 percent) and Axpo (5 percent).

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is considering allocation of 500 million euros loan for TAP project. Aside from EBRD, the European Investment Bank (EIB) will also discuss the allocation of 1.5 billion euros loan for TAP in February.

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By Leman Zeynalova  Trend:

Turkmenistans gas exports are expected to fall for the fourth successive year in 2018, according to the report of Fitch Solutions Macro Research (a unit of Fitch Group).

The reason is that China remains one of the last importers of Turkmen gas and no alternative export routes are likely to materialize in the coming quarters, said the report obtained by Trend.

It is likely that the nature of exports will change as Turkmenistan seeks to diversify the range of its products, the launch of Garabogaz fertilizer plant being a good illustration of this trend, the company believes.

Turkmenistan launched $1.5 billion worth Garabogaz Karbamid nitrogen fertilizer plant on September 17. The plant, built by the consortium of Japans Mitsubishi Corp, Turkeys Gap Insaat and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, is located near the Caspian coastal city of Garabogaz, Balkan Region.

The facility integrates an ammonia plant and a urea (carbamide) plant, with respective capacities of 2,000 tons a day (t/d) and 3,500 t/d and will be using natural gas as a feedstock.

The Garabogaz facility will process up to 1bcm of natural gas annually.

The project also involved the construction of a 50 MW natural gas-red combined heat and power plant, as well as an access road to Bekdash port (from where the nitrogen fertilizers will be loaded onto ships and sent to other countries) and a new water treatment plant.

Most of the nancing for the facility was provided by the Japan Bank for International Cooperation, while state-owned Turkmenhimiya paid the remaining costs.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_ZeynBaku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 26

Trend:

A meeting was held between the Acting Chairman of the Board of Uzbekneftegaz JSC Bakhrom Ashrafkhanov and Senior Vice President, Deputy Regional Executive Director of Mitsubishi Corporation Kazuo Inada, UzDaily reported.

During the meeting, Ashrafkhanov noted that the compressor equipment of Mitsubishi Corporation is successfully operated at the Shurtan gas chemical complex for about 20 years, and taking into account the reliability and high performance of the equipment, delivery of compressor equipment within the GTL project has been examined in detail.

Uzbekneftegaz acquainted the Japanese partners with the work carried out jointly with Boston Consulting Group to develop a concept for the oil and gas industry, providing for the implementation of investment projects for deep processing of natural gas among priority areas.

In turn, the Japanese side expressed interest in participating in the projects implemented by Uzbekneftegaz.

Inada also briefed on the possibility of attracting funds of the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to finance the investment projects.

The parties agreed to establish a joint working group to develop specific proposals for cooperation in the oil and gas sector.Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 26

By Huseyn Veliyev  Trend:

The National Certification Services Center of Azerbaijan plans to complete technical work on mutual recognition of electronic signatures with Turkey by the end of this year, the Center told Trend.

The source noted that work is also currently underway to address the legal aspects of this issue.

The mutual recognition of e-signatures between the countries will simplify the registration of goods during crossing borders, which is important for development of international trade relations and access to the global markets.

The work on this direction, as previously reported, is being carried out within a memorandum signed with the Turkish side.

Azerbaijan is ready technologically to ensure the mutual recognition of e-signature certificates with Turkey.

Earlier, negotiations on mutual recognition of e-signatures were also held with Iran, Qatar and Ukraine.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @h_veliyevBaku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 26

Trend:

Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev will take part in the regular meeting of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) Council of Heads of State in Dushanbe city Sept. 27-28, Uzbek media reported.

The agenda of the Summit includes a wide range of issues related to the current state and prospects for the further development of multilateral cooperation in various fields.

Also, the heads of state will consider the issues of chairmanship in the CIS in 2019, the venue and date of the next meeting of the CIS Council, exchange views on current regional and international issues.

Following the meeting, it is expected that a weighty package of documents will be adopted, including the Statement of the CIS Heads of State on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of December 10, 1948, the Plan of the main events for the preparation and celebration of the 75th anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945.

The documents will also include Interstate program of joint measures to combat crime for 2019-2023, Agreement on cooperation in combating crimes in the IT sphere.

The program of the Uzbek presidents visit also includes holding a number of bilateral meetings in Dushanbe.Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 26

Trend:

On Sept. 18-22, the military training ground Chorukhdayron in the Sughd region of Tajikistan hosted the Tajikistan-Uzbekistan joint anti-terrorist drills with the participation of servicemen of the two countries, Uzbek media reported.

More than 600 servicemen and about 100 units of combat, special equipment and helicopters were involved in the exercises which were held for the first time in the history of the two states.

Following the exercises, Uzbek Defense Minister Abdusalom Azizov said that the joint exercises of the troops of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan showed the readiness of the two neighboring states to repulse enemy at any time.

He noted that the exercises are of truly historical significance and are the first ones in the history of friendly relations between the armies of the two countries.

Tajik Defense Minister Sherali Mirzo said that the situation in the northern provinces of Afghanistan is of particular concern.

He also noted that Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are an outpost of Central Asia, and the heads of the two states are doing everything possible to ensure peace and stability in Afghanistan.The European Union will create a mechanism, called "a special purpose vehicle," for trade with Iran to reduce the effect of US sanctions against Tehran, and salvage the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, a joint statement by Russia, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, China, the European Union and also Iran said after a ministerial meeting at the UN General Assembly in New York, Kommersant business daily reports.

This decision is set to calm Tehran ahead of the second package of US sanctions, which limit cooperation with Iran in the oil and gas sector. Dozens of international companies, including European ones, have halted cooperation with Iran. Tehran has threatened to abandon the nuclear deal if its interests are not protected.

According to EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, the EU member-states will create a legal entity to carry out financial transactions with Iran, thus allowing European companies to work with the country in line with European laws. This mechanism will be open for other partners. Five signatories of the deal believe that Tehran is fully committed to the nuclear deal and are doing their utmost to preserve the agreement. Tehran has earlier threatened to leave the JCPOA if Europe did not develop a mechanism for trade with Iran by November 4.

"Europe is trying to calm Iran, which is threatening to withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). In this context, the creation of a mechanism is certainly a positive step, but its unclear how it will work. Most likely, it will be aimed at small and medium-sized business. Large companies such as Total are too integrated in the global financial system and for them the US sanctions pose a significant threat. Its hard to imagine how they can be forced to remain in Iran," Yuliya Sveshnikova, Research Associate at the Higher School of Economics, told the paper.

Andrei Baklitsky, an expert with the PIR Center, noted that a plan to create a new mechanism for accounts with Iran has been on the agenda for a long time and the lack of progress by the EU signaled that Brussels was not seeking to seriously counter Washington. So, Mogherinis statement is an important and real step towards preserving the JCPOA, he said. The question was whether to use EU structures, which were protected from US sanctions (such as central banks of France and Germany), or to create new ones, which would be isolated from Washingtons influence, and the latter option was chosen.

"Now the idea is most likely to establish a sort of a clearing office that will receive money from European companies for Iranian oil and from Iran for European goods. The money wont de facto leave the EU thus limiting US pressure," the expert said. Nevertheless, he did note the possibility that Washington could slap individual sanctions against the leadership and personnel of the new structure. Meanwhile, fewer private European companies are ready to take risks and continue working with Iran, under the threat of US sanctions. "The financial channel wont help trade if there is no buyer. Perhaps, the EUs next step will be to set up a state structure for buying oil," he said.Iranian President Hassan Rouhani met with President Emmanuel Macron of France at the UN headquarters in New York Tuesday evening, IRNA reports.

The meeting was held at a time when both the Iranian and French presidents in their speeches at the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly earlier in the day took stance against the policies of the US administration against the 2015 nuclear deal struck between Iran and six world powers and the country's unilateralism.



Rouhani arrived in New York Sunday evening to attend the high profile meeting.



During his stay in New York, Rouhani has already held meetings with American political elites, his Cuban, Bolivian and Turkish counterparts, head of the International Olympic Committee, director of the International Monetary Fund, Chief Executive of Afghanistan and Norwegian prime minister.Iranian President Hassan Rouhani says US President Donald Trumps decision to exit the Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), has isolated Washington as the majority of countries back the historic agreement, Press TV reported.

At the UN General Assembly, we witnessed that the great majority of world leaders endorsed the JCPOA as a diplomatic achievement, which means that the US has been left isolated, Rouhani said at a new press conference on Wednesday.

He noted that he US decision to withdraw from the JCPOA was not agreed upon by other countries.

Except for few countries, others regarded the measure as a political mistake, he said.

Rouhani said that the US should either rectify its mistake or continue with this wrong process.

But the US will learn from its mistake sooner or later and will return to the deal, he noted.

The Iranian chief executive warned that the USs measures were in the interests of neither its own people nor others.

Rouhani said that Iran was in contact with its fiends, including the EU, to find channels to keep economic transactions and to support foreign companies doing business in the country.

He once again said that Iran will remain in the deal as long as it reaps benefits from it.Baku, Azerbaijan, September 26

By Azer Ahmadbayli  Trend:

More and more means of exerting pressure are being activated to keep Iran in its lane regionally, or, with any luck, to end the reign of the countrys ruling authority.

The pressure is noticeable in many areas, beginning from sanctions and their visible consequences (fall of national currency, withdrawal of major businesses from the country etc.) and ending with dangerous events in Iran itself.

Also, the so-called Iranian Land Bridge is being tested for durability.

In Yemen, the government army, supported by the Saudi Arabia-UAE coalition, is pushing Iran-aligned Houthis, having forced them to leave six provinces by now.

Recently the Saudi-led coalition has launched a major offensive to recover the strategic port city of Hodeidah on the Red Sea in order to cut the supply of goods (and reportedly weaponry) to the northern rebellious provinces including the capital city of Sanaa.

In Syria, too, things are not going the way Iran wants. The agreements, reached previously during trilateral meeting in Tehran (Russia-Iran-Turkey) on the military crackdown of the last major stronghold of the anti-Assad rebel forces in Idlib, were dashed after the meeting of Putin and Erdogan in Russian Sochi, where another decision was made  to create a demilitarized zone and to separate Assads opposition from terrorist groups.

Iran really wants Assad to remain in power. If the moderate opposition in the Idlib cauldron is not destroyed today, tomorrow they may have a voice in the post-war political set-up of Syria and be able to participate in elections, results of which may be ambiguous for Assad.

Apart from that, Israel continues to regularly destroy, as it says, Iranian - and Hezbollah-affiliated military facilities in Syria. Even after the Russian intelligence plane was shot down last week, in which Russia accused the Israeli air forces, it is unlikely that something will change in the policy of Tel-Aviv. This has already been stated by Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman.

Nothing has changed and nothing will change. We have made it clear that we will not allow Syrian territory to become a front for Iran against the State of Israel, he said on Sunday, Times of Israel reported.

If, as Israel claims, Iran is really making efforts to establish some kind of military and intelligence infrastructure in Syria, then its attempts has failed as yet.

Enter Iraq.

The recent attack and arson of the Iranian Consulate in Basra and the offices of Pro-Iranian political parties and movements, as well as the July attacks on the headquarters of Pro-Iranian forces with chanting anti-Iranian slogans, suggests that Iran's influence in this country is not as strong as it seems at first glance.

However, the main issue for all forces acting in and around Iraq is the election of a new Cabinet and Prime Minister, which will determine the future policy of Baghdad, including that towards Iran.

Representative of the US State Department Heather Nauert warned the Iraqi Government in August that violating the sanctions regime against Iran could put Iraq itself under sanctions.

Considering that Iran is one of the three top trade partners of Iraq, a new Prime minister will have to make a difficult decision. The US will likely not accept a partial solution suggested by Baghdad that it will trade with Iran, but not for the US dollars; whereas Iran will get outraged if Baghdad after all will fully abide by sanctions to safeguard its own interests.

In this context it is necessary to pinpoint one more fact.

Iraqs Supreme Shiite spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali al-Sistanis office released a statement that it will not support any new prime minister chosen from the politicians who have been in power in the past years, without distinguishing between the party individuals or the independents.

Among others, Sistanis statement refers to leaders of the Fatah Alliance and the Abadi-Maliki Dawa party  the two Iran-supporting political powers in Iraq. Reportedly, both have already announced their withdrawal from electoral race for the post.

This can't but cause serious concern of Iran.

And finally, analyzing latest events in Iran itself, one can suppose that the card of national minorities, which account for about 40 percent in Iran, is being played now to rock the Iranian boat from inside and to make a mess by using ethnic factor. This, in turn, fits the general scenario of toppling the Islamic Republic.

During the attack of armed men on the participants of the military parade in the Arab-populated city of Ahvaz in the southwest of Iran on Saturday morning 29 people were killed and another 60 were injured. The group called the Patriotic Arab Democratic movement in Ahwaz claimed responsibility for the attack.

Bloodshed in Ahwaz can create a fertile ground for ethnic confrontation and cause a fierce backlash with unpredictable consequences, which is utterly dangerous for Iran in the current circumstances.

In this sense, one more threat for the Central Government may come from the Iranian Kurds, and there is every reason to believe so.

Iran attacked the base of an Iranian Kurdish opposition group in northern Iraq killing at least 11 (15) people and wounding many more, Iraqi Kurdish officials said, Reuters reported on September 8.

The Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI), an armed opposition group fighting for greater autonomy for Irans Kurdish community, is out of law in Iran.

Mustafa Hijri, the leader of PDKI, has pledged to intensify the armed and civilian resistance in response to the attack and called for greater unity of the Kurdish parties at a time when the Iranian regime is on the verge of collapse.

Dozens of Kurdish activists were arrested during a general strike in Kurd-populated cities west of Iran, organized in protest against a missile attack and the execution of a number of Kurds on those same dates, K24 reported.

In the past six months, Iran has hanged over 40 Iranian Kurds and sentenced just under a dozen other activists to death, a statement by Hengaw organization for human rights said, K24 reported.

Thus, mechanism for another potential ethnic clash has been switched on.

In Iran, the authorities believe that reasons of their failures and misfortunes are due to plots of the US or its regional allies. In response, the US State Department says: look in the mirror.Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 26

By Matanat Nasibova  Trend:

Russian President Vladimir Putins forthcoming visit to Baku clearly testifies that Russia is interested in long and close cooperation with Azerbaijan - the leading strategic and trade-economic partner in the South Caucasus, expert of the Center for Post-Soviet Studies of the Primakov Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences Farhad Ibrahimov told Trend Sept. 26.

Ibrahimov made the remarks on the eve of President Putins visit to Baku.

"During the visit, President Putin intends to participate in the Russia-Azerbaijan interregional forum tomorrow, during which several areas of cooperation, namely, military-political, economic and humanitarian, will be discussed, Ibrahimov, who is also Russian political analyst, said.

I think that within the economic cooperation, the sides will actively discuss cooperation along the North-South Transport Corridor, he said. I would like to stress that at the meeting with President Putin in Sochi in September, President Aliyev pointed out that cargo transportation along the North-South corridor has grown by 100 times.

Moreover, the two countries set a goal to increase the trade turnover up to $10 billion till 2024, Ibrahimov said. In fact, the task is not simple. But taking into account the implementation of large-scale regional and international projects in which Azerbaijan and Russia participate, negotiations and the signing of a number of important documents contributing to the development of Russian business in Azerbaijan, it will be possible to achieve the set goals."

In other words, Russia is interested in investing in Azerbaijan, he said. This proves once again that for Moscow, Baku is a political priority and an economic partner, and it is interested in maintaining stability in this region."

As for the breakthrough in the settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict following the visit, not to allow the resumption of hostilities between Azerbaijan and Armenia is the most important thing for Russia, Ibrahimov added.

"The military and political issues, in particular, the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict will be discussed during the meetings of the presidents of the two countries," he stressed. This issue remains topical amid the Moscow-Yerevan relations which are not very favourable.

Azerbaijan conducts independent and balanced foreign policy, he said. The country has reiterated that it does not intend to join any military alliances, so that Azerbaijan's joining the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) or some other alliance, will depend on initiatives and decision-making by the Azerbaijani leadership.In total 914,300 Georgians aged 15 and older took trips within their home country in the second quarter (Q2) of 2018, Agenda reported citing the National Statistics Office of Georgia (Geostat).

These people made 1.1 million visits on the territory of Georgia. The number of visits increased by 5.2 per cent in comparison to the same quarter of 2017.

These travellers spent 130.7 million GEL (about $49.79m/44.33m*) in total while travelling in Georgia, which is 12.9 per cent more compared to the Q2 2017. Domestic travellers used to spend 118.5 GEL per visit  a 7.3 per cent increase year-on-year.

People aged 31-50 were the most avid domestic travellers (36%), while the least people willing to travel were the elderly (6%), said Geostat.

In terms of gender, more women (55%) travelled around Georgia than men (45%) in Q2 2018.Government of Georgia will introduce a business philosophy of high ethical standards, Agenda reports.

An expression of Interest (EOI) was signed in New York today by Georgian Minister of Foreign Affairs David Zalkaliani and the President of the Grace Farms Foundation Sharon Prince.

However, a memorandum of understanding on the Introduction of Highest Ethical Standards in Business Conduct will be signed with the Grace Farms Foundation in Tbilisi in late October this year.

This event, which engages the leading US investment company leaders, underlines the favourable business-friendly environment in Georgia and leads to the acquisition of a completely different lure by the country through the introduction of the highest standards of ethical conduct. It will also increase the interest of transnational companies, serving as a prerequisite of increased inflow of foreign direct investments (FDI), read the press release published by the government of Georgia.

While in the US, Bakhtadze elaborated on the leading position rankings of Georgia in various international ratings. He noted that Georgia is a lead reformer and already a role model for many other countries.

"Georgia is an excellent example of democratic and economic transformation, stated Bakhtadze.Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Somali Minister of Foreign Affairs Ahmed Isse Awad have discussed the prospects of building up political and trade and economic cooperation on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement, TASS reports.

"While sharing opinions on the prospects of developing bilateral relations, the sides confirmed mutual intention to step up cooperation in the political, trade-economic and other areas," the ministry reported.

The sides highlighted the need to continue efforts to establish peace in Somalia. "The Russian side expressed support for the actions of the federal authorities and the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) in the counter-terrorism area," the Russian Foreign Ministry noted.An Iranian economic delegation headed by Hassan Danifar, an advisor to First Vice President held a meeting with Syrian Prime Minister, Imad Khamis, ISNA reports.

During the meeting, both sides discussed the prospects of developing economic relations, activation of joint investments plans between Iranian and Syrian businessmen, taking necessary measures to increase the level of trade exchanges, facilitating the process aiming at reaching the peak of exchanges and realization of mutual benefits.

Imad Khamis said, Distinct and deep-rooted political relations between Iran and Syria can strengthen the economic relations between the two countries and we invite Iranian companies to invest in Syria.Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi says Pakistan is upgrading its rail and infrastructure to facilitate smooth flow of goods with its neighbors, IRNA reports.

Pakistan Foreign Ministry statement said that the Minister made the remarks during the 25th Informal Meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Economic Cooperation Organization held on the sidelines of the seventy-third session of the UNGA in New York.



He further added that the Istanbul-Tehran-Istanbul corridor and the Pakistan-Iran-Turkmenistan rail link were being made functional, the statement said.



Recognizing the importance of the ECO platform, he said Pakistan enjoys fraternal and brotherly relations with ECO member countries.



These relations can be further strengthened with regional connectivity projects. In this regard the Minister highlighted CPEC as a great example of connectivity, the statement said.



The Foreign Minister, referring to the last 13th ECO Summit held in Islamabad in 2017 with the theme of Connectivity for Regional Prosperity underscored Pakistans priority for energy connectivity.



He referred to the fact that some countries in the ECO region were energy deficient while others were energy surplus. There was thus a greater need to initiate energy projects, it added.



The statement said Mr Qureshi also referred to energy projects in which Pakistan was already participating.

In order to strengthen trade ties. The Foreign Minister supported revisiting the ECO trade agreement, which was aimed at promoting trade liberalization within the ECO region.



He also supported strengthening ECO Transit Trade Framework Agreement, which would enable the region to function as a bridge between the North and the South, Europe and Asia, the statement added.



Foreign Minister Qureshi informed the meeting that out of Pakistans pledge of US$ 5 million to the ECO fund for the reconstruction of Afghanistan, an amount of US$ 2 million had already been paid to the ECO.The police of Copenhagen arrested on Wednesday two people on suspicion of assisting terrorist groups, including supplying the Daesh terrorist group with drones, the police said in a press release, Sputnik reported.

"Copenhagen police, in close cooperation with PET [the Danish Security and Intelligence Service], following an investigation performed an operation to detain two persons suspected of supporting terrorism abroad," the statement said.

According to the law enforcement, the detention and subsequent arrest of the suspects are connected with the case under investigation regarding the purchase of drones in Denmark and their transfer to IS militants in Syria and Iraq for combat use.

Both suspects are believed to be members of a cell engaged in supplying terrorists. The police did not provide any further details adding that this not in the interests of the investigation.

According to Danish Radio, both suspects, 29, are residents of Copenhagen known among radical Islamists in Denmark.Aoun made the remarks in an exclusive interview conducted this week with French daily Le Figaro, Albawaba reports.

Hezbollah doesnt play a military role inside Lebanon, and doesnt carry out provocations along the border with [Israeli-] occupied territories, he said.

Hezbollah is a Lebanese Shia militia and political force that enjoys considerable influence, especially in Shia-majority Southern Lebanon.

Answering questions about Hezbollahs role inside the country, Aoun said the groups sizeable weapons arsenal is linked to the regional situation, especially the conflict in neighboring Syria.

Hezbollah's support base constitutes more than one third of the Lebanese people, Aoun told Le Figaro, adding that international pressure on the group was increasing.Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 26

By Rufiz Hafizoglu - Trend:

A tourist bus turned over in Turkey's Mugla Province, Turkish media reported on Sept. 26.

As a result of the accident 11 people got injured, and eight of whom are foreigners.

There were Palestinian citizens among the injured.

All the wounded were taken to the city hospital.

The victims' health condition is assessed as normal.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizogluBaku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 26

By Rufiz Hafizoglu  Trend:

An unknown person has opened fire on passers-by in Istanbul, the Turkish media reported Sept. 26.

It is reported that three people were injured in the armed attack.

"All the wounded have been delivered to hospitals," the local media reported.

It is also reported that the Istanbul police are currently working to detain the criminal. Other details of the incident havent been reported.

A criminal case has been opened and an investigation is underway.

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @rhafizogluWhite House national security adviser John Bolton on Tuesday dismissed an EU plan for a special payments plan to circumvent U.S. sanctions against Iranian oil sales and pressed the SWIFT global payments messaging system to rethink dealing with Tehran, Reuters reports.

Speaking at a conference, Bolton also said the United States would be aggressive and unwavering in enforcing economic sanctions on Iran that are resuming after Washington withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. He said the United States would not allow the European Union or anyone else to undermine them.

In a statement after a meeting of Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and Iran on Monday - the countries still in the deal, the group said they were determined to develop payment mechanisms to continue trade with Iran despite skepticism by many diplomats that this will be possible.

Bolton, however, was skeptical that the European Union could create a special purpose vehicle - described by diplomats as a sovereign barter channel much like one used by the Soviet Union during the Cold War - that would sustain Irans oil sales.

The European Union is strong on rhetoric and weak on follow-through, Bolton said. We will be watching the development of this structure that doesnt exist yet and has no target date to be created. We do not intend to allow our sanctions to be evaded by Europe or anybody else.

Bolton also said the United States expected Irans oil customers to slash their imports of Iranian crude to zero by Nov. 4 before U.S. sanctions kick back in on Nov. 5. U.S. officials have sent mixed signals on whether the oil purchases needed to be eliminated by then or simply significantly reduced.

Banks and financial messaging services such as SWIFT must take a good hard look at their business with Iran and ask themselves whether it is worth the risk, Bolton said. SWIFT should follow the example of a growing number of businesses ... that reexamined their dealings with the Iranian regime.

Iran was barred from SWIFT, the Belgium-based Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, in 2012, crippling its ability to make international bank transfers crucial to foreign trade. After the 2015 nuclear deal, it was reconnected, but European officials have said they expect the United States to apply pressure on SWIFT to once again cut Iran off.US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday ahead of his meeting with Japanese President Shinzo Abe that the two countries have agreed to start trade negotiations, Sputnik reported.

"Weve agreed today to start trade negotiations between the United States and Japan. This was something that for various reasons over the years Japan was unwilling to do, and now they are willing to do, so were very happy about that," Trump told reporters on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

Last year, Japan had the third-largest trade surplus with the US after China and Mexico. The Japanese officials said they might agree to either reducing the number of exports to the US or increasing the volume of American imports.

The US appears to be more interested in the latter option  as the Trump administration is seeking to fix America's trade imbalances by promoting US exports rather than by disrupting international trade.KYODO NEWS - Sep 26, 2018 - 16:16 | Feature, All, Japan

Families of victims who died in the 2014 eruption of Mt. Ontake climbed to the summit on Wednesday for the first time since Japan's deadliest postwar volcanic disaster.

A day before the fourth anniversary of the eruption, which claimed 58 lives and left five other people unaccounted for, entry restrictions on a path to the summit were lifted at 10:30 a.m. and a group of around 30 relatives ascended the 3,067-meter mountain in central Japan to mourn for their loved ones.

They offered silent prayers in a memorial service and set up a cenotaph bearing the inscription: "The memory of this tragedy should never fade away."

"We've waited for this chance for four years. Until now, we had only been able to imagine (what the summit area was like) by looking at pictures, but it is very important for families of the victims to be able to go there," said Hideko Sherlock, 59, secretariat head of a group of relatives.

Observing the mountain peak where a destroyed stone statue remains, she said, "After standing on the summit, I felt how horrendous it must have been (at the time of the disaster)."

Families had been calling for a visit to the long-restricted summit area where many victims were found. Visitors are now allowed to climb some 600 meters from the ninth station to the peak during the climbing season that runs through noon on Oct. 8.

Junichi Horiguchi, 72, whose 37-year-old son Hideki was killed in the eruption, said, "I did not have confidence in my physical strength but I came here to mourn for my son."

"This is a beautiful mountain. Why didn't he bring us here when he was alive?" asked Horiguchi's 69-year-old wife Hiroko.

After setting up an evacuation shelter that can accommodate around 90 people and a loudspeaker to issue warnings, the local town of Kiso judged it can allow climbers to enter the summit area of the mountain straddling Nagano and Gifu prefectures.

Restrictions are still in place for other mountain paths leading to the summit from different locations.

The eruption occurred on Sept. 27, 2014, when the alert level for the volcano was set at 1, the lowest on a scale of five. Some relatives filed a damages suit in 2017 against the central and Nagano prefectural governments for failing to raise the alert level despite an increase in volcanic activity before the disaster.

Following the disaster, Japan's weather agency revised its standards and expressions on eruption alert levels. It also introduced new measures such as providing notifications of volcanic activity more swiftly.KYODO NEWS - Sep 26, 2018 - 07:03 | All, World

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Tuesday slammed as "economic terrorism" the sanctions reimposed on Tehran by the United States following its withdrawal from the 2015 international nuclear agreement.

"Unlawful unilateral sanctions in themselves constitute a form of economic terrorism and a breach of the right to development," he said in his address to the U.N. General Assembly.

"The economic war that the United States has initiated under the rubric of new sanctions not only targets the Iranian people but also entails harmful repercussions for the people of other countries, and that war has caused a disruption in the state of global trade," he added.

(Getty/Kyodo)

On May 8, U.S. President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the Iran nuclear accord and pledged "the highest level of economic sanctions" against Tehran in a bid to push its leaders back to the negotiating table for a more stringent deal to limit the country's nuclear and other activities.

Under the deal struck between Iran and six major powers -- Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States under Trump's Democratic predecessor Barack Obama -- Tehran agreed to curb its nuclear activities in exchange for the lifting of crippling economic sanctions.

Washington reinstated certain economic sanctions against Iran last month to push Tehran toward a tougher nuclear deal.

Without naming Trump, Rouhani on Tuesday accused him of having "xenophobic tendencies resembling a Nazi disposition" and suggested the U.S. leader's hostility to "multilateralism" shows his personal lack of intelligence.

"Confronting multilateralism is not a sign of strength, rather a symptom of the weakness of intellect -- it betrays an inability in understanding a complex and interconnected world," he said.

Earlier Tuesday, Trump slammed Iran over its nuclear program and support for militant groups in the Middle East, urging all nations to isolate the regime in Tehran as long as its "aggression" continues.

In his address to the General Assembly, Trump also defended the U.S. withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers as well as the reimposition of U.S. sanctions on Tehran, saying, "The Iran deal was a windfall for Iran's leaders."KYODO NEWS - Sep 26, 2018 - 21:39 | All, Japan, Feature

Japan will introduce more foreigner-friendly bus services in the run-up to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics by implementing an alphanumeric system to simplify labeling of routes and stops, according to the transport ministry.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism will draw up guidelines for the new nationwide system soon, with the government seeking to boost inbound tourism.

According to the draft guidelines, each bus route will be identified with up to three digits or a combination of up to four numbers and letters, the ministry said.

The information will be displayed on route maps and bus destination displays as well as at bus stops for local, airport and tourist bus services among others.

At present, bus operators mostly use Japanese characters combined with numbers, though some transport companies are beginning to use an alphanumeric system to help the increasing number of foreign visitors.

The Japanese government is stepping up efforts to attract more foreign visitors as a pillar of its growth strategy, with a goal of 40 million foreign visitors by 2020.

A total of 28.69 million foreign tourists visited Japan in 2017, up 19.3 percent from the previous year.KYODO NEWS - Sep 25, 2018 - 14:51 | All, Feature, Japan

Tokyo police arrested a 49-year-old woman on Tuesday after she admitted abandoning the body of her stillborn baby in a coin locker and leaving it there for several years.

Police officers found on Monday afternoon the decaying body of an infant wrapped in a plastic bag in a baggage locker near JR Uguisudani Station in Tokyo's Taito Ward, they said. After turning herself in, the woman was arrested for abandoning a body.

Police became aware of the situation when Emiri Suzaki entered a police station in neighboring Arakawa Ward on Monday morning and informed them she had abandoned the stillborn baby's body after giving birth to it four or five years ago.

"I panicked after I did not give birth to a living child and kept the body as I could not dispose of it," Suzaki was quoted by police as saying.

She told investigators she had been paying to keep the remains locked away and moved it between boxes in the same bank of lockers around Sept. 13, they said.

While the statute of limitations for the abandonment of a body is three years, the police arrested her because they deemed Suzaki's decision to move the remains as constituting a second disposal.

Suzaki said she decided to turn herself in after she was kicked out of the home where she was staying. She had left the locker key behind and thought someone could discover the body.

The police believe the body was abandoned shortly after the baby was born and are investigating the cause of death.

Read also...

Mother arrested for leaving 8-month-old daughter in freezing bathroom

5-yr-old girl dies from neglect despite pleas for abuse to stop

Postpartum support for mothers still hard to come by in JapanThe Idukki Collector warned the people living downstream the Idukki dam and along the banks of Periyar river to remain cautious.by Vladimir Rozanskij

It is the first time in the history of the Armenian Church. Apparent pressures from new leadership which emerged from the "velvet revolution". Karekin is deemed too friendly to former President Serz Sargsyan. Some monks accuse him of having manipulated the relic of Longinus' spear, the one that pierced Christ's heart on the Cross.

Yerevan (AsiaNews) - An agreement has been reached between the Katolikos (Patriarch) of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Karekin II, and the new leaders of the country, in power after the "velvet revolution" of last May, under which Karekin II will resign. The Armenian newspaper Zhokhovurd announced this on September 20, suggesting that the Katolikos would leave officially for health reasons.

Commenting on the news, the priest Vagram Melikyan, director of the communications sector of the Armenian Church at the Echmjadzin office, said that "we believe it is necessary to note that during the 27 years of history of the 3rd Armenian republic, all governments without exception have expressed due respect to the National Apostolic Church and its Katolikos, appreciating its work in favor of all the Armenians and the development of our State, preserving unity and national solidarity ". The statement suggests the disappointment of the ecclesiastical hierarchy for the protests and criticisms of recent months.

Last July 6, in fact, the residence of Karekin was besieged by a protest demonstration, organized by the movement gathered under the slogan "A new Armenia, a new patriarch", led by the leader Karen Petrosyan. This is a group linked to the new prime minister Nicol Pashinian, who last spring managed to involve the population in overthrowing the old ruling class. The Katolikos was in turn accused of connivance with "discarded" politicians.

Born in 1951, named Nersisyan Grigorevich Kritch, the Katolikos was ordained to the priesthood in 1972, in the middle of the Soviet era. After a period of study and service in Germany, Karekin returned to the great monastery of Echmjadzin, the Armenian "Vatican" on the threshold of the capital of Yerevan, before completing his studies at the Orthodox Theological Academy in Moscow. The Armenian Church is not in communion with the Orthodox, due to the ancient theological divisions of the Council of Chalcedon, but the relations were based on common loyalty to the Soviet regime.

Until 1999 he remained the vicar of his predecessor, the Katolikos Karekin I, to become the 132rd patriarch of the Armenians at his death (the Armenian Church is one of the oldest in the world). In the turbulent events of the Armenian politics of the post-Soviet years, the new Katolikos tried several times to propose itself with initiatives of national pacification.

The accusations against him mainly concern speculation that several treasures of the Armenian Church were expatriated. Such accusations would have been raised by some priests of the Church itself, like the hieromonk Koriun Arakelyan, one of the inspirers of the protests. The most infamous accusations is that a part of Longinus's spear was taken to give to a Russian mayor, a friend of Karekin. According to tradition, the lance of the centurion who penetrated the side of Christ on the Cross was brought by the Apostle Thaddeus as a gift to the Christians of Armenia.

Legend has it that those who own the Longinus's spear, called Geghard as the monastery in which it was kept, are destined to rule the world. The lance is exhibited today in the Museum of Echmjadzin, but protesters want it examined to verify its integrity. Former President and Prime minister Serz Sargsyan, to whom the Katolikos was very close, was charged with suffering from the delirium of omnipotence. In the first case in the history of the Armenian Church, to pacify the ecclesiastical world and the same society, Patriarch Karekin, would have accepted to resign despite his not very advanced age.French President Emmanuel Macron has stated that the most controversial Rafale deal was a "government-to-government" pact and he was not in power when the multi-billion-dollar agreement inked for 36 fighter jets between India and France.

In a press briefing on the sidelines of the 73rd edition of UN General Assembly session, Pres Macron was questioned if the Indian government had forced France or Dassault - the French aerospace leading company - that they had to select Reliance as the Indian collaborator for the Rafale deal.

India had penned an inter-governmental pact with France in September last year for procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets at a cost of around Rs 58,000 crore, nearly one-and-half years following Prime Minister Narendra Modi proposed during a visit to Paris. The delivery of the jets is slated to begin from September 2019.

"I will be very clear. It was a government-to-government discussion and I just want to refer to what Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi very clearly said a few days ago," Macron, who took charge as French President in May last year, stated reporters on Tuesday.

Macron stressed that he does not want to comment and he was not in charge at that time adding France has very clear rules.

He further said that this contract is part of a broader framework which is military and defense alliance between India and France.

In India ahead of LS polls 2019, PM Modi led ruling party BJP landed in a huge controversy over the Rafale deal after a report in the French media quoted former president Francois Hollande as asserting that the selection of the Reliance as a Indian company in the Rafale deal was done at the request of New Delhi.Today, the Administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the Hon. Mark Green, and the Secretary of State for the Department for International Development (DFID) of the United Kingdom, The Rt. Hon. Penny Mordaunt, M.P., announced 23 intended finalists for Creating Hope in Conflict: A Humanitarian Grand Challenge, at the 2018 edition of the Concordia Annual Summit in New York City.

The finalists emerged from a pool of 615 applications received from 86 countries, 48 percent of which came from lower-middle-income countries. About one-third of the applications involved projects led by women.

The finalists, who stand collectively to receive $5 million in funding, will now put their innovative ideas into action to implement solutions that will provide, supply, or generate locally safe drinking water and sanitation, energy, life-saving information, or health supplies and services to help the most-vulnerable and hardest-to-reach people affected by conflict.

USAID and DFID, which launched Creating Hope in Conflict as a multi-organizational partnership, today announced an additional combined investment of $10 million. In addition, the Government of the Kingdom of the Netherlands announced its commitment to join the partnership and invest $7.5 million in this effort, which brings the total contribution for the Humanitarian Grand Challenge to $32.5 million.

Grand Challenges Canada is implementing Creating Hope in Conflict on behalf of the investors.

The new commitment by the Dutch Government and the announcement of the 23 intended finalists are a testament to the power of partnerships to bring organizations together to respond more nimbly to complex emergencies and empower people to create better lives for themselves.

The Humanitarian Grand Challenge (humanitariangrandchallenge.org)

USAID and DFID launched Creating Hope in Conflict: A Humanitarian Grand Challenge to enable governments and the private sector to work together alongside affected communities to address the unprecedented magnitude of suffering around the world.

The 23 selected seed projects will receive grants of up to $250,000 each over a maximum of 24 months to support the validation and testing of new approaches. Final grants, subject to negotiation, will be signed later this year.

The finalists:

Iristick - Testing "smart" glasses that allow local health care workers in the Democratic Republic of Congo to receive real-time medical expertise remotely from doctors.

Union of Medical Care and Relief Organizations - Strengthening the resilience of health systems in Yemen and Syria-while diminishing reliance on diesel fuel-by integrating solar power, electronic-vehicle ambulance systems, and remote telemedicine services.

Murdoch Children's Research Institute - Developing CareNet in Yemen, a community-based network of support groups that promote the inclusion of children and young people with disabilities.

Comprehensive Community-Based Rehabilitation in Tanzania - Deploying 3-D printing technology to make high-quality lower-body prosthetics for people with disabilities in Tanzania.

Griffith University - Developing maggot-debridement therapy for effective wound care in Afghanistan, South Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.

Fundacion Accion Contra El Hambre - Implementing chatbot technology to diagnose and monitor malnutrition in Senegal.

Alseeraj for Development and Healthcare - Validating the need for a tele-microbiology system in Syria to enhance capacity for diagnostic microbiological testing and the analysis of results.

Yemen Relief and Reconstruction Foundation - Implementing high-tech water-purification and renewable solar-power systems in Yemen, with the goal of producing 1,000 gallons of safe drinking water a day.

Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research - Building and evaluating a safe-water optimization tool-by leveraging cloud computing and artificial intelligence-to ensure water is safe to drink at field sites in South Sudan, Nigeria, Bangladesh, and Malawi.

SurgiBox, Inc., Massachusetts Corporation - Manufacturing an inflatable surgical "mini operating room" that fits into a backpack, to enable safe surgeries to be done anytime, anyplace, piloted in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Uganda.

Change:Water Labs, Inc. - Validating and piloting a compact, portable, sewage-evaporating toilet that provides safe, private sanitation to homes with no power or plumbing in Panama, Lebanon, and Jordan.

OmniVis - Developing a water-based smartphone diagnostic device for Yemen and Haiti that uses DNA-amplification to detect the bacteria Vibrio cholerae, which causes cholera, in less than 30 minutes.

Enersion, Inc. - Piloting an inexpensive, electricity-free cold-storage box in India and Afghanistan that can keep essential food and medication fresh for more than 20 weeks.

Sun Buckets, Inc. - Testing a method to collect, store, and recover solar energy in portable containers for cooking, space-heating, and thermal pasteurization in Kenya.

Johns Hopkins University - Delivering a rapidly deployable telemedicine platform called Intelehealth to connect community health workers remotely with a network of doctors, with the goal of providing primary/specialist health consultations in hard-to-reach areas of Syria and Jordan.

Energy Peace Partners - Supporting renewable energy in Uganda and South Sudan by establishing the Peace Renewable Energy Credit, which monetizes renewable-energy generation from off-grid conflict settings, by linking robust international energy markets to fragile states.

WATAN - Designing and testing a low-cost, locally sourced, mobile, plug-and-play battery module to produce stable and renewable energy for health care in Syria and Turkey.

Deutsche Welthungerhilfe E.V. - Introducing hydroponic vegetable and fodder-production at the Zam Zam displacement camp in Darfur, Sudan, with methods that use 90 percent less water than traditional farming to improve food security.

Rainmaker Organization for Sustainable Development - Piloting a system of solar-powered water pumps and sensor-driven drip irrigation in villages across South Sudan to support the livelihoods of conflict-affected people.

Johns Hopkins University - Developing a tablet-based app called MIT Sana mHealth to provide guidelines and knowledge to healthcare providers who are treating diabetes and hypertension care in Syria.

ActionAid UK - Piloting a low-cost mobile platform, designed by women, to combat violence against female refugees in Jordan by reporting incidents and providing up-to-date information and awareness on rights, local services, and safe spaces.

Needslist - Implementing a chatbot program that aggregates real-time humanitarian needs from frontline responders, accessible to multiple stakeholders via secure database, piloted in Kenya.

Humanity Data Systems - Developing a process that simplifies the process of collecting large-scale data and feedback from the humanitarian community in Iraq, Niger, Syria, and Afghanistan.

###We have identified five energy stocks that are expected to be good bets given their top ranks and brokers' confidence.

The refusal by major producers to boost output despite pressure from President Trump amid tightening global supplies pushed oil prices to their highest since July 10 on Tuesday. West Texas Intermediate crude for November delivery ended the day at $72.27 a barrel in electronic trading. The commodity is within touching distance of its recent three-and-a-half year highs when it popped above $75 a barrel.

Oil Back Over $70

Most of the recent price jump could be attributed to United States refusal to issue any waivers on cutting crude imports from Iran by Nov 4 when sanctions are introduced against the countrys petroleum sector. In June, President Trump withdrew from a nuclear deal with OPECs third-largest producer and subsequently imposed financial sanctions on the Islamic Republic. The November deadline has stoked worries about an expected cut in Tehrans oil exports  currently at 2.1 million barrels a day  by around one million barrels and lead to a supply shortage in an already tight oil market.

At a meeting in Algeria on Sunday, OPEC or the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries  the international cartel of oil producers  and its allies did not commit to any output increase to compensate for the anticipated supply disruptions from Iran. Disregarding calls from Washington, the joint OPEC/non-OPEC (or the OPEC+) coalition said that they have no immediate plans to hike production and expressed satisfaction regarding the current oil market outlook, with an overall healthy balance between supply and demand.

Fast-falling production in Venezuela have added to the jitters. With the country tethering on the verge of an economic collapse, oil output has dwindled by more than 40% since 2016. Venezuela currently churns out around 1.4 million barrels per day, the least since the 1950s and much lower that its pledge per the OPEC-led supply cuts. Restrictive financial sanctions imposed by the United States on the Maduro regime over the past year have further strangulated the Latin American nations struggling energy sector.

Story continues

As it is, oil inventories in the United States have generally trended lower in a year and a half. In fact, stockpiles have shrunk in 50 of the last 74 weeks and are down more than 130 million barrels since April 2017. The gradual fall has helped the U.S. crude market shift from year-over-year storage surplus to a deficit. At 401.5 million barrels, current crude supplies are 13% below the year-ago figure though stocks are at the five-year average.

But There are Still Certain Downside Risks

The oil market, notwithstanding its recent rise, could be undermined by soaring production in the United States.

Volume from domestic oil fields (inclusive of shale) has risen more than 30% since mid-2016 to 11 million barrels per day  the most since the EIA started maintaining weekly data in 1983. In early February, oil production broke through the 10 million barrels a day threshold for the first time in nearly 50 years and has maintained the record levels thereafter.

While there is renewed optimism among oil companies amid the $70-plus WTI prices, crudes recent gains could become self-defeating as elevated realizations have already induced producers  especially American shale drillers  to ramp up activity. Together with the scheduled conclusion of OPEC/non-OPEC production cuts in December this year and we might be looking at another selloff in oil prices.

A rise in the oil drilling rig count points to a further increase in domestic output. An early gauge of future activity, rigs drilling for oil in America totaled 866 in the week to Sep 21, as per the latest weekly report by Baker Hughes, a GE Company. That's much higher than the year-ago tally of 744, indicating a drilling resurgence in tandem with the oil revival  a big concern for investors.

Growing concerns about demand growth amid escalating trade conflict between the worlds biggest oil consumers  the United States and China  also keeps weighing on the commodity futures.

Energy Investing is Tricky

One thing the oil market downturn has taught investors: nobody has much visibility into the future. So, when you think of something as a clear line of sight one quarter, it can soon be overshadowed by an unforeseen event.

To sum up, even as crude prices continue to make their way up, it is unlikely that the commodity will be heading much higher than $70 per barrel anytime soon. In fact, uptick in the number of oil rigs, ever stronger U.S. production, the ongoing trade war and the impending end to OPECs output cut agreement could make any oil price strength short-lived.

On the contrary though, the commoditys recovery to $70, predictably, has had a positive effect on stocks in the sector. In particular, savvy investors might view the price bump as the impetus the stocks need after freefalling for more than three years. Undoubtedly, still a long way to go, but improving crude prices may have already primed certain oil producers and linked entities for upward momentum.

Follow Expert Opinion

The volatility and uncertainty of oil prices make investment decisions difficult for individuals. With the future direction of the commoditys movement being anybody's guess, it might be a wise decision to go ahead with stocks preferred by analysts who have a deep fundamental knowledge and understanding of the industry and its companies.

Stocks with brokerage upgrades are often in for a good day and probably more. Consequently, a downgrade may indicate rough days ahead. Whatever the movement, the market tends to react to it. Also, research shows that stocks with broker rating upgrades outperform those that aren't upgraded and they almost certainly record better results than those stocks that get downgraded.

Here are the Stocks

With the help of our Zacks Stock Screener, we have selected 5 stocks that have been given Strong Buy/Buy rating by 80% or more brokers. A favorable Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) or #2 (Buy), which justifies a companys strong fundamentals, further adds value to these stocks. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Cactus, Inc. WHD is an oilfield services provider, which designs, produces and sells a variety of specialized engineered wellhead and pressure control equipments to upstream energy firms. The stock currently has a Zacks Rank #1. In the last 60 days, two earnings estimates moved north, while none moved south for the current year. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings has risen 16.6% in the same period.

Magnolia Oil & Gas Corporation MGY is an upstream operator in the Eagle Ford Shale and Austin Chalk formations in South Texas. The stock currently has a Zacks Rank #1. In the last 60 days, one earnings estimate moved north, while none moved south for the current year. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings has risen 70.5% in the same period.

Northern Oil & Gas, Inc. NOG is a non-operator explorer and producer with primary focus on the Williston Basin in North Dakota and Montana. The stock currently has a Zacks Rank #2. In the last 60 days, six earnings estimates moved north, while none moved south for the current year. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings has risen 34.1% in the same period.

PetroChina Company Limited PTR is the largest integrated oil company in China with operations in four segments: Exploration & Production, Natural Gas & Pipelines, Refining & Chemicals, and Marketing. The stock currently has a Zacks Rank #2. In the last 60 days, one earnings estimate moved north, while none moved south for the current year. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings has risen 1.6% in the same period.

Independence Contract Drilling, Inc. ICD conducts oil and gas land drilling operations for exploration and production companies. The stock currently has a Zacks Rank #2. In the last 60 days, two earnings estimates moved north, while none moved south for the current year. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings has risen 10.7% in the same period.

Bottom Line

For the novice investors, energy market volatility makes investing a precarious and panicky activity. However, the above-mentioned stock picks are expected to be good bets given their top ranks and brokers confidence.

The Hottest Tech Mega-Trend of All

Last year, it generated $8 billion in global revenues. By 2020, it's predicted to blast through the roof to $47 billion. Famed investor Mark Cuban says it will produce "the world's first trillionaires," but that should still leave plenty of money for regular investors who make the right trades early.

See Zacks' 3 Best Stocks to Play This Trend >>



Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report



PetroChina Company Limited (PTR) : Free Stock Analysis Report



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Cactus, Inc. (WHD) : Free Stock Analysis Report



To read this article on Zacks.com click here.



Zacks Investment ResearchCORONA, CA / ACCESSWIRE / September 26, 2018 / ADOMANI, Inc. (ADOM), a provider of advanced zero-emission and hybrid vehicle drivetrain solutions and purpose-built electric vehicles, announced today that the North Coast Unified Air Quality Management District (NCUAQMD) has received over 600 applications for replacement buses during 2018. Over one half of school buses for which districts applied were zero-emission all-electric school buses. Applications for zero-emission all-electric school buses received this year exceed the total applications from the previous year, which suggests greater interest in alternative-fueled and electric school buses throughout California's school districts.

Through its Rural School Bus Pilot Project, the NCUAQMD has made available funds of $10 million for rural school districts in California to replace older, polluting school buses with more energy-efficient school buses that reduce toxic emissions. While priority goes to small, rural schools, this year the program received an influx of applicants from mid-sized to larger school districts seeking funding for electric school buses. "It is truly amazing to see the response the program generates for California school districts of all sizes that are seeking funding for electric school buses," said John Roselli, VP of Sales and Marketing for ADOMANI. "Last year, the NCUAQMD awarded 19 grants for all-electric school buses out of 250 applications. This year, we anticipate similar numbers for awarded grants of all-electric school buses."

Approved in 2016 by the California Air Resources Board (CARB), the Rural School Bus Pilot Program allocates $10 million annually to help rural and small school districts purchase newer alternative-fueled school buses that help reduce greenhouse gases. The funding program is designed to support smaller and rural school districts that lack the discretionary funding and/or access to the more substantial funding sources that are often available to larger, urban school districts.

Story continues

About ADOMANI

ADOMANI, Inc. is a provider of zero-emission electric and hybrid vehicles and replacement drivetrains that is focused on reducing the total cost of vehicle ownership. ADOMANI helps fleet operators unlock the benefits of green technology and address the challenges of traditional fuel price instability and local, state and federal environmental regulatory compliance. ADOMANI designs and causes to be designed advanced zero-emission electric and hybrid drivetrain systems for use in new school buses and medium to heavy-duty commercial fleet vehicles.

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Statements made in this press release that relate to future plans, events, financial results, prospectus or performance are forward-looking statements as defined under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. While they are based on the current expectations and beliefs of management, such forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the expectations expressed in this press release, including the risks and uncertainties disclosed in reports filed by ADOMANI with the Securities and Exchange Commission, all of which are available online at www.sec.gov. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, are statements that could be deemed forward-looking statements, including statements containing the words "planned," "expects," "believes," "strategy," "opportunity," "anticipates," "outlook," "designed," and similar words. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof. Except as required by law, ADOMANI undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect new information, changed circumstances or unanticipated events.

INVESTOR RELATIONS CONTACTS:

ADOMANI, Inc.

Kevin Kanning

V.P. of Investor Relations

(650) 533-7629

Kevin.k@ADOMANIelectric.com

Hayden IR

James Carbonara

Partner

(646) 755-7412

james@haydenir.com

ADOMANI, Inc.

Michael K. Menerey

Chief Financial Officer

(626) 483-3280

mike.m@ADOMANIelectric.com

SOURCE: ADOMANI, Inc.Sept 26 (Reuters) - China U-Ton Holdings Ltd:

* REFERS TO UNIT'S APPLICATION FOR ARBITRATION TO THE SHIJIAZHUANG ARBITRATION COMMISSION AGAINST CHINA MOBILE GROUP HEBEI CO

* CLARIFY THAT TOTAL SUM FOR ARBITRATION WHICH HEBEI CHANGTONG APPLIED FOR REPAYMENT FROM CHINA MOBILE HEBEI AMOUNTED TO ABOUT RMB105.95 MILLION Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage:The Danske Bank logo is seen in Copenhagen, Denmark September 25, 2018. Ritzau Scanpix/Mads Claus Rasmussen via REUTERS

By Teis Jensen and Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Denmark has bolstered defenses against shocks to its financial system after a risk-assessment body said the sector's stability could be threatened by the Danske Bank (DANSKE.CO) money laundering scandal.

Danske Bank's CEO resigned last week after an inquiry revealed that 200 billion euros ($235 billion) of payments had been moved through its Estonian branch over a period of eight years, many of which the bank said were suspicious.

The case is a risk for Denmark's entire financial sector, the Systemic Risk Council, which monitors threats to the stability of the country's financial system, said on Tuesday.

It advised the government to double the cash cushion financial firms must hold to protect against economic shocks, to 1 percent of risk-weighted exposure, partly because of the Danske Bank case and partly because of increasing risks in banks' overall lending.

"The Danish financial system is highly affected by developments and risk perception in international markets. That is why the Danske Bank money laundering case poses a risk to the entire sector and to Denmark's international reputation," the council said.

The warning was heeded by the Government, which raised the buffer to 1 percent with effect from Sept. 30, 2019, giving the banks a year to meet a requirement that the Systemic Risk Council says adds 7 billion crowns ($1.1 billion) to their existing regulatory equity requirements.

The "vast majority" of banks will be able to comply with the new requirement, given the sector's excess capital adequacy was 129 billion crowns in mid-2018, the council said.

Story continues

Business minister Rasmus Jarlov, meanwhile, said that Denmark's Financial Services Authority (FSA) could have been more critical in its examination of Danske Bank.

"I don't understand that the authorities in Denmark and in Estonia have not reacted stronger to the many warnings that there have been," Jarlov told an open parliament committee meeting on Tuesday.

He said that the FSA's reopened investigation of the case would look at whether the bank could be held responsible for having given wrong information to the regulator and that he is ready to assign the resources necessary to get to the bottom of the case.

GRAPHIC: Danske Bank credibility falls - https://reut.rs/2xB4RiX

PARLIAMENTARY HEARING

The bank's management was on Tuesday invited by parliament's business committee to explain its actions to an open hearing.

Under Danish law no one is obliged to participate in public hearings or comment under oath at them. The bank has yet to decide whether it will participate, a spokesman said.

The money laundering scandal has also hit Danske Bank's credibility among Danes, figures from polling firm Voxmeter showed on Tuesday.

The percentage of Danes who find the bank credible fell to 46 percent last week, by far the lowest level since recordings began in 2008 and much lower than peers Jyske Bank (JYSK.CO) and Nordea (NDA.ST) at 80 percent and 64 percent respectively, Voxmeter said.

Its figures suggest that the bank's image crisis is worse than after the 2008 financial crisis, when the Danish government had to give a guarantee to the bank's dollar creditors when international loan markets froze.

"This new case is being seen as a breach of trust by customers, and trust is a strong driver for a bank's business," said Voxmeter CEO Christian Stjer.

Weakening investor confidence in the bank could hurt its credit rating, DBRS said on Tuesday, while Fitch lowered the outlook for the bank's 'A' credit rating to negative from stable to reflect the potential impact of the scandal.

GRAPHIC: Nordic banks by market value - https://reut.rs/2xAmjEi

($1 = 0.8503 euros)

($1 = 6.3278 Danish crowns)

(Editing by Alexander Smith and David Goodman)Data-center REIT Digital Realty Trust Inc. DLR has announced a deal to acquire Ascenty, a data-center provider in Brazil, in a transaction valued at around $1.8 billion. The transaction will be carried out by the companys Brazilian subsidiary  Stellar Participacoes Ltda.  which will acquire Ascenty from private equity firm Great Hill Partners. The deal is expected to close in fourth-quarter 2018.



Digital Realty has also entered into an independent bilateral equity commitment letter with a Brookfield Asset Management affiliate, per which Brookfield has committed to fund half of the initial equity investment. This is estimated to be approximately $613 million. In exchange, Brookfield will own 49% of the joint-venture entity which is likely to own Ascenty.



Although Ascentys buyout will likely be initially dilutive to financial metrics, the company expects it to be accretive over the intermediate term. Further, the move is projected to be accretive to Digital Realty's long-term growth rate.



Notably, Ascenty has an in-service portfolio of eight premier data centers in the key Brazilian metro areas of Sao Paulo, Campinas, Rio de Janeiro and Fortaleza. Its portfolio consists of 106.2 megawatts of total planned capacity. Of this, 39.2 megawatts of capacity is currently in-service, 34.0 megawatts of capacity under construction, while 33.0 megawatts of potential additional capacity. Moreover, its options or leases on five separate sites marks up to an estimated incremental 66.5 megawatts of potential future growth capacity.



Majority of Ascentys facilities meet internationally recognized facility and service standards, and this helps the company serve a blue-chip customer base, including leading global hyperscale cloud providers. In fact, more than 90% of Ascenty's contractual cash rent comes from customers whose parent entities have investment-grade or equivalent credit ratings.

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With leases representing 75% of Ascenty's contractual cash rent being denominated in U.S. dollars, there is less foreign currency exposure. Also, its proprietary ~ 4,500-kilometer fiber optic network gives competitive advantage.



Further, with a favorable macroeconomic environment and demographic factors, including working age population growth and fast digitization, the Latin American region is likely to experience healthy data-center growth. In fact, Brazil is likely to emerge as Latin America's technological hub. Therefore, the buyout of Ascenty will offer Digital Realty the scope to capitalize on this favorable environment. Also, combining of Ascenty business with Digital Realty's global operating platform is likely to result in substantial cost efficiencies.



Separately, Digital Realty priced an underwritten public offering of 8.5 million shares of its common stock, being offered in connection with the forward sales agreements, at a price of $113.00 per share.



Notably, data-center REITs might continue experiencing a boom market with growth in cloud computing, Internet of Things and big data, and an increasing number of companies opting for third-party IT infrastructure. Additionally, the projected growth rates for the artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicle and virtual/augmented reality markets will remain robust over the next five-eight years.

These factors are anticipated to be significantly conducive to growth of data-center REITs, such as Digital Realty, Equinix, Inc. EQIX, CyrusOne Inc. CONE, CoreSite Realty Corp. COR and others.



Digital Realty is poised to benefit from this solid demand for data centers through accretive acquisitions and development efforts. Last year, the company completed the merger with DuPont Fabros, and has also enhanced its presence in Europe, Australia and Asia in recent years through the development of high-quality facilities. Nevertheless, aggressive pricing pressure is likely to continue in the near future. Also, it has a substantial debt burden and hence, rate hike remains a key concern.



Digital Realty currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Shares of the company have outperformed the industry it belongs to, in the past three months. The stock has gained 6.1%, while the industry has declined 1.1%. You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.











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Zacks Investment ResearchDuke Realty Corporation DRE recently announced its plan to construct a build-to-suit logistics facility in the Moreno Valley. The property will be situated at the meeting point of Nandina Avenue and Perris Boulevard.



The facility will be located at 24921 Nandina Avenue and comprise 340,010 square feet of space. Construction begins from October and the property is expected to be delivered by September 2019. Notably, Duke Realty had acquired land comprising 14.42 acres of space for this purpose.



Duke Realty has a decent portfolio in Southern California and this development will expand the companys offerings in the Inland East submarket. Since its entry in the area in 2011, the company has made strategic efforts to expand its offerings in the region through a variety of acquisitions and developments. At present, it has around 10.5 million square feet of logistics facilities in its portfolio, including properties which are under development.



The industrial real estate segment has witnessed robust growth in recent times, owing to a healthy manufacturing environment amid higher consumer spending and recovering job market. The prevalent e-commerce boom has also triggered demand for distribution centres and logistic facilities, which is further driving demand for Industrial space. This is opening up growth opportunities for industrial REITs, including Prologis, Inc. PLD, Duke Realty, Terreno Realty TRNO and Liberty Property Trust LPT.



Further, the propertys supreme location will support its occupancy level. Elevated demand in the region, backed by factors such as strong labor pool, huge chunks of space and modest pricing will ensure continued revenues. This is also anticipated to benefit the company and boost its long-term growth prospects.



Also, shares of the company have outperformed the industry, year to date. In fact, its shares have gained 3.2% against the industrys decline of 3.1% during the same time frame.





Story continues





Duke Realty currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.



The Hottest Tech Mega-Trend of All



Last year, it generated $8 billion in global revenues. By 2020, it's predicted to blast through the roof to $47 billion. Famed investor Mark Cuban says it will produce "the world's first trillionaires," but that should still leave plenty of money for regular investors who make the right trades early.



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Zacks Investment ResearchFILE PHOTO - Jim Hackett (L), President and CEO of Ford Motor Company, speaks at the Ford press preview at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, Michigan, U.S., January 14, 2018. REUTERS/Brendan Mcdermid

By Ben Klayman

DEARBORN, Mich. (Reuters) - With its stock trading near a 6-year low late last month, Ford Motor Co (F.N) CEO Jim Hackett gathered the automaker's top 300 executives near its headquarters in Michigan for a global leadership meeting.

Hackett's message: Ford must put in motion plans to restructure its business now in order to secure promised costs savings, Ford executives present at the meeting said.

"We have clarity of purpose and now it's time to take action," Hackett told Reuters in an interview.

A key part of that plan to save money calls for Ford to deepen partnerships with other automakers around the world to share factory floor capacity and develop vehicles together, Ford executives told Reuters.

Specifically, they said Ford is engaged in talks with Germany's Volkswagen AG (VOWG_p.DE) and India's Mahindra (MAHM.NS) about expanding product and technology alliances.

With Volkswagen, discussions are focused on how to expand a commercial vehicle tie-up they previously announced to include collaboration in South America and Europe - where Ford is losing money - and co-develop other types of vehicles, according to a Volkswagen executive and two sources familiar with Ford's thinking who asked not to be identified.

Pablo Di Si, chief executive for Volkswagen in Latin America, told Reuters the companies are studying a partnership in Brazil and the talks are "advancing positively," although he did not expect an announcement until 2019.

A VW spokesman declined further comment on the alliance discussions.

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An expanded alliance would give Volkswagen access to some of Ford's most profitable vehicles, including the Transit commercial vans and Ranger compact pickup trucks, said the two sources. VW could also help Ford strengthen its money-losing South American and European operations by combining vehicle production in those markets, the sources said.

Separately, product sharing talks are underway with Mahindra & Mahindra, including using the Indian automaker as a benchmark to bring down supplier costs in the region, two other people familiar with Mahindra's plans said. The first vehicle from the platform they are jointly developing will likely be launched in 2020, they added.

A spokesman for Mahindra did not respond to a request for comment.

The twin efforts are meant to help remake Ford in conjunction with the $11 billion restructuring it outlined for the next three to five years. Ford needs to improve profitability because it is investing billions of dollars to develop electric and self-driving vehicles, and gearing up for a major roll out of products over the next two years.

Graphic: https://tmsnrt.rs/2xKteeb

Hackett, who recently spoke with the heads of Volkswagen and Mahindra, told Reuters the alliance talks are going well and hold a lot of promise for Ford. He declined to comment on specific deal structures being discussed or locations, however.

Broader product and cost-sharing deals with Volkswagen and Mahindra could allow the No. 2 U.S. automaker to reduce the number of different vehicles it builds and shrink engineering and purchasing costs, Ford executives said.

Fewer vehicle architectures, combined with increased numbers of electric vehicles, would also help Ford reduce the number of plants and employees it needs for that work over the next several years, according to the two sources familiar with Ford's thinking.

The moves are aimed to help Ford hit its goal of doubling global pre-tax profit margins to 8 percent by 2020, up from 4.3 percent in the second quarter of this year.

Hackett remains under pressure to show results. The stock is down about 24 percent this year.

"Hackett's job really is to cut the costs," said Edgar Wachenheim III, chairman of Greenhaven Associates, which is Ford's ninth largest investor with almost 33 million shares at the end of June. "You have this possibility that Hackett can eliminate the $4.5 billion of losses (in its weaker operations) that were there in 2017 and the earnings will shoot up."

The capital demands currently in the industry have never been greater, Ford executive vice president Joe Hinrichs told Reuters at the company's headquarters outside Detroit.

"A big opportunity is around leveraging other people's strengths," Hinrichs, who is president of global operations, said of the alliances. "There's a lot of opportunity to share capital, share engineering resources."

Ford and Volkswagen said in June they were discussing whether to jointly develop and build a range of commercial vehicles, including vans. The commercial vehicle deal is a "quick win" and more will follow with VW, said Hau Thai-Tang, Ford's executive vice president in charge of Ford's product development.

"If you look on paper, we complement each other really well," he said of Ford and Volkswagen. "There's opportunities for some synergies without us stepping on each other."

Alliances also offer automakers the chance to share the costs, Hinrichs said.

"Everyone wants higher capacity utilization, but they want someone else to come to their capacity, and so we have to work through that," he said.

In Europe, Ford's Mondeo sedan and S-Max, C-Max and Galaxy minivans are set to be phased out when they reach the end of their product lives over the next several years, two other people close to the company said. That will ultimately lead to capacity cuts and job losses at assembly plants in Valencia, Spain and Saarlouis, Germany, the sources said.

The level of optimism at the annual leadership meeting last month about Ford's transformation was high, and now those executives want to get the message out more broadly to employees, according to Ford's Thai-Tang.

"We have the right plan," he said. "We now have to go execute and execute quickly."

(Reporting By Ben Klayman, Additional reporting David Shepardson in Washington, Laurence Frost in Paris, Aditi Shah in New Delhi, Marcelo Alonso Rochabrun in Sao Paulo and Edward Taylor in Frankfurt; Editing By Joseph White and Edward Tobin)National flags of Japan and the U.S. are seen in front of a monitor showing a graph of the Japanese yen's exchange rate against the U.S. dollar at a foreign exchange trading company in Tokyo, Japan, January 23, 2017. REUTERS/Toru Hanai/Files

By Yoshifumi Takemoto

TOKYO (Reuters) - The start of a second round of trade talks between Japan and the United States will be delayed until after fresh tariffs imposed on China by the United States come into force on Sept. 24, a Japanese government source told Reuters.

The talks between Japanese Economy Minister Toshimitsu Motegi and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer had been scheduled for Sept. 21, but now will be delayed by three or four days, said the source with direct knowledge of the schedule.

He asked not to be identified because he is not authorized to talk to the media.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and President Donald Trump are expected to meet on the sidelines of a U.N. General Assembly General Debate next week.

Tokyo wants to avert steep tariffs on its car exports and fend off U.S. demands for a bilateral free trade agreement that could force it to open sensitive markets such as agriculture. Japan instead want to persuade the U.S. to rejoin the multilateral Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Motegi and other Japanese policymakers on Tuesday called for a quick end to the U.S.-Japan trade war to avoid damaging the global economy.

(Reporting by Yoshifumi Takemoto; Writing by Tim Kelly; Editing by Kim Coghill)Donald Trump Kim Jong Un

Two Washington-based financial experts say that North Korea is increasingly using cryptocurrency to evade U.S. Sanctions.

According to Lourdes Miranda, a financial crimes investigator specialized in intelligence collection and analysis, and Ross Delston, an expert witness who specializes in anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism, Pyongyang is creating its own cryptocurrency and is likely also using popular cryptocurrencies like bitcoin.

Cryptocurrencies are being preferred by international criminals and for terrorist financing, and the country of North Korea is no exception, the duo said in a written statement to Asia Times. They said:

Crypto-currencies have the added advantage to the DPRK of giving them more ways to circumvent US sanctions.

They added, They can do so by using multiple international exchangers, mixing and shifting services  mirroring the money laundering cycle  to exploit international financial institutions that have correspondent banking relationships with the United States.

According to Priscilla Moriuchi, a former NSA cybersecurity official, North Korea is earning around $15 million to $200 million by mining and selling cryptocurrencies. Speaking to The Hill earlier this year, Moriuchi said:

North Korea has pursued other avenues for obtaining cryptocurrencies as well, including mining of both bitcoin and Monero, ransom paid in bitcoin from the global WannaCry attack in May and even commissioning a cryptocurrency class for North Korean students in November.

North Korea bitcoin cryptocurrency

Now, per the Asia Times report, Miranda and Delston stated that North Korea could use the most popular cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, or the countrys government could create its own.

Having their own crypto-currency would also facilitate their ability to open online accounts under the guise of a non-adversarial nation using anonymous communication to conceal the users locations and usage on the internet, they stated.

Story continues

The researchers also said that the country would create its own blockchain in order to alter their public record of transactions to show that these transactions are coming from legitimate sources. Further, the country would create its own cryptocurrency wallet services.

Explaining about the making of successful exchange of crypto into fiat currencies  all the while undetected  the pair said that North Korean-mined cryptocurrencies would be laundered onto European exchanges, enabling the rogue nation to obtain USD with none of those pesky sanctions attached. The investigators are not sure about the current scale of North Koreas crypto-currency operation.

As CCN reported, Americas rivals including Iran, North Korea, Russia, and Venezuela have recently turned to cryptocurrencies in order to counter economic pressure from the U.S. and its allies.

For example, the petro, an oil-backed cryptocurrency announced by Venezuelas president, Nicolas Maduro, was banned in the United States. Earlier in May, President Trump issued an executive order banning American citizens from buying, trading, or dealing with the petro cryptocurrency in light of recent actions taken by the Maduro regime to attempt to circumvent U.S. sanctions by issuing a digital currency.

Also, Iran has recently revealed the details of its national cryptocurrency in response to U.S.-led economic sanctions. Irans future cryptocurrency is allegedly backed by the fiat Rial and is developed on the Linux Foundation-led open-source Hyperledger Fabric technology, the report said.

Featured Image from U.S. Government



The post North Korea is Using Cryptocurrency to Evade U.S. Sanctions: Experts appeared first on CCN.

* QP announces new increase in LNG output capacity

* New project to be completed by end 2023, early 2024

* Plan will strengthen Qatar amid row with Gulf neighbours

* (Adds details on foreign companies in paragraph 15)

By Hadeel Al Sayegh

DUBAI, Sept 26 (Reuters) - Qatar announced plans on Wednesday to boost its liquefied natural gas (LNG) production capacity, which will put the tiny state on a par with top energy exporters in an apparent show of strength amid a protracted political row with Gulf neighbours.

Qatar is one of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting countries smallest producers but is also one of the most influential players in the global LNG market due to its massive output capacity and gas reserves.

Qatar Petroleum (QP), the world's top supplier of LNG, said it was adding a fourth LNG production line to raise its output capacity from the North Field, to 110 million tonnes a year.

This is an increase of around 43 percent from its current production capacity of 77 million tonnes a year.

"Based on the good results obtained through recent additional appraisal and testing, we have decided to add a fourth LNG mega train," Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, the CEO of the state energy giant, said in a statement.

"This will increase Qatars total production capacity from 4.8 to 6.2 million barrels of oil equivalent per day."

Russia, a major oil and gas producer, pumps around 11 million barrels of crude per day, while Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter, produces about 10.5 million bpd of crude.

The timeframe for completion to reach the new capacity is expected by the end of 2023 or early 2024, according to a source familiar with the project execution.

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Additional gas volumes available for exports will mean more revenue for the state budget and more cash for Qatar Investment Authority, the country's sovereign wealth fund, to invest abroad, the source said.

"The budget surplus will increase significantly reaching almost 160 billion Qatari riyals in 2024. This would more than cover the estimated external debt," the source said.

GROWTH AMBITIONS

For Qatar, which is locked in a dispute with four Arab states, broadening its investments outside the Middle East would cement its position as the worlds largest LNG supplier and help it to weather the boycott with its neighbors.

In June last year, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt cut diplomatic, economic and transport ties with Qatar, accusing it of backing terrorism, a charge which Doha denies.

Last year, QP said it was planning to develop additional gas from the North Field and build three new LNG mega trains, hinting at a possibility of adding a new train and further boost output potential.

QP is in talks with international oil companies for the new expansion project. Oil companies operating in Qatar now include ExxonMobil, Total and Royal Dutch Shell. The company will make a decision on the foreign partners by the end of 2018, QP's CEO had said.

In April last year, Qatar lifted a self-imposed ban on the development of the North Field, the worlds biggest natural gas field which it shares with Iran, last year and announced a new project to develop its southern section, increasing output in five to seven years.

The decision to boost its LNG output capacity came after Qatar was in talks to supply pipeline gas to Saudi Arabia and increase supplies to UAE, QP's CEO told Reuters in May. The plans to supply the two Gulf nations were halted due to the dispute but QP went ahead anyway with its LNG expansion instead.

The new project announced on Wednesday will produce about 32 million tonnes per year of LNG, 4,000 tonnes a day of ethane, 260,000 barrels a day of condensate, and 11,000 tonnes a day of LPG, in addition to approximately 20 tonnes per day of pure helium, QP said in the statement.

Since Qatar announced its initial plan, the market environment has improved. Forecasts of future oil prices are higher and forecasts of future LNG demand have grown stronger, particularly in Europe and China," said Giles Farrer, research director, at Wood Mackenzie consultancy.

"Another train could mean another partnership opportunity, furthering Qatar Petroleums international growth ambitions." (Additional reporting by Dmitry Zhdannikov in London; Writing by Rania El Gamal Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise and Elaine Hardcastle)Per media report, Starbucks Corporation SBUX is planning organizational reshuffling and lay offs. Notably, the company is likely to lay off non-retail employees at the vice president and senior vice president level.

In a memo last week, Kevin Johnson, the chief executive officer of Starbucks said that Starting next week and into mid-November there will be leadership shifts and non-retail partner impacts as we evolve the direction of teams across the organization in size, scope and goals.

Johnson also emphasized on increasing the pace of innovations, which is meaningful to the companys business, partners and customers. With growth prospects and fat returns, Starbucks has been streamlining its business and directing investments toward operations.

These efforts are aimed at reviving the companys sales in the United States, which has been declining over the past several quarters. In fiscal 2017, the companys Americas segment (accounting for 70% of the total revenues) posted 3% comps growth, down from 6% in the year-ago period. Also, in the first nine months of fiscal 2018, this division posted 2% comps growth, down from 4% in the year-ago period.

Backed by this latest restructuring initiative, the company intends to expand its margins as well. In fact, decline in margins has been a major concern for the company over the past few quarters. In the first, second and third quarter of fiscal 2018, Starbucks non-GAAP operating margin shriveled 170 basis points (bps), 80 bps and 230 bps, respectively. The margin contraction in third-quarter fiscal 2018 can be primarily attributed to a 130 bps impact from investments associated with the U.S. tax law change, product mix shift largely toward food and planned partner. Rise in cost due to investment in digitalization also dented the companys operating margin.

Price Performance

In the past three months, shares of this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) company have gained 12.5% compared with the industrys 3.1% growth. The companys operating fundamentals such as solid global footprint, successful innovations, best-in-class loyalty program, digital offerings and product innovations will continue to boost growth in the long run.

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Meanwhile, Starbucks is strengthening its product portfolio with significant innovations related to beverages, refreshment, health and wellness, tea and core food offerings. Evidently, beverage innovations have been significantly contributing toward Starbucks comps growth over the years. This apart, the companys efforts to offer more nutritional and healthy products to its customers are commendable.

Key Picks

Some better-ranked stocks in the industry are Chanticleer Holdings, Inc. BURG, Ruth's Hospitality Group, Inc. RUTH and Dine Brands Global, Inc. DIN, each carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of todays Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Chanticleer Holdings has an expected earnings growth rate of 12.9% for the current year.

Ruth's Hospitality Groups long-term earnings growth rate is projected at 14.3%.

Dine Brands Global reported better-than-expected earnings in the trailing four quarters, the average beat being 8.1%.

More Stock News: This Is Bigger than the iPhone!

It could become the mother of all technological revolutions. Apple sold a mere 1 billion iPhones in 10 years but a new breakthrough is expected to generate more than 27 billion devices in just 3 years, creating a $1.7 trillion market.

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Zacks Investment ResearchOur Mission

The Foreign Press Centers support the Department's mission by deepening global understanding of U.S. policy, society, culture, and values through engagement with foreign media. The United States Department of State has Foreign Press Centers in Washington, D.C. and in New York, New York. We promote the depth, accuracy, and balance of foreign reporting from the U.S. by providing direct access to authoritative American information sources. *The FPCs are receiving journalists on an appointment only basis. For assistance, please contact a media relations officer or email the collective dcfpc@state.gov*UPDATE:

The Micki Free concerts have been cancelled due to an unspecified medical emergency.

--

Two nights of Micki Free at Stargazers Theatre. Blues rock, doors open at 7 p.m. Saturday. Native American flute performance, doors open at 6 p.m. Sunday. Tickets for either $15 online, $20 at door, stargazerstheatre.com.

Micki Free says hes tired, though he sounds very awake.

I got back from Australia two weeks ago, the blues rock guitarist/Native American flutist says from his Phoenix home. Before that, I was in Canada. Get this, I gigged there at the Kitchener Blues Fest, then two days later, Australia. Three different time zones in two weeks!

But hey, I look at it this way. Someones gotta do it.

After all, he wouldnt want to let down the man who started him down his star-lined path. One thing Gene Simmons burned into my brain is my work ethic. This is actually my job.

Sometimes, the job takes him to shred alongside Carlos Santana, the idol he befriended along the way. This weekend the job is bringing him to Stargazers Theatre.

Saturday, hell rock with his band of heavy blues cats  musicians who, like Free, have mostly kept off the radar while rubbing elbows with some of the greats.

Youll hear me burn it down on guitar, Free says. Then I come out in regalia the next night.

Hell swap the leather and rags for Native American garb, the bandana for a feathered headpiece, the guitar for a flute.

His ink-covered arms suggest a full-time rocker, but Free, of Comanche and Cherokee blood, has been honoring his heritage more in recent years. His latest albums are the hard-charging Tattoo Burn Redux and the soft, entrancing Native American Flute as Therapy.

Free produces, writes and arranges. I do it all, he says, like Prince.

He was in Nashville recording the flute album when he got word of his friends death. That sent him down memory lane. Back to the Los Angeles clubs he frequented with Prince in the 80s. Back to the three-on-three pickup game in which he teamed with the purple legend, crushing friends Eddie Murphy and Charlie Murphy. (Thats Free in the Chappelles Show sketch, the True Hollywood Stories edition where Prince dominates.)

He joined the company by way of Eddie Murphy, who starred in Beverly Hills Cop, the soundtrack of which earned Free a Grammy. He was 29.

I climbed the ladder very early, he says.

It didnt seem long ago when he was a middle-schooler alongside his big sister, front row for Jimi Hendrix. I gotta be like that guy, Free recalls thinking. That was it.

That was the introduction to the also Keith Richards-inspired style he took up as a teen, turning heads. I was weird, I really was, he says. But I wasnt weird to me.

Most important, he caught the eyes of Kisss leader. With his opening band Smokehouse, Free says, he was doing a sound check when Simmons approached and told him: Youre a star. Should he find himself in L.A., Simmons said to look him up.

So Free did, meeting Simmons and his then-girlfriend, Diana Ross. She agreed to take the youngster on tour.

The fast track slowed around the time Free watched Dances with Wolves. He was feeling discombobulated, like part of me was crying out, he says. The film compelled him to visit a Lakota elder.

He sat with me for two days, Free says. He said to me, Its time for you to come home.

Sundays act will benefit One Nation Walking Together, the locally based nonprofit helping underserved Native Americans. Its one of several such benefits Free has done over the years.

He especially likes to talk to kids. If I can do it, you can do it, he tells them. Im nothing special, just a regular guy.

Seth Boster, The Gazette, seth.boster@gazette.comBy TheatreWorks, Thursday through Oct. 21, Dusty Loo Bon Vivant Theatre, Ent Center for the Arts, UCCS. Tickets: $45.50; $40.95 for UCCS faculty/staff, military and educators; $20 for youths 18 and under; Tickets.uccspresents.org or 255-3232.

The last and only time Nambi E. Kelley was in Colorado Springs was in September 2013, when she was starring in TheatreWorks production of August Wilsons Seven Guitars. Kelley has returned to make her directorial debut with the regional theater companys production of A Raisin in the Sun. The play opens Thursday and runs through Oct. 21 in Dusty Loo Bon Vivant Theatre at the Ent Center for the Arts at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.

The actress and playwright, who now can add directing to her long list of credits, splits her time between Chicago and New York City. Raised in Chicago, Kelley spent part of her childhood in the neighborhood where Lorraine Hansberry penned A Raisin in the Sun in 1959, based on the iconic 1951 poem Harlem by Langston Hughes.

I went to the same grammar school as Hansberry. Its still the same ground, but I was not there at the same time. Youre just a kid, and you dont realize youre growing up in the place where giants were born, said Kelley, 45. Im trying to bring my sensibilities of what it was like to live there to this play.

What happens to a dream deferred? the poem famously asks.

In the plays first scene, Hansberry defines the dreams of each character, focusing on whats at the core of those dreams  the seed, Kelley said. What happens to the person whose dreams are continually deferred is the question Hansberry is posing.

Kelley, the first black woman to direct a TheatreWorks play, said shes excited about the seed that the play is planting in the community, and what it will mean in the Pikes Peak region.

In a bigger sense, Hansberry was an activist. A lot of our cast members have taken up that pledge, planting their seed of what it means to be a person of color. It is activism. It is a part of the Black Lives Matter movement, defining what black lives are and how we matter in the crevices of America and not just the urban areas, she said.

The cast is composed of actors from Chicago, New York City and Colorado Springs. Kelley and TheatreWorks auditioned nearly 300 people to fill the roles of the plays Younger family. Calvin M. Thompson, a Chicago actor who starred with Kelley in 2013s Seven Guitars, was hand-picked by TheatreWorks for the role of Walter Lee Younger even before Kelley was asked to be director, she said. Its his fourth turn in a TheatreWorks production. Colorado Springs actress Lynne Hastings plays Lena Younger. New York-based actress Al-nisa Petty is Beneatha Younger, and Rashid Kamara plays Travis Younger.

Kelley brought in her dream team for the plays design team, which is 90 percent people of color, and includes Lawrence E. Moten III (scenic designer), Kathy A. Perkins (lighting designer), Naila Aladdin Sanders (costume designer) and David Samba (sound designer).

I definitely think this play has particular resonance for Colorado Springs, being that Colorado Springs is the setting for the new Spike Lee movie (BlacKkKlansman). Its unprecedented, coupled with the fact that you have a black female director and design team.

Kelley hopes the play will attract a diverse audience. Anyone who has a family, a brother, a sister, a mother, anyone who has suffered a loss or has wanted anything in their lives, has ever had a dream, is going to love the show.

MICHELLE KARAS, THE GAZETTE, MICHELLE.KARAS@GAZETTE.COMStudents walk on the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs campus in Aug. 2014 during their first week of the fall semester. Enrollment at the Colorado Springs university has increased by 66 percent since 2006. File photo by Christian MurdockVice President Mike Pence, left center, national security adviser John Bolton, U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, second from right, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, far right, attend the United Nations General Assembly, Tuesday.AURORA  A suburban Denver school district has agreed to an $11.5 million settlement after a middle school teacher acknowledged having inappropriate sexual contact with several students, district officials said Monday.

The settlement involving the Cherry Creek School District was approved by the school board Monday morning and will be evenly split five ways, with each victim receiving $2.3 million, district spokeswoman Abbe Smith said.

Brian Vasquez, who taught social studies at Prairie Middle School in Aurora for seven years, pleaded guilty in July to three counts of sexual assault and one count each of sexual exploitation and attempted sexual exploitation. He faces at least 40 years in prison when he is sentenced Friday, the Aurora Sentinel reported .

When police questioned Vasquez, they were initially only investigating accusations from one girl who said she had exchanged inappropriate text messages with the teacher. But Vasquez immediately offered the names of four other students and said the relationships included sexual contact.

Police interviewed the other girls over several days in August 2017 and largely confirmed the teacher's story. He was arrested and has been in jail since.

Investigators said much of the sexual contact happened inside the school, as well as in Vasquez's car at various spots around Aurora. One girl told police Vasquez groped her in class while he was teaching.

"We acknowledge that no amount of money can right the wrongs committed against these students by Mr. Vasquez," the school district said in a statement released Monday. "No student should ever suffer the injury and loss of innocence that these young women suffered as a result of the reprehensible actions of Mr. Vasquez."

The school district has been criticized for its initial response, and three administrators were charged earlier this year with failing to report the accusations against Vasquez.

The school's principal, assistant principal and a counselor were accused of conducting their own investigation, which included questioning a student with Vasquez present and repeatedly telling her that her accusations could ruin Vasquez's family and career.

Prosecutors said the girl then retracted her claims and was eventually suspended for what school administrators deemed were false allegations. They also said the school leaders made the girl apologize to Vasquez and give him a hug.

In a letter to parents Monday, schools Superintendent Scott Siegfried said the district has since strengthened its mandatory reporting procedures and trained all of its more than 9,000 employees how to identify signs of abuse.

Qusair Mohamedbhai, an attorney for the five victims, said Monday that his clients appreciate the policy changes, and "their lifelong trauma will hopefully never be experienced by another student in Colorado."Federally mandated background checks for all gun purchases, among other things, could curb the rising tide of shooting deaths in America, said Stephany Spaulding, the underdog Democrat challenging incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn for Colorados 5th District.

Spaulding offered her ideas on gun safety to dozens Tuesday night in Colorado Colleges Celeste Theater. She was joined on stage by Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action, a national nonprofit advocating gun control.

Growing up on Chicagos south side, Spaulding said, her brother and niece were held up at gunpoint on separate occasions. She said both instances caused her to fear for the safety of her family, a fear that has grown over the years.

We have eroded the responsibility of what it means to be owners of firearms, she said. And for me that is not Can I take away? or Should I take away your guns? but asking people to be responsible.

That responsibility could come in a federal mandate that anyone seeking to buy a firearm would have to pass a background check, Spaulding said.

Such a mandate across all 50 states could halve the number of suicides, domestic and police shootings across the country, Watts said.

Although momentum in favor of gun control legislation is growing, Watts said the advocacy work is trying.

I didnt realize there was this underbelly of American culture that would immediately start to threaten my lives, threaten sexual violence against me and my daughters, just because I wanted stronger gun laws, she said.

Spaulding  who is running to become the first Democrat, first woman and first African-American elected to the conservative district  also wants national red-flag laws that would allow friends or family members to contact law enforcement if a gun owner they know is likely to commit a crime.

Depending on the circumstances, officers then could take possession of the flagged owners firearms for 30, 60 or 90 days, pending a mental health evaluation, said Spaulding. Once an owner is cleared, he could retrieve the firearms, and no related charges would appear on his record.

Spaulding also said she wants to expand the definition of domestic violence, a significant indicator of those who might commit gun violence. In tandem with that legislation, she wants to ensure that those convicted of domestic violence could not own firearms.

Beverly Wenger and Tom Cunningham, among the dozens attending her town hall, said they agree with Watts and Spaulding.

These are no-brainer issues, Cunningham said.

Its very necessary, Wenger agreed.

Both clarified that such laws wouldnt take away anyones guns but would ensure that gun owners are suited to the significant responsibility.

Lamborn has fought strongly to uphold gun rights. He did not respond to multiple requests for comment, but his congressional website details his opposition to gun-control legislation passed by President Barack Obamas administration.

Unfortunately, during the last administration President Obama used executive orders to restrict law abiding citizens access to firearms, the site says. Instead of developing a coherent strategy to keep the American people safe from attacks by criminals and terrorists, the actions proposed by President Obama did little to make us safer and only inhibited the efforts of Americans to exercise their Second Amendment rights.

Obama had ordered that background checks include mental health records of would-be gun buyers and that more federal investigations be conducted into illegal online weapons trafficking, among other edicts.

conrad.swanson@gazette.com @conrad_swansonDeborah Ramirez is pictured in a 2011 photo posted to the Facebook page of Boulder's Safehouse Progressive Alliance for Nonviolence, where she worked as a victim advocacy coordinator. (Courtesy Safehouse Progressive Alliance for Nonviolence via Facebook)His skullcap blown off by blustery winds, Pope Francis is welcomed by Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid, left, on his arrival at Tallinn airport Tuesday.Ryan Parsell begins his role as Chief Public Information Officer for El Paso County beginning Monday. He succeeds Dave Rose, who held the position for 10 years. Courtesy photoScala Dei, or Stairway to God, a 12th century monastery that cultivated vineyards until 1835. After a 20th century wine renaissance, Scala Deis home of Priorat is producing some of Spains greatest wines. Photo courtesy of PixabayAshland is commissioning a new furnace, optimized for purifying micronized graphite powders



TORONTO, Sept. 26, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Great Lakes Graphite Inc., doing business as NovoCarbon Corporation, (GLK, NovoCarbon or the Company TSX-V:GLK, OTCQB:GLKIF, FWB:8GL) announces today an update on graphite purification operations with strategic partner Ashland Advanced Materials (AAM or Ashland) in upstate New York.

Highlights

Build is complete, commissioning has started for new furnace designed by AAM for graphite powder.

AAM has delivered six crucibles for volume thermal purification of graphite.

Evaluation of process equipment for spheronization and coating nears completion.

Commissioning of New Furnace

Following several months of design, engineering and construction, NovoCarbons strategic partner Ashland Advanced Materials is now in the process of commissioning a new furnace that they designed specifically for use with micronized and spheronized graphite powders. The new furnace design employs a substantially different approach that was developed with the goal of increasing throughput and driving down costs. It is anticipated that the throughput capacity of the new furnace will substantially address the near term volume requirements that have been provided by customer prospects.

Several hundred pounds of micronized graphite were recently delivered to Ashland for use in the commissioning of the new furnace design. Commissioning will provide actual data on performance and costs that will provide further substantiation for NovoCarbons financial model.

Dedicated Crucibles

NovoCarbon recently purchased six crucibles that were designed and custom-built by Ashland. The crucibles are being used by Ashlands facility for toll-processing (see news releases dated March 22, 2017 and July 18, 2017) NovoCarbons graphite powders. Dedicated crucibles completely mitigate any potential cross-contamination risk that could arise from shared-use crucibles.

The crucibles are designed for use in Ashlands batch furnaces and will facilitate the fulfillment of initial orders for high purity micronized graphite that are anticipated from manufacturers in the advanced materials and battery industries, based on their guidance. Having the crucibles available ensures NovoCarbons access to purification capacity during the commissioning period for the new furnace and beyond.

Evaluation of Process Equipment

Over the past two years, the Company has engaged in extensive evaluations of processing equipment for spherical graphite and for coating graphite. Over a half dozen spherical graphite equipment vendors from around the world engaged in these qualifications. As a result of this work, the Company has built an extensive knowledge base that will be used to inform the completion of the processing flowsheet required to manufacture coated spherical purified graphite.

Paul Ferguson, CEO of NovoCarbons US-based subsidiary said, In this first phase of commercial operations we will be expanding on the initial scope of operations that we had discussed with Ashland. We are collocating additional flowsheet components in one place, which yields obvious logistical advantages. While collocation will accommodate the manufacturing capacity that is required in the near term, the Company is continuing to scout for other potential locations for a dedicated facility in the Niagara Falls area and also in other regions.

The Company is also engaged in ongoing evaluations of alternative purification technologies with the goal of identifying highly scalable approaches that offer either improved economics or environmentally beneficial advantages, or both.

About NovoCarbon Corporation: NovoCarbon is a Clean Technology Minerals Processing Company supplying customers with innovative, high quality value-added carbon products.

There is no significant graphite production in North America now. As pricing and demand continue to rise, NovoCarbon is one of the first new domestic suppliers to a growing regional customer base. We continually work to deliver products of the best quality with outstanding customer service.

The Company is party to an agreement for long-term supply of high quality natural graphite concentrate from Brazil. NovoCarbon is presently working with an established US-based processor for toll micronization services. The Company has partnered with Ashland Advanced Materials for commercial-scale purification operations at Ashlands 110,000 square foot purification facility located in Niagara, New York.

Through our partner relationships, NovoCarbon began selling micronized synthetic graphite beginning in 2016 and now supplies micronized and high purity micronized natural flake graphite products to a growing customer base.

Further information regarding NovoCarbon can be found on the Companys website at: www.novocarbon.com .

NovoCarbon trades as GLKIF on the OTCQB market in the US and as GLK on the TSX Venture Exchange in Canada. There are currently 132,656,830 shares outstanding.

Note: The current legal name of the corporation is Great Lakes Graphite Inc., which is doing business as NovoCarbon Corporation until final approval by the shareholders and the TSX Venture Exchange.

For more information, please contact:

Paul Gorman

Chief Executive Officer, NovoCarbon Corporation (Canada)

Email: pgorman@novocarbon.com

Paul Ferguson

Chief Executive Officer, NovoCarbon Inc. (USA)

Email: pferguson@novocarbon.com

1-800-754-4510 x106

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Caution Regarding Forward Looking Information: Certain statements in this press release may constitute "forward looking information" which involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward looking information. When used in this press release, such forward looking information may use such words as "may'', "will'', "expect'', "believe'', "plan'' and other similar terminology. Forward looking information is provided for the purpose of presenting information about management's current expectations relating to the future events and the operating performance of the Company, and readers are cautioned that such information may not be appropriate for other purposes. The forward looking statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the ability of the Company to fulfill the orders and future orders, regulatory requirements, general economic, market or business conditions and future developments in the sectors of the economy in which the business of Great Lakes operates. The foregoing list of factors is not exhaustive. Please see the Company's financial statements, MD&A and other documents available on www.sedar.com , for a more detailed description of the risk factors. The Company undertakes no obligation to update publicly or revise any forward looking information, whether a result of new information, future results or otherwise, except as required by law.

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/75301309-f3ae-49e9-8b07-72aec5a81c70gmatwarriorju20 wrote:

Hey GMATNinja ! could you please help me solve this question.

Quote:

(A) A recent court decision has qualified a 1998 ruling that workers cannot be laid off if they have been given reason to believe that their jobs will be safe, provided that their performance remains satisfactory.

have (already) been

Quote:

(B) A recent court decision has qualified a 1998 ruling that workers cannot be laid off if they are given reason for believing that their jobs would still be safe, provided that their performance remains satisfactory.

are

are

in the future

Quote:

(C) A recent court decision has qualified a 1998 ruling that workers cannot be laid off having been given reason for believing that their jobs would be safe, provided that their performance remains satisfactory.

reason

Quote:

(D) A recent court decision has qualified a 1998 ruling that workers cannot be laid off having been given reason to believe their jobs to be safe, provided that their performance remains satisfactory.

What do the workers believe in (A)? That their jobs will be safe -- this makes it perfectly clear that the assurance of job safety extends into the future.

safe -- this makes it perfectly clear that the assurance of job safety extends into the future. What do the workers believe in (D)? Their jobs to be safe -- here we lose that future tense component.

safe -- here we lose that future tense component. So were the workers simply told that their jobs were safe at that moment ? (Worker: "Hey, you told me my job was safe!" Employer: "Yes, it was safe back when I told you that... but I never said that it WILL be safe in the future... sorry!")

Quote:

(E) A recent court decision has qualified a 1998 ruling that workers cannot be laid off given reason to believe that their jobs will still be safe, provided that their performance remains satisfactory.

It makes it sound like the workers cannot be laid off BECAUSE of their reason to believe that their jobs will be safe .

. But that's not right -- it's the 1998 ruling that prohibits workers from being laid off IF they've been giving such assurance.

that prohibits workers from being laid off IF they've been giving such assurance. Again, the straightforward conditional structure in (A) makes the logical meaning more clear.

The pronoun "their" is the first thing that jumps out at me. But it correctly refers to "workers" in all five choices, so no luck using the pronoun as a decision point. In fact, I don't see any DEFINITE errors in any of the five choices, so let's start comparing our options:This looks logical to me. Employers are trying to lay off the workers now, but the workersgiven assurance of their job security (at some time in the past).Hang on to (A).The present tense ("are") is a problem here because it suggests that employersgiving the workers assurance of their job security AT THE SAME TIME that the employerstrying to lay off the workers! ("Hey, your job is safe... and you're fired!")Also, the "would" makes it sound like we have a conditional--as if we are expecting ANOTHER "if" statement (i.e. "workers cannot be laid off IF they are given reason for believing that their jobs would STILL be safe IF ______"). The future tense "will" expresses the intended meaning more clearly -- at some time in the past, the workers were given reason to believe that their jobs will be safeEliminate (B).Here it sounds like the "having been given reason..." part is just some extra, unrelated information (workers cannot be laid off according to the 1998 ruling... oh and by they way, they have been given reason for believing that their jobs would be safe). The simple conditional structure in (A) makes it clearer that thethe workers cannot be laid off is because they have been given assurance of their job security.And again, "would" isn't ideal. Eliminate (C).In (A) we have, "reason to believe that their jobs will be safe," but here we have "reason to believe their jobs to be safe":Also, once again, the simple conditional construction in (A) expresses the intended meaning more clearly than the "having been" construction that we have here. So we have a couple reasons to ditch (D) in favor of (A).At best, the function of the "given..." part is unclear:Lastly, the "still" makes it sound like something is missing (i.e. "... their jobs will still be safe IF/WHEN _____"), giving us one final vote against (E).That leaves (A) as the best option!_________________mun23 wrote:

Investment Advisor: It is well-known that investing in mutual funds reduces portfolio risk through diversification. It is also true that past investment performance is often related to future investment prospects. Therefore, to help my clients earn high returns with low risk, I select a group of mutual funds that meet the clients objectives and then invest the clients assets in the fund that has delivered the highest returns in this group over the past 2 years.



Which of the following statements, if true, would demonstrate a serious flaw in the approach of the Investment Advisor?



(A)Managers of many mutual funds that have delivered the highest returns over the past several years have already used up their best investment ideas and are unlikely to sustain this level of performance in the future.

(B)Mutual funds span a wide spectrum of investment styles and performance objectives and no single fund is suitable for every investor.

(C)Many individual investors choose to manage their own portfolios rather than consult an investment advisor.

(D)The funds that have had the strongest past performance tend to continue to outperform other funds with similar objectives for many years in the future.

(E)The number of clients served by the investment advisor has declined by nearly 50% over the past 5 years.



Need explanation.............

This is the correct answer because it is directly attacking the assumption that the argument is making. If the investments are unlikely to maintain the same levels of performance then investing in the mutual funds which have given excellent results in the past will not deliver the same performance in future, thus, clearly weakening the argument.



Even if a single fund is not suitable for every investor, the group of investments can still give good results. So, our conclusion is not getting weakened.

Not relevant, we are concerned with only the investments made by the investment advisor

This is doing the opposite, (D) will strengthen the conclusion made by the investment adviser.

The number of clients may have been reduced, but the investment adviser could still deliver good investments in the past. This choice will have no effect on the conclusion. The clients that he/she may get at present may get good returns on their investments.

Hi mun23,Lets first analyze the argument.Conclusion: Investments in a group of mutual funds which have given high returns in past 2 years will be profitable for the client.Premises: Investment in mutual funds reduce the investment risk and past performance are often related to future investment prospectsAssumption: Past results will continue in the future.Although the question stem is saying "flaw"; this is actually a weakening question; the correct answers to the weakening questions usually attack the assumption of the argument.(A)Managers of many mutual funds that have delivered the highest returns over the past several years have already used up their best investment ideas and are unlikely to sustain this level of performance in the future.(B)Mutual funds span a wide spectrum of investment styles and performance objectives and no single fund is suitable for every investor.(C)Many individual investors choose to manage their own portfolios rather than consult an investment advisor.(D)The funds that have had the strongest past performance tend to continue to outperform other funds with similar objectives for many years in the future.(E)The number of clients served by the investment adviser has declined by nearly 50% over the past 5 years.Hope that helps,Vercules_________________So how come day labour has become so popular around Gumine recently?

There is another category of day labour, though, where unemployed people wait around for an announcement of employment opportunities so that they can engage themselves as cheap workers to earn a bit of money for survival.

Day labourers can be employed by an agency or an employer on contractual basis for at least a day. Sometimes this happens when workers are needed for a specific project.

Day labour is a form of work where labourers are hired to work and paid on a day-to-day basis. It is especially seen in construction, manufacturing sites and on plantations.

GOROKA - Day labour is a burning issue in the Gumine District of Simbu Province in the highlands of Papua New Guinea and I want to join the discussion.

The first time I heard the term was in 2016 when a youth from my village happened to be given a contract by the District Development Authority in Gumine to build a new road from where the main road link ended to the other side of a village where the bulk of the community lived.

The contractor tasked community members to construct the road. In fact, it would need a bridge built before vehicles could reach the village. Anyway, for some reason, the contract was approved and roadworks were undertaken.

At the time, the term day labour was new to me but the village people adopted it and it has become popularised in the District.

Early this year, during my vacation at home, the term was on the lips of many Gumine people who were also excited upon hearing that the local MP would be spending some time at home. People were hiring vehicles and traveling to his village, saying the MP would dish out payments for day labour.

There were even people who had loaned money to others claiming to be contractors for certain projects who said that they could wait no longer for the day labour payment to be made as their children would soon need them for school fees.

The local contractors assured the lenders that the day labour payment would be made soon. Others went into hiding in other places of Papua New Guinea.

I wonder about all this. Are those claiming to develop the Gumine District contracted from taxpayers money. Is day labour an official concept, approved by the Gumine District Development Authority?

Does the District Treasury know about it? And if so, what areas of the district service improvement program does it cover or come under?

If these questions cant be answered, the whole thing is a joke and the users of the term could be called clowns.

My humble plea to DDA members and other district authorities is to clarify the misleading concept for themselves, local contractors, money lenders, day labourers and other affected citizens.

Lets get real and deliver rather than hyperactive about a scheme that may not actually exist.Being a young farmer has never been easy. We go through the same struggles as our parents when they started out. Were constantly tired and always sorer than a 30-year-old should be. Plus, to leave the farm for three days, you have to prepare for five days then clean up the mess for almost a week afterward.

Its almost not worth it . . . almost. Just like our parents, weve gone through what I like to call the friend purge. For the first few years, friends would invite us to parties, out to the movies, or to dinner. The friends who were offended by our constant lateness or last-minute cancelations because of farm stuff have long moved on. The friends who are left, either communicate via text or are also farmers, so theres little to no chance of actually getting together. Because if theres anything worse than one farmer trying to find the time to be social, its two farmers trying to find time.

Though our parents can understand most of our struggles, I think our version of being a young farmer has changed a bit. Young Farmer 2.0 comes with an additional set of challenges.

First, although the work is mostly the same, the rules have changed. Regulations have become more stringent, which means theres more paperwork to be done. Also, dealing with consumers and our public image has officially become part of the job.

Another thing is our labor force has drastically changed. Thirty years ago, people were more willing to work, and input costs were low enough that you could afford to pay them. This generation is different than previous. If youll allow me to generalize, we prefer to work on computers or smartphones from home or in an air-conditioned office. Having less labor means more work and even less time away.

Lastly, not to be rude about it, but 20 to 30 years ago they didnt know what they were missing. Thanks to social media and smartphones, we know exactly what were missing. Online, we see our friends vacation photos, their mini college reunions, and last-minute nights out. Im not going to lie, when I have a few minutes to peruse Facebook, I get a little bitter about the fact that my old college roommate just booked a seven-day cruise with her sorority sisters to the Bahamas in February. Especially when I know that my next three days off are at a dairy conference just on the other side of the state.

Im not asking for pity; I chose this life. But if youre a fellow young farmer, I want you to know that I get you. If youre a more seasoned farmer, Im asking you to cut us some slack if were on our phones a little more than youd like. And if youre a friend of a farmer, please dont give up on us. Someday, when you least expect it, were actually going to call you.

The author dairies in partnership with her parents and brother at Spruce Row Farm in Pennsylvania. Jessica is a graduate of Pennsylvania State University, and since 2015, she has been active in promoting dairy in her local community. You can find her and her 250 Jersey cows on Facebook at Spruce Row Dairy or on Instagram at @seejessfarm.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Indiana University Police are investigating a reported rape and aggravated assault in a dorm room on the Bloomington campus.

According to a campus-wide crime notification, the victim reported the rape on Tuesday morning.

The notification says the victim met the suspect on a social media site. The victim reports going to the suspect's dorm room at Wright Quad on Jordan Ave. last Thursday evening. The report says the suspect raped and strangled the victim.

It's not clear if the victim is an Indiana University student.

The report says the suspect is known to IUPD, but "the investigation is ongoing."The United States Department of Agriculture projects record yields for Indiana farmers this year. But demand has fallen, in part because of Chinese tariffs on U.S. corn and soybeans, so farms cash flow could be limited.

Soybean prices have fallen from about $10 a bushel earlier this year to around $8 today. Purdue University agricultural economist Chris Hurt says on top of the tariffs, excess product will hurt prices this year, and impact 2019 production.

When we have very large production, we tend to have extremely low prices, says Hurt. Farm incomes have been depressed for the last three years and thats going to continue to be the case now it looks like for the next year.

The soybean trade between the U.S. and China has taken more than 30 years to develop, but President Donald Trumps economic fight with China could put that in jeopardy. Farmers were placed in the crosshairs of the trade war with China when the Chinese slapped a 25 percent tariff that took effect July 6 on several U.S. agricultural products, including corn and soybeans.

Indiana Farm Bureau President Randy Kron says he fears the trade war could have negative long-term effects for U.S. farmers.

What I dont want us to be is the market of kinda last resort; they only come here when they cant get it anywhere else, he says. I want to be the first on their list; not the last.

This time of the year would typically be a peak time for farmers selling their harvest, if they did not pre-sell earlier in the year.

However, Hurt says China is now buying from Brazil and other countries, so West Coast ports are turning away soybeans, which makes other markets more competitive for sellers.

The exporters in the Pacific Northwest are simply saying, We dont want the soybeans. Even if they had purchased the soybeans to be delivered at harvest time, says Hurt. The alternative is theyre trying to by railroad move those beans from the Dakotas to St. Louis or New Orleans to get them to the Mississippi River.

He says an abundance of beans no longer being shipped to China are now heading towards the Atlantic Ocean to ship to Europe.

We normally  in Indiana, Illinois and Iowa  would be supplying the beans down the Mississippi River, says Hurt. Now weve got a glut of beans coming from the northwestern part of the Corn Belt.

Indiana Farm Bureau's Kron owns a farm in southern Indiana and says the downturn leaves many farmers concerned for their future.

Were trying to figure out on our farm how we pinch every penny. I mean were down to the pennies matter in trying to figure out how to survive, says Kron.

The Trump administration has announced limited financial aid will be available to farmers, but economists warn it will only serve as a temporary bandage to a potentially long-term wound.However, NBC News reported that as of Tuesday, little evidence was publicly available to substantiate any of the claims made by terrorist groups themselves, by their accusers, or by Iranian authorities. The same report suggests that whatever the identity may be of the attackers in this case, their bold plot was likely implemented in response to a situation that showcases the historic vulnerability of the Iranian regime.

NBC further suggests that this same situation is a driving force behind the separate, peaceful protests that have been going on throughout the country since the beginning of the year.

This, alongside the possibility of Iran taking action before the complete gathering of evidence, may add to concerns about the regime utilizing the terror attack as an excuse for expanding upon its general repression of the Iranian population and particularly the Arab rights activist community.

This would certainly be in keeping with Iranian authorities response to the peaceful protests, both during and after the mass uprising that started that movement in late December and early January.

According to the National Council of Resistance of Iran, approximately 8,000 people were arrested for participation in that uprising and more than 50 others were killed either in the streets or as a result of torture.

Furthermore, Iranian security forces conducted multiple raids on known activists in the aftermath of that uprising, targeting a number of individuals who did not directly participate.

Irans prospective use of the terror attack to expand the repression of minority groups would also be in keeping with the regimes early exploitation of that attack as justification for lashing out at perceived enemies abroad, both among neighboring Arab countries and in the broader global community.

Indeed, the two types of activity are closely linked, as evidenced by the regimes announcement that some of those who were arrested in the aftermath of the attack were individuals with supposed links to Irans regional adversaries.

Al Jazeera quoted a spokesperson for the Iranian Intelligence Ministry as saying that five members of a terrorist squad affiliated to jihadist separatist groups supported by Arab reactionary countries were identified. The Ministrys statement went on to say, even more vaguely: Foreign sponsors and supporters of this terrorist act have also been identified. More information will be provided on them in due course.

The initial withholding of information by Iranian authorities is frequently cause for alarm, since those authorities have a long track record of making arrests on the basis of unsubstantiated suspicion or political motives and then building a case through long periods of interrogation, often involving torture and false confessions.

In the present case, it would be easy to identify political motives, since the arrests and relevant public statements come in the wake of Iranian officials immediately blaming Saturdays attack on a triangle of enemies consisting of Saudi-led Arab nations, the United States, and Israel.

The regimes commitment to that narrative was underscored on Tuesday when, according to the Associated Press, a video was released by an Iranian media outlet with close links to the Revolutionary Guards, in which footage of Iranian ballistic missile tests was accompanied by the graphic of a gun scope aiming at the Arab capitals of Abu Dhabi and Riyadh.

Irans ballistic missile program has become a particular source of rhetoric in recent months as the Islamic Republic confronts rising levels of pressure from the US and its traditional allies, while also contending with unrest at home.

When US President Donald Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal in May, he cited its failure to address the Iranian missile threat as a major justification. In August, the Revolutionary Guard resumed testing of potentially nuclear-capable missiles for the first time in more than a year.

Also in August, an advanced, Russian-made missile defense system known as S-300 was moved from Tehran to Mashhad, apparently following Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on a visit there, according to recently released satellite imagery.

Last week, Quartz reported upon this and other such incidents and suggested that they could be indicative of the Iranian regimes paranoia regarding foreign attacks, or the moves could be intended to enable surprise attacks on foreign adversaries even as officials point to defensive purposes as a form of political cover.

In either case, the regimes missile activities point to its growing tensions with traditional adversaries. And whether or not the regimes concerns about foreign-linked separatists and efforts to promote regime change are justified, they are evidently guiding principles behind its current foreign policy, and perhaps its domestic policy as well.Kerry, who was also the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee before taking over from Hillary Clinton, has only a limited grasp of Middle East issues, as showcased in his latest book Every Day is Extra.

He explains that he knew Bashar Assad of Syria was lying to his face when he denied the existence of a nuclear reactor in Deir ez-Zor that was destroyed by Israeli warplanes in 2007.

But why then, after the assassination of Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri in 2005, did Kerry and his wife stay in Damascus as guests of Assad? Kerry helped legitimise Syria on the international scene.

In the same way, Kerry could not see that Irans expansionist project was more of a problem than its nuclear programme. This meant that the 2015 nuclear deal didnt focus on Irans malign behaviour across the region.

Iran was behind some of the most egregious violations of sovereignty in the Middle East, including the 1996 terrorist bombing in Khobar, but that wasnt proof enough for Kerry of Irans expansionism.

In the book, Kerry touches on his meeting with Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and how he counsels patience to him, implying that the US will one day go back on its withdrawal from the nuclear deal. No wonder current secretary of state, Mike Pompeo has described this as unseemly and unprecedented behaviour from a former secretary of state.

It seems like Kerry wants to defend a legacy that is proving to be a disaster, no matter Irans role in the region. Thankfully, now there is a new tough policy on Iran, with sanctions that should prevent some of their more malign behaviours.

And these sanctions are starting to bite already, causing the collapse of the Iranian economy. The second wave  due n November  will likely result in the downfall of the Regime.

However, this should be complemented with a tough stance on Iranian influence in Iraq, where Iran-backed politicians are getting into power; something spurred by harsh US sanctions and that could prove devastating for Iraq.

Khairallah Khairallah, a Lebanese writer, wrote: Tehran must be forced to understand that it is not accepted as a regional player in any shape or form. Its desperate bet on Kerry reflects the extent of its political bankruptcy.On Tuesday, Trump personally addressed the United Nations General Assembly and placed considerable emphasis on Iranian affairs, one day after the opening of a US-chaired Security Council meeting that is focused on the Middle East and gave rise to similarly assertive commentary about Irans regional meddling in malign activities.

But in the wake of that session and immediately prior to Trumps speech, three European governments and the leadership of the European Union joined in issuing a statement that formalized their efforts to undermine the White Houses re-imposition of sanctions that had been suspended under the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

Whereas Trump pulled out of that deal in May, citing its failure to alter Irans behavior in crucial areas other than uranium enrichment, the other signatories have remained committed to it and have used the past four months to exchange ideas for how to keep it in place despite the American pullout.

Analysts have generally gotten the impression that that commitment is having little practical effect, since numerous international businesses have already halted their exchanges with the Islamic Republic out of concern for US enforcement or an associated lack of financing.

This trend has been observed among businesses that are based in the European signatory countries, as well as in countries like India and South Korea that are not signatories but are highly reliant on their economic relations with the US.

Nevertheless, this has not stopped the United Kingdom, France, and Germany from announcing, alongside fellow signatories Iran, Russia, and China, that the European Union has established a financial facility known as the Special Purpose Vehicle with the express purpose of allowing companies to engage in transactions with Iranian counterparts while avoiding the American financial system and thus, in theory, avoiding American sanctions enforcement.

Additionally, French President Emmanuel Macron took the stage at the UN General Assembly on Tuesday shortly after Trump had spoken, and his speech consisted of what Agence France Presse described as a thinly veiled response to President Donald Trumps push for tough US-led sanctions.

As an alternative, Macron called for dialogue and multilateralism. What will bring a real solution to the situation in Iran and what has already stabilized it? the French president asked rhetorically. The law of the strongest? Pressure from only one side? No!

This apparent rejection of Trumps assertiveness is sure to be poorly received by prominent opponents of the Iranian regime, among them the French-headquartered National Council of Resistance of Iran. This and other advocates for regime change have tended to decry previous Western policies as appeasement while urging the US and its allies to negotiate from a position of strength, as they arguably failed to do in the run-up to the 2015 agreement.

Affiliates of the NCRI were in attendance at a protest outside the UN on Tuesday, organized by the Organization of Iranian-American Communities. The USA Today interviewed some of those protesters for a video segment, in which they declared their intention to make it known that the Iranian regime and President Hassan Rouhani, who was in attendance at the General Assembly, do not represent the Iranian people.

One protester characterized their protest as an extension of the domestic voices being expressed in Iran against the backdrop of protests that have been virtually non-stop since the beginning of the year.

This situation reflects what Reuters described as a prominent feature of President Trumps UN speech and his administrations overall approach to Iran policy, namely the effort to drive a wedge between the regime and its people.

Yet the protesters outside the UN insist, as does the NCRI in its official statements, that that wedge has always existed and that it has been growing deeper by virtue of the regimes persistent and escalating repression, regardless of US policies.

Still, this perception of the situation inside the Islamic Republic is no doubt a source of justification for the continuation of hardline American policies, and ultimately for the adoption of those policies by the European Union and other world powers.

In reporting upon the latest information about a terrorist attack in the Iranian city of Ahvaz, NBC News pointed out that the bold plot, targeting a military parade led by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, was probably indicative of a situation that might be exploited by all opponents of the clerical regime, whether peaceful or armed, domestic or foreign-based.

Iranian officials were quick to seize upon Saturdays attack as an opportunity to criticize the US and the Western world in general for supposedly backing the Arab separatists who claimed responsibility for the attack. However, those officials have cited no evidence to support the assertion, and the NBC News report indicated that there was still very little evidence to support any of the accusations or claims made about the attack by terrorist groups, the regime, or anyone else.

But the same report finds that while there is no known, direct connection between the attack and the broader protest movement that grew out of a mass uprising and December and January, the terror incident and the protests apparently came in response to the same perceived vulnerability of the Iranian regime.

And while the Trump administration has endorsed the peaceful protest movement and is recognizably working to exploit the same vulnerability in order to force a change of behavior in the Iranian government, critics of the European Union tend to see its member states as squandering an historic opportunity while helping Tehran to compensate for its vulnerability.

Multiple White House officials have reiterated over the past few months that a change in the behavior of the existing Iranian government is their key goal for the region. And on Tuesday, in remarks to the media ahead of his speech, President Trump declared that he is confident that such a change is forthcoming. The USA Today specifically quoted him as saying of the Iranian leadership, they have no choice.

He also insisted that he would only meet with Iranian officials for negotiations after a significant change in behavior and tone has already been recognized.

For his part, Rouhani reiterated the official Iranian position on Tuesday, according to the New York Times.

He insisted that neither he nor any other Iranian official would pursue new negotiations with the US unless Trump changes course and begins abiding by the JCPOA once again. But so far there has been no sign of the administration softening its tone, even in the face of the latest expressions of defiance by European partners.

Indeed, CBS News suggested on Tuesday that the creation of the Special Purpose Vehicle will only anger the White House and push it toward further action in service of the established goals.

Accordingly, US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said in an interview with Face the Nation that European countries would need to carefully weigh the potential consequences of pursuing business relationships with Iran.

She then highlighted the multitudes of companies exiting the Iranian market, in the interest of concluding that decisions are already being made in favor of compliance with the American strategy.

Naturally, if Haley is correct about European policies ultimately coming into line with that strategy, it will go a long way toward realizing the situation already predicted by President Trump, in which the Iranians have no choice other than to acquiesce to Western demands, or else face overthrow by a restive domestic population.* "Most Popular Intellectual Property Law Blawg" of all time according to Justia rankings , November 2021.

* "Most Popular Copyright Blawg" of all time according to Justia rankings , November 2021.

* PermaKat Eleonora Rosati listed as one of the World Intellectual Property Review's "Influential Women in IP" of 2020.

* PermaKat Eleonora Rosati listed as one of the Managing Intellectual Property magazine's "Fifty Most Influential People" of 2018.

* IPKat founder and Blogmeister Emeritus Jeremy Phillips listed as one of the Managing Intellectual Property magazine's "Fifty Most Influential People" of 2005, 2011, 2013, and 2014.

* Recommended by the European Patent Office as reading material for candidates for the European Qualifying Examinations, 2013.

* Listed as "Top Legal Blog" in The Times Online, March 2011.

2010 ABA Journal 100. * One of the only two non-US blogs listed in the Blawg100.

* Court Reporter Top Copyright Blog award winner, November 2010.

* Number 1 in the 2010 Top Copyright Blog list compiled by the Copyright Litigation Blog, July 2010.

* Selected by the United States Library of Congress for inclusion in its historic collections of Internet materials related to Legal Blawgs as of 2010.

* Top Patent Blog poll 2009: 3rd out of 50 in the "Favourite Patent Blog" poll and 2nd out of 50 in the "Most-read" poll.

Blog of the Year, 20 August 2008. * ComputerWeekly IT Law and Governance, 20 August 2008.Picture use

Unless otherwise stated all photos on this site are copyrighted  Jim Budd. They should not be used without authorisation and due credit. Please contact me on budmac@btinternet.com for all use. There will usually be a charge for use in commercial publications  papers, magazines, websites etc. and for other commercial uses. Photos that are used for commercial use without permission will be charged double  the fee for the use of photo and for breach of copyright. Commercial organisations asking to use photos for no payment may not always receive a polite response.- Jhong Hilario separated in 2011 with his ex-wife Michelle Westgate

- He is now in a relationship with Maia Azores, who reportedly works for a local airline company

- They have a 15-year age gap and they have been together for eight years now

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Some people think that two people who have a large age gap would not work out as a couple.

However, many relationships between people who have a large age gap have proven otherwise. The relationship between Jhong Hilario and a non-showbiz woman named Maia Azores is an example of that.

Jhong is 43 years old while his girlfriend Maia Azores is 15 years younger than him.

Despite the age gap, the two are deeply in love with each other as they have been together for years already.

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According to Elite Newsfeed, Maia works as cabin crew member of a local airline company.

As for Jhong, he is best known for being a host on Its Showtime and his role as Alakdan on Ang Probinsyano.

The couple loves to hang out with each other and travel around the world.

When they went to Paris, France, Maia had this to say about Jhong:

First time I was here was with my FIRST LOVE, My Dad. He brought me and my brother, Nitoy when I was 9. The three of us had so much funny memories in Paris I will never forget. Second time I was here was my FIRST TIME to travel alone in Europe.

That was such a fun experience. I got to go around Europe for 2 weeks with girls my age. It was the ultimate teenage getaway at 16!!! And now, My Third time, I am with my FIRST EVER BF and it's his FIRST TIME here! It's def gonna be another one for the books! Can't wait to make new memories with him! Celebrating our 7th year together, she wrote.

PAY ATTENTION: Using free basics app to access internet for free? Now you can read KAMI news there too. Use the search option to find us. Read KAMI news while saving your data!

Jhong used to be married to Michelle Westgate, a British woman he met in London while he was doing Miss Saigon, according to ABS-CBN News.

In 2011, Jhong and Michelle announced their separation due to their growing and irreconcilable differences.

Enjoyed reading our story? Download KAMI's news app on Google Play now and stay up-to-date with major Filipino news!

Tricky Questions: Ano Ang Tagalog 'Quotation Mark'? Our new batch of tricky questions got our respondents thinking really hard! Check out all of our videos  on KAMI HumanMeter YouTube channel!

Source: Kami.com.phFrance is on my mind lately, as I prepare to bring my dataviz seminar to Lyon in a couple of weeks. (You can still register for the free seminar here.)

The following Made in France poster brings out all the stereotypes of the French.

(You can download the original PDF here.)

It's a sankey diagram with so many flows that it screams "it's complicated!" This is an example of a graphic for want of a story. In a Trifecta Checkup, it's failing in the Q(uestion) corner.

It's also failing in the D(ata) corner. Take a look at the top of the chart.

France exported $572 billion worth of goods. The diagram then plots eight categories of exports, ranging from wines to cheeses:







Wine exports totaled $9 billion which is about 1.6% of total exports. That's the largest category of the eight shown on the page. Clearly the vast majority of exports are excluded from the sankey diagram.

Are the 8 the largest categories of exports for France? According to this site, those are (1) machinery (2) aircraft (3) vehicles (4) electrical machinery (5) pharmaceuticals (6) plastics (7) beverages, spirits, vinegar (8) perfumes, cosmetics.

Compare: (1) wines (2) jewellery (3) perfume (4) clothing (5) cheese (6) baked goods (7) chocolate (8) paintings.

It's stereotype central. Name 8 things associated with the French brand and cherry-pick those.

Within each category, the diagram does not show all of the exports either. It discloses that the bars for wines show only $7 of the $9 billion worth of wines exported. This is because the data only capture the "Top 10 Importers." (See below for why the designer did this... France exports wine to more than 180 countries.)

Finally, look at the parade of key importers of French products, as shown at the bottom of the sankey:

The problem with interpreting this list of countries is best felt by attempting to describe which countries ended up on this list! It's the list of countries that belong to the top 10 importers of one or more of the eight chosen products, ordered by the total value of imports in those 8 categories only but only including the value in any category if it rises to the top 10 of the respective category.

In short, with all those qualifications, the size or rank of the black bars does not convey any useful information.

***

One feature of the chart that surprised me was no flows in the Wine category from France to Italy or Spain. (Based on the above discussion, you should realize that no flows does not mean no exports.) So I went to the Comtrade database that is referenced in the poster, and pulled out all the wine export data.

How does one visualize where French wines are going? After fiddling around the numbers, I came up with the following diagram:

I like this type of block diagram which brings out the structure of the dataset. The key features are:

The total wine exports to the rest of the world was $1.4 billion in 2016

Half of it went to five European neighbors, the other half to the rest of the world

On the left half, Germany took a third of those exports; the UK and Switzerland together is another third; and the final third went to Belgium and the Netherlands

On the right half, the countries in the blue zone accounted for three-fifths with the unspecified countries taking two-fifths.

As indicated, the two-fifths (in gray) represent 20% of total wine exports, and were spread out among over 180 countries.

The three-fifths of the blue zone were split in half, with the first half going to North America (about 2/3 to USA and 1/3 to Canada) and the second half going to Asia (2/3 to China and 1/3 to Japan)

As the title indicates, the top 9 importers of French wine covered 80% of the total volume (in litres) while the other 180+ countries took 20% of the volume

The most time-consuming part of this exercise was finding the appropriate structure which can be easily explained in a visual manner.Srinagar, September 26: Thousands of people attended the funeral prayers of a slain youth, Abdul Majeed Mir, in Nowpora area of Sopore, today.

Abdul Majeed Mir along with another youth was killed by Indian troops during a cordon and search operation in Tujar Sharief area of the Sopore, yesterday.

Eyewitnesses told media that thousands of people from Sopore, Zainageer, Harwan, Bomai and other areas assembled at Eidgah in Nowpora and offered funeral prayers for Abdul Majeed Mir. They said that a large number of mourners shouting pro-freedom and anti-India slogans carried his body in a procession to the graveyard for burial. The participants of the funeral also waved Pakistans national flag.

Meanwhile, Sopore and its adjoining areas observed a complete shutdown to mourn the killing of the youth.

The authorities ordered closure of all educational institutions in Sopore sub-division to prevent demonstrations against the killings.The memory of a beloved pet inspires one couple's fight against injustice.3 Indians held in citizenship forgery case

Saptari police are investigating into a fake citizenship racket after three Indian nationals were caught with fake citizenship documents.Another woman attacked with acid and stabbed; condition critical

A day after a teenage girl succumbed to burns caused by an acid attack two weeks ago, a 30-year-old woman was attacked with acid and stabbed at Kawasoti Municipality-16 in Nawalparasi (East) on Monday evening. The victim, a mother of two children, is in critical condition.It was summer back in Den Haag, 2016. I just had my heart broken, so I downloaded a dating app, fooled around with some guys, including this overly polite guy . The day after I slept with him unprotected, I rushed to the nearest pharmacy to my dorm to get a morning-after-pill.

Days went by and I did not get my period, which made me anxious. My thesis development was not helping either. I picked up two test packs at the groceries store and tried one the following morning. It was a double-line. I was positive pregnant. The denial came in. I decided to try the next test pack tomorrow morning. This one was a fancy test pack. It reveals whether you are pregnant or not along with the weeks of pregnancy on its micro screen. Mine said: pregnant >3, which means over three weeks of pregnancy.

Fortunately, I lived in Den Haag, so everything was there. After skimming the information on the website of the abortion clinic, I found out that I could do it for free just like any Dutch citizen. Nervously I filled out the information required, but I did not know exactly how old my pregnancy was. I persisted to have my abortion performed the next week, but was told that I had to make sure how old my pregnancy was before we could go ahead with the procedure.

So my request was rejected. I was deeply desperate, scared that the older my pregnancy was, the more complicated the process would be.

On the following day, I counted exactly the last time I had my period and the last time I had sex. Again, I contacted the clinic  this time I knew I was seven weeks into my pregnancy. The process was exactly the same and I finally had my confirmation date. It was such a relieving moment that I cried. There was a set of preparation rules I had to follow before and after the abortion. The operator asked me to be ready at the clinic, at 8 am sharp.

During the waiting days, I phoned the man I had sex with to tell him I was carrying his baby. He suddenly panicked. Instead of offering any help or even saying something nice, he yelled at me on the phone. I wanted him to feel what I had felt, so I told him I would continue the pregnancy. He yelled again, telling me to abort the baby soon, otherwise he might get kicked out of the country.

On the appointed day, I went to the clinic accompanied by a friend. I reregistered at the patients counter and was told to wait for the abortion, which would be conducted at 8:30. In 10 minutes, a nurse called me in. She checked my blood tension and heartbeat, also the age of the pregnancy. She asked me how I got pregnant. I told her I had an unprotected sex with two guys I recently. She asked me again, what type of abortion I chose and whether Id need birth control pills. I prefer the vacuum method and a yes for the pills.

The next few minutes was a complete mental torture, but the nurses and the doctors were nice. I walked into the room, changed to a green surgical gown. They confirmed my abortion consent and told me the steps that were going to be taken. Since I prefered the vacuum method, I needed anesthesia.

I woke up still drowsy and with a menstrual pad on. I peeked from my bed in the recovery room and saw a lot of ladies. It felt like a relief. Im not alone after all  I told myself everything would get better.

I caught one of the nurses and asked her if it was OK for me to go.



Yes, of course, you okay? Can you walk? she asked.In the guest room, my friend met me and asked me how I felt. I smiled to let her know I felt fine. At the patients counter, I asked the nurse what to do next and where I could get my birth control pills. She was nice and she handed me an envelope, a letter to the nearest general practitioner to my dorm where I could check my health, along with a guideline for post-abortion care and my birth control pills prescription. I thanked her and headed to the nearest pharmacy.To this day I am still thankful I had access to such professional and sympathetic service, because for someone to undergo an abortion, it is not easy. I did not want my pregnancy. It was the result of an unprotected sex with a total stranger. The checklist of reasons was endless. It is my body and my life. My way of being responsible for my own-self and the fetus inside was by getting an abortion. I was fully aware that I could not raise the baby. And no, I do not regret my decision.is a lady who is still navigating her life. She loves cooking and learning new languages. She is a self-proclaimed researcher working in an international non-government organization.Three-Power Pact Between Germany, Italy, and Japan, Signed at Berlin, September 27, 1940.

The governments of Germany, Italy and Japan, considering it as a condition precedent of any lasting peace that all nations of the world be given each its own proper place, have decided to stand by and co-operate with one another in regard to their efforts in greater East Asia and regions of Europe respectively wherein it is their prime purpose to establish and maintain a new order of things calculated to promote the mutual prosperity and welfare of the peoples concerned.

Furthermore, it is the desire of the three governments to extend co-operation to such nations in other spheres of the world as may be inclined to put forth endeavours along lines similar to their own, in order that their ultimate aspirations for world peace may thus be realized.

Accordingly, the governments of Germany, Italy and Japan have agreed as follows:

Japan recognizes and respects the leadership of Germany and Italy in establishment of a new order in Europe.

Germany and Italy recognize and respect the leadership of Japan in the establishment of a new order in greater East Asia.

Germany, Italy and Japan agree to co-operate in their efforts on aforesaid lines. They further undertake to assist one another with all political, economic and military means when one of the three contracting powers is attacked by a power at present not involved in the European war or in the Chinese-Japanese conflict.

With the view to implementing the present pact, joint technical commissions, members which are to be appointed by the respective governments of Germany, Italy and Japan will meet without delay.

Germany, Italy and Japan affirm that the aforesaid terms do not in any way affect the political status which exists at present as between each of the three contracting powers and Soviet Russia.(1)

The present pact shall come into effect immediately upon signature and shall remain in force 10 years from the date of its coming into force. At the proper time before expiration of said term, the high contracting parties shall at the request of any of them enter into negotiations for its renewal.

In faith whereof, the undersigned duly authorized by their respective governments have signed this pact and have affixed hereto their signatures.

Done in triplicate at Berlin, the 27th day of September, 1940, in the 19th year of the fascist era, corresponding to the 27th day of the ninth month of the 15th year of Showa (the reign of Emperor Hirohito).

Notes:

(1) See Nazi-Soviet Diplomacy 1939-1941. This article refers no doubt to the Nazi-Soviet Non-agression Pact, the secret protocols to it, The Nazi-Soviet Boundary Agreement and its protocols. (note added by the Avalon Project). BackPrithvi Man Shrestha is a political reporter for The Kathmandu Post, covering the governance-related issues including corruption and irregularities in the government machinery. Before joining The Kathmandu Post in 2009, he worked at nepalnews.com and Rising Nepal primarily covering the issues of political and economic affairs for three years.Here is the audio and transcript, here is the opening summary:

Political scientist Bruno Macaes has built a career out of crossing the globe teaching, advising, writing, and talking to people. His recent book, born out of a six-month journey across Eurasia, is one of Tylers favorites. So how does it feel to face Tylers rat-a-tat curiosity about your lifes work? For Bruno, the experience was like you are a politician under attack and your portfolio is the whole of physical and metaphysical reality. Read on to discover how well Bruno defended that expansive portfolio, including whats missing from liberalism, Obamas conceptual foreign policy mistake, what economists are most wrong about, how to fall in love with Djibouti, stagnation in Europe, the diversity of Central Asia, Hitchcocks perfect movie, China as an ever-growing global force, the book everyone under 25 should read, the creativity of Washington, D.C versus Silicon Valley, and more.

Here is one bit:

MACAES: This raises deep philosophical questions and political questions. If you want Turkey to become like Europe, then you have to project European power across Turkey. If Europe no longer has that ability, then you shouldnt be surprised that Turkey looks elsewhere. Its very simple. I think I say in the book that in order to be loved, you also have to be feared. This idea that you find in Europe now, that without projecting any kind of power, other countries will be attracted to the European model, thats a form of utopianism. I just cannot see that happen. COWEN: So Europe lacks the spirit of adventure. MACAES: That is certainly the case. I think you see that. One of the areas where the spirit of adventure today is more relevant and important is technology. You see in Europe the idea that technologys against us, and we should resist this rather than embrace it. A very negative spirit, which I think is a good example of how adventure has disappeared from the European psyche.

And:

COWEN: Russia. Why is Russia as a world power currently underrated? MACAES: The most impressive thing about Russia is, in fact, something that you might not think at first: the power of organization. We have this image of Russia as a failed state in many respects. But in order to keep that empire, in order to keep it together throughout the centuries, in order to develop it to some extent, in order to bring together so many ethnicities, so many religions . . . its fair to say that Russia has done a better job of integrating its Muslim population, which is close to 15 percent, than any other country, I would argue  certainly any other major country. The power of the Russian state, the ability to organize, to dispose, to connect, is one of the great political stories of mankind  to see how the Russian state was able to grow and to extend itself. And thats still there.

Original and highly recommended. Again, here is Brunos book The Dawn of Eurasia: On the Trail of the New World Order.Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Monday accused the countrys regional top foes, namely Saudi Arabia and its ally, United Arab Emirates (UAE), of having paid attackers of the Saturday parade in the south of the country.

Based on reports, this cowardly act was done by people the Americans call to help when they are trapped in Syria and Iraq, and are paid by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, Khamenei said on his official website.

Twenty-nine people, including at least 12 members of the Revolutions Guards, died Saturday at a military parade in southwest Iran.

The Islamic State group (ISIS) claimed responsibility of the attack in a video on its Amaq news agency. On Monday, state-backed Fars news agency indicated that forces killed five attackers. Four of them have been identified bar the fifth whose body according to the news agency was mixed up with other casualties.

Soon after the attack, a blizzard of statements from Tehran accused Saudi Arabia, the UAE, U.S. and Israel for sponsoring the attack that the deputy commander of the Revolutionary Guard, Hossein Salami, said will be not left unanswered. He promised a crushing and devastating revenge.

Tehran also summoned the UAEs charge daffaires to protest the irresponsible statements made by an adviser to the Abu Dhabi government, Abdul Khaleq Abdulla.

Abdul Khaleq Abdulla justified the attack on Twitter, arguing that it was part of a plan to fight Iran on its own territory.

An attack on a military target is not a terrorist act. Moving the battle to deep inside Iran is an option that has been publicly declared and will increase in the coming phase, said Abdul Khaleq Abdulla said shortly after the attack.

Abu Dhabi swiftly blasted Tehrans accusations noting that they were baseless.

The formal incitement against the UAE from within Iran is unfortunate, and has escalated after the Ahvaz attack, said Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash, in a tweet.

The UAEs historical position against terrorism and violence is clear and Tehrans allegations are baseless.

Iran on one side and Saudi Arabia and the UAE on the other are currently embroiled in a proxy war in Yemen. The Saudi side blames Iran for supporting Houthi rebels who have conquered vast swathes of the Yemeni territory including capital Sanaa. Saudi and Emirati forces have entered the fight since 2015 in a move to roll back gains made by the Houthi rebels.Thousands of former soldiers clashed Monday and early Tuesday with security forces at the gate of Algiers as they were marching towards the capital to protest their living conditions and meagre salaries and demand a revaluation of their pensions.

The soldiers, around 20,000 according to leader Marawan Bassaf, were blocked at Haouch El Makhfi at Reghaia, entrance of Algiers.

The retired soldiers had camped for several days in Haouch Elmekhfi, a locality in the region of Boumerdes located about thirty miles east of the centre of the Algerian capital.

According to Algerian daily El Khabar, the gendarmerie last Sunday summoned the protesters to lift their camp or be dislodged by force.

The disaffected group of protesters includes army retirees who are demanding an increase in their pensions, individuals who were expelled from the army and who ask to be reinstated or to be retired, and the armys invalids who want better medical care in military hospitals, according to the Facebook pages of the various categories.

They have tried repeatedly to reach the centre of Algiers in recent years, but in vain, as any gathering in the Algerian capital has been banned since 2001.

This is our chance to pressure authorities to respond to our demands. We call on the president to not abandon the people who fought against terrorism in this country, Bassaf told The New Arabs Arabic-language service.

In January, the military issued a statement accusing the protesters of attempting to mislead public opinion and spread seeds of doubt, The New Arab recalls.

The clashes left many people on both sides injured, local media TSA-Algerie reports.

Attempts by the security forces to contain the angry protesters caused traffic jams, rendering connection between Algiers and the East of the country difficult.Oxygen stratifies bacterial communities in a cystic fibrosis lung model: Each band represents a 1mm section in bronchiole-like tubes. Coloring indicates distribution of a particular bacterial species throughout an oxygen gradient along the tube, from high oxygen at the top to low oxygen at the bottom. Pathogens, bacteria that cause health problems, distribute differently along the gradient than anaerobes, bacteria that prefer low oxygen levels and don't typically cause disease. Credit: UC San Diego Health

People living with cystic fibrosis (CF) spend their entire lives battling chronic lung infections that are notoriously resistant to antibiotic therapy. Yet a one-size-fits all approach to wiping out the offending bacterium may not be the best approach for all patients with the disease, according to a new study by researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences.

Instead, researchers discovered that tweaking other factors in a CF lung model, such as pH balance and oxygen, helped eradicate pathogenic bacteria while minimizing risks of antibiotic resistance and overgrowth of other microorganisms.

The study is published September 26 in Science Advances.

"We think of antibiotics as causing a 'scorched earth,' simply wiping an unknown portion of both healthy and hopefully the bad bacteria. But we actually have a poor understanding of what happens to their microbiota when people take antibioticsboth healthy people and people with cystic fibrosis," said Pieter Dorrestein, Ph.D., professor in the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences and departments of Pharmacology and Pediatrics in the School of Medicine and faculty leader in the Center for Microbiome Innovation at UC San Diego. Dorrestein led the study with Robert Quinn, Ph.D., who was an assistant project scientist at UC San Diego at the time of the study and is now an assistant professor at Michigan State University.

Due to the genetic defect that underpins CF, a thick, sticky mucus builds up in the lungs of patients with CF. The mucus helps microorganisms to thrive. One especially problematic bacterium, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, also forms a biofilm in the lung, which is difficult for the immune system and antibiotics to penetrate. These lung infections are a serious and chronic problem for many people living with CF. Currently, the infections are largely managed by trial-and-error with a combinations of antibiotics, antifungals and anti-inflammatory molecules.

"It's amazing to think that disease management by expert clinicians (which we are not) largely via trial-and-error has increased the average lifespan for people with cystic fibrosis from two years in the 1930s to about 45 years in the U.S. and 55 years in Canada, and yet we have limited understanding of how such treatments affect the microbial communities living within people with cystic fibrosis," Dorrestein said.

In biomedical research, scientists typically study bacterial infections by analyzing one specific type of bacteria, such as P. aeruginosa, and perhaps its interactions with human cells. But Quinn's background is in environmental microbiology. He looks at the CF lung as a whole, living in a unique environment in which a particular bacterium doesn't operate alone, but interacts with other microbes in the community, the human cells that make up the lung, as well as other molecules, chemicals and metabolites, and all of which behaves like an ecosystem.

So Quinn approached the lungs like he would any other environment, such as soil or ocean water. He developed a system he calls WinCF, named in part for 19th century microbial ecologist Sergei Winogradsky. Winogradsky invented a gradient system for studying microbes in soil. Likewise, Quinn's WinCF system provides pH and oxygen gradients that mimic the narrow tubes that make up human lung bronchioles.

Quinn and team collected sputum samples from 18 patients with cystic fibrosis and applied them to the WinCF system in their lab. Then they altered factors such as pH, oxygen levels and antibiotics to map approximately 600 different cystic fibrosis lung conditions.

As a result of these pH and oxygen gradients, the researchers found that microbes in CF lungs divide themselves into two distinct communities: 1) known pathogens, microbes that can cause health problems, living in oxygen-rich regions and high pH and 2) anaerobes, microbes that thrive in areas low in oxygen and low pH.

"This stratification matters because it may affect treatments for cystic fibrosis patients," Quinn said. "For example, certain bacteria may survive antibiotic treatment because they can hide deeper in the lung mucus. Meanwhile, the bacteria that are killed off may open up space for other microbes to grow, potentially creating a new set of problems."

That's what the researchers saw when they added the anti-P. aeruginosa antibiotic tobramycin to the top of the culture in their WinCF model, simulating inhalation into an airway with mucus-plugged bronchioles, as occurs in cystic fibrosis. The antibiotic caused drastic changes in the system's microbial makeup. Some bacterial species were killed in all regions of the column, some killed in the higher, more oxygen-rich layers but survived at lower depths, while other species continued to thrive at the lower depth. Quinn said he was especially surprised to see blooms of Aspergillus fungi spring up in the regions previously occupied by the killed bacteria. Aspergillosis, the infection caused by this fungus, is not uncommon in cystic fibrosis patients treated with antibiotics.

Not only did the antibiotic shift the microbial balance in the cystic fibrosis lung model, the chemical structure of the antibiotic itself was modified by the microbes. This alteration could help bacteria resist its effect.

"Antibiotics alter the overall structure and relationships in a dynamic community, and not always in a way that's beneficial for the patient," Quinn said. "We don't yet know the 'rules' for tipping the balance in favor of a beneficial microbial balance."

In contrast, when the researchers simply lowered the pH of the cystic fibrosis mucus in the WinCF system by one unit, the bacterial makeup of the sample shifted from 70 percent P. aeruginosa to essentially none of those particularly troublesome bacteria.

"It may be that in some cases antibiotics may not even as effective as that simple pH change our laboratory experiment suggests, something worth exploring clinically," Dorrestein said.

To be clear, the WinCF model is not a perfect replica of human cystic fibrosis lungs. It does not contain human cells or components of the immune system that would also help shape the real-life microbial makeup of a person's lungs.

So while this system should not be used to influence patient care just yet, Dorrestein said the ultimate goal is a "precision-care" clinic for patients with cystic fibrosis. In this scenario, physicians and technicians could rapidly analyze each patient's sputum for unique molecular and microbial patterns and test different combinations of treatment options in the labpH change, oxygen levels, antibioticsbefore prescribing them to the patient.

Explore further Study finds bacteria adapted to the lungs are easier to kill with antibiotics

More information: "Niche partitioning of a pathogenic microbiome driven by chemical gradients" Science Advances (2018). Journal information: Science Advances "Niche partitioning of a pathogenic microbiome driven by chemical gradients"(2018). advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/9/eaau1908Depending on symptomatic and phenotypic severity the condition of chalky teeth is categorised into three levels. The symptoms of chalky teeth were first described in 1978, with the term molar-incisor hypomineralisation (MIH) introduced in 2001. The condition is the consequence of a deline-ated defect in tooth enamel development which affects at least one of the permanent back teeth (molars) and, under certain circumstances, will also comprise the incisors. According to recent media coverage such tooth defects are claimed to be attributable to the uptake of Bisphenol A (BPA).

Amongst a wide range of various products BPA can also occur in food contact materials. Its use in the manufacture of baby bottles has been banned since 2011. Reports of a possible connection between MIH and BPA-exposure are based on a study by Jedeon et al. (2013) which examined the connection between BPA exposure and mineralisation defects of tooth enamel in rats. In subsequent publications the authors reported that the mineralisation dis-turbances occurred mainly in male (up to 71%) and less frequently in female rats (only up to 31%) (Jedeon et al., 2016a; Jedeon et al., 2014), and identified selected hormone-controlled signalling pathway as potential molecular targets (Houari et al., 2016).

The German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) has evaluated the study (Jedeon et al., 2013) and concludes that there is currently no scientific reason to assume a connection between the uptake of BPA the occurrence of MIH in children. According to recent data from the Netherlands, oral uptake of BPA in highly-exposed children amounts to 0.14 micrograms (g) per kilogram (kg) body weight and day. This is is 35 times lower than the dose used by Jedeon et al. (2013). In conjunction with the different toxicokinetic behaviour of BPA in hu-mans a direct connection between BPA and MIH therefore appears unlikely in humans under conditions of expectable real-life exposure.

It should be noted that the study of Jedeon et al. is subject to several limitations, which limit its transferability. The examination in 2013 was conducted exclusively on male rats with only one dose of BPA being used. Later studies showed that the respective findings were considerably weaker or non-existent in females (Jedeon et al., 2014). It also appears that missing effects on day 100 of postnatal development were not put sufficiently into context. The findings of other groups from multigenerational studies on rats and mice, some of which used very high BPA doses with no reported tooth damage, were not taken into consideration.

The condition of MIH occurs in Europe with a frequency of 3-22 %, with a worldwide occurrence of 2-40 % (Elhennawy et al., 2017). Various reasons are assumed to contribute to this occurrence. Epidemiological studies point for example to maternal diseases during the last quarter of pregnancy, complications during birth or frequent illness in the first year of the born child (possibly also connected too high fever). Other reasons discussed are low blood levels of vitamin D as well as early intake of the antibiotic amoxicilli. Other studies report on a possible connection between MIH and increased exposure to dioxin, for under 5-year olds with high serum levels of tetrachlorodibenzo dioxin (TCDD) in Seveso later showed an in-creased prevalence of MIH.

Altogether it appears that MIH is caused by a variety of factors and thus has to be considered a multifactorial condition (Schneider and Silva, 2018).

Explore further BPA harms dental enamel in young animals, mimicking human tooth defect

More information: A-Z Index "Bisphenol A": A-Z Index "Bisphenol A": www.bfr.bund.de/en/a-z_index/b  phenol_a-129760.html BfR FAQs of 12 October 2017 on bisphenol A in consumer products: www.bfr.bund.de/en/faqs_on_bis  _products-60837.html BfR Communication of 19 February 2015 "No health risk for consumers through Bisphenol A exposure - the BfR endorses the conclusion of the new EFSA assessment": www.bfr.bund.de/cm/349/no-heal  -efsa-assessment.pdf

Provided by BfR Federal Institute for Risk AssessmentCancer cell. Credit: iStock photo

A new initiative is working to bring access to expanded cancer therapy options to regional South Australia.

This follows a Cancer Council Beat Cancer Project grant supporting a team of clinicians from Country Health SA, Flinders University and the Flinders Medical Centre to aid future clinical cancer tele-trials

Executive Director of Medical Services at Country Health SA, Dr. Hendrika Meyer, says the initiative is a step in the right direction to improving cancer therapy options for regional patients.

"It is exciting to see our researchers and clinicians from across different areas working together to improve access for regional patients," Dr. Meyer says.

"The potential of having access to clinical trials in regional SA will allow patients to participate in various cancer clinical trials closer to home.

"This will benefit patients by resulting in less travel, less time spent away from family and less financial burden.

"The trials will help us understand more about cancer treatment, and what life is like for those people who are forced to live with cancer."

Cancer Council SA Chief Executive, Mr Lincoln Size, said the Beat Cancer Project is at the forefront of research investment in the state and congratulated Country Health SA and Flinders University on receiving the grant.

"We hope that the grant will allow us to make great inroads in cancer treatment in regional communities and reduce the financial and emotional burden of a cancer diagnosis for regional South Australians," Mr Size said.

"We are looking forward to seeing the project develop over the next four years and achieve positive outcomes.

"We are unbelievably proud of the work we have achieved since the Beat Cancer Project started in 2011 and are committed to working with the State Government, SAHMRI and the universities to continue to invest in research right here in our state."

Country Health SA oncologist and chief investigator of the new project, Flinders University academic Dr. Dagmara Poprawski, said there are currently no cancer clinical trials offered outside metropolitan Adelaide.

"The benefits to cancer patients participating in clinical trials are well recognised, particularly the ability to increase patient access to a full suite of therapy options including novel therapies," Dr. Poprawski says.

"While we're at the very early stages of a four year project, we hope the tele-clinical cancer trial model will improve trial participation rates in non-metropolitan areas.

"We will now look at the best way for patients from the South East to be recruited, treated and to attend followup visits virtually from Mt Gambier Hospital directly to metropolitan sites like Flinders Medical Centre.

"A tele-trial model will utilise existing services, along with additional resources funded through this application, to establish a regional cancer clinical trial site in the long term."

The $280,000 grant, funded by Cancer Council's Beat Cancer program, is led by Flinders University researchers based at Mt Gambier Hospital and the oncology research team at Flinders Centre for Innovation in Cancer (FCIC).

The project team is investigating the use of the tele-trial model at Mt Gambier Hospital to evaluate feasibility, impact on patients' quality of life, cost-effectiveness and to identify issues for future rollout.

"We are very happy to be piloting the model at Mt Gambier Hospital in partnership with the FCIC. We hope that this research may improve access to clinical trials for people who live outside of metropolitan areas," Dr. Poprawski says.

"Mt Gambier Hospital is well-resourced with a visiting medical oncologist, an oncology nurse practitioner, multiple medical specialist services, a large multidisciplinary group of allied health services, and is well supported by general practitioners in the region."

Since it started in 2011, Cancer Council's Beat Cancer Project has funded more than 200 individual research projects across a range of cancers including bowel, breast and melanoma.

Explore further Anti-inflammatory use during surgery could improve cancer outcomesA University of Iowa-led research team has identified a brain-wave marker responsible for aggression in young children. The finding could lead to earlier identification of toddlers with aggressive tendencies before the behavior becomes more ingrained in adolescence. Credit: Tim Schoon, University of Iowa

Imagine a situation where one child is teasing another. While the child doing the teasing means it playfully, the other child views it as hostile and responds aggressively.

Behavior like this happens all the time with children, but why some react neutrally and others act aggressively is a mystery.

In a new study, a University of Iowa-led research team reports it has identified a brain marker associated with aggression in toddlers. In experiments measuring a type of brain wave in 2 to 3-year-old children, toddlers who had smaller spikes in the P3 brain wave when confronted with a situational change were more aggressive than children registering larger P3 brain-wave peaks, research showed.

The results could lead to identifying at an earlier stage children who are at risk of aggressive behavior and could help stem those impulses before adolescence, an age at which research has shown aggressive behavior is more difficult to treat.

"There are all kinds of ambiguous social cues in our environment," says Isaac Petersen, assistant professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the UI and corresponding author on the study. "And, when children aren't able to detect a change in social cues, they may be more likely to misinterpret that social cue as hostile rather than playful.

"Children respond to the same social cues in different ways, and we think it's due to differences in how they interpret that cue, be it neutral or hostile," Petersen says.

The P3 wave is part of a series of brain waves generated when an individual evaluates and responds to a change in the environmentsuch as changed cues in a social interaction. Previous research, primarily in adults, has shown individuals with shorter P3-wave peaks when confronted with a change in the environment tend to be more aggressive. As such, scientists believe P3 is a key indicator of aggression, as well as associated with depression and schizophrenia.

To tease out those differences in children, the researchers recruited 153 toddlers and, in individual sessions, outfitted each with a net of head sensors that measured brain-wave activity while a steady stream of tones sounded in the room. As the children watched silent cartoons on a television screen, the pitch of the tones changed, and the researchers measured the P3 brain wave accompanying each change in pitch.

The change in pitch is analogous to a change in a social interaction, in which the brainconsciously or subconsciouslyreacts to a change in the environment. In this case, it was the change in pitch.

Toddlers with a shorter peak in the P3 brain wave accompanying the tone change were rated by their parents as more aggressive than children with more pronounced P3 spikes.

The difference in P3 peaks in aggressive and non-aggressive children "was statistically significant," Petersen says, and the effect was the same for boys and girls.

"Their brains are less successful at detecting changes in the environment," Petersen says of the children with shorter P3 brain-wave peaks. "And, because they're less able to detect change in the environment, they may be more likely to misinterpret ambiguous social information as hostile, leading them to react aggressively. This is our hypothesis, but it's important to note there are other possibilities that may explain aggression that future research should examine."

The researchers tested the same children at 30, 36, and 42 months of age to further explore the association with the P3 brain wave and aggression.

"This brain marker has not been widely studied in children and never studied in early childhood in relation to aggression," says Petersen, who has an appointment in the Iowa Neuroscience Institute. "It might be one of a host of tools that can be used in the future to detect aggression risk that might not show up on a behavioral screening."

The research is important because early interventions are more effective for stemming aggression, says Petersen, who is a clinical psychologist.

"Evidence suggests that early interventions and preventive approaches are more effective for reducing aggression than interventions that target aggression later in childhood or in adolescence when the behavior is more ingrained and stable," he says.

The paper was published Sept. 26 in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. It is titled "A longitudinal, within-person investigation of the association between the P3 ERP component and externalizing behavior problems in young children."

The children were tested at Indiana University-Bloomington. Contributing authors at Indiana University include Caroline Hoyniak and John Bates. Angela Staples at Eastern Michigan University and Dennis Molfese at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln also are contributing authors.

Explore further Genes and environment interact in first graders to predict physical but not social aggressionCredit: CC0 Public Domain

New tests can diagnose 'hidden' heart diseases caused by problems with the small blood vessels supplying the heart, according to research funded by the British Heart Foundation (BHF) and presented at the Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) conference today in San Diego.

The new tests are not yet standard in the NHS because, before now, there has not been enough evidence gathered about whether they would benefit patients. Now, researchers say that they should be routinely available to pinpoint the cause of chest pain.

Researchers from the University of Glasgow and the Golden Jubilee National Hospital performed the new 'small vessel' test which involves passing a thin, flexible wire into the heart and measuring how well a blood vessel relaxes.

The team performed the new test on 151 patients with chest pain who could not be diagnosed using currently available tests. The small vessel test results for half of the patients were made available to doctors to further guide the diagnosis and treatment, whereas, in the other half of the patients, the results were not disclosed. These patients followed standard care. The team found that the new tests were able to correctly diagnose four times as many patients as standard tests.

Even more importantly, 6 months later, symptoms of angina were less and quality of life was better in the patients whose care was guided by the new tests.

Chest pain originating from the heart is often a symptom of a condition called angina. Angina is triggered when the heart does not receive enough oxygen rich blood, often due to narrowed coronary arteries, the arteries which supply the heart itself. It often happens during exercise, cold weather and emotional stress and points to an underlying problem in the heart.

Doctors commonly recommend an angiogram, an invasive procedure which looks for narrowing of the heart's main arteries. However, in around one half of patients with angina, this angiogram reveals no significant problems. Despite this, patients can experience severe chest pain and have a significantly higher risk of having a heart attack in the future.

In many people with angina, the pain may be caused by problems with the tiniest blood vessels in the heartthe micro vesselswhich are too small to see with traditional tests. The conditions are called microvascular angina and vasospastic angina, which are commonly misdiagnosed. Because diagnosis is so difficult, patients are often left without firm answers about the cause of their chest pain.

Lead researcher Professor Colin Berry, Chair in Cardiology and Imaging at the University of Glasgow, said: "Microvascular angina and vasospastic angina are under-recognised problems. As the angiogram in these patients looks 'clear' they are commonly falsely reassured. Our study's results indicate this to be the case.

"However, leaving microvascular angina and vasospastic angina undiagnosed and untreated presents a risk to patient wellbeing- these problems can be a precursor to a hospitalisation for chest pain and a heart attack  and symptoms persist in the longer term.

"We now hope to see this test rolled out across the country."

Philippa Hobson, Senior Cardiac Nurse at the British Heart Foundation, which funded the research, said: "People living with microvascular angina suffer from crippling and frightening episodes of chest pain that dramatically affects their day to day life. They are unable to treat their symptoms effectively as their angiogram is essentially normal. Medication currently prescribed to people with diagnosed coronary heart disease does little to resolve their pain or reduce risk of heart attack, so they are left in limbo.

"This study is very reassuring news for sufferers who live in the fear of having a heart attack as for many, there is currently no conclusive proof they have heart disease."

Explore further One type of heart disease requires special testing

More information: Thomas J. Ford et al. Stratified Medical Therapy Using Invasive Coronary Function Testing In Angina: CorMicA Trial, Journal of the American College of Cardiology (2018). Journal information: Journal of the American College of Cardiology Thomas J. Ford et al. Stratified Medical Therapy Using Invasive Coronary Function Testing In Angina: CorMicA Trial,(2018). DOI: 10.1016/j.jacc.2018.09.006Benzodiazepines and other sedative-hypnotic drugs are frequently prescribed for older adults to help them sleep. While these drugs may help in the short term, a U of A family medicine physician says their long-term use provide very little benefit and come with serious risks. Credit: University of Alberta

Older adults in Canada are being overprescribed benzodiazepines and other sedative-hypnotic drugs with brand names such as Ativan, Valium and Xanax, according to University of Alberta experts.

"These drugs are among the most frequently prescribed for older adults, often to aid with sleep, and while there are short-term pluses, the long-term use has very little benefit and comes with serious risks," said Jean Triscott, a U of A family medicine physician and founder of the U of A's Division of Care of the Elderly.

According to a study the researchers published earlier this year, benzodiazepines make up 20 to 25 per cent of inappropriate prescriptions in the elderly, with rates of use ranging from five to 32 per cent in community-dwelling older adults.

"We'd like to see public health awareness raised around the dangers of benzodiazepines in older adults and for physicians to consider other, much safer approaches to address sleep issues," Triscott said.

According to the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction, older adults have the highest rate of prescription sedative use among all Canadians at 15.6 per cent in 2015. The prevalence of prescription sedative use is significantly higher among women, at 13.6 per cent, than among men at 7.3 per cent.

One of the reasons for this higher rate in older women is that many middle-aged women are prescribed sedatives to help them deal with hot flashes and sleep disturbances during menopause, said Donna Manca, a family medicine physician and professor in the Department of Family Medicine.

"Although they are not the best option for aiding sleep for these women, these women run the risk of becoming addicted to them and often continue to use them into their senior years," she added.

Studies show that up to 50 per cent of doctors say they renew prescriptions because of patient dependence and perceived benefit, said Bonnie Dobbs, research director for the Division of Care of the Elderly.

It is no longer recommended to prescribe a sedative-hypnotic drug to treat insomnia or anxiety, according to Updated Beers Criteria for Potentially Inappropriate Medication Use in Older Adults released in 2015 by the American Geriatrics Society, noted Triscott.

"Benzodiazepine use is associated with an increased risk of side-effects, including a fivefold higher risk of memory and concentration problems, fourfold increased risk of daytime fatigue, twofold increased risk of falls and fractures and a twofold increased risk of having a motor vehicle accident," Triscott said.

Because older adults don't metabolize medicine as quickly, sedative drugs stay in their system longer, which can result in patients feeling tired, weak and less alert.

"In addition, these drugs are addictive, so when you do stop taking iteven with proper weaning instructions from your doctoryou will have trouble sleeping and feel greater anxiety," said Triscott.

If you are taking sedatives at present, visit your doctor and discuss alternative medicines, advised Triscott.

Alternative tips for getting better sleep

Don't read or watch TV in bed. Do so in a chair or on your couch.

Try to get up in the morning and go to bed at night at the same time every day.

Before going to bed, practise deep breathing or relaxation exercises.

Get exercise during the day, but not during the last three hours before you go to bed.

Avoid consuming nicotine, caffeine and alcohol. They may keep you awake.

Ask your doctor or nurse about using a sleep diary, which can help you understand disruptive sleep patterns.

Check out the Sleepwell Nova Scotia website, which offers online cognitive behavioural therapies to improve sleep.

See the brochure How to get a good night's sleep without medication.

Explore further One in four older adults prescribed a benzodiazepine goes on to risky long-term useCredit: CC0 Public Domain

The causes of the difficult-to-treat pain syndrome fibromyalgia are largely unknown. Using PET brain imaging, researchers at Karolinska Institutet and Massachusetts General Hospital have now shown that glial cells  the central nervous system's immune cells  are activated in the brains of patients with fibromyalgia. The finding has been published in the scientific journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity and may open the way for new therapies.

Fibromyalgia is a chronic pain syndrome that causes extensive pain in the muscles and joints, severe fatigue, insomnia and cognitive difficulties. The higher pain sensitivity that is characteristic of the syndrome has been related to functional and structural alterations of brain regions associated with pain processing.

In 2012, Eva Kosek's research group at Karolinska Institutet showed that patients with fibromyalgia had elevated levels of certain inflammatory substances (cytokines) in the cerebrospinal fluid, suggesting inflammation of the central nervous system. Their findings were subsequently corroborated by other researchers, but the source of the inflammation remained unknown.

Glial cells are activated

Using modern PET (positron-emission topography) brain imaging Eva Kosek's team has now been able to show that the central nervous system's immune cells, called glial cells, are activated and thus give rise to inflammation of the brain.

"As far as we know, this is the first time it's been shown that glial cells are involved in the pathogenesis of fibromyalgia," says Professor Eva Kosek from the Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet.

The results show that in Swedish and American patients with fibromyalgia, glial cells are activated in large parts of the cerebral cortex, and that the degree of activation was related to the degree of fatigue reported by the patients.

Objective aberrations in the brain

"The findings may open the way for the development of completely new therapies for this currently difficult-to-treat condition," says Professor Kosek. "The fact that scientific research is able to demonstrate objective aberrations in the brains of people with fibromyalgia will hopefully mitigate the suspicion with which patients are often treated by the health services and society."

Today, an estimated 200,000 Swedes, mainly women, suffer from fibromyalgia. The brains of people with the condition are known to have an impaired ability to dampen pain signals, which means that things that are normally painless cause considerable discomfort.

The study was a collaboration between Eva Kosek's research group at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, the PET Centre at Karolinska Institutet and Dr. Marco Loggia's research group at Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital, USA. The research in Sweden was financed from several sources, including the EU's 7th Framework and Programme and a donation from the Lundblad Family. The Swedish part of the project was also funded by Stockholm County Council, the Swedish Research Council, the Swedish Rheumatism Association and the Swedish Fibromyalgia Association.

Explore further Fibromyalgia and the role of brain connectivity in pain inhibition

More information: Daniel S. Albrecht et al. Brain glial activation in fibromyalgia  A multi-site positron emission tomography investigation, Brain, Behavior, and Immunity (2018). Daniel S. Albrecht et al. Brain glial activation in fibromyalgia  A multi-site positron emission tomography investigation,(2018). DOI: 10.1016/j.bbi.2018.09.018Dhangadi locals demonstrate against proposed name, capital of Province 7

Locals staged a demonstration outside the Province Assembly on Wednesday expressing dissatisfaction over the proposed name and capital of Province 7.This image shows the coding region in a segment of eukaryotic DNA. Credit: National Human Genome Research Institute

Researchers have found that the genetic causes of rare neurodevelopmental disorders vary more than previously thought. The study from Wellcome Sanger Institute scientists and their collaborators discovered that serious rare disorders can be affected by combinations of common genetic variants, rather than solely individual rare variants that damage single genes.

The study published today (26 September) in Nature will help researchers understand how an individual's whole genetic make-up can modify the effect of rare damaging variants typically thought to cause these developmental disorders. They also revealed that common genetic variants known to increase the risk of conditions such as schizophrenia also increased the risk of rare developmental disorders.

Thousands of babies are born each year who do not develop normally because of their particular genetic makeup. Those with neurodevelopmental disorders can have difficulties in learning or language, or conditions such as autism. The Deciphering Developmental Disorders (DDD) study aims to find diagnoses for these children with as yet unknown developmental disorders, and to understand the causes of these conditions.

Previously it was thought that common genetic variants contribute to common disorders only, such as diabetes or heart disease, but that rare disorders were caused solely by highly damaging mutations in single genes. However, it is well known that different patients who have damaging mutations in the same gene often have some different symptoms. The DDD researchers have tried to understand why.

The researchers studied the genomes of nearly 7,000 children in the DDD study who had a variety of neurodevelopmental disorders and compared them with healthy control individuals. Using Genome Wide Association Studies (GWAS) the team tested 4 million common genetic variants for association with neurodevelopmental disorders. Surprisingly, the researchers found that these common variations also affected the risk of rare neurodevelopmental disorders.

Mari Niemi, first author on the paper from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, said: "Until now, rare developmental disorders have been thought to be caused by a single gene having a huge effect, but our study shows that this might not be the whole story. We discovered that common variants that work together to influence common diseases such as schizophrenia also seem to contribute to rare developmental disorders. These variants could lead to changes during brain development, that could cause a range of common or rare conditions."

Dr. Hilary Martin, an author on the paper from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, said: "This is the first ever large-scale study of the role of common genetic variants in rare neurodevelopmental disorders, and was only possible due to the large cohort of patients in the DDD study. This shows that the genetics of rare diseases are more complicated than originally thought, and we hope it will change how researchers and clinicians think of rare versus common diseases."

Dr. Jeffrey Barrett, a senior author who carried out the work while at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, said: "Our study shows for the first time that common genetic variants could affect the risk of rare developmental disorders, and some of their characteristics. As we learn more about the genetic causes of both rare and common diseases, it is increasingly clear that many different types of genetic variation play important roles in all cases."

Explore further First 'non-gene' mutations behind neurodevelopmental disorders discovered

More information: Mari E. K. Niemi et al, Common genetic variants contribute to risk of rare severe neurodevelopmental disorders, Nature (2018). Journal information: Nature Mari E. K. Niemi et al, Common genetic variants contribute to risk of rare severe neurodevelopmental disorders,(2018). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0566-4(HealthDay)Synthetic marijuana laced with rat poison has caused hundreds of hospitalizations in the United States this year, and a new study details just how serious the poisonings can be.

In July, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned of recent outbreaks of severe bleeding linked to synthetic marijuana that was tainted with brodifacouma blood thinner used in rat poison.

At the time, the FDA said that hundreds of people in about 10 states had been hospitalized for bleeding after using the contaminated products, and several had died.

Synthetic cannabinoids are human-made compounds that target the same brain receptors as marijuana. Known by names like Spice and K2, they are sold online and at gas stations and convenience stores, according to the FDA.

The compounds are typically sprayed onto various herbs so they can be smoked.

It's still unclear how or why a rat poison ingredient got into some products, experts said. But the consequences have been clear.

The new study, published Sept. 27 in the New England Journal of Medicine, describes the cases of 34 patients who used the tainted products. All were admitted to the same Illinois hospital last March or April.

Of the patients who were tested, all had brodifacoum in their systems. Some tested positive for additional blood thinners, as well.

Most came to the hospital with multiple symptomsincluding blood in their urine or stool, unexplained bruising, nosebleeds and coughing up blood. One patient died from bleeding in the brain.

And while the others survived, the treatment was not simple.

Brodifacoum and other blood thinners used in rat poison are designed to have a long half-life. And their effects last for not hours or daysbut for months, explained report author Dr. Amar Kelkar.

That meant the patients required long-term treatment with vitamin K, which helps the blood clot. One patient, for example, needed 50 milligrams (mg) of vitamin K every day for about nine months.

Kelkar, who is now with the University of Florida's Shands Hospital, was based at the University of Illinois at the time.

He said there were several obstacles to getting patients treated. Eight left the hospital against medical advice, with six needing to be readmitted. Two even used the contaminated products again.

And then there's the high cost of the cure.

According to Dr. Jean Connors, a hematologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, "Vitamin K is very expensive."

Just three 5-mg pills of generic vitamin K cost about $81 out-of-pocket, said Connors, who wrote an editorial published with the study.

Kelkar and his colleagues worked to get the patients the supply they neededreaching out to insurance companies, federal programs and pharmacies. The Illinois health department ultimately got a donation of 800,000 vitamin K pills from drug maker Valeant.

Who added rat poison to the products, and why? No one yet knows for sure, Kelkar said.

But the leading theory is that the contaminants were added to prolong the drug's "high," he noted.

This is far from the first time synthetic cannabinoids have been linked to serious problems, Kelkar pointed out. Even if they are not tainted with rat poison, the products are riskypartly because manufacturers are constantly tweaking the chemical composition.

"So the people who take these drugs end up being a test populationwhich is very dangerous," Kelkar explained.

Connors stressed the same point. "I think people may not realize there's a difference between synthetic cannabinoids and marijuana," she said. "But these drugs are very different from the leaves off that [cannabis] plant. They can have unexpected mind-altering effects that are different from marijuana."

Kelkar said that, in fact, some patients in this report did not realize they were taking a synthetic product.

Authorities have banned some chemicals used in synthetic cannabinoids, according to the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse. But makers keep changing the chemical formulas in the products, to stay one step ahead of the law.

Explore further FDA warns against risks of contaminated synthetic cannabis

More information: Amar Kelkar, M.D., hematology fellow, University of Florida Shands Hospital, Gainesville; Jean Connors, M.D., hematologist, Brigham and Women's Hospital, and associate professor, medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston; Sept. 27, 2018, New England Journal of Medicine Amar Kelkar, M.D., hematology fellow, University of Florida Shands Hospital, Gainesville; Jean Connors, M.D., hematologist, Brigham and Women's Hospital, and associate professor, medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston; Sept. 27, 2018, The U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse has more on synthetic cannabinoids. Journal information: New England Journal of Medicine

Copyright  2018 HealthDay. All rights reserved.The causes of schizophrenia are largely unknown. Credit: Nicola Fioravanti/Unsplash

Schizophrenia is one of the world's top 10 causes of disability. It develops between the ages of 16 and 30 and often persists for life. It affects between 100,000 and 200,000 Australians.

Symptoms include delusions and hallucinations ("psychotic" symptoms), diminished emotional expression, poverty of speech and lack of purposeful action (known as "negative" symptoms), and incoherent speech and disorganised behaviour ("disorganised" symptoms). A diagnosis of schizophrenia requires at least two symptoms, including one psychotic or disorganised, to be present for at least six months. These must result in significant social or occupational dysfunction.

It is thought disruptions in brain development early in life may underlie the emergence of schizophrenia in later years. While the causes of these disruptions aren't exactly clear, research points to several possible reasons.

Genes

Hundreds of genes have been linked to schizophrenia, but do not appear to follow typical patterns of inheritance across generations, where disorders can be predicted with confidence. Like diabetes and coronary heart disease, schizophrenia cannot be predicted from family history alone. This is because no one gene, or set of genes, has definitively been identified as causing the disorder.

Family studies do provide robust evidence of a genetic contribution. For instance, across the population, a person's risk of developing schizophrenia is 1%. If one of their parents has the disorder, the risk increases to 15%.

Twin studies have found a 50% increase in the risk of schizophrenia in the identical twin of a person with schizophrenia. Because identical twins share 100% of their DNA, this means environmental risk factors must also be involved. We do not currently know exactly which genes interact with which environmental factors, nor the extent of these interactions.

There is also an association between the age of the father at the time the child is born and an increased risk of schizophrenia in the child. If the father is over the age of 55, the child's risk of schizophrenia increases by 50%. This may be due to rare mutations in paternal sperm that could lead to abnormal development, or to family factors associated with having an older father.

Obstetric complications

Various obstetric complications in utero and at birth have also been identified as risk factors for schizophrenia in the offspring. Complications during pregnancy include maternal bleeding, diabetes, rhesus incompatibility (when the mother has Rh-negative blood and the fetus Rh-positive, or vice versa), pre-eclampsia and abnormal fetal growth and development.

Maternal exposure to famine during pregnancy has been linked to schizophrenia in the offspring. Complications at delivery include uterine atony (failure of the uterus to contract after delivery), lack of oxygen to the fetus and emergency caesarean.

Most of these obstetric associations are small, and other potential influencing factors weren't controlled for. For example, exposure to maternal infections, such as upper respiratory tract and genital or reproductive infections, has been linked to schizophrenia in the offspring. If exposed to these infections, these could be the real culprits rather than the obstetric complications described above.

Exposure to infections in childhood, such as Toxoplasma gondii (a parasitic organism carried by domestic cats) and viral central nervous system infections (such as meningitis), have also been linked to schizophrenia in adulthood. Again, if exposed, these could have led to the mental illness as opposed to complications in delivery.

Immune markers

Markers of infection and inflammation are often increased in adults with schizophrenia. This means immune system dysfunction may be involved in the development of the disorder.

Drug use

Studies following people from birth to adulthood have identified cannabis use in childhood or adolescence as a likely risk factor.

These studies have adjusted for other risk factors and taken into account intoxication effects and reverse causation (that schizophrenia may cause cannabis use). They found a dose-response effect, which means the risk of psychosis increased as the frequency of cannabis use increased. Such dose-response effects provide the most robust evidence of causation.

The neurological and biological mechanisms of cannabis use are similar to those in schizophrenia, with the same neurons showing activity.

Methamphetamines, particularly ice or crystal methamphetamine, have been linked to increased risk of persistent psychosis, and not just substance-induced psychosis. Controlled amphetamine administration that triggers temporary psychosis in healthy individuals can also be blocked by antipsychotics. This further strengthens the evidence of association.

Social factors

There is solid evidence supporting the link between having experienced child abuse, or any type of abuse that includes bullying, and schizophrenia. Stressful life events in adulthood have been associated with schizophrenia too.

People living in urban areas, particularly areas with high income inequality, also show increased risk, which may be associated with social fragmentation. Both first- and second-generation immigrants show increased risk, with surprisingly greater risk seen in the second generation.

Studies have also found a greater risk of schizophrenia in ethnic minority groups living in areas of low ethnic density than those living in high ethnic density areas. These finding indicate that sustained social marginalisation, particularly from early childhood, may have greater adverse effects than migration itself.

Stress

Social stressors can lead to biological disruptions. For instance, stress increases the release of dopamine. And evidence shows people with schizophrenia have increased dopamine production and release.

Stress is also associated with dysregulation of a brain network known as the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, which is sensitised in people with schizophrenia.

Stress associated with being raised in a harsh environment has been linked to the emergence of an inflammatory gene expression in adolescents. And people with schizophrenia show immune system dysfunction in both the early and late stages of the disorder.

Disruption to these biological systems can cause paranoid ideas, social withdrawal and other behavioural problems. These in turn cause additional stress and further biological disruption. In time, paranoid ideas can become delusional and fixed, signalling schizophrenia, particularly in the presence of other symptoms.

While much progress has been made in identifying the potential causes of schizophrenia, most of the evidence comes from population-level studies that may or may not be applicable to a particular individual. More research is required to determine the various individual pathways to schizophrenia.

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This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.Maggie Maine, who is now 8 years old. Photo: Maine family

The day after Maggie Maine was born, doctors told her parents there was a 70 percent chance she'd never walk, talk or be able to feed or bathe herself.

An MRI had found severe defects in both her heart and her brain.

Relying on their faith, Jeff and Renae Maine decided to focus on the 30 percent chance that the doctor was wrong, that Maggie would grow up to be "normal."

"We're focusing on the positive instead of the negative," said Jeff.

Maggie's prognosis wasn't a surprise. Ultrasounds done before she was born had already found defects in her brain and heart. The MRI only confirmed those findings.

Doctors told the Maines, who live in Bluffton, South Carolina, that about 75 percent of Maggie's cerebellum was missing due to a rare condition called Dandy-Walker variant. Located in the lower, back portion of the brain, the cerebellum plays a vital role in balance and in coordinating muscular activity necessary, for example, to ride a bike.

She also had a heart condition called tetralogy of Fallot, a combination of four heart malformations. These include a hole between the lower chambers of the heart that allows oxygen-poor blood to flow out of the heart to the rest of the body.

Tetralogy of Fallot symptoms include a bluish skin tone, chronic fatigue, especially during physical activity, and a dangerous thickening of the heart walls.

The best news Jeff and Renae heard following the MRI was that Maggie's heart defects were repairable. She had her first open-heart surgery at just 3 months of age and, a week later, had a pacemaker implanted into her abdomen.

From that scary, gloomy start, look at her now, at age 8.

While there's no treatment for Maggie's brain defect, her cognitive development has so far been completely normal.

"She's in second grade but she's reading at a fifth-grade level," Renae said. "She loves to write, play the piano and she even takes dance lessons. She's just a normal, energetic little girl."

About the only signs of her condition, her parents said, is that she sometimes has difficulty with balance and that she runs slower than other children her age.

One of Maggie's many neurologists called her development "unexplainable." The Maines prefer "miracle."

Yet, while they've tried to remain optimistic, Jeff concedes there have been "dark days."

"We're human, too, so sometimes the optimism fades," he said.

As for Maggie, her parents say she understands her physical limitations, but at an 8-year-old level.

"She calls her pacemaker her 'battery,'" Jeff said. "We were at the airport recently and she asked if the security scanner would hurt her battery."

Maggie has had four additional heart surgeries since her early months. There are more to come, yet the prognosis is encouraging.

"Maggie's doing great, although she has challenges ahead of her," said her pediatric cardiologist, Dr. Patrick Broderick with the Savannah Children's Heart Center. "She's had some leakage through the pulmonary valve, for example, so she'll eventually need a new one. We'll try to wait until she's 12, maybe 14 years old before we do that, though."

Broderick said he tried to encourage Maggie's parents by telling them the Olympic snowboarder Shaun White was born with tetralogy of Fallot.

"So now I tell them that she owes me three gold medals," Broderick said.

But Maggie has already decided she wants to be a cardiologist when she grows up. So perhaps someday she'll be doing these procedures herself on another little girl.

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Copyright is owned or held by the American Heart Association, Inc., and all rights are reserved. If you have questions or comments about this story, please email editor@heart.org.A study into the pharmaceutical use of 1.4 million New Zealand children has revealed some significant increases in the use of certain prescription medicines, as well as the positive impact of practitioner education.

In a New Zealand-first, researchers from the University of Otago and the Best Practice Advocacy Centre (BPAC) set out to identify trends relating to the use of prescription medicines in children to potentially find possible safety issues, areas of inappropriate prescribing as well as the impact of educational campaigns on appropriate practice.

The research, published in the journal Pediatric Drugs, analysed prescription information, logged in the national Pharmaceutical Collection from between 2010 and 2015, of more than 1.4 million children. The average number of prescriptions per child, per year, was 4.5, with prescription rates highest for those under two.

Overall, the number of children using any medicine increased from 69.7 per cent in 2010 to 73.1 per cent in 2015.

The most widely used medicines were antibiotics, drugs related to the nervous system (pain relief), dermatologicals, and respiratory medicine.

Not surprisingly, the most common drug prescribed to children was paracetamol.

The use of methylphenidate to treat attention-deficit disorder, mainly in children older than six, increased by 37.7 per cent. Prescriptions of fluoxetine, an antidepressant, increased by 50 per cent in children over 12 over the five year period.

"We can't say why, but it is possible that depressive illness in children is being better picked up and prescriber confidence and experience with fluoxetine has increased," says David Woods, Professional Practice Fellow with the University's School of Pharmacy.

There was also a significant increase in the use of ondansetron (an anti-nausea medication), assumed to be for acute gastroenteritis. While this initially surprised the researchers, they found similar trends have been seen in other countries.

Of potential concern was the overall increase in the prescribing of the opioids codeine and tramadol, the latter of which has potential for unintentional overdose. Recent recommendations advise against the use of codeine and tramadol in children. The researchers plan a follow-up study to ascertain if these recommendations are being followed.

On the other hand, the prevalence and use of systemic and topical antibiotics decreased by two and 10 per cent respectively.

"It is accepted that antibiotics in general are over-used and in many cases unnecessary. Our findings may reflect increased awareness of this and evidence-based prescriber education strategies that were instituted during the study period, such as restricting the use of antibiotics for ear and skin infections," Mr Woods says.

Lead author Andrew Tomlin, of BPAC, says the research is important to identify patterns of usage in relation to educational strategies, concerns over potential excessive use, requirement for practitioner education, and for making comparisons with international trends.

It also provides reassurance that there are several strategies in place to monitor the use of medicines in New Zealand.

"Rather than raise undue concerns about the use of medicines in children in New Zealand, the results have identified areas where practitioner response to education and best practice recommendations appears good," Mr Tomlin says.

"In other areas where medicine usage has increased, further research is possible to see if these medicines are being used appropriately.

"The results, and associated discussion, may also encourage individual practitioners to review and even question their own prescribing, which is always a positive thing to do."

Along with further research into the area, the researchers believe medicines used by children need to be monitored on a regular basis in order to evaluate which therapies are effective and which may have harmful consequences.

They also believe the research results signal the need for more focused investigation into the actual reasons for prescribing.

"This study is, in fact, a building block for the development of the techniques of data analytics to monitor the safe and effective use of medicines in all populations," Mr Woods says.

Explore further Prescribing antibiotics for children with cough does not reduce hospitalization risk

More information: Andrew M. Tomlin et al, Trends in Outpatient Prescription Medicine Use in New Zealand Children 20102015: A National Population-Based Study, Pediatric Drugs (2018). Andrew M. Tomlin et al, Trends in Outpatient Prescription Medicine Use in New Zealand Children 20102015: A National Population-Based Study,(2018). DOI: 10.1007/s40272-018-0303-3Director among nine officials convicted

The Special Court on Tuesday convicted nine officials of the Poverty Alleviation Fund on charge of budget misappropriation.Disaster response drill starts in Capital

The fourth iteration of Disaster Response Exercise and Exchange, which is held routinely by the Nepal Army and the US Army Pacific, kicked off in Kathmandu on Tuesday.NOTICE:

TO BE CLEAR:

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MUGSHOTS.COM IS A NEWS ORGANIZATION. WE POST AND WRITE THOUSANDS OF NEWS STORIES A YEAR, MOST WANTED STORIES, EDITORIALS (UNDER CATEGORIES - BLOG) AND STORIES OF EXONERATIONS. OUR CONTENT REVOLVES AROUND CRIME, ARRESTS AND THE FIRST AMENDMENT. WE BELIEVE IN THE CONSTITUTION AND OUR FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHT TO PUBLISH UNPOPULAR SPEECH. OPEN RECORD LAWS WERE WRITTEN TO PROTECT THE PUBLIC; BY INFORMING THE PUBLIC OF ARRESTS AND TO HOLD LAW ENFORCEMENT ACCOUNTABLE FOR THE HUMANE TREATMENT OF ARRESTEES. MOST OF, IF NOT ALL MUGSHOT LAWS WERE CRAFTED TO PROTECT THE PUBLIC FROM FEES FOR REMOVAL OF ONLINE MUGSHOTS AND TO FURTHER PROTECT THE PRESS FROM THOSE VERY SAME "MUGSHOT LAWS".WE DO NOT ACCEPT PAYMENT FOR REMOVAL OF ARREST INFORMATION AND/OR BOOKING PHOTOGRAPHS. MORE...ICASA and Minister of Telecommunications Siyabonga Cwele have agreed to settle the court matter regarding an invitation to apply (ITA) which the authority issued for the allocation of high-demand spectrum in 2016.

ICASA will withdraw its ITA and the minister will withdraw the legal challenge against the ITA, said the parties.

This follows President Cyril Ramaphosas recent call to initiate a process for the allocation of high-demand spectrum to mobile networks like Vodacom and MTN.

The minister is consulting with ICASA on a new draft policy direction for the licensing of the high-demand spectrum, which will be issued for public comment once completed.

After the public consultation process and consideration of the final directions issued by the minister, ICASA said it will commence the licensing process for the assignment of the spectrum.

The minister will consider applications for unassigned high-demand spectrum which is not reserved for the wholesale open access network (WOAN).

The authority is indeed pleased that the impasse over the licensing of high-demand spectrum has finally been resolved, said ICASA chairperson Rubben Mohlaloga.

It is our concerted view that the settlement of the 2016 litigation and pending consultation process on the policy direction provides much needed certainty for the sector to thrive.As part of the celebration of its five-year anniversary in South Africa, Uber has highlighted the career of one of its drivers.

Matthew is an Uber driver who has racked up over 30,000 trips on the platform over the course of three years, said the company.

Some of his most notable trips include speeding a pregnant woman to the hospital to give birth, to simply driving his parents or children home.

Matthew has bought and fully paid for three vehicles during his time with Uber and now employs two other Uber drivers.

I always knew I wanted more in life, I wanted to travel and explore, discover and learn. I knew that an office job was not for me, said Matthew.

From my riders, Ive felt like Ive explored the world. For me, the riders are my tickets into new countries.

Matthew hails from Nigeria and moved to South Africa in 2006.Disclaimer: In response to Sean Scullys request that letters to the editor return to the era of robust, but civil debate, I have no intention of impugning His Honor, Mayor Galbraith. Our differences are purely philosophical, not personal, and originate from over 50 years of studying human population dynamics. I respectfully thank Alan for his service and wish him well in all that he does (except continuing as Mayor of St. Helena). LOL

Hopefully, having atoned in advance: Alan has an 800-pound gorilla in his drive way. Its a very quiet gorilla and will likely never make it into the Stars police log. You see, the gorilla is a metaphor that has manifested itself in the form of a water well. Alan was fortunate enough to have the well drilled before the City-wide moratorium banning all future wells was enacted.

He has publicly stated that SH water rates will continue to rise for the next three years, but he failed to concede that the policy of encouraging the sale of residential and commercial water meters (without increasing the water supply) will not solve the water problem but make it worse. Rate hikes will have little impact on wealthy homeowners, wineries and commercial users.

However, in Alans case, this is a moot issue. If the rates begin to concern him, he can simply turn on his pump and, for pennies a day (as long as the water table remains stable) enjoy all the water he desires. In sharp contrast, however, the results of the current policies are that the elderly, retirees and less fortunate folks have to struggle to pay the higher water rates. A stroll around town clearly shows that wealthy homeowners, and those with wells, are more likely to have lush green landscapes (including lawns) while the landscapes of those who cannot afford $200-$300 per month are suffering due to skyrocketing water rates.

Although I disagreed with nearly all of Alans water-related decisions, I did not support the recall movement. Instead, I sided with many who thought, that due to the polarizing effects of the recall, compassion would be more noble than using the recall hammer; and that Alan should be allowed to complete his term with dignity. Perhaps if he had fully understood their empathetic acquiescence, we would not be going through this painfully divisive process again.

Although I trust that Alans well is legal, in a poignant irony, it symbolizes all the dead end failures of most previous mayors and councils (except Louis Stralla) to solve the St. Helena water crisis. If global warming becomes a permanent reality, there will be no new sources of water and St. Helena will be headed for mandatory year-round rationing. I have recently seen an unprecedented increase in the number trucks hauling potable water around town, including up to (of all places) Spring Mountain. The town of Paso Robles (and many other Cali-communities) are currently being torn apart by water wars. It is foolishly naive to think that St. Helena is not already on that same path to war. Doubters only need to Google, California Water Wars to see shockingly tragic stories.

As for the gorilla? He may have been a harbinger of St. Helenas future and he raised the intriguing ethical question as to whether any mayor or council member (who owns a well) should recuse him/herself from all water-related decisions due to a conflict of interest. Having all the water they need could preclude them from empathizing with those without wells. The challenges will become more intense as they struggle to find equitable water policies that do not favor businesses and the wealthy, and cause an unfair burden for the elderly and less fortunate.

Lowell H. Young

Retired biology teacher

St. HelenaI have known Geoff since he was a kid growing up on Dean York Lane - his mom a childhood friend and his dad owning a successful business on Main Street. I have been delighted and energized by his passionate belief in the unique character of our town and his understanding of the fragility of that character and the issues of sustainability of the valley that envelopes us.

I have watched his vision and wisdom mature as he has served tirelessly on our city council - diving deeply into the complex issues that confront us and listening carefully to differing ideas and opinions. Indeed it is Geoff's capacity and willingness to listen that in great measure earn him my vote.

In addition is his youthful vision for our town.

Alan Galbraith began his first term as mayor at a time when St. Helena was reeling from a period of mismanagement. Thanks to a new and effective city council (which includes Geoff), Mayor Galbraith's leadership on the sales tax initiative, and the hiring of an extremely competent city manager in Mark Prestwich, the city is not only on an even keel but is looking at a positive financial future.

Geoff has a vision of what that future could be, and he listens to and and learns from ideas about ways forward - a refreshing change from Mr. Galbraith who continues to see the town in the dire straits in which he found it and who continues to support conservative policies and solutions no longer in step with the needs, desires and vision of our citizenry.

I hope you will vote for the future of St. Helena. Vote for Geoff Ellsworth.

Anne Carr

St. HelenaWho among us doesnt know  or know of  friends, neighbors, colleagues and families who lost cherished homes, priceless possessions and, if youre an artist, treasure troves of irreplaceable work in the Northern California wildfires?

The randomness and shock of these losses continues to smolder in the hearts, minds and careers of those affected.

Curator Rina Faletti opted to mark the approaching first-year anniversary of the fires with a visual arts exhibition and film program around the theme, Art Responds: the Wine Country Fires.

As a fire evacuee myself, I am a first-hand witness to everyday needs for bonding, helping, sharing, listening and learning among residents living in the footprint of the wild fires, said Faletti. Art opens the door to these conversations.

The free exhibit opens Wednesday, Oct. 10, from 6-8 p.m. and can be viewed through Dec. 15 (visit www.art-responds.com for days and hours). Housing the work is a pop-up gallery at 1252 First St., just around the corner from the Archer Hotels front door.

Public programs include the world premiere of California on Fire, a film by photographer Jeff Frost, taking place on Sunday, Oct. 21, 4 p.m., at the Napa Valley Opera House. Following that screening, a new documentary, Wilder Than Wild: Fire, Forests and the Future, by Stephen Most and Kevin White, will be shown. To purchase tickets for the film screenings, visit: www.bluenotenapa.com/calendar.

Venue sponsors include Zapolski Real Estate, First Street Napa and the Napa Valley Opera House. Additional support comes from the Arts Council Napa Valley Community Fund and a Hewlett Foundation Fire Recovery Grant.

Artists participating in the visual exhibition include: Julia Crane, Oscar Aguilar Olea, Andrea Dale, Lowell Downey, Brian Fies, Jeff Frost, Linda Gass, Edmund Ian Grant, Norma I. Quintana and Kristi Rene. Four lost their homes, artworks and studios in the fires. Leave it to a cadre of ultra-talented, contemporary artists to take personal loss and turn it into a visual exploration of destruction and regeneration.

Exhibit artists Grant and Rene, a couple who lost everything in the fires, are moving forward in their new reality:

Were coping exceptionally well and gratitude is pervasive daily, Grant said. We are rebuilding and longing to return to our home that we so arduously worked for and created  a sanctuary that we shared with others that we desperately miss. This challenging ordeal is instructive, emotionally bonding and exhausting yet growth is always good and forces faith.

Imagery on view in the gallery will include: hand drawn-pages of a graphic novel illustrating a familys escape; time-lapse wildfire scenes unfurling under starry skies; painted washes swept on canvas in a race from the flames; wall installations and resin paintings made of ash; scorched object portraits; textiles stitched into blackened topographies; and aerial photographs of incinerated mountain landscapes.

Its a clean slate and the hard lesson I learned is we only have the moment, said Grant. I feel this has made my work more immediate, expressive, more raw and honest.

Art Responds is also extending an invitation to the community to submit up to four images that express experiences or reactions to the Northern California wildfires. All images will be posted to an online gallery at www.art-responds.com; a number of images will be selected by a jury to be printed and displayed at the exhibition.

Evy Warshawski is a partner in E & M PresentsMaude, theres no need to traipse to Yountville. Theres plenty to do here. Hell, why not just stay home and watch a movie?

With the ever-worsening traffic, I can understand. Yet you just might want to make an exception. You see, for two weekends starting Oct. 5, a play about something wed all be wise to think about, will be performed at Yountvilles Lincoln Theater.

Whats the issue? Well, here are hints: If youre a young person, it could be your grandparent. If youre middle-aged, it could be your parent, and if youre older, it could be you or someone you care about: learning how to die well.

Yes, its true: You can die well or badly. Much can be done, by you and family members, if only were willing to think about it and know the options. Particularly thorny is dealing with Alzheimers disease, which, according to a new report in the New England Journal of Medicine, is expected by 2060 to afflict 14 million Americans. And of course, that doesnt count the impact on their loved ones.

Fortunate for Napa Valley residents, theres a sugar-coated way to get smart about it all. At the Lincoln Theater, Valley Players will do six performances of the world premiere of a play about these issues that is filled with poignancy and wit: Ordinary Day. After each performance, therell be a talkback with the director, actors, and local experts on Alzheimers and end-of-life issues. Plus, at the Oct. 5 and 13 discussions, the playwright, Lorraine Midanik will join it. Lois Wolk, co-author of Californias right-to-die law, will attend the Oct. 7 and 13 discussions.

The performers and director are well-known to Napa Valley theatergoers. June Alane Reif directs a veteran cast: Debbie Baumann, Patte Quinn, Karen Stern, Zachary Stockton, and my wife (perhaps better known as the Napa County Superintendent of Schools) Barbara Nemko.

The actors have impressive bona fides. For example, Stern, who plays the lead, was the female lead in Palo Alto Players production of Same Time Next Year and Helena in Marin Shakespeare Companys Midsummer Nights Dream. This play reminds me of how easy it is to lose patience with older people, especially if theyre losing it, she said. I like to think Ill be a better person for it.

Nemko, who has played unusually diverse roles, from Swedish psychic in Deathtrap to a Brooklyn Jewish busybody in Funny Girl to Sophia Loren type in Lend Me a Tenor, said, This play offers us hope that we can craft a better end for ourselves and those we love.

I attended a rehearsal of Ordinary Day and was impressed. The actors are doing well, including having memorized their lines almost perfectly more than two weeks before opening night  its clear that none of them have Alzheimers. And I have much respect for the director, June Reif: She had Alzheimers experts attend rehearsal, offering advice and taking questions from the cast. And she ran her rehearsal crisply but warmly. The tone was workmanlike and positive, which ensures that the performance will keep getting better and better while the actors and stage manager are having a pleasant experience. Her notes for the actors were smart and tactfully dispensed  no yelling, autocratic director here.

Ordinary Day is no ordinary play for Reif. Its personal: I think a lot about my dad, who died of Parkinsons disease, who had asked me to take my gun and shoot me. We need a better way.

Wolk said, Anyone who knows someone at this stage of life should see this play and the talkback after the show. It will help us think about ourselves, our values, and what we want at end of our life, all of our lives. Its important, more important than many of us realize, to try to have a good dying process.

I would go further. Ordinary Day reminds us of our mortality and thus helps us live more richly today.A widow, dressed in black, spins a web to trap an equivocating congressman; a thoroughly modern male endures a two-hour road trip with his devoutly Catholic mother and her rosary. The harvest moon was rising over the White Barn on Saturday night; you could see it shining through the open door of the barn loft, and at one point a bat flew in and around the theater, but still the real drama was on the stage as the White Barn presented State of the Nation, staged readings for the public premier of two one-act dramas for a sold-out audience.

In Barney Leasons The Presidents Widow, Diane Stornway (Linda Howard) has taken refuge in the Georgetown home of a friend after her husband, President Stornway, has been murdered. She invites Congressman Larson Davis (Richard Pallaziol) from the opposition party to visit her there.

What is she up to? She appears to be eerily dispassionate in contrast to the effusively admiring politician who apparently was one of her husbands most vociferous critics. She accepts his fulsome platitudes. But he, with a specious sympathy, merely glosses over her ruminations on Calpurnia, widow of Julius Caesar: what did she do after her husbands assassination? Did she ever confront Brutus?

Clearly a man who has never read his Kipling, he is entirely diverted when she confides that she is weary of politics. She might move to Ireland. Would he visit her?

Would he? One can almost see the lecherous light bulb go on in Davis brain  his eyes certainly take on a concupiscent glow at the prospect. Political differences take wings and would have flown out the window, except there is no window. Portraits of past presidents, yes, but no window. They are, she explains, in a safe room, thick walls, no windows, and only one door that locks.

She returns to contemplating Calpurnia, even as the randy congressman is on his knees kissing her hand. And she reflects on Glocks. It was a Glock pistol that blew her husbands head off; if a widow, armed with a Glock, could confront her husbands assassin, would she do the same?

Eventually, even this congressman is bemused as she develops her theme and drives home her point with a deadly accuracy: Davis was not just a political opponent who differed on issues with her husband; he was a purveyor of hate-filled rhetoric that inflamed a disturbed man with a Glock who felt he had been instructed to murder a president.

I loved my husband, she says, still with a chilling calm as she wonders aloud: what would happen if a grieving widow, who happened to have a Glock, turned it on the man who had caused, by the sheer malevolence of his words, her husbands death?

Davis well-honed survival instincts kick in  he decides its time to leave, only to discover that the door is locked, his mobile phone does not work, and he is trapped  and is that a pistol she has hidden in her handbag?

The Presidents Widow is a chilling, timely work, read masterfully by Howard and Pallaziol, who runs the gamut from smarmy deceit to denial to fury to gibbering terror at the prospect of being forced, not just to own responsibility for his words but to pay the penalty for them.

Driven to Distraction

While many playwrights have addressed the problem of relations who hold different views on life, few have gone so far as to imprison two of them in one car on what becomes a seemingly endless road trip.

In John Sullivans Driven to Distraction, he takes on the role of Son who is driving his mother (Jean Martin) to the wedding of his niece, her granddaughter, on what she maintains is the top of Mt. Everest, although it is actually Mt. Everett.

Martins mother is a gem, tough as a chunk of stew meat, upright as a flagpole and as inflexible as any woman might be knowing that she is on the side of God. Her son, on the other hand, is a textbook liberal, a social worker, an enlightened male, who would never eat endangered fish if he could help it, utter a politically incorrect moniker or neglect to recycle.

Is there anything they might agree on? This is doubtful, as his mother expresses her opinion on everything from people who dont get properly married in churches to the calamity of finding transvestites in the ladies room at the service station.

Few topics are left out as they spar on their journey: do abortions cause cancer; what about the crimes of priests and why are all of the ten commandments negative?

It doesnt take long to figure out, as recriminations fly, that this pair is well an truly related. Each gives as good as she or he gets; and they go absolutely nowhere towards understanding or accepting the other on their endless journey  or do they? By turns comic and poignant, one wonders: next time will he call Uber for Mom?

Together, these two works provided a provocative evening of the best kind, a glimpse of work by local writers, who inspire more questions that be glibly answered.

All this and a bat and the full moon too.

Stay up-to-date on what's happening Receive the latest in local entertainment news in 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.Lama is leading a team to prepare North East Region Vision 2035 as part of NITI Aayogs India Vision 2035.This is the first in a series of interviews of Napa City Council candidates for the Nov. 6 election.

The family of Liz Alessio has lived in the Napa Valley for some 140 years  but the next few years may determine whether many of her fellow residents can still consider it home, according to the City Council candidate.

As Napas hotels, wine tasting rooms and restaurants have attracted increasing numbers of visitors and become a bedrock of its economy, hospitality workers  and many others  have struggled to find housing close by as rents and sale prices have soared, and vacancies have plunged to 1 percent.

In pursuing one of the two council seats in play for the Nov. 6 election, Alessio declares housing  especially the kinds affordable to Napas rank-and-file workers  the key to preserving what she calls her hometowns unique sense of neighborly spirit. With council members poised to help craft a new General Plan to guide the zoning of homes and business for the next two decades, she said, the task is as crucial as ever.

What Im really concerned about is that we sustain a sense of community here; thats at risk, she said in a interview Monday. We have more teachers, more public safety, tourism, ag and government workers, people in all industries who are not able to live and work here, to be near their children. Theres a real separation from the bedrock of the community. Decisions being made by the City Council for the General Plan are going to define who we are.

At the end of this, I want us to be able to preserve our community.

The 52-year-old Alessio, a coordinator of senior community program services for Queen of the Valley Medical Center, is one of five challengers in the Napa council race competing against the three-term incumbent Peter Mott. At least one challenger will join the council by taking over the seat held by Jim Krider, who was appointed in last November but declined to seek a full four-year term.

Whoever is elected to the council this fall will have a hand in redrawing Napas General Plan, the guidebook for what kinds of development are allowed and in which areas. Alessio called that task an opportunity to pursue a raft of housing-friendly policies such as an overhaul of residential zoning  especially in the increasingly tourism-based downtown core  along with cooperation between the city and Napa County to reuse surplus government lands for home construction, and a streamlined review and permit process to reduce time and cost for would-be builders.

Furthermore, Alessio argued, Napa should partner with builders to create affordable housing in proportion to the number of people expected to staff new developments in the city. The number of residences to be built would be based on a study that would set a sliding scale based on project size, she said.

In addition to fostering more home construction, Alessio has come out strongly for reviving Napas former inclusionary ordinance that required developers to offer 10 percent of the units in new multi-family housing complexes below market-level rents. A 2009 court case effectively banned such quotas as an illegal form of rent control  which in California can be enforced only on dwellings built before 1995  but the state Legislature passed Assembly Bill 1505 last year allowing cities to revive such set-asides.

Alessio called for Napa to set an even higher bar and reserve 20 percent of such apartments for families making less than the citys median income  even though the new state law requires cities setting their affordable minimum above 15 percent to prove a stricter requirement will not depress the local housing construction market.

Meanwhile, another construction project has left Alessio much more wary  Napas proposal to centralize city offices and the police department into a four-story downtown civic center on First Street.

Alessio has questioned the cost and complexity of the project, which has been estimated to require about $121 million, including the expense of temporary office space during about two years of construction. More troubling is a lack of outreach to citizens and city workers about the need for a new headquarters, she said, pointing to opposition from the Napa Police Officers Association.

I would like an opportunity for people to have a better understanding of the civic center, she said. There hasnt been enough transparency with the public, which is why theres been pushback.

Alessio, who in a candidates forum Sept. 11 advocated a pause to planning the civic center, supported rethinking the project to better take city workers needs into account.

Im apprehensive about this project and Ive been vocal about that, she said this week. We can do this in stages and present another idea that can be better in the long term.

A latecomer in California to legalizing marijuana sales, Napa finally passed an ordinance in 2017 to allow for dispensaries selling medicinal cannabis products. Alessio, however, called for caution in moving toward the next step of welcoming sales of non-medical marijuana, citing resistance from the Napa police union.

Above all, Alessio promised to push for policies she said would give those living in Napa equal priority with those who visit.

We have a wonderful community and its a gem, but we need a balanced approach that values Napa residents  and thats ultimately why I stepped up at this time.

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.Sen. Bill Dodd, D-Napa will host a wildfire prevention forum and remembrance ceremony Oct. 9 in Calistoga to mark the first anniversary of the devastating Tubbs Fire.

Its been a year of unparalleled hardship and challenge that revealed just how vulnerable we are to wildfire, Dodd said. But we have learned much from this terrible tragedy and are now taking important steps toward preventing future disasters. It is in this spirit of optimism that we rebuild, recover and thrive.

The senator will discuss his comprehensive wildfire legislation, Senate Bill 901, which was signed by Gov. Jerry Brown earlier this month. He will lead a panel discussion about recovery and preparedness featuring local officials. Napa County law enforcement and fire representatives will preside over a remembrance ceremony honoring the work of first responders and residents.

The Tubbs Fire started on Tubbs Lane in Calistoga the night of Oct. 8, 2017. It was blown by strong winds into Santa Rosa, destroying 36,000 acres, more than 5,600 homes and killing 22 people before being contained Oct. 31. It was among a series of Northern California fires that started about the same time and remains the most destructive wildfire in state history.

Joining Dodd will be Napa County Supervisor Diane Dillon, Calistoga Mayor Chris Canning, Napa County Fire Chief Barry Biermann, Napa County Chaplain Lee Shaw and others. The forum will be at the Calistoga Community Center,. 1307 Washington St., Calistoga, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. To RSVP: contact Angelica Mancuso at 707-224-1990 or angelica.mancuso@sen.ca.gov.Last year, the 524 people in Napa who bailed out of jail faced average bail costs of more than $28,000, according to the Napa County Department of Corrections.

Still, 208 people were unable to bail out. The department said it doesnt keep track of why detainees dont post bail.

Californias cash bail system would be overhauled under Senate Bill 10, which was approved by Gov. Jerry Brown late last month. It aims to eliminate cash bail that hits low-income families the hardest and would go into effect October 2019.

The bail bonds industry hasnt abandoned efforts to quash the legislation. The California Bail Agents Association is waging a campaign to nullify the bill by collecting at least 365,880 signatures for an initiative campaign, as is currently required under state law. The initiative could qualify for the 2020 ballot if enough valid signatures are collected.

While supporters of the bill acknowledge it isnt perfect, they say its a good first step.

I think people stay in jail that would easily show up back to court, that would probably not reoffend, but theyre in jail simply because theyve got no money, said Andy Rubinger, a chief attorney with the Napa County Public Defenders office.

Napas bail system already progressive

The new law would grant judges greater power over who should remain behind bars before trial. The new system would be based on risk assessments, which are essentially a series of questions designed to determine whether an inmate would show up to trial or commit a new offense.

Sen. Bill Dodd and Assemblywoman Cecilia Aguiar-Curry both voted in favor of the measure, though some groups including the American Civil Liberties Union worry that racial bias and disparities could still impact who gets released under the new model.

Napa may be better prepared for the transition than some counties, said Mary Butler, Napa Countys chief probation officer. The county has already used a similar risk assessment-based model since 2010, joining a small handful of other California counties, she said. Officers do not consider mental health or substance issues when conducting the risk assessment.

Without that tool, literally, youre making a guess, Butler said. And that was why in this legislation, having a risk assessment was so important.

Probation officers write a report to the judge if they feel that a person is worth taking a risk on, Butler said. Some people who qualify for release may still have to wear an ankle bracelet or monitor for alcohol, and could be out of jail before their arraignment.

If someone doesnt pass the risk assessment, probation officers still write an explanatory report to the judge, she said. The judge still has the discretion to release that person under certain conditions, for example, or keep them in jail unless they can meet bail.

Forcing their doors shut

Joseph Aldridge, owner of Aldridge Bail Bonds in Napa, has lived in Napa for 40 years.

Once the business is gone, then Im probably going to move out of state because its much less expensive than California, said Aldridge, 62.

Many bail bondsman say they believe that the current cash bail system should be revised, he said, but SB 10 isnt the right way. For now, Aldridge is among those trying to collect signatures and educate the public on potential cons of the proposed system.

When somebody skips court, he said, bail bondsman go after those people because its in their financial interest. The taxpayer doesnt foot the bill, but Aldridge said public resources would have to be dedicated to getting a hold of those people.

Aldridge said hes worked with some clients who have said they will lose their job if they cant get back to work soon. Cash bail is a good remedy in such situations, he said.

Its quite possible that (under SB 10) the rich man and the poor man can be sitting right alongside each other being fed by the counties and state, he said.

He also pointed to the example of New Jersey, which eliminated cash bail in 2018 and moved to a similar system proposed in SB 10.

One year after the state overhauled its bail system, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the pretrial jail population dropped by 20 percent. But as anticipated, the $35 million program used to determine whether somebody stays in jail or walks free ran a significant cost deficit.

Its unknown whether that would be an issue in California, where counties would be free to pick their own risk assessment program, as long as it met certain standards.

Despite potential drawbacks, SB 10s supporters say its worth trying something new.

Rubinger of the Napa County Public Defenders office said most of his clients dont have money. Hes had a 16-year career as a public defender and said the cash bail system is meant for people with cash.

Their only crime, really, is that theyre too poor to bail out, he said.

Still, it remains to be seen whether Californians will decide to give SB 10 a chance. Voters have until Nov. 20 to sign a California Bail Agents Association petition to put the issue on the 2020 ballot.

Courtney can be reached at 707-256-2221. You can send her an anonymous tip, and follow her reporting on Twitter and Facebook.

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.On Tuesday, President Donald Trump continued a long-standing presidential tradition by giving a speech at the United Nations General Assembly. Unlike most of his predecessors, however, Trump found himself isolated in front of the international community. Indeed, at one point during the speech, the president was laughed at.

That isolation is, at least in part, self-imposed. In his speech, Trump said that the "U.S. will always choose independence and cooperation over global governance." Compare those words to President Harry S. Truman's at the opening session in 1946: "This meeting of the Assembly symbolizes the abandonment by the United States of a policy of isolation."

Under Trump, that long-standing vision - embraced by both Democrats and Republicans - has been not only abandoned, but denigrated.

This is an unforced error, a step toward isolation that harms U.S. interests and weakens its leadership on the world stage. It comes as the U.S.-led world order is under assault from the reemergence of a powerful and ambitious China and the meddlesome and aggressive behavior of smaller nations such as Russia. With so many potential international problems, it is more important than ever that the United States not go it alone or retreat from international engagement.

To confront the current crises requires a strong and committed executive. But, most importantly, one that is also compassionate and approachable. U.S. presidents have been central to sustaining a world order for generations. They understood it was a responsibility that required allies. And that sometimes they would have to put the interests of those allies ahead of America's to maintain America's larger interest in a stable world order.

President Bill Clinton demonstrated this when he intervened in Kosovo's ethnic genocide in the 1990s at the request of the European nations. Even President George W. Bush, who had his fair share of conflict with the international community, asked U.N. member countries in 2002 to "stand" with the United States and bring democracy to the Middle East. He claimed it would "show that the promise of the United Nations can be fulfilled in our time."

Historian A.J.P. Taylor famously wrote that wars are like road accidents. If that's the case, these recent developments indicate that we are in the midst of a slow-moving 21st century "wreck of nations." According to Taylor, wars "have a general cause and particular causes at the same time."

A world order in transition for the first time since World War II is the general cause of our current "wreck." Unless Americans acknowledge this new reality, the results of that "wreck" will be a more dangerous world order than the one we now know.

Conflicts between powerful nations seeking to be the dominant expanding civilization have been known in every era of recorded human history. What is different about this time, however, is that this type of conflict has not been seen since 1945, when the U.S. devised a world order in its own democratic and enlightened image. Even during the Cold War, an era of heightened tensions fed by nuclear proliferation, the Soviet Union and the United States never met face to face on any battlefield.

This spared the world from a clash of the two superpowers. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the U.S. had no viable challengers - leading conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer to observe in 1990 that we had reached an unprecedented "unipolar moment" in world history.

If we did experience a unipolar moment, that moment is over. That's largely due to the reemergence of an outward-looking and economically proficient China under the leadership of President Xi Jinping. China's version of a world order will mirror its own domestic values - where security trumps privacy and the expectation of civil obedience regularly displaces individual liberties.

There is no doubt that this will clash with the current world order built by the United States. The U.S. has sought to mold the world with its own democratic image in mind, not to rule it like previous dominant powers had. That's because Americans have historically been ambivalent about their power. The nation's interventions abroad are often accompanied by antiwar protests at home. As a result, the United States is a "benevolent hegemon," argues Robert Kagan.

In other words, the world has nothing to fear from its power.

To be sure, decades of unsuccessful foreign interventions - like the Vietnam War and the second Iraq War - have made Americans and the rest of the world wary. But there's no denying that the world has become safer under U.S. leadership. People are richer, happier and healthier today than in any other period in recorded history. The explanation for the success of this "Age of America" is simple: The U.S. is the first global power to establish a world order that is in actuality a de facto system of universal liberalizing norms.

The purpose of these norms has been to stabilize the world by making all nations prosperous. This is known as the "democratic peace thesis." According to this theory, nations that share the same values - in this case, democracy - do not go to war with one another. Moreover, the economic prosperity of democratic nations keeps them from turning to violence as an alternative means to thrive. Ironically, the U.S. often has to go to war to preserve that system - a position that Richard Haas, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, calls "global sheriff."

It has never been easy to convince Americans that the world requires their participation. During World War I, President Woodrow Wilson famously went to great lengths to convince the American public that it was "privileged" to "spend . . . blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured." Wilson had his work cut out for him in proving the value of Americans fighting in a European war that was largely of no consequence to the Western Hemisphere. His reelection slogan in 1916 was "he kept us out of war." Wilson came to understand the pivotal role the United States had to play in the world. In doing so, he convinced the nation.

Before Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt similarly struggled to implore Americans not to sit idly by and watch its European friends try to beat back fascism.

It is unclear whether war-weary Americans would positively respond to a similar call today. A recent study by the Chicago Council of Global Affairs found that only 50 percent of millennials think it a good thing for the U.S. to take an active role in international affairs. Compare that figure to the Silent Generation, born between 1928 and 1945, who polled above 80 percent for the same question.

Without America's continued involvement in global affairs, though, the world will be at the mercy of the vicissitudes of powerful, illiberal nations - and history demonstrates that, unlike the United States, most hegemonic states seek to dominate smaller nations. This scenario would surely lead to even more nation-state "wrecks" as the rising powers compete with little to no pushback.

And there should be little doubt that this would be bad for the U.S. and its interests. After the collapse of the British world order in World War I, there was a rise of despotic states that engaged in a new form of imperialism that was justified through hypernationalism. There was also global economic uncertainty, culminating in the Great Depression. Moreover, if the current world order collapses or, for that matter, even fractures, democracies will more than likely become outnumbered, leading to fewer partners for the U.S.

There is no other nation with a similar set of values that is capable of taking over for the United States as the guarantor of the most successful world order in history. So the U.S. better hang on, for its own interests and for those of its allies. And there's no better way to do so than by remaining a good-faith partner to the international community -- and not a loner state.

Gabriel Glickman is an adjunct professor of history and is currently writing a world history book provisionally titled, The Rise and Fall of World History: Avoiding Historical Amnesia in 21st Century Classrooms. He wrote this for The Washington Post.A question has arisen regarding President Trump's request as to whether Attorney General Jeff Sessions should investigate to determine the identity of The New York Times op-ed writer, who, in my opinion, is the new John Wilkes Booth of politics, attempting to assassinate the character of President Donald Trump, who has become their White" Clarence Thomas whom they are trying to lynch in the print and broadcast journalism.

On the practical side, this writer, if he or she is as close to the president as they say, being a "Senior Administration Official," there should be an investigation for national security's sake. Who knows if this person or persons will jeopardize the nation's safety based on their subjective idea that the presidents action is not in the best interest of the country.

Imagine, if a person like I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration would have taken action to thwart parts of the agenda of Roosevelt during World War II or JFK during the Cuban Missile Crisis or Bush during Desert Storm or Obamas strike at Osama Bin Laden, just because they felt they were acting in Americas interest and they wanted "frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations."?

Not only should Attorney General Sessions investigate, but the Secret Service should also investigate because of the language that appears to be threatening in the phase So we will do what we can to steer the administration in the right direction until  one way or another  its over. This has moved from Free Speech to Subversive Speech, which tends to speculate the elimination of the president.

It speaks to an overthrow of our government or removal from office by means other than our constitutional provisions but instead One way or another or By Any Means Necessary.

The New York Times writer is not a patriot; he or she is a traitor to the way Americans hire and fire elected officials via the ballot box, not the sly and cowardly way of throwing a brick and hiding your their hand.

I have more respect for a person who has the guts to tell me to my face they dont like me, rather than the Smile-in-Your-Face-Stab-You-in-the-Back-Op-Ed New York Times writer.

Finally, this newspaper in which this editorial/opinion appears has a policy that says my personal contact information except my name and city will not be published.

Question: does an Op-Ed fall into the same category?

Secondly, if I were to make a threat to the welfare of a person, would the authorities have a right to investigate on behalf of the person who felt threatened? The President of the United States has every right to request our government agency investigate this perceived threat to national security. I rest my case.

Pastor Morris A. Curry, Jr.

VacavilleArmenia Parliament Deputy Speaker meets with Karabakh Security Council Secretary and parliamentarians

Gunshots heard in computer game room in Yerevan

RFE/RL Armenian Service: Iranian drivers complain that new Tatev-Aghavni road is narrow for trucks

EU, UNDP launch Mayors for Economic Growth Program in Armenia

Armenia Deputy PM: We support adoption of documents for further enhancement of defensibility of CIS countries

Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin says COVID-19 vaccination does not present spiritual danger

Armenia Deputy PM meets with representatives of Asian Development Bank

Monument to officers of Russian helicopter downed in 2020 unveiled during ceremony in Armenia's Yeraskh

Armenia Kotayk Province's general jurisdiction court has new judge

Armenia ruling party MP appointed Ambassador to Spain

NEWS.am daily digest: 12.11.21

Armenia Justice Ministry, UNDP to cooperate for constitutional reforms and in anti-corruption field

Turkey, Qatar agree to strengthen military cooperation

Armenia defense minister, India Ambassador discuss cooperation in defense sector

Armenia has new Ambassador to Germany

Armenia appellate court releases ex-MP from custody

Armenia economy minister meets with Charge dAffaires of Georgia

12-year-old Armenian boy's 4 fingers cut, undergoes 10-hour surgery

Armenia Deputy PM opposes Azerbaijani premier, says Karabakh conflict can't be resolved by force

Dollar continues going down in Armenia

Lithuania ambassador to parliament speaker: Relations with Armenia are priorities of our country

Millions of Austrians not vaccinated against COVID-19 may be quarantined

Georgian and Turkish border guards conducting joint military exercises in Javakhk

Charles Michel thanks Turkey for prohibiting citizens of Iraq, Syria and Yemen from flying to Belarus

Myanmar court sentences US journalist to 11 years in jail

Armenia official: Azerbaijan continues to torpedo implementation of agreements reached

Opposition MP to Armenia minister: Who will perform the duties of the mayor of Goris?

Armenia ex-deputy defense minister: Pashinyan is lying when he says there is no logic of corridor

Video showing another act of vandalism of Azerbaijanis in Karabakh disseminated on social networks

Armenia, Palestine FMs discuss Armenian heritage in Holy Land

Azerbaijan says it is ready to sign with Armenia peace agreement recognizing territorial integrity

Armenia official: We are building many roads in Syunik Province

Karabakh state minister delivers lecture at Columbia University in New York

Ukraine delegation to visit Armenia next week

Armenia FM in Paris, meets with French Armenian figures (PHOTOS)

Armenia to host Eurasian Intergovernmental Council session

80 new cases of coronavirus reported in Artsakh

Erdogan says 'Greece has turned into a U.S. military base'

Sweden lifting entry ban for Armenia citizens fully vaccinated against Covid

Russia peacekeepers escort more than 8,000 traveling vehicles in Karabakh in 1 year

1,309 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

11 foreign nationals living illegally in Armenia are found in downtown Yerevan hotels

Aram Yacoubian is on Varietys Hollywoods New Leaders of 2021 list

Biden, Xi expected to hold virtual summit on November 15

Newspaper: Process of shaking up Armenia law enforcement system to begin

Newspaper: Armenia cargo transportation increases

FM to UNESCO head: Preventive steps against Azerbaijan destruction of Armenian heritage are simply imperative

Armenia Security Council chief: No logic to using Goris-Kapan motorway

Armenia Security Council secretary: Political decision is needed if agreement is reached on logic of unblocking roads

FM: There are numerous cases of Azerbaijans deliberate destruction of Armenian cultural, religious heritage

Armenia PM: Security is our most vulnerable place today

Armenian Church Diocese in Russia supports Finnish MP who is charged with offending reps of sexual minorities

Women of Artsakh organize meeting with Russian peacekeeping troops' commander

US Senate Armed Services Committee to consider 3 key amendments, including cutting off aid to Azerbaijan

Armen Sarkissian: I consider any encroachment on Armenia's borders inadmissible and unacceptable

Russian analyst says deployment of border and customs checkpoints in Lachin not ruled out

UN representatives provide humanitarian aid to immigrants on Polish border

U.S. security advisor: Rivalry with China in Pacific need not lead to new Cold War

UAE, Bahrain, Israel and US conducting maritime security exercise in Red Sea

Opposition 'With Honor' faction MP: Ruling party is implementing Baku's policy in Armenia

Armenia finance minister receives experts of Russian Financial Research Institute

Statement by the Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group

NEWS.am daily digest: 11.11.21

Opposition 'With Honor' Alliance: We have a few questions for the Armenian premier

Dollar drops somewhat in Armenia

Deputy Mayor of Armenia's Goris Menua Hovsepyan voluntarily going to penitentiary institution to be arrested

EU remains committed to promoting peaceful, prosperous South Caucasus

Armenia MFA: Mirzoyan-Bayramov meeting held in Paris with participation of OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs

Azerbaijan FM continues developing Zangezur corridor concept

Court rules to arrest Deputy Mayor of Armenia's Goris Menua Hovsepyan

Armenia government allocates over $1 mln to repair Yerevan-Meghri road and two more roads

Flights to and from Yerevan and Kapan to be launched on January 20, 2022

Armenia Police: 33 citizens apprehended near government building

Armenia Ombudsman: Perhaps Azerbaijan will be deprived of jurisdiction over the motorway after delimitation

Armenia PM: Coronavirus situation is somewhat stable

'Armenia' Alliance: Azerbaijan is the one making decisions instead of Armenian PM, we will not put up with this

Ambassador to PM Pashinyan: Italy is interested in implementing new investment programs with Armenia

Three-year working plan for Armenia-Russia interparliamentary committee discussed during consultation

Armenia's Meghri has new mayor

Armenia Security Council secretary: Citizens may be able to travel on Goris-Kapan motorway for a tollYEREVAN.  Armenias Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Tuesday met with Johannes Hahn, European Union (EU) Commissioner for European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations, at the UN headquarters in New York.

The parties discussed the avenues for the furtherance of EU-Armenia relations and expansion of cooperation, press office of the government of Armenia informed Armenian News-NEWS.am. Also, they touched upon the steps aimed at implementing the Armenia-EU Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement (CEPA).

Pashinyan pointed out that the Armenian government has embarked upon the path of upward democratic development with a view to enforcing the rule of law, promoting human rights, and building a competitive and business-friendly environment in Armenia. Also, the Premier attached importance to EUs comprehensive support for democratic reforms in the country.

Reflecting on the recent Yerevan City Council elections, Nikol Pashinyan said over 80 percent of the votes cast had gone to My Step Alliance, which means that people have voted for a snap parliamentary election in Armenia. Pashinyan noted that the latest elections proved free and transparent, and the defeated political forces congratulated the winning candidate which, according to him, is unprecedented in Armenia and can set a good example of political culture. The head of the Armenian government also said that he was going to negotiate with other political forces the need to hold an early parliamentary election in Armenia.

Hahn, for his part, noted that the EU will continue its programs and activities aimed at promoting cooperation with Armenia as part of the programs envisaged under the EU-Armenia CEPA, in an effort to develop democracy, enforce the rule of law, protect human rights, and reform the judiciary in Armenia. Also, Johannes Hahn stressed that Armenia can expect continued assistance by the European Union, and in accordance with the governments priorities.Medics yet to contain diarrhoea in Nainahi

Health workers are struggling to contain the diarrhoea outbreak at Nainahi settlement in Jaleshwor Municipality12 of Mahottari district.Ministry launches manual to streamline reports

Ministry of Forests and Environment has come up with a new manual for environmental impact assessment (EIA) in order to streamline existing regulatory and review processes and guide developers to minimise negative impacts on the ecosystem while maximising development benefits.The EU Ambassador to Armenia Piotr Switalski is convinced that European companies thoroughly analyze the possibilities in Armenia, and believes they are very encouraged by the steps taken by the Armenian government.

His remark came at the business forum on Wednesday launched by the EU and Armenia within the Armenia-EU agreement.

Especially it refers to the Armenian government efforts to eradicate the corruption and ensure fairness, Switalski added.

According to him, the EU is the largest export market in Armenia, and today the EU wants to trade and support the Armenian government to achieve bilateral success in export and investment.

Switalski noted that the opportunities for joint trade will be discussed during the forum, and Armenia-EU new deal will help to make new investments in Armenia and increase the trade turnover between Armenia and the EU.

"Together we will discuss what should be done to make Armenia more attractive for investments, we are open for different proposals from Armenian businessmen," the envoy added.Armenian President Armen Sarkissian, who is on a working visit to Paris, held meetings with the leaders of a number of large companies in France, Armenian President press service reported.

Sarkissian met with the leadership of one of the leading aerospace companies THALES.

According to the agreement reached between the parties, the company's delegation will participate in the business forum to be held on October 10 within Francophonie summit in Yerevan.

Armenian President also met with Orano company leadership engaged in nuclear and renewable energy.

During the meeting, the sides discussed issues related to the activity of Orano in Armenia. The sides agreed to expand the organization's presence in the country, including its participation in improving the safety of the Armenian nuclear power plant.

Sarkissian also met with the management of the well-known company Sodial, engaged in the delivery of food products. The parties discussed the possibilities of cooperation. An agreement was reached on the visit of the Sodial delegation to Armenia to study the food industry and export prospects.NAC conducts successful Lukla test flight of Y12e aircraft

Nepal Airlines Corporation (NAC) on Tuesday successfully conducted a test flight of its Chinese-made Y12e aircraft to Lukla Airport, five years after it was inducted into its fleet.Officials lay the groundwork for the next meeting between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, said US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

According to him, the meeting may be held after October, Reuters reported.

Were working diligently to make sure we get the conditions right so that we can accomplish as much as possible during the summit. But we hope it will be soon. It may happen in October but more likely sometime after that, Pompeo said in an interview with CBS This Morning.

Asked if Kim had agreed to allow international inspectors into nuclear sites, Pompeo said, Yes. Weve talked about this verification from the beginning. Were not going to buy a pig in a poke. Were going to get this right. Were going to deliver on this commitment (to denuclearize) that Chairman Kim has made to the world.Armenia Parliament Deputy Speaker meets with Karabakh Security Council Secretary and parliamentarians

Gunshots heard in computer game room in Yerevan

RFE/RL Armenian Service: Iranian drivers complain that new Tatev-Aghavni road is narrow for trucks

EU, UNDP launch Mayors for Economic Growth Program in Armenia

Armenia Deputy PM: We support adoption of documents for further enhancement of defensibility of CIS countries

Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin says COVID-19 vaccination does not present spiritual danger

Armenia Deputy PM meets with representatives of Asian Development Bank

Monument to officers of Russian helicopter downed in 2020 unveiled during ceremony in Armenia's Yeraskh

Armenia Kotayk Province's general jurisdiction court has new judge

Armenia ruling party MP appointed Ambassador to Spain

NEWS.am daily digest: 12.11.21

Armenia Justice Ministry, UNDP to cooperate for constitutional reforms and in anti-corruption field

Turkey, Qatar agree to strengthen military cooperation

Armenia defense minister, India Ambassador discuss cooperation in defense sector

Armenia has new Ambassador to Germany

Armenia appellate court releases ex-MP from custody

Armenia economy minister meets with Charge dAffaires of Georgia

12-year-old Armenian boy's 4 fingers cut, undergoes 10-hour surgery

Armenia Deputy PM opposes Azerbaijani premier, says Karabakh conflict can't be resolved by force

Dollar continues going down in Armenia

Lithuania ambassador to parliament speaker: Relations with Armenia are priorities of our country

Millions of Austrians not vaccinated against COVID-19 may be quarantined

Georgian and Turkish border guards conducting joint military exercises in Javakhk

Charles Michel thanks Turkey for prohibiting citizens of Iraq, Syria and Yemen from flying to Belarus

Myanmar court sentences US journalist to 11 years in jail

Armenia official: Azerbaijan continues to torpedo implementation of agreements reached

Opposition MP to Armenia minister: Who will perform the duties of the mayor of Goris?

Armenia ex-deputy defense minister: Pashinyan is lying when he says there is no logic of corridor

Video showing another act of vandalism of Azerbaijanis in Karabakh disseminated on social networks

Armenia, Palestine FMs discuss Armenian heritage in Holy Land

Azerbaijan says it is ready to sign with Armenia peace agreement recognizing territorial integrity

Armenia official: We are building many roads in Syunik Province

Karabakh state minister delivers lecture at Columbia University in New York

Ukraine delegation to visit Armenia next week

Armenia FM in Paris, meets with French Armenian figures (PHOTOS)

Armenia to host Eurasian Intergovernmental Council session

80 new cases of coronavirus reported in Artsakh

Erdogan says 'Greece has turned into a U.S. military base'

Sweden lifting entry ban for Armenia citizens fully vaccinated against Covid

Russia peacekeepers escort more than 8,000 traveling vehicles in Karabakh in 1 year

1,309 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

11 foreign nationals living illegally in Armenia are found in downtown Yerevan hotels

Aram Yacoubian is on Varietys Hollywoods New Leaders of 2021 list

Biden, Xi expected to hold virtual summit on November 15

Newspaper: Process of shaking up Armenia law enforcement system to begin

Newspaper: Armenia cargo transportation increases

FM to UNESCO head: Preventive steps against Azerbaijan destruction of Armenian heritage are simply imperative

Armenia Security Council chief: No logic to using Goris-Kapan motorway

Armenia Security Council secretary: Political decision is needed if agreement is reached on logic of unblocking roads

FM: There are numerous cases of Azerbaijans deliberate destruction of Armenian cultural, religious heritage

Armenia PM: Security is our most vulnerable place today

Armenian Church Diocese in Russia supports Finnish MP who is charged with offending reps of sexual minorities

Women of Artsakh organize meeting with Russian peacekeeping troops' commander

US Senate Armed Services Committee to consider 3 key amendments, including cutting off aid to Azerbaijan

Armen Sarkissian: I consider any encroachment on Armenia's borders inadmissible and unacceptable

Russian analyst says deployment of border and customs checkpoints in Lachin not ruled out

UN representatives provide humanitarian aid to immigrants on Polish border

U.S. security advisor: Rivalry with China in Pacific need not lead to new Cold War

UAE, Bahrain, Israel and US conducting maritime security exercise in Red Sea

Opposition 'With Honor' faction MP: Ruling party is implementing Baku's policy in Armenia

Armenia finance minister receives experts of Russian Financial Research Institute

Statement by the Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group

NEWS.am daily digest: 11.11.21

Opposition 'With Honor' Alliance: We have a few questions for the Armenian premier

Dollar drops somewhat in Armenia

Deputy Mayor of Armenia's Goris Menua Hovsepyan voluntarily going to penitentiary institution to be arrested

EU remains committed to promoting peaceful, prosperous South Caucasus

Armenia MFA: Mirzoyan-Bayramov meeting held in Paris with participation of OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs

Azerbaijan FM continues developing Zangezur corridor concept

Court rules to arrest Deputy Mayor of Armenia's Goris Menua Hovsepyan

Armenia government allocates over $1 mln to repair Yerevan-Meghri road and two more roads

Flights to and from Yerevan and Kapan to be launched on January 20, 2022

Armenia Police: 33 citizens apprehended near government building

Armenia Ombudsman: Perhaps Azerbaijan will be deprived of jurisdiction over the motorway after delimitation

Armenia PM: Coronavirus situation is somewhat stable

'Armenia' Alliance: Azerbaijan is the one making decisions instead of Armenian PM, we will not put up with this

Ambassador to PM Pashinyan: Italy is interested in implementing new investment programs with Armenia

Three-year working plan for Armenia-Russia interparliamentary committee discussed during consultation

Armenia's Meghri has new mayor

Armenia Security Council secretary: Citizens may be able to travel on Goris-Kapan motorway for a toll

Quarantine regime extended in Armenia until June 20, 2022

Erdogan sues Greek newspaper

Armenia Security Council chief: We have rough idea of border with Azerbaijan

Turkish defense company Baykar to soon test 2 new UAVs

Arrested mayor of Armenias Goris re-elected by virtue of law

Deputy police chief: Later it will be clear who from Armenia will carry out inspection at Goris-Kapan road

European Parliament Friendship Group with Armenia is re-launched

Ombudsman: Armenia top officials statements legitimize Azerbaijanis presence, actions (PHOTOS)

Situation gets tense in front of Armenia government building

Police do not allow Armenia opposition MPs to approach government building

Armenia cassation court Civil and Administrative Chamber to be dissolved

Armenia PM explains handing over part of Goris-Kapan road to Azerbaijan

Ex-MP also dies in Yerevan shooting

1,482 new cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Armenia

4 die in Yerevan shooting

Armenia opposition staging protest outside government building

Elon Musk sells $1.1 billion in Tesla shares

Armenia, Azerbaijan FMs meet in Paris

Newspaper: Armenia PM Pashinyan preparing big theater soon, some in Artsakh will be sacrificed

Aeroflot to face sanctions over migration crisis on Belarus-Poland border?U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he was open to meeting Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro if it would help the people of Venezuela, but warned that all options were still on the table to deal with the crisis, Reuters reported.

Maduro said he hoped to arrange a face-to-face meeting with Trump. The White House responded to a similar request last year by saying such a meeting would happen when the country returned to democracy.

I would certainly be open to it, Im willing to meet with anybody, Trump said on Wednesday as he arrived at United Nations headquarters. Were going to take care of Venezuela, if hes here and he wants to meet, it was not on my mind, it was not on my plate, but if I can help people thats what Im here for.In his speech at the UN, US President Donald Trump blamed Tehran and Moscow for the "butchery" of the Syrian government. At the same time, he thanked Russia, Iran, and Syria for "slowing down" the offensive operation in Idlib, Sputnik reported.

"I want to thank Iran, Russia and Syria for at my very strong urging and request substantially slowing down their attack on the Idlib province," Trump said.

The US president expressed his hope that they would get the terrorists in Syria, adding, however, that the restraint of the attack should continue, as "the world is watching."

Trump addressed the recent decision of Moscow to strike a deal with Turkey to avoid a full-scale military operation by the Syrian army against the rebel-held city of Idlib.

Following the recent escalation of tensions between the US and Iran, Trump said that the sanctions against Tehran would be "tougher than ever before".

"All US nuclear-related sanctions will be in full force by early November. They will be in full force. After that, the United States will pursue additional sanctions, tougher than ever before, to counter the entire range of Irans malign conduct," Trump said.

He also criticized Iranian nuclear program, urging the international community to control Tehran on the issue.

"I ask all members of the Security Council to work with the United States to ensure the Iranian regime changes its behavior and never acquires a nuclear bomb," Trump said.Nepal, Canada set up bilateral consultative mechanism

Nepal and Canada have agreed to set up a bilateral consultative mechanism, paving the way for holding discussions on various facets of bilateral relations between the two countries, according to the Foreign Ministry.If a hurricane were to strike South Florida, would you know what to do to stay safe? This is a question everyone should ask themselves. At the University of Miami a team in the Office of Emergency Management (OEM) is constantly working to get the message out across the institution on how to mitigate against, prepare for, respond to, and recover from all major emergencies or disastersincluding hurricanes.

The University of Miami is an amazing, and incredibly safe place, and yet it is so important that every member of our community prepare for the infrequent, but potentially highly impactful emergencies that can affect us, said Matthew Shpiner, director of emergency management.

Shpiner, who is a UM alumnus, is the leading force behind the team. He began working at the University seven years ago, and has held leading emergency management roles at UMs marine campus, the University of Miami Health System and Miller School of Medicine. Prior to UM, Shpiner also worked for the Miami-Dade County Office of Emergency Management.

Shpiner and his team work to instill a "culture of preparedness" among students and employees by improving awareness and comprehension of what to do before, during, and after major emergency and disaster incidents.

The messaging to students, faculty and staff begins during orientation and extends throughout the year. The team is in charge of offering several informational and in-person training opportunities for the UM community that vary from all-hazards emergency response courses to active shooter response exercises.

Jessica Brumley, vice president for Facilities Operations and Planning, which includes OEM, said it is "imperative that the culture of preparedness permeate" all operations in her division, including Facilities and Operations, Parking and Transportation, and Planning and Construction.

"Ultimately our mission is to ensure that the entire 'Canes community, on all campuses, are informed and prepared," Brumley said.

The emergency management team conducted comprehensive full-scale active shooter exercises on the Coral Gables and Medical campuses this spring and summer. These exercises, which took several months of planning, incorporated a multitude of community partners including local police and fire departments.

Our exercise went through every phase from beginning to end. We even got employees to participate and either run, hide, or fight, said Vincent Torres, emergency manager for UHealth System and the Miller School of Medicine.

Torres is one of the many people on the team who are equipped with a high level of expertise in emergency management. Before working at UM, Torres held a position as a Corporal in the U.S. Federal Reserve Police where he was in charge of emergency management at the Federal Reserve BankMiami Branch. Earlier in his career, he served as a Special Agent for the Department of Homeland Security.

John Gulla is another asset to the emergency management team who serves as the program coordinator, specifically for the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science (RSMAS). Gulla began his career at the University with the UM Police Department (UMPD) in 2007 while studying for his bachelor in arts degree. During his tenure at UMPD, Gulla worked as a telecommunications operator before moving into the role of crime prevention officer. He credits his frightening memories during Hurricane Andrew as part of the reason he transitioned into emergency management.

Ill never forget holding mattresses up against the doors in our bathroom at my house as we rode out the storm. It was a tough life event and it affected me greatly, said Gulla. I think that having gone through Hurricane Andrew, though, has given me an empathy to want to help people better prepare for emergency situations moving forward.

Learning from the past, Gulla, along with the rest of the team work to imbue four simple steps while planning for hurricanes and other emergencies: Get informed, Get the guide, Get a plan and Get involved.

A vital part in getting informed is ensuring your cellphone is entered into CaneLink or Workday. During campus emergencies, critical life safety information is distributed via the Emergency Notification Network (ENN). If there is a condition which significantly threatens the health and safety of people on campus, university officials will warn the campus community through a variety of methods including text messages, voice calls, and email.

The system can rapidly disseminate emergency information to the University community through eleven different methods of communication. What sets us apart is the capabilities the system has. We are able to relay information out to the public very quickly, said Anna Simko, OEM program coordinator.

Simko is the newest member of the team who specializes in the technology aspect of emergency management. Simko, who previously held a role in emergency management at the University of Florida, says the department has the capacity to send out an array of alerts that deal with different hazards such as: extreme weather, hazardous materials, hurricanes, pandemics, radiological events, active threats, and utility failures.

In 2016 the emergency management team grappled with a major public health emergency: the Zika virus. It affected a wide range of students in South Florida, along with RSMAS students and faculty who were studying off the coast of Ecuador in the Galapagos. The emergency management team took on the critical task of making sure everyone was informed.

Part of our job was to help educate and initiate direction for protective action. In this case we had to make sure people were wearing long sleeves and wearing repellant, said Torres.

At the Gables campus we worked with University Communications developing messaging, facilitating planning among key University units, and coordinating information with our government partners, Shpiner added.

Last year the threat of Hurricane Irma proved the team was prepared to overcome the biggest threat that faced the university since 2005, when three hurricanes led to campus closures. Irma was the first time in the history of the university in which there was a mandatory evacuation of the Coral Gables campus.

Ninety-eight point five percent of on-campus students self-evacuated. It was an incredibly stressful and difficult situation for our students, faculty, and staff, but they were able to understand the severity of the threat and most importantly took action, said Shpiner. The University of Miami took incredible steps to ensure the safety of our community. We were the first college in South Florida to close, initiated our emergency bus transportation plan to get students to local airports, and most importantly provided consistent communication on what was occurring.

During Hurricane Irma, UM became the first institution to activate the National Intercollegiate Mutual Aid Agreement (NIMAA), an initiative spearheaded in part by UM in 2015. The initiative created a system that allows 77 institutions of higher education to provide and/or receive emergency assistance. During Irma, UM requested aid from partners at St. Edwards University in Austin, Texas as well was from Binghamton University in New York.

Having the access to resources at a national level and among higher education colleagues who understand the unique dynamics of institutions is invaluable during emergencies, said Shpiner.

Looking into the future, the emergency management team believes every storm makes them stronger and more versatile.

We treat every storm seriously. We constantly analyze our operations to make sure we are getting better at what we do for response and recovery, said Gulla.

Torres added: "We are very proactive. Our teams are extremely prepared and we drill and train often. The students are in good hands when they come here.

As for those who are worried about future storms, the department has a powerful message they want to convey.

We wont compromise when it comes to safety. We work tirelessly to continue to improve our policies, plans, and procedures to ensure we are ready for any emergency we might face. However, our resiliency as a University is defined not by how we prepare as a department, but how we prepare as a community, said Shpiner.

For more information on emergency preparedness, visit: https://prepare.miami.edu/

To register for upcoming training courses, faculty and staff can sign up at ULearn.miami.edu

Students can register atAfter IS Promotion of Ahvaz Attack, IS-linked Group Calls for Mass-Targeting in IranNepal to discuss rebuilding drive at UN

Nepal will hold discussions with international stakeholders on post-earthquake reconstruction and rehabilitation initiative on the sidelines of United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York this week.Birthday wishes

Call 281-422-8302 or email david.bloom@baytownsun.com to wish someone a happy birthday. We will print your birthday wish on Page 2 of The Sun.

Happy Birthday WishesNepal to propose new gas pipeline with India

Nepal will propose extension of the Mothihari-Amlekhgunj petroleum pipeline up to Chitwan with India during the first meeting of the Nepal-India Joint Working Group on Petroleum and Gas scheduled to being in Kathmandu on Wednesday, officials said.No more pork barrel

MPs should monitor government activities, not manage themPokhara rape, murder: Locals picket police office demanding action against guilty

Locals picketed Kaski District Police Office in Pokhara on Wednesday afternoon demanding stern action against the perpetrator of rape and murder of 10-year-old girl.can i say yes tho?

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Obviously death threats are never okay, but it says a lot that he assumes it's all about looks. It's not that people are jealous because she's interesting or talented or a nice person or whatever, and it's not that they could annoyed by the way he talks about her like she's a sex doll. No, it's all about her being hot and him being ~soooo ugly. He sounds 14, seriously.



(...that being said, the bleached hair next to her ridiculous fake tan made him look like he was slowly dying of consumption at that event. Like Val Kilmer in Tombstone.)



Edited at 2018-09-26 08:08 pm (UTC)

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I came to say the same thing but you worded a lot better than I could ever.

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I didn't see the original interview, did he say that about her being hot or did the death threat include that?



either way dude has issues.

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I guess it wouldn't be any less bad if the threat was 'I wanna murder you because you're ugly and I want to bang your hot fiancee,' once again as if she's an object for men's amusement and not a person. So basically the takeaway is menareweak.gif

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It seems like this time it was over her looks, but I highly doubt that this is the only death threat hes received over this relationship and the fact that its this one that sticks out speaks volumes

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i agree normally... tho to be fair he specifically mentions someone said it was bc "shes so hot" so its a safe assumption for him to make imo

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mte if he were a sweetheart and a cool person...

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I do think that is where a lot of dislike comes from



Edited at 2018-09-26 11:05 pm (UTC)

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IA with you to a certain extent, he's not coming across well, and that is a key reason that people dislike him.



But also I feel, the world in general is superficial. I'm pretty sure, if he was hot, people would probably have been a bit more forgiving of him

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we can't all look as good as me

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Comma placement.



There's ugly ONTD and pretty ONTD

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I'm a fox

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Yes. Im not a fan of purple, you were prettier with the blue background (and when I didnt have to click expand to read comments).

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a king

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king of demons!

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lmao

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never felt that

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We been knew!

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Im going to need this to use at work tbqh. Spice up my nos a bit!

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The difference in their complexion in that photo...

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She's sucking the melanin out of him

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he had none to begin with tho

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We stan an interracial relationship We stan an interracial relationship

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Finally a light skinned black guy is dating a dark skinned girl 

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Ugly inside and out.

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youre ugly on the inside and out peter



fall into a hole.

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At the moment, yes. But a long diet, a beard and good lighting can make sis a strong 7.

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Welp Im bald anyway so thats not a problem

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The bar is set that low, huh?

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Aww sis I bet youre a babe 

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Where the fuck is that MKS album? Are they even together? What is happening?

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Justice 4 Flatline

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They've been hinting about it recently (like last month recently) but I'll believe it when I see it tbh

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uuughhh come back queens mutya and keisha

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We need to put a halt on all posts that aren't about Robyn's Honey for the remainder of the day tbh. This unholy union will not sully this holy day!

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Are you ugly ontd?





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LMAO

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lmao

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LOL

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lol

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lol the best way to answer this question

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ahahhahah

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hahahaha

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dead

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I don't want him to be shot but he's a raging misogynist so I do hope something bad happens to him.

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Are you ugly ontd?



Unfortunately.

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LinkPokhara rape-murder: Paudel confesses to bludgeoning Shriyas face repeatedly

Kaski District Police Office on Wednesday made public Kusum Paudel, 27, who was arrested in connection with the rape and murder of 10-year-old Shriya Sunar of Pumdibhumdi, Pokhara-22 in Kaski district.the fuck

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How am I supposed to be thinking about David Henrie carrying a loaded weapon when if you look down you can clearly see there's another lethal weapon...  pic.twitter.com/xV8oceINaV  Dan R. (@dsrbroadway) September 11, 2018

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Dan needs to love himself

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lol

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wow they handcuffed him?

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lol the internet is too much. Everyone needs to log off for a week and re-evaluate.

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Mte. Gawd dayum.

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Thats just balls tho

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i'm crying but looking too

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oh fuck me

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ive alyways have a crush on him. i feel like he's a rough fuckr.



yes i know, i need to love myself more.

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and here i am always worried my tweezers are going to get seized at security and this amoeba walks into an airport with a loaded gun because he just forgot he had it on him

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Same, stuff like that is so dependent on the airport. Ive travelled a lot but never had a problem taking facial hair scissors until this year.

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I know white men don't think like ever but how do you unintentionally bring a gun to an airport? I don't even enjoy being next to a police officer with a gun because you know as soon as it's fired it's going to cause harm to someone. They give me anxiety.

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This is me.

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same. i used to work near the white house and whenever someone important (typically the president) was on the move secret service/security would be blocking sidewalks holding large automatic-looking weapons (idk the terms i'm a gun noob) and just seeing them stressed me out so much

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Oh yeah I passed by Trump tower recently and while he wasnt there there was men outside with automatic weapons at the door. It was frightening to see to say the least.

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.... how do you unintentionally bring a gun to an airport?



It's happened a lot.



In its TSA Year in Review report, the agency said a record-setting number of firearms were found in carry-on bags. With nearly 4,000 firearms for the year, that translates to about 10 firearms a day.

1. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International: 245, 222 loaded. 2. Dallas/Fort Worth International: 211, 165 loaded. 3. George Bush Intercontinental  Houston: 142, 124 loaded. 4. Denver International: 118, 102 loaded. 5. Phoenix Sky Harbor International: 115, 109 loaded. 6. Tampa International: 97, 90 loaded. 7. Orlando International: 94, 82 loaded. 8. Dallas Love Field: 93, 81 loaded. 9. Nashville International: 89, 71 loaded. 10. Seattle-Tacoma International: 75, 60 loaded.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/dr-gridlock/wp/2018/01/30/tsa-hauls-in-nearly-4000-guns-in-a-year-at-u-s-airport-checkpoints/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.207a69bec2f2 It's happened a lot.In its TSA Year in Review report, the agency said a record-setting number of firearms were found in carry-on bags. With nearly 4,000 firearms for the year, that translates to about 10 firearms a day.1. Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International: 245, 222 loaded. 2. Dallas/Fort Worth International: 211, 165 loaded. 3. George Bush Intercontinental  Houston: 142, 124 loaded. 4. Denver International: 118, 102 loaded. 5. Phoenix Sky Harbor International: 115, 109 loaded. 6. Tampa International: 97, 90 loaded. 7. Orlando International: 94, 82 loaded. 8. Dallas Love Field: 93, 81 loaded. 9. Nashville International: 89, 71 loaded. 10. Seattle-Tacoma International: 75, 60 loaded.

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OK but he still looks good in that twitter photo

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and that's the most important part! ;).

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Nvm he's a Tr*mp supporter. Bye!



Edited at 2018-09-26 11:09 pm (UTC)

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TaMAGA @ David Henrie:

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Gross, OK he's cancelled like his career.

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He is? Jfc.



Receipts? I couldnt find anything on Google like I was able to with that ugly Charlie Puth.

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Gun culture is really fucking awful and gross.

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ASFDFSGASFSGAF! LMFAOOO this gif is killing me

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lmao

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LOVE YOURSELF pumpkin! He might have a big dick but he's a married trump supporter

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omg lmao

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Lmao AS IF!!

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what is it with white dudes and guns? or maybe this is some reverse brokedown palace shit.

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I'm... so confused by this.

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Wow, I guess white privilege was using its vacation days before the end of the fiscal year instead of helping him out!

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They probably only know him from WoWP and thought he was Latino like his character.

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i want him to bust a nut on my face <3

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THIS IS DARK SIDED

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I dont understand

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Is this the Applause MV?

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unholy

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Awww, good for him!

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god dammit. lmfao

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im over here crying cuz tsa took away my dove men's body wash. it was a new bottle.

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they took my mario badescu face wash. i feel u. i'm still sad and this was 2015

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OOOOOOOO THEY ALMOST TOOK MY MARIO BADESCU OLIVE OIL LOTION TWO YEARS AGO!!!! that shit is discontinued and I had to plead with them not to

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Percy, you fool!



You should know by now...nothing over 3.4 ounces (100 milliliters) or less per item. The 3-1-1 liquids rule.

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Thats on you boo

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They straight up confiscated the shampoo, conditioner and body wash I bought at Duty Free in Heathrow.  That shit was $40 per bottle and I had refrained from buying it in London (which I would have packed) because I thought I was being fiscal getting it at a discount 

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Years ago, I forgot to take out my body wash out of my carry-on and they made me throw it away. I was beyond pissed and had to borrow one my relatives soap.

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How does that even happen???

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how is he this stupid. how

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LinkThe energy markets of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) are witnessing some profound changes as they become an integral part of the larger European gas market.

The European Commissions flagship policy to transform the archaic CEE natural gas markets saw a wave of billion dollar gas infrastructure projects meant to integrate the market and increase competitiveness and transparency - arguably a good thing for both producers and consumers. In this more liquid market (with a 20 percent increase of gas traded in competitive gas hubs from 2015- 2017), CEE nations have already attracted a diverse range of suppliers, including U.S. Liquefied Natural Gas.

In essence, this drives CEE prices closer to Western European hubs and, as a result, big suppliers like Russia will not be able to dictate prices anymore. Yet, the gas revolution in Central and Eastern Europe faces some challenges; the track record of market liberalization and compliance with EU regulations is poor; the role of gas in power generation is low; and coal power plants operate in a favorable environment despite the deteriorating air quality in many cities across Eastern Europe.

Regional energy security has long dominated the policy debate in Brussels. For decades gas prices in CEE countries were set by each countrys relative dependence on Russian gas, as dictated by existing infrastructure and the state of their political affairs with Moscow. As a result, gas prices tended to be higher in countries further east of Europes heartland. In the aftermath of a political crisis with Russia, the European Union's stress tests identified missing infrastructure links and policymakers created a regional roadmap to build new gas networks that interconnect CEE gas markets with the rest of the European Union. Today, customers across Eastern and Central Europe are increasingly reaping the benefits of those investments in gas infrastructure, as price differentials between countries begin to narrow. Related: Venezuela Can Wreck U.S.-Chinese Relations

(Click to enlarge)

Indeed, completion of breakthrough projects such as the Swinoujscie LNG Terminal (180 bcf/year) in Poland, the Klaipeda FRSU (140 bcf/year) in Lithuania, the Finland- Estonia Interconnector (7.2 million m3/ day) and the bi-directional Poland-Lithuania Interconnector (8.4 million m3/ day) have increased gas flows through the CEE grid and decreased the price gap with Western European hubs. Austrias Central Eastern Gas Hub has effectively connected countries like the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland to the Western European grid, offering them fair market prices and, as a matter of fact, todays price indexes in those countries are already converging with German hubs. The correlation between the Central European Gas Hub and Germanys NCG have been steadily rising since 2008 to reach an almost 97 percent correlation in 2017.

(Click to enlarge)

Figure 1.

This trend is expected to continue as more projects like the Central European Gas Pipeline (connecting Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria) or the Kirk LNG terminal in Croatia could come online. All of these stand to further benefit consumers in Central and Eastern Europe as new infrastructure increases competition between Russian, Norwegian and U.S. (liquefied) natural gas.

In theory, increased competition and trade should encourage individual markets to liberalize and open up further. Yet, this has not been the case for Central and Eastern Europe. While CEE governments benefited from the EU funded infrastructure expansion, they placed gas market liberalization reforms on the back burner.

In fact, theres some resistance to the reforms, because they are believed to undermine the long-held monopolistic positions of the regional energy companies. For instance, in the Czech Republic, the largest power company has a 78 percent market share in the national electricity market and the largest gas importing company operates with a comfortable margin of 82.3 percent. PGNiG  the Polish state controlled oil and gas company, remains the dominant buyer on both the wholesale and retail market, next to this, it owns and operates all of the natural gas production and distribution networks. These local power houses welcome imported U.S. LNG as long as it displaces Gazproms supply monopoly. The same companies, however, are resisting the reforms as they see their longstanding privileged position threatened by international competitors.

The lack of political appetite from CEE governments to tackle these problems has defined the provisions of The European Unions legislature, better known as Third Energy Package, which was adopted by the European Parliament in 2009.

The package mandates the unbundling of incumbent firms, allows third parties access to infrastructure and greater regulatory market oversight. While Western Europeans take advantage of increased transparency and competition in the energy market, most industrial and residential consumers across Central and Eastern Europe still cannot choose their gas and power suppliers. This matters because corruption and incumbency in the energy sector are still big problems for many Central and Eastern European countries. Albeit to various degrees, almost all 15 CEE countries inherited a highly regulated and bureaucratized energy sector. To truly embrace gas market reforms and restructuring, governments need to up their ambition, political will and their accountability. The result will be a better integrated market with the neighboring Western Europe. Related: What Will Trigger The Next Oil Price Crash?

The divide between old and new EU members is not only noticeable in terms of energy security and market performance, but also in the composition of the energy mix itself, which further complicates integration of the CEE into the common European energy market. Despite deteriorating air quality, Central and Eastern European nations continue to burn large amounts of coal. While Western Europes coal consumption has been dwindling, Eastern Europe has failed to significantly reduce its own consumption. (Graph 3 & 4).

Graph 3.

Graph 4.

Coals dominance is not just about favorable economics, its also supported by a positive cultural attitude towards the industry. A recent study by the Poland Public Opinion Research Center (CBOS) found that miners in Poland are respected at higher levels than medical doctors or teachers; 84 percent compared to 74 percent and 71 percent respectively. Falling far behind the EU schedule for installing renewable capacity in its energy mix, Poland estimates that even by 2050 coal will maintain 50 percent of the market share in the nations energy consumption. Without government led initiatives to restructure the archaic energy markets that mostly rely on outdated and aging technology, the CEE region will lock itself out of innovative private sector investments.

There are many reasons why the gas revolution in Central and Eastern Europe is advancing slowly. On one hand, considerable progress has been made both in terms of conceptual thinking about integrating CEE into the common European energy market and in terms of actual implementation of key gas infrastructure projects. On the other, irrational psychology of insecurity centered around protecting local monopolies and domestic coal industries has begun to overtake the rational market and policy debate in this part of Europe.

For a genuine revolution to take place, there must be the political will to get the process off the ground; there must be commercial appetite to want to succeed in a trading environment; and shifts in cultural attitude for all those changes to be implemented. Central and Eastern European nations have yet to meet these requirements.

By Liubov Georges for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:$100 oil is suddenly all the rage, but some analysts remain unconvinced.

The supply outages in Iran combined with the decision by OPEC+ not to take further action to offset the declines pushed Brent to multi-year highs this week, and led to a flurry of calls for $100 oil before the year is out. Bank of America Merrill Lynch even wondered if a 2008-style price spike was in the offing.

Not everyone is getting so carried away. Barring another unexpected supply outage, the market should ride out the year just fine, according to Goldman Sachs.

[W]e believe another supply catalyst beyond Iran would likely be needed for prices to meaningfully break to the upside, Goldman analysts wrote in a note. In particular, we continue to expect that production from other OPEC producers and Russia will offset losses out of Iran, as has been the case so far.

The investment bank sees Brent stabilizing back in their $70-80/bbl range into year-end.

The analysis is notable since Goldman has often been a little more at the bullish end of pricing forecasts. The banks analysts went to lengths to emphasize that it is not pessimistic on oil prices, and it maintains its overweight outlook on oil and other commodities.

Goldman admitted that Irans supply losses have mounted much faster than expected, having dropped about 0.65 million barrels per day (mb/d) since April. More losses are expected with sanctions set to take effect in early November. Irans oil exports to Europe, Japan and South Korea have already plunged to negligible levels. China has cut some purchases from Iran.

Crucially, the latest news from India suggests that Indian refiners are going to be much more cautious than expected. On Tuesday, Bloomberg reported that India, at least as of now, is set to cut oil imports from Iran close to zero in November, going far beyond what nearly all oil market analysts  and even top Indian officials  thought was possible. Bloomberg noted that Indian Oil Corp. and Bharat Petroleum Corp., the two largest refiners in India, have not booked any cargoes from Iran for November. A few other Indian refiners have also declined to secure November deliveries. That could change, but these companies would need to finalize purchases by early October for November delivery. Related: Brent Oil Breaks Its Post-Crash High

Iranian exports may drop below 1 million barrels a day in November, with Indian refiners potentially loading nothing and China cutting back as well, Amrita Sen of Energy Aspects Ltd. said in a note.

Still, Goldman Sachs says this isnt a reason to panic. The decline occurred faster than we had expected, although some Iranian production is likely being exported through Iraq, with Basra loadings up 0.3 mb/d over the same period, Goldman analysts argued. While we adjust our Iran export path to re?ect this faster decline, this has no impact on our oil balance as we continue to expect that the rest of OPEC will offset such losses.

Right on cue, Libyas oil production just rose to a five-year high at 1.28 mb/d.

Increasing output from Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Russia have led aggregate OPEC+ production to come in higher than expected. Plus, the pledge from OPEC+ to return to 100 percent compliance suggests another 0.5 mb/d could be on the way. Saudi Arabia has already hinted that it would ramp up production in September and October as Iranian supply goes offline. To top it off, production from the Neutral Zone between Saudi Arabia and Kuwait could come back online, adding another 0.3 mb/d by the first quarter of 2019, Goldman says.

Finally, Iran is losing output faster than expected, but the trajectory of the losses is unclear. Goldman notes that the new sanctions-busting financing vehicle setup by the EU, with the support of China and Russia, could help Iran mitigate some of the losses. Related: $100 Oil Is A Distinct Possibility

The key question could be the timing and the magnitude of the potential increases from OPEC+. In the past, OPEC has had a tendency of reacting to production losses, rather than front-running those outages, as Goldman notes. So, its latest decision to do nothing should not come as a surprise.

The downside of waiting too long is that OPEC may respond late to a run up in prices, allowing a price spike to occur. In the past, the cartel has produced more supply just as the oil market takes a turn for the worse, and the extra barrels exacerbate the bust.

The Wall Street Journal reports that this time around, OPEC+ may be aware of this trap, and recognizing that demand could soften later this year and especially in early 2019, the group wants to avoid adding too much supply. OPECs view is that the market is not in danger of overtightening because in the first quarter of 2019, demand could dip by some 600,000 relative to August levels.

In other words, OPEC doesnt believe more supply is needed. Saudi Arabia could unilaterally add production, calibrating increases in response to what it thinks the market needs. But for now, OPEC+ doesnt think a major increase in production is necessary and doesnt appear concerned about a price spike.

By Nick Cunningham of Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:Rising oil prices are pushing up prices for fuels in Asia, and this is coming at a bad time; many Asian currencies are depreciating as economic growth falters. This is one of the major outtakes from this weeks S&P Global Platts Asia Pacific Petroleum Conference, and it should serve to rein in oil bulls enthusiasm in the near future.

For now, all is great for those betting on still higher oil prices, experts attending the event told S&P Global Platts. Good news for refiners is that India for one, oil demand won't subside [for the next few decades]," one of them, the president of refining operations at Reliance Industries, Harish Mehta, said.

Economic growth in the region will continue strong, at rates of over 4 percent, Mehta also said, with India and China leading the way as they lead the way in oil demand growth. This growth will encourage spending, but if prices continue to rise, so will fuel prices, and this will affect all consumer spending with the usual reverberations on that same strong economic growth, ultimately weighing on oil demand and completing the circle of interdependency.

A key ingredient in this stew is Asian currencies. Despite the healthy rate of economic growth, China and India have witnessed a slide in their national currencies. The Indian rupee fell sharply earlier this year, followed the latest trade deficit reading, which revealed Indias imports exceeded its exports by US$18 billion. This is the highest trade deficit since 2013. As a result, the countrys oil import bill could increase by as much as US$26 billion in FY 2018/19 with oil trading consistently higher than the US$65 level Indias government had budgeted for the year.

Chinas yuan has been affected by the trade war with the United States, and analysts believe that Beijing is willing to let it depreciate further in order to boost exports, countering the effect of the U.S. tariffs. Weaker than expected economic growth also helped. However, analysts argue that the government will not let the yuan slide below a certain point7 yuan per U.S. dollarlest Washington decides to accuse Beijing of currency manipulation.

So, as things stand right now, we have rising oil prices, a falling rupee and yuanand other currencies in the region, toorising fuel prices, and we have Iran cornered and offering its crude at huge discounts to lure in buyers. Its probably a safe to bet that both China and India will do their best to secure cheaper oil supplies to satisfy rising demand without compromising consumer spending. At least, thats what they should do. Of course, Washington will continue to apply pressure with the sanctions against Iran, but both China and India have already announced ways around the sanctions and these ways involve their national currencies, these same currencies that have been depreciating lately. Related: Traders Turn Bullish Ahead Of Iran Sanctions

So, heres a twist. A recent analysis by South China Morning Posts Karen Yeung argued that the yuan depreciation is good for China: it is helping to advance the internationalization of the currency. India would be happy to pay with rupees for whatever Iranian oil it continues to import after the sanctions kick in.

The problem is that Irans crude would hardly be enough to satisfy all that demand everyone is forecasting in Asia. And this means that what IEAs Director of Energy markets and Security Keisuke Sadamori said at the APPC is about to take place: "We are not only witnessing international oil prices rising but also emerging market Asian currencies weakening fast...leading to a rapid rise in consumer prices at the pumps."

Clarifying things further, Citis Edward Morse noted that equity funds were flowing out of Asia, further weighing on local currencies. "This will impact oil demand growth in the emerging market Asian economies," Morse said.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:The United States will be aggressive and unwavering in enforcing the sanctions on Iran and wont let those sanctions be evaded by the European Union or anyone else, U.S. national security advisor John Bolton said yesterday, dismissing the EUs decision to create a special legal entity for transactions with Iran.

On Monday, the foreign ministers of China, France, Germany, Russia, and the UKthe countries still in the Iran nuclear dealmet with Irans foreign minister and decided to create a special purpose vehicle for dealings with Iran. After the meeting, Federica Mogherini, the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, said that with the planned vehicle, In practical terms this will mean that EU Member States will set up a legal entity to facilitate legitimate financial transactions with Iran and this will allow European companies to continue trade with Iran, in accordance with European Union law, and could be opened to other partners in the world.

Bolton, however, slammed the EU plan, saying at a conference, as quoted by Reuters:

The European Union is strong on rhetoric and weak on follow-through.

We will be watching the development of this structure that doesnt exist yet and has no target date to be created. We do not intend to allow our sanctions to be evaded by Europe or anybody else, Bolton said.



Related: OPEC's No.4 Vows To Boost Spare Oil Capacity

The national security advisor reaffirmed the U.S. stance that it expects Iranian oil customers to have cut their imports of oil from Tehran to zero by November 4, and urged banking and financial services to rethink deals with Iran.

Banks and financial messaging services such as SWIFT must take a good hard look at their business with Iran and ask themselves whether it is worth the risk, Bolton said.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also criticized the EU plan for continuing transactions with Iran.

Unfortunately, just last night I was disturbed and indeed deeply disappointed to hear remaining parties in the Iran (nuclear) deal announce they are setting up a special payment system to bypass U.S. sanctions. This is one of the most counterproductive measures imaginable for regional global peace and security, Pompeo said at conference, as carried by Reuters.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:OPEC will be looking to balance the oil market after crude oil prices hit their highest in four years, but the cartels options to manage the market could be limited by its spare production capacity, Nigerias representative at OPEC, Mallam Mele Kyari, told Reuters on Wednesday.

Its obvious that if you have high prices itll affect demand, so you have to do some market balance, said Mele Kyari, who is also head of the crude oil marketing division at Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).

While OPEC will do everything to stabilize and keep the market balanced, theres a limit to its options.

You must have the spare capacity, Kyari told Reuters.

Nigeria will aim to increase its own 0crude oil and condensate production by around 100,000 bpd by the end of this year, compared to around 2 million bpd in oil and condensate production currently, the official said.

Nigerias crude oil production alone jumped by 74,000 bpd from its July level to average 1.725 million bpd in August, according to OPECs secondary sources.

In the late spring and early summer, Nigerias production and exports were disrupted by outages of oil flows on pipelines feeding oil export terminals, and delays in cargo loadings. In June, there were disruptions to Bonny Light, Forcados, and Qua Iboe flowsall of which are key Nigerian crude grades.

But production has recently stabilized and Nigerias oil exports for October are expected to hit a four-month high at 1.73 million bpd, as grades are coming back online following pipeline outages in the summer, according to loading schedules that Reuters has seen.

According to Nigerias OPEC representative Mele Kyari, the country would aim for 2.3 million bpd average crude and condensate production in 2019, following the start-up of the Egina ultra-deep oil field later this year. Egina is operated by Frances Total and is expected to have production capacity of 200,000 bpd.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:OAK RIDGE, Tenn.ORAU awarded 26 teachers from 12 East Tennessee schools almost $20,000 on Monday at the 17th annual ORAU Education Grants ceremony.

Educational materials and equipment purchased with the grant moniessuch as iPads, computer software, robotics kits and morewill help teachers continue to meet state-wide curriculum standards and enhance the learning experience of their students in STEM subjects.

As a teacher, it means so much to have this grant program available each year. The fact that we walk out of this ceremony with our products in-hand takes away a lot of the headache involved in ordering items. It also allows our kids to begin using this technology immediately! - Grand Oaks Elementary School teacher Sally Sutt

ORAU is happy to provide Anderson County educators with the needed resources and tools required to engage students of all ages in STEM subjects, ORAU President and CEO Andy Page said. These educators show such dedication to student success and advancement.

Since beginning the Education Grant program in 2002, ORAU has provided more than $500,000 to area schools to fund educational projects that complement its mission of enriching science, technology, engineering, and mathematics programs.

The two largest grants were given to Willow Brook Elementary School and Anderson County Career and Technical Center.

Teachers from Willow Brook Elementary received $2,480 to purchase Lego sets, brick sets and books that will be used to help students better understand math concepts such as division, subtraction and fractions. The Brick Math sets help students to develop mental imagery, invented strategies and receive an in-depth math experience.

At Anderson County Career and Technical Center, teachers plan to use their $2,300 grant to expand the VEX Robotics program. Since ORAU awarded Norris Middle School with a VEX Robotics grant two years ago, Norris Middle students who have moved to Anderson County Career and Technical Center have competed in robotics competitions, placing in the top 10 teams in the state this year.

As a teacher, it means so much to have this grant program available each year, said Sally Sutt, grant winner and Grand Oaks Elementary School teacher. The fact that we walk out of this ceremony with our products in-hand takes away a lot of the headache involved in ordering items. It also allows our kids to begin using this technology immediately!

The awards, based on competitive proposals submitted by the individual schools, were presented by ORAUs President and Chief Executive Officer Andy Page, Senior Vice President Dave Duncan and Executive Vice President Eric Abelquist in the Center for Science Education Classroom.

For more information about this and other ORAU-supported programs in education, visit the ORAU Community Involvement page.China says plots to undermine its relations with Pakistan wont work

China lashed out at plots to undermine its relations with Pakistan, and reaffirmed its commitment to investments there, when the countries foreign ministers met in New York on Tuesday.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met his Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi on the sidelines of the United Nations general assembly meetings, saying ties between the two nations were still in good shape after Pakistans recent election.

China and Pakistan are all-weather strategic partners, and any plots to interfere with China-Pakistan relations will not be successful, Wang was quoted as saying by the Chinese foreign ministry, without elaborating.

He also said the two nations should continue pushing forward construction of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, as well as bilateral trade and investment.

Calls have been mounting for Pakistan to review the economic corridor  a Beijing-funded investment project worth about US$62 billion  since Imran Khan was elected as prime minister in July.

The project has been criticised as part of Chinas debt trap diplomacy that sees smaller nations becoming indebted to it.

Abdul Razak Dawood, a Pakistani official responsible for commerce, textiles, industry and investment, earlier told the Financial Times that Pakistani companies had been put in a disadvantaged position and suggested Islamabad stretch out the economic corridor for five years.

The Chinese government denied Pakistan was seeking to delay the project, but the two sides agreed to invite third-country investors to be part of the economic corridor.

Last week, Khan visited Saudi Arabia and invited the Middle East kingdom to take part in the infrastructure project.

Pakistans Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry did not say if Saudi Arabia would loan money to Pakistan, but said he expected the kingdom would invest in a major way.

Story continues

In the meeting on Tuesday, Qureshi said Islamabad would take measures to ensure security along the economic corridor.

The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is an important project for Pakistan that will have a deep impact on the nations development, jobs and public livelihood, he said.

Qureshi also said relations between China and Pakistan would not change regardless of the circumstances.

Wang also met his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov on Tuesday, calling on Beijing and Moscow to uphold free trade and multilateralism in the face of confrontations with the United States.

Wang and Lavrov reaffirmed that this months meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Vladivostok had increased strategic trust between the two countries.

The Xi-Putin meeting coincided with joint military exercises between Russia, China and Mongolia involving 300,000 troops  the largest war games in Russia since 1981 that were seen by analysts as a sign of stronger ties between Beijing and Moscow.

This article China says plots to undermine its relations with Pakistan wont work first appeared on South China Morning Post

For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2018.US President Donald Trump confirmed Wednesday that he had refused to meet Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, accusing Canada of treating the United States "very badly." "Yeah, I did," he told a news conference in New York when asked by a reporter whether he had rejected a one-on-one meeting with Trudeau. "Canada has treated us very badly." That came after the incident on Tuesday in which Trump appeared to rebuff Trudeau when he approached to shake hands, even though the Canadian leader downplayed the incident. The two nations have been locked in negotiations for a year on a rewrite of the 25-year-old continental trade deal that Trump blames for losses of US jobs and industry. But the US leader criticized Canada's trade negotiators and cast doubt on the chances of reaching agreement on a rewrite of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), again threatening to impose tariffs on all auto imports. "I must be honest with you, we're not getting along with their negotiators we think their negotiators have taken advantage of our country for a long time," Trump said. Canada's Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland has spent much of the last month in Washington for talks with US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and repeatedly commented on the progress being made and the goodwill in the negotiations. Trump once again complained about Canada's controlled dairy market, although his comments referred to tariffs that do not apply to US products. - Tax on cars - "They have treated our farmers in Wisconsin and New York state and a lot of other states very badly," he said. "How do you sell a dairy product at 300 percent (tariff)?" US producers actually sell more dairy product to Canada than they import, and the 300 percent tariff only applies to goods above the quota, which the US does not meet, according to trade experts. The two sides also are at odds over the dispute resolution provisions in NAFTA. The White House reached a deal last month with Mexico and informed Congress of the intention to sign a new agreement by the end of November, before the new president takes office in Mexico. But Lighthizer on Tuesday said time was running out for Canada to be included, and Mexico's trade negotiator Kenneth Smith Ramos said the two countries are ready to proceed. "Now, if Canada doesn't make a deal with us, we're going to make a much better deal. We're going to tax the cars that come in," he said. "We will put billions and billions of dollars into our Treasury. And frankly, we'll be very happy." "I don't like NAFTA. I never liked it. It's been very bad for the United States. It's been great for Canada. It's been great for Mexico. Very bad for us," Trump said.Phuket, 26 September 2018  Journey through a delicacy of special home-style pasta and risotto dishes freshly presented from the La Gritta kitchen. Chef Patrizia has perfectly crafted all five menus including rigatoni pasta with aubergine, home-made fettuccine with Italian sausage and Porcini mushroom, penne with tuna and risotto with pumpkin and spinach. Guests will be enjoying an enriching experience with these savoury dishes throughout October 2018.

Rigatoni alla Norma, priced at 450 THB++

Rigatoni pasta mixed with aubergine, ricotta cheese and tomato sauce. Decorated on top with fresh basil leaves and Parmesan cheese. This is a popular menu item in Sicily, south of Italy, always cooked to welcome friends who pay a visit at home.

Risotto al Pepe Nero, Gamberi e Zucca, priced at 590 THB++

Creamy risotto mixed with slices of pumpkin and shrimp. Another popular menu in the south of Italy close to the sea. This is an aromatic dish with the aroma of pumpkin and the zest of black pepper on top.

Fettuccine alla Boscaiola, priced at 490 THB++

Home-made fettuccine with Italian sausage, Porcini mushroom cream and Parmesan cheese. A popular menu item in Umbria in central Italy.

Risotto al Gorgonzola, Spinaci e Noci, priced at 510 THB++

This creamy risotto with spinach offers the nice strong aroma of gorgonzola cheese and is topped with walnuts. This menu item is popular in the north of Italy.

Penne alla Puttanesca, priced at 470 THB++

Penne mixed with tuna, olives, capers and tomato sauce. A tasteful dish that presents a great combination of sour and slightly salty. This is the menu item that is popular in Rome in central Italy.

All prices are subject to a 10% service charge and 7% VAT. Terms and conditions apply.

For more information and reservations, please contact +66 (0) 7634 0112, email lagritta@amari.com

or visit www.lagritta.com and https://www.facebook.com/LaGrittaPhuket.

Address: Amari Phuket, 2 Muen-ngern Road, Patong Beach, Kathu, Phuket 83150, ThailandPolice fire warning shots, teargas shells after locals clash over cremating dead body

Police on Wednesday fired warning shots and teargas shells after locals clashed over cremating a dead body at Shreepur village of Garuda Municipality-9 in Rautahat district.Scientists will fill NASA research aircraft, such as the B-200 King Air shown here, with advanced instruments to probe five important research questions starting in 2020 as part of the Earth Venture Suborbital program. Credit: NASA/David C. Bowman

Five new NASA Earth science campaigns will take to the field starting in 2020 to investigate a range of pressing research questions, from what drives intense East Coast snowfall events to the impact of small-scale ocean currents on global climate.

These studies will explore important, but not-well-understood, aspects of Earth system processes and were competitively selected as part of NASA's Earth Venture-class program. This is NASA's third series of Earth Venture suborbital investigations, which are regularly solicited, sustained observation projects first recommended by the National Research Council in 2007. The first set of five projects was selected in 2010, and the second in 2014.

"These innovative investigations tackle difficult scientific questions that require detailed, targeted field observations combined with data collected by our fleet of Earth-observing satellites," said Jack Kaye, associate director for research in NASA's Earth Science Division in Washington.

The five newly selected Earth Venture investigations are:

Intense snowfall events  Lynn McMurdie of the University of Washington will lead the Investigation of Microphysics and Precipitation for Atlantic Coast-Threatening Snowstorms project to study the formation of snow bands in East Coast winter storms. Better understanding of the mechanisms of snow band formation and the factors that influence the location of the most intense snowfall will help improve forecasts of these extreme weather events. This study will involve flights of NASA's ER-2 and P-3B research aircraft over the northeastern United States.

Aerosols changing clouds  Armin Sorooshian of the University of Arizona will lead the Aerosol Cloud Meteorology Interactions over the Western Atlantic Experiment to identify how aerosol particles change cloud properties in ways that affect Earth's climate system. The investigation will focus on marine boundary layer clouds over the western North Atlantic Ocean that have a critical role in our planet's energy balance. Two NASA research aircraft, an HU-25 Falcon and a B-200 King Air, will fly from NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, to gather measurements from above, below, and within.

River deltas and sea level rise  Marc Simard of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, will lead the Delta-X investigation to better understand the natural processes that maintain and build land in major river deltas threatened by rising seas. The project will improve models that predict loss of coastal land from sea level rise by improving estimates of how deltas add landa process that involves trapping sediments and creating organic soils as plants grow. Delta-X will focus on the Mississippi River Delta using instruments on three NASA research aircraft.

Impact of strong storms on stratosphere  Kenneth Bowman of Texas A&M University will lead the Dynamics and Chemistry of the Summer Stratosphere project to investigate how strong summertime convective storms over North America can change the chemistry of the stratosphere. These storms regularly penetrate deep into the lower stratosphere, carrying pollutants that can change the chemical composition of this atmospheric layer, including ozone levels. Flights of NASA's ER-2 high-altitude aircraft will be based in Salina, Kansas.

Ocean heating of the atmosphere  Thomas Farrar of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute will lead the Submesoscale Ocean Dynamics and Vertical Transport investigation to explore the potentially large influence that small-scale ocean eddies have on the exchange of heat between the ocean and the atmosphere. The project will collect a benchmark data set of climate and biological variables in the upper ocean that influence this exchange. Measurements will be collected by research aircraft and shipborne instruments 200 miles off the coast of San Francisco.

A total of six NASA centers and 27 educational institutions are participating in these five Earth Venture projects. The five-year investigations were selected from 30 proposals. The Delta-X project is funded at a total cost of no more than $15 million; each of the other projects is funded at no more than $30 million.

The new Delta-X project will study the Mississippi River Delta and the processes that build and maintain land in major river deltas threatened by rising seas. Credit: NASA

Earth Venture investigations are part of NASA's Earth System Science Pathfinder program, managed at Langley for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Competitively selected orbital missions and field campaigns in this program provide innovative approaches to address Earth science research with frequent windows of opportunity to accommodate new scientific priorities.

NASA uses the vantage point of space to understand and explore our home planet, improve lives and safeguard our future. The agency's observations of Earth's complex natural environment are critical to understanding how our planet's natural resources and climate are changing now and could change in the future.

NASAs high-altitude ER-2 research aircraft will be used in two new projects to study the impact of strong summer storms on the stratosphere and intense snowfall events along the U.S. East Coast. Credit: NASA

Explore further NASA airborne campaigns tackle climate questions from Africa to the Arctic

More information: For more on NASA's Earth science activities, visit For more on NASA's Earth science activities, visit nasa.gov/earthA Beluga whale, like the one shown in this acquarium picture, has swam into the Thames estuary in London, sparking concerns about its safety in the busy waterway

Concerns were growing Wednesday for a beluga whale spotted in the River Thames estuary outside London, thousands of kilometres (miles) from the cherished white species' natural home in Arctic waters.

The extremely rare sighting triggered wonder and excitement when the whale was first seen on Tuesday, but after it was spotted again on Wednesday in exactly the same location, concerns grew that the beluga had got lost and was potentially in danger.

Rob Lott, a marine mammal scientist at the Whale and Dolphin Conservation wildlife charity, said the cetacean was being monitored in case it strands on a sandbank.

"The longer it stays in the Thames estuary then it will become more of a concern," he told BBC radio.

"Hopefully instinct will soon kick in and the beluga will leave the estuary and go out into the North Sea and then head north where it should be," the scientist explained.

The sight of a beluga whale so far south1,000 miles (1,600 kilometres) from even Icelandis exceptional.

"Beluga whales are a species of the icy Arcticfinding one in the tepid Thames is an astonishingly rare event," said Rod Downie, polar chief adviser at WWF, the World Wide Fund for Nature.

The last reported sighting of a beluga in UK waters was in 2015, when two were spotted off the northeast coast of England and one in Northern Ireland.

Rescue teams are on standby in case the whale gets into danger.

"It's very unusual and it's not a very good place," Julia Cable, spokeswoman for British Divers Marine Life Rescue, which saves marine animals in distress, told AFP.

"We wouldn't go anywhere near it in a boat. We could just do more harm than good."

Feeding around barges

The beluga was first sighted on Tuesday near the southern Kent side of the river, downstream of Gravesend.

It was feeding around moored barges and did not move more than 200 metres during the day.

Ornithologist Dave Andrews, who first spotted the whale, said it was back in the same place on Wednesday.

"The Thames beluga is back feeding in its favoured spot around the barges on the Kent side," he said urging all boats to "keep clear and let it alone".

The Thames remains a busy waterway. The whale's location is between two major container docks, Tilbury and the new London Gateway port.

Belugas typically live for 40 to 60 years. Highly sociable, they typically form pods and are often seen in river estuaries in the summer.

The beluga's appearance brings back memories of the famous 2006 Thames whale.

A female northern bottlenose whale was discovered swimming in the river in central London, going past the Houses of Parliament.

On its second day in the city, as it lost strength, rescuers intervened and lifted it onto a barge by crane. It died, after suffering from convulsions, near Gravesend as the barge rushed towards the open sea.

Explore further Belugas adopt toothy whale lost in Canadian waters

 2018 AFPBerger experiments with models -- including donning a polar bear suit -- to approach animals like the muskox and document behaviors. Credit: Joe Mendoza/CSU Photography

Colorado State University Professor Joel Berger chases winter, year-round. Unlike the surfers in the 1966 movie, "The Endless Summer," he isn't in pursuit of the perfect wave around the world. He's tracking disappearing species in remote and often icy locations.

This past July and August, he was in search of the huemul, Chile's national mammal, at the Patagonia ice fields between Chile and Argentina. Next spring, his research will take him back to the Arctic Yukon in Alaska, where he'll continue his studies of muskoxen, the Arctic's largest land mammal.

For his last field work, he spent one day in a plane, then two days driving on a dirt road over the Andes, and another day in a boat before arriving at Patagonia's ice fields, where he and a team of researchers hoped to catch a glimpse of the huemul, the rarest deer in either the Americas.

"Ninety-nine percent of their range is gone," said Berger, a professor in the CSU Department of Fish, Wildlife and Conservation Biology who is also a senior scientist with the Wildlife Conservation Society.

He and his research team are trying to understand how, or what, is causing the decline of the huemul. Some theories they're exploring is that the medium-sized deer have been killed by dogs or by diseases transmitted by cattle. Habitat fragmentation is an issue, too.

The scientists are working across four different study sites that stretch from the Pacific Ocean, where there is more than 30 feet of rain a year, to the east side of the Andes.

Berger said he spotted a few deer last year in Patagonia. "This year we got lucky and found a bunch," he said, with a smile.

Huemul resemble a mix of a kangaroo and a mountain goat in a deer's body. There are about 2,000 of these animals left in the world, far less than the estimated 25,000 polar bears in existence.

"The world knows polar bears," Berger said. "And the world knows Patagonia, but they don't know the national mammal of Chile."

How climate change affects animals

Berger's research includes studying the effects of climate change on mammals that live in extremely cold places. In a study published in Nature Scientific Reports in January 2018, he detailed previously unknown effects of rain-on-snow events, winter precipitation and ice tidal surges on muskoxen.

Among the findings, the scientist found that the warming climate is stressing mothers and their young. Rain-on-snow events and unusually dry conditions in the winterwhen muskoxen gestatehave also led to underdeveloped skeletal growth in juveniles.

He and his team documented a one-time extreme ice event that led to a sobering discovery: the death of dozens of muskoxen. In February 2011, an historically high tidal surge resulted in at least 52 animals drowning and being entombed in ice at the northern coast of Bering Land Bridge National Preserve peninsula.

"There's so much despair with climate change, and there should be," he said.

Even so, Berger added that there are positive stories from the field, including findings in Alaska and Canada, where wildlife at the edges of ice fields and other northern realms are on the rise. There are more cougars, elk and deer in parts of the southern Yukon, he noted, and cougars have been spotted in Alaska.

"Of course, there are challenges, but it's not unilaterally a doom and a gloom," he said.

Berger counts the sighting of the huemul in southern South Americaon the largest sub-polar ice fields in the southern hemisphereas a bright spot. The Chilean and Argentine governments are investing in conservation efforts, to do what they can to protect the deer.

Huemul resemble a mix of a kangaroo and a mountain goat in a deer's body. There are about 2,000 of these animals left in the world. Credit: Joel Berger/ Colorado State University and Wildlife Conservation Society

Glowing reviews for Extreme Conservation

Berger documented his journeys around the globe in his recent book, Extreme Conservation, which was published in August by The University of Chicago Press. It is not his first; he has authored six other conservation-related titles. But this one has garnered the most rave reviews and accolades.

Science writer David Quammen compared Berger to the likes of Jane Goodall, who began studying wild chimpanzees in Tanzania at the age of 26, and George Schaller, a German-born American conservationist and author who is recognized as the world's preeminent field biologist.

"Field biology is a tough, lonely profession requiring patience and grit and smarts, and if you add conservation concerns (which you must), a deep steady heart," Quammen said.

"Extreme Conservation is a must-read for all conservation biologists and for all people who care about the state of our magnificent planet and how numerous and diverse animal species and their homes are being ravaged 'in the name of humans,'" wrote Marc Bekoff, professor emeritus of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Colorado Boulder. "Berger is one of the most productive, traveled, and influential scientists of our time."

In the New York Review of Books, Tim Flannery described Berger as "a hero of biology who deserves the highest honors that science can bestow."

Berger said, with a laugh and display of modesty, that the reason behind the book's popularity is that it's got a pithy title.

There's charisma that's associated with field work," he explained. "So much of science is modeling, and the models are essential to look ahead and to see where we've been. But people are passionate about animals, and animals in the wild and keeping them there."

He also continues to embrace his role as an advocate for lesser-known species.

"There are a lot of voices for elephants, lions, tigers and whales, and they deserve it," he said. "The public can relate. But there are a lot of other silent species that don't have the same visibility and the same voice, but yet have lots of challenges. They certainly don't have the kind of financial backing so that we can raise the bar on their conservation. Well, we should!"

Explore further Warming Arctic climate constrains life in cold-adapted mammalsCredit: CC0 Public Domain

Around the turn of the 20th century, U.S. educators widely considered certain populations less educated, less healthy and unprepared to be true American citizens. If asked, most might argue those practices have disappeared as social norms have changedparticularly given that many reforms today focus on equity and diversity. A University of Kansas researcher has published a study showing how the very efforts to make science relevant to diverse populations inadvertently create new divisions by relying on educational practices with unexamined colonial histories.

When science education crystalized as a school subject in the early 1900s, the United States was experiencing great changes. Large groups of immigrants were arriving from southern and eastern Europe, African-Americans were migrating in large numbers from the rural South to urban North, and the United States was undertaking colonial efforts in Puerto Rico and the Philippines. Schools were segregated by law, and science education became one area where experts sought to "make" healthy Americans by designating some students in need of compensatory curriculum, according to Kathryn Kirchgasler, KU lecturer in curriculum & teaching. Published in the journal Curriculum Inquiry, Kirchgasler's study outlines how, in early 20th century science education, certain immigrant groups and colonized peoples were racialized as unfit "noncitizens" who required science-as-public-health. Despite important shifts, current educational practices fall into the same traprelying upon similar techniques to differentiate science education based on perceived differing health needs. This risks perpetuating societal problems by explaining them at the level of individual psychology and exacerbating disparities in tracked science courses.

The Next Generation Science Standards, or NGSS, are being implemented in U.S. schools with the goal of improving science relevant to the lives of diverse student populations. This aligns with broader reforms to link science education to real-world problems such as the obesity epidemic by having students from marginalized groups analyze data on their daily habits and advocate for healthier choices in their homes and communities. The standards recommend that teachers connect science to students' everyday lives through methods like discussing the dangers of high-fructose corn syrup in order to motivate students from nondominant racial and ethnic groups. While the goal of improving science education for all students is admirable, Kirchgasler said, the reforms reflect a tendency to formulate educational and health disparities in psychological terms by assuming some children and families lack the knowledge or motivation to make informed, responsible choices. Societal explanations such as unequal access to health care, income inequality, food deserts and others tend to be overlooked.

In her research, Kirchgasler has previously studied how students are selected for the type of science instruction they receive. In a study of a high school confronting racial and socioeconomic disparities in tracked science courses, she found that students in higher-level classes were often positioned as future experts, such as taking part in exercises where they play the part of emergency room surgeons. Meanwhile, lower-level courses, which disproportionately served low-income students and students of color, prioritized helping students become science-literate citizens, such as writing letters convincing family members to make healthier choices.

"It really demanded looking at history and how we got here. Perceptions of distinct health needs kept coming up as a way we separate students," Kirchgasler said. "That discrepancy between who is viewed as a future scientist and those who are viewed as not having scientific knowledge, seemed to mark some bodiesparticularly along socioeconomic and racial linesas already not measuring up. That seemed to me like a paradox."

In her current study, Kirchgasler details a teaching practice common in U.S. urban schools serving immigrant groups and in U.S. colonial schools in the Phillippines in the early 1900s. Students were regularly given questionnaires to fill out about their home lives detailing conditions of cleanliness, whether they slept with windows open, brushed teeth regularly, had "vicious personal habits," "defective speech" and a number of other factors. The survey made these students' private homes into a lab. This type of data was used to justify both the segregation of students within U.S. schools and policies arguing that Filipino residents were not hygienic or knowledgeable enough to be American citizens and therefore were not ready for self-governance. In current reforms, similar practices of assessing local needs and enlisting students to promote healthy habits persist; however, today they're offered as ways of recognizing diversity and empowering youth.

"We tend to think of diversity as a new initiative, but in fact, adapting education for what were labeled as different populations has been a continual project, and these early dividing practices translate to a key reason we have different levels of science education today," Kirchgasler said.

One example is a focus on diabetes and obesity in science classrooms today. While those are worthwhile topics, curricular reforms target Hispanic, African-American and American Indian students in attempts to apply science to a problem assumed to carry personal relevance. Students are often assigned to keep a food diary of the meals or snacks eaten at home and to come up with projects to share nutritional advice with their family or community. While not as direct as hygiene surveys in the colonial Philippines, today's educational practices often still attribute health problems to individual choices and divide those deemed ready for a chemistry or anatomy lab from those who need to apply the lab to their home life instead.

"Ironically, reforms intended to make science relevant to students of color are often housed in lower tracks that restrict access to college preparatory coursework," Kirchgasler said. "At the same time, the presumed distinction between relevance and rigor also does a disservice to those in the higher track, who tend to receive more decontextualized science instruction. Neither track really gives students a chance to examine the scientific and sociopolitical complexities of issues like health disparities, food justice or climate change."

There is an assumption both in society and education that we as a nation are continually progressing and that there is no need to look at the past. However, with hindsight, it's clear that health is not a neutral category, Kirchgasler said. In the Philippines, what got noticed as a health need was anything unfamiliar or different from U.S. colonial officials, like labeling pomegranates as inferior fruit or breast-feeding as excessive.

"Looking back reveals how the notion of healthy citizens easily slips into the projection of cultural norms and preferences as universal signs of mental maturity or prerequisites for full citizenship," she said.

In future research, Kirchgasler intends to study health-oriented science education reforms being put in place across U.S. schools, as well as studying specific reforms aimed at Latinx students, and what tensions arise when science teachers and public health professionals come together to redress inequalities in health care, education and environmental justice.

In the meantime, Kirchgasler said, teacher education should consider its past in order to help ensure that future educators think about educational and health disparities not as individual gaps to remediate but as sociopolitical phenomena. This reframing may help discourage racial and socioeconomic essentialisms in the name of diversity and entail a different ethical responsibility toward collective action.

Explore further Researcher shows how racially based tools to separate science students persistOn 25/26 September 2018, an Ariane 5 on its milestone 100th launch, lifted off from Europes Spaceport in French Guiana on flight VA243 and delivered two telecom satellites, Horizons-3e and Azerspace-2/Intelsat-38, into their planned orbits. Credit: ESA

A European-made rocket has blasted off from French Guiana for the 100th time, in a symbolic landmark for its manufacturer as it comes under increasing pressure from Elon Musk's SpaceX programme.

The Ariane 5 spacecraft took off from the Caribbean launch site on Tuesday at 19:38 (22:38 GMT), propelling two telecoms satellites into orbit.

In service for more than two decades and capable of blasting heavy payloads into the sky, the Ariane 5 has become the workhorse of European space launches under the guidance of the European Space Agency (ESA).

But it will soon be replaced by an updated model, the Ariane 6, which will be an estimated 40 percent cheaper to make.

This is partly in response to SpaceX's arrival on the commercial space flight scene, with its reusable Falcon 9 rocket holding the potential to undercut rival programmes.

SpaceX has outpaced European manufacturer Arianespace in terms of number of launches for two straight years.

"We are having to face unprecedented competition," Arianespace head Stephane Israel told AFP.

Since it was first launched in 1996, the Ariane 5 has put 205 satellites into orbit including for Europe's Galileo GPS system.

Explore further Europe's Ariane 5 rocket set for 100th blast off

 2018 AFPCredit: CC0 Public Domain

This year's long, hot summer led many of us to wonder if it was a sign of things to come and whether we could anticipate similar summer heat every year. Now, a scientist from the University of East Anglia (UEA) has used his expertise to develop one of the world's first apps that enables users to explore global climate change projections.

The interactive app, EarthSystemData, displays the same data currently used by climate scientists and politicians to monitor changes across the globe. It enables users to see worldwide climate projections up to the year 2100, monitor real-time data to track current conditions and retrieve information for any global town or city.

"It's aimed at anyone who's interested in the environment," said EarthSystemData's founder, and UEA Senior Research Associate, Dr. Craig Wallace. "For example, it made it easy to follow this summer's extreme weather, seeing how conditions evolved day-to-day, from the temperatures in Europe to the events unfolding in north-west America that resulted in devastating forest fires.

"At the height of the UK heatwave, from 22-31 July, the average temperature in the London area over the 10 days was 3C above normal  very large in climate terms. In Lapland, the figures are even more compelling, with an average temperature over the same period that was 7.5C above normal, leading to the closure of nuclear reactors and widespread crop failures.

"I wanted to create a way to display the actual data we use for scientific research to enable people not only to see what's happening but also develop a feel for how climate evolution is different from the rapid local weather anomalies that pass in a day or so. I believe it's important that everyone can see the changes for themselves and find out what we can expect for the world in the future."

The name EarthSystemData reflects the connected nature of the planet and how changes in one area can impact another. The app uses data produced by UEA for future projections and includes a blog from Dr. Wallace.

Explore further Heatwave was triggered by climate change, according to new research

More information: Find out more about the app at Find out more about the app at www.earthsystemdata.comEU Digital Economy Commissioner Mariya Gabriel said the commitment was "a step in the right direction"

Major tech companies including Facebook and Google agreed Wednesday on a code of conduct to combat online disinformation in the European Union, although critics said the commitments were too weak.

Seven months before the European elections, the code published by the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, called in particular for the withdrawal of advertising revenues from disseminators of "fake news".

In addition, companies agreed that the source of adverts should be clearly labelled and also agreed to closer scrutiny of ad content disseminated on platforms.

They will also track the misuse of automated bots to distribute fake news and expand the possibility for users to lodge complaints about suspect posts.

EU Digital Economy Commissioner Mariya Gabriel said the commitment was "a step in the right direction", but also called for further efforts by Silicon Valley giants.

Gabriel maintained her threat of EU regulation if the voluntary commitment did not swiftly lead to tangible results.

EU sources said Facebook and Google, including its video sharing site Youtube, have so far backed the code of conduct, with big tech lobby Edima also one of the signatories.

The push against fake news by the European Commission gained traction this year after a scandal involving the illegal harvesting of Facebook users' data in the election campaign of US President Donald Trump.

Fears in Brussels now centre on the European Parliament elections next year after alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential ballot and the Brexit vote in Britain the same year.

In a statement, Gabriel said she hoped the code of conduct would "contribute to a transparent, fair and trustworthy online campaign in the run-up to the European elections in spring 2019."

At the same time, "Europe's fundamental principles of freedom of expression, free press and pluralism should be fully respected".

Harsh criticism came from an advisory body of media representatives, associations and academics also convened by the Commission.

The code does not contain "a common approach, no clear and meaningful obligations, no measurable objectives" and no sanctions for enforcement, a statement said.

Therefore, there can be no question of "self-regulation".

"Let's face it. Platforms which make money from advertisements displayed alongside fake news articles and posts are just not well-placed to tackle this problem," said Monique Goyens, head of the European Consumer Organisation (BEUC).

 2018 AFPThe weak lensing surveys such as HSC prefer a slightly less clumpy Universe (left) than that predicted by Planck (right). The pictures show the slight but noticeable difference as expected from large computer simulations. Credit: Hyper Suprime-Cam Survey

Today, an international group of researchers, including Carnegie Mellon University's Rachel Mandelbaum, released the deepest wide field map of the three-dimensional distribution of matter in the universe ever made and increased the precision of constraints for dark energy with the Hyper Suprime-Cam survey (HSC).

The present-day universe is a pretty lumpy place. As the universe has expanded over the last 14 billion years or so, galaxies and dark matter have been increasingly drawn together by gravity, creating a clumpy landscape with large aggregates of matter separated by voids where there is little or no matter.

The gravity that pulls matter together also impacts how we observe astronomical objects. As light travels from distant galaxies towards Earth, the gravitational pull of the other matter in its path, including dark matter, bends the light. As a result, the images of galaxies that telescopes see are slightly distorted, a phenomenon called weak gravitation lensing. Within those distortions is a great amount of information that researchers can mine to better understand the distribution of matter in the universe, and it provides clues to the nature of dark energy.

The HSC map, created from data gathered by Japan's Subaru telescope located in Hawaii, allowed researchers to measure the gravitational distortion in images of about 10 million galaxies.

Left panel: The 3-dimensional dark matter map of the universe inferred from one of the six HSC observation areas is shown in the background with various shades of blue (brighter areas have more dark matter). The map was inferred from the distortions of shapes of galaxies in the HSC data which are indicated by white sticks. The stick lengths represent the amount of distortion and the angle of the stick corresponds to the direction of the distortion. Right panel: The measurements are enabled by the light from distant galaxies that travels through the universe and gets deflected by matter at different epochs in the universe, before reaching the Subaru telescope. Credit: HSC project/UTokyo

The Subaru telescope allowed them to see the galaxies further back in time than in other similar surveys. For example, the Dark Energy Survey analyzes a much larger area of the sky at a similar level of precision as HSC, but only surveys the nearby universe. HSC takes a narrower, but deeper view, which allowed researchers to see fainter galaxies and make a sharper map of dark matter distribution.

The research team compared their map with the fluctuations predicted by the European Space Agency Planck satellite's observations of the cosmic microwave background radiationradiation from the earliest days of the universe. The HSC measurements were slightly lower than, but still statistically consistent with Planck's. The fact that HSC and other weak lensing surveys all find slightly lower results than Planck raises the tantalizing question of whether dark energy truly behaves like Einstein's cosmological constant.

The cosmological constraints on the clumpiness of the Universe today (S8) predicted using observations at different times in the Universe. The HSC measurement of the clumpiness of the Universe is shown with the red symbol and are among the farthest measurements using weak gravitational lensing. These should be compared with the Planck results obtained from observations of the cosmic microwave background in the very early Universe and other contemporary weak lensing experiments KiDS and DES. Credit: HSC project/UTokyo

"Our map gives us a better picture of how much dark energy there is and tells us a little more about its properties and how it's making the expansion of the universe accelerate," Mandelbaum said. "The HSC is a great complement to other surveys. Combining data across projects will be a powerful tool as we try uncover more and more about the nature of dark matter and dark energy."

Measuring the distortions caused by weak gravitational lensing isn't easy. The effect is quite small and distortions in galaxy shapes can also be caused by the atmosphere, the telescope and the detector. To get precise, accurate results, researchers need to know that they are only measuring effects from weak lensing.

Mandelbaum, associate professor of physics and member of the McWilliams Center for Cosmology at Carnegie Mellon, is an expert at controlling for these outside distortions. She and her team created a detailed image simulation of the HSC survey data based on images from the Hubble Space Telescope. From these simulations, they were able to apply corrections to the galaxy shapes to remove the shape distortions caused by effects other than lensing.

The weak lensing surveys such as HSC prefer a slightly less clumpy Universe than that predicted by Planck. The pictures show the slight but noticeable difference as expected from large computer simulations. Is this difference a statistical fluctuation? Astronomers all around the world continue to collect more and more data to answer this question. Credit: UTokyo

These results come from the HSC survey's first year of data. In all, the HSC survey will collect five years of data that will yield even more information about the behavior of dark energy and work towards other goals such as studying the evolution of galaxies and massive clusters of galaxies across cosmic time, measuring time-varying objects like supernovae, and even studying our own Milky Way galaxy.

The research will be uploaded to the preprint server arxiv.org and will be submitted to the Publication of the Astronomical Society of Japan.

Explore further BUFFALO charges towards the earliest galaxies

More information: Cosmology from cosmic shear power spectra with Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam first-year data , Cosmology from cosmic shear power spectra with Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam first-year data , arxiv.org/abs/1809.09148Credit: CC0 Public Domain

More kids than ever before live with both their parents and grandparents in multigenerational households, according to new research from the University of Michigan.

In 1996, about 5.7 percent of kids, or roughly 4 million, lived in multigenerational families. Twenty years later, the numbers are 9.8 percent, or about 7 million children.

"It's important to understand family change because research shows strong links between children's living arrangements, economic well-being and long-term child outcomes," said Natasha Pilkauskas, assistant professor at U-M's Ford School of Public Policy and lead author of the study. "We need to know who kids are living with, as the effectiveness of policies and interventions are more likely affected by who is in the household."

A multigenerational household, also known as a three-generation household, is usually formed when a new child is born, economic resources are scarce, someone has a health need, or because of cultural preferences.

Pilkauskas and colleague Christina Cross, a doctoral student in public policy and sociology, sought to understand which kind of shared living arrangementswhere kids are living with additional adults who are not their parents or a parent's partnerhave become more common over time.

According to the researchers, the only type of shared living arrangement that increased over the last 20 years was multigenerational households.

They also looked at the various factors that contributed to the increase in multigenerational households and found that:

Although multigenerational families are far more common among economically disadvantaged groups, like young or poor mothers, the fastest increase in a three-generation household happened among economically advantaged groupsolder, wealthier and more educated mothers.

Changes in the racial/ethnic makeup of the population explained some of the increase in multigenerational households. The increase in the number of children who are Hispanic or 'other' and the decrease in the number of kids who are white also led to an increase in co-residence.

Parent's relationship status was another explanatory factor in the increase in three-generation co-residence, which included a decline in marriage and an increase in single parenthood.

An increase in the share of the population receiving Social Security benefits also strongly explained the increase. Children and grandchildren may move in with grandparents receiving Social Security if grandparents are more economically stable.

The study, however, did not show an increase in children living solely with grandparentsin contradiction to some reports about the increase in kids being raised in "grandfamilies." The share of children in grandfamilies edged slightly upward from 1.8 percent of children in 1996 to 1.9 percent of children in 2016.

"More work needs to be done to fully understand how policy and population change are contributing to the increase in multigenerational households and whether increasing multigenerational co-residence is a good thing for families," Pilkauskas said.

The study is forthcoming in Demography. It used data from the 1996-2008 panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation, as well as the American Community Survey (2009-2016), a nationally representative survey of the U.S. population that samples approximately 3 million households annually and is collected by the U.S. Census Bureau.

More information: Beyond the Nuclear Family: Trends in Children Living in Shared Households. Natasha V. Pilkauskas and Christina Cross. Beyond the Nuclear Family: Trends in Children Living in Shared Households. Natasha V. Pilkauskas and Christina Cross. drive.google.com/file/d/1XhNZo  y4e88qp6DCH_IxG/view Demography (2018). DOI: 10.1007/s13524-018-0719-y Journal information: DemographyBiochemistry professor Auinash Kalsotra, second from left, and his team, including, from left, graduate students Waqar Arif, Joseph Seimetz and Sushant Bangru, uncovered the molecular underpinnings of liver regeneration. Credit: L. Brian Stauffer

In Greek mythology, Zeus punishes the trickster Prometheus by chaining him to a rock and sending an eagle to eat a portion of his liver every day, in perpetuity. It was the right organ to target  the liver has the ability to regenerate itself, though not overnight nor for eternity.

New research conducted by biochemists at the University of Illinois has determined how damaged liver cells repair and restore themselves through a signal to return to an early stage of postnatal organ development. The findings are reported in the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology.

"The liver is a resilient organ," said U. of I. biochemistry professor Auinash Kalsotra, who led the new research. "It can restore up to 70 percent of lost mass and function after just a few weeks.

"We know that in a healthy adult liver, the cells are dormant and rarely undergo cell division," he said. "However, if the liver is damaged, the liver cells re-enter the cell cycle to divide and produce more of themselves."

The human liver can become chronically damaged by toxins such as alcohol and even certain medicines, but still continue to function and self-repair, Kalsotra said.

"This research looked at what is happening at the molecular level in a damaged liver that enables it to regenerate while still performing normal functions," he said.

Using a mouse model of a liver severely damaged by toxins, the researchers compared injured adult liver cells with healthy cells present during a stage of development just after birth. They found that injured cells undergo a partial reprograming that returns them to a neonatal state of gene expression.

The team discovered that fragments of messenger RNA, the molecular blueprints for proteins, are rearranged and processed in regenerating liver cells in a manner reminiscent of the neonatal period of development. This phenomenon is regulated through alternative splicing, a process wherein exons (expressed regions of genes) are cut from introns (intervening regions) and stitched together in various combinations to direct the synthesis of many different proteins from a single gene. These proteins can have different cellular functions or properties.

"We found that the liver cells after birth use a specific RNA-binding protein called ESRP2 to generate the right assortment of alternatively spliced RNAs that can produce the protein products necessary for meeting the functional demands of the adult liver," said graduate student Sushant Bangru, the lead author of the study. "When damaged, the liver cells lower the quantity of ESRP2 protein. This reactivates fetal RNA splicing in what is called the 'Hippo signaling pathway,' giving it instructions about how to restore and repopulate the liver with new and healthy cells."

Kalsotra described the science in mythological terms: "When Zeus' eagle comes in for its daily snack, damaging the liver, the alternatively spliced form of Hippos come into play  repairing Prometheus's liver so the poor guy can go through this whole punishment again the next day."

Explore further Scientists uncover mechanism that propels liver development after birth

More information: Sushant Bangru et al. Alternative splicing rewires Hippo signaling pathway in hepatocytes to promote liver regeneration, Nature Structural & Molecular Biology (2018). Journal information: Nature Structural & Molecular Biology Sushant Bangru et al. Alternative splicing rewires Hippo signaling pathway in hepatocytes to promote liver regeneration,(2018). DOI: 10.1038/s41594-018-0129-2Sudurpashchim proposed name for Province 7

A special parliamentary committee has proposed Sudurpashchim as the name of Province 7 and Godawari in Kailali as its capital.Microplastic pollution on a beach in Cyprus. Credit: Jessica Arrowsmith

Microplastics have been found deep in the sand on beaches where sea turtles lay their eggs.

University of Exeter scientists found an average of 5,300 particles of plastic per cubic metre at depths of 60cm (2ft) on beaches in Cyprus used by green turtles and loggerheads.

At the surface, up to 130,000 fragments of plastic were found per cubic metrethe second-worst level ever recorded on a beach (the worst was in Guangdong, South China).

Researchers say that if conditions worsen such pollution could eventually begin to affect hatching success and even the ratio of male and female turtle hatchlings.

"We sampled 17 nesting sites for loggerhead and green turtles and found microplastics at all beaches and all depths," said Dr. Emily Duncan, of the Centre for Ecology and Conservation on the University of Exeter's Penryn Campus in Cornwall.

"Microplastics have different physical properties to natural sediments, so high levels could change the conditions at hatching sites, with possible effects on turtle breeding.

"For example, the temperature at which the egg incubates affects the sex of the hatchlingwith females more likely in warmer conditions.

"More research is needed to investigate what effects microplastics have on turtle eggs."

Microplasticsdefined as less than 5mm in diametercome from numerous sources including discarded plastic items that have broken apart, microbeads from cosmetics and microfibres from clothes.

Of the microplastics categorised in this research, nurdles (pellets used in the production of plastic products) and hard fragments broken from larger items were the most common.

"Unlike the beaches in China where the highest levels of microplastics have been recorded, these beaches in Cyprus are located far from industrial practices and aren't visited by large numbers of people," said Professor Brendan Godley, leader of the University of Exeter's marine strategy.

"Therefore it seems that microplastics are arriving on ocean currents. In this case, our analysis suggests most of it came from the eastern Mediterranean basin. This is also true of the large plastic items found on the beaches in Cyprus in large numbers."

The findings support the theory that beaches act as a "sink" for marine microplastics, becoming key areas for contamination.

The research, is based on 1,209 sediment samples taken from 17 turtle nesting beaches in northern Cyprus.

The paper, published in Marine Pollution Bulletin, is entitled: "The true depth of the Mediterranean plastic problem: Extreme microplastic pollution on marine turtle nesting beaches in Cyprus."

Explore further Microplastics may heat marine turtle nests and produce more females

More information: Emily M. Duncan et al, The true depth of the Mediterranean plastic problem: Extreme microplastic pollution on marine turtle nesting beaches in Cyprus, Marine Pollution Bulletin (2018). Journal information: Marine Pollution Bulletin Emily M. Duncan et al, The true depth of the Mediterranean plastic problem: Extreme microplastic pollution on marine turtle nesting beaches in Cyprus,(2018). DOI: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2018.09.019Credit: CC0 Public Domain

America's national parks are warming up and drying out faster than other U.S. landscapes, threatening iconic ecosystems from the Everglades in Florida to Joshua Tree in California to Denali in Alaska.

That's the conclusion of a new climate change study published Monday, the first to examine rainfall and temperatures in all 417 national parks sites. The study also forecasts the degree that parks could become hotter and more drought-stricken by century's end, depending on whether nations undertake efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, or continue with business as usual.

"U.S. national parks protect some of the most irreplaceable ecosystems in the world," said the study, published in Environmental Research Letters, a peer-reviewed scientific journal. Reductions in industrial emissions could "substantially reduce the magnitude" of expected impacts, the study added, "offering hope for the future of the U.S. national parks."

It is hardly news that climate change is challenging numerous national parks. In the Everglades, rising sea levels and saltwater intrusion threaten habitat and wildlife that depend upon fresh flows of water. Catastrophic wildfires threaten Yosemite and other national parks in California. In Montana, there is online debate about whether Glacier National Park should soon rename itself, or face accusations of false advertising.

Yet Monday's study is the first to analyze how a warming climate affects the entire 85 million-acre national park system, a collection of particularly dynamic landscapes.

"A higher fraction of national parks are in extreme environments," said Patrick Gonzalez, a forest ecologist at the University of California, Berkeley who authored the study with UC Berkeley colleagues and scientists at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

National parks tend to be relatively high in elevation, where warming occurs more quickly because of the thinner atmosphere, Gonzalez said. In addition, a large proportion of park land is located in the desert Southwest and Alaskaregions feeling the strongest impacts of climate change.

The study found that, between 1885 and the year 2010, areas that are now national parks warmed by 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, twice the U.S. rate. It also found that annual precipitation in national parks declined 12 percent, compared to 3 percent drop in the United States overall, during that same period.

At current rates of greenhouse gas emissions, temperatures in the most exposed national parksparticularly in Alaskacould rise by as much as 16 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100, according to the study.

With that level of increase, arctic permafrost could further melt, trees will replace tundra and wildfires will be more common and damaging. Many rare species would be unable to migrate to more comfortable climes, bringing some to the brink of extinction.

Individual parks face varying threats, according to Monday's study and other research it cites:

In Yellowstone National Park, outbreaks of bark beetle due to climate change have killed half the park's whitebark pine in areas that increased 3.4 degrees since the 1950s.

In Joshua Tree National Park, managers are concerned that climate change could eventually make the park too warm for the park's namesake Joshua trees. This form of yucca was spread around the Southwest in the dung of giant sloth that went extinct 13,000 years ago, and have adapted to certain elevations and temperatures. While it might be able survive at higher elevations outside the park, that would require human intervention to disperse seeds as the extinct sloth once did.

In Glacier National Park, average temperatures have risen nearly 4 degrees Fahrenheit since 1950, one cause of the park's shrinking glacial fields. According to Monday's study, temperatures in the park could rise as much as 9 degrees by 2100. "At this point, it is likely that the glaciers in Glacier National park will ultimately disappear," said John Williams, a University of Wisconsin geography professor who contributed to the study.

National parks face the largest expected increases in temperatures in northern Alaska, which, similar to other arctic regions, is warming faster than the rest of the world. Yet efforts to reduce emissions worldwide could forestall some of those impacts, according to the study's authors. They project that temperatures in Noatak National Preserve, which protects Alaska's Noatak River above the Arctic Circle, could rise 15 degrees by century's end without climate action, but only 2.7 degrees if worldwide emissions were reduced.

"That's the hopeful message here," said Gonzalez. "Reducing greenhouse gas emissions can save our parks from the most extreme heat."

Monday's study, funded partly by the National Park Service, did not analyze all potential impacts of climate change on parks, such as sea level rise. But significant computing time was required to provide projections on temperatures and rainfall.

To conduct the research, scientists collected historical rainfall and temperature data, and then created maps for each of the parks and the United States as a whole. One major challenge was taking climate modelsgenerally used to forecast impacts over broad geographic regionsand downscale them to estimate impacts for each of the 417 parks.

The research team then produced estimates for average annual temperature and rainfall changes under four scenarios developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, ranging from "no action" being taken to reducing emissions to various levels of reduction.

Explore further National parks bear the brunt of climate change

More information: Patrick Gonzalez et al. Disproportionate magnitude of climate change in United States national parks, Environmental Research Letters (2018). Journal information: Environmental Research Letters Patrick Gonzalez et al. Disproportionate magnitude of climate change in United States national parks,(2018). DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/aade09

2018 McClatchy Washington Bureau

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.Land surface temperatures from December 26, 2017 to January 2, 2018, compared with the 2001 to 2010 average for the same eight-day period. The persistent warm West and cold East pattern that was so prevalent last winter caused a western drought that led to summer fires, a prolonged cold spell in much of the East and a parade of nor'easters along the East Coast. Credit: NASA Earth Observatory

Persistent weather conditions, including dry and wet spells, generally have increased in the United States, perhaps due to rapid Arctic warming, according to a Rutgers-led study.

Persistent weather conditions can lead to weather extremes such as drought, heat waves, prolonged cold and storms that can cost millions of dollars in damage and disrupt societies and ecosystems, the study says.

Scientists at Rutgers University-New Brunswick and the University of Wisconsin-Madison examined daily precipitation data at 17 stations across the U.S., along with large upper-level circulation patterns over the eastern Pacific Ocean and North America.

Overall, dry and wet spells lasting four or more days occurred more frequently in recent decades, according to the study published online today in Geophysical Research Letters. The frequency of persistent large-scale circulation patterns over North America also increased when the Arctic was abnormally warm.

In recent decades, the Arctic has been warming at least twice as fast as the global average temperature, the study notes. The persistence of warm Arctic patterns has also increased, suggesting that long-duration weather conditions will occur more often as rapid Arctic warming continues, said lead author Jennifer Francis, a research professor in Rutgers' Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences.

"While we cannot say for sure that Arctic warming is the cause, we found that large-scale patterns with Arctic warming are becoming more frequent, and the frequency of long-duration weather conditions increases most for those patterns," said Francis, who works in the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences.

The results suggest that as the Arctic continues to warm and melt, it's likely that long-duration events will continue to occur more often, meaning that weather patternsheat waves, droughts, cold spells and stormy conditionswill likely become more persistent, she said.

"When these conditions last a long time, they can become extreme events, as we've seen so often in recent years," she said. "Knowing which types of events will occur more often in which regions and under what background conditionssuch as certain ocean temperature patternswill help decision-makers plan for the future in terms of infrastructure improvements, agricultural practices, emergency preparedness and managed retreat from hazardous areas."

Future research will expand the analysis to other regions of the Northern Hemisphere, develop new metrics to find causal connections, and analyze projections to assess future risks from extreme weather events linked to persistent patterns, she said.

Explore further Climate scientists find more evidence linking Arctic warming to jet stream movement

More information: Jennifer A. Francis et al, North American weather regimes are becoming more persistent: Is Arctic amplification a factor?, Geophysical Research Letters (2018). Journal information: Geophysical Research Letters Jennifer A. Francis et al, North American weather regimes are becoming more persistent: Is Arctic amplification a factor?,(2018). DOI: 10.1029/2018GL080252Chen Luo and Anshumali Shrivastava. Credit: Jeff Fitlow/Rice University

Your chances of forming online friendships depend mainly on the number of groups and organizations you join, not their types, according to an analysis of six online social networks by Rice University data scientists.

"If a person is looking for friends, they should basically be active in as many communities as possible," said Anshumali Shrivastava, assistant professor of computer science at Rice and co-author of a peer-reviewed study presented last month at the 2018 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining in Barcelona, Spain. "And if they want to become friends with a specific person, they should try to be a part of all the groups that person is a part of."

The finding is based on an analysis of six online social networks with millions of members, and Shrivastava said its simplicity may come as a surprise to those who study friendship formation and the role communities play in bringing about friendships.

"There's an old saying that 'birds of a feather flock together,'" Shrivastava said. "And that ideathat people who are more similar are more likely to become friendsis embodied in a principal called homophily, which is a widely studied concept in friendship formation."

One school of thought holds that because of homophily, the odds that people will become friends increase in some groups. To account for this in computational models of friendship networks, researchers often assign each group an "affinity" score; the more alike group members are, the higher their affinity and the greater their chances of forming friendships.

Prior to social media, there were few detailed records about friendships between individuals in large organizations. That changed with the advent of social networks that have millions of individual members who are often affiliated with many communities and subcommunities within the network.

"A community, for our purposes, is any affiliated group of people within the network," Shrivastava said. "Communities can be very large, like everyone who identifies with a particular country or state, and they can be very small, like a handful of old friends who meet once a year."

Finding meaningful affinity scores for hundreds of thousands of communities in online social networks has been a challenge for analysts and modelers. Calculating the odds of friendship formation is further complicated by the overlap between communities and subcommittees. For instance, if the old friends in the above example live in three different states, their small subcommunity overlaps with the large communities of people from those states. Because many individuals in social networks belong to dozens of communities and subcommunities, overlapping connections can become dense.

In 2016, Shrivastava and study co-author Chen Luo, a graduate student in his research group, realized that some well-known analyses of online friendship formation failed to account for any factors arising out of overlap.

"Let's say Adam, Bob and Charlie are members of the same four communities, but in addition, Adam is a member of 16 other communities," Shrivastava said. "The existing affiliation model says the likelihood of Adam and Charlie being friends only depends on the affinity measures of the four communities they have in common. It doesn't matter that each of them are friends with Bob or that Adam's being pulled in 16 other directions."

That seemed like a glaring oversight to Luo and Shrivastava, but they had an idea of how to account for it based on an analogy they saw between the overlapping subcommunities and the overlapping similarities between webpages that must be taken into account by internet search engines. One of the most popular measures for internet search is the Jaccard overlap, which was pioneered by Google scientists and others in the late 1990s.

"We used this to measure overlap between communities and then checked to see if there was a relationship between overlap and friendship probability, or friendship affiliation, on six well-studied social networks," Shrivastava said. "We found that on all six, the relationship more or less looked like a straight line."

"That implies that friendship formation can be explained merely by looking at overlap between communities," Luo said. "In other words, you don't need to account for affinity measures for specific communities. All that extra work is unnecessary."

Once Luo and Shrivastava saw the linear relationship between Jaccard overlap of communities and friendship formation, they also saw an opportunity to use a data-indexing method called "hashing," which is used to organize web documents for efficient search. Shrivastava and his colleagues have applied hashing to solve computational problems as diverse as indoor location detection, the training of deep learning networks and accurately estimating the number of identified victims killed in the Syrian civil war.

Shrivastava said he and Luo developed a model for friendship formation that "mimicked the way the mathematics behind the hashing work."

The model offers a simple explanation of how friendships form.

"Communities are having events and activities all the time, but some of these are a bigger draw, and the preference for attending these is higher," Shrivastava said. "Based on this preference, individuals become active in the most preferred communities to which they belong. If two people are active in the same community at the same time, they have a constant, usually small, probability of forming a friendship. That's it. This mathematically recovers our observed empirical model."

He said the findings could be useful to anyone who wants to bring communities together and enhance the process of friendship formation.

"It seems that the most effective way is to encourage people to form more subcommunities," Shrivastava said. "The more subcommunities you have, the more they overlap, and the more likely it is that individual members will have more close friendships throughout the organization. People have long thought that this would be one factor, but what we've shown is this is probably the only one you have to pay attention to."

Explore further Why friendships matterThe scientific drilling ship JOIDES Resolution arrives in Honolulu after successful sea trials and testing of scientific and drilling equipment. Credit: IODP, CC BY-ND

It's stunning but true that we know more about the surface of the moon than about the Earth's ocean floor. Much of what we do know has come from scientific ocean drilling  the systematic collection of core samples from the deep seabed. This revolutionary process began 50 years ago, when the drilling vessel Glomar Challenger sailed into the Gulf of Mexico on August 11, 1968 on the first expedition of the federally funded Deep Sea Drilling Project.

I went on my first scientific ocean drilling expedition in 1980, and since then have participated in six more expeditions to locations including the far North Atlantic and Antaractica's Weddell Sea. In my lab, my students and I work with core samples from these expeditions. Each of these cores, which are cylinders 31 feet long and 3 inches wide, is like a book whose information is waiting to be translated into words. Holding a newly opened core, filled with rocks and sediment from the Earth's ocean floor, is like opening a rare treasure chest that records the passage of time in Earth's history.

Over a half-century, scientific ocean drilling has proved the theory of plate tectonics, created the field of paleoceanography and redefined how we view life on Earth by revealing an enormous variety and volume of life in the deep marine biosphere. And much more remains to be learned.

Technological innovations

Two key innovations made it possible for research ships to take core samples from precise locations in the deep oceans. The first, known as dynamic positioning, enables a 471-foot ship to stay fixed in place while drilling and recovering cores, one on top of the next, often in over 12,000 feet of water.

Scientists have expanded human knowledge by drilling core samples from the worlds ocean basins, but their work is far from done.

Anchoring isn't feasible at these depths. Instead, technicians drop a torpedo-shaped instrument called a transponder over the side. A device called a transducer, mounted on the ship's hull, sends an acoustic signal to the transponder, which replies. Computers on board calculate the distance and angle of this communication. Thrusters on the ship's hull maneuver the vessel to stay in exactly the same location, countering the forces of currents, wind and waves.

Another challenge arises when drill bits have to be replaced mid-operation. The ocean's crust is composed of igneous rock that wears bits down long before the desired depth is reached.

When this happens, the drill crew brings the entire drill pipe to the surface, mounts a new drill bit and returns to the same hole. This requires guiding the pipe into a funnel shaped re-entry cone, less than 15 feet wide, placed in the bottom of the ocean at the mouth of the drilling hole. The process, which was first accomplished in 1970, is like lowering a long strand of spaghetti into a quarter-inch-wide funnel at the deep end of an Olympic swimming pool.

Confirming plate tectonics

When scientific ocean drilling began in 1968, the theory of plate tectonics was a subject of active debate. One key idea was that new ocean crust was created at ridges in the seafloor, where oceanic plates moved away from each other and magma from earth's interior welled up between them. According to this theory, crust should be new material at the crest of ocean ridges, and its age should increase with distance from the crest.

The re-entry cone is welded together around the drill pipe, then lowered down the pipe to guide reinsertion before changing drill bits. Credit: IODP, CC BY-ND

The only way to prove this was by analyzing sediment and rock cores. In the winter of 1968-1969, the Glomar Challenger drilled seven sites in the South Atlantic Ocean to the east and west of the Mid-Atlantic ridge. Both the igneous rocks of the ocean floor and overlying sediments aged in perfect agreement with the predictions, confirming that ocean crust was forming at the ridges and plate tectonics was correct.

Reconstructing earth's history

The ocean record of Earth's history is more continuous than geologic formations on land, where erosion and redeposition by wind, water and ice can disrupt the record. In most ocean locations sediment is laid down particle by particle, microfossil by microfossil, and remains in place, eventually succumbing to pressure and turning into rock.

Microfossils (plankton) preserved in sediment are beautiful and informative, even though some are smaller than the width of a human hair. Like larger plant and animal fossils, scientists can use these delicate structures of calcium and silicon to reconstruct past environments.

Thanks to scientific ocean drilling, we know that after an asteroid strike killed all non-avian dinosaurs 66 million years ago, new life colonized the crater rim within years, and within 30,000 years a full ecosystem was thriving. A few deep ocean organisms lived right through the meteorite impact.

Part of a core section from the Chicxulub impact crater. It is suevite, a type of rock, formed during the impact, that contains rock fragments and melted rocks. Credit: IODP, CC BY-ND

Ocean drilling has also shown that ten million years later, a massive discharge of carbon  probably from extensive volcanic activity and methane released from melting methane hydrates  caused an abrupt, intense warming event, or hyperthermal, called the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. During this episode, even the Arctic reached over 73 degrees Fahrenheit.

The resulting acidification of the ocean from the release of carbon into the atmosphere and ocean caused massive dissolution and change in the deep ocean ecosystem.

This episode is an impressive example of the impact of rapid climate warming. The total amount of carbon released during the PETM is estimated to be about equal to the amount that humans will release if we burn all of Earth's fossil fuel reserves. Yet, an important difference is that the carbon released by the volcanoes and hydrates was at a much slower rate than we are currently releasing fossil fuel. Thus we can expect even more dramatic climate and ecosystem changes unless we stop emitting carbon.

Finding life in ocean sediments

Scientific ocean drilling has also shown that there are roughly as many cells in marine sediment as in the ocean or in soil. Expeditions have found life in sediments at depths over 8000 feet; in seabed deposits that are 86 million years old; and at temperatures above 140 degrees Fahrenheit.

Enhanced scanning electron microscope images of phytoplankton (left, a diatom; right, a coccolithophore). Different phytoplankton species have distinct climatic preferences, which makes them ideal indicators of surface ocean conditions. Credit: Dee Breger, CC BY-NC-ND

Today scientists from 23 nations are proposing and conducting research through the International Ocean Discovery Program, which uses scientific ocean drilling to recover data from seafloor sediments and rocks and to monitor environments under the ocean floor. Coring is producing new information about plate tectonics, such as the complexities of ocean crust formation, and the diversity of life in the deep oceans.

This research is expensive, and technologically and intellectually intense. But only by exploring the deep sea can we recover the treasures it holds and better understand its beauty and complexity.

Explore further Scientist to drill to the Earth's mantle beneath the Atlantic Ocean

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.In this Sept. 5, 2018, file photo, Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., speaks with reporters after the Republican's policy luncheon on Capitol Hill in Washington. The Trump administration is hoping Congress can come up with a new set of national rules governing how companies can use consumers' data that finds a balance between "privacy and prosperity." "Consumers deserve clear answers and standards on data privacy protection," Thune, who heads the Commerce panel, said in a statement. By hearing from the companies, lawmakers will be able to assess "what Congress can do to promote clear privacy expectations without hurting innovation," he said. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen, File)

Congress is taking the first steps toward setting national rules governing how companies use consumers dataalthough one of its goals might be to prevent states from enacting stronger privacy protections of their own.

The approach being pondered by policymakers and pushed by the internet industry leans toward a relatively light government touch. That's in contrast to stricter European rules that took effect in May and a California law that takes effect in 2020. Other states are also considering more aggressive protections.

However it works out, any regulatory push will find it challenging to reconcile the concerns of privacy advocates who want people to have more control over the use of their personal datawhere they've been, what they view, who their friends are and the powerful companies who mine that information for profit.

During a Senate hearing Wednesday, several Democratic senators warned that a national law could simply be used to override state efforts. Calling that pre-emption the "Holy Grail" for the industry, Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii said it won't get the bipartisan support it needs if the goal is merely to replace California's law with a weaker, "non-progressive" federal statute.

Senior executives from AT&T, Amazon, Apple, Google, Twitter and Charter Communications all told senators that they support a federal proposal that could negate "inconsistent" state privacy laws. Facebook, which faced a major congressional grilling over privacy back in April, was not present at the hearing.

Apple, which doesn't rely on advertising for revenue, was the most vocal in support of a stronger federal law. Bud Tribble, Apple's vice president of software technology, said the bar would have to be "high enough in the federal legislation" to provide meaningful consumer protections.

The Senate Commerce Committee hearing comes amid increasing anxiety over safeguarding consumers' data online and recent scandals that have stoked outrage among users and politicians. The committee's chairman, Republican Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, said both Republicans and Democrats now want to reach consensus on a national privacy law that "will help consumers, promote innovation, reward organizations with little to hide and force shady practitioners to clean up their act."

An early move in President Donald Trump's tenure set the tone on data privacy. He signed a bill into law in April 2017 that allows internet providers to sell information about their customers' browsing habits. The legislation scrapped Obama-era online privacy rules aimed at giving consumers more control over how broadband companies like AT&T, Comcast and Verizon share that information.

Allie Bohm, policy counsel at the consumer group Public Knowledge, said examples abound of companies not only using the data to market products but also to profile consumers and restrict who sees their offerings: African Americans not getting access to ads for housing, minorities and older people excluded from seeing job postings.

What is needed, privacy advocates maintain, is legislation to govern the entire "life cycle" of consumers' data: how it's collected, used, kept, shared and sold.

The 28-nation European Union put in strict new rules this spring that require companies to justify why they're collecting and using personal data gleaned from phones, apps and visited websites. Companies also must give EU users the ability to access and delete data, and to object to data use under one of the claimed reasons.

A similar law in California will compel companies to tell customers upon request what personal data they've collected, why it was collected and what types of third parties have received it. Companies will be able to offer discounts to customers who allow their data to be sold and to charge those who opt out a reasonable amount, based on how much the company makes selling the information.

Andrew DeVore, Amazon's vice president and associate general counsel, told the Senate panel Wednesday that it should consider the "possible unintended consequences" of California's approach. For instance, he said the state law defines personal information too broadly such that it could include all data.

The California law doesn't take effect until 2020 and applies only to California consumers, but it could have fallout effects on other states. And it's strong enough to have rattled Big Tech, which is seeking a federal data-privacy law that would be more lenient toward the industry.

"A national privacy framework should be consistent throughout all states, pre-empting state consumer-privacy and data security laws," the Internet Association said in a recent statement . The group represents about 40 big internet and tech companies, spanning Airbnb and Amazon to Zillow. "A strong national baseline creates clear rules for companies."

The Trump White House said this summer that the administration is working on it, meeting with companies and other interested parties.

The goal is a policy "that is the appropriate balance between privacy and prosperity," White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said. "We look forward to working with Congress on a legislative solution."

Explore further US unveils first step toward new online privacy rules

 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.Researchers built a self-contained smartphone microscope that can operate in both fluorescence and dark-field imaging modes and paired it with an inexpensive Lumina 640 smartphone with an 8-megapixel camera. Credit: University of Houston

The discovery of lead in Flint, Michigan's drinking water drew renewed attention to the health risks posed by the metal. Now researchers at the University of Houston have created an inexpensive system using a smartphone and a lens made with an inkjet printer that can detect lead in tap water at levels commonly accepted as dangerous.

The system builds upon earlier work by Wei-Chuan Shih, associate professor of electrical & computer engineering, and members of his lab, including the discovery of an inexpensive elastomer lens that can convert a basic smartphone into a microscope.

The latest discovery, described in the journal Analytical Chemistry, combines nano-colorimetry with dark-field microscopy, integrated into the smartphone microscope platform to detect levels of lead below the safety threshold set by the Environmental Protection Agency.

"Smartphone nano-colorimetry is rapid, low-cost, and has the potential to enable individual citizens to examine (lead) content in drinking water on-demand in virtually any environmental setting," the researchers wrote.

Even small amounts of lead can cause serious health problems, with young children especially vulnerable to neurological damage. EPA standards require lead levels in drinking water to be below 15 parts per billion, and Shih said currently available consumer test kits aren't sensitive enough to accurately detect lead at that level.

By using an inexpensive smartphone equipped with an inkjet-printed lens and using the dark-field imaging mode, researchers were able to produce a system that was both portable and easy to operate, as well as able to detect lead concentrations at 5 parts per billion in tap water. The sensitivity reached 1.37 parts per billion in deionized water.

Shih and his students last year published an open-source dataset in Biomedical Optics Express, explaining how to convert a smartphone equipped with the elastomer lens into a microscope capable of fluorescence microscopy. That paper has been the journal's most frequently downloaded paper since its publication.

The latest application incorporates color analysis to detect nanoscale lead particles. In addition to Shih, researchers on the project include first author Hoang Nguyen and Yulung Sung, Kelly O'Shaughnessy and Xiaonan Shan, all with the UH Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering. (O'Shaughnessy was a summer intern from the University of Cincinnati under the National Science Foundation's Research Experiences for Undergraduates program.)

Applying the dataset published in 2017, the researchers built a self-contained smartphone microscope that can operate in both fluorescence and dark-field imaging modes and paired it with an inexpensive Lumina 640 smartphone with an 8-megapixel camera. They spiked tap water with varying amounts of lead, ranging from 1.37 parts per billion to 175 parts per billion. They then added chromate ions, which react with the lead to form lead chromate nanoparticles; the nanoparticles can be detected by combining colorimetric analysis and microscopy.

The analysis measured both the intensity detected from the nanoparticles, correlating that to the lead concentration, and verified that the reaction was spurred by the presence of lead.

The mixture was transferred to a polydimethylsiloxane slab attached to a glass slide; after it dried, deionized water was used to rinse off the chromate compound and the remaining sediment was imaged for analysis.

The microscopy imaging capability proved essential, Shih said, because the quantity of sediment was too small to be imaged with an unassisted smartphone camera, making it impossible to detect relatively low levels of lead.

Building upon the smartphone microscope platform to create a useful consumer product was key, Shih said. "We wanted to be sure we could do something that would be useful from the standpoint of detecting lead at the EPA standard," he said.Cindy Usun Sigau removed leaves, branches and grass, collectively known as litterfall, from approximately 1 meter around and within the soil collar before the start of the experiment. This was to ensure the researchers only measured carbon released from the soil in the soil collar space  not the carbon released from the other plant matter. Credit: Cindy Usun Sigau

Climate change forecasts could improve by better understanding the variation in natural carbon emissions from different vegetation types.

Older rubber tree and oil palm tree plantations in tropical Malaysia release more carbon dioxide from the soil into the atmosphere than younger groves, according to new research in the Pertanika Journal of Tropical Agricultural Science.

Forests and plants store carbon dioxide to produce energy. However, when plants drop their leaves or die, soil microbes go to work to decompose the organic material, and much of the carbon is released back into the atmosphere. This is a natural part of the global carbon cycle. The carbon dioxide released from the soil is called soil CO 2 efflux.

The factors that affect this efflux process are not well understood. Learning more can help improve forecasting models that predict how soils respond to continuous rises in manmade carbon emissions, affecting the carbon cycle and climate.

Researchers from Universiti Putra Malaysia investigated how the age and species of trees affect soil CO 2 efflux. The team focused their studies on four stands of rubber and oil palm trees that were planted near the university campus 22 and six years ago. Using an infrared gas sensor, which precisely measures how much CO 2 is in the air right above the soil, they took multiple measurements from each stand, twice a month for three months (April, May and June). They also took hourly measurements between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. to see how efflux changed throughout the day.

To measure how much carbon dioxide was released from the soil in the rubber plantations and oil palm plantations near the Universiti Putra Malaysia campus, the researchers used a portable LI-8100A Automated Soil CO2 Flux System (Li-Cor Inc., Lincoln, NE) with a 20-cm-sized chamber connected to an infrared gas analyser. Credit: Cindy Usun Sigau

They found that the soil in both the older rubber and oil palm tree plantations released almost twice as much carbon dioxide compared to the soil in each of their younger plantations. The researchers suggest this is likely due to the greater amount of leaf litter and dead organic material being decomposed in the more mature stands. Soil in the rubber tree plantations also released much more carbon dioxide than the oil palm plantations; likely because rubber trees, being deciduous, drop their leaves annually, unlike palm trees.

The team also measured soil temperature and relative humidity, which influence soil CO 2 efflux. Relative humidity appeared to have a greater impact than temperature, as the temperature in the tropics is relatively stable throughout the year. However, the team could not draw any strong conclusions about the relationship because it varied widely over space and time. A longer investigation is required to understand what other factors might influence this complex relationship.

The researchers stress that the release of more CO 2 from the older stands via decomposing matter does not mean that, in general, older trees should be automatically cut down and replaced with younger ones. The older trees in this study might be removed once they have reached the end of their productive years and the grove replanted, but as part of overall plantation management. Rather, the insight gained here adds to the understanding of how efflux changes from young to old forests, and between species with very different physical characteristics, which can help refine carbon cycle estimates.

Explore further Species-rich forests better compensate environmental impacts

More information: Soil CO 2 efflux of oil palm and rubber plantation in 6-year-old and 22-year-old year old chronosequence. Pertanika Journal of Tropical Agricultural Science. Soil COefflux of oil palm and rubber plantation in 6-year-old and 22-year-old year old chronosequence. www.pertanika.upm.edu.my/Pertanika %20PAPERS/JTAS%20Vol.%2041%20(3)%20Aug.%202018/22%20JTAS-1271-2017.pdfWidely-felt earthquakes that struck north-central Oklahoma and southern Kansas and the probability that those areas will experience potentially damaging induced earthquakes in 2018 and 2020. Manmade earthquakes in this region are caused by deep injection of wastewater from oil and gas operations. Credit: Cornelius Langenbruch

Earthquakes in Oklahoma and Kansas had been on the rise due to injection of wastewatera byproduct of oil and gas operationsbefore regulations started limiting injections. Now a new model developed by Stanford University researchers incorporates earthquake physics and the Earth's hydrogeologic response to wastewater injection to forecast a decrease in man-made earthquakes in Oklahoma and Kansas through 2020.

The model is based on publicly available data on wastewater injection into the Arbuckle formation, a nearly 7,000-foot-deep sedimentary formation underlying north-central Oklahoma and southern Kansas. Assuming wastewater injection from oil and gas operations continues at its current rate, researchers mapped the likelihood that the region will experience future earthquakes. The research appears Sept. 26 in the journal Nature Communications.

"We've created a detailed model that allows regulators to know where most of the problems are likely to occur," said co-author Mark Zoback, the Benjamin M. Page Professor of Geophysics at Stanford's School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences (Stanford Earth). "This can be used in Oklahoma, or elsewhere, to provide a scientific basis for regulatory action."

Local insights

Oil and gas operations often produce large volumes of salty water that they dispose of by injecting it deep underground to protect water in aquifers near the surface used for drinking, livestock and irrigation.

Fluid injected into the Arbuckle formation increases pressure that spreads over a large area. This pressure is problematic because it can affect large faults nearby that are already under stress from tectonic processes. These faults are capable of producing widely felt and potentially damaging earthquakes, if reached by the pressure increase caused by injection.

The same pressure increase in different areas can cause up to 100 times the number of earthquakes, according to lead author Cornelius Langenbruch, a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford Earth. The earthquakes are not necessarily concentrated in areas where the pressure change is highest. In order to understand where earthquakes will or will not occur on a local scale, the new model evaluates the pressure increase in the context of the area's vulnerable, pre-existing faults.

"It was surprising for me to see that the local susceptibility to earthquakes fluctuates by such a large amount," Langenbruch said. "The example of Oklahoma shows that the key to managing seismic hazards related to these man-made, induced earthquakes is managing how much and where the wastewater is injected."

Modelled wastewater injection-induced pressure increase and observed widely-felt earthquakes in north-central Oklahoma and southern Kansas. In the deep sedimentary Arbuckle group, hundreds of disposal wells are injecting salty water that is coproduced with oil. Injection is increasing pressure and resulting in destabilization of tectonically loaded pre-existing faults capable of producing widely-felt and potentially damaging earthquakes. Credit: Cornelius Langenbruch

Mandated reduction

Oklahoma's induced earthquakes increased drastically around 2009 and peaked in 2015, with nearly 1,000 widely felt earthquakes spread across the northern and central parts of the state. Oklahoma's public utilities commission, the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, mandated a 40 percent water injection reduction in early 2016 and the number of earthquakes declined thereafter.

The new modelwhich includes data from 809 injection wells from 2000 through 2018shows there will be a 32 percent, 24 percent and 19 percent probability of potentially damaging earthquakes of magnitude 5.0 or above in 2018, 2019 and 2020, respectively, suggesting that Oklahoma's policies are working. If current injection practices in north-central Oklahoma and southern Kansas continue, one potentially damaging magnitude 5.0 or larger earthquake is expected to occur through 2020.

"The result of the new study is definitely good newsit shows injection rate reductions are still effective. In 2015 and 2016 the probabilities were as high as 70 percent," Langenbruch said. "However, the problem is that earthquake probabilities in some areas are still much higher than historic rates."

Future scenarios

The predictive maps from the study allow residents of Oklahoma and Kansas to see the probability that potentially damaging earthquakes will strike close to their homes. The new model can also be used to evaluate future injection scenarios intended to mitigate seismic hazards.

"The nice thing about the methodology is not only the predictions it makes, but its ability to make new predictions based on new measures that might be taken by the regulators," Zoback said. "It turns out you can do these analyses fairly early in the process."

The researchers hope this model will also be used in other areas with expanding oil and gas operations. Places like the Permian Basin in West Texas are being developed at an incredible rate and water injection is probably resulting in earthquakes in that area already, Zoback said.

A co-author of the paper is Matthew Weingarten, an assistant professor at San Diego State University who conducted research for the study as a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford. Zoback is also a senior fellow at Stanford's Precourt Institute for Energy, an affiliate of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and the director of the Stanford Natural Gas Initiative. Funding for the study was provided by the Stanford Center for Induced and Triggered Seismicity (SCITS), an industrial affiliates program involving 10 Stanford professors.

Explore further Manmade earthquakes in Oklahoma on the decline

More information: Cornelius Langenbruch et al, Physics-based forecasting of man-made earthquake hazards in Oklahoma and Kansas, Nature Communications (2018). Journal information: Nature Communications Cornelius Langenbruch et al, Physics-based forecasting of man-made earthquake hazards in Oklahoma and Kansas,(2018). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-06167-4

Provided by Stanford's School of Earth, Energy & Environmental SciencesPainted burial chamber (from 2nd century B.C.) excavated in 2018 Burial chamber interior and scenes depicting figures, preserved on the entrance wall and half of the side walls. The entrance wall right of the door depicts a naked servant, standing and holding a silver-plated jug and vase for wine. To his left, a krater (vase) on a stand is visible. To the left of the door are a silver-plated situla, a type of bucket-shaped vessel, a wooden table and a wine amphora on a stand. On the side walls are what appear to be landscape scenes. Credit: E. Lupoli, Jean Berard Centre (CNRS/Ecole francaise de Rome)

At the foot of the hill on which sits the ancient city of Cumae, in the region of Naples, Priscilla Munzi, CNRS researcher at the Jean Berard Centre (CNRS-EFR), and Jean-Pierre Brun, professor at the College de France, are exploring a Roman-era necropolis. They now reveal the latest discovery to surface in the archaeological dig they have led since 2001: a painted tomb from the second century B.C. In excellent condition, the tomb depicts a banquet scene, fixed by pigments.

Twice the size of Pompeii, the ancient city of Cumae is located 25 km west of Naples on the Tyrrhenian Sea facing the island of Ischia, at the Campi Flegrei Archaeological Park. Ancient historians considered Cumae the oldest Ancient Greek settlement in the western world. Founded in the latter half of the 8th century B.C. by Greeks from Euboea, the settlement grew quickly and prospered over time.

In recent years, French researchers have focused on an area where a Greek sanctuary, roads and a necropolis were found. Among the hundreds of ancient sepulchres unearthed since 2001, they have discovered a series of vaulted burial chambers made of tuff, a volcanic stone found in the area. People entered the tomb through a door in the facade sealed with a large stone block. The space inside was generally composed of a chamber with three vaults or funerary beds. The tombs were raided in the 19th century, but recovered remains and traces of funerary furnishings, which archaeologists have used to date the tombs to the second century B.C., indicate the high social status of those buried within.

Preserved paintings on the right side of the entrance wall (detail). Credit: E. Lupoli, Jean Berard Centre (CNRS/Ecole francaise de Rome)

Until now, only tombs painted red or white had been found, but in June 2018 researchers discovered a room with exceptionally executed figure painting. A naked servant carrying a jug of wine and a vase is still visible; the banquet's guests are thought to have been painted on the side walls. Other elements of the banquet can also be distinguished. In addition to the excellent state of conservation of the remaining plaster and pigments, such a decor in a tomb built in that period is rare; its "unfashionable" subject matter was in vogue one or two centuries earlier. This discovery is also an opportunity to trace artistic activity over time at the site.

To preserve the fresco, archaeologists removed it, along with fragments found on the ground, in order to re-assemble the decor like a puzzle.

The digs were carried out with financial support from the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs, the Ecole francaise de Rome and the Fondation du College de France. This research is part of a concession granted by the Italian Ministry of Cultural Assets and Activities in partnership with the Phlegraen Fields archaeological site.

Explore further Egypt archaeologists discover mummy in LuxorThat would be sweet

Government policy should uphold consumer satisfaction and not help the formation of cartelsDehesa landscape near Munigua in Sierra Morena. Credit: Martin Bartelheim

Forest and brush fires, water shortages and crop failure  these have been the effects of summer 2018 in large parts of Europe. Climate scientists are calling for new agricultural policies, saying farmers need to prepare for greater extremes of temperature and weather. Researchers at the Tubingen collaborative research center (SFB) ResourceCultures are investigating how agrarian societies in the past learned to deal with heat and aridity while still producing food.

"Lack of water is a problem and there are many historical examples of it," says Dr. Laura Dierksmeier, who is researching island economies in the early modern age as part of a ResourceCultures project. "But, as history shows, there are just as many solutions. We can find workable approaches for the future by looking at the past." Water as a resource is an important factor, Dirksmeier points out. Its availability and distribution can ultimately underpin social stability and cooperation.

The Dehesa landscapes of the southern Iberian Peninsula are a prime example: for thousands of years, farmers there have had to survive the long dry summers. In an interdisciplinary project, SFB spokesman Professor Martin Bartelheim and a team of archaeologists are working with cultural anthropologists led by Professor Roland Hardenberg at the University of Frankfurt to examine the formation and use of the Dehesa. The characteristic groves of oak and olive trees were planted as early as 2,800 to 4,000 years ago  and have survived all the climate changes since. The native domesticated animals  Iberico pigs, Merino sheep and Retinta sheep and goats  have been grazing the Dehesa since the Bronze Age. Both the animals and the landscape are ideally suited to the climatic conditions. While the trees ensure that the small amount of rain which falls in Andalusia and Extremadura does not evaporate, but seeps slowly into the water table, the grazing animals prevent the landscape from becoming covered in underbrush, creating an open forest in less danger of damaging fires.

Iberico pigs at the Finca San Francisco in the Sierra Morena. Credit: Martin Bartelheim

Ancient solutions to the water-supply problem are the focus of archaeologists Dr. Frerich Schon and Hanni Topfer, headed by Professor Thomas Schafer, in another project dealing with more than one hundred cisterns on the Italian islands of Linosa and Pantelleria. The cisterns held between five and 100 cubic meters of water. They were cut into the rock by Punic settlers from the 8th century BCE and later expanded by the Romans. Some of these subterranean water storage pits are still in use today. Such systems were essential to avoid the labor-intensive transportation of water, particularly in areas with little groundwater. Subterranean cisterns are relatively easy to maintain and they keep the water cool and clean. They also help to prevent soil erosion by collecting excess water in heavy rain.

The researchers are also looking at the effects of long-term water scarcity on the respective societies. The historian Dr. Laura Dierksmeier, led by Professors Renate Durr and Jorn Stacker, is investigating the economic and social ramifications of water scarcity in island societies of the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Age. Islands often lack fresh water and are therefore particularly vulnerable.

Dierksmeier has found a clear connection between income and access to clean water. On the Canary Islands and the Balearic Islands, this led to social tensions, conflict and crime. Diseases broke out because there was not enough water for personal hygiene and to keep hospitals clean. Children and old people were worst affected. In an attempt to improve the situation, water was allocated to individuals on a quota system. This was meant to ensure that this scarce resource got to the people who needed it most. But it had the opposite effect: a general resource slowly became a commodity to be sold to the highest bidder. "Water police" were introduced to determine who owned the water, to check the water quality, and to punish those who polluted it. Academic societies such as the Sociedad de Amigos del Pais were formed to debate the best way to administer water resources, and to find ways of extracting fresh water from fog, snow, and sea water.

Terraced rain water collection systems for agriculture in Vilaflor on the Canary Island of Teneriffe. Credit: Laura Dierksmeier

Explore further Lighting the way to harvest water from airRidesharing giant Uber agreed to pay $148 million as part of a settlement over a 2016 data breach exposing personal information on 57 million riders and drivers

Uber agreed Wednesday to pay a $148 million penalty over a massive 2016 data breach which the company concealed for a year, in the latest effort by the global ridesharing giant to improve its image and move past its missteps from its early years.

The settlement stems from a breach affecting some 57 million Uber riders and drivers, prompting litigation that was eventually joined by officials from the 50 US states and the District of Columbia.

The payment, described as the largest in a data breach settlement, is part of Uber's efforts to burnish its reputation after a series of scandals over alleged misconduct and unethical practices.

Uber disclosed the breach last year shortly after it hired chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi, who promised a new way of doing business as the company with an estimated value of more than $70 billion expands globally and prepares for what could be a massive stock offering.

"The commitments we're making in this agreement are in line with our focus on both physical and digital safety for our customers," Uber's chief legal officer Tony West said in announcing the settlement.

"We know that earning the trust of our customers and the regulators we work with globally is no easy feat ... We'll continue to invest in protections to keep our customers and their data safe and secure, and we're committed to maintaining a constructive and collaborative relationship with governments around the world."

The company reached an agreement with the US Federal Trade Commission on the breach that called for improved security and audits but no financial penalty.

According to officials, Uber paid data thieves $100,000 to destroy the swiped informationand remained quiet about the breach for a year.

The settlement avoid a potentially lengthy court fight which could be embarrassing to Uber.

Dara Khosrowshahi, who took over as Uber CEO last year, has pledged more transparency and ethical practices at the global ridesharing giant

Improving security

As part of the settlement, Uber will be required to improve its security practices, with an independent outside review of data practices.

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan said her office would oversee a fund of $5.1 million that would pay each driver from the state $100, and seek to locate those who may no longer be driving for Uber.

"While Uber is now taking the appropriate steps to protect the data of its drivers in Illinois and across the country, the company's initial response was unacceptable," Madigan said. "Companies cannot hide when they break the law."

New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood said: "This record settlement should send a clear message: we have zero tolerance for those who skirt the law and leave consumer and employee information vulnerable to exploitation."

Uber learned of the breach in November 2016 involving personal information on riders and drivers, nearly half in the United States, but disclosed it publicly only after Khosrowshahi took over and pledged more transparency.

The case is the second large court settlement this year for Uber.

In February, Uber agreed to pay $245 million to Alphabet's self-driving car unit Waymo to settle a lawsuit over allegedly stolen trade secrets.

But Uber still faces potential inquiries in the United States and elsewhere over data security, the use of illegal software to thwart rivals, and cases of sexual discrimination.

As part of its transparency effort, Uber this year also scrapped policies requiring arbitration over claims of sexual misconduct involving employees, riders and drivers, allowing cases to be heard in public and pursued in open court.

As a privately held firm, Uber is not required to report its finances. Released data from the second quarter however shows it lost $891 million on revenues of $2.8 billion, with bookings hitting a total of $12 billion.

Explore further Uber sued after data stolen by hackers covered up

 2018 AFPCredit: Cardiff University

Sabah Wildlife Department (SWD) and Cardiff University's Danau Girang Field Centre (DGFC) have launched new state action plans to protect vulnerable and endangered species in Sabah, Borneo.

Informed by several years of biological and ecological research and information gathering, the ten-year action plans aim to secure the continued existence of viable populations of the Sunda clouded leopard, proboscis monkey and the Bornean banteng.

DGFC Director and Reader at Cardiff University, Dr. Benoit Goossens, explained that the three species are threatened by a combination of habitat loss and fragmentation, poaching, and road development.

"The decline in proboscis monkey populations is directly attributed to the expansion of aquaculture projects in mangrove areas and the conversion of riparian habitats to agriculture land and human settlements," he said.

"Sunda clouded leopards suffer mostly from low population density while the Bornean banteng decline is due to heavy poaching, snaring and habitat fragmentation."

Dr. Goossens stressed that one of the most important actions is to increase enforcement on the ground with the establishment of Spatial Monitoring and Reporting Tool (SMART) patrols.

"But more specifically, for the Bornean banteng, the setting up of a captive breeding programme is imperative," he said. "Moreover, any area with the presence of bantengs must be managed sustainably by developing and maintaining pastures within and near the home ranges of the existing herds.

"As for the proboscis monkey, increasing suitable mangrove and riparian forest areas as well as habitat connectivity between their different habitat ranges are crucial for their survival.

Following this week's soft launch of the action plans by Deputy Chief Minister and Minister of Tourism, Culture and Environment, YB Christina Liew, a cabinet paper will be prepared and tabled at the next State Assembly in early November.

Augustine Tugga, Director of the Sabah Wildlife Department, is hopeful that the action plans are on the final lap towards implementation.

"We hope that the plans will be approved by the Cabinet and that the Chief Minister will officially launch them before the end of the year. His support of these plans will give a boost to the conservation of these three endangered species," he said.

Explore further Protecting the Bornean bantengFormer New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg speaks at the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco, California

World leaders gathered in New York on Wednesday to try to breathe new life into the Paris global climate accord, amid backsliding from several nations over commitments made in the historic deal.

The "One Planet Summit," launched last year by French President Emmanuel Macron, aims to accelerate the implementation of the 2015 pact.

"We are not here just to speak, but to be accountable," Macron told delegates at the Plaza luxury hotel in New York.

Having last year warned that "we are losing the battle" against climate change, Macron called on countries to massively increase funding for climate action.

Despite a stream of announcements and summitsincluding in Bonn in May, and Bangkok and San Francisco this monththe front line in the climate war has hardly moved, and much of the hope and goodwill brought by the Paris deal has been replaced with passivity.

President Donald Trump in June 2017 announced the US would pull out, effective November 2020, and momentum from several other countries has stalled.

Trump has abandoned targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, set by his predecessor Barack Obama, by slashing dozens of environmental regulations.

Australia, one of the world's worst per capita greenhouse gas polluters, has scrapped plans to enshrine targets for reducing carbon emissions into law.

And in Brazil, right-wing presidential front-runner Jair Bolsonaro has said he would pull the country from the deal if he is elected.

The Paris agreement also stipulated that rich countries establish an annual $100-billion fund to help developing nations react to our heating planet.

But only $10 billion has been collected so far. The United States had promised $3 billion and only gave $1 billionunder Obama.

'Very challenging'

The next UN negotiating summit, COP24, will take place in December in Poland. Preparatory meetings ended in deadlock.

"It looks very challenging," Patricia Espinosa, the executive secretary of UN Climate Change, told AFP.

"We do not yet have certainty that we will be able to make it a success, but it's not impossible either."

Fewer leaders participated in this year's One Planet Summit, organized with the World Bank and the UN.

About 30 presidents, prime ministers and ministers are due to attend, including from Spain, Denmark, Norway, China, as well as from small Pacific island nations whose coastlines are getting eaten by a rising ocean.

"Time is not our friend," said New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.

We should not "have the ability to opt out of action either."

Over the course of the day, participants were to announce billions of dollars of new actions to "decarbonize" the world economy, help vulnerable countries and finance the ecological transition of developing countries, particularly in Asia and in Africa.

But these commitments only represent a small portion of what is needed to limit global warming to less than two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, as enshrined in the 2015 Paris accord.

Experts warn the global temperature is on track to surpass three degrees by 2100.

A study in the journal Nature this month found that even global temperature rises of two degrees Celsius could still be enough to melt parts of the largest ice sheet on Earth, in the Antarctic, and raise sea levels by several meters (yards).

Greenpeace questioned Macron's climate credentials, given that greenhouse gas emissions have recently crept up in France, mainly from the transport sector.

Former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is using his vast fortune to spur action to address climate change told AFP that nations are making progress but ultimately, it is not governments that drive behavior.

"It's capitalism, it's the economic interest of companies who want to be environmentally friendly because their employees want it, because their investors want it, because their customers want it," he said.

Explore further Leaders back climate change urgency in New York

 2018 AFPWhy? is the obvious question: dead bodies of all ages (arriving daily), grieving families, being surrounded by sadness and despair, not to mention dealing with the more unseemly but necessary physical aspects of the job. As a family businesssure, that makes sensefamily pressure can go a long way, and there is no shortage of customers, with most funeral homes thriving businesses.

Death comes knockin on everybodys door eventually. But still, a funeral director? Who freely chooses this career?

Emily Swartz doesnt see it that way. Quick to smile, young, petite, pretty, with jet black pin-straight hair, blunt bangs and shocking pink lipstick, she just doesnt fit the mold of your typical funeral director. Mostly because shes a woman, and up until the last decade or so, she was a rarity. According to New York State Funeral Directors Association, less than 40 years ago only 5 percent of U.S. funeral directors were women, and today that percentage hovers at 43 percent. In 1995, 35 percent of all students in mortuary school were women; now that number is around 60 percent.

This makes Emily a trailblazer of sorts.

Has she had any disparaging comments from men who werent so comfortable with a woman succeeding in this male-dominated field?

Sure, when I was tearing up at a service we were having for a five-year-old, one man took me aside and whispered that if I couldnt handle it maybe a man could take over for me. But those instances are rare.

I get to help families get through a very difficult time, is how Emily respectfully describes her job. That is putting it lightly. There are endless details involved in planning a funeral serviceI like to think of it as a kind of three-day-long death pageant, complete with a creepy cocktail party that culminates with the guest of honor (dead quiet in the casket in the corner of the room, but still being greeted by guests) being buried.

When I met with Emily at Jobe Funeral Home in Monroeville, I was expecting her to be a bit somber and serious, but she was neither. And surprisingly enough, aside from the pall of death blanketing the building, it seemed a pretty fun place to work.

About halfway through our visit, a family brought in some detailed dioramas and homemade dolls created by their recently deceased grandma. Emily scurried around the room, setting up the fragile displays with care and making sure every detail was right, patiently going over the final timeline and arrangements with the teary-eyed family members.

The strangest part of the tour was Casket Row. Quite the selection, and ranging in cost from the 20-Gauge Steel Spectra Black with Crepe lininga steal at $1,995.00to the 48-Ounce Promethean Bronze with Velvet lining at a mind-boggling $58,000.00, or as Emily calls it, The Michael Jackson Special. But how to show samples to customers? A small hallway on the second floor of the funeral home has a ton of trial-size caskets that jut out of the wall, the perfect size for viewing the different colors, finishes, and accents. It just made me giggleall those teeny little quarter-sized caskets lined up. I told Emily maybe a few could have a little motion-sensor like at Spirit Halloween storesyou walk by and BANG! Cue the crazy music, the spring-loaded mini casket lid pops open and a tiny little mannequin corpse sits up. It would put the fun in funeral. Emily was skeptical.

Our tour complete, I asked Emily if she always had aspirations of being a funeral director. Not by a long shot.

On September 11, 2001, Emily was 16, living in New York City and attending the School of American Ballet, the feeding school for the prestigious New York City Ballet. From her dorm room, she witnessed both Twin Towers collapse into a pile of rubble and decided she wanted a change. Leaving the family business was the first step, as her older brother and sister were both graduates of SAB and members of the New York City Ballet.

Back home in Carlisle, while deciding her future, she bussed tables at Rillos Restaurant, coincidentally the site of the monthly meetings of The Cumberland County Funeral Directors. Fascinated, she made a point to linger. After landing a job as a secretary at Neill Funeral Home in Harrisburg, Emily learned the mortuary business first-hand, and found her calling.

The next logical step for a funeral director is a degree in Mortuary Science, so on to Pittsburgh to attend The Pittsburgh Institute of Mortuary Science (PIMS). Chemistry (different chemicals for different embalming needs is how Emily eloquently phrased it) and Psychology (especially grief counseling) a large part of the course-work.

But it wasnt all work at the PIMS. In between all the classes and lab work, she met and fell in love with her future husband Mike, also a student. They got their Funeral Directors licenses in 2010, got married in 2011, and began working together at Jefferson Memorial Funeral Home in Pleasant Hills. After a few moves to a few funeral homes around Pittsburgh, she has landed at Jobes.

She doesnt deny its a difficult, stressful vocation, with high turnover, and it can be hard to not take the job home with you. But its very rewarding, and having a spouse in the business makes it easier.

I had to ask herdoes she tell people what she does for a living? Not always. And yes, she has heard all the nicknamesMorticia Addams is a common oneand people still make the same worn-out jokes and assume she has an obsession with death. If anything, states Emily, this job makes you appreciate life.

Plus, people are dying to be your customers, I tell her.

Emily sighs and gives me a look. Oh, thats a new oneFeature Long

Uzbek National Security Service And Drug Trafficking

The Uzbek Services detailed investigation into the notorious National Security Services involvement in transnational drug trafficking featured an in-depth interview with a former drug smuggler, who testified that an NSS top commander, using blackmail and extortion, coerced him to smuggle narcotics from Afghanistan. Input by the Afghan Service that looked into the possible sources of the drugs taken to Uzbekistan made the investigation even stronger.

See the Project By Damali Mukhaye.

The president of the opposition Forum for Democratic Change Patrick Amuriat has lauded the party members who have quit the party together with the former president MajGen Mugisha Muntu for their contribution to the party, saying he wishes them success wherever they will go.

This is after Gen Muntu announced yesterday that he had quit the party he once led, alongside other senior FDC members following nearly 9 months of nationwide consultation.

Amuriat tells KFM that Muntu and his team that includes Alice Alaso and Kasiano Wadri can always return to the party because that where they belong and can best serve this country.

Related Stories

Former FDC President Rtd Gen Muntu quits PartyWelcome to September, always a key month for big mergers, but now more than ever. Weve seen four huge tie-ups in a week, and it tells us this: Big money seems to think economic conditions are uber-ripe.

Here are 4 big mergers you should be keeping an eye on right now:

#1 Comcast-Sky

In the world of mega-merger drama, this tie-up wins all the prizes for the heated rivalry between Comcast and Disney.

In April, reports were that Disney could step in to buy up Sky News if Fox acquired Sky. That would have pushed them over a British regulatory hurdle because the UK authorities feared that control of Sky would give Murdoch too much influence over local media. Rumors at the time were that Murdoch was prepared to increase his original $16.4-billion offer for Sky. Comcast, though, had already bid $31 billion earlier for sky.

Fast forward to September and Comcast ended up outbidding Fox for Sky in a deal valued at over $40 billion. The drama was ratcheted up to fever pitch because Comcast and Fox had to bid blindly. Comcast really came through on this one, outbidding Fox by more than $2 per share. Fox bid $20.60 per share, while Comcast bid $22.71 per share for Sky.

The result? The biggest takeover in European media history.

#2 Randgold Resources  Barrick Gold

Now we have a new $18-billion gold-mining giant to drool over thanks to the all-share merger just agreed. The deal gives Barrick shareholders some 66.6 percent of the new company, with Randgold shareholders getting the remaining 33.4 percent.

Related: Have Emerging Markets Finally Bottomed Out?

The merged company will be the biggest gold miner in the world and will produce over 200 tonnes of gold annually.

The entire gold-mining industry has been under pressure for a while over undisciplined growth and poor returns, according to Barrick Executive Chairman John Thornton. This deal creates a company designed to end that criticism.

"Its goal will be to deliver sector leading returns, and in order to achieve this, we will need to take a very critical view of our asset base and how we run our business, and be prepared to make tough decisions," Thornton said in a statement.

#3 Sirius XM  Pandora

Pandora music-streaming service accepted a $3.5-billion bid from New York-based digital media company Sirius XM on Monday.

Pandora is hoping this will be its revival, but the jury seems to still be out on that.

Sirius is smallerwith just over 30 million paying subscribersbut it has more money. Pandora is biggerwith some 70 million active listeners (mostly ad-supported), but its not on-demand listening (you dont get to choose, specifically, what you listen to because of copyright laws). Related: The Best Time To Prepare Is While The Bull Runs

Pandora is in a bit of a money pinch because it is paying higher copyright fees to record labels due to the set-up of its contracts. Some say it lost over $100 million last year and the year before on this. The hoped-for comeback is largely based on the possibility that Sirius could re-negotiate these record label contracts for Pandora.

#4 Michael Kors  Versace

The fashion industry is also getting into Septembers merger mania, with Michael Kors agreement to buy Versaceesteemed Italian fashion housein a deal valued at $2.1 billion.

With the full resources of our group, we believe that Versace will grow to over US$2.0 billion in revenues. We believe that the strength of the Michael Kors and Jimmy Choo brands, and the acquisition of Versace, position us to deliver multiple years of revenue and earnings growth, Michael Kors Chairman and CEO John D. Idol, said in a press release.

And mergers might see some better times all around 

According to the Wall Street Journal, Justice Departments antitrust chief, Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim, said the department is going to significantly reduce the review time of proposed mergers.

By Michael Scott of Safehaven.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:Painless is a new thriller from the mind of Jordan Horowitz (Angel of Nanjing). The film follows a man named Henry Long who has a rare condition - congenital analgesia - and cannot feel pain, but can still feel strong emotion. So, what is the difference between pain and suffering?

In the film, Henry (played by Joey Klein from 12 Monkeys) searches for a cure to his condition with the mysterious Shani (played by Evalena Marie from True Blood) as time is running out. Trapped in his deadened body, Henry struggles to relate to others, while desperately struggling to find a drug or a surgery that can relieve his suffering. And when Shani enters his life, he is finally motivated to find his own breakthrough, with his own research as doctors are powerless to help him and stop his reckless experiments.

Painless has just come off a successful film festival run. In San Jose it was the winner of a "New Vision Award." As well, at the Other Worlds Film Festival in Austin, Texas, it won a "Best Feature Actor" award for Klein's performance.

It is currently on a one-week theatrical showing in Los Angeles, with a DVD and Digital launch from Indican scheduled for October 2.

Check out the trailer below.(Corrects age of Cardinal Zen to 86 from 76, paragraph 10)

* Historic deal will give pope final say in naming bishops

* Could be precursor to resumption of relations with Beijing

* Taiwan not cited by Vatican, which says deal not political

* Ex-Hong Kong archbishop says deal a 'betrayal'

By Philip Pullella

VILNIUS, Sept 22 (Reuters) - The Vatican on Saturday signed a landmark agreement giving it a long-desired say in the appointment of bishops in China, though critics labelled the deal a sellout to the Communist government.

The provisional agreement, signed in Beijing by deputy foreign ministers from both sides, was announced as Pope Francis visited Lithuania on a four-day trip to the Baltic countries.

It gives the Holy See a decisive role in the appointment of all bishops in a country whose around 12 million Catholics have been split between an underground Church swearing loyalty to the Vatican and the state-supervised Catholic Patriotic Association.

The Vatican said the accord, a breakthrough after years of negotiations, was "not political but pastoral".

A Holy See statement did not mention Taiwan, which the Vatican recognises diplomatically and which China sees as a renegade province.

However, diplomats have said the accord was a possible precursor to a resumption in diplomatic relations with Beijing after 70 years. Beijing does not allow countries to have diplomatic relations with both China and Taiwan.

Taiwan now has formal relations with only 17 states and the Vatican is the only one in Europe.

The Vatican said the pope hoped "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".

But prospects of such an agreement had divided communities of Catholics across China, some of whom fear greater suppression should the Vatican cede more control to Beijing. Others want to see rapprochement and avoid a potential schism.

"They're giving the flock into the mouths of the wolves. It's an incredible betrayal," said Cardinal Joseph Zen, the feisty, 86-year-old former archbishop of Hong Kong who has led the opposition to the deal.

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"The consequences will be tragic and long lasting, not only for the Church in China but for the whole Church because it damages the credibility. Maybe that's why they might keep the agreement secret," Zen told Reuters in an interview on Thursday.

Vatican sources have said the deal will not be published and can be reviewed and fine-tuned in the future.

READMITTED

The Vatican said that as part of the deal, Pope Francis had recognised the legitimacy of the seven remaining state-appointed Chinese bishops who had been named without papal approval and had re-admitted them into the Church.

"Today, for the first time all the bishops in China are in communion with the Bishop of Rome (the pope)," Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican Secretary of State and one of the chief architects of the deal, said in a statement.

Vatican sources have said that a few bishops appointed by Rome will cede their places to bishops who had been appointed by Beijing.

In future, new bishops first will be proposed by members of local Catholic communities together with Chinese authorities. The names of candidates will be sent to the Vatican and the pope will make a final decision, the sources said. (additional reporting by Andrius Sytas, Editing by John Stonestreet and Helen Popper)KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 26 (Reuters) - Malaysia's Axiata Group Bhd said it is reviewing its stake in M1 Ltd after Keppel Corporation Ltd and Singapore Press Holdings Ltd (SPH) expressed an interest in Singapore's smallest mobile network provider.

The comment comes after conglomerate Keppel on Monday said it was considering "a transaction for the shares in M1" alongside media group SPH.

The Malaysian telecommunications firm, in a statement on Wednesday, said it is in discussion with a financial institution to act as its advisor "to review various options available to Axiata with the sole objective that the company continues to vigorously protect and enhance shareholders' value of both Axiata and M1".

Axiata said the financial institution will also act as adviser should Keppel and SPH officially announce the transaction.

Axiata is M1's largest shareholder with a 28.3 percent stake.

In July last year, Axiata and other major M1 shareholders considered and then called off a strategic review of their M1 shareholding, citing unmet criteria from parties interested.

Shares in Axiata closed 4.2 percent higher on Wednesday.

(Reporting by Liz Lee)Following the publics clamor opposing the closure of the Estrella-Pantaleon Bridge, which connects Makati City and Mandaluyong City, over the weekend, the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), with the assistance of the Makati Public Safety Department (MAPSA), reopened the bridge to traffic at around 9:30 PM of September 24, with the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) being informed of the development a few hours later on 5 AM of September 25.

Pantaleon-Rockwell Bridge

Due to public clamor and apprehension of the business circle that the timing and closure will cause possible huge economic loss especially this coming holiday season, we are constrained to defer the implementation of the project and decided to proceed by first week of January 2019, DPWH project director Virgilio Castillo said in a letter dated September 24 to the MMDA.

In response, MMDA spokesperson Celine Pialago said that since there are still no construction activities that concerns the bridge, the civilian contractors hired to do the job merely coordinated with the DPWH.

Siguro sa amin ma-inform lang kami for traffic management sa major thoroughfares and for public advisory (On our part, they should have informed us for traffic management on major thoroughfares and for public advisory), Pialago said in a text message to reporters.

The project aims to widen the bridge to four lanes from the present two lanes and is expected to be completed by 2021. As to why the government thinks that plan is astute is questionable considering that the end of the bridge on the Mandaluyong side terminates into a two-lane street, creating a bottle neck that would only create traffic in the area, which is the opposite of the new bridges intended goal.

The Estrella-Pantaleon Bridge is one of the two bridge projects on the Pasig Riverthe other being the Binondo-Intramuros span in Manilathat would be funded by China based on development assistance agreements with the Duterte administration.

The post DPWH Reopens Estrella-Pantaleon Bridge, Defers Closure to January 2019 appeared first on Carmudi Philippines.By Catherine Ageno.

More than half of Ugandans believe they are poor because they are lazy, while 16% blame it on being unlucky.

This is according to a new report released by Twaweza on the haves and the have nots in Uganda.

Releasing the report today, the lead researcher Marrie Nanyanzi said only 11% blame their poverty on unemployment, 29% on social injustices while majority are worried that the rich-poor gap in the country is too wide and may never be reduced.

Nanyanzi says many of the Ugandans are blaming government for this wide gap, arguing that it is its responsibility to reduce it.

The citizens propose that the quality of education and health care for all, reduction of taxes and regulations on small business be improved to help reduce this gap.

The citizens meanwhile believe that to get out of this poverty, hard work is the key further arguing that inequality creates competition and encourages people to work harder.

This survey was carried out in May this year where a total of 2000 people were contacted through mobile phone calls.Yesterday evening, Kinokuniya bookstore, a well-stocked pit-stop for the lit(erature) lovers of Kuala Lumpur who walk among us, played host to an exclusive book signing with Tom Wright, one of the authors of Malaysias hottest title right now, Billion Dollar Whale.

Chronicling the ins and outs of Malaysias 1MDB financial scandal, the story looks at Jho Lows allegedly instrumental role in ensuring that billions were siphoned out of the sovereign wealth fund, with proceeds allegedly going towards luxury abodes, film financing, birthday parties, yachts, planes and jewelry to his favorite lady patron, wife of then-PM Najib Razak, Rosmah Mansor.

Its juicy! Peep our interview with the author for some of the more salacious and dumbfounding tidbits.

First edition copies have sold out across the country, and a couple hundred lucky readers who managed to snag a copy descended upon the citys Suria KLCC shopping center on a Tuesday to get theirs signed.

We asked five random people in line a few questions, including who they would cast as Low in a film version of the tale.

Dom, 36, Engineer

Coconuts KL: Have you read the book?

Dom: As of now, only the authors notes. I refuse to read the PDF.

Coco KL: What was the best bit that youve heard about the book floating around?

Dom: Im not sure if this qualifies as a best bit, but certainly the funniest thing that I head was that the actual man that the film Wolf of Wall Street is based on, Jordan Belfort, went to a J-Lo party 

Yin, Doms wife: Its just Jho Low, honey. Not J-Lo.

Dom: Oh? Well, Jordan Belfort went to one of his Vegas parties and thought he was a crook. When a crook thinks that youre a crook, youre probably a crook.

Coco KL: Have you heard that it might be turned into a film?

Dom: Yes, I have.

Coco KL: Who do you think should play Jho?

Dom: You know who would be great? The Malaysian comedian who is on The Daily Show, Ronny Chieng.

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Yin: Who?

Dom: The fellow in Crazy Rich Asians who had the pose-thing with his wife and kids. Hed be really great I reckon. Hed need to eat some pies, though.

Jason, 35, Web designer

Coconuts KL: Have you read the book?

Jason: Not yet!

Coco KL: What made you come out here on this fine afternoon, and line-up to meet mr Wright?



Jason: Ive read a lot of articles on the matter, starting back in 2016. His work influenced me to think, since hes the one who spilled all the tea. I started to do research myself, and it was incredible what was being reported.

Coco KL: What would you ask Jho Low right now, if you could ask him anything?

Jason: I would ask him why he is so stupid. Why would you waste all of that money, and why would you go out there and buy a massive super yacht that attracts so much attention. To be honest, I have a lot of questions for him!

Coco KL: In a movie based on the book, who would play former Prime Minister Najib Razak, and his wife Rosmah Mansor?

Jason: Najib? Are there any fat and balding actors currently working? Maybe Alec Baldwin?

Coco KL: Hahaha  but hes not Asian, and hes still got a lot of hair!

Jason: This is true. I need to think.

Coco KL: What about Rosmah?

Jason: I wouldnt want to offend anyone.

Jess, 40, Marketing and Communications

Coconuts KL: Have you managed to read the book?

Jess: Not yet  but I have read a lot of reviews.

Coco KL: Whats the most outrageous thing that youve heard about the saga?



Jess: The ridiculous parties, and all of his celebrity friendships.

Coco KL: If you could ask Jho anything, what you it be?

Jess: If it was worth it. All of this.

Coco KL: Have you got the PDF? It seems that copies are incredibly widespread. In a book about stealing, no irony has been lost on all of the (free) forwarded copies.

Jess: Yes I have got it, and it was difficult to resist reading. I was in Singapore yesterday and managed to find the book there.

Coco KL: Were trying to get some casting suggestions going if they make this into a movie. Have you got any names to throw in?

Jess: I know someone who looks just like Jho Low, but hes not an actor. He would be perfect though, hahaha. Azean Irdawaty, an actress who passed away a few years ago, would have been great as Rosmah, though.

Amalina and Fai, both 23, both students

Coconuts KL: Have you read the book?

Amalina: Nope, we just got the book now.

Coco KL: Did you get forwarded a PDF copy?

Amalina: Actually, yes I did, but I refused to download it.

Coco KL: What is the strangest thing to you about the whole 1MDB scandal?

Fai: How so much money was spent, on random celebrities, all because he just wanted to be acknowledged by them.

Amalina: I read that the authors only included a portion of the info, and there was a lot more to add in, but not enough time since it was going to press. So much is still developing, I would love for this to be turned into a series.

Coco KL: Who would you cast as Jho, if they were to make this into a movie?

Fai: I think only Jho himself could pull this off. Hed finally get that recognition he was looking for, but only if they can catch him!

Shalini, 32

Coconuts KL: Did you manage to read the book?



Shalini: Yes! Im about three-quarters through it right now.

Coco KL: Wow  Youre the first person weve spoken to thats read the majority of the book. What was your favorite part, so far?

Shalini: Not in a good way, but I was taken aback by how complicit everyone was in the entire matter. Global banking institutions allowed things to go through. Everyone wanted a cut, so instead of flagging issues, they were swept under the rug.

Also, the sheer amount of money that was spent by one person. If Vegas casinos are out there saying that you spend a lot, you are definitely spending A LOT.

Coco KL: Who would play Jho? Were finding it really hard to cast him.

Shalini: Honestly, I cant think of an actor who is currently working that would fit the bill. They might have to find an unknown if they want to get the look right, if not  its going to be an expensive make-up job.

The post Fans of Billion Dollar Whale weigh-in on book at signing event appeared first on Coconuts.An experimental US rehabilitation program for paralyzed people has produced incredible results  helping patients to walk, stand or sit, according to recent reports

Two patients in an experimental US rehabilitation program for paralyzed people have been able to walk again thanks to electrical stimulation of their spinal cords, and two others have been able to stand or sit, according to newly published results.

The results were published Monday in the New England Journal of Medicine, at the same time that the journal Nature Medicine reported on another paraplegic treated at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota who succeeded in walking again also thanks to an electrode implanted in his spinal cord.

The Kentucky Spinal Cord Injury Research Center at the University of Louisville had previously reported in 2014 that some paralyzed patients had regained feeling thanks to electrical stimulation.

This time, the center announced that after months of retraining two participants in its experimental program were able to walk with the support of a walker or a cane, stimulated with an electrode in the spinal column linked to an implant in the abdomen.

Two other participants were able to stand up or sit down.

"All four participants could not do these actions in trials when the stimulator was off," the study's authors said.

The researchers said the physiological mechanisms at work were not fully understood. But they suggested this could be linked to the fact that despite being completely paralyzed, the two patients who were able to walk had retained some sensation below the level of their injury.

"The spinal cord can relearn to walk independently," Susan Harkema, the center's leader told NBC News.

"We can retrain it to function even though there is that injury disconnecting it from the brain," she said.

Kelly Thomas, one of the two patients who learned to walk, said her first steps were "an emotional milestone in my recovery that I'll never forget."

"One minute I was walking with the trainer's assistance and, while they stopped, I continued walking on my own," she said.

Story continues

She now lives at home, where she is able to move from room to room or go outside with the help of a walker.

To do so, she must activate the electric stimulator using a small remote.

Each step she takes still requires a monumental effort.

"It's not a quick fix to being paralyzed," she told CNN. But she added: "Nothing's going to be able to stop me in life, because I took something that was thought to be impossible and I turned it into possible."Hong Kong man, 68, kills ex-wife with knife then leaps to his death from 22-storey building

An elderly man is believed to have killed his ex-wife with a knife before leaping to his death from the roof of a Hong Kong office block on Wednesday.

Initial investigations showed the two had previously argued over money, and this could have sparked the fatal attack, according to law enforcement sources.

Police said the 68-year-old man, surnamed Che, was a security guard, while his former spouse, 64, was a cleaner. They worked in the same office block  Hua Qin International Building  on Queen's Road Central in Sheung Wan.

Initial information indicated the woman was cleaning one of the offices in the building at the time she was attacked.

Superintendent Lam Wing-ho, assistant Central district commander, said the woman suffered knife wounds in the chest and neck and was found unconscious in the second-floor office of the building.

He said a 34cm-long knife, believed to have been used as weapon, was found in the offices toilet.

After the attack, the man called his colleague claiming he had just killed his wife and he wanted to commit suicide, one source said.

The colleague called police shortly before 8am.

The source said Che jumped from the roof of the 22-storey building before emergency personnel arrived. He was found on the building podium and was certified dead by paramedics at the scene.

His ex-wife suffered knife wounds and was found unconscious in the office. She was taken to Ruttonjee Hospital in Wan Chai, where she was later declared dead.

Police have classified the case as a murder and suicide.

The deaths come about two months after a two-year-old boy was thrown out of a window by his mother before she jumped to her death from a public housing flat in Yau Tong on July 24.

The two-year-old boy was still receiving treatment in Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Yau Ma Tei and his condition was stable.

Figures show police handled 17 reports of murder in the first six months of this year, a 54.5 per cent rise compared with 11 cases in the same period last year.

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If you or someone you know are having suicidal thoughts, help is available. For Hong Kong, dial +852 2896 0000 for The Samaritans or +852 2382 0000 for Suicide Prevention Services. In the US, call The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on +1 800 273 8255. For a list of other nations helplines, see this page

This article Hong Kong man, 68, kills ex-wife with knife then leaps to his death from 22-storey building first appeared on South China Morning Post

For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2018.Jeremy Corbyn has confirmed Labour would vote down Theresa Mays Chequers Brexit agreement and push for an early general election if the PM fails to reach a deal.

In his keynote conference speech in Liverpool, he told delegates: As it stands, Labour will vote against the Chequers plan, or whatever is left of it, and oppose leaving the EU with no deal.

It is inconceivable that we should crash out of Europe with no deal  that would be a national disaster.

That is why if Parliament votes down a Tory deal or the government fails to reach any deal at all we would press for a general election.

Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn reacts after delivering his speech at the partys conference in Liverpool.

The opposition leaders address also promised a green jobs revolution and an end to greed-is-good capitalism as he laid out a new vision for the economy.

Delegates watch Jeremy Corbyn deliver his keynote speech (Reuters)

Mr Corbyn said that investment in the environment would lead to a 60% reduction in emissions and will create 400,000 new skilled jobs in the UK, as part of Labours radical plan we need to rebuild and transform Britain.

In a speech punctuated by prolonged applause and chants of Oh, Jeremy Corbyn from delegates, the Labour leader:

Confirmed that Labour would vote down the Chequers plan and oppose leaving the EU without a deal

Pledged to push for a general election if parliament votes down Brexit deal or Theresa May fails to reach one

Promised that Labour would embark on the biggest home building programme in half a century and reiterated plan for a levy on second homes

Criticised Theresa May personally for her nasty and cynical hostile environment policy towards immigrants

Criticised the British press for spreading lies and half-truths

Addressed the Jewish community, saying we are your allies while denouncing Tory hypocrites

Tackled crime reduction by promising 10,000 more police officers back on our streets and an investment in young people so there will be no more left-behind areas

Announced that 30 hours a week of free children would be available to all 2, 3 and 4 year-olds under Labour

Doubled down on shadow chancellor John McDonnells economic ideas, including giving workers of all large businesses the right to elect a third of the board and handing employees a stake in firms

Committed to the triple-lock on pensions, winter fuel allowance and free bus pass for the elderly

Denounced Donald Trump for withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement and Iran nuclear deal, accusing him of turning his back on international cooperation and even international law

Warned that we are entering a new fast-changing and more dangerous world, as shown by the attacks in Salisbury, which he blamed on Russia

Called for unity within Labour and urged an end to abuse online and in person

Pledged an end to reckless wars on intervention like Iraq or Syria

Demanded an end to ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar

Said Labour would recognise a Palestinian state as soon as they took office, supporting a two-state solution to the Middle East conflict

The speech was light on new policy pledges, instead referring to announcements made by shadow cabinet ministers earlier in the conference.

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The address closes a four-day Labour Party conference where Brexit has dominated the agenda.

Shadow Brexit security Sir Keir Starmer was greeted with rapturous applause when he told the conference that Labour was not ruling out a second Brexit referendum with remaining in the EU on the ballot paper.

Keir Starmer delivers his speech on the third day of Labours conference in Liverpool.

He said: It is right that Parliament has the first say but if we need to break the impasse, our options must include campaigning for a public vote and nobody is ruling out Remain as an option.

Sir Keir said that Labours preferred option if Theresa May fails to secure a satisfactory deal would be an early general election but failing that we must have other options.

The Prime Minister rejected the idea of another election last night, insisting it would not be in the national interest.

Speaking to reporters as she flew to New York for a meeting of the UN General Assembly, Mrs May said: What Im doing is working to deliver a good deal with Europe in the national interest.

Other Labour ministers have rowed back from Sir Keirs apparent support for a second Brexit vote.

Shadow justice secretary Richard Burgon insisted Labours policy remained that we accept and respect the outcome of the referendum.

He told LBC radio: The Labour Party isnt calling for a second referendum.

Labour has our own vision of Brexit, respecting, accepting the outcome of the referendum.Liu Xia, the widow of Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, arrived in New York late on Tuesday for what is expected to be her first formal appearance since settling in Berlin two months ago after nearly eight years of de facto house arrest in Beijing.

Her friend, Berlin-based exiled Chinese writer Liao Yiwu announced on Twitter that they were in New York, along with members of his family, to attend a panel discussion and awards ceremony hosted by the Vaclav Havel Library Foundation.

The panel discussion, The Power of the Powerless in China, takes place on Wednesday afternoon and will also be attended by leading China specialist and human rights advocate Professor Andrew Nathan from Columbia University.

On Thursday, Liao will be presented with the Vaclav Havel Library Foundations 2018 Disturbing the Peace Award for a Courageous Writer at Risk. Liu Xia, who was also nominated for the award, is expected to accompany Liao to the ceremony.

The award recognises Liao as a consistent vocal critic of Chinas Communist regime. He was jailed for four years after publicly reciting his poem Massacre in memory of the Tiananmen Square crackdown on June 4, 1989.

The 57-year-old Liu Xia was locked down in her apartment for most of the past eight years, after her late husband was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010. During that time her personal well-being, including severe depression and heart problems, was a humanitarian concern among international communities that worked relentlessly toward her freedom.

Liu Xia was released to go to Berlin in mid-July, just days before the one-year anniversary of Liu Xiaobos death, on condition that her younger brother Liu Hui stay behind in China.

Since arriving in Berlin, Liu Xia has avoided being seen in public and her health, which suffered during her virtual house arrest, has seen significant improvement, according to Liu Hui.

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While in New York Liao will also join Wang Dan, former student of Liu Xiaobo and a leader of the 1989 Tiananmen student movement, to read poems by the late dissident on October 1st.

It is unclear whether Liu Xia will attend.

This article Liu Xia, widow of Nobel winner Liu Xiaobo, arrives in New York for human rights events first appeared on South China Morning Post

For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2018.The luxury-loving wife of Malaysia's former prime minister faced fresh questioning Wednesday by anti-corruption investigators probing a multi-billion-dollar scandal that contributed to the old regime losing power. Rosmah Mansor, widely reviled in Malaysia for her expensive tastes and imperious manner, arrived at the offices of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) to be grilled. Local media reported this week that anti-corruption officials were wrapping up their probe into Rosmah, and she could be charged soon. It was the second time she has been quizzed by the graft-fighting body since her husband Najib Razak's coalition was unexpectedly booted out of office at elections in May after six decades in power. A major factor in the loss were allegations that Najib, his family and his cronies looted billion of dollars from state fund 1MDB in an audacious fraud that stretched from Singapore to Switzerland. Rosmah's love of costly overseas shopping trips, designer handbags and jewellery made her a lightning rod for public anger, and fuelled suspicions that she benefitted from the plundering of 1MDB. After the election loss, a stash of cash, jewellery and hundreds of designer handbags worth as much as $273 million was seized from properties linked to Najib in raids around Kuala Lumpur. Rosmah is often compared to Imelda Marcos, who left behind more than a thousand pairs of shoes after her husband, Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos, was ousted in 1986. Najib's fall from grace has been swift since he was ousted from power by a reformist alliance led Mahathir Mohamad, 93, who is in his second stint as premier. The ex-leader has been arrested and hit with 32 charges linked to the 1MDB scandal, including allegations that hundreds of millions of dollars ended up in his personal bank account. He denies any wrongdoing.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that Israel must retain security control in any peace deal with the Palestinians, Israeli media reported, after US President Donald Trump's comments supporting a two-state solution to the conflict. Speaking to Israeli journalists after meeting Trump in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, Netanyahu reiterated his stance that Israel must control security west of Jordan to the Mediterranean -- which includes the occupied West Bank. "I am willing for the Palestinians to have the authority to rule themselves without the authority to harm us," Netanyahu said, according to Israeli newspaper Haaretz. "It is important to set what is inadmissible to us: Israel will not relinquish security control west of Jordan. This will not happen so long as I am prime minister and I think the Americans understand that." As in the past, Netanyahu did not specify whether he could support full Palestinian statehood in a peace deal or some lesser form of autonomy. A key Israeli government minister and Netanyahu rival said after Trump's comments that a Palestinian state was out of the question. "The president of the US is a true friend of Israel," Education Minister Naftali Bennett of the far-right Jewish Home party said on Twitter. "However, it must be emphasised that as long as the Jewish Home party is part of Israel's government, there will not be a Palestinian state which would be a disaster for Israel." When meeting Netanyahu on Wednesday, Trump said explicitly for the first time that he backed a two-state solution that would create an independent Palestine, saying: "That's what I think works best, that's my feeling." The Palestinian leadership cut off contact with Trump's administration after he recognised the disputed city of Jerusalem as Israel's capital in December. Trump has also cut more than $500 million in Palestinian aid. Palestinian leaders accuse his White House of blatant bias in favour of Israel and of seeking to blackmail them into accepting his terms. Trump has nevertheless spoken of wanting to reach the "ultimate deal" -- Israeli-Palestinian peace. He said Wednesday he would present his plan before the end of the year.By Andrius Sytas and Philip Pullella

TALLINN (Reuters) - Pope Francis said on Tuesday as he wound up a trip to the Baltic states, all nervous about what they see as a newly aggressive Russia next door, that nations should not measure their strength by their military capability to prevail over others.

"Some people speak in a loud voice, full of self-assurance  with no doubts or hesitation. Others shout and hurl threats about using weapons, deploying troops and implementing strategies...That way they appear to be stronger," he said in a homily of a Mass in the Estonian capital Tallinn.

"But this is not about 'seeking' the will of God, but about gaining power so as to prevail over others," he said near the end of a four-day swing through Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

The pope did not elaborate. But nearly 30 years since the three Baltics seceded from the Soviet Union, they look warily towards giant neighbour Russia. All three now belong to NATO and the European Union; standards of living have risen significantly.

Prosperity is not the be-all and end-all, however, Pope Francis suggested in his homily. "You did not gain your freedom in order to end up as slaves of consumerism, individualism or the thirst for power or domination," he said.

The three Baltics won independence after the end of World War One only to be annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940, occupied by Nazi Germany during World War Two and re-absorbed by the Soviet Union until its break-up in 1991.

Recent events in Russia, with which all three states share a land border, have brought on new jitters.

After Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea region in 2014 and fears grew Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania might be next on Moscow's list, defence spending increased sharply and several thousand NATO soldiers were deployed in the Baltics.

The Baltics say they are victims of a sustained anti-Western disinformation campaign by Russia and subjected to regular intimidation tactics including cyber attacks - accusations which the Kremlin denies.

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POPE ADDRESSES SEX ABUSE SCANDALS IN CHURCH

Earlier on Tuesday, Pope Francis said young people around the world were right to feel outrage at the Catholic Church's handling of its sexual abuse scandals as it grapples with a wave of new cases in countries including Chile and Germany.

Francis has come under fire from victims groups and other members of the Church who say he has not done enough to make bishops accountable for mishandling or covering up abuse cases.

"They are outraged when they do not see clear condemnations of sexual and economic scandals," he told 1,000 young people gathered in a Lutheran church in Tallinn.

He spoke hours before the Catholic Church in Germany was due to present a report on its sexual abuse record. Its findings were leaked to German magazine Der Spiegel earlier this month and showed that nearly 1,700 of its clerics and priests had sexually abused 3,677 minors over a 70-year period ending in 2014.

A similar study in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania shook the American Catholic Church in August and last week the number of Chilean bishops who have resigned over a recent sex abuse scandal rose to seven.

Francis wrote an unprecedented letter to all Catholics last month, asking each one to help root out "this culture of death" and last year said the Roman Catholic Church had "arrived late" in dealing with sexual abuse of children by priests.

Estonia, the last stop of the pope's three-nation tour, has only about 4,500 Catholics, or about 0.4 percent of the population of 1.3 million, according to a 2011 census. A majority said they have no religious identification.

(Reporting by Philip Pullella; Editing by Mark Heinrich)The former head of a communist-era prison camp in Romania has died at the age of 90, while serving a 20-year jail sentence for crimes against humanity, officials said on Wednesday. Ioan Ficior who oversaw the Periprava camp in the country's east between 1958 and 1963, died in the prison hospital of Jilava, outside Bucharest, where he was being treated for "a series of chronic medical problems," a spokeswoman for the national penitentiary authority told AFP. She did not reveal the exact cause of death. Ficior, who prosecutors said was responsible for the deaths of 103 prisoners at Periprava -- where political opponents of communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu were interned -- was sentenced last year. He was the second former prison camp chief to be jailed by the Romanian authorities. The first, Alexandru Visinescu, is also currently serving a 20-year sentence and is now aged 92. He was head of the Ramnicu Sarat camp in eastern Romania. Prosecutors say that Ficior's regime in Periprava was inhumane and repressive, but he always protested his innocence. He was brought to trial in 2014 following legal action by the Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes. In all, more than 600,000 Romanians were convicted and jailed for political reasons under the communist regime between 1945 and 1989, according to the Memorial Museum for Victims of Communism in Sighet in northwestern Romania. Romania's communist era came to an end with the fall of Ceausescu in 1989. The country joined the European Union in 2007, along with neighbouring Bulgaria.Seagulls whirl over the docks of Ukraine's port of Mariupol on the Sea of Azov as huge cranes once used to unload ships' cargoes stand idle. The uncharacteristic quiet is the product of rising tensions in the small sea, the waters of which Russia and Ukraine agreed to share more than a decade ago, but is now the latest theatre in the bitter conflict between the two nations. Russia's annexation of the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 means ships must now pass through a narrow strait bordered by Russian-controlled territory on both sides, while Kremlin-backed rebel regions of eastern Ukraine are uncomfortably close to Mariupol. In a growing crisis, Kiev and the West accuse Russia of deliberately blocking ships from entering the sea. "The whole time I've worked here, I've never seen anything like it," said Sergiy Kostyrko, a tanned foreman who has worked at the Mariupol docks for 23 years. "Ships have become very rare visitors to our port." Ukraine criticises what it sees as a deliberate move by Moscow to block the Kerch Strait, the only shipping route into the Azov Sea, where Ukraine's commercial ports of Mariupol and Berdyansk are crucial gateways for its metallurgy industry exports. - 'Military operation' - Kiev has warned that Russia could even launch an attack on Mariupol. Russia is trying to block Ukraine's ports on the Sea of Azov acting "to escalate tensions and, it cannot be ruled out, to carry out a military operation (including) attacks on Mariupol", Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko declared in July. In a sign of the conflict's growing scale, the United States has condemned Russia for impeding maritime transit as part of a campaign "to undermine and destabilise Ukraine". "We call on Russia to cease its harassment of international shipping in the Sea of Azov," the US Department of State said in a statement late August. The European Union's delegation to Ukraine said earlier this month that Russia "has increasingly and deliberately hindered and delayed the passage of vessels, including vessels from EU member states". Foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova insisted this week that "Russia's actions in checking ships are aimed solely at security." "It is precisely Kiev's actions, those of its uncontrollable radicals, that force Russia to strengthen security measures," she said. - Five-day checks - The problems started upon Russia's completion this spring of a bridge over the Kerch Strait connecting its southern mainland to Crimea. The link spanning 19 kilometres (12 miles) was one of Moscow's mega-projects personally endorsed by President Vladimir Putin, who opened it in May at the wheel of a lorry. The bridge's 35-metre arches are too low for some ships to pass under and there are also restrictions on length. In addition, ships heading under the bridge now face lengthy checks by Russian maritime border guards, causing additional financial losses for both ports and shipping companies. "The check takes three to four hours but waiting for the inspectors takes up to five days," said Mariupol port director Oleksandr Oliynyk. Previously "the ships would be stopped for maybe 10 hours." The result for Ukraine is a significant drop in shipping traffic and subsequent economic losses. Shipping companies lose between $5,000 and $15,000 with each day of delay for a cargo in the Kerch Strait, Oliynyk said. "At some point, the ship's owner will say 'That's it, I'm not interested'." Ukrainian media reported that the ports of Mariupol and Berdyansk saw earnings fall by almost a quarter during the first seven months of this year, compared with the same period last year. - Risk of military conflict - So far this is purely a trade conflict, but there is a risk it could escalate into a military standoff between Ukraine and Russia, on top of Kiev's ongoing four-year war with Kremlin-backed rebels in the east that has claimed more than 10,000 lives. Mariupol is located just 20 kilometres west of the frontline with Russian-backed separatists. Russia moved an additional five ships into the Sea of Azov in May, the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington-based research institute, wrote in a report. Kiev in July claimed Russia had some 40 warships in the Sea of Azov. This month, following an emergency meeting of Poroshenko's top brass, Ukraine bolstered its naval force in the Sea of Azov with two gunboats. The gunboats were deployed "to prevent the illegal stopping of ships by an aggressor country," deputy infrastructure minister Yuriy Lavrenyuk said. is-dg-ml-gmo/am/rlAlchemy FoodTech was the winner at this years SLINGSHOT @ SWITCH pitching competition

Singapore-based foodtech startup Alchemy FoodTech has raised a 7-figure funding in a Pre-Series A round led by Heritas Capital Management and co-led by SEEDS Capital, the investment arm of Enterprise Singapore. The amount was not disclosed.

The company will use the investment to finance its next stage of technology and product development, talent acquisition, and manufacturing capabilities. In addition, Alchemy will complete clinical studies and accelerate co-development projects with food manufacturers to incorporate its technology into everyday food staples.

Alchemys unique solution is an additive called 5ibrePlus, aims to reduce the glucose levels of common white refined carbohydrate staples like white jasmine rice, bread and noodles by altering their GI and increasing their fibre content.

The company claims the additive can accomplish this without changing the taste, texture and colour of the food.

By reducing the glucose levels of these food staples, Alchemy believes it can significantly reduce the levels of diabetes  caused by the bodys inability to process glucose  in countries whose populations live on such food staples.

Also Read: Logistics startup Expedito wins Seedstars Jakarta, to represent Indonesia in Switzerland

According to the Asian Diabetes Prevention Initiative, 60 per cent of the worlds diabetics live in Asia. In recent months, the Singapore government has launched initiatives to help Singaporeans wean off white rice and replace it with substitutes like brown rice. Against the context, it is easy to see how Alchemys solution could be a serious game changer for ordinary folks.

Our mission is to fight diabetes with food innovation, and yet without changing lifestyle habits so as to achieve the greatest compliance and adoption, said Alan Phua, CEO of Alchemy FoodTech.

This round of investment allows us to work with partnering food manufacturers to customise solutions for them, and conduct pilot commercial trials with them. Several food manufacturers who care for their customers have already expressed strong interest and we have commenced application projects, he added.

Story continues

Last week, Alchemy won the top prize of S$200,000 (US$146,400) at the SLINGSHOT @ SWITCH pitching competition, beating out 30 other startups.



The post Singapore foodtech startup Alchemy FoodTech raises 7-figure funding to fight diabetes appeared first on e27.A Singaporean man has lodged a report with the police after a nasty experience with a Malaysian immigration officer, who allegedly defiled his passport and asked for some hush money if he wanted to enter the country.

The man, Muhammad Fauzi, had been heading back to his home in Malaysia late Monday night when he encountered some trouble at the Sultan Abu Bakar CIQ Complex, the checkpoint on the Malaysian side of Tuas Second Link. According to Fauzi, an officer questioned him about the Malaysia Automated Clearance System (MACS) Pass  that allows Singaporeans to use a fast-track clearance lane  on his passport, and why he was entering Malaysia so late at night.

When Fauzi replied that he was heading home to his wife, the officer probably took notice  it was close to midnight and the Singaporean had to go home after all.

Oh, you have to U-turn back to Singapore because your passport is torn. Unless youre Malaysian, I cant allow you to pass through but right now that passport is torn and it is illegal, the officer allegedly told Fauzi. The Singaporean was shocked to hear the comment because, according to him, he knew his passport was perfectly fine just a few minutes before handing it over. It was definitely fine when he scanned the passport at the Singapore checkpoint.

Then the shady part ensued after requests to speak to a supervisor were turned down. After the officer brought him to aside, he allegedly told Fauzi that he could pass through customs, but only via an I-help-you-you-help-me process. When Fauzi asked what exactly the man needed help with, the officer apparently mocked him, asking if he needed to spell it out.

Oh, so you want money? Money in your pocket will let me through? queried Fauzi. Ahh, smart boy, the officer was said to have replied.

Refusing to pay the bribe, Fauzi asked for his passport back and returned back to Tuas Checkpoint. Many others would have just paid the hush money to get it over with, especially at the end of a long, tiring day. Pictures of the passport showed significant tearing of the hard plastic information page, while the back of the booklet was ripped as well.

Story continues

Photos: Muhammad Fauzi / Facebook

Upon his return to Singapore checkpoint, the man was told to make a police report. According to the Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA), Fauzi wasnt the first to experience the same thing. Stories of tampered passports carried out by immigration checkpoint officers have long been around in some version or another beyond just Singapore and Malaysia.

Photo: Muhammad Fauzi / Facebook

In an update, Fauzi noted that the deputy head of Sultan Abu Bakar CIQ Complex has since reached out to him personally and will take charge of the investigation of the case.

If you do experience the same, please report it as well, Fauzi advised his fellow Singaporeans. Both to Singapore and Malaysia police. The man added that he managed to take down the officers particulars and even his picture, but sharing them in public would be illegal as the photos were taken in a restricted area.

The post Singaporean lodges report after Malaysian immigration officer allegedly tore his passport for hush money appeared first on Coconuts.By Steve Holland and Parisa Hafezi UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani exchanged taunts at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday with Trump vowing more sanctions against Tehran and Rouhani suggesting his American counterpart suffers from a "weakness of intellect." Trump used his annual address to the United Nations to attack Iran's "corrupt dictatorship," praise last year's bogeyman North Korea and lay down a defiant message that he will reject globalism and protect American interests. But much of his 35-minute address was aimed squarely at Iran, which the United States accuses of harboring nuclear ambitions and fomenting instability in the Middle East through its support for militant groups in Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. "Iran's leaders sow chaos, death and destruction," Trump told the gathering in the green-marbled hall. "They do not respect their neighbors or borders or the sovereign rights of nations." Rouhani, addressing the assembled world leaders later, sharply criticized Trump's decision to withdraw from the 2015 international nuclear deal with Iran. He said he had "no need for a photo opportunity" with Trump and suggested the U.S. president's pull back from global institutions was a character defect. "Confronting multilateralism is not a sign of strength. Rather it is a symptom of the weakness of intellect - it betrays an inability in understanding a complex and interconnected world," he said. Trump's address was met largely by silence from world leaders still not comfortable with go-it-alone views that have strained U.S. relationships with traditional allies worldwide. His speech, while delivered in a low-key fashion, was nonetheless a thunderous recitation of his "America First" policies. He has disrupted the world order by withdrawing the United States from the nuclear deal and the Paris climate accord, and threatened to punish NATO nations for not paying more for their common defense. "We will never surrender America's sovereignty to an unelected, unaccountable, global bureaucracy," Trump said, in language popular with his political base. "America is governed by Americans. We reject the ideology of globalism, and we embrace the doctrine of patriotism." Besides calling out Iran, Trump also criticized China for its trade practices but made no mention of Russia's interference in Syria's war or its suspected meddling in U.S. elections. Rouhani was defiant in his speech to the world body. "What Iran says is clear: no war, no sanctions, no threats, no bullying; just acting according to the law and the fulfillment of obligations," Rouhani said. MACRON'S ALTERNATIVE VIEW Offering an alternative view when it was his turn at the podium, French President Emmanuel Macron told the delegates that the law of the survival of the fittest, protectionism and isolationism would only lead to heightened tensions. Defending multilateralism and collective action, he said nationalism would lead to failure and if countries stopped defending basic principles, global wars would return. "I do not accept the erosion of multilateralism and don't accept our history unraveling," Macron told the assembly, at times raising his voice. "Our children are watching." Macron, citing the example of Iran, said that this unilateralism push would lead directly to conflicts. Trump, who begins his political rallies with boasts about his economic record in less than two years in office, used the same rhetoric before the crowd of world leaders and diplomats, telling them he had accomplished more than almost any previous U.S. president. The remark led to some murmuring and laughter in the crowd, taking the president slightly aback. "I didnt expect that reaction, but that's OK," he said. Trump attempted to drive a wedge between Iran's leadership and its people, days after an attack in southwestern Iran on a military parade killed 25 people and unsettled the country. In remarks to reporters on his way to his speech, Trump said he would not meet the Iranians until they "change their tune." Though he held out the possibility of a better relationship in the future, he made clear economic pressure on Iran would not abate. Trump's national security adviser, John Bolton, addressing a group called United Against a Nuclear Iran, called the 2015 accord "the worst diplomatic debacle in American history" and had a warning for "the mullahs in Tehran." "If you cross us, our allies, or our partners; if you harm our citizens; if you continue to lie, cheat, and deceive, yes, there will indeed be HELL to PAY," he said. In May, Republican Trump withdrew the United States from the deal to put curbs on Iran's nuclear program in exchange for easing sanctions. France, Britain, Germany, Russia, China and the European Union were part of the accord with Iran. Foes for decades, Washington and Tehran have been increasingly at odds since May. The accord with OPEC member Iran was negotiated under Democratic U.S. President Barack Obama. "Additional sanctions will resume November 5th and more will follow and we are working with countries that import Iranian crude oil to cut their purchases substantially," Trump said. He said the United States would help create a regional strategic alliance between Gulf nations and Jordan and Egypt, a move the United States sees as a bulwark against Iran. Trump compared U.S. relations with Iran to what he called improved ties with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who Trump had met in Singapore in June as part of a still-unfulfilled drive to get Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons. In his address last year to the U.N., Trump insulted Kim as a "rocket man" bent on nuclear destruction. On Tuesday, Trump praised Kim for halting nuclear and missile tests, releasing Americans held prisoner and returning some remains of U.S. soldiers killed in the 1950s Korean War. The two leaders are trying to arrange a second summit. Trump has said sanctions on North Korea would remain for now. Delivering a harsh message to OPEC members, Trump called on them to stop raising oil prices and to pay for their own military protection. He threatened to limit U.S. aid only to countries that are friendly to the United States. Anwar Gargash, UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs said oil prices were driven only by markets, by supply and demand. "These are not things that can be manipulated by a decision here or there," said Gargash, whose country is an OPEC member. Crude oil prices shot to a four-year high on Tuesday, catapulted by imminent U.S. sanctions on Iranian crude exports and the apparent reluctance of OPEC and Russia to raise output to offset the potential hit to global supply. (Reporting by Steve Holland and Parisa Hafezi; Additional reporting by Michelle Nichols, Jeff Mason, Arshad Mohammed, Yara Bayoumy, John Irish; editing by Yara Bayoumy and Grant McCool)President Donald Trump on Wednesday faced a rebuke of his hardline Iran policy at a UN Security Council meeting that laid bare a rift between the United States and other world powers. Presiding for the first time over a meeting of the United Nations' body, Trump denounced the "horrible, one-sided" nuclear deal with Iran that he ditched in May, to the dismay of European allies. A gavel-wielding Trump also took a swipe at China, accusing Beijing of working against his Republican Party in upcoming midterm elections as payback for their growing trade war, a charge China's foreign minister said was "unwarranted." The United States has moved to reimpose sanctions that had been lifted under the deal to curb Iran's nuclear program and has vowed to isolate Tehran, which it accuses of stoking conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen. France however hit back, with President Emmanuel Macron declaring that concerns about Iran cannot be tackled with "a policy of sanctions and containment." Also defending the 2015 deal which was endorsed in a Security Council resolution, British Prime Minister Teresa May said it "remains the best means of preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon." Trump argued that since the deal was signed in 2015, "Iran's aggression only increased" and that funds released from the lifting of sanctions had been used "to support terrorism, build nuclear-capable missiles and foment chaos." China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi stressed that the "rights of all countries to trade with Iran should be respected" after the European Union said a special payment system would be set up to keep alive business ties with Iran. Iran did not request to speak at the council meeting, but Iranian President Hassan Rouhani told a news conference separately that the United States would eventually rejoin the nuclear deal and pledged Tehran's continued commitment to the accord. "For the first time, the US president was asking other members not to adhere to a resolution of the very same Security Council over which he was presiding," quipped Rouhani. "We are not isolated; America is isolated," he said. Wednesday's meeting highlighted divisions between the United States and its European allies over the Iran nuclear deal, but there was also sharp criticism of Trump's broader foreign policy. Leftist Bolivian President Evo Morales bluntly declared that "the United States does not care about human rights or justice." If that were not the case, he argued, "it would not abandon the UN human rights council or separate migrant children from their families and put them in jail." - 'Unwarranted' accusations - In a blunt attack on China, Trump told the council that Beijing was attempting to interfere in the upcoming elections, hoping to see him suffer a setback because of his tough line on trade. "They do not want me or us to win because I am the first president ever to challenge China on trade," said Trump. The Republicans could lose control of both the Senate and House of Representatives in November's elections, further imperiling Trump's chances of chalking up legislative achievements. The Chinese foreign minister responded flatly that Beijing strictly adhered to a policy of non-interference. "We did not and will not interfere in any country's domestic affairs. We refuse to accept any unwarranted accusations against China," said Wang. Tensions have soared between Beijing and Washington after Trump this week slapped new tariffs covering $200 billion in Chinese goods exported to the United States. On North Korea, Trump called for sanctions to be strictly enforced against Pyongyang -- a message directed at Russia and China which are pushing for an easing of punitive measures to reward North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Without naming countries, the US president noted that "some nations are already violating UN sanctions" including illegal ship-to-ship transfers of oil and said compliance was "very important." His comments came shortly before his top diplomat, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, signaled that he would return to North Korea next month to push forward denuclearization talks. It was only the third time in UN history that a US president chaired a Security Council meeting. Barack Obama presided over two meetings in 2009 and 2014.US arms sale wont do much to help Taiwan defend itself against Beijing, analysts say

Washingtons plan to sell US$330 million of spare parts for Taiwans warplanes will not change the cross-strait military situation or improve the self-ruled islands ability to defend itself against growing threats from Beijing, according to analysts.

But they say that the proposed deal is the latest sign of strengthening US-Taiwan ties and shows that the administration of US President Donald Trump is willing to take further steps to help ensure the islands security as Beijing expands its military.

The Pentagons Defence Security Cooperation Agency on Monday announced the planned sale of spare parts and logistics support for F-16, C-130 and F-5 indigenous defence fighter jets, pending final approval from the US Congress.

It will be the second US weapons deal under Trump, after his administration in June last year agreed to sell a US$1.4 billion arms package to Taiwan that included high-speed anti-radiation missiles, torpedoes, missile components and technical support for early warning radar.

Beijing regards Taiwan as a renegade province that should be reunited with the mainland, by force if necessary. It has previously warned Washington against selling weapons to Taiwan and establishing military relations with the island, and remains locked in a trade war with the US.

Taiwan was quick to express its appreciation for the proposed deal, saying it showed Washingtons concern for the islands security.

Presidential spokesman Alex Huang said that the sale would help boost Taiwans confidence in facing security challenges from Beijing.

He also said that Taiwan will continue to increase our investment in national defence, boost our defence industry and technology development, and closely cooperate and communicate with the US on various security issues and agendas.

Analysts said that the new deal was unlikely to alter the military imbalance between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait since it involved mainly aircraft parts and other logistics support.

Story continues

Unlike fighter jets like F-35s, this wont actually represent any significant increase in Taiwans defensive capabilities, said Arthur Ding, an associate research fellow at the Stockholm-based Institute for Security and Development Policy, referring to a more advanced aircraft Taiwan has sought from the US.

However, these spare parts and the logistics support are necessary to keep the warplanes involved operational, he said.

Taiwans former defence minister Andrew Yang said that the spare parts should be one of continuing arms deals between Taipei and Washington. It should be part of the regular military exchanges between the two sides, he said, adding that the purpose of the sale was not to boost Taiwans defences.

Tung Li-wen, a professor at the Graduate School of Public Security at Central Police University in Taiwan, said the latest US support could be read as another sign of closer ties between Taipei and Washington and the US institutionalising bilateral military cooperation.

Although [the proposed sale] doesnt involve any advanced equipment, its approval by the Pentagon comes less than a year after the US defence department approved a US$1.4 billion deal for Taiwan, Tung said.

In August, Trump also signed the National Defence Authorisation Act, which has provisions to improve Taiwans defences to counter Beijings increasing military muscle and to allow high-level military exchanges, including war games.

Since Trump took office in 2017, his administration has been increasingly wary of Beijings military expansion, seeing it as a threat to stability in the region, especially in the contested waters of the South China Sea and in countries focused on by the Belt and Road Initiative, Chinas global trade and infrastructure strategy.

Tung said he expected Washington would continue to provide advanced weapons to Taiwan in the face of Beijings military push.

That push includes using Belt and Road to expand Chinas military bases and get access to foreign ports, Randall Schriver, assistant defence secretary for Asian and Pacific security affairs, told the Washington Free Beacon conservative website.

He said that the Pentagon was working with Taipei to improve the islands air defences to counter growing missile and aircraft threats from Beijing.

Schriver also suggested that the Trump administration was moving to end the practice of selling large, multibillion-dollar arms packages to Taiwan and would instead respond to the islands requests as they come in and treat Taiwan like a normal foreign military sales partner.

This article US arms sale wont do much to help Taiwan defend itself against Beijing, analysts say first appeared on South China Morning Post

For the latest news from the South China Morning Post download our mobile app. Copyright 2018.A Vietnam court jailed 15 people Wednesday for up to 4.5 years for "causing public disorder" for attacking police and destroying government vehicles at explosive protests in June over a proposed investment law. The controversial draft bill to establish special economic zones in Vietnam was met with fierce anti-China anger across the country, with protesters accusing the government of catering to Beijing with lengthy leases and low tariffs in the proposed investment areas. China was not named in the law and the government said it would lower the proposed leases from 99 years, but it was not enough to stop the protests, which quickly spread to several cities. The rallies turned violent in southern Binh Thuan province where demonstrators were accused of destroying government vehicles, blocking roads and badly vandalising a police station that was left littered with riot gear after officers fled. Fifteen people were convicted for joining the violence and attacking riot police in Binh Thuan after a one-day-trial Wednesday, state media reported. They were jailed for between two and 4.5 years, according to the Binh Thuan newspaper, the official mouthpiece of the province. "(They) used sticks, bricks, stones and hand made bombs to attack riot police," the newspaper said. "They also used petroleum bombs to burn fire trucks and vehicles of riot polices and to attack police offices," it added. Dozens of people have been jailed over the protests, rare in the one-party state where public demonstrations of any kind are banned. The government temporarily shelved the bill after the rallies, though Vietnam's rubber stamp parliament could discuss the issue at a meeting next month. Anti-China sentiment runs deep in Vietnam, which has long been locked in a dispute with Beijing over territorial claims in the South China Sea. Hanoi and Beijing also fought a brief but bloody border war in 1979, a painful chapter between the communist neighbours that have struck an uneasy alliance today. The detentions come as the communist government is accused of intensifying a crackdown on activists, with more than 40 jailed this year. This week, three were jailed for between one year and two years three months for posting anti-government comments on Facebook. Wednesday's trial comes as Vietnam's president Tran Dai Quang was honoured with a state funeral and two days of national mourning that ends Thursday with his burial. The former police chief who died last week after a long illness gained a reputation as a committed communist -- and tough leader with little tolerance for dissent.By Rozanna Latiff KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysian anti-graft investigators questioned Rosmah Mansor, the wife of former Prime Minister Najib Razak, for nearly 13 hours on Wednesday over a corruption investigation at state fund 1MDB. Najib has been charged with money laundering, abuse of power and criminal breach of trust in the investigation into how billions of dollars went missing from 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB). Najib, who has pleaded not guilty to the charges and consistently denied wrongdoing, lost a national election in May. Last week, Azam Baki, the deputy commissioner of operations at Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), said he could not rule out charges being filed against Rosmah. Rosmah, who was questioned for three hours in June, arrived at MACC headquarters at around 0200 GMT and left at 1445 GMT. Her lawyer, K.Kumaraendran, told reporters she had completed giving her statement to the MACC. He declined to comment further. As she left, she said only: "I'm OK." Malaysian authorities have barred Najib and Rosmah from leaving the country. Their home and other properties linked to them have been searched by police as part of the 1MDB investigations. The U.S. Department of Justice has alleged more than $4.5 billion was misappropriated from 1MDB and that about $680 million ended up in Najib's personal bank account. The couple's world has been turned upside down since Najib's shock election defeat on May 9 to his one-time mentor Mahathir Mohamad, who swiftly reopened a probe into 1MDB. Authorities have seized luxury goods to an estimated value of up to $275 million from their homes, including 567 handbags, 423 watches and - among 12,000 pieces of jewelry - 1,400 necklaces, 2,200 rings, 2,800 pairs of earrings and 14 tiaras. Najib has said most of the items seized were gifts to his wife and daughter and had nothing to do with 1MDB. (Reporting by Rozanna Latiff; Writing by A. Ananthalakshmi; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and John Stonestreet)Something seems to be going very, very wrong with the federal governments student loan forgiveness program for public servants.

Under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, Americans can get all of their federal education debt discharged if they spend 10 years working in government or at a nonprofit. The program launched in 2007, which means the very earliest any borrowers could have become eligible was last October. But so far, vanishingly few people have been awarded relief. Last week, the Department of Education reported that it had rejected more than 99 percent of all applications submitted through the end of June. Of the 28,913 applications reviewed, just 289 were approved. And only 96 people actually finished the process of having their loans scrubbed.

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The program, while a great deal in theory, has long been dogged by concerns that it was overly complicated and poorly managed, and that as a result, many borrowers would plan their financial lives and careers around it only to discover down the line that they hadnt met all of the necessary requirements to qualify for loan forgiveness. The fact that tens of thousands of individuals have had their applications turned down this year could be a sign those fears are coming true. Its concerning that there are a lot of borrowers out there who thought they were eligible but werent, Clare McCann, an education policy expert at the New America Foundation, told me. (And dont I know it: My wife is a New York City government employee who is relying on PSLF to eventually retire her voluminous law school debt. I have a vested financial interest in it functioning as advertised.)

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So whats going on? Under the programs rules, borrowers can become eligible for forgiveness if they make 120 on-time monthly payments on their federal student loans while working full time in public service. This all sounds simple enough. But as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau reported last year, many people have gotten tripped up on PSLFs bureaucratic details, in part because student loan servicers have often done a poor job helping them navigate it. They may end up enrolled in the wrong kind of repayment plan (borrowers essentially need to be sign up for income-based repayment) or may not have the right kind of debts (only student loans made directly by the federal government can be discharged; older loans that were issued by private banks with federal backing arent eligible). As a result, some borrowers spend years making payments on their debts thinking theyre making progress toward getting them discharged, when in fact theyre not.

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Its also a bit murky what jobs actually count as public service. While it seems fairly clear that government workers and employees at 501(c)(3)s are eligible, the Department of Education has reversed itself on whether workers at some other kinds of nonprofits may qualify. That move prompted a lawsuit from the American Bar Association on behalf of some of its staff.

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This all gets at the fundamental problem with PSLF: It seems almost impossible to know with 100 percent certainty whether you qualify for forgiveness until youve already spent 10 years working toward it. The best thing borrowers can do is send in paperwork to have their servicer certify that their job makes them eligible for the program, and that theyve made a certain number of payments toward forgiveness. As of last September, more than 739,000 individuals had submitted such paperwork. But in a court filing last year, the department said that students shouldnt necessarily rely on those certifications. (I know!)

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Its not clear exactly why the government turned down so many of the borrowers who have applied for forgiveness so far. The Department of Education said it rejected 8,103 applications because they were incomplete. Some of those individuals may qualify once they finish filling in all the necessary information on their forms. But the government reports that another 20,521 applications were declined because the person didnt meet all of the PSLFs complicated requirements.

Which requirements did people get tripped up on? The report doesnt say. When I asked the Department of Education if they could provide any additional information, a spokesman referred me to an unhelpful spreadsheet tab that included a short description of the programs rules, and a link where borrowers could get more basic information about applying.

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There are at least a few possibilities about whats going on, some of which are less worrisome than others. At least some borrowers may have meant to submit certification paperwork and accidentally applied to have their loans forgiven too early. Others may have mistakenly thought theyd made their 120 payments just because they lost track, or applied without having checked all the boxes with the hope that no one would notice.

Its also possible that some borrowers are getting rejected intentionally. Earlier this year, Congress set aside a pool of money to forgive the student loans of borrowers who didnt qualify for PSLF because they were enrolled in the wrong kind of repayment plan. In order to apply, though, the Department of Education website says they need to already have been rejected from the normal program first. In a letter to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, Democratic senators including Tim Kaine from Virginia and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island said those instructions were actually incorrect, and criticized the department for placing unnecessary hurdles in front of students seeking forgiveness. (When I reached out to their offices about the most recent data, Kaine called them extremely concerning while Whitehouse said he was disappointed in how few students the program was helping.)

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But the point is, while Im sure there was a chunk of people who deserved to be denied, we dont really know whats causing so many to get turned down. The real question is why they were rejected, said Ben Miller, senior director for postsecondary education at the Center for American Progress. If people who were making 10 years of payments thought they were eligible, and then got denied, then we may have a major problem on our hands.

Have you had trouble with the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program? Have you had your application denied? Slate wants to hear your story. Email: jordan.weissmann@slate.com.When the United Nations laughs, Stephen Colbert laughs with them. Donald Trump was scheduled to be the second speaker at the U.N. General Assembly yesterday, but he showed up so late that the president of Ecuador had to stand in for him. Colbert thinks he should know better, since he understands New York traffic, and has some advice for him: Just take the subway. I know it smells like pee, but rumor is you like that.

When he finally arrived, Trump addressed the U.N. by stating that in his administrations short life they have already accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country. The assembly found this remark so amusing that they all just started laughing, and even the president had to chuckle and admit he didnt expect that reaction. But he should take comfort in Colberts words, Theyre not laughing at you, theyre laughing with each other at you.

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Trump moved on to his familiar America first speech, saying that he would respect other countries as long as they too respect Americas sovereignty. Yet the respect didnt last long, because then, He started picking on them, as Colbert puts it. From Iran to Venezuela to China to Germany, the president had plenty of criticism to go around. Colbert compared his approach to working the room as an insult comic. But, in Trumps defense, he did have some praise to givefor Kim Jong-Un. Putin is going to be jealous, jokes Colbert.

As for the migration crisis, Trump has a new motto: Make their countries great again. The Late Shows host thinks this is just the president talking about a franchise opportunity: MAGA Donalds. After all, says Colbert, Hes already his own clown.This article originally appeared in Vulture.

Spoilers throughout for Netflixs Maniac.

Say what you will about Maniac, but it doesnt lack for ambition. The new Netflix mini-series is ostensibly an adaptation of a Norwegian show about a delusional man in a mental institution, but director Cary Joji Fukunaga and writer/series creator Patrick Somerville took only the slightest shred of the original, planted it in fertile ground, and it blossomed into a piece unlike anything else in serialized storytelling. In it, Jonah Hill and Emma Stone play troubled 30-somethings in a New York City that somewhat resembles our own, but contains bizarre, retro-future technology and odd business ventures, including a pharmaceutical corporation aiming to make therapy obsolete through an experimental procedure that cure all mental ailments.

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When Hills Owen and Stones Annie embark upon a trial version of the processwhich is coordinated in large part by Dr. James K. Mantleray, an onanistic scientist played by Justin Therouxthey find themselves trapped in a series of elaborate fantasies while the whole operation gradually melts down.

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The fantasies hop gleefully from genre to genre, yet the whole endeavor retains a thematic cohesiveness and never loses its momentum. To learn more about how exactly they made Maniac, we caught up with Fukunaga and Somerville to talk lemurs, working with Sally Field (who plays Mantlerays therapist mother, Dr. Greta), and the art of futuristic masturbation technology.

What do you see as the divergence point between our world and the world of the series? Its not completely divorced from us: like, you have somebody singing Sting in it.

Clearly some of our history overlaps with their history. Is it like, in the 80s, we stopped inventing things?

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Patrick Somerville: Something happened in the 90s.

Cary Joji Fukunaga: There were culture references that take place in culture now that we took out. Sting is 80s. For example, Madagascar. We took it out.

You referenced the movie Madagascar?

Fukunaga: At one point, yeah. And also Taken.

Somerville: And Ordinary People a little bit too. The break that we always talked about was somewhere in the early 80s.

Fukunaga: Or potentially 90s. Whatever our IBM era we were kinda looking in. But there are nods to it. When Annie says, I got a van. I got a man who has a van.

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Somerville: At one point, she was watching Taken earlier in that episode and she got that idea from it. I think, too, its also just sort of figurative. Theres a break, but at the same time, its our world now in terms of the ideas that lay behind AdBuddy and Friend Proxy and Dox Stop. Its all just dressed up in a different way. Hopefully, its relatable to now.

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Right, its like the Justin Theroux monologue at the beginning: There are parallel worlds, but human impulses are the same in all of them.

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Fukunaga: That was the idea. Where he says every connection creates a new reality, its like the idea that, at some point, some connection happens and this is where this world went.

I have to say, Im mentally ill and really admired the way you guys handled mental illness in the show. How did you approach that topic?

Fukunaga: Thank you for sharing that. From the very beginning, we were like, we cannot set this in a mental hospital. We did not want to make mental illness the butt of a joke by any means. Beyond even this project, there are things I want to do to try and de-stigmatize mental illness and address it in the workplace and figure out how to create more sensitivity around it.

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Somerville: My wife is a psychotherapist and my dad was a neurologist. The mind has always been a part of my life in some way, if it was my dad lecturing me about it when I was 5, or my wife and my dad debating about psychotherapy versus pharmaceuticals. My wife was a consultant on the show, too. I think my personal life, from my side of that conversation, we said, Yeah, lets make a show that looks at this in a different way.

What struck me was that the series isnt exactly anti-therapy or anti-medication. Its anti-arrogance.

Somerville: Anti-quickness, and anti-easiness, I think, too.

You have these characters who, by the end, realize that it is a long process. Being aware of that gradualness is important for mental health.

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Somerville: And people who know that youre worried about that, too. At the end of the show, part of whats helpful to Owen is that Annie is aware that this is a part of who he is and something that he is struggling with. [He] needs a friend to know that about him, and that is just not true at the beginning of the show for him.

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So, I want to talk about something just as serious: the SuckBot.

Fukunaga: No, you mean the SuckTube.

Sorry, SuckTube.

Fukunaga: The PoopBot is for the sanitary stuff and the SuckTube is for  other stuff.

Somerville: We didnt do the SuckBot yet.

Fukunaga: The SuckBot is in development.

What went into the creation of that scene, that device, and the erotic Atlantis simulator? Fuklantis, I think it was called?

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Somerville: One of the early writers, Mauricio Katz, told a story about going to this kind of eco-recovery lodge, and a woman spoke of her erotic fantasies having to do with Atlantis. That got into the show early, and then there were all kinds of different versions of what the VR was.

Then they really built it.

Fukunaga: The thing is, you have to go through a lot of legal stuff to even get things cleared. We were going to name it something other than SuckTube, because there is no way 

Somerville: We were never going to clear SuckTube.

Fukunaga: Never going to clear SuckTube.

Somerville: And then SuckTube cleared [snaps] like that.

Fukunaga: So when it came down to functioning, we were dealing with 1980s technology. Was it going to be a 5.25-inch floppy? A 3.5? We decided to go with the bigger floppy.

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How did you put together the stand-alone episode with the lemur caper?

Fukunaga: The lemur thing was probably the quickest and fastest-accepted idea.

Somerville: That was the earliest delusion idea. I think the first conversation Cary and I had was about Raising Arizonathat energy, but also there was another littler known Nic Cage movie, I cant remember what it is called, but hes basically a mean businessman and he flashes into a domestic situation. [Editors note: Its The Family Man.] Anyway, Cary and I had an initial conversation. Nick Cuse, one of the writers on the show, wrote a draft of that, we worked on it together, gave it to Cary. It just felt right in that moment, for two characters who didnt know each other, to make them be married and to start getting into the gonzo elements of the show. Were doing a lemur here and were going to insist on it.

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Fukunaga: Also, infusing energy. Its a purposely slow beginning to immerse the viewer in the world without necessarily bombarding them with exposition. When you dont have exposition, its a little slower getting into it. We knew that there needs to be a payoff for that, too. We had to increase the energy and the pace with which the episodes are going to roll out.

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Somerville: There was also figuring out the strange roles of the delusions, in terms of when Annie would pop through Linda. Annies emotional life would be put on the table. I love that episode because it hides it until she gets to that scene.

And it happens so seamlessly. Shes talking, and all of a sudden, shes talking about Annies life, not Lindas.

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Somerville: Thats Emma. Emmas performance in that scene 

Fukunaga: I think it was just one take.

Somerville: She just crushed it. She just got it. When she does, you dont tell her a thing.

What was the most challenging delusion to pull off?

Fukunaga: I think the seventh and eighth episodes were really the toughest ones to pull off.

Those are the elf ones?

Fukunaga: Yeah the elf, and also Owen in the Mob family. Those are tough because at that stage, what exactly does confrontation mean for them? What has GRTA mapped out for them? That gets so hyperintellectual that it takes away from the enjoyment sometimes. Trying to find something that was a subtle nod to that, while still being a separate adventure that would end in reuniting them again, it was really tricky to shoehorn. It just had all of these obstructions, in terms of the execution and writing of it.

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Somerville: Not to mention to keep it fun. Thats the core terrors you associate with mental illness, but its supposed to be fun. That was a lot to do at once.

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In the Mob story, you have this extremely serious and violent A-plot, and then the charmingly weird B-plot with the girl whose skin gets so hot that she radiates heat waves.

Somerville: I was always trying to really introduce insane things in the absurdist mode and Carys restraint was very good. Especially in that episode to make sure that we stayed closer to a realism vibe.

Fukunaga: We dont want people to ask if they should still even care about whats going on at this point.

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Somerville: At some point, you just stop giving a shit because it doesnt feel like there are rules.

What sticks out in your mind about working with Sally Field?

Fukunaga: How down she was to kiss her son. [Laughs.]

Somerville: More than down. She was pushing for more! [Laughs.]

Fukunaga: Her first day was actually voicing GRTA live. I like doing sound live on camera. I dont like someone trying to record it later. So she was there on the microphone, kinda like voice of God, doing GRTA, and she brought this sensuality to the role that I was not expecting.

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Somerville: A gentleness.

Fukunaga: A gentleness and sensuality to the role and a maternal energy that was verging on being slightly sexual.

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Well, she had to be a computer that can fall in love.

Fukunaga: Yeah. Its always a joy to watch people that are so pros. She knows comedy. She knows drama. She knows what she is looking for and hones in on it and does it.

Somerville: She has done this for so long that whenever I was walking up to Sally to talk to her about something, I felt like she knew what I was about to say before I said it. Every time.

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Fukunaga: What was that moment in episode five where she has the book? I needed her to do something and I didnt even tell her. I was trying to get Jonah to exit in a way that the camera would end on her pivoting around.

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Somerville: She knew what you wanted before you even said it.

Fukunaga: She knew what I wanted before I even said it. Then we went to the second take and I didnt even tell her and she landed right where I needed her to be. And it was like six in the morning by the way, we had been shooting all night.

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Somerville: It was a gift from Sally Field.

She arguably has the best line in the entire show: Gas up the Miata.

Somerville: Thats a Cary Fukunaga line.

Oh really, that was you?

Fukunaga: That was actually my  its a nod to people I know.

Somerville: Specific people? Youve heard that? Someone said that before?

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Fukunaga: No, I just know a lady. She does a lot of film screenings in New York and she has a Miata.

Why all the Don Quixote references?

Somerville: Its a very on-the-nose reference, but its one that served us well. Don Quixote is about a person struggling to tell the difference between his subjective reality and objective reality. Just to throw that big heavy book on the table at the beginning of the series is a way to say, we are interested in these ideas. It comes back in episode five, hopefully to deepen the conversation about what Annie is doing, how shes living in a subjective world, and maybe she needs it to hold on to to pull her out of it.

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Cary, did you have a particular shot that made you shout, Yes!

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Somerville: Cary Fukunaga does not go, Yes! [To Fukunaga] You pull your bud out of your ear, you look at [assistant director] Jon [Mallard], and then you do this: [Nods solemnly.] Or hell say, Yeah, thats good.

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Fukunaga: Usually, Im like this. [Sighs, places his head in his hands in exasperation.]

But seriously, was there something especially hard to pull off?

Fukunaga: Strangely, some of the smaller things. Getting the camera to pull off of the GRTA computer fluidly into the spindle that goes into the experiment room was a shot that took a long time to do. Just weird, balletic, micro-moves.

How about the uninterrupted shootout sequence?

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Fukunaga: No, we did that in like four tries, five tries.

Really?

Fukunaga: Yeah, we had rehearsed it a little bit, but 

Somerville: There arent cuts.

So thats not CGI wizardry? It really happened in single takes?

Fukunaga: Oh yeah, but thats exhausting. You cant really do it much more than that, so it is what it is.

Cary, you just got tapped to direct the new James Bond movie. What will you be looking for in a Bond villain?

Fukunaga: Im not ready to answer any of these questions yet, but I am super excited about it.

Thats what I figured. Back to Maniac, why did you pick Every Breath You Take for the scene where Jed makes everyone uncomfortable at the engagement party?

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Fukunaga: We went through a bunch of different ideas for the song, including opera at one point, which we thought would be a poetic moment for Owens character. Ultimately, thats one of those songs, I think even Sting himself said it was one of the stalk-iest songs he ever wrote. Im paraphrasing. It just felt like Jed is so emotionally tone-deaf. It was the perfect song for him to sing to his future wife that is mildly imprisoning. Owen can see that and its just the straw that breaks the camels back. Its also very meta because Trudie Styler, who plays his mother, whos dancing right next to him, is Stings wife of 26 years or something.

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Holy crap, I totally didnt make that connection.

Somerville: Shes heard that song a few times.

Fukunaga: Yes, shes heard that song a few times.

Somerville: Thats real acting for her to be, like, into it.

The show is very dense with references and world-building.

Do you have a detail that you hope people will notice, but think they wont?

Somerville: I do, for sure. Nobody is ever going to notice it. In the first episode, Jonah said, Somebody invented a new type of ham, which to me, I dont know why, is the funniest thing. It got zero laughs when we watched it in London. Cary was trying to take it out of the show for months. I was like, Youre leaving it! Youre leaving it!

Fukunaga: Thats compromise, man.

See also: Lets Talk About the Ending of ManiacIn the first new episode of Murphy Brown in 20 years, which airs Thursday on CBS, Candice Bergens legendary newscaster sits in her familiar, favorite bar, talking to her familiar, favorite friends, and lamenting her retirement, as the Trump protest march she was just participating in continues outside. Its hard being on the sidelines, especially now, with everybody screaming fake news,  she says. Fake News is the title of the episode and a preoccupation of the rebooted series, which, not content merely to be revived, wants to demonstrate its relevance. And so Brown, a few scenes later, retires from retirement. There is such insanity out there that I was becoming this nut job yelling at the TV, she tells her son. Id rather be on TV yelling out. Brown may feel like yellingwho doesntbut is her yelling still worth hearing?

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The original Murphy Brown premiered in 1988, created by Diane English , who is also overseeing the revival, and starred Bergen as a fierce reporter just out of rehab. English described her as Mike Wallace in a dress, though to be fair, Brown wore a lot of pantsuits. Early on, the show avoided terms like feminist, but thats what Brown was. A fortysomething woman with an impressive career and no partner, and no particular angst about that lack of partner, Brown was cutting, imperious, tough, and pricklyin a running gag, she fired a secretary she found wanting every episodestaking out territory that has, in the years since, been more fully explored by all the imperfect and watchable heroines that Brown helped inspire.

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Murphy Brown was set behind the scenes of a network newsmagazine show, FYI, and was exceedingly alive to contemporary politics. The show featured much running banter and wisecracks at current politicians expense, while sometimes lightly fictionalizing real news stories so as to feature them on FYI. But in the shows most famous moment, its fictions became actual politics when Vice President Dan Quayle, on the campaign trail in 1992, accused the shows portrayal of single motherhood of contributing to the disintegration of family values. Dizzyingly, Murphy addressed Quayles comments directly on FYI, a fictional character responding to a real politicians comments on her fictional news show to make a real political point.

The reboot is after this same effectbut it cant achieve it. Were in a hall of mirrors for sure, but everything is upside down or stretched out. For her new cable news show, Murphy in the Morning, Brown assembles the old team: emo investigative reporter Frank (Joe Regalbuto), first seen wearing a pussy hat; perky Corky (Faith Ford), first seen in a pair of Ivanka heels; neurotic Miles (Grant Shaud), first seen paranoid and hiding out in his apartment, in recovery from being a producer on The View; old-fashioned news anchor Jim (Charles Kimbrough), now a retiree living on his boat. Eldin, Murphys housepainter and babysitter, has passed away (Robert Pastorelli, the actor who played him, died in 2004), but that baby is all grown up. At 28, Avery (Jake McDorman) is the newly minted host of his very own morning show, one with the same time slot as his moms, but on the Fox News stand-in Wolf Network. Averys the token liberal, not a conservativeand thank goodness. Its a relief not to hear, a la Roseanne, patently watered-down conservative talking points doing phony battle with liberal overreach. So instead of being a foil to his mothers political views, hes a foil to her journalistic ones.

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Murphy Browns political chatter has been reduced to a lot of Trump jokes. The reboot is much more interested in the current state of the media. The first three episodes are unsatisfying sitcom disquisitions on Conundrums in Contemporary Media Coverage. Take the third episode, in which Brown has to decide whether to interview the right-wing, multiple-shirt-wearing, former White House aide Ed Shannon. She ultimately decides against it: It would be a ratings bonanza, sure, but she would be making the news instead of covering it, while giving Shannon an opportunity to normalize his anti-crimmigrant message. But after Brown says no to the interview, Shannon finds Murphy at her local bar, where they proceed to conduct the debate her producer had been hoping to put on-air.

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In other words, Murphy Brown, the show, argues that ethical journalists ought to take the high road and refuse to give coverage to Steve Bannon and the alt-rightwhile providing its own audience with the contentious debate that real news producers can only deliver if they interview challenging people on-air (and dont forget to challenge them). Contra Dan Quayle, Murphy Brown may be a great role model, but Murphy Brown is very do as I say, not as I do.

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Theres a whiff of The Newsroom about the rebooted Murphy Brown, not so much in the shows sitcom boneswhich are very, very creakybut in the disconnect between all its highfalutin thinking about what the media can and should do and the fictional news programs that supposedly embody this better way. Averys America is, were told, a thoughtful sojourn to real localesbars, bowling alleyswhere real Americans share their views. In the one bit we see, this real conversation devolves into a bar fight. In the opening segment of Murphy in the Morning, Murphy and her co-hosts say it will be a different kind of cable news program.  Well talk about politics like its not a sporting event. Then the shows very first segment is Climate Change: Is It Real, or Is It a Hoax, the quintessential example of giving two sides a chance to bat even when one side is utterly bogus.

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Browns new show also promises to tell the news without hostilityas if hostility werent one of Browns most compelling qualities. From the shows beginnings, Brown has freely lost her temper, sometimes on the airwatch her interview a bigot here. This, as much as anything, made her a kind of feminist fantasy: a woman of authority who regularly got to display her fury without losing her audience. In the new Murphy Brown, Brown still gets angry, but the show is less interested in that angers radical possibilities than in hackneyed ideas about how a well-functioning media would constrain it.Better Life Lab is a partnership of Slate and New America.

In Kent, England, in 1313, a woman named Alice accused John of rape. John denied the charge, but an all-male jury found John guilty. Had John been single, the jury would have forced him to marry Alice, since her public status as a rape survivor would have made it difficult for her to marry otherwise. But John was already married, so the jury decreed that Alice should tear out his eyes and cut off his testicles. Instead, Alice withdrew her charge after reaching an out-of-court financial settlement with her rapist.

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It may be difficult to understand why an accuser would withdraw a rape chargeespecially one with so much overwhelming proof that it convinced a medieval jury. And today, a financial settlement between accuser and accused is sometimes seen as evidence that no assault occurred, or that the motives of the accuser arent genuine desires for justice but personal enrichment. But rape survivors today pursue monetary restitution through civil litigation for a variety of reasons, including the desire to avoid victim-blaming in the courtroom, to have more control over the process, and greater odds of success due to a lower burden of proof.

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In Bill Cosbys April criminal trial for drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand, Cosbys lawyers repeatedly brought up the fact that Constand had accepted a financial settlement from Cosby. Twelve years earlier, the Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, district attorney had declined to prosecute the case in criminal court, citing a lack of evidence, so Constand sued Cosby, and Cosby settled. At the criminal trial, the defense called Constand a con artist who had falsely accused Cosby because she wanted money, money, and lots more money. They characterized her settlement as a big score, one of the biggest highway robberies of all times. They fought to reveal the settlements precise amount$3.38 millionhoping that its sheer size would convince the jury that Constand had lied for a fat paycheck: The larger the settlement, their logic went, the more likely that the whole thing was a shakedown.

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But studies show that there are real financial losses associated with experiencing rape, including emergency room fees, rape kit costs, and medications for preventing HIV or treating STIs. This doesnt even begin to capture the losses that come later, such as therapy, job changes, moving, failing classes, or other major setbacks due to traumas aftermath. In order to avoid having continued contact with Cosby shortly after the assault, Constand left her job at Temple University and moved back home with her parents. Traumatized, she suffered constant nightmares about Cosby assaulting other women in front of her. Her mother testified in court that she often heard her daughter screaming in her sleep. So why are we so resistant to the thought of survivors gaining something after undergoing such irreparable and life-altering loss?

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Studies show that there are real financial losses associated with experiencing rape.

In medieval England, financial settlements for rape were often considered to be the best option for everyone involved. Marriage between rapist and victim, which seems like a horrifying outcome to us today, was another form of monetary settlement, since a woman who had filed a rape charge was publicly marked as damaged goods and would have difficulty affording a dowry or finding long-term financial support through marriage. Conviction rates were also extremely low: In one 1363 case, three different women accused John de Warter of breaking into their homes at night and raping them, only for a jury to find him not guilty on all counts. The law often mandated harsh penalties involving mutilation or death, but the prescribed punishments were rarely carried out even upon conviction. Instead, numerous cases show the jury finding the assailant guilty of rape, then failing to sentence him because he reached a settlement involving money or marriage with his victim.

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This emphasis on restitution rather than punishment is reflected in numerous legal records: When William raped Juliana in Wiltshire in 1249, the jury found in her favor, and he was forced to pay her a hefty settlement of 40 shillingswhich could have bought two horses with change to sparein addition to marrying her. Juliana is characterized as poor in the court records, making this double settlement of money plus marriage especially important since her already-slim chances of being able to afford a dowry would have been nonexistent after her rape. After Sibba was raped and beaten near York, England, in 1208 by William, he agreed to pay her 20 shillings. The sheriff volunteered to deliver the money personally to Sibba, indicating that the legal system supported her and was committed to helping her. And in 1202 when Simon attacked Leviva in Lincolnshire, England, and kept her bound in his house for eight days, he agreed to pay her a half-mark, or the equivalent of one cow. In all three cases, witness testimony backed up the womens accounts, demonstrating that they were supported by their communities. For both Sibba and Leviva, the settlements were reached before a jury returned a verdict. A medieval jury would have assumed that Cosbys financial settlement with Constand was evidence of his guilt, not innocence.

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On Tuesday, Cosby was sentenced to three to 10 years in prison, more than a decade after he paid his victim millions in an out-of-court civil settlement. Our justice system is arguably more fair than the one women like Alice and Sibba faced several hundred years ago, but both courts recognized that punishment can come in both monetary and physical forms. With a groundswell of women now feeling empowered to report sexual assault at the hands of powerful men, more courts are likely to face cases where the victim was paid well before opening arguments in the criminal case began. Just like Juliana and Leviva, and just like Andrea Constand, these crimes affected these womens livelihoods. If one of the purposes of our modern justice system is to fight on behalf of the victim, then we shouldnt discredit victims when they decide that justice also entails having their assailants pay up.In a 2011 interview, Mitchell said she was drawn to sex crimes work after she was paired with a senior lawyer prosecuting a youth choir director after joining the office as a law clerk awaiting the results of her bar exam. It was different than anything that I would have ever imagined it being, she said. It struck me how innocent and vulnerable the victims of these cases really were.

She is now a supervisor, where her duties include analyzing legislative changes and managing other attorneys. In an interview earlier this year on a local NPR radio station, she talked about the nuts-and-bolts of the offices adoption of a new sex crimes protocol, the first in office history, intended to improve the investigation and prosecution of cases. She said the new manual would ensure prosecutors have something to look at to say, okay, these are the best practices, so that we can do the best we can for victims.The investigative website Bellingcat, working with the Russia-focused media site The Insider claims to have identified one of the two suspects in the March poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury, England. According to the investigation, one of the two men charged by British authorities, who traveled to the U.K. under the name Ruslan Boshirov, is actually Anatoliy Chegipa, a colonel in the GRURussias military intelligence servicewho was awarded Russias highest state honor, Hero of the Russian Federation in 2014. British officials, who also charged that the two men were GRU officers, have not yet commented on the report, but according to the BBC, there is no dispute over the identification.

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This, to put it mildly, contradicts the story given by Boshirov and co-suspect Alexander Petrov in a recent interview with RT. The two claimed to be vitamin salesmen who had traveled to England for fun and visited Salisburytwice in two days for just a few hours at a time due to inclement weatherjust to see its famous gothic cathedral. In the interview Boshirov/Chegipa rattled off facts about the cathedrals spire that seemed drawn from a Wikipedia page. The RT interview also suggested that the two men might be gay.

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Shortly after the interview, on Sept. 14, Bellingcat reported that documents show the two men were issued IDs under their cover names in 2009theres no previous record of them under those namesand that one of their files contained markings associated with the Russian secret services. A telephone number on one of the files connects to the defense ministry, according to the Guardian.

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Wednesday, Bellingcat followed up with the identity of Chepiga, which it found through examinations of photographs of graduates of Russian military academies, telephone databases, and passport files. Bellingcat is an open-source investigative site founded by the English blogger Eliot Higgins, best known for his reports on munitions and chemical weapons in Syria and the shootdown of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 in Ukraine in 2015. His work is frequently cited by NGOs and media outlets.

According to the newly assembled bio of Col. Chegipa, he was born in 1979 in a small town near the Chinese border, and, at 18, attended one of Russias elite training grounds for marine commandos and Spetsnaz officers. He was deployed three times to Chechnya and received the alias Ruslan Boshirov sometime between 2003 and 2010. He was awarded Hero of the Russian Federation 2014 for an unspecified mission. (Given the timing, it likely had something to do with Ukraine.) The award is typically handed out by the Russian president personally to only a few officers per year. And in news that will come as a disappointment for those who were rooting for the star-crossed love story of Ruslan and Alexander, Chegipa is reportedly married with one child.

Bellingcats sleuthing is unlikely to have too much of an impact in Russia, where Higgins has long been dismissed as a NATO-backed propagandist. The new details may help bolster Britains case that Russia is lying, but its not as if the Kremlin was really trying hard to make the cover story convincing anyway.On Wednesday, attorney Michael Avenatti revealed a sworn declaration by his client, Julie Swetnick, alleging that, while in high school, Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh targeted women for group sexual assault. Swetnicks horrific allegations, put forth under penalty of perjury, describe numerous boys drugging and raping young women in Maryland during the early 1980s. Her declaration contradicts Kavanaughs statements while bolstering the accusation of Christine Blasey Ford, who claims a very drunken Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge sexually assaulted her around 1982.

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Swetnicks allegations require a thorough investigation on the part of Maryland authorities. She is alleging nothing less than a conspiracy of sex abuse involving multiple rapists, none of whom, apparently, have faced any punishment for their reported crimes. Its worth noting that, unlike earlier accusations against Kavanaugh, Swetnicks story was not vetted by journalists. That makes an investigation all the more necessary. Without one, there will now be a cloud over every male student in a very broad social circle. Swetnick implies that some number of young men were at the very least aware of grave sexual abuse and did not report it. Her allegation cannot be ignored. And if it isnt true, it should not be allowed to hang over this entire cohort indefinitely. At this point, an investigation isnt optional.

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Swetnicks declaration recounts alleged behavior on the part of Kavanaugh and others over the course of years. She claims that Kavanaugh and Judge engaged in persistent inappropriate conduct, including the fondling and grabbing of girls without their consent. Swetnick says that Kavanaugh and Judge would spike the punch at house parties with drugs or grain alcohol to cause girls to lose their inhibitions. They would, she alleges, target specific girls so they could be taken advantage of. She then states:

I also witnessed efforts by Mark Judge, Brett Kavanaugh and others to cause girls to become inebriated and disoriented so they could then be gang raped in a side room or bedroom by a train of numerous boys. I have a firm recollection of seeing boys lined up outside rooms at many of these parties waiting for their turn with a girl inside the room. These boys included Mark Judge and Brett Kavanaugh.

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Swetnick reports becoming the victim of one of these gang or train rapes where Judge and Kavanaugh were present. Her declaration does not clarify whether they participated in the alleged rape. She alleges she was drugged with Quaaludes or something similar, though she makes no claim regarding who may have drugged her.

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Here, Swetnick has accused multiple men of rape, attempted rape, and conspiracy to commit rape. Even those men who did not directly participate in the alleged rape could be liable as accomplices depending on the kind of behavior they engaged in. Maryland has no statute of limitations for any felony sex crime, meaning charges could be brought today. These laws reflect an affirmative choice by the Legislature to give victims more time to come forward. It would make no sense to claim that Swetnick, Ford, and others waited too long to report these alleged crimes when Maryland has crafted statutes designed to let them report whenever they choose.

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Moreover, Swetnicks declaration expands the alleged crimes far beyond a single house party on one night in 1982. She asserts that Kavanaugh, Judge, and others engaged in this conduct in both Montgomery County, Maryland, and in Ocean City, across the state in Worcester County. Swetnick therefore alleges that these men committed crimes repeatedly, in multiple locations, in at least two jurisdictions within Maryland.

Local authorities in both counties would now seem to be obliged to look into the claims made in Swetnicks declaration. The Sentinel reported on Monday that government investigators are looking at allegations made against Kavanaugh during his senior year in high school. If true, thats a start. But its not enough. Investigators in both Montgomery County and Worcester County should question Kavanaugh, Judge, and others who may be involved about Swetnicks allegations. They should also speak to Swetnick herself to glean more details, including possible locations and co-conspirators.

It is difficult to see why the men implicated in Swetnicks statement wouldnt also want a thorough investigation to exonerate them if they are innocent. Kavanaugh has already said he wants a fair process, and only law enforcement is equipped to handle charges of this nature. It is undoubtedly true that, as some Republican senators have noted, Avenatti has his own agenda. The just response, however, is not to disregard his client, but to urge official scrutiny of her claims.Donald Trump, no fan of cooperating witnesses, has publicly indicated he believes those who provide information to law enforcement about their former bosses to avoid harsh prison sentences are disloyal and should be considered unprincipled. As a politician whose previous associates have taken plea deals to cooperate with investigators, Trump has suggested flippers are often worse than those they inform on.

After Michael Cohen, Trumps longtime attorney and defender, turned on the president, Trump told Fox & Friends in August that he thought the use of cooperating witnesses should be questioned as a practice.

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They get 10 years in jail and they flip on whoever the next highest one is, or as high as you can go, he said. It almost ought to be outlawed. Its not fair.  Its called flipping, and it ought to almost be illegal.

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As Ben Mathis-Lilley wrote in Slate, though, the practice of persuading lower-level gang members to inform on higher-level gang members is a key strategy in his DOJs prosecution of MS-13 and other criminal gangs. Theres room to criticize the practice, as some have suggested it might be too coercive or produce false testimony, but Trumps issue with it has more to do with the concept of loyalty as it applies to his political world and white-collar crime.

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According to court filings, prosecutors looking to put away Joaquin El Chapo Guzman became worried that the presidents words could be used against them, and they asked a federal judge in New York on Friday to bar the drug kingpins defense team from using comments from a specific government official about flippers, according to the Washington Post.

Those prosecutors were worried that if jurors heard of the presidents words, jurors would come to doubt the prosecutions use of El Chapos associates as witnesses in the trial.

A government officials recent comments in which he criticized cooperating witnesses in a wholly separate investigation, calling them flippers whose use probably should be illegal, have been highly publicized, prosecutors wrote. The government requests that the Court preclude the defense from referring to those comments during argument or questioning of witnesses. These statements have no bearing on the facts at issue in this case or the particular cooperating witnesses the government expects to call at trial.

If Trumps comments are used it wouldnt be the first time they would be invoked in a criminal trial. In August, a defense attorney in a drug case tried to use Trumps comments on flippers to challenge the legitimacy of using a cooperating witness. The judge scolded the attorney, calling the argument out of line, and his client was convicted.Rep. Keith Ellison, who is running for attorney general in Minnesota, announced on Wednesday that he was asking the House Ethics Committee to investigate abuse allegations against him, according to BuzzFeed News.

On Sunday, Sen. Mazie Hirono called for an investigation into the allegations. She joined a growing number of Democrats calling for a formal investigation.

Karen Monahan, a former girlfriend who lived with Ellison in 2015 and 2016, accused him in August of repeated verbal abuse and one instance in which he pulled her from a bed by her ankle and shouted at her. Monahan claims to have a video of the incident but will not release it, saying it is traumatic. Ellison, who is also the deputy chairman of the Democratic National Committee, has repeatedly denied the allegations.

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I am taking this step now because I am innocent and eager to see this entire matter resolved, Ellison said. In addition to any House Ethics investigation, an independent investigation has been conducted by an independent attorney. I have complied fully with that investigation, the results of which should be made public soon.

The Minnesota Democratic Party and the Democratic National Committee have both said they are looking into the allegations.

Monahan has pushed for her accusations to be taken seriously by Democrats, and on Sept. 18, she posted a photo on Twitter of medical documents she says proves she told a doctor in 2017 that she had been in an abusive relationship with Ellison.

A decade earlier, another former girlfriend, Amy Alexander, claimed he berated and pushed her during an on-and-off relationship in the 1990s and early 2000s. He had sought a restraining order against her in 2005, and the next year a judge dismissed her request for a restraining order against him, according to the Star Tribune.

Ellison is set to leave the House in January, when his term ends.On Monday, good government groups released a heavily redacted and previously confidential Trump administration memo from April outlining and authorizing what would ultimately become the White Houses disastrous family separation border policy.

The memo, obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request by Open the Government and the Project on Government Oversight, mentions a series of options that were presented to Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen on April 23 for how to approach the Justice Departments zero tolerance policy on prosecuting undocumented border crossers.

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Contrary to Nielsens public statements, the memo made clear that this was a family separation policy. Nielsen seems to have misled Congress and the American people when she repeatedly claimed that there was no policy of separating families at the border.

The policy in question resulted in more than 2,500 children being taken unlawfully from their parents by the Trump administration before it was halted by a federal court in June as a violation of the Due Process Clause of the Constitution. After the court ordered that separated families be reunified, it was revealed that hundreds of parents were deported without their children. The administration is still in the process of attempting to reunite those familiesas of last week at least 182 potentially eligible children had not been reunified with their parents.

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At the time that the policy was falling apart, though, Nielsen was publicly insisting that no such policy existed.

 On May 10, she told NPR: Its not our intent to separate people one day longer than is necessary to prove that there is in fact a custodial relationship.

 Under questioning by Sen. Kamala Harris of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on May 15, Nielsen stated: We do not have a policy to separate children from their parents.

 And on June 17, she tweeted: We do not have a policy of separating families at the border. Period.

Now the memo reveals that this was in fact a policy that she did apparently sign off on.

That memosent to Nielsen by Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Thomas Homan, Director of Citizenship and Immigration Services L. Francis Cissna, and Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin K. McAleenanoffered three possible options for enhanced border enforcement.

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Homan, Cissna, and McAleenan recommended Option 3 as the most effective method to achieve operational objectives and the Administrations goal to end catch and release. That third option involved prosecuting and separating those presenting with a family unit, between ports of entry in coordination with DOJ.

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The memo also described how Nielsen could direct the separation of parents or legal guardians and minors held in immigration detention so that the parent or legal guardian can be prosecuted. It requested Nielsens decision on whether to pursue increased prosecution and guidance on the preferred option. The signature on the memo, which was addressed to Nielsen alone, is redacted, but Option 3 was selected.

Both groups are appealing the memos heavy redaction. The Secretary of Homeland Security is a high-level public official; using privacy exemptions to hide her role in major policy decisions is unacceptable, they stated.

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An unredacted version of the memo, obtained by the groups but not released by them for reasons of source protection, described the argument behind recommending the third option. The memo stated that it was very difficult to complete immigration proceedings and remove adults who came with children and that separating families would increase the consequences for illegally entering the United States.

The Washington Post originally obtained the memo this past spring and described portions of it in an article that indicated that Nielsen had been presented with two other options: prosecuting all single adults, and ramping up government resources accordingly; or working with prosecutors to charge as many adults as possible, using existing resources, which the memo said would be the least effective approach.

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She chose the option that separated families.

The Post also noted that the memo described a pilot program for family separation in the El Paso sector between July 2017 and November 2017, which the memos authors credited with a decrease in illegal family border crossings of 64 percent.

In response to questioning in front of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security on April 11before the memo was signed but after the pilot program had been undertaken and the zero-tolerance policy announcedNielsen denied that DHS would separate families for any reason other than the welfare of children and to combat child smuggling.

The standard is to in every cases, keep that family together as long as operationally possible, she testified. When we separate, we separate because the law tells us to and that is in the interest of the child. So, if we cannot confirm that adult who is accompanying them is either a legal guardian or parent, we do seek to, as you say, verify that.

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Less than two weeks later, Nielsen apparently signed off on a policy that, according to the administrations own officials, was likely to cause untold psychological trauma to hundreds of such children. Congress deservesand should demanda full record and accounting of how she came to make that decision, and then lie to the American people about it.

Update, Sept. 26, 6:25 p.m.: DHS spokeswoman Katie Waldman issued this statement on Wednesday: The oft cited quote pulled from the April 23 memo simply states the premise that DHS has the legal authority to take an action  however, it did not direct a policy of family separation for the purposes of deterrence. Conflating authority vs. actual policy based on a redacted memo provides a disservice to the public and does not show the full picture of considerations presented to the Secretary.The Daily Beast obtained a memo from a Putin-aligned Russian investor summarizing a meeting with influential Trump ally Erik Prince in the Seychelles last year, a meeting that has come under scrutiny by Robert Muellers special counsel investigation.

According to the report, the memo revealed that the two parties discussed Russian-U.S. cooperation in fighting terrorism in Syria and a Russian plan to pour money into Midwestern companies, among other topics.

The memo was sent by Kirill Dmitriev, the CEO of a Russian sovereign wealth fund, to the head of a hedge fund in the U.S. and described a meeting that occurred at the Four Seasons Hotel bar in January 2017, just before Trumps inauguration. After the meeting, Erik Princethe former head of the private security company Blackwater and an ally of the Trump transition team and brother of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVostestified before the House Intelligence Committee that the conversation had been unplanned and unimportant, nothing more than a chance encounter at a luxury hotel.

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In March, however, it was reported that Muellers team had gathered evidence that the secretive meeting had actually been an attempt to establish a back channel between the incoming Trump administration and the Kremlin.

The subject of that meeting, though, still remained murky. But according to the memo obtained by the Daily Beast, it revolved around five key ideas.

 U.S.-Russia cooperation in the fight against ISIS.

 Cooperation to address chemical weapons, biological terror, and nuclear proliferation.

 Win-win economic investment initiatives that would involve Russian companies, with the funds backing, making investments to serve the U.S. market in the Midwest. The memo implied that this would help Trump deliver on campaign promises and make him more popular among his base. It also suggested a trip by Washington politicians to Moscow to highlight U.S. business success in Russia.

 An honest and open and continual dialogue on differences and concerns between the two countries. This would involve the Ukraine crisis.

 A small working group to create an action plan for a major improvement in the U.S.-Russia relationship.

The proposals, according to the Daily Beast, are not unusual and reflect those made by the Russian government more officially. It was the back-channel nature of the way these proposals were made, not the content itself, that raised red flags.President Donald Trump signaled Wednesday that he would blame China if the Republicans do poorly in Novembers midterm elections.

He unfurled the scenario Wednesday morning while chairing a session of the United Nations Security Council. The topic of the meeting was nonproliferation and weapons of mass destruction. But in the middle of his opening statement, Trump said, China is going to interfere in the 2018 election, against my administration. They do not want me to win because I am the first President to challenge them on trade.

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Trump said nothing about the all-but-universally held conclusion that Russia hacked the 2016 election in a way that helped Trump himself win the presidency. He said nothing about Russia at allnot even about its use of chemical weapons at an ex-spy now living in England. (French President Emmanuel Macron mentioned, and denounced, that incident in his speech.)

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This was not the first time Trump floated a trial balloon of blaming China for what could be the Republicans potential loss of the House of Representatives and possibly the Senate. On Sept. 18, he tweeted:

China has openly stated that they are actively trying to impact and change our election by attacking our farmers, ranchers and industrial workers because of their loyalty to me. What China does not understand is that these people are great patriots and fully understand that.....  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 18, 2018

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.....China has been taking advantage of the United States on Trade for many years. They also know that I am the one that knows how to stop it. There will be great and fast economic retaliation against China if our farmers, ranchers and/or industrial workers are targeted!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 18, 2018

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He posted that tweet shortly after China threatened to impose tariffs on American agricultural goods in response to Trumps placing tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese products. His implication was that, given farmers great loyalty and patriotic self-sacrifice, the Republicans loss of those states could only be explained by Chinese interference. He also seemed to suggest that, if Russia did tilt the last election, Chinas rigging of the next election somehow equalizes matters.

As with many odd things that Trump says and writes, it is unclear whether he believes this or whether he is merely trying to plant conspiratorial ideas in the minds of his followers. Either way, the tweetbolstered by his more blanket line in his speech at the Security Councilreveals a man incapable of admitting defeat or accepting responsibility for it.In the years leading up to the 2016 U.S. election, Facebook became the worlds de facto morning newspaperand everyone wanted to land on A1. With more and more people getting their news on the app and in the news feed, media companies competed in the companys algorithmic sweepstakes, crafting headlines and story ideas to induce clicks, likes, and shares on the social network.

It was often a dirty game: one in which accuracy and nuance could be sacrificed on the altar of engagement. But for a time it seemed to work well enough, at least for the publishers willing and able to play along. In return for free content from news organizations, Facebook directed spurts of readers to their websites, which converted the page views into ad revenue.

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That eras over. Since 2017, scandals involving fake news, Russian electoral interference, and user privacy have sullied the social networks reputation. Facebook has responded to the criticism partly by trying to exert more control over what stories appear in users feedsbut also partly by simply showing them less news. For many publishers (though certainly not all), traffic from Facebook has nosedived.

This change in the landscape has left both readers and publishers casting about for new platforms. Google, YouTube, Twitter, Snapchat, and Flipboard are among those that have sought to fill the vacuum left by Facebooks pullbackeach bringing its own set of incentives for publishers who want to reach more readers. But one platform in particular has exploded as a news source in the past year, and it promises an antidote to some of the poisonous dynamics that Facebook had set in motion. That platform is Apple News.

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Launched to rather tepid fanfare three years ago, Apples mobile news app has recently surged in popularity and influence, if publishers traffic figures are any indication. Sources at several news outlets say theyve seen their audience on Apple News multiply in 2018 alone. Some now say it has become one of their top traffic sources, alongside Facebook and Google. At Slate, which disclosed its data for this story, page views on Apple News have roughly tripled since September 2017, and the app recently surpassed Facebook as a driver of readership.

Conversations with social media consultants and people who work in audience development at major publications, along with recent reports by other outlets, suggest Slate is not an outlierwhich is why many news organizations are now making Apple News an important part of their strategy to reach as large an audience as possible.

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There is, of course, a catch. Whereas Facebook sent hordes of readers from its news feed to publishers websites, Apple tends to keep them inside its app. And so far, publishers have found thats not a lucrative place to be. Although Apple allows publishers to sell ads within their storiesand partnered two years ago with NBCUniversal to sell backfill ads in slots that the publishers dont fill themselvesseveral sources at media outlets told me that theyre seeing little to no revenue from Apple News.

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The problem, publishers say, is that the NBCUniversal partnership isnt yielding much money, and Apple doesnt make it particularly easy for publishers to fill their own unsold inventory. Apple News doesnt support some of the common ad systems that dominate ad sales on the web, and not all media companies find it worthwhile to develop and sell ads specifically for Apple News. (Those that do can keep all the revenue or they can let Apple sell them, in which case Apple takes a 30 percent cut.) As Matt Karolian, the Boston Globes director of new initiatives, told me, The juice aint worth the squeeze.*

Until recently, Apple sold backfill ads only through the NBCUniversal partnership, and even some of the largest publishers told Digiday they saw little revenue from those ads. Thats in contrast to Googles Accelerated Mobile Pages, or AMPanother format that hosts publications articles on a platform rather than their own websiteswhich allows publishers to place many of the same types of ads theyre already selling on the web. More recently, Apple has started allowing publishers to serve ads via Googles popular Ad Manager, which could make it much easier for publications to place ads in the News app. But its revenue potential within Apple News is unproven, at least for the average publisher. Apple declined to comment on the ad revenue that publishers are seeing from News.

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Apple doesnt sell many ads within the app and doesnt make it particularly easy for publishers to sell their own.

Chris Schieffer, Slates senior product manager, said Slate still makes virtually no money from Apple News even as its audience there has skyrocketed. I did one back-of-the-envelope calculation that startled me: Slate makes more money from a single article that gets 50,000 page views on its site than it does from the 6 million page views it receives on Apple News in an average month.*

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An audience development director at another midsize publication agreed with Schieffers diagnosis: Its hard to monetize in any way. Apple did pay BuzzFeed to premiere three documentary videos on Apple News before other platforms, but such arrangements are not the norm at this point. The norm is that Applethe worlds most valuable companyis getting news stories for free from publishers, many of which are struggling to make ends meet, and giving them little to no money in return.

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So why would an industry largely sustained by ads go in on a platform that, thus far, does not pay? Because Apple News may represent a saner way of discovering the news than Facebook. And because there are some indirect ways in which publishers believe the apps massive audience will make them money.

Apple News comes installed on every iOS device, and you can find its featured stories by swiping left from the home screen. With some 1.3 billion iOS devices in use around the world, the potential readership is vastand sure to grow. On Monday, Apple released a new Mac operating system, MacOS Mojave, that brings Apple News to desktop computers for the first time.

Because Apple both tightly controls the platform and closely guards its data, there are no definitive industrywide figures on Apple News traffic. But the company does share some data with its media partners. And that data is as encouraging as the data coming out of Facebook is dispiriting. The Information reported in February that there were days when Vox got half of its daily traffic from Apple News. Business Insider reported in May that Vices Apple News traffic had more than doubled in the past year. Digiday reported in January that ABC News had more than 400,000 people signed up for its alerts on Apple News.

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Mother Jones, meanwhile, has seen a 400 percent leap in Apple News audience since last September, said Ben Dreyfuss, its editorial director for growth and strategy. The spike began in the first few months of 2018, he added, when readership doubled in consecutive months.

That kind of growth would grab media companies attention no matter where it was coming from. No wonder a Digiday poll in February found that more media executives were prioritizing Apple News over other platforms.

Its unclear exactly what is driving this vertiginous growth, and Apple declined to comment on its usage metrics for this story. (It also isnt universal: The Globes Karolian said, Traffic bump? What traffic bump? Our traffic has stayed relatively flat.) Push notifications could be part of the storyApple News sends alerts throughout the day based on users interestsbut thats unlikely to be the full story. Apple has also made News an explicit priority over the past year, acquiring the news-subscription app Texture and launching a special Midterm Elections section within the app to draw in politics junkies.

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The audience isnt the only thing that excites publishers. Unlike Facebook, Apple News employs humans to choose its top stories and takes cues from editors at the news organizations with which it partners. The result is a platform that looks more like an online magazine than an algorithmically generated feedone where editorial judgments about news value tend to trump viral clickbait, and breaking news and original features outrank partisan hot takes. By regularly delivering push notifications to users from publications theyve signaled interest in, the app gives editors a direct line to readers phones. It is, in many ways, the anti-Facebook that the mainstream news media (and some of its savvier consumers) have been craving.

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If you were to sit down with publishers and ask them what they would want to see in a multi-source news app, it would look probably pretty much identical to Apple News, said Karolian, who has worked to develop the Globes presence on the platform.

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How Apple News decides what stories to feature in each users app is a bit murky. Several sources confirmed to Slate a February report from the Information that Apple has set up Slack channels in which editors at major publications can pitch stories for it to feature. BBC News has one, as does Slate. Apple News also sometimes rewrites headlines on the articles it picks for its featured sections, and uses its Slack channels to make sure those changes are accurate. Sources at two midsize publications said they do not have access to a Slack channel with Apple News, though one said he corresponds occasionally with the apps editors via email.

All of the stories Apple highlights in its Top Stories, Top Videos, and Editors Picks sections, as well as roundups such as the Morning Digest, are hand-picked by Apple News editors, the company confirmed. Several of those editors are former journalists. In a move that turned heads, the company hired Lauren Kern, a respected editor from New York magazine, as its first editor in chief of Apple News in May 2017.* And this month, the Information reported that Apple had named a former Conde Nast China executive as its head of news business.

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Apple CEO Tim Cook explained the thinking behind the human curation at a conference in June. News was kind of going a little crazy, he said, in what sounded like a veiled reference to Facebooks well-documented problems. For Apple News, he went on, we felt top stories should be selected by humans to make sure youre not picking content that strictly has the goal of enraging people.

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If you were to sit down with publishers and ask them what they would want to see in a multi-source news app, it would look probably pretty much identical to Apple News.  Matt Karolian, Boston Globe director of new initiatives

But the app also uses algorithms to personalize its recommendations for each user, and its Trending section relies on an automated ranking system. (Not surprisingly, Trending is the section of Apple News where youre most likely to find headlines such as, Florida bartender arrested for throwing beer mug at customers head over bathroom comment.) Beyond the human-edited sections mentioned above, everything in each users feed is automated.

Still, the human touch gratifies editors who are tired of depending on the whims of Facebooks inscrutable algorithm. People like it because its another platform where they have the ability to control traffic to their content, said Matt Navarra, a digital media consultant who was previously director of social media at the Next Web. Sources who have worked with Apple News staff said they tend to be especially interested in originally reported features, exclusive scoops, and big breaking news stories, whereas Facebooks software often elevated sensational headlines and polarizing opinions. Browse Apple News and youll see that its not entirely innocent of man-bites-dog headlines, celebrity gossip, or partisan rancor, but its rarely dominated by them.

Our newsroom editors appreciate talking to editors who actually appreciate journalism and storytelling, said Nathalie Malinarich, the mobile and new formats editor at BBC News. They speak the same language, while algorithms are a bit of a black box. That said, Malinarich noted that it can be sometimes hard to understand decision-making around the selection of one news org over another for a story in one of the apps featured sections. It matters because those featured sections drive a significant proportion of publications total audience on Apple News.

The audience growth and the human editing is the good news for publishers. And so far, that seems to outweigh their disappointment in the revenue. The reason is that there may be other ways to leverage the Apple News readership.

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Slates Schieffer told me that the magazine uses its Apple News ad slots on house ads promoting its own podcasts, and hopes to use the app in the future to drive sign-ups for its Slate Plus membership program. Thats a model that does appear to hold some promise: The Washington Post told the Information earlier this year that it was gaining hundreds of paying subscribers through Apple News each day. And Apple reportedly plans to eventually incorporate Texture into its own premium subscription servicelike Apple Music, but for news.* (Texture, whose service has been glossed as Netflix for magazines, gives users access to digitized versions of dozens of magazines for a single monthly subscription.)

That might help a certain subset of national or international outlets that have membership or subscription programsalthough even some of those, such as the Guardian, have decided to stop using Apple News. But the platform remains tough for smaller publishers, including news outlets with a local or regional focus. A study by the Tow Center found that less than 4 percent of the stories Apple included in its newsletter came from regional publications. The majority came from some of the worlds largest outlets, such as the New York Times and CNN. (Its worth noting that its possible some of those large outlets are also seeing more ad revenue from Apple News than the ones that spoke with Slate for this story.)

Navarra said he didnt have a direct line to Apple when he worked at the Next Web, a U.K.-based tech blog, and he frequently hears from audience development managers at other publications who also struggle to get their foot in the door. Its still quite elitist in terms of how they deal with publishers and who they choose to deal with, Navarra said of Apple News. If youre someone they want to work withif youre the New York Times, or the top tieryoull hear from them. If youre somewhere down the pecking order, I get the impression that you have to find your own way in.

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For now, many large news outlets seem more than willing to put up with the frustrations of Apple News in exchange for a platform that seems to share their editorial values. Facebook may have propped up the business of online journalism. But the news feeds algorithmic rankings, which seemed to skew toward the outrageous and sensational, eroded that business underpinningsthe bonds of trust between the news media and their readers. By hand-picking its publishers and stories, Apple News prioritizes a news sources reputation and the old-school news value of its content over the propensity of its headlines to garner clicks and likes.

Thats not to say that Apple News wont come with its own drawbacks if its importance as a news source continues to grow. Facebooks software democratized the news, giving upstarts an even playing surface with the largest media empires, and exploding old notions of what readers cared about. That opened the field to all manner of fake news, but also to forward-thinking startups such as BuzzFeed, Gawker Media, and Vox Media.

If news organizations want to be sustained by Apple News, they better hope it starts getting serious about ad sales soon.

If Apple News were to reach a similar degree of dominance, its opaque processes and insistence on working behind the scenes with a cadre of established news partners might make it harder for smaller or newer outlets to compete. Apple has also repeatedly assured consumers over the last year or so that it isnt in the personal-data business like Facebook and Google are. Its distaste for the targeted advertising businesswhere rates can be highermight make it viable mostly for publications with a paid-subscription model.

Theres also the question of whether Apple News approach really represents the future of news, or just a temporary resurgence of the old-school approach. Demographic data on Apple News readers are hard to come by, but one large U.S. newspaper shared an analytics chart that showed its Apple News audience skewed toward the oldest age groups: People 65-and-up were its largest segment, followed by those 5564. And Slate disclosed to me that the publications Apple News audience skews older and more male than the sites overall readership.

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News organizations are probably right to cheer a platform that seems to eschew the worst tendencies of the social media age. But if they want to be sustained by Apple News, they better hope it starts getting serious about ad sales soonor that other benefits, like a boost in subscriptions, go from theoretical to concrete. If the Facebook era taught us anything, its that bad habits are always only so far away.Terror Attacks are Down, But Deaths are Up

Lilly Chapa 26 September 2018

A lot has changed in the global terrorism landscape over the past year, after ISIS lost its foothold in Iraq and Syria and security practitioners around the world continued to harden soft targets susceptible to lone wolf-style attacks.

But while the number of terrorist attacks worldwide fell in 2017, they remain historically deadly, according to new data from the University of Maryland's National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism Global Terrorism Database (GTD).

More than half of terrorist violence last year took place in Iraq, Afghanistan, India, and Pakistan, and almost a quarter of all deaths were in Iraq alone. And Nepal, Cameroon, Myanmar, and Kenya saw the largest increases in terrorist violence last year.

"While three consecutive years of decreases is encouraging, terrorist violence remains extraordinarily high compared to historical trends," says Dr. Erin Miller, GTD program manager. "In the decade prior to the September 11th attacks, the frequency and lethality of terrorist violence worldwide each year was less than one-third of what we saw last year."

The deadliest attack of 2017 was the truck explosion near Mogadishu, Somalia's Safari Hotel, which killed more than 580 people.

ISIS was responsible for the most attacks, butperhaps due in part to its ongoing battle and eventual defeat in Mosulthe terrorist group was responsible for 40 percent fewer deaths than in 2016.

In the United States, there were 65 terrorist attacks in 2017on par with previous yearsbut there was a 49 percent increase in deaths, largely due to the Las Vegas shooting that killed 58 people.

Bioterrorism attacksand how the government and infrastructure can respondis an ongoing area of study. Several in-depth reports reveal how recent breakthroughs in science might be cause for concern for national security experts.

Michael Imperiale, a University of Michigan professor and chair of the committee that wrote a report on emerging biological threats, said the ability for bad actors to manufacture viruses or bacteria to carry out targeted attacks will soon become a reality.

"It's hard to guess when someone might try to do this," Imperiale says. "It's like a movie scenariothere's something about a biological attack that I think raises a special level of fear. It's something that might be able to spread and carry on, as opposed to someone blowing up a bomb. I think it is really something we need to pay attention to as a country, and as a world. I think the Defense Department is going to take this very seriously, and hopefully they will be able to take care of us."

The U.S. government's ability to respond to such an attack has been an ongoing point of research for the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), which notes that biodefense is fragmented and faces challenges in preparing for events instead of just responding to them.

"Ultimately, we've seen a lot of different strategies come out over the years about pieces of biodefense and surveillance," says Christopher Currie, director of emergency management, national preparedness, and critical infrastructure protection at GAO.

"It's one thing to have a strategy, but you have to have the execution and implementation plan for the strategy," he explains. "Departments have to be clear about what they are supposed to be doing, and there has to be some sort of accountability, and that's a big question: Who's going to be ultimately accountable and who are the departments going to answer to in actually implementing and executing the strategy? I'm hopeful that the strategy will address that issue, because without that it's going to be difficult across such a big enterprise to implement."It all makes sense once you realize they want to kill us, by Mike Whitney - The Unz Review : 'It is now apparent that these products in ...They won first place and a certificate of merit at an international competition in China.

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An International Comic Competition took place in Dallian, China in July. The theme was environmental protection. The pupils of Primary School Krosnianska 2 from Kosice also participated thanks to the initiative of teacher Ludmila Bujdosova and Lju Dong, a teacher of Chinese language who teaches at the school.

Their attempt met with success. Jakub Vulcha from ninth grade won first prize. His work, entitled Environmental Fish, also received a financial reward.

Jakub Vulcha (Source: Courtesy of ZS Krosnianska)

I was inspired by life on an extraterrestrial planet, Jakub described his winning piece, as quoted by the Kosice Korzar.

As he explains, the planet is covered with water. The undersea world is a part of our environment as well.

Organisms in the water must migrate and adapt to a new environment so I drew the fish migrating and adapting to a new environment to survive, he explains, as quoted by the Kosice Korzar.

The competition was huge

More than 450,000 children and 27 institutions from 36 countries participated in the competition.

The works were evaluated by an international committee that consisted of five world-renowned Chinese and Japanese artists.

Besides Jakub, his classmates Michaela and Daniela Krokusova from sixth grade participated in the competition, receiving a certificate of merit.Back in 2016, the ZSSK railway company allegedly marred an inspection, and thus the EC has sent a statement of objections now. ZSSK denies any fault.

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The European Commission (EC) in its preliminary view has accused the passenger rail carrier ZSSK Slovensko of preventing the European-Union authority from inspecting it in June 2016, europa.eu website reported on September 25.

The EC has sent a statement of objections to ZSSK, claiming that the rail carrier provided the EU body with incorrect information and erased data from a laptop.

Companies have the obligation to provide correct information when we investigate as well as during inspections, EU commissioner Margrethe Vestager, who is in charge of competition policy, told the TASR newswire. They should not alter the requested data in any way. Such behaviour would threaten the integrity and effectiveness of our investigations. We want to make sure that companies comply with our rules.

What is behind the inspection?

The inspection at ZSSK was part of an anti-trust inquiry in the rail passenger transport sector. According to the EC press release, the inspection was carried out in June 2016. The Commission suspected that ZSSK may have concluded anti-competitive agreements aimed at shutting out competing rail passenger transport operators from the market, which is in breach of EU anti-trust rules.

The EC came to the preliminary conclusion that this ZSSKs behaviour may have been in conflict with its duty to oblige, according to the European Councils Regulation No 1/2003 on executing the rules of economic competition.

ZSSKs reaction

The state passenger rail carrier has been surprised by the ECs preliminary stance, as ZSSK did not prevent any execution of the inspection  quite the contrary, it was fully cooperating, the Sme daily wrote.

This case involves the notebook of a former member of the ZSSK board who, by the time when Commission asked for it, was not anymore owned by ZSSK; but instead bought from it by the ex-manager. Otherwise, the ZSSK obliged all demands of the EC without any delay, bringing all required documents and device, including dozens of notebooks, mobile phones and enabling access to all offices.

The man involved ceased to be a member of the ZSSK Board on June 17, 2016, dismissed from the position of section manager by June 21, 2016, approved to buy the mobile phone and notebook from the company on June 23, while the previously unannounced EC inspection started on June 28, 2016, according to Sme.She replaces Frantisek Imrecze, who resigned last week following a scandal surrounding Chinese goods processed by Slovak customs.

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Lenka Wittenbergerova, the incumbent (long-time) Director General of the Tax Section at the Slovak Financial Directorate, will be at the helm of the Financial Administration for the next six months. Finance Minister Peter Kazimir announced this after the cabinet session on September 26. He added that he has already signed her appointment decree and her term begins on October 1, 2018.

I have confidence in her and we have agreed that she is prepared to serve in this post for the next six months, the minister said, as quoted by the SITA newswire. He added that the new interim head of the Financial Administration will have a free hand in HR matters following the resignation of Financial Administration President Frantisek Imrecze. She is not taking over this post with any commitments concerning personnel policy, Kazimir summed up, as cited by SITA.

Read also:

Read also: The Financial Administrations head resigns from post Read more

Imrecze announced his decision to resign from the post last week at a session of the parliamentary financial committee where he had come to provide an explanation regarding the scandal involving Chinese goods-related customs fraud. He led the Financial Administration almost from its origin in 2012.

Resigned heads credit

I found it disrupted, with a non-functional information system and missing data on tax entities, which created an ideal space for tax fraud. So, my colleagues and I immediately focused on tax fraud involving excessive VAT deductions, which were absolutely massive, Imrecze noted for the TASR newswire, adding that Financial Administration brought an extra 3.7 billion into the state budget thanks to the elimination of excessive deductions. He also boasted that in those six years, Slovakia has become one of the countries that reduce their tax gap the fastest  slashing it from 41 to 26 percent.

Plans and outlook

I want to continue the processes that we set along with the outgoing president, the new FA head said, adding that the office has undergone significant changes over the past six years. We managed to launch the path of electronisation and digitisation, and I want to continue in this direction, said Wittenbergerova, as quoted by TASR.

Read also:

Read also: OLAF: Slovakia might have to pay 300 million to the EU Read more

Her goal is to create a paper-free financial administration. Therefore, well keep working on expanding electronic communications and implementing full two-way electronic communications. My priorities also include adopting and implementing the law on financial administration, she explained.

Wittenbergerova graduated from the Economy College in Bratislava (now transformed into the University of Economy) and since then, she has worked on several positions at the tax administration.After having recorded a top-three finish against eastern Canadas top pacers last Saturday, Machinthesand has drawn the rail and will be dropping in class for his Thursday evening (Sept. 27) assignment at Red Shores Charlottetown Driving Park.

The 12-dash program will get underway at 6:30 p.m., and Machinthesand will line up for the cards $2,350 featured pace, which has been slotted as Race 11.

Machinthesand will have Ken Murphy in his sulky for trainer Barry Folland and owner Noonan Holdings Ltd., of Summerside, P.E.I.

The nine-year-old son of Mach Three has put together a solid season, as he has recorded nine top-three finishes from 16 outings, including finishing third to Czar Seelster and Rose Run Quest in his latest start.

Czar Seelster and Rose Run Quest will be absent this week, but Machinthesands six rivals are no slouches.

Stars Above, who is riding a two-race win streak into the Thursday feature , will have Steven Shepherd at his lines from Post 4. Three Truths, who had his win streak snapped at three last week, will start from Post 5 with Kenny Arsenault in the seat. Cartoon Daddy, who has faced the top pacers on Canadas east coast all season, will start from Post 7 for driver David Dowling. Additionally, Cartoon Daddy paced a 1:54.2 mile in his most recent start.

Other entries include Winter Blast (to be driven by Jason Hughes), Red Magician (Adam Merner), and Rockin Indy (Corey MacPherson).

The $1,950 Open Trot (Race 6) will feature Freddies return to the island scene after having faced the pacers at Truro Raceway in Nova Scotia in his latest outing (which resulted in a third-place finish). Marc Campbell trains and drives the trotter for owner Three Wisemen Stable of Kingston. Other top entries include the stablemates Majian Chester (Murphy) and Majian Tango (Jim Ripley).

For more information, head to redshores.ca.

To view the harness racing entries for Thursday at the CDP, click the following link: Thursday Entries  Charlottetown Driving Park.

(With files from Red Shores)This post may contain affiliate or referral links. Read our policies for more info.

Enter for your chance to win a 3-night trip for two to see Stephen Kings Maine courtesy of SK Tours of Maine, the Maine Board of Tourism, and The Old Winterport Commercial House Bed and Breakfast.





Click Here to Enter | Official Rules

Official Rules: US, 18+. Begins on September 21 and ends on September 30, 2018. One entry per person.

Grand Prize (1): A signed hardcover copy of The Outside, a signed paperback copy of Sleeping Beauties, a signed hardcover copy of the 20th anniversary edition of Bag of Bones, two tickets from SK Tours, a $500 travel voucher from the Maine Board of Tourism, and a two-night stay at The Old Winterport Commercial House. ARV: $857.99

Runner-up Prize (50): A hardcover copy of the 20th anniversary edition of Bag of Bones, a Flight or Fright audiobook, and The Gunslinger Born graphic novel. ARV: $78.98Wednesday, September 26, 2018

Dan Trevas has a case summary on the Ohio Supreme Court web page

The Ohio Supreme Court today suspended a Columbus attorney based on an unusual fee payment arrangement that resulted in a dispute.

In a unanimous per curiam opinion, the Supreme Court suspended David P. Rieser for two years with one year stayed, and ordered him to pay $50,000 in restitution to his former client.

Lawyer Accepts Voluntarily Paid Excessive Fee

In March 2012, Rieser was retained by a psychiatrist who had been indicted on felony counts of workers compensation fraud, theft, and tampering with records. The two agreed to an initial $30,000 attorney fee, but did not put it in writing or discuss the rate or total amount of Riesers fee.

Rieser did not keep time records during the doctors representation and did not send him any billing statements. He did not request any additional fee payments, but between June and December 2012, the psychiatrist sent him eight checks, bringing the total payment to Rieser to about $108,000.

Rieser deposited $50,000 into his client trust account, put $23,000 into his own business account, and provided $25,000 to a local art gallery. He did not maintain records for the trust account.

Case Resolved, Fee Disputed

Rieser understood the doctors goal was to maintain his medical license and was informed by a fellow attorney that the best chance for this was if his client was not convicted of a felony. Rieser orchestrated a plea bargainwhere the doctor pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of workers compensation fraud and paid about $71,000 to the Ohio Bureau of Workers Compensation.

Nearly three years later, the doctor filed a grievance with the Columbus Bar Association, claiming he was charged an excessive fee.

Rieser and the bar association stipulated to the Board of Professional Conduct that Rieser violated multiple rules, including failing to disclose to the client that he did not maintain professional liability insurance; charging or collecting an excessive fee; not communicating to the client the basis or rate of the fee; and failing to respond to information requests during a disciplinary investigation.

The professional conduct board recommended that the Supreme Court indefinitely suspend Rieser. Rieser objected, arguing a lesser sanction was more appropriate.

Court Examines Attorneys Behavior

The Court publicly reprimanded Rieser in 1995 for neglecting two client matters. In 2001, he was suspended for two years, with 18 months stayed, for neglecting two other client matters.

When considering a proposed sanction, the Court examines aggravating circumstances that could increase the punishment for a lawyer and mitigating factors, which could lead to a reduced penalty.

The Court noted Rieser had prior violations, committed multiple rule violations, and failed to cooperate with the bar associations investigation. It also considered letters from judges and lawyers attesting to Riesers good character and reputation. Rieser established that he had a mental-health disorder during the time of the doctors representation and successfully completed treatment for it.

The Court also considered that Rieser made a good faith effort to resolve the dispute by offering a partial discount to the client, and placed the $50,000 in the trust account into escrow after the offer was rejected.

The opinion stated that parties agreed the fee was excessive, but could not agree on what was a reasonable amount. Various experts testifying in the case placed the range for handling this type of legal matter from $15,000 to $80,000. The board recommended that Rieser return the full $50,000 from the trust account to the doctor.

Rieser argued the doctor repeatedly expressed satisfaction with his work, and that he obtained the best possible result for his client. Rieser also told his client that it was not necessary to keep sending him money beyond the initial $30,000 and that he suggested they wait and see how the case progressed before more payments were made.

Indeed, Riesers misconduct is unusual in that he did not charge a clearly excessive fee, so much as he accepted the clients voluntary  but excessive  payments, the opinion stated.

The Court noted that Rieser has reduced his caseload, has worked with a lawyer to improve his office- and trust-account management practices, and has continued his mental health treatment.

The Court suspended him for two years, with one year stayed with the conditions that he pay restitution and not engage in any more misconduct.

2007-1417. Columbus Bar Assn. v. Rieser, Slip Opinion No. 2018-Ohio-3860.

View oral argument video of this case.

(Mike Frisch)

https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/legal_profession/2018/09/dan-trevas-has-a-case-summary-on-the-ohio-supreme-court-web-page-the-ohio-supreme-court-today-suspended-a-columbus-attorney.htmlKPL had its best results from 1945 - 1974. Who is the man at the helm and what are his party's ideas for Luxembourg?

Ali Ruckert did not feel comfortable giving a video interview in English. Instead we have this Election Special as a written piece.



Could you introduce yourself to our audience?

My name is Ali Ruckert. I am president of the Communist Party of Luxembourg and editor-in-chief of the Zeitung vum Letzebuerger Vollek, the daily newspaper of our party.

Whats your experience of the working world before politics or outside of politics?

In the course of a long period of 40 years working as a journalist, there have been many occasions to be in contact with the real life, mainly the real working and living conditions of the people, as well as close relations with trade union activists  this is really the main motivation for my political activities.



Have you ever lived or worked outside of Luxembourg?

In the seventies, I worked as correspondent of our paper in Moscow for two years.

Where did your interest in politics originate?

It comes from my experiences, generated from the contacts with normal people. I grew up in a working family: my grandfather and father worked in the mining and steel industries, and they were always active in the trade union and Communist Party. My father, at 87 years old, is still one of our most active militants in KPL.

Why did you join this party?

I think KPL was and is the only political party in this country to fight for social justice, against capitalism and militarism.

Whats your personal political aspiration?

Id like to do my best for a useful and successful activity of KPL in our country, in the municipal councils where we are represented, as well as in the national Parliament, where we are striving to achieve a representation in the forthcoming elections.

What qualities have you got which make you a great leader?

For us, its not a matter of being a great leader. I was elected by the members of our party, and Im concentrating all my efforts to fulfill the political mandate given to me.

KPL - The Communist Party of Luxembourg



Could you tell us about your party and how it originated?

The Communist Party of Luxembourg was founded in January 1921, so it is one of the parties in our country with a long experience of political struggle. All our activities are based on the theory of Marxism-Leninism. Our main aim is to end the exploitation of men by men in the current capitalist society and to lay the basics for a society without exploitation, which we call socialism.

Our struggle is based on the positive as well as the negative experiences in the development of the Soviet Union and in the other socialist countries. We are part of the worldwide communist movement and we have close and constructive contacts with other communist parties, mainly with those in the neighboring countries Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands.

We are doing our best to permanently analyze the political, economic and social situation in Luxembourg  and on this basis to formulate political demands, like for example in the current situation the demand for a 20 per cent increase of the minimum wage, a better financial basis for the educational and the health system, for the construction of more flats with affordable rents

With a view to the present developments in the world, we have to state that we are the only political party in Luxembourg which is consistently fighting for peace and disarmament. We are against purchasing a military transport airplane and other military equipment like a satellite or drones; we want our soldiers to come back from all so-called military missions abroad, mainly from Lithuania, where they are stationed just a few kilometers before the border with Russia and acting under the command of German officers. Our party stands for a complete nuclear disarmament, this means the abolishment of all nuclear weapons, no matter which country possesses them.

How many women in your party?

Women have played an important role in all the history of our party. At present, they are almost half of our active membership  as you can see also on our lists of candidates for the forthcoming elections.

When was the last time you had a seat in opposition?

Our party was represented in the national parliament since 1945 with up to six Deputes. We lost our last seat in 2004, and we think now is the time for a come back.

You havent managed to gain a seat in recent elections. Why?

Our party was obviously not strong enough to reach the necessary number of voters with our arguments. By the way, while all the other parties which are running now in the four electoral districts, receive financial support for their election campaign from the state, our party can count only those euros and cents that are given or collected by our militants.

Do you think you have a future as a party due to the way elections have gone for you in recent years?

One of our basic characteristics as communists is what we call historical optimism. A party without a future should not run in elections. We can see in many countries in the world, that communist parties are not only represented in parliaments, but also play an important role in society. Why should this not be possible in Luxembourg? By the way, the resistance struggle of our party against the Nazi occupation 1940  1944 is not forgotten by many people in our country.

Luxembourg

What are your top three action points for Luxembourg?

- secure working places for all with a salary which allows a normal living standard, including an increase of the minimal salary by 20 per cent

- a program of housing construction, creation of construction companies owned by the state and municipalities, to construct flats with affordable rents

- an active policy of peace, disarmament and detente, the abolishment of the purchase of military equipment, withdrawal of Luxembourg troops from abroad, signing of the United Nations Organization treaty on nuclear disarmament

Theres a high percentage of non-Luxembourg nationals living in Luxembourg. How do you view such people living in Luxembourg?

Luxembourg has a long tradition of migration, migrant workers and their families have played an important role for the economic development of our country. Most of those migrants have been successfully integrated in our society. Foreigners coming to Luxembourg with the idea to live here should be given all opportunities to become integrated, including the possibility to become Luxembourg citizens.

On the other hand, we have a critical point of view concerning the present so-called migration policy of the European Union. Our country should develop another policy, that means to fight the real reasons for the migration of thousands of people mainly from Africa and from the Middle East. These reasons are mainly the wars and military conflicts, and furthermore the increasing underdevelopment of many countries due to the economic exploitation by member states of the European Union and the USA. Financial means have to be used for a real economic development of these countries, not to support the business of European and other monopolies, since their main interest is only achieving high extra profits.

Our party also opposes the austerity policy of the EU and the governments of EU countries. We should not forget the immense migration inside the EU, which causes the loss of millions of people who are migrating either to higher developed EU countries like mainly Germany, or to non-European countries.

How can your party cater for people like us, when we dont have the right to vote in Luxembourg until after we take the citizenship and language tests?

We are of the opinion that all foreigners living in Luxembourg and wishing to stay here should have an easier access to Luxembourg citizenship. Of course, an important precondition is the readiness to be integrated in the countrys society, as well as a real interest to take an active part in the life of the society, including the wish and the readiness to take part in elections. But we should not forget, that you already have the right  after a certain period of living here  to vote for the municipal council and in the elections for the European Parliament. Unfortunately, too many of the foreigners living here do not make use of this right.

How do you think politics is changing across Europe at the moment?

At the moment, we see several dangerous developments across Europe and in the world. There is, first of all, a trend towards militarization, the increase of tensions and military confrontation, bearing a serious danger of a new war.

On the other hand, we see a dangerous right-wing development in many countries of the EU. The principal reason for this is  in our opinion  mainly the lack of good prospects of many people for their future, caused by austerity programs of the governments. The chaotic policy of the EU and their member states concerning migration is a kind of catalyzer of this trend, since the non-regulated arrival of many migrants  the majority of whom have no chance of any kind of integration  is promoting an aggressive, xenophobic, racist mood.

If we want to change this, if we want to prevent a new revival of fascist regimes in Europe, we have to change the basics of todays policies. As Bert Brecht, the famous German poet said after 1945: The womb is still fertile. In our analysis, fascism was born by the capitalist society. As long as this capitalist society exists, the danger of fascism will not be eliminated.

How do you think Luxembourg is perceived on a global stage and what would you and your party bring to that?

I think many people outside Luxembourg do not know anything about our country. There is probably a view that Luxembourg, as one of the founder states of the European Union, is one of the richest countries of the EU, and one of the tax paradises. People in neighboring countries might see Luxembourg as an area of low gas prices and high wages.

Our party is explaining to all our friends and comrades all over the world, that Luxembourg is nothing but a normal capitalist country, that the people here are faced with the same problems as most of the people in other capitalist countries. And that there is at least one political force which has the necessary ideas to change this.

 Ali Ruckert

Quick Fire Round!

Favourite place to visit

Paris

Favourite food or meal?

Choucroute garni

Favourite music, or type of music

French chansons

Favourite language? Favourite second language, if first is Luxembourgish?

Luxembourgish and French

If you werent being a politician what would you be?

I am a journalist  a political journalist

Best thing about Luxembourg?

There are many things I like  as Luxembourg is my home country

Worst thing about Luxembourg?

Growing injustice, growing social inequalities, growing poverty, growing military expenditure

Your top three values?

Liberte, egalite, fraternite  for all, also for the working class

Your motto / slogan by which you live your life?

Lets be optimistic and do the impossible

Your partys mission statement?

KPL is fighting against social injustice, against exploitation of men by men, for a new society, which in our opinion can only be socialism.

The election interviews

Many of the political websites here are not in English. For fairness, we have asked similar questions of all leaders. The interviews are being published in the same order as the parties appear on the voting lists.

For more information on how the election process works in Luxembourg go to Knowledge Bites Election.

Lisa Burke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. The content of posts on this site, including but not limited to links to other web sites, are the expressed opinion of the original poster and are in no way representative of or endorsed by the owners or administration of this website. The posts on this website are the opinion of the specific author and are not statements of advice, opinion, or factual information on behalf of the owner or administration of LunaticOutPost.Com. The owners or administration of this website can't be hold responsible for content hosted on sites that posters link to in; including, but not limited to, posts, signatures, private messages and such. This site may contain content not suitable for minors and if you feel you might be offended by such content, you should log off immediately.This site may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Users may make such material available in an effort to advance awareness and understanding of issues relating to civil rights, economics, individual rights, international affairs, liberty, science & technology, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material. 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/Username: Password: or Register Thread Rating: 2 Vote(s) - 5 Average

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Historic river flooding to keep coastal communities in South Carolina underwater lil bird

Registered User

User ID: 432407

09-26-2018 04:15 AM



Posts: 5,175









Post: #1 Historic river flooding to keep coastal communities in South Carolina underwater

Advertisement



The Waccamaw River at Conway, South Carolina, reached record flood stage late last week. At Conway, the river is forecast to crest during the middle of this week but not dip below the prior record flood stage of 17.9 feet until the start of October. The Waccamaw may stay above flood stage into the middle of October.



Evacuations ordered amid threats of flooding from rising Lynches River: "Music, as far as I have seen in the world so far, is the only real magic that I know." TP While crests have occurred along the major rivers in the Carolina Midlands, the surge of water has reached areas just inland of the coast and will keep some coastal rivers, such as the Waccamaw, at major to record flood stage into October.The Waccamaw River at Conway, South Carolina, reached record flood stage late last week. At Conway, the river is forecast to crest during the middle of this week but not dip below the prior record flood stage of 17.9 feet until the start of October. The Waccamaw may stay above flood stage into the middle of October.Evacuations ordered amid threats of flooding from rising Lynches River: https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-n...r/70006162 LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 348173

09-26-2018 04:57 AM











Post: #2 RE: Historic river flooding to keep coastal communities in South Carolina underwater

Gosh no peace of mind for those people with all that. LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 441604

09-26-2018 06:44 AM











Post: #3 RE: Historic river flooding to keep coastal communities in South Carolina underwater

what a mess will be left behind!



mold mold mold LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 464443

09-26-2018 07:15 AM











Post: #4 RE: Historic river flooding to keep coastal communities in South Carolina underwater

LoP Guest Wrote: (09-26-2018 06:44 AM) what a mess will be left behind!



mold mold mold

Yes.



Some good fishing spots possibly. Yes.Some good fishing spots possibly. PENDULUM

Registered User

User ID: 383624

09-26-2018 07:36 AM



Posts: 3,168









Post: #5 RE: Historic river flooding to keep coastal communities in South Carolina underwater

LoP Guest Wrote: (09-26-2018 06:44 AM) what a mess will be left behind!



mold mold mold

Uggh..highly allergic... Uggh..highly allergic... *%

Registered User

User ID: 462661

09-26-2018 07:44 AM



Posts: 30









Post: #6 RE: Historic river flooding to keep coastal communities in South Carolina underwater

I live in a bowl, next to the ocean, below sea level ?? why is it so wet out ? Uppity Me

Registered User

User ID: 449159

09-26-2018 10:46 AM



Posts: 37,930









Post: #7 RE: Historic river flooding to keep coastal communities in South Carolina underwater

these rivers are "rigged" to flood - I've seen it

you can cause flooding anywhere by blocking the exits Quote: Les pauvres n'ont-ils des Euros ?

Alors laissez les pauvres 'sh*t' dans les rues lil bird

Registered User

User ID: 432407

09-26-2018 12:07 PM



Posts: 5,175









Post: #8 RE: Historic river flooding to keep coastal communities in South Carolina underwater

South Carolina: Volunteer and Donate http://www.emergencyemail.org/newsemerge...13589&z=65 "Music, as far as I have seen in the world so far, is the only real magic that I know." TP (This post was last modified: 09-26-2018 12:08 PM by lil bird .) spo snouou

Vocem sine nomine audivit!

User ID: 350320

09-26-2018 12:11 PM



Posts: 67,593









Post: #9 RE: Historic river flooding to keep coastal communities in South Carolina underwater

Massive Ocean Waves May Play a Role in Nuisance Flooding



When huge planetary waves that spawn in the open ocean reach land, they can raise local sea levels along the coast. Could tracking these waves help scientists predict flooding months in advance?



Quote: Nuisance floods occur when sea levels peak above normal levels, even in the absence of heavy rain or storms. The floods happen frequently up and down the U.S. East and Gulf coasts. Although the floods are not usually life threatening and they recede quickly with the tidal cycle, repeated flooding erodes infrastructure and interrupts daily life. Officials have called for better ability to predict the floods before they strike. more:

https://eos.org/articles/massive-ocean-w...e-flooding more: LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 464494

09-26-2018 02:53 PM











Post: #10 RE: Historic river flooding to keep coastal communities in South Carolina underwater

LoP Guest Wrote: (09-26-2018 07:15 AM) LoP Guest Wrote: (09-26-2018 06:44 AM) what a mess will be left behind!



mold mold mold

Yes.



Some good fishing spots possibly.

Mmm..nice fresh fish swimming in the sewage, nuclear waste and pig sh*t. Mmm..nice fresh fish swimming in the sewage, nuclear waste and pig sh*t.















Seven will Live stream the AFL Grand Final on select Connected TVs for the very first time.

It will be available on Telstra TV, Apple TV, Fetch TV, PlayStation 4 and compatible Android TV devices on Saturday.

Seven West Medias Chief Digital Officer Clive Dickens said: Todays announcement marks another ground-breaking landmark in the rapid evolution of Australian live and free-to-air television online.

Watching Seven on Connected TVs has exploded since we launched 7plus, making us the number one Commercial FTA Live Streaming BVOD operator in the market, and it is only right that we give our audiences what they want  the biggest and best sporting final of the year on more of the screens of Seven.

Seven West Medias Chief Revenue Officer Kurt Burnette said: Were delighted to once again deliver live Addressable TV at real scale in a brand safe environment. As Professor Karen Nelson-Fields research shows, BVOD, whether delivered on a Connected TV, computer or mobile device, delivers a significantly stronger sales impact for brands than the biggest online-only video platforms on their best performing screen, mobile.The head of the Department of Communications and the Arts will conduct an investigation into claims of interference at the ABC.

Mike Mrdak, Secretary of the Department of Communications and the Arts will conduct an inquiry into the reports of surrounding the ABC, its board and chairman Justin Milne.

Having met with the Prime Minister this afternoon, I have asked the Secretary of the Department of Communications and the Arts to undertake an inquiry to establish the facts in relation to todays media reports surrounding the ABC, said Communications Minister Mitch Fifield.

The Secretary will report his findings to me as soon as possible.

It is important for the community to have confidence in the independence of the ABC.

The move follows an extraordinary day for ABC in which staff gatherings in Sydney, Melbourne & Brisbane voted for the Chairman to step aside.

Milne is under fire in numerous media articles and editorials after email leaks showed he called for Emma Alberici to be sacked and to shoot Andrew Probyn because the Prime Minister hated him. Also calling for him to go are voices within Labor, the Greens, MEAA and CPSU.

Guthrie is understood to have rejected his calls, citing editorial independence. She claims Milne told her she was putting ABC digital project Jetstream at risk because ABC was asking the govt for half a billion dollars. According to Michelle Guthrie, Milne told her .we wont get it unless I do what Im told. I told him you can never make the government happy even if you wanted to.

Friends of ABC have said the decision to terminate Michelle Guthrie is regrettable and creates more uncertainty for the broadcaster.

Ms Guthrie was constantly challenged by staff, media and political critics throughout her time in the top job. She attempted major reform by cutting middle management and returning those resources to regional services. But of course her task of managing fewer resources while strengthening digital output was almost impossible. She made some unpopular decisions and was not prepared for the constant public spotlight on her role, it said in a statement.

It is unfortunate that one of the reasons given for her termination was the perceived failure to work with the Coalition Government.

ABC Friends are more interested in any ABC Managing Director being able to work in the best interests of all Australians who essentially must insist their representatives in Canberra value the ABC and ensure it is properly funded and allowed to be free of political interference.

Source: Daily TelegraphSir David Attenborough has a new wildlife series on the way, Dynasties.

The 5 part series from BBC Studios Natural History Unit, highlights five of the worlds most celebrated but endangered animals, as they do whatever it takes to survive and protect the next generation.

Taking over four years to produce, it has been pre-sold to Germany, New Zealand, Canada, Latin America, Spain, Belgium, Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Czech Republic, Estonia and Georgia.

Paul Dempsey, President Global Markets for BBC Studios, commented: Following the huge global success of Planet Earth II and Blue Planet II, Dynasties is generating a lot of excitement in the market. Once again the Natural History Unit has surpassed itself with an incredibly intimate and affecting portrait of some of the most celebrated and endangered species on earth.

An Australian broadcaster (likely to be Nine) is yet to be announced.It may not rate highly in Australia but This is Us remains a very big deal in the US and it stars just got a hefty pay rise for the upcoming third season.

Stars Milo Ventimiglia (Jack), Mandy Moore (Rebecca), Sterling K. Brown (Randall), Chrissy Metz (Kate) and Justin Hartley (Kevin) will see their salary jump to $250,000 (AU$344,000) per episode, once their respective signing bonuses are factored in, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Chrissy Metz famously had 81 cents in her bank account when she landed This Is Us, previously earned $40,000 an episode.

At 18 episodes, principal cast members will now earn $4.5 million per season.Southern Cross Austereo will transfer its Canberra broadcast playout operation in 2020 to NPC Media, a new joint venture between the Nine and Seven Networks.

As first revealed by TV Tonight, Nines Frenchs Forest facility is set to become core of an expanded joint venture Playout facility.

SCA aims to complete the relocation of its Canberra broadcast operation by 30 June 2020 with NPC to provide playout services for an initial period of seven years.

The decision comes after SCA sold its Canberra site in 2016 with a four-year lease-back, and at the end of the capital expenditure lifecycle for SCAs current broadcast playout equipment.

With almost identical playout requirements, it makes sense for our businesses to pool resources, said SCA Chief Operating Officer, John Kelly.

Given SCA already broadcasts Nine and Seven programs and uses their brands, the move is a logical step to consolidate back office functions. It will not only enable us to reduce operational costs, but also to streamline processes, promote collaboration and increase productivity.

SCA will lease a new office facility in Canberra with some current roles to become redundant.

We are working closely with affected employees to maintain operations during the transition and to support them in identifying new opportunities as the transition is completed, said John Kelly.

The new playout solution allows SCA to collaborate with peers Nine and Seven to create an industry leading back- office solution, in a facility that will be developed to include full technical back-up.

SCA has program supply agreements with the Nine, Seven and Ten Networks and broadcasts 105 television signals into regional Australia, covering all states and territories other than Western Australia. This extensive television footprint will mean that SCA will be NPCs largest customer.FILE PHOTO: Chairperson of European Banking Authority Andrea Enria attends a debate with the European Parliament's Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee in Brussels FILE PHOTO: Chairperson of European Banking Authority Andrea Enria September 26, 2016. REUTERS/Yves Herman/File Photo

By Francesco Guarascio

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Europe's banking watchdog has backed a recommendation by the Maltese financial regulator to withdraw Pilatus Bank's banking licence following the indictment of its chairman for money laundering.

EBA's move puts pressure on the European Central Bank which is expected to make a decision on whether to withdraw Pilatus's licence as early as this week. A spokesman for the ECB declined to comment.

In a letter, dated Sept. 24 and sent to European Union lawmakers, European Banking Authority chairman Andrea Enria said the move by the Maltese Financial Services Authority (MFSA) was justified by "the current circumstances of the bank's ultimate beneficial owner," Ali Sadr Hashemi Nejad. He was indicted in the United States in March for bank fraud, money laundering and the evasion of U.S. sanctions against Iran.

Malta's regulator had recommended the withdrawal of Pilatus' licence in June after Ali Sadr's arrest in the United States.

The MFSA was investigated by EBA for its decision to grant a banking licence to Pilatus in 2014 and for its supervision of the bank .

That investigation has now been now closed, Enria said in the letter, because EU rules are too vague and "make it difficult to conclude that there have been breaches of clear and unconditional obligations."

The Maltese regulator said earlier on Tuesday the EBA had dropped its investigations against the agency.

EBA's decision confirms the gaps in the EU legal framework to combat money laundering at banks, which has been acknowledged by EU regulators after a string of high-profile cases at banks in Denmark, Estonia, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Latvia.

In the letter, seen by Reuters, Enria said the case was dropped also because of the Maltese regulator's actions against Pilatus Bank, which had its assets frozen since June.

Enria said in the letter the EBA will monitor on a quarterly basis the Maltese regulator's progress in improving its supervisory practices, and will visit the watchdog in mid-2019.

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Enria's letter also called for changes to EU anti-money laundering rules which would go much further than proposals made by the European Commission this month and face opposition from some EU states.

He said EU rules on banking licences give "considerable discretion" to national authorities which in some cases can authorise a credit institution even without a proper assessment of money laundering risks.

He also said cooperation among national supervisors was limited and several adjustments to EU money laundering rules in past years had not required supervisors to proactively exchange information.

(Reporting by Francesco Guarascio; editing by Philip Blenkinsop and Jane Merriman)A protest march in Dublin against homelessness and housing crisis in Ireland. Photo: Getty

While the Irish government is battling Brexit concerns over in Brussels, its also having to juggle a ballooning housing crisis back at home.

In recent weeks, swathes of protesters have transfixed the countrys capital city Dublin, by occupying vacant buildings, stopping traffic, and commanding attention on social media. But its not just activists that are causing a stirthe catalog of complainants has swelled to include those from Irelands business, political, and policy-making sectors.

On Tuesday, the countrys housing minister, Eoghan Murphy, faced a motion of no confidence in parliament over his handling of the crisis. Though Murphy was always going to survive the votesomething he dismissed as a stunt by the opposition Sinn Fein partytensions have reached such an acrimonious pitch that a junior minister from his own party seemed on the precipice of withdrawing her support.

On 21 September, Michael Carey, the chair of Irelands Housing Agency, told a conference that the the scale of the Dublin housing crisis has limited the citys ability to reap a Brexit dividend. Multinational companies deciding on a location for their post-Brexit headquarters in the European Union are turned off by a city with staggeringly high house prices and an extraordinarily weak supply that cant keep up with rising demand.

Paddy Cosgrave, the CEO and co-founder of the Web Summit conference, joined street protests organised by the grassroots Take Back the City movement on 22 September, and told the national state broadcaster that the ruling Fine Gael party may have underestimated the nature of this crisis. After five years in Dublin, the Web Summit, which attracts more than 70,000 attendees each year, moved to Lisbon, Portugal in 2016, with Cosgrave citing Dublins weak infrastructure and poor planning as reasons for the move.

Meanwhile, a recent report by the American Chamber of Commerce in Ireland said that housing is one of the most critical pressure points when looking at recruitment for expansion in the country. It pointed to what it calls an inability of supply to meet demand [that] has been particularly acute since the end of the recession in 2011.

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At the lower levels of the market, these problems have contributed to a worsening homelessness crisis. The latest figures indicate that, in July, there were a record 10,000 homeless people in Ireland, which has a population of just 4.8m people. In August, images of a woman and six of her children being forced to sleep in a Dublin police stationdue to crowded emergency sheltersjolted the national consciousness.

At all levels, the Irish government has relied on the private sector to provide housing. It then provides low-income families with assistance to rent these homes, which will cost more than 500m (450m) in 2018 alone.

The Irish government maintains that it is taking all the necessary steps to mitigate the crisis. Earlier in September, it announced the establishment of the 1.25bn Land Development Agency, promising that it would aid the building of 150,000 homes over the next 20 years by focusing on underused state land and by acquiring private land.

On Wednesday, as part of its four-year housing plan, Murphy launched a strategy for the countrys Housing First modelwhich allows homeless people to move directly into permanent accommodationand pledged to build up to 1,000 homes for rough sleepers and those who access emergency shelters. A leading homelessness charity, the Peter McVerry Trust, said the move was a game changer.

Though the homelessness issue has at long last become a headline issue, it is warnings from businesses that are likely to stir the centre-right Fine Gael into action more than anything else. A key body that aims to bolster Irelands economic competitiveness warned in June that the crisis has the potential to indirectly impact on enterprise costs and influence the competitiveness of Irish goods and services. Almost 80% of senior hiring managers from large firms said that the citys high housing costs were the single greatest handicap to living and working in Dublin.

There are signs that moves, such as mortgage lending restrictions introduced by the Irish Central Bank, are dampening house pricesbut the issue is not going anywhere anytime soon.



(Reuters) - PZ Cussons Plc <PZC.L> said on Wednesday its quarterly results were in line with expectations, even as the soaps and cosmetics maker's prices, volumes and margins in Nigeria remained under pressure.

PZ Cussons said new products and cost cuts helped offset challenging trading conditions in Nigeria for the quarter ended Aug. 31.

Shares of the company were up 1.3 percent at 232.4 pence in early trading.

The company has suffered from a slowdown in its largest Nigeria market, forcing it to warn in July of a challenging year ahead after Africa profits declined sharply in the year to May 31.

In a trading update, the company said consumer disposable income in Nigeria remained subdued ahead of elections in that country.

PZ Cussons, which has a more than 130-year-old history, gets about 36 percent of its revenue from Africa and also sells home appliances in partnership with Haier <1169.HK>.

The company said it was focussing on optimising price points and sizes across the key brands in its Africa portfolio.

Its Nutricima business, which makes milk and yogurt-based beverages, had moved into a breakeven position from making losses last year, PZ Cussons said.

(Reporting by Shariq Khan and Justin George Varghese in Bengaluru; Editing by Gopakumar Warrier)By Francesco Guarascio

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Swiss bourse operator SIX risks losing much of its exchange business if the European Union and Switzerland fail to reach a deal by the end of the year on future relations, SIX's chairman told Reuters on Tuesday.

Switzerland has a patchwork of accords with the EU which govern ties with its most important trading partner, but Brussels is seeking a more comprehensive deal that would bring the Alpine country closer to the bloc.

Under current agreements, Swiss trading venues can attract investors from the EU for their listed companies.

But the European Commission has linked the extension of this financial settlement to an overall review by the end of the year of the relations between the two partners - a move that faces political hurdles in Switzerland.

SIX's Romeo Lacher said he was still confident a deal could be reached before December because both partners stood to lose from a divorce.

But he acknowledged that SIX was preparing for negative consequences in the long run of a failure in the talks.

"One option is that in the worst case scenario our stock exchange will lose completely importance. Most probably only local mid and small caps will remain. But potentially large caps will list somewhere else," Lacher told Reuters in Brussels.

He warned that the possible loss of large listed companies would not necessarily benefit the EU, as many of them could consider relocating to London or outside Europe altogether.

He said in that case, SIX Group could act to protect its other business units. The company also runs Swiss franc clearing and post-trade services alongside its stock exchange.

"We start now assessing ... what we could protect as the rest of the business without the stock exchange," he said, adding that SIX could in the long run open subsidiaries in the EU to continue these activities from its Swiss base.

He explained this option would not be feasible for the stock exchange business because of contingency plans drawn up by the Swiss government, which would ban trading of Swiss shares on EU bourses in case of no deal.

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"That door is fully closed now," he said, stressing that this ban was also preventing SIX from seeking any acquisition of EU exchanges. The company flagged expansion plans in Iberia and central Europe earlier this year.

Lacher ruled out the possibility of privately-owned SIX being taken over by other companies.

(Reporting by Francesco Guarascio; editing by Andrew Roche)By Michel Rose

PARIS/LISBON (Reuters) - France, Portugal, Spain and Germany struck a deal on Tuesday to take in migrants from the Mediterranean rescue ship Aquarius sailing off the coast of Malta, the French government said, after Italy refused to let the vessel dock.

The agreement marks the second such co-operation between European countries since Italy's new anti-establishment coalition started turning away from Italian ports ships carrying migrants rescued in the Mediterranean earlier this year.

Portugal said it had agreed to take 10 of the 58 migrants on board as part of a "response of solidarity to the flow of migrants seeking to reach Europe across the Mediterranean".

Malta said migrants would be transferred to a patrol boat in international waters and taken to the island, which will then send them to four other European Union states.

It was not immediately clear how many migrants Spain and Germany had agreed to take in, though a French government source said France would take 18.

The French prime minister's office said the Aquarius, whose registration was revoked by Panama earlier this week, would head to Marseille once its passengers had disembarked.

"Malta and France again step up to solve (the) migrant impasse," Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said on Twitter, adding that he, French President Emmanuel Macron and other leaders wanted to show a multilateral approach was possible.

On Sunday, Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini of the far-right League Party said the Aquarius had hindered the work of the Libyan coast guard and Italy's ports would remain shut.

A public backlash over the arrival of hundreds of thousands of migrants in the past five years has fuelled a swing towards far-right parties in many countries in Europe and helped bring Italy's anti-establishment ruling coalition to power this year.

France had initially refused to let the Aquarius dock in Marseille, as requested by the charities operating the ship, arguing that under European rules, the ship was supposed to dock at the nearest port, in this case Malta.

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In August, France and Malta struck a deal to let the Aquarius dock in Valletta harbour after France, Germany, Luxembourg, Portugal and Spain agreed to take in the migrants, ending a five-day tug-of-war among EU countries.

Aquarius 2 is the one remaining charity rescue vessel still operating in the central Mediterranean, picking up migrants who are in most cases trying to get to Europe from Libya, often in overcrowded, unseaworthy boats.

Italy became the main route into Europe for hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers arriving by sea since the other main route from Turkey to Greece was largely shut in 2016.

On Monday, Panama authorities revoked the Aquarius's registration, meaning that once it docks it will be 'de-flagged' and will not have the right to sail unless a new registration is found.

(Additional reporting by Axel Bugge in Lisbon; Brian Love and Jean-Baptiste Vey in Paris; and Chris Scicluna in Valletta; writing by Michel Rose; Editing by Mark Heinrich, Richard Balmforth)NEW YORK (AP)  In a story Sept. 26 about Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno's views about Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, The Associated Press reported erroneously that Assange over the past two years had continued to hack the accounts of politicians around the world. It should've said Assange had published material from hacked politicians' accounts.

A corrected version of the story is below:

Britain, Ecuador seeking an end to the Assange standoff

Ecuador's president says his country and the United Kingdom are working on a legal solution for Julian Assange that would allow the Wikileaks founder to leave the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in "the medium term."

By CLAUDIA TORRENS

Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP)  Ecuador's president said Wednesday that his country and Britain are working on a legal solution for Julian Assange to allow the Wikileaks founder to leave the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in "the medium term."

President Lenin Moreno told The Associated Press that Assange's lawyers were aware of the negotiations. He declined to provide more details because of the sensitivity of the case.

Assange has been holed up in the embassy for more than six years. The famous whistleblower and computer engineer faces an arrest warrant in the U.K. for not making a bail payment and fears he could be extradited to the U.S., where high-level officials have spoken about prosecuting him for stealing classified information. Previous sexual assault charges filed against him in Sweden have been dropped.

Moreno said his country will work for Assange's safety and the preservation of his human rights as it seeks a way for him to leave the embassy.

"Being five or six years in an embassy already violates his human rights," Moreno said on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. "But his presence in the embassy is also a problem."

Ecuador's previous left-leaning administration gave Assange asylum in 2012, saying it feared his life was in danger for publishing thousands of diplomatic cables that put U.S. officials in a difficult position.

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But Assange's relationship with the Ecuadorian government has soured since the centrist Moreno became president. Over the past two years Assange's access to the internet was suspended on several occasions, as he continued to publish material from the hacked accounts of politicians from different countries and made controversial statements on his social media accounts.

"I understand that currently he has no access (to the internet) to stop him from doing that again," Moreno said. "But if Mr Assange promises to stop emitting opinions on the politics of friendly nations like Spain or the United States then we have no problem with him going online."

Ecuador's government has said Assange's activities in the embassy, including the publishing of thousands of Hillary Clinton's emails prior to the 2016 election in the U.S., have compromised its relations with other countries.

"I don't agree with what he does," Moreno said. "To see someone violating people's right to communicate privately makes me feel uncomfortable."

Assange has long argued that he is simply monitoring the actions of some of the world's most powerful politicians and exercising his right to free speech.Julian Assange is seen on the balcony of the Ecuadorian embassy in London last year. Photograph: Peter Nicholls/Reuters

Ecuador went as far as appointing Julian Assange to a diplomatic position at its embassy in Moscow as part of its failed plan to get him out of the UK, the Guardian has learned.

The WikiLeaks founder was named as a councillor in Ecuadors embassy to Russia on 19 December 2017, just days after he was granted Ecuadorean citizenship as part of the aborted escape plan revealed by the Guardian last week. However, the nomination was later withdrawn after the UK refused to recognise his diplomat status.

A classified document signed by Ecuadors then-deputy foreign minister Jose Luis Jacome appeared to corroborate information from multiple sources that Russia would have been the ultimate destination for Assange if the plan had been successful.

The involvement of Russia  a country from where Assange would not be at risk of extradition to the US  raised new questions about his ties to the Kremlin.

Assange, who has not left Ecuadors London embassy since seeking asylum there in August 2012, has been a key figure in the ongoing US criminal investigation into Russias attempts to sway the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.

Classified documents, including the agreement to make Assange an adviser, have been seen by the Ecuadorean politician Paola Vintimilla, who will seek to have them declassified in a plenary session of Ecuadors national assembly on Thursday.

There was a ministerial agreement to make Julian Assange an adviser in the [Ecuadorean] embassy in Moscow, Vintimilla told the Guardian.

Ecuadoran right-wing congresswoman Paola Vintimilla speaks during an interview in Quito. Photograph: Rodrigo Buendia/AFP/Getty Images

It was just days after he was given [Ecuadorean] citizenship and they asked the British government to approve his diplomatic status, she said.

The stumbling block was the UKs refusal to grant Assange diplomatic protection. Ecuador made two requests in the last week of December 2017, both of which the UK turned down, according to the documents.

On 29 December, Ecuador withdrew Assanges diplomatic appointment to Moscow. The operation to extract Assange was provisionally scheduled for Christmas Eve in 2017, one source told the Guardian.

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Vintimilla said another document lifted Assanges asylum status  which would have been a first step to his appointment as an Ecuadorean diplomat. The agreement was signed on 4 December 2017  a week before the Australian was granted Ecuadorean citizenship. It was signed and witnessed by the Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon, who has acted as a legal adviser to Assange.

In May, Ecuadors president, Lenin Moreno, said that he had delegated all decisions about Assange to the then-foreign minister Maria Fernanda Espinosa, now the head of the United Nations general assembly. Moreno has previously described Assanges situation as a stone in his shoe.

He washed his hands, Vintimilla said, adding that Espinosa had bent the rules for Assange. Just days before Assanges citizenship was granted, laws were changed to allow those living under the countrys international protection to obtain citizenship.

Moreno, speaking on the sidelines of the UN general assembly on Wednesday, said that Ecuador and the UK were working on a legal solution that would allow Assange to leave the Ecuadorian embassy in London in the medium term. He gave no further details.

The Russian embassy in London denied any involvement in an escape plan for Assange in a letter published in the Guardian on Monday.Reuters

A Hong Kong activist dubbed "Captain America 2.0" for wielding the superhero's shield at pro-democracy protests was jailed for nearly six years on Thursday under a national security law, after a court ruled he promoted independence from China. District Court Judge Stanley Chan ruled in October that former delivery man Ma Chun-man, 31, was guilty of inciting secession due to the slogans he chanted, placards he held and the statements he made to media. "In this context, it's hard to guarantee there won't be other Ma Chun-mans."HELSINKI (Reuters) - A Finnish court on Tuesday remanded in custody a Russian and an Estonian detained on suspicion of aggravated money laundering following a police raid described by officials as exceptionally large.

The two were held over the weekend, when about 400 police and other officials searched 17 locations and found more than 500,000 euros ($588,400) in cash on the suspects' premises on islands in southwest Finland, officials said.

The West Finland District Court said in a statement that the Russian man, 36, was suspected of aggravated money laundering and aggravated tax fraud while the Estonian, 51, was suspected of aggravated money laundering and abetting aggravated tax fraud in the Parainen municipality between 2014 and 2018.

The investigation is related to suspected financial fraud worth several million euros, according to the officials.

Several media reports have said the case was linked to the purchase of islands and properties worth millions of euros in the Turku archipelago near strategic military locations.

The lawyer of the Russian said in response to the court actions and the media reports that his client was innocent.

"My client strictly denies committing any criminal conduct and these suspicions. He had had a very minor role in this matter and all his activities have been fully legal," the Russian man's lawyer Tuomas Sunnari told Finnish TV channel MTV.

"News of the past few days have understandably raised citizens' concerns over which kind of groups can purchase and own properties in Finland," Defence Minister Jussi Niinisto said in a statement on Monday.

Commenting on the raid, Finnish president Sauli Niinisto told reporters late on Monday: "This was an exceptionally extensive operation.... which gives a signal that in Finland we take this kind of investigation seriously."

Finland shares a 833-mile (1,340 km) border and a difficult history with Russia. It has lately developed closer ties with NATO but stopped short of full membership in line with a tradition of avoiding confrontation with its eastern neighbor.

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(Reporting by Anne Kauranen, editing by Jussi Rosendahl, Editing by William Maclean)

See Also:The mangled wreckage of a car reportedly destroyed in an airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition is seen near the eastern entrance of the Yemeni city of Hodeida. Photograph: Stringer/AFP/Getty Images

Civilian deaths in Yemen have surged dramatically since June after the Saudi-led coalition began an offensive to take the key port city of Hodeidah from Houthi rebels.

According to the figures, collected by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project (Acled), civilian deaths in the Yemeni conflict have increased by 164% in the four months since the Hodeidah offensive started, claiming the lives of about 166 people a month.

The groups analysis suggests Hodeidah has become the most violent frontline in the four-year conflict. In recent months, about one-third of the total conflict-related fatalities have been recorded in the governorate, reflecting the bitterness of the struggle for the key port and its surrounding environs.

Attempts to negotiate a ceasefire led to a temporary pause in the summer offensive, but the failure of peace talks in Geneva convened by Martin Griffiths, the UN special envoy for Yemen, led to a resumption of hostilities on 7 September.

The coalition-led efforts have focused on several key points around the city, including a battle for control of the Kilo 16 road junction linking Hodeidah to Sanaa, a key supply line for the Houthis controlling the port.

The sharp rise in casualties noted by Acled was cited by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in renewed calls to the UN general assembly, which met in New York this week, to bring an end to Yemens war.

August was the most violent month of 2018 in Yemen with nearly 500 people killed in just nine days, said Frank McManus, the IRCs Yemen director, who added that, since 2015, the coalition has undertaken 18,000 airstrikes  one every 99 minutes  one-third of which have hit non-military targets.

McManus said: The protection of civilians and civilian infrastructure is not a luxury; it is an essential provision of international law. When these laws fail, civilians suffer. Calls from members of the UN security council for all conflict actors to respect international law and protect civilians ring hollow in the face of evidence from the ground in Yemen. The world needs a wake up call on Yemen and a new strategy to prevent the suffering of civilians.

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As we speak, fighting inside the critical port city of Hodeidah is increasing and the consequences are dire. A siege will effectively block humanitarian aid from reaching the 22 million people in need and could trigger famine. This week the UN warned that we are losing the fight against famine in Yemen and, with the humanitarian crisis plummeting to new depths, all efforts must be focused on securing a ceasefire.

The new casualty figures came even as the Saudi-led coaltion insisted it was doing everything to minimise civilian deaths in Hodeidah.

Military spokesman Col Turki Al-Maliki announced on Monday that three humanitarian corridors between the former capital that was seized by the Houthi militia in 2014 and the countrys biggest port on the Red Sea have been set up in cooperation with the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

The coalition is working with OCHA in Yemen to establish safe humanitarian corridors to help in the delivery of aid  between Hodeidah and Sanaa, Al-Maliki told a press conference in Riyadh.

International NGOs have echoed warnings about the escalating scale of the humanitarian crisis in Yemen after Mark Lowcock, the UN humanitarian chief, last week told the security council that the country is at a tipping point for the risk of a massive loss of life because of famine.

In a statement to the UN general assembly, 14 groups including Save the Children, Oxfam and Mercy Corps said: After almost four years of conflict, and despite all efforts to halt displacement, hunger and disease, Yemen remains the worst humanitarian crisis on earth. The suffering inflicted on Yemeni people is entirely manmade and will continue to deteriorate rapidly on all fronts without actions to end the violence.

Increased fighting risks pushing the country into utter devastation: The ongoing escalation around Hodeidah jeopardises the safety of civilians and threatens the channels for critical fuel, food and medical supplies to the rest of the country. It is crucial that this remains open. The lives of millions of Yemeni women, men and children hang on this lifeline.

Civilians continue to bear the brunt. Civilians and civilian infrastructure, such as markets, hospitals, school buses and mills continue to be hit by all parties with impunity, as reported by the UN group of eminent experts on Yemen.

Attacks on schools and hospitals continue, with over 1,800 schools directly impacted by the conflict, including more than 1,500 that have been damaged or destroyed and 21 used by armed groups.By Ori Lewis

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel opened a high-speed rail link between Tel Aviv's international airport and Jerusalem on Tuesday, part of a $2 billion project that has drawn Palestinian complaints over its route through small parts of the occupied West Bank.

The train will cut travel time between Ben-Gurion Airport and a new, 80-metre-(260-foot)-deep underground terminal at the entrance to Jerusalem to around 20 minutes. By road, the trip takes at least 40 minutes.

At the airport, the bright red train drew smiles from eager passengers.

"It was like a dream come true ... It's really quite amazing

and will be a valuable asset to people wanting to get to and from the airport," said Manchester-born Eli Rothbard, 45, a ground services employee at Ben Gurion.

The train, travelling at speeds of up to 160 kilometres per hour (100 mph), traverses a series of new tunnels and bridges, passing through hills between Jerusalem and the airport, about 40 km (25 miles) away.

The line runs through sections of land Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war near the Palestinian village of Beit Surik, on the outskirts of Jerusalem, and in the Latrun Valley, about midway between the holy city and Ben-Gurion airport.

Palestinians who live in the West Bank are largely barred by Israel from travelling abroad via Ben-Gurion, and cross overland to Jordan instead to fly out of the airport in Amman. Israel cites security concerns for the ban.

"It is very sad that you see a railway and see modern technology on your land and inside your land and you cannot use it or exploit it because of the element of power of the occupation," said Mohammed al-Tari, 55, from Beit Surik.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat accused Israel of "illegally making use of occupied Palestinian land" in setting the train's route, which will eventually include a direct high-speed link between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv city itself.

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Erekat said the train was part of Israel's "agenda of turning its occupation into annexation".

On a test run last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the opening of the line was "an historic moment" heralding a "new era for Jerusalem and the state of Israel."

There have been plans for a fast train between Jerusalem and the city of Tel Aviv, Israel's commercial hub on the Mediterranean coast, since 1995. But the project - infrastructure work began in 2005 - has been slow-moving, plagued by a lack of funding and environmental concerns.

Completion of electrification work and the opening of the 60-km (37-mile)-long route between the two cities has been frequently postponed. No firm inaugural date has been announced.

When completed, the train journey time between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem will take under half an hour. The drive takes at least an hour. An existing rail line built by the Ottoman Turks more than 100 years ago meanders around picturesque hills and the journey takes more than 90 minutes.

At Ben-Gurion, Yogev Yair, a 41-year-old high-tech employee travelling with his toddler son to Jerusalem, hailed the opening of the high-speed link. "I personally have no problem with the line traversing the 'Green Line' (into the West Bank)," he said.

(Additional reporting by Stephen Farrell, Ari Rabinovitch, Steven Scheer and Ali Sawafta, writing by Ori Lewis; Editing by Jeffrey Heller/Mark Heinrich)Jeremy Corbyn to meet with EU chief Brexit negotiator 24 hours after pledging to take charge in talks

Jeremy Corbyn will vow to tear up decades of economic thinking in a major speech today, denouncing greed is good capitalism while pledging to pump billions of pounds of public money into green industries.

The leader will also attack politicians who strained every sinew to bail out the banks, words that risk being seen as criticism of the former Labour prime minister Gordon Brown.

Mr Corbyn will pledge to rebuild a new kind of economy based on green energy  with an unprecedented expansion in wind power, solar panels on every roof and a drive to insulate all homes.

He will argue that the push, funded in part by the taxpayer, will deliver a green jobs revolution with 400,000 new posts  although an identically named policy promising the same number of positions was also pledged by Mr Brown in 2009.

Mr Corbyn will deliver his speech to hundreds of delegates in Liverpool on the final day of a Labour conference which comes as the party prepares for an opportunity to snatch power if Theresa Mays administration collapses under the pressure of Brexit.

Promising to radically overhaul the economy, Mr Corbyn will say: Ten years ago this month, the whole edifice of greed-is-good, deregulated financial capitalism, lauded for a generation as the only way to run a modern economy, came crashing to earth, with devastating consequences.

But instead of making essential changes to a broken economic system, the political and corporate establishment strained every sinew to bail out and prop up the system that led to the crash in the first place.

People in this country know  they showed that in June last year  that the old way of running things isnt working any more.

Former Labour leader Mr Brown played a pivotal role in bailing out the banks in 2008 and delivering policy to prop up the financial system until he left power after the 2010 election.

More recently he has made critical comments about his successor, saying, Jeremy Corbyn has got to change and calling on him to remove the stain of antisemitism to the party.

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But Mr Corbyns officials insisted on Tuesday night that the leader was not directly attacking Mr Brown in his speech or the notion that an urgent bailout of banks had been needed in 2008.

Instead they said he was targeting the broader efforts to maintain the same financial system, with vast sums of money pumped in through quantitative easing, leading to asset bubbles that did not benefit lower income households.

Mr Corbyn will set out how his new economy will be underpinned by a mushrooming green-energy sector  he will pledge to deliver with a plan to reduce net carbon emissions by 60 per cent by 2030.

To achieve this he will pledge a doubling in onshore wind capacity from some 7,000 turbines currently to 14,000 turbines, a sevenfold increase in offshore turbines from around 1,900 to 13,300 and a trebling of solar panels  with one placed on all viable UK roofs  increasing the share of electricity coming from low carbon or renewable sources from 50 per cent to 85 per cent.

Labour has set aside 12.8bn in its National Transformation Fund to cover the insulation programme in its first term.

Instead of making essential changes to a broken economic system, the political and corporate establishment strained every sinew to bail out and prop up the system that led to the crash in the first place

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn

Other costs will be covered by the private sector, according to Labour, with changes to planning guidance for onshore wind to encourage investment.

Party researchers estimate these actions would create a green jobs revolution with an additional 410,000 positions spread across the UK.

Mr Corbyn will say: It means working with industry to change the way we build, and to train the workforce to retrofit homes and work in the industries we will build.

It needs a government committed to investing in renewables, in jobs and in training.

I can announce today that Labour will kickstart a green jobs revolution.

In March 2009 Mr Brown also promised a green jobs revolution that would deliver 400,000 new jobs, but a year later  before his government left office  a report from the same consultancy that came up with the jobs figure said it would be too difficult to achieve.

David Cameron also promised a green revolution, although he ended up cutting subsidies for relevant industries and by 2013 reportedly said that green crap needed to be scrapped from his agenda.

But Mr Corbyns officials argued that his programme would be different because it will involve substantial amounts of investment and a government committed to regulating for the changes.

His spokesman told The Independent: Sadly Labour lost the election in 2010, and as weve seen the government has retreated from green energy commitments in both practical ways and in terms of cash.

Obviously since the Gordon Brown government there have been changes in policy across the range  we are talking about a significantly more interventionist programme.CANBERRA, Australia (AP)  An Indian and an Irish sailor rescued from damaged sailboats in the remote southern Indian Ocean set foot on land on Tuesday when they reached an island to undergo medical assessments, officials said.

The French fisheries patrol boat Osiris rescued injured Indian Abhilash Tomy, 39, and Irishman Gregor McGuckin, 32, late Monday after their boats lost masts in a storm Friday while competing in the around-the-world Golden Globe Race.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority, which coordinated the rescues in the Australian search and rescue zone 3,500 kilometers (2,200 miles) southwest of the Australian city of Perth and 3,000 kilometers (1,875 miles) southeast of the French island of Reunion, said the sailors arrived at a French research station on remote Amsterdam Island on Tuesday.

"They will be assessed by a medical team before any decisions are made," the authority said in a statement.

The station has a doctor and a small hospital where the conditions of both sailors will be assessed, said the authority's response center manager, Alan Lloyd. Tomy had reported a back injury during the storm that had left him bedridden.

"Both sailors have been reported as well," Lloyd told reporters. "Tomy was able to assist himself by transferring off the vessel onto the Osiris."

Indian Defense Minister Nirmala Sitharaman tweeted on Monday that it was "a sense of relief to know that naval officer" Tomy was "rescued by the French fishing vessel. He's conscious and doing okay."

She said an Indian navy frigate would take Tomy from Amsterdam Island to Mauritius for medical attention.

Lloyd said an Australian navy frigate would reach Amsterdam Island on Friday with plans to take the two sailors to the Australian port of Fremantle.

Whether Tomy goes to Mauritius or Fremantle will depend on his medical assessment at Amsterdam Island, Lloyd said.

"At this stage, we would suggest his condition is stable, but obviously we await the final medical advice," he said.

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An Indian Armed Forces P-8 Poseidon surveillance aircraft flying from Mauritius helped authorities assess the conditions of the sailboats.

McGuckin lost both masts, but constructed a temporary jury-rig to get his sailboat to within a few kilometers (miles) of Tomy's boat in a bid to offer help. McGuckin was rescued more than four hours after Tomy, an authority statement said.

Indian navy spokesman Capt. D.K. Sharma said Monday that Tomy was in third place in the race that began in France on July 1 when he lost his mast.

"I'm sure he would have brought laurels to the country. Unfortunately, this feat could not be completed," Sharma said. "But we are very happy that he's safe and sound and we'll soon have him back."A pending bill aimed at lowering electricity rates in the Philippines is stirring up a hornets nest in the power sector. Critics of House Bill 8179, which proposes to grant a company the non-exclusive right to build solar-battery mini-grids in off-grid areas nationwide at zero cost to the government argue, argue that the franchise will result in another monopoly and inefficient electricity service. Supporters of the bill, however, say the new franchise is the countys best shot at lowering electricity rates in the Philippines. Electricity rates in the Philippines are actually the highest in Asia due to lack of competition. New players, like Solar Para sa Bayan, will provide competition and force existing industry players to reduce their rates. Consumer groups have expressed support for House Bill 8179. The National Association of Electric Consumers for Reforms, or Nasecore, says the bill offers Filipinos an alternative choice for electricity and will pave the way for more competition in the power industry. The fact electric service is still so poor and costly, 17 years after Epira (Electric Power Industry Reform Act), shows current measures have failed. Solar Para Sa Bayan should be thanked for fulfilling the intent of Epira, which consumers have long waited for. We hope this wakes up the power industry, and leads to more reforms that will benefit the people, instead of institutionalizing the inefficiencies of electric utilities, Nasecore executive director Rafael Acebedo said. Solar Para Sa Bayan, or SPSB, is owned by businessman Leandro Leviste, who also owns Solar Philippines. The company supplies Manila Electric Co. the lowest cost of any power plant in the Philippines at P2.99 per kWh, or 50 percent below Meralcos all-in cost of generation (inclusive of VAT) of P6 per kWh. Solar Philippines managed to reduce its generation costs after developing and constructing its solar projects in-house. It manufactures solar panels in its 800-MW factory in Batangas, the first Filipino solar panel factory.Supporters of the bill dismissed concerns of another monopoly in the making, citing the non-exclusivity clause of HB 8179. The text of the bill speaks for itself: It is non-exclusive, encourages others to apply for the same, and aims to end the existing monopolies on electricity, because we believe consumers deserve new choices for better service at lower cost. It also incurs zero cost to government, and eliminates the need for billions in subsidies to existing utilities, Leviste said. Solar Para Sa Bayan only targets areas where consumers complain about electricity. If, instead of trying to prevent competition, utilities focused on lowering costs and improving service, then Filipinos would be satisfied with their electric service, and thered be no need for us at all, he added.The construction of solar-batter mini-grids incurs zero cost to the government and comes with no subsidies and no incentives, unlike existing renewable energy and rural electrification programs. The National Electrification Administration has requested the government P25 billion for its sitio electrification. With the private sector, taxpayers can save this entire amount. National Power Corps Universal Charge for Missionary Electrification is a fee amounting to P0.1561/kWh paid by all Filipinos, most of all in Metro Manila, with total Napocor subsidies amounting to around P20 billion yearly. Electric cooperatives receive subsidies for their inefficiencies, such as the Lanao del Sur Electric Cooperative. The government recently announced it would condone P10 billion in debts because of its inability to pay over the years. The so-called feed-in-tariff, meanwhile, amounts to P0.2563/kWh, or nearly P30 billion in yearly fund tht the renewable energy industry depends on, except for SPSB. While the government was subsidizing renewable energy from P8 to 9/kWh, SPSB and its affiliates signed power supply agreements with Meralco for as low as P2.99/kWh, proving that there was no need for any FIT. As a result, the government stopped granting more FIT, saving billions of pesos in subsidies. A Pulse Asia survey results show overwhelming support for new options and public dissatisfaction with high electricity rates. Twenty municipalities have signed resolutions supporting SPSB projects, while over 100,000 people have also signed petitions supporting congressional passage of HB 8179. E-mail: [email protected] or [email protected] or [email protected]By Parisa Hafezi

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Tuesday criticized Washington for its hostile policy towards his country and said the U.S. approach was doomed to failure.

Rouhani, in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly, said the United States had waged "economic war" against Iran by reimposing unilateral sanctions, which were lifted under the country's 2015 multinational nuclear deal in return for Tehran curbing its nuclear program.

"The United States policy vis-a-vis the Islamic Republic of Iran has been wrong from the beginning, and its approach of resisting the wishes of the Iranian people as manifested in numerous elections is doomed to failure," Rouhani said.

President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the pact in May, and his administration reimposed sanctions on Iran in August. Harsher sanctions on Iran's oil and banking sector are expected in November.

"The economic war that the United States has initiated under the rubric of new sanctions not only targets the Iranian people but also entails harmful repercussions for the people of other countries, and that war has caused a disruption in the state of global trade," Rouhani said.

"What Iran says is clear: no war, no sanctions, no threats, no bullying; just acting according to the law and the fulfilment of obligations."

Mounting pressure from the Trump administration combined with discontent among many Iranians at the state of the economy are rattling the Islamic Republic, with little sign that its leaders have the answers, officials and analysts say.

The rial has lost 40 percent of its value against the U.S. dollar <IRR=> since April. Iran has blamed U.S. sanctions for the currency's fall, saying the measures amount to a political, psychological and economic war on Tehran.

"THREAT FOR THREAT"

To pile on the pain, Washington says all countries must end crude imports from Iran by Nov. 4, hitting the oil sales that generate 60 percent of the countrys income. Iran says this level of cuts will never happen.

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Tehran has suggested 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. Washington maintains a fleet in the Gulf that protects oil shipping routes.

"The security of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz has always been important for us ... we will confront any and all disruptive efforts in this critical waterway in the future," said Rouhani.

The Strait of Hormuz is a strategic artery linking Middle East crude producers to key markets in the Asia-Pacific, Europe, North America and beyond. A third of the worlds seaborne oil passes through the strait in southern Iran.

Trump, in his annual U.N. speech, said he would keep up economic pressure on Tehran to try to force a change in its behaviour. But Rouhani said Iran had no intention of succumbing to the U.S. pressure.

"The United States understanding of international relations is authoritarian. ... Its understanding of power, not of legal and legitimate authority, is reflected in bullying and imposition," Rouhani said.

"No state and nation can be brought to the negotiating table by force," said the pragmatist president, adding that Iran did not want any war.

"Our proposal is clear: commitment for commitment; violation for violation; threat for threat; and step for step, instead of talk for talk," he said.

Rouhani expressed Iran's willingness to improve ties with the regional countries. Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia has been at loggerheads with Shi'ite Iran for decades, fighting a long-running proxy war in the Middle East and beyond that has influenced conflicts in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen.

Riyadh and its Gulf allies have hailed Trump's decision to exit the nuclear deal and to reimpose sanctions on Tehran, reflecting their concern about Iran's influence in the region.

"We believe in the formation of a collective mechanism for the Persian Gulf region with the presence and participation of all regional countries," Rouhani said.

(Writing by Parisa Hafezi; Editing by James Dalgleish and Jonathan Oatis)DAMASCUS, Syria (AP)  The Syrian government intends to retake the rebel-held northwestern province of Idlib, either by force or through peaceful means, an official said in remarks published Tuesday.

Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad was quoted by the pro-government daily Al-Watan as saying that the government remains committed to regaining control over the entire country.

He said Idlib will go the way of three other regions that were previously considered de-escalation zones. In those regions, government forces backed by Russia and Iran laid siege to rebel-held areas before retaking them in bloody offensives.

"Just as we won in every other part of Syria, we will be victorious in Idlib," Mekdad said. "We are going to Idlib through war or peace. We prefer to reach the Syrians in Idlib through peace," he added.

Last week, Russia and Turkey reached a deal to avert an offensive against Idlib, which is controlled by a mix of radical groups and Turkey-backed Syrian forces.

Two insurgent groups have rejected the deal for a demilitarized zone around Idlib that should be set up by mid-October, calling it a conspiracy that aims to disarm the opposition.

Concerns are rising in Idlib over the details of the deal and how it will be implemented. The province is home to some 3 million Syrians, half of them displaced by violence in other parts of the country. Idlib is the last major rebel stronghold in the country, and Turkey has been sending reinforcements into the province, where it maintains 12 observation points that ring Idlib.FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump participates in a signing ceremony for the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement with South Korean President Moon Jae-in on the sidelines of the 73rd United Nations General Assembly in New York, U.S., September 24, 2018. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

Thomson Reuters

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he would not meet Iranian President Hassan Rouhani as world leaders gathered in New York but signaled he was open to a future meeting, despite ongoing tensions over Tehran's nuclear deal.

Both countries' presidents were due to attend the U.N. General Assembly in New York where Trump is scheduled to address the gathering at 10:15 a.m. (1415 GMT).

Foes for decades, Washington and Tehran have been increasingly at odds since May, when the Republican U.S. president pulled out of the 2015 international nuclear deal with Iran and announced sanctions against the OPEC member.

The accord, negotiated under Democratic U.S. President Barack Obama, lifted most international sanctions against Tehran in exchange for Iran curbing its nuclear program.

Over the summer, Trump had said he would meet with Rouhani without preconditions to negotiate a new deal, an offer reiterated on Sunday by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and extended to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei.

Rouhani said on Monday Tehran would not talk to Trump until the United States returned to the 2015 deal.. The top adviser to Khamenei, Ali Akbar Velayati, rejected the U.S. offer on Tuesday, saying "Trump's and Pompeo's dream would never come to reality," the IRNA news agency said.

"Despite requests, I have no plans to meet Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Maybe someday in the future. I am sure he is an absolutely lovely man," Trump wrote in a post on Twitter.

Alireza Miryousefi, spokesman for Iran's U.N. mission, told Reuters that Iran has not requested a meeting with Trump.

Some Iranian insiders have said any talks between Rouhani and Trump would effectively kill the existing deal.

Quashing the current pact would come at a political cost for the Iranian president, who championed the deal with the supreme leader's guarded backing and who could lose support from European allies.

Story continues

Rouhani is also under increasing pressure from his country's hardliners, including Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, which have kept up the anti-American rhetoric ahead of the U.N. session.

Iran curbed its nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief in the 2015 nuclear accord.

Trump pulled out, saying the agreement did not go far enough. His administration is pushing allies to cut imports of Iranian oil to zero as Washington prepares to restore sanctions on Iran's oil sales in November.

The remaining countries in the deal, which see it as the best chance to stop Iran from developing a nuclear bomb, on Monday agreed to keep working to maintain trade with Tehran.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, following a meeting on Monday with Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and Iran in New York, warned that the U.S. strategy of applying maximum pressure on Tehran and going it alone could risk a regional escalation.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Writing by Susan Heavey; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)

See Also:By Lesley Wroughton

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The United States is pressing Zimbabwe to change laws restricting media freedom and anti-government protests, the U.S.'s top diplomat for Africa told Reuters on Wednesday amid calls by the country's new leader for U.S. sanctions to be lifted.

"The Zimbabweans absolutely understand exactly the U.S. point of view," said Tibor Nagy, who was recently sworn in as U.S. assistant secretary of state for Africa.

The laws Nagy referred to include the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, which restrict media freedoms and bars foreign correspondents from working in Zimbabwe full time. The other is the Public Order and Security Act, which is used by the security agencies to prohibit anti-government protests and arrest pro-opposition activists.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who took over from 93-year-old Robert Mugabe in 2017 after the intervention of the military, has called for U.S. sanctions to be lifted against him, officials from the ZANU-PF ruling party, top military figures and some government-owned firms, imposed during Mugabe's rule for violations of human rights and democracy.

His victory in a July 30 election was touted as a crucial step towards shedding the pariah reputation that Zimbabwe gained under Mugabe, as well as securing funding from global lenders like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

"The Zimbabweans are being very positive what they are going to be doing, including that they have a legal process on how to enact measures," Nagy said in an interview on the sidelines of U.N. meetings.

He said political reforms would encourage foreign investment.

"Taking action on those two (laws) would send a signal ... to investors," Nagy said, adding: "Zimbabwe could go very, very quickly to a middle income status with positive leadership and positive steps, both on opening the political space and also opening up economic fairness."

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ETHIOPIA'S REFORM

Nagy said political and economic reforms in countries like Ethiopia and Angola were "prime examples" of how visionary leaders could transform countries and attract investor interest.

"The lamps are coming back on in an incredibly important region," Nagy said of changes in Ethiopia that have reshaped the political landscape in the Horn of Africa.

Since taking office in April, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's ruling coalition has ended a state of emergency and released political prisoners, while also announcing plans to partially open up the economy to foreign investors.

In his boldest move, he has restored diplomatic ties and reopened the border with Eritrea, 20 years after the neighbours started a border war that killed an estimated 80,000 people.

Nagy said Washington "definitely wants to be partners in Ethiopia's evolution" through technical assistance, financial reforms and investment.

Nagy said, however, recent protests in Ethiopia's Somali region and on the outskirts of the capital Addis Ababa illustrated the delicate nature of political change in Africa's second most populous country.

"The prime minister is in an extremely delicate situation because on the one hand if it's too light of a touch and he doesn't respond, then people's lives are lost. If he comes in with too heavy a hand, then there is law enforcement brutality ... that the government has been systematically criticized for now for decades."

The government this month lifted a ban on opposition groups that were considered terrorist groups. Elections are due in 2020.

(Reporting by Lesley Wroughton; Editing by James Dalgleish)Boohoo increased its guidance for annual revenue growth as the online fashion retailer reported first-half profit up by more than a fifth.

Pre-tax profit for the six months to the end of August rose 22% to 24.7m as revenue increased 50% to 395.3m.

Boohoo, which specialises in cheap fashion, predicted revenue would rise by between 38% and 43% in the year to the end of February  up from earlier guidance of 35% to 40%.

Most of the AIM-traded companys growth came from its PrettyLittleThing women's fashion business where revenue increased 132% to 168.6m. At the main Boohoo division revenue rose 15% to 209m.

UK revenue rose 43% to 234.1m and growth was faster in the rest of Europe, up 84% to 51.2m and the US, up 72% to 68.1m.

PrettyLittleThing moved its warehouse to a bigger site in Sheffield in July and August and the relocation went smoothly, Boohoo said.

Boohoos joint chief executives, Mahmud Kamani and Carol Kane, said: "Our group results for the first half year show yet another strong performance, delivering record sales and profits. All of our brands performed extremely well across all territories as we continue to gain market share.

We achieved market-leading growth in all markets, with rest of Europe and the USA being particularly pleasing. Growth in the UK, our largest market, remains very strong.

Boohoos shares rose 7.5% to 205.6p at 08:22 BST.

Kamani and Kane will step back from leading Boohoo in March 2019, handing over to John Lyttle, chief operating officer of Associated British Foods Primark clothing business. The company has agreed to pay Lyttle 50m in shares if the companys value increases by 180% over five years.

Boohoo said David Forbes, its senior non-executive director, would stand down on 26 October. The company is looking for a replacement director and existing board member Sara Forbes will take over as the senior non-executive.Hornby said trading was on track to meet its expectations as the model train maker seeks to put a run of bad results behind it.

In the five months to the end of August sales were lower than internal budgets and the year before, the company said in an update before its annual meeting. This was caused by lack of discounting, excess stock in the supply chain and late deliveries.

But the AIM-traded company said cancelled discounts had improved profit margins and cost cuts had helped reduce the companys annual loss.

Plans for product lines are complete six months earlier than last year, meaning products are likely to get to market on time. Receiving products on time from factories in will be an important element of the groups performance, it said.

Hornby, whose brands include Corgi, Airfix and Scalextric, has issued a string of profit warnings caused by late deliveries and disappointing sales. The problems threatened the companys survival until its banks agreed to provide support.

Chief executive Lyndon Davies, who joined in late 2017, has tried to stop the rot by ending discounts and overhauling the companys supply chain. The companys battered shares surged on 17 September when it announced a licensing agreement with Warner Bros to produce products based on Harry Potter, DC superheroes and other well-known characters.

Hornby said its product pipeline included exciting releases and licensing deals akin to the Warner Bros announcement. The company's shares rose 1.6% to 36.47p at 08:02 BST.

Davies said: Much has changed at Hornby over the last 12 months. The business is leaner and the improvement to our planning horizons is well advanced. He said the company would announce more details at its half-year results in mid-November.

Hornby could face a shareholder rebellion at its annual meeting over a 156,000 goodbye payment to former CEO Steve Cooke, who failed to revive the company.High-purity iron, vanadium and titanium project Ironveld has commenced mining and the supply of ore to a potential off-take partner, which it described a specialist subsidiary of an international steel group, the Bushveld Complex in Limpopo Province, it said on Wednesday.

The AIM-traded firm said its vanadiferous titaniferous magnetite project had a resource that contained 27 million tons of high-purity iron and 1.4 billion pounds of vanadium in situ, with the latter representing more than four times the global annual demand.

It said it had been actively engaged over the last year with a specialist metals subsidiary of an unnamed international steel group, which it said was a potential off-taker for its unrefined ore.

Following successful laboratory tests on samples of its ore, the off-taker had requested a sample of 10,000 tons for commercial scale testing.

Ironveld said the company, having finalised community access and rental agreements, said it had engaged the services of an opencast contract mining company and begun to take delivery of the commercial sample.

Initial grades analysis indicated that the company's ore should be amenable for successful processing in the off-taker's facility.

It was being paid for the commercial sample, such that the programme of sampling was expected to cover all its associated operating costs.

Ironveld explained that, should the commercial sample be successfully processed, the off-taker had indicated that they could request to undertake a long-term test of a significantly larger sample, taken across the licence holdings of the company for variability testing.

It had anticipated that the extended testing programme could last for up to 12 months.

Upon the successful conclusion of those tests, the company said it could expect to enter into a long-term off-take agreement with the off-taker that would set it on the path to executing its stated strategy of mining its ore and processing on site.

In that context, the Middelburg Smelting facility remained an acquisition option for the company, it said.

We are encouraged by the interest of the potential off-take partner, said chief executive officer Peter Cox.

The sampling programme will generate revenue for the company and we are hopeful that this will lead to a longer term commercial agreement, such that the company would move from a phase of exploration to one of revenue generation.

Cox said that, should the long-term test be successful, the amount of ore anticipated to be supplied under the envisaged off-take agreement would not affect its strategy of developing its own smelting capacity.

Since acquiring the project, Ironveld has obtained the necessary permits to begin construction and has secured financial support from the South African Government via the Industrial Development Corporation.

The long-term objective remains to operate our own smelting capacity to process the large Vanadiferous Titaniferous Magnetite resource at the project.Energy storage outfit ITM Power has opened another hydrogen refuelling station at on the M4 corridor.

ITM Power, along with fellow London-listed firm Johnson Matthey, cut the ribbon at the group's seventh public access hydrogen refuelling station, located at Johnson Matthey's Swindon site.

The launch was supported by the likes of Toyota, Hyundai and Honda.

ITM's Swindon site joins Cobham on the M25, Beaconsfield on the M40, Rainham in Kent on the A14, Teddington in London, Rotherham on the M1 and Kirkwall in Orkney.

Dr Graham Cooley, ITM Power's chief executive, said: "We are extremely pleased to have launched our seventh hydrogen refuelling station. ITM Power is grateful for the co-operation of our H2ME2 partners and for the funding support of FCHJU and OLEV. We are again collaborating with local stakeholders to develop a significant FCEV fleet around the new station."

As of 0915 BST, ITM Power shares had inched forward 0.36% to 27.70p.Even just half-hour delays at UK ports and the Irish border post-Brexit could lead to a wave of British firms going bankrupt, new research warned on Wednesday.

An extra two minutes of checks in a Brexit no-deal scenario could lead to 30 minutes delays and cause one in 10 UK firms to go bankrupt, was one finding of a survey by the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply.

John Glen, economist at CIPS, said: Its such a potential car crash. Common sense has got to prevail. We need to have a two-year transition period and to get something sorted out during that. The idea of day-one no-deal is just crazy.

The UK economy could fall of a cliff on Brexit day if goods are delayed by just minutes at the border. Businesses have become used to operating efficiently with exceptionally lean, frictionless supply chains, where quick customs clearance is a given. Customs delays would not only affect businesses but would also lead to a shortage of products on shelves and an increase in prices for consumers as well, he added.

Companies warning of the risks of crashing out of the EU without a deal include Next, Honda and Jaguar Land Rover, who are already preparing for the worst case scenario.

Jaguar Land Rover recently cut staff working hours, while Honda has said a no-deal Brexit could add 60,000 extra pieces of paperwork for imports and exports to the UK and cost the firm tens of millions of pounds.

Around 4% of firms are already stockpiling goods, fearing the border delays and the CIPS found that around a quarter of UK businesses plan to do so.

Border delays, tariffs on imports and other trade barriers could risk an economic meltdown since businesses are used to frictionless trade across the border. The disruptions in trade could cost the economy around 1bn per year, said economists at Oxera earlier on this year.The Philippine Economic Zone Authority warned Wednesday that more than 50 percent of the existing workforce inside the economic zones will be jobless if the government will push for the approval of the Tax Reform for Attracting Better and High Quality Opportunities, or Trabaho bill, in its current form. Peza director general Charito Plaza said the ecozones might lose at least 700,000 full-time workers in the Information Technology-Business Process Outsourcing and manufacturing sectors. In fact we fear that almost all jobs will be impacted. The biggest jobs are from IT-BPOs and manufacturing who can easily transfer to their other branches in other countries, she said in a messaging correspondence while visiting Malaysia for a business roadshow Data showed that full-time/direct jobs at the ecozones totaled more than 1.49 million. Peza said with a multiplier effect of eight indirect jobs, ecozones were responsible for 9.88 million jobs which would be at the mercy of Trabaho bill which represents the second package of the tax reform program. This will happen if the incentives, currently enjoyed by our locators are affected. IT industries can easily move out. Manufacturing can start transferring to their other branches in other countries. The only ones left with no choice but to stay are the ecozone developers who will also lose their industry, their clients and locators; the logistics hubs; brokers and the domestic suppliers; facility and utility enterprises serving the exporters including our farmers local suppliers, Plaza said. Senator Sonny Angara said the Senate committee would not proceed with its deliberation of the Trabaho bill unless the government could present definitive data on the impact on jobs. The Finance Department insisted that more jobs would be created in the long run under the Trabaho bill or House Bill 8083 as passed by the House of Representatives.The Labor Department confirmed that the second package of tax reforms, which aimed to lower corporate income tax while cutting out incentives, might lead to job losses. The department said that based on its job displacement monitoring, some 30,000 jobs in the industry and services sectors were lost in the first quarter of 2018. Following the passage of HB 8083, the Semiconductor and Electronics Industries in the Philippines Foundation Inc. released a statement that the bill would force them to lay off 140,000 workers. SEIPI said several multinationals were now locating their expansions outside the country, amid the uncertainty over the status of tax incentives here. HB 8083 provides for P500 million to be used for cash grants for displaced workers. An additional P500 million would be allocated for targeted trainings and skills upgrading.Analysts at Cannacord Genuity hiked their target price on shares of McCarthy&Stone , hailing the company's decision to shift its focus from growth to maximising returns and ongoing efforts to adjust its product offering.

The day before, the retirement homebuilder had unveiled a new 15% target for both its operating margins and return on capital employed.

"As well as taking out costs, management is clearly adjusting its customer proposition to increase the appeal of its product offering. For us, its success in this area is the more significant issue for the longer term investment case - clearly demographic trends support the business model but the right customer proposition is critical to attract the demand opportunity from an ageing demographic," analyst Aynsley Lammin said.

"With clarity over the financial targets and an improving balance sheet, we believe that the shares should enjoy something of a re-rating."

In-line with the above, Cannacord revised its target price on the shares from 118.0p to 140.0p.

The Canadian broker was also expecting an announcement soon from government on FRI income, which should eliminate a source of uncertainty.

On the flip-side, Lammin added that: "a sluggish secondary market and adjustment to the new customer proposition are likely to continue to prove challenging for the foreseeable future."The economic calendar is chock full of relevant economic data on both sides of the Atlantic.

In the US, investors will be monitoring readings on foreign trade, durable goods orders and pending home sales for August.

On the other side of the Pond, in the euro area, a reading on German consumer confidence for October and money supply figures for the Eurozone in August are among the key data to keep an eye on.

European Central Bank president Mario Draghi and chief economist Peter Praet were both scheduled to take to the podium as well.

No major economic releases were due to be published in the UK.

Tour operator TUI AG is among the companies that are slated to update markets.

UBS analyst Cristian Nedelcu was forecasting 10% growth in underlying profits on an EBITA basis and in constant currencies, with full-year EBITA seen at 1,160m.

Nedelcu expected the UK market to have seen pressure on pricing and margins on the back of the hot weather and competition, while in France, the challenges which had been previously identified by the company were expected to have continued with UBS saying they may hav worsened.

In Germany, he believed the exit of Air Berlin had likely boosted airline capacity and thus TUI's bookings.

For its part, CMC Markets is set to publish a trading statement which Numis expects will provide a general indication of trading.

Usually, this IMS had been relatively short, Numis analyst Marcus Barnard said, but this would be the first one since the ESMA intervention on CFD leverage came into effect in August.

Barnard said he was keen for indications about the rate of conversion of retail clients into professional ones and whether it had reached the 40% of revenues mark.

He was also expecting revenues from retail clients to have fallen heavily since the ESMA intervention came into effect.

Thursday September 27

INTERIMS

888 Holdings, BioPharma Credit , Circassia Pharmaceuticals, Maistro, Midatech Pharma , Petropavlovsk, Saga

INTERIM DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE

John Laing Infrastructure Fund Ltd, Legal & General Group, Prudential, Reckitt Benckiser Group, Wood Group (John)

INTERIM EX-DIVIDEND DATE

Advanced Medical Solutions Group, Applegreen, Bovis Homes Group, Christie Group, EMIS Group, Essentra, Flowtech Fluidpower, Global Ports Holding, Hansteen Holdings, Huntsworth, John Laing Group , JPMorgan Russian Securities, JTC, Medica Group , Morrison (Wm) Supermarkets, NAHL Group, Oakley Capital Investments Ltd. (DI), Octopus AIM VCT 2, SafeCharge International Group Limited (DI), Shore Capital Group Ltd., Smurfit Kappa Group, Somero Enterprises Inc. (DI), Strix Group , Wynnstay Group

QUARTERLY PAYMENT DATE

Fair Oaks Income Limited 2014 Shs NPV, Fair Oaks Income Limited 2017 Shs NPV, Volta Finance Limited

QUARTERLY EX-DIVIDEND DATE

Duke Royalty Limited, Funding Circle SME Income Fund, Mercantile Investment Trust (The), Real Estate Investors, Value and Income Trust

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS

Business Climate Indicator (EU) (10:00)

Consumer Confidence (EU) (10:00)

Continuing Claims (US) (13:30)

Durable Goods Orders (US) (13:30)

Economic Sentiment Indicator (EU) (10:00)

GFK Consumer Confidence (GER) (07:00)

Gross Domestic Product (US) (13:30)

Industrial Confidence (EU) (10:00)

Initial Jobless Claims (US) (13:30)

M3 Money Supply (EU) (09:00)

Pending Homes Sales (US) (15:00)

Personal Consumption Expenditures (US) (13:30)

Services Confidence (EU) (10:00)

FINALS

Bluefield Solar Income Fund Limited, Clinigen Group, CVS Group, Hansard Global

SPECIAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE

Glencore

SPECIAL EX-DIVIDEND DATE

Bovis Homes Group, Diverse Income Trust (The), Hargreave Hale AIM VCT , Hargreaves Lansdown, Morrison (Wm) Supermarkets

AGMS

AdEPT Telecom, Alcentra Euorpean Floating Rate Income Fund Ltd Red Ord Shs, Arcontech Group, Galileo Resources, Joules Group, Mayan Energy Limited (DI), NWF Group, Ormonde Mining, Pembroke Vct, Pembroke Vct B, Shearwater Group , Sure Ventures , W H Ireland Group, Zamano, Zoo Digital Group

TRADING ANNOUNCEMENTS

CMC Markets, RPC Group

UK ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS

Nationwide House Price Index (07:00)

FINAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE

Bilby, XPS Pensions Group

FINAL EX-DIVIDEND DATE

AdEPT Telecom, Beeks Financial Cloud Group, Consort Medical, Eckoh, ECO Animal Health Group, Fulcrum Utility Services Ltd. (DI), Hargreaves Lansdown, IG Group Holdings, K3 Capital Group , Kier Group, Norish Units, Pembroke Vct, Pembroke Vct B, PHSC, United Carpets GroupRyanair has complained to the European Commission, claiming its competitors were partly to blame as industrial action forced the budget airline to cancel 8% of its flights on Friday.

The Irish carrier published its offer to pilots and cabin crew on Wednesday to try and reach a speedy conclusion of collective labour agreements with its staff and their unions, which has led to the cancellation of 190 of its flights on Friday amid planned strikes by cabin crew based in Spain, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal and Italy.

The airline submitted a competition complaint to the European Commission, calling for an investigation of the anti-competitive behaviour of competitor airline crew, unions and lobby groups working against Ryanair and impeding the negotiations with pilots and cabin crew.

Ryanair claims that in Spain, Norwegian cabin crew in Alicante organise the cabin crew strikes, they also claim similar activities from other airlines in Portugal, the Netherlands and Sweden.

Fridays strike follows a complicated summer for the company that has had internal disruption and was forced to cancel around 400 flights in August. There were similar strikes in July.

Travellers are starting to lose consumer confidence in the company and choosing alternative airlines in fear that their flight might be cancelled due to a cabin crew strike.

Speaking in Brussels on Wednesday, Ryanairs Michael OLeary said: We have made real progress with the unions and our people in many EU countries since we agreed to recognise unions in Dec 2017. However, in certain countries, most notably in Portugal, Spain, Germany, Netherlands, and Sweden similar progress is being impeded by the interference of competitor airline pilots and cabin crew who are conspiring to call repeated and unnecessary strikes.

We are not aware of any other multi-national company in Europe where its union negotiations are interfered with by competitor employees. Volkswagens union negotiations do not take place with Peugeot car workers. Tesco is not required to meet with ASDA employees. Yet in Ryanair currently, we are being asked to negotiate with pilots and/or cabin crew of Aer Lingus, Norwegian, TAP, Eurowings, KLM and Braathens. This is anti-competitive behaviour which damages consumers.The EU, China, Russia and Iran have set out a plan to dodge US sanctions against the Middle Eastern country and save the nuclear deal signed in 2015.

America recently imposed sanctions designed to cripple the Iranian economy after Donald Trump withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, claiming it should be renegotiated.

European diplomats have proposed a special purpose vehicle (SPV) that could counter the sanctions by facilitating payments related to Irans exports, including oil, that will hopefully convince Tehran to stay inside the deal.

It was hoped that the new plan might provide a way to continue normal trade without any funds needing to go through Iranian hands or the country's banking system. The transactions would also be made in euros and sterling rather than in dollars and thus be less transparent to the US.

US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo said he was disappointed by the EU's plan and said it was counterproductive from the point of view of regional and global peace and security.

Donald Trump urged world leaders at the United Nations general assembly on Tuesday to isolate Iran.

"Iran's leaders sow chaos, death and destruction," he said."They do not respect their neighbours or borders or the sovereign rights of nations. Instead, Iran's leaders plunder the nation's resources to enrich themselves and spread mayhem across the Middle East and far beyond."

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani also addressed the UN general assembly on Tuesday and stressed his commitment to the agreement and accused the US of bullying other countries into dropping the 2015 nuclear deal.

"Confronting multilateralism is not a sign of strength," he said. "Rather, it is a symptom of the weakness of intellect. It betrays an inability in understanding a complex and interconnected world."

The threat of sanctions has already started to impact companies with business in the region such as Renault, which cancelled the construction of a new plant in Iran, General Electric, Boeing and Siemens which have already announced they would cease operations involving the country.

The Iranian rial hit a record low against the US dollar on the unofficial market on Wednesday, the Tasnim news agency reported.Italy's economy minister said on Tuesday Rome's 2019 budget law would reassure investors worried about the sustainability of the government's debt pile.

According to ANSA, and in remarks to retailers association, Confcommercio, Giovanni Tria said: "It will be a budget of growth, not of austerity, but also one that does not create doubts about the sustainability of our debt.

"We have to give a sign to the financial markets, to those who lend us money."

Tria also emphasised the need for prudence, highlighting how if the country asked for too much financing it risked seeing the funds squandered by higher interest payments.

The budget would prioritise a reduction in the corporate rate of tax, he also said, with the problem of personal income taxes to be addressed in coming years.Ofcom says operators refused to work on informal solution

Mobile phone companies could be forced to place customers on cheaper tariffs at the end of their contracts as the telecoms regulator criticised the unacceptable practice of overcharging for handsets.

Ofcom said it had been forced to act after mobile phone companies ignored its requests for an informal solution which could have been implemented swiftly.

It said providers did not offer sufficient or firm commitments and it was now setting out proposals for regulation to address how people are sold combined airtime and handset deals.

While most customers receive good value for money, Ofcom is concerned that a significant minority continue to pay the same price after the end of their minimum contract period, Ofcom said.

We estimate that 1.5m consumers are in this situation, and are still paying instalments towards a handset that they have already paid off, Ofcom said.

We think this is unacceptable. Consumers should be able to clearly identify the goods and services they are paying for, so they can make an informed decision about what to buy  and what to do when the minimum term of their contract ends.

One proposal Ofcom put forward was to make providers automatically introduce fairer tariffs at the end of the minimum contract period and be placed on a default airtime-only deal.

Research from Citizens Advice revealed an estimated 4m people in the UK had been charged for phones they already own, paying a total of 490m extra on their last contracts.

It said three of Britains biggest mobile phone networks - BT Group's EE, Three and Vodafone - routinely charge customers extra for their handsets after they have been paid off. O2, owned by Spain's Telefonica, does inform customers when they have paid for their phone.

On average customers are overcharged 22 a month, but this could be as high as 38 for high-end phones such as an iPhone 7 or Samsung Galaxy, CA said.The UK newspaper industry has called for tech giants to pay a licence fee to ensure that news media publishers are properly rewarded for their use of their content by companies such as Facebook or Google.

The News Media Association joined Ofcom and UK broadcasters in calling for independent regulatory oversight of tech platforms.

News media publishers have been affected negatively by tech giants expansion and dominance of the digital advertising ecosystem since ad revenues that funded journalism are now going to tech giants.

The NMA said: The primary focus of concern today is the loss of advertising revenues which have previously sustained quality national and local journalism and are now flowing to the global search engines and social media companies who make no meaningful contribution to the cost of producing the original content from which they so richly benefit.

One of the headline solutions proposed by the NMA is the introduction of a fair, open and equitable content licence fee agreement, supported by a UK Publishers Right, to ensure that the tech companies pay for the content from which they benefit.

The NMA added: Measures of success for the review in 10 years time would see a vibrant and well-funded independent news media sector marked by an increase in the number of news media journalists, regular launches of new local titles by dedicated commercial news media companies, and a rebalancing of the advertising market so that revenues follow audiences and advertisers can once again be confident that their brand messages are seen by real people viewing real content in a brand-safe environment."

The NMA also believe that tech companies should also be subject to independent regulatory oversight and be forced to accept the same responsibility as publishers for content featured on their platforms.

The proposals have been submitted to the Cairncross Review into press sustainability by the NMA.A delegation of lady lawmakersDeputy Speaker and Bulacan Rep. Linabelle Villarica, Nueva Ecija Rep. Mikaela Violago, and MATA Party-List Rep. Tricia Velasco-Caterarecently attended the first-ever Womens Forum Singapore. With the theme Bridging Worlds for Inclusive Innovation, the forum was well-attended by various political, business and institutional women leaders from different countries. As one of the guest speakers, Villarica proudly shared that the Philippines has been consistently among top 10 countries in the Global Gender Gap, which shows how gender-equal the country is. In her discussion, she explained that in the Philippine legislative setting, there has been a steady rise of women representatives every term. Currently, the women legislators in the House of Representatives number 86 out of a total of 299 representatives, while in the Senate, 6 out of the 24 senators are women, Villarica said.She also proudly noted that the current Speaker of the House of Representativesformer President Gloria Macapagal Arroyois the first woman to hold the post. With the active participation of women legislators in the legislative arena, many bills that give women more rights and protections have been passed, said Villarica. Women here in Asia are now more aware, more liberal and contributes a lot or sometimes greater than some men, added Velasco-Catera, a co-author of House Bill No. 580 or the 100-day Maternity Leave Bill, which lengthens the maternity leave of female workers in the government and private sectors to 100 days. Velasco-Catera is proof of womens power, as she is known for helping a lot of senior citizens and persons with disabilities by distributing wheelchairs and FDA-approved medicines in every medical mission.One gets the feeling, when reading their observations regarding this countrys current economic malaise, that its economic managers believe that the increasingly worrisome merchandise trade imbalance is a problem that will eventually just go away. They are wrong. The problem is not going to go away anytime soon, with all the dire implications of that for the BOP (balance of payments) and the external value of the peso. The principal reason why the current merchandise trade imbalance is unlikely to dissipate in quick fashion is that of the four export groupsthe Big Four that the Philippines used to be able to depend on, only one, coconut products, is still there. The other three are gone as export-trade prime movers. The first to go was wood products; the ban on log exports enacted several decades ago put an end to such exports. The instability of the copper concentrates market, occasioned by the rise of substitute raw materials, knocked out mining products as a leading source of export trade revenues. And the termination in 1974 of the Laurel-Langley Agreement, with its large, preferential-price for Philippine sugar, wrote finis to the major role of sugar as a Big Four export product. The fact is that this countrys export system has experienced a structural shift. The Philippines has ceased to be essentially an exporter of merchandise. Today it is primarily an exporter of labor, either totally (as in Overseas Filipino Workers) or partially (as in semi-conductor manufacturing and other assembly-type production operations). The economic managersthe Secretary of Trade and Industry in particularshould stop glossing over the trade-deficit problem and conduct a searching review of the economic landscape, with a view to determining where the new export industries will be coming from. It is simply no longer enough to provide fiscal incentives and believe, as in the film Field of Dreams that If you give them incentives, they will come. I strongly suggest that our economic managersespecially the Secretary of Trade and Industrytake a leaf out of the strategy that Taiwan implemented in order to develop a world-competing export trade. The strategy was born almost immediately after the Chiang Kai-shek group fled to that island in 1949. The first thing that the Chiang-led Nationalist government did was to engage the services of SRI (Stanford Research Institute) to develop an export trade plan for Taiwan.In line with its reputation as a first-rate research institution, SRI immediately set about doing an inventory of all the islands resources, particularly its manpower and natural resources. SRIs approach was guided by a philosophy consisting of two parts, namely, (1) making the best use of what resources were available in Taiwan and (2) knowing what resources it would have to bring into the island. The inventory revealed that long-neglected Taiwan was not without resources and that, with government guidance and assistance, many new industries, most of them small, saw the light of day. One of the potential industries that SRI spotted for development was a shipbreaking industry: old vessels were brought into Taiwans harbors and there broken up, the dismantled parts recycled into new Taiwan-built vessels or exported. To borrow a tired, old phrase, the rest is history. Taiwan slowly but painstakingly built a world-class merchandise export trade. Their achievements would not have been possible without steadfast hand-holding on the part of the government. Government was a true partner of the Taiwanese private sector in that game-changing endeavor. In this country the government has largely limited itself to providing fiscal and other incentives to potential investors, whether these are or are not located in facilities provided by PEZA (Philippine Export Zone Authority). The government ought to emulate the Taiwanese export development model. Does the government have to engage the services of SRI or a similar institution to get this country out of its trade-deficit quagmire? It doesnt. The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has the resources to do the job. All that DTI has to do is to get off its backside and begin to deploy determination and creativity.When President Rodrigo Duterte started talking about an alleged ouster plot by the communists, the opposition, the Magdalo group and his critics in civil society, I had serious doubts. I cannot believe that former soldiers and the Liberal Party could become allies with communists. They know too well that the communist agenda is to oust anybody in power. So is Red October real, or just part of a psy war to divert the peoples attention from the real ills hounding them? Now comes the President claiming that some elements of the military and the police are involved in the plot. I dont think its likely. This is a president who doubled their salaries and gave them more perks. Mr. Duterte did not identify who these soldiers are. But could they be that stupid? They know that no military action against the President can succeed without a people power component. Likewise, no mass action can succeed without military support. I have been a journalist for nearly 70 years and I have seen a lot. And now I dont see any coup attempt. So what is the President talking about? I think its all psy war, meant to distract the people. * * * This month I am reminded of the tragedy that occurred to some 900 Customs employees who worked overtime. They claimed some P1.3 billion in pay, but this had not been given them because the Customs commissioners appointed by President Aquino did not pay attention to them. Some of the 900 have already died and many have retired. They have not gotten what is due them despite a September 2013 decision by the Supreme Court, penned by Justice Antonio Carpio, that it was the obligation of the Board of Airline Representativesan organization of both domestic and foreign airlinesto pay the employees for the overtime work they rendered. Despite the Supreme Court ruling, however, the Customs commissioners sided with the airlines. Did they get free tickets to many countries? This is the tragedy. I know this because the Customs employees sought my help. What is ironic is that Customs hired about 1,000 workers to work overtime, paying more than the P1.3 billion that the employees were seeking. * * * I analyzed the latest Pulse Asia survey of President Duterte. There was a big drop in his approval and trust ratings. The same decline also happened to his Cabinet members. This can only mean that the people are showing signs of discontent, given the gut issues that they continue to struggle with. People also do not seem to like minions of the PresidentHarry Roque, Christopher Go and Ronald dela Rosa so much so that they did poorly in they survey for possible winners in the Senate race. This should be a wake-up call to the President and his official family on what they should be attending to. * * *One of my friends in the legal profession asked me to enumerate the legacy of Marcos which I wrote about. 1. The Judiciary Development Find, the basis of the financial benefits of the members of the judiciary 2. The Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corporation, an alternative source of revenue to fund miscellaneous activities of the government 3. The Export Processing Authority to attract foreign investments 4. The Movie and Television Review and Classification Board 5. The Philippine Coconut Authority to develop and enhance coconut production and export 6. The Philippine Tourism Authority 7. Laws on socialized housing 8. Specialized hospitals like the Philippine Heart Center, the Lung Center of the Philippines, the National Kidney and Transplant Institute, the Philippine Childrens Hospital, among others 9. The establishment of the biggest oil company now known as Petron 10. A nuclear power plant 11. Geothermal power plants as a source of energy 12. Exploration and drilling at Malampaya 13. The importance of culture 14. Venues for the promotion of arts and culture and the holding of international conferences. Marcos issues 2,036 presidential decrees and out of these only 67 have been repealed or amended. Interestingly, one of the 67 is the law on coup d etat. www.emiljurado.weebly.comShare your financial constraints



If your dentist recommends a particularly expensive treatment, have a conversation with him or her about the financial challenges you face. It is always a good idea to talk to your dentist about anything that might be a barrier, says American Dental Association spokeswoman Ruchi Sahota, a dentist in Freemont, California. If we know what the barriers are, then we can potentially find solutions together.

Your dentist may suggest a less expensive treatment or a way to delay a procedure until you can pay for it. Most dentists these days are also willing to set up payment plans. In addition, some dentists will reduce your bill by 10 or 15 percent if you offer to pay by check upfront, says Michael Reed, a clinical dentist in Dallas and a principal for Mobile Dental Care.

Visit a dental school clinic

Dental students, supervised by a licensed dentist, get hands-on experience, and you save 20 to 70 percent off most procedures. Search for a program in your area on the American Dental Association website.

See a dental hygienist

At least 42 states now allow dental hygienists to treat patients without the specific authorization or presence of a dentist. In many states, you can have a hygienist do your cleaning, exam, X-rays, sealant or fluoride treatment, and the cost savings can be significant.

Use free or low-cost dental providers

Some nonprofits and government-funded health clinics provide free or reduced-cost dental services (often based on income). Their services are in high demand, so expect a wait. Many dentists also offer one or two days a month of free or low-cost care. Your local health department or United Way can connect you to programs in your area.

Investigate stand-alone dental plans

If your Medicare or private health plan doesnt have dental benefits, you can shop for a stand-alone dental plan. Compare prices and coverage in the governments health insurance marketplace at healthcare.gov.

Sign up for a dental savings plan

These noninsurance dental plans negotiate discounts ranging from 10 to 60 percent on dental costs. You pay a small monthly fee to join, and you get the discounts as long as you use a dentist that accepts the plan. Search for plans in your area at DentalPlans.com.French President Emmanuel Macron Tuesday said allowing Iran to sell oil will be good for peace and will bring down oil price, few weeks away from expected U.S. sanctions on Iran oil.

It would be good for Iran to be able to sell it. Its good for peace and its good for the shape of the international price of oil, Macron told reporters after he addressed the UN General Assembly in New York.

President Donald Trump and his administration will on November 4, impose sanctions on Iran oil after reintroducing sanctions following Washingtons withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear accord. Washington has been bullying allies to stop buying oil from Iran expecting the move will further isolate the clerical regime in Tehran.

France, Germany and the UK, all of them signatories of the nuclear accord, have been struggling to salvage the pact as they seek to continue dealing with Iran.

In his address before the General Assembly, Macron called for dialogue and rapped Washingtons unilateral actions in relation with the agreement and the Iran oil boycott.

What will bring a real solution to the situation in Iran and what has already stabilized it? The law of the strongest? Pressure from only one side? No! Macron said in his speech.With both teams ranked and in title hunt, USD vs. SDSU never been biggerA German court decided Tuesday not to subject Kuwait Airways to fines after it refused to take aboard one of its flights an Israeli passenger two years ago.

A Germany-based Israeli student, Adar M., lodged a lawsuit against the Kuwaiti carrier in 2016 after the airline boycotted him. He bought a ticket online to travel from Frankfurt to Bangkok with the airline but the carrier canceled the ticket when he revealed he had an Israeli passport and offered to book him on another airline, reports say.

Tuesday, a higher regional court in Frankfurt slammed the boycott calling it unacceptable but ruled that because the flight required a stopover in Kuwait City, which is under Kuwaiti jurisdiction, it was factually impossible for the airline to have fulfilled its contract.

The court also turned down Adars request for compensation and demand to be able to book a new journey to Bangkok with Kuwait Airways.

Kuwait like several countries in the Arab region has no diplomatic ties with Israel. The Kuwaiti law also prohibits citizens or entities to be engaged in business or cooperation with Israelis or Israeli companies.

Adars representative in the court, Lawfare project, expressed dismay and said it will appeal the verdict.

This is a tragic day for German law, Lawfares executive director Brooke Goldstein said.

Rather than be held accountable before the law, the court has rewarded Kuwait Airways for its anti-Semitism.

U.S. envoy to Germany, Richard Grenell who has been vibrant since his arrival in May, criticized the Kuwait carriers policy banning Israeli passengers.

It is 2018. No airline should be allowed to categorically reject Israelis, he said.

In 2015, Kuwait Airways opted to scrap all its flights between New Yorks JFK airport and London Heathrow after U.S. authorities threatened legal action over its refusal to sell tickets to Israelis.Brandi DeLair is new to this whole voting thing, but she knows how important her vote will be in November.

The 19-year-old registered to vote for the first time during a Tuesday voter registration drive on Civic Plaza. The event was sponsored by the Bernalillo County Clerks Office and was held in conjunction with National Voter Registration Day.

The Clerks Office also debuted its mobile voting unit, a rented 39-foot-long recreational vehicle that has been configured to accommodate two tabulator machines and nine voting stations, one of which is wheelchair accessible and another that is vertically adjustable. The RV will travel to 13 senior living facilities around the county so residents there, as well people in the surrounding communities, can early vote.

There are problems today in our country, said DeLair. Issues of whats right and wrong, morally and ethically. Issues that concern LGBTQ rights, Native American rights, womens rights, immigration rights and minority rights.

The midterm election in November is pretty important, she said. I feel like our country is in a dangerous spot right now and its important that youth specifically start speaking up and taking a stand for what they believe. This is our country and tomorrow it will be our job to make it better, and our job to keep our future safe. I believe that my vote counts and that my voice is important.

Rafiq Bashorun, 31, acknowledges that he has not been politically active for a number of years. On Tuesday he decided to change that and registered to vote during the Civic Plaza voter registration drive.

I decided to get back into it and make a difference and make sure my vote gets counted, he said. Its just the atmosphere of the country as a whole and the way things are going, from the local level up to the federal level  Im not impressed.

In particular, he pointed to national issues related to trade, immigration, and our relationship with other countries who have been our allies for years. I just dont like the general direction of things.

DeLair and Bashorun are certainly not alone in their desire to make their opinions known. Since the beginning of January, we have processed 43,000 new voter registrations in Bernalillo County, said County Clerk Linda Stover. Either they changed their party, they moved or theyre new registrants. Thats a lot of people, so look out November.

Stover said she has long entertained the idea of a mobile voting unit, and as far as I know, its the first one in the country, she said. The RV has been rented for three months at a cost to the county of $12,500 a month. It is compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, was configured according to the countys specifications, and adheres to state statutes for voting, Stover said.

The RV will travel to 13 sites around the county during the early voting window of Oct. 20 through Nov. 3. For more information on where the RV will be on which dates, go to the County Clerks website at www.bernco.gov/clerk.

Also in conjunction with National Voter Registration Day, volunteers with the Albuquerque alumnae chapter of Delta Sigma Theta sorority conducted a voter registration drive for eligible students at Atrisco Heritage Academy high school.The University of New Mexico volleyball team hosts early Mountain West leader UNLV Wednesday night in a White Out match at Johnson Center.

The first 400 fans to arrive for the 7 p.m. match will receive free white UNM T-shirts.

UNLV (11-3, 2-0) has exceeded expectations this season after being picked to finish last in the MWC preseason poll. The Rebels are paced by sophomore outside hitter, who leads the team in kills (248), digs (187) and service aces (57). UNLV comes in on an eight-match winning streak.

The Lobos (7-7, 1-1) are 3-1 at home this season. Outside hitter Lauren Twitty leads UNM in kills (188) and digs (141). Freshman setter Sabrina Bianco paces the team in assists (327) and aces (13).A grand jury indicted a former Albuquerque police officer on 10 counts of fraud, embezzlement and other charges for allegedly ripping off the city when he was a sergeant with the department.

The indictment, filed in 2nd Judicial District Court on Tuesday, charges James Geha, 50, with computer access with intent to defraud or embezzle over $2,500; fraud over $2,500; and eight counts of paying or receiving public money for services not rendered or in the alternative making or permitting false public voucher.

Michael Patrick, a spokesman for the District Attorneys Office, said the case relates to false time sheets Geha submitted when he was a sergeant with Albuquerque police. The crimes charged in the indictment took place between September 2015 and April 2016.

ABQReport, an independent journalism website, reported that Geha quit AFPD in late 2016 before the former police chief fired him. The website said New Mexico State Police found in 2016 that Geha had added nearly 350 hours of overtime he didnt work to his paychecks in a one-year period, bilking the city out of $15,000 in that time period.

After leaving the police department, Geha worked as a special agent for the New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department, according to his page on a professional website that was no longer available on Tuesday.

Gilbert Gallegos, a police spokesman, said in an email that Chief Michael Geier, was made aware only recently that prior police Chief Gorden Eden never submitted documents outlining the investigation into Geha to the state Law Enforcement Academy Board, which has the ability to pull a police officers law enforcement certification. Gallegos said Geier will be submitting those documents to the board and recommending that Geha lose his certification.

Fred Mowrer, Gehas attorney, couldnt not be reached for comment on Tuesday evening.SANTA FE  A Santa Fe boy was taken off life support Tuesday morning after his stepmother admitted to strangling him at their southside apartment.

The five-year-old was pronounced brain dead after being taken to the hospital on Saturday.

Two days before, he had been taken to the hospital for a broken clavicle in a separate incident.

He and his guardians had been questioned by officials from the state Children, Youth and Families Department. But no police investigation was initiated after Thursdays broken clavicle incident.

According to the Santa Fe Police Department, around 6 p.m. Saturday Jayden Curtis was taken to Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center after his stepmother, Melynie Curtis, told medics that she found him unresponsive in a bathtub.

The medics had called police because Jayden was completely dry and his injuries were not consistent with an accidental drowning.

Officers reported that after they confronted Curtis with inconsistencies in her story and conflicting medical evidence, she admitted to strangling the boy.

Detective (John) Boerth asked her if she had strangled Jayden and she said that she hadnt meant to choke him that hard,' a report from officer Dianna Conklin says. On Saturday, Curtis was charged with abandonment of a child resulting in great bodily harm.

Early Tuesday, Jayden was taken off life support at University of New Mexico Hospital, where hed been airlifted, SFPD Lt. Paul Joye said.

Santa Fe District Attorney Marco Serna said in a statement that he plans to charge Curtis with child abuse resulting in death, but no charging documents were available as of Tuesday evening. On Tuesday, prosecutors filed a motion seeking to keep her in jail for now.

CYFD personnel were called to the Santa Fe hospital on Thursday after Jayden was brought in with a broken clavicle. But police werent called at that time.

Lt. Joye confirmed CYFD did send SFPD a cross referral via email about the investigation. But he said the officer who receives those emails doesnt work Fridays and would not have seen it until Monday, when Jayden was already on life support at UNMH.

Police didnt receive any urgent notification to investigate right away because there were no obvious signs of abuse, Joye said.

It sounds like what they (CYFD) were told by the mother on Thursday was reasonable enough for them, Joye said. Officers usually do welfare checks on the home when they receive a cross referral, Joye said.

Curtis told officers on Saturday that she had learned from Jaydens kindergarten teacher at Cesar Chavez Elementary that the clavicle injury was caused when another student pushed Jayden off a slide.

She added that the injury also may have been aggravated when Jayden and her son, who is around the same age and also lived in the Airport Road apartment, were roughhousing.

Santa Fe Public Schools spokesman Jeff Gephart on Tuesday referred questions to the SFPD.

CYFD spokesman Henry Varela said department workers spoke with Jayden away from his parents on Thursday but couldnt say anything about what kind of information was gathered.

All I can say is that we just started an investigation, Varela said.

Jayden had interacted with CYFD in the past.

Sergeant (David) Webb was also able to learn that CYFD had multiple cases in their system regarding the child and his family, says a police report by Sgt. Nick Wood.

Varela confirmed Jayden was part of at least one prior CYFD investigation, but said it didnt involve Curtis or Jaydens biological father, who was at work during the choking incident, according to police reports.

This is currently an ongoing investigation, but through preliminary review of this family, we did find a prior investigation involving another parent and child where Jayden was listed as a member of the household, Varela said.

Varela wouldnt confirm whether the investigation involved Jaydens mother, who Jayden lived with until his father took him in about a month ago. The mother was not identified in police reports.

On Saturday, Curtis initially told police that she had put Jayden in the bathtub after he requested a bath. She went to check on him later, she said, and he was facedown and submerged in water. She said she tried to revive him as clear liquid was coming out of his nose and mouth. Doctors later found no fluid in Jaydens lungs and found his injuries consistent with being strangled.

I saw fresh bruising on the left side of the childs neck that looked consistent with the outlining of finger marks, Wood wrote.

After being confronted with this information, Curtis admitted she had reached a breaking point.

She stated that Jayden would often tell her that (his father) wasnt his dad and would state that his moms ex-boyfriend was his father, Conklin wrote.

Officers noticed Curtis had scratches on her arms and legs. She stated that the scratches on her legs and hands had occurred as Jayden had been strangled, Conklin wrote.Children who have a strong start in life have a much better chance of lasting success. One of the best ways to give them a strong start is by providing high-quality early childhood education, which gives low-income kids a chance to break the cycle of poverty and ensures equal opportunity for all.

Thats why Save the Children Action Network is endorsing (U.S. Rep.) Michelle Lujan Grisham for governor. As the political voice of Save the Children, our focus is on advocating for policies that provide high-quality early learning for all children. With Lujan Grishams plan to make access to high-quality public Pre-K a reality for every N.M. family, it is clear she recognizes the benefits of high-quality early education and the far-reaching impacts it can have today and for years to come.

Early education, starting at birth and continuing until a childs first day of school, is a critical window for ensuring future academic achievement and overall well-being. But that window closes fast. By investing resources now on quality early learning programs, such as preschool, research indicates we will save much more money later because we will pay less for prisons and social services and will have lower crime rates in our communities.

By age 5, a childs brain is almost completely developed, yet only three out of five children are enrolled in quality early childhood education programs that foster healthy brain development and give them an equal chance at success. At just 2 years old, children from low-income families can already be up to six months behind other kids in language development. The gap grows over time, and many never catch up. Studies show low-income kids who dont participate in high-quality early education are 60 percent less likely to attend college, 70 percent more likely to be arrested for a violent crime.

In contrast, there are strong social and economic benefits to high-quality early childhood education programs. Research from Nobel Prize-winning economist James Heckman has found the rate of return on investment in early childhood development for many children can be 13 percent per child, per year, due to improved outcomes in education, health, sociability and economic productivity. Despite this fact, for years the state Legislature has actively debated how to pay for it. New Mexico needs these smart investments in our children that Lujan Grisham supports so we can reverse some of the harmful trends that were seeing in the state.

While the number of children living in poverty in the U.S. decreased from 2015 to 2016, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, New Mexico experienced the opposite trend last year. The state saw a 1 percent increase in poverty from 2016 to 2017, which means 30 percent of New Mexico children live in poverty today.

As the mother of two children and a graduate of the University of New Mexico, Michelle Lujan Grisham understands the vital role education plays in creating a strong economy. That is why she has outlined creative funding mechanisms for increased investment in education to fix the states teacher shortage crisis, reduce the high school dropout rate, and make universal access to early childhood education a hallmark of her administration in Santa Fe.

Breaking the cycle of poverty is difficult, but thankfully, we know how to do it. While high-quality child care is expensive for many low-and middle-income families in New Mexico, its also the key for those families to reach a higher socioeconomic status. What New Mexico needs now is the political courage to make robust investments in early childhood education a reality.

This is the kind of platform all New Mexicans can get behind, and its why Save the Children Action Network supports Lujan Grisham for governor.WASHINGTON  Although many of the Supreme Courts decisions have been contested and even condemned, its justices have been remarkably successful in performing the role Alexander Hamilton assigned them in Federalist No. 78: to be an essential safeguard against the effects of occasional ill humors in the society. What Hamilton didnt count on was occasional ill humors in the society would infect how members of the court are chosen.

The moment during Donald Trumps presidential campaign when he issued a list of potential Supreme Court nominees prescreened by conservative ideologues guaranteed the extreme politicization we are witnessing. Especially important: White evangelical Christians in large numbers were able to use Trumps promise to name judges friendly to their viewpoint as a rationale for playing down all the ways in which the now-president  to be charitable  fell short of their moral standards. Give us the judges, they said, and all else will be forgiven.

The result is the festival of misdirection and ugliness that now surrounds the effort to secure Judge Brett M. Kavanaughs confirmation. The misdirection involves more moderate Republicans pretending Kavanaughs ideology is irrelevant when it is, in fact, everything.

The ugliness deepened at the end of last week, and things will get no better now that Christine Blasey Ford has agreed to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday about her accusation of sexual assault against Kavanaugh.

Even before her lawyer announced Sunday she would appear, Republican senators  who briefly made a show of taking her seriously  were admitting there was virtually no chance she would change their minds. Any wonder why she had doubts about coming forward?

Unless theres something more, no, Im not going to ruin Judge Kavanaughs life over this, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham, R-S.C., said on Fox News Sunday, as if there exists an obligation to confirm a man to a lifetime position on our highest court to avoid bringing ruin to his life. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., made no effort to conceal what Senate Republicans are doing is all for show. His colleagues, he told conservative Values Voter Summit, would plow right through it and put Kavanaugh on the court.

The depths to which Kavanaughs defenders are willing to sink was underscored when Ed Whelan, the president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, sent out a tweet thread pushing a mistaken-identity alibi to explain away Fords allegations against Kavanaugh. Whelan, a friend of Kavanaugh who is in the thick of the strategizing on his behalf, actually named and posted photographs of one of Kavanaughs Georgetown Preparatory School classmates as the possible perpetrator. Ford blew the theory away. Noting in a statement that I knew them both, she added: There is zero chance that I would confuse them.

On Friday morning, Whelan took to Twitter to apologize for an appalling and inexcusable mistake. And on Sunday, his organizations board announced he was taking a leave of absence.

Think about it. The defense of Kavanaugh rests, finally, on the argument that he has been falsely accused by Ford. But Kavanaughs backers are so eager to seize a Supreme Court majority that they are perfectly ready to make utterly baseless charges against an innocent person who had nothing to do with any of this. It is now essential to learn what Kavanaugh himself knew about this calumny.

President Trump compounded the spitefulness with a tweet Friday morning. I have no doubt that if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, he wrote, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents.

Yikes! To state the obvious: Most sexual assaults are never reported to authorities. And rarely has the word loving been used so nastily. But its worth asking why Trump chose to escalate his rhetoric. One clue came from the evangelical conservatives McConnell sought to reassure: They want Kavanaugh on the court, no matter what. If Republicans were to fail to defend and confirm such an obviously and eminently qualified and decent nominee, Ralph Reed, the founder of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, told the New York Times, then it will be very difficult to motivate and energize faith-based and conservative voters in November. 

Sunday night, when the New Yorker reported Democrats were investigating another allegation of sexual misconduct against him, Kavanaugh denounced the charge as a smear, plain and simple.

Between now and Thursday, there will be a heavy burden on middle-of-the-road Republicans  particularly two relatively moderate women, Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Susan Collins, R-Maine,  to make clear what Ford says will actually matter, as will Kavanaughs believability. 

For the longer run, the ill humors Hamilton described might be tempered by the choice of moderate judicial candidates, the sort who win praise from leaders of both parties, rather than ideologues. When you think about it, doesnt that sound like Merrick Garland?Judges dont have the luxury of a crystal ball when theyre called upon to make difficult decisions such as whether to sentence someone to prison or keep a defendant behind bars pending trial.

But they should have the ability to exercise common sense and sound judgment when theyre making these decisions  because peoples lives depend on it, literally.

So when a prosecutor goes before a judge and asks that she keep a defendant behind bars who is charged with firing a weapon at a family in a vehicle and wounding the driver, youd think the judge would be receptive.

Unfortunately, state District Judge Cristina Jaramillo denied the motion and ordered Mariano Gallegos, 18, released with conditions about two months ago.

On Thursday, police say, Gallegos shot another man several times. The victim this time was Enrique Gonzalez, 20, who was in critical condition late last week. The victim said Gallegos shot him; Gallegos denies it.

Its another example of our broken criminal justice system  where an understaffed police department catches the bad guys, prosecutors plead with the courts to keep the most dangerous behind bars, and some judges put them back on the streets, free to prey on the rest of us.

No, Jaramillo didnt have a crystal ball. Gallegos was apparently released due to lack of a criminal history.

Still, the initial crime Gallegos was accused of should have tipped the judge off to the fact he was a danger.

Gallegos was accused of firing a pistol at a family in a pickup truck near Wyoming and Central NE, wounding the driver in the hand. Gallegos was charged with shooting at or from a motor vehicle, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, child abuse and other crimes.

When deciding whether to keep a defendant in jail, judges have a responsibility to weigh all factors, including the seriousness of the crime a defendant is accused of. The state Supreme Court issued an opinion in December that the crime charged may be sufficient, despite other evidence, to sustain the States burden of proving  the defendant poses a threat. 

This certainly isnt the first time Jaramillo has made a controversial call on releasing a defendant  or, for that matter, on not imposing a prison sentence on an individual who then went out and harmed someone else.

In July, she denied a petition to keep Dahn Leidy in custody until trial. Leidy nevertheless remains in jail. She is accused of beating and kicking her 1-year-old son so viciously doctors put him into a medically induced coma.

And Jaramillo had ordered Andrew Romero, AKA Lil Thug Boy, released on his own recognizance with orders to report to Delancey Street in Espanola when he shot and killed Rio Rancho Police officer Gregg Benner in 2015.

Romero had pleaded guilty to aggravated assault with a firearm, felon in possession of a firearm, trafficking by distributing heroin and possession of a stolen car. He also admitted to his 2006 conviction for voluntary manslaughter. He could have been sentenced to 13 years in prison.

As for Gallegos  accused of shooting someone while awaiting trial for another shooting  hes in the Bernalillo County Metropolitan Detention Center  for now.

No, judges dont have crystal balls. But they shouldnt need one to figure out individuals who are accused of, or have admitted to, violent crimes can pose a risk to the rest of the community.

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.SANTA FE  State Auditor Wayne Johnson said Tuesday that he doesnt believe he violated any state laws by simultaneously serving as both state auditor and a Bernalillo County commissioner for three months.

The Democratic Party of New Mexico filed an ethics complaint earlier this week claiming Johnson, a Republican, may have broken the law by concurrently holding two incompatible offices and getting paychecks from both jobs.

But Johnson said he asked for a legal review after being appointed auditor by Gov. Susana Martinez in December and was told he could hold both positions.

When we took a look at it, we didnt feel they were incompatible job titles, Johnson told the Journal.

He also said he recused himself on several issues that came before the County Commission after being appointed auditor, including approval of Bernalillo Countys annual audit.

Johnson said his intent was never to stay on in both positions indefinitely, but said he did so for several months to try to wrap up several projects. He ultimately resigned from the Bernalillo County Commission, effective March 1.

In its ethics complaint, the Democratic Party argued Johnson should have stepped down immediately upon accepting the job as state auditor.

Mr. Johnson cannot seriously contend that there is no conflict of interest in exercising audit oversight over his own compensation and expenditures as county commissioner, the party alleged in its complaint. The offices are clearly incompatible.

The complaint was filed with the Secretary of States Office just over six weeks before Election Day. Johnson is running for state auditor against Democrat Brian Colon, a former state Democratic Party chairman.

The Democratic Party also filed a separate ethics complaint against Johnson in July for reporting having spent state campaign funds on an election night party for his Albuquerque mayoral campaign  two months before he was appointed auditor.

Johnson said Thursday the funds were actually from his County Commission campaign fund and believes the spending was appropriate.

A spokesman for the Secretary of States Office said Thursday that both complaints are being reviewed.

Meanwhile, the issue of statewide officials also holding elected city or county office has flared up in New Mexico before, most recently when Brad Winter was appointed secretary of state in December 2015.

Winter held the position for a year  he did not seek election to a new two-year term in 2016  while also remaining on the Albuquerque City Council, despite some calls for him to step down.An Albuquerque man convicted in a deadly stabbing outside a gas station in 2017 was sentenced Tuesday to life plus six months in prison, according to court documents.

Ameer Muhammad was found guilty in a July trial of first-degree murder, armed robbery and shoplifting. Based on those convictions, he faced a mandatory life sentence during his hearing before state District Judge Jacqueline Flores.

According to police, Aaron Sieben, 30, was stabbed to death after a fight at the Circle K gas station near Lomas and Eubank. In a news release, the Attorney Generals Office said Muhammad attacked Sieben before fleeing the scene and hiding from police.

Officers found Muhammad nearby, and Sieben was found lying in the middle of Lomas. He died at the scene.

We have worked tirelessly to provide justice for Mr. Siebens family, Attorney General Hector Balderas said in a news release Tuesday. Today, they can finally know that the man who has caused them so much pain has been punished to the fullest extent provided by law.

The defendant is referred to as Muhammad Ameer in some court documents. His attorney could not be reached for comment Tuesday.ALAMOGORDO  Two women and one man were taken into custody by the Alamogordo Police Department following a three-hour standoff in the 1000 block of Post Avenue.

Alamogordo Police Chief Brian Peete said, no one was hurt in the incident and no shots were fired by law enforcement.

Its an unfortunate situation but fortunately everything turned out well, Peete said. No one was hurt, no one was shot.

One man and one woman were arrested on the street earlier in the evening while another woman was arrested at about 8:45 p.m. after negotiators used tear gas to get her to come out of the home, Peete said.

He said due to the ongoing investigation, no further details are being released at this time.

We want to make sure we look thoroughly into the incident before we release more information, he said.

The incident began around 6 p.m. when Alamogordo Animal Control officers observed the man and woman fighting outside the Post Avenue home then Animal control officers called APD, Peete said.

Officers observed there was an on-scene disturbance, and when they attempted to confront the issue, thats when the suspect led them on a chase and into the trailer, he said.

Las Cruces and the New Mexico State Police SWAT were called in when one of the suspects stated to police that they had a gun and refused to come out of the house, Peete said. U.S. Border Patrol agents also responded to the 1000 block of Post Avenue, he said.

We believed the woman was armed and we turned the scene over to the State Police, Peete said. Alamogordo doesnt have the resources to deal with that.

By 6:15 p.m. officers blocked off the intersections in a one block radius of where the incident was taking place. State Police officers stood guard on each corner and neighbors were asked to stay in their homes.

Officers intermittently spoke with the subject via telephone while she was inside, said APD Capt. Roger Schoolcraft.

Neighbors said they heard loud pops during the incident and that streetlights near the home were turned off.

We were out here and heard Boom! Boom! said Veronica Reyes, who lives nearby.

Two flash-bang grenades were used early in the incident, Peete confirmed.

Peete said nobody else was in the home following the subjects arrest, but information regarding rumors that more individuals were arrested during the incident and whether those arrested had weapons is not presently available.

Were still conducting the investigation, Peete said. Our Criminal Investigations Division folks are going to continue to look into what happened. If there are going to be any charges introduced, theyre going to be the ones to do that. For now, were just happy that everyones OK.



2018 the Alamogordo Daily News (Alamogordo, N.M.)

Visit the Alamogordo Daily News (Alamogordo, N.M.) at www.alamogordonews.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.Saudi Arabia and Germany Tuesday agreed on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York to turn the page of dispute and to bolster cooperation.

Both countries fell apart following November remarks by then German Foreign Minister, Sigmar Gabriel, who qualified as adventurism the kingdoms action in the Middle East, in reference to the Saudi-led action in Yemen against Iran-backed Houthi rebels and the surprising resignation of Lebanon Prime Minister Saad Hariri who stepped down while on a visit in Riyadh. Several Western countries believed Riyadh coerced him to resign.

Saudi Arabia rattled the remarks and pulled out its ambassador, indicating that it was not ready to take reprimands. Consequently, German companies have been reportedly barred from bidding for contracts in the kingdom.

Last month, European and U.S. pharmaceutical associations waded into the diplomatic dispute, warning that restrictions on German-made drugs could hurt Saudi patients and dampen future investment in the kingdom, Reuters reports, adding that German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been working on mending the ties.

Tuesday, German top diplomat Heiko Maas and his Saudi counterpart Adel al-Jubeir agreed to leave the spat behind and look forward with the return of their ambassadors.

In recent months, our relations have witnessed a misunderstanding, which stands in sharp contrast to our otherwise strong and strategic ties with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and we sincerely regret this, Maas said.

We should have been clearer in our communication and engagement in order to avoid such misunderstandings between Germany and the kingdom, he added.

Jubeir invited Maas to visit the kingdom and affirmed deep strategic ties with the EU powerhouse.

The kingdom and Germany play a leading role in bolstering international security and stability and the global economy, Jubeir said.LAS CRUCES  The suspect in Sunday mornings incident on Lees Drive has been charged with a felony for allegedly pointing a firearm at a law enforcement officer.

Charles R. Campolla, 34, of the 1300 block of Lees Drive, is charged with one count of aggravated assault upon a peace officer. The charge is a third-degree felony.

About 3:30 a.m. Sunday, Sept. 23, Las Cruces Police were dispatched to the report of a domestic disturbance at Campollas home that he shares with his girlfriend and her teenage daughter. The teen daughter reported that Campolla was armed with a pistol and was threatening others.

Three Las Cruces police officers arrived to find Campolla barefoot and outside the home. The officers gave multiple commands for Campolla to show his hands but he refused to do so.

At some point, Campolla is believed to have pointed a gun at one of the officers. An officer fired at least one round at Campolla as the suspect ducked in front of the vehicle parked in the driveway.

Campolla was not struck and was subsequently taken into custody. No injuries were reported. The black handgun Campolla was armed with was located by investigators in the front, driver side tire well of the vehicle that was parked in the driveway.

Campolla was booked into the Dona Ana County Detention Center where he is initially being held without bond.

The officer who discharged his weapon was placed on administrative leave which is standard protocol for such an incident.

The Officer-involved Incident Task Force is investigation the shooting. The task force includes investigators from New Mexico State Police, Las Cruces Police, the Dona Ana County Sheriffs Office and New Mexico State University Police.



2018 the Las Cruces Sun-News (Las Cruces, N.M.)

Visit the Las Cruces Sun-News (Las Cruces, N.M.) at www.lcsun-news.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.FARMINGTON  A Navajo Nation Council delegate has introduced legislation to override tribal President Russell Begayes veto of a referendum that would have asked voters to determine salary adjustments for the president and vice president.

Delegate Herman Daniels Jr. is sponsoring the bill that calls for the override.

The bill was posted on the councils website on Sept. 20, and it will be eligible for consideration starting on Wednesday.

It was assigned to the Naabikiyati Committee and the council, where final authority rests.

For an override to be successful, it must be approved by two-thirds vote of the 24-member council.

During a special session on Sept. 7, the council supported placing the referendum before voters, but Begaye voted the proposal on Sept. 15.

Begaye previously stated the proposition should be across the board in examining and suggesting salary adjustments for elected officials.

JoAnn Dedman, chairwoman for the Commission on Navajo Government Development, expressed on behalf of the commission a profound displeasure for the presidents action in a Sept. 18 letter to Delegate Daniels.

This legislation was an exhaustive process by both the office and Commission on Navajo Government Development and the legislative counsel, Dedman wrote.

She also asked Daniels to introduce a bill to override Begayes objection of the referendum on the grounds contrary to his justification.

The commission works with the Office of Navajo Government Development to evaluate the existing government structure and develop recommendations and proposals for government reform.

The office examined the salaries for the president and vice president  a request the office received in 2014 from a council delegate  before proposing the presidents earnings increase from $55,000 and climb from $45,000 for the vice president.

Both amounts have not been adjusted since the two positions were established in 1989, the office reported.

Commission members on July 28 recommended that voters choose whether to adjust the salaries and a bill calling for the referendum was issued.

Noel Lyn Smith covers the Navajo Nation for The Daily Times. She can be reached at 505-564-4636 or by email at nsmith@daily-times.com.



2018 The Daily Times (Farmington, N.M.)

Visit The Daily Times (Farmington, N.M.) at www.daily-times.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.PHOENIX  Republican Gov. Doug Ducey largely emphasized border security and his Democratic rival David Garcia focused mostly on public education Tuesday in the second of two debates in the run up to Novembers election.

The evening debate in Tucson was broadcast and streamed online live by Arizona Public Media featured three journalists asking questions.

Solar energy, water resources, income taxes and attracting business were among a host of issues that came up during the fast-moving, one-hour matchup that gave the opponents little time to respond to questions and even less time for rebuttals.

Ducey repeatedly brought up the Border Strike Force he helped create, a law enforcement initiative targeting border crime.

But Garcia said state roads near the border are not being patrolled 24 hours a day as necessary because resources from Arizonas Department of Public Safety are being diverted to the force, a key part of Duceys re-election bid. Several border sheriffs have complained about the lack of round-the-clock patrols on highways.

Thats another example of a broken promise by Doug Ducey, said Garcia, adding that the initiative is leaving highways open at night to criminals.

Ducey declared he was working to secure Arizonas future with the force attacking border crime like drug cartels and sex trafficking.

Border crime and illegal immigration are issues that run deep in Arizona and Ducey has stressed increased security along the states southern boundary.

Garcia, a military veteran who works as education professor, has focused much more on the states public education system.

An unprecedented teacher strike in Arizona shut down public schools for six days in the spring. The teachers returned to class after the governor signed a plan to give them a 20 percent pay raise: 9 percent in the fall and about 5 percent in each of the following two years. A previously agreed upon raise makes up the remainder.

Garcia said school funding still lags nationwide and that Arizona is among the worst places in the country for teachers, with many working two or three jobs to make ends meet.

Ducey said he was able to come up with the money for the raises because our general fund is overflowing with dollars, our economy is booming.

The men differed on the issue of school resource officers, with Ducey favoring funding for law enforcers on campus to make sure our kids our safe. Garcia declared, I am against weapons on campus.

Throughout the debate, the men repeatedly retreated to their personal talking points, with Garcia declaring Ducey a follower not a leader and the governor calling on viewers to visit his fact check website on Garcias past statements.

The debate was less tense than the first one in Phoenix on Monday, which featured a sole moderator. The candidates that night sparred over border and education policies, with Garcia complaining about attack ads by the Republic Governors Association he said were bigoted.

Ducey did not address the ads directly.

On Tuesday, Ducey stressed his successes over four years, saying he had balanced Arizonas budget and restarted the economy during his time as governor. Our relationship with Mexico has never been better and we are able to focus on border security, he said.

Garcia, a fourth generation Arizona Hispanic, said its time for a change.

Its time to elect a leader who is from us and is for us, Garcia said.Copyright  2018 Albuquerque Journal

For the second time in less than a week, a lawsuit has been filed against the state Children, Youth and Families Department  this time over its child care assistance program.

The 31-page complaint filed late Tuesday in state District Court in Santa Fe seeks class action status and names as plaintiffs several parents who were denied child care assistance. Also named as a plaintiff is OLE (Organizers in the Land of Enchantment), a nonprofit that represents low-income and working families.

Monique Jacobson, secretary of the state Children, Youth and Families Department, is named as the sole defendant.

The centerpiece of the lawsuit is the allegation that CYFD is illegally denying child care assistance to families who make between 150 and 200 percent of the federal poverty level. The lawsuit maintains that CYFD guidelines say assistance is to be provided to families who make up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level.

Wed like them to actually honor their own guidelines, said Monica Ault, staff attorney with the public benefits team at the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty, which filed the lawsuit.

But CYFD spokesman, Henry Varela said Wednesday, To suggest CYFD has been unnecessarily limiting access to child care assistance is preposterous. Secretary Jacobson has been fighting to grow child care assistance with our most vulnerable populations and has increased participation by 4,500 children a month over the last 3.5 years. CYFD has also increased the funding for this program by $53 million dollars since 2015.

Varela said the claim regarding assistance for families making up to 200 percent of the federal poverty level appears to be a misreading of CYFDs regulations.

People qualify and receive a 12 month contract if family income is 150 percent or below of the federal poverty level, but they can remain in the program if their income increases during that time to 200 percent of the federal poverty level, he explained.

As long as a family continues to earn less than 200 percent of the federal poverty level, they will get another 12 month contract, providing they get recertified with CYFD by showing proof of income and going to work or going to school, Varela said.

The lawsuit also claims families who receive child care assistance are required to make co-payments.

These are essentially illegal because CYFD didnt actually go through a public process, which they are required to do, Ault said during the news conference.

There is nothing in regulation that shows how the co-payment is calculated, and nothing thats public about that. They calculate co-payments using a computer system and some other federal poverty guideline charts, but when you actually engage with a case worker, they have a very hard time explaining how the co-payment came about, she said.

According to CYFD guidelines for child care assistance, the amount of a subsidy the state gives a family to help pay for child care varies depending on the number and age of the children, the type of child care, the location of the program, and the rating of the program as determined by the STARS Quality Rating System.

Ault said CYFD regulations often contradict themselves and are confusing, so they are constitutionally vague.

And, she said, families who have been denied child care assistance have also been denied basic due process rights.

Case workers arent informing them that they have a right to a fair hearing, Ault said. There should be a fair hearing process in place, but what we know is they rarely if ever have these hearings.

Varela, however, provided the Journal a copy of a CYFD form titled Notice of Action that is made available to CYFD clients and which states: If you do not agree with any decision made on any matter concerning your application/case, you may request a Fair Hearing within 30 days from the date of action. You have the right to examine, prior to your hearing, your case record and documents used in determining the action taken.

Plaintiffs named in the lawsuit are: Annette Torres, Annabel Torres, Lauren Cambra, Monica Broshious, Samantha Rivera, all residents of New Mexico on behalf of themselves and individuals similarly situated, and OLE.

On Wednesday, single parents in the lawsuit and representatives of OLE gathered in front of the CYFD building on Pan American Freeway in Albuquerque to talk about the lawsuit.

Among the families represented was a parent who will not be able to return to her managerial job because she cannot afford full-time child care. Instead, she will take another job with a different employer  fewer hours and lower wages.

Other parents in the lawsuit are preschool teachers and a medical assistant who cannot afford the ever changing and unpredictable co-pays, some as high as $400 a month, that CYFD assigns to them, Ault said.

Regarding co-pays, the lawsuits states: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recommends that states require family co-payments be no more than 7 percent of family income in order to be affordable. Despite this, the CYFD co-payment chart sets co-payments as high as 9 percent of monthly income for just one child in care, and a large share of families pay more than 9 percent of their income because they have multiple children.

Plaintiff Annette Torres, who spoke at the news conference, said she applied for child care assistance three times since her daughter was born three years ago and was denied each time, being told that her monthly income was too high. A single mother, Torres, who works for the state, has a monthly income that places her at 190 percent of the federal poverty level, according to the lawsuit.

Without assistance, Torres pays about $300 a month for child care, or 11.71 percent of her income.

The lawsuit asks CYFD to cease denying eligible families child care assistance, to clearly state all standards that are used to determine family eligibility for such assistance, how much assistance a family will receive and the method CYFD uses to calculate co-payments.

In addition, the lawsuit asks that CYFD immediately implement a standardized system to notify families in writing of the reason for denial or reduction in benefits, and information about their right to appeal.

In defense of the agencys current practices, Varela said, The secretary has improved the continuity of care for children by ensuring children can remain in childcare for 12 months without disruption, we started an at-risk child care program serving nearly 1,000 of our most vulnerable families, and we have created new tools to make it easier for people to determine their eligibility and begin their application process.

Just last week, CYFD and the State Human Services Department were named in a lawsuit filed by 13 foster children and two nonprofit organizations alleging that abused and neglected children have been removed from unsafe conditions at home, only to be placed in foster homes, group housing or residential treatment facilities that in some cases fail to treat their trauma and are overly restrictive.UNITED NATIONS  The same day that Russian diplomats struck a deal with Turkey over a demilitarized zone in Syrias last rebel-run region, dozens of Russian businessmen were flying home from Damascus, contracts in hand for trade with a postwar Syria.

Whatever happens to the rebels in Idlib province, Russia is determined to keep Syria solidly anchored in its sphere of influence over the long term  both as a foothold in the Middle East and as a warning to the U.S. and its allies against future interference.

Russia wants  a new Mideast security order, said Emile Hokayem, Middle East security expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

While Russia is blamed for widespread death and destruction as it supports Syrian President Bashar Assad, its forces have proven decisive in the international struggle against the Islamic State group, giving Moscow a credibility that Western powers lack. Their intervention yielded much better returns than anyone expected, Hokayem said.

Now the central challenge facing U.S. and other Western diplomats huddling about Syria this week at the United Nations is how to stay relevant.

U.S. President Donald Trump claimed credit Wednesday for saving Idlib from a Russian-backed offensive  yet nearly everyone else says the credit goes to the presidents of Russia and Turkey for the accord they reached last week staving off a big battle.

One by one, diplomats at U.N. meetings on Syria hailed the agreement, and expressed hope it holds despite persistent uncertainty over Idlibs fate .

Russia basked in the praise. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov dashed from one meeting to the next in the U.N. headquarters, stressing Russias concerns about Syria with the top diplomats of Iran and Turkey, and with U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura.

The EU hosted its own Syria gathering at the U.N., and France is hosting a meeting Thursday of the Small Group thats trying to weigh in on Syrias future, despite years of failed efforts to back the Syrian opposition.

Even as Russia flaunts its diplomatic success, its also securing a military future with Syria. Russia announced Monday its selling S-300 missile systems to Syria.

A longtime client of Russian weapons manufacturers since well before the war, Syria also was a reliable trading partner. And Moscow is furthering that relationship by rebuilding roads, pipes and skyscrapers wiped out by seven years of war  including destruction wrought by Russias own weapons.

A group of 38 Russian companies took part in the Damascus International Fair earlier this month. It was at least the fourth event in the past year aimed at reviving Russian trade with Syria  and Russian companies are heading back to Syria in early October for a conference on rebuilding the country.

Syrias neighbors are similarly active, notably close ally Iran. But in Russias case, analysts say, the economic activity is closely linked to its influence strategy.

Russia, for example, wants to rebuild Syrias train network. Russia built it in the first place, and wants to rebuild this and strategic economic ties, said independent Russian analyst Vyacheslav Matuzov.

Russian companies are seeking a diverse trade base, with food, farming and energy deals, according to the Russian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Among the most vocal proponents of renewed trade with Syria is Georgy Muradov of Crimea.

Chamber Vice President Vladimir Padalko described the firm intention of Russian business not just to restore past trade cooperation between our countries, but also actively move forward.

But Russia doesnt want to foot the bill for the huge cost of reconstruction, so it is seeking Western help, notably in Lavrovs meetings at the U.N.

Russia wants to rebuild Syria not just for egotistical reasons, but sees it as the responsibility of the international community, Matuzov said.

Hokayem said prospects of that are low, but Russia is still in the drivers seat in Syria.

Russia is always a step ahead, and has a higher tolerance level for ups and downs in the Syria war because Putin doesnt face serious domestic opposition.

Russias so-called Astana peace process with Iran and Turkey has been so much more successful than previous U.N. or Western-led efforts, Hokayem said, that the U.N. envoy has adopted (it) as his own.

The next few weeks will be critical for Syria  and for Russias footprint. U.N. envoy de Mistura told The Associated Press that October is going to be a very important month both for Idlib and for his efforts to move toward peace.

___

Associated Press writer Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed.WASHINGTON  Congress has approved a bill keeping the government open through Dec. 7, as lawmakers move to avert a government shutdown looming next week.

The $854 billion bill also funds the military and a host of civilian agencies for the next year.

The House approved the bill, 361-61, on Wednesday, a week after the Senate approved it, 93-7.

The measure now goes to President Donald Trump, who said he will sign it. Trumps signature would avert a partial government shutdown set to begin Monday, weeks ahead of the Nov. 6 elections that will determine control of Congress.

The spending bill includes $675 billion for the Defense Department and boosts military pay by 2.6 percent, the largest pay raise in nine years. It also increases spending for Health and Human Services, Education, Labor and other agencies, including a 5 percent boost for the National Institutes of Health

Trump said Wednesday he will sign the bill, telling reporters at the United Nations, Were going to keep the government open.

Trump made the pledge despite his frustration that the bill does not pay for his long-promised wall along the U.S.-Mexico border  a fact Trump called ridiculous.

The wall was a centerpiece of Trumps 2016 Republican presidential campaign, when he repeatedly promised that Mexico would pay for it.

Now, as president, Trump says it is ridiculous that Congress has yet to fully fund the project.

Where is the money for border security and the wall in this ridiculous spending bill? Trump tweeted last week, adding that Republicans must finally get tough against Democrats he said are obstructing law enforcement and border security.

Many conservatives shared Trumps frustration that money was included for Planned Parenthood but not the wall, but the spending bill still won easy approval in the House. Leaders from both parties supported it.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., hailed the bill.

This funds our military, this funds opioids, this does a lot of the things that we all want to accomplish together, Ryan said before the vote.

Rep. Nita Lowey of New York, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations panel, also praised the bill, saying it provides ample resources for our armed services and strengthens military readiness, while upholding commitments to service members and their families.

Lawmakers also resoundingly rejected Trumps proposed budget, Lowey said. The bill restores $10 billion in proposed cuts that she said would have hurt working families.

Instead, we have secured increased funding for biomedical research at the National Institutes of Health, expanded opioid abuse treatment and prevention programs and (funded) new initiatives for maternal and child health, Lowey said.

Together with a spending bill signed by Trump last week, Congress has approved bills accounting for more than 70 percent of discretionary spending for the next budget year. Lawmakers had hoped to approve a third bill that would pay for the Interior, Agriculture, Transportation and other departments, but they could not reach agreement. Those agencies will be funded at current levels under the stopgap bill approved Wednesday.

Texas Rep. Kay Granger, who chairs a defense appropriations subcommittee, said before Wednesdays vote that she had a great big smile on my face anticipating the bills approval.

Theres really nothing more important than securing our nation and making sure our people in the military have the equipment and the training they need, Granger, a Republican, told reporters.

The bill shows really major investments in our air superiority, our shipbuilding, our ground forces: the things that (military leaders and troops) need and the things they deserve, she said.

The bill includes the largest pay raise for the military in nine years  a fact Granger said was about more than money. Its to say that were with you and we support you, she said, referring to U.S. troops at home and abroad.

Bills being considered in the House and Senate would provide funding for the border wall. GOP leaders have said they prefer to resolve the issue after the midterm elections.

___

Associated Press writer Zeke Miller at the United Nations contributed to this story.ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.  New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas says the state will receive approximately $760,000 under a $148 million nationwide settlement between 50 states and Uber.

The settlement announced Wednesday by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan stems from the ride-hailing companys yearlong delay in reporting a data breach to its affected drivers about the theft of their personal information.

Uber learned in November 2016 that hackers had accessed personal data, including drivers license information, for roughly 600,000 Uber drivers in the U.S. The company acknowledged the breach in November 2017, saying it paid $100,000 in ransom for the stolen information to be destroyed.

The states sued Uber, saying the company violated laws requiring it to promptly notify people affected by the breach.The PNM Resources Foundation has deposited $750,000 into the bank accounts of 40 nonprofits across its New Mexico service territory.

The donations are part of the foundations annual grant awards, begun in 1983. This years program, titled New Century of Service in recognition of Public Service Co. of New Mexicos centennial celebration, provided top grants of $50,000 to five organizations:

 Cultivating Coders to support coding boot camps for high school students in Albuquerques South Valley.

 Fathers Building Futures to scale up the nonprofits Albuquerque wood shop where fathers make caskets and urns for the funeral industry.

 St. Martins Hospitality Center in Albuquerque for on-the-job training for five homeless individuals in the centers Hope Cafe internship program

 Galloping Grace Youth Ranch in Rio Rancho for its food recovery program to educate youth, create jobs and alleviate hunger

 Reunity Resources in Santa Fe to expand its community farm, which grows food for anti-hunger efforts while training young farmers, homeless people and at-risk youth

Another 10 organizations received $25,000 grants, and 25 nonprofits received grants of $10,000 each.

Its an honor for the PNM Resources Foundation to invest this money in our New Mexico communities, said foundation President Becky Teague in a statement. We are excited to support projects which will promote jobs, services and education in hometowns across the state.

The grants aim to promote economic development, education and the environment in PNMs service area, said PNM spokeswoman Shannon Jackson. Theyre awarded to organizations that innovate new products and services to grow and develop local businesses, create collaborative community spaces for public use and provide educational opportunities that support economic development.

All grants come from shareholder donations to the foundation, which manages a $20 million endowment.

Many of these shareholders that donated money to the endowment are from New Mexico and want to see the very communities in which we all live, work, and raise our families succeed, Jackson told the Journal. No customer funds are part of the PNM Resources Foundation endowment.

Over the past 10 years, the foundation has donated a total of $9.56 million to local nonprofits. The foundation is run as a separate, nonprofit, tax exempt corporation governed by a board of trustees comprised of PNM employees.The newly opened Bosque Brewing Co. in Bernalillo is about to get some neighbors, as part of a multi-million dollar, multi-phase redevelopment that was unveiled Wednesday.

The team behind the construction of Bosque Brewing along U.S. 550 broke ground on @Rio, a 14-acre development that will be built above the riverbank on parcels north and south of the highway. Joining developers at the site Wednesday were representatives from the town of Bernalillo, Sandoval County and the Sandoval Economic Alliance.

The @Rio development will include restaurants, retail, housing, a walkway looking out onto the Rio Grande, and recreational opportunities like canoeing or kayaking, one of the owners said.

Zack Snyder of Snyder Construction said hes partnering with Phil Lindborg, Harpal and Gita Singh and Gary Plant on the development, which will be done in phases over the course of the next few years. Counting land acquisition, entitlement and construction costs, the project will total about $48 million, Snyder said.

We have an approved site plan from the town of Bernalillo, said Snyder. Final approval of construction documents for the first phase @Rio, which will be three commercial buildings west of anchor tenant Bosque Brewing, are pending. Construction will begin in November.

Service-oriented businesses  restaurants, coffee shops and juice bars, gyms, barbershops, cellphone stores  are the target tenants to lease storefronts in the first phase of the commercial development, said Snyder, whose firm will be the general contractor for the build- out. Lindborg and Snyder previously collaborated on the Village @ La Orilla development on Coors just north of Montano, which is anchored by Flix Brewhouse.

In a March 2016 Journal article that announced the redevelopment of the former Jackalope location into the brewery, the project then carried the name of Riverpointe Vistas. The @Rio project is a much more ambitious iteration, said Snyder.

As planned, @Rio will be a destination place where people come for a quick stop or to spend the day, said Snyder. Tying the development to the river is a natural, said Snyder, adding that tens of thousands of commuters and residents drive U.S. 550 every day. The new development dovetails with road improvements along Bernalillos major east-west arterial. The $40 million project will include widening the highway from four lanes to six, building a new bridge, bike lanes and sidewalks, and reconstructing the intersection with N.M. 528 intersection to improve traffic flow.

In addition to working with local governments, Snyder said the @Rio team has met with various agencies that would be impacted by the development, including the state Department of Transportation, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Army Corps of Engineers, and the Nature Conservancy.

The developers want to be sensitive to the flora and fauna on and along the nearby river, said Snyder.PHILADELPHIA  After spending years building his persona as a model husband and father, Bill Cosby took an abrupt turn nearly 15 years ago with a now-infamous speech to an NAACP convention.

He used his celebrity status to condemn poor African-Americans, chiding them to pull up their sagging pants, deriding them for having children out of wedlock and blaming them for their impoverished circumstances.

Are you not paying attention? People with their hat on backwards, pants down around the crack . with names like Shaniqua, Shaligua, Mohammed and all that crap, and all of them are in jail.

Cosby himself is now in a Pennsylvania prison cell, and many black Americans see his sentence as a moment of racial comeuppance.

As they learned of Cosbys three- to 10-year prison term for sexual assault, the same people who were his targets in the 2004 speech regarded his fate as a convergence of karma, hubris and hypocrisy. Some quoted Cosbys own words in tweets announcing the sentence.

Cosby made the decision to focus his attention on beating up on the black poor, on telling the world that black people were dysfunctional, pathological and undeserving of equal protection under the law, said Temple University professor Marc Lamont Hill. When somebody like that, who positions themselves as the moral authority of black America, gets called onto the carpet, you aint getting no breaks here. People are going to be frustrated.

Writer Michael Arceneaux said Cosbys contempt for people who grew up in low-income communities, as Arceneaux did in Houston, left him with little sympathy for Cosby, who also hailed from humble beginnings.

I found it enraging, Arceneaux said of the Poundcake speech, so called because Cosby make a remark about blacks supposedly getting shot in disputes over dessert cake.

I knew he was a hypocrite. To learn how much pain he has caused to women over decades . I find it ironic. Those speeches proved to be his undoing. Im glad he got what he deserved, he added.

Cosbys own words were a catalyst for his downfall. In a July 2015 memo outlining the decision to unseal a 2005 deposition in the case, a federal judge cited the speech: This case . is not about defendants status as a public person by virtue of the exercise of his trade as a televised or comedic personality. Rather, defendant has donned the mantle of public moralist and mounted the proverbial electronic or print soap box to volunteer his views on, among other things, child rearing, family life, education and crime.

The stark contrast between Bill Cosby, the public moralist, and Bill Cosby, the subject of serious allegations concerning improper (and perhaps criminal) conduct, is a matter as to which . the public has a significant interest, he continued.

Cosby pointed to systemic irresponsibility, not racism, as the root cause of what was wrong with black culture. But after his sentencing, spokesman Andrew Wyatt called Cosbys trial the most racist and sexist in American history. He referred to the entertainer as one of the greatest civil rights leaders and accused the media, judge and prosecution team of prejudice against a black man.

Cosby, who is 81 and legally blind, was the first celebrity of the #MeToo era to be sent to prison. The movement, which began a year ago, has centered around men in Hollywood, the media and politics. While several powerful men have lost their livelihoods and reputations, no one else has lost their freedom.

Tuesdays sentencing came amid a firestorm surrounding the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, who is accused by three women of sexual misconduct as a high school and college student. Kavanaugh has denied all of the allegations and is expected to testify Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, along with one of his accusers, Christine Blasey Ford.

Rather than reveling in revenge for Cosby, the focus now should be on justice for all credible accusers, Columbia University political science professor Keith Boykin said.

He disappointed me. He didnt put anything in my drink, Hill said. As awful as he has been to the world, my commitment is not to punishing Bill Cosby. Its getting justice for his victims.

___

Whack is the Associated Press national writer for race and ethnicity. Follow her work on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/emarvelous .Hope then encouraged students to recognize themselves as the standard-bearers of science. Its important to remember as a member of the scientific community, you are the most crucial advocate, champion, safeguard and gatekeeper of truth and impartiality of your own experimental findings and scientific discoveries, she said.

The ceremonys alumnus speaker was David Bilder, who earned a PhD in developmental biology in 1997 at Stanford. Bilder, a professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California-Berkeley, echoed Hopes point about the lab coat being a symbol of community.

Community is not an instinctual value for many scientists, Bilder said. Many times in grad school, youll find yourself  its basically just you and the bench, maybe in some corner of the Beckman Center late at night, losing track of the world around you and just trying to figure out through your thoughts and experiments what nature is trying to say.

And yet knowing that you are a member of this larger community is really a profound experience, Bilder said, adding that just by being a biologist, a student participates in the achievements of all biologists. That community, he said, begins with the circle of classmates on campus and extends to the circle of Stanford faculty out to the larger circle of scientists around the world, as well as into past centuries.

Seize this chance

Students in the biosciences are entering a spectacular field that is continuously revolutionizing itself, and its going to be immensely more interesting than you can even anticipate now, sitting in the seats where you are, Bilder said.

Exhorting the incoming class to uphold the highest values of the scientific community, Bilder also told them to work to expand this community, to promote opportunity and diversity within it, and to break down these really absurd ideas, traditional ideas, about who can or who cannot be a scientist. He called on students to seize this chance to do ambitious, risky and transformative research, assuring them that until you succeed, your community is here to sustain you.

Sitting directly in front of her mother Katie Arnoldi, who had flown in from Southern California to cheer her on, incoming biology student Natalie Arnoldi was excited to start a new chapter at Stanford. Arnoldi, who in 2014 received both a bachelors degree in marine biology and masters degree in oceanography and marine policy from Stanford, had spent her last four years pursuing her art career and showing her large oil paintings internationally.

My dream is to mesh the two, Arnoldi said. Its a myth that you have to choose between art and science. You can have it all.

As students were introduced by their department chairs, they proceeded across the stage to be assisted into their lab coats by Talbot and Hope. Their classmates and loved ones in the audience applauded and shouted, and some held up handmade signs of support.

Naomi Lynn Haddock, who grew up in Honduras and Indiana, said she had always been a bit star-struck about Stanford, and worked hard to get here. Haddock said her white lab coat was something tangible that shows Im really here. She said she was proud to be the first on the Honduran side of her family to attend graduate school, and that she plans to study infectious disease immunology and hopes to become a professor and serve as a mentor.

Renteria, the first in his family to attend college, said he wants to help others aspiring to study science. Receiving my white coat represents an inflection point of sorts, in the sense that many people contributed to my ability to get here, and Im reaching a point where I can start to figure out how to give back so others can reach their full potential as well, he said. I may not have my PhD yet, but I think Im in a privileged position at Stanford to help others.Global leading public relations firm, Hill+Knowlton Strategies, has announced a strategic partnership with specialist news monitoring and analysis services company, Impact Research & Measurement, to deliver world-class media research and monitoring services for the India market.

This strategic partnership will benefit both firms. As a part of this partnership, client servicing teams at Hill+Knowlton Strategies will get better media analytics tools and research to deliver data-driven integrated communication campaigns.Not only will Impact service all of H+K Strategies current clients, it will also be the preferred partner for media analytics requirements of all future clients signed up by H+K Strategies. Effective October 1, 2018, The Resource Center (TRC) will cease to offer media monitoring and analysis services to clients. All team members of TRC, which was an internal division of H+K Strategies, have already been offered new roles at Impact.

Speaking about the partnership, Kavita Rao, President & CEO Hill+Knowlton Strategies - India, said, Data and analytics is an important part of all communication campaigns. This partnership enables H+K Strategies and its clients access to advanced tools, analyses & insights to help run communication campaigns better. With our teams having a strong understanding of our clients requirements and Impact offering the best-in-class tools based on latest technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning, this partnership will enable us to offer better business outcomes for our clients. We are thrilled to partner with Impact Research & Measurement to provide our clients a truly integrated and enhanced level of service.

Aseem Sood, CEO, Impact Research & Measurement Pvt Ltd and Director, Association for Measurement & Evaluation of Communication (AMEC), remarked, Clients are no longer interested in just understanding how they did in the past. They want to use data and analysis to understand what could be done better and differently to achieve better success in the future. They also want to make sense of news and trends in a faster and better way. Impact has always been a pioneer  with several firsts in the news monitoring and analysis business industry. We were the first to introduce same-day multi-city monitoring, online repository, real-time dashboards and a mobile app. We are continuing to improve our services and features with investments in news technologies (AI and machine learning). Given the volume of noise out there, it becomes very important to scope the need and use the right charts and visuals to present research results. And this needs to be done in a way that relates to the clients communication objectives as closely as possible. Our partnership with Hill+Knowlton Strategies will enable them to deliver impactful campaigns fortheir clients.

With this partnership, H+K Strategies clients will get access to:U.S Fashion Group, Michael Kors has added Italian Luxury Fashion brand, Versace to its portfolio for $ 2 billion. This is in line with the brand strategy to make an entry into the luxury fashion segment that is dominated largely by European brands. The U.S fashion retailer hopes to accumulate brands that sell shoes, clothes, accessories etc. all under one umbrella. With Versace under its belt, the U.S fashion conglomerate has a well recognized red carpet favourite brand under its belt. Last year brought the British stiletto-heel maker Jimmy Choo for $1.2 billion.OYO  South Asias largest hotel chain  has raised a total of $800 million in the latest financing round led by SoftBank Investment Advisers (SBIA) through SoftBank Vision Fund,with participation from existing investors Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sequoia and Greenoaks Capital. OYO Hotels also confirmed that it received a commitment of an additional US$200 million, bringing the total to US$1 billion in this round.

Speaking about the development, Ritesh Agarwal  Founder & CEO, OYO said, In a short span of time, OYO Hotels has grown to become the most-preferred hotel brand in both economy and mid-market segments. We have already started expanding our presence to newer segments, with OYO Home, OYO Townhouse and more recently Palette Resorts by OYO. We will continue to explore newer businesses while remaining focused on both organic and inorganic growth. In the last 12 months, we have increased our international footprint to five countries - India, China, Malaysia, and Nepal, and more recently in The UK. With this additional funding, we plan to rapidly scale our business in these countries, while continuing to invest further in technology and talent. We will also deploy fresh capital to take our unique model that enables small hotel owners to create quality living spaces, global.

OYO India has over 125,000 rooms and is witnessing 3x growth in transactions year-on-year with net take rates over 20%. In addition to attaining unit-level profitability, the company is benefiting from 90% demand coming from its direct channels, improving operating efficiencies while customer loyalty, with over ~67% of the top line in India coming from repeat customers. OYO China, on the other hand, has presence in 171 cities with over 87,000 rooms, in over ten months since its foray into the market. With both the home markets, India and China on a steady performance trajectory, the company will continue to expand its presence its globally. The company will direct a significant part of the funds from this round of financing, approximately $600 Million, into strengthening its position in China, which is still in the early stages of growth, while the rest will go into maintaining its leadership position in India and expansion into new markets.

Said Munish Varma, Partner, SBIA, With a promise to deliver good quality accommodation at affordable prices, OYO has grown exponentially to become the largest hotel chain in South Asia, and is swiftly expanding to international markets. We are tremendously excited to be a part of OYOs successful journey.

Added Justin Wilson, Director, SBIA, OYOs unique value proposition and outstanding growth over the last few years gives us the confidence that OYO can scale, innovate and continue to offer an intuitive customer experience, curated for different markets.

Bejul Somaia, Managing Director, Lightspeed India Partners Advisors, added, It's exciting to see OYO's success in scaling the India business while extending their pioneering asset light, controlled-experience model to international markets. Budget travelers are consistently shortchanged by the lack of trust, quality, and consistency in this segment, and we believe that OYO will continue to disrupt the hospitality industry by building a trusted brand that delivers affordable, consistent and high-quality experiences.

Commenting on support from the investors, Maninder Gulati, Chief Strategy Officer, OYO, added, The deal reinforces the confidence of our investors in our unique full stack fulfillment led business model and the growth potential it promises, and we are humbled to continue to have their support and backing. Over the years, we have developed the expertise that makes it possible for us to offer the benefits of a big hotel chain to small hotels, thereby helping them improve efficiencies and customer experience. This makes OYO Hotels a perfect choice for customers looking for high-quality experiences at affordable prices. We have industry best capabilities to make a huge impact here."

Launched in May 2013, OYO Hotels mission is to create quality living spaces, anywhere, for everyone. Globally, OYO chain of hotels is present in over 350 cities with over 10,000 asset partners spread across five countries including India, China, Malaysia, Nepal, and the UK. OYO Hotels has pioneered the worlds first full stack technology led hospitality model and has over 211,000 franchised and leased rooms as a part of the chain, delivering strong revenue yields for its asset partners. OYO Hotels host more than 125,000 stayed room nights every single day, a testament to its impact on millions of guests across the world.

J.P. Morgan is acting as the exclusive financial advisor to OYO on this fundraising.Samsung India has launched a digital campaign showcasing the capabilities of its digital voice assistant  Bixby  through a powerful narrative that strikes a chord with viewers. The film is inspired by the life of a Motor Neuron Disease (MND)/ ALS patient, Sonal (name changed), who agreed to let Samsung work on a pilot project to help preserve her voice forever for her daughter.

Conceptualised by Cheil, the campaign shows a loving mother who is diagnosed with Motor Neuron Disease (MND)/ ALS and is losing her voice and ability to move, and how Samsung customises its AI-enabled Bixby technology to keep her voice alive on a Samsung smartphone so that her loved ones can continue to hear her voice.

For this project, Samsung Research Institute, Bangalore (SRI-B) worked with a company which specialises in core speech technologies. They recorded an independent voice, and using TTS (Text To Speech) technology, tested that voice for compatibility on Android OS (Samsung Smartphone). Testing on Tizen OS (Refrigerator, Television) is under progress. This phase led to the discovery of Asha Ek Hope Foundation, the first registered NGO for MND/ALS in India. It is a non-profit organisation supporting people with motor neuron disease (MND) and their families. It is striving to infuse hope and positivity in their life, which will empower them to overcome the illness.

At Samsung, we are focused on transforming peoples lives with innovative technologies. The endeavour is to solve real-life problems of consumers through meaningful innovations. This film depicts how Samsung can make the seemingly impossible, possible by using its AI voice assistant Bixby to preserve the voice of a mother who is diagnosed with MND, said Ranjivjit Singh, Chief Marketing Officer, Samsung India.

In the film, the daughter is seen reading out an essay at school, where she describes the beautiful relationship with her mother. She crafts a narrative which celebrates the mother-daughter bond through activities, just the two of them spending time together, listening to and laughing with one another. As the video continues streaming, the mother is missing from the picture and we see the daughter speaking to a phone with her father in the backdrop.

Samsung, the leader in innovations, is always looking for ways to help people do the impossible. We are developing the first ever personalised AI voice assistant - Bixby - to help people affected by Motor Neuron Disease leave their voices for their loved ones before they lose it. Cheil team set out to present a simple yet moving film showcasing the endless possibilities that Bixby can bring to the family coping with this unfortunate condition. We are delighted to see the heartwarming response that the film is getting and we are looking forward to perfecting the technology and inspiring many others, said Josh Seokjin, Senior Art Director, and Alberto Rodriguez, Senior Copywriter from Cheil HQ Global Creative Division.

Samsung believes in delivering connected consumer experiences across its spectrum of products and has been focused on cutting edge technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), Virtual Reality (VR), Machine learning and 5G mobile networks. It spent more than $14 billion on R&D globally last year and has more than 65,000 engineers and designers working to innovate and, bring the best products and solutions for its consumers.

The launch of the worlds largest mobile factory in Noida is testimony to its strong commitment to Indian consumers. Following the launch of the factory, was the opening of the companys largest mobile experience centre in Bengalurus iconic Opera House. This centre showcases differentiated product experiences that revolve around transformative technologies such as VR, AI and IoT, which Samsung is pioneering globally. The customised Bixby voice solution is another example of Samsungs commitment towards its consumers.

Campaign Credits:

Client - Samsung Electronics India Pvt. Ltd.

Creative Agency - Cheil WW India

ECD, VP  Kate Hyewon Oh

Sr. Art Director  Josh Seokjin, Shin

Sr. Copywriter  Alberto Rodriguez

Account Director  Siddharth Kapoor

Creative Director  Manmeet Singh, Dalip Singh

Agency Producer  John Park

Production House  Crazy Few Films

Director  Anupam Mishra

Producers - Urfi Kazmi / Viraj Gawas

DOP  Ayananka Bose

Music Director  Dhruv Ghanekar

Lyricist  Abhiruchi ChandAbhishek Joshi of Sony Pictures Networks India (SPNI) who had recently got promoted as SVP & Head-Marketing, Subscriptions & Content Licensing - Digital Business has put down his papers. Sources close to development confirmed this news to Adgully.

Joshi is a media executive with over 17 years of marketing, analytics, business development and content partnerships, strategy business planning and execution expertise spanning across television networks, internet video, content distribution, ad agencies and brand licensing & marketing.

Joshi joined Sony in 2015 as VP & Head - Marketing & Analytics, Digital Business. In 2017, he was elevated to the role of Vice President & Head - Marketing, Analytics & Content Syndication - Digital Business. We wish him all the best!!!Surviving and thriving amid the presence of large agency networks are the smaller, independent agencies, often referred to as boutique agencies. Quite often created by former employees of larger networks venturing out on their own, and sometimes by people from different professional backgrounds, these independent agencies are being increasingly recognised for their brilliant campaigns and benchmark-setting innovative thinking.

Adgully presents its latest feature offering  The Disrupters  which puts the spotlight on such small independent agencies that have been setting a blazing trail in the advertising industry with their work, their new way of operating and ideation, which have been creating disruption in the way the advertising business is done in India.

Quartet in arms

Manas Gulati, Co-Founder & CEO, #ARM Worldwide: He leads the marketing business at #ARM Worldwide, which was co-founded after his 9-year stint in the industry. A communications graduate from the Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad, Gulati has played pivotal roles in international organisations and a critical part of the Indian success stories of leading media houses. He was adjudged as the Most influential digital marketing leader by The World Marketing Congress. He is also a guest faculty at eminent communication schools of the country. Gulati is analytical, meticulous and pertinently is able to overlay business over media objectives. A demonstration of his impeccable work is seen in an array of global and national clients.

Ritesh Singh, Co-founder and MD, #ARM Worldwide: He has been in the communications and media industry for over 15 years across digital & activation, during which he spearheaded business for noteworthy national and multinational brands. In the current avatar, as Co-founder and MD of #ARM Worldwide, Ritesh Singh has worked with a diverse list of clients across technology, education, e-commerce, and the BFSI sector. His ideology is crafted on a strong belief that with the convergence of various media, digital is headed towards an experience where conventional and digital resources will be used hand in glove to give the best outputs. In his previous role as National Director at MEC Interaction, Singh had actively led many campaigns that were momentous in setting new benchmarks within the organisation, and globally. He had also held several key positions at Starcom MediaVest Group, where he was a part of the global leadership programme, Global Impact Circle  a group of 25 people working to design and deploy tactics in about 80 countries with global organisation goals at core.

Honey Singh, Co-founder and CEO, #ARM Worldwide: As CEO of #ARM Worldwide, Singh is at the helm of business with a clear focus on driving the companys overall business and operational growth in India and abroad. He started his professional journey as an entrepreneur back in 2004 from a technology startup before foraying into the industry as a consultant. Under his leadership, #ARM Worldwide has won multiple accolades, including Most Creative PR Stunt - South East Asia in PR Awards 2017 by Marketing Interactive. Singh has been awarded and acknowledged for his leadership skills & strategic business decisions. The testimonials range from Business Excellence Award 2016 from Sunil Bharti Mittal to being awarded as one of top social media professionals in India by CMO Asia. Quora recently mentioned him as one of most viewed writers under public relations & viral marketing globally. He has also appeared as a thought leader in EY Social Media Marketing India Trends Study 2014.

Abhishek Punia, Co-founder and COO - #ARM Worldwide: He is a Digital Marketing practitioner with a passion for innovation and has pioneered the Digital Marketing space in last 11 years, and the journey is a proven record of his success. In his current role as Operations Head at #ARM Worldwide, Punia works with service leads across factions to deliver world class solutions to customers. With core understanding of both strategy and delivery, Punias role has been to make sure that processes are streamlined both internally and externally, so that both brand and business objectives for the client are met.

In an exclusive interaction with Adgully, Manas Gulati, Co-Founder and CEO, #ARM Worldwide, narrates the story of the agencys creation, how it ideates on client briefs, how its thinking and agency culture is different from its contemporaries and above all  how it has been disrupting the advertising industry.

The Arm Worldwide Story  How it all began

We have been operational for the last 5 years and moving towards being one of the biggest independent houses of digital marketing & communications in India. In July 2013, we started as a digital marketing consultancy, but over the years have further forayed into PR & Content Marketing, Technology, Data Analytics and Inbound Marketing as well. We have extensively strengthened our workforce with a team strength of 130 and growing with operations in Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru, and Singapore as our South East Asia business station.

The objective & vision

It was clear in our minds right from the start, when I, Ritesh, Abhishek, and Honey decided to kickstart ARM Digital. We started with a vision and sole objective to ensure the business growth of our customers and offer them unique solutions with a consulting approach at the centre, and not behave like the traditional cliche of an agency. Our business consulting approach and integrated planning methodology continues to help in doing data-driven, creative & measurable work for our customers thats efficient & scalable across earned, owned and paid media.

We closely work on our ideologies based on - transparency, belongingness, and freedom to learn and teach. The companys commitment towards work ethics and workplace diversity has further contributed to the companys overall growth in terms of clientele, employees and its global presence. We believe we have just scratched the surface and theres a lot to achieve. Our global expansion plan has already kicked off with an office in Singapore, we further plan to mark our presence in Western markets.

Genesis of the agency name

So, our (the four founders) idea was to be the digital arm of our customers. Over a series of discussions, name coining and domain availability checks, we decided to go with the simple yet powerful ARM Digital. Over our evolution and expanding foot-printings in terms of global outreach and services in our cradle, we renamed ourselves to ARM Worldwide as we werent limited to digital only as our area of expertise any more.

Giving creative ideation an edge

At #ARM Worldwide, we provide digital marketing and communications solutions for customers operating in both B2B & B2C space. Our integrated planning methodology which contributes to doing data-driven, creative & measurable work with a consulting approach makes us different rather unique from the larger network agency structure. This integrated planning methodology enables us to stitch different delivery tools of digital marketing, content marketing & analytics together and thrives in ushering continuous innovations for our customers' growth.

Tackling the client brief

Our relationship with our customers is more of a partner than an agency; working in sync with their business growth objectives. So, whenever we receive a brief from their end, it goes through our linear methodology and from there we are able to harness unique ideas and business-first strategies for desired growth. This has helped us bring business efficiencies for our customers, along with few Tier 1 awards in different spaces over the years.

Creating disruption

Our methodology is pretty linear, where we place analytics at the core of it. We are data-hungry, and we slice & dice every bit of it for all our business spectrums - be it, media planning, social media, ORM, SEO, inbound marketing or influencer outreach.

The real disruption comes at the stage when the execution starts. With every step point mapped already with expected output to each of our action, measurement becomes the driver of disruption.

Running an independent operation

All four co-founders believe that founding ARM is one of the best decision that we have made in our lives. It seems every single day we are living our dream. In a short span of 5 years, we have been able to build a strong team 130+ professionals from various cultural backgrounds who are passionate, committed towards work ethics and unconventional in their approach. We strongly believe in transparency, belongingness, and freedom to learn and teach. One of the most important advantages of running your own independent operation is you have the flexibility to introduce new creative and innovative ideas in work culture to keep your team motivated. We hire young talent and closely work with them on delivering unique ideas with a distinctive approach. Be it our stakeholders, customers or employees, we are learning new lessons from them which further enables us to grow. The last five years have been thrilling, yet enlightening.

But having said that, at the same time it is very challenging to start an independent venture in this competitive era where every day the key agencies are bringing new strategies and services to their customers. Initially, it was difficult for us to gain the trust of the customers being a small organization but gradually over a short span of time we have been able to bag several key industry players from different spaces as our customers like  OPPO Mobiles, Sodexo, Bajaj Finserv, Future Brands, Pearl Academy, and many more.

Key Clients

Few names in our clientele are Bajaj Finserv, Sodexo, OPPO Mobiles, Pearl Academy, Pearson, Jack Daniels, Future Brands, Zee Learn, Spectra, Hindustan Times, Harman, etc.

The challenges & opportunities

Industrys perception regarding the agencys ability plays a significant role while counting on challenges and opportunities for small independent agencies. We were lucky enough as we started ARM when the start-up culture was booming. In fact, the scenario is still the same rather I would say the start-up culture is flourishing at a great momentum. Today even key industry players are showing trust in start-ups and are giving an opportunity to the young talent to work for them and strategize unique campaigns for them. However, initially, it was challenging for us- we didnt source funding rather we bootstrapped it. In the beginning, it was indeed tough to make customers believe us on our capabilities and at the same time, it was crucial for us to hire an intellectual and passionate workforce.

Are Specialist Agencies in a stronger position now?

Yes, of course, I believe that independent agencies are in a stronger position today. The market is expanding exponentially and every month more than 500,000 businesses are entering the market. Today in this competitive era, every organisation  be it small or big  are working towards exploring new and advanced technologies to bring work efficiency. Millennials are open to experimentation and have an appetite to take risks when comes to the companys growth and development. Therefore, it is an opportunity for young independent agencies to come up with unique and advanced technologies/ innovations further creating a niche for themselves in the ecosystem.

How can small independent agencies compete in an era of disruption?

Small agencies can compete in an era of disruption by aligning their mission and objective with the objective of their customers. It is important to have a differentiated mindset, belief structure and unique method of planning and delivery. A small independent organization can survive in this competitive era only if they have exceptional and unconventional ideas and strategies for their clientele.

Was it worth all the trouble?

Yes, all four of us take pride with the way we started and have positioned ARM as one of the leading independent agency. We saw a huge potential in the digital space and we knew that in future digital will supersede the traditional forms of marketing. We had our expertise, zeal towards this space, therefore we didnt give it a second thought while stepping into it. We did an extensive research and identified the gap in the market. We analysed that it was saturated with traditional agencies and there were a handful of companies who were catering to the overall need of the customers in the digital marketing space.

The 5-year plan

The new age media is witnessing a great boom and is expected to grow massively in the coming years. We follow a healthy work culture and have great faith in our workforce and customers. In the next 5 years we want to set a benchmark for ourselves and aim to be Indias one of the leading independent marketing and communication consultancy. We look forward to expanding internationally by adding notable global customers in our portfolio.Celebrating a century of Bengali cinema, Viacom18 and Film Heritage Foundation (FHF) announces the 4th Film Preservation & Restoration Workshop India 2018 (FPRWI) in Kolkata. After successfully partnering with the FHF for the past 3 years, supporting the workshop in Mumbai, Pune and Chennai, the objective of FPRWI 2018 is to create awareness on the urgent need to preserve the moving image heritage in the Bengali film industry thereby, making it accessible to global audiences. Applications for the week-long workshop are currently open on http://filmheritagefoundation.co.in/film-preservation-restoration-workshop-india-2018/

Speaking about the Film Preservation & Restoration Workshop, Sudhanshu Vats, Group CEO and Managing Director Designate, Viacom18 said: India is a country of epic tales that weave through every aspect of our life. Our cinema has been one of the foremost tools of bringing these stories to form our nations collective consciousness, across regions and languages. For close to two and a half decades, starting circa 1950, Bengali cinema moulded this collective conscious as it saw a galaxy of talented directors, actors and musicians shape not only the regions cinema but also setting the narrative for progressive Indian cinema. Personalities like Satyajit Ray, Ritwick Ghatak, Mrinal Sen, Uttam Kumar, Aparna Sen, Sharmila Tagore et al not only were revered throughout the world as film personalities but also shaped the discourse of socio-political culture both within and outside of India. Their works define our times and as such it is imperative that we preserve and restore them so that the generations to come appreciate our rich cultural heritage. It is this single philosophy that prompted us to partner Film Heritage Foundation through the last 3 years and after Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, bring the Film Preservation & Restoration Workshop to the Bengali film industry.

FPRWI will focus on the need to skill and train a resource of archivists to take on the challenge of preserving and archiving film heritage. The workshop will take place in Kolkata, India from November 15  22, 2018 at Rabindranath Tagore Center and will have participation from India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar and Malaysia. In addition to the workshop, daily screening sessions of restored classics will take place at Nandan and Rabindra Sadan in Kolkata.

Speaking about bringing the workshop to Kolkata this year, Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, Founder, Film Heritage Foundation said, When we conducted the first film preservation and restoration workshop in Mumbai in 2015, people were not aware that films needed to be preserved. I am proud to say that after having conducted these workshops in Mumbai, Pune and Chennai over the last three years in partnership with the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF), we are already seeing the impact. Selecting Kolkata as a venue for our fourth workshop was a foregone conclusion with Bengal being the jewel in the crown of Indias film heritage. Unfortunately, very little survives of this precious legacy. Jamai Babu (1931) is only one Bengali film of the silent era that survives. We hope to change this scenario by creating awareness and building capability. What is truly incredible about this workshop is that 30 students will get to do the course absolutely free of cost.

If urgent steps are not taken these films will be just faint memories from another time and the generations to come will forget the existence of the great artists who came before and from whom we learned so much.

FPRWI 2018 is supported by globally renowned industry bodies like The Academy of Motion Picture, Arts & Sciences, LImmagine Ritrovata, Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna, British Film Institute, The Criterion Collection, the Irish Film Institute, the Austrian Film Museum, Eye Filmmuseum, Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archives), the Indiana University Libraries Moving Image Archive, Centre for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, ARRI and Media Inventions.

FPRWI is considered to be the most comprehensive workshop of its kind, and has become a model for the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF) for its international training programs. The workshop is certified by FIAF and is designed to cover the subject through theory and practical sessions with detailed insight about the best practices of preservation and restoration for films and film-related paper and photographic material. The 2018 edition of the workshop will introduce a fresh format where in the selected participants will be given an opportunity to choose an area of specialization from 4 broad categories including Film Handling and Repair, Digital Preservation and Restoration, Cataloguing and Paper, and Photographic Conservation. The workshop will also have a practical session with the latest and world class ARRISCAN XT giving participants hands-on training on film scanning.

FPRWI 2018 will be conducted by a faculty of international experts from leading institutions around the world including:

David Walsh  FIAF  Film and digital technology and preservation strategies

Camille Blot-Wellens  FIAF  Film identification

Thelma Ross  FIAF  Documentation and Cataloguing

Kieron Webb  British Film Institute  Film selection

Marianna de Sanctis  LImmagine Ritrovata  Film Repair

Benjamin Tucker  Film handling

Mick Newnham  Film in bad condition

Dawn Jaros  Academy of Motion Picture, Arts & Sciences - Paper conservation

Dana Hemmenway  Centre for Creative Photography, University of Arizona  Photograph conservation

Jeroen de Mol  Eye Filmmuseum  Digital preservation

Dave Rice  Practical digital technology

Thilo Gottschling  ARRI  film scanning

Giles Sherwood  The Criterion Collection  Colour Grading

Cara Shatzman  The Criterion Collection  Digital Restoration

Oliver Danner  Bundesarchiv  Soundtrack preservation

Davide Pozzi  LImmagine Ritrovata  Restoration ethics and practice

Cecilia Cenciarelli  Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna  Restoration case study

Lee Kline  The Criterion Collection  Restoration case study

Jakub Stadnik  Media Innovations  Soundtrack preservation

Kasandra OConnell  Archive management policies and business plans

Jurij Meden  Running a digitization project

Andy Uhrich  Access presentation and programming

Applications for the 2018 workshop are open until October 1, 2018. Selected applicants will be notified and scholarships will be presented to deserving local and international candidates.The Canadian government has issued a travel advisory for Cameroon cautioning its citizens on the security situation ahead of October 7 presidential election.

According to the safety and security advisory, demonstrations could occur before, during and after the elections.

The Canadian government advises its citizens to avoid areas where demonstrations and large gatherings are taking place; follow the instructions of local authorities and monitor local media for the latest information.

Due to the tensions in the English-speaking regions of Cameroon (North West, South West), it is recommended to travelers to this area to avoid gatherings and not to go out at night.

Security forces in Cameroon are on the alert following reports that armed separatist forces fighting to secede the two English-speaking regions of Southwest and Northwest from French-majority Cameroon have been detected in the two major cities of Douala and Yaounde.

Canada calls for the utmost vigilance throughout the country, including Douala and Yaounde where a large Canadian community is located.

An armed conflict is in progress in the countrys only two Anglophone regions where armed separatist forces have declared independence since October 1 last year. They have vowed to disrupt the presidential poll.

Amnesty International estimates 400 ordinary citizens have been killed in the past year, and 160 members of the security forces have died since late 2016.Sean Carrigan, a Democrat running to represent South Carolina's 2nd Congressional District, believes he can beat Republican incumbent U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson with help from moderate and swing voters.

Carrigan, who was in Aiken County for about 12 hours Tuesday as part of a district tour, said he wants to prove to voters, especially those who have strayed from political poles, "that there is a better way."

Carrigan said it is "very fair" to say he is targeting the middle cluster of voters that remain undecided or can lean either way  stereotypically Republican or Democrat  on major, hot-topic issues.

Carrigan described himself as more moderate and "more middle of the road" than Democrats in past 2nd Congressional District races.

Democratic congressional candidates field questions at Aiken forum A forum featuring the two Democrats vying to replace U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson, a South Carolina Republican, focused on federal issues with hints o

"I think that I'm definitely not a small government guy, I'm not a big government guy," Carrigan said. "I'm a smart government guy. I'm a what works, process and improvement type of person."

The Democrat said it's crucial voters know he's an Army veteran who's fiscally responsible, socially liberal and pro-Second Amendment with some control caveats.

"And when people look at that, and they look at my stances on many, many things, they may not agree with everything. But they agree with more of it because I mirror more of what your moderate Republican stands for than what Joe Wilson stands for," Carrigan said.

That angle, Carrigan said, has been received well  "It's been tremendous"  in Aiken County.

"The message is getting out there," he said. Support from his overall base, he continued, has been solid.

Carrigan secured a little more than 44 percent of the Aiken County Democratic vote during the primary runoff. He beat his Democratic competition, Annabelle Robertson, statewide.

Wilson ran unopposed in the primary.

Carrigan is scheduled to tour the 2nd Congressional District over five days, a stretch that began Monday. Aiken County was his second stop, and it involved visits to local businesses and the Clyburn Center for Primary Care, according to schedules provided by his campaign.Would you like to receive breaking news notifications from The Post and Courier?

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Please enable notifications in your browser and reload the page.Kerry Logistics Network has promoted Kenny Rutgersson to managing director of its Swedish operation, with a strong focus on strengthening the contract logistics business.

In his new role Rutgersson will also drive the growth strategy and business development in international freight forwarding, warehousing and distribution in Sweden.

Rutgersson has over 20 years of logistics experience and joined Kerry Logistics (Sweden) as Head of 3PL three years ago.

Rutgersson said: In my previous role, I have noticed an ever-increasing demand in the field of contract logistics by our customers. This is why I want to strengthen our contract logistics capabilities through leveraging the groups expertise and proven track record in various verticals and enhance our overall service offerings to existing and new customers.

Located in the countrys textile capital Boras, Kerry Logistics (Sweden)s key vertical is fashion and lifestyle industry, but also electronics & technology, fast moving consumer goods, and industrial and material science.

Thomas Blank, managing director of Europe, Kerry Logistics, commented: We are very excited that we were able to gain such an experienced colleague for this position. Kenny Rutgersson has done a great job in the past and I look forward to working with him to grow our Swedish business further.

Read more freight forwarder news

Sign up to receive Air Cargo News direct to your inbox for freeGhana has reached a diplomatic understanding with United States authorities to deport 7000 Ghanaians from the country.

According to Accra-based radio station, Class FM, Ghanas ambassador to the U.S., Baffour Adjei Bawuah, has come to a compromise with the U.S. government to deport undocumented Ghanaian immigrants.

The ambassador who was speaking to a Class FM journalist on the sidelines of the 73rd UN General Assembly on Monday bemoaned the failure of nationals to register with the embassy when they enter the U.S.  as required by law.

The embassys position in not agreeing to have peopled deported without due process. The U.S. government had accused Ghana of not adhering to international obligations in issuing travel documents to deportees, he said.

On March 14, 2018, 86 Ghanaians were deported from the United States to Ghana. They were reportedly arrested at different states for various immigration offenses such abuse of the terms of their visas and engaging in illegal employment.

The deportees, all males, came on a chartered flight.

Statistics from the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) revealed that a total of 1,968 Ghanaians who traveled to various countries around the world were either deported or refused entry to the country they were travelling to in 2016.Last night the House unanimously passed the Hezbollah International Financing Prevention Act to target the Lebanese paramilitary groups global funding and recruitment streams. But Congress already voted on it twice  almost a year ago. While President Donald Trump has expressed a determination to crack down on Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies, the House must still wrangle with the Senate over minor differences before the bill makes its way to Trumps desk.

Todays bill will build on existing sanctions against Hezbollah by targeting its global fundraising and recruiting, as well as those who provide it weapons, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif., said in a statement after it passed. This legislation is the product of months of bicameral, bipartisan work, and I hope the Senate will take it up quickly.

Whats taking so long? Few things happen fast in Congress, and this is no exception. The House and Senate unanimously passed slightly different versions of the same legislation last year within weeks of each other. While the House voted on the version of Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., last night, the lower chamber amended it, punting it back to their Senate colleagues for yet another floor vote.

What does it actually do? Both the House and Senate bills block the assets of anyone the president determines provides significant financial, material or technological support for Hezbollah and its affiliates. But the House bill directly singles out Iran and contains a nonbinding clause asking the president to sanction Lebanese cabinet members and parliamentarians belonging to Hezbollah or its affiliates.

Why it matters: While Democrats have railed against Trumps withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, lawmakers are largely on the same page when it comes to sanctioning Irans proxies throughout the region, including Hezbollah. But the Lebanese banking system has hired lobbyists to push back against the bill, fearing it could adversely affect the Lebanese banking system. As Hezbollah fights alongside the Bashar al-Assad government in Syria, Iran has been shipping precision missiles to Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, posing a threat to Israel.

Know More: Be sure to read Al-Monitors must-read, exclusive interview with Lebanese Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil. For more details on the Lebanese banking systems lobbying efforts against the Hezbollah International Financial Prevention Act, check out our award-winning lobbying series, The Influence Game. And for a more granular breakdown of the bill, check out Bryant Harris piece from last year.

- Bryant HarrisThe administration of US President Donald Trump has in recent months increased its efforts to advance the peace process in Afghanistan. To this end, and for the first time ever, the United States has entered into direct negotiations with the Taliban. Washington has also engaged in more talks with the European coalition and the Afghan government as well as beginning an intensive round of discussions with Pakistan using the carrot and stick approach. In addition to all this, the US State Department has also appointed former US Ambassador to Kabul Zalmay Khalilzad as special envoy to Afghanistan. Khalilzad had a prominent role in the creation of a new political structure in Afghanistan during the 2001 Bonn Conference, following the US invasion of that country and the ousting of the Taliban from power.

Historically, Iran has also been a major party when it comes to war and peace in Afghanistan. The question now is whether Tehran and Washington will engage in a new round of cooperation to advance the Afghan peace process.

Iran and the United States share common interests in Afghanistan, and during sensitive periods there has been limited engagement between the two. The beginning of the 21st century was accompanied with the collapse of the Taliban near Irans eastern border and the fall of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein on the western border  both of which created important strategic openings for Iran.

One of the main players responsible for the fall of the Taliban was the Northern Alliance of Afghanistan, a force that is close to Iran and was supported by US troops on the ground and through coordinated airstrikes. There was also intense cooperation between Iran and the United States during the 2001 Bonn Conference, which laid the foundation for the current Afghan political system. In his book The Envoy, Khalilzad refers to consultations and cooperation with Mohammad Javad Zarif, then-Iranian ambassador to the United Nations and Irans current foreign minister. According to Khalilzad, Zarif  who served as Irans negotiator in the Bonn Conference  played a key role in breaking the deadlock in talks and reaching a final agreement. That agreement led to the Northern Alliances return to power, the creation of some stability in Afghanistan and the establishment of a democratic system, all while allowing Tehran and Washington to take a major step in advancing their shared interests.

Iran and the United States continue to have common interests in Afghanistan, even in the current situation. The maintenance of order and political stability, lasting democracy, maintaining the presence of forces close to Iran and the United States in power, as well as confronting the rising influence of the Islamic State (IS) in Afghanistan are some of these shared interests. This can pave the way for a resumption of cooperation between the two nations to advance the Afghan peace process. It is perhaps because of these shared goals that the Trump administration, in its South Asia strategy, has described Pakistan and not Iran as the key reason behind Afghanistans instability and is pressuring Islamabad. At the same time, the administration of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has also remained silent on the US presence in Afghanistan and simply described it as Afghanistans choice as an independent government.

However, there are also increasing obstacles for potential US-Iran cooperation in the new round of efforts for establishing peace in Afghanistan. Already, the level of collaboration between Iran and the United States in Afghanistan is very limited, fragile, reversible and strongly influenced by the trust crisis between the two countries as well as Afghanistans changing geopolitics. The Bonn Conference, which marks the peak of US-Iran cooperation in history, quickly became a foreign policy trauma for former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami due to his administrations approach toward the United States. Indeed, almost immediately after the Bonn conference, the administration of then-US President George W. Bush described Iran as being part of an axis of evil, thereby eliminating any possibility for future cooperation between the two.

When Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was Irans president (2005-2013), the two countries even came face to face in Afghanistan. Iran became very insecure about the United States military presence in Afghanistan and  according to Rangin Dadfar Spanta, Afghanistans foreign minister at the time  at one point even proposed to give Kabul $2 billion per year to support Afghanistans armed forces and thus reduce the need for the US military presence.

Today, the trust crisis between Iran and the United States has increased even further following Washingtons withdrawal from the nuclear deal and its growing pressures on Tehran, which do not seem to be subsiding anytime soon. Meanwhile, Afghanistan has somehow become entwined in the Middle East security complex. According to some Afghan politicians, the country is now even involved with the wars in Syria and Iraq, given the presence of the Fatemiyoun Brigade (an Afghan Shiite militia formed in 2014 to fight in Syria on the side of the government) in Syria and the targeting of Afghan Shiites by IS, particularly in western Kabul.

Iranian officials claim that the United States has transferred IS to Afghanistan to create new security challenges for Tehran. Thus, with the increasing Iran-US hostility in the Middle East, as well as the existing trust crisis between them, it seems unlikely that they will cooperate on Afghanistan.

In the grander scheme of things, Afghanistans geopolitics is collapsing, and contrary to the period that followed the 9/11 attacks or the Bonn Conference that was held that same year, the crisis in Afghanistan is on its way to becoming polarized. At the same time, both the United States and the Afghan government are becoming weaker in their position while the Taliban and Pakistan are improving in theirs. Meanwhile, Russia and China, as the new players, have an increasing role in shaping the path of this crisis. Influenced by this trend, the balance of forces within the Afghan national unity government has also become polarized. On Aug. 25, Afghanistans national security adviser resigned from his post over differences with President Ashraf Ghani, particularly regarding relations with Russia. There are also rising differences between the president and the countrys foreign minister.

This geopolitical collapse has likely influenced Tehrans strategic calculations. Meanwhile, as the trust crisis between Tehran and Washington continues to rise, Tehran and Moscow are expanding their strategic cooperation, and Afghanistan could be the scene of this new collaboration. However, neither of these two countries are capable of providing security to Afghanistan. It seems the United States is the most influential player in managing this crisis, a fact that Tehran also realizes.

Irans relations with the United States have been filled with hostility over the past four decades. Amidst this hostility, however, Afghanistan has been at the center of the limited and fragile engagement between them. Therefore, if these two nations are looking for an opening for engagement, advancing the peace process in Afghanistan can perhaps be a starting point.Reports in the media about a US draft law imposing sanctions on Shiite factions that are close to Iran were met with disapproval and dismay.

On Sept. 12, Republicans from the US Senate expressed a plan to submit a draft law imposing sanctions on the armed factions affiliated with Iran due to terrorist activities. If passed, the law requires US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to publish a list of Iraqi factions that receive support from Iran.

Member of parliament belonging to the Fatah Alliance Intisar al-Musawi commented Sept. 19 on the topic, saying, Any US sanction against the factions of Islamic resistance is worthless and only falls within the lines of a Gulf-US plan seeking revenge over those supporting the resistance.

The Fatah Alliance is a political alliance grouping the political sections of the armed factions close to Iran. On Sept. 13, Al-Nujaba movement, a pro-Iranian, armed Iraqi faction, qualified US pressure on Shiite factions as political bankruptcy.

Spokesman for Al-Nujaba movement Warith al-Hashimi told Al-Monitor, We are no ones agents, and we will not let the US rob us from our national image. We consider Iran to be an element of the resistance front. The Resistance Front is the name that Middle Eastern countries opposing US politics in the region like Syria and Iran have adopted. Some armed factions consider themselves part of the front like Hezbollah in Lebanon and Shiite armed factions in Iraq.

The draft law aims to limit the growing Iranian influence in Iraq. Yet the expert on armed factions at the Al-Nahrain Center for Strategic Studies, Hisham al-Hashimi, does not believe the law will succeed in limiting the movement of those armed factions. He told Al-Monitor, The Iran-backed Shiite armed factions have common ideological grounds with Iran. Being on the US terrorist list will not really affect them, as they dont travel outside of Iraq to pro-US countries. Also, Iraqi law is not linked to US lists.

This logic applies to figures like former member of the parliament and Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) representative Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, whom the United States added to the list of designated international terrorists. Hisham al-Hashimi added, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis has been on the terrorist list, and, despite that, he was elected to parliament and occupied a major executive position as head of operations of the PMU.

Yet one cannot ignore the limits that could restrict the movement of those subject to US sanctions for terrorism. Senior fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy Michael Knights said, I believe that these sanctions target Asaib Ahl al-Haq group at this stage due to its rising political and security role, especially after the last elections. This group won 15 seats and played an important role during the latest crisis and protests in Basra.

Knights added, What the US did against Muhandis was not futile, as he was distanced from the official political scene. He could not play a major role on the official political arena.

Asaib Ahl al-Haq is an armed faction very close to Iran with an active political wing. Over this summer, news about the United States adding Asaib Ahl al-Haq to the list of international terrorists was leaked.

Knights affirms the danger of such laws, stating, This would push these militias for more armed worked instead of pressuring them into moderation in the political process.

Tensions between Iran-backed Iraqi factions and the United States have lately increased. Eleven Iraqi factions asked on Sept. 5 for US troops to leave the country or the troops would be treated as occupation forces and the factions would use all methods to drive them out of the country.

On another note, after the headquarters of Iran-backed parties and factions and the Iranian consulate were burned during a wave of protests in Basra this September, these factions accused the United States of standing behind these incidents.

In parallel with these events, areas close to the US Embassy in Baghdad and the consulate in Basra were attacked with mortars. The United States accused Iran-backed factions of being behind these attacks and placed the responsibility on Iran for targeting Americans in Iraq. The United States vowed to respond quickly and categorically to protect American lives.

The greatest question is on the extent to which such sanctions actually affect such armed factions. While Knights believes that the sanctions will have repercussions, Hisham al-Hashimi insists they will have no effect. He stated, I do not believe that there will be major repercussions on the leaderships of such factions, as they have officially registered parties, important economic assets, professional media, and international relationships with Iran, Russia, China, Turkey and Qatar. They have a big audience and extend to the governmental, educational and religious institutions. This will not be undone with a simple law that could not be realistically executed.

Despite the fact that the United States has access to many tools on the international scene that allow it to impose some restrictions on the Iraqi factions, it is unlikely that these steps will succeed in drastically distancing these factions from the political arena.Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met Sept. 21 in Paris with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas who was on his way to the UN General Assembly session in New York. The statement issued on Olmerts behalf after the meeting portrayed Abbas in a positive light  unlike the tarred image of the Palestinian leader favored by the Israeli right, especially by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, as a peace rejectionist who supports terrorism and incites against the State of Israel.

Olmert praised Abbas, calling him a great political leader and the most relevant person for the future developments in the relations between Israel and Palestinians. Olmert also said Abbas had never officially rejected the peace initiative he had proposed to him in September 2008, a claim that the right found particularly offensive given its telling of events.

The narrative emerging from various disclosures over the past decade about the Olmert-Abbas peace talks has the Israeli leader offering the Palestinians 95% of the West Bank and the division of Jerusalem into an Israeli and a Palestinian capital, with Abbas disappearing at the moment of truth. The political right has repeatedly argued that Abbas rejection of such a generous offer was ultimate proof that he did not want peace and aspired to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. Now Olmert is discrediting the rights alibi for refusing to forge a peace deal with the Palestinians, generating accusations of treason, no less.

The head of the Almagor Terror Victims Association, Meir Indor, called on Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked to prosecute Olmert for treason and on President Reuven Rivlin to revoke the decision that commuted Olmerts 27-month sentence for bribery, effectively approving an early release.

Michael Oren of the center-right Kulanu Party, a deputy minister in the prime ministers office and former Israeli ambassador to Washington, claimed the Olmert-Abbas meeting was illegal and would have carried a lengthy prison term under US federal law.

However, the most virulent attacks came from the Likud Party. While the prime ministers office did not attack him directly, Netanyahus people under the guise of a senior Likud source were quoted as saying, Olmert  who offered Abbas the Western Wall  has now turned into his faithful mouthpiece.  The reason for his extreme demands is not peace but rather the elimination of the State of Israel."

Minister of Science and Technology Ofir Akunis, for many years Netanyahus spokesman, reiterated the same mantra deeply imprinted in the Israeli narrative, undeterred by Olmerts contraction. After Abbas humiliated him [Olmert] when he did not respond to his miserable offer to establish a Palestinian state with [East] Jerusalem as its capital and [an Israeli] withdrawal to the 1967 borders, Olmert is now spreading lies against the elected Israeli government, he said.

Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, by no means an Olmert fan, felt compelled to react to these accusations of treason and to come to his defense. Olmert committed grave offenses, was punished and served jail time. But he is not a traitor. He is just as much of a true Zionist patriot as Netanyahu, Barak tweeted.

The hysterical reaction of the Likud and other right-wing parties is hardly surprising. Olmert has challenged the demonization and legitimization of Abbas in which their leaders have engaged for many years. Under their influence, many significant chapters in Abbas biography have been hidden from public view. Abbas, 83, was elected to his position after the death of PLO leader Yasser Arafat in 2004. His stated agenda favored diplomacy and rejected the violent Palestinian intifada raging at the time  views with which he fearlessly challenged Arafat when he was still in power. During the second intifada years (2000 to 2005), Abbas repeatedly argued that this was not the way to obtain Palestinian independence, even as he realized his people might consider him a traitor. His lengthy term has been a period of vicissitudes, of fury and frustration, but throughout he remained committed to the war against terror.

Almost all the heads of Israels security agencies will attest to this fact, describing him as the main mitigating force against all-consuming violence in the West Bank. He was the one who prevented the so-called individual terror attacks that started in the fall of 2015 from turning into an all-out insurrection. His actions earned him praise from the heads of the defense establishment, which they voiced repeatedly at government and defense Cabinet meetings. In April 2016, for example, Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot told government ministers that Abbas is fighting terrorism. A month before, Intelligence Chief Maj. Gen. Hetzl Halevi said the Palestinian leader was seeking to restore calm and ordering his security forces to prevent terror attacks against Israel.

In fact, already in November 2014, in an assessment he presented to the Knessets Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, then Shin Bet head Yoram Cohen contradicted claims by Netanyahu, Liberman and Education Minister Naftali Bennett that Palestinian terror attacks were the result of incitement led by Abbas. Abbas is not interested in terror and is not leading toward terror, Cohen said categorically.

At a Sept. 2 meeting with activists of the Israeli Peace Now movement and with opposition Knesset members, Abbas revealed that he generally meets with the current Shin Bet head Nadav Argaman once a month. Despite all the domestic Palestinian pressures exerted on him and the humiliation meted out by the Trump administration and Israel, Abbas is adhering to the security coordination with Israel.

Netanyahus right-wing government fears that unless Abbas is portrayed as a rejectionist, Israelis might start believing in a two-state solution and demanding the dismantling of Israeli settlements. This would put a spoke in the wheels of the annexation discourse based on the premise that Israel does not have a Palestinian partner with whom to forge peace and therefore has to annex parts of the West Bank. The right would much rather Israelis remember Abbas unfortunate May 2018 remark that the Holocaust was caused by the Jews social behavior than take cognizance of his real actions  the ones illustrating the seriousness of his intentions.Jordanian and Syrian officials met Sept. 12 for technical discussions about the reopening of their border to commercial traffic. They were the first such talks since the border was closed in 2011, following the eruption of the Syrian civil war. While Damascus wants the talks to signal the return of normal relations with the Hashemite kingdom, Amman remains wary. Jordanian government spokesperson Jumana Ghuneimat has said the talks will continue, but has given no date for the reopening of the border.

On Sept. 4, an 80-member delegation representing the Jordanian private sector had headed for Damascus to discuss joint ventures with their Syrian counterparts after the border reopens, according to the Jordan Times. Theirs was the first such visit since the civil war began.

The day before, Atef al-Tarawneh, speaker of Jordans Lower House, had told Russias RT TV that Jordan and Syria were assessing security coordination in preparation for reopening their border. In July, the Syrian army recaptured the Nasib crossing, which had been under rebel control since April 2015.

For Jordan, the reopening of the border with Syria carries huge economic benefits. Trade between the two countries in 2010 was estimated at $750 million. For Jordan, however, Syrias importance as a gateway to Lebanon, Turkey and Europe far exceeds its value as a trading partner. Likewise, Jordan is an invaluable doorway to Gulf markets for Lebanon and Syria.

A number of reports have claimed that Jordanian Prime Minister Omar Razzaz had sent personal letters to Syrian officials expressing Ammans desire to cooperate with Damascus on reopening their border. Syrias Al-Watan reported on Sept. 3 that Syrian officials had responded with friendly messages, but also requested that all communications with Damascus be through Jordans Foreign Ministry.

Jordanian officials have avoided making references to normalizing ties with Syria, focusing only on the reopening of the border. The two countries have maintained diplomatic ties throughout the Syrian crisis, but in May 2014 Amman expelled Syria's ambassador, Bahjat Suleiman, for having crossed the lines in diplomatic rules, repeatedly insulting Jordan in media interviews and on social media sites, according to a Foreign Ministry statement.

Since early 2013, the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had repeatedly accused Jordan of smuggling weapons into Syria and of training terrorists, meaning rebel groups. Jordan denied the accusations on more than one occasion despite various reports that Amman had, until recently, hosted a special command center from which US, Jordanian and Saudi officials monitored the southern front of the civil war and coordinated with the Free Syrian Army. Jordan has never acknowledged the existence of such a facility.

Despite tensions between Damascus and Amman, the Jordanian government has never called for Assad's removal, and King Abdullah II advocated a political solution to the Syrian crisis early on.

On Sept. 16, Syrian reports accused Jordan of insisting on conditions for reopening the border. One Syrian official was quoted as saying that the technical talks had failed, because Jordan had insisted that no Syrian trucks be allowed to enter Jordanian territory. Instead, freight must be transferred to Jordanian trucks at the border.

The reports coincided with a Syrian decision to impose additional fees on Jordanian trucks passing through Syria. On Sept. 20, Adnan Abu al-Ragheb, president of Jordans Chamber of Industry, said that the new fees will have a direct negative impact on Jordans industrial exports, making them less competitive.

Hassan Barari, a political science professor at the University of Jordan and commentator, told Al-Monitor that Amman has to address the reality of restoring normal ties with Damascus after years of bitterness.

The king needs to appoint a special envoy to handle the Syrian file, and that person must have good ties with the Syrian regime, Barari said. Jordan can have a positive effect on the decision-making process in Syria. We have good relations with [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, who now has the final say in Syria.

Barari added that Jordan has generally played its cards well in relation to the Syrian crisis. We have no territorial ambitions in Syria, and our priority was always to protect our borders, he said. We should take the first step of appointing an ambassador to Damascus.

The political analyst Labib Kamhawi sees the situation differently. He told Al-Monitor that it is difficult to restore normal ties and that even if the border is reopened, it would not represent the restoration of trust between Amman and Damascus.

Kamhawi asserted, There are pressures to open the border, but I dont think both regimes are ready to move closer.  Jordan was not always clear in its policy toward Syria, and the latter feels betrayed by us.

Oraib Rantawi, head of the Jerusalem Center for Political Studies, agreed with Kamhawi, noting that conditions may not be ideal for the normalization of ties between Jordan and Syria. He told Al-Monitor that it is in Jordans economic interest to reopen the border and that it is important for Syria to extend its control over the south.

The two sides have maintained security contacts over the years despite mutual suspicions, and we need to talk about repatriation of Syrian refugees as well as trade, Rantawi said. But I dont think we will soon witness a thaw in relations.

Part of Jordans reluctance to restore normal ties with Syria concerns the effect of such a move on relations with its Arab and Western allies. The biggest concern, however, is at home. Many Jordanians supported the Syrian uprising while others stood with the regime against what they considered a conspiracy to divide and weaken the country.

The biggest hurdle for Amman, however, will be selling the public on any improvement in ties with a regime accused of killing hundreds of thousands of its own people. In the view of many, the opening of the border and facilitating trade is much different from cozying up to what they view as a criminal regime.Thousands of retired Algerian soldiers clashed with security forces when prevented from entering capital Algiers to stage a demonstration to demand benefits such as social housing and medical treatment.

The former soldiers, who fought in the bloody civil war in the early 90s, have long demanded that authorities revaluate their pensions and provide adequate medical aid to troops disabled on duty. Authorities have so far rejected the demands.

On Monday and Tuesday, the retired soldiers clashed with security forces after police attempted to disperse their sit-in outside Algiers by firing tear gas canisters.

According to protest organiser Marawan Bassaf, 20,000 former soldiers from across the country have gathered for the demonstration.

In his words, this is our chance to pressure authorities to carry out our demands. We call on the president not to abandon the people who fought against terrorism in this country.

Algerias civil war, known as the black decade, pitted a myriad of Islamist forces against the central government, leaving thousands dead.

As Algerias 2019 presidential election approaches and with it the prospect of a fifth term for ailing President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, 81, many in his government blame the recent social upheaval on foreign hands.The Palestine Securities Exchange (PEX) announced in a press release Sept. 9 that it registered profits in the first half of 2018.

First half financial results showed that aggregated net profits amounted to around $167 million, an increase of 6% compared with the same period of 2017, the statement said. It continued that 38 out of its 48 listed companies (83%) achieved profits while eight companies incurred losses of $4 million.

The statement explained that the services sector came in first with total profits of $56 million followed by the banking and financial services sector with $51 million. The investment sector achieved $30 million in profits and ranked third. The industrial sector came in fourth with $18 million, followed by the insurance sector that registered more than $12 million in profits.

This announcement coincided with reports about the deteriorating Palestinian economic situation, in tandem with the reduction of financial aid provided by donor countries to the Palestinian Authority (PA). PEXs registering profits amid a dwindling national economy shows a flagrant contradiction in the Palestinian economic scene.

An official source at PEX told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, The disclosed figures and statistics on the profits of these listed companies show their great chance of success despite the decline of the Palestinian economic situation. This indicates that the increase in PEX profits is not mandatorily linked to the continuation or suspension of financial aid. These are two separate things. But had the financial aid continued like in the past years, listed companies would have achieved higher results.

PEX was established in 1995 as a private shareholding company based in Nablus in the northern West Bank. In 2007, it launched the online trading platform. PEX investor protection was rated second best among Arab exchanges in 2009, and it became a full member of the World Federation of Exchanges in 2016.

Nevertheless, PEX faces several challenges, most notably the general political circumstances, the future political uncertainties of the Palestinian territories and the worsening relationship with Israel and the United States. Add to this the possibility of the chronic financial crisis affecting the PA, which is unable to secure the needed financial resources to settle its dues owed to public shareholding companies, the private sector and civil servants.

Atef Adwan, head of the Economy Committee in the Palestinian Legislative Council, told Al-Monitor that the profits achieved by the listed companies prove that the services they provide are indispensable to the Palestinians, and that the prices of services they offer to Palestinians have not declined despite the worsening living conditions of Palestinians.

This explains their increased profits. The prices of commodities and services sold to Palestinians  such as communication, real estate and some industries  are higher compared to the same services sold in some neighboring countries, he said.

Palestinian political developments had previously negatively affected PEXs results. Following the outbreak of the second intifada in late 2000, prices and trading volumes of listed companies in the financial market dropped, which reflected negatively on indicators and incurred heavy losses on companies and investors. Back then, the trading prices dropped by 24.7%, while trading volumes decreased and their value dropped by 93%. The stock market lost 71% of its performance because of the intifada.

In light of the ongoing Palestinian political divide between Hamas controlling the Gaza Strip and Fatah ruling in the West Bank, the majority of companies achieving profits on PEX are based in the West Bank. This proves the close relationship between political and security stability in the Palestinian territories and the stability of the stock exchange. This is most probably why most of the companies listed on PEX chose the West Bank as their headquarters. Only branches of a limited number of the listed companies operate in Gaza, namely telecom companies, banks, real estate companies and health-care industries.

Moin Rajab, an economics professor at Al-Azhar University in the Gaza Strip, told Al-Monitor, The declared profits attest to the success of the listed companies and their dominance over the Palestinian market. As part of their corporate social responsibility, these companies are called to contribute to alleviating the suffering of the Palestinians. But the problem is that there is no law compelling them to make such contribution.

He added, While the majority of listed companies have chosen the West Bank and not the Gaza Strip to establish their registered office and hold their board of directors meetings, some Gazan investors are also shifting their financial activity to the West Bank.

The fact that companies and institutions listed on PEX are registering tens of millions of dollars in profits annually is good news. But the positive results of these profits on the Palestinian economy have yet to be felt.

Since the listed companies have the right to make profits, they have the obligation to support and improve the situation of the Palestinian society.

The profits achieved by companies on PEX do not necessarily mean that their profits were achieved inside Palestine, Mohammed Abu Jayyab, the editor-in-chief of the local newspaper Al Eqtisadiah told Al-Monitor. Some of these companies have international and regional extensions such as PADICO Holding [incorporated in Liberia] and the Palestine Real-Estate Investment Public Shareholding Limited Company [registered in Jordan].

The absence of correlation between the general deterioration of the Palestinian economic situation and the good performance of the stock exchange is a sign that the Palestinian economic system is facing a vital problem. This also shows a lack of integration between PEX and the Palestinian economy.

It is worth recalling that the PAs indebtedness from the private sector and the Palestinian commercial banks  which it is unable to settle  amounted to $1.46 billion, according to a report by the Palestinian Monetary Authority published in January.A handful of Senate Republicans are bucking their leadership by holding up a resolution calling on the Donald Trump administration to refrain from reaching a nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia that falls short of America's so-called gold standard.

Al-Monitor has learned from congressional sources that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., wants to unanimously pass a nonbinding resolution on the floor urging the Trump administration to prohibit the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia from enriching uranium or separating plutonium on its own territory. But several Republicans are objecting, casting doubt on Congress determination to weigh in on the Trump administrations nuclear negotiations with the Saudis.

Because senators object to unanimous consent requests anonymously, it's not known who has concerns. McConnells office did not respond to inquiries about how many lawmakers have objected.

This blocks both the plutonium and the uranium route to civilian nuclear energy being converted into a potential bomb, the resolution's sponsor, Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., said at a July markup. This is a standard that we are trying to establish everywhere in the world, and it is so important in the context of the Middle East and the dynamic in Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Congress and the Barack Obama administration dubbed the domestic enrichment prohibition and other transparency measures as the gold standard in a civil nuclear agreement with the United Arab Emirates in 2009. But the Trump administrations handling of the negotiations  and its rumored willingness to consider anything less than a gold standard agreement as it seeks to promote the US nuclear industry  have generated bipartisan concern in Congress.

Theyre keeping everything very close to their vest, Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., told Al-Monitor. In fact its like glued to their vest, so we have no ability to have any idea whats going on.

A week after Energy Secretary Rick Perry met with his Saudi counterpart Khalid al-Falih, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control Andrea Thompson told Congress that the Trump administration wants any agreement to adhere to the strongest standard possible and ensure that the enrichment and reprocessing and those abilities do not get proliferated. But lawmakers remain skeptical of Riyadhs intentions.

March comments from Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, which indicated that Riyadh would seek a nuclear weapon if Iran did, have further stoked concerns that the Saudis could use US technology for such a program. Furthermore, Washingtons agreement with the UAE allows it to revisit the agreement if the United States secures a more favorable agreement with another country, potentially sparking a nuclear arms race in the region.

The Saudis have hired a small army of law firms this year to push the administration and Capitol Hill on the issue. The Saudi Energy Ministry directly hired four firms  Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, King & Spalding, Gowling WLG and the office of David B. Kultgen, a former Saudi Aramco executive  in February and March.

Lobbying disclosure forms indicate that Pillsbury met with senior officials at the National Security Council, State Department and Energy Department in March. The firm also met with a staffer for Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., who sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, in April. In July the firm spoke with another staffer on the House Energy and Commerce Committee about a staff delegation visit to Saudi Arabia.

Domestic interests are also weighing in.

According to lobbying disclosures reviewed by Al-Monitor, US-based Westinghouse has spent $540,000 this year lobbying Congress against both the Merkley resolution and a separate House bill  the Nuclear Cooperation Reform Act  that would force the administration to make prohibitions on a nuclear weapons program part of any agreement with Riyadh. The firm hopes that contracts for at least some of the 16 nuclear reactors Saudi Arabia wants to build will help it crawl out of bankruptcy.

The House bill, introduced earlier this year by Middle East panel chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., would also require Saudi Arabia to sign on to an additional protocol on nonproliferation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, which Riyadh has not done.

Additionally, Al-Monitor has learned that the Nuclear Energy Institute, a trade association, unsuccessfully lobbied members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to go on record with a voice vote when it advanced the Merkley resolution in July. But Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., convinced his committee to advance the resolution unanimously.

Corker told Al-Monitor that its unlikely the resolution can get a stand-alone vote on the floor by the end of the year. The Senate is busy with Trump's embattled nominee for the Supreme Court and myriad must-pass spending bills.

But it could be attached to something else, said Corker.

Both Corker and Ros-Lehtinen are retiring in January, leaving the future of both legislative items in doubt. The House Foreign Affairs Committee has not yet scheduled a markup on Ros-Lehtinens bill.

And Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho, who is likely to replace Corker as head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee should Republicans hold the Senate in the midterm elections, has been less vocal on the issue. Rischs home state hosts the Idaho National Laboratory, a nuclear research facility that hopes to build reactors for Saudi facilities.NEW YORK  Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, speaking at a press conference here today, portrayed the Donald Trump administration as inexperienced and the United States as isolated at the United Nations Security Council over its decision to withdraw from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. He suggested Washington may eventually decide to come back to the deal.

We are not isolated, Rouhani, speaking in Persian with English translation to Iranian and foreign journalists at a hotel conference room across from the UN, said today. As a matter of fact, America is isolated.

On the Security Council, everyone expressed support for the JCPOA, and said the path chosen by the US is the wrong path, Rouhani said, referring to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the formal name of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. The Americans are alone and isolated, and faced with many challenges from its own presence and security.

The USA made a mistake, Rouhani said. Either they will come back [to the deal], or they will continue down the path of this mistake. This cannot continue.

Trump, presiding over a UN Security Council meeting on nonproliferation earlier today, reiterated his rationale for withdrawing from the nuclear deal, but found no support on the decision from the 14 other members.

This horrible, one-sided deal allowed Iran to continue its path toward a bomb and gave the regime a cash lifeline when they needed it the most, Trump told the Security Council. I ask all members of the Security Council to work with the United States to ensure the Iranian regime changes its behavior and never acquires a nuclear bomb.

But Washingtons allies on the Security Council spoke up for the JCPOA, and said successful nonproliferation requires the international community to be united.

The JCPOA remains the best means of preventing Iran developing a nuclear weapon, and we are committed to preserving the JCPOA as long as Iran continues to abide by its obligations in full, British Prime Minister Theresa May told the UN Security Council meeting.

Trump himself shifted gears at the meeting, from bashing the Iran nuclear deal and destabilizing regional behavior to praising Iran, Syria and Russia for agreeing this month to halt an anticipated offensive on the northwest Syrian province of Idlib  and seemed to credit himself for their restraint.

With all of this said, I want to thank Iran, Russia and Syria for  at my very strong urging and request  substantially slowing down their attack on Idlib province and the 3 million people who live there in order to get 35,000 targeted terrorists, Trump said. Get the terrorists, but I hope the restraint continues. The world is watching.

Trumps occasionally more mild language on Iran is at odds with that of his top advisers. Secretary of State Mike Pompeos department this week announced publication of a book portraying the Islamic Republic of Iran as an outlaw regime.

Likewise, national security adviser John Bolton, speaking at the United Against Nuclear Iran conference Tuesday, threatened that the United States would use all tools at its disposal to go after Qasem Soleimani, the leader of the Quds Force of Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and said US troops would not leave Syria until Iranian soldiers have all returned to Iran.

Rouhani suggested that Iran was unfazed by the bombastic rhetoric from top Trump advisers, but said Iran has no wish to go war with the United States.

Well, the language wasnt really new, Rouhani said in response to a question about the State Department portraying Iran as an "outlaw regime." "I am not sure why you find it so unique."

The United States should stop bullying, and keep the promises it signed on to, he added.

Rouhani, asked by Al-Monitor about Bolton's threat that the United States would use all means at its disposal to target Soleimani, portrayed Bolton, whom he did not name, as a well-known hothead. All people are familiar with the person you are speaking about and his past, everyone is clear.

Asked about Pompeos contention that the United States will hold Iran responsible for any actions by Iraqi Shiite groups that harm US personnel or diplomatic facilities in Iraq, Rouhani did not concede that Iran directs or has control over those groups, and suggested that the US presence in Iraq may not be welcome on the ground.

We are very keen on conducting a poll, how many Iraqis support the US presence there, Rouhani said. America must think again about her presence in the region.

We do not wish to go to war with American forces anywhere in the region, Rouhani said. We do not wish to increase tensions anywhere.

We ask the US to respect the laws and national sovereignty of nations, he said, using the "sovereignty" theme that was the centerpiece of Trumps address to the UN General Assembly Tuesday.Following the visit of Israeli delegation led by air force commander Amikam Norkin, the Russian Defense Ministry waited before reporting its own version of the events in Syria that caused the death of 15 Russian service members aboard the Il-20 reconnaissance aircraft.

Moscow insists that its initial conclusions are accurate, meaning that Israel is considered fully responsible for the tragedy. The Defense Ministry statement was unprecedented in its harshness. Moreover, the words were immediately reinforced by actions: In two weeks Moscow will provide Syria with S-300 missile systems and take other precautions to impede Israels actions in the sky above Syria.

On Sept. 23, the ministry's chief spokesman, Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, accused Israel of criminal negligence and ungratefulness. During the presentation, describing the events in the sky above Latakia minute by minute, he disclosed some previously unknown facts about Russia and Israels interactions in Syria, such as the search for the bodies of Israeli soldiers, the preservation of Jewish cultural heritage in Aleppo and issues involving Israels security, including the removal of pro-Iranian troops from the border. It had become known earlier that Moscow had persuaded Tehran to move the groups loyal to the Islamic Republic 85 kilometers (53 miles) east of the Golan Heights; however, recently the Defense Ministry suddenly changed the required distance to 140 kilometers (87 miles). Konashenkov said Moscow always tried to meet Israels requests only to suffer from hostile actions of the countrys air forces.

Israeli military officers objected to the report their Russian counterparts presented. Moreover, the Israeli media accused Moscow of lying and distorting the facts. Seeking the guilty may not matter all that much at this point, but there is a strong blueprint behind Russias rhetoric and tone toward Israel.

The Defense Ministry mentioned hostile actions twice during the week. The term was first used Sept. 18, the day after the death of the Russian airmen. On Sept. 17, the Il-20 was shot down over the Mediterranean Sea by the Syrian S-200 air-defense system when four Israeli F-16 fighter jets were attacking a facility in Latakia near a Russian air base in Hmeimim. The day after the incident, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed that Israeli pilots had put the Il-20 under the fire of Syrian air-defense systems, emphasizing that Moscow reserved the right to respond adequately. This statement sounded ambiguous enough to be interpreted in a variety of ways.

Immediately after the statement had been made, a number of high-level Russian politicians condemned Israel, suggesting a break in relations and even retaliation. The appeals to ban Israel from the sky over Syria were the strongest. However, Russian President Vladimir Putin cooled tempers significantly, dubbing the incident a series of tragic coincidences. Nevertheless, it was too early for anyone interested in maintaining the status quo in Russian-Israeli relationships to relax. Putin added that the Defense Ministrys statement had been approved by him, although he instantly decreased the variety of probable response measures. The president explained quite clearly that they should be aimed at ensuring the safety of Russian soldiers and facilities in Syria, promising, We will make steps everyone will notice.

During the Sept. 23 briefing, Konashenkov basically warned Israel. The command of the Russian group of forces in the Syrian Arab Republic has repeatedly met Israels requests to allay their concerns about some sensitive military equipment items Russia had supplied to Syria being handed over to a third party, he said, hinting that this would no longer happen.

A day later, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced the steps Russia would take. They include three actions.

First, Syria will be provided with S-300 missile systems. Shoigu said that in 2013, Russia had suspended the supply of S-300s to Syria at Israels request, when the weapon had been already prepared for shipping and Syrian soldiers had finished their training. Now the situation has changed, and this is not our fault, the minister said.

Second, Syrian command posts and air-defense units will be equipped with automatic control systems previously available only to the Russian armed forces. This will allow all Syrian air-defense assets to be controlled from a common center, enabling the monitoring of the situation in the air and prompt targeting. The main point is that Syrian air-defense systems will have a guaranteed ability to identify all Russian aircraft correctly, Shoigu said.

The third measure is the radioelectronic jamming of satellite navigation, onboard radars and communication systems of fighter aircraft attacking facilities on the territory of Syria and adjacent areas over the Mediterranean Sea.

We are sure that these measures will calm down the hotheads and keep them from reckless actions that jeopardize our servicemen. Otherwise, we will be forced to react according to the context, the minister said.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov later said these steps are a coping mechanism to protect Russian facilities in Syria.

According to our military experts, this tragedy was caused by deliberate actions of Israeli pilots; because of that, the deterioration in our relationship is inevitable. Moreover, the Russian side is now forced to take auxiliary effective measures to ensure the safety of our service members in Syria, Peskov told reporters.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov expressed hope that the S-300 deployment will not affect the Russian-Israeli relationship as a whole.

The question now is how Israel will respond, particularly taking into account the political situation inside the country and that the Knesset election campaign is looming close. The opposition will be eager to remind Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about his close contacts with Putin, particularly since the S-300s now will be coming to Syria.

Initially, the Israelis had tried to avoid a breakup with Moscow at any cost, thus constantly demonstrating their willingness to negotiate and cooperate. Three days after the tragedy over Latakia, Maj. Gen. Norkin arrived in the Russian capital with a 40-page report describing the attack, its causes and consequences. The delegation returned home convinced that the discussion had been professional enough and that Moscow had accepted the arguments. The reality, however, was different.

The newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda cited a Russian expert who took part in the meeting as saying, Norkin and his colleagues seemed to avoid specific military-technical questions about the Il-20 at the peak moments of the talks, emphasizing totally different points, such as Irans efforts to strengthen its military influence in Syria and hand the weapons over to Hezbollah.

Judging by his words, Russian military officers considered the statements of Israelis obscure and the constant blaming of Syrians, Iran and Hezbollah for the incident annoying. The Russians wanted Israel to acknowledge its responsibility, but that did not happen. Because of that, the meeting left a bitter aftertaste.

Russia has been overlooking Israels assaults on Syria for quite a while. The Israeli ambassador has been summoned only several times to Russias Foreign Ministry to discuss this question, even though Israel has made more than 200 attacks in the last 18 months. If at first Moscow criticized the assaults, at least formally, recently it has basically ignored them. This assured Israeli officials that Russia silently supported their stance on the Iranian presence in Syria, even if the Kremlin did not bash Tehran in public. The number of strikes against the targets in Syria had increased dramatically; Israelis were convinced that they were allowed to do everything. They continued to believe in that even after the briefing in the Russian Defense Ministry, holding on to their mantra of successful coordination with Russia and expressing their hope that the cooperation would continue.

Israel failed to realize that Moscow could not let the death of its citizens slip and lose face in a region where little is seen as effective save a position of strength. Meanwhile, Moscow actually took advantage of the situation. While it previously avoided any confrontation with Israel, now Russia has a reason to fulfill promises it made to Syria and show Israelis that these events are their fault. However, providing the S-300 system does not mean using it. Israel and Russia stand face to face in a war of nerves, and the next move is Israel's. What all this will mean for Russia is yet unclear. It is also uncertain whether Moscow can continue with its previously successful tactics of balancing between various regional actors  who often directly oppose each other  involved in the Syrian conflict.Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will travel to Berlin this week as the guest of his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier and will also hold talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel, aimed at turning a new page in bilateral ties after a prolonged period of tension.

The visit stands in marked contrast to only a year ago, when Turkey and Germany appeared to be heading for a historic breakup as insults and accusations were being hurled back and forth. A furious Erdogan taunted German officials as Nazis, for example, after he and members of his administration were prevented from canvassing expatriate Turks in Germany for the constitutional referendum in April 2017 that made Erdogan Turkeys first executive president.

Today, all of that seems to have been left in the past. Before leaving for New York for the UN General Assembly meeting, from where he will go on to Berlin, Erdogan said Sept. 23 that Turkey was seeking a new chapter with Germany.

Our priority agenda on my visit to Germany will be completely leaving behind the period experienced in recent years in our political relations, Erdogan said. It will [also] be the steps that can be taken to carry our economic ties further on a mutually beneficial basis.

Analysts say Ankara and Berlins deteriorating ties with Washington and Turkeys role in Syria, especially Idlib, are also helping push Turkey and Germany together.

Dogacan Basaran from the Ankara Center for Crisis and Policy Studies maintains that the current spate of high-level Turkish-German contacts should be seen in this context. The international situation is speeding up the Turkish-German reconciliation. Developments in Idlib in particular and the prospect of a new flood of refugees are also forcing Ankara and Berlin together, he wrote in an article for the pro-government daily Yeni Safak.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas praised Turkey after the deal Erdogan negotiated recently with Russian President Vladimir Putin, effectively preventing a Russian-backed regime operation in Idlib. The UN had warned that such an operation would result in the largest civilian casualties to date and a new flood of refugees.

Berlin continues to lay great store by the 2016 refugee deal Turkey struck with the European Union that German officials say has been working successfully by and large.

Not surprisingly, Syria is one of the topics Erdogan is expected to concentrate on in his talks with Steinmeier and Merkel, and he is also likely to push for German support for the reconstruction of Syria. Turkey says it is vital for stabilizing the Idlib region in particular, so that a safe environment can be secured not just for the 3.5 million Syrians already there, but also for those who are in Turkey or Europe.

Some trace the deterioration of Turkish-German ties to the Gezi Park demonstrations against Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party in 2013. Erdogan accused Western countries, including Germany, of inciting the rioting.

Others say the relationship began to sour after the German Parliament adopted a resolution in 2016 that recognized the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Armenians in 1915 as a genocide perpetrated by Ottoman Turks, a label Ankara rejects.

Bilateral strains peaked after the abortive coup attempt in 2016. Ankara felt Berlin did not condemn the coup quickly enough, though it was a clear attempt to depose a democratically elected government.

The arrest of German citizens, mostly of Turkish origin, for their involvement with the outlawed separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) or with the movement of exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen, the group blamed for masterminding the failed coup, only aggravated the situation. With Germanys refusal to extradite hundreds of Turks accused by Ankara of involvement in the coup, and its subsequent ban on Turkish politicians from canvassing expatriate Turks, ties appeared to be heading for a wall.

Nevertheless, a combination of strategic, political and economic factors ensured that this crash did not come, despite continuing differences. The effort to normalize ties has pleased those who have a stake in the relationship, including millions of Turkish supporters of Erdogan in Germany and the Turkish and German business communities dealing with investments valued at billions of euros.

Those who have been highlighting the deteriorating state of democracy and human rights under Erdogans rule, however, feel betrayed.

One such person is Deniz Yucel, the German journalist of Turkish origin who spent a year behind bars in Turkey for alleged links to the PKK. He was released in February and allowed to leave the country. His unexpected release was taken as an indication that Ankara was seeking improved ties with Berlin.

Speaking after receiving a media award in Potsdam last week, Yucel said Erdogans invitation to Germany was betrayal of those who want to see a free, democratic and secular Turkey. He said this was the second betrayal by Germany, explaining that Merkel had refrained from giving sufficient support to Ankara when it was implementing democratic reforms in 2006-2007.

Accusing Merkel of being disingenuous, Yucel said she was motivated today by her fear of refugees and the interests of German companies that would be harmed if the Turkish economy went down.

While in Germany, Erdogan is expected to face large demonstrations by groups sympathetic to the PKK, which is outlawed by Turkey and Germany. Groups that accuse Ankara of arbitrarily disregarding the rights of anyone suspected of supporting the 2016 coup attempt are also expected to take to the streets.

None of this appears likely, though, to cloud a visit for which the groundwork has been prepared over the past weeks, starting with Maas visit to Ankara in early September. Turkish Treasury and Finance Minister Berat Albayrak, who is Erdogans son-in-law, was in Germany last week for high-level contacts before Erdogans visit. He was accompanied by Trade Minister Ruhsar Pekcan and Energy and Natural Resources Minister Fatih Sonmez.

We have entered a new period in our bilateral relations. We want to further enhance our ties by adopting a sincere and constructive approach, by taking strategic steps, Albayrak said after his talks with Vice Chancellor and Finance Minister Olaf Scholz and Economy and Energy Minister Peter Altimeter.

Scholz, for his part, renewed Germanys support for Turkeys economic stability during his press conference with Albayrak and the other ministers. It is in our common interest to see Turkeys stable economic development, to see that Turkey can address recent challenges in its economy, he said, echoing previous remarks by Merkel.

In a television interview that aired Sept. 6, Merkel had said that an economically weakened Turkey was not in Germanys interest.

There are around 7,500 German companies operating in Turkey, with the volume of bilateral trade reaching nearly $44 billion in 2017. Berlin is also interested in massive infrastructure projects, and Siemens has already won a contract for 10 fast trains.

Ankara, for its part, is looking to Germany to also help revive its dormant ties with the EU, and also wants help in overhauling the Turkey-EU customs union.

Despite the current positive atmosphere, the path to fully normalized Turkish-German ties remains strewn with pitfalls. These include Germanys demand that its citizens jailed in Turkey on terrorism charges be released, and Turkeys demands that Germany extradite people accused of involvement in the coup attempt.

Turkey also wants Germany to be less lenient on PKK advocacy, although it welcomes steps taken recently to curb it.

Hearing complaints about the state of democracy and human rights in Turkey is something that Erdogan and others who meet German officials will have to get used to, also, and refrain from responding abrasively.

Notwithstanding these pitfalls, big picture concerns are clearly forcing the two governments to cooperate on issues that are of vital concern to them, while pushing other concerns to the background, even if they dont disregard them totally.Having struck a deal with Russia that deferred a regime offensive on Idlib, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has again set his sights on Kurdish-controlled areas in northern Syria. In Sept. 23 speeches at gatherings organized by Turkish-American groups in New York, where he is attending the UN General Assembly summit, Erdogan raised the specter of a Turkish military intervention on the eastern side of the Euphrates River, where US-backed Kurds hold sway. We will increase the number of secure zones inside Syria in the coming period, encompassing the east of the Euphrates, he said in one speech. Then, referring to earlier Turkish operations in the region, he told another gathering that Turkey will take steps similar to the Euphrates Shield and Olive Branch operations in the east of the Euphrates as well."

The first area in Turkish crosshairs appears to be Tell Abyad, which lies between the Kurdish-dominated Jazeera and Kobani cantons. Another relatively easy target for Turkey is Ras al-Ayn, a region to the east of Tell Abyad that was the scene of clashes between the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG) and Syrian rebels sneaking via Turkeys border town of Ceylanpinar after the Kurds took control of the area in July 2012.

In Tell Abyad, the Arab population is relatively larger than the Kurds, while in Ras al-Ayn the two ethnic groups are roughly equal. In September 2012, Tell Abyad was seized by Jabhat al-Nusra, Ahrar al-Sham, the Tawhid Brigade and al-Furqan Brigades, but following a rift between the al-Qaeda-linked groups, it fell into the hands of the Islamic State in January 2014. When the YPG and its Arab allies ousted IS from Tell Abyad the following year, Turkey accused the Kurds of ethnic cleansing in Arab and Turkmen villages. A disputed report by Amnesty International included similar claims.

Later, when Ankara sought to dissuade Washington from collaborating with the YPG in the liberation of Raqqa, its alternative plan involved 10,000 fighters from the Free Syrian Army marching on Raqqa with Turkish military support on a route from Tell Abyad via Ayn Issa to Raqqa. The plan was meant to halt US support for the Kurds, but also to allow the Turkish military to cut the connection between the Kobani and Jazeera cantons.

The reason Erdogan cites for a potential new operation is to prevent a terror corridor in the area  a justification that has never changed since the YPG, which Ankara considers a terrorist group, seized Tell Abyad to secure a link between Kobani and Jazeera in 2015. In his remarks in New York, Erdogan reiterated the argument, saying that Turkey took control of Jarablus, al-Bab and Afrin to not let [the region] become a terror corridor. Referring to US support for the Kurds, he added, Unfortunately, our strategic partners are taking different steps. Unfortunately, 18,000 trucks full of weapons and ammunition have been sent to this region, in addition to 3,000 cargo planes.

An intervention in Tell Abyad could be relatively easy to sell to the Turkish public, using the arguments of thwarting the terror corridor and securing the return of Arabs and Turkmens who have been subjected to ethnic cleansing.

Beyond the rhetoric, there is some military movement on the ground. Both Syrian Kurdish sources and Turkish media outlets close to the government have reported a military buildup in the Turkish border town of Akcakale, which is facing Tell Abyad. In its coverage of Erdogans remarks in New York, the Turkish daily Takvim reported, Now that the Idlib issue is on a settlement course, Ankaras attention has shifted back to the east of the Euphrates. The button has been pressed in this regard. Military units along the border have been reinforced. The initial intervention, we have learned, will target Tell Abyad, Kobani, Qamishli and Ras al-Ayn. The Hawar news agency, meanwhile, reported the presence of hundreds of military vehicles and heavy weapons on the Turkish side of the border.

Salih Muslim, a prominent Syrian Kurd who until recently headed the political arm of the YPG, did not rule out a Turkish offensive. Turkey is making a [military] buildup on the border. It wants to make some move, but the conjuncture is not favorable. Of course, it needs to get rid of [the issue of] Idlib first, he told Al-Monitor. We cannot say whether the United States will deter [Turkey]; you have to ask them. We rely on our own strength; no one has given us assurances of protection.

How Erdogans pressure plays out will depend largely on Russia and the United States. Though Russia had greenlit Turkeys march on Afrin, it is too early to speculate how it will view a Turkish move east of the Euphrates. Having said that, Russias two key reasons to facilitate things for Turkey in Afrin are still valid. The first is to ensure Turkeys continued cooperation in the Astana framework. Second, the Turkish threat comes in handy for Russia in efforts to draw the Kurds away from the United States and force them into a compromise with Damascus. The only caveat for Russia here is that Turkey might become too involved in the equation, to an extent that would allow it to impose its demands. This is a reason for alarm in Damascus as well.

The lack of tangible progress in two rounds of talks between the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Council (SDC) and Damascus, coupled with Kurdish moves to extend the self-rule project to northeastern Syria, seems to be pushing Russia to take a more explicit position on the issue. In an important signal to that effect, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Sept. 21, The main threat to Syrias territorial integrity comes from the eastern bank of the Euphrates, where independent and autonomous entities are being created under US control. We will insist this unlawful activity should be brought to an end.

The Turkish service of Russias Sputnik network, meanwhile, reported that the American military presence in Syria had reached 25 bases and 5,000 troops. In remarks backing up the report, Gelo Isa, a senior SDC member, told Sputnik, The United States is increasing its military presence in Syria. It is setting up new bases and expanding [existing ones]. The United States will stay long in Syria.

The Americans are also present in the corridor that Turkey wants to dismantle, including in Deriq, Rmeilan, Kobani, Ayn Issa and Tell Abyad. In 2016, after seizing the area from Jarablus to al-Bab, Turkey had to put on the brakes at Manbij, its next target, under US pressure. After protracted negotiations, the United States acquiesced only to joint patrols with Turkey around Manbij and leaving the city to local forces.

Now Turkey is eyeing an even larger intervention. How the United States might agree to such a move remains a mystery, for it would require a major shift in its Syria policy. Without such a shift, Turkeys intervention would amount to an intervention against the American presence as well. In a sharp message that Washington is not yet done in Syria, National Security Adviser John Bolton vowed Sept. 24 that US troops would not leave the country as long as Iranian troops are outside Iranian borders.

Still, it would be fair to predict that Erdogan will continue to insist on an intervention, looking to take advantage of US-Russian rifts and seize any opportunity that comes along by using vacuum-filling tactics. Keeping up the threat appears aimed at launching a new bargaining process with Washington at least. A Turkish move on Tell Abyad is unlikely without some sort of understanding or rapprochement with Washington, even if a tacit one. At present, the purpose of military reinforcement at the border appears unlikely to go beyond applying psychological pressure on the YPG, compelling Kurdish-friendly Arabs and Turkmens to change stance, promoting Turkish positions before the international public and demonstrating a general resolve.A 25-year-old British army veteran from Accrington, England, is awaiting an appeal after being sentenced Sept. 16 to 7 years in a Turkish prison for having fought with Kurdish rebels against the Islamic State (IS) in Syria.

Joe Robinson and his family have told various news outlets that he spent one month, July 2015, as a medic in northern Iraq with the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), the armed wing of the Democratic Union Party (PYD). The PYD is the Syrian offshoot of the PKK, which is recognized as a terrorist organization by Turkey, nearly all European countries and the United States.

After that month, Robinson crossed into Syria, possibly via Turkey, to fight IS. For the next three months  depending on which media account you accept  he either fought with the legitimate, Iraqi Kurdistan government-backed peshmerga forces; worked for the YPG, but only as a medic; or actually fought as part of the YPG. Turkey is convinced Robinson chose the third option, and officials there point to photos Robinson posted on social media of himself in combat fatigues bearing the Iraqi Kurdistan flag.

Even if he did fight with the YPG, that group isn't considered a terrorist organization in the United Kingdom, and the US State Department removed the YPG from its 2017 Country Reports on Terrorism, which was released Sept. 19. In fact, the United States considered the YPG an ally to its YPG-assisted US troops battling IS in Syria.

But Ankara is determined to combat the YPG's presence in Turkey and closely follows foreign fighters who serve with the group and even those who have left it.

Robinson was 18 when he joined the British army; he served in Afghanistan in 2012 with the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment. He went to northern Iraq in July 2015, just days after terrorists killed 30 Britons and eight others at a Tunisian resort, saying he wanted to protect people from IS.

In November 2015, Robinson returned to England where British authorities arrested him for suspicion of terrorism. He was released on bail, and charges were dropped after 10 months.

Then he made the costly mistake of choosing Turkey for a summer holiday. In July 2017, as he was vacationing in Aydin with his fiancee and her mother, they were detained by Turkish security. Although the women were soon released, Robinson became immersed in a complicated legal process.

He is now on conditional release as he awaits his appeal. In his latest statement to news media, Robinson said he is emotionally drained and pleaded for help from the British government. Robinsons family collected thousands of signatures to send a petition to Prime Minister Theresa May to personally help Robinson.

Michael Stephens, a senior research fellow at Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies, specializes in legal cases of British foreign fighters. He told Al-Monitor that the legal status of European YPG fighters has yet to be settled in many countries, and there is still no clear framework for determining whether a YPG fighter has committed a crime.

Each individual case must be addressed on the evidence presented, as some who have joined the YPG have faced charges and others have not. This is not too dissimilar from cases of foreign [IS] fighters, where there is often a lack of evidence to prove that the individual in question committed war crimes in Syria. The subject of foreign YPG fighters will remain a gray area for some time to come, but it will not be a one-size-fits-all policy of all fighters being guilty or all being innocent, he added.

Stephens said Robinson's case is a matter for Turkish authorities, who have charged him according to their definition of terrorist organizations. Stephens thinks the UK can do little on his behalf other than to ensure he receives a fair trial and the right to appeal.

It's not the position of the UK government to interfere in Turkeys judicial procedures. We wouldn't expect Turkey to do so in YPG cases in the UK," Stephens said. "The UK doesnt have a comprehensive terrorism definition for all entities of the [Kurdistan Communities Union], with the exception of the PKK, which Robinson has not joined. Nevertheless, the issue of UK recruits joining the YPG is a sensitive topic and is still under consideration in the UK at this time. However, for now, Robinson is subject to Turkish legal procedures and the UK must respect that process.

It's obvious Robinson made two monumental mistakes. First, he associated in some fashion with the PKK-affiliated YPG. His critical and naive second mistake was to choose Turkey for his summer 2017 holidays without considering the complications he might have to face.

Now, unless the British government takes action, these two mistakes could cost Robinson 7 years in prison.ISTANBUL  On a hill in Istanbuls Uskudar district, young men loiter on garbage-filled corners in the Selamsiz neighborhood. One man in a black T-shirt stumbles and falls on another man, who leans on a dilapidated car. The graffiti on the walls a few months ago has now been erased, but it told of a community mired in and fighting the tragedy of the illicit drug trade.

No to bonsai. From the People of Selamsiz.

No to death, yes to life.

Bonsai, a synthetic cannabis, has become one of the most popular drugs in Turkey because it is one of the cheapest  about $3 for a gram. It is also one of the deadliest drugs flooding Europe. A decade ago, bonsai spread through Turkish cities and high schools in wet tissue packages with images of dancing silhouettes in front of a fire. It looked cool, users say, and it wasn't illegal until 2011, when the government realized bonsai was addictive and dangerous.

Turkey  historically a transit route for drug trafficking to Europe  has gradually become a major consumer of illicit narcotics. The country's leaders are alarmed by the rising number of overdoses.

In January, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said he was disturbed by the increase in addiction and drug fatalities in Turkey. In two years, from 2016 to 2017, the number of overdoses doubled to 1,020. Soylu said narcotics police should break the legs of drug dealers.

Selamsiz, a lower-income community on the Asian side of Istanbul, has lost at least six men in the past two years to bonsai overdoses, residents said. This month, another middle-aged man died.

Hakan Zal, the manager of a local cafe and bookstore, has watched the demise of his neighborhood as more and more young men become addicts. He said Ekrem Kucuk, a 26-year-old who had worked for him nearly nine years, landed in a hospital on life support after a bonsai overdose and died a few days later.

Young men were fainting on the streets. People would throw cold water on them, thinking it would help them, when the drug first came to this neighborhood five years ago, Zal recalled. We didnt know what to do.

Until users become obviously impaired, bonsai use is easily concealed. Drug users replace some of the tobacco in a cigarette with bonsai's green leaves, which look like oregano, and smoke it in the open. There is no strong smell like marijuana to give it away.

But residents have become active, kicking dealers out of the neighborhood, calling the police to take addicts to treatment centers and protesting on the streets for the government to rid the community of drugs. On Sept. 12, police had to save a drug dealer from an attack by a vigilante crowd fed up with drug dealing, Zal and other shopkeepers said.

Mustafa Bulent Kucuk, the late Ekrem Kucuks father, sat on a plastic bench on a street corner, drinking tea. The bookseller said his sons death two years ago rallied the neighborhood together, but law enforcement isn't doing enough to clean the streets of criminals.

My son is dead, but his friend who gave him the bonsai is walking free, Kucuk said. The local police know all the dealers here, [yet] few are in prison.

The Turkish authorities are capturing more drug dealers selling bonsai, according to the 2017 Turkish National Drug Report. From 2015 to 2016, the number of people suspected of being involved in synthetic cannabis crimes rose 30% to reach 20,670.

So, what is bonsai?

Synthetic cannabis was developed in the 1990s by a chemist seeking a nonaddictive formula for the National Institute of Drug Abuse. In 2006 at Clemson University in South Carolina, professor John Huffman and his team published their research on anti-inflammatories, which included the development of hundreds of synthetic cannabis compounds. Huffman warned that these synthetic drugs were not fit for public consumption, but manufacturers keen to turn a profit began making them anyway, especially in China. Experts say it's not a hard drug to make, especially with no quality controls.

Bonsai and other synthetic drugs like ecstasy, meth and Captagon make their way to Turkey through its borders with eight countries, either in transit to be exported, or imported. Drug dealers told Al-Monitor that domestic production of synthetic drugs is on the rise. Yet the purity and quality of synthetic drugs in northern Europe are much better than in Turkey. Chemical toxins from bug repellents such as Raid may be mixed with some types of bonsai, creating a high risk of overdose.

Of the 1.5 million drug users in Turkey, one-third smoke bonsai, according to Turkish government statistics. It's not just a poor mans drug, as is widely believed, said Zeyid Ustun, a social worker in the private Aybuder treatment center. Students, white-collar workers and the wealthy also smoke bonsai.

A 24-year-old woman who did not want to give her name said she had been a regular weed smoker but tried bonsai at her private high school. She didnt like the high. It was a bad trip, so she quit. You feel like your brain and heart are shutting down. You feel like your eyes are vibrating. Its not an enjoyable high, she said.

Turkey has been at the crossroads of drug trafficking because of its strategic location linking Asia to Europe, and is known as a gateway for Afghanistans opium and heroin. The outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) is said to fund its insurgency against Ankara partly with illicit drug money. The wars in Iraq and Syria have also increased drug trafficking to Turkey, as the mafia and other criminal gangs take advantage of the lawlessness inside war zones to recruit traffickers, according to the Turkish National Drug Report.

Turkey is the route from which drugs go to other places. The addicts here pick up the leftovers, said Ustun from the treatment center. But anyone who can tie a shoe can make these drugs at home. They just have to watch online videos. That means no quality control.

The Health Ministry did not respond to Al-Monitor emails seeking comment.

Synthetic drugs have become a public health issue in the last decade in Turkey, as a growing young population struggles with unemployment and a grim future, stuck with little choice in a polarized political system.

In response, Turkish police have stepped up enforcement, confiscating tons of synthetic drugs on the borders, where walls are being built adjacent to Iran, Iraq and Syria. Regarding prevention and treatment, 40 new rehabilitation centers to treat addicts are opening across the country. Drug education has become a part of public high school programs. The government now trains family doctors to notice signs of addiction and refer patients for treatment.

But Ustun said government treatment programs have a high relapse rate. Some addicts who are also dealers are brought to the centers either by police or family, but end up selling drugs to the patients. For addicts with money, families may spend up to $5,000 a month in private rehabilitation centers. Ustun said Aybuder, the clinic where he works, focuses on a short-term strategy of day-to-day recovery.

The 27-year-old Ustun was himself an addict and quit five years ago. Addiction is a lifetime disease, he said. The best thing for families to do is to teach their children to say no and withstand the pressure to start using drugs in the first place.

- Turkish journalist Yasmin Bali contributed to this report.NEW YORK  One day after his boast of unprecedented US greatness drew laughter at the United Nations, President Donald Trump's isolation on the global stage was on full display today at the Security Council.

The US leader showed no sign of contriteness as one world leader after another ripped into his administration's decision to exit the 2015 nuclear deal as he chaired a counter-proliferation briefing. Instead, Trump put foreign officials on notice that they would have to follow America's lead, not the other way around.

All US nuclear-related sanctions will be in full force by early November. They will be in full force, Trump insisted. After that, the United States will pursue additional sanctions  tougher than ever before  to counter the entire range of Iran's malign conduct.

He went on to urge other countries to abandon their efforts to save the deal by continuing to do business with Iran.

Any individual or entity who fails to comply with these sanctions will face severe consequences, Trump warned. I ask all members of the Security Council to work with the United States to ensure the Iranian regime changes its behavior and never acquires a nuclear bomb.

The other 14 members urged a rethink.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Trump's withdrawal has created a "serious threat" to the global nonproliferation regime. He added that Moscow was actively working with Iran, China and the European Union to salvage the deal.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi called the Iran nuclear deal a hard-won achievement of multilateralism that has bolstered peace in the Middle East.

Bolivian President Evo Morales presented a litany of US interventions abroad to defend the deal.

"Now that Iran has taken control of its own resources, Morales said, it is once again the victim of a US siege."

US allies also shared their concerns.

French President Emmanuel Macron opened the push-back by saying France disagreed with Trump on the Iran deal while sharing his desire for longer-term nuclear limits, restrictions on Iran's ballistic missile program and resistance to Tehran's role in regional instability.

British Prime Minister Theresa May called the deal an important step forward that remains the best means of preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

President Andrzej Duda of Poland, a close US ally that's not a party to the deal, thanked the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for its work ensuring Iran's compliance with the agreement. The IAEA last month concluded that Iran is still living up to its commitments, the 12th time it has done so.

Even Kuwait's Deputy Prime Minister Sabah Al-Khalid Al-Sabah took note of the IAEA's conclusions that Iran is respecting the deal, even as he urged multilateral action against Tehran for its support of Yemen's Houthi rebels. Sabah also called for Israel to join the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons, with its nuclear facilities subject to scrutiny.

Today's Security Council meeting comes two days after EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini unveiled a new special purpose vehicle to allow European businesses to continue doing business with Iran without risking getting shut out of the US financial system. White House national security adviser John Bolton scoffed at the last-ditch effort to save the deal during an appearance before the hawkish United Against Nuclear Iran in New York, saying, The European Union is strong on rhetoric and weak on follow-through.Another group of restaurants and shops coming to Hoover's Stadium Trace Village have been announced by MAP Development.

Developers also say construction is scheduled to begin early next month, with the new stores and restaurants scheduled to open in the summer of 2019.

Working with Retail Specialists, developers have already leased a majority of the Shoppes at Stadium Trace Village, mixing local and national names.

Among them:

MOOYAH Burgers will open its third Birmingham location.

Frutta Bowls will locate its second area restaurant there.

Sweet Charlie's, a rolled ice cream shop, will open its first local store.

Cajun Roux, described as "an entirely new full-service Cajun-themed concept," will open its first location.

Wrapsody, a locally-owned gift boutique, will be relocating to the Village, as will Jeremy Stephens Salon.

Earlier this year, other additions were announced. MELT, Taco Mama and O'Henry's Coffee will be coming, along with ALDI, which was announced in May, while the University of Alabama at Birmingham Health System will build a 39,000-square-foot medical facility there.

"Our leasing strategy has been focused on bringing together businesses that will help contribute to the walkability and local flavor of the project," Carter Harsh with MAP Development said.

The $40 million, 44-acre Hoover development off Interstate 459 was announced last year. Master developer Broad Metro also says road improvements along Alabama 150 at Stadium Trace Parkway are almost completed.

"MAP Development has done a fantastic job of filling The Shoppes at Stadium Trace Village with a mix of businesses that offer a new level of convenience," Will Kadish, principal of Broad Metro said in a statement. "These businesses augment ALDI and UAB and truly support our vision for a walkable community that offers area residents an enhanced quality of life."Polluted Air in Tbilisi

By Vladimer Napetvaridze

On September 22, a group of citizens held a protest meeting in front of Chancellery of the Government of Georgia. They protested the level of air pollution in Tbilisi and demanded decisive actions from the government.The participant of the meeting had three main demands: - Regulation of Public transport system. They demanded to replace yellow micro-buses, operating in Tbilisi, with proper vehicles. - They also demanded to carry out an independent and transparent expertise on fuel quality. And its immediate replacement, if expertise finds harmful substances in fuel monitoring of ongoing constructions.Recent studies show that atmospheric air in Georgias capital is critically polluted. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), every 10 people breathe air polluted with 9 toxic substances and solid waste.The public transport system is not sufficiently developed in Georgia; therefore, a significant portion of the population uses private vehicles. As a result, the number of private vehicles has grown rapidly over the past decade and has almost doubled in the last five-year period- nowadays there are approximately 500 000 cars in Tbilisi. To reduce the number of cars in Tbilisi, city hall initiated a new project- according to which, an hourly payment system for parking fees will be introduced. As the representatives of the City Hall claim, the aim of the initiative is to promote public transport popularization and it will serve as a stimulus to reduce the number of cars in the city. Reducing the number of private cars, can help to avoid traffic jams and thus reduce air pollution level in the capital, but Tbilisi municipal transport system is not ready to handle 1,2 million people.Due to the improper public transportation system, most of the citizens prefer to buy private cars and the problem is, that most of the cars purchased are second-hand cars imported from aboard and the average age of the fleet in Georgia is 10-15 years. Diesel engine cars are very common.The largest number of cars registered in Tbilisi is missing the catalytic converters, which is an exhaust emission control device that converts toxic gases and pollutants in exhaust gas from an internal combustion engine into less-toxic pollutants. Because of the external location and the use of valuable precious metals including platinum, palladium, rhodium, and gold, catalytic converters are often removed from the cars. Another problem with this part of vehicles is low-quality fuels available on the market, which can cause damage to the catalytic converters of vehicle exhausts. Car owners tend to have the damaged catalytic converters removed and not replaced, resulting in higher emissions from the vehicle. To cope with the problem of damaged vehicles, beginning January 2019, roadworthiness testing of all kind of vehicles will be Mandatory and it is expected that most of Tbilisi cars will fail this test.Besides the damaged cars, one of the main causes of Tbilisi polluted air is unregulated constructions. Most of the developer companies are violating construction standards, causing air pollution.The initiative of the City Hall to reduce the number of private vehicles in Tbilisi can improve air quality in the capital, but it can also lead to paralyzation of the city since at this moment the public transportation system is highly problematic in the city.Drummond Co. is selling its Shoal Creek metallurgical coal mine to Peabody Energy Corp. for $400 million.

The mine, located on the Black Warrior River in central Alabama, serves Asian and European steel mills with high-vol A coking coal.

The deal includes the mine, preparation plant and supporting assets, and excludes legacy liabilities other than reclamation.

Closing is expected prior to the end of the year and is subject to regulatory approvals and other conditions, including negotiation by Drummond of a collective bargaining agreement with the United Mine Workers of America.

The Shoal Creek Mine was developed in 1994 and employs about 400. The current mine plan accesses 17 million tons of reserves. In 2017, the mine sold 2.1 million tons.

One of the selling points of the mine is its position on the Black Warrior River, with direct access to barge transportation. The mine accesses seaborne markets through the Port of Mobile.An inmate assigned to Ventress Correctional Facility in Clayton died at a local hospital Monday, according to the Alabama Department of Corrections.

Public Information Manager Bob Horton said the inmate, who was not identified, was being treated at the hospital when he died.

Horton said foul play is not suspected, but the inmate's cause of death is not known at this time.

Further details about the incident were not immediately available.A search is underway for three suspects in a Tarrant home invasion that seriously injured a 71-year-old man.

The intrusion happened in the early-morning hours of Friday, Sept. 21, said Tarrant police Det. Cpl. James Butterbrodt. When police arrived at the victim's home, in south Tarrant, they found the man tied up and beaten.

The suspects - three black males - took undisclosed items from the victim, as well as his keys. They left the scene in his vehicle, which was later recovered.

Butterbrodt said the suspects used the victim's credit card at a local business. It was there they were captured on store surveillance footage.

The victim remains hospitalized. "This is a senseless act of violence towards the victim,'' Tarrant Police Chief Dennis Reno. "We will work on his behalf to bring these suspects to justice."

Anyone with information on the crime or the suspects is asked to call lead detective Cpl. Jay Jenkins at 205- 849-2811.Nearly 100 surveillance cameras will be installed in Birmingham's most crime-ridden areas over the next three months.

The Birmingham City Council today approved a resolution authorizing the mayor to enter into a contract for a public safety surveillance camera program with Alabama Power. The item passed 6-0 with Councilors Lashunda Scales and John Hilliard not present for the vote. The District 7 seat is open as Councilor Jay Roberson's resigned effective Sept. 10.

"The No. 1 quality of life issue that we face in the city of Birmingham and our residents consistently let us know about is gunfire and violent crime," City Councilor Hunter Williams told reporters following the vote, "and we have an obligation as city leadership to equip our police department with whatever resources they need."

Councilors didn't discuss the surveillance cameras in public. They voted today immediately after meeting in executive session with city attorneys for an hour and seven minutes. A city attorney said executive session was warranted because details of the city's security plan would be discussed.

Surveillance cameras are used in most major cities and aren't new to Birmingham either. The city hired Ion Interactive Video Technologies in 2008 to install and watch footage from security cameras in undisclosed locations selected by the police department. It was immediately unclear, though, how long those cameras operated.

The agreement with Alabama Power is for five years at an estimated cost of $672,000 annually, which will be paid in monthly installments of $56,000.

The contract states the cameras will be initially placed in the Central Park, Ensley, Gate City and Kingston neighborhoods. The video content and camera locations are confidential, the contract states.

The pilot program with Alabama Power will consist of 95 cameras, which will include 24 pan, tilt and zoom cameras, 17 dome cameras and 54 license plate recognition cameras, according to the contract. The cameras can produce 182 video streams. They will be installed on 64 power poles.

The Jefferson County Metro Area Crime Center will monitor the cameras not Alabama Power, city officials said.

The cameras will be capable of producing footage, which be an archived for 24 hours a day and for 30 days, providing detailed and fluid video information for incident investigation, according to the contract. The cameras would provide "situational awareness in the field" during emergency operations. The presence of the surveillance cameras will be a deterrent on crime.

Rick Journey, director of communications for the mayor's office, said the surveillance cameras will only be placed in public places. They wouldn't be viewing residential areas, he said.

Williams, who serves as the chair of the council's public safety committee, said the Birmingham Police Department will make the decision on where the cameras will be installed based on crime trends. The cameras can also be moved around quickly based on those trends.

George McCall, who serves as the president of the Ensley neighborhood and community, said he would rather the city spend money on educating young people in conflict resolution, street paving, tearing down abandoned homes and moving lawns.

"I would rather them put money into useful things in the neighborhood," he said, adding the grass in his neighborhood is tall and needs to be mowed. There're also numerous potholes in the streets that need to be fixed, he said.

McCall said Ensley doesn't have the crime problem it is perceived to have. At its recent neighborhood meeting, no crime was reported for the last month, he said.

According to the contract, Alabama Power will disclose the content and camera locations to entities other than the city of Birmingham only: "in connection with any law enforcement investigation or proceeding by a duly authorized law enforcement agency other than the city; and/or pursuant to a court order or subpoena and, in either case, only after giving at least 48 hours' notice to the city, unless otherwise required by law or law enforcement."

According to information shared by the Mayor's Office of Public information, video footage and photographs produced by the cameras would be exempt from public records law and won't be released to the public or members of the media. An exemption to the public records law includes records concerning security plans, procedures, assessments, etc.

Williams said the surveillance cameras will be launched along with the expansion of the city's ShotSpotter program, which was previously approved by the council. ShotSpotter detects gunfire.

"Right now, we have the acoustics, we have ears out in the field to detect gunfire," he said. "What (the cameras) will do is give us eyes so we won't be blind.

Williams said multiple law enforcement agencies operate out of the crime center where the cameras will be monitored, and this will allow these agencies to immediately help Birmingham locate suspects that may leave the city limits.

He said the surveillance cameras will be an important crime-fighting tool for police.

"I think it is important to know if you are going to indiscriminately fire off a weapon in the city of Birmingham or participate in a drive-by shooting or a robbery in a neighborhood, there is a good chance that our detectives have a very powerful new tool to find you and to prosecute you," Williams said.

Birmingham police's robbery-homicide unit is solving a very high percentage of their crimes, he said. Williams said the department has doubled the number of officers in that unit and are seeing progress in the volume of crimes they are solving.

He said the surveillance cameras are a part of a pilot program. If the program isn't successful, the city won't continue to invest money in it.

"We can't sit on our hands and let violence crime take over our city," Williams said.

According to the contract, Alabama Power owns the cameras and related equipment and is responsible for maintenance and necessary updates. The power company will pay for the cost of repairing or replacing any equipment damaged or destroyed due to vandalism or willful abuse up to an annual limit of $10,500.

The city owns the recorded images, raw and recorded data, metadata, media artifacts and recordings and data files produced, the contract states.

Content produced from the license plate recognition cameras will be uploaded from the servers in the field to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Criminal Justice Information Services. The city will then obtain the content from the FBI's portal.For years the Birmingham Police Department has been a training ground of sorts for other law enforcement agencies in Jefferson County, and beyond.

Officers put in their 20 or so years of service, retire in their 40s and move on to another, usually smaller department where they collect their pension plus a new paycheck. It's a financial win-win for the officers, but has long been a strain on manpower for BPD, the state's largest police agency.

"For decades we've lost well-trained officers to 28 other cities in Jefferson County and across the state,'' said Assistant Chief Allen Treadaway. "We've basically been fronting all their training, and the city doesn't get reimbursed for any of that."

This week the department announced the launch of a new initiative to reverse that trend and help bring the force back to its full strength of at least 900 officers. Police officials are looking to rehire officers who have retired, and also to allow current officers eligible for retirement to separate from the department for just 45 days and return with a salary plus their pension.

The Birmingham Police Department is the first in the state to launch such an initiative.

"It's something I've worked on very hard,'' Treadaway said. "A lot of our officers are being recruited away. The demand for law enforcement is great, but the resources are not."

State legislation drafted by Treadaway, who represents Alabama House District 51, passed last year paved the way for the new initiative. Birmingham Police Chief Patrick Smith, who took the helm in June, has been focusing on replenishing the force, which is down more than 100 officers, mainly because of attrition.

"This shows the mayor and the chief of police are serious about public safety and having a force capable of making the City of Birmingham a safer place,'' Treadaway said.

The Birmingham Police Department next week will start it's third academy class this year. A total of 30 new officers have been sworn in during 2018.

"Police departments across the country are struggling to recruit officers,'' Treadaway said. "We have a class of 29 starting out 750 applicants. The applicants just aren't out there."

Under the new rehiring program, retired officers who rejoin the force will serve as full-time officers with full benefits. No matter their rank when they retired, they will come in as officers and can rise no higher than the rank of sergeant.

They will receive their pension from their previous tour of duty. Once rehired, however, they will continue to put into the city pension fund but will not accrue anything beyond what they were receiving when they retired the first time. "It is no different than leaving here and taking a job somewhere else,'' Treadaway said.

Under the law, the police department is authorized to rehire 10 percent of its force, which is about 90 officers. "It will allow us to retain the experienced officers,'' he said.

Under Chief Smith's direction, the department is carrying out a three-prong attack on the deficiency in officers. In addition to the rehiring effort, police officials also have beefed up efforts to recruit new officers and are also recruiting officers to make lateral transfers from other departments to the Birmingham Police Department, which is exactly the opposite of past trends.

Treadaway said there are many who have expressed interest in returning to the department. "It's big,'' he said. "We're not looking at taking years to get the force back where it needs to be. We're talking six to eight months."

Officers interest in the rehiring program can find more information at https://pbjcal.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/JobsQuest.

Those who wish to apply must submit their information as soon as possible. Birmingham Police Department Hiring personnel are anticipating accessing the first certification list as soon as Friday, Sept 28, 2018.Two bodies believed to be the missing owners of an Irondale motel were found Tuesday in a wooded area off of Rex Lake Road in Leeds.

Irondale police and the Jefferson County Coroner's office recovered what they believe are the remains of 77-year-old Ching Kao and his wife, 76-year-old Siumei Kao. Detectives went to Virginia on Monday evening following the capture of capital murder suspect Steven Richard Mulkey, who then told them where they could find the missing couple.

"He was very cooperative,'' said Irondale Police Chief Ken Atkinson.

The remains were found about 40 yards off a curvy road off of Rex Lake Road. They had been left just over a ridge. The Jefferson County Coroner's Office will work to positively identify the couple, but Irondale police are confident it is them. They met with the family a short time later and told them of the discovery.

Irondale police responded Friday to the Siesta Motel at 2510 Crestwood Boulevard on a welfare check of the husband and wife who own the business and live there. Atkinson said one of the couple's daughters became concerned when she had not spoken with them.

The couple has owned the motel since at least 2005, but the business has been closed since January for code violations and the victims were the only people living there.

Once at the hotel, police found the couple gone. Atkinson said the safe was missing from the office and there was blood in the surrounding areas. At least one dog had been left behind in the office, in which there appeared to have been some kind of disturbance.

A review of surveillance footage showed the couple being beaten. The video showed the blunt-force trauma attack, which police said was brutal. "It does show them attacked in the office of the motel,'' Atkinson said of the video.

Irondale police on Saturday night identified Mulkey as a person of interest in a couple's disappearance but didn't immediately say who was missing. Mulkey was living at the nearby USA Econo Lodge in Birmingham and the victims' vehicle was recovered by investigators there.

Mulkey had worked as a handyman for the couple at their motel. U.S. Marshal Marty Keely said Mulkey was arrested at the Hometown Inn in Staunton, Virginia on Monday by the U.S. Marshals Capitol Area Fugitive Task Force. Information provided by the Gulf Coast Regional Fugitive Task Force led to the arrest.

Mulkey is charged in Alabama with capital murder of two or more victims. A no-bond order has been issued against him. He remains in Virginia awaiting extradition.

Court records show Mulkey pleaded guilty in December 2013 to a charge of third-degree robbery. He was originally charged with first-degree robbery but pleaded to a reduced charge. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison with 30 months to serve followed by five years of probation.

Mulkey was sent to Taylor Hardin Secure Medical Center in Tuscaloosa, which is responsible for providing comprehensive psychiatric evaluation/treatment to the criminally committed. The court ordered that Mulkey continue his mental health treatments once he was released from the facility.

In 2014, according records, Mulkey's probation officer reported that mental health officers notified him to say that Mulkey had failed to show up for his "injections" and appointments. The nature of his mental illness and treatment was not detailed in court records.

In that probation report, authorities noted that Mulkey at the time was a suspect in two theft cases. One case involved a vehicle theft and the other was the theft of a television from people with whom he was living. His attorney at the time noted Mulkey had an "extensive mental health history."

In August 2014, Mulkey's probation was revoked and he was ordered to serve the remainder of his sentence. He received credit for 509 days spent in the county jail and the judge ordered that once back in prison, he be given the opportunity to earn his GED.

In 2016, Mulkey pleaded guilty to a theft of property charge. He received a 45-month sentence in that case. It wasn't immediately clear when he was released or how long he has been living in the Birmingham area.The teen daughter of a Cordova woman who was found dead in a vehicle on Interstate 22 said her mother's death has been a devastating hit to her and her younger siblings.

Monica Graves, 31, was discovered dead alongside Parrish Town Councilman and part-time Jasper Police Officer John Softley, 70, on Saturday. The pair was found inside a 2016 Dodge Ram 1500 parked on Sharon Drive under the I-22 overpass at Exit 78.

"She had a family that loved her,'' said 17-year-old Molly Graves, the oldest Monica Graves' four children. "I'm heartbroken."

The bodies were discovered mid-morning Saturday when an off-duty firefighter was driving on Interstate 22 Saturday and noticed a pickup truck parked under the overpass in Dora. ALEA's Lt. Jon Riley said the firefighter stopped, looked inside, and spotted a man and a woman inside who appeared to be dead. Both had been shot.

Dora police initially responded to the call, along with the Walker County Sheriff's Office and the Walker County District Attorney's Office. At the county's request, the State Bureau of Investigation is leading the probe, with the sheriff's office assisting.

The bodies were taken to the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences in Huntsville for autopsies. Authorities said late Tuesday they the manner and cause of their deaths are pending. Authorities have previously said they had not ruled out homicide or murder-suicide.

Softley was a retired investigator from the Walker County District Attorney's Office who worked part time as a detective for the Jasper Police Department. He also was sworn in last year as a member of the Parrish Town Council.

Graves said she had texted her mother Saturday morning to find out where she was but did not get a reply. She became concerned and then texted Softley, getting no answer from him either. "I knew they were together because that was the last person she had been with,'' Graves said.

At some point, she said, one of Softley's relatives showed up at the Graves' home. "She said, 'Do you know anything about John? John's body has been found,'' Graves said. "I looked for my mom all day."

Graves said she had heard about the discovery on I-22 and knew Softley was one of those found in the vehicle. "I didn't know who the female was,'' she said. "I mean, I did know I guess but that's not something you want to believe as a daughter. She didn't deserve this."

Ultimately, Graves tracked down investigators who confirmed her mother was dead. The high school student said she has spoken with detectives but can't yet talk about what she has learned from them regarding her mother's death.

Her mother, she said, was a strong, caring woman who would have done anything for anyone in need. She had worked at various jobs, including at Chevron in Jasper and at a restaurant. ''She was well known,'' she said.

Recently, Monica Graves was hired to work in the coal mines and was supposed to go underground for the first time on Saturday, the day she died.

"She was so excited,'' Graves said. "She said, 'For the first time I'm going to be able to provide for my family without having to ask anyone else for help."

Graves said the community has rallied around her and her siblings. A GoFundMe has been launched to help the children pay for their mother's funeral, which is tentatively set for Saturday. Donations can be made here.

"I'm taking one day at time, knowing I have to be strong for my brothers and sister,'' she said. The children's ages range from 7 to 17. "I already had to grow up fast, but I think this takes the cake."

"Each one of has a different way of coping. I'm crying, my brother is crying, and my other brother is in shock,'' she said. "My sister (age 7) is devastated. One minute she's OK, and the next minute she's falling apart."

She said she and her mother were close. "I just want people to know she was a strong woman and she was very loving. She's going to be missed by a lot of people,'' she said. "I was very proud to be her daughter and I'm going to live my life honoring her."Two South Carolina women are behind bars in Alabama and a third woman sought after a Tuscaloosa man said he was abducted at knifepoint and pistol-whipped, and a $4,000 ransom demanded for his safe release.

The victim told investigators the incident happened about 2 p.m. Aug. 18 on Jack Warner Parkway. Three women he knew as Claudia, Leanna and Andrea, arrived in a green Ford Explorer Sport Trac. He said he had worked with them for about two weeks after they were hired to help work on student apartments, according to a deposition in the case.

Once on the scene, he said, they had a brief conversation and they told him he needed to ride with them somewhere. The victim said he got into the back seat and they left the area.

Once they left, he said, one of the women put a knife to his throat and had him call a co-worker to demand $4,000 for his release. The co-worker thought it was a joke and hung up.

He told detectives two women were armed with knives and the third was armed with a handgun. He said they zip-tied his hands behind his back and put a hoodie over his head. The suspects also put zip ties around his neck and attached those to the doors with other zip ties.

The suspects, he said, went through his pockets and took $5,000 in cash, as well as his wallet and phone. "He stated he was then struck in the head with a handgun and knocked unconscious,'' the report states.

The victim said he later woke up in the woods in an unknown location. He was found by a passer-by just south of Havana Junction in Hale County and taken to DCH Regional Medical Center.

According to the police report, the investigation determined "Andrea" was Darlina Diveana Munoz Cano, 24, of Clinton, S.C. She was booked into the Tuscaloosa County Jail on Aug. 31 on charges of first-degree kidnapping and first-degree robbery. She remains jailed on bonds totaling $120,000.

Claudia Lopez Mendez, 21, also of Clinton, was arrested Sept. 21. She, too, is charged with kidnapping and robbery, and remains held on $120,00 bond.Birmingham police are investigating after a man was found shot dead in Ensley Tuesday night.

Sgt. Johnny Williams said about 8:30 p.m., police responded to a report of a person shot in the 2000 block of 25th Street Ensley. Officers arrived and found a black male in his mid to late 20s shot dead and laying in the road. He was pronounced dead on the scene.

Police are investigating the shooting as a homicide.

"We later found that neighbors heard a loud ruckus in the roadway. They later heard gunshots fired and that's when the victim was found in the road," Williams said. Neighbors told the police it sounded like some kind of altercation.

Police also received reported of a car leaving the area at a high speed, but a vehicle description was not available, he said.

No suspects have been identified or taken into custody at this time.

Further details about the shooting were not immediately available.A man and woman traveling through Alabama were arrested when they were stopped on a Birmingham-area interstate and found with a haul of marijuana.

The Jefferson County Sheriff's Office on Wednesday announced the arrests of Sean Daymon Flemings, 33, and Carisa Jean Searls, 32. Flemings is from Oregon, and Searls is from Washington.

The pair was stopped about 2 a.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 19, by members of the Sheriff's Highway Safety Unit. They were in a red Chevrolet Monte Carlo, said Chief Deputy Randy Christian, and speeding while driving on Interstate 22.

The driver told deputies that they were traveling from Oregon to Atlanta, Georgia. While speaking with the driver, Christian said, deputies smelled a strong odor of marijuana coming from inside the car.

A search of the car turned up two trash bags containing a total of 26 pounds of marijuana with a street value of $46,800.

Flemings and Searls were taken into custody. Both are charged with trafficking marijuana.

Flemings was released from the Jefferson County Jail on Sept. 22 after posting $50,000 bond. Searls remain jailed, also on $50,000 bond.

The Sheriff's Office Highway Safety Unit is a task force comprised of Jefferson County sheriff's deputies and Hoover police officer who have been recognized nationally for their efforts in taking drugs off of the highways and out of communities. This team is responsible for taking over $30 million worth of drugs and drug money out of the illegal drug market since its inception in 2006.Ahead of a visit to Miami this weekend, billionaire Democratic booster Tom Steyer says his political operation will invest millions more into Andrew Gillum's campaign for Florida governor, the New York Times reported Tuesday.

Advisers for Steyer, who endorsed Gillum when he was an underdog in the Democratic primary race and spent more than $1 million to help his cash-strapped campaign push on, told the Times that he plans to spend about $5.2 million through his political machine on Gillum's general election campaign. About half of that money will go into digital ads, the Times reports.

Much of the rest will go into a get-out-the-vote effort that has been underway for months in Florida through two Steyer-backed organizations, For Our Future and NextGen America.

Steyer is heading to Miami-Dade this weekend for a Democratic party gathering.A 35-year-old Birmingham man has been charged with capital murder in a deadly shooting in Fountain Heights.

Eric Lamont Harrison was booked into the Jefferson County Jail shortly after noon on Wednesday, jail records show. He is charged in the Aug. 3 slaying of 30-year-old Brandon Lewis.

North Precinct officers about 10 p.m. that Friday were dispatched to the 300 block of 18th Street North on a report of a man shot. Police determined the shooting actually happened in the 1600 block of 13th Avenue North in Fountain Heights, but the victim's brother was trying to take him to the hospital when they stopped for help. Witnesses said the vehicle was driving the wrong way on 18th Street.

Birmingham Fire and Rescue responded to the scene and rushed Lewis to UAB Hospital. Lewis was taken into surgery but died hours later.

Brandon Lewis

Sgt. Johnny Williams said investigators later learned that the victim was involved in an altercation with the suspect about the suspect's car. The suspect shot the victim from a vehicle as he drove away, which is why he is charged with capital murder.

Harrison is being held without bond.The man killed when he was struck by a deputy's patrol car Monday night has been identified as a 21-year-old man from Pinson.

The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency identified the man as Christopher Leonard Butler. Butler died after he was struck by a Jefferson County Sheriff's Office patrol car around 10:30 p.m. Monday, officials said. The crash happened on Alabama 75 in the Roebuck area.

He was pronounced dead on the scene.

The crash remains under investigation. Further details were not immediately available.A Huntsville manslaughter suspect is accused of being under the influence of multiple drugs during a crash that killed a 22-year-old and injured four others, authorities said.

Jeremiah Blevins, 25, is indicted on a manslaughter charge in connection with the May 24, 2017 fatal crash. Mario Cottrell, a 22-year-old passenger, died at the scene.

The crash happened on a Wednesday afternoon near the University of Alabama at Huntsville campus. A truck was stopped at a red light on Sparkman Drive at the corner of Knowledge Drive. Blevins was driving a 2015 Mitsubishi that rear-ended the truck, according to a wreck report.

Blevins lost control of the car, which flipped in the intersection. Blevins and two passengers were taken Huntsville Hospital for treatment. Cottrell, a passenger in the Mitsubishi, died at the scene.

The truck driver suffered minor injuries, police said.

The Mitsubishi, driven by Blevins, is listed in the crash report as the primary contributing vehicle. The primary contributing circumstance was aggressive driving, police wrote in the report days after the crash. Blevins was speeding at the time of the collision, the report says.

Blevins' blood was drawn at the hospital and sent for forensic testing. Madison County Assistant District Attorney Shauna Barnett said prosecutors took the case to a grand jury after the testing detected drugs.

"...it was more than one controlled substance but I'm not going to speak further as to specifics on that," Barnett wrote to AL.com.

A grand jury issues an indictment when it decides prosecutors have probable cause against a suspect.

Court records don't list a defense attorney for Blevins. He was released from the Madison County jail on $20,000 bail. Jail records show he's also charged with possession of marijuana and possession of a controlled substance.I still remember the moment, at Peach Park in 2014, when a grizzled old cop told me - offhand as we talked of something else - that then-Gov. Robert Bentley was having an affair with a political adviser young enough to be his daughter.

I snorted a peach milkshake through my nose. Oops.

I thought it was a joke. Bentley was grandpa and the Good Dr. Doctor all rolled into a harmless bundle of ineptitude. You don't want to think. You don't want to picture. You sure don't want to hear those words that, a couple of years later, would be seared into Alabama's eardrums:

When I come up behind you, and I put my hands on your breasts ...

No. Make it stop. Make it go away.

In 2015 Donald Watkins, a lawyer and local sorta celebrity, wrote on Facebook that this affair was the real deal. Turned out he was right. But he didn't name sources, so his words were never picked up by that thing you'd call the mainstream media. A few other bloggers and talk show hosts paid heed, but it didn't gain momentum until Dianne Bentley, the governor's wife of 50 years, filed for divorce.

It was a full-on rumor fest then. But that's all it was, for months.

Because - rightly so -- it takes more to confirm an extramarital affair than whispers and rumors and claims.

Which is why Spencer Collier became so important. It's why former Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard was so important. It's why Bentley's actions, and those of his confidante Rebekah Mason, were so damning.

Collier was the former head of the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency who confronted Bentley about his relationship with Mason. He was the one who, after Bentley and Mason pushed him to help thwart investigators prosecuting Hubbard, said no.

And he is the one who was punished for cooperating with prosecutors. He was the whistleblower who called me on an evening in March of 2016 with details and notations of illicit text messages between Bentley and Mason, and on-the-record confirmation that the governor of Alabama - old Granddad - had been a bad boy.

And it blew up.

Collier detailed his evidence in a press conference the next day. Bentley ensured his demise the same morning in a press conference that was, in some ways, as damning as Colliers.

It grabbed Alabama's attention, and sent reporters - from all markets and mediums -- searching for details, and understanding.

How a Rose Emoji Led to the Election of Alabama's First Democratic Senator in 25 Years When an Alabama reporter discovered evidence that the governor was having a relationship with a top staffer, state politics started to unravel. Posted by Chasing Corruption on Tuesday, September 25, 2018

An Alabama Media Group video team has been working with Facebook Watch to create a series of videos - Chasing Corruption -- about efforts to root out wrongdoing around the country. This week they come home to unveil the Bentley episode, and how it is connected to Collier and Hubbard and Luther Strange and Roy Moore and beyond.

It truly has been a long, strange trip.

But I'm struck as I see it what a monumental effort the unmasking of these scoundrels has been.

The bloggers get a nod, for going out on that limb in the first place, infuriating Bentley to the point he sought revenge. Reporters at newspapers and political websites bored in. Yellowhammer News' revelation that Bentley had his wallet flown to him on a helicopter was objectively one of the most jaw-dropping bits of the puzzle.

TV reporters put Bentley in the crosshairs - and the state watched as his denial became pathological. Reporters like Connor Sheets and Leada Gore and Kyle Whitmire and too many people to name turned over rocks and examined the gunk beneath.

Reporters chased corruption. And caught it.

We are better off, Alabama, with as many reportorial boots on the ground as we can get.

John Archibald, a Pulitzer Prize winner, is a columnist for Reckon by AL.com. His column appears in The Birmingham News, the Huntsville Times, the Mobile Register and AL.com. Write him at jarchibald@al.com.Birmingham police are asking for the public's help identifying a man they say robbed an east Birmingham CVS.

The holdup happened about 8:20 p.m. on Sept. 20 at 7501 First Avenue North. Sgt. Johnny Williams said the suspect entered the business brandishing a gun and demanded money. He fled with an undisclosed amount of cash.

No injuries were reported.

The suspect is described by police as a black male who was wearing all black clothing and white gym shoes. He also wore a green sheet around his neck.

Anyone with information on his identity is to call Birmingham robbery detectives at 205-254-1753. Tipster can remain anonymous by calling Crime Stoppers at 205-254-7777. If the tip to Crime Stoppers leads to an arrest, Crime Stoppers will provide a cash reward.The latest rumor making the rounds on social media goes like this: "President Trump is making Oct. 4 Bring your Bible to School Day. I pray that every school in America is full of Bibles that day."

The post has a grain of truth to it. Focus on the Family, a conservative non-profit Christian group, is holding "Bring Your Bible to School Day" on Oct. 4. It's the fifth time the organization has hosted the event.

The false part has to do with claims President Trump "made" the day a holiday. Bring Your Bible to School Day started in 2014 under former President Barack Obama, though neither he nor President Trump had anything to do with the event.

As myth-busting website Snopes put it: "Neither President Donald Trump nor his administration created the event, nor is it sponsored or sanctioned by the federal government."

According to Focus on the Family, Bring Your Bible to School Day is a time for "students across the nation" to "celebrate religious freedom and share God's love with their friends.

"Participation is voluntary and student-directed--meaning it's completely up to students, Christian clubs and youth groups to sign up online and then lead the activities in their school," the organization noted.

The Alliance Defending Freedom, an alliance of Christian attorneys, is offering pro bono legal assistance for students who "encounter unconstitutional road blocks to their free speech rights," during the day, Focus on the Family said.

More than 500,000 students are expected to participate in the event.A teenager accused of homicide and kidnapping is being sought in Clarke County.

X'Zavier Scott, 18, on Tuesday was identified by Clarke County Sheriff Ray Norris as a suspect in the recent death of a woman who was killed in Huntsville.

The details of the alleged murder were revealed after the kidnapping victim phoned the sheriff's office for help. It's believed the homicide happened within the last few days, although it's not yet clear what homicide Scott is accused of.

A 29-year-old woman was recently found stabbed to death at the side of the road in Huntsville. It's believed two men stabbed Tiffany Dawn Kelley Saturday between 7.p.m. and 8 p.m.

A law enforcement search in the area of Jackson, Alabama, is currently underway, according to the sheriff's office. K-9 units and helicopters are assisting in the search.Two suspects are in custody and a car that belonged to a Huntsville slaying victim has been found 250 miles away in south Alabama authorities said.

X'Zavier Scott

X'Zavier Scott, 18, and a juvenile accomplice have been captured in connection with the stabbing death of Tiffany Kelley, Huntsville police said. Kelley's body was found dumped on a south Huntsville roadway late Saturday.

Scott and the juvenile, whose name hasn't been released, are in custody in Clarke County, according to police. Clarke County Sheriff Ray Norris announced late Tuesday that Scott had been taken into custody. Huntsville police on Wednesday morning said Kelley's car had been found in Clarke County.

In Clark County, the suspects are held on unrelated charges. Attempts weren't immediately successful to reach the Clarke County sheriff for information about those charges.

Huntsville police Sgt. Tony McElyea said Scott is from Clarke County.

"It is still unknown at this time why the two were in the Huntsville area," McElyea said in a news release. "Huntsville Police would like to thank Sheriff Norris and all other agencies involved for their cooperation in the capture of X'Zavier Scott and his juvenile accomplice."

The Clarke County sheriff's office started looking for Scott on Tuesday when they received a report that he had kidnapped someone. Further details about that allegation haven't been released.

AL.com's Chris Harress contributed to this reportTropical Storm Kirk was losing some steam on Wednesday night as it continued to track toward the Caribbean.

The National Hurricane Center said wind shear was beginning to take a toll on Kirk, which became a tropical storm earlier Wednesday for the second time in its history.

As of 10 p.m. CDT Wednesday, Tropical Storm Kirk was located about 170 miles east of Barbados and was moving west-northwest at 16 mph.

Kirk's winds, which had peaked at 60 mph earlier Wednesday, had fallen to 50 mph as of 10 p.m., the hurricane center said.

The hurricane center said Kirk is expected to gradually weaken over the next couple of days, but it will "move across the Lesser Antilles and into the eastern Caribbean Sea as a tropical storm."

Tropical storm warnings continued for Barbados, St. Lucia, Dominica, Martinique and Guadeloupe, and a watch was in effect for St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

The hurricane center said that on the forecast track, the center of Kirk will move over the Lesser Antilles within the warning area on Thursday.

The storm could bring 4-6 inches of rain to the islands, with some areas getting up to 10 inches, which could produce deadly flash flooding and mudslides.

The hurricane center was also watching Post-Tropical Storm Leslie in the central Atlantic, which could acquire some tropical or subtropical features on Thursday or Friday as it meanders over the open sea. Leslie is not expected to affect land.The specter of failed Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore reemerged today in a presidential press conference dealing with the nomination of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Speaking in New York, President Trump was asked by CNN political reporter Jim Acosta about allegations of sexual assault against Kavanaugh and why the president "always seems to side with the accused and not the accuser."

Trump responded by saying "he wasn't happy with Roy Moore."

"But Roy Moore was the Republican candidate. I'd rather had the Republican candidate win. I was very happy with Luther Strange, who was a terrific man from Alabama but he had a lot of things going against him," Trump added.

Moore, the state's former chief justice, lost a December election to Democrat Doug Jones after allegations Moore had improper sexual contact with teenage girls in the 1970s. Moore won the GOP nomination after defeating Strange, who had been appointed by ex-governor Robert Bentley to serve out the U.S. Senate term of now-Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Strange, who was Alabama's Attorney General, was often criticized for accepting the Bentley appointment, which came as his office was investigating the governor. Bentley resigned in April 2017 as part of a plea deal related to campaign finance and ethics violations.

Trump had initially backed Strange in the GOP primary but switched his endorsement to Moore in the general election. Moore was considered a heavy favorite in the race until the sexual misconduct allegations.

In Kavanaugh's case, Trump said Democrats had used the allegations against this judge to destroy "a man's reputation" and reiterated his support for his nominee.

"These are all false, to me, these are false accusations in certain cases," Trump said. "I can only say that what they've done to this man is incredible."Andrew Gillum and the Dream Defenders dont agree on everything. But they appear comfortable with their alliance even as Republican gubernatorial nominee Ron DeSantis continues to cast his Democratic opponent as a radical due to his association with the Miami-based social justice organization.

One day after DeSantis name-dropped the activist group while arguing that Gillum has anti-Semites around him, the Republican Governors Association on Tuesday released a TV commercial highlighting some of the organizations more controversial beliefs. The ad notes that Dream Defenders  which made its name over the last six years through acts of civil unrest  espouses open borders and states on its website that police are racist and have no place in society.

Andrew Gillum: Hes just too radical, a narrator says in the ad.

The commercial comes as DeSantis has sought to flip the script on Gillum after weeks of defending and distancing himself from news reports about his campaigns ties to alleged racists and extremists. DeSantis on Monday accused reporters of ignoring Gillums association with groups like the Dream Defenders, which has likened Israels treatment of Palestinians to an Apartheid system.

Click here to read the rest.In less than a week, voters in one of Alabama's fastest-growing cities will decide whether change is warranted in the structure of city government.

If Fairhope voters endorse the council-manager form of government, ditching the mayor-council form, their city could serve as a statewide test pilot for newly retooled Alabama law that's meant to smooth the way for such switches.

But confusion abounds in Fairhope, where a growing chorus of residents, including those who showed up to a Tuesday forum, say that they are unsure what they are voting on.

"I'm not saying I'm for it or against it," said Cecil Christenberry, a member of the Baldwin County school board and a Fairhope businessman who was a panelist during the forum hosted by the Common Sense Campaign tea party. "But I'm perpetually confused about it."

Much of the confusion stems from ambiguity about the future makeup of the Fairhope City Council if the Oct. 2 referendum passes. A government change would not be effective until 2020.

Perhaps the key issue is whether the council, which currently consists of five at-large members, would be transformed into a council of three members elected from districts, and two elected at-large.

If there are districts, who would draw the lines? The council? State lawmakers? Attorneys?

"District versus at-large matters for a lot of people," said Councilman Jay Robinson.

Said Christenberry: "People turned in absentee ballots thinking they were voting for a change, but nothing was about districts."

Another issue is the mayor's role: Under a council-manager government, the mayor is a voting member of the council, rather than the city's head of operations, but still serves as the face of the city. The city's day-to-day business is guided by professionally trained manager whom the council hires.

The special election, which is costing taxpayers around $15,000, was triggered in July after 850 signatures were forwarded to the county's probate office requesting a referendum to change the city's form of government.

The ballot question, according to supporters, is a simple one: Should the current form of city government change to council-manager. Questions about the structure of future councils can be determined at a later date, supporters say.

But there was a second petition circulating around the same time, and it fell well short of gathering sufficient signatures. That petition requested a vote for a council-manager form of government, and to have the council set up with district representation.

The Alabama Attorney General's Office, in an advisory opinion released Tuesday, said that state law requires a new council-manager form of government to consist of district council members if the change is authorized through a citizens' petition.

Said Robinson: "These opinions are advisory. They are helpful in leading you in the right direction."

The Fairhope City Council, in a special-called meeting last week, voted to move ahead in filing a legal injunction to temporarily halt the referendum, largely because of the uncertainty behind the future form of the council if voters back a council-manager government.

As of Tuesday night, the injunction request remained pending, and Robinson believes the election will occur as scheduled.

"I don't have a desire to stop this election," said Robinson. "My goal is to make sure this vote counts. You, like everyone else, needs this information so you know what you are voting on."

Representatives with Fresh Start Fairhope, the nonprofit group that is pushing for the government change, objected to Robinson and others who said there was widespread confusion.

"The Attorney General opinion is advisory," said John Matus. "People are trying to say that we go to do this or that. I think it's pretty straightforward."

The group has been pushing for a council-manager form of government for several years, and before the city's government turned into a clash of personalities and politics between Mayor Karin Wilson and the City Council.

Fresh Start Fairhope has pointed to HB147, approved by the Legislature this year. That amendment to existing state law allows smaller cities like Fairhope to pursue a change in government from mayor-council to council-manager.

Only 16 Alabama cities, or a meager 3 percent of the 460 incorporated municipalities, are operated by a professional city manager under a council-manager government. Tennessee has 90 of its 346 incorporated cities operated by a professionally-trained manager. Georgia has 120 city managers.

The Legislature's action is a modification of the Council-Manager Act of 1982 that gives cities like Fairhope more authority in deciding whether to pursue a council-manager form of government with five or seven-member councils.

The new law also was meant to give a city a choice on whether to pursue a change in government with either at-large or single-member districts. Previously, under Alabama law, the council-manager form of government was allowed only in cities where councils were derived from three districts. A mayor and a council president were elected at-large.

"The way the bill is written, I agree, it is confusing," said Robinson. He said that the law allows the district or at-large choice only if it's the council that decides to take the switch to the voters, and that citizen petitions are more limited to districts.

Said Cody Phillips, a representative with the Common Sense Campaign: "I've read HB147 and I've read it three-four times and it's very confusing. It isn't spelled out whether it is meant to be district or at-large."Attorney Michael Avenatti has revealed the name of the third woman claiming improper behavior by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

Julie Swetnick, who now lives in Washington, D.C., signed a sworn declaration in which she alleged Kavanaugh and a friend were present when she was "gang-raped" at a party in 1982.

Kavanaugh dismissed the allegations, saying they were "ridiculous and from the Twilight Zone.

"I don't know who she is and this never happened," he added.

The president also responded to the claims.

Avenatti is a third rate lawyer who is good at making false accusations, like he did on me and like he is now doing on Judge Brett Kavanaugh. He is just looking for attention and doesnt want people to look at his past record and relationships - a total low-life!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 26, 2018

Swetnick is the third woman to accuse Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct. The first was Christine Blasey Ford, a college professor who said she was assaulted by him in high school. She is scheduled to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday.

The second was Deborah Ramirez, who attended Yale with Kavanaugh. She claims Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a dorm-room party in 1983 or 1984.

Who is Julie Swetnick?

Swetnick, who attended high school in Gaithersburg, Md., claims that between 1981 and 1983 she attended house parties at which Kavanaugh was present. She said Kavanaugh and friends tried to "spike" girls' drinks with alcohol and drugs in order for women to be gang-raped. She went on to say she was raped in 1982.

According to the New York Post, Swetnick, 55, works for the U.S. Department of Treasury, U.S. Mint and Internal Revenue Service. She currently has an active security clearance and previously held clearances with the US Department of State, Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection.

She preciously worked with the Vietnam War Commemoration, Joint Service Providers and the U.S. Department of Defense in Arlington, Virginia and was one of the first 100 women in the world to achieve a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineering Certification.

In her sworn deposition, Swetnick said she was attacked at a party in 1982. She does not claim Kavanaugh raped her but said he was present at the party where it occurred.

"I became the victim of one of these 'gang' or 'train' rapes where Mark Judge and Brett Kavanaugh were present. Shortly after the incident, I shared what had transpired with at least two other people. During the incident, I was incapacitated without my consent and unable to fight off the boys raping me. I believe I was drugged using Quaaludes or something similar placed in what I was drinking," she said.

In her statement, she said she saw "Brett Kavanaugh drink excessively at many of these parties and engage in abusive and physically aggressive behavior toward girls, including pressing girls against him without their consent, 'grinding' against girls and attempting to remove or shift girls' clothing to expose private body parts."

Swetnick is being represented by Avenatti, who also represents adult film star Stormy Daniels over claims she had an affair with the President Donald Trump before his election.

Here is a picture of my client Julie Swetnick. She is courageous, brave and honest. We ask that her privacy and that of her family be respected. pic.twitter.com/auuSeHm5s0  Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) September 26, 2018It's official now; there won't be a candidate forum between Gov. Kay Ivey and Tuscaloosa Mayor Walt Maddox organized by the League of Women Voters of Alabama.

The league announced today it has withdrawn its invitations to the candidates because it has not heard directly from Ivey.

"Since we have not received a response directly from the Governor and the election is fast approaching, we have decided to direct our voter information efforts elsewhere," League President Barbara Caddell said in a news release.

Maddox had accepted the invitation. Ivey has repeatedly said she has no plans for a debate with Maddox.

"Because the Governor has not displayed any interest in a forum, the people of Alabama have lost an opportunity to compare candidates in this way," Caddell said. "We are sad and disappointed but it is the people of Alabama who have really lost out."

Ivey defeated three Republican challengers in the June primary without a debate. She has repeatedly said the voters know her record.

"They know what I stand for," Ivey said two weeks ago when asked about the league's invitation. "I'm out amongst them every day and they know we're creating jobs and putting folks back to work and working to improve education. So, I don't need a debate."

Maddox did debate his opponents before winning the Democratic primary and first challenged Ivey to a series of debates in July. Maddox has said voters need a chance to compare the candidates approaches to solving the state's pressing problems.

"Gov. Ivey doesn't owe me a debate," Maddox said last month. "She does owe the people of Alabama."

The election is Nov. 6, 41 days from today.It's going to take longer than some would like, but the Mobile Airport Authority is pressing forward with development of a master plan that will include switching passenger service to the Downtown Mobile Airport.

Other news from Tuesday's MAA board meeting: Details are emerging for a terminal facility that will support limited commercial passenger service from the Mobile Aeroplex at Brookley by spring. And MAA Executive Director Chris Curry, in that position for less than a year, is being promoted to president of the operation.

Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson has called for switching passenger service from Mobile Regional Airport in west Mobile to Brookley. Earlier this year, a feasibility study commissioned by MAA concluded that the benefits justified such a switch.

Rather than launching immediately into that process, MAA leaders said they first needed to develop a comprehensive master plan for the development of the city's air service resources over the next 20 years. On Tuesday, Curry said the MAA staff is working toward issuing a Request for Proposals (RFP) for companies interested in the contract to develop the master plan.

"We hope to have the RFP out on the street in the next two weeks, perhaps," he said. The selection of a consultant should follow in late October or early November, he said. Once that's done, he said, a schedule for the master planning process should emerge.

MAA board chairman Elliot Maisel said that the Federal Aviation Administration had been a valuable partner, but he chafed at the amount of time it might take to finalize a master plan and move on.

"They've worked with us, they communicate with us, they call on us," Maisel said. "I'm very appreciative of that and we all should be. However. The notion of how long this master planning process could take is frustrating.

"While we totally understand the nature of their regulatory approach, I want to publicly state that I'm going to encourage our staff, particularly Chris, in communication with the FAA to expedite the master plan at every opportunity. Which is not to be confused with some sort of back-of-the-napkin, rubber-stamp, push-it-through, get-it-done approach. This is very, very important to the future of the city of Mobile."

After the meeting, Maisel elaborated by saying that the federal agency doesn't simply wait for an entity like the MAA to come up with a master plan, then pass judgment on what's in it. Federal regulations govern the process of formulating the master plan, and MAA has to comply if it expects FAA support in the future. Maisel said that the process conceivably could take up to two years, but he hopes it can be completed sooner.

He previously has said the process would include multiple opportunities for public input. On Tuesday he said that "absolutely" would be the case.

With full-bore commuter service at Brookley waiting on that master plan and subsequent steps, such as the construction of an appropriate terminal, there is an interim development that will provide a taste of the future.

Earlier this year, low-cost carrier ViaAir launched a route connecting Mobile to Orlando. ViaAir flies out of Mobile Regional Airport, but expressed interest in flying from Brookley. The MAA pledged to set up a Brookley passenger terminal so that could happen, and Curry initially said Downtown-to-Disney flights could begin as soon as the 2018 holiday season, depending on what type of facility was used.

The timetable has grown longer, but MAA seems to plan serious investment rather than setting up a prefab, temporary facility. At a special meeting in early September, the board voted to authorize negotiations with KPM Group for a contract for preliminary engineering and design work not to exceed $190,000.

On Tuesday, Chief Operations Officer Ismael "Izzy" Bonilla told the board that the Authority was moving forward with KPS and by late October or early November he should be able to provide an estimate on the cost of the project and the time required.

The facility will occupy an existing building currently leased by Airbus, which will lease it back to the MAA. Described as a "logistics center," it's on Michigan Avenue in a separate location from Airbus' main campus.

While it wasn't the heaviest matter before the board, the question of naming the terminal provoked some discussion. Maisel and Curry stressed that whatever the name is, it needs to give the public a clear idea of what the terminal is (a dedicated facility designed primarily to support commuter service by low-cost carriers at Brookley) without creating misconceptions about what it isn't (a full-size, full-service terminal that will handle all passenger service after the proposed airport swap).

That question wasn't resolved on Tuesday. Whatever it's named, Maisel said the MAA hopes to have the new terminal ready for operation by May 2019.

In other business, the MAA board:

Approved a recommendation by Maisel to authorize a bonus and a raise for Curry, and another recommendation to promote Curry to the open position of MAA President. Maisel said that the MAA wouldn't move to fill the executive director position in the near future, so Curry's "functional role will not change a great deal."

Heard that Mobile Regional Airport had reported its highest level of August traffic since 2011, with 25,740 passengers representing a 15 percent increase over August 2017. Director of Marketing and Air Service Development Brian Belcher said United and Delta had increased capacity, with developments such as United's decision to use a larger jet on its route to Houston. American Airlines also saw a substantial increase, he said, and expected more capacity upgrades to come in the months ahead.

Heard from Bonilla that multimillion-dollar runway improvements and other projects continue at both airports. Maisel said it was significant that the FAA continued to support developments at Mobile Regional Airport despite the possibility that commuter service may eventually move to Brookley. "The regional property is very important to us," Maisel said, and will continue to be so after the swap.

"We very much appreciate the FAA's continued coordination and contribution to maintain what is a nice facility in the wrong place," he said.The Mobile County Commission and Mobile City Council have approved $500,000 in support for a warehouse project expected to bring 55 jobs to the area.

The County Commission unanimously approved its $250,000 share on Monday, followed by the City Council on Tuesday. According to David Rodgers, vice president for economic development for the Mobile Area Chamber of Commerce, the project also is receiving a sales and use tax abatement worth up to $1.48 million and a 10-year non-educational ad valorem tax abatement worth up to $3.5 million.

Rodgers said net tax benefits over the next 20 years are expected to be $2.4 million for the county, $2.1 million for the city, $6.9 million for Mobile County public schools and $2 million for the state.

Before the council vote, Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson said the project would be the first of its kind for Mobile and would involve a $58 million investment.

"It'll be the first time in the history of the city that we'll have a company that will be importing a product and then taking those same containers and exporting, turning around the containers, which is a big deal." Stimpson praised a collaborative effort between the Mobile Area Chamber of Commerce, the Alabama State Port Authority, the city and the county.

The project agreement considered by the city specified that Merchants Alabama and MTC Logistics "propose to develop, construct, equip, and start up a new temperature-controlled and/or dry storage warehouse."

According to information released Tuesday by the Alabama State Port Authority and MTC Logistics, MTC has purchased property where it plans to build "a state-of-the-art international temperature-controlled distribution center focused on both import and export cargo."

F. Brooks Royster III, president of MTC Logistics, said that "being able to find property immediately adjacent to a world-class port such as Mobile and in such close proximity to I-10 is a very unique opportunity."

"This new facility will be more than 12 million cubic feet in size with approximately 40,000 racked pallet positions," Royster said. "We will offer a comprehensive suite of services including blast freezing, port drayage and LTL [less than truckload] Consolidation. We have been in the temperature-controlled logistics business for 90 years and are thrilled Mobile will be a part of our future."

A draft project agreement confirms that the companies expect to make a capital investment of about $58 million and that the facility will employ about 55 people at an average annual wage of "at least approximately" $47,000.

The city and county contributions will support road improvements on Yeend Street near the APM Terminals container facility on the Mobile waterfront. The company building the warehouse will plan and issue a contract for the work; when completed; when the work is done the city will accept the improvements and accept the right-of-way for future maintenance. The city and county will pay up to $250,000 apiece to reimburse the company work and the company will pay any amount over $500,000.

Full details of the project were not revealed on Tuesday, though an announcement is expected soon.

(Note: This story has been updated with additional information on incentives and expected tax revenue benefits.)Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan heads to Germany in a rare official visit with a busy agenda, ranging from the situation in Syria to the arrest of German citizens, and the currency crisis in the European Union candidate country.

Berlin and Ankara, which have been at odds over a variety of issues for years, recently toned down their rhetoric, signalling a new phase in ties.

Erdogan said his country seeks to improve political and economic relations with Germany during his three-day visit that starts on Thursday.

Our priority [in my visit] will be completely leaving behind the period experienced in recent years in our political ties, he said on Sunday.

In addition, it will be the steps that can be taken to enhance our economic ties on a mutually beneficial basis.

Erdogan will meet Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Frank Walter Steinmeier during his visit.

Diplomatic flurry

The diplomatic traffic between Berlin and Ankara has already been busy in September.

Early in the month, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas held talks in Turkey with his counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu, expressing the desire for closer cooperation.

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Last week, Turkish Finance Minister Berat Albayrak, Turkeys Trade Minister Ruhsar Pekcan, and Energy and Natural Resources Minister Fatih Sonmez were in Berlin meeting with Finance Minister Olaf Scholz and Economy and Energy Minister Peter Altmaier.

Mensur Akgun, a professor of international relations and a columnist, said the two countries seek to prioritise mutual strategic interests such as Syria and economic ties, rather than their differences.

The relationship between the two countries is complex with many different aspects from the refugee aspect to entangled economic ties and millions of Turks living in Germany, he told Al Jazeera.

The Turkish government understands that Turkey will not be an EU member state anytime soon and seeks to put the relations with the bloc to a more realistic platform. The visit will help achieve this goal. The sides understand it is in their mutual interest to solve their issues, Akgun added.

Post-coup crackdown

Tensions between the two countries mainly stem from purges and arrests of hundreds of thousands of people in Turkey after a July 2016 coup attempt that killed more than 300 people, including the plotters. German journalists and activists have been among those arrested.

Berlin has called the crackdown arbitrary, while Ankara denies its political influence on the judiciary.

Germany, the country with the largest Turkish diaspora in the world, banned gatherings of foreign politicians and their supporters within its borders before both Turkeys 2017 constitutional referendum and presidential and parliamentary elections on June 24. Other EU member states, such as the Netherlands and Austria, followed Germany. The move infuriated Turkish authorities.

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Turkey and Germany have many reasons to work together. In addition to more than three million people of Turkish origin living in the country, the EUs industrial locomotive is Turkeys main economic and trade partner with bilateral trade at 37.6 billion euros ($43.6bn).

Plunging lira

The currency crisis Turkey is going through is also high on the agenda of Erdogans visit. The value of the lira has taken a nosedive since the beginning of the year, losing more than 40 percent against the US dollar amid macroeconomic concerns and a diplomatic showdown between Washington and Ankara.

The NATO allies increased tariffs on each other in August after Turkeys judiciary refused to release an American pastor jailed on terrorism charges. Ankara has accused Washington of carrying out an economic war against Turkey and said its courts are independent.

Meanwhile, rumours of German financial aid to Turkey in August were denied by German officials.

Turkey is not seeking economic aid, neither in our talks today nor will it do so in the talks that the president and the chancellor will hold, Finance Minister Scholz said after meeting his counterpart Albayrak.

Another issue complicating relations is the three million Syrian refugees Turkey hosts, keeping them from journeying to Western Europe. A mass flow of refugees to Europe in 2015 created a massive humanitarian crisis and helped the rise of far-right politics on the continent.

Ankara also wants the EU to allow Turkish citizens to travel to the Schengen area without visas, and seeks German support on this issue.

Germany needs a stable Turkey

Can Baydarol, an analyst on EU-Turkey relations, said it is not in the interests of Germany or the EU to have an unstable Turkey bordering Europe.

Turkeys instability would hit the EU both politically and economically. Germany is protecting itself by mending ties with and helping out Turkey. A banking crisis in Turkey would hit European banks and over 6,500 German companies making business in the country. Keeping Syrian refugees in Turkey is also a priority of Germany, Baydarol said.

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Furthermore, Ankara is drifting from the West towards Russia and Germany is not happy with it. If Russia and Turkey become actual strategic partners, this might create a soft spot in the EUs defence, he said.

Ankara signed a deal to purchase S-400 advanced missile defence systems from Moscow last year despite objections from its Western allies. Russia is also building a nuclear power plant in Turkey.

Moreover, Russia and Iran, which support Syrian President Bashar al-Assads regime, and Turkey, which backs the moderate opposition, have been in close cooperation to find a solution to the Syrian conflict.

Their cooperation recently stopped a planned Syrian government offensive against the rebel-held province of Idlib and prevented a potential humanitarian disaster involving hundreds of thousands of refugees.

Follow Umut Uras on Twitter: @Um_UrasInterior Minister Matteo Salvini has threatened to shut mosques and said Islam is incompatible with the constitution.

Rome, Italy  On Friday after midday, on a tree-lined residential street in southeastern Rome, people speak an assortment of languages and dialects, from north African Arabic to the local Roman slang.

The bottom floor of a peeling post-war building hosts a prayer home.

On the Muslim holy day, worshippers lay out their prayer rugs as far as the pavement and listen to a sermon.

Officially recognised mosques in Italy can be counted on one hand, but there are many unofficial prayer homes like this  more than 50 in Rome.

Islam isnt formally recognised in Italy, despite being the countrys largest religious minority.

While other religions have underwritten an accord with the Italian state, attempts to reach one for Islam have been inconclusive. As a result, mosques cannot receive public funds, religious holidays and weddings are not recognised, and theres no law governing the establishment of places of worship.

There are 2.6 million Muslims in Italy, just over four percent of the population. While the majority are foreign citizens, nearly a million are Italian either by birth or naturalisation.

I don't think Italy is a racist country. I think there are statements that some politicians could avoid, but instead they are used relentlessly to exploit a certain type of propaganda. Yassine Lafram, president of the Union of Islamic Communities in Italy

The basement prayer home in Centocelle, a traditionally working-class neighbourhood and today one of the most multicultural in the city, has been here since 1993.

For more than two years, it has faced uncertainty regarding its future, after local authorities asked the community to address building regulation breaches.

Similar administrative reasons were given to justify the closure of at least eight other prayer homes and Islamic cultural centres in the city, sparking prayer-protests near, the Coliseum, Romes famous landmark in October 2016.

Local media often calls such establishments illegal mosques, referring to their unregulated status but simultaneously feed a narrative of fear and mistrust towards the Muslim community. Most of the prayer homes closed in Rome at the time were re-opened.

There is also now an increasing sense of insecurity among Muslim communities across Italy with the instalment of the new government, led by the anti-Islam, anti-migration League and the populist Five Star Movement.

There is more uncertainty as we have no idea what this government is going to do towards the Islamic community, said Mohamed Ben Mohamed, the imam of the Centocelle mosque, sitting at his desk with a photograph of Jerusalems Al Aqsa mosque behind him.

During the election campaign, Salvini said he would close mosques, not allow any new ones to open. It may be propaganda, but theres a mentality behind that, Ben Mohamed added. Theres no regulation for places of worship, the law remains vague, and every municipality interprets it its own way.

A government contract that led to the governing deal between the two parties promised stricter controls and closure of irregular mosques, as well as the establishment of a registry of imams and checks on funding sources.

During his election campaign, Matteo Salvini, interior minister and deputy prime minister, stated that Islam is incompatible with the constitution.

When Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz closed seven mosques last June, Salvini hailed the decision and called for a meeting to discuss common strategies.

We are concerned

Three months into his role, Salvini launched a campaign against sea rescue, preventing boats from docking in Italian ports or rescued refugees from descending, sparking a diplomatic crisis among EU states over migration.

Between 2014 and 2017, more than 623,000 people arrived in Italy via the central Mediterranean route. But arrivals had already dropped by the end of 2017, following a EU-supported Italian agreement with Libyas UN-backed Government of National Accord.

Racism watchdogs have warned of the links between the proliferation of a stigmatising rhetoric towards migration and a series of racially-motivated violent attacks which have often been carried out in a copycat fashion in the past months, including at least a dozen BB gun shootings.

The UNs new high commissioner for human rights Michelle Bachelet said in her maiden speech on Monday that she intended to send teams to Italy as well as Austria to assess the situation.

On social media, messages, Facebook pages and groups are increasingly aggressive against migration and Islamic culture, Yassine Lafram, the 32-year-old recently appointed president of the Union of Islamic Communities in Italy (UCOII), told Al Jazeera.

We are concerned about that and that words may turn into the actions of a few people. Lets not forget there have been violent episodes against migrants in general, as well as some homophobic incidents, even if theyve not been recognised as such.

Lafram was born in Morocco but grew up in Italy, where he was recently naturalised as a citizen.

I dont think Italy is a racist country, he said. I think there are statements that some politicians could avoid, but instead they are used relentlessly to exploit a certain type of propaganda.

As elsewhere in Europe, violent attacks on European soil in recent years, claimed to have been carried out in the name of Islam, have affected Italians perception of the countrys Muslim communities even if none were carried out in Italy.

According to the Pew research centre, Italy is second only to Hungary in negative perceptions of Muslims in Europe, with as many as 69 percent saying they viewed Muslims unfavourably.

Opinions about an alleged Islamisation of Italy may also be shaped by a misperception of the migratory phenomenon. As independent research Institute Eurispes points out, however, out of Italys five million foreign residents just over 30 percent are Muslim.

This often translates into right-wing opposition to projects aimed at Muslim communities by local groups.

In an ongoing debate in Bologna, politicians belonging to the League and Berlusconis party Go Italy are opposed to a deal between the Islamic community and the local administration for a land exchange that they say would allow Muslims to build the first official mosque in the city.

A similar controversy surrounds the opening of two mosques and the regularisation of four informal ones in the Milan area.

I want to know who pays, who prays, in what language, who goes in and who goes out, Salvini said about the issue, adding that mosques were not a priority, but he intended to create a commission to regulate new places of worship.

We are waiting to see how things will develop, what role this commission will have, said Ben Mohamed back in eastern Rome. Whether or not it will involve the community.

In the nearby neighbourhood of Torpignattara, home to a large Bangladeshi community, the sign of one of the local prayer homes has been blanked out. Locals say it has been like that for three years.Before his speech at the United Nations General Assembly, US President Donald Trump tweeted: Despite requests, I have no plans to meet Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Maybe someday in the future. I am sure he is an absolutely lovely man!

The tweet came after weeks of speculations that a meeting between Trump and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani might take place on the sidelines of the UNGA sessions.

Indeed, such a meeting did not happen, not because the US president tweeted his refusal, but because the Iranian side is simply not interested. Last year, the Iranian government had to turn down requests from the White House for such a meeting eight times and this year President Rouhani again emphasised that his government is not interested in holding direct talks with the present US administration.

There are several reasons why Iran really doesnt want to talk to Trump.

First, it sees no reason to abandon the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which took many years of hard negotiations to conclude. Former US President Barack Obama also saw the JCPOA as the most robust and intrusive inspections and transparency regime, ever negotiated for any nuclear programme in history, based on unprecedented verification.

The provisions of the deal addressed the main concern of the international community: that Irans nuclear programme remains compliant with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and limits its work to civilian projects. It was ratified by all governments involved and endorsed by the United Nations Security Council in Resolution 2231.

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Over the past three years, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has reported that Iran remains in full compliance with the provisions of the JCPOA deal. Given that Iran has stuck to its end of the deal and all sides have recognised it as a comprehensive and rigorous agreement, it does not see a reason to negotiate a different one.

Second, the current US administration has been employing hawkish policies, war-mongering and constant threats as a strategy to bring Iran to the negotiating table. Under the influence of Israel, it is seeking to establish an anti-Iranian military alliance in the Middle East.

While such an approach might have worked with North Korea, it is highly unlikely that it would yield a positive result with Iran. This behaviour has left Tehran doubting the readiness of the Trump administration to negotiate in earnest. Furthermore, by withdrawing from a deal approved by a previous US administration and the UN Security Council, the worlds top rule-enforcing entity, the Trump White House casts doubt on its own commitment to observing agreements and being a reliable negotiating partner.

Third, the present US administration has been seemingly pushing for regime change in Iran. Top officials such as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton have been at the forefront of such efforts. What government on earth would engage with a partner that is publicly pushing for its violent overthrow?

Fourth, Iran would not negotiate with a hostile government which might itself soon lose power. The possibility of Trump getting impeached is growing by the day. The process of impeachment could soon be triggered over violations of the emoluments clauses of the US Constitution or over alleged complicity with Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. And if the Democrats gain control of Congress in the November midterm vote, that possibility would get that much higher.

But even if Trump does not get impeached, he is likely to lose his bid for re-election in 2020. His current approval rating is lower than that of any of the nine presidents who preceded him. The fact that leaders of the whole world burst out laughing when he claimed in his General Assembly speech that his administration has accomplished more than any other in US history is highly indicative of where he stands in the eyes of the world and his own people.

Given these unfavourable circumstances, Iran may wait for Trump to lose power and seek to engage with his successor who in all likelihood would be a better negotiating partner. And the Iranian government is not in a hurry at all. Its European partners, who stood by the JCPOA and their commitments despite pressure from the Trump administration, just offered to establish a legal entity that will process payments to Iran and effectively circumvent the US sanctions. China and Russia are also likely to join this new arrangement.

In other words, Iran can easily wait another two years for a new administration to be elected in the US. In the meantime, if Trump somehow decides to drastically change his rhetoric and approach, the Iranian government might reconsider and talk to him.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance.As the Conservative Party is spectacularly failing in Brexit, Labour has no clear alternative plan to offer.

Britain, it would appear, is falling apart at the seams.

The Conservative government teeters on the brink of collapse, riven with divisions, rife with Islamophobia, propped up by an abjectly illiberal formerly paramilitary-supporting party from Northern Ireland and apparently incapable of negotiating its way out of a damp paper bag. We are six months away from crashing out of the European Union with no deal, with an overwhelming consensus among economic analysts that this would be, in simple terms, A Very Bad Thing.

And thats without even considering the imposition of a border between Northern Ireland (Britain) and the Republic of Ireland (the EU) and the likely breakdown of peace on the island of Ireland.

With such a fragile government in Westminster, it might be reasonable to expect a resurgent opposition party offering a fresh and dynamic vision on the biggest issue of the day.

So where on earth is Labour on Brexit? Nowhere, thats where.

Corbyns hypocrisy dilemma

In the 10 years since the collapse of the global banking system, Britain has been failed by the acceleration of austerity politics  the ideology of privatisation-at-all-costs shrouded in living-within-our-means condescension.

Former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown may have suggested it, but let us make no mistake, this is a fundamentally Conservative dogma which has led to a widening gap between poor and rich  the have-nots and the have-yachts to borrow a phrase  and this has had real-world consequences.

Social welfare spending has been slashed. The construction of social housing is down 90 percent. Children with mental health difficulties now have to be near-suicidal before they can see a psychologist. Nearly 90 people with disabilities die every month after being ruled fit to work and having their benefits stopped.

This offers only the briefest of glimpses into the state of Britain in the run-up to the Brexit vote. It was the dominance of austerity politics which dammed the flow of the British economy and, like pond scum taking over a stagnant lake, populist charlatans soon began to spread across the country with a toxic narrative, scapegoating migrants and poisoning the national debate.

But it wasnt just the far right who opposed Britains continued membership of the EU.

Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Labour Party, is a long-time Eurosceptic. In the 1975 referendum, he voted against Britain remaining in the European Economic Community. He subsequently opposed the Maastricht Treaty in 1993 and the 2008 Lisbon Treaty. For decades, he has argued that the direction in which collective European politics has been travelling undermines the socialist objectives of a potential left-wing Labour government in the UK.

An ardent campaigner for workers rights, which were gradually stripped by European legislation, Corbyn realised it would be hypocritical of him, once elected leader of the party, to campaign vociferously for continued membership of the European Union.





Brexit, therefore, held a degree of cross-party appeal. There was no strong unified partisan opposition among the largest parties in Britain. While many were no doubt galvanised to the polls by the unapologetically racist lies of the far right, those on the left found themselves without strong leadership arguing the merits of staying in the EU.

This is the dilemma in which Labour continues to find itself.

The party is attempting to offer a radical vision of a future British economy: the decentralised re-nationalisation of water companies and train franchises, executive pay capped at 20 times that of the companys lowest earner, and forcing corporations to give up to 10 percent of their shares to their workers  so employees have a greater say in how the business is run and receive financial dividends when business is good.

But while all these issues are important, the biggest issue of the day in Britain remains Brexit  and the party cannot seem to find a consistent voice, let alone a vision. Part of this is because of the Labour movements democratic nature. Leaders such as Corbyn want to empower the membership to make the big policy decisions and charge the leadership with carrying them out.

This is great in theory, but confounds modern media messaging  and when youre trying to perform as an effective opposition to the worst-performing government in living memory, you need to be able to communicate to the public at large.

What options does Labour have?



The party has six options  all of them either bad or impossible to fulfil.

One: The party could follow Corbyns traditional opposition to the EU and throw its weight fully behind a no-deal Brexit. This would be disastrous not only in terms of electoral politics but for the nation as a whole. Market crash, job losses, security breakdown, rioting and who knows what else?

Two: It could push to ignore the Brexit referendum, revoke the Article 50 notification and remain a member state of the EU. This option is simply impossible within a six-month timeframe. That said, it could possibly be achieved if there were new general elections (which is unlikely) and Labour campaigned on an unambiguous remain platform (which is even less likely). If it won a hypothetical election on those grounds, it could claim a democratic mandate, especially if the victory was resounding (probably the least likely of all), to revoke A50 and stay in the EU.

This is hard to imagine with Corbyn as leader, given he would face accusations of hypocrisy from all sides.

Three: It could back Brexit, but call for Article 50 to be put on hold for a set period  three years, for example  while the details (such as the Irish border) are actually thrashed out and appropriate infrastructure (such as customs checkpoints at Dover and Folkestone to process traffic from the EU) are built.





This would probably be the most sensible option to both respect the will of the people in the referendum and to ensure there is some form of economic and social policy in place. A sensible Conservative government would have done this instead of rashly triggering Article 50 in the first place. But with sensible voices in parliament drowned out by the raving and rabid right wing and their friends in the media, any call to put A50 on hold will be deemed a bid to undermine the Brexit project and delay it until it can be cancelled. It is, therefore, unlikely.

Four: Labour could support the result of the 2016 Brexit referendum and push for the best possible exit deal achievable. It should be noted that the EU has no real incentive to offer Britain anything in an exit deal  a no deal Brexit might inconvenience EU member states, but European leaders would rather have that than risk other nations seeing a favourable UK exit deal as a motivation to abandon the European project altogether.

Labour has put forward six criteria for an acceptable deal: (i) a fair migration system, (ii) retaining a collaborative relationship with the EU, (iii) protecting national security, (iv) delivering for all nations and regions of the UK, (v) protecting workers rights, and (vi) ensuring the benefits currently enjoyed within the single market.

It follows to ask: What if Labour chooses this route, and an acceptable deal is not forthcoming? There are four possibilities  options one, two and three above, which are all probably non-starters, and this one coming up now.

Five: Push for a second referendum. This has come to be known in UK media circles as a peoples vote  as if the first one somehow exclusively polled cats. A second referendum is also impossible within six months. A referendum requires primary legislation to pass through parliament, as well as the question on the paper to be agreed by all parties.

The only way it could happen is if parliament voted to hold a second referendum, and include in that bill an automatic suspension of Article 50 until after the referendum is held. But theres no guarantee that a second referendum would have a different result to the first. In my gut, I feel it would be a significant swing to Remain, but my gut told me Remain would also win the 2016 vote. Lets not forget, it was a referendum which got us into this mess in the first place; a second one might not help.

And thats all based on everyone agreeing on what a second referendum question should be. Should the UK remain a member state of the EU? Yes/No; Should the UK leave the EU under the terms of the agreement negotiated by the government? Yes, leave under those terms/No, remain in the EU; Should the UK leave the EU under the terms of the agreement negotiated by the government? Yes, leave under those terms/No, leave with no deal; or some other option?

Six: Do absolutely nothing, watch the Conservatives make a total mess of the country and hope the electorate is forgiving enough to vote Labour in the next general election anyway.

Corbyns fudgy plan

For two years, the Labour Party has been dancing between the last three options, but as Jeremy Corbyn closed the partys Liverpool conference on Wednesday, it looked like he might have finally established something close to solid ground on which to stand.

Corbyn called for a Brexit that protects jobs and trade, promising determined opposition to one that does not. Note  that is distinctly not opposition to Brexit as a whole.

Labour respects the decision of the British people in the referendum, he said. But no-one can respect the conduct of the government since.

In the most popular line of his hour-long speech, he said Conservative anti-regulation arch-Brexiteers were uniting the politics of the 1950 with the economics of the 19th century, daydreaming of a Britannia that rules the waves and waives the rules.

Corbyn said the party would oppose the governments proposals and oppose a no-deal Brexit. If Theresa Mays Conservatives failed to get an agreement with EU members that met all of Labours criteria (plot twist: they wont), Labour would push for fresh elections and seize power and control of EU negotiations.

Yet, we have been offered no roadmap of how Labour would get such a deal  though its no secret that the Conservatives callous, threatening approach to negotiations so far has built massive resentment on the EU side, and its possible European leaders would welcome a new face at the table.

The policy is still a fudge  of course  but at least its something approaching coherence. Labour will have disappointed many of its members and supporters by taking this week to clarify it is indeed a pro-Brexit party.

The coming days and weeks will show whether Corbyn has done enough to persuade the rest of the country that the party is poised to deliver on its promises.

A policy has been declared, at long last. It is time for the partys leadership and backbenchers to put aside their dithering and squabbles and finally provide a unified opposition to this calamitous Conservative government.

In or out of Europe, its time to save Britain.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance.UN said the toll includes 14 children as concern over air raids killing more civilians grows in the country.

Two separate air attacks over the weekend killed at least 21 civilians in Afghanistan, including 14 children, the UN said.

In a statement late on Tuesday, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said the 21 dead included 12 members of a family, as US and Afghan forces ramp up aerial bombings against armed groups.

Citing preliminary findings, UNAMA said the 12 family members were killed on Sunday in an air attack in the eastern Maidan Wardak province during an Afghan military operation.

Ten of those killed were children whose ages ranged from six to 15, including eight girls, it said, adding it was unclear whether the air attacks were carried out by Afghan or NATO forces.

The latest civilian deaths were reported after UNAMA said it had credible reports of nine members of a family killed in an air raid at the home of a teacher in Tagab district in the Kapisa province on Saturday.

Afghan defence ministry spokesperson Ghafor Ahmad Jawed said the operation in Maidan Wardak freed eight Afghan soldiers allegedly abducted by the Taliban and killed 11 fighters.

He said the ministry is investigating both the incidents.

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There was no immediate comment from Afghan officials on the reported air attack in Kapisa province, according to The Associated Press.

Commander Grant Neeley, spokesperson for US forces in Afghanistan, said we are currently reviewing all operational, relevant and credible information regarding our operations in Wardak and Kapisa provinces, including information provided by our Afghan partners and local leaders.

Referring to civilian casualties he said, we take more care to avoid them than anyone else, ever.

UNAMAs findings support earlier comments from provincial council member Ahmad Jahfari who told AFP news agency that 12 members of a family had been killed in an air attack targeting Taliban fighters.

A villager named Abdullah said two of his sisters died in the attack. Three other houses were also destroyed, he said. They wanted to bomb a Taliban prison about 100m from our house.

Rise in civilian deaths

UNAMA expressed its strong concern at the rising number of civilian casualties from air attacks this year.

Air attacks killed 149 people and wounded more than 200 other civilians in the first half of 2018, up 52 percent from the same period last year.

The figure accounted for roughly seven percent of total civilian casualties for the six-month period.

One of the worst incidents occurred in the northern province of Kunduz in April, when an Afghan air attack on a religious gathering killed or wounded 107 people, mostly children, a previous UNAMA report said.

The government and military said the attack had targeted a Taliban base where senior members of the group were planning attacks.

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US and Afghan forces have dramatically increased air offensives against Taliban and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) fighters in the past year as they try to get the upper hand in the 17-year war.

US air force data shows it employed 746 weapons in July, the highest monthly total since November 2010.

That is more than double the 350 munitions used in July 2017, a month before US President Donald Trump announced his new strategy for Afghanistan, which gave American forces greater leeway to go after armed groups.

Afghanistans fledgling air force has also accelerated bombardment as the US beefs up the countrys aerial capability with more aircraft and better weapons.Pledge comes after ruling party casts doubt over results of contentious presidential election, citing irregularities.

Male, Maldives  Security forces in the Maldives have promised to uphold results of a contentious presidential election amid opposition fears that defeated President Abdulla Yameen was seeking to extend his rule.

The beloved people of the Maldives have made their decision known in an election, and the army will uphold that decision, Captain Ibrahim Azim said in a message to reporters on Wednesday.

The police also said they will respect and uphold the results of the vote.

The pledges came after the ruling party called on the national elections commission to wait until a Sunday deadline to publish final results of the September 23 vote, alleging systematic irregularities.

Yameen, accused of jailing nearly all of his opponents, had conceded defeat shortly after provisional results released on Monday showed the opposition candidate, Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, winning 58 percent of ballots cast.

The outcome was hailed as a victory for democracy in the Indian Ocean island nation.

The president said he accepted the peoples decision and intended to stay on in office until the end of his term on November 17.

But just two days later, Ahmed Nihan, leader of the ruling Progressive Party of the Maldives (PPM), told reporters in the Maldives capital, Male, that there were allegations of systematic and planned irregularities in the vote.

As a political party, we have a responsibility to check when we receive such reports, he said.

Party monitors claimed officials at polling stations did not check the authenticity of each and every ballot paper, Nihan said. The PPM has launched an investigation into the complaints and that was why it asked the elections commission to wait on publishing the final results, he said.

Contesting results

The opposition, which has pledged to investigate allegations of corruption and rights abuses against Yameen, denounced the move.

Ahmed Mahloof, an opposition politician, said he was very worried.

Yameen has not accepted his defeat and is now planning to annul the election through the courts, he said.

The police, army, the Supreme Court and the High Court must not let that happen.

Transparency Maldives, an election monitoring group, said it was concerned by Nihans statements.

Aiman Rasheed, advocacy and communications director for the group, said despite the governments crackdown on dissent ahead of the vote, election day proceeded relatively smoothly and the problems noted were not significant enough to impact the outcome of the election.

Nihan, the ruling party legislator, said they were yet to file a complaint at court.

If they do, it would not be the first time election results have been contested in the Maldives.

In 2013, the Supreme Court annulled results of a first round of polling in which Yameen came second. The top court also cancelled and delayed the rescheduled polling several times, citing irregularities in the vote.

Yameen eventually won that election with a narrow margin of 6,000 votes.

Ahmed Shareef, president of the elections commission and a key ally of Yameen, confirmed the PPM sent a letter alleging there were issues that can affect the outcome of the election.

But we have not seen a concrete case about what they may be, he said.

If there is no legal hurdle, such as a court order, we will announce the results on Sunday, he added.

In the immediate aftermath of the vote, the elections commission said the poll proceeded in a calm and orderly manner adding there were no complaints that could affect the result.

James Dauris, United Kingdoms ambassador to the Maldives, urged the elections commission to publish the final election results without delay to facilitate a smooth transfer of power.

We know from conversations with lots of people in #Maldives this week how much everyone is looking forward to @ElectionsMv formally confirming the results of Sunday's presidential election, so that the process of organising an orderly transfer of power to @ibusolih can begin. https://t.co/dt6x4s4m0M  James Dauris (@JamesDauris) September 26, 2018

As rumours swirled over the ruling partys move, many Maldivians took to social media to express concern, and urged Yameen to ensure a smooth transfer of power immediately.

There were also calls for the presidents arrest.

I dont believe vagu Yaameen will give a smooth transfer of presidency, theres something fishy, I really hope colation really watching his moves hes someone cant accept defeat, he him self said publicly @AhmedSaeedGahaa @SusanIbrahim @Lucasjalyl @ZZahirbe  Hassan (@Venubadeyri) September 25, 2018

I still think that this is the calm before the storm. YAG will not give up that easily.  Aminath Shahida (@aminathshahida) September 26, 2018

With an airport on every corner why havent some ballot boxes still made it to Male after 3 days? @ElectionsMv should confirm results without delay to avoid further injustice & deterioration of democracy when people have clearly expressed thats what they voted against.  Shifaan Thowfeequ (@cuynchips) September 26, 2018

The power transitional period should not be longer than 48 hours after the election results, & it's a matter of urgent to amend the period stated in the law, as this period of 45 days is a blank check for those criminals in ruling party, who usurps the wealth of this nation,  Fuad Zahir (@FuadZahir) September 26, 2018

Isha Afeef reported from Male. Zaheena Rasheed reported and wrote from Colombo, Sri Lanka.Ji Chaoqun was allegedly tasked with providing Chinese intelligence with biographical data about eight US citizens.

A Chinese national who came to the US on a student visa and later enlisted in the army reserves has been arrested in Chicago accused of helping Beijing attempt to recruit scientists and engineers.

Ji Chaoquns arrest came on Tuesday, months after he voluntarily admitted his work to US undercover agents.

He was allegedly tasked with providing Chinese intelligence with biographical information about eight US citizens  some of whom were US defence contractors.

The 27-year-old, who first arrived in Chicago in 2013 to study electrical engineering on a student visa, was charged with one count of knowingly acting as an agent of a foreign government without prior notification to the US Attorney General.

According to a court affidavit, Ji was working at the direction of a high-level intelligence officer in Chinas ministry of state security, which handles civilian intelligence collection and is responsible for counter-intelligence and foreign intelligence, as well as political security.

Spy targets

All eight of the people Ji allegedly researched were naturalised US citizens who were born in Taiwan or China, according to authorities.

The targets either currently worked or were recently retired from a career in the science and technology industry.

An affidavit filed in federal court by an FBI investigator specialising in espionage, claims among the people targeted was an engineer at one of the worlds top aircraft engine suppliers for both commercial and military aircraft.

After one of Jis handlers was arrested, he met with US undercover agents in April and May, and admitted to his work, which included collecting background checks, the affidavit said.

He allegedly told the undercover agents: They just wanted me to purchase some documents on their behalf. Their reason was just because it was inconvenient for them to make payments from China.

Ji enlisted in the army reserves, according to the US Attorneys office, but failed to disclose his foreign contacts to the military.Some living in the places hardest hit say theyve become disillusioned by politicians empty promises.

Sao Paulo, Brazil  Marcos Alves da Silva stands in the kitchen of his home where he lives with his wife Maria de Lourdes, their seven children and four grandchildren.

They live on Morro da Mutuca, a hillside community of red brick homes, flanked by Atlantic Forest, with unpaved streets that turn to thick mud when it rains, in Parelheiros, a poor semi-rural district on the far-flung outskirts of Sao Paulo.

Since Brazil plunged into a deep recession three years ago, 40-year-old Marcos finds work increasingly scarce. The informal day jobs he does as a bricklayer or handyman pay less than they used to and he often ends up going to the streets to collect scrap and recyclables to sell.

In the past if I earned 100 Brazilian real [about $24], it would be enough to buy lots of things at the supermarket, he says. But these days hell work for just 30 real (less than $7.50).

The familys kitchen cupboard contains just half a bag of rice, some flour and salt. The fridge is broken. Inside are some bottles of water and a plastic bag filled with small chunks of pink meat.

These are the leftover fatty bits, we ask the butcher shop to give them to us, he tells Al Jazeera.

In less than two weeks, Brazilians will head to the polls to elect new president and representatives, but voters here in Parelheiros have little faith in politicians, with extreme poverty and hunger on the rise. Experts blame high unemployment from the recession and falling incomes, coupled with deep austerity measures.

High unemployment, extreme poverty

In the run-up to Brazils last elections in 2014 unemployment was at a record low and the country was removed from the UN Hunger Map.

Exact figures on how much extreme poverty has risen since then are hard to come by.

According to one study undertaken by Action Aid Brazil and Brazilian Institute of Social and Economic Analysis (Ibase), extreme poverty rose from 5.2 million people in 2014 to 11.9 million in 2017, based on the July 2017 definition of extreme poverty, which includes those living on less than 102.44 real (about $25) a month.

For Sao Paulos LCA Consultancy, using data from Brazils Continuous National Household Sample Survey (PNAD), extreme poverty rose from 13.3 million in 2016 to 14.8 million in 2017, using the World Banks definition of living on $1.90 or less a day.

Unemployment remains stubbornly high at 12.3 percent or 12.8 million people, according to Brazils Institute of Geography and Statistics, a scant recovery since its 13.7 percent peak in early 2017.

Experts say unemployment rates will continue to recover slowly, with most the qualified the first to benefit and the poorest last.

Any initial economic recovery will not reach people in extreme poverty, says Cosmo Donato, an economist at LCA. They are historically disadvantaged.

Brazils northeast concentrates the highest number of people living in extreme poverty with 8.1 million in 2017 according to LCA [Gustavo Oliveira/Al Jazeera]

Marcoss wife Maria has been unemployed for two years and does odd cleaning jobs when she can.

Thank god, something small appears for me every now and again but its really difficult, 43-year-old Maria says.

The family hasnt had cooking gas for the last six months because of recent price hikes. Instead, they cook using an electric hob and pan that Marcos found in the street and fixed. As with the other homes in the community, they use pirated electricity.

Brazils northeast concentrates the highest number of people living in extreme poverty with 8.1 million in 2017 according to LCA.

Here, in greater Sao Paulo, extreme poverty grew by 35 percent in 2017 to 3.8 million people and isolated semi-rural regions like Parelheiros  a three-hour bus ride from the citys business centre  are especially bad off.

Its a region of extremely high social vulnerability, says Adriana Rezende da Silva, head of the local governments social assistance programme for the region of Parelheiros and neighbouring Marsilac.

I wont vote for anyone

Here, apathy for the upcoming elections is high.

I wont vote for anyone, all they do is make promises, Marcos says.

Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Brazils most popular politician, who is credited with implementing social policies that lifted tens of millions out of poverty, is in jail serving a 12-year sentence for corruption.

He says he is innocent and the charges are politically motivated to prevent him from running again.

Id vote for Lula, but hes in prison, so I dont know, said Rubens Moreira da Silva, 50, who didnt mention Lulas replacement, former Sao Paulo mayor Fernando Haddad.

Brazilians head to the polls to elect new president and representatives in October, but voters in Parelheiros have little faith in politicians [Gustavo Oliveira/Al Jazeera]

According to the Datafolha polling institute, 12 percent of voters will abstain from this election, 49 percent of whom are low-income voters, with a family income of less than two monthly minimum salaries of BR$954. (about $230). Of the five percent of undecided voters, 64 percent fall into this income bracket.

Current frontrunner Jair Bolsonaro, the far-right former army captain, polls poorest among low-income voters.

Rubens has health problems but works every day as a handyman to support the nine people that live in his small house. His son Paulo Sergio da Silva, 23, has been unemployed for six months.

He and his girlfriend Aline Cristina Ferreira da Silva, 19, have a six-month-old daughter.

Its all really difficult these days with this crisis, he says.

Their neighbour Maura Araujo da Silva, 58, has been unemployed for four years and survives doing occasional cleaning jobs. Her son Marcello Cardoso dos Santos, 34, who has anemia, has been unemployed for more than 10 years and does odd jobs at a local Evangelical Church.

Maura receives 90 Brazlian real (about $22) each month from Brazils family grant, a government programme affected by cuts. About 1.5 million families were removed in between 2016 and 2017.

Its barely enough to pay for one canister of cooking gas, she says.

Unemployed Elionai Moreira, 24, says it would be a miracle if her gas lasts long enough to cook a pot of beans. She said she and her husband Fernando skip meals in order to feed their two young children and make repairs to the house they are building.

We have to choose between eating and fixing the house, she tells Al Jazeera.

It is likely that Brazil will shortly return to the United Nations hunger map, says Francisco Menezes, an economist and researcher for Action Aid and Ibase.

The United Nations hunger map is defined by more than five percent of the country not consuming the recommended number of calories a day.

Menzes blames a combination of high unemployment due to the recession and austerity, which began under former president Dilma Rousseff in 2015.

Austerity then accelerated under current president Michel Temer when Rousseff was controversially impeached. According to Menzes, Brazil has returned to levels of extreme poverty of 2005.

Brazil has gone back 12 years in three, he says.Corbyn promises radical plan at Liverpool Labour conference

UK opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn has addressed his partys conference, taking aim at everything from racism, to Donald Trump and Brexit.Anwar Gargash says UAE will support UN proposals for new peace talks after meeting with UN Special Envoy in New York.

An Emirati official has said the United Arab Emirates will support UN proposals for new peace talks on Yemen.

UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash tweeted on Tuesday: very productive discussions on Yemen today in NY with Special Envoy Martin Griffiths. Reaffirmed our strong support for UN-led political process after Geneva setback. Will fully support UN proposals for new talks soon.

The comments come just two weeks after UN-sponsored peace talks collapsed before they could officially start and as a Saudi-UAE led alliance advances on densely populated areas of the Houthi-held Hodeidah city.

Very productive discussions on Yemen today in NY with Special Envoy Martin Griffith.Reaffirmed our strong support for UN-led political process after Geneva setback. Will fully support UN proposals for new talks soon. pic.twitter.com/wGus9jirm1  .   (@AnwarGargash) September 26, 2018

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The failed talks, which would have been the first in nearly two years, were scheduled to take place in the Swiss city of Geneva on September 6 but the Houthi delegation failed to arrive, accusing the Saudi-UAE alliance fighting in Yemen of blocking them from travelling.

Fighting has since intensified in the war-ravaged country, most significantly with a fresh offensive to retake the strategic western city of Hodeidah from the Houthis.

The UN has spent the past few weeks scrambling to mediate between the warring sides, with Martin Griffiths, the UN special envoy for Yemen, holding separate, face-to-face talks with the Yemeni government and Houthi rebels.

More than 120,000 displaced

Aid agencies have said that the humanitarian crisis has worsened dramatically, warning that the latest offensive could have devastating consequences for the civilian population, which is already facing famine.

More than 120,000 have already fled Hodeidah, a city of about 600,000, which was seized by the Houthis in late 2014.





The Giant Brigades, a military unit backed by the UAE, has advanced on the citys outskirts, and according to the Washington Post, Emirati soldiers are stationed less than 15km from Hodeidah.

The UAE entered Yemens war in March 2015 as part of a Saudi-led coalition after the Houthis, traditionally based in the northwest of the country, overran much of the country, including the capital Sanaa in 2014.

More than three years on, the Saudi-UAE alliance, with logistical support from the US, has carried out more than 16,000 air raids in an attempt to reverse their gains.

So far, the alliance has failed to achieve its objective of reinstating the internationally recognised government of President Abu-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, with the Houthis continuing to hold Sanaa and much of the north.

According to the UN, at least 10,000 people have been killed since the Saudi and Emirati-led coalition intervened in 2015. The death toll, however, has not been updated in years and is likely to be significantly higher.Relatives have no knowledge of what has happened to Abudujilili Supi after his arrest in the UAE last week.

The family of a Uighur man detained in the United Arab Emirates has expressed concern that he will be deported to China, where the largely Muslim ethnic group are subject to an array of repressive measures.

Emirati police officers arrested Abudujilili Supi on Thursday after he left afternoon prayers at the Abdullah bin Rawaha mosque in Sharjah, where he worked as a muezzin, the person who calls the prayer at mosques.

Supis wife, who witnessed the arrest, received no explanation about why her husband was being taken away but received a phone call from him three days later.

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In that conversation, Supi told his wife, who has since fled to Turkey, that he was being sent to China and that authorities had yet to respond to his request to be sent to a safer country.

Supi spent four years studying Arabic and Islamic studies in Cairo before moving to the UAE, where his family said he resided legally.

While in Egypt, he had visited China twice on holiday without issue. But by early this year, reports were starting to surface detailing Beijings increasing repression of the Uighurs and other Muslim groups.

Chinese officials have banned Islamic rituals, such as fasting during Ramadan, and established what they called re-education camps to force Uighurs to give up Islamic practices in the countrys Xinjiang region.

Things were good, he was enjoying his job, his brother Abdul Mijit told Al Jazeera. Mijit said his brother had never fallen foul of the law: We dont have a problem with any government, we understand the laws of every country, and we obey the laws of where we are living.

Supi works as a muezzin at in Sharjah in the UAE [Al Jazeera/Amnesty International]

Instead, he believes his brothers arrest is part of Chinas move to extend its persecution of the community to Uighurs living abroad.

In July, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited the UAE, becoming the first leader of China to do so in 29 years. During the visit, the UAE and China announced a comprehensive strategic partnership to enhance cooperation in all fields to higher levels.

Pretext of fighting terrorism

The largely Muslim Turkic speaking minority has long complained of persecution by China but the situation has dramatically escalated this year with reports that more than a million Uighurs are being held in what activists call concentration camps in Xinjiang.

China rejects the description, but rights groups and the UN have called on Beijing to release the prisoners dismissing the pretext of fighting terrorism.

In virtually all cases of Uighurs returning home, they are sent to the mass internment camps, said Rian Thum, a historian of Islam in China, adding authorities used a number of means to exert pressure on Uighurs living abroad, including recruiting informants and the use of family members still in Xinjiang to pressure exiles to return home.

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Uighurs believe China is exerting its considerable diplomatic muscle to pressure members of the community living abroad, and that Muslim countries, where many have sought refuge have barely reacted to the persecution of their co-religionists.

Many Uighurs are frustrated by a general slowness to act and indifference across the world, which of course includes Muslim-majority states, said Thum.

Uighur exiles are well aware that they are much more likely to be protected from China if they are in the European Union, Canada, or the United States, than they are in almost any Muslim majority country.

But the lack of forceful and official condemnation of the internment camps is just as striking in European states that emphasise human rights as it is in Middle Eastern and South Asian states that emphasize Muslim solidarity.Director of US intelligence agency says focus will be on recruiting human assets to help target Iran and China.

Gina Haspel, the first female director of the CIA, has made recruiting more foreign spies one of her main priorities in order to align intelligence collection with the US foreign policy.

Delivering a talk on Monday at the University of Louisville in her home state of Kentucky, Haspel said more spies would be recruited to address evolving threats not only from groups such as Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) or al-Qaeda, but also from countries like Iran and China.

The people in Iran, Haspel said, are suffering because their economy has been mismanaged.

She said she was surprised at the amount of money Iran was spending to prop up the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and expand its influence in Iraq.

Haspel said the CIA was monitoring Chinas global ambitions, including its investments in Africa, Latin America, the Pacific Islands and South Asia.

They want to be dominant in the Asia-Pacific region, of course, and unfortunately they are working to diminish US influence in order to advance their own goals in the region, she said.

Haspel said the CIA strategy would be to increase the number of its officers stationed overseas, thus allowing the US government to have a more robust posture in international matters.

Recalling her rise through male-dominated ranks, the CIA director said she wants to champion diversity at the spy agency.

Our global mission at CIA demands that we recruit and retain Americas best and brightest, regardless of gender, race or cultural background, she said.

More humints

The 61-year-old top US official said the CIA is building strong partnerships with other intelligence agencies, and is focusing on recruiting more human assets, called humints  or human intelligence operatives.

While the CIA will continue to use all forms of intelligence collection, Haspel said humints will remain a high priority because they not only deliver a states secrets, but also its intent.

Technical forms of collections are vital. But a good human source is unique and can deliver decisive intelligence on our adversaries secrets, even their intent, she said.

In recent decades, human intelligence collection has taken a back seat, while more modern forms including electronic and signal intelligence methods are more common.

In the turbulent days following the September 11 attacks, the CIA prioritised electronic spying and interception in its counterterrorism efforts, relegating humints to the backseat.

The CIA depended almost entirely on electronic intelligence in those days, a former high-ranking CIA officer told Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity.

Only about 10-20 percent of CIA collection currently comes from its human sources or spies around the world. Haspel is taking the CIA back to its core mission: collection of human intelligence and analysis. he said

Recruiting spies is an art of seduction. It is all about seducing the person sitting across the table from you to commit reason against his own country. he added.

Though reenergizing Humint covert methods is not without its shortingcomings if it used to deliver tailored intelligence designed to fit the White Houses political objectives.

In such case veteran spies such as Bob Baer, a former CIA case officer warns of political pressure applied on the CIA to deliver certain political agendas

This would be called cooking the books or cherry-picking intelligence to fit certain political objectives, Baer told Al Jazeera.

Citing the famous case of the CIAs failure in assessing the weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in Iraq, Baer said it happened because the US based its findings on unreliable Iraqi informants.

The unsubstantiated intelligence assessment regarding former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein having WMDs provided the pretext behind the 2003 invasion of the country by US forces, which killed thousands of people and destabilised the Middle East.

No CIA agent even met the Iraqi informant, code-named Curveball, to verify his information, Baer said. It was a violation of the CIA protocol.

Haspel said the CIA is currently pushing for more language training especially in Arabic, Farsi, Turkish and Chinese. But according to former CIA officers who spoke to Al-Jazeera on the condition of anonymity, CIA language programs have always lagged behind the CIA other programs.

They cited her past role supervising a covert detention site in Thailand where suspects were waterboarded, an interrogation technique that simulates drowning.

Follow Ali Younes on Twitter: @ali_reportsI could count the ribs on her chest: Yemeni refugees starving

Many refugees who fled to Djibouti are facing a severe war with lack of basic needs and humanitarian aid.India PM Modi faces corruption allegations

Narendra Modi accused of awarding part of the contract to a prominent businessman who is considered close to him.The mother of four has been involved in organising protests demanding better services in the city.

Masked gunmen have shot dead a human rights activist, and mother of four, outside a supermarket in Basra, Iraqs southern city wracked by violent protests.

A police official said Soad al-Ali, 46, who has been involved in organising protests demanding better services in the city, was killed instantly on Tuesday by the attackers who fled the scene after shooting at her and her husband as they were getting in their car.

Alis husband was wounded and was being treated in a hospital. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Tuesdays attack.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to give official statements.

The killing, which occurred on a street in the Abbasiya district in the centre of Basra, is the first such incident since protests erupted this summer.

Anti-government protests

Angry Basra residents have repeatedly taken to the streets in recent weeks to protest failing government services, including water contamination that sent tens of thousands to hospitals.

Earlier this month, protests turned violent when demonstrators attacked and torched government offices, the headquarters of the Iranian-backed armed groups and Irans consulate in Basra  in a show of anger over what many residents perceive as Irans outsized control over local affairs.

Some armed group leaders in Basra accused protesters of colluding with the US [Nabil al-Jurani/AP]

The events in Basra reflect the growing influence of the armed groups, which played a major role in retaking Iraqi territory from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group.

Activists have described a campaign of intimidation and arbitrary detentions by the powerful armed and political groups that control Basra, a city of more than two million people in southern Iraqs Shia Muslim heartland.

Some armed group leaders in Basra accused protesters of colluding with the United States, which has long worked to curb Iranian influence in Iraq.

Ali has been pictured during a meeting she held with Timmy Davis, the US consul general in the province of Basra, more than a month ago.Abe said he is willing to meet Kim to resolve the long-standing issue of kidnapped Japanese citizens in North Korea.

Japans Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a longtime hardliner on North Korea, said he was willing to meet Kim Jong-un at a speech at the UN General Assembly.

Abe, who one year ago warned at the United Nations that the window for diplomacy with North Korea was closing, took a more open but still cautious tone on Tuesday in his latest address to the world body.

But he said that any summit would be devoted to resolving a decades-old row over North Koreas abductions of Japanese civilians  a deeply emotive issue for much of the Japanese public on which Abe built his political career.

In order to resolve the abduction issue, I am also ready to break the shell of mutual distrust with North Korea, get off to a new start and meet face to face with Chairman Kim Jong-un, Abe said in his UN address.

But if we are to have one, then I am determined that it must contribute to the resolution of the abduction issue. Abe added.

He stressed that no summit was yet in the works  and appealed to Kim to show his own readiness.

North Korea is now at a crossroads at which it will either seize or fail to seize the historic opportunity it was afforded, Abe said.

North Korea kidnapped scores of Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s to train the regimes spies in Japanese language and culture.

Japans then-prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, travelled to Pyongyang in 2002 and 2004 to seek a new relationship with the current leaders father Kim Jong-il and was told by North Korea that remaining abduction victims were dead  a stance adamantly rejected by Japanese family members and campaigners.

Speculation has been rising that Abe could meet Kim, who reportedly told Trump during their summit in June in Singapore that he was willing to talk to regional rival Japan.

With South Koreas dovish President Moon Jae-in also courting Kim, fears have risen in Japan that it could be shut out of any ultimate resolution on North Korea if it refuses dialogue.Chicago, Illinois  Activists and their supporters marched to the door of Chicagos Cook County Courthouse on Tuesday night to mark what would have been the 21st birthday of Laquan McDonald, the black teen shot dead in 2014 by white police officer Jason Van Dyke, who is now on trial for first-degree murder.

Chanting Slave catchers, KKK, killer cops of today, and singing a mournful rendition of Happy Birthday, the two dozen protesters called for Van Dykes conviction, and warned an acquittal could roil a city struggling to cope with deep racial divides and a long history of police brutality.

Our statement today is that [McDonalds] life matters, Reverend Marshall Hatch, who helped lead the vigil, told Al Jazeera. If his life doesnt matter, anybodys life does not matter.

Van Dyke, who pleaded not guilty, shot McDonald 16 times on the night of October 20, 2014, as the then-17-year-old appeared to walk away from the officer, carrying a small knife. The incident became a flashpoint in Chicago, exposing deep mistrust of police by the citys large black community at a time when police killings of young black men are at the fore of US national conversation, and as city authorities struggle to rein in historic levels of gang-related gun violence.

Eric Russell of the Tree of Life Justice League leads a prayer for slain teen Laquan McDonald [Jason Patinkin/Al Jazeera]

Van Dykes trial is in its second week, with the defence currently calling witnesses. At issue is whether he was justified in using lethal force against McDonald, who was accused of breaking into cars and going on a wild rampage earlier in the evening. The Chicago police officer remains suspended without pay pending a verdict in the trial.

At Tuesdays vigil, Hatch and other clergy pressed their palms against the rain-soaked court doors and held their clenched fists in the air as they prayed for McDonald. His life has been meaningful, Hatch said.

Dash-cam footage

But the gathering was also a forum for anger and outrage at police and city authorities. Some protesters listed names of additional young black people who have died at the hands of police.

The anger over the McDonald case stems not just from the killing itself, but also from the police and citys handling of the aftermath.

Officers at the scene initially claimed that McDonald raised the knife at Van Dyke. But dashboard camera footage of the incident, released more than a year after the shooting following a Freedom of Information Act request, contradicted those accounts.

The release of the footage prompted massive street protests, accusations of a cover-up, and murder charges for Van Dyke. The citys top cop was fired and voters voted out the States Attorney for Cook County.

Laquan McDonald, right, walks on a road before he was shot 16 times by police officer Jason Van Dyke in Chicago, in this still image taken from a police vehicle dash camera video [File: Handout/Chicago Police Department/Reuters]

The release of the video further led the Federal Department of Justice to investigate the Chicago Police Department, resulting in a 2017 report that described that a pattern of unreasonable use of force by police and a lack of accountability for wayward officers. The report said such systematic deficiencies disproportionately affected people of colour in the city.

It really assaults you at your fibre of your being, said Niko Jones, a black 26-year-old from the South Side at the vigil who said he has suffered police harassment. Going about your day in society, you can get blown away, or your friends can get blown away by the police  You go into stores and people follow you around. Its wrapped up in all of this, this white supremacy.

In August, Van Dyke told the Chicago Tribune he is not a racist.

We dont expect justice

Despite coming under heavy criticism since McDonalds death, Chicago police have also been tasked with curtailing some of the worst gang and gun violence in the United States. Chicago had over 700 homicides in 2016 and 650 last year. Thirteen people were killed in one weekend this August.

The 2017 Department of Justice Report noted that Chicago police officers feel abandoned by the public and generally feel that they are insufficiently trained and supported to do their work effectively.

Laquan McDonald was shot 16 times by Chicago Police Department Officer Jason Van Dyke in 2014 [File: Paul Beaty/AP Photo]

The malaise is widespread. Despite the fervent demands for a guilty verdict at the birthday vigil, those gathered expressed mixed expectations for the trials outcome. Hatch predicted a hung jury. Others were less confident things would go their way.

We personally dont expect justice, the young people that Ive been working with and speaking to, youth activist and hip-hop artist Jessica Disu told reporters. This courthouse has not shown us justice.

An acquittal could raise tensions again in Chicago. Police announced they would expand officers hours and cancel days off to increase security around the time of the verdict, the Tribune reported Monday. The defence could wrap up its case next week.

Protesters hold a banner demanding the conviction of Jason Van Dyke [Jason Patinkin/Al Jazeera]

Tyshondra Barnes, a writer at the vigil clutching a black and white notebook containing a new poem dedicated to Laquan, predicted chaos if Van Dyke walks free.

He was wrong for what he did, and he needs to pay, she told Al Jazeera, adding that she would not join in protests.

Hatch warned the city is a tinderbox of disaffected, unemployed black youth.

There are parts of the community that are in very desperate straits, and the smallest trigger can really just ignite something that none of us wants to see, he said.Military arrests three top police officers and takes control of the entire police force in the port city.

Police force in the southern Mexicos Acapulco city has been disarmed and placed under investigation on suspicions of ties to organised crime.

Mexicos military arrested three top police officers in a massive ground and air operation around the Pacific coast citys police headquarters, Guerrero state security spokesman Roberto Alvarez said on Tuesday.

Two police commanders were arrested on murder charges, and the highway police chief for carrying unlicensed weapons, he said.

Municipal security secretary Max Lorenzo Sedano and his entire department are under investigation, he added.

The decision implemented by the Guerrero Coordination Group was a consequence of the increase in crime that has been registered in the municipality, and the lack of action by the police to deal with it, the government said in a statement after the security operation.

The state security ministry announced it would take over policing duties in Acapulco indefinitely.

The US issued a travel alert, asking its citizens not to travel to the area, due to the high level of crime and violence.

Acapulco in southern Guerrero state, once a glamorous beach resort, has fallen on hard times as entrenched drug crime has transformed it into one of the most murderous cities in the world.

Guerrero is a hub for opium poppy production and the scene of frequent violent clashes between warring drug cartels.

Translation:Members of the Navy disarm municipal elements and take Secretary Max Lorenzo Sedano inside the barracks, VO television, a local TV Channel wrote.

https://twitter.com/VoTvmx/status/1044651911478218754?ref_src=twsrc^tfw

In July, the company Bimbo suspended its operations in certain parts of Acapulco due to the violence and insecurity in the area.

However, this is not the first time such an incident has taken place. Early this year 28 police officers were arrested in the town of Ocampo, Michoacan, for allegedly obstructing the investigation into the killing of a politician.

There were over 23,000 murders across Mexico last year, the highest in records going back to 1997, as rival drug gangs splintered into smaller, more bloodthirsty groups following more than a decade of a military-led campaign to battle the cartels.Palestinian refugee schoolchildren went on strike across the occupied West Bank, protesting US funding cuts.

Thousands of Palestinian schoolchildren from refugee camps across the occupied West Bank went on strike, protesting US cuts to the United Nations agency responsible for Palestinian refugees.

More than 130,000 schoolchildren and refugee residents in the West Bank participated in the protests, according to Imad al-Din Ishtewi, the coordinator for Sanaoud, the national committee for the return of refugees.

Our people categorically reject the unjust American decisions, he told local news agency Maan. We have begun to mobilise momentum through popular [protest] in order to uphold our inalienable rights of return and the right to self-determination.





In August, the US government announced it would no longer fund the United Nations Relief Works and Agency (UNRWA), sparking a funding crisis.

UNRWA provides benefits and services  such as schooling, healthcare, social services, and food aid  to five million Palestinian refugees in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria.

Most of the refugees are descendants of the 700,000 Palestinians who were forcibly displaced from their homes in the run-up to the establishment of Israel in 1948.

The US had been UNRWAs largest contributor by far, providing it with $350m annually  roughly a quarter of its overall budget.

Speaking from a student protest in the Jalazone refugee camp in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, Al Jazeeras Imran Khan said that the overlying message from the protesters is that dignity is priceless.

What they are saying is that the US needs to refund those UNRWA programmes that allow schools like this to function, he said.

These people are very worried that their school does not have enough funding to take them to the end of the month, never mind to the end of the academic term.

They are worried that their school will have to shut down, and its the case of the schools like this across the occupied West Bank where they simply dont know where the money is going to come from.

UNRWA, he continued, has been looking to other donors to try to make up the shortfall in funding, but has not been successful so far.

UNRWA simply doesnt know where the money is going to come from, Khan said. They do say they have some money to be able to keep some programmes open, although which ones they are they dont really know.

The protests followed similar rallies in the Gaza Strip, where on Monday, the UNRWA employees union went on strike to protest against job losses and US funding cuts. More than 250 UNRWA schools, as well as medical centres and food aid distribution points, were shut down for the day.

Union officials said that the contracts of dozens of engineers have been terminated by UNRWA in recent months.

The funding cuts have also forced the agency to close its mental health programme, which had provided direct services to Palestinian refugees in Gaza and had employed about 430 people.Cool response after Trump says he now backs a two-state solution to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Palestinian officials rejected US President Donald Trumps comments supporting a two-state solution for Palestinians and Israelis, saying American policies were destroying any hope for peace.

Trump made the statement during the annual United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday after meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He said a two-state solution could resolve the decades-old Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

It was the first time since taking office that Trump endorsed a two-state solution as the best way to resolve the conflict.

Husam Zomlot, head of the recently closed Palestinian mission in Washington, DC, denounced the US presidents comments.

Their words go against their actions and their action is absolutely clear [and] is destroying the possibility of the two-state solution, Zumlot said.

Works the best





Trump also said he wanted to unveil details of what he has long referred to as the deal of the century to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the next two to three months.

According to reports, the proposal prohibits the return of more than five million Palestinian refugees and removes the status of Jerusalem from negotiations.

I like a two-state solution. Thats what I think works best. Thats my feeling, said Trump.

Netanyahu said after meeting Trump he was not surprised at the US presidents preference for a two-state solution for peace, Israeli media reports said.

Last week, the US announced it was shutting down the Palestine Liberation Organizations (PLO) diplomatic office in Washington over the Palestinian Authoritys refusal to enter into US-brokered negotiations with Israel.

The move came amid deteriorating ties between the two sides in the wake of Trumps controversial recognition of Jerusalem as Israels capital late last year and the relocation of its embassy there.

T oughest of all deals

I really believe something will happen. They say its the toughest of all deals, Trump said of attaining peace between the two sides.

It is a dream of mine to get that done prior to the end of my first term  I think a lot of progress has been made. I think that Israel wants to do something and I think that the Palestinians actually want to do something.

The Palestinian leadership, which sees East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state, suspended contacts with the US after it recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.





The Palestinians insist the status of the city is an issue to be negotiated between them and the Israelis.

In the past, Trump dropped the long-standing commitment to a two-state solution, saying he would back a single-state solution after a meeting with Netanyahu in February 2017. He later walked that back saying he would support a two-state solution if both sides agreed to it.

1967 borders

Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmud Abbas, told reporters in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah that Trump needs to act on his statement.

In response to what Trump said about the two-state solution, the two-state solution means to us that we have a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, Abu Rudeineh said. This is the only way to achieve peace.

He added Palestinians want to resolve all core issues of the conflict  which include borders, illegal settlements, refugees, security and the status of Jerusalem  according to United Nations resolutions.

Abbas will speak at the UN General Assembly on Thursday.

Trump said the embassy move to Jerusalem would actually help peace efforts, saying Israel would now have to make concessions to the Palestinians in any negotiations.

Israel got the first chip and its a big one. By taking off the table the embassy moving to Jerusalem, that was always the primary ingredient as to why deals couldnt get done, said Trump.

Now, thats off the table. Now, that will also mean that Israel will have to do something that is good for the other side.The 450km Haramain High-Speed railway, which cost $16bn, will link Mecca and Medina via the Red Sea city of Jeddah.

Saudi Arabia has launched a high-speed railway connecting Islams two holiest cities in a bid to improve traffic congestion for the millions of Muslim pilgrims that visit the country annually.

King Salman launched the 450km Haramain High-Speed Rail System linking Mecca and Medina via the Red Sea city of Jeddah on Tuesday.

The railway system, which has 35 trains capable of travelling at speeds of 300km per hour, will also transport regular travellers cutting the commute time between the holy cities from more than five hours to two hours.

The journey between the Haramain (two holy mosques) is now shorter and easier than at any time before, Transport Minister Nabil al-Amoudi told dignitaries gathered at the Jeddah station.

The project highlights the kingdoms commitment to serving Islam and Muslims. he added.

The railway will cut the commute time between the holy cities from more than five hours to two hours [Stephen Kalin/Reuters]

The rail project, described by local officials as the biggest transportation project in the region and dogged by several delays, was built at a cost of more than $16bn, according to Saudi media.

The transport network will have five stations: Mecca, Jeddah, King Abdullah Economic City, King Abdulaziz International Airport and Medina. The railway is due to begin operating commercially next Monday.

Officials said there will eight services a day until the end of this year, when services will be increased to 12.

In 2011, Saudi Arabia signed a deal for a Spanish consortium to build the rail track, supply 35 high-speed trains and handle a 12-year maintenance contract.

The kingdom is boosting its infrastructure spending and expanding its railways, including with a $22.5bn metro system under construction in the capital Riyadh, as it seeks to diversify its oil-dependent economy.

The annual hajj pilgrimage, which is to be held in September next year, attracts more than two million Muslims to the Mecca region.The foreign minister of Saudi Arabia, the ambassador of the United Arab Emirates to Washington, and the director of Israels Mossad spy agency have joined ranks in pushing for regime change in Iran.

Speaking alongside US National Security Adviser John Bolton and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Saudi Arabias Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir called for the overthrow of the Iranian government, saying the Islamic Republic was unlikely to change on its own volition.

Unless the pressure internally is extremely intense, I dont believe they will open up, al-Jubeir said at the United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) conference in New York City, which was attended by states that opposed the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.

How can we negotiate with a state that wants to kill us, Jubeir said in remarks carried by UAE newspaper The National.

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Saudi and Emirati officials welcomed Washingtons decision to abandon the 2015 Iran deal  known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)  under which Iran agreed to curb its nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief, it reported.

But Yousef al-Otaiba, the UAEs ambassador to the US, said external pressure was needed and would be key in changing Irans course.

I think any recalibration of Iranian foreign policy will come from external policy, said Otaiba, who added the isolation of Tehran must be backed up by European powers, Asian nations, as well as the United States.

If a missile is launched at Saudi Arabia and the UAE what will the reaction be and how will we be defended? he said.

I ask that hypothetically but its not really hypothetical. The Gulf countries, Israel, and the countries in the immediate vicinity are the ones at immediate risk.

Cant allow another Lebanon

Warning that Iran was orchestrating a takeover in Yemen, Otaiba said recent UN-led peace talks supposedly exposed Irans role in directing the Houthi leadership.

We have a vested interest in ensuring what happened in Lebanon does not happen in Yemen, said Otaiba, who blamed Iran for the failed peace talks in Geneva.

The talks, which would have been the first in nearly two years, were scheduled to take place in the Swiss city of Geneva on September 6 but the Houthi delegation failed to arrive, accusing the Saudi-UAE alliance fighting in Yemen of blocking them from travelling.

Our analysis tells us it was based on instructions from Tehran that they did not turn up, al-Otaiba said.

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Brian Hook, the State Departments special representative for Iran, also spoke at the summit and accused Iran of supplying the missiles fired by Houthi rebels into the kingdom and at the UAE.

Were accumulating risk in the Middle East by not getting at Irans proliferation, he said.

There is something brazen about this missile behaviour, theyre not even hiding it. This sort of escalation is deeply concerning and will be met with a swift and decisive response.

Oil and weapons

Military analysts at IHS Jane have suggested Iran could be aiding the Houthis with parts or technology, but added it would be difficult for Tehran to ship whole missiles to Yemen.

Another possibility, they say, is the missiles were acquired by Yemen from North Korea before the current conflict.

Since its withdrawal from the Iran deal, the Trump administration has slapped biting sanctions on Tehran in order to choke its oil exports  the main source of income for the country.

Some of Tehrans biggest oil customers appear to have succumbed to the US pressure with India  a major buyer of Iranian oil  cutting down on its imports.

However, top diplomats from France, Britain, Germany, China and Russia have agreed to establish a financial facility in the European Union to facilitate payments for Iranian imports and exports including oil.Vote scheduled for day after Supreme Court nominee and Ford are to testify about her allegation he sexually assault her.

The Republican-led Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled a vote on Friday on Brett Kavanaughs nomination to the US Supreme Court.

The committee vote is set to take place the day after Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford are to give evidence about her allegation he sexually assaulted her when they were teens.

The committee will be voting on whether to recommend Kavanaughs nomination to the full Senate. Senators were told to be prepared for a rare weekend session and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he was confident Kavanugh would be confirmed.

Kavanaugh has denied Fords claim and that of Deborah Ramirez, who has accused the nominee of exposing himself to her without consent during his time at Yale University.

Game playing

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump ramped up his criticism of Ford and Ramirez on Friday, calling the allegations against Kavanaugh a con game being played by Democrats.

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The lawyer representing Ramirez hit back, saying Republican staffers are involved in game playing. He accused Republicans of continually changing conditions of how Ramirez could tell her story. As of Tuesday, Ramirez had not been invited to give evidence.

Both women have called for an FBI investigation.

Trumps escalation in rhetoric came as the Judiciary Committee announced the hiring of Rachel Mitchell, a lawyer who is an expert sex crimes prosecutor for Thursdays hearing.

In a break from convention, Mitchell will question Ford and Kavanaugh on behalf of the committees Republican senators, 11 men. Typically, senators do the questioning themselves.

#MeToo

On Monday, women and their supporters from across the US walked out of their offices, business and homes to support Ford and Ramirez, as well as all women who have shared stories of sexual assault.

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The protests came on the same day a letter Ford sent to Republican Chuck Grassley, the Senate Judiciary chairman, was made public. In the letter, Ford said she faced death threats and was relying on her lawyers and Grassley to agree to conditions that will allow me to testify in a fair setting.

While I am frightened, please know, my fear will not hold me back from testifying and you will be provided answers to all of your questions, Ford wrote. A hearing is scheduled for Thursday.

Also on Monday, Kavanaugh said he would not step aside, saying the truth is Ive never sexually assaulted anyone, in high school or otherwise.

The controversy over Kavanaugh is unfolding just weeks before November 6 congressional elections in which Democrats are trying to take control of Congress from Trumps fellow Republicans, against a backdrop of the #MeToo movement fighting sexual harassment and assault.

According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, one in three women in the United States experience some form of sexual violence in their lives. About 63 percent of sexual assaults in the US are not reported to the police. More than 90 percent of sexual assault survivors on US college campuses do not report the incident.S-300 move is Moscows message to Israel to adopt restraint, experts say, but some doubt the transfer will happen.

Moscows decision to supply Syria with S-300 missile system has met a strong reaction from Israel but experts say the move will not risk the Israel-Russian relationship.

Some analysts doubted Russia will actually transfer the S-300 to the government of President Bashar al-Assad, who has presided over more than seven-year-old civil war.

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said on Monday his country would transfer the modern S-300 air defence system to the Syrian armed forces within two weeks  the same day the Kremlin accused Israel pilots of premeditated actions over the drowning of a Russian plane that killed 15 soldiers last week.

Russian officials had described manoeuvres by Israeli fighter jets during the incident as hostile and have accused Israel of violating Syrias sovereignty, breaching the Russian-Israeli de-confliction agreement.

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For several years, Israel and Russia have maintained a special hotline to prevent their air forces from clashing overcrowded skies over Syria.

The most recent incident was the worst case of friendly fire between Russia and Syria.

It posed a threat to the two countries relationship, which Moscow has maintained since it intervened militarily in the country three years ago.

Syrias military previously owned a defence system that is less sophisticated from the S-300, but the long-range surface-to-air missile can spread across hundreds of kilometres and can be used to defend against aircraft and missile attacks and fire targets on the ground.

Analysts say Moscows announcement is a dangerous development in the region, as the missile system would challenge the Israeli air power capacity.

Russia-Israel relationship intact

Israel has, in the past six years, carried out hundreds of attacks inside Syria, varying from firing rockets to air raids, which have increased in intensity and frequency since 2012  when Iranian paramilitary fighters entered Syria following the start of the Syrian civil war.

Earlier this month, Israel admitted it launched 200 attacks inside Syria since last year.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has blamed Iranian paramilitary units in Syria of breaching its sovereignty by carrying out over-the-border attacks, and has vowed to keep acting against Iranian assets in Syria.

Russia has largely turned a blind eye to the Israeli attacks, and analysts believe the latest dispute between the two countries will not affect their relationship.

The relationship between Israel and Russia is much stronger than what people think when it comes to Syria, said Samer Abboud, associate professor of Global Interdisciplinary Studies at Villanova University.

There will be condemnation from the West, but behind the scenes, the line between the Russians and Israelis will remain intact due to agreements they are both abiding by, Abboud told Al Jazeera from Pennsylvania in the US.

However, experts are sceptical whether Moscow, which had also promised Tehran the S-400  the most advanced version of the missile defence  is going to follow through on its pledge.

Russia to limit Israeli strikes

The transfer of the S-300 to Syria is a long-running saga, according to Aron Lund, a fellow with The Century Foundation think-tank.

Russia has kept hinting that it will supply these missiles to Damascus since 2011, but never went through with it, Lund said, even though with the two-week deadline, it is declaring much louder and clearer its intention to complete the transfer.

Its basically been a pressure tactic on Russias part. They drop the S-300 back into the media whenever they feel the Israelis are not paying attention.

Similarly, Omar Kouch, a Syrian political analyst, noted that both the US  present in Syrias northeastern region  and its closest ally Israel consider the delivery of this missile to the regime as a significant escalation.

US National Security Adviser John Bolton, on Monday, said the decision to transfer S-300 to Syria was a major mistake, and urged Moscow to reconsider its decision.

This is still a promise  so, were not sure if Moscow is going to go through with it, Kouch told Al Jazeera.

Nonetheless, Abboud believes that the move by Russia has sent a message to Israel that its intervention in Syria needs to be limited.

A few years ago the targets were strategic, but now theyre spreading and becoming more sporadic, he said.

When asked whether the death of 15 Russian soldiers played a role in Moscows decision, Abboud said the casualties were an opportunity to impose the limit.

The move was a boost to Iran and the Syrian regime, he said.

Some of the last string of attacks have targeted airbases and facilities in the Syrian capital, Damascus, where Assads government sits.

In August, Syrian state media reported the Syrian army confronted a hostile target breaching the countrys airspace west of Damascus, while in June, two Israeli missiles struck targets near Damascus airport.

With the new missile system, the government can at least ensure Damascus safety from incoming attacks, Abboud noted.US National Security Adviser says Iran will face consequences if it crosses his country and allies amid war of words.

The US national security adviser has launched a scathing attack on Iran saying there will be hell to pay if Tehran tried to harm the US and its allies.

The warning from John Bolton came after US President Donald Trump and his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani clashed at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday.

So, I might imagine they would take me seriously when I assure them today that if you cross us, our allies or our partners, if you harm our citizens, if you continue to lie cheat and deceive. Yes, there will indeed be hell to pay, the US national security adviser said.

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Speaking at an organisation that opposed the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, from which the Trump administration withdrew in May, Bolton criticised the deal as the worst diplomatic debacle in American history.

[The deal] did nothing to address the regimes destabilising activity or its ballistic missile development and proliferation, Bolton said.

Worst of all the deal failed to achieve its fundamental objective permanently denying Iran all paths to nuclear weapons.

JCPOA members set up payment system

Earlier, Trump, during his speech at the General Assembly, called Tehran the leading sponsor of terrorism while Rouhani accused the US administration of trying to overthrow his government.

The other five major powers that signed the Iran deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) under which Iran agreed to curb nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief, have made it clear that they remain committed to it.

Top diplomats from France, Britain, Germany, China and Russia agreed to establish a financial facility in the European Union to facilitate payments for Iranian imports and exports including oil.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo hit back at these countries for attempting to subvert US sanctions, saying that they were bolstering Iran as the number one state sponsor of terror.

I was disturbed and indeed deeply disappointed to hear remaining parties in the deal announced they are setting up a special payment system to bypass US sanctions, he said.

This is one of the most counterproductive measures imaginable for regional and global peace and security.

Since its withdrawal from the Iran deal, the Trump administration has slapped biting sanctions on Tehran in order to choke its oil exports  the main source of income for the Islamic Republic.

Some of Tehrans biggest oil customers appear to have succumbed to the US pressure, with India  a major buyer of Iranian oil  cutting down on its imports.

The US Department of State has spelled out a campaign of maximum economic and diplomatic pressure to drive Iran towards negotiating a better deal to replace the Iran nuclear deal.

In his UN speech, Rouhani said the US sanctions are economic terrorism.Trump didnt provide any evidence for his allegation against China, nor did he mention the ongoing Russia investigation.

US President Donald Trump accused China of seeking to meddle in the November 6 US congressional elections, saying Beijing didnt want his Republican Party to do well because of his hardline stance on trade.

China has been attempting to interfere in our upcoming 2018 election, coming up in November. Against my administration, Trump told a UN Security Council meeting  the subject of which was non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Trump did not provide any evidence on Wednesday for his allegation, which he made while chairing the council meeting.

China rejected the charge.

We did not and will not interfere in any countrys domestic affairs. We refuse to accept any unwarranted accusations against China, top diplomat Wang Yi told the Security Council.

Trumps focus on China and his allegation of election meddling came as a surprise during a formal meeting around the Security Councils iconic horseshoe, which was expected to concentrate on the spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

They do not want me or us to win because I am the first president ever to challenge China on trade and we are winning on trade, we are winning at every level. We dont want them to meddle or interfere in our upcoming election, said Trump, who is attending the UNs annual gathering of world leaders.





Silent on Russia

During his roughly 10-minute speech, Trump made no reference to US allegations that Russia meddled in the 2016 US election that brought him to power.

The allegations have dogged his presidency and have given rise to an investigation by US Special Counsel Robert Mueller into potential collusion between Moscow and the Trump campaign.

Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeeras senior political analyst, said Trumps accusations against China were aimed at the American audience with elections fast approaching.

He ignored the whole inquiry into Russian interference in the US presidential elections, instead he brought up the unsubstantiated accusations of China meddling in the next elections on the side of the Democrats, said Bishara.

For the Chinese, it sounds so ridiculous that they wont respond to it. President Trump is talking on one hand to the international community, but on the other, hes talking to his home base  his core of the Republican Party.

Trade war





Trump himself is not up for re-election until 2020 but Novembers voting will decide whether his Republican Party can keep control of the US House of Representatives and the Senate. Some opinion polls show the Democratic Party could make a strong showing, notably in the House.

The United States and China are embroiled in a trade war, sparked by Trumps accusations that Beijing has long sought to steal US intellectual property, limit access to its own market and unfairly subsidise state-owned companies.

In the latest salvo, US tariffs on $200bn worth of Chinese goods and retaliatory taxes by Beijing on $60bn worth of US products kicked in on Monday, unnerving global financial markets.Trump lauds his extraordinary achievements at General Assembly

The US presidents boast met incredulity and laughter as he continued to push his America First agenda at the United Nations.Tunisia president ends alliance with Ennahdha religious party

There are fears that growing government divisions division could throw the country into economic and political turmoil.Huge fires take hold in southern Europe forcing more than 700 people from their homes.

A wildfire whipped by strong winds has forced dozens of people to evacuate part of a peninsula in southern Croatia as the army joined local efforts to fight the flames.

Authorities said the wind prevented firefighting planes from helping ground teams and pushed the fire toward the village of Mokalo on the Peljesac peninsula.

Croatian TV said about 40 residents and tourists staying in two camping areas had to evacuate.

Strong winds also disrupted ferry traffic between the Croatian islands, and on bridges and highways along the coastline.

Authorities say they are searching for a Mexican woman who went missing while surfing in rough seas near the island of Brac.

Tinder-dry conditions on the other side of the Adriatic Sea have caused similar problems in Italy. A huge forest fire which broke out in northern Tuscany on Monday night forced the evacuation of around 700 residents from their homes.

The blaze started around 21:00 GMT on Monday, and by Tuesday had already consumed 250 hectares of forest.

The fire, which broke out near Pisa was thought to be most critical near the towns of Calci, Montemagno, San Lorenzo, Zambra, Caprona and Noce.

By Tuesday daytime, it was said to be under control as firefighters and volunteers, assisted by two water-dropping planes, tackled the blaze.

Firefighting helicopters were unable to take off in the area due to strong winds.

While rain is not expected over the next few days, the winds are forecast to ease down so which should allow further progress to be made.Oumar Watt was allegedly beaten up by a French soldier and is now in a coma.

Dakar, Senegal  A French soldier has been arrested and indicted for an assault that left a Senegalese man in a coma.

The accused is alleged to have attacked restaurant owner Oumar Watt, 31, outside a nightclub in Dakar on September 16 after Watt stepped in to break up a fight between French soldiers and a friend, whose sister they had reportedly been harassing.

Eyewitnesses say the soldier threw Watt to the ground before giving him repeated blows to the head. Watt sustained multiple bruises to the brain, according to a medical report seen by Al Jazeera.

French forces in Senegal initially denied the allegations, claiming the soldiers were victims of a robbery but they have since softened their stance.

Senegalese courts are leading the investigation and we have every confidence in them bringing out the truth in this case, said a spokesperson for the French forces in Senegal.

France has about 350 soldiers in Senegal, its former colony. Seen as a bastion of peace and stability in an otherwise restive region, Senegal has acted as a staging post for French counterterrorism missions deep into the Sahara.

As with other former French colonies in West Africa, the two countries retain political and economic ties under the terms of what is called Francafrique. But many feel this relationship has given France the upper-hand over the years, with Senegal having only a semblance of independence.

Difficult to see justice

Campaigners and the family questioned the extent to which Senegalese authorities will be able to press for full accountability.

Guy Sagna, coordinator of the Collective of Families and Victims of Police Violence, said military agreements between the two countries would make it very difficult to see justice, but added mobilising citizens could force the governments hand.

For their part, Watts family have only cautiously welcomed the arrest and called for protests this weekend.

We hope there will be justice but we are very pessimistic because they might just be doing this to calm the people, Watts brother, Ousmane, told Al Jazeera.

I will be outside the French embassy until we see justice.

The family also wrote to French President Emmanuel Macron asking for French authorities to allow Watt to travel to France for medical treatment.

Seydi Gassama, director of Amnesty International in Senegal, said it would be unlikely that French authorities offer medical help to Oumar because it would mean recognising that they have done something wrong.

I think Senegalese authorities have an interest to let justice be done because Africa is becoming more and more hostile to the French presence, said Gassama.

The population is very much hostile and if this kind of incident remains unpunished then it can fuel hate against French soldiers.James Brownsell

James Brownsell is a former Al Jazeera Europe editor and the former managing editor of The New Arab. A writer, editor and occasional funk DJ, he has e... more xperience reporting on politics, business and culture from across Europe, the Middle East and East Africa. He was also crowned North Wales's Best Dressed Man 1997.Port Logistics Refrigerated Services is operating a new 130,000-square-foot on-dock cold storage facility.



Port Tampa Bay and cold storage tenant Port Logistics Refrigerated Services received their first shipment of Costa Rican pineapples Saturday.

Seacat Line delivered the refrigerated containers of fresh pineapples from Port of Moin aboard the new vessel M/V Juice Express for customer Chestnut Hills Farms.

This new routing provides us with excellent access to serve our customers in Florida and throughout the Southeastern United States, said Raul Romero, president and COO of Chestnut Hills Farms.

Seacat Line operates M/V Juice Express, a combination juice tanker and containership, on a regular service between Costa Rica and Port Tampa Bay on behalf of Seatrade Reefer Chartering and Tampa Juice.

Port Logistics Refrigerated Services operates a new 130,000-square-foot on-dock cold storage facility at Port Tampa Bay with onsite U.S. Department of Agriculture/Customs and Border Protection inspection and fumigation services, 102 refrigerated container plugs and an adjacent deep-water berth and a dedicated mobile harbor crane.What actually goes on in Australia, especially in its politics, is an unknown to most people not from the Land Down Under. It's usually not that well covered by the media, especially since the advent of Brexit and Donald Trump's presidency.

When many Americans think of Australia, things like white sandy beaches, kangaroos, and Steve Irwin come to mind  an image that is at times more of a caricature than an actual country.

There is, however, an extremely dangerous trend in Australian politics that should concern lawmakers and political regulatory bodies across the democratic world. That's the foreign interference and strong-arming within Australia's political sphere.

Americans are most familiar with the foreign interference in the democratic process stemming from the allegations of Russian interference in the U.S. election of 2016. But in Australia, politicians at both a state and a federal level have been forced to resign after being caught in involvement with companies or individuals with ties to the Communist Party of China.

The Chinese influence in Australian politics is already very real, as the country relies heavily on China economically for its continued prosperity.

Australia managed to dodge the "Great Recession" largely as a result of Chinese domestic stimulus measures that boosted the Australian resources and mining sectors. The Chinese stimulus allowed Australia to not only avoid recession, but enjoy an economic boom while the rest of the world suffered through the global financial crisis. Since then, sectors of the Australian economy have become more and more dependent on Chinese consumers and capital.

In recent years, Australia has undergone a major apartment-building boom underpinned by Chinese investors purchasing the properties. The boom has become so large as a result that Australian cities have more large cranes working on construction projects than the United States, despite having less than 8% of the U.S. population. In addition to that, Australian universities have become increasingly reliant on Chinese students, with 31% of the 525,054 foreign students in the country coming from China.

Director of the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Focus Group Michael Fay said: "[I]f anything happens to the Chinese market, such as with a downturn in the economy or problems with visas, Australia would be very exposed."

In essence, Australia is economically addicted to the capital and revenue Chinese consumers can provide, giving China incredible leverage over a country that has enjoyed economic prosperity without a recession for over 26 years.

China's growing influence in Australia has not gone unnoticed by diplomats and military planners in Washington.

In October 2015, the Chinese company Landbridge Group purchased a 99-year lease on the northern city of Darwin's port facilities, a sale that went through despite its alleged direct ties to the Chinese military. Darwin's port facilities are seen as instrumental to U.S. operations in the South Pacific, with U.S. Marines routinely being rotated through Australian bases in the area. This sale completely blindsided even the White House, with President Barack Obama saying to the Australian prime minister at the time that the United States would have liked a "heads up" before the sale of the port went through.

Australia's trade minister at the time of the sale, Andrew Robb, took an 880,000-Australian dollars-a-year job (that's $638,689 in U.S. dollars) at the company that purchased the port shortly after he retired from Parliament, leading to claims of a major conflict of interest.

Senator Sam Dastyari was forced to resign from his position in the shadow Cabinet after receiving funds from a Chinese-linked company to pay debts accrued to the Australian government. Dastyari also backed the Chinese government's refusal to abide by international court rulings on the South China Sea. He stated during a press conference: "The Chinese integrity of its borders is a matter for China." He added that "the best way of maintaining that relationship is knowing when it is and isn't our place to be involved."

This statement was a huge departure from the established bipartisan position of Australian political parties: that the South China Sea is in fact international waters.

Dastyari was finally forced to resign from Parliament after it came to light that he had warned Chinese businessman Mr. Huang Xiangmo that his phone was being tapped by U.S. agencies in a meeting in October of 2016.

The involvement of Mr. Huang Xiangmo in the Australian political scene doesn't end there. Opposition leader Bill Shorten visited Xiangmo at his home months after the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) had warned his party that Xiangmo had close ties to the Chinese Communist Party. Despite the controversy, the Australian Labor Party accepted A$141,000 in donations from companies linked to Xiangmo between 2015 and December 2017.

On the other side of Australian politics, the Australian Liberal and National Parties have also received a series of donations from companies linked to Xiangmo totaling A$138,000 between 2015 and December 2017. Some of these contributions went to prominent government figures including the Finance and Public Service minister, Mathias Cormann, whose campaign received A$20,000.

The reality for Australian policymakers and diplomats is that Australia is now inextricably linked to China economically; without Chinese capital and consumers, the economy would quickly nosedive, likely driving Australia into its first recession in over two decades.

Australia is effectively stuck in the classic carrot-and-stick situation. If Australia continues to sufficiently acquiesce to Chinese demands, then the flow of capital and consumers will continue uninterrupted, driving continued economic prosperity. Should the Australian government rock the boat, there are any number of ways the Chinese government could coerce Canberra back into line.

The Chinese government has already wielded boycotts to great effect in disputes with both Japan and South Korea, creating serious economic consequences for those nations, as Beijing used the spending power of its citizens in an attempt to force concessions.

Australia has become one of the front lines in the battle against foreign influence, as China increasingly wields greater political and economic influence over the island nation.

Australia may seem a world away from the United States, a relatively unimportant island in the South Pacific that looks like a nice place to have a vacation. But the reality is far more complex than that: Australia is arguably the linchpin of American military operations in the region.

The continued evolution of foreign influence on the Australian political landscape will echo around the world one way or another. Either Australia will become a bulwark against foreign interference or the situation will continue to deteriorate.

Tarric Brooker is a freelance journalist and political commentator. He also runs a political and current affairs website at avidcommentator.com.

Image montage by Monica Showalter, based on a Pixabay public domain graphic, CC BY-SA 0.0.Feminism in the Schools

In a devastating put-down of the "academic racket," Roger Kimball aptly quotes economist Herb Stein: what cannot go on forever won't. But forever is a long time, a commodity we are fast running out of. The question is, which will collapse first: a grand civilization or a dismal academy? What we have learned to call "social justice," a movement that purports to correct all the supposed evils of Western capitalism and its so-called patriarchal underpinnings, has done seemingly irrevocable damage to the conduct of daily life; to the meritocratic basis of national success; and of course to the education establishment on which cultural, political, and economic flourishing is predicated. In particular, when the walls of education are breached, the decline of the nation is inevitable.

Among the most sinister influences in modern education is the feminist dogma, a major cornerstone of the "social justice" obsession, which has penetrated both K-12 and our universities via indoctrination and threat. Young boys in elementary and middle school are taught to distrust their masculinity, and young men at university are in constant jeopardy of summons and expulsion for approaching the fair sex. Even textbooks have been infected with the feminist bacillus. It may be instructive to look at a few cankered totems of the kind of thing I'm talking about. They are illustrations of a pervasive phenomenon in the world of education, from elementary school to graduate school  examples that attest to the nature and extent of our education cataclysm. As a representative instance  there are a plethora to choose from  consider the Cambridge School's Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, billed as "an active approach to classroom Shakespeare." Under the heading "Sisterhood," we read that "Hermia stands up for herself as a lone female figure, surrounded by squabbling men." Under "Male dominance," we are instructed to "[g]o through the play so far, finding any images, similes and metaphors that imply male dominance  for example  'your father should be as a god.' Read the images about males, then those about females, and say which you find acceptable and which you find offensive  and why." The major theme to be studied is "Gender and power." And we know where the power will come to rest: with the distaff sex, those who survive the depredations of squabbling men and the authority of despotic fathers. Similarly, in the current climate of feminist hysteria, it comes as no surprise that, as PJ Media columnist Toni Airaksinen informs us, a new California-based Feminist Business School is launching a program "founded upon the theory of 'feminine entrepreneurship' and 'body-loving business practices' ... during which seasoned 'midwives' will teach women about the stages of giving 'birth' to a new business." Its formative nucleus, calling itself a Feminine Economics Department, is undertaking to oppose the "masculine economy," substituting values like intimacy, abundance consciousness, empathy, and gratitude for hated masculine features such as individualism, profit-worship, competition, and hierarchy. The aim is to create a testosterone-free economy and to foster a touchy-feely mode of communicative exchange, reminiscent of canadian minister of foreign affairs Chrystia Freeland's calamitous emoji-oriented negotiating style. One can imagine Canada's economic competitors salivating at the prospect. Feminists are sure to embrace Andrew Hacker's dismissal of higher math and algebra from the curriculum, which he regards as an impediment to learning. As Hacker argues in a February 27, 2016 article in The New York Times, "[c]alculus and higher math have a place, of course, but it's not in most people's everyday lives. What citizens do need is to be comfortable reading graphs and charts and adept at calculating simple figures in their heads[.] ... Indeed, it often turns out that all those X's and Y's can inhibit becoming deft with everyday digits." In The Math Myth, Hacker contends that current models of teaching math need to be supplanted by what he calls "adult arithmetic" or "numeracy." There can, after all, be "too much mathematics." One can readily see how feminists will clasp Hacker to their collective bosom. The point is to construct a more "inclusive," "comfortable," and easier to understand mathematical pedagogy, allowing most women to prosper without having to do the grueling application necessary to master (mistress?) a field associated with rigidly hierarchical masculine structures of mind. Hacker's The Math Myth will be a distinct favorite. It comes as no surprise that Sara Hottinger, author of Inventing the Mathematician: Gender, Race, and Our Cultural Understanding of Mathematics, takes issue with a mysterious entity called "mathematical subjectivity," claiming that the ability to reason mathematically "is constructed within Western culture as masculine." Thus, "normative, white, masculine subjectivity" must be replaced by a purified female subjectivity and practice. Never mind if bridges fall, rockets plummet, budgets crumple, computers crash, and polynomials migrate to another planet. Arcadia is just around the bend. "In our culture," she continues, "femininity and mathematical talent are discursively incompatible. We simply cannot reconcile the cultural construction of femininity with the construction of mathematical subjectivity." As a result, she chose to "pursue a graduate degree in women's studies rather than in mathematics." Her choice should be enough to disqualify her deposition. Of course, what is really needed is not less math, as Hacker says, or all this blather about mathematical subjectivity and cultural constructions, but a richer K-12 curriculum; better study habits; intellectual dedication; a penchant for hard work; and pedagogical hospitality for anyone who exhibits an aptitude for mathematics, whether a man or a woman. Men may have a somewhat larger standard deviation toward the higher end of mathematical ability, but that is no reason to dilute the curriculum. The work's the thing. Let the "gender" chips fall where they may. But the farce continues. Examining the curriculum and practice at John F. Kennedy High School in the Cedar Rapids School District, Megan Fox warns: "If you send your kids to high school thinking they will learn how to diagram sentences and write competently, you may want to check their English requirements." Students will not learn any of these things. Instead, they will be exposed to a "social justice" syllabus focusing on, among other fashionable trends and absurdities, the dynamics of power and privilege, gender politics, gender-neutral pronouns, and the pressing need to eliminate masculine endings from words. "Since male endings are so pervasive," the school's Diversity Toolkit informs students regarding assignment preparation, "it is OK to invent new words by replacing the endings of existing words with something non-gendered." The reward of desexualizing the vocabulary in order to diminish the status of men is presumably evident: this will enable "participants [to] incorporate more inclusive language in their daily speech and writing." Of course, for the most part, their daily speech is halting and cliche-ridden, and their writing is pretty well unintelligible. (I have seen enough student writing in my teaching career to give up in despair.) As Fox comments, "everyone is too busy vaunting perverse sexual pathology in the classroom" to recognize that there are grammatical rules and rhetorical protocols to be followed if students are to have the slightest chance of becoming literate. At every level of the education ecosystem, then, thanks in large measure to the viral influence of feminism, it is obvious that students are not being prepared for life in the real world of basic knowledge, work, and relationship. Not only are cultural history, economic maturity, math and science, and functional literacy casualties of the curriculum, but their demolition is a harbinger of societal collapse. The only question, as suggested by Kimball and Stein, is whether or not it is too late to reverse the feminist-driven national decline.If meteorologists' forecasts that Florence would hit the southeastern United States as a Category 4 storm  with winds topping 140 miles per hour  had been correct, the aftermath would have been even more catastrophic.

The devastating effects of Hurricane Florence are still being felt throughout the Carolinas. Clean-up and recovery will take months, if not years.

Shamefully, the press and climate alarmists began politicizing Florence even before the monumental storm made landfall. For example, the Washington Post ran an outrageous commentary, "Another hurricane is about to batter our coast. Trump is complicit," the day before Florence struck. This is just another example of fake news and the left engaging in a gross politicization of misery.

Even as people were fleeing the wrath of Florence and their flooded homes and businesses, dozens of socialist celebrities, politicians, and anti-fossil fuel activists met at a Global Climate Action Summit, held September 13 through 14 in San Francisco. Absurdly, many took to the stage to blame President Donald Trump for Florence.

The summit was organized by Democratic California governor Jerry Brown, who began planning the event shortly after Trump pulled the United States out of the Paris Climate Accord. Brown enlisted high-profile speakers for the event, including Al Gore, Nancy Pelosi, John Kerry, Michael Bloomberg, Van Jones, Tom Steyer, Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford, and dozens of government officials from across the globe. The media and speakers marched in lockstep to promote the false talking point that greenhouse gas emissions from the use of fossil fuels are causing more powerful hurricanes. Even more ridiculous, they peddled the notion that because Trump pulled the United States out of the Paris Climate Accord, he is "complicit" in making storms worse.

Here are several facts that dispel these myths.

First, although the Atlantic hurricane season is not over yet, thus far, the number of hurricanes occurring this year is below average. During a typical six-month Atlantic hurricane season, 12 named storms form, six become hurricanes, and three of those become major hurricanes  meaning Category 3 or higher. This season, 10 named storms have formed in the Atlantic Basin, three of which became hurricanes. Two other hurricanes briefly became minor storms off the west coast of Africa  and only Florence became a major hurricane. Furthermore, only one has made landfall in the United States: Florence.

Before the above-average Atlantic hurricane season of 2017, the United States experienced the longest period in recorded history, nine years, without a major hurricane (Category 3 or higher) striking the country. In fact, in a recent Washington Times interview, award-winning meteorologist Roy Spencer of the University of Alabama in Huntsville noted that the fact that there has been "a 50-percent decrease in U.S. landfalling major hurricanes over the last 80 years means no one is 'complicit' in these storms."

Second, although Florence produced a record amount of rainfall in the Carolinas, it is only the ninth wettest storm on record, with eight other hurricanes having dumped more rain on the continental United States since the government began keeping records.

Third, no president has caused or contributed to hurricane activity. It is true that Trump pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord, negotiated by the Obama administration, but even in the absence of government regulations limiting energy use, U.S. greenhouse gas emissions were declining before Obama signed the agreement. This decline in carbon dioxide emissions has continued under Trump  even after he withdrew from the Paris agreement. By contrast, all the major countries remaining in the Paris agreement have experienced greenhouse gas emissions increases and are unlikely to meet their Paris targets.

To be fair, this doesn't mean that other leaders are causing hurricanes, since none of the targeted emissions reductions begins taking effect until 2020. Consequently, it would have been logically and physically impossible for participation in the Paris agreement to have made any difference in whether or not Florence formed, became a major storm, or made landfall.

Those are the relevant facts, many of which were presented at an event hosted by the Heartland Institute, during lunch breaks in the Climate Action Summit's two-day program. In contrast to the speakers at the Climate Summit and those writing the anti-Trump editorials at the Washington Post, speakers at Heartland's livestreamed rebuttal event included physicists, meteorologists, and climatologists, who could actually address the physics and history of hurricane formation and impact. The overtly political Climate Action Summit didn't have a single climate scientist as a speaker.

At Heartland's event, Stanley Goldenberg, a hurricane meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, noted there has been no long-term change in global hurricane activity. According to Goldenberg, "[w]e have not seen anything to indicate we're in an unprecedented time of more hurricanes, stronger hurricanes, if you understand how to read the historical record."

Goldenberg also noted that large amounts of rainfall commonly accompany hurricanes, meaning the rainfall amounts Florence dumped were not that unusual.

"We've seen this stuff before. It doesn't shock us when a storm sits there, meanders, and stalls," Goldenberg said. "We've seen this many, many, many times. As someone who has specialized in climate science much of my career, I definitely believe in climate change; the climate is always changing[.] ... I heard one of the speakers [at the Summit] say, 'We must stop climate change,' [but] you can't stop the climate from changing."

The politicization of climate science, as the left has so successfully done, undermines real science. The sad fact is, the mainstream media are complicit in the ongoing, widespread politicization of science, a true disservice to the American people. Hurricanes are a fact of life and entirely natural (not man-made) events. Contrary to climate alarmists' claims, there is nothing any human can do to alter the occurrence of these destructive storms.

H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D. (hburnett@heartland.org) is a senior fellow on energy and the environment at The Heartland Institute, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research center headquartered in Arlington Heights, Illinois.Down in Brazil, there is a presidential election in a few weeks. The election is happening in the context of a slow-growing economy, corruption battles, violence out of control, and the stabbing of a presidential candidate.

Fernando Haddad, the presidential candidate for Brazil's leftist Workers Party (PT), is closing the gap with poll-leading far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro for an Oct. 7 first-round vote and would beat him in a runoff, a survey released Monday showed. Bolsonaro held steady at 28 percent of voter approval in the first round as compared to the same Ibope poll released last week. Haddad gained three percentage points to hit 22 percent, according to the survey, released by the Estado de S.Paulo newspaper and the Globo TV network. We will see.

I did speak with a friend down in Sao Paulo yesterday. He basically agrees with the poll and the suggestion that Haddad would win the runoff. At the same time, my friend said the issues, the violence and corruption, favor Mr. Bolsonaro.

It's true that Bolsonaro has a little Trump in him and that he often speaks without thinking. He has promised a no-nonsense policy against criminal elements.

The bottom line is how the other candidates react and whom they endorse in the second round.

So let's come back to this after the first round in a couple of weeks.

PS: You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.Is this the hill they die on?

Ask yourself the following question: is the repugnant and egregious behavior of the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee and their enablers the hill they want to die on? Is the hideous, unfounded, but well coordinated attack on Judge Brett Kavanaugh worth it, considering that President Trump may have the opportunity to nominate not one, but perhaps two more people to the Supreme Court during his tenure in the White House? Given the better than average chance that Judge Kavanaugh will be confirmed by the Senate by the end of this week, it's not far-fetched to imagine that future Senate Judiciary Committee hearings will be tainted from the outset, clouded by doubt and much more nefarious behavior by Democrats, and punctuated with despicable vulgarity. Democrats' grossly miscalculated strategy of character assassination has fallen woefully short of achieving their desired outcome. Two women, assisted by an army of lawyers, enablers, and far-left political operatives, crafted narratives that not only are devoid of specific details and factual evidence, but feature no corroborating witnesses. Not surprisingly, all the witnesses named to date have categorically denied the allegations, leaving both of the accusers drowning in a sea of doubt and suspicion. In a bizarre twist of logic, former Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm stated on a CNN panel that no corroborating witnesses absolutely proves the accuser's allegation to be true. Obviously, Granholm has never set foot in an American courtroom, in which actual evidence and eyewitness testimony are required to prove guilt.

Not to be outdone, Hawaii senator Mazie Hirono declared the Senate Judiciary Committee a court of credibility, based on the belief that since accusers have come forward, their allegations are true, and they must be believed. Putting aside the real task of the committee, which is to "advise and consent" on presidential nominees to the Supreme Court, Hirono displays stunning ignorance regarding not only her role on the committee, but the American legal system as well. Twisted logic supersedes once again  the accused is guilty based solely on the repressed memories of the accusers, who have provided vague details void of verifiable factual evidence, lacking police reports and eyewitness testimony. Incredible as it sounds, Senator Hirono earned her law degree from Georgetown University. If Hirono is the standard by which all Georgetown law students are to be judged, I've made a mental note never to hire a Georgetown Law School graduate. If the lewd and lascivious allegations of Judge Kavanaugh's former Yale classmate Deborah Ramirez aren't enough to thoroughly discredit the ongoing spectacle, degenerate porn lawyer Michael Avenatti claims there is a third female accuser ready to go public, who will accuse Judge Kavanaugh and his high school friend Mark Judge of pimping girls for sex after drugging and liquoring them up. According to Avenatti, the newest accuser has a security clearance, which makes her more credible. Surprisingly, Jeffrey Toobin, chief legal analyst for CNN, called Avenatti's claims irresponsible. Toobin went on to say, "It's publicity seeking of the worst kind. To just throw this garbage out there with no name, I think is awful." Apparently, Toobin has come to the conclusion that this is not the hill to die on. Given the depth of Democrat depravity and reprehensible behavior to date, there is no questioning the level of lewdness the Democrats will stoop to in their poorly contrived attempt to derail Brett Kavanaugh.It's still possible that some Democrats will side with Republicans in the confirmation battle, but only if a handful of GOP moderates are on board.

Until Christine Blasey Ford's allegations of sexual assault against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh surfaced, it was probable that two or three red-state Democratic senators running for re-election would have voted to confirm him.

Politico:

The Democratic Caucus' clutch of moderate senators, who mostly hail from conservative states where voters could punish them for opposing Kavanaugh, is under more pressure than ever from a liberal base furious over the sexual assault allegations. So most of those intently watched Democrats are deferring their public stance until after Thursday's scheduled hearing with Ford and Kavanaugh. They're worried about taking unnecessary political risk by taking a stand amid a swirl of unproven charges and uncertainty about whether the GOP even has the votes to confirm the 53-year-old appeals court judge, according to senators and aides. Still, Democratic leaders are confident of a unanimous "no" vote against Kavanaugh from their caucus, especially if Ford comes off as credible, according to more than a half-dozen senators and aides.

It comes down to this: no Democratic senator will go out on a political limb and support Kavanaugh unless his confirmation is inevitable. None of those Democrats wants to be the vote that puts Kavanaugh over the top. That means that it will be GOP moderates who hold the balance of power on the nomination.

Holding only a 51-49 advantage in the Senate, Republicans can afford to lose exactly one vote in the nomination fight. In reality, there are still three GOP votes up for grabs, with the key senator being Maine's Susan Collins.

The other two senators  Alaska's Lisa Murkowski and Arizona's retiring Jeff Flake  will almost certainly vote with Collins on the nomination. Democrats are aware of this and have initiated an intense pressure campaign to convince  and to threaten  Collins to vote "no."

Collins is playing it coy and will probably make up her mind after the hearing on Thursday.

The Hill:

"I think Collins will vote with us. Kavanaugh gave her the right answer on Roe v. Wade," said a Republican senator who requested anonymity to comment on her position. Collins told Showtime's "The Circus" in a recent interview that she "doesn't think Kavanaugh will overturn the landmark abortion rights case." Collins said Monday that she believes Senate investigators should reach out to a second woman, Deborah Ramirez, who has accused Kavanaugh of exposing himself to her at a college party. A Democratic aide cited her statement as evidence that she hasn't dismissed the second woman's allegation as other Republicans have. Some Senate veterans see Collins as a possible heir to the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who was often considered the conscience of the Senate  or at least the Senate GOP conference. "She has the opportunity to be the conscience on this issue," said former Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), who worked with Collins in 2005 to fashion the so-called Gang of 14 compromise on judges, and also teamed up with her in 2009 to pass a major fiscal stimulus, one of former President Obama's first legislative accomplishments. "I always feel empathy with people who are put in that position," said Nelson, adding that he voted for the 2010 Affordable Care Act because he knew it was the right thing to do even though he knew it would cause a major political backlash. "I just hope she does what she thinks is right," he said. "You can't couch votes on what's best for you. You have to couch votes on an entirely different standard and that's where conscience plays a major role. Clearly it did for Sen. McCain."

How can any of those three senators vote "no" and expect to remain Republicans? Sinking Kavanaugh would be a catastrophe for the GOP on so many levels. It would more than likely blow up the midterms and open the door to significant Democratic gains. It would make it extremely difficult for Trump to name another conservative with Kavanaugh's pedigree. And if the GOP loses control of the Senate, it will probably mean that Democrats will oppose any nominee until at least 2021.

The fate of a conservative, constitutional Court is at stake. Collins, Murkowski, and Flake cannot be unaware of that. Republican voters would never forgive any of them, and the party itself might take punitive measures against them.

Unless Ford has some bombshell evidence, it's hard to see how any reasonable person can say she's "credible." For that reason, as well as the prospect of being all but kicked out of the Republican Party if she votes "no," I expect, in the end, that Collins will reluctantly side with the majority and vote to confirm Kavanaugh.Volker Kauder, Merkel's longtime ally in the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Christian Social Union (CSU) parties, was ousted from his leadership position in what the German press is referring to as a "revolution." Other top Merkel allies like interior minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) and state party leader Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) had also urged support for Kauder.

German chancellor Angela Merkel is in trouble not only with the voters, but with the politicians in her own party.

Instead, Kauder's deputy, Ralph Brinkhaus, will serve as the Union's leader in parliament.

Forced to form a shaky coalition with the opposition Social Democrats to keep the nationalist AfD party from sharing power after the election earlier this year, Merkel now finds her influence within her own party waning at a time of deep unhappiness from some of the more conservative members of the Union.

Deutsche Welle:

The ousting of Kauder goes to show that Angela Merkel no longer has the same authority over the Christian Democratic Union as she did during her previous terms as chancellor, according to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. "Authority inevitably decreases when a leader approaches the end of their [sic] term in office," columnist Jasper von Altenbockum wrote. "In America, this phenomenon is known as 'lame duck' syndrome." Merkel's defeat kicks off debate over how long this lameness will linger on. For 13 years, Merkel has pulled the party closer to the center-left, leaving too many voters, allies and the entire democratic culture behind, according to the Munchener Merkur. "Now her party, reeling from the legacy of her migration policy and the leadership's routine neglect of voter sentiment, refuses to go any further. "Volker Kauder was Merkel's most trusted squire," writes Georg Anastasiadis. "His fall shows that the regent Merkel's power only rests on the shoulders of a handful of minions. However, their power is no longer rooted in the crucial foundation of democracy: the people."

That's the bottom line. It's why this unnatural alliance with the Social Democrats is likely to fall apart fairly quickly. Politicians are notorious survivors, and many conservative members of the chancellor's party, who might balk at aligning themselves with AfD  except on immigration issues  feel totally abandoned by her more liberal policies and realize that in order to stay in office, they must find a way to distance themselves from her. Getting rid of Kauder is a clear sign that Merkel's conservative allies have had enough.

It would be wrong to say Merkel will be forced out of office any time soon, although she may step down voluntarily if early elections are called. If that were to happen, it would be one of the more amazing falls from grace in post-war, post-reunification Germany. Just four years ago, Merkel was the most powerful politician in Europe. Today, she can't persuade her own party to back her.Fear is a word associated with the powerful Internal Revenue Service. These are people who are imagined to be humorous green eyeshade guys who can throw you in jail if you don't follow tax laws properly. This is the agency of the hard-faced bureaucrat, Lois Lerner. Now James O'Keefe's Project Veritas undercover reporting outfit actually exposed one of the IRS's tax auditors, revealing reasons to fear it, all right, but not the reasons you'd expect.

Seriously, this Pajama Boy is an IRS tax-examiner? The guy who can hand an ordinary taxpayer a $38,000 bill or send armed men to arrest someone? This man, Thomas Sheehy, giggles like an idiot when discussing the Constitution with what is apparently an attractive female O'Keefe operative posing as a leftist reporter and approvingly states that former IRS tax director John Koskinen erased all the IRS emails targeting Tea Party groups on a partisan basis, which allowed IRS tax officials to get off scot-free and retire at six-figure salaries after illegally targeting the groups for additional enforcement. He sounded a bit inebriated in the interview, but maybe he wasn't. Real Pajama Boys talk like that all the time.

What's more, he's a Democratic Socialists of America member, and he apparently uses U.S. taxpayer-paid time to go do activism for the rabidly leftist group. He disdains the Constitution, and he says he's got fellow DSA buddies running the IRS Twitter account, which must be something.

Here is the Project Veritas transcript:

SHEEHY: "I will say, I just really like the benefits. I get a lot of paid time off and sick days. So, like, for DSA stuff, I can just honestly I will just stay late for a period. So, I will just call in for the next day." SHEEHY: "I mean, as long as like the manager doesn't find out and you don't explicitly say "hey I'm calling in sick to do Democratic Socialist of America work" then I mean like yeah. You know, you just gotta, you just gotta like sort of manage, you know, when and where you're like doing, like, the work you do." More Democratic Socialists of America at IRS Sheehy reveals there are more socialist activists at the IRS, referring to a friend of his who works on national communications for the Democratic Socialists of America, as well as writing bylaws for the political organization. SHEEHY: "My friend Chris, like he does a lot of like tech stuff. He even runs the f**kin', I was looking over his shoulder once at the electoral forum and I noticed that he actually is on the national social media working group. So, he helps run the national twitter account. He also runs our local twitter account. He also is one that does all the bylaws and stuff. he also works for the IRS." Sheehy remarks about his disdain for the Constitution of the United States. SHEEHY: "Unfortunately, I am not allowed by the bylaws of my union to go against the constitution." JOURNALIST: "Would you?" SHEEHY: "Yeah."

O'Keefe also features another IRS employee, a lawyer, who doesn't come off much better. That's some green eyeshade crew running the IRS, making life miserable for the taxpayers. Who the heck hired these people of such dubious value, and why hasn't that place been hosed out?Q President Trump, I'm sorry, I don't want to talk about the military action again, but how dangerous is Maduro's regime for national security? And what you are going to do against him to stop him?

Badgered repeatedly about prospects of U.S. military action in Venezuela at an impromptu press conference with Colombia's newly elected conservative president, Ivan Duque, President Trump tried hard to blow the matter off before stating the obvious about Venezuela's military:

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, it's dangerous for their security. It's dangerous for their people's security. It's a regime that, frankly, could be toppled very quickly by the military if the military decides to do that. And you saw how the military spread as soon as they heard a bomb go off way above their head. That military was running for cover. That's not good. I don't think the Marines would have run. What do you think, General Kelly, do the Marines run when they hear a bomb go off? GENERAL KELLY: They don't know how to run. PRESIDENT TRUMP: They don't know how. (Laughter.) You know what they do? They run toward the bomb. Right? That's even better. Prior to that, he kept up his stance about not discussing military matters, taking a dig at President Obama for constantly telegraphing U.S. intentions to its enemies. Q Would you think of sending troops to Colombia, and maybe from there trying to manage the relationship with Venezuela? Maybe getting closer  PRESIDENT TRUMP: I don't want to say that. I don't like to talk about military. Why should I talk to you about military? I'm going to tell you like President Obama  he used to say exactly what he was going to do  and then it would be 10 times tougher to do it. I don't do that. (Laughter.) And that was after he was asked about it two times earlier: Q President Trump, have you thought about a military intervention to Venezuela  or in Venezuela? PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, we're looking very strongly at Venezuela. It's a horrible thing that's going on there. It's a very disruptive, dangerous  it's a horrible place right now. And this used to be  I remember not so long ago, Mr. President, that was the richest country in South America by a lot, and now it's a country that's going through tremendous turmoil. People are dying. People are being killed. They're also dying of hunger and lots of other things. The medical is in horrible shape. We will always be looking at it. We have been looking at it. And we'll see what happens. But what is going on in Venezuela really is unacceptable. And I know from the standpoint of Colombia and other nations fairly close by, it's very unacceptable also. Q What's the most important thing for Maduro to do? What should Maduro do? Q Every option is still on the table, Mr. President? Every option is still on the table against Maduro's regime? Every option, including military option? PRESIDENT TRUMP: But, see, Maduro  if you look at it, you're asking about the regime. The Maduro regime is obviously is not doing the job. First of all, it's brutal, and people are seeing what's happening. It's a horrible, horrible thing to witness. It's one of the truly bad places in the world today. And there are some other pretty bad places. But it's not acceptable to us, and it's not acceptable to many of the surrounding countries. Many of those countries, including Colombia, are taking in refugees who are literally starving. They're literally starving. It's having a big impact on other countries. So  and they're doing a very good job with what they have to work with. They don't have that much to work with, but they're doing a good job. They're trying to help.

So the last response in the four-Venezuela-question press conference was pretty much the kicker. Trump opted to spook Maduro. He spoke of the things pretty much everyone noticed (revealing no classified information): that Maduro's military is crappy, that it scattered and ran when it came under fire, and with this kind of indiscipline and disorder, Maduro could pretty easily be thrown out if one of them got a mind to do it.

As an additional kicker, it didn't sound as though Trump would be all that upset if it actually happened  which the Miami Herald interpreted as a signal for the military to have at it, handwringing, of course.

This is interesting stuff, quite unlike the democracy posturing of the past two U.S. administrations, trying to sound all respectable as Latin nations, fearful of Venezuela unleashing its agitators in their own countries, constantly propounded.

What's more, Trump was telling Maduro the U.S. wasn't going to get involved in the mess he made, but if his own locals did, not a problem. In fact, the only thing Trump actually did was dish more sanctions on the Chavista elites, including Venezuela's utterly sleazy first lady, Cilia Flores, the one with the nephews who were busted by the DEA as drug-dealers. That threw the burden on Maduro to find who was out to get him, giving him a recipe for paranoia. That has got to scare the heck out of him, given that he wouldn't know where to look. And with Trump obviously laughing at him, it explains the harrumphing rage from his administration coming out of Caracas, with a Maduro official calling the whole statement "grotesque."

Fear. Trump deals fear to scummy third-world socialist dictators. He leaves it to the Venezuelans as to how it will be done, but he stands there and lays it out for everyone to laugh at, as well as let it become conventional wisdom. Bloomberg has a report out noting that ever since Trump brought up military intervention, polite society has now made that a topic of discussion at a minimum and drawn quite a few advocates. Prior to that, such talk virtually never existed.

Oh, and he not only stated the obvious about Venezuela's military, but also stated the obvious about Venezuela's socialism at his earlier United Nations General Assembly speech:

The problem in Venezuela is not that socialism has been poorly implemented, but that socialism has been faithfully implemented. (Applause.) From the Soviet Union to Cuba to Venezuela, wherever true socialism or communism has been adopted, it has delivered anguish and devastation and failure. Those who preach the tenets of these discredited ideologies only contribute to the continued suffering of the people who live under these cruel systems.

It's a good thing to hear things told the way they are  both around the military and around the failure of socialism. Truth is fearsome, and Maduro is undoubtedly scared.In short: A teardown of the latest version of the ARCore by Google app has revealed a number of new devices that look likely to be next in line to gain ARCore support. Interestingly, the list of now-supported devices also includes devices that have yet to be announced, such as the OnePlus 6T.

Background: ARCore is essentially the backbone of Googles solution for augmented reality (AR) apps and therefore devices which gain ARCore support will be able to take advantage of the new wave of AR-based apps and games that come through based on Googles platform. While that will be good news for owners of devices including Samsungs Galaxy Note 9, Huaweis Mate 10 Pro, the ROG Phone from ASUS, and the Razor Phone (as they are all listed as supported in the latest app version), the support seems to also be extended to include the OnePlus 6T, the Nokia 9 and the Nokia Phoenix, which are all currently unannounced smartphones. As well as another Nokia-branded phone that could not be identified, and possible a new variant of the Vivo Nex. New device support aside, the app on the Google Play Store is listed as being updated yesterday and also includes a number of improvements, such as support for passthrough camera auto focus, better plane detection speed, and greater computer vision support for image resolutions.

Impact: The profiles noted here are specific to version 1.5 of the ARCore app and have been noted at the code level, and therefore have not officially been confirmed by Google as supported devices as of yet. However, providing the code references are correct then owners of any of the phones listed (full list here) should be able to download the ARCore app from the Google Play Store in due course, if not already. As for the unannounced devices, while not a proper confirmation, this would suggest those phones will arrive to market as devices that have already been ARCore approved and ready to take advantage of Googles AR platform from the get-go. Which in the case of the OnePlus 6T should not be that much of a surprise considering older OnePlus models have already received their support, including the new phones predecessor, the OnePlus 5T, which gained its support in June of this year when version 1.3 of the app rolled out.In short: Dr. Jack Poulson, former Google Senior Research Scientist who left the company this month, wrote a letter to lawmakers sitting at the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation earlier this week, claiming he was ousted from the tech giant in the wake of a pattern of unethical and unaccountable decision making from company leadership in reference to the controversial Project Dragonfly. The industry veteran testified the initiative aimed at (re)launching a censored version of Google Search in China has been well underway this June when Google published its AI principles, adding that the initiative directly contradicts the thereof. The machine learning scientist also accused Google of stifling internal discussions about the morality of the program, asking the committee to grill Google Chief Privacy Officer Keith Enright. and force the Internet juggernaut to be more transparent.

Background: Dr. Poulson already harshly criticized Google over Project Dragonfly following his departure from the company earlier this summer, asserting Alphabets subsidiary plans to capitulate to China. The companys AI principles outlined nearly four months ago contain several provisions that appear to be at odds with its Chinese ambitions: avoid creating or reinforcing unfair bias, uphold high standards of scientific excellence, and a vow to never create technologies whose purpose contravenes widely accepted principles of international law and human rights. Launching a revamped version of Search that conforms to Beijings known censorship efforts would compromise or outright violate those promises, casting doubt over the legitimacy of the principle list as a whole. The initiative is still understood to be in the early stages of development and its existence was only known to several hundred out of 80,000 Google employees before public reporting revealed it in August.

Impact: Dr. Poulsons letter already failed to accomplish its primary goal  getting some answers out of Mr. Enright. The CPO dodged the China question during todays Senate committee hearing on user privacy on several occasions, having only reiterated the talking points of Google CEO Sundar Pichai who previously told employees the firm is not close to launching a censored version of Search for China, albeit without denying its intentions to do so in the future. Still, the mounting public pressure may eventually see the company drop the project, especially in the context of its timing, i.e. the fact that Google just recently refused to renew its Project Maven contract that saw it collaborate with Pentagon on AI weaponization.An alleged press render depicting the wireless charger for the Pixel 3 series has just been leaked, offering a partial preview of the units design and functionality. The device seems to be designed to hold the Pixel 3 smartphones in an upright position while they recharge wirelessly, and according to previous reports, the accessory will hit the market as the Pixelstand or Pixel Stand. In the leaked press render, the wireless charger is white and features an orange pad underneath the base, although more flavors  or at least a black variant  could also be made available to match the expected color schemes of the upcoming Android flagships.

The Pixel 3 series has been all but officially confirmed to benefit from wireless charging capabilities. Less than a week ago the existence of a wireless charger for the Pixel 3 lineup was data-mined from the latest version of the Google app, along with a stylized image that showcased a smartphone being sat upright on the pad while charging wirelessly. Now, the leaked press render offers a clearer picture of how the Pixel 3 series will be placed on the Pixelstand, but as yet its unclear whether the charger will have only one fixed upright position or if the resting pad could be folded horizontally. Whatever the case may be, an upright position would allow users to interact with their smartphones and Googles AI assistant more easily while the units are being recharged. Finally, the leaked press render suggests that the Pixelstand will be powered through a USB Type-C connector hidden within the base and accessible by turning the charging pad over.

Wireless charging capabilities havent been included in Googles previous Pixel smartphone series at all, and the functionality is now expected to make a comeback after several years of missing from the tech giants smartphone lineups. Specifically, three smartphones from Googles previous Nexus series offered Qi wireless charging out of the box, namely the Nexus 4, Nexus 5, and Nexus 6, but the technology was no longer included with the Nexus 5X and later models. The Google Pixel 3 duo is expected to be officially unveiled in mid-October in New York, and its likely that the company will have more details to share about the Pixelstand on the same day.In short: Google will admit to making mistakes in regards to user privacy as part of a Senate testimony scheduled to take place later today, according to the opening remarks of an attending company official which have recently been leaked to the media. The statement will not go into any details regarding the incidents in question but will maintain Alphabets subsidiary learned from the issues and is now doing a significantly better job at protecting the privacy of its users. The remarks have been authored by Google Chief Privacy Officer Keith Enright who will be reading them in front of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. Representatives of Amazon, AT&T, Apple, Twitter, and Charter Communications will also attend todays hearing.

Background: Google has a long history of issues raising privacy concerns, with digital privacy being the main topic of the Wednesday happening. A month ago, the company has been accused of dishonest and misleading tracking practices on Android, a notion that it strongly denied, saying that user-selected privacy options that prevent tracking can only be overridden due to user-made requests. Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich started an official probe into the firms Android tracking practices two weeks ago, expressing concerns about the manner in which Google monetizes its services. Last month, the company was also hit with a lawsuit for alleged violations of the California Invasion of Privacy Act. In 2011, Google settled with the FTC following an investigation into dishonest tracking practices. A year later, it paid a $22.5 million penalty to the FTC for falsely suggesting users of Apples Safari Internet browsers will not be tracked using cookies or receive targeted advertising.

Impact: Mr. Enrights written testimony suggests the executive will try to present Google as a changed company in terms of user privacy protections at todays hearing, though at least some Senators are unlikely to let it off the hook that easily. Calls for added regulations of the Silicon Valley are mounting by the day despite the fact that the current Congress is entirely controlled by the GOP, a party that historically advocated against heavy-handed regulations. Coupled with accusations of an anti-conservative bias in Google Search, the company may have a rough few months ahead of it as far as its relationship with Capitol Hill is concerned.In short: Project Fi is emailing those that are in zip codes affected by Hurricane Florence this month, and letting them know that they will be receiving a $20 service credit, to cover any extra data usage that might have happened while there was no power or internet available. This is a bit different than what other carriers typically do for weather events like this, where they offer free data, texts and calls, instead of offering a credit after the fact. Though, it does still have the same impact on those in the area, as they are able to use their phone to check on things.

Background: This isnt the first time that Project Fi has offered service credit following a hurricane or another serious weather event. During Hurricane Harvey last year, Project Fi also offered service credit for those that were in the affected area  most of which was in Texas. Its a good way for users to not worry about using more data when trying to figure out whats going on and if they can return to their home soon. Seeing as there were many people without power for days, this was the easy way to find out when the power was coming back on.

Impact: Hurricane Florence did a ton of damage in the Carolinas, and people are still rebuilding from that Hurricane  and there are more on the way. So its nice for those in that area to be able to rebuild, and get power back on without worrying about their phone bill going up because they used more data than they normally would have used in a regular month. Not quite the same as getting free data for that period of time, but the $20 service credit is equivalent to two gigabits of data, which can really go a long way.In short: Qualcomm accused Apple of trade secret theft, having filed a lawsuit against the Cupertino-based electronics giant that alleges the company stole a large number of its protected modem technologies and provided them to Intel with the goal of improving the modems made by its rival, ultimately benefitting the new iPhone models. The litigation was filed with the Superior Court in San Diego and is the latest episode in the legal fight between the two technology juggernauts that started last year after the iPhone maker accused Qualcomm of unfair patent licensing practices.

Background: Apple has been phasing out Qualcomm modems from its devices for several product generations now and managed to completely eliminate them from its products with the iPhone XR, XS, and XS Max announced earlier this month. The latest iOS smartphones from the company are solely reliant on Intel modems, chips that allow them to communicate with cellular networks. Qualcomm already sued Apple last year after the firm refused to provide it with its modem source code for auditing purposes. The new lawsuit is consequently an evolution of the original one, albeit its allegations are significantly more serious.

Impact: While its been less than a year since Qualcomms senior leadership indicated it believes the beef with Apple will be settled in the near future, the latest turn of events makes that scenario unlikely. As the clash between the two technology giants is only becoming more intense over time, iOS devices may end up being at a disadvantage once 5G becomes more widely available in the United States as Qualcomm remains at the forefront of the next generation of connectivity in terms of R&D. That state of affairs and the mounting number of lawsuits are increasing the pressure on Apple to settle but it remains to be seen how the iPhone maker reacts given its lack of experience with being bullied by one of its (former) suppliers.In short: According to a report, Jaguar and Land Rover are going to be adding Android Auto (as well as Apple CarPlay) to all of its 2019 models that have the InControl Touch Pro or Touch Pro Duo infotainment systems. Jaguar and Land Rover will also be updating its older vehicles with those infotainment systems with Android Auto and Apple CarPlay support. This is a big deal for Jaguar and Land Rover owners, as they have been some of the few brands that have been holding out on bringing either platform to their drivers. Both platforms will be available with an optional smartphone connectivity package, that is going to start at $280. It will increase depending on the vehicle model. Currently, theres no set date for when these updates will roll out, but apparently, they are rolling out in the UK already.

Background: This news comes just a few days after Toyota had finally decided to bring Android Auto to its vehicles  though it was pretty mum on which models would get support, and when. While many car makers are already on-board with Android Auto, there are still a few brands that are not on-board. Though, its not a huge surprise to see Land Rover getting Android Auto support finally, seeing as Google had been working with Land Rover on its embedded Android system for its vehicles. And the reason why Google used Land Rover was for its longer screen, compared to the usual square screen that most vehicles have.

Impact: This means that more and more people are going to be able to use Android Auto as well as Apple CarPlay in their vehicles. Theres no word just yet on whether Jaguar and Land Rover will be using wireless Android Auto or not, but it is pretty likely that it wont. Especially since it is updating its older vehicles with support as well.In short: Samsung will be offering the Galaxy P30 mid-ranger in four colors and two memory configurations, according to some newly leaked information. The device will be available with 64GB and 128GB of storage space and sold in black, red, blue, and pink. The names of the colors themselves havent been disclosed and its still unclear whether both memory configurations will be available in all of them. The name of the handset has also yet to be confirmed, though most industry insiders agree the device with the model number SM-G6200 will be advertised as the Galaxy P30 and be accompanied by a larger Galaxy P30 Plus (stylized as the P30+).

Background: While previous rumors suggested one or more members of the new P30 family may sport an in-display fingerprint reader, one reliable industry insider is now claiming that wont be the case, adding that the series will offer 6GB of RAM and generally be geared toward competing in the upper mid-range segment of the smartphone market. The device is expected to first be launched in China where Samsung has been pushed to the verge of obscurity over the course of the last several years after failing to compete with local manufacturers and their aggressively priced products. The handset is likely to make its way to India as well but presumably wont be available in the West where Samsungs higher-priced devices are still selling well.

Impact: The wide array of colors and two memory configurations Samsung has in the works for the Galaxy P30 suggest the device will be targeted at a broad audience and the same will presumably hold true for its larger counterpart  the Galaxy P30 Plus. Whether that proves to be enough to make the handset a commercial success remains to be seen but one thing is certain  Samsungs mid-range strategy is evolving due to rival pressure.In short: Uber has won a significant victory in its ongoing battle with drivers in California over their classification as contractors rather than employees, among other disagreements, after successfully appealing earlier court rulings in the matter. According to court documents filed with the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, previous cases should have been sent to arbitration rather than proceeding as class action suits. More directly, the panel of judges overseeing the case ruled that arbitration agreements signed by plaintiffs in those cases were enforceable, causing each of the rulings in those cases to be reversed.

Background: The cases in question cover at least three suits filed against Uber with California courts starting with a case way back in 2013 and stretch across nearly a dozen appeals which began in 2014. Ubers motions to move to arbitration and out of the courtroom were denied in each of those cases for a variety of reasons. Those ranged from incompatibilities between arbitration agreements and federal laws to at least one instance where a plaintiff summarily opted out of arbitration for the entire class. Despite those prior rulings, according to Judge Richard R. Clifton, there werent really any grounds to deny the motions, to begin with. Instead, the judge notes that those should have been granted and has moved to reverse those rulings. More succinctly, the panel determined that at least one prior case shown two years ago to be incorrectly defined as a class action and other missteps by the court adversely affected following rulings which were based on those. As a result, the reversal will also overturn prior injunctions that were based on those decisions.

Impact: Moving forward, this is not at all likely to be the end of the current disputes. With previous decisions made by the court now rendered moot, Uber workers will need to approach their respective cases from a different angle. That could ultimately mean the drivers will need to enter into arbitration either individually or collectively, or that the drivers will need to retry their cases individually rather than as a class-action suit. Regardless, unless the drivers choose not to continue pursuing action against the company, the cases could feasibly carry on for years to come.The delegation included senior government officials representing Da Nang, Qatar Airways upcoming third Vietnamese destination on the award-winning airlines rapidly expanding global network.

Qatar Airways recently announced the launch of direct flights to Da Nang, Vietnam, starting 19 December 2018. The four-times-weekly flights will be served with a Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft, featuring 22 seats in Business Class and 232 seats in Economy Class.

Al Baker said: This year marks a historic milestone between the State of Qatar and Vietnam as we celebrate 25 years of diplomatic relations and 11 years of service between Qatar Airways and Vietnam. Our current routes to Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi are already incredibly popular, and we are delighted to extend our reach into Vietnam with the upcoming launch of direct services to Da Nang, which demonstrates our commitment to further supporting the Vietnamese market.

Da Nang, one of Vietnams key port cities, offers beaches with tranquil, clear blue water and offers breathtaking views all year round, making it an ideal vacation spot. Da Nang has also recently seen a tremendous increase in visitors, with a record-breaking 6.6 million tourists in 2017, double the number in 2013.

Qatar Airways first commenced operations to Ho Chi Minh City in 2007, and was the first Gulf carrier to offer non-stop service to Vietnams largest city. Shortly afterwards, Hanoi was added to the airlines fast-growing global network in 2010. Since the start of this year, passengers have benefited from frequency increases to both cities, with Qatar Airways now flying twice daily to Hanoi and 10 times a week to Ho Chi Minh City.Belarus is continuing to deliver the Polonez multiple rocket launch (MRL) system to Azerbaijan, a source from Belarusian industry said at the 3rd Azerbaijan International Defence Exhibition (ADEX 2018) in Baku.



Azerbaijani Army's Polonez MRLS launcher (R) and combat control (L) vehicles showcased at ADEX 2018

(Picture source Army Recognition)

"Another Polonez MRL battery has been recently shipped to Azerbaijan," the source said.

The Armed Forces of Azerbaijan operate the Polonez MRL system. A combat vehicle of the Polonez is showcased at the ADEX 2018 defense show. The contract between Belarus and Azerbaijan for 10 Polonez systems was disclosed in April.

The baseline variant of the Polonez was fitted with the Chinese-originated A200 rocket. However, the latest modification of the MRL system features Belarusian-made munitions. "All components of the new rocket, including the guidance system, are made in Belarus, except for the jet engine. The level of local manufacturing has reached 90%. We are now considering an indigenous replacement for the foreign-originated powerplant of the munition," the source added.

Each Polonez combat vehicle carries eight high-precision rockets with separate guidance units. The baseline and upgraded variants of the MRL system have firing ranges of 200 km and 300 km, respectively. The Polonez is based on an MZKT-7930-family heavy truck that has a payload capacity of 24,000 kg, a speed of up to 70 km/h, and a road range of 1,000 km.

The Polonez MLRS can be fitted with rockets and guided missiles. At the MILEX 2017 defense show, the M20 single-stage solid-propellant guided missile for the system was unveiled. According to the official information issued by the Belarusian defense industry, the M20 has a length of nearly 8 m, a weight of nearly 4 t and a firing range of about 280 km. The containerized missile is armed with a 480 kg high-explosive (HE) warhead. According to Belarusian media outlets, the M20 may have been developed in conjunction with the Chinese industry.The Norwegian Defence Material Agency (NDMA) has awarded FFG Flensburger Fahrzeugbau Gesellschaft mbH (FFG) a further contract for the delivery of Leopard 2-based WiSENT 2 Armored Engineer Vehicles (AEV) and further services. This new contract was signed on September 20, 2018, approximately three years after the first contract for Norwegian WiSENT 2 Armored Recovery Vehicles (ARV), which are currently being delivered ahead of schedule and within the budget. The AEV features high logistical commonality with the latest Leopard 2 MBT A7 version.



FFG WiSENT 2 Armored Engineer Vehicle (Picture source: Army Recognition)

The highly digitized Norwegian WiSENT 2 AEVs will be equipped with the Kongsberg Integrated Combat Solution (ICS) system, already integrated under the ARV contract, a powerful excavator and dozer system, as well as FFGs innovative Auxiliary Power Booster (ABP) -- a brand new lithium battery solution that replaces the traditional diesel Auxiliary Power Unit (APU).

For self-defense, all Norwegian WiSENT 2 will be equipped with the Nordic Phase 1 Remote Weapon Station from Kongsberg. With this order more than 40 WiSENT 2 are either delivered or under contract by FFG within the last five years, and the WiSENT 2 platform currently represents the top-selling Leopard 2-based heavy support vehicle within NATO.

Norway, as the second NATO nation fielding the WiSENT 2, has thus indicated a very high interest to build up a LEOBEN user group for the WiSENT 2 as soon as possible.Saab has signed a contract with Republic of Korea's Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) concerning support for the Arthur Weapon Locating System. This Performance Based Logistics (PBL) contract includes spare parts supply and support for the Republic of Korea Army and Marine Corps. The contract value is approximately SEK500 million ($56.8 million) and will be valid for the 2018 through 2023 period.



Saab's Arthur Weapon Locating System (Picture source: Saab)

Saab delivered its first Arthur system to South Korea in 2009 and has had annual support contracts for these systems in place since 2012. Since 2012, Saab has also participated in delivery of additional Arthur systems within a Technical Cooperation Program (TCP) with the Korean company LIG Nex1.

"South Korea, the largest operator of our Arthur Weapon Locating System, is a very important customer with demanding requirements. This five-year contract is further proof of our successful collaboration with the South Korean forces and we are proud to continue contributing to the country's safety by providing on-site support for the Arthur systems," said Anders Carp, Senior Vice President and Head of Saab's Surveillance business area.

Saab will carry out the majority of the work with its local support team in South Korea, while all spare parts will be supplied by Saab in Gothenburg, Sweden.

South Korea deploys the Saab Arthur weapon-locating radar system to detect incoming enemy artillery 24/7 and give residents an enhanced 90 second warning of incoming fire. Arthur has the ability to rapidly detect incoming artillery fire and can calculate the firing site and point of impact, enabling effective counter-fire within a few seconds. Following a border crisis in 2015, South Korea awarded Saab for its on-ground Arthur support contributions.Vietnam`s defense industry has upgraded the Kalashnikov-derivate STL-1A 7.62 mm assault rifle, a Vietnamese military source told TASS. The STL-1A is a locally made copy of the renowned Kalashnikov AKM assault rifle. The STL-1A has received an attaching lug for the M203 40 mm under-barrel grenade launcher (UGL), new plastic handguard, folding buttstock, ergonomic pistol grip, and updated muzzle brake.



STL-A1 assault riffle, modernized AK-74/AKM assault rifle, with AK-74M muzzle break and folding stock, along with the 40mm M203 grenade launcher style. (Picture source hollilla.com)

"Since the early 2000s, the People`s Army of Vietnam (PAVN) has been searching for a new organic firearm. A Kalashnikov-type assault rifle is the best option as its gas-operating scheme is the most reliable one and can be used in hot and wet climate in an effective manner. Along with the manufacturing of the Israeli-originated Galil 31 ACE assault rifle under license, the local industry is considering modernization of previously developed Kala[shnikov]-type firearms, namely, the AKM-VN and STL-1A," the source said.

The Vietnamese defense industry does not disclose any specifications of the STL-1A. "We convert ageing Soviet-made AKM assault rifles into the STL-1As," an industrial source told TASS. "The Vietnamese military is now receiving the STL-1A," he added.

Vietnam`s new development in the field of small arms resembles the Kalashnikov Group`s (a subsidiary of Rostec state corporation) AK-103 7.62 mm assault rifle. Like the AK-103, the STL-1A has received an AK-74-type single-chamber muzzle break, folding buttstock and polymer handguard. However, the Vietnamese weapon is fed by 30-round metal magazines of the basic AK. The GP-25/GP-34 40 mm UGL has been replaced by the M203 40 mm launcher that is being produced in Vietnam. It should be mentioned that the STL-1A carries a Vietnamese-type side-mounted attaching lug for sights. "The optical or red dot sights with the dovetail mount can hardly be installed," the industrial source said.

Vietnam is planning to upgrade the STL-1A assault rifle. "The modernized variant of the firearm will be designated STL-1B. The updated weapon will be fitted with a Picatinny [MIL-STD-1913] rail interface system (RIS). The RIS will allow an operator to use various optical and electronic sights," the industrial source said.

 Copyright 2018 TASS / Army Recognition Group SPRL . All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Do it yourself if you can We accept  in principle  that private equity can deliver (somewhat) excess returns over most other asset classes. But there are a lot of qualifications attached to that, and most of them are very relevant to whether and how pension funds should invest in private equity.Best Gifts for Travelers

17 Awesome (And Useful) Gifts For The Jetsetter In Your Life

The AskMen editorial team thoroughly researches & reviews the best gear, services and staples for life. AskMen may get paid if you click a link in this article and buy a product or service.

As much as seeing the world is a serious treat, there are some downsides to traveling.

Think endless lines at TSA, unnecessarily long layovers and living out of a suitcase. Yet, we all have a jet-setting friend in our lives who takes on the wild world of travel on the regular. Whether theyre more of an adventurer who likes to hit the open road, or they lean more towards swaggier style of traveling (have you ever popped champagne on a plane?), gift shopping for this person is no small feat. Purchasing them home goods would be a poor idea, especially since theyre never home. It's also worth noting that plane tickets come with an unfavorable price tag.

One gifting route to take is to search for something that reminds them of home, like personalized glasses of their favorite sports team. Another is to find gadgets that will make their travel days a little less stressful  think travel adapters or clothing items where comfort is a guarantee.

Whether your giftee travels to seek thrills or to build business connections, weve gathered gifts for every type of voyageur, from the crossroads backpack to keep the traveler sleek and chic en route to that discreet and handy sex toy built to provide pleasure no matter what nature throws the adventure traveler's way.

Get ready to be jealous of their far-flung foreign Instagrams. Heres what to get your jet-setting friend.

Old Fashioned Carry-On Cocktail Kit

Their next plane drink doesnt have to be a Jack and Coke from one of those communal cans. Allow them to take the edge off the flight with something a little more high brow. Carry On Cocktail is bringing their favorite watering hole to the sky  each of their little tins includes all the fixins for a cocktail. In the old-fashioned kit comes cane sugar, aromatic bitters, a muddler, and a recipe card.

$14.99 at Amazon.com

Merino Travel Kit

The secret to securing some shut-eye on a long-haul flight? Coming prepared. The Merino Travel Kit will have you set to catch zzzs with a blanket and eye mask, all stored in an equally soft AF carrying case. Sleek, stylish and comfortable is hard to come by these days, but with this, all your boxes will be checked off with ease. First class or last, whoever you gift this to will be bright eyed and bushy tailed upon arrival.

$169 at ParachuteHome.com

Rumpl Blanket

Half sleeping bag, half duvet, the Rumpl blanket was designed to make getting out of bed a little more difficult in the morning. Think all the comfort of a sleeping bag, but in blanket form. It can be brought on a camping trip or simply tossed over a couch to make re-watching all of "Game Of Thrones" that much more tough to resist.

$93.42 at Amazon.com

Malin + Goetz Essential Toiletry Kit

Between dry airplanes, public transportation and long travel days, a solid grooming regime shouldnt suffer because of TSA size limitations. Thankfully, travel-sized products don't have to be limited to whats found in the hotel room. For example, cult-followed skincare brand Malin + Goetz crafted their top-selling products into carry-on size packaging, just what's needed for the regular jet-setter. Six travel-sized products include a grapefruit face cleanser, vitamin e face moisturizer, bergamot body wash, a vitamin b5 body moisturizer, peppermint shampoo, and cilantro conditioner.

$32.00 at Birchbox.com

RELATED: How To Pack A TSA-Approved Dopp Kit

Calpak Ambeur Carry-On Luggage

Ready for a weekend getaway or a more extensive getaway? Meet Calpak, a modern yet chic company perfect for all of your travel needs. With the Ambeur Carry-On, it'll be hard not to catch the attention of all those stragglers you pass as you go from destination to destination. This four-wheeled suitcase features a compartmentalized interior, keeping your belongings in place even on the longest of red-eyes. An added USB port and portable battery will keep your technology powered up, too, with the TSA-accepted lock making sure your belongings never leave your side.

$165 at CalpakTravel.com

Chateau Spill Stain Remover

When you're on the go with a carry-on amount of clothes, the last thing you want to do is find a smear of sauce or a dabble of red wine on your fresh white shirt. Help him avoid the search for a local launder with Chateau Spill's easy travel wipes and stain remover spray. These solutions tackle tough stains  even the darkest of Bordeaux or the stickiest of lipstick. Plus, they effortlessly fit in a pocket or wallet.

$7.95 at Amazon.com

RELATED: Best Headphones According To Adventure Travelers

Bose Quiet Comfort Headphones

Proximity to crying babies or chatty seat neighbors isn't as horrifying as it sounds when you've got a reliable pair of noise-canceling headphones. Bose's signature quality performance will drown out the world (including that snorer sitting beside them) while playing music the way it was meant to be heard. The QC25 model is specifically designed to reduce the roar of an airplane while letting music play loud and clear. A cushioned, over-ear fit will stay comfortable whether the flight's two hours or 10.

$129 at Amazon.com

Allbirds Loungers

Dress shoes look real sleek, but let's be real  after a few hours on your feet, you're itching for a change. Through planes, trains, cars, and buses, the Allbirds Loungers are an Uber-comfortable, slipper-inspired sneaker that's perfect for those on the go. Able to be slipped on and off with ease, the lightweight material (in either a wool or tree material), is just one of the best things about these kicks. And even though they boast the comfort of slippers, the minimalistic style has all the street cred of a regular sneaker, making it a no-fuss shoe for everything from globetrotting to running errands.

$95 at Allbirds.com

Lovehoney Desire Luxury Rechargeable Vibrating Cock Ring

You wouldn't think a sex toy would be an essential item when galavanting around, but solo travels can get a little boring. That's why having, let's say ... a rechargeable vibrating cock ring on your person will make it more fun to get off anywhere in the world. Designed for personal pleasure or if you make a friend on your adventures, the silicone item grips the penis, making for stronger erections and a boost in stamina. And if you're afraid of it falling out of your bag mid-travel, don't fret  there's a travel lock to put you at ease during transit.

$51.99 at Lovehoney.com

Mack Weldon Sunday Lounge Pant

Ever put on a pair of peached cotton flannel pants? Well, once you step into the Sunday Lounge Pant, you'll know the feeling. Perfect for sitting on whatever mode of transportation tickles your fancy, these pants are both insanely comfortable and surprisingly refined. The stretch ankle cuff and back flex waist give off the design of a jogger, all while maintaining a classic look that can easily be worn with a sophisticated top. Board meeting or just relaxing in your hotel room, these are essential.

$68 at MackWeldon.com

Anker PowerCore+ 26800 PD 45W

There is nothing worse than rolling up to the Eiffel Tower (or another once-in-a-lifetime, photo-worthy experience) only to realize your phone is zapped out, ready to keel over at any moment. This portable power charger can charge several pieces of your technology, filling out its bundle with a portable battery, wall charger, and USB-C to C cable.If you're looking for the ultimate high-speed charge, the answer is Anker.

$139.99 at Amazon.com

Grafo Map

For the traveler whose head is always somewhere far away, keep the memories close to home with a custom map. Grafo takes the coordinates of a place that is near and dear, turning them into sleek, charming wall art in a range of colors and styles. Pick a place they adore traveling to or choose a map of where they grew up to keep home on the mind. Each map comes in a variety of styles and sizes to fit their space.

Find out more at Grafomap.com

Casper Nap Pillow

Looking to take a quick snooze will no comfortable (or clean) place to rest your head? Traveling with your own piece of comfort is key, and that's exactly what a Casper Nap Pillow would provide you. This miniature version of the adult-sized product uses the same pillow-in-a-pillow design, all while making it easily portable in its little string sack. It's silk-like, so you know it's soft, and the material will also keep you cool as you drift off even if your newest location is sweltering.

$35 at Amazon.com

SWell Stainless Steel Bottle

Traveler or homebody, SWell has made it onto almost every one of our gift guides, and for good reason. The stainless steel water bottle can keep drinks icy cold for up to 24 hours, and hot drinks warm for 12. Meaning, they can ditch the plane water, fill up pre-flight and arrive at their destination fully hydrated.

$32 at Amazon.com

YETI Crossroads Backpack 23

For the man whose idea of a vacation doesnt include a five-star resort, the YETI Crossroads Backpack 23 is set for even the most rough-and-tumble of adventures. Durable, 1000D Nylon material lined with 420D Nylon ripstop means you'll have a tough as nails product that still looks great. It also means it'll keep whatever travel gear safe no matter where the road takes 'em. It's the ultimate travel backpack that can't be beat.

$199.99 at YETI.com

Try the World Gift Box

For the wanderlust traveler who can't get away at the moment, bring the flavors of the world to them. The monthly box gathers gourmet treats from around the world  think Greek oregano, Patagonian chips, Indian chai, or French fruit snacks. For a quick treat, Try the World offers a snack box for $19 a month, or a larger selection for $39 a month. Doubting the quality? Each box is carefully curated by a Michelin-star chef and includes a culture guide explaining each product and giving tips and tricks on how to cook with them.

Find out more at Trytheworld.com

City Map Glass

For the expat whos heart is still in his home city or country, a customized city map glass can be a great gift to tug at his heartstrings. Handmade in the United States, each of these rocks glasses can be etched with a map, name and coordinates of a city.

$16 at UncommonGoods.com

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AskMen may get paid if you click a link in this article and buy a product or service. To find out more, please read our complete terms of use.Plans to build one of the largest wind farms in Australia and the Southern Hemisphere are closer to reality as a global firm confirmed that it has closed the financing for the project.

Hogan Lovells acted for Partners Group as lead counsel on the letter of credit financing to support the construction phase of the first stage of the Murra Warra Wind Farm.

The global private-markets investment manager, which manages US$78bn, is pouring $200m into the project on behalf of clients.The changing landscape of the UK legal profession is likely to be a blow to many small firms who are not ready to adapt to the changes.

They say that proposals by the regulator could damage the profession, while 57% were not even aware of the changes, despite them likely to take effect later this year.

Almost two-thirds of the lawyers in small and medium law firms across the UK who were polled by LexisNexis UK said that law is becoming more of a job than a profession and 46% say they see themselves as business people more than lawyers.The Australian non-bank lending sector is an important and growing part of the Australian financial services landscape. As a firm, we understand the sector extremely well and have been able to leverage all of our knowledge and experience to advise Affinity on this transaction, McNamara said.

This is Affinitys first investment in the Australian financial services sector. KWM has been advising Affinity on its investments into Australia and looks forward to continuing to help the private equity firm, Horan said.

Partner Ashley Poke leads the PwC Legal team on the deal.

Scottish Pacific received an unsolicited bid from Affinity. After careful consideration and negotiation by the board and its advisers, the final offer was accepted with exclusivity granted to Affinity (subject to no superior proposals emerging). The scheme will now be subject to customary approvals including the requisite regulatory and court approvals, with a target date of completion in late December 2018, she said. With PwC providing the associated tax and legal services to Scottish Pacific, it has been a great testament to our teams ability to bring multidisciplinary teams to the table. It has resulted in a seamless adviser experience that we are proud to deliver.EV

ICE

The fully electric version of Kia's box crossover has been spied once again near the Nurburgring. This time around, our spyshots also reveal most of the interior, which was a mystery until now.Before we talk about the switches and buttons, let's focus on the range. The infotainment reads 437 kilometers on 92% charge. That's 475 km on 100% (simple maths), and t means Kia will claim 500 km per charge. Weirdly, the Hyundai Kona Electric with what we presume to be the same 64kWh battery only gets 415 km per charge.Either way, the Soulwill be more than twice as good as its predecessor in this regard. Of course, we can't ignore the possibility of more than one battery option, but as things stand, Tesla has something to worry about from the plucky Koreans. And did we mention this EV has about 200 horsepower?The interior is quite different from the Kia Niro crossover. The new Soul's main motif is a MINI-like circle, seen on the steering wheel and the gear selector, among other things.Although it's not clear if these will be offered to Europeans, the Soul will also haveversions. The two most likely powertrains are a 2-liter base unit and a 1.6-liter turbo option, as the Veloster. Also, a 1.6-liter diesel with the new hybrid assist setup could be popular in the domestic Korean market.As for styling, we have a pretty good rendering based on recent spyshots that take the guesswork out of the equation. The Soul will be boxy, yes, but in a futuristic way with Juke-like headlights. The EV will add its twist with a blocked off grille and aero wheels. Expect the new model to retail for around $36,000 in America or 35,000 on the old continent.SUV

And since the automotive-related side of the Internet always replies with renderings these days, we've brought along such a pixel play.Sure, the image we have here is far from what we expect the production version of the Purosangue to be. And that's because we're looking at what is basically a lifted version of the Ferrari 812 Superfast, one that has also received a few touches here and there.The render comes from pixel master Evren Milano, who constantly likes to deliver such dreams and it should be treated as such. Come to think of it, this is not unlike one of the FF prototypes that never made it to production.Intially, the Maranello automaker said the its first dive into theworld would be ready in 2020. However, the deadline has been axed, with the company explaining it wants to further refine the vehicle.So far, we know that the machine will pack four-wheel-drive, but this doesn't mean all that much. For instance, we'll remind you that the Ferrari FF uses two transmissions in its quest to send the power to all four wheels, so we can't possibly know what the Italian engineers are cooking.However, we do know that the upcoming model will receive hybrid propulsion. Its internal combustion engine will be front-mind-mounted, while its transaxle gearbox and electric motor will sit at the back.Unlike the FF or its replacement, the GTC4Lusso, the future SUV will offer serious rear seat accommodation. Speaking of the latter, we're expecting the SUV to follow its footsteps and come in both 8- and 12-cylinder form.However, with Ferrari also working on a V6 right know, we can't be sure of the possibilities that lie ahead.In July, Nissan admitted some tampering with the way in which tests of exhaust emissions and fuel economy were conducted, with the purpose of creating falsified reports. At the time, it also promised a comprehensive investigation into the matter.The Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) asked the carmaker to submit the report of the investigation by September 26, a deadline Nissan announced it has met.The investigation was conducted by a dedicated team led by Japanese law firm Nishimura and Asahi, which was also responsible for considering appropriate countermeasures. It revealed all sorts of interesting facts, very few of them actually related to fuel consumption and emissions.As far as these two go, there were cases of rewriting of measurement values and test environment data to make them fit in the required ranges, as well as deviation from prescribed test environments.In essence, Nissan employees were not using some high-tech defeat device like Volkswagen s, but rather a pen or keyboard and their imagination.These practices were uncovered at all Nissan and affiliate vehicle production plants in Japan, except Nissan Motor Kyushu. In all, misconduct in exhaust emissions and fuel economy occurred during sample testing in a total of 1,205 vehicles, said Nissan.Secondly, there were cases of improper procedures related to vehicle precision measurements and tests. This means certain required tests, most of them not related to emissions, were not conducted at all or only partially for new vehicles.That includes not testing the brake fluid warning light, external noise, maximum stable inclination angle of cars or the horn volume.You can read the entire Nissan report in the document attached below, complete with recommendations for the future.Manspreading is a thing on busy trains and was first identified in the US. It implies a man sits on a seat with his legs spread out, thus occupying more space than he would if he sat cross-legged or with his legs together. Apparently, manspreading is seen as gender aggression in that its meant to establish the territory of a male alpha. Its also meant to put women in their place, as theyre almost always forced to sit with their legs crossed.Well, one law student from Russia is looking to set this wrong right. Her name is Anna Dovgalyuk and shes 20 years old. With help from friends, shes been dousing men on the St. Petersburg metro with a concoction made of water and actual bleach, with the sole goal of shaming manspreaders and permanently stain their clothes.Video of her stunt is included at the bottom of the page, courtesy of Metro . She claims her act isnt staged and that she successfully marked 70 manspreaders in just one day. Surprisingly, not one of the friends who helped her do this got roughed up by the men they assaulted.Describing manspreading as a disgusting act that is being fought around the world - but hushed up here, Anna says she has no plans to back down. If anything, now that shes getting started bringing justice on the trains of the St. Petersburg Metro, she plans to go bigger for her next stunts.We not only cooled the manspreading down but also marked them with identification spots! Anna brags. So everyone can immediately understand which body part controls the behavior of these men.She plans on doing the same in Moscow.For a law student, she seems blissfully unaware that what shes doing is assault - with a chemical substance no less. If the solution shes pouring on mens crotches is really 30 times more concentrated than the bleach you can find at the store to do the laundry, then it can probably cause burns on the skin as well, not just spots on fabrics.To recap: if youre in Russia this time of the year and are a man who hates sitting cross-legged, its probably best to avoid the metro for a while. Social activism is underway.Last Sunday, the DPWH closed the Estrella-Pantaleon bridge for the next 30 months. Also known as the Rockwell Bridge, it was to be demolished and to be replaced by a wider, four-lane bridge. Upon closure, motorists experienced gridlocked traffic as they had to find another way in and out of Makati. Following the standstill traffic from yesterday, authorities have re-opened the said bridge, at least for now.

Department of Public Works and Highways spokesperson Anna Mae Lamentillo said that, they, the DPWH ordered the Makati Public Safety Assistance (MAPSA) to clear the roadblock heading to the bridge at 9:30 PM, last night. The spokesperson added that they will be conducting more consultations while the bridge stays open, as reported by CNN Philippines. On that note, that means commuters can pass through the bridge again.

This isn't the first time the closure of the Estrella-Pantaleon bridge was pushed back. It was supposed to be closed last Thursday, September 20, but was postponed to September 23 in order to give more time for government agencies to disseminate the information to residents and other motorists. This second postponement however appears to be indefinite, at least for now, as authorities have yet to say when they will close it again to push through with the demolition and construction of a wider passageway.Hybrid Air Freighters, based in Paris, and Columbia Helicopters, in Oregon, have agreed to team up to operate a fleet of 12 airships to be built by Lockheed Martin. In a joint news release issued earlier this month, the companies said the airships will provide high performance and innovative logistical services for the oil and gas industries, as well as mining and large-scale construction sectors. The ships will transport both freight and personnel in remote areas. No significant ground-based infrastructure is required, and the airships can land on any type of surface, hovercraft-style.

HAF, a partner with the aircraft manufacturer Daher, agreed to buy the hybrid air freighters from Lockheed Martin for about $500 million, according to a June 2017 story in Air Cargo World. Each aircraft carries up to 21 tons in a 60-foot-long cargo bay.The Trump administration is not only seeking what it calls fairer trade with Beijing, but much more  to upend the bedrock of the Chinese economy by forcing out the chain of manufacturing supply from the country, and pushing it elsewhere.

Why it matters: There are doubts about this end game of Trump's trade war. After decades of development and tens of millions of dollars of investment, few U.S. companies seem likely to move their manufacturing facilities out of China.

"It cant be a replay of the Cold War division between the West and the Soviet Union  industries were nationally based back then and innovation wasnt global. All this changed after 1990."

 Jim Lewis of the Center for Strategic and International Studies

China has been the world's biggest exporter for almost two decades and has poured millions into its logistics network so global companies can quickly move goods from factories to cargo ships. China also has one of the best-trained manufacturing workforces in the world.

U.S. companies can consider moving production from China to Cambodia, Malaysia, Vietnam or elsewhere  both to dodge tariffs and avoid the threat of intellectual property theft, But elsewhere, they face other disadvantages like dirt roads between factories and ports and inexperienced workers, the New York Times reports.

can consider moving production from China to Cambodia, Malaysia, Vietnam or elsewhere  both to dodge tariffs and avoid the threat of intellectual property theft, But elsewhere, they face other disadvantages like dirt roads between factories and ports and inexperienced workers, the New York Times reports. And China has levers to make sure it isn't frozen out of global supply chains, Lewis says. For example, it could threaten to take away a foreign company's access to its massive market.

Yes, but: Some companies are at least putting a halt to new Chinese production capacity.

Feng Tay Enterprises, a Taiwanese footwear manufacturer that services Nike and Adidas, stopped building up Chinese production over 10 years ago, per Nikkei Asian Review. It's now adding capacity in India and Southeast Asia.

a Taiwanese footwear manufacturer that services Nike and Adidas, stopped building up Chinese production over 10 years ago, per Nikkei Asian Review. It's now adding capacity in India and Southeast Asia. Foxconn, the iPhone and laptop maker, earned kudos from Washington for promising to bring a chunk of production to Wisconsin.

What to watch: If a few big names try to cut reliance on China  even if they don't move out entirely  President Xi Jinping could make concessions to avoid disrupting the interconnected supply chain.Sean Andrew, one of the more popular grandsons of former President Mwai Kibaki, has ruled out ever joining politics as he turns his attention to acting.

The model is set to make his theatre acting debut tomorrow in a play titled Money That Made Him Poor. He will be playing the role of a villain in the play, which is produced by Tony Tini Tone Productions.

Its a Kenyan play with a well-selected cast, good script and the message is also timely in this time in our country. The issues it covers include corruption, money, power and greed. It will be a theatrical experience to behold, Sean says.

Sean plays the role of a tenderpreneur intent on making quick bucks at all costs.

He explains further saying: Ill probably be that character that people would love to hate: pushy and full of myself. Ill do my best but that is something that Im not.



Ive done plays before but this is my first time doing a professional theatre play. Its very exciting being part of a positive story. Acting was one of my interests. In terms of my career, I go with the flow.

On being related to Mwai Kibaki and the prospect of following in the footsteps of grandfather, Sean said: We are all related to somebody, and to me the people Im related to are just family. We grew up humble. As I said, I dont go with the part, I go with the flow on how things are.

He added: So politics is not something Im looking forward to. I can help Kenyan people without going into politics, and if thats possible, Ill really avoid that.President Trump announced for the first time today that he supports a "two-state solution" to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the founding of an independent Palestinian state. Following his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he also said he would be presenting his long awaited peace plan in 2-4 months.

Why it matters: The Palestinians have been anxiously waiting for Trump to say this. In the 20 months since he assumed office, Trump refrained from supporting the two state solution even though presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama all supported a Palestinian state. Trump has been urged by Arab and European leaders  mainly King Abdullah of Jordan  over the last few months to pledge support for the two state solution.

Trump also stressed that he wants to get a deal between Israel and the Palestinians before the end of his first term in office.

He also said once again that Israel will have to make concessions to the Palestinians because the U.S. has already moved its embassy to Jerusalem. Trump said: "That's a big chip that they got. We have to make a fair deal. Deals have to be good for both parties. Otherwise, you don't have a deal and you dont have a lasting deal".

Despite the fact the Palestinians have been boycotting the White House since Trump's embassy announcement, Trump sounded confident and said he they will come back to the table "100 percent".

In a briefing to Israeli reporters after the meeting with Trump, Netanyahu said he was not caught by surprise by Trump's statement. Netanyahu said he told Trump that what matters is the substance and not the term.

Netanyahu said Jared Kushner, who is leading the U.S. "peace team," told the President during the meeting that different players have different interpretations of the term "Palestinian state."

Netanyahu said he reiterated Kushner's remark and told Trump that the question will be whether the Palestinian state will be "more like Costa Rica or more like Iran."

"I told the president that any future Palestinian state must not have the ability to threaten Israel and that the overriding security responsibility should stay in Israeli hands. I am sure that every U.S. peace plan will reflect that."

 Netanyahu

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh commented on Trump's: "The road to peace goes through a two-state solution with the state of Palestine on the borders of 1967 with East Jerusalem as its capital. This is an Arab and an international position."

What to watch: Tomorrow, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas will give a speech at the UN General Assembly. Abbas arrived in New York with the goal of rallying the international community against Trump's peace plan. He even organized an Anti-Trump meeting with representatives from 40 states. It will be interesting to see if Trump's overture towards Abbas and the Palestinians will be reflected in the Palestinian president's speech.President Trump's blunt-force diplomacy at the United Nations yesterday reflected one of the quirks of his style on the world stage.

The big picture: He shuns European allies. Stunningly, he made zero mention of Britain or France, and his only mention of the Germans was to say that if they dont change course, theyll become "totally dependent on Russian energy." And he saves his sweetest words for individual world leaders  even adversaries, conveying his "great respect and affection" for his "friend" President Xi Jinping of China, and thanking North Korea's Kim Jong-un for his "courage."

At the same time, Trump doubled down on U.S. tariffs on China, and said the U.S. would maintain sanctions against the North Koreans until they have denuclearized.

It's Trump's theory of international relations: He praises and flatters leaders by name, while pursuing tough policies against their countries.

The effort to preserve personal relations leaves him to pursue a diplomacy that's based, above all, on personal chemistry between leaders.

European allies have lost all patience with this approach by Trump, with one diplomat describing the president's speech to the UN General Assembly as a roster of grievances, sprinkled with bragging about his accomplishments.

Trumps grievances were many, and he described many international institutions as nothing more than scams set up to fleece Americans of their wealth and sovereignty.

Trump attacked the World Trade Organization, the UN Human Rights Council, OPEC, the new Global Compact on Migration, the current system of foreign aid, international peacekeeping, and globalism as a concept:

"We reject the ideology of globalism, and we embrace the doctrine of patriotism."

The bottom line: Trumps speech was a full-throated nationalist war cry. Steve Bannon, who hasnt talked to Trump in many months, wouldve been proud.

P.S. How they see us ... Cover of today's Guardian (London): "The world's derision halts Trump UN speech."Iranian President Hassan Rouhani railed against President Trump and the United States for the majority of his speech at the United Nations General Assembly today, saying Iran can never make an agreement with an administration that is "misbehaving" as Trump's is.

Between the lines: Rouhani began his speech, just hours after Trump lambasted multinational organizations in his address, by bemoaning the "recklessness" of countries that don't respect international agreements and organizations. He then said, without naming Trump: "It is unfortunate that we are witnessing rulers in the world who think they can... gain popular support through the fomenting of extremist nationalism and racism and through xenophobic tendencies resembling a Nazi disposition."

Our proposal is clear. Commitment for commitment. Violation for violation. Threat for threat. And step for step, instead of talk for talk.

The big picture: National Security Adviser John Bolton later warned the Iranian regime that there will be "hell to pay" if they "continue to lie, cheat and deceive" or "cross" the U.S. and its allies. Trump is also taking every opportunity this week in New York to challenge Iran.

Meanwhile, America's European allies have cut a deal with China and Russia to circumvent Trump's Iran sanctions and potentially keep the Iran deal alive despite Trump's efforts to kill it. On this issue, the U.S. and Europe could hardly be further apart.

Go deeper: At UN, more evidence that Trump is losing the world.Royal Dutch Shell is sitting out a multi-million dollar fight over a carbon fee proposal in Washington state even as nearly all other oil companies with operations there rally to oppose it.

Why it matters: Its a sign of the oil industrys uneven, years-long evolution toward supporting policies that put a price on carbon emissions. And whether Washington State voters support the initiative, which is on the state-wide ballot this Election Day, will be a bellwether for other attempts at big climate policy.

Driving the news: In an interview with Axios on the sidelines of a conference in New York Monday, Shell CEO Ben van Beurden criticized aspects of the proposal, but nonetheless said his company isnt going to fight it. He indicated Shell won't join an industry campaign, funded by BP and others, to oppose it.

 Its a price on carbon, so it ought to be a good thing. This fee has some imperfections. It doesnt, in my mind, win any beauty contests the way it has been designed. ... But were not going to fight it. Let me be very clear on that as well.

 Ben van Beurden, CEO, Shell

Between the lines: van Beurdens comments reflect a subtle but significant shift. It may seem trivial to casual observers when stakeholders in any fight opt to not oppose something. But its a sign of evolving stances and could make a difference in the overall outcome, both because of the lack of monetary support and also the symbolism of Shell opting not to fight it.

He said he didnt like how the proposal excludes several other major emitters, including aluminum plants and a coal plant. Thats one big reason why BP, which like Shell has a refinery in the state, is helping fund a campaign fighting the proposal. Other companies funding the campaign include refiner Phillips 66 and Chevron.

The industry campaign has more than $20 million in contributions so far.

The campaign supporting the initiative has roughly $5.6 million

Yes, but: Shell's decision to abstain from the fight is unlikely to win it much praise from critics. Many environmentalists say that despite oil executives rhetorically supporting carbon prices for years and backing groups that do, the companies dont push for the policy on Capitol Hill or anywhere else where its a live issue  like in Washington state.

Go deeper: Big Oil teeters between enemy and ally in climate fightWhile major tech and telecom companies told lawmakers Wednesday that they generally support federal privacy rules, they pushed back on some of the most significant policy changes backed by privacy advocates.

Why it matters: Companies are drawing lines in the sand for lawmakers who are under pressure to produce something, thanks to new privacy rules in Europe and a California privacy law that will go into effect in 2020.

What they're saying: Witnesses from companies including Google, Apple and AT&T expressed reservations about some particularly strong steps lawmakers could take to ensure user data privacy during a Senate Commerce Committee hearing.

Mandatory opt-in: With the exception of Charter Communications, companies did not support a requirement that they obtain affirmative "opt-in" consent to collect user data. "I do think that theres a concern that if you overlay a regulatory imperative like that on every action you really risk breaking  innovative products and services that we know customers love," said Amazon's Andrew DeVore.

With the exception of Charter Communications, companies did not support a requirement that they obtain affirmative "opt-in" consent to collect user data. "I do think that theres a concern that if you overlay a regulatory imperative like that on every action you really risk breaking  innovative products and services that we know customers love," said Amazon's Andrew DeVore. Letting the Federal Trade Commission set rules: Many witnesses weren't willing to commit to backing expanded authority of the Federal Trade Commission, which currently is limited to enforcing existing standards set by Congress rather than making its own.

More broadly, the companies expressed dissatisfaction with the California and European privacy laws.

Google Chief Privacy Officer Keith Enright estimated that complying with the EU's General Data Protection Regulation had required "in the hundreds of years of human time."

Yes, but: The industry was not a fully united front, as some of the witnesses tried to distance their companies' data collection practices from the data-driven ad business models of Google and Facebook.

Charter was the only company to whole-heartedly back mandatory opt-in for data collection; it's also an outlier among internet service providers rivals like AT&T and Verizon in that it has not sought as aggressively to compete with Google and Facebook.

What's next: I think we might have a pretty good idea what a draft would look like [by the end of the year], but I suspect we probably wouldnt get it acted on until next year," Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune.Uber will pay $148 million in a nationwide settlement led by California after the company allegedly covered up a data breach involving customer and driver data in 2016, the California Department of Justice announced on Wednesday.

Why it matters: Rather than initially disclosing the breach, Uber paid a hacker $100,000 to destroy the stolen data. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said the settlement shows Uber that "we will hold them accountable" in protecting user data.

The details: In addition to the payment, Uber will also be required to maintain robust data security practices that comply with state laws covering data collection, maintenance, safeguarding information and reporting security incidents. The company must also report data security incidents on a quarterly basis for two years.Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called for greater trade and investments between Iran and Armenia when he met with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian in New York late on Tuesday.

The two men reportedly focused on economic issues in what were their first face-to-face talks held on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

Rouhani was reported to say that Armenian-Iranian commercial ties lag far behind political relations between the two neighboring states. According to the Mehr news agency, he said Iran is ready to expand mutual energy supplies and help to launch a transport corridor connecting Black Sea and Persian Gulf ports via Armenia and Georgia.

We are ready to encourage the private sector to engage in business in Armenia and facilitate Armenian companies investments [in Iran,] added Rouhani.

Pashinian likewise stressed the importance of enhancing the economic component of Armenias special relationship with Iran. He called for a faster implementation of joint energy projects agreed by the two governments.

One of those projects involves the ongoing construction of a third high-voltage transmission line that will connect Armenian and Iranian power grids. An Iranian construction company is due to finish it next year. The new line is meant to sharply expand a swap arrangement involving supplies of Armenian electricity and Iranian natural gas.

According to official Armenian statistics, Armenian-Iranian trade stood at a modest $263 million last year. Tehran and Yerevan hope that Irans provisional free-trade agreement with the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) signed in May will also boost it.

The deal was signed just days after the United States decided to re-impose economic sanctions on the Islamic Republic after pulling out of a 2015 international agreement on the Iranian nuclear program.

Rouhani and Pashinian reportedly discussed implications of U.S. President Donald Trumps controversial move in a phone call later in May. Official statements on their meeting in New York made no mention of the issue.

In its policy program approved by the Armenian parliament June, Pashinians government says Armenian-Iranian ties must be immune to other geopolitical influences as much as possible. The program says Armenia will at the same time seek to bolster its friendly partnership with the U.S.

Due to the unresolved Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the resulting closure of Armenias borders with Azerbaijan and Turkey, Iran has long been one of the landlocked countrys two commercial conduits to the outside world. Successive Armenian governments have therefore been keen to maintain a warm rapport with Tehran.The head of an Armenian parliamentary body said on Wednesday that it will try to question Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian in its unfolding inquiry into recently leaked phone calls between two senior law-enforcement officials which caused a political scandal.

The chiefs of Armenias National Security Service (NSS) and Special Investigative Service (SIS) apparently spoke in July shortly before former President Robert Kocharian was arrested over his role in the 2008 post-election violence in Yerevan. The two conversations were wiretapped and posted on the Internet by unknown individuals earlier this month.

In that audio, the NSSs Artur Vanetsian can be heard telling the SISs Sasun Khachatrian that he ordered a judge to sanction Kocharians controversial arrest. Vanetsian also urged the SIS not to arrest Yuri Khachaturov, the Armenian secretary general of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), warning of a negative reaction from Russia. He noted that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian wants investigators to lock up Khachaturov.

Pashinian condemned the wiretapping and denied putting pressure on investigators.

For his part, Kocharian, who was released from pre-trial custody in August, portrayed the audio as further proof that the criminal case against him is politically motivated and directed by Pashinian. Top representatives of the former ruling Republican Party of Armenia (HHK), the countrys largest parliamentary force, echoed these claims.

At the HHKs initiative, the parliament decided on September 12 to set up an ad hoc commission tasked with investigating circumstances of the illegal wiretapping and possible obstruction of justice by senior officials. The multi-partisan commission is headed by Gevorg Kostanian, an HHK lawmaker who served as Armenias prosecutor-general from 2013-2016. Its deputy chairman, Alen Simonian, is a close associate of Pashinian.

Kostanian said that the special panel will seek testimony from not only Vanetsian and Khachatrian but also the prime minister. It is logical that at some point these individuals mentioned by you will definitely be invited to a session of the commission, he told reporters.

Kostanian added that neither Pashinian nor any other state official can refuse to be questioned by the commission. Under the National Assembly statutes, any official [summoned by the commission] is obliged to report for sessions of the commission. Failure to do so would be automatically deemed an abuse of power or a manifestation of inactivity, he warned.

The law also gives such parliamentary bodies access to sensitive details of criminal investigations and even state secrets.By Trend

Over the past 24 hours, Armenian armed forces have 91 times violated the ceasefire along the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said Sept. 26.

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.

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Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzBy Trend

Azerbaijans Pirallahi solar power plant is preparing to connect new solar panels, Azalternativenerji LLC under the State Agency on Alternative and Renewable Energy Sources told Trend Aug. 28.

"In general, 4,400 solar panels have been installed here, 1,920 of them have been already connected, the remaining 2,480 are being prepared for connection," the company said.

The solar power plant generated 1.9 million kilowatt-hours of electricity worth about 86,000 manats from May 22, 2014 to July 1, 2018.

Moreover, 1.816 million kilowatt-hours of electricity of that volume were sold.

The contract cost of the solar power plant project is 14.7 million manats.

In January-July 2018, Azerbaijans wind farms produced 14.1 million kilowatt hours of electricity, which is 63.9 percent more than in January-July 2017, while solar power plants generated 23.4 million kilowatt hours of electricity, says a report of the State Statistics Committee.

According to the State Agency for Alternative and Renewable Energy Sources, the countrys wind energy potential is 350 megawatts, 50 megawatts account for solar energy, and during the next few years it will be possible to reach the level of 20 megawatts in bioenergy.

Azerbaijans power plants generated 13.5 billion kilowatt hours of electricity in January-July 2018 that is 2.6 percent more than in the same period of 2017, according to the report.

The report says that 12.99 billion kilowatt hours of the total electricity generated in January-July 2018 accounted for commercial electricity, which is 3.1 percent more than in January-July 2017.

(1.7 manats = $1 on Aug. 28)

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzA look at todays biggest stories.

US is putting a knife to Chinas neck, says trade negotiator Chinas deputy trade negotiator on Tuesday acknowledged the challenge in resuming negotiations with the US, saying: How could you negotiate with someone when he puts a knife on your neck?

Chinese admiral cancels meeting with US counterpart amid tensions Chinas top naval officer canceled a visit to the US to meet with his American counterpart less than 48 hours before the meeting was scheduled to occur, according to two US defense officials.

Instagram founders are stepping away from the company Were planning on taking some time off to explore our curiosity and creativity again, Systrom said in a blog post late Monday. Building new things requires that we step back, understand what inspires us and match that with what the world needs; thats what we plan to do.

Air Force awards $2.4B contract for new helicopters to guard nukes The US Air Force has awarded a $2.38 billion contract to Boeing for new helicopters as part of an effort to replace the Vietnam-era Hueys that have been helping to secure Americas nuclear missile sites.

Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein to meet Trump Thursday Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will meet with President Donald Trump Thursday amid mounting questions about his future and what a dramatic Justice Department shake up would mean for special counsel Robert Muellers Russia investigation.

Amazing treatment helps paralyzed people walk again Kelly Thomas is paralyzed from the chest down and can consciously control her ability to walk, researchers say, thanks to a stimulation device in her lower back. Two studies released Monday show three paralyzed patients can walk again.

Modicare: Indias PM promises free health care for half a billion Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has launched the worlds biggest healthcare program, with the rollout of free coverage for an estimated half a billion of Indias poorest citizens ahead of national elections early next year.

Fan Bingbings disappearance shows no one is safe from Beijing We know that China often disappears and abuses human rights defenders but when it can disappear even one of its most famous celebrities, the threat of enforced disappearance looms over anyone China claims within its jurisdiction.

Ted Cruz Heckled Out Of DC Restaurant By Anti-Kavanaugh Activists Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) was heckled out of a Washington, D.C., restaurant by activists opposed to Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh as they chanted, We believe survivors! on Monday night.

Progressive Nike And Workers Donated 3 Times More Money To GOP Than Democrats Nike made a bold move to feature Colin Kaepernick in its provocative new ad campaign this month, one that infuriated people on the right. But it turns out the company and its employees donated more than three times as much money to Republicans than Democrats this year, a new report shows.

Baby In The Road! Jersey Driver Saves Little Boy From Close Call Driver Cory Cannon spotted something out of the ordinary in the middle of a busy New Jersey road over the weekend. He was stunned when it turned out to be a baby crawling across the dividing line as cars whipped by at 40 mph.

Fake Photo Of Trump Rescuing Flood Victims Goes Viral An edited photo that appears to show President Donald Trump floating in a raft, extending a red Make America Great Again hat to a flood victim, has gone viral in the wake of Hurricane Florence.

Instagram co-founders leave firm The co-founders of photo-sharing giant Instagram, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, are both leaving the firm. Mr Systrom, chief executive, said they were departing to explore our curiosity and creativity again. Instagram was purchased by Facebook in 2012 for $1bn (760m) in cash and stock and has more than one billion users.

Why I was sentenced to 5,000 years in jail In our series of letters from African writers, Rodney D Sieh, editor of Liberias FrontPageAfrica, reflects on what his career says about the state of journalism in West Africa. My claim to infamy was being sentenced to 5,000 years in prison for failing to pay libel damages of $1.6m (1.2m) won by a former minister who sued my paper after we published the findings of a government audit.

Former Facebook content moderator sues company for giving her PTSD The mental toll of moderating unsettling content on the internet is well-noted, and now its the subject of a lawsuit against Facebook. Former content manager Selena Scola has lodged a suit against the social media company, claiming constant and unmitigated exposure to highly toxic and extremely disturbing images had left her with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Michelle Obama is just as tired of politics as you are If theres anyone feels as exhausted as we do about the current nastiness of the political cycle, its former First Lady Michelle Obama. Ahead of her upcoming book tour, Obama spoke at a When We All Vote voter registration rally in Las Vegas on Sunday, where she expressed her own frustration over the chaos in politics and encouraged voters to turn out for the upcoming midterm elections.

Google Search gets a slew of new features on its 20th anniversary Its been 20 years since Google Search first arrived on the web, and the company is updating its core product with a slew of new features for the anniversary. The throughline for the features is AI.

WhatsApp hires Grievance Officer to fight deadly fake news in India In recent months, fake news on WhatsApp in India has inspired citizens to form deadly lynch mobs. Take that in: false articles, spread on WhatsApp, have driven Indian citizens to murder. To address this startling problem, WhatsApp has created the role of Grievance Officer, according to the Times of India .

Game of Thrones to turn filming locations into decked-out tourist attractions If youve been to Northern Ireland to see where Game of Thrones films  well, youre going again. HBO announced Monday that Thrones Northern Irish filming locations will be reopened as fully outfitted tourist attractions as the show concludes in 2019.By Trend

Azerbaijan is an important economic partner of Russia, including in military-technical cooperation, Director General of Rosoboronexport JSC Alexander Mikheev told reporters in Baku Sept. 25, RIA Novosti reported.

He said that the development of military-technical cooperation with Azerbaijan is facilitated by the absence of a language barrier, similar state and industry standards, as well as the availability of production and military personnel trained on general principles.

The press service of Rosoboronexport JSC said in a statement that the first facilities of Azerbaijans defense industry were created back in 1918. These were workshops for the repair of various military equipment and small arms.

However, during the years of the Great Patriotic War two aircraft factories operated there, where fighter planes were manufactured and repaired, the statement said. Rockets for the legendary Katyusha multiple rocket launchers were also manufactured in Baku. Considering strong traditions of defense production in Azerbaijan, Rosoboronexport JSC offers Baku to continue their development together."

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Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzBy Trend

Azerbaijan is keen to further leverage its transit and logistics potential by transforming the transportation system and services into one of the key comparative advantages of its economy, Azerbaijans Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov said.

He was speaking in New York at the Informal Meeting of Council of Ministers of the ECO (Economic Cooperation Organization) Member States, Azerbaijans Foreign Ministry said in a message Sept. 25.

Azerbaijan is working to diversify and modernize its transport infrastructure, which will serve the interconnection of the Trans-European and Trans-Asian railway networks, he said. Besides, the construction of the New International Sea Trade Port and its International Logistic Centre, as well as the adoption of the Law on Free Economic Zone in Alyat, which is a point of convergence of all transport routes in our country, will significantly increase the competitiveness of international trade corridors and transit capacity of the countries of the region.

He noted that Azerbaijan has been contributing to enhancing ECO regions transit potential through promoting East-West, North-South and South-West trade corridors.

We do believe that one of the priorities of the ECO agenda should be taking actions on the interconnection of ECO rail networks and the development of unified railway infrastructure of the region, Mammadyarov added. We do believe that an early completion of Qazvin-Rash-Astara (Iran)  Astara (Azerbaijan) project which is a missing and important link of North-South Transport Corridor, will give new impetus to economic growth, expand transport opportunities for involved countries as well as the whole region.

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Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzBy Sara Israfilbayova

The European Investment Bank (EIB) can provide financial support for the construction and reconstruction of roads and railways in Azerbaijan.

Vice President of the European Investment Bank Vazil Hudak made the remarks at a meeting with Azerbaijani Economy Minister Shahin Mustafayev on September 25.

During the meeting it was noted that in 2013 Azerbaijan and the EIB signed a framework agreement. It was said that the bank took part in the financing of TANAP and TAP projects, in the framework of cooperation with the private sector, allocated loans to Azerbaijani banks.

The Economy Minister said that the Agency for the Development of Small and Medium Business was created in the country in order to support small and medium-sized businesses, and noted the possibility of considering cooperation with the bank in this area. In addition, cooperation with the bank in the areas of direct financing of private sector projects, implementation of infrastructure projects, alternative energy, waste management, restoration of Absheron Lakes is possible.

Hudak stressed that the Bank provides not only financial support, but also conducts expertise, provides technical and consulting services.

The representative of the bank also spoke about the possibility of cooperation in the areas of alternative energy, clearing lakes, supporting the private sector, especially small and medium-sized businesses.

The EIB is the European Unions nonprofit long-term lending institution established in 1958 under the Treaty of Rome. As a policy-driven bank whose shareholders are the member states of the EU, the EIB uses its financing operations to bring about European integration and social cohesion

In 2018, seven EU governments demanded improvements in the governance and structure of the institution as well as stricter cost controls. There were concerns that EIB had been slow to implement recommendations raised by its own audit committee, which aimed at improving the risk management and project selection. It is the worlds largest international public lending institution.

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Sara Israfilbayova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Sara_999Is

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzBy Sara Israfilbayova

The State Committee on Property Issues of Azerbaijan held next auction on privatization of state property on September 25.

Thus, at the last auction of the month, 22 orders were received on 10 state-owned properties.

The Committee will hold next auction on privatization of state property on October 2, where 93 state objects will be put up for sale.

The auction will offer 21 joint-stock companies, 37 small state enterprises, 30 non-residential areas and 5 vehicles.

As a whole, more than 150 auctions have been held since the beginning of the year.

The portal for privatization  privatization.az, launched in July 2016, reflects all necessary information about the facilities, their addresses, location, and even initial cost and aims at facilitation of the process. The website is available in two languages - Azerbaijani and English. Why Azerbaijan is special section available on the website explains the reasons and advantages of investing in the country.

The privatization process is designed to attract both foreign and local investors, as well as develop the business environment of Azerbaijan.

Moreover, the State Committee on Property Issues held the first electronic auction on July 4, 2017.

The electronic auction service, which is available on the website privatization.az, combines the privatization procedure of vehicles and equipment. In the future, it will be possible to privatize small state enterprises and facilities, joint-stock companies through electronic auction. Now, the corresponding work in programming is being implemented.

The State Committee on Property Issues was established on May 19, 2009 on the basis of the relevant presidential decree.

The main activities of the State Committee are the management of state property, attraction of investments, maintenance of a single cadastre of immovable property, maintenance of a land cadastre, organization of a land market, protection and improvement of land quality.

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Sara Israfilbayova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Sara_999Is

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzBy Laman Ismayilova

Works of Azerbaijani artists have been showcased in the UK. The exhibition opened at the Embassy of Azerbaijan in London on September 25.

Foreign guests and representatives of embassies operating in London attended the opening ceremony, organized jointly by Caspia Contemporary Gallery, and the Azerbaijani Women Association in the United Kingdom.

Honorary President of Azerbaijan Women's Association Ulviya Tagizade gave information about the works, saying that the exhibition featured works of four Azerbaijani and one Uzbek artist.

Symphony of the Caspian Treasures - under such a bright name it was decided to hold an exhibition, which is aimed at acquainting the British public with works of art created by Azerbaijani masters.

The paintings presented at the exhibition are distinguished by their unique artistic style.

The concept of the exhibition includes not only the demonstration of art works, but also the presentation of artists, their lives and experiences.

The exhibition will last two days.

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Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzBy Laman Ismayilova

An exhibition of Peruvian artists opened at Art Gallery on September 25.

Works of four Peruvian artists Hugo Suyo Medina, Evaristo Cayo, Guzman Emilio Huanca Yanariko and Darwin Chavezin are put on display. The exhibition explores the myriad ways in which Peru has inspired the talented artists.

Through their works, artists reflect the splendor of the Andean mountains, the Amazon River flowing through the lush mountains and the beauty of the lakes, dry and sandy coastal plains.

The exhibition was of great interest to all connoisseurs.

The event is being held at the initiative of the Embassy of Peru in Azerbaijan, the State Historical-Architectural Reserve of Icherisheher, the Ministry of Culture and the Arts Council Azerbaijan.

The exhibition will last until October 6. Admission is free.

Arts Council Azerbaijan is an international and independent art platform. The organization is the head of the International Arts Council Network operating in different countries around the world. It was created by Dadash Mammadov in 2006.

The main purpose of the organization is to promote Azerbaijani culture and art.

Many projects have been operating for many years under the auspices of the organization. Among them are Art Gazette, Production Studio, Azerbaijan Animation Museum named after Nazim Mammadov, Art School Drawing School, "Under open air" plein air, Art Residence, and Youth Network.

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Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzBy Laman Ismayilova

The Mariinsky Theatre will present William Shakespeare's play "A Midsummer Night's Dream" on October 9.

Azerbaijan's ballet dancer Timur Asgarov will perform as Oberon.

Timur Asgarov is a graduate of the Baku School of Choreography. He performed at the Azerbaijan State Academic Opera and Ballet Theatre and the National Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet named after T.G. Shevchenko in 2008-2011.

Since 2011, Asgarov has been working in the Mariinsky Theatre. He is the winner of the "Spirit of Dance" in the category "Rising Star" by Ballet magazine in 2012, prizewinner at the 11th International Ballet Dancers' and Choreographers' Competition in Moscow in 2013, and recipient of the Azerbaijan Presidential Youth Prize for Culture in 2013.

Asgarov was recognized as the best male dancer in duet nomination of the International Ballet Competition and contest of choreographers that took place at the Bolshoi Theatre in 2013.

His repertoire includes Giselle, The Sleeping Beauty, La Bayadere, Swan Lake, Don Quixote, The Nutcracker, Carmen-Suite, The Legend of Love, Le Corsaire and Chopiniana.

With the Mariinsky Ballet, Asgarov have toured around Europe, Asia and America.

A Midsummer Night's Dream, a comedy play by the English poet, is believed to have been written between 1590 and 1596. Portraying the events surrounding the marriage of the Duke of Athens, Theseus, and Hippolyta, it includes the adventures of four young Athenian lovers and a group of six amateur actors who are controlled and manipulated by the fairies who inhabit the forest in which most of the play is set. The play is one of Shakespeare's most popular works on stage and is widely performed across the world.

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Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzBy Naila Huseynli

The State Agency on Mandatory Health Insurance will make changes to the basic package of country's compulsory health insurance system (CHI).

Head of Medical Insurance Department of State Agency on Mandatory Health Insurance Vugar Gurbanov said that at present, the system of compulsory health insurance is implemented as a pilot project. Some of the diseases found in pilot regions were not included in the basic package, according to Gurbanov and are expected to be reflected in a new package.

The head of the department said that the structure of the new package will also contain diagnoses and related medical appointments and treatments. He added that the existing basic package contains only medical services.

He also mentioned that the package will be ready by the end of this year, adding that the system is planned to be applied throughout the country starting from 2019.

Head of the Department of the Agency for Compulsory Medical Insurance under the Cabinet of Ministers Araz Nasirov said that it is proposed to retain insurance premiums in the form of interest from wages of employees, and in the amount of 120 manats per year for other citizens.

He said that in European countries 5-15 percent are retained from the employer and employee for compulsory medical insurance. In Azerbaijan, at the preliminary stage, it is proposed that the amount of insurance premiums make up about 3 percent, of which 2 percent will fall to the share of the employee and 1 percent to the share of the employer.

These deductions will improve health services, and increase the salaries of health workers, Nasirov noted.

Earlier Zaur Aliyev, Chairman of the Board of the State Agency for Mandatory Insurance said that the approximate amount of insurance premiums for obtaining CHI services is set at 120 manats. According to him, a number of categories of citizens of the country, such as, children, pensioners, disabled people and low-income families will be exempt from payment of insurance premiums.

The process of full implementation of compulsory health insurance in Azerbaijan will be completed within five years.

The State Agency for Compulsory Medical Insurance began operating in Azerbaijan in February 2016.

Since the end of 2016, the country has been implementing a pilot project on CHI, which currently covers the city of Mingachevir, as well as the Yevlakh and Agdash regions of the country.

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Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzBy Trend

Speech by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev at a meeting dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Azerbaijani parliament is of historic significance, Azerbaijani MP Elman Mammadov told Trend Sept. 25.

He said that Ilham Aliyev in his speech voiced valuable thoughts about the founders of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (ADR) and its parliament.

The president touched on very important issues in his speech, Mammadov said. This time, as always, he dwelt on the settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and, considering the participation of numerous foreign guests, sent serious messages both to Armenia and international structures. Once again, he explained to Armenia that if the current leadership of that country, like the previous one, demonstrates a delusional attitude, this wont lead to anything good.

They must understand that Azerbaijan will liberate its lands from occupation, the MP noted. However, we want to liberate our lands peacefully in accordance with the norms of international law. But the course of events shows that Armenia is very far from showing a constructive position, that is, they are far from solving the problem peacefully. Armenia doesnt intend to abandon its occupation policy.

Mammadov added that Ilham Aliyev rightly criticized the position of international structures on this issue.

Azerbaijan has enough power to liberate its lands from the occupation, and we will achieve this, the MP said. For this, we have created a strong legal base, a strong economy, as well as a strong army.

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Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzBy Trend

The OSCE monitoring held on the border between Azerbaijan and Armenia on September 26 passed without incidents, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said.

The monitoring was held under the mandate of the OSCE chairperson-in-office personal representative in the direction of Azerbaijans Gadabay district.

On the Azerbaijani side, the monitoring was held by Ognyen Yovic and Simon Tiller, field assistants of the OSCE chairperson-in-office personal representative.

On the Armenian side, the monitoring was held by field assistants of the OSCE chairperson-in-office personal representative Gennady Petrica and Mikhail Olaru.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.

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Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzThere was drama at the Nairobi County Assembly chambers Tuesday after nominated MCA Mary Arivisa caused a scene in support of embattled Nairobi speaker Beatrice Elachi.

The lawmaker was proposed for the acting speaker position in absentia but appeared later, bringing proceedings to a standstill with a dramatic outburst.

She began shouting and screaming that she is pro-Elachi and even sat literally on the floor of the house as Assembly clerks tried to calm her down.

In a video shared online, Arivisa is seen being dragged out of the Chambers by a handful of clerks, much to the shock of her fellow MCAs who watched on as the drama unfolded.

Mary Arivisa was in the running for the Speaker seat alongside Ngara MCA Chege Mwaura, and Mary Njambi.

The ward reps elected Chege Mwaura, who is also Majority Whip. Njambi, famed for the mafirifiri phrase, dropped out of the race to support Mr Mwaura.

Minority Chief Whip and Makongeni MCA Peter Imwatok, who proposed Ms Arivisa, withdrew saying she was not at the assembly at the time.

The acting speaker took the oath of office and immediately assumed his role by adjourning the assembly until 2.30pm on Wednesday.

Chege pledged to take the assembly where it is supposed to be.By Trend

The Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said that Iran has a clear strategy to develop relations with Azerbaijan, Mehr news agency reported.

The Speaker of Iranian Parliament Ali Larijani made the remarks in a meeting with visiting Minister of Internal Affairs of Azerbaijan Ramil Usubov on Sept.25 in Tehran.

Fortunately, relations between Iran and Azerbaijan are developing and the visit of this delegation from Azerbaijan to Iran will certainly be effective, Larijani said in the meeting.

Pointing to the cultural commonalities between the two countries, Larijani said that there are various economic areas for developing relations between Tehran and Baku.

The Azerbaijani minister of Internal Affairs, for his part, expressed his happiness with the meetings he has had during the visit to Iran, underlining that Azerbaijan attaches great importance to its relations with the Islamic Republic.

Usubov described Azerbaijans bilateral relations with Iran as growing.

He further emphasized exchange of experiences between the two countries with respect to fighting terrorism, calling for closer cooperation on the fight against organized crimes, especially drug trafficking.

He also expressed his condolences to the people and the government of Iran over a terror attack on a military parade in southwestern Iranian city of Ahvaz.

The Azerbaijani minister also called for closer relations between the parliamentary friendship groups of the two countries.

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Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzBy Trend

Azerbaijans Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov had a meeting with US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Wess Mitchell on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly 73rd session in New York, Azerbaijans Foreign Ministry said in a message Sept. 25.

The sides had exchange of views on a wide range of issues of bilateral cooperation agenda.

The regional and international issues of mutual interest were also discussed during the meeting.

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Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzBy Trend

The Russia-Azerbaijan relations can now be characterized as successful and dynamically developing, and frequent meetings of the leaders of Russia and Azerbaijan clearly testify to that, famous Russian expert Andrey Ivanov told Trend on the eve of the visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to Baku.

The main reason for this is that relations are built on a mutually beneficial basis, with full respect for each other's sovereign choice regarding any issues, Ivanov, who is also head of the Strategic Analysis Center of the Russian Innovative Development Institute, added.

"Today, Moscow and Baku have no contradictions, and this is a great achievement," Ivanov added. Moreover, important breakthroughs related to the participation of the two countries in big geopolitical projects have recently been outlined, including the signing of the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea, the emerging political axes Moscow-Baku-Ankara and Moscow-Baku-Tehran. This opens opportunities for solving such complex problems as the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

He added that Russia and Azerbaijan adhere to the principle of solving the problem on the basis of international law and adherence to peaceful dialogue.

"Of course, this is a very difficult problem that can not be solved quickly, Ivanov said. But I would like to stress that the overall dynamics of the relations in the region stipulates that we can move forward in resolving this difficult task."

I would also like to stress that the potential of the Russia-Azerbaijan relations has not been fully revealed, he added. There is cooperation in almost all spheres. But it is possible to intensify it, constantly increase the trade turnover between the countries. This concerns agricultural products, natural raw materials and modern high-tech weapons. I think that our countries will move in this direction."

Both sides are interested in participation and implementation of an ambitious project, namely, the construction of the North-South transport corridor, which must link the Indian Ocean and the Baltic Sea through Iran, Azerbaijan and Russia, Ivanov said.

"This route, which will connect Asian producers and European buyers, will be twice shorter than the current one through the Suez Canal," he said. I think this is an extremely interesting project that first of all points to the degree of trust between the parties because the construction of infrastructure requires a lot of money, and Azerbaijan on its territory has already built everything it needs, so it trusts its partners.

Earlier, head of the Russian State Duma Committee on CIS Affairs, Eurasian Integration and Relations with Compatriots Leonid Kalashnikov said that Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit Azerbaijan at the end of September.

"Presidents of Azerbaijan and Russia Ilham Aliyev and Vladimir Putin during the visit of the Russian leader to Baku will hold a working meeting to thoroughly discuss those issues that the parties agreed or did not fully discuss during the talks in Sochi on September 1," Kalashnikov said during the Baku-Moscow video-conference.

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Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzBy Trend

An official reception marking the 100th anniversary of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic was held in Rome on Sept. 25.

First Vice-President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Mehriban Aliyeva attended the official reception.

Prior to the reception, the national anthems of Italy and Azerbaijan were played.

Azerbaijans First Vice-President Mehriban Aliyeva made a speech at the event.

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Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzBy Trend

Opening of the "Azerbaijani Room took place at the Headquarters of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Rome.

Vice-President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, Goodwill Ambassador of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Leyla Aliyeva took part in the opening.

FAO Deputy Director General Laurent Thomas welcomed the Vice-President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation Leyla Aliyeva. They exchanged views on a number of issues.

At the meeting, cooperation of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation and the IDEA Public Association with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations was highly appreciated. The sides had discussions concerning further extension of contacts.

The FAO Deputy Director General was informed that within the joint project realized by IDEA, FAO and the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Azerbaijan, orchards in 11 regions of the country have been laid out for needy families.

Then, opening of the Azerbaijani Room took place.

Vice-President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation Leyla Aliyeva and Deputy Director General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Laurent Thomas cut the tape symbolizing opening of the Room.

Laurent Thomas, having noted that in this remarkable room which is a joint project of FAO and Azerbaijan, there are all conditions for activity of the organization, said that the staff of the Organization will be able to use all modern opportunities here.

In the room, along with the most advanced processing equipment, there are objects reflecting the ancient culture of Azerbaijan, Laurent Thomas stressed. In this sense, the walls of the room, reminding fire flames, represent the Land of Fire.

He, in particular, noted design of the room in style of buta patterns.

Laurent Thomas emphasized that the "Azerbaijani Room answers the highest security measures applied to UN buildings. He, on behalf of the FAO Director General expressed gratitude to the Government of Azerbaijan for this useful contribution to implementation by the organization of effective activities for achievement of its important goals.

Addressing the opening ceremony, Vice-President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation Leyla Aliyeva expressed gratitude for the created opportunity, saying:

I believe that this opening represents the beginning of a new stage of our relations with FAO. Existence of a part of Azerbaijan in the FAO Headquarters, reflection of the Azerbaijani culture and national spirit, will, undoubtedly, inspire the people to visit our beautiful country, to know our hospitable people closer. Sure, this office will bring many positive changes. Thank you very much.

It was reported that the Azerbaijani Room at the Headquarters of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in Rome was founded with financial support of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation. The FAO Headquarters includes rooms of various countries. Azerbaijan, for the first time among the CIS countries, has its room here.

The Azerbaijani national ornaments, musical instruments, carpets have been used in design of the room. Such projects are important from the point of view of promotion of Azerbaijans ancient history, its rich cultural heritage.

Azerbaijan is the member of FAO since 1995. The design-coordination office of FAO functions in the country since 2007. In Azerbaijan, there is also the first coordination and partner office of the Organization.

It is worthy to remind that Leyla Aliyeva has been awarded the title of Goodwill Ambassador by FAO for activity in humanitarian and ecological spheres.

The goal of FAO is solution of such tasks as fight against hunger in the world, ensuring food security, increase in efficiency of agriculture, forest and fish farms, creation of healthy food systems. Activity of the Vice-President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation Leyla Aliyeva makes certain contribution to achievement of these goals.

Then, the participants had their pictures taken in memory.

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Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzBy Trend

A ceremony has been held in the Vatican to inaugurate St. Sebastian catacombs, which were restored on the initiative of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation.

First Vice-President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Mehriban Aliyeva attended the ceremony.

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Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzBy Laman Ismayilova

Ecologists predict changeable cloudy weather on September 27.

Short-term rain is predicted in some places of the Absheron peninsula at night. Strong north-west wind will blow.

The temperature on the peninsula will be +16-18C at night, +19-22C in Absheron peninsula in the afternoon, in Baku +16-18C at night, + 19-21C in the afternoon, the Ecology and Natural Resources Ministry reported.

Atmospheric pressure will be 767mm; relative humidity will be 75-85% at night, 60-70% in the afternoon.

Lightning and occasional rain are expected in some places. Torrential rain, hail are predicted in some places. The western wind will intensify in some places during the daytime. The temperature will be +14-19C at night, +22-27C in daytime, +7-12C in mountains at night, +12-17C.

The Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources warns that strong windy weather will continue until the September 28 morning in Baku and Absheron peninsula. Unstable weather will prevail in Azerbaijani regions till September 28. Water level in rivers will rise and short-term floods may be observed in some mountainous rivers.

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Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzBy Trend

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani met with President Emmanuel Macron of France at the UN headquarters in New York Tuesday evening, IRNA reports.

The meeting was held at a time when both the Iranian and French presidents in their speeches at the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly earlier in the day took stance against the policies of the US administration against the 2015 nuclear deal struck between Iran and six world powers and the country's unilateralism.



Rouhani arrived in New York Sunday evening to attend the high profile meeting.



During his stay in New York, Rouhani has already held meetings with American political elites, his Cuban, Bolivian and Turkish counterparts, head of the International Olympic Committee, director of the International Monetary Fund, Chief Executive of Afghanistan and Norwegian prime minister.

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Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzBy Kamila Aliyeva

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has raised the growth forecast of Kazakhstan's gross domestic product (GDP) for 2018 from 3.2 percent to 3.7 percent, for 2019 - from 3.5 percent to 3.9 percent, Kazinform reported.

According to ADBs updated annual economic report Asian Development Review for 2018, the GDP growth of the region in 2018 will stand at the level of 6 percent. The forecast of GDP growth for 2019 will be reduced by 0.1 to 5.8 percent.

In turn, the growth forecast for Central Asia for 2018 was revised upwards by 0.1 point. Higher oil and natural gas prices, combined with increased exports and investment, lead to a significant economic growth in Central Asia, which is expected to be 4.1 percent this year.

The updated growth forecast for Kazakhstan for 2018 was 3.7 percent that is higher than the previous forecast, which was 3.2 percent. The forecast for economic growth for 2019 was also revised upwards to 3.9 percent from 3.5 percent forecasted in the spring, ADB analysts said.

At the same time, the forecast for 2018 is now lower for the Kyrgyz Republic due to a slowdown in the extraction of minerals, for Turkmenistan - in anticipation of fiscal tightening and for Uzbekistan - with a protracted adaptation to the new exchange rate regime.

The Asian Development Bank was founded in 1966. The mission of the bank is to reduce poverty in the Asia-Pacific region (APR) through inclusive economic and environmentally sustainable growth, as well as regional integration. The head office of ADB is located in the capital of the Philippines - the city of Manila. The bank's shareholders are 67 countries, 48 of which are located in the Asia-Pacific region.

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Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzBy Kamila Aliyeva

Tajikistan reduced the export of precious and semiprecious stones and metals, but increased their imports, Avesta news agency reported.

According to available statistical data, the export of precious and semiprecious stones and metals for eight months of the current year amounted to a total of $ 1.1 million, which is $ 43,000 or 3.5 percent less than in the same period of 2017.

The amount of imports exceeded $ 3.1 million, which shows an increase of 4.4 percent compared with the indicators of 2017.

According to the Ministry of Industry and New Technologies of Tajikistan, gold production in the republic in the first half of the year slightly decreased. In January-June, gold producers produced about 2.5 tons of gold, which is 37 kg less than in the same period last year.

The decline in gold production is due to the fact that in the first half of the year some industry enterprises did not operate for various reasons.

Earlier, Tajikistan announced plans to annually increase gold production by 6 percent. The authorities intended to put new capacities into operation in order to achieve this result.

Tajikistan's gold assets contain 137 deposits of industrial gold and 127 deposits of non-industrial gold. Tajikistan has registered a new record in gold production in 2017 as the country extracted 5.5 tons.

The main gold-bearing deposits with balance reserves are located in the central part of the republic.

The Central Asian nation has 10 gold producers, the biggest ones being Zarafshon (70 percent of all gold extracted in the country), Aprelevka, Tilloi Tochik, Odina Group and Pakrut.

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Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzWhat is this obsession a section of Kenyans on social media have with peoples wombs? As we continue to ponder that, Citizen TVs Yvonne Okwara is the latest public figure to have her childbearing questioned.

The former KTN news presenter found herself in this unfamiliar territory after she posted a picture of the late Sharon Otienos mother crying in court during the hearing of Migori governor Okoth Obado on Monday.

Posting to her Twitter account, Yvonne wrote: The pain of a mother losing her child in a most brutal manner! I cannot even fathom her pain!

But one Kenyan on Twitter, identified as TJ, had other weird ideas and commented: When are you giving birth ama wewe ni member wa kuendea wazee saa hii hupati mtoto.

Another tweep, Tiottek, lauded TJ for the question saying: On behalf of all the At last youve asked on our behalf bruv. Thank you.

As low as that was, the ever gracious Okwara took the high road and responded with class and maturity.

She tweeted: Let me refer you both to the AUTHORITY on this matter. His name is GOD. He listens to all, the chief scrutinisers like you and the humble sinners like myself. Lets see if He will reveal to you holy ones the secrets of my womb!

Heres that thread.

The pain of a mother losing her child in a most brutal manner! I cannot even fathom her pain! ?Sharon Otienos mother in court this morning where Gov. Obado is facing murder charges! pic.twitter.com/y6HkwVpadm  Yvonne Okwara-Matole (@YvonneOkwara) September 24, 2018

When are you giving birth ama wewe ni member wa kuendea wazee saa hii hupati mtoto.  TJ (@thomjoel) September 24, 2018

On behalf of all the At last youve asked on our behalf bruv. Thank you  The Athe-East (@Tiottek) September 24, 2018

Let me refer you both to the AUTHORITY on this matter. His name is GOD. He listens to all, the chief scrutinisers like you and the humble sinners like myself. Lets see if He will reveal to you holy ones the secrets of my womb!  Yvonne Okwara-Matole (@YvonneOkwara) September 24, 2018

Yvonne, you must never lower yourself to respond to such comments. Never.  Katunge Kiilu (@katungekiilu) September 25, 2018

I concur.  ronny ayodo (@ronny_ayodo) September 25, 2018By Trend

Head of joint chamber of Iran-Iraq Yahiya Al-Eshaq said Iran exported 4.165 billion dollars worth of goods to Iraq in the first six months of the year, which indicated 31 percent growth in comparison with the same period of the preceding year, IRNA reports.

He made the remarks in Iran-Iraq trade conference and added that export to Iraq was 3.1billion dollars in the first six months of last year.



Al-Eshaq said in economic cooperation between the two countries joint venture projects are more important than export.



He added that now is the best situation for developing bilateral relations in the field of joint venture.



Iran-Iraq trade meeting held in the presence of Head of Iraqi Chambers of commerce federation Jaafar al-Rasoul al-Hamdani and Head of Iraq-Iran joint chamber Fazel al-Hamdani.



According to statistics published by Trade Promotion Organization of Iran (TPO) trade exchange volume between the two countries were 6.502 billion dollars last year, which 77 million dollars was Iraqi export to Iran and the rest of the amount was Iran's export to Iraq.



The most important exporting items to Iraq were parts and spares of steam turbines, cheese, ice-cream, home appliances, coolers, plastic products and kitchen ware.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzBy Rashid Shirinov

Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan will create a joint venture that will be engaged in railway container transportation to China, the Uzbek media reported on September 26.

The relevant agreements were reached during the visit of the Kazakh delegation to Tashkent. The railway administrations of the two countries will be engaged in the organization of the enterprise.

Moreover, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan agreed to extend the tariff preferences for the transportation of rail cargo until 2019 and to open representative offices of Uzbek Railways in Astana and Aktau.

Earlier it was reported that Uzbekistan and China plan to sign a memorandum of cooperation in railway transport, which will outline the parameters of joint projects and tariff policy.

Presently, the total length of railways in Uzbekistan exceeds 7,000 kilometers. The share of rail transportation in the countrys freight turnover of all types of transport is 52 percent. In recent years, 44 freight electric locomotives, 15 high-speed passenger electric locomotives and 10 passenger diesel locomotives have been purchased within cooperation with Chinese and Russian partners.

Uzbekistan has recently made efforts to establish closer political and economic relations with neighboring countries. Changes in the foreign policy course of the country occurred after Shavkat Mirziyoyev came to power in 2016. Tashkent declared that its priority in foreign policy is to improve relations with the states of Central Asia.

---

Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAzCHICAGO  A Chinese national was arrested in Chicago today for allegedly acting within the United States as an illegal agent of the Peoples Republic of China.

JI CHAOQUN, 27, a Chinese citizen residing in Chicago, worked at the direction of a high-level intelligence officer in the Jiangsu Province Ministry of State Security, a provincial department of the Ministry of State Security for the Peoples Republic of China, according to a criminal complaint and affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago. Ji was tasked with providing the intelligence officer with biographical information on eight individuals for possible recruitment by the JSSD, the complaint states. The individuals included Chinese nationals who were working as engineers and scientists in the United States, some of whom were U.S. defense contractors, according to the complaint.

The complaint charges Ji with one count of knowingly acting in the United States as an agent of a foreign government without prior notification to the Attorney General. He will make an initial court appearance today at 4:00 p.m. CDT before U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael T. Mason in Courtroom 2266 of the Everett M. Dirksen U.S. Courthouse in Chicago.

The arrest and complaint were announced by John R. Lausch, Jr., United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; John C. Demers, Assistant Attorney General for National Security at the U.S. Department of Justice; and Jeffrey S. Sallet, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The U.S. Army 902nd Military Intelligence Group provided valuable assistance. The government is represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Shoba Pillay of the Northern District of Illinois, and Senior Trial Attorney Heather Schmidt of the National Security Divisions Counterintelligence and Export Control Section.

According to the complaint, Ji was born in China and arrived in the United States in 2013 on an F1 Visa, for the purpose of studying electrical engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. In 2016, Ji enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserves as an E4 Specialist under the Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest program, which authorizes the U.S. Armed Forces to recruit certain legal aliens whose skills are considered vital to the national interest. In his application to participate in the MAVNI program, Ji specifically denied having had contact with a foreign government within the past seven years, the complaint states. In a subsequent interview with a U.S. Army officer, Ji again failed to disclose his relationship and contacts with the intelligence officer, the charge alleges.

The public is reminded that a complaint is not evidence of guilt. The defendant is presumed innocent and entitled to a fair trial at which the government has the burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The charge in the complaint is punishable by a maximum sentence of ten years in prison. The statutory maximum penalty is prescribed by Congress and is provided here for informational purposes only, as any sentencing of the defendant will be determined by the judge.Contact The Californians Robert Price at 661-395-7399, rprice@bakersfield.com or on Twitter: @stubblebuzz. His column appears on Sundays, Wednesdays and Saturdays; the views expressed are his own.You can reach Sam Morgen at 661-395-7415 or smorgen@bakersfield.com. You may also follow him on Twitter @smorgenTBC.On this date in ...

1918: Magdalena Newman, a trained nurse from Clinton Street in Albany, died caring for sick soldiers at St. Joseph's Hospital in Syracuse. She became the first hospital attendant there to die from effects of the Spanish Flu epidemic. Newman had become ill two weeks before but remained working because she knew the hospital had a shortage of nurses. After a few days she gave in and her sister traveled there to care for her until her death, and then brought her body back home.

1968: Albany Mayor Erastus Corning 2nd offered to help the Albany NAACP chapter find an insurance carrier so that it can insure voting machines it will rent for its voter education drive. City leaders said at a public meeting two days earlier that no insurance companies they had contacted would insure their use of the machines or bond them while at the chapter's headquarters on South Pearl Street or other inner city locations because of fire safety. The NAACP began its voter drive the previous night without the machines, as the League of Women Voters met with inner city residents at the YWCA using table models of the machines.

1993: In the previous winter, an RPI student sent a pornographic picture over a campus network to an office printer. After the student was disciplined, there were other complaints about pornographic pictures being used as wallpaper on large monitors in computer laboratories. The RPI computer system administrators issued a memorandum designed to make the computer labs more politically correct. Some students, however, complained on computer bulletin boards that the memo smacked not only of censorship, but improper use of authority by RPI because they assumed the next step would be a purge of their own private files.

Want to read more about the Capital Region's past? See http://blog.timesunion.com/history/.Years of brutal civil war in South Sudan have left at least 382,000 people dead, according to an estimate in a new State Department-funded study that far surpasses an earlier figure issued by the United Nations and points to the horrors of an often-overlooked conflict.

The findings of the study, conducted by a small team at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine but commissioned by the U.S. Institute for Peace in partnership with the State Department, were expected to be released later Wednesday. The Washington Post obtained an advance copy of the report.

In March 2016, U.N. officials estimated that the conflict had killed about 50,000 people, and for years, a more accurate death count has been missing as a metric to measure the bloodshed, even as the conflict raged on. Experts say an accurate death toll can be a critical tool for policymakers.

But counting the dead is a challenge in war zones, where many people are displaced and crucial data is hard to come by.

By comparison, the new estimate puts the death toll from the violence in South Sudan on par with the impact of conflicts such as the war in Syria, where upward of 510,000 people are believed to have died in a significantly larger population.

Gordon Buay, deputy chief of mission at the South Sudanese Embassy in Washington, said he thinks the estimate is "not accurate." He said he would put the death toll at fewer than 20,000 people.

"If you included disease and everything, it would be less than 20,000," Buay said.

But Francesco Checchi, the lead epidemiologist who worked on the study, said his estimate is conservative. He and other researchers at the London school statistically analyzed mortality data in the country to estimate conflict-related deaths between December 2013 and April 2018.

They compiled data from humanitarian agencies and media reports, piecing together factors including food security, presence of humanitarian groups and intensity of armed conflict to create a statistical model that predicts mortality by county. At the center of their research were around 200 surveys conducted by humanitarian groups across South Sudan.

Checchi called the process "painstaking."

In South Sudan, a number of factors, including the dangerous nature of the conflict, have made calculating a death toll through a national survey and interviews with families nearly impossible.

The country broke away from Sudan seven years ago, after decades of deadly conflict that eventually led to shaky independence. But South Sudan soon fell back into war, after a rivalry between President Salva Kiir, from the Dinka ethnic group, and then-Vice President Riek Machar, a Nuer, turned violent.

The conflict started in Juba, the capital, and spread across the country. Journalists, human rights researchers and humanitarians have collected evidence of mass atrocities committed by both sides in the conflict, but rights groups say most attacks on civilians have been carried out by government troops. In some areas, entire villages were razed. Women were raped, children were burned alive, and some families even reported forced cannibalism.

Checchi's team took into account assumptions about what the death rate would have been without civil war to find how many excess deaths the conflict has caused. The researchers factored in that many people have fled or were killed in circumstances that might have been exacerbated by the conflict, such as outbreak of disease or malnutrition, he said. South Sudan experienced a man-made famine last year.

A State Department official said the study helps fill a gap in knowledge about the scope of the war in South Sudan.

"Having good numbers and seeing exactly what the human cost was was an important factual need for us," the official said.

A U.N. spokesman in New York said in a statement that "the U.N. cannot accurately record the conflict related death toll for a variety of reasons, including a severely curtailed access to conflict areas and hence does not have an official casualty figure for South Sudan."

There are more than 14,500 U.N. peacekeepers deployed to the country, and the mission there cost the United Nations just over $1.1 billion in the last fiscal year.

Yet the violence continues. There have been a number of failed peace agreements since the war began, and another deal was signed this month. But government and rebel forces have clashed since then. There is little hope among observers that the accord will result in tangible change.

The conflict has prompted a refugee crisis in the region: More than 1 million South Sudanese have fled to neighboring Uganda, and many others crossed into Sudan and Kenya. Millions are displaced within the country.

This refugee exodus became a useful indicator in Checchi's death toll analysis because in his experience, he said, "the extent of displacement is a good correlate of how violent things are."

"People probably will tolerate some violence and will try to stick it out," he said. But when mass displacement begins to occur, "it usually indicates very severe threats to life."

Klem Ryan, a former official with the U.N. Mission in South Sudan who later served as the coordinator of the U.N. Panel of Experts on South Sudan, said in an interview that this calculation seems plausible.

"I personally saw hundreds of dead," he said. "I attended to two major massacres. That figure feels right if you look at all the stuff we saw, which was only a fraction."By 2100, visitors walking the grounds of California's Joshua Tree National Park may view exhibits showing what will have been lost - the spiky yucca palms that inspired the park's name, dwindled to a few rare husks.

Climate change could kill most of the park's iconic trees, wildfires may transform the towering conifer forests at Yellowstone National Park into scarred grasslands, and once-mighty ice sheets in the north will probably melt and flow into the sea, making Glacier National Park both an obsolete name and a hard lesson about environmental degradation.

A new study published Monday has warned that climate change has adversely and uniquely affected many of the 417 national parks spread across the United States and its territories, according to scientists from the University of California at Berkeley and University of Wisconsin.

"Human-caused climate change exposes the U.S. national parks to severely hotter and drier conditions than the U.S. as a whole," Patrick Gonzalez, a climate scientist at Berkeley and a lead author of the study, told The Washington Post on Tuesday.

The consequences are alarming, the study suggests. Some of the most sacred and ecologically sensitive areas in the country, from the Grand Canyon to Yosemite and Denali, may decay into ghosts of their former mighty selves and be unrecognizable to future generations expecting to inherit a planet hotter than they received.

Researchers looked at data between 1895 and 2010 and concluded temperatures in national parks increased twice as much compared with other parts of the country, while precipitation fell dramatically at those parks.

That is because parks are often in places sensitive to shifts in climate. Many parks are at high elevation, where the Earth warms quickly due to a thinner atmosphere, researchers said. Alaska is severely affected because melting snow uncovers darker surfaces that absorb heat.

Alaska is also where 63 percent of all national park area is located, the study says.

In the Southwest, rising temperatures coupled with droughts have ravaged the region, where many other parks are found.

It is vital to defend national parks, which make up 4 percent of U.S. land, researchers said, because the protective measures mean national parks are becoming even more important sanctuaries for plants and animals. And the parks hold vast amounts of watersheds to replenish drinking water, along with trees to soak up carbon.

Two centuries of burning fossil fuels have produced twice as much carbon that can be absorbed by forests and oceans, and excess carbon in the atmosphere has reflected sunlight back to the Earth, Gonzalez said. It is a natural process, but human activity has helped add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere at levels not seen for 800,000 years, he said.

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is the best way to reduce climate impact at the parks, the researchers said.

The National Park Service said it relies on studies, such as the newest one, to inform policy, in which climate change is one factor among others in its decision-making.

"It is our job to understand and know how to manage effects from a changing climate so that we may protect park resources, just as we manage the impacts of invasive species or erosion or wildfire," said Jeremy Barnum, an agency spokesman, in a statement Tuesday.

The agency said the study describes natural events that take place "outside the climate change conversation," such as wildfires caused by humans.

But the effects of climate change on national parks are clear and documented, the researchers said.

Jack Williams, a climate researcher at the University of Wisconsin, told The Post Glacier National Park in Montana, which draws admirers for its snowy peaks and mirror-like lakes, may lose its namesake because of rising temperatures and glaciers already in retreat.

"It's very likely under the highest rates [of warming] that the glaciers would melt," he said.

Further north, in Alaska's Glacier Bay, the once enormous Muir Glacier has melted hundreds of meters from the 1950s to 2010.

At Yellowstone, drought and wildfires have thinned towering forests, and scientific projections point to fires that burn more frequently. It could turn the region into rolling grasslands, Williams said.

Wildfires are naturally occurring and typically ideal for forests to clear underbrush, researchers said, but arid conditions and federal policies to stamp out fires has translated to drier and denser kindling that make fires more intense.

Gonzalez, who is also the principal climate scientist for the National Park Service but spoke about his research in his capacity at Berkeley, said Yellowstone faces another threat connected to human activity.

The winter cold used to kill bark beetles. But warmer seasons have extended the life of these insects, which can feast on trees longer and in greater numbers. The transforming ecosystem there may also force the iconic bison and other animals away from familiar grounds, researchers said.

The researchers pointed to some solutions already underway.

Gonzalez said the agency has made efforts to identify particularly vulnerable areas in parks, along with a focus to protect areas where life may be able to take shelter and thrive in good local conditions. The parks have also focused on reducing emissions, he said.

Some parks have been proactive, Williams said. In Maine's Acadia National Park, for instance, biologists have introduced limited numbers of trees from further south that may be better suited to a climate that will probably grow warmer in coming decades.

At Assateague Island National Seashore in Maryland and Virginia, a new visitor's center was built onshore out of concerns about storms, erosion and rising sea levels, the agency said.

Williams said the parks will almost certainly be different in a century than they are today, but how different will depend on decisions to either reduce emissions or allow them to escalate.

But the parks will exist, in some form.

"Glacier National Park may be without glaciers," he said, "but it will still be a beautiful park."Three Beaumont city council members abruptly left chambers in frustration Tuesday during a heated exchange over a councilman's recent removal of a campaign sign from private property.

Half a dozen residents also left in anger after using the public comment period of the meeting to express their displeasure with Ward I Councilman Mike Getz.

Getz was photographed during the weekend removing 172nd District Court Judge candidate Melody Chappell's campaign sign from property owned by Dade Phelan. Several residents allege Getz threw the sign in some nearby bushes. The photos were posted on Facebook.

Getz said he had permission from Phelan, a Republican in the Texas House of Representatives, to remove the signs. Phelan could not be reached for comment.

Beaumont resident David Pete called Getz's actions "vandalism."

Toni Prados, another resident, suggested the council create a code of conduct, saying she believed officials should be "held accountable" for negative behavior.

Getz, who has vocally opposed Chappell for her role as Beaumont ISD's attorney before the 2014 state takeover, said the Democratic candidate did not have Phelan's permission to put the sign up.

"I find it disturbing that anybody running for judicial office is going to make a false statement," Getz said.

Council members Audwin Samuel and Robin Mouton vehemently objected to Getz's statements.

A city council meeting "is not the place for a political discussion," Samuel said.

"You are an elected official," Samuel said, pointing at Getz. "He is an elected official on this council and he knows the rules."

Chappell "is not here to defend herself," Mouton added. "It's not fair."

In a telephone interview after the meeting, Chappell said her signs were placed at the location on the corner of Major Drive and Phelan Boulevard during the primary and runoff elections with no problems.

The location is "a spot where historically everyone's put their signs," Chappell said.

She maintains that she received permission from a member of the Phelan family who she works with.

Signs are "all over the place" during campaign season, Getz said at the meeting, "but you can't just put up signs anywhere you want."

Samuel said Getz's comments about Chappell were "inappropriate," adding that he believed the councilman was out order for discussing the matter.

Mayor Becky Ames said she understood that council members would disagree with each other, saying that she disagreed with Getz.

"But if you come up here and talk about something that happened in the community, I believe  and I'm in charge of the meeting  that he has the right to respond as long as he doesn't do anything that you can't do on that sheet of paper," Ames said of public comment rules.

Ames said the council could create new governing rules for members.

City attorney Tyrone Cooper said it would be "up to council to enforce" such rules.

"Some people don't abide by rules," Cooper said.

Getz defended himself, saying his integrity had been challenged.

"When they're called out for what they do in the community, not in their capacity as city council, but in their capacity as a Republican Party precinct chairman, then I should have the opportunity to respond," Getz said. "I'm just saying that everything I do out in the community, even though I'm always a city councilman, I don't surrender my other rights as a citizen to speak out."

To that, Ames replied, "well, you should surrender some of them, Mr. Getz."

"Talk about something that pertains to city and not your personal beliefs," she said. "I knew this was going to happen, but you continue to do this stuff and it tears people apart."

Samuel, Mouton and Ames eventually walked out of the meeting individually. Ames said she left the meeting "for another purpose."

After receiving an anonymous call Saturday about a person removing the sign, Chappell said she filed a police report. Chap-pell said multiple campaign signs have been taken down or destroyed in other areas.

Chappell said she apologized the next day to Phelan, whom she said also noted that the location was popular for campaign signs. The sign has not been replaced and she said there are no hard feelings between them.

"If my sign is in the wrong place, then OK, call me. Give me a chance to come get my sign. Don't cut it down, chunk it," she said. "It really was a bigger deal than it should have been."

Chappell said what was "really concerning" is that the signs are put up through the "hard work" of her volunteers.

The controversy has been "a plus" for her campaign, she said, energizing her base and overwhelming her with sign requests.

Mitch Templeton, Republican candidate for 172nd District Judge, said he believes the sign controversy is "a non-issue."

"I don't think the sign should've been where it was. I don't think it should've been taken down. I don't think the police should've been called," said Templeton, adding that the controversy "doesn't help advance issues in the campaign."

Phoebe.Suy@BeaumontEnterprise.com

Twitter.com/PhoebeSuyA 49-year-old man was sentenced to six years in Texas prison after fleeing from police and hiding in a ditch, according to information from the Jefferson County District Attorney's Office.

On September 19, 2017 at 2 a.m. the Beaumont Police Department was investigating the theft of a bicycle when they saw Warrick Ball riding a bike that matched the description of the stolen one. When police attempted to stop Ball, he fled from police, according to information presented in court.A 14-year-old runaway from Kaplan, La. turned himself in to the Newton County Sheriff's Office Tuesday afternoon, according to information from the Sheriff's Office.

The boy reportedly called 911 from a gas station on Texas 12 near the state line around 3:50 p.m. saying he was a runaway and wanted to "turn himself in."Three men were arrested after allegedly robbing the Newton County Correctional Center, according to information from the Newton County Sheriff's Office.

At approximately 9:10 p.m. officials responded to a call in reference to a robbery in progress. The caller stated there was a vehicle pulling a trailer was inside the locked facility, NCSO said.The number of Texas babies born with syphilis more than doubled in 2017, the largest increase of any state, according to a new federal report on the growing crisis nationally.

The report, issued Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, showed 176 of the nations 918 cases of congenital syphilis last year occurred in Texas, up from its 2016 total of 71. Only Louisiana, Nevada and California reported a higher rate of cases than Texas.

We are alarmed by the numbers, but at the same time they werent totally unexpected, said Tammy Foskey, the sexually transmitted disease manager for the Texas Department of State Health Services.

There was a 20 percent increase in all female syphilis cases in 2017 and there are significant access issues in many minority and underserved populations, Foskey said. In addition, the state last year began digging more into the issue, uncovering cases we might have missed in past years.

The CDC report found Texas and four other states  Florida, California, Louisiana and Arizona  accounted for 70 percent of the nations cases. Thirteen states didnt have any cases.

The CDCs numbers are slightly different from more updated figures provided by the Texas DSHS. Those figures show Texas had 166 cases in 2017.

The most in Texas occurred in a 13-county region that includes Harris and surrounding counties. The highest rate was in a 28-county south central region that includes San Antonio.

The report found a more than 150 percent national increase since 2013  similar to Texas increase in one year  which CDC epidemiologist Virginia Bowen called unprecedented in the last 20 years. She said the report reveals gaps in our system and underscores the need for all pregnant women to be tested for syphilis.

Texas law requires pregnant women be tested for syphilis at their first prenatal visit and again in the third trimester. The second test became required under a law passed in the 2015 legislature.

Congenital syphilis occurs when a pregnant woman passes the bacterial infection to the baby through the placenta or during birth. In 40 percent of cases, the condition causes miscarriage, stillbirths or death soon after delivery. In survivors, it can lead to severe lifelong physical and mental health problems, such as bone deformity, blindness and deafness.

It is considered easily preventable if the mother is treated with penicillin 30 or more days before delivery.

The CDC report did not investigate causes of the increase, but Bowen cited such historic risk factors as poverty, housing instability, substance abuse, incarceration and mistrust of the health-care system as likely drivers of pregnant women not getting or seeking prenatal care.

The cases disproportionately involved babies of color. Sixty-five of the cases involved blacks, a rate of 137 for every 100,000 births, and 79 involved Hispanics, a rate of 41.3 for every 100,000 births. The number of cases among whites was 19, a rate of 14.

Female syphilis historically has been high in the South, in communities of color, said the CDCs Bowen. It has to do with the network of women in a community having sex. Once the infection is introduced in community, its hard to eradicate. It bounces around like its in a pinball machine.

Texas had the seventh-highest congenital syphilis rate in 2016. With the increase in cases in 2017, its rate moved above that of Arizona, Florida and Maryland.

The second and third most cases in 2017 occurred in a 19-county region that includes Dallas-Forth Worth and a 19-county lower Rio Grande Valley region.

Texas DSHS is already working with health care providers and local organizations in Houston and some other areas to increase awareness of congenital syphilis and support case review teams to help it better understand whats leading to the increase in cases, such as barriers to prenatal care.

David Harvey, executive director of the National Coalition of STD Directors, said the new numbers show the need for a stepped-up response to the nations growing STD crisis. He attributed the current high numbers, an all-time high, to cutbacks in federal resources, such as STD clinics. He said such funding has seen a 40 percent decrease in purchasing power since 2003.

Newborns are now paying the price for our nations growing STD crisis, said Harvey. That we have any cases of syphilis among newborns, let alone an increasing number, is a failure of the health care system. If STD prevention programs had anywhere near the support they need and women were getting quality preventative and prenatal care, no new mom would ever have to cope with this devastating diagnosis.

The overall U.S. rate of congenital syphilis in 2017 was 23.3 for every 100,000 births, up from 16.2 in 2016 and 9.2 in 2013. Texas rate was 44.2 in 2017, up from 17.8 in 2016 and 19.1 in 2013.

todd.ackerman@chron.com

twitter.com/chronmedHow an ancient Islamic holiday became uniquely Caribbean

A UF Ph.D. candidate in Religion in the Americas and Global Islam describes how Hosay, a religious ritual performed by Trinidadian Muslims, combines the somber Islamic observance of Ashura, brought by immigrant Indians, and the joy of Trinidad's famous carnival.

A throng of Trinidadians line up along the streets of St. James and Cedros to admire the vibrant floats with beautifully bedecked models of mausoleums. Their destination is the waters of the Caribbean, where the crowds will push them out to float.

This is part of the Hosay commemorations, a religious ritual performed by Trinidadian Muslims, that I have observed as part of the research for my forthcoming book on Islam in Latin America and the Caribbean.

What fascinates me is how a practice from India has been transformed into something uniquely Caribbean.

Re-enacting tragedy

During the 10 days of the Islamic month of Muharram, Shiite Muslims around the world remember the martyrdom of Hussein, Prophet Muhammads grandson, who was killed in a battle in Karbala, todays Iraq, some 1,338 years ago. For Shiite Muslims Hussein is the rightful successor to Prophet Muhammad.

Ashura, the 10th day of Muharram, is marked by public mourning and a re-enactment of the tragedy. Shiite Muslims put on passion plays that include inflicting suffering, as a way to remember Hussein. In Iraq, Shiite are known to beat themselves with swords. In India, mourners whip themselves with sharp blades. Some Shiite also visit Husseins shrine in Iraq.

The commemoration has also become a symbol for the broader Shiite struggle for justice as a minority in the global Muslim community.

Early history

In Trinidad, the 100,000 Muslims who make up 5 percent of the islands total population, celebrate the day of Ashura, as Hosay  the name derived from Hussein.

The first Hosay festival was held in 1854, just over a decade after the first Indian Muslims began to arrive from India to work on the islands sugar plantations.

But Trinidad at the time was under British colonial rule and large public gatherings were not permitted. In 1884, the British authorities issued a prohibition against Hosay commemorations. Approximately 30,000 people took to the streets, in Mon Repos, in the south, to protest against the ordinance. Shots fired to disperse the crowd killed 22 and injured over 100. The ordinance was later overturned.

The Hosay Massacre or Muharram Massacre, however, lives in peoples memories.

Colorful floats of Trinidad

These days, Hosay celebrations in St. James and Cedros not only recall Hussein, but also those killed during the 1884 Hosay riots. Rather than recreate the events through self-flagellation or other forms of suffering, however, people in Trinidad create bright and beautiful floats, called tadjahs, that parade through the streets to the sea.

Each tadjah is constructed of wood, paper, bamboo and tinsel. Ranging from a height of 10 to 30 feet, the floats are accompanied by people parading along and others playing drums, just as is the practice in Indias northern city of Lucknow. Meant to reflect the resting place of Shiite martyrs, the tadjahs resemble mausoleums in India. To many, their domes might be a reminder of the Taj Mahal.

Walking ahead of the tadjahs are two men bearing crescent moon shapes, one in red and the other in green. These symbolize the deaths of Hussein and his brother Hassan  the red being Husseins blood and the green symbolizing the supposed poisoning of Hassan.

The elaborateness of the tadjahs continues to increase each year and has become somewhat of a status symbol among the families that sponsor them.

A bit carnival, a bit Ashura

While the festival is certainly a somber one in terms of its tribute, it is also a joyous occasion where families celebrate with loud music and don festive attire. This has led some to compare Hosay to Trinidads world-famous carnival with its accompanying joie de vivre.

But there are also those who believe that the occasion should be a more somber remembrance of the martydom of Hussein. More conservative Muslims in Trinidad have made attempts to reform such celebrations. These Muslims believe local customs should be more in line with global commemorations like those in Iraq or India.

What I saw in the festival was an assertion of both the Indian and Trinidadian identity. For Shiite Muslims, who have dealt with oppression and ostracism  both in the past and in the present  it is a means of claiming their space as a minority in Trinidadian culture and resisting being pushed to the margins. At the same time, with its carnival-like feel, the festival could not be more Trinidadian.

Indeed, the celebrations each year illustrate how Indian and Trinidadian rituals and material culture merged to create a unique festival.

Ken Chitwood, Ph.D. Candidate, Religion in the Americas, Global Islam, University of Florida

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.Edina, Minn.-based Twin Cities Pain Clinic and Surgery Center held its first annual Pain Awareness 5k Sept. 22.

Here's what you should know:

1. The practice donated proceeds from the event to the American Chronic Pain Association.

2. The run/walk was held in celebration of Pain Awareness Month.

3. Twin Cities Pain Clinic and Surgery Center invited participants to tour its facilities after the race.

4. Medtronic, Nevro, Boston Scientific and Abbott representatives were present to discuss new pain therapy technologies with participants.Here are three legislative issues with the potential to affect ASCs:

NC court ruling aligns ASC workers' compensation payments with national average

A North Carolina judge signed an order Sept. 18 affirming a reform to align workers' compensation medical costs with the national average. Session Law 2013-410, Section 33 instructed the Industrial Commission to change its medical fee schedule to tie its medical fee schedule to reimbursement rates to Medicare values.

Georgia considers proposals about upending CON laws

Georgia legislators are discussing the state's certificate-of-need laws preceding a possible reform attempt. The Georgia House Rural Development Council is hearing reform proposals this month.

AHA to CMS: Keep physician-owned hospital ban in Stark Law

The American Hospital Association made comments to CMS Administrator Seema Verma on Stark Law on behalf of its nearly 5,000 members. While the organization supported modifications to Stark Law to promote collaboration within value-based payment models, it urged CMS not to alter the ban on physician-owned hospitals.Salt Lake City-based University of Utah researchers developed the Spherical Actuator Magnetic Manipulator, which can be used to improve non-invasive colonoscopy, PC Mag reports.

Here's what you should know:

1. Patients take a small pill containing an internal magnet, a camera, a microprocessor and a wireless transmitter, and SAMM uses a robotic arm with a powerful magnetic device to move the pill throughout the gastrointestinal tract.

2. University of Utah Telerobotics Lab Director Jake Abbott, PhD, said SAMM improves on capsule endoscopy by allowing physicians to control the pill's movement.

3. With capsule endoscopy, the pill passes through the body, transmitting images via the digestive process. SAMM controls the pill's movement.

4. Dr. Abbott is targeting the GI tract initially, but he envisions the technology eventually being adapted to other places in the body.

5. SAMM can cover the complete GI tract in about an hour and a half, and while a physician can monitor the exam, it's not necessary for the physician to be in the room.

6. Dr. Abbott said he and a group of students are attempting to get National Institutes of Health funding to create a clinical version of SAMM.A nine-year-old boy drowned and two of his friends were rescued after they got into difficulties in the Yamato River in Osaka on Sunday.

According to police, at around 4:15 p.m., six elementary school students were playing in the river near Oriono Bridge in Sumiyoshi Ward, Fuji TV reported. Three of the children were swept away.

Two boys, aged 10 and 11, were rescued by a man who was passing by, but the third boy was nowhere in sight. His body was found three hours later. He was rushed to hospital where he was pronounced dead.

The depth of the water where the boys were swept away was approximately 1.5 meters.Robert J. Carrera joined Lakewood, Colo.-based Pinnacle III in 2005, and has more than 25 years of experience in the healthcare industry.

Here are three things to know about Mr. Carrera and Pinnacle III:

1. Mr. Carrera is responsible for company operations, including de novo development, client facility performance, as well as marketing and sales at Pinnacle III. Before joining the company, he spent 14 years at Birmingham, Ala.-based HealthSouth in various roles, including vice president of surgery center operations, regional vice president of operations and as an administrator.

2. Mr. Carrera was one of the Colorado Ambulatory Surgery Center Association's founding members, and previously served as vice president. Out of the 25 years of healthcare experience he has, he spent 15 years in the ASC sector.

3. Pinnacle III was founded in 1999, and provides ASC development, management and billing services to more than 40 clients.Nashville, Tenn.-based Aspire Health lost some patient information to an unknown cyberattacker who gained access to its internal email system in September, federal court records filed Sept. 25 and reviewed by The Tennessean show.

After the hacker broke into Aspire's email systems using email phishing tactics on Sept. 3, they forwarded 124 emails to an external email account. Those emails contained "confidential and proprietary information and files" and "protected health information," according to the court records.

No additional details regarding about the contents of the hacked emails have been made public, and it's unclear how many patients were affected. However, in a prepared statement obtained by The Tennessean, Aspire said it alerted a "small handful" of patients who "may have been impacted."

An Aspire spokesperson told the publication the outpatient palliative care company immediately locked the compromised email account after discovering the attack.

The phishing attack originated from a website with an Eastern European IP address that lists Google as the registrar. Google flagged the website as "deceptive," and the site now warns visitors that they may be tricked into sharing their personal information. Aspire sought voluntary help from Google to identify the hacker, but Google refused and told Aspire it would need a subpoena.

On Sept. 25, Aspire filed a motion in a federal court motion to subpoena Google for more information on the unknown hacker, referred to as John Doe 1 in the court documents.

"The proposed subpoena to Google should provide information showing who has accessed and/or maintains the phishing website and the subscriber of the email account that John Doe 1 used in the phishing attack," Aspire attorney James Haltom wrote. "This information will likely allow Aspire to uncover and locate John Doe 1."

Aspire, which operates in 25 states and the District of Columbia, is a home healthcare business that connects patients with palliative care physicians.With the rise in high-deductible health plans, patients are shouldering a greater portion of the cost of their medical care. As payment responsibility falls increasingly to the patient, it's vital for hospitals and other provider organizations to make it simple for patients to understand and pay their medical bills.

During the Becker's Hospital Review 4th Annual Health IT + Revenue Cycle Conference in Chicago, panelists discussed ways to improve the patient billing process and the importance of ensuring patients have a great clinical experience followed by a positive financial experience.

Kathryne Rouse, executive director of revenue cycle customer experience at Renton, Wash.-based Providence Health & Services, discussed several ways to improve the patient financial experience, including giving patients access to prices.

"It's important to have price transparency, and to have that available online," she said. "That's really key to the patient experience."

Although it's important for the patient to understand the amount he or she will owe, it's also critical for that information to be communicated to the patient at the time of care. Many health systems include several sites of care, including acute care hospitals, urgent care centers and physician offices, and the panelists discussed the importance of making sure patients receive a consistent message around payment and billing, regardless of where they receive care.

For example, it's important that "the physician office understands what the patient owes and communicates that to the patient," said Kristine Monus, administrative director of finance, physician and continuum care revenue cycle at Toledo, Ohio-based ProMedica Health System. It's important for those on the "front end of the [revenue cycle] process to understand what's going to happen in the patient payment process and do a better job of collecting upfront," she said.

Another way to improve the patient financial experience is to engage patients in the billing and payment process. "Some of our customers are exploring chat and text to digitally engage their patients," said Conrad Coopersmith, chief revenue officer at VisitPay.

Whether sending patients payment reminders via text or answering their billing questions via online chat, hospitals and health systems are using new tools and services to improve patient billing. However, the process isn't perfect, and problems will still arise. What's important is that providers understand the issues and how to correct them.

Providers must "educate and train people on the phones" and keep track of billing complaints, said Ms. Monus. "We try to go back to the root source of the problem. It's going back to the physician offices and training them. It's making sure the front end understands the impact they're going to have on the back end."

More articles on healthcare finance:

CMS miscalculated MIPS payment adjustments: 4 things to know

Houston hospital appeals loss of federal funding for heart transplants

Temple University Health System's finances improve as Epic install costs shrinkLeaders of Dickinson County Healthcare System in Iron Mountain, Mich., motioned Sept. 25 to begin the process of filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy  roughly one week after a sale deal with Marquette, Mich.-based UP Health System fell through, according to TV 6 News.

An attorney with the hospital board told the publication filing for bankruptcy will allow the 49-bed hospital to remain open and continue services.

"What's going to affect the timing of this is whether or not we can go into a Chapter 11 with a partner. The partner pretty much is already committed to a purchase price and what liabilities are willing to cover, so those things are being negotiated," Dickinson County Healthcare System Board Chairman Bill Edberg told TV 6 News.

Hospital officials said the institution is roughly $20 million in debt, but there is no immediate concern as to whether it will make payroll, as the hospital has $2 million in escrow.

"We have roughly $2 million in escrow with Fifth Third Bank that we are good for at least a couple of months, but again a lot of unknown in all of this," Mr. Edberg said.

With the potential bankruptcy filing, many employees and citizens expressed concern during the board's meeting Sept. 25, including concerns over pensions. The hospital is liable for about $17 million in unfunded pensions, the report states.

Despite concerns, hospital officials reiterated during the meeting that "care will continue to be provided, hospital will remain open and employees will continue to get paid," the report states.

The hospital board is scheduled to meet next on Sept. 27.

To access the full report, click here.At Becker's Hospital Review's 4th Annual Health IT + Revenue Cycle conference in Chicago Sept. 21, four healthcare industry experts discussed the top obstacles health system leaders face when trying to invest in IT. They also offered several solutions.

1. Budget. For many hospitals the IT department budget is lumped in with the entire capital budget. This is problematic because implementing a new IT system or program that benefits the entire health system can get expensive and far exceed the budgeted amount, said Dawn Blandford, CIO of Leitchfield, Ky.-based Twin Lakes Regional Medical Center.

"One way we mitigated this and got the approval to separate the IT budget from the rest of the departments was aligning more with the CFO  [and] establishing an IT governance to discuss the budget from the top down ... and present the return on investment to get the board to sign off," Ms. Blandford said.

2. Interoperability and clinician burnout. When choosing to invest in an IT system, leaders must look at how the various applications communicate and exchange data. Many healthcare leaders don't, and as a result, 62 percent of physicians say interoperability is their No. 1 problem today, according to a Deloitte survey.

"The issue becomes how do you get the data to work together so clinicians get a full view of the patient without being overwhelmed," said Michael Blackman, MD, medical director of population health and analytics for Allscripts. He suggested getting physician input about their frustrations, and new technologies may help solve the problem of physician burnout from technology.

3. Temptations of emerging technologies. There's a temptation by upper management to buy the latest promising technology, but often it isn't the smartest decision to jump on it right away, said Esteban Gershanik, MD, the former CIO of the Louisiana Department of Health.

"As a CIO, it's your job to bring things back and say 'hey we need to focus on our base before we get tempted by the banter of new technologies in the market,'" Dr. Gershanik said.

4. So many things to balance. Healthcare leaders have a lot to balance, including pushing new strategic initiatives, understanding the changing regulations, hiring new talent and keeping an eye on market consolidation strategies. This means IT leaders must be focused to push their ideas up through governance, said John Squeo, former chief Innovation and strategy officer of Chicago-based Thorek Memorial Hospital and current strategy consultant for Accenture.

"It comes down to having a strict rigor to focus  IT leaders need to be masters and pick the battles they can solve," Mr. Squeo said.Becker's Hospital Review reported the following hospital and health system CEO moves in the last week.

They are listed below, in alphabetical order.

1. Bill Carpenter, CEO and chairman of Brentwood, Tenn.-based LifePoint Health, will retire upon completion of his company's merger with RCCH HealthCare Partners, also based in Brentwood.

2. Norfolk, Neb.-based Faith Regional Health Services has tapped interim CEO Kelly Driscoll to take on the role permanently.

3. Roxanna L. Gapstur has been named the president and CEO of York, Pa.-based WellSpan Health, effective Jan. 2.

4. Maggie Gill is leaving her role as CEO of Culpeper, Va.-based Novant Health UVA Health System after only a year to assume multiple leadership positions in Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare's Florida operations.

5. A. Hugh Greene will retire as CEO of Jacksonville-based Baptist Health of Northeast Florida in 2019, once a permanent replacement is found.

6. Rett J. Grover has been named the CEO of the Birmingham, Ala.-based UAB Callahan Eye Hospital & Clinics.

7. William Jennings will leave his positions as president and CEO of Bridgeport (Conn.) Hospital and executive vice president of Yale New Haven (Conn.) Health to become president and CEO of Reading (Penn.) Hospital.

8. Frank May, CEO and president of Steamboat Springs, Co.-based UCHealth Yampa Valley Medical Center, will retire Dec. 31 after serving the hospital for 20 years.

9. Randy Peterson will retire as president and CEO of Topeka, Kan.-based Stormont Vail Health by March 31, 2019 and will be replaced by current senior vice president and CMO Robert Kenagy, MD.

10. St. Charles, Mo.-based CenterPointe Hospital has appointed Scott Williams CEORandy Peterson will retire as president and CEO of Topeka, Kan.-based Stormont Vail Health by March 31, 2019 and will be replaced by current senior vice president and CMO Robert Kenagy, MD.

Mr. Peterson joined Stormont Vail in 2012, previously serving as senior vice president of hospital operations at Wichita, Kan.-based Via Christi Health System and CEO at Salina (Kan.) Regional Health. Under his leadership, Stormont Vail joined the Mayo Clinic Care Network.

"Randy is a passionate leader who has steered Stormont Vail Health to become one of the strongest, independent, not-for-profit health systems in our region and the country," said Rick Wienckowski, chairman of Stormont Vail board of directors. "In his tenure we have grown as an organization to serve more than 270,000 individuals every year across communities in eastern and central Kansas."

Dr. Kenagy joined Stormont Vail in 2016 after serving as senior vice president of St. Johns Health Network in Tulsa, Okla., and senior vice president of physician services and CEO of Wichita-based Via Christi Clinic.

"I have had the privilege of working with Randy both at Stormont Vail Health and at Via Christi in Wichita," Dr. Kenagy said. "I especially appreciate Randys care for both patients and team members and his dedication to improving quality, experience and access to health care for all Kansans. I am honored and humbled to serve as the next CEO. I look forward to continuing this work alongside our great team at Stormont Vail Health, with a focus on improving the health of our communities."The State of Louisiana, New Orleans-based Ochsner Health System and LSU Health Shreveport (La.) signed a public-private partnership agreement to better align the university's health sciences center with the health system, according to a KTBS3 report.

Under the new structure, the partners plan to invest in upgrading lab and monitoring equipment and make technology enhancements that will improve coordination of care. The partners also plan to invest in digital health, telehealth and post-acute care "to improve the overall patient experience in north Louisiana," according to the report.

Other investments will focus on facility renovations and improving the community's access to care.

The new management group comprises the State of Louisiana, the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College Board of Supervisors on behalf of LSU Health Sciences Center Shreveport, the LSUHSC-S Faculty Group Practice and Ochsner.

LSU will continue to oversee its Shreveport medical school and related functions.

Chuck Daigle, a former Shreveport-based Willis-Knighton Health System executive, will serve as CEO of Ochsner LSU Health Shreveport, beginning Oct. 1.The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons expressed its opposition to CVS Health's proposed $69 billion acquisition of Aetna in a Sept. 21 letter to the Department of Justice.

In the letter, sent to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, AAPS' President-elect Marilyn Singleton, MD, said: "CVS has demonstrated a pattern of anticompetitive behavior. Allowing this merger to proceed will hand the combined CVS/Aetna even more clout to drive up costs without any corresponding benefit to patients."



Conservative-leaning AAPS argued that combining the third-largest health insurer with the largest national pharmacy chain will weaken competition in the pharmacy benefits manager market. The association's letter comes about a month after the American Medical Association called on the Department of Justice to sue to block the deal.



The companies have long argued their combination will provide localized, community-based care across CVS Health's 9,700-plus pharmacies and 1,100 clinics. The Department of Justice's antitrust review is taking longer than expected due to divestitures aimed at appeasing antitrust concerns.



More articles on transactions and valuations:

Ochsner, LSU Health to heavily invest in health IT under joint operating agreement

KentuckyOne Health CEO: 'We are not planning to close Jewish Hospital'

UPMC Pinnacle Memorial sells affiliated mansionFranklin, Tenn.-based Community Health Systems subsidiary Health Management Associates has agreed to pay the federal government $262 million to settle fraudulent billing and kickback allegations.

The settlement resolves allegations that HMA billed government payers for inpatient services that should have been billed as less costly observation or outpatient services, paid physicians in exchange for referrals, and submitted claims to Medicare and Medicaid for falsely inflated emergency department facility fee charges.

HMA's conduct occurred between 2003 and 2012, before CHS acquired HMA. HMA was facing multiple qui tam lawsuits and was the subject of criminal and civil investigations when it was acquired by CHS, and CHS cooperated with the government in its investigation.

"Since acquiring HMA in 2014, it has been our goal to resolve the governments investigation into all of these allegations which occurred prior to the acquisition and which were already under investigation at the time of the transaction," CHS said in a press release.

In addition to the $262 million settlement, HMA entered a nonprosecution agreement with the Justice Department. Under the NPA, the government agreed not to bring criminal charges as long as HMA and CHS cooperate with the investigation, report evidence of violations of federal healthcare offenses, and ensure their compliance and ethics programs satisfy the requirements of a corporate integrity agreement between CHS and HHS' Office of Inspector General.

Under the settlement, Carlisle HMA, the HMA-affiliated entity that formerly operated Carlisle (Pa.) Regional Medical Center, agreed to plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud. CHS divested Carlisle Regional in 2017.

"We are pleased to have reached the settlement agreements so we can move forward now without the burden or distraction of ongoing litigation," said CHS. "As an organization, we are committed to doing our very best to always comply with the law in what is a very complex regulatory environment and to operate our business with integrity, ethical practices and high standards of conduct."

More articles on legal and regulatory issues:

Alabama hospital pays $4.25M to settle false billing case

11 latest healthcare industry lawsuits

Partners, Massachusetts Eye and Ear settle deceptive billing allegationsShinchosha Publishing Co. said Tuesday that it will suspend the publication of a monthly magazine at the center of a controversy over articles related to lesbian, gay, bisexuals and transgender, or LGBT, people.

The magazine, Shincho 45, has come under fire over an article in its August edition contributed by House of Representatives lawmaker Mio Sugita of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, in which she argued that LGBT couples are unproductive as they do not have children.

Fueling the controversy, the magazine ran a feature in defense of Sugita in its latest October issue.

Following the escalation of public criticism, the Japanese publisher released a statement by its president, Takanobu Sato, last week admitting that the feature story in the October edition included expressions with aberrant prejudice and a lack of understanding in some parts.

On Tuesday, the company issued a separate statement to officially apologize for the situation, while citing a plunge in the sales of the magazine in the last few years as the cause of poor editorial checks.The operator of Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center and related healthcare facilities in Richmond has agreed to pay the federal government $3,994,151 to resolve inaccurate payments for radiation oncology services, according to the Department of Justice.

The settlement comes after Virginia Commonwealth University Health System Authority self-reported that from 2009 through September 2014, it overbilled Medicare, Tricare, and the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan for radiation oncology services. The DOJ said the health system authority discovered the billing errors through audits and claims data, took corrective action to address radiation oncology billing practices and disclosed to the government.

The settlement resolves the civil claims, and civil liability has not been determined.

Hospital officials told Becker's VCU Health System's audits and claims data also indicated about $640,000 in inaccurate payments that will be paid to Virginia.

More articles on legal and regulatory issues:

Alabama hospital pays $4.25M to settle false billing case

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Partners, Massachusetts Eye and Ear settle deceptive billing allegationsAntibiotics may be an effective treatment, alternative to surgery, for patients suffering from appendicitis, according to a study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association.

Here are three things to know:

1. For the study, researchers conducted a five-year follow-up of 256 patients in Finland who were randomly selected in a previous clinical trial to receive antibiotics in place of surgery to treat uncomplicated appendicitis.

2. About 60 percent of the patients did not end up needing an appendectomy. Of the 100 patients who did receive surgery, only 70 percent needed it in the first year. None of these patients had any adverse outcomes related to delaying the operation.

3. The decision to perform surgery was left to the surgeon, which held potential to result in more operations than necessary, researchers noted.

"If I have a CT scan, and I can see that the appendicitis is uncomplicated," Dr. Paulina Salminen, a surgeon at the University of Turku in Finland and lead study author, told The New York Times. "I would discuss with the patient the possible results of antibiotic treatment alone or surgery. Then we would make a joint, unbiased decision about what would be best."

More articles on clinical leadership and infection control:Many U.S. health officials and HIV experts said they believe a future with halted HIV transmission rates could be only a few years away, according to STAT.

Here are five things to know:

1. The CDC has collected data on reported HIV-related deaths for the last 30 years, finding more than half a million people have died from AIDS.

"We have the science to solve the AIDS epidemic," Robert Redfield, MD, director of the CDC, told STAT. "Weve invested in it. Let's put it into action.

2. The hope for halted HIV transmission lies within the potent antiretroviral drugs on the market today, which can drastically decrease the amount of HIV virus in an infected patient's system to undetectable levels. In this state of viral suppression, infected individuals are no longer contagious. STAT cited data from several studies showing no new HIV infections occurred among about 80,000 condomless sex acts between male partners, where one partner was HIV-negative and the other was HIV-positive but had the virus suppressed.

3. Anthony Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, along with leading health experts point out the goal of stopping HIV transmission is "theoretical." There will always be new cases, and many barriers still exist to treating the 40,000 people who contract HIV annually.

"We live in a real world, we don't live in a theoretical world," Dr. Fauci told STAT.

4. PrEP remains one of the top medications for HIV prevention, reducing an individual's chance of contracting HIV by 95 percent. Yet, PrEP only benefits those taking it. The CDC estimates around 1.1 million people in the U.S. should be on a PrEP regimen, but only 200,000 are.

5. Physicians are partly to blame for the gap in PrEP coverage, according to STAT.

"There is a large number of people who are not comfortable prescribing PrEP or have not been taught how to prescribe PrEP, whether it be in their residency, fellowship or post-graduate training," Robert Goldstein, MD, medical director of the transgender health program at Boston-based Massachusetts General Hospital and an instructor at Harvard Medical School, also in Boston, told the publication.

More articles on clinical leadership and infection control:Using hospital inspection reports released by the Connecticut Department of Public Health, the Connecticut Health Investigative Team published a database revealing numerous patient safety violations at Connecticut hospitals.

The Connecticut Health Investigative Team is a nonprofit that produces journalism on health and safety issues. The reports, found in the organization's data mine section, cover inspections that happened at hospitals between 2016 and 2018.

The database also includes the corrective action plans hospitals submit after inspections.

Violations include injuries to patients, improper use of patient restraints, delays in testing results and other protocol lapses.

Hartford (Conn.) Hospital was cited for 60 violations, including two violations that preceded patient deaths. Bridgeport (Conn.) Hospital was cited for 26 violations, including one instance when a patient with an ovarian mass was burned during surgery.DePuy Synthes, a Johnson & Johnson company, launched Sentio MMG, a digital mechanomyography platform designed to assess nerve status.

Here are four things to know:

1. The platform is also designed to identify and avoid peripheral nerves during spine surgery. It can be used during non-fusion procedures as well as minimally invasive and open spinal fusion operations.

2. Sentio MMG features a touchscreen tablet, control unit, probes and smart sensors that minimizes staff in the operating room.

3. The patented, smart sensor technology provides surgeons with real-time feedback on nerve location through visual and audible alerts.

4. DePuy Synthes is introducing the technology at the North American Spine Society Annual Meeting in Los Angeles, Sept. 26-29.St Therese of Lisieux was born in Alencon, Normandy, on January 2, 1873. The first four years were the happiest of her life. Therese Martin had a sunny disposition from the day she was born. As she grew up, with her blonde hair, blue eyes, chubby face and affectionate demeanour, she charmed everyone who met her. She was the undoubted pet of the family. Her father called her his "little queen". "She is a child who delights us all," her mother said.

She grew up to be a stubborn child. One day, her mother tested how headstrong she was. Smiling, she said to her: "If you will kiss the ground I will give you a halfpenny."

Therese later said: "In those days a halfpenny was a fortune, and in order to gain it I had not far to stoop, but my pride was up in arms, and holding myself very erect, I said, 'No, thank you, I would rather go without it'."

She was also outspoken and direct. On one occasion, when Therese was four, she attended a Holy Hour and exclaimed: "It's lovelier than usual, but it's very long all the same." Later in life, she would candidly admit to falling asleep while praying and found it hard to concentrate during meditation. She even admitted: "I have not the courage to look through books for beautiful prayers. I only get a headache because of their number."

As a child, Therese adored flowers. She particularly liked the simple wild flowers that no one noticed. They were just like her, she thought - small and insignificant, yet as important as the great flowers in the eyes of God. Perhaps it was no surprise, then, that she later called herself the "Little Flower" and her promised "Shower of Roses" after her death brought many blessings and cures.

Expand Close A painting of the miracle cure of shell-shocked Londonderry soldier Private Francis Donaghy / Facebook

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Those early years were the most joyful Therese would experience in her life. They were the "sunny years of my childhood" as she put it - a time of "loving smiles and tender caresses". Unfortunately, those days would come to an end with the death of her mother when Therese was four. That day, she said, "was the most sorrowful of all".

When Therese was 15, she entered the Carmelite convent in Lisieux, where conditions were primitive and she was badly bullied.

Meagre rations of food, a bed made of three planks, no heat except for a small stove in one room, and constant prayer and penance, were all experienced by Therese on entering the convent.

The congregation prayed for up to seven hours a day. The physical work was tough - washing floors, cleaning laundry, caring for the dining room, kitchen and sacristy.

Matters weren't helped by a prioress who treated Therese harshly. One day, Therese overlooked a cobweb when cleaning a hall.

In front of other sisters, the prioress said: "The cloisters are obviously swept by a 15-year-old; it is a disgrace!"

There was no talking back, no arguing, disagreeing or contradicting. The rule was to accept criticism, even if falsely based, and offer up the sacrifice to God.

Out of all this came an extraordinarily simple, yet profound, set of insights that transformed religious thinking overnight. Great deeds, she said, are beyond most of us. Little deeds are what we do, instead.

If you can't be perfect, you can at least do your best and practice all the little things you do with love. Just do them well, and offer them up to God. This she described as her "little way".

In time, a succession of authors, statesmen and philosophers, along with millions of ordinary people, were influenced by Therese's "little way". The only sadness was that, by the time her philosophy was brought to public attention, she had suffered the ravages of pulmonary TB. She experienced "pure agony, without a ray of consolation", as she put it.

Therese died on September 30, 1897. As death approached, she turned to her sister Pauline, who was then prioress, and asked was she about to die. Pauline told her she was. She then uttered her last words, "My God, I... love... Thee", sank back in her bed and passed on to another life. She was aged 24.

A famous Co Donegal miracle, occurring in 1913, was attributed to the "Little Flower".

On January 27, 1913, trouble entered the lives of the McNelis family, from Glenties, Co Donegal. It came in the form of life-threatening medical complications following the birth of their latest child. The mother - Mary McNelis - had developed puerperal fever, an infection that occasionally arises after childbirth. In those pre-antibiotic days, when the infection developed into septicaemia, or blood poisoning, it was often fatal.

As devotees of the Little Flower, the family prayed for her help and intercession. They knew that she was busy and in high demand, having learned about her popularity from newspapers and by word of mouth. As a result, on more than one occasion, they remarked: "She is so busy, I wonder if she will think of poor Donegal."

At around 11 o'clock on that January morning, a strange thing happened. The family's four-year-old child, Kathleen, arrived in the house with a beautiful bunch of snowdrops in her hand. She told her father, Michael, that they had been given to her by a nun, who said they were for her mother and she would be cured. Given that the child was only four years old, and there were no nuns in the area - no snowdrops, either - it was understandable that the incident was dismissed for the time being.

That changed, however, when a sweet perfume filled every corner of the family home. All present were puzzled. They turned once more to the little child, asking her what had happened. She explained how a nun had come down from on high and handed her the bunch of flowers, adding that she should pass them on along with the message regarding how her mother would become well. The nun, she said, was beautiful and wore white.

Almost instantly, Mary McNelis recovered, surprising all concerned. Everyone was overjoyed. The event left the family believing the child's story of the nun. The Little Flower had, after all, remembered Donegal. "What a gracious way she has of doing good upon earth," the father concluded.

Another extraordinary recovery, concerning an army private from Londonderry, was reported in 1917.

A cure involving a shell-shocked First World War soldier, named Private Francis Donaghy, was reported in the summer of that year.

The 28-year-old had fought in the Battle of Messines, which took place in Flanders on the Western Front. A shell fell on top of the trench where he was stationed, tumbling the trench in. On recovering consciousness, he found he was unable to speak or hear.

Private Donaghy was eventually hospitalised at Dublin's King George V Hospital, where doctors concluded he was incurable. While there, he befriended another patient, a Donegal man by the name of William Joseph McDonagh, who was a former member of the Irish Guards. Both men prayed to Therese of Lisieux and placed their fate in her hands. One evening, the two patients were allowed a brief respite from the hospital and went in search of a church. They ended up at the Church of St Francis Xavier, Gardiner Street, where a retreat was being held by the Jesuit priest Thomas Murphy. It was there that a remarkable event occurred.

Around eight o'clock, his companion noticed that Private Donaghy was becoming restless and excited. Suddenly, Donaghy said, in quick breaths, "I can speak", and almost immediately murmured, "I can hear". He then showed signs of collapse. An ambulance was summoned and he was transported back to hospital. On arrival, his speech, which initially seemed inarticulate, returned to its natural state.

Later, he explained what had happened. "A flash of light came across my eyes," he told a newspaper reporter. "I felt a kind of choking at my heart. I reached up my two hands as the light was passing. It was a very, very silvery light. It made no heat or anything. It came gently past. It came from the left hand side where I was kneeling. I reached out my hand to grasp the seat, and called my comrade....I fainted then."

A Dublin newspaper made further inquiries to the hospital and was told that the patient was improving and "able to speak and hear quite well". It was also confirmed that his cure had "excited a good deal of interest at the hospital", where his case had been regarded as practically hopeless. Donaghy's joy was unbounded. "You can hardly understand what it means to be able to speak," he said. He added that it was no coincidence that he had been praying to Therese for some time. "This," he concluded, "is another cure for the Little Flower."

Relics of St. Therese arrived in Ireland in 2001. Scenes of euphoria were witnessed up to their departure on July 2. An outburst of euphoria greeted the Little Flower's relics during their visit to Ireland in 2001. Millions of people turned out for the event. The vast number was no surprise as, by then, Therese had become one of Ireland's most popular saints, standing alongside St Anthony of Padua, St Francis of Assisi and St Pio of Pietrelcina.

More than 1,000 people stood in wait at Rosslare harbour to welcome the arrival of Therese's relics to Irish shores. Few in attendance anticipated the national outburst of devotion that would follow. Encouraged by the fine weather, between two and three million people filled churches or lined streets to pay their respects to the saint.

A huge crowd gathered in Newry to see her casket on its first stop in the province. Two thousand people are estimated to have visited her remains in Armagh Cathedral. Thousands more turned out at St Peter's Church in Lurgan, St Peter's Cathedral in Divis, Clonard Monastery off the Falls Road, Ardoyne in north Belfast and St Eugene's Cathedral in Londonderry. Some were driven by a burning conviction; others came out of mild curiosity; more felt drawn to a unique national event.

During their 75-day tour of Ireland, churches were forced to keep their doors open through the night. Businesses put up their shutters. Houses were festooned with flags and bunting. Traffic ground to a halt. Flower sellers did brisk business. "People are buying mostly red roses, because in St. Therese's picture there are red roses all around her," one vendor explained. There were blue roses too, with the seller proclaiming: "Buy a blue one for Our Lady."

Miracles were reported in the national press. One Co Louth woman described how her chronic arthritis was cured following a visit to Therese's relics. Another woman, from Co Mayo, explained that, for the first seven years of their marriage, she and her husband had been childless. Having prayed to the Little Flower, they conceived their first child. They called her Teresa.

The relics finally left the country as the mini-heatwave of the previous weeks was coming to a close. The bright sunshine seemed to be something of a metaphor for the visit, which had seen outpourings of religious fervour not witnessed since the arrival of Pope John Paul II in 1979. "It has been a very long few months," Fr Linus Ryan, the visit coordinator, reflected. "It is not every day you have the privilege of carrying the remains of a saint around your country. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity."

The Little Flower, St. Therese of Lisieux: The Irish Connection, by Colm Keane & Una O'Hagan, is published by Capel Island Press, price 15One of Northern Ireland's best known country house hotels, which has played host to former US Presidents to rock stars, has been sold for an undisclosed sum.

Beech Hill Country House Hotel in Londonderry has been acquired by Republic business The House Collection, bringing an end to decades of ownership by two families.

The manor house hotel and its 32-acre grounds outside Derry was taken over by US Marines during the Second World War.

Bill Clinton ranked the hotel as his favourite place to stay in Ireland, while rock group U2 and crooner Ed Sheeran have also checked in.

It had been owned by the O'Kane and Donnelly families since 1991, with owner and manager Patsy O'Kane the face of the venue for the last 25 years.

She said: "It fills me with sadness to leave the Beech Hill, its wonderful team, its fascinating guests and its loyal customers.

"However, the time has come for a new chapter in my life and I'm looking forward to having more time for myself and my family.

"These are very different times with very different challenges and the Beech Hill needs new energy to ensure it continues to flourish. Finding people who shared our vision was not easy - when they were found, we knew it was time for a changing of the guard."

Barry Kemp, director at The House Collection, said he was delighted to announce the acquisition.

He said: "The Beech Hill is a truly iconic country house and, while the property may be entering a new chapter, our ambitions are to build on the firm foundations laid by the O'Kane and Donnelly families."

Mr Kemp paid tribute to Patsy and her hard work.

"To many guests and visitors over the last 26 years, Patsy O'Kane was the Beech Hill."

He said it will remain business as usual for all customers and guests. Meanwhile, Bishop's Gate boutique hotel, also in Derry, has been named the AA Hotel of the Year in Northern Ireland.Belfast International Airport has vowed to end long delays for passengers after announcing a new company had won the contract to provide security services.

The Aldergrove airport was heavily criticised in the summer after frustrated travellers hit out over long security queues, which caused some to miss their flights.

Yesterday, the airport admitted that it had not been up to scratch.

However, ICTS the previous security company insisted it had provided a good service and blamed the airport for when it fell short.

Wilson James has been named as the winner of the new security contract, which will come into effect on November 1.

Belfast International Airport (BIA) managing director Graham Keddie said the airport and the new security provider were determined to improve the customer experience.

Mr Keddie said: "This year will see Belfast International Airport reach six million passengers for the first time in its history and that growth is expected to continue.

"We recognise that at some points over the busy summer season the service provided to our passengers was not what it should have been. Therefore we, along with Wilson James, are committed to improving the quality of service and operational capability and we will be announcing further development plans shortly."

ICTS, which had done the job since 2001, insisted that it had provided an "excellent" service.

And it called for an increase in security staff wages to reflect the crucial job they carry out.

It said: "ICTS was first awarded the contract to supply security services at Belfast International Airport in 2001 and we have successfully held this contract for over 16 years.

"During this time we have worked collaboratively with Belfast International Airport and ensured that we delivered an excellent service above and beyond what we were contracted to provide.

"We agree with Belfast International Airport that the service provided to passengers over the summer period was not what it should have been; however we had no control of this factor.

"We would like to take this opportunity to reassure the travelling public that ICTS will work closely with Wilson James to ensure a smooth transfer of all personnel to the new contract."

When asked what guarantees it could give that the security delays would not reoccur, the airport said it would work with Wilson James "to put in place improvement measures for the central search area".

Gemma Quirke, managing director for security and aviation at Wilson James, said the company would work with the airport to "develop the security offering".

She added: "We are committed to working in partnership with the airport community to deliver an excellent service, investing in people, training and innovation to ensure that Belfast International Airport is ready to meet the needs of its growing passenger population now and in the future."

Earlier this week, airline Norwegian Air announced it was withdrawing its flights from Belfast International to the New York and Boston areas from October 27, blaming a lack of demand.

In a statement, the company advised that customers in Northern Ireland can still fly to the US via Dublin, Shannon and Cork, with up to 33 weekly departures.

In a scathing response, BIA accused the airline of "moronically channelling much greater levels of Northern Ireland passengers onto Dublin flights". A spokesperson said that it was "extremely disappointed" by Norwegian's decision but criticised the airline for only offering two flights per week from Belfast.The chief executive of Foyle Port has said Brexit could present the north-west transport hub with strong opportunities.

Brian McGrath was speaking as Londonderry Port and Harbour Commissioners reported a record turnover of 9.1m for the year to March 31 2018. The 5% rise over the year means turnover at the port has trebled in 15 years. Pre-tax profits were down 19% year-on-year, dropping from 2m to 1.6m, but the chief executive said the enterprise remains commercially strong.

"The dip in profits is a reflection of the investment we have been making, there hasn't been any significant change in the market or performance. All our profits are reinvested, there is no shareholder dividend paid out. All of our profits are reinvested and that is our statutory duty as a trust board."

While he conceded that Brexit is not necessarily the path the trust board would have chosen to go down, he said they remain optimistic.

"Our location at Lisahally makes Brexit a strong opportunity for us. We have the ability, resources and capacity to be well prepared should there be a no deal output."

Led by chair Bonnie Anley and Brian McGrath as chief executive, the gross tonnage of vessels passing through the port was 2.166 million tonnes for the 12 months to the end of March, largely similar to the previous year (2.168 million).

The vast bulk - 1.722 million tonnes was made up of imports (down on 1.777 million in 2016/17).

However, exports rose from 83,913 tonnes to 102,449 in 2017/18.

The port's key business is largely based around fertiliser and animal feed, with around 40% of commodities coming from Europe.

Mr McGrath said: "Primarily we support the agri-industry and energy industry in the north west. We support around 20,000 farms in the cross-border region. We are obviously interested in future customs arrangements and whether or not there will be a lot of additional bureaucracy.

"The question is whether or not it will affect our competitive position and that is something we would be very concerned about."

The financial statements contained in its latest annual report revealed that Foyle Port increased its workforce by 10% over the year, which was reflected in staff costs rising from 3.2m to 3.6m.

The total paid out to senior employees and board members was 876,667 in the year to March, up from 818,852 the previous year.Economic development agency Invest NI has launched its second small business loan fund.

The fund is aimed at providing loans of up to 100,000 to small businesses, sole traders and partnerships with plans to develop their businesses.

Start-up enterprises can obtain initial loans of up to 15,000.

Ulster Community Finance Ltd (UCF) has been appointed manager of the new fund.

William McCulla, Invest NI's director of corporate finance, said: "The first Small Business Loan Fund made a significant contribution to small businesses in Northern Ireland, ensuring SMEs could access the type of finance needed to support their growth.

"Since it launched in 2013, the fund has supported almost 400 local businesses by providing over 7.5m in loans.

"The new NI Small Business Loan Fund will continue this success, providing much needed finance to businesses that find it difficult to access funding through traditional sources.

"With an increased loan level of 100,000, the new fund has the potential to lend over 8m to local SMEs, helping them to invest, grow and create jobs."

Harry McDaid, head of Ulster Community Finance, said it was pleased to support the second small business loan fund, after many success for the first fund. "Companies such as Portadown-based Iota used the fund to develop and manufacture its innovative negative pressure unit, aimed at contractors operating within the asbestos removal industry. The company is currently working to generate sales in Canada, New Zealand and Europe.

"Belfast gym equipment manufacturer, Blk Box used their loan to create new jobs and expand from operating out of a garage to doing business on a global stage from its new headquarters in Belfast's Titanic Quarter.

I'd encourage small businesses with a legitimate funding need to get in touch to see how we can support their ambitious business plans."A record 103 Japanese universities made it onto this yearas Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings list, with the nationas two top universities a the University of Tokyo and Kyoto University a moving up in the standings.

According to THE, the countryas top institution, the University of Tokyo, also known as Todai, climbed to 42nd place, up four places from its worst-ever ranking last year.

Kyoto University secured its position as the nationas second highest-ranked university, jumping up nine places from last year to 65th a marking its second consecutive year of improvement on the influential ranking that lists over 1,250 of the worldas top institutions.

aThis is a nation of immense ingenuity and potential, and we could be witnessing a positive turning point here for its universities,a Phil Baty, THEas editorial director of global rankings, said in a press release Wednesday. However, he warned that to strengthen its status as a key competitive higher-education power both regionally and globally, Japan arequires a commitment to much greater investment and an intensification of its efforts to internationalize.a

The organizationas rankings are based on the weighted scores of thirteen indicators in five pillars, including learning environment, research, international outlook, research influence and industry income.

THE attributes the surge in Todaias ranking to improvement in its learning environment (ranked 16th), research (ranked 19th) and industry income performance.

The record high 103 Japanese institutions that made the list surpassed last yearas 89, making Japan the second most-represented country after the United States with 172 institutions. The United Kingdom, with 98 universities in the rankings, lost its second place position for the first time.Scandinavian carrier Norwegian has carried 250,000 passengers on its transatlantic services out of Dublin in the 14 months since launching the routes to the United States.

It revealed the landmark figure after coming under fire this week from Belfast International Airport upon cancelling its services from Northern Ireland to the US. Norwegian, whose chief executive is Bjorn Kjos, has been beefing up services from Dublin and Shannon, while reducing operations out of Cork.

It's planning to increase capacity on its Dublin-Providence (Rhode Island) service by 40% next summer. It will offer a year-round daily service on the route. It's also launching a route between Dublin and Toronto's Hamilton Airport, and has doubled the frequency on its service to New York's Stewart International from the capital. Next summer it will operate a total of 28 flights a week between Dublin and North America.

At Shannon, Norwegian will operate five times a week to Stewart International next summer, and three times a week during the coming winter. It will operate four times a week from Shannon to Providence.

At Cork poor load factors prompted Norwegian to suspend its service from the city to Providence from next month. It will operate the route again next summer. It's battling Aer Lingus, owned by IAG, and other carriers for business. Norwegian said it was cancelling its services from Belfast to Stewart International and Providence due to a lack of demand.

Belfast International Airport said it was "extremely disappointed" by Norwegian's decision to leave the Northern Ireland market. It said Norwegian's schedule of two flights per week from Belfast was "neither flexible nor attractive enough to appeal to the local travelling public". It added: "Regrettably the limited and inferior product offered by Norwegian was creating awareness within the market, but... channelling much greater levels of Northern Ireland passengers onto Dublin flights."

Norwegian has been battling to profitably translate its low-cost model to the long-haul market.the sisters behind a successful Dungannon fashion boutique and own-brand line of clothing have opened a pop-up shop in Belfast's Victoria Square.

Anita Mackey and Donna Ross launched My Sister's Closet in the shopping centre last week, creating three jobs.

The shop, which stocks own-brand My Sister's Closet and some of the approximately 50 labels from their sister store, The Boudoir, will trade until January 2019.

Anita, who gave up a career as a solicitor to start The Boudoir in 2009 in the Linen Green Shopping Village, said: "We have always been interested in Belfast and we do a lot of fashion events here.

"When we meet customers at those shows they always say they want to come to The Boudoir but it is a little out of the way, so this is a great chance to bring what we have to them."

Anita said she was approached by an estate agency to come to Belfast when the unit on Arthur Square - which is within Victoria Square - formerly occupied by beauty brand Crabtree and Evelyn became free.

The business has a strong social media following, but Mrs Mackey said that despite exposure to 1.8 million social media users per week, it has no intentions of leaving the bricks and mortar retail sector.

"I think it's important to provide that shopping experience and I know our customers appreciate that," she said.

"We can do both. Social media is a great way for us to show what we have in store or to interact when we're buying our stock in.

"It works to have both, and we have big plans for Dungannon."A former DUP special adviser has denied having any role in applications made to the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) by three of his relatives who went on to benefit from the botched green energy scheme.

Stephen Brimstone, who was a Spad to First Minister Arlene Foster when the scheme became embroiled in scandal, is to appear at the RHI Inquiry today.

In the first of two witness statements published ahead of his appearance, Mr Brimstone revealed that he successfully applied to the scheme in August 2015, the same month his wifes parents also made an application to RHI.

However, Mr Brimstone said he understood that his in-laws, John and Lilian Anderson, who run a poultry farm for Moy Park, applied under a process that had been established by the poultry giant.

Another RHI application made by an outdoor go-karting track business in Co Fermanagh run by his brother Aaron was also understood to have been made in January 2016, said Mr Brimstone.

He added that, by that stage, the scheme payments were subject to a tiered system.

He said that while he was aware that each of his relatives were installing biomass boilers for their respective businesses, he did not have any role in their applications.

However, he admitted that he may have directed his brother to online official information on the scheme, where he said he had learned himself about RHI funding.

We would have discussed the reliability of the boiler I had just installed. He did not ultimately install the same make of boiler or use the same installer, he said.

Mr Brimstone said he could not specifically recall in their discussion if he had been asked about either his own boiler installation or application process, stressing that he didnt believe he shared any information in relation to RHI that had been gleaned in his capacity as a Spad to third parties.

Asked if he promoted the scheme to other third parties, he disclosed that his local church, around the end of 2014 and 2015, was at the early stages of planning a new hall, and he was aware that other places of worship had installed boilers and in general discussion... types of heating were discussed.

Had the scheme remained open this may have been a consideration for the church, however the church has not reached such a stage as yet, he added.

Mr Brimstone also categorically denied that in 2015 he influenced or encouraged Enterprise Minister Jonathan Bells then special adviser Timothy Cairns to delay or in any way soften or reduce cost controls being introduced into the scheme at that time.

In June of that year flaws in the scheme were highlighted, however caps were not introduced until November. In his statement Mr Brimstone went on to claim that the extent of his interactions with other DUP Spads in relation to RHI extended only to two emails he had received from Timothy Johnston  who was a Spad to then First Minister Peter Robinson  sent within days of each other in February 2016.

The first of these carried the subject headling: RHI closure and Mr Brimstone said he had assumed they were for information purposes.

He also stressed that he had no role in the setting up RHI, nor its implementation from its inception up to the present day other than during the summer of 2015 when he received a paper on the scheme from Mr Cairns in relation to urgent cost control and administrative changes to RHI on July 16.

Mr Cairns, explained Mr Brimstone, had asked him for his views on the scheme, along with Andrew Crawford, who was Spad for the then Finance Minister, Mrs Foster.

He said he had responded to Mr Cairns by email four days later, telling him: Hard to argue with in light of the suggested changes reflecting GB position.

Mr Brimstone said he subsequently made Mrs Foster, after she succeeded Peter Robinson as First Minister, aware in or around January 2016 that he was a recipient of RHI, explaining that he made the disclosure only for information purposes.

At a RHI Inquiry hearing in June, civil servant Stuart Wightman said Mr Brimstone telephoned him to enquire about the possibility of getting a boiler registered. It was claimed Mr Brimstone gave his name to the official, but didnt identify himself as a DUP Spad.

In his second witness statement, Mr Brimstone admitted that he had contacted Mr Wightman after speaking to Mr Crawford, but said he couldnt recall the conversation in any detail.

However, he would have asked about the scheme criteria and how the scheme operated.

Regarding his conversation with Mr Crawford, he confirmed he was seeking a RHI contact within Deti.

He could not specifically recall the request, but assumed he made it in order to speak to an official familiar with the scheme.A father has spoken of his disgust after his cancer-stricken daughter was turned down for benefits, branding the system "totally disgraceful and wrong".

Roisin McWilliams (28) from west Belfast was diagnosed last Christmas with stage four Hodgkin's lymphoma.

She has received extensive chemotherapy on three occasions but has just learned that the treatment is not working.

The young mum is now resistant to chemotherapy and waiting to see if she qualifies for a new treatment and also a stem cell transplant.

Roisin, a chef, has been unable to work since her cancer diagnosis nine months ago. Despite going through the assessment process, she didn't meet the criteria for a Personal Independence Payment (PIP).

Her father Tom says this would have provided financial comfort to both herself and her three-year-old daughter each week.

PIP began to replace Disability Living Allowance (DLA) in 2013. It brought in a new face-to-face assessment and regular reviews of a claimant's ability to wash, dress, cook and get around, as well as their reading and communication skills.

Tom says Roisin and the family feel very angry and let down by this decision.

"Every day is a nightmare for us all because Roisin's treatment has just made her so ill and weak. If she was able to work full-time to support herself and her daughter, she wouldn't be asking for help. She is a very proud girl and getting her to apply for benefits in the first place was a big task," he said.

"I'd love to know exactly what Roisin has to do to convince others that she is unfit for work -the evidence is clear to see.

"I'm so angry at the system. There is something seriously wrong here with our benefits system and something must be done to change this.

"It seems to be the most vulnerable people in our society who are being crucified.

"Roisin has never asked the Government for hand outs, as she has worked all her adult life to support herself.

"She is a very self-sufficient person who has always paid her taxes, yet now when she asks for help the answer is no. It all just seems so unfair."

When contacted, the Department for Communities said it could not comment on individual cases.

A spokesperson added: "PIP is payable to individuals who meet certain eligibility criteria.

"Individuals who are not entitled to PIP may instead be entitled to receive other benefits.

"Entitlements to benefits can also change over time as individuals' circumstances change.

"In all cases,if a person disagrees with the department's decision to not award PIP, they can ask for the decision to be reviewed and we will consider any additional information provided," the spokesperson added.Gary Haggarty has been released and put on to a witness protection scheme

A whole life tariff should have featured in the sentencing of a notorious former loyalist paramilitary chief for his "callous" campaign of sectarian murders, the Court of Appeal heard today.

Judges were told that should have been the starting point before cutting Gary Haggarty's period of imprisonment for becoming a so-called supergrass.

The Public Prosecution Service is challenging the six-and-a-half-year term ultimately imposed on the Ulster Volunteer Force boss turned state informer on the basis that it was unduly lenient.

Even though any successful appeal will not lead to 46-year-old Haggarty's re-arrest and return to jail, judicial guidance may be given for how to handle similar cases in future.

Ciaran Murphy QC, for the PPS, argued that the reduced sentence he received under the terms of assisting offender legislation had been excessive.

"A defendant receiving a sentence in single figure for offences which otherwise would require him to serve a minimum of 35 years in prison... the discounts have gone too far," he said.

Haggarty, who has already been freed from jail and put into witness protection, appeared via video-link from an undisclosed location for the hearing.

He confessed to more than 500 offences committed while part of a UVF unit based in north Belfast.

His catalogue of paramilitary crime extended over 16 years, from 1991 to 2007, and included the following murders:

Sean McParland, 55, a father of four from south Belfast gunned down while babysitting his grandchildren at a house in Skegoniel Avenue, Belfast in February 1994.

Catholic workmen Eamon Fox, 44, and Gary Convie, 24, shot dead close to a building site on Belfast's North Queen Street in May 1994.

Sean McDermott, a 37-year-old Catholic shot found shot dead in his car near Antrim in August 1994.

John Harbinson, murdered after being handcuffed and beaten by a UVF gang on the Mount Vernon estate in north Belfast in May 1997.

He also aided and abetted the murder of Peter McTasney, who was shot dead in his home on the northern outskirts of the city in front of his three-year-old daughter in February 1991.

Haggarty further admitted five attempted murders, including against police officers; multiple counts of conspiracy to murder; directing terrorism; and membership of a proscribed organisation.

He pleaded guilty as part of a controversial state deal that offered a reduced sentence in return for providing evidence on other terror suspects.

In January his prison term was slashed from 35 years to six-and-a-half years due to the information supplied on scores of loyalist killings and attempted murders.

But only one man is to be prosecuted over a murder using his evidence.

Despite Haggarty being released in May due to time served on remand, the PPS is seeking to have his sentence reviewed and increased.

Mr Murphy told the court: "The starting point should have been a whole life starting point.

"The mitigating and aggravating features should have been taken into account at that point."

Counsel set out the circumstances of each murder, describing Haggarty's central role in plotting the deaths of Catholic victims because of their religion.

Referring to the shooting of Mr McParland, he added: "This was probably one of the worst of the murders in this sequence because it was particularly callous.

"There were, as in the other cases, no mitigating factors.

"That murder in particular could have been stopped by the defendant; instead he took a lead role, being the man with a gun who went to the door of the house and he was prepared to carry it out with limited information about his target."

Defence lawyers responded, however, by arguing that the legal move is academic.

Haggarty will never serve any longer behind bars because the murders were committed before the Good Friday Agreement, they insisted.

Martin O'Rourke QC said: "Whatever the outcome this application may have, it won't materially affect (Haggarty)."

But Lord Chief Justice Sir Declan Morgan pointed out that the appeal represented an opportunity to give guidance on future cases.

He also asked: "Is it really the case that the absolute maximum discount can be provided to someone who has committed the most outrageous crimes?"

Reserving judgment, Sir Declan pledged to deliver a verdict as soon as possible.

Outside court victims campaigner Raymond McCord, whose son Raymond Jr was murdered by the UVF's Mount Vernon gang, welcomed the judge's comments.Dr Tom Black, who is stepping down as head of the British Medical Associations GP committee in Northern Ireland

GP services in Northern Ireland are in the worst state they have been in since the creation of the National Health Service 70 years ago, a senior medic has warned.

Dr Tom Black said a combination of underfunding, ever-increasing workload and a chronic shortage of family doctors has left the service in disarray.

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While he welcomed recent investment to try and save GP surgeries here, he hit out at health officials and politicians for allowing the crisis to happen in the first place.

The situation has become so bad that trainee doctors are turning their backs on a career in general practice as they believe the risks of a patient coming to harm are too high, he said.

Dr Tom Black delivered the damning verdict as he steps down today as chair of the British Medical Association's (BMA) GP committee in Northern Ireland after eight years at the helm.

"It's sad that we can't attract young doctors into general practice," he added.

"We're now seeing the investment we've been asking for and we appreciate the efforts of the Department of Health, although I don't think it should have got to this stage."

Dr Black, who has been a GP for more than 30 years, said general practice had become almost unrecognisable compared to when he started out in the profession.

"I used to have a piece of paper above my desk with all the waiting times printed on it so I could tell patients how long they would wait for an appointment when I referred them," he said.

"I don't have that anymore, with the exception of cancer care and acute emergency care, patients can expect to wait years.

"I don't even bother to refer my patients into the NHS mental health services now because it's such a frustrating experience for them.

"It's unreasonable to ask any patient to wait years for any health service, we don't wait for years for anything else in life but we wait for years for something that is so important, and that seems strange to me.

"We have patients waiting years for a hip replacement and they become addicted to strong painkillers, people waiting for mental health services who end up having to use more drugs than maybe they would use if they were getting counselling.

"There are patients who are waiting an excessively long time for a gall bladder operation and have to take a long time off work.

"The pressure all this puts on general practice is considerable, and even more so for the patient.

"Many of my patients are going private, they're collecting money from their families so they can get the scan or whatever other treatment they need.

"That's not how we envisaged the health service and it's extremely out of step with the other three countries in the UK."

Dr Black said patients should expect to see sweeping changes to the health service here in coming years.

In particular, he said the number of acute hospitals in Northern Ireland must be cut to improve care.

"Among the three other nations in the UK, having 10 acute hospitals for a population of less than two million people would be regarded as an indulgence," he claimed.

"As it stands, we are spreading available resources across too many hospital sites."

He said it was imperative that the public accepts that the best care may not be provided at the nearest hospital.

"If you have a drug dealer in Los Angeles and one of them gets shot, do they drive to the big acute trauma hospital or phone an ambulance and go to the nearest hospital?" he asked.

"They go to the major trauma centre that is further away, but that's because they are expert at treating those patients."

Dr Black also said the way patients interact with their GP will change in coming years.

"We're likely to see a lot more artificial intelligence, where patients go to an NHS app and it will follow a certain algorithm and offer the patient advice or make them an appointment with the GP or a counsellor or a physiotherapist, whatever is the best thing for them," he said.

"We have fewer GPs now per head of the population than in the 1950s, there are on average 2,000 patients per GP, and that can increase to 3,000 in some areas.

"The average GP is doing in a day 35 consultations, 180 prescriptions, 35 hospital letters, 50 blood results, phone calls, house calls and paperwork, and that simply isn't sustainable and we have to become more efficient.

"The investment by the Department of Health that is allowing us to bring in multi-disciplinary teams to surgeries will start to make a dent in the workload," Dr Black added.

"Transformation of the health service has obviously been held up considerably by the failure of the politicians and the collapse of the Assembly.

"Failing to have a Health Minister for the best part of two years is a very rapid way to create chaos within the health service.

"I think the situation in terms of a crisis is the worst it has ever been since 1948, although I think we're turning a corner and hopefully it isn't too late.

"If we want to make the health service better, we're going to have to bring in changes and we need a Health Minister to drive through decisions that might go against the wish of their population.

"If we don't do that we will continue to have long waits, patients will continue to have to use their personal money to pay for outpatient appointments and operations, and I don't think that's fair."The funeral of a young farmer from Co Tyrone will take place today after his death in an accident.

Harry Gibson (25), from Beragh outside Omagh, died suddenly on Saturday, his family said.

A funeral notice said he would be sadly missed by his father Mervyn, who is a well-known cattle dealer, mother Susan, his twin sister Charlotte, girlfriend Alison and wider family circle.

This week, Charlotte paid tribute to her twin by sharing recent and childhood pictures taken with her brother on social media.

His girlfriend Alison also shared a collection of smiling pictures of herself and Mr Gibson on social media and commented: "My Harry. This world is a cruel, cruel place."

Ulster Unionist councillor Bert Wilson said he understood Mr Gibson had been working with a sick cow on the farm when the accident occurred.

"They're a very popular and well-known family and it is a terrible shock for the area," he said.

"It must be dreadful for the family: I have known them for three generations now.

"I believe Harry was in some of the local bands here and was a hardworking young man."

Mr Gibson had worked on the family farm and helped out with neighbours when needed.

"I'm told he had to put down an animal that was sick and a dreadful accident happened," said Mr Wilson.

"There's so many farm accidents now, with farmers killed while dealing with animals.

"In a lot of cases they would be fairly elderly, but this was a young man with his whole life in front of him which makes it so much more tragic."

Mr Wilson continued: "He was an only son as well with a bright future that is now at an end. My thoughts are with his twin sister Charlotte as well, it's really a disaster for the family.

"I don't know how they will bear the pain of it although there will be a lot of support for them in the community," Mr Wilson said.

Thomas Buchanan, a DUP MLA for West Tyrone, also knew the family.

"This is a terrible tragedy that happened to a young man that was passionate about farming and was just starting out as a 25-year-old," he said.

"It's quite a large farm holding and this accident and tragedy has really shocked the community. I wish to express my sincere sympathies to the entire family circle."

A spokesperson for the Health and Safety Executive said that it was making enquiries into the incident.

Mr Gibson's funeral will take place at 2pm today at Sixmilecross Presbyterian Church with interment afterwards in the adjoining graveyard.

Yesterday Seskinore Young Farmers Club, where Mr Gibson was a longtime member, cancelled its weekly meeting as a sign of respect.

Further tributes came from Mr Gibson's former school, Omagh Academy. A statement described him as "a quiet gentleman who was passionate about farming".

Attending for seven years with his sister, he was the top try scorer for the 1st XV rugby team in 2010-11 and was part of the school's Young Enterprise company.

The statement added: "We would like to express our sincere sympathy and condolences to the Gibson family circle and to Harry's many friends at this sad time."

The Gibson family have requested any donations, if desired, are made to the Northern Ireland Air Ambulance, care of J H Anderson & Sons, 60 Main Street, Beragh, BT79 0TA.A former DUP special adviser who will appear at the RHI Inquiry today has claimed that while he knows a number of recipients of the controversial scheme, he never discussed the matter with them.

John Robinson also said that while one them is his father-in-law - Hugh Rutledge, a director of Highgate Poultry - "at no time was his judgment conflicted", and nor does he have any "financial interest" in his relative's business.

Mr Robinson, the former DUP director of communications, made the disclosure in a witness statement ahead of his appearance at the RHI Inquiry headed by Sir Patrick Coghlin today.

"My father-in-law was a recipient of the scheme. I regret not seeking an opportunity to declare this matter earlier in my employment," he said.

"I accept that some may have perceived this as a conflict of interest with my work as a special adviser in the DfE (Department for the Economy)."

He stressed that he never discussed the application with Mr Rutledge, nor did he do so with other RHI claimants he knows.

"I did not encourage anyone to apply to the scheme, advise anyone to apply to the scheme or assist anyone in their accreditation," added Mr Robinson.

"I worked with Stephen Brimstone, who is a recipient. I became aware of his involvement in the scheme subsequent to becoming a special adviser."

He continued: "Those who worked alongside me will testify that I always favoured more rigorous inspections, publishing of recipients' names and action to curb the costs of the scheme."

Mr Rutledge, in evidence published by the inquiry, has said: "I had no contact with John Robinson about applying to the RHI scheme.

"Any discussion about the scheme with John Robinson would have been as a result of news coverage about the RHI scheme."

RHI had been due to close on February 16, 2016 but the inquiry has heard this week how there was a two-week delay, and it eventually shut at the end of that month.

Poultry giant Moy Park, which benefited from the scheme, sent an email to company officials congratulating them on successfully lobbying to have it extended.

Asked if he was aware of any lobbying, or if he could recall any instance where he felt "influence or pressure" being exerted on himself in relation to cost controls, Mr Robinson said the firm had sought to speak with the then Economy Minister Simon Hamilton in 2017.

This was when tariffs were being amended, added the former Spad. However, he revealed that "conversation did not take place".

"The minister asked the permanent secretary to deal with the matter. Prior to that, Mr Mike Mullan from Moy Park had sought to reach me via telephone but a conversation never took place," he continued.

"I can recall suggestions being made to the minister as to how to reduce the cost of the scheme. This may have been through media comment or other correspondence." He also stressed that no one had "directly" raised concerns about the RHI with him, and if that had have happened, Mr Robinson insisted, he would have "passed the information to the DfE permanent secretary".

Mr Robinson specified that he first became aware of the scheme's flaws subsequent to becoming a Spad, through a "departmental briefing with the minister".

He added that he did not discuss RHI with Timothy Cairns, a special adviser to the Deti minister, beyond telling him about some criticism of the scheme he had received at a social function in early 2016.

Mr Robinson also denied "influencing or encouraging" Mr Cairns "to delay, soften or reduce cost controls at any time". And he denied asking anyone else to do the same.

Mr Robinson's brother-in-law and current DUP chief executive, Timothy Johnston, is due to appear at the inquiry on Friday.Four people have been deported from Northern Ireland one week after their arrest on immigration charges.

Four people have been deported from Northern Ireland one week after their arrest on immigration charges.

It comes as part of a two-week crackdown on human trafficking and exploitation in Northern Ireland and across the UK.

Operation Aidant has seen an intensification of operations by the PSNI's Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking Unit and the UK-wide National Crime Agency.

The four arrested last week on suspicion of immigration offences, three men aged 47, 49 and 53 years old and a 50-year-old woman, have all now been deported.

On Wednesday officers arrested two people, a man aged 42 and a woman aged 37, in the Antrim Road area of north Belfast on suspicion of human trafficking offences, following an investigation into suspected labour exploitation.

The pair have been taken to Musgrave Police station where they are being questioned.

Detective Superintendent Richard Campbell said: We are continually targeting the people involved in all types of human trafficking and are pleased to support the NCA in this two-week period of intensification focusing on adults who have been trafficked to the UK, or exploited in the UK, for the purposes of sexual exploitation.

It can be hard to believe that this type of crime exists today as it remains quite hidden, but it does and it could be happening in any street and in any town in Northern Ireland.

Victims are often afraid to speak out or unable to report their ordeal to police for a number of reasons including language barriers or simply because they are held captive. Its for this reason we all need to work together to help victims and stop this unacceptable crime.

DS Campbell warned the public human trafficking could be going on in their own communities, and flagged there are a number of tell-tale signs to look out for.

These include:

A person not being able to produce personal documents or a passport;

A person appearing to be under the control of others or who have unexplained injuries; people living in over-crowded accommodation

Individuals appearing not to have any cash as they are not allowed to keep money they earn.

The PSNI's Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking Unit was set up in 2015 and has a 24-hour support line in place.

Its stated objective is to "detect, disrupt and frustrate organised crime gangs involved in human exploitation".

Anyone with suspicions can call the police service on 101 or the Modern Slavery Helpline 08000 121 700.The funeral of a young farmer from Co Tyrone who died tragically at the weekend has taken place in Omagh

His funeral has taken place at Sixmilecross Presbyterian Church on Wednesday, with internment taking place in the adjoining churchyard.

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Harry Gibson (25), from Beragh outside Omagh, died suddenly on Saturday, his family said.

A funeral notice said he would be sadly missed by his father Mervyn, who is a well-known cattle dealer, mother Susan, his twin sister Charlotte, girlfriend Alison and wider family circle.

This week, Charlotte paid tribute to her twin by sharing recent and childhood pictures taken with her brother on social media.

His girlfriend Alison also shared a collection of smiling pictures of herself and Mr Gibson on social media and commented: "My Harry. This world is a cruel, cruel place."

Harry Gibson's family requested no flowers for the future, with donations in lieu, if desired, to Air Ambulance N I c/o J H Anderson & Sons, 60 Main Street, Beragh, BT79 0TA.A Lisburn man has admitted kicking his 15-week-old puppy to death.

Standing in the dock of Craigavon Crown Court, 24-year-old Marcus Sarre entered a guilty plea to a single count of causing unnecessary suffering to the young puppy on April 14 this year.

The particulars of the offence indicate that Sarre "caused unnecessary suffering to a German Shepherd type canine (pup) known as Lilo and you knew or ought reasonably to have known that the said act or failure to act would have that effect or was likely to do so."

None of the surrounding facts were opened in court yesterday, but when Sarre first appeared last April, a police officer gave evidence that "he has kicked the dog and it's died, that's the long and short of it".

The constable told the court that Sarre had made "full admissions" during interviews to kicking the puppy.

The court had heard that officers were called by neighbours who heard someone "in distress", believing it was a domestic incident.

But when they arrived, it was Sarre himself who was in a distressed state.

"What he has said is that he had consumed substances, was angry and struck the dog," defence counsel Damien Halleron told the court at that stage. "He didn't mean to harm or kill the dog."

He submitted, however, that the incident happened "in circumstances of his mental health" and with a psychiatric assessment to be carried out as soon as possible, Sarre "just snapped... it's an unusual, strange and distressing aberration on this man's record".

In court yesterday, Mr Halleron asked for sentencing to be adjourned to allow probation to compose a pre-sentence report and for Sarre to be granted bail in the meantime. Granting both applications, Judge Patrick Lynch QC said he would pass sentence on November 8.Belfast police are investigating reports a creeper style burglary at house on the Beechlands area of the city.

Detective Sergeant McCallum said: Shortly after 5:30am, it was reported that entry was gained to a house in the area through a rear patio door. A grey Volvo was stolen from the property along with a sum of money.

Shortly after 7am, it was reported the vehicle was involved in a two vehicle road traffic collision at the Glengall Street area of the city. The vehicle made off from the scene, but four people in the other car received minor injuries as a result of the incident.

At around 7:10am, the vehicle was reported to be at the junction of Hope Street and Great Victoria Street, having caused damage to street furniture in the area. The driver of the vehicle made off from the vehicle and was apprehended by officers a short time later in the Sandy Row area and arrested. The vehicle was damaged as a result of the incident.

A 26-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of aggravated burglary, burglary, taking and driving away, assault on police, no insurance, resisting police, dangerous driving and disorderly behaviour. He is currently assisting police with their enquiries.The defendant, who committed the three offences between February 8 and November 16 of 2016, was released on continuing bail and will be sentenced for the offences, following the preparation of pre-sentence and psychiatric reports, on November 6 (stock picture)

A 54-year-old businessman pleaded guilty at the Crown Court in Derry yesterday to a charge of converting criminal property in relation to the running of a brothel.

Paul McGrory from Ardfada in the Ardmore area of the city had previously pleaded guilty to running or managing the brothel and guilty to acquiring criminal property of 17,375.

He had denied a third charge of converting criminal property of 7,668 to credit account payments, but yesterday he was re-arraigned on that charge and pleaded guilty.

The defendant, who committed the three offences between February 8 and November 16 of 2016, was released on continuing bail and will be sentenced for the offences, following the preparation of pre-sentence and psychiatric reports, on November 6.

A barrister for the Public Prosecution Service told Judge Philip Babington that there was no evidence in the case of people trafficking of women.

He said a number of women using the brothel were from eastern Europe.The DUP's Director of Communications questioned his own ability and experience when he was appointed to the role straight out of university at the age of 22.

John Robinson (33) appeared in front of the RHI inquiry on Wednesday morning. He was special adviser to Enterprise Minister Simon Hamilton between June 2016 to March 2017. He also has relatives who have RHI boilers.

He was asked about his background at the beginning of the morning session.

Raised on a dairy farm, the youngest of eight children at 22 he graduated with a bachelor of science degree in communications, marketing and advertising and "almost immediately" was appointed director of communications for the DUP succeeding Timothy Johnson, who is now the party chief executive.

Mr Johnson is also Mr Robinson's brother-in-law after marrying his colleague's sister in 2009.

Mr Robinson said he had been working with the party on part-time basis from 2004 and had taken a full time role during a year out from university.

He said on restoration of power sharing in 2007 he was interviewed and got the job.

It certainly was a big role to take on at 22 years of age I actually felt at that time, have I the ability and the experience to do the role?' he said.

He said he could not remember if there were any other candidates or an application to complete but assumed others were interviewed. He said he could remember the interview as he had an exam in the morning and the interview in the afternoon he admitted the interview was much "tougher" than the exam.

Mr Robinson said he questioned his own ability and experience at the time of the appointment but felt his time in the party prior meant he was someone whose "judgement was respected".

Questioned by counsel to the inquiry Donal Lunny about the control of the party over him, Mr Robinson said he was answerable to the party leadership and party officers. He said there would have been times he would have been in contact on an hourly basis.

He described the leadership team as a "tight-knit group" composing of the late Dr Ian Paisley, Peter Robinson, Timothy Johnson and Richard Bullick.

In June 2016 he then took on the position of special adviser to Simon Hamilton in the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment.

He said he received a phone call from Mr Hamilton asking if her was interested in taking the position, confirming he would be and then organised to inform the party of his resignation.

Later he said the minister confirmed he was not the only one to be considered for the position but that he was appointed by Minister Hamilton and not the party leadership. He said his appointment was "wholly political".

It has been claimed the DUP leadership and certain special advisers were involved in the appointment of Spads as opposed to the minister as the code outlines.

Mr Robinson was asked by inquiry chair Sir Patrick Coghlin what happed to the range of potential candidates.

"I'm not sure," said Mr Robinson.

In his written statement he said there was no "formal hierarchy". He says Timothy Johnson and Richard Bullick were considered senior "by virtue of their experience" but says he took instruction only from his minister. He said he would have considered their view as they were much more experienced. He said it was a "critical role" for Spads to seek the views of others. He did admit to taking direction from Timothy Johnson.

He described Mr Hamilton as "policy focused" and "across every detail" during his spell as minister in DETI.

In March the following year Mr Robinson left the party to pursue a career outside of politics. However, when the snap election in the forthcoming months the party asked for him to return. He said as he watched the results unfold from home - for the first time - he realised he had a bigger role to play with the DUP.

He was later reappointed the party's director of communications as the role had not been filled after his earlier departure.The DUP's chief spin doctor said the party's former Enterprise Minister "lied" about his own family ties to the RHI scheme.

Jonathan Bell, using Assembly privilege, said John Robinson - along with Timothy Johnson the now chief executive of the DUP - stopped him from closing down the botch RHI scheme because they had "such extensive interests in the poultry industry".

The DUP at that time described Mr Bells claims as outrageous, untrue and unfounded.

The DUP director of communications - who was at one stage a special adviser in the Department of Enterprise Trade and Investment under Simon Hamilton - denied he had any knowledge of the RHI scheme prior to entering the department in June 2016.

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He said he "absolutely" did not shy away from his family ties with the farming industry. He was raised on a diary farm and has two brothers who are chicken farmers but neither are involved with the RHI scheme. His father-in-law however, does have two boiler on the botched scheme. Mr Robinson said he never discussed the scheme with anyone and it was "never on his radar" prior to official briefings on the matter from DETI officials when he was a Spad and after the scheme's closure.

Mr Bell said he got the information from DUP Spad Timothy Cairns. Mr Cairns, however, denied this.

In written evidence to the inquiry, Mr Robinson said he regretted not declaring earlier that his father-in-law was a recipient of the RHI scheme, but he insisted he had no financial interest in his relatives business, adding: At no time was my judgment conflicted.

Read More

At Wednesday's RHI inquiry he said Mr Bell's revelations in the Assembly were "incredibly hurtful".

"I was as shocked as anybody," he said.

"My family were catapulted into a media spotlight they did not deserve. They are hard-working honest people. It impinged on not only my integrity but the integrity of my family. And, as we will come on to, my wifes family. You feel a sense of guilt for that.

"And I do feel a sense of guilt about that.

"Jonathan Bell told lies, he knows he told lies and I'll just leave it at that."

Mr Robinson said once he became Spad at DETI he and the minister received "detailed briefings" on the RHI scheme and the extent of its problems.

He said he and Minister Hamilton were shocked when they were informed recipients on the scheme were given notice of "unannounced" inspections.

Describing Mr Hamilton as "details focused," he said the minister was determined that any changes made to the scheme were "legally robust".

He also outlined how Mr Hamilton was "furious" at the short notice given for the publication of the damning audit report into the scheme which first highlighted the issue in the summer of 2016 and that led to "distrust" between minister and officials.A mechanic who died from chest injuries caused when the car he was working on fell on him might have been saved if he hadn't been alone, an inquest has heard.

The parents and partner of Richard Harron (26) from Newtownstewart wept in court as they listened to State Pathologist Professor Jack Crane tell Coroner Patrick McGurgan he would not have died instantly, and he could have been saved.

Mr Harron died on November 13, 2017 after the vehicle came off a hydraulic jack, causing fatal crush asphyxia and chest injuries.

Mr Harron's partner of five years Lindsey Johnston and mother to the couple's child told Mr McGurgan her life had been "hell" since the accident.

She told the court Mr Harron had two mechanic jobs, and would also have carried out work for family members "because he never said no" to anyone.

The court heard that he had left his home to go to his grandmother's house in Sion Mills, where he was going to carry out work on a black Seat car he had bought for parts. He arrived at 7.30pm and spoke with his grandmother before beginning work on the car.

In a statement Mr Harron's grandmother Cathy Lyndsay said she went out to check on him at 10pm as she was getting ready to go to bed.

She discovered her grandson lying on the ground with the car on top of his chest. Mrs Lyndsay, along with Mr Harron's father George, ran to her next door neighbour Ian Milligan to get help.

Mr Milligan, who is also a mechanic, came with his own jack and lifted the car off Mr Harron and began CPR along with another man who was with him in his house.

Mr Milligan told the coroner that the ground where Mr Harron had been working was stony and slightly sloped, and that this had actually caused his own jack to sink when trying to lift the black Seat.

Mr McGurgan asked Mr Milligan if he thought this might have happened with Mr Harron's jack.

Mr Milligan replied: "I think the jack has sunk a bit and the car rolled off the jack."

Mr Milligan said he wouldn't himself have used the device on that ground because "it wasn't hard enough to take a jack".

Forensic tests carried out on Mr Harron's jack showed no defects.

Before returning his findings Mr McGurgan said he wanted to highlight the dangers of carrying out mechanical work alone.

He said: "There is no doubt Richard was a talented young man.

"It struck me that he had been around cars for most of his life.

"This emphasises the need when you are going to perform such a task to ensure all steps have been taken to satisfy yourself that it is completely safe."

Mr McGurgan said it was a "sad aspect" that Professor Crane's evidence showed that "if someone had been there and had taken action, he could have been saved.

"But we will never know," he added.

He said that there was no doubt mechanics work on cars jacked up with no thought as to what might happen. But he wanted Mr Harron's death to be an important reminder to take every safety precaution.

Mr McGurgan also paid tribute to Mr Milligan.

"It was clear very little could have been done, but that didn't stop you from trying," he said.A teenager who has accused her former violin teacher of behaving in a sexual manner towards her during violin lessons yesterday denied that she had lied while giving evidence at the trial.

Four girls claim that Brian Bergin from Brookhill in the Culmore Road area of Londonderry committed a total of eight sexual offences against them between August 2011 and May 2014.

The 60-year-old denies committing the offences in two local primary schools. He was suspended from his job as a violin teacher with the Western Education and Library Board in August 2014.

The jury at Derry Crown Court was told that the offences allegedly occurred when the girls were aged between nine and 11.

Under cross-examination by defence barrister Ciaran Mallon QC, one of the girls admitted that she had made her statement of complaint to police after she had been made aware that another girl in the same primary school had already done so.

She alleged that on one occasion the defendant had told her to do the splits almost to floor level, which hurt her legs and caused her to temporarily lose her balance.

She said her tutor's actions towards her had made her feel uncomfortable.

The girl admitted telling her mother a different version of events, and she did not remember telling police that she had told two school friends about the alleged abuse.

Mr Mallon accused her of lying and said "any contact at all was made in the context of a music teacher correcting your posture".

Meanwhile, a third teenager told the jury that the defendant, asked her to stand with her legs apart. She said the defendant asked her on three or four occasions during the one class to part her legs wider.

"He did not say why, he only asked me to do that. It was physically uncomfortable, especially when you were playing the violin as well," she said.

The trial continues.DUP director of communications John Robinson appearing before the public inquiry on Northern Irelands botched green energy scheme (RHI inquiry handout)

The DUPs director of communications has branded a former minister a liar over claims that he tried to delay cost controls for a botched green energy scheme.

John Robinson said the claims by Jonathan Bell led to his family being undeservedly catapulted into the media spotlight.

In January 2017, Mr Bell, a former enterprise minister in the Northern Ireland Executive, made a statement to the Assembly over the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI), a scheme aimed at encouraging the use of green energy.

It hit the headlines in late 2016 after it emerged that costs of running the scheme had spiralled due to over-generous subsidies.

The RHI Inquiry has been tasked with probing what went wrong.

Mr Bell said during his January 2017 speech to the Assembly that that senior DUP staff had sought to block curbs to the RHI scheme because of extensive interests in the poultry industry, and named Mr Robinson and special adviser Timothy Johnston.

The DUP at that time described Mr Bells claims as outrageous, untrue and unfounded.

In written evidence to the inquiry, Mr Robinson said he regretted not declaring earlier that his father-in-law was a recipient of the RHI scheme, but he insisted he had no financial interest in his relatives business, adding: At no time was my judgment conflicted.

In his witness statement to the inquiry, the father-in-law, Hugh Rutledge, said Mr Robinson had no role in his RHI application.

Mr Rutledge told the inquiry Mr Robinson had nothing to do with the RHI scheme in 2015 or 2016 when there were discussions over introducing cost control measures and later closing the scheme.

Asked why Mr Bell would name him, Mr Robinson replied: Only he can answer that question.

Expand Close Former DUP minister Jonathan Bell arrives at the RHI inquiry at Stormont Parliament buildings in Belfast (Rebecca Black/PA PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook

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Whatsapp Former DUP minister Jonathan Bell arrives at the RHI inquiry at Stormont Parliament buildings in Belfast (Rebecca Black/PA

It was incredibly hurtful for me on a personal level, my family were catapulted into a media spotlight which they didnt deserve, he told the inquiry.

They are hard-working, honest people. It impinged on not only my integrity but the integrity of my family. And, as we will come on to, my wifes family. You feel a sense of guilt for that.

Jonathan told lies, he knows he told lies.

Mr Robinson was then special adviser to DUP economy minister Simon Hamilton, at the department which was then running the RHI scheme.

He said Mr Bells allegation led to him being told some within the DUP thought he should resign.

He told the inquiry DUP leader Arlene Foster and special adviser Timothy Johnston spoke to him during the same phone call about the matter.

Mr Robinson said he felt that to resign would lend weight to allegations being reported about him, and insisted: I had done nothing wrong  I was accused on the basis of a lie.

Mr Robinson added that the phone call was not hostile.

He said he later spoke to Mr Hamilton who assured him he had confidence in him.

Mr Robinson said he stepped away from involvement with the RHI scheme in the department.

Meanwhile, outside of the inquiry proceedings, Sinn Feins deputy leader Michelle ONeill responded to a claim by Arlene Foster that the late deputy first minister Martin McGuinness was aware of a whistleblower warning about the RHI scheme.

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Whatsapp Sinn Fein deputy leader Michelle ONeill addresses media over allegations made during the RHI Inquiry on Monday about Martin McGuinness (Rebecca Black/PA)

Mrs Foster told the inquiry on Tuesday that she made the Sinn Fein veteran aware of the whistleblower allegations when she received them in January 2016.

Reading out a statement in the Great Hall of Parliament Buildings on Wednesday, Mrs ONeill said: Martin McGuinness set the benchmark for good government and the fair and equal treatment of all citizens. He led by example and any attack on his integrity is spurious, is disgraceful and it will be robustly challenged by our party.

The comments that were made before the RHI public inquiry that Martin McGuinness had prior knowledge of the whistleblower will be examined by the inquiry. However, Sinn Fein is confident that our position and the position of Martin McGuinness will be fully vindicated. Martin McGuinness is no longer here to defend himself.

I can also tell you that this allegation is subject to an ongoing and separate legal action.

It is understood the action relates to comments made by a different DUP member as to another Sinn Fein figures alleged knowledge of whistleblower claims.Flights between Ireland and the United Kingdom could be grounded if there is no Brexit deal, the head of Irelands aviation authority has warned.

Michael McGrail, the chair of the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA), said that if the UK crashes out of the EU next March there would be a practical danger that flights to the UK would come to a halt.

In his evidence to Irelands transport, tourism and sport committee on Wednesday, Mr McGrail spoke of the challenges the aviation industry faces in the wake of a hard Brexit saying the implications would start from midnight on March 29, the date the UK leaves the EU.

Expand Close An Aer Lingus flight leaves Dublin airport (Niall Carson/PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook

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The new head of IAA, who took up his role earlier this month, told TDs that the Department of Transport is carrying out a number of scenarios to ensure minimal negative consequences.

Given the apparent impasse between the UK and the EU, a satisfactory withdrawal agreement, transition period and then future relationship is in doubt, he said.

Apart from the disruption for aviation and the travelling public, a hard Brexit would have a significant negative impact on our wider economy.

The Department (of Transport) is carrying out scenario planning to ensure minimal negative consequences and the IAA is working in close collaboration with the department and other agencies in this regard.

He was further probed about the practical implications for the public and whether a no-deal Brexit would result in flights coming to an abrupt end.

If there is a hard Brexit, then the UK becomes a third country and therefore both the air traffic management and air safety regulations that currently govern, not only the UK but the rest of Europe, would fall away.

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There obviously would be immediate practical issues I suppose from midnight on March 29.

Having said that we know the Department is working on practical solutions to that and they have a number of scenarios they are looking at and we are working closely with them to see how those scenarios would actually work.

The IAA nor the Irish Government can control this. Its very much the EU.

When asked if there is a practical danger that flights to the UK would halt, he said there would be.

He referred to a report produced by British government officials earlier this week which also stated that fights will be grounded if no deal is struck between the UK and the EU.

Theres a lot to be done between now and then and I dont think it would be in anyones interests for that to happen, he added.

Under the EUs Open Skies agreement, airlines operate within a single aviation market which covers regulations relating to safety.

Mr McGrail said there was a general passporting of traffic and safety within all of Europe, and if a member leaves they therefore leave the passporting approval process.

He added that he was particularly aware of the importance of the UK in the aviation industry because Rolls-Royce, Airbus and Boeing all have substantial facilities in the country that supply the sector with parts.

He added: It will be forming part of the discussion we will have with the department in terms of hopefully avoiding a hard Brexit.

Meanwhile Irelands European Affairs minister Helen McEntee told a parliamentary committee that time was running out in the Brexit negotiations.

She said a legally operable backstop, which avoids a harder border on the island of Ireland, was essential to a deal being reached.

It is imperative that the UK in these final stages of the negotiations engage with the issues identified in the protocol, to achieve progress by the October European Council, she said.

Ms McEntee added that change was coming and that the Government was making every effort to make sure that citizens and businesses throughout the country would be Brexit-ready when the day arrives.Housing minister Eoghan Murphy faces an Irish Parliament vote of no confidence (Niall Carson/PA)

Debate on a vote of no confidence in the Irish Government has begun.

Sinn Fein tabled the parliamentary device aimed at putting pressure on housing minister Eoghan Murphy over what campaigners claim is a homelessness crisis in the Republic.

The Government has said it is building more affordable homes but the number without shelter has risen relentlessly, to around 10,000, prompting mass street demonstrations and property occupations.

Sinn Feins public representative, Eoin O Broin TD, said: Every single one of the 10,000-plus people, including 4,000 children, without a home is being failed by Eoghan Murphy and his housing plan.

Property rental rates in Dublin have increased considerably in recent times as Ireland recovered from near-financial collapse.

The countrys government is made up of a minority coalition of Fine Gael and independents, with co-operation from Fianna Fail in key votes preventing its collapse since a divisive 2016 general election.

Fianna Fail has said it intends to abstain from Tuesdays no-confidence vote.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has accused Sinn Fein of tabling the motion purely for political reasons and not really caring about people.

Sinn Fein will this evening put their Motion of No Confidence in Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy before the Dail.



We need a change of Minister and a change of policy or the housing crisis will just get worse.



10,000 homeless, 4,000 homeless children.



Minister Murphy must go! pic.twitter.com/wPRXsfQQG9  Sinn Fein (@sinnfeinireland) September 25, 2018

He has said 20,000 new homes would be built this year and that by 2020, that figure would reach 25,000 each year.

Rebuilding Ireland, the Governments flagship housing programme, commits to meet the housing needs of 135,000 households in need of social housing by 2021.

A group of about 1,000 housing protesters staged a mass demonstration in Dublin last weekend to highlight the issue.

Take Back the City brought traffic to a standstill on one of the citys busiest thoroughfares as demonstrators took part in a sit-down protest.

Earlier, Mr Murphy said he hoped to meet with his colleague, minister of state Catherine Byrne, ahead of the vote.

Ms Byrne refused to confirm or deny on Monday whether she was considering voting against her party colleague.

Mr Murphy said he did not know what her position was but he hoped that she would not be pulled into what he called a Sinn Fein stunt.

Mr Varadkar said that if Ms Byrne did not vote confidence in the minister, she could no longer continue as a minister herself.

Earlier this year Ms Byrne publicly opposed a new housing scheme in her constituency Dublin South Central at its launch.Bereaved families described feeling as if they had been punched in the stomach after leading judges upheld a coroners decision not to investigate who was responsible for the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings.

Speaking after Lord Chief Justice Lord Burnett and two other Court of Appeal judges ruled that Sir Peter Thornton QC had made no error of law in reaching his decision, they said they would continue to fight for truth, justice and accountability.

Sir Peter, who is conducting the inquests, won his appeal on Wednesday against a High Court ruling which overturned his decision not to investigate the identities of the perpetrators of the atrocities as part of the proceedings.

In January, two judges sitting in Birmingham quashed his decision to exclude the perpetrator issue, and ordered him to reconsider that decision, following a successful judicial review action by bereaved families.

But, Lord Burnett, Lady Justice Hallett and Lord Justice McCombe ruled that the coroners decision is not open to legal objection.

Lord Burnett announced: We allow the appeal and restore the original decision.

Expand Close The Mulberry Bush pub and surrounding buildings in Birmingham following the bomb attacks (PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook

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The High Court decision followed a judicial review brought on behalf of the bereaved families by Julie Hambleton, whose sister Maxine was 18 when she was killed in the bombings.

Speaking near a memorial to the victims in the grounds of Birminghams Anglican Cathedral, members of campaign group Justice4the21 said they were seeking legal advice with a view to an appeal.

Mrs Hambleton said: Without the perpetrator issue being a part of the scope (of the inquest) how can you ever possibly finish the jigsaw? You have got a major part of it missing.

We feel as though weve been punched in the stomach again. What we do, we do for 21 people who arent here to do it for themselves.

They dont have a voice, they dont have a physical presence, but we do so we are their voice.

Mrs Hambleton added: We are clearly very disappointed and we feel rejected but we will continue to fight for truth, justice and accountability.

We will take stock, speak to our legal team and get their assessment of the decision  and then either decide to appeal or just to continue on with the inquest process.

We are continually traumatised every single time we have to do interviews and go to court, but we will dust ourselves down and continue to fight.

The bombings in two city centre pubs, widely believed to be the work of the IRA, killed 21 people and injured 182, making it the deadliest peacetime attack in the UK at the time.

Six men, known as the Birmingham Six, were imprisoned for the murders and served 17 years behind bars in one of Britains most infamous miscarriages of justice before their convictions were quashed.

Five West Midlands Police officers were charged with perverting the course of justice in connection with the original criminal investigation, but a judge ruled in 1993 that a fair trial would be impossible.Madeleine McCann disappeared while on holiday with her parents in Portugal in 2007 (Steve Parsons/PA)

Scotland Yard bosses have applied for more funding to continue the hunt for Madeleine McCann.

There was speculation over the future of the investigation when it emerged that funding would run out at the end of September.

But the Home Office has now confirmed that it is considering an application from the force for more cash.

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In a blog published on Wednesday, it said: We have received and are considering a request from the Metropolitan Police Service to extend funding for Operation Grange until the end of March 2019.

The Home Office maintains an ongoing dialogue with the MPS regarding funding for Operation Grange.

Madeleine was three when she was last seen on holiday with her parents in Praia da Luz in Portugal in May 2007.

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Scotland Yard launched its own investigation, Operation Grange, into her disappearance in 2013 after a Portuguese inquiry failed to make any headway.

UK detectives were granted an extra 150,000 in March to continue the probe, to cover until the end of September.

Operation Grange has cost 11.6 million so far.Theresa May at the United Nations Security Council in New York (Evan Vucci/AP)

Theresa May attacked Russia for its desperate fabrication over the Salisbury spy poisoning at a meeting of world leaders in New York.

Britain set out detailed evidence about the prime suspects in the nerve agent attack on former spy Sergei Skripal and daughter Yulia while Russia has only sought to obfuscate, the Prime Minister said.

Mrs May used two key speeches at the United Nations to turn her fire on Moscow.

It comes amid reports that one of the suspects in the Salisbury poisoning, Ruslan Boshirov, has been identified as Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga, a highly decorated officer in the GRU, Russias military intelligence service.

Expand Close There are reports Ruslan Boshirov has been identified as Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga, a GRU officer (Metropolitan Police/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook

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Boshirov was identified alongside Alexander Petrov by the UK as GRU members but the two men made widely mocked claims that they only visited the Wiltshire city in early March to see the wonderful town of Salisbury and its famous cathedral.

Mrs May called on Russia to rejoin the international consensus against the use of chemical weapons but said there should be no doubt about the international communitys determination to take action if that did not happen.

She said: We have taken appropriate action, with our allies, and we will continue to take the necessary steps to ensure our collective security. Russia has only sought to obfuscate through desperate fabrication.

In speeches to the UNs Security Council and its General Assembly, Mrs May warned of the dangers of the international community failing to cooperate.

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Mrs May also criticised Donald Trumps decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal.

The PM praised the US president for the leadership he had shown over North Korea by meeting dictator Kim Jong Un for talks over Pyongyangs nuclear programme.

But she said the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) had taken collective leadership.

She added: For many years, the scale and nature of Irans nuclear programme raised serious international concerns. The JCPOA was an important step forward in addressing these.

It remains the best means of preventing Iran developing a nuclear weapon, and we are committed to preserving the JCPOA as long as Iran continues to abide by its obligations in full.

Iran must ensure they implement their obligations fully. And to monitor Irans compliance, we strongly support the IAEA using inspections and other monitoring provisions of the JCPOA to their full.

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Mrs May also championed international cooperation, one day after President Trump attacked globalisation and said countries should act in their own interests.

Only global cooperation based on a set of agreed rules can ensure competition is fair and does not succumb to protectionism, with its certain path to lost jobs and international confrontation, Mrs May said.

And it is only global co-operation which can harness legitimate self-interest towards common goals, producing agreements on global challenges such as climate change, proliferation and increasing inclusive economic growth.

Downing Street insisted the comments were not an attack on Mr Trump and had been written before he made his remarks.

Be in no doubt, if we lack the confidence to step up, others willTheresa May

Mrs May urged international leaders to step up and act when international norms, such as over the use of chemical weapons, are broken.

Failure to act could fuel a rise in fascism and communism, she warned.

Be in no doubt, if we lack the confidence to step up, others will, Mrs May said.

In the last century  whether in the rise of fascism or the spread of communism  we have seen those on the extreme right and extreme left exploit peoples fears, stoke intolerance and racism, close down economies and societies and destroy the peace of nations.

And today once more we see worrying trends in the rise of these movements in Europe and beyond.

She added: We have seen what happens when the natural patriotism which is a cornerstone of a healthy society is warped into aggressive nationalism, exploiting fear and uncertainty to promote identity politics at home and belligerent confrontation abroad, while breaking rules and undermining institutions.

And we see this when states like Russia flagrantly breach international norms, from the seizing of sovereign territory to the reckless use of chemical weapons on the streets of Britain by agents of the Russian GRU.

Mrs May said international intervention was not just a moral imperative but a matter of self-interest.

For when barbarous acts and aggression go unchecked, dictators and terrorists are emboldened.

So, we must have the confidence to act.Emergency services at the scene outside the Palace of Westminster (Stefan Rousseau/PA)

MI5 chose not to investigate Westminster Bridge attacker Khalid Masood despite him having contact with a number of terrorists including a key figure in a major plot.

The extent of the fanatics connections with various suspects being monitored by the security service, including one of the fertiliser bomb plotters and members of banned group al-Muhajiroun, was laid out at the inquests into the attack victims deaths on Wednesday.

A senior MI5 officer gave evidence amid tight security at the Old Bailey, shielded from the sight of everyone in Court One, including the coroner, by green curtains fastened together with bulldog clips.

He told the court that the decision in 2010 to class Masood as someone who did not pose a risk to national security was sound.

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Identified as Witness L, he said that the atrocity could not have been stopped.

There simply wasnt enough intelligence for us to work on that would have allowed us to identify his plot and work with the police to frustrate it, he said.

Amid strict security measures, with no one other than lawyers and court transcription staff allowed to use phones and computers during his evidence, he told the Old Bailey: Masood engaged in attack planning on his own.

None of these indicators were enough to say that he (Masood) was involved in activities of significant concern to usWitness L

Its very difficult to make a decision as to when he decided to mount the attack.

The court heard how Masood came to the attention of MI5 in 2004, when his number was found in the phone of Waheed Mahmood, one of a group of terrorists who plotted to plant fertiliser bombs.

He also had contact on a number of occasions between 2004 and 2009 with another terrorist suspect under investigation by MI5.

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The suspect had his address, email addresses and phone numbers.

In February 2010 there was a vague and uncorroborated report of someone called Khalid Masood, an extremist based in Saudi Arabia, helping a UK terror cell plan to travel to Pakistan to receive training from al Qaida.

As part of the investigation into the cell, Masood was initially classed as someone who posed a threat to national security, but then was downgraded to someone who may pose a threat the following month, when MI5 investigators discovered he was not involved in the plan.

In December that year a review found that as Masood was not involved in facilitating travel or in any other aspect of the plot, he could be downgraded again.

Witness L told the Old Bailey: He was downgraded to a target who was not considered to be a risk to national security.

No record was made at the time of the reasons why the decision was taken.

Counsel to the inquest Jonathan Hough QC read from a written statement by Witness L that said: We have reviewed the decision to close Masood (as a person of interest) with the benefit of hindsight and we conclude the decision was sound.

Expand Close Victims of the Westminster Bridge terror attack (left to right) Pc Keith Palmer, Aysha Frade, Leslie Rhodes, Andreea Cristea and Kurt Cochran (Metropolitan Police/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook

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The officer went on: It was logical, necessary and proportionate to consider him a closure.

Between December 2010 and October 2012 Masood was associated with a number of subjects of interest to MI5 and there was an indication that he consumed extremist material, the court heard.

For the next four years he appeared intermittently in connection with a number of other subjects of interest, including some linked to banned extremist group al-Muhajiroun, but at no stage was there considered to be enough information to justify investigating him further.

The officer said that even though Masood had a history of violent offending, had been linked to multiple terror suspects, and in 2013 expressed satisfaction that the September 11 attacks had drawn people to Islam, the decision not to investigate him was a sound one.

Witness L said: None of these indicators were enough to say that he was involved in activities of significant concern to us.

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At the time of the attack in 2017 the service was facing an unprecedented scale of work, with around 500 investigations into Islamist terrorists, 3,000 people considered subjects of interest (SOIs) and 20,000 who had previously been classed as SOIs.

Mr Hough read Witness L a conclusion from a report by former terror watchdog David Anderson after the atrocity that said: Not everything can be stopped, there will always be a danger of a determined attacker getting through.

The officer replied: Im afraid thats true.

He also gave his condolences to relatives of those who died.

On behalf of both myself and my service I offer my profound sympathies to the families of those who were killed in Khalid Masoods attack, those who were injured in the attack and anyone else who was affected by it.

Everyone in my service comes to work every day to stop attacks.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick and Deputy Assistant Commissioner Dean Haydon, a senior counter-terrorism officer, were in court as Witness L gave evidence.

Masood, 52, ploughed a hired SUV into pedestrians Kurt Cochran, 54, Leslie Rhodes, 75, Aysha Frade, 44, and Andreea Cristea, 31, on Westminster Bridge on March 22 last year, before stabbing Pc Keith Palmer, 48, to death near the Houses of Parliament.

Gareth Patterson QC, for the families of the four civilians killed in the attack, said: I suggest a proper investigation would have been likely to have revealed not only his extremist views, which were there to be discovered, but the danger that he posed.

Witness L replied: I believe that such a hypothetical investigation would have exposed his extremist views, I dont believe it would have exposed his attack planning.Margaret Fleming was last seen in 1999 (Police Scotland/PA)

Two people have gone on trial accused of murdering a woman who has allegedly not been seen for more than 18 years.

Margaret Fleming was reported missing in October 2016 from her home in Inverkip, Inverclyde, but it is claimed she has not been seen since December 1999.

Edward Cairney, 76, and Avril Jones, 58, are accused of her abduction and murder, and of fraudulently claiming 182,000 in benefits by pretending she was still alive.

The couple, who deny all charges against them, went on trial before Lord Matthews at the High Court in Glasgow on Wednesday.

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It is alleged Cairney and Jones abducted Ms Fleming at her home at Seacroft, Inverkip, locked her in a room, assaulted her, cut her hair and bound her arms and wrists with tape on various occasions between November 1, 1997 and January 5, 2000.

The pair are accused of murdering Ms Fleming, who would now be 37, by unknown means at some point between December 18, 1999 and January 5, 2000.

It is alleged that between December 18, 1999 and October 2016 they pretended to Department for Work and Pensions officials that Ms Fleming was alive, and claimed state benefits, obtaining 182,000 by fraud.

The pair also face two charges of attempting to defeat the ends of justice.

It is alleged they disposed of, destroyed or concealed the remains and personal effects of Ms Fleming between December 18, 1999 and October 26, 2017.

They are also accused of trying to board a train to London at Glasgow Central Station on October 25, 2017 while carrying 3,500 and the keys to a safe deposit box at a bank in London which contained 27,000.

It is alleged they planned to travel and evade police and prosecutors.

Lord Matthews told the jury the trial could last eight weeks.The whale was spotted in the River Thames (PA)

Conservationists are waiting to see if a very lost beluga whale spotted in the Thames has headed out to sea.

The rare marine mammal was seen near Gravesend, Kent, on Tuesday afternoon and appeared to be swimming strongly and feeding in the estuary.

However rescue teams were on standby in case the animal, which is normally found thousands of miles away in the Arctic, gets into danger.

Rob Lott, a marine mammal scientist at Whale and Dolphin Conservation (WDC), said the cetacean was being monitored in case it live strands on a sandbank.

Its a monitoring operation at the moment, obviously the longer it stays in the Thames estuary then it will become more of a concern, so well see what happens in the morning, he told BBC Radio 5Live.

#Beluga in the #Thames - give the #whale space. Unlike deepsea whales sometimes found in the Thames like the famed northern bottlenose whale, belugas DO swim up rivers in shallow waters BUT not this far south and never all alone!

More info: https://t.co/SfSiQCfrKe pic.twitter.com/DsUsH76eKF  Whale and Dolphin Conservation (WDC) (@whalesorg) September 25, 2018

Beluga whales can grow up to 20ft in length and are usually at home in the icy waters around Greenland, Svalbard or the Barents Sea.

They are also a social species, so to see one by itself in the Thames is concerning, Mr Lott said.

Hopefully instinct will soon kick in and the beluga will leave the estuary and go out into the north sea and then head north where it should be, the scientist explained.

The British Divers Marine Life Rescue said it was sending its area coordinator down to the river to monitor the situation.

The network of volunteer marine mammal medics has whale rescue pontoons at the ready that can be used to re-float stranded animals in an effort to move them to safety.

A spokeswoman for the organisation said the belugas visit to the Thames was a very rare occurrence, and urged people not to go out in boats to get a close look at the whale, but to watch it from the shore.

The whale was first spotted by ecologist Dave Andrews, who tweeted footage of the white animal.

Cant believe Im writing this, no joke  BELUGA in the Thames off Coalhouse Fort, he said.

He or she is obviously very lost and quite possibly in troubleDanny Groves, from WDC

The last reported sighting of beluga in UK waters was in 2015, when two were spotted off the Northumberland coast and one in Northern Ireland.

Among the theories of how the beluga whale ended up in the Thames is that it followed a shoal of fish into the waterway.

Schooling fish such as herring, capelin and cod are among the usual sources of food for the species.

Danny Groves, from WDC said: This is a High Arctic species thousands of miles from where it should be in Greenland, Svalbard or the Barents Sea, they are usually associated close to the ice.

He or she is obviously very lost and quite possibly in trouble.

A spokesman for the RSPCA said: The RSPCA is aware of reports of a whale, possibly a beluga, in the Thames.

We are working with other agencies to monitor the situation and ready to provide appropriate assistance if requested.

In 2006, a whale died after it swam up the river into central London despite efforts to rescue the animal.Jailed British mother Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe with her husband Richard Ratcliffe and their daughter Gabriella (Family Handout/PA)

The Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary ramped up pressure on Iran to release a charity worker jailed in Tehran during talks in New York.

Theresa May told Iranian president Hassan Rouhani she had serious concerns about the jailing of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

The British-Iranian mother was sentenced to five years in jail after being accused of spying by Tehrans Islamist regime, a charge she vehemently denies.

Expand Close Theresa May meets with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on the sidelines of the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly (Jason DeCrow/Pool Photo via AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook

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In talks on the fringes of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), Mrs May called for Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffes release.

It came after Jeremy Hunt demanded rapid action to secure her freedom in his first face-to-face meeting with Irans foreign minister.

The Foreign Secretary told Javad Zarif that Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe must be returned home quickly.

Just met Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif at #UNGA. I pressed for swift resolution on all our dual national consular cases, including Nazanin. NOT acceptable to detain innocent people arbitrarily at the cost of enormous human anguish  Jeremy Hunt (@Jeremy_Hunt) September 25, 2018

During talks on the UNGA sidelines, he said: I again pressed for Nazanins swift release  she deserves to be back at home with her family, Mr Hunt said in a statement.

It is also absolutely essential the Iranian government take steps to ensure the release of a number of detained dual nationals, he added.

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who works for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was detained at Imam Khomeini airport in April 2016.

Last month she was granted a three-day release from Evin prison but her request for an extension was denied and she was forced to say goodbye to her four-year-old daughter, Gabriella, and return to jail.

Husband Richard Ratcliffe wrote an open letter to Mr Zarif calling the short release a cruel game.

Mrs May also used her meeting with President Rouhani to underline the UKs commitment to the Iran nuclear deal.

Britain and its European allies responded with dismay to US president Donald Trumps decision to pull out of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that relieved sanctions on Tehran in return for an end to Irans military nuclear ambitions.Theresa May has brushed off the Archbishop of Canterburys criticism about the impact her policies have on the poor, saying we will sometimes disagree on things.

Justin Welby has called for the rollout of Universal Credit to be halted, an increase in the living wage, tax reforms and raised concerns about the increased use of foodbanks.

Mrs May, a vicars daughter and regular churchgoer, defended her record in the face of the archbishops increasingly robust interventions on government policy.

Speaking during a visit to New York where she is attending the UN general assembly, the PM said: On occasions we will have differences of opinion on various things.

We will sometimes disagree on things just as I will disagree with other members of the Church of England on thingsTheresa May, speaking of Justin Welby

When I stood on the doorstep of No 10 when I first became Prime Minister I was clear that there are some changes we need to make to make sure we have a country that works for everyone.

Thats about making sure we have an economy that works for everyone, thats what we are doing with the work we are doing particularly on the industrial strategy ensuring that all parts of the UK are able to see those good jobs being created in all parts of the UK.

I think the employment figures we see in the UK are very important because work is the best route out of poverty.

Having systems that encourage people to work, ensuring those jobs have been created are important.

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But the archbishop and I will sometimes disagree on things.

Pressed on whether the criticism hurt, she replied: We will sometimes disagree on things just as I will disagree with other members of the Church of England on things.

Jeremy Corbyn highlighted Mr Welbys calls for reform during his keynote speech from the conference platform in Liverpool and praised the excellent Commission on Economic Justice report arguing for reform that the archbishop was involved in.

Mr Welby received a standing ovation at the TUC Congress in Manchester earlier this month when he attacked the benefits system, said the living wage should be higher and criticised firms like Amazon for paying almost nothing in taxes.

He also hit out at the so-called gig economy and zero-hours contracts, saying they were nothing new, and adding: It is the reincarnation of an ancient evil.

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Asked for his views on the Governments flagship welfare reform, Universal Credit, he replied: It was supposed to make it simpler and more efficient. It has not done that.

It has left too many people worse off, putting them at risk of hunger, debt, rent arrears and food banks.

When Universal Credit comes into a local area the number of people going to food banks goes up.

What is clear is if they cannot get it right they need to stop rolling it out.Officers from Police Scotland seized drugs with a street value of 750,000 (Andrew Milligan/PA)

Drugs with a street value of 750,000 have been seized by police.

Officers from Police Scotlands specialist crime division recovered a large quantity of cocaine during a search of a house and vehicle in Fernslea Avenue, Blantyre, South Lanarkshire, on Tuesday.

A 37-year-old woman and a 34-year-old man have been arrested and charged, and are expected to appear at Hamilton Sheriff Court on Thursday.

A significant haul of drugs have been taken off the street and two people have been charged as a result of this operation.Detective Inspector Martin McGhee

Police Scotland said a report would be submitted to the procurator fiscal.

Detective Inspector Martin McGhee of the specialist crime division said: A significant haul of drugs have been taken off the street and two people have been charged as a result of this operation.

Teams of officers work every day to gather intelligence and target those who are involved in the supply of controlled drugs within our communities.

We will always look to act upon information provided to us by the local community, who play a vital role in our response to those involved in the illicit supply of drugs.

I would urge anyone with information regarding drug supply to contact Police Scotland on 101. Alternatively Crimestoppers can be contacted on 0800 555 111, where information can be provided anonymously.President Donald Trump has lashed out at Iran, with national security adviser John Bolton also warning there would be hell to pay if Tehran crossed the US.

Speeches by the president before the UN General Assembly and by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Mr Bolton at a New York City hotel marked an escalation of rhetoric.

Mr Trump blasted what he called Irans corrupt dictatorship and accused its leaders of enriching themselves through embezzlement and raiding state coffers to spread mayhem.

Mr Trump also vowed to continue to isolate Iran through US sanctions that are being re-instated following his withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal.

The next round of sanctions will take effect in early November.

He later predicted that the pressure from renewed sanctions would force Iran back to the table to negotiate.

Irans leaders sow chaos, death and destruction, the president told the UN General Assembly in a 34-minute speech that was more critical of Iran than any other country.

They do not respect their neighbours or borders or the sovereign rights of nations. Instead Irans leaders plunder the nations resources to enrich themselves and to spread mayhem across the Middle East and far beyond.

In an even more fiery to a group opposed to the Iran deal, Mr Bolton went further.

If you cross us, our allies, or our partners; if you harm our citizens; if you continue to lie, cheat and deceive, yes, there will indeed be hell to pay, he said.

The murderous regime and its supporters will face significant consequences if they do not change their behaviour. Let my message today be clear: We are watching, and we will come after you.

Expand Close National security adviser John Bolton, leftl arrives ahead of President Donald Trumps address to the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly (Mary Altaffer/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook

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Mr Pompeo also spoke at the event hosted by United Against a Nuclear Iran, being held to coincide with UN General Assembly.

In his speech, Mr Pompeo unveiled a long list of Iranian misdeeds, from its support of Syrian president Bashar Assad and Houthi rebels in Yemen to sponsoring or plotting attempted terrorist attacks in Africa, Asia, Europe and beyond.

It is truly an outlaw regime, he said.

There can be no question Iranian destructive activities are truly global in scope. It is therefore incumbent on every country to join our efforts to change the regimes lawless behaviour. The ongoing, multi-national, multi-continental nature of Iranian malign activity leaves no room for inaction or indecision.

Iranian president Hassan Rouhani, who also addressed the UN, launched a scathing attack on Mr Trump and his administration for abandoning international norms and imposing sanctions that amount to economic terrorism.

He accused the United States on Tuesday of trying to overthrow his government.

The United States understanding of international relations is authoritarian, Mr Rouhani said.

In its estimation, might makes right. Its understanding of power, not of legal and legitimate authority, is reflected in bullying and imposition.

Recently, #Iran-supported militias in Iraq launched rocket attacks against the U.S. embassy in Baghdad and our consulate in Basra. Well hold #Irans regime accountable for any attack on our personnel or facilities, and respond swiftly and decisively in defense of American lives. pic.twitter.com/nqbmogbeCA  Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) September 25, 2018

Mr Trump and his aides, meanwhile, stepped up their attacks on the nuclear deal, which was a signature foreign policy achievement of the Obama administration.

Mr Trump called it horrible and maintained that many Middle Eastern countries had supported the decision to withdraw.

In fact, only Israel and Gulf Arab nations such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates enthusiastically backed the move.

The other parties to the deal, under which Iran agreed to curbs on its nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief, remain in the agreement and met on Monday in New York to reaffirm their support for it.

Aside from Iran, the other participants are Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the European Union.

After that meeting, the top diplomats from those countries and the EU agreed to establish a financial facility in the European Union to facilitate payments for Iranian imports and exports including oil, a key move sought by Tehran as it attempts to fight back against the re-imposed US sanctions.

They said in a joint statement that the so-called Special Purpose Vehicle will assist and reassure economic operators pursuing legitimate business with Iran.

Mr Pompeo harshly criticised those countries for attempting to subvert US sanctions.

This is one of the most counterproductive measures imaginable for regional and global peace and security, he said.

By sustaining revenues to the regime, you are solidifying Irans ranking as the number one state sponsor of terror, enabling Irans violent export of revolution and making the regime even richer while the Iranian people scrape by.Swedens prime minister has lost a vote of confidence in parliament after an election this month stripped him of his majority.

Stefan Lofven, leader of the Social Democratic Party who has been prime minister for four years, will continue in a caretaker role until a new government can be formed that has the command of the Riksdagen, the national parliament.

Legislators voted 204-142 against Mr Lofven. Three were absent, so did not vote. The ballot was mandatory after the September 9 general election delivered a hung parliament.

Although Mr Lofven remains optimistic he may be able to form a government, the vote means Sweden faces weeks of political uncertainty.

Expand Close Stefan Lofven during the vote of confidence (Anders Wiklund/TT/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook

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Both main political blocs in the parliament have refused to co-operate with the anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats party, which made great strides in the election.

Neither the left-leaning bloc led by the Social Democrats nor the Moderates-led centre-right opposition managed to secure a majority in the 349-seat parliament.

In the election, the Social Democrats got 28.3% of the vote while the Moderate Party received 19.8% and the Sweden Democrats 17.5%.

The centre-left and centre-right blocs control 144 and 143 seats respectively while the Sweden Democrats have 62.

Andreas Norlen, a member of the Moderates who was elected on Monday as speaker, is charged with trying to find someone in parliament who may be able to command a majority and form a government.

He alone decides which of the party leaders can begin these talks.

Mr Lofven remained optimistic he could form a governing coalition but stopped short of saying who with.

I am available for talks, he said after the vote on Tuesday.

He ruled out having any contacts with the Sweden Democrats, saying time after time, their connections to racist and Nazi organisations have been exposed.US President Donald Trump has accused China of trying to interfere in the upcoming US congressional elections because it opposes his tough trade policies.

The White House provided little evidence of anything close to the level of Russias meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

They do not want me or us to win because I am the first president ever to challenge China on trade, Mr Trump said as he chaired the UN Security Council for the first time.

He made his accusation against the backdrop of the special counsels investigation into Russian interference in the last election to help him and amid concerns that this Novembers elections also could be vulnerable.

Asked later what evidence he had, Mr Trump said there was plenty but didnt provide details. Instead, he zeroed in on Chinas propaganda efforts to flood the heartland with ads and statements against Mr Trumps hundreds of billions of dollars in punishing tariffs

Mr Trump added: I dont like it when they attack our farmers and I dont like it when they put out false messages. But beside that, we learned that they are trying to meddle in our elections and were not going to let that happen just as were not going to let that happen with Russia.

Chinas foreign minister shrugged when he heard Mr Trumps statement via translation at the Security Council.

We do not and will not interfere in any countrys domestic affairs, said Wang Yi.

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We refuse to accept any unwarranted accusations against China, and we call on other countries to also observe the purposes of the UN charter and not interfere in other countries internal affairs.

A senior Trump administration official who briefed reporters about Mr Trumps comments said China was stepping up covert and overt activities to punish those who support Mr Trumps tough trade stance and interfere in the political system.

The only specifics given by the official were that China is hurting farmers and workers in states and districts that voted for Mr Trump.

Democrats on the House intelligence committee requested information from the Trump administration on the Chinese efforts.

This afternoon, President Trump participated in a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Abe.  pic.twitter.com/PvSINQY7yq  The White House 45 Archived (@WhiteHouse45) September 26, 2018

Mr Trump, in his meeting with Japans Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, warned China again that they cannot get involved with our elections.

It was strong rhetoric in contrast to his reluctance to acknowledge or condemn Russias efforts to interfere with the 2016 election.

Mr Trump has repeatedly cast doubt on the conclusions of US intelligence agencies and refused to chastise Russias Vladimir Putin during their summer summit in Helsinki.After enduring Storm Ali and with all its disruption, destruction and death, we should now be preparing for Storm Brexit. While this will be an entirely man-made political storm, it has the potential to be massively destructive and rage for a very long time.

Despite Theresa May's unrealistic but earnest hopes, Salzburg, the city of Mozart, produced no magic formula for resolving the Brexit conundrum for the Prime Minister when she met with the 27 leaders of the European Union last week.

In an obviously disgruntled mood after the summit, the angry and disappointed British Prime Minister feigned surprise at the dismissive attitude of the 27 to her Chequers strategy.

She reiterated her futile opinion, that the so-called Chequers approach was the basis for bringing about an agreed Brexit.

In no uncertain terms Barnier and Tusk responded and forensically repudiated the Prime Minister's assertions and declared that there would be no deal with the UK without a legally binding backstop for dealing with the border in Ireland. Remember the UK guaranteed last year that there would be no hard border in Ireland, come what may.

Labour's Brexit spokesperson Sir Keir Starmer MP, has rightly said that May's strategy was collapsing all round her. May's strategy is now clearly a shambles without support in Europe and is even opposed by a sizeable chunk of her own Conservative Party.

Without serious movement by Theresa May away from her Chequers strategy, the probability of a car crash over Brexit is extremely likely.

After her Salzburg humiliation, Theresa May stage-managed a faux Thatcherite speech in Downing Street, in which she dishonestly and defiantly accused the EU of failing to treat the UK with respect.

It was all sound and fury and none too subtle jingoism.

It may have been good political theatre, capturing generally positive newspaper headlines the next day, but it was patently designed to get May over her next difficult summit, the Tory Party conference on September 30.

Within her party, there continues to be a nasty and destructive civil war over the issue of Europe membership. Whatever way she goes, she cannot satisfy both sides and the internal political differences become deeper and sharper.

All she can hope for at her conference is that she is able to mollify the centre ground of her party and neutralise the Eurosceptics.

But given her weakened position within and without Parliament, May will be lucky to cling on to her leadership of the Conservative Party for the rest of the year.

She may, of course, opt for a general election in an act of desperation to save her premiership.

The clock is ticking impatiently and insistently, as we approach the Brexit deadline of March 2019. In order to meet that deadline, it is important that agreement between the UK and Europe is achieved within the next two crucial months. Thereafter it would be touch and go, as to whether a comprehensive agreement could be achieved.

Therefore, time is of the essence to avoid a no deal.

While Britain may be able to withstand the catastrophe of a no deal, Ireland, north and south, will be severely damaged and economically weakened in its wake.

A no deal is the worst possible outcome for us here in Northern Ireland.

The next major milestone is on October 18, which according to Donald Tusk, European Council president, will be "a moment of truth" and where he expects the British government to provide a solution that will avoid a hard border in Ireland. No final treaty with the UK on trade and other matters will be agreed in the absence of a solution to this issue.

An agreed solution to this issue will inevitably mean some form of regulatory differentiation between Northern Ireland and Britain, as in fact there now is in relation to inspections in the area of animal health and food safety.

Extending this differentiation does not have to be made into a huge constitutional issue and provocatively characterised, as a border down the Irish Sea between Britain and Northern Ireland.

All of these regulatory requirements could be performed online and therefore no physical customs border would be created between Northern Ireland and Britain in the Irish Sea.

It is interesting to note in this regard, that May herself has not ruled out regulatory divergence between Northern Ireland and the rest of UK, as long as the NI Assembly and Executive agree to that divergence.

The Brexit negotiations have long been likened to complicated divorce proceedings, including provision for the children, in this instance the children are Northern Ireland.

Usually in divorce proceedings the issue of who keeps the children is of huge concern and much bitter dispute between the conflicted parents.

However in this Brexit debate, neither parent really wants to keep the children.A body language expert would, of course, have a field day. With Arlene. With all of them, really. But yesterday the focus was entirely upon Arlene, solemnly centre stage in the RHI hot seat - looking at times how the rest of us feel when by-passing the 'Anything to Declare' channel at the airport.

The odd self-conscious wee laugh. Much hand gesturing. Eyes straight ahead. At one point she snapped on a silver bangle. But otherwise minimal fidgeting or fiddling with her hair.

Our former First Minister was dressed in a dark navy shade of 'I Mean Business', enlivened only by that silver brooch she's so very fond of. Mrs Foster was dressed like the lawyer she is.

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A tad defensive at times - arms folded across her body. Hands clasped and, from time to time, a little sighing - although the latter may well have been down to tiredness. Several hours of persistent grilling would take it out of the best of us.

David Scoffield QC, counsel for the inquiry, does not take the sabre-tongued assassin approach. His questioning is quiet, firm, meticulous. And relentless.

Mrs Foster, in fairness, was rarely flummoxed, although as had previously been pointed out, after perusal of her written statements to the inquiry, she did concede occasional difficulty recalling various incidents and exchanges.

Unlike the rest of us, however, she didn't resort to a stark "I dunno" but opted instead for more lawyerly comment along the lines of "As far as I can remember... I stand to be corrected... It's my understanding..."

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Inquiries into who said what at meetings between ministers and civil servants are rarely the stuff of compulsive viewing. So this should have been Dullsville.

"If you look at w, i, t, two, one, zero, nine..." Mr Scoffield would intone. Or: "If we turn to your fourth witness statement, paragraph 20..."

But what was spewing forth yesterday, against the sedate maroon leather and dark wood backdrop of inquiry formality, and amid the restrained question-and-answer to and fro, was a startling gut-spilling about how business was done in our Assembly, about the power of Spads (Stormont's seemingly boundless legion of Thomas Cromwell wannabes) and, not least, the acid personal relationship between Mrs Foster and the man she called "Minister Bell".

In an Arctic voice no amount of biomass boilers could temper, the former First Minister told inquiry chairman Sir Patrick Coghlin about "her great regret" that she hadn't dismissed Minister Bell when she had the chance.

Again and again she made clear her difficult relationship with the man. "If he had've engaged in the manner that normal colleagues would have..."

There were concerns, she said, that "he could have gone rogue..."

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And a particularly scathing line (among many) about how she had the impression that Mr Bell felt "he was to be served rather than to serve..."

Occasionally, Mrs Foster would reach for an apt temperature-related idiom. "It was heated. He came into the room already angry..." about one meeting with Mr Bell.

And recalling the febrile atmosphere as the decision was taken to wind up the scheme: "Things were very hot..."

In an email to a colleague she had admitted: "I'm at the end of my tether with this individual."

Later in her testimony, that individual became Jonathan and then just Jonny. Or Jonny and his paranoia, as she termed it.

Flicking a hand dismissively, she accused him at one point of pressing "the nuclear button in a fashion that contributed to the breakdown of the Assembly".

The nuclear button referred to was Mr Bell's controversial television interview with Stephen Nolan.

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Mrs Foster, it was quite clear, was not terribly impressed with the BBC's contribution to the crisis, either. Earlier she'd been asked about the date in January when she'd been made aware of the extent of the RHI scheme's multi-million pound "overspend" (of taxpayers' money, let us not forget).

We, media people, are often pilloried for overuse of the "and how did you feel at that point?" question. Mr Scoffield, needless to say, did not stoop to it.

But what must it have been like, you wonder, at that moment when you, as First Minister, suddenly realise the full extent of the monumental costs already ratcheted up - the phenomenal estimates of the future toll? How did she feel?

Yesterday, even if Mrs Foster was feeling under extreme pressure, generally, she exuded an air of calm under fire.

She raised her eyes heavenwards on a few occasions but didn't once raise her voice.

But the picture she painted of what was happening behind the scenes, both within the DUP and within the Executive, was another story. Friction, fracture, duelling Spads and clashing colleagues.

However controlled the body language, you can't talk that away.The killers were taken on a day out from prison to the Mournes (stock picture)

There's a world of difference between knowing in the abstract that there are former prisoners convicted of murder back out on the streets, and actually seeing those who are still supposed to be behind bars taken on a hiking trip in the Mourne Mountains before enjoying a stroll and a cup of tea on Newcastle seafront.

The five men who were recently pictured in the Sunday World enjoying that privilege have been called "notorious killers", but that barely scratches the surface of the evil which the group, all inmates at Maghaberry, inflicted on their mainly female victims.

Academic Gerard O'Kane bludgeoned, strangled and stabbed his wife Annie to death in a premeditated attack for which the judge at his trial could find no remorse.

William Mahwinney drowned his partner, Lorraine, in the bath.

Former policeman Kenneth McConnell suffocated pensioner Annabella Symington in her own home in 1989.

Triad hitman Siu Ching Wong strangled pregnant waitress Candy Ho in a so-called honour killing.

Lastly, there's Billy Moore, an ex-boxer jailed for the UDA murder of a man in 2003.

These are the kind of men one expects to find stalking the pages of the most gruesome crime fiction, not taking the air at the seaside in County Down.

It hardly bears thinking about what the effect might have been on the families of their victims if they'd happened to see them walking around nonchalantly last Thursday. It's one of the biggest torments for those touched by violent death that, upon release, they might one day inadvertently bump into the person responsible.

It's not the first time these men have been spotted out and about either. They're also reported to have enjoyed fishing trips and walks along the Lagan Towpath. Who knows what prison management has in store for them next week? A slap-up lunch at Titanic Centre, perhaps, followed by a wee dander up to the Giant's Causeway, all paid for out of some poor sucker's taxes.

It's a wonder they don't just take them to Disneyland and really make a day of it.

The fact that men who murdered innocent victims in the most unforgivable of circumstances should be free to pose as if they were harmless sightseers makes a mockery of the justice system. It's as if the only purpose of locking up those who commit the worst crimes the human mind can imagine is to make a grand show of punishment before quietly letting them out again once their crimes have faded from public memory.

Of course, hundreds of prisoners were released as part of the Belfast Agreement and are now strutting around freely.That was a painful compromise for Northern Irish society, arrived at after anguished disagreement and negotiation. We didn't like it, but we knew what we were doing. This couldn't be more different. This obscene situation, which paradoxically happens both in secret and right under our noses, has evolved without any prior discussion whatsoever.

Ronnie Armour, director general of the Northern Ireland Prison Service, admitted that the hike in the Mournes was controversial - that's certainly a nice way of putting it - but justified the decision on the basis that the prison service has a requirement to prepare prisoners for eventual release. Letting them out on limited excursions under the watchful eye of trained staff was, he explained in these pages yesterday, a "test" of carefully selected prisoners' suitability for reintegration into the community. As such, he insisted that each prisoner is "individually assessed". This would only be reassuring were such assessments infallible. If only that was true.

Too many dangerous men and women have been released back into the community on the word of experts who insisted that they were no longer a danger to others, all at the behest of well-meaning do-gooders who constantly bleat on about prisoners having "served their time" and deserving a second chance.

Victims don't get a second chance, and the punishment for their families has no time limit.

Armour talks about "risk assessment" as if it was a science, rather than an unreliable mixture of guesswork and crossing one's fingers and hoping for the best, whilst admitting that only "a small number" of prisoners fail this pre-release test. Then it can't be as "challenging" as he claims, can it? If the vast majority of prisoners are ultimately deemed suitable for release, it suggests instead the testing programme is already loaded in their favour.

To be fair, he's right to point out that there are no such things in Northern Ireland as "life means life" sentences. Everyone, in theory, gets out eventually.

But they should at least be seen to have fully served their sentences first.

William Mawhinney was only jailed in 2011, with a recommendation that he serve at least 12 years before he could be considered for release.

That was only seven years ago. How can it be right that he is already being prepped for release?

When Gerard O'Kane was convicted in 2012 of stabbing his wife to death, the presiding judge told him that he must serve "every single day" of his 14-year sentence. It's unlikely that, when the judge laid down his stipulation, he understood serving every single day to mean that some of them would be spent in the Mournes.

What is the point of judges even imposing minimum sentences? The prison service may call it a test, but it surely looks to most people very much like a reward. It isn't right. Sorry if that sounds overly simplistic to the people on high who run our world, but it just isn't.

There's a delicate balance to maintain between punishment and rehabilitation, but it's shifted too far and too fast. Punishment is not an add-on. It should be regarded by all as the primary function of imprisonment.

More importantly, it must be seen to be imposed.

That's why Ulster Unionist MLA Doug Beattie was right to demand that the prison board be more open and transparent about its decision-making process.

Sadly, Ronnie Armour's lengthy justification did not help to that end. It boiled down a simple message: We know best, so trust us.

That's asking too much.

Prison officers have vast experience, and must be respected, but their word on the rights and wrongs of rehabilitation cannot automatically be accepted without a full, honest public discussion.

That it takes an outcry before these conversations can even begin simply exposes the massive disjoint between what ordinary people think and feel and what officialdom decides on our behalf.

This is what's stoking discontent with the system as a whole. They've let us down too often to expect deference now.Students at a tahfiz school study the Quran while a cluster of electric wires protrude from the ceiling when a high-ranking official from the Prime Minister's Department visited the religious institution in Kepong, Kuala Lumpur, Sept.24, 2018.

Malaysia will tighten regulations governing private Islamic schools following allegations of sexual abuse of students at such learning institutions, a deputy minister said Tuesday.

Deputy Islamic Affairs Minister Fuziah Salleh told BenarNews that the government will amend current laws regulating tahfiz schools that focused on studies on the Quran in a bid to prevent sexual abuses and protect students.

The move came after the principal of a tahfiz school in the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur was slapped with 11 charges in court earlier this month following a complaint against him by nine male students that he had molested and sodomized them.

The principal was charged under the Sexual Offences Against Children Act, which is aimed specially at protecting those up to 18 years old from sexual crimes.

The case was investigated and the person has been charged in court on Sept 19 with 11 charges under Section 14 of the Sexual Offences Against Child Act 2017, police said in a statement at the weekend.

Under the law, offenders could face an imprisonment of up to 20 years and be whipped, reports said.

Mujahid Yusof Rawa, a minister in the Prime Ministers Department, said the principal was released on bail pending trial.

I'd like to advise parents who wish to send their kids to religious schools: Make sure that they know the background of the teachers, Mujahid said. Some teachers are not even qualified to teach the Quran.

In March this year, authorities charged a 41-year-old volunteer at a tahfiz school in Kuantan, capital of Pahang state, with sexually assaulting and sodomizing 10 male students.

In April last year, an 11-year-old boy died after his legs were amputated following an alleged beating by an official at a tahfiz school in a case that, according to police, was being investigated as a homicide

Following the latest case, Federal Territories Minister Khalid Samad ordered the closure of all unregistered tahfiz schools within Kuala Lumpur.

There should be no exceptions made for the tahfiz schools just because they are religious institutions, Khalid told a news conference. They should give the best in terms of safety and comfort because they carry the image of a religion.

Tahfiz schools are not under the federal governments education ministry, but are regulated by religious councils in states where they are located.

Latest figures on unregistered tahfiz schools were not immediately available. But last year, the government said there were 941 registered tahfiz schools with 9,470 teachers and about 150,000 students.

A stopgap measure

Commenting on Khalids statement, Fuziah said that the order to shut down unregistered tahfiz schools in the nations capital was a stopgap measure, until parliament approves tighter regulations governing these institutions.

Currently the schools are under the jurisdiction of the state government, which puts them beyond the reach of the federal government, Fuziah told BenarNews.

Kuala Lumpur Mufti Zulkifli Mohamad al-Bakri on Tuesday supported calls for a proper registration of the schools.

The Office of the Federal Territories Mufti has been consistent in our opposition of any form of manipulation, abuse, injustice, and affliction on children, Zulkifli said in a statement sent to BenarNews.

In September last year, a fire that ripped through the three-story dormitory of an unlicensed Islamic religious school in Kuala Lumpur killed at least 21 children and two teachers, firefighters said. Authorities charged two teenagers with 23 counts of murder for allegedly causing the fire.

The Darul Quran Ittifaqiyah School in Kuala Lumpur has been operating for 16 years without an official permit, officials said, as the government set up a task force to look into the safety of similar schools across the country.Rosmah Mansor, wife of former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, arrives at the headquarters of the anti-graft agency MACC in Putrajaya, Malaysias administrative capital, Sept. 26, 2018.

Malaysias anti-corruption officials questioned the wife of former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak for almost 13 hours Wednesday as part of the investigation tied to the state fund 1MDB.

Rosmah Mansor, 66, reported to the Malaysia Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) at 9:52 a.m., accompanied by her lawyers. She emerged from the building in Putrajaya, the nations administrative capital, at about 10:40 p.m.



I am OK, alhamdulillah, Rosmah told reporters, using an Arabic expression of relief that means Praise God.



MACC investigators took her statements less than a week after her husband pleaded not guilty to counts of money laundering, corruption, criminal breach of trust and abuse of power in connection with the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) probe. Najib, 65, is expected to face trial in February 2019.



The questioning lasted four times longer than when Rosmah appeared before MACC the first time on June 5 when she spent about three hours at the same office.

One of her lawyers, K. Kumaraendran, said MACC investigators had completed their questioning.



I have nothing else to say. I am not ready to make a statement, he told reporters.

MACC did not issue a statement to explain why the questioning lasted as long as it did.

The agencys chief commissioner, Mohd Shukri Abdull, told reporters on Monday that the agencys report related to Rosmah had been submitted to the attorney generals office.

The MACC is only responsible for carrying out investigations. It is up to the [attorney general] whether to prosecute Rosmah or not, he told reporters at the time.

Authorities barred Najib and his wife from leaving the country after the Barisan Nasional coalition was swept from power in the May 9 general election. The coalitions electoral defeat ushered in Mahathir Mohamads return to power and led to the re-openings of 1MDB investigations.

MACC had questioned Najib about how 2.6 billion ringgit (U.S. $642.6 million) and 42 million ringgit ($10 million) from SRC International, a former subsidiary of 1MDB, had ended up in his personal bank accounts.

Najib, who is out on a million-dollar bail, denied any wrongdoing and claimed that the funds were donated by the Saudi royal family.

Najib founded 1MDB as a sovereign investment fund ostensibly to pursue projects beneficial to Malaysians. But, according to court documents filed by the U.S. Department of Justice, the fund was used between 2009 and 2014 to satiate the ostentatious lifestyle of people with power over it.

DOJ officials described the 1MDB affair as the worst kleptocracy scandal in recent times, alleging that almost $4.5 billion from the state fund were embezzled and laundered through real estate and other assets.

Days after Mahathir took power, police raided a former office and residences linked to Najib and hauled off 567 designer handbags, hundreds of luxury watches and dozens of suitcases containing cash and 12,000 pieces of jewelry.

Police said the raids were part of an investigation into the 1MDB case, adding that the seized items were valued at an estimated $273 million.

Raising speculations



Shukri said Rosmah appeared to answer MACC questions.

No arrest. Ongoing statement recording, he told BenarNews earlier Wednesday.



Rosmahs ostentatious lifestyle led her to being compared with former Philippine first lady Imelda Marcos, who kept thousands of pairs of designer shoes in her basement at the presidential palace in Manila before a civilian-backed military revolt toppled her husband in 1986.

But Najib and Rosmah maintained that most of the items seized by police were gifts accumulated throughout Najibs career as a government official, as well as gifts received by their daughter during her wedding.Members of the Australian Defense Forces watch Philippine Marines firing at their targets during a joint military training focused on urban terrain in Cavite province, southwest of Manila, Dec. 18, 2017.

The Philippine and Australian navies have started 10 days of joint exercises in waters known as key sea corridors used by terror groups off the southern city of Zamboanga, officials said Wednesday, in a sign of tighter security relations amid a spate of recent bombings blamed on Islamic State-linked extremists.

Regional navy chief Rear Adm. Rene Medina told reporters the military drills with the Royal Australian Navy began Tuesday and would include patrols in the waters off Zamboanga and the island provinces of Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi.

The three islands are known to be hotbeds of the Abu Sayyaf, a small IS-linked group notorious for beheading some of its hostages.

These continuous engagement with other regional navies are part of the anti-piracy and anti-terrorism campaign of the government, which helps curb the security threats that are affecting the islands of Mindanao, Medina said.

It is also a sign that both countries share a strong relationship in matters of security through this activity, he said.

In July, military officials said the Abu Sayyaf exploded a bomb rigged to van at a military checkpoint on the southern Philippine island of Basilan, killing 11 people. Eighteen Abu Sayyaf members had been charged for the bombing, including Furuji Indama, the known leader of a faction operating on the island.

Military officials said Indama was the top lieutenant of Isnilon Hapilon, an Abu Sayyaf commander who later emerged as the local IS leader. Hapilon led a siege last year of the southern city of Marawi, where he was killed in October.

The Australian and United States governments had provided military assistance during the Marawi battle, deploying drones to help in data and intelligence gathering. Five months of vicious fighting killed 1,200 people, most of them militants, and increased concerns over regional security threats.

The Australian ship HMAS Launceston had arrived in Zamboanga for the joint drills, and would play a major role in the patrol exercises. It would be joined by the Philippine Navys BRP-General Mariano Alvarez in the exercise mission that would run until Oct. 4, officials said.

Medina said the drills would provide Philippine security forces with additional knowledge in thwarting terror attacks, including abduction, in key areas of Mindanao. It was not immediately clear how many service members would be involved in the exercises.

Capt. John Cowan, head of the Australian contingent, told reporters the battle against terrorism is a common fight between the two countries, which shared regional maritime security concerns.

The Abu Sayyaf, as well as local pirates, operate in waters of Zamboanga, Basilan and Sulu, where they are known to traditionally hide their captives taken during cross-border kidnapping raids, according to military officials.

The last incident was the abduction of German yachtsman Jurgen Kantner in November 2016. Kantner was beheaded months later by his captors, believed to be a faction of the Abu Sayyaf.

Two Canadian hostages had suffered the same fate the previous year after their families failed to give in to the kidnappers ransom demands.

Jeoffrey Maitem from Cotabato City contributed to this report.Crew members of the hijacked Panama-flagged Maximus ship walk off the ship after being rescued by Nigerian naval forces stormed aboard, Feb. 22, 2016.

Seven Filipinos are among the dozen crew members of a Swiss-owned ship who were kidnapped by pirates off the coast of Nigeria, Philippine government officials announced Wednesday as they labored to learn more details about the incident.

Foreign Department spokesman Elmer Cato said Filipino diplomats in Berne and Abuja were coordinating with authorities in Nigeria to track down the pirates who attacked MV Glarus on Saturday.

The Philippine Embassy in Abuja said the seven were among 12 of 19 crew members who were reported to have been taken by gunmen as the vessel was making its way from Lagos to Port Harcourt, Cato said.

Shortly after the attack, the company sent a statement to news media that the pirates boarded the ship 45 nautical miles southwest of Bonny Island by means of long ladders and cut the razor wire on deck to gain access to the vessel and eventually the bridge. Having destroyed much of the vessel's communications equipment, the criminal gang departed taking 12 of the 19 crew complement as hostage.

The nationalities of the crew members were not released at that time.

On Wednesday, Shirley Ho Vicario, Philippine Ambassador to Nigeria, said the pirates abandoned five other Filipinos and two foreign nationals on the ship.

The majority of the 1.2 million seafarers in the global shipping industry come from the Philippines.

The kidnapping is fourth since 2007 where Filipino seafarers were taken from ships off Nigeria. In 2011, Filipino seafarer Farolito Vallega, 48, was aboard a German-owned ship, MV Beluga Navigation, when he was shot and killed by Somali pirates.

Data from the World Shipping Council shows 12 ships with more than 170 seafarers from around the world are being held hostage by Somali pirates.Send items of interest to Yvonne Barnes, 1458 Colonel Maham Dr., Pineville, SC 29468 or via email at ybarnes@homesc.com.Julie R. Smith , whose brother T-Bob has lived in Florida for 30 years, can be reached at widdleswife@aol.com.Check out the top stories from BGSU and beyond in our newscast and online edition of our newspaper every Wednesday. You can also view past papers by clicking the e-edition header above.Plus, Bill's Message of the Day, the truth about kids and the COVID-19 vaccine.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesMedia Advisory, September 26, 2018 Contact: Noah Greenwald, (503) 484-7495, ngreenwald@biologicaldiversity.org

Supreme Court to Hear Challenge to Habitat Protections for Endangered Frog Case Would Be Brett Kavanaugh's First If Confirmed WASHINGTON The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments at 10 a.m. on Monday, Oct. 1 in a case challenging habitat protections in Mississippi and Louisiana for endangered dusky gopher frogs. The Center for Biological Diversity is a defendant. Were hopeful the justices will ultimately uphold this imperiled frogs habitat protections, said Collette Adkins, who represents the Center before the Supreme Court. You cant conserve endangered animals if you dont protect their homes and the places they need to survive and recover. This cases outcome could mean the difference between recovery and extinction for many of our nations rarest animals. This would be Brett Kavanaughs first case as a Supreme Court justice if he is confirmed. What: Hearing in Weyerhaeuser Co. v. Fish and Wildlife Service, a challenge to designation of critical habitat for an endangered frog under the Endangered Species Act. When: Monday, Oct. 1, at 10 a.m. Eastern (the first case of the Courts new session) Where: Supreme Court of the United States, 1 First Street NE, Washington, D.C. Media Availability: Representatives from the Center, including a Center attorney fighting for the frogs protections, will be available before and after the hearing. Background

The U.S. Supreme Court in January granted a petition for certiorari, filed by the timber company Weyerhaeuser, to reconsider a June 2016 decision from a three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals that upheld a 2012 rule establishing the frogs protections. That rule protects 6,477 acres of critical habitat in Mississippi and Louisiana, including 1,600 privately owned acres of unoccupied frog habitat in St. Tammany Parish, La. The Service estimated economic impacts from the designation as ranging from zero to $34 million. Owners of the St. Tammany Parish land would experience no economic impacts if they continue to use the land for timber production. The panel held that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reasonably concluded that the St. Tammany Parish land is essential for recovery of the frogs, which are now confined to just three sites in southern Mississippi  with only one site regularly showing frog reproduction. Legal action and advocacy by the Center prompted the 2012 critical habitat designation at issue in the Supreme Court case, as well as the 2001 listing and 2015 recovery plan for the frogs. The Center, along with the Gulf Restoration Network, is a party in the litigation but will not be providing argument before the Supreme Court.This Is India's First Ever Human Brain Museum Life oi-Syeda Farah Noor

There are so many exciting concepts on offer in museums and we have even gone to museums as a part of our educational trips. But have you heard of a place where you can view or even touch a human brain for real?

Well, this is now possible as we are sharing the details of India's first human brain museum.

Here, you can not only see the different human brains kept on display but also touch and feel them!

Most Read : This Is The Black Magic Capital Of India

Well, this is NIMHANS, and here we bring in details about the same.

It Is Situated In Bangalore This unique brain museum is being housed inside the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences which is also known as NIMHANS in Bangalore. This museum is now open for students and tourists where they can touch and even feel a real brain by holding it in their hands! The Researchers Lead The Tour The researchers in the hospital lead the tour when one visits the place, and they also encourage people to touch and feel the human brain in order to demystify it! Real-life Stories Of Haunted Dolls Will Give You The Creeps The Different Types Of Brain On Display There are different types of brains on display in this unique museum. The brains are from people who have suffered from different kinds of illnesses. The patient's brains vary from Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease and even schizophrenia. Apart from this, some of the brains on display are also labelled with the illness or injury these have suffered. There Are Other Things On Display As Well Apart from this, the museum also displays other parts of the human body as well. From the lungs of a heavy smoker to pancreas, kidneys or even a heart or a voice box and a full skeleton are all on display here. Ghost' Caught On Camera; Haunting Images From A High School This Is A Unique Concept When one visits this lab, it is a 'once in a lifetime experience', and according to data, this is the only museum of its kind in India. So would you like to visit this place? Share your thoughts in the comment section.Mistakes Responsible For Pitra Dosha Faith Mysticism oi-Renu

Pitra Dosha is an astrological term which refers to a situation where the ancestors are displeased with a person and a number of problems disrupt the normal flow of his life. It is believed that after death, people go to the Pitra Loka from where they keep supporting their families left there on the earth with their supernatural powers. Rituals are performed to please the Pitras. However, due to some mistakes made by you, they might get displeased.

When this happens, the children in the family might start suffering from health problems, expenses might start increasing and it invites poverty as well. Well, here are some reasons which might cause the ancestors to be displeased.

Killing of Snakes It is said that snakes do not have legs and that they have to crawl, killing them is considered one of the biggest sins. Moreover, they are considered dear to Lord Vishnu. Killing them deliberately or by mistake, both lead to the Pitra Dosha. Killing snakes is considered one of the reasons for Kalsarpa Dosha as well. Most Read : Symptoms And Remedies For Pitra Dosha

Killing Cows Killing cows has been described as one of the biggest sins of Hinduism. It is said all the Hindu deities reside in the body of the cow. Hindus offer prayers to a cow. That is why killing a cow is believed to bring the Pitra Dosha to the family. Not just killing, even hitting a cow by mistake is considered a sin. Disrespecting The Kul Devi Or Devta Hindu scriptures mention that every clan has a deity. It is necessary to offer prayers to this deity during every puja. Ignoring or forgetting to offer prayers to them is considered equal to a sin. Doing so might invite the wrath of the ancestors and it might become a reason for Pitra Dosha. Not Performing The Shradh Ceremony Hinduism mentions that it is mandatory to perform the Shradh karma after the death of a person. If it has not been performed yet, Pitra Dosha might be caused. It is said that the souls do not achieve salvation if the Shradh has not been performed. Thus, the shradh should be performed after the death or during the Pitra Paksha. Cutting A Peepal Or A Banyan Tree Both a Peepal tree and Banyan tree are considered sacred in Hinduism. Just as the deities, these trees are also worshipped and offered prayers. Besides this, cutting trees which are covered with flowers is also not considered right. It is also believed to invite Pitra Dosha. Creating Nuisance At Holy Places Spreading any kind of impurity at holy places, leaving dirty utensils, washing dirty clothes or doing anything immoral especially near sacred water bodies is considered disrespectful. This becomes a reason for the wrath of the ancestors, hence causing Pitra Dosha. Most Read : Pitra Paksha Puja At Home Cheating On One's Spouse Cheating on one's spouse is also considered one of the worst and the biggest sins as per Hinduism. Especially if a man extramaritalaffairs or establishes physical relations with a woman other than his wife, it leads to Pitra Dosha. Abortion or killing innocent lives might also become a reason for Pitra Dosha. Even making physical relations or intimacy on days considered sacred, such as Purnima, Amavasya etc., is also not considered right.Major disagreements remain over Canada's dairy management program, a dispute resolution process and the fate of US tariffs on metals imports from Canada.

FILE PHOTO: The flags of Canada, Mexico and the USA are seen on a lectern before a joint news conference on the closing of the seventh round of NAFTA talks in Mexico City, Mexico, March 5, 2018. As a result, the agreement would have to be finalized before October.

"But we know Canada's interests are what we have to stand up for. we are looking for the right deal, not just for Canada but for the United States", he said at an event hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations in NY.

"The fact is, Canada is not making concessions in areas where we think they're essential", he said at the Concordia Summit in NY.

U.S. President Donald Trump sits behind his desk as he announces a bilateral trade agreement with Mexico to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) at the White House in Washington, U.S., August 27, 2018. Breitbart News has confirmed the story.

The U.S. reached an agreement with Mexico to overhaul NAFTA last month and is now pushing Canada to sign on.

The United States and Canada are divided over the best way to resolve trade disputes and on a USA demand for more access to Canada's protected dairy market.

Lighthizer and Freeland are also in NY for the United Nations meeting but it is unclear whether they will meet. "We will continue to negotiate with a view to getting a deal that is in Canada's national interest", he said. Another sticking point is Canada's protected dairy industry, which isn't in the current deal but where the USA wants concessions. "There are issues of dairy and Chapter 19", he said.

Sources with knowledge of the talks have told The Globe and Mail that, in addition to these matters, Canada's demand for an exclusion from potential future auto tariffs, and USA demands for tougher pharmaceutical patent protections and increased duty-free online purchases for Canadian consumers, have not been resolved.

Trump himself has suggested that he might simply abandon talks with Canada if Canada did not join the agreement with Mexico.

The U.S. and Canada are at odds over anti-dumping dispute panels contained under Chapter 19 of the current deal, which the U.S. wants to remove and Canada wants to keep.

Under a US legal process known as Trade Promotion Authority that was invoked to revamp NAFTA, Americans lawmakers need to review the text of the agreement 60 days before President Donald Trump can sign it.

Whether Congress will pass a deal that doesn't include Canada remains unclear.

Canada had no choice but to respond with its own retaliatory tariffs, Trudeau said - making, USA -made Heinz ketchup more expensive versus its Canadian counterpart French's, "which is great", he said. Congress could, however, choose to accept a two-way deal regardless.China has refused to grant a US Navy warship permission to make a port call in Hong Kong, the local US consulate reported Tuesday, according to the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post.

China has also firmly condemned the Trump administration's announcement that it will sell $330 million (250 million) in military equipment to Taiwan. Washington has no official relations with Taiwan's democratically elected government but is obliged by USA law to see that it has the means to defend itself.

Wang Shouwen, China's vice-minister of commerce, expressed hope that there remained a "way out" of the dispute, but said yesterday: "Now that the United States has adopted such a huge trade restriction measure. how can the negotiations proceed?"

The backdrop to these tensions is the U.S.

Additionally, U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis vocally criticized Chinese militarization activities in the disputed South China Sea in a speech before regional defense leaders and analysts at the 2018 Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.

The trade war between the world's two largest economies escalated on Monday when the United States slapped import duties on another $200 billion of Chinese goods, from cigars to handbags to school books.

He claimed: "They have severely violated the basic norms of global relations and damaged the relations between the two countries and two militaries".

The rejection of the ship's port call request comes as the U.S. and China quarrel over trade and sanctions, as well as longstanding issues like the South China Sea, the Korean Peninsula, and Taiwan.

Last week, 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. Meanwhile, China's defense ministry recalled Vice Admiral Shen Jinlong, canceling a scheduled meeting with his U.S. counterpart, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson, Reuters reported.

"We believe that we do have to have a relationship with China and Secretary (of State Mike) Pompeo and I are of one mind on this", Mr Mattis told reporters at the Pentagon on Monday. In addition to warning that failure to revoke the sanctions would mean Washington "must bear the consequences", Beijing postponed a meeting it had been scheduled to host this week between US and Chinese military staffs.

"We have a long track record of successful port visits to Hong Kong, and we expect that will continue", said Eastburn, the Pentagon spokesman, in confirming that China had not approved the Wasp's visit.

China has denied port calls by U.S. Navy vessels to Hong Kong in the past at times of heightened bilateral tension.In the last few weeks, Africa witnessed two major events that could influence the continents economic landscape in the coming decades, says Ibrahim B. Anoba in this weeks Acton Commentary.

First was the visit by British Prime Minister Theresa May and her pledge of $5.1 billion in investments continent-wide, as the UK prepares for life after Brexit. Next followed the gesture of Chinese President Xi Jinping, who offered $60 billion in loans and aid to African leaders at the Forum for China-Africa Cooperation in Beijing. These two offers ironically sum up the status of the continent: Africa is the new economic frontier that needs a tremendous amount of help  and the proper way to help is seldom understood by the West. Unfortunately, what development efforts should promise, and how they should be implemented, are questions both African leaders and their partners have gotten wrong for years. But here are a few things the world must understand about helping Africa.

The full text of the essay can be found here.Less than 24-hours after Justine's attack, a 12-year-old girl from Melbourne was bitten in nearby waters.

Drum lines, which use baited hooks to catch the predators, ensnared three tiger sharks - one 3.3 metres (11 feet) long and the others each in excess of two metres - a Fisheries Queensland spokesman said Sunday.

A Fisheries Queensland spokesman said the shark caught today would have posed a serious threat to people swimming in Cid Harbour.

Marine Conservation groups have attacked the Queensland government over the capture and killing of the sharks.

The attacks, on Wednesday and Thursday, occurred in Cid Harbour, a picturesque bay surrounded by beaches in a popular tourist area on the north coast of Queensland.

Excluding the two most recent attacks, there have been 33 recorded cases of shark bites - including two resulting in death - in Australia so far in 2018, according to the Australian Shark Attack File of the Taronga Conservation Society Australia.

'The reaction by the Queensland Government setting drum lines and culling sharks is understandable and in some ways I appreciate it!' he said.

"We will do our best to ensure that whatever recommendations or advice is provided by experts in this area, that we are adhering to it", Deputy Premier Jackie Trad said.

"The message is these waters are not safe for swimming", a Fisheries spokeswoman said.

Meanwhile, the family of Hannah Papps have expressed gratitude for the quick actions of those involved in her rescue.

"We would like to thank everyone who has helped and cared for Hannah, including the police, emergency services and the hospital teams", a statement from her parents read.

"We ask that everyone please respect our family's privacy during this very hard time so we can focus our energies on Hannah's recovery". One day in Mackay, 100% of those drum lines did not have any bait.

It comes as authorities confirmed two more sharks had been caught on drum lines and killed.

Liberal National Party deputy leader Tim Mander agreed it was the right move, insisting during a press conference on Sunday that "we need to find this killer shark".

Last week Justine Barwick, 46, was attacked by a shark while snorkelling in the Whitsundays, and is lucky to be alive.

A woman who lives on a boat in Cid Harbour said the first two sharks had been shot within minutes of each other.

"The intention is to remove large unsafe sharks from the area and reduce the risk to people", he said.

"The point of what we're doing is to remove big and risky shark from the immediate area, and reduce the level of risk", the Fisheries spokesman said.An RCMP officer recalled in front of a jury the day he was dispatched to Sioux Valley Dakota First Nation after a man threatened to shoot his neighbour.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 26/9/2018 (1143 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Advertisement Advertise With Us

An RCMP officer recalled in front of a jury the day he was dispatched to Sioux Valley Dakota First Nation after a man threatened to shoot his neighbour.

Arriving before his fellow officers, Const. Les Robillard told the Brandon Court of Queens Bench on Tuesday it seemed like a good opportunity to survey the scene, so he peered through his binoculars toward the area in question.

What he saw was the barrel of a long rifle staring back at him.

"(The rifle) was pointed directly at me, or at us," Robillard said, noting additional officers had pulled up in their police cruiser behind him while he was checking out the scene.

"It was quite alarming, actually, when I saw it I let everyone know right away we needed to back up."

The man with the rifle was "scoping," Robillard said, which he described as using the scope mounted on the firearm to look around for a longer-distance target.

"I kept a visual on him and saw him scoping us with his rifle," Robillard said. "I cant remember if he was a right-handed shooter or a left-handed shooter, but I know he was definitely scoping."

Dispatch had advised officers it was John Robert Hall who had threatened his neighbour, Cameron Noel, and was in possession of the firearm, Robillard said. They also received a second call from Noel, who said Hall had fired at him four times.

Hall has pleaded not guilty to three counts of pointing a firearm, uttering threats and discharging a firearm with intent to harm. He admitted to possessing a firearm without a licence.

Noel testified the first day of Halls trial that on the morning of Nov. 19, 2016, Hall had come to Noels house while intoxicated and asked him to repay a loan.

The two men went to an ATM. Noel repaid Hall $40 and drove him home, only to have him return to his house shortly after angrily alleging he had been shortchanged and threatening to come back with a gun.

According to Noel, Hall did return with a gun and fired it at him approximately four times as he fled up a nearby hill and through some bushes.

Upon Robillards observation that Hall was pointing the rifle in their direction, both Const. Paige Kuz and Const. Eduardo Giannico testified they immediately jumped into their police cruiser and backed up as far as they could.

"I was reversing as fast as possible to get out of range, basically crouching down behind the engine block  which is really the only spot that will protect you from (bullets)  while driving in reverse as fast as I could," Kuz said.

"Its a terrifying moment to hear theres a firearm pointed at you," Giannico testified. "When your life is threatened and the people youre with are threatened, your heart stops. You remember every little detail. Its like, the best way I can describe it, when 9/11 happened  you remember where you were, what you were doing at that moment, everything."

When the officers were notified by dispatch Noel had called 911 a second time to advise that shots had been fired, Kuz said she was able to get Noels phone number and stay in contact him directly via text message to get a better idea of the scene and make sure he was safe.

All three officers were able to see Hall through the binoculars, but only Robillard and Giannico testified to seeing him in the process of pointing the gun toward them before they started to move in on Halls residence.

Hall was arrested without incident on his driveway by members of the K9 Unit, Robillard said.

All three officers testified Hall did not smell of alcohol nor was he noticeably intoxicated, as well as that he seemed to have no problem understanding what was going on.

After Halls arrest, Kuz said she went to Noels home to get a statement from him as well search for shell casings from the rifle, which she did not find on scene.

Kuz also executed the search warrant at Halls residence the next morning, where they found the .22-calibre rifle wrapped in camouflage tape tucked between the wall and a washing machine.

The bolt had been removed and was located in a bedroom, as well as 31 live rounds of .22-calibre ammunition.

Defence lawyer Andrew Synyshyn questioned Robillard on the time they received the call from dispatch. He testified  along with Kuz and Giannico  it came in between 10:30 a.m. and 10:40 a.m..

Noel testified previously that he first called 911 before or shortly after 9 a.m., with only 20 minutes going by before he called again to report the gunfire.

All three officers were also asked by defence whether they heard the four gunshots while on scene.

Robillard testified he remembered hearing a loud noise, but couldnt say for certain it was a gunshot.

Both Kuz and Giannico testified they heard no gunfire while on scene.

The trial continues today.

 edebooy@brandonsun.com

 Twitter: @erindebooyTrump, who spoke at the United Nations General Assembly in NY yesterday, lashed out at OPEC and its allies for keeping oil price high, saying that high oil prices negatively affect the economies of the world. Brent hit US$82.55 per barrel, its highest since Nov 10, 2014.

Iranian "ghost tankers" are dismantling their vessel tracking systems upon leaving the Strait of Hormuz in a bid to sell oil secretly around the world as Tehran braces for the Trump administration to reimpose harsh sanctions on its energy sector.

"OPEC - and OPEC nations - are, as usual, ripping off the rest of the world."

In fact, it has been rising since early 2017, when the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), started halting the output to lift crude prices, together with other suppliers including Russian Federation.

Commodity merchants Trafigura and Mercuria have warned that the price of oil, now at $69.85 per barrel, could go all the way up to $100 per barrel by the end of 2018 or the beginning of 2019.

Late last week, President Trump demanded that OPEC and Russian Federation do something to increase supply. USA officials say they are ramping up pressure on allies and adversaries alike with a goal of shutting down all Iranian oil and gas exports by November 4, following Mr. Trump's decision to pull out of the global nuclear accord with Tehran in May.

It could cause Washington to take extraordinary steps, including the use of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, to cool down the crude oil and other fuel prices ahead of the US mid-term elections. One is how much of Iran's oil China, India, and Europe will buy in October and then in November, when the sanctions kick in.

"We're on the verge of some significant volatility in Q4 2018 because depending on the severity and duration of the Iranian sanctions, the market simply does not have an adequate supply response for a 2 million barrel a day disappearance of oil from the markets", Jaeggi said. Expectation of a tightening supply in the global oil market in the coming months has pushed crude oil prices higher, say analysts. However, the upshot of the gathering was that the group was in no rush to do so.

"Iran will lose sizeable export volumes, and given Opec+ reluctance to raise output, the market is ill-equipped to fill the supply gap", Harry Tchilinguirian, global head of commodity markets strategy at French bank BNP Paribas, told the Reuters Global Oil Forum.

Prices are expected to remain underpinned over the near-term because the supply issues are not expected to go away. Anything higher than the estimate could spike prices even higher. "Given the current oil market scenario, we believe prices of crude oil are to rise around $78/bbl -$80/bbl unless the number of rigs deployed by the by the United States are increased", said credit ratings agency CARE Ratings.Padraig Hoare

Financial institutions across the world have paid $26bn (22bn) in fines for failures in money laundering and customer verification, and sanctions since the global financial crash, a new report has found.

Dublin-headquartered financial data management firm Fenergo found the US accounts for nearly 44% of all global regulatory anti-money laundering and so-called know-your-customer fines, yet almost 91% of the total value at over $23.5bn.

Separately, Central Bank statistics show the Irish watchdog has imposed 121 fines, totalling 63.9m, since 2007.

The Central Bank imposed no monetary penalties on any firm in 2006, and only 5,000 in 2007.

However, 10 firms were fined 3.69m in 2008, and it reached a high in 2016 when nine firms were fined over 12m.

Fines in relation to money-laundering breaches in the Republic have totalled over 12m since the Anti-Money Laundering (Criminal Justice Act) of 2010.

Europe overall has imposed 83 fines, totalling $1.7bn, with the majority being imposed by the UKs Financial Conduct Authority, found the Fenergo report.

It found that $204m in fines was imposed by the UK watchdog in 2017, the highest yield by far of the last decade.

Asia Pacific regulators have levied 79 fines, worth almost $609m, since 2011.

Fenergo said the Middle East still lags behind other regions for financial enforcement, recording just $9.5m in the last 10 years.

The US Department of Justice is the most punitive regulator in the world when it comes to imposing financial penalties for non-compliance, according to the Fenergo report.

The department levied half of the global fines and sanctions for anti-money laundering failures at nearly $14bn, followed by the New York Department of Financial Services at $3.6bn.

US regulators have hit foreign banks hard, said Fenergo, imposing fines on European banks nearly five times that imposed against US banks.

Over $11.5bn in fines was imposed in 2015, making it the most punitive of the past decade. The highest single fine ever levied against a bank by one regulator, at $8.9bn, was imposed on French giant BNP Paribas in 2015, by US authorities, for sanctions violations.

Fenergo director of global regulatory compliance Laura Glynn said: Up until now, the focus of regulators had been on the US and European markets. However, we are now witnessing regulators in Asia Pacific and the Middle East markets becoming more proactive in their supervisory efforts.Brexit will pose the hospitality industry's "most immediate threat", according to the Restaurants Association of Ireland (RAI).

The group launches its Pre-Budget Submission for 2019 today which outlines its plan to sustain jobs, maintain competitiveness and deliver certainty for the restaurant and tourism sector.

The Irish restaurant industry employs 171,700 people and contributes 2bn to the economy each year.

The RAI said it is "critical" that the 9% VAT rate is kept in place for until 2022 in order for the Irish economy to remain competitive.

Adrian Cummins, Chief Executive of the RAI said "When the economy went into decline, restaurants endured falling numbers of diners, rising prices and great financial uncertainty, with many having to close their businesses.

"Since the VAT cut, employment in the restaurant and tourism sector increased by approximately 54,400 direct jobs with an additional 25,024 indirect jobs which gives a total employment increase of 79,424. This growth will continue if VAT at 9% remains in effect," he said.

Mr Cummins said that the key issues facing the industry are the severity of the threat of Brexit and the need to retain the 9% VAT rate.

Brexit is the hospitality industrys most immediate threat in 2018 and that danger will follow into 2019," he said.

We must retain measures such as the 9% VAT rate to allow businesses to remain competitive while we continue to measure the potential damage that Brexit could introduce to the industry.

The RAI created a plan to maintain and grow employment in the hospitality industry with the following key proposals:

Counteract the Skills Shortage that Threatens Success of the Industry

Minimise the Dangers of Brexit and Sterling Weakness

Enhanced Access to Work Permits for Hospitality Staff

Reduce the Current Rate of Excise Duty to Encourage Spend in Restaurants

A Reduction in Excessive Insurance Costs

Enhance Competitiveness With Irelands National Tourism Policy

Meanwhile, the Irish Tourism Industry Confederation (ITIC) has also highlighted the importance of retaining the 9% VAT rate today as part of its eight-year growth strategy.

The group published a six month progress update on its roadmap for the sector: Tourism: An Industry Strategy for Growth to 2025.

The strategy estimates that earnings from overseas tourism can increase by 65% to 8.1bn annually by 2025 if the right policies and investment strategies are adopted.

Its progress update shows that growth continues at 8% in 2018 and the tourism industry is adding significant capacity increases in both hotel developments and air and sea access in the coming years.

However, the ITIC reiterates that there are "significant challenges" with Brexit posing "a major concern" to the industry.

ITIC CEO, Eoghan OMara Walsh, says that the retention of competitiveness remains vital if Irish tourism is to continue to grow.

Irish tourism must retain its competitiveness and ensure that we continue to offer tourists good value for money. There is an onus on both the industry and the Government to manage costs accordingly.

In this regard maintaining the 9% tourism VAT rate is critical  with Brexit looming the last thing the sector needs is an increased VAT rate which would depress demand, damage the sector, and hit regional Ireland particularly hard.

Of the 51 policy recommendations outlined in the ITIC 2025 Strategy, six have already been achieved with another 32 in progress.

In terms of Budget 2019, the ITIC strategy highlights the importance of retaining the 9% VAT rate and advocates that 50m more per annum should be committed to tourism state agencies to increase overseas marketing and industry supports.

Digital DeskPadraig Hoare

A Cork medical device firm will look to the American market for growth after its second revolutionary orthopaedic surgery nailing system was greenlit by US regulatory bodies.

Following approval earlier this year for its Apex Tibial Nail System, OrthoXel has now been cleared by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its Apex Femoral Nailing System.

The tibial product is said to offer surgeons the greatest range of locking options of any nail on the market, and is designed to heal fractures in a quicker timeframe.

The femoral product is geared towards the specific treatment of femoral fractures.

https://t.co/bDuraq3sZ6

Great new website learn more about @OrthoXel Apex Tibial Nailing System and meet our fantastic team. We're full steam ahead planning for #OTA2018 @OrthoTraumaAssn pic.twitter.com/kKq50XBNAz  OrthoXel Evolving | Fracture | Fixation (@OrthoXel) September 11, 2018

Following the first patient in Cork University Hospital (CUH) trauma centre to have its Apex Tibial Nail implanted during surgery to repair a fractured shinbone earlier this year, it was given the greenlight by the FDA and also secured the CE certification for selling products in the EU.

The second product will allow it to take on bigger medical device firms in the huge US market, according to the firm.

Co-founder and chief executive Pat OConnor said: While we recognise the challenge of entering markets dominated by large multinationals, OrthoXel is confident that the unique locking options and advantageous biomechanics of both our Apex Femoral and our Apex Tibial Nailing Systems confers real market advantage. Our products really should be the devices of choice for orthopaedic trauma care.

Fellow co-founder and chief technical officer, Charles Daly said the firm will now be focusing on generating clinical case studies and will be market ready in 2019.

Our incredible engineering and design team in Cork has really strived to achieve truly next-generation intramedullary nails that are packed with unique features and benefits for the surgeon and patient alike

Meanwhile, Cork-based specialist supplier of innovative healthcare, Healthcare21 received approval from the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) to buy a majority in Aquilant from H2 Equity Partners.The newly combined business employs more than 450 staff in Ireland, UK, Germany and Austria and has turnover in excess of 150m, Healthcare21 said, which has now more than doubled in size over the past two years.Aquilant provides specialist healthcare and scientific products and services.Geoff Percival

Agri-services group Origin Enterprises has said that it is well-prepared for any short-term logistical disruption caused by a no-deal Brexit.

The group reported revenues of nearly 1.63bn for the 12-months to the end of July; 9% up on the previous year. Pre-tax profits were up by 7% at 70.3m. Operating profit rose 4.6% to just over 71m.

Origins UK and Ireland division increased revenues over 6%. Management said while Brexit could challenge its growth, the group is prepared and has received regular updates on potential impacts and implications for UK domestic agricultural policy and regulation.

Given the groups well- diversified business in the UK, continental Europe and Latin America, it is able to maintain a flexible approach to dealing with the potential challenges that will arise following Brexit

We believe that we are well prepared for any short-term logistical disruption that may result from a no-deal Brexit.

It said it will continue to closely monitor Brexit negotiations and adjust the groups strategic and operational plans as necessary.

In June, Origin purchased stakes in two specialist agri businesses in Brazil, thus spreading its footprint outside of Europe for the first time.

It yesterday announced the appointment of Declan Giblin as chief executive of its new Latin American division. He is currently the groups head of corporate development.

Acquisitions contributed 5% to Origins sales growth in its latest financial year and 3.6% to operating profit growth."By mid-October, all (fighters of the Al-Nusra Front) must leave this demilitarised zone, and all heavy military equipment must be pulled out of there", he said.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Sunday that Turkey would continue to increase the number of safe zones within Syria to include the east of the Euphrates River.

The 10-article memorandum of the Sochi deal suggests that the Idlib demilitarized area will be preserved, while Turkish observation posts will be fortified and continue to function.

20, underlined the importance of the Turkey-Russia agreement aimed at preventing a military escalation in Idlib.

Turkey has sent special forces to Idlib governorate as to enhance the supervision points, in a first move after the deal that provided for the establishment of a buffer zone between the areas controlled by the Syrian regime and those held by the opposition. However, the light weapons will still be held by a few of the forces of the moderate opposition.

Emboldened, they are taking to the streets at least once a week against Syrian regime leader Bashar al Assad. A possible assault on Idlib by Syrian forces and their Russian allies has been a matter of concern for Turkey. Tahrir al-Sham's position will be critical. The Al Qaeda-linked HTS has not yet said whether it has accepted the deal.

The group declared the agreement part of a plan "to eliminate the jihadist project" in the Levant.

A statement released by the movement's executive office said, "we appreciate the great efforts of the Russian and Turkish presidents to reach an agreement that would protect the Syrian Idlib and hundreds of thousands of civilians there".

The Russian-Turkish accord could be validated by a resolution or declaration by the Security Council, which includes France among its permanent members, a French diplomatic source said, adding that talks in that direction were now underway in NY.

Close to 3 million people live in Idlib, around half of them Syrians displaced by the war from other parts of Syria, and the United Nations has warned that an offensive would cause a humanitarian catastrophe.Gordon Deegan

The cost of shutting down the only Irish-based manufacturing plant of pharmaceutical giant Roche, along with the loss of 240 jobs, has contributed to combined pre-tax losses of over 112m at the Irish unit of the business over the past two years.

The Swiss-owned pharma giant announced in 2016 that it was to close the plant at Clarecastle, Co Clare, after it failed to secure a buyer for the site.

The facility is currently in the process of a phased closedown with the site to be shut, and all jobs lost, by the end of next year.

Newly filed accounts show Roche Ireland Ltd last year recorded pre-tax losses of 33.3m, which followed pre-tax losses of 79.3m in 2016  a total of 112.6m.

Prof. Gold discusses how the progressive nature of #MS impacts daily activities for those living with the condition. pic.twitter.com/LXrXDMfdNT  Roche (@Roche) September 26, 2018

Revenues at the company last year declined by 16% to 67.9m. The accounts show that the firm has set aside 23.15m in redundancy payments for employees not yet departed but who have an expectation that their jobs will be lost by the end of next year. The accounts say this money will be utilised by that date.

The accounts disclose that a capital grant of 1.45m from the IDA in 2014 has been paid back in full following the decision to shut down the plant.

A note attached to the accounts also states that a decommissioning provision of 9m was recorded by the end of last year while Roche also recorded an impairment charge of 8.8m during the year.

As part of the gradual wind-down, the numbers employed at the plant last year declined from 223 to 131, with staff costs reducing from 25.97m to 16.8m.By Daniel McConnell, Political Editor

Update 6.26pm: President Michael D Higgins has promised to provide a formal statement about spending at Aras an Uachtarain, as he defended his unaudited annual allowance of 317,000.

Officially launching his campaign in Dublin, President Higgins said he had no difficulty answering questions about the allowance, which he said is spent on garden parties and tea parties as well as the hosting of foreign leaders.

I have no difficulty in constructing a formal statement that can live within the Constitution and at the same time accept the independence of the president, whoever he or she is, he said of the allowance.

The allowance has been in existence since 1938 and was set at its present level of 317,000 in 1998.

Addressing the issue of transparency at the Aras, President Higgins said he has since the summer move to supply more information.

President Michael D Higgins at the launch of his re-election campaign in Dublin. Photo: Niall Carson/PA Wire

He indicated the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) could play a role in that process.

During a lengthy press conference, President Higgins defended his stay in a luxurious five-star hotel in Geneva where the top suites can cost 3,000 a night, saying he doesnt make arrangements for such overnights.

President Higgins said it is the job of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) to decide where he stays when he is abroad and he is not consulted about that.

I have never asked to stay in a particular hotel. I have stayed in hostels and stayed in tents and with Concern in Somalia.

It is a question I never ask. I dont really think about all of that when I do go abroad, he said.

The ambassador and the host country are involved and then there are those who have security concerns, he said.

The Aras confirmed Mr Higgins travelled to Geneva to speak at an event hosted by the International Labour Organisation but refused to comment on claims by Senator Gerard Craughwell that he stayed in a top suite in a hotel that boasts a Michelin Star restaurant and 3,000-a-night rooms named after composers, actresses and French politicians.

Michael D Higgins with his wife, Sabina. Photo: Garrett White / Collins Photos

President Higgins was asked about the comments made by fellow candidate Peter Casey, which appeared to suggest that a recent security incident involving an intruder at the Aras was a stunt.

Responding to questions as to what happened, he said: I do hope you have an opportunity to ask Mr Casey about his language and his use of it, he said. The gate was open and (the intruder) drove in and the door was open and came into a door beside my office. We had a conversation. There were a few things we discussed. When that was finished I left the room under my own volition. She was then interviewed by a senior garda. She was an unemployed person. I wished her well. Thats how it should be, he said.

Responding directly to Mr Caseys charge that it was a stunt, he said: Maybe that candidate is not too long back from America.

Asked about comments from his rivals about his age, Mr Higgins (77) said he was fit and healthy.

I have much more energy and efficiency than in 2011," he said, because he had undergone an operation on his knee back then.

I dont drink and dont smoke and I have a yoga teacher, he said to laughter.

Asked about the likely impact of Brexit, President Higgins said he is the best person to be Irelands voice through the UK's exit from the EU.

Citizens have spoken to me about the uncertainty of Brexit, about the fragility of our international systems and shared planet.

They believe that Irelands voice can and must matter in a difficult global landscape.

He called for Ireland to be a champion for human rights and for sustainable development, as well as peace. He also said he would continue to deepen connections with the Irish diaspora.

Earlier: 'A President for us all': Michael D Higgins launches election campaign

By Denise O'Donoghue

Update 5.23pm: Michael D. Higgins launched his campaign for the forthcoming Presidential election today.

At his campaign headquarters in central Dublin, under a campaign banner of A President for us all, Michael D. Higgins spoke about how much he has learnt from conversations with people across Ireland over the course of the Presidency, and how their concerns, ideas and vision had inspired him to stand for a second term.

I am offering myself as a candidate because I am passionate about the challenges and possibilities of the coming years, he said.

In setting out his vision, Michael D. Higgins, who is an independent candidate, spoke about a real republic of equality, sustainability and possibility.

"As President, I can offer an authentic understanding of the many strands that make up our national story, however I am also passionate about the next chapters and the new possibilities we will weave together," said President Higgins.

"My campaign will be modern, energetic and inclusive, drawing on the enthusiasm of thousands of supporters from all walks of life in communities across Ireland.

It will be a dignified and respectful campaign in which my supporters and I will work to sustain the dignity of the office of President, which belongs not to any individual, but to the present and future citizens of Ireland.

The incumbent has rejected questions about whether his age is an issue in the election saying it should be about someone's cognitive ability.

He also defended the 317,000 payment made to the President to fund Aras events, saying he never sees any of it and it is in the power of the Oireachtas to change it.

Mr Higgins says he will participate in as many debates during the campaign as possible.

He also said he has a yoga teacher which is helping him to feel young and have more energy than he did in 2011.

"I don't drink, I don't smoke and I have a yoga teacher," he said.

Building on the successful previous initiatives of his Presidency, including Being Young and Irish, Glaoch, and the Ethics Initiative, President Higgins will be announcing three key initiatives over the next three weeks.

If elected, these would be integral to his second term. They will be launched at events around the country over the course of the campaign.The Department of Education is facing calls to ban vending machines in schools.

The Joint Committee on Children and Youth Affairs met today to discuss tackling childhood obesity.

Early intervention was highlighted as essential to teach young people how to make healthy eating decisions throughout their life.

Fianna Fail's Spokesperson on Children and Youth Affairs, Anne Rabbitte, thinks that monitoring children's weight needs to be done in a more normalised school setting.

Ms Rabbitte said: "I think we should be normalising what we are doing as opposed to taking it away in that particular setting, but I do think we need to start gathering data.

"The best way of gathering data, if we are talking about the earlier sector, we've a 97% take-up in the ECCE. Surely we should be starting at the first point of entry.

"That should be with the GP, but there should be a mechanism for continuing it on."

When it comes to tackling obesity among older children, it was revealed that 27% of secondary schools are said to have a vending machine on site.

While the Department of Education said they would support any school who wished to oppose a fast foot outlet opening near them, they have no intention of banning vending machines.

Chair of the Committee Senator Catherine Noone said that's not good enough.

She said: "There are so many opportunities for children to get junk food. Really and truly, there should be a directive on this from the department."Journalist Gemma O'Doherty has conceded defeat in her bid to be nominated to contest next month's presidential election after falling far short of the level of backing required to officially enter the race.

In a message on Twitter this afternoon, the controversial figure - who has claimed the State was involved in Veronica Guerin's murder among other allegations - claimed she has been blocked by the political elite from contesting.The government has voted against a proposal to ban the online advertising of alcohol to children.

Sinn Fein put forward the change to the Public Health Alcohol Bill, which is being debated in the Dail this evening.Ireland is to become a member state of the European Southern Observatory (ESO).

It provides state-of-the-art research facilities to astronomers, and the country will officially join on October 1.

The Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies is welcoming the move, saying it is "hugely significant for future generations of Irish scientists".

DIAS Professor Tom Ray has been appointed by the Government to represent Ireland on the ESO Council.

Dr Eucharia Meehan, CEO of DIAS, said: "Ireland's membership of the ESO has been a strategic aim of DIAS for many years.

"We are delighted Ireland will officially join the ESO from 1st October, and we are honoured that our own Professor Tom Ray will represent Ireland on the ESO Council."

Prof. Ray said: "Membership of the ESO is a wonderful development for Irish astronomy and is hugely significant for future generations of Irish scientists.

"It means we now have access to world-class facilities and we can lead programmes on such topics as the physics of the gas and dust in our galaxy; the birth of stars and planets; the interaction of black holes with exotic stars in binary systems; and the formation of the first galaxies.

"Access to the ESO means that, from now on, Irish astronomers - as members of a consortium and in collaboration with industry - can be at the cutting edge of astronomical developments globally."An urgent forum to address the number of sexual assaults of college-students must be convened the Dail has been told.

Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin has called on the Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan to set up a forum involving the Rape Crisis Centre, the Garda Commissioner and the leaders of third-level institutions following a number of rapes in Cork.

Raising an "alarming" Irish Examiner report which revealed that three first-year students have been raped in Cork since the start of the academic year, Mr Martin said similar incidents are happening across the country.

He said there is evidence that shows that this is a "phenomenon" and that September and October when students begin college can be the "most dangerous time" for young women.

"Freshers week or during that whole first month, people are vulnerable and we can't just read these reports and just not respond, we need a comprehensive, urgent and different way," he told the Dail

Referring to the assaults in Cork, Mr Martin said: "The young women involved were between 18 and 19 years of age.

"The most alarming fact is that the three women did not feel they could go to the Gardai because of the circumstances of the assault and the rape.

"They felt it was their own fault as alcohol is involved. Two of the three women have already dropped out of college."

Responding, Minister Flanagan said he shared the Fianna Fail leader's concern and urged any victims of sexual assault to report these crimes to the gardai.

"I believe there is merit in making contact with the management teams in our third-level colleges," he said.By Patrick Flynn

A transatlantic jet has made an emergency landing at Dublin Airport after the crew reported an engine fire.

American Airlines flight AA-101 was en route from London Heathrow to New York at the time. There were 206 passengers and a crew of 13 on board.

The Boeing 777-200 jet was passing overhead Ireland when the crew opted to divert to Dublin Airport. The crew advised air traffic controllers that they needed to divert as they had a fire in the left engine.

The flight commenced its descent and rerouted to Dublin where the airports fire and medical services had been placed on standby. The aircraft landed safely at 11.47am.

After vacating the runway and coming to a stop on a taxiway, fire crews approached the engine and used thermal imaging equipment to check for any sign of fire.

After landing, the crew asked air traffic controllers whether they saw any smoke from the engine. Controllers confirmed there was no sign of smoke while fire crews also said they was no sign of smoke or fire.

It is now understood that the crew received an engine fire indication but that there was no fire.

The airline confirmed that the flight diverted to Dublin after an indicator light in the cockpit indicated a possible mechanical issue.

"Our maintenance team is currently inspecting the aircraft and we hope to have our customers on their way to New York soon. We never want to disrupt our customers travel plans, and we are sorry for the trouble this caused, the airline said.Update: The Government has announced details of plans to extend its 'Housing First' plan - which is aiming to 'reduce and end' rough sleeping and long-term homelessness - from Dublin to the rest of the country.

Ministers said the goal is to provide people with permanent housing as quickly as possible - as well as providing "significant health supports, particularly in the area of addiction and mental health".

More than 660 'permanent and secure' tenancies are set to be provided across the country's 31 local authorities as part of the plan, which involves efforts across both the housing and health ministries.

Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy explained: "This plan greatly expands the scope of Housing First by setting targets to support over 650 individuals.

"The target group will be individuals who are rough sleeping, or are long-term users of emergency accommodation, who will be supported to move to homes with the necessary tenancy and health supports."

He added: "The plan sets targets for every local authority and aims to reduce and where possible eliminate rough sleeping and long-term use of emergency accommodation."

Latest figures from the Government have shown that just under 10,000 people are in emergency accommodation around the country.

A rough sleeper count in March, meanwhile, showed there were at least 110 people sleeping rough across the Dublin area on the night of the count.

Earlier: Peter McVerry Trust: Govt's Housing First strategy 'a game changer'

The homeless charity, Peter McVerry Trust, has hailed the Government's new Housing First strategy as "a game changer in the States response to homelessness".

The strategy was launched at Peter McVerry Trusts social housing development, St Agathas Court, in Dublin by the Minister for Housing, Eoghan Murphy, and Minister for Health, Simon Harris.

The charity believes that the State-funded expansion of the model beyond Dublin will make a huge impact on homelessness.

Pat Doyle CEO of Peter McVerry Trust said: The publication today of the national Housing First strategy is a game changer in the response to homelessness in this country.

"Housing First is undoubtedly the best possible response to the needs of people who are sleeping rough, long-term shelter users and people with complex needs. Peter McVerry Trust is absolutely delighted that Ireland is set to become a global leader in rolling out Housing First.

Housing First is built on the right to housing and ensuring that people have intensive wraparound supports to help them keep their homes. Clearly working to address your issues from a stable home with the help of a highly skilled, professional multi-disciplinary team is much more successful than trying to do so from a congregated setting like emergency homeless accommodation or living rough on the streets.

The Housing First programme is being rolled out to Cork, Galway and Limerick.

Mr Doyle said: "The inclusion of a new rural Housing First programme for the Mid-East region of Kildare, Meath and Wicklow is the first time Housing First will be officially rolled out in non-city environment in Ireland, that scheme will be of huge significance for the rest of the country as it will point to the challenges and benefits of delivering the scheme over a wider area.

The National Housing First strategy also recognises and proposes the expansion of Housing First to new groups including people leaving the care system and institutions such as prisons."

Mr Doyle said he was very confident that housing units for single people would not now be as difficult to secure as they had been in previous years.

He said: The success of the Housing First Model is very much dependent on the availability of housing and in particular appropriate housing for single people. In recent years that has been hugely challenging.

"I very much believe that with increased housing output particularly by local authorities, approved housing bodies as well as the ramping up of schemes to tackle vacant homes we can look forward to greater availability of housing to ensure the strategy works."We only ask that you honor our sovereignty in return".

Elsewhere in his address, Trump talked America First, and the "pillars of peace...sovereignty, security, and prosperity".

Since then, Trump and Kim have met in Singapore, where they pledged to seek denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.

Trump was making his eagerly-awaited president's address at the United Nations when he typically boasted about his administration being the "most accomplished" in America's history.

Trump caused a moment of levity when he praised what his administration had accomplished as nearly unmatched.

Responding to the laughs, Trump said, "Didn't expect that reaction, but that's OK".

The United States was instrumental in founding the United Nations more than 70 years ago, hosts the world body and remains its largest single donor.

Trump announced new US sanctions on Maduro and his inner circle.

The Iranian leader continued to target Trump in language if not directly in name.

Trump later told reporters that "everything about Iran is failing right now". "Iran's leaders plunder the nation's resources to enrich themselves and to spread mayhem across the Middle East and far beyond".

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani accused his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump of trying to topple his government Tuesday as he poured cold water on the idea of resuming talks with Washington after it pulled out from the nuclear deal.

Where do other key nations stand?

Rouhani earlier said that as a precondition for any dialogue, Trump would need to fix the damage done by exiting the nuclear deal.

A year ago, Trump stood at the global rostrum and derided the North Korean leader as Little Rocket Man, and threatened to "totally destroy North Korea".

"I traveled to Pyongyang last week and had a very good meeting with Chairman Kim". Trump has said he expects to have another summit with Kim soon, although worldwide watchdogs have stated North Korea hasn't backed off development of its nuclear program.

"I think that, at some point, they're going want to negotiate".

"The dictatorship used the funds released by the deal to finance terrorism and fund havoc and slaughter in Syria and Yemen", Trump said.

The other parties to the deal, under which Iran agreed to curbs on its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief, remain in the agreement and met Monday in NY to reaffirm their support for it.

But in a live appearance on Monday's News at Nine, former Italian Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi said he sees a shift in Europe's mood on the issue.

Trump added that the USA would not participate in the new Global Compact on Migration, scheduled to be adopted in Morocco in December 2018, stressing that "migration should not be governed by an worldwide body unaccountable to our own citizens". "But now it's like home".

"Iran's neighbours have paid a heavy toll for the regime's agenda of aggression and expansion", Trump said, accusing Iranian leaders of having "embezzled billions of dollars" from the country's treasury to wage proxy wars.

Hours after the US and Iranian leaders took aim at each other at the UN General Assembly, US National Security Adviser John Bolton said at an anti-Iran summit that Tehran will have "hell to pay" if it crosses the US or its allies.

But the U.S. President's main message was aimed at Iran and attempting to drive a wedge between its leadership and its people, days after an attack in southwestern Iran on a military parade killed 25 people and unsettled the country. "Socialism's thirst for power leads to expansion, incursion, and oppression".Today is the official start of the Presidential election campaign.

There are currently six candidates - President Michael D Higgins, Sinn Fein's MEP Liada Ni Riada, Senator Joan Freeman and former Dragon's Den stars Sean Gallegher, Peter Casey and Gavin Duffy.Police in the North are warning the public after close to 60 reports of attempted fraud on Monday.

People reported attempts had been made to scam people out of money in three counties.Irish Water is calling on customers to continue to conserve water despite the hosepipe ban being lifted.

The ban was as a result of the dry summer, leading to critical water levels in many areas.

The utility said "significant rain" in August means supplies have returned, or are returning, to normal levels for this time of the year.

However, Irish Water's Kate Gannon says a scheme in Co Westmeath still remains at risk.

Ms Gannon said: "So, the Mullingar Regional Water Supply Scheme is still at risk because the levels in Lough Owel are still falling.

"Lough Owel is actually a lake, but it is a spring-fed lake so we need the groundwater levels to recharge for that lake to recover.

The Water Conservation Order in effect from 1 September has now been lifted. Rainfall rates have returned or are returning to average rates for this time of year at all observational stations in the Southern, Eastern and Midlands regions. See https://t.co/5Cvoum0UhC for more.  Irish Water (@IrishWater) September 25, 2018

"We don't have night-time restrictions on at the moment, but we are watching that and we are hoping we won't have to introduce it."

Irish Water said the probability of a water outage is now very low.

They said: "In the Greater Dublin Area, where we were very concerned about the levels in the Poulaphuca reservoir, the rate of decline has decreased significantly and the probability of an outage is now very low. Levels at the Inniscarra dam in Cork, Lough Guitane in Kerry and Lough Owel in Mullingar have all stabilised and are recovering.

"While this is very welcome news, it is essential that people continue to conserve water."On Sunday it was revealed that Westlife are

One of the most successful boybands in the world, the group had 14 number one singles in the UK and sold over 50 millions records worldwide.

According to reports in the Irish Sun, Shane, Mark, Kian and Nicky will return to the stage in Croke Park sometime next summer.

Brian McFadden will also not be part of the reunion.

They are reportedly moving from Simon Cowell's record label to Universal Music.

Fans will be waiting with credit cards in hand for official confirmation of upcoming gigs.Last week it was announced that Rod Stewart would play Cork's Pairc Ui Chaoimh on Saturday, May 25.

Fans are reminded that tickets for the gig will go on sale tomorrow morning, September 27 at 9am from all usual outlets.The government said if it's unable to reach a comprehensive Brexit deal with its European Union counterparts, UK-based airlines would have to seek permission each time they plan to fly from the United Kingdom to Europe.

Asked on the flight to NY by the Daily Express which scenario is better between no deal and Canada plus she said: "I have always said no deal is better than a bad deal".

Early Tuesday evening Labour Party delegates voted overwhelmingly for a motion making a second referendum on Brexit an option.

"I still do believe that we can get a good deal.at that point all members of parliament will have a clear choice", she said.

Asked by reporters en route to NY whether she could guarantee to "Brenda from Bristol" - the woman whose disgruntled reaction to news of last year's vote became a social media meme - that there would not be another election before Brexit happened in March 2019, the prime minister responded: "What I am doing is working to deliver a good deal with Europe in the national interest".

But with Britain due to leave European Union in six months, on March 29, and negotiations at an impasse, Corbyn is under intense pressure from party members to support a new public vote.

"What we've put on the table is a good deal. That's the right, sensible approach".

Britain, which has warned it could leave without a deal, published 25 technical notices on Monday covering everything from commercial road haulage and buying timber to airline regulations and taking pets overseas.

May said if the European Union had concerns about her Brexit Chequers plan for future relations it should set them out along with any counter-proposals.

"There is no other plan that protects jobs and livelihoods and also meets our commitments in Northern Ireland, while respecting how people voted in the largest democratic exercise in our history", May will say, referring to the 2016 vote.

"I am confident we can reach a deal about our future relationship".

Her spokesman said later that May was specifically referring to the type of deal the European Union is now offering on future trade, which Britain believes will split England, Wales and Scotland from Northern Ireland by insisting Northern Ireland adhere to different customs rules.

"Crucially we also have a plan to deliver an economy that is knowledge-rich, highly innovative, highly skilled and high quality with low tax and smart regulation".

However, any post-Brexit immigration policy could be affected by Britain's future trade deals.

Rebecca Long-Bailey joined Shelagh Fogarty from the Labour Party conference. The plan was swiftly criticised by business lobby groups.The Billionaire Raj

James Crabtree

"The Billionaire Raj: a Journey through India's New Gilded Age", by James Crabtree, is published by Oneworld (July 2018).

Oneworld, $32.99

It's a commonplace that abject poverty and obscene wealth exist in dramatic proximity in India, but recently that inequality has grown. The top 1 per cent of income earners take more of the national income than at any time since the inception of tax records. This new class of the super-rich, James Crabtree tells us, has been christened "Bollygarchs", echoing the powerful, politically connected class of Russian industrialists. Crabtree takes us inside the history of their rise, their networks and practices. One relevant figure is Gautam Adani, founder of the conglomerate proposing the controversial Queensland Carmichael coal mine, who has a long-term association with Narendra Modi, now Indian prime minister. Crabtree's book is meticulously researched and entertainingly written, and apart from his compelling economic documentation of the Bollygarchs, the accompanying examples of conspicuous consumption are perversely irresistible.Greenwood has either a great gift for impersonation, or shes a terrific character actress, or both. The way she channels the women who came before her  their distinct voices, speech patterns and mannerisms  feels effortlessly drawn from life. And their lived experience will haunt you, as it has haunted Greenwood.

Four generations of Gumbaynggirr women come to life in Sandy Greenwoods Matriarch. The one-woman show traces the artists family history, weaving her forebears stories into a larger one of strength and survival in the face of a long legacy of dispossession, oppression and violence.

Her great-grandmother, a Gumbaynggir midwife with a deep connection to country, survived the Blood Rock massacre. (Some Aborigines escaped the indiscriminate police shooting, in a piteous irony, by fleeing to their traditional birthing caves near present-day Coffs Harbour.)

Her grandmother was abandoned by her husband and left to care for 14 children, who were then snatched by the state; Greenwood's mother was left to grapple with the cultural loss and institutional abuse of the stolen generations.

And Greenwood herself faces down the effects of intergenerational trauma, the lighter skin tone that allows her to pass for white, the complexity and wonder of her cultural inheritance.

Better stagecraft is needed  poor sightlines hide some of the action  and the script could lose its sentimental frame to focus more tightly on the characters and voices that echo through time. Thats Greenwoods strongest suit, and she makes it feel like part of an oral tradition that stretches back tens of thousands of years. Which, of course, it is.Along with the announcement came a tagline and tease for the second part of the series: "The convictions were only the beginning."

The popular true-crime documentary series is returning to the streaming service on October 19, Netflix announced on Tuesday.

The show followed the convictions of Steven Avery and his nephew Brendan Dassey in the 2005 murder of 25-year-old Teresa Halbach. Both were found guilty in 2007 in connection with the murder of the 25-year-old photographer from St. John, Wisconsin.

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"In Part 2, we have chronicled the experience of the convicted and imprisoned, two men each serving life sentences for crimes they maintain they did not commit," executive producers, writers and directors Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos said in a statement.

The series followed Avery's journey from DNA exoneree and reformer to convicted murderer.

Following the show's debut in 2015, a motion for a new trial for Avery was filed and subsequently denied in 2017. The US Supreme Court elected not to hear Dassey's appeal, after lower courts overturned then ultimately reinstated his conviction.During his appearance with Moon, Trump also indicated that a second meeting with the North Korean dictator could happen "quite soon".

"We reject the ideology of globalism and we embrace the doctrine of patriotism", Trump said.

Every solution to the humanitarian crisis in Syria must also include a strategy to address the brutal regime that has fueled and financed it: the corrupt dictatorship in Iran.

"We believe that when nations respect the rights of their neighbors and defend the interests of their people, they can better work to secure the blessings of safety, prosperity and peace", he said.

Pompeo said the US considers Iran the leading state sponsor of terrorism.

In response, Trump reiterated the U.S. commitment to a "campaign of economic pressure" to deny Iran funds for its "regional behavior", and that more sanctions will follow after the resumption of oil sanctions on November 5. "In the year since the deal was reached, Iran's military budget grew almost 40 percent".

Mr Trump said he had asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to take a "hard look" at U.S. foreign assistance, saying that the USA is the world's largest donor of foreign aid "but few give anything to us".

The U.S. president also called for restoring democracy in Venezuela. "America is governed by Americans".

Trump's pull-out from the deal was met with intense criticism from world leaders, especially those of the other countries - Britain, France, Germany, China and Russian Federation - that brokered the accord.

In his speech, Trump is expected to highlight his diplomatic outreach to North Korea over the previous year and his claim that dictator Kim Jong Un promised at a June summit in Singapore to give up his nuclear arsenal - even though no proof has yet emerged to support that assertion.

U.S. President Donald Trump addresses the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in NY, U.S., September 25, 2018. The United Nations responded with laughter. North Korea announced plans to take apart a nuclear testing center and a missile launch site last week.

Trump and his aides, meanwhile, stepped up their attacks on the nuclear deal, which was a signature foreign policy achievement of the Obama administration.

He called for agreements reached years ago with trade partners to be renegotiated so they are, in his words, fair to the United States.

The overarching theme for Trump's speech was "America first", a theme he's repeated throughout his presidency.

This after the United States announced tariffs recently on another $200 billion in Chinese-made goods for a total, so far, of $250 billion.

Trump praised Gulf countries in the Middle East, including the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

Delivering a harsh message to OPEC members, Trump called on them to stop raising oil prices and to pay for their own military protection. "Nobody should like it", Trump said. Deriding the Global Compact on Migration meant to foster cooperation on migration issues - which only the United States and Hungary, a country swept up in its own anti-immigrant fervor, refuse to sign - Trump made clear his dark view of the flow of all people across borders.

"The stock market is at an all-time high in history ..."

What should have been the most devastating moment for Trump was when his boast about his administration's accomplishments prompted a laugh break.

"In less than two years, my administration has achieved more than any administration in the history of our country", Trump boasted, little more than a month before U.S. congressional elections. "Didn't expect that reaction, but that's OK".When Mike Hall's bicycle was impaled by a car, the British ultra-endurance cyclist died almost instantly on the side of a road near Canberra.

An inquest into Hall's death wrapped up on Wednesday, 18 months after he was killed when a car impaled his bike and left him with fatal head injuries.

Hall was running second in the 2017 Indian Pacific Wheel Race, a 5500km event from Fremantle to Sydney.

Mike Hall before he left on the race.

On March 31 he was hit and killed at about 6.22am in darkness on the Monaro Highway, south of Canberra.A 29-year-old man has been sentenced to at least a year in jail after he said he would bomb former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull during a "grandiose" rant at a western Sydney court last year.

The man, who has been given the court-ordered pseudonym M Dunn, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to five charges stemming from the incident on June 21, 2017, where he shouted threats from the dock at Fairfield Local Court then assaulted two police officers when they tried to put him in a court cell.

Magistrate Stuart Devine said the man made remarks including "If I had my choice I would bomb Malcolm Turnbull", "I cant wait for this country to be bombed" and "I had the biggest party the other day when they killed the people in Yemen" before he threatened to stomp and bomb an officer.

When the man was led from the court, he attacked two officers, eye-gouging one, claimed he knew Brazilian jiu-jitsu and said he would put the officers in a chokehold once he got out of his handcuffs.

The incident was mentioned in terrorism proceedings in the Supreme Court this year, where the state of NSW attempted to have the man detained after a jail sentence he was serving expired.They were drawn by the thousand, tempted by the lure of the famous Ekka strawberry sundaes and the opportunity to support farmers devastated by the strawberry contamination scare.

More than 14,000 strawberry sundaes sold out by mid-afternoon on Wednseday. Credit:Facebook/ABC Brisbane

But by mid-afternoon on Wednesday, the pop-up stall organised by the Prince Charles Hospital Foundation in Brisbane's King George Square had sold out of sundaes, selling more than 14,000, and using up 700 kilograms of strawberries.

Strawberry grower Mandy Schultz and her 12-year-old daughter Madeleine travelled from the tiny town of Wamuran, west of Caboolture, to shake hands with people and chat about their plight.

Its been really hard for us since this happened, Madeleine said.The owner of a company used by senior Berejiklian government ministers to print taxpayer-funded electoral material despite not having commercial printing facilities has donated nearly $30,000 to the NSW Liberals over the last eight years.

Zion Graphics, a business owned by Bella Vista branch president Rudy Limantono, has been used by Corrections Minister David Elliott to print electoral brochures and other material since 2011.

Treasurer Dominic Perrottet, Western Sydney Minister Stuart Ayres and Mental Health Minister Tanya Davies also used the company to produce material, in 2016 and 2017.

Innovations minister Matt Kean has also used the company, along with several Liberal MPs including Riverstone MP Kevin Conolly, Kuringai MP Alister Henskens and Seven Hills MP Mark Taylor.Airbnb wants its users to pay a so-called "bed tax" when staying overnight in Queensland to boost local infrastructure, but the state government remains far from convinced.

In an unsual case of a company arguing for a tax that would make its services more expensive, the short-term letting website has called on the state government to introduce a new tax on all short-term accommodation, including Airbnb and hotels.

Airbnb wants Queensland to introduce a bed tax. Credit:Shutterstock

Under a model with a 5 per cent charge, a guest staying at a $100-a-night Airbnb listing would end up paying an extra $5 a night.

Airbnb Australia and New Zealand head of public policy Brent Thomas said small Queensland towns with only a few thousand residents were inundated with tourists during summer and the school holidays, putting pressure on council budgets.The state government's improved budget position has been welcomed but the public sector union is fed up with its members doing the heavy lifting.

An audit of the state's 2017-18 finances released on Wednesday showed expense growth of 1.9 per cent, the lowest since 1994-95.

Treasurer Ben Wyatt announced improvement in the state's finances on Wednesday. Credit:AAP

General government revenue grew by nine per cent relative to 2016-17 but the state said this had been largely driven by one-off impacts and underlying revenue growth for 2017-18 was 3.2 per cent.

The forecast $1.3 billion deficit in the 2018-19 budget has been revised down to $618 million and the audit showed the state remained on track to deliver a surplus from 2020-21.New York: Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has weighed in on the crisis engulfing ABC chairman Justin Milne, confirming that he did raise concerns with his long-term friend about stories aired by the public broadcaster but denying that he demanded particular journalists be fired.

Speaking to reporters from United Nations headquarters in New York, Mr Turnbull said editorial standards had slipped at the ABC in recent years and that his only concern was correcting inaccurate and unbalanced reporting.

Mr Turnbull would not say whether he thought it was feasible for Mr Milne, whom he appointed ABC chairman last year, to remain in the job following revelations he called for the sacking of economics correspondent Emma Alberici and political editor Andrew Probyn.

"Those are matters for Mr Milne," he said.Sign up for our PoliticsNY newsletter for the latest coverage and to stay informed about the 2021 elections in your district and across NYC

Hes taken a stone-faced look at the past!

The Prospect Heights author of The Gargoyle Hunters will discuss the citys history with the striking stone figures designed to frighten evil spirits at the Brooklyn Historical Society on Oct. 2. John Freeman Gill said was inspired to write his novel after reading a 1962 New York Herald Tribune story about real-life statue scroungers who mined piles of rubble to find remnants of the architectural ornaments.

It described a sort of fad of scavengers who would descend on demolition sites and landfills as these late 19th century buildings were being destroyed, said Gill. They were just a bunch of Brooklyn boys who would run around and rescue these pieces.

Gill researched the stone figures, which began to proliferate throughout the city in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as waves of immigrants who were stone carvers in their home countries began to adorn their simple tenement buildings with elaborate mythological and historical figures and faces. Brooklyn is the best borough to find gargoyles, Gill said.

Brooklyn has some of the greatest collections of these because of the historic districts, he said. One of my favorite neighborhoods to seek them out is Park Slope. There are blocks teeming with faces peering out at you from the architecture. And Brooklyn Heights is rich with them because of all the sumptuous mansions there.

Brooklyns gargoyles are not just winged waterspouts and defenders of the night. One of Gills favorite figures, on an old building on First Street near Eighth Avenue in Park Slope, has a real-world doppelganger.

The rarest ones are the ones that are not a historical or mythological figure, they just look like a regular person, he said. Theres this carved head with wild hair and a crazy moustache that looks like President Trumps former lawyer, Ty Cobb.

The Brooklyn Historical Society  where Gill will deliver his talk  is another of his favorite sites, since it is outfitted with terra cotta busts of Christopher Columbus and Benjamin Franklin, among others.

One thing thats particularly wonderful about doing this at the Brooklyn Historical Society is that building itself has some of the most beautiful architecture in the city  it has these fiery red portrait busts of historical and allegorical figures, he said.

Gill hopes his book will inspire Brooklynites to take their eyes off their phones and instead take in the beauty and wonder of citys architectural masterpieces.

Once you start paying attention to these, you wont stop seeing them, he said. Theyre not so hidden  theyre actually hiding in plain sight.

New Yorks Gargoyles: The Immigrants Who Made Them and the Hunters Who Saved Them at the Brooklyn Historical Society (128 Pierrepont St. at Clinton Street in Brooklyn Heights, www.brook lynhi story.org ). Oct. 2 at 6:30 pm. $10.

Reach reporter Julianne McShane at (718) 2602523 or by e-mail at jmcsh ane@c ngloc al.com . Follow her on Twitter @juliannemcshane.Pope Francis recognised seven clerics ordained by Beijing without the approval of the Holy See, the Chinese foreign ministry said.

China signed a historic "provisional agreement" with the Vatican in Beijing about the appointment of bishops on September 22, marking a major win for its "one China" goal.

Tamzin Taylor from Christian charity Open Doors told Premier the situation for Christians in the country has "vastly improved".

Jonathan Sullivan, director of the China Policy Institute at the University of Nottingham, described the accord as "a strategic move on China's part; and a naive one on the Vatican's".

"The two sides put in great effort to achieve the agreement and their good intentions deserve to be known", said Bishop Fang Jianping, deputy head of the Bishops' Conference of the Catholic Church in China.

Amnesty International China Researcher Patrick Poon told CNN the agreement created serious concerns for freedom of religion in China in the future.

Xi is trying to infuse all of the religions in China with "Chinese characteristics" such as loyalty to the Communist Party.

But Father Bernardo Cervellera, editor of the Vatican news agency Asia News, said the reaction had been more muted among Chinese Catholics.

Crux's John L Allen Jr, points out that this deal has been a priority for Pope Francis: "It's been abundantly clear that it's a top priority for Francis and detractors though he might never get it".

The bone of contention between Beijing was who the Chinese followers should listen to, - either the Communist Party, the absolute power in China, or the pope. The dispute has lingered since 1951 after China broke diplomatic ties with the Holy See.

A Holy See statement did not mention Taiwan, which the Vatican recognises diplomatically and which China sees as a renegade province.

The preliminary agreement with China "has been agreed following a long process of careful negotiation and foresees the possibility of periodic reviews of its application", the Vatican said in a statement issued as Pope Francis began a visit to the Baltic states.

Coming amid an intensified government crackdown on Christians and other religious groups in China, the deal has thus drawn protests, including from some Catholics there, that it represents a defeat for the principle of religious freedom.

Chinese Catholics have mixed feelings about the Vatican's landmark deal with Beijing: Some in the unofficial "underground" church remain suspicious of the government while others "pray for the best".

China said the "provisional" agreement was signed in Beijing by vice foreign minister Wang Chao and a Vatican delegation headed by the under-secretary for relations with states, Antoine Camilleri.

"It no longer holds the old slogan that China church affairs are the sovereignty of the state", she said. Taiwan now has formal relations with only 17 states, and the Vatican is the only one in Europe.

Although the terms of the accord have not been made public, informed sources at the Vatican have confirmed that under the agreement, the Beijing government will name candidates for episcopal office, with the Pope allowed a choice from among the government's nominees. It's the beginning. This has been about dialogue, patient listening on both sides even when people come from very different standpoints.

The pope will have the final word on the appointment of bishops in China, the report said.Companies argue that without Aadhaar authentication, their businesses will get disrupted and the government needs to think about a legislation that reinstates their ability to ask for Aadhaar. In the majority judgement penned by Justice A K Sikri on his own behalf and on behalf of Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dipak Misra and Justice A M Khanwilkar, the SC said that Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act, ...

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Digital Editor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.

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Digital EditorCarbon dioxide emissions are costing the Indian economy up to $210 billion every year, according to a global study which found that the country is likely to suffer highest economic damage from climate change after the US.

Previous research has focused on how rich countries benefit from the fossil fuel economy, while damages accrue primarily to the developing world.

However, researchers from the University of California San Diego in the US found that the top three counties with the most to lose from climate change are US, India and Saudi Arabia.

"The economic damages model indicates that as temperature rises, economic growth in India will slow," Katharine Ricke, an assistant professor at UC San Diego, told PTI.

Researchers estimated country-level contributions to the social cost of carbon (SCC) using recent climate model projections, empirical climate-driven economic damage estimations and socioeconomic forecasts.

The country-level SCC for India alone is estimated to be about $86 per tonne of CO2.

At current emission levels, the Indian economy loses $210 billion annually, said Ricke, corresponding author of the study published in the journal Nature Climate Change.

For the US, the cost is about $50 billion per tonne. This means that the nearly five billion metric tonnes of CO2 the US emits each year is costing the US economy about $250 billion.

The model accounts for everything that happens in the economy today that is sensitive to environmental conditions, said Ricke.

"This includes agricultural yields, vector-borne disease, reduced worker productivity due to heat, increased frequency of extreme precipitation resulting in infrastructure damages or any of the other many ways that human systems get impacted by climate conditions," Ricke added.

ALSO READ: Imperative of climate change

"The combination and interaction of all these factors translate into an observed effect on the country's economy as a whole," she said.

For the first time, researchers have developed a data set quantifying what the social cost of carbon will be for the globe's nearly 200 countries.

The world's largest CO2 emitter, China, also places in the top five countries with the highest losses.

"We all know carbon dioxide released from burning fossil fuels affects people and ecosystems around the world, today and in the future," said Ricke.

"However these impacts are not included in market prices, creating an environmental externality whereby consumers of fossil fuel energy do not pay for and are unaware of the true costs of their consumption," said Ricke.

For example, claims that carbon dioxide causes relatively little harm to the economy can more easily justify rollbacks on environmental regulation.

"Because this is a macroeconomic model based on empirical observations, this means that everything that happens in the economy today that is sensitive to environmental conditions is reflected in the model," she said.

"This can be agricultural yields, vector-borne disease, reduced worker productivity due to heat, increased the frequency of extreme precipitation resulting in infrastructure damages or any of the other many ways that human systems get impacted by climate conditions," Ricke added.The small town of Pandharkawada lies 150 km south of Nagpur in eastern Maharashtra. Surrounded by forest and agricultural fields, this off-the-map town is in the news: A young predator tigress with cubs has been on the prowl here for 18 months now, wreaking havoc.

So far, she has killed 14 people; three of these deaths were reported in August 2018 alone. The state government is making an attempt to capture and tranquilise her, failing which she will be shot-on-sight as was decided earlier. Tigers predating on humans is not the natural norm but when it happens, it has ...The Supreme Court is likely to pronounce on Thursday its verdict on a batch of pleas by Muslim groups on the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid title dispute seeking reconsideration by a larger bench, the observations made by it in a 1994 verdict that a mosque was not integral to Islam.

A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices Ashok Bhushan and S Abdul Nazeer will pronounce the verdict, which had reserved it on July 20.

M Siddiq, one of the original litigants of the who has died and is being represented through his legal heir, had assailed certain findings of the 1994 verdict in the case of M Ismail Faruqui holding that a mosque was not integral to the prayers offered by the followers of Islam.

It was argued by the Muslim groups before a special bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices Ashok Bhushan and S A Nazeer that the "sweeping" observation of the apex court in the verdict needed to be reconsidered by a five-judge bench as "it had and will have a bearing" on the Babri Masjid-Ram Temple land dispute case.



ALSO READ: NHPC moves Supreme Court against Delhi High Court order on arbitral award



Senior advocate Rajeev Dhavan, appearing for legal representative of Siddiq, had said that the observation that mosques were not essential for practising Islam were made by the apex court without any enquiry or considering the religious texts.

The Uttar Pradesh government had earlier told the top court that some Muslim groups were trying to delay the hearing in the "long-pending" Ayodhya temple-mosque land dispute case by seeking reconsideration of the observation in the 1994 verdict that a mosque was not integral to Islam.

Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the UP government, had said this dispute has been awaiting final adjudication for "almost a century".

He had also said that the issue of the observation was neither taken up by any litigant since 1994, nor in the present appeals which were filed in 2010 after the high court's verdict.



ALSO READ: Supreme Court summons Manoj Tiwari

The state government had said the law decided by the top court in the Ismail Farooqi case was "the correct law which does not deserve to be disturbed either by referring it as belatedly prayed for or otherwise".

Earlier, Hindu groups had opposed the plea of their Muslim counterparts that the 1994 verdict holding that a mosque was not integral to the prayers offered by the followers of Islam be referred to a larger bench.

The observations were made in the land acquisition matter pertaining to the Ayodhya site and the apex court had to consider two aspects as to whether a mosque could be acquired at all and whether a religious place of worship like a mosque, church or temple was immune from acquisition if it was a place of special significance for that religion and formed its essential and integral part.

The special bench of the apex court is seized of a total of 14 appeals filed against the high court judgement delivered in four civil suits.

A three-judge bench of the Allahabad High Court, in a 2:1 majority ruling, had in 2010 ordered that the land be partitioned equally among three parties -- the Sunni Waqf Board, the Nirmohi Akhara and Ram Lalla.Commander Abhilash Tomy, undergoing treatment in a remote Indian Ocean island after being rescued mid-sea, Wednesday said he survived in the storm-hit ocean because of his sailing skills and naval training.

Thanking all those responsible for saving him, the naval officer said the sea where his non-motorised yacht was damaged in a storm Friday, while competing in the Golden Globe Race, was very rough.

"The sea was unbelievably rough. Me and my boat Thuriya were pitched against nature's might. I survived because of my sailing skills, the soldier bit in me and my naval training cut-in for that fight," said Tomy.

"Very thankful to Indian Navy and all who rescued me", Tomy was quoted as saying in the Indian Navy spokesman's tweet.



The sea was unbelievably rough. Me & my boat Thuriya were pitched against the nature's might. I survived because of my sailing skills, the soldier bit in me and my Naval training cut-in for that fight - Cdr Very thankful to #IndianNavy & all who rescued me pic.twitter.com/vNhZN2fJjj  SpokespersonNavy (@indiannavy) September 26, 2018

Tomy will possibly be taken to Mauritius when naval vessel INS Satpura reaches him Thursday.

A defence official said in Mumbai that the vessel was expected to reach Ile Amsterdam, a French territory, Thursday and the Indian crew would meet Tomy, a Kirti Chakra awardee.

The 39-year-old sailor had reached there Tuesday after being rescued by a French vessel, the official said.

His non-motorised sailing yacht was damaged in a storm Friday while competing in the Golden Globe Race.

A Navy official said Wednesday that their priority was to shift Tomy to Mauritius, where the Indian Navy has a physical presence.

"He will be taken to a hospital, and if permitted, he would be flown back to India," he said.



ALSO READ: Rescued Naval commander Abhilash Tomy admitted to hospital in remote island

A defence spokesman said Tomy suffered some "blunt injuries", but there was no sign of permanent damage to any body part.

"The decision on shifting him back to India will be taken only after his thorough medical check-up at Mauritius," he said.

Vice-Admiral Ajit Kumar P, the vice-chief of Naval staff, spoke to Tomy.

"He is doing fine and recovering fast under medical supervision. His medical reports are also fine," he said.

Navy spokesperson D K Sharma said the options were open on making arrangements to shift him to India.

Tomy's mentor and race manager Commander (Retd) Dilip Donde had said earlier the sailor was stable and in safe hands at the tiny island, which had sound medical facilities.

The island does not have an air strip and Tomy would have to be taken by the sea route itself to either Mauritius, the Reunion Island or Australia, he had said.

Tomy was drifting for nearly three days in his 32-feet long yacht, Thuriya, which was damaged in a storm.



ALSO READ: Indian Navy sailor Abhilash Tomy rescued from Indian Ocean near Australia

Vessels and naval assets in the vicinity were deployed for his rescue.

Tomy texted through a satellite-based device, requesting for evacuation, stating that his back was injured and he was unable to move.

He was participating in the Golden Globe Race, where 11 participants are using 1968 vintage boats and technology to circumnavigate solo and non-stop.

The race is being held to celebrate the golden anniversary of the first such solo circumnavigation in 1968.

Videos and pictures of Tomy's evacuation by the crew of Osiris were released by the Indian Navy and the Australian authorities, whose reconnaissance aircraft were in the skies whilst the rescue happened.



The pictures show Tomy being pulled out on a stretcher from the cabin of Thuriya and then carefully lowered into a small raft which had come to fetch him from the Osiris located nearby.

Tomy was placed third in the race when he faced the storm.India's kharif grain production in the 2018-19 crop year, which started in June, is projected to touch an all-time high of 141.59 million tonnes (mt), up 0.6 per cent more than last year, despite an almost 10 per cent shortfall in monsoon as the rains were well-distributed and timely. According to the first advanced estimate of 2018-19 kharif crops, rice production is estimated to be 99.24 mt, which is 1.79 per cent more than the kharif production of 2017-18.

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Digital EditorAmid growing chorus to bring down fuel prices, the BJP-led government Wednesday said the state would lose revenue to the tune of Rs 22 billion per year if it slashes the prices of petrol and diesel by Rs one per litre.

Finance Minister also said the government had already slashed taxes on petrol and diesel to check the surging prices of petrol and diesel at the state level.

He said the government is in the favour of bringing petrol and diesel under the ambit of the GST, "but the Congress-led governments are against such move".

The next meeting of the council meeting is scheduled on September 28.

" brought down taxes on petrol by Rs 2 per litre and on diesel by Rs 1 per litre in October last year, whereas states like Rajasthan, and have cut their taxes recently," he said when asked if there was any delay on part of the government in slashing the taxes.

Mungantiwar was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a meeting held here Wednesday.

The minister blamed the "global forces" for unabated surge in the prices of fuel in the country.

Prices of petrol have crossed the Rs 90-mark in more than 20 districts of total 36 districts in

He said rising prices is a matter of concern for citizens as well as for the state government.

"The Maharashtra government is in the favour of bringing petrol and diesel under the ambit of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), but the which is heading governments in some states is against this (move). These states think that they may lose their financial independence if fuel is brought under the GST," he said.

Explaining the fuel arithmetic, the minister said Maharashtra gets 26 per cent in taxes from the retail sale of petrol.

When asked about the prevailing prices of petrol and diesel across country, Mungantiwar said, "Maharashtra is one of the five states where prices of petrol are the highest. In case of diesel, Maharashtra is among eight states where prices are the steepest".President Maria Fernanda Espinosa cited the recent devastating floods in Kerala, among other natural disasters wrecking havoc across the world, to make a call to the world leaders to achieve progress on agreements aimed at slowing

Espinosa, who was elected this year as only the fourth woman to lead the (UNGA) in over 70 years, also referred to heatwaves, forest fires and storms that are leaving behind a trail of death and destruction.

She formally inaugurated the 73rd General Debate of the UNGA on Tuesday.

In her address to the world leaders, she listed her priorities, saying she will work for gender equality and empowerment of women, implementation of the new global compacts on migration and refugees, creation of decent work opportunities for all as well as greater attention to environmental protection.

"We will work to give greater attention to environmental protection and to make progress on the agreements aimed at slowing Heatwaves, forest fires, storms and floods are leaving behind a trail of death and destruction," she said.

"In August, the state of in India suffered its worst monsoon flood in recent history, which killed 400 people and displaced a million more from their homes. Hurricanes killed thousands of people in 2017, making them one of the deadliest extreme climate disasters in history," she said.

was affected by the severe floods, the worst in nearly a century, due to unusually high rainfall during the monsoon season.

Around the world, millions of people are suffering from violence, war, want and the effects of climate change, she said, adding that "



We have a responsibility to slow the production and consumption policies and habits that are destroying our planet."



With a call to multilateralism and shared work towards sustainable development and equality for all, Espinosa affirmed that the contribution of the UN to humanity has been immense, citing the principles that govern the coexistence emanated from the forum she leads.

"The reality is that the work of the UN remains as relevant as it was 73 years ago. Multilateralism is the only possible answer to the global problems we face. Weakening or putting it in question only generates instability and bewilderment, distrust and polarisation," she said.

Espinosa said that as the world becomes more interconnected, global dialogue and multilateral responses can tackle many of those issues, proposing that UN Member States take up the multilateral agenda with a renewed commitment.

Turning to the assembly's other priorities for the coming years, she also noted strengthening the political commitment with people with disabilities, the revitalisation of the UN and the role of young people in conflict prevention.

Espinosa called for more attention to be paid to the needs of the most vulnerable countries, so that they can reach the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and ensure respect of human rights. She urged leaders gathered in the Assembly to live up to the needs of the people and to build a more peaceful, secure and humane world order that guarantees the dignity of the people.

"Let us then build a that is more relevant to all people," the Assembly President said.Why do the richest 1% of Americans take 20% of national income, but the richest 1% of Danes only 6%? Why have affluent British people seen their share of national income double since 1980, while over the same period, the income share of wealthy Dutch hasnt budged? Technological change and globalisation act as powerful forces for income distribution, but these market processes cannot alone account for the continued range in top income inequality in different countries.

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Digital EditorWelcoming the Supreme Court's verdict on constitutional validation of Aadhaar, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday asserted that while Aadhaar was an instrument of empowerment for his party, it was a "tool of oppression and surveillance" for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Following the top court's directive, Rahul tweeted, "For Congress, Aadhaar was an instrument of empowerment. For the BJP, Aadhaar is a tool of oppression and surveillance. Thank you Supreme Court for supporting the Congress' vision and protecting India."

The apex court earlier today said that linking Aadhaar with bank accounts and mobile phone numbers is not mandatory, but a must for Permanent Account Number (PAN).

While announcing its verdict on a batch of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of Aadhaar the Supreme Court said that Aadhaar is not needed for opening a bank account and no mobile company can demand it for connections.

The court also struck down Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act, barring private companies from seeking Aadhaar details of consumers.

However, the five-judge Constitution bench of the court also upheld most of the provisions in the Aadhaar Act and also ruled that it does not breach privacy.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)After the Supreme Court's verdict on Aadhaar's constitutional validity, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Amit Shah on Wednesday took a swipe at the Congress party saying, the proposed unique identification number scheme under the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government was "Niradhar".

"It gives further impetus to empowering the poor by ensuring that they get their rights," Shah Tweeted. "Aadhaar under UPA government was Niradhar and had no purpose. UPA spent thousands of crores to enroll people without any law or scrutiny," he added.

Crediting Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government for giving Aadhaar a strong legal backing, Shah said that the Congress party has been exposed and stands defeated after the court's verdict.

He further accused the Congress party of being the "fountainhead of middlemen and corruption," which tried every trick to fight and defeat Aadhaar, politically and legally.

The apex court earlier in the day said that linking Aadhaar with bank accounts and mobile phone numbers is not mandatory, but it is a must for Permanent Account Number (PAN).

While announcing its verdict on a batch of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of Aadhaar, the court said that "Aadhaar is not needed for opening a bank account and no mobile company can demand Aadhaar card for connections."

The apex court struck down Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act, hence barring private companies from seeking Aadhaar details of consumers.

However, the five-judge Constitution bench of the Supreme Court also upheld most of the provisions in the Aadhaar Act, and also ruled that it does not breach privacy.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Opposition leaders appreciated Supreme Court's verdict on Aadhaar pronounced on Wednesday saying, 'restrictions on unnecessary linkages to areas interfering in the personal lives of people is surely a welcome step.'

Former cabinet minister and Congress leader P. Chidambaram hailed the SC decision and termed it as 'a humbling lesson for the Ministry of Law'.

Speaking to ANI, he said, "The majority judgment in the Aadhaar case has retrieved the UPA's original idea of Aadhaar. It was meant to be a benign instrument to deliver benefits, subsidies and services to the poor. Glad that the UPA's policy has been vindicated. The NDA tried to convert Aadhaar into a monster that will rule every aspect of a person's life and they have been firmly rebuffed. Several provisions of the Act and the Regulations have been struck down as unconstitutional. That is a humbling lesson for the Ministry of Law."

Addressing a press conference, Congress leader Kapil Sibal shared similar sentiment and said, "Central government's format of Aadhaar Act was not only unconstitutional but against democracy as well. By striking down Section 57 of Aadhaar Act, Supreme Court has firmly put an end to the mass surveillance exercise being carried out under the guise of Aadhaar by the central government."

Sibal also criticised the government for the money bill route and said that the passage of the law violated the fundamental right to privacy and was a gross abuse of the Money Bill route.

The Trinamool Congress (TMC) also applauded the verdict and claimed that the decision will save the common public from inconvenience. Party leader Derek O'Brien said, "Today Supreme Court has given a very strong verdict that it is not mandatory to provide Aadhaar card for mobile number, bank accounts, school admissions, etc. This is what TMC has been demanding for very long and we have also protested outside Parliament for it. It is a good decision and now the common public will not face inconvenience."

Congress Member of Parliament Shashi Tharoor also lauded the apex court's verdict of restricting the interference of the government. Tharoor said, "We were not against Aadhaar and it was brought in by Congress to govern the transfer of benefits, money and resources, to poor people so that they can be received without diversion. Our objection was to the way the BJP government had extended Aadhaar to all sort of areas where it didn't need to belong such as to get a mobile phone, open a bank account or get school admission. The Supreme Court has agreed to these points of the critics and they have said that these things are not required and we welcome it."

"Many of us have said that the danger of giving a large amount of information to Aadhaar is a risk of misuse, abuse or even leakage of that data. I have also introduced a private member's bill calling for a robust data protection bill. It is very encouraging to see in Justice (AK) Sikri's judgment a strong reaffirmation of the need to have a robust data protection law. Separation of Aadhaar from unnecessary linkages to areas interfering in the personal lives of people is surely a welcome step," he added.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday said that linking Aadhaar with bank accounts and mobile phone numbers is not mandatory, but a must for Permanent Account Number (PAN).

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Former Attorney General of India Soli Sorabjee has extended support to Justice DY Chandrachud, the lone dissenting judge on Wednesday's majority verdict on Aadhaar. Justice Chandrachud made strong observations against the Aadhaar Act and said that it violates the privacy of rights as it could possibly lead to profiling of persons and voters.

In a judgment pronounced as 4:1 majority, the Supreme Court of India upheld the Aadhaar Act and scheme after striking down some provisions. Justice Chandrachud, who was against the Constitutional validity of Aadhaar, is the dissenting judge in a majority of the parameters of the verdict.

Extending his support to Justice Chandrachud's stand, jurist Soli Sorabjee asserted that dissenting judge's concerns about intrusion of the right to privacy are legitimate.

"The Supreme Court has upheld the Act by placing certain conditions. I think, on the whole, it is a good judgment. Though personally, I am happy with Justice Chandrachud's judgment striking it down on the ground that it bothers right to privacy. This kind of provision has to be on an experimental basis. Later on, there may be more amendments or changes can be made, but the citizen's concern has been largely met by the majority by imposing certain limitation and conditions. Justice Chandrachud's concerns about the intrusion of the right to privacy are very legitimate and personally, I prefer his judgment," Sorabjee said.

Justice Chandrachud's stance also garnered support from the senior advocate Prashant Bhushan who termed it as very significant.

Bhushan said, "His dissent is a very important dissent which makes a very strong case. Firstly, on the fraud that was perpetrated by passing this Act as a money bill and thereby bypassing the Rajya Sabha. Though the majority might not agree with him, the majority also said that whether an Act can be passed as a money bill or not, just the Lok Sabha Speaker's decision on that is not decisive. The decision can be challenged in court of law and court will decide whether the Act has any relationship with the consolidated fund of India or not."

Incumbent Attorney General KK Venugopal, however, expressed delight over the judgment. Venugopal, told ANI, "I am very happy with judgment. It is a landmark and remarkable judgment.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Afghanistan, India, Iran and China have supported creating a joint terrorist groups database with Russia, Russian Security Council spokesman Evgeny Anoshin said on Wednesday.

According to the spokesman, the issue was addressed at the multilateral consultations on the Afghan settlement, held in Tehran where delegations from Russia, Afghanistan, India, Iran and China participated.

"Participants of the meeting noted the positive significance of the database of terrorist organisations created by the Russian Federal Security Service. They stressed the importance of creating a similar base for all countries participating in today's meeting," Anoshin said.

The spokesman added that the meeting's participants "supported the initiative of Iranian colleagues to create a new mechanism at the level of security councils' secretaries, exchanged views on priority tasks in the Afghan issue.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Vice Chief of the Air Staff Air Marshal Shirish Baban Deo accidentally shot himself in the thigh on Wednesday.

Air Marshal Deo was immediately rushed to the Army Research and Referral hospital in Delhi. His condition is stated to be stable now.

As per reports, the incident took place while he was cleaning his gun.

Air Marshal Deo had taken over as Vice Chief of the Air Staff in July this year, succeeding Air Marshal BS Dhanoa, who is now the Chief of Air Staff.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)With the vision of 'Creating Opportunities and Transforming lives', Amazon has partnered with American Indian Foundation (AIF) to establish and launch a Community Resource Centre.

The Centre will benefit the members of two villages, Bhora Kalan, the largest village of Gurugram district of Haryana and Binola Village. Based on the needs of the local community, Amazon Cares has designed programs to impact and enhance the lives of more than 14,000 people in the community in the three areas of education, health and hygiene and women empowerment.

"We hope our regular workshops, training and awareness programs will help us engage with them effectively and will play a key role in their growth and development," said VP, India Customer Fulfilment, Amazon India, Akhil Saxena.

The initiative focuses on creating opportunities and enabling access to quality for the community children. The Centre works with the government schools and the local community to address the gaps and challenges within the system. Different activities will be organized for the students of Government Boys and Girls Primary School, Bhora Kalan through the Learning Resource Centre set up inside the school premises.

With a focus to provide underprivileged women and youth with skill training and access to formal employment opportunities, the centre will provide Computer Training and Basic English and Communications. Additionally, the Women Empowerment program will also provide vocational training on Tailoring and Stitching.

Amazon Cares demonstrates the philosophy of being 'good neighbors' through the activities undertaken in areas where Amazon India operates. The Company imbibes this philosophy to empower and engage its employees, customers, sellers, local communities and other stakeholders in its contributions to create opportunities and transform lives.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Former prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh opined that is it vital for the armed forces of the country to remain "uncontaminated" from any "sectarian appeal".

Speaking at the Memorial Lecture in honour of veteran Communist leader, late A.B. Bardhan, Singh said: "Our Armed Forces are a splendid embodiment of our secular project. They have a glorious record of keeping away from politicians' manipulations and intrigues. It is vitally important that the armed forces remain uncontaminated from any sectarian appeal."

The senior Congress Party leader further said that the judiciary should never digress from its primary duty of protecting the Constitution.

"The judiciary as an institution needs never to lose sight of its primary duty to protect the secular spirit of the Constitution; this task has become much more demanding than before because the political disputes and electoral battles are increasingly getting over-laced with religious overtones, symbols, myths, and prejudices. The judiciary needs to arrive at its own enlightened view of its custodianship of the Constitution-irrespective of the irresponsible and selfish politicians who have no qualms in injecting communal virus in our body politic," he noted.

Singh also said that the Election Commission plays a pivotal role in preserving the secular fabric of the country and is the custodian for maintaining the integrity of the electoral process. It should, therefore, ensure that religious sentiments do not prejudice the electoral process, he added.

"I will be amiss if I did not mention the Election Commission and its role in preserving the secular fabric of the republic. As the custodian of the integrity of the electoral process, it is incumbent upon the Election Commission to see to it that religion and religious sentiments and prejudices do not get worked into the election discourse; the Commission must be thinking of rolling back the easy acceptance of over-manipulation of religious imagery," the former prime minister said.

Singh stressed that it is the duty of political parties to ensure secular values and practices are regarded as the highest virtues by the citizens.

Speaking of the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, Singh said that the idea of a secular India did not die with the death of the father of the nation.

"As it turned out, some Hindu fanatics never forgave Mahatma Gandhi for his steadfast commitment to a secular state. They settled their score with this greatest son of Indian on January 30, 1948. The idea of a secular India did not die-and, could not die-with the Mahatma's assassination. It is necessary to underline that the idea of a secular state was very much familiar in our traditional statecraft practices," he said.

Quoting former prime minister late Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Singh said, "Secularism is not an alien concept that we imported out of compulsion after Independence. Rather, it is an integral and natural feature of our culture and ethos."

Singh also said that after the tenure of Jawaharlal Nehru - the first Prime Minister of India, the country's secular project came under renewed challenges from various quarters.

"Regrettably, it also became obvious that electoral practices and habits only tended to stoke religious passions and animosities. We should be unambiguously clear that any attempt to weaken the secular fabric of our republic would be an attempt to dismantle the larger egalitarian project.-a secular, progressive, democratic polity. And, the onus of preserving the secular robustness of our republic rests on all our constitutional institutions," Singh said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)You are trained in Cuba and our education is free. Health care is free, but at what price? You wind up paying for it your whole life. Dr. Yaili Jimenez Gutierrez

In 2013, the World Health Organization brokered a deal through which Cuba would export doctors to Brazil to serve in its poorest and most remote areas. Yet as Brazil began to reap the benefits of improved care and decreased mortality rates, the Cuban doctors began to see their homes regime in a new light.

When you leave Cuba for the first time, you discover many things that you had been blind to, says Yaili Jimenez Gutierrez, one of the programs doctors, in a New York Times profile. There comes a time when you get tired of being a slave.

The Cuban doctors began noticing the disparity in their governments take from the Brazilian government  nearly four times their own salary  as well as the higher wages and greater freedoms enjoyed by their fellow export doctors from other participating countries.

We began to see that the conditions for the other doctors were totally different, Jimenez explains. They could be with their family, bring their kids. The salaries were much higher.

In response, more than 150 Cuban doctors have now filed lawsuits in Brazilian courts, claiming equality protections under Brazils Constitution, and requesting that they remain in the country as independent contractors with the ability to earn a full salary.

The New York Times summarizes the situation as follows:

The seeds of the rebellion were planted a year ago in a conversation between a Cuban doctor and a clergyman in a remote village in northeastern Brazil. Anis Deli Grana de Carvalho, a doctor from Cuba, was coming to the end of her threeyear medical assignment. But having married a Brazilian man, she wanted to stay and keep working. The pastor was outraged to learn that, under the terms of their employment, Cuban doctors earn only about a quarter of the amount the Brazilian government pays Cuba for their services. In late September of last year, she sued in federal court to work as an independent contractor. Within weeks, scores of other Cuban doctors followed Dr. Granas lead and filed suits in Brazilian courts.

As for how the Cuban government has responded thus far, some have been allowed to keep their jobs or return home, while others were fired and face exile:

Late last year, judges issued temporary injunctions in some cases, granting Cuban doctors the right to remain as independent contractors, earning full wages. One federal judge in the capital denounced the Cuban contracts as a form of slave labor that could not be tolerated. But the federal judge who handled Dr. Granas case ruled against her, finding that allowing Cuban doctors to walk away from their contracts posed undue risks in the political and diplomatic spheres. Soon after the first injunctions were issued, Cuban supervisors in Brazil summoned doctors who had filed suits and fired them on the spot, several doctors said. Each was given the chance to get on a plane to Cuba within 24 hours  or face exile for eight years.

The costs have been high for those who left family behind in order to pursue a better livelihood or improve their prospects upon returning home. But for many, the risks have been well worth it.

Its sad to leave your family and friends and your homeland, says Maireilys Alvarez Rodriguez, a doctor who sued the government, but managed to keep her job and bring her children to Brazil. But here were in a country where youre free, where no one asks you where youre going, or tells you what you have to do. In Cuba, your life is dictated by the government.

We routinely hear critics of capitalism decry the supposed injustices of free wages set by free markets driven by the actions free peoples. Without the steady hand of heavy government control and redistributionwe are toldthe ideals of equality and justice will never prevail.

Yet note how, in the present case, we see doctors from Cubaa land which supposedly places excessive priority on equalityrunning from their government to the Brazilian Constitution for equality protections. The irony is painful, and shows the illusory nature of an equality based only on material outputs.

Without true freedom, self-constructed, arbitrary, materialistic notions about equality quickly devolve, crowding out new growth and creating other disparities in the process, whether among neighbors abroad or among workers at home.

Likewise, when given a taste of freedom, the view gets clearer, and the supposed communist ideals of equality are quickly placed in context of whats truly at the drivers seat: control.

Image: CookinTuscany (CC0)Morocco will launch a second surveillance satellite from the Kourkou base in Guyane on November 6, a date that coincides with celebrations of the Green March, le360 news portal reported.

The second satellite baptized Mohammed VI B boosts Moroccos earth observation technology after the country successfully sent to orbit Mohammed VI A reconnaissance satellite that can take high-resolution multi-purpose images.

Together, the two satellites will give Morocco an edge in terms of intelligence, border monitoring, mapping and land surveying activities, spatial planning, preventing and managing natural disasters, and monitoring environmental changes and desertification thanks to the high resolution optical images they are able to take.

The two satellites have irked Algeria and its protege the Polisario after Morocco used images from the first satellite to prove breaches of 1991 ceasefire agreement by the Polisario separatists east of Moroccos security wall in the Sahara.

Spain, feeling outpaced by its southern neighbor, is struggling to bridge the gap through the launch of its own earth-observation satellite in 2019,

The two satellite, worth 600 million, are 100% financed by Morocco, le360.ma said.

The defense uses of the two satellites will be overseen by Moroccos external intelligence service (DGED) with some 100 Moroccan engineers trained for such tasks.Students of the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) on Wednesday staged a protest against the administration's order to vacate seven hostels, including two medical students' hostels, within 24 hours, following an incident of violence in the campus a day before. The university has suspended classes till September 28.

One of the protesting students told ANI, "We want hostels back. There is a video of Chief Proctor instigating students for violence. We demand her dismissal and an inquiry needs to be set up."

The BHU administration on Tuesday beefed up heavy security in and around campus. The step was taken after a scuffle broke out between Sir Sunderlal Hospital's junior doctors and relatives of a patient on Monday. One person was detained following the scuffle.

"From what we have been told by the hospital authorities, the family of the patient wanted the doctor to attend to her first. We are now further investigating the matter," Varanasi's ACM First Prem Pandey had said. The patient apparently visited the hospital on Monday after she fell ill.

After the doctors apparently did not fulfill their demand, the patient's family started protesting. They were reportedly joined by students of the varsity.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A delegation of 15 nuns from Jalandhar's Missionaries of Jesus met Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan in Delhi on Wednesday over the arrest of former Bishop of Jalandhar, Franco Mulakkal, who is accused of raping a nun from Kerala.

After meeting the Kerala Chief Minister, Sister Amala of the Missionaries of Jesus claimed that Mulakkal was falsely framed in the case. "The investigation is biased and partial and we hope the Chief Minister acts. Bishop Franco Mulakkal has been falsely framed in this case," said Sister Amala.

On Monday, the sister of the complainant in the rape case of the Kerala nun had filed a petition stating that she and her family are receiving life threats and thus require protection for life and property.

On September 22, Mulakkal was sent to a police custody, after being produced before the magistrate court. He has been sent to judicial custody till October 6 by the Pala Judicial Magistrate Court in Kerala's Kottayam.

The senior Catholic priest is facing allegations of raping the nun repeatedly between 2014 and 2016 and was arrested in Tripunithura on September 21 after three days of questioning. The clergyman has denied the charges of sexual misconduct.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved agreements between India and Uzbekistan for cooperation in various sectors, including tourism, pharmaceuticals and trade.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was approved for cooperation in the sphere of law and justice between the two countries. The MoU takes care of concerns and requirements in the field of exchange of experience by legal professionals, government functionaries and their training and effective legal aid mechanism for resolution.

The agreement is expected to facilitate greater cooperation between India and Uzbekistan in providing legal services in both countries in the field of exchange of experience through information sharing visits, and training between both countries on enhancing legal capacities of government functionaries.

Another MoU was approved by the Cabinet for strengthening cooperation in the field of tourism, which is expected to be signed during the Uzbekistan President Shavkat Mirziyoyev's visit to India on October 1. The signing of the MoU in the field of tourism will help the two countries in creating an institutional mechanism for enhancing cooperation in the tourism sector. It will also help in increasing foreign tourist arrivals from Uzbekistan to the country. This, in turn, will result in economic development and employment generation.

The agreement shall create favourable conditions for long-term tourism cooperation for mutual benefits of all stakeholders within the broader framework and areas of cooperation. In addition, the MoU shall explore to incorporate the best practices to implement the measures that will realise the objectives set out in it.

Furthermore, the Cabinet approved an MoU between the two countries for the establishment of an Uzbek-Indian Free Pharmaceutical Zone in the Andijan Region of Uzbekistan, which will also be signed during Mirziyoyev's visit to India. The MoU will create an enabling framework of cooperation for setting up an Uzbek-Indian Free Pharmaceuticals Zone in Andijan region of Uzbekistan. It will also facilitate Indian pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies to invest and establish production facilities in the Uzbek-Indian Free Pharma Zone of Andijan for manufacture of pharmaceutical products.

The Cabinet also approved the signing of an MoU between India and Uzbekistan for increased cooperation in the areas of trade, industry and research and development of pharmaceutical products. In view of the importance of the growth of the pharmaceutical industry in both countries and importance of mutual cooperation in trade, production, research and development in the pharmaceutical sector, both the governments have been trying to establish a formal mechanism of bilateral cooperation.

The MoU will explore the possibilities of production of medicines, including Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) in different therapeutic segments in both countries. It will facilitate the exchange information on trade and registration procedures, legal and regulatory requirements for export and import of pharmaceuticals products, including APIs.

Another MoU was approved for mutual cooperation in combating illicit trafficking in narcotics, drugs, psychotropic substances and precursors, and is expected to help in mutual cooperation in the regulation of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances and in combating drug trafficking. It is an effective framework to deal with all issues requiring mutual assistance and cooperation in the areas identified.

The Cabinet also approved the signing of an agreement between India and Uzbekistan on cooperation in health and medical science. It covers the following areas of cooperation - expanding opportunities for the development of business cooperation in the field of medical equipment, including equipment for teaching and research laboratories of institutions of medical education, and pharmaceutical products, strengthening of primary health care and setting up of healthcare facilities, medical and health research development, as well as exchange of experience in these areas, among others.

A working group will be set up to further elaborate the details of cooperation and to oversee the implementation of the agreement.

In the field of agriculture and allied sectors, an MoU was approved for cooperation in the exchange of information regarding laws, standards and product samples of mutual interest, establishment of joint agriculture clusters in Uzbekistan, exchange of experience in the field of crop production and their diversification, exchange of experience in the field of seed production based on modern technology, and application of technology for enhanced water use efficiency in agriculture and allied sectors, including irrigation, conduct of joint scientific research on genetics, breeding, biotechnology, plant protection and soil productivity conservation, among others.

The agreement provides for the constitution of a joint working group comprising representatives from both countries, the task of which would be to prepare plans of cooperation, provide solutions to the problems arising during the implementation of the agreement and to monitor the implementation of tasks determined by the parties.

The meetings of the working group shall take place at least every two years, alternately in India and in Uzbekistan. The agreement shall enter into force on the date of its signing and shall remain in force for a period of five years, being automatically extended for a subsequent period of five years. The agreement shall be terminated after six months from the date of receipt of notification of either party of its intention to terminate.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Hitting out at the Congress over its allegations against the Narendra Modi government on the Rafale deal, Union Minister Prakash Javadekar said that the Congress cannot work without middlemen, and stalled the deal at an advanced stage in 2012 for the same reason.

"Congress compromised on security by stalling the Rafale deal at an advanced stage just because Robert Vadra's aide Sanjay Bhandari wanted the offset contract. Congress cannot work without middlemen. This is the difference between them and the Bharatiya Janata Party. The Prime Minister Narendra Modi-government made a government to government deal with France for Rafale, there was no middleman involved," he said at a press conference here on Tuesday.

The Minister further said that the Congress is scared as they know they cannot come back to power, and hence are trying to defame the BJP. However, he added that they cannot cause any harm to the ruling party.

Quoting Prime Minister Modi, Javadekar said, "The more the Congress continues its mud-slinging, the more the Lotus (BJP) will bloom."

Earlier, on September 25, Congress President Rahul Gandhi had accused the Prime Minister of robbing India's youth of employment and the Air Force of their money.

"The UPA (United Progressive Alliance) government had given HAL (Hindustan Aeronautics Limited) the contract to manufacture 126 Rafale jets. Then Modi Ji became the Prime Minister and buys the jets, originally priced at Rs 526 crore for Rs 1,600 crore. They robbed the youth and the Air Force of employment and money," he said.

The much-debated Rafale deal was signed in 2016 between the Prime Minister Modi-led Democratic Alliance (NDA) government and the French Government for 36 jets after the original UPA deal, to buy 18 off-the-shelf jets and assemble another 108 in India, was scrapped.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval attended a high-level meeting with top officials from Afghanistan, China, Iran, and Russia to combat threats posed by terror outfits such as the ISIS and others.

Doval articulated India's abiding commitment to partner in bilateral, regional and global forums for tackling the scourge of terrorism which poses a huge threat to humanity. He further highlighted that there should not be a distinction between good and bad terrorism.

Stressing on the measures to combat terrorism, Doval said, "Greater cooperation, including through information sharing for disrupting support mechanisms such as training, financing, and supply of weapons; the need for disrupting the cross-border movement of terrorists; and isolating those who support and sponsor terrorism."

During the meeting, terrorist violence in Afghanistan was rejected unequivocally. The officials also expressed support to assist the government and defence forces of Afghanistan to deal with terrorist groups and narcotics smuggling and to assist in reconstruction and economic development of Afghanistan.

Importance was given to promoting peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan which was Afghan-led, Afghan-owned and Afghan-controlled.

During his visit, Doval also held separate bilateral meetings with his counterparts from Iran, Russia, and Afghanistan on issues of bilateral interest.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The leaders of the G-4 countries in a meeting held during the ongoing 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) emphasised on the need for early reform of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and reaffirmed their commitment to multilateralism.

Briefing the media on the G-4 meeting, Joint Secretary for UN Political in the Ministry of External Affairs, Dinesh Patnaik, said that the Ministers felt the need for an early reform of UNSC and expansion of permanent and non-permanent membership to enhance legitimacy, effectiveness, and representatives of the council.

The leaders also reviewed the progress of inter-governmental negotiations (IGN) and emphasised the need to revitalise the process.

"It has been 10 years since the IGN started and they felt that it was about time they went to the next step of text-based negotiations. They said that they should work together with other member states to realise the shared vision of the overwhelming majority supporting the initiation of text-based negotiations in a democratic and transparent manner," he added.

Patnaik said the leaders also felt the necessity to intensify dialogue with other member countries, especially the African group, and agreed to express support for reflecting the African common position as contained in the Ezulwini Consensus and Sirte Declaration in all text-based negotiations. The ministers further reiterated their support for Africa's representation in both the permanent and the non-permanent membership of a reformed and expanded security council, he said.

Meanwhile, MEA Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said that so far, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has held 13 bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the UNGA.

"Highlight has been a series of bilateral meetings which EAM had with her counterparts. In the first two days, she had a total of 13 bilateral meetings. She also attended the high-level meeting chaired by (United States) President (Donald) Trump on 'Global call to action on drug problem' " he told media here.

Swaraj is slated to attend a meeting of women foreign ministers, a high-level meeting on climate change and a Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) meeting on Palestine today (September 26).

A total of 30 bilateral meetings are scheduled to be held by Swaraj during her visit.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh said that he gets sleepless nights whenever a soldier is martyred.

"Recently a BSF Jawan was martyred in firing by Pakistan. People may not know but whenever such incident happens we get sleepless nights. Our jawans are the country's pride," he said while addressing a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) workers programme here on Tuesday.

This comes after Border Security Force (BSF) jawan Narender Singh was brutally killed by Pakistani forces earlier this month.

The body of the BSF Head Constable, who went missing after an unprovoked firing by Pakistan in Jammu's Ramgarh sector on September 18, was found with multiple bullet injuries on his torso, even on his neck, on Wednesday.

His son had also sought assistance from the Home Minister and concerned authorities.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Tuesday lashed out at the sanctions reinstated by the Donald Trump-led United States administration, saying that they amounted to "economic terrorism" and "economic war", while speaking at the ongoing 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).

"Unlawful unilateral sanctions in themselves constitute a form of economic terrorism and a breach of the 'Right to Development'. The economic war that the United States has initiated under the rubric of new sanctions not only targets the Iranian people but also entails harmful repercussions for the people of other countries, and that war has caused a disruption in the state of global trade," The Hill quoted Rouhani, as saying.

"We are pleased that the international community did not acquiesce to the US government's unilateral and illegal withdrawal from the JCPOA ... If you dislike the JCPOA because it is the legacy of your domestic political rivals, then we invite you to come back to the Security Council resolution. We invite you to remain in the international institutions. Do not engage in imposing sanctions," he further said.

Trump, in his speech at the UNGA, took a jibe at Iran and re-established the sanctions, scheduled to be put back in place in early November.

He also dismissed reports which stated that he would meet Rouhani on the sidelines of the UNGA.

More sanctions will be imposed on Iran in November, including barring Iran's sale of crude oil and transactions with its Central Bank, the report highlighted.

In order to protect European companies from any penalties imposed by the United States for doing business with or in Iran, EU has updated a blocking statute.

In 2015, six countries - Iran, US, Britain, Germany, Russia, France, and China- signed the Iran nuclear deal, for lifting economic sanctions on Tehran in exchange for limitations to the country's nuclear programme.

However, Trump announced the US' withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) or the Iran nuclear deal in May, which limited the country's uranium enrichment in exchange for sanctions relief.

Calling the accord as an "embarrassment" that was "defective at its core", the US President then warned of severe consequences if Iran resumed its nuclear programme.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has shown his willingness to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un.

According to Yonhap News Agency, Abe wants to meet Kim to discuss the long-standing issue of Japanese citizens kidnapped by North Korea.

Meanwhile, the North Korean media also called on Japan to apologise and compensate for the exploitation of the island country when it was colonised by the latter. Japan had colonized the Korean peninsula from 1910-50.

The call came amid increasing talk of a probable summit between Pyongyang and Tokyo aimed at improving bilateral relations between the two nations.

It is to be noted that North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho is currently in New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly and that there are speculations that he could meet with his Japanese counterpart Taro Kono there.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Security forces in Poonch district on Wednesday apprehended a man who was allegedly trying to cross over to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

The detainee has been identified as Rafiq Mohammad (26), who is a resident of Chadora area of Budgam district in central Kashmir.

Speaking to ANI, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) of Poonch district Rajiv Pandey said, "Army deployed near the LoC in Poonch sector detained this man. After preliminary questioning, he was sent to the police. Two packets of cigarettes, Indian passport, Rs 400 and one ticket to Nepal had been recovered from him."

The investigation into the incident is underway.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A combat vessel of the Moroccan Royal Navy, patrolling the countrys Mediterranean coast, was forced on Tuesday to open fire on a high-speed boat carrying illegal migrants after it refused to respond to its warnings and obey its orders.

The smuggling speedboat was driven by a Spaniard in the northern Moroccan waters. He refused to stop the boats engine and chose to ignore the warning shots leaving the Moroccan navy no choice but to act, say the local authorities.

Four migrants were wounded and taken to a hospital in Mdiq-Fnideq region wherein they received necessary medical care. The Spanish smuggler was unharmed and arrested.

This incident comes just one day after Moroccos Royal Navy and the Royal Gendarmerie foiled an illegal migration attempt to Europe from the countrys Northern Martil Beach.

As Italy closes its ports to illegal migrants, more and more are changing route to Spain. So far this year 38,852 migrants reached this European country, twice as many as the same period of 2017. More than 310 have died at sea.

The vast majority come via Morocco, which foiled 54,000 illegal migration attempts so far this year, and prevented 65,000 migrants from crossing to Spain in 2017.

In a separate case, a Spaniard, residing illegally in Morocco, and a Moroccan citizen were arrested in Tangiers by the Moroccan police.

The two people, aged 35 and 45, are suspected of running a criminal network facilitating illegal migration.Mexican actor Luis Gerardo Mendez is all set to join Kristen Stewart and Elizabeth Banks in Sony's new 'Charlie's Angels' movie.

Continuing his English-language hot streak, Mendez will play a character named The Saint, confirmed The Hollywood Reporter.

Directed by Elizabeth Banks, the new story will take the female-fronted detective-agency premise of the original 1976-81 TV series and 2000 and 2003 movies global, with the Townsend Agency, now a security and intelligence service that has teams around the world. The movie will majorly focus on one of those teams and the next generation of Angels.

The director will also be in front of the camera, playing the role of Bosley, the owner of the detective agency, Charlie Townsend.

Also starring Naomi Scott, Ella Balinska and Patrick Stewart, the flick will hit theaters on September 27, 2019.

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The peaceful vote for change in the Maldives presidential elections is an affirmation of ordinary people in democratic processes and in upholding of dignity and rule of law, the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) said on Wednesday.

Welcoming the outcome of the ballot which resulted in the victory of the unified Opposition candidate Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, a long-time parliamentarian from the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), and the defeat of incumbent President Abdulla Yameen, CHRI commended the citizens of Maldives "for voting in large numbers despite efforts at intimidation, harassment and threats of violence that characterised the environment in the run-up to the elections".

The high voter turnout of nearly 90 per cent is a clear affirmation of the Maldivian people's commitment to a democratic electoral process and rule of law enshrined in the 2008 Constitution of the Maldives.

The CHRI urged all stakeholders and institutions to work together to ensure a smooth transition of power following the November 17 inauguration.

In a hotly-contested election in the island nation on September 23, Solih, who had the backing of several opposition parties, led by the MDP, emerged victorious by garnering 134,616 votes, according to the provincial results announced by the Maldivian Election Commission. Yameen, however, secured only 96,132 votes.

Official results are scheduled to be announced before September 30. However, Yameen, in a televised speech on Monday, said he accepted the people's mandate and conceded defeat.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, stepped out solo for the first time after getting married to Prince Harry, for the inauguration of the new Oceania art exhibit at the Royal Academy of Arts in London.

For Tuesday's milestone event, Meghan paired her black Givenchy dress with Aquazzura heels and a Givenchy clutch, E!Online reported.

Last week, Meghan hosted her first event at Kensington Palace with Harry and her mom Doria Ragland by her side. The event honored the launch of her cookbook 'Together'. During the event, Meghan also delivered a speech in front of attendees about the cookbook and what it means to her.

Next month, Meghan and Harry will go on a royal tour to Australia, New Zealand, Tonga, and Fiji.

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Golden Globe Race (GGR) participant and Indian Navy Commander Abhilash Tomy on Wednesday said that his naval training helped him fight nature's fury.

"Sea was unbelievably rough. Me and my boat Thuriya were pitched against nature's might. I survived because of my sailing skills, the soldier bit in me and my Naval training cut-in for that fight. I am very thankful to the Indian Navy and all who rescued me," said Tomy.

Indian Navy's Vice Admiral AK Chawla briefed journalists on the medical condition of Commander Tomy and said, "We have received a report today that Abhilash Tomy is at a hospital in a small island belonging to France. He is well, eating normally and responding well to the treatment. His back injury has been assessed and he is not very serious. But he will require rest and hospitalisation for some time to fully recover."

Elaborating further on the incident, Chawla said, "He was in a boat taking part in the Golden Globe Race which is a solo circumnavigation of the world with 1968 technology. Tomy has already done this very feat of going around the world solo and non-stop, a few years ago. This time, he was overtaken by a storm with very strong waves reaching as high as 14 meters as per accounts shared by Commander Abhilash Tomy. He got injured in the process."

"He was spotted on the same day that he was dismasted and injured. A French fishing research vessel was directed to his location and that boat picked him up," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Yoga guru Ramdev on Wednesday quashed all possibilities of him campaigning in support of a political party for the upcoming 2019 General Elections.

Speaking to ANI, Ramdev said, "I am an apolitical person, I am not bound by political limitations, Mother India is my first priority and my work is my religion. So, my only focus is that."

When asked about the mud-slinging between the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) recently over the controversial Rafale deal, Ramdev said, " should be issue-based. Development, health, education, infrastructure, policies, be it agricultural, health or industrial policies, how the country will progress, there should be debates on these topics."

"But there is dirty in the country. Both the government and the oppositions are using foul language, this is not good for the country," Ramdev said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)An 11-month-old baby died on Wednesday, while travelling from Doha to Hyderabad in a Qatar Airways flight.

Upon reaching Hyderabad's Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, the family called for medical assistance. The team of doctors at the airport declared the boy brought dead, adding that the toddler died of breathing problems.

Offering condolence, Qatar Airways, in a statement, said the baby passed away at the Hyderabad airport.

"We are aware of the very sad news that a young child passed away at Hyderabad International Airport this morning. Our heartfelt sympathy and thoughts are with the affected family," read the statement.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Alea Consulting has come up with a risk review report on Credit Information Entities. According to the report, a Credit Information Company (CIC) in India, also known as a Consumer Reporting Agency in the USA and a Credit Reference Agency in the UK, are third-party institutions that collect, maintain and record financial data pertaining to credit and loans of customers and commercial entities. They are also responsible for providing a credit score/credit worthiness assessment or rating.

The primary role of a CIC is to collect, store, and update credit information on consumers, which is then provided to the financial institutions, including banks and NBFCs. CICs are part of a competitive market, which assures to provide accurate information at viable prices.

Industry Evolution

Prior to the establishment of CICs, it was common for merchants to provide credit to entities and individuals based on personal acquaintance and relationships. While most entities and individuals repaid, some defaulted on the debt and posed a risk to the To prevent losses and abscondence, merchants kept records of entities and individuals who defaulted. Over time, lists of good and bad debtors were developed on the basis of the credit experience. This information could be obtained at a cost. The industry later evolved from manual record keeping to making information available online.

In 2000 the CIC industry evolved into formal existence. Based on recommendations by N.H. Siddiqui Committee, the first CIC was named the Credit Information Bureau of India Ltd. (CIBIL), now known as TransUnion CIBIL (TU-CIBIL). In 2009 other CICs followed after the RBI granted in-principle approval to Equifax, Experian, and Highmark.

Classification of Data

Historically, CICs only tracked and provided negative information on customers. However, with the industry evolution, credit history is now classified into two categories:

Negative Data: relates to unfulfilled financial obligations such as defaults, amounts in arrears, litigation and other adverse information that leads to the creation of a blacklist for the customer.

Positive Data: relates to the open and closed accounts by the customer and the repayment history.

Key Challenges for CICs

-Maintaining data quality and accuracy

-Provide customer friendly CIC data/information access to the customer

-Education and awareness on the benefits of utilizing a credit score

-Speedy and transparent dispute resolution mechanism

Act / Regulations

CICs in India are licensed by RBI and governed by the Credit Information Companies (Regulation) Act, 2005 (CIC Act). RBI derives its powers to enact Credit Information Companies Regulations, 2006 and Credit Information Companies Rules, 2006 (collectively called CIC laws) from CIC Act, to facilitate the smooth working of CICs. Section 15 of the CIC Act states that every Credit Institution should be a member of at least one CIC, and CIC may seek and obtain information from its members only. Observing the issue of CICs operating independent of each other, an RBI directive of January 15, 2015 (based on Aditya Puri Committee recommendations) specifies that Credit Institutions shall become members of all CICs and submit current and historical data to them; and keep the credit information collected and maintained by them updated on a monthly basis, or shorter intervals, as may be mutually agreed.

Increased FDI Ceiling

Under the automatic route, RBI increased the FDI ceiling in CICs from 74% to 100%, subject to certain conditions. According to the new norms, investors whose ownership are well-diversified and have an established track record of running a CIC in a well-regulated environment can take a 100% stake in a CIC; while those not well diversified can own a maximum of 49%. Investments by a person are limited to 10% of the equity capital.

Risk Mitigation

As at March 31, 2018, gross NPA stood at Rs.10 trillion (USD 150 billion) forming a significant part of Indian bank transactions. CICs can play a significant role in enabling efficient banking decisions, and the mitigation of risk.

Financial institutions need to build a strong and synchronized relationship with CICs through regular data sharing to determine if a customer/potential customer qualifies for a loan and if the loan will be repaid on time. The CIC provides updated information to clients through its numerous product offerings, including credit information report, credit score, watch lists and alerts, which can forewarn lenders and allow them to take more informed decisions on portfolio quality and control of NPAs.

Government Initiatives

RBI has set up a Central Repository of Information on Large Credits (CRILC) to collect, store and distribute information on large credits (Rs. 50 million and above) of banks, systemically important non-banking financial companies (NBFC-SI) and NBFC-Factors.

A Central Registry of Securitisation Asset Reconstruction and Security Interest of India (CERSAI) is being developed to identify transactions relating to securitization and reconstruction of financial assets, and those relating to mortgage by deposit of title deeds to secure any loan/advances granted by banks and financial institutions as defined under the SARFAESI Act, with records that are searchable.

Industry Opportunity

CICs role and data has clearly grown from its original mandate to the availability of information to customers through the internet. With growing NPAs, there is an opportunity to develop AI tools (also with blockchain technology) that would be able to take automated decisions on loans, which can be granted at defined thresholds.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Senior lawyers on Wednesday applauded the Supreme Court's decision not to refer its previous order on quota in job promotion to a larger bench and upheld the previous M Nagraj verdict dealing in reservation in job promotion.

Supreme Court lawyer Manoj Gorkela applauded today's decision and termed it a big relief for Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) people.

He said, "This is a very big relief for crores of SC/ST people. There were some prime barriers in M Nagraj verdict, first one was backwardness on which Supreme Court upheld Indira Sahini and said that there is no need to examine the degree of backwardness. States were facing a lot of problem in quantifiable data collection and this issue has also been resolved. The biggest takeaway is that promotion in the reservation will remain in this country and states can implement it."

Special Counsel for the Maharashtra government Rakesh Rathore said, "Today, the matter pertaining to promotion in the reservation was decided upon. The Supreme Court was hearing a petition on whether the previous full bench judgment of M Nagraj needs reconsideration or not. On that, the Supreme Court has said that except for one point with respect to backwardness, the whole judgment should be upheld. The Supreme Court has said that people belonging to SC and ST do not need to prove their backwardness since they are already deemed to be backward."

Rathore also added that the matter was on reconsideration and the court felt that there is only one thing that needs to be changed in M Nagaraj and accordingly the provision for proving their backwardness has been removed and rest has been upheld.

Senior advocate Abha Singh also applauded the decision for not making the reservation in job promotion as mandatory and said, "The Supreme Court bench under Chief Justice Dipak Misra has rightly said that Nagraj bench decision will not be referred to a larger bench of seven judges. The Supreme Court has said that there will be no mandatory reservation in promotion and there will be no obligatory quota for promotion, rightly so because as of now you may give reservation in job to SC/ST and Other Backward Class on the ground that they have been discriminated upon but nowhere it is justified that you have to give reservation in promotion. It is a very sensible judgment."

The Supreme Court of India, in a very significant decision today, upheld the Nagraj verdict. The Nagaraj judgment dealt with the issue of reservation in promotions for members of the SC/ST communities. In the M Nagaraj verdict, the Supreme Court had laid down the criteria for the SC/ST reservation in promotion.

The court held that while state governments are not bound to provide reservations for the benefit of SC/ST communities when it comes to promotions, it will be mandatory for them to fulfill certain criteria if they decide to implement such a policy.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Subramanian Swamy has written a letter to Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley seeking permission to initiate proceedings to prosecute Finance Secretary Hasmukh Adhia. Swamy alleged that Adhia has been involved in several corrupt activities and 'enabled' diamond jewellers Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi flee India. The BJP MP claimed that Adhia is still in touch with fugitive diamantaire Nirav Modi and alleged that he is 'extending' him a 'protective shield'. In his letter, Swamy has urged Jaitley to prosecute Adhia under Section 197 of CrPC and Section 19 Prevention of Corruption Act.

In an exclusive interview to ANI, Swamy said: "I wrote to Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley today, seeking sanctions to prosecute Hasmukh Adhia. He has been involved in not only many corrupt acitvities listed in the letter, but also in protecting corrupt people like P. Chidambaram and Sonia Gandhi. He has transferred all officers who have taken action against them, against these people in the Herald, Income Tax matters. He has transferred a young Revenue Service Officer who was doing very good work." Swamy further added that he will file a PIL in the Supreme Court on October 4.

"We cannot fight corruption from our own inside, people are sabotaging our activities. So, I have asked people for sanctions to prosecute him. On October 4, I will go to the Supreme Court to file a PIL in this matter," Swamy said.

"The Punjab Bank (PNB) scam, as it is popularly known today, is about the grant of Letters of Undertaking (LoUs) by the bank to the companies of Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi for a fraud involving Rs 11,000 crore. Presently, both of them are absconding. The said individuals and their companies are being investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). Enforcement Directorate (ED), Income Tax (IT) and the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI). Three of the above mentioned four agencies work under the aegis of the Finance Ministry, and directly report to Adhia," Swamy wrote in his letter to Jaitley.

He added that from the questions raised by him in the Rajya Sabha, on the amount involved in LoUs issued by banks, it is clear that in the PNB Scam, 21,666 LoUs were issued after May 26, 2014. "It is significant to mention that 1070, 6189, 6669, 5878 LoUs were issued in 2018, 2017, 2016 and 2015, respectively. It may be mentioned here that starting November 2014, Adhia has been in the Finance Ministry, first as Secretary DFS and then from October 2015 till date, as Revenue Secretary. The modus operandi in the said case is that the accused persons fraudulently issued LoUs and credit and have apparently conspired with many unknown persons including officials in cheating the bank. The CBI is expected to file supplementary charge sheets on completion of the investigations," Swamy wrote.

He said that the role of Secretary Adhia has been subject to a lot of public scrutiny in the recent past on this specific issue. Referring to a news story by a website that alleged Finance Secretary of receiving gold biscuits as Diwali gift, "but failed to order probe", Swamy said the report "makes grave references to the gold biscuits and expensive items allegedly gifted by Nirav Modi to Adhia. Acceptance of gold biscuits is not just a violation of conduct rules but also warrant action under the PCA. The gold biscuits were deposited in the Toshakana as an after-thought by Adhia and it is not the appropriate place to deposit gifts received from unknown individuals. It is a matter of record that no enquiry or investigation was launched in this matter even though it is evident to all concerned that the sender (allegedly Nirav Modi) had an intent to bribe the Revenue Secretary of India, while he was looting the public exchequer for thousands of crores."

Swamy alleged: "The Income Tax (IT) department which functions under the direct control and supervision of Adhia failed to cause any enquiry under the IT, Black Money or the Benami laws, thereby, enabling the fleeing of the accused, against whom Red Corner Notices could have been issued, provided the investigations were registered. Surprisingly, I have reliably learnt that the incriminating evidences that were found during the IT searches in 2016 were not shared with ED or CBI. Intriguingly, DRI, which also reports to Adhia, registered a case and issued notice to Nirav Modi for diversion of jewellery worth Rs 1205 crore from a Special Economic Zone (SEZ), Surat in 2015. However, action to prosecute him, was initiated in March 2018, much after Nirav Modi fled India. It is a matter of serious concern as to why the IT and DRI, both under Adhia, had to wait for Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi to flee India to initiate any appropriate action. This, prima facie, is indicative of criminal nexus between Nirav Modi and Adhia - the only authority in the Finance Ministry who happens to be the epicentre of all these investigative agencies."

Swamy said that in spite of more than 30 months having elapsed since the searches against Nirav Modi, "the investigations have not made any concrete progress and reliable sources have inforrned me that Nirav Modi is still in touch with Adhia, who is extending him a protective shield.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)King Mohammed VI has expressed Moroccos full support to the Action for Peacekeeping Initiative launched by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

In a message addressed to participants in the High-Level Meeting on Action for Peacekeeping, held Tuesday in New York on the sidelines of the 73rd session of UN General Assembly, the Sovereign stressed the importance of this initiative, voicing the Kingdoms strong support for the reforms the Secretary General has undertaken at the United Nations.

It is very satisfying to see such African mobilization for peacekeeping. Not only does peacekeeping concern Africa, but our Continent is also deeply committed to it, added the Monarch in his message read out by Head of Govt Saad Eddine El Othmani.

Having always attached special importance to stability and prosperity on the African Continent, the Kingdom of Morocco is convinced that this initiative, which has brought us together today, will make it possible to reaffirm, at the highest level, the international communitys commitment towards Africa, said King Mohammed VI.

It is not by chance that todays meeting coincides with the 70th anniversary of Peacekeeping Operations. What better way to celebrate this formidable instrument for the promotion of peace and security offered to the international community by our Organization than to engage in peacekeeping actions, driven by a desire to ensure their sustainability and enhance their effectiveness, stressed the Monarch.

As soon as it was launched (in March this year), the Kingdom of Morocco backed the Action for Peacekeeping initiative, a key component of this reform. My country contributed in an active, constructive and consensual manner to the drafting of the Declaration of Shared Commitments on UN Peacekeeping Operations, which we are adopting today and endorsed it spontaneously and unreservedly, he said.

The Kingdom of Morocco fully supports this initiative because it is deeply convinced that Peacekeeping Operations constitute one of the most useful tools at the disposal of the international community. We need to act quickly and diligently to make sure peacekeeping operations achieve their objectives in full, underlined the Moroccan Sovereign.

He called for the respect of the core principles of peacekeeping operations, particularly those related to the preservation of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of States, consent, impartiality and non-use of force, except for self-defense or for the protection of the UN mandate.

The mandates given to Peacekeeping Operations must be realistic, pragmatic, achievable and adequately funded, added King Mohammed VI, affirming that crisis resolution must remain the ultimate goal of peacekeeping operations, which requires greater mobilization to promote political solutions and prevention and mediation initiatives.Sweden Prime Minister Stefan Lofven was ousted on Monday after he lost a mandatory no-confidence vote in the Parliament, CNN reported.

Lofven, a center-left politician was toppled after the center-right opposition parties combined with the far-right Sweden Democrats (SD).

The move is expected to throw the country into a period of further political turmoil.

Interestingly, Lofven's removal comes two weeks after a tumultuous general election, where his party won 144 seats.

According to CNN, the newly elected speaker of the Swedish parliament, Andreas Norlen of the Moderates, is expected to meet the opposition leaders and consult over the selection of a new prime minister.

However, if the speaker fails to garner enough support from the parliament and the deadlock continues, Sweden will have to hold a new election within three months.

Lofven, who was the prime minister of Sweden since 2014, will have to lead a transitional government until further notice, CNN quoted the speaker's office as saying.

Speaking to reporters at a press conference Lofven said, "I'm still Sweden's prime minister. I am prime minister in a transitional government."

"I see good opportunities for that, yes. ... I am at the disposal of the speaker. I want to continue serving our country," CNN quoted Lofven as saying.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Actor Tanushree Dutta has alleged that Bollywood veteran Nana Patekar allegedly misbehaved with her on the sets of the film Horn 'Ok' Pleassss in the year 2008.

In an exclusive interview to ANI, Dutta said that Patekar allegedly misbehaved with her on the sets and that her complaint in the connection went unaddressed.

"He misbehaved on the sets. He was being aggressive and was pushing me around. I complained about him, but it was not heard. They (film crew) were forcing me to do an intimate step. My contract stated that it was a solo dance sequence, and it was not supposed to be a duet. It was a way to manipulate me. This was the whole harassment situation going on," Dutta said.

The 'Aashiq Banaya Aapne' actor further alleged that she and her family were attacked after she refused to perform the intimate step.

"When I tried to escape it, they called the media to do a mob lynching attack on us. My mother and father were inside the car. That was horrific. They made sure that we didn't escape the studio as they locked the gates. Ganesh Acharya was the one who pressurised me to perfom an intimate step. Everybody was involved including Amit Siddiqui and Rakesh Sarangi. All of them are good friends," Dutta claimed.

She asserted that before she and her family could reach out to the police to file a case, the film crew had already filed a counter FIR.

"The cops came and got us out. We went to the police station, but before that, they went and filed a counter FIR. My father, my spot boy and my hairdresser, who were helping me, went through harassment over the next couple of years," the 34-year-old actress alleged.

Reacting to choreographer Ganesh Acharya's statement on Patekar's non-involvement in the issue, Dutta claimed, "He's a bloody liar and a two-faced person. He's going to say all that. And 10 years ago, he was one of those people who were equally complacent in the harassment. He won't admit it."

Calling the veteran actor a "pawn" in the entire scenario, Dutta alleged, "He's not the end goal of this discussion. He's the reason why this discussion started. I want the industry to ban these people from working just to set an example for others. You can't get away with this behaviour. My fight is not with Nana Patekar or Ganesh Acharya. I don't want them to work. I want them to suffer the consequences of their actions."

She added, "One has to go through a lot when you put such allegations. The entire court and police process needs to be updated, else our country will plunge into chaos in no time."

Expressing grave concerns over the rise in cases of gangrape, the 'Dhol' actress said that such "horrendous cases of violence and abuse against women and children" would turn the country into Iraq soon, if such crimes were not curbed.

When asked why she made such allegations on a noted actor like Patekar, the 'Good Boy, Bad Boy' star claimed, " Who said he is that? Did you go into his house and see what he was up to? Did you live with him? Just because he got a Award, he doesn't become a respectable human being."

She further alleged, "These film actors technologically know how to present themselves so that they come across as saintly. But you don't know, what they are doing behind their back. Everyone stays mum because of this ideology because this one has a name. How do we speak against this person?"

Commenting further on the rape cases in the country, Dutta said, "In these last 10 years, more media outlets are there to cover the news. There is more dialogue in the society about sexual assault. And these cases have come to the forefront in the last couple of years. I spoke about it in 2008. When somebody is a rape survivor, she is going to take time to come out and speak. What they have gone through physically, emotionally and mentally. It is far worse than harassment."

Reacting to the Kerala independent MLA's comment on calling the Kerala nun victim a 'prostitute', the 34-year-old actress said that it "shows the ignorance and mentality of our country.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Tata Starbucks in India is taking its coffee heritage and inspiration to celebrate International Coffee Week this year with coffee-forward experiences and special promotions across its stores.

Recognised in delivering consistent, authentic in-store experiences, rooted in high-quality Arabica coffee, Tata Starbucks is celebrating the art of coffee from heritage to brewed innovation over a seven-day celebration titled 'Starbucks Brewtober', beginning October 1.

To celebrate coffee, Starbucks stores, which bring to life the Third Place experience, will feature seven international whole bean coffees handpicked from seven different parts of the coffee belt, allowing customers to 'Travel the World in Seven Sips' this International Coffee Day- October 1.

Other experiential activities during the week include 'Farm to Cup' story - an immersive coffee tasting experience that brings to the fore Starbucks' commitment to ethically sourced coffee and its 47-year old legacy of coffee processing and roasting; 'Starbucks Coffee Experience Bar'- a masterclass into the art, craft and science behind different cups of coffee and 'Latte Art' - a showcase of the craft of Starbucks partners.

On October 6, Starbucks Brewtober brings 'Starbucks 100' - a day Starbucks shares coffee love with all its customers by offering them any short/ tall Starbucks beverage at only Rs 100 across all its stores in India.

Continuing with the celebrations, Starbucks is also offering My Starbucks Rewards Gold Members an exclusive offer on October 7.

"At Starbucks ,we take great pride and joy in partnering with customers on their journey of coffee exploration and are committed to delivering an unparalleled coffee experience. With 'Starbucks Brewtober', Tata Starbucks commemorates coffee with a week-long celebration. 'Starbucks Brewtober' offers coffee lovers a unique way of celebrating coffee, starting with various immersive coffee experiences to the big day of 'Starbucks 100' - a day when Starbucks shares coffee love with its customers by offering all its short/ tall handcrafted beverages for only Rs 100," said Veetika Deoras, Head - Marketing, Category, Digital and Loyalty at Tata Starbucks Limited.

"We hope to celebrate coffee and the spirit of Starbucks through the week and look forward to welcoming our customers in our stores," she added.

International Coffee Week will be celebrated across all Starbucks stores in India from October 1 to 7, 2018.

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)In a recent study conducted by Cosmos Strategy - one of the country's leading Strategic Consulting firms based out of Mumbai revealed that the next leg of Nation's growth potential to come from the Telecom and Retail Sector.

The study reveals that the Telecom sector and Retail Sector in the country would witness a drastic growth in the coming years and it would expect to grow by 10 % from the current de-growth of 10% by year 2025.

This would be one of the largest sectorial revolutions the country would witness in the near future.

Current under-penetration of micro-financing, lack of exciting options for micro-investments and extreme fragmentation of retail sector are all opportunities waiting to be innovated upon to create significant valuation through new services by the operators.

The Indian wireless landscape has witnessed a tectonic shift in the last two years post the launch of Jio. After two decades of continuous revenue growth, the last two years have witnessed both revenue and profitability drop for the incumbent operators. As per TRAI data, industry revenues for 2016 was 280 thousand crores, which shrunk by 10% to 255 in 2017 - all this while usage of data services have grown five-fold, which requires substantial capital investment in creating capacity.

While explaining the sector's future growth potential, Nilanjan Mukherjee, Managing Partner, Cosmos Strategy said, "Indian telephone companies now should re-define their model - from being "access revenue" from voice and data usage only, operators should fundamentally re-look at their core strengths and based on today's internet and smartphone reality, they should participate in a much larger spectrum of activities."

"We must remember that for 80% Indian consumers, the smartphone is the only device through which they explore internet. This provides operators the ability to mine fabulous customer insights. Traditionally, operators had developed extremely sophisticated algorithms to measure and trigger growth of voice and data services to improve their revenues. But today, unlimited calls and fat data quotas have made such an activity redundant. So instead of ruing this, it will be useful to set up a very different customer insight program. The first possibility as the largest provider of internet services is to set up an AI-based customer insight engine. Privacy issues are being widely discussed but appropriate precautions can be put in place to ensure customer protection. Such a database alone has incredible potential - companies like Google and Facebook earn billions through such insight monetization"

Mr. Mukherjee further explained, "The second area is a large customer base who is spending more and more through digital purchases from their smartphones. If you see some of the most exciting start-ups who have attracted huge valuation - say PayTm or Flipkart and witness their key product - mobile recharges and smartphones constitute almost half their revenue portfolio. One can never ignore the hunger, dexterity and single-minded focus of PayTm or Flipkart - but here is how the operator could have done it better. If the large operators had set-up a dedicated digital recharge platform and not allowed any outside service to sell their product they would now have a company valued several billion dollars. While today's reality is purchase through the phone, tomorrow the same services will work on voice-activated platform like the Alexa's of the world. It will be interesting to see if operators are keen to create such futuristic products on their own and not let the value creation to be externalized. Similarly, operators are well placed to upgrade customer smartphones through contextual insights-based offers (camera quality for selfie user, battery life for video user or large memory for heavy app users). They can even sweeten the deal by bundling their own voice and data services along with the phone."

Mukherjee continues with some other areas which have incredible potential without strong players, which he feels could have the maximum potential going forward. "The large customer base, high trust levels and deep on-ground presence coupled with the flexibility of the digital world gives operators great leverage to launch services like micro-lending or micro-investments - India is a country with fortune at the bottom of the pyramid and no one today can better explore this than mobile operators."

"Similarly, retail is one of the largest area waiting to be innovated. Our severely fragmented retail footprint in India is now coming under stress due to discounted prices from e-commerce giants like Amazon. The effective solution to the retailer's problem has already been demonstrated in neighbouring China. Ule, a service launched between Tom and China Post, provides a business-to-consumer e-commerce platform that supports online and offline store integration, distribution, logistics, and promotion. Despite having Alibaba and within a short span of one year, Uli today has clocked revenues in excess of 1.3 Billion USD and provided relief to small retailers by creating a larger stock visibility and fulfilment by clustering retailers. Such a service platform is a crying need in India and in terms of infrastructure capability it can be ideally created by mobile operators."

"The success of Hike, Wink or Jio TV has proven that operators are already activating themselves in the OTT area. But mobile operators all over the world have launched similar products. The real scope and potential could be significantly higher - in today's connected IoT enabled world. The real question is finding the correct structure which captures the hunger & agility of a start-up with the might and ability of an operator.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Philippines has entered the Oscar race by officially choosing 'Signal Rock' for the 'foreign language film' category.

Directed by Chito Rono, the film features Christian Bables and Elora Espano in the lead role, reports Variety.

Shot over a period of two weeks, the plot of the film focuses on how the population of Biri Island in the 1990s had to climb a high rock in search of mobile phone signals.

The Regal film production will also feature at the Busan International Film Festival in Korea, next month. It is scheduled for a theatrical release in The Philippines in August.

The 91st Academy Awards will be held on February 24, 2019.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)American comedian Bill Cosby, formally known as 'America's Dad', was sentenced to three to 10 years in state prison for sexual assault.

In April 2004, Cosby was convicted of drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand. The 81-year-old was also categorised as a sexually violent predator, meaning that the comedian must undergo counselling for life and be listed on the sex offender registry.

Here's how Twitterati reacted to the sentencing.

Questioning the duration of the sentence, actress Amber Tamblyn tweeted, "Bill Cosby has been sentenced to 3-10 years for drugging and sexually assaulting many women over the course of many years. His survivors have been sentenced to a lifetime of brutal memories and trauma for daring to exist in the first place. Super fair I guess"

"Today a PA court deemed #BillCosby a Violent Sexual Predator (before) sentencing him. For decades people maligned &decried his accusers as LIARS. It took 60+ accusers 2 finally bring his survivors justice &vindication. Have we learned nothing?" wrote American actor Debra Messing.

American author Keith Boykin also responded to the sentence, writing, "Bill Cosby sentenced to 3-10 years for sexual assault that took place years ago, but Brett Kavanaugh can still go to the U.S. Supreme Court without even an FBI investigation into sexual assault allegations against him."

Actor Albert Brooks mocked Cosby's time as a Jell-O spokesman and tweeted, "Bill Cosby gets new advertising campaign: Jail-O."

American writer and political analyst Zerlina Maxwell tweeted, " BILL COSBY BEING PUT IN CUFFS FITTIN TO IMPROVE MY MOOD. Only 3 percent of rapists ever go to jail so this is a RARE MOMENT!"

Cosby's trial was heralded as the first major celebrity trial of the #MeToo movement, and the first to result in a conviction.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The United States on Tuesday imposed sanctions on Venezuela's First Lady and Former Attorney General Cilia Adela Flores de Maduro, Executive Vice President Delcy Eloina Rodriguez Gomez, Minister of Communication and Information Jorge Jesus Rodriguez Gomez, and Minister of Defense Vladimir Padrino Lopez.

In addition, the US has designated additional individuals and entities that are part of a network supporting Rafael Alfredo Sarria Diaz, a key front person for sanctioned Venezuelan President of the illegitimate Constituent Assembly, Diosdado Cabello Rondon, said a statement issued by the US Department of State.

The US designated both Sarria Diaz and Cabello on May 18. The individuals sanctioned that form part of the network associated with Rafael Alfredo Sarria Diaz are: Jose Omar Paredes and Edgar Alberto Sarria Diaz.

The entities sanctioned for being owned or controlled by, or have acted or purported to act for or on behalf of Sarria Diaz are: Quiana Trading Limited and AVERUCA, C.A. In addition, the US has sanctioned Panazeate SL for being owned or controlled by, or have acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, Edgar Alberto Sarria Diaz.

As a result of yesterday's action, all property and interests in property of these individuals and entities that are in the US or in the possession or control of U.S. persons must be blocked and reported to Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).

OFAC's regulations generally prohibit all dealings by U.S. persons or within (or transiting) the United States that involve any property or interests in property of designated persons.

U.S. sanctions need not be permanent; they are intended to change behaviour. The US would consider lifting sanctions for persons sanctioned under E.O. 13692 that take concrete and meaningful actions to restore democratic order, refuse to take part in human rights abuses and speak out against abuses committed by the government, and combat corruption in Venezuela.

The US will continue to use the full weight of American economic and diplomatic power to help create the conditions for the restoration of democracy for the Venezuelan people, said the official statement.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)French President Emmanuel Macron said that he was not in power when the controversial Rafale fighter jets deal was signed between India and France.

"It was a government to government discussion. I just want to refer to what Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi very clearly said a few days ago. I was not in-charge at that time. I know that we have very clear rules," Macron said while addressing a presser on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday.

"The contract is a part of a broader framework between India and France. It's a military and defence coalition between the two countries. It's very important to me and it's a strategic coalition. I just want to refer what Prime Minister Modi said on the situation," Macron added.

The deal to buy 36 Rafale fighter jets was signed in 2016 between Prime Minister Modi-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government and the French government under then President Francois Hollande.

The opposition Congress party has been accussing the Centre of irregularities in the high-profile Defence fighter jets contract, alleging that the NDA government was procuring each aircraft at a cost of over Rs 1,670 crore as against Rs 526 crore finalised by the then United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.

The controversy took a new twist last week after Hollande, with whom Prime Minister Modi had cleared the deal in 2016, claimed that the Indian government had proposed Reliance Defence's name as the offset partner for Dassault Aviation, the French aerospace major.

The Congress has repeatedly asked the Centre to reveal the price details of the aircraft and how the rate of each aircraft has shot up. However, the government refused to share the details, citing a secrecy clause of a 2008 pact between India and France.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Millions of people, every year, have their vacations and business trips ruined when they get 'traveller's diarrhoea' during travelling.

A major cause of this is a bacteria called Enterotoxigenic E. coli, or ETEC. Researchers have discovered how the bacteria work to cause the disease, in an effort to develop a preventive vaccine for travellers.

The researchers studied samples taken directly from citizens who volunteered to become infected with ETEC.

Ingesting contaminated food or water can lead to ETEC infection, which can cause diarrhoea for up to a week. Considering the fact that up to 200 million people become infected annually, an estimated 1 billion days of human productivity are lost every year due to ETEC infections.

Visiting the doctor to get vaccinated before a trip can prevent travellers from catching a disease. Unfortunately, there are no available vaccines to prevent ETEC infections, so travellers must constantly be concerned about what they eat and drink while on vacation.

The group examined how ETEC behaved inside humans during infection compared to how it behaved in the laboratory. They were surprised to find that ETEC produced more toxins when grown in the laboratory than it did in human infection samples.

They discovered that ETEC could sense oxygen in the atmosphere, and that controlled the amount of toxins produced by ETEC. This explained their surprising data: There is more oxygen in the atmosphere than there is in the digestive tract, which resulted in the differing levels of toxin expression.

This breakthrough gives researchers hope that they have identified the "cue" that ETEC uses to determine when to make toxins that cause disease. How ETEC causes disease via toxins has been studied exhaustively for decades. Previous groups have identified numerous factors that contribute to toxin production in ETEC, but this is the first-time oxygen has been identified as a major player in ETEC virulence.

Lead author Alex Crofts said, "We think ETEC can sense the oxygen given off by our own cells as a cue to produce toxins."

The group now hopes to use this oxygen-sensitive ETEC response against the bacteria to prevent infections.

"Beyond toxins, we found ETEC regulates many other factors in response to oxygen, and some of those are promising new targets for future vaccines. ETEC is a global burden on society, and we are doing all we can to advance our understanding of the disease," said study author Stephen Trent.

The study appeared in the journal 'Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences'.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The World University of Design (WUD) - India's first and only university dedicated to education in the creative domain organized a two-day exclusive Design Thinking workshop - Global Goals Jam 2.0 (GGJ) from September 21-22, 2018.

The workshop was held in association with the Digital Society School of University of Applied Sciences, Amsterdam along and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

GGJ is an international platform for inclusive learning where people from all around the world contribute to the 17 global goals for sustainable development of UNDP by sharing their stories, projects, and visions for the future.

Fifty-Six innovators from across the country, divided into 10 groups, participated in the workshop presenting their ideas and vision for the future. The topics they selected aimed to create or improve informative, preventative, diagnostic, therapeutic or assistive interventions for issues related to good health & well being. Seven ideas were shortlisted by the experts in the mentor group from AIIMS, IIT and other health-care agencies. Some of the ideas which were shortlisted are:

-Smart and smooth transportation of Ambulance

-How to prevent stagnant water

-Reusable mask to prevent TB

-Methods for preliminary diagnosis of heart-related diseases

-Treating problems related to manholes

The participants shared their perspective and experiences about the workshop. Discussing about the project - Smart and smooth transportation of Ambulance one of the student of Transportation Design at WUD, Abhishek Ojha said "I am here to participate as an ideator at the Global Goals Jam and have pitched an idea in which we are proposing a space, a pathway for ambulances which could avoid an ambulance getting stuck in traffic jams and also we can use the dividers between the roads as a pathway for ambulances or any other emergency vehicle services so that traffics does not become an issue for emergency services and a valuable life can be saved."

Akash Mangla, a final year Mechanical Engineering student from IIT Delhi, also shared information about his project - Methods for preliminary diagnosis of heart-related diseases and said, "I am interested towards the design thinking processes and also the prototyping. The sustainable development goals that we have been assigned is the good health and well-being, so we are working on a small machine which can be used by poor and illiterate people to diagnose the problems related to the heart. The good thing about the Global Goal Jam is that there are people from different background and you are getting an opportunity to collaborate with them, and you get different perspectives and a new way to look at the problem, also to find solutions for the same."

All the projects will be shared with UNDP for evaluation and global rollout.

The Workshop focused on Health and well-being and was inaugurated by Chief Guest Dr. Swati Subodh, the Bio-scientist-Entrepreneur and Director for Healthcare Innovations at 1M1B (1 Million for 1 Billion) Foundation. A keynote address was delivered by Dr. Sushma Sagar, Professor & Surgeon, AIIMS Delhi. The co-mentors at the workshop included Prof. PV Madhusudan Rao - Professor & Head (Design), IIT Delhi and Prabhat Gusain, Investment specialist @investIndia (Startup India).

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The process towards the adoption of the Morocco-EU farm and fisheries agreements is moving in the right direction, said Moroccan Minister of Agriculture and Maritime Fisheries, Aziz Akhannouch, following talks in Brussels Wednesday with EU Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, Phil Hogan.

Akhannouch expressed optimism about the process, which, he said, moves in the right direction.

Both agreements are progressing positively and all indicators are moving towards adoption (in the European Parliament) early next year, said the minister.

He added that talks with European leaders aim to move forward in the strategic relations of partnership with the European Union.

During the meeting, Hogan, the highest European representative on agricultural issues, expressed support to the European Commissions position on the Morocco-EU free trade agreement and stressed the importance of sound trade relations with Morocco with regard to agricultural products.

He also emphasized the importance of investment and economic development in the Mediterranean region for the benefit of people on both shores.

For his part, Aziz Akhannouch highlighted the quality of relations between Morocco and the European Union, particularly in the commercial, agricultural and fisheries sectors. He underlined the importance of Morocco-EU exchanges for the development of these sectors in Morocco.

Morocco and the EU initialed the new fisheries agreement In Rabat last July. European fishing trawlers will return to Moroccan waters once the agreement is endorsed by the two sides parliaments.

Last February, the two parties initialed a document in Brussels that strengthens their partnership on the basis of the agriculture agreement.As the shares of Yes Bank continue to decline, the Board of Directors have sought an extension of incumbent founder and CEO Rana Kapoor's term in office.

The Board, following its meeting on Tuesday, announced the constitution of a "Search and Selection Committee", comprising three existing nomination and remuneration committee board members and two external experts to identify a new Managing Director and CEO as a successor to Kapoor, in accordance with the Reserve Bank of India's communication directing the Board to replace Kapoor post January next year.

The Board also informed that given Kapoor's role as MD and CEO since the inception of the Bank in 2004, and the time-consuming challenges of finding a suitable successor, it would request the RBI for an extension of his term up to at least April 30, 2019, for finalisation of audited financial statements for the fiscal year ending March, 2019, and thereafter, subject to RBI's approval, up to September 30, for the statutory AGM process to be completed.

"This period will also be crucial to identify and enable a new incumbent to get fully conversant with Yes Bank and its working," the Board argued.

During the meeting, the Board, in order to ensure a long-term succession plan within Yes Bank, sought the RBI's approval for the appointment of Rajat Monga (currently Senior Group President), and Pralay Mondal (currently Senior Group President) as Executive Directors of the private lender.

"The Bank would make appropriate recommendations to RBI regarding the appointments," the Board said.

Last week, the central bank had announced that Kapoor would serve as MD and CEO of Yes Bank only until January 31 next year, three months after the bank's shareholders had given their nod to Kapoor's reappointment for another three-year term.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Receives bids for 43.17 lakh shares

The initial public offer (IPO) of Aavas Financiers received bids for 43.17 lakh shares today, 26 September 2018, as against 1.47 crore shares on offer, as per the National Stock Exchange of India (NSE) website data at 17:00 IST. The issue was subscribed 0.29 times. The issue opened for subscription on 25 September 2018 and closes on 27 September 2018. The price band for the issue has been fixed at Rs 818 to Rs 821 per share.

Ahead of the opening of the IPO, the board of directors of the company at its meeting held on 24 September 2018, finalised allocation of 63,36,439 equity shares to anchor investors at Rs 821 per share.

Aavas Financiers was incorporated in Jaipur, Rajasthan, on 23 February 2011. The retail and affordable housing finance company primarily serves low- and middle-income self-employed customers in semi-urban and rural areas with limited access to formal banking credit. Gross non-performing assets (NPAs) were the lowest end March 2018 and assets under management (AUMs) were second-fastest growing in the last three financial years among affordable housing finance companies with AUMs between Rs 2500 crore and Rs 20000 crore.

The IPO is to collect between Rs 1729.20 crore by issuing 2.114 crore shares at the lower band of Rs 818 per share (face value Rs 10 per share) and Rs 1734.07 crore by issuing 2.112 crore shares at the upper band of Rs 821 per share.

The issue consists of a fresh issue of equity shares (0.487 - 0.489 crore shares) aggregating up to Rs 400 crore and offer for sale (OFS) of 1.62 crore equity shares aggregating up to Rs 1329.20 - 1334.10 crore.

The net proceeds of the fresh issue are proposed to be utilized for increasing the Tier I capital base to meet future capital requirement that are expected to arise out of growth of business and assets, primarily housing loans and other mortgage loans, and to ensure compliance with the National Housing Board guidelines. Further, there will be the benefits of listing of the equity shares on the stock exchanges, enhancement of the brand name and creation of a public market for equity shares in India. The net proceeds will be sufficient to satisfy the Tier- I capital requirements for FY2019.

Aavas Financiers reported profit after tax of Rs 92.93 crore on total income of Rs 457.25 crore in the year ended March 2018.

Powered by Capital Market - Live News

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Mainland China equity market inclined on Wednesday, 26 September 2018, as investor risk sentiments underpinned by reports that global index provider MSCI Inc. launched a consultation on a further weight increase of China A-shares in the MSCI Indexes. In afternoon trade, the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index inclined 1.27%, or 35.29 points, to 2,816.43, meanwhile the Shenzhen Composite Index, which tracks stocks on China's second exchange, added 0.75%, or 10.84 points, to 1,448.16. The blue-chip CSI300 index rose 1.58%, or 53.53 points, to 3,433.33.

The index compiler MSCI Inc plans to lift a cap on free-float-adjusted market value to 20 percent from 5 percent for yuan-denominated stocks, according to a statement. That would occur in two stages in 2019.

MSCI's also looking to make equities listed on the tech-heavy ChiNext board eligible from next year, and mid-cap stocks from 2020, it said. China A shares won entry to the MSCI indexes in June last year and were added to gauges in May and August. MSCI is seeking feedback from investors by mid-February and will announce its final decision at the end of that month.

CURRENCY NEWS: China's yuan declined against the U. S. dollar on Wednesday, inline with soft mid-point fixing by People Bank of China. Prior to market opening on Tuesday, the People's Bank of China (PBOC) set the midpoint rate at 6.8571 per dollar, 131 basis points weaker than Tuesday's fix of 6.844.

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Key benchmark indices were trading higher in early trade on positive Asian cues. At 9:20 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was up 126.61 points or 0.35% at 36,778.67. The Nifty 50 index was up 40.85 points or 0.37% at 11,108.30.

Among secondary barometers,the BSE Mid-Cap index was up 0.32%. The BSE Small-Cap index was up 0.39%.

The market breadth, indicating the overall health of the market, was positive. On BSE, 810 shares rose and 332 shares fell. A total of 42 shares were unchanged.

Overseas, most Asian shares rose ahead of a widely expected rate hike by the US Federal Reserve and as international oil prices rose to four-year highs. South Korean markets are closed for a public holiday.

US stocks finished mostly lower Tuesday amid subdued activity as investors limited big bets ahead of the Federal Reserve's monetary-policy decision on Wednesday. Concerns about continuing trade tensions lingered, further capping the market's upside momentum.

On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump reiterated his administration's stance on trade, telling the United Nations General Assembly that his country would "no longer tolerate abuse" on that front.

Trump's statement came after US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said his country was ready to move ahead on a trade deal with Mexico even if it excluded Canada, as negotiations with Ontario remained at an impasse. "We're not going to say 'no deal because of Canada.' That doesn't make any sense at all," he told the US Chamber of Commerce.

In the latest US economic data, home prices rose 0.2% in July, the slowest pace of growth since last summer. Separately, the US consumer confidence index rose to 138.4 in September from 134.7.

Back home, Adani Green Energy was up 3.57%. The company announced that it won tender for setting up 300 MW wind generation project to be set up anywhere in India and connected through Inter State Transmission System (ISTS). The tender was floated by Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) and which shall also be the PPA counterparty. The fixed PPA tariff is Rs. 2.76/kWh for a period of 25 years. Project is expected to be commissioned by Q2 FY2021. With this, AGEL's portfolio of renewable generation capacity in India now stands at 3.50 GWac with 1.96 GWac operational projects and balance 1.54 GWac in development stage. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 25 September 2018.

Glenmark Pharmaceuticals was up 1.75%. The company announced that its board will meet on 28 September 2018, to consider buybacks of any part of its Singapore listed foreign currency convertible bonds, being, its $200 million 2% resettable onward starting equity linked securities due 28 June 2022 issued in 2016 ("FCC Bonds") and / or, its $200 million 4.5% senior notes due 2021 issued in 2016 ("FCY Bonds"), based on market opportunities and conditions from time to time and to delegate powers to operations committee. The operations committee, based on market opportunities and conditions, will hold meetings during the next one month to consider and approve the terms and conditions of any tenders or buybacks. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 25 September 2018.

Minda Industries was up 4.36%. The company announced that its board approved an investment for setting up a new manufacturing plant of 2 wheeler alloy wheel in Maharashtra, for supplies to OEMs. The outlay of the project is approved for Rs 500 crore, which will be completed in two phases. In the first phase, Rs 300 crore will be undertaken within two years and thereafter the second phase will be undertaken. The start of production is expected from November 2019. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 25 September 2018.

Blue Dart was down 0.63%. The company announced major expansion plans to deliver to every Indian home by December 2018, amidst rising demand for deliveries in tier II, III & IV towns in India. The initiative is one of the biggest drives undertaken to expand Blue Dart's reach to every corner of India and aims to reach 19,100+ pin codes by December 2018. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 25 September 2018.

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Sensex and the Nifty were range bound in negative terrain in mid-afternoon trade. At 14:25 IST, the barometer index, the S&P BSE Sensex, was down 149.23 points or 0.41% at 36,502.83. The Nifty 50 index was down 31.05 points or 0.28% at 11,036.40. Investors largely remained on the sidelines as they awaited cues from a US Federal Reserve meeting that ends later in the global day.

The market breadth, indicating the overall health of the market, was positive. On BSE, 1290 shares rose and 1225 shares fell. A total of 163 shares were unchanged.

Among secondary barometers, the BSE Mid-Cap index was up 0.43%. The BSE Small-Cap index was up 0.07%. Both these indices outperformed the Sensex.

Most realty shares rose. Godrej Properties (up 5.14%), Unitech (up 4.85%), Housing Development and Infrastructure (HDIL) (up 4.78%), Oberoi Realty (up 3%), DLF (up 2.79%), D B Realty (up 2.64%), Indiabulls Real Estate (up 2.49%), Prestige Estates Projects (up 2.44%), Sobha (up 2.24%), Peninsula Land (up 1.77%), Anant Raj (up 0.37%) and Omaxe (up 0.3%), edged higher. Mahindra Lifespace Developers (down 0.12%), Phoenix Mills (down 2.57%), Sunteck Realty (down 3.18%) and Parsvnath Developers (down 3.23%), edged lower.

Most cement shares rose. ACC (up 0.99%), UltraTech Cement (up 0.50%) and Ambuja Cements (up 0.35%), edged higher.

Grasim Industries was down 0.12%. Grasim has exposure to cement sector through its holding in UltraTech Cement.

Punjab National Bank was up 2.01%. The bank announced during trading hours today, 26 September 2018, that its board will meet on 27 September 2018 to consider capital infusion of Rs 5431 crore by Government of India by way of preferential issue of equity share.

Reliance Industries was up 0.34%. The company announced during trading hours today, 26 September 2018, that its wholly owned subsidiary, Reliance Industrial Investments and Holdings (RIIHL), has subscribed to 40,58,647 compulsorily convertible preferred shares of NetraDyne Inc., USA ("NetraDyne") at $1.97110 per share, for cash aggregating to $8 million. RIIHL had previously invested $16 million in NetraDyne. RIIHL's investment translates to about 37.4% equity stake on the basis of current fully diluted share capital.

NetraDyne is an early stage technology start up incorporated in the State of Delaware in September 2015. NetraDyne is a high-end technology driven product, deep learning solutions and vision based analytics business with focus on verticals such as fleet management, automotive, security and surveillance. It has recently started commercializing its technology with select partners across the globe.

NetraDyne is an early stage revenue company, with turnover of $0.4 million in FY2018. The aforesaid investment has potential synergies with digital services and communications initiatives of RIL and its subsidiaries, apart from commercialization benefits in India.

Overseas, European stocks were mixed as investors focused on an upcoming US Fed decision. Asian shares rose as Chinese markets extended their recovery to hit eight-week highs on receding fears about the trade war as well as hopes China's weighting in the global benchmark will be increased. South Korean markets are closed for a public holiday.

US stocks finished mostly lower Tuesday amid subdued activity as investors limited big bets ahead of the Federal Reserve's monetary-policy decision on Wednesday. Concerns about continuing trade tensions lingered, further capping the market's upside momentum.

On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump reiterated his administration's stance on trade, telling the United Nations General Assembly that his country would "no longer tolerate abuse" on that front.

Trump's statement came after US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said his country was ready to move ahead on a trade deal with Mexico even if it excluded Canada, as negotiations with Ontario remained at an impasse. "We're not going to say 'no deal because of Canada.' That doesn't make any sense at all," he told the US Chamber of Commerce.

In the latest US economic data, home prices rose 0.2% in July, the slowest pace of growth since last summer. Separately, the US consumer confidence index rose to 138.4 in September from 134.7.

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Four children and two women were killed when a four-storey building collapsed here on Wednesday, police said, adding that six others were rescued from the rubble. Three of the injured were said to be critical.

Police said the old building in a JJ Cluster in north Delhi's Sawan Park area collapsed around 9.30 a.m., following which area residents informed police that some tenants living in the structure were trapped under the rubble.

Teams of the National Disaster Response Force, police and Delhi Fire Services along with area residents undertook rescue work for over five hours and took the help of two cranes to pull out the trapped people.

"The dead children were Sumnesh, aged two, and his elder brother Rajnesh. Two other dead siblings were Ashi, aged three, and her brother Saurya, aged two, who stayed on the second floor. Two deceased women were Munni Devi, 40, and Seema, 25.

"The building was built about two decades ago was in bad condition," Deputy Commissioner of Police Aslam Khan said.

According to Deep Chand Bandhu Hospital, the six injured admitted there were Kamla Shankar, 18, Manju, 22, Laxman, 26, Vijay, 30, Nisha, 35, and Raj Bahadur, 35. The condition of three of them is said to be critical.

Delhi Police said that building owner Dharmender and his partner Sachin have been booked for culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

"They absconded along with their family members after the collapse. A manhunt is on to nab them," the DCP said.

The officer said that in August 2017 area resident Sanjeev Gupta had lodged a complaint on the online portal of the North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) about the building posing a danger to the public. "The team of area MCD officers had inspected the house just 20 days back," the officer claimed.

According to the official, about 23 tenants from four families stayed on different floors of the building, constructed on a 25 square yard plot.

"They had also raised concerns over weak pillars and damaged portions of the structures before Dharmender, who assured of maintenance work soon. He also assured them of shifting them to his other property," the official said.

"Luckily, 11 persons living in the building had left for their jobs/work half an hour before the structure collapsed. A majority of people who stayed there worked as labourers and carpenters. They wanted to leave after the NDMC officers visited it," the official added.

The area residents accused the NDMC of negligence and said its officer visited the building but did not seal it because of corruption.

"We work as labourers. When we left for work in the morning, we saw our sons Sumnesh and Rajnesh studying. We did not know that it was the last time we were seeing them alive," their sobbing parents Vimlesh and Bimla told IANS.

Adjoining buildings too suffered cracks due to the collapse of the building. Authorities ordered the evacuation of an adjoining four-storey building as a precautionary measure.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, BJP chief Manoj Tiwari and the NDMC Mayor visited the spot.

Tiwari slammed the Kejriwal government and the previous Congress regimes for not taking steps to prevent such accidents.

--IANS

sp/tsb/bg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Calling the Supreme Court's verdict a big victory, the Congress on Wednesday said the decision to strike down the Modi governments "surveillance tool" will put an end to the government's "abuse of power".

It said that through its judgment, the Supreme Court had firmly put an end to the "mass surveillance exercise being carried out under the guise of Aadhaar and the "grotesque distortion of an idea conceived by the UPA".

Addressing a press conference here at the AICC office, Congress leader Kapil Sibal welcomed the verdict calling it an endorsement of the UPA's vision for Aadhaar.

He said Aadhaar can no longer be made mandatory for mobile phones and bank accounts.

The Congress leader added that an important part of the judgment was that it unanimously agreed that the decisions of the Lok Sabha Speaker can be subject to judicial review.

"This marks the beginning of a new era of accountability for the Speaker who so far was beyond reproach," a Congress statement added.

Sibal said while four judges of the Supreme Court upheld the classification of the Aadhaar Act as a money bill, Justice D.Y. Chandrachud dissented calling it a "debasement of the democratic structure" which renders the Act an "illegality".

Justice Chandrachud has also held that passage of bills in such a manner by the government is a way of undermining the role of parliament and parliamentarians, he said.

He said the Congress will not accept any attempt by the government to bring an amendment to the Act through the money bill route and would challenge it in court.

Later, a party statement said the government sees Aadhaar not as a viable tool for the delivery of benefits but as a "mechanism to be misused by forcibly collecting data from the public and harvesting the same for purposes of surveillance".

"The Congress Party stands for an Aadhaar which is voluntary and backed by a valid law. It stands for an Aadhaar which provides a genuinely stable, secure and viable alternative to existing forms of identification aimed at making it the most important tool for delivery of benefits rather than invasion of privacy," it said.

Referring to the minority judgment by Justice Chandrachud, the Congress said it is a scathing indictment of the government's clandestine and dishonest approach towards its parliamentary responsibilities.

"In doing so, and when read with the decision of the entire bench, this opens the door for several challenges to the Speaker's arbitrary decisions and has effectively changed the law as it existed on the subject."

The party pledged to examine the Aadhaar law and its provisions to adhere to the stated objectives of ensuring direct benefit of government schemes to the poor and deprived while upholding the right to privacy in its entirety, upon coming back to office.

In its landmark judgment, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar document but with modifications. It said it will not be required for opening bank accounts, admissions in schools or for getting mobile phone connections.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Calling the Aadhaar judgement a big victory of the Modi-government, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday said the Supreme Court has repeated what the Prime Minister has been saying: "the card gives strength to the poor".

"As far as the judgement of the Supreme Court on Aadhaar is concerned, we see this as a big victory of the pro-poor Modi-government," BJP's National Spokesperson Sambit Patra told the media.

The Supreme Court, he said, has repeated what Modi has been saying that the poor are the power of the nation and the card gives strength to them.

Patra also said that the court has made it clear that Aadhaar cards cannot be duplicated.

"It is totally safe. This is also what we have been saying," he said.

He said this will also help in checking illegal immigration as "the court said the card is not for illegal immigrants".

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)BJP President Amit Shah on Wednesday took a dig at Rahul Gandhi after he claimed that the Supreme Court judgment supported Congress vision, saying, "yes, it won today, just like they won Lok Sabha Polls in 2014."

"Yes, the Congress won today, just like they won Lok Sabha Polls in 2014," Shah said in a tweet replying to Congress President.

The BJP Chief's remarks came after Gandhi hailed the apex court decision and said thanked the court for supporting the party's vision to protect nation.

"For the BJP, Aadhaar is a tool of oppression and surveillance. Thank you Supreme Court for supporting the Congress vision and protecting the nation," Gandhi tweeted.

The Supreme Court in a landmark judgement upheld the legality of Aadhaar for use only in government-funded social benefit schemes and PAN and Income Tax Return (ITR) while junking its requirement for mobile phone connections, bank accounts, school admissions and competitive examinations.

Shah in a series of tweets, said, "Today's Supreme Court judgment is a strong validation of Aadhaar as an instrument of service delivery. It gives further impetus to empowering the poor by ensuring that they get their rights."

Targeting the previous Congress-led UPA government, Shah said: "Aadhaar under UPA government was Niradhar (did not have a legal basis) and had no purpose. UPA spent thousands of crores to enrol people without any law or scrutiny. Modi government gave it strong legal backing and integrated it in service delivery. This ensured savings of Rs 90,000 crore and benefited the poor."

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader accused the Congress of being the fountainhead of middlemen and corruption, and said, "It tried every trick to fight and defeat Aadhaar, politically and legally. They tried to mislead people on various grounds, including scare-mongering on privacy. Today they stand exposed and defeated," he said.

--IANS

aks/prs

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has expressed his desire to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to start over afresh with Pyongyang and resolve the decades-old row over Japanese nationals' abductions.

In his speech to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, Abe said he wished to get over the past tensions between the two nations, Efe news reported.

"North Korea is now at a crossroads at which it will either seize, or fail to seize, the historic opportunity it was afforded," Abe said.

"I am also ready to break the shell of mutual distrust with North Korea, get off to a new start, and meet face to face with Chairman Kim Jong-un," the longtime hardliner on North Korea said.

He said although nothing has been decided yet regarding a summit, he assured there would be a high-level meeting and it would focus on resolving "the abduction issue".

North Korea has admitted in the past to kidnapping 13 Japanese citizens between the 1970s and 1980s, five of whom were later returned to Japan. Tokyo, however, maintains that there were at least 17.

Japan proposed in March that North Korea hold a meeting between Kim and Abe, who so far has not taken part in any of the summits on regional rapprochement process with Pyongyang in 2018, such as those held with the North Korean leader and the presidents of the US, China and South Korea.

So far no progress has been made to finalise a Japan-North Korea meet, which according to Tokyo, would also focus on the denuclearisation of North Korea.

The two nations already held two summits in 2002 and 2004 in Pyongyang, when the abduction issue was discussed.

However, it has never been brought up again since and the whereabouts of the other Japanese who Pyongyang kidnapped for its spy training programs still remain unclarified.

Abe said that the country wants all the Japanese hostages to return and that he was determined to make that happen.

The Japanese leader also defended the global "free trade system" and hoped that the US and Japan will maintain the kind of relationship they have had.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Morocco has once again underscored the regional character of the Sahara dispute holding Algeria responsible for blocking progress towards a political solution that would put an end to the ordeal of thousands of people held against their will by the separatist Polisario militia with Algiers consent.

Speaking at the 73rd UN General Assembly, head of the Moroccan government Saad Eddine El Othmani said Algeria is responsible from a political, legal and humanitarian perspective of the dramatic conditions inflicted on the Population held against their will in Tindouf camps by the Polisario separatists.

He also called on the international community to put pressure on Algeria to allow a census by the UN Refugee agency of the camps population in line with the recommendations of the Security Council.

Morocco reiterates its full support for the terms of reference adopted by the Security Council in addressing this artificial regional dispute, he said adding that the Security Council is the sole institution overseeing the settlement of this issue.

In his speech, El Othmani also highlighted Moroccos solidarity-based African policy citing the Kingdoms continental leadership on migration, environment protection and south-south cooperation.

He also stressed Moroccos commitment to multilateralism as an approach in addressing global challenges.National Disaster Response Force chief Sanjay Kumar was on Wednesday given additional charge of the post of Director General of Fire Service, Civil Defence and Home Guards (FS, CD and HG).

Kumar, a 1985-batch Himachal Pradesh cadre IPS officer, was given the new responsibility after Prakash Mishra, IPS (retired), relinquished the post, said a Union Home Ministry statement.

He would hold the charge "till the appointment and joining of successor or further orders whichever is earlier", the statement said.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)West Bengal BJP President Dilip Ghosh on Wednesday termed his party's 12-hour shutdown as successful and peaceful barring a few stray incidents and blamed the ruling Trinamool Congress activists for the sporadic violence.

The BJP leader also announced the withdrawal of the shutdown call around 4 p.m., two hours ahead of the scheduled time.

Following the killing of two youths during a clash between agitating students and the police last week over the recruitment of new teachers at a school in North Dinajpur district's Islampur, the state BJP leadership had called for the shutdown across the state, claiming the two were shot dead by the police.

"The shutdown has been successful. People have shown their support towards our call and backed it spontaneously. So we are withdrawing the shutdown two hours earlier so that the lives of common people are not further hampered," Ghosh told the reporters here.

"The situation was largely peaceful, barring a few incidents. The Trinamool Congress- backed hooligans resorted to violence in most places so as to put the blame on us. We have not asked anybody to enforce the shutdown. The violence and vandalism are neither sponsored nor supported by the BJP," he claimed.

The BJP leader said over 2,000 party activists were arrested across the state and demanded their immediate and unconditional release.

He denied the Trinamool's claim of hooliganism by the BJP, adding that his party activists had appealed to the people to observe the shutdown peacefully.

"There has been no hooliganism. Our activists held 10 rallies in Kolkata. If they wanted they could have created disruptions, but nothing like that happened. If we wanted we could have brought the city to a standstill by torching 10 more buses but we do not believe in such practices," he said.

A number of state-run buses, including one in Kolkata, were vandalised and torched allegedly by the bandh supporters across the state.

Taking a swipe at Chief Minister Banerjee who termed the shutdown as a hindrance to productive work, Ghosh claimed that Banerjee herself had created a record in calling strikes and shutdowns in the state earlier.

"She had called for 73 shutdowns in Bengal -- a record in itself. No one, not even the CPI-M, can come close to that figure. Also, she had called for a 36-hour shutdown once. Now, she has completely changed her stance and started opposing it," Ghosh claimed.

Ghosh accused Transport Minister and Trinamool leader Subhendu Adhikari of triggering unrest in Islampur by holding a rally there.

"The situation in Islampur became tense because of the Minister's rally. He rallied anti-social elements. Members of terrorist organisations were seen in the area. People have expressed their anger against this government," the BJP leader added.

--IANS

mgr/tsb/bg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Actress Alia Bhatt, who is busy shooting for "Brahmastra," has said the film will take cinema in India to another level.

"We all are very excited for the film...I think 'Brahmastra' is a step ahead. It will take cinema to another level so, I am very excited for the next year," Alia told the media at the preview of "East Greets West - A Conversation Through Calligraphy" on Tuesday here.

The cast of "Brahmastra" including Amitabh Bachchan, Alia and producer Karan Johar, keeps posting pictures of the film's shooting in progress on the social media, but the actress said: "Hopefully, none of them is from the film."

Attending the calligraphy exhibition, in which two strangers come together depicting a story through decorative lettering even though they do not speak the same language, Alia said: "It shows how art has no boundaries and there is only language and that is art..."

She also revealed that she used to do charcoal paintings in school. And she would like to make her cat Edward's portrait someday.

"Brahmastra" is a fantasy film that also stars Ranbir Kapoor, Akkineni Nagarjuna and Mouni Roy. The film is scheduled to release on August 15, 2019.

--IANS

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(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.)State-run wagons manufacturer Braithwaite & Co. is expecting to clock a revenue of Rs 250-300 crore and a net profit of Rs 10 crore in the current financial year, an official said on Wednesday.

"The company's turnover was on average Rs 120-130 crore annually for the last 4-5 years. We are hoping to touch Rs 250-300 crore by this fiscal and projecting a net profit of Rs 10 crore," company's Chairman and Managing Director Yatish Kumar said.

The company posted a net profit of Rs 3 crore in the last financial year, he said.

The company, which is manufacturing wagons, cranes, foundry products, heavy structural for bridges and engineering applications, has been focusing on wagons repairing, he said.

The engineering company currently has an order book of Rs 600 crore, of which, wagons manufacturing order constitutes about Rs 400 crore, wagon repairing order Rs 100 crore and another Rs 100 crore of miscellaneous jobs, Kumar said.

"Demand for repairing of wagons has been increasing and sometimes they require immediate repairing. In terms of repairing wagons, we have jumped from 50 wagons a month to 200 monthly in the last two months.

"Now, we are progressing further to 350 wagons repairing this month," he said on the sidelines of Manufacturing Excellence organised by Confederation of Indian Industry here.

The city-based company is also extending its repairing services to on-site depots and bagged an order from East-Central Railway for repairing 1,000 wagons at its Mughalsarai depots, he said, adding that 350 wagons of the order have already been repaired.

The manufacturing company is expecting repairing orders from different divisions of Railways and is in discussions with them (different railway division) for long-term repairing contracts, he said.

In terms of manufacturing, Kumar said it was operating at 40 wagons a month and of late, it was able to expand it to 80 wagons a month though it has a capacity of manufacturing 200 wagons per month.

He said the company, under the Ministry of Railways, is looking to execute all the pending orders soon and is also eyeing container wagons manufacturing.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Border Security Force (BSF) soldiers rescued three children from the flooded Ravi in the Amritsar sector along the India-Pakistan border on Wednesday.

"Due to recent incessant rains in Himachal Pradesh, the Ravi is in spate -- the water level has risen up to 20 feet," said a BSF spokesman.

"On September 26, a telephone call was received from a civilian caller that three children of Gujjar Basti were stuck in the flooded river," the spokesman said.

"The caller said these children would drown and may drift towards Pakistan if not rescued," the spokesman said.

Gujjar Basti is located near the Ravi, adjacent to border outpost (BoP) Shahpur in the Amritsar sector, around 300km from here.

"A BSF rescue team rushed to the spot and launched rescue operation with the help of force's water wing troops," said the spokesman.

"The troops successfully saved the trapped children and handed them to their parents. The condition of the children is normal except Mohammad Surmu who is under observation of doctors as he almost drowned and lost consciousness when rescued," the spokesman said.

--IANS

js/prs

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Centre on Wednesday decided to transfer an incomplete ITDC hotel project -- Gulmarg Ashok in Gulmarg -- to the Jammu and Kashmir government, and the Hotel Patliputra Ashok in Patna to the Bihar government, as part of its disinvestment policy.

Briefing reporters here following a Cabinet meeting, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that it had earlier been decided that where state governments were not agreeable to jointly lease or sub-lease hotel properties together with the Central government, such properties may be returned to the states at their officially valued price.

"In continuation of Centre's disinvestment policy, the Cabinet has approved transfers of incomplete project of Hotel Gulmarg Ashok, Gulmarg, and Hotel Patliputra Ashok, Patna, to the respective state governments," Jaitley said.

He said that some of the old India Tourism Development Corp (ITDC) hotels had already been privatised.

"As per the disinvestment policy of the Government of India, it had been decided to lease /sublease the ITDC hotels / properties / units / joint ventures jointly with the state governments," a Tourism Ministry statement said.

The policy of returning the properties to the states where they were not agreeable to joint leasing with the Centre "had been formulated keeping in view that running and managing hotels on professional lines is not the job of government or its entities", it said.

To date, the ITDC has transferred hotels Lake View Ashok (Bhopal), Brahmaputra Ashok (Guwahati), Bharatpur Ashok (Bharatpur), Janpath (New Delhi), Lalitha Mahal Palace (Mysore), Donyi Polo Ashok (Itanagar) and Jaipur Ashok (Jaipur) to the respective state governments, the statement added.

--IANS

bc/nir

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved signing of an agreement between India and Russia for cooperation in the fields of social, economic, industrial and regional development programmes.

The memorandum of understanding (MoU) between India's NITI Aayog and Russia's Economic Development Ministry would explore the potential of cooperation in the framework of preparation and implementation of strategies and programmes in the said sectors, an official statement said.

"It provides a framework and enabling environment to understand each other's strengths, market, technologies and policies," it said.

According to the MoU, the two countries would conduct joint research projects and exchange information and research works related to issues of mutual interest, the statement said.

--IANS

vv/nir

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Prime Minister Narendra Modi has assured Mizoram of all possible help in improving connectivity of the bordering state with the outside world, an official said here on Wednesday.

The Mizoram government official said that the assurance was held out when Governor Kummanam Rajasekheran met the Prime Minister in New Delhi on Tuesday and discussed the development of road, rail, air and telecommunication connectivity in the mountainous state.

The Governor submitted a memorandum on the expansion of road connectivity along the India-Myanmar and India-Bangladesh borders by the Border Roads Organisation.

Rajasekheran also sought the Centre's support for upgrading the Kawnpui-Durtlang-Aizawl Road and Sairang-Tuipuibari Road maintained by the BRO.

"The Prime Minister assured of all possible help and said that he will support the state's development," the official said.

According to the Northeast Frontier Railway, work on the Rs 2,393 crore Bairabi-Sairang 51.38-km rail project is in progress in Mizoram. Sanctioned in September 2009, the project is to be completed in December 2020.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)China on Wednesday said it was hurt over former Maldives President Mohammad Nasheeds "irresponsible remarks" against Beijing.

In interviews to media outlets, Nasheed, a fierce critic of Chinese investment in the Maldives, said after the defeat of pro-Beijing President Abdulla Yameen that the country will surely rethink on the Chinese deals and mend its ties with India.

Nasheed also said that it was difficult for an authoritarian state like China to understand a democratic country like the Maldives.

"We are deeply confused and regret these irresponsible remarks made by certain persons. We reiterate that we will continue our cooperation on the basis of equality and mutual benefit. We will abide by the market based-rule," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said when asked about Nasheed's comments.

"Whether the cooperation between the Maldives and China can work out or bring benefits to the two countries is all up to the people of the two countries say and it cannot be smeared by certain individuals," he added.

Under Yameen's leadership, the Maldives drifted closer to China so much so that the Maldivian Parliament approved a free trade deal with Beijing without any debate.

Yameen also backed China's Belt and Road project and sought more Chinese investment in the country.

The Maldivian Democratic Party, which came to power in election last week, has been critical of China's forays into Male.

China worries the new government might renegotiate the deals made under Yameen.

--IANS

gsh/mr

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said climate change is an absolute priority and the world is not doing enough.

"Climate change is the defining issue of our time, and we are at a defining moment," Guterres told an informal high-level leaders dialogue on climate change on the sidelines of the high-level week of the UN General Assembly.

"Many times journalists ask me what are my priorities. I always say we have many priorities in the UN... but I would say that this (climate change) is the absolute priority."

The Paris Agreement, which aims to keep global temperature rise to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to keep the increase to 1.5 degrees if possible, represents the bare minimum to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, said Guterres, Xinhua news agency reported.

The Paris Agreement commitment was universal. But the world is nowhere close to where it needs to be to meet these minimum targets, said Guterres. "Climate change is indeed running faster than we are, and we have the risk to see irreversible damage that will not be possible to recover if we don't act very, very quickly."

According to a UN study, the commitments made so far by parties to the Paris Agreement represent just one-third of what is needed, he noted.

"We need to do more and we need to do it quicker: we need more ambition and accelerated action by 2020. If we do not reverse the current trend of emissions by 2020, it may be impossible to meet the 1.5 degree goal."

The effects of climate change are already being felt, with disastrous consequences for people and all the natural systems that sustain life in the planet. Just last year, the economic costs of climate-related disasters hit a record of 320 billion U.S. dollars, he noted.

Climate action makes moral sense, and also makes business sense, he said. "So why is climate change faster than we are? The only possible answer is that we still lack strong leadership to take the bold decisions needed to put our economies and societies on the path of low-carbon growth and climate resilience."

Guterres called specifically on the countries that account for the majority of greenhouse gas emissions to do more.

He asked for stronger leadership from the Group of 20 countries, which combined account for around 80 percent of the global greenhouse emissions. "Only courageous leadership will make the goals of Paris a reality."

This means ending subsidies for fossil fuels and high-emitting agricultural practices and shifting toward renewable energy, electric vehicles and climate-smart industry and agriculture. It means closing coal plants and replacing those jobs with healthier, better alternatives. And it needs carbon pricing that reflects the true cost of carbon emissions, he said.

He asked for increased investments and innovation in energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies across buildings, transport and industry.

Governments need to encourage their banks to support green financing and to encourage innovation in financial and debt instruments to strengthen the resilience of vulnerable nations such as small island states, he said.

It is also essential that governments fulfil their pledge to mobilize 100 billion dollars a year by 2020 for climate action, he said.

"The time is long gone when we could afford delay," he said. "Each day brings further evidence of the mounting existential threat of climate change to the planet. Every day that we fail to act is a day that we step a little closer toward a fate that none of us wants -- a fate that will resonate through generations in the damage done to humankind and to life on Earth."

--IANS

ahm/

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The FBI isnt the GOPs favorite law enforcement agency these days, but suddenly Republicans may need its stamp of approval on their SCOTUS nominee. Photo: T.J. Kirkpatrick/Bloomberg via Getty Images

If you have been following the Kavanaugh confirmation saga at all, you probably know that Republicans have repeatedly and contemptuously scoffed at the idea of an FBI investigation of the sexual-assault allegations lodged against the nominee by high-school classmate Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, and now college classmate Deborah Ramirez. Calls for such an investigation were originally made by Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats when Fords allegations came to light, and were rejected by committee chairman Chuck Grassley, the White House, and the FBIs own overseers in the Justice Department. Ford herself asked for such an investigation in a formal letter to Grassley; he was unmoved, saying that senators were perfectly capable of adjudging the credibility of witnesses.

Most recently, in a New Yorker piece that brought Ramirezs accusations into public view, she, too, suggested that the FBI investigate her story and Kavanaughs denials. In this case, Republicans (from the president on down) were too absorbed with dismissing her accounts and attacking her credibility to respond to her pleas for a neutral investigation of the facts. All along, Kavanaughs defenders denounced all these calls for FBI involvement as a mere dilatory tactic by Democrats to delay the judges confirmation.

So thats a dead issue, right? Maybe not.

Lisa Murkowski is one of a few Republican senators thought to be still on the fence about Kavanaugh. And heres what she had to say today:

I just asked Sen. Lisa Murkowski, key GOP swing vote, if there should be a full FBI investigation into allegations from Kavanaughs past. It would sure clear up all the questions, wouldnt it? she said  Manu Raju (@mkraju) September 25, 2018

Murkowskis comment got the attention of National Reviews Jonah Goldberg, who made the case that for the price of a few days delay, an FBI investigation might bolster Kavanaughs credibility. But here was his bottom line:

Lots of people reject all of this and say that the GOP should stop the circus and just vote right now. That would be a great idea if Kavanaugh had the votes. He doesnt. And something will have to change for him to get them.

Viewed from that perspective, if you are inclined to believe Kavanaughs denials of wrongdoing, or think the allegations cant be proven, then going to the FBI for a nod or a shrug is an acceptable compromise with a tough situation. Agreeing to an investigation could also conceivably shore up Kavanaughs sagging position in the court of public opinion.

Even if Republicans dont follow Goldbergs advice right away, it could become a plan B for them very soon if (a) Murkowski finds Republican Senate allies for her interest in an investigation, making it very clear Mitch McConnell cant just plow through to a quick Senate vote and expect to win; or (b) Ford looks very credible in her Judiciary Committee hearing later this week. As Goldberg concludes:

Maybe Ford wont show up Thursday (which is almost likely from the sound of things). Maybe she wont be credible at all and that will be the end of it. But if she passes the threshold of sounding believable enough, it seems likely that the only choice will be calling the FBI.

Senate Republicans will have to eat a lot of their own words if they suddenly move in this direction. But particularly when it comes to the question of Supreme Court nominations, theyve never let consistency get in their way before, have they? Just ask Merrick Garland.The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) on Wednesday lauded the Maldives Presidential election process that saw joint opposition candidate Ibrahim Mohamed Solih emerging victorious over incumbent President Yameen Abdul Gayoom.

In a statement, the CHRI said the peaceful vote for change in the Maldives Presidential election "is an affirmation of ordinary people in democratic processes and in upholding of dignity and rule of law."

Welcoming the outcome of the ballot, CHRI commended the citizens of Maldives "for voting in large numbers despite efforts at intimidation, harassment and threats of violence that characterized the environment in the run-up to the elections".

"The high voter turnout of nearly 90 per cent is a clear affirmation of the Maldivian people's commitment to a democratic electoral process and rule of law enshrined in the 2008 Constitution of the Maldives," the statement said.

"CHRI urged all stakeholders and institutions to work together to ensure a smooth transition of power following the November 17 inauguration," it added.

After polling on Sunday, the Election Commission of the Indian Ocean archipelago nation on Monday declared Solih of the Maldivian Democratic Party the winner with 134,616 or 58.3 per cent of the votes, compared to 96,132 votes or 41.5 per cent secured by incumbent President Yameen Abdul Gayoom, backed by the Progressive Party of Maldives.

Solih will be sworn in on November 17 and his term is expected to continue until 2023.

With a number of prominent opposition figures of the country put behind bars, former President Mohamed Nasheed living in exile, a defunct parliament and a crippled judiciary, there was a big question mark over a free and fair election in the country.

The crisis in the Maldives began in February this year when President Gayoom declared a state of Emergency.

The security forces had stormed the Supreme Court and arrested two of its five sitting judges, sealed parliament house and detained prominent opposition leaders.

India is concerned with the political instability in the Maldives, which is just around 1,200 km from the Indian mainland, for a variety of reasons.

The country, home to around 22,000 Indians, is of strategic importance to India and its growing proximity with China is a cause for concern for New Delhi.

--IANS

ab/prs

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Calling the IL&FS crisis India's Lehman Brothers moment, the Congress on Wednesday sought a Supreme Court monitored multi-agency probe saying the irregularities in it has brought India on the verge of economic collapse.

Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari said the IL&FS Group, an infrastructure development and finance company, has a total debt of Rs 91,000 crore as on March 31, 2018 and was in no position to pay back its dues and had started defaulting.

"This is such a serious matter that a multi-agency investigation needs to be carried out under the Supreme Court's monitoring," Tewari said and questioned how a company with 40 per cent stake of government institutions was allowed to pile up Rs 91,000 crore debt.

The equity structure of IL&FS Ltd includes LIC's 25.34 per cent, Central Bank of India's 7.67 per cent and State Bank of India's 6.42 per cent. Besides, Orix Corp of Japan owns 23.5 per cent and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority owns 12.5 per cent.

He said a high-level probe was needed to ascertain how central government employees nominated by LIC, CBI and SBI in the IL&FS Board could allow the group's debt to rise 44 per cent in the last three years to a debt to a net worth ratio of 16.78 to one.

Tewari said the IL&FS crisis was seven times more than the combined economic offence of Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi. He said the unlisted company has a very opaque corporate structure and rating agencies have classified its equity as junk.

"IL&FS is on the verge of collapse and if that were to happen it will have a domino effect like after Lehman Brothers one after the other financial institutions started tumbling. Already on Monday and Tuesday, the markets have been yo-yoing because of this," he said.

The Congress leader attacked the Modi government saying the Prime Minister's Office and the Finance Ministry were putting pressure on Reserve Bank of India (RBI), SBI, LIC and National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) to bail out the company.

While the government has maintained that as IL&FS is a private company it will not intervene, the biggest shareholder LIC has recently said it will not let IL&FS collapse and was open to all options including raising stake in the company.

--IANS

mgu/mr

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A Danish "hunter and adventurer" has come under investigation by Australian authorities after he rode a live saltwater crocodile.

In a video posted on social media, Niels Jensen - who works in the Northern Territory (NT) as a hunting guide - goads the crocodile with a dead wallaby before mounting its back, reports Xinhua news agency.

"Saltwater crocodiles are large and potentially dangerous animals," Tracey Duldig, acting director of Northern Territory Wildlife Operations, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp on Tuesday night.

"The behaviour shown in this video is dangerous and reckless and we do not support this type of interaction with crocodiles."

Duldig said the use of a wallaby as bait would also be investigated.

"This is a protected species and it is illegal to take or interfere with protected wildlife," she said.

Saltwater crocodiles can grow up seven meters in length and 1,200 kg in weight.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Two children and a 40-year-old woman died when a four-storey building collapsed here early on Wednesday, police said. Many people are still feared trapped in the rubble.

According to the Deep Chand Bandhu Hospital, seven others were seriously injured.

The building in Ashok Vihar was about two decades old and its condition had deteriorated.

The National Disaster Response Force and Delhi Fire Service were engaged in rescue work.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Welcoming the Supreme Court verdict on promotion in service to SCs and STs, the Delhi government on Wednesday said it will soon incorporate the reservation benefit in its promotion policy.

Social Welfare Minister Rajendra Pal Gautam told IANS that the court verdict will also reduce frustration among the Scheduled Castes and Tribes who had been working in government jobs without promotions for years.

"The Delhi government welcomes the verdict. The court, by removing the three conditions in its 2006 order, has facilitated the promotion process for SCs/STs," Gautam said.

"People from these communities were struggling to get promotions. The verdict has cleared the path. Now, the frustration among them will go away and they will be able to work with their full heart and efficiency."

Gautam said that he will soon direct all Delhi departments to make a list of people awaiting promotions.

"The Delhi government will follow the apex court verdict and apply reservation in promotions," he said.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday said that the state does not have to collect quantifiable data on the backwardness of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes to extend them reservation in promotions in government services.

A five-Judge Constitution Bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra gave this ruling after hearing the Centre's plea for reconsideration of its 2006 judgment that stipulated quantifiable data on the SCs/STs for considering them for reservation in promotions.

The top court's 2006 judgment, also known as Nagaraj case, had said: "... state will have to show in each case the existence of compelling reasons, namely backwardness, inadequacy of representation and overall administrative efficiency, before making provision for reservation in promotions."

--IANS

nks/tsb/sed

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A section of Ghaziabad residents on Wednesday denounced the Modi government's move to privatize the Central Electronics Ltd (CEL), a public sector undertaking in Sahibabad industrial area.

Speaking to the media, social activist and BJP leader Rajendra Tyagi said the central government has proposed to sell the profit-making CEL to private bidders.

In the tender notice, any person or company with a worth of Rs 50 crore can bid for the profit making company which now possesses orders of Rs 950 crore, Tyagi said.

Also present at the press conference were Somnath Bhattacharya, President of the Executive Officers Association of CEL, and Residents Welfare Assocation Federation President Col. Tejandra Pal Singh Tyagi.

Established in 1974, the CEL made a net profit of Rs 21 crore in 2017, Tyagi said.

"We have given representations at every appropriate level but if the government doesn't agree with us then we will be forced to knock the door of courts," Tyagi said.

--IANS

sps/mr

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Eight cows have been handed over to as many farmers in the hilly district of Wayanad in north Kerala under the 'donate a cow' campaign in the wake of torrential rains and consequent devastation in the state in the monsoon season.

District authorities had launched an online campaign, after which people expressed their willingness to donate money to buy cows for those who had lost their cattle during the Kerala floods.

The 'donate a cow' campaign was launched under the leadership of Sub-Collector M.S.K. Umesh and Agriculture Officer V.S. Harsha.

According to official estimates, 223 cows had died during the heavy rains recorded between May and mid-August in the district.

Mary Kurian, who received a cow bought with the money pooled in by a group of students of the state-run Veterinary College on Wednesday, said: "It is something out of the blue. I never ever thought that I will get this gift. I am really indebted to those who helped me."

She had lost five of her cows in the floods.

Umesh told the media that their campaign had received good public response and helped collect Rs four lakh.

"We appeal to the people to join our efforts... we assure that their money will reach the most appropriate and needy person," said Umesh.

He said those willing to help can contact them or mail to vforwayand@gmail.com.

--IANS

sg/tsb/sed

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Ruia brothers-led Essar Power said it has commissioned the 337-km long Mahan-Sipat transmission line, allowing the company to add capacity to the national electricity grid.

In a statement here, Essar Power said the Mahan-Sipat line is the final leg of a 465-km transmission system consisting of three inter-state transmission lines that have been built at an investment of Rs 2,400 crore.

"The 400 kV lines will help Essar Power's 1,200 MW Mahan Thermal Power Plant in Madhya Pradesh to evacuate its entire generation," it said.

The Mahan-Sipat transmission line is part of the Inter State Transmission System (ISTS) that has been built by Essar Power subsidiary Essar Power Transmission Co. It extends from Mahan in Madhya Pradesh to the Sipat pooling station in Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh, which is connected to the national grid, it added.

"The commissioning of these transmission lines is a major milestone for Essar Power, and will help us access a nationwide market for the power generated from our Mahan plant," Essar Power Executive Vice Chairman Pradeep Mittal said in a statement.

According to the company, its generation capacity now stands at 3,830 MW across six coal and gas-fired plants in India and one in Canada.

--IANS

bc/nir

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)R.S. Sharma, Chairman of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), on Wednesday welcomed the Supreme Court's judgment on Aadhaar and said he is "extremely happy" with the verdict.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar Act, although it disallowed private entities from seeking Aadhaar number from consumers. In turn, telecom companies, too, would not be able to seek Aadhaar numbers from new subscribers.

As the Aadhaar's constitutional validity has been upheld, "I am personally, extremely happy, because I have been a part of this journey... In its initial days, for four years, I worked with this (Aadhaar)...," he said speaking at the Annual General Meeting of Tower and Infrastructure Providers Association here.

Sharma's statement assumes significance as he has been a staunch supporter of Aadhaar and the safety of data collected.

He also got involved in a controversy when he revealed his Aadhaar number on Twitter in July and challenged Aadhaar critics to harm him using the number.

Following that, the Unique Identification Authority of India had to urge people to refrain from revealing Aadhaar numbers on social networking sites.

--IANS

rrb/nir

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Ministers from India, Brazil, Germany and Japan have expressed concern that although it has been almost 40 years since Security Council reform was put on the General Assembly agenda, it is still languishing.

The Ministers from the four countries known as G-4 convened on Tuesday at the Indian Mission to the UN for a meeting hosted by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj to review the reform progress.

In a joint statement after the meeting, they said that they discussed "pathways to reform" the Council and tasked their diplomats "to consider the way forward to advance the reform" process known as Intergovernmental Negotiations (IGN).

The four countries of the G-4 advocate for Council reform and mutually support each other for a permanent seat on an expanded Council.

The other foreign ministers at the meeting were Aloysio Nunes Ferreira of Brazil, Heiko Maas of Germany and Taro Kono of Japan.

Looking back at the timeline of the reform movement, they noted that at the 2005 World Summit all the heads of state and government had unanimously supported the "early reform" of the Council. But despite an overwhelming majority of UN members supporting reform, the IGN had not produced substantive progress over the 10 years since its launch in 2009.

They "reaffirmed the need for an early reform of the Council including the expansion of both permanent and non-permanent categories of membership to enhance its legitimacy, effectiveness and representativeness" in order to "safeguard the legitimacy and credibility of this UN organ which deals with international peace and security", the statement said.

Although the majority of UN members support the reform, the IGN has not been able to produce even a negotiating text that would form the basis of discussion because of opposition from some countries like Pakistan and Italy that insist there should be a consensus on reforms before the agenda document could be framed.

The expansion of the permanent seats on the Council is of importance to African nations as none of them have that status on the body that intervenes the most in their continent.

The last General Assembly rolled over Council reforms to the current one - as happened over the years.

(Arul Louis can be reached at arul.l@ians.in and followed on Twitter at @arulouis)

--IANS

al/mr

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)An aptly named man. Photo: C-SPAN

Late Wednesday morning, Julie Swetnick, a decorated employee of the federal government, claimed that she had witnessed Brett Kavanaugh and Mark Judge sexually assaulting women at house parties in the early 1980s. In a sworn declaration, Swetnick further suggested that at such parties Kavanaugh and Judge regularly participated in gang rapes of inebriated young women.

Swetnicks incendiary allegations have yet to be corroborated. But Mark Judges ex-girlfriend, Elizabeth Rasor, had previously told the The New Yorker that Judge had told her ashamedly of an incident that involved him and other boys taking turns having sex with a drunk woman. And, earlier this week, the documentary filmmaker Alexandra Lescaze  who attended a D.C. private school in the early 1980s (and thus, moved in similar circles as Judge and Kavanaugh)  wrote in Slate that gang rapes of drunk women were a regular occurrence at parties in that era.

If Swetnick fabricated the allegations in her sworn affidavit, she could be found guilty of perjury. As a government employee, who requires an active security clearance to perform her work, a perjury conviction could end her career. If she is inventing stories for attention or partisan gain, shes taking an awfully big risk to do so.

All of which is to say: There is no basis for treating Swetnicks story as unbelievable on its face. If the Senate Judiciary Committee is sincerely interested in assessing the veracity of Christine Fords allegations against Brett Kavanaugh  which is, ostensibly, the purpose of tomorrows hearing  then it must seek testimony from both Swetnick and Mark Judge. After all, Ford alleges that Judge was an eyewitness to her assault  and Swetnick claims to have witnessed Judge and Kavanaugh assaulting other women in a similar manner.

So, when Jeff Flake announced early Wednesday afternoon that he intended to deliver remarks about Thursdays hearing from the Senate floor, many suspected that he would call for such testimony  or, at least, for the committee to postpone its vote on Kavanaughs nomination until it could assess the validity of Swetnicks claims.

But Flake did neither of those things. Instead, he called on his colleagues to seek the truth, in good faith  while actively abetting their efforts to avoid doing so.

Flake argued that his committee could not in good conscience proceed to a vote on Kavanaughs nomination without allowing Christine Ford to have her voice heard, and her claims, fully aired:

When Dr. Ford came forward, I felt strongly that her voice needed to be heard, and that is why I informed Chairman Grassley that the Judiciary Committee could not and should not proceed to vote until she had the opportunity to make her voice heard, until such time that her claims were fully aired and carefully considered, her credibility gauged. This is a lifetime appointment. This is said to be a deliberative body. In the interest of due diligence and fairness, it seemed to me to be the only thing to do.

And yet, for some unexplained reason, Flake does not believe that due diligence and fairness requires the Senate to hear from Deborah Ramirez or Julie Swetnick.

The senator scolded his colleagues for prejudging the veracity of Fords allegations, instead of listening to her story with an open mind  and then immediately implied that Swetnicks allegation was unbelievable on its face:

Tomorrow, we have a hearing. Many members of this body, from both parties, have already made up their minds, on the record, in advance of this hearing. They will presumably hear what they want to hear and disregard the rest. One is tempted to ask, why even bother to have a hearing?

 What I do know is that I dont believe that Dr. Ford is part of some kind of vast conspiracy from start to finish to smear Judge Kavanaugh, as has been alleged by some on the right.

And what I do know is that I dont believe that Judge Kavanaugh is some kind of serial sexual predator, as has been alleged by some on the left. [my emphasis]



(Swetnicks sworn declaration claims that Kavanaugh was once a serial sexual predator. On what basis does Flake know that he is not?)

The senator acknowledged that it would be virtually impossible for him to ascertain the truth of Fords allegation, on the basis of a he-said-she-said hearing with no third-party witnesses:

I do not know how I will assess the credibility of these witnesses  these human beings  on the grave matters that will be testified to, because I have not yet heard a word of their testimony, and because I am not psychic. I am not gifted with clairvoyance I hope that tomorrows hearing gives us some guidance on how we vote. But those of us on the Committee have to be prepared for the possibility, indeed the likelihood, that there will be no definitive answers to the very large questions before us. In legal terms, the outcome might not be dispositive.

And yet, Flake refuses to block a vote on Kavanaughs nomination (something he has already demonstrated that he has the power to do) until the Judiciary Committee subpoenas testimony from Judge, Ramirez, Swetnick, and any other relevant witnesses (including ones who swear by Kavanaughs version of events).

Early in his address, Flake reminded his colleagues that Kavanaugh and Ford were human beings, not mere props for us to make our political points. But that is precisely how he used them. He might not have cast them as villains in a piece of partisan agitprop  but he did use them as props in his hollow performance of moral courage.

For all its verbosity, the substance of Flakes speech was simple: Hours after a new, credible allegation of sexual misconduct was brought to public attention, Flake announced that he was not willing to delay his committees scheduled vote to hear from her (as he had previously done to accommodate Ford); in fact, the Arizona senator wasnt even willing to acknowledge the new accusers existence.

There is no high-minded, nonpartisan reason for Flakes decision. There is no law barring the Senate from extending Kavanaughs confirmation process for another few weeks, so that all of the allegations against him can be thoroughly investigated. The sole reason why Senate Republicans are treating Friday as an inviolable deadline for the committee vote on Kavanaughs nomination is that theyre worried they might lose the Senate this fall  and thus, could conceivably forfeit the opportunity to appoint a far-right justice to an open court seat if Kavanaughs nomination goes down in flames one month from now.

It is understandable that Jeff Flake has decided to prioritize advancing his ideological goals over making a good-faith effort to ascertain the truth about Brett Kavanaugh. But he shouldnt ask us to applaud his high-minded post-partisanship while doing so.As US lawmakers geared up to grill tech giants again on data privacy, Google said the organisations must operate with respect for individuals' interests when they process personal information.

In a three-page framework, Google said companies must be transparent about the types of personal information they collect, why they collect it, and how they use or disclose it, particularly when used to make decisions about the individual.

The Google framework came as the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation was set to discuss data privacy on Wednesday with tech companies including Google, Apple, AT&T, Amazon and Twitter.

In a blog post on Tuesday, Google Chief Privacy Officer Keith Enright said the users have long entrusted the company to be responsible with their data and they take that trust and responsibility very seriously.

"Google products and features cannot launch until they are approved by the specialists in our Privacy and Data Protection Office, which solicits input from across Google, as well as periodically from users and experts worldwide," said Enright.

"More than any other time I have worked in this field, there is real momentum to develop baseline rules of the road for data protection. Google welcomes this and supports comprehensive, baseline privacy regulation," he added.

Enright, who will be present at the Senate panel meeting, shared the company's thoughts on what data protection regulation should look like in the US.

"People deserve to feel comfortable that all entities that use personal information will be held accountable for protecting it.

"We believe that regulation can support a dynamic marketplace for businesses of all types and sizes," Enright noted, adding that he looks forward to working with policymakers and all stakeholders on regulation that protects consumers and enables innovation.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai is also heading to Washington, DC amid "concerns about privacy, suspicion about his company's relationship with China" and a reported "censored Search" engine for the country.

According to a Wall Street Journal report, Pichai will meet with Republican lawmakers on Friday and plans to testify before a House Judiciary Committee hearing after the mid-term elections in November.

--IANS

na/in

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Gujarat Forest Department on Wednesday recovered one more carcass of a lioness from the Gir forests, the only abode of the Asiatic Lion, taking the total death toll of the beast to 14 in as many days, even as seven more lions were rescued.

Principal Chief Conservator of Forest (Wildlife) A.K. Saxena said a lioness was found dead on Wednesday in the Dalkhania range of the sanctuary.

The forest department also received the molecular virology report of the samples collected from two lion cubs found earlier, from the Junagadh Veterinary College.

"The samples ruled out the possibility of Canine Distemper (CD) infection in the cubs," Saxena stated in a press release.

According to the press release, the forest department screened 1,740 square km of the Gir protected area and adjoining areas. It found 460 lions, out of which seven hurt lions have been rescued.

The forest officials also rescued three lions and lionesses each and a cub from the Dalkhania and Jasadhar ranges from where the 14 deaths were reported and placed them in Sarasia Virdi of the protected area.

"All the rescued seven lions are in good health now. They are under observation and they will be analyzed for their health", states the release.

The forest officials have also rescued a lion with superficial wounds found in the revenue area of Bhavnagar and brought to the rescue centre.

Alarmed by the climbing death toll of the big cats, the Gujarat Forest Department has set up 64 teams to screen the vast forest area of Gir to identify sick and weak lions and move them to rescue centres.

Meanwhile, a Central government team of wildlife experts also flew in to Gujarat to find out the reasons for the sudden deaths in such a short span.

As many as 11 carcasses of lions were found from the protected Gir sanctuary between September 11 and 19, of which two carcasses were found from the Jasadhar range while the rest in Dalkhania range.

According to the claims of Gujarat forest officials, the lions were killed in territorial war and infighting. Later, the officials added that besides infighting, some of the big cats died due to infection.

Gujarat's Additional Chief Secretary for and Forests Rajiv Gupta said viscera samples of the dead animals have been sent to Pune-based National Institute of Virology.

Once the institute's report arrives, further course of action would be decided, he said, and added that 64 teams comprising more than 270 personnel had been deployed in the forests.

According to the latest census in 2015, the Gir forest region has 523 lions, 109 of which were male and 201 female, besides 140 cubs and 73 sub-adults.

There were 411 beasts in the 2010 survey and 359 in the 2005 census. The state government has, in a written reply in the state assembly, has accepted the instances of unnatural deaths of lions in Gujarat.

According to the figures provided, during the last two years, 184 lions have died in Gir, of which 32 were unnatural deaths.

--IANS

Desai/prs

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur on Wednesday urged the Finance Commission for a fair assessment of the state's revenue receipts and expenditure in view of its tough topographical conditions.

Raising the issue with the 15th Finance Commission, the Chief Minister said the state's topography was difficult and hence the construction and maintenance cost of capital assets like roads, health and educational institutions, irrigation and water supply schemes and electrification was high.

He said that the requirement of public institutions in the hills was higher compared with the plains.

Thakur said that as compared with the all-India average of one health sub-centre for four villages covering a population of 5,624, the state had one health sub-centre for 10 villages covering a population of only 2,987.

The Chief Minister said that about 87 per cent of the Himachal farmers are marginal or small whereas only 20.5 per cent net area is irrigated compared with the national average of 46 per cent.

An official statement quoting the Chief Minister said that the average yield per unit area is much less than the national average.

Thakur said that Himachal was a revenue-deficit state and had to depend on loans to fund developmental work.

He said that the state has been prudent in its borrowings and that cash flow management has helped its debt to gross state domestic product ratio, which has declined from 63 per cent in 2007-08 to 35 per cent in 2016-17.

He said that due to this the state is left with little resources for investment in the social and economic sectors after repaying the debt.

Finance Commission Chairman N.K. Singh assured that the panel would sympathetically consider the issues raised by the state while allocating funds.

--IANS

vg/tsb/bg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Hindustan Steelworks Construction Ltd (HSCL), a subsidiary of the state-run NBCC (India) Ltd, on Wednesday accused its contractual workers' union, backed by the Trinamool Congress, of creating disruption in company's operations.

HSCL's Managing Director Neelesh Kumar Shah said contractual workers have been objecting to the shifting of its corporate office from Kolkata to New Delhi and demanding the extension of their contracts.

For the interest of the firm, all the demands of the union have been "agreed upon" recently, even then they have been continuing agitations.

The HSCL Contractual Employees' Association denied the allegations.

HSCL, which was earlier under the control of the Union Ministry of Steel, was transferred under the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs and NBCC (India) Ltd took 51 per cent stake of the company.

"It was decided HSCL's corporate office would be shifted to Delhi as NBCC is based in the capital. This was objected to by the contractual workers. The company's work has suffered. All 180 projects of HSCL have suffered as there has been no work," Shah said.

The company has 480 contractual workers and 50 permanent employees, Shah said, adding, only 50 contractual workers, out of their total strength, are working in Kolkata.

--IANS

bdc/prs

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Indian Air Force (IAF) on Wednesday successfully test fired the indigenously developed Beyond Visual Range Air-to-Air Missile (BVRAAM) Astra from a Su-30 aircraft, the Defence Ministry said.

The missile, tested at Kalaikunda Air Force Station, "successfully engaged a manoeuvring target with high precision meeting the mission objectives".

In the series of trials held till date, Astra has been launched in the complete Su-30 flight envelope.

The flight test assumes significance as it was part of the series of final pre-induction trials. Astra, deemed to be the best in class weapon system, has undergone more than 20 developmental trials.

Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, while lauding the efforts of the IAF, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and other teams involved in the mission, said India had attained a high level of capability in the indigenous design and development of advanced weapon systems.

--IANS

mak/mr

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Director Leena Yadav is happy that Netflix has acquired the worldwide rights of her project "Rajma Chawal" as it will take the story to a global audience.

"Rajma Chawal", starring Rishi Kapoor, Amyra Dastur and Aniruddh Tanwar, will be available on Netflix worldwide on November 30. It will premiere at the British Film Institute's (BFI) London Film Festival in October.

"The father-son dynamic is a universal human theme, and Netflix, with its global reach and ability to address a range of audiences with rich and resonant stories, was the ideal partner for us," Leena said in a statement.

"Being on Netflix invites the whole world into the lives of a family in Chandni Chowk, and we are excited to bring the tumult, colour and vitality of both the family and the area to newer audiences," she added.

Set in the chaotic, vibrant Chandni Chowk area in Delhi, "Rajma Chawal" captures the relationship between a father attempting to reconnect with his estranged son through social media, a new world for him.

The film is expected to be an emotional roller-coaster, interspersing grief and the pressure of family expectations with humour, compassion and love. Rishi plays the role of Raj Mathur, the father.

Swati Shetty, Director, International Originals and Acquisitions, Netflix, said: "'Rajma Chawal' takes the viewer along the highs and lows of of family dynamics, and we hope members around the world will relate to the story and its multi-dimensional characters."

--IANS

sug/rb/mr

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)French President Emmanuel Macron brushed off questions about the controversial Rafael deal saying he was not in charge when the agreement to buy the fighter jets was made and that he would defer to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the matter.

"I was not in charge at that time but I know that we have very clear rules and this is a government-to-government discussion," he said at a news conference here on Tuesday.

"I just want to refer to what Prime Minister Modi very clearly has said a few days ago and I (don't) have any other comment," he said.

He was replying to a question if France had been asked to use the Reliance group as the Indian partner for the Rafael deal made when Francois Hollande was the President. Macron clearly did not want to get involved in the controversy roiling Indian

He said the Rafael deal was a part of a broader strategic relationship with India and was very important to him.

The Modi government has denied steering Dassault to Reliance, saying that was the French company's decision.

As a part of the offset component of the deal to buy 36 Rafael costing about 7.87 billion Euros (or Rs 58,000 crore), the manufacturer Dassault was required to outsource to India about Rs 30,000 crore of business.

Dassault picked Reliance Defence for that requirement in the agreement.

The Congress and the opposition have accused the government of inflating the cost of the jets and steering the business to a private company, rather to the government-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd,

"This contract is part of a broader framework which is a military and defence relationship between India and France. And this one is very important to me because this is a strategic coalition and not just an industrial relation," he added.

"I would be very clear that it was a government-to-government discussion," he emphasised.

Macron took office last year in May while Modi announced the deal during a visit to France in 2015 and it was finalised the following year.

The controversy began when Hollande told a French publication that India had proposed Reliance Defence as the partner for the deal.

--IANS

al/mr

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Responding to a Washington Post report on how Instagram serves as an open market place for advertising illicit drugs, the Facebook-owned service said it was making progress in making the platform a safe place for everyone.

The Washington Post story, based on the findings of a New York City-based cyber-intelligence start-up, GIPEC, said that Instagram algorithms serve up an array of personalised drug-related content aimed directly at people who show an interest in buying substances illicitly.

When GIPEC Chief Executive Eric Feinberg began hunting for drug posts in June by searching for obvious hashtags, he found hundreds of Instagram posts appearing alongside content from 60 different advertisers.

Once he followed the sellers' accounts, Instagram's algorithms began delivering posts marketing drugs directly into his feed, suggesting other drug sellers for him to follow and introducing him to additional hashtags that he used as clues, the Post reported.

Admitting that Instagram needs to do more in its fight against illicit drug sales, it said the findings of GIPEC are "misleading".

"GIPEC created an artificial Instagram feed by following only objectionable content and some brand accounts," Monika Bickert, Vice President of Global Policy Management at Facebook, said in a statement on Tuesday.

"And while the fact that they were able to create it in the first place shows we still have work to do, this kind of manufactured feed is not a real representation of what most people see on Instagram," Bickert said.

Besides taking several steps to remove harmful content from its platform, Instagram said it was also working hard to help those suffering from addiction get the support they need.

"We block and filter hundreds of terms associated with drug sales. People mostly find this content by searching for it. So we prevent these terms being suggested in search as well as limit the discovery of hashtags related to drug sales on Instagram," Bickert said.

Instagram is also developing new technology to proactively identify when someone may be attempting to sell drugs.

"For example, we can now understand text that appears in images, which is important because bad actors share their contact information in images to evade detection," Bickert added.

In a congressional hearing earlier this month in the US, top executives from Facebook and Twitter said they were taking steps to crack down on sales of opioids and other drugs.

Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger on Monday said they were exiting the company.

--IANS

gb/sed

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Terming the verdict on a breath of fresh air for Indian citizens, experts on Wednesday said a completely new regime has to be put in place to protect the data that is lying with private companies.

Stating that private entities or individuals cannot avail data to provide consumer services, the apex court struck down Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act which allowed sharing of data with private entities.

It means that telecom companies, e-commerce firms and private banks cannot ask for biometric and other data from consumers to provide their services.

"The Aadhaar verdict is a huge sigh of relief for citizens. The humongous task now is to ensure that the data that is already with private companies is not misused or sold," Pavan Duggal, the nation's leading cyber law expert, told IANS.

"The data now needs to be dismantled but the onus is to make sure companies do not make copies of the data and use it to monetise their operations. The big question is which agency will audit this humongous task," added Duggal, also a leading lawyer.

The apex court also said that Aadhaar data can't be shared with security agencies in the name of upholding security and individuals too can complain about the theft of their Aadhaar data.

"Private companies played a big gamble of integrating Aaddhar data with their systems wherein they spent a lot of money. The whole exercise is now futile and the country now needs a fresh Aadhaar ecosystem," Duggal noted.

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), said Duggal, had already lodged more than 50 FIRs against private companies for Aadhaar data breach.

"Today's judgment as read out in court signals massive changes in the Aadhaar project and the Act. The legitimacy of its stated purposes is destroyed. Even the majority signals significant concern by reading down portions," tweeted New Delhi-based lawyer Apar Gupta.

ALSO READ: Here's how to delink Aadhaar from digital wallet, bank: Step-by-step guide

Although experts are yet to read the verdict in fine print, they said the Supreme Court's directive to Centre to bring a robust data protection law is the need of the hour.

"The Aadhaar data is saved in data centres outside the boundaries and law of our country. There is an urgent need for addressing newly emerging legal and cybersecurity challenges concerning Aadhaar ecosystem on an urgent basis," Duggal said.

The Supreme Court, in a landmark judgment last year, declared privacy a fundamental right. This set the government in motion to take steps to bring a new data protection legislation for the country.

ALSO READ: SC declares Aadhaar constitutionally valid, strikes down some provisions

The Justice B.N. Srikrishna Committee submitted the Personal Data Protection Bill 2018 in July, suggesting amendments to the Aadhaar Act to provide for imposition of penalties on data fiduciaries and compensations to data principals for violations of the data protection law.

The 213-page report suggested amendments to the Aadhaar Act from a data protection perspective.

According to Duggal, "not just cosmetic changes, there is an urgent need for addressing newly emerging legal and cyber security challenges concerning Aadhaar ecosystem on an urgent basis".

Supratim Chakraborty, Associate Partner at law firm Khaitan & Co, said the verdict that private parties cannot have access to individuals' data was a double-edged thing.

"From a socialistic perspective and individualistic perspective, you need to have proper safeguards as to how your information is being used by a private party.

"However, from a business perspective, it could increase their expenses if they need to collect too much information one by one from an individual. It compels us to ponder whether there is a correct way to do business while protecting the privacy of users," Chakraborty told IANS.

In Europe, as part of the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that came into force from May 25, EU citizens at any point may object to an organisation's handling of their personal data.

The regulation specifically names "direct marketing and profiling" as personal data uses to which individuals may object.

According to Duggal, India should not cut-paste any other country's law and must strive for data localisation.

"There is a need for more comprehensive legal frameworks to protect and preserve data and privacy of individual Aadhaar account holders in specific and the Aadhaar ecosystem stakeholders in general," Duggal noted.

(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.)United Nations Special Representative for International Migration, Louise Arbour, has said the Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, to be held in December in Marrakech, Morocco, would be a crucial inter-governmental conference.

During a meeting in New York with Moroccan Foreign Affairs Minister Nasser Bourita, she also commended Morocco's leadership on migration issues, under the leadership of King Mohammed VI, who was appointed at the 28th AU Summit as Leader of the African Union on the Question of Migration.

Arbour said the talks with the Moroccan official were an opportunity to discuss preparations for the international conference for the formal adoption of the Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, to be held on December 10-11.

She said the conference will be "the most important inter-governmental conference for the UN this year, as it will be held at the highest level and will therefore bring together heads of state and government as well as foreign ministers".

She also discussed the content of the Global Compact on migration, which is a testimony to the "strength" of multilateralism, she said, stressing that the Marrakech conference will see the launch of innovative partnerships and the implementation of the Global Compact itself.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh leaves his home September 26, 2018, in Chevy Chase, Maryland Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

After the first sexual-assault allegations against Brett Kavanaugh by Christine Blasey Ford shocked Republicans, they woozily considered their options and appeared to begin edging away from their all-but-assured next Supreme Court justice. The second set of allegations, by Deborah Ramirez, paradoxically had the opposite effect. Seizing upon soft spots in her account, conservatives decided she was part of a vast smear campaign, and reacted so angrily against her accusations that they seemed to discount unrelated charges they had not doubted before.

The third set of allegations, by Julie Swetnick, seem much more likely to shock them back to their previous position. Swetnick charges that Kavanaugh, along with his ubiquitous wingman Mark Judge, systematically got girls drunk at a beach weekend and at least witnessed, and more likely participated in, a group rape.

It is of course possible for a woman to make a false charge of sexual assault, either out of confusion or some other motive, a fact the question-begging slogan Believe survivors does not grapple with. As the number of accusations rises, though, the odds that a charge will be one of the rare hoaxes diminishes. At that point, to believe Kavanaugh is telling the truth is to assume numerous women engaged in a vast conspiracy to smear him. And that all of them risked their reputations and careers in order to sustain a lie, even going so far as to risk committing perjury and facing prison. To believe this scenario, you also have to believe that Democrats never even thought to attempt to run this play against Neil Gorsuch, who faced no sexual-assault allegations. It is bizarre and fanciful.

Compounding the problem for Republicans is the deepening involvement of President Trump. Seizing on Swetnicks flamboyant, self-promoting attorney Michael Avenatti, Trump tweeted, Avenatti is a third rate lawyer who is good at making false accusations, like he did on me and like he is now doing on Judge Brett Kavanaugh.

Avenatti, of course, also represents Stormy Daniels, who received hush-money payments from Trump and whose claims are not in any serious doubt. Avenatti is not the lawyer I would recommend for anybody bringing forward an allegation, but its understandable why a famous face thats plastered on cable news seemingly at all hours would catch Swetnicks attention. His involvement hardly invalidates her testimony.

Trumps involvement, on the other hand, poses a serious risk for his party. Kavanughs allies have been straining for months to keep him quiet, to keep the Trump stink off their once-pristine nominee. Having a confessed sexual assailant and symbol of retrograde misogyny compare Kavanaugh to himself is the last thing they need.

On what possible grounds now can Republicans maintain their current stance, which denies the need for either a renewed FBI background check into the charges or the testimony of alleged accomplice Mark Judge? All three accusers have now asked to testify before the Senate. Do Republicans deny some of them? Or do they let their planned he-said-she-said show devolve into he said-she said-she said-she said?

As the heady brew of threatened male prerogative  the principle that withdrawing Kavanaugh would expose any man to such charges  and partisan tribalism wears off, cold calculation will soon set in. The odds that many people are conspiring to lie about Kavanaugh are growing ever more slender. And the odds are growing that Kavanaugh committed to a lie, and sunk ever deeper into it, knowing that he would either have a lifetime appointment to the most prestigious legal job in America or be disgraced, and that is why he has refused to concede even an inch. That, too, is why he dodged a question from Fox News about letting his friend, Mark Judge, testify under oath. And Republicans will realize that there are always more Federalist Societygroomed conservative lawyers without his long trail of allegations.Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma on Wednesday said his government would consult all stakeholders, including political parties, for conducting an exercise for National Register of Citizens (NRC) in the state on the lines of Assam.

He said the Centre has mandated the National Population Register (NPR), which envisages a comprehensive electronic database of for all residents of the country as a first step towards NRC.

The NPR database would contain demographic as well as biometric particulars, the Chief Minister told the Assembly while replying to a short-duration discussion on the NRC moved by the Opposition.

Noting that NRC exercise is a "huge" and "tedious", Conrad, however said that there is a need to have lots of consultations and discussions with different stakeholders.

"We need to move forward, but we can not do this exercise tomorrow or day after. It requires huge financial requirements, manpower, besides it also requires a lot of strengthening of departments at various levels," said the Chief Minister.

He said the government intended to call an all-party meeting, besides discussions with all stakeholders on the issue after the autumn assembly session.

Informing the members of the Assembly that government's top priority is to protect the citizens of the state, Conrad said, the state government has decided to strengthen the provisions of the Meghalaya Residents Safety and Security Act, 2016.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Fashion designer Michael Kors is set to buy Italian fashion house Versace for $2.1 billion in a bid to challenge Europes conglomerates at a time of rapid consolidation in the global luxury market.

Kors described the purchase as a milestone in its expansion plans.

The deal, which would end the independence of one of the last prominent stand-alone fashion brands, is the biggest effort yet by Kors to build an empire, reports nytimes.com.

Kors said the company will change its name to Capri Holdings Limited once the deal is completed.

The Michael Kors brand had its roots in the "middle market" of the luxury sector and relied on outlets and department stores, where deep discounting is common. But mall traffic has declined in North America - Kors's biggest market - and shoppers were changing too, increasingly seeking brands at the extreme of the style and price spectrum.

Acquiring Versace, led by artistic director Donatella Versace, is part of the company's strategy to woo more big spenders and find more loyal customers in Europe and Asia.

Last year, Kors bought shoe designer Jimmy Choo for 896 million pounds, or $1.2 billion at current exchange rates.

"There are very few people you meet and say, 'I have to work with this person and be a part of their life.' I had that immediately with Donatella Versace," said John Idol, Chief Executive and Chairman, Michael Kors.

Kors, in a statement, said it was committed to investing in Versace's growth, with a goal to increase its annual revenue from $850 million currently to over $2 billion over the next few years, as well as expand its retail network from 200 to 300 stores, nytimes.com.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Wednesday urged budding entrepreneurs to come up with technological solutions to address the challenges in delivering public service.

Launching the 36-hour Smart Odisha Hackathon here in the run-up to the Make in Odisha Conclave 2018, Patnaik called upon budding entrepreneurs and students to come up with innovative solutions to resolve the pressing challenges in public service delivery and also those concerning the industry and consumers.

Patnaik said the shortlisted ideas will be implemented as pilot projects and winners will be awarded attractive prizes.

The Make in Odisha Conclave 2018 will be held from November 11-15, at Bhubaneswar.

Patnaik said this will be the second edition of Odisha's investors meet with the first one attracting investment proposals worth about Rs 2,00,000 crore.

He said about 65 per cent of the projects are in various stages of implementation.

Patnaik said Odisha is fast emerging as a manufacturing hub on the East Coast.

The state has received 400 investment proposals through its GoSwift portal within 10 months of launching it, he said.

According to Sanjeev Chopra, Principal Secretary, Industries Department, the state is the largest producer of metals in the country.

The plan is to have downstream units in the metals sector so that nearly 50 per cent of the raw metals are converted into value added products within the state by 2030 from the current level of 10 per cent, he said.

Chopra said the state government does not sign any Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with any investor and there are no targets for attracting investment proposals in the upcoming Make in Odisha investor conclave.

"We hope to exceed the last edition's figure," he added.

The focus sectors for Odisha include food processing and seafood, ancillary and downstream industries in metals sector, textiles, chemicals, electronic system design and manufacturing (ESDM), plastics and petrochemicals and tourism, he said.

Addressing the investors P.R. Venketrama Raja, Chairman, Ramco Group said the group will be setting up a new cement grinding unit in Odisha.

The founder of Shriram Group R. Thyagarajan said the group is looking at setting up a metallurgical unit in Odisha.

The investors' meet here was organised in association with Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI).

Patnaik met industrialists like M.M. Murugappan, Executive Chairman, Murugappa Group, Mallika Srinivasan, Chairman, TAFE, A.S. Ilanahai, Managing Director, Cetex Petrochemicals, among others.

The Odisha Chief Minister also met actor-turned-politician Kamal Hassan.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)An investors' meet, organised by the Odisha government here, saw an encouraging response from investors in the healthcare sector on Wednesday.

The meet saw a positive response from investors like Apollo, Kauvery, Dr. Agarwal's Eye Institute and Medall, among others.

"The state government is committed for the growth of the healthcare infrastructure in the priority districts of the state. The government assures investors unmatched facilitation support to set up hospitals in Public Private Partnership (PPP)," said Health Minister Pratap Jena.

He said the government would provide encumbrance free land at competitive prices and viability gap funding during the crucial initial years of operations in addition to the multiple other benefits in the State's Healthcare Investment Promotion Policy 2016.

Twenty five locations where affordable hospitals are proposed to be set up by the Odisha government collectively entail investments to the tune of Rs 1,300 crore, which would, in turn, create 2,900 new hospital beds, said the Minister.

"This will be the single largest PPP initiative in the health sector in India and will create a model for increased expansion of healthcare into the smaller towns of India in the next few years.

"This is likely to create over 10,000 new high-paying and highly-skilled jobs in the health sector of Odisha," Jena said.

He said the affordable hospitals will allow the low-income households in the state's hinterland to avail cashless treatment nearer to their homes, without the need to travel long distances under the Biju Swasthya Kalyan Yojana (BSKY).

The other key proposal that was showcased to investors was the operations and maintenance support for the proposed cancer hospital at Jharsuguda on PPP mode. This has been envisioned to provide quality cancer care services to 83 lakh people across western Odisha districts.

While the Government of Odisha will design, finance and build the infrastructure and also procure the medical equipment, the private partner will have the responsibility of operating, maintaining and managing the hospital to provide seamless healthcare services to the people.

Notably, 52 healthcare investors including Max Healthcare, Manipal group, Glocal Healthcare, VPS Healthcare, Yashoda Hospitals, Cygnus Medicare had evinced interest to explore investment opportunities in Odisha in the investors' meet organised in New Delhi recently.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Oman's Ministry of Tourism on Wednesday conducted the second of its multi-city roadshows series in Mumbai to woo more tourists to that country, officials said.

Oman's Undersecretary in the Ministry of Tourism Maitha Saif Al Mahrouqi and India Representative Lubaina Sheerazi interacted with around 140 top tourism companies and all other stakeholders to discuss ways for attracting more Indian tourists.

"Oman offers an authentic Arabian experience with genuine hospitality, stunning landscapes, scenic beauty, a rich culture, great historic monuments, a beautiful coastline and state-of-the-art infrastructure, combining old world charm and modernism. These makes it a perfect destination for families, groups, weddings, honeymooners and businessmen," said Mahrouqi.

Sheerazi said India is an important and vast market for Oman for both leisure and business travelers offering world-class holiday spots to top hotels, convention and exhibition centres for the crucial MICE segments.

In the past five years, Oman has witnessed over 31 percent growth in Indian arrivals, and last year it notched seven percent increase with more than 321,000 visiting the country.

As part of the country's Tourism Strategy 2040, Oman plans to open up major developments and projects in the hospitality sector including a new passenger terminal at Muscat International Airport, Electronic Visas for 10, 30 days and one year validity and other initiatives, said Mahrouqi.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The opposition as well as the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday welcomed the Supreme Court judgement that upheld the legality of Aadhaar but restricted its use for disbursement of welfare schemes and junked its requirement for cell phones, bank accounts and school admission.

Soon after the verdict came, Congress President Rahul Gandhi tweeted: "For Congress, Aadhaar was an instrument of empowerment. For the BJP, Aadhaar is a tool of oppression and surveillance. Thank you Supreme Court for supporting the Congress vision and protecting India."

Separately, the Congress party in a statement said the decision to strike down the Narendra Modi government's "surveillance tool" will put an end to the government's "abuse of power".

It said that through its judgment, the Supreme Court has firmly put an end to the "mass surveillance exercise" being carried out under the guise of Aadhaar and the "grotesque distortion of an idea conceived by the UPA".

Referring to the minority judgment by Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, the Congress said it is a scathing indictment of the government's clandestine and dishonest approach towards its parliamentary responsibilities.

The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), too, hailed Justice Chandrachud's observation and reiterated that Aadhaar should not be mandatory for any welfare scheme.

The Left party pointed out that although the apex court has ruled that private companies cannot have access to the data, and Aadhaar is not required for bank accounts, mobile connections, admissions to educational institutions and entrance exams, private companies involved with the government would still have access to the Aadhaar data.

"While this may provide some protection to right to privacy, a major problem arises when this Central government has privatised and outsourced to private companies many government responsibilities.

"Such companies will have access to Aadhaar data. This is violative of the right to privacy -- a fundamental right -- ruled by the apex court itself," it said.

Welcoming the judgement, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said it vindicated her stand.

"People should have some rights. If bank and mobile phones are linked to Aadhaar card then everything about the person will come into public domain. That this logic is correct and irrefutable has been proved today," Banerjee told the media in Milan, Italy.

BJP President Amit Shah also welcomed the apex court's verdict, albeit for a different reason.

"Today's Supreme Court Judgment is a strong validation of Aadhaar as an instrument of service delivery. It gives further impetus to empowering the poor by ensuring that they get their rights," Shah said in a tweet.

"Aadhaar under (Congress-led) UPA government was 'Niradhaar' (baseless) and had no purpose. UPA spent thousands of crores to enrol people without any law or scrutiny. The Narendra Modi government gave it a strong legal backing and integrated it in service delivery. This ensured savings of Rs 90,000 crore and benefited the poor," Shah said.

The BJP called the verdict as "big victory for Modi government".

"We see this as a big victory of the pro-poor Modi government," BJP's national spokesperson Sambit Patra told the media.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)An ordinance seeking to replace the existing body running the Medical Council of India (MCI) with a government-appointed committee has been signed by President Ram Nath Kovind, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Wednesday.

"In a Cabinet meeting, a proposal was made to the President, which he has signed... its purpose is to replace the existing body and allow it to be run by a committee composed of eminent persons," Jaitley said.

The committee or the 'Board of Governors' has now been appointed by the government in "supersession of the MCI".

The Board members include persons of eminence in the medical field: Dr V.K. Paul, member, NITI Aayog, Dr Randeep Guleria, Director, AIIMS, New Delhi, Dr Jagat Ram, Director, PGIMER, Chandigarh, Dr B N Gangadhar, Director, NIMHANS, Bangalore, Dr Nikhil Tandon, Professor, Department of Endocrinology & Metabolism, AIIMS, New Delhi, who were the members of second Oversight Committee.

Dr S. Venkatesh, DGHS and Professor Balram Bhargava, Secretary, DHR and Director General ICMR will be the ex-officio members," the government said in a statement.

A bill to replace the MCI with a National Medical Commission (NMC) has already been presented in Parliament. A parliamentary standing committee has also made its recommendations, but due to time factor the bill "has gone into an area of uncertainty", Jaitley said.

Pending Parliament's approval to the bill, the government has chosen to go for the ordinance since the term of the existing committee running the MCI ends in November.

In 2016, a committee to oversee the working of MCI was formed by the government at the direction of the Supreme Court, whose term expired in 2017. Another committee was then formed for the same purpose for another year.

"On July 6, 2018, Oversight Commitee (OC) cited instances of non-compliance of their instructions by MCI and said MCI has not only misinterpreted orders of the Supreme Court but has also challenged the authority of the OC. Subsequently all members of OC have resigned," the government said.

"In such circumstances when the Supreme Court-mandated Oversight Committee is unable to function due to non-cooperation of MCI and the NMC Bill is pending in Parliament and its passage is likely to take some time, certain immediate steps are required to be taken," it said in support of its decision to go for the ordinance.

-- IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Retired Justice K.S. Puttaswamy, one of the first to question the legality of Aadhaar, on Wednesday welcomed the landmark Supreme Court judgement upholding its validity but restricting it to disbursement of social benefits.

"After holistic consideration, my opinion is that the majority judgement on the validity of Aadhaar Act is correct though I have not read the whole judgement yet," the 92-year-old retired Karnataka High Court judge told the media here.

A five-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra held that Aadhaar would be voluntary and not mandatory with an option to exit.

On linking of Aadhaar with Permanent Account Number (PAN) mandatory, the retired judge said those who pay income tax are limited and they belong to a separate class.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Over 1,500 tourists are still stranded in snow-marooned Lahaul-Spiti district of Himachal Pradesh, officials said on Wednesday adding that the evacuation is on but it might take days.

Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur has instructed officials to evacuate those stranded on a priority basis, a statement said.

A total of 300 people were evacuated by Tuesday evening most of whom were faculty and students from IITs Mandi, Roorkee, Guwahati and Mumbai and some foreigners.

On Wednesday as the weather cleared, the state government and the Indian Air Force (IAF) stepped up their efforts to airlift tourists stranded for the past four days.

"Choppers of the Indian Air Force and the state government are on the job to airlift those stranded. Most of them will be brought to Kullu town," Kullu Deputy Commissioner Yunus Khan told IANS.

The IAF has deployed three helicopters, while the state is using the Chief Minister's official chopper.

Early snowfall in higher reaches, cloud burst and heavy rains devastated large parts of the state from September 22 to 24. Kullu and Lahaul-Spiti were the worst affected districts.

Heavy snowfall on the Rohtang Pass has cut off the Lahaul and Spiti Valleys affecting a large number of tourists who went to Leh and Lahaul. They have been stranded at number of isolated locations, the Broader Roads Organisation (BRO) said.

The BRO, a wing of the Defence Ministry has started clearing the snow from various roads on a war footing. Some of the stretches had over eight feet of snow.

From the Project Rohtang Tunnel, a team under leadership of Major Shashi Chauhan and Captain Aashish Singla along with machinery have been deployed to clear road axis up to Sissu and Koksar in the Lahaul Valley to supplement efforts of the the BRO.

The BRO is also providing medical aid and refreshment to rescued people at the Project Rohtang Tunnel.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Lender Punjab National Bank's Board will consider a proposal for capital infusion of Rs 5,431 crore from the central government by way of preferential issue of equity share.

According to a BSE filing made on Wednesday, PNB's Board of Directors will meet on September 27 "for considering infusion of Rs 5,431 crore by Government of India by way of preferential issue of equity share".

In addition, the board will fix the date of an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) for obtaining "shareholders' approval in this regard at a price determined in terms of SEBI (ICDR) Regulations".

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Kevin Cramer is campaigning for the Senate on a sexual assault doesnt matter platform. Photo: Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call,Inc.

There are some sound defenses one could make of Brett Kavanaughs nomination to the Supreme Court. For example, a Republican senator could note that the allegations of sexual misconduct against him have yet to be directly corroborated by third-party eyewitnesses  and thus, his nomination to the Supreme Court should not be withdrawn until an extensive investigation into the matter has been completed.

There are also many bad defenses that Republicans have made of Trumps high court pick. For example, Utah senator Orrin Hatchs argument that Democrats decided the allegations against Kavanaugh were true before they even looked into them  and also, Deborah Ramirezs claim that the judge indecently exposed himself to her is phony because I know it is, thats why!

But for the very worst defenses of Kavanaughs fitness for the Supreme Court, one must turn to North Dakotas lone congressman, Kevin Cramer  who apparently wants the core message of his Senate campaign to be Make Sexual Assault No Big Deal Again.

Cramer insists that the allegations against Kavanaugh are not credible (or, in his words, even more absurd than those that Anita Hill made against Clarence Thomas). And yet, for some bizarre reason, he nevertheless insists on arguing that even if these obviously false allegations were true, it wouldnt matter in the slightest.

These are teenagers who evidently were drunk, according to her own statement, Cramer told a local radio news program last week. They were drunk. Nothing evidently happened in it all, even by her own accusation. Again, it was supposedly an attempt or something that never went anywhere.

By Fords own accusation, a 17-year-old Kavanaugh corraled a 15-year-old girl into a bedroom, held her down against the bed with the weight of his body while trying to remove her clothes, and then covered her mouth when she screamed, using so much force in his bid to silence her protests that Ford feared for her life. By her own accusation, the trauma of this experience caused Ford immense psychological pain in the ensuing years, a portion of which remains with her to this day.

Asked Monday to clarify what hed meant by nothing evidently happened, Cramer explained, My point was is that there was no type of intercourse or anything like that. That was my point, that nothing happened in terms of a sexual  event, beyond, obviously, the attack.

Cramers comments are comprehensible if one posits that all a woman has to lose from being sexually attacked by a man is her virginal honor. By contrast, if one assumes that having another human being violate your bodily autonomy  and treat you like a disposable object, to such an extent that you fear he might kill you  is traumatic, even if you emerge with your purity intact, then Cramers remarks are baffling.

Not content to merely belittle sexual assault, Cramer proceeded to suggest that even if Brett Kavanaugh were a pathological liar, he would still be qualified to sit on the Supreme Court.

Even if its all true, does it disqualify him? Cramer asked, rhetorically, during an interview with Valley News Live Monday. What if, what if something like what Dr. Ford describes happened. Its tragic  It should never happen in our society but, but, what if 36 years of a record where theres nothing like that again?

Cramer is far from the first conservative to make this argument. But the fact that he is echoing it, at this late hour, is truly mind-boggling. It would be one thing to argue that Kavanaughs contemptible actions as an inebriated adolescent did not impugn his character in the present day  before Kavanaugh categorically denied that those actions took place. But the Supreme Court nominee has now spent more than a week insisting that Ford is either lying, or cannot trust her own memory of the events in question. Thus, if Kavanaugh did, in fact, attempt to rape Ford when he was 17, then he has either been knowingly gaslighting a woman he sexually assaulted  or at best, lying about how certain he is that he did not commit the assault in question (given that he was allegedly inebriated at the time, its conceivable that he genuinely does not remember it), at the age of 53.

Cramer does not need to make these arguments. The allegations against Kavanaugh have not been dispositively corroborated, and likely never will be. The North Dakota Republican could simply emphasize the evidence most favorable to Kavanaughs account. But, for whatever reason, he feels compelled to make a principled argument that it is perfectly fine for high-ranking public officials to sexually assault women in their youth, and then gaslight their victims in middle age.

In a few weeks, the people of North Dakota will need to decide if they think this way of thinking is worthy of a senator. As of this writing, Cramer holds a slim lead over Democratic incumbent Heidi Heitkamp in the polls.US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will travel to Pyongyang in October to prepare a second summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, the Department of State said in a communique on Wednesday.

Pompeo met on Wednesday at the United National General Assembly with his North Korean counterpart, Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho, to discuss the upcoming summit, Efe reported.

At that meeting, Pompeo "accepted Chairman Kim's invitation to travel to Pyongyang next month," said the State Department.

During his visit to North Korea, Pompeo will "make further progress on the implementation of the commitments from the US-North KoreaSingapore summit, including the final, fully verified denuclearization of North Korea," the statement read, referring to North Korea by its initials standing for Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

He will also "prepare for a second summit between President Trump and Chairman Kim," the statement said.

"Very positive meeting with #DPRK Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho @UNGA to discuss upcoming summit & next steps toward denuclearization of #NorthKorea," said Pompeo on Twitter on Wednesday.

Trump said Tuesday that his second meeting with Kim will occur "quite soon" and explained that Pompeo would be making arrangements for that summit.

At their historic June summit in Singapore, Trump and Kim signed a declaration opening the door to denuclearizing North Korea in exchange for US guarantees for the survival of the Pyongyang regime headed by Kim, although the two leaders did not establish a timetable for those objectives.

In recent weeks, the bilateral dialogue between Washington and Pyongyang had stagnated due to differences on how to move the process forward.

Last week, the US government said that North Korea's denuclearization process must be finalized by January 2021, at the latest, when Trump's term ends.

North Korea, meanwhile, has demanded progress on signing a peace treaty putting an end to the technical state of war existing on the Korean Peninsula in exchange for its taking concrete steps to dismantle its nuclear arsenal, as demanded by the White House.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Election Commission on Wednesday said the required number of EVMs and VVPAT machines would be available well before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

The poll panel said it has enhanced the requirement of additional VVPATs from 125 per cent to 135 per cent considering the trend of failure rate of VVPATs in past elections, besides adopting the hardware improvement for the machines in view of a large number of paper trail units failure in Kairana and Bhadara-Gondiya by-polls earlier this year.

"In order to meet the requirement of 100 per cent voter verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) machines for all polling stations for the upcoming Lok Sabha Election in 2019, the Commission placed an order of 17.45 lakh VVPATs to Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL), Bangalore and Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL), Hyderabad.

"To date, 9.45 lakh units have been produced by the firms. Both the public sector firms have assured the Commission that the remaining VVPAT units (8 lakh) will be manufactured and supplied to the various states and Union Territories comfortably before the end of November this year," the EC said in a statement.

The poll panel said it has been "consistently and periodically" reviewing the status of production and supply of VVPAT units with the top brass of BEL and ECIL.

It said it is also keeping in touch with the Technical Expert Committee (TEC) - which is carrying out a "rigorous supervision" of the production process and product performance - to ensure that the design, production and supply activities of all the units of EVMs and VVPATs are "streamlined and completed in a time-bound manner" after incorporating the features suggested by the TEC.

"The officers of the Commission are monitoring the manufacturing and supply of machines on a daily basis in order to ensure timely delivery and pre-poll preparedness," the EC said.

The Commission has estimated 171 per cent Ballot Units, 125 per cent Control Units and 135 per cent VVPATs requirements for upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

In case of any error in VVPAT, only VVPAT is replaced with the reserve one, whereas, in case of any error in Ballot Unit or Control Unit of the EVM, the entire set of Ballot Unit, Control Unit and VVPAT is changed, resulting in more requirement of VVPATs than of Control Units of EVMs.

"Learning from experience of Kairana and Bhandara-Gondiya bye-polls held in May 2018 where the errors were mainly caused by excessive exposure to illumination in the polling stations, the Commission has adopted the hardware improvement recommended by the TEC to prevent auto shutdown of VVPATs due to excessive light," it said.

The EC said systematic preparatory activities, including the detailed first level checking of EVMs and VVPATs, have already commenced across various states/UTs ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, and will be completed in an efficient, effective and timely manner.

"First level checks workshops and trainings of polling officials are being regularly conducted by the Commission to minimize EVM and VVPAT failures due to human errors," the poll panel said.

In the last 20 years, the EC has conducted 113 state assembly elections and three Lok Sabha elections using EVMs. Since June 2017, VVPAT machines have also been used along with EVMs in general as well as by-elections.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Congress President Rahul Gandhi's brother-in-law Robert Vadra on Wednesday accused the Narendra Modi-led BJP government of indulging in "witch hunt" against him and said that they should tell the nation the "truth rather than hiding behind a bunch of lies".

In a Facebook post, Vadra said that it used to "amaze" him in the beginning. "But now it has become a wholesale farce that the BJP rakes up my name every time they are cornered, whether it's the falling rupee, soaring oil prices or this latest number when they have been totally exposed selling out the nation on Rafale," he said.

Vadra's remarks come after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) alleged that there was a nexus between him and arms dealer and middleman Sanjay Bhandari due to which the Rafale deal with French firm was cancelled in 2012.

Vadra, who is married to Rahul Gandhi's sister Priyanka Gandhi, said, "Having all the agencies under their beck and call... No one knows better than the BJP that they have indulged in a baseless political witch hunt against me for the last four years."

"Instead they should man up with their 56 inch chest and tell the nation the truth about the Rafale deal rather than hiding behind a bunch of lies which the people are fed up of hearing," he added.

The BJP on Tuesday alleged that Bhandari, who has close links with Vadra, formed a company named Offset India Solutions (OIS) in 2008 and he formed a joint venture with Rafaut as he tried to enter into an offset clause in the Rafale fighter jets deal through the back door.

The BJP alleged that the then government mounted pressure on the French firm Dassault Aviation to give works to Bhandari's company.

The BJP also said that the Rafale deal was scrapped after years of negotiations as Vadra was not getting the commission out of the deal.

The party also alleged that Vadra had received a flat in London worth Rs 19 crore and air tickets to Zurich from Bhandari to secure defence deals for him.

The Congress has been accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of indulging in crony capitalism apart from violating procedures in the Rafale deal.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)As rains subsided in Himachal Pradesh on Wednesday, the evacuation of over 1,500 tourists still stranded in snow-marooned Lahaul-Spiti district continued on a war footing, an official said.

"There was no heavy rainfall in the state but precipitation at many places since Tuesday," a Met official told IANS. Most rivers which were in spate saw a decline in water levels. Similar was likely to continue till Friday.

The government and the Indian Air Force (IAF) stepped up efforts to airlift the thousands stranded since September 22 after landslides in different spots snapped road links on the hills.

Early snowfall in the higher reaches and cloud bursts devastated large parts of the state between September 22 and 24. Kullu and Lahaul-Spiti were the worst affected districts.

"Once evacuated, the Indian Air Force and the state government helicopters will bring the rescued to Kullu town," Kullu Deputy Commissioner Yunus Khan told IANS.

The IAF has deployed three helicopters.

A total of 300 people were evacuated by Tuesday evening, most of whom were faculty and students from IITs Mandi, Roorkee, Guwahati and Mumbai and some foreigners.

Heavy snowfall on the Rohtang Pass has cut off the Lahaul and Spiti Valleys, affecting a large number of tourists. They have been stranded at number of isolated locations, the Broader Roads Organisation (BRO) said.

The BRO was clearing snow from roads. Some stretches have over eight feet of snow.

Shimla on Wednesday recorded a low of 14 degrees Celsius, while it was minus 0.7 degrees in Keylong in Lahaul-Spiti district. It was 7 degrees in Manali and 6.4 degrees in Kalpa in Kinnaur district.

The water level in the Satluj, Beas and Yamuna rivers and their tributaries has started to recede, a government spokesman said.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The CPI-M on Wednesday urged the central government to immediately release, as a special grant, Rs 5,000 crore towards relief and rehabilitation following the deadly floods in Kerala.

A day after Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi here, the CPI-M said it appreciated the efforts being made by the Kerala government in the relief and rehabilitation work in the wake of the unprecedented floods.

The CPI-M Politburo urged the central government to immediately accede to the demands made by the Chief Minister including the release of at least Rs 5,000 crore towards meting the expenditures on this score.

"The estimated damage is to the tune of Rs 30,000 crore. The CPI-M on its part has collected and sent tens of crore of rupees to the CM's Relief Fund from all over the country," it said in a statement.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Tuesday blasted the US-led sanctions against his country as "economic terrorism".

"World security is under threat by some states' recklessness and disregard of international values and institutions," Rouhani made the remarks at the ongoing General Debate of the 73rd UN General Assembly, Xinhua reported.

"Confronting multilateralism is not a sign of strength. Rather, it is a symptom of the weakness of the intellect. It betrays an inability in understanding a complex and interconnected world," he said.

Rouhani lashed out at US President Donald Trump in his speech, saying he is seeking an "overthrow" of the Iranian leadership.

Speaking of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), known commonly as the Iran nuclear deal or Iran deal, Rouhani said that "we are pleased that the international community did not acquiesce to the US illegal and unilateral withdrawal from that agreement."

President Trump called on the rest of the world to isolate Iran and said a US campaign of "economic pressure" would turn back "Iran's aggression," in his second address to the UN General Assembly.

At last year's General Debate, Trump criticized the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, calling it "one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into."

Iran deal is an agreement on the nuclear programme of Iran reached in Vienna on July 14, 2015 between Iran, the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council - China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, United States - plus Germany).

In May, US President Trump announced Washington's withdrawal from the landmark Iranian nuclear deal. Since then, the Trump administration has slapped a number of sanctions on Iran while vowing to apply more.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur on Wednesday apprised Prime Minister Narendra Modi that the hill state suffered losses totalling approximately Rs 1,250 crore due to the heavy rains.

This was conveyed during Modi's telephonic conversation with Thakur, an official statement said.

The Prime Minister assured the state of all possible central assistance, the statement added.

The Chief Minister thanked the Prime Minister for the deployment of three Army helicopters to rescue those stranded in the far-flung areas of the state due to heavy snow and rain.

More than 650 people, including five foreigners, have been evacuated in the past two days whereas over 1,000 others are still stranded in the Lahaul-Spiti district, which witnessed heavy snowfall, officials said on Wednesday.

Three stranded persons, including a pregnant woman from Nepal, have died in the past two days.

--IANS

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(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 Wednesday welcomed the Supreme Court judgement upholding its validity but restricting it to disbursement of social benefits, saying it vindicates her stand.

"People should have some rights. If bank and mobile phones are linked to Aadhaar card then everything about the person will come into public domain. That this logic is correct and irrefutable has been proved today," Banerjee told the media here.

"We don't compromise or raise questions on government security or internal security. But if my account number becomes public, I may be cheated. This has already happened in ATM transactions," said Banerjee, who is visiting Italy in a bid to rope in investment for her state.

Similarly, if the mobile phone number is linked to Aadhaar, "then the messages you send, or the calls you make, all information gets leaked".

Calling the verdict a victory of the people, she said she has neither linked her bank account nor her mobile number to Aadhaar and have also asked people not to do so.

In a majority judgment, a five-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra held that Aadhaar would be voluntary and not mandatory with an option to exit.--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Supreme Court order on Wednesday striking down the compulsory linking of Aadhaar card to bank accounts is welcome, said a top leader of the All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA).

AIBEA General Secretary C.H. Venkatachalam also said that banks should stop issuing Aadhaar cards as it was not a banking activity.

"The Supreme Court order making it unconstitutional the compulsory linking of Aadhaar cards with bank accounts is welcome," he said.

"As far as banks are concerned, an Aadhaar card is one more card for identification of a person while opening an account. No other purpose is served beyond that," Venkatachalam told IANS.

"The compulsory linking has resulted in lots of frauds by third party agents who canvas for loans. There are instances where with the same Aadhaar card number several loan accounts were created by the loan processing agents of banks to meet their targets," he said.

He said designated bank branches were issuing Aadhaar cards which should be stopped as it was in no way connected to banking activity.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)In a landmark judgement, the Supreme Court on Wednesday by a 4:1 majority judgement upheld the legality of Aadhaar for use only in government-funded social benefit schemes and PAN and Income Tax Return (ITR) while junking its requirement for mobile phone connections, bank accounts, school admissions and competitive examinations.

A five-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra held that Aadhaar would be voluntary and not mandatory.

The majority judgment, which struck and read down or clarified various provisions of the Aadhaar Act, was read out by Justice A.K. Sikri speaking for Chief Justice Misra and Justice A.M. Khanwilkar and himself. Justice Ashok Bhushan delivered a separate but concurring judgment.

Rejecting the apprehensions of the petitioners, the majority judgment held that the architecture of Aadhaar as well as the provisions of the Aadhaar Act do not tend to create a surveillance state. "This is ensued by the manner in which the Aadhaar project operates."

In his dissenting judgement, Justice D.Y. Chandrachud held that the entire Aadhaar programme since 2009 suffered from constitutional infirmities and violated fundamental rights. The enactment of Aadhaar Act does not save the Aadhaar project.

The Aadhaar Act, the rules and regulations framed under it and the framework prior to the enactment of the Act were unconstitutional. "...if no fresh legislation has been enacted by the union government in conformity with the principles which have been enunciated in this judgment, the data (collected for Aadhaar) shall be destroyed.

Justice Chandrachud said that passing the Aadhaar law as money bill was unconstitutional and a "fraud on the Constitution" because it was not a money bill.

Speaking for the majority, Justice Sikri said linking of Aadhaar for opening and with existing bank accounts, getting a mobile number, appearing for CBSE, NEET, JEE, UGC examinations and admission in schools was not mandatory.

The court in its 1,448 page judgement said the government's notification that rendered bank accounts inoperable for not being linked with Aadhaar amounted to depriving a person of his property rights.

"We find that this move of mandatory linking of Aadhaar with bank account does not satisfy the test of proportionality," said the majority judgment.

The court in its majority judgment said that on attaining the age of majority, children enrolled under Aadhaar with the consent of their parents shall be given the option to exit from the Aadhaar project if they do not intend to avail the benefits of the government schemes.

The requirement of Aadhaar for admission of children to school will not be compulsory as it was "neither a service nor subsidy" and "a child between the age of 6 and 14 years has the fundamental right to education under Article 21A of the Constitution".

The school admission cannot be treated as 'benefit' as well, the verdict said.

However, the majority of the bench held that Aadhaar was valid for linking with Income Tax returns.

On the disclosure of the information including, identity, information or authentication records, the court said that the person "whose information is sought to be released, shall be afforded an opportunity of hearing. If such an order is passed, in that eventuality, he shall also have right to challenge such an order passed by approaching the higher court".

The court held that the "disclosure of information in the interest of national security could not be faulted with".

However, it said that for the "determination of such an eventuality, an officer higher than the rank of a Joint Secretary should be given such power. Further, in order to avoid any possible misuse, a Judicial Officer (preferably a sitting High Court Judge) should also be associated with."

Striking down Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act that allows private entities to demand Aadhaar to access their services, the court said that there would not be sharing of data with individuals and the corporate entities.

The Court held that the telecom department circular of March 2017, mandating linking of mobile number with Aadhaar, was "illegal and unconstitutional as it is not backed by any law and is hereby quashed".

Holding that the creation of metadata is impermissible, the court said: "Metabase relating to transaction, as provided in Regulation 26 of the ... Regulations in the present form, is held to be impermissible, which needs suitable amendment."

Holding that Aadhaar Act was rightly passed as Money Bill, Justice Bhushan found no infirmity in Rule 9 of PMLA Act (Second Amendment) Rules, 2017 that mandates linking of Aadhaar number with bank accounts.

"We are of the view that there are sufficient safeguard to protect data collected under Aadhaar scheme," the majority judgement said.

The verdict said that it was better to be unique than the best because being the "best makes you number one, but being unique makes you the only one".

"Uniqueness is the fundamental difference between Aadhaar and other identity proofs. There is a fundamental difference between Aadhaar and other identity proof as Aadhaar cannot be duplicated and it is a unique identification," it said.

The judgement said that UIDAI was established as a statutory body, providing for authentication and all residents were eligible to get Aadhaar which cannot be reassigned to anyone.

"Minimal demographic and biometric data of citizens are collected by UIDAI for Aadhaar enrolment. We are of the view that there are sufficient safeguard to protect data collected under Aadhaar scheme," stated the judgment.

The court said that Aadhaar was meant to give dignity to marginalised sections. However, authentication of data through Aadhaar cannot be stored for more than six months.

It said Aadhaar was meant to help benefits reach marginalised sections and it took into account the dignity of people not only from the personal but also the community point of view.

"No person will be denied benefits under social welfare scheme because of failure of authentication through Aadhaar," the court said.

"We direct the government to ensure that illegal migrants are not issued Aadhaar to get benefits of social welfare schemes."

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Sen. Chuck Grassley and Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh. Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee have hired Rachel Mitchell, a sex crimes prosecutor from Arizona, to question Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford at a hearing Thursday. A registered Republican, Mitchell has for 26 years been at the Maricopa County Attorneys Office, where she works on cases ranging from child molestation to computer crimes against children, according to the Arizona Republic.

Mitchell was first named in a report from the Washington Post, which only said that she was the Senate GOPs top choice for the job of questioning Kavanaugh and Ford. Not long after the Post published its story, Judiciary chairman Charles Grassley, who earlier Tuesday said he wasnt releasing Mitchells name because he feared for her safety, confirmed her hiring.

Im very appreciative that Rachel Mitchell has stepped forward to serve in this important and serious role, the statement says. Mrs. Mitchell has been recognized in the legal community for her experience and her objectivity.

Mitchells boss, Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery, endorsed her hiring in the Arizona Republic:

Montgomery praised Mitchells experience, calling her a professional, fair, objective prosecutor who has a caring heart for victims. He said he was contacted by staffers to the judiciary committee over the weekend about Mitchells availability and qualifications.

Montgomery added, The people of America are well served with her involvement in this process.

Aside from her professional qualifications, Mitchell was no doubt also hired because she is a woman, unlike every Republican on the Judiciary Committee. Hiring Mitchell allows Republicans on the panel to avoid the terrible optics of 11 men grilling a woman about her sexual assault.

But Mitchells hiring isnt without detractors. On Monday, when Mitchells credentials were known but her name wasnt, a lawyer for Ford wrote a letter to Grassley questioning the need for a prosecutor.

This is not a criminal trial for which the involvement of an experienced sex crimes prosecutor would be appropriate. Neither Dr. Blasey Ford nor Judge Kavanaugh is on trial. The goal should be to develop the relevant facts, not try a case, Michael Bromwich said in the letter.

Democratic senator Richard Blumenthal criticized her hiring for another reason. A former U.S. Attorney, Blumenthal said, I am in no way going to concede or cede my role as a United States senator. His Republican colleagues, meanwhile, are hiding from their roles as members of the Judiciary Committee, he said.West Bengal on Wednesday witnessed sporadic violence and vandalism in some districts and disruption in train services during the BJP-sponsored 12-hour shutdown in the state.

Normal life remained largely unaffected in the capital city and the suburbs.

The shutdown's impact was mostly felt in parts of North Dinajpur district where two youths were killed during a clash last week between agitating students and police over teachers' recruitment in a state-run school.

The locals had claimed the youths died in police firing, but the latter denied it.

The Bharatiya Janata Party had called the shutdown against the killings and demanded a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation.

The party called off the bandh two hours before it was due to end at 6p.m.

BJP supporters put up road blockades of tree trunks and burning tyres in the Islampur area in the district. Two state-run buses were vandalised and set on fire.

Women and youths, armed with bamboo sticks and iron rods, were seen obstructing the road traffic.

As the day progressed, clashes between ruling Trinamool Congress and BJP supporters were reported from various places, including Cooch Behar, South 24 Parganas and Nadia districts. The police resorted to baton charge and used teargas to disperse the mob.

A large group of shutdown supporters clashed with the police in Malda's Englishbazar area when the lawkeepers tried to remove a blockade. The mob threw stones at police vehicles and chased away the cops with wooden sticks.

Train services were substantially disrupted in both Sealdah and Howrah divisions of the Eastern Railway.

Forty-two pairs of suburban trains were cancelled under the Eastern Railway while the South Eastern Railway withdrew 18 more trains as agitators squatted on the tracks.

An unspecified number of state-run buses were vandalised in Howrah and Cooch Behar districts.

"As many as 1,600 people have been arrested under preventive sections. Another 50 people have been arrested under specific cases. The process of registering more complaints is going on," said West Bengal Police Additional Director General (law and order) Anuj Sharma at the state secretariat Nabanna.

"Three buses have been torched. Two of them were in Islampur and one in Jhargram. We are registering cases under the West Bengal maintainence of public order amendment Act,2017 against the offenders which would hold them liable to pay compensation to the state for damage to property," he added.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee accused the BJP of creating disturbances, torturing people in the name of shutdown and claimed that people had rejected the shutdown.

"It (BJP) is a shameless party. The way its leaders are speaking... they brought hooligans from outside and killed two of my students... can this be the activity of a political party? Bengal people have now totally turned against the culture of shutdown," said Banerjee, who is in Italy's Milan to attract foreign investments to the state, in a statement.

She said attendance in the government offices was 95 per cent during the day, which is above the daily average.

In Kolkata, people hit the streets in the morning and many public and private buses, taxis, autos were seen plying normally. However, many shops remained closed.

A state bus was vandalised and set on fire in central Kolkata's Brabourne Road in the afternoon.

The BJP leadership took out a rally in central Kolkata, where party's state President Dilip Ghosh, state women's wing President Locket Chatterjee and senior leader Rahul Sinha took part.

"We demand to know from the Chief Minister as to why innocent youths were killed by her police. We want to know why no action has been taken against the offenders," Ghosh said while blaming the Trinamool Congress activists for the violence.

He claimed over 2,000 party activists across the state were arrested by the police and demanded their immediate and unconditional release.

Another party leader Roopa Ganguly claimed the shutdown call had received spontaneous backing from the common people across the state.

"While buses are available, most of them are running empty... none of the buses remains empty during office hours on a normal day. This shows people are spontaneously supporting the shutdown," Ganguly said.

The state government had earlier issued a circular that its offices would remain open on Wednesday and no leave would be granted. It also urged banks and educational institutions to remain open.

Additional police personnel were deployed throughout the state to prevent violence.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said on Wednesday that 12 civilians, including 10 minors, were killed in an airstrike in the central province of Maidan Wardak but the Afghan government dismissed the claim.

The airstrike was conducted by pro-government forces in Jaghatu district on Sunday and according to UNAMA it killed 12 people from the same family, mostly women and children, aged between six and 15, reports Efe.

"Preliminary findings from the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan indicate that 12 civilians were killed," the Mission said in a statement.

The statement comes after the Mission had expressed concerns over a growing number of civilian casualties in airstrikes in the country.

The UN mission is reviewing reports of civilian deaths on the ground "from a number of alleged airstrikes in other parts of the country", said the statement.

However, a provincial government spokesperson, Rahim Mangal, denied the claims. "During the operation no civilian casualties occurred," Mangal told EFE.

"The claims made on social media regarding civilian casualties are false and are the work of anti-government elements to create distance between the people and the government," he added.

Mangal maintained that in the operation by the security forces 42 Taliban militants were killed and another 30 were wounded.

A record number of 1,692 civilians were killed in the first six months of 2018, mostly due to improvised explosive devices, according to latest data by UNAMA.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Bollywood star Shahid Kapoor, who will play the title role in the Hindi remake of Telugu blockbuster "Arjun Reddy", says he was both curious and excited about the movie.

"I wanted to try this part and see what I can do with this. I was curious enough to take it on and excited enough to not let it go."

The "Batti Gul Meter Chalu" actor said he thoroughly enjoyed "Arjun Reddy" as a viewer.

"I usually don't watch too many films in Telugu and it surprised me with its tonality, rawness, simplicity and the fact that it was so real and believable. The character is very fascinating for me as an actor because the emotional arc... is very original. I loved it and Vijay Deverakonda, who played Arjun, did it so well," Shahid told IANS in an interview.

Directed by Sandeep Reddy Vanga, the remake will go on floors next month.

The original film, starring Vijay and Shalini Pandey in the lead, revolves around a medical student who falls in love with his junior and how their relationship evolves.

Shahid, who is the son of veteran actors Pankaj Kapoor and Neelima Azeem, has done many romantic films in his career. He made his acting debut in 2003 with "Ishq Vishk", after which he featured in movies like "Vivah", "Jab We Met", "Kaminey", "Phata Poster Nikhla Hero", "R... Rajkumar", "Haider", "Udta Punjab" and "Padmaavat".

There are always a lot of hopes riding on actors today.

Asked if this adds to the pressure, Shahid said: "My own hopes are riding on me. I have been doing this for 15 years. Now I am a professional at it and understand what comes with it. There is a drive from within to always do your best.

"Once you really give a lot of time to what you do, and if you are passionate about it and have that need to improve upon yourself all the time -- which is very intrinsic to anybody who is successful... That need and desire must be there to improve, rediscover and keep doing new stuff... Then it comes naturally."

Ultimately, to him, it does not feel like pressure.

"You want to do your best, and I always feel like that," said Shahid, who agrees that attaining stardom comes with a price tag attached to it.

"I live by the beach and I can't really go there as often as I would want to... My family and friends have to deal with a certain amount of attention which they might not necessarily be comfortable with. So, of course, there are things that come with the job. I love this job. So, it's okay."

The 37-year-old actor has just welcomed his second child Zain, a son, with wife Mira Rajput, whom he married in 2015. The two also have a daughter named Misha.

How does he balance his busy work and home life?

"It does require a lot of effort. Sometimes, you don't have time for yourself... but here you have to choose the time between your work and family. That is something I do it very consciously," Shahid said during a chat on the sidelines of a fashion event here.

(Durga Chakravarty can be contacted at durga.c@ians.in)

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)(Attn Editors: Drawing on the rich experience of his own life, bestselling author Paulo Coelho's "Hippie", dedicated to Kabir, Rumi and Tagore, among others, will hit the bookstores in India on Thursday. Presented below is an exclusive extract from the book)

In September 1970, airplane tickets were outrageously expensive, which meant only the rich could travel. OK, that wasn't entirely true for an enormous number of young people whom these outdated media outlets could see only their outward appearance: they wore their hair long, dressed in bright-colored clothing never took a bath

They were a danger to an entire generation of diligent young boys and girls trying to succeed in life, with their horrible example of lewdness and "free love" as their detractors liked to say with disdain. Well, this ever growing number of kids had a system for spreading news that no one, absolutely no one, ever managed to detect...

The "Invisible Post" existed because people were always going to these concerts, swapping ideas about where they ought to meet next, how they could explore the world without jumping aboard one of those tourist buses where a guide described the sights while the younger people grew bored and the old people dozed. And so, that's to word of mouth, everyone knew where the next concert was to take place or where to find the nest great trail to be explored. No one had any financial restrictions because, in this community, everyone's favorite author wasn't Plato or Aristotle or comics from some artist who'd attained celebrity status, the big book, which almost no one who traveled to the Old Continent did so without, went by the name Europe on 5 Dollars a Day. With this book, everyone could find out where to stay, what to see, where to eat, where to meet and where to catch live music while hardly spending a thing.

Frommer's only error at the time was having limited his guide to Europe. Were there not perhaps other interesting places to see? Weren't there those who would rather go to India than to Paris? Frommer would address this failing a few years later, but until such time the "Invisible Post" took it upon itself to promote a South American itinerary ending at the once-"lost" city of Machu Picchu, with the warning not to mention anything to those who were outside of the hippie culture, lest the place be invaded by wild animals with cameras and extensive explanations (quickly forgotten) about how a band of Indians had created a city so wee concealed it could be discovered only from above - something they considered impossible, since men did not fly...

Returning to the trails: after Machu Pichu, the next hot spot was Tiahuanaco, in Bolivia. Then Lhasa, in Tibet, where it was difficult to enter because, according to the "Invisible Post" there was a war between monks and Chinese soldiers. Of course it was difficult to imagine such a war, but everyone took it seriously and wasn't about to risk an endless trip to later end up a prisoner to the monks or the soldiers . Last the era's great philosophers, who had just split up in April of that year, had a short time before proclaimed that the greatest wisdom on the planet was to be found in India. That was enough to send all the world's young people to the country in search of wisdom, knowledge, gurus, vows of poverty, enlightenment, and communion with My Sweet Lord.

"The Invisible Post", however, warned that Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, famed guru to the Beatles, had tried to engage relations with Mia Farrow. The actress had always been unhappy in love through the years. She had traveled to India at the invitation of the Beatles, possibly in the hope of finding a cure for other traumas related to her sexuality, which seemed to hound her like bad karma.

But everything suggests that Farrow's bad karma had accompanied her, John Paul, George, and Ringo on their trip. According to Farrow, she was meditating in the great seer's cave when he grabbed her and tried to force her into sexual relations. By this point in the trip, Ringo had already returned to England because his wife hated Indian food and Paul had also decided to abandon the retreat, convinced that it wasn't doing anything for him.

Only George and John remained in the Maharishi's temple when Mia came looking for them, in tears, and told them what had happened. The two immediately packed their bags, and when the Enlightened One came to ask what was going on, Lennon gave him a bruising response: "You're the f***ing Enlightened One, are you not? You ought to be able to figure it out."

Now, in September 1970, women ruled the world -- or, more precisely, young hippie women ruled the world. Wherever they went, the men did so knowing these wren't about to be seduced by the latest trends -- the women knew much more about the subject than the men did. And so the men decided to accept once and for all that they needed these women; they constantly wore an expression of yearning, as though begging, "Please protect me, I'm all alone and I can't find anyone, I think the world's forgotten me and love has forsaken me forever." The women had their pick of men and never gave a thought to marriage, only to having a good time enjoying wild, intense sex. When it came to the important things, and even the most superficial and irrelevant, they had the last word. However, when the "Invisible Post" brought news of Mia Farrow's sexual assault and Lennon's reaction, these women immediately decided to change their itineraries.

A new hippie trail was created, from Amsterdam (Holland) to Kathmandu (Nepal), on a bus that charged a fare of approximately a hundred dollars and traveled through countries that must have been pretty interesting: Turkey, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and part of India (a great distance from the Maharishi's temple, it's worth noting). The trip lasted three weeks and an insane number of miles.

(Paulo Coelho is the bestselling author of several books, best known for "The Alchemist". Published with permission from Penguin Random House India)

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Around 150 people of a village in West Khasi Hills district bordering Assam have fled after five persons of the village were arrested by the Assam Police violating protocols, Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma on Wednesday said.

The arrests were made on the charge of manhandling an engineer of the Assam government during his team's inspection in the area two weeks ago, Sangma said in the assembly.

The inspection was carried out by the team claiming that the area falls under Assam, he said.

Meghalaya shares nearly 900 km long interstate border with Assam on its north and the two states have decades-old border dispute.

"One hundred and fifty people of Malangkona village have fled their homes and village to evade arrest by the Boko police (of Assam)," Sangma said while replying to a zero hour notice tabled by United Democratic Party's MLA S K Sunn.

Sunn quoted local newspaper reports that said over 500 people have fled from Malangkona village fearing arrests by Assam police.

The chief minister informed the house that a special police team was sent to the area to instill confidence among the local people, and the district administration has also re-inforced its manpower and are camping in the area.

The superintendent of police of West Khasi Hills had also written to his counterpart in Kamrup (Rural) district of Assam on September 24 seeking his intervention in the matter and help bringing back normalcy in the area, he said.

The chief minister said Assam police did not follow protocols while arresting the villagers of Meghalaya.

When contacted, ADGP (Special branch) of Assam Police, Pallab Bhattacharjee, said the incident happened when a team of Assam public health engineering went there for some official work and those five people manhandled the team members on Assam land.

The PHE team lodged a complaint with the Boko police station following which they were arrested, Bhattacharjee said adding that the Boko police was asked to handle the matter carefully as it is a sensitive issue.

Chief ministers of the two states had a telephonic talk on this matter, he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The 16th edition of the National Book Fair is scheduled to begin on September 28 at the Motimahal Lawns here.

The 11-day literary event will mark the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, and also pay tribute to former Indian prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and eminent Hindi poet Gopaldas Neeraj, who passed away this year on August 16 and July 19 respectively.

"Books are known to be a man's best friends, and have contributed in strengthening the social fabric of the country. Programmes at the fair will include Urdu and Arabic workshops, shloka-chanting performances, debates and quizes," Murlidhar Ahuja, convenor of the fair, said.

The fair will come to a close on October 7.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Danish authorities arrested two people Wednesday under Denmark's anti-terror laws on suspicion of buying drones bound for the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq.

Copenhagen police and Denmark's security service, known as PET, carried out the arrests Wednesday. Police said the suspects were believed to be part of a network.

In a brief joint statement, police and PET said a series of raids were also carried out in greater Copenhagen.

The suspects will face a judge Thursday, and prosecutors are expected to demand they be held in pre-trial detention. Prosecutors say the hearing should be held behind closed doors because of the ongoing investigation.

No other details were available.

It was unclear whether the case was linked to the arrests in Denmark a year ago of a 28-year-old man for allegedly shipping drones, drone components and infrared cameras for the Islamic State group via Turkey.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Three men, including the husband of one of the deceased women, were arrested for allegedly killing two sisters in outer Delhi's Alipur area, police said Wednesday.

The three accused persons were identified as Gulshan alias Monu (35), who hatched the plan to kill his wife along with his two accomplices -- Prem (31) and Shivam (21).

Gulshan's wife was living separately since he did not allow her to work and also used to physically abuse her, the police said.

On September 19, the two sisters left their home in northeast Delhi for a bus terminal at Kashmiri Gate, but did not return till the next day and their mobile numbers were also not reachable.

A report was lodged in this regard at the Seelampur police station in northeast Delhi.

Highly decomposed bodies of the two sisters were found in a drain in Alipur on September 24, the police said.

The deceased were identified as Rukhsar (22) and Nabeela (20), they said.

Rukhsar's husband had been missing since the day of the incident. He was subsequently nabbed along with his accomplices on Wednesday, the police said.

During interrogation, it was revealed that Gulshan had asked his friend Shivam to call his wife Rukhsar to Kashmiri Gate on the pretext of offering her a job, the police said.

As per the plan, Shivam asked both the sisters to sit in his car and offered them cold drinks laced with sedatives, the police said.

At a CNG-filling station in Samaypur Badli, Gulshan and Prem also entered the car, they said.

By then, one of the sisters had lost consciousness and the second one tried to raise an alarm.

The accused persons then strangulated both the sisters, the police added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)In a major haul, the Noida Police busted an illegal liquor factory running in adjoining Ghaziabad and arrested four persons Wednesday, seizing 15,000 litre of illicit liquor estimated worth Rs 50 lakh, officials said.

The factory was being run in Tronica City in the Sector 2 of Ghaziabad's Loni area under the garb of being of a "juice manufacturing unit", the police said.

Ghaziabad police chief Vaibhav Krishna said he has suspended an SHO, a police post in-charge, and a beat constable of the Tronica City police station for alleged dereliction of duty.

Sleuths from Noida Police had raided the factory which was running in a two-storeyed building and seized around 15,000 litres of illicit liquor.

A special two-day drive 'Operation Yellow Waters' is underway in Gautam Buddh Nagar to nab bootleggers and crackdown on trade of illicit liquor, Senior Superintendent of Police Ajay Pal Sharma said.

"On Tuesday, the police had arrested a bootlegger, Lokesh, and recovered 72 pints and 144 quarter bottles of liquor from him. When quizzed, he told the police that he procured the liquor from a 'godown' in Ghaziabad's Tronica City," Sharma said.

"A team of officials from Sector 24 police station raided the location and found a full-fledged liquor factory running stealthily. Four persons were found working on machine to produce the liquor and they were apprehended. Soon after, the entire plot was unveiled," he added.

Sharma said the factory was portrayed as a "juice" manufacturing firm.

According to police, they recovered 15,000 litres of alcohol, ethyl alcohol, caramel chemical stashed in 200 drums each having a capacity of 100 litres, empty bottles, wrappers, sealing machines, and three tanks of 5,000 litres each filled with liquor.

A truck, loaded with 600 cartons of liquor, a hatchback car and a motorcycle were impounded in the raid, they said.

The factory was being run by people working for gangster Amit alias Bhoora who carried a reward of Rs 10 lakh on his head and is presently lodged in Patiala jail, SSP Sharma said.

"Five people, including property dealer Prem Singhal who rented out the plot, were initially detained. However, only four of them were arrested," police said.

Those arrested have been identified as Harit Kaushik of Rohtak, Sumit Saini of Muzaffarnagar, Luvkush Khatik and Bose Kumar, both from Aligarh, police said, adding that they have been remanded in judicial custody.

According to police, liquor from this factory was being supplied across the National Capital Region (NCR), and places such as Shamli, Bagpath and Badaut in western Uttar Pradesh.

Also, the truck that was used for supply would use fake registration numbers and put up number plates of the district where they would go for delivery, they added.

"This factory was taken on lease on August 7 and was being run under the patronage of Amit Bhoora, jailed in Patiala, and one of his brothers who lives in Delhi," the police said.

A case has been registered at Noida Sector 24 police station under relevant sections of the Uttar Pradesh Excise Act.

Meanwhile, at least five other persons were arrested under 'Operation Yellow Waters' in separate incidents in Gautam Buddh Nagar for alleged recovery of large quantity of illegal liquor from them, according to police.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Ronald McDonald House Charities(r) of Alabama (RMHCA) wants supporters to channel their inner rock star for Red Shoe Run 2019.

For the 15th Annual event, RMHCA is thrilled to announce not only a new date but a new location! Red Shoe Run 2019 will start and finish at the Ronald McDonald House in downtown Birmingham on Saturday, March 16, 2019. The 5K portion will begin at 8 a.m. and there will also be a 1-mile fun run.

To really amp up the spirit of the event, the theme for this year is Red Shoe Run: Rockin' 5K! Runners are encouraged to don outfits inspired by their favorite rock bands! From rockabilly all the way through to 2018, there are so many great eras to draw from.

After the race, supporters will enjoy a block party in front of the Ronald McDonald House(r) complete with music, vendors and more! Top fundraising teams will be recognized as well as the top three runners in each age division.

Registration is now open for Red Shoe Run 2019: Rockin' 5K at https://redshoerun-bham.org. Early bird registration for 5K runners is $25 and $15 for the 1-mile course. All registrations include a t-shirt and all proceeds from this event benefit Ronald McDonald House Charities(r) of Alabama.

Follow Red Shoe Run on Facebook for updates and fun ideas to get in the rockin' spirit!

Anyone interested in becoming a Team Captain can reach out to Special Events Manager Katie Hannah for fun ideas to recruit runners and raise money for RMHCA. She can be contacted at Katie.Hannah@rmhca.org.

Ronald McDonald House Charities(r) of Alabama (RMHCA) is a non-profit, 501(c) (3) organization who envisions a community where families never confront their challenges alone, but instead find comfort, encouragement, and support in their quest for hope, healing, happiness, and growth. In 2017, the charity served approximately 4,000 children and their families through its three programs: the Ronald McDonald House(r) in Birmingham provided comfort and care over 896 family stays; the Ronald McDonald Family Room(r) at DCH Regional Medical Center in Tuscaloosa served as oasis of calm 162 times for families while their child received treatment in the Pediatrics or Neonatal Intensive Care Unit; and 3,138 children enjoyed a snack from the Happy Wheels Cart while they waited to see their doctor at the clinics within Children's of Alabama. To learn more about how RMHCA works to improve the health and well-being of children and families in Alabama, visit www.rmhca.org or follow us on social media @RMHCAlabama.

About RMHC

Ronald McDonald House Charities(r) (RMHC(r)), is a non-profit, 501 (c) (3) corporation that creates, finds, and supports programs that directly improve the health and well-being of children and their families. Through its global network of nearly 290 Chapters in more than 64 countries and regions, and its three core programs: the Ronald McDonald House(r), the Ronald McDonald Family Room(r) and the Ronald McDonald Care Mobile(r), RMHC helps families with sick children stay together, and close to the medical care their child needs at leading hospitals worldwide. RMHC programs not only provide access to quality health care, they enable family-centered care ensuring families are fully supported and actively involved in their children's care.

For more information, visit rmhc.org.Protesters chant during a demonstration at U.C. Berkeley. Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Theres reason to be skeptical of arguments about college kids these days. Whether the subject is trigger warnings, victimhood culture, or the supposed death of free speech, college students are an easy punching bag and target for generalizations. Because campus blowups have become more common in recent years, and far more visible thanks to social media, theres been a glut of half-baked perspectives about what they represent.

I suspect that some left-of-center readers are going to be quick to shove The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure, the new book by Greg Lukianoff, the head of the campus free-speech group the Foundation for Individual Rights and Education and Jonathan Haidt, an NYU social psychologist, into the hot-take pile  but that would be a mistake. Its a generally nuanced, carefully constructed book worth grappling with. Even if its core argument falls a bit short.

That core argument, which was birthed from a similarly titled 2015 Atlantic cover story, is that a culture of safetyism  [swept] through many universities between 2013 and 2017 (emphasis theirs). By safetyism, Lukianoff and Haidt mean a culture that allows the concept of safety to creep so far that it equates emotional discomfort with physical danger, and which therefore encourages people to systematically protect one another from the very experiences embedded in daily life that they need in order to become strong and healthy. Naturally, the book is replete with examples of how safetyism and its symptoms have ostensibly run amok. They range from overreactions to supposedly offensive emails sent by professors or administrators (at Claremont McKenna, Yale, and, most spectacularly, Evergreen) to the genuine violence at UC-Berkeley (in response to far-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos) and Middlebury (protesting Bell Curve author Charles Murray) to students at various institutions seeking to ban other, more moderate conservative figures from speaking on the grounds that their presence would render students unsafe, or language to that effect.

The authors tell this story in a variety of ways, but two main narrative goals stick out: The first is to impart what Lukianoff and Haidt refer to as The Three Great Untruths that are embedded in safetyism and which are therefore being taught to (some) American kids these days. First, theres Untruth of Fragility, or the idea that minor, everyday forms of adversity  e.g., a conservative speaker coming to your campus  pose real threats to ones well-being. Theres the Untruth of Emotional Reasoning, or the idea that just because you feel a certain way, doesnt mean that feeling is necessarily true (I am upset about that conservative, and feel her presence is a threat to my safety, and therefore it is). And theres Untruth of Us Versus Them, or the idea that the whole world can be neatly divided into good people versus bad people (Anyone who supports the idea that the conservative in question should be allowed to speak is an enemy of progress and marginalized people).

The second main goal of Coddling is to run down the six interacting explanatory threads that, according to Lukianoff and Haidt, can at least partially explain the ostensible rise in campus safetyism and its attendant outbursts: increasing political polarization at the national level; the well-documented uptick in anxiety and depression in young people; overprotective parenting of kids, particularly in families that are middle-class and richer; the decline of free-play opportunities for some American children; rapidly growing, bloated, risk-averse campus bureaucracies; and The Quest for Justice, or the fact that young people today are living in a time of what feels like a disproportionate number of high-profile social-justice-related news stories.

Photo: Penguin Press

Which is all to say, theres a lot in this book. And its worth pointing out that coddling probably doesnt do justice to the full scope of the arguments Lukianoff and Haidt make and the stories they tell. The authors themselves write that they have always been ambivalent about the word, which they say entered the equation at the suggestion of an Atlantic editor. While they do argue that kids, particularly richer ones, often end up being raised and schooled in ways that shield them from the sorts of minor adversity and exploration that helps generate resilient, self-sufficient adults, they are quick to point out that lower-class kids are just as likely to experience the sorts of traumatic childhood events that contribute to mental-health problems.

So while Coddling is already being caricatured as two middle-aged white guys complaining about how pampered kids these days are  recent reviews in both Pacific Standard and the Washington Post simply pretend Lukianoff and Haidt dont make that crucial distinction between the very different sorts of challenges faced by kids of different social classes, for example  the book is actually more thoughtful than that. To take one more example, Lukianoff and Haidt repeatedly highlight the extent to which right-wing provocation and political correctness have exacerbated the disaster that is the national political discourse, helping to make everything a lot more hysterical and threat-infused than it needs to be. They point out that the stronger sense of danger some college kids feel around campus political debate is partially justified in light of how conservative groups like Turning Point USA employ a strategy of amplifying often trivial examples of extremism on the left  say, an average undergrad getting upset about politics, as they are wont to do  at which point that poor individual is inundated with harassment and threats on social media. Even in those few situations that can accurately be described as full-blown far-left campus disasters, like the prolonged chaos that reigned at Evergreen, Lukianoff and Haidt dutifully point out how right-wing culture warriors have, every step of the way, worsened things.

As the authors themselves point out, in a certain sense, what were seeing isnt entirely new. Students in the 1960s and 1970s often tried to keep speakers off campus or prevent speakers from being heard, they write. So campus blowups themselves arent new. But, they continue, theres an important distinction between then and now: Students [back then] wanted to block people they thought were espousing evil ideas (as they do today), but back then, they were not saying that members of the school community would be harmed by the speakers visit or by exposure to ideas. And they were certainly not asking that professors and administrators take a more protective attitude toward them by shielding them from the presence of certain people. So what is new, they argue, is the premise that students are fragile.

Surely some students are projecting exactly the sort of fragility and demand for protection Lukianoff and Haidt bemoan  there are plenty of anecdotal examples. But theres a deep risk here of overstating the extent of the problem given how easy it is for relatively minor, forgettable events to get blown up by social-media dynamics. Twenty-five years ago, would any of us have been aware that Oberlin students argued that the banh mi served at a campus dining hall was an act of cultural appropriation?

Lukianoff and Haidt do have a response to these objections: They argue, in the book and elsewhere, that todays college students  who are mostly members of iGen, born in 1995 or later, rather than members of my much-maligned millennial generation  are actually less in favor of free speech than their older siblings and parents. But as Jeffrey Sachs and others have pointed out, the data dont really support the idea that theres something radically new going on vis-a-vis young people and free speech. And as I noted in 2015, for decades theres been a general tendency for about 40 percent of the American population and all sorts of different subgroups of that population to be in favor of the government banning certain forms of speech. Its the certain forms that changes over time  yesterdays communist is todays racist.

That leaves us mostly with anecdotes. Some of those anecdotes are pretty wild, sure, but theyre still just anecdotes. So no amount of nuance can obscure the fact that Lukianoff and Haidts core claim  that something genuinely new has popped up on college campuses since 2013 or so, and that it can be explained by their six interacting explanatory threads  is a tough thing to prove empirically, and they dont quite do that in Coddling.

***

A great deal of The Coddling of the American Mind, however, can be enjoyed whether or not one agrees that safetyism has taken over some college campuses. Thats because the book traverses a fairly wide terrain (albeit in a way that never goes too deeply into any one area), drawing on sociology, developmental psychology, ancient philosophy, and a bunch of other subjects. And theres plenty of solid, research-backed advice for parents raising kids of all ages.

Lukianoff and Haidts most interesting and provocative claim is that certain approaches to political disagreement increasingly embraced in campus settings run exactly contrary to the tenets of cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT  a solidly evidence-backed therapeutic approach centered on rewiring negative, distorting thought patterns. If your tendency after bad romantic luck is to get mired in a cycle of No one loves me and I will die alone, for example, a CBT-focused therapist might help you realize that these arent necessarily fair conclusions to draw, but are rather examples of catastrophizing (overextrapolating, in a negative way) or perhaps mind-reading (imagining you know what others are thinking). CBT preaches that the way our mind interprets the world can affect our mental health, and that we can harness our mental flexibility for the better  to a certain extent we have freedom to interpret events in more adaptive, less distorting ways.

For Lukianoff, this is a personal subject  he has suffered from severe depression, including suicidal ideation, and credits CBT with making his life tolerable. He was troubled, write the authors, when he noticed that some students reactions to speech on college campuses exhibited exactly the same distortions that he had learned to rebut in his own therapy [emphasis theirs]. Lukianoff and Haidt arent the only ones to have noticed this. In a rather comprehensive 2017 paper that I covered here on the problems with how microaggressions are conceptualized and taught on campuses, for example, the clinical psychologist Scott Lilienfeld noted that many of the implicit messages posited by Derald Wing Sue, a Columbia counseling professor who is one of the godfathers of microaggressions research and training, seem to encourage the exact bad cognitive habits CBT seeks to dispel. For example, Sue claims that the question Where were you born? when directed at an Asian-American, is a microaggression because it reflects the assumption that recipients are different, less than, and could not possibly be, real Americans. But a competent CBT therapist, Lilienfield notes, would discourage such thinking  rather, CBT therapists would likely maintain that leaping to this inference without attempting to check it out constitutes mind reading, as the intent of this question is compatible with a host of interpretations. That doesnt mean its never the case that Where are you from? is asked in a way that could reasonably constitute a microaggression  it means that training students to assume that it is is to instill bad cognitive habits.

This is an important point to consider, and Lukianoff and Haidt argue convincingly that microaggressions and other concepts from contemporary social-justice discourse really do take the opposite approach of CBT to dealing with questions of ambiguity, intent, and other important concepts. That is, these ideas actively teach and reward catastrophizing, mind-reading, and other common distortions that psychologists have long recognized are harmful cognitive habits. In some cases, this has reached farcical levels. As Conor Friedersdorf explained in October of 2017, running down the results of a CATO/YouGov survey, college kids are regularly taught that certain utterances are offensive that most members of the supposedly harmed groups themselves dont actually find offensive:

Telling a recent immigrant, you speak good English was deemed not offensive by 77 percent of Latinos; saying I dont notice peoples race was deemed not offensive by 71 percent of African Americans and 80 percent of Latinos; saying America is a melting pot was deemed not offensive by 77 percent of African Americans and 70 percent of Latinos; saying America is the land of opportunity was deemed not offensive by 93 percent of African Americans and 89 percent of Latinos; and saying everyone can succeed in this society if they work hard enough was deemed not offensive by 89 percent of Latinos and 77 percent of African Americans.

Microagressions are a culture-war punch line at this point, so its easy to roll ones eyes, and argue we should move on to more important things. But surely the way kids are taught to deal with offense and conflict matters. In many cases, the students being exposed to microaggression curricula  or to other, similarly half-baked social-justice ideas  are, in light of current demographic and mental-health trends, going to have histories of mental-health problems, be first-generation college students, or both. The idea that its good or progressive or justice-furthering to tell vulnerable kids that anodyne, yay-America utterances not viewed as offensive by the vast majority of members of minority groups could literally be killing them  an actual claim of flawed research that posits a link between microaggression exposure and suicide (Lilienfields paper explains why its flawed)  and that they should interpret these statements in as negative a manner imaginable, is extremely irresponsible. Especially when you consider the fact that if a kid exposed to these ideas subsequently sought out mental-health help, their therapist, if he or she were competent, would simply tell them to do the opposite of what theyd been trained to do by their microaggressions teachers: stop assuming the worst in ambiguous statements.

Its not just microaggressions. Lukianoff and Haidt also argue, pretty compellingly, that other aspects of safetyism encourage the same sort of anti-CBT work. To take one of many examples, when the conservative writer on crime and policing Heather Mac Donald came to Pomona College, a group of students wrote that If engaged, Heather Mac Donald would not be debating on mere difference of opinion, but the right of Black people to exist. This idea, that to participate in certain debates is to debate the right of certain groups to exist, is everywhere these days  Ive encountered it in plenty of non-campus settings  and it is catastrophizing: Mac Donald has ideas about crime and policing that many left-of-center people, myself included, disagree with vehemently  but engaging with her is not engaging on the question of whether African-Americans will be allowed to continue to exist. Lukianoff and Haidts argument isnt that college students are crazy, or that they arent reacting to real problems and real injustices  its that it hurts them for administrators and other adults to fail to push back, when appropriate, against this sort of language and framing.

***

Throughout The Coddling of the American Mind, Lukianoff and Haidt criticize the tendency, in some campus circles, toward all-or-nothing, good-versus-evil thinking. And, at the risk of getting a little bit meta, it feels like these tendencies have descended on the broader left-of-center conversation about campuses and social-justice discourse a bit.

In general, the left portrays the debate as looking roughly like this: On the one side are students, many of them marginalized, who express themselves in ways that might sometimes be immature or over-the-top, sure, but who should be respected because their feelings are a genuine, accurate reflection of a very messed-up world; on the other side are concern-trolls like Haidt and Lukianoff who claim to be worried about the Discourse or Nuance or Intellectual Diversity or whatever other centrist buzzword, but who are really, deep down, just upset that marginalized students are expressing themselves with any assertiveness at all.

This narrative forces everyone to choose a side in an unproductive way. Its possible to genuinely be concerned about societal injustice and to believe that certain trends in social-justice-speak arent helpful (or are even harmful). Its possible  again  to vehemently disagree with Heather Mac Donald while disagreeing with the claim that to debate her is to debate the right of black people to exist, and that she should therefore be deplatformed. Heather Mac Donald will continue to exist, will continue to write and speak, regardless of whether she is barred from speaking on a particular campus. A good-faith critic of hers can claim, honestly and without a trace of concern-trolling, that its better to teach justifiably angry students to rebut her arguments than to help them pretend they can disappear her from the discourse.

Again: This conversation is important. Its about how young people are taught to deal with political differences, injustice, and the frustrations of coming of age politically in a world that is often quite cruel and resistant to change. Lukianoff and Haidts claims deserve to be evaluated on their merits, not as part of some flattened, memeified skirmish in a culture war.A man hailing from Manipur allegedly stabbed to death a 65-year-old security guard in south Delhi's Safdarjung Enclave after mistaking him as the auto-rickshaw driver he had an altercation with, police said on Wednesday.

Ram Bahadur was attacked while he was resting in an auto-rickshaw on the intervening night of Tuesday and Wednesday, they added.

Bahadur, who was employed as a watchman in a colony in Safdarjung Enclave, was rushed to the AIIMS Trauma Centre where he later succumbed to his injures, police said.

Following investigation, police arrested Benzi, a native of Imphal in Manipur currently residing at Humayunpur in Safdarjung Enclave, an officer added.

The accused was preparing for competitive examinations, the officer said.

During interrogation, the accused told police he had an altercation with an auto-rickshaw driver a few days ago. Since then he was looking for ways to settle scores, Vijay Kumar, Deputy Commissioner of Police (south) said.

On Tuesday night, he spotted a person resting in an auto-rickshaw and mistook him to be the same person he had an altercation with, the officer said.

To teach him a lesson, the accused stabbed the victim with a knife on his neck and fled from the spot.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Welcoming the "historic, landmark" judgment, Aadhaar-issuing authority Wednesday said the Apex Court has upheld the validity of the biometric identity system that neither creates a surveillance state nor violate privacy.

"It has been established by the judgement that is not for the state surveillance as profiling is not possible using the minimal data that has. There are sufficient safeguards to disallow any abuse," Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) said welcoming "the historical and landmark majority judgement" of the of India.

" Act has withstood the judicial scrutiny and the purpose of the Act is legitimate," it said.

said the court has upheld the constitutional validity of Aadhaar and accepted that there is a legitimate state aim in the 12-digit biometric ID.

"Aadhaar as an idea is fully upheld that it does not create a surveillance state and does not violate privacy," it said in a statement. "The verdict Aadhaar is a tool of empowerment of the marginalised sections of the society."





The Wednesday upheld the validity of Aadhaar but curbed its use for opening bank accounts to securing cell phone connections.

The apex Court also upheld that the Aadhaar Act passed as a Money Bill is valid. "It has further gone on to say that the Aadhaar Act meets the concept of Limited Government, Good Governance, and Constitutional Trust," said.

UIDAI CEO Ajay Bhushan Pandey said: "Aadhaar has come out winning as the champion of the empowerment of people, especially the marginalised sections of the society and also as the key to the welfare schemes delivery of the Government that has eradicated the fakes, duplicates and middlemen. The verdict is a victory for UIDAI and the Government of India and has also set the pace of India's digital destiny".



He, however, added that some reasonable conditions and restrictions on private usages have been imposed as safeguards that would further strengthen Aadhaar as the unique identity in the service of the people especially the poor.

UIDAI said that the verdict has recognised that "Aadhaar respect human dignity and does not violate privacy."



"Supreme Court has underlined that the dignity is not only in reference to an individual but is also the dignity within the community," it said. "The Supreme Court also found Aadhaar Act passes the 'balancing tests' as Aadhaar collects only minimal data.The Supreme Court Wednesday dismissed apprehension that the Aadhaar scheme violates citizens' Right to Privacy, saying minimal data was collected in the enrolment process.

Justice A K Sikri, writing the judgement for the CJI, himself and Justice A M Khanwilkar, said that minimal biometric data in the form of iris and fingerprints is collected and the authentication process is not exposed to the Internet.

He also refused to agree with the submission of the petitioners that the Aadhaar project violated the Right to Privacy with respect to personal demographic and biometric information collected, stored and shared as there was no law authorising these actions.

The top court said that Aadhaar Act truly seeks to secure to the poor and deprived persons an opportunity to live their life and exercise liberty.

"By ensuring targeted delivery through digital identification, it not only provides them a nationally recognized identity but also attempts to ensure the delivery of benefits, service and subsidies with the aid of public exchequer/Consolidated Fund of India," the bench said.

Justifying the scheme, it said the state was using Aadhaar as an enabler for providing deserving section of the society their "right to food, right to livelihood, right to receive pension and other social assistance benefits" by bringing their right to life to "fruition".

"This necessity of Aadhaar has arisen in order to ensure that such benefits are given to only genuine beneficiaries. The Act aims at efficient, transparent and targeted delivery of subsidies, benefits and services. In the process, it wants to achieve the objective of checking the corrupt practices at various levels of distribution system which deprive genuine persons from receiving these benefits," the court said.

It said that enrolment in Aadhaar of the underprivileged and marginalised section of the society to avail the welfare schemes actually amounts to empowering these persons.

"On the one hand, it gives such individuals their unique identity and, on the other hand, it also enables such individuals to avail the fruits of welfare schemes of the government which are floated as socio-economic welfare measures to uplift such classes. The scheme ensures dignity to such individuals. This facet of dignity cannot be lost sight of and needs to be acknowledged," the court said.

"There needs to be balancing of two competing fundamental rights, right to privacy on the one hand and right to food, shelter and employment on the other hand. Axiomatically both the rights are founded on human dignity," it added.

Justice D Y Chandrachud, however, wrote a dissenting verdict and said allowing private entities to use Aadhaar numbers, under Section 57, will lead to commercial exploitation of the personal data of individuals without consent and could also lead to individual profiling.

"These preferences could also be used to influence the decision making of the electorate in choosing candidates for electoral offices. This is contrary to privacy protection norms. Data cannot be used for any purpose other than those that have been approved."



Justice Ashok Bhushan also concurred with Justice Sikri and said collection of demographic and biometric data under the Aadhaar Act does not violate the fundamental right of privacy as the information sought is limited and only for the purpose of identification.

He said an individual while interacting with society reveals several information, like name, age, date of birth and residential address, which is also sought under Aadhaar and therefore, there can be "no reasonable expectation of privacy" in giving such data.

Justice Bhushan also said that the biometric information obtained for Aadhaar enrolment were photographs, fingerprints and iris scan, "which are least intrusion in physical autonomy of an individual".

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Supreme Court verdict on Aadhaar will have different impact for different folks, a relief for those who no longer have to link their cards to their bank accounts and mobiles but tying millions dependent on subsidies to the biometric id, say activists and others.

The apex court Wednesday declared the Aadhaar scheme constitutionally valid, striking down some of its provisions, including its linking with bank accounts, mobile phones and school admissions.

Some like Bipasha Mukherjee, 21, whose mobile stopped working for 72 hours last month, welcomed the judgement.

Following a visit to the telecom company's customer care centre, she was told the connection was disrupted because the "sim was not linked to her Aadhaar card".

"I was completely cut off for three days without any explanation from the telecom company," she said.

However, Bipasha's relief did not trickle down to Gauri Devi, who works as a household help in Dwarka and needs the Aadhaar to avail facilities of welfare schemes and government subsidies.

In fact, Gauri said, it further polarises the haves and the have-nots.

She told PTI that she and her two sons applied for Aadhaar, but only her younger son received the document.

While the younger son could get admission to the Vidya Bharti School in North West Delhi, life became tougher for her. Collecting rations and accessing subsidised health services for her family was "impossible" without the card.

"Nothing happens without Aadhaar. To avail each subsidy, be it for food or health services, we are supposed to have the card. I did not get my Aadhaar even after registering myself...we are being deprived for no fault of ours," she said.

According to farmer leader and activist Vijoo Krishnan, food security, particularly among the poor, has been "worst hit" by the judgement.

According to data revealed earlier this year by the Right To Food (RTF) campaign, an advocacy group, 14 people allegedly starved to death in Jharkhand over 10 months after being denied rations because they didn't have Aadhaar cards.

"Denial of ration/food grains have been reported widely over UID issues including problems of biometric... The starvation deaths in Jharkhand, massive malnutrition and related deaths of children in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and tribal areas are pointers to the danger that lies in such a judgement," the Delhi-based activist said.

According to human rights organisation Amnesty India, "making an Aadhaar card a prerequisite to access essential services and benefits can obstruct access to several constitutional rights, including the rights of people to food, health care, education and social security".

Right to food activist Dipa Sinha added that they were expecting that welfare schemes would be delinked from Aaadhar too.

"So, in that way the judgment is quite disappointing," she said.

Not everyone agreed with her.

Charles Assisi, who has co-authored an upcoming book titled, "The Aadhaar Effect: Why the World's Largest Identity Project Matters", said the verdict was, "very balanced" and that the country was "headed in the right direction".

According to him, the scheme, in fact, benefits people at the bottom of the totem pole the most.

"One of the things we figured out is that the poorest of the country, that run into a few hundred million people, have absolutely no form of identity. You have to provide them with that so they can claim their rightful dues," Assisi told PTI.

"It brings them into the formal economy," he said.

Social media, too, was abuzz with mixed reactions.

While many took to Twitter to express their relief over freedom from "harassment" at the hands of banks and telecom companies, others used the social networking site to voice their disappointment.

A Jaiveer Shergill on Twitter "withdrew" his consent to share his data, and asked telecom companies and banks to "delete" the information they might have about him.

"Dear Mobile Phone Operators & Banks-You harassed us & forced us to link #Aadhaar to your system-After #SupremeCourt Judgment -Kindly delete the data collected otherwise u shall b considered in possession of stolen property as I withdraw my consent to use my info #AadhaarVerdict," he tweeted.

Many noted that the verdict "has hurt welfare", adding that there was need and possibility of a review petition.

"Some imp. modifications to #Aadhaar sought by majority judgment..But it is overall a disappointment as it doesn't consider large failures reported by welfare beneficiaries & that mandation of #UID has hurt welfare. JYC's strong dissent opens up possibility of a review petition," Srinivasan Ramani tweeted, referring to Justice D Y Chandrachud's dissenting judgement.

Another tweeter Sunit Arora wrote the constitutional validation of Adhaar will result in great suffering for the poor.

"Very disappointing #Aadhaar verdict. Constitutional validity sets the stage for a (future) fascist state. The abject poor will suffer the most.

"A future government will HAVE to challenge this," Arora wrote.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A 64-year-old man, who has been pursuing a criminal case in various courts against Uttar Pradesh Chief Yogi Adityanath since 2007, has been arrested allegedly for raping a woman.

Superintendent of Police (City) Vinay Singh said Wednesday the woman was allegedly raped by Pervez Parvaz and another man Mahmood alias Jumman, described as an 'occultist'.

The woman was assaulted when she had come to Jumman for treatment of some ailment, the officer said.

A medical examination has confirmed rape, he added.

He said while Parvaz was arrested Tuesday evening from a house in Nakhas area of Kotwali police station jurisdiction, he was remanded in judicial custody Wednesday.

The police is on look out for his accomplice Jumman, the officer said.

On instance of Parvaz, a social activist, an FIR had been lodged at Kotwali police station in Gorakhpur against Adityanath and others on January 27, 2007 allegedly for promoting communal hatred between two sections of the society.

It was alleged that Adityanath's "hate speech" had triggered several incidents of violence that day. The violence had continued for a few days.

Though a magisterial court later had taken cognisance of the chargesheet against Adityanath, the sessions court had set aside the magisterial court's order.

Parvaz then had moved the Allahabad High Court against the sessions court order.

Though the high court dismissed the Parvaz's plea against the sessions court order, he subsequently moved the Supreme Court.

The apex court last month sought the Uttar Pradesh government's stand on his plea challenging the dropping of the 2007 Gorakhpur riots case involving Adityanath.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Delhi Congress chief Ajay Maken Wednesday said he will continue to serve as the president of Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee but maintained that he would accept any decision taken by his party's leadership in view of his ailment.

His statement comes after reports appeared last week that he had resigned as the Congress's Delhi unit chief due to health issues.

Maken said he was "not 100 per cent fit" and was unable to give full time to the party while maintaining that he would accept any decision of the party leadership.

"I am and will remain president of the Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee (DPCC)," Maken told reporters here.

The Congress had earlier dismissed reports of his resignation as "rumours".

AICC in-charge of Delhi affairs P C Chacko had said that Maken was abroad for medical checkup and he had informed him as well as Congress president Rahul Gandhi about his trip.

"Maken has not resigned and will continue to be the Delhi Congress chief," Chacko told PTI.

On a question whether he had tendered his resignation to the party leadership, Maken said, "I had only apprised about my ailment before going abroad for a medical checkup."



Maken had recently said that he was suffering from "painful orthopaedic ailment".

He also tweeted that he was "deeply touched" by outpouring of wishes and concerns about his health but had not commented on the resignation "rumours" then.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Former Gujarat chief minister Shankersinh Vaghela Wednesday hit out at the Modi government over the Rafale deal and rising fuel price, and urged all opposition parties to unitedly take on the BJP in a "one-to-one" battle in the 2019 parliamentary election.

Asserting that the Lok Sabha polls will be a fight between "the PM of India vs the people of India", Vaghela told reporters here that though he was not with any party, but is extending "unconditional support" to all "anti-BJP" forces to defeat the saffron party in the election.

Asked about his political plans and whether he will contest the Lok Sabha polls, Vaghela said it was "too early to say" and he will let everyone know when the time comes.

Vaghela, who split from the Congress in July last year ahead of the assembly polls and formed the breakaway Jan Vikalp Morcha, said the forming of the Morcha was an election-oriented move.

Slamming the government over the Rafale issue, he said the Modi government came to power on the promise of transparency in governance, but has forgotten about it in the fighter jet deal issue.

He alleged that Anil Ambani's firm was "rewarded" at the expense of state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Limited.

"Now with just about six months left of his five-year term, I now present myself to seek 'account' on behalf of the people of Gujarat and India," the former Union minister said at a press conference here.

Vaghela also slammed the BJP for allegedly polarising the discourse for electoral gains, saying it was "distressing" to notice that popular attention was sought to be diverted from "total failure" of the Modi government on issues such as education, health, employment and soaring prices to issues such as "Gai (cow), Ganga, Dadri (lynching), Babri (mosque) and Love Jihad".

"When (the BJP was) in the Opposition, the falling value of the rupee was equated with plummeting national prestige. What about now? Why is the prime minister silent now? Is national honour not being compromised now?



"Prime Minister is tongue tied when soaring prices of essential commodities, petrol, diesel and cooking gas are touching an all-time high. 'Beware Highly Inflammable' this is the tagline for the current BJP government just how it is on the fuel tankers that are used to transport diesel and petrol," he said.

Vaghela, during the press conference, also trained his guns on the RSS, saying that for the first time since 1925, the headquarters of the RSS seem to have shifted from Nagpur to South Block in New Delhi, which houses crucial ministries.

Hitting out at the RSS conclave that was held in the national capital this month, he said, "Using the precincts of the high security zone located Vigyan Bhavan to read out a BJP government script is a vain attempt at taking people for a ride."



The demand of the time is to form a single and united alternative, opposed to the BJP, said Vaghela, who was in the BJP before joining the Congress in the late 1990s.

"Keeping this in mind, I have decided to work for forging closer unity amongst the 'mahagathbandhan' towards providing an effective and result-oriented stable alternative," he said.

He appealed to all political leaders and parties opposed to the BJP to sacrifice their personal and party interests for this "larger cause" of defeating the BJP.

All anti-BJP parties need to forge a united opposition and work on a common minimum programme to abide by the expectations of the people to engage the BJP in a "one-to-one fight" in the upcoming Lok Sabha election, he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh surveyed the flood-affected areas of Tarn Taran and Kapurthala districts on Wednesday to assess the damage caused by the overflowing Beas river.

Amarinder Singh announced that the special 'girdawari' (survey to assess loss) will be completed at the earliest, paving the way for releasing compensation to the affected farmers. The chief minister announced that compensation would also be provided to the people whose houses had been damaged or for loss of any livestock, an official release said.

Incessant rains in past few days in Punjab had caused damage to crops at several places.

While directing the district officials to closely monitor the situation and ensure timely assistance to the people, Amarinder Singh described the damage to the crops in as "considerable".

The Congress leader, however, said the situation was not as bad as he had envisaged. He said reports of some crop damage have also been received from the districts of Gurdaspur and Amritsar, besides Tarn Taran and Kapurthala.

Allaying farmers' fears that the Food Corporation of India will not procure their produce due to higher moisture content this year, Amarinder Singh said he had already taken up the matter with the authorities concerned. "You will not face any problems in procurement."



In Tarn Taran, the chief minister was briefed by the district officials about the flood situation. He later met the residents of the area and assured them that his government would provide all possible help to those whose crops and houses had been damaged by the incessant rains and floods.

The chief minister also met the family of Gurbeer Singh (18), who was washed away on Monday, and announced a compensation of Rs 3.50 lakh.

Amarinder Singh said the special 'girdawari' will be conducted as soon as the flood waters recede. He said once the revenue department receive reports from the district commissioners, the amount of compensation would be decided on the basis of the extent of damage.

Responding to a question, the Chief Minister said Punjab had rejected the Centre's crop-insurance scheme, as it was against the interests of the farmers as well as of the state.

He said if the Centre does not alter the scheme to meet the requirements of Punjab, the government would come out with its own insurance policy for the benefit of farmers.

He said, at present, the compensation to farmers would be paid from the state government's calamity fund.

The chief minister later visited the Mand area of Sultanpur Lodhi city and met the farmers, whose crops had suffered extensive damage due to flooding.

Responding to their demand that all pontoon bridges in Kapurthala district should be replaced with permanent ones, the chief minister said he would take up the matter with Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari.

The chief minister said he would also seek funds from the Centre for the construction of spurs to protect river banks in Beas.

He said the flooding in Beas had occurred mainly due to rains in Himachal Pradesh and the release of water from dams there.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Antibiotics may kill the body's "good" bacteria that maintain immune cells and keep infections at bay, say scientists including those of Indian origin, warning that the overuse of these medicines can do more harm than good.

The study, published in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology, found that natural defenses were very effective in reducing infection and unwanted inflammation -- and antibiotics can prevent such natural defenses.

Researchers, including Natarajan Bhaskaran and Shivani Butala from Case Western Reserve University in the US, examined "resident" bacteria, their fatty acids and their effect on certain types of white blood cells that combat infections in the mouth.

They looked at the "short-term maintenance" of Tregs and Th-17 cells in fighting fungal infections, such as Candida, in a laboratory setting.

"We set out to find out what happens when you don't have bacteria to fight a fungal infection," said Pushpa Pandiyan, an assistant professor at Case Western.

"What we found was that antibiotics can kill short-chain fatty acids produced by body's own good bacteria," said Pandiyan, who led the study.

Antibiotics are still needed for life threatening infections, researchers said.

"Our bodies have many natural defenses that we shouldn't meddle with. However, needless overuse of antibiotics is not helpful, Pandiyan said.

"Also, we know there is a definite link between oral health and overall health," she added.

Pandiyan said the study could have broader implications on protective effects of "resident microbiota" in other types of infections.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Bihar government will make a strong pitch for raising the state's share in central taxes during the upcoming tour of the 15th Finance Commission, Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi said on Wednesday.

In a statement, the Deputy CM who also holds the Finance portfolio, said that the Commission, headed by its Chairman N K Singh will be on a four-day tour of the state from September 30 during which the issue of "constant decline in Bihar's share in central taxes between the 12th and the 14th Finance Commissions" will be taken up.

"Under the 12th Finance Commission, Bihar's share stood at 11.028 per cent which dropped to 10.917 per cent during the 13 th Finance Commission and fell to 9.787 per cent during the 14th Finance Commission", Modi said.

He also pointed out that besides having a high density of population, Bihar was left with very little forest cover after the creation of Jharkhand which had put the state at a disadvantage since additional weightage was being given to states with a high degree of afforestation.

As per the tentative schedule of the tour, the Finance Commission will meet representatives of urban and rural local bodies on October 01. On October 03, it will meet leaders from various political parties besides holding discussions on the memorandum submitted by the state government.

On the last day of its tour on October 04, the Commission will meet delegates from business and industry, the statement said.

The 15th Finance Commission is supposed to submit its recommendations before the Government of India by October, 2019 based on which respective share of states in central taxes will be determined, the statement added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Trump wanted the whole world to know that the Ramirez accusations against Kavanaugh were part of a con. Photo: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images

On the same day that he treated the United Nations General Assembly to its own special Trump rally in a speech that drove the usually staid gathering of diplomats and bureaucrats to laughter, the president went off at impressive length about the allegations against Brett Kavanaugh during a press conference at the U.N. with the Colombian president Ivan Duque Marquez. Heres the full video of Trumps not-so-pithy remarks:

To make the long story short, the president attacked both the women who have accused Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault of being part of a con orchestrated by Democrats. Emily Stewart nicely summarizes the presidential take:

Trump repeated the con claim multiple times and grew angrier as he spoke. Thirty-six years ago? Nobody ever knew about it? Nobody ever heard about it? And now a new charge comes up, Trump said. He said to take a look at the lawyers who are the same lawyers who have been fighting for years and worried that no one will want to go before this system to be a judge or politician in the current environment.

He seems to have been thinking of his own experience with accusations of abuse  not an uncommon phenomenon with Trump, to be sure, but one that indicates why he is taking Kavanaughs plight so personally:

I can tell you that false accusation and false accusations of all types are made against a lot of people, Trump, who himself has been accused of sexual misconduct by more than a dozen women, said. This is a high-quality person, and it would be a horrible insult to our country if this doesnt happen. And itll be a horrible, horrible thing for future political people, judges, anything you want, itll be a horrible thing. It cannot be allowed to happen.

As Stewart notes, just a week ago Trump was careful to say that Ford deserved a hearing for her allegations. Now the wheels are off the bus for the president, and hes dripping with contempt that the veracity of this obscure woman Deborah Ramirez should be compared to that of a high-quality person like Kavanaugh:

The second accuser has nothing. The second accuser doesnt even know, she thinks maybe it could have been him, maybe not. She admits that she was drunk, she admits time lapses, Trump said when asked whether Ramirez should be invited to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, as Ford and Kavanaugh have been.

He continued, exasperated, This is a person, and this is a series of statements, thats going to take one of the most talented, one of the greatest intellects, from a judicial standpoint in our country, going to keep him off the United States Supreme Court?

If it occurred to Trump that this line of attack would by association drag his Supreme Court nominee down into the misogynistic muck in which he has spent so much of his own life, it did not deter him. Neither of the possible explanations for this outburst is very comforting. The first is that he literally cant stop himself from going off message and personally attacking those who would dare mess up his plans to reward the Christian right and the conservative legal movement with this Supreme Court nomination. The second is that the administration and the GOP have decided to join conservative activists and media in turning Kavanaughs confirmation into a holy war designed to inflame the conversation and energize conservative base voters now and in November.

We should have a better indication of why Trump keeps intervening in the Kavanaugh fight with increasingly incendiary remarks if the pattern continues in the run-up to Thursdays dramatic Judiciary Committee hearings, and if his party follows his lead with a turn to the dark side.Maharashtra police have filed a case against some anti-superstition movement activists after they "celebrated" a boy's birthday and consumed non-veg food at a crematorium, in an attempt to create social awareness.

Police Tuesday registered an offence against the Parbhani district president of Andhashraddha Nirmulan Samiti (MANS), an organisation dedicated to fighting superstition, and others for holding the birthday party and serving non-veg food at a crematorium at Jintur tehsil, an official said.

Pandharinath Shinde of MANS "celebrated" the birthday of his son in the crematorium on September 19, the official said Wednesday. Shinde's kin and friends were present, he added.

"As part of the birthday celebration, Shinde served non-veg food to the guests. Some of those present clicked the event photos, which went viral on social media," the official said.

Some local newspapers published of the event, after which Shinde was criticised by some Hindu groups for hurting religious sentiments, the official said.

On Monday, some people went to the crematorium along with a priest and sprinkled "Gomutra" (cow urine) to "purify" it, he said. They also chanted mantras inside the crematorium, he added.

After Jintur BJP unit president Rajesh Wattamwar lodged a complaint Monday, police Tuesday filed an FIR against Shinde and others, under IPC section 295 (defiling a place of worship with intent to insult religion ), Jintur Police Inspector Sonaji Amle said.

"As the birthday party was organised by Shinde, we have mentioned his name in the FIR and other accused persons are being identified," the official said. No arrests have been made so far, he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Wednesday alleged that the BJP was behind the killing of the two students in North Dinajpur district and is now trying to derive political mileage out of the issue by calling a bandh.

She blamed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for trying to disturb peace during its 12-hour shutdown and praised the state administration for "foiling attempts" to disrupt normal life in Bengal.

Banerjee, who is in Italy's Milan on an official tour, termed the shutdown as a "complete failure" as the people of Bengal have rejected the "culture of shutdown and bandhs".

She asked police to act as per the law passed by the state Assembly which empowers the administration to seek compensation from political parties for losses and damages during political agitation or shutdown.

Attacking the BJP, she said, "They themselves (BJP) have killed two students and now are trying to derive political benefits from it. Why are they mum on farmers' suicides in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan? Why are they mum on the encounter killings in Uttar Pardesh?"



"If you are in politics then you have some responsibility towards the society. Being in politics doesn't mean that you can go scott free by unleashing violence," she said.

The chief minister claimed the attendance in government offices, schools is more than 95 per cent. The normal life has not at all been affected in the state.

"We are very much opposed to this culture of shutdown and bandh. This culture has ruined Bengal for the last so many years. Now BJP too is trying to follow this disruptive politics," she said.

The government will not tolerate hooliganism and torching of government and private property. "Who will pay for the buses that was torched today? We will ask the police to act as per law passed by the assembly where we will seek compensation from those who are responsible for this violence," she said.

The bandh has been called by the BJP to protest the killing of two students in a clash with the police in North Dinajpur district on September 20 over recruitment of teachers at Daribhita High School in Islampur area.

Incidents of violence were reported from some West Bengal districts when BJP and Trinamool Congress supporters clashed during the 12-hour bandh called by the saffron party.

Three state-run buses were set on fire and stones were pelted at vehicles in Islampur where the two students were killed.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Congress Wednesday said the Supreme Court verdict striking down several provisions of the Aadhaar biometric system is a "slap" on the NDA government while the ruling BJP called the judgement a big victory for the "pro-poor" Modi government.

Both the parties used the verdict by the apex court upholding constitutional validity of the massive Aadhaar project to claim victory of their respective position on the contentious issue which triggered nation-wide debate on privacy concerns.

Many rights' activists welcomed the judgement, saying it is a "historic verdict" that will provide major relief to the common man while some termed it "disappointing".

While giving constitutional validity to the project, a five-judge constitution bench restricted government's push to make Aadhaar mandatory for various services including opening of bank accounts, obtaining mobile phone connections and securing school admissions.

Biometric details of billions of people gave already been taken under the Aadhar project, making it the world's biggest biometric database.

The Congress said by scrapping the "draconian" Section 57 and the national security exception in the Aadhaar Act, the Supreme Court firmly put an end to a "mass surveillance exercise" being carried out under the guise of Aadhaar by the central government and the "grotesque distortion" of an idea conceived by the previous UPA dispensation.

Congress leader Kapil Sibal also expressed satisfaction over exclusion of private companies from Aadhaar project and said the idea to involve private companies was not just "undemocratic" but was against the spirit of democracy.

However, the BJP described the judgement as a big victory for the "pro-poor Modi government", citing the upholding of the constitutional validity of the project by the apex court.

In his reaction, BJP president Amit Shah mocked Congress chief Rahul Gandhi after he claimed that the Supreme Court order on Aadhaar supported his party's vision, saying, "Yes, the Congress won today, just like they won Lok Sabha Polls in 2014".

Shah accused the Congress of trying every trick to fight and defeat Aadhaar as it is the "fountainhead of middlemen and corruption".

On his part, Gandhi thanked the Supreme Court for the verdict, saying it was an instrument of empowerment for his party, but a "tool of oppression and surveillance" for the BJP.

Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson Sambit Patra also hit back at the Congress after it projected the verdict as a slap on the face of the ruling party, saying the order has in fact exposed the opposition party.

The Congress favoured middlemen while the Modi government brought Aadhaar to ensure that benefits are given directly to people, he said.

"We see it as a big victory of the Modi government, the pro-poor Modi government. The Supreme Court has upheld the constitutional validity of Aadhaar and has also said that it does not violate privacy," Patra said.

The Aadhaar project was launched by the previous UPA government primarily to plug the loopholes in delivering benefits of the social welfare schemes to intended beneficiaries. The NDA government expanded the ambit of the project.

The Congress also cited comments of Justice D Y Chandrachud, who wrote the judgement separately, that passage of the Aadhaar law as money bill, bypassing the Rajya Sabha, ammounted to a "fraud on the Constitution".

Sibal said his party supports the views of Justice Chandrachud. The Congress party and its leader Jairam Ramesh had challenged the passage of the bill in the House as Money Bill.

"We will approach a seven-judge bench to consider this verdict again as this is clearly not a Money Bill," he said.

Sibal said the party will certainly move the court if amendments in the Aadhaar Act to be brought after this verdict are not brought in Rajya Sabha for discussion.

"If the government does not bring the Act to the Rajya Sabha for amendments, we will definitely move the Supreme Court," he told reporters.

Sibal said the Congress was aware that data of crores of people may have fallen in wrong hands and the court decision will prevent information from going into private hands,.

The Trinamool Congress also hailed striking down of Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act which allowed corporate entities to access its data.

"SC strikes down section 57 of Aadhaar Act, 2016. So you don't need to give your Aadhaar to private bodies like banks, schools, mobile companies. Trinamool and @mamataofficial fought hard for this," the party said in a tweet.

Several activists welcomed the verdict.

"I think it is a historic judgement, and will provide a major relief to the common man. Private companies earlier would demand Aadhaar for offering services, or opening bank accounts, admission in schools and buying a mobile SIM card was denied to people for lack of it. So, it would spell out major relief for citizens," activist and lawyer Prashant Bhushan said.

Amnesty India in a tweet said "making an Aadhaar card a prerequisite to access essential services and benefits can obstruct access to several constitutional rights, including the rights of people to food, health care, education and social security.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The BJP in Maharashtra Wednesday lobbed the ball on continuation of its alliance for the next year's assembly and Lok Sabha polls in the court of its estranged partner Shiv Sena.

The BJP also stressed that it is in favour of the tie-up with the Uddhav Thackeray-led party.

Addressing reporters after attending the meeting of the district-level BJP workers here, Finance Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar said the BJP wanted the Sena to continue being its alliance partner to avoid splitting of votes, which he said would benefit the Congress.

"The BJP wants the Shiv Sena to stay as an alliance partner. Splitting of votes will only help the Congress to win the elections," he said.

Mungantiwar said it is now up to the Sena (leadership) to decide on whether to forge an alliance (with the BJP) for the forthcoming elections.

Uddhav Thackeray had earlier this year announced that his party would go solo in all the future elections.

The Sena, despite being a ruling constituent, has been criticising the BJP on various issues in the party mouthpiece 'Saamana'.

Mungantiwar said the state BJP unit has decided to come up with "point by point" rebuttals to counter the spread of "misinformation" by the Congress and NCP against the NDA government.

"The Congress and the NCP have come up with an array of misinformation. We have decided to counter it with statements that will demolish the false claims point by point," he told reporters.

The senior BJP leader said the party's Central committee is currently preparing a booklet comparing 47 years of the Congress rule with the 47 months of the BJP government.

"On the same lines, the Maharashtra BJP will come up with a booklet comparing 15-year-long chaotic tenure of the Congress government (1999-2014) with the four years of the BJP rule," the minister said.

He said the document would mention the BJP government's performance since 2014 and how the party streamlined the state affairs.

Mungantiwar said the BJP has conducted a review to tap the party's strength in all the 288 assembly seats and 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra.

In the 2014 assembly polls, the BJP had contested 260 seats and won 122, while Sena had contested 282 and won 63.

On preparations for elections, Mungantiwar said the BJP has decided to appoint a polling booth agent at the party level who will steer a team of 25 people at the local level.

Earlier, around 10-15 people used to work under a booth agent.

"There are some 91,451 booths in Maharashtra. The BJP has decided to appoint a booth agent for every unit," Mungantiwar said.

A state assembly constituency generally has 300 booths.

He said five booths are being clubbed together in view of the organisational arrangement and the unit is collectively called as a 'Shakti Kendra'.

"The chiefs of the Shakti Kendras will soon be called to Mumbai for a separate meeting," he said.

Another BJP leader said the team of 25 people will be called as "page-monitors" who will be assigned one page each from the voters list.

"Page-monitors will be responsible to meet every voter from the list and are supposed to convince them to support the BJP," he said.

He said the BJP is targetting to bring at least 55 per cent voters listed on a given page to come out and vote.

"It is the responsibility of the page-monitors to mobilise the voters," he said, adding that as many as 60 per cent polling agents have been finalised by the BJP state unit and rest would be finalised in the coming days.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law Robert Vadra Wednesday broke his silence on the charges of corruption levelled against him by the BJP and said the ruling party had been indulging in a "baseless political witch-hunt" against him for the last four years.

The ruling party rakes up his name every time it is cornered and this time it stands exposed on the Rafale issue, he said, describing the situation as a "wholesale farce".

"Having all the agencies under their beck and call....no one knows better than the present government and the BJP that they have indulged in a baseless political witch hunt against me for the last 4 years.

"Instead they should man up with their 56 chests and tell the nation the truth about the RAFALE deal, rather than hiding behind a bunch of lies that the people are fed up of hearing them repeat," Vadra said in a statement.

The BJP had dragged the Gandhi family into the intensifying political row over the fighter aircraft deal, with Union minister Gajendra Shekhawat alleging that the UPA government had called off the multi-billion dollar deal after a private company linked to Vadra was not chosen as a broker.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The West Bengal unit of the BJP Wednesday termed its shutdown in the state as a "complete success" and called it off two hours ahead of the scheduled time.

The party had called the 12-hour shutdown from 6 am to protest against the killing of two students in a clash over appointment of Urdu teachers at Islampur area in North Dinajpur district on September 20.

"As the bandh has been successful, so we have decided to call it off two hours ahead of the scheduled time," BJP state president Dilip Ghosh told reporters.

The shutdown was a "complete success" as the people have willing participated and supported it as it was called for genuine reasons, he said.

"The visuals that we have seen and the reports that we have received from the districts prove that the shutdown was a success," Ghosh added.

In some places, members of the ruling TMC tried to foment trouble and had put the blame on innocent BJP workers, he claimed.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Alia Bhatt said her upcoming fantasy-adventure trilogy "Brahamastra" will be a step ahead in terms of filmmaking.

Directed by Ayan Mukerji, the series is produced by Karan Johar's Dharma Productions.

"We are very excited for the film. It is a step ahead. This will take cinema to another level. I am excited for next year," Alia told reporters at an event on Tuesday.

The film also features megastar Amitabh Bachchan and will see Ranbir Kapoor playing a character with special powers.

Alia will also be seen working with father Mahesh Bhatt in "Sadak 2", which co-stars Sanjay Dutt, Pooja Bhatt and Aditya Roy Kapur.

Talking about collaborating with Bhatt for the first time, the actor said, "It's beautiful, it's amazing. It's a dream come true.

"My father is directing me. One can't ask for anything better. It's going to be very special," she said.

While first part of "Brahmastra" is slated to be released on August 15 next year, "Sadak 2" will hit the screens March 25, 2020.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Shiv Sena leaders Wednesday exhorted party workers to show their strength during its Dussehra rally on October 19 and bring the party to power on its own in the Lok Sabha elections next year.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), however, said it was optimistic of forging alliance with the Shiv Sena until the end.

Sena leaders and functionaries met at Shiv Sena Bhavan at Dadar Wednesday to plan the strategy over the Dussehra rally.

Industries Minister Subhash Desai and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut addressed party cadres.

Desai asked Shiv Sainiks to prepare for a "big show of strength" and said at least five lakh Shiv Sainiks must attend the traditional Dussehra rally.

"We must come to power on our own strength. The next chief minister should be from Sena. The national executive committee has decided to contest next polls separately. Do not think about what BJP leaders say about alliance. We must focus on our own strength and this is the time to show it to the state," he said.

Raut said Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray was firm on contesting elections separately and there will not be an alliance with the BJP.

Meanwhile, senior BJP minister Sudhir Mungantiwar said, "The alliance between the BJP and Sena is based on ideology. The executive committee of the BJP is of the opinion that an alliance should be forged between BJP and Sena to keep the Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) away from the power.

"If the Congress-NCP will win the election, the state will lag behind in development," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A British Sikh woman was handed down a two- year suspended jail term by a UK court for launching a campaign of racist abuse and harassment against her Hindu ex-boyfriend and his family over a period of five years, including posting beef through their door as an attack on their faith.

Amandeep Mudhar had pleaded guilty to racially aggravated harassment and was handed down a two-year sentence at Swindon Crown Court in south-west England on Tuesday.

"Most people from religious backgrounds seek to find a common ground on what they share, be it a faith in god or human nature. Not from you: your behaviour was unrelenting, provocative and extremely frightening," said Judge Robert Pawson during the sentencing hearing.

The court was told of Mudhar orchestrating a series of attacks on the unnamed family of her former boyfriend, including abusive and threatening phone calls and attacks on social media.

The court was told that the 26-year-old had a brief relationship with the man, which was "never fully intimate", over a few weeks in 2012.

But after he ended the affair citing cultural differences, Mudhar and her family launched into the attacks which included threats of rape against his sisters and mother and also to blow up their home and cars, the local daily 'Swindon Advertiser' reported.

Prosecutor Sue Cavender told the court that after 2015, she was made subject to a harassment warning by the police and a civil injunction brought by the family, which prevented her from contacting them.

However, she breached that with a social media message two minutes before it expired, saying to one of his two sisters "now watch what happens", the report said.

Mudhar then enlisted the help of a friend, 30-year-old Sandeep Dogra, to send numerous "offensive" Facebook and Instagram posts directed at the family. As well as threats to kill them and rape them, one of the comments branded them "fat, like your elephant god".

The duo also went to the temple the family frequented, where they harassed the man's parents, the report said.

In another incident, a parcel of beef was put through the door of the family home which, being Hindus, they found very upsetting, the prosecution said.

In victim impact statements, the man's two sisters said they had suffered great stress for many years because of the harassment and one of them claimed that Mudhar even got another child to bully her six-year-old son at school as part of her campaign of abuse.

Mudhar and Dogra had both pleaded guilty to harassment but avoided time behind bars as they were handed down two-year suspended jail sentences, which refers to a deferred custodial sentence on strict conditions.

She also faces a six-month curfew, during which her movements will be curtailed. She has also been directed to complete 100 hours of unpaid community service, attend rehabilitation days and pay 750 pounds towards legal costs.

The judge also imposed a restraining order banning Mudhar and Dogra from contacting the family, going to the roads they live on or the temple they visit.

"I hope this sentence draws a line in the sand and there will be no repetition. You have been warned, both of you," the judge said.

Mudhar's lawyer highlighted her difficult childhood, during which her mother treated her harshly, and Dogra's lawyer said that he became involved after he felt the victims had racially abused his mother.

The court was told that they both had been shunned by their local community after the details of the case had emerged earlier this year.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)In continuation of the disinvestment policy of the government, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs on Wednesday approved handing over of two ITDC hotels in Jammu and Kashmir and Bihar to the respective state government, according to a statement.

Incomplete project of Hotel Gulmarg Ashok in Gulmarg will be transferred to Jammu and Kashmir and Hotel Patliputra Ashok in Patna to Bihar, it said. These were properties of India Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC) Limited.

"As per the disinvestment policy of the government...the properties may be returned back to the state governments at its officially valued price...The policy had been formulated keeping in view that running and managing hotels on professional lines is not the job of government or its entities," the statement said.

ITDC has to date transferred the properties of Hotel Lake View Ashok in Bhopal, Hotel Brahmaputra Ashok in Guwahati, Hotel Bharatpur Ashok in Bharatpur, Hotel Janpath in New Delhi to the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs. It also transferred Hotel Lalitha Mahal Palace in Mysore, Hotel Donyi Polo Ashok in Itanagar and Hotel Jaipur Ashok in Jaipur to the state government concerned.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton lived down to his reputation in a fiery speech in New York. Photo: Andrew Harrer

While his boss was in town to address the U.N. General Assembly, his national security advisor, John Bolton, reinforced Trumps well-do-as-we-see-fit message to the world in an speech to a handpicked New York audience of people hostile to the Iran nuclear deal. As the Times of Israel reports, Bolton was about as subtle as a daisy-cutter bomb hitting a nuclear facility:

US national security adviser John Bolton warned Iran of hell to pay and serious consequences if it defies the US, using some of the most aggressive language employed by administration officials in recent decades 

The Iran deal was the worst diplomatic debacle in American history, he continued in the speech, which coincided with the annual UN General Assembly. It did nothing to address the regimes destabilizing activities or its ballistic missile development and proliferation. Worst of all, the deal failed in its fundamental objective: permanently denying Iran all paths to a nuclear bomb.

In case Tehran had gotten behind in its paperwork and did not know it, Bolton wanted to give notice there was a new sheriff in town:

The United States is not naive. We will not be duped, cheated, or intimidated. The days of impunity for Tehran and its enablers are over. The murderous regime and its supporters will face significant consequences if they do not change their behavior. Let my message today be clear: We are watching, and we will come after you.

Even in an administration led by Donald Trump, and even on the day when the president redundantly expressed his contempt for any multilateral institutions or endeavors, Bolton still stands out in his bristling bellicosity. As Daniel Larison observed, it was a classic performance by a classic wild man:

Bolton loathes diplomacy. That is the key thing to understand about him, and it helps explain almost everything he has done in his career. He regards any successful diplomatic agreement as something of a debacle because it involves striking a compromise with another government, usually an adversary or rival, and because it means that the other side wasnt forced to give in to our every demand 

If Bolton considers something to be the worst diplomatic debacle of our entire history, that tells us that the agreement required very little of the U.S., that it reinforced habits of multilateral cooperation, and that it successfully resolved an outstanding dispute that Bolton wished to resolve through regime change and war.

Boltons position in the Trump administration is especially dangerous because he represents a particularly loud voice in the internal debate between the presidents determination to win by military intimidation, and his reluctance to undertake actual interventions. It remains something of a mystery how a president who just last week called the Iraq War the worst single mistake in the history of our country can employ as his national security advisor such a relentless cheerleader for that undertaking, who said as recently as 2016:

Iraq today suffers not from the 2003 invasion, but from the 2011 withdrawal of all US combat forces. What strengthened Irans hand in Iraq was not the absence of Saddam [Hussein], but the absence of coalition troops with a writ to crush efforts by the ayatollahs to support and arm Shiite militias. When US forces left, the last possibility of Iraq succeeding as a multi-ethnic, multi-confessional state left with them. Dont blame Tony Blair and George W Bush for that failure. Blame their successors.

Perhaps Trump keeps Bolton around to frighten his adversaries, like a Rottweiler unleashed in the yard to scare off potential intruders. But in terms of Americas relationships with friends as well as enemies, Boltons bite is as real as his bark.The Centre Wednesday decided to transfer the incomplete ITDC projects of Hotel Gulmarg Ashok, and Patliputra Ashok, Patna to the state governments of Jammu & Kashmir and Bihar, respectively.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Wednesday approved to further disinvestment of ITDC properties by way of transfer of the two incomplete projects to the state governments.

"As per the disinvestment policy of the Government of India, it had been decided to lease...India Tourism Development Corporation Limited (ITDC) hotels... jointly with the state governments and where state governments were not agreeing to the proposal of leasing/sub-leasing, the properties may be returned back to the state governments at its officially valued price," said an official statement.

In pursuance of the disinvestment policy, ITDC has transferred the properties Hotel Lake View Ashok, Bhopal; Hotel Brahmaputra Ashok, Guwahati; Hotel Bharatpur Ashok, Bharatpur; Hotel Janpath, New Delhi (to Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs); Hotel Lalitha Mahal Palace, Mysore; Hotel Donyi Polo Ashok, Itanagar and Hotel Jaipur Ashok, Jaipur to the concerned state governments.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Cabinet has given its nod for a pact between the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) and the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Kenya (ICPAK).

The approval for signing of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the two entities was approved by the Cabinet Wednesday.

An official release said the MoU would help in mutual collaboration in joint research, capability and capacity building, trainee accountant exchange programmes and other areas.

The release also said there is a lot of scope for professional opportunities for Indian chartered accountants in Kenya.

"Kenya has a largely diversified economic base and aims to seek increased access to the Indian market for Kenyan goods, while India is interested in exploring ways to become Kenya's top foreign trading partner," it added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)India and Uzbekistan will soon sign a pact for cooperation in combating illicit trafficking in narcotics, drugs and psychotropic substances.

A meeting of the Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Wednesday approved the signing of an MoU between India and Uzbekistan on mutual cooperation in combating illicit trafficking in narcotics, drugs, psychotropic substances and precursors, an official statement said.

The agreement will help in mutual cooperation in regulation of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances, and in combating drug trafficking, it said.

It is an effective framework to deal with all issues requiring mutual assistance and cooperation in the areas identified, the statement said.

The MoU will facilitate effective institutional interaction between both the governments. The agreement, once in force, would help in curbing transnational narcotics trafficking, it added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Cabinet Wednesday approved a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to be signed between India and Uzbekistan to increase cooperation in the areas of trade, industry, and research and development of pharmaceutical products.

The Cabinet also gave it nod to another MoU between India and Uzbekistan for the establishment of the Uzbek-Indian free pharmaceutical zone in the Andijan region of Uzbekistan.

The MoUs will be signed during the visit of President of Uzbekistan to India on October 1, 2018, an official statement said.

In view of the importance of the growth of the pharma industry in both countries and importance of mutual cooperation in trade, production,research and development in the pharmaceutical sector, both governments have been trying to establish a formal mechanism of bilateral cooperation, it added.

The MoU will explore the possibilities for the production of medicines, including active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) in different therapeutic segments in both countries, the statement said.

"It will also exchange information on trade and registration procedures, legal and regulatory requirements for export and import of pharmaceuticals products, including APIs," it added.

The MoU will increase cooperation with Uzbekistan in the areas of trade, industry and research and development of pharma products, the statement said.

The MoU will facilitate Indian pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies to invest in and establish production facilities in the Uzbek-Indian free pharma zone for manufacture of pharmaceutical products, a separate release said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The government Wednesday gave its nod to signing of a pact between India and Uzbekistan for cooperation in the fields of health and medical sciences and also approved an MoU in the sphere of law and justice.

The Union Cabinet in a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi also approved the MoU between both the countries for strengthening cooperation in tourism. The MoU will be signed during the VIP visit from Uzbekistan to India on October 1, an official statement said.

The agreement between health and medical science sector will cover a host of areas including expanding opportunities for the development of business cooperation in the field of medical equipment, including equipment for teaching and research laboratories of institutions and pharmaceutical products.

It will also cover cooperation in strengthening of primary health care facilities, medical and health research development as well as exchange of experience in these areas, exchange of experience and technologies in the field of tele-medicine and electronic-health information systems, the statement said.

It would also cover maternal and child health protection, development and improvement of the techniques and strategies for epidemiological surveillance and communicable and non-communicable diseases control and regulation of drugs and pharmaceutical products among others, it said.

"A Working Group will be set up to further elaborate the details of cooperation and to oversee the implementation of this agreement," it said.

The Union Cabinet also approved the MoU between the nations on cooperation in the sphere of law and justice.

"The MoU takes care of concerns and requirements in the field of exchange of experience by legal professionals, government functionaries and their training and effective legal aid mechanism for resolution.

"The MoU will facilitate greater cooperation between India and Uzbekistan in providing legal services in both countries in the field of exchange of experience through information sharing visits, and training between both countries on enhancing legal capacities of government functionaries," the statement added.

The Cabinet also gave its nod to a pact between the nations for strengthening cooperation in the field of tourism.

Elaborating about the benefits of this pact, the statement said, its signing will help the two countries in creating an institutional mechanism for enhancing cooperation in the tourism sector.

"It will also help in increasing foreign tourist arrivals from Uzbekistan to the country. This in turn will result in economic development and employment generation.

"The MoU shall create favourable conditions for long-term tourism cooperation for the mutual benefits of all stakeholders within the broader framework and areas of cooperation," the statement said.

In addition, the pact will also explore to incorporate the best practices in order to implement the measures that will realizes the objectives set out in it, the statement added.

The Union Cabinet was also apprised of the pact between India and South Korea on cooperation in Applied Science and Industrial Technology.

The MoU was signed in New Delhi on July 9 during the visit of the President of South Korea to India.

"The aim and objective of this MOU is to promote bilateral cooperation in the fields of applied science and industrial technologies for the purposes of promoting sustainable development and enhanced quality of life," the statement said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Calcutta High Court Wednesday directed the West Bengal government to ensure that normal life is not hit in the state during the 12-hour bandh called by the BJP to protest death of two students in a clash in North Dinajpur district.

While observing that the Constitution recognises the right to peaceful protest, a division bench comprising Acting Chief Justice Debasish Kar Gupta and Justice Sampa Sarkar directed that action must be taken against people indulging in violence.

The high court directed the state DGP, IG and district magistrates to ensure that general public are not intimidated by the bandh organisers, and that there is no blockade of rail and road traffic.

The BJP called the 12-hour bandh from 6 am on Wednesday to protest the killing of the two students at a school in North Dinajpur district's Islampur in a clash with the police during a demonstration over appointment of teachers.

Passing an order on a PIL against the shutdown, the court directed that essential services like hospitals, telecommunications, milk and other necessary supplies are maintained, and schools and colleges are allowed to function.

It also directed the central government to ensure that railways and metro railway services are unaffected.

The court asked the West Bengal government to publicise through electronic media helpline numbers for the general public during the bandh period.

Disposing of the petition, the bench also directed the state government to ensure adequate availability of public transport during the duration of the bandh and thereafter.

Appearing for petitioner M A Ali, the general secretary of All India Minority Forum, lawyer Idris Ali submitted that train services were affected in several places, owing to the bandh call.

Ali, who is also a Trinamool Congress MP, submitted that despite the Kerala High Court holding that bandhs are illegal and the Supreme Court having upheld the same, the BJP has called the shutdown.

Advocate Ashish Sanyal for the BJP said that the party has called upon people to participate in the bandh out of their own volition, and has no plan to prevent anyone from participating in their vocation.

He told the court that if anyone, taking advantage of the situation, indulges in disruptive activities, the administration must take action.

Appearing for the state government, Advocate General Kishore Dutta submitted that the administration has taken all steps to ensure normal public life, and maintain law and order, and assured that appropriate steps would be taken in case of any disruption.

Additional Solicitor General Kaushik Chanda, representing the Centre, said that the Railways, Metro Railway and central government offices in the state are functioning normally.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The campaigning to woo voters has picked up in this region of Jammu and Kashmir as the dates for the first phase of Urban Local Bodies (ULB) polls draw closer.

The ULB polls are scheduled to begin on October 8. A total of 422 wards, covering municipal corporations, municipal committees and municipal councils, spread across various districts, both in Jammu and Kashmir divisions, will go to polls in the first phase of the four-phased election.

An electorate of 16,97,291 are eligible to vote in 1,145 wards across the state.

The last election to the municipal bodies in the state was held in 2005 through secret ballot and the term of five years had expired in February 2010.

The political activity in the Jammu region has gained momentum after the governor administration decided to hold the municipal and panchayat polls the later being held in nine phases in November-December. The last general election to the panchayats was held in 2011, after a gap of 10 years. The panchayats elected in 2011 completed their tenure in July 2016.

The campaigning is going on smoothly and is gaining momentum with each passing day, officials said.

The election will be a close contest between the BJP and the Congress as the National Conference and the PDP, the two main regional parties, have announced their decision to boycott the polls over the Article 35-A issue. Local parties like the resurgent National Panthers Party (NPP) will give a tough competition to the two national parties in this region. Independent candidates, some of them former Congress and BJP leaders, are also in the fray.

Earlier this month, the NC had said it will not participate in the polls "unless and until the government of India and the state government clears its position, and takes effective steps to protect Article 35-A in and outside the court".

Later, the PDP also distanced itself from the election. "The situation created by linking panchayat polls with the case pending in Supreme Court on Article 35-A has created apprehension in the minds of the people, who see it as an assault on the special constitutional position of the stateIt was felt that any attempt to impose any electoral exercise in the current atmosphere of fear and apprehension would seriously erode the credibility of the process It (conducting elections) would defeat its very purpose," PDP president Mehbooba Mufti had said.

Notwithstanding the boycott by the two parties, over 1,100 candidates have filed their nomination papers for 247 wards of Jammu, Rajouri and Poonch districts, which are going to polls in the first phase, and are canvassing for votes.

They are using both traditional ways as well as social media to reach out to voters.

The candidates, along with their supporters, are going door-to-door, distributing handbills and have also put up hoardings and posters at different places in their wards.

Vehicles fitted with public address systems and the banners carrying the photographs of the candidates could be seen making rounds seeking public support.

The highest 815 nominations have been filed for the Jammu municipal corporation (JMC) and seven municipal committees of the district. Over 200 nominations were filed in the five municipal committees in Rajouri district and 100 nominations in two municipal committees of Poonch and Surankote in Poonch district, the officials said.

The nomination papers would be scrutinised Wednesday while the date for withdrawal of candidature has been set for September 28, they said. The date for counting of polls is October 20.

Currently, the state is under governor's rule. The PDP-BJP government collapsed in June this year.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Karnataka commercial taxes department claimed Wednesday it has busted a cartel issuing fake GST invoices worth Rs 203 crore,with the arrest of three persons,whereby purchasers illegally claimed input tax credit.

"The cartel was involved in issuing fake GST invoices worth Rs 203 crore. This investigation follows close on the heels of the first arrest made in Karnataka under GST by the Commercial Taxes Department on September 5, 2018," Nitish Patil, additional commissioner (enforcement), commercial tax department told PTI.

The commissioner of commercial tax department M S Srikar said in a press release that Vikram Jeet Duggal, proprietor of Rajiv Enterprises, along with Ashfaq Ahmed and Niyaz Ahmed had obtained 14 GST registrations in the name of their relatives and other people.

He had been issuing fake GST invoices without supply of goods and services.

They had set up an office in one of their residences, where fake invoices and e-way bills were generated, he said in a release.

Based on intelligence inputs, a team led by Patil raided the place and found documents pertaining to 14 firms in a room. Two laptops, a mobile phone, diaries and documents were seized from there, he said.

Duggal and his two accomplices were arrested and would be produced before the court, Srikar said.

He said many such gangs of bogus dealers had been identified in the last one month and more than 50 business premises in Bengaluru had been raided and inspected.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)India, one of the largest troop contributing countries to UN Peacekeeping operations, has said that call for caveats in deployment is "unfair" and places different peacekeepers on different levels.

Ruchi Ghanashyam, Secretary (West) in the Ministry of External Affairs, speaking at the high-level event on Action for Peacekeeping (A4P) on the margins of the 73rd session of UN General Assembly here Tuesday, said India welcomes the development of the 'Integrated Performance Policy Framework', covering all the stakeholders.

At the same time, we need to address the insistence by some on caveats in deployment. We see this as unfair and placing different peacekeepers on different levels, she said.

Caveats enable some troop-contributing countries to limit the roles of their personnel while on peacekeeping duty.

India has endorsed the Declaration of Shared Commitments on Peacekeeping and commended Secretary General Antnio Guterres's initiatives to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of UN peacekeeping to address the changing realities based on the lessons learnt.

Noting that there is no substitute to professional competence, Ghanashyam said Indian peacekeepers have been at the forefront in setting the highest standards in peacekeeping in their longstanding contribution to nearly 50 UN missions since peacekeeping operations began.

She stressed that India sees partnerships as a useful tool to build capacities of Troop and Police Contributing Countries.

"As a tangible demonstration of this, India will co-deploy Kazakhstan troops as part of our own contingent in UNIFIL (Lebanon) in the coming month, she added.

She also informed the high-level event that The Centre for UN Peacekeeping (CUNPK) in New Delhi contributes to training and capacity building efforts of peacekeepers worldwide, especially for African partners and women peacekeepers.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has joined Secretary-General's Circle of Leadership last year and India also signed the SG's Voluntary Compact in 2017 as part of its commitment to preventing Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (SEA).

India is now contributing to the development of a learning programme by the Secretariat on conduct and discipline issues with emphasis on preventing SEA.

India, which had deployed the first ever all-women police unit in Liberia, had reached the target of contributing 15 per cent women military observers last year.

"We believe in the important role of women peacekeepers. This needs to be incentivised to encourage a much greater participation of women in peacekeeping, she added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The CBSE has cancelled the affiliation of a leading private boarding school here after it allegedly kept under wraps the gang-rape of a minor student for over a month.

The Central Board of Secondary issued an order on Tuesday cancelling the affiliation of GRD World School, Bhauwala, for not giving a satisfactory reply to a show cause notice served to it by the regional office of the board in the wake of the incident, Regional Officer CBSE, Dehradun, Ranvir Singh said.

The action follows a recommendation to this effect by the state government after the chief officer visited the school premises following the incident and found it guilty of violating various norms, including non-installation of CCTV cameras and non-deployment of enough security staff on the campus, he said.

It is for the first time that such action has been taken against any educational institution in the state.

Singh, however, said guardians of students already enrolled in the school have nothing to fear as they will be taken care of by the CBSE. As per the order, there will be no fresh admissions in class IX-XII at GRD World school.

Nine people, including four students of the same school, accused of perpetrating the crime on the girl and five school officials and employees, including its director and principal, have already been apprehended in connection with the case.

The incident took place on August 14 and came to light on September 16 despite the school authorities knowing about it.

The girl, a student of class X, who lived in the school hostel along with her elder sister, first shared her ordeal with her. The elder sister informed the school authorities who instead of approaching the police allegedly tried to hush it up by threatening to throw the two sisters out of the school if they disclosed it to anyone.

Keeping mum for sometime, the elder sister, however, confided it to a relative who approached the police.

"The CBSE action which is based on a recommendation to this effect by the state government sets a healthy precedent," Minister Arvind Pandey said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Erstwhile Google CEO Eric Schmidt attending at the launch Googles Gu Ge in April of 2006 at a ceremony in Beijing. Google would decide to leave China four years later in 2010. Photo: VCG/VCG via Getty Images

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt foresees two internets in the near future: one used by most of the world, and an entirely separate one used by China. Per Schmidt:

I think the most likely scenario now is not a splintering, but rather a bifurcation into a Chinese-led internet and a non-Chinese internet led by America. [] I think youre going to see fantastic leadership in products and services from China. Theres a real danger that along with those products and services comes a different leadership regime from government, with censorship, controls, etc.

Schmidts prediction has drawn a fair amount of attention  any time the former head of the worlds biggest search engine predicts China will have its own internet in the near future, its gonna turn some heads.

Schmidts quote was given at a private event on September 19 at the buzzy investment firm Village Global VC. So the normal, rational thing to do is to assume Schmidt comments were given largely off the cuff, reflecting only his own views on the future of the Web and without any strategic or longer-term plays in mind.

But! Lets not be normal or rational. Lets assume that Schmidt knew anything he said was going to eventually make its way to the public, or at least to people who spend too much time dissecting what the doyens of Silicon Valley say.

There are two interesting bits to consider here. One, theres the widely held belief that Schmidts departure as CEO from Google in 2011 was over an argument between himself and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Page and Brin wanted Google out of China, mainly due to Chinas heavy censorship of the internet. Schmidt, seeing a massive market and growing middle class, wanted to stay in. He lost the fight, Google left China in 2010, and Schmidt stepped down as CEO months afterward. (He remained the executive chairman of Googes holding company, Alphabet, until mid-2017, but by all accounts was largely hands-off in the role.)

But Google is a different beast than it was in 2010, with about four times the gross revenue, four times the number of employees, and the need to find even more human beings to use its products. Page and Brin are largely MIA these days. Meanwhile, Google CEO Sundar Pichai has said that Google is in the exploration stage as to whether to reenter China. Details about a Google search engine built specifically for the Chinese, code-named Dragonfly, keep leaking to the press (mainly due to internal dissent from Googles own employees).

Two, Schmidt is still one of the largest individual shareholders of Google stock. If you wanted to get really wheels-within-wheels and conspiracy-minded about the whole thing, you could look at it like this: Schmidts prediction of a separate Chinese internet was a strategic move on his part. Google (and therefore Schmidt) stands to make tremendous amounts of money if it can successfully enter the Chinese market. Tell a well-heeled and well-connected crowd that a separate Chinese internet is an inevitability, with some regrettable but unavoidable censorship and state control, and you make Googles entry into the market slightly easier to stomach in a Silicon Valley culture that ostensibly still highly prizes the ideals of openness, privacy, and freedom from censorship.

Or maybe Schmidt was just shooting the shit over drinks with other tech elite, and his comments are now being overly scrutinized by tech writers trying to drum up a story. Who can possibly say!The Centre on Wednesday approved construction of nearly 6.28 lakh more affordable houses for urban poor in eleven states under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna, with Uttar Pradesh getting the largest share of over 2.34 lakh housing units, a statement stated.

In a statement, the Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry said that considering the extraordinary situation due to the recent heavy floods in Kerala, it has decided to release Rs 486.87 crore for first and second instalments together to the state by relaxing norm in the sanctioned projects under PMAY(U).

The ministry has also advised the Kerala government that it may submit project proposals as soon as possible for construction of houses under PMAY(U). These would include flood affected persons/ households who are eligible under PMAY(U), it stated.

According to ministry which is mandated to implement the PMAY (Urban), Andhra Pradesh has been sanctioned 1,40,559 affordable houses while the sanction for Madhya Pradesh is 74,631.

With the sanction for the construction of 6,28,488 housing units, the total number of houses being funded under the PMAY (Urban) stands at 60,28,628 across the country so far.

The approval was given in a meeting of the central sanctioning and monitoring committee (CSMC) of PMAY(U) yesterday.

The government has set a target of one crore houses to be constructed in urban areas across the country under under PMAY (U) over a period of seven years from 2015 to 2022.

Last month, the committee also sanctioned construction of 1.12 lakh affordable houses for the poor in eight states.

"The number of houses sanctioned for Madhya Pradesh is 74,631, Bihar 50,017 houses, Chattisgarh 30,371 houses, Gujarat 29,185 houses.

"Maharashtra has been sanctioned 22,265 houses and Tamil Nadu 20,794 houses," the ministry said in a statement.

It also stated that approvals given for Odisha stand at 13,421 houses, Tripura has been sanctioned 9,778 houses while Manipur has been sanctioned 2,588 houses.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Activists and experts on Wednesday advocated free and compulsory education up to class XII as a major tool to combat the menace of child trafficking.

Priyank Kanoongo, Member, National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), said children who do not attend school are often the most susceptible to perpetrators of trafficking.

Kanoongo was speaking during a day-long conference hosted by Kailash Satyarthi Children's Foundation (KSCF), in association with Delhi Legal Services Authority (DLSA) and Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights (DCPCR) on 'Combating Trafficking through Education'.

"The conference advocated free and compulsory education up to class XII so that disadvantaged children could be sheltered from agents of trafficking by remaining in the education system," the Foundation said in a statement.

Kanoongo said trafficking victims often come from poor families who are unable to afford the academic fee.

For such children, education in secure and fostering school environments can build self-esteem and an awareness of their rights, the NCPCR member said.

"Education can be a source of empowerment steering their future away from the ugliness of trafficking. Free and compulsory education to girls of 15-18 years of age is the first step towards achieving this reality," Kanoongo said.

The conference also focused on existing legislative framework and the challenges faced in rehabilitation process.

Geetanjali Goel, Special Secretary, DLSA, said, "There are gaps and we need to identify them. After rescuing, we are not very sure if children would be accepted back in their families."



"In Delhi, drop out children are more vulnerable to offence and we must identify and map it. We are working on the module to educate children in schools in Delhi to prevent offence and protect them," she said.

Nimesh Desai, Director, Institute of Human Behaviour and Allied Sciences, said the rehabilitation period should be shorter after which efforts should be made to reunite children with their families.

"There is a major concern over mental health and psychological and emotional problems, post rescue of trafficking victims. This has to be met holistically by giving them comfort and social support," Desai said.

The National Crime Records Bureau reported that in 2016 alone, 9,034 children were trafficked, a figure that had risen dramatically by 131 per cent from 3,905 in 2015. Given such alarming data, there is an urgent need of a comprehensive approach to combat the organised crime of trafficking, the Foundation said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Wednesday held that the consent of parents was needed for enrolment of children to obtain Aadhaar, but they should be given an option to exit from the project if they choose on attaining the age of majority.

The apex court, which declared the Centre's flagship scheme as constitutionally valid but struck down some of its contentious provisions, said the requirement of would not be compulsory for school admissions as minors between age of 6 to 14 years have a fundamental right to education.

Justice A K Sikri, who penned the lead judgement for Chief Justice Dipak Misra, himself and Justice A M Khanwilkar, also said that no child shall be denied the benefit of any scheme if, for some reason, he or she is unable to produce number.

"For the enrolment of children under the Aadhaar Act, it would be essential to have the consent of their parents/guardian," the court said.

"On attaining the age of majority, such children who are enrolled under Aadhaar with the consent of their parents, shall be given the option to exit from the Aadhaar project if they so choose, in case they do not intend to avail the benefits of the scheme," Justice Sikri said.

He said that Aadhaar cannot be made compulsory for school admission as it was "neither a service, nor subsidy".

"Further, having regard to the fact that a child between the age of 6 to 14 years has the fundamental right to education under Article 21A of the Constitution, school admission cannot be treated as 'benefit' as well," he said.

"Benefits to children between 6 to 14 years under Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan, likewise, shall not require mandatory Aadhaar enrolment," Justice Sikri said.

"We also clarify that no child shall be denied benefit of any of these schemes if, for some reasons, she is not able to produce the Aadhaar number and the benefit shall be given by verifying the identity on the basis of any other document. This we say having regard to the statement which was made by K K Venugopal, Attorney General for India, at the Bar," the court said.China on Wednesday lashed out at former Maldivian president Mohamed Nasheed for his "irresponsible remarks" criticising its projects in the strategic Indian Ocean island nation, saying they can't be "smeared by certain individuals".

The strong reaction from Beijing came a day after Ibrahim Mohamed Solih defeated pro-China Abdullah Yameen in the presidential elections.

China, which has invested millions of dollars in different projects in the Maldives, is weighing its options in the country as Yameen has been trounced by Solih, widely regarded as a pro-India leader.

While congratulating Solih, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said on Tuesday that China respects the Maldives' people's choice and hoped that the country can maintain stability and development.

On Wednesday, Geng, however, sharply attacked Nasheed for reportedly questioning the commercial viability of Chinese projects in Maldives lacking in transparency and democratic procedures.

Nasheed, who is currently exiled in Sri Lanka, is the leader of the Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP), to which Solih belonged and has in the past accused Beijing of "busy buying up the Maldives" during Yameen's presidency.

"Whether the cooperation between China and the Maldives can work out or bring benefits to the two countries is all up to what the two countries' people say. It cannot be smeared by certain individuals," Geng said.

He was replying to a question about Nasheed's reported comments in media that the Chinese projects in the Maldives lacked commercial viability besides transparency and democratic procedures.

"We are deeply confused and regret these irresponsible remarks made by certain persons. We shall reiterate that we will continue our cooperation on the basis of equality and mutual benefit, abide by the market rules and regulations. We will oppose if certain people harm China's interests," Geng said.

Commentaries in the Chinese official media attributed Yameen's loss to internal affairs in the Maldives and his move to arrest opposition leaders and Supreme Court judges.

Commentary in the state-run agency Xinhua quoted the Chinese analysts as saying that though Yameen government vigorously promoted the development of the economy, it was weighed down by the contradictions arising out of the arrest of opposition leaders as well as the Supreme Court judges.

"The joint opposition of different opposition parties is the main reason for this defeat," it said.

An article in the state-run Global Times said during Yameen's presidency, the Maldives and China cooperated on major projects like China-Maldives Friendship Bridge and the Male International Airport expansion.

"Neither did Solih nor the opposition make any remarks hostile to China during the campaign. China and the Maldives have enjoyed sound ties... whoever takes the presidency, China-Maldives friendly ties will remain," the article said, reiterating Beijing's call a coordinated approach between India and China in South Asia.

Beijing has come up with a constructive 'two-plus-one' mechanism - China and India plus another South Asian country - as a demonstration of sincerity, it said.

This aims to harmonise relations between countries and serves the interest of all relevant parties, and is worth a careful consideration by New Delhi, the article said, adding that perhaps the two powers can have a try in the Maldives first.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Chinese Foreign Ministry on Wednesday launched a mobile application which will provide consular services to citizens overseas, especially emergency response to those in distress.

The app issues safety travel alerts and updates concerning major emergencies involving Chinese citizens abroad, Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told media here.

It also issues important information, including on visas and other consular documents, he said.

The app allows people to call 12308, the hotline for emergency security services for Chinese citizens, through the Internet, so people don't have to pay extra for making international phone calls, Geng said.

This will make it easier for Chinese citizens running into difficulties abroad to obtain consular protection and services from the ministry, embassies and consulates at the earliest, he said.

The app, waijiaobu12308, is the ministry's latest online consular service,



The ministry had already launched a wechat account, lingshizhitongche, and a weibo account, lingshizhisheng, which essentially allow Chinese nationals travelling abroad to have access to overseas consular services.

Wechat and weibo are China's major social media networks.

As per official data, over 140 million Chinese tourists travelled to different parts of the world last year.

Geng welcomed Chinese citizens to download and use the mobile app and give their feedback. "We will keep improving the functions and contents of the app," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The FBI has arrested a 27-year-old Chinese national on charges of acting as an illegal agent of China in the United States.

Ji Chaqqun, who lived in Chicago, worked at the direction of a high-level intelligence officer in the Jiangsu province Ministry of State Security (MSS), a provincial department of the MSS for China, according to a criminal complaint and affidavit filed in the US District Court in Chicago.

He was tasked with providing the intelligence officer with biographical information of eight individuals for possible recruitment, according to the complaint.

The individuals included Chinese nationals who were working as engineers and scientists in the US, some of whom were US defence contractors, according to the complaint.

Ji has been charged with one count of knowingly acting in the US.

He was born in China and arrived in the US in 2013 on an F-1 Visa, for the purpose of studying electrical engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, according to the complaint.

In 2016, Ji enlisted in the US Army Reserves as an E4 Specialist under the Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest programme, which authorises the US Armed Forces to recruit certain legal aliens whose skills are considered vital to the national interest.

In his application to participate in the Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest (MAVNI) programme, Ji specifically denied having had contact with a foreign government within the past seven years, the complaint states.

In a subsequent interview with a US Army officer, Ji again failed to disclose his relationship and contacts with the intelligence officer, the charge alleged.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A 45-year-old principal was allegedly stabbed and robbed by three armed men in a train in Uttar Pradesh's Shamli district on Wednesday, police said.

The unidentified men attacked Rayal Abraham on a Delhi-Saharanpur passenger train between Kandhla and Shamli railway stations early in the morning. The robbers stabbed him and looted cash worth Rs 4,000, a police officer said.

Abraham, who was going to Shamli town from Delhi, belongs to Kerala and is a college principal at Chhaprauli town in Baghpat district, the officer said.

The principal was seriously injured and has been admitted to a hospital, he said.

A case has been registered under Section 394 (voluntarily causing hurt during robbery) of the Indian Penal Code against the accused, who are absconding, he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Concerns were growing Wednesday for a beluga whale spotted in the River Thames estuary outside London, thousands of kilometres (miles) from the cherished white species' natural home in Arctic waters.

The extremely rare sighting triggered wonder and excitement when the whale was first seen on Tuesday, but after it was spotted again on Wednesday in exactly the same location, concerns grew that the beluga had got lost and was potentially in danger.

Rob Lott, a marine mammal scientist at the Whale and Dolphin Conservation wildlife charity, said the cetacean was being monitored in case it strands on a sandbank.

"The longer it stays in the Thames estuary then it will become more of a concern," he told BBC radio.

"Hopefully instinct will soon kick in and the beluga will leave the estuary and go out into the North Sea and then head north where it should be," the scientist explained.

The sight of a beluga whale so far south -- 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometres) from even Iceland -- is exceptional.

"Beluga whales are a species of the icy Arctic -- finding one in the tepid Thames is an astonishingly rare event," said Rod Downie, polar chief adviser at WWF, the World Wide Fund for Nature.

The last reported sighting of a beluga in UK waters was in 2015, when two were spotted off the northeast coast of England and one in Northern Ireland.

Rescue teams are on standby in case the whale gets into danger.

"It's very unusual and it's not a very good place," Julia Cable, spokeswoman for British Divers Marine Life Rescue, which saves marine animals in distress, told AFP.

"We wouldn't go anywhere near it in a boat. We could just do more harm than good."



The beluga was first sighted on Tuesday near the southern Kent side of the river, downstream of Gravesend.

It was feeding around moored barges and did not move more than 200 metres during the day.

Ornithologist Dave Andrews, who first spotted the whale, said it was back in the same place on Wednesday.

"The Thames beluga is back feeding in its favoured spot around the barges on the Kent side," he said urging all boats to "keep clear and let it alone".

The Thames remains a busy waterway. The whale's location is between two major container docks, Tilbury and the new London Gateway port.

Belugas typically live for 40 to 60 years. Highly sociable, they typically form pods and are often seen in river estuaries in the summer.

The beluga's appearance brings back memories of the famous 2006 Thames whale.

A female northern bottlenose whale was discovered swimming in the river in central London, going past the Houses of Parliament.

On its second day in the city, as it lost strength, rescuers intervened and lifted it onto a barge by crane. It died, after suffering from convulsions, near Gravesend as the barge rushed towards the open sea.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Congress and NCP in Maharashtra are trying to bring Dalit leader Prakash Ambedkar on board the proposed grand alliance of the like-minded parties ahead of the elections, senior politicians from both the parties said here Wednesday.

The All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul Muslimeen (AIMIM) and Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangh (BBM) of Ambedkar have already decided to forge an alliance for the Lok Sabha and Maharashtra Assembly polls in 2019.

The Congress had ruled out any truck with "communal" parties like the AIMIM.

"The Congress leaders will meet Ambedkar's representatives in a couple of days and the progress of the talks will be discussed in the next meeting of the Congress and the NCP," NCP spokesman Nawab Malik said tonight.

When contacted, Maharashtra Congress president Ashok Chavan said all issues would be resolved through talks, when asked about Ambedkar's opposition to the NCP.

Earlier in the day, leaders of the Congress and the NCP held a meeting here to formulate a strategy to contest the polls in an alliance. They also discussed the prevailing political situation in the state.

The meeting was held at the official residence of Radhakrishna Vikhe Patil (Congress), the Leader of Opposition in the Legislative Assembly.

Chavan, Mumbai Congress chief Sanjay nirupam, former Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, party leaders Mohammed Arif Naseem Khan, former deputy chairman of Legislative Council Manikrao Thakre, opposition leader in the Legislative Council Dhananjay Munde (NCP) among others attended the meeting.

Talking to reporters, Chavan said the deliberations held with smaller parties in the last few days were discussed at the meeting.

"Issues with Prakash Ambedkar can be resolved through talks. There will be clarity on political stand only through discussions. We will hold another meeting in the next few days," he said.

In the last meeting, the Congress and NCP, the erstwhile ruling parties, had decided to explore forging a grand alliance to take on the BJP and the Shiv Sena.

They had authorised Vikhe Patil to talk with smaller parties.

Similar meetings were held with Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatna leader and Lok Sabha MP Raju Shetti, Loktantrik Janata Dal leader KapilPatil and Prakash Reddyof the CPM.

Ambedkar, the gradson of Dalit icon Babasaheb Ambedkar, holds a sway over some Dalit pockets in Maharashtra, especially Vidarbha region.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)In a veiled attack on the Congress and its chief Rahul Gandhi, Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan Wednesday said those responsible for the bad condition of the economy are now questionning Prime Minister Narendra Modi over creation of jobs.

Pradhan, who also holds the charge of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship ministry, said the "family that ruled the country for four generations" is responsible for the "shaky" economy.

"The family that ruled the country for four generations and is responsible for the shaky economy is now questioning the Prime Minister over jobs," he said.

Pradhan was addressing an employment fair organised by the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) here in Madhya Pradesh.

Gandhi had said the Prime Minister did not keep his electoral promise of providing jobs to two crore youth in a year.

Pradhan also questionned the format of current system.

"One gets job due to skills he/she possesses. Only cannot get job. Today's system only offers bookish knowledge. It doesn't impart the skills," he said.

He said around 2.40 crore children turn 15 every year, but half of them could not continue their schooling due to poverty or some other reasons.

Pradhan said the Skill India campaign is aimed at helping such youths acquire skills.

"In the last three months, one lakh youths were offered jobs in Madhya Pradesh with the help of the Centre through such job fairs," he said.

Lok Sabha Speaker and local MP Sumitra Mahajan was also present.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Decrease Font Size Font Size Increase Font Size

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Joshua Duke, professor of applied economics and statistics at the University of Delaware, will join the Auburn University College of Agriculture on March 1, 2019, as Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology chair and professor.

College of Agriculture Dean Paul Patterson said Duke was selected for the position following a national search.

I am excited that Dr. Duke will be joining our faculty as chair of the agricultural economics and rural sociology department, Patterson said. I know he will bring new ideas and valuable leadership skills to this role. I look forward to working with him to advance this department and the College of Agriculture.

Duke joined the University of Delaware faculty in 1998 after completing his doctorate in agricultural and applied economics, with a minor in law, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In addition to his position in Delawares College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, he holds joint appointments in the colleges of business and economics and earth, ocean and environment and a secondary appointment as professor of legal studies.

His research emphases are law and economics; land-use, natural-resource and environmental economics; and property rights.

I am honored to have the opportunity to lead an excellent department at an outstanding university like Auburn, Duke said of his upcoming move. The job will undoubtedly have many challenges, but I am stepping into a department that has enjoyed excellent past leadership, has top-notch faculty and staff and has some of the best undergraduate and graduate programming I have seen.

One of his priorities at Auburn will be helping students maximize their skill sets for todays job market, he said.

The Palo Alto, California, native holds a bachelors degree in history and political science from the University of Vermont and masters degree in public policy analysis from the University of Rochester in New York.

Auburn agricultural economics professor Patricia Duffy has served as interim department chair since June and will continue in the role through February 2019, Patterson said.Congress social media chief



Divya Spandana has been booked for allegedly posting an "insulting" tweet against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, an official said Wednesday.

A case was registered Tuesday at the Gomtinagar Police Station here, he said.

"An FIR was registered against Divya Spandana under the Information Technology Act and the relevant sections of the IPC," said Gomtinagar SHO DP Tiwari.

The FIR was lodged on a complaint by lawyer Syed Rizvan Ahmed, who alleged that Spandana had tweeted an "utterly insulting" post against the prime minister, he said.

In the complaint, Ahmed alleged that the post had the potential to "instigate hatred" against Modi, the official added.

There was no immediate comment by the Congress.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)BJP president Amit Shah Wednesday mocked Congress chief Rahul Gandhi after he claimed that the Supreme Court order on Aadhaar supported his party's vision, saying, "Yes, the Congress won today, just like they won Lok Sabha Polls in 2014".

Shah accused the Congress of trying every trick to fight and defeat Aadhaar as it is the "fountainhead of middlemen and corruption".

"They tried to mislead people on various grounds, including scare-mongering on privacy. Today they stand exposed and defeated," he said in a series of tweets attacking the Congress.

The Supreme Court judgment, he asserted, is a strong validation of Aadhaar as an instrument of service delivery and gives further impetus to empowering the poor by ensuring they get their rights.

Describing Aadhaar as a tool of oppression and surveillance for the BJP, Gandhi had thanked the apex court for supporting the Congress vision and protecting India.

The BJP president said Aadhaar under the UPA government was "niradhar" (without any basis) and had no purpose.

The UPA spent thousands of crores to enrol people without any law or scrutiny, he added.

"The Modi government gave it strong legal backing and integrated it in service delivery. This ensured savings of Rs 90,000 crore and benefited the poor," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Madras High Court was Wednesday informed that the contracts to lay roads in the state were not awarded to any close relatives of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K Palaniswami.

The Advocate General, Vijay Narayan, appearing for the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti Corruption (DVAC) said tenders were given only to distant relatives of the chief minister, who is the chairman of the empowered committee to award contracts.

Narayan made the submission before Justice Jagadish Chandira on the petition by R S Bharathi, Organising Secretary of the DMK, alleging corruption and violation of World Bank guidelines on the award of road contracts by Palaniswami.

In his petition, Bharathi alleged that Palaniswami had abused his power and allotted highway projects worth Rs 3,500 crore to his relatives and 'benamis.'



The AG further submitted that the petitioner's prayer was complied with by conducting a preliminary inquiry and sending its report to the vigilance commissioner, who was yet to take a call on it.

The AG said they would have a remedy after the decision of the vigilance commissioner.

On the allegation of high contract price, the AG said the expenditure differs from one place to the other based on different factors, like the condition of the soil.

To a query by the judge on the details of the amounts paid to contractors, the AG said it was available in the sealed cover placed before the court.

The judge then posted the matter for further hearing to October 5 and directed the petitioner's counsel to file the written arguments.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Danish submarine inventor Peter Madsen, convicted of torturing and murdering Swedish reporter Kim Wall last year, lost his appeal against his life sentence Wednesday, shortly after he apologized to the victim's family.

The 47-year-old listened quietly as judge Jan Uffe Rasmussen read the ruling by the Eastern High Court.

Rasmussen said the high court had reached the same conclusion as the Copenhagen City Court, which sentenced Madsen to life in April after convicting him of murder.

In Denmark, a life sentence is on average 16 years, but can be extended if necessary. Madsen, 47, had wanted a time-limited sentence, not an open-ended prison term.

The prosecutor had argued that the life sentence should be upheld, saying the motive was sexual and the crime was planned.

"I'm terribly sorry to Kim's relatives for what happened," Madsen told the panel of judges as he was given the last word.

Ingrid and Joachim Wall, the reporter's parents, were present in court. Defending Madsen, lawyer Betina Hald Engmark argued that her client "has a clean criminal record and alone has been convicted for one murder."



"In comparable cases, the perpetrator often has committed moral crimes before," she said.

Madsen denies murdering Wall, saying she died accidentally inside the submarine, but has confessed to throwing her body parts into the Baltic Sea.

The Copenhagen City Court in April convicted Madsen of murder, sexual assault and the dismembering of Wall. The court ruled unanimously that Madsen had lured Wall, 30, onto his home-made submarine with the promise of an interview.

Prosecutor Kristian Kirk said Wall could not escape and "likely had begged for her life" while Madsen carried out "a sadistic, yes inhuman, sexual fantasy."



Kirk said violent videos in which women were tortured and killed were found on Madsen's computer, and said he likely filmed the killing.

He added Madsen had been planning the murder and "just waited for a victim."



"I hope we never will see such a case again," Kirk told court.

No video of Wall's murder has been found.

"Kim Wall walked directly into a death trap," Kirk said before looking up at Madsen, who listened with his hands on the table: "I cannot see any other sentence than life."



The cause of Wall's death has never been established.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A Delhi court Wednesday ordered framing of charges against former Delhi Law Minister Somnath Bharti for allegedly leading a mob that assaulted an African woman here in 2014.

The court ordered putting Bharti on trial after finding enough prima facie material against him for allegedly assaulting Mukoko Misa Tresar, a citizen of Democratic Republic of Kongo, who was then studying at Amity University, Noida.

According to the police, on September 26, 2014 Tresar was assaulted by a mob led by the accused.

"Let a notice...be framed against the accused Somnath Bharti for causing simple hurt to complainant Mukoko Misa Tresar in prosecution of the common object of that assembly of which he was part of and leading, for rioting and for abetment by instigation," the court said.

The charges (notice in a complaint case) were framed under sections 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt), 147 (punishment for rioting), read with section 149 (every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object) and under section 109 (punishment of abetment if the act abetted is committed in consequence and where no express provision is made for its punishment) of the Indian Penal Code.

The court also said that since there was lack of requisite sanction from the concerned authorities, the cognizance of offence under section 153 (A) (promoting enmity between different groups on ground of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc.) of IPC was not taken.

Advocate Vijay Agarwal, appearing for the accused, denied all the allegations made against him.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Sixty seven Bru refugees, sheltered in Khakchang camp of Panisagar sub-division in Tripuras North district, returned to Mizoram Wednesday after 20 years, officials said.

Sub-Divisional Magistrate of Panisagar, Lalnemmemi Darlong said all the 67 Bru refugees who returned Wednesday hailed from Mamit district of Mizoram.

They returned in four buses and proper security was arranged for them. The displaced people were handed over to Mizoram authorities at the inter-state boundary in Mamit district," Darlong told PTI.

When asked if the displaced people would get the repatriation benefits as the deadline expired yesterday, she said, "Our duty was to send them with proper security and arrange for their transport. We have done our duties," she said.

Over 30,000 Bru refugees are still housed in six Tripura relief camps.

Mizoram Bru Displaced Peoples Coordination Committee (MBDPCC) president L Laldinliana said he had no idea if the repatriation was extended or if the families who returned after the deadline was over would get the benefits of the repatriation package.

Of the 5,407 Bru refugee families, only 31 had returned from their camps in Tripura to Mizoram during the stipulated one month of repatriation, which ended Tuesday.

Those who were still in the six relief camps face an uncertain future as the Centre had earlier warned that assistance doled out to them would be stopped from October 1.

The Bru refugees receive free ration and subsistence allowance of Rs 5 per day per person from the Centre.

The Centre was earlier optimistic about Bru families returning to Mizoram during the repatriation process after an agreement was inked on July 3 this year between Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, chief ministers of Mizoram and Tripura and MBDPF chief A Sawibunga in Delhi.

The agreement stipulated that Rs 4 lakh for each repatriated Bru family be deposited to the bank account of the head of the family which would mature after three years and payment of Rs 1.5 lakh would be made for housing assistance.

Each repatriated Bru family would be given Rs 5,000 through Direct Benefit Transfer every month and free ration for two years.

Thousands of Brus had been lodged in Tripura relief camps since late 1997 in the wake of communal tension triggered by the brutal killing of Lalzawmliana, a forest guard, in the Dampa Tiger Reserve on October 21, 1997 by Bru National Liberation Front (BNLF) militants.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal ordered a magisterial probe into the building collapse that claimed the lives of four children and a woman in north west Delhi's Ashok Vihar area Wednesday.

Kejriwal visited Deepchand Bandhu Hospital to the meet the victims and said the AAP government will give compensation to the next of kin of the deceased and the seven injured persons.

"I have ordered magisterial probe in the matter. The Delhi government will also give compensation to the kin of deceased and injured," he told reporters here.

The chief minister also hit out at BJP-led North Delhi Municipal Corporation over the incident and said it will have to keep its system in order.

"Municipal corporation has the responsibility of safety of buildings...they will have to keep their system in order...they (MCDs) will have to strictly enforce their law," he also said.

A four-storey "weak" building collapsed in northwest Delhi Wednesday killing four children and a woman, three weeks after the 20 year old structure was inspected by a municipal team following complaints.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Congress's Delhi unit attacked the AAP government on Wednesday, claiming that its officials were issuing sealing notices to "non-polluting household industries" in the city under the garb of a Supreme Court order.

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government is as much responsible for the ongoing sealing drive in the city as the BJP-led central government, Delhi Congress chief Ajay Maken said.

He claimed sub-divisional magistrates of the Delhi government "are issuing notices under CrPc Section 133 and are sealing non-polluting industries under the garb of the Supreme Court order", mandating action against unauthorised structures in the national capital.

Displaying a notice purportedly issued by the Vivek Vihar SDM, he said the notice "exposes" the "real face of the AAP government" that has been shifting blame solely on municipal corporations for the plight of people due to the ongoing sealing drive.

"Both the Centre and the Delhi government can easily give relief to the people by changing definition of non-polluting household industries and save them from sealing action. It could be done even without amendment in the Master Plan of Delhi," Maken claimed.

Maken also claimed that Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his Industries Minister had "promised" to change the definition of household industries in an all-party meeting held in March, but nothing was done by the government.

Senior Congress leader Arvinder Singh Lovely said there were provisions in the Master Plan 2021 through which the government can make changes at any time.

"By changing the definition of household industries, the electricity connection load should be increased from 5kv to 11kv and the number of workers from 5 to 11," he demanded.

Congress leader Mukesh Sharma, who leads the party's campaign against the sealing drive 'Nyay Yudh', said, "We will intensify agitation if the Delhi government or the Centre does not do the needful to stop sealing by October 15.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Delhi Minister Imran Hussain Wednesday directed various agencies to ensure that norms for dust control are maintained at construction sites and while transporting related material, even as he warned that those violating them would face strict actions.

The minister said this while chairing a meeting to review the steps being taken for prevention, control and mitigation of air pollution in the city and the National Capital Region (NCR), the Delhi government said.

The meeting was attended by the Delhi's secretary ( & forests), member secretary, Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC), director (environment), principal chief conservator of forests, among others.

"However, commissioners of the three municipal corporations -- NDMC, SDMC and EDMC -- and vice chairman (DDA), were not present in the meeting. Representatives of the NDMC, EDMC, PWD, DCB, DDA, Revenue Department, Transport Department and Traffic Police attended it," the government said in a statement.

Hussain said development agencies should ensure that all construction sites should adhere to the Construction & Demolition Waste Rules, 2016 to avoid any dust emission from construction activities.

"No construction material should be kept in the open and regular sprinkling of water at all construction sites must be done. All high-rise building should have the arrangement of water sprinkling for dust suppression. Strict action against the violators of norms should immediately be initiated by the respective authority," he said.

The minister also directed the transport authorities/traffic police to deploy more staff so that strict actions are taken on the overloaded vehicles and vehicles carrying uncovered construction material.

He stressed upon the need to stop the entry of non-destined vehicles in Delhi as the Eastern and Western Peripheral Expressways have become operational, the statement said.

Hussain also stressed upon intensifying of actions by all departments/agencies, keeping in view the onset of winter.

Municipal corporations were also directed to explore feasibility of water sprinkling in inner lanes of the colony before sweeping as lot of dust is emanated from manual sweeping of roads.

The PWD was directed to increase deployment of mechanical sweeping machines on roads wider than 60 ft with arrangement for water sprinkling.

The minister also reviewed the action being taken by various departments and agencies on the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) as notified upon the directions of the Supreme Court to combat air pollution in Delhi and NCR.

He also reviewed the steps being taken by departments and agencies for prevention and control of biomass burning, including crop residue, garbage burning, and vehicular pollution.

The secretary apprised the minister about the progress made on the Green Budget Scheme of the Delhi government, viz, conversion of industrial fuel to PNG; conversion of coal-based tandoors to gas-based ones; conversion of boilers in hotels and restaurants to clean fuel; and greening of city through mass plantation.

Hussain said the DPCC had deployed 83 home guard volunteers as 'environmental marshals' in wards of the three municipal corporations.

These marshals have observed 9,845 violation cases in Delhi. The DPCC has taken action against 2,656 polluting units this year. Action has also been taken by the SDMC, EDMC, NDMC against 10,196 units operating illegally in non-conforming areas in Delhi, the statement said.

The minister after reviewing the progress, directed all stakeholders, departmental officers to intensify their actions as per the categories of GRAP and ensure all preparedness to deal with winter season episodic air pollution in the city.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Delhi Police will conduct a recruitment drive for candidates from Arunachal Pradesh for the post of constable for both male and females in October.

Additional Deputy Commissioner of Delhi Police, Jasmeet Singh informed this to Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu when he called on him here on Tuesday, an official release said Wednesday.

Sixty five posts are vacant with 44 posts reserved for male and 21 for female. The advertisement will be put up in local newspapers by first week of October, informed Singh.

He also informed that the entire recruitment drive involving medical tests, physical tests and written exams will be held in Arunachal Pradesh at the police training centre, Banderdewa.

The selected candidates only have to report to Delhi at the time of joining their service, the ADC said.

The Chief Minister expressed happiness that the job from Delhi has come to the doorstep of Arunachal and urged the youths of the state to make full use of it.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Djokovic drilled Federer in the lower back with a forehand in the third game of their doubles match against Kevin Anderson and Jack Sock in the Laver Cup.

Following Anderson's match with Djokovic, Sock and Kyrgios joined forces to win the day's doubles match, beating Bulgaria's Grigor Dimitrov and Belgium's David Goffin 6-3, 6-4.

"I feel like especially playing for the first time, which is always a little bit tricky, you know, we gelled really quickly right from the start, I think it was a really good match to get through". I haven't played doubles since last year, so I'm firing, I won my match last year, so I feel like I'm really confident from that match still.

Team World's Jack Sock of the United States and Kevin Anderson of South Africa outlast Team Europe's Novak Djokovic of Serbia and Roger Federer of Switzerland in the men's doubles match.

Click on the video above to listen in on what Federer had to say to Djokovic.

His wife gave birth a week ago to their first child, a daughter, an experience Isner described as "the best moment of my life for sure". "He was playing fantastic".

Lighthizer hints Mexico pact may need to be reopened if delayed  NAFTA

He added: "We're sort of running out of time". "We're not going to give up - they're a huge trading partner of the United States". Trump has demanded major changes to NAFTA, which he says caused US manufacturing jobs to move to low-wage Mexico.

In the singles matches, Federer had an easy 6-3 6-2 win over Kyrgios but Germany's Zverev had to save a match point against American John Isner before winning 3-6 7-6 (7-6) 10-7.

Germany's Zverev came from a set down to complete a 6-7 (3/7), 7-5, 10-7 over Anderson as the Europeans successfully defended the title won in Prague past year.

Incredibly, Federer and Djokovic - with 34 grand slam titles between them - suffered Team Europe's only loss in Chicago. Djokovic won 6-4, 6-4 against Federer to become the first player to declare himself the "Golden Master'". "With a height difference of 1'3" (Isner is 6'10"; Schwartzman is 5'7"), the photos were predictably amusing.

Gilles Simon finally managed to beat his fellow Frenchman Richard Gasquet at the ninth attempt with a 7-6 (7/4), 6-2, victory in the Metz quarterfinals.

The Serbian and Swiss both laughed off the incident to the amusement of the crowd and went on to clinch the first-set tie-break 7-6 (7/5).The Manipur government has said that disciplinary action would be taken against government employees if they don't attend offices during the 48-hour general strike called by joint students organisations which will commence from Wednesday midnight.

Chief Secretary J Suresh Babu Tuesday evening issued an order stating that disciplinary action would be initiated against those officials who fail to attend offices during the 48-hour general strike called by student bodies.

Suresh Babu also informed that "attendance report should be sent to the concerned administrative secretaries" failing which disciplinary actions would be initiated against those who fails to attend duty.

He directed all Deputy Commissioners of districts to ensure attendance in all the district's of the state during the strike.

Joint students organisation comprising of different student bodies have called the general strike to demand "unconditional release" of all the Manipur University students and teachers arrested by the security personnel during the September 21 midnight raid.

The security personnel raided the university campus after the acting Vice-chancellor Prof K Yugindro Singh lodged an FIR stating he was confined by the students who also forced him to sign a written apology when he went to the university campus to assume charge of the acting VC.

IGP L Kailun said the security forces entered the campus after taking permission from the VC.

Six teachers and seven students have been remanded in judicial custody while two students had been sent into police remand, Imphal West SP Jogendrajit Haobijam said.

President of All Manipur Students Union, S Manjit Sunday told media that their other demand also include withdrawal of all security forces deployed in the Manipur University campus.

Meanwhile, tribal student bodies have decided not to support the 48-hour general strike in the state.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Opposition Congress on Wednesday claimed that there is "discontent" among the members of the ruling BJP-led coalition in Goa and a "political earthquake" was expected soon.

The party reiterated its demand that Governor Mridula Sinha should dismiss the Manohar Parrikar government, claiming that "there has been total collapse of the administration."



Parrikar, who is heading the government with the support of Goa Forward Party (GFP), the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP), NCP and Independents, is currently admitted in the AIIMS in Delhi for a pancreatic ailment.

Goa Congress spokesman Ramkant Khalap told reporters here that the situation in the state is right for the governor to dismiss the Parrikar government.

"The council (cabinet) has not been meeting and nobody is talking about Goas economy. The government does not talk about unemployment, no one is talking about fuel price rise or diversion of Mahadayi by Karnataka," Khalap said.

He said these are some of the serious issues confronting the state, which are ignored.

"Over this, there is already displeasure, discontent among the members of ruling coalition. A political earthquake will happen soon on its own as there is a genuine cause," the Congress leader claimed.

He said if the "political earthquake" takes place, "not only will the government of Goa be buried under the debris but the common man also will face the brunt because of the absence of any responsible alternative."



He said the Congress, which is the single largest party in the 40-member Assembly, is entitled to form the government.

If the proper democratic process had been allowed, the current situation would have never been created, Khalap said.

"Therefore, it is time for the governor to withdraw her pleasure in the continuance of CM Parrikar and his council of ministers, he added.

The BJP has 14 seats in the Assembly, its allies GFP and MGP have three each. Three Independents and an MLA from Nationalist Congress Party also support the BJP.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)National Security Advisor Ajit Doval Wednesday attended a high-level meeting in Tehran where he joined top security officials from Afghanistan, China, Iran and Russia to evolve a regional strategy to deal with the threat posed by ISIS and other terror groups.

In the meeting, Doval stressed on the need for disrupting cross-border movement of terrorists, blocking their financing and supply of weapons, and isolating those who support and sponsor terrorism, the Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement.

He asserted that there should not be any distinction between good and bad terrorism and called for greater cooperation among the leading countries in the region to effectively deal with the menace.

Doval suggested that the countries should enhance cooperation in information sharing so that support mechanisms for terrorists such as training, financing and supply of weapons can be disrupted.

The meeting provided an opportunity for exchange of views on the issue of terrorism and ways and means to cooperate for effectively dealing with the menace, the MEA said.

The NSA articulated India's commitment to partner in bilateral, regional and global forums for tackling the scourge of terrorism which poses a huge threat to the entire humanity.

The meeting focussed on the issue of threat posed by terrorism, including from ISIS terror group, to regional and global peace, security and stability.

The terrorist violence in Afghanistan was rejected unequivocally and support was expressed to assist the Afghan government and defence forces to deal with terrorist groups and narcotics smuggling, the statement said.

Support was also expressed at the meeting for the reconstruction and economic development of Afghanistan, it said.

At the meeting, importance was attached to promoting peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan which was Afghan-led, Afghan owned and Afghan-controlled.

During the visit, the NSA also held separate bilateral meetings with his counterparts from Iran, Russia and Afghanistan on issues of bilateral mutual interest.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Hike in customs duties by the government on diamonds and coloured gemstones, among a total 19 non-essential items, will impact jewellery exporters, industry body GJEPC said.

However, rise in duty on jewellery to 20 per cent from 15 per cent, it feels, is good for the industry.

The government Wednesday increased the customs duty on categories of diamond such as semi processed, half cut or broken, and cut and polished coloured gemstone to 7.5 per cent, from 5 per cent earlier, in a move to narrow the current account deficit (CAD).

"The increase in customs duty on jewellery is good for the industry. However, the increase in duty on diamonds is going to impact the exporters," Gem Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC) vice chairman Colin Shah told PTI.

He said, even the 5 per cent duty was not so good for the exporters and to increase it further will impact more as the cost of business will go up.

Shah said the exporters are hoping that once the rupee become stronger, the Centre will re-look at this duty hike.

The government said curbing non-essential imports was part of the five-pronged steps announced by the government to check widening CAD and capital outflows.

Brent breached the USD 80 per barrel mark Monday and analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch said they expect it to go up further to USD 95 by June 2019, which will put pressure on the current account.

The widening current account gap is one of the major concerns which is putting pressure on the rupee, which has depreciated around 13 per cent against dollar this year.

The CAD, the difference between inflow and outflow of foreign exchange, widened to 2.4 per cent of GDP in June quarter.

All India Gem And Jewellery Domestic Council's former chairman, Manish Jain, said, the increase in duty on jewellery is a welcome move for the industry.

"However, the 2.5 per cent duty hike will impact the industry as the price of diamond and coloured stone jewellery will increase by 2-3 per cent," he added.

However, he was quick to add that as the diamond and coloured gems stone constitute only 5-10 per cent of the total domestic jewellery industry, the impact will not be that high and can be adjusted.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The US has said efforts by countries to set up special payment system to bypass its sanctions against Iran is counterproductive, comments which came after the European Union, in a major snub to the Trump administration, decided to set up a new mechanism to enable legal trade with the Islamic nation without encountering American sanctions.

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.

The US government has made it clear that any country that continues to do business with Iran will be blocked from accessing the American banking and financial system.

However, the sanctions are not endorsed by the UN and it has been a traditional policy of India to enforce only UNSC-authorised sanctions.

Though India, one of the biggest importers of Iranian oil, has already reduced its import, it has indicated that it is unlikely to go down to zero given its massive energy needs. India and the US are currently in talks on this issue.

Meanwhile, on Monday, the EU had announced that it will create new payment channels to preserve oil and other business deals with Iran in a bid to evade US punitive measures.

Expressing disappointment over reports of the EU setting up a special payment system to bypass Iranian sanctions, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in New York on Tuesday said, "I was disturbed and, indeed, deeply disappointed...This is one of the most counterproductive measures imaginable for regional and global peace and security."



By sustaining revenues to the regime, the EU is solidifying Iran's ranking as the number one state sponsor of terror and making it richer, he said, adding, "The decision is all the more unacceptable, given the litany of Iranian-backed terrorist activity inside Europe".

Pompeo alleged Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Md Javad Zarif Khonsari were brazenly defying the vision of the UN, the requirements of international and the principles of national sovereignty.

"The Iranian regime's track record over the past 40 years has revealed it as among the worst violators of the UN Charter and UN Security Council resolutions," he told a conference held on the sidelines of the annual UN General Assembly meeting.

Pompeo said reimposing sanctions and discouraging international business with Iran is not something the US is doing "out of spite. This is a necessary security measure".

"Doing business in Iran only pours money into a regime that hoards it for itself and misuses it for violent ends," he said.

Later in the day, Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook told a press conference in New York that the private sector across the world has understood teh US' sanctions message very clearly and "that's why major companies from Europe to Asia are getting out of Iran and terminating business".

"Companies have a choice to either do business in Iran or in the US. They are making those decisions based on what makes business sense. Potential deals with Iran are just pale in comparison with deals in the US," he said.

"There is more daylight between the European companies and the EU than that in between the US and our European allies," Hook added.

He also said that the Trump administration is discussing the reimposition of sanctions with countries on a case-by-case basis.

"Our energy sanctions don't go back into place until early November, and we are in discussions with countries on a case-by-case basis about the reimposition of our sanctions and we are taking these things on a country-by-country basis, but I think everybody knows that our goal is to get the import of Iranian oil as close to zero as possible," Hook said.

But before imposing sanctions on other countries, Hook said that the US will ensure that it has a "well-supplied oil market".

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Essar Power Wednesday said it has commissioned the 337-km Mahan-Sipat transmission line, the final leg of a 465-km transmission system consisting of three inter-state transmission lines that have been built at an investment of Rs 2,400 crore.

The 400 kV lines will help Essar Power's 1,200 MW Mahan Thermal Power Plant in Madhya Pradesh to evacuate its entire generation, a company statement said.

According to statement the Mahan-Sipat transmission line is part of the Inter State Transmission System (ISTS) that has been built by Essar Power Transmission Company Ltd. (EPTCL), an arm of Essar Power. It extends from Mahan in Madhya Pradesh to the Sipat pooling station in Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh, which is connected to the National Grid.

The commissioning of these transmission lines is a major milestone for Essar Power, and will help us access a nationwide market for the power generated from our Mahan plant. It has also helped establish our presence as a key player in the power transmission sector, said Pradeep Mittal, Executive Vice Chairman, Essar Power.

Essar's power generation capacity now stands at 3,830 MW across six coal- and gas-fired plants in India and one in Canada.

Essar Power is one of India's largest private sector power producers with over 20 years of operating track record.

It owns power plants in India and Canada with a total planned generation capacity of 5,090 MW, of which 3,830 MW is operational. The operating plants in India are at Mahan in Madhya Pradesh, Hazira & Salaya in Gujarat, and Paradeep in Odisha. Another 1,260 MW of thermal power capacity is under construction at Tori, Jharkhand, and Paradeep, Odisha.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Essar Power Wednesday commissioned the 337-km Mahan-Sipat transmission line, the final leg of a 465-km transmission system consisting of three interstate lines that have been built at an investment of Rs 2,400 crore.

The new 400-kV lines will help Essar Power to evacuate power from its 1,200-mw Mahan thermal plant in Madhya Pradesh, a release said.

The Mahan-Sipat transmission line is part of the inter-state transmission system that has been built by Essar Power Transmission Company. It extends from Mahan to the Sipat pooling station in Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh, which is connected to the National Grid.

******************** Axis MF launches growth opportunities fund; eyes Rs 1,500cr *



Axis Mutual Fund Wednesday launched a new fund named Axis Growth Opportunities Fund, and is targeting to raise Rs 1,500 crore through the same.

The fund offers a global investment opportunity by investing in domestic equities as well as foreign securities by leveraging its relationship with Schroder Investment Management, the AMC said in a statement.

New offering will open on October 1 and close on October 15, it said, adding the AMC hopes to mop up Rs 1,500 crore through this scheme.

******************** Goals101 raises $3.5 mn funding from Nexus Partners *



Fintech and big data analytics company Goals101 Wednesday said it has received a pre-series A funding of USD 3.5 million from Nexus Venture Partners.

With this round of funding, Nexus also becomes a significant minority stakeholder in Goals101, which was started two years ago, a release said.

Goals101 has partnerships across 21 leading banking partners in Asia and solves multitude of user cases.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The country is missing the wisdom of Manmohan Singh at a time the economy is in the hands of the "economically unsound leadership", MNS chief Raj Thackeray said Wednesday while praising the former prime minister on his birthday.

Thackeray described Singh, who had served as the prime minister for two consecutive terms between 2004 and 2014, as a leader who "pioneered the country to a path of economic reforms and liberalisation".

Singh, born on this day in 1932 in Gah, Punjab (now in Pakistan), turned 86 Wednesday.

Thackeray, who was a supporter of Prime Minister Narendra Modi when the latter was the chief minister of Gujarat, has turned into his vocal critic in the last five years.

Ahead of 2014 polls, the MNS chief had supported Modi's candidature for the post of prime minister.

"Today, our economy is in the hands of economically unsound leadership and thus heading to a state of anarchy," Thackeray said in a post on twitter without referring to any leader or government.

"In such times, the people of India, including me, definitely miss your wisdom and presence," Thackeray said in a post on Twitter.

He claimed that the beneficiaries of the "economic openness" heralded by Singh in 1991 have chosen against acknowledging it.

Stating that criticism is part of politics, Thackeray said his party has the grace to appreciate what is good.

"In this context, I remember Dr Manmohan Singh's words from one of his speeches: 'History will be kinder to me'. The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena wishes you a very happy birthday," Thackeray said on the micro-blogging site.

Singh, while rejecting criticism that he was a "weak Prime Minister", had in January 2014 asserted that history would be kind to him than the then Opposition and media, and contended that he had done the best in the given political circumstances.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Dubai expects to maintain strong over 2 per cent year-on-year increase in arrivals from India, continuing to be its top source market for visitor arrivals for 2018, a top Dubai Corporation for Tourism and Commerce Marketing (DCTCM) official said Wednesday.

In 2017, Dubai witnessed over twenty lakh arrivals from India. It was for the first time any source market crossed this mark.

"As a minimum, we want to keep the pace of growth we have seen in the first seven months to continue. Obviously our efforts are towards making sure that the campaigns we have been doing since beginning of the year push for more than that," DCTCM CEO Issam AbdulRahim Kazim told PTI.

Till July this 1.2 million visitors from India had visited Dubai, it was about 2.2 per cent growth on a year-on-year basis, he added.

India currently is the top source market for Dubai, followed by Saudi Arabia and the UK at second and the third spots respectively, Kazim said.

On being asked about the initiatives, the Dubai tourism is taking for making it a preferred destination for Indian visitors, Kazim said it is by providing more customised experiences to the visitors.

"We are making efforts for increasing the length of the stay and repeat visitations as part of our strategy. We are also using diversified approach to tap all segments of visitors from India," he added.

Dubai has also launched campaigns focussing on families targeting school breaks, monsoon season, food festivals and campaigns around festivals such as Diwali campaign for Indian travellers, Kazim said.

Before the conclusion of the year 2018, DTCM will also run the leisure and adventure focus campaign in India, he added.

"We ensure that our campaigns are not umbrella campaign but provide right message and at a right platform to the people in India," Kazim said.

Dubai's Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (Dubai Tourism) aims to increase the awareness of Dubai among global audiences and to attract tourists and inward investment into the emirate.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.): Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik Wednesday invited industrialists and entrepreneurs from Tamil Nadu to invest in his state and participate in the second edition of 'Make In Odisha' conclave in November.

Participating in a roadshow on 'Odisha Investors' Meet' here, jointly organised by Odisha government's industries department and trade body FICCI, he invited investors to set up manufacturing facilities in his state.

"I have come here to meet the investor community and invite them to set up manufacturing facilities in Odisha".

Noting that the state was fast emerging as a manufacturing hub of Eastern India, he said his government would organise the second edition of the flagship initiative 'Make in Odisha' conclave between November 11 to 15 this year in Bhubhaneshwar.

"It will be showcase the manufacturing prowess of the State and the investment opportunity available across various sectors", he said.

Patnaik said the first edition of the conference in 2016 had evoked enthusiastic response with about Rs two lakh crore investments being announced.

"65 per cent of the projects are at various stages of approval and implementation", he said, adding the natural strength of Odisha was that it was a mineral rich state.

"During the last 18 years, my government focused on enhancing production of key minerals and value added products", he said.

The Chief Minister later gave away the 400th investment proposal submitted by Tata Steel Processing and Distribution Ltd. under its Go-Swift initiative, a single window portal for investor facilitation.

Patnaik also asked budding entrepreneurs and students to come up with innovative solutions to the pressing challenges of public service delivery, as well as those concerning the industry and consumers.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)But at a ceremony on Saturday ahead of the public opening, Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam praised the so-called "co-location" arrangement with Beijing, which the government has said is necessary to streamline immigration.

Hong Kong, a former British colony, was handed back to China in 1997, under an agreement that the territory would enjoy "a high degree of autonomy, except in foreign and defence affairs", for 50 years.

Being a key part of China's high-speed rail network, the whole line of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link is 141 km long, including 115 km on the mainland and 26 km in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

There are also questions over how Hong Kong citizens will be required to behave in the zones subject to Chinese law, whether they will be punished for using Facebook and Twitter - banned on the mainland - or targeted for wearing clothing with political slogans.

Tickets available September 24 from Shenzhen to Hong Kong on WeChat.

John Tong, a Hong Kong librarian who was on one of the first trains to China from West Kowloon station, said it felt "really strange" to see Chinese police and Hong Kong officials operating side by side.

"To many Hong Kong people, this has damaged "One Country, Two Systems" and the rule of law", Fan added, referring to the principle by which Hong Kong maintained some of its freedoms when sovereignty over it was passed from London to Beijing.

"I'm not anxious about the (mainland security) issue".

President Trump addresses UN General Assembly in NYC

Trump earlier this year withdrew the US from a nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers and reinstated economic sanctions. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani delivers a speech during the annual military parade marking in Tehran, Iran September 22, 2018.

It will offer direct rail services between Hong Kong and 44 destinations on the mainland, involving cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Shijiazhuang, Zhengzhou, Wuhan, Changsha, Hangzhou, Nanchang, Fuzhou, Xiamen, Shantou, Guiyang, Guilin and Kunming.

Such integration won't come easy.

"Pearl of the Orient" and other songs played by Hong Kong violinist Yao Jue and Hong Kong String Orchestra as well as the video narrating the development of the railway in Guangdong and Hong Kong commenced the opening ceremony.

Various emergency response plans have been mapped out to ensure safe operation of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link, Chen said.

"It is quite convenient for businesses, but this rail is clearly about further integrating Hong Kong with mainland China", said Bosco Wong, another Hong Kong passenger on the train.

"No matter what you think about the new line, high-speed rail is extremely convenient", said assistant professor Feng Yan of the Communication University of China in Beijing who took the bullet train from Shenzhen to Hong Kong.

"Quite a few Hong Kong people choose to work in Hong Kong and live in Shenzhen".

"I don't know whether it is really good if we just become another city in the Guangdong province".The Madras High Court has held that extension of remand from 90 to 180 days by courts trying cases under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act shall be based on the report of the prosecution with specific reasons for it.

Allowing a petition by Shakul Hameed, booked for alleged criminal conspiracy and forming a terrorist outfit, challenging an NIA court order extending his remand from 90 to 180 days and another petition seeking bail Tuesday, a division bench of Justices S Vimala and S Ramathilagam made the observation.

It said the public prosecutor's report in the case did not satisfy certain provisions of the UAPA.

Also, the bench said general investigative procedures cannot be a ground for seeking extension of remand.

The court clarified that specific reasons that really necessitate the extended remand of the accused did not form part of the report, which is the basic requirement for it.

The report revealed that the procedures were general investigative, which, by no stretch of imagination could be termed as special reasons for the grant of extension of remand.

Setting aside the rejection order of bail by the Special NIA Court, the bench ordered the release of the petitioner on bail by executing a bond for a sum of Rs 10,000 with two sureties each for a like sum to the satisfaction of the special court.

The bench then directed the accused to appear before the special court for every hearing and to surrender his passport before it.

Shakul Hammed was allegedly involved in a criminal conspiracy and formed a terrorist outfit, raised funds and trained some personnel besides facilitating their travel from India to Syria to join the so-called ISIS.

The National Investigating Agency had registered a case under IPC section 120-B and various sections of the UAPA Act against the petitioner along with some other accused.

The FIR was submitted before the Special NIA Court, Chennai.

Another petition by Mubarak, an accused in the case relating to the killing of Hindu Munnani leader Sasikumar in Coimbatore, challenging the extension of his remand by the Special NIA Court was also allowed by the bench, which directed that he be released on bail.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)People residing in Sawan Park in northwest Delhi's Ashok Vihar were in a state of fear after a five-storey building collapsed on Wednesday killing seven people, including four children.

Everyone was blaming Dharmender, the owner of the building, for not paying attention towards the building, which was in a dilapidated condition and had developed cracks.

The locals alleged that around two months ago, a complaint regarding the poor condition of the building was raised with the authorities concerned as they felt unsafe to reside there.

However, the authorities concerned said they did not receive any such complaint.

Ankit Goyal, who lives in the locality, said that it felt like an earthquake had struck when the building collapsed.

"We immediately rushed to help the victims. The police and civic officials came several times and asked the residents to leave the building," he claimed.

Another resident said the adjacent building is also weak and might also see the same fate.

"The next building may also come down in the next few days as the condition of the building is bad. We had urged the residents of the ill-fated building ample number of times to vacate it as soon as possible," said Anup Kumar, who lives nearby.

When the building collapsed, the locals started the rescue operation before the NDRF and police reached the spot.

Anup further stated that there was only one police official with them during the rescue operation.

Jhirkan, who used to run a food stall in front of the building, was outside the building at the time of the incident. His daughter said he had left for his stall in the morning.

"There is a building in the area which is in a pathetic state and has a mobile network tower on terrace. The residents of that building are also worried about their lives," another local alleged.

The locals alleged that most of the buildings have tenants and the owners live somewhere else and they are more or less in same state.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)As the strike by Odisha fire brigade personnel entered the third day Wednesday, the state government placed at least six fire personnel under suspension on charge of deleliction in emergency duty.

The state government action came in wake of two major fire incidents at Dasapalla in Naygarh district and another at Baliapal in Balasore district.

A three-year-old boy died of drowning in a well in Chitroda area of Mayurbhanj district on Tuesday as the fire personnel allegedly refused to attend the emergency calls.

"I am compelled to place six personnel under suspension as they failed to attend the emergency calls. Two personnel each in Dasapall, Baliapal and Chitroda incidents have been found guilty and placed under suspension," Director General (Fire Service) B K Sharma told PTI.

Sharma said when the government is willing to have discussion with the agitating personnel, they should attend the emergency calls. No one will be allowed to suffer from fire incident in the state.

"I have assured them that the government will sympathetically consider their demands. I also appeal them to call off agitation and do not prevent others who are willing to attend the emergency calls," Sharma said.

Stating that the fire personnel deal with life and property of masses, Sharma said: "They should attend the emergency calls and come to the rescue of the people on humanitarian ground."



The agitating fire personnel, however, said that their grievances have been ignored by the government since long time.

"We went to strike after giving adequate time to the government. They do not listen to our genuine demands," said Ramakant Paika, one of the leaders of the agitating fire personnel.

Paika said they have called the indefinite strike on Monday. More than 5000 firemen, havildars, drivers from all the 341 fire stations have joined the protests.

Akhyay Pradhan, another prominent leader of the agitating fire personnel, said the demands by the striking personnel include salaries at par with the state police after implementation of the Seventh Pay Commission, regularization of about 1000 contractual employees, and disbursal of pension of retired employees.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Fish trade in Tripura with Bangladesh has been hit with exporters from the neighbouring coutrty stopping exporting fish to the state after anti-social elements allegedly demanded illegal tax from them, an official said Tuesday.

It has led to increase in the prices of fish in the state, which is dependent on supplies from Andhra Pradesh and Bangladesh.

A Customs official said on condition of anonymity that Bangladeshi exporters have stopped exporting fish to Tripura after 10,000 kg of fish valued at 37,000 USD perished on September 4 when some goons demanded 'tolla' (extortion money).

When the Indian exporters contacted their counterparts in Bangladesh, they clearly stated that if a responsible government official from India gives an assurance in writing that their security would be ensured, only then they would resume export of fish.

"There was a meeting of the exporters of Bangladesh in their country on September 17 during which they raised a question about how would they be compensated for their loss on September 4", an executive of Agartala Exporter and Importer Entrepreneur Sangha' said requesting anonymity.

A sizeable amount of fish enters the markets of the capital city through Agartala Akhaura Integrated Check post.

Speaking on the issue, BJP Tripura unit's vice-president Pratima Bhowmik said, she will take the initiative to solve the problem.

"I will hold a meeting with the exporters and importers of the state to discuss how the problem can be solved. I am hopeful, a solution will come out", she told PTI.

Meanwhile, the prices of fishes like Rohu, Katla, and Pabda have shot up.

A fish trader, Adhir Das, who sells fish at Battala Market, the capitals main market, said "The price of fish is soaring every day, because production in the state is not sufficient for consumption of the people of the state.

"We are facing livelihood problem because there are hardly any customers. We are facing the problem for the last one month. "



When contacted, Professor of Economics at Tripura University, Selim Shah said, "Tripura is not self reliant in fish productions. We mainly depend on fish from Andhra Pradesh and Bangladesh.

"The people are fond of fish from Bangladesh, because those are fresh. Durga puja is also knocking at the door. Requirement of fish is more during the festive season. If the stalemate continues, fish would be out of reach of the common people.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A five-storey "weak" building collapsed in northwest Delhi on Wednesday, killing four children and two women, three weeks after the 20-year-old structure was "inspected" by a municipal team following complaints.

The Delhi government has ordered a magisterial inquiry into the incident, and police registered a case under IPC Section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), punishable with a maximum jail term of 10 years, against the owner Dharmender, his business partner Sachin and Sachin's father Roshan Lal, who had rented out the building in Ashok Vihar. All the accused are on the run.

While police claimed that the building was inspected 20 days ago following complaints to the municipal body that it was in "dangerous" condition, North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) claimed that the building was not declared "dangerous" and it had not received any complaint against it.

There were 12 people inside the building when the tragedy struck. Eleven other occupants, among them seven kids, were outside. Four of the children were at school, while two children had accompanied their mother to her workplace and a 14-year-old girl was outside. The other four people were out on work.

Among those who were killed was Ashi, whose parents were looking forward to celebrating her third birthday on October 22. "My wife Seema and my children, Ashi and Shaurya, are gone," said a grieving Umesh, whose family was living on the second floor.

The ground floor of the building housed a shop, which was closed during the incident, while the second, third and fourth floors were occupied by tenants. The first floor had been vacated by the tenants a month ago since they felt the building was unsafe.

Residents of Sawan Park were in a state of fear after the incident and said many of them are also living in dilapidated buildings. They said they could have been in the place of those who died in the incident.

Two families were living on the third floor. Another deceased woman, Munni, was living in one of the houses on the third floor. The second family living on that floor lost two children, Rajnesh, aged four, and Sumnesh, aged 12, the police said.

The fourth floor was occupied by a couple -- Narottam and Nisha. Nisha is critical, the police said. The injured were rushed to Deep Chand Bandhu Hospital.

Bimlesh, who was present at the hospital and lost his sons Rajnesh and Sumnesh, said, "As soon as I left home and had barely walked a few metres, I heard a loud noise and when I turned back, I saw the building collapse like a pack of cards."



Locals claimed that along with the building, a sheesham tree, adjacent to the building, fell. A call about the incident was received at 9.25 am and six fire tenders were rushed to the spot near Sawan Park, an officer said.

A senior NDMC official said the building was about 20 years old. Its structure was weak and in a deteriorated condition, the official added.

The BJP-ruled North Delhi civic body came under fire from the Aam Aadmi Party and the Congress after the incident, with Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who also visited the site, blaming the municipal corporation for not fulfilling its responsibility of safety of buildings.

A political slugfest also ensued with Delhi Congress chief Ajay Maken slamming the BJP-ruled civic body for the tragedy and the BJP's Delhi unit demanding a judicial probe into the incident from the Lt Governor. Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari, along with NDMC mayor Adesh Gupta, visited the site and the hospital where the injured were admitted.

Union Minister Harsh Vardhan, who is the MP from the Chandni Chowk constituency in which the area falls, visited the site of the building collapse and said it is painful that they lost their lives in the most tragic manner.

Police said a complaint was lodged about the building being dangerous on August 16, 2017 and a team of civic body had inspected the building around 20 days ago, the police said.

However, the NDMC said the building was not declared "dangerous" and had not received any complaint against it. North Delhi mayor Adesh Gupta, who visited the site, ordered a detailed inquiry into the incident, while asserting that "strict action" will be taken against the guilty.

The civic body, however, admitted that the building was about 20-25 years old and its structure was "weak" and in a "deteriorated condition" while asserting that no new construction activity or construction material was found at the site.

As soon as the incident took place, two teams of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) were mobilised for rescue operations, its spokesperson said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A 35-year-old woman claimed Wednesday that police forced her to sit atop a jeep and paraded her through her village in Punjab's Amritsar district when they failed to arrest her father-in-law.

A village CCTV footage purportedly showed the woman lying on top of the vehicle and then falling off when it took a sharp turn. Jaswinder Kaur told the media on Wednesday that she fractured her wrist after falling off the jeep.

The police however, denied her charge, saying she had attacked a police team.

Kaur alleged that a team of the police's Bureau of Investigation (BOI) raided her house in Shahzada village in Majitha constituency -- around 20 km from Amritsar -- to arrest her father-in-law, Balwant Singh, on Tuesday in connection with some case.

After not finding the man at home, the police team forced her to sit on the roof of the vehicle and drove her around the village to humiliate her, Kaur alleged.

Inspector General of Police Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh rejected the charges and said the matter would be investigated to find out the truth.

AIG (Crime) Tejinder Singh Maur said the woman was never wanted by the police. "The police team raided the house to arrest Balwant, but he was not found at home. The situation took an ugly turn when some family members of the accused attacked the police team and smashed the windshield of the vehicle."



Maur added that a case under Section 307 (attempt to murder) of the Indian Penal Code has been registered in this regard.

Parmpal Singh, the senior superintendent of police of Amritsar (rural), said, "Right now, I cannot comment on the allegations of the woman unless the matter is thoroughly investigated. Moreover, the raiding team has now approached us and lodged a complaint against her for attacking the police team and damaging the police vehicle".

The raid was conducted by the BOI team and no personnel from the district police was part it, the SSP said, adding that they were not informed of the raid.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Ford chief Jim Hackett on Wednesday ramped up his warnings about the tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump, saying his company was seeing profits slashed by USD 1 billion.

Hackett said the global automaker could face more damage if the trade confrontations were not resolved quickly.

"The metals tariffs took about USD 1 billion in profit from us," Hackett said in an interview on Bloomberg Television.

"If it goes on longer, there will be more damage."



Trump in June imposed steep tariffs on steel and aluminum and has hit USD 250 billion in Chinese products with tariffs, prompting retaliation from US trading partners and raising costs for many industries.

The company earlier this year estimated materials costs would be USD 1.5 billion over 2017, which had already seen a jump.

And in the July earnings report Ford said it lost USD 500 million in China in the latest quarter due in part to the tariffs.

General Motors likewise warned the current trade wars should cost it USD 1 billion this year, mainly due to rising input costs.

Ford recently announced it was scrapping plans to import the compact Focus model from Chinese plants into the US market due to the tariffs.

Joseph Hinrichs, Ford's executive vice president for global operations, said this week the company was speeding up plans to build some models in China since it was becoming less attractive to export amid the trade tensions.

He also said he did not see any easy resolution to the trade dispute between the United States and China.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)One woman and four children were killed and at least seven injured after a three-storey building collapsed in northwest Delhi's Ashok Vihar Wednesday, police said.

The injured have been rushed to Deep Chand Bandhu Hospital, they said.

The deceased woman was identified as Munni. Two of the children were brothers, aged around 10 years, and one was a boy and another was his sister aged below five years.

Several people are still feared trapped under the debris and rescue teams are working at the spot, the police said.

A call about the incident was received at 9.25 am and six fire tenders were rushed to the spot near Sawan Park, an officer said.

Two teams of the NDRF have been mobilised for rescue operations, a NDRF spokesperson said.

A senior North Delhi Municipal Corporation official said the building was about 20 years old. Its structure was weak and in a deteriorated condition, the official added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal on Wednesday said freedom of the press is prerequisite for a robust democracy, and urged mediapersons to assist the state government in effective functioning.

The media is the fourth pillar of democracy and must keep a strict vigil on the other pillars so that democratic traditions of the country can function smoothly, he said.

"We welcome all criticism with an open mind so that the government can be careful, sensitive and responsive to the various problems and issues of the state," Sonowal said at a function organised to give accreditation and recognition cards to 160 journalists here.

"A free press is a prerequisite for a robust democracy and the government will accept the criticism and rectify its mistakes whenever pointed out by the press," the CM stated.

He also urged journalists to join hands with the government in spreading awareness against superstitious beliefs in the society and building a scientific temperament among the young generation.

Sonowal said the Assam government would consider providing annual financial assistance for activities related to the welfare of journalists.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Petitions have been filed in the



Madras High Court challenging the detention of six of the 17 accused in a gang rape case here, under the stringent Goondas Act.

A division bench of Justices C T Selvam and Nirmal Kumar issued notices to the authorities concerned returnable in three weeks, when the petitions came up for hearing.

One the petitioners Premavathi, whose 60-year old husband Sukumaran is among the six accused, contended that the city police commissioner's September 5 order detaining her husband under the Goondas Act was illegal and arbitrary.

No substantial materials were placed before the detaining authority before passing the order. The grounds of detention was not furnished to the accused in time, she said.

Similar petitions were filed by the family members of the other five accused in the case.

The 17 people have been accused of repeated rape of an 11-year old hearing impaired girl here. The police had on September 12 filed the charge sheet, arraigning the 17 accused under the new stringent law which provides for death penalty for child rapists.

The shocking case came to light in July after the victim, a class 7 student, narrated her ordeal to her elder sister.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)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.

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.

Iran's president on Sunday accused an unnamed US -allied country in the Persian Gulf of being behind a terror attack on a military parade that killed 25 people and wounded 60, further raising regional tensions.

Where did they come from?

The deadly shooting targeted the city of Ahvaz 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.

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.

President Donald Trump decided in May to pull the United States out of the 2015 worldwide nuclear deal with Tehran and reimpose sanctions in a bid to isolate the Islamic Republic.

But U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley responded to Tehran's accusations of U.S. involvement by saying the attack happened because Rohani had "oppressed his people for a long time".

Rohani's remarks could refer to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.), or Bahrain, all close USA military allies that view Iran as a regional threat because of its support for militant groups across the Middle East.

NPR's Peter Kenyon reported that initially, attackers were described as "takfiri gunmen" by news agencies, a term sometimes used to describe Islamic State fighters.

Iranian authorities tagged the attack "terrorist" and blamed an unidentified United States ally in the region.

Tehran also summoned diplomats from Denmark, the Netherlands, and Britain on September 23 for allegedly hosting members of the group suspected of links to the Ahvaz National Resistance, an antigovernment Arab separatist group who claimed responsibility for the attack.

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The attack dominated Iranian newspaper front pages on Sunday.

Reports of how the attack unfolded remained unclear immediately afterwards.

The region's Arab separatists, once only known for nighttime attacks on unguarded oil pipelines, claimed responsibility for the assault, and Iranian officials appeared to believe the claim.

Khuzestan deputy governor Ali-Hossein Hosseinzadeh told the semi-official ISNA news agency that a journalist was also among the dead.

ISIS militants also claimed responsibility.

In Tehran, Rouhani watched a military parade that included ballistic missiles capable of reaching Israel and USA military bases in the Mideast. 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.

"We will never decrease our defensive capabilities. we will increase them day by day", Rouhani said at a separate military parade in the capital.

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.

"These terrorists. were trained and organised by two".

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 USA and the Mossad" of Israel. At least 18 people were killed and more than 50 wounded.

The assault shocked Tehran, which largely has avoided militant attacks in the decades after the tumult surrounding the Islamic Revolution.Germany's Catholic Church on Tuesday apologised to thousands of victims of sexual assault by clergy, with the institution's top cardinal saying perpetrators must be brought to justice.

Cardinal Reinhard Marx said he was ashamed over the decades of abuse that have shattered trust, as well as how so many looked away for so long.

The dismay expressed by the head of the German Bishops' Conference came as the institution published a damning report showing that in Germany, almost 3,700 minors -- mainly boys -- were assaulted between 1946 and 2014.

The report's authors said the figure was "the tip of the iceberg".

"Sexual abuse is a persistent problem and not a historical problem" in the Catholic Church, said Harald Dressing, a professor at the Mannheim Institute of Psychology, who coordinated the research commissioned by the Bishops' Conference.

Pope Francis, on his way back from a visit to the Baltic states, said Tuesday "if just one priest abuses a child, it's monstrous". But the way the Church views sex abuse has evolved, as it has in general society, the pontiff added.

"In past times, things were hidden. They were also hidden at home, when uncles raped a niece, when the father raped his children. These things were hidden, because it was a great shame," he said on board the papal plane.

"That was the way of thinking in past centuries, or in the last century," the pope said, adding that the past should not be judged with today's eyes.

"I have to say very clearly that sexual abuse is a crime," said Cardinal Marx. "Those who are guilty must be punished. For all the failures and for all the pain, as chairman of Germany's Bishops Conference, I apologise. I also apologise personally.

"We are not done with confronting the incidents and consequences, it begins now," he stressed at a press conference.

Victims have criticised the report for falling short of what is needed to flush out perpetrators.

They urged the Church to bring in independent experts for a thorough audit, and called for victim compensation.

"The system of abuse, transfers (of offending priests) and cover-ups cannot be mapped out" by a study that had access only to available personnel documents, said victims' association Eckiger Tisch.

"There are no names given of the responsible bishops who have perfected the system of covering up sexual attacks over decades."



Justice Minister Katarina Barley also urged the Church to work with state prosecutors to bring every known case to justice.

Cardinal Marx acknowledged that a thorough reckoning of the problem was "absolutely necessary" but underlined that the process was colossal and would require time.

"We cannot just publish names. A complete rehabilitation also includes dialogue. Maybe a truth commission," he said, promising action.

According to the study, 1,670 clergymen in Germany committed some form of sexual attack against 3,677 minors, mostly boys, between 1946 and 2014, intimidating their victims into keeping quiet.

More than half of the victims were 13 years old or younger, the study concluded, after examining 38,000 documents from the 27 German dioceses.

The survey's researchers warned that the true scale of the abuse was far greater, as many documents had been "destroyed or manipulated".

Predator priests were often transferred to another parish, which was not warned about their criminal history.

Only about one in three were subject to disciplinary hearings by the Church, and most got away with minimal punishment. Only 38 per cent were prosecuted by civil courts.

The research is the latest in a series of reports on sexual crimes and cover-ups spanning decades that has shaken the Catholic Church.

Pope Francis has himself been accused of ignoring abuse allegations against prominent US cardinal Theodore McCarrick for five years. The pontiff has so far refused to respond to the claims.

The pope also declined to answer a question about the latest report in Germany.

He has previously announced a Vatican meeting of national Church leaders on the protection of minors, for February 2019.

Joerg Schuh of the Berlin-based Tauwetter centre for victims of sexual abuse told AFP TV that "the Catholic Church has a global problem" and called on the pope to make it "his number one topic". Major abuse cases in Germany have included a Berlin elite Jesuit school and the world-famous Catholic choir school the Regensburger Domspatzen where more than 500 boys suffered sexual or physical abuse.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Government Medical College (GMC) of Amritsar has banned girls from wearing skirts, t-shirts, jeans and shorts in the college premises.

Boys have also been asked to wear formal trousers instead of jeans, according to a circular issued by college Principal Sujata Sharma.

The head of the department has been asked to ensure that the dress code is followed by all the students, it said.

The new dress code will come into effect from October 1.

A group of students, led by their leader Mansimrat Singh, Wednesday met the college principal, requesting her to withdraw the circular.

However, Sharma declined to withdraw it, the students said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Even as Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar remains admitted in the AIIMS in Delhi, the state cabinet will meet in the next seven to ten days to adopt "important resolutions" pertaining to the state, Panchayat Minister Mauvin Godinho said here Wednesday.

He said the Cabinet would discuss some crucial issues related to Goa.

Godinho's comments came two days after Parrikar effected a minor cabinet reshuffle from the AIIMS by dropping two ailing ministers and inducting two new faces.

"The Cabinet will meet in the next seven to ten days, during which some important resolutions would be taken up," he told reporters.

The minister did not specify whether Parrikar, currently admitted at AIIMS for a pancreatic ailment, would be able to attend it.

The Panchayat ministry will submit two proposals including hike in the salaries of sarpanchs, deputy sarpanchs, panchs, Zilla panchayat members before the state cabinet, he said.

"A proposal regarding the hike in Panchayat infrastructure fund for construction of 'panchayat ghar'from Rs two crore to Rs 3.40 crore is also likely to be cleared by the cabinet," he said.

Parrikar had chaired a cabinet meeting in July this year.

The opposition Congress had demanded a confidence vote in the Assembly, claiming that all is not well in the Parrikar government.

Parrikar's poor health had sparked speculation over his continuation as the chief minister of Goa.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Major tech companies including Facebook and Google agreed Wednesday on a code of conduct to combat online disinformation in the European Union, although critics said the commitments were too weak.

Seven months before the European elections, the code published by the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, called in particular for the withdrawal of advertising revenues from disseminators of "fake news".

In addition, companies agreed that the source of adverts should be clearly labelled and also agreed to closer scrutiny of ad content disseminated on platforms.

They will also track the misuse of automated bots to distribute fake and expand the possibility for users to lodge complaints about suspect posts. EU Digital Economy Commissioner Mariya Gabriel said the commitment was "a step in the right direction", but also called for further efforts by Silicon Valley giants.

Gabriel maintained her threat of EU regulation if the voluntary commitment did not swiftly lead to tangible results.

EU sources said Facebook and Google, including its video sharing site Youtube, have so far backed the code of conduct, with big tech lobby Edima also one of the signatories.

The push against fake by the European Commission gained traction this year after a scandal involving the illegal harvesting of Facebook users' data in the election campaign of US President Donald Trump.

Fears in Brussels now centre on the European Parliament elections next year after alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential ballot and the Brexit vote in Britain the same year.

In a statement, Gabriel said she hoped the code of conduct would "contribute to a transparent, fair and trustworthy online campaign in the run-up to the European elections in spring 2019." At the same time, "Europe's fundamental principles of freedom of expression, free press and pluralism should be fully respected".

Harsh criticism came from an advisory body of media representatives, associations and academics also convened by the Commission.

The code does not contain "a common approach, no clear and meaningful obligations, no measurable objectives" and no sanctions for enforcement, a statement said.

Therefore, there can be no question of "self-regulation". "Let's face it. Platforms which make money from advertisements displayed alongside fake articles and posts are just not well-placed to tackle this problem," said Monique Goyens, head of the European Consumer Organisation (BEUC).

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The government expects to attract USD 100 billion in investments and generate four million jobs in the telecom sector as it Wednesday approved a new policy for the industry.

The policy also envisages 50 Mbps of broadband connectivity to every citizen in five years.

"Cabinet has approved National Digital Communications Policy today," Telecom Minister Manoj Sinha said Wednesday.

He said things have very rapidly evolved in the telecom sector and hence new policy has been made to address emerging technology areas like 5G, Internet of Things and machine to machine communication.

The minister said the government wants to focus on socio-economic growth of the country with the help of the telecom sector instead of seeing it as source of revenue generation.

The NDCP proposes to adopt "Optimal Pricing of Spectrum" to ensure sustainable and affordable access to digital communications. High spectrum price and related charges have been the main concern of the telecom services segment, which is reeling under a debt of around Rs 7.8 lakh crore.

Some of the objectives of the NDCP 2018 include providing broadband access to all, creating 40 lakh new jobs, and increasing India's ranking in the global ICT Index to 50th spot.

"We also expect GDP contribution of telecom sector, which has been around 6 per cent, to grow to 8 per cent... and expect USD 100 billion investment to come in," he said.

The global average of telecom sector contribution to GDP is 4.5 per cent. The sector at present contributes around 6.5 per cent to India's GDP.

The government expects to decide on most of the promises made under NDCP 2018 in a year, Sinha said.

"We will decide on most of the things in a year," Sinha said in response to a query on by when the government will be ready with a roadmap.

The last national telecom policy was issued in 2012.

"We have also changed the name of Telecom Commission to Digital Communication Commission. We will work inclusion of other ministry representatives into it," Sinha said.

The minister said the policy has been formulated after it was felt that a "consumer-centric and application-driven policy" be brought in. The vision, Sinha said, is to have robust communication infrastructure and broadband for all.

The policy promises to promote domestic telecom products and equipment manufacturing with preference to indigenous manufacturers and encourage participation of technology start-ups in the sector.

Industry body COAI said the implementation of NDCP 2018 will have a positive, long-term impact on the sector. It also hoped that the DoT will closely monitor the timely implementation of this policy so that the industry can recuperate from the deepening financial stress.

"Thus, the most important and urgent requirement is to restore the financial health of the sector for which the Policy document envisages the reduction in levies and ease of doing business," COAI Director General Rajan S Mathews said.

This will help the industry in achieving the goals of and fulfilling the objectives outlined in the policy, he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Mushfiqur Rahim struck a valiant 99 as Bangladesh produced an all-round effort to stun Pakistan by 37 runs in the last Super Four match and progress to the final of the Asia Cup here Wednesday.

Mushfiqur's notched up his 30th half-century, while Mohammad Mithun made 60 to lift Bangladesh to a decent 239 all out from a precarious position after opting to bat in the virtual semifinal of the tournament.

Mushfiqur was unlucky as he fell one short of what could have been his seventh ODI century but did enough to rescue Bangladesh with a 144-run fourth wicket stand with Mithun after they were reduced to 12 for three inside five overs.

Later, opener Imam-ul-Haq (83) turned out to be the lone bright spot as Pakistan faltered in pursuit of the modest chase to be restricted to 202 for nine.

Bangladesh will now take on India in the title clash in Dubai on Friday.

Just like Bangladesh, Pakistan's chase got off to a disastrous start as they were reduced to 18 for three in 3.3 overs.

But Imam did not give up the fight and stitched two crucial partnerships with Shoaib Malik (30) and Asif Ali (31) to keep Pakistan in the hunt.

Imam first stitched 67 runs for the fourth wicket with Malik and then shared crucial a 71-run partnership with Ali to keep Pakistan's hopes alive.

But the day belonged to Bangladesh as they never gave up hope and fought tooth and nail to stay one step ahead of Pakistan in the match.

Pakistan did not have the best of starts as they lost Fakhar Zaman, Babar Azam and skipper Sarfraz Ahmed early.

Left-arm pacer Mustafizur Rahman (4/43) and off-spinner Mehidy Hasan (2/28) did the early damage for Bangladesh.

But the turning point of the match was Bangladesh skipper Mashrafe Mortaza's blinder of a catch at midwicket to remove Malik off Rubel Hossain's bowling in the 21st over.

Mortaza dived full length to his left to latch on to a screamer as Malik went for a chip over midwicket.

That was the trigger that Bangladesh needed as Bangladesh bowled and fielded brilliantly inside the circle to frustrate the Pakistani batsmen.

However, Imam and Ali raised some visions of a victory with their 71-run stand but both the batsmen's dismissal in quick succession derailed Pakistan's chase.

Earlier, Bangladesh too were off to a horrendous start as they lost their first three wickets with the scoreboard reading just 12 in 4.2 overs.

Left-arm pacer Junaid did the early damage, removing openers Liton Das and Soumya Sarkar in his consecutive overs.

One-down Mominul Haque failed once again as he was cleaned up by young left-arm fast bowler Shaheen Shah Afridi (2/47) in the fourth over.

But Bangladesh's go to man in crisis situations, Mushfiqur once again came to his side's rescue and in Mithun's company first stabilised the rocking ship and in the process brought up the century stand in 176 deliveries.

In dire need of a partnership, the duo started cautiously and grew in confidence as the match progressed.

Both Mushfiqur and Mithun punished the bad deliveries that came their way.

But just when the partnership was looking dangerous, Pakistan got the vital breakthrough in the form of Mithun who was caught by Hasan Ali (2/60) off his own bowling in the 35th over.

Mithun's second fifty of his career came off 84 balls with the help of just four boundaries.

Imrul Kayes (9) looked shaky from the onset and didn't last long, falling LBW to leg-spinner Shadab Khan (1/52).

The diminutive Mushfiqur, however, went about his business with a calm head and looked set for a well-deserved century but luck was not on his side as he sneaked a good length delivery from Afridi to Sarfraz Ahmed just one short of the three-figure mark.

Mushfiqur scored his runs off 116 balls with the help of nine fours.

Towards the end Mahmudullah (25) and skipper Mashrafe Mortaza tried to use their long handle to maximum effect to take Bangladesh beyond the 250-run mark.

For Pakistan, comeback man Junaid Khan shone with the ball, registering impressive figures of four for 19 from his nine overs.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Patna High Court Wednesday



directed the Bihar government to produce the case diary pertaining to an FIR lodged against former minister Manju Verma following recovery of a huge cache of ammunition from her residence during a CBI raid recently.

Justice Sudhir Singh ordered that the case diary be produced by October 3, while hearing the bail plea of Verma, against whom an FIR has been lodged under the Arms Act at a police station in Begusarai district.

Verma had stepped down as the social welfare minister last month following reports of her husband's alleged links with Brajesh Thakur - prime accused in the Muzaffarpur shelter home sex scandal.

Raids were conducted by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) a few days after her resignation, at her bungalow in Patna and her in-laws' house at Cheria Bariarpur in Begusarai from where 50 cartridges were found.

A case was subsequently registered against the



ex-minister and her husband Chandrashekhar Verma. Their anticipatory bail plea was rejected by a Begusarai court on August 26.

Meanwhile, the court also deferred hearing on the bail application of Brajesh Thakur for two weeks following a submission by CBI counsel Sanjay Kumar that the probe agency has not been provided with a copy of the petition.

Thakur headed the NGO which ran the shelter home in Sahu Road locality of Muzaffarpur where sexual abuse of inmates came to light in a social audit conducted by Mumbai-based Tata Institute of Social Sciences.

Thakur was arrested in June, shortly after a case was registered in pursuance of the social audit report by the state social welfare department. His NGO was blacklisted and its registration cancelled while the girls lodged there were shifted elsewhere.

Medical examinations confirmed that more than 30 of the girls lodged there - all of them minors - had sexual intercourse.

The case was handed over to the CBI by the Nitish Kumar government following a huge public outcry against the incident.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Allahabad High Court has stayed the order of National Commission for Schedule Caste (NCSC) to lodge FIR against four faculty members of IIT Kanpur for causing 'atrocities' against an assistant professor belonging to the scheduled caste community.

The commission had acted upon an enquiry report of the IIT Kanpur which had conducted an enquiry in the complaint of alleged harassment of one professor S Sadrela by four faculty members of IIT.

Earlier, also the court had stayed lodging of FIR in the case but had given liberty to the administration of IIT Kanpur to conduct disciplinary proceedings against the professors in accordance with law, if they so desired.

After which the administration conducted an enquiry in the matter and filed its report on the basis of which the commission directed lodging of FIR.

The court issued notice to the commission and had directed the state government and the commission to file counter affidavit in the case within four weeks.

An assistant professor in the department of aerospace at IIT Kanpur S Sadrela had accused four faculty members of harassment and filed a case against them with the NCSC.

The bench comprising Justices Pankaj Mithal and Mukhtar Ahmed passed the above order while hearing a petition filed by Ishan Sharma.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Madras High Court Wednesday said police should refrain from indiscriminate arrest and detention of people participating in peaceful protests against the Chenna-Salem greenfield highway project.

A bench, comprising Justice T S Sivagnanam and Justice Bhavani Subbaroyan, made the observation during the hearing of batch of petitions challenging land acquisition for the Rs 10,000 crore project.

Earlier, counsel for some of the petitioners submitted that they were taken into custody for staging protests and released later.

"In our considered view, if there is a peaceful protest the state police should refrain from taking extreme step of arrest and detention of the persons some of whom would be the land looser, if the project is implemented," the bench said in an interim order.

There might be cases where under the guise of protest a busybody may intervene to cause certain other disturbances, but police were expected to know the difference between a genuine protester and a trouble maker, it said.

"...indiscriminate arrest and detention of people for expressing their democratic views should be avoided," it added.

The bench reminded about its earlier interim orders of September 14 and 20 in which it had observed that the state government or its machinery should not take any precipitative action.

"No form of precipitative action should be initiated against persons who want to express their views in peaceful and democratic manner, more particularly the land owners who are entitled to express their views against the acquisition proceedings," it said.

The court had on August 21 restrained the Centre and the Tamil Nadu government from dispossessing people of their lands to be acquired for the project, which has run into opposition from some quarters, including a section of farmers, till further orders.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The hike in customs duties on 19 products including ACs, refrigerators and footwears will help boost local manufacturing of these items, according to exporters.

Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) President G K Gupta said that higher tariffs coupled with the depreciating rupee will provide double protection to domestic industry and enable it to compete with imports.

"It will give a push to Indian manufacturing as well," he added.

However, imposition of import duty on aviation turbine fuel (ATF) is a cause of concern as it may hike the passenger air fares.

Rafeeque Ahmed, Chairman, Farida Group of Companies, said that the decision to hike basic customs duties would give a "cheer" to domestic players.

Ahmed, a leading footwear exporter, said that the move will help enhance competitiveness of domestic goods.

"Lot of Chinese footwear is coming to India. Duty hike and with depreciating rupee would act as a deterrent for importers now. It will cheer up local footwear manufacturers," he said.

The government Wednesday raised import duties on 19 items, including jet fuel and air conditioners, as it looks to check the widening current account deficit resulting from high crude oil prices and the rupee dipping to a historic low.

The enhanced duty rates, which will make these imported goods expensive, will come into effect from midnight of September 26-27.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday appeared to endorse the two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in NY on Wednesday.

US President Donald Trump participates in a United Nations Security Council briefing on counterproliferation at the United Nations General Assembly.

"I like a two-state solution". That's what I think works best ...

Trump blamed China's accession into the World Trade Organization in 2001 for the loss of thousands of American jobs, and said his administration will "not allow our workers to be victimized, our companies to be cheated, and our wealth to be plundered and transferred".

But what he said was telling and reflective of recent comments from members of his peace team who are beginning to preview a plan for Israeli-Palestinian peace that will buck conventional norms long governing the process.

"I like two-state solution".

"I can say definitively that it's a sufficient national security concern about Chinese meddling, Iranian meddling and North Korean meddling that we're taking steps to try to prevent it, so it's all four of those countries, really", Mr Bolton told ABC News. "It illicitly procures sensitive items to advance its ballistic missile program", Trump said, calling on worldwide partners to pressure Iran to end its missile work.

The Middle East peace process has effectively been stalled since the Palestinians broke off contacts with the Trump administration a year ago in protest at the U.S. president's decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state.

Chrome 69 Keeps Google's Cookies After You Clear Browser Data

On desktop versions of Chrome, signing into or out of any Google web service (e.g. google.com) signs you into or out of Chrome. He added that prior to the recent login change, a user had to key in their credentials to log in and then consent to the sync.

"Israel got the first chip and it's a big one", Trump said.

"We're going to take care of Venezuela, if he's here and he wants to meet, it was not on my mind, it was not on my plate, but if I can help people that's what I'm here for".

Speaking to his supporters at a rally in MI in April, he said: "We have to keep the House because if you listen to [Democratic Representative] Maxine Waters, she's going around saying 'We will impeach him'". And a lot of progress has being made in many other areas.

"Kim Jong-un, a man I have gotten to know and like, wants peace and prosperity for North Korea", Trump said.

The US president did not offer any details to support the claim.

He has tasked his son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner with working with parties in the Middle East to formulate a peace plan. The Palestinians want the city's eastern part as the capital of a future state.

He also waded into thorny Middle East politics, endorsing the two-state solution to bring an end the decades-long conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. "This is the only way to achieve peace".

However, in talks with Trump, Macron on Monday told the USA president that his policy of putting all the pressure on the Palestinians was not tenable and a solution had to be found, a French presidential source said. And so obviously we have to make a fair deal, we have to do something.The Haryana Police arrested a man on Wednesday for allegedly conducting illegal pre-natal sex determination tests, an official said.

Based on a complaint lodged by Deputy civil surgeon Dr Rajeev Singla, a raid was conducted at a clinic in Andheri village of Naraingarh city and the accused identified as Puroshottam was arrested, he said.

A case was registered against him and two others for running the clinic.

"Puroshottam was not having any valid degree to run the clinic. Moreover, he did not obtain any licence from the Health Department," the official said.

Puroshottam was nabbed on Wednesday while his two accomplices were arrested last month.

Some medicines, equipment and cash worth Rs 10,000 were seized from the clinic, the official added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)State-run Hindustan Shipyard Limited (HSL) will supply two diving support vessels to the Indian Navy for augmenting its submarine support operations, officials said.

The first vessel will be built over a period of 36 months, while the second one will have to be delivered six months after delivery of the first one, they said.

The Navy and the HSL have inked a pact for the project. The vessels, which are to be based at Vishakhapatnam and Mumbai respectively, would be of 118 metre in length.

The diving support vehicles can be used for a number of activities, including submarine rescue and recovery of objects lost at sea, officials said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The vice chief of (IAF), Air Marshal S B Deo, is understood to have accidentally shot himself in his thigh, sources said on Wednesday.

They said he was rushed to a military hospital in Delhi where he underwent a surgery.

His condition is stable.

He had taken over as vice chief of the Air Staff in July.

Air Marshal Deo, who was commissioned as a fighter pilot in the on June 15, 1979, is an alumnus of the Defence Academy and the Defence Services Staff College, Wellington.The on Wednesday accused the government of bringing to the "verge of economic collapse" and demanded a Supreme Court-monitored probe into "financial mismanagement" in the Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) group, which has over Rs 910 billion in debt.

spokesperson claimed the company was on the verge of bankruptcy and warned if that happened it would have a domino effect and "far-reaching consequences" on the country's economy.

"This could be termed as the 'Lehman Brothers moment of India', as the collapse of Lehman Brothers in the led to the 'great economic meltdown' of 2008...Something similar is happening in today," he said, warning that "the Indian economy may plunge into a very deep crisis".

The alleged that the Prime Minister's Office and the was putting pressure on the Reserve Bank of (RBI), (SBI), (LIC) and (NHAI) to bail out the company, and sought to know the rationale behind it.

He said is an unlisted infrastructure development and financing company, which is 40 per cent owned by the public-sector LIC, SBI and

"Why is the NDA/BJP government going overboard to bail out " he asked.

"The Prime Minister's Office and the are putting pressure on the Reserve Bank of India, State Bank of India, LIC and NHAI to bail out this company and the logical question is why this is happening?" he said.

The government is trying "to help save foreign investors' money with the help of Indian tax-payers' money", he alleged.

"We demand that there should be a Supreme Court-monitored multi-agency investigation into all issues linked with This is a very serious issue," he said.

"The NDA-BJP government has brought India to the verge of an economic collapse and the manner in which the affairs of IL&FS fanned out is symptomatic of how this government has handled the Indian economy," he said.

According to the Congress leader, "some market analysis have been saying that this requires a very radical solution, it requires almost Satyam Computers like solution."



"But, the problem here is that why did it come to this pass? Why is it, that now LIC is saying that we will increase our stake. It is not the money of LIC boards and it is not private money," he said.

He also took a swipe at the prime minister saying this matter of IL&FS is a clear case of "telephone banking that prime minister Modi was referring to when he recently talked about 'phone a loan' system during the Congress government", referring to political influence in grant of

Referring to the prime minister's reference to 'videshi mahagathbandhan', he said, "This is that foreign alliance of the NDA-BJP government, where tax payers' good money is being used to save the foreign bad money".

He described the ILFS issue as a "crisis" in Indian economy and said the Finance Minister needs to answer what the government nominees in the company's board were doing.

"How did the debt of the company jump by 44 per cent in the last three years? The state of affairs in the ILFS is a symbol of the Government handling of the Indian economy," he said.

"This is bigger scam than Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi, all rolled into one," he alleged.

The Congress said the company has an opaque corporate structure and its profitability has declined 900 per cent and it does not have sufficient reserves and surpluses to service its interest bearing loans and redeemable debentures and pay back its loans.

As of March 2018, LIC and Orix Corporation of were the largest shareholders of IL&FS with 25.34 and 23.54 per cent respectively, while Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, HDFC, and SBI hold 12.56 per cent, 9.02 per cent, 7.67 per cent and 6.42 per cent, respectively.An illegal liquor manufacturing unit has been busted in Ghaziabad's Tronica City, following which four persons were arrested and three policemen suspended, police said Wednesday.

Sleuths of the Noida police early Wednesday raided the factory which was running in a two-storeyed building and seized around 15,000 litres of illicit liquor.

Ghaziabad SSP Vaibhav Krishna has suspended an SHO, a police post in-charge, and a beat constable of the Tronica City police station for alleged dereliction of duty, police said.

According to Gautam Budh Nagar SSP Ajay Pal Sharma, a special two-day drive "Operation yellow water" was launched in the district during which a number of bootleggers were arrested.

Of them, one Lokesh, who was arrested with six cartons of illicit liquor, told the police that he bought the liquor from a godown in Tronica City, he said.

Based on the information, police raided the godown and found a full-fledged liquor factory running stealthily.

Police have recovered 15,000 litres of alcohol, ethyl alcohol, caramel chemical stashed in 200 drums each having a capacity of 100 litres, empty bottles, wrappers, sealing machines, and three tanks of 5,000 litres each filled with liquor.

A truck loaded with 600 cartons of liquor was also seized, they said.

The factory was being run by Amit alias Bhoora who carried a reward of Rs 10 lakh on his head and is presently lodged in Patiala jail, SSP Sharma said.

Prem Singhal, the property dealer who rented out the plot, and four workers Naveen, Vishal, Luv Kush and Bose Kumar were arrested, he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Telangana government Wednesday requested Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh to implement the Price Support Scheme (PSS) for procurement of groundnut, soyabean and redgram for the Kharif season in the current fiscal in the state.

T Harish Rao, Minister for marketing and Irrigation, in a letter to Singh, said the expected production of soyabean would be 2.01 lakh tonnes, while redgram has been pegged at 2.99 lakh tonnes.

The groundnut production would be about 21.684 tonnes.

He requested the minister to look into the proposal and issue necessary orders for procurement of groundnut, soyabean and redgram under thePrice Support Scheme through Central Nodal Agencies during 2018-19 kharif season in Telangana for the welfare of farmers.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)India and Bangladesh Wednesday decided to conduct a joint study on the prospects of entering into a free trade agreement, which aims at boosting bilateral economic ties.

The issue was discussed during a meeting between Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu and his Bangladesh counterpart Tofail Ahmed in Dhaka.

The Commerce Ministry in a statement said that considering the vision of Bangladesh to become a middle income country by 2021 and a developed country by 2041, both ministers agreed that a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) covering goods, services and investment would provide a sound basis for substantial enhancement of trade and commercial partnership.

"They directed their officials to undertake a joint study on the prospects of entering into a bilateral CEPA," it said.

CEPA is a free trade agreement under which two trading partners eliminate basic customs duties on maximum number of goods traded between them. Besides, both sides liberalise norms to promote trade in services and investments.

The two ministers also discussed a number of issues including border haats, improvement of infrastructure and operations of land customs stations on the Bangladesh-India border, recognition of test certificates, anti-dumping measures and port restrictions.

Further, both the sides agreed to expedite the constitution of a Bangladesh - India CEO forum for providing policy inputs relating to trade and investment in areas such as jute, textiles, energy, pharmaceuticals and information technology.

Further, the Bangladesh minister requested to address the issue of anti-dumping duty levied on import of jute goods and other products.

"Both ministers agreed to fast-track the completion of six new border haats which are under construction and identification of locations for six additional haats, including Dalu-Nakugaon in Sherpur district," it said.

Recognising the importance of Petrapole-Benapole land border trading point, the two sides agreed to remove impediments affecting smooth clearance of cargo at this location.

"In this regard, they agreed for a one-time push to remove congestion of cargo trucks, with effect from October 15, for a period of two months," it said.

During the meeting, Prabhu raised the issue of sudden increase in imports of refined edible palm and soybean oil from Bangladesh and the possibility of routing of third country origin oils into India through Bangladesh under SAFTA.

"It was requested that the concerned Certificates of Origin are issued with due diligence and regularly shared with the Indian authorities, if possible through online mode," it said.

Noting the need to restore pre-1965 railway connectivity between the two countries, the Bangladesh side proposed to start a new end-to-end train service between Dhaka and Siliguri with customs and immigration checks at the starting points at both ends.

"Bangladesh side mentioned the need to establish seamless dual gauge rail connectivity between western and eastern part of Bangladesh for which Indian side offered its support," it added.

The two-way trade between the countries increased to USD 9.3 billion in 2017-18 from USD 7.52 billion in the previous fiscal.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)India and the G4 nations voiced concern over the lack of substantive progress in the long-pending Security Council reform, saying it is time to finally initiate text-based negotiations to safeguard the legitimacy and credibility of the powerful UN organ.

The G4 nations, India, Brazil, Germany and Japan, have been calling for the reform of the UN Security Council, and support each others' bids for the permanent seats in the top UN body.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj hosted her counterparts Aloysio Nunes Ferreira of Brazil, Heiko Maas of Germany and Taro Kono of Japan at a meeting of the G4 nations held Tuesday at India's Permanent Mission to the UN on the margins of the 73rd session of the General Assembly.

In a joint statement after the meeting, the four nations reaffirmed their commitment to multi-lateralism.

"It was time to finally initiate text-based negotiations during the 73rd session of the General Assembly" in line with the standard operating procedures of the UN General Assembly, the ministers said.

They stressed that adapting the United Nations to the contemporary needs of the 21st century necessarily required reforming the Security Council.

"They stressed the need to safeguard the legitimacy and credibility of this UN organ which deals with international peace and security," the statement said.

The G4 Ministers reaffirmed the need for an early reform of the Council including the expansion of both the permanent and non-permanent categories of membership to enhance its legitimacy, effectiveness and representativeness.

They said that the current composition of the 15-nation Council does not reflect the changed global realities and stressed that the UNSC reform is essential to address today's complex challenges.

The ministers reiterated their support for Africa's representation in both categories of membership in a reformed and expanded Security Council.

"As aspiring new permanent members of a reformed Council, the ministers reiterated their commitment to work to strengthen the functioning of the UN and the global multilateral order as well as their support for each other's candidatures," it said.

Reviewing progress on the UNSC reform at the Intergovernmental Negotiations (IGN), they said substantial progress had not yet been achieved even though next year would mark 40 years since the inscription of the item 'Question of equitable representation on and increase in the membership of the Security Council and other matters related to the Security Council' on the agenda of the General Assembly.

"Despite an overwhelming majority of UN member states supporting Security Council reform, the IGN has not produced substantive progress over the 10 years since its launch in 2009," the statement said adding that the ministers emphasised the need to revitalise process of the Security Council reform.

The four leaders welcomed the commitment of President of the 73rd session of the General Assembly Mara Fernanda Espinosa Garces to the reform process and expressed their readiness to extend full support to her with a view to launching negotiations based on a text comprising all positions and proposals by the member states.

The ministers agreed that all aspects of the comprehensive reform had been thoroughly discussed several times in the IGN and the General Assembly.

They reiterated their commitment to working with other member states to realise the shared vision of the overwhelming majority supporting the initiation of text-based negotiations in a democratic and transparent manner.

The G4 will intensify dialogue with other member states, especially like-minded countries and groups to achieve meaningful progress in the upcoming IGN session, the four ministers said, adding that they are determined to redouble their efforts towards securing concrete outcomes on the UNSC reform during the current session of the General Assembly.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)New Delhi's alignment to the Quadrilateral consultative forum, comprising Australia, India, Japan and the US, was a measured strategic choice to position itself better in an alternative discourse led by China in the Indo-Pacific region, a visiting Indian expert told a Washington audience on Tuesday.

"Alignment to the Quad proposition does not necessarily suggest that India essentially wants to engage in a China-containment strategy in the Indo-Pacific construct," Jagannath Panda of the New Delhi-based Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses (IDSA) said in a presentation before the Hudson Institute, a top American think tank.

"Rather, India's alignment is a strategic arch and the act of firming New Delhi's outreach in a liberal-order framework with the Quad countries. It is a measured strategic choice to position better in an alternative discourse led by China in the Indo-Pacific region," he added.

The principal intent here explained India's desire to protect its maritime interests in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), Panda explained.

India's approach to the Quadrilateral consultative forum was a statement of New Delhi's plural arch in an evolving Indo-Pacific construct, he said.

Balancing China's growing outreach with consultation of the Quad countries while concurrently firming bilateralism with Beijing explained India's strategic autonomy and pluralism in its foreign policy, Panda said.

At the same time, he noted that for India, the relationship with China was the most imperative component of its plural and non-aligned that promoted strategic autonomy.

"The India-China relationship is currently taking on a defining structure in the Indo-Pacific construct and New Delhi is more inclined to nurture it than repudiate it. Therefore, India's approach to the Quad would not be based on an anti-China proposition," Panda said.India and Morocco have signed an agreement for deepening cooperation in the MSME sector, a move which will facilitate transfer of Indian technologies and products to the North African nation.

The MoU was signed in Rabat, Morocco on Tuesday by National Small Industries Corporation (NSIC) CMD Ravindra Nath and Director General, Maroc PME, Rabri Barrazouka, an official statement said.

Through this MoU, NSIC and Maroc PME will work together to enhance cooperation opportunities between the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) of the two countries.

Besides, Alka Arora, Joint Secretary in the Ministry of MSME, who is leading the official delegation along with CMD NSIC to Morocco, held bilateral meetings with Othman El Ferdaous, Secretary of State in the Ministry of Industry, Investment and Trade and Digital Economy and with other related departments.

"Both sides discussed the ways and means to synergize the strengths of both countries in MSME Sector in terms of capacity building, sharing of experiences, exchange of business delegations for creating linkages, JVs and technology transfers," the statement added.

Morocco mainly relies on its exports of minerals and ores and service sector. It has very small MSME sector in manufacturing, whereas India has strong MSME sector especially in manufacturing.

India is one of the major markets for Moroccan phosphate and its derivatives.

An India-Morocco joint venture in fertilizer sector in Morocco, called IMACID, was set up in November 1999. At present, the JV is producing around 430,000 MT per annum of phosphoric acid, nearly all of which is imported by India. The Moroccan phosphate company, OCP, has invested in Paradip Phosphates Ltd in India. Other main items of export to India are metallic ores and metal scrap, semi-finished products and inorganic chemicals.

The main items of India's exports to Morocco are cotton yarn, synthetic fibre, transport equipment, pharmaceuticals, agricultural implements, chemicals, spices and manufactured metals. The balance of trade has been in favour of Morocco because of imports of phosphoric acid and rock phosphate by India.

The quantum of bilateral trade, which was USD 1.63 billion in 2010, reached to USD 2.04 billion in 2011. However, in 2014, it decreased and stood at USD 1.36 billion. Indian exports to Morocco in 2014 decreased by 21.6 per cent compared to the previous year while Moroccan exports to India registered an increase of 10.2 per cent in 2014.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)President Donald Trump claimed his administration is one of the most accomplished in US history during a speech Tuesday at the United Nations General Assembly  and the audience's reaction caught him off guard. Other parties to the nuclear deal are reluctant to go along, noting that Iran continues to abide by the terms of the agreement.

Referring to the bloody civil war in Syria, Trump blamed the "corrupt dictatorship in Iran" for fueling the conflict through money and support for the Bashar al-Assad regime.

Accusing Iran of sowing "chaos, death and destruction" across the Middle East, the U.S. president pledged his administration will bring the Iranian government to its knees until it will "change its tune". "They do not respect their neighbours or borders or the sovereign rights of nations".

Business resumed Wednesday at the General Assembly, where 193 United Nations members were taking turns to speak out on pressing world issues and their national priorities in world affairs.

Trump said in July he was ready to meet Iran's President Hassan Rohani without preconditions to negotiate a new deal.

Confronting multilateralism is not a sign of strength.

Correspondingly, Trump has had a troubled relationship with the United Nations, an institution he's at times characterized as unnecessary and ineffectual.

Iran's President Hassan Rouhani says he has never asked for talks with his American counterpart, Donald Trump, stressing that such a meeting would not be "appropriate". "America is governed by Americans". "We reject the ideology of globalism, and we embrace the doctrine of patriotism".

The U.S. has also accused Iran of promoting worldwide terrorism, which Tehran vehemently denies. For a president who authored the bestselling "Art of the Deal" and his foil Rouhani, the strikingly different tone of their speeches and the way they were received should be a wakeup call.

French President Emmanuel Macron called for continued sales of oil by Iran, saying the flow would lower global prices and also benefit peace efforts.

'I'm not going anywhere' after latest misconduct allegation

A registered Democrat, Ramirez denied that she was politically motivated to step forward now with her accusations. The hire was confirmed by a GOP aide to the Senate Judiciary Committee who was not authorized to speak publicly.

"I do not accept the erosion of multilateralism and don't accept our history unravelling", Macron told the assembly, at times raising his voice.

President Donald Trump claimed that his administration "has accomplished more than nearly any administration in the history of our country", drawing laughter from an audience at the United Nations on Tuesday.

The remark led to some murmuring and laughter in the crowd, taking the president slightly aback.

"So true", Mr. Trump said of America's progress.

"Daesh's crime was not and is not exclusively killing people. The Daesh terrorists did not oppress people of the region with their acts alone", he said, adding that they also did huge harm to the image of Islam as a religion. When John Kerry met with Iran's Foreign Minister at his first UNGA as Secretary of State in 2013, Iran was a nuclear threshold state.

Trump has withdrawn the US from the Iran nuclear deal, the Paris climate accord and an Asia-Pacific trade pact, while imposing steep tariffs on both allies and adversaries.

China, seeking to skirt USA sanctions, will use oil tankers from Iran for its purchases of that country's crude, throwing Tehran a lifeline while European companies such as France's Total are walking away due to fear of reprisals from Washington.

Foes for decades, Washington and Tehran have been increasingly at odds since May.

Trump held an unprecedented summit with Kim in Singapore in June that yielded a broad pledge by Kim to "work toward" denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula.

Delivering his address to the annual gathering of United Nations heads of state, Trump began in the hyperbolic style of a domestic campaign as he boasted of his record. The word is typically the refuge of those who have reason to fear global scrutiny - such as Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin - not a term invoked at the U.N.by American presidents of either party, until now. Trump has said sanctions on North Korea would remain for now.Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and her Omani counterpart Sayyid Badr Saud Harib Al Busaidi held wide-ranging talks on Wednesday and agreed to enhance cooperation in maritime security and defence industry engagement.

The ministers undertook a comprehensive review of bilateral defence cooperation and discussed measures to further enhance bilateral exchanges, an official statement said.

Sitharaman and her Omani counterpart also agreed upon a range of measures to enhance the defence relationship between the two countries.

Cooperation in maritime security and defence industry engagement were prioritised for future engagement, the statement said.

India and Oman share strong and multi-faceted defence ties with the two countries' armed forces holding regular staff talks and advanced joint exercises with each other.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)India has postponed the scheduled inspection of its two hydropower projects on the Chenab river by Pakistani experts following the fresh tension in bilateral ties and cancellation of foreign ministers' meeting in New York, according to a media report here Wednesday.

The Indian authorities postponed the inspection by Pakistani experts and said that it would not be possible due to the local-body elections in Jammu and Kashmir, Dawn quoted a source as saying.

After the bilateral talks on the Indus Waters Treaty last month in Lahore, India rejected Pakistan's objections on the construction of the 1,000MW Pakal Dul dam and 48MW Lower Kalnai hydropower projects on the Chenab river and invited Pakistani experts to visit the sites to address their concern.

The experts were scheduled to inspect the two hydropower projects by October but India cancelled it, citing some local issues, the report quoted the source as saying.

"It seems to be a fallout of the recent tension emerging with the cancellation of the talks by India as other issues are normally affected in a larger context in such situations," the senior official, on condition of anonymity, said.

India called off the meeting between Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj and her Pakistani counterpart Shah Mahmood Qureshi on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, citing the "brutal" killing of three policemen in Jammu and Kashmir and the release of the postal stamps "glorifying" Kashmiri militant Burhan Wani.

The source said the Indian delegation had agreed to get the two projects inspected by Pakistani experts this month.

"Through a letter, India confirmed October 7 to 11 for the inspection of the projects by a three-member Pakistani team headed by the Indus Water Commissioner," he said.

India said that since the administration of the respective districts in Kashmir would be busy holding the local-body elections till October 5, the inspection would only be possible from October 7 to 11, the source said.

"But now the Indian authorities have postponed the scheduled inspection, stating it wouldn't be possible due to holding of Panchayat elections in the state by the respective district administrations. They didn't give us new dates as they just stated to coordinate with Pakistani authorities soon," he said.

Meanwhile, Pakistan's Commissioner for Indus Waters Mehr Ali Shah expressed disappointment over the postponement and said that when something is mutually agreed at the state level, it should not be delayed or deferred on petty issues.

"Postponement of our visit for inspection of India's two hydropower projects at Chenab basin is an element of surprise for us despite the fact that the delegation, which visited Lahore and held meeting with us last month, had agreed to allow us inspection of the same in the last week of the ongoing month. Later, they confirmed October 7 to 11. But they further postponed this schedule," Shah said.

"We request our counterparts to fulfil their commitment they had made during their visit to Lahore last month," he said.

The talks on the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) in Lahore last month was the first official engagement between India and Pakistan since Imran Khan became Prime Minister on August 18.

India and Pakistan signed the IWT in 1960 after nine years of negotiations, with the World Bank being a signatory.

The water commissioners of Pakistan and India are required to meet twice a year and arrange technical visits to projects' sites and critical river head works.

The treaty sets out a mechanism for cooperation and information exchange between the two countries regarding their use of the rivers.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)India has proposed Bangladesh to consider negotiating a comprehensive free trade agreement with a view to promote two-way commerce and investments, an official statement said Wednesday.

Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu, who is in Dhaka, has said that after Bangladesh graduates from the Least Developed Country (LDC) status, it will no longer have duty-free and quota-free access for its products to the Indian market under SAFTA (South Asia Free Trade Agreement).

"In view of this, he proposed that India and Bangladesh may consider signing a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) which would trade in goods and services and investments," the commerce ministry said.

CEPA is a free trade agreement under which two trading partners eliminate basic customs duties on maximum number of goods traded between them. Besides, both sides liberalise norms to promote trade in services and investments.

Prabhu said that the economic growth of Bangladesh is a model that could be emulated by other LDCs in the region.

He was speaking at a discussion on India-Bangladesh trade relations organised by the Bangladesh Ministry of Commerce in Dhaka yesterday.

The minister also said that the ministry is looking forward to develop a roadmap for resolving trade related issues with Bangladesh.

He also spoke about issues related to upgradation of infrastructure at land customs stations for easing the flow of goods and people.

Prabhu added that the two countries may consider the possibility of cooperation in connecting Dhaka with rest of Bangladesh through broad gauge railway lines.

The two-way trade between the countries increased to USD 9.3 billion in 2017-18 from USD 7.52 billion in the previous fiscal.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Digitalisation can make governments fairer and more efficient and India's experience with the Aadhaar for its 1.2 billion residents is a case in point, according a blog posted on IMF website.

The blog titled 'The Digital Accelerator: Revving Up Government in Asia' further said that Asia's digital revolution shows no signs of slowing down.

"Critically, digitalization can make governments fairer and more efficient.

"India's experience with the Aadhaar the world's largest biometric identification system that provides a unique 12-digit ID number for 1.2 billion residents in India is a case in point," said blog authored by Vitor Gaspar and Chang Yong Rhee.

Vitor Gaspar is director of the IMF's Fiscal Affairs Department and Chang Yong Rhee is Director of the IMF's Asia and Pacific Department



Stating that Korea, Singapore, Japan, and Malaysia, rank in the world's top ten of digital government, the blog said, "India outperforms advanced economies, on average, while China, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and Thailand outperform their emerging market peers."



It pointed out that from e-commerce giants like China's Alibaba and Japan's Rakuten, to ride-hailing, and digital payment tech startups, like Indonesia's Go-Jek and India's Paytm, and the widespread use of industrial robots for manufacturing, digitalisation is changing the way the region's businesses operate.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)By 2022, most of India's vehicle safety will be at par with global standards and some features may even surpass the levels of the US, a senior government official said Wednesday.

Abhay Damle, Joint Secretary of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH), stressed that advanced safety features are required in all vehicles in India and cannot be confined to luxury vehicles only.

He made these remarks while participating at the demonstration of crash avoidance technologies in vehicles at the Buddh International Circuit in Greater Noida. The demonstration was held under the #StopTheCrash campaign launched in India by UK-based charity Global New Car Assessment Programme (NCAP) in association with the Institute of Road Traffic Education (IRTE).

"Features like Anti-Lock braking have already been made mandatory in two-wheelers and by next month (October), all new cars will have pedestrian safety features, including new design of the bonnet, to reduce impact on pedestrians during accidents," Damle said.

He said the government is trying to ensure that manufacturers add all safety features in their vehicles.

The Electronic Stability Control (ESC) and the Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB) will be incorporated in new vehicles between 2022 and 2023. While the Anti Lock Brakes (ABS) and automatic headlights for two-wheelers has already been mandated, he added.

"By 2022, most of our vehicle safety will be at par with global standards and some safety features may surpass the United States' safety standards even," the joint secretary said, recalling that Union Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari has already made an announcement in this regard.

"But the real challenge is bringing in maximum safety at affordable cost so that cost of vehicles does not go up steeply," Damle said.

The demonstration, held on the country's only F-1 circuit premises, included showcasing of advanced technologies like the ESC and AEB in cars and the ABS for two-wheelers.

On dry, wet or slippery roads if any vehicle starts to skid, the ESC corrects the slide by reducing engine torque and braking individual wheels to bring the vehicle back on course. The AEB uses forward looking radar, cameras or optical sensors or a combination of these sensors to help quickly and accurately detect impeding vehicles, pedestrians, and potentially other obstacles.

David Ward, secretary general of Global NCAP, said the 'Stop The Crash' programme will also encourage the adoption of autonomous braking systems, a technology that is known to greatly reduce the risk to both the car in question and other vehicles or vulnerable road users around it in case of a detected crash or obstacle.

"New two-wheelers sold in India greatly outnumber the number of cars sold in the country and safer two-wheelers can greatly reduce the number of accidents and fatalities on Indian roads," said Ward, also the president of the 'Stop The Crash' campaign.

With the campaign, the charity also announced its inaugural 'World Congress', aimed at facilitating dialogue on a global roadmap for vehicle safety with the automobile manufacturers, senior policy makers, road safety experts and fleet managers.

"The main theme of the World Congress will be how NCAPs worldwide have succeeded in building a market for safer cars by raising consumer awareness of the critical safety choices they make when buying a new vehicle," saidRohit Baluja, president, IRTE.

"The experience of NCAPs in South East Asia and Latin America and their relevance to similar emerging markets in India and Africa will also be discussed," he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)An Indian national who was aware of an alleged plot to assassinate Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena has been arrested, a court was told.

The Indian national, identified as M Thomas by Lankan media, was arrested on Tuesday from the residence of the Anti Corruption Movement operations director Namal Kumara, who exposed the assassination plot, CID Chief Inspector Ranjith Munasinghe informed the Fort Magistrate Court.

Magistrate Jayaratne instructed the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) to further interrogate Thomas and report the findings to the court.

Thomas was arrested when he visited Kumara's home at Warakapola in the south western region.

Kumara had revealed that former in-charge of the Terrorist Investigation Division DIG Nalaka de Silva had discussed with him the alleged plot to kill Sirisena and the former Defence Ministry Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa, the court was told.

Silva was questioned by the CID on Kumara's revelations. He has been transferred out of the terrorism bureau pending investigations.

Thomas who was taken into custody for his alleged links to Kumara, arrived in the country on a tourist visa, which he overstayed, the court was told.

Meanwhile, the court has ordered to check the authenticity of sound tapes which Kumara had produced purported to be conversations between him and Silva.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Religious leaders from joined those from across the world to extend their support to a new concept of the "Declaration of Friendship" to foster world peace by countering hatred and intolerance.

The contours of the Declaration was laid out by The Hague-based Peace Palace, the Carnegie Foundation and the Elijah Interfaith Institute.

Prominent religious leaders of diverse faith, including Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist, Sikh, Christian and Jewish, from around the world would sign the document at a major summit to be held at the Peace Palace in June 2020, an official statement said.

The declaration aims to counter division, hatred and intolerance between people of different religions by promoting friendship between members of diverse faiths, it said.

"We are very grateful that the Indian government also cooperates with us to make this peace initiative as broad and inclusive as possible," said Erik de Baedts, Director of the Peace Palace, in the statement.

He described the crafting of the declaration as a complicated and delicate matter, which follows a careful interactive process supported by experts from the Elijah Interfaith Institute, VU University in Amsterdam and the Carnegie Foundation, among others.

Rabbi Dr Alon Goshen-Gottstein, director of the Elijah Interfaith Institute, said: "Several of India's most prominent religious leaders are members of the Elijah Board of World Religious Leaders.

"They have also participated in the Make Friends campaign. These include Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Amma Amritanandamayi, Yoga Guru Swami Ramdev, Swami Chidanand (Muniji) and the Ramakrishna Order."



The institute said that religious leaders from the Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh, Christian and Jewish traditions had widely welcomed the initiative.

The idea of the Declaration came from Dutch advertising professional Mark Woerde and his team at Havas Lemz & Letsheal.org.

In 2017, Woerde had initiated a joint video appeal titled "Make Friends Across Religions" by prominent world religious leaders, with the aim of addressing social tensions.

The appeal included personal statements by Pope Francis, the Grand Mufti of Egypt, Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the Dalai Lama, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, among others.

Woerde said: "We are very honoured to pass on the torch today to the Carnegie Foundation and the Elijah Interfaith Institute to take this initiative to the next level. I am grateful that last year's video appeal could be the trailer of something bigger and more impactful."



The Peace Palace in The Hague, established as a centre for peace and justice, is owned by the Carnegie Foundation. It houses a major arm of the United Nations outside of New York, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which aims to prevent war between states by applying international law.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)To check incidents of lynching, the Centre on Wednesday asked all states to make the general public aware that mob violence of any kind will invite serious consequence under the law.

Quoting Monday's directive of the Supreme Court, the Home Ministry told the states that preventive measures must be taken to check incidents of lynching which have taken place in different parts of the country in recent past.

The Supreme Court has ordered that the central and state governments should broadcast on radio and television and other media platforms, including the official websites of the home department and police of the states, that lynching of any kind shall invite serious consequence under the law.

"We have asked the state governments to comply with the order of the Supreme Court," a home ministry official said.

In an earlier advisory, the home ministry had asked the states to appoint a superintendent of police-level officer in each district, set up a special task force for gathering intelligence and closely monitor social media contents so that no one is attacked on suspicion of being child-lifter or cattle-smuggler.

The home ministry also said that wherever it is found that a police officer or an officer of the district administration has failed to comply with the directions to prevent, investigate and facilitate expeditious trial of any such crime of mob violence and lynching, it should be considered as an act of deliberate negligence and misconduct, and strong action must be taken against the official concerned.

"Incidents of violence and lynching by mobs in some parts of the country fuelled by various kinds of rumours and unverified such as child lifting, theft, cattle smuggling etc, are a matter of serious concerns. Such instances of persons taking the law in their own hands run against the basic tenets of the rule of law.

"All state governments, UT administrations and their law enforcement agencies are requested to implement the directions of the Supreme Court in letter and spirit. A detailed report on the action taken in the matter may please be sent to the ministry at the earliest," the advisory sent to chief secretaries and DGPs of the states and Union Territories (UT) had said.

A Group of Ministers (GoM), headed by Home Minister Rajnath Singh, is also deliberating on legal framework to be set up to check incidents of lynching.

Singh had said in Parliament that the government will enact a law, if required, to curb incidents of lynching.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)US President Donald Trump on Tuesday lashed out at the International Criminal Court (ICC), saying America will never surrender its sovereignty to an "unelected" organisation and will not support a body that has "no legitimacy".

"As my administration has demonstrated, America will always act in our national interest...The United States will provide no support in recognition to the International Criminal Court. As far as America is concerned, the ICC has no jurisdiction, no legitimacy, and no authority," Trump said in his address to the UN General Assembly's high-level General Debate here Tuesday.

Trump accused the ICC for claiming near-universal jurisdiction over the citizens of every country, saying it violates all principles of justice, fairness, and due process.

"We will never surrender America's sovereignty to an unelected, unaccountable, global bureaucracy," he said.

Referring to his maiden address to the UN General Assembly last year, Trump said he had warned that the UN Human Rights Council had become a grave embarrassment to this institution, shielding egregious human rights abusers while bashing America and its many friends.

He said the US Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley had laid out a clear agenda for reform, but despite reported and repeated warnings, no action at all was taken.

"So the United States took the only responsible course: We withdrew from the Human Rights Council, and we will not return until real reform is enacted, he said.

On energy security, he said the US has become the largest energy producer anywhere on the face of the Earth and stands ready to export its abundant, affordable supply of oil, clean coal and natural gas.

"OPEC and OPEC nations, are, as usual, ripping off the rest of the world, and I don't like it. Nobody should like it. We defend many of these nations for nothing, and then they take advantage of us by giving us high oil prices. Not good, he said.

Trump said he wants OPEC nations to stop raising prices and contribute substantially to military protection from now on. We are not going to put up with it -- these horrible prices -- much longer," he said.

On Syria, Trump said thanks to the United States military and its partnership with many nations, the "bloodthirsty killers" known as ISIS have been driven out from the territory they once held in Iraq and Syria.

We will continue to work with friends and allies to deny radical Islamic terrorists any funding, territory or support, or any means of infiltrating our borders," he said.

Describing the ongoing tragedy in Syria as "heartbreaking", Trump urged the United Nations-led peace process to be reinvigorated but warned that the United States will respond if chemical weapons are deployed by the Assad regime.

On the issue of illegal immigration, he said it funds criminal networks, ruthless gangs and the flow of deadly drugs.

Illegal immigration exploits vulnerable populations, hurts hardworking citizens, and has produced a vicious cycle of crime, violence, and poverty. Only by upholding national borders, destroying criminal gangs, can we break this cycle and establish a real foundation for prosperity.

The US recognises the right of every nation in the world to set its own immigration policy in accordance with its national interests, he said, adding that other countries must also respect America's right to do the same.

which we are doing. That is one reason the United States will not participate in the new Global Compact on Migration. Migration should not be governed by an international body unaccountable to our own citizens. Ultimately, the only long-term solution to the migration crisis is to help people build more hopeful futures in their home countries. Make their countries great again, he said.

Describing the United States as the world's largest giver of foreign aid in the world, Trump said few nations give anything to it. "That is why we are taking a hard look at US foreign assistance. That will be headed up by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. We will examine what is working, what is not working, and whether the countries who receive our dollars and our protection also have our interests at heart," he said.

Trump warned that moving forward, the US is only going to give foreign aid to those who respect it and, "frankly, are our friends. And we expect other countries to pay their fair share for the cost of their defence."



Trump, who has always been critical of the United Nations, said the US is committed to making the world body "more effective and accountable".

"I have said many times that the United Nations has unlimited potential. As part of our reform effort, I have told our negotiators that the United States will not pay more than 25 per cent of the UN peacekeeping budget. This will encourage other countries to step up, get involved, and also share in this very large burden, he said.

"Only when each of us does our part and contributes our share can we realise the UN's highest aspirations. We must pursue peace without fear, hope without despair, and security without apology, he said.

Trump called on all nations to choose a future of patriotism, prosperity, and pride. Let us choose peace and freedom over domination and defeat. And let us come here to this place to stand for our people and their nations, forever strong, forever sovereign, forever just, he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)US President Donald Trump accused Iran of stepping up its "aggression" after signing a nuclear accord in 2015, saying Tehran took advantage of a lifting of sanctions to fund a missile programme.

"In the years since the deal was signed, Iran's aggression only increased," Trump said in a speech at the United Nations Security Council.

"The regime used new funds from the deal to support terrorism, build nuclear capable missiles and foment chaos." Trump pulled the United States out of the internationally brokered accord in May although European allies and Iran have pledged their continued commitment to the agreement which lifted sanctions in return for curbs in Tehran's nuclear programme.

The United States has been steadily reimposing sanctions against Iran in recent months and Trump said more were on the way.

"Following America's withdrawal (from the accord), the United States began reimposing nuclear-related sanctions on Iran. All US nuclear-related sanctions will be in full force by early November.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Calling Supreme Court's verdict on Aadhaar a historic judgement, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the concept of Aadhaar has been accepted after judicial review and the government welcomes the apex court's decision. Jaitley said those criticising the unique identification scheme need to understand that they "cannot defy technology". He added that the "mainstream should accept changes, one can understand the fringe being against Aadhaar".

The Supreme Court gave its much-awaited judgement on the controversial issue of Aadhaar, upholding its constitutional validity. Total 31 petitions had challenged the verdict citing violations of the right to privacy. The five-judge constitution bench, which is led by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, delivered their verdicts on whether the mandatory linking of Aadhaar with welfare schemes, bank accounts, PAN, etc, violates the privacy of individuals or it is necessary to maintain accountability and ensure all government benefits reach the poor. The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), the statutory authority that maintains Aadhaar database, has the biometric data of 122 crore Indians. People have raised several questions over its safety and security, fearing the data theft could lead to leakage of personal information. Get all the latest updates on BusinessToday.In's live blog here.

4:14 pm: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley dismissed the criticism by the Congress party, saying that the grand old party "cuts a very sorry figure here" as it introduced the idea of Aadhaar but "did not know what to do with it".

1.10pm: Justice Chandrachud the only one to say Aadhaar is unconstitutional.

With the majority with Aadhaar, justice Chandrachud was the only one to say that Aadhaar is unconstitutional.#ITVideo More videos: https://t.co/Nounxo6IKQpic.twitter.com/EluNjkwe09 - India Today (@IndiaToday) September 26, 2018

1.04pm: Former attorney general of India, Soli Sorabjee, says on the whole it is a good judgement.

I think on the whole it is a good judgement. Though personally, I am happy with Justice Chandrachud's judgement striking it down on the ground that it bothers right to privacy: Former Attorney General of India Soli Sorabjee on #Aadhaar verdict pic.twitter.com/8F8AxhLmbI - ANI (@ANI) September 26, 2018

12.25pm: BSP Supremo Mayawati on the SC verdict on reservation in promotion: Judgement welcome to a certain extent since SC didn't impose a restriction in this regard & clearly said that the centre or state governments can provide reservation if they want.

Judgement welcome to a certain extent since SC didn't impose a restriction in this regard & clearly said that centre or state govts can provide reservation if they want: Mayawati on SC refuses to hear 2006 verdict in Nagraj case on reservation in promotion for SC/ST in govt jobs pic.twitter.com/XTC7LkZO4x - ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) September 26, 2018

12.17pm: Linking Aadhaar with mobile poses threat to autonomy, says Justice Bhushan.

Linking Aadhaar with mobile poses threat to autonomy, dignity and privacy. There might be a legitimate aim but the means to achieve that aim cannot be disproportionate. - sflc.in (@SFLCin) September 26, 2018

12.10pm: "Aadhaar violates the right to privacy as it could possibly lead to profiling of persons and voters," says Justice Chandrachud.

12.06pm: We welcome the Supreme Court's decision to strike down Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act, says the Congress.

We welcome the Supreme Court's decision to strike down Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act. Private entities are no longer allowed to use Aadhaar for verification purposes. #AadhaarVerdict - Congress (@INCIndia) September 26, 2018

12.02pm: Justice DY Chandrachud says the dignity of individuals can't be made subject to algorithms.

11.59am: Aadhaar mandatory for the linking of PAN card, driving licence, and filing of income tax returns.

11.53am: Aadhaar is not mandatory for:

Opening bank accounts Linking of SIM Authentication by private companies School admissions, CBSE admissions, UGS and NEET exams.

11.44am: The Supreme Court says the mandatory linking of bank accounts with Aadhaar is not necessary.

11.33am: The Supreme Court bench upholds constitutional validity of Aadhaar.

11.24am: There are three judgements that will be pronounced -- one by Jutice Sikri, CJI Misra and Justice Khanwilkar concur with Justice Sikri on it -- while other two judgments will be pronounced by Justice Chandrachud and Justice Bhushan.

11.22am: It is better to be unique than the best because being the best makes you number one but being unique makes you one. Uniqueness is the feature of Aadhaar, says justice Sikri.

11.17am: Justice Sikri says: "In the present case, we've enlarged the scope of human dignity. We've applied the principle of compelling state interest."

J. Sikri; we've applied the fair and reasonable standards. Human dignity is based on socio economic rights. In the present case, we've enlarged the scope of human dignity. We've applied the principle of compelling state interest. - sflc.in (@SFLCin) September 26, 2018

11.15am: Private companies cannot insist on Aadhaar, says Supreme Court.

11.11am: "Aadhaar empowers the marginalised section of the society and gives them an identity, Aadhaar is also different from other ID proofs as it can't be duplicated," says Justice AK Sikri.

Verdict on the constitutional validity of #Aadhaar: Justice AK Sikri says, "Aadhaar empowers the marginalised section of the society and gives them an identity, Aadhaar is also different from other ID proofs as it can't be duplicated" pic.twitter.com/ix9VEdw1nS - ANI (@ANI) September 26, 2018

11.02am: Verdict on the constitutional validity of Aadhaar: Justice AK Sikri has authored the judgement on behalf of him, CJI Misra and Justice Khanwilkar. Justice Chandrachud and Justice A Bhushan have written their individual opinions.

Verdict on the constitutional validity of #Aadhaar: Justice AK Sikri has authored the judgement on behalf of him, CJI and Justice Khanwilkar. Justice Chandrachud and Justice A Bhushan have written their individual opinions - ANI (@ANI) September 26, 2018

10.59am: Justice Sikri reading out the judgement on Aadhaar; the final judgement could be pronounced anytime soon.

10.57am: The Supreme Court leaves the matter on reservation in promotions on states.

10.45am: The Supreme Court says no need for SC/ST quota in promotions. The three-bench passes a unanimous verdict on the SC/SC reservation quota in promotions.

SC/ST reservations in promotion: Supreme Court's five-judge bench refuses to refer the Nagaraj judgement to a larger bench pic.twitter.com/ADWZIoMgba - ANI (@ANI) September 26, 2018

10.21am: The judgement will have a far reaching effect because Aadhaar is relevant for a large number of subsidies, says Mukul Rohatgi, who represented the government in Aadhaar case.

The judgement will have a far reaching effect because #Aadhaar is relevant for a large no. of subsidies. It is also relevant to plug loot & waste that has happened. I hope the judgement is in favour of #Aadhaar: Mukul Rohatgi, as AG he represented the government in Aadhaar case pic.twitter.com/Eb7ai0BNaQ - ANI (@ANI) September 26, 2018

10.07am: The Centre, the UIDAI, the governments of Maharashtra and Gujarat and the RBI argued in favour of the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits And Services) Act, 2016.

10.04am: Besides Aadhaar, the Supreme Court will also give its judgement on live streaming of court proceedings and granting quota benefits in promotions to SC/ST employees.

9.54am: A mandatory National ID is a recipe for surveillance and runs the risk of citizens data being compromised in one way or another, says Nikhil Pahwa, Digital Rights activist and founder of MediaNama.

9.20am: The final judgement on the constitutional validity of Aadhaar will be pronounced at 10.30am.

The much awaited judgment on the constitutionality of Aadhaar is out tomorrow at 10.30am. We'll be live tweeting from court.#AadhaarVerdictpic.twitter.com/hcWZqsiET5 - sflc.in (@SFLCin) September 25, 2018

9.10am: Delivering a landmark judgement last year, the Supreme Court had maintained that privacy was a "fundamental right enjoyed by the Indians". This judgement could form the basis of the Supreme Court judgement on the constitutional validity of Aadhaar today.

Also read: 'Aadhaar skews relationship between citizen, State,' petitioners' advocate tells Supreme Court

9.06am: Headed by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, the five-judge bench comprises of Justices AK Sikri, AM Khanwilkar, DY Chandrachud and Ashok Bhushan.

9.04am: The court had reserved its order on the validity of Aadhaar after listening to all the sides on May 10. The hearing in the case started on January 17, which continued for 38 days.

8.30am: All the petitions were heard for 38 days over the course of over 4 months. This is believed to the logest heard case in the history of the Supreme Court.

8.20am: A user tweeted "the real test of constitutional spine against government contempt" will be on the judgement day on Wednesday.

The #377 judgment was an easy win post 9 judges in Puttaswamy. The real test of constitutional spine against goverment contempt will be tomorrow in #Aadhar#AadhaarVerdict . - Karuna Nundy (@karunanundy) September 25, 2018

8.00am: In January, counsel Shyam Divan, who had appeared for petitioners, said the case at hand was unique because the Aadhaar project itself was without precedent -- "no democratic society has adopted" anything like it. He said that the petitioners are certain that if the Aadhaar Act and the programme were allowed to operate "unimpeded", it would "hollow out" the Constitution.President Hassan Rouhani said that Iran was not seeking conflict with the United States in the Middle East and questioned why US forces remained in the region.

President Donald Trump's administration has withdrawn from a nuclear deal with Iran, slapped back sanctions and vowed to roll back the Shiite power's role in the region including in Syria, Yemen and Iraq.

Attending the UN General Assembly, Rouhani defended Iran's military support for the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is a member of the minority Alawite sect, as a bulwark to defeat the Islamic State extremist group.

"Our presence in Syria will continue for such time that the Syrian government requests our presence," Rouhani told a conference Wednesday.

"We do not wish to go to war with American forces anywhere in the region. We do not wish to attack them; we do not wish to increase tensions.

"But we ask the United States to adhere to laws and to respect national sovereignty of nations," he said.

The Trump administration enjoys close relations with Iran's regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Israel and has warned Tehran that it is closely watching its actions.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, addressing a pressure group on Tuesday, vowed to act "swiftly and decisively" to any Iranian action that damages US interests in the region.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party Wednesday accused the BJP of using civil and police administration to promote its political interests in the state.

NPP chairman Harsh Dev Singh hurled the allegation while making an appeal to Governor Satya Pal Malik to ensure free and fair election for the urban local bodies in the "larger interest of peace" in the state.

Ensure transparent and clean elections the free and fair polls of local bodies would greatly help in retrieving the otherwise deteriorating law and order situation in the state, said Singh, also a former state minister.

He appealed to the Governor to evolve a proper mechanism to monitor the upcoming local body polls.

Fair and impartial elections can become the harbinger of peace in the state and set new political trends here," he said.

Observing that "J&K is in a different kind of situation", he said, "The militancy broke out in the state in 1989 after the complaints of rigging and subversion of democracy were taken non-seriously by the then rulers.

Claiming that the BJP would misuse the official machinery during the upcoming local body polls, he said, "Any attempt by the government agencies to promote a political party or to bully the politically inconvenient sections could prove catastrophic."



He cautioned the administration against backing politically biased officers, saying it would harm the state.

The opportunity needs to be used to win over the confidence of the people at grass root level through a fair and transparent election by checking the blatant politicisation of the bureaucracy, he said.

Without identifying any officer, Singh said he has made written complaints against them to the Election Commission of India and the Governor which needed to be probed with appropriate follow up actions.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Three people were arrested and a juvenile apprehended in connection with a sensational bank robbery attempt here in which two security guards were killed on September 21, the Gautam Buddh Nagar police said on Wednesday.

They accused held after a gun-battle with the police late Tuesday night in the city's Sector 19 area. Another accused in on the run and efforts are on to nab him, the police said.

Two private security guards of Punjab National Bank (PNB) were bludgeoned to death in an attempted robbery at its circle office in Sector 1 here on September 21.

Guards Mudrika Prasad and Mukesh Yadav were in the guard room of the bank when the accused attacked them on their head with a baton and an iron rod.

"Working on a tip-off, a police team from Sector 20 police station tracked down the suspects at a bus stop in Sector 19 around 10.30 pm. Alarmed by the police action, the suspects opened fire on the police team, prompting retaliation. Two of them were shot on the legs and all four held," Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Ajay Pal Sharma told reporters.

Those arrested have been identified as Aaqil Khan, 22, Aakash alias Munshi, 21, and Dinesh 24. A 15-year-old boy has been apprehended. Aaqil and Dinesh were injured in the police firing and were admitted to the district hospital, he said.

"Two country-made .315 bore pistols, six bullets and two knives were seized from them," he said, adding that further probe led to the recovery of a rod, a grub axe and the shirt of one of the guards killed.

"All the accused, living in slums adjoining Delhi, were drug addicts. Dinesh had recently lost Rs 2 lakh in betting after which he hatched the plan along with the trio to get a lot of money quickly," the SSP said.

Dinesh worked as a flower and garland seller in the area and would also sell them to the security guards who were killed.

"On Thursday evening also, Dinesh visited the bank office and sold a garland to the guards to gauge the situation.

"Later around 2 am Aaqil and Aakash went into the guard's room while they were asleep and hit them with the iron rod and the grub axe. They then tied the two guards with ropes, not realising that they had already died. The two then went around the office in search of money and even tried breaking into the strong room but could not succeed," the officer said.

"All this while, the other three, including the juvenile, remained outside the bank office," he added.

Aakash had worn a shirt of the guard while going around the office. He had picked up that shirt from the guard's room in an attempt to evade being identified.

"While coming out of the bank, they took a digital video recorder of a CCTV camera with them but their actions were also caught in another CCTV camera installed there," Sharma said.

Further probe was underway and search launched to nab their absconding partner, Sharma said, adding an appeal would be made in court for the police custody of the four.

A case has been registered against the four at Sector 20 police station under the relevant Indian Penal Code sections and under the Arms Act.

Meanwhile, based on the inputs gathered from the interrogation of the four accused, the police have identified around two dozen drug traffickers and anti-social elements living in slums and JJ clusters near Delhi border in Noida.

"We have identified these persons suspected of wrongdoing and will soon ensure action against them," the SSP said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The over four-month old Congress-JD(S) ministry headed by Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy would be expanded by October 10, Karnataka Pradesh Congress President Dinesh Gundu Rao said Wednesday.

This would be the second expansion of the cabinet since the coalition came to power in May in a post-poll tie-up. In the earlier exercise on June 6, Kumaraswamy had inducted 25 ministers, taking the ministry's strength to 27.

There are six vacant ministerial positions left for the Congress and one for the JD(S). Under the power sharing arrangement reached by the two parties, Congress will have 22 ministers and the JD(S) 12.

"On cabinet expansion, our General Secretary (K C Venugopal) has already said it will be by October 10. By 10th (October) expansion and appointment of heads to boards and corporations will be done, Rao told reporters here.

He said he along with a couple of party leaders were scheduled to visit Delhi for discussions, soon after the Congress Working Committees meeting scheduled in Wardha on October 2.

The decision to expand the cabinet has come amid speculations that some disgruntled Congress MLAs were being wooed by the BJP besides reported factionalism within the party.

The first cabinet expansion had caused heartburn among several MLAs in the coalition.

Rao, however, did not divulge details whether the Congress would fill all the six vacant posts during the coming cabinet expansion.

The KPCC chief sought to downplay outpouring of 'grievances' by the party MLAs and MLCs against the state government at the Congress Legislature Party Meeting Tuesday night.

Constructive discussions took place about the functioning of the government and the party.

...it cannot be termed as dissent. Internal democracy within the party gives opportunity for MLAs to discuss about the issues within the party. Yesterday's meeting was fruitful, it was in fact a show of unity, he said.

Rao also said MLAs have been instructed not to make public statements on issues concerning the party unnecessarily, as it may be projected differently.

"We have advised them to discuss within the party and sort out issues if any," he said adding party discipline should be maintained and respected by one and all.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Karnataka would appeal against the Mahadayi River Water Tribunal's verdict on the inter-state water dispute, state's Water Resources Minister D K Shivakumar said Wednesday.

He said the government was consulting legal and technical experts on how to go about it and an all-party meet would soon be convened to discuss the further course of action.

He said the government has decided to go before the Supreme Court and the tribunal again for a review.

Claiming that Karnataka did not got justice in the judgment, he said the government would prepare a comprehensive report on all projects and was preparing to file an special leave petition.

The tribunal had in August ruled that Karnataka would get 13.5 TMC of water from the river, while the other two riparian states, Goa and Maharashtra, would be allowed 24 TMC and 1.33 TMC, respectively.

He was speaking to reporters on his way to Kankumbi in Belagavi district bordering Goa.

Shivakumar said he would hold discussions with the technical and legal teams after visiting the spot.

"We will also call an all-party meeting on the issue," he said.

Karnataka had demanded 36.558 TMC of water from the Mahadayi.

Meanwhile, he rejected the suggestion that there were any difference in the Congress-Janata Dal (S) coalition or within the Congress.

"It is your (media's) assumption, he replied to a question. All is well, all is good, and all is fine."



The Congress was recently hit by dissent, with some party leaders openly expressing discontent over issues concerning the party and the functioning of the coalition government.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Congress Legislative Party (CLP) meeting convened here to draw strategies for the coming elections to the Lok Sabha and legislative council in Karnataka witnessed party MLAs and MLCs venting their grievances against the state government.

Most of the MLAs complained that development works in their constituencies had come to a halt as no projects were getting approved, party insiders had told PTI Tuesday.

Yashwantpur MLA S T Somashekhar was peeved that some of the mining projects were rejected on technical grounds, whereas some Janata Dal(Secular) (JD-S) leaders got the same contract without any hassle, they said.

His statement was seconded by almost all the MLAs.

"An MLA said he did not get permission by the local police station to install Ganesha statue at public places during the Ganesha festival," the sources said.

The MLA said it was becoming difficult for him to continue as a member of the House and he would prefer resigning from the Assembly.

There were also heated exchange of words between Congress MLAs Bhima Naik and Anand Singh from Ballari over their dominance in the district and interference by each other in their respective Assembly constituencies.

Former Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah and deputy chief minister G Parameshwara assured the MLAs that they would coordinate with the government in a better way to iron out the differences.

Siddaramaiah also cautioned the MLAs against "Operation Kamal" of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to poach on the Congress MLAs. He even took to task some MLAs for leaking information to media.

Later talking to PTI, Parameshwara said the meeting was convened to discuss the legislative council election.

"The MLAs have the grouse that whatever promises they had made to their electorate before elections were not being fulfilled. Their grouse is valid. We will look into it," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan Wednesday met Home Minister Rajnath Singh and requested him to expedite the process of giving financial assistance to the state, which faced unprecedented rains leading to floods and massive damage, officials said.

Vijayan briefed Singh about the prevailing situation in Kerala and the steps taken by his government to bring back normalcy in the state.

The chief minister has requested the home minister to expedite the process of giving financial relief to Kerala for the recent floods, a home ministry official said.

Last week, an inter-ministerial team, headed by a special secretary of the Home Ministry, has visit Kerala for five days to assess the damage caused by the recent devastating floods.

The team visited Kerala after the state government had sent a detailed memorandum seeking Rs 4,700 crore as compensation for the damage occurred due to rains and floods, considered to be worst in a century.

At least 488 people have died in Kerala due to the rains and floods this monsoon, which hit 14 districts of the state.

The Kerala government memorandum comprises details about the loss of human lives, properties, infrastructure and crops, another official said.

In case of any natural calamity beyond the coping capacity of a state, the state government submits a detailed memorandum indicating sector-wise details of damage and requirement of funds for relief operations of immediate nature.

Accordingly, the Kerala government sent the memorandum.

As per the existing guidelines, the Inter-Ministerial Central Team (IMCT) visits the state for on-the-spot assessment of damage and additional requirement of funds.

The IMCT report is considered by the Sub-Committee of National Executive Committee (SC-NEC) headed by the Union home secretary in conformity with the norms and then by a high-level committee, chaired by the home minister for approving the quantum of additional assistance from the National Disaster Relief Fund.

On August 21, the central government had released Rs 600 crore to flood-hit Kerala as promised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi (Rs 500 crore) and Home Minister Rajnath Singh (Rs 100 crore) during their visits to the state.

This was in addition to Rs 562.45 crore already made available in State Disaster Relief Fund of the state.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Two priests and a functionary of a prominent Syrian Church in Kerala have formally joined BJP, giving a boost to the saffron party's bid to reach out to minorities in the state ahead of the Lok Sabha polls in 2019.

Fr Geevarghese Thomas Kizhakkedam, a 43-year-old vicar of a Jacobite Syrian Church near Pala, joined BJP on Saturday along with deacon Andrews Mangalath and another priest Fr Thomas Kulathumkal.

Deacon is a post just below the rank of a priest in the religious order.

Fr Kizhakkedam said more people from the minority community are ready to join the party, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Amit Shah.

They were welcomed to the party fold by its Kerala state president P S Sreedharan Pillai and district unit chief N Hari at a function here on Saturday.

Talking to PTI, Kizhakkedam said he has been a follower of BJP since 1997, two years after joining an institute near Anand in Gujarat for pursuing a BCA course.

He said the BJP is not a communal outfit, as being alleged by "so called secular parties" like Congress and BJP.

"I am convinced that BJP is the party that represents all sections of society. The party-led governments are pro-poor and take care of the needs of each and every section of the society," he said.

Recalling his personal experience when Narendra Modi took over as Gujarat Chief Minister in 2001, he said he had applied for a ration card and the officer concerned sought a bribe. It was soon after Modi became Chief Minister.

"I wrote to him complaining about the official. I got a reply from the Chief Minister's office in seven days, informing me that my ration card is ready. Can we think about such a prompt action in Kerala? Such was the quality of his governance," the Kizhakkedam said.

The priest claimed that more Christian priests had contacted him, expressing interest in associating with the BJP.

Asked whether he was willing to accept any post in the party, Kizhakkedam said he joined BJP without aspirations for any post and added that he was ready to accept whatever responsibilities were given to him to serve the party.

"But that should not become a hindrance to my responsibilities as a parish priest," he said.

BJP district president Hari alleged that minorities in Kerala, including Christians and Muslims, constituting nearly 50 per cent of the state's population, were being misled by the state's prominent political forces, including Congress and the Left.

"Now they have realised the truth. They understand that the anti-BJP propaganda unleashed by these parties in the state is fake. We are certain that more people will come forward to join BJP. The response we get from these sections of society is overwhelming," Hari said.

(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 accepted the proposal of his Gujarat counterpart Vijay Rupani to set up the 'State Bhavan' at Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat Complex near the Statue of Unity.

In a letter to Khattar, the Gujarat chief minister said 'State Bhavan' would facilitate tourists coming from Haryana in their visit to the Statue of Unity.

Rupani also thanked the people of Haryana for their contribution in making of the iconic statue.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the Statue of Unity on October 31, the birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.

Rupani said the State Bhavan would be set up on 1,500 square metres of land to be allotted by Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Rashtriya Ekta Trust (SVPRET) at a token rate of Rs 51 lakh, according to a Haryana government release here on Wednesday.

This amount would be ploughed back in to develop common infrastructure and to maintain Ek Bharat Shresht Bharat Complex, said the release quoting the communication from Rupani to Khattar.

The State Bhawan would be independently operated by the Haryana government.

Rupani mentioned in the letter that the Gujarat government is building the iconic Statue of Unity "to rededicate ourselves to the ideals of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel in building a modern, strong, prosperous and resilient India".

"To make this monument a truly national monument with collective ownership, it has been decided to set up an area near the Statue of Unity as Ek Bharat Shresht Bharat Complex, which would house various State Bhavans."



The 182-meter tall statue, in Kevadiya near Sardar Sarovar Dam in the tribal-dominated Narmada district, has been built using 25,000 tonnes of iron and 90,000 tonnes of cement.

(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 urged Railway Minister Piyush Goyal to sanction a stoppage point close to the 'Shri Mata Mansa Devi temple' near Panchkula saying it would greatly cater to the needs of lakhs of devotees.

Khattar assured all assistance including free land for the purpose.

In a written communication to the Union minister, he said the historic temple was being administered by the state government through a board that is headed by the chief minister.

Khattar said a railway line passed through the temple complex just behind the Gaushala area.

"The railway line being hardly 100 yards away, there has been a long pending demand for the construction of a small railway halt station at the Shri Mata Mansa Devi Mandir. The halt station would greatly cater to the need of lakhs of devotees from all over India," he added.

He said besides the devotees from nearby Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh and Delhi, those from far flung area like Mumbai, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan also visit the historical temple.

Khattar said that while the Chandigarh railway station was about 6.5 km away from the temple, the halt station at Chandi Mandir was 7.5 km and Kalka railway station 22 km away.

Khattar, in an official release here Wednesday, said during the 'Navratras', seven to nine lakh people visit the temple. Even on other days a large number of devotees pay obeisance to the deity, Khattar mentioned.

In a separate communication to Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Khattar asked him to consider reduction in the custom duty on mutilated rags used as industrial raw material in the interest of shoddy yarn manufacturers of the state.

Khattar said the custom duty was increased from five per cent to 20 per cent which had adversely impacted the shoddy yarn manufacturers.

He said that the consequent steep rise in the production cost had seriously threatened their economic viability.

While drawing the attention of the Union finance minister, the chief minister said there were over 200 units of shoddy yarn spinning and end spinning in Panipat, which consumed mutilated rags as an industrial raw material.

"They manufacture home furnishing products not only for exports but also for cheap quality blankets, durries, shawls, used mainly by the poor of our nation," added the chief minister.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Fresh meat and seafood brand Licious Wednesday announced that it has raised USD 25 million in a Series C funding round, led by Bertelsmann India Investments, Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia and India along with UCLA.

Existing investors like Mayfield India, 3one4 Capital, Sistema Asia Fund and InnoVen Capital also participated in the funding round, a company release said.

The funds will be used to expand to new cities, fostering the value-added product category, and strengthening the supply chain.

"We are extremely bullish about our plans going ahead. These funds will greatly aid us in deepening and widening our market presence and enable us to offer new products and services to our customers," Abhay Hanjura and Vivek Gupta, co-founders, Licious, were quoted as saying in the release.

The announcement comes on the heels of Licious announcing its plans to enter the Mumbai and Pune market by end of 2018, adding to its market presence across Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru and Hyderabad.

The firm, founded in 2015, had raised USD 10 million in Series B funding round in March last year. Before that, it had also raised seed funding, followed by Series A funding of over USD 3 million.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)It was billed as his founding speech for Europe. But 12 months after newly-elected Emmanuel Macron laid out his vision for a deeper, stronger EU, the French president is fighting a lonely battle, analysts say.

Over 100 minutes at the Sorbonne University in Paris, with the stars of the EU flag behind him, Macron made an impassioned plea last September for members of the bloc to go further in linking their economies, governments and armies.

"When you read his speech it was clear that he wanted to lead the EU in tandem with Germany," Judy Dempsey, an expert at the Carnegie Europe think-tank, told AFP.

"He was saying to Chancellor Merkel: 'let's deliver together'. And it just hasn't happened."



Macron had always been clear that he was banking on the "Franco-German motor," dreaming of a partnership with Angela Merkel in Berlin along the lines of his predecessors.

But many analysts believe the strategy has failed to deliver.

The naturally cautious chancellor emerged weakened from elections just two days before Macron's speech and she has since been consumed by domestic problems, particularly a toxic debate on immigration.

"This speech collided with a Germany that was not at all in a position politically to respond, but it could only work with German support," Sebastien Maillard, director of the Jacques Delors Institute think-tank, told AFP.

"It's the unfortunate thing for Macron, of not being able to find a real partner in Europe to support his vision," he said.

Instead, the momentum across the bloc has shifted further against the 40-year-old centrist.

Since the Sorbonne speech, both Italy and Austria have shifted rightwards, electing coalition governments that include eurosceptic far-right figures.

France's relations with Italy, a normally reliable ally, are increasingly hostile, while Macron has also clashed with the hard-right leaders of Hungary and Poland.

"The context is difficult," Macron conceded on the sidelines of an EU summit in Salzburg last week where he faced questions about his own domestic problems that have seen his ratings fall to historic lows.

But even if he seems to be swimming against the current, Macron will not give up the fight.

"His statements on Europe are not a celebration of Europe as it is," an aide said Tuesday.

"He shares the same diagnosis (as eurosceptics) that Europe is dysfunctional, but faced with that, we have two choices: one consists of killing the system, the other reforming it profoundly."



The French presidency also points to concrete advances since the Sorbonne speech.

Rules on the movement of EU company employees around the bloc, which France saw as being abused by businesses in low-cost eastern Europe, have been reformed under French impetus.

Macron's push for greater military collaboration also fell on fertile ground as many members fret about America's commitment to defending the continent.

Merkel too finally agreed to the principle of a eurozone budget in in June -- albeit one that is limited and smaller in size than that proposed by Macron.

Other ideas, such as a fund to finance innovation in Europe or a pan-European civil defence force to respond to disasters around the EU, are also taking shape.

"Sometimes there are less visible propositions, but still important ones, where there are advances," the aide said.

Overall, out of 49 proposals contained in the Sorbonne speech, Macron considers 22 are "finalised... or in the process of being finalised", while another 18 are being discussed.

Cynics would say that some of the "results" were already under discussion before his election, or are baby-steps towards Macron's much more ambitious agenda.

Under his original timetable, he had hoped to secure other major victories, such as a reform to European tax rules that would close unpopular loopholes used by multi-nationals, or a new agreement to bolster EU border controls.

These advances would be part of his pitch to voters ahead of European parliament elections next year, which will be his first domestic electoral challenge.

"The window of opportunity is closing more and more," Ronja Kempin, an analyst at the Science and Foundation think-tank in Berlin told AFP.

Maillard says the Sorbonne speech might end up being remembered like a fireworks display.

"As a diplomat said: 'it was very beautiful, but after, there's only smoke'.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Around 20,000 teachers of degree colleges across Maharashtra began an indefinite strike from Tuesday for various demands.

The Maharashtra Federation of University and College Teachers' Organisation (MFUCTO) held a meeting with School and Higher Education Minister Vinod Tawde.

"The meeting was fruitful and we have agreed to share details of assurances with the members of the MFUCTO. We are hopeful that they will take the right decision," Tawde said in a statement issued this evening.

The decision on continuation of the strike is likely Wednesday, as the state government has assured the union of sharing minutes of the meeting.

However, MFUCTO president Dr.Tapati Mukhopadhyay remained non-committal when asked about the outcome of the meeting with Tawde.

"Once we get the minutes of today's meeting, we will hold a detailed discussion with our members across the state, and then decide the future course of action," she said.

Mukhopadhyay said the minister assured them of pay as per the Seventh Pay Commission along with the employees of the state government.

"However, we are not directly employed by the state government. The minister also said that the final decision regarding the same will be taken after holding talks with state finance ministry," Mukhopadhyay said.

She said the MFUCTO raised issues of filing up vacant posts. The strike will continue across the state until this demand is met, she added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Maharashtra Electoral Office is being cautious in selecting film personalities as brand ambassadors for polls after a recent experience of two such faces joined a political party, an official said Wednesday.

The electoral office does not want any actor with political affiliation to be chosen as a brand ambassador.

While many Marathi film stars are associated either with Shiv Sena or the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS), Bollywood actors too are known for their political affiliations.

A recent case in point is that of Marathi actors Aakash Thosar and Rinku Rajguru, famously known as "Parsha" and "Archie" after the characters they had played in blockbuster Marathi movie "Sairat".

Recently, Thosar and Rajguru, along with Sairat director Nagraj Manjule, joined the MNS which is headed by Raj Thackeray.

They were last year roped in as the brand ambassadors to commemorate the National voters Day on January 25 to attract youngsters to register themselves as voters.

"Most of the well-known Marathi stars are associated either with the Shiv Sena or the MNS. Even top Hindi superstars are seen close to certain political parties. The Election Commission has to maintain its neutrality and hence we have to chose well known faces carefully," said the official from the office of the Maharashtra Chief Electoral Officer.

He said Thosar and Rajguru are the perfect choice to attract future voters.

"Rajguru herself is a future voter, as she is not yet completed 18 years (the minimum age to register oneself as a voter in the country)," he said.

The official said the Electoral Office is looking forward to rope in sportspersons to attract youngsters to enroll themselves as voters for the ongoing special summary revision of the electoral rolls.

"Earlier, we worked with actor Mrinal Kulkarni, scientist Anil Kakodkar, social worker Prakash Amte, eye specialist T P Lahane," he said.

The special summary revision began on September 1 this year and will continue till October 31. The rolls will be published in January 2019.

While the Lok Sabha polls are due in May 2019 the assembly elections in Maharashtra are slated for October next year.

Maharashtra has added more than 13.6 lakh voters since the 2014 assembly elections, taking the total to nearly 8.49 crore.

The rise in voter count was reflected in the latest revision of electoral rolls in Maharashtra, the second most populous state in the country.

Post the revision which was done in February this year, the total voter count stood at 8,48,96,357 in Maharashtra.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The government's major initiatives in the Railways, including a dedicated freight corridor, in addition to the emphasis on infrastructure development and passenger services, would herald considerable progress in the coming years, union minister Rajen Gohain said Wednesday.

"The work on the dedicated freight corridor is going on at great speed", he said.

The Minister of state for Railways was speaking after initiating a host of rail development works in Telangana from the Secunderabad railway station here.

"In Indian Railways, all over the country, this kind of developmental change is going on continuously," he said.

Saying that the Railways would witness a positive change in the coming years in view of the development initiatives taken by the government, he hoped that the Railways would be the preferred mode of transportation for people.

On the occasion, the Minister flagged off the inaugural service of Karimnagar-LTT (Mumbai) Weekly Express (extended from Nizamabad to Karimnagar) via remote link.

He also laid the foundation stone for the 202 km long third railway Line in the Kazipet-Kondapalli Section, which connects Vijayawada in a similar manner



The estimated cost of the project is over Rs 1,600 crore.

Gohain also inaugurated the Third Railway Line in Manchiryal-Peddampet Section via remote link.

The other works include laying foundation stone for facilities, including new Foot Over Bridges, extension of Foot Over Bridges, lifts and escalators at different railway stations in the state.

In Telangana, Gohain said special emphasis has been laid on completing long pending projects to strengthen the infrastructure.

He said Rs 1,813 crore has been allocated for rail development in Telangana in the 2018-19 budget, which is eight times higher than the allocations in 2014-15.

The Minister assured that the ongoing MMTS (Multi Modal Transport System) PhaseII project would get due attention.

BJP MP and former Union Minister Bandaru Dattatreya requested that work on the MMTS Phase 2 be expedited.

He also said the state government should make its contribution for the project.

South Central Railway General Manager V K Yadav said the railway zone would not have any unmanned level crossing gates in October.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The luxury-loving wife of Malaysia's former prime minister faced fresh questioning Wednesday by anti-corruption investigators probing a multi-billion-dollar scandal that contributed to the old regime losing power.

Rosmah Mansor, widely reviled in Malaysia for her expensive tastes and imperious manner, arrived at the offices of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) to be grilled.

Local media reported this week that anti-corruption officials were wrapping up their probe into Rosmah, and she could be charged soon.

It was the second time she has been quizzed by the graft-fighting body since her husband Najib Razak's coalition was unexpectedly booted out of office at elections in May after six decades in power.

A major factor in the loss were allegations that Najib, his family and his cronies looted billion of dollars from state fund 1MDB in an audacious fraud that stretched from Singapore to Switzerland.

Rosmah's love of costly overseas shopping trips, designer handbags and jewellery made her a lightning rod for public anger, and fuelled suspicions that she benefitted from the plundering of 1MDB.

After the election loss, a stash of cash, jewellery and hundreds of designer handbags worth as much as $273 million was seized from properties linked to Najib in raids around Kuala Lumpur.

Rosmah is often compared to Imelda Marcos, who left behind more than a thousand pairs of shoes after her husband, Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos, was ousted in 1986.

Najib's fall from grace has been swift since he was ousted from power by a reformist alliance led Mahathir Mohamad, 93, who is in his second stint as premier.

The ex-leader has been arrested and hit with 32 charges linked to the 1MDB scandal, including allegations that hundreds of millions of dollars ended up in his personal bank account. He denies any wrongdoing.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A man was injured when five people allegedly attacked him after he opposed their molestation attempt on his sister at Ghari Abdulla village in Shamli district, police said Wednesday.

The victim woman complained that the five persons -- Inam, Mudasir, Asad, Danish and one unidentified person -Tuesday evening entered her house and molest with her, Station House Officer of Ghari Pukhta police station Kapil Gautam said.

When her brother protested, the accused, who are residents of the same village, attacked him with sharp-edged weapons and ran away after severely injuring him, he said.

The man was rushed to a hospital from where he was referred to a Delhi hospital, the SHO said.

A case has been registered against the five accused, who are absconding, the police officer said, adding a manhunt has been launched to nab them.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh appealed to several student organisations to withdraw their call for a 48-hour state-wide bandh beginning from Wednesday midnight, demanding release of the arrested teachers and students of the Manipur University.

The chief minister said any issue can be resolved through dialogue and his government is ready to hold talks with the students anywhere and anytime.

The bandh call was given after 89 students and six teachers of the Manipur University were arrested on September 21 following an agitation on the institute's campus the day before.

A team of officers raided the university hostel and the residential quarters at around 1 am and took the students and the teachers into custody based on a complaint filed by newly appointed Acting Vice Chancellor K Yugindro Singh.

On Monday also, the chief minister had appealed to the students, teachers and employees of the university to work together to bring a solution rather than prolonging the impasse.

Since the university falls under the jurisdiction of the Union HRD Ministry, the state authorities cannot directly intervene but is committed to restore normalcy and peaceful academic atmosphere, he had said.

The chief minister told reporters at the secretariat that it should kept in mind by all that incumbent Vice-Chancellor K Yugindro Singh was appointed as per the orders of MHRD.

He said it's high time that the people introspect the reason for bandh and it's negative impact, adding that all government officials would attend their offices.

Chief Secretary J Suresh Babu also issued an order asking government officials across the state to attend their duties failing which disciplinary action would be taken up against them.

K Yugindro Singh, in his complaint, had said he was "gheraoed" by the agitators for trying to assume charges at the central university, where a prolonged battle between former vice chancellor A P Panday and the students and teachers have hampered academic activities for over four months.

President Ram Nath Kovind, in his capacity as Visitor of the Manipur University, recently placed Panday under suspension as an inquiry into the allegations of irregularities against him was underway.

K Yugindro Singh was appointed as the Acting V-C by the Ministry of Human Resources Department, soon after the suspension of Panday.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Kailash-Mansarovar Yatra through the Lipulekh pass came to a delayed conclusion this year with the last lot of pilgrims leaving for New Delhi, Kumaon Mandal Vikas Nigam (KMVN) said Wednesday.

Forty-nine pilgrims from the 17th and 18th batches, stuck in Gunji due to bad weather since Saturday on their way back, left Pithoragarh Wednesday evening bringing the pilgrimage to a close, it said.

Had the two batches arrived at the Pithoragarh airbase on Saturday itself when they reached Gunji basecamp, the pilgrimage would have concluded Sunday, KMVN General Manager TS Martolia said.

The pilgrimage which began on June 12 and was to conclude on September 8 came to an end 17 days behind schedule, he said.

It was primarily because of bad weather frequently delaying chopper sorties, which were the only means to ferry pilgrims to Gunji and back, this year as the trek route was damaged due to heavy rain, Martolia said.

It was for the first time in the history of the pilgrimage through the pass that the pilgrims were taken by air force helicopters from Pithoragarh to Gunji and vice versa, he said.

The pilgrimage this year was the most challenging for the Nigam, especially for its staff on duty at high altitude camps of Gunji, Nabhi and Kalpani, as the weather conditions were usually bad resulting in delayed sorties by IAF choppers, he said.

Over eleven pilgrims opted to leave the pilgrimage unfinished after choppers could not take off for days, he said.

However, despite the weather, 906 pilgrims from across the country visited Kailash-Mansarovar through Lipulekh pass this year, he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Many rights' activists welcomed the Supreme Court's judgement on the Aadhaar scheme Wednesday saying it is a "historic verdict" that will provide major relief to the common man while some termed it "disappointing".

"The apex court in its verdict struck down a few portions and read down others in the Aadhaar Act. It did not call it it unconstitutional, but said it is needed for getting subsidies in government schemes," Supreme Court advocate Prashan Bhushan said.

Earlier in the day, the court declared the Centre's flagship Aadhaar scheme as constitutionally valid but struck down some of its provisions including its linking with bank accounts, mobile phones and school admissions.

A five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra held that while Aadhaar would remain mandatory for filing of IT returns and allotment of Permanent Account Number (PAN), it would not be mandatory to link Aadhaar to bank accounts and telecom service providers cannot seek its linking for mobile connections.

"I think it is a historic judgement, and will provide a major relief to the common man. Private companies earlier would demand Aadhaar for offering services, or opening bank accounts, admission in schools and buying a mobile SIM card was denied to people for lack of it. So, it would spell out major relief for citizens," Bhushan said.

The verdict said it would not be mandatory for school admissions, as also for the examinations conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Examination, National Eligibility cum Entrance Test for medical entrance and the University Grants Commission.

The bench also struck down the national security exception under the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act.

Rahul Rai, Director of Delhi-based NGO, Indian Institute of Human Rights, said it was a "balanced judgement".

"The controversy over the Aadhaar has been going for a long time, and it had to be laid to rest some day. So, I am glad it has been in the apex court verdict. Also, it is heartening to learn that in the judgement, it has been spelt out that private companies cannot insist on having an Aadhaar, be it banking or telecom services," he said.

But not everyone was happy about the judgement.

Amnesty India in a tweet said "making an Aadhaar card a prerequisite to access essential services and benefits can obstruct access to several constitutional rights, including the rights of people to food, health care, education and social security."



Right to food activist Dipa Sinha said, "We have been fighting for the right to food for people and, we were expecting that these welfare schemes would be delinked from Aaadhar too."



"So, in that way the judgment is quite disappointing. We wish the minority bench judgement was the main verdict," she said.

Justices D Y Chandrachud and Ashok Bhushan, who were also part of the bench, wrote their individual opinions.

Justice Chandrachud said the Aadhaar Act could not have been passed as Money Bill as it amounted to a fraud on the Constitution.

Bypassing the Rajya Sabha to pass the Act amounted to subterfuge and is liable to be struck down as violative of Article 110 of the Constitution, he held.

Noting that mobile has become an important feature of life and its seeding with Aadhaar posed a grave threat to privacy, liberty, autonomy, he favoured deletion of consumers' Aadhaar data by the mobile service providers.

Lawyer-activist Ashok Agarwal also described it as a very good judgement, especially from the perspective of admission in schools.

"Admission in schools cannot be linked to Aadhaar, so that way it is a very good judgement. Now, private companies cannot ask for Aadhaar for banking or telecom facilities, so it is welcoming that way too," he said.

"On the data already stored with private companies, the government would have to come up with some policy," Agarwal said.

Activist Ranjana Kumari claimed after this judgement, people will be "less suspicious" about getting their privacy violated.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Women employment in the country has been affected adversely due to the increase in maternity leaves under the new law but steps can be taken to correct that, Labour Minister Santosh Gangwar said Wednesday.

When asked if the increase in maternity leaves to 26 weeks from 12 weeks earlier had impacted women employment negatively, the minister replied that it has but there was a remedy for that.

"We think that women employment is not increasing due to this reason (Maternity Benefit Act)," the minister told reporters on the sidelines of a FICCI function to give after safety systems awards.

Earlier, a report had outlined that the most progressive reforms may make it hard for up to 18 lakh women to find jobs this financial year.

The minister, however, noted that there are provisions in the Act like now women can work from home during the leave period and other measures that can help address the issue.

"There is a remedy," Gangwar stressed.

Only 27 per cent of the total workforce in India is women and 14 per cent of the overall women workforce is employed in the formal sector, the bill will significantly hamper the entry of new women into the workforce, the report by staffing solutions provider TeamLease had noted.

The government in March 2018 notified the Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act, 2017, that made changes in some of the provisions of an over-55-year-old law entitling certain benefits to women employees.

The Act enhances paid maternity leave to 26 weeks from 12 weeks. The new law makes it mandatory for every establishment with 50 or more employees to have the facility of creche within a prescribed distance. The employer is also bound to allow four visits a day to the creche by a woman employee.

The measure took India to the third position in terms of the number of weeks for maternity leave after Canada and Norway where it is 50 weeks and 44 weeks, respectively.

About the employment generation in the country, the minister said that in the last two years, one crore workers were added to social security schemes run by Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) and Employees' State Insurance Corporation (ESIC).

On creating enabling environment for employment generation by the government he said, "Under the Pradhan Mantri Rojgar Protsahan Yojana(PMRPY), over 87,000 establishments' 72 lakh employees are benefited during the last two years. The government spent Rs 1,744 crore under this scheme so far."



Under the PMRPY, the government pays entire 12 per cent of basic wage as employer contribution towards social security schemes run by the EPFO for new employees for a period of three years.

He also said that over three crore workers have been provided free of cost insurance under Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana and Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana in last two years. The scheme is expected to benefit over 50 crore population of the country."



The minister also spoke about the recently launched scheme of Employees State Insurance Corporation where cash relief is directly transferred into bank accounts of insured persons.

The minister informed that this scheme will cover 3.2 crore insured persons of ESIC and benefit around 20 lakh persons every year on which an expenditure of Rs 1600 crore would be incurred.

The cash benefit is 25 per cent of average wages for 90 days of the insured person under the scheme.

The minister said that the government is doing all those efforts which can improve working and living conditions of the workers in the country.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The #MeToo movement brought out the ugly side of Hollywood and led to the downfall of several powerful men, but Tanushree Dutta says such a thing should happen in Bollywood so that she can get justice for an incident that she claimed happened in 2008.

In a recent TV interview, Dutta reiterated her claim that a veteran actor had misbehaved with her on the sets of a film.

During the interview, she also alleged that the actor had the tacit support of the film's makers.

"They called me a slut, an unprofessional.. when I spoke about it eight to ten years back. Nobody has right to say anything to me," Dutta told PTI.

Recounting the incident and its aftermath, she claimed, "When I tried to escape they called the media, they called some people to mob lynch and attack my car. My parents were there inside and even I was inside, it was horrific. So from harassment situation to a mob lynching situation..."



"They made sure that we did not escape from the studio, they locked the gates and then the cops came and they got us out... So when we filed the police report, they filed a counter complaint and because of the counter FIR, my dad, hair dresser and spot boy had to go through so much harassment over the next couple of years."



Dutta said there is social stigma and character assassination that a person goes through when she talks or tries to talk about such incidents.

The actor said she wants to spread a message through her story so that other women get encouraged to share their stories.

"This is not for me. I live In America, I am busy with life. My approach is like an American in a way, so I am okay with talking about it. This is for the benefit of others... Here is a person who spoke ten years ago, taking names and shames, doing it now also. This is like providing strength. Like to see justice done, for example for rest of the country, like stop working with these actors.

"I am not doing it for hidden agenda. These things are happening so it is like encouraging others. This I hope encourages people," Dutta said.

She lamented that the impact that #MeToo had in Hollywood was not felt in Bollywood as actors have packaged themselves as "saints" here.

"These film actors in our country know the technology of how to package and present themselves so they come across as saintly and people don't know what is happening behind their back. People keep mum because of this ideology that this person had a name so how do we speak against this person," she said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Missionaries of Jesus congregation of Jalandhar met Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan here on Wednesday and complained against the police team probing the case of alleged rape of a nun by a Roman Catholic bishop.

Fifteen nuns from the Jalandhar congregation came in support of the accused Bishop Franco Mulakkal, a senior member of the country's Roman Catholic clergy, and alleged that the police investigation into the case was "biased".

Bishop Mulakkal was arrested on September 21 amid mounting public outrage over allegations of repeatedly raping and sexually assaulting the nun.

"The bishop has been arrested without any evidence. He is a victim of a witch hunt to tarnish the image of the Missionaries of Jesus," the nuns alleged.

They said the probe team was threatening those who came out in support of the bishop and harassed them.

The nuns also alleged that the investigating team was intruding into the convents without notice.

A magisterial court in Kerala had on September 24 remanded the Kerala priest to 12-day judicial custody.

In its remand report submitted in the court, police had said the victim nun was subjected to rape and unnatural sex 13 times by the accused at the guest house of St Francis Mission Home in Kerala between 2014 and 2016.

In her complaint to the Kottayam police in June, the nun had alleged that the priest raped her at a guest house in Kuravilangad in May 2014 and later sexually exploited her on several occasions. She said she approached the police as the church authorities did not act on her repeated complaints against the clergyman.

The bishop, however, has denied the charges.

Expanding its probe in the case, the Kerala Police had on September 25 issued a notice to the PRO of the Missionaries of Jesus congregation and asked her to appear before it over a complaint about releasing the photograph of the victim.

The congregation had released a photo of the nun seated with her alleged tormentor in violation of the Supreme Court guidelines, which prohibit revealing the identity of a victim of sexual assault.

The congregation had put out the photograph in a release issued to the media for publishing the findings of its internal enquiry commission, which went into the nun's allegations.

The congregation, however, said that it had cautioned against publishing the photograph, maintaining that it could not be held responsible if the press violated the rule.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Mizoram remained cut off by road from the rest of the country Wednesday with the opposition Mizo National Front(MNF) staging a 12-hour blockade on the vital NH-54 in Kolasib district, police said.

The Kolasib district unit of the MNF organised the road block in protest against the bad road condition of the national highway, the lifeline of the state.

Vehicles were not plying on NH 54, linking the landlocked state with the rest of the country, after the blockade began at 5am.

No untoward incident was reported from anywhere in the district, the police said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Mizoram government Wednesday informed the Gauhati High Court that money would not be disbursed to the selected beneficiaries under its flagship NLUP-NEDP Convergence scheme before the court gives its final order.

Mizoram government advocate B Deb told this to the bench of Justice S Serto.

The next hearing is on Thursday.

The Congress government in the state, through the ruling party legislators, had selected over 16,000 beneficiaries of New Land Use Policy-New Economic Development Policy Convergence scheme for payment of Rs one lakh to each family.

They wanted to do this before the announcement of dates of the state assembly polls due in December.

Social activist Vanramchhuangi, popularly known as Ruatfela Nu, filed a public interest litigation (PIL) in the Gauhati High Court's Aizawl bench alleging that the state government was using public money for political gains.

The high court had earlier instructed the state government not to go ahead with distributing money without transparent guidelines.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A 34-year-old woman and her two minor daughters were killed when they were hit by a car while trying to flee from an elephant that chased them in Sri Lanka, according to a media report.

The tragedy took place on Monday when the car crashed into them along the Pottuvil-Akkaraipattu road, police was quoted as saying by the Ceylon Daily

The victims came in a three wheeler to Pottuvil and as the vehicle ran out of petrol, three of them were standing by the roadside when they were chased by an elephant. While they were running to escape from the elephant, they were hit by the car, the report said.

The two daughters killed in the accident are six and 12. Another 11-year-old boy was injured in the accident, police said, adding that the driver of the car was arrested.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)State-owned NBCC has received "in principle" nod from Air India to monetise the debt-laden airline's two prime properties in the national capital, according to a regulatory filing.

The national carrier, which is facing financial headwinds, has been looking to monetise its non-core assets.

In a filing to the stock exchanges Wednesday, NBCC said it has received "in principle approval from Air India to monetise/ re-development of Air India Land parcel at Baba Kharag Singh Marg, Connaught Place and Vasant Vihar in the national capital".

The property at Vasant Vihar is spread across 30 acres and it houses Air India's staff colony while the property at Baba Kharag Singh Marg is spread across 3.54 acres.

The debt burden of the airline is estimated to be more than Rs 50,000 crore.

After the proposed strategic disinvestment of Air India did not find any takers in May, the government has been looking at ways, including sale of non-core assets, to bolster the carrier's fortunes.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The National Conference expelled eight workers on Wednesday for "wilfully" violating the party's decision to not participate in the upcoming panchayat and urban local body polls in Jammu and Kashmir.

"Eight workers of various wings were expelled in the Jammu region for anti-party activities," NC spokesperson Madan Mantoo said.

Those expelled include Ayub Malik, Ashwani Charak, Kuldeep Gai, Ashok Singh Manhas, S Sucha Singh, Subash Bhagat, Rekha Manhas and Manohar Lal Bhagat, Mantoo said. "They have wilfully violated the decision with regard to party's non-participation in the ongoing elections to civic bodies."



Meanwhile, NC provincial president Devender Singh Rana defended the party's decision to stay away from the polls, saying it was in the larger interest of the people as "overt and covert" attempts were being made to fiddle with Article 35A of the Constitution, which relates to the dignity and rights of the people of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh regions.

Taking a dig at the Congress for taking part in the elections, Rana accused the party of working against the interests of the people of the state. "History is replete with instances when it (Congress) trampled upon democracy and undermined the democratic institutions in the state."



"Congress, too, understands the imminent threat to this constitutional provision (Article 35A), but it has preferred to just pay lip service. Political opportunism has prevailed over the larger public interest," Rana told the media here.

Rana described the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party as two sides of the same coin, as far as "trampling democratic and constitutional rights" of the people of the state.

"BJP is a new entry in Jammu and Kashmir to subvert and fiddle with the special and distinct identity and status of the state, But, the Congress has mastered in anti-people machinations for the past seven decades," he alleged.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The National Commission for Women Wednesday asked the Delhi Police to identify unsafe or vulnerable areas in the city and give better protection to women by increasing patrolling and installing more CCTVs at such spots.

An NCW delegation Wednesday met with officials of the Delhi Police to plan ways to strengthen coordination between the commission and the police to collectively ensure safety for women in the capital, NCW Chairperson Rekha Sharma said.

"It was also decided that the NCW would hold sensitisation workshops for the Delhi Police to improve their understanding of dealing with women in distress," she added.

"There was also emphasis by the NCW to identify unsafe or vulnerable areas/spots and give better protection to women in these areas by increasing patrolling and installing more CCTVs," Sharma said.

The complaints and investigation cell of the NCW highlighted the areas that require better coordination between them, she said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Netflix has purchased the rights to "Rajma Chawal", headlined by veteran actor Rishi Kapoor, and the film will be available exclusively on the digital platform worldwide on November 30.

The announcement came before the movie, directed by Leena Yadav, premieres at the BFI London Film Festival in October, the streaming giant said in a press release.

Yadav, best known for 2015's critically-acclaimed "Parched", said she is looking forward to her association with Netflix.

Set in the interiors of New Delhi's Chandni Chowk, "Rajma Chawal" is a light-hearted story about family in the age of social media.

Kapoor plays the role of Raj Mathur, the father, whereas debutante Anirudh Tanwar plays the son, Kabir Mathur.

"The father-son dynamic is a universal human theme, and Netflix, with its global reach and ability to address a range of audiences with rich and resonant stories, was the ideal partner for us.

"Being on Netflix invites the whole world into the lives of a family in Chandni Chowk, and we are excited to bring the tumult, colour and vitality of both the family and the area to newer audiences," the filmmaker said.

Swati Shetty, Director, International Originals and Acquisitions, Netflix, said, "'Rajma Chawal' takes the viewer along the highs and lows of of family dynamics... Technology and social media are changing human relationships globally, and we're honoured that the stellar team behind this film chose to partner with Netflix on showing their take on this subject to the world."



The film also features Amyra Dastur and Aparshakti Khurana.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Imran Khan decided to abolish NSA

Prime Minister Imran Khan has decided in principle to abolish the office of the National Security Adviser and has announced that powers conferred upon the office will be gradually transferred back to the Foreign Ministry.



Before Lt.Gen (r) Naseer Janjua was appointed as the NSA two years ago by former PM Nawaz Sharif, the National Security Division was located at the Foreign Office. The division moved to the PMs Office during Janjuas stint as the NSA.



Sources privy to consultations leading up to the decision say that Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi was among those who expressed concerns about conflicting natures of tasks assigned to the NSA and the Foreign Ministry.



Already after the decision, key officers working on senior positions in the National Security Division have been transferred to other departments, and the division lies completely dormant.



NSD additional secretary Fazeel Asghar has been posted out to the Government of Punjab, while JS Darya Khan has been sent back to the Foreign Office. Syed Iftikhar Babar, the NSD secretary, and a few section officers have yet to be given new assignments.The Sri Lankan police on Wednesday refuted media reports that it had told a court that an Indian national arrested in the investigation on an alleged plot to assassinate President Maithripala Sirisena was aware of the conspiracy.

The Indian national, identified as Merceli Thomas by the Lankan media, was arrested on Tuesday from the residence of the Anti Corruption Movement operations director Namal Kumara, who exposed the assassination plot.

A section of media had earlier reported that the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) on Tuesday informed the Fort Magistrate Court here that Thomas had admitted of having information about the assassination plot.

"He (Thomas) has not said anything to the effect that he was aware of the alleged plot," police spokesman Ruwan Gunasekera said.

Gunasekera said Thomas was arrested on September 21 following suspicions raised by Kumara, who had exposed the alleged plot.

Kumara had revealed that former in-charge of the Terrorist Investigation Division Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Nalaka de Silva had discussed with him the alleged plot to kill Sirisena and the former Defence Ministry secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa.

Silva was questioned by the CID on Kumara's revelations. He has been transferred out of the terrorism bureau pending investigations.

"It must be clearly said that he (Thomas) had not mentioned anything on the alleged plot. He has told the police that he had visited the house of Namal Kumara having seen in press that Kumara had mentioned that certain people have come under threat," Gunasekera said.

He stressed that the CID did not said anything in the court yesterday about "the Indian national being aware of the plot".

Thomas who was taken into custody for his alleged links to Kumara, arrived in the country on a tourist visa, which he overstayed.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A new woman claimed on Wednesday to have witnessed sexually abusive behaviour by Brett Kavanaugh and said she was gang-raped at a party in the early 1980s attended by the Supreme Court nominee.

Julie Swetnick said in a statement released by her lawyer that the events took place at parties she attended while a high school student in suburban Maryland.

She said she saw Kavanaugh behave as a "mean drunk" at such parties and witnessed him "engage in highly inappropriate conduct" that included the "fondling and grabbing of girls without their consent."



"I observed Brett Kavanaugh drink excessively at many of these parties and engage in abusive and physically aggressive behaviour towards girls, including pressing girls against him without their consent, 'grinding' against girls, and attempting to remove or shift girls' clothing to expose private body parts," Swetnick said.

"I likewise observed him be verbally abusive towards girls by making crude sexual comments to them that were designed to demean, humiliate and embarrass them," she said.

Swetnick said Kavanaugh's claim of "innocence" and lack of sexual activity in high school was "absolutely false and a lie." Swetnick, who has worked extensively for the US federal government, also said she was drugged and gang-raped at a party in approximately 1982 at which Kavanaugh was present.

She did not claim that Kavanaugh took part or was aware of her rape but she claimed that he and other boys in his circle engaged in similar behavior.

She said she had witnessed efforts by Kavanaugh to "'target' particular girls so they could be taken advantage of." The bombshell new claims come after two women came forward to accuse the judge of assaulting them in the 1980s, in a scandal that has tripped up what was expected to be an easy confirmation process for the conservative judge.

At a crunch Senate hearing on Thursday, California university professor Christine Blasey Ford will detail allegations that Kavanaugh assaulted her at a high school party when they were both teenagers.

Kavanaugh also stands accused of exposing himself to a classmate, Deborah Ramirez, causing her to touch him without consent, during an alcohol-fueled Yale University party a few years later.

Kavanaugh was handpicked by Donald Trump for the lifelong post on the Supreme Court, and has continued to enjoy the US president's steadfast support despite the allegations against him.

Swetnick's statement was released by her lawyer, Michael Avenatti, the attorney for porn star Stormy Daniels, who has claimed to have had a sexual encounter with Donald Trump.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has expressed concern over attacks on police personnel in the state by anti-social elements and those involved in illegal sand mining and liquor trade.

The chief minister also stressed on the need for ensuring that contingents carrying out operations against such law breakers are adequately manned.

At a function organized here Tuesday to launch "dial 100" scheme of Bihar police, Kumar said the state had around 8.5 crore mobile phone users and the centralized help line would enable people in any part to get help from the law enforcing machinery with response guaranteed within 20 minutes in urban areas and 30-35 minutes in rural areas.

"We need to act tough with those involved in attacks on police personnel. The number of police personnel in the state was highly inadequate when we assumed power in 2005 and there was shortage of logistics as well.

"We have taken steps to remove many shortcomings. We need to continue making efforts to ensure rule of law", the chief minister said.

He also stressed on the need for regular monitoring of law and order by officials at various levels besides ensuring that "social balance" was taken care of in deployment of personnel at police stations so that "the people feel that they are having access to policing that is efficient and impartial".

Kumar said efforts were being made to ensure that all police stations had their own premises and were equipped with special facilities for women, including separate sitting rooms and wash rooms.

Others who spoke on the occasion included Chief Secretary Deepak Kumar, Principal Secretary (Home) Amir Subhani and Director General of Police K S Dwivedi.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The NDMC Wednesday said the building which collapsed in northwest Delhi's Ashok Vihar, causing the death of four children and two women, was not declared "dangerous" and had not received any complaint against it.

North Delhi mayor Adesh Gupta, who visited the site of the collapsed building at Sawan Park, ordered a detailed inquiry into the incident, a statement by the North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) said.

He said "strict action" will be taken against the guilty.

"The building was not declared dangerous by the North Delhi civic body. The building department of Keshavpuram zone of NDMC also did not receive any application for the purpose, in the period from September 1, 2017 till date, when the zone was formed," the statement said.

The civic body, however, admitted that the building was about 20-25 years old and its structure was "weak" and in a "deteriorated condition".

No new construction activity or construction material was found at the site, a senior NDMC official said.

The information about the collapse of the five-storeyed building was received around 9.05 am by the NDMC control room. The incident comes three weeks after the 20-year-old structure was inspected by a municipal team.

The building located in Sawan Park was constructed on an area of about 25 square yards.

On receiving the information about the incident, man and machinery were immediately dispatched for rescue operation and clearing the debris, the official said.

The rescue operation with the help of Delhi Fire service, National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and Delhi Police was initiated immediately. As per reports, 12 persons were rescued, he said.

NDMC mayor accompanied by elected representatives of the BJP-ruled civic body, Municipal Commissioner Madhup Vyas, Keshavpuram Deputy Commissioner Pushpender Singh and other officials took stock of the rescue operation.

Gupta also visited the Deep Chand Bandhu Hospital and met the injured and their family members.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)In a freak incident, a 25-year-old worker was killed after being sucked into a machine in a plastic factory here on Wednesday, police said.

The incident occurred at the factory located in the Noida Special Economic Zone (NSEZ), under Phase 2 police station limits, they said.

"Wajid reached for work this morning in the factory which makes plastic products. He was cleaning a big-size machine which has blades in it. While he was cleaning, someone switched on the machine and soon Wajid was sucked inside," a police official said.

"By the time some of his colleagues realised and switched off the machine, he was dead," the official added.

The police were alerted about the incident and they reached the spot, even as the family members of the victim reached the factory.

Wajid and his family originally hailed from Chhapra district in Bihar but were settled here for some time now, the police said.

The body was taken out of the machine and sent for post-mortem, the official said.

A case has been registered and two persons booked for murder on a complaint by Wajid's brother, the police said.

The entire episode was caught in CCTV footage and a probe was underway, the police said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Government of Odisha has allotted land to JSW Steel for its proposed mega steel plant in the state, a senior official said here Wednesday.

The government received a proposal from JSW Steel in 2016 to set up a greenfield steel plant in Odisha, Industries Department, Principal Secretary, Sanjeev Chopra said.

"There is one big proposal which we got in 2016 was of JSW Steel..the land is now made available by the State government (for the project) and they (JSW Steel) are now taking approvals from the Government of India for (environment) and forest clearance," he told reporters.

About the size of the land that has been allotted to JSW Steel, he said, "about 2,900 acres".

Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, industries minister Ananta Das, Chief Secretary, Aditya Prasad Padhi and senior government officials were here to participate in the roadshow "Odisha Investors' Meet" to invite the business community to invest in their state.

Referring to the GO-SWIFT portal, a single window online facility that allows investors to receive faster clearances from government departments, Chopra said, medium and small projects have commenced production after using the facility.

"Big projects have their own issues (to receive government clearances). But medium and smaller ones have actually started production (after receiving the clearances)," he said.

On the first edition of "Make in Odisha" conclave held in 2016, he said, 65 per cent of the proposals were in different stages of implementation and while some companies have conducted the "groundbreaking ceremony."



The first edition of "Make in Odisha" conclave saw an investment intent to the tune of Rs 2.03 lakh crore.

The second edition of Make in Odisha Conclave is scheduled to be held from November 11-15, in Bhubaneswar.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The agitating lawyers continued their dharna for the second day on Wednesday and did not allow government employees to enter their offices located in the periphery of the Orissa High Court here.

The lawyers, who were demanding arrest of the policemen who assaulted an advocate last month, also sealed the roads leading to banks and treasury of the locality.

"Our indefinite boycott of courts and picketing in front of government offices shall continue till Friday. We will decide then about our next course of action," said Orissa High Court Bar Association president Srikant Naik.

The lawyers have put off their plan to gherao the chief minister's residence at Bhubaneswar on Thursday since the he is away in Chennai.

The lawyers across the state are agitating since August 29.

On the other hand, the Odisha Sepoy, Constable and Havildar Confederation, the largest police body of the State, on Wednesday reacted for the first time since the faceoff between the lawyers and the police started last month.

"We remained calm and composed over all these days as we belong to a disciplined organization. But if the lawyers continue to build up unnecessary pressure on the state government for the arrests of policemen, the Confederation too will come forward to give necessary protection to the innocent colleagues. If required, we may also go on strike," said Santosh Satpathy, the Confederation president.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Oman is expecting over 10 per cent growth in tourist arrivals from India this year and is planning to focus on promoting the meetings, incentives, conferences and events (MICE) segment.

The Sultanate of Oman had got 321,161 travellers from India in 2017, according to data by the Oman tourism ministry.

"We have been growing steadily since 2013. This year, we are expecting a double-digit growth of over 10 per cent on the back of focused marketing, tyeing up with more trade partners and more visibility," Oman tourism ministry India representative Lubaina Sheerazi told PTI.

She said Oman has also simplified the visa process, which is expected to boost the growth.

Oman, which has been focusing more on leisure and family segment, is now tapping the huge MICE segment in India.

"We are infrastructure-ready to host MICE with the recent launch of the Oman Convention and Exhibition Centre in Muscat, which supports international and local organisations in hosting large events," she said.

The country is not only seeing a surge in MICE travel, but is also a preferred wedding destination for many, according to Sheerazi.

"Being under three hours away from India and having good air connectivity with 11 Indian cities have made Oman a preferred wedding destination for Indians. Simple visa access is also boosting the destination wedding segment," she said.

Positioned as an aspirational destination, Oman is targeting niche and well travelled people over 24 years, said Sheerazi.

Meanwhile, Maitha Saif Al Mahrouqi, undersecretary of the Oman tourism ministry, said that the country, being a safe destination, is also looking to tap independent travellers and groups especially women.

National carrier Oman Air is connected through 161 direct flights every week with major Indian cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Lucknow, Kozhikode, Kochi, Goa, Jaipur and Thiruvananthapuram.

Besides, Air India, Jet Airways, SpiceJet and IndiGo also connect the country to various Indian cities.

Sunil VA, regional vice-president - Indian sub-continent, Oman Air, said the airline is in talks with the government to extend direct connectivity to Ahmedabad and Kolkata.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)As many as 672 people were rescued from Himachal Pradesh's Lahaul and Spiti district after recent snowfall and rains closed off most roads in the region, officials said Wednesday.

The operations via road were taken up by the Border Road Organisation (BRO) and 641 stranded people were reported to have been rescued, officials said. The rescued were taken to safer areas in Manali by road through Shishu tunnel in Lahaul, they said.

Thirty-one stranded people, including fifteen foreigners, were airlifted to safety by the Indian Air Force, officials said.

IAF helicopters made several sorties to rescue the stranded from Baralchala and other areas in Lahaul tehsil. The rescued were flown to a temporary helipad at Dhalpur Ground in Kullu district, officials said.

An official of the Himachal Pradesh State Disaster Management Authority said most of the 614 roads of the state, including Chandigarh-Manali Road, have been reopened.

He said the total number of rescued were 672 from Lahaul and Spiti district. However, around 40 people are still stranded there, the official said.

Keylog Sub-divisional Magistrate Amar Negi said five persons had been airlifted to Stingri on Tuesday evening.

Negi said two IAF helicopters continued airlifting operations till evening. The IAF focused operations in mostly inaccessible areas, including Koksar and Baralacha.

The weather conditions are favourable now and BRO personnel are on the job to clear debris from the roads, he said, adding that more roads may open up by Thursday morning, the SDM said.

The airlifted foreigners include eight Nepalese, four Danish, two Norwegians, one Bhutanese. Some of the rescued foreigners are Kristensen (70), Twensen (56), Johansen (57), Rolf Bekker (53), Anne Christine (53), Per Bones, Kunama Lama (54) and Nwang Dorje (70) and Sonam Niranja (39).

Five women and three children were airlifted from Sarchu in Lahaul on Wednesday evening. They include two women from Assam, the rest six are from Nepal, an official said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A court in Pakistan on Wednesday summoned all the witnesses next month in the murder case of Indian national Sarabjit Singh, who was killed by his fellow prisoners in 2013.

Two Pakistani death row prisoners - Amir Sarfraz alias Tamba and Mudassar - in May 2013 attacked Sarabjit, 49, in the Kot Lakhpat Jail in Lahore and killed him.

Lahore's additional district and sessions judge Muhammad Moin Khokhar, during the hearing of the case, expressed anger as none of the prosecuting witnesses appeared before the court to record their statement.

"Issuing notices to all the witnesses in the case for next hearing on October 5, the judge directed the prosecutor to ensure their presence (in the court)," a court official told PTI after the hearing.

He said that so far, two witnesses of the Kot Lakhpat Jail had recorded their statements.

"One of the witnesses in the previous hearing had told the court that Sarabjit Singh was brought to the Services Hospital in a critical condition. I wanted to record Singh's statement but the doctors stopped him, terming his condition very serious," the official said.

In the previous hearings, the judge had also admonished the jail authorities for not cooperating with the court.

A one-man judicial commission of Justice Mazhar Ali Akbar Naqvi of the Lahore High Court had initially investigated Sarabjit's murder case before the trial kicked off in the sessions court.

Naqvi recorded the statements of some 40 witnesses in the case and submitted its report to the government which is yet to make its findings public.

The one-man commission had also issued notices to Sarabjit's relatives through the foreign ministry to record their statements and produce any evidence they had regarding his death. However, Sarabjit's family did not record their statements, the officials had said.

Tamba and Mudassar, in their statements to the commission, had confessed to the crime and said they killed Sarabjit as they wanted to avenge the killing of people in Lahore and Faisalabad in bomb blasts allegedly carried out by the Indian national.

Both the alleged killers of Sarabjit were not present in the sessions court on Wednesday because of security reasons, according to their counsel Advocate Usman Waheed.

Sarabjit had been sentenced to death for alleged involvement in a string of bombings in 1990 in the country's eastern Punjab province.

His family, however, said: "He was the victim of mistaken identity and had inadvertently strayed across the border.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)India postponed inspection of two hydropower projects by Pakistani experts

LAHORE: India has postponed inspection of its two hydropower projects  1,000MW Pakal Dul and 48MW Lower Kalnal  by Pakistani experts on the pretext of some local issues.



Sources see it as a possible impact of the recent cancellation of talks between the foreign ministers of the two countries on the sidelines of the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.



It seems to be an fallout of the recent tension emerging with the cancellation of the talks by India as other issues are normally affected in a larger context in such situations, a senior official who asked for anonymity told Dawn on Tuesday.



A nine-member team led by Indian commissioner for Indus waters Pradeep Kumar Saxena had visited Lahore last month and held talks for two days (Aug 29 and 30) with their Pakistani counterparts on water disputes on the platform of the Pakistan-India Permanent Commission for Indus Waters (PCIW).



During the talks, Pakistans commissioner for Indus waters Syed Mohammad Mehr Ali Shah raised the objections, possible solutions to the problem, Indias previous replies, feedback, etc, on the designs of Pakal Dul and Lower Kalnal projects.



Finally, India agreed to get the sites of its two projects at the Chenab basin inspected by Pakistani experts by the end of this month. It also assured Pakistan of taking up its objections/concerns over the two projects seriously by resolving them amicably in the light of technical memorandums to be prepared and exchanged by the two countries at the next meeting of the Pakistan-India PCIW to be held in New Delhi.



Through minutes of the last PCIWs (Aug 29-30) Lahore meeting, the Indian delegation had agreed to get the aforementioned projects inspected by the Pakistani experts during the last week of the ongoing month. When the Pakistani authorities concerned contacted them in this regard recently, they, through a letter, confirmed Oct 7 to 11 for tour/inspection of the projects by a three-member Pakistani team headed by the Indus water commissioner, the source explained.



India, through the letter, also explained the reasons behind confirmation of Oct 7-11 schedule for the visit of Pakistani experts. They (Indian authorities), according to the letter, stated that since the administration of the respective districts in held Kashmir would be busy in holding the local bodies elections till Oct 5, the inspection tour of Pakistani experts would only be possible from Oct 7 to 11.



But now the Indian authorities have postponed the scheduled inspection, stating it wouldnt be possible due to holding of Punchayat elections in the state by the respective district administrations soon after the end of the local bodies elections. They didnt give us new dates as they just stated to coordinate with Pakistani authorities soon, he added.



Commissioner for Indus waters Mehr Ali Shah confirmed the development and expressed disappointment over the postponement of the inspection of the projects by Pakistani experts. Postponement of our visit for inspection of Indias two hydropower projects at Chenab basin is an element of surprise for us despite the fact that the delegation, which visited Lahore and held meeting with us last month, had agreed to allow us inspection of the same in the last week of the ongoing month. Later, they confirmed Oct 7 to 11. But they further postponed this schedule, Mr Shah deplored.



When something is mutually agreed at the state level, it shouldnt be delayed or deferred on petty issues, he said, adding: So we request our counterparts to fulfil their commitment they had made during their visit to Lahore last month.



According to the minutes of the 115th meeting of the PCIW held between the two countries in Lahore, India had also agreed to allow Pakistani experts to visit its hydropower schemes in Jhelum basin, including Kishanganga project. Pakistan also urged India to arrange for the Special Tour of Inspection of the projects in Jhelum basin, including Kishanganga, which has been pending since 2014, on which ICIW (Indias commissioner for Indus waters) gave his assurance to arrange the same promptly. Similarly, Islamabad also agreed to allow New Delhi [to] carry out inspection of the Kotri barrage over the Indus under Article VIII (4) (c) of the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), read the minutes.Police have arrested a person Thursday for posessing fake currency notes and seized a pistol along with ammunition in Assam's Kamrup district, sources in the force said.

A police team acting on a tip off launched an operation and arrested the person who hails from Golaghat district.

The fake currency seized from him comprised of counterfiet notes of face value of Rs 500, Rs 200 and Rs 50, the police said.

A .22 pistol along with 26 rounds of live ammunition was also seized from the man, who was booked under the Arms Act and IPC sections 489C (making fake currency), 448 (house-trespass) and 394 (committing or attempt to commit robbery), the police said.

The man had unsuccesfully contested as an Independent candidate from Sarupathar Assam Assembly constituency in 2016, the sources added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday assured all assistance to Punjab and Himachal Pradesh which have been hit by heavy rains and floods.

Incessant rains triggered flash floods and landslides in hill states of northern India, with at least 11 people killed on Monday in Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana.

"Spoke to Himachal Pradesh CM @jairamthakurbjp Ji and Punjab CM @capt_amarinder Singh Ji regarding the flood situation in Himachal Pradesh and Punjab," Modi tweeted.

He said he has assured all possible support from the Centre in mitigating the situation arising due to heavy rains and floods in the two states.

An official spokesperson of Himachal Pradesh government said in Shimla that Prime Minister Modi called Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur to enquire about the situation in the state following the rains.

Thakur apprised Modi that the state had suffered losses to the tune of



Rs 1,250 crore due to heavy rains during the current monsoon. "The prime minister assured the chief minister of all possible assistance by the Centre," the spokesperson.

Thakur thanked the prime minister for providing three helicopters for rescuing stranded persons in far-flung areas of the state after snowfall and heavy rains, he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been awarded with the UN's highest environmental honour, bestowed upon five other individuals and organisations, for his leadership of the International Solar Alliance and pledge to eliminate single use plastic in india by 2022.

Six of the world's most outstanding environmental changemakers have been recognised with the Champions of the Earth Award, the UN's highest environmental honour.

"This years' laureates are recognised for a combination of bold, innovative, and tireless efforts to tackle some of the most urgent environmental issues of our times," the UN Programme said.

French President Emmanuel Macron, President of France and Modi have been jointly recognised in the Policy Leadership category for their pioneering work in championing the International Solar Alliance and promoting new areas of levels of cooperation on environmental action, including Macron's work on the Global Pact for the and Modi's unprecedented pledge to eliminate all single-use plastic in India by 2022.

Cochin International Airport has also been honoured this year with the award for Entrepreneurial Vision, for its leadership in the use of sustainable energy.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Police have arrested three alleged drug dealers with 2,100 kg of ganja in Anand district of Gujarat, officials said Wednesday.

Those arrested are suppliers of the contraband to one Madina Junaja of Rajkot city, who was arrested with 357.5 kg of ganja on September 12, they said.

"Upon interrogation of Madina and others arrested with ganja in the city on September 12, the police came to know about suppliers," an official release said.

"On the basis of this information, a Rajkot police team today raided two houses in Dali village near Anand in Central Gujarat.

"Police did not find any thing from one house, but during the search of another house, ganja was found wrapped in sarees. The total ganja recovered in the raid is around 2,100 kg," Rajkot police commissioner Manoj Agarwal said.

"We have arrested three persons - Vijay Kulpati, Rajbha Zala and Mukeshgiri Goswami - in connection with recovered materials. Kulpati had hired the two houses in the village to hide the contraband," he said.

The cannabis was bought from outside Gujarat, Agarwal said.

"The contraband was procured by Kulpati and Zala from Assam and Andhra Pradesh," he said.

Police said the trio had supplied 357.5 kg ganja to Madina in Rajkot.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Pope Francis called Wednesday for all Chinese Catholics to reconcile, while admitting that a historic deal with Beijing on nominating bishops may have caused "confusion".

"I now invite all Chinese Catholics to work towards reconciliation," the pope wrote in a message to Roman Catholics in the world's most populous country.

Saturday's historic deal has paved the way for rapprochement between the Vatican and the Communist country, despite the fears of some in the persecuted underground Church.

"Some feel doubt and perplexity, while others sense themselves somehow abandoned by the Holy See," the pope wrote.

"I am aware that this flurry of thoughts and opinions may have caused a certain confusion and prompted different reactions in the hearts of many."



Shortly after the deal, Pope Francis recognised seven clergy appointed by Beijing, which has not had ties with the Vatican since 1951.

On Wednesday he called on the bishops to publicly reunite with the Vatican.

"I ask them to express with concrete and visible gestures their restored unity with the Apostolic See," the pope wrote.

There are an estimated 12 million Catholics in China, divided between a government-run association whose clergy are chosen by the Communist Party and the unofficial church which swears allegiance to the Vatican.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Trump administration's proposed rule, under which immigrants may be denied green card if they have received government benefits in the past or are likely to receive one in the future, is likely to have a major impact on immigrants from South Asian countries, a community organisation said Tuesday.

"The new rule would hit the South Asian American communities particularly hard, as over 10 per cent of green card recipients in FY 2016 were from South Asian countries," the South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT) said.

It condemned the Department of Homeland Security announcement of the proposed "public charge" rules that would deny permanent resident status ("green cards") to immigrants who use government services such as nutrition programmes and housing assistance.

According to a recent Pew Research Center study, one in four immigrants in the US from Bangladesh and Nepal and one in three immigrants from Bhutan already live in poverty. This new rule would put all these individuals at great risk, it said.

ALSO READ: Denying green cards to immigrants on benefits will only cost US more later

SAALT said the term "public charge" predated federal immigration law entirely. In the early 1800s, the states would only free individual slaves on the condition that they never become a "public charge". This framework was now being expanded to criminalise the immigrant communities, it said.

"This policy is about who this administration considers a desirable immigrant. It is designed to instill fear in immigrant communities of colour and relegate the non-citizens and their families to second-class status," said Suman Raghunathan, Executive Director of SAALT.

"It will punish the immigrants who rightfully access the public benefits to which they are entitled, it will punish parents for taking care of their children and it will force immigrant families to choose between citizenship and basic needs," she added.



ALSO READ: Trump admin may deny new green cards to immigrants who use public aid

"Rather than taxing the one per cent, this administration chooses to punish immigrant families over and over again. Today, on the one-year anniversary of Muslim Ban 3.0, we say no to more racist and anti-immigrant policies," Raghunathan said.

Congressman Bobby Scott from Virginia said the proposed policy was making grounds for denying legal US residency to immigrants.

"The Trump administration's 'public charge' proposal would force hundreds of thousands of immigrants to make the impossible choice between receiving basic assistance for food and shelter and risking being separated from their families.

"This proposal is cruel, counterproductive and in violation of the basic principles that make America an example for the world," Scott said.

According to Congressman Tony Cardenas, the policy is equal parts cruel and senseless. "Not only will this hurt the tax-paying families, it will also have a hugely negative impact on the US economy and on American citizens," he said.

In 2014, the immigrants in this country earned $1.3 trillion and paid more than $223 billion in federal taxes, while paying another $105 billion in combined state and local taxes, Cardenas said.

"We are talking about people who are vital to the American economy and it is insane to threaten people who are legal, rule-following contributors to American communities. This proposed rule will hurt the grocery stores, farmers and healthcare providers. Our American economy will suffer. It just does not make any sense," he added.

"In their quest to shame and isolate immigrants to this country, the is gambling with the health of children, wagering that their lives matter less because they were not born here," Congresswoman Judy Chu said.

Asserting that there was no justification for this rule change "outside of bald-faced xenophobia", Chu said the change applied to the immigrants who were here legally and had done nothing to merit punishment.

"Immigrant families are no less entitled to food or housing support than any other person trying to get by in this unequal economy. Moreover, by working and paying taxes, many of these immigrants have actually earned these benefits. Others, like children and seniors who are not working, should not be punished for somebody else's prejudice," she said.

The American Immigration Lawyers' Association (AILA) said the new rule would prevent many immigrants from securing lawful permanent residence and remaining with their families in the US, simply because they previously received some type of basic healthcare support, nutrition assistance or other vital services.

"The proposed rule is the Trump administration's latest assault on immigrant families, who are integral to the fabric of the American society and have been pivotal to our nation's success," said Benjamin Johnson, AILA executive director.Families of some of those killed along with Rajiv Gandhi Wednesday urged Tamil Nadu Governor Banwarilal Purohit Wednesday to put on hold sanction for release of seven convicts till disposal of their plea in the Supreme Court against the state cabinet's recommendation.

The May 21 1991 attack killed the former prime minister and 15 people, including LTTE suicide bomber Dhanu, at nearby Sriperumbudur.

Families of four victims and two survivors called on Purohit at the Raj Bhavan, where he met them individually.

"We requested the Governor not to take any decision on the release of convicts till our petition in the Supreme Court in this connection is disposed of," S Abbas said.

Son of Mahila Congress functionary S Samdhani Begum, who was among those killed, Abbas said the Governor "assured" the delegation that he would act in deference to their request.

Abbas said his childhood had been a painful one as he lost his mother when he was barely eight years old and life became a battle for him since his father predeceased her.

"I had to drop out of school when I was in class 10.I am running a shop for my survival...making ends meet is a challenge."



"The fact that their death sentences were commuted to life imprisonment (for four, including Nalini and later her husband Sriharan) itself is a humanitarian gesture," he told PTI.

In their petition to the Governor, the kin of 11 victims requested the Governor to send a committee to study the sufferings of these 14 innocent victim families.

"Can we get back our dear ones who died on May 21, 1991? We sincerely feel that terrorism should not be condoned."



The families pointed out that they filed a review petition in the Supreme Court in 2014 and that the top court had on September 17 had given them three weeks time to submit their plea, opposing the release of the convicts.

On Sept 9, the Tamil Nadu Cabinet had recommended to the Governor that all seven Rajiv case convicts be released.

Meanwhile, pro Tamil outfit Tamizhaga Vazhvurimai Katchi staged a protest demonstration here, urging the Governor to release the convicts in deference to the Cabinet decision.

The outfit wanted the Tamil Nadu government to mount pressure on the Governor "to take a positive decision to release the convicts and not wait.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)French President Emmanuel Macron has said that the Rafale deal was a "government-to-government" discussion and he was not in power when the multi-billion dollar agreement for 36 fighter jets was signed between India and France, as he distanced himself from the controversy.

Addressing a press conference on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session, Macron was asked if the Indian government had at any point told France or Dassault - the French aerospace major - that they had to accept Reliance Defence as the Indian partner for the Rafale deal.

India had inked an inter-governmental agreement with France in September last year for procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets at a cost of around Rs 58,000 crore, nearly one- and-half years after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the proposal during a visit to Paris. The delivery of the jets is scheduled to begin from September, 2019.

"I will be very clear. It was a government-to-government discussion and I just want to refer to what Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi very clearly said a few days ago," Macron, who became French President in May last year, told reporters here Tuesday without elaborating.

"I don't have any other comment. I was not in charge at that time and I know that we have very clear rules," he said in his first comment on the issue.

Macron, who assumed the presidency in May last year, emphasised that this is a government-to-government discussion and "this contract is part of a broader framework which is military and defence" coalition between India and France.

"This one is very important to me because this is a strategic" coalition and not just an industrial relation. "That is my point. I just want to refer to what PM Modi said on this situation," he said.

While Prime Minister Modi himself has not yet commented on the Rafale controversy directly, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and other senior ministers have asserted that people of India have put a closure to the issue, saying there were no irregularities.

Prime Minister 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 French government has said it was in no manner involved in the choice of Indian industrial partners.

A huge controversy over the Rafale deal has erupted in India after a report in the French media quoted former president Francois Hollande as saying that the selection of the Indian company in the Rafale deal was done at the behest of New Delhi.

Hollande said 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.

His 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 Limited 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 which negotiated with (Anil) Ambani. We had no choice, we took the interlocutor who was given to us."



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.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Congress chief Rahul Gandhi will kick off his two-day visit to the poll-bound Madhya Pradesh from Thursday after offering prayers at the famous Kamta Nath temple in Chitrakoot, a religious town closely associated with Lord Ram.

This will be Gandhi's second visit within a span of 10 days to the BJP-ruled state, where assembly elections are due this year-end.

The Kamta Nath temple in Chitrakoot, Satna district, is located on Kamadgiri, a forested hill where, according to mythology, Lord Rama stayed during his exile.

Gandhi will reach Chitrakoot from Allahabad by a helicopter and start his tour of Rewa and Satna districts after offering prayers at the temple, said state Congress media cell vice-president Bhupendra Gupta.

The Congress president would address a meeting at Chitrakoot before leaving for Satna, where he is scheduled to address a public gathering, Gupta said.

Later in the evening, the Congress chief will leave for Rewa, where he will hold a roadshow, he said.

On Friday, Gandhi would travel by a bus to address public meetings at Saipur Mod, Baron, Baikunthpur, Lalgaon and Chunari villages spread over Rewa and Satna, Gupta said.

Party state president Kamal Nath and other senior party leaders, including Jyotiraditya Scindia , Digvijaya Singh and Ajay Singh, would accompany Gandhi during his visit.

During his earlier visit on September 17, Gandhi held a roadshow in Bhopal after performing a puja and taking blessings from 11 priests.

The 48-year-old Amethi MP visited the state after returning from the Kailash Mansarovar yatra, which he undertook to pay obeisance to Lord Shiva.

Ahead of his last visit, posters were put up in Bhopal, calling Gandhi a 'Shiv bhakt' (devotee of Lord Shiva).

The Congress is out of power in Madhya Pradesh since 2003.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Congress president Rahul Gandhi thanked the Supreme Court for its verdict on the Aadhaar Act on Wednesday, saying it was an instrument of empowerment for his party, but a "tool of oppression and surveillance" for the BJP.

"For Congress, Aadhaar was an instrument of empowerment.

"For the BJP, Aadhaar is a tool of oppression and surveillance.

"Thank you Supreme Court for supporting the Congress vision and protecting India," he said on Twitter.

In its verdict, the apex court declared the Centre's flagship Aadhaar scheme as constitutionally valid, but struck down some of its provisions, including its linking with bank accounts, mobile phones and school admissions.

A five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra held that while Aadhaar would remain mandatory for filing of IT returns and allotment of Permanent Account Number (PAN), it would not be mandatory to link Aadhaar to bank accounts and the telecom service providers cannot seek its linking for mobile connections.

It would not be mandatory for school admissions, as also for the examinations conducted by the Central Board of Secondary Examination (CBSE), National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) for medical entrance and the University Grants Commission (UGC).

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Nacta to be truly proactive organisation: Imran Khan

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan on Tuesday called for revisiting the role of the National Counter Terrorism Authority (Nacta) to make it a truly proactive organisation, in sync with ground realities



Chairing the first-ever meeting of the board of governors here at the Prime Ministers Office, Khan constituted a committee for reviewing the role and functions of the organisation and called for formulation of a well-defined mandate.



The meeting was attended by Ministers for Defence, Finance, Law, Chief Ministers of four provinces and Gilgit Baltistan, and the Prime Minister of the Azad Jammu and Kashmir, the Minister of State for Interior, the Secretary for Interior, the National Coordinator of Nacta, and the Director General of the Inter-Services Intelligence.



As the meeting started, the Nacta national coordinator briefed the gathering about the mandate and the role of the organisation since its establishment. He said it was meant to be a body for policy formulation and implementation of national terrorism and counter violent extremism strategy. The meeting also reviewed progress on implementation of the 20-points National Action Plan.



The Prime Minister said Pakistan has come a long way in its fight against terrorism and violent extremism. He said in this struggle Pakistan has sacrificed lives of thousands of civilians and security personnel. Lauding the services and contributions of security, intelligence and law enforcemnet agencies, the Prime Minister said improved security situation was the result of combined efforts of all stakeholders.Two buyers, including a consortium of four funds, have evinced interest in buying or taking a controlling stake in the leftover businesses of Anil Ambani group's embattled telecom arm, (RCom), a top company official said Wednesday.

The company which exited the flagship wireless businesses due to financial pressures and is also selling its spectrum, is looking to sell off the enterprise-focused offerings including subsea cables, international fixed line and data centres businesses.

"We also do have two strategic buyers that are looking at the company today as we speak. We will see where it can go over the next few months," RCom's chief executive officer, Bill Barney, told reporters here.

He said the buyers will look for either a 100 per cent buy or at least a controlling stake. The company is optimistic of having a networth of $1 billion, he said.



At the company's annual general meeting earlier this month, Ambani had announced that will be completely exiting the telecom business to concentrate on real estate in future. The proceeds from the sale will go to its creditors, he had said.

"Our chairman talked about essentially exiting or withdrawing from the telecom business. He's not going to do this tomorrow, it is going to happen over a time. It may be months, may be years," Barney said.

He said the two potential buyers will take time for the due diligence, given the unfolding events which have now reduced it to a fraction of the original business.

The two buyers include a consortium of four funds which have come together for the bid, he said.

Despite the plans to exit, Barney said the company will continue with its investments, pointing out that it plans to invest $100 million in an undersea cable running from Italy to Hong Kong via India. He did not specify the timeline for the investment.

It is building its 10th data centre and will add three more in the next three years, he said, without mentioning the exact amount to be invested. The company is also seeking partnerships in other businesses, he said.



Barney said the company has sufficient capital to take care of the investments.

had to be dragged into the strategic debt restructuring (SDR) after it failed to meet its debt repayment commitments to a group of over dozen banks including Chinese lenders to which it owes nearly Rs 450 billion.

Under severe financial pressure, the company exited the consumer-facing flagship wireless business late last year and also announced a sale of its spectrum assets to Reliance Jio, whose entry has severely affected the telecom sector.

Barney said the 'new RCom' will have a 10th of employees of the original, will serve 10,000 customers and have a debt of Rs 28 billion.

The scrip rose reacting to the announcement and closed 11.26 per cent higher at Rs 12.85 a piece on the BSE Wednesday, against a 0.30 per cent correction in the benchmark.South Sudan's civil war has caused nearly 400,000 "excess deaths" since fighting erupted in late 2013, a new report funded by the US State Department said Wednesday after years of uncertainty.

The report by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine estimates that "violent injuries" caused about half of those 382,900 deaths. Increased risk of disease and reduced access to health care contributed to others, it said.

The toll in South Sudan's civil war has long been uncertain, with estimates in the tens of thousands.

"I think this figure is much more realistic than the 50,000 which has been used for so long," Klem Ryan, a former official with the United Nations mission in South Sudan who later served as the coordinator of the UN panel of experts monitoring sanctions on the country, told The Associated Press.

Counting the dead in the civil war is difficult as so much occurs in remote locations, Ryan said. "However, that's not justification for not compiling what we did know and pointing to the gaps."



The new report, based on statistical modelling and not peer reviewed, says the deaths appeared to peak in 2016 and 2017. Fresh fighting broke out in the capital, Juba, in July 2016 and spread into other regions. Most of the deaths occurred in the country's south and northeast and among adult males, the report says.

"To our knowledge this is the first comprehensive estimate of how many people have died because of the war," Francesco Checchi, a lead investigator on the study, told the AP. "Every day that goes by, hundreds more lives may be lost."



The striking new estimate comes weeks after the warring sides signed what the government called a "final final" peace deal to end the conflict.

It returns rebel leader Riek Machar to his role once again as vice president to President Salva Kiir, a situation that sparked the conflict when their supporters clashed along ethnic lines.

The United States and others have expressed skepticism that this new deal will hold and some fighting has been reported, with each side blaming the other.

The civil war also has sent more than 2 million people fleeing in Africa's largest refugee crisis since the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

The new report calls for a stronger humanitarian response in one of the world's most dangerous countries for aid workers. The UN has repeatedly called on the government to allow more access.

The report "should also spur warring factions to conduct war according to its rules, instead of attacking civilians and humanitarian actors," Checchi said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)At least five students, some of them minor, were allegedly raped and three others molested by the director of a residential school for tribals in Maharashtra's Sangli district, police said Wednesday.

The accused, who has been arrested, sexually exploited the students after promising them good marks in exams and providing free in the school, they said.

The school is located at Kurlap in Walva tehsil of Sangli in western Maharashtra, a police official said.

The director, Arvind Pawar (61), used to approach the victims through his aide Manisha Kamble (40) with the promise of free food, free and good marks in exams, he said.

"The director of the school, Arvind Pawar, and his aide Manisha Kamble have been apprehended by the police in connection with rape and molestation," Assistant Police Inspector Vivek Patil, in-charge of the Kurlap Police Station told PTI over the phone.

The incident came to light on Tuesday after the police received an anonymous letter about wrongdoings in the school, he said.

Accordingly, a woman police officer visited the school in plainclothes and inquired some girl students, who narrated their ordeal, Patil said.

During the enquiry, it came to light that the director had allegedly raped at least five students aged 14 to 20 years over a period of time, the police officer said.

His aide Kamble used to approach girl students with the promise of providing free food and After luring the victims, she would send them on the third floor of the school building, where Pawar used to sexually assault them, he said.

The police, officials of the Child Welfare Department and members of the local Women and Child Welfare Committee Wednesday raided the school and rescued the victims, he said.

During investigation, the girls told the police that they were being exploited since the last two years, he said.

The police have registered an offence against the duo under relevant sections of the IPC and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, he said.

"We have informed parents of the victims and shifted all the students to another school," he said, adding that a probe into the matter was underway.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)South Africa said Wednesday it had penned extradition treaties with the United Arab Emirates, a move that could pave the way for the forced return to the country of the Guptas, wealthy businessmen implicated in massive state corruption.

South Africa's Justice Minister Michael Masutha and his UAE counterpart, Sultan Saeed Al Badi, signed the treaties on "extradition and mutual legal assistance in criminal matters in Abu Dhabi" on Tuesday, the government said in a statement.

"The treaties will enable the two countries to assist each other in the investigation and prosecution of crimes through mutual legal assistance and the extradition of fugitives," it added.

One of the three Gupta brothers, Ajay, who now lives in Dubai, has been declared a "fugitive from justice" and is being sought by South African police over alleged graft.

The Indian-born Gupta brothers, who are among South Africa's richest people, are being investigated by police over corruption allegations.

A public inquiry opened last month into alleged corruption under scandal-tainted former president Jacob Zuma, who is accused of overseeing widespread graft during his nine-year reign.

The brothers are at the centre of the probe.

The investigation is looking into allegations that Zuma organised the systematic plunder of government coffers by the Guptas and allowed them to choose ministers in a scandal known as "state capture".

A former minister, a government and ex-ANC lawmaker have given damning testimonies against the Guptas at the inquiry.

Two of the brothers said they wanted to answer those allegations, but on condition they give their evidence from Dubai via video link because they feared being arrested.

But the commission's chief, deputy chief justice Raymond Zondo rejected their application to participate in the inquiry from abroad. In April UAE authorities arrested a South African man after he filmed Ajay Gupta in Dubai and posted the clip on social media. He was freed a few hours later.

South Africa said the extradition talks with the UAE have been in the making for the past eight years.

Indian tax officials are also investigating the Gupta brothers in their former home town, as part of a money laundering probe.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Supreme Court Wednesday asked the Gujarat High Court to decide afresh the plea of senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel challenging the maintainability of a petition filed by a BJP leader against his election to the Rajya Sabha.

A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud said Patel's plea against the petition of BJP leader Balwantsinh Rajput required "de novo" (fresh) adjudication.

Patel was elected to the Rajya Sabha last year after defeating Rajput, who had quit Congress to join the BJP.

The win for the Congress leader had come after the Election Commission had cancelled the votes of rebel Congress MLAs, Bhola Bhai Gohil and Raghav Bhai Patel. This had brought down the requirement for an outright victory for a candidate to 44 from 45.

Soon after Patel got elected, Rajput filed a petition in the high court challenging the poll panel's decision to invalidate the votes of the two rebel MLAs. Had these votes been counted, he would have defeated Patel, Rajput had contended in the High Court.

Rajput had also alleged that Patel had taken the party MLAs to a resort in Bengaluru before the election, which, he claimed, amounted to bribing the voters.

Patel had challenged Rajput's plea and sought its dismissal for not serving the respondents an attested copy of the petition as required under the law.

The high court, however, rejected his plea and said the petitioner had substantially complied with the provisions of law and the defects could be easily cured.

Patel moved the top court against the high court order, saying that Rajput's petition was "devoid of merits" and failed to show any "cause of action".

The senior Congress leader has challenged the April 22 order of the high court which had dismissed his plea.

He had contended before the high court that the election petition was "not at all maintainable" and should be "dismissed at the threshold" as it violated the provisions of the Representation of the People Act, 1951.

The plea said the decision of the poll panel cannot be challenged in an election petition. "Election Application...was preferred by the Petitioner (Rajput) under Order VII Rule 11 of the CPC praying for dismissal of the Election Petition for non disclosure of cause of action," it said, while seeking a stay on the proceedings before the Gujarat High Court.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Both the BJP and the Congress Wednesday sought to claim victory over the Supreme Court's verdict on Aadhaar biometric system with the ruling party's chief Amit Shah mocking Rahul Gandhi's contention that it supported his party's vision, saying the "Congress won today, just like they won Lok Sabha polls in 2014".

A five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra upheld the constitutional validity of 'Aadhar' but restricted government's push to make it mandatory for various services including for bank accounts, mobile connections or school admissions.

Immediately after the pronouncement of the verdict, both the parties used it to claim that it was a vindication of their respective positions on the contentious issue which triggered nationwide debate on privacy concerns. While the BJP called the judgement a big victory for the "pro-poor" Modi government, the Congress asserted that the court striking down several provisions of the biometric system is a "slap" on the NDA government.

Citing comments of Justice D Y Chandrachud, who wrote the judgement separately that passage of the Aadhaar law as money bill, bypassing the Rajya Sabha, amounted to a "fraud on the Constitution", Congress leader Kapil Sibal said, "We will approach a seven-judge bench to consider this verdict again as this is clearly not a money bill."



Thanking the apex court for the verdict, Gandhi said it was an instrument of empowerment for his party, but a "tool of oppression and surveillance" for the BJP.

In his reaction, Shah mocked Gandhi, saying, "Yes, the Congress won today, just like they won Lok Sabha Polls in 2014".

Shah accused the Congress of trying every trick to fight and defeat Aadhaar as it is the "fountainhead of middlemen and corruption".

The Congress said by scrapping the "draconian" Section 57 and the national security exception in the Aadhaar Act, the Supreme Court firmly put an end to a "mass surveillance exercise" being carried out under the guise of Aadhaar by the central government and the "grotesque distortion" of an idea conceived by the previous UPA dispensation.

Expressing satisfaction over exclusion of private companies from Aadhaar project, Sibal said the idea to involve private companies was not just "undemocratic" but was against the spirit of democracy, and now the court decision will prevent information from going into private hands.

Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson Sambit Patra also hit back at the Congress, saying the order has in fact exposed the opposition party.

The Congress favoured middlemen while the Modi government brought Aadhaar to ensure that benefits are given directly to people, he said.

"We see it as a big victory of the Modi government, the pro-poor Modi government. The Supreme Court has upheld the constitutional validity of Aadhaar and has also said that it does not violate privacy," Patra said.

The Aadhaar project was launched by the previous UPA government primarily to plug the loopholes in delivering benefits of social welfare schemes to intended beneficiaries. The NDA government expanded the ambit of the project.

The Trinamool Congress also hailed striking down of Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act which allowed corporate entities to access its data.

"SC strikes down section 57 of Aadhaar Act, 2016. So you don't need to give your Aadhaar to private bodies like banks, schools, mobile companies. Trinamool and @mamataofficial fought hard for this," the party said in a tweet.

Many rights' activists welcomed the judgement, saying it is a "historic verdict" that will provide major relief to the common man while some termed it "disappointing".

"I think it is a historic judgement, and will provide a major relief to the common man. Private companies earlier would demand Aadhaar for offering services, or opening bank accounts, admission in schools and buying a mobile SIM card was denied to people for lack of it. So, it would spell out major relief for citizens," activist and lawyer Prashant Bhushan said.

Amnesty India in a tweet said "making an Aadhaar card a prerequisite to access essential services and benefits can obstruct access to several constitutional rights, including the rights of people to food, health care, education and social security.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Aadhaar architect Nandan Nilekani Wednesday said the Supreme Court judgement on constitutional validity of Aadhaar is "landmark" as it will help residents assert ownership over their data.

The former Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) chairman, in a tweet, said the judgement has "unequivocally validated" the founding principles of the 12-digit identification number that is "critical" to the developmental goals of the nation.

"The resident was once again recognised as being at the heart of the project, and they have gained new rights that help them assert their ownership over their data," he said.

Holding there was nothing in the Aadhaar Act that violates right to privacy of an individual, a five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra in a 4 to 1 verdict also cleared the use of Aadhaar for welfare schemes after a long-drawn legal battle against the government's ambitious project, which incorporates the world's largest biometric ID database.

It ruled that furnishing Aadhaar details will not mandatory for bank accounts, mobile connections or school admissions but held that Aadhaar would remain mandatory for filing of Income Tax(IT) returns and allotment of Permanent Account Number (PAN).

"More than just opining on the constitutionality of the act, the SC has unequivocally validated the founding principles for Aadhaar. Aadhaar is a unique identity project that is critical to the developmental goals of the nation," Nilekani said.

Terming the SC judgement as "landmark", Nilekani said Aadhaar has undergone the "ultimate scrutiny" in the highest court in the country and a lot of recommendations have been incorporated.

"Through the democratic process of discussion and debate, we have created a better and stronger Aadhaar together...Aadhaar includes, it doesn't exclude," the co-founder of IT major Infosys said.

UIDAI -- which is the issuing authority for Aadhaar -- also welcomed the judgment saying it has now been established that the 12-digit biometric ID respects human dignity and does not violate privacy.

"Aadhaar as an idea is fully upheld that it does not create a surveillance state and does not violate privacy," it said in a statement. "The verdict Aadhaar is a tool of empowerment of the marginalised sections of the society."



UIDAI CEO Ajay Bhushan Pandey said: "Aadhaar has come out winning as the champion of the empowerment of people, especially the marginalised sections of the society and also as the key to the welfare schemes delivery of the government that has eradicated the fakes, duplicates and middlemen. The verdict is a victory for UIDAI and the Government of India and has also set the pace of India's digital destiny".

He, however, added that some reasonable conditions and restrictions on private usages have been imposed as safeguards that would further strengthen Aadhaar as the unique identity in the service of the people, especially the poor.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Supreme Court Wednesday either set aside or read down as many as six provisions of the Aadhaar law and its regulations including those which allowed authorities to access personal information of an individual on national security concerns.

The top court was dealing with vehement pleas seeking setting aside of as many as 18 provisions or regulations under the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016 on the ground that they violated various fundamental rights, especially the right to privacy.

A five judge bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, by a majority of 4:1, struck down section 33 (2) of the Aadhaar Act which provided disclosure of biometric and demographic details in the interest of national security.

It said however that the scheme of such disclosure cannot be faulted with.

"However, for determination of such an eventuality, an officer higher than the rank of a Joint Secretary should be given such a power. Further, in order to avoid any possible misuse, a Judicial Officer (preferably a sitting High Court Judge) should also be associated with...., Section 33(2) of the Act in the present form is struck down with liberty to enact a suitable provision," said Justice A K Sikri, writing the majority verdict.

It also set aside Aadhaar regulation 27 (1) permitting Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to preserve authentication records for a period of five years and said it cannot be preserved beyond a period of six months.

The regulation which dealt with storage of meta data of transactions was also set aside and the court said that it needed to be amended.

It also read down section 33(1) of the Aadhaar saying that an individual, whose information is sought to be released, should be afforded an opportunity of hearing.

"Section 33(1) of the Act prohibits disclosure of information, including identity information or authentication records, except when it is by an order of a court not inferior to that of a District Judge. We have held that this provision is to be read down with the clarification that an individual, whose information is sought to be released, shall be afforded an opportunity of hearing...," it said.

The bench said that section 47, which provides for the cognizance of offence only on a complaint made by UIDAI or its authorised officers, needed "suitable amendment to include the provision for filing of such a complaint by an individual/ victim as well whose right is violated".

It termed as "susceptible to misuse" and struck down section 57 which empowered the private entities to seek and use Aadhaar authentication for business purposes.

"We read down this provision to mean that such a purpose has to be backed by law. Further, whenever any such 'law' is made, it would be subject to judicial scrutiny. Such purpose is not limited pursuant to any law alone but can be done pursuant to 'any contract to this effect' as well.

"This is clearly impermissible as a contractual provision is not backed by a law and, therefore, first requirement of proportionality test is not met," the bench said.

Besides sections of Aadhaar law, the bench also set aside a provision of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act which made Aadhaar mandatory for bank accounts.

The bench, however, upheld the constitutionality of 12 other provisions or regulations including section 59 of the Act which accorded validity to the data collected during 2009 to 2016 when the statute was not in force.

The majority verdict said it would be mandatory to link PAN with Aadhaar, filing Income Tax returns and availing facilities of welfare schemes and government subsidies.

It said seeding of Aadhaar would not be required for availing mobile services, by CBSE, NEET, JEE, UGC and for admissions in schools and free education for children. They were mandatory through various notifications.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee welcomed Wednesday the Supreme Court's verdict on Aadhaar, and termed it as a victory of the people.

"We welcome the verdict by the Supreme Court. It is a victory of the people of this country and we are very happy," Banerjee said in Milan, Italy, where is on an official tour.

"Days of the BJP government are over in the country," the chief minister added.

The apex court on Wednesday declared the Centre's flagship Aadhaar scheme as constitutionally valid, but struck down some of its provisions including linking with bank accounts, mobile phones and school admissions.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)SC summoned Asif Ali Zardari-children assets details

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court of Pakistan on Tuesday summoned details of assets of former President Asif Ali Zardari and his children within 15 days.



A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar was hearing Zardaris review petition against the apex courts earlier verdict summoning details of his assets in relation to the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) case.



On August 29, the apex court had summoned details of the former presidents assets from the past 10 years, while hearing a petition related to the NRO, passed by General (retd) Pervaiz Musharrafs government in 2007.



As the hearing went under way, the court directed, Zardari should submit details of inherited assets.



To this, the former presidents counsel, Farooq Naik, said, You can have details for the last five years but please dont ask for details of the last 10 years. The law only holds for five years.



However, the court refused Naiks request and upheld that asset details should be provided for the last 10 years.



Naik then requested, Asset details of autonomous children should not be summoned either.



The chief justice in response said, Now, all children are autonomous and mature. But daughters are under guardianship till marriage.



The former presidents counsel then said, Zardari was co-accused in eight cases. Further, Justice Ijazul Ahsan questioned Naik, Did you destroy all records yourself? To this, the former presidents counsel stated, I indicated towards the presence of the record. An affidavit was summoned from Zardari under Article 184(3).



Responding to Naik, the chief justice said, Public money is for the peoples welfare which is why we used Article184 (3). This is not a corruption issue; we are just increasing our ambit.



Also during the hearing, the CJP inquired why was the former president, General (retd) Pervez Musharraf, was not returning to Pakistan to face the charges. The CJP said Musharraf had left the country on grounds of poor health but he could be seen dancing in several videos circulating on the Internet. In response, the former presidents counsel, Akhtar Shah, said, Musharraf can return if restrictions are not imposed on his travel. To this, the chief justice remarked, His name has not been removed from the Exit Control List.



Justice Nisar assured that Musharrafs security will be ensured. Even if he asks for the security given to a brigade, we will provide it, he said.



We will provide him any kind of security he asks for, and he can get his treatment done from a doctor of his choice whether it is at the Combined Military Hospital or at Armed Forces Institute of Cardiology in Rawalpindi, Justice Nisar added. Further, the chief justice said that ahead of Musharrafs arrival in the country his house will be cleaned under Naeem Bukharis supervision.



A contingent of Rangers will receive him at whatever airport he lands at, the CJP assured. Justice Nisar continued, He should come and record his statement and then he is free to roam around wherever he pleases.



The chief justice also guaranteed that they will take all measures that Musharraf desires ahead of his return and the top court will ensure his security and not question him regarding his assets.



Turning to Musharrafs counsel, Justice Nisar remarked, Tell me the schedule of his return. Shah responded, Musharraf is not a coward and will return if his travel is not banned. The former presidents counsel also submitted an affidavit in court on his behalf.



Justice Nisar then asked, Are there different laws for Musharraf? Provide a reply on whether or not he will return to the country within a week.



Earlier, details pertaining to assets owned by Musharraf were presented in the apex court. The court then adjourned the hearing of the case for one week.



Nominating Musharraf, Zardari and Qayyum as respondents, petitioner Feroz Shah Gilani had requested the court in April to order recovery of huge amounts of public money misappropriated and wasted by them through unlawful means already on record in different judgements.With the ongoing sealing drive taking centre stage in the the run up to Lok Sabha elections next year, Delhi units of BJP, AAP and Congress were busy in throwing "open debate" challenge to each other.

Delhi Congress president Ajay Maken Wednesday challenged AAP convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to accept an open debate challenge on any issue at the place and time of his own choice.

"Let him (Kejriwal) decide the issue, place and time for an open debate. I will prove that he destroyed Delhi," Maken told reporters.

Earlier in the day, AAP's trader wing chief Brajesh Goyal set a stage at Ghantaghar in Chandni Chowk for an open debate with Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari.

Tiwari, who did not accept the challenge from Goyal, dared Kejriwal to have a debate with even a booth-level BJP worker, claiming that he will be rendered "speechless" because of his "long list of failures".

The BJP termed AAP's open debate as a "flop show", claiming that traders in Chandni Chowk avoided joining it.

Delhi BJP spokesperson and secretary of Chandni Chowk Nagrik Manch Praveen Shankar Kapoor claimed that the retail traders in the area "completely rejected" AAP's "drama" of open debate.

AAP leader and party in-charge of Chandni Chowk Lok Sabha seat, Pankaj Gupta charged the Delhi BJP chief of running away from the debate.

"Tiwari's dual character was exposed today before the people of Delhi. He makes tall claims and accused the AAP for the sealing drive but ran away when called to join the open debate," Gupta said.

He said if the BJP was sincere on the issue of sealing, its government at the Centre must bring an ordinance to stop the ongoing drive carried out by municipal corporations.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Copra rajapur Mumbai and copra



edible Mumbai declined in an otherwise lacklustre spices market Wednesday on lower demand from stockists and retailers.

Meanwhile, other spices held stable in the absence of any large-scale buying activities.

Copra rajapur Mumbai fell by Rs 300 per quintal to Rs 20,700 from Tuesday's closing level of Rs 21,000 and copra edible Mumbai went down by Rs 200 per quintal to Rs 14,200 as against Rs 14,400, yesterday.

Following are today's closing rates (in Rs) with previous rates in brackets:



Black pepper (per kg) 380/425 (380/425), ginger unbleached (per kg) 210 (210), copra office Alappuzha (per quintal) 10,200 (10,200), copra office Kozhikode (per quintal) 10,100 (10,100), copra Rajapur Mumbai (per quintal) 20,700 (21,000), copra edible Mumbai (per quintal) 14,200 (14,400).

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Every year, residents of Killari village in Maharashtra's Latur district observe a 'black day' on September 30.

This was the day when a devastating earthquake struck the Latur-Osmanabad region 25 years ago, killing around 10,000 people and injuring several others.

Although so much time has passed, people are still coming to terms with life and some are even waiting for compensation for damages suffered in the massive disaster.

The tragedy dealt a double blow to farm labourer Tanaji Suryavanshi, who not only lost several family members, including his 10-year-old son, but also had to part with his 6.5 acre farm which was taken away by the government for re-settling the survivors.

The villager, who is in his 50s and lives in a tin- roofed hut in Killari with his wife and a 13-year-old son, said he never got financial compensation or an alternate land.

He is now also debt-ridden since he borrowed money for his daughter's marriage, but is living in the hope that he would get a house and compensation.

"September 30 is a 'black day' for Killari and the entire village shuts down that day to mark the anniversary of the tragedy," Suryavanshi said.

Recalling the tragedy, he said, "I was at the Ganesh 'visarjan' (immersion) procession when the quake struck. I rushed home immediately only to find my stone-made house reduced to rubble."



He managed to pull out his wife, mother and brother from the debris, but his father, 10-year-old son, his brother's three children and sister-in-law succumbed to their injuries on the spot.

"My mother and brother died later. My wife received head injuries and has been surviving on medication," he said.

His wife Savita gets teary eyed whenever she remembers their dead son.

Suryavanshi said during the Ganesh festival, villagers recall the horror and still fear for their lives.

He said over the last 25 years, he has made several trips to the state relief and rehabilitation department to pursue his demand for compensation as a quake survivor.

"I moved court as well but haven't got justice. The hope for justice and giving a better life to my son is the only reason I am pulling along," he said.

Another Killari resident Prashant Harangule, 51, whose house was damaged and family members injured in the tragedy, recalls experiencing tremors every 5 minutes after the quake.

"When the rumour spread about Terna dam having burst due to the quake, many of the survivors fled in panic. We had to live in a transit camp for around three years," he said.

Harangule said his father was the strongest member in the family and gave everyone courage to bear the calamity.

"His message was - trust God and carry on with life," he said.

Harangule said he got a bank loan of Rs 22,000 to set up a grocery shop.

"Many survivors did not get compensation to re-set their units but banks stepped in to help. The crisis taught us to face hurdles successfully and win," he said.

Madhukar Chavan, the five-term Congress MLA from Tuljapur in the neighbouring Osmanabad which also bore the brunt of the quake, said, "A lot of help came but the wounds never healed even as survivors tried to move on in life."



Killari's deputy sarpanch Ashok Potdar, a doctor by profession, said tremors were felt in the area from October 1992 till June 1993.

"Locals would hear sound like that of a blast. There was an atmosphere of fear. A team of scientists and geologists had visited the place and told us that an earthquake is unlikely, but locals left their homes and went to stay in open fields," he recalled.

Senior Congress leader Shivraj Patil, who was then the Lok Sabha member from Latur, appealed to people to return to their homes, Potdar said.

He said authorities told them of the precautions to be taken following which locals returned to their homes in June and later, the quake struck in September that year.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Former BJP leader Kailash Muraraka, named an accused in the "sex CD" case allegedly involving a Chhattisgarh minister, surrendered before a special CBI court here Wednesday.

He was later released on bail by the court.

Muraraka was expelled from the BJP Tuesday after he was made the accused No. 1 in the charge-sheet filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the case.

Muraraka surrendered before the court of Special CBI Judge Sumit Kapoor. Later, he moved a bail application which was accepted, his lawyer UB Pandey told PTI.

The court granted him bail on a personal bond and surety of Rs 1 lakh each, he said.

Pandey claimed Muraraka was not summoned by the CBI when the charge-sheet was filed Monday.

The lawyer said after his client came to know through the media that he was being dubbed as an "absconder", he decided to surrender before the court.

According to the CBI charge-sheet, the purported "sex CD" of Chhattisgarh PWD Minister and BJP leader Rajesh Munat was allegedly made by superimposing his face on a porn clip on the orders of his then party colleague Muraraka.

Muraraka rejected the charges levelled against him as "baseless" and said the truth will come out in the days to come.

"I have full faith in the judicial process and whenever the court will direct, I will appear before it. I have told everything to the CBI. The charges against me are baseless and fabricated," he said in the court premises.

Muraraka said Chhattisgarh Congress chief Bhupesh Baghel, a co-accused, has nothing to with the CD scandal.

The Congress leader was accused of circulating the CD, which the minister had termed as "fake".

"I feel he (Baghel) is 'paak saaf' (completely clean)," he said, when asked about the alleged role of the Congress leader, now in jail, in the entire episode.

On September 24, the CBI, which probed the sex CD case that came to light last year, had filed the charge-sheet in the special court against Baghel and five other accused.

The other accused are Muraraka, journalist Vinod Verma, businessman Vijay Bhatia, short-film maker Vijay Pandya and one Rinku Khanuja.

Khanuja, a Raipur-based automobile dealer, had allegedly committed suicide in June this year.

Baghel, Verma and Bhatia had appeared in the special court Monday after they were served notices by the CBI.

Baghel, who did not apply for bail, is currently in judicial remand for 14 days, while Verma and Bhatia are out on bail.

Muraraka and Pandya did not appear in the court Monday.

All the accused were booked under IPC sections 469 (forgery for purpose of harming reputation), 471 (using as genuine a forged document), 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 67A of the IT Act (whoever publishes or transmits or causes to be published or transmitted in the electronic form any material which contains sexually explicit act).

Baghel told reporters Monday he was being falsely implicated in the case.

In October last year, a controversy had erupted after a "porn video", allegedly featuring Munat, surfaced following the arrest of Verma from his residence in Ghaziabad (Uttar Pradesh) by the Raipur police.

According to the Raipur Police, a case of blackmail and extortion was registered at the Pandri police station here based on a complaint by BJP leader Prakash Bajaj who had said he "was being harassed over phone by an unidentified caller who told him that he had a CD of his 'aaka' (master)".

After investigation, a search team was sent to Delhi and Verma was arrested from Ghaziabad on October 27, 2017. The police had then claimed to have recovered 500 CDs and pen drives, among other items, from Verma's residence.

Munat had then lodged a complaint against Baghel and Verma at the Civil Lines police station in Raipur for allegedly tarnishing his image through the "fake CD".

The Chhattisgarh government had then recommended a CBI probe into the case.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Determined to "move ahead" with its "socialist" agenda despite Mulayam Singh Yadav making his stand obvious by attending Samajwadi Party events, the Samajwadi Secular Morcha (SSM) said Wednesday it was working on strengthening its organisation and will continue to "honour" the SP founder.

SSM spokesman Deepak Mishra told PTI they were not demoralised after the presence of Mulayam Yadav at an SP event in New Delhi.

"We are moving ahead with our socialist agenda and working to strengthen our oganisation," he said.

Referring to reports by a section of media that Mulayam Yadav's photos went missing after he attended the SP cycle yatra conclusion ceremony, Mishra said, "Who is saying this? We respect him and will continue to do so. If his photographs are missing from some banners of posters, it might be due to some errors or other reasons."



Some SSM insiders said the missing photographs in fresh publicity material were a reaction to Mulayam Yadav's literal snub to Shivpal Yadav.

Though SSM convenor Shivpal Yadav claimed he had the "blessings" of brother Mulayam Yadav, the SP patriarch attended the party event last week.

Mulayam Yadav had said he always wished that the party did not become old. "It (the party) will also be young and led by the young," he had said.

His utterance was seen as an obvious and undisputed approval to son Akhilesh Yadav's leadership in the Samajwadi Party.

Mulayam Yadav had also asked him to "ensure district and state committee meetings are held every month and to involve more girls/women in party affairs by giving them more responsibilities".

Enthused by his father's presence, Akhilesh Yadav had accepted his suggestions and had said he would always implement whatever 'netaji' advised him.

SSM leader Mishra, however, said, "We are certainly not demoralised. We have declared in-charges of 14 divisions. Senior Samajwadi leader CP Rai has been appointed as chief spokesman of the party and we are expanding our team.

"Shivpalji has also met the Election Commission and our organisation is gaining confidence of the people," Mishra added.

The SSM had last week unveiled its flag and had offered Mulayam Yadav, the elder brother of Shivpal Yadav the Mainpuri Lok Sabha seat, an SP stronghold, on Morcha's ticket.

Shivpal Yadav, who founded the SSM, had said he was ready to contest the 2019 polls on all the 80 parliamentary seats in Uttar Pradesh, except the Mainpuri seat.

"I am ready to contest on all the 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh in 2019 Lok Sabha polls, except for the Mainpuri seat, where 'Netaji' (Mulayam Singh Yadav) is likely to contest," Shivpal Yadav had said claiming that he had Mulayam Yadav's "blessings".

He said he formed the Morcha to protect his "honour" and not seek any post in the Samajwadi Party.

"I never wanted to part ways (with the Samajwadi Party). I only wanted honour, which I did not get after the change of leadership in the party. I never wanted posts. I took this step (of forming the Morcha) out of compulsion to protect my honour," he said.

Shivpal Yadav had launched the Morcha last month, stating he would seek the support of "neglected" party workers.

He later announced that his political outfit would contest on all Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh.

Shivpal Yadav was unceremoniously removed from the post of SP state unit president after his nephew Akhilesh Yadav assumed charge as the SP's national president.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Lok Sabha MP from Arunachal Pradesh Ninong Ering has criticised the Central Water Commission's report on the condition of the Siang river and demanded dredging of its riverbed.

The river witnessed sudden blackening with heavy turbidity last year, and now the water level has risen due to sedimentation and deposition, Ering said in a letter to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday.

"The condition of Siang river is in a sorry state, and yet the CWC data paints a rosy picture to keep real suffering and plight of people in oblivion," the Congress MP from Arunachal East Parliamentary Constituency said.

Ering said large portions of agricultural land have been damaged due to heavy erosion of the Siang river, and the river water has left "many natives homeless and in total chaos."



"In the absence of embankments, villagers somehow built sandbags embankment to protect their lives. Few stranded people were even airlifted by the Air Force at Jampani," he said in the letter.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Half a dozen talukas spread over three districts of Gujarat were Wednesday declared as "scarcity-hit" by the government due to deficient rainfall during the current monsoon season.

With this, the number of scarcity-affected talukas in the state has gone up to 16.

A week back, the government had declared all the 10 talukas of Kutch district as scarcity-hit due to scanty rainfall.

The decision to add six more talukas in the category of "scarcity-hit" was taken during a meeting of a sub- committee of ministers formed to review availability of water in the state in the wake of deficient rainfall.

These talukas are Vav, Suigam, Kankrej and Tharad (Banaskantha district), Chanasma (Patan district) and Mandal (Ahmedabad district), Revenue Minister Kaushik Patel told reporters in Gandhinagar after the meeting.

"During the meeting, we have decided to declare these six talukas of Banaskantha, Patan and Ahmedabad districts as scarcity-hit as they have received less than 125 mm rainfall during this monsoon," said Patel.

The minister said the sub-committee would meet every Wednesday to review the situation and suggest appropriate steps to tackle the scarcity situation in affected regions.

Ministers and senior officials of the revenue, labour and employment, agriculture, water resources and animal husbandry departments will take part in the weekly meetings.

During this year's monsoon, which is nearing its end, Gujarat has received just 76.61 per cent of the average rainfall. The rain deficiency is highest in Kutch district and North Gujarat.

Scarcity-hit tag allows the government to undertake relief measures for farmers and other village residents in the affected areas. The government also makes arrangements to provide fodder for cattle at subsidised rates.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)To give a push to the skilling ecosystem, the government has proposed establishing the National Council for Vocational & Training, along with skills universities that will offer degrees like master and bachelor of skills.

The Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Ministry has placed the guidelines on setting up skills universities in India in the public domain and sought comments within 15 days.

According to the draft norms, the universities will have specialised skill training labs, studios and centres of excellence developed in collaboration with industry. They will also have a counselling cell to assess the aptitude of students prior to their enrolment in a skill-based programme, apart from career counselling during their course.

Moreover, the placement cell shall organise campus recruitment by forging appropriate linkages with the industry.

"Presently, skill based courses are being offered under degrees of varying names. There is a need to have a uniformity in nomenclature to differentiate between the conventional technical courses and the skill development degree level courses.

"In view of this, Bachelor of Skills (B. Skills) or Bachelor of Vocation (B. Voc) shall be used instead of all the other nomenclature being used for such bachelor level programmes in the country," the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship said in the draft guidelines.

Similarly, master level degree programmes shall be known as Master of Skills (M.Skills) or Master of Vocation (M.Voc).

One of the major functions of the proposed regulator, the National Council for Vocational & Training, is to formulate norms and standards for Skills Universities.

A Standing Committee shall be set up by the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship with representatives from UGC, MHRD, NSDA, NSDC and Skills Universities for alignment of requirements of Skills Universities and UGC norms from time to time.

"Skills Universities will emerge as foremost institutions of skills based recognised by employers, nationally and internationally," said the norms.

The Skills Universities shall offer sector specific certificate, diploma and degree programmes directly related to the job roles in demand. These programmes shall be higher than the ones offered by ITI/Polytechnics and also different from the conventional degree courses offered by academic institutions such as B.Sc. Electronics, B.Sc. Computers, etc.

Moreover, strong employer connect would be the basis for any skills programme for the purpose of identifying the courses corresponding to the job roles in demand, designing the course curriculum, skill assessments, student & faculty training, apprenticeship, on job training, placements, joint research projects etc.

On the Job Training and apprenticeships shall form an integral part of a skills-based programme. The Skills Universities will award degrees, diplomas, certificates and other distinctions that conform to the National Skills Qualification Framework.

The students shall also have the option to exit with a Certificate, Diploma or Advanced Diploma after acquiring requisite number of credits as is being currently done under the B. Voc programme.

Preference may be given to those students coming from the vocational stream like-pass outs from ITI, Polytechnics or students from the vocational stream in the schools.

According to the draft guidelines, a Skills University can be set up as per any permissible legal instrument, either as a Public University or a Private University or in Public-Private-Partnership mode.

The Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, however, clarified that the norms do not intend to supersede the extant UGC norms regarding the regulation of higher education in India.

"Grant of recognition as a 'University' falls under the domain of the UGC, and thus any institution seeking such recognition has to follow the applicable provisions of the UGC Act, 1956," the ministry said in the draft.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Bombay High Court on Wednesday wanted to know from the Maharashtra government and the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) the reasons behind the slow paced work in repairing and widening of the Mumbai-Goa National Highway.

A bench of Acting Chief Justice Naresh Patil and Justice G S Kulkarni also asked whether any experts were appointed to monitor and certify the quality of such work.

The HC has now sought original records of contracts awarded for the repair and widening of the highway from two lanes to four, the costs for the project and the safety measures that authorities have employed in the meanwhile for the convenience of motorists.

The bench was hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by city-based lawyer Owais Pechkar, highlighting the poor condition of the highway. Pechkar had also submitted photographs showing the entire stretch was riddled with potholes following rains this year.

It the plea, Pechkar informed the court that while the widening and repair work on the highway had begun in 2011, the contractors appointed by the authorities had completed just a small portion of the work.

As per the plea and submissions made by authorities in court, 84 km of the total 555 km of the highway is maintained by the NHAI.

The repair and widening work on the 84 km stretch began in 2011, and so far, about 70 per cent of the work has been completed.

However, even on this newly widened stretch, potholes had reappeared this monsoon, Pechkar said.

The state government began the work on its part of the road last year.

Government counsel Nisha Mehra told the bench that the work was likely to be completed by 2020.

The high court, however, raised questions on the state's claims.

"The NHAI is working on just a small portion of the highway and has failed to complete the work in eight long years. The state, meanwhile, proposes to complete the work in the next two years on a stretch of over 470 km. Is the state being ambitious or does the NHAI not have competent contractors?" the bench asked.

"What is the reason for such slow pace of work on the NHAI's portion and what is the actual progress of work on the state's area? Also, is there an independent authority to check whether the work being done is of the requisite quality?" it said.

The very reason that the Union government had decided to fund the 6,000 crore widening project for the highway was because of the increasing number of accidents on the stretch, the bench noted.

Therefore, it was imperative that authorities complete the work in a time-bound manner, and in the meanwhile ensure safety of commuters using the highway, while it was under repair.

Notably, the state government and the NHAI had assured the high court last month that they would repair potholes on the Mumbai-Goa National Highway by September 5.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A pre-induction trial



of India's indigenously developed beyond visual range air-to-air missile (BVRAAM) 'Astra' was successfully conducted Wednesday over Bay of Bengal near Chandipur in Odisha, defence sources said.

The missile was fired from a fighter aircraft of the Indian Air Force in the afternoon and targeted an unmanned aerial vehicle 'Banshi' which it successfully engaged, the sources said.

'Astra' was successfully test fired by the IAF from a Su-30 aircraft that had taken off from Air Force station, Kalaikunda, a defence statement said.

The missile successfully engaged a maneuvering target with high precision, meeting the mission objectives, it said.

The statement said, "In the series of trials held to date, Astra has been launched in the complete Su-30 flight envelope. The flight test assumes significance as it was part of the series of final pre-induction trials".

Astra has undergone more than 20 developmental trials, says the statement.

Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman lauded the efforts of Indian Air Force, DRDO and associated team members who were involved in the mission.

India has attained a high level of capability in the indigenous design and development of advanced weapon systems.

The final development Flight Trials of Astra were successfully conducted in September last year, the sources said adding a total of seven trials were conducted against pilotless target aircraft successfully from September 11 to 14, 2017.

The missions included engagement of target at very long range, engagement of high maneuvering target at medium range and multiple launches of missiles in salvo to engage multiple targets.

All the sub-systems including the indigenous RF Seeker performed accurately, meeting all the mission parameters and objectives. Two missiles were also launched in the combat configuration with warhead and the targets were neutralized, the sources said.

This effort for building a state-of-the-art BVRAAM by Defence Research and Development Organisation together with IAF completed the development phase of the weapon system successfully.

Hindustan Aeronautics Limited played a role in modifying the aircraft for weapon integration, the defence sources said adding more than 50 public and private industries have contributed in building the 'Astra' weapon system.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Shah Mehmood met Donald Trump

Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi on Tuesday met United States President Donald Trump at the United Nations headquarters in New York. According to details, the US president, who arrived to address the UN General Assembly met FM Qureshi at a reception at the UN headquarters.



Speaking about the meeting, the foreign minister said that Pakistan and the US agreed to rebuild bilateral relations.



I met President Donald Trump at the reception where I had the opportunity to discuss Pak-US relations with him. I requested him that we have had cordial relations and need to rebuild them, he said while speaking to a state-owned TV.



He added that he received a positive response from the US president. Furthermore, Qureshi said that he also met Mike Pompeo. This is their second meeting within a month after the US top diplomat visited Islamabad.



Both leaders would hold another meeting on October 2. Qureshi said that Pompeo also sent his greetings to Prime Minister Imran Khan.Send my greetings to your leader, Pompeo told Qureshi.Suspended vice-chancellor of Manipur University Prof Aditya Prasad Pandey, against whom a probe has been initiated, failed to "appear in person" before the enquiry committee on Wednesday, a statement issued by the panel said here.

The two-member committee had asked him to appear in person for three consecutive days starting Wednesday when all the witnesses will be examined.

The Committee, headed by retired Justice Th Nandakumar of the Meghalaya High Court, was instituted by Ministry of Human Resources Development, to probe the charges of financial and administrative irregularities committed by Pandey.

The Manipur University Students Union (MUSU), the Manipur University Teachers Association (MUTA)and the Manipur University Staff's Association (MUSA) had raised the allegations against the suspended vice-chancellor.

Pandey last week did not accept the notice issued by the committee asking him to appear before it in person and the notice was pasted on the wall of his quarter.

Pandey was suspended by President Ram Nath Kovind in his capacity as the Visitor of the central university on September 17.

The 85-day agitation by MUSU, MUTA and MUSA had paralysed functioning of the Manipur university. The MUSU, MUTA and MUSA are demanding the removal of Pandey alleging administrative and financial irregularities by him.

The agitation ended on August 22 and the university started functioning from August 23 with Pandey proceeding on leave. But resuming of duties by Pandey has further deteriorated the atmosphere of the university, his suspension order by the MHRD has said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich had sought to move to Switzerland but withdrew his residency bid when it looked set to be rejected, a Swiss migration official said Wednesday.

The saga surrounding the Chelsea owner's attempt to relocate to the wealthy Alpine nation was first reported by the Tribune de Geneve (TdG) newspaper, which claimed Abramovich was turned away after Swiss police claimed he posed a security risk.

Abramovich had applied for residency in Valais canton, which includes the luxury ski resort of Verbier, Jacques de Lavallaz, the head of the cantonal migration service, told AFP in an email.

Valais gave Abramovich the green light, de Lavallaz said, but federal authorities have the final say on Swiss migration decisions.

"The (federal) secretariat of migration was going to make a negative decision but Mr. Abramovich's representatives withdrew their client's application before a decision was issued," de Lavallaz said.

The migration secretariat's decision was based on an analysis conducted by Swiss federal police, de Lavallaz explained, without discussing details of their conclusions.

He stressed that the application was withdrawn before a final decision was rendered.

According to the TdG, Abramovich applied to move to Verbier in 2016. The newspaper said that police argued he was linked to "alleged money laundering and alleged contacts to criminal organisations."



Police claimed "that Abramovich's presence in the country would constitute a reputational risk for Switzerland -- and possibly even a public security risk," the newspaper further reported.

The newspaper also posted a statement from an individual identified as Abramovich's lawyer, criticising Swiss officials and the release of his personal information.

"We have filed a request for correction of facts to the Swiss Federal Police and will be filing a criminal complaint against unknown persons responsible for dissemination of this confidential information," the lawyer, Daniel Glasl, said in the statement.

"Any suggestion that Abramovich has been involved in money laundering or has contacts with criminal organisations is entirely false," he added.

It also noted that Abramovich has no criminal record.

The TdG said Swiss police raised concern over a commodities trading company that had been controlled by Abramovich called Runicom, which was the subject of a money laundering investigation by Geneva prosecutors in the 1990s.

Glasl stressed that the company was "long-ago cleared of any wrongdoing." The TdG said that Switzerland's federal court gave it permission last week to publish the story, after a seven month legal battle with Abramovich's lawyers.

Abramovich, who bought Chelsea in 2003, was granted Israeli citizenship earlier this year after the British authorities reportedly delayed approving a visa for him.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Civil Aviation Ministry Wednesday said final recommendations of the task force on drones are expected soon.

In April, the government set up a 13-member task force, headed by Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha, to prepare a road map for the implementation of unmanned aerial vehicle technology.

"HMoSCA @jayantsinha chaired a meeting of the drone task-force: the final recommendations are expected soon. This report will help shape India's Drone Regulations 2.0," the ministry said in a tweet.

In August, the ministry came out with norms for civilian use of drones.

The task force is to develop a roadmap with implementable recommendations for central as well as state governments, industry and research institutions.

The committee would prepare a roadmap, including "outcomes, timelines, implementation & review mechanism and measurable metrics" for the implementation of UAV technology. Besides, the role of the industry would be clearly delineated, an official release had said in April.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)is likely to put in Rs 3-4 billion in FY20 into Usha Martin's specialty division that it has agreed to acquire, to further improve the operating margins, a report said Wednesday.

In one of the largest debt resolution cases outside the NCLT, the (USL) board had on September 22 signed an agreement with (TSL) to sell the Kolkata-based firm's steel and wire rope business for a cash consideration of up to Rs 43-47 billion in a slump sale.

USL's Jamshedpur-based steel division has one million tonnes per annum (mtpa) of alloy-based manufacturing capacity in the long products segment.

"TSL will help in improving the blended EBITDA/tonne (operating margins per tonne) of the acquired business to Rs 8,000 per tonne by FY21, from the current Rs 6,800 per tonne on the back of captive coal supplies, optimisation of sales mix and other operational synergies," Ratings said in a report.

It expects the acquired division to contribute a modest 3.5 per cent to TSL's absolute EBITDA in FY20 for domestic business.

The rating agency also assumes TSL to incur an additional Rs 3-4 billion of capex in FY20 to further improve the division's EBITDA/tonne.

The agency expects total cash outflows on account of capital expenditure and acquisitions to remain below Rs 90 billion in FY19, with a large portion of the acquisition outflows to occur only in FY20.

Ratings said that the acquisition is credit neutral for TSL, adding that proposed acquisition will lead to a modest increase in TSL's net leverage to about 4.0x in FY20, against 3.3x in FY18.

It can be noted that global rating agencies and Moody's Tuesday had said the purchase is credit positive for TSL as it widens its product portfolio to the high margin long products segments, where the Tatas are not strong now, without impacting the company's financial profile or leverage as the deal will be an all-cash one.

Ratings also said the proposed acquisition appears to be a good strategic fit to TSL, aligning well with its existing location and vicinity of captive iron ore mines. The iron ore and coal mines are adjacent to TSL's existing projects, located primarily in eastern India.

It will increase TSL's India capacity to 19.3 mtpa, from 18.3 mtpa, making it the largest steel company by domestic production.

It expects revenue contribution from TSL's long product division to increase to about 22 per cent by FY20, compared with 18 per cent in FY18, of the domestic sales in the near-to-medium term.One of the two terrorists killed in an encounter with security forces in Sopore Tuesday was identified as a top Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) commander who was active in north Kashmir for the past three years, police said Wednesday.

The police identified him as Abu Maaz, a Pakistani national.

"On the basis of materials recovered, one of the slain terrorists has been identified as Abu Maaz of Pakistani origin who was operating as the top commander of LeT in north Kashmir," a police spokesman said.

The other terrorist who was killed in the operation in Bomai area was identified as Abdul Majeed Mir alias Sameer.

The spokesman said Maaz had a criminal record since 2015 and he was involved in series of terror activities in the area, particularly in Sopore and Handwara.

"He was involved in several attacks on the security forces and killings of civilians in the area. Several cases were registered against him in police stations across the valley for terror activities," he added.

The spokesman said Maaz was involved in at least a dozen attacks on civilians and security forces since 2015 in which three civilians and an Army officer were killed.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)In another explosive accusation, a third woman came forward on Wednesday to charge Donald Trump's supreme court nominee Brett Kavanaugh with sexual misconduct, alleging that she was gang-raped at a party he attended in the early 1980s.

Julie Swetnick said in a statement released by her lawyer that the events took place at parties she attended while a high school student in suburban Maryland.

She alleged that Kavanaugh and others while in high school spiked the drinks of girls at parties with intoxicants to make it easier for them to be gang raped.

Swetnick's statement was released by her lawyer, Michael Avenatti, the attorney for porn star Stormy Daniels, who has claimed to have had a sexual encounter with Donald Trump.

Her stunning claims are made on the eve of scheduled testimony before a Senate Committee by Kavanaugh and his first accuser, Christine Blasey Ford.

Kavanaugh on Wednesday once again rejected the allegations as "last minute smears" that were "false and uncorroborated."



"This is ridiculous and from the Twilight Zone. I don't know who this is and this never happened, Kavanaugh said in a statement issued through the White House.

Over the past few days, other false and uncorroborated accusations have been aired," he added. "These are last minute smears, pure and simple."



Earlier two women - Christine Ford and Deborah Ramirez - came out publicly alleging that they were sexually assaulted by Kavanaugh 36 and 25 years ago respectively.

Attorney Avenatti tweeted a sworn testimony from the third accuser Swetnick.

In the sworn affidavit, Swetnick claimed she met Kavanaugh in approximately 1980-1981 and attended several house parties for which Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge were also present.

"I also witnessed efforts by Mark Judge, Brett Kavanaugh and others to cause girls to become inebriated and disoriented so they could then be 'gang raped' in a side room or bedroom by a 'train' of numerous boys ... These boys included Mark Judge and Brett Kavanaugh ... In approximately 1982, I became the victim of one of these 'gang' or 'train' rapes where Mark Judge and Brett Kavanaugh were present, Swetnick alleged.

She is the third woman to have accused Kavanaugh with sexual assault. All the three allegations have been denied by the Supreme Court nominee.

Kavanaugh is scheduled to appear before Senate Judiciary Committee to present his case. The first accuser Christine Ford has also agreed to testify publicly.

President Donald Trump, who is in New York attending the annual UN General Assembly session, came out in support of his Supreme Court nominee and slammed Avenatti.

"Avenatti is a third rate lawyer who is good at making false accusations, like he did on me and like he is now doing on Judge Brett Kavanaugh. He is just looking for attention and doesn't want people to look at his past record and relationships - a total low-life! Trump said in a tweet.

In his prepared testimony, which was released to media Wednesday, Kavanaugh denied the allegations of sexual assault.

"I categorically and unequivocally deny the allegation against me by Dr Ford. I never had any sexual or physical encounter of any kind with Dr Ford. I am not questioning that Dr. Ford may have been sexually assaulted by some person in some place at some time. But I have never done that to her or to anyone," he will say on Thursday as per the prepared testimony.

Meanwhile, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley said he has asked Rachel Mitchell, a career prosecutor with decades of experience prosecuting sex crimes, to question the witnesses scheduled to testify on Thursday at the committee's continuation of its hearing to consider the nomination of Judge Kavanaugh to serve on the United States Supreme Court.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Donald Glover is postponing his upcoming Childish Gambino tour dates due to an injury.

According to Billboard, Glover's final tour as his hip-hop alter-ego has been currently put on hold after reportedly struggling with an injured foot.

Fam Rothstein, co-principal of the creative collective Wolf + Rothstein, a partnership with Glover and Chad "The Wolf" Taylor, took to Twitter to assure fans the dates were "postponed, not cancelled".

"This is America tour is postponed, not cancelled. My guy played through the pain, but has to sit some dates out. Back before the years over," Rothstein wrote.

His comments came after Forum in Inglewood announced the rap star's Wednesday show was postponed and the tickets will be honoured at a new date.

"Tomorrow's Childish Gambino show at the Forum has been postponed. Tickets will be valid at the newly scheduled date when announced. Thank you," the tweet read.

It is currently unclear how many gigs will Glover not perform in.

Besides Forum concert, the artiste is booked for 11 more dates.

Glover's last gig will be October 12 at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville and a single show in New Orleans late October.

For his international shows, he has three concerts in Europe and a run in Australia and New Zealand.

On September 14's Madison Square Ground gig, Glover announced 'This is America' was his last tour as his hip-hop act "ever".

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Photo: Reuters.

The medium refit and life certification (MRLC) contract for the submarine will commence next month and is expected to be completed by 2021, according to Gurnad Sodhi, managing director, Marine Systems

"The Rs 4.1 billion contract from Mazagon Docks is to overhaul the fourth Shishumar-class submarine, which will extend its life by another decade or so," Sodhi told

The is planning subsequent overhauls of the remaining three HDW Class 209 Type 1500 assets that were commissioned between 1986 and 1994 and which form the Navy's 10th submarine squadron based in Mumbai, he said.

India's association with the dates back to the early 1990s when it supplied two of the four Shishumar-class non-nuclear submarines to the

It then built the other two Shishumar-class non-nuclear submarines (INS Shishumar) at the defence ministry-run Mazagon Docks Shipbuilders, Mumbai, and were inducted into the Navy in the 1990s.

"This contract reiterates our long-standing commitment to the country and is another milestone in our participation in the country's defence programme through local manufacturing," said Sodhi.

It can be noted that Thyssenkrupp AG is the world in non-nuclear submarines (both design and manufacturing).

More recently, it has been awarded a contract worth Rs 250 crore to retrofit the Harpoon missile system on two of the four Shishumar-class submarines, said Sodhi.

Commenting on the contract, Rolf Wirtz, chief executive of Thyssenkrupp Marine Systems, said, "We are looking forward to working with MDL to perform the deep modernisation work to ensure that INS Shishumar remains a very capable combat submarine for the Navy over the years to come."



"Our experience with the Shishumar class and the outstanding skills of MDL's employees are the basis for the return of the submarine back to the Navy in great shape," he added.

Thyssenkrupp began its journey way back in 1860, which is the third largest market for the group in The group employs over 7,000 across 11 operating units that which build industrial plants, marine systems, elevators, engine components, bearings and undercarriages to materials services.A top security aide of Nigeria's First Lady has been arrested for allegedly dropping her name to extort almost USD 7 million from people, in a test case for President Muhammadu Buhari's fight against graft.

Police chief superintendent Sani Baban-Inna, the chief security officer (ADC) to Aisha Buhari since 2016, was detained by police on Friday but is now in the custody of the country's intelligence agency, the DSS.

Aisha, who is currently on a trip with her husband at the UN General Assembly in New York, said in a statement late Tuesday that she had not ordered his arrest.

"The story as it pertains to her ADC, Chief Superintendent of Police (CSP) Sani Baban-Inna has it that he has been detained on the orders of Her Excellency for dropping her name and defrauding unsuspecting officials and associates," the First Lady's office said.

"She wishes to use this opportunity to refute such allegation and to state that she has no hand in his arrest and detention." She also denied sending her security officer, or any other staff, "to collect any favours on her behalf or on behalf of her children and will never do so".

Baban-Inna is accused of extorting 2.5 billion naira (USD 6.9 million). Aisha called for anyone defrauded through "extortion by name-dropping" to get their money back and expressed dismay that Baban-Inna allegedly "used the opportunity to defraud unsuspecting associates and officials as initial investigations have shown".

Independent online newspaper Premium Times earlier reported that the First Lady instigated the security officer's arrest after accusing him of collecting the money on her behalf from associates.

Baban-Inna denied the allegations and was said to have initially been cleared by police.

But Aisha Buhari was not satisfied with the police investigation, the paper reported, and asked intelligence officers to take over the case. The scandal involving a close aide of the wife of the president is seen as a test for Buhari's impartiality in his avowed fight against graft.

The administration has been accused of targeting only opposition figures since he came to power in 2015.

The 75-year-old retired general who headed a military regime in the 1980s, is seeking re-election in February, amid concerns about his failing health, poor performance and a myriad of security problems wracking the nation.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)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A top Lashker-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorist of Pakistani origin, who was responsible for gunning down Army Major Satish Dhayia, was among two militants killed in an encounter in the apple town of Sopore in North Kashmir early Wednesday, police said.

With these deaths, the number of ultras killed in the past 12 days in Kashmir has gone up to 18, they said.

Abu Maaz, who had been active since 2015, was killed, along with Abdul Majeed alias 'Sameer', a resident of Bomai in Sopore, they said.

Giving details, the police said during the intervening night of Tuesday and Wednesday a joint search operation was launched with para-military forces and army following a credible intelligence input about the presence of terrorists in the Nowpora area of Tujjer in Sopore.

"During the searches, hiding terrorists fired on the search party, which was retaliated leading to an encounter. In the ensuing encounter, two terrorists were eliminated," a police spokesman said.

"On the basis of materials recovered, one of the slain terrorists has been identified as Abu Maaz of Pakistani origin who had been operating as the top commander of LeT in north Kashmir," the spokesman said.

The spokesman said Maaz was involved in a series of attacks on security forces and killings of civilians. He was active in North Kashmir, particulary Sopore and Handwara.

Maaz had masterminded an attack on an Army convoy in Handwara in February last year, in which 31-year-old Major Satish Dhaiya was killed.

Three terrorists -- Abu Saad, Abu Maviya and Abu Darda -- were killed in that encounter, but Abu Maaz had managed to escape after gunning down the Army Major.

Since then, he was among the most wanted terrorists in North Kashmir.

With these two deaths, the number of militants killed in the past 12 days in Kashmir has gone up to 18. Five militants each were killed in Kulgam district of South Kashmir and Bandipore in North Kashmir during this period.

Another five terrorist were gunned down in Tangdhar of North Kashmir and one was killed at Tral in Awantipura of South Kashmir.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo signaled Wednesday that he will return to North Korea next month to push forward denuclearization talks as President Donald Trump predicted breakthroughs soon.

Pompeo met on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session with his North Korean counterpart, Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho, and agreed to pay his fourth trip to the longtime US arch-enemy.

Pompeo accepted an invitation from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to return to Pyongyang in October to move ahead on efforts for "the final, fully verified denuclearization of the DPRK," the State Department said, referring to the North by its official name of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Pompeo will also try to arrange a second summit between Trump and Kim, whose meeting in June in Singapore was the first ever between leaders of the two states.

Trump has hailed his initiative with North Korea as a signature foreign policy success and heaped praise on Kim.

His speech came just one year after he mocked Kim as a "rocket man" at the United Nations and threatened a forceful military response. Critics question how much North Korea has actually changed.

The regime, considered by human rights groups to be among the world's most repressive, has carried out six nuclear tests and says it has missiles that can hit the United States, although many analysts doubt its boasts.

"Kim Jong Un, a man I have gotten to know and like, wants peace and prosperity for North Korea," Trump told a special session of the UN Security Council on non-proliferation.

Trump said to expect "very good news" in the coming months and years from North Korea.

"Many things are happening behind the scenes away from the media which nobody knows, but they are happening nevertheless and they are happening in a very positive way," the president said.

But Trump also called for the enforcement of sanctions, which the United States has spent years building through the Security Council in response to North Korea's nuclear and missile tests.

"Unfortunately, to ensure this progress continues, we must enforce existing UN Security Council resolutions until denuclearization occurs," Trump said, reading from a prepared text.

"However, we have detected that some nations are already violating these UN sanctions. This includes illegal ship-to-ship transfers which must end immediately," he said.

"The safety of the Korean peninsula, the region and the world depends on full compliance."



North Korea counts on China as its main economic and political backer. The startling diplomatic developments have largely pleased China as well as South Korea's dovish President Moon Jae-in, who earlier this month paid his latest visit to Pyongyang.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who rose to political prominence as a hardliner on North Korea, told the United Nations on Tuesday that he too was willing to meet Kim.

But Abe said the focus of any summit would be to resolve the fate of Japanese civilians kidnapped by Pyongyang's spies in the 1970s and 1980s. Pompeo, in an interview broadcast Wednesday with CBS News, said he believed that North Korea would allow international inspectors to verify any commitments.

"We're not going to buy a pig in a poke," he said.

"We're going to get this right, we're going to deliver on this commitment that Chairman Kim has made to the world, and then there's going to be a brighter future for the North Korean people, and there'll be a more peaceful world." The diplomatic drive comes as Trump pursues a very different path on Iran, ramping up economic pressure and threatening tougher action after withdrawing from an international denuclearization agreement.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The fish-loving citizens of Tripura are facing a harrowing time with Bangladeshi exporters stopping the supply of fish to the state early this month over alleged extortion demand by anti-socials.

With only a fortnight to go before the start of the Durga puja festival, the snapping of supply has led to the increase in the prices of fishes like 'rohu', 'katla', and 'pabda' in the state, which is dependent on arrival from Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and Bangladesh.

The supply was stopped after suspected goons allegedly stopped some exporters from entering the state after they refused to pay 'tola' (extortion money) at the Agartala-Akhaura integrated-checkpoint on September 4. A sizeable amount of fish enters the markets through the checkpoint, a customs official on the condition of anonymity on Wednesday.

Around 10,000 kg of fish, therefore, got spoiled, resulting in the loss of around 37,000 USD (approximately Rs 26,87,495 at current rates), he added.

When the Indian traders contacted their counterparts in Bangladesh, they clearly stated that if a responsible government official from India give a written assurance against any illegal interference in the trade in future, only then would they resume fish exports, the official said.

"There was a meeting of the exporters from Bangladesh in their country on September 17, during which they raised a question about how would they be compensated for their loss on September 4," an executive of the Agartala Exporter and Importer Entrepreneur Sangha said.

The joint director of the state fisheries department, Abani Debbarma, said roughly 70 per cent of the total consumption of fish was produced in the state and the rest comes from Bangladesh, West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh.

The total consumption of fish per year in Tripura is 92,000 million tonnes, of which 72,276 million tonnes are produced in the state and the rest comes from outside, including Bangladesh. The per-capita fish consumption is around 22 kg in the state.

Speaking on the issue, ruling Bharatiya Janata Party's state vice-president, Pratima Bhowmik, said she would take the initiative to solve the problem. "I will hold a meeting with the exporters and importers of the state to discuss how the problem can be solved. I am hopeful a solution will come out," she told PTI.

A fish trader, Adhir Das, who sells fish at the Battala Market, the capital's main market, said, "The price of fish is soaring every day, because production in the state is not sufficient for consumption. We are facing livelihood problem because there are hardly any customers. We are facing the problem for the last one month."



When contacted, Selim Shah, economics professor at Tripura University, said, "Tripura is not self-reliant in fish production. We mainly depend on fish from Andhra Pradesh and Bangladesh."



"The people are fond of fish from Bangladesh, because those are fresh. Durga puja is also knocking at the door. Requirement of fish is more during the festive season," Shah said, expressing apprehensions that if the stalemate continued, fish would be out of reach of the common people.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)US President Donald Trump called for Iran's international isolation in a combative and unashamedly boastful speech at the United Nations General Assembly Tuesday, prompting accusations from his Iranian counterpart that he was trying to topple his government.

In his second appearance before the General Assembly, Trump also lashed out at other adversaries such as Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro and took aim at international institutions such as the UN-backed world court.

He even provoked derisive laughter from fellow leaders at the normally staid assembly by trumpeting the performance of his administration whose "America First" foreign policy continues to cause alarm.

But Trump also had warm words for the main target of his rhetoric at his UN debut last year as he praised the "courage" of North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un.

Hours before Iran's President Hassan Rouhani spoke from the same rostrum, Trump denounced the clerical regime in Tehran for sowing "chaos, death and destruction" as he defended his decision to ditch an internationally-brokered nuclear deal.

"We cannot allow the world's leading sponsor of terrorism to possess the planet's most dangerous weapons," Trump said, alluding to Tehran's support for Islamic militant movements such as Hamas and Hezbollah.

"We ask all nations to isolate Iran's regime as long as its aggression continues."



Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal in May, to the dismay of the other parties that had invested years in negotiations to keep Iran's nuclear ambitions in check.

In his address, Rouhani stressed Tehran's continued commitment to the deal and ridiculed Trump as a "preposterous" leader who was himself isolated.

In a sign of how some allies are unwilling to automatically follow Trump's lead, the five remaining parties to the agreement -- Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia -- announced Monday plans to keep business ties alive with Iran, staring down Washington's move to impose sanctions.

Trump's Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, addressing an anti-Iran pressure group, said he was "disturbed and indeed deeply disappointed" by the EU announcement.

"This is one of the of the most counterproductive measures imaginable for regional and global peace and security," Pompeo said.

Rouhani poured cold water on the idea of resuming talks with Washington, saying US claims that it was not seeking regime change fooled no one.

"It is ironic that the US government does not even conceal its plan for overthrowing the same government it invites to talks," Rouhani said.

"For dialogue to take place, there is no need for a photo opportunity. The two sides can listen to each other right here in this assembly."



French President Emmanuel Macron used his speech to urge "dialogue and multilateralism," crediting the 2015 accord with curbing Tehran's nuclear programme.

Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan, another ally whose relations with Trump have cooled, did not mention the US president by name but there was little doubt who he had in mind when he said it was "very easy to create chaos but difficult to re-establish order."



And South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa said it was important to "resist any and all efforts to undermine the multilateral approach to international trade" at a time when Trump is hoisting tariffs against a variety of trading partners.

In his opening speech, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said trust in the rules-based global order and among states was "at a breaking point" and international cooperation was becoming more difficult, again without specifically mentioning Trump.

"Today, world order is increasingly chaotic," Guterres told the 193-nation assembly.

Trump robustly attacked "globalist" views and vowed that "America will never apologise for protecting its citizens." He said the UN-backed International Criminal Court has "no jurisdiction, no legitimacy and no authority". His administration -- which has recently choked off aid to the Palestinians -- will only support "our friends" in the future, he added.

Boasting that his team "has achieved more than any administration in the history of our country", Trump was met with laughter.

"I didn't expect that reaction, but that's okay," he responded.

While he praised China's President Xi Jinping for his role in the North Korea peace process, Trump had harsh words for Beijing amid a growing trade war, saying the commercial imbalance with the Asian power "cannot be tolerated".

Venezuela's "repressive regime" was another target of Trump's invective, held responsible for a "human tragedy" in the once oil-rich nation.

Trump then openly mused that Maduro "could be toppled very quickly" if his military chiefs turned on him.

He also reserved harsh words for OPEC, the global oil cartel that includes both US allies and foes.

"OPEC and OPEC nations are, as usual, ripping off the rest of the world, and I don't like it. Nobody should like it.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)US President Donald Trump and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres discussed their "common interest" in resolving pressing global challenges, including terrorism, proliferation and other threats to international peace and security.

Trump has been very critical of the UN and has on various occasions complained about the huge economic burden the US has to carry in helping fund the 193-nation body.

He has called the UN "a club for people to get together, talk and have a good time" and has also slammed the "utter weakness and incompetence of the United Nations".

Trump, who addressed the UN General-Assembly's General Debate Tuesday, met Guterres on the sidelines of the high-level 73rd session of the UN General Assembly.

According to a readout of the meeting provided by the White House, the two leaders discussed their "common interest in resolving some of the world's most pressing challenges, including those related to proliferation, terrorism and other threats to international peace and security".

Both leaders also pledged to remain in close contact over the coming months.

The UN chief's office said that Guterres welcomed the US' efforts to bring peace and denuclearization in the Korean peninsula, as well as its support to humanitarian operations around the world.

Guterres and Trump also discussed the contributions of the UN in various peace initiatives and the US' support to these efforts.

The Trump administration has pulled out of key UN bodies like the UN Human Rights Council and UNESCO besides exiting landmark UN decisions such as the Paris Climate Agreement.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)US President Donald Trump took his campaign to isolate Iran to the UN Security Council Wednesday, accusing Tehran of spreading chaos at a meeting that laid bare divisions between Washington and key allies.

As chairman of a session of the top UN body, Trump denounced the "horrible, one-sided" nuclear deal with Iran that he ditched in May, to the dismay of European allies.

A gavel-wielding Trump vowed that re-imposed sanctions will be "in full force" and urged world powers to work with the United States to "ensure the Iranian regime changes its behaviour and never acquires a nuclear bomb." Addressing the council after Trump, French President Emmanuel Macron hit back, declaring that concerns about Iran cannot be reduced to "a policy of sanctions and containment" that was in place for years before the landmark deal.

"We need to build together a long-term strategy to manage the crisis that cannot be reduced to a policy of sanctions and containment of Iran," said Macron.

The United States has moved to reimpose sanctions that had been lifted under the 2015 deal to curb Iran's nuclear program and has vowed to punish foreign firms that do business with Iran.

On North Korea, Trump called for sanctions to be strictly enforced against Pyongyang -- a message directed at Russia and China which are pushing for an easing of punitive measures to reward North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Without naming countries, the US president noted that "some nations are already violating UN sanctions" including illegal ship-to-ship transfers of oil and said compliance was "very, very important."



Trump also accused China of working against his Republican Party in upcoming elections, saying Beijing did "not want me or us to win" because of his hard line on trade.

His toughest words were directed at Iran, however.

"In the years since the deal was signed, Iran's aggression only increased," Trump said.

"The regime used new funds from the deal to support terrorism, build nuclear capable missiles and foment chaos." Trump assailed Russia and Iran for backing President Bashar al-Assad in his brutal war in Syria, saying: "The Syrian regime's butchery is enabled by Russia and Iran."



Wednesday's meeting highlighted a rift between the United States and its European allies over the Iran nuclear deal.

On Monday, the five remaining parties to the agreement -- Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia -- defiantly announced that they would set up a special payment system to continue trade and business ties with Iran. Heading into the council meeting, Sweden's Foreign Minister Margot



Wallstrom said European Union governments will "stand up" for the nuclear deal and suggested the US approach would fail.

"We have tried sanctions over the years, decades. We tried isolation and it only gave the most conservative forces in Iran more power," she told reporters.

During his address to the General Assembly on Tuesday, Trump assailed Iran's leaders, accusing them of sowing "chaos, death and destruction" and calling on world governments to isolate Tehran.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani shot back in his speech, denouncing leaders who have "xenophobic tendencies resembling a Nazi disposition" and slamming the planned council meeting as a "preposterous and abnormal act." Trump's national security advisor John Bolton warned Tehran of "hell to pay" if it threatens the US or its allies.

"Let my message today be clear: we are watching, and we will come after you." It was only the third time in UN history that a US president chaired a Security Council meeting. Barack Obama presided over two meetings in 2009 and 2014.

The United States had initially said the meeting chaired by Trump would focus on Iran, but later broadened the agenda under the theme of nuclear non-proliferation and weapons of mass destruction.

Iran has not requested to speak at the council meeting, diplomats confirmed Tuesday although Rouhani will hold a press conference soon after it is due to end.

Trump is one of around 130 world leaders attending the General Assembly in New York which formally began on Tuesday.

Speakers scheduled to address the second day of the assembly include the leaders of war-torn Yemen and Afghanistan while May will make her last speech at the world's foremost diplomatic stage before Britain leaves the European Union.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)British police have made an unusual arrest of a man accused of stealing a cat.

Scotland Yard said Wednesday a 22-year-old man is being questioned at a north London police station in connection with the theft of a cat in August.

The cat is a large Siberian Forest ginger cat called Mr. Muk. He has been returned to his owner.

Police say the man was arrested late Tuesday night in the West Hampstead neighbourhood in north London. He has not been identified or charged.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres discussed with Afghanistan's Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah the regional dynamics and the upcoming parliamentary elections in the in the strife-torn nation.

Guterres and Abdullah met on the sidelines of the annual UN General Assembly session here Tuesday.

According to the UN chief's spokesperson, the The two leaders discussed the upcoming parliamentary elections in Afghanistan, prospects for peace negotiations and regional dynamics, as well as the Geneva Ministerial Conference on Afghanistan to be held in November this year.

The parliamentary elections in Afghanistan are slated for October 20, the first time since 2010 that they are being held.

The November 28 ministerial conference in Geneva is co-chaired by the Afghan government and the UN.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Washington, Tokyo and Brussels said Tuesday they were making common cause against unfair trade, jointly denouncing industrial practices long pinned on China but refraining from naming that country explicitly.

US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, Japanese Economy Minister Hiroshige Seko and European Union Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem "reiterated their concern and confirmed their shared objective to address non-market-oriented policies".

In a statement issued on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, they said unnamed "third countries" had engaged in "severe overcapacity", while creating unfair competitive conditions, threatening technological development and ultimately undermining global trade.

"The ministers recalled that market-oriented conditions are fundamental to a fair, mutually advantageous global trading system and that their citizens and businesses operate under market-oriented conditions," said the statement.

"The ministers found such practices to be deplorable," it added, noting that the three economies were considering "possible measures" that could be undertaken.

Washington has cited precisely these grievances in justifying its escalating trade war with Beijing, which it also accuses of seeking global industrial predominance through theft, coercion, subsidies and state-sponsored acquisitions.

On Monday, the US imposed tariffs on another USD 200 billion in Chinese imports, meaning about half of everything Americans buy from China is now subjected to import levies.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Vice-PresidentVenkaiah Naidu will be on a two-day visit to Goa from Thursday during which he will attend the convocation ceremony of a premier technical institute here, a senior official said Wednesday.

In a press note, a state government spokesman said Naidu will arrive at the Dabolim airport in Goalate in the evening on September 27 by a special aircraft from Ranchi.

Naidu will take night halt at Raj Bhavan in Dona Paula near here. Hewill plant a sapling at Raj Bhavan in the morning of September 28, the press note said.

Thereafter, he will attend the convocation ceremony of the National Institute of Technology Goa (NIT Goa) at Kala Academy in Panaji, it said.

Later in the afternoon, the vice-presidentwill leave for Mumbai, the spokesman added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)A city-based Central PSU claimed Wednesday that one of its senior officials was "gheraoed" while another was threatened with "dire consequences" by trade union members.

"Our CFO (Chief Financial Officer) M C Bansal is the victim of act of militant trade unionism. A gherao by the labour union of the senior management since last night with unreasonable demands caused the CFO to fall sick and had to be hospitalized," managing director of Hindustan Steel Works Construction Ltd (HSCL), Neelesh Kr Shah said.

HSCL is a subsidiary of National Buildings Construction Corporation Limited (NBCC) India since 2017 after it was transferred from the Union Steel Ministry to Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.

NBCC now holds 51 per cent stake in HSCL.

The agitation is led by HSCL Contract Employees Association and is patronised by the Trinamool Congress, he alleged.

"We had complained to the Hastings police station but the police did not take any action until morning after the CFO fell sick," Shah said.

Moreover, the CEO of the company, K P Swamy, who came to the city en route to Ranchi for a Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) audit, was also threatened with dire consequences if he attended the meeting, he saud.

HSCL claimed it witnessed similar agitation last year after NBCC attempted to shift its corporate office to Delhi.

But, the management had fulfilled their demand by dropping the office relocation plan and agreed to maintain employees' status with an agreement on August 14, a Human Resource official of the company said.

According to Shah, the problem arose with 188 contract workers, whose contract is to be terminated on October 5 thus year.

"We had extended the contract by another year to protect their jobs," he said.

Shah said they have written to Chief Minister's office, labour commissioner, IG Police and others apprising them of the situation.

"These employees want to terminate the contractor and they be brought under direct employment," he said.

INTUUC-backed Hindustan Steel Construction Contract Employees Association leader Soham Roy denied any gherao but said they tried to prevent the management from attending the CAG audit meeting.

He said they were holding discussion on the fate of the 188 contract workers but due to the BJP-called bandh on Wednesday, they preferred to stay back.

He claimed these employees do not get employment benefits like PF, ESI and gratuity since 2006 and the management was trying to suppress the issues.

Total employee strength of HSCL is about 500-525 and 478 contract workers.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The board of Vijaya Bank will meet on September 29 to consider the government's proposal for consolidation of three banks led by Bank of Baroda.

Bank of Boarda board is also scheduled to meet the same day to approve amalgamation proposal.

The meeting of board of directors has been scheduled on September 29, 2018 to consider the amalgamation proposal of Bank of Baroda, Vijaya Bank and Dena Bank, Vijaya Bank said in a filing to stock exchanges.

Earlier this month, the government announced plans to merge Bank of Baroda, Vijaya Bank and Dena Bank to create the country's third largest lender as part of efforts to revive credit and economic growth.

The board of Dena Bank has already given its approval to the merger proposal.

Last year, State Bank of India had merged with itself five of its subsidiary banks and took over Bharatiya Mahila Bank, following a similar decision by the government.

The government owns majority stakes in 21 lenders, which account for more than two-thirds of banking assets in the Asia's third biggest economy.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)As the political slugfest over the Rafale deal escalated, French President Emmanuel Macron has distanced himself from the controversy, saying he was not in power when the multi-billion dollar agreement for the 36 fighter jets was signed between India and France.

Addressing a press conference on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session here, Macron was asked if the Indian government had at any point told France or Dassault - the French aerospace major - that they had to accept Reliance Defence as the Indian partner for the Rafale deal.

India had inked an inter-governmental agreement with France in September last year for procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets at a cost of around Rs 58,000 crore, nearly one- and-half years after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the proposal during a visit to Paris. The delivery of the jets is scheduled to begin from September, 2019.

"I will be very clear. It was a government-to-government discussion and I just want to refer to what Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi very clearly said a few days ago," Macron, who became French President in May last year, told reporters here Tuesday without elaborating.

"I don't have any other comment. I was not in charge at that time and I know that we have very clear rules," he said in his first comment on the issue.

Macron, who assumed the presidency in May last year, emphasised that this is a government-to-government discussion and "this contract is part of a broader framework which is military and defence" coalition between India and France.

"This one is very important to me because this is a strategic" coalition and not just an industrial relation. "That is my point. I just want to refer to what PM Modi said on this situation," he said.

While Prime Minister Modi himself has not yet commented on the Rafale controversy directly, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and other senior ministers have asserted that people of India have put a closure to the issue, saying there were no irregularities.

Prime Minister Modi had announced the procurement of a batch of 36 Rafale jets after holding talks with then French president Francois Hollande on April 10, 2015 in Paris. The final deal was sealed on September 23, 2016.

The French government has said it was in no manner involved in the choice of Indian industrial partners.

A huge controversy over the Rafale deal has erupted in India after a report in the French media quoted former president Hollande as saying that the selection of the Indian company in the Rafale deal was done at the behest of New Delhi.

Hollande said that the Indian government proposed Reliance Defence as the partner for the French aerospace giant in the Rafale deal and France did not have a choice.

His 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 Limited 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 which negotiated with (Anil) Ambani. We had no choice, we took the interlocutor who was given to us."



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.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The water level in the Yamuna river continued to rise and stayed over the danger mark for the second consecutive day.

The river was flowing at 205.79 metres at Old Railway Bridge on Wednesday evening, above the danger mark of 204.83 metres.

An official said that due to rise in water level of Yamuna, 598 people have been evacuated from low-lying areas.

Also, 1,391 tents have so far been erected in six districts of the city, where 98 people are staying.

The water level is expected to further increase and an alert has been sounded by the authorities, the official said, adding that at 5 pm, around 26,796 cusecs of water was discharged from Hathani Kund Barrage.

Chief Secretary Anshu Prakash yesterday reviewed the flood situation in the Yamuna floodplains and ordered erection of tents and distribution of food among the affected.

Yamuna river on Tuesday crossed the danger mark and was flowing at 205.24 metres.

In the month of July too, the water level had crossed the danger mark , prompting authorities to issue orders for closure of Old Yamuna Bridge, colloquially known as 'Lohe Ka Pul'.

The highest water level recorded at Old Yamuna Bridge was 207.49 metres in 1978. It touched 207.11 metres in 2010 and 207.32 metres in 2013, according to the Delhi Disaster Management Authority.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Actor Will Smith celebrated his 50th birthday with a daring bungee jump from a helicopter over the Grand Canyon.

The actor had earlier signed a deal with YouTube for the event, titled "Will Smith: The Jump Off", which was streamed live on the website Tuesday.

The 1,000-foot jump was hosted by Smith's friend and his "The Fresh Prince of Bel Air" co-star, Alfonso Ribeiro.

The actor's family -- wife Jada Pinkett Smith and his three children Trey, Jaden and Willow -- cheered him on as he took the leap of faith.

Just before the jump he seemed a little nervous, but he soon got into the groove and blew kisses to the crowd.

At one moment, Smith appeared to have a moment of doubt and said, "Never look down."



After landing back on solid ground, the actor described the experience as "exhilarating" as family rushed to hug him.

"Nothing will ever be scarier than that. It goes from complete absolute terror to the most magnificent bliss you've ever felt in your life... The whole Grand Canyon is mine," he told them.

According to bungee experts in the video, Smith jumped 550 feet and was held by 200 feet of active cord.

In another video, Smith said life is hard but that should not stop anyone from moving forward.

"You have to commit. Life is hard, you might get hurt, your heart might get broken, you might lose your job, but you've still got to commit," he said.

The actor performed the bungee jump to raise awareness of the charity Global Citizen, which aims to end extreme poverty by 2030.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Work on the first phase of Kerala Technology Innovation Zone complex began at nearby Kinfra Hi-Tech Park Wednesday, giving a fillip to the Kerala Startup Missions plans to boost the startup ecosystem in India by bringing multiple technology incubators under one roof.

M Sivasankar, IT Secretary to the Kerala Government, who launched the project by performing the ground breaking ceremony at Kalamassery, said KTIZ would be developed as the largest startup ecosystem of the country and a global innovation hub.

"Once completed, Kerala Technology Innovation Zone will be the country's largest startup ecosystem.

Besides, the 13.2 acre-KTIZ complex would also serve as a global innovation incubator hub for different players in the technology space,"Sivasankar said.

Funded by Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board, it would be the largest infrastructure project for a startup ecosystem in the state, a release said here.

The Kerala State Information Technology Infrastructure ltd the nodal agency to carry out all infrastructure work under the department of IT department, will be the Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) for implementing this project, it said.

The incubator model of KTIZ would focus on ICT, electronics, IoT, robotics, biotech and other industries by creating individual verticals for each sector with dedicated infrastructure and research facilities.

"One of the major demands of a startup entrepreneur is to have every facility required to begin a startup without any hassles. This will be the apt solution for that," said KSUM CEO Saji Gopinath.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)The Jammu and Kashmir government Wednesday gave nod to the adoption and notification of a scheme for West Pakistani Refugees (WPRs), under which a financial assistance of Rs 5.50 lakh will be provided to each family.

The decision to this effect was taken at the State Advisory Council which met under the chairmanship of Governor Satya Pal Malik, an official spokesman said.

The Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) had in June, 2018, conveyed its approval to the proposal for providing one-time financial assistance amounting to Rs 5.50 lakh per family to 5,764 families of WPRs settled in J-K, he said.

The spokesman said the expenditure incurred on the scheme would be borne by the Centre.

The amount of Rs 5.50 lakh per family will be disbursed directly into their bank accounts based on the authentication by the state government, he said.

The divisional commissioner Jammu has been designated as nodal officer for the smooth implementation of the scheme after proper verification of the families of West Pakistan Refugees, the spokesman said.

The scheme shall be executed through deputy commissioners (DCs), who for this purpose shall be declared as 'Designated Authority' in the district. There shall be a 'Designated Committee' comprising the DC as chairman and assistant commissioner revenue, SDM, tehsildar concerned and any other member to be co-opted by the committee, he said.

The WPRs shall be asked to produce requisite documents to establish their claim as West Pakistani Displaced Persons of 1947 or soon thereafter, he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)Days after Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath compared Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Chhatrapati Shivaji, the Shiv Sena said Wednesday the Maratha king never played " of riots".

Speaking at a function to launch the book 'Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Aur Musalman', senior Sena MP Sanjay Raut said the characteristics of the 17th century Maratha king were in contrast to what was being projected by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The book is written by senior journalist and author Janab Saeed Hameed.

"Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath recently likened PM Modi to Shivaji Maharaj. However, he is forgetting that Chhatrapati Shivaji never played the of riots," Raut said.

Later speaking to reporters, the Sena leader took a jibe at the BJP over the controversial Rafale figher jet deal.

"Everybody is eager to know how did the cost of the fighter jets escalate by three times of its original price after the contract was awarded to a company with no experience in the defence sector. A sudden blast (statement by former French president Francois Hollande) was also surprising," he said.

The Congress has launched an offensive against the BJP government over the Rafale deal, alleging corruption and violation of rules by the prime minister.

The controversy took a turn last week after Hollande claimed that the Indian government had proposed Reliance Defence's name as the offset partner for Dassault Aviation.

Raut praised the participation of Muslims in the country's freedom struggle.

"Even Chhatrapati Shivaji had assigned key positions to members of the Muslim community in his Army," he said.

Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) spokesperson Nawab Malik, who was also present at the event, said Raut had gone a step ahead and taken a "secular position" in favour of Muslims after the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) gave a new definition to 'Hindu rashtra'.

He was apparently referring to RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat's recent statement that 'Hindu Rashtra' did not mean it had no place for Muslims as the concept was inclusive of all faiths and religions.

"In that case, is the Sena ready to distance itself from the ideology of (Hindutva ideologue) V D Savarkar who had criticised the ideology of Shivaji Maharaj? The Sena can sail in only one boat," Malik said.

The wars fought under the rule of Shivaji Maharaj were political in nature and not on religious lines, he said.

"The man who gave him (Shivaji) tiger claws during his meeting with Afzal Khan was a Muslim and the first man who attacked him was a Hindu accompanying Afzal Khan," the NCP leader said referring to the Battle of Pratapgad in 1659 in which Khan, commander of Adilshahi forces, was killed.

NCP MLA Jitendra Awhad said Shivaji was a king of masses who fought against atrocities.

"He (Shivaji) never played the of dividing people in the name of caste and religion," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)By Jeffrey Dastin(Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc on Wednesday said it is opening a general store in New York City that will sell toys, household goods and a range of other products highly rated on its website, marking its latest push into brick-and-mortar retail.Drawing on its wealth of customer data, Amazon has stocked the store with its best sellers as well as products popular with New Yorkers. The shop, known as Amazon 4-star, will let customers play with Echo speakers, Kindle e-readers and other devices made by the company. It will also sell books, games and kitchenware.The news marks Amazon's ...UPDATED

Puerto Rican students missed 78 days of school on average after two hurricanes struck the island just over a year ago, and one in 10 students with special needs are still not receiving special education services, according to a study released Tuesday.

The Youth Development Institute of Puerto Rico, a research and advocacy group, also found that the biggest observable impact of Maria on childrens behavior at school was problems concentrating, followed by low academic achievement and lack of interest in further study.

When Hurricane Maria struck the U.S. territory just over a year ago, the storm fractured the islands already-struggling school system . It damaged school buildings and accelerated a long-term drop in student enrollment, leading the islands Department of Education to close hundreds of schools over the summer.

See Also: Putting Puerto Ricos Schools Back on Track

The institutes study also found that in addition to the 10.3 percent of special needs students who still have not had their special education services restored,more than 84 percent of students in special education experienced an interruption in their education services after Maria. In addition, the report detailed the share of students who were having various troubles in schoolthe institute found 12.3 percent of children in the study were having trouble concentrating.

In response to the study, the Puerto Rico Department of Education shared the results of their own survey of students that among other things found that the great majority of kids demonstrated psychological resiliency. Only 7 percent of children, the department said, exhibited clinically significant symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. The department also detailed its effort to help students going through post-Maria trauma, including a mandate that there be one social worker for every 250 students.

The [Puerto Rico Department of Education] is also using the trauma informed model to provide support to the students, including nurses to identify physiological trauma symptoms and refer to appropriate services, the department stated.

The institutes study relied on a survey, based on a representative sample of 705 households in Puerto Rico, and researched children in both public and private schools. The study found that low-income households suffered disproportionately after Maria compared to wealthier households.

The calculation that the average student missed 78 days of school refers to children ages 5-17. In addition, the study found that the average child in preschool lost 92 days at their educational institution.

The Youth Development Institute hosted a forum in Washington about its report on Tuesday. You can watch the forum here .

For a look at students in special education and how theyre coping after the storm, check out this Miami Herald story published earlier this week .

Below you can read the key findings in the Youth Development Institute report, which also looks at the health impacts on children and the material losses caused by Maria by different family income brackets:

Photo by Swikar Patel for Education Week

Follow us on Twitter at @PoliticsK12 . And follow the Andrew Ujifusa half of Politics K-12 @AndrewUjifusa .By Aaron SheldrickTOKYO (Reuters) - Oil benchmark Brent traded little changed on Wednesday after rising to its highest in nearly four years in the previous session while U.S. crude futures fell as United States' officials tried to assure that the market would be well-supplied before sanctions are re-imposed on producer Iran. Brent crude futures were down 4 cents at $81.83 a barrel by 0342 GMT, after gaining nearly 1 percent the previous session. Brent rose on Tuesday to its highest since November 2014 at $82.55 per barrel.U.S. crude futures were down 13 cents, or 0.2 percent, at $72.15 a ...NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's cabinet on Wednesday approved raising the price the government directly pays to cane growers to 138 rupees ($1.90) a tonne in the new season beginning October 2018, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said.Reuters earlier reported that the cabinet of Prime Minister Narendra Modi was set to raise cane farmers' production assistance to 138 rupees a tonne in the 2018/19 season, up from 55 rupees in the current season.On Wednesday, Modi's cabinet approved other incentives to encourage cash-strapped mills to export sugar in the 2018/19 season, as part of efforts to trim ...By David LawderUNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Wednesday shrugged off U.S. pressure to quickly agree to a deal on NAFTA and indicated it was possible the three member nations might fail to conclude a new pact.His comments cast further doubt on the future of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which underpins $1.2 trillion in annual trade between Canada, Mexico and the United States. Markets and business groups are openly fretting about the damage that a collapse could provoke.The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, which is demanding major ...Carmakers in Britain have triggered some Brexit contingency plans such as certifying models in Europe and are working on redrawing production schedules and stockpiling more parts to defend against any loss of unfettered trade after Brexit. Such moves would allow plants, which rely on the just-in-time delivery of tens of thousands of components, to keep operating after Brexit on March 29 but would adds costs and bureaucracy which could risk their long-term viability. London and Brussels hope to agree a deal by the end of the year to avoid tariffs and trade barriers but Prime ...BEIJING (Reuters) - China on Wednesday unveiled plans to cut tariffs for products including machinery, electrical equipment and textile products beginning on Nov. 1, as the country braces for an escalating trade war with the United States. The cuts on over fifteen hundred industrial products are expected to lower costs for consumers and companies by about 60 billion yuan this year, the state cabinet said in a meeting chaired by Premier Li Keqiang, according to the state radio.The overall tariff level will be reduced to 7.5 percent in 2018 from 9.8 percent in 2017 as a result, the state ...By Nina ChestneyLONDON (Reuters) - Climate-related disclosure is becoming mainstream as more firms support and align their financial reporting to recommendations by a global task force though few disclose the financial impact on the company, a survey shows.The Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) was set up by the G20's Financial Stability Board at the end of 2015 to develop a voluntary framework for companies to disclose the financial impact of climate-related risks and opportunities.This was partly in response to concerns in the financial community that assets are ...GENEVA (Reuters) - European Union trade officials will travel to Beijing next month for talks with Chinese counterparts on ideas for reform of the World Trade Organization, EU ambassador to the WTO Marc Vanheukelen said on Wednesday.Vanheukelen declined to give details of the talks to reporters, but the Oct. 9 meeting adds to a flurry of reform efforts among WTO member states, including proposals put forward by the EU and Canada. WTO member states have been under increasing pressure to reform the body since U.S. President Donald Trump, deeply critical of the global trading system, blocked the ...By Jessica Resnick-Ault and Ron BoussoNEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) - Nexen Petroleum, a unit of China's CNOOC Ltd , plans to exit the United States, divesting its stake in giant oil and gas developments in the Gulf of Mexico as trade tensions between two countries mount, three people familiar with the plan told Reuters on Wednesday.Nexen has not determined whether it will sell the assets outright or swap offshore acres with another company, the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity as the talks are private. One of the people said the decision to pull out of the Gulf was due to rising ...By Liana B. Baker and Greg Roumeliotis(Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co is in talks about leading Lyft Inc's upcoming initial public offering as an underwriter, after rivals Goldman Sachs Group Inc and Morgan Stanley decided not to pursue such a role out of loyalty to another IPO hopeful, Lyft's larger competitor Uber Technologies Inc, according to people familiar with the matter.The move illustrates the calculations that often inform the pursuit of such mandates by the world's biggest investment banks. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have helped ride-sharing company Uber raise money in the ...(Reuters) - Ford Motor Co Chief Executive Officer James Hackett said on Wednesday that metals tariffs are costing the carmaker $1 billion.Hackett, speaking at the Bloomberg business forum conference in New York City, said tariffs were very negative to the company and that most of the supply came from American suppliers.Ford had previously said that despite buying the vast majority of steel and aluminum for U.S. production domestically, the tariffs could result in higher domestic commodity prices. The United States in March said it would impose a 25 percent tariff on imported steel and a 10 ...By Ben KlaymanDEARBORN, Mich. (Reuters) - With its stock trading near a 6-year low late last month, Ford Motor Co CEO Jim Hackett gathered the automaker's top 300 executives near its headquarters in Michigan for a global leadership meeting. Hackett's message: Ford must put in motion plans to restructure its business now in order to secure promised costs savings, Ford executives present at the meeting said."We have clarity of purpose and now it's time to take action," Hackett told Reuters in an interview.A key part of that plan to save money calls for Ford to deepen partnerships with other ...By Abhirup Roy and Suvashree ChoudhuryMUMBAI (Reuters) - India said on Wednesday it is raising import tariffs on 19 "non-essential items," marking a further tilt toward protectionism as it tries to reduce its widening current account deficit and tackle a sharp slide in the rupee.The new tariff structure, which goes into effect Thursday, will see the government raise customs duties on items such as air conditioners, refrigerators, footwear, speakers, luggage and aviation turbine fuel, among other items. The move could hit imports from countries like China and South Korea, which manufacture ...By Rajendra Jadhav and Emily ChowMUMBAI (Reuters) - India's palm oil imports in 2018/19 are likely to jump 8.7 percent from a year earlier as consumption in the world's biggest edible oil consumer will expand amid a drop in local supplies, a leading industry analyst said on Wednesday.The rising imports may help support benchmark Malaysian palm oil prices that have been trading near their lowest in three years.Palm oil imports for the 2018/19 marketing year starting on Nov. 1 will rise to 9.26 million tonnes, said Govindbhai Patel, managing director of trading firm G.G. Patel & Nikhil Research ...MUMBAI (Reuters) - The government and regulators would make every effort to prevent the risk of "contagion" in credit markets resulting from a scare caused by two non-banking financial companies (NBFC), a senior government advisor said on Wednesday.The finance ministry, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) are "closely following" the credit markets and will take "appropriate actions" to avert a "market freeze," Sanjeev Sanyal, Principal Economic Adviser to the Ministry of Finance said in a Reuters chatroom. "This is top of mind." ...NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's cabinet has approved incentives to encourage cash-strapped mills to export sugar in the 2018/19 season, a government source said on Wednesday, as part of efforts to trim bulging stocks at home.Reuters earlier reported that the cabinet of Prime Minister Narendra Modi was set to raise the price the government directly pays to cane growers to 138 rupees ($1.90) per tonne in the new season beginning October 2018, up from 55 rupees in the current season.India wants to get mills to export 5 million tonnes of sugar by providing incentives for overseas sales in the ...By Stephanie KellyNEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices eased on Wednesday after U.S. data showed a surprise build in domestic crude inventories, but an impending drop in Iranian exports kept Brent futures above $80 a barrel and on track for a fifth straight quarterly gain.Global benchmark Brent fell 53 cents to settle at $81.34 a barrel. On Tuesday, Brent rose as high as $82.55, the highest since November 2014.U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures lost 71 cents to settle at $71.57 a barrel.U.S. crude inventories rose 1.9 million barrels in the week to Sept. 21, according to U.S. ...(Reuters) - Twenty-First Century Fox Inc agreed to sell its 39 percent stake in Sky PLC to Comcast Corp , the companies said on Wednesday, a deal that completes the U.S. cable group's takeover and ends Rupert Murdoch's relationship with the UK-based satellite broadcaster.Comcast outbid Fox in an auction to take control of pay-TV group Sky on Saturday, with a $40 billion offer price. That price includes Fox's 39 percent stake, which the offer valued at 11.63 billion pounds ($15.31 billion).Walt Disney Co , which agreed to buy Fox in June for $71.3 billion, said it had given consent to Fox's ...By William JamesLONDON (Reuters) - With just six months to go until the United Kingdom is due to leave the European Union, negotiations are at what Prime Minister Theresa May has called an impasse.If she can clinch a deal with the EU, she will still have to sell it to her divided Conservative Party and win parliamentary approval. If she cannot, the United Kingdom could face leaving without a deal, a national election or even another referendum.Below are significant dates as Britain nears its departure from the EU in March:LABOUR PARTY CONFERENCE - Sept. 23 to 26Britain's opposition Labour ...By Nick Carey and David Shepardson(Reuters) - Steel and aluminium tariffs imposed by the Trump administration have cost Ford Motor Co about $1 billion in profits, its chief executive officer said on Wednesday, while Honda Motor Co said higher steel prices have brought "hundreds of millions of dollars" in new costs."From Ford's perspective the metals tariffs took about $1 billion in profit from us," CEO James Hackett said at a Bloomberg conference in New York, "The irony of which is we source most of that in the U.S. today anyway. If it goes on any longer, it will do more damage." Hackett ...By Tom MilesGENEVA (Reuters) - The supreme court of world trade will be running on fumes from the end of this month after the United States turned down a last-ditch petition to reappoint one of the four remaining judges at the World Trade Organization.U.S. President Donald Trump has railed against the WTO judges, who have the final say on trade disputes. His ambassador in Geneva has accused them of overstepping their authority, breaking their own rules and interfering in U.S. laws.Three judges are needed for each case and their rulings are the top level of arbitration that all 164 WTO members ...The benchmark indices settled marginally lower on Wednesday ahead of the expiry of September Futures and Options (F&O) contracts due on Thursday.

The S&P BSE Sensex ended at 36,542, down 110 points while the broader Nifty50 index settled at 11,054, down 14 points.

Among sectoral indices, the Nifty FMCG index fell 1.5 per cent led by a fall in ITC and Hindustan Unilever. The Nifty IT index, on the other hand, settled 1.9 per cent lower weighed by Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS).

In key individual stocks, YES Bank rose 1.4 per cent to Rs 223 on the BSE. DHFL also rose nearly 1 per cent to Rs 303.20.

Investors will keenly watch US Fed meet outcome due later in the day for fresh cues in the markets.

Shares of Biocon hit a new high of Rs 718 per share, up 2% on Wednesday, extending their 6% rally on Tuesday on the BSE in an otherwise subdued market after the company said the inspection of its drug substance manufacturing site at Bengaluru campus by the US health regulator has concluded without any observations.

The weeklong audit of drug substance manufacturing site concluded without any observations and no Form 483 was issued, Biocon said in a regulatory filing on Saturday.

In past one year, the stock of biotechnology firm has zoomed 109% as compared to a 16% rise in the S&P BSE Sensex. In the past two months, post the April-June (Q1FY19) results, Biocon has outperformed the market by gaining 28%. The stock settled .6 per cent up at Rs 706.

Shares of TD Power Systems have moved higher by 13% to Rs 145 per share, extending their 16.5% rally in past three days on the BSE ahead of the board meeting later in the day to consider a share buyback proposal.

The meeting of board of directors of the Company will be held on Wednesday, September 26, 2018, inter alia, to consider a proposal for buy back of equity shares of the Company including matters related/incidental thereto and any other matter as the Board of the Directors may decide during the course of the Meeting, TD Power Systems said in a BSE filing.Facebook-owned WhatsApp seems to be falling in line after the government's recent warning on the messaging platform's inability to curb the spread of fake news. After some reluctance, the messing platform on Monday appointed Komal Lahiri as its grievance officer for India. The company now is also looking for its India legal head who could advise it on "regulatory and litigation" matters.

Major responsibilities of the associate general counsel, whose position will be equivalent to the country legal head, will be to manage a litigation portfolio, including litigation arising out of regulatory matters, intellectual property, privacy, integrity, telecommunications, and encryption. As per WhatsApp, the role could involve, among other things, flexibility to adapt to changing priorities and organisational needs.

"This is a full-time position based in Delhi, India and will report to WhatsApp's Director and Associate General Counsel responsible for litigation, regulatory, law enforcement, intellectual property, compliance, and integrity," WhatsApp posted on its social media platform Linkedin.

The company says the person must have the ability to operate independently in "a fast-paced, small but growing environment and work proactively with various teams, including communications, policy, business, product management, engineering, finance, tax, and customer support teams".

The position is believed to be equivalent to the country legal head, though companies in India usually have principal legal counsel as the highest legal post. "We can say that this position is equivalent to that of a legal head for WhatsApp in India," a person familiar with the development told ET.

The recent developments come following WhatsApp CEO Chris Daniels' meeting with IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad last month in which he asked the US firm to find a way to track the origin of fake messages on its platform. The other demands of the government were to appoint a grievance officer to deal with these cases and set up a corporate entity in India, which is its largest market with over 200 million users. The Supreme Court last month also agreed to examine a petition alleging WhatsApp does not comply with Indian laws.

The government has been mounting pressure on WhatsApp to curb the menace of fake news and false information circulated on its app after such messages triggered mob lynchings across the country. It dashed off two notices to WhatsApp, with the second one specifically saying that it would be held abettor in cases of violence triggered by messages on its platform if it did not take necessary steps.

Edited by Manoj SharmaThe Supreme Court has upheld the constitutional validity of Aadhaar albeit with some riders. The five-judge constitution bench, led by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, struck down Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act which allowed not only the government but also any "body corporate or person" or private entity to demand Aadhaar.

Aadhaar will no longer be required for availing services such as:

Bank Account: The Supreme Court today ruled that Aadhaar is not needed for opening a bank account. Banks have been chasing customers and asking them to update Aadhaar numbers with their bank accounts. However, following today's verdict, banks will not ask you to link your Aadhaar to your account.

SIM card: With SC striking down Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act, private companies can no longer ask for your Aadhaar. Telecom operators were earlier asked by Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to conduct Aadhaar-based verification of mobile phone connections.

Appearing for competitive examinations and school admissions: In a big relief to students, the Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that it is not mandatory to provide Aadhaar to register or appear for National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), University Grants Commission (UGC) and Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) exams.

Here's what needs to be linked with Aadhaar:

PAN card: Linking of Aadhaar with PAN card continues to be mandatory under section 139AA of the Income Tax Act. Tax evaders used to create multiple PAN cards in order to avoid taxes. The government had on various occasions extended the deadline of linking PAN with Aadhaar

Filing income tax returns (ITR): As Aadhaar-PAN linking continues to be necessary, you'll need the same for filing income tax returns.

Welfare schemes: Aadhaar continues to be mandatory for availing benefits under various government-run social welfare schemes and subsidies. Justice Bhushan said the Central government had given sufficient reasons to uphold Section 7 of Aadhaar Act, which deals with grant of subsidies and welfare benefits.Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, while hailing the Aadhaar verdict, said that his government would assess whether the Supreme Court has banned private companies from using Aadhaar based on procedural concerns, hinting at new laws which could allow banks and private entities to access UIDAI data for authentication purposes.

"If it is backed by law, it is not unconstitutional," Jaitley said when he was asked about Supreme Court striking down Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act, a provision which allowed "any body corporate or person" or private entity to demand Aadhaar.

The Finance Minister lauded the SC verdict on Aadhaar as historic, adding that the concept of Aadhaar has been accepted after judicial review and the government welcomes the apex court's decision.

Jaitley said those criticising the unique identification scheme need to understand that they "cannot defy technology". He added that the "mainstream should accept changes, one can understand the fringe being against Aadhaar".

The Finance Minister also dismissed the criticism by the Congress party, saying that the grand old party "cuts a very sorry figure here" as it introduced the idea of Aadhaar but "did not know what to do with it".

Jaitley, however, said he was yet to read the verdict.

The Supreme Court, in its ruling, said that Section 57 in the present form is susceptible to misuse. "It can be used for establishing the identity of an individual 'for any purpose'. We read down this provision to mean that such a purpose has to be backed by law," the judgement read.

The court added a caveat that whenever any such "law" is made, it would be subject to judicial scrutiny.

"Apart from authorising the State, even 'any body corporate or person' is authorised to avail authentication services which can be on the basis of purported agreement between an individual and such body corporate or person. Even if we presume that legislature did not intend so, the impact of the aforesaid features would be to enable commercial exploitation of an individual biometric and demographic information by the private entities. Thus, this part of the provision which enables body corporate and individuals also to seek authentication, that too on the basis of a contract between the individual and such body corporate or person, would impinge upon the right to privacy of such individuals. This part of the section, thus, is declared unconstitutional," the apex court's judgment read.

Meanwhile, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Union Minister for Law and Justice and Information and Technology, said the government would soon introduce a data protection law based on the recommendations of the report of the Srikrishna committee on data privacy.No payment from Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) for India's bullet train project is pending, National High Speed Rail Corporation Limited (NHSRCL) said on Tuesday, amidst reports that the agency had stopped its funding for the project following various issues raised by farmers.

NHSRCL, the nodal agency for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad corridor, said it is committed to care of the interests of the affected farmers and added that all necessary steps with regard to submission of various reports such as social impact assessment, environment impact assessment and indigenous people plan have already been taken by the Indian side and the reports already submitted to JICA.

"In fact, the Government of India and JICA have already signed a loan agreement of about 10 billion yen and no payment is pending from JICA as on date," NHSRCL said in a statement.

NHSRCL has failed to make any headway in several areas of Gujarat and Maharashtra. It is facing several issues over land acquisition in both the states, with farmers seeking more compensation and other basic amenities such as common ponds, schools, solar lights and doctors in village areas.

About 110 km of the 508-km train corridor passes through Palghar in Maharashtra where NHRSCL has faced stiff resistance from farmers. In Gujarat too, around 850 hectares is required to be acquired for the project from around 5,000 families across eight districts.The ambitious public scheme Aadhaar that uses biometric data to generate unique identification numbers for citizens, has been pronounced constitutionally valid by the Supreme Court. For a record 38 days, the top court heard some 27 petitions.

The petitions had called Aadhaar a violation of the right to privacy. The majority opinion of the five-judge Constitution bench -- that of Chief Justice Dipak Misra, Justice Arjan Kumar Sikri and Justice AM Khanwilkar -- said there was a "sufficient defence mechanism" for authentication in the scheme. Sikri read the ruling on behalf of the three judges. Aadhaar means unique, and it's better to be unique than being the best, the court said. It struck down the national security exception in the Aadhaar Act as well as Section 57, which permits private entities to avail Aadhaar data.

The Supreme Court said there was nothing in the Aadhaar Act that violates a person's right to privacy, while striking down a couple of its provisions. Three judges delivered the majority judgment.

The court said it isn't mandatory to link Aadhaar to bank accounts or mobile numbers and that telecom service providers can't seek Aadhaar linking, and upheld the passing of the Aadhaar Bill as a Money Bill by the Lok Sabha.

Justice Chandrachud (who wasn't one of the judges who delivered the majority opinion), said the collection of data may lead to the individual profiling of citizens. It's impossible to live in India without Aadhaar, and it's violative of Article 14, he said.

The Constitution bench had reserved its verdict on May 10. It heard petitions challenging Aadhaar's constitutional validity on grounds that it violated the fundamental right to privacy.

Today's verdict concludes a 38-day hearing held over four months, the second-longest oral hearing in history, and concerns a programme that already covers more than 122 crore Indians.

Key takeaways from today's verdict

1.Individuals and corporates cannot collect Aadhaar data

2. Government not to give Aadhaar to illegal immigrants

3. Aadhaar need not be made compulsory for school admissions

4. No need to link bank accounts, mobile numbers to Aadhaar

5. Linking Aadhaar to telecom services is unconstitutional

6. No person can be denied govt benefits only due to absence of Aadhaar

7. Aadhaar can be passed as Money Bill

8. Aadhaar card is mandatory for PAN linking, Income Tax return

Last year, a nine-judge Constitution bench of the Supreme Court held that privacy was a fundamental right.

Justice DY Chandrachud then said the state "may have justifiable reasons for the collection and storage of data" -- reasons apart from national security -- and that there was "a vital state interest in ensuring that scarce public resources are not dissipated by the diversion of resources to persons who do not qualify as recipients."

At the same time, he said, the data collected "has to be utilised for legitimate purposes of the state and ought not to be utilised unauthorisedly for extraneous purposes."In the wake of the brouhaha over former French president Francois Hollande's explosive comments that New Delhi "proposed" Reliance Defence as the Indian partner for the Rafale deal, the current French administration seems to be trying to distance itself from the controversy.

Addressing a press conference on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session yesterday, French President Emmanuel Macron said that the Rs 58,000 crore Rafale deal was a "government-to-government" discussion and he was not in power when the agreement for 36 fighter jets was signed between India and France.

"I will be very clear. It was a government-to-government discussion and I just want to refer to what Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi very clearly said a few days ago," Macron told reporters when asked if the Indian government had at any point told France or Dassault - the French aerospace major - that they had to accept Reliance as the Indian partner for the deal. "I don't have any other comment. I was not in charge at that time and I know that we have very clear rules," he said in his first comment on the controversy.

On September 21, Hollande added fuel to the already-controversial Rafale deal by telling a French journal, Mediapart, that that his government had not been given any choice in selecting a local partner for Dassault Aviation to fulfil offset obligations of the deal. "We had no choice, we took the interlocutor who was given to us," he was quoted saying, basically suggesting that it was all done at the behest of New Delhi. The deal was signed during his term.

This development caught the Modi government on the backfoot since it had claimed it was not officially aware of whom Dassault Aviation had selected. Hollande subsequently backtracked and told AFP news in Canada that he did not know whether Dassault was pressured by the Indian government to work with Reliance and "only Dassault can comment on this".

Nonetheless, the acerbic war of words between the current government and the Congress party over the deal has only gotten louder since his interview. The Opposition has long been accusing the government of massive irregularities in the deal. The Congress party has accused the government of corruption, of compromising national interest and security as well as causing a loss to the exchequer while promoting "crony capitalism" and benefiting Anil Ambani's company, despite not having any experience in the aerospace sector.

In a tweet earlier today, Congress president Rahul Gandhi termed the government's flagship Skill India campaign as "PM'S-KILL India Program" and alleged that "Rs 30,000 crore stolen from Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and given to a man with no SKILLS in making aircraft. Meanwhile, millions of SKILLED youngsters face the highest unemployment rate in twenty years".

In the wake of Hollande's comments, the French government was quick to issue a statement saying it was in no manner involved in the choice of Indian industrial partners. Macron, however, also made it clear yesterday that the deal is important to him. "This one is very important to me because this is a strategic" coalition and not just an industrial relation," he said, emphasising that "this contract is part of a broader framework which is military and defence coalition between India and France".In its verdict, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar on Wednesday but struck down a few provisions. One of the provisions that was struck down was Section 57 of Aadhaar Act that enabled private entities as well as "body corporate or person" along with the State to insist on the document for identification. Simply put, private companies including telcos and banks cannot demand for Aadhaar anymore.

Earlier, deadline for Aadhaar linking to mobile numbers had been extended to December 31 from March 31 in anticipation of the judgment.

However, that did not deter some private companies from demanding the Aadhaar from customers. For instance, while Paytm allowed an option of submitting other identification documents like PAN card, the verifying agents would insist on an Aadhaar. An oft repeated response by the company when responding to a complaint on the matter would be that their agents are not equipped to do KYC without Aadhaar on certain locations.

Banks such as ICICI would flag the Aadhaar linking message on their ATMs, while entities such as HDFC would flag a similar one on their netbanking page. Mobile companies too, like Vodafone would call up customers asking them to link their Aadhaar.

As mentioned in the UIDAI website, Reliance Jio has performed the most Aadhaar fingerprint authentication with 62 million this month, followed by Airtel with 44 million, Vodafone and Idea. Paytm, on the other hand, has done a total of 98 million Aadhaar authentications.

Now, with the SC striking down Section 57, netizens have taken to social media to troll these companies.

hello @Paytm , ab to KYC update kar lo mera bina aadhaar ke.#AadhaarVerdict - Shahnawaz Khan (@shahnawazk) September 26, 2018

Dear Vodafone, my Aadhaar number is my Aadhaar number, none of your Aadhaar number. #AadhaarVerdict - Amitava Adhikary (@amitavaadhikary) September 26, 2018

#AadhaarVerdict: Balanced judgement by #SupremeCourt. #Aadhaar essentially brought back to how it was envisioned to be. #paytm, Jio should back off now. No more spam messages from banks, sim connections (hopefully). Govt custodian of data, hence, answerable to public. - Yamini Kalra (@Yyamiiiniii) September 26, 2018

SC has struck down Sec 57 of Aadhaar Act, making Aaadhaar card not mandatory for opening bank accounts. So please stop asking for Aadhaar to complete your KYC and make the services open for all @Paytm #AadhaarVerdict #SupremeCourt - Mallhar (@sixyardbox_) September 26, 2018

@Paytm kindly let me know how I can delink my Aadhaar from my #Paytm account #AadhaarVerdict - Anand Nandakumar (@anand_nandakrs) September 26, 2018

Thank you Supreme Court! I wasn't able to transfer money through @Paytm or use @Olacabs money because of the KYC linking shit. #AadhaarVerdict And @amazon you guys ought to stop asking for #Aadhaar details for processing refunds. - Anusha Ravindranath (@anusha_r1) September 26, 2018

However, it is still not clear if and how individuals who have already linked their Aadhaar with their bank accounts and mobile numbers can de-link them.

(Edited by Anwesha Madhukalya)The YES Bank stock closed higher in trade today a day after the board of private sector lender decided to seek at least a three-month extension for Rana Kapoor, managing director and chief executive, from RBI beyond January 31, 2019.

The stock closed 1.73% higher at 223.65 on the BSE and has gained after four days of consecutive fall. It opened with a gain of 2.21% in trade today. The stock which closed at 219.85 level on Tuesday rose up to 4.41% intra day to 229.55 and intra day low of 217.

It has lost 29.01% since the beginning of this year and fallen 37.94% during the last one year.

32 of 46 brokerages rate the stock "buy" or 'outperform', ten "hold" and five "underperform" or "sell", according to analysts' recommendations tracked by Reuters.

The RBI had last week curtailed the three-year term that the board had sought for Kapoor, also one of the promoters of the bank, to January 31, 2019, and asked the bank to find a replacement.

The regulator offered no reasons for the curtailment of the term.

In a regulatory filing, the bank said Kapoor has been in his position since the inception in 2004 and finding a suitable successor is a "time consuming challenge".

"It was decided that Reserve Bank of India be requested for an extension up to minimum April 30, 2019 for finalisation of audited financial statements for fiscal year ending 2019; thereafter subject to RBI approval, up to September 2019 in order for the statutory AGM process to be completed," it said.

To ensure a long-term succession plan, the board also decided to elevate senior group presidents Rajat Monga, who handles financial management, and Pralay Mondal, who heads the focus area of retail, as executive directors.

The board, which met at the bank's corporate office on Tuesday evening, also established a search and selection committee comprising three members from the existing nomination and remuneration committee along with two external experts to identify Kapoor's successor.

The bank had last week disclosed that the RBI has curtailed Kapoor's term by nearly two and half years. The board had reappointed him for a period of three years starting September 2018.

Kapoor is the second chief executive at a private sector lender after Shikha Sharma of larger rival Axis Bank to face regulatory wrath in terms of extension of CEOs' tenure.

Both the banks were found to have under-reported non-performing assets by over Rs 10,000 crore each for two consecutive years in regulatory audits conducted by the RBI.

The apex bank move has not gone down well with the investors and the bank stock has seen steep selling in all the trading sessions since the disclosure was made.

The stock lost almost 40 per cent since the RBI's action on Kapoor.15 Nov 2018, 2:00 PM

Flipkart acquires Israel-based start-up Upstream Commerce

Flipkart has acquired an Israel-based analytics start-up called Upstream Commerce, as it aims to support its massive seller base with services such as real-time pricing and information on product assortment, as reported by Mint. This is Flipkart's second acquisition in as many months and will enable Flipkart to have an outpost in Israel.

Yes Bank board seeks extension for Rana Kapoor

Yes Bank on Tuesday said it would ask the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to grant an extension of eight months to managing director (MD) and chief executive Rana Kapoor, as reported by Mint. The board will first seek an extension for Kapoor till 30 April for finalization of financial statements for the year to 31 March, and thereafter a further extension till 30 September for completing the annual general meeting process.

Govt says RBI needs to cut CRR to improve liquidity

A government official on Tuesday said the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) should consider lowering Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) in addition to buying government bonds to ensure adequate liquidity. The RBI is scheduled to conduct OMO on September 27 by buying Rs 10,000 crore worth government bonds, thus releasing liquidity into the system.

India a free society, successfully lifting millions out of poverty: Donald Trump

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday lauded India's efforts to lift millions of its citizens out of poverty as he addressed world leaders at the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly.Trump also cited Saudi Arabia's bold new reforms and Israel "proudly celebrating" its 70th anniversary as a thriving democracy in the Holy Land.

OYO raises $1 bn from investors led by Softbank, enters unicorn club

Indian hospitality start-up OYO has raised a massive $1 billion (Rs 72.63 billion) from four existing investors led by SoftBank. The latest fundraising is estimated to value OYO, which operates in the budget hospitality space, at around $5 billion (Rs 363 billion), a five-fold increase since September last year, when the last funding round took place

82% of male and 92% of female workers earn less than Rs 10,000 a month

There has been steady growth in wages for the past decade and a half. Most sectors, except agriculture, have reported an increase in real wages by 3 per cent or more annually. However, monthly earnings of most of the working population of India continue to be low. 82 per cent of male and 92 per cent of female workers earn less than Rs 10, 000 a month, finds 'State of Working India' report. The report by Azim Premji University studied India's labour market to examine the quantity of employment and unemployment across sectors and industries.

Jaitley hits out at Raghuram Rajan, says post-mortem easier than taking action

Taking a dig at former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) chief Raghuram Rajan for his report on non-performing assets (NPAs), finance minister Arun Jaitley today (September 25) said a "post-mortem is easier than taking an action when required". Jaitley's statement comes after a parliamentary panel led by Murli Manohar Joshi, on the basis of a report filed by Rajan, asked the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) to depose and provide details on what action the government initiated on a list of large corporate houses that had amassed huge NPAs.

Supreme Court to decide on Aadhaar validity today

The Supreme Court will today give its much-awaited judgement on the controversial issue of the constitutional validity of Aadhaar. Total 31 petitions have challenged the verdict citing violations of the right to privacy. The five-judge constitution bench, led by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, is expected to deliver verdicts on whether the mandatory linking of Aadhaar with welfare schemes, bank accounts, PAN, etc, violates the privacy of individuals or it is necessary to maintain accountability and ensure all government benefits reach the poor.India will soon have the most stringent car safety norms, some of them surpassing even the US by 2023, a senior government official said on Wednesday.

"Advanced safety features in all vehicles in India cannot be confined to luxury vehicles only. Features like Anti-Lock braking have already been mandatory in Two wheelers and by next month (October 2018) all new cars will have pedestrian safety feature including new design of the bonnet to reduce impact on pedestrians during accidents," said Abhay Damle, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) on Wednesday.

Indian roads are the most dangerous in the world and 1,40,000 people die due to accidents every year. Yet, road safety measures, in general, and for vehicles, in particular, have lagged global standards. The existing government's blueprint for crash tests in India has mandated all new car launches from October last year to be fitted with dual airbags. For existing brands the same yardstick comes into force from next month.

"India does not have Bharat New Car Assessment Program (BNCAP) but we are implementing all safety features in our vehicles with active support of vehicle manufacturers. Electronic Stability Control (ESC) and Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB) will be incorporated in new vehicles between year 2022 and 2023. ABS and automatic headlights for two wheelers has already been mandated," he said.

"By the year 2022 most of our vehicle safety will be at par with global standards and some safety features may surpass United States safety standards even," he added. "But real challenge is bringing in maximum safety at affordable cost so that cost of vehicles does not go up steeply."

Damle was speaking at the launch of an initiative 'Stop The Crash' at India's Formula 1 circuit Budh International Circuit (BIC) in Greater Noida, by UK-based Global NCAP that conducts independent crash safety tests across the world and Institute of Road Traffic Education.

Global NCAP, which wants to help stop production of all zero safety star rated cars around the world, first grabbed headlines in India on the eve of the biennial Delhi motor show in January 2014 when it tested five Indian cars. All of them -- Tata Nano, Maruti Alto 800, Hyundai i10, Ford Figo and Volkswagen Polo, fared miserably and scored a zero. Since then it has given heart burn to Indian car companies on numerous occasions. Ten months later, Datsun Go and Maruti Swift could not muster pass marks. In 2016, the base variants of the Kwid, Hyundai Eon, Maruti Celerio, Eeco, Honda Mobilio, Tata Zest and Mahindra Scorpio, all scored zero stars as well. Last year, the Renault Duster and Chevrolet Enjoy would also join the list.

"We are focused on international consumer-orientated vehicle safety initiatives and are hosting our first ever World Congress in India to provide an opportunity to assess the contribution that safer vehicles can make to the United Nations' Decade of Action for Road Safety and the Sustainable Development Goals," said David Ward, secretary general, Global NCAP. "The 'Stop The Crash' program will encourage the adoption of autonomous braking systems, a technology that is known to greatly reduce the risk to both the car in question and other vehicles or vulnerable road users around it in case of a detected crash/obstacle."In an unusual incident, a passenger in a Mumbai-Kolkata IndiGo flight tried to enter the cockpit while the aircraft was on the ground and asked to charge his mobile phone. The airline staff immediately disembarked the person from the flight and took him for questioning at the Mumbai airport police station. As per the aviation rules, passengers are not allowed to enter the cockpit of a plane.

"While an IndiGo aircraft was on the ground, an unruly passenger tried to enter the cockpit saying that his mobile needs to be charged," the airline told news agency ANI. "Following standard operating procedures, the captain operating 6E-395 flight from Mumbai to Kolkata (September 24, 2018) had initiated the offloading of the passenger on grounds of a security violation. As per the prescribed rules, entry into the cockpit is prohibited," the airline added.

Today's incident follows a similar incident on Monday when a passenger tried to open the rear door of a Patna-bound GoAir flight from Delhi. The airline staff stopped the passenger and took to questioning after the arrival.

On September 20, an IndiGo aircraft carrying 185 passengers made an emergency landing in Ahmedabad after suffering a "tyre burst". The flight 6E-361, operated with an A320 aircraft, was coming from Mumbai. The plane, however, landed safely and all passengers were safe, Ahmedabad Airport Director Manoj Gangal had said.

However, later an IndiGo spokesperson said there was no tyre burst and the aircraft did not make an emergency landing. "After arrival at Ahmedabad, a tyre de-capping with full tyre pressure intact was observed. The aircraft has been towed to the parking bay. The wheel is being replaced and aircraft will be cleared for further flight," the spokesperson said. Generally, de-capping of a tyre refers to peeling off of a tyre's outer layer. In his statement, the airport director said the IndiGo plane reported "tyre burst while taking off from Mumbai airport today evening", and that the pilot requested an emergency landing.

With PTI inputsThe primary objective of MGNREGA was to enhance livelihood security in rural areas along with creating of durable assets such as building roads and canals. The scheme was ranked as the world's largest public works programme by the World Bank in 2015. The scheme provides a social security net for 15 per cent of our country's population.

But on the ground level MGNREGA is not performing as expected. The promise of 100 days of employment is far from reality. The scheme's under performance can be attributed to insufficient fund allocation, consistent late payment of wages, low wage rates and corruption.

Under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), at least 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in a fiscal is provided to any rural household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work on demand.

Even though the scheme aims at providing 100 days of guaranteed employment, below 50 days of employment was actually provided on an average at an all-India level in FY 18. None of the states were able to provide full 100 days employment as mentioned in the scheme, as per extracts from the latest RBI annual report.

As per the official numbers available on the MGNREGA website, in FY18 average days of employment provided per household was 45.77 which was only 46 in FY17 and 40.17 days in FY15.

The average wage rate per person in FY18 was Rs 169.46, Rs 161.65 in FY17 and Rs 143.92 in FY15.

Insufficient fund allocation

Budget allocation over the years has been insufficient. The fund that centre allocates during the budget proves to be inadequate and more funds are sought by the rural development ministry to finance MGNREGA. This results in delay in payments which adversely affects workers.

Late payment of Wages

A study by Azim Premji University has found that 78 per cent of payments were not made on time, and as many as 45 per cent payments did not include compensation for delayed payment as per guidelines which is 0.05 per cent per day of the wages earned.

In FY17 alone Rs 11,000 crore of wages remained unpaid to workers. Only 32 per cent of the payments in the first two quarters of FY17-18 were made on time.

An RTI filed by activist Dinesh Chadha revealed that about 13.17 crore people were registered under the MGNREGA in FY18, Out of these 5.73 crore workers sought work. Only 5.11 crore people were given work under the MGNREGA and only 29.60 lakh workers got full 100 day employment. The reply from the ministry also disclosed that unemployment allowance was paid only to 217 workers during the year.

Late wage payments to workers is a big disappointment as most of these workers are landless agricultural labourers and they depend on schemes like MGNREGA for their survival. Moreover late payment to existing workers discourages other labourers to work for MGNREGA.

Lower wages with minimal hike

On Labour Day 2016, many workers in Jharkhand returned Rs 5 (that year's wage rate hike) to the Prime Minister. The next year on Labour Day workers returned Rupee 1 to the PM. This was done to protest against the meagre hike in the wage rate. In 2018-19, there has been no increment in wage rates in 10 states - Arunachal Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Mizoram, Nagaland, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

The wages provided under MGNREGA was below the minimum agricultural wage in 28 out of 36 states and UTs.

The average wage hike for the 2018-19 is a mere 2.9 per cent - down from 5.7 per cent in 2016-17, which was the worst revision posted under the scheme since its launch.

Corruption

In 2012, a scam was uncovered in Karnataka where 10 lakh fake job cards were detected, which resulted in Rs 600 crore losses to the exchequer.

In 2018, Rural Development and Panchayath Raj (RDPR) report pointed out that in just one financial year FY18, 596 cases were registered against officials and non-officials for violation of rules and guidelines. Criminal cases were filed against 85 individuals (middlemen) while 306 government officials were suspended from service, 3 lost their job in Karnataka.

Rural workers complain that funds that are sanctioned for public works are going into the pockets of middlemen.Salman Khan, who has since long been ruling the silver screen, has had a very successful run in the small screen as well. Apart from A-list movies and a bunch of endorsements, Salman Khan has been successfully hosting two big shows - Bigg Boss and Dus Ka Dum. The actor has been associated with Bigg Boss for over nine years now, since its fourth season.

As the show grew bigger and included bigger stars, Salman Khan's paycheque is said to have increased proportionately. Salman Khan, who charged around Rs 2.5 crore per episode from seasons 4 to 6, doubled it to Rs 5 crore in Season 7. For Bigg Boss 8, Salman Khan charged Rs 5.5 crore and moved on to Rs 7-8 crore in Season 9. In Season 10, he is said to have taken home Rs 8 crore per episode.

It was widely reported that he charged Rs 11 crore for Season 11. In Bigg Boss 12, Salman Khan is said to be earning around Rs 12 crore- Rs 14 crore per episode. If Salman Khan, appears twice every week, by the end of the show which lasts roughly 12 weeks he will take home anything from Rs 300 crore to Rs 350 crore.

However, he is said to have been charging a much smaller amount for Dus Ka Dum. According to a report in Times of India, Salman Khan is said to have charged Rs 78 crore for 20 episodes. "For a long time, Salman was keen on returning to this show. However, the channel wasn't ready to shell out his asking price. But last year, both parties settled on a fee that they were comfortable with," a source said as mentioned in the daily.

On the other hand, Salman Khan is believed to charge around Rs 60 crore per movie, making him one of the highest-paid actors in the country.

Looking at the moolah, it is not strange to see the star associated with big shows like Bigg Boss. The show is known not only to revive careers but also paying its contestants well. Anup Jalota, who is part of this year's ensemble, is reportedly being paid Rs 45 lakh per week. Popular star Karanvir Bohra is said to be earning Rs 20 lakh per week, while Dipika Kakar is said to earn Rs 15 lakh.

Salman Khan's earnings is an indication of how far the star has come, as well as of the changing industry. The actor recently told PTI that he performed as a background dancer in a show "just for fun" and earned Rs 75. "Then it went up to Rs 750 for Campa Cola and then it was Rs 1,500 for the longest time. Then I got paid Rs 31,000 for Maine Pyar Kiya, which was then increased to Rs. 75,000 later," the actor said.

(Edited by Anwesha Madhukalya)It was announced today that Wayfair plans to expand its workforce across the country through the launch of a virtual workforce to include more than 200 new jobs.

The company plans to add both virtual and office-based roles in Ireland as it scales its team to keep pace with the rapid growth of its e-commerce business in Europe. Wayfair is one of the worlds largest online destinations for the home and today marked the 10th anniversary of its multi-lingual European Operations Centre in Galway.



The company has instituted a dedicated virtual leadership team and developed trainings and career development programs to ensure employees are equipped with tools to succeed. Focused on attracting and retaining top talent, the virtual program provides employee flexibility while also allowing the company to expand its talent pool and optimize staffing.



Wayfair offers full-time positions with a wide range of benefits including equity, bonuses, tuition reimbursement, medical insurance, tax saver commuter benefits and discounts on employee purchases. The Ireland team includes roles in customer service, inbound sales, finance, supplier operations, business analysts, recruitment and training.



Speaking today, Vice President of Sales and Service at Wayfair, Liz Graham said, "Over the past ten years, as we expanded our Galway workforce from a few employees to more than 400 today, the team has continuously delivered exceptional support for our customers in Europe. There is no doubt that the excellence of our Galway team has been a key driver in our tremendous business growth across the region."

She added, "We are now delighted to further expand the team with the launch of a virtual workforce in Ireland that will enable us to tap into an even broader talent pool and provide new employment opportunities to a wider range of highly qualified candidates."

Source: www.businessworld.ieEuropean Employment Commissioner Marianne Thyssen told Ryanair chief Michael O'Leary on Wednesday that the Irish airline must respect EU rules and give workers contracts according to where they live.

The Belgian commissioner told the Ryanair chief executive that EU rules on employment for mobile air crews were clear - based not on the flag of the aircraft, but the place where workers left in the morning and returned in the evening.

"Respecting the law is not something over which workers should have to negotiate and not something that can be postponed to a later date," Thyssen said in a statement.

Ryanair, Europe's largest low-cost carrier, has said it plans to cancel 150 flights on Friday due to a strike over working conditions by cabin crews in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain.

O'Leary said he and Thyssen had discussed local contracts during their meeting, "and the fact that we have offered them already," he added.

Ryanair employs staff across Europe under Irish contracts, but some unions want the ability to negotiate terms under the employment laws of their own country.

For Belgium, the airline has agreed to follow local employment law from March 2020. Belgian union CNE said this change would only affect about half of its workers. (Reuters)

Source: www.businessworld.ienews, crime

A Canberra man will fight attempted murder and theft charges linked to 13 armed robberies on ACT clubs. The 25 year old pleaded not guilty in the ACT Magistrates Court on Wednesday to 22 charges, including attempted murder, aggravated robbery, aggravated burglary, theft, forcible confinement, and property damage. The man  who cannot be named as he was under 18 at the time of some of the offences  is alleged to have stolen more than $385,000 in 13 armed robberies on southside clubs between 2009 and 2018. The Magistrates Court charges relate to eight robberies on five clubs between December 2016 and January 2018. The court heard the man is scheduled to be charged with further offences linked to the earlier robberies in the ACT Children's Court. The accused did not apply for bail and no details of the allegations were tendered in court. However, the court heard the man had allegedly used a number of weapons during the robberies. On December 2016, he allegedly attempted to hold-up the Calwell Club with a gun. The attempted murder charge related to the stabbing of a patron of the club who had chased, caught and wrestled the masked gunman. In March 2017, the man allegedly stole $58,034 from the Deakin soccer club, then used a garden saw to hold up the Weston Raiders club in May before he made off with $6000. A month later, he allegedly threatened staff with a machete and stole $65,620 from the Lanyon Vikings Club. He is accused of returning to the Lanyon club in October with a firearm and took $67,850. The man allegedly hit three clubs in three months between December 2017 and February 2018, making off with a total of $120,515. The matter was listed to reappear for mention next month.

/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/28d8560e-7a65-4671-9041-fdb47221ec82/r0_8_1251_715_w1200_h678_fmax.jpgnews, crime

The two children killed in a deliberately lit house fire in Bonner were already dead by the time the blaze took hold, a coroner said Wednesday. But it was the fire that had killed the children's mother, Coroner Peter Morrison said, with a post-mortem revealing she had died from the inhalation of combustion and burns. It has also been revealed that police have found no evidence a third party was responsible. Mr Morrison said he had now ordered a brief of evidence be prepared. It has been more than seven months since Anne Wachera Muhoro, 45, and her two children Ezvin Munene Mugera, 8, and Furaha Murathime Muhoro, 5, were found dead by firefighters at their Peter Coppin Street home on February 19. Anne Muhoro, 45, died that day from the effects of fire, the inhalation of combustion and burns, a forensic pathologist concluded after a post-mortem. Her two children died on the same day, but a post mortem was unable to ascertain the cause of their death. The forensic pathologist who undertook the post-mortems said the evidence strongly suggested the two children had been dead by the time the fire took hold. Police have also told the coroner they have found no evidence of any third parties' involvement in the deaths of the family. A man was questioned by police the day after the tragedy, although he was later released without charge. Police have said the fire was deliberately lit, with accelerants used across multiple "seats of fire" inside the house. But for months after the fire, police would refuse to be drawn on whether the investigation was focused on a murder or a murder suicide. Anne Muhoro had been due to discuss a custody matter with the children's father on the morning of the blaze. Court documents recorded how Ms Muhoro had made "no appearance" in court. The bodies of her and her children had been found earlier that morning. MrMorrison said he had ordered an inquest brief of evidence be prepared. Support is available to anyone who may be distressed by phoning Lifeline on 13 11 14 or beyondblue on 1300 224 636.

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Police saw Colin Winchester's Italian informant as a golden opportunity to infiltrate the mafia in Australia in a way no one had before, the David Eastman trial heard Wednesday. Without Mr Winchester's operation, law enforcement officials would not have known what they did about the Honorata's structure, business dealings and finances, the senior NSW officer said. The operation was headed by Mr Winchester, who was then in the early 1980s a detective superintendent in the Australian Federal Police working in Canberra. His informant would supervise the members of the Italian mafia grow crops while holding out that they were under some kind of protection by people in authority. The informant eventually helped lead to the people responsible for the murder of Donald Mackay, a Griffith businessman, the court heard. David Eastman's defence team lead further evidence of Mr Winchester's operation as its case drew to a close on Wednesday. Mr Eastman has pleaded not guilty to the January 10, 1989 murder of Mr Winchester, who was at the time the assistant commissioner of police in Canberra. Mr Winchester was shot twice in the head as he got out of his car at home in Deakin. The defence have pointed to an alternative theory that someone within the Italian mafia orchestrated the hit on the senior police officer. Mr Winchester's Operation Seville went for several years before three men connected to Mr Winchester's operation were arrested in Melbourne. Detective Sergeant John Weel said in a statement read to the jury by a barrister that he had tailed the men in a gold Mercedes and a blue Ford sedan travelling south from Canberra to Melbourne. He arrested them outside Melbourne and they were charged with conspiring to sell and traffic cannabis. In his statement the officer said he spoke with Mr Winchester about the ACT officer's desire not to mention Canberra in an upcoming court appearance - to keep the pressure off his informant. He said he later heard from a reliable source that two of the men had been planning to bribe him with $30,000 each to withhold evidence. It later came to be that detective Weel met Mr Winchester's informant at the University Cafe in Melbourne's Lygon Street, while under audio and visual observation. He said the informant told him he was under political pressure. The informant said two of the arrested men had $30,000 to give the officer and both the informant and the officer would get a bullet if he could not satisfy those involved. At a later date, one of the arrested men who said he was making his own enquiries, something should happen in the next day or so. The officer met his seniors and they decided to withdraw the charges. But after more discussions, and the understanding that the informant was not affected by the Victorian arrests, a second version of Operation Seville was started, senior NSW officer Bob Blissett said in a statement. Mr Blissett, who held the rank of superintendent and was in charge of the Bureau of Criminal Intelligence in the 1980s said in his statement that Mr Winchester had approached him about the operation, given the plantations would take place in NSW. The NSW police approved of the plan, he said in the statement read to court, which would endeavour to infiltrate the Honorata and its members, and their involvement in organised crime. It was a "golden opportunity to infiltrate this organisation, which no one had be able to do so before". Without Operation Seville, he said, authorities would not have known what they did about the Honorata's structure, business dealings and finances. The statements of the former police officers read to the court by the defence drew to a close the defence case and the evidence to be lead during the trial. The trial has heard from more than 127 live witnesses and 41 witnesses who had either died or were too unwell to attend court, and whose statements or evidence were read to the court. Acting Justice Murray Kellam told the jury they would reconvene the court on Wednesday, October 3 to hear the Crown's closing arguments. The trial continues.

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A nurse has been injured in an alleged assault at Canberra Hospital's adult mental health unit, sparking calls from the nurses' union for urgent action to protect health workers. Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation ACT secretary Matthew Daniel said it was just one in a string of assaults on nurses within the mental health division in recent months. The nurse had been assaulted by a patient at the adult mental health unit on Monday night, sustaining cuts, bruises and bite marks to her neck and arm. He said unnecessary bureaucracy within ACT Health was hampering efforts to make nurses' workplaces safe. "There's a seeming unwillingness or inability to address the issues at hand," Mr Daniel said. "The mental health division want to go through all the committee channels ... that's way too long and while that's happening nurses are continuing to be assaulted." He said the union had previously called on Mental Health Minister Shane Rattenbury to have an independent review of safety within the mental health division. He said members wanted the executive to stop being "paternalistic" about its approach to staff safety and engage properly with them. "There has been a long history of a top down approach with staff safety," Mr Daniel said. Mr Daniel said the union wanted better therapeutic plans for patients at the ACT's secure mental health unit Dulwha, better staffing levels, more security staff, and a better appreciation of the role of mental health nurses. Mr Rattenbury said he had seen the "distressing" images and said the incident would be thoroughly investigated. "Our staff should not go home at the end of the day having been assaulted," he said. "It's quite early days around what happened. "We do have security staff present in out mental health inpatient facilities in both Dulwha and the adult mental health unit. They are there to provide backup. "But the primary way to deal with violence is through the clinical approach." Police, who were reportedly called to the incident, have been contacted and asked if any charges have been laid. They have not responded.

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Canberra Hospital radiologists have warned patients' previous scans are being ignored and trainee specialists are working unsupervised as the department struggles with chronic staff shortages. Internal documents reveal inpatient CT scans at Canberra Hospital are being examined offsite for the third month in a row. Health staff say inpatient X-rays have also had to be reviewed offsite for more than a year due to the ongoing shortage of radiologists. It comes amid escalating tensions between doctors and the director of medical imaging Mark Duggan, who has been accused by the Australian Salaried Medical Officers Federation of having "total control" of the department despite having no clinical training. The medical imaging department has been without a clinical director since May. Documents seen by The Canberra Times show there are just five days in October where a radiologist is rostered on to complete reports at the hospital, with offsite reporting to continue until at least November. For most days in October, inpatient CT scans will be sent interstate or even overseas to doctors working for the private company Everlight. This is instead of being reviewed by a doctor in the hospital who has access to the patient, other treating doctors and previous scans. Documents show the offsite provider Everlight does not always refer to patients' previous scans, unless they have previously prepared a report for the patient. In a letter sent to Canberra Hospital interim director general Michael De'Ath outlining the concerns of specialist radiologists, he was warned registrars were working unsupervised, with no specialist supervising the planning of the scans. Canberra Hospital's radiology department has been plagued with culture and staffing issues for a number of years, which recently culminated in a disastrous audit of the department's teaching credentials by the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Radiologists The report raised concerns that registrars were not receiving adequate training and were at times forced to treat patients without the supervision of a trained radiologist. Minutes seen by The Canberra Times from a meeting between radiology registrars and management showed these issues were known to the hospital at least a year before the critical report was handed down. Australian Salaried Medical Officers Federation executive officer Stephen Crook said the department did not have enough staff, lacked proper clinical leadership and suffered from poor rostering. He said it was not a common nor accepted practice for a tertiary hospital to rely on an offsite provider as Canberra Hospital does. "ACT Health are good at making promises but not at keeping them," Mr Crook said. In a letter previously sent to ACT Health seen by The Canberra Times, the federation said Mr Duggan was at risk of having "total control" of the department unless there was a clinical director appointed. An ACT Health spokeswoman said the use of a private, offsite provider to review scans and X-rays was not a long-term solution. "However, it is a strategy that will continue to be used to manage unplanned leave, as occurs in hospitals right across the country and with the support of our senior radiologists," she said. The spokeswoman said three new radiologist positions had been offered with contracts currently being finalised with the successful applications. She said advertising for additional staff specialists would go out shortly. "The department and the hospital are focussed on providing the best care to our patients," she said. "While recruitment is underway we have an effective system in place to manage our medical imaging service and thats what we will continue to do." The spokeswoman said Canberra Hospital had written agreements in place with Everlight that previous imaging must be reviewed where available, noting that previous imaging may not be available for every patient. "The disclaimer simply reflects this arrangement stating that previous reports may not be used if they arent available, this scenario is not specific to Canberra Hospital medical imaging," she said. The Visiting Medical Officers' Association president Peter Hughes said the government could fill the staffing gaps by advertising for visiting radiologists but is choosing not to. "This situation has arisen because of the ACT governments distaste for visiting medical officers providing services within Canberra Hospital," Dr Hughes said. "Until about 2002 the radiology department was staffed by a mixture of visiting medical officers and staff specialists, which worked very well, but no [visiting medical officer] contracts have been renewed since then." He said current practices in the radiology department lowered the standard of medical service because the external reporting radiologist is not available to discuss the images with the clinician responsible and the reporting radiologist does not have available previous images to compare.

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On Tuesday, September 25, 1973, prime minister Gough Whitlam declared Jackson Pollock's painting Blue Poles "a masterpiece!" The prime minister was not merely engaging in a spot of art criticism. He was announcing the purchase of American artist Jackson Pollock's 1952 painting for the National Gallery of Australia. Senior Curator of International Art Lucina Ward said, "September is an incredibly important mont for Blue Poles." That month, 45 years ago, the gallery's then director, James Mollison accompanied by the director of the New York office of the Australian Treasury, Edward Crossing and senior assistant Crown solicitor Wilfred Frey, went to New York. It had emerged the previous year Blue Poles might be for sale and, with government approval, they were there to convince art collector and dealer Ben Heller to part with the painting he had owned since 1957, when he bought it for $32,000. A few days later Heller agreed to sell it for $1.3 million (then $US2 million). It is now estimated to be worth about $350 million. "Whitlam said, 'Buy it and declare the price!" - despite fears this would inflate the price of future gallery acquisitions. "Whitlam was one for bold statements," Ward said. There was controversy in Australia about the price and the painting itself - a 1973 headline in the The Daily Mirror read '$1 MILL. AUST. MASTERPIECE. DRUNKS DID IT' - but also great interest. Ward described Blue Poles as one of Pollock's most ambitious paintings. It is a large-scale work created over several months. Pollock worked on the canvas - more than two metres high and almost five metres wide - both while it was hung up and on the floor, using unconventional tools such as sticks and hardened brushes. After it arrived in Australia in 1974, Blue Poles toured Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, and Adelaide. It was stored, along with other acquisitions, in a facility in Fyshwick until the National Gallery of Australia opened in 1982. Since then, it has only left the gallery a few times: it was lent to the Museum of Modern Art, New York and the Tate in London in 1998-99, the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne in 2003-4 and the Royal Academy, London from September 24, 2016, to January 2, 2017. It is now in the exhibition American Masters that features 150 works from the gallery's collection from the 1940s to the 1980s. Ward said this was "a fantastic opportunity to see Blue Poles in context". American Masters is on at the National Gallery of Australia until November 11, 2018. nga.gov.au.

/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-ct-migration/3316be46-565b-498f-95d1-14fe2184c281/r0_209_3957_2445_w1200_h678_fmax.jpgOur Promise: Welcome to Care2, the world's largest community for good. Here, you'll find over 45 million like-minded people working towards progress, kindness, and lasting impact.

Care2 Stands Against: bigots, racists, bullies, science deniers, misogynists, gun lobbyists, xenophobes, the willfully ignorant, animal abusers, frackers, and other mean people. If you find yourself aligning with any of those folks, you can move along, nothing to see here.

Care2 Stands With: humanitarians, animal lovers, feminists, rabble-rousers, nature-buffs, creatives, the naturally curious, and people who really love to do the right thing.

You are our people. You Care. We Care2.The apex court of India, Supreme Court, has announced that Aadhar is not required for the entrance examinations such as National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) and University Grant Commission - National Eligibility Test (UGC NET). The court has also stated that this 12 digits unique identification number is not required for school admission which is a huge relief to students. The Supreme Court's verdict came out while challenging the constitutional validity of Aadhaar.

Earlier, the National Testing Agency (NTA), which has been bestowed with the responsibility of conducting the entrance examinations such as UGC NET, JEE Main and NEET by HRD Ministry, had released a public notice regarding use of Aadhar in UGC NET/ JEE (Main).

NTA Releases The Exam Schedule For NEET, UGC NET, JEE Main, CMAT And GPAT

NTA's public notice had clarified that the Aadhaar number was one of the type of identification and was not mandatory for filling in the online application form. The notice clearly reads that candidates can use passport number, ration card number, bank account number or any other valid government identity number for online registration.

NTA has started accepting the online application forms for the JEE Main 2019 and UGC NET December 2018. The last date to register online for both the exams is September 30, 2018.

UGC NET December 2018 Dates

Mode of examination: Computer-based

Registration dates: September 1 and 30, 2018.

Download of admit cards: November 19, 2018

Date of examinations: December 9 to 23, 2018

Date of announcing results: January 10, 2019

JEE Main Dates

JEE Main I

Mode of examination: Computer-based

Registration dates: September 1 and 30, 2018

Download of admit cards: December 17, 2018

Date of examinations: January 6 to 20, 2019

Date of announcing results: January 31, 2019

JEE Main II

Mode of examination: Computer-based

Registration dates: February 8 to March 7, 2019

Download of admit cards: March 18, 2019

Date of examinations: April 6 to 20, 2019

Date of announcing results: April 30, 2019

Government To Provide Free Coaching For JEE Main And NEET Through National Testing Agency (NTA)Rajasthan High Court has released a recruitment notification for the post of District Judge. The notification was released for a total of 48 vacancies. The official notification reads that the number of vacancies may vary for which further notification/ corrigendum may be issued.

The selection of the candidates will be based on the competitive examination for direct recruitment in the District Judge Cadre that consists of written examination and an interview. The selected candidates can earn up to INR 63,070 per month. Eligible candidates who meet all the prerequisites set by the organisation can apply before October 25, 2018.

CRITERIA DETAILS Name Of The Posts District Judge Organisation Rajasthan High Court Educational Qualification Bachelors degree in law Experience Advocate for a period of not less than seven years Job Location Rajasthan Salary Scale INR 51,550 to INR 63,070 per month Industry Judiciary Application Start Date September 26, 2018 Application End Date October 25, 2018

Age Limit

The minimum age limit for the post is 35 years and the maximum age is 45 years as on January 1, 2019. However, age relaxation is provided to SC, ST and OBC candidates.

Access the official announcement link - http://164.100.222.238/hcraj/recruitment/Notification_570.pdf

Application Fee

Candidates have to pay INR 800 as the application fee. The application fee is INR 500 and INR 250 for OBC and SC/ST candidates, respectively. The examination fee shall be accepted offline through Demand Draft of any bank in favour of ''Registrar General' Rajasthan High Court, Jodhpur'' payable at ''Jodhpur.''

How To Apply

Candidates should visit the official website of Rajasthan High Court - www.hcraj.nic.in to apply online. The official link for the online application will be open on September 26, 2018.

Hyderabad High Court Recruitment For 26 Civil Judge VacanciesFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Deanna.Congileo@cartercenter.org

MONROVIA, LIBERIA  As part of the celebration of International Right to Know Day, The Carter Center, with support from the European Union, will launch a new one-year project, Increasing Transparency in the Public Sector through Freedom-of-Information Training. The project will advance government employees understanding of right-to-information law and their capacity to respond to requests for information. The new project is aligned to the New European Consensus on Development and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, specifically focusing on promoting accountable and transparent institutions, including participatory decision-making and public access to information.

As part of the project, the Carter Center will develop freedom-of-information training materials and curricula in leading public-sector training institutes, such as the Liberia Institute of Public Administration, the National Police Training Academy, and the James A. A. Pierre Judicial Institute. The Center also will engage academic institutions, including the University of Liberias Louis Arthur Grimes School of Law, in the creation and adoption of the new freedom-of-information curricula and training courses and in serving as instructors.

The right of access to information is a cornerstone of transparency, accountability, public participation, and voice, and is essential for engaging citizens and improving government effectiveness and efficiency. Since 2009, The Carter Center has partnered with government and civil society to advance access to information for all Liberians.Atletico-MG has kept its distance from the right competitors as it moves closer to winning the 2021 Serie A title....Kigali Cement plant auction postponed

26 September 2018

The auctioning of Kigali Cements plant in Nyarugenge, Rwanda, has been postponed, allowing more time for talks between the involved parties. The sale was being made to allow the company to pay its creditors, Rwanda Enterprise Investment Company (REIC).



However, Kigali Cement and REIC have now agreed to hold talks, according to Aloys Bizimana, court baliff in charge of the auction.



"We can postpone one, two or three times but we cannot continue [to postpone the auction] forever. We have our way of doing this in line with the law. If one is willing to pay [the debt] or if both parties are willing to hold talks over their case, we cannot refuse it. What is important is that the case gets closed successfully with respect to the law," said Mr Bizimana.

Published underEditors Note: Michele Lew spent six weeks in the Palestinian Territories as a Fulbright Distinguished Teacher. What she learned changed her teaching practice for the better.

As I prepared for my trip to Palestine, doubt and worry started to creep inI dont know anything about the Middle East! I wish I werent going alone. Im not an expert, what can I teach teachers halfway around the world? Maybe this isnt such a good idea....

Fast forward to the present day, and I now know my fears and anxiety were unfounded. And while I believe I brought value and insight to my Palestinian colleagues, I also came away with a changed perspective and a renewed appreciation for my profession.

Good Teaching Can Be Instinctual

As I made field visits to schools across the Palestinian Territories, I spoke with many teachers who proudly shared their classrooms and teaching techniques with me. When a Bethlehem teacher described her method of communicating with a mute student, I found myself nodding in agreement and telling her that I do something similar with my students who have a hard time communicating. I asked if shed been trained in that particular technique and she said she hadnt. It was something shed thought up when she began working with the student.

Again and again, I heard similar stories from good teachers who werent necessarily trained in best practices for behavior management, informal assessment, and accommodations and modifications, but who used them organically throughout their teaching. (In fact, there is no formal special education credential for teachers in the Palestinian Territories; teachers have a regular education certificate and attend district trainings on special education.)

This was an insightful reminder that good teachers use similar strategies and tools no matter where theyre teachingbe it in the States or halfway around the world. I realized that best practices and effective strategies transcend language and culture. Good teaching is a universal language that unites educators globally.

Bells and Whistles Arent Necessary

The Palestinian Ministry of Education is on a tight budget. Many of the schools I visited talked about the lack of resources for teachers and students. The Ministry of Education is in the process of developing a formalized curriculum, but in the meantime, theyre using curriculum borrowed from neighboring countries. When I asked teachers about the efficacy of the curriculum, many told me they often supplement with other sources and content, since the curriculum wasnt tailored specifically for Palestinian students.

Most classrooms I visited had a chalkboard and basic supplies like paper and pencils. Student work and teacher-made posters decorated the walls, but there were no interactive whiteboards or document cameras, or even overhead projectors; no technology was used in the classrooms I visited. As I observed lessons, however, I saw engaged and motivated students. Teachers were able to impart knowledge and content without shiny curriculum, textbooks, or technology.

This was a great reminder that teaching doesnt have to be overly complicated. I often get caught up in the need to use the right curriculum, or the right technology, or the right resources, because if I dont, I think the lesson will fail. Not true. The teachers I met had none of those things, yet they were effective. Sometimes simple is better.

I was blown away by teachers creativity and resourcefulness in using the limited resources given to create an enriching classroom. I saw tires used as seating in a class library, egg cartons and wire hangers used for a science project, and rolls of tissue paper used for a math game. One teacher showed me a beautiful felt book shed made to teach language skills. The book was interactive, included 3D elements, and personalized to her students. Another proudly showed me a bookshelf she had found on the side of the road. She cleaned, painted, and repurposed the bookshelf for her classroom.

It was really humbling and inspiring to see these teachers do so much with so little. I thought about my classroom cupboards back home (filled to the brim with supplies for every occasion) and vowed not to complain so much about all the things I thought my classroom lacked.

Social and Emotional Learning Was Embedded in School Culture

I spent a day with an NGO based in Jerusalem whose mission was to educate Palestinian youth under house arrest. These kids didnt have access to school while at home, so the NGO sent trained tutors to the students homes to work with them. Along with academics, tutors supported the students emotional health. Many felt depressed, angry, and hopeless. Part of the NGOs purpose was to help them identify and work through those feelings so when they went back to school, they would be equipped with the skills to function successfully.

Many students have been traumatized by the ongoing conflict in the area. Some students live and go to school on opposite sides of a border checkpoint and are only allowed to cross the border during certain hours. When checkpoints are closed unexpectedly, those kids cant go to school. Almost all of the people I met had family or friends who had been in jail. The conflict can be a very personal one for students and resulted in students displaying anger, aggression, sadness, and depression.

Teachers and administrators spoke very candidly about the effects of trauma on their students, and schools had to be cognizant of students emotional health out of necessity. Teachers were knowledgeable about warning signs displayed by students and often took an empathetic approach with them. The Ministry employed counselors to work with students and train teachers so that Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) was embedded in school culture.

One of the ways elementary teachers helped students express their feelings in a productive way was by having the class create a Feeling Board. The board was divided into two categories: Feeling Sad and Feeling Angry. Under each category were suggestions on what students could do if they felt sad or angry (listening to music, coloring, drawing, talking to a friend, deep breathing, etc.). Not only did students feel empowered by being a part of the creation process, they also learned to how to deal with and express their emotions in a constructive way. Whenever a student became upset or sad, the teacher would help them through it by using the Feeling Board.

I have a huge passion for SEL and believe that students in the States can benefit greatly from learning SEL strategies. Teaching students self-awareness and coping skills will prepare them to face any stressors that come their way. The Palestinian way of embedding SEL within school culture is a model I hope to replicate in my own district.

We Are More Similar Than We Are Different

The most important thing I learned from my time in Palestine was that we are all more similar than we are different. Although I live halfway around the world from my Palestinian colleagueswith a difference in language, culture, religion, and perspectiveswe were able to connect in a very real way.

With every new experience I had, I moved further and further away from thinking of the people I met as different, and closer and closer to thinking of them as same. By the end of the six weeks, I just called them friends.

I came away from my time in Palestine inspired, motivated, and fundamentally changed. Watching my Palestinian colleagues deftly navigate their way around so many obstacles in order to teach pushes me to be a better educator. If they could do so much with so little, then surely, I can do even more than what Im doing now. Because at the end of the day, good teaching only takes a good teacher.

Connect with Michele , Heather , and the Center for Global Education on Twitter.

Image created on Pablo.

While several electric vehicles that cost less than $35,000 in 2018, only one model below $40,000 offers more than 200 miles per charge. That makes new EVs either not practical or out of the reach financially for most customers on the market.

By early 2019, that situation should change with new models by Hyundai and Kia coming to the U.S. Yet this new wave of EVs will continue to cost more than comparable vehicles powered by gas.

Fortunately for consumers, the federal tax credit of $7,500 can still be taken on most EVs through 2019. (The Tesla Model 3 is one exception.) Meanwhile, many states are offering either rebates or tax credits on top of that amount. That allows many consumers to subtract $10,000 or more from the purchase price of an EV.

Here are the states who offer the most money on top of the federal EV tax credit in 2018, whether in rebates or further tax credits. Most states also offer these incentives for plug-in hybrids.

(Note: Be sure to check on the current status in your state before making purchase decisions, as there are deadlines as well as the chance that funding will run out.)

7. New York

State rebate: $2,000

While New York has lagged behind other states in electric car initiatives, Empire State residents currently have $2,000 in incentives to put toward an EV. The best part is, New Yorks incentive is a rebate, so you can subtract it from the price of the car at the dealership.

6. Massachusetts

State rebate: $2,500

In Massachusetts, the MOR-EV program offers $2,500 in rebate on a battery EV, $1,500 on a plug-in hybrid (PHEV), and $750 on an electric motorcycle on top of the federal tax credit. These figures apply to models that cost less than $60,000.

For vehicles that cost more than $60,000 consumers, can still claim $1,000 on an EV or plug-in hybrid. Massachusetts allows residents to buy cars out-of-state and still claim a rebate, in case a local dealer isnt stocking the one you want.

5. Connecticut

State rebate: $3,000

Not to be outdone by its New England neighbor, Connecticut offers up to $3,000 in rebates on long-range EVs and $2,000 for plug-in hybrids on top of the federal credits. However, state officials peg the amount of rebate by the EPA-estimated range.

Any model capable of 175 miles or more qualifies for the $3,000. Otherwise, EVs that get 100-175 miles on a charge and PHEVs that go 40 miles or more on electric power qualify for $2,000. As a consolation prize, short-range EVs and PHEVs get $500.

4. Maryland

State tax credit: $3,000

Maryland has one of the most comprehensive packages for consumers looking to buy an affordable EV. As in Massachusetts, Maryland residents have to set their sights on models below $60,000, as any vehicle below that amount qualifies for an excise tax credit.

In this case, the state credits you $100 per kilowatt-hour (kWh), up to $3,000. That means anything from a Ford Focus Electric (33.5 kWh) to a 2018 Nissan Leaf (40 kWh) would qualify for the full amount.

Maryland goes even further by offering a rebate of 40% off home charging equipment (up to $700).

3. Delaware

State rebate: $3,500

Delaware, another Mid-Atlantic state looking to jumpstart EV sales, offers $3,500 for the purchase of an electric car with an MSRP of $60,000 or less. PHEVs in that price range qualify for $1,500 off, while models over $60,000 qualify for $1,000.

In June, Delaware News Journal reported the credits would be available through 2019, so there is time for state residents to take advantage. A full $11,000 off the cost of a new car is nothing to sneeze at.

2. California

State and local rebates: $2,500-$7,500

There are lots of clauses (and a multitude of programs) involved with California electric car incentives, but the state offers some of the highest dollar amounts in the country. Most residents will qualify for a $2,500 rebate that can be taken along with the $7,500 tax credit.

However, California takes it several steps further, partly because low-income residents often do not have $7,500 in taxes to claim at the end of the year. To that end, Californians may receive up $7,500 in state and local incentives for the purchase of a qualifying EV.

The best way to check on whats available is to run your zip code through the website.

1. Colorado

State credit: $5,000

While Californias incentives are very hard to top, Colorado still offers the highest dollar amount ($5,000) off the purchase of a new EV for people regardless of income. (We could not identify limitations by MSRP, either, following a review of state forms.)

In other words, you buy the electric car you want, and by the time you pay your taxes the following year, youd get a total credit of $12,500. Thats quite an incentive to consider a clean vehicle.Pueblo West man finds rare black-footed ferret in garage

An endangered black-footed ferret weasels Pueblo West man, state parks and wildlife officers and humane society into teaming up for a rescue.10 Very Easy Ideas to Help Every Christian Immediately Breakthrough Common Obstacles to Faith and Finances Christian Examiner Contributor | 25 September, 2018 by Van Richards

There is a close relationship between Christian faith goals and personal financial goals. Financial goals that Christians choose can help them accomplish their faith goals.

Christianity is not about accumulating things. It is a faith that values service to others above being self-serving. Yet how Christians control their wealth is essential to fulfilling the ideals of the religion.

Thus, the first step to Christian financial planning is not to discuss money or possessions. The first step is to set faith goals. Integrating faith goals, that fulfill the ideals of being a Christian, with personal financial goals can bring an important balance to life. So today, this article will focus on faith goals.

Regardless of denomination, most Christians share certain ideals. They spend time with God in prayer; they aspire to have physical involvement with their Church; they offer financial support when possible; Christians are in service to others; and they share their faith with other Christians and with non-Christians. A Christian's ideals can be summarized in these five words: prayer, presence, gifts, service, and witness. These are five pillars of Christianity that are easy to talk about, yet take a lifetime to embody.

Having a plan to accomplish your faith goals will help you bring happiness to your family life, work and community life. If having faith goals can bring harmony to peoples' lives, then why don't more people make them? Some people have difficulty accepting Christianity in their life because they cannot overcome conflicts within themselves.

Here are several mindsets that people encounter when trying to resolve their internal struggles with faith. If you want to improve your understanding of, and commitment to, Christianity, reflect on your feelings and see if any of these mindsets describe your situation. Afterwards, I will share some more suggestions that may help further your relationship with Jesus Christ. Here are the 10 mindsets:

Being OverwhelmedThere are several ways to become overwhelmed by Christianity. Some people go to a Church and cannot find a connection between the sermon on Sunday and their life. Or being overwhelmed can occur at the other end of the spectrum. There are so many ways to be involved that they cannot relate the Church activity with their everyday life. In either case, prayer can help you out of your feeling of being overwhelmed. Journaling helps significantly too. Write down your troubles and connect with God through prayer. Ask God how to resolve your issues and write down your thoughts. Journaling before and after prayer can help you clear your thoughts and create reasonable faith goals to help you get past being overwhelmed. Fear of Criticism, Disapproval, or ResentmentThese three mindsets center around other people's opinions. Some people fear that if they become active with a Church that other people may criticize them, as these other people disapprove of Christians and resent the religion because of what it represents. Creating faith goals will help you crystalize Christian beliefs in your own life. You cannot control what other people say and do. You can only control how you react. Christianity is a faith of tolerance and forgiveness. There is no better way to react to other peoples' negativity than by tolerance and forgiveness. If you experience uncomfortable feelings from other peoples' intolerance, write in your journal and spend time in prayer over the situation. Writing your experiences can sometimes help you settle your feelings in the situation and help you better understand God's response to your prayers. Fear of FailureThe fear or hesitation of seeking a more meaningful association to Christianity can take on several different perspectives. Some people hesitate in involvement because of the commitments. It is true that if you have physical involvement with a Church, you may be asked for even more involvement. Learn your limitations and communicate when you can and cannot participate. Additionally, some people hesitate in involvement because they do not feel like they belong. This is where journaling your thoughts and feelings can help a great deal. If you write how you feel about involvement or commitment, you may find that the negative emotions that you feel toward religion may be because of misconceptions or incorrect assumptions. Journaling your thoughts and feelings can help you come to a better understanding of how Christianity can benefit your life. Guilt and ShameSome people are paralyzed by guilt and shame. This happens in two ways. Guilt can be because a person feels regret and remorse over their actions. Feeling guilty and ashamed of personal actions only improves through the acceptance of the responsibility for one's past actions and then, following this acceptance, requesting God's forgiveness. Sometimes people need help in getting beyond the experience that left them feeling guilt and shame. If you are having so much trouble that you feel you cannot handle your situation alone, you may need the help of a mental health professional. Many times, Churches can refer you to mental health professionals that can help you tackle a troubling situation from a Christian perspective. If you are experiencing guilt or shame because of another person's actions, take a moment and reflect upon yourselfin an instance involving two consenting adults, you cannot be responsible for another person's actions. Keeping a journal can help any person work through tough personal situations. If you feel guilty about another person's actions, write to yourself and explain why you feel guilty. Many times, writing can help you see the illogical nature of a situation. Writing about your feelings before and after your time of prayer will help you better understand God's intention for you and help you to handle tough situations such as guilt and shame. HelplessnessSome people feel helpless and lost in life and do not know how to get out of their despair. If you feel lost, connect with a Church. There are good people that will help you learn more about Christianity, and help you understand the Bible. As you learn more about Christianity, your helplessness will be replaced with empowerment. HopelessnessSome people think that their life is hopeless. They feel that they have not been involved in a Church for so long that there is no use trying to return. But the reality is, no one is hopeless. Jesus Christ gave up his life to benefit everyone who is willing to accept him as their Savior. Christian Churches have many people that are empathetic and willing to help you move beyond your past. God has a short memoryask for forgiveness and you are forgiven. The beginning of a better life only requires the first step. Commit to learning more about this by attending a Church. Jumping to conclusionsIf you hear a pastor talk about changing your life or a Church group discusses ideals that seem impossible for you to reach, don't jump to conclusions. Not every sermon applies at the same level for each person. Plus, when some ideals seem too challenging to accomplish, having an attitude that this is an opportunity to learn how to pray will come in handy. Try making entries into a private journal and then take those thoughts to God through prayer. If you make prayer part of your faith goals, it will help your personal life and your Church involvement. Self-labelingSome people do not see themselves as religious people. Many believe in God and Jesus, yet they do not see themselves as a member of a Church congregation. Self-confidence will come with prayer and the study of Christian writing. Note that I said Christian writing, rather than only referring to the Bible. While the Bible is the definitive handbook of every Christian, many writers offer brilliant insight into Bible scripture and everyday life. You can also find more of the value of physical involvement with a Church by joining small study groups. Small study groups take the time to discuss the Bible and other contemporary Christian writers. Self-reliance and perfectionismSome people see religion as a waste of time and money. They think there is nothing that a Church can do for them, and the stories Churches tell are too unrealistic. Some portions of Christian history may be hard to believe. However, do not discard Christianity because a few aspects seem unrealistic or not worthwhile of further consideration. Christianity does offer people today the opportunity to improve our lives through the understanding of the blessing that Jesus Christ made available to us all. If you are not sure what Christianity can do in your life, start with small steps. Look at the ideals of being a Christian and create a reasonable plan for studying and being involved with a Church. It may sound cliche; however the rewards are priceless. Undervaluing the rewards of ChristianityBeing a follower of Jesus Christ is not just about going to heaven. Although heaven is a significant aspect of Christianity, it is not the entire philosophy of being a Christian. As you further your relationship with Jesus Christ, you will find more purpose in your everyday life. God made us all and has a plan for us all. It is our choice to accept that plan.

As you go through your life, you may experience mindsets such as these. The keys to overcoming many of these mindsets are prayer and journaling. If you can train yourself to write down your troubling thoughts when they occur, you will find that it is much easier to rationalize why you have such thoughts. Additionally, writing down your thoughts and feelings before and after prayer will help you avoid using the existence of negative emotions as proof that a negative mindset is true. Conquering negative mindsets concerning your religion will help keep you on track with your faith goals and eventually, your personal financial goals.

Here are a few questions to ask yourself about your faith goalsand again, writing answers to these questions down in your journal will help you understand how to make progress on these goals. What are you doing now to fulfill each of these goals? How often do you pray? How are you involved with your Church? How do you support your Church financially? How do you offer service through your Church? And lastly, how are you witnessing your faith to others?

Like the thoughts written in your journal, when you write down what you are doing to accomplish your faith goals, these notes are between you and God. If you understand where you are with your faith goals, your deeper understanding will help you further your service to God. Keep in mind, this is not an exercise to make you feel guilty about what is left undone.

Still, if you feel overwhelmed at this point, that's okay. How you are able to fulfill your faith goals will vary over time. Few people can say that they cannot improve upon their faith goals. Here is a simple way to keep track of your progress. Keep a daily calendar, and at the end of each day or the beginning of the next day, write in your calendar what you will do concerning each faith goal. It should take no more than ten minutes. For example, is prayer a part of your daily routine? If it is, write down when you plan to pray.

An important faith goal is to make prayer a daily part of your routine. Buy a daily calendar with scriptures and read it each day. Another favorite tool that helps many people with scripture reading and prayer is the YouVersion app for smartphones and tablets. It's free, and you can set up notices so the app will send you a daily scripture. Pray and journal on this verse each day. Doing this everyday will help you to clarify your thoughts on your faith life and will improve your understanding of God.

Faith goals are the five pillars of Christianity previously mentioned: prayer, presence, gifts, service, and witness. Once you have a plan for your prayer goal, you can work on the remaining four goals. Write in your calendar when you will be engaged in an activity for each goal. Again, writing in your faith-goal plans for each day should only take a few moments. You may not be able to write about every goal each day or week. However, as you further your time with God in prayer, you will find it easier to fit activities from the other faith goals within your weekly routine.

 Van Richards is a Christian financial advisor as well as the founder of https://www.Advice4LifeInsurance.com and http://www.Advice4Retirement.com. Van draws from his 30 years as a financial advisor to write about financial issues from a Christian perspective. You can contact him at van@advice4lifeinsurance.com.Basic Historical Facts to Make You Deeply Ponder the Real Existence of Noah's Ark Christian Examiner Contributor | 25 September, 2018 by Ken Lambert

There are many Christians throughout the United States (and likewise worldwide) who go to church regularly, but do not believe much of what is written in Genesis. Over the past 100-150 years, it has seemingly been acceptable for Christians to flatly denounce various accounts put forth in the earlier chapters of the first book of the Bible. The story of Noah's ark, with its account of the Great Flood, is one such very old story which is difficult for some people to fully believe.

This article is not meant to be the end-all for determining the validity of the story of a worldwide flood including Noah's ark, but its aim is simply to state several verifiable facts, which on their surface would acknowledge the truthfulness of this Old Testament patriarch's experience.

A Great Flood, with Similar Characters as those in Noah's Story, is Prevalent Among Many Different Cultures/Religions

Similar to Christians and Jews with their story of Noah and its large-scale, encompassing flood, many of the world's other populations have also had heritages that include a flood story:

Believers in Islam: Hold to an almost identical story regarding the ark and the Great Flood, involving a man named Noah. At the end of the flood the ark rested atop a tall mountain.

Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh: Gilgamesh met an old man named Utnapishtim, who told him the following story. The gods came to Utnapishtim to warn him about a terrible flood that was coming. He then built a large ship, took provisions and his family aboard the ship. Heavy rains came and flooded the land. Utnapishtim and his family survived.

Mainland China: A Chinese classic records the story of the family of Fuhi, who was a patriarch, and his wife, along with his 3 sons and 3 daughters, who were the only persons to survive a great floodand subsequently repopulated the Earth.

South America/Incan: There is a story involving the Pachachama people, with two brothers and their close relatives surviving a worldwide floor by staying in a high mountaintop cave. The rest of civilization was destroyed.

India: There exists a legend of Manu and a "magical" fish; the fish warned and helped guide Manu through a great flood that encompassed the entire worldvia a large ship.

There are many other legends with similarities to the Biblical story of Noah from various different groups.

Noah Himself is Mentioned (In High Esteem) Several Times Within the Bible Outside of Genesis

Noah is mentioned in the following books: Matthew, Luke, Hebrews and 1 Peter.

Sightings of Remnants/Relics of the Ark are Vast and Are Evident Throughout the Centuries

Nikolas, Tsar of Russia (1916/1917)Russian aviator Roskovitsky unexpectedly saw the ark while flying near the top of the mountain. That year the weather was warmer, the snows on the Ararat melted down more than usual, and the ark could be seen more clearly. Roskovitsky reported his find to his superior, who repeated the fly-by with the aviator and then sent off a report to the Russian government. Emperor Nicholas II ordered an official expedition to be sent to Ararat which, despite many difficulties related to bad weather and snow avalanches, was still able to reach its goal and found the ark roughly in the same location and the same condition as it was later found by Fernand Navarra. A detailed report on the results of the expedition was sent to the Russian Imperial government, but by that time a revolution had taken place in Russia, and the report was "misplaced" (or deliberately kept quiet or even destroyed).

Roman/Byzantine Emperor Heraclius (620 AD)Emperor Heraclius is said to have visited the remains of the Ark in Persia.

Assyrian King Sennacherib (700 BC)this Assyrian King is believed to have ventured to Mount Ararat and viewed the ark remnants. There he gathered a relic of the ark itself, which he used back in his kingdom as part of his worship to his non-Hebrew god.

Berosus the Chaldean (290 BC)this ancient Babylonian priest and writer wrote the following: "The vessel being thus stranded in Armenia, some part of it yet remains in the Corcyran mountains of Armenia, and the people scrape off the bitumen with which it had been outwardly coated, and make use of it by way of an alexipharmic and amulet."

It is clear that there are other questions which need to be answered regarding the Ark. One famous one is simply, "how did Noah fit two specimens of all the animals on earth into the ark for roughly one year?" There are books and sites dedicated to trying to answer this question, and others like it.

That said, I hope that herein I have listed sufficient historical data to allow all peopleChristians and non-believers aliketo intelligently consider the possibility that the Biblical story of Noah, including its massive flood and large boat built by him, really occurred in history.

 Ken Lambert has been writing for both secular and religious publications for several years. He co-authored the book "Top 10 Most Influential Christians Since the Apostles" and holds a Doctorate in Ministry. He resides in southern New Hampshire.'Judgment Day Is Upon Us': Lawmaker Abused by Priest as Child Declares in Reform Push Christian Post Contributor | 26 September, 2018 by Stoyan Zaimov

Pennsylvania state Rep. Mark Rozzi declared that "judgment day is upon us" as he spoke about the victims of clergy child sex abuse.

On Tuesday night, the statehouse voted 17321 on a proposal to give victims of child sex abuse in Pennsylvania more time to file lawsuits against clergy they say have abused them.

The Associated Press reported that the bill is now going to be put up for a Senate vote, which will determine whether a two-year window for litigation is going to be created.

The push for reform comes following revelations that hundreds of Roman Catholic priests abused children in the state going back to the 1940s. Similar revelations in other states and around the world have rocked the Vatican to its core.

Rozzi, who said he was raped by a priest when he was 13 years old, put in no uncertain terms the importance of the bill at a rally before the House vote.

"Judgment day is upon us, and this legislation will set the path straight," he declared.

The lawmaker told CBS News that being a victim of child sexual abuse "has changed my entire life."

He explained that expanding the window for justice will greatly help victims.

"They can go in there, identify their perpetrator, and also get compensation for the egregious crimes committed against them," Rozzi said about the lawsuits.

Some, such as state Rep. Michael Corr, have warned that the retroactive window may violate Pennsylvania's constitution, however.

"I am therefore unable to support the amendment, as much as I would like to," Corr explained.

Pope Francis, who himself has been accused of covering up for a church leader suspected of committing abuse, meanwhile admitted in a visit to Estonia that the sex abuse scandal is driving away young people from the Catholic Church.

"We know  and you have told us  that many young people do not turn to us for anything because they don't feel we have anything meaningful to say to them," the pope said, according to The Local.

"They are outraged by sexual and economic scandals that are not met with clear condemnation," he added.

Read more about clergy child sex abuse on The Christian Post.Thousands of Christians from around the world are flocking to Israel to celebrate the biblical Feast of Sukkot this week.

The Feast of Sukkot also known as the Feast of Tabernacles is held between September 23 and September 30 and welcomes Christians from around the world. Together, Christians gather to celebrate the provisions that God made for the Jewish people in the past and to look forward to that promised Messianic age when all nations will flow to this city to worship the Lord, the Feast of Tabernacles website stated.

The feast is orchestrated by the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ), and this year they are celebrating the annual feasts 38th year.

The festival is welcoming more than 5,000 Christians from nearly 100 countries this year for the weeklong celebration, and according to CBN News many have come dressed in national costumes and are ready to worship God and stand with His people.

One young woman from Vermont, Charity, told the outlet, "I know it's going to be a life-changing experience.

Charity continued, "I love Israel and I think that it's a time when things are going to turn around and it's very prophetic and to be a part of being able to give back to the people that gave to us." This is the Vermont natives first time in Israel.

David Parsons, vice president of the ICEJ, explained to CBN News that people come to the festival because "They're following the invitation of Zachariah 14 where it says that one day all the nations will come up to celebrate this biblical feast here in Jerusalem, to worship the Lord and keep the Feast of Tabernacles and we're showing up now as a statement of faith that that day is coming when the Messiah will rule here."

Parson shared that each year the festival has a theme, and this year is 'Dare to Dream' which focuses on Psalm 126.

"'When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion we were like those that dream' and it's about the dream of Israel, all those centuries being restored back to the Land ending the exile, coming back here and we live in the day of Israel's restoration, Parson said.

"Israel's now 70 years old as a reborn state and there's much to celebrate. They've overcome many wars, terror attacks, rocket barrages, economic boycotts, other attempts to strangle it," he added.

Ray Landis, another first-time visitor from Vermont, told the outlet, "I came because I love Israel and I want to see the prophecies fulfilled."

He continued, "We've just been studying the things of the Bible and it talks about how Jerusalem is going to be restored and Israel is going to be restored and we want to be part of that. It's amazing.

Mario DeCosa, a first-time visitor from Angola, told CBN of the impact the festival has had on him. He said, "I'm really delighted and thrilled at what I have been witnessed since yesterday evening and I think now I take with me a commitment to pray more for Israel, for the peace of Israel, for Jerusalem and even do more to mobilize more people to work toward the peace of Israel.

As one of the perks of this years festival, attendees will be given a copy of CBNs new documentary on Israels long history of global humanitarian aid.

Parsons said, "We're very happy that all the Feast pilgrims are going to go back with copies of it in English and we're partnering with CBN to also provide Hebrew copies to all Israeli guests to the Feast this week.

Photo courtesy: James Coleman/Unsplash

Video courtesy: CBN NewsSeptember 26, 2018 (Morning Star News)  Nearly a year after declaring that attacks on Christians had hit a level not seen in decades, a Coptic Orthodox bishop in Egypt continues to lament a stream of incidents of violence against churches in Upper Egypt.



Coptic Orthodox Bishop-General of Minya Anba Makarios this month confirmed that an Islamist assault on four Christians homes after mosque prayers on Aug. 31 left two Copts with knife wounds in the head and face.



Makarios issued a statement saying the homes of Adel Saeed Rizq, Reda Abdel-Sayed Rizq, Kamel Fawzy Shahata and Fawazy Shahata Boutros in Dimshau Hashim village were damaged and plundered because the assailants objected to the Copts using a small hall in one of the homes for worship.



The village has no church facility, so after the damages to the homes, the Coptic families were forced to hold a Sept. 6 funeral in the street, according to Egyptian news outlet Watani.



At the four homes in the village in Minya Governorate, some 250 kilometers (155 miles) south of Cairo, the assailants stole gold jewelry, smashed electric equipment and set part of one property on fire. A fireman was injured attempting to douse it. The wounded Copts received treatment at Minya Public Hospital, according to Watani.



Makarios reported that Minya police arrested 38 Muslim extremists, released 19 and held another 19 for investigation on suspicion of creating unrest and assault. The bishop said the attack was motivated by the Islamists objection to Copts allegedly building a church facility without a license.



He said he appreciated the tight security that followed, saying officials were striving to restore Copts rights. The bishop said he was pained to listen to the Coptic families tell him how their terrorized children wailed during the assault, according to Watani.



Makarios said it was heart-aching that the children should be subjected to such horror simply because their families exercised their constitutional right of freedom of worship, according to Watani.



While striving to console them, he encouraged them to hold to the Christian tenet of entrusting themselves to God while bearing the persecution and to practice forgiveness, tolerance and patience. At the same time, he said the government is obligated to prosecute the culprits and bring them to justice, compensate the victims and reject customary reconciliation meetings between victim and assailant that invariably result in Muslim attackers denying religious rights to Copts, according to Watani.



Such injustices allow assailants to escape justice and send Islamic extremists the message that they can commit crimes with impunity, he said.



Last October Makarios had said that it has been years since Egypt had suffered the flurry of church closures and assaults on Christians and their properties in one month. Four churches were closed over two weeks after Islamic extremists attacked three churches in Minya Governorate.



Egypt ranked 17th on Christian support organization Open Doors 2018 World Watch List of the countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian.

If you would like to help persecuted Christians, visit http://morningstarnews. org/resources/aid-agencies/ fo r a list of organizations that can orient you on how to get involved.



If you or your organization would like to help enable Morning Star News to continue raising awareness of persecuted Christians worldwide with original-content reporting, please consider collaborating at https://morningstarnews.org/ donate/ ?International observers were alarmed Monday by Russias announcement that they would be sending their S-300 missile defense systems to Syria. The decision comes after Syrian air defenses shot down a Russian Il-20 spy plane, killing 15 Russian servicemen.

Russia said Israel is solely to blame for the downing of the plane. Israeli F-16s flew below the Il-20, in a move the Russians said used the plane for cover. The antiquated Syrian defenses likely aimed for the larger Il-20 rather than the smaller F-16s.

Russia claims they need to place the S-300 in Syria to protect their planes flying over Syrian airspace. The S-300 uses technology that distinguishes Russian planes from those belonging to other nations. Russia claims they initially proposed placing the S-300 batteries in Syria in 2013, but relented after Israel protested.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said last weeks incident changed Russias mind about using the S-300 in Syria. "In 2013, at the request of the Israeli side, we suspended the delivery of the S-300 complex to Syria which was prepared to receive delivery and for which Syrian military personnel were trained. Today the situation has changed. And it is not our fault."

The presence of Russian air defense in Syria complicates Israels strategy for dealing with their war-torn neighbor. Israel frequently attacks Iranian fighters who are engaged in Syrias civil war. Human rights groups say these strikes have killed over 100 Iranians in Syria in the last month.

Israeli air campaigns frequently require the destruction of Syrian air defenses. Now, those defenses will be manned by Russian troops. Any action by Israel that directly kills Russian personnel could escalate tensions between the two countries.

Nikolai Sokov, a senior fellow at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, said the presence of the S-300 constraints not just Israeli, but also US operations in case of possible bombing of Syria. Not only will Syrian air defense become more capable, but it will be necessary to keep in mind the presence of Russian operators at the Syrian air defense systems.

The S-300 possesses a range of over 250km, possibly threatening Israeli airspace if they are placed in the Latakia province. Russia will ship two to four systems to Syria and they could be ready for use in between three to six months.

Scott Slayton is a pastor and writer. Visit his blog One Degree to Another.

Photo courtesy: J-S Romeo/UnsplashEarlier this month, you couldnt turn a television on without seeing footage of Hurricane Florence. As of recording, the storm has been blamed for the deaths of 42 people in Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina and has cost billions of dollars of damage. Yet, in many ways, national attention has already moved on.

Thats something that Puerto Rico knows too well. Its been a year since the storm claimed 64 immediate deaths and catalyzed the exodus of thousands of Puerto Ricans from the island and a sense of hopelessness in the territory at large.

The loss of community was especially hard for Puerto Ricans like Gadiel Rios, a pastor in Arecibo, who stayed on the island.

Everyone lost their friends; everyone lost family, said Rios, who is also the founder of the ministry ReformaDos. The main problem we are facing now is despair and then because of their despair people tend to [fall] into depression.  People feel lonely and frustrated.

Rios joined associate digital media producer Morgan Lee and editor in chief Mark Galli to discuss how the church is ministering to the overwhelmed, how mainlanders encouraged those on the island, and the state of Puerto Ricos evangelical community.

This episode of Quick to Listen is brought to you in part by the ADF Church Alliance. To learn more about the ADF Church Alliance, visit ADFChurchAlliance.org.

This episode of Quick to Listen is sponsored in part by Zondervan. The third edition of the late apologist Nabeel Qureshi's Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus is now available. Learn more here: nabeelqureshi.com.

What is Quick to Listen? Read more

Subscribe to Quick to Listen on Apple Podcasts

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Read our guests article: The State of the Puerto Rican Church, One Year After Maria

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Quick to Listen is produced by Morgan Lee, Richard Clark, and Cray AllredTurning the ship before it hits the icebergPaul Maenz: Art keeps the power of imagination alive

On 4 October, three works from the collection of the influential German gallerist will be offered at Christies in London. Here, Maenz discusses working with Haring, Oehlen and Kiefer

Across a long and successful career, Paul Maenz stressed that the real purpose of an art gallery should be to serve art in the purest form possible. Its nature is related to the nature of art itself, and that means change, he would explain. Born in 1939 in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, Maenz would become an important gallerist, introducing new waves of avant-garde artists to European and American audiences in the 1970s and 80s. Operating during a time of rapid change in the art world, his Cologne gallery was instrumental in establishing the city as a centre of cultural innovation. Working closely with artists, curators and critics, Maenz gave voice to pioneering movements of the time, such as Conceptualism, Italian Transavanguardia and Neo-Expressionism. In 1958 Maenz enrolled at the Folkwangschule fur Gestaltung (the Folkwang School of Design), in Essen, where he studied graphic design. By 1965 he was working in the New York office of advertising agency Young & Rubicam. It was around this time that Maenz bought his first artwork  a piece by Sol LeWitt, purchased directly from the artists studio. Given that I only owned $200, the price of $100 seemed rather adventurous, he would recall.

In 1967 Maenz returned to Frankfurt where he organised his first exhibition, Serial Formations, which featured artists such as Carl Andre, Dan Flavin, Donald Judd and Agnes Martin. Many of these artists had never been shown in Germany before, and this coup set the tone for the rest of Maenzs career. By 1970 the idea of working with artists was beginning to seem more appealing. Maenz moved to Cologne and, with his friend Gerd de Vries, set about establishing a gallery. Together they began to contact artists who had rarely been shown in Germany; their first exhibition was held in January 1971. The first show was about systems  social and physical systems, and it was politically critical, says Maenz. We were all convinced that we were writing art history. Anselm Kiefer would show many times with Maenz, who represented the artist for ten years until closing his gallery in 1990. To work with him was absolutely fascinating, explains Maenz, who points to Kiefers willingness to tackle the most difficult subjects in Germany, such as the German-Jewish drama of the 20th century. To find a language to deal with that was not easy, he says.



Together with the artists, jointly, we created the space in which their ideas would materialise for the first time  Paul Maenz

The gallerys backyard location was decidedly modest. Today people might think of it as a sacrifice, but in fact we felt this condition contributed to a style, he has said. It wasnt only that the spare and monkish existence had something purifying, or cleansing about it; around 1970, a whole new kind of gallery emerged all over Europe, a kind that had never been seen before. And the tension between the modesty of their appearances and their ambitions (which were anything but modest) was the actual climate of this new form of gallery. Over the next six years Maenz enjoyed a great deal of success, opening a second gallery in Brussels and moving his Cologne gallery to a series of bigger and better locations. Together with the artists, jointly, we created the space in which their ideas would materialize for the first time  everything happened through the artists, he has said.

In November 1980 Maenz mounted a pivotal exhibition, Mulheimer Freiheit & Interessante Bilder aus Deutschland, which introduced artists such as Georg Dokoupil, Werner Buttner and Georg Herold to the public. [Oehlen], to my mind, was one of the most promising artists, says Maenz. The gallerist reveals he loves Oehlens Stier mit Loch (Bull with Hole), painted in 1986, because it has all the power of a grown up but it also has all the craziness of a young artist. Who would paint a bull with a hole in it, and make it so huge?Concerned over the safety of pedestrians and traffice, officials shut down Fremont Street through at least noon Wednesday after the discovery of a crack in a steel beam at the Transbay Transit Center.

The crack was found near the Fremont Street area of the nearly three-block long transit center.ATU Duty Free will be leaving Terminal D of Bush Intercontinental Airport, citing operating losses caused, in part, by reduced foot traffic as United Airlines redirects departures to its new Terminal C North.

City Council approved an agreement on Wednesday that will release ATU from its obligations. But to provide a smooth transition to a new duty-free provider, ATU must continue operating through March. It will pay a reduced rental rate during this time.

ATU can then leave Terminal D. It previously closed the facilities it managed in terminals A and B in July.

The Houston Airport System said this agreement ensures that duty-free merchandise remains available to travelers and avoids the uncertainties, expenses and delay of potential litigation.

Turkey-based ATU entered into its concessions agreement in March 2015. Its currently the companys only foray into the U.S.

It was very much an outpost, said Mark Ahasic, founder and president of Ahasic Aviation Advisors, a Connecticut-based consulting firm for airports, airlines and other aviation companies.

ATU operates in seven other countries, none in the Americas.

According to the City Council agenda item, ATU said its operating at a loss due to reallocation of United passenger traffic, the citys assignment of certain concession facilities to United, higher-than average percentage rental rates (concession operators at Bush Intercontinental pay a percent of their gross sales as rent), and various negative trends in travel duty-free sales.

United Airlines called ATUs allegations without merit and said the case is a dispute between ATU and the Houston Airport System. United mainly operates flights within the gates and terminal areas it leases  terminals B, C and E  and works with the city to use Terminal D when needed.

In the over 300 airports where we operate, United is committed to a vibrant concessions program that provides passengers with choices across food, beverage and retail offerings, United said in a statement. Our goal is to continually elevate the passenger experience at IAH to world-class levels, while focusing on local small businesses that aim to participate and thrive at the airport.

Duty-free stores are popular at airports, Ahasic said, especially those like Bush Intercontinental focused on growing international flights.

As there are more international flights, more international passengers, he said, theres a need for more square footage of duty-free to serve those passengers.

A local ATU contact did not return Chronicle phone calls.

The city disputed its responsibility for ATUs lower-than-projected financial performance in the City Council agenda item. It said plans for Terminal C North, which opened last year with locally inspired restaurants and iPads for public use, were public knowledge and disclosed in the request for proposal originally seeking a duty-free operator.

The city also disputed any connection between its assignment of certain concession facilities to United and ATUs financial performance.

Uniteds operation and reallocation of passenger traffic was motivated by its desire to leverage the capabilities of the new Terminal C North and consolidate its regional carrier operations, the agenda item read.

andrea.leinfelder@chron.com

twitter.com/andrearumbaughOil traded near $82 a barrel as pressure on Iran escalated, with President Trump hardening rhetoric against the country and crude customer India cutting its imports to zero.

Brent futures were little changed in London after settling in the previous session at the highest since November 2014. With U.S. sanctions on Iran taking effect in less than two months, Trump told the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday that the leaders of the Islamic Republic sow chaos, death and destruction. Buyers are increasingly wary of Iranian crude, and India is not planning to import any in November, according to company officials.

Oil prices rose on Monday after OPEC signaled it wont rush to release more oil into the market, shrugging off pressure from Trump who has been calling on the group to do more to temper gains. The prospect of tightening supplies due to a steep drop in Irans exports, Venezuelas slumping output, and production bottlenecks in the U.S. prompted trading giants Mercuria Energy Group Ltd. and Trafigura Group to warn that oil could surge back above $100 a barrel.

These ingredients have all the makings of a potent bullish cocktail for the oil market, said Stephen Brennock, an analyst at PVM Oil Associates Ltd.

Brent for November traded at $81.73 a barrel, down 14 cents, on the ICE Futures Europe exchange at 11:32 a.m. in London, after settling Tuesday at the highest level in almost four years. The global benchmark traded at a $9.60 premium to West Texas Intermediate.

WTI for November delivery fell as much as 45 cents to $71.83 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange and traded at $72.16. The contract climbed 20 cents to $72.28 on Tuesday. Total volume traded was about 27 percent below the 100-day average.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said that Brent prices will stabilize in a range of $70 to $80 a barrel as output from other Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries members and Russia offsets losses in Iran, according to a report by Damien Courvalin and Jeffrey Currie.

Less than a week after Trump criticized OPEC for pushing for higher prices, he blasted the group again on Tuesday saying the cartel is ripping off the rest of the world, in a speech to the UN General Assembly in New York. We want them to stop raising prices. We want them to start lowering prices and they must contribute substantially to military protection from now on, he said.

Although OPEC and its allies stopped short of pledging an immediate production boost earlier this month, the groups guidance still implies an incremental 500,000-barrels-a-day increase, Goldman analysts wrote in a note Tuesday. The bank said it believes OPEC and Russia will offset supply losses out of Iran, and a large jump in prices would likely lead to Trump authorizing a release from the countrys strategic reserves.

Trump demanded in a very strong tone at the United Nations that OPEC push down crude prices, triggering profit taking, said Takayuki Nogami, chief economist at Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corp. Still, as investors arent convinced Trumps latest call can force OPEC to change its course, prices will unlikely keep falling.

Other oil-market news:

India is not planning to buy any crude oil from Iran in November, raising the prospect that Tehran will lose another major customer as U.S. sanctions hit.

U.S. crude inventories rose 2.9 million barrels last week, the American Petroleum Institute was said to report, despite expectations government data due Wednesday will show a decline of 1.5 million barrels.

After South Korea became the first of Irans major oil customers to reduce imports to zero, Americas biggest refiner is seeking alternative supplies to fill the gap.

A clutch of oil buyers in the worlds top market are facing an existential crisis, forcing them to band together or face the prospect of perishing.

2018 Bloomberg L.P.The Woman's Hospital of Texas has been named a Level IV Advanced Neonatal Intensive Care Unit by the Texas Department of State Health Services, the hospital announced on Wednesday.

The designation means the hospital is able to provide the highest level of acute care for premature and critically ill infants born earlier than 32 pounds and weighing less than 3.3 pounds.Tweeting will only get you so far. After failing to cajole OPEC to pump more and lower oil prices, U.S. President Donald Trump could pursue a more direct route: tapping his nations Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

And just as with his tweets, that may not lead him to his goal.

With global benchmark Brent crude at a 4-year high above $80 a barrel less than two months before key mid-term elections in the U.S., the growing consensus in the industry is that its more a question of when, not if, Trump authorizes a release from the emergency stockpiles built after the 1973-74 oil crisis.

TOMLINSON: What the crown prince wants, the crown prince gets

Theres a strong possibility of another strategic reserve release, said Antoine Halff, head of the global oil market program at Columbia Universitys Center on Global Energy Policy. Its a wild card that justifies close attention for the next few weeks.

Theres precedent: Bill Clinton tapped it two months before the 2000 presidential election in an effort to directly lower oil prices, rather than respond to a supply outage overseas, releasing 30 million barrels via a one-year loan. His administration defended the move over objections from Republicans, saying it wasnt political and was needed to keep American families warm over the winter.

The White House, to be sure, hasnt indicated its considering such a move, and some traders believe that using the SPR wont have a meaningful impact on prices. Yet at the annual Asia Pacific Petroleum Conference (APPEC) in Singapore this week -- one of the biggest gatherings of the oil-trading industry -- executives openly speculated about when Trump might tap the reserve, how many barrels would be released, and the potential impact.

Horrible Prices

Meanwhile, Trump is losing his patience. At the United Nations on Tuesday, he told heads of state that OPEC nations are as usual ripping off the rest of the world. And I dont like it and nobody should like it. He added: We are not going to put up with these horrible prices much longer.

FOR SALE: Congress readies to sell off empty space in strategic petroleum reserve

Brent crude was up 19 cents at $82.06 a barrel at 7:39 a.m. in London, after climbing almost 4 percent over the previous two sessions. Prices are up about 40 percent in the past 12 months.

The U.S. may tap the SPR if oil prices continue to surge, Ben Luckock, co-head of oil trading at major commodities merchant Trafigura Group, said in an interview. He sees little price impact from a potential sale beyond making oil in the U.S. even cheaper than it is in the rest of the world. That discount is now at about $9 a barrel.

Mike Muller, an executive at Vitol Group, the worlds top independent oil trader, said that tapping the reserve could even prove counter-productive. It could lead investors to say thats bullish because theres less cover for other potential outages, he said.

Little Impact

While Hess Corp. President Greg Hill said he didnt want to speculate on what the president would do, he doubted there would be much impact regardless. It wont drop oil from $80 to $65, and any effect would be short-term.

Trump has various avenues to get SPR supplies to market. One could be to speed up sales from the reserve that have been authorized by Congress as part of deals to finance federal spending. As much as 240 million barrels are approved to be offered, out of the 660 million pooled in underground caverns thousands of feet below coastal Texas and Louisiana.

RAINY DAY: Harvey, Irma show value of Strategic Petroleum Reserve, energy experts say

The first of those deals will be a release of 11 million barrels in October and November. Most of the authorized sales are fixed for particular years, and its not clear if accelerating them is possible.

The second route is a direct order to draw down the reserve under the broad powers of the legislation used to create it, the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975. As per that law, Trump could authorize consecutive releases of as much as 30 million barrels over 60-day periods, adding a whopping 500,000 barrels a day of extra supply -- about what OPEC member Ecuador produces.

I think that would knock a couple of bucks off the oil price, said Ed Morse, the head of commodities research at Citigroup Inc.

Twitter Effect

So far Trump has been content to use social media to blame the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries for higher prices and push them to increase output to lower costs. The impact of his tweets has started to diminish, however.

OPEC and its allies, which include Russia, Mexico and Kazakhstan, stopped short of pledging immediate production increases on Sunday even after Trump lambasted the group Sept. 20, saying The OPEC monopoly must get prices down now!

Oil executives and traders gathered at the APPEC event speculated that tapping the SPR could be coordinated with Saudi Arabia to offset the impact of U.S. sanctions on Iran, which could knock out as much as 1.5 million barrels a day of supply from Tehran.

In theory, Riyadh can pump as much as 12.5 million barrels a day, compared to about 10.4 million last month, offsetting the loss of Iranian supply. Still, to reach that level, it needs time to drill more wells, and an SPR release could fill the gap until the Saudis are ready.

2018 Bloomberg L.P.Aldine ISD Police officers arrested an Aldine Middle School student Wednesday for allegedly making threats against a campus administrator using the social media site Instagram, according to the North Houston school district.

The Harris County District Attorney's Office charged the student with a felony for making a terroristic threat.

Authorities first learned of the threats late Tuesday, according to an Aldine ISD press release sent to local media Wednesday evening. Police tracked down the student in question and found evidence that the threats originated from his or her cell phone.

READ ALSO: Houston ISD police investigating social media threat against Austin High School

Superintendent LaTonya Goffney, who joined the district in July, praised the district's police officers for their quick response to the threatening posts.

"Aldine ISD will not tolerate nor condone any threats made against any Aldine ISD school or individual," Goffney said. "We will work with law enforcement officers and the Harris County District Attorney's Office to prosecute offenders to the fullest extent of the law."

Aldine Middle was not the only Houston-area school to respond to a potential threat Wednesday.

RELATED: Santa Fe High School student arrested after teacher threatened

Bay Elementary School in the Clear Creek Independent School District was put on a safety hold Wednesday morning while the Seabrook Police Department investigated a call about a suspicious man near the campus. No one fitting the description was located, and police believe there may have been a false report. The hold, which requires students to remain in their classrooms for a period of time, was lifted by late morning.

Last week, the FBI's Houston field office held a press conference warning students of the punishments they could face if they make a hoax or false threat about their schools, teachers or fellow students.

Special Agent in Charge Perrye K. Turner said federal charges are considered in cases of false or hoax threats, which can carry a maximum sentence of five years in prison. State charges could also be on the table.

FBI: Hoax threats could lead to serious consequences for students

"With the school year underway, we need students and the public to understand that making threats against a school is not a joke. There are serious legal consequences for those who do, even if there was never an intent to carry out the threat," Special Agent Turner said.

Goffney with Aldine ISD echoed those sentiments Wednesday.

"Parents, I implore you to talk to your children and remind them that their actions can have serious consequences," Goffney said. "Aldine ISD will continue to make the safety and security of our students and staff our top priority."BRIDGEPORT  There was a minor gas line rupture in the city Wednesday afternoon, officials said.

City spokesman Av Harris said the gas line to a house in the 200 block of Myrtle Avenue was nicked by construction workers around 2:30 p.m.

The fire department went out there and crimped the line to stop the leak, Harris said.

Firefighters were able to temporarily stop the leak while the gas company responded to the area. And, around 3:45 p.m., Harris said the gas company was on scene making the necessary repairs.

When crews or residents have planned work, theyre encouraged to Call Before You Dig. In Connecticut, residents can call 811 and a representative will be sent to the dig sit to mark the approximate areas of underground lines with flags, paint or both.

More information on the service can be found at https://www.cbyd.com/.The Texas Medical Association has given $2,500 in grant money to fund free flu and hepatitis vaccines at The Beacon homeless shelter in downtown Houston on Oct. 21.

The program is part of a $13,000 grant program by the medical association to fight flu and other illnesses in seven Texas cities, including in Houston and Galveston, the organization announced on Wednesday.Exxon Mobil said Wednesday it completed a nearly $500 million refining expansion at its Beaumont campus with plans for much more oil refining and plastics growth to come at the complex.

Ongoing is construction of a plastics plant and, next year, Exxon Mobil may launch another refining expansion that would place the Beaumont refinery among the nation's largest. Large crude refining expansions are rare in the U.S. because domestic fuel demand is relatively flat.

The idea is for the refinery to process much more of the lighter crude produced from areas like West Texas' booming Permian Basin. Most Gulf Coast refineries are designed to primarily process heavier grades of crude often imported from countries like Canada and Venezuela. Those refineries were configured well before the recent shale boom that's triggered record volumes of U.S. oil production.

Exxon Mobil said Wednesday it finished and started up its new unit that will produce another 45,000 barrels a day of ultra-low sulfur gasoline and diesel fuels to meet rising federal standards.

"The new unit at Beaumont will further enhance our competitiveness and strengthen Exxon Mobil's position as a leader among Gulf Coast refiners," said Bryan Milton, president Exxon Mobil fuels and lubricants.

Exxon Mobil is currently building a new plastics plant at the Beaumont hub designed to manufacture 650,000 metric tons a year of polyethylene, the world's most common plastic. The plastics expansion is slated for completion next year.

Exxon Mobil just finished a plastics expansion at its Mont Belvieu plant near Houston to churn out 1.3 million tons of polyethylene a year, and Exxon Mobil is considering another plastics expansion at its nearby Baytown campus.

GAME-CHANGER: How the ethane molecule changed the Gulf Coast  and the world

The polyethylene is made from cheap and abundant ethane that's produced along with oil and natural gas in Texas shale and other regions. Most of the plastic is being exported to emerging markets in Asia.

As for the larger crude oil refining expansion in Beaumont that also would benefit from Texas shale, Exxon Mobil said it is currently conducting engineering and design work and may commence construction next year once a final decision is made. The project would be finished in 2022, the company said.

The Beaumont refinery currently processes less than 400,000 barrels of crude a day while the nation's largest, Motiva Enterprise's Port Arthur Refinery, can churn through about 635,000 barrels daily. Exxon Mobil's largest U.S. refinery is in Baytown with about 580,000 barrels of capacity, but Beaumont could soon rival such peers.JENNIFER SUMMER / The Observer

In an effort to further connect with the local community, the Harris County Precinct 4 Constables Office is hosting its 35th National Night Out on Tuesday, Oct. 2.

National Night Out is a nationwide community event meant to raise awareness for community police officers. Different police organizations around the country host their own National Night Out events each year. Events are typically held the first Tuesday of Aug., but Florida and Texas are allowed to host the event at a different date to avoid hot weather, according to the official National Night Out website.Theater

The Book of Will

Lauren Gundersons fictionalized history of Shakespeares First Folio. Presented by Main Street Theater. 7:30 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 3 p.m. Sunday, 7:30 p.m. Thursday, through Oct. 21; $36-$42; Rice Village, 2540 Times; 713-524-9196, mainstreettheater.com.

Exit Strategy

Ike Holters play about the public school system. Presented by Rec Room. 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 7:30 p.m. Wednesday-Thursday, through Oct. 13. 100 Jackson; $20; 713-344-1291, recroomarts.org.

 da Kink in My Hair

Eight women tell stories in a hair salon. Presented by Ensemble Theatre. 8 p.m. Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 3 p.m. Sunday, 7:30 p.m. Thursday, through Oct. 14; $36-$50; 3535 Main; 713-520-0055, ensemblehouston.org.

Curse of the Starving Class

Sam Shepards drama about a rural working-class family. Presented by Catastrophic Theatre. 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 2:30 p.m. Sunday, 7:30 p.m. Thursday, through Oct. 21. All tickets pay-what-you-can, $40 suggested price; MATCH, 3400 Main; 713-522-2723, catastrophictheatre.com.

Around the World in 80 Days

Adaptation of the classic Jules Verne novel. Presented by A.D. Players. 8 p.m. Friday, 2:30 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 2:30 p.m. Sunday; $35-$70; 5420 Westheimer; 713-526-2721, adplayers.org.

Keep It Brassy 2

Cabaret tribute to vocal and brass. Presented by The Music Box Theater. 7:30 p.m. Friday-Saturday, through Oct. 13; $29-$39; 2623 Colquitt; 713-522-7722, themusicboxtheater.com.

Skeleton Crew

Dominique Morisseaus play about the Detroit working class. Presented by Alley Theatre. 8 p.m. Friday, 2:30 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday, 7:30 p.m. Tuesday-Wednesday, 7:30 p.m. Thursday, through Oct. 7; $45-$65; 615 Texas; 713-220-5700, alleytheatre.org.

Evil Dead the Musical

College students go to an abandoned cabin in the woods in this adaptation of the cult horror film. 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday and Thursday, through Oct. 27; $40; Obsidian Theater, 3522 White Oak; 832-889-7837, obsidiantheater.org.

Jesus Hopped the A Train

Stephen Adly Guirgis dark comedy/drama about two prisoners facing murder charges. Presented by 4th Wall Theatre Company. 7:30 p.m. Friday-Saturday; $17-$53; Studio 101, 1824 Spring; 832-786-1849, 4thwalltheatreco.com.

Classical/Opera

Dvoraks Stabat Mater

Andres Orozco-Estrada conducts, with the guest concertmaster Korbinian Altenberger. Presented by Houston Symphony. 8 p.m. Thursday and Saturday, 2:30 p.m. Sunday; Jones Hall, 615 Louisiana; $25-$125; 713-224-4240, houstonsymphony.org.

Dance

Female Voices in Motion

Uptown Dance Company presents choreography by Krissy Richmond, Jane Weiner and artistic director Beth Gulledge-Brown. 7:30 p.m. Friday-Saturday; $15-$30; MATCH, 3400 Main; 713-521-4533, matchoustong.org.Scott Clause, MBR / AP

The city of Friendswood will host a public meeting at 6:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 1 to get public input on how the city will spend federal funds sent to Harris County and local cities for disaster recovery after Hurricane Harvey.

The meeting will take place at Friendswood City Hall, 910 S. Friendswood Drive, according to a press release on the citys website.Years of passion and commitment to theater, including performances onstage at Clear Brook High School and in college, have brought Sydney Haygood, 22, to her professional acting debut at the Alley Theatre.

Now the Webster resident is trying to soak it all in.

I honestly never thought I would get cast right out of college and at the top theater in Houston, said Haygood, who graduated in May from Lamar University in Beaumont with a bachelor of science in theater and dance with an emphasis on acting.

The 2014 Clear Brook graduate performs Oct. 5-28 in William Shakespeares Twelfth Night at the Alley.

I am completely overwhelmed with joy, said Haygood, whose mother, Jael Penn of Webster, is an educator. My mother started taking me to go see plays at a young age, and I have been doing theater basically all of my life.

Haygood plays the role of a servant to a main female character, Olivia, in the Twelfth Night cast.

My character doesnt even have a name, but I gave her one. Shes Mary. She seems like a Mary to me, said Haygood. Shes very fun and she makes the household nicer for Olivia, who is in mourning. Mary is there for her during her grieving time.

At Lamar, Haygood enjoyed her previous brush with Shakespeare, playing the male role of Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet.

It was such a blast because Mercutio is so very fun and charming, but hes also kind of tough; so I got to be tomboy tough. Our production of Romeo and Juliet was set in 1940s New Orleans, Haygood said.

The Alleys version of Twelfth Night takes place in the 1930s, which is supercool, said Haygood. We dont get into 1930s politics or the Great Depression; we just have a lot of jazz and swing music. It feels close to home, after doing Romeo and Juliet in the 1940s.

Haygood, who is black, has portrayed a number of leading roles, often benefiting from color-blind casting, in which actors play parts without regard to their ethnicity, skin color or gender.

For example, in a Clear Brook High entry in University Interscholastic League one-act play competition, Haygood played Violet, the matriarch of a dysfunctional Oklahoma family in August: Osage County by Tracy Letts.

The character was portrayed by Meryl Streep in the dramas 2013 movie version.

It was intense, said Haygood. Violet was such a troubled, hard, meticulous character. Being young, I probably didnt get a whole understanding of her, but she was a tough, in-charge woman; so it really drove me to want to play driven characters.

In Haygoods last production in college, she was cast as Gwendolen Fairfax in Oscar Wildes The Importance of Being Earnest, a Victorian drawing-room farce.

It was a challenge to play a white, young British woman from a wealthy family in the 1800s, she said.

Haygood supports color-blind casting for affording all actors an opportunity to play roles.

It also reflects the real world because we are a diverse, multicultural world of people, she said. We come in all shapes and sizes.

Haygoods theater teachers at Clear Brook High were Donna Taylor and James Monaghan, but neither of them now teaches at the school in Friendswood.

Haygoods mother taught English and special-needs students for many years in Pasadena ISD but now teaches at a private school in Missouri City.

For further information about Twelfth Night, call 713-220-5700 or visit www.alleytheatre.org.

Don Maines is a freelance writer who can be reached at donmaines@att.netAfter more than a decade, the Montgomery County Commissioners are looking to update its tax abatement policy to continue attracting new business to the county.

Commissioners agreed to form a committee to research potential changes in the program. The committee includes commissioners Mike Meador and Charlie Riley along with Assistant County Attorney B. D. Griffin and Tax Assessor Collector Tammy McRae.

McRae presented some changes to the court Tuesday.

One changed McRae supported was adjusting the category size for improvements and doing away with offering abatement for projects less than $4 million.

I dont recall any (new businesses) falling into that Category A for some time, McRae said noting most project that size are typically expansions.

The court supported updating the program.

Why incentivize them on something they are going to do, Precinct 4 Commissioner Jim Clark said. Its an expansion, we are not trying to attract them here.

Meador agrees and added the changes have been needed for some time.

I think this would be a good change and I think it is time, he said.

Precinct 3 Commissioner James Noack urged the committee to visit with local economic development officials on what companies are looking for in todays business world and consider additional changes to the program to ensure it is competitive with surrounding counties.

It shouldnt be there as a just a bonus, he said. It really should be a differentiator between that business coming to Montgomery County or Fort Bend and Harris counties.

Griffin also pointed out changes could also be made in job requires for tax abatement as many jobs become automated, companies are needing less staff while the companys investment is much higher in todays environment.

The committee will bring a draft of the changes to the commissioners at a future meeting.

cdominguez@hcnonline.comMissouri City police found a man's body in the wooded area of a park Wednesday morning.

Officers were called to 1122 Buffalo Run just after 8 a.m., according to the Missouri City Police Department.

The man, who was about 20, had trauma to his body, police said. It's possible that the body had been at Buffalo Run Park for a couple of days.

No other information is available at this time.A former Harris County Precinct 4 deputy constable accused of police brutality was found not guilty Wednesday by a Harris County jury in a case his attorney said demonstrated that the district attorneys office is just out to get cops.

Jimmy Drummond, 50, was captured on police dash-cam video kicking the prone and handcuffed David Scherz Jr., then dropping his knee onto the mans back and neck.

During the week-and-a-half-long trial, defense attorneys challenged the circumstances surrounding the incident that was on video, saying the veteran officer was a supervisor who arrived at a chaotic scene in which several officers were fighting with several family members of a man with mental health issues.

Jurors in state District Judge Denise Collins court took just an hour Wednesday to find Drummond not guilty of a misdemeanor charge of official oppression. Defense attorney Sam Cammack said the case never should have gone to trial and placed the blame on Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg.

If the jury comes back in less than an hour on a case that takes a week and a half to try, then that should send a message to this district attorneys office that they need new eyes evaluating cases, especially Kim Ogg, Cammack said. This just goes to show you that they are just out to get cops. But they didnt get this cop.

Read more: Ex-Harris County deputy constable on trial for official oppression after breaking rib of handcuffed suspect

Cammack, who repeatedly has said he plans to run as a Republican against Ogg in 2020, said the office spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to get a cop who shouldnt have been prosecuted in the first place.

Dane Schiller, spokesman for the DAs office, released a brief statement after the verdict.

We presented all of the evidence to a jury, and we respect the jurys verdict, he said.

Drummond, who no longer works in law enforcement, was charged with a misdemeanor two years after a September 2011 melee that erupted in front of Scherzs home following a traffic stop. Scherz allegedly ran a stop sign on his way home, and the incident ended with deputy constables arresting Scherz, his mother, father, sister and an aunt, mostly for resisting arrest. The criminal charges later were dropped.

Cammack tried to call Scherz as a witness, but he apparently is in California and did not return for the trial. It was undisputed in the trial by either side that Scherz has mental health issues. Scherz has filed a lawsuit against Harris County over the incident.

The reason he didnt show up is because he didnt want to say something that messes up his civil case, Cammack said. I bet he shows up in court for his civil suit.

Cammack argued that Drummond acted reasonably when he arrived at the scene and saw several deputies fighting with Scherzs family. He also argued during closing arguments Wednesday that Drummond should have had a chance to confront Scherz, who did not testify in the trial.

He said Schertz had already broken a rib before the encounter.

On Wednesday, prosecutors said Scherz was not required to testify and the video of the incident proved the allegations.

On the video, the mistreatment is blatant, prosecutor Michael Harrison told jurors. And you dont need Scherz Jr. to sit on the witness stand to say he was mistreated.

If convicted, Drummond would have faced up to a year in prison and the loss of his peace officers license.

Brian Rogers covers Houston crime and courts. You can email him at brian.rogers@chron.com and follow him on Twitter at @brianjrogers.A man is in custody after allegedly threatening to kill police officers in west Houston on Wednesday.

The incident unfolded around 1 p.m. along Groeschke Road just west of Texas Highway 6, near West Houston Airport, according to Houston Police Department SWAT Capt. Larry Baimbridge.

A woman was westbound on Groeschke Road when she pulled over to secure her gas cap, Baimbridge said. Just as she stopped, a man emerged from the woods and threw a brick at her car, shattering on her passenger side windows.

ACQUITTED: Houston jury finds former deputy not guilty in brutality case

The woman sped away and called 911, Baimbridge said.

As Houston police officers arrived, they found the man near the edge of the road holding a knife, yelling that he wasn't going to go to jail and would, instead, kill the officers, Baimbridge said.

The suspect then ran toward an abandoned Honda Civic deep in the woods, which police later determined to be where the suspect was squatting.

Officers again tried to get the man out of the vehicle and into custody, but he used items in the car to barricade the windows  making his immediate arrest impossible, Baimbridge said.

The officers requested HPD's SWAT team make the scene and help lure the man out, but SWAT officers were unable to peacefully get the man into custody, Baimbridge said.

Around 4 p.m., SWAT officers shot irritating gas into the vehicle to flush him out.

IN CUSTODY: Student arrested for Instagram threat against staff member

The man initially climbed into the trunk to avoid capture, but Baimbridge said the gas became too much for the suspect.

He eventually climbed out of the car and was placed in handcuffs but still struggled with officers, who placed more restraints on him before being checked out by paramedics on scene.

Baimbridge said the man didn't seem to have any mental health issues, although he will be checked out by professionals with HPD before being taken to the Harris County Jail on various charges.

It is unclear what specific charges the man will face. Baimbridge declined to immediately identify the suspect to media on scene.

Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message.

Jay R. Jordan covers breaking news in the Houston area. Read him on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and our subscriber site, HoustonChronicle.com | Follow him on Twitter at @JayRJordan | Email him at jay.jordan@chron.comPokhara, Nepal: 27-year-old Kusum Paudel of Pokhara Metropolitan City-22 has confessed the crime of raping and murdering 10-year-old Shreeya Sunar.





Drug addict Poudel, who have wife and two children, admitted the crime, DSP Rabindraman Gurung, who is also the spokesperson of the Kaski district Police, said.





According to police, he had dragged the minor to the nearby bush and raped her before strangling her to death.





Poudel had confessed before the police that he dumped her body and again pelted the body with stones to confirm that she was dead.





The third-grade student at Lila Adharbhut School had found dead on Tuesday morning though she was rape and murdered on previous day.



A University of Houston student who went missing in March 2017 was found dead in northwest Houston one year later, according to the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences.

An Vinh Nguyen, who was 26, was last seen March 31, 2017. His family reported him missing the next day after they hadn't heard from him.

Nguyen was presumed dead, even before his body was discovered on April 23 this year.

Police found him that day at 14381 Whistling Pines Drive, according to the medical examiners office. Using DNA comparisons, scientists identified him as Nguyen on June 27. He died by homicidal violence.

Investigators said last year that Nguyen and one other person might have been targeted by killers using fake profiles to lure victims on dating apps.

PREVIOUS REPORTING: Accused Grindr killer to stay behind bars

The killers may have been targeting Asian or gay men, who are known to use Grindr, investigators said. Both of the victims were Asian, and their sexual orientations arent known.

The other victim was Glenser Soliman, a 44-year-old nurse manager at St. Luke's Medical Center. He was reported missing Feb. 16, 2017 and his body was found Feb. 25.

Eighteen-year-old Brandon Alexander Lyons was charged with capital murder in Soliman's death.

Deputies also reported wanting to speak with Lyons 26-year-old cousin, Jerrett Jamal Allen, who was charged with debit or credit card fraud for allegedly using Nguyens cards in El Paso in April.

Nguyen was studying hotel and restaurant management at the University of Houston.

The Houston Chronicle has reached out to the Harris County Sheriffs Office for comment.A man faces charges of aggravated assault against a peace officer after firing at police near Missouri City Wednesday morning, according to the Missouri City Police Department.

The gunfire broke out close to 1 a.m., after officers were called to reports of a suicidal person at a home on Naples Point near Welborn.On a Tuesday morning inside a warehouse office space in The Woodlands, Annie Anderson instructed six of her students to lean back, wrap their legs around silky parachute material hanging from the ceiling and release their hands, leaving their bodies suspended  upside-down  and their heads just a few inches above the floor.

This movement is part of an exercise called Yoga Trapeze that incorporates a sling into the practice. Anderson operates the only trademarked trapeze studio in Houston and The Woodlands.

Its not aerial (yoga), we dont do tricks. (The sling) is a prop for yoga. We take traditional yoga poses off the ground and take the pressure off your body, Anderson said.

With this yoga form, Anderson said, it gives participants the benefits of being upside-down without needing the strength, balance or coordination to do things such as a headstand.

The sling also has different straps, with handles attached, that can be used to mimic total body resistance training. In a typical 30 to 45-minute class, Anderson guides participants through a series of standing, sitting and hanging actions where all limbs and muscles are engaged.

Anderson said this type of yoga is good to improve upper body strength, core strength and grip strength as well as flexibility.

Michelle Prince, who has been attending classes only for a few weeks, said she enjoys the different type of stretching this yoga practice offers.

Want to try it out? Learn more about Yoga Trapeze Houston-The Woodlands or book a class by calling (281) 918-8008 or visiting their page at facebook.com/yogatrapezehouston/. See More Collapse

My back was really bad: I have a herniated disc and degenerative disc disease, but this helps. Im not walking so slow and not hurting as much, Prince said.

Anderson started her Yoga Trapeze studio for that very reason  to help people like Prince not only feel better, but have some fun as well.

Andersons journey started when she tried out a class with a friend and immediately fell in love with the practice.

At the time, Anderson was working a job she didnt like and decided to pursue yoga trapeze instead. She went through teacher training with the affiliated organization, YOGABODY, and even went so far as to complete her training in Barcelona, Spain.

When she began by teaching private lessons, Anderson said she realized she needed more space and opened up a small studio in February.

I just want everybody to have fun and stop being so serious. To connect with themselves, connect with their friends and be kids again, Anderson said.

As for the future, Anderson said she hopes to grow her studio, as the practice has been picking up steam in both attendees and women who are interested in becoming teachers.

Lissa Kirchner started out as a participant in the classes, but is about to start an online training program to become a certified teacher. She said she is excited to help people feel better about themselves.

When you finally do the superman (pose) in the sling on your own, you feel like superwoman! Kirchner said.

jane.stueckemann@chron.comThe Woodlands Barbecue Festival is bringing back the intoxicating scent of smoked meats to Town Green Park on Oct. 7.

Good barbecue is hard to come by, festival co-founder Stuart Lapp said.

Any fast food chain can slap pulled pork on a bun and call it a day, he explained, but true barbecue  made with the proper seasoning, attentive turning of meats and patient tending to the fire  is both an art and a craft.

The people that have devoted their lives to this are artists at what theyre able to do with pretty simple ingredients, Lapp said of the men and woman pitmasters who make mouth-watering cue. Theres so much that goes into being able to cook good quality barbecue, and its a lot harder than it looks.

Alhough it is one of the smaller festivals of Houstons barbecue season, The Woodlands iteration is drawing 16 of the regions best-known barbecue joints  most of which are local mom-and-pop shops.

You dont get into this business because its sexy or lucrative or easy to do, Lapp said. You have to have the passion for creating good quality food that people like.

On offer this year are the classics  brisket, chicken, ribs and a barbecue rarity, pork bellies  as well as some top-secret, off-the-menu surprises from joints from as far away as the Austin metro area.

The organizers arent afraid to stay local, though. Two of Texas Monthlys 2017 top 10 barbecue joints in Texas  Tomballs Tejas Chocolate + Barbecue and CorkScrew BBQ in Spring  will be set up at the park joined by Magnolias BBQ Godfather and Reveille Barbecue Co.

Tejas Barbecue + Chocolate, also one of Houston Chronicle food critic Alison Cooks top 100 restaurants of 2017, will have its signature carrot souffle and chile relleno sausage on hand, said General Manager Daniel Davidson.

The Woodlands Barbecue Festival Tickets are still available for The Woodlands BBQ festival at www.thewoodlandsbbq.com. General admission is $50 and VIP tickets - which includes early admission, two drink tickets, a T-shirt and a tote bag - are $100. When: 1-4 p.m., Sunday, Oct. 7 Where: Town Green Park, The Woodlands Why: To eat excellent barbecue & raise funds for charity See More Collapse

Were right here in Tomball, so were just out here to let people know were not too far from The Woodlands and we have great barbecue, Davidson said.

Now in its third year, the festival has grown year over year since Lapp got together with fellow township resident J.C. Reid at the famous Texas A&M brisket camp. The duo started the celebration of barbecue here in The Woodlands in 2016 with Lapps law firm partner, Jack Stibbs.

Reid is a barbecue critic and columnist for The Houston Chronicle.

Im a barbecue nerd, Lapp said. I like barbecue, and I like to talk about it and expose people to it.

Guests enjoying the all-you-can-eat fare at the festival can rest easy knowing their money is going to a good cause  all proceeds from the $50 general admission and $100 VIP tickets go to the Pulmonary Hypertension Association.

The festival spun-off, in a way, from The Woodlands CrawPHish Festival, Lapp said. Stibbs founded the crawfish festival in 2008 to raise awareness and funds for pulmonary hypertension research. Stibbs daughter, Emily, was diagnosed with the debilitating disease 20 years ago.

The barbecue community is so open, caring and giving, Lapp said.

Getting into barbecue is relatively easy, Lapp explained, but beginners should know three things  be patient, get a good thermometer and make things that you like to eat. In the mean time, residents of the greater Houston area have The Woodlands BBQ Festival to quench their hunger for all things smoked meat.

For the price of a ticket, you come in and sample as much as you want, Lapp said. Nobody leaves hungry.Leaders from various local entities gathered for their monthly Drainage Task Force meeting Wednesday at The Woodlands Township Tuesday afternoon and received an impassioned plea from the task forces chairman.

Chairman Bruce Rieser, who is also a member of the township Board of Directors, opened the discussion with a short history of the group and then issued a call to action for all involved parties.

I have recommendations Id like to proposeshould the board decide I shouldnt chair the task force or I shouldnt get re-elected, Rieser said.

Rieser explained his recommendations, which included calling for both Harris County and Montgomery County judges to meet and discuss what projects could be done on both sides of Spring Creek, as well as a collaborative meeting of municipal utility district representatives so that the leaders of the 11 MUDs in The Woodlands can collaborate more efficiently. To get more citizens involved, he also suggested that MUD board representative elections be held on election day in November when voter turnout and interest is higher, and he recommended that flood mitigation projects be proposed to voters.

Im in, and I want everyone else to be in, too. This isnt finger-pointing or anything, this is the stuff we have to do, Rieser said. We have to get serious about how we fund these things.

The task force formed in the spring of 2016 after the Tax day floods of April 17-18 and has since expanded to bring in more than 30 regional partners and representatives to participate is discussing flood mitigation issues and potential solutions. The task force has no official powers, but Rieser reported the task force has aided in arranging for debris pick-up around local creeks, has publicly advocated for the Harris County Flood Control District flood mitigation bond recently approved by voters, and also petitioned lawmakers at the state and federal level for project funding.

Rieser, who is seeking re-election to the township board in the Nov. 6 election, told attendees he was in part making the recommendations for the future of the task force if he is not re-elected or for some other reason is not involved after November.

Rieser is being challenged by local resident Francis Frank Dargavage.

Rieser also welcomed a new member to the task force, Jill Bouillon, who is the executive director of the Bayou Land Conservancy. The conservancy owns conservation easement rights along Spring Creek, something that has piqued the interest of local officials hoping to devise some way to mitigate flooding along the Spring Creek watershed.

Attendees give updates on post-Harvey actions

Jim Stinson, general manager of The Woodlands Joint Powers Agency, was thanked by several attendees for the agencys record of addressing drainage issues in their jurisdiction quickly. The agency helps to manage the 10 of the 11 MUDs in The Woodlands.

In his report, Stinson presented a map of four box culverts in the Grogans Point subdivision that could be enlarged to improve neighborhood drainage, he said, without any adverse effects downstream. Each culvert would cost around $150,000 to enlarge.

Stinson said that though there is federal funding available, it cannot be used in The Woodlands because of income and house value limitations.

We have requested to (U.S. Representative) Kevin Brady that he take that to D.C. and get a waiver, so we can use some of those funds to do the projects. Were still waiting to hear back, but I hope that happens soon, Stinson said.

A project to lower the base flood elevation about two feet in part of the Bear Branch area, which would impact about 150 homes, could also be included in the waiver, Stinson noted.

Even if that money doesnt come through, I think that the MUDS and the county should work together to get this done at some point, Stinson said.

Zach Toups, the vice president of Harris-Montgomery Counties MUD 386, also gave an update of the organizations recent activities.

Toups told the committee that by looking at how they could reduce the risk of flooding if a Hurricane Harvey-like event were to happen again, they conducted a planning process.

What rose to the top in that process was the idea of a flood barrier around portions of the (Creekside Park) neighborhood separating the homes from Spring Creek, Toups said.

Toups said that the idea is merely a concept right now, and MUD 386 officials have asked their consultants to prepare a proposal to determine the scope and potential schedule of the project.

We dont know anything about the length of it or how high it needs to bewe have a lot of engineering work to do to answer those questions so we can get a cost (estimate), Toups said.

Residents may attend the task forces next public meeting, scheduled to be either the third or fourth week of October, to continue to receive updates on flood mitigation progress around the township.

jane.stueckemann@chron.comDemocratic Republic of Congo President Joseph Kabila vowed delayed elections to select his successor will take place as planned this year.

Presidential and parliamentary votes have been delayed since 2016, after the electoral commission failed to organize them on time. The central African nation, which is the world's largest cobalt producer, hasn't had a peaceful transition of power since it gained independence from Belgium in 1960.

"I reaffirm the irreversible character of holding the elections planned for the end of this year," Kabila told the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday. "Everything will be implemented in order to guarantee the peaceful and credible character of these polls."

Kabila, in power since his father was assassinated in 2001, nominated his preferred candidate to replace him in August, bringing to an end long-running speculation he intended to defy a two-term constitutional limit and run for office again. The exclusion of major rivals and aspects of the polls' preparation have led opposition leaders to say the elections won't be credible.

The 47-year-old leader's decision in 2016 to stay on beyond the end of his second mandate provoked fears he'd seek to change or reinterpret the constitution and sparked sporadic protests in which security forces killed dozens of people.

Kabila named Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary as his coalition's choice to be the next president, but two of his key adversaries won't be allowed to participate in the elections scheduled for Dec. 23. Jean-Pierre Bemba, who came second in the 2006 poll and was acquitted of war crimes at the International Criminal Court in June, was disqualified because of a second conviction for witness-tampering. Moise Katumbi, a one-time Kabila ally, was prevented from returning from self-imposed exile to register as a candidate.

From the ranks of the opposition, the best established contenders authorized to run are Felix Tshisekedi, leader of Congo's largest opposition party, and Vital Kamerhe, who finished third in the last election in 2011.

The opposition has said it expects the government to use voting machines and the electoral register to the advantage of Shadary and pro-Kabila parliamentary candidates. It's also accused the current administration of shutting down political space and repressing critical voices. Four pro-democracy activists who had urged Kabila to step down were handed 12-month prison sentences on Tuesday for inciting civil disobedience.

The UN's high commissioner for human rights, Michelle Bachelet, warned this month that "widespread violations of civil and political rights endanger the credibility of the electoral process."A skilled public speaker often knows how to craft his or her words for the audience. But President Donald Trump started off his speech to the United Nations General Assembly with a number of bragging claims lifted straight from his campaign rallies.

Not only are these claims exaggerated or false, but the first one inspired mirth and laughter from the assembled leaders and diplomats in the chamber. That was certainly unusual, as the General Assembly room is usually silent, with barely any applause, during the speeches.

Here's an examination of key claims made by the president in his speech, listed in the order in which he made them. As is our practice, we do not assign Pinocchios in round-ups.

- - -

- "In less than two years, my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country."

This is the line that was greeted with laughter. Americans may be used to this kind of boosterism, but world leaders are not. According to The Fact Checker's database of Trump's false and misleading claims, Trump started saying that he had done more than any previous president when he was not even at the six-month mark - and he has now repeated the line more than 30 times.

Trump, unlike many presidents in his first year, had signed few major pieces of legislation. Certainly, the whirlwind of accomplishments under presidents such as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lyndon B. Johnson, Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama exceed Trump's efforts. As of Sept. 12, his 600th day, Trump had signed 238 bills, most of which were minor. Trump has signed two more bills and joint resolutions than Obama and 14 more than George W. Bush, but was still behind every other president since Eisenhower, according to a calculation by Josh Tauberer of GovTrack. He noted that Trump is just behind Obama in number of pages, indicating that much of the legislation Trump has signed has been about increasing government spending.

Trump later said the line "was meant to get some laughter" -- which is odd, since he doesn't play it for laughs at his rallies.

- "America's economy is booming like never before."

This is highly dubious, but it's another favorite talking point that Trump has uttered more than 50 times. The president can certainly brag about the state of the economy, but he runs into trouble when he repeatedly makes a play for the history books. By just about any important measure, the economy today is not doing as well as it did under Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, Lyndon B. Johnson and Bill Clinton - and Ulysses S. Grant.

- "We've added more than 4 million new jobs, including half a million manufacturing jobs."

Trump often inflates his totals by including nearly three months when he was not yet president. At the time of this speech, almost 3.6 million jobs had been created during his presidency, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In the 19 months starting after Trump's inauguration, the economy created 3.58 million new jobs - but that is still less than the 3.96 million created in the last 19 months of Obama's presidency. (The White House notes that job creation under Trump has exceeded the Congressional Budget Office's expectations for job growth at the end of Obama's presidency.)

U.S. manufacturing employment has been increasing at a steady rate since 2010 - and the increase in Trump's presidency has been about 350,000, not half a million, according to BLS.

- "We have passed the biggest tax cuts and reforms in American history."

Trump loves this line so much he has said it more than 100 times. But it's not true. His tax cut ranks eighth when measured as a percentage of the size of the economy.

- "We've started the construction of a major border wall."

This is another false claim that the president keeps repeating - some 50 times. With great fanfare in March, he toured prototypes of a concrete wall while in California. Yet the language in the appropriations bill is specific: None of the $1.57 billion appropriated for border protection may be used for those prototypes.

Moreover, the bill identified that the money for the barriers - about $1.3 billion - could be used only for items listed as "primary pedestrian levee fencing," "primary pedestrian fencing" and "secondary fencing." About $250 million is for secondary fencing, meaning it just backs up other fencing.

The closest thing to a wall would be the levee fencing, which is a concrete levee topped by bollard fencing. As far as we can tell, only 33 miles of new barrier - fencing on top of an existing levee in Hidalgo County, Texas, and a fence in Starr County, Texas - would be funded under the 2018 bill. The rest of the money appears to be for replacing existing fencing or barriers - with fencing.

- "In June, I traveled to Singapore to meet face to face with North Korea's leader, Chairman Kim Jong Un. We had highly productive conversations and meetings, and we agreed that it was in both countries' interest to pursue the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Since that meeting, we have already seen a number of encouraging measures that few could have imagined only a short time ago."

Trump highlights the visible fruits of his talks with North Korea, such as "nuclear testing has stopped." But The Washington Post reported in June that U.S. intelligence officials, citing newly obtained evidence, have concluded that North Korea does not intend to fully surrender its nuclear stockpile and instead is considering ways to conceal secret production facilities and the number of weapons it has. And in July, The Post reported that U.S. spy agencies are seeing signs that North Korea is constructing new missiles at a factory that produced the country's first intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the United States.

North Korea has a long history of making agreements and then not living up to them.

The document signed by Trump and Kim was remarkably vague, leaving it open to interpretation and debate, compared with previous documents signed by North Korea. The statement said North Korea (officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or DPRK) committed to "work towards the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula." The phrase is not defined and "toward" is rather weak. In the past, North Korea viewed "denuclearization" to mean the United States' removing the nuclear umbrella it provides to Japan and South Korea; there is no indication its definition has changed.

- "The Iran deal was a windfall for Iran's leaders. In the years since the deal was reached, Iran's military budget grew nearly 40 percent."

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Iran's military expenditure increased nearly 30 percent from 2015, when the JCPOA was adopted, to 2017. This increase brought Iran's military spending back to near-2006 levels.

But as we've pointed out before, just looking at the raw increase or decrease in any country's military budget misses important context. Instead, let's consider Iran's military expenditure as a share of overall government spending. In 2015, it accounted for 15.4 percent of government spending. It increased 0.4 percentage point, to 15.8 percent of government spending, by 2017. According to a White House official, this spending level is expected to remain stable in 2018. That means military spending increased alongside overall government spending - not in a silo on its own.

Looking at Iran's military expenditure as a share of GDP, there's a similar trend. It has increased by only half a percentage point - going from 2.6 percent to 3.1 percent from 2015 to 2017. (For comparison, in 2016, military expenditure accounted for about 3.3 percent of GDP in the United States.)

- "We cannot allow a regime that chants 'Death to America,' and that threatens Israel with annihilation, to possess the means to deliver a nuclear warhead to any city on Earth."

This is a bit in the weeds, but as we have documented, it's not entirely clear whether Iran means to annihilate Israel, such as "wiping it off the map." The supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been consistent in speaking of his hatred of Israel, but without a military context. He has said his goal is the dissolution of Israel through a "popular referendum" that would give power to Palestinians.

- "Even worse, some countries abused their openness to dump their products, subsidize their goods, target our industries and manipulate their currencies to gain unfair advantage over our country. As a result, our trade deficit ballooned to nearly $800 billion a year."

The U.S. trade deficit in 2017 was $568 billion, according to the Commerce Department. Trump gets his $800 billion number by looking only at the deficit for trade in goods ($811 billion) even though U.S. trade in services runs a substantial surplus of $243 billion.

Moreover, Trump blames the trade deficit on the actions of other countries. But trade deficits are also affected by macroeconomic factors such as the relative strength of currencies, economic growth rates, and savings and investment rates.

- "The United States lost over 3 million manufacturing jobs, nearly a quarter of all steel jobs, and 60,000 factories after China joined the WTO."

Just on Sept. 20, Trump blamed the loss of thousands of factories on the North American Free Trade Agreement. Now he pegs the same phenomenon on China's joining the World Trade Organization.

Most economists would agree that China's industrial rise caused millions of job losses in the United States and thousands of factory closures. There's no definitive estimate of how many of these jobs were lost or how many of these factories closed specifically because of China. The research on this question is limited, indicating that China had an outsize impact but that there were other factors at play, such as automation.

- "The ICC claims near-universal jurisdiction over the citizens of every country, violating all principles of justice, fairness and due process."

Trump goes too far here to claim that the International Criminal Court claims "near-universal jurisdiction" over citizens of every country. The ICC was established by the Rome Statute, which 118 countries have ratified. The United States is not among those countries, and it has signed what are called Article 98 agreements with many countries to shield U.S. citizens from prosecution under the court. Afghanistan is a member of the ICC, and in theory a war crimes prosecution in that country could cover possible crimes committed by U.S. forces. However, Afghanistan has also signed an Article 98 agreement with the United States. A U.S. law prohibits the government from assisting the ICC in extraditing U.S. citizens.

- "OPEC and OPEC nations, are, as usual, ripping off the rest of the world, and I don't like it. Nobody should like it. We defend many of these nations for nothing, and then they take advantage of us by giving us high oil prices. Not good."

Trump blames the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries for rising oil prices, but a key factor in the recent rise in the cost of oil is his withdrawal from the Iran nuclear accord and the imposition of new sanctions on one of the world's leading oil producers. Experts say U.S. sanctions could drive oil prices to above $100 a barrel, up from about $70 currently.

- "The United States is the world's largest giver in the world, by far, of foreign aid."

Trump is using raw dollars here, but that's misleading. It is more appropriate to look at the dollars given as a percentage of the size of a country's economy.

For instance, the United States gave $35.3 billion in 2017, compared with $24.7 billion for Germany and $18 billion for Britain, according to preliminary data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. But as a percentage of gross national income, the United States ranks near the bottom of industrialized countries, providing just 0.18 percent of GNI. That's far below the U.N. target of 0.7 percent. In fact, just four countries - Sweden (1.01 percent), Luxembourg (1 percent), Norway (0.99 percent) and Denmark (0.72 percent) exceeded that target. Britain met it and Germany, at 0.66 percent, was close.The U.S. approved the sale of military equipment to Taiwan on Monday, drawing China's ire as tensions escalate between the world's two largest economies.

Taiwan welcomed the package, estimated by the Pentagon to be worth $330 million, which was proposed by its government last year and includes spare parts for F-16, C-130 and indigenous defense fighter aircraft. It represents the smallest stand-alone offering to the self-ruled island since President George W. Bush approved a $125 million sale of anti-ship missiles in 2007, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service.

"This case-by-case approach in military sales could be more efficient than previous practices of big packages," Chen Chung-chi, spokesman for Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense, said by phone on Tuesday. "We hope military purchases in the future can be discussed case by case in order to enhance efficiency."

The sale may further hurt U.S.-China relations, which have deteriorated as President Donald Trump's use of tariffs stokes fears of a long-term competition for global power between the nations. The Chinese government has already called off a planned round of bilateral trade talks with the U.S., according to people familiar with the matter, and the countries imposed a new round of tariffs on each other on Monday.

China's military "is strongly dissatisfied and strongly opposed to this," Defense Ministry spokesman Ren Guoqiang said in a statement, adding that it has launched "stern representations" with the U.S.

"We are resolutely opposed to the U.S. sale of weapons to Taiwan," Ren said. China demanded that the U.S. cancel the sales as well as its military contacts with Taiwan "in order to avoid the next step in damaging China-U.S. military relations and peace and stability in the Taiwan strait."

Trump's relationship with Taiwan has been a hot issue for China since he accepted a congratulatory phone call from President Tsai Ing-wen after his election and questioned why the U.S. recognizes Beijing instead of Taipei, a policy that underpins China-U.S. relations.

Since then, the U.S. has approved $1.3 billion in arms sales to Taiwan, and Trump has signed legislation to encourage senior U.S. officials to visit the island, a move that would raise its diplomatic status. The U.S. has also agreed to provide technology for the island's submarine-building program.

In a March address to China's parliament, President Xi Jinping warned that efforts to widen divisions with Taiwan would be "punished by history." The government has ordered all airlines to stop referring to Taiwan and the former colonies of Hong Kong and Macau as countries, something the White House described as "Orwellian nonsense."

"Strong self defense will help Taiwanese people to be more confident when they face more severe security challenges," said Alex Huang, spokesman for the president. Enhanced capabilities for the island would help ensure "cross-strait and regional peace and stability," he added.AIDS Bhedbhav Virodhi Andolan (ABVA)

Press Release

26 September, 2018

On the eve of aWorld Tourism Daya AIDS Bhedbhav Virodhi Andolan (ABVA) is releasing the digitized version of its report aHard Times For Positive Travela which originally appeared as a hard copy in September, 1993 at New Delhi, India. The document is a Citizensa Report on the status of travellers with HIV/AIDS. It was prepared by nine ABVA members. The trigger point for this documentation was the inhuman and cruel treatment meted out to a French tourist visiting Calcutta (now Kolkata) who was deported from India on account of being HIV positive. As per media reports:

aIn February 1992, a French tourist visiting Calcutta fell ill. She was taken by a colleague tourist to a private nursing home of Calcutta. At the nursing home the tourist informed the doctors that she is HIV positive. This set a chain reaction of panic. Instead of taking basic precautions for infection control, the health professionals only displayed the level of their ignorance which was evident from the sequence of events that followed. The patient, who had dehydration was shifted to another nursing home and subsequently deported from the country.a

At that time ABVA was concerned about the harassment and hounding out of HIV positive foreigners by the Indian Government, as also by governments all over the world. Foreign travellers everywhere were being targeted as high risk group which could spread HIV infection amongst the people of the country being visited. This was a monumental hoax perpetrated by the medical establishment. The irrational fear amongst the allopathic doctors was the only reason for the discrimination faced by HIV positive travellers a who were being forcibly tested, quarantined and deported back to their country of origin. Not a word of regret was being offered by the local governments. Foreign students found to be HIV positive were being sent back to their country of origin. This happened even at the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Even the most advanced countries including USA resorted to deportation of HIV positive persons. An International AIDS Conference which was to be held in Boston was moved to Amsterdam in protest against US curbs on the movement of people carrying HIV infection.

While preparing the report ABVA sent letters to embassies and high-commissions of ninety-three countries to explain their immigration and visiting laws with respect to people with HIV/AIDS. Only seven of them chose to respond viz Austria, Brazil, France, Germany, Jordan, Poland and Switzerland. These few countries had an overtly progressive position, while a number of those who practiced discriminatory policies remained silent.

A ten point Charter of Demands was presented by ABVA (see Report) to the Indian Government to have a scientifically oriented, humane solution in the context of HIV positive travellers to India. ABVA even petitioned the United Nations to take necessary steps so that member states of the U.N. bring a halt to the discrimination faced by HIV positive persons/ AIDS patients in the context of travel from one member country to another.

25 years after the ABVAas report was released, 35 countries out of 193 countries (WHO list) still have HIV related travel restrictions.

India reportedly lifted all travel restrictions against HIV positive patients in 2010.

Shobha Aggarwal

ABVA member

Download and read the full report here:Murder rates are up this year  but not in Houston.



Despite two years of elevated murder rates nationwide, slayings here are down even though violent crime as a whole is not.



That's all according to the FBI's annual crime data dump, a meaty report released every fall through the agency's Uniform Crime Reporting Program. It's a treasure trove of statistics for data-lovers, but criminologists warn against drawing too many conclusions about crime patterns from the newly released findings.





"It's about trends, not an anomaly of one year or six months or six weeks," said Larry Karson, a criminal justice assistant professor at the University of Houston-Downtown.

And despite some alarmist responses to national data, crime is still trending down in the long run, experts note.

SO FAR: Houston murders drop in first 6 months of 2017 despite upward tick nationwide

Nationwide, murder and non-negligent manslaughter spiked 8.6 percent last year, following a roughly 10 percent increase the year before. In the 2016 data, Chicago alone counted for roughly 20 percent of that increase.



And that's important, according to Ames Grawert, counsel for the Brennan Center's Justice Program.



"It suggests that what we're seeing nationwide might not be a nationwide crime wave, which some have falsely suggested," he said.



The actual number of violent crimes as a whole went up 4.1 percent across the country, while Houston saw a slightly higher 8.9 percent increase. In 2016 the violent crime rate in Houston was 1,026 crimes per 100,000 residents.



"I think any increase in violent crime is a tragedy, but you want to put things like this in context," Grawert said. Despite the recent spike, the violent crime rate in Houston is still down 12 percent since 2006, and the murder rate is down 29 percent following a short but sudden increase in the mid-2000s. In 2015, the number of murders hit a five-year high with 303 killings, but in 2016 they fell to 301.

With both killings and armed robbery on the downswing, most of the increase in violent crime was driven by a rise in rapes and aggravated assaults.

"Houstonians shouldn't be concerned about any uptick in violent crime, because when you look at the data over 20 years, it has been dropping," Karson said. "An uptick by itself without further information as to the cause means little."

And for some criminologists, the murder rate is considered a more reliable metric than the violent crime rate, anyway, as it's harder to fudge murder numbers, and slayings rarely go unreported.

The same cannot be said of crimes like rape and robbery.

Although 2016 saw a spike in reported rapes  224 more than the year before  Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo warned earlier this year that reporting in the Latino community had plummeted in 2017.

Even so, earlier this month, the Brennan Center put out a report predicting an 8.8 percent increase in the violent crime rate in 2017, coupled with a 20.5 percent decrease in the murder rate.

REPORTS DOWN: HPD chief announces decrease in Hispanics reporting rape and violent crimes

However, HPD did not immediately offer a response to the new FBI numbers or 2017 predictions.

But while violent crime rates rise, property crime rates are sinking. There were about 800 fewer property crimes in 2016 than the year before. That only represents a 2 percent rate decrease from 2015, but it's a more significant 26 percent decrease since 2006.

Yet despite some shifts, the FBI report didn't offer any shocking revelations for Houstonians.

"It doesn't look to me like it's an appreciable change in anything," Grawert said. "So it's largely status quo."

Emily L. Mahoney contributed to this report.A fifth person has been charged with murder in the machete slaying this summer of a man who authorities said was a member of a rival MS-13 gang.

Francisco Antonio Rodriguez-Ulloa, 20, was arrested Tuesday and is the latest to be charged in the death of 25-year-old Victor Castro-Martinez, who was killed June 6 at Cullinan Park.Houston Police Department

A Houston firefighter who was charged with sexual assault this week has been transferred out of the fire department's emergency operations division, according to Chief Sam Pena.

The firefighter, 25-year-old Henry Jose Cuellar, is also the subject of an internal administrative investigation, Pena said.A housefly and cockroach in a food preparation area, dried rodent droppings and uncovered food in storage rounded out some of the worst health violations between Sept. 17 through Sept. 24.

RELATED: Houston restaurants that received health citations from Sept. 10 through Sept. 17

During health inspections, inspectors distribute violations that carry a weight between 1 and 25, increasing in severity.

The term "demerit" is used by city health inspectors to describe the weighted value assigned to each violation.

The Houston Chronicle obtained the results of routine health inspections throughout the city and tallied each restaurant's demerits for a comprehensive list of violations. To view inspection reports online or learn more about food inspections, visit the health department website.

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To understand how Republican state Rep. Sarah Davis plans to survive a possible Democratic blue wave in her House district, consider the front lawn of Jeanne and Michael Maher.

Like several others in their neighborhood near West University Place, the Mahers have staked yard signs in front of their house for two political candidates of opposing parties: U.S. Rep. Beto ORourke, the El Paso Democrat running for Senate, and Davis, a moderate, pro-choice conservative.

It is a Republican-dominated Legislature, it will continue to be a Republican-dominated Legislature, and I would like to have someone who would be pulling some of the Republicans in the other direction, Michael Maher said, explaining his support for Davis.

The 65-year-old Rice University energy researcher described himself as a moderate unmoored by party affiliation.

If the blue wave does wash over Texas, Davis might be the Republican best equipped to withstand it. She represents a swing district in an affluent section of Houston that voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, and for Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in 2014.

After weathering a rough primary election in which she was called too liberal by Abbott, Davis is now being faulted by her Democratic challenger, Allison Lami Sawyer, for supporting conservative-backed legislation such as Senate Bill 4, the anti-sanctuary cities law.

Sawyer, 33, promises in her campaign slogan to make evidence based decisions. She acknowledges the unconventional nature of the phrase, but contends that it will play well with the districts highly educated and politically engaged voters. In 2016, 70.2 percent of registered voters in the district turned out, a higher rate than all but two other Texas House districts.

My main problem with (Davis) is that she doesnt make decisions based on evidence. She makes decisions based on whats going to make her the most money or keep her in power, said Sawyer, co-founder of a company that develops gas leak-detecting cameras used on oil installations.

More Information The candidates Sarah Davis (incumbent) Occupation: Civil defense attorney First elected: 2010 Permanent committees: General Investigating and Ethics (chair), Health and Human Services Appropriations subcommittee (chair), Appropriations, Calendars, Corrections Key quote: "I certainly don't want to be adversarial to the governor, to the lieutenant governor. But I'll stand my ground and do what I think is right for the district." Allison Lami Sayer Occupation: Scientist, entrepreneur Degrees: Engineering physics (B.S.), nanoscale physics (M.S.), finance (MBA) Background: Raised by a single mother in Alabama, aspired from a young age to start a tech company. Moved to Houston in 2007 to get MBA, start a company. First time seeking elected office. Key quote: "The No. 1 thing you can do to help women and children in this state is to expand Medicaid. We are leaving so much money on the table by not expanding Medicaid." House District 134 (2016 Census data) 70 percent Anglo voting age population 24 percent of households had annual incomes of $200,000 or more The district per capita income almost three times the statewide average See More Collapse

During her Republican primary, Davis knocked off Susanna Dokupil, who was backed by Abbott. The governor opposed two other Republican incumbents, but seemed to focus his attention on Davis, making six-figure TV ad buys against her.

Davis won the primary soundly, by a 12 percentage-point margin.

Now, in an election cycle that could produce strong Democratic turnout in November, Sawyer arguably presents a more dangerous threat than even an Abbott-backed Dokupil.

Yet after serving four terms, Davis, 42, is well known in her district, which encompasses the Texas Medical Center, Southside Place, Bellaire, Rice University and West University Place, where she lives. She has been re-elected three times by comfortable margins, winning by 9 and 10 points in 2012 and 2016, respectively, and a whopping 22 points in 2014. (Republicans tend to fare better in midterm years, when turnout is lower.)

This year, however, Democrats near the top of the ballot will likely boost Sawyers chances, with ORourke and 7th Congressional District candidate Lizzie Fletcher running competitive races. Davis is aiming to pull some of those voters to her side.

THE LATEST: Fletcher and Culberson go on the attack in Houston congressional race

I really believe that I am very reflective of the district that I represent, she said. I don't ever have to worry about pandering to one small group of people. That allows me to be exactly who I am, and to vote the way that I think my district supports.

Making Texas more blue

To Sawyer, the long odds of turning her entrepreneurial vision into a full-fledged company mirrors the electoral challenge she and other Texas Democrats face.

Her company, Rebellion Photonics, started with a business plan for a camera that can film things undetectable to the human eye.

She started the company with the Rice University graduate student who invented the camera, Robert Kester. After eight years as CEO, Sawyer stepped down to let Kester run the company while she runs for office.

Making Texas more blue rings true to me in the exact same way that starting Rebellion did  it feels impossible and will take a long time but is utterly the right thing for Houston, she said.

Sawyer has lived in Houston for more than a decade, but until last year lived outside District 134. She and her husband, Steven, claim a homestead exemption on a property in District 148; she moved into a condo in the district to run for office. Sawyer says shes not ashamed of renting the condo so she could run against Davis, because its totally legal.

If she beats Davis, Sawyer wants to repeal the anti-sanctuary cities law. She also wants to devote more state funding to public schools and expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. And she would introduce legislation to ban what she calls baby jails, referring to shelters where unaccompanied immigrant minors are detained.

Sawyer said some Democrats who voted for Davis in prior elections have told her they wont support Davis again because of the SB 4 vote.

For most progressives and a lot of independents in my district, that was a step too far, Sawyer said, calling the law racist.

Davis defended her vote, saying she thinks law enforcement should be required to honor Immigration and Customs Enforcements detainers. As for a controversial amendment allowing police to question a persons immigration status during routine stops, Davis noted she was in conference committee when the amendment reached a floor vote in the House.

She said she would have voted against the amendment if present, though she did vote for the final bill, which included the amendment and passed on a party line vote.

I do not believe our police should be immigration officers, Davis said. That's not what they're trained to do. But checking with ICE to see if someone they've got in their jails is wanted by ICE, that should be standard protocol and I have no problem defending that.

Davis pledges renewed push for ethics reform

In a year when many Texas Republicans are opting to drive up turnout among their conservative base rather than appeal to the middle, Davis is running as an unabashed moderate, seeking Democratic and independent votes. One of her campaign mailers, framed by red borders around a blue center, touts her independent leadership with results and does not identify her as a Republican.

"There's no campaign literature or campaign speech that I give in the primary that I could not turn around and say the exact same thing in the general, Davis said. Because it's really important to me, actually, to campaign to the widest possible audience.

Davis, chairwoman of the House Committee on General Investigating and Ethics, said she would pursue the same ethics agenda that Abbott declined to take up during last years special session. She is considering folding her proposals into an omnibus ethics bill.

Notably, Davis supports the idea of re-upping a measure introduced by state Rep. Lyle Larson, a San Antonio Republican whom Abbott also targeted, that would bar the governor from appointing donors who give a certain amount of money to his campaign. Abbott has denied that he makes appointments based on campaign contributions, and through a spokesman accused Davis and Larson of showboating.

ABBOTTS APPOINTMENTS: Ahead of Abbott fundraiser, a Lubbock developer says the unspeakable

Last year, Davis sought to bar state lawmakers from accepting contributions during special sessions, a practice that is already illegal during regular sessions.

To fend off her primary challenger, Davis spent more than $600,000 in campaign funds in the first two months of the year. But with a well-funded campaign, she reported $118,000 cash on hand at the end of June, giving her a big edge over Sawyers $21,000.

Sawyer expects backing from outside groups like Annies List  who she said recruited her to run  and Flippable, a national organization that supports Democrats.

Davis said she is ready for the challenge.

At the end of the day, this district is just so unique that I could very easily see a blue wave scenario in which some of our statewides lose this area, but others not, Davis said. My constituents, they pick up and down the ballot.

jasper.scherer@chron.com | Twitter: @jaspschererAt a school with the most arrests in the district, in the county that imprisons the most kids in the state, officials on Tuesday announced the launch of a yearlong pilot program designed to keep young people out of the criminal justice system.

Houston ISDs Attucks Middle School will soon be home to the first Youth-Law Enforcement-Assisted Diversion program, an initiative that gives campus police the option to refer kids for support services instead of arresting them for low-level offenses.

The idea is to drive down the connection between the school and the Juvenile Justice Center, to really break that school-to-prison pipeline, said Charles Rotramel, CEO of ReVision, a Houston ministry that helped launch the program.

AUDIT: Crosby ISD orders audit amid financial turmoil

Though other communities and schools have implemented similar pre-arrest diversion programs for youth, this is LEADs first time branching out to help kids with the program thats already heralded as a success with adults.

To some, it seems like an obvious solution; a return to a less-punitive past where kids could be kids  and something officials could have started years ago.

There are basically things weve criminalized that folks of my generation called growing up, said Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg. Were tired of putting your kids in jail.

***

A forward-thinking diversion program, LEAD got its start in Seattle in 2011. Framed as a harm reduction-focused approach to tackling a bloated criminal justice system, the program routed low-level drug and prostitution offenders to support services and treatment instead of sending them through the courts and into jail.

Unlike pre-trial intervention, LEAD stops the legal case before it begins, diverting would-be arrestees before theyre booked, according to the LEAD National Support Bureau. Its an approach that appears to pay off: A 2015 LEAD Recidivism Report found participants were 58 percent less likely to be arrested when compared to a control group.

But as the diversionary program has expanded  to more than 40 cities  its mostly stayed focused on the adult side of the system.

In 2017, the local Youth Justice Council heard a presentation on LEAD and tossed around ideas about whether it would be a good idea here, maybe looking at the 17- to 24-year-old demographic, according to Janis Bane, a juvenile criminal justice consultant for the city of Houston Health Department.

That wouldnt have been groundbreaking for the nationally expanding program. But then at one meeting, Bane recalled, county and city stakeholders trotted out a different idea: Why dont we try this with kids? Houston ISD police and the Harris County District Attorneys Office were both on board, so the next step was picking out a school.

Attucks seemed like a natural target. The Sunnyside school had seen more than 40 student arrests in the past year, Rotramel said, more than any other campus in the district.

And suspending or arresting kids can have outside consequences. Theres the missed classroom time. The increased likelihood of dropping out. And, according to a 2018 peer-reviewed study in the journal Youth & Society, suspended kids have a higher likelihood of arrest more than a decade later.

Theres no evidence that locking a kid up helps, Bane said.

Now, when they catch a child committing a misdemeanor or even some felonies, campus police have the OK not to make a collar.

HELP WANTED: HISD trustees OK superintendent search, delay vote to retain interim

Although theres still a report generated, its never filed and the kids are instead referred to support services. Theres no suspension and no arrest.

There will be no consequences for them, Rotramel said. If they agree to participate in LEAD, they go about their business as normal.

To kick off the program, financial support is coming from ReVision and Harris County Precinct 1 Commissioner Rodney Elliss office. The ministry is funding one full-time position for a programs administrator, while Elliss office is backing a full-time case manager.

Officials hope that will be enough to handle 35 to 45 cases.

Thats just a fraction of the more than 11,000 juvenile cases the district attorneys office handles every year, but stakeholders are optimistic about the possibility of expansion.

We are building a model, and we would like for it to be replicated, Bane said.

Harris County accounted for roughly 25 percent of the kids sent to juvenile prison last year, according to state data. But the program already has the support of prosecutors, police and some courts  all parties interested in the reform-minded approach that could change that statistic.

Theres a lot of cases that end up utilizing a lot of judicial resources unnecessarily, said Juvenile Court Judge Michael Schneider. Theres so many cases where it doesnt benefit the community or the kids or their families to get them sucked into a system that can take them down a bad path.

Part of it, admitted John Jordan, the district attorneys juvenile division chief, is about changing the culture.

What were trying to do is get back to where it used to be and not criminalize youthful misconduct, he said. We hope to charge less and help more.

keri.blakinger@chron.com

@keriblaTexas authorities are searching for a Houston man suspected of shooting and wounding a 65-year-old man earlier this month.

On Sept. 3, Rolando Tomas Mendez, 27, shot and critically wounded the 65-year-old man after attempting to open his car door, according to the Harris County Sheriff's Office.

Police said Mendez fled the scene with 28-year-old James Ryan Varnell, a suspect believed to have participated in a series aggravated robberies with Mendez prior to the shooting.

Varnell was arrested last week on three counts of aggravated robbery, but Mendez remains on the run.

On Wednesday, Mendez was added to the "Texas 10 Most Wanted Fugitives" list by the Texas Department of Public Safety. Up to $7,500 is being offered for tips leading to his arrest.

LATEST: UH student was found dead one year after being reported missing

Authorities said Mendez is affiliated with the Tango Blast Houstone gang. He is wanted on three counts of aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon.

Police said Mendez should be considered armed and dangerous. His criminal history includes burglary of vehicle and theft of property.

Anyone with tips or information should call the Crime Stoppers hotline at 1-800-252-TIPS (8477) or submit a tip through Facebook.

See above for other fugitives on Texas' "most wanted" list above.

Fernando Ramirez covers Texas news and politics. Read him on our breaking news site and on our subscriber site. | Fernando.ramirez@chron.com | @fernramirez93



A San Antonio man was caught in a car with a 16-year-old girl outside a cabaret during an unrelated prostitution operation run by the Bexar County Sheriff's Office.

Eric Taylor, 24, was arrested Monday on suspicion of sexual assault of a child. Though he and the girl were discovered during the prostitution sting the arrest was not connected to the operation.

Deputies were running the sting Sept. 13 at the MGM Cabaret when they found Taylor in a car with the girl, according to the arrest affidavit.

RELATED: SAPD: Woman sexually assaulted by man who posed as maintenance worker

The child initially told deputies she was 17 and provided a fake name and date of birth, according to the affidavit. She said she and Taylor were "club hopping" before deputies found them outside the cabaret. She also said the two had sexual contact, the affidavit says.

Deputies took the child to an emergency shelter, where she was set to be released to her parents. Detectives later discovered the child was actually 16, according to the affidavit.

The girl left the shelter before her parents picked her up, leading the parents to report her as a runaway, according to the affidavit.

Deputies staked out Taylor's apartment, and eventually Taylor and the girl came outside, according to the affidavit. Both were taken to the sheriff's office to be interviewed.

During the interview, Taylor allegedly admitted to a sexual relationship with the girl and told deputies she stayed with him after she left the emergency shelter.

Taylor was arrested on a $50,000 bond for the child sex crime charge, jail records showed.The Los Angeles school district has made an offer to the teachers union in the hopes of averting a teacher strikean across-the-board pay raise, smaller class sizes, and additional pay for teachers taking professional development courses.

But the United Teacher Los Angeles called the offer a stunning example of disrespect to teachers and students.

That exchange shows how high the tensions are as a potential strike looms in the nations second-largest school district. The union and the district have been in contract negotiations for over a year. They plan to start the formal mediation process, which is overseen by Californias Public Employment Relations Board, on Thursday. But last month, most Los Angeles teachers union members voted to authorize a strike , which some have predicted will come in early October.

Teacher Strikes: 4 Common Questions

The districts offer seems to be a last-ditch effort to avoid that strike, which would be the first in Los Angeles since 1989.

The district offered a 6 percent pay raise for all teachers, which includes a 3 percent retrospective raise for the past school year. The district also pledged to reduce class sizes by four students in core subjects in 15 high-need middle schools and 75 high-need elementary schools. Finally, the district offered to provide additional pay to teachers who take courses in dual-language instruction, early-literacy intervention, and science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics instruction.

While I wish our finances allowed us to go farther, this offer also makes the most of our limited dollars in support of students and schools, especially those with the highest needs, said Kelly Gonez, a school board member, in a statement.

Union leaders called the offer insulting. The proposal does not make it easier for teachers to secure health care upon retirement , and the class-size reduction would not improve instruction at 90 percent of the districts 1,000 schools, they wrote. The union is also seeking more school nurses, counselors, social workers, and librarians, and to reduce the number of tests required by the district. The districts offer does not address those requests.

"[Superintendent Austin] Beutners proposal attempts to buy us off with a modest salary increase, UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl said in a statement. But we can see through it. This is the beginning of the war on health care and an acceleration of a downsizing that will drive students and families away rather than attract them to the district.

The previous district offer was a 2 percent raise and a 2 percent bonus. The union had sought a 6.5 percent pay raise retroactive to July 1, 2016. Still, observers say UTLA leaders have taken a cue from the wave of teacher walkouts in the spring and are focusing more on students needs.

Image via GettyThe Texas Senate is not investigating a sexual harassment complaint against State Sen. Charles Schwertner, though the Senate earlier this summer changed its sexual harassment policies to give senators the ability to launch such investigations.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said he is deeply concerned about the serious allegations against Schwertner, R-Georgetown. But the Senate is waiting first for the University of Texas to conduct its own investigation.

The Texas Senate is awaiting the conclusion of the investigation and expects a full report on this matter, Patrick said in a statement to the media.

Other members say the Senate needs to be more aggressive.

I will repeat the call I made in December and ask the Texas Senate to investigate any allegations of sexual harassment, discrimination, abuse or bullying by Senators or Senate staff," said State Sen. Sylvia Garcia, D-Houston.

On Tuesday, the Austin American-Statesman reported that Schwertner has been accused of sending explicit images and texts to a graduate student on campus who was seeking career advice. Schwertner has denied any improriety, and on Wednesday released a statement through his attorneys.

THE KAVANAUGH HEARING: You can watch it here

Senator Schwertner did not send any inappropriate texts as alleged. Period, it said. The Senator is devastated over these allegations and is concerned for the unnamed victim. We are in contact with the University of Texas to resolve this matter. Our statements regarding the Senator will be proven in the days and weeks to come. Until then, Senator Schwertner deserves the courtesy of holding judgment until he is afforded the opportunity for a fair process to occur.

In May, the Senate instituted a new sexual harassment policy that applies to all senators, senate employees  and the Office of the Lieutenant Governor. The policy doesnt require the Senate to investigate accusations of sexual misconduct, but it was changed to allow the Senate to order investigations of its members.

The old policy, adopted in 1995, stated that staffers were subject to investigations if accused of sexual harassment but was not clear as to whether the Senate could initiate investigations of members. No sexual harassment complaints have been filed in the Texas Senate since 2001.

LOOK BACK AT FARENTHOLD CASE: Congressman, facing new sexual harassment probe, announces he won't seek re-election

The revisions address everyone who routinely works in the Capitol including unpaid interns, and provide a clear definition of the types of behavior that could constitute sexual harassment, State Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, a Brenham Republican, wrote in a letter to her colleagues in late May.

Lt. Gov. Patrick faults UT for leaks to press

Schwertner met the unnamed graduate student on the UT campus event in the summer, according to the American-Statesmans report. After they exchanged messages on the social media site Linkedin, they began texting one another. The Statesman reported that during an exchange on career advice, Schwertner wrote that he just really wanted to have sex with the woman, and sent her what appeared to be a picture of his genitals.

The student then complained to the school, which is investigating the matter.

Patrick on Wednesday questioned how details of the investigation had been leaked to the media.

I was also concerned yesterday to see that numerous University of Texas officials spoke to the media, potentially jeopardizing the integrity of a serious investigation, Patrick said on Wednesday. I am calling on the university to complete their inquiry in a professional manner, protecting the privacy rights of both parties.

University officials declined to comment Wednesday, saying they could not confirm whether there is even an investigation underway.

Schwertner is the third member of the Senate to face accusations of sexual misconduct. In December, State Sens Borris Miles, D-Houston, and Carlos Uresti, D-Helotes, denied media reports that accused them of inappropriate behavior.

Uresti resigned from the Senate this summer after being found guilty in February by a federal jury on 11 felony charges in connection with his involvement in a now-defunct San Antonio oilfield services company that defrauded investors. His resignation was not related to the claims first reported in The Daily Beast.

Schwertner, a doctor first elected in 2012, is running for re-election in November against Round Rock Democrat Meg Walsh. Schwertner, who is married and has three children, is the chairman of the Senates Committee on Health and Human Services.

But Republican leaders in the Texas Senate said they will wait until UT finishes its work.

As a member of the Texas Senate, due to the serious nature of this allegation, I am awaiting the full investigative report on this matter from the University of Texas to be released to the public, said State Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston.Season Group Sees Surge in Enquiries Due to China Tariffs Published: 25 September 2018 by Chelsey Drysdale by Chelsey Drysdale

SAN ANTONIO, TX  Season Group is seeing a significant surge in enquiries as a result of the changes in US Tariffs with China, the firm says.

When the initial tariff changes were announced in July, we saw very little change in customer behavior, said Carl Hung, president and CEO of Season Group. The feedback we were getting was that customers expected this to be a short-term situation. However, now that some US companies have seen large-scale invoices for their imports from China from the first round of tariffs, the increase in their scope means there appears to be an urgency to find alternative sources to avoid these significant cost increases. Given that Season is one of very few EMS companies of its size that has an EMS footprint in Malaysia, Mexico, USA, UK as well as China, we are being seen as a safe haven for many small and medium-size companies that are currently sourcing with companies that have only one site in China. We are getting feedback that the number of options is also important, as there is a fear of where next given previous concern over US duties related to Mexico (for The Wall) and current NAFTA negotiations with Canada.

We have never had a sales funnel of the size that it is now, said Charles Tonna, VP business operations and strategy said. It stands at the equivalent of our annual revenue  with a number of large opportunities due to be added very soon. What I find particularly interesting is even European companies that source in China are looking at their EMS strategy, concerned the single-site China EMS companies, with whom they are currently working, could be adversely affected if their US revenues collapse. In addition, the fact that we also have a China operation appears attractive to customers, as it can help organize the initial transfer, as well as provide an option if the tariffs are ever reversed.For more than 75 years, the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME), a joint venture of the American Medical Association (AMA) and the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), has been tasked with maintaining excellence in American medical education by accrediting all medical schools in the U.S. and Canada. At first glance, LCME seems like a necessary and useful organization. But is it?

Its effect on the training of U.S. doctors is counterproductive. The cost in time and money of becoming a doctor in America is now so prohibitive that its constraining the supplythe U.S. is facing a projected shortfall of between 42,600 and 121,300 physicians by 2030. My colleague Chris Pope and I have suggested that this problem could be solved if American students could begin studying medicine immediately after high school and complete their studies in six or seven years, not eight, which is the U.S. norm. Countries where medical students can follow this path wind up with more physicians per capita, lower rates of physician pay, and comparable medical quality with that in the U.S.

But LCME requirements currently make it nearly impossible to streamline medical education in this fashion. To get accredited, a medical school must encourage potential applicants to the medical education program to acquire a broad undergraduate education. LCME technically allows schools to integrate undergraduate and medical education but provides no standards for schools that wish to do so, requiring them to design their own programs and hope that they will pass muster. Facing such uncertainty, its no wonder that only a handful of schools have tried.

Health outcomes are adversely affected by the shortage. In lower-income areas, which are feeling the impact of too-few physicians already, patients are increasingly being treated by practitioners who attended for-profit medical schools in the Caribbean. These schools, known for their lower standards, are the kinds of institutions that LCME was founded in 1942 to police and prevent. Patients of such doctors tend to have higher mortality rates than those of physicians who attended medical school in the United States. Without the constraints imposed by LCME, more qualified doctors would be available. Medical schools would be free to experiment with ways to increase the supply of well-educated physicians through programs that integrate undergraduate education with medical education or that help accomplished nurses retrain as physicians.

LCMEs accrediting may not even be needed any more. The landscape of medical education in the U.S. has changed dramatically since 1942. Accreditation was necessary to reform substandard medical colleges in an era when such institutions could operate in isolation; thats not possible today. Internet sites like Yelp, ZocDoc, and HealthGrades have made physician credentials and reputations easier to access and share than ever before. Under such constant scrutiny, its hard to imagine how medical schools could drastically lower their standards without anyone knowing.

And why would they want to? LCME acts as though it is the only thing preventing American medical schools from downgrading standards, but these institutions are jealously protective of their reputations. They want to be able to say that they have the highest standardshigher than their competitors. In other words, competition does more than aging accreditation standards to get medical institutions to excel.

Photo: Wavebreakmedia/iStockCookie Preferences Cookie List

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We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated sale of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.Alongside the continued will he, wont he news about both Rod Rosenstein and Brett Kavanaugh, the hot topic in the world of digital media on Tuesday was the sudden departure of Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger. We know the departure was sudden because Facebookwhich bought the image-sharing startup in 2012 for $1 billionseemed to be completely unprepared for the news, which was broken by Mike Isaac of The New York Times. Eventually, the social network put out a generic statement about how the co-founders were extraordinary product leadersa classic backhanded compliment that managed to completely downplay how crucial Instagram has been to Facebooks success over the past few years.

For much of that time, Systrom in particular has played the role of a loyal Facebook soldier, pushing the photo-sharing service in new directions that have dramatically increased its reachmost notably by shamelessly copying the popular Stories format invented by competitor Snapchat in almost every detail, sucking the oxygen out of Snaps service at a crucial moment for the company. Some analysts think Instagram, if it was a standalone service, might be worth as much as $100 billion, and it continues to grow both as a social utility and revenue-generating machine.

ICYMI: The New Yorker drops a Kavanaugh bombshell

So why leave now? The consensus in tech-land is that the co-founders got fed up with Zuckerbergs bear hug, as some have called itthat is, the Facebook CEOs increasing desire to monkey around with Instagram and absorb it into the rest of the Facebook machinery. It may seem like a small thing, but some noticed Facebook is no longer including Instagrams name next to an image when it is shared to the larger social network. Then there were rumors the company might add a re-gram or sharing feature to allow users to re-post images from other accountssomething Systrom and Krieger said they would never do, because it would mean less authentic personal sharing (Instagram maintains it is not planning such a feature). Could either of these have been the last straw? No one is saying.

Obviously, Mark Zuckerberg bought the company, and hes entitled to do whatever he wants with it, as tech analyst Ben Thompson has pointed out in his Stratechery newsletter. The terms of the original Facebook/Instagram deal said the latter would remain an independent entity, and it did for some time. But as the pressure for growth continues, Facebook has looked increasingly to more private networks like Instagram and WhatsApp to carry the bulk of that burden (although the fact that WhatsApp is encrypted makes it exponentially more difficult to crack down on misinformation, as users in India have found out).

Facebooks acquisition of Instagram was an eye-opening deal in 2012in the days before the $22-billion purchase of WhatsApp, it was still shocking to see Facebook pay $1 billion for a company that was less than two years old, with only 13 employees and a paltry 30 million users (the acquisition would be worth about $4 billion now, since the shares used to pay for it have continued to climb in value). But as Snapchat soared in popularity, it quickly became obvious that buying Instagram was one of the best things Facebook ever did. Now it remains to be seen whether the social network will be able to build on that success without two of the key figures who helped make it happen in the first place.

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Heres more about Instagram and its relationship with Facebook:

Inauthentic behavior : Although Instagram hasnt played a major role in the misinformation campaigns that have caused so much trouble for Facebook and WhatsApp, it hasnt been totally immune. In August, Facebook said it took down 76 accounts for what it called inauthentic behavior, similar to the activity it noticed in accounts set up by Russias Internet Research Agency during the 2016 election.

: Although Instagram hasnt played a major role in the misinformation campaigns that have caused so much trouble for Facebook and WhatsApp, it hasnt been totally immune. In August, Facebook said it took down 76 accounts for what it called inauthentic behavior, similar to the activity it noticed in accounts set up by Russias Internet Research Agency during the 2016 election. Also, neo-Nazis and drugs : The same kind of marketing that works for innocuous brands also works for more nefarious products, unfortunately: HuffPost found neo-Nazi groups were using Instagram accounts to sell clothing with white power slogans like White babythe future of our race for pregnant mothers, and The Washington Post says the network is also being used sell illicit drugs.

: The same kind of marketing that works for innocuous brands also works for more nefarious products, unfortunately: HuffPost found neo-Nazi groups were using Instagram accounts to sell clothing with white power slogans like White babythe future of our race for pregnant mothers, and says the network is also being used sell illicit drugs. Celebrities go direct : A recent New York Times feature said the widespread use of Instagram by celebrities has helped kill the traditional celebrity feature, a staple of consumer magazines for decades. The Times says this is a disservice to fans, who miss out on what happens when someone in the room is pushing back, not merely taking dictation.

: A recent feature said the widespread use of Instagram by celebrities has helped kill the traditional celebrity feature, a staple of consumer magazines for decades. The says this is a disservice to fans, who miss out on what happens when someone in the room is pushing back, not merely taking dictation. Uncool uncle : Facebooks desire to control Instagram is a function of the main networks decline in popularity, especially with younger users. A recent study released by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism asked people to say which words they associated with different networks: Facebook got bipolar, and uncool uncle, while Instagram got glamorous, and open-minded (but also stalker).

: Facebooks desire to control Instagram is a function of the main networks decline in popularity, especially with younger users. A recent study released by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism asked people to say which words they associated with different networks: Facebook got bipolar, and uncool uncle, while Instagram got glamorous, and open-minded (but also stalker). A summer job: Instagram has become such a central part of the way brands do their marketing that young people are spending their summers posting sponsored content to the social network and making thousands of dollars doing it, according to a recent feature in The Atlantic. Mary, a 14-year-old from California, said its pretty much the easiest way, without becoming famous on the internet, to make money.

Other notable stories:

An investigation by BuzzFeed found that a recommendation feature built into Apples Safari browser was promoting debunked conspiracy theories, shock videos, and misinformation as part of the Siri Suggested search results, in much the same way that YouTube has been accused of doing with its recommended videos.

The Atlantic Council, an international think tank based in Washington, has produced a multimedia report called Breaking Ghouta, which tells the story of how the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad attacked and took control of the eastern region of the country, committing what many believe to be war crimes in the process.

A year after Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico, Pete Vernon writes for CJR about how some reporters dedicated themselves to writing about the disaster, long after most mainstream journalists had turned away to cover other stories. I had never seen people so moved by journalism, one reporter tells Vernon, about being greeted by Puerto Ricans overjoyed at having their stories told to the world.

As the number of reporters covering state politics has declined, three news organizations in Oregon have formed a partnership to cover the state capital, including a new online outlet called the Salem Reporter, as well as the Pamplin Media Group (publisher of the Portland Tribune ) and EO Media Group, publisher of the East Oregonian and other community newspapers.

) and EO Media Group, publisher of the East Oregonian and other community newspapers. Media analyst Ken Doctor says The Washington Post has larger ambitions for its content-management system, known as Arc, which many other publications also now use to publish. Doctor says the company wants to add an advertising network to the system, as well as a way of managing paywall access.

has larger ambitions for its content-management system, known as Arc, which many other publications also now use to publish. Doctor says the company wants to add an advertising network to the system, as well as a way of managing paywall access. A new report from the Canadian Public Policy Forum looked at the decline in local news coverage in 20 small and mid-sized Canadian communities, and found that the number and depth of newspaper articles about civic affairs declined sharply between 2008 and 2017, leaving citizens less informed about their democratic institutions.

A British study looked at what has happened since The Independent newspaper went digital only in 2016, and found that while its readership didnt decline after the change, the total time spent with the paper fell by more than 80 percent. The study said this suggests that when newspapers go online-only they may move back into the black, but they also forfeit much of the attention they formerly enjoyed.

ICYMI: Headlines editors probably wish they could take back

Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today

Mathew Ingram is CJRs chief digital writer. Previously, he was a senior writer with Fortune magazine. He has written about the intersection between media and technology since the earliest days of the commercial internet. His writing has been published in the Washington Post and the Financial Times as well as by Reuters and Bloomberg.Vandendael Named Everest Insurance International CEO

Everest Insurance, the diversified specialty insurance division of Everest Re Group, Ltd., announced the addition of Vincent Vandendael as CEO of Everest Insurance International. He will lead all facets of the Everest Insurance operations outside of North America. Based in London, he will join the Everest Insurance global leadership team and will report to Jonathan Zaffino, president and CEO of Everest Insurance.

Vandendael brings twenty-eight years of diversified global insurance experience throughout specialty and financial lines to his new position. Prior to joining Everest, he was chief commercial officer at Lloyds of London responsible for all business development. He also led Lloyds global network, which extends to 31 offices that support Lloyds licences to operate in over 200 territories worldwide. He has also been instrumental in establishing Lloyds Brussels subsidiary, which is due to open in 2019 ahead of the UKs exit from the European Union.

Before joining Lloyds in 2012, Vandendael spent seventeen years in positions of increasing responsibility at Zurich Insurance Company, most recently serving as CEO Global Corporate, Asia Pacific.

Arch Insurance Taps Former AIG Exec Turpin to Become EVP and Head of U.S. Property

Valerie Turpin has joined Arch Insurance as executive vice president (EVP) and head of U.S. Property. She succeeds Michael Kmetz, who has taken a different role within the firm.

In this position, Turpin will have oversight of both the Excess and Surplus Property and U.S. Retail Property divisions. She reports to Michael Price, EVP and chief underwriting officer of Arch Insurance Group Inc.

Turpin joins Arch Insurance from American International Group (AIG), where she most recently served as senior vice president, Midwest Property and Special Risks and managed a substantial book of retail and wholesale business. Before joining AIG, she held a number of senior roles as a risk engineer and underwriter in both the U.S. and European markets.

Snapsheet Taps Industry Veteran to Take Over as President

Snapsheet, a provider of virtual claims technology for the personal and commercial insurance marketplace, appointed Jamie Yoder president.

Yoder will lead go to market activities across Snapsheets business lines, including virtual appraisals, fleet and rental management, Snapsheet Transactions and digital engagement and claims management.

He previously worked at PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC), where he led the Insurance Advisory practice for the last eight years. He has nearly three decades of experience advising senior U.S. and global executives in the insurance and financial services industries on strategy through transformation, and also led PwCs Future of Insurance efforts.

CJ Przybyl, who formerly served as president, will now focus on building the firms emerging software as a service offering to support all P&C lines, including auto, homeowners, bodily injury and workers compensation.

Yoder will be based in Chicago and is the third senior executive addition to Snapsheet over the past 18 months, as the company moves from the start-up stage into a mature, established company. Last year, Snapsheet named CNA executive, Andy Cohen as COO; and Enova Financial executive, Sarah Doll as chief people officer.The National Transportation Safety Board is calling for a three-pronged approach to combat pedestrian fatalities, which have ballooned in the last decade.

The board on Tuesday recommended safety improvements to vehicles  such as improved headlights and braking systems  and to local infrastructure. It also said better data-collection measures are needed to address the rising number of deaths, which surged 46 percent from 2009 to 2016, the last full year of available data. The total, 5,987, was the most since 1990.

There is a real face to this, NTSB Chairman Robert L. Sumwalt said at the meeting in Washington. Its your neighbor, its the girl you went to school with, its your co-worker.

The board made a total of 11 recommendations to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Federal Highway Administration.

The board called for NHTSA to establish guidelines for improvements to vehicle design, such as better headlight standards and pedestrian-detection systems. Car manufacturers can also incorporate more pedestrian-friendly features, such as softer bumpers.

The report asks the FHA to expand its support for state and local authorities to develop and enact plans to improve pedestrian safety.

Highway pedestrian safety designs are highly context dependent and therefore best understood by local engineers and local road managers, Deb Bruce, the reports project manager, said at the meeting.

The 2017 death toll is expected to be roughly the same as 2016, according to a projection from the Governors Highway Safety Association. This has become a persistent problem, and more needs to be done to address it, said Russ Martin, the organizations director of policy and government relations, in a phone interview before the NTSB meeting.

Martin also recommends more medians and sidewalks be built as well as lane reductions. Automatic speed enforcement and improved lighting at night would also help, he said. Public education might also reduce deaths, such as encouraging someone too drunk to walk to call a ride-sharing service, Martin said.

The board did not give a conclusive cause for the rise in deaths, but some researchers, including Martin, said it could be because of the improving economy. With more disposable income, people could be out on the streets more  putting them at greater risk. Other factors may include increased smartphone use and demographic changes. However, more research needs to be done on the issue, he said.

Last October, a Honolulu ordinance drew attention for banning pedestrians from using mobile devices while crossing the street, with fines ranging from $15 to $99.

New York City saw its pedestrian fatalities fall to 101 last year, the lowest since record keeping began in 1910, according to the city.

The lower speed limit, increased enforcement and safer street designs are all building on each other to keep New Yorkers safe, Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a statement.

Copyright 2021 Bloomberg.AKRON, Ohio - If you're looking for a place to join a meal-time conversation during the On the Table Greater Akron event on Wednesday, Oct. 3 several public meetings are still available.

Led by Akron Community Foundation, On the Table for the second year will bring together small groups of people who will sit down at tables across Summit County for meals or coffee to talk about the community's most pressing needs.

Akron Community Foundation is partnering with the Akron/Summit Convention & Visitors Bureau for a series of public conversations at Greystone Hall in downtown Akron at 8 a.m., 10 a.m. and noon. The Akron-Summit County Public Library is hosting public conversations at locations across the county, while Mustard Seed Market & Cafe is hosting public conversations at both of its Akron locations. You can sign up for any of the public events here.

So far, at least 600 conversations are scheduled to take place around Summit County, with more than 7,000 people signed up to attend. About 1,500 students are expected to participate this year, including 1,100 Akron Public Schools freshman who will join conversations in their classrooms, said Akron Community Foundation Sr. Director of Marketing & Communications Tracy Burt.

Unlike last year's free-flowing conversations, this year's conversations will be structured by topics drawn from a survey conducted last year. The survey helped identify the top issues residents believe require action in their community.

Those issues and this year's topics include:

economic issues & poverty

equity & social inclusion

drugs & addiction

education & youth development

public safety & the judicial system.

Many of last year's hosting organizations are returning, with some groups partnering to focus on one or two specific topics. Several new organizations will also host this year, Burt said.

The foundation also has created a grant program this year, offering Community Impact Awards up to $2,000 for ideas that surface during conversations that can spark action, Burt said. About $50,000 will be available for grants.

"Not only are we providing grants for ideas that come out of On the Table Greater Akron, but we will also use the information gathered to help drive proactive funding," Burt said.

The foundation and other participating groups will also create community programs based on what is gleaned from this year's event.

More information on the grants is available at the On the Table Greater Akron website. Applications can be submitted for an On the Table Community Impact Award starting Nov. 1.

Again this year, participants will be given a survey that they can take the day of the event or for up to a week following the event via an email link that will be sent to them, Burt said.

In 2017, Akron was one of 10 U.S. cities chosen to host an On the Table event, which was funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. Huntington Bank is also a sponsor this year.

For more information about the On the Table event visit On the Table Greater Akron website or send an email.

Want more Akron news? Sign up for cleveland.com's Rubber City Daily, an email newsletter delivered at 5:30 a.m. Monday through Friday.AKRON, Ohio - One of the companies housed in Bounce, the Akron area's accelerator for startups and other promising businesses, has gained national and regional attention for its rapid growth.

Consolidus, a software developer for the promotional-product industry, was named a 2018 Weatherhead 100 upstart, which recognizes fast-growing companies in Northeast Ohio with fewer than 15 employees and less than $5 million in net sales. The company also was recognized for the second year as one of Inc. Magazine's top 5,000 fastest-growing private companies in the U.S.

Company founder & CEO Jeffrey Jones attributes the company's growth to interaction with entrepreneurs at Bounce, a strong team and an industry trending toward the internet.

"I think we could be doubling our sales in the next three to five years, versus the rate of growth we've been experiencing, which is 25 percent annually," Jones said.

Bounce, which officially opened in April, is slowly filling the nine floors of the old B.F. Goodrich tire plant with entrepreneurs, inventors and innovators. The facility is designed to attract investors, businesses and other partners to help support and develop the companies there, and ultimately boost the local economy.

Consolidus' web-based platform, SmartSites, enables large entities, such as universities, nonprofits and health-care systems, to consolidate and streamline the purchase of branded promotional materials like apparel, banners, decals, coffee cups and notebooks.

The Consolidus interface is customized for each institution, creating online stores accessible by multiple users across each organization. The system helps clients protect their brand and save money. With 14 employees, Consolidus also provides each customer with an account manager.

Early on, the University of Akron also helped support the company. The university referred Consolidus to the Inter-University Council Purchasing Group of Ohio, which gave the company a foot in the door to other area universities.

"We were just starting out with technology that's now the backbone of the business," he said.

Jones, who grew up in Akron, is an Akron firefighter-turned-entrepreneur. He launched his company about 12 years ago out of his basement. Not long after, he moved Consolidus into the Akron Global Business Accelerator, Bounce's predecessor, to gain access to other entrepreneurs and learn from business professionals.

At first, just having quality business space was a boost, Jones said. Access to tech experts also was helpful as Consolidus built out and refined its software. According to Promotional Products Association International, the promotional products industry is now a $23.3 billion global industry.

At Bounce, Jones said networking and collaborating with other companies has been helpful and that those opportunities will increase significantly when the first-floor design is complete.

Dubbed "The Generator," Bounce's first floor is being designed by Hazel Tree Design Studio to showcase the essence of Akron through historical artifacts and work by local artists. It will house a cafe, event space, meeting areas, and will offer workshops, training and other services for Bounce companies and the public.

Consolidus, located on the eighth floor, now has a choice -- leave Bounce and strike out on its own or undergo what Bounce CEO and President Doug Weintraub calls a "reset. " That means taking steps to accelerate its growth.

For self-funded companies, which Consolidus has been from the beginning, that usually means attracting third-party support.

Many companies reach the level of stability Consolidus has reached and are satisfied. They are referred to as "lifestyle" companies, which Weintraub says is a worthy achievement.

However, Bounce was not created to support companies that plateau, he said, and investors look for growth-oriented companies.

"To take outside capital, you have to put both feet on the accelerator," Weintraub said.

Companies that grow also help Bounce meet its objective, which is to nurture companies until they can successfully stand on their own. Bounce and city officials hope the companies stay in the Akron area and continue to grow and hire workers, boosting the local economy.

A serial entrepreneur, Weintraub took his own companies from startup to sale, and became an investor. Before taking the helm at Bounce in March, Weintraub also served as president of JumpStart, Northeast Ohio's first incubator/accelerator, from 2009-2012.

Exposure to processionals such as Weintraub has had a positive impact on Consolidus, Jones said.

"Being here has influenced our ability to grow significantly and it's given me an opportunity to grow as a leader through association with other business leaders in the program," he said. "I've been very fortunate to have a series of people that continue to work with me as consultants as we're making decisions."

To undergo a "reset," Jones knows he will have to relinquish some control of the business.

"The priority is acceleration," he said. "I'm interested in growing the business to the fullest potential. You have to have the right partner bringing expertise and possibly resources that contribute to the growth and success of the company, and have a common goal."

As of now, Jones said he will keep the company in Akron, although what happens down the road could have an influence.

"I grew up in Akron," he said. "I'm excited about growing a successful company in Akron. I have pride in growing a company here."

Want more Akron news? Sign up for cleveland.com's Rubber City Daily, an email newsletter delivered at 5:30 a.m. Monday through Friday.CLEVELAND, Ohio -- An Iraq War veteran accused of murder and other charges suffered from severe mental illness at the time he gunned down a woman after a traffic crash, a doctor in the court's psychiatric clinic has found.

Matthew Desha, 31, who has been treated for post-traumatic stress disorder and believes the Illuminati, God and Satan are intervening in his case, "did not know the wrongfulness of his actions" when he used an AR-15 to kill Deborah Pearl, Dr. Aileen Hernandez found in a report delivered to the court earlier this month.

Cuyahoga County prosecutors reject Hernandez's findings and hired an "independent psychiatric expert" to examine Desha, according to court filings.

Common Pleas Court Judge Kathleen ANn Sutula ordered that doctor, whose name is not in court records, to deliver a report to her by Nov. 1.

Hernandez's findings come after Sutula determined that Desha is competent to stand to trial and could pave the way for Desha to plead not guilty by reason of insanity.

Prosecutors say Desha ran a red light in his Jeep on Som Center Road and struck Pearl's car about 7:30 a.m. Aug. 27, 2016, as the 53-year-old mother of three drove to work. Desha's Jeep flipped upside down, and witnesses said he got out of his truck with the rifle and shot Pearl as she held her hands up in the air, prosecutors said.

He shot at other cars as they passed, prosecutors say.

Desha was arrested later that day and has been jailed on $1 million bond ever since.

Three doctors who examined Desha testified at a June competency hearing that the two-tour combat veteran is haunted by recurring visions of warfare. He severely abused marijuana and alcohol after his return home and grew so delusional that he believed Hillary Clinton was a child rapist and Donald Trump could only defeat her in the 2016 presidential election if Desha cleaned his room well enough, testimony showed.

If the doctor that prosecutors hire find Desha did know the severity of his actions, Sutula would have to hold a hearing to determine if he is eligible to enter the plea.

To comment on this story, please visit Wednesday's crime and courts comments page.LYNDHURST, Ohio -- Inducing panic, Richmond Road: At 12:40 a.m. Sept. 19, an employee of CVS/Pharmacy, 1443 Richmond Road, reported that a woman who had been allowed to stay in the store while she waited for her bus had told a clerk -- while holding her hand in her purse -- that she wanted the money in the cash register.

The clerk got on the phone, telling the woman he needed to get a cash register code, but actually called 911.

Police arrested the woman, 21, of Mayfield Heights, and took her to Hillcrest Hospital for evaluation. She was charged with inducing panic.

Earlier the previous evening, at 11:30 p.m., dispatch had received two 911 calls from the store. The first was a hang-up call. The second, from the Mayfield Heights woman, had her telling the dispatcher, "I'm kind of stuck here," then "never mind," before hanging up.

When police responded to the woman's 911 call, the store employee said the woman would be permitted to stay and wait for her bus.

Menacing, Learidge Road: At 10:05 p.m. Sept. 23, a caller reported that his daughter's ex-boyfriend, a Burton man, 21, had threatened to burn down his family's home.

Police investigated but made no arrest and did not pursue charges.

Domestic violence, Parkview Drive: At 7:10 p.m. Sept. 22, a woman reported that her husband had assaulted her, then driven off. The woman called police five to 10 minutes after her husband left.

Police took the woman, 41, to Hillcrest Hospital for treatment of a head injury.

The husband, 37, is being sought on a domestic violence charge.

Suspicion, Mayfield Road: At 4:45 a.m. Sept. 22, a woman called police when a car stopped at a traffic signal did not move when the signal changed.

Police checked on the man in the car. He told officers he had fallen asleep while waiting for the light to change. The man said he was on his way home.

Psychiatric evaluation, Cedar Road: At 1:40 a.m. Sept. 22, security at Legacy Village found a shirtless man in a parking lot, wearing only shorts. The man could not recall his name and was reciting the alphabet.

When police spoke with the man, 25, of Bedford, he said he could not recall anything before talking to officers.

The man requested to be taken to the hospital for a psychiatric evaluation. Officers called a woman who they thought was his wife, but she told police she was his ex-wife and wanted nothing to do with the man.

Disturbance, Irene Road: At 5 p.m. Sept. 20, a woman reported that her ex-boyfriend was sitting in a parked car in front of her house. She feared the man might do something violent to her.

Police spoke with the Highland Heights man, 48, and sent him on his way.

Grand theft, Richmond Road: At 9:20 p.m. Sept. 19, a woman reported that she had returned home to find her SUV missing from the driveway.

Disturbance, Chickadee Lane: At 12:25 a.m. Sept. 19, a woman called 911 asking for her boyfriend to be removed from her home. The phone line then suddenly disconnected.

The woman soon called 911 again, apologizing for the first call and stating that everything was OK and that there was no need for police to come to her home. The woman said her boyfriend had left her house on foot.

Police found the man on the woman's patio. He said he had nowhere to go and no one to pick him up. The man was allowed to stay at the woman's house for the night, but in the home's basement.

If you would like to discuss the police blotter, please visit our crime and courts comments page.YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- Two men accused of killing their infant daughters denied the charges in court appearances on Tuesday in Mahoning County.

According to the Vindicator, Marc Flora, 29, of Campbell, is accused of stabbing his 1-year-old daughter to death on Aug. 18. He pleaded not guilty by way of insanity to two counts of aggravated murder and one count of murder.

Christian Sumpter, 24, of Austintown, is accused of killing his 4-month-old daughter on Sept. 3, WFMJ reports. He pleaded not guilty to one count of aggravated murder, two counts of murder and one count of endangering children.

WFMJ reports Flora called 911 on Aug. 18 and told dispatchers he was covered in blood and didn't know what happened. Police arrived and found his daughter, Jane Flora, had been stabbed in the neck.

Flora is being held in jail without a bond and is awaiting a competency hearing, reports say.

Rescuers were called to Sumpter's home after being told an infant had fallen and hit her head. The child died at Akron Children's Hospital.

Police were called after there were suspicions the child was dropped on purpose. The Summit County Medical Examiner ruled the child's death a homicide, reports say.

Sumpter is being held in the Mahoning County Jail.

To comment on this story, visit Tuesday's crime and courts comments page.CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish on Tuesday nominated two people to the governing board of Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority.

Justin Bibb is a senior consultant at Gallup and heads its Global Cities Practice. Terence Joyce is business manager of Building Laborers' Local 310.

Bibb is nominated to replace former East Cleveland Mayor Gary Norton. Joyce is nominated to replace Nick "Sonny" Nardi, president of Teamsters Local 416, who cited frustrations with management when he resigned last month.

If confirmed by County Council, Bibb and Joyce will join a board that has received heavy criticism in recent months because of two scandals involving the tax-supported agency.

Former board president George Dixon III has been accused of owing RTA about $1.1 million for health insurance premiums which he did not pay for, as well as personal use of an authority cellphone. He resigned at the board's request in March.

Former head of Human Resources, Bruce Hampton Sr., left in July after then-RTA CEO Joe Calabrese accused him of helping Dixon acquire the insurance. Calabrese authorized a $125,000 payout to Hampton. Board member Karen Moss criticized Calabrese's decision to move forward with the payout without informing the board.

County Coucil's Human Resources Committee, chaired by Councilwoman Shontel Brown, will vet the choices before the 11-member council votes on confirmations.

Of the 10-member RTA board, Cuyahoga County appoints three members, Cleveland appoints four, and suburban leaders appoint three.

If approved, Bibb and Joyce will serve on the board until their terms expire in March 2020. The third county appointment to the board is Moss, who has held that position since 2011.

Bibb's work at Gallup is aimed at advising local governments, foundations and public-private partnerships about smart cities, economic development and the delivery of government services. He received a law degree from Case Western Reserve University, and serves on the board for Destination Cleveland.

Joyce is a longtime union leader in the Cleveland area. In addition to his position with Building Laborers' Local 310, he serves as president of the Cleveland Building Trades Council.CLEVELAND, Ohio - The developer hired to convert the former downtown home of The Plain Dealer into a headquarters for Cleveland police says that the project was on track and was surprised to hear that the city was backing away.

In a letter to Mayor Frank Jackson, developer Fred Geis says his team has spent "thousands of hours" working with the city to resolve lease issues in the building and preparing drawings and permits for construction.

"It is for these reasons we were surprised to unexpectedly see a notice from the city canceling the project without any reasons detailed and within days of our planned closing," Geis wrote.

The administration didn't have an immediate reaction to Geis' letter when contacted Tuesday afternoon. Jackson's interim chief of staff, Sharon Dumas, could not be reached for comment. She was listed as receiving a copy of the letter.

The letter also was sent to City Council President Kevin Kelley and council members Mike Polensek and Matt Zone. Cleveland.com obtained the document through a public records request.

You can read the letter below. Mobile users can read it via this link.

On Monday, the Jackson administration made public a letter to Geis' company, GLP Superior Ltd., informing the company that it "no longer desires" to pursue purchase of the building at 1801 Superior Ave.

In an interview Tuesday morning with cleveland.com, Jackson wouldn't say specifically what prompted the decision, saying he wouldn't negotiate in public.

But the mayor confirmed the problems were not with the site itself.

"Sometimes you just can't make a deal," Jackson said. "It just doesn't work for us. ... I just can't give you the details."

Geis' letter also doesn't provide details.

Rather, he describes progress toward closing the project by Nov. 1 and having a new police headquarters ready for full occupancy by next July.

"GLP Superior plans to have formal agreements with the existing tenants [at 1801 Superior] by Oct. 24, 2018," Geis wrote. "Assuming the city and GLP close on Nov. 1, 2018, the police headquarters at 1801 Superior will be ready for full occupancy by July 29, 2019, while providing for a phased occupancy for the majority of the building during the course of the project."

Cleveland announced in June it intended to move its police department out of the Justice Center downtown and into the building on Superior, once GLP Superior LTD converted the space.

The site, more than 8 acres on Superior between East 18th and East 21st streets, formerly housed The Plain Dealer. Among the tenants now are the Council for Economic Opportunities of Greater Cleveland, the YMCA of Greater Cleveland and Advance Ohio/cleveland.com.

The project was a $60 million deal that included the purchase and alteration of the building. The package included $19.5 million to purchase the property from The Plain Dealer Publishing Co., with some negotiating still to come.

The site was selected from among two dozen proposals. The city's team praised the proposal for the office space that could be converted to a police headquarters relatively quickly, the presence of a parking garage to store vehicles and equipment and the available parking, both for officers and for the public.

In July, Cleveland City Council approved the project and the hiring of GLP Superior Ltd. to buy and renovate the property. The target for completing the move was next spring, police Chief Calvin Williams has said.

And while the timetable laid out by Geis in his letter doesn't hit that goal, it targets significant portions of the campus for occupancy before May 1.

"The police department's 100 percent occupancy to occur within approximately 270 days from closing and occupancy in 85 percent of the property within 180 days from closing," Geis wrote.

That includes:

The garage in which the city intended to store vehicles and equipment.

18,000 square feet in the building's first floor.

57,000 square feet on the second floor

25,000 square feet on the third floor.

"As of the beginning of September, we have had a fully negotiated contract with the city that is ready for execution, as well as fully engineered permit drawings submitted and approved by the city's building department," Geis said in his letter.

After the Jackson administration made public its letter to Geis on Monday, City Council President Kevin Kelley said his understanding was that problems cropped up related to the status of tenants in the 1801 Superior building.

But Geis, in his letter, said that GLP expected to have all issues with tenants settled within 30 days.

Follow me on Facebook.EUCLID, Ohio -- Euclid Mayor Kirsten Holzheimer Gail has fired a city police officer after he pulled out a gun during a fight with suspected members of the Hell's Angels motorcycle gang at a Willoughby bar last month.

Todd Gauntner, 32, was charged with using a weapon while under intoxication in an incident that happened in the early morning hours of Aug. 24 at Frank and Tony's Place on 2nd Street in Willoughby, Willoughby police said.

Gauntner and two other men -- Dustin Wolf, 28, and Bradley Peterson, 39 -- got into an argument that turned into a physical brawl police said.

Officers went to the bar about 1 a.m. to investigate a report of a large fight involving several men. A bartender told the investigators that someone pulled out a gun and put it to someone's head, according to a Willoughby police report. Gauntner did not use his department-issued gun in the incident, the report says.

"You initiated the incident with the two men who were alleged members of the Hell's Angels organization by making disparaging comments to them," Gail wrote in the one-page letter dated Sept. 17. "You also had the opportunity to remove yourself from the situation but failed to do so...You put yourself and many bar patrons at a significant risk of substantial harm due to your reckless behavior."

Gauntner violated rules unbecoming of an officer, neglect of duty, unsatisfactory performance and use of alcohol off duty, Gail said.

He was placed on administrative leave after the incident. Euclid police Chief Scott Meyer suspended him for 15 days on Sept. 10 for violating department rules. A day later Meyer recommended Gaunter's termination.

Gaunter and representatives from the Fraternal Order of Police met with Gail, Meyer and officials from the city's law department to discuss what occurred at the bar. Gail decided to fired Gaunter four days later. His termination was effective immediately, she wrote in the letter.

"Your actions have brought discredit to you as a member of the Euclid Police Department," Gail wrote in closing. "I no longer have confidence that you can perform successfully as a member of the Euclid Police Department."

Gauntner was a four-year veteran of the Euclid Police Department once honored for saving the life of a man shot 16 times, but Gauntner's negative attention dates back to 2016.

He also pleaded guilty to discharging a firearm in an incident that happened Thanksgiving at Sims Park in Euclid. A Euclid Municipal Court judge ordered him to pay a $235 fine and to attend counseling in that incident. Euclid police suspended him for 90 days as they conducted an internal investigation.

Gaunter pleaded not guilty to the charges filed after the bar, according to Willoughby Municipal Court records. His next scheduled court hearing is for Nov. 1, records said.

Wolf and Peterson are both charged with assault. They are scheduled to appear for a pre-trial hearing Thursday at 9:15 a.m. in Willoughby Municipal Court, records show.

To comment on this story, please visit our crime and courts comments page.CLEVELAND, Ohio - If the deal to move police headquarters to The Plain Dealer's former downtown offices collapses, City Council will ask what went wrong in public hearings, Council President Kevin Kelley said Wednesday.

Kelley, in an interview with cleveland.com, said members of council were surprised Monday to learn that the city had sent developer Fred Geis a letter backing out of the deal.

If the deal truly is dead, then City Council will want to know why before addressing what happens next, Kelley said. In addition, constituents have been asking what's going on.

"We really thought the administration did a good job with the site selection," Kelley said. "This was clearly the right choice as it was presented to us."

The project was a $60 million deal that included the purchase and alteration of the building at 1801 Superior Ave.. The package included $19.5 million to purchase the property from The Plain Dealer Publishing Co., with some negotiating still to come.

Hearings likely would be held by council's Safety Committee, which has oversight of police operations. Councilman Matt Zone, chair of that committee, was unavailable for comment.

The Finance Committee also would weigh in on any new legislation. Kelley chairs that committee.

Kelley said no hearings would take place until after the fate of the project is clear. Kelley, Mayor Frank Jackson and others still contend that site is best suited to become the new headquarters.

"If there are negotiations, I don't want to interfere or be a part of that in any way," Kelley said. "Council's role is to authorize the funds. We don't want to interfere with negotiations or be involved."

The city selected the site from about two dozen in and around downtown as part of its efforts to close its jail and move out of the Justice Center.

In July, City Council approved hiring GLP Superior Ltd., led by Geis, to acquire the property and convert it into a new police headquarters.

The administration and council members praised the site. It has office space that could quickly be converted to a police headquarters, a parking garage to store vehicles and equipment and parking that would benefit both officers and the public.

If the site does fall through, the city would start its search anew, Jackson said in an interview Tuesday. But that could wind up being much more expensive.

Among the other sites, the next most cost effective was the old Third District headquarters building at 2001 Payne Ave. That site, which would require modification and expansion, was proposed by two separate developers at projected costs of $80 million and $93.4 million.

Jackson noted Tuesday that the city might be able to lower those estimates, just as it was able to work with Geis to lower GLP's bid from $72 million to $60 million for the 1801 Superior site.

As part of the deal, GLP was required to negotiate departure terms with tenants leasing office space in the building. Among those tenants are the Council for Economic Opportunities of Greater Cleveland, the YMCA of Greater Cleveland and Advance Ohio/cleveland.com.

But on Monday, the Jackson administration made public a letter to Geis dated Sept. 18 that indicated the city was backing out of the deal. The letter was signed by Jackson's director of capital projects, Matthew Spronz.

"At this time the City of Cleveland no longer desires to pursue the purchase of 1801 Superior Avenue property for the Cleveland Division of Police Headquarters with GLP Superior LTD. Thank you for working with the city on this important project," Spronz wrote in the letter.

Jackson wouldn't say specifically Tuesday what prompted the city to send the letter.

Geis replied Monday with a letter of his own, saying the project was on track and nearly ready to close. The city's letter, he said, was a surprise.

"GLP Superior plans to have formal agreements with the existing tenants [at 1801 Superior] by Oct. 24, 2018," Geis wrote. "Assuming the city and GLP close on Nov. 1, 2018, the police headquarters at 1801 Superior will be ready for full occupancy by July 29, 2019."

The move from the Justice Center would culminate years of work by the city to get out of the jail business. In June 2017, City Council approved closing the jail and paying Cuyahoga County to handle the city's prisoners.

The deal allowed the city to sell the police headquarters building to the county for $9.25 million. The county will take title of the property Oct. 1. After that, the city can remain in its offices, but will pay the county a monthly rent of $10 a square foot.

Jackson has made clear he wants the city to avoid as much of the rental costs as possible.

That means some police units will have to move out of the Justice Center, regardless of where the police headquarters is relocated. Some offices will be in temporary quarters around the city.WASHINGTON, D. C. - Red "Make America Great Again" caps intermingled with blue "I Stand With Jim" caps outside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, as hundreds of Champaign County GOP Rep. Jim Jordan's hardcore fans descended on Capitol Hill for a rally to urge that he become the next Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

"Jim is a man who as Speaker will be a tireless champion for President Trump's agenda - the agenda that Republicans across our country campaigned on and won," Ohio Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor told a crowd waving signs with messages like "Drain the Swamp," and "Confirm Kavanaugh."

For two hours, Tea Party advocates and House Freedom Caucus members took to the stage in the sticky heat to praise President Donald Trump, urge U.S. Senate confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, and denounce Democrats as well as Republican politicians who failed to deliver on campaign promises like repealing Obamacare.

 Thank you @RepMattGaetz for coming out to today's #RallyForTheRepublic to talk w/ activists and support Congressman @Jim_Jordan's run for Speaker of the House. #SpeakerJordan #ampFW -- RT if you stand with Rep. Gaetz & Jordan! pic.twitter.com/isok70RI1h  FreedomWorks (@FreedomWorks) September 27, 2018

"Just because you have an R next to your name doesn't mean you are for cutting spending and giving power back to the people," said Young Americans for Liberty president Cliff Maloney, Jr.. "We have got to hold Republicans accountable."

Jordan himself took the the stage, pledging to "do what we told the American people we were going to do."

"If we keep the majority and I'm given a chance, we're going to work on making sure we build the border security wall, reforming welfare, replacing Obamacare, defunding Planned Parenthood," Jordan said. "That's what's at stake."

The president of the FreedomWorks organization that held the rally, Brecksville native Adam Brandon, said Jordan appeals to grassroots activists because his voting record matches up with his campaign rhetoric, in contrast to many other Republicans.

"Politics today is about authenticity more than it is money," Brandon said. "Now it's about your connection to the grassroots. "

He said that Republican activists were planning to visit their members of Congress to urge Jordan's selection as Speaker, and expressed faith that continuous pressure on Jordan's behalf will help overcome resistance to picking him.

Many Republicans view Jordan and the Freedom Caucus group he founded as obstructionists who block sensible compromises that have the potential to become law. Retiring House Speaker Paul Ryan has endorsed House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy of California for the job.

Just spoke at a rally on Capitol Hill voicing my support for @Jim_Jordan as Speaker of the House! pic.twitter.com/HNL1UloiFI  Louie Gohmert (@replouiegohmert) September 26, 2018

"Their constituents are not telling them 'We want McCarthy," said Brandon.

When asked Jordan's chances of becoming House Speaker, Niles Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan, who recently challenged Nancy Pelosi for the job of House Democratic Leader, said they're "hopefully, not very good."

Ryan says he hopes Democrats take control of Congress in the upcoming election. If Republicans retain control, Ryan said he doesn't think Jordan would have much appeal to Republicans beyond his Freedom Caucus base.

Columbus-area GOP Rep. Steve Stivers declined to answer when asked about Jordan's chances of becoming Speaker, and whether he'd back him.

"I don't know," Stivers said. "I don't talk about those votes in the press."CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A pair of new polls find that Ohio's governor's race is tight heading into the November election.

But the Senate race? Not so much.

The two Ohio surveys released Wednesday were conducted by two respected, national pollsters --Ipsos/Reuters and NBC News/Marist College. They have similar results, and also broadly mirror the results of other recent polls in Ohio.

"There is wide agreement that Sherrod Brown is well-positioned in the U.S. Senate race," said Kyle Kondik, a political analyst at the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, which was a partner in the Ipsos Reuters poll. "He likely will lead the Democratic statewide ticket and national Republicans seem to be focusing on other races at this point. The big question is, can Brown pull [Democratic governor nominee Richard Cordray] and other statewide Democrats over the finish line? My guess is that if the governor's race is very close, the other statewides must be fairly close as well."

Governor's race

The Ipsos poll found Republican Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine leads former Cordray, the former chief of the national Consumer Protection Financial Bureau, 45 percent to 44 percent, with 9 percent of respondents undecided. Both are running to replace Republican Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who is term-limited.

The Marist poll found DeWine and Cordray tied at 47 percent. When Green and Libertarian candidates were added in, the two front-runners were tied at 44 percent.

That makes the race a statistical toss-up, although Cordray has narrowly trailed in three other Ohio polls this month, too.

"That indicates the election really is going to come down to who's able to best motivate and mobilize their supporters," said Ipsos Vice President Chris Jackson.

Senate race

In the Ipsos poll, Sen. Brown, the incumbent, leads Republican Rep. Jim Renacci 50 percent to 39 percent. Another 11 percent were undecided/other, but when pressed to give an answer, 50 percent of those picked Brown.

In the Marist poll, Brown led Renacci 52 percent to 39 percent, with 7 percent undecided.

Notably, both polls were conducted in a period during which Renacci and his allies launched a publicity campaign to call attention to Brown's ugly 1986 divorce. Three other polls released this month likewise have found Brown holding a double-digit lead. (One, released on Sept. 6, found Brown leading by 4 points, although that seems to be an outlier.)

Trump / congressional races

In both polls, Republican President Donald Trump has a negative approval rating, and respondents generically favored Democrats in congressional races. Both numbers may offer insight into how Ohio's congressional races may turn out, although because of how districts are designed, and because of the peculiarities of each individual race, don't directly predict an outcome.

The Ipsos poll found 44 percent of Ohioans approved of the job he's doing, with a majority, 54 percent, disapproving. The Marist poll was similar on Trump, with 44 percent approving and 51 percent disapproving.

Meanwhile, 46 percent of respondents to the Ipsos poll said they'd vote for the Democratic congressional candidate in their district, while 42 percent said Republican.

The Marist poll framed the question differently, asking respondents if they'd prefer a Congress controlled by Republicans or Democrats. But the results were similar, with 49 percent saying they preferred a Democratic controlled congress versus 43 percent who said Republican.

Of Ohio's 16 congressional races, the race for Ohio's 1st (Southwest Ohio) and 12th (Central Ohio) congressional districts -- both held by Republicans -- are viewed as potential toss-ups. Other Republican-held seats are viewed as being in reach for Democrats only if the electorate veers more sharply into "blue wave" territory.

Other results in the Ipsos poll suggest that Democratic voters are slightly more engaged in Ohio than Republicans, but not by the same margins as some other states, Jackson said. This cuts against the narrative of a "blue wave."

Issues

In the Ipsos poll, voters identified health care (16 percent), the economy (16 percent) and immigration (12 percent) as the most important issues that would determine their vote.

In the Marist poll, voters likewise identified jobs and the economy (23 percent) health care (21 percent) and immigration (11 percent) as the three most important issues.

Both results are in line with other recent Ohio polls, as well as search data compiled by Google and shared with cleveland.com.

Jackson said health care is an issue that tends to favor Democrats, while immigration tends to favor Republicans. The economy, he said, is more mixed.

"I think you're going to see a lot of messaging and ads on either side of those issues," Jackson said. "The big thing to watch for is who's going to pull ahead, based on how well that messaging is connecting with voters."

More on the statewide candidates

In the Ipsos poll, voters were asked whether they viewed each of the four statewide candidates as a "traditional politician." DeWine (78 percent) and Brown (70 percent) got the highest results. Both have been fixtures of Ohio politics since the late 1970s.

Cordray (59 percent) and Renacci (52 percent) got lower scores, although this seems to correspond more than anything with increased numbers of voters saying they didn't know.

The Marist poll asked for opinions about each of the major four statewide candidates.

Brown was the most popular, with 45 percent saying they had a favorable opinion of him, versus 29 percent who said unfavorable.

Second was DeWine, with 42 percent saying they viewed him favorably versus 34 percent unfavorable.

Third was Cordray, with a 39 percent 26 percent favorable/unfavorable rating.

And last was Renacci, of whom 29 percent said they'd viewed him favorably versus 26 unfavorably.

Renacci also was the least known candidate, with 45 percent saying they were unsure or had never heard of him. Renacci notably is the only one of the four candidates who has not yet bought TV ads during the current general election campaign.

More about the polls

The Ipsos poll was conducted from Sept. 13 to Sept. 20, questioning 1,074 likely voters with a confidence interval of plus or minus 3.4 percent. Participants took online surveys, with results weighted to reflect 2016 census numbers in Ohio. Jackson said his firm also overweighted rural respondents, since online surveys tend to attract higher numbers of urban and suburban residents. The results were not cross-referenced to match respondents up with the individual voter identities many research firms have developed using a mix of social media profiles, voting records, political campaign records and other information.

Ipsos got a B+ for accuracy from FiveThirtyEight.com, the polling website's highest rating for online political polling firms. Traditional polling -- live callers calling a mix of land-lines and cell phones, is viewed as more accurate, but also is considerably more expensive.

Ipsos also released polls Wednesday for nearby Indiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. To varying degrees, they found Democrats leading in the Senate and governor's races in those states as well.

The NBC/Marist poll was conducted from Sept. 16 to Sept. 20, with 564 likely voters giving interviews after being contacted via a mix of cell phones and land lines. The margin of error for likely voters is plus or minus 5 percent. Results were weighted using 2016 census data.

Marist has an A rating from FiveThirtyEight.com.John P. O'Donnell

In his long and distinguished career, Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge John P. O'Donnell has demonstrated integrity, fidelity to the law and the calm, respectful, thoughtful demeanor required of a judge -- qualities that cannot be attributed to all who serve on Cuyahoga County's general division bench.

Twice nominated by the state's Democrats as their candidate for the Ohio Supreme Court, O'Donnell, 53, now seeks his third consecutive six-year term as a Common Pleas judge.

He is without question the superior candidate in this race. Voters should re-elect him.

This is the first time O'Donnell has been on the local ballot for re-election as a Common Pleas judge since his controversial 2015 verdict finding Cleveland Police Officer Michael Brelo not guilty of manslaughter or felonious assault in the 2012 deaths of Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams. The pair died in a barrage of bullets fired by Cleveland police officers, including Brelo, after a high-speed chase.

O'Donnell ruled he could not determine it was Brelo who fired the fatal shots and determined the officer believed his life was in danger and was returning fire even though no gun was found in the car and an investigation found that only police fired in the fatal fusillade. O'Donnell has steadfastly defended the verdict as based solely on the law and his evaluation of the evidence.

O'Donnell is being challenged by Republican Lon'Cherie' D. Billingsley, 34, an assistant Cuyahoga County prosecutor who received her license to practice law in November 2012, making her barely eligible per a state-required minimum six years' legal experience to be elected judge.

But Billingsley does not meet what should be the voters' basic expectations.

She was transferred within the prosecutor's office last year and served a two-day suspension for what Cuyahoga County First Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Lisa R. Williamson called conduct that "continuously illustrates neglect of duty and failure of good behavior."

Among other actions cited were Billingsley's apparent attempted intervention last year in a Geauga County case involving her stepfather and an October 2015 criminal contempt holding against her by Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge David T. Matia "for knowingly making a false statement in open court." In that case, Matia fined her $250 and ordered her to write a letter of apology to two victims in an aggravated robbery and aggravated burglary case. (The contempt citation was later dismissed.)

Billingsley denies she did anything wrong in contacting the Geauga County prosecutor and says she wasn't given a proper chance in her disciplinary case to see the evidence against her or defend her actions. She also asserts that she wasn't demoted and that she welcomes the added experience of working on child support enforcement instead of in the prosecutor's general felony division.

Possibly Billingsley -- a product of the Cleveland schools who cites her "real-life experiences" as an asset, including time in Costa Rica and Mexico as an English teacher (she calls herself as an immigrant because of that time abroad) -- hopes to profit from the Brelo case.

Voters shouldn't be buying.

John P. O'Donnell is the clear choice in this contest.

Editor's note: This editorial was updated Nov. 1 to note that the contempt citation against Lon'Cherie' D. Billingsley was later dismissed.

Early in-person and absentee voting for the Nov. 6 election begins Oct. 10. For more resources on Cuyahoga County judicial races, consult the Judge4Yourself ratings by four local bar associations, Judicial Votes Count at the University of Akron and the League of Women Voters' voters' guide.

Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge John P. O'Donnell, a Democrat, is being challenged for re-election by Republican Lon'Cherie' D. Billingsley, an assistant county prosecutor. The two candidates were interviewed by the editorial board of cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer as part of its endorsement process on Aug. 22, 2018. Listen to full audio of the interview below:

About our editorials: Editorials express the view of the editorial board of cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer -- the senior leadership and editorial-writing staff. As is traditional, editorials are unsigned and intended to be seen as the voice of the news organization.

Have something to say about this topic?

* Send a letter to the editor, which will be considered for print publication.

* Email general questions about our editorial board or comments on this editorial to Elizabeth Sullivan, director of opinion, at esullivan@cleveland.com.

* Use the comments to share your thoughts. Then, stay informed when readers reply to your comments by using the "Follow" option at the top of the comments, & look for updates via the small blue bell in the lower right as you look at more stories on cleveland.com.PARMA, Ohio -- Drug abuse, Snow Road: During a Sept. 18 traffic stop, police discovered that a Cleveland man was in possession of a stolen vehicle and felony drugs.

He was arrested for receiving stolen property and drug abuse.

Drug abuse, Bradley Avenue: On Sept. 21, police were dispatched to a Bradley Avenue residence regarding a disturbance. An arriving officer located the Parma man causing the disturbance.

It turned out that he was in possession of felony drugs. The resident was arrested for drug abuse.

Drug abuse, State Road: During a Sept. 19 traffic stop on State Road, police discovered that a Cleveland driver and a Brooklyn resident were both in possession of suspected felony drugs.

They were each arrested for drug abuse.

Burglary, State Road: On Sept. 19, police were dispatched to the Holy Family Cancer Home on State Road. An arriving officer talked to a tenant, who said that someone had removed property from his apartment.

There are no suspects. Police are investigating.

Fraud, Hearthstone Road: On Sept. 19, police were dispatched to Hearthstone Road after a resident discovered that someone had removed and cashed a check.

Police are investigating.

Burglary, Nathan Drive: On Sept. 19, police were dispatched to a Nathan Drive home after a resident discovered that property had been removed from her home.

There are no suspects. Police are investigating.

Fraud, West Pleasant Valley Road: On Sept. 18, a Cleveland woman called the Parma police after her debit card was fraudulently used at the Acme grocery store on West Pleasant Valley Road.

There are no suspects. Police are investigating.

Stolen car, Brookpark Road: On Sept. 17, a National Car Mart employee called police after discovering that someone had stolen a vehicle from the lot.

There are no suspects. Police are investigating.

Theft, West Ridgewood Drive: On Sept. 17, police were dispatched to the Shoppes at Parma after Kay Jewelers employees discovered that a man had stolen merchandise.

Police are investigating.

If you would like to discuss the police blotter, please visit our crime and courts comments page.SOLON, Ohio -- While tax abatements are a big part of the construction of the new Swagelok global headquarters in town, the Solon City School District still stands to gain over $4.45 million from the deal over the next 15 years.

It's part of a revenue sharing agreement reached by the schools, the city and Swagelok and approved by the Board of Education Monday night -- including a $1 million "donation" from the local industrial mainstay.

The original agreement calls for the designation of the company-owned property at 29500 Solon Road as a Community Reinvestment Area (CRA).

This will allow tax abatement to fund the construction of the $30 million to $50 million Swagelok Global Headquarters and Innovation Center, with construction expected to get under way next year. Completion is expected by the end of 2020.

Through the city's Enterprise Zone Committee, the school district has agreed to an abatement that amounts to 47 percent of what would have been paid in property taxes without the CRA being created.

On Monday (Sept. 25), the school board signed off on a roughly $4.45 million, 15-year agreement -- averaging close to $300,000 a year.

The deal consists of over $3.45 million from city income tax collections, along with the $1 million donation from Swagelok, to be paid over the first four years in $250,000 annual installments.

On Monday's agenda, Solon City Schools Superintendent Joe Regano and district Treasurer Tim Pickana advised the school board that they felt the revenue sharing agreement was in the best interest of the city and the schools.

"To be clear, the board's decision was not about whether the district would accept a reduced amount in real estate taxes or try to retain the full amount," the official statement read.

School district officials went on to laud Swagelok for its presence in the city, where it has been headquartered since 1965.

"Instead, the decision is about how much the school board could abate and what the continued presence of Swagelok means to the community vs. its leaving," the packet to Solon school board members pointed out.

Back in May, the company issued a request for proposals to any cities interested in becoming the new home to its corporate headquarters.

This led Solon to put together an incentive package that includes a 10-year Job Creation Grant, along with a $3 million infrastructure upgrade, as well as the CRA.

Swagelok currently has 3,172 full-time permanent employees in Solon, with plans to bring at least 400 more -- along with $87 million in additional payroll -- to the city over the next 10 years.

"The Solon schools and the city have worked cooperatively for many years to provide a unified public partnering in these types of decisions," Regano stated in a press release issued Tuesday after the vote.

This includes a long collaborative history through the city's Enterprise Zone Committee, on which Solon school board President Julie Glavin and Vice President John Heckman currently serve.

"Many communities do not involve the schools in the negotiation process for these types of important abatement programs," Regano added. "Significant expansion and development projects such as this cannot happen without support from the public sector."

Specializing in fluid system products, assemblies and services for the oil and gas, chemical, transportation and power industries, the $2 billion privately held Swagelok operates 200 sales and service centers in 70 countries.

"Swagelok has been a great corporate citizen," Regano said. "Keeping them and this important project in the city will benefit the entire community."CLEVELAND, Ohio - Cleveland Hopkins International Airport experienced its busiest summer in nearly a decade, welcoming 2.72 million travelers during the months of June, July and August this year.

That's the most for the same high-volume, three-month period since 2009, when 2.78 million passengers traveled through the airport, and when Continental Airlines still operated a hub in Cleveland.

This year's summer figures are 2.7 percent above last year's, and 15.8 percent over 2016, when the Republican National Convention brought 50,000 visitors to town.

"While we know this is a busy travel season, these numbers have surpassed our expectations," said Airport Director Robert Kennedy. "CLE has become a preferred airport of choice for this region and we are excited and continue the work to provide CLE guests with an easy, stress-free and enjoyable travel experience."

Among some of the reasons for the increase in traffic: New flights to Reykjavik, Iceland, on two airlines, Icelandair and Wow Air, both of which started flying from Cleveland in May; plus Delta Air Line's new route to Salt Lake City, which began in early July.

The airport is on pace to welcome 9.6 million passengers this year, the highest number since 2009, when 9.7 million passengers traveled through Cleveland Hopkins.In 2012, Google agreed to pay a then record $22.5 million civil penalty to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it misrepresented to Apple Safari Internet browser users that it would not place tracking "cookies" or serve them targeted ads.

Google's written testimony did not identify specific prior mistakes but the company has come under fire for privacy issues.

"We acknowledge that we have made mistakes in the past, from which we have learned, and improved our robust privacy program," Google chief privacy officer Keith Enright will say in written testimony before the Senate Commerce Committee. Google will testify alongside AT&T , Amazon , Apple and other companies amid growing concerns about data privacy.

Leading internet search engine Google will acknowledge that it has made "mistakes" on privacy issues in testimony an executive of the Alphabet unit will deliver to a U.S. Senate committee on Wednesday, according to a document reviewed by Reuters.

A year earlier, Google agreed to an FTC privacy settlement and regular privacy audits for 20 years after the government charged it used deceptive tactics and violating consumer privacy promises when it launched its social network, Google Buzz.

In August, Alphabet was sued and accused of illegally tracking movements of millions of iPhone and Android phone users even when they use a privacy setting to prevent it.

The U.S. Commerce Department said it was seeking comments on how to set nationwide data privacy rules in the wake of tough new requirements adopted by the European Union and California.

Also, the Justice Department said it held a "listening session" with state attorneys general on how the government can safeguard consumers online.

Senate Commerce committee chairman John Thune wrote that Congress must work on enshrining consumer data privacy protections into law.

Congress has questions about how internet companies sell advertising and use data from email accounts or other services. Thune wrote in The Hill newspaper that "mounting controversies" have fed doubt that tech companies can "regulate themselves and enforce real privacy safeguards for the collection and use of our digital data."

Massive breaches of data privacy have compromised personal information of millions of U.S. internet and social media users, including notable breaches at large retailers and credit reporting agency Equifax.

Enright's testimony says "with advertising, as with all our products, users trust us to keep their personal information confidential and under their control. We do not sell personal information. Period."

Andrew DeVore, an Amazon vice president, will tell the committee that new European privacy rules "required us to divert significant resources to administrative and record-keeping tasks and away from inventing new features for customers."

Twitter data protection officer Damien Kieran will urge development of "a robust privacy framework that protects individuals' rights ... while preserving the freedom to innovate."

The Commerce Department's National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) this summer held more than 50 meetings with tech companies, internet providers, privacy advocates and others, hoping to develop a national standard.

The Internet Association, which represents more than 40 internet and technology companies, said this month it backed modernizing data privacy rules with a national approach that would pre-empt California data privacy regulations taking effect in 2020.

California Governor Jerry Brown signed the legislation aimed at giving consumers more control over how companies collect and manage their personal information. New rules in Europe are even more stringent.

The European Union General Data Protection Regulation took effect in May. Breaking privacy laws can now result in fines of up to 4 percent of global revenue or 20 million euros ($23.2 million), whichever is higher, as opposed to a few hundred thousand euros.Nike shares fell in extended trading Tuesday after a double-digit earnings beat and news that the company had a 15 percent increase in profit.

The reason is simple, according to Jan Kniffen, CEO of J. Rogers Kniffen WWE and a CNBC contributor. The stock "has had a big run-up." Kniffen's been positive on Nike for a year now, but he believes the move up in the name may be over.

Going forward, investors will need to watch out, warns Stacey Widlitz, president of SW Retail Advisors, because competitor Adidas will be releasing new, more exciting products. Still, she adds, if you're a long-term buyer in this space, "Nike is the one to own."

Guy Adami, a CNBC "Fast Money" trader agrees, saying the numbers indicate margins will be good next quarter. For that reason, he believes investors should buy this sell-off.

Nike shares were down more than 3 percent in after-hours trading Tuesday.Salesforce's partnership with Apple may be new, but Marc Benioff has felt connected to the iPhone maker for decades, the Salesforce chief told CNBC on Tuesday.

Having worked at Apple in the 1980s as a programmer, "I have Apple in my veins," Benioff told "Mad Money" host in an exclusive interview at Dreamforce, Salesforce's annual networking confab held in San Francisco.

"I'll tell you right now that it's so important to us to have this amazing new relationship with Apple and [CEO] Tim Cook, the ability to bring together Apple developers, Apple customers, our developers, our customers, and to show incredible new ways that you can connect with your customer," Benioff said.

With the partnership, Salesforce will enable its mobile apps with Siri, Apple's voice assistant. In exchange, the customer relations giant will help build out its clients' mobile apps with specialized features for Apple devices.

Leveraging the power of Apple's mobile devices, voice-enabled communication and Salesforce's artificial intelligence platform, Einstein, the partnership will help "enhance [the] customer experience" at companies like Marriott, a Salesforce customer.

In the Tuesday interview, Benioff demonstrated how a Marriott hotel guest might use the new features, which include being able to ask Siri to adjust a hotel room's lightning and temperature.

"I don't think that anybody can walk away from Apple products," Benioff said, noting that every business is aware of the power the iPhone wields. "It's the No. 1 mobile device in the world and the innovation that they're laying out is incredible."

"Of course, we have many amazing strategic alliances and strategic partners, but I am thrilled to welcome Apple to our family and all these Dreamforce attendees are thrilled to learn how to connect these amazing Apple mobile devices right onto our customer success platform," he continued.

Still, Benioff maintained that he loves "all of our children" in reference to Salesforce's high-profile partners, including e-commerce colossus Amazon.

"We're going to get to Google, too, I'm sure," he quipped.

"But today, we have an amazing new relationship with Amazon. We're taking our relationship with Amazon Web Services to a new level. That whole community of developers is here. Those are the AWS developers, they call them. They're doing incredible things on the cloud. We're cloud brothers, Amazon and Salesforce. And we're going to just show how you can use AWS in a new way."

Salesforce's stock hit a new 52-week high Tuesday, settling up 0.06 percent at $158.87 a share. Shares of Apple rose slightly, closing at $222.19.Soon-Shiong, also chairman and CEO of biotech firm NantKwest , was responding to a question about the state of media and its relationship to social networks.

"The short attention span we're creating in this millennium is actually very dangerous," said Soon-Shiong, the new owner of the Los Angeles Times. "It's the unintended consequences of social media."

Billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong on Wednesday advocated for a change in how people consume news on social media, calling misinformation and how it's spread the "cancer of our time."

Platforms such as Facebook's News Feed have revolutionized how people consume media and how news organizations deliver content. But they have also been criticized for spreading so-called fake news and misinformation.

Soon-Shiong, a former surgeon, told "Squawk Alley" that fake news is the "cancer of our time and social media is a form of metastasis of news. We need to change that."

He said people cannot differentiate from "fake news," "real news" or "opinion news" on Facebook.

Soon-Shiong took control of the LA Times for $500 million in June. He joins the ranks of billionaires Marc Benioff and Jeff Bezos, who have also purchased media companies.

Benioff just bought Time magazine for $190 million in cash from Meredith Corp. Bezos owns The Washington Post.

CORRECTION: This story has been revised to clarify that Soon-Shiong was referring to fake news on social media as the "cancer of our time."

WATCH: The man who "invented" the #hashtag and how it changed social mediaU.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's second accuser, Deborah Ramirez, would be willing to testify publicly about his sexual misconduct in college, Ramirez's lawyer John Clune said Wednesday.

"She wanted to make sure that her recollection of what happened and what information she was going to put forth in The New Yorker was accurate," Clune said in an interview on NBC's "TODAY" when asked about the six days his client took to assess her memories.

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The New Yorker reported on Sunday that Ramirez said Kavanaugh exposed himself to her when they were at students at Yale University in the 1980s. The magazine said she claimed that "he exposed himself at a drunken dormitory party, thrust his penis in her face, and caused her to touch it without her consent as she pushed him away."

Kavanaugh vehemently denies all allegations of sexual misconduct.

The allegations by Ramirez, now an advocate for needy families and domestic violence survivors in Colorado, has thrust her to the center of the battle over the shape of the Supreme Court.

Friends said Ramirez rarely talked about her college days and lived a private life in the Rocky Mountains foothills, but colleagues said they sensed something in her past had drawn her to devote her life to supporting women in trouble.

"I definitely had known she went to Yale and I knew that it wasn't always an easy experience for her," Angela Hardin, who became close friends with Ramirez as they trained women's crisis volunteers a decade ago, told The Associated Press. "Debbie would talk about feeling various levels of discrimination."

Still, friends and colleagues said it came as a surprise when Ramirez decided to go public with allegations.

The New Yorker magazine has reported that when it first contacted her, Ramirez was "hesitant to speak publicly, partly because her memories contained gaps because she had been drinking at the time of the alleged incident." After six days of going over her memories and talking with an attorney, the magazine reported, Ramirez "said that she felt confident enough of her recollections" to name Kavanaugh as the student who had exposed himself to her at the party.

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump showered Kavanaugh with praise before world leaders, and said Ramirez's allegations were part of a "con game" engineered by the Democratic Party.

"She says it may not be him and there are gaps. And she was totally inebriated and all messed up, and she doesn't know. It might have been him, or it might not have been him. Gee, let's not make him a Supreme Court judge," Trump said on the same day he addressed the U.N. General Assembly.

Kavanaugh is set to testify Thursday at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing along with Christine Blasey Ford, a California professor who has accused him of sexually assaulting her when they were teenagers during an early 1980s high school party.

Ramirez's attorney tweeted Tuesday that his client wants to give a sworn statement to the FBI.

"Ms. Ramirez is ready to swear to the FBI under penalty of perjury," Clune tweeted. "Why won't the Senate Judiciary Committee welcome that?"

Clune did not respond to a request from The Associated Press for an interview with Ramirez.

Hardin, who spoke with Ramirez on Sunday night, said her friend reluctantly decided to tell her story so that her own words would be shared, rather than having them filter out through others.

"The fact that she brought her story forward tells me that she had to have gone through a lot of introspection," said Lisa Calderon, Ramirez's former supervisor at a Boulder nonprofit that assists survivors of domestic violence.

Ramirez, who grew up in Connecticut, attended a co-ed Roman Catholic high school in Trumbull and graduated from nearby Yale in New Haven with a degree in sociology in 1987.

Classmates described Ramirez, 53, as friendly, well-liked and quiet. Some of her closest friends were athletes, and she made extra cash by working in the dining hall at her residential college, serving food and washing dishes, classmates said.

She spent her spring break in 1985 with a large group of students in the Bahamas, where they searched for the cheapest drinks, lounged on the beach and tried their luck at the casino, according to a Yale Daily News article from the time.

Ramirez also saw herself as an outsider as a woman of Puerto Rican descent who didn't come from the wealth and privilege of many of her classmates, said James Roche, a close friend who was also Kavanaugh's freshman-year roommate.

Roche said he didn't interact much with Kavanaugh. He said Kavanaugh was typically reserved but was a "notably heavy drinker" who "became aggressive and belligerent when he was very drunk."

"Based on my time with Debbie, I believe her to be unusually honest and straightforward and I cannot imagine her making this up," Roche said in a statement. "Based on my time with Brett, I believe that he and his social circle were capable of the actions that Debbie described."

Ramirez's sister, who was a year behind her at Yale, said in a Facebook message that she's proud of her sister.

"This is not easy for anyone, but Deb has been tremendously brave and her honesty is above reproach," Denise Ramirez said.

After moving to Boulder, Ramirez joined a local running club, where she met a group of friends who got together for weekly after-work runs and ski trips to Vail.

Ramirez started volunteering at the Safehouse Progressive Alliance for Nonviolence and soon was brought on staff by Calderon, who described her as a talented, humble employee who wanted to be among the people she served.

She now works as a senior volunteer coordinator in Boulder County's housing agency, but she has stayed connected to Safehouse as a member of its board.

Hardin said that when she reached Ramirez on Sunday to offer her support, Ramirez told her she felt a sense of freedom in having finally come forward with her memories of what happened decades ago in that college dorm.

"She had fears about coming forward because she had been under the influence at the time," Hardin said. "She said that as painful as it was, it also felt freeing to not hold onto this anymore and to be able to talk about it, not having shared any of this with more than a few people in her life until now."

 The Associated Press and CNBC's Jacob Parmuk contributed to this report.Democrat Phil Bredesen, a popular moderate running for U.S. Senate in Tennessee, says he would not back New York's Chuck Schumer to lead the party in the chamber.

The pledge is the former governor's largest break from the national Democratic Party as he tries to flip a seat in a solidly Republican state. Bredesen has tried to build an independent brand during his campaign. He made the claim Tuesday during opening remarks at his first debate with Republican candidate Rep. Marsha Blackburn.

Bredesen said Washington has become "hyperpartisan" and needs fresh leadership, whether it's on the Democratic or Republican side of the aisle.

"We need to get new leadership. I can tell you right now that if I'm elected, and when I'm elected and go to Washington, I am not going to be voting for Chuck Schumer," Bredesen said of the Senate's top Democrat.

Bredesen joins other Democratic Senate candidates trying to flip GOP-held seats who have vowed to vote against the minority leader. Rep. Beto O'Rourke, who is trying to defeat Sen. Ted Cruz in Texas, said in July that he would not support Schumer. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona also pledged to vote against the minority leader during her Senate race against Republican Martha McSally, as they vie to replace retiring GOP Sen. Jeff Flake.

Numerous Democratic candidates in competitive House races have also declined to support Nancy Pelosi for speaker if the party takes back the majority in the chamber, a scenario that's widely considered more like than Democrats swinging the Senate.

Early polls show Bredesen running close against Blackburn, but he will need healthy support from independents and Republicans to win in November. He is running to replace the retiring Sen. Bob Corker, a Republican who occasionally criticizes President Donald Trump. Corker has said he would not campaign against Bredesen, whom he considers a friend.

A Republican victory in Tennessee would cut off Democrats' path to a Senate majority unless they carry nearly all other competitive races on the map. The GOP currently holds a 51-49 majority and is targeting several Democratic incumbents running in red states.

A Bredesen win would mark a big reversal of fortune for the Democratic Party in Tennessee. No Democrat has won a statewide race in Tennessee since his successful re-election bid in the 2006 gubernatorial race, and the state has turned more Republican since then.

Bredesen has played down his party's chances of winning the Senate majority in the fall to potentially convince voters that his win would not hand power to national Democrats. He has also walked a careful line on Trump, who defeated Hillary Clinton by 26 percentage points in the state, by emphasizing that he is not running against the president.

Blackburn, his Republican rival and a stout Trump ally, dismissed Bredesen's vow to oppose Schumer.

"We know he will vote with Chuck Schumer because his vote is already bought and paid for, his campaign is bought and paid for by Chuck Schumer," Blackburn said. "I do think we all know that Phil had a choice. He could have run as a Republican or independent. Probably didn't want to do that. He's running as a Democrat so he will be with Chuck Schumer if he were to go to Washington."

A Schumer spokesman declined to comment.

WATCH: Think Medicare is unaffected by the Senate health-care bill? Think againChegg plunged more than 12 percent Wednesday after disclosing a data breach that could affect customers' user information.

In a filing with the SEC Tuesday, the online textbook rental and tutorial company said that, in late April, an unauthorized party gained access to a company database hosting user data  including names, emails, shipping addresses and passwords. Chegg said user data for its family of brands, including EasyBib, could also have been impacted.

The company said that it first learned of the breach on Sept. 19 and, today, plans to start notifying approximately 40 million registered users and regulatory authorities about the incident.

"Chegg takes the security of its users' information seriously and will be initiating a password reset process for all user accounts," the ed tech company said in the SEC filing.

Chegg added that no social security numbers or financial information, such as users' credit card numbers or bank account information, were obtained in the incident.

The company's stock posted its worst day of trading since February 2016.

Chegg, though, said that it does not expect the security incident to have a material impact on financial results going forward this year. The company said the investigation is ongoing but reaffirmed its previous guidance for the third quarter.

This is the latest in a series of customer data breaches in recent months. In March, Under Armour informed users of its online fitness and nutrition application, MyFitnessPal, that their data had been compromised in a breach affecting an estimated 150 million people. In May, Hudson's Bay Co said that data from card payments in some of its Saks and Lord & Taylor stores in North America had been compromised. And, earlier this month, British Airways said that it was investigating a customer data breach on its website and mobile app in which around 380,000 card payments were compromised.

Despite Wednesday's declines, Chegg's stock has still jumped more than 70 percent since the start of the year. Heading into September, Chegg had posted gains in 16 of the previous 19 months.

The company reports third-quarter earnings on Nov. 5.American farmers are supportive of President Donald Trump, despite feeling the pain from the escalating tariffs between the U.S. and China, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue told CNBC on Wednesday.

"They understand what the president's goal is. They've been amazingly supportive through this period of time, even under financial duress," he said on "Closing Bell."

When asked how long the pain was expected to last, he replied, "It's like a drought. We don't know. We hope it rains soon."

Trump's latest round of tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese imported goods went into effect on Monday. Beijing retaliated by slapping duties on about $60 billion worth of U.S. imports.

In an effort to help farmers who have been harmed by the retaliatory tariffs, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has authorized up to $12 billion in aid.

Perdue said checks have already started being cut as part of the $4.7 billion in relief for agricultural producers of seven commodities. Soybean producers have been particularly hard hit.

"It's going to be based on actual production so they have to come in and indicate and register their production and it's based on the amount per bushel," he said.

Nearly $20 billion in U.S. agricultural exports went to China last year.

Perdue is hoping a "domino effect" will resolve the issue.

Now that there appears to be a U.S. deal with Mexico, expected to be released on Friday, hopefully Canada will join into it soon, he said. Then there can be talks with the European Union and Japan, he added.

"Hopefully China will see that we will not be intimated into breaking on this and they need to reform their way of doing business," Perdue said.

Earlier this week, China published a 71-page paper accusing the Trump administration of "trade bullyism practices" that have become "the greatest source of uncertainty and risk for the recovery of the global economy."

 CNBC's Jeff Daniels and Yen Nee Lee contributed to this report.Fox said Wednesday it will sell the remainder of its stake in U.K.-based satellite TV broadcaster Sky to Comcast.

The announcement came four days after the U.S. cable giant won majority ownership of Sky in an auction against Fox.

Comcast and Fox had been embroiled in a bidding war for Sky, which is viewed as a coveted international asset in the pay-TV industry. Fox sold most of its other assets in December to Disney for $52 billion. Comcast has anticipated that Fox, working in concert with Disney, would eventually tender its stake, sources familiar with the matter told CNBC this week.

With Comcast having offered $40 billion for a majority stake in Sky, Disney consented to 21st Century Fox tendering its 39 percent stake in Sky to the cable company, which owns CNBC parent NBCUniversal. At current exchange rates, the 17.28 pound offer translates into $22.75 per share, valuing the deal for the remainder at over $15 billion.

"The transaction, coupled with the divestiture of the Fox Sports Regional Networks, will significantly reduce the amount of debt Disney will incur in acquiring 21st Century Fox, and enable Disney to maintain its strong balance sheet as it continues to invest in content creation for its direct-to-consumer platforms," Disney said in a statement.

Disney could have gained control over Sky had Fox prevailed at Saturday's auction.

The proceeds from 21st Century's Sky stake will go to Disney, helping to alleviate the cost of its $71.3 billion acquisition of a variety of Fox assets. These include Fox's film and TV studio, several cable stations, a stake in Hulu, Star India and other assets.

Meanwhile, Comcast plans to allow Sky to operate independently for the time being, according to a person familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named because discussions are private.

"With 21CF announcing its intention to sell its shares to Comcast we close one chapter while simultaneously opening another," said Jeremy Darroch, Sky Group's CEO in a statement. "Our aim is to make the next 30 years as exciting for customers, colleagues and all our stakeholders."

The British broadcaster has recommended to its shareholders that they accept Comcast's offer immediately. However, the deal won't be confirmed until Sky shareholders formally accept it.

--CNBC's Alex Sherman, Anjali Robins and Graham Smith contributed to this article.Google CEO Sundar Pichai takes the stage during the presentation of new Google hardware in San Francisco on Oct. 4, 2016.

Google is making changes to its popular Chrome browser in response to criticism from privacy advocates.

The company came under fire earlier this week because of a recent Chrome update that automatically signs users into the browser if they use any other Google services. Previously, it was possible to use Chrome to sign in to a service like Gmail without actually logging into the browser itself.

Google said that it made this change because users who shared devices might otherwise think that they had signed out of Chrome when they actually had not, thus potentially "leaking" data, like passwords stored in the browser, across accounts.

However, critics said that the update was executed poorly (in part because it initially logged users into Chrome without their consent), could confuse people into unwittingly sharing more data with Google than they meant to, and made Chrome a less neutral platform to surf the web.

Cryptographer and Johns Hopkins Information Security Institute assistant professor Matthew Green highlighted all of these issues on his Twitter account and then in a blog post titled "Why I'm Done with Chrome," which gained widespread attention on Monday.

Google addressed some of these concerns in a blog post late Tuesday titled "Product updates based on your feedback." In the next iteration of Chrome it will tweak how the sign-in process works so that it will once again be possible to log into a Google service without logging into the browser. Users can disable the automatic sign-in in their privacy and security settings:When it comes to trade, President Donald Trump should make his priority dealing with China, Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, told CNBC on Wednesday.

The text of a trade deal between the U.S. and Mexico is expected to be released as early as Friday, two sources have told CNBC. That text will allow Canada to join the agreement at a later date, one source said.

While Hensarling is "heartened" by the handshake deal, he said he believes it is important that Canada be a part of it.

"I must admit, also, having returned from China within the last few weeks, that's where our problem is. They're the serial violator of the WTO. They're still taking our technology, our intellectual property by hook and crook," the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee said on "Power Lunch."

"And I've encouraged the administration, 'Let us focus our resources first in dealing with China. That's the most important thing to do,'" he added.

Trump's latest round of tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese imported goods went into effect Monday. Beijing retaliated by slapping duties on about $60 billion worth of U.S. imports.

Earlier this week, China published a 71-page paper accusing the Trump administration of "trade bullyism practices" that have become "the greatest source of uncertainty and risk for the recovery of the global economy."

Peter Navarro, director of the National Trade Council at the White House, told CNBC on Monday that establishing a new trade deal with China could be much tougher than it was with Mexico.

And it appears that any talks between the two nations is not in the cards, at the moment. Late last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that China had rescinded its proposal to send delegations to Washington for trade talks amid the escalating tit-for-tat tariffs. Other news outlets matched the Journal's reporting throughout the weekend.

On Wednesday, Hensarling stood by his contention that tariffs are a tax and voiced his concerns about a possible escalation into a global trade war.

"The president is responsible for the great economy but if we end up a full-fledged trade war with the world, all of that could be compromised, all of that could be lost," he warned.

 CNBC's Kate Rooney, Ylan Mui, Tucker Higgins and Yen Nee Lee contributed to this report.President Donald Trump's "random tariffs" are the wrong way to go about pressuring Chinese leaders to reform their allegedly unfair trade practices, Republican U.S. Rep. Will Hurd of Texas told CNBC on Wednesday.

Hurd, an undercover CIA officer for nearly a decade before going into politics, prefers a more direct route.

The White House squandered an opportunity in the spring to let Beijing know that "we're not playing around," he said. That's when the U.S. was banning American firms from selling parts to China's No. 2 telecommunications company.

The Commerce Department at the time was punishing ZTE for allegedly misleading regulators and failing to discipline the employees responsible for doing business with Iran and North Korea in violation of U.S. trade agreements.

Hurd, chairman of the House Oversight Subcommittee on Information Technology, said on "Squawk Box" that the U.S. "let them go" by agreeing in June to lift the ban, which nearly shut down ZTE, in exchange for a $1 billion fine and the installation of a U.S.-chosen compliance team. The settlement also included a requirement to put $400 million in escrow to cover any future violations.

"ZTE and Huawei, they are extensions of the Chinese government. Period. Full stop. They are trying to become the infrastructure of the rest of the world," said Hurd. "The Chinese do not care about things like privacy."

Chinese smartphone giant Huawei is appealing to U.S. federal regulators to lift restrictions on doing business in the United States, measures put in place due to national security concerns.

Hurd said America needs to "step up our game," because Chinese President Xi Jinping wants to make China the world's No. 1 superpower by 2049. "They have a national strategy. They have an emperor in place for the next 40 years."

In March, China removed the two-term limit on its president, basically giving Xi a mandate to be leader for life.

"The quickest way they're going to get there is what they've been doing; stealing our technology, forcing technology transfer, using debt traps with countries and with businesses. And we need to be prepared to deal with that," Hurd said.

The Texas Republican reiterated that tariffs, "which are pretty haphazard and are actually impacting American businesses," are not effective in getting China to changes its ways on trade.

With $250 billion in U.S. tariffs against China in effect, the question now is whether Trump will put tariffs on the rest of Chinese imports to the U.S., which totaled $505 billion last year, according to federal data.

Hurd, who faces a tough race in the lead-up to the midterm elections, said he feels good about his chances. "When folks in the 23rd District 'grade my paper' in November, I'm going to get a passing grade."

In a congressional district known for swinging back and forth, Democrat Gina Ortiz Jones, a former Air Force intelligence officer, is trying to prevent Hurd from winning a third term.

In 2017, Hurd was appointed to the House Permanent Select Intelligence Committee, replacing then-Kansas Rep. Mike Pompeo, who became director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Pompeo is currently Trump's secretary of State.The latest allegation against President Donald Trump's second Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, is "ridiculous," Republican strategist Sara Fagen told CNBC on Wednesday.

Fagen worked with Kavanaugh during the administration of President George W. Bush. Kavanaugh served as counsel and staff secretary, while Fagen was a senior aide and White House political director.

"It just doesn't add up," Fagen said on "Power Lunch."

The pair worked together for five years, and Fagen said she has socialized with Kavanaugh on many occasions.

"He is a gentlemen. He is respectful, and this just does not line up with the person I know," she added.

A third accuser of Kavanaugh publicly revealed herself on Wednesday. Julie Swetnick alleges that Kavanaugh and others in the early 1980s spiked the drinks of girls at high school parties to make it easier to gang rape them.

Kavanaugh denied the accusation, saying: "This is ridiculous and from the Twilight Zone. I don't know who this is and this never happened."

The bombshell allegations come a day before Kavanaugh is scheduled to testify in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee. His first accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, is also expected to testify that Kavanaugh held her down and tried to tear off her clothes when she was 15.

Read more: A new 'Year of the Woman' could be really bad news for Republicans

Another woman, Deborah Ramirez, has accused Kavanaugh of exposing himself to her and causing her to touch his penis at a Yale dorm party.

Fagen has been outspoken in her support of Kavanaugh, telling CNBC in an interview last week that she believes he's telling the truth when he denies the allegations.

"This has become very political. I don't think any of these women  no matter what happened to them by whom, when, how, what, I don't believe it's Judge Kavanaugh  they've not been well served by this process," she said Wednesday. "They've brought this out at the 11th hour and turned this into a political circus, which is exactly what it's been designed to do."

She also thinks it will energize Republicans to vote in November.

"Republicans now are mad. They feel like Democrats are trying to take the Supreme Court nominee away from them  take him down at whatever cost."

 CNBC's Tucker Higgins, Dan Mangan and Kevin Breuninger contributed to this report.The House passed a government spending package on Wednesday, meaning the U.S. will avoid a government shutdown as long as President Donald Trump signs it into law.

The measures passed by a margin of 361 to 61.

Though the president raised the possibility of vetoing the legislation in recent weeks, he said "we're going to keep the government open" hours before Wednesday's vote. The Senate already passed the spending legislation and funding lapses at 12:01 a.m. ET on Monday.

Trump slammed the spending package because it did not include money for his proposed border wall. Republican congressional leaders opposed a shutdown because it could hurt GOP candidates only six weeks before midterm elections, when the party will defend its majorities in both the House and Senate.

Republicans plan to address funding for the proposed barrier on the U.S.-Mexico border after the Nov. 6 contests. Democrats are favored to take a House majority, while Republicans are frontrunners to keep the Senate.

The spending package that passed Wednesday funds the Defense Department and a few other pieces of the government, while allotting money for the remainder of the government in a short-term package. Republicans in part hoped an uptick in military spending would assuage the president's doubts about border security money.

Last week, Trump called the bill "ridiculous" and urged Republicans to "GET TOUGH!"

Trump tweet

Earlier this month, he said he would consider shutting down the government "because I think it's a great political issue." He threatened to veto another funding package over border wall money earlier this year, but eventually signed it.To an untrained eye, USAReally might look like any other fledgling news organization vying for attention in a crowded media landscape. Its website publishes a steady stream of stories on hot-button political issues like race, immigration and income inequality. It has reader polls, a video section and a daily podcast.

But this is no ordinary media start-up. USAReally is based in Moscow and has received funding from the Federal News Agency, a Russian media conglomerate with ties to the Internet Research Agency, the "troll farm" whose employees were indicted by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, for interfering in the 2016 presidential election.

Caught flat-footed by the influence campaigns of 2016, intelligence agencies and tech companies in the United States have spent months looking for hidden Russian footprints ahead of the midterm elections.

USAReally's website, which began publishing in May, does not advertise its Russian roots. But in many ways, it is operating in plain sight.

Its founder, Alexander Malkevich, is a Russian journalist with little previous experience in American media. Its domain was registered through a Russian company, and its formation was announced in a news release on the Federal News Agency's website. The project, originally known as "USAReally, Wake Up Americans," was intended to promote "information and problems that are hushed up by major American publications controlled by the political elite of the United States," according to the release.

Today, USAReally's website depicts the United States as a democracy in decline, riddled with crime and divided by partisan rancor.

Many of the site's stories are similar to the divisive content that Russian trolls circulated on social media in 2016, down to their conspiratorial tone and telltale grammatical errors. ("Rabid Squirrels Is Terrorizing Florida," read one headline.) Some of its articles appear to have been lifted word for word from legitimate American news websites.

The amateurish appearance of USAReally has led some critics to assume that it is either a bizarre vanity project or a decoy meant to attract attention away from more covert Russian campaigns happening elsewhere. But some cybersecurity experts believe the website may be a part of a retooled Russian propaganda operation that is experimenting with new tactics ahead of November's midterm elections, and testing the boundaries of what American social media companies will allow.

"It's a very overt operation," said Lee Foster, an intelligence analysis manager with the cybersecurity firm FireEye. "Perhaps it's an attempt to move this type of activity more into the mainstream, to try to legitimize it as a media entity so that it's tougher to take action against it."

Last month, in a two-hour interview while traveling in New York, Mr. Malkevich, USAReally's founder, explained his vision.

Red-bearded and combative, Mr. Malkevich wore a T-shirt printed with an image of cartoon spies, accompanied by a Russian sentence that translates as "the motherland is listening." Accompanied by a translator but mostly speaking in his own heavily accented English, he peppered his speech with American political catchphrases like "fake news" and "witch hunt," and he denied that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election, calling it a paranoid conspiracy theory.

"I cannot imagine how several people from Russia or from Australia or from Japan can change the electoral situation in the United States," he said. "Why do some representatives of a deep state think that Americans are so foolish?"

Mr. Malkevich acknowledged that he had received funding and other support from the Federal News Agency. Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, a wealthy Russian businessman who has been nicknamed Putin's Chef because of his close ties to the Russian president, is believed to oversee the news agency. Mr. Prigozhin faces criminal charges stemming from the Mueller investigation, and he and several associates have been placed under sanctions that forbid them from entering the country.

But Mr. Malkevich, who said he had several types of visas that allowed him to enter the United States, denied any connection to the Internet Research Agency. He quoted a Russian proverb  translated roughly as "the son is not responsible for his father"  to distance himself from the group's 2016 trolling campaigns.

"I don't know anybody from so-called troll farms," he said.

A video interview posted to YouTube in June provided a glimpse of Mr. Malkevich in USAReally's office in Moscow, which featured a large portrait of President Trump and two flags on the wall  one American, one Confederate. Behind Mr. Malkevich was a Russian-language map of the United States, in which states were labeled with topics such as "crime," "poverty," and "Second Amendment (mass-shooting)."

Mr. Malkevich characterized the map as "normal," and said it helped the site's editors focus their work on different states.

Spokeswomen from the Justice Department and F.B.I. declined to comment on USAReally.

Mr. Malkevich said he aimed to turn USAReally into a kind of digital-first version of RT or Sputnik  both Russian media organizations that broadcast pro-Kremlin views inside the United States  and a counterweight to organizations funded by the United States, like Radio Free Europe, that broadcast in Russia and other countries.

A 2017 American intelligence report concluded that both RT and Sputnik were part of "Russia's state-run propaganda machine." But they have been allowed to remain on Facebook and Twitter, because government-funded media is generally allowed on those platforms as long as it is created by authentic users and doesn't violate the sites' content guidelines.

USAReally, by contrast, was quickly banned by both Facebook and Twitter, although it recently opened a second Facebook page. A Twitter spokesman said that USAReally's account was suspended for violating the site's rules against spam. A Facebook spokesman said the company had enough evidence that the first page was involved in coordinated inauthentic activity to take action against it. He said the group's second page was being investigated, and that the company had been aware of the account before being contacted by The New York Times.

Despite Mr. Malkevich's claims, there are hints that USAReally may be drawing from the Internet Research Agency's playbook, in addition to adopting the more open tactics of RT and Sputnik.

Last week, users on the popular message board Reddit complained that links to USAReally stories were being posted on the site's largest pro-Trump forum, r/the_donald. The links were disguised, appearing to belong to websites like geotus.army and geotus.band. But when users clicked on the links, they were redirected to stories on USAReally's website. (G.E.O.T.U.S., or "God Emperor of the United States," is a nickname for President Trump popularized by users of r/the_donald.)

Reddit banned USAReally, geotus.army and geotus.band, along with a separate Russian-linked website called Brutalist.press. A Reddit spokeswoman said that the company had taken action against the domains for breaking the company's policies, which prohibit manipulative behavior.

In a text message, Mr. Malkevich called the Reddit ban "just another illustration of censorship in America." He said he had never heard of the G.E.O.T.U.S. domains, and that USAReally had no need to post its stories to Reddit, given the small amount of traffic it received from the site.

Without a presence on major social media networks, it has been difficult for USAReally to build an audience. Mr. Malkevich said USAReally's website typically receives 5,000 to 10,000 visitors a day, a pittance compared to more established news sites, although several recent posts have received thousands of views apiece.

Mr. Malkevich, 43, was born in Leningrad, now called St. Petersburg, and has had a career trajectory similar to other successful post-Soviet media managers. He started in music journalism, spent time in political public relations, then ran a television station in Omsk, Siberia.

Recently, he has positioned himself as a champion of freedom of speech. In a column on the Federal News Agency's website, he wrote that American social media networks were guilty of "selective censorship that Orwell did not dream of."

Mr. Malkevich's fumbling misadventures in American media have, at times, made him seem more like a Sacha Baron Cohen character than a sinister propagandist. In June, he planned a rally outside the White House, but canceled the event, he said, after failing to obtain the proper permit. He scheduled a round-table discussion about fake news inside a WeWork office in Washington, but his membership was abruptly terminated. An NBC News story about Mr. Malkevich carried the headline, "This man is running Russia's newest propaganda effort in the U.S.  or at least he's trying to."

"I'm an easy victim for American media," Mr. Malkevich said. "You can showcase this Russian journalist  he wants to destroy our democracy with his bad English. But I don't want to destroy. I want to build."

USAReally has a full-time staff of 15 in Moscow, according to Mr. Malkevich, and a handful of American writers who contribute to the site. One of those writers, Jeffrey K. Silverman, said in a phone interview that USAReally's Russian origins weren't a concern. He had previously written for other pro-Kremlin sites, and when he learned that USAReally was looking for American writers, he volunteered. The site paid him $50 to $100 for each of his articles, he said, and didn't instruct him to cover particular subjects or parrot a party line.

"Whenever I write for anything Russian, they don't censor me," Mr. Silverman said. "If I write for American publications, I get censored."

Unlike the Russian trolls of 2016, who posed as Black Lives Matter activists, pro-gun Republicans and other American groups, many of USAReally's writers use their real names. Several of them also write for a variety of other pro-Kremlin media outlets and think tanks.

"There's a wide-ranging collection of Russian propaganda sites online that are connected," said Renee DiResta, the head of research at New Knowledge, a cybersecurity firm that specializes in disinformation networks. "USAReally has drawn from many of them to create a site that appears to be using the less-academic style of I.R.A. content to reach a much broader American audience."

When not recruiting writers, Mr. Malkevich has been busy touring America, conducting interviews and posting dispatches to a group of supporters on the messaging app Telegram.

In New York, he posed for a photo in front of Trump Tower, then stopped at a bookstore, where he filled a shelf with books about Russian collusion, took a photo and posted it to his followers, mocking what he sees as a conspiracy-obsessed American public.

With a smirk, Mr. Malkevich said that despite the bleak vision of America that his website paints, he was not interested in sowing discord and division.

"I am interested in cooperation and friendship between our two great countries," he said. "Safe Injection Sites and the Federal 'Crack House' Statute" | Main | New Pew issue brief reviews probation and parole in the US 

September 25, 2018

Bill Cosby gets 3 to 10 years of state imprisonment with no bail pending appeal

As reported in this USA Today article, headlined "Bill Cosby sentenced to three to 10 years in state prison, remanded to custody immediately," a high-profile sentencing ended in a high-profile defendant going directly to prison. Here are some of the details:

A handcuffed Bill Cosby was immediately taken into custody Tuesday after a Montgomery County judge sentenced him to three to 10 years in state prison for the sexual assault of Andrea Constand. It is time for justice. Mr. Cosby, this has all circled back to you. The time has come, Judge Steven ONeill told the convicted sex offender, denying his request for bail pending appeal and ordering him into immediate custody. He quoted from Constands statement to the court, in which she said Cosby took her "beautiful, young spirit and crushed it. After the sentencing, Cosby removed his jacket, tie and watch before being taken away in handcuffs, an officer holding his arm. He did not respond to a reporter's request for comment. Cosby publicist Andrew Wyatt issued a fiery retort outside the courthouse, saying Cosby was denied a fair trial and calling the proceeding "the most racist and sexist trial in the history of the United States." He cast blame on District Attorney Kevin Steele; a "racist and sexist mass media"; and three white female psychologists "who make money off of accusing black men of being sexual predators."... Before announcing Cosby's prison term, O'Neill ruled that he would be designated a "sexually violent predator," requiring that he register as a sex offender and undergo counseling for the rest of his life after his release from prison. Cosby was fined $25,000 and ordered to pay court costs. The sentence is in line with the one sought by Steele, who asked ONeill to impose a prison term of five to 10 years after Cosby's conviction in April on charges he drugged and sexually assaulted Constand in 2004. A defense attorney had asked that Cosby, 81, be spared a prison term, citing his age and frailty.... Cosbys lawyers asked that he be allowed to remain free on bail, but the judge appeared incredulous over the request and said he would not treat the celebrity any differently from others. At a post-trial news conference, Steele said justice had finally been served, calling the sentence "fair and significant." Its been a long time coming, but (justice) arrived when a convicted felon named William H. Cosby Jr. left the courtroom in handcuffs, headed off to state prison for his crimes," he said. "Its been a long wait for our victim, Andrea Constand, as it has for the other women who have endured similar sexual assaults and rapes at the hands of the defendant. He said Cosby's fame, fortune and popularity helped him create a deceptive image. For decades, the defendant has been able to hide his true self and hide his crimes using his fame and fortune. Hes hidden behind a character, Dr. Cliff Huxtable (of "The Cosby Show"). It was a seminal character on TV and so was the family, but it was fiction," Steele said. "Now, finally, Bill Cosby has been unmasked, and we have seen the real man as he is headed off to prison."

Prior related posts:

September 25, 2018 at 06:32 PM | Permalink

Comments

It would be awesome if Cosby would use some of his cash to put hits on many people who support the Registries and have them murdered. That is the direction the "$EX offender" witch hunt needs to go. America needs to keep devolving asap.

Posted by: FRegistryTerrorists | Sep 25, 2018 9:38:19 PM

Will Cosby be able to use his name and resources to strengthen the prisoner strikes that have been spreading to several prisons nationwide ? Yes, he did a terrible crime and has to be punished for it, but the legal system's racism and sexism needs to be actively opposed.

Posted by: william r. delzell | Sep 26, 2018 9:23:00 AM

william r. delzell (Sep 26, 2018 9:23:00 AM): I would not assume that Cosby "did a terrible crime" unless I researched it very carefully and came to that conclusion myself. We all know how juries convict innocent people all the time. And how so, so many people who supposedly care about justice actually don't care about it at all as long as they are getting their jollies convicting people.

Posted by: FRegistryTerrorists | Sep 26, 2018 12:08:14 PM

They just had an interview on DEMOCRACY NOW! where they interviewed the plaintiffs, several of whom were black. One of the black plaintiffs against Cosby denied that racism had anything to do with his conviction as a greater disproportion of his victims were black. She explained how the rape adversely affected her life and finances. She was not your typical right-wing white woman like Phyllis Schlafly or Linda Fairstein, which made her testimony more credible than many's.

I do agree with you about Megan's Law as that is a post-punishment measure that supposedly is not punitive even though it is. If he was on parole before his sentence expired, that would be one thing to make him register, but once his sentence expires, then one should not have to register. It does not protect the victims and ties the polices' hands who could be doing other things.

Posted by: william r. delzell | Sep 26, 2018 2:33:13 PM

william r. delzell (Sep 26, 2018 2:33:13 PM):

"Plaintiffs"? No matter, I got your point. I haven't followed the case at all. I don't have enough time to invest in it to even really get a somewhat valid, informed opinion. That won't stop most other people from having an opinion of course, but that's not me.

The thing that kills a victims credibility for me is when they later file a civil lawsuit and go after money. If I don't know anything about a case then I really, really, really start to wonder. It would be great if a victim would think, say, and do, "I got you put in prison, which you rightly deserve, and I don't want a damn other thing from you." But I'm not going to say how people should react. I would probably sue someone just to harm them. But I also really do think though that far, far too many people want to blame all of their life problems on something, anything, other than themselves. So they will think an abuser owes them something beyond prison.

Lastly, the Registries don't protect anyone. But they really harm all of America and pretty much everyone in it. So it doesn't matter if a person is on parole or probation - no one should be listed on a Registry. And after probation or parole, forget about it. No decent American can support that.

But I will say that law enforcement personnel who are talented, knowledgeable, and good, know that the Registries are a waste of time and resources. So they don't waste much time on them. They have some clerks taking all of the information and all that but that is about it. The more time that someone wastes on the Registries, the more that you know that they are incompetent.

Posted by: FRegistryTerrorists | Sep 26, 2018 6:32:53 PM

This conviction and sentence is a travesty. Was not the main accuser in a long term relationship with Cosby? Was he not promised that if he gave a deposition on another matter that it would never be used in any other matter?

What happened to that evidence? What happened to those promises?

In other words, what happened to Justice in America?

Evidently,if you were sexual then you are stripped of every single tenet of English/American Jurisprudence immediately.

These tyrants and imbeciles who are doing this? Reap the whirlwind.

Posted by: restless94110 | Sep 26, 2018 7:35:19 PM

I feel the need to clarify my statement of, "So they will think an abuser owes them something beyond prison." An abuser probably does owe their victim more than just a prison sentence. I didn't mean that. I meant that I think in most cases that it is BS to a large degree when a person says they were $EXUALLY abused as a child and that destroyed their whole life. Usually, the person themselves destroyed their whole life and they want to blame it on something else. Not saying that it doesn't negatively affect people. I was a child victim.

Only thing I was really trying to say is that if I don't know about a case then I really start to wonder about the motives the SECOND that someone starts going after money. We know people are terrible enough to commit $EX crimes. Everyone SHOULD know that people are terrible enough to falsely accuse someone of $EX crimes only so they can get money. Everyone should know that. Especially people sitting on juries.

Posted by: FRegistryTerrorists | Sep 27, 2018 9:20:59 AM

Post a commentFour years ago, a disease that rarely made headlines  Ebola  raged in West Africa. There was no vaccine, treatment or cure. Though the initial response was slow, the international community ultimately mobilized resources, developed scientific innovations and promised to make sure a tragedy on the same scale would never happen again.

Today, Ebola is back, but the story is changing. The Democratic Republic of the Congo, where I started my career as a physician, is facing the second of two threatening Ebola outbreaks this year, but this time we're better prepared to respond thanks to new tools, including new vaccines. My company, Johnson & Johnson, is among those that accelerated the development of a vaccine and stands ready to deploy it when needed.

Ebola, and HIV before it, shows what can be accomplished once a disease is catapulted to the top of the global agenda. So it is puzzling to me why a far deadlier disease  tuberculosis  has never received this sort of attention and focus from the global community.

TB represents one of the greatest public health emergencies today, and we need to start treating it like one. TB infects a quarter of the planet's population and, to many people's surprise, claims more lives every year than HIV/AIDS  the latter being a testament to the global HIV response. Growing drug resistance has made addressing TB even more challenging, and drug-resistant TB is now the leading cause of deaths due to antimicrobial resistance.

An outdated and inadequate toolbox is largely to blame for the unacceptably high toll of TB. Many of the medicines used to treat TB today are old, ineffective and have harmful side effects. We don't yet have diagnostics that can quickly detect TB, and we desperately need an effective vaccine.

Advancing innovation for TB is inherently difficult and entails risk. Biologically, TB is a complex disease and there is limited scientific understanding of how it develops and how drugs can stop it. TB innovation is also challenging because it primarily impacts people in low-income countries, meaning there have been limited commercial markets  and few financial incentives  for companies to make the necessary investment in new innovations.

The good news is that the tide may be turning. Wednesday, I will join world leaders gathering in New York for a high-level meeting on TB at the United Nations, the first-ever meeting of this kind for the disease. Encouraging the innovation that is so desperately needed must be central to these discussions.

By working in new ways and with new urgency, progress on TB is possible. At Johnson & Johnson, we have been infused with that sense of urgency for over 20 years, investing significantly in the development of a medicine for a form of TB resistant to at least two of the drugs most commonly used to treat TB. This medicine, when it was approved in 2012, was the first TB drug with a novel mechanism of action made available in 40 years.

And just this week, we announced a 10-year initiative to continue investing in TB, in three key ways: continuing to broaden access to our novel MDR-TB medicine, supporting efforts to find the 4 million cases of TB that go undiagnosed every year, and advancing the development of innovative next-generation TB medicines that are urgently needed.

Yet, as the initial Ebola response has demonstrated, the scale of innovation needed to stop a disease threat requires commitment and engagement from across all sectors and disciplines. For TB, it is crucial to prioritize the creation of a robust and sustainable innovation environment, including new incentives and funding mechanisms. Such an environment would bring more of the private sector on board and dramatically accelerate the development of new TB drugs and other innovations for patients.

As needed as new tools are, they can only be effective if systems are in place to deliver them to patients. It is crucial to invest in strengthening regulatory, delivery and health systems around the world. By working together and investing across sectors, gaps can be filled and capacity built.

Inspiring examples come from the leadership of countries most seriously affected by TB. Across the globe, new innovations are having the greatest impact in countries where TB is a national political priority and there is a budget allocation to match.

For example, in July, South Africa became the first country in the world to recommend an injection-free treatment regimen for MDR-TB. This decision, backed by new data, demonstrated the country's strong commitment to ensuring patients received the best care possible. Countries like South Africa are on the cutting edge, setting a high bar for deft, emergency-level TB response. They know that millions of lives are at stake.

The Ebola response set an important precedent. In just a few years, the world has made incredible strides to create new tools, and communities at risk for the disease are seeing the benefits. We must work together to ensure the same is true for TB. I am confident that, with investment, energy and creativity, the world can develop and deliver the innovations we urgently need to get us on the most effective path to make TB history.

Paul Stoffels, M.D. is the vice chair of the executive committee and chief scientific officer at Johnson & Johnson.

John Schnatter is having trouble letting go.

The ousted founder of the Papa John's pizza chain has reached out to a number of private equity firms in recent weeks to discuss partnering in a bid to buy the company, sources familiar with the situation told CNBC.

Schnatter, who already owns roughly 30 percent of Papa John's, is looking for capital to help support an offer, sources said. Several private equity firms have turned him down, though, concerned about the reputational risks inherent in partnering with him. Meantime, those interested in buying Papa John's do not believe that working with Schnatter is the best path toward a winning offer, some of the sources said.

Schnatter was ousted as chairman in July, when racially charged comments he made on a conference call in May leaked to the press. Since then, he has been locked in a bitter battle with the company's board, whom he has accused of staging a coup to force his exit. The restaurant chain also adopted a defense mechanism known as a "poison pill" to prevent a hostile takeover from Schnatter or others.

A spokesman for Schnatter denied the report.

"John Schnatter has not reached out to or had any discussions with any private equity firm or any other entity about buying Papa John's," he said in a statement. "Any such report about a potential transaction involving Mr. Schnatter is totally and completely false."

As it grapples with its public relations crisis, shares of Papa John's have fallen nearly 40 percent over the past year. The restaurant chain earlier this year hired Bank of America and Lazard as financial advisors as it looks to clean up the mess.

Papa John's shares rose Wednesday more than 7 percent after CNBC reported Schnatter's interest in buying the company.

Papa John's is actively talking with potential buyers, the sources say, cautioning a sale process is still in its early stage and may not ultimately result in a sale. It has already sent out materials about the company to potential buyers, one of the sources added.

A thorn in any sale, however, is Schnatter's stake, with potential buyers leery of purchasing a company in which he continues to be involved, the sources say. It remains unclear how Papa John's will address that issue.

Despite its public relations challenges, the restaurant remains a desirable target, should questions around its ownership be resolved, sources say. Pizza is one of the few food items that, like hamburgers, scales well internationally. With sufficient investments in technology, there may be opportunity to revive the brand to echo the resurgence enjoyed by Domino's after its own technology investments.

Challenges, meantime, include a franchisee base that is fretting over the brand's future and a company built on the back of football, as viewership of the sport declines. It also recently warned that falling sales put it in jeopardy of breaching a loan covenant, though its capital structure would likely be reworked in the event of a sale, one of the sources said.

The most likely buyers for Papa John's include Wendy's, Restaurant Brands International and Inspire Brands, which is majority backed by private equity firm Roark. The Inspire empire includes Arby's, Buffalo Wild Wings and Sonic, once its $2.3 billion acquisition of the burger chain closes later this year.

The sources requested anonymity because the information is confidential. Papa John's declined to comment.J.P. Morgan took a closer look Wednesday at hypersonics, a new missile technology, and named nearly all the defense contractors as key players in the sector, with Lockheed Martin out to an early lead.

"While sales are still modest, we see substantial growth potential by the mid-2020s to [greater than $5 billion], perhaps significantly more," J.P. Morgan analyst Seth Seifman said in a note. Seifman cited Michael Griffin, under secretary of Defense for researching and engineering, saying Griffin "believes that hypersonics development is currently the highest technical priority for the Pentagon."

A hypersonic weapon is a missile that travels at Mach 5 or higher. That's at least five times the speed of sound, or about 1 mile per second.

"Today's cruise missiles generally reach speeds near but not greater than Mach 1, while ballistic missiles accelerate to supersonic speeds but fly on predictable paths," Seifman said. "Hypersonic weapons, however, are maneuverable and cruise at lower altitudes, making them more difficult to counter."

Russia and China have already been "aggressively pursuing" hypersonics, Air Force Gen. John Hyten told the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 20.

"We don't have any defense that could deny the employment of such a weapon against us," Hyten said at the time.JPMorgan Chase is in talks about leading Lyft's upcoming initial public offering as an underwriter, after rivals Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley decided not to pursue such a role out of loyalty to another IPO hopeful, Lyft's larger competitor Uber Technologies, according to people familiar with the matter.

The move illustrates the calculations that often inform the pursuit of such mandates by the world's biggest investment banks. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have helped ride-sharing company Uber raise money in the past, and are in pole position to secure top roles in its IPO, the sources said.

Reuters first reported last year that Lyft was seeking to hire an IPO adviser that would help it select underwriters and coordinate the process.

Since then, Lyft has hired IPO advisory firm Class V Group, and is eyeing a stock market flotation sometime in 2019, according to the sources. Uber has also said it is aiming for an IPO in 2019, though it is further behind in its preparations and is not yet seeking to hire underwriters.

Several other investment banks are expected to join JPMorgan as underwriters for Lyft's IPO. There is no certainty the bank will secure the coveted "lead left" underwriting position, the sources said.

Lyft plans to interview investment banks next month as it puts together its roster of IPO underwriters, the sources added, cautioning that no roles have formally been awarded.

The sources asked not to be identified because the matter is confidential. Lyft, JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Class V Group all declined to comment, while Uber did not respond to a request for comment.

Lyft's and Uber's IPOs will test investor tolerance for lack of profitability when it comes to iconic technology unicorns. Both companies have taken hits in their bottom lines in order to attract drivers and enter new markets, although they have made strides in recent years in narrowing their losses.

Like Uber, Lyft offers an app that lets passengers request rides on their smartphones. It was founded in 2012 by technology entrepreneurs John Zimmer and Logan Green, three years after Uber.

Lyft raised $600 million in its most recent funding round in June, led by Fidelity Management, doubling its valuation to $15.1 billion in little over a year. It operates in roughly the same number of U.S. cities as Uber, as well as in Toronto, Canada.

Investors in Lyft, which has 35 percent market share in the United States, include AllianceBernstein, Baillie Gifford, and KKR.

Uber, under the leadership of Dara Khosrowshahi, who became chief executive a year ago, has juggled investing in new markets while retreating from others, where it was losing millions of dollars. It is building up services like food delivery and freight hauling as it seeks new revenue, and possibly a path to profitability, outside its core business.

Last month, Toyota Motor agreed to invest $500 million in Uber to jointly work on developing self-driving cars. The investment values Uber at $76 billion, a step up from the $72 billion valuation Uber received in a deal with Alphabet self-driving unit Waymo this year.In documents sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee and obtained by USA TODAY, Ford's attorneys present declarations from Ford's husband, Russell, and three friends who support the California college professor's accusation that Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed, groped her and attempted to pull off her clothes while both were high school students in 1982.

The attorneys for Christine Blasey Ford have sworn and signed declarations from four people who corroborate her claims of sexual assault by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh .

The declarations will be used by Ford's attorneys during a committee hearing on Thursday that could determine the fate of Kavanaugh's embattled nomination. He also faces a second accusation of sexual assault from Deborah Ramirez, who claims Kavanaugh exposed himself and pushed his genitals into her face at a drunken party during the 1983-84 academic year at Yale University.

More from USA Today:

Kavanaugh has flatly denied all accusations, including during a national television interview on Fox News Monday night.

In her declaration, Adela Gildo-Mazzon said Ford told her about the alleged assault during a June 2013 meal at a restaurant in Mountain View, California, and contacted Ford's attorneys on Sept. 16 to tell them Ford had confided in her five years ago.

"During our meal, Christine was visibly upset, so I asked her what was going on," Gildo-Mazzon said in her declaration. "Christine told me she had been having a hard day because she was thinking about an assault she experienced when she was much younger. She said she had been almost raped by someone who was now a federal judge. She told me she had been trapped in a room with two drunken guys, and that she had escaped, ran away and hid."

According to her declaration, Gildo-Mazzon has known Ford for more than 10 years and considers her "a good friend."

In another declaration, Keith Koegler said Ford revealed the alleged assault to him in 2016, when the two parents were watching their children play in a public place and discussing the "light" sentencing of Stanford University student Brock Turner.

"Christine expressed anger at Mr. Turner's lenient sentence, stating that she was particularly bothered by it because she was assaulted in high school by a man who was now a federal judge in Washington, D.C.," Koegler said.

"Christine did not mention the assault to me again until June 29, 2018, two days after Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his resignation from the Supreme Court of the United States," he said.

On that day, Koegler said Ford revealed to him in an email that the person who had assaulted her in high school was President Donald Trump's "favorite for SCOTUS."

In his response email, Koegler wrote, "I remember you telling me about him, but I don't remember his name. Do you mind telling me so I can read about him?"

Ford's emailed response: "Brett Kavanaugh."

In his declaration, Koegler said he met the Fords while coaching their son's baseball team more than five years ago.

In another declaration, Rebecca White, a neighbor and friend of more than six years, said Ford revealed the alleged assault against her in 2017.

"I was walking my dog and Christine was outside of her house," White said. "I stopped to speak with her, and she told me she had read a recent social media post I had written about my own experience with sexual assault.

"She then told me that when she was a young teen, she had been sexually assaulted by an older teen," White continued. "I remember her saying that her assailant was now a federal judge."

In his declaration, Ford's husband said he learned of his wife's experience with sexual assault "around the time we got married" but that she didn't share details until a couple's therapy session in 2012.

"I remember her saying that her attacker's name was Brett Kavanaugh, that he was a successful lawyer who had grown up in Christine's home town, and that he was well-known in the Washington D.C. community," Russell Ford said.

He said his wife was "afraid" Trump would nominate Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court and was "very conflicted" about whether she should come forward with her story.Attorneys for Christine Blasey Ford, who alleges that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in the early 1980s, released the results on Wednesday of a polygraph test their client took in early August, before her allegations became public.

The test was administered to gauge the truthfulness of Ford's account of the alleged attack, which she says happened when she was 15 and Kavanaugh was 17. The results, which were analyzed using three separate analytical methods, all indicated that Ford is telling the truth.

Ford and Kavanaugh are both scheduled to testify about the alleged assault before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday.

Ford's polygraph test was administered by Jeremiah Hanafin, a certified polygraph examiner whose professional resume indicates that he spent nearly 20 years as a special agent in the FBI.

According to Hanafin's report, Ford described her account of the night she says Kavanaugh locked her in a room, pinned her down on a bed and attempted to take her clothes off at a suburban Maryland house party. She also alleged that Kavanaugh covered her mouth with his hand and that "this act was the most terrifying for her."

According to the report, Ford said that Kavanaugh and his close friend, Mark Judge were both in the room at the time of the assault, and that they were both laughing. Ford said she only escaped when Judge jumped on top of her and Kavanaugh, and they all fell to the ground. She also said the experience left her with lasting emotional trauma.

Kavanaugh has denied Ford's allegation, as well as accusations by two other women that have emerged in the past week. One woman, Deborah Ramirez, claims that Kavanaugh aggressively exposed himself to her in college. A third woman, Julie Swetnick, said Wednesday in a sworn statement that she witnessed Kavanaugh and Judge deliberately giving young women at parties alcohol and drugs in quantities designed to incapacitate them, after which, she alleged, the women were gang raped.

Ford's polygraph test is the latest document to be released by her attorneys ahead of her testimony Thursday. Earlier in the day Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee received four sworn statements from people close to Ford, who all said she had told them of the assault, prior to Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court.

As of Wednesday afternoon, President Donald Trump and the White House were steadfast in their support for Kavanaugh. But several key senators were still on the fence, including Republicans whose support Kavanaugh will need if he hopes to be confirmed.

Read the entire polygraph report below:German Chancellor Angela Merkel attends a two-euro-coin presentation in Berlin on January 29, 2015. Tobias Schwarz | AFP | Getty Images

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's position is looking weaker-than-ever and German business leaders are worried about it. Leading a fractious coalition government since voters delivered a hung parliament during Germany's last election in October 2017, Merkel's long-term leadership of Germany  one that has previously earned her the nickname of "Mutti," or "Mummy," - has looked increasingly shaky over the past year. After months of inconclusive talks to form a coalition government, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) agreed somewhat reluctantly in March to forming another coalition with Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU). The six-month old coalition is not a happy one, with infighting over immigration policy and, most recently, a very public dispute over a spy chief accused of harboring far-right views.

Coalition could collapse

German business leaders told CNBC that they're not too impressed by the political infighting that is preventing policy changes and economic reforms from taking place. Joachim Lang, director-general of the Federation of German Industries (BDI), told CNBC on Tuesday that the unstable political situation in Germany could get worse  with the possibility of the coalition breaking up. "The situation is very unusual but my gut feeling is that they (politicians) have realized the danger and they now have to make up their mind if it's better to stay in a grand coalition or to go their own ways and this decision will be made within a few weeks." The chancellor was dealt another political blow on Tuesday when lawmakers voted one of her closest parliamentary allies out of his role, raising further doubts over her political authority.

Volker Kauder, the head of the parliamentary group of Merkel's CDU was defeated by fellow CDU member of parliament Ralph Brinkhaus. The result was a surprise - Kauder had been in the role for over a decade and Merkel had clearly recommended that Kauder be re-elected. The overt rebellion has not gone unnoticed by Germany's media, print newspaper Die Welt headlined its Wednesday edition, "Revolution inside the CDU" while Der Spiegel's online version called it a "destructive vote of no confidence." Even public broadcaster Deutsche Welle's Editor-in-Chief Ines Pohl said in an op-ed on Tuesday that "Merkel's time is coming to an end."

'We must stop talking'A third accuser of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh publicly identified herself Wednesday and alleged that Kavanaugh and others in the early 1980s spiked the drinks of girls at high school parties with intoxicants to make it easier for them to be gang raped. The woman, Julie Swetnick, said Kavanaugh lined up with other boys, including his close friend Mark Judge, waiting to rape those girls at many parties  and that she once became a victim herself. The allegations were detailed in an affidavit, signed under penalty of perjury, that was released by Swetnick's lawyer, Michael Avenatti. Her statement was sent to a senior staffer on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Swetnick's stunning claims came on the eve of scheduled testimony at that committee by Kavanaugh, 53, and Christine Blasey Ford, who has said he "physically and sexually assaulted me" in the early 1980s. The now-51-year-old research psychologist Ford claims Kavanaugh held her down on a bed when she was 15, groped her and tried to pull off her clothes asJudge watched. Republicans who hold the majority on the committee have refused to subpoena Judge to testify despite calls to do so from Democrats, Ford's lawyers and Avenatti. Another woman, Kavanaugh's Yale University classmate Deborah Ramirez, has accused him of exposing himself and causing her to touch his penis at a boozy dorm party. The latest accusations from Swetnick against Kavanaugh, a federal appeals court judge, could make his already imperiled nomination to the Supreme Court even less likely to succeed. All 10 Democrats on the Judiciary Committee on Wednesday urged President Donald Trump to either "immediately withdraw the nomination or order an FBI investigation into all the allegations."

Kavanaugh, 53, called Swetnick's claims "ridiculous and from the Twilight Zone." "I don't know who this is and this never happened," said Kavanaugh, who earlier this week told Fox News "I've never sexually assaulted anyone." In a letter to Judiciary Committee leaders made public after Swetnick's claims, Kavanaugh vowed not to withdraw his nomination. But Avenatti, during an interview with MSNBC, said, "There should be an immediate investigation" of her accusations "and there should be no rush to confirm him to the U.S. Supreme Court." "The allegations in this declaration are shocking," Avenatti said. Trump blasted the claims in a tweet calling Avenatti "a third rate lawyer who is good at making false accusations like he did on me and like he is now doing on Judge Brett Kavanaugh." Tweet Avenatti immediately fired back: Tweet Trump's press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, told CNBC that the White House "stands with Kavanaugh." Later, when Trump was asked by a reporter in New York if he thinks "all three women are lying," Trump replied: "What's your next question." Judge's lawyer, Barbara Van Gelder, said, "Mr. Judge vehemently denies the allegations contained in the Swetnick affidavit." Judge has said said he no memory of events described by the other accuser Ford. Senate Republicans have cited his claim to justify the decision no to call him to testify Thursday. The Washington Post reported later that Judge's ex-girlfriend, Elizabeth Rasor, informed the Judiciary Committee through her lawyer on Wednesday that she is willing to speak to the committee and the FBI about her recollection of what Judge allegedly told her an incident involving group sex. The New Yorker, in a story about Ramirez's allegations, reported Sunday that "Rasor recalled that Judge had told her ashamedly of an incident that involved him and other boys taking turns having sex with a drunk woman. Rasor said that Judge seemed to regard it as fully consensual. She said that Judge did not name others involved in the incident, and she has no knowledge that Kavanaugh participated in it."

Source: Fox News

Swetnick, a 55-year-old certified systems engineer who did not immediately respond to a request for comment, identified herself in the affidavit as a resident of Washington, D.C. While Avenatti had generally described Swetnick's allegations in an email to the Judiciary Committee on Sunday, he had not previously identified her until Wednesday. A 1980 graduate of Gaithersburg High School in Maryland, she said she has held multiple clearances for work done at the Treasury Department, U.S. Mint, IRS, State Department and Justice Department, among other government agencies. Swetnick says in her affidavit that she saw Kavanaugh in the early 1980s "drink excessively at many" house parties in suburban Maryland. At the time, Kavanaugh and Judge were students at Georgetown Prep, a private Catholic all-boys school. She said Kavanaugh and Judge engaged in "abusive and physically agressive behavior toward girls," which "included the fondling and groping of girls without their consent" and "not taking 'No' for an answer." During the years of 1981 and 1982, she said, she learned of efforts by Kavanaugh, his friend Judge and others "to spike the drinks of girls at house parties I attended with grain alcohol and/or drugs so as to cause girls to lose inhibitions and their ability to say 'No.' ""I witnessed Brett Kavanaugh consistently engage in excessive drinking and inappropriate contact of a sexual nature with women during the early 1980s," Swetnick says in her statement, which she signed under penalty of perjury.

Accuser Julie Swetnick, in a sworn declaration tweeted out by her lawyer Michael Avenatti  who is also representing porn star Stormy Daniels in her lawsuit against President Donald Trump  alleged that Kavanaugh and others, while in high school, spiked the drinks of girls at parties to make it easier for them to be gang raped.

Michael Avenatti, attorney for Stephanie Clifford, also known as adult film actress Stormy Daniels, speaks to reporters as he leaves the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California on September 24, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. Avenatti claims to have information pertaining to allegations concerning Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

The three-page declaration was sent to the counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is set to hear testimony from Kavanaugh and another woman, Christine Blasey Ford, as early as tomorrow. A spokesman for committee Chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley said the committee is currently reviewing the document.

Kavanaugh has said he categorically denies ever sexually assaulting anyone.

On Wednesday, Kavanaugh responded to the latest accusations in a statement released by the White House: "This is ridiculous and from the Twilight Zone. I don't know who this is and this never happened."

Download Julie Swetnick's full statement here, or read it below.Christine Blasey Ford, the first woman to come forward alleging that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her, will tell the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday that "I am no one's pawn."

In her prepared testimony, released Wednesday night, Ford will provide new details about the incident she said took place at a high school gathering in Maryland more than three decades ago.

"I believed he was going to rape me. I tried to yell for help. When I did, Brett put his hand over my mouth to stop me from screaming," Ford says in her prepared testimony. "This was what terrified me the most, and has had the most lasting impact on my life."

Kavanaugh has categorically denied Ford's allegation, although he has said he believes she may have been sexually assaulted by somebody else. Trump has called Ford's allegation "false," and said that if it were "as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed."

Two more women have come forward in recent days with allegations of sexual misconduct against Kavanaugh. He has denied all of them, calling them "smears." The federal appeals court judge has committed not to withdraw his nomination.

In his testimony before the Judiciary Committee, Kavanaugh will call the allegations part of a "grotesque and obvious character assassination," according to his prepared remarks. Texas with back-to-back executions scheduled for this week | Main | Interesting look at data collection and use in prosecutorial decision-making 

The question in the title of this post is the headline of this New York Times magazine article, which is worth reading in full. Here is a taste:

In 2015, [Neil] Volz happened on a meeting at Florida Gulf Coast University, where a small group of students and community activists were listening to an African-American law-school graduate named Desmond Meade. He was talking about his years-long crusade to restore voting rights to people who had committed felonies, as he had. The issue affected Volz, who knew he was barred from voting, as is automatically the case in Florida for anyone with a felony conviction. Meade was president of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, an organization founded by the Florida A.C.L.U. for former felons, or, as he and others prefer to call themselves, returning citizens. Meade was in the midst of trying to collect the 766,200 signatures required to place an initiative on the ballot to amend Floridas Constitution, which denies former felons the right to vote. Volz stayed after the meeting to talk to Meade. We chatted for a long time, and by the end, I wanted to help, he said.

Across the country, more than six million people have lost the right to vote because of their criminal records. More than 1.5 million of them live in Florida, a higher number than in any other state. The proposed ballot initiative would automatically restore the right to vote to people with a felony conviction who have completed their sentences. (The initiative makes two exceptions: no voting rights for people convicted of murder or sex offenses.) At the beginning of this year, with the signatures gathered, the state certified the initiative, called Amendment 4, for the November ballot.

Like any change to Floridas Constitution, Amendment 4 needs 60 percent of the vote to pass. In the summer of 2017, after Volz spent more than a year volunteering, Meade offered him the paid position of political director. He hoped that Volz, with his experience as a Republican operative, could help frame the restoration of voting rights in terms that appealed to a wide constituency  Republicans and independents as well as people of color and white liberals. Its everybody that cant vote, Meade likes to say. Im fighting just as hard, if not more, for that guy that wanted to vote for Donald Trump than a guy who wishes to vote for Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), talks to reporters about the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh in the wake of a woman's accusation that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her 36 years ago, on Capitol Hill in Washington, September 18, 2018 Mike Segar | Reuters

Top Democrats pushed for President Donald Trump to withdraw the nomination of his Supreme Court choice Brett Kavanaugh after the latest explosive allegations against the judge. In a letter to Trump dated Wednesday, all Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee urged the president to pull the appeals judge's nomination or "direct the FBI to re-open its background investigation" to examine accusations of sexual misconduct. The members of the panel, which oversees judicial nominations, argued that the claims against Kavanaugh are more than enough "to trigger a meaningful nonpartisan investigation." "The standard of character and fitness for a position on the nation's highest court must be higher than this," the Democrats wrote. "Judge Kavanaugh has staunchly declared his respect for women and issued blanket denials of any possible misconduct, but those declarations are in serious doubt." "We therefore ask that you immediately direct an FBI investigation or withdraw this nomination," read the letter, signed by committee ranking member Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware, Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Sen. Kamala Harris of California.

Trump stands behind Kavanaugh after the latest accusation, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told CNBC on Wednesday. Earlier, the president called the accusations a "con game" and said Kavanaugh has "been treated very unfairly by the Democrats." In an affidavit sent to the Judiciary Committee, Julie Swetnick alleged that Kavanaugh and others while in high school were involved in efforts to spike the drinks of girls who were targeted for rape. The accusation comes only a day before Kavanaugh is set to testify publicly along with Christine Blasey Ford, who claims the appeals judge assaulted her in high school. Kavanaugh has vehemently denied both claims, as well as a third sexual misconduct accusation against him. In a prepared statement for Thursday's hearing released by the Judiciary Committee, Kavanaugh said he "will not be intimidated into withdrawing from this process." After the latest allegations, Senate Democrats' calls for Kavanaugh's withdrawal  or a delay in his confirmation  intensified. The minority party in the Senate, which has largely fought Kavanaugh's nomination since it was announced, stepped up its efforts after Ford's accusation against the judge.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., speaks to reporters in the Capitol on Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2018. Bill Clark | CQ-Roll Call Group | Getty ImagesFederal regulators need to provide more information around insider trading rules as they pertain to company news posted on social media platforms, SEC commissioner Robert Jackson said on CNBC on Wednesday.

"If you're wondering whether it might be time for us to clarify this, I am, too," Jackson said in a "Squawk Box" interview. "We have issued some guidance in the area, but it's quite old."

The Securities and Exchange Commission defines illegal insider trading as buying or selling a stock based on "material, nonpublic information."

With many corporations and CEOs releasing company information on Twitter, there's been debate on Wall Street and Washington whether the platform allows information to be disseminated widely enough to be in the public domain.

"Squawk Box" co-host Joe Kernen asked Jackson where the SEC comes down.

"If all of you, who are running this show, aren't sure about the law of insider trading, then the markets don't know the law clearly enough. That's not good for people that might be informed and in a position ready to trade. That's not good for investors who we are trying to protect," said Jackson, one of four SEC commissioners.

Jackson said the entire SEC, including Chairman Jay Clayton, is concerned about making sure investors have a level playing field when it comes to the use of Twitter.

"I can't prejudge any matters, but I'm sure we'll be focusing on questions around how to best define insider trading, especially when it comes to the use of social media," Jackson said.Signage for Uber Technologies and Grab are displayed outside a building in Singapore, on April 26, 2018.

Singapore's decision to fine ride-hailing giants Grab and Uber will not have any substantial impact on either company, and the situation underscores the global shortcomings of existing regulations to protect customers, a transportation expert told CNBC.

Following Uber's sale earlier this year of its Southeast Asia business to the Singapore-based Grab, the city-state's anti-trust watchdog on Monday slapped Grab and Uber with fines totaling about 13 million Singapore dollars ($9.5 million). The Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore also directed the companies to open up the local market to new players and reduce the impact of a less-competitive field on drivers and consumers.

Although the multimillion-dollar price tag may seem steep, industry observers deemed the response as relatively positive news for Grab, which now dominates the market.

"These imposed fines are even less impactful than a slap on the wrist for Uber and Grab," Corrine Png, CEO of transport research consultancy Crucial Perspective, told CNBC. She pointed to the massive market value of both companies and also to the fact that Grab raised billions of dollars in fresh funds following Uber's withdrawal from the regional market.

In fact, she added: "The Billion Dollar question is whether Grab and Uber went ahead with the merger of their Southeast Asian operations knowing that any fine or penalties permitted by existing regulations would be dwarfed by the jump in Grab's market valuation resulting from this merger?"

Uber is currently valued at $72 billion and Grab at $11 billion, according to the latest available data on CB Insights. The Singapore-based tech firm, which is backed by Japan's SoftBank Group, raised about $2 billion in funding from Toyota and a host of financial firms in recent months.

Png added that Grab's estimated valuation had jumped from $6.5 billion before the Uber deal, and that the American tech company had walked away with 27.5 percent of the Singapore-based firm.

"The reality on the ground is that the current existing regulations are not equipped to effectively protect consumers against this new breed of fast-growing ride-hailing tech giants with extensive reach and deep pockets," Png said.

The Singaporean regulator began investigating the merger on grounds that it might have broken the country's competition act and said that it received "numerous complaints" from both passengers and drivers using Grab's services.Norway's Statkraft has unveiled plans to invest roughly 10 billion Norwegian crowns ($1.23 billion) per year in renewable energy between 2019 and 2025.



In an announcement Wednesday, the state-owned energy firm said it wanted to increase its onshore wind capacity to 6 gigawatts (GW) by 2025. In addition, it wants to boost solar capacity to 2 GW, also by 2025. Annual investments in the "renewal" of Norwegian hydropower plants will reach around 1.2 billion Norwegian crowns, it added.



"The combination of our unique portfolio of flexible hydropower, in-depth market understanding, innovative solutions, as well as our customers' increased interest in renewable energy make us a preferred partner for both producers and consumers of clean energy," Christian Rynning-Tonnesen, Statkraft's CEO, said in a statement.

Statkraft said that its investments would be financed, in part, through earnings from existing businesses, supplemented by "systematic divestments of shares in completed solar and wind projects to financial investors."



The largest generator of renewable energy in Europe, Statkraft employs 3,500 people and produced 63 terawatt hours of power in 2017.An employee works on a Ford Expedition sports utility vehicle on the assembly line at the Ford Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville, Kentucky.

President Donald Trump's tariffs are hitting Ford's finances hard.

The second-largest U.S. automaker has suffered $1 billion in lost profits from tariffs on metals imported to the United States, said Ford CEO Jim Hackett in an interview with Bloomberg TV on Wednesday.

The U.S. has a 25 percent tariff on steel and a 10 percent tariff on aluminum imported from several countries, an early step in an escalating trade war that threatens to raise prices on goods and deal a blow to firms in a wide range of industries, including autos.

The tariffs come at a time when Ford is trying to improve its financial health, raise its share price and sink money into developing new propulsion technologies, such as electric powertrains, autonomous driving technology, cloud computing technology for transportation and other mobility businesses.President Donald Trump's administration is failing to recognize the negative effect America's trade dispute with China and other countries will have on his voters, an investment chief told CNBC.

Mark Phelps, chief investment officer of concentrated global growth at AllianceBernstein, said that the prime victim of the sparring of tariffs between the U.S., China and others will be consumers, because companies will likely conclude that they need to raise prices to deal with a downturn in imports from trading partners.

"At the moment, most of the companies I know that sell, particularly from China, into the United States are just at the moment talking about putting prices up, I don't think they're going to stop selling," Phelps told CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe."

"Who is that going to affect? The U.S. consumer," he added. "I'm still not sure the Trump administration realizes quite how negative that may be to some of his voters when they really think about how much their prices are going to go up."

Phelps said AllianceBernstein is meeting with U.S. home improvement supplies retailer Home Depot on Wednesday to see if they expect to shift their strategy in any way as a result of the tariffs. He said the firm would likely discuss measures to mitigate the effect of tariffs, but said he also expected an increase in prices to be on the cards.

"I think you're going to see significant moves up in price  what does that mean for consumption?" Phelps said. "If consumption drops then obviously that has an effect on profitability."

He also implied that heightened protectionism could affect the long-term investment decisions of shareholders.

"What does that mean for our investment in those companies?" Phelps said, adding: "That's what we're trying to do, you're trying to think through those long-term effects, and it's very hard to be categoric yet about this."

The analyst is not alone in warning of the potential impacts trade tariffs could have on consumers. In fact, a number of well-known American firms, including Walmart, Coca-Cola and General Motors, have warned they could be forced to raise their prices.

The U.S. this week ramped up the pressure on China in its trade battle with the country. Washington imposed a 10 percent levy on $200 billion of Chinese goods entering the U.S., including furniture and appliances. Trump plans to increase that tariff rate to 25 percent by the end of the year.

So far, a total of $250 billion worth of Chinese products have been targeted by the U.S. duties. There is speculation the Trump administration could extend tariffs to cover the entirety of Chinese imports, drastically escalating the geopolitical tension between the two nations.

And America's trade conflict with Canada has also re-entered the spotlight. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said on Tuesday that the U.S. was prepared to leave Canada behind in its trade negotiations with Mexico, adding that talks between Washington and Ottawa were at an impasse.

WATCH: A (brief) history of the world's trade warsPresident Donald Trump on Wednesday said that the outcome of the hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday could cause him to change his mind about sexual misconduct allegations against his Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

"I can always be convinced" Trump said, "It's possible I'll hear [the allegations] and I'll say, I'm changing my mind!"

Christine Blasey Ford is scheduled to testify about her alleged sexual assault. Ford alleges that Kavanaugh locked her in a room, pinned her down on a bed and attempted to pull her clothes off at a party when they were both teenagers. Kavanaugh has denied the allegation.

Speaking at a rare solo press conference in New York, Trump said Kavanaugh's accusers are going to have "a big shot at speaking and making their case" at Thursday's hearing. "And you know what, I could be persuaded," Trump said.

Asked if the three women who have alleged sexual misconduct by Kavanaugh are "liars," Trump demurred. "I can't tell you whether or not they are liars until I hear them, and I don't know what happened today, because I've been busy" at the United Nations.

The comments marked a significant shift in tone from the president, who has personally attacked two of Kavanaugh's three accusers in recent days. On Tuesday, the president dismissed an allegation of sexual misconduct made by Deborah Ramirez, a Yale University classmate of Kavanaugh's, because he said the alleged victim was drunk at the time she says Kavanaugh exposed himself to her.

Trump's attack on Ramirez came just days after the president tweeted that, "if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says," then Ford, then 15, would have notified the police.President Donald Trump claimed Wednesday that he rejected a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau this week as the countries struggle to reach a new trade deal.

However, "no meeting was requested" by the Canadian government, Trudeau spokeswoman Eleanore Catenaro said. It underscores the simmering trade tensions between the neighbors and rocky personal relationship between their leaders.

The Trump administration is scrambling to meet a self-imposed Oct. 1 deadline to strike a new North American trade agreement among the U.S., Mexico and Canada. Mexico has already signed on to a deal to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement.

So far, the U.S. and its northern neighbor have struggled to come to terms  and Trump is again using tariff threats as leverage to bring trading partners to the table.

"His tariffs are too high, and he doesn't seem to want to move, and I've told him forget about it, and frankly, we're thinking about just taxing cars coming in from Canada," Trump told reporters in explaining why he did not want to meet one-on-one with Trudeau at the United Nations General Assembly. "That's the mother lode. That's the big one."

"We're very unhappy with the negotiations and the negotiating style of Canada. We don't like their representative [Chrystia Freeland] very much," Trump added during a news conference.President Donald Trump could decide to shut down parts of the government in the coming days as he pushes for money to build his proposed border wall.

The House is expected to pass a bill as early as Wednesday that would fund the Pentagon and a few other agencies for a year, combined with a stopgap measure to sustain the rest of the government for a short time. It would not, however, fund Trump's proposed barrier on the U.S.-Mexico border. The lack of cash for the project has frustrated Trump, who last week called the bill "ridiculous" and urged Republicans to "GET TOUGH!"

Trump tweet

Since the Senate already approved the legislation, only the president's veto would stop it from becoming law if it gets through the House. Trump has waffled on the idea of shutting down the government in recent weeks. House Speaker Paul Ryan said Wednesday that the president told him he would sign the spending bill.

Government funding expires at 12:01 a.m. ET Monday.

Earlier this month, Trump said "I would do it because I think it's a great political issue." GOP lawmakers worry about a shutdown hurting Republican candidates less than six weeks before November's midterm elections. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Ryan oppose letting funding lapse and want to address border wall funding after the midterms.

"There are a lot of politicians that I like and respect and are with me all the way that would rather not do it because they have races, they're doing well, they're up," the president said on Sept. 7. "The way they look at it, might be good, might be bad."Customs officials at Tan Son Nhat Airport yesterday announced they seized the haul of illegal Iphones.

Before, realizing that it is highly likely that Iphones will be smuggled into Vietnam after Apple has officially launched new iPhone XS smartphone lately, Customs Department in the airport has adopted measures to prevent illicit transportation of new smartphones.

Custom officials were working relentlessly to discover smuggle and handle violations.

Four American men did not produce legal receipt for the haul as per the regulation; accordingly, custom officials wrote document to keep the Iphone for further investigation.

Deputy chief of the Custom Department in the airport Tran Ngoc Anh said that as per the present law, phone importers must register for quality test when finishing custom formalities.

People are allowed to bring only one Iphone as a persons personal item and they dont need to finish the quality check but they have to pay tax because its value is over VND10 million ($426.9).

Passengers are forced to undergo quality check at the Department of Telecommunications if they bring two or more Iphone whose value is worth over VND20 million.

If passengers falling foul of the law will be fined and they will be ordered to re-export their goods

Therefore, custom officials warned passengers should bring only one and write in the custom declaration and pay tax to avoid being fined.

By DAN NGUYEN - Translated by UYEN PHUONGPresident Donald Trump would prefer for Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to keep his job, he said Wednesday.

The president will meet with the No. 2 Justice Department official on Thursday amid swirling rumors about his ouster. But Trump said he does not want to fire the man who appointed special counsel Robert Mueller to lead the Russia investigation that he has publicly raged against for months.

"I would certainly prefer not" firing Rosenstein, Trump told reporters during a news conference after his appearance at the United Nations General Assembly.

"My preference would be to keep him and let him finish up," the president added.

Reports that Rosenstein mentioned the possibility of invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office last year set off speculation that the president could fire him soon. But on Wednesday, the president said he "had a good talk" with the deputy attorney general, who Trump said denied making the comments.

Trump's meeting with Rosenstein comes on the same day as a dramatic hearing, when Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh will testify about an accusation of sexual assault decades ago in high school. College professor Christine Blasey Ford says the appeals judge assaulted her at a party in the early 1980s. The allegation, combined with two other claims of sexual misconduct that the appeals judge vehemently denies, has temporarily stalled his confirmation process.

Trump said he may call Rosenstein and "ask for a little bit of a delay" in their meeting so it does not interfere with the Kavanaugh hearing. The president added that he does not "want to do anything that's going to conflict with that."

Rosenstein's potential departure led to concerns that Trump could appoint a replacement who would fire Mueller and end the Russia investigation. Trump has repeatedly called the probe a "witch hunt."President Donald Trump speaks during a bilateral meeting with Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on the sidelines of the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, September 26, 2018.

President Donald Trump just calmed fears about a government shutdown, for the moment.

"We'll keep the government open. We're going to keep the government open," he told reporters Wednesday during a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during the United Nations General Assembly.

The House is set to approve a proposal later Wednesday that would fund the Defense Department and a few other agencies for a year, along with a short-term funding measure for the rest of the government. The Senate already passed it, so it would go to the president's desk with days to spare before funding lapses at 12:01 a.m. ET on Monday.

In recent weeks, Trump raised concerns that he would veto the legislation due to frustration that it does not fund his proposed border wall. Last week, he called the bill "ridiculous" and urged Republicans to "GET TOUGH!"

Trump tweet

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan oppose letting the government shut down and want to address border wall funding after November's midterm elections. Earlier in the day, Ryan said Trump told him he would sign the spending bill.

WATCH: Trump's fight against 'fake news' has been a boon for media companiesTurkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan talks during a joint press conference with Iraq's Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, following their meeting at the Presidential Palace in Ankara, Turkey, Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2018.

Turkish President Recep Erdogan continued his underhanded criticism of U.S. foreign policy during the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, likening financial sanctions  which America has placed on Turkish officials  to weapons.

Without directly naming the U.S., Erdogan told the assembly, "None of us can remain silent to the arbitrary cancellation of commercial agreements and the use of economic sanctions as weapons."

He was referring to Washington's asset freezes on two Turkish ministers in response to Ankara's continued detention of American pastor Andrew Brunson on spying charges, which Brunson denies.

"Nobody wants the world to experience a new economic rupture," Erdogan said. "It is very easy to create chaos but it's difficult to re-establish order, and today some countries are persistently trying to create chaos."

U.S.-Turkish relations are at a low following the diplomatic crisis, which has yet to be resolved despite multiple high-level meetings. Recent appeal hearings for Brunson have failed to clear his charges, and Erdogan said Tuesday that Turkish courts, and not politicians, would decide the pastor's fate.

August saw Donald Trump's administration announce a doubling of the steel and aluminum tariffs already in place against Ankara. Turkey responded in kind, placing tariffs on American cars, tobacco and alcohol. Erdogan called the U.S. penalties a "stab in the back."[The stream is slated to start at 10 a.m. ET. Please refresh the page if you do not see a player above at that time.]

President Donald Trump is set to chair a United Nations Security Council meeting Wednesday on nuclear counterproliferation.

The topic includes North Korean denuclearization, as well as Iran's nuclear program and Syria's use of chemical weapons.

WATCH: If President Trump were to order a nuclear strike, here's what would happenFor the financial package of the sugar sector, the cabinet reportedly raised the price the government directly pays to cane growers to Rs 138 rupees per tonne.

The Cabinet on Wednesday approved the telecom policy and the financial package for the sugar sector.

The telecom policy , branded as the National Digital Communications Policy , is expected to attract investment of around $100 billion and create 40 lakh new job opportunities.

"Policy has clearly stated what will be the key objectives - one, to get universal broadband out to all and two, to create the investments which will ensure India has a next generation ready telecom network," Aruna Sundararajan, telecom secretary, had earlier said.

The broadband coverage will include deployment of 5 million public wi-fi hotspots by 2020 and 10 million by 2022 through a National Broadband Mission and also seek to implement a Fibre First Initiative to take fibre to the home by giving optic fibre cables the status of public utility.

It included provisions to adopt "Optimal Pricing of Spectrum" to ensure sustainable and affordable access to digital communications. High spectrum price and related charges have been main concern of telecom services segment, which is reeling under a debt of around Rs 7.8 lakh crore.

RS Sharma, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) chief, said that most of the recommendations that were given by Trai have been incorporated in the telecom policy and said the approval of the policy 'comes in as a huge positive' for the sector.

Sharma said that the new telecom policy will help the companies attract more investments.

"The sector is going to witness really a quantum jump in terms of the newer application, the technologies. We have maintained that telecom is not a mere vertical today, telecom is going to become a fundamental platform of providing digital services in almost every sector. Therefore it is a critical infrastructure for the country. The broad thrust of the policy is to bring in new players, bring in new investments and to bring in new set of applications and technologies. So, everything is geared towards that and these numbers which you talked about $100 billion of investments, many millions of employment and all these numbers they are going to be realised provided this policy is approved and implemented," he said.

The Rs 4,500 crore financial package for the sugar industry includes over two-fold jump in production assistance to cane growers and transport subsidy to mills for export up to 5 million tonnes in the marketing year 2018-19.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) approved the food ministry's proposal that seeks to address the surplus domestic stock of sugar and help mills in clearing huge cane arrears of around Rs 13,000 crore.

This is the second financial package to bail out the sugar industry after Rs 8,500 crore announced in June.

The industry is facing a glut-like situation because of record production of 32 million tonnes (MT) in the 2017-18 marketing year (October-September), resulting in a closing stock of 10 MT at the end of this month.

Under its 'Comprehensive policy to deal with excess sugar production in the country', the ministry has recommended offsetting cost of sugarcane to sugar mills by increasing the production assistance paid to growers at Rs 13.88 per quintal for the 2018-19 marketing year from Rs 5.50 per quintal for this year.

The cabinet reportedly raised the price the government directly pays to cane growers to Rs 138 per tonne in the new season beginning October 2018, according to a government document seen by Reuters, up from Rs 55 in the current season.

With low global prices, the ministry has suggested helping mills to export 5 million tonnes of sugar under the Minimum Indicative Export Quota (MIEQ) during 2018-19 by compensating expenses towards internal transport, freight, handling and other charges.

(With inputs from agencies)The World Bank has approved $80 million in loans to Somalia to fund public finance reforms, marking the first disbursement to the government of the conflict-ridden country in 30 years, the bank said.

The Washington-based lender, which suspended ties with the country when war broke out in 1991, resumed support for Somalia in 2003, at the time saying it would focus on HIV/AIDS and livestock programmes with other organisations, but it has not approved any direct lending to the government to date.

It reopened direct ties with Somalia's federal government in early 2013.

Its board had approved financing of $60 million for the Recurrent Cost and Reform Financing Project and $20 million for the Domestic Revenue and Public Financial Management Capacity Strengthening Project, it said in a statement late on Tuesday.

"They (loans) represent a milestone in Somalia's development and reconstruction," the bank said.

The bank said it would also work with the government in Mogadishu to improve services like education and healthcare, access to clean water, energy and finance for its citizens - under a programme called Country Partnership Framework.

Somalia's economy was forecast to grow by an average of between 3.5 and 4.5 percent annually in 2019-2022, when the partnership on social services will run, the bank said.

"While agriculture is key to the economy, it remains vulnerable to shocks. As such, services will continue to be a main driver of growth, especially in the financial, transport and communication and trade sectors," the lender said.

Hit by decades of conflict at the hands of clan militias, Somalia has over the past several years also been pummelled by an insurgency by al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab, famines and maritime piracy.

Parts of the country are still plagued by militant violence, but a degree of stability in the capital in recent years has begun to draw investment from locals and Somalis living abroad.

Last week, the International Monetary Fund said it expected the economy to grow by 3.1 percent this year from 2.3 percent in 2017, as it recovers from drought last year.Bazaar Corporate Radar | Feb 22, 2021, 12:00 AM IST

Bazaar Corporate Radar

Bazaar Corporate Radar is your window into the minds of top CEOs, Boardrooms, global economists, fund managers and sector analysts. If it?s making news, you?ll find it on Bazaar Corporate Radar. REFINITIV 15   Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Geng Shuang's Regular Press Conference on September 26

2018/09/26

Q: We have noted that a foreign ministers' meeting on the Iranian nuclear issue was convened at the UN Headquarters in New York which gathered together Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, foreign ministers of Russia, the UK and Iran, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, and the Director General of Department of Political Affairs of Germany's Foreign Ministry. The meeting published a joint statement. Could you offer us more information on that?

A: On September 24 local time, State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi attended a foreign ministers' meeting on the Iranian nuclear issue at the UN Headquarters in New York. All participants discussed pathways to ensure the comprehensive and effective implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and evaluated the progress made in identifying and executing practical measures to achieve that goal.

The JCPOA is a multilateral agreement ratified by the Security Council. As a major outcome of multilateralism with the legal force of international law, it serves the common interests of the international community. To preserve and implement the JCPOA is to uphold the authority of the UN and the Security Council, the seriousness and sanctity of international agreements, multilateralism, the basic norms of international law, international nuclear non-proliferation regime and peace and stability in the Middle East.

Just like State Councilor Wang Yi pointed out, the meeting carried four messages. First, the meeting expressed deep regrets over the US withdrawal from the JCPOA. Second, it recognized Iran's compliance with its nuclear-related commitments made in the JCPOA. Third, it reaffirmed commitments to continue to preserve and implement the JCPOA. Fourth, it was devoted to properly addressing difficulties in maintaining normal economic and trade cooperation with Iran.

The joint statement issued by the meeting highlighted all participants' determination to protect the freedom of their economic operators to pursue legitimate business with Iran, in full accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 2231. All participants reaffirmed that they will continue to take effective measures to secure payment channels with Iran, and the continuation of Iran's export of oil and gas condensate, petroleum products and petrochemicals. All the participants welcomed the proposals to establish a Special Purpose Vehicle to facilitate payments related to Iran's exports and imports, including oil.

The JCPOA's effectiveness has been proved by its implementation over the past three years. China supports all things that will help preserve the JCPOA. In the meantime, we will do our utmost to ensure China's legitimate and lawful rights and interests.

Q: Do you have any further details on the agreement that China reached with the Vatican over the weekend? And more specifically, in the agreement is there a mention of the Vatican's relations with Taiwan and is there a timetable China expects the Vatican to abandon Taiwan and to establish diplomatic relations with the mainland?

A: With regard to the provisional agreement on appointment of bishops signed between China and the Vatican, the Chinese side has issued the press release.

As to how signing this agreement between China and the Vatican will affect Taiwan's so-called diplomatic ties with the Vatican, I want to say that the Chinese side is always sincere about improving its ties with the Vatican and has been making unremitting efforts in this regard. Reaching the provisional agreement on appointment of bishops on the part of China and the Vatican is an important outcome in the process of improving our bilateral ties. China is willing to continuously work with the Vatican to conduct constructive dialogue, enhance understanding, accumulate mutual trust and keep improving our bilateral relations.

Q: According to Japanese media, member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and Director of the Office of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs Yang Jiechi co-hosted the fifth round of China-Japan High-level Political Dialogue with Japan's National Security Advisor Shotaro Yachi in Suzhou, Jiangzu on September 25. The two sides agreed on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and the importance of implementing the relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council in a comprehensive way. They also agreed to maintain close communication in this regard. What is your comment?

A: On September 25, the fifth round of China-Japan High-level Political Dialogue was held in Suzhou. Our two sides had a candid and in-depth exchange of views on China-Japan ties and international and regional issues of mutual interest. The Chinese side expounded its consistent and clear-cut position on the Korean Peninsula issue. China is committed to achieving the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, maintaining peace and stability on the Peninsula and resolving the issue through dialogue and consultation. Meanwhile, China maintains that the relevant resolutions adopted by the UN Security Council should be implemented in a comprehensive and balanced manner. Under the current circumstances, all relevant parties should cherish and uphold the hard-won improving situation on the Korean Peninsula and play a constructive role in promoting the political settlement process of the Peninsula issue.

Q: We have noted that a smart phone app "Foreign Ministry 12308" just got online. Could you give us more details about this app?

A: On the sidelines of the annual session of the National People's Congress this year, State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi announced at his press conference that a smart phone app version of 12308 will be launched. Now, this app is officially launched as scheduled to complement the Wechat and weibo versions of 12308. They will simultaneously issue safety advisories, the handling of major consular emergency cases involving Chinese nationals, important Chinese and foreign visa regulations, and important policies and information concerning the issuance of consular documents for Chinese nationals.

The most noteworthy feature of this app is that through it, Chinese nationals could make free 12308 helpline calls using the internet. There is no need to pay global roaming and call charges. This will make it more convenient for Chinese nationals who encounter difficulties overseas to receive consular protection and assistance from the Foreign Ministry and China's diplomatic missions at the earliest time possible.

Chinese nationals are encouraged to download this app, and we look forward to hearing some valuable advice so that we could enrich and improve the functions and contents of this app.

The National Day holiday which is a peak season for outbound visits is just around the corner. Here we would like to remind our Chinese nationals to mind travel safety issues, travel safely and with good manners, abide by local laws and regulations, respect local customs and practices, protect environment, and always remember they represent the image of China.

Q: Yesterday, in his speech at the General Debate of the UN General Assembly, the US leader talked about the China-US trade war, saying that after China joined the WTO, the American companies and workers have been victimized and that the US will not tolerate China's acts any more. What is your response and what is your comment on the US leader's speech?

A: The Information Office of the State Council has issued a White Paper on the Facts and China's Position on China-US Trade Friction. Yesterday, the Information Office of the State Council held a press conference to brief you on the situation and take your questions. You can see that China's position and attitude cannot be made more clear-cut.

In response to the latest statement made by the US, I would like to make the following points. Firstly, the large trade deficit that the United States has with other countries and the loss of US manufacturing jobs are the result of the shortage of savings in the United States. It is the result of changes in the international division of labor and the production layout of multinational companies as well as using the US dollar as a major international currency. It is also an objective reflection of the complementary comparative advantages of the industries in the United States and those in other countries. It makes no sense to only blame China for the trade deficit and job losses, or attribute them to China's entry into the WTO.

Secondly, with regard to the China-US trade friction, China's position has been made clear both in the White Paper and at yesterday's press conference. We have been stressing that the China-US economic and trade cooperation is mutually beneficial in nature. During the past 40 years or so, the China-US economic and trade cooperation has brought tangible benefits to our two peoples. It is only natural and also inevitable for our two countries to have some trade differences and frictions. The key is that our two sides should resolve them through dialogue and consultation on the basis of equality, good faith and mutual respect, instead of pursuing unilateralism and protectionism.

Thirdly, the annual General Debate of the UN General Assembly is an important platform for the UN member states to expound their positions and propositions on the current international and regional situations and major international and regional issues. As an important country in today's world, the United States certainly has its own unique opinions and views on a host of issues. I think you all have noted that.

Meanwhile, we hope that the United States will also take this opportunity to listen to the speeches made by the UN Secretary-General, the President of the UN General Assembly and other UN member states and heed their call for adhering to multilateralism, upholding the authority of the United Nations, promoting free trade, advocating international rules and strengthening global cooperation. As the world's number one power, the United States should think about what role they should play in helping resolve the international and regional hot-spot issues, addressing global threats and challenges and promoting world peace and development.

Q: According to reports, former President of the Maldives Mohammed Nasheed, when giving an interview to Indian media, said that no project between China and the Maldives is commercially feasible and that unfeasible projects should not be imposed on developing countries. He added that the Maldives will audit infrastructure projects. He believes that the Chinese side can understand why the Maldives did so. What is your comment?

A: It is the people of our two countries that have the final say on whether the China-Maldives cooperation is feasible and can deliver benefits to our two countries. It can by no means smeared by certain people. It baffles me why certain people always make such irresponsible remarks and I deeply regret that.

I would like to reiterate that the China-Maldives cooperation is based on equality, voluntarism and mutual benefit and strictly follows the market rules and observes laws and regulations. If certain forces wantonly harm China's interests out of political purposes, the Chinese side will firmly oppose it and resolutely protect the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese enterprises.

Q: Yesterday, in the speech at the General Debate of the UN General Assembly, the US side heavily criticized Socialism, saying that Socialism and Communism produced suffering and corruption to mankind. All nations in the world should resist Socialism and the misery it brings to everyone. What is your comment?

A: Every country has the right to choose the development path and social system which suit its needs. The people of one country are in the best position to comment on whether their development path and social system are suitable or not.

Drawing lines according to ideology and creating hostility and confrontations between the two camps are the practices during the Cold War. Here I would like to remind you of the fact that the Cold War has been over for nearly 30 years.

Over the past 30 years or so, the tide of the times has been vast and mighty and the wheels of history have been rolling on. I believe that the vast majority of countries in the world do not want to turn back the clock.Hi! I am an Assistant City Editor for the education beat, which means I help with breaking news and all things K-12 or higher education. Any tips or story ideas can be sent to me at hlht46@mail.missouri.edu or in the newsroom at 882-5720.

Follow this search Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up TodayMicrosoft loves to play cat-and-mouse with Win10 version release dates, but as I explained yesterday, it looks as if the RTM version of Win10 1809 will be based on build 17763, and itll likely arrive on Oct. 2, coinciding with the Surface event in New York. New Surfaces. New Windows. A match made in marketing heaven, eh?

Theres always a chance the release will be delayed, as it was with Win10 1803. But barring the arrival of a Ginormous Grinch, Oct. 2 seems like a done deal. So it would behoove you to download and hold on to a clean copy of Win10 version 1803 while the gettings good. And official. And free. It may save your bacon someday.

Your mission is to create something called an ISO file, which is a single file thats an image of an entire disk drive. If youve never worked with ISO files, dont worry about it. Win10 handles them, more or less, like any other compressed file.

Heres how to get your own copy  and make sure that its good:

Step 1. Make sure youre running a validated copy of Win10, any version, with any browser, and that you have about 4GB of free space on any convenient storage device.

Step 2. Head over to Microsofts official Download Windows 10 page and click on the box marked Download tool now. You get a file called MediaCreationTool1803.exe.

Disregard the warning that you will first need to have a license to install Windows 10. If youre running a valid copy of Win10, you can download the ISO file. (If you dont have a valid copy of Win10, use a friends.) The license may or may not come into play if you ever decide to install the downloaded version, but you dont need a license to download the bits.

Step 3. Double-click on MediaCreationTool1803.exe and run it.

The downloader takes a minute or two to get its bearings, splashes a 1,500-word License Terms screen in dense legalese, and waits for you to read that BY USING THE SOFTWARE, YOU ACCEPT THESE TERMS.

Step 4. Click Accept.

Or you can hire a lawyer to go over all 1,500 words. Remember that It also applies even if Microsoft knew or should have known about the possibility of the damages.

Step 5. On the next screen, click the button marked "Create installation media (USB flash drive, DVD, or ISO file) for another PC." Then click Next.

Step 6. Choose your Language (Klingon?), Edition (Windows 10) and Architecture (likely 64-bit (x64)). Click Next.

Step 7. On the next screen, choose "ISO file / Youll need to burn the ISO file to a DVD later." Click Next.

Ignore the DVD part. Chances are very good that, if you ever need to use the ISO, you can either put it on a USB drive, or just use it directly.

Step 8. Find a location and choose a name for the downloaded file.

I called mine Windows 10 1803 Media Creation Tool 2018 09 26.iso, and stuck it in a folder called D:\Software, as you can see in the screenshot.

IDG

Step 9. Click Finish.

Ignore the part about "Burn the ISO file to a DVD," and the other part about "Open DVD burner." They dont apply to you. The Media Creation Tool is ancient and decrepit and badly in need of updating to a modern era, like so many other things in Win10.

Microsoft's servers really haul. My download, over a fast Wi-Fi connection, took four minutes.

Once you have the file, you might want to take a minute to make sure it contains what you think it contains. Ends up, thats pretty easy.

Step 10. Double-click on the downloaded ISO file.

Win10 will mount the ISO  another one of those new-fangled terms that harkens back to the time when an operator had to physically swap out a stack of spinning platters. True fact.

Windows creates a fictitious drive  in my case its called E:  and shows you the files inside the ersatz drive, per the screenshot.

IDG

Step 11. Make note of the mounted (fake) drive letter. Right-click Start and choose Windows Power Shell (Admin). If youre on a much older version of Windows  before Win10 version 1703  you can choose Command Prompt (Admin).

Step 12. Type (or, better, copy and paste) this command

dism /Get-WimInfo /WimFile:E:\sources\install.esd /index:1

Substitute your fictitious drive letter for E if need be.

There are strategic spaces in that command before each of the / forward slash characters. Watch out.

When I run that dism command on the ISO file I downloaded on Wednesday afternoon, I get the result you see in the screenshot.

IDG

In my case, the dism report starts out like this:

Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool

Version: 10.0.17763.1

Details for image : E:\sources\install.esd

Index : 1

Name : Windows 10 Home

Description : Windows 10 Home

Size : 15,743,745,278 bytes

WIM Bootable : No

Architecture : x64

Hal : <undefined>

Version : 10.0.17134

ServicePack Build : 1

ServicePack Level : 112

Thats an inscrutable way of saying that this ISO file is the installer for Windows version 10.0.17134, which youll probably translate (correctly) into Win10 build 17134. A quick check on the official Windows 10 Update History page should convince you that this ISO installs Win10 version 1803 build 17134.112, which was released on June 12.

If you use the Creation Tool before Microsoft swaps out version 1809 for 1803, youll get a result like that. If you wait too long, though, youll see Version: 10.0.17736, which is the telltale sign for Win10 1809.

And that part about Windows 10 Home? Ignore it. The ISO file you download with the Media Creation Tool contains both Home and Pro.

Questions? Comments? Recriminations? Join us on the AskWoody Lounge.NTU Singapore receives S$9 million boost to attract top young researchers from Swedish universities

Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) has received a S$9 million cash gift from Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, the largest private financier of research in Sweden, to attract top young scientists from Swedish universities.

The new Wallenberg-NTU postdoctoral fellowship programme will support up to 40 fellows over the next six years. Some of Swedens most outstanding young scientists will spend two years at NTU Singapore to conduct postdoctoral research, the university said in a press statement on Tuesday, Sept 25.

NTU President, Professor Subra Suresh, believes that the partnership will leverage the strengths of NTU Singapore and Swedish universities to nurture talent and build intellectual capacity in many disciplines critical to the economy and society.

NTU President, Professor Subra Suresh. Photo courtesy: NTU Singapore

Professor Suresh said, We are deeply grateful to the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, whose new generous gift comes after their S$12.6 million donation to NTU just three months ago. The Wallenberg family is known for their passion for cutting-edge research and technologies, and NTU is privileged to be one of only three international universities to benefit from the Wallenberg Foundations recognition and support.

In July this year, NTU received a S$7.6 million gift from the Foundation to set up a postdoctoral fellowship to nurture early-career scientists, as well as an additional S$5 million over five years in support of the postdoctoral fellows.

With this latest S$9 million gift, the university has raised  with government matching  almost $30 million to date arising from the generous gifts by the Wallenberg Foundation to NTU in support of a new university-wide post-doctoral fellowship programme established by President Suresh.

Mr Peter Wallenberg, chairman of the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, said, We are pleased to extend our post-doctoral programme for young Swedish scientists to NTU, in addition to our present collaboration with Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Under this new Wallenberg-NTU postdoctoral fellowship, 40 new Fellows will be appointed over the next several years. The fellowship support will enable them to carry out their research at NTU, over a two-year period, in any discipline offered by Colleges and Schools across the entire university.May promises businesses low taxes and smart regulation

The Prime Minister attacks Canada as a bad deal, that would be worse than no deal

Theresa May will today pledge to oversee a low tax economy after we leave the EU as she makes a major Brexit sales pitch to global business leaders. Speaking in New York she will tell the worlds biggest firms they should have confidence to invest in post-Brexit Britain because of her plan to create one of the most dynamic and business friendly economies in the wordBritain is already on course to have the lowest business taxes of the worlds G20 countries with the Governments target to cut corporation tax to 17 per cent by 2020. It is currently at 19 per cent. Her speech doesnt spell out any new policies but it signals she could go further and slash business taxes further after Brexit to make Britain an even more competitive business hub than EU rivals. In her speech to the Bloomberg Business Forum Mrs May will also sell post-Brexit Britain by laying out a blueprint for smart regulation after were free of EU red tape.  The Sun

Theresa May has raised the stakes in her fight with Conservative Eurosceptics, saying that a no deal Brexit would be better than a Canada-style trade deal that split Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK. Tory Brexiters, including Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees-Mogg, want to throw out Mrs Mays Chequers compromise Brexit plan in favour of a free trade deal, similar to the one struck by the EU with Canada. But speaking as she travelled to the UN General Assembly in New York, Mrs May suggested that any Canada-style offer from Brussels would only apply to the mainland UK with Northern Ireland carved off as a separate customs territory. Mrs May said her Chequers plan  which proposes a free trade area for goods under the EU rule book  was a viable proposal that addressed the need to keep the Irish border open. Asked if no deal was better than a Canada plus deal, Mrs May said: First of all I have always said no deal is better than a bad deal. I think a bad deal would be for example a deal that broke up the United Kingdom. We want to maintain the unity of the United Kingdom.  FT

Shes being disingenuous, Davis says  The Times

The comments put her on collision course with her Cabinet  Daily Telegraph

Chuck Chequers, unite the country, save your career and destroy Labour  Nigel Farage, Daily Telegraph

Beginning of the end for Merkel as MPs rebel  Daily Telegraph

The German Chancellor demands concrete trade deal details in the next eight weeks  The Guardian

>Today: ToryDiary: Official and significant. The ERG declares that it will vote against Chequers.

EU judges keep MEPs expenses secret

They should be ashamed  The Times Leader

Commissioner threatens press regulation in response to criticism  The Sun

No-marks dont want their life on the gravy train to be exposed  The Sun Says

European Union judges have spared MEPs from scrutiny by backing the European Parliaments refusal to disclose details of politicians expenses. The European Court of Justice supported the refusal to grant access to documents relating to subsistence allowances, travel expenses and parliamentary assistance allowances. It will prevent MEPs, who face elections in the spring, from being required to account for annual allowances. EU judges ruled that it would be a breach of the privacy of individual MEPs if they had to provide the public with details of expenses, which require constituency office addresses, invoices and receipts. All the documents requested contain information concerning identified natural persons, namely MEPs, a court statement said. The mere fact that those personal data are closely linked to public data on those persons does not mean that those data cannot be characterised as personal data.  The Times

Rouhani urged to release Zaghari-Ratcliffe

Theresa May made a personal appeal to the Iranian president last night on behalf of a jailed British-Iranian charity worker who was imprisoned in Tehran in 2016. The prime minister said she had serious concerns about the detention of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and appealed for her release in a meeting with Hassan Rouhani on the sidelines of the United Nations general assembly in New York. Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a mother of one and an employee of a charitable foundation, had gone to visit family in Iran in the spring of 2016. She was accused of spying by Tehrans Islamist regime and sentenced to five years in jail but vehemently denies the charges. Last month she was released for three days from Evin prison in Tehran, giving her the chance to see her four-year-old daughter, Gabriella, but requests for an extension of this reprieve were denied. In a letter to Mohammad Javad Zarif, Irans foreign minister, her husband Richard Ratcliffe said that the short release was a cruel game.  The Times

Labour 1) Corbyn to promise free childcare for all, including the wealthy

Labour 2) Starmer, McDonnell and Unite tout conflicting Brexit referendum policies

Jeremy Corbyn wants to spend 5billion on giving free childcare to every family no matter how rich they are, he announced today. Labour also plans to turn childcare into a graduate profession  forcing increasing numbers of nursery workers to hold degreesDuring his party conference speech tomorrow, Mr Corbyn will announce that all children under five will get 30 hours a week of free care under a Labour government. Poorer parents will be able to top up with more free childcare  while even millionaires will pay no more than 4 an hour for a nursery place, the party chief will sayCritics said his plans would end up driving the cost of childcare up by shutting carers out of the industry. Sophie Jarvis of the Adam Smith Institute told The Sun: For some bizarre reason Corbyn thinks youll need a degree to look after kids, but he doesnt need one to run the country.  The Sun

Keir Starmer, shadow Brexit secretary, won a standing ovation at the Labour conference on Tuesday when he said the party had not ruled out the possibility of another referendum on EU membershipJohn McDonnell, shadow chancellor, had insisted on Monday that any new public vote would only be on the terms of the Brexit deal, and not on whether to reverse the original referendum decision to leave the EU. Sir Keirs comments that nobody is ruling out Remain as an option was not in a draft of his speech sent to journalists as he stood up to speak to conference delegates, prompting speculation that he was deliberately defying the party leadership. In a conference debate on the Brexit motion, Sir Keir was contradicted by Steve Turner, assistant general secretary of Unite, the trade union, who said Labour was only offering a public vote on the terms of our departure from the EU. Labour is deeply split over Brexit, with many younger supporters in urban areas being enthusiastic Europhiles, while blue-collar backers in the partys traditional heartlands back Leave.  FT

>Today: Robert Halfons column: Please, please free me from Brexit Groundhog Day Brexit Groundhog Day Brexit Groundhog Day

>Yesterday:

Labour 3) MP calls for General Strike to unseat the Government

Labour 4) Ryan speaks of fear that her Party will get into government

To enthusiastic cheers from delegates at a Labour conference fringe event, Laura Smith, the MP for Crewe and Nantwich, said: Comrades, we must topple this cruel and callous Tory government as soon as we can. And if we cant get a general election we should organise with our brothers and sisters in the trade union [movement] to bring an end to this government with a general strike. But the shadow business secretary, Rebecca Long-Bailey, said a general strike was not Labour party policy, and the partys deputy leader, Tom Watson, said the idea was not particularly helpful. Speaking on BBC Radio 4s Today programme, Long-Bailey put Smiths call down to over-exuberance.  The Guardian

Ms Ryan warned that Mr Corbyn wont be forgiven by British Jews until he shows he is truly sorry for the hurt he has caused them. Labour Friends of Israel Chair Joan Ryan told a reception hat she has felt a real fear that her own party might get into government. As the partys deputy leader Tom Watson looked on, the Enfield North MP accused the party of a great shame which can only be overcome when Labour show remorse, humility and empathy. She told the LFI reception: The reaction I encounter is almost universal: it is one of anxiety, hurt and anger. An incomprehension that our party could have treated a minority community in this country with such disregard, arrogance and contempt.  The Sun

AA warns of pothole epidemic

The AA has said a pothole epidemic caused by the beast from the east contributed to the highest number of vehicle breakdown callouts in 15 years. The company said core earnings in the roadside vehicle recovery business fell 17% in the six months to the end of July, due to the increased expenditure and higher costs needed to use third-party garages to house the much higher number ofvehicles that broke down. This contributed to a 65% decline in pre-tax profit, from 80m to 28m. AA shares were down about 4.5% in early trading on Wednesday, the biggest faller on the FTSE 250. Simon Breakwell, the AA chief executive, said: The first half of [the financial year] has seen exceptional weather conditions, from extreme cold and snow in February and March to the hottest summer in recent memory, with the severe winter also creating a pothole epidemic on the UKs roads.  The GuardianRobert Halfon is MP for Harlow, a former Conservative Party Deputy Chairman, Chair of the Education Select Committee and President of Conservative Workers and Trade Unionists.

The train of conservatism

The train of communism is travelling up the hill. It suddenly stops, unable to move.

Lenin announces: Revolutionise the Driver.

Stalin screams: Put the Driver in the gulag.

Khrushchev argues: Rehabilitate the Driver.

Brezhnev implores: Shut the train curtains.

Gorbachev shouts: The train isnt working, the train isnt working.

Yeltsin replies: Lets get the vodka out.

Putin says: Poison the Driver and inform the passengers he was taking the train to Salisbury Cathedral.

I sometimes think that, when the Corbyn/McDonnell train is journeying across our railways, the response from the Right, is as inadequate as this parody of the Soviet-Russian leaders in dealing with the failures of communism and post-communism. The newspaper headlines are a case in point: The end of the world, Socialism in tooth and claw, et al.

The problem for Conservatives is that the Corbyn description of what is going on resonates with millions of people. Failing railways. Increased homelessness on our streets. Utility companies with shoddy service and undeserved salaries for some company bosses, even with poor performance. Families struggling  despite working every day. Our infrastructure under strain and potholes across our roads. High streets closing as traditional shopping is swooped up by Amazon on the internet. Crime and anti-social behaviour on the rise.

Of course Tories can argue, that all this is the consequence of having no money left after 2010  that the jobs miracle, tax cuts for lower earners, fuel duty freeze, the national living wage alongside, and millions of apprenticeships are an example of what a good entrepreneurial Conservative Government can do. Indeed, all this is true  and I argue these points myself.

But deep social and economic problems remain. We are stuck in the political rhetoric of the past, rather than providing a proper Tory vision for the future. Its why even with the most left wing leader in the history of mankind etc, Corbyns Labour remains pretty high in the polls. They are speaking to the problems faced by many. We too often speak only for the few.

I am not urging more socialism on our country, far from it. I just want a conservatism that answers these things. As Quentin Letts (no Marxist or wet Conservative he) said in Wednesdays Daily Mail: After years of corporate abuses, multinationals and central bankers crying wolf, and a Whitehall and Westminster hierarchy still stubbornly opposed to the peoples will on Brexit, this Corbynist fervour may well find a trusting audience.

I just hope that next weeks Tory Conference sets in train conservatism for the future  a vision that deals as much with social capital as economic capital, and gets to grip with the burning injustices that the Prime Minister pledged to tackle when first on the steps of Downing Street.

Tackling Burning Injustices does not mean taxing milkshakes

Speaking of social justice, was it really envisaged that, when the Prime Minister set out her passion to deal with burning injustices, she really meant that working people should be charged more for buying a milkshake at McDonalds?

A McTax on milkshakes may please the chattering classes but just hits those on lower incomes disproportionately. Downing Street has to get out of the mindset that we solve every problem with extra taxation. What about education to change behaviours, for example?

P.S. Before the thought police harangue me about McDonalds, yes, the restaurant has unhealthy treats, but many healthy options too, including sugar free drinks, salads and fruit!

Groundhog Day

I used to think Groundhog Day was a brilliant film of fiction until I realised, every morning when I wake up to hear the same radio tunes on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, it might be a true story after all.

Okay, I hear each day a discussion about Brexit, instead of I Got You Babe, but it is hard not to feel like the grumpy weatherman Phil Connors (Bill Murray) when I wake up to it instead. I empathise with Phil again, when someone in the shape of the Groundhog Day insurance salesman, Ned (Stephen Tobolowski), stops me in a Commons corridor to talk about the EU.

I so long for when Brexit Groundhog Day is all over, and we have left the EU, in a way that respects the vote for the British people to leave properly. I may not get to dance with Rita (Andie McDowell), but focusing on perhaps even bigger challenges like Social Care or the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the match of the robots and its effect on jobs will have quite a soothing effect.

Having said that, the Stand Up for Brexit campaign has been pretty impressive on social media, especially Twitter. Perhaps they should add the EU to their hall of Brexit fame. After all, in Salzburg, did not the European Council show that they were the greatest of all advocates of #ChuckChequers? Perhaps they are secret members of the European Research Group.Mark Francois declared yesterday that the European Research Group will vote against Chequers. In one sense, of course, it will do no such thing. There wont be a vote on a proposal called Chequers in the event of a Brexit deal  or on one called Canada, Canada Plus Plus Plus, SuperCanada, SuperChequers, Norway, and so on.

Rather, there will be a vote on a Withdrawal Agreement and a political declaration. If the last is too specific, Theresa May risks Conservative MPs  and not necessarily just the harder Brexiteers  picking holes in it and helping to vote it down. But if it is too vague, she risks ERG members and other Tory MPs asking why we should hand 40 billion or so to the EU, under the terms of part of the Withdrawal Agreement settled last December, in exchange fornothing very clear at all. In which case they will also vote it down with other MPs, or try to.

Any declaration will none the less have to be based on something, and the significance of Francois intervention is that the ERG is, for the first time, formally committed to oppose one if it is based on Chequers. The ERG is making much of this: ConservativeHome is told that the announcement was official and significant. The choice of MP to make it was significant. Unlike, say, the star of our Moggcast, Francois is a privy councillor, has been a Minister, and was a senior one at that  Minister of State for the Armed Forces.

Perhaps more to the point, he was also a whip in the early years of the Coalition, serving in one of the top four posts in the office. He was chosen specifically to send a signal from one of lifes natural whips to the current ones, we are told. Certainly, Francois will know the numbers and the drill. He said that well north of 50 Tory MPs will vote against anything based on Chequers. We treat that figure with healthy scepticism.

But there can be little doubt that enough would do so to make the passage through the Commons of any proposal based on Chequers very difficult indeed, if all Opposition MPs combined to oppose it too. The plan looks to be on its last legs. In Cabinet, it isnt just the Brexiteers who are casting about for an alternative: former Remainers such as Sajid Javid, Jeremy Hunt and Liz Truss are sympathetic to a Canada-type plan. The ERG move is designed to kill Chequers off altogether.

Our sense is that the plan will survive next weeks Conservative Party conference, but probably not much longer. As we said yesterday, Cabinet members dont want to weaken the Prime Minister as she prepares for Birmingham. Her reiteration yesterday of the Governments commitment to cut corporation tax further is an early sign of how she will use her bully pulpit to fight back next week.Experts say consumers diets can impact greenhouse gas emissions

As many consumers struggle to deal with the stress of climate change, a new study conducted by researchers from the University of South Australia explored how our diets may impact the environment. The teams work showed that limiting consumption of unhealthy options like sweets, red meats, and processed foods may have positive environmental benefits.

It is time we better acknowledge the environmental impacts of the type and amount of food we eat, considering the planet...Prime Minister, Tuilaepa Dr. Sailele Malielegaoi, is in New York.

He is participating in the 2nd A.C.P. Ministerial Central Negotiating Group (C.N.G.) Meeting at the Mauritius Permanent Mission to the UN in New York.

The meeting allowed Ministers to receive a progress report on A.C.P. preparations for the upcoming negotiations with the E.U. for a post-2020 successor agreement, a statement issued by the Government said.

It also deliberated on a number of issues requiring their guidance and approval some of which included timelines and sequencing of issues for negotiations, the structure of the final agreement, the A.C.P. and E.U. negotiating structures, venue for negotiations and cross-cutting themes.

The Ministerial C.N.G. agreed to prioritize cross-cutting themes as they are considered fundamental to the definition, elaboration, design and implementation of development policies and programs, the statement reads.

Ministers also reaffirmed the decision of the A.C.P. Council of Ministers that negotiations will only move to the regional level after agreement is reached at the all-A.C.P. level.

It is envisaged that the final outcome of negotiations will be a legally binding single agreement that would have as its integral chapters, regional agreements.

Ministers also reiterated that negotiations is a member state driven process and that the A.C.P. Secretariat as well as regional and continental organizations are expected to provide the technical backup and support.

Finally, the Ministerial C.N.G. agree to meet with the EU Commissioner for Development, Niven Mimica, on 28 September in NY to publicly reaffirm that formal negotiations between the A.C.P. Group and the E.U. will commence on 1 October, 2018.

Prime Minister was accompanied to the meeting by the Samoa Ambassador to Europe given that Samoa is a core member of the C.N.G. and lead negotiator for issues covered under the Development cooperation, technology, science, innovation and research Pillar of the A.C.P. Negotiating Mandate.

It is expected that negotiations will be concluded by 2019. The signing ceremony will be held in the second half of 2020.

Samoa has submitted a bid to host the signing ceremony of this very important Agreement. All previous A.C.P.-E.U. agreements have been signed in Africa whereby over 3000 delegates attended.Joseph William Vestraci Jr., "Joe", 74, of Leonardtown, MD passed away on Sunday, September 23, 2018 at Charlotte Hall Veterans Home, in Charlotte Hall, MD. Joe was born in Washington D.C., on February 22, 1944 to the late Joseph and Elouise Vestraci. He grew up in South East Washington D.C. and Oxon Hill, MD. Helping others in a dedicated, loyal and hardworking manner kept Joe a very popular and cherished son, friend, firefighter, nephew, husband, father, grandfather and employee. He will be greatly missed.



He began life-long community service with Silver Hill Volunteer Fire Department of Prince George's County in 1964, with numerous roles including Company Chief to the Board of Directors President. He ran rescue at Maryland International Raceway for more than 20 years. He drove school and commuter buses for Keller for 20 plus years. He most enjoyed fishing and cruising on his boat with family and friends.



Joe was in the U.S. Army from 1965-1966 plus reserves with Vietnam combat service. After the military, he worked through the ranks as a federal firefighter to Chief at Cheltenham Naval Base for 18 years, spent 2 years at the DC Fire Board as dispatcher, and was Deputy Chief at St. Elizabeth's Hospital Fire Department where he retired.



Together for 43 years with wife Catherine Vestraci, he leaves his treasured daughters, Gwendolyn Holt of Lakewood, CA and Katherine Burroughs (Jason Burroughs) of Leonardtown, MD, in addition to his grandsons, Tyler Reppel, Aiden Thomas and DJ Holt.



Family will receive friends for Joe's Life Celebration Visitation on Monday, October 1st, from 5pm-8pm, with a Firemen's Prayer Service at 7 pm, at the Brinsfield Funeral Home, 30195 Three Notch Road, Charlotte Hall, MD 20622. Interment will be on Wednesday, October 3rd, at 11 am, at Maryland Veterans Cemetery, 11301 Crain Highway, Cheltenham, MD 20623. Arrangements by Brinsfield Funeral Home, P.A., Charlotte Hall, MD 20622.Robert Bryant came to work as a maintenance employee at the Pride Center at Equality Park in Wilton Manors on August 27, 2013, two years before the playground for children opened up there. He was terminated involuntarily on September 12, 2016, one year after it opened.

SFGN has learned that Bryant, also known as Robert Generazio, was a twice convicted sex offender, whose employment at the Pride Center violated state law, and may lead to his arrest.

The Broward County State Attorneys office confirmed Bryants employment, after the Pride Center was required to respond to a subpoena issued by the Sex Crimes Unit of the prosecutors office.

The Pride Centers CEO, Robert Boo, declined to reply to SFGNs requests in August to confirm his employment.

As you know, The Pride Center is legally unable to respond to specific questions about current or former employees, including whether or not someone is or was an employee, Boo said.

Actually, there is no such state law. SFGN reached out to several lawyers who specialize in employment law that refuted this assertion.

However, Boo spoke to the media at length when it was discovered that Clarence Collins, another convicted sex offender, was discovered to have been working there for 15 years.

SFGN conducted a four-month investigation in order to confirm that the Robert Bryant employed at the center was the same Robert Bryant that worked at the center. Several other people who use the centers facilities confirmed his identity, but SFGN declined to publish the story until it was authenticated by authorities. That confirmation came last week from the Broward County State Attorneys Sex Crimes Unit.

SFGN reached out to Boo again, but as of press time, he has not responded.

Boo told SFGN in August that there are no known sex offenders currently working at the Center.

There are no known current employees of The Pride Center with sex offender records, Boo said. In addition, with the exception of the case you have previously reported [Clarence Collins], I have been unaware of any current or former employees with sex offender records.

Earlier this year SFGN obtained an email from 2015 from local activist Michael Rajner to the Wilton Manors City Commission expressing concerns over the playground project in regards to sex offenders.

As The Pride Center moves forward with their playground as LGBT safe space for LGBT families and children, I do hope they run level 2 background checks on their employees and volunteers to ensure those who are sexual offenders are properly screened so not to endanger the safety and welfare of those families, Rajner wrote.

After obtaining the email SFGN reached out to City Manager Leigh Ann Henderson to see what steps the city took.

The City worked with the Pride Center during the design and build phase of the playground to ensure that the structures were permitted, constructed, and inspected for compliance with the South Florida Building Code, she said. The Pride Center campus is privately owned and the City does not have any Ordinances that govern private playground safety.

After the stories about Collins appeared in SFGN the newspaper received an anonymous tip that a second sex offender, besides Collins, worked side by side with him. SFGN then took the steps to acquire Bryants court records detailing his convictions.

According to the probable cause affidavit from Bryants first arrest in 1982 he was charged with sexual battery on a person 11 years old or younger.

He pled no contest to having intercourse with the child and forcing the 11-year-old to perform oral sex on him. He was subsequently sentenced to four years of probation and counseling.

In 1992, he was charged again, this time accused of having intercourse with his stepdaughter, who was under 12 years old. He was found guilty, declared a felon, and sentenced to 10 years of probation. He did not make it.

Near the end of his term of probation Bryant was arrested again, and his probation was violated. He was found guilty again, and given a new sentence by the Judge.

This time, in March of 2003, Bryant AKA Generazio was sentenced to 20 years in state prison for violating the terms and conditions of his second probationary sentence.

After serving 7 years, he was released as a convicted sexual offender in 2010, and listed on Floridas sex offender registry, under both of his names.

As a convicted sex offender, Bryant, was required to report his residence and places of employment on a regular basis to law enforcement authorities. Bryant now lives in Georgia.

SFGN has no information to prove whether the Pride Center ever knew of Bryants past sex offender history, or if he had any contact with children at the playground.As a practicing criminal defense attorney for the past 40 years, I want to thank you for making my job so much easier for the past two.

Over the decades, I have represented some really bad hombres, the worst of the worst, gang members, drug traffickers, sex offenders  you name it.

Thanks to you though, and your public pronouncements about how corrupt the Department of Justice is, going forward, so many of them wont ever see a day behind bars.

Your venom and vitriol and abominable tweets have singularly made American streets more dangerous. You recklessly and personally have endangered the lives of thousands of our citizens.

You spent your life as a developer belittling building inspectors, so you may not know what I am about to tell you, but we in the criminal defense bar do. Hear me out.

For us, there is no greater adversary than your Department of Justice. When the Federal Bureau of Investigation brings criminal charges against defendants in federal court, almost 97 per cent of them immediately plead guilty, knowing they are going to lose the case. Not any more.

When you are the defense lawyer, and you see agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation lined up as witnesses against your client, you know your case is toast and your client is fried. Not any more.

Thanks to you, Mr. Trump, Americans now realize we have no attorney general. Instead, the man holding that office is a senile, incompetent, measly-mouthed moron- and those were the nice things you said about him.

Thanks to you, Mr. President, we have also found out how your entire justice department has been infected and compromised by this thing you call the Deep State and some guy, a friend of mine named Roger Stone.

Thanks to you, we now know the real criminals are not in the streets breaking into homes, but at the highest levels of law enforcement. Cant trust a soul in government anymore, certainly not anyone with a badge.

Thanks to you, the chief of law enforcement officer of our nation, we also now know there is a pervasive and lingering stench at the FBI. Yes, because of you, every American citizen picked as a juror in an upcoming trial will now know, without a defense lawyer asking a single question, that the federal agent who testifies could be purposely lying. Nothing they say is worth a damn.

Its too bad for you, really, Mr. Trump. In the past, when we would try to discredit FBI agents, they would come back and show how many convictions they have won; how fiercely honest and dedicated they have been. Not any more.

You probably dont know this, what with having to pay off a hooker every other week, but the FBI has successfully dismantled 118 violent gang criminal enterprises over the past few years, arresting over 1,345 perpetrators during that time. Jurors wont hear about that though.

Jurors wont hear about the 72 drug trafficking cartels the FBI has destroyed in the past few years either, or the 342 white-collar criminal enterprises they dismantled. Nope. We lawyers will be too busy asking them if they are part of that lingering stench you, their boss, says is so pervasive in their out of control justice department.

Thanks to you, Sir Donald, it will be so much easier for criminal lawyers everywhere to persuade juries anywhere how the governments case against our clients was a witch-hunt from the start; that the fix was in.

For decades, the integrity, reputation and truthfulness of FBI agents who took the witness stand was impenetrable and impregnable, like Supermans fortress, but not any more.

You have individually destroyed the credibility of every FBI agent who takes the witness stand. No juror or judge will ever believe a word any FBI agent swears to again.

Mr. President, you have done for the criminal defense bar in 24 months what we could not do for ourselves in 50 years. Because of your efforts, we criminal defense attorneys, from shore to shore, are going to win so many more acquittals than ever before.

Because of you, Mr. Trump, there is a new day in America. Cops are not to be believed, the justice department is crooked, and federal agents are part of a wholesale conspiracy to obstruct justice, going on witch-hunts daily. It could not have happened without your daily tweets, Mr. President. By all means, publish more.

Because of you Mr. Trump, jurors will now realize that all our clients were really victims, set up unfairly by flippers, illegally arrested by crooked FBI agents, and then prosecuted by corrupt justice department lawyers.

Like your own National Security adviser, personal attorney, or campaign manager or the other dozen or so convicts in your administration, my clients are all victims of the governments witch-hunt.

However, Mr. President, you have showed jurors how if these investigators can take down you and your team, they can also take down any average citizen at any time. Its a fake prosecution; a disgrace.

My clients are not bad hombres. Like members of your administration, they are all good people, even the one running around the childrens playground in nothing but a raincoat. He was just a misunderstood man with a prostate condition necessarily trying to relieve himself. Unfortunately, the only place available was an elementary school playground.

I am not even worried if a client or two gets convicted now and then. Just like you did with that racist sheriff in Arizona, you can pardon them.

What is the going rate for a pardon nowadays? Does the FBI take cash, or can we at least get the Stormy Daniels discount by admitting guilt early? Anyway, thanks, Mr. President, for making the criminal defense bar great again.The Ovation of the Seas is in Zhoushan, China, for an unscheduled drydock at a COSCO-run facility, prompting the cancellation of the ship's the Sept. 21 and Sept. 26 cruises from Tianjin, China.

"We must conduct unscheduled maintenance on Ovation of the Seas," Royal Caribbean said in a statement released to Cruise Industry News.

"Unfortunately, this means our September 21 and September 26 cruises from Beijing, China must be cancelled," the company said. "Our booked guests will have the option to choose another sailing date on Quantum of the Seas or request a full refund of their cruise fare. The unscheduled work will help ensure guests continue to enjoy their time on board Ovation; there is no issue or concern with the seaworthiness of the ship. The decision was not taken lightly, and Royal Caribbean apologizes for the effect this adjustment will have on our guests vacation plans."

In April of 2017, Royal Caribbean was also forced to cancel sailings on the ship for maintenance on components of the ship's propulsion system."The Norwegian Bliss will complete her inaugural season to Alaska from Port of Seattle, Washington when she returns to the city on September 29, 2018, according to a statement from Norwegian Cruise Line.

She will then make her way to Los Angeles, offering Mexican Riviera cruises before repositioning to Port Miami, Florida for her fall/winter season sailing to the Caribbean.

The Norwegian Bliss was christened in Seattle on May 30. On June 2, she commenced her first summer season of seven-day Alaska cruises welcoming nearly 77,000 guests over 17 voyages calling to Ketchikan, Skagway and Juneau in Alaska as well as to Victoria, British Colombia.

The Port of Seattle thanks Norwegian Cruise Line for building and bringing Norwegian Bliss, the largest cruise ship on the West Coast, to Seattle for the Alaska market, said Port of Seattle Commission President Courtney Gregoire. Thanks to partners like Norwegian Cruise Line, Seattle is proud to be a sustainable leader in cruise while creating more economic opportunities for businesses in our region. We appreciate the efforts of Norwegian Bliss to conserve water, reduce waste, and making cruising healthy for our environment and communities.

Norwegian Bliss returns to Seattle on May 5, 2019 for her second Alaska season. At that time, she will be joined by Norwegian Joy sailing from Seattle and Norwegian Jewel cruising from Vancouver, and Seward, Alaska.

Norwegian Bliss was one of the most highly anticipated ships in the companys history and was well received by our loyal guests and travel partners, said Andy Stuart, president and chief executive officer of Norwegian Cruise Line. Her success surpassed anything we could have imagined, and as a result, we are very enthusiastic about our decision to introduce her sister ship, Norwegian Joy, to the U.S. market in April 2019, when she joins Norwegian Bliss and Norwegian Jewel in Alaska.

As the largest and one of the newest ships to cruise from the Port of Los Angeles, Norwegian Bliss will offer seven-day cruises to the Mexican Riviera with calls to Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan and Cabo San Lucas, from October 5  27, 2018.Grenada opened its 2018-2019 season in style with the inaugural call from Carnival Breeze.

A short ceremony was held to commemorate its inaugural visit aboard the ship. A delegation led by Minister for Tourism and Civil Aviation Hon. Clarice Modeste-Curwen and including the Grenada Tourism Authority, Grenada Ports Authority, Customs, Immigration, Royal Grenada Police Force and agents George F. Huggins welcomed the captain and crew to Grenada.

The Minister presented a commemorative plaque to the ships captain on behalf of the Government and people of Grenada.

Visitors disembarking the ship yesterday morning were treated to steel pan music as they went off on island tours provided by George F. Huggins, the Grenada and National Taxi Associations the Watertaxi Association and other stakeholders.

Popular tours are Grenadas rum distilleries, waterfalls and chocolate factories.

As of August 2018, the cruise industry in Grenada has grown by 26.75% year-over-year and tourism officials are expecting this growth to continue, according to a statement.Holland America Line has added more "FOOD & WINE EXC Tours" (shore excursions) with the addition of 20 new tours throughout Asia, Australia, New Zealand and Canada & New England, the company announced.

Developed in partnership with FOOD & WINE magazine, Holland America debuted 23 excursions earlier this year on select cruises in the Mediterranean and Northern Europe that explore food, wine and culture.

During these exclusive tours, guests take cooking classes with chefs, go on culinary walking tours, visit wineries, sample authentic street food, explore local hideaways and more.

Weve expanded our exclusive FOOD & WINE tours due to their overwhelming popularity, as food is a universal language that connects travelers with the cultures they visit in a deeply immersive way, said Orlando Ashford, president of Holland America Line. Were excited to add this special tour program in several new locations so our guests can discover the diverse flavors of the many different places we visit through these unique and authentic experiences.

Guests on cruises in Asia, Australia and New Zealand can chose from 14 new options.

The shore excursions are offered in Bangkok, Thailand; Shanghai, China; Singapore; Taipei, Taiwan; Yokohama, Japan; Hobart, Tasmania; Melbourne and Sydney, Australia; and Napier and Dunedin, New Zealand. Among the options include the opportunity to visit numerous markets in Asia, wineries in New Zealand and Tasmania, and tough-to-get-a-table restaurants in Australia, the company said.

Noteworthy FOOD & WINE EXC Tours include the Courageous Kitchen Cooking Class, a culinary experience with heart, the company said, as a portion of proceeds from the tour go toward helping to feed locals and train youth in need. The Bangkok tour starts with an exploration of a local market followed by a hands-on cooking class in home-style Thai cooking with Chef Dwight Turner, owner of Courageous Kitchen.

Over the next year, Holland America will continue to expand its food and wine tours to an array of destinations, including Caribbean, Mexico, Panama Canal, South America, Hawaii, and more.Just because you are surfing via Chrome doesnt mean you opted to give up your privacy. But the years of being able to use Chrome without logging in are over. Chrome 69 came out at the start of September, shortly after Chrome turned 10. That is when Google pushed out changes without giving Chrome users a heads-up; you are now automatically logged into Chrome when you log into any Google site.

Chromes new user-unfriendly forced login policy prompted Matthew Green, a well-known cryptography expert and Johns Hopkins University professor, to explain Why Im done with Chrome. The best answer for the change that he was able to get from Google is that it resolved a problem about shared computers. If multiple people sharing a computer use the same Chrome browser, data will not be sent to the wrong persons Google account.

Chrome calls this new system Sync. Although Chrome has had a Sync option for years, it was separate from logged-in Google accounts. You could log into a Google service and not log into Chrome. But now when you click on your avatar in the upper right corner of Chrome, you see a Sync option. Syncing still requires a user to click, but is that a clear distinction?

Green refers to this change as a dark pattern, as Google has transformed the question of consenting to data upload from something affirmative that I actually had to put effort into  entering my Google credentials and signing into Chrome  into something I can now do with a single accidental click. This is a dark pattern. Whether intentional or not, it has the effect of making it easy for people to activate sync without knowing it.

Google changes Chrome privacy policy

His post did get a reaction by Google, such as the decision over the weekend to change the Chrome privacy policy to reflect the new changes; Chromes previous privacy policy included a section for Signed-in Chrome mode. The new privacy policy dated today, Sept. 24, 2018, has done away with Signed-in Chrome mode and replaced that section with Signed-in, Synced Chrome mode.

As more privacy and security experts started to chime in about the Chrome changes, Adrienne Porter Felt, Google Chrome team manager and engineer, fired off a series of six tweets in an attempt to clear up any confusion.

Hi all, I want to share more info about recent changes to Chrome sign-in. Chrome desktop now tells you that you're "signed in" whenever you're signed in to a Google website. This does NOT mean that Chrome is automatically sending your browsing history to your Google account! 1/  Adrienne Porter Felt (@__apf__) September 24, 2018

Her biggest point boiled down to signing in does NOT turn on Chrome Sync.

If you want to turn on Sync, it's an additional step after you're signed in. Sync uploads your browsing history to Google so you can access it across devices. Sign-in by itself does NOT do that. https://t.co/t2pPjiqkVe 5/  Adrienne Porter Felt (@__apf__) September 24, 2018

Still, with Chrome having over half of the browser market share, the explanations did not appease everyone who was concerned about the automatic Chrome sign-in. More than one person brought up the fact that the previous version of Googles Code of Conduct long promised, Dont be evil, but that promise has been missing for months  at least since May 2018.

Chrome login workaround

If you want to use Chrome but dont want to be automatically logged into the browser, then consider using this workaround:

Paste chrome://flags//#account-consistency in Chrome (without the quotation marks) and change the selection from default to disabled or one of the other options that suit you.Analysis of the cost of cyberattacks often comes with a price tag attached. We regularly read reports highlighting the average and cumulative costs of data breaches, and those figures can be staggering, such as in a Juniper Research report that asserts the global cost of breaches could exceed $2 trillion by next year. While such whopping estimates rightfully garner attention, often overlooked is an even deeper and more jarring consideration  the relationship between information and cyber security and our physical security.

Cybersecurity risk often is treated as a nebulous, abstract concept. Except for those working on the front lines as a security practitioner, it is easy to make a distinction between our digital and our physical environments  our homes, our offices, the park where we take our children and grandchildren. We read about cyberattacks in the headlines, but it probably does not rate as visceral of a reaction as when we read about a physical assault or a bank robbery, where the imagery that springs to mind is more harrowing and personal. Yet, as the volume of cyberattacks continues to rise and the attack methods of cybercriminals becomes more wide-ranging and less predictable and more potent  the barrier between our digital and physical worlds is becoming thinner and more fragile. Increasingly, the possibility of kinetic attacks  those that can start as cyber incidents but turn out to be a precursor or conduit to physical attacks  are commanding more and more of our attention and vigilance.

Threats apply to individuals and wider society alike

The connection between cyber and physical security applies on both a broad scale  cybersecurity is unquestionably a major national security issue, and critical infrastructure attacks carry the potential for widespread damage to our physical well-being  as well as on an individual level, particularly when it comes to the exposure of personally identifiable information (PII). Data breaches resulting in home addresses, contact information and other PII falling into the wrong hands can provide the starting point for those with malevolent intent to carry out kinetic attacks resulting in physical harm. Physical threats stemming from cyberattacks can target the most vulnerable among us  those dependent on life-saving medical treatment and devices. The potentially chilling consequences of bad actors hacking medical devices such as pacemakers or insulin pumps place a high responsibility on healthcare organizations to be diligent in making strategic investments in security and risk management programs capable of providing patients the peace of mind they deserve.

While attacks on individuals are concerning enough, threats impacting critical infrastructure pose a larger-scale threat to our physical security. As noted in a 2017 Massachusetts Institute for Technology (MIT) report, the digital systems that control critical infrastructure in the United States and most countries are easily penetrated and architecturally weak. The proliferation of connected IoT devices, for all their benefits, make industrial control system inviting targets for cybercriminals, with potentially grave consequences. Attacks on critical infrastructure introduce a range of serious safety threats, including explosions at plants that would jeopardize workers, injuries to those using public transportation, and power grid failures that could leave thousands of people without food, water and sanitation services. The loss of power for an extended period would also create a dangerous environment in the streets for residents and businesses. Perhaps most disturbingly, it is conceivable to envision a brazen attack by a nation-state on a countrys critical infrastructure spiraling in a way that transitions cyber warfare into a military conflict that puts large-scale loss of life at risk.

More tools for cybercriminals to draw upon

The potential for threats that originate in the digital world to surface in our physical environment is becoming more pronounced. Increasingly, malicious uses of artificial intelligence loom as a threat to our safety, as only 40 percent of respondents to ISACAs 2018 Digital Transformation Barometer express confidence that their organizations can accurately assess the security of systems based on AI and machine learning. As self-driving vehicles and the use of AI in maritime and other transportation modalities become more prevalent, the need for enhanced assurance of these systems safety will be critically important to prevent these promising innovations from leading to dangerous outcomes.

The dark web presents another platform by which cyberthreats can transition into real-world threats to our physical safety. The dark web, inaccessible by search engines, is a haven for criminals, extremists and other groups that are looking to evade the notice of law enforcement. Dealings on the dark web can lead to hitmen being hired to carry out attacks, the plotting of terrorist activity and a range of illegal transactions, often involving drugs, that can lead to violence on the streets. We must also recognize the potential for misuse of social media to set in motion threats to our physical well-being, as oversharing or compromising information spread on social channels can swiftly turn into violence in our neighborhoods, schools, and beyond.

While all these threats are real and, in most cases, terrifying portents of a world of exponential risk, we need to balance our anxiety by remembering that there are good guys doing their best to delay, if not avert, a tech-induced physical attack. For instance, the IoT Security Foundation is dedicated to raising attention to important security considerations not to be neglected as we move forward to a more interconnected world. Businesses are adopting and promoting the best security practices in cloud computing with help from the Cloud Security Alliance. However, despite the best efforts of organizations such as these, it is near impossible to calculate their true effectiveness in comparison to the headline attacks and potential for physical harm. This reinforces what I have maintained all along  cybersecurity is everybodys business, and we collectively must understand and be vigilant about working together to minimize the risks for the good of our global society and citizens.Alexander Soule / Hearst Connecticut Media

The Connecticut Department of Banking levied a $100,000 fine on Norwalk resident Christopher Sakelarakis, after an investigation into whether Sakelarakis siphoned off a portion of funds he was entrusted to invest.

Sakelarakis failed to request a hearing on an earlier order and the states notice of its intent to levy a fine, according to the department.BRIDGEPORT - A local man is facing five years in prison after he pleaded guilty Wednesday to sexually assaulting two young sisters he contacted through Facebook.

Raymond Ortiz, 47, of Ruth Street, pleaded guilty before Superior Court Judge Frank Iannotti to fourth-degree sexual assault and risk of injury to a minor.

Senior Assistant States Attorney Tatiana Messina said she will recommend that Ortiz serve a 5-year prison term but the judge said he will allow Ortizs lawyer, Peter Stark, to argue for a lesser term when Ortiz is sentenced Nov. 14.

Police said they were contacted last year by New York City police regarding a sex assault complaint by the parents of the two girls, aged 8 and 12, who live in the Bronx.

Police said earlier in 2017, the girls had been contacted on Facebook by Ortiz. During a video chat session with the girls, police said Ortiz posted a video of him masturbating.

In response, police said the younger girl messaged Ortiz, Dont do that. My dad says Im not supposed to see that.

Police said the girls father later reported the incident to New York City police and handed over a copy of the video he had made from the Facebook message.

In August 2017, police said the two girls were attended a family barbecue here when they were approached by Ortiz who offered them cookies if they would walk with him.

Once the girls were out of sight of their parents, police said Ortiz exposed himself to the girls and touched them through their clothes.

The girls then ran and told their parents what had happened.

Police said they later identified Ortiz from the Facebook video he had sent the girls.GREENWICH  Judicial independence is under attack by politicians at the federal level and across the country, a state Supreme Court justice warned a local crowd on Wednesday.

Their message is clear: If you make hard decisions in difficult cases that we disagree with, we will damage you and damage your branch of government, state Supreme Court Associate Justice Andrew McDonald told the Retired Mens Association of Greenwich.

I submit that the rule of law demands more, he said. Judges must be insulated from political pressure and threats rather than being treated as hostages in a raging political debate.

But McDonald, whose nomination to be chief justice on the states top court was derailed in the state Senate, declined to discuss the headline-making case of Brett Kavanaugh, the embattled nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court.

A number of women have stepped forward to accuse Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct, and the Senate Judiciary Committee is slated to hold a hearing Thursday with testimony from the nominee and his initial accuser, Christine Blasey Ford.

Democratic State Senate candidate Alexandra Bergstein asked a question about Kavanaughs nomination, but McDonald did not take the bait and replied with a no chance about giving his personal views on the matter.

The appointment process is ultimately a political decision, said McDonald, a Stamford resident. I would imagine there are 100 senators who are getting earfuls on both sides from their constituents, and those senators are required to cast a vote consistent with the will of their constituency. If they misjudge that will, they need be able to answer for it and face the possible risks during an election.

During his remarks, McDonald brought up his own controversial and ultimately unsuccessful nomination to be chief justice of the Connecticut Supreme Court earlier this year. Nearly every Republican in the Legislature voted against McDonald, a former Democratic member of both the state House and Senate and a close ally of Gov. Dannel Malloy. He remains an associate justice on the court, but his defeat at becoming chief justice was unprecedented.

As far as anyone has been able to discern, no judicial nomination in Connecticut history had devolved into such a partisan feud before, McDonald said. I truly hope the bitter political horrors of Washington concerning judicial nomination have not grabbed a foothold here in Connecticut. We are better than that.

McDonald narrowly survived a 75-74 vote in the House but was defeated 19-16 in the Senate, amid Republican claims of judicial activism on McDonalds part. Democratic leaders charged that homophobia, McDonald is gay, and dislike for Malloy were the reasons for his defeat.

McDonald admitted he did not want to spend a lot of time rehashing his failed nomination because I didnt particularly enjoy living (it) the first time. But he said it was an example of politics improperly interfering with the states judiciary.

The only Republican who voted in favor of his confirmation, state Rep. Livvy Floren, R-149th, was in attendance Wednesday and he praised her as courageous and fiercely independent.

As example of another threat to judicial independence, McDonald brought up the case of Jane Emons, whose career as a state Superior Court judge ended earlier this year when the state House failed to take a vote on her reappointment and allowed her term to expire.

Many may agree or disagree with Emons decisions during her time on the bench, McDonald said, and there had been heavy criticism of some of her work in family court. But a pocket veto of a judicial reappointment set a bad precedent, he said.

The case has made some judges fearful of being thrown out of office any time they make a discretionary call, McDoanld said.

What happened to her was in some ways more disappointing and alarming than what happened to me, he said. At least I got a vote.

Appointed and approved as a Supreme Court justice in 2013, McDonald is serving an eight-year term.

McDonald cited as other challenges to an independent judiciary: national leaders attacking judges based on their ethnicity and sexual orientation; an effort by Kansas lawmakers to strip state courts of the jurisdiction to rule on education in retaliation for a court decision that the lawmakers were underfunding public schools; and a proposed Missouri constitutional amendment that would have allowed voters to decide whether a federal law was unconstitutional.

If that amendment had passed in Missouri, McDonald said, state courts would have been precluded from enforcing federal law or hearing cases involving it.

Democracy is not a spectator sport, he reminded the crowd, urging them to be involved in protecting an independent judiciary. When asked what a citizen should do, McDonald said they must speak up to stop this raw, new and dangerous development being fanned by restless and reckless rhetoric from some national leaders and commentators. He told them to get involved and reach out to elected leaders.

If the judges in our state and across the country are going to provide fair, impartial and equal justice they need people like you to stand up and be heard, McDonald said.

kborsuk@greenwichtime.comThere was a time when Shelton had a bustling downtown.

Workers leaving B. F. Goodrich, which later became Sponge Rubber, would buy their morning paper and pack of cigarettes at Kyles Corner. Dinner came from Fulton Market or A&P, where the Subway sandwich shop and Howe Avenue Deli are now.

Bridgeport Avenue, which served as the old Route 8, offered little more than two car dealerships, the Wiffle Ball Company and Hazels hotdog stand.

Deborah Ramirez grew up in that Shelton of the 1960s, 70s and 80s, before moving on to Yale University and out into the world.

Maybe most people in Shelton dont remember her. Many were surprised Wednesday to find out that their former neighbor was the second accuser to come forward in opposition to the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.

She didnt attend public schools, so she probably flew under the radar, said Rick Schulz, who did attend Shelton schools and has spent years as the Planning and Zoning administrator.

Ramirez, who now lives in Colorado, apparently attended St. Lawrence School in the 1970s, according to some residents. Instead of Shelton High School, she attended St. Josephs in Trumbull.

She obviously was very bright, said William J. Fitzgerald, president of St. Joseph High, as he flipped through the schools 1983 Yearbook.

Fitzgerald was not at St. Josephs while Ramirez was there, but he said he spoke about her with Monsignor Richard J. Shea, who was president of the school in the early 1980s.

Were between Westport and Bridgeport, so theres a lot of economic diversity here, and there was then, too, Fitzgerald said. She was in the top five students in her class; and in her class, I think, we had three kids who got into Yale that year.

Words of support

Fitzgerald said hes not surprised that she would come forward to tell her story about an encounter with Kavanaugh at Yale.

Ramirez has accused Kavanaugh of exposing his genitals and causing her to involuntarily touch them. Kavanaugh has denied the accusation, and President Donald Trump has stood with him.

At St. Josephs, Ramirez participated in a host of extracurricular activities and earned spots on the National Honor Society and the Spanish National Honor Society.

Everyone said that she was quiet, very bright and very affable, Fitzgerald said.

James Roche, a 1983 Wilton High School graduate and Kavanaughs freshman roommate at Yale, this week expressed his support for and belief in Ramirez.

I became close friends with Debbie Ramirez shortly after we both arrived at Yale, Roche, who is now the CEO of a California software company, said in a statement. She stood out as being exceptionally honest, with a trusting manner. As we got to know one another, I discovered that Debbie was very worried about fitting in.

She felt that everyone at Yale was very rich, very smart and very sophisticated and that as a Puerto Rican woman from a less privileged background, she was an outsider, Roche said. Her response was to try hard to make friends and get along. Based on my time with Debbie, I believe her to be unusually honest and straightforward and I cannot imagine her making this up.

Roche also said: Based on my time with Brett, I believe that he and his social circle were capable of the actions that Debbie described.

Calls for action

Ramirez was the second women to come forward to question Kavanaughs behavior while in high school and college, painting an image of a young man who treated women with little respect and who frequently drank to excess. A third accuser emerged Wednesday.

U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., asked the FBI to look into Kavanaughs past.

These allegations are absolutely breathtaking -- a gut punch, the senator said. Deborah Ramirez has made some serious allegations that corroborate whats emerging as Mr. Kavanaughs vile pattern of predatory attacks.

In Shelton on Wednesday, a foursome of women playing cards at the Senior Center said they supported Ramirezs decision to come forward. They also said they were afraid that giving their names might result in threats.

Others were less supportive of Ramirez.

We dont know its true, said Susan Zelanakas of North Haven participating in an art class at the Community Center. What happened about being innocent until proven guilty?

Others, like John Anglace, president of the Board of Aldermen, wondered why her allegations were never reported to police or Yale officials.

Theres no corroboration; theres no documentation, Anglace said.

I think its all a put up, said Clifford Albright, who lives not far from Ramirezs former home but did not know her. The Democrats went out looking for people. They dont want the Supreme Court balance to swing.

Albright said hell be watching the hearings and hopes Kavanaugh wins a Supreme Court seat.

Tell me, how good is your memory when your drunk and the incident took place 30-40 years ago? added Bill McCart, a longtime Sheltonite, as he left the Community Center. I think he gets appointed.

Then theres Mayor Mark Lauretti, who was once involved in a grand jury probe of corruption in Shelton. He was never charged with any crimes.

People who enter public life get accused of things; it happened to me, Lauretti said Wednesday. Sometimes politics plays a role in these things. Theres a lot of gamesmanship going on. And its anybodys guess this time as to what will happen.BERLIN - Diplomats probably won't remember the script of President Donald Trump's speech at the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday so much as the laughter it prompted from world leaders, caught on camera and shared in viral videos.

One of them captured the amused reactions of the German delegation as Trump said, "Germany will become totally dependent on Russian energy if it does not immediately change course. Here in the Western Hemisphere, we are committed to maintaining our independence from the encroachment of expansionist foreign powers."

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas could be seen smirking alongside his colleagues.

It wasn't the first time that Trump had lashed out at Germany over its gas imports from Russia.

During a NATO summit in July, he took aim at the Germans for the same reason, specifically singling out an 800-mile-long planned pipeline beneath the Baltic Sea called Nord Stream 2. "Germany, as far as I'm concerned, is captive to Russia because it's getting so much of its energy from Russia," Trump told NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, also speaking on camera at the time. "We have to talk about the billions and billions of dollars that's being paid to the country we're supposed to be protecting you against."

Germany is indeed Russia's biggest export market in Europe for gas, with a dependency that may grow further once Nord Stream 2 is finished. Nord Stream 2 would roughly double Russia's current export volume via the Baltic Sea route.

Consecutive German governments have defended the plans, saying the offshore pipeline between Russia and Germany would cut energy costs and establish a reliable supply route.

But nations such as Poland and Ukraine fear that Russia may be diversifying its gas routes into Europe to exploit its grid for political reasons. In June 2014, amid the fallout over the Russian annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula months earlier, Russia cut off Ukraine's gas supplies for weeks in what Kiev called a blackmail attempt.

Poland, Ukraine and other nations to the east of Germany hope that Trump's criticisms will help them make their case.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel acknowledged for the first time in April that Nord Stream 2 was not driven by business interests alone, but also by political motivations. Though she appeared to be opening up to criticism from Central and Eastern Europe in recent months, Merkel has refrained from attempting to stop the plans.

And even if she changed course, it would be far from certain that the Social Democrats - her key coalition partners, with a long record of favoring stronger ties to Russia - would agree.

The Social Democrats and other Merkel allies have publicly speculated about another possible reason for Trump's unexpected interjection: the United States' own business interests. U.S. gas producers have long sought new export markets for liquefied natural gas. But they have found it difficult to enter the European market, where cheaper Russian gas has been easily available.

Trump's attacks haven't changed that calculus. After his July remarks, Merkel responded that she may be in a better position to judge her country's dependence than the current U.S. president.

"I've experienced myself a part of Germany controlled by the Soviet Union, and I'm very happy today that we are united in freedom," she said at the time.

On Tuesday, and after yet another Trump warning, her top diplomats had only a smirk to offer.As Tom shifts the weight of his M4 rifle and finishes reporting in his position he jokes with Ryan about how their new civilian gear works so much better than their Vietnam-era Marine Corps issued radios. They hit a pothole on the Michigan road but the 1,000 pounds of marihuana in the back doesnt mind, so they dont mind.

They arrive to their destination and meet with the recipients of their cargo in a hard-wired defensive posture. The difference in the way the clean-cut secure transporters and Rastafarian dispensary employees spent their 20s is palpable but, in a strange twist of regulatory fate, their life paths intertwined. Twelve months earlier Tom and Ryan were active duty Marines in full battle rattle in Syria fighting terrorists. Today, Tom and Ryan are civilians wearing covert armor spearheading a new and booming industry.

Lets rewind -- how did two Marines go from fighting terror in Syria to delivering weed in Michigan? Folks in the military have a lot of down time. During that down time everything under the sun is debated ad nauseam, but the lions share of the conversation is comprised of money, women and how fucked up you plan to get that weekend. In September of 2016 Michigans governor signed three bills establishing the state's regulatory framework for the sale of medical marihuana (editor's note: that's how it's spelled in Michigan law). Rarely does regulation bolster business but the new Michigan Marihuana Facilities and Licensing Agency (MMFLA) intentionally created a new sector of the industry. Michigan joined the norm amongst states with legal marihuana by mandating that any movement of marihuana through public roadways must be handled by a third-party secure transporter. With the need for security and the Michigan market estimated at near a billion dollars, in comes the otherwise unassociated military crowd. The new regulation summarily satisfies two of the three favorite Marine conversations -- talk of money and inebriating substances.

Related: Many Licensed California Marijuana Growers Face Regulatory Roadblocks Getting Their Harvest to Market

As the wars drew down and the Department of Defense became a social change battleground, I knew my time in uniform was coming to an end. Through the grapevine news of the new Michigan Marihuana regulations caught my attention. The attractiveness of filling the regulatory requirement was twofold -- first, the traditional cannabis personality is generally mutually exclusive with being highly trained in the administration of violence but the demand nevertheless exists. Second, my established ties in the veteran community would solve any staffing problems and provide an opportunity for vets to monetize their skill sets. As Id reached the military requisite 70 percent solution, I leveraged my contacts and put together a team of a lead marihuana attorney, a logistics expert and an experienced operations officer. Together, we plan to plant our flag in this new regulatory requirement.

The rise in medical marihuana secure transport requirements could not have come at a better time for the veteran community. Typically, small arms proficiency, experience with team tactics and defensive maneuvers dont translate into private-sector jobs. The Nations longest wars are coming to an end but veteran employment programs often struggle with fitting a square peg of combat experience into a round hole of cubicles and sensitivity training. However, secure transportation calls for a near-perfect eclipse of the average combat arms Service Members training. From a states perspective, enacting secure transport regulation brings transparency and an easy bottleneck for tracking transactions. From our perspective, veterans come from a self-selecting populace of the personality and professionalism we want with nearly all of our desired training complete.

Related: 7 Hottest Jobs in the Cannabis Industry Right Now

What does the future hold? Currently, a minority of states in the Union outlaw medical marihuana and the trend is conclusively heading toward legalization. The marihuana market is expected to grow to more than $13 billion annually by 2020. Michigan currently has the second most medical marihuana cardholders in the Union and more cardholders than all of Canada. Further, recreational use is on Michigans ballot in November 2018.

When industry establishes its rhythm we forecast standard flat rate containers similar to USPSs flat rate shipping offerings. Further, we forecast growers will eventually foot the delivery bill. Economy of scale caters to the supply side as dispensaries will likely place small, sporadic orders to fill their specific inventory needs. Consolidated, consistent deliveries from a grow operation will lower the cost of transportation allowing lean grow operations to out-price the competition. Additionally, growers are well positioned to offer shipping incentives contingent upon dispensary purchase quantity. If a certain dollar amount is purchased or contracted to over time shipping may be used as a bargaining chip. However, for the time-being there are no true norms here in Michigan, a fact we are embracing as we aim to discreetly facilitate our customers goals of scalability, brand recognition and longevity in a truly collaborative, flexible manner.

The green wave is coming regardless of personal feelings on the issue. At Griffin Secure Transport we saw an opportunity for those who could fill the transportation requirement and were frustrated with mere lip service being paid to veterans. We drew an easy line between the two and now offer a premier transportation solution that, uniquely, services the entire State of Michigan.

Related:

From Fighting Terrorists in Syria to Delivering Sativa in Michigan

She Was a Caterer. Now She's a Budtender.



Copyright 2018 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reservedNEW HAVEN  Stepping outside presents a great risk for Nelson Pinos, but students in the city took a risk for him Thursday.

Pinos, a resident of the Annex who has lived in this country for 26 years, has been at First and Summerfield Church on the New Haven Green for 294 days as of Thursday, longer than nine months. He wears an ankle bracelet and has taken sanctuary in the church from federal immigration officials seeking to deport him to Ecuador. Federal immigration officials follow guidance not to enter schools or churches, but if Pinos leaves the church, he could be subject to apprehension.

Nelson, like many others, chose to take sanctuary; its not easy, said Vanesa Suarez, an organizer with Unidad Latina en Accion. He is confined.

About 200 public school students  mostly from Wilbur Cross High School, where Pinos daughter Kelly is a junior  were joined by students from Yale University, community activists and, across the city, students from Southern Connecticut State University, in walking out of school around 11 a.m. and making their way to the downtown church.

We walk out because Nelson cant, Wilbur Cross students chanted.

Cross junior Carlos Jaramillo said administrators offered them school buses to take to the Green, but the students decided against it.

Were not going on a field trip, he said.

At a recent school board meeting, Jaramillo said he felt Cross administrators were not supportive of students such as Kelly, as she processes her trauma. Recently, the Board of Education voted to lay off about 20 school counselors, opting instead to put one full-time social worker in every school, and extending the hours of several part-time social workers.

Suarez, who controlled the megaphone for most of the rally and subsequent march, criticized New Haven Public Schools administrators for harassing student marchers for not following the plan.

Nothing about being here is fun, she said. This isnt a field trip.

As the Cross students began their walk to the church, Kelly Pinos said she felt supported by her fellow students, and basically the whole school is talking about it.

On the steps of the church, however, she choked back tears as she told the crowd that what she feels is pain when she sees her father being separated from her family.

In an opinion piece for the New York Times, Pinos wrote about how her father taking sanctuary has placed a heavy financial and emotional burden on her family, as her younger brother struggles to comprehend why his father cannot come home and Kelly Pinos works a part-time job to help make ends meet for her family.

Several public school administrators monitored the rally and march, communicating through walkie-talkies. Edith Johnson, principal of Wilbur Cross, declined to comment on whether students would face disciplinary action.

Im trying to make sure my kids are safe right now, she said, as Cross students marched down College Street. Later, she told other administrators that the walkout plan beginning at 11 a.m. was not shared with her.

In an emailed statement Wednesday, NHPS Chief Operating Officer Will Clark said the district respects student voice and encourages exploration of thoughts and ideas within the school environment.

NHPS is responsible for the safety of its schools, students and staff and has rules and guidelines with respect to attendance and schedules during the school day. Students are expected to respect and follow the rules responsibly, he wrote. Our schools and staff care deeply about all of our students and work diligently to help them achieve their fullest potential. Wilbur Cross has worked with some concerned students and arranged for a field trip with teachers to the event on Thursday.

The walkout, which began with the high school students, walked into Linsley-Chittenden Hall at Yale University to interrupt a science class, where several university students who had received an email ahead of time asking for their attendance waited. As about one-third of the 150-student lecture left the classroom, the protesters erupted into cheers.

About 30 minutes into the rally outside the church, students from Common Ground High School in Westville began to arrive. Staff from the school handed their students sandwiches from Subway. Joel Tolman, the schools director of development and community engagement, said students at the school would not face consequences.

We are doing our best to support student leadership around this, he said.

Part way into the action, the speaking stopped and the large group on the sidewalk was asked to leave way for a walkway in front of the stairs of the church as emergency personnel walked through. After some time, Suarez said a student passed out from heat exhaustion, and warned the crowd that others may use that incident as a tactic to deter us in the future.

Larissa Martinez, an undocumented immigrant who attends Yale , said too often the struggles of students with parents facing deportation go ignored.

People need to acknowledge this is a reality for people around them, she said.

Suarez began passing around the megaphone, saying student voices were more important.

He matters, and so does his life, and so does his family, said Ana Reyes, a Common Ground student, referring to Pinos.

Local organizer Norm Clement, a confederate of the Quinnipiac tribe, derided the decision to deport Pinos.

We are on stolen land, and no one is illegal on stolen land, he said. My people had no borders.

Organizers led the march from the church to the steps of City Hall to the U.S. District Court on Church Street. Suarez, who handed Board of Alders President Tyisha Walker-Myers a petition with more than 2,000 signatures calling on the city to adopt an official sanctuary city ordinance in June, called on officials to take the necessary steps to make it happen.

I dont think they hear us when we say we want New Haven to be a sanctuary city, she said.

On SCSUs campus, students organized their own action in solidarity. Esteban Garcia, a faculty chairman of the universitys undocumented student support team, said students believed it is important to oppose deportation actions during National Hispanic Heritage Month.

Yale University student Emily Almendarez, whose fathers Temporary Protected Status after leaving Honduras is threatened under the federal government, said the days event goes beyond a hashtag.

Its actual families, she said. You guys have to keep coming out.

brian.zahn@hearstmediact.comEver since the Cambridge Analytica scandal and the resulting backlash from the media about the negative effects of social media on our lives, users have been flocking from Facebook in droves. In fact, according to Pew Research as much as 40 percent of U.S. users have taken a break -- sometimes for weeks on end -- from checking their account.

Related: When You Say You Need to Quit Social Media Everyone Rolls Their Eyes

Not only are these users concerned about corporations misuse of their data, but theyre tired of watching other peoples life highlight reels. Those highlights often come across as a fabricated reality that makes many of us doubt our own life choices and compare our achievements and happiness to others'.

Cyberbullying has become a growing concern among teens, as well, and studies have found that excessive use of social media can generate Facebook depression. If youve ever felt a pang of envy seeing an old college friend climb Machu Picchu or meet for drinks in a Paris nightclub, you can most likely relate.

Your own life, stuck behind a computer, starts to seem inadequate, even if you tell yourself that its not reality youre seeing. Then there are the endless posts about people's babies, photos of what everyone is eating and mundane daily activities documented for the world to see.

This panorama is occurring amid general frustration with untargeted, unscrupulous social media and people who have a thousand "friends," the majority of whom they'll never meet. The result is that the prospects of social media seem to be changing fast. And that's a good thing, because it means that a new generation of social networks is cropping up to offer a different value proposition --one meant to be more personal and real.

Related: Why These People and Brands Are Fed Up With Facebook

The future is niche.

Social media isnt going to disappear. In fact, almost 42 percent of the worlds population has at least one social media account, according to new reports from We Are Social and Hootsuitet. But, the new social doesnt aim to target everybody anymore. Instead, the future is niche, as more networks arise to unite people who share a common interest -- be they neighbors, parents, women, shoppers, entrepreneurs or members of any other group.

Despite their latest efforts to curb the reach of brands and marketers, traditional social networks have become less about people. They've failed their users by selling their data to advertisers, causing a wide range of adverse and long-term side effects.

As a business owner, you need to be aware of these changes and adapt your content to keep up with these trends, especially as new social platforms become more user-oriented than their predecessors.

It's time to return to the personal touch.

In this context, any social media platform that provides its users with a more personal experience is more likely to gain a place in their lives. This new wave of social media is ready to capture the attention of internet users and, as these media grow, they will open new business opportunities for marketers and advertisers.

A new women-only social network, FindSisterhood, for instance, allows users to discuss personal issues from entirely anonymous accounts. The platform encourages women to ask any question, with no barriers. That feature makes this social network a goldmine of valuable insights for marketers.

"The special thing about our app is that it's an anonymous social network for women only, says founder Ana Pompa Alarcon Rawls. We use one-way cryptographic to make every single post and comment untraceable. No one, including our team, will ever know who posted what."

Anonymity is what allows users to be candid, and that could prove to be very fruitful for businesses. Lets say your company wants to know more about the lifestyle of your target market. Simply ask the right questions and youll get all the information you need, to build an effective marketing strategy. The social platform also uses sentiment analysis for content analytics. So, you can track hot topics in a specific geographical area and the reactions those topics generate.

For example, when moms from a particular New York neighborhood talk about the difficulty of juggling work and childcare, that information could benefit a local daycare business, which could then address these concerns to capture the attention of its target audience. This is the kind of valuable information that could help you to build highly personalized content for your target audience.

Keep it neighborly.

Businesses can find potential customers with NextDoor, a safe platform where users can easily exchange information with their neighbors. Its an effective way to keep up with everything thats going on in a given neighborhood. Since the app uses geographical location to display posts from other users in the area, its a goldmine for finding people nearby.

Marketers may find this app difficult to monetize at the beginning because the platform checks all addresses before accepting an account, through a procedure similar to the one used by Google My Business. Moreover, business pages arent available in all countries for now.

However, there is an option for users to recommend businesses they have had positive experiences with, and considering that many users ask questions that are typical for a newcomer to a neighborhood, such as where to find the best tailor or family-friendly restaurant, there are plenty of opportunities to get word-of-mouth advertising, which can steer dozens of customers to a business.

Once businesses gain a foothold, they can track discussions in the neighborhood and identify the topics that generate engagement in the area. The platform can also be used to drive targeted traffic to websites or blogs and raise awareness on specific topics related to the community.

Small communities perform better.

One of social medias biggest problems is size (it matters). Every minute, Facebook registers around 300,000 status updates and half a million comments, according to a data roundup published by Zephoria Marketing. Every second, 6,000 new tweets are registered on Twitter.

Many internet users are looking for smaller platforms, for more authentic interactions with their friends, families and followers.Users want platforms that have no algorithms in place to filter information and that have a higher purpose than just a place where users can chat and share viral videos.

Care2 is such a place. It's a community of around 30 million members. Thats eight times less than the size of Facebook in the United States but that doesnt necessarily make it less powerful as a marketing tool. Care2 users are looking for ways to change the world for the better. Its main topics are petitions, causes and healthy living. Care2 also promotes brands willing to support causes and get involved in the lives of their communities.

The platform opens up a different kind of business opportunity for brands looking to connect with members using those people's core values. The intent is to make things more personal, which is exactly what internet users are looking for when they switch rom the giants to smaller social media.

Businesses must provide a curated experience.

As you migrate from Facebook to niche social media, be sure to align your message with the new expectations of your audience. Come up with a fresh approach that will allow you to strike up user-centered conversations, without alienating or annoying that audience.

Related: Facebook's Relationship Status With the Public Is 'It's Complicated': What Mark Zuckerberg Needs to Do to Get the Thumbs Up

The future of social media lies in one-on-one conversations with your fans and followers, exchanges in which they not only want to take part but take the lead. The less intrusive you are as a business, the higher your chances will be of building a substantial community around your brand, getting new leads and increasing conversions.

Related:

The Future of Social Media Platforms and Ways in Which Businesses Can Utilize Them

9 Ways to Dominate Marketing in Less Time

2 Risk-Taking Marketers Discuss Where the Industry Is Headed



Copyright 2018 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reservedWhen President Donald Trump said a year ago that the U.S. was considering a "military option" for Venezuela, hardly anyone in Washington thought it was a good idea.

Today, as Venezuela slides toward dictatorship and collapse, triggering a millions-strong migration crisis, support for such a move is being discussed openly. The notion of using force to topple the government of President Nicolas Maduro is gaining adherents -- although it remains a distinctly minority view.

Marco Rubio, a Republican senator from Florida, said last month that for years he sought a peaceful solution to Venezuela, but now there's a "very strong argument" that it's a security threat to the region and the U.S. that calls for the use of the American military.

This month, speaking in Cucuta, the Colombian border town that's the biggest crossing point for migrants, the secretary-general of the Organization of American States, Luis Almagro, said military intervention shouldn't be ruled out, though he later suggested he'd been misunderstood.

Trump himself hasn't walked anything back. On Tuesday at the United Nations, he told reporters who asked him about military intervention that he had no intention of broadcasting his plans, adding, "It's a regime that frankly could be toppled very quickly by the military, if the military decides to do that."

Fernando Cutz, who served as adviser on South America until last year on the National Security Council, said at Washington's Wilson Center on Monday that a multilateral military intervention could be the best solution for Venezuela.

Part of what is driving the changing conversation is that the Venezuelan military, long viewed as the backbone of government support, is showing widening cracks of dissent. In the past year, there have been several minor military attempts to overthrow Maduro, including by use of an armed drone at a military parade.

Some prominent Venezuelan exiles are also backing the idea. Opposition leader Antonio Ledezma has called for "humanitarian intervention" while professor Ricardo Hausmann, a Harvard economist who served as the nation's planning minister in the 1990s says that a solution to the crisis is "contingent on regime change."

In turn, the government has stepped up repression, using the coup attempts and perceived threat of an attack as a pretext for jailing opposition leaders.

Adding to a sense that Washington may be warming to intervention, security hawks with an interest in Latin America are taking positions in the administration. Mauricio Claver-Carone, an opponent of rapprochement with Cuba, is expected to be named senior director for Western Hemisphere Affairs at the National Security Council. Jose Cardenas, who's being considered for a position in the State Department, wrote an op-ed in June titled "It's Time for a Coup in Venezuela."

Of course, U.S. military intervention has often gone poorly and comes with enormous historical baggage. Centuries of such action have bred hostility in Latin America and any Washington-led move to topple Maduro would face opposition from Venezuela's neighbors. Just this month, governments from the so-called Lima Group, including Brazil, Mexico, Peru and Chile, issued a statement rejecting the use or threat of force in Venezuela. Some have backed other attempts to squeeze the Maduro government through sanctions on top officials and bringing a case to the International Criminal Court.

At the same time, almost none of Venezuela's neighbors try to defend the legitimacy of its government any longer.

"There has been a shift in terms of accepting that it is a dictatorship," Argentine President Mauricio Macri said Monday, in a Bloomberg interview in New York, noting that he opposes military intervention. "Everybody accepts that it is no longer a democracy."

Within the U.S., there is plenty of opposition as well. It would "lead to a great deal of concern over a rebirth of United States interference in Latin America, and is far from clear it solves any of your refugee and population problems," said Anthony Cordesman, who holds the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

David Smilde, a Venezuela expert at Tulane University in New Orleans, argues against intervention but says if Trump feels he needs an important foreign policy victory with re-election coming up, he may decide to "get this ball rolling."

Francisco Rodriguez, a Venezuelan economist who took a break this year from his Wall Street job at Torino Capital to help the campaign of an opposition leader, agrees, saying Trump has plenty of incentives to intervene in Venezuela because military actions tend to raise presidential approval ratings. The links of the Maduro government to drug trafficking and terrorist groups give him the pretext. Military intervention is still unlikely, but "the probability has grown," Rodriguez said.

Colombia has received about 1 million Venezuelan migrants in less than two years, a more intense rate of migration than the 1.9 million Syrians who fled to Turkey over six years, President Ivan Duque said in New York on Monday. Duque labels the Maduro government "a full dictatorship," but his government has sent mixed signals on military intervention.

Francisco Santos, Colombia's new ambassador to Washington, said this month that Colombia wants a "collective answer" to the crisis, rather than "unilateral military operations," but that "all options must be considered." Duque then appeared to contradict this, saying that he didn't have a "warlike" spirit when it comes to Venezuela.

Duque's predecessor, Juan Manuel Santos, who left office last month, said he wasn't averse to the idea of a coup in Venezuela, according to a report in The New Yorker.

Hausmann of Harvard rejected the argument that a military intervention would be a bloodbath.

The armed forces of Venezuela are "going to collapse," he said. "They have no operational capacity, they are a useless force. They are an occupation army, they are no military threat to anybody."

Others are less sanguine. Cordesman said that in the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama, dictator Manuel Noriega's alienation of the local elites and armed forces meant that "a very limited amount of force" was needed to topple him. An invasion of Venezuela would be very different, he said.

"You need to have a very strong group of people who can credibly take over, and it's not clear that there's a faction in the Venezuelan military or security services that wants that," he said. "So you're talking about essentially going in and somehow replacing the entire structure of governance and hoping that somehow somebody is going to back you."

Still, Tulane University's Smilde noted: "Given the lack of democratic alternatives, and given the fact that what was once a nuisance is now a regional migration crisis, it's not surprising that this talk that has existed for a long time is now becoming more widespread."

--Bloomberg's Toluse Olorunnipa and Andrew Rosati contributed.With the military front lines frozen for now, the battle for Syria's future shifted to the United Nations as the U.S. and Russia clashed over postwar plans and sought the world body's approval.

The dispute took center stage on Wednesday at a meeting of foreign ministers and top officials in New York, where the U.N. is holding its annual gathering of world leaders. Russia is pushing the U.N. to help find funds for rebuilding Syria, while the U.S. insists it should be overseeing a political transition away from Bashar Assad's rule.

"Syria will need reconstruction funding ," James Jeffrey, the U.S. special envoy for the country, told the meeting. "But the Assad regime should get no help to rebuild Syria until it is on a path of genuine political reform."

Tensions have already flared over Syria this week. President Donald Trump, addressing the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, repeated his threat to attack the Syrian army if it uses chemical weapons again, and called for a political solution that "honors the will of the Syrian people.'' U.S. officials slammed Russia's plan to deliver advanced S-300 air-defense systems to Syria.

Assad's government, backed by Russia and Iran, has regained control of much of the country after more than seven years of civil war. But the military advance may have reached its limits, leaving the next phase to diplomats.

Assad suffered a rare reverse this month when Russia backed down from an offensive to recapture the northwestern province of Idlib, the last major outpost held by mostly Islamist opposition fighters. Turkey, which has soldiers in Idlib, objected to the plan. A further quarter of the country is held by Kurdish forces and there are U.S. troops embedded with them, making it another no-go zone for Assad.

The U.S. and its European Union and Gulf allies are still nominally seeking Assad's departure, and rejecting Russian appeals to help with reconstruction until an agreement on power-sharing in Syria. The UN says that rebuilding Syria could cost $250 billion.

Like the U.S., the EU has ruled out helping to rebuild Assad-controlled Syria in the absence of talks on political change. The bloc's foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini called on Wednesday for "meaningful political negotiations" under UN auspices that lead to "a united, democratic and inclusive Syria."

Russia has angrily condemned Western conditions for aid as "unacceptable.'' Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Vershinin warned the U.S. on Wednesday to stop its "dangerous provocations" by repeatedly threatening to use force in the event of an onslaught by Syria and Russia on Idlib.

Those threats helped stall the offensive, a senior U.S. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. UN-backed peace talks in Geneva may now gain momentum as Assad realizes there's no military solution, the official said.

But little has been achieved during years of negotiations in Geneva. And the setback for Assad may prove temporary, according to Steven Cook, senior fellow for Middle East and Africa Studies at the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations.

The U.S. is "out of real options in Syria, we don't have leverage,'' he said. "Assad sees victory is within his grasp. It's only a matter of time.''

American goals have shifted from regime-change as Assad's army advanced. The focus is now on denying the Syrian leader political legitimacy to go with his battlefield wins -- and on pushing his Iranian allies out of the country.

Trump's National Security Adviser John Bolton said this week that U.S. troops will stay in Syria as long as Iran and its proxies maintain a military presence there. Trump urged the General Assembly to help isolate Iran, accusing it of spreading "mayhem in the Middle East and far beyond.''

Bolton also said that Iran was ultimately responsible for the downing of a Russian reconnaissance plane by friendly Syrian fire last week. But Russia blamed Israel, whose jets were attacking targets in Syria at the time.

Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes inside Syria during the course of the war, saying it's preventing Iranian forces from entrenching there. The Kremlin announced on Monday that S-300 missile defense systems will be delivered to Damascus within two weeks, raising the threat to Israeli planes. Bolton called the move a "significant escalation.''

- - -

Bloomberg's Nick Wadhams, Gregory Viscusi and Toluse Olorunnipa contributed.Michael J. Dalys recent column (Connecticut from the rearview mirror, Conn. Post, Sept. 23, 2018) on friends leaving the state is another repeated myopic view of Connecticut.

We have a fabulous state. Having been born in Florida  but raised in Connecticut and still visiting from time to time  I could never stay in Florida for more than a few weeks.

People live in perpetually air conditioned buildings and do not have the tremendous cultural choices we do up here.

And to always read about former public employees whove benefited from the high wages and benefits, then complaining about the very taxes that are needed to pay for those benefits, is a bit much.

Yes, they can sell their homes for higher prices to live cheaply down there, but only after theyve educated their children in better schools and had higher salaries, so much more than they could ever have earned in Florida.

Change the residency laws from having one day short of six months to avoid state and local taxes so that those houses left empty for half the year are freed up for more permanent contributing residents.

They should be so grateful that it is Connecticut that has given them the opportunity to move to Georgia, the Carolinas  or wherever.

Those states dont give their residents that choice  because of economics, as the man said.

As people retire, the move to Florida is just one step and lifestyle above a nursing or retirement home.

But if thats what they want, fine. And if they drop the unreasonably high price for their Connecticut home, we can get a wonderful new family in, who would willingly pay their taxes for the quality of life this state offers.

Having traveled all over the world, I still consider Connecticut a special kind of paradise.

Audrey Cole

West CornwallWASHINGTON  With bombs dropping all over Washington, you couldnt blame Rep. Elizabeth Esty for hunkering down in her office and quietly packing up mementoes one-by-one for her planned exit from Congress come January.

But hunkering she is not. Esty is beaver-busy getting legislation passed and adding to her office wall collection of bills enacted and the presidential pens that signed them into law.

There are 13 on the wall now, and soon No. 14 will join them: The Helping Veterans Exposed to Burn Pits Act of 2018.

Some of Estys previous bills may seem a bit less than sea-changing  encouraging careers for women in NASA, womens entrepreneurship, to name a few.

But the burn-pit bill could be different. It increases focus and funding for research into the toxic after-effects of burn pits used by the military in Iraq and Afghanistan to incinerate everything from human waste to tires to batteries.

Military personnel load the pits up and set them ablaze with jet fuel, sending toxic fumes into the air. Anyone breathing in this toxic cocktail could suffer cancer, neurological and reproductive effects, respiratory toxicity, and cardiovascular toxicity.

Ive heard from veterans throughout Connecticut who are suffering - or know other service members suffering - from serious health complications that were likely caused by burn pits, Esty said in a statement. The courageous men and women of our military who endure toxic exposure and risk their long-term health on our nations behalf deserve the very best health care.

The best may not be yet to come as Esty counts down the days to her departure, forced out by revelations in March that she bungled the exit of her office chief of staff amid accusations of abuse of a female colleague.

But Esty doesnt appear fazed. Bill No. 15, her Promoting Women in the Aviation Workforce Act, could be on the wall soon enough.

House odds

In the Democrats bid to retake the House amid deepening dissatisfaction with President Trumps volatile tenure at the White House, Connecticuts five House seats are pretty much a wash.

The five who hang their hats part-time in Washington are all odds-on favorites to return, with one exception: Esty, a Democrat, is likely to be replaced by Jahana Hayes, a Democrat, teacher of the year from Waterbury making her first run for office.

But fear not, Connecticut Republicans. Connecticut may not be your battleground, but there are enough seats in the question-mark zone to defy pundit-pollster predictions of Democratic retaking the House after Election Day 2018.

It is true the Democrats are excited, but a reluctant Republican vote counts just as much as an excited Democratic vote, said Rep. Steven Stivers, R-Ohio, chairman of the National Republican Campaign Committee, which oversees GOP candidates in House races.

He noted that in nine special elections to fill vacant House seats this year and last, Republican candidates won eight of them.

In a briefing with regional reporters here in D.C., Stivers said hes focused on 23 GOP-incumbent seats in districts that went for defeated Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016.

They won ... because they have an independent identity with the voters, Stivers said. So while Democrats are excited, this isnt Vegas. I dont need to cover the spread, I just need to win those races.

So how many seats do Democrats need to win back from Republicans to retake the House? Twenty-three. So, exciting times, no matter what party youre in. Stay tuned.

dan@hearstdc.comThe U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in a decision last week expanded the definition of an autodialer, keeping it in line with the definition adopted by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in a series of rulings from 2003 to 2015, which was invalidated in March. NAFCU has advocated for a narrower interpretation so credit unions can contact their members without fear of breaking the law.

In the lawsuit, Marks v. Crunch San Diego LLC, the appeals court rejected the defendants argument that in order to qualify as an autodialer, the equipment must operate without any human intervention.

The Ninth Circuits decision contradicts two other federal appellate court decisions this year that have shown a willingness to more narrowly define an Automatic Telephone Dialing System (ATDS). In March, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit invalidated the FCCs definition of autodialer and rejected the commissions interpretation of when a caller violates the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) by calling a reassigned number.Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it. He who doesnt, pays it.

That saying, which some attribute to Albert Einstein, describes compound interest perfectly.

What is compound interest? If you have a savings or investment account, its money you earn from your interest. Thats a good thing.

If your loan has compound interest, its interest thats charged on your interest. Thats a bad thing.

Lets take a closer look at compound interest in a savings account. Say you have a savings account with $1,000 in it and you earn 6% APY  that stands for annual percentage yield. With simple interest, youd just earn $60 off your $1,000 in one year. But because of compound interest, you earn more.

Lets break it down. Each month, your account earns 0.5% interest, which is $5. So at the end of the first month, you have $1,005 in your account. So the next month, when you earn 0.5% interest, youre earning it on $1005, which is $5.025 (well round it up to $5.03) instead of $5. Because of compound interest, youve already earned an extra three cents. Your new balance is $1,010.03, which earns you $5.05 in interest. You picked up an extra two cents for a new balance of $1,015.08. Over time, those couple of cents add up and you earn more and more. Thats why they say to begin saving for retirement when youre young, because over a period of 40 years, compound interest really adds up.

Now lets look at the dark side of compounding interest. Lets say you have a $5,000 balance on a loan with compound interest, and it has a 15% APR  thats annual percentage rate  and it compounds daily. If you wait 30 days to make your first payment, your balance will already be up to $5,063.70. That means even if you made payments of $63.70 every month, the outstanding balance would stay the same for the rest of your life.

As you can see, compound interest can be very expensive. Thats why so many financial gurus advise you to pay off your credit cards first if youre trying to improve your finances. Car loans and personal loans typically have simple interest, not compound, so theres a better deal. Mortgages have simple interest but they make you pay it all up front, so it takes much longer to pay down your principal. (Principal is the original amount you borrowed.)

Make sense? Remember  compound interest in savings is good. But in a loan, its bad for your budget.For Subscribers Holiday flight forecasts for Latrobe, Johnstown airports

Three of the AAA's forecasted top 10 Thanksgiving travel destinations are served by the Arnold Palmer Regional Airport in Latrobe.WEST CHESTER  After firing a half-dozen shots from a .40 caliber Glock semi-automatic handgun at his terrified ex-wife as she ran down her West Bradford subdivisions street, and then later killing his mother and father with that same weapon as they sat side by side in easy chairs in their quiet retirement home apartment in East Goshen, Bruce Rogal got thirsty.

According to District Attorney Tom Hogan during a Wednesday press conference  at which he gave a dramatic recounting of Rogals rage-fueled attack on his family last week that culminated in his death at his own hands outside the home he had shared with his wife and son for more than 20 years  Rogal drove from the Bellingham Retirement Community in East Goshen after shooting his aged parents execution style, with one shot each to their heads, to a friends home on Strasburg Road in East Fallowfield.

The friend (later) said, He acted like nothing happened,' Hogan told assembled reporters in his law library in the D.A.s Office at the Chester County Justice Center. He complained about his family, he complained about his wife, he complained about his parents. He didnt mention a thing about shooting anybody.

He had a beer with his friend, Hogan said. Then he left.

The press conference was held to wrap up questions that had lingered in the days since Sept. 19 and 20 when the county was shocked by the report of a gunman on the loose who had killed two people and tried to kill a third.

In Hogans retelling, Rogal was a man who had a gripe with the world around him, and that anger led him to explode in rage.

This is a tragic story of a man who had a grudge against the world, Hogan said. Bruce Rogal went through his life with grudges against everybody. Everybody he met, everybody he ran into, he disliked, he despised, he fought with, he complained about, and that included his own family  his parents, his wife, his siblings.

He was angry at the way his divorce from his wife of 24 years, Catherine Christian, would end, largely because he felt Christian was hiding money from him to dilute the amount he would get in the settlement. He was angry at his parents for age-old complaints  at his mother for dropping him from a bassinet that eventually led to his recurring back pain, and at his father for having treated him too roughly as a child, the district attorney said. He was angry at his three siblings, even though they had shared equally in distribution of a million dollars from their parents sale of a summer property in New York.

Whether the signing of the divorce decree the day before his rampage set him off, however, will never be known for sure, Hogan suggested.

The only person who knows why he did what he did is Bruce Rogal, Hogan said. It was one of those things that just came to a head.

According to Hogan, Rogal had shown some tendency toward violent behavior in his marriage, having assaulted Christian during an incident just before she filed for divorce in 2015 in which he struck her with an object in their West Bradford kitchen. She was granted a Protection From Abuse order that prohibited him from living at the house or harassing her afterwards. He stuck to that order without incident, Hogan said, and was able to retrieve the two weapons he had turned over to a third party when the PFA expired in 2017.

Otherwise, he had only minor arrests for a misdemeanor in 1993 and summary citations in 2015 and 2017.

The DA said Rogal, a general contractor, was unemployed because of back surgery he had undergone, and was living in a rented home in Glenmoore from which he was facing eviction. He was dating a woman whom he had begun having an affair with when he was still living with Christian, although she did not live at the Glenmoore house. Hogan said his days largely consisted of viewing online pornography until the early morning hours, falling asleep, and waking in the middle of the day.

In the days before the rampage, Rogal had also been searching Google Maps for the area surrounding his wifes home on Vermont Lane  searching, Hogan said, for escape routes. That is (an indication) of somebody who is planning to do something at that residence, he said.

On Sept.19, he checked a porn site around 4:54 p.m. and then got into his 2002 silver Honda Odyssey mini-van and drove from his home in Glenmoore to the West Bradford subdivision off Shadyside Road. In the car were the .40 caliber Glock he had purchased the year before and a high powered Bushmaster M-4 carbine rifle, along with a stock of ammunition for both weapons.

When he confronted Christian, who was outside the house working on her car, he drew the handgun and pointed it at her. She ran from the scene and he chased her, firing six shots that missed her but struck nearby homes. She found safety in a neighbors home, where she called police. By the time units from Downingtown Police Department arrived, Rogal was gone.

Hogan chillingly told reporters what happened afterwards.

Christian called the couples adult son, Walter, who lived with her and worked in Philadelphia, to tell him what had occurred. He, thinking quickly, then called other family members to warn them that Rogal was on the loose, armed and dangerous, and that they might be in danger.

One of those calls went to his grandparents, William and Nancy Rogal, who lived at Bellingham. He spoke with his grandmother momentarily, then heard the phone go dead.

Walter realized this could be a big problem, and called Bellingham, Hogan said. The security office there contacted the executive director, Jon DeLuca, who went himself to the Rogals apartment. William and Nancy are there, and at first it looks like theyre fine, Hogan said. They are sitting in two recliners, right next to one another, just as they had spent decades of their marriage, next to each other. And they look perfectly peaceful.

But when (he) gets in there, he realizes there is blood on both of their heads, and theyre both dead. They had both been executed. Head shots, to each of his parents, said Hogan. Each of those people, William and Nancy, were dead, killed by their ungrateful son.

The time was 6:15 p.m.

Hogan went on to describe the massive manhunt that police across the county took to track Rogal down. They evacuated residents from Bellingham, thinking he might still be there. They kept Christian from returning home, and got Rogals siblings to leave their homes and evacuated his girlfriend from her residence. A Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) squad was dispatched to Rogals Glenmoore home. There, armed with a search warrant, they went in and found hundreds and hundreds of rounds for the two weapons that would ultimately be found in his possession, as well as two other guns that are still missing.

Hogan also showed a clip of a video taken by infrared camera from a Pennsylvania State Police helicopter that captured Rogals path from Strasburg Road, where he had apparently driven past the state police barracks at Embreeville, toward the Vermont Lane house.

When he arrived around 1 a.m., Rogal drove straight into the side of the house after cutting across a lawn. Hogan said that when he did so, he apparently put the barrel of the Bushmaster rifle in his mouth and pulled the rigger, killing himself.

The troopers who had followed him to the residence, however, saw only Rogal holding a rifle and leaning over. They fired on the car, striking him in the drivers seat, but only causing superficial wounds.

A report from Chester County Coroner Dr. Christina VandePol confirmed that Rogal had died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, and had no other life-threatening injuries. Hogan said that there had not been an exchange of gunfire between Rogal and the troopers, as was first reported.

Law enforcement officials attending the press conference, including Chester County Detective Chief Kevin Dykes, Downingtown Chief Howard Holland, Capt. James Fisher of the state police, and Lt. David Leahy of the Westtown-East Goshen Regional Police Department, praised the comprehensive approach taken by all departments to responding to the set of crimes.

This was a time when everyone stepped up to the occasion, said Dykes. We all came together, echoed Holland. We all had a common goal.

Hogan expressed sorrow in the way the elderly couple died, and said they would be missed.

William and Nancy Rogal, two elderly Chester County citizens, are dead at the hand of the own son, he said. They are mourned by their family. They are mourned by all of Chester County.What is perhaps most extraordinary about the all-out war over the Brett Kavanaugh nomination is how little the public knows about the accusations of Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who claims that at a high-school party in 1982, when she was 15, a drunken 17-year-old Kavanaugh forced her onto a bed, tried to undress her, and, when she tried to scream, covered her mouth with his hand.

The problem with Fords allegation is that she has produced no contemporaneous evidence to support it. The Washington Post, which interviewed Ford, reported that she told no one of the incident in any detail until 2012, when she was in couples therapy with her husband. That was 30 years after the alleged event. (Whether the phrase in detail has any significance is impossible to know  did she tell someone in a vague manner?  since the Post article is the only public information about Fords account.)

Ford reportedly named a number of people who she said attended the party. None has so far corroborated her story. Recently the Senate Judiciary Committee reached Ford classmate and friend Leland Ingham Keyser, who was said to have attended. Ms. Keyser does not know Mr. Kavanaugh and she has no recollection of ever being at a party or gathering where he was present, with, or without, Dr. Ford, Keysers lawyer wrote to the committee.

Kavanaugh, of course, has strongly denied Fords accusation. I have never done anything like what the accuser describes  to her or to anyone, he said.

Contemporaneous accounts of the matter, either from people who were at the party or people Ford might have discussed it with shortly after, would be enormously valuable in assessing her allegations. Thats why Ford supporters were so excited when a former classmate of Fords, Cristina King Miranda, wrote on social media, The incident DID happen, many of us heard about it in school. Inundated with questions from reporters, King quickly backtracked, telling NPR, That it happened or not, I have no idea.

When Ford did tell her story, to the therapist in 2012, there were some discrepancies between the therapists notes and Fords present account. Its unclear whether those discrepancies are significant, since all the public has is the Post story.

So what do Democrats do, with so little to go on? For some, the answer is faith.

I believe Dr. Ford, said Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a member of the Judiciary Committee.

I believe Dr. Ford, said Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono, also a member of the Judiciary Committee.

We believe Dr. Ford, said Democratic Sen. Chris Coons, also a member of the Judiciary Committee.

Why do they believe? Democratic lawmakers explain that they dont think a woman would come forward in such a politically charged atmosphere and expose herself to criticism if she wasnt telling the truth. They say theyre not disturbed by the 30-year gap in Fords story because some victims of sexual assault wait years to reveal what happened to them. And they say flatly that women should be believed when they make an allegation.

But the fact remains: no contemporaneous evidence. And not much since then, either. Maybe the coming days will bring some new information, but for now, Democrats are dedicated to trying to stop the Kavanaugh nomination on the basis of a charge without verification.

Now, out of the Democrats faith comes a new argument: It doesnt matter whether Fords charge is true. It is credible. And that is enough, because even a credible allegation  no word on who defines what that means  disqualifies Kavanaugh for a seat on the Supreme Court.

The truth is, I believe her, Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said. She has a credible allegation against Judge Kavanaugh.

Some academic Ford supporters lent their scholarly credentials to the credible-is-enough argument. The existence of credible allegations against Judge Kavanaugh should be disqualifying, wrote Cardozo Law School professor Kate Shaw in The New York Times. If members of the Senate conclude that a credible accusation of sexual misconduct has been made against Judge Kavanaugh, that should be enough to disqualify him.

In The Atlantic, Brookings Institution scholar Benjamin Wittes took the argument to its illogical extreme. Because of the political sensitivity of the situation, Wittes wrote, Kavanaugh cannot  seek to discredit a woman who purports to have suffered a sexual assault at his hands.

Even if (Kavanaugh) believes himself innocent, even if he is innocent, Wittes concluded, the better part of valor is to get out now. That is, to withdraw his nomination.

So there it is: Fords supporters believe in her because they believe in her. They think a credible allegation is enough to disqualify Kavanaugh. And even if that allegation is not, in fact, true  even if Kavanaugh is innocent  he is still disqualified. In the current battle, Kavanaughs opposition is essentially faith-based, trying to create an environment in which there is no way he can win.

(Byron York is chief political correspondent for The Washington Examiner.)Recently, ABC News commentator Matthew Dowd made the following statement on Twitter:

Enough with the he said, she said storyline. If this is he said, she said, then lets believe the she in these scenarios. She has nothing to gain, and everything to lose. For 250 years, we have believed the he in these scenarios. Enough is enough.

I kept going back to reread the tweet (noting that it had been liked more than 32,000 times), not exactly sure why my stomach felt as if someone had taken a crochet hook and turned my large intestine into a pink pussy hat. As far as the toxic waste dump of social media is concerned, it was rather innocuous.

But the more I read it, the truly noxious and subversive nature of Dowds sentiments became apparent: He was saying believe the woman who says she was raped, regardless of the evidence.

He was urging us to believe the woman for several reasons, but the most important one was historical: For the past 250 years, ever since George Washington apparently stuck his tongue down Betsy Rosss throat in appreciation for her flag design, women have been victims of the patriarchy. And so, to balance out the scales, we should now accept their narratives of abuse hook, line and sinker  even if there is little corroboration. Thats remedial justice, a la Dowd.

And he is not alone in his thinking. Many people think its abusive in and of itself to question the stories of self-professed victims. The most famous one these days is Christine Blasey Ford, who said Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh shoved her onto a bed in a drunken fury and tried to rip her clothes off 35 years ago. This column isnt really about Ford or Kavanaugh, except to the extent that the incident demonstrates the dangerous road we set upon when demanding that women be believed, reflexively and absolutely.

This column is about something bigger, and that is the growing willingness on a large part of the electorate to appease women by neutralizing due process. Make no mistake: This is not about all victims of abuse. This is not about the young boys who were molested by priests in my church, or the young men who were victims of Jerry Sandusky. This is uniquely about women, and about this supposed debt that society owes us for, according to Dowd, having believed the he.'

This is about the fraudulent attempt to make amends by giving us the power to strip others of their constitutional right to due process, and their natural right to an unsullied reputation. This is about demanding acceptance of the principle that women dont lie, because they have no reason to.

Since Dowd is so concerned with history, lets examine that theory.

In 1931, nine black teenagers were falsely accused by two white women of raping them in Scottsboro, Ala. They were convicted by an all-white jury, appealed, and convicted again on retrial. It was only after their case made it to the U.S. Supreme Court six years later that the convictions were overturned.

On Aug. 28, 1955, a 14 year old boy by the name of Emmett Till was accused of having sexually assaulted a white woman by grabbing her and making lewd advances. He was abducted by the family of the white woman, who had lied, and brutally murdered.

On Nov. 28, 1987, Tawana Brawley claimed that white men, including a police officer and a prosecutor, had raped her. The Rev. Al Sharpton and other prominent African Americans like Bill Cosby, Don King and Mike Tyson defended Brawley. One year later, in 1988, a grand jury found that she had lied.

On May 12, 2006, three lacrosse players from Duke University were charged with having raped an African-American stripper named Crystal Gail Mangum. Professors at the school urged a conviction and the district attorney manipulated the case for political ends, but the charges were dropped a year later and the three were pronounced actually innocent.

There are more cases of women who shouldnt have been believed. The UVA rape hoax. The Columbia University Mattress Girl hoax. The recent case of a priest in Berks county falsely accused of sexual assault.

Matthew Dowd thinks women are entitled to blind faith. I suggest he read Santayana.How distressing for a party that boasts a proud record on progressing womens rights and freedoms to be embroiled in a toxic row involving accusations of grotesque misogynist rage.

But this is what happened after pressure group Standing for Women, which believes only people born as women can be called women, put up a billboard in Liverpool city centre.

It quoted the Oxford English Dictionarys definition: Woman; women/(noun) adult human female.

Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell once said someone should lynch the b*tch when talking about Tory minister Esther McVey and called shadow business secretary, Rebecca Long-Bailey, my little Becky

This was a challenge to Labour policy that its all-women shortlists of election candidates should be open to all women, which of course includes trans women. Within hours of going up on Monday, the poster was removed after activists condemned it as transphobic.

Standing for Women said this was an act of grotesque misogynistic rage and it is seeking legal advice.

All this poses a dilemma for sisters in the party, which, in an anti-feminist move, also yesterday abandoned a plan to guarantee to have a female joint-deputy leader.

Misogyny row rocks the sisters

Vulpine shadow chancellor John McDonnell isnt doing himself any favours after accusations of sexism  having once said of Tory minister Esther McVey someone should lynch the b*tch. Clearly he thinks hes being affectionate but others consider him patronising for calling shadow business secretary, Rebecca Long-Bailey, 39, my little Becky.

Eye on top job

Corbynista Chris Williamson is an advocate of mandatory reselection of fellow Labour MPs

One of the most ardent advocates of mandatory reselection of Labour MPs is Corbynista Chris Williamson.

The Derby North MP, a vegan former social worker, has spoken in 30 constituencies from Scotland to Cornwall to drum up support for the change.

He explains: Labour MPs in safe seats currently have a job for life.

But many cynics suspect Williamson has an alternative agenda  trying to raise his own profile as a possible successor to Corbyn.

Outfoxed Blairites

Blairites are as welcome here as a fox at a hen party. One MP explained his own absence: The cost of hotel, travel, meals and drinks is close to 1,000. Thats a lot to pay to be shouted at.My daughter Iona had a seizure at 5am yesterday. Her eyes rolled, she screamed, her limbs flailed and her body shook.

After five minutes her carer, a kind middle-aged woman from Poland, gave her emergency medication.

This action, under an agreed protocol, ensured Iona did not need hospitalisation. Seven minutes later, she slumped back into deep sleep.

This is a routine occurrence in my household, living with a 25-year-old woman who has profound disabilities.

This is a routine occurrence in my household, living with a 25-year-old woman who has profound disabilities. File photo

Iona is a gorgeous, smiley person, despite a rare genetic flaw that means she cannot see, talk or walk  but epilepsy is a cruel condition and each seizure potentially a killer.

When Iona woke almost five hours later, the carer gave her breakfast, bathed her and dressed her before the day could begin  just as she has done for almost five years working in our home.

But this dedicated, supportive woman departs our team this weekend. She is going home to Poland.

So we must resume the nightmare task of searching for replacements.

Much of this burden falls on my exhausted wife, who fills any rota shortfalls for the long, waking nights alongside Iona before spending her days desperately seeking carers.

For while Westminster bickers over Brexit, our country is suffering a staffing crisis that is crippling an already weak care system  and threatens my familys future.

Training charity Skills For Care says there are 110,000 vacant posts in England alone, the vacancy rate surging by 22,000 posts over the past year.

More than two-thirds are jobs helping elderly, disabled and sick people in their homes. File photo

More than two-thirds are jobs helping elderly, disabled and sick people in their homes.

Niall Dickson, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, talks about a service facing meltdown. He calls this the scandal that has not dared to speak its name.

One friend told me of a superb care home in Plymouth where her aunt died in May, set in a beautiful former convent.

It is profitable, highly rated but faces closure due to staff shortages.

Niall Dickson (pictured) chief executive of the NHS Confederation, talks about a service facing meltdown

This is really desperate if we dont have enough workers to look after the dying, she said.

Why is it that this nation seems to care so little for its disabled, sick and elderly?

We have a Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, who is virtually silent over a crisis that impacts so hard on the NHS while he promotes mobile phone health apps like an excited teenager.

As for Labour, their activists decided Palestine and fracking are more important for conference debate.

Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, is virtually silent over a crisis that impacts so hard on the NHS

This week, the Cabinet finally discussed how our migration system might work after leaving the EU, with some experts predicting numbers coming from Europe will fall by 80 per cent.

The danger is that efforts to slash migration fall on the sort of people who keep my family afloat but are deemed unskilled by self-serving politicians and bureaucrats.

Similar issues plague the National Health Service. Vacancies for medical staff have soared, driving up costs for taxpayers when expensive temporary workers must be used to plug gaps.

In London, where I live, more than four in ten carers looking after adults come from abroad.

We have had some brilliant Britons and people from further afield helping Iona  but the bulk have been dependable staff from Eastern Europe.

I see something similar with my father, who at 95 has severe dementia.

He is a ghost of the man who once captained a landing craft on Omaha Beach amid the brutal D-Day assaults, then enjoyed a successful career in business.

Meanwhile, carers themselves are chronically under-valued despite doing tough and essential work such as looking after elderly people. File photo

Like my daughter, he is assisted at home rather than in the arms of the State.

His carers this year hail from Estonia and Lithuania, along with South Africa and a lone Briton.

Brexit plays a role in this problem. I have heard from East European carers disturbed by the tone of debate in Britain that implies they are not wanted here.

Meanwhile their native economies are thriving and the pound has fallen, shrinking their earning differentials  most notably in London.

But this crisis, hidden among rising despair in thousands of homes such as mine, goes beyond Brexit.

There are a welter of issues building like flood waters behind a dam that will one day burst  with devastating consequences.

Some are, as ever, financial. I backed austerity after the 2008 fiscal crisis, but it was always wrong to overload cuts on local authorities to lessen pain in Whitehall, given the inevitable consequences as they slashed services and support.

The National Audit Office has warned that councils saw central government funding halve in real terms since 2010, leaving many on the brink of breaking point as they face rising bills for core services. Yet the foreign aid bill keeps rising.

This impact is disastrous in an ageing society with more people living longer lives and often with debilitating conditions  especially at a time when amazing medical advances mean more children are surviving with profound disabilities.

So we see dwindling staff numbers and declining services at a time of rising demand and growing complexity of conditions.

And these problems are intensified by dismissive attitudes still prevalent in society towards old and disabled people.

This means care gets low priority, leaving a system coming apart at the seams with home closures, crumbling services, complaints soaring and elderly people blocking much-needed hospital beds for lack of alternative provision.

Meanwhile, carers themselves are chronically under-valued despite doing tough and essential work such as looking after elderly people with dementia like my father or assisting those with life-threatening disabilities such as my daughter.

The legacy can be seen with a series of appalling abuse scandals in care homes, most infamously at Winterbourne View near Bristol.

The bullies are callous inadequates who do not have a caring bone in their bodies but struggle to get jobs elsewhere.

This is the flip side to our strong employment figures. For such staffing issues become even more pertinent and they terrify families such as mine who fear their children ending up in poorly staffed centres.

It is all very well saying Britons should do these jobs. But what if the right people are not applying to care for someone with complex needs or fail to turn up for interviews, as has happened with us.

We have spent a quarter of a century caring for our daughter. The early years were filled with bewilderment and depression, then came years sleeping on floors and in hospitals as we fought for support in a system designed to thwart parents.

Now, at least, we have a personal health budget to fund care, although at a time in our 50s when friends look to retirement we have had to remortgage our house to adapt it to Ionas needs.

The stress has soared and a sense of alienation grown stronger with age.

We worry if we will be able to keep her in the warmth of a family environment rather than hand her over to a struggling system. We tried it once before  and she came home under palliative care.

When will Britain wake up to the deficiencies of our creaking welfare system, the need for realistic migration and our shameful failings in caring for our elderly and disabled citizens?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.



This has been the week that Labour went full Commie tonto. Some of the policies proposed at the party conference in Liverpool belonged to Castros Cuba, an island reduced to penury by rigid Left-wing dogma.

And after Jeremy Corbyns weirdly whispery closing speech yesterday  he even spoke Spanish at one point  we all know who fancies himself as Comrade Fidel, bearded grandfather of la nacion.

Mr Corbyns cold-blooded sidekick John McDonnell came up with an economics programme which included Marxist ideas such as workers councils. These would be to elect bosses in private firms.

Some of the policies proposed at the party conference in Liverpool belonged to Castros Cuba, Quentin Letts says

Hatred

The Shadow Chancellor also proposed a tax-whack against banks and utility companies, which would be forced to hand 10 per cent of dividends to the Government. Whitehall would then cream off much of the loot before passing a tip to employees.

Both ideas are a certain way to send investors abroad, and thus impoverish the very workers they are meant to help.

The conference debates also revealed acid hatred of Centrists and Tories, including the continued dancing on Margaret Thatchers grave.

Snarl, snarl, hate, hate.

Then there was the suggestion a Labour PM would consult the wider community before responding to attack by a hostile country.

Imagine: the Kremlin has dispatched warheads and our PM has minutes to react; but the Corbynites say their leader would assemble a convention of workers reps and stakeholders  and no doubt Len McCluskey and his trades union heavies  to assess the mood of the compositing room before ordering the Ministry of Defence to send any RAF jets.

Incoming missiles would have to wait in a holding pattern over Heathrow until PM Corbyn was ready. This is madder than any Dr Strangelove nuclear war satire.

But laughing and shaking our heads with an attitude of these nutcases will never win power is the wrong response. When the Conservatives gather for their conference in Birmingham on Sunday, Theresa Mays strategists must not make the mistake of scoffing in amused disbelief at what has gone on in Liverpool. They need to take it with the utmost seriousness.

The Tories need to wake up

Having sat through the weeks debates, I sense the Corbyn movement may, howsoever dottily, be on to something. Policy can be a surprisingly small part of electoral appeal. When voters head to the polling station, other factors will inform their choice.

Which leader makes them feel warm? Which side speaks with clarity (even if that is another way of saying simplicity)? Ooh look, that Mr Corbyn is offering us free babysitting. That would save us a few quid. And he seems a kindly old gent, doesnt he? (Note to waverers: no, he is not!)

Which party has zip in its tank? Whose activists look more representative of society? What sort of accents do they have? What are our grandchildren saying?

On all these fronts, Corbyns Liverpool gathering may have scored highly. The Tories  led by cautious, sober Mrs May  need somehow to match that.

Vitality and optimism were evident in Liverpool in bagfuls. Despite those outbursts of anti-Thatcherite bile, such as when Aslef leader Tosh McDonald boasted that he used to set his alarm an hour earlier than needed, just so he could hate Mrs Thatcher for an extra hour, the more common mood in the conference hall was upbeat.

The Shadow Chancellor also proposed a tax-whack against banks and utility companies

For every Tosh who snarled, another delegate spoke with excitement. These delegates were chosen pretty much at random. They were not frontbench Establishment bores, or sycophants approved by the party hierarchy, as happened in the Blair years and still happens at Tory conferences.

The Liverpool conference was refreshingly democratised, and when they spoke about grotty trains, stupid planning laws or City fat-cats, they may despite McDonnells mad Marxism  have had many in Middle Britain nodding in recognition of things that could be done better by the State.

Some were the sort of people you might easily have found interested in David Camerons Tory party: a pukka young Derbyshire woman called Samantha, a parliamentary candidate called Hugo and a retired social worker from Wolverhampton in a smart yellow top. The last announced she had not prepared a script, for she had never expected to be given a chance to speak.

Instead of the usual spiel of slogans, she described extempore how she had found a down-and-out at the door of her supermarket and taken the lad off for a cup of coffee to try to understand his problems.

I am not saying a modern Tory would never behave in such an altruistic way. Many would. Nor am I saying that the Wolverhampton womans preference for big-State solutions to poverty was right.

I believe a low-tax, small-state economy could result in less homelessness because it would create more jobs. But it is hard to imagine such a lay activist ever being given the platform at Conservative conferences.

The policies of Corbynism may be raw nonsense, but by wrenching control of the party from the Blairite elite, he has rejuvenated Labour. Conference-goers duly felt comfortable enough to criticise Labour parliamentarians.

Trouble

A man called Dan thundered that being an MP is not a job for life. Steven from Edinburgh warned Labours MPs: If you wont reflect our views, we will replace you with someone who does. Amanda from Mansfield said if MPs were reluctant to put themselves up for regular re-selection by their local parties, they were in the wrong job. Maria from Gorton cried: You cant just treat us as door-knocking fodder.

How amazing it would be if rank-and-file Tory members in Birmingham were given a similar opportunity.

What would they say about MPs such as Sarah Wollaston, Anna Soubry and Nicky Morgan, who determinedly try to block solid Tory ideas? Independence of mind in an MP is one thing, but when they so consistently cause trouble for the party, there comes a point when volunteers will either give up or seize control.

That is what has happened in Mr Corbyns Labour, and I suspect many non-partisan onlookers will have thought good for them. Some of the wiser Tories already see this.

They grasp that, for all the received wisdom about the Centre no longer being important, elections are still decided by swing-voters. And swing-voters dont mince their words about the City slickers who have so long ripped us off with Public Finance Initiative contracts or their Carillion-style behaviour on pension funds.

Or take enormous pay-offs and abuse gilded networks which allow newly retired civil servants and politicians to walk into juicy private sector jobs (the example set by former Chancellor George Osborne, who has umpteen jobs and multiple conflicts of interest). It is simply grotesque. Sorry, there is no other word for it.

In the mid-Nineties, John Majors stale Tories assumed Bambi Blair was unelectable. They lost the next election in a landslide. Similarly, before the 2015 General Election, Labour MPs in Scotland thought they had jobs for life. Their complacency saw all but one of them booted out of office.

Theresa May's regime is doing the 'utmost' to help Corbyn pull off an election shock, Quentin Letts said

Blunt

I am not convinced Corbyn could pull off quite such an election shock, but the lifeless, wan May regime is doing its utmost to help them.

It is trying to blunt Brexit. It has a terror of radical clarity on tax-cutting. It cleaves to limp political-correctness only yesterday the Government Equalities Office was tooting its trumpet about a partnership to promote and improve reporting on gender equality in the workplace. That wont shift a single vote.

But imagine if the Tories started speaking of liberty, of tax-cutting, of proper defence spending, of cutting the foreign aid budget by two-thirds, and of getting us cleanly out of the EU, no strings and caveats.

And imagine if they did it with a sense of joy. Impossible under Theresa May? If so, find someone more charismatic.

Britain is an island of rich potential. It has wonderful people and an enviable off-shore location  just like Cuba in the Fifties.

A generation later, after Castros Corbyn-style ideas, it was banjaxed, naked in debt, its citizens half starved and its industry crocked.

The Tories need to wake up or the same could damn well happen to us.A couple who developed an 'obsession' with recreating the house featured in the cult Eighties movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off spent a whopping 1 million on their dream home.

Adventurous pair Harry and Bryony Ascombe moved from London to north Cornwall with their three young children, Alice, Elonie and Rocky, in April 2017, keen to raise their family away from the expensive city.

After purchasing an eight-acre plot incorporating a former dairy farm for 490,000, they told Kevin McCloud in Channel 4's Grand Designs their plan was to 'move in by Christmas' - giving them an ambitious eight-month window within which to complete their 'sexy surf house' from scratch.

Their inspiration was a steel and glass surf house inspired by James Speyer's Ben Rose House, the Illinois modernist classic famously featured in the hit 1986 movie, with Harry admitting it has 'become a bit of an obsession to honour it'.

But they soon found themselves looking at an extra eight months on top of their projected deadline, having taken several cost-cutting risks and forked out 510,000 on bringing their dream five-bedroom house to life.

The Ascombes finally moved into their property, surrounded by sprawling views of the Cornish countryside, in August 2018.

Harry was inspired by James Speyer's Ben Rose House, the Illinois modernist classic famously featured in 1986 movie, which comprises mainly of glass and steel. However he had to emplou some cost-cutting moves when he ran out of budget

The couple were inspired by the glass-walled home famously featured in the cult Eighties movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off, which was originally designed for the Ben Rose family in the 1950s

The open-plan living and dining space makes up the majority of the home which is part modernist part 'sexy surf house' and an enormous cantilever gloriously protruding from the hillside

Harry, who took on the project manager role, took many risks that had Grand Designs presenter Kevin McCloud squirming but it all paid off in the end when the build was complete

Adventurous couple Harry and Bryony Ascombe moved from London to Cornwall with their three young children after buying an eight-acre plot for 490,000 so they could build their Ferris Bueller-inspired house

Harry, a former TV journalist, runs a small production company in London, and was keen to open a second office in Cornwall and enjoy a similar lifestyle to the one they'd enjoyed during a stint living in California.

Financed by savings and a ninety per cent mortgage on the land, they were left with a 400,000 budget with which to build the house, and planned to keep income coming by renting out the cottage that came with the plot.

Kevin was sceptical of of Harry's desire to recreate the Ferris Bueller house - especially when he learned neither he nor Bryony have ever been to see the house.

The father-of-three took on the role of project manager and employed two local builders and friends of the family.

But at every crucial stage Harry tested their nerves by taking enormous gambles that had the potential to derail the entire build - but sheer luck sees them through.

The four foot high floor to ceiling windows took 14 hours to fit but the finished result is a glorious sprawling view of the Cornish countryside

Harry and Bryony wanted to recreate the same live-work experience they had when they lived in California, enjoying the sea and surfing as well as opening an office in the new location

The open-plan living area was enormous but instead of building walls to make the space smaller they came up with the idea of a movable book case divider - Harry explained that the books absorbed sound and made the perfect wall

The kitchen counter is four-feet long and the cupboards stretching towards the ceiling with its exposed wooden beams and wavy steel beams

There is an extra cosy corner just off the main living area which features another blue couch with artwork dotted on the walls to bring extra life in to the house

After hoping they would be ready to move in by Christmas 2017, it came as a huge shock to the couple that they were still languishing in the tiny cottage at the time.

Desperate to keep things moving at a quicker pace - Harry took his first gamble, by laying the concrete flooring before the structure was weatherproof.

It worried the builders who had a race to get it finished, followed by a tense three-week wait before it set, but the April weather luckily held out.

Harry also encountered an issue with his original plans to use expensive steel to create the structure but somehow managed to shave off 20,000 by using a cheaper alternative.

With the roof still not finished by May 2018, he took another risk by asking his contractor to plaster the bedroom walls when the roof was still unfinished.

Its the totally wrong way around to do it but Harry wants to do it and he is the paying master,' remarked builder Mark Fuller.

The steel frame of the house went up two months later than scheduled making the whole build delayed, with Harry having to make considerable money-saving cuts on the steelwork to get to the finish line

During part of the build the roof wasn't finished and the structure wasn't waterproof, but Harry persuaded the builders to lay the concrete floor and plaster the walls and prey that no rain fell - luckily 2018 was unseasonably warm

The corridor leading to the five bedrooms features a strikingly colourful painting of a parrot at the end with small windows letting in light

The house Kevin said was more like a 'distant homage' to the Spayer house featured in the Ferris Bueller movie, but that the inspiration was still clear

It was another gamble and once again it paid off, however the couple had to rush things along so they could move in as summer arrived.

They had the cottage already booked out for June, and with nowhere but their unfinished home to go they had to camp out inside the bedrooms until everything was completed.

The couple also decided to scrap a large portion of the double-glazed windows set to finish off the cantilever, instead using timber cladding as a money-saving tool.

Instead of plastering and painting the interior, Harry also made a last-minute decision to use MDF cladding instead, again saving thousands.

By August 2018 Kevin returned to see the house, and although he had concerns it should be smaller, he was won over by the completed design.

Harry explained that they surpassed their original 400,000 budget and were somewhere around the 510,000 mark, and with the original cost of the plot at 490,000 their total bill was 1million.

For Kevin though the cost of roughly 1,600psqm represented 'quite good value' and although the Spayer inspiration is more of a 'distant homage' he was thoroughly impressed.

Grand Designs airs tonight on Channel 4 at 9pmA university graduation tends to be a formal affair, with people crossing the stage to solemnly receive their degrees.

But one young woman from Auckland, New Zealand, recently shook things up when she chose to make her mark by dancing across the stage instead.

Eteroa Lafaele, 23, a recent graduate from AUT, now holds a degree in computer science degree - a piece of paper she said cost her $30,000.

Eteroa Lafaele (pictured) stepped onto the graduation stage in style when she recently received her degree

A proud moment: Ms Lafaele said celebrating the completion of her studies warranted a celebration

And what better to celebrate by putting one foot out and 'letting everything strut'.

As to be expected a video of her inspired moment where she 'slayed like a boss' is taking the Internet by storm.

Speaking to Daily Mail Australia, Ms Lafaele said her celebratory dance wasn't planned in the slightest.

But it was designed to mark three years of hard work and the $30,000 she spend on her degree.

'I knew at the time when I graduating I would take over the stage because it was a well deserved moment,' she said.

'The dance was a celebration of a new season of life as well as one that helped me to take ownership of all my hard work.'

The 23-year-old said while there were plenty of surprised faces in the audience, those on stage with her couldn't have been more supportive.

'The vice chancellor was holding my hand and said it was an amazing entrance,' Ms Lafaele said

'The vice chancellor was holding my hand and said it was an amazing entrance,' she said.

Ms Lafaele said her impromptu performance, inspired by her hero Celine Dion, was totally in line with her personality - one she described as 'really extra'.

'I just wanted to be seen and heard because this degree wasn't easy,' she concluded.Chick-fil-A surprised a regular customer with a giant party and free meals for life in honor of his milestone 100th birthday.

Stephen Bellissimo has been visiting the same Chick-Fil-A location in Oldsmar, Florida, for nearly 20 years, KTRK-TV reports. Not only is he consistent with his orders, but he likes to sit in the same booth during each of his visits.

When the chain's staffers found out that Stephen was turning 100, they started planning a surprise party for the loyal customer, who often stays there for several hours at a time.

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Major milestone: A Chick-Fil-A in Oldsmar, Florida, surprised Stephen Bellissimo (pictured) with a party this week in honor of his 100th birhday

Amazing: Stephen was told that he would now be getting free meals for the rest of his life

A shocked Stephen was greeted by family and friends when he walked into the restaurant on September 21.

The restaurant was decorated with balloons, streamers, and a banner, while a birthday cake, cards, and a Chick-fil-A gift bag sat on top of his favorite booth.

Stephen used to make daily visits to Chick-fil-A, but he suffered a fall last year and now lives with his son, who now takes him to the Oldsmar location once a week.

Brittani Craft, marketing director for Chick-fil-A, told Fox 13 that he is known as 'Mr. Steve' at the restaurant and staffers make sure to take turns stopping by his booth during his Friday visits.

'It's so heartwarming to watch his affect on everyone here,' she said. 'He makes everyone here feel loved and welcome.'

Heartwarming: 'That is the best gift I could ever receive!' Stephen said of the gift

Touching: Stephen has been visiting the same Chick-Fil-A location for nearly 20 years, and staffers decorated his favorite booth with card and birthday cake

Gang's all here! Stephen's family and friends were all invited to the party

Touched: Stephen vowed to visit the chain every day after learning that he would now be eating for free

While Stephen had been getting free coffee and 50 per cent off of his orders, the location surprised him a second time by revealing that his meals would now be free for the rest of his life.

'Oh, I think this is just one great surprise for me. I didnt expect anything like this,' he told Fox 13 of the generous offer.

'That is the best gift I could ever receive! Thank you very much!'

Stephen was just as excited to sit in his regular booth and hang out with his family and friends during the thoughtful surprise party.

'I cant believe it,' he gushed. 'Instead of coming once a week, now I'm coming every day.'

Favorite customer: Last year, the location celebrated his 99th birthday in a similar fashion

Positive outlook: Stephen's secret to longevity is being happy every day

Although Stephen was undoubtedly surprised when he walked into his party, it isn't the first one the chain has thrown for him.

Last year, the location celebrated his 99th birthday in a similar fashion and posted pictures from his party on the Chick-fil-A Oldsmar Facebook page.

'Mr. Steve has made his impact on each team member he has come across,' the company explained. 'So today, we did what we could to try to make his 99th birthday a very memorable one.

'We decorated his booth, bought him a cake and card signed by all employees, and gave him a special bouquet of flowers that he could take to honor his wife. We even had past team members come back on their own, just to celebrate him.'

In the post, the chain also revealed that staffers were already thinking about Stephen's 100th birthday party.

'His reaction when he walked in to see his balloons and all of us waiting for him was something that none of us are likely to forget. And we cannot wait to celebrate the big 100 with him next year,' reads last year's Facebook message.

'Oh, and if you're wondering what his secret to longevity is, it's pretty simple - he says you just have to be happy, everyday [sic].'Has your life been lacking a 3,600 diamond constellation ear cuff? How about a crystal- imbued water bottle, to give your drinking water some 'positive energy?'

Or a 'vibrator necklace', a device which does exactly what it says on the tin, combining as it does the ability to provide erotic stimulation with the charm of a decorative pendant.

Yearn no more. For while until now these items have only been available via a few clicks on a certain celebrity-founded website, if you're a resident of one of London's more well-heeled neighbourhoods then, as of yesterday, they were available over the counter.

Money bags: Kathryn after her visit to the Goop store

The name of that store can, of course, only be Goop, the brand started more than a decade ago by actress Gwyneth Paltrow and that  despite no shortage of detractors  has morphed from a weekly email newsletter featuring 'a little bit of everything that makes up my life' into a global lifestyle and wellness website; a behemoth estimated to be worth a cool 200 million.

Until recently the brand's carefully curated  and eye-wateringly expensive  skincare, fragrance, clothes, homeware and supplements were only sold online.

Last September, however, Goop opened the doors to its first permanent bricks-and-mortar shop in Los Angeles, with pop-up stores in New York, Dallas and the Hamptons, where Gwyneth  naturally  has a holiday home.

Now, to mark its tenth birthday, the brand has launched a pop-up store in London, in the city where it all started. Gwyneth apparently came up with the idea for the website while sitting around her kitchen table in the marital home she used to share with ex-husband Chris Martin.

The shop nestles alongside the designer clothes stores and expensive coffee shops of West London's Westbourne Grove  a place whose wealthy residents are possibly more open than most to Gwyneth's more outrageous (some might say wacky) practices.

Let's not forget this is a woman who famously recommended that ladies steam their private parts to 'balance female hormone levels'.

So what should you expect from a visit to her shop?

Well, it certainly looks lovely: straddling two levels over a leafy courtyard, the site is an Instagrammer's dream, all floor-to-ceiling windows, pale wood floors and stripped-back glass cases.

Although, sadly, there was no sight of Ms Paltrow herself yesterday, there were, however, a host of flinty-eyed PR assistants on the alert for anyone who might not be taking the whole business seriously enough.

Their caution was understandable, given that over the years Goop has attracted no shortage of censure for peddling what one critic recently described as 'smug, overpriced crackpot twaddle'.

This crystal-imbued water bottle could give your drinking water some 'positive energy'

Could she, by any chance, have had the site's sex dust, to improve libido and priced at 260 in mind? Or its 65 Jade and Rose Quartz eggs  designed to be used internally to 'increase sexual energy'?

The site declared they could also 'balance hormones, regulate menstrual cycles, prevent uterine prolapse, and increase bladder control'.

That latter boast led to a $145,000 (112,000) settlement in the U.S. for 'unsubstantiated claims', although a Goop statement said the settlement acknowledged no liability on the company's part and addressed only advertising, not the products themselves.

What that means in layman's terms is that  happy days  Goop's 'special' eggs remain on sale, albeit without any accompanying health claims. Yesterday, nestled behind a sliding glass door in the West London store, they were described instead as 'once the strictly guarded secret of Chinese concubines'.

'Jade is more healing, while rose quartz crystals are more for connecting with your generous and loving side,' explained one well-meaning assistant, who sidled up after watching me scrutinising them.

He was just one of many there to serve yesterday  at one point there seemed more assistants than shoppers  all of them young, enthusiastic and smiley.

'Do you know your crystals?' another twentysomething man enquired when I asked about the point of a water bottle with a crystal stuck in the bottom costing 54. 'They give their energy to the water.'

A French assistant, meanwhile explains how the 'Goop Medicine Bag'  eight 'chakra-healing' crystals, 'energetically cleansed with sage, turned with sound waves, activated with mantras and blessed with Reiki no less'  would work to help my energy levels.

What's more they are rechargeable: just leave them out when it's a full moon.

As the morning wore on, Notting Hill's yummy mummies started to roll up.

A thirtysomething blonde in leather trousers was scanning the racks of clothing with an expression that suggested 780 was not unreasonable for a plain black dress.

If a bricks and mortar store will succeed anywhere, it is here. It's open until January.One of Australia's top midwives has revealed the common mistakes first-time parents make after 42 years in the industry.

Cath Curtin has delivered more than 10,000 babies, including Rebecca Judd's children and Tiffiny Hall's son, and has seen the same mistakes made time and time again.

Speaking on the The Morning Show, Ms Curtin said that parents often don't feed the baby enough, don't wrap it up enough and assume 'wind' is the issue.

'Every time a baby cries people often think its wind, but wind doesn't hurt a baby,' she said.

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Australian midwife Cath Curtin has revealed the common mistakes first-time parents make (pictured with Rebecca Judd's children)

She has delivered more than 10,000 babies, including Rebecca Judd's children (pictured) and Tiffiny Hall's son, in her 42-year career

She explained that it's easy to know when a baby has had enough to eat as they'll go to sleep.

Ms Curtin said babies simply need to feel content, be fed, be in quiet environments and be close to their mothers.

Although there is often pressure on parents to create a strict routine for their babies, Ms Curtin said this doesn't always need to be the case.

'I invented a routine called bath, bottle and bed, the "BBB". Get the dads or partners to bath the baby at 10 o'clock at night, then give them a bottle of formula or express milk and put the baby to bed nice and wrapped,' she said.

She told The Morning Show that often people don't feed the baby enough, don't wrap it up enough and assume wind is the issue

'Every time a baby cries people often think its wind, but wind doesn't hurt a baby,' she said

How can parents look after themselves? - Consult parenting experts - Allow mother time to herself - Don't compare to others Advertisement

Ms Curtin said that mothers can struggle with self-care as they often feel guilty and hover over their newborns.

'That's why with the bath at 10 o'clock, and once the women have stopped hovering after the first few nights and go to bed, they can have a good four or five hours sleep,' she explained.

This encourages mothers to look after themselves and also helps the baby get used to having a bath and having a drink.

She explained that it's easy to know when a baby has had enough to eat as they'll go to sleep

Ms Curtin agreed that mothers can be bad at self-care as they often feel guilty and hover over their new-borns

The five mistakes parents make - Not feeding their new-born enough - Thinking crying is due to wind - Not wrapping their baby up enough - Thinking they always have to follow a strict routine - Moving onto solids before the baby is ready Advertisement

Ms Curtin said that sleep deprivation often makes people feel irrational and can generate a lot of anxiety and depression, so the bath, bottle and bed routine can help prevent that.

'It's important for mothers to have that sleep with the BBB and if you can have some physical and emotional distance away from the baby, just one lot of time away from the baby really does help,' she added.

For some parents the hardest part of putting their child to sleep is then having them stay asleep during the night.

Her tip is for parents to pay attention to calories in and calories out.

Ms Curtin said that sleep deprivation often makes people feel irrational and can generate a lot of anxiety and depression

'A lot of people carry and jiggle and rock and they get in the habit of doing that but babies need time on the floor,' she said.

'They just need tummy time and back time just on a quilt on the floor and they wear themselves out. Then they get hungry and they feed again.

'After they've done that a few times they're like "put me to bed mum".'

She said that as they put on weight and as they grow older they will start to sleep longer.

Ms Curtin agreed that behind all the glamour of some people's lives, everyone faces the same challenges and hurdles

When should solids be introduced? - When the baby has stopped dribbling - When they have good head control - If they can sit up in highchair Advertisement

The midwife also explained that despite common opinion, dribbling isn't about teeth development.

'It's actually a developmental skill because they can't swallow their dribble in the early days so they dribble it out so if you feed them they'll dribble it out,' she said.

This is why she personally introduces solids a bit later than usual, at six or seven months.

This is when the baby is capable of sitting up in the high chair, is quite strong, has good head control and has stopped dribbling.

Ms Curtin also agreed that behind all the glamour of some people's lives, everyone faces the same challenges and hurdles.

'Bec and Chris are exactly the same, they go through the same parenting issues that we all do,' she said.A couple who have been married for 60 years have renewed their vows after transforming their nursing home into a wedding venue.

Norman and Marjorie from the Gold Coast proved true love really can last a lifetime by restating their eternal devotion to one another in front of their family and friends.

Norm, who has been diagnosed with dementia, wanted to show his wife just how much he adores her before his memory fades.

Norman and Marjorie (pictured) from the Gold Coast proved true love really can last a lifetime

After being diagnosed with dementia, Norman wanted to restate his devotion to Marjorie before his memory fades

The devoted pair pledged their commitment for the second time at Hope Island care home, more than six decades after they first tied the knot.

The pair fell in love as teenagers at Saturday night dance in their hometown of Liverpool, and it was love at first sight for Norm who knew he would marry Marjorie from the first day they met.

He said marrying Marjorie was the 'greatest joy he has ever felt'.

'I would say we still love each other as much now as we did the day we were married [in 1958]' Marjorie said.

Their second-time round ceremony showed the incredible devotion they have shown to one another through thick and thin over the course of their lifetimes.

The couple first met in Liverpool at a Saturday night dance in the 1950s - it was love at first sight for Norman who said marrying Marjorie in 1958 was 'the greatest joy he has ever felt'

'We've gone through it all, but we always got there in the end - it's never wavered, no matter what happened'

On the day of their wedding 60 years ago, the presiding minister handed the newlyweds a card which read 'never let the sun go down on your love', a mantra they have lived by ever since.

'We've gone through it all, but we always got there in the end - it's never wavered, no matter what happened.

'Whenever we've had a row, and we've had a lot over the years, we would always make up before the end of the day,' Marjorie said.

The couple's son, daughter and two grandchildren as well as a host of Hope Island residents attended the ceremony which was filled with cake, laughter, dancing and of course, love.Jenna Bush Hager has honored her late grandmother Barbara Bush by recalling how her beloved 'Ganny' went against members of the Republican party to visit children who were diagnosed with HIV in the 1980s.

The 36-year-old Today correspondent explained in a heartfelt Instagram post that she and her family had spent Monday evening celebrating the former first lady's legacy at the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Texas.

Jenna was joined by her parents, former President George W. Bush and former First Lady Laura Bush, her twin sister, Barbara Bush, and some of her cousins as they paid tribute to their beloved relative.

Memories: Jenna Bush Hager (third from right) joined her family in paying tribute to her late grandmother Barbara Bush at the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Texas on Tuesday

Brave: Jenna recalled how the former first lady went against members of the Republican party to visit a residence for AIDS-infected infants, where she was photographed cuddling a baby

She shared a photo of herself posed with her family as well as a picture of her grandmother holding an infant who was suffering from AIDS.

'Spent last night with some of my favorites sharing memories of our Ganny,' she wrote. 'The most interesting lesson: she went against members of her own party to attend Grandmas Housea home for kids living with HIV in the 1980sa time when the stigma of living with HIV infiltrated our country.'

Taken in 1989, at the height of the AIDS epidemic, the picture shows Barbara cuddling a baby boy who was identified as Donavan.

At the time, AIDS was considered a death sentence, and Grandma's House was one of the nation's first residences created to care for AIDS-infected infants.

Jenna and her twin sister Barbara Bush (far right) were joined their cousins Jeb Bush Jr., Pierce Bush, and Ellie LeBlond Sosa (left to right on center couch) on stage Monday evening

Tribute: Jenna praised her grandmother's love of reading 'It's remarkable to know what kind of maverick and adventurer she was. And that goes with reading,' she said

Role model: Jenna's cousin Pierce described how their grandmother inspired them to help others

Barbara's husband, President George H.W. Bush, had only been in office for a few months, but her compassion helped change the stigma surrounding the disease.

In her post, Jenna went on to recall how a man living with HIV told her grandmother that babies are innocent, but they are the ones people are afraid of.

'So, when she left she made a point to find the manand hug him in front of the cameras,' Jenna explained.

'She was fearless and chose empathy over politics. Love over fear. How I miss hernow more than ever.'

While honoring her grandmother at the George W. Bush Presidential Center, Jenna praised her love of reading.

Jenna and her family shared plenty of laughs as they listened to stories about Barbara

When George W. Bush took the podium to speak about his mother, he said she was 'a very compassionate person and always loving'

Mother-in-law: His wife, Laura, added: 'Barbara Bush led our country and our family with grace and quick with'

'It's remarkable to know what kind of maverick and adventurer she was. And that goes with reading,' she said. 'There's no greater adventure than to lose yourself in a book.'

Jenna's cousin Pierce Bush described how their grandmother inspired them to help others, while reminding them about the immense privilege that was bestowed upon their family.

'Our grandmother never let us take the fact that our grandparents were president and first lady for granted,' he explained. 'Yes, we might grow up in this unique set of circumstances, but you should use that to better the lives of others.'

When George W. took the podium to speak about his mother, he noted that she was 'funny' and 'could be blunt.'

Looking back: Andy Card, who was the former president's chief of staff, recalled just how much Barbara loved George W. and Laura

Keeping it real: Susan Baker, one of Barbara's close friends, spoke about her 'total authenticity'

Family photo: In her Instagram post, Jenna said she misses her grandmother more than ever

'She was a very compassionate person and always loving,' he added. 'We all miss her.'

His wife, Laura, added: 'I come from a family of strong women, including my mother-in-law, Barbara Bush. Barbara Bush led our country and our family with grace and quick with.'

Andy Card, who was the former president's chief of staff, recalled just how much Barbara loved George W. and Laura.

'I was struck by how much she cared about him and Laura  and the burden that they had to carry,' he said. 'It was a great privileged to be included in that relationship.'

And Susan Baker, one of Barbara's close friends, spoke about her 'total authenticity.'

Trip of a lifetime: The Today correspondent traveled to Malawi and Uganda while visiting Africa last week

Lessons: While sharing photos from her trip, Jenna gushed about how the people she met filled her with love. She said they reminded her the importance of appreciating life

Grateful: Jenna (pictured with her husband, Henry Hager, and their daughters Mila and Poppy) said she wants to teach her little girls 'to appreciate life and dance every second they can'

'We have so many people who have been media trained, are so smooth, and she was who she was,' Susan said of her longtime pal.

Earlier this month, Jenna traveled to Malawi and Uganda while visiting Africa, and she shared plenty of photos and videos from the trip.

In each post, the former first daughter gushed about how the people she met filled her with love and reminded her the importance of appreciating life.

'As the sun sets on our time in Africa, Im moved by the pure JOYeven in the darkest circumstances there was laughter and DANCING (tons of dancing!) hugs and hope,' she captioned a video of a little boy dancing.

'Taking some of this joy back homewhere we are so fortunate. Wanna teach my girls that to whom much is given A WHOLE lot is required, to appreciate life and to dance every second they can.'Unisex names were a dominant trend in the 70s and 80s, when monikers like Peta and Riley ruled the roost.

But nowadays, parents are overlooking unisex options in favour of titles which were traditionally reserved exclusively for a specific gender.

In homage to the recent trend of giving baby girls names historically given to boys, FEMAIL looked at the long line of celebrities who have tipped their hat to unusual choices and contributed to the growing preference for gender fluid honorifics.

Parents are increasingly using traditional boys names for their new born girls

BOY BABY NAMES NOW USED FOR GIRLS Billie Cameron Cory Daryl Drew Dylan Frankie George Glenn James Lachlan Noah Ray Ryan Sonny Spencer Wyatt Advertisement

Kim Kardashian's publicist and long-time friend Tracy Romulus named her first-born daughter Ryan, a name commonly regarded as a sweet option for little boys.

Following this trend, Gossip Girl actress Blake Lively and Deadpool star Ryan Reynolds bestowed the name James on their first daughter.

Blake previously spoke to Glamour Magazine about the reasoning behind their unusual choice.

'It's a family name, and I liked having a boy's name [myself] so I thought I'd pass it along to her,' she said.

The Huffington Post recently noted a spike in popularity for James as a middle name in particular for little girls, with pairings including Cleo James, Eva James and Olivia James experiencing a surge in usage.

One Tree Hill actress Hilarie Burton and fellow Hollywood star cum husband Jeffrey Dean Morgan introduced their newborn baby girl as George Morgan who they described as a 'miracle child'.

Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds (pictured) bestowed the name James on their first daughter

One Tree Hill star Hilarie Burton and actor husband Jeffrey Dean Morgan (left) named their second child George, while Kim Kardashian's long-time friend and publicist Tracy Romulus called her first-born daughter Ryan (pictured right with Kim and North West)

TOP 10 NAMES FOR BOYS IN AUSTRALIA 1. Oliver 2. William 3. Jack 4. Noah 5. Thomas 6. James 7. Lucas 8. Henry 9. Ethan 10. Mason Advertisement

TOP 10 NAMES FOR GIRLS IN AUSTRALIA 1. Charlotte 2. Olivia 3. Ava 4. Amelia 5. Mia 6. Isla 7. Grace 8. Ella 9. Chloe 10. Harper Advertisement





Another of Hollywood's favourite couples who opted for a masculine moniker are Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher, christening their little girl Wyatt Isabelle.

Drew Barrymore, who herself has a typical man's name, and her ex-husband Will Kopelman named their second daughter Frankie, while Adam Sandler and his wife Jacqueline named their bundle of joy Sunny which is more commonly used for males and spelled with an 'o'.

Vince Vaughn and wife Kyla Webber also went the route of unusual spelling, selecting the name Locklyn for their daughter which is a variation of the boy's name Lachlan.

Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher (pictured) christened their little girl Wyatt

Drew Barrymore, who herself has a typical man's name, named her second daughter Frankie (pictured together)

44 years ago, acclaimed fashion designer Ralph Lauren named his daughter Dylan, with Mia Farrow following suit 11 years later to call her own baby girl the Welsh name meaning 'born near the sea'.

Screen siren Cameron Diaz bears a first name originally associated with boys, as do English songstress and Doctor Who actor Billie Paul Piper and burgeoning popstar Noah Cyrus.

American actress and environmental activist Daryl Hannah popularised the stereotypical boy's name for girls, and esteemed actor Glenn Close did the same for her unusual title.

The age old debate over where chocolate should be stored has been solved once and for all.

While many keep their uneaten chocolate safely stored in the fridge, others prefer to store it in the pantry so it melts faster in their mouths.

And while either is fine, Cadbury has revealed which method leads to better tasting chocolate.

Scroll down for video

The age old debate over where chocolate should be stored has been solved once and for all

Poll Where do you store your chocolate? In the fridge In the pantry Where do you store your chocolate? In the fridge 160 votes

In the pantry 177 votes Now share your opinion





The argument for the fridge is that it stops it from melting and can add an extra crunch.

Those that support putting it in pantry do so because it doesn't change its creamy consistency.

Keeping it at this temperature also stops the chocolate from developing the white speckles it gets from colder temperatures.

To solve it once and for all Angela Bishop from Studio Ten went to the Cadbury factory in Dunedin, New Zealand to get to the bottom of it.

Cadbury told her that chocolate made in Australia has a special ingredient in it to prevent it from melting in the hot weather.

The argument for the fridge is that it stops it from melting and can add an extra crunch

Other countries don't have this in their chocolate simply because temperatures don't get hot enough to require it.

'This is why you put it in the cupboard, problem solved,' she said.

Previously New Zealand based chocolate expert, Luke Owen Smith, told Stuff that even in a heat wave, it's best to avoid storing chocolate in the fridge at all costs.

Those that support putting chocolate in pantry do so because it doesn't change its creamy consistency

Mr Owen, who owns The Chocolate Bar and is widely known for his monthly boxes of quality craft chocolate bars, said that chocolate stored in the fridge becomes 'dull' and 'doesn't release the flavours'.

Instead, chocolate should be stored in a 'cool, dark and dry place' as 'extremely cold temperatures can mess with the temper as much as hot temperatures can'.

If the heat is too much for the chocolate to stay in one piece, Mr Owen said the best course of action is putting it into a sealed container in the fridge but left out in room temperature before eating.Using data from ESA's Gaia stellar surveyor, astronomers have identified four stars that are possible places of origin of 'Oumuamua, an interstellar object spotted during a brief visit to our Solar System in 2017.

The discovery last year sparked a large observational campaign: originally identified as the first known interstellar asteroid, the small body was later revealed to be a comet, as further observations showed it was not slowing down as fast as it should have under gravity alone. The most likely explanation of the tiny variations recorded in its trajectory was that they are caused by gasses emanating from its surface, making it more akin to a comet.

But where in the Milky Way did this cosmic traveller come from?

Comets are leftovers of the formation of planetary systems, and it is possible that 'Oumuamua was ejected from its home star's realm while planets were still taking shape there. To look for its home, astronomers had to trace back in time not only the trajectory of the interstellar comet, but also of a selection of stars that might have crossed paths with this object in the past few million years.

"Gaia is a powerful time machine for these types of studies, as it provides not only star positions but also their motions," explains Timo Prusti, Gaia project scientist at ESA.

To this aim, a team of astronomers led by Coryn Bailer-Jones at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany, dived into the data from Gaia's second release, which was made public in April.

The Gaia data contain positions, distance indicators and motions on the sky for more than a billion stars in our Galaxy; most importantly, the data set includes radial velocities - how fast they are moving towards or away from us - for a subset of seven million, enabling a full reconstruction of their trajectories. The team looked at these seven million stars, complemented with an extra 220 000 for which radial velocities are available from the astronomical literature.

As a result, Coryn and colleagues identified four stars whose orbits had come within a couple of light years of 'Oumuamua in the near past, and with relative velocities low enough to be compatible with likely ejection mechanisms.

All four are dwarf stars - with masses similar to or smaller than our Sun's - and had their 'close' encounter with the interstellar comet between one and seven million years ago. However, none of them is known to either harbour planets or to be part of a binary stellar system; a giant planet or companion star would be the preferred mechanism to have ejected the small body.

While future observations of these four stars might shed new light on their properties and potential to be the home system of 'Oumuamua, the astronomers are also looking forward to future releases of Gaia data. At least two are planned in the 2020s, which will include a much larger sample of radial velocities, enabling them to reconstruct and investigate the trajectories of many more stars.

"While it's still early to pinpoint 'Oumuamua's home star, this result illustrates the power of Gaia to delve into the history of our Milky Way galaxy," concludes Timo.



Notes for editors

"Plausible home stars of the interstellar object 'Oumuamua found in GaiaDR2" by C.A.L. Bailer-Jones et al is accepted in Astronomical Journal.

Please follow SpaceRef on Twitter and Like us on Facebook.An Australian woman who felt disappointed when she was unable to give birth naturally has recalled the 'amazing' moment she delivered her own baby girl.

Carley Valikoula, 36, a nurse from Karratha, pulled little Leilani, now 18 months, from her womb during a revolutionary new form of maternal-assisted caesarean.

Remarkable pictures show the mother of three reaching down, putting her arms around her unborn daughter, and lifting her from the womb herself, instead of leaving it to medics.

Carley, who needed emergency caesareans for her other children, Thomas, now eight, and Jacob, now five, has described the birth as 'amazing' and says she would do it again.

Carley Valikoula, 36, a nurse from Karratha, has recalled the 'amazing' moment she delivered her own baby girl. Carley pictured in hospital with her children Thomas, 8, (L) and Jacob, 5, (R) meeting their little sister Leilani born in March 2017

Carley Valikoula, 36, a nurse from Karratha, pulled little Leilani, now 18 months, from her from her womb during a revolutionary new form of 'assisted' caesarean (seen together this year)

Speaking about the unusual birth, the mother-of-three said: 'I had what's known as a maternal assisted caesarean section, and I would 100 per cent do it again.

'A caesarean section is definitely not the easy way out. It's very hard to do, and I'd never judge someone for having one. I've had three, but it was always really important to me to try for a vaginal birth.

'I didn't like the thought of my baby being taken away, patted down and handed around all these medics until eventually, I, the mum, got to hold them. I wanted to be able to pull them up onto my chest right away.'

Following a textbook pregnancy with her eldest, Thomas, Carley and her husband, John Valikoula, 44, a supervisor at an engineering company, were shocked when her waters broke at just 36 weeks in September 2010.

Remarkable pictures show Carley reaching down, putting her arms around her unborn daughter, and lifting her from the womb herself, instead of leaving it to doctors

Carley pulled Leilani, now 18 months, from her womb during a maternal-assisted caesarean Carley, who needed emergency caesareans for her other children, Thomas, now eight, and Jacob, now five, has described the birth as 'amazing' and says she would do it again

When her labour barely progressed for two days, fearing things were moving too slowly and posing a risk to mum and baby, doctors decided to perform an emergency caesarean.

'I was really disappointed,' Carley admitted. 'I'd been excited at the idea of a natural birth. I never thought there would be any issues, or that I'd be in the position of needing an emergency caesarean.'

Then, in 2012, Carley fell pregnant with Jacob and was once again determined to attempt a vaginal delivery.

She continued: 'This time, I planned it all from the start. I found a doula - a type of birthing partner - an independent midwife and even a photographer, as I wanted a home birth.'

Heading down to the operating theatre, Carley recalls being nervous  but supportive husband John, 44, (right) was by her side the entire time, helping steady her breathing

As they made their first incision, doctors put up a screen. But, around five minutes later, they lowered it to enable Carley to deliver her daughter and John was able to cut the chord

But, when in January 2013, Carley went into labour, once again, things moved slowly after her waters broke.

Twenty four hours later medics decided that the safest course of action was to whisk her to hospital for another emergency caesarean.

'My team were all gutted for me, but I made my peace with it. I know that, while I wasn't sure I could handle another caesarean, it was the best thing to do for my baby,' she said.

'The actual surgery side of things didn't bother me, but I wanted that moment where my baby is born and I pull them close to me right away.

In March 2017, at 39 weeks pregnant, Carley arrived ready to welcome little Leilani into the world via an assisted caesarean section

(L-R) Jacob, Leilani and Thomas - Carley had read about maternal assisted caesarean sections  where the mum pulls the baby out herself - on the internet and decided to opt for it

'Of course, every woman must do what's right for her, and I would never take issue with somebody else's choice. There are various reasons a person may opt for a caesarean section and it's certainly not the easy way out.'

Carley had read about maternal-assisted caesarean sections  where the mum pulls the baby out herself  online during her pregnancy with Jacob but, as her procedure had been an emergency, it had not been possible.

But, after he was born, the idea played on her mind.

Then, in 2016, she fell pregnant again, sadly miscarrying at just 11 weeks, going on to discover around six months later that she was expecting Leilani.

Carley and her daughter Leilani are seen in matching onesies and Carley says she would have an assisted caesarean birth again

Carley and Leilani are seen visiting a ski resort together - Carley loves being a mother to three happy children

'I decided this time, I wouldn't try for a vaginal birth,' she said. 'I just wanted my pregnancy to be a nice experience and to know what I was expecting.

'I was worried that my waters would break early and I'd need another emergency caesarean  meaning it couldn't be maternal assisted  so, in the end, I opted for an elective caesarean instead.

'It meant I knew from the start what was going to happen.'

Initially, Carley planned to have Leilani at a hospital in Perth, Australia.

But, after discovering they did not allow photographers into theatre, she found a private obstetrician instead.

'I want other women to understand their birth rights, and feel empowered to ask for exactly what they want,' she said. 'It can be hard to do but remember that any choice throughout birth is completely yours.

'Find that right person to help and be steadfast in what you want.'

Jacob (L) and Thomas (R) holding Leilani after she was born in May 2017 via assisted caesarean section to mother Carley

Carley has spoken of the 'amazing' moment Leilani was born- seen together on a beach in their native Australia

In March 2017, at 39 weeks pregnant, Carley arrived ready to welcome little Leilani into the world.

Heading down to the operating theatre, she recalled being nervous  but supportive John was by her side the entire time, helping steady her breathing.

As they made their first incision, doctors put up a screen.

But, around five minutes later, they lowered it to enable Carley to deliver her daughter.

She recalled: 'I'd had an epidural, so I couldn't feel any pain  more just pressure and a tugging feeling.

'I had surgical gloves on, and the doctors guided my hands down, then I put them under Leilani's arms and lifted them above my head.

(L-R) Thomas, Leilani and Jacob on a playground - Carley has opened up about the birth of all three children and shared photos of her assisted c-section

'It was amazing pulling her out myself. I was smiling away and John was crying. It was incredibly emotional.

'I wanted her on my chest right away, but there was a blanket there as the theatre was so cold. Luckily, someone quickly whipped it out of the way, so we could get that skin-to-skin contact.'

Usually, doctors cut the umbilical cord very shortly after the birth  but, in Carley's case, they delayed it, keeping her placenta in a bowl.

What is a maternal assisted caesarean? Maternal-assisted births, also known as Positive Caesareans, allow mothers who are unable to have a vaginal birth to play a more active role in their child's delivery. The procedure, more common in Australia than in the UK, allows the mother to pull their child from the womb themselves, before giving them skin-to-skin bonding. Source: Kidspot Advertisement

She continued: 'We weren't sure if it was going to be possible, but I'm so glad we got to delay cutting the cord.

'With my other pregnancies, as they'd been emergency caesareans, it was all very quick and John wasn't able to cut the cord, which dads often do.

'This time, though, he could, which meant the world to him.'

Carley, who loves being a mum to her three happy, healthy children, hopes that, by speaking out, she will encourage other women to ask for the birth experiences they want.

'Delivering my daughter was an absolutely amazing moment and I'm so glad I did it,' she said.Royal fans were left 'in tears' after the Duchess of Sussex revealed the touching way she paid tribute to her new husband with her 'something blue' on their wedding day.

Speaking in a new royal documentary last night, Meghan told how she had worn a blue dress on her first date with Prince Harry and asked for a piece of fabric from the frock to be stitched into her Givenchy wedding gown.

The couple, who tied the knot at Windsor Castle in May, were introduced by a mutual friend in the summer of 2016.

The revelation was hailed as 'the most romantic thing' by a Royal Collections curator in the episode - and struck a similar chord with viewers at home.

Speaking in ITV documentary Queen of the World last night, The Duchess of Sussex told how she had worn a blue dress on her first date with Prince Harry and asked for a piece of fabric from the frock to be stitched into her wedding gown as her 'something blue'. The revelation was hailed as 'the most romantic thing' by Royal Collections curator Hannah Belcher, pictured

Dozens of viewers were similarly moved by the romantic detail, calling it 'adorable' and 'cute' in gushing Twitter posts. They also praised the detailing in the royal bride's wedding gown

One delighted fan tweeted: 'Meghan is so down to earth and sweet and that "something blue" story made me well up I dont understand peoples hatred towards her #QueenOfTheWorld.'

Others joked that they would start wearing blue on first dates in the hope of recreating the gesture on their own wedding day.

'Forever wearing blue on every first date I go on now because Meghan sewing a piece of blue fabric from the dress she wore on her first date with Harry inside her wedding dress as her something blue is the most romantic thing ever,' one posted.

Two-part ITV documentary Queen of the World, which premiered last night, focuses on the important role Her Majesty plays in the Commonwealth.

The Duchess of Sussex was reunited with her wedding dress on the ITV documentary and shared personal details about how it was created. Pictured, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex share an intimate moment together on their wedding day in Windsor in May

Some royal supporters joked that they were going to start wearing blue on every first date in the hope of recreating the touching tribute on their own wedding day

The documentary series also features interviews with the Queen's daughter, Princess Anne, and grandson Prince Harry.

Meghan reveals how she saw her veil for the first time hours before the royal wedding The Duchess of Sussex and Givenchy's Clare Waight Keller came up with the idea to have the national flowers of all 53 Commonwealth nations embroidered into her wedding veil. 'It was important for me, especially now being a part of the Royal Family, to have all 53 of the Commonwealth countries incorporated,' she said. The pair worked on a number of sketches together but Meghan was confident leaving the veil's final creation to Waight Keller as she trusted the designer 'implicitly'. It meant she only saw the stunning creation - which took 500 hours to craft - on the morning of the wedding. The piece was also a surprise for Prince Harry and other members of the royal family. She added: 'I knew that it would be a fun surprise as well for my now husband, who didn't know, and he was really over the moon to find out that I would make this choice for our day together.' Advertisement

While the Duchess of Cambridge was largely absent, her sister-in-law the Duchess of Sussex featured in a touching scene that saw her reunited with her wedding dress and veil - which was painstakingly embroidered with flowers of the Commonwealth.

Meghan reflected on the nuptials while admiring the Givenchy gown with Hannah Belcher, a senior exhibitions project co-ordinator at the Royal Collection.

While delicately touching the hem of the dress, Meghan turned to Ms Belcher and said: 'Somewhere in here - did you see? - there's a piece of blue fabric that's stitched inside as my "something blue". It's fabric from the dress I wore on our first date.'

The traditional rhyme, 'something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue,' is said to tell brides what to wear to bring good luck on their wedding day.

The blue fabric was not the only wedding day surprise Meghan kept from Harry.

She revealed how her royal husband only discovered the flowers of 53 Commonwealth nations were stitched into her veil on the day itself.

'It was important for me, especially now being a part of the Royal Family, to have all 53 of the Commonwealth countries incorporated,' she said.

'I knew that it would be a fun surprise as well for my now husband, who didn't know, and he was really over the moon to find out that I would make this choice for our day together.'

The Duchess of Sussex's revelation about the 'something blue' left some royal fans close to tears. The traditional rhyme, 'something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue,' is said to tell brides what to wear to bring good luck on their wedding day

She added: 'I think the other members of the family had a similar reaction and just appreciation for the fact that we understand how important this is for us and the role that we play, and the work that we're gonna continue to do within the Commonwealth countries.

'So, yeah, it was good news all around, I think, so I hope people liked it as much as I liked helping to create it.'

The Duchess of Sussex explained that because she trusted Waight Keller so 'implicitly', she felt confident enough to leave the finished piece in the designer's hands after just a couple of meetings.

The Duchess revealed she had worked with Givenchy designer Clare Waight Keller to sketch the veil that featured the national flowers of all 53 Commonwealth nations. She saw the stunning hand embroidered creation laid out for the first time in last night's episode, pictured

The Duchess of Sussex's wedding dress is seen being put on display ahead of a new exhibition that will allow fans to see the gown for themselves. The segment tied into a new documentary on the Queen's role within the Commonwealth which premiered on ITV on Tuesday night

She only saw the stunning creation - which had taken 500 hours to craft - for the first time just hours before she was set to walk down the aisle.

Explaining the planning process with Waight Keller, Meghan recalled: 'We had two or three meetings, with sketches, talking about how this could really come to life.

'We knew we wanted it to be really delicate and then at that point I just said I trust her implicitly with what she did, and I didnt see it really until the morning of. So this is my first time seeing it laid like this!'A single mother has admitted she has earned $13,000 (10,000) dating strangers in a bid to give her only child a better life.

Over the last two years Kelly Popilek, 37, from California, has been on countless dates with men who pay for her company at the dinner table - so she can ensure she's able to buy the best for her daughter.

Kelly, who also runs a property business, uses the extra money to pay for her daughter's school supplies, clothes, and household bills, and is hoping to inspire other mothers to do the same.

The mother-of-one, who says she is not a gold digger, has used dating website WhatsYourPrice - a dating auction price - since 2016 and has no intention of stopping anytime soon.

Kelly Popilek, 37, from California, has told how she earns over $13,000 (10,000) by dating strangers in a bid to give her only daughter a better life

The site allows members to offer a fee to go on a first date with someone - while singles can state an amount they would be willing to accept.

Speaking about her side job, Kelly, said: 'I use the money from date to pay for bills, clothes, food, school supplies and everyday things for my daughter.

'I've earned around $13,000 from dating the men I've met online as it has led to business partnerships too.

'It has given me and my daughter a great lifestyle and I would recommend it to anyone.

'I'm not a gold digger though, I'm only dating these men to make my life better not because I want a relationship.'

Kelly has gone on every type of date from a formal dinner date to a karaoke bar and charges no lower than $150 (115) for her time.

She said: 'If I see a profile I'm interested in on WhatsYourPrice I will send a fee.

'I've attended all sorts of dates, one time I went to a karaoke bar with a guy who actually paid my friend to accompany us as well.

'I have recommended it to a lot of my friends even though I know this lifestyle isn't for everyone.'

Kelly, who also runs a property business, uses the extra money to pay for her daughter's school supplies, clothes, and household bills, and is hoping to inspire other mothers to do the same

Kelly dates strangers at least once per week but claims she is picky with her dates.

She said: 'I will only date someone if we have things in common as there's no point not having anything to talk to.

'They have to understand that my time is valuable and that I won't accept any lower than $150 dollars for two hours of my time.

'I always ensure we meet in a public bar or restaurant and will tell my friends where I am at all times.'

The mother-of-one, who says she is not a gold digger, has used dating website WhatsYourPrice since 2016 and has no intention of stopping anytime soon

Kelly is adamant she will continue dating strangers and feels it has made her a better mother.

She said: 'I'm able to afford things now that I won't have been able to.

'We don't need anyone else's support to ensure we can lead the best lives possible.

'My daughter now has all the school supplies and clothes she needs and it's all because I'm able to date strangers for extra cash.

'The best thing about WhatsYourPrice is that it works for busy people. It eliminates the time consuming struggle and pressure of finding the right someone to go on a date with.

'I have been very happy with the arrangements that have come from the website, I have nothing negative to say. I'm sure the site isn't for everyone but, I will definitely continue to use the site.

'I have recommended it to a few other mums and I can only hope that they use it as an opportunity to better themselves like I have.'The Duchess of Sussex has won praise for everything from her sense of style to her charity work, but it was something rather more low-key that attracted fans' attention last night.

Meghan, 37, was hailed as 'humble' and 'down to earth' after she closed her own car door outside the Royal Academy of Arts in London.

While royals typically have their car doors opened and closed by a member of staff, Meghan didn't think twice about shutting her own before making her way inside the building.

The Duchess of Sussex, 37, was hailed as 'humble' and 'down to earth' after she closed her own car door outside the Royal Academy of Arts in London last night, pictured

The simple gesture impressed royal commentators, with one noting it was a rarity to see a royal on duty closing their own car door. Adoring fans were also taken by the moment

The simple gesture impressed royal commentators, with one noting it was a rarity to see a royal on duty closing their own car door.

And etiquette expert William Hanson said it was yet another sign Meghan intends to do things 'her own way'.

'The Duchess of Sussex closing her own car door is yet another silent signal that she is going to be doing things her own way and helping adapt and progress the British monarchy,' he said.

'Whether she thought long and hard about it before it happened, I doubt it, I suspect it was force of habit, but it is interesting to see that many have noticed as usually dignitaries have a member of staff to do this for them.

Royals typically have their car doors opened and closed by a member of staff, Meghan didn't think twice about shutting her own before making her way inside the building, pictured

Christopher Wilson, author of titles including The Windsor Knot, Fergie and Charles V Diana, was among the first to note the break from royal protocol, pictured

Royal supporters questioned how the moment had come to pass, with many deciding that the duchess simply did not see herself as someone in need of this extraordinary treatment

'That comes from a security point of view, mainly, not just for perpetuating airs and graces.'

However he noted: 'There would have been little security bother last night with Meghan closing her own door as she exited the car on the side closest to the Royal Academy.'

The duchess was on hand to open the 'Oceania' exhibition in her first solo outing as a member of the Royal Family.

The duchess was on hand to open the 'Oceania' exhibition in her first solo outing as a member of the Royal Family. She wore a 2,510 Givenchy dress for the occasion, pictured

She wore a 2,510 Givenchy dress and a 1,390 box clutch by the designer for the occasion.

Christopher Wilson, author of titles including The Windsor Knot, Fergie and Charles V Diana, was among the first to note the break from royal protocol.

He tweeted: 'First time I've seen an on-duty princess shut her own car door...'

Followers commented on the significance of the moment, with one replying: 'Breaking all stereotypes I love this new generation.'

A handful of eagle-eyed royal fans pointed out the duchess had also closed her own car door on arriving at the Together cookbook launch at Kensington Palace last Thursday, pictured

Another added: 'I dont think #MeghanMarkle sees herself as better than anyone else. She knows that she and #PrineHarry are blessed to have found each other. I'm proud of her. Life is good.'

A handful of eagle-eyed royal fans pointed out the duchess had also closed her own car door on arriving at the Together cookbook launch at Kensington Palace last Thursday.

Arriving with her mother Doria Ragland and husband Prince Harry Meghan climbed out of the car and closed the door behind her.Sweden's Crown Princess Victoria has described the distance between her and Princess Madeleine as 'awful' following her younger sister's move to the States.

Madeleine, the youngest daughter of King Carl XVI Gustaf, swapped Sweden for Florida earlier this summer with her young family - leaving siblings Victoria and Carl Philip behind.

And speaking at the UN headquarters during a trip to New York City this week, her big sister described her departure as 'awful' according to Royal Central.

When asked whether she had managed to visit Madeleine during her trip, Victoria replied: 'I wish! It would have been great fun to meet both her and her family, but it may be another time.'

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Sweden's Crown Princess Victoria (left, at a concert in Stockholm, 2013) has described the distance between her and her younger sister (right) as 'awful' following Princess Madeleine's to the States earlier this summer. The pair are famously close

Madeleine (centre, holding Princess Adrienne) is pictured at the christening of her youngest daughter in Stockholm in June, alongside senior members of the Swedish royal family

Madeleine, 36, relocated to the sunshine state alongside husband Chris O'Neill, 44, and their children Princess Leonore, four, Prince Nicolas, three, and Princess Adrienne, six months.

In a press release in August, the couple explained: 'The time and opportunity for the United States is good for the family when the children are still in pre-school age.

Madeleine, who is the seventh in line to the Swedish throne, will continue her work with the World Childhood Foundation.

'Princess Madeleine has a great commitment to children's rights and will continue working with the World Childhood Foundation and, through the move, be able to focus more on the activities in the United States,' the Swedish Royal Court added.

Along with the announcement about their planned move, the Royal Court also released a new family portrait showing the happy couple posing with their three children.

Madeleine, second left, and sister Victoria, third left, with their respective husbands during the 70th birthday celebrations of King Gustaf in April 2016. Speaking at the UN headquarters during a trip to New York City this week, Victoria described their separation as 'awful'

Madeleine, third left and Victoria, third right, during the king's birthday celebrations in Stockholm in April 2015. Victoria admitted she had not been able to visit her sister during a recent trip to the States where she visited the UN Headquarters in New York City

The royal's financier husband was born in London and has dual U.K. and U.S. citizenship. He has previously been working in the United States but will continue his business in Europe as well.

Madeleine - whose official title is Duchess of Halsingland and Gastrikland - was living in New York City when she first met Chris, having famously fled to America in 2010 to escape a broken heart after her split from Swedish attorney Jonas Bergstrom.

The couple then continued to live in the Big Apple even after they married in Stockholm in the Royal Palace chapel in June 2013, and the couple's first child, Princess Leonore, was born in New York in 2014.

In recent years, the family has called London home - but Madeleine and Chris chose to temporarily move back to Sweden for the birth of their third child, Princess Adrienne, in March this year.

Adrienne was christened in Stockholm in a lavish ceremony on June 8, the day of her parents' fifth wedding anniversary.

Princess Madeleine and her husband also previously owned property in Palm Beach; however, they sold the five-bedroom holiday to a limited liability company in August for $3.65 million (2.77 million).

It is not known whether the family has purchased another home in the area, or whether they will choose to look further afield before settling on their future hometown.

Madeleine is the youngest child of King Carl XVI Gustaf and his wife Queen Silvia, 74, his German-Brazilian consort; she has two older siblings - Crown Princess Victoria, and Prince Carl-Philip.

The royal family, whose role is largely ceremonial, remains popular in Sweden and the monarchy enjoys widespread support despite the egalitarianism that otherwise characterises society in the Nordic country.She is known as one of Europe's most stylish royals and today Queen Letizia proved herself to deserving of that title.

The Queen of Spain nailed business chic in a tweed blazer and matching pencil skirt as she welcomed guests to her home of Zarzuela Palace in Madrid.

With temperatures in Spain cooling the 46-year-old royal wore a black roll neck jumper under her jacket.

Queen Letizia looked chic in a blazer and skirt coord as she welcomed representatives from the Prado Museum to her home of Zarzuela Palace in Madrid

However, the former journalist flashed a bit of skin, opting to wear bare legs for her engagement today.

Adding a little quirkiness to her ensemble the wife of King Felipe VI opted for a pair of stilettos with a PVC strap.

And she rocked her tried and tested sleek bob which has been the hairstyle Letizia has favoured of late.

The mother-of-two welcomed representatives from the Prado Museum in Madrid to the palace on Wednesday.

Adding a little quirkiness to her ensemble the wife of King Felipe VI opted for a pair of stilettos with a PVC strap

Queen Letizia of Spain and was seen greeting Carlos Zurita, Duke of Soria at the event today

After spending time talking to her guests Letizia joined the group for a commemorative photograph taken in the grand setting of the palace

The museum members were received by the queen at the palace in the Spanish capital this morning.

Letizia was then shown a painting commissioned for the new exhibition room at the world famous museum.

After spending time talking to her guests Letizia joined the group for a commemorative photograph taken in the grand setting of the palace.

Later in the day, Letizia attended an event celebrating the 30th anniversary of the entry of women into the civil guard at the Civil Guard Headquarters in Madrid.

Later in the day, Letizia attended an event celebrating the 30th anniversary of the entry of women into the civil guard in Madrid

The Spanish Queen looked in very high spirits as she spoke to female members of the Spanish civil guard

Letizia was seen in deep conversation with the uniformed officers at the event on Wednesday

The event attended by the Spanish Queen also celebrated the 25th anniversary of the first entry of a woman in the Army Military Academy as an officer

Queen Letizia posed with senior officials and female officers at the Civil Guard Headquarters in Madrid during the event

It has been a busy week for Letizia who yesterday attended a World Cancer Research Day event in Madrid.

She was on hand to support the work of the Spanish Association Against Cancer, which funds research projects and supports patients and their families.

The Spanish queen looked perfectly polished in a soft pink blouse with a high neck, feminine pleated detailing and quirky puffball cuffs.

She paired the top with a pair of high-waisted navy blue wide-leg trousers which cut off at a flattering point just above her ankle.

The stylish royal topped off her outfit with a pair of heels in a must-have snakeskin print.

Letizia wore her favourite Hugo Boss suit as she attended the commemorative event in Madrid

The Queen of Spain was seen sharing a joke with the female officers of the Spanish Civil Guard during the event

Letizia was greeted by senior officials on arriving at the civil guard headquarters, before meeting the female officersA cancer-stricken shoe designer whose celebrity fans include Gwyneth Paltrow and Halle Berry has been told she may have just weeks to live after doctors discovered a 12cm tumour in her cervix.

Danish designer Camilla Skovgaard, 45, was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer in July after a smear test failed to detect the disease.

By the time doctors found it, the tumour had grown at an alarming rate and had already spread to her bones and liver - leaving the talented designer needing emergency treatment.

Camilla has designed shoes for the likes of Kim Kardashian, Sienna Miller, Lindsay Lohan and Maria Sharapova but is struggling to pay her medical bills after pouring all her money into a business venture which she is now hoping to sell.

Race against time: Danish designer Camilla Skovgaard (pictured at the British Fashion Awards, London in 2010) was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer in July after a smear test failed to detect the disease - which has since spread to her bones and liver

Camilla (pictured receiving treatment) is struggling to pay her medical bills after pouring on her money into a business venture which she is currently trying to sell

Gwyneth Paltrow (left, wearing Skovgaard's shoes at a book launch in 2011) and Halle Berry (right, wearing Skovgaard heels at a 2009 awards ceremony) are both fans of the designer

Currently based in Ibiza, it is hoped that Camilla will continue to receive a combination of chemotherapy and Magnetic Field treatment, daily infusions, daily induced hyperthermia and weekly oxygen shots in a clinic in Germany.

Her best friend Stephanie Meyer has now launched a desperate campaign on GuFundMe in a bid to help fund further treatment.

Stephanie said: 'Camilla had no symptoms other than constipation and nothing had been detected in either a pap smear test one and a half years ago nor recent blood tests. So, you can imagine the devastating shock of this diagnosis.

'They have estimated it has been growing for one to two years and already it has spread to the bones and there are 50 metastasises in the liver. She is deteriorating rapidly every day and we need to act fast.

Naomie Harris (left, in New York City in 2011) and Selena Gomez (right, in Los Angeles in 2011) are both fans of cancer-stricken Danish designer Camilla Skovgaard's shoes

Kristen Stewart (in Berlin in 2010, left) and Katherine Heigl (in California in 2012, right) have also worn Skovgaard's bold designs. The cancer-stricken shoe designer has been told she may have just weeks to live after doctors discovered a large tumour in her cervix

'You may be wondering why Camilla needs financial support, so we feel it's necessary to let you know that she invested all her money and her family's money into her new venture.

'She has now also lost her investors due to her illness. Nothing is left and as her close family and friends we cannot let money stand in the way of her survival. Ibiza and Spain have said there is nothing more they can do for her.

'We have found a clinic in Frankfurt Germany who are confident they can help Camilla with a specialised process with successful rates achieved for similar cases.

'They induce hypothermia as cancer weakens in high temperatures, making the chemo more effective even though less is used, and it can be targeted to the specific areas.

Camilla (pictured in hospital this summer) has designed shoes for the likes of Kim Kardashian, Sienna Miller, Lindsay Lohan and Maria Sharapova

The shoe designer in hospital. Camilla studied couture in Paris and then lived in London for 12 years, having studied at Cordwainers at London College of Fashion and Royal College of Art

'But sadly, these specialised treatments are expensive, and we need to act fast as time is of the essence.'

Speaking this week, Stephanie added: 'Two days ago we heard the news we had all been waiting for, that the initial treatment received has shrunk her main tumour from 12cm down to 8cm.

'Amazing glimmers of hope, and so encouraging, but sadly our funds have almost run out and we can only keep her there for another week to two weeks. So, we desperately need to raise more funds.'

She added: 'Camilla is only 45. She loves her life and wants to be able to continue to explore the new, to keep walking this earth and be in nature. We want that for her too. More than anything.

Camilla Skovgaard won the Accessories Designer of the Year award at ELLE Style Awards 2010 (pictured on the red carpet with her award in London, February 2010)

'So, we are putting our trust in the power and numbers of people. Collectively we can fight for her and take away some of the burden of this terrible disease. Any amount you can contribute is one step closer to her chances of survival.'

The popular Danish shoe designer studied couture in Paris and then lived in London for 12 years, having studied at Cordwainers at London College of Fashion and the Royal College of Art.

She was awarded Queen Elizabeth Scholar Award for Excellence in British Craftsmanship, London, in 2007.

Camilla won the Accessories Designer of the Year award at ELLE Style Awards 2010 and Accessories Designer of the Year award at DANSK Fashion Awards in June 2011.

Previously based in London, she now lives in Ibiza with her two cats and three dogs, a boxer and two rescue Ibizan podencos.Holly Willoughby modelled standout pieces from her first M&S collection in new campaign images released today.

The This Morning presenter, 37, showcased how the autumn must-haves can be mixed-and-matched in stylish combinations perfect for this time of year.

The shots only served to boost fans' interest in the line, which launches in store and online tomorrow.

Dozens excitedly messaged the brand on Instagram, asking for exact details on when and where the clothes will be available.

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Holly Willoughby modelled pieces from her first M&S collection in new campaign images released today. Pictured, Holly in the leopard-print dress, 49.50, and 35 cross-body bag

The posts also provide an early hint as to which items will prove most popular, with a 49.50 blush pink leopard print dress and a 69 pink coat grabbing the most attention.

TV host Holly was tasked with selecting the line as part of her new role as M&S brand ambassador, which was announced earlier this month.

She selected a mixture of versatile separates, practical coats and a handful of shoes and accessories to complete the looks.

One of the campaign shots released today shows Holly in the 49.50 leopard print dress and a 35 burgundy cross-body bag.

The second look is a classic combination of a 69 blazer, 29.50 white shirt, 19.50 jeans and a 35 green cross body bag.

The partnership is the latest in a string of savvy moves by the retailer as it seeks to reverse its dwindling sales by appealing more to the 'everyday' woman.

The second campaign look (pictured) saw Holly Willoughby dressed in a classic combination of a 69 blazer, 29.50 white shirt, 19.50 jeans and a 35 green cross body bag

The shots only served to boost fans' interest in the line. Dozens excitedly messaged the brand on Instagram, asking for exact details on when and where the clothes will be available

Holly, a mother-of-three, is known for favouring clothes from high street chains and her fashion choices have huge influence among millions of followers on social media.

Branding expert Chris Ogle, Head of New Business Strategy at flow.co.uk, estimated the deal with the high street giant could be worth anywhere between 500,000 and 700,000. He hailed the partnership an 'absolutely phenomenal appointment'.

'Often a lot of these partnerships are made with a bit of head scratching, but this is almost the perfect fit,' he said in a previous interview with FEMAIL.

'Holly is beautiful without feeling unattainable or intimidating, she is universally loved and her following is loyal and would not see her as a sell out.'

A previous campaign shot, released when the partnership was announced earlier this month, showed Holly dressed in a 29.50 checked skirt, 69 pink coat, 19.50 t-shirt and 35 bag

Other standout pieces from the line include the 38 bubblegum pink chunky knit jumper, left, and the 99 checked winter coat, right - the perfect autumn/winter cover-up

The images' release comes after Holly announced she is stepping down from the Truly lifestyle brand that she was due to launch in the coming months.

The presenter took Instagram to make the announcement on Tuesday evening, informing her four million followers that she's unable to dedicate the required time to the brand - which had been compared to Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop.

In making her announcement, which comes as she prepares to jet off to Australia to co-host I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!, the mother-of-three wrote: 'After much consideration, I have made the decision to step away from Truly.

'To launch a brand needs total dedication and at the moment, with so many other commitments, this is not something I feel I can do without it starting to affect my family time at home. I wish Truly all the success for the future.'A television actor has called disabled facilities at luxury London hotel The Savoy a 'tragedy waiting to happen'.

Con O'Neill, who has appeared in Happy Valley and Cucumber, called out the five-star hotel on Twitter, after taking his elderly mother, who has Alzheimer's, there for afternoon tea.

The 52-year-old actor said that he was left shocked by the approach of staff and the lack of entrances and exits for disabled guests at the swish property, which has frequently been dubbed London's 'greatest hotel'.

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Actor Con O'Neill, who has starred in a string of musicals, films and television shows including Happy Valley and Cucumber, wrote about 'shocking' disabled facilities at London's Savoy Hotel after visiting with his mother (Con and his mother above)

He told his 12,000 followers: 'Took my disabled mother for a cream tea @TheSavoyLondon considering it's been newly refurbished the lack of disabled entrances and exits and the lack of knowledge of the staff as to how and where... is shocking.

He finished the tweet saying it was 'a tragedy waiting to happen. Unacceptable' before following up with a second tweet saying simply, 'It's a disgrace'.

The hotel, who was tagged in the tweet, responded, saying: 'We completely understand your frustrations and wish to sincerely apologise to you and your mother for the inconvenience that was caused.

The famous London hotel, which first opened its doors in the late 19th century has apologised profusely to O'Neill on Twitter

A staff member at the historic Thames-side hotel then asked the actor to DM them to discuss the matter further.

Fellow Twitter users said they weren't surprised by O'Neill's experience.

@TheMoff67 said: 'It infuriates me when I go anywhere and there's not adequate facilities for the disabled. Especially in this situation when the building is new with ample opportunities to ensure that everyone catered for.'

@RaggettJ added: 'So true but typically the norm. My music 93 afternoon tea pre planned with the venue she had to enter and exit... through the kitchen.'

@familylife1822 penned in support: 'Terrible, I've always thought it's not people who are disabled but society that makes them!'

@nuttynicjo wrote: 'That is very sad to here in 2018. Shameful really.'

MailOnline has contacted the Savoy for further comment.Preserving a wedding gown can be a tricky task  particularly when said wedding gown is as delicate as Meghan Markle's.

Jeeves, a 'formal dry cleaning service' that holds a Royal Warrant and has worked for Prince Charles and his family for three decades, told FEMAIL how to clean a wedding dress such as the duchess', which is set to go on display for the public in October at Windsor Castle.

While it isn't officially known who cleaned Meghan's custom Givenchy gown, the luxury dry cleaning service, which has stores in London and New York, had plenty of tips to share on how to care for a dress like hers, from the moment the bride slips it off at the end of her wedding day to when it returns to her wardrobe for years to come.

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Secrets: Experts from Prince Charles' preferred dry cleaners told FEMAIL exactly how to clean a wedding gown such as Meghan Markle's to ensure it remains in pristine condition

Meghan's A-line gown, which was designed by British stylist Clare Waight Keller, took five months to put together.

The simple, modern design featured a sculpted waist, three-quarter sleeves, and a short train  and was paired with an intricate, cathedral-length, 16-foot veil embroidered with flowers paying tribute to all 53 countries of the British Commonwealth, as well as her new home in London and her home state of California.

An expert at Jeeves, which has held a Royal Warrant for more than 35 years  meaning the company is allowed to display the royal arms to indicate that it serves a member of the royal family  detailed the six-step cleaning process a wedding gown such as Meghan is put through before being returned to the bride.

It can take four to six weeks to return an elaborate gown to its original, pristine condition and safely send it back to its owner.

Inspection

First, experts will thoroughly inspect the gown to familiarize themselves with its design and figure out how best to clean it.

'Some gowns include instructions for cleaning (though we wouldn't always follow these) but generally bespoke or couture gowns do not include instructions,' the Jeeves expert told Femail.

'We start by analyzing the fabric, trims, embellishments and the materials that provide structure and support to the gown.

'This inspection process allows us to ascertain which elements of the dress need to be removed before we can start to clean the actual fabric. If the gown has any damage  rips or tears that could potentially be worsened in the cleaning process  we will repair them at this point.'

Intricate: The duchess, who married Prince Harry in May, wore a custom Givenchy gown and a 16-foot veil embroidered with flowers paying tribute to the countries of the Commonwealth

Deconstruction

Experts then take photos of the dress in order to keep images of what it looked like before it was cleaning.

Next, they remove any elements of the dress that could be easily damaged.

'In most cases, this step will require us to remove beading and jewels,' the expert said.

'Often, the next step will be to deconstruct the dress into sections  for example the bodice and the skirt. We do this because we use different cleaning techniques to clean different sections of the gown.'

Cleaning

Once the gown has been taken apart, experts will begin by spot-cleaning the dress to remove any obvious stains.

'This process is used for localized marks or stains such as champagne spillages or make-up marks,' the expert explained.

'Once we have spot-cleaned the dress, we will "soap down" the hemline, which is often soiled where it has trailed along the floor. This spot-cleaning and soaping down helps to lift any marks and soiling before the next step.

'If we are dry-cleaning a specific section of the dress, this section will then be placed in a protective bag before going into a machine for a special wedding gown cleaning program which is very gentle to avoid any damage.'

However, experts typically can't dry-clean an entire gown and usually hand-clean large sections of the design that are too delicate to be placed in a machine.

'Lace sections such as the veil are always hand-cleaned,' the expert added. 'This is a painstaking process that is only completed by our senior technicians as it takes years to learn and a veil can be easily ruined in the wrong hands.

'Once the gown and veil have been dry-cleaned or hand-cleaned, we repeat the process (including spot-cleaning and soaping down) until we are confident that our client will be thrilled with the results.'

Getting ready: Meghan's wedding dress will be displayed to the public as part of an exhibit opening in October at Windsor Castle

Reconstruction

Once the gown is clean, it is ready to be put back together, beginning with the different sections of the dress.

That step is left to dressmakers and can several take days to complete.

Hand-finishing

After the dress has been fully reconstructed, experts use steam and other tools to remove any creases and return the gown to its original shape.

Any embellishments that were removed at the beginning of the cleaning process are then hand-sewn back onto the gown in their original places. That's when the photos taken at the beginning of the operation come in handy, by helping experts put every detail back where it should be.

Packaging

The final step of the process is to return to the freshly-cleaned gown to its owner.

'Our clients can choose to have their gown returned to them in a breathable bridal gown carrier, which can be hung straight in their wardrobe,' the expert said.

'However, given that most of our clients will only wear their gown once, we think the better option is for us to return it to them in a breathable box, with each layer being lined with acid-free tissue.

'You can imagine that these boxes can get to quite an impressive size if the dress has a long train or is constructed from dense fabric.'

The entire cleaning process can take four to six weeks depending on the design of the dress.

Meeting again: Meghan was seen in a new documentary being reunited with her wedding gown for the first time since the day of her nuptials in May

Caring for a wedding gown at home

Once a wedding dress has been painstakingly cleaned and restored, it's essential to make sure it's properly stored so that it retains its impeccable condition.

That includes protecting it from direct sunlight, humidity, and moths.

'Moths love warmth and humidity and mold thrives in the same conditions so be sure to store your gown in a cool, dry place away from direct sunlight,' the expert said.

'Place anti-moth sachets nearby and refresh them once every few months to ensure it is protected against moths. We recommend Modelli or Acana as the best moth deterrents available. These can be purchased from many good dry cleaners or are available online.'

To those who would like to clean their wedding gown themselves rather than place it in the care of a specialized service, the expert said this is not recommended.

'If you don't believe us, ask your wedding gown designer or retailer,' the expert added.

'Given the complexity of the structure of a wedding gown and the embellishments that are often added to them, attempting to clean your gown yourself will more often than not end in disaster.'

Meghan has already been reunited with her own wedding gown, which is set to go on display on October 26 until January 6.

The duchess can be seen in a new documentary called Queen of the World seeing her dress and veil for the first time since her nuptials in May, in a visibly emotional moment.

The first part of the documentary aired on Tuesday in the UK, and the movie is scheduled to premiere on HBO on October 1 for US viewers.New York, Sept 26, 2018 (SPS)  the president of the Republic of South Africa, Mr. Cyril Ramaphosa has reiterated his country full support to the struggle of the people of Western Sahara in his address yesterday at the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly held in New York under the theme the UN Nelson Mandela Peace Summit

if OR Tambo were still alive today, he would have pleaded with this august organisation to do all it can to support the struggle of the people of Western Sahara from occupation,. He said in his address







We also wish to remind the General Assembly that the right of the people of Western Sahara to self-determination continues to be undermined, challenged and denied. The United Nations must remain seized with this issue, for the benefit of the people of Western Sahara and the African aspirations of integration and peaceful co-existence. Cyril Ramaphosa added in his speech

This gathering coincides with the centenary anniversary of former President Nelson Mandela who would have turned 100 this year. In honour of this global icon, the United Nations in collaboration with South Africa will lead a Nelson Mandela Peace Summit on 24 September 2018, it should be recalled SPS

125/090/TRAIvanka Trump rocked a bold red lip and perfectly coiffed hair as she stepped out of her New York City apartment on Wednesday morning.

The 36-year-old first daughter was headed to watch her father, President Donald Trump, participate in a United Nations Security Council meeting on counter-proliferation.

Ivanka opted for a simple yet elegant look, donning a $1,990 navy blue dress by Ralph Lauren and matching navy blue heels.

All dolled up: Ivanka Trump looked glamorous as she stepped out of her New York City apartment on Wednesday morning

Greeting: The 36-year-old waved at the photographers waiting outside of her building

Eye-catching: Ivanka added a pop of color to her look by sporting a bright red lip

The form-fitting frock, which hits just below the knees, features three-quarter sleeves and a button detail at the shoulder.

Although she is known for sporting a more neutral lip, the senior adviser added a pop of color to her outfit with her bright red lipstick.

Keeping with her glamorous look, her glossy blonde hair was parted to the side and loosely curled around her face.

Despite the dreary New York City weather, Ivanka flashed a bright smile and waved to the photographers who were waiting outside her Park Avenue apartment.

The senior adviser made the quick jaunt from the door to the black SUV that was waiting at the curb for her before heading to the UN headquarters.

Ivanka's husband, Jared Kushner, and three children are in the Big Apple with her, but she was by herself when she left the building.

Elegant ensemble: The first daughter donned a $1,990 navy blue dress by Ralph Lauren and matching navy blue heels

Good vibes: Despite the dreary New York City weather, Ivanka had a bright smile on her face as she left her Park Avenue apartment

Details: Ivanka's form-fitting frock, which hits just below the knees, features three-quarter sleeves and a slit in the back

Ready to go: Ivanka quickly made her way to the black SUV that was waiting for her at the curb

Focused: The senior adviser was headed to UN headquarters for a UN Security Council briefing on counter-proliferation

First daughter duties: Ivanka was photographed using an earpiece to listen to the briefing

Jared, 37, was seen stepping out of the apartment building about an hour later, wearing a navy suit and a dark tie. The senior adviser held nothing but file folders under his arm as he headed out for the day.

Ivanka was later photographed holding an earpiece to her head as she listened to the briefing in a red chair.

Although she seemed to be in a cheerful mood when she left her home earlier in the day, Ivanka had a somber look on her face.

During the meeting, her father claimed China has been meddling in the November election in the United States.

He's offering few details, but said: 'Regrettably, we found that China has been attempting to interfere in our upcoming 2018 election.'

U.S. intelligence officials have said previously that other nations could opt to try and copy Russia's playbook of meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. But Trump's comments Wednesday seemed to confirm that China is actively interfering now.

Heading home: The first daughter was seen returning to her apartment early in the afternoon

Chic show: Ivanka still looked incredibly glamorous as she made her return to her New York City home, where she is currently staying with husband Jared Kushner and their children

On the go: Ivanka's husband Jared was seen stepping out about an hour later, wearing a navy suit and a dark tie

'They do not want me or us to win because I am the first president ever to challenge China on trade,' he declared. '

And we are winning on trade. We are winning at every level. We don't want them to meddle or interfere in our upcoming election.'

It has been a busy week for Ivanka, who made an appearance at the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative in New York City on Tuesday after a busy day supporting her father at the UN general assembly.

The first daughter was pictured alongside other entrepreneurs for the initiative that primarily focused on better financing for female entrepreneurs in developing countries.

The mother-of-three chatted with Queen Maxima of the Netherlands and kissed the royal on the cheek.

She dressed to impress for the event and donned a $2,195 floral-checked wool-blend blazer and a matching $895 pencil skirt with a front slit by Altuzarra.

Busy week: Ivanka attended the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative in New York City on Tuesday evening

Style: The mom-of-three, who was joined by Queen Maxima (left) dressed to impress, donning a $2,195 floral-checked wool-blend blazer and matching $895 skirt by Altuzarra

Family: President Trump's children Eric, Tiffany, and Ivanka (center) reunited in New York City on Tuesday morning. Eric and Ivanka were joined by their spouses Lara (left) and Jared (right)

To match the black buttons on her gray skirt suit, Ivanka wore a pair of classic black pumps. Her long blonde hair was side parted and styled in loose waves.

Donald Trump's children reunited earlier in the day to watch him address the UN General Assembly for the second time since he took office.

Ivanka, Eric Trump, 34, and Tiffany Trump, 24, sat together at the United Nations Headquarters during their father's speech. Their older brother, Donald Trump Jr., 40, was noticeably absent.

The three siblings, who were also missing their 12-year-old brother, Barron Trump, sat together, while First Lady Melania was in the front row to watch her husband address his fellow world leaders.

Ivanka and Eric were joined by their respective spouses Jared and Lara Trump, who were seated next to them in the aisle.

The first daughter sported the same chic attire for the assembly.

Eric took to Twitter before their father's speech to share a photo of himself posed with his wife, sisters, and brother-in-law, writing: 'United Nations Time #USA.'When the passion died away Erica didnt want to give up on her marriage.

She still loved her husband, but neither was she prepared to forgo a satisfying love life. Instead, after years of sexual disappointment she took an unprecedented course of action  she went online to look for a lover.

One day Id just had it. I really wish I could remember what exactly caused me to search online for someone because that is not like me at all, says Erica, 46, who went on to have a passionate affair.

Georgie, aged 53 and married for 25 years had a similar experience. I finally decided after many years of no sex that I deserved to have my needs met, she said.

Meanwhile Tiffany, 47, confessed she had also gone looking for a lover because: A lack of sex drove me crazy. These are just some of the real womens voices and stories I encountered when researching my new book on female infidelity  which experts believe is on the increase.

Author Wednesday Martin spoke to married women who consider infidelity for her new book. Clare Matthew, 40, (pictured) claims she was able to fall in love again after a six-week affair during her first marriage

For many, being unfaithful in whatever form is an unthinkable betrayal of marriage vows, yet in some ways these women are not exceptional. In good jobs, often with children in what they said were otherwise happy marriages, sometimes church goers, infidelity wasnt something theyd considered before.

Their problems  unfulfilling routine sex, or no intimacy at all with husbands or long-term partners, or a craving for sexual variety and novelty  are far from unique. Crucially, none of these women wanted to give up on their marriages or loved their husbands any less.

Yet they were tempted to look elsewhere for sexual fulfilment when perhaps, in the past, they would have just put up with it.

Women like the lady in her early 60s, who told me frankly, when she learned I was writing a book on womens infidelity, I want to have sex all night long. Just not with my husband! Or the dozens of other women I interviewed who said a version of the same thing: My marriage is pretty great. But I think about other men all the time.

It seems more and more women are prepared to act on those thoughts and seek sexual satisfaction outside of marriage.

Women are now 40 per cent more likely to cheat on their husbands than in 1990.

Many experts suggest that in reality the figures are likely much higher, because there is still a stigma associated with women who admit to infidelity. (One study found that up to 50 per cent of women admit being unfaithful to a partner at some point.)

Men used to cheat at much higher rates compared to women  but this infidelity gap between the sexes appears to be narrowing all the time. As women grow increasingly vocal about telling the world what they dont want they may feel more comfortable telling the world what they do want. For many, it will not be monogamy.

Georgie, Tiffany and Erica, who took part in a recent study by sociologist Dr Alicia Walker about women looking for trysts online took a pragmatic, my needs first, approach to solving their sexual issues.

Sociologist Dr Alicia, met women who believe their needs come first while conducting a recent study. The women searched for lovers who wouldn't desire a relationship or become emotionally needy (file image)

They looked for men with the physical attributes they desired, and avoided those who seemed emotionally needy or who were looking for relationships.

If a mans performance didnt match up to expectations or he started getting too close they would move onto the next one without a second thought. They did the same when the feeling of exhilaration about being in a new sexual partnership faded.

Having chosen a husband or partner who did not satisfy them sexually, they were not going to make the same mistake in their affairs.

As Heather, 43, who also took part in the research, observed:, I try to find men who wont be clingy, and just want great sex.

Some experts told me the infidelity gap is closing partly due to more women being out in the workforce. In work we have an increased exposure to potential sexual partners, more time apart from spouses, more travel opportunities (people tend to have flings when they travel), and a greater financial independence, which can make getting caught seem like less of a potential catastrophe.

In the first three years of a relationship women are twice as likely to become sexually bored

Technology may also be helping women when it comes to sexual exploration, with various social media platforms and apps affording us discreet opportunities for infidelity. But acting on your desires requires having desires.

So has there been a shift in the way women experience desire? After all, this contradicts what were told so often about a womens sexuality  that its women who have lower libidos than men, or are the ones who go off sex in relationships.

But new research is now helping us rediscover the truth about the female libido that had been forgotten due to hundreds of years of social convention and strict morality codes that ostracised women who are unfaithful or merely sexual.

What Ive discovered  by talking to women (aged 20 to93) whove either cheated on their partners or considered it, and investigating scientific and evolutionary theories  is that womens libidos are far stronger and more adventurous than we thought.

Until recently, women have tended to blame themselves for a lack of desire. Psychologists and other experts are suggesting, however, that its not that women lose interest in sex per se  its that they simply stop being interested in sex with their other half.

Professor Marta Meana, claims women may struggle with the routine of marriage and becoming over familiarised with their spouse (file image)

Marta Meana, a professor of clinical psychology, is following 19 women in a long-term study about low desire. They are all in enduring relationships they describe as happy. She agrees the issue of a sinking libido isnt one of hormone levels or because its a turn off if he doesnt pull his weight at home, but the fact that women are just more likely than men to lose interest in the same partner.

She says: Marriage itself tends to make routine what was once transgressive and sexy in ways that especially impacts women, over familiarising our spouses in a fashion that we struggle with. Meanas work suggests we women long for and respond to lustful gazes from strangers.

Her findings and other data contradict everything were told about women needing intimacy and familiarity to feel sexy.

While none of her study group have actually been unfaithful she says: So many women experiencing low desire in long-term partnerships know that if they did step out, their desire would probably be back like that.

While we tend to assume that men like to sow their wild oats but women search for the one some scientists suggest that its women, more than men, who actually need the new when it comes to sex. A 2017 study of more than 11,000 British men and women, aged 16 to 74, found women who lived with a partner were twice as likely as cohabiting men to lose interest in sex.

What happens after an affair? Clare Matthew, 40, a school receptionist, is married to second husband Rob, 35, a civil servant. They have two children, and live in Colchester. Clare had a six-week affair during her first marriage. I never imagined I could be unfaithful. But when I was feeling unloved and vulnerable, Im ashamed to admit I strayed. I had never cheated before, and I was filled with guilt. I married my first husband in my mid-20s. I expected to settle into comfortable married life, but we both had busy careers in the civil service which neither of us was prepared to step back from. Clare Matthew, 40, (pictured) decided to cheat on her first husband because their marriage was emotionless and she felt alone He was still interested in sex, but I wasnt satisfied. It was emotionless and cold, not loving. In public he was distant and didnt compliment me. If only he had shown some warmth Id never have cheated, but I felt alone. I found it difficult to keep my emotions in check at work. So I wasnt surprised when my boss, who was married, asked for a word in his office. The door closed and he pulled up a chair next to me. He asked if everything was all right. I blurted out my troubles. He was sympathetic and invited me over for dinner. My husband was away with work and I immediately said yes. I assumed it was an innocent offer, but with hindsight deep down it felt flattering that someone  especially someone good-looking  was paying attention to me. I dressed up. My affair was a confidence boost but filled me with guilt I was surprised when I arrived to discover his wife was away, but after dinner we kissed and one thing led to another. I told myself it would happen only once. But my boss sent me a series of flattering texts and I couldnt resist. The sexually charged words made me feel desirable when all my husband did was criticise me. The secrecy was intoxicating and exciting, too  it was a huge confidence boost. Yet I was filled with guilt. My marriage limped on for another year, but eventually we divorced. Im so happy to have met Rob and fallen in love again  and I cant imagine everbeing unfaithful to him. Advertisement

Another survey found that in the first three years of a relationship, women were roughly twice as likely as men to become sexually bored.

One experiment led by Bio-psychologist Dr Meredith Chivers, involved men and women being shown pornographic films while their physical responses were monitored.

Fascinatingly, the bodies of women who described themselves as heterosexual responded to just about everything they saw, whether it was straight, gay or lesbian sex. Straight men, meanwhile, had narrower tastes  their bodies more predictably turned on by men and women, or women and women.

Dr Chivers, told me that not only does recent work in this area suggest that womens desires are broader than previously thought, but that their libidos are also stronger than weve been led to believe.

In another experiment male and female participants watched an erotic film and then assessed their inclination to have sex.

Men and women reported almost identical degrees of desire. Another test revealed that female participants were just as turned on by the prospect of sex with a stranger as straight men were. According to Dr Chivers, the key to understanding the difference between men and women, is understanding the difference between responsive desire and spontaneous desire.

Clare (pictured) found confidence in sexually charged words from her boss at a time when her husband was regularly criticizing her

While men may experience more spontaneous desire  they can go from 0-60mph very quickly  when it comes to responding to erotic stimulation women show levels of passion that rival, if not outdo, the men.

But why would women crave variety? After all since Darwin its been accepted that a woman is biologically programmed to seek out one mate who can provide for and protect her while she brings up her babies.

Meanwhile men are designed to spread their genetic material far and wide. If they have affairs its because their evolutionary make up means they just cant help it. Right? Yet, the latest evolutionary research turns that whole idea on its head.

In fact, some scientists now suggest that its women who need new experiences to keep interested because of how things went in our evolutionary pre-history.

It turns out, there are sound evolutionary reasons why we are are programmed to get bored making love to the same man and lust after others.

Forget the popular image of the fur-clad caveman going off to hunt while his woman looks after their baby, there is a growing theory among anthropologists that we evolved not as monogamous pairs but as co-operative breeders. In this way of life, loose bands of men and women raised their young collectively, and very likely mated with multiple partners.

For early humans, female promiscuity was, under certain circumstances, a smart reproductive and social strategy.

Professor Dr Lisa Diamond, says couples who do something new together often report a resurgence of puppy love (file image)

A way to increase the likelihood of getting high-quality sperm and maximizing the chance that numerous males might be willing to support her during pregnancy and protect and feed her and her offspring.

It makes a lot of sense. Sleeping with a number of men, hedged against a single partner with poor fertility, could increase chances of being impregnated at your fertile time.

Theres also a theory that the unpredictable nature of a womans orgasm, the female capacity for multiple orgasm, and the need for cumulative stimulation to have an orgasm (build up) was biologys way of encouraging us to have sex with a variety of men in rapid succession.

If one man couldnt give us sexual satisfaction in a single copulatory bout, perhaps another or another few could get us there.

It may be a comfort to many despairing wives to learn that their disinterest in sex is actually sexual boredom, and is a likely part of a womans biological make up  and not because they dont love their husbands.

For centuries the script has been written for us: women  unlike men  are not meant to be sexually voracious and weve been brought up to believe sexual satisfaction is not something we should be actively seeking out.

As more and more women now start to assert themselves in this area of their lives, some find themselves breaking societys taboos  whether through infidelity or exploring more open relationships.

Many more are keen to make conventional, monogamous marriages work. Dr Lisa Diamond is a professor of psychology and gender studies and she says it is still possible to keep the spark of excitement alive.

A strong predictor of desire in long-term relationships, she told me, is when couples make an effort to do something new together. Im not talking about just sex, she says. It could be skydiving, or taking a dance class, or going on a zip line.

When couples participate in new and thrilling activities together, they often report a resurgence of puppy love from seeing their partner from a new angle. And the simple fact is that our partners dont stay the same over time.

If we want to be monogamous, we can look for and find novelty in that same person.

Adapted by Clare Goldwin from Untrue: Why Nearly Everything We Believe About Women And Lust And Infidelity Is Untrue by Wednesday Martin, published by Scribe on October 11 at 14.99.  Wednesday Martin 2018. To order a copy for 11.99 (offer valid to 18/10/18), visit mailshop.co.uk/books or call 0844 571 0640. P&P free on orders over 15.Melania Trump announced her upcoming visit to Africa on Wednesday during a reception on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, stepping behind the podium in a $600 dress and Louboutin pumps.

The first lady, 48, attended a reception welcoming spouses of visiting heads of state and other foreign delegations in the morning in New York City, and took the opportunity to announce her first major international solo trip during the event.

Melania, who will visit Ghana, Malawi, Kenya and Egypt, took the stage in a pale pink, cap-sleeved dress by Australian designer Scanlan Theodore.

Address: Melania Trump announced her upcoming visit to Africa on Wednesday during a reception on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly

Event: The first lady, 48, attended a reception welcoming spouses of visiting heads of state and other foreign delegations in the morning

She paired it with snakeskin designer heels by French designer Christian Louboutin. The label's trademark red soles were visible as Melania stepped off the stage after her address, which lasted about seven minutes.

While Melania's specific model is not currently available on Louboutin's website, similar designs typically cost more than $700.

Melania is due to start her visit to Africa, which will promote child welfare and education, in October.

'October 1 will mark the first day of my solo visit to four beautiful and very different countries in Africa: Ghana, Malawi, Kenya and Egypt,' she said during the reception.

She pointed out that all those countries have worked alongside the United States Agency for International Development in making progress towards overcoming some of their biggest challenges.

Melania, who will visit Ghana, Malawi, Kenya and Egypt, took the stage in a pale pink, cap-sleeved dress by Australian designer Scanlan Theodore

Shoes: She paired her dress with snakeskin designer heels by French designer Christian Louboutin. The label's trademark red soles were visible as Melania stepped off the stage

Plans: 'October 1 will mark the first day of my solo visit to four beautiful and very different countries in Africa: Ghana, Malawi, Kenya and Egypt,' Melania said during the reception.

Project: The first lady stood at a podium with a 'Be Best' placard on it during her address, and two screens also showed the campaign's logo

Visit: Melania will embark on her first major international solo trip when she travels to Africa

Melania also referenced her campaign Be Best, which she launched in May.

So far, the campaign has focused on advocating for youth well-being and against cyberbullying, as well as raising awareness about drug addiction.

'I am so proud of the work this administration is doing through USAID and others, and look forward to the opportunity to take the message of my "Be Best" campaign to many of the countries and children throughout Africa," Melania said on Wednesday.

The first lady stood at a podium with a 'Be Best' placard on it during her address, and two screens also showed the campaign's logo.

'Whether it is education, drug addiction, hunger, online safety or bullying, poverty or disease, it is too often children who are hit first, and hardest, across the globe,' she said.

'Each of us hails from a country with its own unique challenges, but I know in my heart we are united by our commitment to raising the next generation to be happy, healthy and morally responsible adults.'

In high spirits: Melania looked pleased to face the reception's attendees on Wednesday

Greetings: The first lady was seen greeting Karen Pence during the event

Message: In her address, Melania referenced her 'Be Best' campaign, which she launched in May this year

The first lady has previously traveled alone to Canada a

Earlier on Wednesday, the president trailed his wife's announcement, saying: 'We both love Africa. Africa is so beautiful.' He has not been since he was elected

The first lady has previously traveled alone to Canada and joined her husband on several foreign visits.

Her trip to Africa will focus on good-deed projects.

Donald Trump, 72, has yet to travel to Africa since taking office. He sailed into controversy at the start of the year for allegedly disparaging 's**thole' countries on the continent.

Earlier on Wednesday, the president trailed his wife's announcement, saying: 'We both love Africa. Africa is so beautiful.'

In her address, Melania gave shout-outs to the First Lady of Ghana, Rebecca Akufo-Addo, the First Lady of Malawi, Gertrude Maseko, and the First Lady of Kenya, Margaret Kenyatta, acknowledging their presence in the audience and telling them she looks forward to visiting their respective countries.Kim Zolciak has been accused of Photoshopping a picture of her four-year-old daughter Kaia Biermann to make her nose look smaller and her bottom appear bigger.

The Instagram account thegoodthebadandthefake made the claim on Tuesday while sharing the snapshot the 40-year-old Real Housewives star had posted on her page alongside the 'original' photo that appeared on her 21-year-old daughter Brielle Biermann's Instagram Stories.

'This is sick! Kim Zolciak Biermann photoshopped her 4 year old daughter to make her butt look bigger and her nose to look smaller! [sic]' the caption reads.

Claims: Kim Zolciak has been accused of Photoshopping a snapshot of her four-year-old daughter, Kaia, changing the shape of both her nose and her body

Difference? The photo was shared by both Kim and her daughter Brielle. The Instagram account thegoodthebadandthefake claims the mom edited the picture before posting it

 Slide me  Revealing: The contrasting images (before left and after right) indicate that her nose has been made to appear smaller, and her bottom has also been made to look slightly larger

The person running the account, which claims to be 'calling out all the celebrity BS,' circled Kaia's backside in Kim's photo to show that it is slightly bigger than it is in the picture shared by Brielle.

In a second post, thegoodthebadandthefake shared more side-by-side pictures as well as a comparison of Kai's nose in Kim's snapshot versus Brielle's.

The images in question show Kaia wearing a red and white gingham crop top, a matching headband, and cuttoff shorts while standing next to her twin brother, Kane.

Aside from the slight differences in the shape of Kaia's nose and bottom, the picture that were shared by Kim and Brielle appear to be identical.

Say what? According to the account, Kim edited the picture to make her daughter's nose look smaller

 Slide me  Face shape: In Brielle's image (left), which is believed to be the original photo, Kaia's nose is a very different shape than in the picture share by her mother (right)

Stating their case: The person behind thegoodthebadandthefake also claimed that Kim edited the picture to make little Kai's bottom look bigger

Critics took to the comments section of both posts to slam Kim and accuse her of 'sexualizing' her youngest daughter.

'Its one thing to photoshop your grown as self.. but this is disturbing; what an unhealthy sick mind this woman possesses [sic],' one person wrote.

'Why WHYYYYYY would you want to make your child more sexually appealing????? So that predators find her more attractive? [sic]' another asked.

In her post, Kim also shared a video of Kaia with Kane and a photo of her kissing her brother on the cheek.

Family: Brielle, 21, posted the picture of Kaia with her twin brother, Kane, on Instagram Stories along with other snapshots of her little sister

Same photo? Aside from the slight differences in the shape of Kaia's nose and bottom, the picture that were shared by Kim (pictured) and Brielle appear to be identical

Twins: In her Instagram post, Kim also shared a snapshot of Kaia giving Kane a kiss on the cheek and a video of them together

'I had to go back and look at what the heck she was talking about, but the photo is slightly edited,' one person commented.

'At least around her legs or bottom in the first pic. Im not certain about the nose.'

Others suspected that Kaia was wearing hair extensions, with one person asking: 'Does she have extensions in? Gosh I hope not.'

'They are so adorable, but I pray she isnt wearing extensions, and Id love to see her covered up,' someone else added.

Interestingly enough, this isn't the first time Kim has been accused of Photoshopping a picture of one of her young daughters.

Harsh: Critics who believe Kim Photoshopped the pictured slammed her and accused her of 'sexualizing' her youngest daughter

Accusations: Earlier this month, thegoodthebadandthefake accused Kim of Photoshopping an old photo of her now 16-year-old daughter Ariana

Ya think? Critics claim Ariana's lips were edited to make them look bigger than they are in the original portrait. Ariana's pout looks slightly larger in the most recent shot

 Slide me  Proof: The original image (left), which is part of a portrait, looks very different to the one that Kim posted more recently (right)

Earlier this month, the Real Housewives of Atlanta star posted a picture of her now 16-year-old daughter, Ariana Biermann, when she was a little girl.

The close-up image comes from a portrait of Ariana and Brielle that is hanging inside Kim's house.

The women's website Babe found a picture of the full portrait that Kim shared in 2016 and compared the two photos, claiming Ariana's lips were edited to make them look bigger than they are in the original image.

The Instagram account thegoodthebadandthefake also compared the two images while accusing the reality star of editing her child's photo.

DailyMail.com has reached out to Kim's rep for comment.Each of these four women is naturally beautiful. Yet they have all spent years caking on make-up  and, disturbingly, even bleaching their skin  in an attempt to change their appearance. Why? Because they all have freckles.

On the whole, the beauty world hasnt embraced freckles and, for years, its been rare to spot one on a famous face. Freckled celebrities have long covered them with heavy cosmetics and ordinary women have followed suit, trying to make their skin similarly flawless.

Slowly, however, that attitude is changing  thanks to a movement in the beauty industry which aims to embrace natural beauty, instead of conforming to the Hollywood mould.

As a result, more stars are proudly flashing their freckles, which are now seen as distinctive and different  in a good way.

Alice Smellie spoke to four women who've struggled to embrace their freckles. Jo Howell, 49, (pictured with make-up on the right side of her face) from Staffordshire was ridiculed for having freckles and red hair throughout school

When Meghan Markle married Prince Harry back in May, she made a point of wearing only light make-up that let her natural freckles shine through. This week, she showed them off again on her first solo appointment, at Londons Royal Academy.

The Duchess of Sussex has revealed in an interview: My pet peeve is when my skin tone is changed and my freckles are airbrushed out of a photo shoot.

For all my freckle-faced friends out there, I will share with you something my dad told me when I was younger: A face without freckles is a night without stars. 

Other famous faces proudly flashing their freckles include actresses Emma Watson, Eleanor Tomlinson, Emma Stone and Gemma Arterton.

And so they should. After all, freckles  or ephelides, to give them their medical name  are not blemishes or sun damage, but natural, pigmented areas caused by a recessive gene that makes skin cells produce lots of melanin.

I welcome the return of freckles, says Dr Alexis Granite, a consultant dermatologist at the Cadogan Clinic in London.

Its the other end of the spectrum from the incredibly done look sported by the likes of Kim Kardashian and is perhaps a backlash to that airbrushed aesthetic.

So, after decades of hiding  and hating  their freckles, have these women learned to embrace them at long last?

CANCER HELPED ME LOVE MY OWN SKIN

Business owner Jo Howell, 49, lives in Staffordshire.

Im pleased to see Meghan going more bare-faced  its refreshing to see a celebrity who doesnt cover up her freckles and look plastic the whole time. I think hers look very cute and endearing.

After two major operations for skin cancer, Jo (pictured without make-up) now loves her freckles and seeing photographs without make-up

At school, I was ridiculed for my red hair and freckles and it always stuck with me that they were unattractive and odd. I was called everything from Freckles to Spotty Ginger Nut.

Things actually got worse when I left school and went to live in the Balearic Islands for a few years, where I was working in the travel industry. I was teased relentlessly for my freckles and red hair, which were very unusual there. It was such a knock to my confidence.

And yet, in the past few years, I have come to love my freckles.

Yes, its partly because people are increasingly recognising that they are attractive, but mostly because Ive realised how pointless it is to worry about such a harmless feature.

Six years ago, I was diagnosed with skin cancer. Having two major operations  and recovering  has made me feel deeply grateful just to be healthy.

Now I absolutely love my freckles and, seeing the pictures of myself with make-up and without make-up, I cant imagine having a different skin tone or going back to the days when I covered them up relentlessly.

MEGHAN LOOKS JUST LIKE ME!

Jess Jones, 29, is a recruitment manager. She and her husband have two daughters, Sophia, six, and Isabella, six months.

Jess Jones, 29, (pictured with make-up on the right side of her face) spent her teen years covering up her freckles to have skin as clear as the models in women's magazines

I love both the pictures of me. My skin looks so bright in the freckled one, which is great.

My father is English and my mother Caribbean, so I grew up feeling that no one else looked like me. The freckles dotted over my nose and cheeks added to the sense that I was different.

Look at any womens magazine and all the models tend to have clear skin. So I spent my teens covered in make-up and wanting to change the way I looked.

It got easier in my 20s as my confidence grew  but still, I always covered my freckles with heavy foundation.

Now, its amazing to see women like the Duchess of Sussex who not only have freckles, but are of mixed heritage, too. Im thrilled to see women who look like me being celebrated.

Another major turning point for me was when I became pregnant with Sophia, my elder daughter.

Jess (pictured without make-up) decided to overcome her insecurities including having freckles when she became pregnant with her daughter

I didnt want to pass on to her any of my insecurities, so I knew I needed to come to terms with the things I didnt like about myself, freckles included.

In an attempt to feel more comfortable in my own skin, I even stopped wearing make- up altogether. Funnily enough, the less make-up I wore, the more people commented on how much they liked my freckles, and now I appreciate them as a part of myself.

My husband loves them, too, and says that they are even more beautiful when Ive been in the sun, which makes them more obvious.

Sophia looks just like my husband and doesnt have any freckles. Isabella, my baby, looks more like me, so she may inherit them, although shes too little to have any yet.

I hope Im better equipped to tell her how naturally beautiful she is, with freckles or without.

I LONGED TO HAVE A BLEMISH-FREE FACE

Natasha Moore, 21, works in marketing and lives in West Sussex.

Natasha Moore, 21, (pictured with make-up on the right side of her face) from West Sussex wished her skin resembled models for spot treatments during her teenage years

I always wear make-up to go out and I certainly wouldnt say I love my freckles. Still, when I saw the two pictures of myself, with and without make-up, I was shocked to find that I preferred myself without, because I look far younger. It was quite nice to realise that!

I think its great that freckles are in fashion and, hopefully, well all start to accept that you dont have to fit in with the airbrushed look to be attractive.

Thats certainly how I used to feel. Throughout my teenage years, Id watch adverts avidly for spot treatments  I didnt need the products because I didnt have spots, but I would stare and stare at the models clear, smooth skin, wishing that mine looked the same.

Of course, in retrospect, I know they were probably all photoshopped, but it made me strongly associate beauty with clear skin.

I saw my freckles as blemishes and, between the ages of 13 and 18, I didnt go one day without thick make-up.

Natasha (pictured without make-up) was reassured by her mother that she looked beautiful

Even my friends took me aside and begged me to wear less. Looking back, it wasnt the most flattering look!

Thankfully, I wasnt ever teased, but my skin made me very unhappy and self-conscious.

My mother, who has freckles all over her body, always reassured me that I was being ridiculous and I looked beautiful. Maybe its time to accept that she was right.

AGED TEN, I TRIED TO BLEACH MY FRECKLES

Model Debi Ireland, 56, lives in Woking, Surrey. She has three children and is engaged.

Debi Ireland, 56, (pictured with make-up on the right side of her face) was a target for bullies during her childhood and attempted to bleach her freckles away

As a child, I loathed my freckles, which made me a target for bullies at school.

One day, aged ten, I was so desperate to get rid of them that I filled up the bath with water and poured in some bleach.

I soaked in it, then used a harsh bathroom cleaner on a Brillo Pad to try to scrub off my freckles.

My skin became terribly sore and inflamed and I went to bed in tears.

The next day, my PE teacher asked me about my skin. I broke down and told her what Id done.

Everyone was very sympathetic  but I was left in no doubt how very dangerous it had been.

I still hated my freckles and continued to cover them with make-up throughout my 20s and 30s.

I had to absolutely cake it on to fully hide them.

Debi (pictured without make-up) says she became most content with her looks in her 50s

It was only when I reached my 40s that I started to relax about my skin, realising that looks arent the be-all and end-all.

Now, in my 50s, Im the most content Ive ever been. Funnily enough, I even started modelling four years ago and Ive found that make-up artists tend not to completely cover my freckles.

Ive definitely seen more freckled models in magazines, too.

Still, I wouldnt say that freckles are a fashion statement or a fad. Better, I think, to celebrate them all the time.

They are a part of my identity and, although I feel sad for the unhappy child I once was, now I wouldnt change my scattering of distinctive freckles for anything.

Seeing the pictures of myself just confirms that for me. My freckles are finally here to stay.

JEALOUS? HERE'S HOW YOU CAN FAKE THEMOrla Kiely was on sparkling form at the V&A Museum this month to discuss a A Life In Pattern, a 25 book showcasing the extraordinary career she built with her husband.

The hefty coffee table volume is filled with the 56-year-olds iconic designs, retro prints which have graced everything from handbags to cars and even tents.

Scattered among them are family snaps, some from the early days of her marriage to businessman Dermott Rowan  a reminder that the fashion empire has been very much a husband-and-wife affair.

But if the Irish-born Queen of Pattern knew Kiely Rowan PLC was on the brink of collapse then, according to those in the V&A audience, she gave no sign of it as she spoke of their plans for expansion.

Just three days later, on September 17, the firm went into administration with millions of pounds worth of debt.

Orla Kiely's husband Dermott Rowan, pictured together, has long been described as the brains behind the iconic fashion brand. The businessman, now 60, dealt with suppliers and department stores while she worked on the designs which have become some of the most recognisable prints this century

Staff were said to have been left in tears as, overnight, the couple closed the doors of their stores in London and Ireland and shut down their website. While some employees claim they have been told they will not be paid for their last three weeks of work, Kiely and Rowan paid themselves a combined salary of 408,000 in 2017 as the profits of Kiely Rowan PLC dwindled.

So how did the firm behind some of the most recognisable designs of the century end up coming apart at the seams? And what role did the couples relationship play in the rise and fall of the brand?

They formed the Orla Kiely Partnership in 1995 and became one of the most successful ever husband-and-wife business stories. She has an OBE for services to fashion and business, is an Honorary Fellow of the British Institute of Design and a Senior Fellow of the Royal College of Art.

He is a former Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year finalist, and a government-appointed member of Irelands Crafts Council.

A friend of the couple told the Mail this week: He was always the one with the financial skills. He ran the show in that way and Orla never made any secret of that. He was the one talking to the suppliers and the department stores. He was the one that got them into the American and Asian markets.

Rowan was behind the decision to license prints, such as the iconic leaf-print 'Stem' (pictured), to brands such as Citroen, Sainsbury's and Tate Modern - a move that some have criticised for negatively impacting the exclusive appeal of the range

She was the face of it, but he was the brains behind it.

Questions are now being asked if 60-year-old Rowans drive to turn his wifes artistic talent into an ever-expanding global empire is what caused their downfall.

They obviously over-extended themselves with the business, said the friend. And now its all come crashing down.

Kiely and Rowan met while growing up in solidly middle-class Dublin suburb Shankill. Both were privately educated at Catholic schools. Kielys role models were her father Bob, who owned the landmark pub Kielys of Donnybrook, and mother Maeve, a scientist who left work when she married and went on to raise Orla and her siblings Nuala, Nessa and Billy. I had a mum who loved fashion, said Kiely in an interview this year.

But it was her father who bought her a sewing machine when she was 13 and let her use a room beside his office over the pub to create her designs.

At 18, she studied textile design at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin, graduating in 1984. Early jobs included working with designer Paul Costelloe and a stint for an interiors firm in New York. She then studied for a masters in knitting at the Royal College of Art in London in 1992.

She and Dermott married in 1993 and moved to Canada, where Orla worked for the fashion chain Club Monaco.

It was there she began working on her own designs, culminating in a small hat collection sold at Harrods. It was her business-minded father who advised her to refocus, pointing out that while few women wear hats, all carry handbags.

Two years later, in London, the Orla Kiely Partnership was set up, bankrolled by the couples parents and her brother.

One of her earliest creations, the leaf-print Stem, went on to become one of the most recognisable designs of the 21st century. Other prints soon followed  flowers, pears, acorns, boats  which adorned laminated bags and other accessories. In 1998, she produced her first clothing collection, Orla Kiely for Debenhams, and set up a design studio in Londons Battersea.

Orla Kiely's designs have been worn by the likes of the Duchess of Cambridge, Alexa Chung and Keira Knightley - but the company has been struggling for a while

Behind the scenes, Rowan was driving deals. Early on he saw potential in licensing  allowing other brands to use Kielys prints on their products. That saw her work with firms including Citroen, Uniqlo, Sainsburys, Douwe Egberts, Brita and Tate Modern. But licensing came to overshadow Kielys greatest passion, the twice-yearly flagship collections she showcased, at huge expense, at London Fashion Week.

Critics have speculated that licensing to the mass market impacted negatively on the exclusive appeal of her clothing range, worn by the likes of the Duchess of Cambridge, Alexa Chung and Keira Knightley. While the companys most recent accounts show turnover up almost 16 per cent to 8.3 million, its after-tax profit was a measly 74,000  down on the previous years figure of 109,000, suggesting that the company has been struggling for a while in the face of booming internet sales.

Yet the couple have resisted attempts to buy them out, unlike similar brands such as Cath Kidston. In a 2010 Sunday Times interview, Kiely hinted that she was nostalgic for the days when her business was a simple kitchen table affair.

Asked about the risks rapid expansion might hold for the exclusivity of her brand, she was said to have looked anguished.

I would love to say we could just keep it as it was when we started but Apparently, she didnt finish her sentence.

While Orla Kiely Home and Design-branded accessories and homeware will continue to be sold through partners, what the future holds for Kiely and Rowan remains to be seen. She has cancelled future appearances to talk about her new book.

But according to the friend who spoke to the Mail, the couple are not finished.

Theyd always planned to retire to Ireland. Maybe that will be a bit delayed now.A heartbroken mother is sharing the valuable lessons she learned from her twin daughters, six months after they died in a suicide pact.

In April, Amanda and Sara Eldritch were found with fatal gunshot wounds in Canon City, Colorado. The 33-year-old twins had struggled with mental illness most of their lives, and had made headlines in 2015 after undergoing groundbreaking surgery to treat their obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Though their OCD symptoms improved, however, their depression never went away, and now their mother Kathy has shared her touching eulogy for the daughters she lost.

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Tragic: Amanda and Sara Eldritch died earlier this year at age 13 in a suicide pact

Struggles: The two women, from Colorado, suffered from mental illness for most of their lives

Heartbreaking: Their mother, Kathy, has now shared the heart-rending euology she read at their memorial service

According to KHOU11, Amanda and Sara were diagnosed with OCD as teens. Their symptoms were so severe that they were known to take ten-hour shoulders and spend hours every day cleaning their homes.

They also suffered from anxiety and depression.

Over the years, they tried various treatments and therapy. Then, in 2015, they both underwent Deep Brain Stimulation surgery to treat their OCD. They were the first patients in Colorado to do so, and made headlines for it, appearing on the talk show The Doctors in 2017.

Things improved a bit, particularly with their OCD, but they remained depressed. In early April, their were discovered in a vehicle parked off the side of the road about an hour from their home in Broomfield, Fremont County Sheriff's Office told the Colorado Springs Gazette.

Half a year since their tragic deaths, their mom Kathy is hoping that their lives can be used to educate other about mental illness.

She also learned quite a bit from them herself, not just about mental illness but how to live in general.

Kathy listed some of the most valuable lessons in a eulogy she wrote for their memorial service, which she shared with KHOU this week.

It began: 'Thank you for being here this afternoon to honor the amazing and courageous lives of Amanda and Sara Eldritch. Their beautiful earthly life tragically ended on the morning of March 30th.

'Today, we wonder how the sun rises each morning, or even why. We wonder when the gray cast will lift from the sky and it will be blue again. We wonder how the first flowers of spring can break through the hard, cold bleakness of winter.

'We wonder why the stars have the audacity to shimmer each evening. We wonder when the night wont be so gut wrenchingly lonely and terrifying.

Issues: The girls were diagnosed with OCD at age 16 and also suffered from anxiety and depression

Breaking taboos: Their mom hopes their story will educate people about mental illness

Embracing life: She shared the things she learned from them, like that music should always be danced to and candles should always be lit

'We wonder why these two incredible young women will never again dance into our days with their giggles, goofy hats and Misfits songs blaring from their phone.

'We simply wonder why. There are no answers; just anguish and unfathomable heartbreak.

'I believe there is a purpose, I have to believe there is a purpose for their deaths; one that cant be acknowledged or deciphered. Gods plan for Sara and Amanda is so much greater than our limited human comprehension. But for today, we mourn, we cry, we grieve, we question,' she said.

'There was a book written several years ago by Robert Fulghum titled All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. For me, All I Really Need to Know I Learned from my Daughters.'

She then went on to enumerate 18 things she learned, from the simple to the profound.

'1. Candles: They are meant to be burned. Dont save them, use them, light them. Candles bring warmth and brighten the dark corners, so light them all! They are inexpensive, you can buy more. There is always a candle lighted in my home now.

'2. Glitter: Craft herpes. Once you get it on your shoes, clothes, furniture, hands, it never goes away... never.

'3. Music: Play it loud, whether its the Misfits, Wagner or Johnny Cash. Have an appreciation and open-mind for all types of music; it is balm to the soul and gets your feet moving. Choose music over television, and you dont have to deal with the stupefying commercials.

'4. Dancing: See music. Dance to the music, and dance like everyone is watching because really, who cares, and you never know, they might want to learn the dance moves!

Artistic: She said her daughters taught her that pets are not for everyone, and car 'are a metal canvas for stickers, magnets, spray paint, studs, spikes, markers and shirt paint'

Open-minded: They taught her that hair should be experimented with, and tattoos and piercings show your personality

The make-believe: The girls also loved to dress up, and Halloween was their favorite holiday

'5. Pets: Not everyone should have a pet; especially a dog. Just because you can toss some food in a bowl or open the back door to let them out, you dont necessarily deserve a dog.

'They need training, exercise, stimulation, attention and tons of love. Make sure you can offer them that, and if you do get a pet, rescue one. There are so many homeless pets that need a forever home.

'6. Cars: Cars are a metal canvas for stickers, magnets, spray paint, studs, spikes, markers and shirt paint. The fact that a car is for transportation is truly secondary.

'7. Washers and Dryers: These should be made to withstand chains, studs, spikes, spray paint, shirt paint, safety pins, glue, duct tape, hair dye, nails, screws, bolts, shoes, change and an errant hammer or screw driver. These appliances should also be able to withstand at least five loads of laundry with the above contents every day.

'8. Hair: Let your hair be a palette and an expression of your individuality. Dont hesitate to do something adventurous or out of the box.

'The advantage of hair is that is grows, so if you dont like the color, style or length, dont worry; its not permanent and will grow back. Eye brows, on the other hand, take a little longer to recover. . .

'9. Tattoos and piercings: Your skin also be a palette and a canvas of your personality and individuality. But, do choose wisely, as tattoos and piercings are mostly permanent, unlike red or black hair.

'Never be afraid to express yourself regardless of what anyone thinks is normal or acceptable. It is your body after all.

'10. The sun: The sun is essential for life but protect yourself from its rays. Wear hats, sunglasses and sunscreen.

'11. Cos-play/dressing up... is not just for Halloween or small children. Sara and Amanda were never happier than when they were pirates, super girl or cat woman, The Master of Ceremonies and Sally Bowles from Cabaret, The Dee Twins, trash pandas, Vampire Girl/Zombie Girl or in full fiend attire at a MisFits concert.

'And, if you should ever see someone who is bright green with a 12 blond mohawk, they probably wont eat your children.

'12. Halloween: Amanda and Saras favorite holiday. See cos-play. Why should dressing up and being in costume be reserved for just one day a year? They started celebrating Halloween around September 15th when Spirit Halloween stores started cropping up. Wigs, make-up, fangs, fake blood . . . all were regular accouterments in our home.

'13. Intelligence: Don't "dumb it down," especially women. We live in a society where women are still demeaned and belittled for their intelligence, or told they are arrogant and aggressive. Many may not know that Amanda and Sara had genius IQs; they said that "smart was the new sexy."

'14. Regrets: Don't have any. Make sure those close to you always know how much they are loved, cherished, adored and cared about. We never know when we might not have the chance to ever tell them again.

'15. Guilt: See regrets; dont have any. Guilt is a tremendous waste of energy, emotion and time.

'16. Take a few chances: See regrets. Its a wonderful world out there with grand adventures, mysteries to discover, and opportunities to experience. Challenge yourself, stretch your boundaries. Dont be defined by societies constraints or someone elses opinion. This is your time; have fun!

'17. Respect: treat everyone with respect, you dont know their story, you dont know their journey. And treat animals with respect as they dont have a voice.

'18. Love: Love with all your heart, might, soul, and strength, even if just once in your life. And, when you say, I love you, mean it! Let it never, ever be a platitude, a banal phrase or a conversation ender. Mean it with every fiber of your being.

'I could talk for hours about my daughters. It was never a secret that they were the two most important, valued, treasured and loved people in my life.

'I adored them, fought for them, sacrificed for them, laughed with them, danced with them, and cried with them. Their joy was my joy, their pain was my pain. I will miss them every second of every day for the remainder of my life.

'Now, we say goodbye to these remarkable, brave, eclectic, passionate, imaginative, creative, strong, brilliant, empathetic, caring and loving young women, whose lives were much too short.

'However, their legacy, their story, does not, and will not, end here. Amanda and Sara were trailblazers and their ground-breaking surgeries, progress and work toward mental illness awareness and healing will continue.

'Unfortunately, there is no cure for mental illness, but functionality and a release from the grip of this insidious disease is possible and attainable. My prayer is that no parent should face the excruciating, searing pain and devastation of a childs death due to the ravages of mental illness.

'Anyone who knows me well, knows I will be committed, tenacious and relentless in this battle.

'Sara and Amandas last text to me read, "Weve got this, mom." And now, ladies, Ive got this. Your struggle is over; fly away and be free. Always in my heart.'

Amanda and Sara struggled for years before their deaths. In 2015, they elected to get the surgery that is most ccommonly used to treat tremors for Parkinson's patients, and involves electrode wires placed in the patient's brain.

Those are then wired to two neurostimulators placed under their pectoral muscles, Denver DBS Center explained.

During a 2017 appearance on The Doctors, Sara described the treatment as 'a little cloud of electricity that just pulses through your brain constantly.'

Before their surgery the pair said they couldn't hold jobs, go to school, or even do something as simple as go see a movie.

Sara and Amanda said the disorder felt like they were 'at war with their own existence'.

Searching for a cure: The twins underwent groundbreaking surgery in 2015 to help with their OCD symptoms

In a compulsive effort to stay clean, they rubbed their faces with hydrogen peroxide. They could use entire bars of soap just to wash their hands once.

'They'd shower so long the water wouldn't drain fast enough, and would leak into the kitchen,' their mother Kathy revealed on the CBS show.

They used so much peroxide, in fact, that their eyebrows turned orange from the chemicals.

Sara and Amanda also said they went through 'five bottles a day' of rubbing alcohol on their skin. They would then spend the rest of the day scrubbing and cleaning the bathroom.

Eventually the sisters said they lost all their friends as they continued to battle with the disorder.

They tried everything from medications and traditional therapies to hypnotherapy, but nothing seemed to work.

'If this is how our life is going to look like forever, there's no reason to live,' they once told their mother.

That seemed to change with the deep brain stimulation surgery, which the twins said in 2017 had alleviated many of their anxieties.

'Looking back at who I used to be, it seems like a different person that was just in my body,' Amanda said. 'I was hijacked for 20 years and now I'm starting to get control back.'

'We actually leave the house, we have friends, we go to concerts, we do things. We have a future,' she also said in a 2016 interview with 9News.

However, some of their fears, including public bathrooms, still persisted even after the procedure.

The twins have apparently been contemplating committing suicide since they were just 13.Plenty of people have a favorite lunch spot  but it's safe to say that most wouldn't get that restaurant's logo or food permanently inked on their bodies.

Most  but not all. In fact, Arby's found over 100 customers who love their sandwiches so much that they jumped at the chance for an Arby's-themed tattoo.

Over the weekend, men and women lined up outside Port City Tattoo in Long Beach, California for a free tattoo, having the artist ink them with sandwiches, fries, and the chain's tagline: 'We have the meats.'

Get 'em while they're hot! Arby's offered free tattoos to customers on Saturday

Superfans: Over 100 people showed up and lined up to get free ink

That's dedication! They were given free professional tattoos  as long as they were Arby's-themed

Look what I got! Some showed off the results on social media after the event

Walking billboards: Most of that tattoos had sandwiches, and one even featured the brand's slogan

Wonder what the kind of person who gets a 'We have the meats' tattoo looks like? Arby's made sure to capture video from the popular event.

On Saturday, from 11am to 8pm, any fan could visit Port City Tattoo for a totally free tattoo designed by Miguel Montgomery.

Arby's joked that the stunt entitled participants to a 'free sandwich for life'  except that these sandwiches couldn't be eaten.

Over the course of nine and a half hours, over 100 people showed up for their free tats.

Some got a beef and cheddar sandwich pierced with a knife, with 'We have the meats' woven into the design.

The artist: Miguel Montgomery designed all of the tattoos ahead of time

Crowded! Several people were tatted up at Port City Tattoo in Long Beach, California

A whole day affair: Artists spent nine and a half hours inking customers

Some of that tattoos didn't have sandwiches  but they did have fries

Permanent slogan: The 'We have the meats' tattoo was surprisingly popular

Ladies and gents! Both men and women (pictured) showed up for tats

Men got them on their arms, shoulders, and calves, while women got them on their shins and thighs

Others got the beef sandwich pictured with playing cards, with a devil, or in the mouth of a panther.

While most of the tats featured the sandwich, there were was also one of a falcon with fries, a cherub carrying a to-go bag with an Arby's logo, and a packet of Arby's sauce.

Men got them on their arms, shoulders, and calves, while women got them on their shins and thighs.

Later, several proudly showed off the results on social media.

Something new: One proud customers shows off his Arby's sandwich tattoo

People lined up outside and waited for their turn on the big day

Committed: Customers are seen signing waivers before they get inkedMen are more likely to cheat if they are college educated or work in a bar, a new study has found.

Bartending also makes women more likely to cheat - but if they went to college, they're less likely to.

That is according to a new study by researchers in Sweden, who surveyed hundreds of thousands of couples for more than 20 years.

Headhunting was the other profession most commonly associated with affairs.

Researchers believe the restaurant business - and headhunting - inspires more affairs because employees spend more time with their colleagues of the opposite sex.

When it came to education, though, they were stumped: they couldn't find any reason why it affected men and women differently.

For those seeking a safe bet, try farmers, librarians and chemists, who were deemed the least likely to stray - although former Bachelor star Chris Soules, known as 'Prince Farming' on his season, was hounded by cheating rumors after his season finale.

Men are more likely to cheat if they are college educated or work in a bar, a new study has found (file image)

The team, from Stockholm University in Sweden, says this analysis is the first of its kind in proving that both sexes are more likely to cheat if they work in offices with more of the opposite sex - but is 'especially true' for men.

The study followed millions of Danish couples between ages 20 and 44 who had married between 1981 and 2002.

All had married a partner of the opposite sex and were actively working for at least one year.

During the 21-year period, the researchers identified that more than 215,000 couples had gotten divorced.

Results showed that men were almost twice as prone to a broken marriage as women due to a gender imbalance in their jobs.

Farmers, librarians and chemists were deemed least likely to stray - although former Bachelor star Chris Soules (pictured), known as 'Prince Farming' on his season, was hounded by cheating rumors after his season finale

A 2013 study from Occidental College in California found that more opposite-sex partners in the work sector were associated with higher risk of infidelity among men, but not among women.

Dr Caroline Uggla, lead author and a postdoctoral researcher in the demography unit at Stockholm University, told Daily Mail Online that there could be several factors at play.

'It could be cultural factors, that getting a divorce or swapping partners is more acceptable for men, or it could be that men are more likely to act on the opportunity of being surrounded by many women, than vice versa,' she said.

In fact, college-educated men were the most likely to cheat with a colleague and leave their wives.

The reverse, however, was not true for women with university degrees.

'That surprised me because you might think that education would affect men and women in the same way,' Dr Uggla said.

According to a 2012 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, women with a bachelor's degree had a 78 percent chance of their marriage lasting at least 20 years.

This was in comparison with a 41 percent chance for women with only a high school diploma.

Researchers also found that age played a role when it came to divorce risk.

Both men and women were most likely to carry on affairs with co-workers between the ages of 23 and 29.

Additionally, divorce risk was around 40 percent lower for those who married after age 40 in comparison with those who married between ages 16 and 22.

PROFESSIONS MOST LIKELY TO CHEAT... Bartenders Restaurant workers Hotel workers Headhunters Advertisement

...AND THOSE LESS LIKELY TO CHEAT Farmers Chemists Librarians Pharmacists Advertisement

Dr Uggla blamed it on the fact the men were being presented with 'more potential mates'.

'When partners are abundant, opportunities for mate switching may increase and relationship stability decrease,' she said.

'This holds for both men and women, but associations are somewhat stronger for men and vary by education.'

Of 353 occupations that the team tracked, 267 are made up of mostly one gender.

For instance, men make up 92 percent of the construction industry.

Similarly, just 15.5 percent of those employed in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields are female.

But jobs where men are generally outnumbered by women include: journalism, teaching, lab technicians, therapists, editors, librarians, public relations officers and insurance underwriters.A medical professional has become the third person in the UK to be struck down with the deadly monkeypox virus.

Public Health England revealed the unidentified medic had treated the second patient at Blackpool Victoria Hospital.

However, officials today said the new case had come into contact with the patient before they were confirmed to have monkeypox.

The medical professional is now being treated by doctors in the specialist unit at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle.

Officials believe both the first two patients caught the virus, often spread through handling monkeys and proves fatal in 10 per cent of cases, in Nigeria before flying to England

Officials believe the unidentified patient caught the infection, fatal in 10 per cent of cases, in Nigeria before flying to England (stock)

The medical professional is now being treated by doctors in the specialist unit at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle (pictured)

Dr Nick Phin, deputy director, of the National Infection Service at PHE, said: 'This healthcare worker cared for the patient before a diagnosis of monkeypox was made.

'We have been actively monitoring contacts for 21 days after exposure to detect anyone presenting with an illness so that they can be assessed quickly.

'It is therefore not wholly unexpected that a case has been identified.

'This person has been isolated and we are taking a highly precautionary approach to ensure that all contacts are traced.'

PHE today said it was following up with close contacts of the new patient to provide advice and monitor their health.

The Government agency is also seeking to make contact with anyone who made contact with the individual in the 24 hours before they noticed a rash.

The viral disease was recorded for the first time in the UK on Friday, September 7 in a Nigerian national staying at a naval base in Cornwall.

The patient was transferred to the expert infectious disease unit at the Royal Free Hospital in London on Saturday morning.

The virus was recorded for the first time in the UK on Friday, September 7 in a Nigerian national staying in Cornwall, who is now being treated at the Royal Free Hospital in London (pictured)

Public Health England said the second patient was receiving treatment at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital, a specialist centre, on September 11 (pictured)

WHAT IS MONKEYPOX? Monkeypox - often caught through handling monkeys - is a rare viral disease that kills around 10 per cent of people it strikes, according to figures. The virus responsible for the disease is found mainly in the tropical areas of west and central Africa. Monkeypox was first discovered in 1958, with the first reported human case in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1970. Human cases were recorded for the first time in the US in 2003 and the UK in September 2018. It resides in wild animals but humans can catch it through direct contact with animals, such as handling monkeys, or eating inadequately cooked meat. The virus can enter the body through broken skin, the respiratory tract, or the eyes, nose or mouth. It can pass between humans via droplets in the air, and by touching the skin of an infected individual, or touching objects contaminated by them. Symptoms usually appear within five and 21 days of infection. These include a fever, headache, muscle aches, swollen lymph nodes, chills and fatigue. The most obvious symptom is a rash, which usually appears on the face before spreading to other parts of the body. This then forms skin lesions that scab and fall off. Monkeypox is usually mild, with most patients recovering within a few weeks without treatment. Yet, the disease can often prove fatal. There are no specific treatments or vaccines available for monkeypox infection, according to the World Health Organization. Advertisement

A second person was then confirmed to have been struck down with the virus on Tuesday, September 11.

The unidentified patient first went to Blackpool Victoria Hospital with symptoms, before they tested positive for monkeypox. They were then sent for treatment at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital, a specialist centre.

Further information on the state of the first two patients has not yet been released.

Officials believe both the first two patients caught the virus, often spread through handling monkeys and proves fatal in 10 per cent of cases, in Nigeria before flying to England.

Nigeria was hit hard by a virulent outbreak of monkeypox last September, with 89 people infected and six deaths recorded in March.

The country had not previously reported a case of the disease since 1978.

The most recent government figures, released last year, estimate there are 190,000 people that were born in Nigeria who currently live in the UK.

Monkeypox is a rare viral infection that was first discovered in monkeys in 1958. While similar to smallpox, it is not as deadly.

The first case in a human was discovered in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1970, and since cases have been reported in central and west African countries.

Initial symptoms include fever, headache and chills. As the illness develops large welts can appear over the face and body.

Monkeypox resides in wild animals but humans can catch it through direct contact with animals, such as handling monkeys, or eating inadequately cooked meat.

It can pass between humans via droplets in the air, and by touching the skin of an infected individual, or touching objects contaminated by them.

Most people who contract the disease recover within a few weeks, but in up to 10 per cent of cases it is fatal.

It comes after an eminent virologist earlier this month told MailOnline monkeypox infects 10 per cent of people who come into contact with sufferers.

Professor Earl Brown, at the University of Ottawa, said hospital staff treating the patient at are particularly at risk of catching the deadly virus.

Thirty-seven people were confirmed to have been struck down by monkeypox in an outbreak in the US in 2003.

It was the first time the disease, which had been confirmed in five states, had been reported in humans outside of Africa.

Monkeypox was two years ago named as one of 37 viruses that pose a potential threat to populations around the world.

University of Edinburgh listed the virus among MERS and two strains of Ebola, a haemorrhagic fever responsible for a brutal pandemic in 2014.Contact: Leslie Palma, 732-757-9087



ATLANTA, Sept. 26, 2018 /Standard Newswire/ -- The following is submitted by Evangelist Alveda King:

Congressional Opponents and some of their allies in the media have adopted an unprecedented standard of guilty until proven innocent to use thin and unsubstantiated claims to smear Judge Kavanaugh who POTUS has nominated for our next Supreme Court Justice.



With blatant disregard for the health of America, women and children in particular, the anti-life contingent continues to peddle violence under the guise of a false narrative for justice by "resisting" the appointment of Judge Kavanaugh to SCOTUS.



Here's a message from my beloved, now deceased pastor of 30 years. Pastor Allen McNair: Don't Vote for Sin.



In addition, Rev. Bill Owens, Founder of Coalition of African American Pastors writes:

"Brett Kavanaugh has served his country with integrity. He has an exemplary record going back more than three decades," stated Rev. Owens. "Now, his reputation has been maligned and his character attacked via an unsubstantiated allegation from when he was in high school. This is absurdity.



"There is nothing to indicate that we should take these accusations seriously. From the moment they became public, it was clear that even the Democrats did not have faith in their veracity and were only hoping to manipulate the process... The Kavanaugh confirmation hearings have become an offense to decency and common sense. We, the people, have grown sick of this political posturing and partisanship. And we are unwilling to see a man's character smeared for political gain? No! CAAP has launched a petition calling for a quick and civil confirmation vote. Join us! America must stop entertaining this obvious and manipulative smear campaign; end this circus before it does further harm to our country. It's time to vote."

In addition, Walter and Lori Hoye at ISSUES4LIFE tweeted this.



Wait! There's more!



THE NEW YORKER published new allegations against Judge Kavanaugh despite the fact that it and the New York Times found zero evidence or first-hand corroborations.



THE NEW YORK TIMES: The Times had interviewed several dozen people over the past week in an attempt to corroborate her story, and could find no one with firsthand knowledge. Ms. Ramirez herself contacted former Yale classmates asking if they recalled the incident and told some of them that she could not be certain Mr. Kavanaugh was the one who exposed himself.



Senator Lindsey Graham calls this "the total collapse of the traditional confirmation process" to be replaced with "wholesale character assassination."



SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM: "What we are witnessing is the total collapse of the traditional confirmation process for a Supreme Court nominee. It is being replaced by a game of delay, deception, and wholesale character assassination."



WARNING!



The church must not be silent at this critical time! We must stand upon the WORD OF GOD and vote to resist evil. We must pray, then vote to support the POTUS life affirming agenda.



Read more HERE.

Sixteen volunteers drank their own blood to help scientists uncover a better way of diagnosing inflammatory bowel disease.

Volunteers consumed up to 300ml - around 10 shots - of their own blood in the bizarre Swiss study.

Researchers behind 'The Vampire Study' found the nauseating drink increases the levels of a specific protein in faeces.

The team in Zurich now believe the presence of this protein, called calprotectin, suggests a patient has intestinal bleeding.

Intestinal bleeding commonly occurs in IBD, a group of agonising bowel conditions that strike hundreds of thousands of people.

In research named 'The Vampire Study', 16 volunteers drank their own blood to helps scientists better understand inflammatory bowel disease, such as Crohn's disease (stock)

Endoscopies, uncomfortable for patients, are the most common way to diagnose IBD, of which the major types are Crohn's and ulcerative colitis.

Scientists at Triemli Hospital, who led the study, said the results could lead to more accurate ways of assessing stool samples.

The study, published in the United European Gastroenterology journal, wanted to determine how drinking blood affected proteins in faeces.

The 16 volunteers ingested 100ml and 300ml of their own blood either via drinking or a nasal tube.

Levels of calprotectin in their faeces were measured before the experiment, every day for a week during and a fortnight after.

One day after drinking 300ml of their own blood, eight of the participants' faeces had elevated calprotectin levels - defined as more than 50 micrograms per gram.

WHAT IS INFLAMMATORY BOWEL DISEASE? Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a medical term that describes a group of conditions in which the intestines become inflamed (red and swollen). Two major types of IBD are Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. Ulcerative colitis affects the large intestine (colon) whereas Crohn's disease can occur in any part of the intestines. Symptoms may include: Abdominal cramps and pain frequent

Watery diarrhoea (may be bloody)

Severe urgency to have a bowel movement

Fever during active stages of disease

Loss of appetite and weight loss

Tiredness and fatigue anaemia (due to blood loss) People of any age can get IBD, but it's usually diagnosed between the ages of 15 and 40. The conditions are chronic and cannot be cured so treatment usually relies on medication and lifestyle changes to manage the symptoms, but may include surgery. IBD is thought to affect some three million people in the US, over 300,000 Britons, and 85,000 Australians. Source: Crohn's & Colitis Australia Advertisement

This is compared to just one participant with elevated levels before the experiment.

The results suggest high calprotectin levels are linked to intestinal bleeding, which is a key symptom of untreated IBD.

Calprotectin has previously been associated with gastrointestinal bleeding and inflammation in IBD.

The protein is thought to end up in faeces when certain immune cells enter the intestinal lining, resulting in inflammation.

But the scientists, led by Dr Stephan Vavricka, admit the diagnosis method has its drawbacks.

As well as being a sign of IBD, calprotectin levels can also become elevated if a patient is suffering from an infection, even if it does not affect their gut.

One of the study's participants was forced to pull out when they developed a bacterial infection in their ear and nose.

This participant's calprotectin levels were extraordinarily high at 400 micrograms per gram.

IBD occurs due to gut inflammation, with Crohn's disease affecting the entire digestive system and ulcerative colitis just the large intestine.

Crohn's, which is often considered to be more severe, affects at least 115,000 people in the UK and 780,000 in the US.

UC affects 146,000 and 907,000 people, respectively.

This comes after research released last July suggested exposure to a gender-bending chemical found in receipts and plastic water bottles may cause IBD.

Exposure to bisphenol A (BPA), which is also found in the lining of canned foods, causes the same inflammation and gut bacteria changes in mice that occur in Crohn's and ulcerative colitis patients, a study by Texas A&M University found.Treating patients with a heavy metal alongside antibiotics could be the solution to the growing resistance crisis, a study suggests.

Patients with a life-threatening lung infection who were given IV gallium along with standard antibiotics saw their symptoms improve.

And the University of Washington team said the combination caused no serious side effects.

Lab tests also showed the deadly bacteria were slow to develop resistance to the heavy metal - commonly used in electrical circuits and LED lights.

Superbugs are thought to take-up the metal, which then hijacks the metabolism and nutrition that bacteria need to survive.

Experts have previously warned antibiotic resistance poses 'as big a risk as terrorism'.

Treating patients with a metal could be the solution to the antibiotic resistance crisis (stock)

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the resistance crisis 'has the potential to affect anyone, of any age, in any country.'

Mucus samples were taken from patients who were infected with the bacteria Pseudomonas aeruginosa for the three-part study.

This can lead to life-threatening pneumonia or urinary tract infections and is common in patients who have been hospitalised for more than a week.

The mucus was exposed to small amounts of gallium, along with the commonly prescribed antibiotics colistin and tobramycin, in the lab.

Exposure to the metal killed off the bacteria, with P. aeruginosa also being slow to develop resistance to the novel treatment.

WHAT IS ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE? Antibiotics have been doled out unnecessarily by GPs and hospital staff for decades, fueling once harmless bacteria to become superbugs. The World Health Organization (WHO) has previously warned if nothing is done the world is heading for a 'post-antibiotic' era. It claimed common infections, such as chlamydia, will become killers without immediate solutions to the growing crisis. Bacteria can become drug resistant when people take incorrect doses of antibiotics or if they are given out unnecessarily. Former chief medical officer Dame Sally Davies claimed in 2016 that the threat of antibiotic resistance is as severe as terrorism. Figures estimate that superbugs will kill 10 million people each year by 2050, with patients succumbing to once harmless bugs. Around 700,000 people already die yearly due to drug-resistant infections including tuberculosis (TB), HIV and malaria across the world. Concerns have repeatedly been raised that medicine will be taken back to the 'dark ages' if antibiotics are rendered ineffective in the coming years. In addition to existing drugs becoming less effective, there have only been one or two new antibiotics developed in the last 30 years. In September, the WHO warned antibiotics are 'running out' as a report found a 'serious lack' of new drugs in the development pipeline. Without antibiotics, C-sections, cancer treatments and hip replacements will become incredibly 'risky', it was said at the time. Advertisement

The researchers, led by Dr Christopher Goss, then intravenously administered gallium to mice with the same infection.

This caused the bacteria's numbers to reduce and the rodents to live for longer.

After being shown to be safe and effective, gallium was finally tested in 20 patients with either cystic fibrosis or chronic P.aeruginosa lung infections.

After 28 days, the treatment improved the patients' lung function without causing any severe complications.

Gallium is thought to hijack bacteria's metabolism due to it being structurally similar to iron, which is critical for their survival.

This allows the metal to act as a 'Trojan horse' and sneak into pathogens.

The scientists plan to investigate the metal's safety and effectiveness, when used alongside antibiotics, in future studies.

Before the first antibiotic Penicillin was discovered by the Scottish microbiologist Alexander Fleming in 1928, metals such as copper and mercury were often used to treat infections.

This is due to them being toxic to many bacteria.

Fleming's discovery allowed doctors to treat and cure infected patients, saving millions of lives.

Yet, less than a century after Fleming's discovery, there are precious few antibiotics left and many superbugs are already resistant to all of them.

Figures suggest up to 50,000 people die each year due to antibiotic-resistant infections in Europe and the US alone.

Globally, at least 700,000 people pass away annually due to antibiotic-resistance complications from illnesses such as malaria, AIDS and tuberculosis.

This comes after research released last month suggested cows may be the cause of the next health epidemic.

The bovine animal is a reservoir for antibiotic-resistant superbugs, such as the notoriously difficult-to-treat MRSA, which are a serious threat to human health, according to a ground-breaking study by the University of Helsinki.A pair of twins are among the rarest in the world because one of them was born with Down syndrome and one of them was not.

Julia and Michael Toronczak, 22, from San Diego, California, share everything in life except a single chromosome.

This led to Michael being born with such a severe form of the genetic disorder that he's unable to speak.

Despite their differences, Julia said the two are inseparable and both share a passion of the water, going to the beach together to watch the ocean waves crash against the shoreline.

This has inspired her to start a blog, Beyond the Waves, to educate others about Down syndrome and how, even though her brother can't speak, they still communicate in their 'own little language'.

SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO

Julia and Michael Toronczak, 22, from San Diego, California, are among the rarest pairs of twins in the world due to Michael being born with Down syndrome, but not Julia. Pictured: Julia and Michael in June 2018

Down syndrome is a genetic disorder that occurs when a person is born with an extra full or partial copy of chromosome 21. Pictured: Julia, left, and Michael as babies

Michael has such a severe form of Down syndrome that he is unable to speak, but Julia says he communicates through facial expression. Pictured: Michael, left, and Julia as children

Down syndrome is a genetic disorder that occurs when a person is born with an extra full or partial copy of chromosome 21.

This additional genetic material results in the physical features and developmental changes associated with the disorder.

Common features include a small head, flattened face, poor muscle tone, upward slanting eye lids and short height.

While all babies with Down syndrome will experience cognitive delays, the effects can range from mild to severe.

According to the National Down Syndrome Society (NDSS), one in every 700 babies in the US is born with the disorder.

The NDSS also states that life expectancy for those with those with Down syndrome has spiked from 25 in 1983 to 60 in 2018.

However, there are a variety of health problems sufferers may face including heart defects, gastrointestinal defects, obesity and sleep apnea.

Michael's form of the condition leaves him unable to speak but Julia says she is still able to communicate with him.

'He doesn't have very strong fine motor skills, so he doesn't really communicate with his hands,' she told BarcroftTV.

'I kind of look at his facial reactions the most and he also understands if you're happy or sad.

Their mother, Grazyna, became pregnant when she was 40 years old but didn't know Michael had Down syndrome until after he was born. Pictured: Michael, left, and Julia as children

Julia said that she believes Michael taught her a lot as they grew up. She says she was needy as a child but her brother made her more independent. Pictured, left and right: Julia and Michael

'He's also really good at reading your expressions and he can really sense emotions really well. Michael doesn't speak to me in words but I feel like we communicate in our own little language.'

Their mother, Grazyna, became pregnant when she was 40 years old but didn't know Michael had Down syndrome until after he was born.

A woman's chances of having a child with the disorder increases after age 35 because older eggs are at a greater risk of having improper chromosome division.

According to the NDSS, a 35-year-old woman has a one in 350 chance of conceiving a baby with Down syndrome.

At age 40, she has a one in 100 chance and, at age 45, this dramatically increases to a one in 30 chance.

'I know that if you are old the possibility of having a child with Down syndrome is rising but it was my choice [to have them],' Grazyna said.

'I just loved them from first sight. They were so different, because Julia was very independent from the beginning and Michael was very dependent on me.'

Julia said that she believes Michael taught her a lot as they grew up.

'Michael likes calm, quiet environments. You can really notice that when you see around little kids when they're screaming and crying, he has a lot of sensory overload at that point,' she said.

'I was a terrible child and I cried all the time and was really needy and I think Michael helped make me a lot more independent.'

The two of them attended the same high school but Julia moved on without her twin brother to go to college.

She is currently completing her last year of undergrad at the University of California San Diego, where is she studying general biology.

Julia is currently completing her last year of undergrad at the University of California San Diego, where is she studying general biology, and said it was hard for Michael when she went to college. Pictured, left to right: Michael, Julia and their mother, Grazyna

To get him relax, Julia said she would take Michael to the beach near the shoreline where the waves would calm him. Pictured: Julia and Michael

At the start of 2018, Julia began a blog titled Beyond The Waves, a name inspired by Michael's love for the beach and the ocean to educate others about Down syndrome. Pictured: Julia and Michael in June 2018

'I have just been so drawn to medicine, especially due to Michael,' she said.

'When I first started going to school, he had a really hard time adjusting to that.

'He would come and visit with my mom every weekend and he wouldn't talk to me or look at me at all for the first 15 minutes we were together.'

To get him relax, Julia said she would take him to the beach near the shoreline.

'He's so mesmerized by the waves, I think it's quite calming for him,' she said. 'It's a very repetitive motion, there's a lot of white noise. It's very beautiful out there.'

At the start of 2018, Julia began a blog titled Beyond The Waves, a name inspired by Michael's love for the beach and the ocean.

'This site is created not only to share the story of my life while living with Michael, but to serve as a portal for others willing to share their own stories,' she writes.

'In order to help educate the community of how rewarding life can be while living with a disability (or with someone who has one).'

Julia said despite Michael's reliance on others around him for support, she wouldn't change anything about him.

'Sometimes when I was younger, I'd wonder: "What if Michael didn't have Down syndrome?",' she said.

'I realize that it's not important to think that way. It's more important to focus on what we have now and make the best of what we have.'A nine-year-old boy was finally able to meet the man who saved his life with a bone marrow transplant.

Johnny Sawyer Dyer, of Corryton, Tennessee, was diagnosed with leukemia in January 2017.

After undergoing several rounds of chemotherapy and full body radiation, doctors performed a bone marrow transplant that sent his cancer into remission.

Finally, on Saturday, Sawyer met the donor, 29-year-old Kevin Schwartzel, a physician's assistant from California.

In the video, the two are seen embracing within seconds as Schwartzel tells Sawyer's parents, Ron and Misty: 'I feel like we're so connected, but we've never met.'

Johnny Sawyer Dyer, nine, of Corryton, Tennessee, finally met the bone marrow donor who saved his life, Kevin Schwartzel, 29, from San Diego, California, on Saturday

Sawyer was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, which occurs when bone marrow cells don't mature as they're meant to. Pictured: Sawyer and Schwartzel on Saturday

Sawyer & Kevin's Patient/Donor Reunion- HLN Kevin Schwartzel, an ER physicians assistant from CA, registered for Be The Match in 2011. Six years later, he received a phone call alerting him that he had a match and happily donated his bone marrow. His donation became a life-saving transplant that would change 8 year old Sawyer Dyers life forever. On May 23, 2017 Sawyer received his bone marrow transplant at the Sarah Cannon Center for Blood Cancer TriStar Centennial Medical Center under the care of Dr. Haydar Frangoul. Before their birthdays this October, Sarah Cannon brought Sawyer and Kevin together for the first time in a surprise meeting before the American Society For Blood and Marrow Transplantation CEC Meeting in Nashville. Watch their powerful reunion moment featured on Headline News earlier today, as well as an interview with Kevin about the process of becoming a donor! #ChildCancerAwarenessMonth #BloodCancerAwarenessMonth #FightingCancerTogether Posted by Sarah Cannon Cancer Network on Monday, September 24, 2018 =68.ARC2OwskRDoRvtNyONDV4xJRF5EUp96bHddhDDJBov3ofjRI2zU0w1ke69zHBf-sn8-DWyduKHyidBH_nMf6bsmVGaoHbfwZlVIQApWAdp9f9dC_cQSmrLZwnkbYtI7-R0UGunmS26TnNekOFYEKv2GOHFoZW_xhfe0C8y2CLhmU7UljKheMMw&__tn__=FC-R]

Sawyer was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) when he was in first grade.

AML starts in the bone marrow, the spongy tissue inside bones where blood cells are made.

It occurs when bone marrow cells don't mature as they're meant to. These immature cells, called blast cells, begin to crowd out healthy cells.

The term 'acute' means it can spread quickly to the blood and other body parts including the liver, lymph nodes and central nervous system.

Signs and symptoms often mimic those of infectious diseases such as the flu and can include fever, fatigue, bone pain and easy bruising.

AML is one of the most common types of leukemia in adults but it can also occur in children.

There are more than 19,500 cases of AML every year, with about 10,000 deaths.

However, the American Cancer Society states it's still rare overall and only accounts for about one percent of all cancers.

Sawyer (left and right) had to undergo four rounds of chemotherapy and full body radiation at East Tennessee Children's Hospital in Knoxville. After that was completed, doctors suggested he have a bone marrow transplant

The operation occurred in May 2017 at the Sarah Cannon Center for Blood Cancer in Nashville, but Sawyer (pictured) wasn't able to meet the donor at the time

Sawyer had to undergo four rounds of chemotherapy and full body radiation at East Tennessee Children's Hospital in Knoxville.

After that was completed, doctors suggested he have a bone marrow transplant.

Transplants involve taking a donor's healthy blood-forming cells and putting them into the patient's bloodstream, where they begin to grow and make healthy red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets.

According to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, 70 percent of patients in need of a marrow transplant do not have a matching donor in their family.

Around 7,500 Americans are actively searching the national registry for an unrelated donor but only two percent of the population is on the list.

Only around one in 300 will be selected as the best possible donor for a patient in need.

The operation occurred in May 2017 at the Sarah Cannon Center for Blood Cancer in Nashville, but Sawyer wasn't able to meet the donor at the time.

'This wasn't fun,' Sawyer told the Sarah Cannon Center in an interview about his cancer treatments.

'It would really feel good to meet the person who saved my life.'

On September 22, his wish was granted when he met Schwartzel from San Diego, California.

'We were so thankful for him doing this for Sawyer,' Sawyer's mother, Misty, told Good Morning America.

'Sometimes "thank you" doesn't seem like enough to say to someone who has saved your son's life.'

On September 22, Sawyer's wish to meet his donor was granted when he met Schwartzel. Pictured: Sawyer

Schwartzel, a physician's assistant, said he signed up to be a donor in 2011 but wasn't called to be a match until 2017. He said he felt grateful that he was able to meet Sawyer (left and right)

Schwartzel, a physician's assistant, signed up with the Be the Match registry in 2011 but didn't get a call asking to donate until 2017 when Sawyer was eight years old.

The Dyers released their contact information through the registry. Schwartzel reached out to them and they arranged a meeting at the Sarah Cannon Center.

The video shows the two of them hugging as soon as they meet.

'It's nice to finally meet you,' Schwartzel says, kneeling down beside Sawyer.

'Nice to finally meet you too,' Sawyer replies.

In an interview with HLN, Schwartzel said he felt grateful that he was able to meet the family.

'It was unbelievable that we had the opportunity to meet so soon,' Schwartzel said.

'I heard a lot of recipients don't ever get to meet their donors so the fact that we got to meet under those circumstances was pretty epic.'

He added that while he saves lives for a living, this is the first time he's done so outside of working hours.

'For me, it's still settling in. But working in healthcare myself as a physician's assistant and paramedic, I've been trained to save lives,' he said.

'But never has it hit me this hard where I actually felt like I wasn't being paid to do it, I wasn't on the clock.

'This was something completely organic, completely intrinsically satisfying, just on a completely different level emotionally.'Tiffany Haddish (pictured, in 2018) has promoted turpentine as a 'cure-all'. But Dr Alfred Aleguas, managing director of the Florida Poison Center in Tampa, says ingesting it is incredibly dangerous

In a recent bizarre interview, actress Tiffany Haddish revealed she drinks a teaspoon of turpentine every day.

The comedienne claimed that the paint thinner can help cure colds, provide mental clarity and give you 'the best doo-doo of your f*****g life'.

Since then, it has turned into a health craze with proponents declaring it's brightened their skin and cleansed their digestive systems.

One man, self-proclaimed healing consultant Azmyth Kaminski, revealed in a series of YouTube videos how he even went on a turpentine cleanse for 44 days.

Now doctors are speaking out yet again to warn the public that this trend is highly dangerous.

Dr Alfred Aleguas, a clinical toxicologist and managing director of the Florida Poison Center in Tampa, says ingesting turpentine can cause you to aspirate, infect you with a form of pneumonia and that drinking or huffing the equivalent of a tablespoon can kill you.

Turpentine, a fluid distilled from the resin of mainly pine trees, has been used for thousands of years as medicine.

In his book, Looking for Longleaf: The Fall and Rise of an American Forest, Lawrence Earley wrote that the Romans used it to treat depression and apoplexy, a loss of consciousness due to a blood vessel in the brain that has burst.

From the 1600s to the 1800s, naval surgeons would inject hot turpentine into wounds and apply it to the end of amputated stumps.

And in World War I, doctors on the battlefields would use it for bullet wounds.

In her interview with GQ, Haddish said that slaves would often use it as a cure-all and insists that it's safe.

''The government doesn't want you to know that if you have a cold, just take some turpentine with some sugar or castor oil or honey and it'll go away the next day,' she said.

Reporter Caity Waver does try to convince Haddish that it's not safe to be consuming turpentine - but the comedienne is not dissuaded.

Haddish also tells Waver that the substance will give you 'the best doo-doo of your f*****g life.'

And she's not the only one to make such claims. Videos on YouTube are abound of people claiming it's a skin brightener, a digestive system cleanser and even a 'gay cure'.

Turpentine, a fluid distilled from the resin of mainly pine trees, has been used for thousands of years as medicine (file image)

However, you would be hard pressed to find a modern day physician that would recommend turpentine to treat anything.

The National Institutes of Health has reported that turpentine ingestion can cause nausea, vomiting and headaches.

It has also been found to be fatal in both adults and children.

In fact, a 1991 manual said that fatal poisonings were reported in children who had consumed just 15 mL of turpentine - the equivalent of a tablespoon.

'I don't know where people got this idea that [turpentine] was safe; I mean that's nonsense really,' Dr Aleguas told Daily Mail Online.

He explained that turpentine is a type of hydrocarbon, an organic substance made up of mainly carbon and hydrogen molecules.

These are volatile substances that can cause serious toxicity when inhaled or ingested.

'You get that into your lungs and it could be very dangerous because your lungs are made of very sensitive tissues,' said Dr Aleguas.

'You could start aspirating, you could get hydrocarbon pneumonitis, a type of pneumonia caused by hydrocarbons.'

He also added that if you are aspirating, or vomiting the turpentine back up, you can white out a lung.

This means that when the lung appears on an X-ray machine, the lung is not transparent but completely white because the lung is so inflamed or surrounded by fluid.

Dr Aleguas said ingesting turpentine could cause you to start aspirating, or you could come downwith hydrocarbon pneumonitis, a type of pneumonia. Pictured: 1920s Canadian ad for turpentine syrup

Taking as much as 15mL - one tablespoon - of turpentine has been found to cause death in children. Pictured: 1890s poster for turpentine oil

The National Toxicology Program collected a number of case reports and studies about reactions to turpentine.

There are reports of allergic reactions when large amounts get on the skin and one man who injected turpentine into his knee due to chronic knee pain and ended up with a joint infection.

Dr Aleguas did say that most hydrocarbons pass through the body without being absorbed.

But he warns that consuming turpentine in large amounts can wreak havoc on the body.

'You might see some central nervous systems effects such as lightheadedness, disorientation, not thinking clearly,' he said.

'If the amount is high enough, you could pass out. And people that chronically do that, you can see changes in brain structure and cognitive function.'

Dr Aleguas says if you believe you have swallowed turpentine to call your local poison control center.

'If there's no evidence of aspiration, they'll probably recommend you drink several glasses of water and check in on you in a couple of hours,' he said.

'If there is evidence of aspiration, they'll probably recommend you go to the hospital where you could be on respiratory support for as long as a couple of days.'Owners of Land Rovers, Jaguars and Alfa Romeos are those being fleeced the most by franchised dealers when they take their car in to be repaired.

The three brands - whose cars have been criticised for suffering from electrical gremlins in the past - are charging owners around three times the standard cost of a diagnostic check on their motor to identify what issue it has.

These checks, which require the mechanic to plug a computer into the car to identify if there is a problem and what it could be linked to, take as little as 30 minutes - but some brands want up to 180 each time one is done.

Price check: MotorEasy mystery shopped dealers operating on behalf of 27 different car makers to find out how much diagnostic checks cost on averagem ranging from 38 to 180. Find out which are the 10 most expensive manufacturers

An investigation of franchised dealers across the country revealed consumers aren't always getting a fair price when it comes to finding out what's wrong with their cars - if anything.

Car ownership and maintenance service MotorEasy found a huge variation of prices for a diagnostic check alone, which it says should take around half an hour to conduct.

These checks have now become a necessary evil for car owners, with manufacturers heavily relying on electronic systems that can result in more issues.

The smallest of problems can trigger a warning light on the dashboard, leaving drivers in the hands of mechanic to identify what has caused the icon to flash up using diagnostic equipment.

On average, it found that the average charge from a franchised dealer for a diagnostic check was 102 - and some even claimed it would take up to a day to complete.

Dealers representing 27 different manufacturers were contacted, and quotes ranged from anything between free to 180 for a diagnostic check on a vehicle.

The most expensive quote was provided by individual dealers representing Land Rover, Alfa Romeo, BMW and Jaguar, while the cheapest was a Honda dealer who offered a check for nothing.

Top 10 most expensive average diagnostic check quotes 1. Land Rover - 180 2. Jaguar - 135 3. Alfa Romeo - 134 4. Toyota - 128 5. Mercedes-Benz - 117 6. Mitsubishi - 117 7. BMW - 115 8. Volvo - 114 9. Fiat - 110 10. Kia - 110 Source: MotorEasy

On average, Land Rover was the priciest.

It was also the only manufacturer to provide a fixed charge - of 180 - across the dealer network.

Jaguar, which is part of the same group as Land Rover, didn't supply a standard rate for a diagnostic check, but still came in second with an average price of 135.

That was narrowly more expensive than Alfa Romeo, whose dealers wanted 134 on average for the use of their diagnostic equipment.

To put these fees into perspective, a diagnostic check carried out at a Halford's Autocentre costs 49.99.

Both Land Rover and Alfa Romeo were contacted by This is Money to respond to the findings of the investigation but declined to comment.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, the best value was offered by Honda's franchised dealers.

While one said the check would be free of charge, the average across the network was 38.

That wasn't the biggest fluctuation in prices across the same franchised group, though.

The most significant disparity was at Toyota. Charges varied from 30 to a quote of 155 at another dealership.

Toyota was found to have the widest varying charges for a diagnostic check. One dealer quoted 30 while another franchised dealership wanted 155

The investigation was part of MotorEasy's ongoing 'Lost in Translation' campaign that has been launched to save everyday drivers from confusing terminology, unnecessary repairs and untrustworthy service.

MotorEasy founder, Duncan McClure Fisher, said the results of the investigation were further evidence of dealerships using jargon and variable pricing to rip off motorists.

'There's a reasonable expectation that the price for a simple diagnostic check should be the same for your car no matter which dealership in the network you visit but sadly that's not the case,' he said.

'The industry needs to clean up its act to start building trust with owners.'Sayonara: Shepherd has ended its contract with Japanese beer Asahi

BEER CHEER Britains oldest pub company Shepherd Neame unveiled a profit boost after ending a contract with Japanese beer Asahi.

Profits jumped 5.4 per cent to 11.8million in the year to June 30 as revenues came in flat at 156.6million.

MERGER TALK Ailing German lender Deutsche Bank has reportedly mulled a merger with Swiss rival UBS, and a deal with domestic competitor Commerzbank.

RETAIL SETBACK Fashion chain River Island has suffered a downturn in sales and profits as shoppers shun high streets for online spending.

Sales at the retailer declined 2.3 per cent to 901.9million last year. Profits slumped almost a third to 74.6million.

HEAVY LOSSES Supermarket Whole Foods lost 8.6million in the UK last year after Silicon Valley giant Amazon bought it for more than 10billion.

Heavy losses at the UK division from September 26 to December 31 were in contrast to a 1.2million profit a year earlier. British sales shot up 26.6 per cent to 148.5million.

ROGUE WAITS Rogue trader Kweku Adoboli must remain in custody, awaiting the outcome of a bid to block deportation to Ghana.

The former UBS banker, 38, was jailed for seven years after losing 1.8billion on illicit trades.

He was last week granted a judicial review of the decision to deport him to the country he left at the age of four.

FUEL FUTURE Renewable fuels business Velocys, developing plans to turn waste into jet fuel for British Airways, said it has made excellent progress with plans including developing refineries in the US to produce fuels from biomass.

HURRICANE DAMAGE Chemicals business Elementis has had to stop production at a plant in North Carolina, US, due to flooding caused by Hurricane Florence.

SALES BOOM Travel food retailer SSP Group, which runs food and drink outlets in airports and train stations, said sales are likely to grow between 2 per cent and 3 per cent this year.

AIR ROLE ITV Studios international boss Maria Kyriacou has been appointed to the Wizz Air board.

TURNOVER BOOST Argentina-focused oil and gas business President Energy says half-year turnover almost quadrupled to 16million.

LONDON CALLING Stockbroker TP Icap is opening a new HQ in Bishopsgate in the City of London.Lloyds allegedly ignored a request by investigators to speak to a staff member

Lloyds blocked police efforts to interview a whistleblower over a massive bank fraud, it is claimed.

The lender allegedly ignored a request by investigators to speak to Lloyds staff member Sally Masterton, author of a bombshell report about criminal bankers who were later sent to prison.

Masterton, who had assisted the police in 2013, was instead forced out of the bank and it is not thought further interviews went ahead.

It is the latest twist in a scandal over the Reading branch of HBOS, which was bought by Lloyds during the financial crisis.

A gang of corrupt staff there deliberately wrecked small businesses to seize their assets, and spent the proceeds on prostitutes, holidays and luxury goods.

Masterton wrote a detailed study of what had happened, alleging there had been a cover-up.

In an email from July 2013, Detective Inspector Tim Hurley asked the bank for access to Masterton.

But she is not thought to have had any meetings with the police after the email was sent, and eventually left Lloyds after signing a gagging agreement.

Lloyds said a copy of Masterton's report had been provided to the police in 2014.

It has commissioned retired High Court judge Dame Linda Dobbs to get to the bottom of what happened.

A spokesperson for Lloyds Banking Group said:

'The Board received updates on issues related to HBOS Reading throughout the FCA and TVP investigations which commenced in 2009 and 2010 respectively. Following the conclusion of the criminal trial in 2017 the Board appointed Dame Linda Dobbs, a retired High Court judge, to consider whether these issues were investigated and appropriately reported to the authorities at the time by Lloyds Banking Group, following its acquisition of HBOS in 2009.

We continue to deeply regret and apologise for the distress caused to approximately 70 HBOS business customers affected by the criminal actions by two former employees at the HBOS Reading Impaired Assets office. We have now made offers to more than 90% of these customers, with more than 85% of these offers accepted.

The 'Turnbull Report', which was provided to the FCA and the police in 2014 to support their investigations, has also been provided to Dame Linda Dobbs. Dame Linda will consider the report as part of her wider, independent review. Dame Linda's review is the appropriate forum for considering matters in relation to the Turnbull Report together with any investigation or enquiry by the FCA.'The sacked former boss of the AA has launched an extraordinary attack on the current management after 100million was wiped off the companys value following a profit slump.

Bob Mackenzie, 65, who was kicked out last year for gross misconduct after allegedly punching a colleague, is suing his ex-employer for 225million.

He, and the AAs previous private equity owners were blamed by new chief Simon Breakwell, left, for the poor performance.

AA profits fell 65 per cent in the first half compared with a year earlier, dropping to 28m from 80m, while breakdowns rose 8 per cent

But ousted Mackenzie, right, blasted back: The AA results announced today are truly dreadful.

The company appears to be in chaos, reflecting a management team who seem to have no plan for fixing the core business.

The AA said profits had taken a hit because it ploughed money into new IT systems, call-centre staff and breakdown patrols needed to help manage higher levels of calls.

Its profits fell 65 per cent in the first half compared with a year earlier, dropping to 28million from 80million, while breakdowns rose 8 per cent. AA shares yesterday fell 13.7 per cent, or 16.35p, to 103.15p.

Asked why more patrols and other investment had not been sorted out sooner, Breakwell, 53, said: Unfortunately the previous chief executive [Mackenzie] isnt here to answer that.

Blame game: Former AA boss Bob Mackenzie, left, and AA's previous private equity owners were blamed by new chief Simon Breakwell, right, for the firm's poor performance

Under the old regime, he said, there had been too much focus put on short-term profitability and not enough on investing and delivering top class service.

The AA was owned by CVC, Permira and Charterhouse before floating on the London Stock Exchange in 2014.

The breakdown and insurance company said the profits dip was also due to an extra-cold winter and boiling hot summer, which created a pothole epidemic on Britains roads.

The AA has so far spent 1million fighting a legal claim from Mackenzie who wants up to 225million, the potential value of share awards he amassed before his sacking.

No cash has been set aside to cover costs as the firm expects to win the case, as well as recover its 1million outlay.

Mackenzie has blamed stress and exhaustion for an outburst in which he punched insurance chief Mike Lloyd, 38, in the wood-panelled bar of the five-star Pennyhill Park Hotel, Surrey, after a day of strategy meetings last summer. He alleges there was no proper investigation and claims the AA dismissed and belittled his mental health to justify his dismissal.

He told the Daily Mail last year: I still feel deeply embarrassed and ashamed by the incident. Its been devastating, not only for me, but for my wife Jane, who is mortified, and the whole family. I have very little recollection of what happened.

Despite the fall in half-year profits, the AA said it is on track to meet profit guidance for the year.Investors have 30 days left to vote on a controversial plan from Unilever that would mean the consumer goods giant leaves the FTSE 100 index.

Battle lines are being drawn in the knife-edge poll  due on October 26  on its proposals to axe its legal headquarters in London and base itself solely in the Netherlands.

Many investors are furious because the plans would see Unilever, whose brands include Marmite, Dove and PG Tips, kicked out of the FTSE 100. This would force some big City investors to sell their holdings.

UN jolly: Polman, left, with Standard Chartered Bank Nigeria boss Bola Adesola, former Shell chairman Sir Mark Moody-Stuart and Lise Kingo, chief exec of United Nations Global Impact

Smaller shareholders are being urged to act as, unusually, they have as much weight in the vote as big City institutional funds.

Cliff Weight of lobby group Sharesoc, criticised top management for failing to defuse the row.

He said: 'Investors expect boards to anticipate these issues. Riding roughshod over UK shareholders is unacceptable. It is unacceptable and poor corporate governance.'

Big City funds such as Aviva, Lindsell Train and Columbia Threadneedle have spoken out against the plans. Others, including Legal and General and Blackrock, have not declared a view.

Private investors can scupper Unilever's plan to shift its HQ to Rotterdam because it needs a majority of voting shareholders to approve, regardless of how large or small their holding.

This means a single investor with a handful of shares has as much power as a large institution.

The plans also require the backing of investors holding 75 per cent of Unilever shares voting for the change to pass.

Unilever's finance boss Graeme Pitkethly took to national radio to defend the plan on Tuesday and chairman Marijn Dekkers wrote a newspaper article.

The company this week took out full-page adverts in newspapers, including the Daily Mail, to ask shareholders for support, with the message: 'The proposal is all about positioning shareholders for continued growth.'

Meanwhile, chief executive Paul Polman, who drew up the plans, has been in New York this week attending a United Nations summit on social responsibility for businesses.

While he was there, the UN Global Compact tweeted a picture of him next to Standard Chartered Bank Nigeria chief executive Bola Adesola, former Shell chairman Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, and Lise Kingo, the chief executive of UN Global Compact.

It is understood the policy advisory board to FTSE Russell, which runs the FTSE 100, assembled yesterday for a regular quarterly meeting.

Unilever has said it has engaged extensively with FTSE Russell over being delisted from the index.Are There Women Who Are Pro-life Feminists?

Contact: Kevin Wandra, 404-788-1276, KWandra@CarmelCommunications.com SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 26, 2018 / Standard Newswire / -- Fiorella Nash, a writer and bioethicist in the United Kingdom, has spoken to thousands of people about pro-life feminism, enduring jeers and insults, walkouts and hostility. What about pro-life feminism is so atrocious? Pro-life feminists want to actively protect women from mainstream feminists who don't dare stand up for women who have died in surrogacy, who have been forced to abort their children in China, and who have endured sex trafficking at the hands of abortion clinics.THE ABOLITION OF WOMAN: How Radical Feminism is Betraying Women lays out the case for the pro-life feminist and against the feminists who march in the streets shouting slogans about a woman's "right to choose." Nash calls these women to task: What exactly are you choosing? What happens during that choice? Why aren't women given all the information about what happens during an abortion? Are they too delicate to handle it? Why are you belittling women?Nash pulls no punches in THE ABOLITION OF WOMAN. For too long, mainstream feminists have ridiculed women who have publicly stated the harmful effects of their abortions. They have covered up the crimes of Kermit Gosnell and his "house of horrors." They have shown no outrage when other nations force children into marriage or when women have died as a result of surrogacy.Pro-life feminism is not only possible, Nash argues in THE ABOLITION OF WOMAN, it is vital if the complex struggles facing women are to be adequately met. The book is a rallying cry to feminists to stand with the pro-life movement, fighting to build a society in which women are equal and every human life is protected."Punchy, informative and entertaining, Fiorella Nash is as uncompromising about the rights of women as about those of children they may bear (or be obstructed from bearing) in a hostile social environment," says Dr. Helen Watt, senior research fellow at the Anscombe Bioethics Centre. "Spotlighting areas where women's rights are routinely breached, from prostitution to surrogacy to preventable maternal deaths, she calls for a world where women are no longer victims  much less perpetrators  of abuse, neglect and manipulation but are respected unequivocally as moral subjects and moral agents."For more information, to request a review copy or to schedule an interview with Fiorella Nash, please contact Kevin Wandra (404-788-1276 or KWandra@CarmelCommunications.com ) of Carmel Communications.An elderly California couple arrested in Nebraska last month for carrying 60 pounds of marijuana they described as family Christmas gifts have been arrested again, this time on suspicion of carrying drug money.

Patrick Jiron, 80, and his 70-year-old wife, Barbara, were arrested Tuesday along Interstate 80 in northeast Nebraska, according to the Lincoln Journal Star.

Their daughter, 42-year-old Mariah Jiron, was driving the truck. She was let off with a warning.

Law enforcement officials said that they stopped the couple in their black Toyota Tacoma at around 9.42am for following too closely.

Patrick Jiron and his 70-year-old wife, Barbara, were arrested Tuesday along Interstate 80 in northeast Nebraska

Their daughter, 42-year-old Mariah Jiron, was driving the truck. She was let off with a warning

The driver of the truck was their daughter, 42-year-old Mariah Jiron. She was asked by a deputy to step out of the car and sit in a deputy cruiser.

'During this time, reasonable, articulable suspicion was obtained that criminal activity was afoot,' the deputy wrote in the report, though it did not specify what the suspicion was.

The deputy then asked Patrick and Barbara Jiron, who were passengers, for permission to search the car. The couple refused.

A drug-sniffing dog then alerted the deputies to suspected contraband in the rear of the vehicle.

That led deputies to search the truck. They eventually found a duffel bag full of $18,000 in cash as well as notes consistent with marijuana sales in the cargo area.

The deputies then did field tests of the money, during which they found traces of cannabis.

In the back of the truck, deputies found an oversized garbage bag that was later found to contain residue of marijuana, according to the police report.

The couple was arrested last month along the same roadway - in the same vehicle - just two counties west.

Last month, they were arrested for carrying about 60 pounds of marijuana in their pickup truck. The high grade marijuana had an estimated street value of $336,000

When the Jirons were arrested in York County on December 19, they said they didnt know it was illegal to transport marijuana through Nebraska.

Online court documents dont list attorneys for the Jirons.

On December 19, authorities found large quantities of marijuana stashed in the back of the Toyota Tacoma pickup belonging to Patrick and Barbara Jiron.

The high grade marijuana had an estimated street value of $336,000, according to the sheriff's office.

The elderly couple told officers they were on their way to Vermont from their home in Clearlake Oaks, California.

Last month, the Jirons told authorities that they were not aware that possession of marijuana is illegal in Nebraska. Patrick Jiron (above) was charged with felonies

California legalized recreational use of marijuana last year, as did Massachusetts. The state legislature in Vermont is planning to consider legalizing marijuana consumption.

They added that the marijuana was for Christmas presents.

The couple were initially stopped when officers spotted their pickup driving over the center line and failing to signal.

Deputies said they could immediately smell the strong odor of raw marijuana when they approached the truck.

They searched the vehicle and found the drugs stored in the pickup's topper.

The couple were taken into custody on charges of possession of marijuana with the intent to deliver and no drug tax stamp.

The Jirons told authorities that they were not aware that possession of marijuana is illegal in Nebraska.

Patrick Jiron was charged with the felonies, while his wife was let off with a citation.

Days after their previous arrest last month, it was learned that Patrick and Barbara Jiron are the parents of a top prosecutor in Vermont.

The Jirons are the parents of Justin Jiron, the chief deputy state's attorney for Chittenden County, Vermont's most populous county.

The county seat is Burlington, which is The Green Mountain State's largest city by population.

'Justin is in no way connected to this allegation other than by relation,' his boss, Chittenden County State's Attorney Sarah George, told the Burlington Free Press last month around the time of their first arrest.

'Justin is and has been a dedicated public servant for over 15 years, and I assure you he is as surprised and upset about these allegations as anyone.'

Days after their previous arrest last month, it was learned that Patrick and Barbara Jiron are the parents of a top prosecutor in Vermont - Justin Jiron, the chief deputy state's attorney for Chittenden County

Authorities in Vermont say there is no indication that Justin Jiron is linked in any way to his parents' alleged crime

Authorities in Vermont say there is no indication that Justin Jiron is linked in any way to his parents' alleged crime, according to the Free Press.

'I don't think he knew anything about what his parents were bringing over or what they intended to do with it,' said John Campbell, the executive director of the Vermont Department of State's Attorneys and Sheriffs.

'From what I understand, this is as much as a shock to him and a surprise that it is to anyone else who has heard about it.'

'Justin, I can say, is one of the most upstanding prosecutors I know and also one of the most upstanding human beings,' Campbell said.

'He's also an officer of the court, and I would assume that if he was asked by his employer if he had any knowledge or involvement that she obviously is satisfied with his response.

'If she's satisfied, I'm certainly satisfied, because she works with him every day.'

Justin Jiron refused to comment on his parents' arrest.

In January, he became chief deputy under George. Before that, he worked for TJ Donovan, who is currently Vermont's attorney general.

Jiron is considered a rising star in the state attorney's office. He has handled a number of high-profile criminal prosecutions in Vermont.

He prosecuted Brian Rooney for the 2006 abduction, rape, and murder of a 21-year-old college student, Michelle Gardner-Quinn.

Jiron also handled the prosecution of Christopher Williams, who killed two people in Essex, Vermont after going on a shooting spree in 2006.The gunman in the Las Vegas mass shooting was armed with 23 AR-style weapons, 14 of them fitted with 'bump stocks' that allowed them to mimic fully automatic fire, spraying thousands of rounds into a crowd of concertgoers.

The devices were little-known before they were used in the October 1 rampage that killed 58 people and left 851 injured at the Route 91 Harvest music festival on the Las Vegas Strip , making it the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history.

And in the immediate aftermath, there were calls from a wide spectrum of lawmakers and advocates to have the sale and possession of bump stocks banned.

Most notably, President Donald Trump vowed to ban the devices, which attach to the stock end of an AR-style firearm, greatly increasing the rate of fire so it mimics a fully automatic long gun.

Progress report: A year after the October 1 mass shooting in Las Vegas, bump stocks (pictured) have been banned by 10 states and three cities

Mass murderer Stephen Paddock used 23 AR-style weapons, 14 of them fitted with 'bump stocks' (some pictured inside his hotel room) to carry out deadliest shooting in US history

The rampage killed 58 people and left 851 injured at the Route 91 Harvest music festival on the Las Vegas Strip (pictured)

Back in 2010, the government determined that bump stocks couldn't be regulated unless Congress changed the law.

Trump in March tweeted: 'Obama Administration legalized bump stocks. BAD IDEA. As I promised, today the Department of Justice will issue the rule banning BUMP STOCKS with a mandated comment period.'

The US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives this spring did seek public comment on a proposal to reclassify bump stocks, but no action has been taken.

Paddock, 64, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound inside his MGM hotel room after firing more than 1,000 rounds

But as with many restrictions on firearms in recent years, more action has taken place at the state level than by the federal government.

Ten states and three cities, among them New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland, Denver and Columbia, South Carolina, have enacted bans on the devices.

California made 'multi-burst trigger activators,' which include bump stocks, illegal in 1990.

In Colorado, a state rocked by the 1999 Columbine High School and 2012 Aurora theater mass shootings, lawmakers in the divided Legislature refused to compromise.

The Democratic-controlled House passed bills to ban bump stocks and enact a red flag law that had the support of many police officers and prosecutors. But the Republican-controlled Senate quickly assigned those to a "kill' committee and defeated them.

TIMELINE OF KEY EVENTS INVOLVING BUMP STOCKS IN US: Notable events in the US involving bump stocks, the device used in last year's Las Vegas massacre to allow guns to fire like fully automatic firearms: 1990: California bans 'multi-burst trigger activators,' which include bump stocks. Nov. 3, 2017: Massachusetts enacts ban on bump stocks. Dec. 19: Columbia, South Carolina, enacts ban. Jan. 15, 2018: New Jersey ban signed into law. Jan. 22: Denver City Council bans bump stocks. March 6, 2018: Washington state enacts ban. March 9: Florida enacts ban along with host of other gun-control measures. March 23: President Donald Trump tweets: 'Obama Administration legalized bump stocks. BAD IDEA. As I promised, today the Department of Justice will issue the rule banning BUMP STOCKS with a mandated comment period.' March 26: Lincoln, Nebraska, enacts ban. March 29: The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives seeks public comments on a proposed change to federal regulations on bump stocks. April 11: Vermont enacts ban. April 18: Slide Force Solutions, the leading manufacturer of bump stocks, announces it is shuttering its business and will stop taking orders as of May 20. April 24: Maryland enacts ban. May 31: Connecticut enacts ban. June 1: Rhode Island enacts ban. June 14: Delaware enacts ban. June 27: The comment period on the proposed ATF rule change closes. July 9: Hawaii enacts ban. July 27: RW Arms, a Texas-based company, announces it will start selling the leftover stock of bump stocks from Slide Force Solutions. Advertisement

'To me, the Second Amendment and individual rights demand the highest respect. That's the basis of where I come from,' said Republican Sen. Tim Neville, one of the capitol's most ardent gun rights activists.

In Florida, where the February shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School killed 14 students and three staff members Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican, signed a bill into law banning bump stocks, raising the gun buying age to 21, imposing a three-day waiting period for purchases and authorizing police to seek court orders seizing guns from individuals who are deemed threats to themselves and others.

Slide Fire Solutions, America's largest bump stock manufacturer, closed its website in June and stopped taking orders. However, its remaining stock of the devices is now being sold by another company, RW Arms, based in Fort Worth, Texas.

Gun owners and enthusiasts frequently call bump stocks a novelty item. Gun dealers said very few of the devices were sold before the Las Vegas shooting, but demand soared afterward amid concern they might be banned.President Donald Trump has once again accused Democrats of using a 'con game' to try scuttling Brett Kavanaughs Supreme Court nomination.

The president tweeted late Tuesday: 'The Democrats are playing a high level CON GAME in their vicious effort to destroy a fine person.

'It is called the politics of destruction. Behind the scene the Dems are laughing.

'Pray for Brett Kavanaugh and his family!'

Trump also tweeted a quote by South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, who told Fox News that certain members of the FBI were out to 'destroy' the president.

'These law enforcement people took the law into their own hands when it came to President Trump,' Graham said.

Earlier on Tuesday, Trump also disparaged the account of the second woman accusing Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct, saying she herself conceded she was 'totally inebriated and all messed up.'

President Donald Trump has once again accused Democrats of using a 'con game' to try scuttling Brett Kavanaughs Supreme Court nomination

Trump also tweeted a quote from Senator Lindsey Graham, though it is not clear what the quote was referring to

Trumps remarks came as Republicans worked to shore up support for the beleaguered Kavanaugh, whose march toward Senate confirmation has been rocked by allegations of decades-old sexual improprieties from two women.

On Friday, Trump had mocked claims by Christine Blasey Ford, Kavanaughs chief accuser, of a sexual assault at a 1980s high school party, tweeting that she would have reported the incident to police if it was 'as bad as she says.'

While other Republicans have sought to undermine the womens accounts, Trump has gone further.

Most Republican politicians have been less acidic in challenging the womens credibility, mindful of competitive November elections in which many female voters are already expected to abandon Republican candidates because of hostility toward Trump.

In remarks to reporters at the United Nations, Trump took aim at Deborah Ramirez, Kavanaughs second accuser.

She told The New Yorker magazine that at a party both attended as Yale freshmen in the 1980s, a drunken Kavanaugh placed his penis in front of her and caused her to involuntarily touch it.

Earlier on Tuesday, Trump also disparaged the account of the second woman accusing Kavanaugh (seen above on September 5) of sexual misconduct, saying she herself conceded she was 'totally inebriated and all messed up'

She has said she was inebriated as well and has admitted to holes in her memory of some details.

'She said, well it might not be him, and there were gaps, and she was totally inebriated and all messed up,' Trump told reporters.

'She doesnt know it was him but it might have been him and "Oh gee lets not make him a Supreme Court judge because of that".'

'This is a con game being played by the Democrats.'

Trump called Kavanaugh 'just a wonderful human being' and suggested that Democrats were skeptical of Ramirez, saying: 'They dont believe it themselves.'

On Friday, Trump had mocked claims by Christine Blasey Ford (above), Kavanaughs chief accuser, of a sexual assault at a 1980s high school party, tweeting that she would have reported the incident to police if it was 'as bad as she says'

In remarks to reporters at the United Nations, Trump took aim at Deborah Ramirez, Kavanaughs second accuser (above). She told The New Yorker magazine that at a party both attended as Yale freshmen in the 1980s, a drunken Kavanaugh placed his penis in front of her

He said rejecting Kavanaugh would be 'a horrible insult' and 'a very dangerous game' for the US.

Trump spoke two days before the Senate Judiciary Committee plans a pivotal, election-season hearing at which both Kavanaugh and his chief accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, are due to testify separately.

That session, certain to be must-watch television for the nation, looms as a do-or-die wild card for Kavanaugh in which a split-second facial expression, a tear or a choice of words by either witness could prove decisive.

Ford has said Kavanaugh tried removing her clothes and covered her mouth to prevent screams after he pinned her on a bed during a high school party.

Kavanaugh, 53, a judge on the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals, has denied both womens stories.

In a Fox News interview Monday night, Kavanaugh said he would not let 'false accusations drive me out of this process.'

Agreeing to a television interview was an extraordinary step for a high court nominee.

Kavanaugh said on the conservative-friendly Fox News Channel that he was not questioning that Ford, his initial accuser, may have been sexually assaulted in her life.

But he added: 'What I know is Ive never sexually assaulted anyone,' a remarkable assertion for a nominee to the nations highest court.Meghan Markle has no intention of meeting with her half-sister Samantha when she comes to the UK, her friend has revealed to DailyMailTV.

Samantha's manager announced the 53-year-old would be travelling to the UK this week in hopes of having a talk with Meghan to discuss the health of their father Thomas Markle.

But the Duchess of Sussex has no plans to see her 'very jealous' older sister, especially given Samantha's frequent Twitter tirades against her and her new royal family members.

A friend of Meghan's told DailyMailTV: 'There is not a chance in hell that Meghan is going to lower herself and meet with her half sister.

'Samantha is kidding herself if she thinks there is any possibility of getting together with Meghan, or anyone from the Royal family for that matter.'

Meghan Markle has no intentions of meeting with her half-sister Samantha when she travels to the UK, her friend has exclusively revealed DailyMailTV

Samantha's manager (pictured together) announced on Monday the 53-year-old would be travelling to the UK this week in hopes of having a talk with Meghan to discuss the health of their father Thomas Markle

But the Duchess of Sussex has no plans to see her 'very jealous' older sister (pictured together in 2008), especially given Samantha's frequent Twitter tirades against her and her new royal family members

She added: 'Meghan and Samantha are not close in the slightest. They never have been and it's doubtful they ever will be, especially after all of Samantha's name-calling and bullying.'

Samantha frequently lashes out at Meghan and her husband Prince Harry, insulting her with petty names, calling her a 'ducha**', and going as far as saying if their father Thomas dies, it will be because of her.

Earlier this month, Samantha went on an extraordinary Twitter rant, proclaiming Meghan 'wasn't much different than Trump'.

She wrote: '[He] thinks he can shoot someone and still get votes. She can dump an entire family both sides and a best friend of 30 years and ignore it and be popular. Sad.'

The friend explained that Meghan has long been dealing with Samantha who is 'very jealous' and 'always kept tabs on how much their father spent on her'.

She said: 'Samantha has always tried to drive a wedge between Meghan and her father, and this is no exception. It's no surprise that Meghan doesn't have a relationship with her.

'And as far as her dad's health is concerned, Meghan is not worried.

'Her mom would be the first to know if there was some serious health issue with her dad, and she would tell Meghan.'

Samantha is claiming she needs to see Meghan in order to talk about their father Thomas Markle's health. The royal's friend said: 'Meghan is not worried because there is nothing to be worried about. Her mom would be the first to know if there was some serious health issue'

Meghan is busy securing and decorating a place for her mother Doria Ragland, 62, (pictured with her daughter and Prince Harry last Thursday in London) for when she has extended stays in England, deciding between a penthouse in Kensington and a home in Hampstead

In the days leading up to Meghan's wedding to Harry in May, it was revealed Thomas Markle had been staging paparazzi shots of himself, with the photos selling for more than $100,000.

After the story was exposed, Thomas claims he was taken to a hospital due to heart problems and he would not be able to attend his daughter's wedding.

Samantha later said she had encouraged her father to take part in the fake photos, and that she sees no problem in 'cashing in' on Meghan and the Royal family.

But despite her looming visit to the UK, which is happening 'very soon' according to Samantha, Meghan has other things to worry about, the friend said.

The 37-year-old is currently busy finding a place for her mother Doria Ragland, 63, to live when she has long visits to England.

The friend revealed: 'They've narrowed it down between a luxury penthouse in Kensington and a home in Hampstead, an area that Meghan absolutely adores.

'Either way, she plans on doing all of the decorating. This is her way of thanking her mom.

'Plus she loves decorating, it's a passion. And by the time she's done, her mom's home will look like a page out of Architectural Digest.

'She's really excited for her mom to eventually stay for months at a time.'

Meghan returned to Toronto last month to visit dog Bogart, who she had to leave behind because it was deemed the pet was to old to travel to London. The friend said: 'She'll continue to visit him on an ongoing basis. Not as much as she would like, but as often as she can'

The friend continued: 'Doria will keep her home in LA. When she travels, a close friend house sits and takes care of the dogs, so she's covered. She doesn't have to worry when she goes for extended visits.'

Meghan and her mother are both 'huge dog lovers', the friend said.

It was reported earlier this month that Meghan and Harry were believed to have named their new black Labrador 'Oz'.

It is unclear what the significance of their new dog's name is, although the couple are due to visit Australia in October, to coincide with the opening of the Invictus Games in Sydney.

Meghan already has a rescue dog named Guy, who was flown over from Toronto to London last November, following her engagement to Harry.

Meghan deemed her other rescue dog, Bogart, too old to make the journey from Canada, with the pooch being looked after by friends.

The royal's friend said: 'When Meghan went to Toronto last month, it was to visit her dog Bogart.

'She keeps in touch via FaceTime and gets updates from her friends that are now his new parents. Of course, she misses him terribly.

'She'll continue to visit him on an ongoing basis. Not as much as she would like, but as often as she can.'Feezan Choudhary is Britain's biggest ever bank transfer fraudster

They called him 'The Voice', and Feezan Choudhary certainly knew how to profit from his gift of the gab.

By the age of 24, the son of Pakistani immigrants from Pollokshields, a diverse and relatively affluent neighbourhood of Glasgow, had already acquired all the trappings of turbo-fuelled wealth.

A natural show-off with a social media habit, he wasn't afraid to flaunt them, either.

There was, for example, the fleet of supercars, including a Bentley, a Range Rover, a Rolls-Royce and a lime-green Lamborghini. Plus the global property portfolio, which included rental flats in Glasgow and Motherwell along with swanky holiday residences in Dubai and Lahore.

On Instagram, where he posed as a hot-shot music producer, 6ft 2in Choudhary cut a remarkable figure, dripping with gold jewellery (including a 48,000 Rolex watch) as he posted images of luxury hotel rooms and trips to favoured stores, including Harrods, where he once spent 98,500 in a single visit and carried such large wads of cash that staff mistook him for a celebrity.

His vanity knew no bounds. During a well-chronicled trip to the Middle East, he even paid for a professional photoshoot in which he stood atop a sand-dune, in gold-rimmed sunglasses and baroque-patterned Versace trousers, accompanied by a tiger.

Another time, to celebrate his engagement, he hired Bollywood star Bilal Saeed to headline at a glittering bash in Lahore. A film crew was hired to document proceedings, using aerial cameras mounted on a drone to capture him slipping a diamond ring on the finger of his dazzling fiancee Ayesha Nadeem.

Guests were then ferried around in a fleet of Porsche Cayenne SUVs, kept spick and span by Choudhary's favourite team of car valeters who had been flown 8,000 miles from Glasgow to Pakistan for the weekend.

Extravagant: Feezan Choudharys social media posts included a photoshoot with a tiger

Observers of these (and other) preposterous displays of conspicuous consumption often wondered what was fuelling this lifestyle: the suspiciously young multi-millionaire did not, after all, boast any obvious source of legitimate wealth.

As it eventually transpired, they were right to smell a rat. For Feezan Hameed Choudhary was subsequently exposed as a criminal mastermind: Britain's biggest ever bank transfer fraudster. As the leader of an audacious gang, with members across the UK, in just two-and-a-half years he managed to preside over the theft of an astonishing 113million from 750 hapless victims.

Choudhary created what police later described as a 'Monday-Friday, 9-5 operation' which saw them working in well-orchestrated teams that were 'smashing victims all day, every day, and running their criminal business like a proper business'. At their height, they were stealing 2million a week.

Choudhary's career, which ended when he was jailed in 2016, offers a chilling insight into not just the slick modus operandi of Britain's growing army of financial scammers, but also the myriad failures of major banks and law-enforcement agencies that allow them to get away with it.

As yesterday's Mail revealed, transfer fraud has roughly doubled in the past year alone, with bank customers now losing up to 1million daily.

A mere 20 per cent of the stolen money is being recovered, while shocking figures from Which? show that just one in every 25 cases reported to Action Fraud, the police's under-resourced fraud and cyber-crime centre, are solved.

In another social media picture, he flaunted a Rolex watch and a lime-green Lamborghini

The true extent of this spiralling problem is likely to be even worse, since large numbers of victims are thought to be too embarrassed to report the crimes in the first place.

Against this sorry backdrop, two precious resources allowed Choudhary to build his ill-gotten fortune.

Firstly, he controlled a network of corrupt junior bank staff who were prepared to steal statements on his behalf. And secondly, he developed a priceless ability to sweet-talk the ordinary men and women named on those statements into revealing their internet banking details over the telephone.

Clever and highly articulate, Choudhary used a mixture of Scottish, Welsh and cut-glass English accents when calling victims, posing as a member of their bank's fraud department who had spotted suspicious activity on their accounts.

To convince them he was genuine, he'd quote information gleaned from their private bank statements, detailing recent transactions, account balances and even the name of their relationship manager at their local branch.

He'd originally obtained those statements via crooked employees at a range of high street banks, who were paid 250 for each one they passed to him. Three of them, who worked for Lloyds, were subsequently convicted.

Once Choudhary had gained a victim's trust  and with it the details required to access their accounts online  he'd keep them talking while a team of accomplices transferred large sums of money to a network of hundreds of UK accounts his gang controlled.

Suspiciously the young multi-millionaire did not boast any obvious source of legitimate wealth

These accounts, where the stolen money was deposited, were known as 'mule' accounts.

Some of them had been opened under fake names by the corrupt bank staff (again for a small fee). Others had been purchased from overseas students who'd finished studying at UK universities and had no further need for their British current accounts.

Soon after the stolen money landed, it was then either withdrawn from UK cashpoints in small tranches or transferred on to accounts in Dubai and Pakistan where large volumes of cash could be more easily laundered.

The more times Choudhary carried out his scam, the more audacious his methods became.

At one point he even installed a team of fraudsters in an upmarket room inside a 1,000-a-night suite at the May Fair Hotel in London.

Their ranks included an expert in telecoms 'spoofing'  a technique that allows fraudsters to display false caller ID numbers, to convince victims they were genuinely being contacted by their bank. The team also included an IT professional who made sure the computers they used were untraceable.

Together they worked for days at a time, and each time they completed a 'hit' they would destroy their pre-paid phone SIM cards and internet dongles (small devices that plug into a computer's USB port and link it to the web).

One of the detectives who investigated the gang said: 'He got better and better, and more and more confident. He's got a very Scottish accent, but for the calls he put on a very soothing, professional English accent. He's a very good career criminal, but the way he preyed on his victims was horrendous. It's all down to pure greed. All the time he was just thinking about the money, not about the lives he was affecting and, in some cases, ruining.'

At one point he even installed a team of fraudsters in an upmarket room inside a 1,000-a-night suite at the May Fair Hotel in London

And Choudhary undoubtedly did ruin lives. His gang largely targeted independent tradesmen and small business owners, on the grounds that up to 100,000 could be withdrawn at a time from corporate accounts without automatically triggering bank security checks (for private accounts, the limit is smaller). Several of the companies were bankrupted, and one firm of solicitors lost more than 2million. One tradesman committed suicide after falling for the scam.

Among Choudhary's victims was entrepreneur Des Dillon, who runs a small property company. 'He told me someone in Aberdeen had got access to a [handheld] card reader and was attempting to use it to get into my account,' Mr Dillon recalled.

'I believed it because I'd ordered a new card reader and assumed it had been misappropriated. He was giving the impression it was a race against time to lock this person out. He was just so friendly, so talented, saying things like, 'I'm here to protect your interests.' '

Mr Dillon eventually lost 115,000. 'I feel a total idiot but I was let down by the bank's systems,' he added. 'The attitude at NatWest was just, 'Tough luck. You were the one that was conned.' '

While no two criminal gangs are identical, Feezan Choudhary and his team have several key features in common with other crooks who are profiting from Britain's bank fraud epidemic. Police sources say almost every leader of the gangs currently active are believed to have personal links to Pakistan, a lightly regulated country where cash can be easily laundered, but which is nonetheless part of the IBAN (international banking) network, meaning money can be wired there at the drop of a hat.

In July, for example, another British Pakistani, Muhammed Azhar, was jailed for running a 1.8million scam from a house in north-west London. He led the technical side of the operation while accomplice Alexander Wood, a well-spoken conman with a previous conviction for posing as the Duke of Marlborough to rip off luxury hotels, was the front-man who actually telephoned victims.

A senior officer with knowledge of that case estimates there are currently 'between three and five' active gangs who are responsible for stealing the vast majority of the 1million a day being lost to the crime in the UK.

'At the top end, they are almost all being run by British Pakistanis. The gangs have links between each other, and we believe they share the same laundering networks and in some cases are being taught how to carry out the crime by the same individuals,' he says.

'They tend not to be involved in other forms of crime, because this one is so lucrative and so low risk. The technical things you need to know are pretty easy to find out, and provided one or two members of your gang have the chat, which not everyone can master, you are away.'

Bringing them down would be 'perfectly possible', he adds, provided political will was mustered to target them.

Feezan Choudhary was brought to justice after a team from Falcon Taskforce, Scotland Yard's Fraud And Linked Crime Online Taskforce, were instructed to focus on the rising transfer fraud epidemic. They spent six months investigating his gang, with support from 16 police forces.

When he was eventually arrested, police found more than 120,000 in cash, plus gold bars and a money launderer's 'toolkit' containing more than 100 bank cards, complete with PINs, plus a selection of card readers, SIM cards, mobile phones and laptops. Of the 113million he stole, around 47million was recovered. Nineteen members of his gang were convicted, getting a total of 39 years in prison, while Choudhary himself got 11 years.

Yet despite this success, police cuts meant that Falcon Taskforce was disbanded not long after the trial was completed in late 2016.

Scandalously, no law-enforcement agency is currently being given resources to carry out similar investigations, which require extensive surveillance work.

So it goes that, while the fraudster they called 'The Voice' languishes behind bars, a host of equally prolific crooks continue plying their evil trade with virtual impunity.A hilarious picture of a man desperately shouting into a woman's ear in a night club as she blankly stares ahead looking bored has gone viral.

The man in the picture, Patrick Ritchie, who appears to be in his late teens or early twenties, is wearing a red checkered shirt and is leaning over to shout something in his friend Lucia Gorman's ear.

While the pair aren't sure of what was boring Lucia to tears, she says her pal always talks rubbish so 'it could have been anything'.

The snap was taken at Milk Tuesday at Bourbon nightclub in Edinburgh earlier this month.

Speaking to Capital Radio Patrick admitted neither he nor his friend could remember the fateful words he was shouting in her ear.

He said: 'She's one of my pals from school so she's probably fed up. She looks like the most bored woman in the world.'

Mr Ritchie said it was 'weird' seeing an image of himself re-tweeted as far away as Australia.

Lucia, who was wearing a red dress and appeared to be extremely unimpressed with the conversation, told Capital: 'I don't remember (what he was saying). Patrick always talks rubbish so it could have been anything.'

Lucia added: 'Someone sent me the tweet and it had 40 likes at the time and I was like 'this is funny', and at the end of the day it had 14,000.'

His witty observation has since been liked 19,000 times and shared more than 11,000.

Commenting on the nightclub's Facebook page, user Alex Hall branded the image the 'the most relatable nightclub photo in the history of art'.

Patrick Ritchie and Lucia Gorman were caught on camera on a Milk Tuesday at Bourbon nightclub in Edinburgh earlier this month

The young man and woman in the picture have revealed themselves as Patrick Ritchie (left) and Lucia Gorman (right). They are old school friends and can't remember the fateful words said on the night out in Edinburgh

Alex Hall's witty observation on the picture of Mr Ritchie and Ms Gorman went viral

The image has been edited online to create a side-splitting collection of memes.

Matt Cleland commented saying he thinks Mr Ritchie was asking about the furry accessory his friend Miss Gorman had in her hand.

He thinks the man is saying: 'How'd they let you in wae a hedgehog?'

Another person joked he was imparting some scientific knowledge on her, writing: 'And that's why Einstein's theory of general relativity is flawed'.

On Twitter the image has had more than 44,000 likes and 9,000 re-tweets.Virginia is suspending a new policy that would have barred women who visit inmates at state prisons from wearing tampons or a menstrual cup.

Secretary of Public and Homeland Security Safety Brian Moran said he has ordered an 'immediate suspension until further review.'

State prison officials recently announced they were set to implement the policy next month as a way to prevent contraband from being smuggled into prisons.

Department of Corrections spokeswoman Lisa Kinney previously said the agency planned to offer pads to women who were wearing tampons or using a cup while visiting a prison.

Visitors to Virginia's state prisons were set to face a ban on wearing tampons or menstrual cups into the facility

Inmate advocates sharply criticized the policy, saying it violates the privacy rights of female visitors.

Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union Virginia, Claire Gastanaga, called for the policy to be 'rescinded permanently'.

'Helping people who are housed in jail or prison stay connected to friends, families, and communities is critical to rehabilitation and eventual, successful re-entry to society,' she wrote on Twitter.

'Any policy that discourages visitors is, therefore, one that should be subject to the most exacting and careful review.'

The ban was due to come into effect next week, but Secretary of Public and Homeland Security Safety Brian Moran said he has suspended the policy after public outcry

Moran says he understands the concerns about contraband but adds a more 'thorough review' of the tampon ban is needed.

'Having been recently informed of a recent Virginia Department of Corrections (DOC) visitation policy, I have ordered its immediate suspension until further review,' he said.

'I understand DOC's precautionary steps to detect the rising threat of contraband, overdoses and even deaths among our offender population. A number of concerns have been raised about the new procedure.

'Though the policy has not taken effect and is scheduled for October 6, I feel it appropriate to immediately suspend the newly developed policy until a more thorough review of its implementation and potential consequences are considered.'A woman was killed and three people were injured yesterday when the Moroccan navy opened fire at a speedboat with illegal migrants onboard, it emerged today.

The boat's Spanish driver refused an order to stop before the navy fired off Morocco's territorial waters, a government official said.

The woman died of her injuries in hospital.

A woman was killed and three people were injured yesterday when the Moroccan navy opened fire at a speedboat with illegal migrants onboard, it emerged today (stock image)

Morocco became the main launchpad for Europe-bound migrants in July after Italy took a tougher line and EU aid to the Libyan coastguard stemmed flows from Libya.

More than 38,852 people have crossed into Spain up to mid-September, UN data shows, at least twice as many as the same period of 2017.

So far this year, Moroccan officials said they foiled more than 54,000 crossing attempts to Europe. Some 13 percent of those would-be migrants are Moroccans while the rest come from other African countries.

It comes as French European Affairs Minister Nathalie Loiseau said Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini was behaving 'like Pontius Pilate,' the Roman official who condemned Jesus Christ to death, over his position on migrants.

Migrants stand at platform as they wait to leave the temporary centre for immigrants and asylum seekers in Spain

Loiseau made the comments on French radio RTL as she discussed the situation regarding the Mediterranean rescue ship Aquarius.

France, Portugal, Spain and Germany agreed on Tuesday to take in migrants from the rescue ship sailing off the coast of Malta, after Italy refused to let the vessel dock.

'Mr Salvini today, he's like Pontius Pilate. It's obscene,' Loiseau told RTL radio.

Far-right leader Salvini, who is also Italy's Deputy Prime Minister, has taken a tough line on the issue of immigrants arriving in Italy from Africa and the Middle East.

Earlier this month, he likened African immigrants to slaves at a European conference.

A migrant is comforted by friends as she leaves the temporary centre for immigrants and asylum seekers in the Spanish enclave of Melilla

Spain will take 15 of the passengers from the ship while Portugal had said it would take 10 of the migrants.

They have been given a new home in Fundao, a small Portuguese town about 160 miles north of the capital Lisbon with 30,000 inhabitants.

The group of 19 migrants from Eritrea, Nigeria, Yemen and Sudan had arrived in the town and would now go through an employment course, involving classes in Portuguese.

'The arrival of this group of migrants is a result of Portugal's commitment to solidarity and European cooperation on migrants,' a government statement said.Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Tuesday hosted a meeting with top state law enforcement officials to discuss the possibility of investigating tech giants like Google and Facebook over privacy and anti-trust concerns.

The hour-long 'listening session' at the US State Department in Washington DC concluded without a decision on whether to launch joint probes into Big Tech.

The closed-door gathering was scheduled earlier this month to discuss whether tech companies are 'stifling the free exchange of ideas' and examine whether they 'may be hurting competition.'

But California Attorney General Xavier Becerra says the meeting mainly focused on consumer protection and data privacy issues.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Tuesday hosted a meeting with 14 top law enforcement officials to talk user privacy and anti-trust concerns related to Big Tech

Attorneys general from Alabama, California, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Nebraska, Tennessee, Utah and DC attended. Five other states sent senior deputies.

The group made no immediate plans to file a case or open any investigation, Becerra later confirmed.

The discussion had been expected to focus on companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google owner Alphabet Inc, which have been accused by some conservatives of seeking to exclude their ideas.

Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood said that a 'minute' portion of the meeting was focused on the issue of potential, online political bias.

Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson said talks among the federal and state law enforcers were 'at the initial stage,' and had been triggered by a presentation about collection of consumer data which was given at a June meeting of the National Association of Attorneys General.

Hood, whose office has already sued Google, said that he would like to see private, consumer information treated like intellectual property.

Facebook, Twitter and Google owner Alphabet Inc, which have been accused by some conservatives of seeking to exclude their ideas, had been expected to be the focus of the meeting

Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood (left) and California Attorney General Xavier Becerra (right) were among the 14 attendees of Tuesday's meeting at the US Justice Department

Becerra said that much of the discussion focused on grappling with how best to use a slow-adapting legal system to address issues related to data use, sale and collection, most of which is invisible to the ordinary consumer.

'There are growing concerns that the sector is moving into spaces that most people couldnt have thought of or imagined and trying to understand what that means. And so whether or not there is a definition within our current legal architecture that fits or embraces what is going on these days is part of the question,' said Becerra

The Justice Department described the meeting as 'productive' and said it will review the 'insight' shared by the attorneys general and expects conversations on the topic to continue.

Tuesday's meeting took place on the eve of a congressional hearing on privacy practices at Internet and telecommunication companies.

Executives from Google, Amazon, Twitter, Apple and AT&T were asked at the Senate hearing Wednesday if they'd support federal privacy protections that pre-empted 'inconsistent' state laws.

All said 'yes,' with a few qualifications. Bud Tribble, Apple's vice president of software technology, said the bar would have to be 'high enough in the federal legislation' to provide meaningful consumer protections.

The Senate Commerce Committee is considering a new national privacy law.Australia's first public smoking ban has been slammed online as 'ridiculous', 'unfair' and 'unenforceable' by smokers and non-smokers alike.

Mayor Jilly Gibson made the recommendation to North Sydney Council who unanimously voted for the ban earlier this week.

The ban would stop smokers from lighting up in the street, making North Sydney the first council in the country to create a smoke-free district.

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Mayor Jilly Gibson (pictured) made the recommendation to North Sydney Council who unanimously voted for the ban earlier this week

Speaking to the Today Show, the Mayor said that it was 'unreasonable' for people to smoke on Sydney's streets.

When asked where people that usually smoke outside their office buildings are now supposed to go, the Mayor said: 'That's not really Council's problem.'

Cr Gibson said that she was hoping for a 75 per cent compliance rate with the ban, adding that it would also benefit the environment.

Poll Do you think smoking should be banned on public streets? Yes No Indifferent Do you think smoking should be banned on public streets? Yes 50 votes

No 306 votes

Indifferent 10 votes Now share your opinion





'It would be great not to have so many cigarette butts ending up in our harbour,' she said.

'It's time smokers started taking responsibility for their behaviour.'

Many have taken to social media to vent their frustration at the proposal, believing that the Mayor has more pressing things to worry about.

Sydney's drug scene was mentioned by several, including one who said the Council should be more concerned about the 'ICE epidemic and the crime caused by it'.

'How about working on getting crack off the streets first!' one exclaimed.

'I'd rather see a smoker walk down the street than a drunken loud mouth or a meth head waiting to rob you,' added another.

And it's not just smokers who are concerned by the ban, with many non-smokers also rejecting the proposal.

'I don't smoke but I know plenty of people that do and this isn't fair, let them smoke, they're not doing any harm,' one person said.

Others pointed to different issues they believed the Council should be focusing on

Sydney's drug scene was mentioned by several, including one who said: 'How about working on getting the crack off the streets first!'

Plenty of ex-smokers also gave their opinion, stating that banning smoking won't help people to quit.

'I'm an ex-smoker and it took me 5 years and a lot of support from my doctor for me to be able to quit,' one person wrote on Facebook.

'When are people going to realise it's hard to quit and it's addictive, taking away the places they can smoke in isn't going to make them stop it's just going to upset them and make them feel more attacked.'

Others have said the ban has reached a new level of 'ridiculous', and questioned whether food and drink bans will be next.

Many non-smokers also rejected the proposal saying 'they're not doing any harm'

Plenty of ex-smokers also gave their opinion, saying that the ban won't help people to quit

'...so what's next? You can no longer eat food whilst walking to and from work? MADNESS!' they said.

Mayor Gibson has said that the ban would work by 'goodwill'.

'We're not going to hand out fines,' she said.

But one person commented that this meant the ruling is therefore 'unenforceable and they know it'.

'Council rangers do not have the right to detain anyone, so one can just walk away from them without giving any particulars,' they wrote.

The ban would include all streets, plazas, parks, and outdoor restaurant and cafe seating.

'No one should be forced to inhale passive smoke, but also for schoolchildren, they should not have to see people standing around smoking,' the Mayor said.

'The less they see, the less they are influenced.'

The ban would include all streets, plazas, parks, and outdoor restaurant and cafe seating (stock image)

Regarding electronic cigarettes, the Mayor said she thinks they would fall into the same category although 'we haven't really thought about it yet.'

Cr Gibson said that the North Sydney CBD could become smoke free by early next year if community consultations are completed on schedule by Christmas.

Dominique Bergel-Grant, president of the North Sydney Chamber of Commerce, said the organisation welcomed the move to ban smoking in an area that sees an influx of 46,000 workers during the week.

In June 2016, Sydney Council permanently banned smoking in Martin Place following a 12 month trial and in September the same year added Pitt Street Mall as a smoke free zone.

The Federal Government increased the price of cigarettes in this year's budget, with each pack now costing almost $40.

The 12.5 per cent tobacco excise hike signals the government has no intention of going easy on smokers' wallets in a country that is already the most expensive place to buy cigarettes in the world.23,000 Fatima Rosary Rallies on October 13th will be Largest in History

Contact: Robert Ritchie, America Needs Fatima, 866-584-6012, reritchie@gmail.com



ROSSVILLE, Kan., Sept. 26, 2018 /Standard Newswire/ -- Twenty three thousand captains are gearing up to lead individual prayer rallies nationwide to commemorate the Miracle of the Sun and Our Lady of Fatima's urgent message of conversion in the annual Public Square Rosary Crusade on Saturday, October 13, at noon.



It will be the largest network of public rosary praying in history, and it is sponsored by America Needs Fatima.



Since 2007, America Needs Fatima has organized annual rosary rallies. But in 2018, the rallies have been received with special hope.



National rosary rally coordinator, Francis Slobodnik, said:



"Deep down, people feel that we cannot keep on this path of sin and chaos. They sense the need for a pathway back to God and Our Lady on both a personal and national level. That is why 23,000 captains agreed to organize individual rallies in their own towns. This gives them a sense of hope and accomplishment -- real hope for America, because there is no human solution to the breakdown in moral standards.



"Our biggest challenge is not recruiting new captains, but rather finding the time to speak with all the people who call in and express interest."



Each rally captain received a beautiful long banner to display at their rally. The message on the banner reads:

"PRAY THE ROSARY. As human efforts fail to solve America's key problems, we turn to God, through His Holy Mother, asking His urgent help."

"So many people are turning to the Fatima message and especially the Rosary for hope because it offers a sure remedy to our wild and godless culture," Slobodnik continued. "Prayer, penance and true conversion are the answer to the personal problems, addictions and sufferings in so many lives."America Needs Fatima is a campaign of the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP), which is also distributing rosaries free of charge to Catholics and non-Catholics. To join a Rosary Rally or to receive a free rosary, call toll-free: 1-866-584-6012.For interviews:Contact: Robert RitchiePhone: 866-584-6012E-mail: reritchie@gmail.com Web site: www.ANF.orgSacked ABC boss Michelle Guthrie was pressured to fire a star presenter and worried about looking like an 'idiot' if she resigned from her $891,000-a-year job.

Months before she was removed by the ABC board, the former Google executive was sent an email by ABC chairman Justin Milne demanding she 'get rid' of chief economics correspondent and former Lateline presenter Emma Alberici to appease the government.

'They hate her,' Mr Milne said in the May email, which a source close to the ABC board gave to Fairfax Media.

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Sacked ABC boss Michelle Guthrie was pressured to fire a star presenter and worried about looking like an 'idiot' if she resigned from her $891,000-a-year job

ABC chairman Justin Milne had emailed Ms Guthrie demanding she 'get rid' of chief economics correspondent Emma Alberici (pictured) to appease the government

'We are tarred with her brush. I think it's simple. Get rid of her. We need to save the ABC - not Emma. There is no guarantee they [the Coalition] will lose the next election.'

This email was circulated to ABC board members last week, ahead of Ms Guthrie's sacking as managing director on Monday, halfway through her five-year appointment.

Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull had been angered at Ms Alberici's analysis slamming company tax cuts, a Liberal Party policy, and his Communications Minister Mitch Fifield lodged a formal complaint.

In April, her story was pulled from the ABC website and a subsequent review found it contained nine factual errors, including confusing revenue with profit and omitting how companies like Qantas had made a loss for several years.

Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull had been angered at Ms Alberici's analysis slamming company tax cuts, a Liberal Party policy

A fortnight before Ms Guthrie was dumped by the ABC board, she was summoned to meet Mr Milne and another board member Donny Walford after they had sent her a letter asking her to quit, The Australian has learned.

Ms Guthrie, however, refused to go, sources familiar with the situation told the newspaper.

'I don't want to resign, I don't think I have done anything wrong,' she reportedly said.

'I've brought all these people along for the transformation (of the ABC), we've gone through all the pain.'

ABC chairman Justin Milne (left) summoned Ms Guthrie (right) to a meeting in mid-September where he told her she needed to resign

Ms Guthrie has flagged taking legal action against the ABC.

As managing director, she sacked 200 middle managers to create a $50 million Great Ideas Grant, in which ABC divisions could bid for money.

She also sacked 20 capital-city journalists to instead hire new digital and regional reporters.

The ABC's former director of television David Anderson is filling in as the ABC's acting managing director until a permanent replacement is found.Vanessa George, 47, was jailed in 2009 for molesting and photographing up to 64 children while on duty at a Plymouth nursery

Britain's worst female paedophile hopes to be out of prison by Christmas after lodging a new application for her release with the Parole Board.

Vanessa George, 47, was jailed in 2009 for molesting and photographing up to 64 children while on duty at a Plymouth nursery. She tried to walk free in 2016 after serving her minimum sentence of seven years but had her appeal turned down.

Now the mother-of-two's legal team have lodged a new appeal with parole officials, who must decide if she still poses a danger of the public.

A decision is expected in November, raising the possibility she could be out by Christmas, reported The Sun.

George, who is at Bronzefield women's prison in Ashford, was given an indeterminate sentence, like that given to black cab rapist John Warboys.

The qualified special needs coordinator sexually assaulted babies and children aged around two at Little Teds Nursery, photographed the abuse, and sent the images to Facebook friend Colin Blanchard.

George was obsessed with the IT salesman, telling him she was his 'paedo whore mumma', and sending him eight pictures a day while on duty in an attempt to get him to propose to her. Blanchard also received an indeterminate sentence.

Now the mother-of-two's (pictured) legal team have lodged a new appeal with parole officials, who must decide if she still poses a danger of the public

When George had her last parole hearing, parents of the children who attended the nursery where she worked warned of the fear they had they would see her.

Her ex-husband Andrew George, who divorced his wife following the scandal, has begged the parole board not to free her.

Mr George said she never fully revealed the scale of her sex attacks on babies and toddlers in her care, or apologised to him and their daughters for the disgrace and embarrassment she caused them.

Judge Mr Justice Royce said at her sentencing: 'Parents have to live with the memory of you coming out with a smile on your face to hand them back their child.

'In fact you may have been doing unspeakable things to that child. Many of the parents still have to live with that uncertainty and distress.'

A spokesman for abuse victims' support group Survivors Matter said: 'The law states that a person must be rehabilitated before they are released. We argue that what is broken with Vanessa cannot be fixed in a seven-year period.'A grandfather raped his four-year-old granddaughter twice with his crime discovered only when the girl told her grandmother she had 'seen grandpa's doodle'.

The grey-haired, balding granddad from Queensland's Gold Coast was also found guilty of indecently touching the child on two other occasions.

The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, denied he hurt the girl or had intercourse with her.

The little girl did not tell her mum what had happened until a year later. The crime was discovered when she told her grandmother that she saw 'grandpa's doodle' (stock image)

In the two-day trial at the Southport District Court, a tape was played of a phone conversation between the man and his wife of 43 years.

'I was just touching her and playing and you know mucking around and grabbed her and stuff like that,' the man said, the Gold Coast Bulletin reported.

The sexual assault only came to light after the girl told her other grandmother she had 'seen grandpa's doodle'.

The little girl's mother then questioned her, but her daughter would not say what had happened until a year later.

The court heard the grandfather raped the four-year-old girl in a bathroom while caring for her, and had sexual contact with her on two other occasions.

The grandfather, dressed in jeans, showed no reaction when the jury of eight women and four men handed down their verdict yesterday.

They found him guilty of two counts of indecent treatment of a child and two counts of rape.

He was found not guilty of a third count of rape and will be sentenced next week.The reason why a piece of citrus fruit turned a shade of purple has been uncovered by scientists.

Brisbane mother-of-two Neti Moffitt was shocked earlier this month after she cut open an orange only for the fruit to turn a vibrant shade of purple.

Worried for her children, she contacted Queensland Health and after an anxious wait scientists have revealed the simple reaction which caused the colour change.

Queensland mother Neti Moffitt was confused after her citrus fruit changed colour earlier this month when it was cut open in her kitchen

The citrus fruit turned a shade of purple after it was cut open earlier this month - it was due to anthocyanins in the orange reacting with iron particles on a recently sharpened knife

Anthocyanins in the orange reacted with loose iron particles present on the sharpened knife Ms Moffitt used to cut the piece of fruit.

'It's an amazing outcome - I'm glad we could find an answer, I've always had a curious nature,' she told Daily Mail Australia.

'I also received a letter from the Queensland Department of Health thanking me for going the extra mile.

'It is such a rare thing to happen, I was keen to pursue it to end up with a definitive answer.'

She also has no plans to stop purchasing oranges for her family.

'We will still happily eat oranges.. we definitely won't be boycotting oranges from our local fruit and vegetable shop.'

Queensland mother Neti Moffitt (pictured above) was searching for answers after cutting up a piece of orange which then turned a few shades of purpleMexico has seized control of the city of Acapulco after accusing the local police force of having links to bloodthirsty cartels.

Heavily armed marines, soldiers and state police stormed the offices of Acapulco's regional force on Tuesday, seizing guns, bulletproof vests and radios.

Two commanders were arrested on suspicion of homicide, while all other officers were relieved of duty, placed under investigation, and sent for background checks.

Mexican marines, soldiers and state police seized control of the entire Acapulco police force on Tuesday, arresting two commanders and placing all other officers under investigation

The heavily-armed marines seized weapons, ammunition, bulletproof vests and radios before sending all local officers for background checks

State police and the military will perform local duties until further notice.

The state government said Tuesday it acted after the police failed to act to stem a persistent wave of killings and crime.

Acapulco is located in southern Guerrero state and was once a glamorous beach resort for Hollywood's rich and famous.

But it has fallen on hard times as entrenched drug crime has transformed it into one of the most murderous cities in the world.

Guerrero is a hub for opium poppy production and the scene of frequent violent clashes between warring drug cartels.

The two commanders have been arrested on suspicion of homicide while an unspecified number of officers are being probed over links to cartels

Acapulco, which used to be a holiday destination for Hollywood royalty, has since become one of the most violent cities anywhere in the world

There were over 30,000 murders across Mexico last year, the highest in records going back to 1997.

But 2018 looks set to break that record, with almost 16,000 murders reported in the first half of the year - up 16 per cent on last year.

Even amidst such a tide of bloodshed, Acapulco has managed to stand out as exceptionally bad.

With a murder rate of almost 107 per 100,000 people, it ranked as third worst in the world last year, beaten only by Los Cabos, also in Mexico, and Caracas, Venezuela.

In total 2,316 people were murdered in Acapulco last year, though police said they recorded 50 more murders in the first three months of this year than last, the BBC reports. In April alone 100 people were killed.Parents and campaigners have slammed Poundland for selling glow-in-the-dark toy knives and meat cleavers.

The budget retailer has brought out the 1 fake weapons in time for Halloween, including a realistic 6in knife and a plastic meat cleaver.

Patrick Green, of anti-knife group The Ben Kinsella Trust, said: 'I would ask the store to reconsider their policy on stocking these knives given the epidemic of knife crime across the country in the last three years.'

Plastic knives and cleavers Poundland is selling for 1 for Halloween

And mother of three Cheryl Andrews, 34, of Smethwick, Birmingham, said: 'Knife crime in Birmingham is probably at its worst it's been for years and you get Poundland glamorising knife crime for children? It's madness.'

Knife crime in the UK rose 22 per cent last year with nearly 40,000 cases recorded.

Earlier this year Poundland stopped selling real kitchen knives in all of its 59 West Midlands stores in response to the rise in stabbings in the region.

A Poundland spokesman said: 'By the end of this month we'll be the only high street retailer to completely remove kitchen knives from all of our stores nationwide.

Poundland in Bearwood, Birmingham, which is selling plastic knives for Halloween which have outraged community groups and parents following spike in recent stabbings in the area

'This, however, is just a glow-in-the-dark plastic toy for Halloween.'

Yesterday Poundland announced it would stop selling kitchen knives from all its stores by the end of next month as campaigners criticised the discount store for stocking toy blades and meat cleavers for Halloween.

The retailer said it would remove kitchen knives from all 755 stores by the end of October 'after thoughtful reflection about concerns raised by both communities and colleagues'.A dying former RAF officer says she is 'bloody angry' that her 'miracle' children won't inherit her 15,000-a-year pension because of harsh rules.

Samantha McConnell, 46, from Lincoln, only has only weeks to live after being diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer.

The single mother had her children Grace and Rory through IVF after two decades of service.

But since she has never married and had her first children three years after leaving the RAF, they won't get her pension, The Sun reports.

Ex-RAF officer Samantha McConnell (pictured with her children Grace and Rory) says she is 'bloody angry' that her 'miracle' children won't inherit her 15,000-a-year pension because of a technicality

'I am bloody angry,' she told the newspaper.

'To give all that service and then to be told my children won't get my pension is horrible.'

Tina Besell, a friend of Samantha's from the RAF, has set up a petition urging the Ministry of Defence to overturn the decision.

An MoD spokesman confirmed to The Sun that they are looking into the case as 'a matter of urgency.'

Samantha (pictured with her daughter Grace holding Rory after his birth, only has weeks to live after being diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer

Samantha, from Lincoln, quit the RAF after two decades of service to start a family

Samantha followed in the footsteps of her father when she joined the RAF.

She served in Afghanistan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Qatar before she quit her Flight Lieutenant role in 2010 to start a family.

Five-year-old Grace and Rory, two, were both conceived by IVF with the help of an anonymous sperm donor.

Samantha, pictured with Rory, gave birth to her children after undergoing IVF with the help of an anonymous sperm donor

But Samantha's cousin - who is already a mother-of-two - and cousin's husband will become their legal guardians after she dies.

She plans to spend her final days spending as much time as she can with them.

She was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer the most deadly form of the illness as it can remain undetected for years  last month.Teenage girls in the UK are some of the worst binge-drinkers in Europe, research shows.

England, Wales and Scotland were placed in three of the top six places in a drinking league table of 36 European nations for adolescent girls.

It comes despite binge-drinking rates among British youngsters dipping in recent years. Girls were also more likely to drink heavily than boys.

Denmark placed top of the table for binge-drinking among teenage girls, with 37.6 per cent of 15 year olds having admitted to being drunk twice. While Hungary scored the worst for boys - some 41.2 per cent of 15 year olds said they had been drunk at least twice in their lives

University of St Andrews scientists compared the alcohol intake of 15-year-old girls and boys between 2002 and 2014.

They found in most European nations, including Britain, the number of teenagers who had been drunk on at least two occasions had fallen.

But teenage girls in the UK remained some of the heaviest drinkers across the continent, according to the data featured in the World Health Organization report.

More than half of English teenage girls (54.7 per cent) had got drunk at least twice when figures were first recorded in 2002.

However, this dropped to 30.9 per cent in 2014, meaning England has only dropped one place from when it ranked fifth more than a decade ago.

Wales (33.6 per cent) has remained in second place - despite the percentage of 15 year old girls who admitted being drunk at least twice having almost halved.

But Scotland (32.9 per cent) has jumped up from fifth to fourth.

British girls are among the worst binge-drinkers in Europe, a study has shown (stock image)

BUT THE NUMBER OF TEENAGERS DRINKING HAS PLUMMETED Teenage drinking has declined more dramatically in England than many other European countries, new research shows. More than half (50.3 per cent) of teenage boys in England drank weekly in 2002, compared with just 10 per cent in 2014, the research found. Wales had the second largest drop in prevalence for boys, from 47.6 per cent to 11.8 per cent across the same period. More than two in five (43.1 per cent) girls in England drank alcohol weekly in 2002, falling to fewer than one in 10 (8.9 per cent) in 2014. This was the largest decline for girls across the 36 countries, followed by Scotland which saw prevalence drop from 41.1 per cent to 10.7 per cent. Advertisement

In contrast, only Scotland (32.4 per cent) were named in the top 10 for boys. Wales ranked 13th and England placed 18th.

England (25.3 per cent) dropped from sixth place in 2002 and Wales (28.2 per cent) plummeted from third place.

Professor Sir Ian Gilmore, chairman of the Alcohol Health Alliance, told the Daily Telegraph drinking habits among young women could be affected by rising anxiety levels.

Denmark placed top of the table for binge-drinking among teenage girls, with 37.6 per cent of 15 year olds having admitted to being drunk twice.

While Hungary scored the worst for boys. Some 41.2 per cent of 15 year olds said they had been drunk at least twice in their lives in the country.

Dr Jo Inchley, lead editor of the report, said: 'Overall reductions in harmful drinking have been greatest in countries that traditionally have had higher prevalence, such as Great Britain and the Nordic region.

'This makes it clear that change is possible; however, more should be done to ensure that adolescents are effectively protected from the harms caused by alcohol.'

Dr Zsuzsanna Jakab, regional director for WHO Europe, said: 'Young people are regular drinkers at an age where they should not be drinking at all.

'As we know that any alcohol consumption at this critical developmental stage in life is especially harmful, policy-makers have a responsibility to implement the measures we know are effective, such as limiting access, enforcing age checks and restricting any type of alcohol marketing, including digital marketing.'

Karen Tyrell, executive director at drug and alcohol charity Addaction said: 'Its great that young people are drinking less but it doesnt mean theyre thriving.'

She added: 'Other warning lights are flashing and we need to pay attention to growing problems like self-harm, substances, and poor mental health.

'In many areas its harder than ever for young people to get help. There are fewer places to turn and the help thats there often isnt good enough.'BBC2 is having a complete rebrand for the first time in more than 25 years.

Patrick Holland, the channels controller, told of striding down a path of reinvigoration to reach wider audiences.

Tomorrow it will drop its on-screen identity based on the number two and replace it with colourful visualisations based on a simple curve.

BBC2's first rebrand in 25 years sees the '2' logo replaced with colourful curves (pictured)

Younger audiences are deserting the BBC for video streaming services such as Netflix or YouTube.

Mr Holland said BBC2, whose viewers are typically in their 60s, still had enormous influence and reach. An ongoing schedule gives you an ongoing dialogue with the audience, he added.

Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker will help develop new programmes.A Miss Utah hopeful made a high school junior the envy of his class when she invited him to homecoming last week

A beauty queen has helped a bullied high school student get the last laugh on his peers.

Michael Conrad, a junior at Taylorsville High School who has autism and ADHD, received a fake invitation to homecoming that left him upset and his mother 'sick to her stomach'.

The culprits, who are yet to be identified, egged his home and left a note saying: 'I'm sorry for the mess. But how about I make it up to you by taking you to Homecoming?' Fox News reported.

The note was attributed to a friend of Michael's, but when he confronted her about it, she denied all knowledge and told him she already had a date.

Michael's uncle said on Twitter the teenager had: 'tried to hide the hurt when this happened but it was obvious that he was upset inside'.

Hearing about the cruel prank, debating teacher Jenn Palomino said she was heartbroken, and determined to help right the wrong.

She contacted Miss Greater Salt Lake, Dexonna Talbot, and asked if she might be able to help salvage her student's homecoming experience.

Dexonna Talbot (left) is Miss Greater Salt Lake, and hoping to be crowned Miss Utah in a few months. She intervened when Michael (right), who has autism, was fake-asked to the homecoming dance. Talbot said hearing about the cruel prank brought her to tears, and she wanted to help set things right

Talbot, who will compete for Miss Utah in the next few months, said she felt called to act the second she heard about the fake invitation.

'The second I heard about this, I knew I wanted to do something,' she said.

'I automatically broke down into tears, because just thinking about the fact that someone would go out of their way to make someone else feel bad is so heartbreaking to me.'

Holding a sign covered in Starburst - Michael's favorite candy, Talbot was filmed entering his high school classroom last week to ask him to homecoming - for real this time.

Standing up, he can be heard responding with an enthusiastic: 'Sure!'

As the pair chat, Michael's classmates can be heard applauding the unlikely match.

On Saturday, Talbot shared photographs of the pair ahead of the big dance.

Michael's uncle said he had tried to hide the hurt, but was clearly torn up about the cruel prank. When Talbot came to his class to ask if he'd go with her, he can be heard enthusiastically replying: 'Sure'

Michael's family were equally hurt by the cruel prank. But his mother Jennifer said because of it, her son had 'the time of his life' at the big dance

'Had the time of my life with the coolest, funniest, kindest and most amazing guy at homecoming tonight,' she wrote.

'Micheal you are one of a kind. I am so humbled by this experience. Bullying sucks and kindness ALWAYS wins.'

Speaking to friends on Facebook, Michael's mother Jennifer said she still doesn't know who played the cruel prank on her son, but the family have chosen to focus on the positives.

'We don't know who did it, but to us it doesn't matter,' she said. 'Through this experience our sweet boy was able to have the time of his life.'

'I just hope [the bullies] realize that you should [not] tear someone down to try and make yourself look cool.'Brandon Allen-Pagett spent much of his relationship with Rachael Bourke making apologies: for losing his temper, for causing her pain, for raping her in her sleep.

The bathroom tiler is big on saying sorry but seems incapable of showing any real remorse.

Allen-Pagett's last attempted apology to Ms Bourke came as he was to be sentenced for two counts of sexual intercourse without consent, in a letter he wanted read aloud in court but she said was simply worthless.

Ms Bourke has waived her right to anonymity as a victim of sexual assault so that she can warn others about her former boyfriend and violent, controlling men like him.

Brandon Allen-Pagett (left) made a 'pinky promise' to his girlfriend Rachael Bourke (right) that he would not rape her again. He is now serving a three-year prison sentence because he did

Among Brandon Allen-Pagett's apologies to Rachael Bourke was this pathetic series of 'pinky promises' after he had raped her in her sleep in November 2015. He raped Ms Bourke again

She has decided to speak out about what it is like to be in a relationship with someone who won't take no for answer and thinks saying sorry is the solution to everything.

'It's horrible and I wouldn't want anyone else to go through that, ever,' she said.

The 21-year-old child care worker from Sydney's western suburbs was raped by Allen-Pagett who then offered a series of pathetic 'pinky promises' he would never do it again.

Instead of accepting responsibility for his criminal actions, Allen-Pagett - also known as Pagett - spoke of making 'wrong choices', including raping Ms Bourke because he was 'horny'.

In one text message he referred to her as a 'rape doll' and a 'fat useless piece of s***.'

Ms Bourke met Allen-Pagett through friends when they were teenagers and the pair began going out after they had known each other for a couple of months.

Rachael Bourke (pictured) wants to warn others about her former boyfriend Brandon Allen-Pagett who has been jailed for three years for raping her during and after their relationship

Rachael Bourke pictured with Brandon Allen-Pagett. The couple went out for three years, with Ms Bourke spending some of that time with Allen- Pagett and his family in western Sydney

Brandon Allen-Pagett bombarded Rachael Bourke with texts messages after he raped her

'Brandon initially was such a nice guy,' she later told police. 'He would take me to work and do things for me. However that changed as our relationship grew.'

Ms Bourke soon moved into Allen-Pagett's family home at Colyton in Sydney's west.

Allen-Pagett lived in the three-bedroom weatherboard house with his parents and four siblings. He and Ms Bourke shared his room.

'At the start of the relationship he was really nice and caring and everything you'd expect at the start of a relationship,' Ms Bourke told Daily Mail Australia.

'He was always there for me and we clicked straight away. He was just that perfect person that you'd want to be your boyfriend.'

As time went on Allen-Pagett became more controlling and Ms Bourke learnt he had a short temper. After about six months the relationship became violent.

Ms Bourke said that when she tried to leave Allen-Pagett - who was not a drug user or big drinker - he repeatedly threatened her.

'I've had a lot of people ask me why I didn't leave sooner,' Rachael Bourke said of her relationship with Brandon Allen-Pagett. 'But trying to leave him was literally impossible... '

Brandon Allen-Pagett's apologies to Rachael Bourke meant nothing but turned out to be useful to police. Whenever he mentioned rape in a text message she took a screenshot of the image

'Brandon was always fairly violent with me and would request sex almost every night,' she told police. 'I was thinking how I could get out without him annoying me or further harming me.'

The relationship remained toxic for a couple of years.

'I've had a lot of people ask me why I didn't leave sooner,' Ms Bourke said. 'But trying to leave him was literally impossible unless you had a pull-out plan that would work.

'I was extremely scared of him and just wanted to get away. It was like mind games, how I could leave.

'If you try and just leave or try and sneak out he would wake up or he would follow you and just bash me until I couldn't take any more and then I'd have to stay. I couldn't do it.'

Eventually, after a lengthy debate, Allen-Pagett agreed to Ms Bourke's proposal to spend a few nights at her mother's place from November 11, 2015.

Her real plan was to start removing personal items from his home so she could escape permanently.

Bathroom tiler Brandon Allen-Pagett made 'pinky promises' to girlfriend Rachael Bourke that he would not 'Touch you in your sleep', 'Hit you', 'Hurt you' or 'Talk to girls' and 'Cheat, etc etc'

Rachael Bourke woke to find Brandon Allen-Pagett having sex with her the night before she was to leave his house and spend time with her mother. He was subsequently jailed for rape

The night before Ms Bourke was due to depart she woke in pain to find her pants and underwear pulled down around her thighs and Allen-Pagett raping her in her sleep.

'I rolled over and said to Brandon, "I am leaving tomorrow, why would you do this now?" Ms Bourke told police. 'He said: "I am sorry, I did not mean it."

'I stayed up the rest of the night sitting on the floor next to the bed whilst Brandon fell asleep in the bed.

'The next morning we spoke about it and he said, "It was a one-off and I am sorry. I was just horny. I will make it up to you when you come back."

Later that day Ms Bourke's mother collected her and she ended their relationship.

In the days and weeks that followed Allen-Pagett sent Ms Bourke text messages filled with promises and apologies, according to a police statement of facts tendered to court.

'In the messages the offender apologised for his conduct, promised that he would not do it again and could not explain why he had acted the way he did,' the statement said.

'I want him known for what he did and he could do,' Rachael Bourke said of her former boyfriend, 21-year-old Brandon Allen-Pagett. 'I just want people to be aware of what he's like'

'All you are is some b**** to use when guys are horny,' Brandon Allen-Pagett wrote in a text

In one text Allen-Pagett wrote: 'I wish there was something I could do to go back and stop myself from what I did and what I did to you in the past.'

In that childlike text, Allen-Pagett declared his love for Ms Bourke and sent a list of things he 'pinky promised' he would never do to her again. The first item on a list of 12 was 'Rape you.'

Allen-Pagett further 'pinky promised' he would not 'Touch you in your sleep', 'Hit you', 'Hurt you' or 'Talk to girls' and 'Cheat, etc etc'.

'I'll do everything to win you back as I love you and your the only one for me and I want to do everything and everything with you,' he concluded.

In one text exchange Ms Bourke asked: 'How do I know if I moved back that you won't rape me again, or attempt it in my sleep? You need self control.'

Allen-Pagett replied: 'I know I do. And I know my promise and word can't show that I won't but I pinky pinky promise I won't ever ever ever do it.'

Ms Bourke: 'Well why did you even do it the first time and in my sleep? That's kinda f***ed up.'

Allen-Pagett: 'I know it f***ed and I can't really explain why I ever did it. It was wrong and f***ed on so many levels.'

In another exchange Allen-Pagett wrote: 'Wow see the love. But like seriously what is it.'

Ms Bourke responded: 'There is no love because you can't hit and rape someone you love.'

Allen-Pagett: 'Well I do love you like heaps I know you say you can't but there is a thing called making the wrong choice but yeah.'

Since sending messages like this one Brandon Allen- Pagett has been jailed for three years

Ms Bourke: 'Making the wrong choice? How many times can you make the same wrong choice and have your girlfriend crying and still think it's okay???'

Allen-Pagett: 'Well I'm super sorry okay I f***ing mean it.'

Every time Allen-Pagett sent a message with mention of an assault or rape Ms Bourke took a screenshot. On Australia Day, 2016, she reported Allen-Pagett to Mt Druitt police.

'Although I stayed with Brandon for almost three years it took that three years to build courage to leave him,' she told detectives. 'After the first six months I lived in terror and was always scared of Brandon.'

About five months later, on June 10, Ms Bourke visited Allen-Pagett at his residence and spent the night in his bedroom while he slept in the loungeroom by agreement.

The following night they followed the same arrangement but about 3am Ms Bourke woke with her pants and underwear pulled down and Allen-Pagett on top of her raping her again.

'I pushed Brandon off and immediately got out of the bed,' Ms Bourke told police.

Brandon Allen-Pagett wanted to read this letter aloud in court. Rachael Bourke declined but kept a copy for herself. 'I read through it and straight away thought it was bull***t,' she said

'Brandon tried to stop me but I was furious. I dressed myself and attempted to leave the premises.

'Brandon was annoyed that I woke up. Brandon started to punch and damage the walls walls within the house.'

Ms Bourke barricaded herself in Allen-Pagett's room using a crutch wedged under the door handle and went back to police the following day.

This time detectives asked Ms Bourke to call Allen-Pagett and in a recorded conversation he confessed to having raped her.

'The offender apologised to the victim in relation to sexually assaulting her the evening before,' the police statement of facts said.

'The offender also apologised for the earlier [rape], stating that he was horny and overwhelmed during the incidents and that his actions were "putrid and disgusting".

'At the start of the relationship he was really nice and caring and everything you'd expect at the start of a relationship,' Rachael Bourke said of Brandon Allen-Pagett when they got together

Ms Bourke said in the recorded conversation: 'I want to know why you raped me in the first place.'

Allen-Pagett: 'Look it was just because like obviously I was horny... I shouldn't have done it in the first place... Remember how you use to tease me sometimes.'

Ms Bourke: 'So it's my fault.'

Allen-Pagett: 'I just got overwhelmed and really wanted to have sex.'

Police said Allen-Pagett had subjected Ms Bourke to years of physical, emotional and sexual abuse.

'Ms Bourke could recall further sexual offences however was unable to specify individual incidents,' the statement of facts said.

Allen-Pagett eventually pleaded guilty in Penrith District Court to sexual intercourse without consent and was jailed on September 7 for a maximum three years with a non parole period of 18 months.

But the 21-year-old was not finished with his apologises.

Ms Bourke was handed a sloppily-written letter at court in which Allen-Pagett said he was sorry 'for the events I put you through and for what tumour I have made part of your life.'

This is among the messages Brandon Allen-Pagett sent to Rachael Bourke after he raped her

'I'm so sorry that I was to put you in these positions and for making you have to go to the police and tell them what you whent though. I never wanted this or wanted you to feel this way at the time I loved you and never wanted this to happen.

'When I was in jail people put me in a position we're I felt uncomfortable, used, violated and in Constant fear for my life.

'I know that is not anything compared to what I did to you and how you feel but it made me understand a little how you must have felt. I am sorry.'

But Ms Bourke has learnt not to accept Allen-Pagett's apologies.

'I read through it and straight away thought it was bull***t,' she said.

Ms Bourke was also not satisfied with Allen-Pagett's sentence. 'I think it was too short,' she said. 'I think he's going to reoffend.

'I want him known for what he did and he could do,' Ms Bourke said. 'I just want people to be aware of what he's like.'

With Allen-Pagett out of her life Ms Bourke has a good job, a nice apartment and has found love with a decent man. 'It's all going well,' she said of her current circumstances.

Taking into account time already served Allen-Pagett will be eligible for parole on January 24 next year.A small boy has been left with swollen, pink and blistered feet after running over a beach fire that had been extinguished with sand.

Kai Dight, 6, didn't see the patch of sand that was still burning hot from a recently extinguished campfire on Teewah Beach, north of Noosa Heads in Queensland.

He is now in Children's Health Queensland and Lady Cilento Children's Hospital.

Kai Dight, 6, is in Children's Health Queensland and Lady Cilento Children's Hospital after suffering burns to his feet

Kai has had multiple surgeries on his feet, with doctors removing dead or damaged skin on the six-year-old's feet

He's already had multiple surgeries on both his tiny feet.

Doctors have removed the dead and damaged skin, but they still don't know if he will require skin grafts.

Kai has been 'super brave', his mum Crista Dight said in a Facebook post.

He is 'being a trooper, but it will be a long road for him, she said.

His mother has a warning for campers: 'Don't use sand to cover up your campfires.'

'Hopefully one positive to come out of this is the awareness that you cannot cover a fire with sand, it doesn't put it out, it retains heat and makes it difficult to see on the beach.'

Roy Kimble, director of burns and trauma, said it was a common misconception that campfires could be properly extinguished with sand or dirt.

Kai (pictured) was in Noosa Hospital before being transported to the Children's Health Queensland and Lady Cilento Children's Hospital

Roy Kimble, director of burns and trauma, said it was a common misconception that campfires could be properly extinguished with sand or dirt

Kai has been 'super brave', his mum Crista Dight said. He has been a 'trooper' throughout the horrible experience

'While the flames may be out, fires extinguished with sand can retain heat up to 100 degrees Celsius for eight hours after the flames are no longer visible,' he said.

'It only takes one second of contact with a campfire to acquire very deep burns, but it can take months, if not years, of intensive therapy to reduce scarring and regain mobility in severely burnt limbs.'

He urged everyone to be vigilant about safety, especially while young children are around.

Crista Daight has warning to campers: Don't use sand to extinguish fires. Her son, Kai (pictured) suffered serious burns to his feet after running along a beach in Queensland

He said the safest way to extinguish a campfire was to saturate it with at least 10 litres of water.

'This will cool a fire to a safe temperature in just 10 minutes,' he said.

The most effective first aid treatment for a burn is to place the injured area under cool running water for 20 minutes and seek medical treatment immediately by phoning 000.

FIRE SAFETY ADVICE Do not light or maintain a camp fire on dry, windy days Use water, not sand, which retains heat and can cause severe burns Ensure your camp fire is at least 3 metres away from tents Completely extinguish all fires before going to bed or leaving your camp site unattended Source: Queensland Government Advertisement

'While it is ideal to apply first aid immediately, if running water is not available at the scene, it is still beneficial to apply cool running water up to three hours after the injury,' he said.

In 2017, Children's Health Queensland and Lady Cilento Children's Hospital treated 64 children for burns from outdoor fires, with 51 of those injuries caused by glowing coals or ashes rather than flames.

Almost one quarter of those injuries required surgery and more than 90 percent were under nine years of age.

The rural fire service in Queensland advises against using sand to extinguish fires as sand retains heat.Residents have been baffled by two different spellings of their street name.

On one end of the street in Maudsland, Gold Coast in Queensland, the street is spelled as 'Grevillia Cr' while on the other end it is spelt 'Grevillea Cres'.

'I had to open up a bank account for my son on Friday and we couldn't use 'ia', it had to be 'ea' so I have no idea what it's supposed to be now,' young mother Nicole Kelly told 9News.

Another resident said she has had to make updates to all her personal information so her address was spelt with 'ea' on the end.

'The City is aware of a small number of spelling errors on street signs in that estate and expect to have new signage in place in coming days,' a council spokesperson from the City of Gold Coast wrote in a statement.

On either end of the street in Maudsland, Gold Coast in Queensland, the sign is spelt as 'Grevillia Cr' and on another end, the street is spelt 'Grevillea Cres'

A number of properties on the Maudsland street, which have been put up for sale on the market are all spelled as 'Grevillea'.

Residents have complained about the spelling of another Queensland location this year.

Locals have campaigned to put the 'y' back in 'Hideaway Bay' for the correct spelling of 'Hydeaway Bay'.

The street is named after the Australian native 'Grevillea' plant with the 'ia' spelling of the word only appearing as the name of a town in Queensland, 100kms south-west of the Gold Coast.

The signs on the Maudsland street have been up for over a year.A rogue senator who called for a 'final solution' to Muslim immigration has now declared he doesn't care if he is called a racist.

Katter's Australian Party lawmaker Fraser Anning released a video declaring all non-European migrants moving to Australia were from 'broken down s***holes'.

'We're finding that more and more people are apologising for being white but it was the whites who built these nations,' he said.

The Queensland senator said people from poor countries wanted to move to Australia 'because we have what they don't have'.

'We don't need to turn our countries into those same broken down s***holes that they come from. Otherwise we'll just become one of them,' he said.

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A rogue senator who called for a 'final solution' to Muslim immigration has now declared he doesn't care if he is called a racist

On Tuesday, Senator Anning tweeted a meme equating Muslims with failed states in the Middle East and Africa to argue why they should be banned from Australia.

'If being a racist means I don't want my country turned into a pile of rocks and goat s*** ruled by a barbaric cult, then I'm a racist,' he said on Facebook and Twitter.

Senator Anning told Daily Mail Australia he was specifically referring to Muslims in the social media post.

'Make no mistake Islam is on a mission to take over the Western world and implement sharia law,' he said today.

'Islam is an ideology of hate. Look at the appalling conditions and the treatment of women in countries like Somalia, Saudi Arabia, the Palestinian Authorities, Iran and Afghanistan.'

Senator Anning said that like other Western nations, Australia's immigration intake was undermining a society with European institutions.

The 2016 Census shows that 49 per cent of Australians were either born overseas or had at least one parent born overseas.

Katter's Australian Party lawmaker Fraser Anning has tweeted a meme, equating Muslims with failed states in the Middle East, to argue why they should be banned from Australia

'Look at the fundamental changes that are occurring in countries with indiscriminate immigration policies,' he said.

'We cannot avoid the subject for fear of being called racist.

'The question all Australians need to ask themselves is do they want to see the nation changed and not for the better?'

The 68-year-old Brisbane-based senator, who defected from One Nation in January after being sworn in as a federal member of Parliament, was condemned by both sides of politics in August after using a Nazi Germany phrase to demand an end to Muslim immigration.

'The final solution to the immigration problem is, of course, a popular vote,' he said in his maiden speech.

Treasurer and deputy Liberal leader Josh Frydenberg, who is Jewish, and Labor frontbencher Ed Husic, a Muslim, joined together as friends from across the political divide to condemn Senator Anning.

His speech was even condemned by One Nation leader Pauline Hanson, who maintains Australia is in danger of being 'swamped by Asians' and is also an Islam critic.

His spokesman told Daily Mail Australia he was specifically referring to Muslims from Lebanon, Syria and Afghanistan and other Islamic nations in the social media post

His latest social media post has divided Twitter, with one woman questioning how it was racist to criticise Islam

A supporter of Senator Anning said white people were being silenced

Senator Anning had also told Parliament Australian society was better before the formal dismantling of the White Australia policy in 1973 ended a bias in favour of European migrants.

His latest social media post has divided Twitter, with one woman questioning how it was racist to criticise Islam, who make up 2.6 per cent of the Australian population.

'Religion has nothing to do with race,' she said.

A supporter of Senator Anning said white people were being silenced.

'Racism is white people thinking or feeling about race the way that people of other races remain free to feel and think about it,' he said.Millionaire entrepreneur Dick Smith has launched an extraordinary attack on Aldi, accusing the discount supermarket of draining Australia of its wealth.

Mr Smith released a video yesterday in which he labelled Aldi a 'highly secretive German company which showed 'no loyalty to Australia'.

'I noticed more and more that they are abandoning our Australian farmers and producers,' he said in the video.

'For example, their peanut butter comes from South America. Once again, we lost out.'

Millionaire entrepreneur Dick Smith has launched an extraordinary attack on Aldi and accused the discount supermarket of draining Australia of its wealth (stock image)

He said Aldi was Australia's lowest cost and most profitable supermarket chain because it managed to share 'less of its wealth.'

'We all love low prices, but not so low that more and more of our young people can never have a full-time career.'

Mr Smith went on to say that the private nature of the company was an attack on Australia's value of a 'fair-go.'

'Aldi is completely at odds with the Aussie free enterprise system,' he said.

'Aldi are owned by two ultra-secretive Germans, Karl Albrecht Jr and Beate Heister. They are worth - wait for it - over $40billion. And they're not even known as philanthropists.

'Key the owners into Google... they are obsessively secretive.

'[They] have never done an interview with the media about what vision they have with Australia.'

Dick Smith (pictured) let loose in his recent video to throw numerous accusations against Aldi

The attack comes after Mr Smith slammed hotel booking websites and claimed patrons could get a cheaper price if they contact businesses directly.

Mr Smith first caused a stir with Aldi in July this year, when he suggested it had forced him into closing his food company.

An Aldi spokesperson hit back at Mr Smith's comments and said Aldi has always been a supporter of Australia and its farmers.

'Aldi started in 2001 with two stores and has grown to 516 across the country. It launched with 179 suppliers and now works with more than 1,000.'

The spokesperson said that all its meat is sourced from Australia.

They highlighted the only time they source from anywhere else is when fruit is out of season, though he noted this is standard practice across all supermarkets.

'We will continue to focus on what we do best, which is quality products at low prices,' they said.

Mr Smith released a video yesterday in which he labelled Aldi a 'highly secretive German company which showed 'no loyalty to Australia' (stock image)



A billboard with the definition of a woman written on it has been removed after a Twitter activist complained it was 'transphobic.'

Feminist blogger Kellie-Jay Keen- Minshull raised 700 for the poster to be put up in Liverpool for a fortnight to coincide with the Labour Party conference, The Times reports.

The poster, on the side of the old Gaumont cinema on Gredington Street in Toxteth, Liverpool, bore the Google definition of a woman  'adult human female.'

But it was removed after Dr Adrian Harrop, 31, who is not transgender, complained to billboard company Primesight that it would serve to make transgender women feel unsafe.

Feminist blogger Kellie-Jay Keen- Minshull (pictured) raised 700 for the poster to be put up in Liverpool for a fortnight

'This is a reminder to them that this transphobic hate group is observing them and scrutinising their presence in public life,' Dr Harrop, who lives with his husband in sunderland, told the newspaper.

'It creates an atmosphere that makes transgender citizens of Liverpool feel unsafe and unwelcome in their own city.'

In a tweet to Primesight CEO Naren Patel and other company executives on Saturday, he accused them of being complicit in 'the spread of transphobic hate speech.'

He also alleged that the group behind the campaign is a 'transphobic hate group.'

Standing for Women is a pressure group which maintains that only people born as women can be called women.

But it was removed after Dr Adrian Harrop (pictured) complained to billboard company Primesight that it would serve to make transgender women feel unsafe

The poster, on the side of the old Gaumont cinema on Gredington Street in Toxteth, Liverpool, bore the Google definition of a woman  'adult human female'

'Are you aware that 'Human Females' - aka 'Standing For Women' - is a transphobic hate group, disguising itself in an adulterated version of feminism in order to spread its propaganda & hate speech w/ impunity?' he wrote in another tweet to Primesight.

Hours later, Primesight confirmed the billboards would be taken down that evening.

In a statement in response to Dr Harrop, Primesight said they were unware of the motive behind the campaign and said the order had been placed through their automated booking system.

'At first glance, this copy did not raise a red flag the way it should have done,' it added.

'Hands up, we have been misled by this campaign's messaging.

Hours after Dr Harrop's complaint, Primesight confirmed the billboards would be taken down that evening

Mrs Keen- Minshull, 44, who blogs under the name Posie Parker, blasted the decision to take the poster down as 'absurd' and 'Orwellian'

'Thanks to you, this campaign has been halted and the poster would be removed from our billboards as soon as possible.

'As you pointed out, we are proud to support the LGBTQ+ community and remain fully committed to equality for all.'

But Mrs Keen- Minshull, 44, who blogs under the name Posie Parker, blasted the decision as 'absurd' and 'Orwellian' and accused Primesight of breaching their contract with her.

'We're in a new realm of misogyny when the word 'woman' becomes hate speech,' she told The Times.

'I wanted it to be a conversation starter but this is a new level of absurd.'linton Rintoull and Dylan Sabatino were jailed for 20 and 10 years respectively

A heartbroken mother has spoken out more than a decade after the brutal murder of her son.

Sudanese migrant Liep Gony was just 18 in 2007 when he was attacked by two youths in Noble Park and left to die at a Melbourne train station.



Clinton Rintoull and Dylan Sabatino were jailed for 20 and 10 years respectively for the unprovoked crime.

Liep Gony was bashed to death in 2007 in Melbourne - his mother has described the murder as 'racially motivated'

Martha Ojulo has broken her silence of more than a decade following the brutal murder of her soon in 2007

'My son is gone because someone wanted to kill blacks,' his mother Martha Ojulo said on Tuesday.



'They (his killers) will both have the opportunity to restart their lives, move on.

'And now I have to live with the fact that my son is gone forever.'

The Gony family fled South Sudan in 1999 after family members were tortured and spent years in a refugee camp before arriving in Australia.

Ms Ojulo was at home when she received a phone call her injured son had been found at the train station.

Convicted murderer Clinton Rintoull (pictured) before the brutal murder in 2007 in the Melbourne suburb of Noble Park

Dylan Sabatino (pictured) pleaded guilty to manslaughter following the 2007 death of Sudanese migrant Liep Gony in Melbourne

Mourners at the funeral of Liep Gony, who was murdered in 2007 in an attack his family believe was racially motivated

He had been randomly set upon by Mr Rintoull and Mr Sabatino with metal poles, who struck him repeatedly in the head and torso.

She rushed to his aid, but the teenager passed away the following day in The Alfred Hospital.Actor James Woods is accusing Twitter of targeting him and locking him out of his account after he tweeted an anti-Democrat meme and refused to take it down.

Woods said Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey 'smothered' his rights for free speech when he blocked the Casino star from accessing his account over a July tweet appearing to attack liberals.

'Free speech is free speech - it's not Jack Dorsey's version of free speech,' he told the Associated Press. 'The irony is Twitter accused me of affecting the political process, when in fact, their banning of me is the truly egregious interference.'

This July 20 tweet got actor James Woods locked out of his Twitter account

Woods (left) accused Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey (right) of targeting him because of his following and because he's a conservative

'Because now, having your voice smothered is much more disturbing than having your vocal chords slit. If you want to kill my free speech, man up and slit my throat with a knife, don't smother me with a pillow,' he added.

The post that got Woods banned claimed to come from a Democratic group and encouraged men to stay home and let women vote.

'We're making a woman's vote worth more by staying home,' the meme read, using the hashtags #Letwomendecide and #NoMenMidterm.

Woods captioned it: 'Pretty scary that there is a distinct possibility this could be real. Not likely, but in this day and age of absolute liberal insanity, it is at least possible'.

The actor's post 'liked' more than 6,000 times and re-tweeted over 2,000 times.

Woods was locked out his account after someone reported the tweet. The conservative actor, who has 1.73million Twitter followers, told the AP that Twitter told him the post had the 'potential to be misleading in a way that could impact an election'.

He said when he refused to take it down, the social networking site locked him out of his account.

Woods, who is a Trump supporter, said he thinks he was targeted because of his large following and because of his political views. Woods said his girlfriend re-tweeted the post to her followers and was not locked out of her account.

'I wish this were about an unknown Twitter user so that I could be even more passionate about it,' he said. 'This is not about a celebrity being muzzled. This is about an American being silenced  one tweet at a time.'

Woods girlfriend Sara Miller said the actor will not delete the tweet and said the site needs to #FreeJamesWoods

Donald Trump Jr jumped to Woods' defense accusing Twitter of silencing strong conservative voices

In an email sent to friends and shared on Twitter by Woods' girlfriend Sara Miller, the actor accused Twitter of trying to purge conservatives.

'The reason I'm sending this to you is that, liberal or conservative, I know every single one of you agrees that this muzzle on free speech is a cancer that, if allowed to metastasize, will destroy this nation and everything it stands for,' Woods wrote to his friends.

Miller also tweeted that Woods would not be removing the tweet. n

'If you follow Jimmy, the odds of him deleting a tweet because "Big Brother" @Jack ordered it are less than winning the lottery twice in one day AFTER getting struck by lightning. If the tone of this tweet sounds familiar, guess who's standing over my shoulder ... #FreeJaamesWoods,' she wrote.

Donald Trump Jr also hopped on Twitter to defend Woods, writing that there was nothing wrong with his tweet and the social networking site is using it as an 'excuse to silence a strong conservative voice'.A Qantas flight from LA to Australia has erupted into chaos after a mobile phone caught on fire in business class.

The smell of 'burnt rubber' wafted through the cabin about 6am on the QF94 flight, two hours before it was due to land at Tullamarine, in Melbourne.

A Qantas spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia that a passenger in Business dropped their phone which became stuck in the seat.

A Qantas spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia that a passenger in Business dropped their phone which became stuck in the seat (stock)

'When they attempted to retrieve it, and moved the seat, the phone was crushed,' the spokesperson said.

'Cabin crew were alerted and contained the situation.

'Once the incident was contained and following a conversation with our operations centre, the captain decided to continue onto Melbourne.'

A passenger told Herald Sun that cabin crew were running through the plane with fire extinguishers after reporting the smell.

'Nobody knew what was going on...the air hostess was on the internal phone when two male hostesses grabbed fire extinguishers and ran to business,' she said.

Passengers who fly Qantas are always shown a safety video which asks them to 'always seek help from cabin crew' if they lose a device (stock)

Passengers who fly Qantas are always shown a safety video which asks them to 'always seek help from cabin crew' if they lose a device.

'Our crew are trained to handle these situations and the crew onboard followed all the correct procedures,' the spokesperson said.

'This incident shows why we ask passengers to seek help from our cabin crew in retrieving their mobile phones.'While most world leaders erupted into laughter as Donald Trump made his opening remarks at the United Nations, one woman managed to keep a straight face.

New Zealand's popular new Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern did not react amid hails of laughter as Trump claimed that 'in less than two years my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country.'

Ms Ardern, who attracted worldwide attention when she brought her four-month-old baby Neve into the UN for her maiden speech this week, said she did not laugh as she was listening with respect to the words being spoken, the New Zealand Herald reported.

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New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern did not react as Trump claimed that 'in less than two years my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country'

New Zealand's Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern (pictured) was not among the world leaders who broke out in giggles as President Donald Trump spoke at the United Nations peace summit

'Just to give context it was the moment that the President made a statement around his view around his success relative to past Presidents,' she said.

'Look, everyone would have made their own judgement. For me, I was respecting the fact he had the floor and listening to what he had to say.'

She said there wasn't anything in Trump's statement that surprised her in today's speech.

Trump spoke of patriotism over globalism, something Ms Ardern refused to be drawn on.

Jacinda Ardern was pictured yesterday holding her baby Neve moments after delivering her first speech at the peace summit

Jacinda Ardern gave birth to her daughter Neve just four months ago. She has sent American media into a frenzy for taking her baby along to the UN this week

But as New Zealand was one of the founding countries of the United Nations, she said it maintained its support of multilateralism.

'There are some issues we need to address, we just tend to take a different solution in response,' she said.

During his address, Trump relentlessly hammered Iran as a state sponsor of terror and chided China for alleged currency manipulation and intellectual property theft.

A year ago at the United Nations General Assembly, the U.S. president was slapping North Korea with heavy sanctions. Now he said, 'The missiles and rockets are no longer flying in every direction.'

'I would like to thank Chairman Kim for his current steps he has taken,' Trump said while acknowledging, 'So much work remains to be done.'

Trump claimed that 'in less than two years my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country'

Trump's resounding message from the speech was that he would not allow America to be taken advantage of by friends or enemies.

'Moving forward, we are only going to give foreign aid to those who respect us and, frankly, are our friends,' he announced.

'And we expect other countries to pay their fair share for the cost of their defense.'

Sovereign message: Trump's resounding message to the United Nations General Assembly was that he would not allow America to be taken advantage of by friends or enemies.

Packed house: The United Nations General Assembly hall was full as Trump delivered his second address to world leaders

Trump also called out Germany, specifically, for an oil and gas deal it entered into with Russia and commended Poland for prioritizing its energy independence.

'Germany will become totally dependent on Russian energy if it does not immediately change course,' he said.

The claim was the closest he came to challenging Russian President Vladimir Putin.

'Here in the Western Hemisphere, we are committed to maintaining our independence from the encroachment of expansionist foreign powers,' he added.



Trump has shaken up American foreign policy in almost every arena, especially when it comes to the relationship between security and trade.

America has historically placed a premium on its security relationships, even when forced to make concessions in other policy areas such as trade.

'We believe that trade must be fair and reciprocal. The United States will not be taken advantage of any longer,' he asserted on Tuesday.Virginia State Trooper Johnny Rush Bowman was stabbed 45 times in the entryway of his home on August 19, 1984. On Monday, the FBI announced a $50,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of his killers

The FBI has announced a $50,000 reward for information that helps solve the 1984 cold case murder of a Virginia State Trooper.

Johnny Rush Bowman was stabbed 45 times while off-duty at his home in Manassas before sunrise on August 19, 1984.

His young daughter, wife, brother, and sister-in-law were also in the home at the time of the stabbing, and the killer or killers reportedly left behind sunglasses, a wig, and a construction hard hat, a statement from the FBI says.

Bowman's daughter Nikki was only two years old when her father was murdered.

She says in all her years living in the small town of Manassas, she has never heard a bad word about him. His legacy inspired her to become a police officer herself.

But the burden of her father's death has weighed heavily on her, and not knowing who could be behind his murder adds to her pain.

'For me, it's caused a lot of trust issues, being that the person who did this is still an unknown,' she said.

'Is it somebody I'm talking to on a regular basis? Do they still live in the area? Should I be fearful?'

Bowman's daughter Nikki was just two years old when her father was killed. She says not knowing who killed her father leaves her anxious and worried. Nikki also became a police officer (pictured: Trooper Bowman and Nikki)

Captain Greg Kincaid, Virginia State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation's Fairfax Field Office, says solving the case is a priority for the Virginia State Police family.

'For 34 years, Trooper Johnny Bowman's daughter, parents, brother, friends, and colleagues have had to endure his loss and not knowing who was responsible for taking his life,' Kincaid said.

'That's why still today, the Virginia State Police and our partnering agencies remain determined to solve this homicide and bring Johnny's killer to justice.'

Bowman's murder is the only unsolved killing of a Virginia State Trooper in the state's history.

'34 years is a long time of waiting,' Nikki said. 'My life is constant struggle. Every day is hard, and I think it's time for the roles to be reversed.'

[The killers'] lives should be hard. You need to own up to what you've done.

'I should be able to live happily after this - but I can't do that without answers.'

Anyone with information about this crime is encouraged to call the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI (1-800-225-5324) or the Virginia State Police at 703-803-2676. You may also contact your local FBI office, the nearest American Embassy or Consulate, or submit a tip online here. All tips can remain anonymous.Two Melbourne housemates who held down and beat an Airbnb guest during a sustained assault that killed him have been jailed.

Ryan Charles Smart, 38, and Craig Jonathon Levy, 37, each pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Ramis Jonuzi, who died last October.

Smart was jailed for nine years with a minimum of six years, while Levy was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years with a minimum of four-and-a-half years.

The chef who took part in strangling and beating AirBnB guest Ramis Jonuzi (pictured) to death over a $210 debt has pleaded guilty to murder and will spend at least four years in jail

Mr Jonuzi, 36, was renting a room in the pair's Brighton East home on Airbnb but was asked to leave the day he died after not paying a $210 bill.

An argument erupted about the unpaid money after Mr Jonuzi packed up to leave.

It was allegedly started by a third man, Jason Colton, who is due to stand trial for Mr Jonuzi's murder next year.

Craig Jonathan Levy (pictured) was convicted for the manslaughter of Ramis Jonuzi

During a sustained assault, the victim was kicked and punched in the living room until he lost consciousness.

Levy then helped to carry him outside where Smart held Mr Jonuzi in a leg lock.

Levy used his phone to have Mr Jonuzi check his bank account and confirm it contained just $6, before the attack continued.

After noticing neighbours watching, Levy went inside to call the police while Smart continued to hold down Mr Jonuzi who at times was crying and yelling and other times appeared unconscious.

'For some of the attack Mr Jonuzi was unconscious on the ground, for all of it he was helpless,' Justice Andrew Tinney said, jailing the pair in separate hearings in the Victorian Supreme Court on Wednesday.

He said Levy was actively involved from the beginning and far from being a mere observer.

Smart had ample opportunity to assist Mr Jonuzi and try and bring the attack to an end but failed to do so.

A plea hearing last week found Mr Jonuzi (pictured) died from 'compression of the neck and blunt-force trauma to the head'

The judge accepted both men were remorseful and noted they could benefit from time in custody.

Mr Jonuzi's family wiped away tears while Levy's sisters offered him words of support as he was taken from court.

A plea hearing last week found Mr Jonuzi died from 'compression of the neck and blunt-force trauma to the head', according to ABC News.

'Every indication that this attack was a protracted one with multiple applications of blunt force to his head,' Justice Andrew Tilley said.

'Your involvement was no mere observer. You did nothing to render assistance to Mr Jonuzi,' Justice Tilley told Levy, who the court was told had a cannabis dependency.

The court was told Mr Jonuzi was 'crying and apologising' during the attack, which Justice Tilley described as 'entirely unwarranted'.

Levy restrained Mr Jonuzi while another man allegedly choked and threw him against a wall, before Levy took him outside where he used his phone to access the victim's bank balance, the court heard.

'At one time during the assault, Levy dropped his elbow on the deceased's chest,' prosecutor Raymond Gibson said in the previous hearing.

Alleged co-offender Ryan Smart was due to be sentenced later on Wednesday, while a third man, Jason Colton, 41, was set to be trialed over his alleged involvement next year.Australia is one of the largest countries in the world  sixth behindBrazil, China, the US, Canada and Russia  so it's no surprise that the ethos in five of its major cities differs so vastly.

Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide are very different in climate and culture, but there's a set of questions you might recognise if one of these is your home town.

'Australians are adopting approaches we see in other mega cities where a local rather than a citywide identity emerges,' social researcher Mark McCrindle said in a recent report.

Australians are adopting approaches we see in other mega cities where a local rather than a citywide identity emerges,' social researcher Mark McCrindle said in a recent report

Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide are very different in climate and culture

'Australia's capitals are becoming cities of villages or regions where residents live, work and interact in a part of their city.'

Liam Pieper recently moved from Melbourne to Sydney, and said that the first question he was asked was: 'Where do you live?', he wrote in Executive Style.

'In Sydney, status is about where you live and what you wear and what you do for a living,' Pieper's friend told him.

'We're all too busy to take the time to figure out who our betters are, so it's easier just to announce it when you meet someone: "Potts Point, Finance".'

Sydney is home to some of the world's most famous landmarks, beaches and people, and being the country's most-populous and global city, its fast-paced lifestyle comes as no surprise.

Further south in Melbourne, priorities are a little different.

Melbourne is known for its ever-changing weather patterns, buzzing nightlife, famously terrifying hook-turns, bustling back streets and its obsession with AFL.

'In Sydney, status is about where you live and what you wear and what you do for a living' (Pictured: Bondi Beach, Sydney)

Melbourne (pictured) is known for its ever-changing weather patterns, buzzing nightlife, famously terrifying hook-turns, bustling back streets and its obsession with AFL

A writer for Traveller.com.au said that when he moved to Melbourne, every single person at every single first meeting asked: 'Who's your footy team?'

'If you can't come up with a good answer you'll see their eyes glaze over and quickly move on to someone else,' they wrote.

Jumping over to Western Australia, Perth has a unique question of its own.

Famous for its breathtakingly beautiful beaches, refusal to align with daylight savings and decided lack of interest in AFL compared to Melbourne, if you live in Perth, you might have heard of the next one.

Getting 'Perthed' made the Urban List's report of '45 things that are so Perth it hurts'.

Getting 'Perthed' made the Urban List 's report of '45 things that are so Perth it hurts'

Brisbane (pictured) is marketed as the city where winter never quite arrives, and is known for its laid-back lifestyle

More of a statement than a question, but meeting someone for the first time and realising you know all the same people is a common occurrence in Perth.

And it's otherwise know as getting 'Perthed'.

Back over to the eastern seaboard and Brisbane has a different question to ask.

Situated on the Sunshine Coast, Brisbane is marketed as the city where winter never quite arrives, and is known for its laid-back lifestyle.

Constantly being asked 'Where did you go to school?' near tops the list of '33 Things That Will Annoy You If You Live In Brisbane'.

And with a population of 2.4million compared to Sydney's more than 5million, you can see why residents might ask.

Coincidentally, residents of Adelaide  with a population of 1.3million  also say that upon meeting someone for the first time it often takes less than a minute before someone asks, 'So which school did you go to?'.

But with the growing population not just in major cities but across the country, it's not surprising that Australians are holding on to their identities with questions like these.A former Uber driver accused of groping a young female passenger after forcing her to touch his genitals has pleaded not guilty to indecent assault.

Mukesh Naiker, a married father-of-two, declared his innocence after appearing at Picton Local Court, in New South Wales on Tuesday.

'I am a decent man. A decent man, a hardworking man. I lived in this country for 30 years,' the 52-year-old told Nine News.

Mukesh Naiker (pictured), a father-of-two, appeared at Picton Local Court, in New South Wales on Tuesday and pleaded not guilty

The court heard Mr Naiker allegedly grabbed the 23-year-old passenger's hand and placed it on his genitals which were partially exposed and the top of his pants, during a trip to Camden.

The court heard he also used his hands to touch the female passenger.

According to police in court, the woman managed to get out of the car and ran to a nearby house where she called triple zero and reported the alleged assault.

Mr Naiker said the court case had caused a great amount of stress and taken a huge financial toll on him and his family.

'I never thought this could happen to me and my family...my family is in distress,' he said.

An Uber spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia that they have removed Mr Naiker's access to the app.

'Upon learning of this incident, the driver's access to the app was removed and we have been fully cooperating with law enforcement in their investigation,' the spokesperson said.

The court heard that Mr Naiker allegedly grabbed the 23-year-old passenger's hand and placed it on his genitals which were partially exposed and the top of his pants

Released on bail and awaiting his sentence, Mr Naiker has been banned from working for Uber and other ride share services.

This week Uber announced its new safety measures to ensure both passengers and drivers are comfortable and safe during rides.

Both parties will now be able to instantly send their GPS location to emergency services and share their trips with contacts.The mother of a six-year-old autistic boy in North Carolina who vanished over the weekend at a park with his father is pleading for the public's help in locating the child.

Carrie Ritch gave an emotional plea for help on Tuesday, three days after Maddox Ritch ran off at Rankin Lake Park in Gastonia.

Ritch asked anyone who was at the park on Saturday to call the police tip line.

'Continue praying for him because I just want my baby home, please,' she said. 'Whatever you can do. Maddox is my whole world, and my reason for living. He's momma's boy.'

'I want my baby back in my arms,' Ritch added.

Carrie Ritch gave an emotional plea on Tuesday for help finding her missing autistic son

Maddox Ritch, six, disappeared on Saturday at a park in North Carolina with his father

The boy was running near a lake at the park when his father said he lost sight of Maddox

Maddox's father, Ian Ritch, was not at the press conference because he was at the park retracing his steps for investigators. Authorities said the parents are fully cooperating with the investigation.

'(Ian) is with us across the street helping us with this investigation and to further this case,' FBI spokeswoman Shelley Lynch said.

Maddox is described as four feet tall with blond hair and blue eyes. He was last seen wearing an orange T-shirt with the words 'I am the man' and black shorts. His parents said he is autistic and has limited verbal skills.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which is also assisting in the search, said in a statement that he may be in need of medical attention.

Ian Ritch said he was walking with Maddox and his friend around 1.30pm on Saturday near the back of the lake when his son started running behind a jogger.

Ian told People magazine that he let his son run for a little bit but when Maddox started running faster he gave chase. Ian said he lost sight of Maddox before he could catch up to him.

'I was terrified. I didn't know which direction he went so I looked as hard as I could, I went different ways and everything,' he said. 'I tried to find him. I don't know where he went. Usually when he takes off running he'll slow down and stop for me to catch up with him. This time he never stopped.

The six-year-old boy is autistic and has limited verbal skills, his parents said

Ian Ritch (pictured with Maddox) said he chased after his son but lost sight of him and he didn't know which way the boy ran

Maddox was last seen running by a lake at Rankin Lake Park in Gastonia by his father (pictured)

Ian said park rangers helped him look for Maddox before calling police. The FBI have since joined the search and authorities are going door-to-door at businesses along Highway 321 near the park searching for possible information.

Investigators are also working to obtain surveillance footage from different business that could tell them where Maddox went. A reward of $10,000 is being offered for any information that helps police find Maddox.

'These past few days have been hell for me. I'm so broken. I'm heartbroken,' Ian said. 'Every time it gets dark at night I burst into tears because I'm thinking, "My little boy is out there alone". The longer (the search is) going the harder it gets because I'm so worried. He hasn't had anything to eat or drink.'

He added: 'People are making it out like I did something to him. I would never hurt my little boy. I love him to death and I just want him back. Ive been feeling the blame since this happened. I just wish I would have caught him before he got too far away from me. Its broken my heart to think that I just let him get too far away.'

FBI Special Agent Jason Kaplan said: 'We're going to explore all possibilities, including abduction.

Local authorities and the FBI are conducting a massive search across the state to search for Maddox

Authorities have been searching for Maddox for the past three days

'But we're also going to make sure we search every inch of land around here to make sure he's not simply lost', reports ABC.

According to Gastonia Police department in addition to the FBI, at least 24 local and state law enforcement agencies and more than 100 volunteers are assisting the search.

Officers have so far searched the lake and reviewed the park's surveillance footage, as well as interviewing residents and people who were in the park at the time.

Gastonia Police Chief Robert Helton said: 'If you were at Rankin Lake Park on Saturday and saw Maddox or took video or photos of their outing at the park, call us.

'We know a lot of people were in the park and we have spoken to many of them, but we have not spoken to everyone.

'No piece of information is too small. Something you may think is insignificant could be helpful to our case,' he added.

Anyone with information is asked to call the police department's special tip line at 704-869-1075.A city council has applied for a license to kill a magpie that may have left two children blind in one eye.

The City of Stirling in Perth took action after a series of vicious attacks in Trigg Park within the Clarko Reserve.

The plea comes as a last-ditch effort as children Indie, 4, and Finn, 5 were forced to undergo painful eye-surgery to repair cuts to their iris and cornea in their right eyes.

Indie, 4, (left) and Finn, 5 (right) were attacked in Trigg Park in Clarko Reserve and have to undergo painful eye surgery to repair cuts to their iris and cornea, they may go blind in their right eyes

Trigg Park, Clarko Reserve in Stirling, Perth (pictured here) is notoriously bad for magpie attacks- with several children attacked in the last couple of weeks

The children could lose sight in one eye, with the extent of the damage not known for up to six months Sunrise has reported.

In another incident, Ange Power, from Scarborough, was playing in the same park with her three children when a magpie 'nailed' her daughter Sophie.

The magpie narrowly missed the five-year-old's eye when she saw the bird 'standing on the ground, flying up and attacking before 'going in for another round'.

'I'm so grateful that it wasn't the eye, only a few tiny scratches underneath and a kid that's now terrified of magpies,' she wrote in a lengthy post on Facebook.

Wildlife biologist Bill Bateman mentioned that people on bikes were susceptible to attacks as 'magpies get very irate by bikes' (stock image)

'Maybe the rest of the school hols will be spent at the beach' she wrote.

The children were attacked by the same magpie in the same park located within the Clarko Reserve.

City of Stirling parks and sustainability manager Ian Hunter confirmed on Tuesday that the council will apply to eliminate the bird.

The application is to see the council obtain a dangerous fauna license.

Given by the Department of Biodiversity Conservation and Attractions, it enables councils to eliminate animals that are bringing harm to the community.

Mating season spreads across from June to December, but around September is always the worst time of year for swooping and children are most at risk Mr Bateman says

'On this occasion, the City has determined that recent magpie attacks at Clarko Reserve have been ongoing and of a serious nature and will apply to DBCA for a dangerous fauna licence to remove the offending bird. If approved, DBCA will work with the City to confirm the site and remove the bird.' Mr Hunter told Perth Now.

Wildlife biologist Bill Bateman, from Curtin University's school of molecular and life sciences said that children were more likely to be swooped as they often run around and make a lot of noise.

MAGPIE SWOOPING SEASON -Swooping Season is from June-December -The most attacks occur in September -Magpies are enormously territorial and will protect their eggs, young or nests at all costs. -Most swoops are 'warnings' but if the human persists- the warnings can become more severe -You can protect yourself by avoiding the area, or if not possible- wearing a hat, sunglasses and don't look up at the birds -Waving sticks and sticking eyes on the back of helmets has been known to work, but not in all cases Advertisement

While he said that most attacks actually happen from behind, with the victim oblivious to the 'warning' the magpies are giving- some attacks can be severe.

'They're quite large birds with sharp beaks and their way of defending the nest is to fly at what they perceive is the danger and go for the eyes.'

Mr Bateman also mentioned that people on bikes were also susceptible as 'magpies also get very irate by bikes'.

Mating season spreads across from June to December, but around September is always the worst time of year for swooping.

Male birds tend to be the worst attackers as they target anyone coming near their eggs, their young or nests.

Mr Bateman warns if there is a magpie in your local park- it's best to avoid the area if possible- if not, take precautions, wear a hat and sunglasses and avoid looking up at the trees.Three men are wanted for questioning after two kangaroos were tortured and then killed.

Western Australia Police say they have obtained images of the animals being tortured in Joondalup earlier this year but say the evidence is too graphic to release to the public.

Police have released images of the men, aged 20 to 30, who were allegedly involved in the sickening act on May 19 and June 16 this year.

The first man (left) is described as 20-30 year-old with fair skin, a medium build and dark facial hair. A fourth man, pixelated in the picture has been identified and is assisting detectives with the investigation

One of the men is pictured wearing knuckledusters.

The first man is described as 20-30 year-old with fair skin, a medium build and dark facial hair was wearing a black hooded top and beanie with a white emblem on the front.

The second man is about 25-30 years old also with fair skin, a solid build, short brown hair and was clean shaven with a black hooded top.

The third man is described as aged 25-30 with fair skin, medium build with facial hair and was wearing a dark coloured top with a white emblem on the front with writing on the sleeves.

A fourth man, pixelated in the picture has been identified and is assisting detectives with the investigation.

The second man (left) is about 25-30 years old also with fair skin, a solid build, short brown hair and was clean shaven. The third man (right) is described as aged 25-30 with fair skin, medium build with facial hair

No charges have been laid against the identified man.

Police are pleading for the public to assist in identifying the other three men.

In June, a video posted on Snapchat showed a kangaroo being deliberately hit by a car by a group of men in South Australia, and then suffered a stabbing and cigarette burns. The kangaroo's head was repeatedly stomped on.

In March, a New South Wales man was convicted for filming the torture of a kangaroo, with a knife inserted into its head, pulled out and then was thrown at the animal.

Western Australia Police have been contacted for more information.Advertisement

Ivanka Trump made an appearance at the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative in New York City on Tuesday after a busy day supporting her father at the UN general assembly.

The first daughter was pictured alongside other entrepreneurs for the initiative that primarily focused on better financing for female entrepreneurs in developing countries.

The mother-of-three businesswoman gabbed with Queen Maxima of the Netherlands and kissed the royal on the cheek.

She dressed to impress for the event and donned a $2,195 floral-checked wool-blend blazer and a matching $895 pencil skirt with a front slit by Altuzarra.

To match the black buttons on her gray skirt suit, Ivanka wore a pair of classic black pumps. Her long blonde hair was side parted and styled in loose waves.

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Ivanka Trump is pictured at the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative in New York City on September 25, 2018

This initiative, under the supervision of the World Bank, focuses on better financing for female entrepreneurs in developing countries

Queen Maxima and Ivanka Trump are seen with other guests at the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative in New York on September 25, 2018

Ivanka attended the initiative after the UN general assembly earlier in the day

The mom-of-three dressed to impress for the event and donned a $2,195 floral-checked wool-blend blazer and a matching $895 pencil skirt with a front slit by Altuzarra

The first daughter and queen are seen speaking with guests at the event Tuesday in NYC

Ivanka is seen chatting and laughing with Queen Maxima of the Netherlands at the event

The businesswoman gabbed with Queen Maxima and kissed her on the cheek

Donald Trump's children reunited earlier to watch him address the UN general assembly for the second time since he took office.

Ivanka, 36, Eric Trump, 34, and Tiffany Trump, 24, sat together at the United Nations Headquarters during their father's speech

Their older brother, Donald Trump Jr., 40, was noticeably absent.

The three siblings, who were also missing their 12-year-old brother, Barron Trump, sat together, while First Lady Melania was in the front row to watch her husband address his fellow world leaders.

Ivanka and Eric were joined by their respective spouses Jared Kushner and Lara Trump, who were seated next to them in the aisle.

The first daughter sported the same chic attire for the assembly.

President Trump's children Eric, Tiffany, and Ivanka (center) reunited in New York City on Tuesday. Eric and Ivanka were joined by their spouses Lara (left) and Jared (right)

The siblings were seen sitting together at the United Nations Headquarters in New York during President Donald Trump's speech

Her sister-in-law, Lara, 35, wore a blue wrap top, a gray pencil skirt, and cream heels, while Tiffany opted to wear pants.

Trump's youngest daughter, who is his only child with his second ex-wife, Marla Maples, sported a light yellow blazer over a black top and skinny pants, which were cinched with a thick belt.

She topped off the outfit with a pair of patent leather nude heels, and her long blonde hair was straightened and worn loose around her shoulders.

Unsurprisingly, Eric and Jared, 37, stuck with their typical work outfits and donned dark suits and ties for the occasion.

As senior advisers to the president, Ivanka and Jared currently live in Washington, D.C. with their three children, but they have been spending the week in their Park Avenue apartment while in New York.

Tiffany, 24, sported a light yellow blazer over a black top and skinny pants

Lara, 35, wore a blue wrap top, a gray pencil skirt, while Eric, 34, donned a dark suit and purple tie

Their older brother, Donald Trump Jr., 40, and their younger brother, Barron, 12, were absent from the event

First Lady Melania Trump sat in the front row during the speech

Like Ivanka, Tiffany is currently living in Washington, D.C. while attending her second year of law school at Georgetown University. Eric and Lara, however, live in Manhattan with their one-year-old son, Luke.

While they were in New York together, Donald Jr. was in North Dakota with his girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle.

The president's eldest son was campaigning for Republican Rep. Kevin Cramer, who is looking to oust Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp in the midterm election.

He was also there to give a boost to Republican Kelly Armstrong, who is running for the state's House seat.

Eric took to Twitter before their father's speech to share a photo of himself posed with his wife, sisters, and brother-in-law, writing: 'United Nations Time #USA.'

The siblings later watched as their father's opening remarks about his administration's success drew laughter from world leaders.

In the speech that was written for him, Trump claimed that 'in less than two years my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country.'

Trump 's opening remarks at the United Nations today drew laughter from world leaders bracing for a braggadocios address

Trump pushed the theme of 'patriotism, prosperity and pride,' telling fellow leaders, 'Let us choose peace, and freedom over domination and defeat'

As if reading the speech for the first time, he chimed in with a, 'so true,' leading to laughter from international leaders.

'Didn't expect that reaction but that's okay,' he said with a smile, before moving on to the extraordinary progress he claimed he has overseen in the U.S.

He proceeded to tout low U.S. unemployment before continuing with the rest of his address, a hardline defense of the U.S. right to act on its own without bowing to global rules.

Addressing world leaders at the start of the annual United Nations General Assembly, Trump lashed out at the OPEC oil cartel, China's trade policies, and the International Criminal Court, which he vowed the United States would never accept.

Hours before Iranian President Hassan Rouhani takes the same rostrum, Trump denounced the clerical regime as sowing 'chaos, death and destruction' and doubled down on the U.S. withdrawal of an international agreement on curbing Tehran's nuclear program.

Ivanka gave a wave when she returned to her apartment building after her father's speech at the UN

Ivanka had a bright smile on her face as she made her way into her apartment building. She and her family have spent the week in New York City so far

Jared was seen chatting on his cellphone when he returned to his New York apartment

But the real estate mogul turned populist leader was comparatively subdued a year after he stunned the global body with his bellicose language on North Korea, including a threat to 'totally destroy' Kim Jong Un's state.

This time around, Trump heralded his own diplomacy on North Korea including a historic summit in June with Kim, saying he has worked to 'replace the specter of conflict with a bold and new push for peace.'

The weather in the Big Apple was dreary on Tuesday, and earlier in the day, Ivanka and Jared were seen huddling under an umbrella held by one of their building's doormen as they made their way to the SUV waiting outside for them.

Ivanka had a bright smile on her face as she stepped outside holding a black leather handbag while her husband walked close behind her.

Jared ended up getting into the vehicle first, likely saving Ivanka from having to slide across the seat.

After her father's speech, Ivanka was seen returning to her apartment by herself, and the first daughter appeared to be in good spirits.

She flashed another megawatt smile and gave a wave as she made her way into the building.

Jared later arrived back at their apartment. He was on his cellphone and huddled under an umbrella held by a different doorman from earlier in the day.Emily Bartley, 27, was struck by a car on a dimly-lit road in Wantirna, Melbourne, as she gave CPR to a dying motorcyclist

A Good Samaritan killed as she gave CPR to a dying motorcyclist has been remembered as a devoted mother of two young children.

Emily Bartley was struck by a car on a dimly-lit road in Wantirna, Melbourne, just after 10pm on Monday moments after she pulled over to help.

The 27-year-old died at the scene at the corner of Boronia Road and Amesbury Avenue, along with the victim, 37, she was trying to save.

She was on her way home from work at an aged care facility to her husband John Bartley, five-year-old son and seven-year-old daughter.

'We are truly devastated to have lost our beautiful Emily. She was a loving wife and devoted mother,' her family said in a statement.

'She was a genuinely caring person right down to her line of work where she cared for dementia patients.

'We are so very touched and thankful for all the personal messages and tributes and for the concern which has been shown for the wellbeing of our close family.'

Ms Bartley stopped after she witnessed a horrifying crash where a speeding motorbike ploughed into the side of an Audi as it tried to cross the intersection.

The 27-year-old died at the scene at the corner of Boronia Road and Amesbury Avenue, along with the victim, 37, she was trying to save (the other man's motorbike is pictured)

She was on her way home from work at an aged care facility to her husband John Bartley (right), five-year-old son and seven-year-old daughter

White powder was found on the rider after the collision.

Acting Detective Inspector Brad McArthur told 3AW Emily's husband was 'trying to take on board what's happened'.

'This is a life-changing event for him and he will never get over this. These children are now without a mother,' he said.

'The kids are early school age or not even school age, they're going to have to live their life without a mother.'

The motorcyclist was known to police, and was in possession of white powder when he was killed.

Witnesses said it appeared Ms Bartley was trying to give the motorcycle rider CPR when she was struck and killed.

Ms Bartley (left, husband right) stopped after she witnessed a horrifying crash where a speeding motorbike ploughed into the side of an Audi as it tried to cross the intersection

Ms Bartley stopped after she witnessed a horrifying crash where a speeding motorbike ploughed into the side of an Audi as it tried to cross the intersection

Detective Inspector McArthur said the motorcyclist was riding in an 'irresponsible and reckless' way.

He hit the Audi at such speed that the car 'spun by about 180 degrees', Detective Inspector McArthur said.

The 50-year-old Audi driver said he was shocked by how fast the motorcycle was going. Both the driver and his 47-year-old female passenger were uninjured.

The woman was hit by a Honda Prelude as she tried to help the dying motorcycle rider.

'We have a person driving in an irresponsible and reckless manner cause a chain of events that led to his death and the death of person trying to help him,' Detective Inspector McArthur said.

The 32-year-old Honda Prelude driver was also uninjured, and is assisting police with their inquiries.

One of the street lights near the scene of the crash was not working, and police the woman's dark clothing may have caused the second collision.

Detectives from the major collision unit are investigating the two crashes.

Police told Nine News 'all parties involved' stopped to offer assistance.

Investigators remained at the scene on Tuesday morning to clear debris from the road.

Both the 37-year-old male motorcycle rider, who collided with an Audi, and the 27-year-old female pedestrian who stopped to help him died at the sceneA kayaker got quite a fright during a trip with colleagues when a seal suddenly emerged from the water and slapped him in the face with an octopus.

The double-whammy was recently captured on a GoPro off the coast of Kaikoura, on New Zealand's South Island.

Kyle Mulinder said he was paddling with several others when the sassy seal appeared out of nowhere.

The group of content creators were out testing their new GoPro HERO7, when fellow peer Taiyo Masuda caught the moment Mr Mulinder was caught between the vicious sea life battle.

'We were just sitting out in the middle of the ocean and then this huge male seal appeared with an octopus and he was thrashing him about for ages,' Mr Mulinder told Yahoo7 News.

The seal dipped back underwater before suddenly re-emerging - this time with a vengeance.

Footage captured the moment the seal launched into the air and whipped the octopus directly onto Mr Mulinder's face.

The group of content creators were out testing a new GoPro model off the coast of the South Island's when Kyle Mulinder (pictured) was caught between a vicious sea life battle

'I was like 'mate, what just happened?' The double-whammy was captured on a GoPro off the coast of Kaikoura, New Zealand

'I was like 'mate, what just happened?' he said.

'It was weird because it happened so fast but I could feel all the hard parts of the octopus on my face like 'dum dum dum'.'

Mr Mulinder brought a new meaning to the term 'stunned mullet'.

He winced and screamed as his peers erupted into laughter.

Although the octopus put up a good fight, Mr Mulinder said the seal came out on top.Aldi competitor Kaufland is offering some lucrative work packages paying more than $170,000 a year as it prepares for its Australian expansion.

The German grocery chain is a subsidiary of the Schwarz Group, which is the world's fourth largest retailer.

They operate around 1,300 stores and manage 78,000 employees across seven European countries.

As it prepares for its launch in Australia, the discount supermarket has started a major hiring spree in cities like Adelaide, Melbourne and Brisbane.

Kaufland (pictured) currently operates around 1,300 stores and employs 78,000 people in seven European countries

Kaufland is on the hunt for two area managers, one in Melbourne (pictured) and one in Adelaide

From Quality Assurance Managers, to Human Resources, to payroll officers, the chain is offering a range of rewarding positions.

Perhaps the most noticeable are the area manager roles, which have been tagged with generous work packages.

Two area manager jobs have been listed on job search site Seek, with a salary offer of $171,000.

To top it off, the company will also provide the person with a BMW and a trip to Germany.

As it prepares for its launch in Australia, the discount supermarket has started a major hiring spree in cities like Adelaide, Melbourne and Brisbane (pictured is a Kaufland store)

As Kaufland (pictured) prepares to lift off in Australia, analysts have tipped the supermarket chain to be a worthy competitor of other grocery outlets in the country

According to the job description, future managers will 'spend 14 months abroad in Europe, visit our [Kaufland's] global head offices in Germany and learn what makes Kaufland successful.'

Ideal candidates only need to be an Australian citizen or permanent resident, and have a Bachelor's Degree level or higher and at least 3 years experience in a similar role.

The benefits rival Aldi's work packages for its area managers.

The competing supermarket currently offers between $101,000 and $155,000, a company car and iPhone to its successful managers.

As Kaufland prepares to lift off in Australia, analysts have tipped the supermarket chain to be a worthy competitor of other grocery outlets in the country.

Morgan Stanley analysts warned in a report published in April that Kaufland could pick up more than $450 million in Australian revenue by the 2020 financial year.

Aldi's offer for its area managers (pictured) closely follows behind Kaufland's new offers



A Florida husband accused of killing his eight-months pregnant mistress was reportedly angry that he gave her money for an abortion but she never got one.

Jose Soto-Escalera was arrested on Friday for two counts of first-degree murder after the body of pregnant 23-year-old Tania Wise was found along the side of a desolate stretch of road in St Lucie County last month.

Soto-Escalera, who is married to another woman, had been romantically involved with Wise and was the father to her unborn baby, which she planned to name Josiah. Police said Wise was one week away from giving birth when she was murdered.

According to an affidavit, Jose Soto-Escalera was angry that his mistress Tania Wise (pictured) would not get an abortion. She was found dead last month

Soto-Escalera (pictured in his mugshot) reportedly gave money to Wise for an abortion and she gave it to another man she was seeing

According to an arrest affidavit released on Monday, Soto-Escalera wanted Wise to get an abortion and reportedly became angry when she didn't.

Soto-Escalera said he gave Wise $500 to terminate the pregnancy and she gave the money to another man she was seeing, the New York Post reports.

'Wise did not get an abortion and Escalera was mad because Wise "played him",' the affidavit stated.

Police said Soto-Escalera initially denied he was sexually involved with Wise but DNA proved he was the father of the unborn baby.

Wise, who was pregnant with what would have been her second child, was found dead on August 24, one day after she told a friend she was going to meet Soto-Escalera.



Police said Wise, who another son named Jamar, was killed one week before she was scheduled to have a C-section

Soto-Escalera's truck (above) was spotted by witnesses near Wise's house the night she went missing and near the crime scene

Sheriff Ken J Mascara said Friday that multiple eyewitnesses had seen Soto-Escalera's truck in the area where Wise's body was discovered.

Others reported seeing his truck near her residence on the night she went missing.

According to the affidavit, cellular data shows that Soto-Escalera allegedly called his wife around 10pm from a location near the crime scene.

Investigators said they don't believe she knew about the alleged affair.

'We would like to extend our heartfelt condolences to Tanias family and know that what took place today will begin to bring them closure in this horrible and tragic event,' Sheriff Mascara said.

Soto-Escalera was arrested while driving his wife's car and had a handgun in his possession.

He was taken to St. Lucie County Jail where he has remained over the weekend.

Wise had another son named Jamar from a previous relationship. Soto-Escalera has four children. Police said Wise had been scheduled to have a C-section just one week after the day she was murdered.Senate Republicans are bringing in Arizona sex crimes prosecutor Rachel Mitchell to question Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and his accuser at today's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.

Mitchell, a Republican, has been a prosecutor since 1993, and leads the Special Victims Division in the Maricopa County Attorney's Office in Phoenix - where she would have worked with the county's controversial sheriff, Joe Arapaio, until he was voted out of office last year.

She supervises attorneys who handle cases involving child molestation, sexual assault and computer crimes against children in Arizona's most populous county.

Christine Blasey Ford's allegation that Kavanaugh drunkenly attempted to rape her when they were teenagers has predictably raised a political storm in the #MeToo era, and Mitchell was hired in part due to Republican concerns about the optics of having the all-male GOP members of the committee grilling the female accuser.

Rachel Mitchell, a prosecutor from Arizona, is seen on Thursday ready to go on Capitol Hill as Christine Blasey Ford testifies

She has been brought in to question Ford on behalf of Republicans

Utah Republican Orrin Hatch is the panel's oldest member at 84, while Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse is the youngest Republican on the committee at 46.

Ford's attorney's have repeatedly objected to an outside counsel, however, insisting that the senators themselves must conduct the questioning.

Democrats on the Judiciary Committee have blasted the move to hire an outside counsel, with a spokesperson for ranking member Dianne Feinstein telling DailyMail.com that it would 'create a trial-like atmosphere' in the hearing.

Ford is seen on Capitol Hill on Thursday, left, and in the one photo used of her before that, right

Senate Republicans are bringing in Arizona sex crimes prosecutor Rachel Mitchell (above in 2004) to question Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and his accuser today

Corridors of power: Rachel Mitchell was also spotted in the Capitol last Thursday

As a prosecutor in Maricopa County, Mitchell would have worked closely with Arpaio, who was pardoned by President Donald Trump last year for ignoring a court order to cease 'rounding up' people suspected of immigration violations.

The county prosecutor's office is separate from the sheriff's office, however. In 2011, Mitchell was tasked to a unit that investigated why hundreds of sex crimes had gone unresolved or were not adequately investigated by the sheriff's office.

The crimes dated from 2007 back to 2005, the year that Mitchell was first appointed as head of the Special Victims Division in a controversial shakeup.

A 2016 audit also found some 4,000 untested rape kits in Maricopa County, a backlog that investigators are currently working through. Advocates blame a lack of funding for the backlog, and say that it is police, not prosecutors, who are typically responsibly for testing rape kits.

Mitchell, who has decades of experience prosecuting sex crimes, 'has been recognized in the legal community for her experience and objectivity,' committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, said in a statement Tuesday.

KEY DEVELOPMENTS IN THE KAVANAUGH AFFAIR WEDNESDAY:

Brett Kavanaugh denied two new sex assault allegations put to him by Congressional staff and revealed in newly-published transcripts;

Christine Ford released her statement to senators which she will read Thursday and say she feared he would kill her accidentally as he tried to rape her;

Ford's attorneys published lie-detector test results which show she passed, but that she is refusing to hand over notes from her therapist;

Kavanaugh released his opening statement for the hearing in which he will admit he drank in high school and say he was 'not perfect' but once again say he has never committed sexual assault;

The Senate Judiciary Committee released his calendars from 1982 which he will point to as proof that he was not an attempted rapist;

Democrats on the committee demanded he step aside unless Trump agrees to order an FBI investigation;

A poll showed a plurality of Americans now believe Ford over Kavanaugh, but that 46 per cent of people are undecided;

Republicans were unable to guarantee they had the votes to get Kavanaugh confirmed amid fears two female GOP senators may not vote for him and Arizona's Jeff Flake may also vote him down;

Trump said they should have pushed the nomination through before Ford went public and refused to answer when asked if the women were liars;

Protests hit the Capitol again, led by actress Alyssa Milano;

The veteran sex crimes prosecutor who will question Ford was named as being from Arizona's Maricopa County, meaning she had worked to prosecute cases brought by controversial sheriff Joe Arpaio's department.

The White House released a letter from 60 people who knew Kavanaugh in high school and never witnessed anything that 'even approaches' what is alleged. They also say they never recall meeting someone named Julie Swetnick.

Rachel Mitchell makes an opening statement in the trial of Karl LeClaire in 2004. The former priest pleaded guilty to sexually motivated aggravated assault on the trial's second day

'I'm committed to providing a forum to both Dr. Ford and Judge Kavanaugh on Thursday that is safe, comfortable and dignified,' Grassley said.

Prior to the announcement of Mitchell's hiring, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell raised eyebrows by referring to her as 'female assistant to go on staff and to ask these questions'.

Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery, Mitchell's boss, praised her experience in an interview with the Arizona Republic, calling her an 'objective prosecutor' who has a 'caring heart' for victims.

He said he was contacted by staff members of the Judiciary Committee over the weekend about Mitchell's qualifications.

Prior to leading Maricopa County's Special Victim's Division, Mitchell spent 12 years running the bureau in the Division responsible for the prosecution of sex-related felonies, including child molestation, adult sexual assault, cold cases, child prostitution and computer-related sexual offenses.

The Division's other bureau specializes in family violence. Mitchell is currently on leave from her job in Maricopa County, according to Grassley's statement.

Mitchell (left) is seen presenting at a 2016 conference of the National Native American Law Enforcement Association. She will question both Ford and Kavanaugh on Thursday

Mitchell has won several awards, including being named Outstanding Arizona Sexual Assault Prosecutor of the Year by Governor Janet Napolitano in 2003, and the 2006 award for Outstanding Child Abuse Legal Professional Award for Excellence from the Arizona Children's Justice Task Force.

In a 2012 interview with FrontLine, Mitchell explained that she had never planned to become a sex crimes prosecutor until, while working as a law clerk, she assisted in the prosecution of a youth choir director accused of abuse.

'It struck me how innocent and vulnerable the victims of these cases really were. When I became an attorney with the office I prosecuted other kinds of cases, but I was drawn back to this area,' Mitchell said.

Mitchell also spoke about the frequent reluctance of young sexual assault victims to come forward - a topic that will surely be raised on Thursday given Ford's 36 years of silence about the assault that she alleges took place when she and Kavanaugh were both in high school.

Mitchell (seen in 2004) will come under intense scrutiny from Democrats to see if she appears to side with Kavanaugh in Thursday's questioning of the nominee and his accuser

'People think that children would tell right away and that they would tell everything that happened to them. In reality children often keep this secret for years, sometimes into their adulthood, sometimes forever,' Mitchell said.

'And they may or they may not tell everything. They may partially disclose to see how people are going to react to them. 'I'll tell you the least embarrassing thing first, and I'm going to see whether you are going to get mad at me or whether you are going to help me. Then if I get a positive response, I may tell some more,'' the veteran prosecutor continued.

She also said that the 'largest misconception' about sexual offenses is 'that 'stranger danger' is the rule rather than the fairly rare exception', adding that 'about 90-95 per cent' of victims know the offender.

In July 2014, Mitchell prosecuted a former church volunteer in the Phoenix suburb of Scottsdale who molested children in his care as a church baby sitter and camp counselor over a seven-year period. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison with lifetime probation.

'People want to go to a church on a Sunday and feel safe,' Mitchell said at the time, adding that the settings of his actions 'should be taken into account.'

In 2015, Mitchell prosecuted a 13-year veteran of the Mesa Police Department who groped two women, one of whom had passed out.

Her tenure in Maricopa County has not been entirely without controversy, however.

Him too: Brett Kavanaugh will be questioned by Rachel Mitchell after Christine Blasey Ford completes her testimony

In 2003, Mitchell declined to prosecute a husband accused of beating and neglecting his quadriplegic wife, the Phoenix New Times reported. The prosecutor said that the woman had changed her story and that there was not enough proof to bring the case to trial.

In 2011, Mitchell's office drew criticism by proffering a plea deal for six months in prison to a Jehova's Witness elder who had admitted to sexually abusing a teenage boy in the 1990s.

The victim came forward some 30 years after the abuse occurred - but Mitchell said that it was difficult to be sure what age the victim had been when he was abused, which can dramatically affect sentencing guidelines.

Mitchell said that specific memories that can date a claim - so-called 'time anchors' - are crucial in assessing decades-old claims.

''It's not uncommon for victims, especially teenage male victims, to tell you, 'I was this age when it happened,'' she told the New Times. 'Then, when you get 'time anchors' from them, you find out they were actually older.'

Mitchell continued: 'It's a normal thing to do where you have a coping mechanism [in which] they imagine that they were younger, because, 'If I were older I wouldn't have let it happen.''

However, Mitchell has also brought other successful prosecutions against sex offenders even though decades had passed since the the crimes.

In 2005, she won a conviction against former Catholic priest Paul LeBrun, who had been accused of molesting six boys between the ages of 11 and 13 in the 1980s and early 90s. LeBrun was sentenced to 111 years in prison.

Last year, the county attorney's office introduced a sex crimes protocol - the first in its history.

The new policy manual will ensure that prosecutors have a guide 'so that we can do the best we can for victims,' Mitchell told a local NPR station.

'It's always hard to know which victims were not victims or which people were not victims because your system worked,' Mitchell said in a January interview with Phoenix radio station KJZZ.The father of a young girl accused of using a skipping rope noose to hang a disabled classmate claims his young daughter is unfairly 'bearing the brunt' of trolling after the incident.

Amber Yoon, 10, was allegedly hung from a tree with a makeshift noose in the yard of Queen of Apostles Primary School at Riverton, in Western Australia, late last month.

The shocking attack led Amber's mother Belinda to speak out publicly about the toll the incident - which was briefly investigated by police - had taken on her daughter.

Earlier this week Mrs Yoon took to Facebook in tears after receiving a summons for a Violence Restraining Order (VRO), taken out by the alleged bully's father.

Despite a police investigation finding his daughter had no case to answer, the father said they had since been targeted by trolls online - and admitted he would 'probably' revoke the VRO to finally move on from the incident.

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Amber Yoon (pictured with her mother Belinda) was allegedly hung from a tree with a skipping rope noose in the playground of her Perth primary school last month

Police investigated the alleged attack on the 10-year-old (who is pictured after the incident) but did not press charges

'I am probably going to remove the request for the restraining order as the original problem that it was intended to resolve has been resolved,' the girl's father told Daily Mail Australia.

'There is a lot of information that has been missed due to the hype, or that has since surfaced, and unfortunately, my daughter is bearing the brunt of that.

'Police found that there was nothing wrong done. It wasn't that my daughter couldn't be charged... it was because they didn't find any evidence of wrong doing.

'I don't want to bury my daughter either. The trolls of the world are alive and well.''

Amber, who suffers a raft of medical conditions, is still recovering from the ordeal and no longer goes to the school.

Mrs Yoon has previously claimed that in the minutes after her daughter was hung up from the tree, the school did not contact her or her husband.

The shattered mother claims the first she found out about the incident was at home that night, when Amber burst into tears after walking through the front door.

Belinda Yoon (left) was this week served with a violence restraining order (VRO) taken out by a father of one of her daughter's alleged bullies. That father has now told of the shocking online abuse his daughter has copped

Unsatisfied with the response of the school to the incident, Mrs Yoon called police and an investigation was launched into the incident.

But that investigation soon came to an end, with WA Police opting not to lay charges.

'The only reason we got the police involved was to look into the school, not him or his daughter,' Mrs Yoon said.

'If the family had come up and said 'I'm so sorry', it would never have gone to this extent.'

Mrs Yoon was this week served with a copy of a VRO by two police officers.

Minutes later she posted a video to Facebook claiming she had never 'driven past the house' of her daughter's alleged bully 'in an agitated state' as the VRO claimed.

Amber (pictured), who suffers from a raft of serious medical conditions and disabilities, came home in tears after the incident and told her mother about what had allegedly happened

Mrs Yoon (pictured) claims netiher she or her husband were contacted by the school, despite a teacher sternly telling her daughter that what she was doing was wrong

'I have been served with a restraining order summons from the parents of the girl who (allegedly) hung my daughter from a tree at her school,' she tearfully told the camera.

'Apparently I've been driving by their house in an agitated state... I don't even know where they live or know the dad's name.

'Seriously, I'm literally reading this, going "How is this right in any way?".

'They've not said sorry for what their daughter did, I am getting summoned to court for a restraining order How does this get any better for our family?'

The video of Mrs Yoon has been watched close to 500,000 times on Facebook.The so-called 'Grand Central of the West' is closed out of safety concerns after workers discovered a crack in a support beam of the $2 billion transit terminal that opened just last month.

Workers discovered the crack early Tuesday while installing roofing tiles at the Salesforce Transit Center, according to its executive director Mark Zabaneh.

Engineers spent the day inspecting the damage and Zabaneh said they decided to shut the station around 5pm, just as the afternoon rush hour started.

Zabaneh said the cause and the extent of the damage were unknown and the decision to close the terminal was made out of an 'abundance of caution.'

The lower level of the Salesforce Transit Center remains empty except for police following its closure

Mike Eshleman, with AC Transit, directs people away from the Salesforce Transit Center following its closure on Tuesday

He said structural engineers would be working at the building Tuesday night to assess whether it is safe for people to return.

Zabaneh said the crack was found near a weld on a stress-bearing horizontal beam. Engineers are searching for other cracks in other pipes, but are optimistic the damage is limited to the one pipe.

Buses were rerouted to a temporary transit center about two blocks away that was used during the center's construction. A downtown street that runs under the beam was also ordered closed indefinitely, causing traffic chaos at the same time some streets were closed for a conference sponsored by Salesforce that was expected to draw 170,000 attendees.

'The beam is cracked,' Zabaneh said. 'The behavior of the beam is unpredictable.'

Enveloped in wavy white sheets of metal veil, the five-level center includes a bus deck, a towering sky-lit central entrance hall and a rooftop park with an outdoor amphitheater. Zabaneh said American steel was used in the center's construction.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the complex faced delays in putting out contracts to bid, and the winning bids were ultimately higher than expected.

The Salesforce Transit Center complex, stretching several blocks, is a brand new 2billion railway development

San Francisco Police officers stand watch in the lower level of the Salesforce Transit Center to cordon it off from members of the public

Nicknamed the 'Grand Central of the West,' the Salesforce Transit Center opened in August near the heart of downtown after nearly a decade of construction

The terminal's cost rose from $1.6 billion at its 2010 groundbreaking to more than $2 billion in 2016 because of what one analyst called 'optimistic assumptions,' according to the Chronicle.

The project, a commanding presence in the city's South of Market neighborhood, is financed by land sales, federal stimulus grants, district fees and taxes, bridge tolls, and federal and state funds.

It sits adjacent to another dubious landmark, the so-called sinking condominium, Millennium Tower, which has settled about 18 inches (45 centimeters) since it opened over a former landfill in 2009. Homeowners have filed multiple lawsuits against the developer and the city, some alleging that construction of the transit center caused the Millennium Tower's sinking.

Zabaneh said he did not believe that the cracked beam was related to ongoing problems at Millennium Tower.

The online business software company Salesforce, which opened its adjacent 61-story Salesforce Tower three months ago, bought naming rights to the center in 2017 as part of a 25-year, $110 million sponsorship agreement.

The Salesforce Transit Center is operated by the Transbay Joint Powers Authority.

Commuters wait in lines for buses at the Temporary Transbay Terminal after the Salesforce Transit Center was closed

The stations closure on Tuesday caused travel chaos for the thousands of commuters who pass through it each daySydney and Melbourne house prices could plummet by up to 30 per cent if Labor wins the next election, a mortgage broking group claims.

Property strategist Bushy Martin, the founder of Know How Property Finance, said the Opposition's plan to scrap the negative gearing tax break for housing investors was a recipe for a recession.

'Something of the magnitude of these taxation changes has the potential to trigger an economic catastrophe,' he told Daily Mail Australia today from Germany.

Sydney and Melbourne house prices could plummet by up to 30 per cent if Labor wins the next election, a mortgage broking group says

'It's got the potential to trigger the recession that we didn't need to have.'

Sydney house prices have already fallen by 7 per cent since peaking in mid-2017, after the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority imposed stricter lending rules on investors.

Mr Martin predicted house prices could fall by up to 30 per cent in Sydney and Melbourne, from last year's peak, if Opposition Leader Bill Shorten won the next federal election, due by May.

'If you trigger a cataclysmic change like the tax revolution Labor are looking to institute, then you're more likely to see in the vicinity of 20 to 30 per cent,' he said.

Bushy Martin, the founder of Know How Property Finance, said the Opposition's plan to scrap negative gearing tax break for housing investors was a recipe for a recession

Labor is promising to scrap negative gearing for future purchases of existing properties, which would stop investors from claiming losses from rental income as a tax deduction.

The Opposition is also proposing to halve the capital gains tax discount from selling an investment property from 50 per cent to 25 per cent.

Bushy Martin is worried about Sydney house prices if negative gearing is scrapped

Earlier this week, Swiss bank UBS economists George Tharenou, Carlos Cacho and Jim Xu said more credit tightening and a reluctance on the part of the Reserve Bank of Australia to cut rates from a record low of 1.5 per cent would see 'the longest house price downturn in decades'.

They predicted house price falls of 10 per cent from their peak.

The UBS economists based in Australia pointed out that investor home loans slid by more than 30 per cent during the mid-1980s when Bob Hawke's Labor government abolished negative gearing for all future rental property investors.

The policy was scrapped in 1987, even though rental vacancies were only affected in Sydney and Perth.

A Newspoll out this week showing the Opposition leading the government 54 to 46 per cent after preferences.A dairy company is facing several charges after a putrid cheese smell wafted through the town.

Open Country Dairy's factory in Waharoa in New Zealand has been slapped with six charges related to the repulsive smell of cheese and the careless handling of waste by the Waikato Regional Council on Wednesday.

'It's like a hundred metre long sewerage pit opening up,' said a Waharoa business owner.

A dairy company is facing several charges after a putrid cheese smell wafted through the town

Residents have complained the putrid cheese smell extended up to 6km up to road to Matamata.

Managers from the Waikato Regional Council have met with seniors managers from Open Country to discuss the seriousness of the matter.

Online comments suggest the smell, which had been compared to rotten cheese, was detected up to one month ago.

The regional council's manager Patrick Lynch told Stuff.co.nz said the several complaints received by locals are being taken 'very seriously'.

A business owner said the smell had 'been going on for weeks' and complained she could no longer open her windows or doors.

The smell was so bad, she was convinced her sewerage was leaking.

Online comments suggest the smell, which had been compared to rotten cheese, was detected up to one month ago

One mum wrote saying the smell was sickening to the point she could no longer play with her children.

A women who lived 5km north of Waharoa was unimpressed to wake up to the smell in the morning.

'The local community are our highest priority concern ... we are aware of the issue, we're highly motivated to have it dealt with and our concern is primarily for the local community,' Open Country chairman Laurie Margrain said in a statement.

Fed up Waharoa business owners hesitated to give their names when Stuff spoke to them, aware of the fact Open Country was a respected customer.The Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary ramped up pressure on Iran to release a charity worker jailed in Tehran during talks in New York.

Theresa May told Iranian president Hassan Rouhani she had 'serious concerns' about the jailing of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

The British-Iranian mother was sentenced to five years in jail after being accused of spying by Tehran's Islamist regime, a charge she vehemently denies.

In talks on the fringes of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), Mrs May called for Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe's release.

The move marks an escalation of the Government's campaign on behalf of the mother-of-one, coming after Jeremy Hunt demanded rapid action to secure her freedom in his first face-to-face meeting with Iran's foreign minister.

Aid worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was sentenced to five years in prison in 2016. She was briefly reunited with her daughter last month

Theresa May told Iranian president Hassan Rouhani in New York today (pictured) that she had 'serious concerns' about the jailing of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe

The Foreign Secretary told Javad Zarif that Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe must be returned home quickly.

During talks on the UNGA sidelines, he said: 'I again pressed for Nazanin's swift release - she deserves to be back at home with her family,' Mr Hunt said in a statement.

It is also 'absolutely essential' the Iranian government take steps to ensure the release of 'a number of detained dual nationals', he added.

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who works for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was detained at Imam Khomeini airport in April 2016.

Following intensive diplomatic efforts, Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was granted temporary release last month.

She spent three days with her family, reuniting with her four-year-old daughter Gabriella. She was quoted as saying she 'cried so much' and said she wanted her child to 'have a mummy again'.

But her request for an extension was denied, prompting husband Richard Ratcliffe to write an open letter to Mr Zarif calling the short release a 'cruel game'.

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe has consistently denied all the spying allegations, insisting that she was on holiday to introduce Gabriella to her family.

Mrs May is visiting New York to deliver a speech at the UN general assembly tonight

Mrs May also came face to face with Emmanuel Macron (left) for the first time since he brutally rejected her Chequers plan for Brexit last week

Mr Hunt's predecessor, Boris Johnson, was accused of extending her sentence after mistakenly describing her as a journalist who was working on her trip.

Mrs May also used her meeting with President Rouhani to underline the UK's commitment to the Iran nuclear deal.

Britain and its European allies responded with dismay to US president Donald Trump's decision to pull out of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that relieved sanctions on Tehran in return for an end to Iran's military nuclear ambitions.Australia needs a national food stockpile to protect from starvation in case the global food supply chain is disrupted by a large volcanic eruption, experts have said.

Past large eruptions such as the 1815 Tambora explosion in Indonesia triggered global climate cooling, causing crop failures.

An earlier eruption in 1257 at the Samalas volcano next to Mount Rinjani on the holiday island of Lombok is likely to have caused the Little Ice Age according to a research paper published in scientific journal Geosphere.

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The Anak Krakatau (Child of Krakatoa) volcano in the Indian Ocean erupts on September 22

As a result of the catastrophe crops died across Europe, causing famine and mass starvation, according to the report Anticipating future Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) 7 eruptions and their chilling impacts.

Archaeologists think mass graves with more than 10,000 skeletons found at Spitalfields in London date to the following year.

The research paper said the increase of world population from about 400 million when Rinjani erupted to more than 7 billion would make the effects of a large volcanic eruption today way more devastating.

Anak Krakatau erupted more 50 times over the weekend prompting ash advisory warnings

Mount Tambora 1815 explosion The eruption began with small tremors on April 5. The mountain was blown apart by a shattering blast on April 10 killing at least 10,000 islanders and destroying the homes of 35,000 more. To many volcanologists, the Mount Tambora eruption is the largest and most-destructive volcanic event recorded in history. It expelled as much as 150 cubic kilometres of ash, pumice and other rock into the atmosphere. This included an estimated 60 megatons of sulfur. The material mixed with atmospheric gases and prevented sunlight from reaching the earth's surface. This reduced the average global temperature by three degrees. Not all the affects were immediate. Crops were unable to grow following the eruption and about 80,000 people died due to disease and famine. Source: Encyclopedia Britannica Advertisement

Australian National University professor of geology Richard Arculus told Daily Mail Australia that Australia could prepare by stockpiling cereals.

'If we get an eruption of say 6 to 7 [on the Volcanic Explosivity Index], there is nothing we do to stop the global effects,' he said.

'But we can prepare for these kind of events with stores of cereals.'

While the global supply chain means crop producing areas can feed those where crops fail, the chain itself can be vulnerable to disruption, the research report said.

There has been increased activity around the Pacific Ring of Fire reported this year with eruptions in Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and Hawaii plus a surprising volcanic field under Melbourne.

Indonesia had an eruption this year at Mount Agung, with another active volcano Anak Krakatau erupting more than 50 times over the weekend according to the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency.England is home to the top two universities in the world, but the UK is no longer the second most-represented nation in the rankings, according to a new league table.

Oxford claims top spot for the third consecutive year in the latest annual Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings.

Cambridge retains second position for a second year and Stanford University in the US completes the top three, maintaining it position from last year.

Where the top ten UK universities sit in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings

Oxford claims top spot for the third consecutive year. Magdalen College in the city is pictured

Cambridge retains second position this year. Above, King's College Chapel and Clare College

Despite the UK having 98 institutions in the full list of 1,258, it loses its spot as second most-represented nation to Japan which claims 103 positions.

The US leads the way with 172 institutions in the list.

UK universities in the top 200 in THE World University Rankings Here is the list of the UK universities in the top 200 of the latest THE World University Rankings. Last year's positions are in brackets. = denotes joint position. 1 (1) U niv ersity of Oxford

2 (2) University of Cambridge

9 (8) Imperial College London

16 (15) University College London

26 (=25) London School of Economics and Political Science

=29 (=27) University of Edinburgh

38 (36) King's College London

57 (=54) University of Manchester

78 (76) University of Bristol

=79 (91) University of Warwick

=88 (=80) University of Glasgow

106 (104) University of Sheffield

114 (97) Durham University

=116 (=141) University of Birmingham

118 (=126) University of Southampton

119 (=137) University of York

130 (121) Queen Mary University of London

141 (=130) University of Exeter

=146 (=150) Lancaster University

149 (=147) University of Nottingham

=153 (139) University of Leeds

158(185) University of Aberdeen

=161 (=147) University of Sussex

165 (=143) University of St Andrews

=167 (=159) University of Leiceste r

r =171 (=175) Newcastle University

=181 (=177) University of Liverpool

=187 (=162) Cardiff University

=190 (=188) University of East Anglia Advertisement

The UK retains its status as second most-represented in the top 200, after America, but the majority (21 of 29) also remain static or decline.

This year's ranking see the University of Dundee and Royal Holloway slipping out of the global 200.

China's new top university, Tsinghua, claims 25th spot, and overtakes the UK's LSE for, which falls one spot to 26, and the University of Edinburgh which drops from joint 27 to 29.

There are a number of climbers in the UK, with University College London rising two spots to number 14, and the University of Warwick scaling 12 places to joint 79th.

The University of Birmingham jumps 25 positions to joint 116, while the University of Aberdeen leaps 27 positions to 158th.

Phil Baty, editorial director of the THE global rankings, said: 'We see some individual stars in the UK this year, but the broader national data story is really one of stagnation and modest decline, with the UK taking a minor hit to its research reputation.

'We can only speculate at this stage as to any connection with Brexit, the risk, however, to the UK's reputation and research capabilities from its separation with Europe is very real.

'The ground-breaking work of UK universities mustn't be undermined by complacency and politicking.

'To ensure they continue to thrive on the global stage, positive immigration and investment policies are crucial.

'They must be free to attract and retain the very best international talent and international students post-Brexit, and they must be protected from cuts, the flow of research funding and academic talent mustn't be impacted.'

The table ranks institutions on 12 measures grouped into five areas - teaching, research, citations, international outlook and industry income.A British backpacker who was scouted as a model while teaching in Asia has become a star in Myanmar - appearing on a 10ft swimwear poster and featuring in a hit film.

Libby Jennings, from Newcastle, decided to go travelling after becoming fed up working a retail job in the day and pulling pints at a local bar by night.

Five years ago, the 28-year-old packed her bags and began her new job teaching English in Thailand, until one day she was approached by an agency who offered her a modelling contract.

Libby Jennings, from Newcastle, decided to go travelling after becoming fed up working a retail job in the day and pulling pints at a local bar at night

'They told me to send in some pictures and they would start sending me to castings,' Miss Jennings said.

'I quit my teaching job, started going to castings and finally stopped being nervous,' she added.

Soon after modelling work came thick and fast and she was approached to feature in glossy magazines and represent fitness clubs.

The versatile model even posed in glamorous gowns for Yves Saint-Laurent and Valentino - and with buckets of fast food for KFC.

Now the model, who went to Heaton Manor School, is a star in South East Asia, has 65,000 followers on social media and is often mobbed by fans whenever she lands in Myanmar.

The actress (above) has appeared in films such as Screaming at Stars, Crazy Medicine and Brice 3. She now has 65,000 followers on social media and is often mobbed by fans whenever she lands in Myanmar

The star says that starting out as a backpacker five years ago was the 'best decision' she could have ever made

'I get to travel a lot for work, meet lots of famous people. I absolutely cannot complain about my lifestyle,' she said.

'I'm not driving a Ferrari or anything, in fact I can't even drive.

'But starting out as a backpacker five years ago, it was definitely the best decision I could have made.'

Miss Jennings has also appeared on the front cover of magazines - and even in a calendar - while her work has taken her all over Asia.

Since moving thousands of miles away she's landed modelling gigs, TV adverts - and even a job as a Hollywood A-lister's double

When working in Tyneside, Miss Jennings would work at clothing store Monsoon, before picking up shifts at popular night spot Perdu, in order to save up her cash.

Miss Jennings admitted that she would sometimes 'take a sneaky ten minute snooze on the table', but told of how all that changed when she started out as a backpacker in 2013.

'I started out being Blake Lively's body double for her swimming scenes,' recalled Miss Jennings.

The barmaid turned actress has appeared on magazine covers and has landed several modelling gigs

'I remember she said I had a nice bum and being well chuffed about that.'

Then the acting roles started coming in - including one with an Oscar winner.

'I had a scene with John Dujardin (from The Artist and The Wolf of Wall Street) around two years ago for a French movie called Brice De Nice,' she said.

'Funnily enough my French got dubbed despite spending about two days trying to get it right.'

Miss Jennings also travelled to Vietnam (above). She currently has around 65,000 Facebook followers and frequently posts updates about her career

Miss Jennings has landed numerous roles since.

And one production she appeared in, 'Screaming with Stars', is currently being looked at by HBO.

Her most recent gig has perhaps been the most surreal.

The film, 'Tyar Saar', has been a hit in Myanmar. At the premier, Miss Jennings walked the red carpet in a stunning frock next to a cow.

Miss Jennings loves to travel and has also spent time in Koh Khai Nai (above)

The 28-year-old from Newcastle has travelled across Thailand and is pictured above, before boarding a plane

'I guess the production house told the press I was arriving to the airport and there were loads of people there waiting with roses, flowers, signs and photographers,' added the 28-year-old.

'Literally I was thinking what an earth is going on here. I have to say it was so nice to get such a warm welcome.

'Other than that it seems every day is an adventure. I'm just taking everyday as it comes.'

Miss Jennings's work has taken her all over Asia, and she frequently posts on Instagram to keep her fans updated

Miss Jennings' mother paid tribute to to her daughter's success, telling MailOnline how 'proud' she was of her budding career.

'She wanted to travel instead. She is very entrepreneurial. At school she was always a confident and sociable child. I am very proud of her.'

Discussing how she move home, Helen Jennings said: 'She has been in Thailand for about six years. After leaving school she went to a teaching school in Spain. She got really interested in that, and that's where she caught the travelling bug.

'Then she studied for a CIE (certificate in entrepreneurship) in Bangkok to teach English. She got a job teaching there and just loved it. But then she started getting offers to do modelling.

'She did modelling jobs for the Marriott Hotel, Bangkok Airway and KFC. She loved doing both things at once, but it was really hard to juggle so she ending up giving the teaching up.

Discussing how she move home, Helen Jennings said: 'She has been in Thailand for about six years. After leaving school she went to a teaching school in Spain. She got really interested in that, and that's where she caught the travelling bug'

'When she was younger I used to joke that the only running she ever did was to get to a taxi when she was running late. But she has thrown herself into her fitness since being over there.

'She is doing yoga, running, jujitsu and all sorts of things. She is even taking up flying lessons.'

'I don't worry about her, as my brother lived out there for years. I go and visit her at least twice a year, I am due to go and see her over Christmas which is nice.

I am so glad that she is doing so well. As your children grow older, all you could want is for them to be happy and healthy - and she is.

'It's Olivia's life at the end of the day. She has been learning Thai, which I think is fantastic. It's very hard, but when I have been over there with her people tell me she speaks the language well.

'She's not fluent, but it has served her very well out there. She is really carving a life for herself over there.'A grandmother's trip of a lifetime to Hawaii quickly came crashing down after she was left stranded on a plane after Jetstar ran out of wheelchairs.

Patricia Hardy, 76, and her husband Cleve Hardy, 77, were stuck on the plane after a long-haul 10 hour flight back from Hawaii to Sydney, where she and her family had enjoyed an idyllic holiday.

The wheelchairs they had booked to meet them from the return flight never materialised.

Patricia Hardy, 76, and her husband Cleve Hardy, 77, (pictured) were left stranded on the plane after a long-haul 10 hour flight

The wheelchair they had booked to meet them from the return flight never materialised (pictured is Patricia and her husband)

Instead Mr and Mrs Hardy along with their granddaughter Sarah Warby, from New South Wales, were left waiting for nothing as other passengers disembarked the plane.

Ms Warby claimed she spent the days leading up to the holiday on the phone to Jetstar customer service to request two wheelchairs for her grandparents, who are both in their mid 70s.

Jetstar staff told the family they had run out of wheelchairs and that there was no other option but for the family to walk into the airport.

'By this stage I was quite angry and told the staff if anything happens to my grandparents it would come back on them!' Sarah Warby said in a Facebook complaint to Jetstar.

'This is when your crew member started yelling at me saying he had requested a chair and thats all he can do.'

Patricia Hardy (pictured, right) and husband Cleve Hardy (pictured, left) went on holiday with their family to Hawaii

The family were forced to walk to a waiting cart, from where her grandmother was eventually granted a wheelchair. Mr Hardy, however, didn't receive a chair and had to walk through the airport.

Visiting Hawaii was one of the wishes on Mrs Hardy's bucket list, but she was left feeling far from relaxed.

'My Grandparents are now stressed, after their wonderful holiday,' Ms Hardy said.

The granddaughter said she contacted Jetstar's customer service for answers, only to be told that someone would get back to her in 10 days.

Other passengers disembarked from the Jetstar plane whilst Mr and Mrs Hardy, along with their granddaughter Sarah Warby, from New South Wales, waited for the mobility wheelchairs to show up

Patricia and Cleve Hardy (pictured, left) went on a holiday of a lifetime with their family (pictured) in Hawaii

She told Daily Mail Australia that she would not be flying with Jetstar again.

'I understand they are a budget airline but that doesnt give them the right to discriminate against old people or people with disabilities,' she said.

Jetstar told Daily Mail Australia that they were sorry for the delay in providing the wheelchair.

'Our crew provide assistance at the gate for customers who require a wheelchair or buggy transport, and we apologise there was a delay in this instance,' a Jetstar spokesperson said.

'On arrival for this flight, our crew were able to transport the customers on the airport buggy to the carousel, once the buggy became available.'A Danish inventor convicted of murdering a Swedish reporter onboard his homemade submarine, apologized to her parents in court, moments before losing his appeal to reduce his sentence.

Peter Madsen was found guilty in April of murdering and mutilating 30-year-old Kim Wall after she embarked on the craft to interview him for a US magazine in Copenhagen in August 2017.

The 47-year-old had appealed his life sentence for her murder, but lost in Eastern High Court, Copenhagen, today.

Peter Madsen apologized to the parents of Kim Wall, 30, who he has been found guilty of torturing and murdering, shortly before losing his life sentence appeal in Copenhagen today

'I'm terribly sorry to Kim's relatives for what happened,' Madsen told the panel of judges as he was given the last word.

Madsen lost his appeal against a life sentence, which in Denmark lasts on average 16 years, but can be extended if necessary.

Madsen had wanted a time-limited sentence, not an open-ended prison term.

The prosecutor had argued that the life sentence should be upheld, saying the motive was sexual and the crime was planned.

Defending Madsen, lawyer Betina Hald Engmark argued that her client 'has a clean criminal record and alone has been convicted for one murder.'

Rest in peace: Swedish journalist Kim Wall was murdered by Peter Madsen in August 2017, after he lured her onto his submarine to do an interview for a magazine

Ruling: Prosecutor Kristian Kirk talks to the media as he arrives at the Eastern High Court in Copenhagen, Denmark ahead of the final day of the appeal

Murder scene: A picture of submarine UC3 Nautilus, taken earlier this year, where Madsen murdered Swedish reporter Kim Wall

'In comparable cases, the perpetrator often has committed moral crimes before,' she said.

Madsen denies murdering Wall, saying she died accidentally inside the submarine, but has confessed to throwing her body parts into the Baltic Sea.

The Copenhagen City Court in April convicted Madsen of murder, sexual assault and the dismembering of Wall.

The court ruled unanimously that Madsen had lured Wall onto his home-made submarine with the promise of an interview.

Prosecutor Kristian Kirk said Wall could not escape and 'likely had begged for her life' while Madsen carried out 'a sadistic, yes inhuman, sexual fantasy.'

Kirk said violent videos in which women were tortured and killed were found on Madsen's computer, and said he likely filmed the killing. He added Madsen had been planning the murder and 'just waited for a victim.'

'I hope we never will see such a case again,' Kirk told court.

No video of Wall's murder has been found.

'Kim Wall walked directly into a death trap,' Kirk said before looking up at Madsen, who listened with his hands on the table: 'I cannot see any other sentence than life.'

The cause of Wall's death has never been established.Delta passengers suffered hours-long delays on Tuesday after an IT glitch left planes grounded across the country.

One flight, from Las Vegas to New York JFK, ended up being delayed for almost 11 hours amid the chaos caused when the airline's flight tracking system failed.

Delta began responding to customers around 6.50pm via Twitter and explaining that it was experiencing IT problems which were causing delays.

Kristie Collins was delayed for 11 hours while flying from Las Vegas to JFK on Tuesday as a country-wide IT glitch left planes grounded and caused knock-on effects

Adam Katch, flying from Philadelphia to Minnesota, was delayed for six hours and complained via Twitter that he was unable to access the Delta website due to the outage

Around 8.30pm the airline said it had issued a 'groundstop' meaning that flights were prohibited from taking off until the issue was fixed.

About an hour later, at 9.20pm, Delta said it had fixed the problem which 'briefly affected some systems'.

However, customers on the ground complained of lengthy delays due to the disruption, with the worst seeming to hit in Las Vegas.

Kristie Collins, a project manager at digital marketing agency Digitas, was scheduled to fly to JFK at midday but didn't get airborne until 11pm.

The flight delay began before the system glitch, but according to Collins was made worse by the outage.

Around five hours into her ordeal, she tweeted: 'No flight update and Delta system is down so theres nothing they can do for all of the stranded, angry passengers! Terrible customer relations & service! GET US A PLANE!'

Five hours later, she added: 'Heres a shock to no one - Delta flight 2492 still isnt boarding. Wonder if theyre going to let us know about the next delay - 10 hours and counting! Delta Airline sucks.'

Meanwhile customers in Philadelphia, Detroit and Washington DC experienced delays of up to nine hours.

Delta began responding to angry customers around 6.50pm saying it was suffering from an IT problem, before saying that all systems were restored at 9.20pm

Patrick Money and Sara Hanks were delayed for six hours while flying from Washington Reagan National airport to Salt Lake City on Tuesday

One passenger going by the name of DJ Dane said he was delayed for four hours in Detroit after his plane was unable to land

Patrick Money, who was flying from Washington Reagan National to Salt Lake City, was delayed by more than eight and a half hours on Tuesday.

He wrote: 'Wondering how long until Delta tries to do right by its customers on this flight to salt lake. Going on 9 hour delay. Took my day away.'

Meanwhile Adam Katch, who was flying from Philadelphia to Minnesota, was delayed for almost seven hours.

Around 7pm he tweeted Delta to say that the app and website were both down and he was unable to view his boarding pass.

From there the issues snowballed, and around three hours later he was still stuck at the airport.

He wrote: 'Six hour delay out of PHL. Can I get a refund, and will I ever get home?'

A third Delta statement, issued shortly before 11pm, said: 'There are currently no Delta flight cancellations following a brief technology issue that prompted an hour-long groundstop for U.S. mainline Delta flights this evening.

'Additional flight delays and the impact on Wednesday mornings schedule are expected to be minimal. Delta apologizes to its customers for this inconvenience.

'Customers flying tonight or Wednesday should check their flight status on delta.com or on the Fly Delta app. All of Deltas customer tools are fully functional.

'The technology issues impact was limited to the U.S. There was no safety impact on any Delta flights.

'Delta teams are investigating the root cause of the technology issue.'The pope said the Catholic Church should not be judged by modern standards over sexual abuse scandals as he refused to answer awkward questions in a carefully choreographed press conference on board the papal plane yesterday.

Heading home from a four-day tour of the Baltics, the pope's spokesman said Francis would only take questions about the trip despite a bombshell report revealing that 3,700 children had been sexually assaulted by priests in Germany.

He did eventually get to the thorny topic and admitted that historic abuse by clerics in several countries was 'monstrous.'

But he insisted the Church should not be judged by modern standards because attitudes towards abuse, which he said happens not just in the Church but in society generally, have changed dramatically over the years.

The pope said the Catholic Church should not be judged by modern standards over the sexual abuse scandal. Pictured: A gust of wind blows Pope Francis' mantel as he leads the Wednesday general audience in Saint Peter's square at the Vatican

The Pope (pictured in St Peter's square today) admitted that historic abuse by clerics in several countries was 'monstrous'

Pope Francis speaks with the media onboard a plane during his flight back from Tallinn

'In olden times, these things were covered up, they were even covered up in homes, when an uncle raped a niece, when a father raped his children,' he said.

'It was covered up because it was an enormous shame. That was the mentality in the last century.

He cited the example of the death penalty, which the Vatican applied until the late 19th century: 'Then the moral conscience grows,' he said.

Heading home from a four-day tour of the Baltics, the pope's spokesman said Francis would only take questions about the trip

Earlier in the conference, an Austrian journalist who tried to ask about the shocking abuse was shut down

Earlier in the conference, an Austrian journalist who tried to ask about the shocking abuse in Germany was shut down.

Pope Francis told him: 'I will respond, but first questions about the trip. This is the rule. But, it will be the first question after the trip.'

But when questions about the tour were over, the pope avoided being quizzed by announcing: 'I would like to tell you some things on some points of the trip that I have experienced with a special strength.'

The Pope said instances of abuse dropped in recent years because the Church took action against perpetrators.

Abuse victims slam German Church over 'ridiculously small' payouts A damning report released in Germany on Tuesday showing that almost 3,700 minors - mostly boys - were assaulted between 1946 and 2014. The German Catholic Church apologised for the abuse, saying the perpetrators must be brought to justice. But campaigners and victims have been left furious by 'ridiculous' payouts. Cardinal Reinhard Marx, Archbishop of Munich and Chairman of the German Bishops' Conference and Trier Bishop gives a press conference to present the results of the study Matthias Katsch, who was sexually abused when he was 13, said he was outraged that the German Church - the richest in the world because it takes eight per cent of German Catholics' incomes - was only paying each survivor an average of 2,600 as a 'recognition fee'. He said: 'The Church paid me a recognition fee of 5,000 euros, he said. 'They don't call it compensation. And I don't call it compensation either.' 'They call it a recognition fee? Well, thank you very much, but that's not what I want. I want justice.' Advertisement

Referring to a damning report last August by a US grand jury on sexual abuse of children by priests in Pennsylvania over a 70-year period, he noted that the incidents of abuse diminished toward the end of the years covered in the report.

'In more recent times the number went down because the Church realised that it had to fight in a different way,' he said.

'Look at the proportions (in the Pennsylvania report) and you will see that when the Church started becoming aware of this, it spared no effort,' he said.

Pope Francis, in his Popemobile, greets the crowd as he arrives at the Liberty Square

Pope Francis (pictured in Estonia today) admitted that sexual abuse scandals are driving faithful people away from the Catholic Church - as a report revealed 3,700 children were assaulted in Germany

He added: 'Priests are supposed to take children to God, not to destroy them.' If just one priest abuses a child, it's monstrous.' The Catholic Church has been rocked 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 Vatican archbishop describing it as the church's 'own 9/11'.

But the pope declined to answer a question about a damning report released in Germany on Tuesday showing that almost 3,700 minors - mostly boys - were assaulted between 1946 and 2014.

Vatican cardinal slams Pope as an 'ice-cold, cunning Machiavellian' Pope Francis has been branded an 'ice-cold, cunning Machiavellian' and a 'liar' by one of his cardinals, a German magazine reports. The anonymous cardinal made the comments in a bombshell interview with Der Spiegel for its 19-page report on the Catholic Church sexual abuse scandal. He said: 'The pope preaches mercy, but in reality he is an ice-cold, cunning Machiavellian, and, what is worse  he lies.' The cardinal was referring to claims that Francis knew about sexual abuse allegations against US Cardinal Theodore McCarrick long before he admitted he was aware of them or took any action. Pope Francis has been called an 'ice-cold, cunning Machiavellian' and a 'liar' by one of his cardinals who spoke to German magazine Der Spiegel (pictured is the front cover) A report from a high-ranking cardinal in August claimed the pope knew about McCarrick in 2013 - but still employed him as a consultant in naming new American bishops until his resignation in July this year. The pope declined to comment. The report was the main item in this week's Der Siegel magazine which featured a picture of the pope on the front and was titled Du Sollst Nicht Lugen (Thou Shalt Not Lie). The report criticised the pope's handling of abuse allegations generally, stating: 'He often speaks at inopportune moments, yet in important moments remains silent.' Advertisement

The German Catholic Church apologised for the abuse, saying the perpetrators must be brought to justice.

But campaigners and victims have been left furious by 'ridiculous' payouts.

Matthias Katsch, who was sexually abused when he was 13, said he was outraged that the German Church - the richest in the world because it takes eight per cent of German Catholics' incomes - was only paying each survivor an average of 2,600 as a 'recognition fee'.

He said: 'The Church paid me a recognition fee of 5,000 euros, he said. 'They don't call it compensation. And I don't call it compensation either.'

'They call it a recognition fee? Well, thank you very much, but that's not what I want. I want justice.'A stable hand who went on a six-month crime spree after breaking up with her partner has been told by a magistrate that there are 'plenty more fish in the sea'.

Stephanie Broody pleaded guilty to 17 charges during the hour long hearing in the Southport Magistrates Court this week, according to The Gold Coast Bulletin.

Ms Boody was involved in a high speed chase last July with Gold Coast police, during which she struck a police officer with her car. The officer's utility belt was damaged.

She also drove into a police car and attempted to flee.

Gold Coast stable hand Stephanie Boody (pictured) went on a six-month crime spree after breaking up with her partner and pleaded guilty to 17 charges in court

Just one day after the incident, Ms Boody was also found with methamphetamine in her vehicle.

Days later, she appeared at her sister's house with a firearm - but police have yet to verify and locate the firearm in question, The Gold Coast Bulletin reported.

She was charged with drug possession, dangerous operation of a motor vehicle, assaulting and obstructing police, trespassing and stealing.

Magistrate Brian Kucks warned that her behaviour was not the appropriate way to cope with a breakup.

'There are plenty more fish in the ocean and it's certainly not a way to be dealing with it by going and getting drugs,' he said in court.

'There are plenty more fish in the ocean and it's certainly not a way to be dealing with it by going and getting drugs,' Magistrate Brian Kucks said during the hearing at the Southport Magistrates Court (stock image)

Defence lawyer Sam Jackson added that Ms Boody hopes to return to the racing industry where she was employed as a stable hand (pictured)

Ms Boody, who previously spent two years in jail, was sentenced to another six months behind bars.

She was also placed on probation for the next two-and-a-half years.

Defence lawyer Sam Jackson told the court that Ms Boody had a clean record before she was found in possession of drugs in January.

'She used [drugs] for the first time in 2017 and it seems the offending began,'Mr Jackson told the court.

He added that Ms Boody hoped to return to the racing industry where she was employed.Amazon customers complained that their Echo devices stopped working this morning.

People took to social media to complain about the Alexa virtual assistant just before 9am.

Outage tracker Down Detector logged hundreds of reports about issues with the digital assistant.

People took to social media to complain about the Alexa virtual assistant just before 9am today

Alexa is still available on a range of Amazon devices - including the Echo speakers, Fire TV, and Amazon's range of Fire tablets too.

Seb Hawker from Bath tweeted: 'That First World problem when Alexa goes down and can't stop the radio playing or turn the plugs on...'

Another Twitter user from London said: 'My flat is broken! I've lost all my remotes and nothing works! :D #AlexaDown @amazonecho'

And a further UK user called Matt tweeted: 'That feeling when Alexa is down and I have to rely on apps and websites again for my news...'

Alexa is a virtual voice activated assistant developed by Amazon, which is incorporated into the Amazon Echo range of smart speakers.

It allows users to ask it questions, set to do lists, alarms, providing weather forecasts, stream music, give traffic updates and the latest news broadcasts.

It can also control several smart devices in the home if they have Wi-fi connected gadgets like lights or power switches.

An Amazon spokesman said: 'This morning we had an issue that impacted some Alexa customers' ability to interact with the service. The Alexa service is now operating normally.'Jeremy Corbyn failed to name Labour's six tests for the Brexit deal in an embarrassing moment to end his party conference.

The Labour leader was challenged by the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg to name the specific criteria the party has said it will measure the deal against.

Mr Corbyn has insisted he will order his MPs to vote down the deal if it fails to pass the tests, which include demands for the 'exact same benefits' as EU membership and a 'strong and collaborative future relationship' with Europe.

But he failed to name any of the tests, instead reeling off a list of separate demands - before awkwardly noting Kuenssberg had read them out so he didn't have to.

Jeremy Corbyn (pictured in Liverpool yesterday) failed to name Labour's six tests for the Brexit deal in an embarrassing moment to end his party conference

Asked to spell out the tests, Mr Corbyn said: 'We have made clear all along that our tests are on access to the market, are on a customs union, are on appropriate regulations that protect jobs, environment and consumer rights, and of course an end to the speculation on the danger of the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic.'

Kuenssberg told him: 'Well the six tests you set out last year were actually about fair migration, strong collaboration with the EU, protecting security, delivering for the nations and regions, protecting workers' rights, and having the same benefits as a single market.

'That's not precisely what you just outlined.'

Looking startled Mr Corbyn spluttered: 'Well you've got the six tests there and you have read them out. You can see exactly what they are.'

What are Labour's six tests for Brexit? Labour has insisted it will only vote for a Brexit deal that meets its six tests - and Emily Thonberry claimed today the Chequers plan cannot do so. The tests are: 1. Does it ensure a strong and collaborative future relationship with the EU? 2. Does it deliver the 'exact same benefits' as we currently have as members of the Single Market and Customs Union? 3. Does it ensure the fair management of migration in the interests of the economy and communities? 4. Does it defend rights and protections and prevent a race to the bottom? 5. Does it protect national security and our capacity to tackle cross-border crime? 6. Does it deliver for all regions and nations of the UK? Advertisement

Mr Corbyn insisted Labour's policy was about having a good trade relationship with the EU after Brexit that protects jobs and manufacturing.

Mr Corbyn's gaffe comes at the end of a four-day conference which has been dominated by Brexit, but has seen the Labour leader and shadow chancellor John McDonnell set out a range of policies to reverse inequalities in wealth and economic power.

These have ranged from workers in the boardroom to employee shareholding funds and new taxes on second homes.

They sparked warnings from the CBI that Labour risks 'cracking the foundations of this country's prosperity'.

The shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer yesterday said Labours analysis of the Chequers deal showed it would fail all six of the partys Brexit tests.

And he said Labour would never back a so-called blind Brexit, in which the final terms of Britains future relationship with the EU are fudged until after it has left.

With Mrs May ruling out alternative plans, Labour now looks set to oppose any deal this autumn  even though that could leave the UK facing a no-deal Brexit, which the party says it opposes.A newborn baby abandoned by its teenage mother in a plastic bag was rescued after a bin man heard faint cries as he was about to throw the bag into his disposal truck.

Heart-wrenching footage caught by passers-by shows the barely conscious infant inside a bag hanging from a fence in Lapu-Lapu City in the Philippines.

Unsure what to do, the onlookers gathered around the tiny baby who can be seen slowly opening his eyes and putting his hand to his mouth.

Scroll down for video

A bin man was about to pick up the package and dump it in his disposal truck when he heard faint cries coming from inside on Monday morning in Lapu-Lapu City in the Philippines

Onlookers, who were first unsure whether the baby boy was alive or dead, tried to keep him cool and called paramedics

One person tries to keep him cool by fanning the air around him.

Paramedics arrived shortly after 10am on Monday morning before rushing the infant to Lapu-Lapu District Hospital in an ambulance.

Also found inside the bag were a female school uniform blouse and a pair of bloodied short pants.

The police are trying to trace the mother, who is believed to be a teenager aged between 12 and 16. A bloodied school uniform was also found in the bag, which appears to be a student's rucksack

The uniform is worn by public schools in grades 7-10 in the area. That would likely make the mother between 12 and 16 years old.

Onlooker Rheene Lee said: 'At first we did not know whether the baby is alive or dead. We did not know what to do, then someone suggested to call an ambulance.

'The baby is very fortunate that he was found, because the trash collector was about to put the bag in the truck.

The two-day old baby boy pictured recovering in Lapu-Lapu District Hopsital yesterday after he was found abandoned on Monday

'I hope now that the boy will be taken care of.

'But I also feel sorry for the mother. The school uniform was that of a teenager and she will need help.'

The local barangay council and the police are investigating the incident.

The baby boy's name has not yet been decided, but a nurse looking after him said several people have offered to adopt him

'Angels are watching over him': The baby was lucky to be found, as the bin man was about to throw the bag into the rubbish truck. A search is underway to find and help the mother

Emily Ng, a nurse at the hospital where the boy is being cared for, said several people have also come forward wanting to adopt him.

She said: 'We do not have a name for the boy yet. But many people have heard his story and have made inquiries about adopting him.

'He was very weak when he arrived but he is strong now. There is a smile on his face.

'He does not know about his sad start to life, but I am sure that he will be blessed with a good future with wealthy parents who love and protect him.

'Angels are watching over him.'Jeremy's Corbyn 'peace minister' Fabian Hamilton (pictured) is leading a push to get Labour to abandon its commitment to the Trident nuclear deterrent

Jeremy's Corbyn 'peace minister' is leading a push to get Labour to abandon its commitment to the Trident nuclear deterrent.

Fabian Hamilton said he has persuaded the Labour leader to put the plan to his shadow cabinet in a bid to scrap the long-standing policy.

If he is successful, then Labour could commit Britain to unilaterally getting rid of its nuclear weapons - even while other foreign powers like Russia retain them.

But defence minister Stuart Andrew said the 'out of touch' plans would be 'foolish and dangerous'.

Mr Hamilton is drawing up the controversial proposals as part of his 'defence diversification strategy' - or 'peace doctrine'.

He aims to show that the thousands of well-paid workers in the defence sector can be redeployed in jobs in other booming sectors like health technology and education.

Currently, Labour's powerful trade union backers are vehemently opposed to scrapping Trident as they fear it would cost thousands of well-paid jobs.

But Mr Hamilton hopes his plans will finally persuade them to ditch their opposition by showing that the jobs can be protected but redeployed in other sectors.

In an interview with the Yorkshire Post, Mr Hamilton said he 'sincerely hopes' the plans would convince unions to support scrapping Trident.

He said: 'I have always said party policy says we should renew Trident but I say we should scrap it.

'That is also the view of the leader of the party.'

Mr Corbyn is a life-long pacifist and for many years was the vice president of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament - which wants the UK to unilaterally get rid of its weapons.

And many of his closest allies have said they do not think he would ever push the button if it came to the crunch decision.

But his lifelong pacifism is at odds with official Labour policy, which commits the party to the nuclear deterrent.

Mr Corbyn has seen the 25-page peace doctrine and agreed to put it to his shadow defence secretary Nia Griffith - who is a firm supporter of Trident.

But Mr Andrew lashed the proposals, saying: 'At a time when the world is facing threats from various sources, the Labour Party are showing the real danger they pose to our security by scrapping our deterrent that has kept us safe for decades.

'This is foolish and dangerous.

Jeremy Corbyn (pictured in Liverpool yesterday) is a life-long pacifist and for many years was the vice president of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament - which wants the UK to unilaterally get rid of its weapons. But the Labour Party's official policy is to keep Trident

'Plus the assumption that all those skilled workers would be happy to walk away from the brilliant work they are doing in building out new submarines demonstrates how out of touch they really are.'

His comments come after Andrew Murray, a senior aide to the Labour leader, earlier this week told a meeting at the party's annual conference in Liverpool that a Corbyn government would be an anti-war Government.

And he detailed similar plans to scrap Trident and put the well-skilled employees to work in other industries.

Mr Hamilton has previously stated his commitment to see Trident scrapped.

In an interview with the Trident Ploughshares anti-nuclear weapons group, he said: 'It (Labour) should be a party of nuclear disarmament. It isn't at the moment. That is a source of sadness to me.

'I need to win this argument as shadow minister for peace and disarmament. But you need to carry on putting that pressure on elected members, on party members...

'You need to keep up that effort and that profile you've had making the case for Britain to sign the treaty, to get rid of its nuclear weapons.

'They are not a deterrent in my view, and they are certainly far too expensive, and they are certainly not independent.

'Let's use that money for life-enhancing expenditure on our health service, on our public transport system even on our conventional defence... but not on these terrible weapons of mass destruction that can only result in the end of life on Earth.'A bizarre spring thunderstorm brought hail and lightening to Sydney on Wednesday.

Residents in the city's north-west were shocked to discover their backyards covered in ice, which also blanketed cars, roofs and even trampolines.

Pictures and videos shared to social media show properties and streets covered in what initially appears to be snow.

Scroll down for video

Lightning strikes and hail crossed through Sydney in bizarre spring thunderstorm

Residents in Sydney's north-west were shocked to find their backyards covered in hail

The unexpected white substance resembled snow, covering the properties of Sydneysiders

The thunderstorm comes amid a temperamental start to spring.

'As we got into Spring, we get these warm days, these cold days, these dry days. It's not really a settled pattern,' Weatherzone meteorologist Kim Westcott told Daily Mail Australia.

Ms Westcott said the hail was caused by thunderstorms passing through the Hills district, due to a low pressure trough.

'The low pressure trough is also causing thunderstorms elsewhere, so not just for New South Wales but also southern parts of Queensland as well,' she said.

Most of Sydney saw showers, but the heaviest rainfall was recorded in the north-west.

Eight millimetres of rain was recorded in Baulkham Hills and 28mm fell in Kings Langley.

Pictures and videos shared to social media show properties blanketed by the hail, following the spring thunderstorm

The thunderstorm comes amid a temperamental start to spring where Sydneysiders have experienced a variety of weather

There were showers across the city but the heaviest rainfall was recorded in north-west Sydney

Camden Airport recorded 9mm of rain in an hour, causing temperatures to drop by five degrees in 30 minutes.

Temperatures dropped to eight degrees as the thunderstorm ripped through The Ponds, Kellyville and Rouse Hill.

'There was nearly 200 lightning strikes, when the storms were occurring, most of that was just around that region (Hills region),' said Ms Westcott.

There are severe storm warnings in place for southeast Queensland and northern parts of NSW as some areas are urged to prepare for damaging winds, large hail and heavy rain.

Ms Westcott said the hail wasn't uncommon as it can hit at anytime of the year, but she drew attention to Sydney's changing weather conditions.

Weatherzone Meteorologist Kim Westcott said the hail wasn't uncommon as it can hit at anytime of the year

Ms Westcott explain Sydney's spring weather as 'up and down' with 'showers and storms one day and clear and beautiful the next'

The weather will pick up again in Sydney on Friday with temperatures forecast to 26C before dropping down to 18C on Saturday

'We've got a 21C day tomorrow which will be quite nice,' she said.

The weather will pick up again on Friday with temperatures forecast to 26C before dropping down to 18C on Saturday.

Ms Westcott explain Sydney's spring weather as 'up and down' with 'showers and storms one day and clear and beautiful the next.'

'Those long stretches of sunny days haven't quite hit us yet,' she said.

'Those long stretches of sunny days haven't quite hit us yet,' Ms Westcott said

Sydneysiders have experienced a variety of temperamental weather, including warm and dry days and thunderstormsA man has wept in court as he admitted to plying a 13-year-old girl with a deadly party drug on the night she died of an overdose.

Alesha Fernando died in June 2017 after she went to a suburban Melbourne apartment where she was given the drug GHB by a man she had only just met.

Luke Delphin, 20, cried in the County Court of Victoria on Wednesday as he pleaded guilty to supplying the drug to the young girl.

Alesha Fernando (pictured), 13, died in June last year after going to a suburban Melbourne apartment and being given the drug GHB by a man she had only just met

'So much of my life was always for her. It was just us two. I'm broken. I will never recover. My soulmate is gone.' her mother Katrina Gavan (pictured) wrote in a statement to court

Alesha had been with a 15-year-old friend when Luke Delphin and his mate picked-up the pair in a stolen car, according to police, in June 2017.

It was the first time Alesha had met Delphin.

She and her friend were then driven to a house in Narre Warren, in the city's south-east, where Delphin spent $50 on 20 millilitres of GHB, according to a police summary, which neither the prosecution nor defence have yet agreed upon.

The group were then taken to Delphin's Dandenong unit, where they smoked cannabis and Alesha ingested GHB from a shared plunger.

Luke Delphin, 20, wept in the County Court of Victoria on Wednesday as he pleaded guilty to supplying the drug to the young girl

The police summary explained that 'at some point Delphin took a plunger to draw up amounts of the GHB substance and passed it around'.

'Luke Delphin kept asking Alesha if she wanted more GHB and she willingly accepted the offers,' prosecutor Daryl Brown told a pre-sentence hearing today, according to 9News.

Mr Brown said Delphin told Alesha she was 'hot' and he wanted to sleep with her before the two fell asleep on a mattress on the floor.

Alesha was found lying unresponsive the next morning by a friend who had gone to the unit to check on her after receiving Snapchats of the party.

Her mother, Katrina Gavan, also rushed to the unit but said Alesha 'was cold by the time I got to her'.

The 13-year-old was then rushed to the Monash Medical Centre and placed on life support which was switched off on Ms Gaven's 34th birthday.

'So much of my life was always for her. It was just us two. I'm broken. I will never recover. My soulmate is gone.' Ms Gavan wrote in a statement to court, read by Alesha's aunt.

Alesha Fernando died after ingesting the drug GHB which was supplied to her by a man she had just met

Luke Delphin has pleaded guilty to supplying a child with illicit drugs

Delphin has pleaded guilty to supplying a child with an illicit drug. He has also pleaded guilty to car theft and a number of other offences committed over a four-day period.

Ms Gavan said Delphin had taken away her whole life.

'He knew what he did. She was a child. He was a grown man,' she told the Herald Sun.

Alesha's organs were donated and she has saved three lives, Ms Gavan said.Iran's president has warned jailed British mother Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe will not be released unless 'Iranians languishing in American prisons' are also freed.

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was sentenced to five years in jail after being accused of spying by Tehran's Islamist regime, a charge she vehemently denies.

Iran's leader Hassan Rouhani has come under pressure to secure her release with Theresa May telling him she has 'serious concerns' about the jailing.

But in a blow for Mrs May and the family, Rouhani told CNN today that the issue of releasing prisoners was 'a path that travels both ways.'

Iran's president has warned jailed British mother Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe (right, with daughter Gabriella in August) will not be released unless 'Iranians languishing in American prisons' are also freed

Iran's leader Hassan Rouhani has come under pressure to secure her release with Theresa May (pictured with Rouhani in New York last night) telling him she has 'serious concerns' about the jailing

Asked about dual nationals like Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe in Iranian jails, he told Christiane Amanpour: 'You see, the system of the Islamic Republic of Iran, like any other countries we see today, if an individual is imprisoned, that person had been condemned after having gone through a legal process this is something that is quite ordinary in many countries.'

'There are many who are Iranians languishing in American prisons and they must also be free, and it would be good of you to show the same amount of care for them as you do for those in Iran.

'When we talk about our citizens being imprisoned in other countries, western countries, they say there's nothing they can do because they're under the guide of the judiciary.

'So, we must all bring a concerted effort so all prisoners may be free, returned to their families but it must be a path that travels both ways.'

Today, the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary ramped up pressure on Iran to release the during talks in New York.

Theresa May told Iranian president Hassan Rouhani she had 'serious concerns' about the jailing of Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

In talks on the fringes of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), Mrs May called for Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe's release.

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe (left with her daughter) was sentenced to five years in jail after being accused of spying by Tehran's Islamist regime, a charge she vehemently denies. Husband Richard Ratcliffe (right) has written an open letter to Iran's foreign minister Javad Zarif calling the short release a 'cruel game'

It came after Jeremy Hunt demanded rapid action to secure her freedom in his first face-to-face meeting with Iran's foreign minister.

The Foreign Secretary told Javad Zarif that Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe must be returned home quickly.

During talks on the UNGA sidelines, he said: 'I again pressed for Nazanin's swift release - she deserves to be back at home with her family,' Mr Hunt said in a statement.

It is also 'absolutely essential' the Iranian government take steps to ensure the release of 'a number of detained dual nationals', he added.

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who works for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was detained at Imam Khomeini airport in April 2016.

Last month she was granted a three-day release from Evin prison but her request for an extension was denied and she was forced to say goodbye to her four-year-old daughter, Gabriella, and return to jail.

Husband Richard Ratcliffe wrote an open letter to Mr Zarif calling the short release a 'cruel game'.

Mrs May also used her meeting with President Rouhani to underline the UK's commitment to the Iran nuclear deal.

Britain and its European allies responded with dismay to US president Donald Trump's decision to pull out of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that relieved sanctions on Tehran in return for an end to Iran's military nuclear ambitions.

Husband Richard Ratcliffe said he was reassured by Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt's approach.

Rouhani: 'We have never requested a meeting' with Donald Trump Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has denied having asked for a meeting with his US counterpart. Donald Trump had tweeted at the UN General Assembly that 'Despite requests, I have no plans to meet Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Maybe someday in the future. I am sure he is an absolutely lovely man!' But Rouhani told CNN: 'Not this year nor last year, we have never made such a request for a meeting with the President of the United States. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani (pictured) has denied having asked for a meeting with his US counterpart Donald Trump had tweeted at the UN General Assembly that 'Despite requests, I have no plans to meet Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Maybe someday in the future. I am sure he is an absolutely lovely man!' 'Of course, last year from American officials we received eight requests for a meeting and I did not see that as being an appropriate meeting. 'A meeting must take place at a time when that meeting can serve a purpose, be beneficial, can serve the benefits of both countries. 'But under the current conditions, when it comes to a meeting and dialogue, I do not see it as beneficial or appropriate but you should ask him who made such requests.' Advertisement

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'He's just really angry by the way in which her case has dragged on for so long.

'And then I got a de-brief from his office afterwards, which was to say that they'd had a frank conversation and they spent a long time talking about Nazanin and the other cases calling for her release, which I think the Government has talked for a long time about raising the case, but calling for release is something that is more pointed now - it just needs to be really clear that it is unacceptable.'

Mr Ratcliffe said he had given Mr Hunt a stone to symbolise the promise that his predecessor Boris Johnson had made, as well as a stone to hand over to the Iranian foreign minister, plus a letter.

He added: 'I was really reassured by the Foreign Secretary's tone ... Boris Johnson promised to leave no stone unturned in bringing Nazanin back and of course it requires two governments to do that. Jeremy Hunt took up the stone and it's in his office and he showed it to me and said 'Listen, I promise you I'll keep going'.'

Asked about his wife, he said: 'I heard from her a day ago, she's calmer than she was before, having battles around getting access to medical services and so on, and there's always something that you're battling for.

'The shock of being let out but then being brought back in, which was really tough for a week or so, things have really calmed, and just hoping beyond hope that the Government can unlock something.'

Mr Ratcliffe said 'all you can to is keep pushing and keep pushing a bit harder', adding: 'I don't think the option of giving up is one to take.'This is the terrifying moment a biker is knocked unconscious when an iron frame falls on his head as he passes a construction site.

The video was filmed in the Sultanpet area of Bangalore, India, as the 38-year-old rider, known only as Chandan, rode to his office on August 31.

His helmet flies off and he is left writhing on the ground while shocked onlookers rush to his aid.

The CCTV footage shows several people walking through the area just moments before Chandan's horrific accident, including an elderly woman.

The biker then appears and slowly makes his way down the street, passing a four-storey construction site.

The man, known as Chandan, was driving to his office when an iron frame fell from a construction site and struck him in the head

It is then that the frame lands on him, sending him crashing painfully to the ground.

He is left motionless and bleeding as horrified passers-by rush to help him.

Some can be seen reacting with visible shock and distress at the incident. A crowd gathers and tries to help the stricken man.

Shocked onlookers seemed stunned at first but then could be seen rushing to the stricken man's aid and he was later taken to hospital

Many of them look up into the sky, seemingly pointing out the construction site the frame came from.

Chandan was then rushed to hospital.

His condition is said to be improving under the care of hospital staff, who say that he is now out of danger.

The Halsur gate police, who have jurisdiction in the area, are reported to have registered a case against the owner of the building.Busted: Convicted kidnapper Robert Fusco, 37, is accused of escaping a Tennessee prison, only to return laden with contraband for sale

An inmate has been charged with escaping a Tennessee prison and later returning with prohibited items to sell on the prison's black market with the help of his ex-prison guard lover.

Robert Fusco, 37, pleaded not guilty Tuesday to counts of felony escape, felony conspiracy to escape and unlawful telecommunication device in penal facility.

An indictment returned by the Morgan County Grand Jury last week stated that Fusco was among eight people, including two former correctional officers, who were in on the scheme.

It said Fusco was serving 68 years for an especially aggravated kidnapping when he escaped on January 5, reported Knoxville News Sentinel.

He was caught sneaking back into the Morgan County Correctional Complex two days later with drugs, cellphones and tobacco, according to the filing. Three other inmates were charged with helping him.

An indictment states that Fusco was caught on January 7 trying to sneak back into the Morgan County Correctional Complex, where he had been serving a 68-year term

Twenty-nine-year-old ex-correctional officer Megan Cheryl Jones has been charged with having sexual contact with Fusco, smuggling and tampering with evidence.

Also indicted in this case were William Richmond, 68; Jarrett Tolley, 30; Cecil Kendall, 35; Elizabeth Ashley England, 30, and Ethan Self, 26.

Tolley, who is now living as a woman under the name Alyssa Tolley, was accused of smuggling hacksaw blades into the prison while out on probation.

Fusco, who until his escape had been a minimum-security inmate, was reclassified as a maximum-security inmate following his return and then transferred to West Tennessee State Penitentiary.

Fusco and his alleged co-conspirators are due back in court in February 2019.Advertisement

It may look like the land of Robinson Crusoe on the outside, but you would certainly not be eating rations on this private island off the coast of Brazil.

Located in Angra Dos Reis about 3km from the port of Brachuy, Mana island consists of a caretaker's house, a boathouse, a 120m main house and four bungalows. Now the island and its luxurious properties could all be yours for around 1.9m - the average house price in the Kensington and Chelsea area of London.

Incredible aerial images show the lush greenery giving way to beach huts and wooden boardwalks. Other shots show the buildings' modern interiors with spacious bedrooms, a dining area overlooking the sea and balconies offering spectacular views.

'Located in Brazil's fashionable, up-and-coming Angra Dos Reis region, Isla Mana is the perfect property for those who like their private islands as elegant as they are exclusive,' states the listing.

Mana Island is located in Angra Dos Reis about 3km from the port of Brachuy. It is off the Costa Verde coast in the state of Rio de Janeiro and forms part of a larger archipelago in the bay of Angra

Protected from the open seas by a series of neighbouring islands, Isla Mana's surrounding vivid emerald green waters bring with them a tropical climate, encouraging the growth of the varied vegetation which characterises the landscape

Four beach hut bungalows with a dining area looking out into the green waters of the Atlantic Ocean. While the island offers remote privacy, Rio de Janeiro can be reached by either a three hour drive or a 20-minute helicopter journey

A twin room on the island looks out onto the ocean, with other islands visible in the distance. The decor is in a design typical of beach huts, with wooden headboards and various shades of blue

Other striking shots show the surprisingly modern interiors of the properties with spacious bedrooms, featuring minimal furniture and modern pieces of art

The luxury property is listed by Vladi Private Islands and could be yours for just 1.9m - the average house price in the Kensington and Chelsea area of London

'Further attractive features include the island's solar powered electricity network, stone-carved freshwater pool and palm-fringed landscaped lawn  perfect for taking in the sun or enjoying a tasty barbecue in good company,' says the listing

The island has its own docking area with lush greenery giving way to beach huts, with wooden boardwalks and al-fresco, ocean-view dining areas

The modern but simple living space has been designed for beach-side living, with wooden panelled flooring and huge windows to take advantage of the ocean views

The bungalows share an additional decking zone with covered dining area, leading on to a bar at one end and the glittering waters of the Atlantic at the other. Pathways connect the main house to this more touristic region, snaking through tropical flora and fauna and linking the islands buildings to a helipad and the docking area

The main residence has its own private ocean-side dining area. Away from the four bungalows, it offers an extra level of privacy on the already remote island

In the main house is a living room, two bedrooms, a dining room, a kitchen and a wooden decking area for al fresco dining. The bungalows offer further accommodation options and decking zone with covered dining area, leading on to a bar at one end and the glittering waters of the Atlantic at the other

'Self-sufficient thanks to its electricity supply, its three-cistern water-supply and its 70,000 litre deposits, Isla Mana is truly a private island paradise', says the listing

'Located in Brazils fashionable, up-and-coming Angra Dos Reis region, Isla Mana is the perfect property for those who like their private islands as elegant as they are exclusive,' states the listingSupermarket giant Asda has sparked a pump price war by becoming the first chain to cut the price of unleaded petrol, followed by Sainsbury's and Morrisons.

The shift in price is set to benefit motorists as petrol prices will fall by up to 2p a litre, as wholesale costs drop.

From today, petrol prices will be slashed, bringing Asda's national price cap down to 126.7p a litre.

Asda has said it is the only retailer to have a nation price cap. Motorists at the Handsworth store in Sheffield (above)

The supermarket chain, which is headquartered in Leeds, says it's the only retailer to have a national price cap, but that individual forecourts are able to price fuel lower than the cap, the Sun reported.

Dave Tyrer, Asda's senior fuel buyer said: 'Our new national price cap of 126.7p per litre will be welcomed by the millions of drivers across the UK who have seen prices rise by 10 pence per litre since the start of summer and are currently at their highest for five years.'

This is while the AA's fuel price spokesperson, Luke Bosdet, welcomed the change: 'Once again, Asda has to take the lead in passing on fuel savings to drivers.

The shift in price is set to benefit motorists as petrol prices will fall by up to 2p a litre, as wholesale costs drop for unleaded fuel (pictured)

'Last weekend, despite three weeks of falling wholesale costs, the pump price of petrol hardly budged below the four year highs that families and businesses have had to endure.'

Average UK fuel prices had spiralled in recent weeks, reaching 1.31 per litre of petrol and 1.35 for diesel, with the last time fuel was more expensive, being in July 2014.

Over the past six months the cost of filling up a typical 55-litre family car that runs on petrol or diesel has risen by around 6.

Government data published on Tuesday showed that for the first time in three months there was no weekly increase in the price of petrol, while the rise in diesel slowed to 0.2p per litre.

What does the price cap mean for retailers? The UK average price of unleaded currently stands at around 131.2p a litre and all three retailers are joining in the pump war. Asda People at Asda petrol station in King's Lynn, Asda has been known to also cut fuel prices during the Black Friday sales It was the first to announce its price cut, which brings the companies national price cap down to 126.7p a litre. Asda has been retailing fuel since 1967, a mere two years after Asda itself was formed. The Asda petrol station in Halifax was the first ever discount petrol station, and the fuel had to be supplied by Russian oil company NAFTA, as no major fuel retailer would provide it at a low cost price. Morrisons Morrison's has joined Asda in Saninsbury's in cutting its unleaded fuel prices by 2p The reduction in fuel for Morrison's will take place tomorrow morning. Speaking to the MailOnline the company said the price of fuel varies across all its forecourts so it would be difficult to give a figure as to what the cap would be. Morrison's has previously had to sell some of its petrol stores to Tesco, following poor financial results. In 2005 the company sold 21 petrol stations in a deal which was rumoured to be worth around 55.3 million Sainsbury's Earlier this year Sainsbury's announced a 7.3 billion deal to buy Asda The reduction in fuel for Sainsbury's is set to take place on Friday 28 September, a whole two days after Asda announced its plans. However the company has planned to also slash fuel by 2p at 311 of its forecourts across the country. Back in August there were serious concerns over the price of fuel in both Sainsbury's and Asda as it was announced the two companies would be merging. Once the deal is done Asda and Sainsbury's will have the largest market share of petrol retailing in the UK at 17.9 per cent. Tesco Tesco has said it will be following suit - slashing unleaded fuel prices by 2p Tesco said it was also slashing fuel prices with a 2p reduction in the cost of unleaded fuel - following the domino effect that was triggered after the announcement from Asda earlier today. Advertisement

Over the last several years the price of fuel has continued to grow as tensions across the Middle East have managed to push up the costs of petrol, as well as Crude oil. Major oil producing countries such as Saudi Arabia and Venezuela have both face political issues over the last year, which has hit the trading of the commodity.

Saudi Arabia's government has pushed towards an economy which isn't so tightly linked to oil. This is while Venezuela has had sanctions applied by the US and has also had to contend with the re-election of socialist leader Nicolas Maduro, which saw the Crude oil price continue to rise.

Elsewhere, the pound's continuing weakness due to issues such as Brexit, has meant that trading oil has become problematic. Oil is traded through the US dollar, and as the conversion rate is currently so poor, petrol prices have become more expensive.A team of medical staff in east China has successfully kept a dying boy alive by performing CPR on him for five consecutive hours.

Eight-year-old Xiao Yu was admitted to a hospital in Changzhou, Jiangsu province after he suffered from acute heart failure. His condition deteriorated and doctors decided to transport him to Shanghai, where hospitals are better equipped.

However, as Xiao Yu awaited the transfer last week, his blood pressure suddenly dropped and his heart stopped beating, prompting a dramatic resuscitation effort performed by 30 doctors and nurses at the children's hospital.

A team of 30 medical staff in Changzhou city, east China's Jiangsu province successfully kept a dying eight-year-old boy alive by performing CPR on him for five consecutive hours

Eight-year-old Xiao Yu was admitted to Changzhou Municipal Children's Hospital after he suffered from acute heart failure. However, his condition deteriorated rapidly

Xiao Yu suffered a seizure due to fulminant myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart last Thursday, according to a news release published by Changzhou Municipal Children's Hospital.

His heart's left ventricle nearly lost all ability to pump blood and after a series of intensive emergency rescue efforts, Xiao Yu was in stable condition.

However on the next morning, he developed an irregular heart rate as his condition deteriorated once again.

Staff at Changzhou Municipal Children's Hospital then contacted doctors in Shanghai to arrange an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) treatment to save Xiao Yu. The life-support system puts oxygen into the blood of a patient and helps take over the work of the heart.

Pictures and video footage of the intense resuscitation effort shows staff members lining up next to Xiao Yu's bed and taking it in turns to give his little heart a much-needed boost

While the team waited in Changzhou for the ambulance from Shanghai - about 180 kilometres (110 miles) away - Xiao Yu's condition deteriorated rapidly at about 3pm on Friday

At one point, Xiao Yu's heart and breathing had stopped and his blood pressure dropped to a level where doctors could no longer get a reading

While the team waited in Changzhou for the ambulance from Shanghai - about 180 kilometres (110 miles) away - Xiao Yu's condition deteriorated rapidly at about 3pm.

His heart and breathing had stopped and his blood pressure dropped to a level where doctors could no longer get a reading.

Nearly 30 doctors and nurses were immediately called to the hospital room, where they started pumping the child's heart.

Pictures and video footage of the intense resuscitation effort shows staff members lining up next to Xiao Yu's bed and taking it in turns to give his little heart a boost.

Their teamwork kept blood flowing to Xiao Yu's brain, keeping the eight-year-old alive. In the end, the doctors and nurses performed more than 30,000 chest compressions before he was finally placed under ECMO treatment.

Staff at Changzhou Municipal Children's Hospital then contacted doctors in Shanghai to arrange an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) treatment to save Xiao Yu

Their teamwork kept blood flowing to Xiao Yu's brain, keeping the eight-year-old boy alive

Dr Li Yamin, who participated in the rescue efforts, said he believed the team did their very best.

'We did everything we could to save the boy as it would be a pity if we gave up on him,' Dr Li told video news site Pear Video. 'We wish him a speedy recovery.'

Xiao Yu is currently receiving treatment at Children's Hospital of Fudan University in Shanghai, a spokesperson at the Changzhou hospital confirmed.

News of the heart-warming incident spread online, where many Chinese nets users hailed the medical staff as heroes.

'I am so touched,' one user commented. 'Thank you, kind doctors and nurses. Wishing you good karma.'

'We need more medical professionals like this!' another said. 'Spreading positive energy!'Meghan Markle's mother Doria Ragland has been spotted back in Los Angeles after supporting her daughter at her charity cookbook launch at Kensington Palace last week.

The 62-year-old yoga instructor showed off her toned arms in a black sleeveless top, paired with elegant grey pleated suit trousers as she walked to a parked car.

The mother of the Duchess of Sussex had pulled her hair back in a high ponytail and had a black shoulder-bag slung across her chest.

Ms Ragland was pictured just days after a report claimed that she is set to 'get her own place' in the UK in order to spend more time with her daughter.

Moving across the pond? Doria Ragland, the mother of the Duchess of Sussex, is spotted in Los Angeles wearing a black sleeveless top and grey trousers

Ms Ragland, 62, returned to the United States on Friday, after supporting her daughter at her charity cookbook launch at Kensington Palace last week

Ms Ragland, who is based in LA, is now understood to be considering spending part of the year in England, particularly if 'grandchildren come along'.

She and Meghan, 37, are said to 'speak on the phone pretty much every day', in stark contrast to Thomas Markle's strained relationship with his daughter.

A source told Vanity Fair that Doria has already made a number of trips to the UK, staying with Harry and Meghan both in the Cotswolds and at Nottingham Cottage, the couple's home at Kensington Palace.

'Doria is very close to her daughter, and she has made several secret trips to England,' the insider said.

Stepping out: Ms Ragland, 62, added height in a pair of black leather platform heels

Inspirational: The yoga instructor showed off her toned arms in the sleeveless top

Doria (pictured with Meghan arriving at the Cliveden House Hotel the day before the royal wedding) is considering spending 'part of the year' in England, particularly if 'grandchildren come along'

'They speak on the phone pretty much every day and they are talking about Doria getting a place in the UK so that she can spend part of the year over here.'

Doria currently lives in LA, where Meghan grew up as a child, and is not believed to be considering a permanent move to the UK.

The source added: 'I think the idea is that Doria will have a pied-a-terre here so that she has her own space.

'She wants the ability to be here more often, especially if grandchildren come along.'

The Duchess of Sussex's mother was spotted returning to LA on Friday, just a day after appearing at a Kensington Palace reception celebrating the launch of Together: Our Community Cookbook.

Meghan's mother looked chic in an all-camel ensemble as she attended the event with both her daughter and Prince Harry.

Doria Ragland, 62, is set to get her own place in the UK, so she can spend more time with her daughter, sources say. She made a surprise appearance with Meghan at the launch of her daughter's new charity cookbook at Kensington Palace on Thursday (above)

Meghan and Doria (pictured on their way to St George's Chapel in May) enjoy a close relationship and are said to speak on the phone pretty much every day'

She wore a co-ordianting jumper and cropped trousers, which she accessorised with a Pashmina draped around her shoulders and a pair of 340 ($445) Stuart Weitzman heels.

At the reception, Doria met with guests from the Hubb Community Kitchen, telling them: 'Hi, I'm Meg's mom'.

She also embraced each of the women with a warm hug, telling them: 'It's amazing. I'm just as excited as you are.'

Speaking of her daughter's experience at the kitchen, she added: 'She felt very much at home.'

The reception on Thursday was the first time that Doria and Meghan have been seen together in public since the royal wedding in May.The 'lost' beluga whale spotted in the Thames more than 1,000 miles from its natural habitat is 'swimming strongly and feeding normally', according to experts.

Benny the beluga whale is still in the Thames today and has swum towards London.

But despite initial fears the 'very lost' mammal's life could be in danger, the RSPCA has assured watchers Benny has moved out towards the estuary, 'which is a good sign.'

A boat from the British Divers Marine Life Rescue - an organisation dedicated to the rescue and well-being of marine animals in distress around the UK - continues to circle the barge close to where the whale keeps surfacing.

A Beluga whale swims near a boat in the River Thames near Gravesend in Kent this afternoon

A boat from the British Divers Marine Life Rescue continues to monitor the whale

Experts are closely following the whale as it continues to swim in the Thames

Dr Stuart Butchart, 46, chief scientist with conservation organisation BirdLife International, is monitoring the whale.

How beluga whales are common in the Arctic Belugas, also known as white whales, are known for having rounded foreheads and no dorsal fin. The marine mammals feed feed on fish, crustaceans, and worms. Ranging from 13ft to 20ft in length, the whales are common in the Arctic Ocean's coastal waters. But they migrate southwards in large herds when the sea freezes over. The whales, whose scientific name is Delphinapterus leucas, have an average life span in the wild is 35 to 50 yaers, and weigh around a tonne. A beluga whale was last seen in the UK three years ago off the coast of Northumberland, and sightings in Britain are said to be very rare. Advertisement

He said: 'They get quite dehydrated because they can't feed. But this one seems to be feeding fine and normally.

'Minke whales are seen in British waters and there have been humpback whales but Belugas are almost mythical because they look so different.

'I have seen them in the Gulf of St Lawrence in Canada - that is one of the easiest places to see them. But in Britain there has only been a handful of recorded sightings.

'There is a good chance this one will make its way out.'

Whale-watchers today revealed he is feeding off Gravesend in Kent, slightly west of where was seen on the Essex side of the river near Coalhouse Fort yesterday.

Experts had been desperate to see the beluga heading east out of the Thames overnight to avoid him being stranded.

Scotland Yard's marine unit has urged people not to try to approach Benny in case he is spooked.

But Benny was still showing no signs of heading home to the North Pole last night as he continued to enjoy feeding on the Thames in Gravesend.

The white whale has playfully swam in the same area in deep water in the estuary throughout the day occasionally coming to the surface to breathe as inquisitive onlookers watched on in amazement.

RSPCA officials and experts from the British Divers Marine Life Rescue will continue to monitor the mammal until it gets dark and will then review the situation at first light this morning.

RSPCA spokeswoman Clare Dew added: 'We don't have any concerns about the whale itself at the moment, and it is certainly still behaving normally.

'It has moved further down the Thames out towards the estuary which is a good sign.

'It appears to be feeding normally - it is not attempting to come anywhere near the banks and it is staying in the deep channel in the middle of the river.'

Whale-watchers have revealed he is feeding off Gravesend in Kent, slightly west of where was seen on the Essex side of the river near Coalhouse Fort yesterday

Despite initial fears the 'very lost' mammal's life could be in danger, the RSPCA has assured watchers Benny has moved further down the Thames out towards the estuary, 'which is a good sign.'

Experts say Benny's arrival close to the capital is like finding a camel travelling around the North Pole

The 'lost' beluga whale spotted in the Thames more than 1,000 miles from its natural habitat is 'swimming strongly and feeding normally', according to experts

Marine experts said last night the whale could remain in the Thames for weeks or possibly months if it is happy feeding.

A patrol boat from the British Divers Marine Life Rescue spent three hours monitoring the whale on Wednesday.

Director Geoff Hammock, 53, and Thames region coordinator Sam Lipman, 28, used a Rigid Inflatable Boat (RIB) to get close to the Beluga whale.

The whale appears to be 'fine' said Mr Hammock, who added: 'It as well as can be expected. We think it is feeding.

'We think that if there was not any food it would have been looking for food. It keeps coming back to the same point.'

Ms Lipman said the whale could stay in the Thames 'for weeks or months if he or she is happy feeding'.

She added: 'We are looking at body condition and behaviour. We are just going on what we can observe.

Benny the beluga whale has turned up further up the Thames towards London when he should be heading out to sea

'It looks like it could be a sub-adult, it has grey tinges.

'There have only been about 20 reports in British waters so it is a really rare occurrence.

'If you have to get in the water don't get too close. Watch from land respectfully, but if anybody is too loud it can effect them.'

Martin Garside, 53, was part of the boat crew which came across the whale and said: 'It is in a right pickle. It is so badly in the wrong place - it's an arctic animal. It's like finding a camel travelling around the North Pole.

'I saw it yesterday from close up and it was swimming and diving. It looked strong and healthy. It was moving normally and strongly. Only a bit of it was visible, but you could see a fair bit of it.

'There did not seem to be any obvious damage. It's a beautiful, ghostly in a good way. But this whale is badly lost.'

Rob Lott, a marine mammal scientist at Whale and Dolphin Conservation (WDC), said the cetacean was being monitored in case it get stuck on a sandbank.

The beluga whale swimming in the Thames near Gravesend, Kent

He said: 'The longer it stays in the Thames estuary then it will become more of a concern.

'Hopefully instinct will soon kick in and the beluga will leave the estuary and go out into the north sea and then head north where it should be'.

These giants of the deep are usually found in the Arctic waters off Alaska, Russia, Canada and Greenland.

Benny seems taken a wrong turning and ended up 1,000 miles out of its way, in warmer waters, possibly due to last week's storms.

Dr Stuart Butchart, 46, chief scientist with conservation organisation BirdLife International, is monitoring the whale

While whales can get dehydrated if they cannot feed, this one 'seems to be feeding fine and normally' according to experts

Ecologist Dave Andrews broadcast footage of the whale over the internet, identifying it as a beluga thanks to its greyish white colour.

And as news spread, photographers amateur and professional flocked to the scene  around 15 miles from the mouth of the river  in the afternoon, with some on the shore and others in boats and in the air, all seeking a shot of the large sea mammal.

Mr Andrews said on Twitter: 'Can't believe I'm writing this, no joke - beluga in the Thames off Coalhouse Fort.'

He added the beluga had been feeding around barges on the river for around an hour and had not moved more than 200m either direction on the river.

A Port of London harbour master trying to spot the Beluga Whale in the Thames

The beluga whale has been spotted in the River Thames near London this afternoon

While the report of the animal prompted excitement on social media, conservationists warned that the beluga was almost certainly lost and could be in trouble. Spectators were advised not to get too close.

Whale and Dolphin Conservation spokesman Danny Groves said: 'This is a High Arctic species thousands of miles from where it should be in Greenland, Svalbard or the Barents Sea. They are usually associated close to the ice.

'He or she is obviously very lost and quite possibly in trouble.'

Mr Groves added that it was not the first time a beluga had been spotted in UK waters in recent years - although it was the most southerly.

The whale is pictured splashing about today, hundreds of miles from its normal Arctic habitat

Footage of the whale was also broadcast by Sky News (left) and ITV News (right) today

'In the summer of 2015 two were spotted off the Northumberland coast and one in Northern Ireland,' he said.

British Divers Marine Life Rescue spokeswoman Julia Cable was cautiously optimistic about the whale's prospects, saying it appeared to be feeding and healthy. She was monitoring the situation - and speculated last week's storm helped divert the whale.

The whale is not the first far-flung visitor to Gravesend. American Indian chieftan's daughter Pocahontas was buried there, after dying on her way back home from London in 1617.

Beluga wales reach up to 25 feet long, and can dive deep below the surface for 20 minutes at a time seeking fish, crabs, lobsters and worms.

Sailors of old nicknamed them 'sea canaries' after their habit of making loud squeaks and squeals to communicate with each other.

Cameramen and marine biology enthusiasts are trying to see the whale from Gravesend

Famously, in January 2006, an 18ft northern bottlenose whale swam up the River Thames

In 2006 a lost 18ft whale caused a sensation when it swam right up the Thames into the heart of London, right past Big Ben and Tower Bridge.

Onlookers christened the whale 'Willy' after the film Free Willy, and were delighted by the creature's antics. There was an attempt to take the whale out to sea by lifting it on to a barge - but the move proved fatal for the leviathan.

Closer examination also showed 'Willy' to be a female, a 20ft northern bottlenose whale.

Medieval records show that that similar excitement was aroused by the visit of a whale to London in 1240. The 'monster of prodigious size' swam under London Bridge pursued by a mob firing arrows. They killed the beast at Mortlake.

Another whale was stranded and died on a sandbank to the east of London in 1658. It was seen as an omen - and Oliver Cromwell died the next day.The jogger stabbed to death in a 'random' Washington DC attack has been laid to rest in her wedding dress, a week after she was killed.

Family and friends of Wendy Martinez, 35, gathered in her hometown of Royal Palm Beach, Florida, on Tuesday to pay their final respects after a memorial service in Washington on Saturday.

Mother Cora Martinez said the second service will be 'harder' than the first, because 'this is home'.

Wendy Martinez, 35, was buried in her home town of Royal Palm Beach, Florida, on Tuesday - a week after she was stabbed to death and two weeks after she got engaged

Wendy was buried in the dress she would have worn on her wedding day in December, when she was due to marry fiance Daniel Hincapie

Mother Cora said the ceremony in Florida will be 'harder' than the one in Washington several days earlier, because 'this is home'

Speaking to local station WPBF, she said: 'We were in shock that night. We couldnt sleep. We couldnt believe it. As a mom, I always have the hope that she will come back.'

Wendy died after being stabbed to death in what police believe was 'more than likely' a random attack late on September 18.

Officers have arrested 23-year-old Anthony Crawford on suspicion of murder.

Wendy was buried on Tuesday wearing the reception dress that she would have worn during her wedding to fiance Daniel Hincapie.

The pair were due to be married in December in Daniel's home country of Colombia.

After a year of dating Daniel proposed just seven days before Wendy was killed, friends revealed, saying she spent her last week alive picking the dress.

Cora added: 'She loved that dress. She said this is definitely the one for Colombia. She loved Colombia and we know why. She loved Colombia because of Daniel.'

Wendy was out jogging on the night of September 18 when she was stabbed seven time in the head and neck in what police believe was a random attack

Suspect Anthony Crawford, 23 (believed to be pictured moments before the attack), has been arrested on suspicion of murder

Martinez staggered into a Chinese takeout restaurant before collapsing to the floor as customers called for help. She later died in hospital

Guests were asked to wear bright colors to celebrate her life, her passion and her selflessness.

Luz Hainey, who had been friends with Wendy since high school, was due to address mourners at the funeral.

She planned to speak from the perspective of a mother and about the things she wants her children to know about Wendy.

'I want them to know that she wouldve wanted them to live their lives to the fullest, not to be scared,' she said ahead of the service.

'To dream big, to go to the big city. I have to stay strong in my faith and remember that shes in a better place. That truly is what were holding onto for right now.'

Local station WUSA9 has reported that officers are looking into the possibility the crime was racially motivated, though police have not officially discussed a motive.

Crawford, a known Spice addict with mental health issues, 'does not like white people', according to a source who spoke to the station.

After being stabbed, Wendy stumbled into a nearby Chinese takeaway where she was caught on CCTV.

Guests can be seen reacting in horror as she makes her way in while bleeding profusely, before attempting to help her as the emergency services are called.

She was taken to a nearby hospital but later died from her injuries.An explosive picture has emerged that proves extreme anti-Israel activist Miko Peled was inside Labour conference with a security pass, despite the party denying this.

A Labour spokesman yesterday claimed the notorious figure 'does not have a pass and has not been inside conference', after a picture of him embracing Jeremy Corbyn outside the venue sparked outrage.

But today MailOnline can reveal evidence that the activist  who has described Jews as having 'a reputation for being sleazy thieves'  attended conference as a fully accredited delegate.

The picture was taken on Sunday at 12:36pm, inside the ACC Liverpool building in front of the Labour Students stall, we can disclose.

On its website, Labour points out: 'The ACC forms part of the Conference Zone and anyone wishing to enter must be accredited'.

This is the explosive picture that proves that extreme anti-Israel activist Miko Peled was inside Labour conference with a security pass, despite the party denying this

A Labour spokesman yesterday claimed Mr Peled 'doesn't have a pass and has not been inside conference', after a picture of him embracing Jeremy Corbyn outside the venue sparked fury

The standard security pass, which has a picture, full name and barcode, can be seen in the picture, hanging around Mr Peled's neck.

Shadowed by a minder, the activist, who was slammed by Labour last year for questioning the Holocaust, had just been at a stand run by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, of which Mr Corbyn is patron.

He was received as 'a bit of a minor celebrity' by supporters, witnesses told MailOnline, chatting with pro-Palestine activists as he circulated inside the conference venue.

On a separate occasion, Mr Peled was spotted talking with members of Jewish Voice for Labour, a hardcore group of anti-Israel Corbyn supporters which rejects the internationally recognised definition of anti-Semitism.

This year's Labour conference is taking place inside two buildings within a secure zone. Mr Peled was sighted mingling with crowds in both locations.

Today, a Labour spokesman told MailOnline: 'He appears to have registered under his other name. As soon as we became aware, his pass was immediately revoked.'

The spokesman did not disclose exactly when the pass was nullified.

The revelations will embarrass Mr Corbyn just hours before he is due to take the stage to address conference in a keynote speech.

Yesterday, Mr Corbyn provoked shock when he posed for a 'selfie' with Mr Peled outside the venue. Mr Peled posted it on social media, praising the Labour leader as 'courageous, gracious and generous'.

In response, a Labour spokesman suggested that Mr Peled ambushed Mr Corbyn as he was on his way to his car and was not a conference delegate.

The spokesman said: 'Miko Peled is not attending Labour Party Conference. He does not have a pass and has not been inside conference.

'This event is not being advertised by the Labour Party and is not taking place on the conference site. Jeremy has been stopped by hundreds of people in Liverpool over the last few days.'

The revelations will embarrass Mr Corbyn just hours before he is due to take the stage to address conference in a keynote speech

A fringe meeting where Mr Peled was due to speak was then removed from the Labour conference app.

Last year, Mr Peled was slammed by senior Labour figures  including deputy leader Tom Watson  after he compared Israel to the Nazis at the conference in Brighton.

During a fringe event entitled Free Speech on Israel, he demanded that people be encouraged to ask, 'Holocaust: yes or no'.

He has also compared Zionists to Nazis and complained about a 'witchhunt against anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers' in the Labour party.

Gideon Falter, chairman of the Campaign Against anti-Semitism, said: 'Having issued Miko Peled with a conference pass, the Labour party has taken the public for fools and lied about it.

'It is impossible to believe that the Labour party means a word about anti-Semitism when people like Mr Peled are accredited to walk its conference floor.'

A Labour source told the Telegraph that Mr Corbyn did not know Mr Peled.

However, the paper reported, Elleane Green, an ally of the Labour leader, wrote in April 2013 that Mr Corbyn had attended a 30minute meeting hosted by Mr Peled in the House of Commons.

Karen Pollock, the director of the Holocaust Educational Trust, said the scandal was 'precisely the sort of thing that gives every signal that it is free rein for anti-Semites in the Labour Party.'

'Why would a political leader who claims to have been against racism all of his life want a picture with him?' she said.

Mr Peled, an Israeli-American, said at a fringe event at Labour conference last year that 'they'  an apparent reference to Jews or Israelis  did not want Mr Corbyn to enter Number 10.

'This is about free speech, the freedom to criticise and to discuss every issue, whether it's the Holocaust: yes or no, Palestine, the liberation, the whole spectrum. There should be no limits on the discussion,' he said.

The activist added: 'It's about the limits of tolerance. We don't invite the Nazis and give them an hour to explain why they are right; we do not invite apartheid South Africa racists to explain why apartheid was good for the blacks, and in the same way we do not invite Zionists  it's a very similar kind of thing.'

Mr Peled said: 'I did not directly compare Nazis to Zionists, I said that racists shouldnt be given a platform and I included Zionists and Nazis among those who hold racist beliefs.

'In the "sleazy thieves" comment, I meant that the Israeli government and their actions contribute to racist slurs about Jews.

'With regard to questioning the Holocaust, I said that if you believe in free speech you cannot criminalise speech, even if it is despicable.'Advertisement

Aerial photographs taken by an RAF pilot during a reconnaissance mission in northern India in the 1930s are set to go under the hammer more than 80 years on.

The album of 52 photos of the North West Frontier, now part of modern day Pakistan, includes images of the Khyber Pass and the Himalayas taken at 21,000ft alongside pictures of the Malakand Fort, the junction of the Idus and Kabul Rivers, and The Valley of the Indus.

The pilot, who is pictured in the album and called himself 'Nuncs', also took an interest in the local population, capturing images of a snake charmer entertaining the masses and people going about their daily lives.

The Attock bridge on the river Indus: The album of 52 photos of the North West Frontier, which today is part of modern day Pakistan, includes breathtaking snaps taken from 21,000ft

The pilot also took an interest in locals and their way of life, capturing shots including this one of a snake charmer entertaining the masses

The pilot, who is pictured in the album and called himself 'Nuncs'. During WWI, the Royal Flying Corps - the air arm of the British Army before and during the WW1, until it merged with the Royal Naval Air Service in 1918 to form the Royal Air Force - was set up at Risalpur

A father and son inside a basket boat: The album has been consigned for sale by a private collector with London based Forum Auctions and is tipped to sell for 1,500 when it goes under the hammer tomorrow

Among the pictures are aerial shots of the city of Lucknow and Peshawar Fort, as well as a tribal territory near Gilgit.

The high street in Quetta has a Western influence with a sign for 'American boots', while a father and son paddle in a traditional round basket boat on a river.

The album also includes a shot of the wreckage of a plane with the light-hearted caption 'reason for the first parachute jump', as well as a photo of the Risalpur Air Base, where the pilot was stationed.

It has been consigned for sale by a private collector with London based Forum Auctions and is tipped to sell for 1,500 when it goes under the hammer tomorrow.

Max Hasler, book specialist at Forum Auctions, said: 'It is quite unusual to find images of that region from that period, particularly photos taken at altitude.

'The album is from an RAF pilot who refers to himself just as 'Nuncs'. In addition to the reconnaissance images, he was also taken snaps of local people including a snake charmer giving it more the feel of a holiday album. It is a fascinating album.'

The North West Frontier was a province of British India and subsequently of Pakistan. It was established in 1901 and was known by this name until 2010 when it was renamed Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

The album also includes a shot of the wreckage of a plane with the light-hearted caption 'reason for the first parachute jump'

The Nowshera bridges: Lying on a sandy plain surrounded by hills, on the banks of the Kabul River, Nowshera is a commercial and industrial centre with cotton, wool, and paperboard mills and chemical and newsprint factories

One of the camps at Risalpur: Risalpur later became RPAF Flying Training School (FTS) in September, 1947

The Himalayas from 21,000 ft: Max Hasler, book specialist at Forum Auctions, said, 'It is quite unusual to find images of the region from that period, particularly photos taken at altitude'

A Peshawar fort in Northern India. Sikh authority was firmly established here by 1834, and the area was under British control from 1849 to 1947, when it became part of Pakistan

A proclamation parade: For more than 100 years British and Indian troops were engaged on the North-West Frontier of India policing the tribes, mounting expeditions, and guarding against the threat from Russia. In 1917 RAF 31 squadron was based at Risalpur, employed in operations against the Mahsud tribesmen of the north-west Frontier who had risen against the British Raj

A Vickers Victoria plane leaving Risalpur: Populated mainly by Pathans, one of the fiercest warrior races on earth, the Frontier came to be known as 'The Grim' by generations of British soldiers

The High Street in Quetta, complete with a shop selling 'American boots'A pensioner killed himself and his dementia-suffering wife and left a heartbreaking note for his son saying he had developed the same condition.

The inquests into the deaths of George and Betty Lyons revealed that the 88-year-old husband had left a note in the kitchen revealing his diagnosis.

The letter left at the home in Rochester, Kent, which was addressed to his son and daughter-in-law, read: 'I'm the same as mum, I'm sorry Simon and Lorraine.'

The inquests into the deaths of George and Betty Lyons (pictured together) revealed that the 88-year-old husband had left a note in the kitchen revealing his diagnosis

Mrs Lyons, 85, had suffered with dementia for several years, but the inquest heard that it appeared her husband had been recently diagnosed with the same condition.

The coroner at Archbishop's Palace in Maidstone heard that Mrs Lyons, a retired librarian, had been killed by compression to the neck and ruled it an unlawful killing.

Mr Lyons, a retired mechanical engineer, was killed by suspension and killed himself. The couple were discovered in their home on April 21.

Their son Simon paid tribute in the hearing, saying: 'They were devoted to each other.'

The letter was left in the kitchen at the couple's home on this road in Rochester, Kent

Speaking after their deaths, one neighbour, said: 'I am in shock. They were a lovely couple and used to hold hands when they went out together.

'I understand she had been ill for some time and he has been trying to cope with that. I am sure she went into a home at some point.'

For confidential support in the UK, call the Samaritans on 116123 or visit a local Samaritans branch. See samaritans.org for details.Jeremy Corbyn today threatened to send Brexit into total chaos by voting down any deal that doesn't keep the UK in the customs union.

The Labour leader set the stage for a high stakes Commons showdown that could decide the country's future by demanding Mrs May breaks her crucial red line.

In a sign that he plans to use the fraught negotiations with the EU in a bid to seize power, Mr Corbyn said that if the premier does not bow to Labour's diktat she must call an election.

In his keynote speech to party conference, Mr Corbyn - who is meeting Michel Barnier in Brussels tomorrow - said his team was 'ready to take charge and start the work of rebuilding our divided country' with a radical left-wing programme.

The intervention drew fury from Brexiteers who accused Mr Corbyn of exploiting the situation for his own political ends.

Tory MP Michael Fabricant told MailOnline: 'The British people are fed up with the length of time it is taking to secure Brexit.

'They will not thank anyone, least of all Jeremy Corbyn, who delays our release from the EU any further.'

Jeremy Corbyn used his speech to lay down the gauntlet on Brexit. He also held out an olive branch to Jewish voters but stopped short of offering an apology for the anti-Semitism crisis

Mr Corbyn gave the thumbs up to Labour members as he said :'We're ready to take charge'

Mr Corbyn portrayed himself as a PM in waiting as he urged the Tories to 'make way' for him to negotiate a Brexit deal

CORBYN ON BREXIT, ANTI-SEMITISM AND... HIS WIFE On Brexit: As it stands, Labour will vote against the Chequers plan or whatever is left of it and oppose leaving the EU with no deal. And it is inconceivable that we should crash out of Europe with no deal - that would be a national disaster. 'That is why if Parliament votes down a Tory deal or the government fails to reach any deal at all we would press for a General Election. Failing that, all options are on the table.' On anti-Semitism: The row over antisemitism has caused immense hurt and anxiety in the Jewish community and great dismay in the Labour Party. But I hope we can work together to draw a line under it. 'I say this to all in the Jewish community: This party, this movement, will always be implacable campaigners against antisemitism and racism in all its forms.' On his radical reform agenda: 'People in this country know - they showed that in June last year - that the old way of running things isn't working any more. That's why Labour is offering a radical plan to rebuild and transform Britain.' On Donald Trump: 'When President Trump takes the US out of the Paris accords, tries to scrap the Iran nuclear deal, moves the US embassy to Jerusalem and pursues aggressive nationalism and trade wars - he is turning his back on international cooperation and even international law.' On his wife Laura Alvarez In particular I would like to say a big thank you to my wife Laura. "Tu eres mi fuerza y mi apoyo. Gracias Laurita." The Spanish phrase translates as you are my strength and my support. Advertisement

The combative stance came as Mr Corbyn vowed to create a Left-wing Britain by ending 'greed is good' capitalism and reining in the City.

He said Labour had been wrong to 'prop up' bankers after the credit crunch, instead saying his government would overhaul the 'broken economic system' to benefit workers.

Mr Corbyn also issued a desperate plea to Jewish voters to 'draw a line' under the anti-Semitism crisis - admitting that the vile wave of abuse wracking Labour had caused immense 'hurt and anxiety' in the community.

But despite fury at his handling of the row, Mr Corbyn stopped short of offering an apology and just urged Jewish people to 'work with' him to rebuild trust.

Mr Corbyn stepped up the pressure on Mrs May over Brexit as he tried to gloss over divisions in Labour.

Activists have been clamouring for the leadership to back a second referendum, and the gathering eventually passed a fudged motion that said the option of a referendum should be kept 'on the table'.

But fresh splits then erupted over whether Remaining in the EU should be on the ballot paper.

Mr Corbyn said his focus was on forcing the Tories out of power through an election - although anti-Brexit campaigners tried to argue that he was increasingly moving towards their position.

'As it stands, Labour will vote against the Chequers plan or whatever is left of it and oppose leaving the EU with no deal,' he said.

'And it is inconceivable that we should crash out of Europe with no deal - that would be a national disaster.

'That is why if Parliament votes down a Tory deal or the government fails to reach any deal at all we would press for a General Election. Failing that, all options are on the table.'

Labour's has set 'six tests' for supporting a Brexit deal - including joining a customs union with the EU, one of Mrs May's red lines.

Mr Corbyn raised eyebrows by not mentioning or listing them individually today.

He added: 'Let me also reach out to the Prime Minister, who is currently doing the negotiating.

'Brexit is about the future of our country and our vital interests. It is not about leadership squabbles or parliamentary posturing.

'If you deliver a deal that includes a customs union and no hard border in Ireland, if you protect jobs, people's rights at work and environmental and consumer standards - then we will support that sensible deal.

'A deal that would be backed by most of the business world and trade unions too.

'But if you can't negotiate that deal then you need to make way for a party that can.'

The apparent shift could be a sign that Labour is preparing to defend itself from accusations that it is determined to wreck any package that Mrs May brings back from Brussels.

Labour has faced a ferocious backlash this week after unveiling one of the most radical left-wing programmes ever by a mainstream parts in the UK - including plans for mass nationalisations, share confiscations and the sacking of highly-paid bosses.

But Mr Corbyn signalled today that he is determined to double down on the left-wing programme - giving more details of how Britain would look with him in Downing Street.

He joked that 'not everyone liked' the blueprint the party was putting forward - pointing the finger at the media for 'spreading lies'.

But he said Labour's strength was its 500,000-strong membership that would allow it to 'change Britain'.

Acknowledging the depth of anger about the vile wave of abuse pervading the party - including allegations that he personally is anti-Semitic - Mr Corbyn said the summer had been 'tough'.

'We need to foster a much greater culture of tolerance. An end to abuse, online and in person,' he said.

'We must learn to listen a bit more, and shout a lot less. To focus on what unites us.

'To accept losing a vote, while maintaining the right to pick up the debate again.'

Mr Corbyn held out an olive branch to the Jewish community, which has been abandoning Labour.

'The Jewish people have suffered a long and terrible history of persecution and genocide,' he said.

'I was humbled to see a memorial to that suffering two years ago, when I visited the former Nazi concentration camp at Terezin.

Mr Corbyn spoke after Labour spent the week fleshing out one of the most radical left-wing programmes by a mainstream party in Britain

Mr Corbyn was congratulated by deputy Tom Watson, with whom he has clashed over a variety of issues, after the speech

Mr Corbyn's wife Laura (pictured centre) was in the audience for the speech - and the leader thanked her for her support

The speech in Liverpool was wrapping up Labour's Autumn conference, which has been dominated by rows over Brexit and anti-Semitism

'The row over antisemitism has caused immense hurt and anxiety in the Jewish community and great dismay in the Labour Party. But I hope we can work together to draw a line under it.

'I say this to all in the Jewish community: This party, this movement, will always be implacable campaigners against antisemitism and racism in all its forms.'

'It's part of who I am': Corbyn vows to 'eradicate' anti-Semitism from Labour's ranks Jeremy Corbyn today vowed to 'eradicate' anti-Semitism from Labour's ranks and the wider country in a new plea to the Jewish community. The Labour leader stopped short of making a full apology to the Jewish community as has been demanded but said he hoped to 'draw a line' under the toxic row. He insisted in his Liverpool speech fighting racism was 'part of who I am'. Recalling a visit to the Terezin concentration camp, Mr Corbyn said: 'The row over anti-Semitism has caused immense hurt and anxiety in the Jewish community and great dismay in the Labour Party. 'But I hope we can work together to draw a line under it.' He added: 'We will work with Jewish communities to eradicate antisemitism, both from our party and wider society. 'And with your help I will fight for that with every breath I possess. 'Anti-racism is integral to our very being. It's part of who you all are, and it's part of who I am.' Mr Corbyn lashed Theresa May's Tories for refusing to act against the hard-right government in Hungary. He said: 'We won't accept it when we're attacked by Tory hypocrites who accuse us of anti-Semitism one day, then endorse Viktor Orban's hard right government the next. 'Or when they say we are racist, while they work to create a hostile environment for all migrant communities.' Mr Corbyn repeated his promise to recognise a Palestinian state and told delegates it must be part of a two state solution alongside a 'secure Israel'. Advertisement

Mr Corbyn said the next Labour government would 'guarantee whatever support necessary to ensure the security of Jewish community centres and places of worship, as we will for any other community experiencing hateful behaviour and physical attacks'.

'We will work with Jewish communities to eradicate antisemitism, both from our party and wider society,' he said.

'And with your help I will fight for that with every breath I possess.

'Anti-racism is integral to our very being. It's part of who you all are, and it's part of who I am.'

Mr Corbyn also tried to woo the older voters - after they overwhelmingly backed the Tories in the election last year.

'I also want to make an appeal to the older generation who built modern Britain,' he said.

'It was you who rebuilt our country after the war, kick-started our economy, built our NHS and created our social security system.

'It was your generation that built the council housing, won our rights at work and made our country a better place for all. It was your work and taxes that paid for a better retirement for those who went before you.

'So we owe it you, the older generation, to rebuild Britain so you too have peace of mind and dignity. And we will fulfil that obligation with the triple lock on pensions protected along with the winter fuel allowance, a free bus pass and a national health and care service that can look after you and your families with respect. That is solidarity between the generations.'

In a stark analysis of what needs to be done to the UK economy, Mr Corbyn jibed at Labour former PM Gordon Brown.

He said the 'real economy' had been made a 'sideshow for the City of London'.

'Ten years ago this month, the whole edifice of greed-is-good, deregulated financial capitalism, lauded for a generation as the only way to run a modern economy, came crashing to earth, with devastating consequences,' he said.

'But instead of making essential changes to a broken economic system, the political and corporate establishment strained every sinew to bail out and prop up the system that led to the crash in the first place.

Key allies including Diane Abbott (pictured centre) watched as Mr Corbyn delivered his speech

Unite chief Len McCluskey seemed pleased with what he heard from the stage today

The shadow cabinet was behind Mr Corbyn on stage for his keynote address to the party faithful today

'People in this country know - they showed that in June last year - that the old way of running things isn't working any more. That's why Labour is offering a radical plan to rebuild and transform Britain.'

Mr Corbyn gave his clearest statement yet that he does believe Russia was behind the Salisbury poison attack - after previously sparking a storm of criticism for casting doubt over who ordered the strike.

Jeremy Corbyn admits Russia is behind Salisbury poison attack Jeremy Corbyn today admitted Russia was behind the Salisbury poison attack after sparking a storm of criticism for casting doubt over who ordered the strike. British ministers have said the Russian state ordered two of its intelligence officials to carry out the Novichok poisoning in March this year. The strike left former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter fighting for their lives in hospital. It also killed British mother of three Dawn Stugess, 44, after she accidentally sprayed the poison on herself after finding it in a perfume bottle. Theresa May said all the evidence pointed to the Russian state ordering the attempted hit - but Mr Corbyn spent months refusing to blame the Kremlin and even urged the UK to send a sample of the Novichok to Russia for testing. But in a speech to his party conference in Liverpool today, he finally admitted the evidence shows Russia wasbehind it. He said: 'We are entering a new fast-changing and more dangerous world including the reckless attacks in Salisbury which the evidence painstakingly assembled by the police now points clearly to the Russian state.' But he also launched into an excoriating attack on the leader of America - Britain's closest ally. And vowed to overhaul Britain's role on the world stage - warning its current position is no longer sustainable. The Labour leader attacked Mr Trump, who he said has turned his back on the international community. And he promised that he will not lead Britain into any more 'reckless' wars if he gets the keys to Number Ten. In his speech to the Labour Party conference in Liverpool today, he said: 'Britain's relationship with the rest of the world, our foreign policy is no longer sustainable either... 'When President Trump takes the US out of the Paris accords, tries to scrap the Iran nuclear deal, moves the US embassy to Jerusalem and pursues aggressive nationalism and trade wars - he is turning his back on international cooperation and even international law.' The Labour leader accused the Tories of colluding with Saudi Arabia and its war in Yemen. And Mr Corbyn - a lifelong pacifist who used to be vice president of the Campaign for nuclear Disarmament - pledged to rein in Britain's military ations abroad. He said: 'We need a British government that can not only keep the country safe, but can also speak out for democratic values and human rights... 'That means no more reckless wars of intervention, like Iraq or Libya. 'It means putting negotiations before confrontation, diplomacy before tub-thumping threats. 'It means championing human rights and democracy everywhere and not just where it is commercially convenient.' Advertisement

British ministers have said the Russian state ordered two of its intelligence officials to carry out the Novichok poisoning in March this year.

The strike left former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter fighting for their lives in hospital.

It also killed British mother of three Dawn Stugess, 44, after she accidentally sprayed the poison on herself after finding it in a perfume bottle.

Mrs May said all the evidence pointed to the Russian state ordering the attempted hit - but Mr Corbyn spent months refusing to blame the Kremlin and even urged the UK to send a sample of the Novichok to Russia for testing.

But in a speech to his party conference in Liverpool today, he finally admitted the evidence shows Russia wasbehind it.

He said: 'We are entering a new fast-changing and more dangerous world including the reckless attacks in Salisbury which the evidence painstakingly assembled by the police now points clearly to the Russian state.'

But he also launched into an excoriating attack on the leader of America - Britain's closest ally.

And vowed to overhaul Britain's role on the world stage - warning its current position is no longer sustainable.

The Labour leader attacked Mr Trump, who he said has turned his back on the international community.

And he promised that he will not lead Britain into any more 'reckless' wars if he gets the keys to Number Ten.

In his speech to the Labour Party conference in Liverpool today, he said: 'Britain's relationship with the rest of the world, our foreign policy is no longer sustainable either...

'When President Trump takes the US out of the Paris accords, tries to scrap the Iran nuclear deal, moves the US embassy to Jerusalem and pursues aggressive nationalism and trade wars - he is turning his back on international cooperation and even international law.'

The Labour leader accused the Tories of colluding with Saudi Arabia and its war in Yemen.

And Mr Corbyn - a lifelong pacifist who used to be vice president of the Campaign for nuclear Disarmament - pledged to rein in Britain's military actions abroad.

He said: 'We need a British government that can not only keep the country safe, but can also speak out for democratic values and human rights...

'That means no more reckless wars of intervention, like Iraq or Libya.

'It means putting negotiations before confrontation, diplomacy before tub-thumping threats.

'It means championing human rights and democracy everywhere and not just where it is commercially convenient.'

Mr Corbyn said solar panels should be installed on every 'viable' roof, and set a target for increasing insulated - potentially heaping costs on middle-class families.

Party sources last night said Mr Corbyn's push for green jobs gave the lie to claims he would wreck the economy, saying his plans would create 400,000 jobs over 12 years.

Mr Corbyn said the UK has to 'lead by example' on the environment, adding: 'There is no bigger threat facing humanity than climate change.' The claim is similar to one made by Gordon Brown in 2009, who also promised to create 400,000 jobs.

The decision to launch a new drive for onshore windfarms is likely to prove highly controversial in rural communities.

Under the proposals, planning laws tightened by the coalition government would be relaxed, although local people would still have 'a say' in the process.

Mr Corbyn - a lifelong pacifist who used to be vice president of the Campaign for nuclear Disarmament - pledged to rein in Britain's military actions abroad

The keynote address went down well with activists in the hall in Liverpool today

Labour's targets would mean building an extra 7,000 wind turbines on land, with a further 12,000 erected off shore.

There are currently 7,100 wind turbines on shore and just under 2,000 off shore.

Mr Corbyn also backed the 1.3billion project for a tidal lagoon in Swansea Bay, abandoned this year due to the huge cost.

And, as part of a 12.8billion package, he will announce plans to insulate four million homes in Labour's first five years in government.

The state would pay for low income households, while better off families would be offered interest-free loans.

Mr Corbyn's past support for the reopening of Britain's coal mines has been quietly dropped as part of the drive to slash carbon emissions.

The party has announced it will extend free child care for all parents. Mr Corbyn today vowed to tackle 'patchy' provision and scrap means-testing - benefiting up to a million children and their parents.

Corbyn hints Remain could be on the ballot in a second Brexit poll Jeremy Corbyn hinted Remain could be on the ballot paper in any new referendum on Brexit today. The Labour leader used his keynote address to party delegates in Liverpool to back his Brexit Secretary Sir Keir Starmer. Sir Keir has seen off critics in the party this week who insisted any new referendum should only be between an exit deal and no deal. But Mr Corbyn told activists: 'Keir, having got agreement yesterday in this conference hall, getting one in Brussels should be a piece of cake.' Mr Corbyn repeated his threat to vote down Theresa May's planned deal if it does not include a customs union and a solution on the Irish border. And he said there must be a snap election if the PM cannot get her deal past MPs. The Labour leader said: 'Let me say to the country. As it stands, Labour will vote against the Chequers plan or whatever is left of it and oppose leaving the EU with no deal. 'And it is inconceivable that we should crash out of Europe with no deal - that would be a national disaster. 'That is why if Parliament votes down a Tory deal or the government fails to reach any deal at all we would press for a General Election. 'Failing that, all options are on the table.' Advertisement

Under current Government rules for free childcare, 15 hours a week is offered for all three and four-year-olds, regardless of income, but under Labour's changes it will be doubled to 30 hours for three and four-year-olds with two-year-olds also included.

Mr Corbyn paid a heartfelt tribute to his Mexican wife as he began his speech, describing her as 'my strength and my support' in her native Spanish.

As Laura Alvarez and his children looked on, Mr Corbyn said his whole family gave him help and advice, raising a laugh by adding: 'There is actually always a great deal of advice being given'.

He followed the joke by praising his third wife, saying: 'In particular I would like to say a big thank you to my wife Laura.

'Tu eres mi fuerza y mi apoyo. Gracias Laurita.'

The Spanish phrase translates as 'you are my strength and my support'.

Ms Alvarez, a human rights activist, was pictured with a broad smile as the cameras turned to her after his praise.

They married in 2013, two years before he became Labour leader.

She has kept a low profile since his election, although she has appeared in the audience at major speeches, often flanked by Mr Corbyn's grown-up children from an earlier marriage.

After he was elected Labour leader she told Vice News in a rare interview her husband was 'not very good at housework, but he's a good politician'.

Following his speech, Mr Corbyn joined in with singing T.Rex hit Children Of The Revolution on stage.

The Labour leader clapped and bobbed and appeared to sing the chorus as the 1972 Marc Bolan number played following his speech.

It includes the lines: 'Well you can tear a plane in the falling rain, I drive a Rolls-Royce 'cos it's good for my voice.

'But you won't fool the children of the revolution, No you won't fool the children of the revolution.'

The T-Rex single was played after Mr Corbyn and his shadow cabinet joined delegates in the traditional rendition of the hymn Jerusalem and socialist song The Red Flag.

Tory chairman Brandon Lewis said: 'Jeremy Corbyn has shown at every turn he is unfit to govern.

'All he offers are failed ideas that didn't work in the past and would leave working families paying the price with higher taxes, more debt and more waste  just like last time.

Mr Corbyn was accompanied by the shadow cabinet as he waved to activists on his way in for the crucial speech

Mr Corbyn was all smiles as he arrived at the conference centre in Liverpool today

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn works on his speech at a hotel in Liverpool last night before he addressed delegates today

'He confirmed Labour are opening the door to re-running the referendum, which would take us all back to square one.

'And he didn't even apologise to Jewish people for his total failure to tackle the anti-Jewish racism that is rife in the Labour Party.

'Only the Conservatives offer people opportunity for the future.'

Labour MP David Lammy said Mr Corbyn had reiterated that a referendum was on the table and the party was 'uniting' around that position.

'He said he would listen to the members and he has by saying that Labour will reject any Brexit that does not match its six tests and that, if it cannot secure a general election then the option of a People's Vote remains on the table,' he said.

'What this week has also shown is that sorting out the Brexit mess is the necessary first step to implementing Labour's radical programme. We cannot fix the NHS, create the skilled, well-paid jobs we need, or secure investment in our children's future when faced with the shambles of Theresa May's Brexit or the disaster of Jacob Rees-Mogg's Brexit.

'Labour are right to pledge to vote against either outcome or a blindfold Brexit, where we do not know the consequences. When we do that, and if Conservative MPs will not vote for a general election, then a People's Vote is the only realistic and serious alternative to crashing out with no deal or risking our future with a blindfold Brexit. The choice must never be between a bad deal and no deal.'

Tory MP Simon Clarke said: In the week Labour have comprehensively betrayed millions of their most loyal voters by backing a second EU referendum, Jeremy Corbyn has shown how cynically he treats the whole Brexit vote. Rather than respecting what people voted for, he is trying to use this as a wedge issue to take his ruinous policies into Downing Street. He won't succeed.'

The decision to launch a new drive for onshore windfarms is likely to prove highly controversial in rural communities (stock)The family of popular children's author Dick King Smith, have expressed their dismay after developers were given the green light to build on the farm which inspired the film 'Babe'.

King-Smith fulfilled his childhood dream of becoming a farmer when he bought the now-famous farm.

The land, which sits just outside Bristol, inspired all his books, particularly The Sheep Pig - which became an international bestseller and was turned into a Hollywood blockbuster.

The entrance to Woodland Farm which inspired Dick King-Smith to write Sheep Pig

However, developer Barratt Homes has been granted permission on appeal to build 215 homes on Woodlands Farm in Coalpit Heath.

King Smith's children, Juliet King-Smith, 72, Liz Rose, 70, and Giles King-Smith, 64, said that they were 'dismayed' by the proposals.

Grandmother-of-three Juliet added: 'I'm dismayed by the proposals.

'Part of the farm has already been built on. They are proposing to buy up the rest of the field. It was my father's first farm, I lived there from the age of two until I was 16.

'It was the place that inspired him - he acknowledged it in his memoir, Chewing the Cud.

'The Sophie books were inspired by it, and Sophie was inspired by my mother Myrle, who he met when they were about 13.'

Dick King Smith (above) fulfilled his childhood dream of becoming a farmer when he bought the now-famous farm

Initially, South Gloucestershire Council had rejected Barratt Homes' proposals for the farm, arguing against the loss of agricultural land and of its cultural importance - but its decision was overturned.

Planning inspector Nick Fagan said: 'This indicates that the council accepts the need for new housing in the area, even if that means needing to alter the green belt boundary.

'In this context the fact that the appeal site is not in the green belt adds to its suitability for development.'

Barratt Homes has been granted permission on appeal to build 215 homes on Woodlands Farm in Coalpit Heath, just outside Bristol

Following an inquiry into the land, Mr Fagan said the development would result in harm but added that the land is not a 'valued landscape'.

On the site's cultural importance, Mr Fagan said: 'I heard from the council, local residents and from Juliet King-Smith about her father Dick King-Smith's ownership of Woodlands Farm between 1948 and 1962.

'Mr King-Smith was the author of The Sheep Pig and many other well-known children's books including The Fox Busters.

The land inspired all his books, particularly The Sheep Pig - which became an international bestseller and was turned into a Hollywood blockbuster

'He took inspiration for these books from the farm and the local area.

'I consider [his] associations with the area including the site to be an important cultural association because he is a well-known and well-read children's author.'

Despite the fact that the proposal will result in the loss of nearly five hectares of the 'best and most versatile' agricultural land. Mr Fagan said that this was 'insignificant' in the wider context.

Dick King Smith (above) with a pig, working at Woodlands Farm

Concluding, he said the council has a shortfall of at least 1,000 homes over the next five years, and that tips the balance in favour of development. He said the 215 houses, 35 per cent of which would be affordable, would make a 'sizeable contribution'.

Mr Fagan granted planning permission.

A South Gloucestershire Council spokesperson said the authority was disappointed in the ruling because its plans were developed with the community and did not include Barratt Homes' proposals.

Dick King Smith's family said that he took inspiration for the books from the farm and the local area

He said: 'The inspector felt that the proposals would bring forward a significant number of new homes, including affordable homes, in a timely way.

'We remain committed however to working with communities to deliver balanced, plan-led developments in order to meet our housing needs and the needs of local people.'

The spokesperson said the council is working hard to address its housing shortfall and deliver appropriate developments.

South Gloucestershire Council said the authority was disappointed in the ruling which will mean that 215 homes will be built on the former property of Dick King Smith (above)

Barratt Homes technical director David Bond said: 'Barratt Homes is committed to delivering new homes to meet the current shortfall in South Gloucestershire.

'We maintain our view - and that of the planning inspector - that our proposals present a viable and sustainable plan for a new community.

'We now look forward to working with South Gloucestershire Council in the preparation of the reserved matters application, and to delivering these new homes.

'These will include around 75 affordable properties, self-build plots, and significant high quality public space that the whole community will be able to enjoy.'Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has claimed the United States had 'no right' withdraw from the 2015 nuclear deal, after blasting the Trump White House as a 'misbehaving administration'.

He told CNN's Christiane Amanpour that no nation had 'the right to unilaterally exit such agreement without just cause' and that President Trump had to 'return to the point of departure' before they could reopen negotiations with the U.S.

Rouhani's stern words came after his speech at the UN General Assembly yesterday, in which he accused the US of trying to overthrow his government.

This saw Trump's national security adviser, John Bolton, warn that there would be 'hell to pay' if Tehran crossed the U.S., its allies or their partners.

Hitting back: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said the United States - nor any nation who signed - had the right withdraw from the 2015 nuclear deal without just cause

Rouhani also brushed off told Trump's tweet, in which the U.S. President called him a 'lovely man' as irrelevant 'playing with words'.

'What is of importance is that the leaders of the two countries are seeking mutual interests and have a dialogue and take subsequent steps which ultimately can lead to the undoing of knots and difficulties that have existed in their relationship over the last four decades.

'Everything else is just playing with words and will not get to any solutions.'

Rouhani is almost certain not to attend today's Security Council meeting, chaired by Truimp, which will test the President's ability to maintain diplomatic decorum and interact with representatives of rival nations

Donald Trump's national security adviser, John Bolton, warned that there would be 'hell to pay' if Tehran crossed the U.S., its allies or their partners

It follows a speech by Bolton at the United Against Nuclear Iran Summit being held on the on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, in which he branded Tehran a 'murderous regime'.

Bolton said: 'If you cross us, our allies, or our partners; if you harm our citizens; if you continue to lie, cheat and deceive, yes, there will indeed be hell to pay,' he said.

'The murderous regime and its supporters will face significant consequences if they do not change their behaviour. Let my message today be clear: We are watching, and we will come after you.'

Speaking before the UN General Assembly yesterday, Trump blasted what he called Iran's 'corrupt dictatorship' and accused its leaders of enriching themselves through embezzlement and raiding state coffers to spread 'mayhem'.

U.S. President Donald Trump addresses the United Nations General Assembly, taking the opportunity to attack Tehran as a regime seeking to 'sow chaos, death and destruction'

Mr Trump also vowed to continue to isolate Iran through US sanctions that are being re-instated following his withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal.

The next round of sanctions will take effect in early November.

He later predicted that the pressure from renewed sanctions would force Iran back to the table to negotiate.

'Iran's leaders sow chaos, death and destruction,' the president told the UN General Assembly in a 34-minute speech that was more critical of Iran than any other country.

'They do not respect their neighbours or borders or the sovereign rights of nations. Instead Iran's leaders plunder the nation's resources to enrich themselves and to spread mayhem across the Middle East and far beyond.'

Since taking office, Trump has removed the U.S. from the Paris climate accord, promoted protectionist tariffs and questioned the value of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and other alliances in furtherance of what he termed on Tuesday a strategy of 'principled realism.'Two judges claim they have been unfairly criticised by the Australian public amid mounting speculation that sentencing within the country is too lenient.

The criminal justice system is increasingly accused of being too soft on criminals, forcing Chief Judge Peter Kidd and Judge Elizabeth Gaynor to come out in defence of their work.

Judge Gaynor, from Victorian County Court, fiercely defended their sentencing decisions and argued that judges are often misrepresented in the public eye, A Current Affair reported.

Judge Gaynor (pictured), from Victorian County Court, fiercely defended their sentencing decisions and argued that judges are often misrepresented in the public eye

'Judges live in the community too and I don't want to live in a community that's unsafe and that's crawling with criminals,' she said.

'I think the community thinks we're out of touch, that we're too soft, that we live in some sort of luxurious gated community.'

Judge Gaynor, who was previously a barrister, said no one comes into the world wanting to be a judge and you would be a 'psycho' if that was the case.

She said the courts are under attack from growing public scrutiny.

'I'll read a report of something we've done in the paper and you'd think, if I didn't know what was going on, that the Judge was a complete idiot,' Judge Gaynor said.

'Because that's the way we're presented, as if we have no reason for doing what we do.'

Chief Judge Kidd spoke highly of the criminal justice system and argued that only a fraction of sentences get media attention.

'Judges live in the community too and I don't want to live in a community that's unsafe and that's crawling with criminals,' Judge Gaynor said

Chief Judge Kidd (pictured) spoke highly of the criminal justice system and argued that only a fraction of sentences get media attention

'It doesn't mean the entire system is broke, in fact I would say the system is tired and tested and should be celebrated, not denigrated,' he told ACA.

The family man said sentencing is about balancing public interest with the interest of the victim and the criminal.

Alternative sentences to jail time are also a hot topic with Judge Gaynor suggesting rehabilitation and reform is better for the community as a whole.

It costs about $123,000 to keep one prisoner in jail for a year.

Judge Gaynor said criminals often leave the institutions broken, unskilled and with greater criminal connections due to the 'potency' of jails.The mother of an allergic teenager who died after eating a Pret A Manger baguette laced with sesame seeds broke down today as British Airways cabin crew said guarding the doors took priority over getting a defibrillator.

Natasha Ednan-Laperouse, 15, suffered a fatal reaction to a sandwich bought inside Heathrow Terminal 5 after boarding a plane to France in July 2016.

Natasha was given CPR for around 50 minutes on the flight after two EpiPens and an adrenalin injection failed to halt the allergic reaction that caused a cardiac arrest.

But today BA crew manager Mario Ballestri said staff did not grab the defibrillator needed to restart her heart because the plane was descending to land in Nice, calling it too dangerous.

Natasha's mother Tanya then burst into tears and put her head in her hands when head of cabin crew John Harris said: 'Without sounding harsh, the coverage of doors takes priority.'

Captain Richard Hunter, who was in charge of the flight, also claimed that crew did not reveal the severity of the emergency until it was too late to divert to another airport.

Natasha came out in hives that looked like jelly fish stings within minutes of eating the artichoke, olive and tapenade baguette before she went into cardiac arrest.

But a defibrillator was only used on Natasha after landing in Nice where paramedics arrived at the gate around two hours after the plane left London.

Nadim Ednan-Laperouse, his son Alex and wife Tanya (pictured today) arrive at the inquest of Natasha, 15, whose mother sobbed today as she heard how BA crew tried to save her

Natasha, 15 (pictured), died of a severe allergic reaction after she bought the artichoke, olive and tapenade baguette from a shop at Heathrow Terminal 5 but was feeling ill within minutes

BA pilot Captain Richard Hunter described why he didn't think the plane should divert while BA crew manager Mario Ballestri (left to right today) said it was 'too dangerous' to get the defibrillator on board because they were about to land

British Airways cabin crew were questioned over their response after the inquest heard that the on-board defibrillator was not used in-flight.

John Harris, from BA head of cabin crew, was asked about the defibrillator incident and said: 'Without sounding harsh, the coverage of doors takes priority'

Mr Ballestri, who helped junior doctor Thomas Pearson-Jones as he performed CPR on Natasha, said it would have been too dangerous to get the device from the other end of the aircraft when she went into cardiac arrest minutes before landing.

He explained that it was a formal requirement of his training to ensure cabin crew were in position on landing so they could get passengers off the aircraft in case of an emergency.

'There were only five cabin crew on that particular flight and the aircraft had four sets of doors, totalling eight doors, and one cabin crew member was out of action.

'So we literally had the minimum number of crew to cover those doors,' he said.

Captain Richard Hunter was in charge of the flight from London Heathrow to Nice and said he became aware of the emergency too late to divert to another airport.

He said: 'My co-pilot and I realised there was little point going is to Lyon because we would have needed about the same time in the air and air traffic control was expecting us in nice', adding it could only have cut the flight time by five minutes.

Mr Hunter also said that cabin crew had not made him aware that 'it was a life threatening situation' - just that Natasha was unwell.

He claimed that cabin crew told him the teenager was 'feeling slightly better' after an EpiPen was used but returned ten minutes later to say she was now severely ill.

But Mr Bellestri told West London Coroner's Court that this was not true and claimed the captain told him a satellite phone system connecting the plane with an emergency doctor 'wasn't working'.

Captain Hunter denied this and said pilots are 'encouraged' to be distracted by 'non operational calls' while descending to land.

The baguette she bought at Pret's Heathrow Terminal 5 branch did not have sesame listed on the ingredients, her family say

Yesterday it was revealed that Pret A Manger was warned about nine customers suffering an allergic reaction to sesame in its food in the year before Natasha died after eating one of the chain's baguettes.

Pret didn't have to list sesame on sandwich ingredients because it was made in store Pret, one of the country's biggest food chains, did not have to list sesame seeds as an ingredient in the 3.45 sandwich. Pret products do not have to be individually labelled with allergen or ingredient information. This is because Pret sandwiches are freshly prepared in store. The loophole is supposed to free small, independent sandwich shops and cafe chains from onerous regulations applied to factory packaged foods. Instead, signs on shelves and by tills in Pret stores tell customers with allergies to speak to a manager who is trained to give allergen advice. Before hearing of the case, Pret had started to improve the allergen information it offers customers, but the inquest will explore whether more should be done. Pret's website now carries a list of allergens in its food and drinks, including highlighting sesame in the artichoke, olive and tapenade baguette Advertisement

Six of those affected had eaten the same 'artisan' baguettes containing sesame seeds that triggered the fatal attack in 2016.

Pret's packaging failed to mention sesame seeds were 'hidden' in the dough despite being given a 'specific warning' about the dangers, West London Coroner's Court was told.

Natasha, from Fulham, suffered a cardiac arrest on a British Airways flight to Nice on July 17, 2016, after buying an artichoke, olive and tapenade baguette at Heathrow Airport which she did not know contained sesame.

The inquest into her death heard a 17-year-old girl nearly died nine months earlier after going into anaphylactic shock from seeds in the same sandwich, bought from a shop in Cardiff.

After reading about Natasha's death, she contacted the family's lawyers to say she had also suffered a severe allergic reaction.

The unnamed girl's mother, a GP, made a complaint to Pret after her daughter ended up on a drip but the chain still failed to label the sandwiches with allergy information.

It was among nine cases of allergic reactions to sesame seeds recorded in the sandwich chain's complaints log in the year before Natasha's death.

Pret said its allergen labelling policy has since been changed.

Natasha's father Nadim, the millionaire founder and chief executive of WOW Toys, administered two EpiPens in a bid to save her while a junior doctor on board the flight gave her CPR.

She was heard crying out 'Daddy, help me' as she struggled to breathe. Natasha died in a French hospital later that day.

In heartbreaking evidence, her father also said that minutes after she died he cut off a lock of her hair and told her: 'We would love her forever and never forget her', the inquest at West London Coroner's Court heard.

Mr Ednan-Laperouse said: 'It is the worst imaginable thing to happen as a parent' and also described helping the French undertaker nail her coffin shut.A retired NRL star has taken aim at the Rabbitohs in an awkward joke at the prestigious Dally M Awards.

Former Brisbane Broncos star Sam Thaiday, who retired at the end of this season, was a special guest at the event on Wednesday night in Sydney and took to the stage to give an 'Ode to the Retirees'.

The tongue-in-cheek piece dedicated to Johnathon Thurston, who also recently retired from the North Queensland Cowboys, poked fun at several clubs - including the Rabbitohs.

Scroll down for video

Former Brisbane Broncos star Sam Thaiday took to the stage to give an 'Ode to the Retirees' (pictured with Rachel Thaiday)

Thaiday spoke about 'gifts' clubs had given to Thurston for his retirement, including a ball in a glass case and 'a boat' from the Melbourne Storm - a shot at the Storm salary cap scandal in 2010.

But it was his comment about the recent sexting scandal that has plagued the Rabbitohs that got heads turning.

'And the Rabbitohs sent him a really really nice video message,' Thaiday said.

'So thank you Rabbitohs,' he joked.

Thaiday called time on his 15 year career in the 2018 season and was given the opportunity to talk about the retirees at the Dally M Medal awards but he also took shots at other clubs

His comments drew some attention on social media, with most taking the comments in good humour.

'Crack up! You da man Sammy!' one Twitter user wrote.

While others weren't as kind towards his routine.

Thaiday made comments directed at the South Sydney Rabbitohs recent sexting scandal

'Well stand up comedy is not a good career choice for thaiday (sic),' one Twitter user wrote.

'0/10,' another one added.

'For a billion dollar game this has been seriously tacky so far,' yet another responded.

Thaiday retired with 304 first grade appearances to his name and 40 tries in a 15 year career, he played every single of his 304 games for the Brisbane Broncos.

His comments about the Rabbitohs were in direct reference to the sexting scandal that saw a woman come forward and claim she had received inappropriate messages from Rabbitohs players.

The woman alleged the unnamed players flashed their genitals during a long video chat session.

Screenshots from the video chat allegedly show a man exposing his torso and genitals to the woman during their video conversation.

Another man was photographed with his pants down and baring his behind, captured in screenshots from the live video.

Rabbitohs bosses refused to confirm who the players were, The Daily Telegraph reported.

Souths chief executive Blake Solly told the paper he had 'constructive and helpful' discussions with the woman.

The young woman said she felt violated after the video chat took a dark turn on May 26.A 1982 calendar produced by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh contains entries for parties, football games, and a plan to see 'Rocky III'  but does not appear to contain information about a party where a woman claims he assaulted her.

Kavanaugh's calendar, from Northwestern Mutual Audobon Society and running from May through August, contains some scribbles and details of the social life of the Circuit Court Judge and Supreme Court nominee.

He produced it in advance of a blockbuster hearing as evidence that he did not sexually assault Christine Blasey Ford at a high school house party as she has claimed and will testify Thursday.

A May 1 entry says 'Go to Holy Child Party,' a reference to a Catholic school in Potomac, Maryland. It says Kavanaugh will drive.

YOU'RE GROUNED!: A May entry says 'GROUNDED' but also 'GO TO ST. MICHAELS' and 'Timmy's party' at the beach

TIME CAPSULE: A 1982 calendar reveals future Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's social and academic life. His defense says it will help rebut allegations of sexual assault

'He'll answer whatever questions the committee decides to ask him,' lawyer Beth Wilkinson told 'CBS This Morning' about her client, Supreme Court pick Brett Kavanaugh

A week later, it says he was 'grounded.' During an intervening day, an entry says 'cut our lawn.'

Various other entries reference a 'father son dinner,' a haircut, 'BEACH WEEK' written in block letters, beach weekends, and trips to St. Michael's on Maryland's Eastern Shore.

It also lists interviews at Brown and Yale.

Entries on May 20 and 21 say 'Grounded,' but also reference a 'Father-Son dinner' and a haircut, as well as 'Timmy's party' at the beach'  an event it is possible Kavanaugh missed due to being grounded.

There are smudges on entries for May 19, 20, and 21. The May 19 entry, written over a smudge, says 'Nikki comes over?????'

A June entry references a trip to 'Kemper,' a likely reference to the Kemper Open golf tournament in Maryland.

June 16 included a plan to go to 'Grease II' with Suzanne, while a few days earlier, the court nominee getting pummeled with allegations was to 'go to Ricky III w/ Squi, PJ + Dee.' He was also to 'COME HOME FROM THE BEACH.'

A June 25 entry states 'Go to party at boathouse' with 'JC, Squi, + Donny.' The following day, it was off to St. Michael's and a plan to see 'Poltergeist.'

Ford, in her allegation, says she does not remember the exact location or date of the party where the alleged assault occurred.

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is willing to answer questions under oath about his heavy drinking in high school and college, his lawyer said Wednesday.

Beth Wilkinson, who represents Kavanaugh as he fends off accusations by two named women, said Kavanaugh's acknowledged drinking in no validates the charges being leveled.

'He'll answer whatever questions the committee decides to ask him,' Wilkinson told 'CBS This Morning.'

'But trying to claim that some kind of drinking incident at some other time is indicative of this type of behavior is totally unfair,' she argued.

Christine Blasey Ford will testify Thursday about her allegation Kavanaugh climbed on top of her at a high school party, groped her and tried to take her clothes off while covering her mouth to prevent her from screaming. He vigorously denies it.

Since her claim, a former Yale classmate has written about his heavy drinking while in college. Kavanaugh friend Mark Judge wrote a semi-autobiographical book where a character named 'Bart O'Kavanaugh' vomits in a car.

'If people want to ask him about his drinking ... he admitted that he had beers,' Wilkinson said.

'Like many kids that age in high school and back then, the drinking age was 18 ... he admits that he drank and did something things that he looks back on he says are embarrassing and make you cringe, but that's not what this is about,' the lawyer said.

In fact, the drinking age in Washington, D.C. was 18 for wine and beer during the years in question. However if parties attended by Kavanaugh were in bordering Maryland, where Kavanaugh lived and attended school, the drinking age was 21.

She also extended her defense to college, where another accuser, Debbie Ramirez, has accused Kavanaugh of exposing himself to her at a party. He denies it.

NO KEG PARTIES ON THIS PAGE: The 1982 calendar contains some scribbles and fractions

A May 7 entry appears to show that Kavanaugh got grounded - one of a handful of days with the same entry

Brett Kavanaugh will answer questions about his high school yearbook, his lawyer said, as he is questioned on Christine Blasey Ford's allegation of attempted rape

'I think most of us would go back and probably wish we would rewrite our yearbook page,' said Wilkinson. Kavanaugh's calls him a 'Renate Alumnius,' in reference to a classmate, as well as a member of the 'Beach Week Ralph Club' and treasurer of the 'Keg City Club'

Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford will testify

'I think that's true of most people in college. He's admitted that maybe he drank more than he should have on certain occasions. And of course he has his yearbook page. I think most of us would go back and probably wish we would rewrite our yearbook page,' she said.

Wilkinson was referencing a page where Kavanaugh called himself a 'Renate alumnius'

Renate Schroeder Dolphin, who appears to be the woman referenced, told the New York Times she was angry about it upon learning she was the apparent subject of a boast. 'I learned about these yearbook pages only a few days ago, Dolphin told the paper. 'I dont know what Renate Alumnus actually means. I cant begin to comprehend what goes through the minds of 17-year-old boys who write such things, but the insinuation is horrible, hurtful and simply untrue. I pray their daughters are never treated this way. I will have no further comment.

Wilkinson said Kavanaugh didn't know if he was the figure described in Judge's book.

'I have no idea whatMark Judge was doing. My heart goes out to him because he was honest and writing about addiction problems and he has been clean and sober for many years and I don't know anything about him other than he issued a statement  he wrote that book and he issued a statement saying he was accused of being in that room with judge Kavanaugh,' Wilkinson said.

'He said that never happened and that was not like anything he knows about Brett Kavanaugh and that's not consistent with what he knows about his character.' As for the book: 'I don't think he has any idea who Mr. Judge is referring to either,' she said.'

Wilkinson also spoke to CNN about whether or not Kavanaugh ever blacked out  something which could be relevant to whether he recalls incidents being alleged about his past.

'I think he said he did not blackout. He did not say he never drank too many beers. He said that he did. Again, we are talking about 36 years ago. The question was did he blackout drink at that time, and he said no,' she said.

She also discussed Kavanaugh's odd decision to say he was a virgin for 'years' after high school while fending off the assault charge.

'Nobody is claiming that your sexual activity could preclude or proves that you were involved with any kind of sexual assault,' she acknowledged after repeated questions.

Wilkinson also told CBS Ford has not turned over either therapist's notes dealing with her accusations or the results of a lie-detector test.

'They announced that there were notes and there had been a lie detector test but as I understand it, they did not turn any of those over to the Senate committee even though they were requested so the information that would have shown what she said at the very first time when she revealed these allegations have not been turned over to the Senate,' Wilkinson said.

'That's very important because apparently in those notes, there's a differing story about how many people were present at the party, there's no mention of Judge Kavanaugh, and so all that information would be very important to determine whether there's any corroboration of this allegation,' she added.Labour firebrand Dennis Skinner today declared he wants to 'nationalise something every week' as he delivered a tud-thumping speech to the party faithful.

The veteran leftwinger- dubbed the 'Beast of Bolsover' - received a rapturous round of applause from the party conference as he said Jeremy Corbyn would be Britain's most radical PM in more than 50 years.

Mr Skinner, 86, who was first elected in 1970, also told how NHS doctors saved his life after he had a heart bypass in 2003.

And he said that only a Labour government would stand up to protect and invest in the NHS.

Labour firebrand Dennis Skinner (pictured in Liverpool yesterday) declared he wants to 'nationalise something every week' as he delivered a tud-thumping speech to the party faithful

He said: 'The reason I'm still living is because of the treatment that I've had at the hands of the National Health Service that was set up by Nye Bevan and his mates in that wonderful government of 1945 to 1950.

'And that's why when we talk about Jeremy Corbyn and electing him to power wouldn't it be wonderful to get somebody to mirror what happened in 1945?

'I hope that I'm still in Parliament because I want to nationalise something every week.'

Mr Skinner received a standing ovation as he delighted the busy conference centre in Liverpool with his speech.

Recalling his heart bypass, he said: 'I'll never forget that steady hand of the doctor that found a way from my groin straight into my heart.

'I watched every movement, I thought if ever he makes a slip then that's the end - there'll be no more speeches at the Labour Party conference. But he did it and the result was that I'm still here.

'Then I had a hip replacement and because of the wonderful NHS I can walk backwards.'

The MP for Bolsover was one of the speakers who warmed the crowd up ahead of Mr Corbyn's speech to the party faithful.

Mr Corbyn was cheered and clapped as he took to the stage in the afternoon and declared that Labour was waiting and ready to go into power.

The MP for Bolsover was one of the speakers who warmed the crowd up ahead of Jeremy Corbyn's speech to the party faithful (pictured)

He said: 'That is why if Parliament votes down a Tory deal or the government fails to reach any deal at all we would press for a General Election.

'Failing that, all options are on the table. So let me thank Keir Starmer, the man who would lead our Brexit negotiations in government.

'Keir, having got agreement yesterday in this conference hall, getting one in Brussels should be a piece of cake.

'But let me also reach out to the Prime Minister, who is currently doing the negotiating.

Brexit is about the future of our country and our vital interests. It is not about leadership squabbles or parliamentary posturing.

'If you deliver a deal that includes a customs union and no hard border in Ireland, if you protect jobs, peoples rights at work and environmental and consumer standards - then we will support that sensible deal.

'A deal that would be backed by most of the business world and trade unions too.

'But if you cant negotiate that deal then you need to make way for a party that can.'Labour has a 'moral obligation' to tackle anti-Semitism in its ranks, Tom Watson (pictured last night at the Labour Friends of Israel meeting) has warned leader Jeremy Corbyn

Labour has a 'moral obligation' to tackle anti-Semitism in its ranks, Tom Watson has warned leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Speaking to the Labour Friends of Israel the party's deputy leader hailed the work of Jewish MPs in Labour's ranks.

At the same meeting Israeli ambassador Mark Regev took a swipe at Mr Corbyn, recalling the support offered by Labour leaders 'from Attlee to Wilson to Foot, Kinnock to Blair to Brown'.

Mr Corbyn has scrambled to draw a line under the toxic row which destroyed Labour's summer amid claims the party leader personally made anti-Semitic remarks in the past and failed to kick out racists.

Speaking to loud applause at a meeting of the Labour Friends of Israel, Mr Watson hailed the work of MPs Joan Ryan, Ian Austin and Luciana Berger, all of whom have been the targets of abuse and criticism for their efforts to expose anti-Semitism.

The meeting was also attended by shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry, who earlier told the conference that anti-Semites must be kicked out of the party. Leader Jeremy Corbyn was not present.

Mr Watson said that LFI chair Ms Ryan, who lost a no confidence vote in her Enfield North constituency, had been 'hounded by people who have only just joined the Labour Party'.

And he told the meeting: 'We have a moral obligation to rid this party of anti-Semitism.

'I recognise the hurt that has been caused, I recognise the pain that has been thrust upon our friends in the Jewish community. I know how failing to tackle the problem risks bringing eternal shame.

'I just hope we can do what we can to rebuild that trust and confidence.'

Mr Austin is facing disciplinary procedures after confronting party chairman Ian Lavery over the handling of anti-Semitism complaints, while Ms Berger was given police protection after receiving threats.

Jewish Labour MP Luciana Berger has been accompanied by uniformed police throughout the party conference after enduring a storm of abuse of anti-Semitism

Ms Ryan told the meeting that recent months would be 'a chapter of shame' in Labour's history.

She said she had been told by members of the Jewish community about their 'anxiety, hurt and anger and the incomprehension that our party could have treated a minority community in our country with such disregard, arrogance and contempt'.

And Israeli Labour Party MP Ayelet Nahmias-Verbin said it had been 'deeply disturbing' for her to hear of 'shocking' examples of anti-Semitism within Mr Corbyn's party.

'I ask Mr Corbyn, what kind of leadership have you shown to root this out?' she said.

In a barbed reference to Mr Corbyn's comment that some Zionist activists had no understanding of history or sense of English irony, Ms Nahmias-Verbin said: 'There is no place for irony, Mr Corbyn, when you try to imply that Jews are not really British.'

Jeremy Corbyn (pictured today making his main conference speech) has scrambled to draw a line under the toxic row

She said: 'Please, Mr Corbyn, stop acting like you are a victim of this. You have met more terrorists who have killed Israelis than Israelis. It is your choice, but don't expect us to turn the other cheek.'

Israeli ambassador Mark Regev also took a swipe at Mr Corbyn, recalling the support offered by Labour leaders 'from Attlee to Wilson to Foot, Kinnock to Blair to Brown'.

'When self-proclaimed anti-racists claim that Zionists do not know history, ironically, it is they who have not studied history or learnt from it,' said Mr Regev.Christopher Scott Copson, pleaded guilty to the 2016 shooting on Monday

A member of the Aryan Brotherhood street gang has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for shooting a black man who was accidentally blocking his drive.

Christopher Scott Copson, pleaded guilty to the 2016 shooting on Monday in Meriwether County, Georgia and accepted a negotiated plea that will have him serve 10 years of supervised release after his 20 years in confinement.

He will now see out his service with the Georgia Department of Corrections, Herb Cranford, district attorney for the Coweta Judicial Circuit, said in a news release.

Copson, a member of the white supremacist Aryan Brotherhood, was said to have shot at an African-American man because his car inadvertently blocked the driveway they were attempting to leave, the release said.

The victim called 911 and attempted to follow Copson's vehicle, which prompted Copson to fire additional shots, the release said. Some of those rounds his the man's vehicle.

Copson pleaded guilty to aggravated assault, first-degree criminal damage to property, theft by receiving stolen property, making a false statement and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon at the Coweta County Court (pictured)

When arrested by Meriwether County deputies, Copson 'repeatedly uttered heinous racial slurs toward the victim, making it clear that the victim's race was (Copson's) only motivation' for shooting at him, the release said.

Deputies found a stolen .380 pistol in Copson's vehicle, which he admitted he purchased from another member of the Aryan Brotherhood, the release said.

The Aryan Brotherhood is a prison-based white supremacist street gang.

In June 2016, prior to his arrest, Copson admitted to Coweta County deputies that he was a member of the Aryan Brotherhood, which was consistent with his tattoos that indicate membership, the release said.

In 2010, he told the Georgia Department of Corrections he was a member in order 'to better (his) race and (his heritage),' the release said.

He pleaded guilty to multiple counts of violating the Georgia Street Gang Terrorism and Prevention Act, aggravated assault, first-degree criminal damage to property, theft by receiving stolen property, making a false statement and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, the release said.Brett Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford has presented sworn statements from four individuals, including her husband, to back her claims that she was sexually assaulted by the Supreme Court nominee decades ago.

The affidavits sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee by Ford's lawyers include sworn declarations from her husband Russell and three friends who say she told them of the sex assault allegations well before Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination.

All four sworn statements state that Ford either named Kavanaugh as her assailant or described the attacker as a 'federal judge' sometime between 2012 and June this year.

Ford's husband Russell stated in his signed affidavit that his wife had named Kavanaugh as her alleged attacker during a couple's therapy session back in 2012.

His statement comes a day before Ford is set to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee  and a day after Kavanaugh appeared side by side with his wife, Ashley, to publicly deny the allegations in a televised interview.

Husband's evidence: Russell Ford (right) has submitted sworn evidence to back his wife Christine Blasey Ford's account of being sexually assaulted by Brett Kavanaugh in high school

'I remember her saying that her attacker's name was Brett Kavanaugh, that he was a successful lawyer who had grown up in Christine's home town, and that he was well-known in the Washington D.C. community,' Russell Ford said in his statement.

Ford said his wife was 'afraid' Trump would nominate Kavanaugh, who sits on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, to the high court, and was 'very conflicted' about bringing her story forward.

'However, in the end she believed her civic duty required her to speak out,' Russell said. 'In our 16 years of marriage I have always known Christine to be truthful person of great integrity. I am proud of her for her bravery and courage.'

Russell stated that he first became aware that his wife had 'any experience with sexual assault' around the time the couple wed in 2002, but she provided no details at the time.

He said it was during a 2012 couples therapy session that she revealed she had been 'trapped in a room and physically restrained by one boy who was molesting her while another boy watched' in high school. He said Ford named the attacker as Kavanaugh.

She said she had been almost raped by someone who was now a federal judge. She told me she had been trapped in a room with two drunken guys, and that she had escaped, ran away and hid. Ford's friend, Adela Gildo-Mazzon

The subject came up again when Trump was considering his first Supreme Court nominee, who ended up being Justice Neil Gorsuch. Before the selection, Ford had told her husband that she was afraid the president might nominate Kavanaugh. The matter came up again when Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement and Trump had a second seat to fill.

In one of the affidavits, family friend Keith Koegler - who is also her son's baseball coach - said Ford revealed the claims to him in 2016 while they were discussing the sentence handed down to Stanford University swimmer Brock Turner.

'Christine expressed anger at Mr Turner's lenient sentence, stating that she was particularly bothered by it because she was assaulted in high school by a man who was now a federal judge in Washington, D.C.,' Koegler said in his statement.

'Christine did not mention the assault to me again until June 29, 2018, two days after Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his resignation from the Supreme Court of the United States.'

He said Ford told him via email on June 29 that her alleged attacker was Trump's 'favorite for SCOTUS'.

Koegler replied, saying: 'I remember you telling me about him, but I don't remember his name. Do you mind telling me so I can read about him?'

'Brett Kavanaugh,' Ford responded by email, according to Koegler.

Keith Koegler (left) and Adela Gildo-Mazzon (right) provided two of the four sworn statements saying Ford told them of the sex assault allegations well before Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination

Brett Kavanaugh and his wife Ashley spoke out on Monday in an attempt to fight back against the sex assault claims which have engulfed his Supreme Court nomination

In a third affidavit, Adela Gildo-Mazzon, a friend of more than a decade, said Ford first told her about the assault in June 2013. The two met at a restaurant in Mountain View, California, where Ford arrived 'visibly upset.'

'Christine told me she had been having a hard day because she was thinking about an assault she experienced when she was much younger,' Gildo-Mazzon's statement said, adding that she still has a receipt from the meal.

'She said she had been almost raped by someone who was now a federal judge. She told me she had been trapped in a room with two drunken guys, and that she had escaped, ran away and hid.'

In one of the affidavits family friend Keith Koegler - who is also her son's baseball coach - said Ford revealed the claims to him in 2016 while they were discussing the sentence handed down to Stanford University swimmer Brock Turner (above in his mugshot)

Neighbor Rebecca White said she was walking her dog in 2017 when she ran into Ford, who said she had seen White's social media post describing her own experience with sexual assault.

'She then told me that when she was a young teen, she had been sexually assaulted by an older teen,' White said. 'I remember her saying that her assailant was now a federal judge.'

The affidavits, which were signed on Monday and Tuesday this week, could give more weight to Ford's story on the eve of her testimony - and Kavanaugh's expected denial - before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday.

Kavanaugh staunchly denies ever sexually assaulting anyone, and his allies have questioned the credibility of Ford and a second accuser based in part on what they say is a lack of corroboration.

The statement from Ford's husband, in particular, follows a Fox News interview on Monday where Kavanaugh was seated side-by-side with his wife, Ashley, who defended him.

'No. I know Brett I've known him for 17 years. And this is not at all character It's really hard to believe. He's decent. He's kind. He's good. I know his heart. This is not consistent with Brett,' Ashley Kavanaugh said in response to allegations against her husband.

Ford, a university professor in California, went public with her story recently and accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her in 1982 when they were both high school students in Maryland.

She told the Washington Post that Kavanaugh had pinned her down, tried to remove her clothes and clamped a hand over her mouth at a high school party. She said she got away when a second male in the room, Mark Judge, jumped on the bed and sent all three tumbling.

Ford (right) went public with her story recently and accused Kavanaugh (left in yearbook photo) of sexually assaulting her in 1982 when they were both in high school in Maryland

Kavanaugh produced a 1982 calendar on Wednesday containing entries for parties, football games and a plan to see 'Rocky III'  but does not appear to contain information about a party where Ford claims he assaulted her

Another woman, Deborah Ramirez, has accused him of sexual misconduct when she and Kavanaugh were both students at Yale University. She told The New Yorker magazine that Kavanaugh caused her to touch his penis at a party when they Yale freshmen.

A third woman came forward on Wednesday accusing Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct. In a signed statement, Julie Swetnick said she witnessed Kavanaugh in the 1980s trying to get teen girls drunk so they 'could be 'gang raped' in a side room or bedroom by a 'train' of numerous boys' at parties.

Swetnick said she was a victim of these gang rapes but did not accuse Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her. She alleged that she had seen Kavanaugh lining up for his 'turn' at these parties.

Kavanaugh, a conservative federal appeals court judge, has denied the allegations and took his defense public this week in the Fox News interview.

The affidavits, however, are not the first challenges to Kavanaugh's denials.

James Roche, a Yale graduate who says he was Kavanaugh's roommate in 1983, issued a public statement saying he was 'close friends' with Ramirez and 'cannot imagine her making up' the story about Kavanaugh exposing himself.

It comes as Kavanaugh produced a 1982 calendar on Wednesday containing entries for parties, football games and a plan to see 'Rocky III'  but does not appear to contain information about a party where Ford claims he assaulted her.

Kavanaugh's calendar, from Northwestern Mutual Audobon Society and running from May through August, contains some scribbles and details of the social life of the Circuit Court Judge and Supreme Court nominee.

Ford, in her allegation, says she does not remember the exact location or date of the party where the alleged assault occurred.

The affidavits are likely to be central in the momentous hearing on Thursday in Washington ahead of a Friday vote on Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination.

The accusation, along with the one from second accuser Ramirez, have imperiled Kavanaugh's lifetime appointment to the nation's highest court as Republicans work to shore up his Senate confirmation ahead of the November 6 congressional vote.

Those elections could shift the balance of power in Congress as Democrats seek to regain control from conservatives.

If his nomination clears the panel, it must win confirmation from the full Senate, which Republicans narrowly control 51-49. A vote in the full Senate could happen as early as next Tuesday, senior Senate Republicans have said.

Ford, who is a university professor in California, claims Kavanaugh had pinned her down, tried to remove her clothes and clamped a hand over her mouth at a high school party

Deborah Ramirez (left) has accused him of sexual misconduct when she and Kavanaugh were both students at Yale University. A third woman, Julie Swetnick, (right) came forward on Wednesday accusing Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct

Senators will hear both sides at Thursday's hearing, keenly aware of the impact it could have on voters, particularly women, against a backdrop of the #MeToo movement fighting sexual harassment and assault.

President Donald Trump, who has also been accused of sexual misconduct, escalated his rhetoric against both of Kavanaugh's accusers on Tuesday and called the allegations 'a con game being played by the Democrats.'

He described his nominee as 'an absolute gem' and also spoke out directly against the two accusers, suggesting their claims were invented.

'The second accuser has nothing,' Trump told reporters at the United Nations about Ramirez. 'The second accuser doesn't even know - thinks maybe it was him, maybe not. She admits she was drunk. She admits time lapses.'

The White House earlier this week said it would welcome testimony from the second accuser, Ramirez.

Ramirez's lawyer, John Clune, said in television interviews on NBC and CBS on Wednesday that she has not been invited to speak to senators.

Meanwhile, Republicans were still assessing what Kavanaugh's Monday interview on Fox News - an unusual appearance for a Supreme Court nominee - indicated about how he would do in Thursday's hearing.

During the interview, Kavanaugh denied sexually assaulting anyone.

His attorney, Beth Wilkinson, in televised interviews on Wednesday, said Ford's declarations cited recent interactions, not discussions at the time of the alleged incident, and that it was difficult to corroborate an accusation 36 years later.

'He admits that he drank and did some things that he looks back on and says are embarrassing and make you cringe... But that's not what this is about. This is about a very serious allegation, a very serious crime,' Wilkinson told 'CBS This Morning'.

Some in the White House expressed relief that Kavanaugh presented a positive image during the interview to counter the allegations, yet he appeared shaky at times.

There remained concern among aides and Trump himself about how Kavanaugh would hold up facing far fiercer questioning from Senate Democrats, according to a White House source.

The Republican-controlled committee, led by 11 men, on Tuesday said it had hired a female lawyer to question Ford.

The decision prompted an outcry from Democrats, whose 10 panel members include four women, given that senators typically do the questioning themselves.

Senate Republicans chose Rachel Mitchell, a sex crimes prosecutor from Arizona, to conduct the questioning.The father of a six-year-old autistic boy in North Carolina who vanished on Saturday afternoon while the pair were at a park together, has told how his son suddenly disappeared from view after he ran off chasing a jogger.

'We were walking on a track around the lake and he decided to take off from me. ... I didn't think nothing of it and he got a little too far away from me,' Ian Ritch told Good Morning America on Wednesday.

'As soon as I got to the point where I couldn't see him anymore, I started panicking. I couldn't see him anywhere.'

Ritch said he was walking with Maddox and his friend around 1.30pm on Saturday near the back of the lake when his son started running behind a jogger.

Maddox's mother, Carrie, made an emotional appeal for information about her son during a press conference on Tuesday afternoon.

The father of missing boy Maddox Ritch 'started panicking' after he got out of sight

Carrie Ritch gave an emotional plea on Tuesday for help finding her missing autistic son

Maddox is autistic and has limited verbal skills, the boy's parents have said

Ian told People magazine that he let his son run for a little bit but when Maddox started running faster he gave chase. Ian said he lost sight of Maddox before he could catch up to him.

'I was terrified. I didn't know which direction he went so I looked as hard as I could, I went different ways and everything,' he said. 'I tried to find him. I don't know where he went. Usually when he takes off running he'll slow down and stop for me to catch up with him. This time he never stopped.

Since the youngster was reported missing, hundreds of officials from the FBI, Gastonia Police Department, Gastonia Fire Department and other agencies have scoured the park hoping to find a trace of the little boy.

'After the first day I thought they would have found him,' Ritch told GMA. 'I feel like I should've caught him, not let him get too far,' Ian said. 'That's what upsets me.

Ian Ritch said he was walking with Maddox and his friend around 1.30pm on Saturday near the back of the lake when his son started running behind a jogger and then disappeared from view

'It's hard to sleep. I feel guilty because I can go to a house and lay down on the bed,' Ritch continued, 'and he's out there in the woods sleeping on the ground and that's very upsetting.'

'These past few days have been hell for me. I'm so broken. I'm heartbroken,' Ian said. 'Every time it gets dark at night I burst into tears because I'm thinking, 'My little boy is out there alone'. The longer (the search is) going the harder it gets because I'm so worried. He hasn't had anything to eat or drink.'

He added: 'People are making it out like I did something to him. I would never hurt my little boy. I love him to death and I just want him back. I've been feeling the blame since this happened. I just wish I would have caught him before he got too far away from me. It's broken my heart to think that I just let him get too far away.'

On Tuesday, Mom, Carrie Ritch gave an emotional plea begging for help to find her son

The Gastonia Police Department spent another day searching for missing six-year-old Maddox Ritch in Rankin Lake Park in Gastonia, North Caroliona on Tuesday

Local, state and federal authorities had expanded their search two miles beyond the park's boundaries, city police said. Hundreds of investigators, analysts and others have joined in the search for the boy in about 250 acres of the park area

On Tuesday, Maddox's mother spoke at a press conference where she pleaded for the public's help in locating her child.

In an emotional plea she asked anyone who was at the park on Saturday to call the police tip line.

'Continue praying for him because I just want my baby home, please,' she said. 'Whatever you can do. Maddox is my whole world, and my reason for living. He's momma's boy.'

'I want my baby back in my arms,' Carrie Ritch added.

Maddox Ritch, six, disappeared on Saturday at a park in North Carolina with his father

The boy was running near a lake at the park when his father said he lost sight of Maddox

Drone photos from Gaston County Emergency Management Services in the search for Maddox Ritch, 6, at Rankin Lake Park in Gastonia

Maddox is described as four feet tall with blond hair and blue eyes.

He was last seen wearing an orange T-shirt with the words 'I am the man' and black shorts. His parents said he is autistic and has limited verbal skills.

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which is also assisting in the search, said in a statement that he may be in need of medical attention.

The six-year-old boy is autistic and has limited verbal skills, his parents said

Ian Ritch (pictured with Maddox) said he chased after his son but lost sight of him and he didn't know which way the boy ran

Maddox was last seen running by a lake at Rankin Lake Park in Gastonia by his father (pictured)

Ian said park rangers helped him look for Maddox before calling police. The FBI have since joined the search and authorities have been going door-to-door at businesses along Highway 321 near the park searching for possible information.

Investigators are also working to obtain surveillance footage from different business that could tell them where Maddox went. A reward of $10,000 is being offered for any information that helps police find Maddox.

FBI Special Agent Jason Kaplan said: 'We're going to explore all possibilities, including abduction.

Local authorities and the FBI are conducting a massive search across the state

Authorities have been searching for Maddox for the past three days

'But we're also going to make sure we search every inch of land around here to make sure he's not simply lost.'

According to Gastonia Police department in addition to the FBI, at least 24 local and state law enforcement agencies and more than 100 volunteers are assisting the search.

Officers have so far searched the lake and reviewed the park's surveillance footage, as well as interviewing residents and people who were in the park at the time.

The FBI is offering a $10,000 reward for information that leads to the discovery of Maddox. Thousands of acres have been searched by foot, ATVs and boat

Gastonia Police Chief Robert Helton said: 'If you were at Rankin Lake Park on Saturday and saw Maddox or took video or photos of their outing at the park, call us.

'It's been nearly 75 agonizing hours since six-year-old Maddox Ritch disappeared,' Helton said Tuesday. 'We do not want another hour to pass without finding this child and bringing him home. All the help has been humbling.

'We know a lot of people were in the park and we have spoken to many of them, but we have not spoken to everyone.

'No piece of information is too small. Something you may think is insignificant could be helpful to our case,' he added.

Anyone with information is asked to call the police department's special tip line at 704-869-1075.Critics say Jeremy Corbyn is even more determined than the government to have his cake and eat it on Brexit

Labour's Brexit stance has undergone so many changes it can be difficult to keep track.

Even during the referendum in 2016 Jeremy Corbyn was accused of half-hearted campaigning and hedging his bets - admitting he was only '7 out of 10' in favour of Remain.

SInce then the leadership has been trying to maintain 'constructive ambiguity' so it can keep hold of heartland voters who often back Brexit - without alienating the party's largely Remainer members and MPs.

But critics say Mr Corbyn is even more determined than the government to have his cake and eat it, and has no real answers to what shape Brexit should take.

The latest version of Labour's Brexit policy is due to be voted on at the 2018 conference. Official policy says there should be a new general election but if this is impossible, the party could back a new referendum.

SECOND REFERENDUM

Last September Mr Watson said the party was 'not ruling it out, but it's highly unlikely'.

But in November, letters emerged from shadow home secretary Diane Abbott to constituents saying she would 'argue for the right of the electorate to vote on any deal that is finally agreed'.

In December, Mr Corbyn said 'We've not made any decision on a second referendum.'

But by January this year he was stating: 'We are not supporting or calling for a second referendum. What we've called for is a meaningful vote in Parliament.'

Numerous backbenchers have said they want to see a second referendum on a Brexit deal.

By conference 2018 internal debate over a second referendum prompted more than 150 different motions on the issue. A 'composited' version invites members to back a new general election but leave a 'People's Vote' on the table.

Senior Labour figures have split on what any second referendum should mean - with some, such as Len McCluskey and John McDonnell insisting remaining in the EU cannot be on the ballot - but Sir Keir Starmer has said the motion means it could be.

In December last year, Sir Keir Starmer said he would like a 'Norway-style treaty' and as a result 'there may have to be payments to be negotiated'

SINGLE MARKET

After the election in June last year, Mr Corbyn sacked three frontbenchers for voting in favour of a Commons motion calling for the UK to stay in the single market.

The same month shadow chancellor John McDonnell said: 'I think people will interpret membership of the single market as not respecting that referendum.'

However, the following September Labour's deputy leader Tom Watson said single market membership was possible 'if the European Union wanted to talk about reform of freedom of movement rules'.

Sir Keir Starmer has said the party wants 'a partnership that retains the benefits of the single market and the customs union'.

Labour whipped its peers to abstain from a vote in favour of the single market earlier this month, but the instructions were largely ignored and many backed the idea.

Mr Corbyn briefed MPs on his single market stance at a behind closed doors meeting on May 14. But they did not seem entirely clear on his position, with one backbencher emerging to say he had left the prospect open, but another saying he had made clear the option was 'dead'.

A massive rebellion is expected in a Commons vote that could happen next month.

CUSTOMS UNION

Shadow trade secretary Barry Gardiner said in July 2017 that staying in the EU customs union would be a 'disaster' as it would entail an 'asymmetrical relationship' and damage Britain's ability to make deals with other countries.

But in February this year Sir Keir confirmed that the party wants to stay in a customs union with the bloc - although not the current one because that would mean EU membership. He said 'the only way realistically' for the UK to get tariff-free access to the EU.

The following month Emily Thornberry said Labour wanted to maintain the existing customs union.

Last month Barry Gardiner was caught on mic giving a withering assessment of Labour's six tests for approving a Brexit deal, saying they were 'b*****cks'

'What we want to do is we want to remain in the customs union,' she said. 'We don't want any faffing around with any of the nonsense that the Government is coming up with in relation to alternatives to the customs union. We want to remain in the customs union.'

Last month Mr Gardiner was caught on mic giving a withering assessment of Labour's six tests for approving a Brexit deal, saying they were 'b*****cks'.

'We know very well that we cannot have the exact same benefits,' he said.

Mr Gardiner has also suggested that fears over the Irish border are being whipped up for 'political' reasons.

PAYING FOR ACCESS TO MARKETS

In December last year, Sir Keir said he would like a 'Norway-style treaty' and as a result 'there may have to be payments to be negotiated'.

However, in January this year, John McDonnell said 'I don't understand why we would have to pay' for access to the single market.David Keary (pictured), 59 and from Essex, was taken to hospital suffering shock after the roof on his home in Costa Blanca gave way this morning

A British bar worker has said he is 'lucky to be alive' after his Spanish apartment collapsed on top of him - also injuring another Brit in the flat below.

David Keary, 59 and from Essex, was rescued by firefighters and taken to hospital to be treated for a panic attack after the roof on his home in Costa Blanca gave way this morning.

A 58-year-old Brit known only as Malcolm living in the apartment below Mr Keary, was also taken to hospital after being pulled from the rubble of his home by police.

Police in Orihuela Costa south of Alicante had to cut through iron bars to reach Malcolm and pull him through a downstairs window amid fears his home would crash down on top of him.

While Mr Keary was taken to Torrevieja University Hospital suffering shock following the collapse, at an estate called Laguna 3.

Some 15 homes on the estate - divided into downstairs and upstairs apartments - have been evacuated and nearly eight are said to have been affected with large cracks which will prevent their residents returning to them in the short-term future.

The incident happened at around 8am and followed a day in which residents reported hearing strange creaking noises on the estate.

Local mayor Emilio Bascunana confirmed from the scene: 'A building has collapsed around 8am.

'They're semi-detached duplex apartments. Fortunately there hasn't been any loss of life or serious injuries.

'Two people have been taken to hospital, one suffering from a panic attack and another with superficial wounds including scratches.'

The collapse caused considerable damage both to Mr Keary's apartment and the apartment below - believed to belong to man called Malcolm

Police had to cut through iron bars to reach one of the Brits - known as Malcolm - and pull him through a downstairs window as his home threatened to come down on top of him

Sniffer dogs were mobilised to search the rubble and rule out the possibility anyone was trapped.

A Moroccan woman living opposite the buildings that were affected said several people whose homes had been affected were British.

The woman, who gave her name only Tisam, said: 'Four of the properties I know of that are affected are home to three British people and a Swedish expat.

'A lot of people were sleeping when the collapse happened. There was a huge noise around 8am.

'One of the Brits in the house that was the worst affected had to be brought out of a downstairs window by firefighters.

'The other man, a local bar worker called David, was upstairs and was taken away with shock.'

Two British expats have been taken to hospital after their apartments collapsed on them in Spain. Pictures show the scene of the collapse today

Police in Orihuela Costa south of Alicante had to cut through iron bars to reach one of the Britons and pull him through a downstairs window amid fears his home would crash down on top of him

Mr Bascunana said eight properties had been affected. It wasn't clear today what alternative accommodation would be provided for the people living in them.

Confirming the damage, he said: 'The cause of the collapse will be investigated. Eight homes have been directly affected and other properties have been evacuated while the causes are evaluated.'

Some residents have told officials work was going on at one of the houses that was affected, although the mayor said it was early at this stage to draw any conclusions and link it to the collapse.

He added: 'The council will now try to rehouse all those people evacuated, in a hotel if necessary.'

The incident happened at around 8am and followed a day in which residents reported hearing strange creaking noises on the estate. Pictured: Shocked residents at the scene today

Fire chief Alan Clemente added: 'We responded to an alert this morning about the collapse of a property in the area of La Zenia in Orihuela Costa.

'It wasn't clear at first if the two people inside were trapped or not. When we arrived police had already rescued one of the men by cutting through iron bars and pulling him out. He was suffering from respiratory problems.

'The second person, in the flat above, had taken refuge on the rooftop and had to be rescued using a telescopic ladder. He was okay but very nervous.'Advertisement

A gold watch three wealthy widows gifted to the captain of the ship that saved them in the Titanic disaster is to be sold for 50,000.

Madeline Astor, Marian Thayer and Eleanor Widener bought the 18ct gold timepiece from Tiffany & Co after they returned safely to New York following the sinking.

Their husbands - three of the richest men in the world - all perished in the 1912 tragedy.

Golden gift of gratitude: This 18ct timepiece, which was handed to the captain of a Titanic rescue ship, could fetch 50,000 at auction

Three women, who survived the 1912 sinking, bought the golden gift from Tiffany & Co after they returned safely to New York. They presented it to Arthur Rostron (left), the captain of rescue ship RMS Carpathia

The grieving women presented the expensive timepiece Arthur Rostron, the captain of rescue ship RMS Carpathia, as an expression of gratitude.

The British mariner was seen as a hero for safely navigating his ship at great speed through the same ice field which claimed the Titanic just three hours earlier.

Several rescued passengers died from exposure in the lifeboats so every second counted. Capt Rostron received the gift at Mrs Astor's lavish home on New York's Fifth Avenue.

The case was engraved with the words 'Presented to Captain Rostron with the heartfelt gratitude and appreciation of three survivors of the Titanic April 15th 1912. Mrs John B Thayer, Mrs John Jacob Astor and Mrs George D Widener'

The case was engraved with the words 'Presented to Captain Rostron with the heartfelt gratitude and appreciation of three survivors of the Titanic April 15th 1912. Mrs John B. Thayer, Mrs John Jacob Astor and Mrs George D. Widener.'

John Astor was the richest passenger on the doomed liner and worth the equivalent of 2.2bn today.

Despite his wealth the businessman and property magnate did not make it into a lifeboat and drowned.

Fellow businessman John Thayer was last seen 'looking pale' and heading for the stern of the ship with other terrified passengers moments before it plunged beneath the waves.

Madeline Astor, Marian Thayer and Eleanor Widener were rescued by the captain - but their billionaire husbands died in the tragedy

Alongside him was George Widener, who gave a dinner party in honour of the Titanic captain, Edward Smith, on the evening of the disaster.

Their wives were loaded into the same lifeboat. Capt Rostron was showered with gifts from rich first class passengers afterwards.

He was also awarded the American Congressional Gold Medal for his courageous actions.

The watch would only be worth 'a few thousands pounds' if it didn't have links to the sinking of the Titanic, according to auctioneers

His watch has now been consigned for sale with auctioneers Henry Aldridge and Son of Devizes, Wilts, for a pre-sale estimate of between 35,000 to 50,000.

Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge said: 'It is an exquisite watch and you would expect the widow of one of the richest men on the planet would buy.

'It is beautifully enamelled with Rostron's initials and is in great condition despite it being over 100 years old.

'It is fabulous thing. Without the connection to the Titanic it would be worth a few thousand pounds. But with it, it is between 35,000 to 50,000 but I wouldn't be surprised if it sold way past that.

John Jacob Astor (pictured with wife Madeline) was the richest passenger on the doomed liner and worth the equivalent of 2.2bn today. Madeline was just 18 when she married the wealthy businessman

'After the deaths of their husbands, the widows would have been three of the richest women in the world. They knew each other very well. Rostron was the hero of the hour and was lauded for his bravery.

'He had to get to the wreck site as soon as possible and put his neck on the line by navigating an ice field where the biggest ship in the world had perished just three hours before.

'A significant number of people died from exposure in the lifeboats so it was a case of every minute counting.

John Astor, John Thayer and George Widener all died in the 1912 tragedy which claimed 1,523 lives after it struck an iceberg on her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York

'He went on to be the highly decorated commodore of the entire Cunard fleet..'

The Titanic sank with the loss of 1,523 lives after it struck an iceberg on her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York.

A year before the disaster, John Astor, 47, caused controversy after divorcing his first wife and marrying Madeleine who was aged just 18.

Pictured: The last two of 13 lifeboats containing survivors from the Titanic approaching the Carpathia for rescue

Mr Astor paid almost $9,000 for their one-way first class cabins - about 45,000 today. The cabin prices ranged from the equivalent of $900 to $100,000 of today's money

The couple had enjoyed a six month honeymoon to Europe and were returning to America on Titanic.

Mr Astor paid almost $9,000 for their one-way first class cabins - about 45,000 today.

Madeleine was five months pregnant at the time. She gave birth to a son on August 14, 1912, and called him John Jacob Astor V in memory of her husband and the boy's father.

George Widener and his wife were also returning to New York from a trip to Paris where he had gone to find a chef for his new hotel - the Ritz-Carlton in Philadelphia.

The watch will be sold in Devizes on October 20.The Manhattan socialite, who is accused of bashing a man over the head with her lucite purse after allegedly making anti-Semitic comments towards the victim's mother, is heading to court.

Jacqueline Kent Cooke, 30, appeared in New York Criminal Court on Tuesday for her first hearing in the case, which was continued until October 23, at which point a trial date will be set, the Manhattan District Attorney's office tells DailyMail.com.

Assistant District Attorney Neil Greenwell has been assigned to the case, and is asking that Cooke receive three months in prison for the attack on Matthew Haberkorn.

She is the daughter of the late Jack Kent Cooke, who at one time had ownership stakes in the Washington Redskins, Los Angeles Lakers and the Los Angeles Kings.

Cooke remained quiet for most of the proceedings as she stood beside her public defender in a demure black sheath and nude pumps.

Scroll down for videos

Jacqueline Kent Cooke, 30, appeared in court on Tuesday (above) and learned that her case will be heading to trial

Trouble ahead: Cooke's father is the late Jack Kent Cooke, who owned the Washington Redskins, and the Manhattan DA confirmed to DailyMail.com that the case is going to trial

Scene: She allegedly bashed Matthew Haberkorn on the head with her $300 glass purse outside swanky Upper East Side restaurant Caravaggio (Cooke left, Haberkorn right in video from attack)

Cooke is accused of attacking Haberkorn, 52, outside the Manhattan eatery Caravaggio on December 31 of last year.

The lawyer, who lives with his family in Redwood City, California, claims that the trouble with Cooke began when his mother was getting her coat after their meal at Caravaggio.

'Hurry up, Jew,' Cooke said to the 77-year-old grandmother claims Haberkorn.

'Hurry up Jew, I got places to be.'

Haberkorn decided to confront Cooke about the statement outside he said, and that is when she bashed him in the head with her mirrored Lulu Guinness clutch at around 11:45pm, according to an NYPD spokesperson.

Video taken by his daughter shows Haberkorn bleeding from the head just moments after the alleged assault.

Cooke meanwhile can be seen laying on the ground and struggling to stand.

'You called me a f***ing bitch, you called me a c**t,' Cooke can be heard shouting in the video.

Haberkorn then looks at Cooke and shouts: 'You called me a f***ing Jew.'

His daughter meanwhile can be heard shouting don't touch him as Cooke's boyfriend wraps his arms around the man.

Cooke than appears to try and take a swing at Haberkorn, at which point she again falls on the ground.

As her boyfriend wraps his arms around Haberkorn, Cooke appears to get up and then fall as she takes another swing at him.

Cooke then rushes at the man and tries to pull him to the ground, which again results with her falling on the pavement.

'You're throwing a woman on the floor,' Cooke's boyfriend yells at Haberkorn.

Cooke and the man then run off with Cooke yelling 'self-defense' and Haberkorn saying he wants to call 'the f***ing police.'

Cooke previously worked for shoe designer Isa Tapia as the director of PR and marketing.

Her Instagram page, which is set to private, reveals that she is preparing to launch a new business Cane Casa which will offer 'premium dog beds for premium canines.'

Baby girl: Moments before the attack, Cooke had allegedly told the man's mother to 'Hurry up Jew' while they were waiting outside the cloakroom (Cooke and her mother after her birth with a photo of her father on the bedside table)

Move: Cooke claims she was misheard and actually said: 'Excuse me I have to get through' (Cooke being taken into custody back in January)

Family: Her mother Suzanne was the third of Jack Kent Cooke's four wives, marrying the millionaire businessman when she was 31 and he was 74 in 1987 (Cooke above in 1994)

Her mother Suzanne was the third of Jack Kent Cooke's four wives, marrying the millionaire businessman when she was 31 and he was 74 in 1987.

The two divorced after just 72 days, and Suzanne later gave birth to a daughter Jacqueline.

Jack married Marlene Ramallo Chalmers, his fourth wife, in 1990 and again in 1995 after divorcing her three years into their marriage.

The two were married at the time of Jack's death.

He did, however, provide for his two children, Jacqueline and John Kent Cooke Sr, who is now 75.

His third child, son Ralph, died two years before his father at the age of 58 from liver failure.

John and Ralph were both born during their father's first marriage to Barbara Jean Carnegie.

When the two divorced in 1979 after 45 years, Barbara received a then-record $42 million settlement.

John Sr was left with the interest on $10 million, and an additional $15 million to be paid out over several years by his father in his will.

He also received almost all of his father's possessions, including clothing, a Patek Phillipe watch, his sterling silver, antiques, jewelry, works of art and 'any one of my automobiles, other than my 1962 Bentley Continental, as my said son, in his sole and absolute discretion, shall choose.'

That aforementioned Bentley was left to Ralph.

Jacqueline received no material possessions, despite having had a close relationship with her father in the final years of his life.

The two did not meet until she was three, but began exchanging letters in his final years.

Jacqueline also received considerably less money than her brother, but much more than her father's fourth wife and her own mother, who were both cut out of the will.

Chalmers later successfully sued for $20 million, a sizable payday for the Bolivian beauty who was almost deported in 1986 for cocaine trafficking. She ultimately worked out a deal however with the CIA and DEA that kept her out of jail and in the US.

'At the time of her father's death, Jacqueline Cooke was left a $5 million trust, which was structured to pay her $25,000 a year until she reached 16, when the annual payout jumped to $50,000,' reported The Washington Post back in 2007.

'When she turns 21, payments are set to rise to $100,000. At 35, she will begin receiving annual sums equal to 8 percent of the trust, currently valued at more than $6 million.'

Jacqueline was suing her father's trustees at the time, which included her brother, saying that her education should be covered by the trust and not have to come out of her own pocket.

Her mother said that the annual payout her daughter received was instead meant to be her 'walking around money.'

Jacqueline first filed a lawsuit against the trustees just after her father's death, with lawyers making sure that Chalmers payout would not impact the young girl's inheritance.

She was 10 at the time.

In 2008, a 20-year-old Jacqueline was arrested by police in Boston and charged with operating under the influence and operating without a license.

She was stopped by police after leaving a diner without paying her bill according to Boston.com, and started her car despite their instructions to not turn on the vehicle.

Prior to getting in the car because she could not find a taxi, Cooke 'stepped into the street, lifted her skirt, and exposed her buttocks to the officers.'

While being booked she asked if they knew who her father was and threatened to have their badges stripped, stating: 'One-billion dollars goes a long way.'Families of the 21 people killed in the 1974 Birmingham IRA bombings are livid today after a court ruled the suspects will not be named at their inquests.

Campaigners say the hearings will be 'utterly redundant' without discussing who built and planted the bombs that decimated two city centre pubs 44 years ago.

But today Sir Peter Thornton QC, the coroner in charge, won a Court of Appeal challenge to stop naming them.

He successfully argued that it was not his job to investigate who was responsible for the two bombs, which killed 21 and injured 182 people.

Speaking near a memorial to the victims in the grounds of Birminghams Anglican Cathedral, members of Justice4the21 said they were seeking legal advice with a view to an appeal.

Julie Hambleton, whose sister Maxine was 18 when she was killed in the bombings, said today: 'We feel as though weve been punched in the stomach again. What we do, we do for 21 people who arent here to do it for themselves. They dont have a voice, they dont have a physical presence, but we do so we are their voice.

21 people died in two IRA bombings in 1974 but upcoming inquests will now not name those believed to be responsible, a court has ruled

Julie Hambleton (left), whose sister Maxine (right) was 18 when she was killed in the bombings, said today: 'We will continue to fight for truth, justice and accountability'

'Without the perpetrator issue how can you ever possibly finish the jigsaw? You have got a major part of it missing.

She added: We are clearly very disappointed and we feel rejected but we will continue to fight for truth, justice and accountability.

AN IRA ATROCITY AND 44 YEARS OF HEARTBREAK Thursday, November 21, 1974: Bombings in two Birmingham pubs leave 21 dead and 222 injured. They are said to be revenge for the death of IRA member James McDade, who blew himself up trying to plant explosives in Coventry. Hours later, five men are arrested in Heysham, Lancashire, and a sixth is arrested in Birmingham. November 24: Patrick Hill, Hugh Callaghan, John Walker, Richard McIlkenny, Gerard Hunter and Billy Power are charged with murder. June/August 1975: Trial at Lancaster Crown Court. 'The Six' are sentenced to life imprisonment. October 1985: TV's World In Action questions forensic tests. A book is then published claiming three unnamed men were behind the bombings. January 1987: The home secretary refers case to the Court of Appeal. The appeal is later dismissed. A 1990 TV drama then names four 'real' bombers. March 14, 1991: The Six are freed by the Court of Appeal after 16 years in prison. October 1993: Perjury case against three former West Midlands police involved in the charging of the Birmingham Six is dismissed. June 1, 2016: Senior coroner for Birmingham rules to resume the inquests. The original hearings were not continued after jailing of The Six. September 29, 2018: Families lose their legal battle to name those responsible for the bombings in the inquests Advertisement

'We will take stock, speak to our legal team and get their assessment of the decision - and then either decide appeal or just to continue on with the inquest process. We will dust ourselves down and continue to fight'.

Lord Chief Justice Lord Burnett announced on Wednesday that the coroner had made 'no error of law'.

He added: 'We allow the appeal and restore the original decision.'

Sir Peter challenged a High Court ruling made earlier this year which ordered him to reconsider his decision to exclude an inquiry into the identities of those who 'planted, planned, procured and authorised the bombs'.

Lord Chief Justice Lord Burnett, Lady Justice Hallett and Lord Justice McCombe will gave their decision on the coroner's appeal on Wednesday.

The bombings in two city centre pubs, widely believed to be the work of the IRA, killed 21 people and injured 182, making it the deadliest peacetime attack in the UK at the time.

The coroner ruled in July last year that investigations into the identity of those responsible for the atrocities should not form part of his inquiry.

Six men, known as the Birmingham Six, were imprisoned for the murders and served 17 years behind bars in one of Britain's most infamous miscarriages of justice before their convictions were quashed.

Five West Midlands Police officers were charged with perverting the course of justice in connection with the original criminal investigation, but a judge ruled in 1993 that a fair trial would be impossible.

During the appeal proceedings before the three judges in July, lawyers for the coroner said the hearings will not resolve the ''enduring injustice' for victims and their families.

Peter Skelton QC, representing the coroner, said the victims , their families and the public interest 'cannot be served' by a promised resolution that 'cannot be delivered'.

Two High Court judges, sitting in Birmingham in January, quashed the decision by Sir Peter to exclude the 'perpetrator issue' from the new hearings.

Their ruling followed a judicial review brought on behalf of the bereaved families by Julie Hambleton, whose sister Maxine was 18 when she was killed in the bombings.

A body is carried from the Mulberry Bush pub in Birmingham after it was wrecked by a bomb in 1974

A man grips an ambulance bar in pain after being among more than 180 people injured in two blasts seven minutes apart

Mrs Hambleton, spokeswoman for the victims' campaign group Justice4the21, has said it would be 'utterly redundant to have the inquests unless the perpetrators, their associates and those who prepared and planted the bombs are included'.

Hugh Southey QC, representing the families, told the appeal judges: 'There is the utmost public interest in the proper investigation of who was responsible for the Birmingham bombings.

'The families of the deceased said to the appellant (Sir Peter) that the investigation of this issue was so important to them that if it did not form part of the scope of the inquest 'we may as well not have an inquest at all'.'

On the evening of 21 November 1974, hundreds of people were spending the evening drinking in two busy pubs in the centre of Birmingham - the Mulberry Bush and the Tavern In The town.

Many were young office workers out with friends and work colleagues.

A man with an Irish accent telephoned the Birmingham Post newspaper with a warning at 8.11pm but it was too late.

At 8.18pm a bomb in a duffel bag exploded in the Mulberry Bush, killing 10 people. Two minutes later another blast at the Tavern In The Town killed 11 people.Jeremy Corbyn today vowed to 'eradicate' anti-Semitism from Labour's ranks and the wider country in a new plea to the Jewish community.

The Labour leader stopped short of making a full apology to the Jewish community i today's speech as has been demanded but said he hoped to 'draw a line' under the toxic row.

He insisted in his Liverpool speech fighting racism was 'part of who I am'.

But Marie van der Zyl, president of the Jewish group the Board of Deputies, said warm words are not good enough.

She said: 'Jeremy Corbyn's words mean nothing until Labour takes the necessary steps to deal with antisemitism in its ranks. Words have long ceased to be enough.

She said he mist kick anti-Semites out of the party and roll out training for party members.

She added: 'Labour cannot draw a line under this crisis and regain any shred of confidence from the Jewish community until this takes place.'

Jeremy Corbyn (pictured at Labour conference today' vowed to 'eradicate' anti-Semitism from Labour's ranks and the wider country in a new plea to the Jewish community.

The Labour leader stopped short of making a full apology to the Jewish community as has been demanded but said he hoped to 'draw a line' under the toxic row

Recalling a visit to the Terezin concentration camp, Mr Corbyn said: 'The row over anti-Semitism has caused immense hurt and anxiety in the Jewish community and great dismay in the Labour Party.

'But I hope we can work together to draw a line under it.'

He added: 'We will work with Jewish communities to eradicate antisemitism, both from our party and wider society.

'And with your help I will fight for that with every breath I possess.

'Anti-racism is integral to our very being. It's part of who you all are, and it's part of who I am.'

Mr Corbyn did apologise for hurt and upset caused in a social media video in August but declined to say sorry in today's speech. He also refused to make an apology on Sunday's Andrew Marr show.

Mr Corbyn lashed Theresa May's Tories for refusing to act against the hard-right government in Hungary.

He said: 'We won't accept it when we're attacked by Tory hypocrites who accuse us of anti-Semitism one day, then endorse Viktor Orban's hard right government the next.

'Or when they say we are racist, while they work to create a hostile environment for all migrant communities.'

Jewish Labour MP Luciana Berger has been accompanied by uniformed police throughout the party conference after enduring a storm of abuse of anti-Semitism

Mr Corbyn repeated his promise to recognise a Palestinian state and told delegates it must be part of a two state solution alongside a 'secure Israel'.

Deputy leader Tom Watson last night warned there was a 'moral obligation' to act on anti-Semitism in the party at the Labour Friends of Israel's conference gathering.

Labour has a 'moral obligation' to tackle anti-Semitism in its ranks, Tom Watson (pictured last night at the Labour Friends of Israel meeting) has warned leader Jeremy Corbyn

Speaking to loud applause at a meeting of the Labour Friends of Israel, Mr Watson hailed the work of MPs Joan Ryan, Ian Austin and Luciana Berger, all of whom have been the targets of abuse and criticism for their efforts to expose anti-Semitism.

The meeting was also attended by shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry, who earlier told the conference that anti-Semites must be kicked out of the party. Leader Jeremy Corbyn was not present.

Mr Watson said that LFI chair Ms Ryan, who lost a no confidence vote in her Enfield North constituency, had been 'hounded by people who have only just joined the Labour Party'.

And he told the meeting: 'We have a moral obligation to rid this party of anti-Semitism.

'I recognise the hurt that has been caused, I recognise the pain that has been thrust upon our friends in the Jewish community. I know how failing to tackle the problem risks bringing eternal shame.

'I just hope we can do what we can to rebuild that trust and confidence.'Archaeologists have found a bronze hand in Switzerland which is believed to be 3,500 years old and may have once been part of a sceptre.

The unusual artefact, which includes a gold cuff, was found alongside a collection of ancient objects including a dagger and a human rib.

Researchers made the discovery in Switzerland last year and have now presented their findings, saying the hand was the oldest metal body part that had ever been found in Europe.

After carbon-dating the trove they excavated the site and discovered the grave of a Bronze Age man, National Geographic reported.

The bronze hand, which includes a gold cuff, was found alongside a collection of ancient objects including a dagger and a human rib by archaeologists in Switzerland

What could the bronze hand be? Experts say they cannot be certain of the meaning or function of the hand. They say was is extended by a hollow form that suggests that it was originally mounted on another object. It could have been part of a sceptre, or perhaps a statue. Archaeologists say there has 'never been a comparable sculpture' found in central Europe. A scientific study over the coming months is set to address the questions. Advertisement

Although the grave had been damaged the researchers were able to find a stone structure underneath and other items including a bronze hair ornament and gold plating from the hand.

Experts believe the person buried at the site near Bern must have been a 'high-ranking' individual.

The hand, which weighs more than a pound, was cast in bronze with vegetable glue used to fix the thin gold plate.

Carbon dating on the glue showed the bronze hand was made between 1500 and 1400 BC, more than three millennia ago.

Treasure hunters had initially stumbled upon the hoard using metal detectors before archaeologists returned to the site to examine their findings.

A statement from Bern authorities said: 'It is still too early to determine whether the hand was made in the Three-Lakes region or in a more distant country.

'We do not know either the meaning and the function attributed to it. Its gold ornament suggests that it is an emblem of power, a distinctive sign of the social elite, even of a deity.

The hand is extended by a hollow form that suggests that it was originally mounted on another object: it was perhaps part of a sceptre or a statue.'

Heritage official Stefan Hochuli said: 'The fact that we know of thousands of Bronze Age graves and have never found anything like this shows its pretty special.

'Finds like this remind us how many gaps there still are in our knowledge about the past.'

Researchers made the discovery in Switzerland last year and have now presented their findings, saying the hand (pictured) was the oldest metal body part that ever found in EuropeA penniless British pensioner slept rough in a Russian airport terminal for two weeks after being barred from leaving the country to fly to London.

Steve Beard, a former metal worker, had moved to a village in Siberia after falling in love a decade ago with schoolteacher turned businesswoman Ruslana Lesyuta, 52, on a dating site.

The couple have a son Robert, eight, and he had intended to fly briefly back to Britain to make arrangements for his pension payments to reach him in remote Irkutsk region where winter temperatures plummet to minus 50C or below.

A penniless British pensioner slept rough in a Russian airport terminal for two weeks after being barred from leaving the country to fly to London. Pictured: Steve Beard in the terminal

Mr Beard (pictured with his wife) flew to Moscow but was then barred from leaving Russia at Sheremetyevo airport because his Russian residency permit had expired

Mr Beard's situation has been compared to the Tom Hanks film Terminal (pictured), where the protagonists spends weeks living in an airport

Mr Beard flew to Moscow but was then barred from leaving Russia at Sheremetyevo airport because his Russian residency permit had expired.

'They stopped me and did not let me fly out of the country,' he told Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper.

'I was fined. And the migration service urged me to return to Irkutsk.'

Instead, Beard - who worked for 30 years in a London metals plant - flew to Pulkovo airport in St Petersburg to try and leave Russia there.

But again he was forbidden to pass immigration and fly to his homeland.

In despair, Steve stayed in the terminal Pulkovo without money or a bank card, reported the newspaper.

Beard (pictured), who worked for 30 years in a London metals plant, flew to Pulkovo airport in St Petersburg to try and leave Russia there

Schoolteacher turned businesswoman Ruslana Lesyuta (pictured) met her husband on a dating site

Mr Beard (pictured with his wife and child) pleaded from help from the British consulate

It was only due to help from a Russian tourism official who felt his plight was like the character played by Tom Hanks in 2004 film The Terminal that he was rescued from his ordeal.

'I slept in an chair in the waiting room,' said the Briton. I washed my face and hair in the restrooms.

'I ate the cheapest food at airport diners. I do not speak Russian, so I could not earn any money here.'

He pleaded from help from the British consulate and was lucky to find a sympathetic friend in the St Petersburg tourist information bureau.

Mr Beard found a friend in the St Petersburg tourist information bureau

Ilya Tarashkevich said: 'Steve approached me and asked how a foreigner can receive a money transfer.

'He did not have a card, and the bank did not work with foreigners. My colleagues and I were puzzled.

'Soon I realised that the only way was to use my card.'

He took pity on the man labelled an 'alien' who 'had not eaten for three days'.

'I thought what should happen in a person's life to make this happen.

'Then Beard also said that he was afraid that he would be banned from entering the country again (unless his legal problem was resolved).

'The most important thing in his life is his child,' he said.

'I am a father myself, so I understand him. Then I decided to help Steve.'

The consulate needed scans of all his documents.

'There are no copy centres at the airport so I ran around the offices of cellular operators and asked: 'Do you remember the movie Terminal? I have a person here with the same story. Help me to scan the documents!'

This led to a court appearance where he was fined 5,000 roubles - around 58 - but the judge understood his plight and overruled a demand to have him expelled from Russia after he had paid his fine.

Expulsion - which could bar him returning in the near future - would violate the human right to a family life, the court ruled.

Specifically the judge decided that his son's rights to be with his father were more important than expelling him for failing to renew his residence permit on time.

Beard is now preparing new documents allowing him to re-enter Russia after he returns from his trip to Britain.

His wife - who had four children before meeting the British man - said they had fallen in love after three years chatting on the internet.

Ruslana, who has a business supplying window units, said their first meeting was in Ukraine. Pictured: The couple together

Ruslana, who has a business supplying window units, said their first meeting was in Ukraine and when she discovered she was pregnant by him 'our joy was beyond limit'.

The couple have been wed for eight years. But he has failed to adapt to some aspects of Russian life.

He could not cope with her family farm in the remote village of Malaya Ivanovka village 3,250 miles east of Moscow.

'We have our own farm with cows,' she said. 'But Steve had a severe allergy, he could not bear even the smell of mown grass.

'So it was not possible to accustom him to village life.

'And he did not like Russian borsch (beetroot soup), and so he ate only his food - specially cooked potatoes, and beef of the highest quality. He could not find a job in Russia.'Senator Charles Schwertner has been accused of sending sexually explicit messages to a postgraduate student from the University of Texas, something the Georgetown Republican 'categorically denied' Tuesday.

According to the American-Statesman, a complaint from a woman he met at an event on campus this summer states the married father-of-three shared an image of his genitals that was taken in the shower and used other inappropriate language.

The report states Schwertner, 48, was giving career advice via LinkedIn to the woman, whose identity has been protected in line with student privacy laws, however their conversation soon moved to text messages and took a turn.

Senator Charles Schwertner, 48, was accused of sending an image of his genitals that was taken in the shower

The married father-of-three (pictured center) allegedly wrote 'I just really want to f**k you' to an unnamed woman he met at a University of Texas event this summer

Schwertner (pictured with wife Belinda) has three sons named Carson, Zachary and Matthew

At one point the man who describes himself as a 'family man and life-long conservative' on his website, allegedly wrote 'I just really want to f**k you'.

Three senior officials from the university also told the American-Statesman that although they have not seen the photograph in question, it does not include the face of the person featured.

Schwertner  who has a has a bachelor's degree in pharmacy from the school as well as a medical degree from the university's Galveston branch  is said to have not replied when the woman told him he had acted inappropriately.

'The Senator categorically denies any knowledge of the accusations leveled against him and only became aware of this allegation when contacted by the media late this afternoon,' Schwertner's campaign spokesperson, Tom Holloway, said in a statement.

'The Senator is eager to cooperate with the University of Texas and hopes to make clear he played no part in the behavior described.'

The Senator was giving career advice via LinkedIn to the woman whose identity has been protected in line with student privacy laws, however their conversation soon moved to texts

A spokesperson for University of Texas (Galveston campus pictured) said they take allegations of wrongdoing seriously and encourage those on campus to report matters urgently

In December 2017 Texas Senate members Senator Borris Miles, a Houston Democrat, and former Senator Carlos Uresti, a San Antonio Democrat, were accused of behaving inappropriately with women related to their work in the Capitol.

Both men denied the allegations and Uresti later resigned due to unrelated matters including fraud.

Uresti was found guilty of 11 felonies and sentenced to 12 years in prison in June this year but remains out on bond as he prepares for another federal trial beginning October 22.

Schwertner is one of 23 male members of the Senate out of 31 people.

In December 2017 former Senator Carlos Uresti (left) and Senator Borris Miles (right) were accused of behaving inappropriately with women

Uresti later resigned due to unrelated matters including fraud. He was found guilty of 11 felonies and sentenced to 12 years in prison in June this year

He chairs the Health and Human Services Committee and forms part of the finance, state affairs and business and commerce committees.

The Senator is also involved with Higher Education Formula Funding on the Joint Interim Committee.

He was elected to the House in 2010 and moved up to the Senate when Republican Senator Steve Ogden retired 2013.

Schwertner was re-elected in 2014 after competition from the Democratic Party's Meg Walsh.

Gary Susswein, a spokesperson for the university said they take allegations of wrongdoing seriously and encourage those on campus to report matters urgently.

He added in a statement which said they aim to investigate complaints 'thoroughly and quickly': 'UT is strongly committed to fostering a safe campus environment and to providing needed support and resources to victims.'President Donald Trump, fresh off his second United Nations speech, declared Wednesday that 'people are excited about the USA again' as consumer confidence reached its highest point in nearly two decades.

Repraising his message to the UN General Assembly the day before, Trump said in a tweet, ' We are getting Bigger and Richer and Stronger. WAY MORE TO GO!'

He said that unemployment in America had also fallen to its lowest level in 49 years.

President Donald Trump, fresh off his second United Nations speech, declared Wednesday that 'people are excited about the USA again' as consumer confidence reached its highest point in nearly two decades

CHEERS: Trump has been in New York since Sunday, meeting mostly with world leaders. He's seen here at a luncheon for heads of government on Wednesday

Repraising his message to the UN General Assembly the day before, Trump said in a tweet, ' We are getting Bigger and Richer and Stronger. WAY MORE TO GO!'

Consumer confidence in September ticked up to 138.4 from 34.7 in August. It was at its highest level since 2000. The record to beat is 144.7, also from 2000.

The Dow and S&P also rose on Tuesday in response to the good news for the American economy. Stocks had reached their own record-high last week, which Trump had also celebrated.

Trump was preparing to lead his first United Nations Security Council meeting, where nuclear non-proliferation was to be the focus.

He's been in New York since Sunday, meeting mostly with world leaders.

On Tuesday he delivered his second address to the U.N. since taking office, emphasizing a theme of 'patriotism, prosperity and pride' for all nations.

He told telling fellow leaders, 'Let us choose peace, and freedom over domination and defeat.'

'We believe that when nations respect the rights of their neighbors, and defend the interests of their people, they can better work together to secure the blessings of safety, prosperity, and peace,' he said.

Trump had said in morning tweet said his speech would highlight the security results he's achieved for Americans and the respect he says it's getting abroad under his leadership.

'Our country is much stronger and much richer than it was when I took office less than two years ago. We are also MUCH safer!' he tweeted.

Tacking on to the claim in his remarks, Trump said, 'Americas economy is booming like never before. Since my election, weve added $10 trillion in wealth.

'The stock market is at an all-time high in history, and jobless claims are at a 50-year low. African American, Hispanic American, and Asian American unemployment have all achieved their lowest levels ever recorded,' he bragged. 'Weve added more than 4 million new jobs, including half a million manufacturing jobs. We have passed the biggest tax cuts and reforms in American history.'

Trump had said in morning tweet said his speech would highlight the security results he's achieved for Americans and the respect he says it's getting abroad under his leadership

Trump mixed his wall with Mexico and enhanced spending on border security in among the accomplishments.

'In other words, the United States is stronger, safer, and a richer country than it was when I assumed office less than two years ago,' he declared. 'We are standing up for America and for the American people. And we are also standing up for the world.'

Trump's opening remarks at the United Nations drew laughter from world leaders bracing for what they assumed would be a braggadocios address.

As Trump claimed in remarks that were written for him that 'in less than two years my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country' attendees of the remarks burst into audible laughs.

The president chimed in on own speech with a 'so true' as if reading the remarks for the first time.

He smiled, taking stride, and proclaimed, 'didn't expect that reaction but that's OK,' before moving on the extraordinary progress he says he's overseen in the U.S.

Trump claimed later as he was exiting the United Nations that he wasn't bothered by the laughter during that section of his speech, which had begun with the claim that his aides 'had accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country.'

'That was meant to get some laughter, but it was great,' he insisted.President Donald Trump said Senate Republicans should have pushed through Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination two weeks ago so people wouldn't be talking about the sexual allegations against him right now.

'They could've pushed it through two-and-a-half weeks ago, and you wouldn't be talking about it right now, which is frankly what I would've preferred, but they didn't do that,' the president said at the United Nations in New York on Wednesday.

That time frame would have Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court before the allegations against him came to light.

Trump called Kavanaugh an 'absolute gem.'

The president's defense of his nominee came before the latest bombshell allegation - a charge of gang rape against Kavanaugh and his high school pals from Georgetown Prep.

President Donald Trump tore into Democrats and talked up his embattled Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh

Julie Swetnick, his new accuser, released a sworn statement through her attorney Michael Avenatti saying that Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge were there as she was abused by a 'train' of teenage boys.

She said she was drugged 'using Quaaludes or something similar' which had been put in her drink - and that Kavanaugh and his friends would spike 'punch' at parties with grain alcohol or drugs to 'cause girls to lose inhibitions and their ability to say 'No'.'

Judge was the teenage boy Christine Blasey Ford charged with being in the room when Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a high school party in the 1980s.

Kavanaugh has denied her charge and a second allegation from Debra Ramirez, who claims the Supreme Court nominee exposed himself and thrust his penis in her face, forcing her to touch it when she pushed him away at a college party when they were at Yale.

Trump has stood by his nominee and unloaded on Democrats as he defended Kavanaugh, saying they were operating 'very unfairly' and charged they were running a 'con game.'

Trump picked up on his twitter attack from Tuesday night, and talked up Kavanaugh on a day his lawyer was defending his high school drinking habits while accuser Christine Blasey Ford released affadavits from people who asserted she told them about her assault allegation.

'I know this particular man, Judge Kavanaugh. He's outstanding. You don't find people like this. He's outstanding,' Trump told reporters at the UN, as Kavanaugh's youth was being put under the microscope.

Of Kavanaugh, who released his high school 1982 calendar on Wednesday, Trump said: 'He's a gem. He's an absolute gem. And he's been treated very unfairly by the Democrats who have been playing a con game.'

Trump continued with his fiery rhetoric. 'They know what they're doing. it's a con. They go into a back room and they talk with each other. And they laugh at what they're getting away with. It's a con game and that's what they play. And that's about the only thing they do well,' he said, before abruptly ending a media availability.

Trump was continuing pushback from Tuesday night, when he accused Democrats of using a 'con game' to try scuttling Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination.

The president tweeted late Tuesday: 'The Democrats are playing a high level CON GAME in their vicious effort to destroy a fine person.

'It is called the politics of destruction. Behind the scene the Dems are laughing,' he wrote.

'Pray for Brett Kavanaugh and his family!'

President Donald Trump talks about embattled Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, while meeting with Colombian President Ivan Duque during the United Nations General Assembly, Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2018, at U.N. Headquarters

'They know what they're doing. it's a con,' President Trump said, blasting Democrats

Trump also tweeted a quote by South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, who told Fox News that certain members of the FBI were out to 'destroy' the president.

'These law enforcement people took the law into their own hands when it came to President Trump,' Graham said.

Earlier on Tuesday, Trump also disparaged the account of the second woman accusing Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct, saying she herself conceded she was 'totally inebriated and all messed up.'

President Donald Trump has once again accused Democrats of using a 'con game' to try scuttling Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination

Trump also tweeted a quote from Senator Lindsey Graham, though it is not clear what the quote was referring to

Trump's remarks came as Republicans worked to shore up support for the beleaguered Kavanaugh, whose march toward Senate confirmation has been rocked by allegations of decades-old sexual improprieties from two women.

On Friday, Trump had mocked claims by Christine Blasey Ford, Kavanaugh's chief accuser, of a sexual assault at a 1980s' high school party, tweeting that she would have reported the incident to police if it was 'as bad as she says.'

While other Republicans have sought to undermine the women's accounts, Trump has gone further.

Most Republican politicians have been less acidic in challenging the women's credibility, mindful of competitive November elections in which many female voters are already expected to abandon Republican candidates because of hostility toward Trump.

In remarks to reporters at the United Nations, Trump took aim at Deborah Ramirez, Kavanaugh's second accuser.

She told The New Yorker magazine that at a party both attended as Yale freshmen in the 1980s, a drunken Kavanaugh placed his penis in front of her and caused her to involuntarily touch it.

Earlier on Tuesday, Trump also disparaged the account of the second woman accusing Kavanaugh (seen above on September 5) of sexual misconduct, saying she herself conceded she was 'totally inebriated and all messed up'

She has said she was inebriated as well and has admitted to holes in her memory of some details.

'She said, well it might not be him, and there were gaps, and she was totally inebriated and all messed up,' Trump told reporters.

'She doesn't know it was him but it might have been him and 'Oh gee let's not make him a Supreme Court judge because of that'.'

'This is a con game being played by the Democrats.'

Trump called Kavanaugh 'just a wonderful human being' and suggested that Democrats were skeptical of Ramirez, saying: 'They don't believe it themselves.'

On Friday, Trump had mocked claims by Christine Blasey Ford (above), Kavanaugh's chief accuser, of a sexual assault at a 1980s' high school party, tweeting that she would have reported the incident to police if it was 'as bad as she says'

In remarks to reporters at the United Nations, Trump took aim at Deborah Ramirez, Kavanaugh's second accuser (above). She told The New Yorker magazine that at a party both attended as Yale freshmen in the 1980s, a drunken Kavanaugh placed his penis in front of her

He said rejecting Kavanaugh would be 'a horrible insult' and 'a very dangerous game' for the US.

Trump spoke two days before the Senate Judiciary Committee plans a pivotal, election-season hearing at which both Kavanaugh and his chief accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, are due to testify separately.

That session, certain to be must-watch television for the nation, looms as a do-or-die wild card for Kavanaugh in which a split-second facial expression, a tear or a choice of words by either witness could prove decisive.

Ford has said Kavanaugh tried removing her clothes and covered her mouth to prevent screams after he pinned her on a bed during a high school party.

Kavanaugh, 53, a judge on the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals, has denied both women's stories.

In a Fox News interview Monday night, Kavanaugh said he would not let 'false accusations drive me out of this process.'

Agreeing to a television interview was an extraordinary step for a high court nominee.

Kavanaugh said on the conservative-friendly Fox News Channel that he was not questioning that Ford, his initial accuser, may have been sexually assaulted in her life.

But he added: 'What I know is I've never sexually assaulted anyone,' a remarkable assertion for a nominee to the nation's highest court.Parents at a Louisiana middle and high school are irate that a spirit week theme required their children to dress up in a color signifying their relationship status.

Students at Iowa Middle and High School - which share a joint campus - were told to wear either green, yellow or red to signify if they were dating.

'My daughter's school has dress up week. Monday is... Wear Red if you are taken. Wear Green if you are single. Wear Yellow if it is complicated,' said parent, M.J. Mouton. 'She is in middle school.Totally inappropriate. Welcome to Louisiana.'

'Spotlight Day' had students wear green if they were single, yellow if things were complicated and red if taken

'Spotlight Day' had students wear green if they were single, yellow if things were complicated and red if taken

According to Mouton, the special event was in conjunction's with the high school's homecoming in efforts to help students find dates

According to Mouton, the special event was in conjunction's with the high school's homecoming in efforts to help students find dates.

The children's book author would post a screenshot of the school's first three spirit days. Besides the 'Spotlight Day,' students also had to dress in a binary gender war for Tuesday and a twin/team day for Wednesday.

Mouton posted another screenshot that came from a spokesperson from the Calcasieu Parish School Board that assured parents that there were 'plans in the works for next year to avoid a repeat of these circumstances.'

Students also had to dress in a binary gender war for Tuesday and a twin/team day for Wednesday

'Finally, we will never target students for any reason at any time,' the school added in the statement sent home.

'I would encourage the school to have fun days, free dress days, but most importantly, think ahead about how these things they implement affect the emotional state of kids,' said middle school parent, M.J. Mouton

The father shared that a majority of the students chose not to wear colors for the spirit day, opting to wear their regular uniform.

Mouton's initial post has gained more than 147,000 likes and just over 19,000 retweets, with most finding the day to be innapropriate.

'Middle school kids are in an extremely vulnerable statedealing with peer pressure, making friends, typical school stresses,' Mouton explained to KPLC.

'I would encourage the school to have fun days, free dress days, but most importantly, think ahead about how these things they implement affect the emotional state of kids.'

A high school mom at the school, Doneka Dugas, felt that Mouton's feelings were valid but added that she had no problems with older students taking part.

'Being that I do have a child in high school, I mean, he does have a girlfriend, so, to me, I was okay with it,'' she said. 'But thinking middle school, to me, that's kind of young, and they really don't know anything about relationships and stuff. So, I mean, I don't think my child would've done it if he were in middle school.'

The father shared that a majority of the students chose not to wear colors for the spirit day, opting to wear their regular uniformA bank executive who was shot 12 times in a deadly Cincinnati shooting attack has described how she played dead and then begged first responders to save her life for her two small children.

Whitney Austin, 37, was shot multiple times in the bank lobby when a gunman stormed the Fifth Third Bancorp headquarters in downtown Cincinnati on September 6 and opened fire, killing three.

Recounting the horror ordeal on Good Morning America on Wednesday, Austin said she walked into the lobby just as the shooting unfolded.

The mother-of-two was in the building for a meeting at headquarters where she works as a vice president.

Whitney Austin, 37, was shot multiple times in the bank lobby when a gunman stormed the Fifth Third Bancorp headquarters in downtown Cincinnati on September 6

The gunman, 29-year-old Omar Enrique Santa Perez, fired into Austin's body even after she had fallen to the ground and was playing dead.

'When I take myself back to that moment of squatting in the revolving door... I can't reconcile that I lived,' she said.

Austin said when she was on the floor she was running through her options on how best to save herself.

'I tried to move but I couldn't get back up,' she recalled.

'It was a dead end - you're coughing up blood, you can't get away, this is it you're dying,' she remembered thinking to herself.

She begged first responders to save her for the sake of her two young children.

Surveillance footage of the ordeal showed 29-year-old gunman Omar Enrique Santa Perez calmly entering the bank and opening fire (pictured above)

Four Cincinnati police officers who responded within minutes and killed the gunman after they fired through a plate glass window (above)

Austin was rushed to University of Cincinnati Medical Center in a critical condition and was eventually released on September 11.

She said the whole ordeal still feels unreal.

'I feel detached from it,' Austin said.

Police are still not sure why Perez, pictured in a 2004 mugshot) opened fire inside the bank building

'If I think about the victims... that's when I get emotional. I don't have anything to be depressed about. I don't have any sorrow... I survived.

'It just doesn't make sense. Thousands of things went right in order for me to live. For those three (victims), thousands of things went wrong. Why does that happen? It's not fair, why me?'

Brian Sarver, a 45-year-old contractor, was also injured in the shooting and has since been released from hospital.

Pruthvi Kandepi, 25, Luis Calderon, 48, and 64-year-old Richard Newcomer all died.

Police are still not sure why Perez opened fire inside the bank building.

Four Cincinnati police officers who responded within minutes to the shooting killed the gunman after he fatally shot three people and wounded two others.

Perez carried some 200 rounds of ammunition when he entered the bank building lobby the morning of the shooting.

Surveillance footage of the ordeal showed Perez calmly entering the bank, opening fire and then being shot by officers through a plate glass window.

Pruthvi Kandepi, 25, Luis Calderon, 48, and 64-year-old Richard Newcomer (left to right) were all killed in the bank shootingA 'vaccines can kill' billboard that features the son of a former professional fighter, who blames his toddler's death on vaccinations, has been erected in Missouri.

Twenty-month-old Nicholas Catone, of New Jersey, died suddenly in his sleep in May 2017, 17 days after receiving a DTaP vaccination, according to his parents.

The vaccination helps children younger than age seven develop immunity to three deadly diseases caused by bacteria: diphtheria, tetanus, and whooping cough.

But Nicholas' parents, former MMA fighter, Nick Catone and his wife Marjorie Madison-Catone, who has been a nurse for 12 years, believes their son's death was caused by the vaccination.

Nicholas is now the face of his parent's campaign to bring awareness to families that 'vaccines can kill'.

A 'vaccines can kill' billboard (pictured) that features Nicholas Catone, the son of former MMA fighter, Nick Catone, who blames his toddler's death on vaccinations, has been erected in Missouri

Nicholas' parents, former MMA fighter, Nick Catone and his wife Marjorie Madison-Catone (both pictured), who has been a nurse for 12 years, believes their son's death was caused by the DTaP vaccination

The vaccination helps children younger than age seven develop immunity to three deadly diseases caused by bacteria: diphtheria, tetanus, and whooping cough. But now Nicholas (pictured) is the face of his parent's campaign to bring awareness to vaccinations

The billboard features a quote from the toddler's mother that reads: 'As a nurse I was never taught vaccines can kill until my son was a victim.'

The billboard was put up by Learn The Risk, a public awareness campaign and non-profit that educates the public on real dangers of pharmaceutical products, including vaccines.

According to the organization, there are also billboards in Brick, New Jersey, Nicholas' hometown, Boston, Massachusetts, Syracuse, New York, and Middletown, Connecticut.

Learn the Risk shared the information in a post that read: 'As with many healthy children that die right after vaccines, his [Nicholas'] death was labeled Sudden Infant Death (not a real cause, only a label).'

'23,000 babies die in the US in their first year of life. During that same period, children get 35 toxin-filled vaccines. Sudden death is a known side effect of vaccines. Coincidence?!!' the post added.

Earlier this month, Nick Catone opened a new gym in Ocean County, New Jersey, in honor of his son.

The billboard was put up by Learn The Risk, a public awareness campaign and non-profit that educates the public on real dangers of pharmaceutical products, including vaccines

Nick Catone said his son went to bed one night and didn't wake up the next morning in May 2017. Nicholas died 17 days after receiving the DTap vaccination. Earlier this month, Nick opened a new gym in Ocean County, New Jersey, in honor of his son

Nick said at the time that his son went to bed one night and didn't wake up the next morning in May 2017.

Nicholas died 17 days after receiving the DTap vaccination.

An autopsy found that nothing was wrong with the toddler, but the Catone family continued to search for answers.

'Instantly I had this gut motherly instinct that the only thing that came across his path was that he was recently vaccinated,' Marjorie told News 12.

She immediately pulled her son's medical records and noticed that he kept getting sick after being vaccinated.

'You get angry because it all could have been prevented,' Nick said.

On top of putting up the billboard, the Catones are also taking their case to vaccine court.

Vaccine court, known as the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (NVICP), was started as a result of a law passed in 1986 that gave pharmaceutical companies total legal immunity from being sued due to injuries and deaths resulting from vaccines.

The program compensates families who can prove their child was injured or died due to vaccinations.

Millions of vaccinations are given to children and adults in the US each year.

According to a 2015 article from the National Library of Medicine, 'serious adverse reactions are rare'.

'However, because of the high volume of use, coincidental adverse events including deaths, that are temporally associated with vaccination, do occur,' the article reads.

The article continues to say that loved ones usually question whether the death was related to vaccination.

'A large body of evidence supports the safety of vaccines, and multiple studies and scientific reviews have found no association between vaccination and deaths except in rare cases,' the article reads.Best-selling fantasy author Philip Pullman has found himself at the centre of his very own mystery - after his favourite pen went missing

Best-selling fantasy author Philip Pullman has found himself at the centre of his very own mystery.

The man behind His Dark Materials trilogy, which is about to be adapted by the BBC into a new television series, took to Twitter to appeal to his 99,000 followers to help find a pen which is of particular sentimental value.

The Oxfordshire-based award winner wrote: 'Lost: a green leather pen case, containing a Montblanc ballpoint pen and an ordinary pencil. I'm particularly attached to the pen, because I wrote His Dark Materials with it. If anyone finds it, I'd appreciate a tweet.'

Mr Pullman, 71, released the first novel in the trilogy, The Northern Lights, in 1995.

The book series has gone on to sell more than 17 million copies and won several awards, including the Whitbread Book of the Year Award, the first time in the history of that prize that it was given to a children's book.

The pen, which is of great sentimental value to the writer, was made by the famed German manufacturer and stored in a luxurious green case.

The brand is more than 112 years old and the firm's products typically sell for hundreds of pounds.

Mr Pullman, 71, released the first novel in the trilogy, The Northern Lights, in 1995

A multi-million pound Hollywood blockbuster of the book starring Daniel Craig entitled The Golden Compass was released in 2007.

His famous trilogy is now being made into a star-studded BBC production featuring Logan star Dafne Keen as Lyra Belacqua and James McAvoy as polar explorer Lord Asriel, and it is currently scheduled to air in 2019.

Help may be at hand, however - luxury leather goods producer Equis Leather tweeted the author to say: 'We really hope you find it but if you don't, we'll make you a new leather pen case - get in touch dawn@equusleather.co.uk'.

The offer was warmly welcomed by the author, who replied 'That's very kind. Perhaps i shall.'Shadow minister Barry Gardiner led Labour activists singing the party anthem the Red Flag today by whistling the tune in bizarre scenes.

In a novel twist on the traditional finale to Labour's annual conference, the shadow international trade secretary was for several seconds the only person in the huge Liverpool arena who could be heard.

Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell could be seen stifling a grin as the song began.

Shadow minister Barry Gardiner (left during the Red Flag singing today) led Labour activists singing the party anthem the Red Flag today by whistling the tune in bizarre scenes

Labour conferences have ended with the Red Flag for decades, even during the Blair years when it was seen by many as an embarrassing socialist throwback.

Among the lyrics are: 'Then raise the scarlet standard high; Beneath it's folds we'll live and die; Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer; We'll keep the red flag flying here.'

In another muscial interlude, Jeremy Corbyn joined in with singing T.Rex hit Children Of The Revolution on stage at the close of his party's annual conference.

The Labour leader clapped and bobbed and appeared to sing the chorus as the 1972 Marc Bolan number played following his speech.

Labour conferences have ended with the Red Flag for decades, even during the Blair years when it was seen by many as an embarrassing socialist throwback. Mr Corbyn joined activists in the socialist anthem today (pictured)

It includes the lines: 'Well you can tear a plane in the falling rain, I drive a Rolls-Royce 'cos it's good for my voice.

'But you won't fool the children of the revolution, No you won't fool the children of the revolution.'

The T-Rex single was played after Mr Corbyn and his shadow cabinet joined delegates in the traditional rendition of the hymn Jerusalem and socialist song The Red Flag.While most wedding gowns are made of silk, satin and lace, a woman in north-west China has impressed millions by creating a stunning dress with the least expected materials.

Tan Lili, 28, produced the entire gown - completed with a bridal hat and a lengthy dress train - with 40 discarded cement bags after using the contents to renovate her house in a village in Longnan city.

The talented woman is a farmer and has never attended design school. She said she made the dress 'on a whim' on a rainy day.

28-year-old Tan Lili produced the entire gown - completed with a bridal hat and a lengthy dress train - with 40 discarded cement bags after using the contents to renovate her home in China

The talented woman, who never attended design school, said she made the dress 'on a whim'

Tan dropped out of middle school at the age of 18 to start working in the farm lands after her father died of cancer four years earlier.

She married her husband, Yang Mingfei, in 2012 and had a son together. The pair had been upgrading their home recently and acquired the bags of concrete.

It was pouring last Wednesday and Tan couldn't go down to the fields. Bored, she was inspired by the cement bags lying near her home and decided to transform them into a gown like the ones she saw in magazines.

Pictures and video footage shows a proud Tan walking out in the charming woven dress featuring an open back design, which she created in three hours.

Pictures and video footage shows a proud Tan walking out in the charming woven dress featuring an open back design, which she created in three hours last Wednesday

Tan dropped out of middle school at the age of 18 to start working in the farm lands

She uploaded a clip of her dress on social media, where it quickly went viral with more than four million views, according to local media reports.

'I did not expect the overwhelming response online, it's such a nice surprise,' Tan told video news site Pear Video.

Using nothing but her imagination and a pair of skilled hands, Tan has also created beautiful dresses with other unusual materials, including weeds, grass, flowers and newspapers.

'I could probably get more likes and views online if I were prettier,' she told reporters.

Tan uploaded a clip of her woven dress on social media, where it quickly went viral

Moved by her down-to-earth attitude, net users applauded her creativity and talent

But to many net users, she is 'the prettiest bride they have ever seen'.

Moved by her down-to-earth attitude, net users applauded her creativity, calling her the 'Cement Queen' and 'Cement Empress Wu' - referring her as the first and only Chinese female monarch, Wu Zetian.

'The design of the shoulder pads are amazing,' one commented. 'This is really impressive.'

'Very creative and environmentally friendly at the same time!' another said.A pensioner was left bloodied and bruised after he was assaulted in an unprovoked attack.

The attacker, who has not yet been identified, knocked 71-year-old David Miskin to the floor, after subjecting him to a brutal assault.

The vicious attack was one of two, which took place on the same afternoon, near Manchester.

71-year-old David Miskin was subjected to a brutal assault in the suburbs of Manchester

Greater Manchester Police have now released images of a man they wish to speak to in connection with the assaults, which they believe to be linked to one another.

At about 4.50pm on Sunday, September 3, Mr Miskin was walking past a Kwik Fit branch in the direction of nearby Prestwich, when he was left with a shattered jaw after being repeatedly punched in the street.

Police said that 'without any warning' a man repeatedly punched the pensioner, before the offender ran off towards Manchester.

On the same afternoon a second victim was walking close to local nursery, Happy Feet Nursery, when he was approached by a man who asked him for the time.

Police have released images of a man they want to speak to after two men were left with serious facial injuries following unprovoked assaults in Salford

He was then knocked to the floor, before being repeatedly punched while he lay on the ground unconscious. His jaw was broken in three places.

Police believe the incidents are linked and have released two photos taken by a passer-by of a man they wish to speak in connection with the attacks.

Both men were left with serious facial injuries following the unprovoked assaults.

Pc Christopher Wood of Greater Manchester Police's Salford Division said: 'These were two violent and totally unprovoked assaults on two men who were simply minding their own business.

'We believe that the same person is responsible for both of these assaults and it is critical that we trace the offender and bring them to justice.

'If you recognise the man pictured, saw them in the area at the time, or have any information, please contact police immediately.'

Anyone with information is asked to call police on 0161 856 1319 quoting incident number 1764 of 02/09/18, or C rimestoppers, anonymously, on 0800 555 111.The ex-wife of a deceased murderer and underworld figure has been ordered to hand over her $1million family home.

The townhouse, owned by her father-in-law George and inherited by her daughter Dhakota, carried George's tax debt he had earned from drug trafficking, the Herald Sun reported.

Ms Williams said she was 'sad' leave the Primrose St property in Essendon, Melbourne - where she raised her two youngest children Dhakota and Giuseppe - after a lengthy battle with the Australian Tax Office.

The townhouse was built by her former husband, convicted killer Carl Williams, who was brutally murdered in prison.

Roberta Williams (pictured), the ex-wife of a deceased murderer and underworld figure, has been ordered to handover her $1million family home

Ms Williams was 'sad' leave the Primrose St property in Essendon, Melbourne, (pictured) where she raised her two youngest children Dhakota and Giuseppe

'There's a lot of memories here. Some of them good, some not so good. But I guess it's also a new start,' she said.

Ms Williams claims she has documents that show George's tax debt - income earned from drug trafficking - was assessed at $160,000.

The amount grew to $576,000 when George's son, Carl Williams, successfully negotiated with police to have it scratched.

Police backtracked on their promise when Williams' was murdered with an exercise bicycle in Barwon Prison on April 19, 2010.

When George died from a heart attack in 2016, his will revealed he left the property to his granddaughter Dhakota Williams.

The Essendon property, however, came with his tax debt as negotiated with the tax office.

Ms Williams lost a lengthy battle to the Australian Tax Office over the tax bill of father-in-law George who had earned money from drug trafficking (pictured: Dhakota Williams with her father convicted criminal Carl Williams)

When George died from a heart attack in 2016, his will revealed he left the property to his granddaughter Dhakota Williams (pictured, centre)

Dhakota is now suing her mother and George's partner Kathleen Bourke, who are the estate's executors.

Roberta said she was fighting to keep the family townhouse for her daughter.

Earlier in the year she told the Supreme Court she needed legal assistance to represent her in the matter.

Roberta told a court in a previous court hearing: 'Victoria Police made a deal with Carl to pay the tax debt, I've got the documents,' the Herald Sun reported.

'They reneged just before Carl was murdered. They got their money back. It's appalling. Carl lost his life and for what?' she said.A horrific video showing a group of men beating kangaroos to death has been discovered by police.

The video captured two incidents of animal cruelty, thought to have occurred in Western Australia, in May and June, during which a pair of kangaroos were bashed with knuckle dusters and stabbed in the head and neck.

One of the animals was also reportedly set on fire.

Scroll down for video

Horrific video showing a group of men beat kangaroos to death has been discovered by police as they appeal for the public's help to identify the men on the footage

The video shows two incidents of animal cruelty, thought to have occurred in Western Australia, on Saturday 19 May and Saturday 16 June

'It's graphic, it's disturbing, it's cowardly. In my 17 years of policing it's one of the most disturbing things I've seen hands down,' Senior Constable Paul Giuffre told 9News.

The videos were discovered on a Perth man's phone after he was arrested on an unrelated matter.

Police are asking the public for help to try and identify three men seen in the footage, who they believe may be able to assist them with their investigation.

The three men are between 20-30 years of age, fair skinned, and medium to solid builds. The first man has dark facial hair, was wearing a black beanie with a white emblem on the front, and a black hooded top.

The second has short brown hair, is clean shaven and was wearing a black hooded top. While the third man has facial hair and was wearing a dark coloured top with an emblem on the front.

The footage was released by officers just days after a man in South Australia filmed himself laughing while running down up to 10 emus in a truck on a country road.

If you have any information on the identity of the three males, or the animal cruelty incidents, please call Crime Stoppers.

If you have any information on the identity of the three males, or the animal cruelty incidents, please call Crime Stoppers



Deborah Ramirez believes it was Brett Kavanaugh who assaulted her at a college party when they were students at Yale University and is hurt by President Donald Trump's attack on her, her lawyer said.

'The comment by the president is pretty disgusting and pretty hurtful,' her attorney John Clune said on ABC's 'Good Morning America' Wednesday morning.

As to speculation she was unsure who assaulted her, he said: 'She believes wholeheartedly that it was Judge Kavanaugh.'

John Clune, attorney for accuser Deborah Ramirez expressed his disapproval of how President Trump has mocked her account

Clune said Ramirez is confident it was Brett Kavanaugh who assaulted her

Debbie Ramirez (above), a resident of Colorado, has come forward to accuse Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct. She says the incident took place during their freshman year at Yale University

In a bombshell story in The New Yorker, Ramirez claims Kavanaugh, at a dorm party, took down his pants, thrust his penis in her face, and resulted in her touching it without her consent when she pushed him away.

Kavanaugh has denied her allegation and an earlier one from Christine Blasey Ford that he sexually assaulted her at a high school party in the 1980s.

Ford is testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday. Ramirez is also willing to testify, said her attorney.

'She would be willing to testify but we can't even talk with the Senate Judiciary Committee about what that would look like and they certainly haven't invited her, so at this point it's a moot question,' Clune said on NBC's 'Today Show.'

He said his client agreed with Ford that an FBI investigation first would be preferable.

'It's the only intelligent way to get to the truth of what happens,' Clune noted.

Trump attacked Ramirez on Tuesday, saying she admitted to being drunk and he raged against a 'con game' Democrats are playing with the confirmation process for his Supreme Court nominee.

And when asked about the allegations revealed by a second accuser in an article in The New Yorker on Sunday, the president dismissed them.

'I look at the second accuser, the second accuser has nothing,' Trump said. 'The second accuser doesn't even know - maybe it could have been him, maybe not. She admits she was drunk. There are time lapses.'

He slammed Ramirez repeatedly for her accusation.

'Now a new charge comes up and she says it may not be him and there are gaps. And she was totally inebriated and she was all messed up, and she doesn't know: It might have been him, or it might have been him. Oh gee, let's not make him a Supreme Court justice,' Trump said.

'It's a shame you can do this to a person's life,' he said.

He added: 'I can tell you that false accusations and false accusations of all type are made against a lot of people. This is a high quality person, and it would be a horrible insult to our country if this doesn't happen. And it'll be a horrible, horrible thing for future political people, judges, anybody. It cannot be allowed to happen. And the Democrats are playing a con game, C-O-N.'

Brett Kavanaugh has denied all the allegations against him

Clune also said Ramirez is willing to testify to the Senate Judiciary Committee

President Donald Trump is attacking the second accuser of his Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh

Ramirez told The New Yorker she only came forward now because she had been drinking during the evening and admits there are 'gaps in her memory' when recollecting the story.

'She has been very, very careful about what information she's putting out there. What she said in The New Yorker is what she recalls with clarity. She recalls the incident, the genitalia in her face, she recalls Brett Kavanaugh adjusting his pants and somebody after that Brett Kavanaugh just did that. Those are the facts she is comfortable with putting forward. And she was deliberate not to say specifically that in that exact moment, she knew it was Brett Kavanaugh and saw it was Brett Kavanaugh,' Clune told the 'Today Show.'



The president showed his fury at what was happening to his nominee as he spoke at length about what a 'high quality' person Kavanaugh is and turned his ire onto Democrats, charging them with running a con game and noting they were beating Republicans in it.

'I think it is horrible what the Democrats have done,' the president raged. 'It is a con game, they are really con artists.'

He also offered a passioned defense of Kavanaugh, saying he was a 'high quality' person but Democrats wouldn't admit to that.

Ronan Farrow, the co-author of The New Yorker story, had defended Ramirez on Monday.

'The fact that she took several days to carefully think about whether she wanted to cast herself into this storm is acknowledgment that there were gaps in her memory, which is often the case with experiences that involve alcohol, and this is not a woman that is behaving in a way that would suggests she has a agenda, or making something up,' he told CNN.The motorcyclist who cost a young mother her life after she stopped to help him following a horrific crash was a one-legged ice dealer with a long history of reckless and dangerous driving.

Troy Swinden, 37, died after he struck an Audi while speeding through an intersection on his motorcycle in Melbourne's east on Tuesday.

Mother-of-two and aged care home nurse, Emily Bartley, 27, who stopped to perform CPR on Swinden, died when she was hit by a passing car.

Police have since revealed that the 37-year-old was a known ice dealer who had his leg amputated following a motorcycle accident years ago, according to the Herald Sun.

Officers said he was driving recklessly before the accident on Boronia Road.

An associate of Troy Swinden (pictured), Taylor Thomas, said he had warned the father of two that he ran the risk of killing himself or others if he kept up his reckless riding

He was on bail at the time of the crash and had been dealing drugs only hours before the fatal incident.

White powder was found in Swinden's possession after the horrific accident, which has yet to be formally tested.

Court documents have revealed Swinden had a number of dangerous driving charges, for which he had served jail time, and had been ordered to have an alcohol interlock system installed on his bike.

Swinden was living with his mother at the time of his death and was due to appear in court on October 17 on driving related charges, including driving with a suspended licence.

An associate of Swinden's, Taylor Thomas, told the Herald Sun he had warned the father-of-two he ran the risk of killing himself, or others, if he kept up his reckless behaviour.

Emily Bartley (pictured) was struck and killed on the side of the road trying to save a stranger's life and her last known words were to her husband when she said 'I love you' and 'I'll be home soon'

'He shouldn't have been riding in the first place, he rides like an idiot. I would always see him take off at mad speed,' he told the Herald Sun.

'I always said you are going to end up killing yourself, Troy, or someone else. And unfortunately that happened on Monday night. I have been dreading this moment  I knew it was going to come.'

Mrs Bartley had just finished work at an aged care facility and was making her way home, having just phoned her husband to tell him 'I love you' and 'I'll be home soon'

When she saw Swinden on the side of the road, she jumped into action and raced to perform CPR.

She had stopped at the scene of a traffic collision (pictured) and was rendering CPR when she was struck and killed by a passing car

But she was tragically struck and killed by a passing Honda Prelude while attempting to resuscitate the 37-year-old.

The driver of the Honda did not see her on the side of the road and is not expected to face charges, the driver of the Audi is also not expected to face charges.

Mrs Bartley's heartbroken family released a statement in the wake of the fatal incident.

Her heartbroken family released a statement in the wake of the fatal incident and said they were 'touched'by the outpouring of personal messages and tributes to Emily

'We are truly devastated to have lost our beautiful Emily. She was a loving wife and devoted mother,' her family said in a statement.

'She was a genuinely caring person right down to her line of work where she cared for dementia patients.

'We are so very touched and thankful for all the personal messages and tributes and for the concern which has been shown for the wellbeing of our close family.'

Acting Detective Inspector Brad McArthur told 3AW Emily's husband was 'trying to take on board what's happened'.

'This is a life-changing event for him and he will never get over this. These children are now without a mother,' he said.

'The kids are early school age or not even school age, they're going to have to live their life without a mother.'

Mrs Bartley's death brings the national road toll for 2018 to 183.A former NSA employee who took secret files home with him in an effort to get promoted has been jailed after they were allegedly stolen by Russian spies.

Nghia Hoang Pho, 68, from Maryland, was sentenced to five and a half years Tuesday after earlier pleading guilty to willful retention of national defense information.

Pho was working as a software developer for the NSA's Tailored Access Operations branch, which hacks into foreign computer networks, at Fort Meade when he began taking the files home in 2010.

Nghia Hoang Pho, 68, was working for the NSA at Fort Meade (pictured) when he began taking documents home as part of an effort to get promoted in 2010

During his sentencing on Tuesday, Pho - who had been working for the agency since 2006 - said he became frustrated after being passed over for promotion.

While the rest of his team were promoted after a project they worked on won an award from the agency's head, he was left behind.

Pho said his supervisor told him that his 'employee performance assessment is not good enough' and 'it's not your turn right now'.

In an effort to do more work and improve his resume, Pho took documents home over the course of five years ending in 2015, when he was charged.

His goal was to get promoted before he retired.

At some point during that time it is believed that hackers working for the Russian government broke into his computer and stole some documents, the New York Times previously reported.

Russian hackers working for the state are believed to have stolen some of the documents from Pho's computers some time before he was charged in 2015

Hackers are thought to have exploited a loophole in security software provided by Kaspersky Labs, a top Russian company, to lift the files.

It is not clear if Kaspersky was aware of the hack, though the firm has said it does not work with the Russian government in the past.

Prosecutors had asked for an eight year sentence, arguing that documents found at two of Pho's homes went well beyond areas he was working in.

Pho was given yearly training on handling classified information and his argument that he didn't know what he was doing is 'flatly inconsistent with the facts', attorney Thomas Windom said in remarks reported by the Baltimore Sun.

The charges carry a maximum penalty of ten years behind bars, which prosecutors had agreed not to seek as part of Pho's guilty plea.

In Pho's defense the court heard from one of his four children, his best friend, and wife Anna, who said he was 'the main provider... emotionally and financially.'

Pho, who had been allowed to stay at home before his sentencing, will begin his jail term at a medium-security federal prison in Cumberland in January.

After two years, the remainder will be served on supervised release.A crime lord who headed up a criminal network that smuggled hundreds of people into the UK has been jailed in France.

Rekawt Kayani, 36, was arrested by National Crime Agency officers at his home address in the Normanton area of Derby in May 2016, as part of a joint operation being run with the French police.

He was involved in numerous smuggling runs during the peak of the refugee crisis.

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36-year-old Briton Rekawt Kayani was handed a fine of 100,000 and a seven year jail term at a Lille court on Monday

Kayani was arrested by National Crime Agency officers at his home address in the Normanton area of Derby in May 2016, as part of a collaborative British-French police operation

In June 2015, 68 people from Afghanistan, China and Vietnam were found inside four lorries at the Harwich International Port in Essex.

Investigators also found Kayani orchestrated runs from Dieppe in northern France to Newhaven on the East Sussex coast.

In January 2016 seven migrants were found crammed inside a concealed compartment in the back of a van. Five were from Vietnam and two were from Iraq.

Following his arrest, which was carried out using a European Arrest Warrant, Kayani was extradited to France to face trial alongside a number of others.

Kayani played a leading role in the smuggling of 68 people who were found inside four lorries at the port of Harwich, Suffolk in June 2015

At a court in Lille on Monday he was sentenced to seven years in prison and given a 100,000 euro fine.

After he is eventually released from custody he will be banned from entering France for life.

Seven other members of the gang were also convicted and sentenced to between 18 months and seven years in prison. Kayani received the longest sentence.

National Crime Agency senior investigating officer Mick Pope said: 'Gangs involved in organised immigration crime treat migrants as nothing more than a commodity they can profit out of.

'Individuals found as part of this investigation had to endure horrendous conditions, crammed inside small compartments or locked in the back of lorries for hours on end.

'We are working with international partners such as the French authorities to disrupt these criminal networks and arrest and prosecute those responsible wherever possible.

'In this case we were able to use a European Arrest Warrant to make that possible.'

The operation to arrest Kayani involved Project Invigor, the UK's Organised Immigration Crime Taskforce set up to target the criminal networks behind people smuggling impacting the UK and the European borders.

National Crime Agency senior investigating officer Mick Pope said that those found as part of the investigation into Kayani and people smuggling endured horrendous conditions, crammed inside small compartments or locked in the back of lorries for hours on end

It is led by the NCA and includes Immigration Enforcement, Crown Prosecution Service, Border Force and the Home Office working in the UK and internationally.

Kayani, who was granted British citizenship seven years ago, is reported to have arrived in Britain as an asylum seeker in 2003.

He is thought to have built a wide-reaching people smuggling network on trips to refugee camps in France, Greece and Iraq.

His imprisonment is the latest success this year for the pan-European operation.

In March Palestinian national Jamal Owda was sentenced to 13 years in prison for his role in the illegal smuggling of around 100 Syrians a day from Turkey into Greece and then further on into other western European countries.

Owda was detained at an asylum seekers hostel in Liverpool and extradited to Greece, where Police said his gang could have earned around 10 million euros in the human smuggling business since 2013.President Trump says he'll release a Middle East peace plan by early next year.

Trump said Wednesday that his administration would have a deal outlining a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict ready in 'two to three to four months.'

'We're working along on that,' he said sitting across from Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. 'I really believe something will happen. It is a dream of mine to be able to get that done prior to the end of my first term.'

President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hold a bilateral meeting during the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters. President Trump says he'll release a Middle East peace plan by early next year.

Trump's optimism that he'd be the one to end the decades-old conflict came days after the U.S. took a hardline approach to the Palestinian government, shutting down its mission in Washington until the PLO agrees to negotiate directly with the Israelis.

The State Department timed its announcement to Rosh Hashana, the official start of Jewish New Year. Spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the move that was designed to put pressure on the Palestinian Liberation Organization to reenter talks was 'consistent' with U.S. policy.

Palestinian officials indicated that the closure would only deter the peace process, however.

'This is yet another affirmation of the Trump administration's policy to collectively punish the Palestinian people,' PLO official Saeb Erekat told the Associated Press.

Trump's relocation of the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv also inflamed tensions. The U.S. said it was necessary to follow through on the legally-mandated action that presidents have put off for years through the use of waviers.

Netanyahu said Wednesday that Israel must retain security control in any peace deal with the Palestinians, Israeli media reported, after Trump's comments supporting a two-state solution to the conflict.

Speaking to Israeli journalists after meeting Trump in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, Netanyahu reiterated his stance that Israel must control security west of Jordan to the Mediterranean -- which includes the occupied West Bank.

'I am willing for the Palestinians to have the authority to rule themselves without the authority to harm us,' Netanyahu said, according to Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

'It is important to set what is inadmissible to us: Israel will not relinquish security control west of Jordan. This will not happen so long as I am prime minister and I think the Americans understand that.'

As in the past, Netanyahu did not specify whether he could support full Palestinian statehood in a peace deal or some lesser form of autonomy.

A key Israeli government minister and Netanyahu rival said after Trump's comments that a Palestinian state was out of the question.

'The president of the US is a true friend of Israel,' Education Minister Naftali Bennett of the far-right Jewish Home party said on Twitter.

'However, it must be emphasised that as long as the Jewish Home party is part of Israel's government, there will not be a Palestinian state which would be a disaster for Israel.'

When meeting Netanyahu on Wednesday, Trump said explicitly for the first time that he backed a two-state solution that would create an independent Palestine, saying: 'That's what I think works best, that's my feeling.'

The Palestinian leadership cut off contact with Trump's administration after he recognised the disputed city of Jerusalem as Israel's capital in December.

Trump has also cut more than $500 million in Palestinian aid.

Palestinian leaders accuse his White House of blatant bias in favour of Israel and of seeking to blackmail them into accepting his terms.

Trump has nevertheless spoken of wanting to reach the 'ultimate deal' -- Israeli-Palestinian peace.A sex predator has allegedly been posing as an Uber driver to sexually assault unwitting passengers.

So far five women have reported the alleged assaults, all of which reportedly occurred within the past month, to the police.

Melissa Lochead has spoken out about her own run-in with the alleged fraud in Fortitude Valley area, Queensland, in an effort to prevent the same thing happening to other women.

Ms Lochead, 32, (pictured) was waiting for an Uber she had ordered in the early hours of Saturday, September 8

'He started making remarks about my body,' Ms Lochead (pictured) claimed

Ms Lochead, 32, was waiting for an Uber she had ordered during the early hours of September 8.

A black SUV pulled up and the driver inside informed her that he was an Uber driver, police claim.

She agreed to get in the car and he drove her to a nearby McDonalds. He then asked Ms Lochead to get into the front passenger seat, but she declined and said she preferred to sit in the back, the 32-year-old claimed.

During the drive back to Ms Lochead's home in Woolloongabba, the man allegedly began behaving inappropriately.

'He started making remarks about my body,' Ms Lochead told 7 News.

Police allege the driver then exposed himself and began touching the 32-year-old.

As the car pulled up outside her house, Ms Lochead ran inside and called the police.

A 41-year-old man from Carindale, who police believe to be the fake Uber driver, has been remanded in custody and charged with three counts of sexual assault and one count each of deprivation of liberty and common assault.

Police investigations continue to find no evidence that this man has ever been associated with a legitimate ride sharing service

He appeared in Brisbane Magistrates Court on September 22 in relation to two other alleged sexual assaults.

The man remains in custody until his next appearance in Brisbane Magistrates Court on November 14.

Police investigations continue to find no evidence that this man has ever been associated with a legitimate ride sharing service.

Authorities are expecting more victims to come forward.Three Sri Lankan tourists have been arrested for revealing their behinds at an ancient sacred site in the country.

The men were part of a group who posted a photo of their exposure at Pidurangala Rock on Instagram.

A Buddhist monk complained that the photo within sight of a temple at the Unesco World Heritage site was a religious insult.

Three Sri Lankan tourists have been arrested for revealing their behinds at an ancient sacred site in the country. Pictured: A group exposes themselves in site of a sacred rock

Several foreigners have taken similar photos at the site but have not been arrested.

This led to criticism of the police on social media that only those with 'brown bums' were being punished, reported the BBC.

One user wrote: 'So law enforcement should only be limited to brown bums? Sri Lanka Police should send several teams around the world to identify the rest.'

Others said the arrest was overbearing and unnecessary and that the police should focus on more serious crimes.

They wrote: 'When our children are being raped and women being abused, Sri Lankan police do nothing. They only seem to act on nonsensical non-issues like this.'

Pidurangala Vihara is an ancient Buddhist temple situated in Pidurangala village of Matale District, Sri Lanka.

The temple was constructed on a massive rock called Pidurangala, which is located a few miles north of the historical fort Sigiriya.MI5 closed an investigation into Khalid Masood five years before he launched his Westminster attack

MI5 closed an investigation into Khalid Masood five years before he launched his sickening Westminster attack, an inquest has heard.

Masood had first appeared on the fringes of a major MI5 investigation 13 years before he carried out his attack in central London, the inquest into his victims was told.

Masood's phone number appeared in the contact list of one of the central figures in Operation Crevice, a plot to blow up the Ministry of Sound nightclub and Bluewater shopping centre in Kent using half a ton of ammonium nitrate fertiliser, in April 2004.

He continued to pop up as a link to a man associated with the Crevice plotters before appearing in another investigation six years later, as a potential facilitator for extremists travelling to Pakistan through Saudi Arabia.

But an MI5 witness told the hearing, from behind a green curtain, that the security service had taken the correct decision in closing their investigation into him in 2010 and did so two years later.

The MI5 officer, known only as Witness L, told the inquest that a person 'subsequently identified' as Khalid Masood had appeared in the contacts list for Waheed Mahmood, the man considered the spiritual leader of the fertiliser bombers.

Footage issued by the Met Police shown to the inquest of Khalid Masood driving past St Thomas Hospital in London

However Masood was 'never identified by name or considered as having direct involvement in attack planning' the witness told the hearing in Court One of the Old Bailey.

He said: 'We do not believe that Masood had any knowledge or involvement of the Crevice attack plot.

'At the time of the Crevice attack , and afterwards, we investigated individuals for such knowledge, and we also separately did that with Khalid Masood. So I say that with a great deal of confidence.

'We could have devoted significant resources to seeking to identify him without any certainty of success, and devoting those resources would not have been proportionate.'

However, Masood continued to appear over the next six years with a series of 'selectors' - which turned out to be his phone number and email adress.

The numbers were 'primarily' in the investigation of a 'longstanding associate' from Crevice as a part of a 'spin off' investigation.'

Witness L said it 'would have been possible to identify him from some of the selectors. It wouldn't have been proportionate to do so given that there was no evidence that he was engaged in anything of concern.'

In 2009 a second operation, named as Operation E was looking at a group of individuals, who MI5 believed were seeking to travel to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas in Pakistan, an area which was heavily being used for terrorist training by al-Qaeda.

Khalid Masood (pictured left) murdered five people (including PC Palmer, right) and injured 50 others when he drove his car into pedestrians outside the Houses of Parliament in March 2017

The individuals were exploring the possibility that they might travel via Saudi Arabia and an individual in there called Khalid Masood could assist them.

A record was opened on him in February 2010, although the information was said to be 'reasonably vague' and 'uncorroborated'.

He was given a 'holding code' that meant MI5 believed he 'posed a threat to national security.'

By March 2010 they were satisfied that the individual who was facilitating travel to the FATA was not Khalid Masood and downgraded him to an individual who 'may be of interest to national security.'

MI5 obtained his criminal record and asked the prison service for details of his time in jail, although no record was kept of their response.

In December 2010 an investigative review decided he should be downgraded to a target who was 'not considered to be of national security significance.'

The security service took the 'correct decision' in closing their investigation into Masood in 2010, the inquest heard

An internal minute dated 10 January 2011 recorded the meeting where the decision was taken in relation to a number of 'subjects of interest' (SOI) investigated under Operation E.

Witness L said: 'The minute is brief and records the actions arising from the meeting, not the reasoning discussed at the meeting. It states that Masood should be closed as an SOI under Operation E. No reasoning is given.

'We have reviewed the decision to close Masood with the benefit of hindsight and concluded that the decision was sound.

'It is not feasible for MI5 to record every discussion held and every decision made during the course of an investigation.'

The case was not formally closed until October of 2012 for 'administrative' reasons and in between intelligence was received that he was associating with other subjects of interest.

He was said to have appeared 'intermittently' in contact with a number of other subjects of investigation that we were looking at. that that included subjects of interest who were linked to the radical group organisation AlMuhajiroun in the Luton and Crawley areas.

But the witness said: 'I cannot see any evidence that we considered reopening him.'

In 2013 further intelligence was recieved that Masood had expressed contentment that the violent actions such as the World Trade Centre attack on 9/11 attracted people to Islam.

Witness L insisted that even if the case had been reopened there was no intelligence that would have helped prevent the attack.

'There simply wasn't enough intelligence for us to work on that would have allowed us to identify his plot and therefore work with the police to frustrate it.'

The inquest continues.A senior judge accused three anti-fracking protesters of treating the public as 'collateral damage' today as he jailed them over a four day demonstration at a drilling site which cost taxpayers tens of thousands of pounds.

Scientist Simon Blevins, 26, teacher Richard Loizou, 31, and piano restorer Richard Roberts, 36, staged a sit-in after they illegally climbed onto to the cabs of lorries during the morning rush hour as they travelled in convoy to a shale gas site near Blackpool, Lancashire.

The trio each spent between 45 and 84 hours on the trucks during their 'lorry surfing' demonstration and were seen revelling in the disruption - with one even blowing kisses at police - before all agreed to come down.

During the protest officers had to be taken off front line duties and were temporarily forced to close off the busy A583 Preston to Blackpool road whilst they dealt with the demonstration. They set up a contraflow to allow traffic to get through.

The seven lorry drivers targeted in the protest were left unable to return home due to their trucks being stranded causing upset to their families.

Commuters could not to get to work and one elderly woman was physically sick when she was forced to walk home for 90 minutes when her bus was unable to drop her at her regular stop.

Richard Loizou, left, and piano restorer Richard Roberts, right, staged the sit-in after they climbed on top of lorries

Taxpayers were left with a 12,000 bill for lost police man-hours whilst energy firm Cuadrilla which is carrying out drill tests at the site had to pay 50,000 in fees.

Last August Loizou, from Devon, Blevins, from Sheffield, and Roberts from London, were all convicted of causing a public nuisance by a jury following a seven day trial.

Their supporters persuaded a leading human rights lawyer to act on a pro-bono' basis to plead for clemency - claiming prison would make the three men the first environmental protesters to be jailed in the UK since the Kinder Scout mass trespass in 1932.

Simon Blevins (left), Richard Roberts (centre) and Richard Loizou (right) were all jailed for lorry surfing at the protest

But at Preston Crown Court, Roberts and Blevins were each jailed for 16 months and Loizou got 15 months.

A fourth man Julian Brock, 47, from Sheffield who pleaded guilty to causing a nuisance at an earlier hearing was given 12 months jail suspended for 18 months. More than 60 demonstrators held a protest outside the courthouse.

Sentencing Judge Robert Altham said: 'The disruption must have been very upsetting for those who were trying to go to work. Police took the decision that the lorries should not be moved or it would be a risk to those who were on top of the lorries.

Richard Roberts climbed on top of a lorry and waved a flag in protest of Cuadrilla's fracking programme in Lancashire

The protesters were jailed after they jumped on top of lorries near the Preston New Road drilling site

'Protesters made speeches and Blevins made a speech. In an act of irony he told the jury he had to be in work the following Monday and wanted to get home and get prepared for work - yet he failed to see that he was responsible for other people not getting to work for a few days.

'Roberts and Blevins were stood on top of the lorries cabin and seemed to genuinely enjoy the adulation of the protest. Specifically, Roberts was blowing kisses to the police officers. The defendants were looking extremely proud of themselves.'

The demonstration ended with people climbing on top of the vehicles in protest near the Cuadrilla fracking site

He added: 'Many businesses suffered. Residents suffered with congestion and employees were in distress in trying to get to work. The most striking of all the evidence was that from an elderly disabled lady who would use the bus to go shopping as there were no shops around her.

'On the first day of the protest she walked to the bus stop and waited 45 minutes for a bus that didnt arrived and so she walked home.

'She next attended two days later where a bus did attend but she couldnt get dropped off at her usual destination and instead had to walk and hour and a half to get home. She was sick when she got home and had to go to bed.

The drilling rig at Preston New Road shale gas exploration site is in place but had not been activated as local and national campaigners demonstrated against its use. Energy and Clean Growth Minister Claire Perry backed its use believing shale gas had the potential to be a new domestic energy source

'There were other residents affected and the lorry drivers were affected too. One of the drivers families was worried about seeing him come home, they were worried that he already does a difficult job with unsociable hours and this was a further inconvenience.

'One of them was subject to intimidation and insults from other protesters and one of the drivers had difficulty sleeping with a man living on the roof.

'Whatever the circumstances, this was a significant inconvenience and the defendants seemed to revel in the protest. No person who has any experience of life could fail to understand the effect of blocking a main carriageway between a city and a town, especially if they are in top of a lorry watching the chaos unfold.

'Each of them remains motivated by an unswerving confidence that they are right. They are motivated by a serious and genuine concern for the environment - but they see the public as necessary and justified collateral damage.

'I express no opinion about fracking, that is not the business of this court. But these defendants pose a significant risk of reoffending. It is mistaken to see they have remorse as it is rather more a regret at being convicted.

'This was a significant public nuisance which gave a significant amount of problems to a large number of people including residents and local businesses.'

The protests outside Cuadrillas fracking site at Preston New Road near Blackpool from July 25-29 2017 began at 8.06am when Roberts climbed on to the first lorry in a convoy of seven while Loizou clambered on to the last truck.

It forced the convoy to come to a standstill and the road was blocked in both directions. Later Blevins a student at the University of Sheffield climbed on to the second lorry in the convoy whilst Brock climbed onto a fourth vehicle shortly afterwards.

The Preston New Road site has been the focus of protests throughout the year as Cuadrilla presses ahead with its drilling scheme

Loizou eventually came down after 45 hours on the cab whilst Blevins spent 73 hours on the roof. Roberts came down after 84 hours and Brock staged his sit in for 76 hours before surrendering.

Campaigners said the demonstration lasted 99 hours and 31 minutes - the longest single anti-fracking protest in the UK.

In court supporters in the public gallery wept, sang protest songs and waved and blew kisses to the three men as they were led from the dock.

Human rights lawyer Kirsty Brimelow QC, whose work currently includes a Boko Haram child terrorist case in Nigeria, and representing Amnesty International against the security services argued the judge should consider the 'likely damage from increased carbon emission' and added: 'They were protesting not just for themselves but for future generations and the future of the planet.

'It is very important to keep very firmly in mind the context which is peaceful protest. The court should tread very carefully when dealing with public protest. Everyone has a right to freedom of expression.'

But after the case Babs Murphy, chief executive of the North & Western Lancashire Chamber of Commerce said: 'This is a public order offence and the rights of the public and business community to go about their daily business unhindered has prevailed.

'Todays judgement sends out a clear signal to those who are contemplating committing such offences in the future, that there may be severe consequences to their actions.'President Trump claimed at a United Nations Security Council meeting Wednesday that the Chinese are engaged in an active measures to disrupt the 2018 elections in retaliation for his hard-hitting tariffs.

Trump boldly accused China of working 'against my administration' to oust Republicans this fall as a tactic to evade punishing trade actions.

'They do not want me, or us, to win, because I am the first president ever to challenge China on trade,' he declared. 'And we are winning on trade. We are winning at every level. We don't want them to meddle or interfere in our upcoming election.'

The Chinese reiterated their long-standing principle of non-interference in the domestic affairs of other countries in response.

China's foreign minister Wang Li told Trump to his face when it was his turn to talk, 'We refuse to accept any unwarranted accusations against China.'

Feet apart: Trump turned to China's foreign minister Wang Yi and said: 'They do not want me, or us, to win, because I am the first president ever to challenge China on trade. And we are winning on trade. We are winning at every level. We don't want them to meddle or interfere in our upcoming election.'

President Trump claimed at a United Nations Security Council meeting Wednesday that the Chinese are engaged in an active measures to disrupt the 2018 elections in retaliation for his hard-hitting tariffs

Trump boldly accused China of working 'against my administration' to oust Republicans this fall as a tactic to evade punishing trade actions as the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi was sitting three seats to his left

Trump smacked around Russia during the meeting for aiding and abetting Syria. It was China and the government of Xi Jinping (left) whom he said is leading an election meddling effort though

Trump did not provide evidence in the speech for his claim that China is meddling in the U.S. election, but it followed an ad buy in a major U.S. paper located in a top agricultural hub by Chinese state media that pushed an anti-tariff line.

A four-page inset purchased by China Daily branded as a 'China Watch' section appeared in the Des Moines Register on Sunday. Experts say it was explicitly intended to undermine Trump.

Trump made a more pointed reference to the ad buy in a tweet after he closed up shop at the United Nations that said: 'China is actually placing propaganda ads in the Des Moines Register and other papers, made to look like news.

'Thats because we are beating them on Trade, opening markets, and the farmers will make a fortune when this is over!' he asserted.

He told a reporter who challenged him on the claim that there's 'plenty of evidence' that China is interfering in the American electoral process without saying what it was.

Pushed to show his hand later in the day by reporters Trump said, 'You have not only ads, you have statements made that theyre going to hit our farmers, who are my voters. I love the farmers.'

'The farmers have been getting hurt in our country for many years, and thats because they had artificial barriers, artificial tariffs, all sorts of things that made it impossible for them. Im opening it up,' he proclaimed. 'But China is going and attacking the farm belt, our farmers. Theyre attacking our industrialwith ads, and with statements that dont look like ads. It looks like theyre editorials and theyre not.'

He told journalists: 'Theyre made up by China, because they dont want me to get elected because this has never happened to them.'

'Were taking in billions of dollars in tariff money going right into our treasury and Chinas getting hurt. So I dont like it when they attack our farmers, and I dont like it when they put out false messages,' he said. But beside that we learned that they are trying to meddle in our elections. And were not going to let that happen, just as were not going to let that happen with Russia.'

The White House did not provide any examples of election meddling in a hastily scheduled call on 'Chinese interference' on Wednesday afternoon with a senior administration official.

The aide said that the influence campaign goes beyond U.S. elections to the media that can and cannot be consumed. The person noted that American films with content the Chinese government doesn't approve of are commonly blacklisted. Journalists from American media outlets who are critical of China often have trouble renewing visas and are sometimes booted out.

Think tanks, businessmen, journalists, movie studios, religious leaders and political candidates are 'punished and rewarded' depending on their position on Chinese policies.

'China spends billions of dollars on propaganda here and throughout the world, crowding out, or even posing as independent news sources,' the senior official said. 'It's intimidation from cyber-bullying to threatening phone calls from embassy officials, stifle free speech on college campuses, targeting administrators, professors and even Chinese students who want to talk about their good experience in the United States.'

The official said that Chinese news organizations that have pretended to be fair 'are now in an overdue step' being required to register as foreign agents.

'We're in the process of declassifying more information,' the official said.

China was also accused of taking actions meant to hurt American workers and farmers 'in states and districts that voted for the president because he stood up for the way that China has taken advantage of our country.'

Pressed to go further the official said 'there will be more over that that we'll be sharing about that.'

Trump did not provide evidence in the speech for his claim that China is meddling in the U.S. election, but it followed an ad buy in a major U.S. paper located in a top agricultural hub by Chinese state media that pushed an anti-tariff line. He pointed to the ad buy later in a tweet

A spokesperson for the National Security Council did not immediately respond to a request for specific instances of election meddling from DailyMail.com on Wednesday in response to Trump's claim that there's 'plenty of evidence' to support his charge.

Trump claimed earlier this month, without providing specifics that China is trying to 'impact' the election by assaulting the agricultural sector.

'China has openly stated that they are actively trying to impact and change our election by attacking our farmers, ranchers and industrial workers because of their loyalty to me,' he claimed.

The U.S. president swung out at China more aggressively at the Security Council on the topic, interrupting remarks on nuclear non-proliferation to delve into trade.

'Regrettably, we found that China has been attempting to interfere in our upcoming 2018 election coming up in November against my administration. They do not want me, or us, to win because I am the first president ever to challenge China on trade,' he assessed.

Trump made the charged claim with members of the Chinese delegation, including Foreign Minister Wang Yi, sitting three seats down. Like the U.S., China has a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council.

Wang denied that his country does not and will not interfere in any other nation's domestic affairs. He called Trump's claims an 'unwarranted accusation' that he said Beijing would refuse to accept.

Trump went on to credit China's Xi Jinping for his counter proliferation efforts, saying it 'has been a pleasure and an honor' to work with him as he concluded his speech.

He stayed away from gushing language about the communist leader he's used in the past, though, perhaps as a result of tempered expectations for their relationship.

Xi did not attend the United Nations General Assembly this year, providing the perfect opportunity for Trump to declare a trade triumph and rail against China for other alleged abuses like currency manipulation and intellectual property theft.

The U.S. president said Tuesday in speech before the entire U.N. body that the U.S. would no longer be content to be taken advantage of by nations with closed-off economies.

'Those days are over. We will no longer tolerate such abuse,' Trump said. 'We will not allow our workers to be victimized, our companies to be cheated, and our wealth to be plundered and transferred. America will never apologize for protecting its citizens.'

Trump had pulled back on his verbal assault against China his first year in office after receiving assurances from Xi that he would assist the U.S. in managing the threat of a nuclear North Korea.

When it appeared that Xi was playing puppet master behind the scenes and advising Kim Jong-un, his closest ally, to yank around the U.S. this summer, Trump's attitude took a sharp turn.

He said ahead of his June summit with Kim that he considers Xi a friend but worries that the Chinese leader is giving the North Korean dictator unhelpful advice.

Trump began moving, at the same time, to correct the trade imbalances with China he'd promised to take on in his presidential campaign yet set aside while he was building a security alliance.

After threatening billions of tariffs against Chinese goods from nearly every sector, Trump hit Beijing with upward of $50 and then $250 billion in fees on Chinese exports. His administration said this month that would be more to come if China matched the tariffs dollar-for-dollar.

By the time that Trump arrived at the United Nations he was entangled in a full-on trade war with the communist nation that he says is now waging a campaign against him of disinformation.

This summer Trump conceded that Russia was looking to meddle in the 2018 elections but only recently began to point to China.A 13-year-old girl was shocked to find her grandfather's gravestone being used as a prop in a haunted house at a theme park in Germany.

The gravestone had been sold to the Geiselwind Theme Park instead of being properly disposed of at the end of the cemetery plot lease.

The theme park owner, who is now on trial charged with the vilification of the memory of the deceased, has apologised to the widow and the family.

A 13-year-old girl was shocked to find her grandfather's gravestone being used as a prop in a haunted house (pictured) at a theme park in Germany

The gravestone (pictured) had been sold to the Geiselwind Theme Park instead of being properly disposed of at the end of the cemetery plot lease

In August last year, the girl noticed the gravestone of her grandfather who died in 1996 and sent a picture of it to her grandmother.

The 62-year-old widow said: 'I could not believe it until my daughter sent me a picture of the tombstone.'

She said her granddaughter had been left distraught by the discovery and had been unable to stop crying.

She had not known her grandfather but had reportedly felt very connected to him through family stories and from regularly visiting his grave.

The widow said that she too had struggled to cope with the incident which had brought back painful memories of her late husband's death.

In Germany, cemetery plots are generally rented for a limited period of 20 or 30 years because of the shortage of space and high cost of burial fees.

In August last year, the girl noticed the gravestone of her grandfather who died in 1996 and sent a picture of it to her grandmother. Pictured: The theme park

The widow had paid a stonemason around 115 for the proper disposal of the gravestone once that period had ended in December 2016.

She says the stonemason sold the gravestone to the theme park and feels that the memory of her husband has been publicly 'thrown in the dirt'.

During the trial, the widow called the use of the gravestone 'an enormous disgrace'.

According to the prosecution, the theme park owner bought eight engraved gravestones from a stonemason and promised to make the inscriptions unrecognisable, which in the end did not happen.

The theme park owner said: 'I'm of course very sorry about it. I did not want to hurt anyone.'

If found guilty, he faces a fine or imprisonment of up to two years. The trial continues.A Pakistani model and fashion designer took her own life shortly after speaking out against bullies and online trolls, local news reports.

Anam Tanoli was found dead in her home in Lahore earlier this month, with her passing said to have been caused by suicide.

Ms Tanoli's family told local media that the 26-year-old had suffered with depression and 'severe mental stress' before her death.

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Tragedy: In the wake of the apparent suicide of Pakistani model Anam Tanoli, 26, a video she recorded before her death where she hits back at bullies and online trolls has gone viral

She had been scheduled to see a therapist on the day she was found dead, reportedly from hanging, in her flat.

In the wake of her death at the start of September, a video Ms Tanoli recorded to hit back at bullies has gone viral.

The clip sees her speak directly to the camera while wearing a top with 'back off bullies' written across it.

'Bullying is bad. Don't do it, okay? It's just a coward's way out, and it's a pathetic way out, quite frankly.'

In the video, Ms Tanoli tells her followers that bullies and trolls are 'just trying to take their misery out on you'.

Speaking out: In the clip, she can be heard branding bullies 'pathetic' and 'cowards' before urging her followers to not let haters affect them

Speaking out: The model's family said she had suffered with depression and 'severe mental stress' before her death

'Don't let it affect you, don't let it bring you down. They're not worth it, they're not worth your misery.'

Ms Tanoli has been described as an 'up and coming model' on Pakistani news websites, and had returned from Italy a few weeks before her suicide.

Friends and fans took to social media to mourn the young model and designer, with one person asking 'when will we take depression seriously,' GeoTV reports.

Others wrote that it had been painful to realise that she had suffered from mental illness and hidden it behind her 'perfect' life on social media.

A postmortem examination noted that she had suffered from depression, and noted that she had died from asphyxiation with no marks of torture on her body, Pakistan Today reports.

Police are still investigating her death.Relatives of victims who lost their lives in Japan's deadliest volcano eruption in more than a century climbed the mountain on Wednesday for the first time since the disaster.

Mt Ontake erupted exactly four years ago, killing 63 people on the Japanese island of Honshu, around 200km west of Tokyo.

Entry restrictions on one path to the summit where the victims were found were lifted on the morning before the fourth anniversary, Japan Today reported.

Families of people killed in the 2014 eruption of Mt. Ontake in central Japan arriving at its summit on September 26

The relatives made the journey one day before the fourth anniversary of Japan's deadliest volcanic disaster since 1902, in which 63 of their loved ones were killed

Around 30 of the victims' relatives then climbed 1000ft to reach the top of the mountain.

The mourners held a silent a memorial service and erected a cenotaph bearing the words: 'The memory of this tragedy should never fade away.'

Hideko Sherlock, 59, was among the group of relatives. She said: 'We've waited for this chance for four years.

The cenotaph installed by the families which reads: 'The memory of this tragedy should never fade away'

Hideko Akiyama (right), who lost her son Hirokazu in the 2014 eruption, was one of about 30 relatives who made the 1000ft trek

'Until now, we had only been able to imagine (what the summit area was like) by looking at pictures, but it is very important for families of the victims to be able to go there.

'After standing on the summit, I felt how horrendous it must have been.'

Junichi Horiguchi, 72, whose 37-year-old son Hideki was killed in the eruption, said: 'I did not have confidence in my physical strength but I came here to mourn for my son.

People lay flowers on the memorial cenotaph. Hideko Sherlock, 59, said it was 'very important' for families to be able to go to the place their relatives died

Hideko Akiyama saying a silent prayer during a memorial service for the 63 victims, which include her son Hirokazu

Officials of Kiso, a town in Nagano Prefecture, remove signs restricting entry to a path to the summit of Mt. Ontake

The summit had been off limits to the public since the tragedy, even while families requested access to the area.

Now, the authoirty in the local town of Kiso feel it is finally safe to allow them to use a path to the summit of the mountain which straddles the Nagano and Gifu prefectures.

This is since the installment of an evacuation shelter for around 90 people and a loudspeaker system to issue warnings.

Other paths on the mountain which lead to the summit remain restricted.

The 2014 eruption occurred when the alert level for the volcano was 1 - the lowest on a scale of five. It was Japan's worst volcanic eruption since Torishima killed around 150 people in 1902.

Repair work is under way at a mountain lodge near the summit of Mt. Ontake. Most paths to the top of the volcano are still inaccessible and off limits to climbers

On September 27th 2014, Mt Ontake began spewing out small rock and ash over a two-mile wide area

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe instructed the military to rescue the hikers in 2014 but their efforts had to be been called off due to rising levels of toxic gas near the summit

Many relatives felt the disaster was entirely preventable, and filed a damages suit in 2017 against the central and Nagano prefectural governments.

They say the authorities should have raised the alert level in the face of the higher volcanic activity that preceded the disaster.

Japan's weather agency has since changed its policy on eruption alert levels and will now issue warnings of volcanic activity more quickly.Advertisement

Zsa Zsa Gabor's Bel Air estate sold last week for nearly double the price it sold for before the actress's death.

The home was sold for $11million back in 2013 but under an arrangement the actress was able to live there until she died.

Property records show the nearly 9,000-square-foot mansion has found a buyer for $20.8 million after developer Albert Taban put it back on the market in July, according to Curbed Los Angeles.

Gabor lived at the estate for four decades. She also lived there with her ninth and final husband, Frederic Prinz von Anhalt before her death in 2016.

Zsa Zsa Gabor's Bel Air estate sits on a one-acre plot and has been sold for $20.3million

The storied home, which was owned by Elvis Presley before Gabor, will likely be torn down to build a mega-mansion

Gabor's home was originally sold in 2013 for $11million but the deal allowed her to stay there until her death

Gabor lived in the home for nearly four decades when she passed away in December of 2016

The Bel Air estate was sold for $20.3million, nearly double what Gabor got for it in 2013

It was once home to Elvis Presley before becoming Zsa Zsa Gabor's residence in 1974

The gorgeous home will likely be demolished to allow for a mega-mansion to be built in its place

The Regency-style estate was built in 1955 and was featured as Liberaces house in Behind the Candelabra.

It has six bedrooms and seven bathrooms with details such as mirrored walls, and ornate chandeliers and sconces.

It also has a pool and boasts panoramic views from Downtown Los Angeles to the Pacific Ocean.

The home now looks set to be torn down. The listing material included with the sale of the property has plans for a 24,020-square-foot mega-mansion.

The plans drawn up by architectural firm Harrison Design are for the construction of a two-story house as well as a new pool along with covered loggias.

Additionally the plans also call for a parking garage the size of two single-family homes on the acre of property.

The new residence would offer an open plan living/dining room, study, grand circular staircase, open plan family room, kitchen and butlers pantry on the first floor.

The home was built in 1955 and was occupied by Elvis Presley before Gabor purchased it in 1974

The home sold for nearly double the $11million Gabor had sold it for in 2013 in a unique deal that allowed her to stay in the home until her death

The current house was built in 1955 in a French regency style and has six bedrooms and seven bathrooms over 8,878 square feet

The storied home sits on an acre of land with panoramic views from Downtown Los Angeles to the Pacific ocean

The ornate home was featured as Liberaces house in Behind the Candelabra

The famous actress and socialite, pictured with her ninth husband Fredric Von Anhalt in 1993, passed away in December 2016 at the age of 99

The property sits on one acre with panoramic views from Downtown Los Angeles to the Pacific ocean

The second-floor would have a master suite with sitting room and adjoining covered terrace along with his and her baths and his and her closets.

There would be four additional en-suite bedrooms and a playroom.

Also included in the proposed new property would be a recreational room with bar, screening room, gym and steam room.

Jade Mills at Coldwell Banker represented the seller while Dan Beder of Sothebys International Realty represented the buyer.

It was once home to Elvis Presley before becoming Gabor's residence in 1974.Advertisement

Buying a house is increasingly out of reach in America's biggest cities, with California home to the four metropolitan areas requiring the highest incomes in the country to make home-ownership affordable.

San Jose topped the list, with residents needing to earn $274,623 a year in order to buy a home, followed by San Francisco ($213,727), San Diego ($130,986) and Los Angeles ($114,908), according to data compiled by HSH.com, a national consumer and mortgage information publisher.

'The economy is good, but there are just not enough homes for sale,' said Lawrence Yun, chief economist with the National Association of Realtors in an interview with DailyMail.com. 'The builders have not been building to adequately meet the rising demand.'

This map illustrates how much one must earn in order to buy a home in each of the 50 largest metropolitan housing markets in America

HSH.com analyzed the 50 most densely populated cities in the U.S. and then calculated monthly principal, interest, property tax and insurance costs to determine what buyers would pay for a 30-year fixed rate mortgage.

Researchers then projected a 20 percent down payment and calculated how much prospective homeowners would need to make in order to hold their total monthly housing payment to no more than 28 percent of their gross income.

The economy is good, but there are just not enough homes for sale. -Lawrence Yun, National Association of Realtors

By those measures, Boston came in fifth place, with wannabe homeowners having to rake in $109,411 annually in order to buy a place of their own.

Seattle came in sixth ($109,275), followed by New York City ($103,235), Washington D.C. ($96,144), Denver, Colorado ($93,263) and Portland, Oregon ($85,369).

HowMuch.net mapped the HSH.com results to illustrate where home buying pain is felt the most severely. Their map reveals three income tiers needed to afford a median home.

By those measures, the West Coast stood out as the most expensive place in the country for home buyers.

The East Coast was considered second-tier, which included major cities further south along the Atlantic Coast, including Miami ($78,337) and Providence, Rhode Island ($75,808).

The third  and most affordable  tier includes the Midwest, Rust Belt and Bible Belt. Among those cities with more attainable housing dreams is Minneapolis, Minnesota ($63,962), New Orleans ($49,249), Cleveland, Ohio ($39,730) and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania ($38,253).

Top 10 Cities Requiring the Highest Income to Afford a Home Purchase City 1. San Jose, CA 2. San Francisco 3. San Diego, CA 4. Los Angeles 5. Boston 6. Seattle 7. New York City 8. Washington, DC 9. Denver, CO 10. Portland, OR Income Needed $274,623 $213,727 $130,986 $114,908 $109,411 $109,275 $103,235 $96,144 $93,263 $85,369 Advertisement

Median home prices rose 6.55 percent across all 50 markets tracked by HSH.com. While trends varied by region, the company predicts home buyers will need a median increase in income of 10.58 percent to keep pace with the housing market's demands.

Part of the problem is that builders are facing obstacles, Yun said. Rising material costs, a shortage of experienced construction workers and onerous local zoning limitations have made it difficult for developers to meet the demand for new homes.

That may make living in California or in the Northeast less attractive to prospective homebuyers, Yun said.

'The expensive regions are really facing this unaffordable situation,' he said. 'Even if people are offered a good job in San Francisco (for example), there may be workers hesitant to move there because most of their income will be eaten up by housing costs.'

Instead, he suggests that people consider some more up-and-coming regions where housing is more affordable  and likely to yield a profit when homeowners look to sell in years and decades to come.

'I would look towards areas where there is currently relatively affordable home prices along with positive business environment to create jobs,' Yun said. 'Generally the Rocky Mountain states, as well as the southern states. Places like Salt Lake City are really good candidates, as well as Boise, Idaho.'

Yun also pointed to places like Dallas and Austin, Texas; Nashville; Raleigh, North Carolina and much of Florida.SNP's David Linden and Drew Hendry (pictured circled left and right, respectively) told health workers they were double jabbed and did not need to be swabbed after landing in Gibraltar, according to a witness. The pair, whose vaccine QR codes apparently stopped working, were 'rude' towards staff and warned they will 'get them into trouble' with Governor of Gibraltar David Steel (inset left) when urged to take a test. Under current regulations, anyone arriving in Gibraltar (inset) is required to take a test in a booth outside the airport and provide proof of any vaccinations. However, after initially refusing, the pair eventually took the tests before leaving with Ministry of Defence staff, it is reported. The duo, alongside Labour's Charlotte Nichols (right), were accused of drinking heavily before arriving in the British Overseas Territory with the Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme - with one apparently having to be taken out of the airport in a wheelchair. But Ms Nichols, who said she had fewer than five drinks, blamed her medication after she was said to be too incapacitated to attend the welcome party on arrival. She has since returned home two days early.Royal fanatics can now sparkle like the Duchess of Sussex for less.

The Royal Collection Shop is selling a near-exact replica of Meghan Markles pricey three carat engagement ring. The piece consists of three crystals set on a palladium plated metal band.

The band is adjustable, which means just about anyone can wear it.

Fans can now purchase a replica of Meghan Markle's engagement ring from the Royal Collection Shop

It comes inside a white box with H and M on it in gold lettering for Meghan and Prince Harry's first names.

Of the ring, the Royal Collection Shop said: The design of this new statement range, is inspired by the engagement ring of Meghan Markle.

This three crystal ring is made of sparkling crystals set on palladium plated metal. This can be worn as part of a set with matching earrings and pendant.

While Meghans ring is thought to have cost about 140,000, the Royal Collection Shops replica will run you just 30.

Theyre selling a pendant necklace with a similar setting for 30, as well as earrings for 25.

Meghans ring was created by Cleave and Company, according to Money. Its made up of three diamonds set on a yellow gold band.

The center stone was sourced in Botswana, where Harry traveled in his youth and Meghan spent her 36th birthday. The other two diamonds on the ring were taken from Princess Dianas personal collection.

Diamond Pro CEO Michael Fried told Money: There is no way for anyone to put a value on the whole ring.

Having diamonds from the Royal collection that Princess Diana wore makes the ring priceless.

Some experts estimate that the ring is worth about 140,000, while others have valued it as high as 265,000 or more.

Michael estimated: A three-carat diamond like that should cost around $200,000 (151,800), through the diamond qualities us non-Royal folk usually go with would allow us to get a similar sized diamond for about $80,000 (60,720).The second day of Quinton Tellis' retrial opened in Mississippi on Wednesday with testimony from multiple first responders, who described in horrifying detail how Jessica Chambers was burned beyond recognition when she stumbled out of the woods in 2014 after being set on fire.

Tellis, 29, is being retried on capital murder charges, after jurors could not reach a unanimous verdict last year.

A firefighter who was on the scene on December 6, 2014, told the court that the 19-year-old's body was completely covered in burns and 'almost looked like shoe leather.

'Her face itself...she was unrecognizable,' the first responder said from the stand. 'There was black charring.'

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Day two: Quinton Tellis, 29, is pictured in Mississippi court Wednesday on Day 2 of his second trial. He is accused of killing 19-year-old Jessica Chambers by setting her on fire in 2014

Jessica's mother, Lisa, is pictured in the courtroom during first responders' testimony Wednesday

According to the witness, when another firefighter asked Jessica who did this to her, she responded with what sounded like 'Eric' or 'Derek, but it was a struggle for her to speak.

Ben Chambers, Jessica's father, began sobbing in the courtroom while listening to the gut-wrenching testimony.

An EMT who administered first aid to Jessica told the jury that the first thought that came to his mind when he saw the victims condition was that they needed a medical helicopter.

'Skin was hanging off of her lips [and] out of her nose,' the paramedic recounted. 'Her eyelashes and eyebrows were gone. The hair on top of her head was a big singe-ball.'

He added that Jessica attempted to speak but her voice was raspy and it was nearly impossible to make out the words she was trying to utter.

The EMT said he heard Chambers say 'her-see,' which he took to mean 'thirsty,' and 'ole,' which he thought stood for 'cold.'

He also said he heard the teenager say 'eh-wih,' which he took to mean 'Eric.'

Next up on the witness stand was yet another first responder, who said he was surprised to have learned that the victim was only 19.

She didnt look like a 19-year-old girl laying there, he said, adding that he thought at the time she was between 40 and 50 years old.

The court also heard this morning from two Panola County Sheriff's deputies, who both testified that when they asked the victim to name her attacker, she said what sounded like 'Eric.'

Chambers could not say the man's last name but indicated that it was not her boyfriend.

When asked whether the assailant was black or white, she responded with what sounded like 'black,' according to one of the deputies.

The defense has previously emphasized that multiple emergency workers heard the dying Chambers say someone named 'Eric' attacked her, calling the prosecutions evidence 'speculation' or 'unreliable.'

Jurors heard testimony from Jessica's mother, Lisa Chambers (seen left on the witness stand), who talked about the teen's final days

Jessica's best friend, Lakesha Meyer, testified about meeting Tellis for the first time, just a few days before the deadly attack

Dr. Carolyn Higdon, a speech language pathology expert, told the court that based on Jessica's injuries, the woman would have been unable to utter the names 'Eric' or 'Derrick'

Ben Chambers, father of Jessica Chambers, is seen in the courtroom on the first day of the retrial of Quinton Tellis in Batesville Tuesday

Tellis faces another murder indictment in the 2015 stabbing death of another woman in Monroe, Louisiana. Hes already pleaded guilty to unauthorized use of her debit card.

The 29-year-old defendant is currently serving a prison sentence in Mississippi on an unrelated burglary charge.

Prosecutors say cellphone locations, video, DNA on a keychain and Tellis statements link him to Chambers death. A new witness may testify she picked up Tellis that night near where Chambers was burned.

'Once you hear all the evidence the state offers, youre going to have plenty of evidence to convict him of capital murder,' Panola County Assistant District Attorney Jay Hale told jurors in his opening statement Monday.

Defense attorney Darla Palmer urged jurors in her opening statement to disregard evidence about cellphone locations that she said cant prove Tellis and Chambers were in exactly the same place.

Deputy Prosecutor Jay Hale holds up a picture of Jessica Chambers in court Tuesday

Defense attorney Darla Palmeron gives an opening statement during Day 1 of the retrial

Tellis' first trial in 2017 ended in a hung jury because the panel could not reach a verdict

'This evidence is always going to show, its always going to say Eric did it, no matter what the state does to diminish that, and we would ask that you find Quinton not guilty.'

Hale said investigators had interviewed many people named Eric or Derek but ruled all of them out. He said that after the inquiry reached a dead end, investigators re-examined Tellis who had been an early suspect.

Hale said investigators focused on him after he changed his story and admitted he had been with Chambers later on the Saturday of her death.

'Quinton Tellis had not been truthful to investigators,' Hale said.

On the first day of testimony, the jury heard from Jessica's mother, Lisa Chambers, who described in detail the last few days in her daughter's life, reported WREG.

Next up on the stand was Jessica's best friend Lakesha Meyer, who recounted how she first met Tellis a few days before Chamber's death, and how the 19-year-old introduced the man as just a friend.

Jessica suffered burns to 98 per cent of her body and later died from her injuries

After a break, Dr. Carolyn Higdon, a speech language pathology expert, took the witness stand, telling the court that based on her analysis of autopsy photos showing extensive damage to the victim's mouth, larynx and lungs, and her conversations with Chambers' doctor, the young woman would have been unable to utter the names 'Eric' or 'Derrick.'

That testimony could help undercut a key defense argument  that multiple EMTs heard a dying Chambers say someone named 'Eric' attacked her. Defense attorneys urged jurors to trust that testimony  a foundation of their arguments in the first trial.

Tellis has always insisted that he is innocent, telling police in the interrogation room, even after being threatened with the death penalty if it went to trial: 'I told the truth. I didn't kill Jessica. It ain't even in my heart to kill nobody.'

His family claim that the police are simply looking for someone to blame in the case, which has become a highly charged racial issue after Tellis, who is black, was arrested for the death of the pretty, white cheerleader.

Chambers told her mother, Lisa, she was going out to get something to eat at around 5.15pm, on December 6, 2014.

Speaking to the producers of the new docu-series 'Unspeakable Crime: The Killing of Jessica Chambers,' which premiered September 15 on Oxygen, Lisa said she called Jessica while she was out to see what time she would be home.

Tellis (left) also faces another murder indictment in Louisiana, where he is accused in the torture death of Meing-Chen Hsiao (right), a 34-year-old Taiwanese graduate student

'I called her and she said ill be home in a little while Momma, but I love you.

'I told her I loved her too. She said, 'See you in a little bit.'

'That's the last I heard from her.'

Chambers later stumbled out of the woods near her hometown of Courtland, Mississippi, after she and her car were set on fire.

The last time Lisa Chambers saw Jessica alive was at the hospital. Her daughter had suffered burns to 98 per cent of her body and was barely clinging on to life.

The volunteer firefighters and first responders who found Jessica were shocked at the state of her injuries, with one describing her as resembling a 'zombie.'

He said that one of his fellow firefighters had asked her who had done this to her.

'She said "Eric did this." We were all kinda stunned.

During the investigation, police interviewed several people called Eric or Derek, but none were charged.

After Tellis was arrested, prosecutors told the court last year that Jessica may have been trying to say another name but her throat and mouth were so badly burned that it only appeared to sound like 'Eric' or 'Derek.'

Prosecutor John Champion said during the first trial that Tellis thought he suffocated Chambers while they were having sex before he drove her car to a back road.

Prosecutors also showed a number of text messages, which appeared to show Tellis, who was from the same neighborhood as the victim and attended her high school years earlier, pestering Jessica for sex.

After he believed he'd choked her to death, Champion said that Tellis ran to his sister's house nearby, jumped in his sisters' car, stopped to pick up gasoline from a shed at his house and torched Chambers' car and her.

Tellis also faces another murder indictment in Louisiana, where he is accused in the torture death of Meing-Chen Hsiao, a 34-year-old Taiwanese graduate student at the University of Louisiana at Monroe.

Tellis will not return to Louisiana to face the charges or an indictment until the conclusion of his case in Mississippi because of the extradition agreement.

Unspeakable Crime: The Killing of Jessica Chambers, airs Saturdays at 7pm ET/PT on OxygenFormer U.S. President Barack Obama took a swipe at President Donald Trump's attitude to the environment on Wednesday, saying the world needs 'political and social commitment' to achieve sustainability.

'Unfortunately we have a U.S administration that deals differently around these issues,' he said to laughter from the audience as he addressed business leaders in the Norwegian capital of Oslo.

In a wide-ranging talk, Obama outlined the need for a higher global focus on the environment, greater diversity in business, and backed using technology to solve global problems.

'The single highest priority that I see globally at this point is the issue of environmental sustainability,' he said, adding that the 2015 Paris Agreement's global climate targets were 'a first step in the right direction. But only the first step.'

Barack Obama took a swipe at President Trump's attitude to the environment, saying the world needs 'political and social commitment' to achieve sustainability, adding 'the single highest priority that I see globally at this point is the issue of environmental sustainability'

Obama, speaking in Oslo, made no mention of Trump by name but told the audience he feared 'rising protectionism and authoritarianism' in the U.S since he left office

He said environmental sustainability would only come when leaders adopted new technologies. 'But that takes political and social commitment that right now is not forthcoming.'

The Obama administration ratified the Paris Agreement in September 2016.

Trump dumped the U.S commitment in June 2017.

Obama made no mention of his successor by name but told the audience at the Oslo Business Forum in the Norwegian Capital that he feared 'rising protectionism and authoritarianism' in the U.S since he left office.

Dressed in a dark suit over a light blue open-collared shirt, Obama said Norway was a country that used 'political and social' levers to achieve social democratic goals.

Obama also praised Norway for its focus on gender equality. 'If you are on the board of a company and you look around and it is all a bunch of men, you have got a problem'

Tickets to the event started at NOK 5,000 ($616) and went up to NOK 32,000 ($3945) for a chance to pose with Obama in a photo

He also praised Norway for its focus on gender equality - it's one of very few countries that has legislated on women in the boardroom, requiring 40 percent of non-executive board members to be female.

'Companies with a critical mass of women in leadership perform better, are more profitable, have higher stock valuations. If you are on the board of a company and you look around and it is all a bunch of men, you have got a problem. You are not well organized to succeed,' he said.

Obama added that, in a U.S that was undergoing rapid demographic changes, companies which failed to recruit Americans who're Asian or Latin American in origin were doomed to fail in the long term.

'This is not charity or social policy,' he said. 'This is a matter for your business success.'

The Oslo Business Forum, who put on the conference, did not disclose what they paid Mr Obama to have him speak.

Tickets to the event started at NOK 5,000 ($616) and went up to NOK 32,000 ($3945) for a chance to pose with him a photo.Advertisement

David Hockney has unveiled a stained glass window tribute to the Queen at Westminster Abbey, saying: 'I hope she'll like it'.

Spanning over eight metres high, the new work is the 81-year-old's first in stained glass.

Designed on his iPad and set in Hockney's Yorkshire birthplace, it reflects the Queen's love for, and connection with, the countryside.

Hockney was commissioned to create the window to celebrate the Queen's reign.

Scroll down for video

David Hockney has unveiled a stained glass window tribute to the Queen at Westminster Abbey, saying: 'I hope she'll like it'

The brightly-coloured abstract window of yellow, red, blue, pink, orange and greens, features hawthorn blossom and stands out in its historic setting.

Hockney said the iPad was 'a natural thing to use' because it is 'back-lit like a window'.

The much-loved artist, who recently broke his own auction record with a 21.1 million painting, said that designing his first stained glass window 'was a challenge' adding: 'I've learnt something about glass.'

He said of wanting to depict the countryside: 'Landscape is nature. The previous window put up in here was also nature, lilies.

'I chose the hawthorn which is (for) four days (like) the moment when champagne looks as though it's been poured over all the bushes.

Spanning over eight metres high, the new work at Westminster Abbey is the 81-year-old artist's first in stained glass

Designed on his iPad and set in Hockney's Yorkshire birthplace, it reflects the Queen's love for, and connection with, the countryside

'It's a rather celebratory thing. It's the height of the spring and summer'.

The artist said of the window's Westminster Abbey home: 'I know this is a historic place and I know it's going to last.'

Hockney once said that he turned down the chance to paint the Queen because he was 'very busy painting England actually, her country'.

Asked whether he had any response to the window from the monarch, who has not yet seen the finished result, he said: 'Not yet, but I hope she'll like it. I'm sure she will.'

Hockney's new work, The Queen's Window, stands just next to Parliament.

David Hockney poses in front of The Queen's Window, a new stained glass window he has designed, at Westminster Abbey

The much-loved artist, who recently broke his own auction record with a 21.1 million painting, said that designing his first stained glass window 'was a challenge' adding: 'I've learnt something about glass'

But he said of British politics: 'I don't really know that much about it actually, I don't care that much. There are always crisis. There's always this, there's always that. I'm sure it's going on now. But I'm staying out of it.'

Hockney, famous for both his Yorkshire landscapes and paintings of Californian life, was inspired by Matisse, Chagall 'and a few other people' for the new work.

He was asked to design something symbolic or representational, rather than a figurative design.

Westminster Abbey said that the result 'reflects the Queen as a countrywoman and her widespread delight in, and yearning for, the countryside'.

The brightly-coloured abstract window of yellow, red, blue, pink, orange and greens, features hawthorn blossom and stands out in its historic setting

Hockney was commissioned to create the stained glass window at Westminster Abbey to celebrate Queen Elizabeth's reign

The Dean of Westminster, the Very Reverend Dr John Hall, added: 'I'm excited by it.

'I think there's absolutely no harm at all in having something which is particular and vibrant and different.

'Some of the glass here is not very good. Some of it is not too bad, but this has a wonderful, beautiful, easily accessible vibrant colour. I think people will enjoy it.'

He added: 'It's going to be here until the end. I mean, who knows what's going to happen in the future! The Abbey's only been here just over 1,000 years. It'll be thousands more.'

He said of the Queen: 'She's obviously seen a sketch but she'll see it in person when she's here in November.

'You wouldn't necessarily get very much reaction out of the Queen. She absorbs things. But she's also I think quite trusting.'

Barley Studio, a stained glass studio based in York, created the window using traditional techniques.A shocking video shows a female police officer slapping a woman over the head for having a Muslim boyfriend in India.

Four officers are seen insulting the woman while they are in a police van with her in a clip that's gone viral in the country.

The woman had been detained by police after a mob dragged her and the man she was with to the local police station in Meerut in the state of Uttar Pradesh on Sunday, the Times of India reports.

A shocking video shows a female police officer slapping a woman over the head for having a Muslim boyfriend in India

In the clip, the female officer  identified only as Priyanka  is seen assaulting the woman after questioning her about her whereabouts.

The three other officers, including a head constable Salek Chand ad another constable called Neetu Singh, are also seen hurling insults at the cowering woman, who has not been named.

One of the officers  identified as a home guard called Sainserpal  is heard asking her why she 'wasn't ashamed of dating a Muslim boy.'

He then instructs Priyanka to remove the scarf that is covering the woman's face, which she does.

Four officers are seen insulting the woman while they are in a police van with her in a clip that's gone viral in the country

The Times of India asked why the woman had been detained when she had not been charged with a crime.

A police spokesman told the newspaper the girl would be freed after officers spoke to her parents to determine if she 'was under any kind of pressure in the relationship.'

The couple, who are both in their 20s, were released from custody after her parents arrived.

All four officers have since been suspended and an inquiry has been launched into their conduct, Prashant Kumar, the additional directional general of police in Meerut, confirmed.The smirking Salisbury hitman wanted for poisoning Sergei Skripal has been unmasked as a decorated GRU colonel who was awarded the Russian military's highest honour by Vladimir Putin after his service in Chechnya and Ukraine.

The real identity of one of the two assassins, identified by police as Ruslan Boshirov, is reportedly Colonel Anatoliy Vladimirovich Chepiga, 39. He was made a Hero of the Russian Federation by decree of the president during a secret ceremony in 2014.

The disclosure, uncovered by investigative journalist organisation Bellingcat in conjunction with The Telegraph, exposes as lies Putin's claims that the Skripals' would-be killers were innocent 'civilians'.

Scroll down for video.

The real identity of one of the two assassins, named by police as Ruslan Boshirov, is reportedly Colonel Anatoliy Vladimirovich Chepiga. He is said to appear in this photo (circled) with a group of fellow military graduates in Chechnya

Investigative website Bellingcat found Col Chepiga's passport photo from 2003 (left) and saw it bore a similarity to 'Ruslan Boshirov's' passport photo from 2009 (middle) and the one on his cover passport (right)

Col Chepiga and a second GRU spy, who used the name Alexander Petrov, were charged over the March poisonings by the Crown Prosecution Service, but later appeared on Kremlin-funded news channel RT to reveal their bizarre cover story.

Calling themselves tourists, they said they were only wandering around Salisbury after failing to get to Stonehenge because of snow, and stumbled on the Skripals' house - as shown on CCTV - because they were looking for Salisbury Cathedral, which has a 400ft spire and is 25 minutes in the other direction.

The pair also refused to say why they booked into an east London hotel 127 miles away - or why it contained traces of Novichok - and failed to explain why they appeared to have no luggage when they hastily travelled home to Russia.

RT even suggested the suspects weren't trained killers - hinting they were gay lovers on a romantic break because they had 'little beards, short hair cuts and tight pants'.

Their claims were dismissed as 'lies and blatant fabrications' by Downing Street, and look increasingly farcical in the light of the new revelations about Chepiga's military links.

He was eventually unmasked following a painstaking investigating relying on passport files, leaked address lists and public military information.

Petrov's true identity is still unclear, but he is thought to have been travelling under his real first name with his surname as an alias, according to The Telegraph, which said police know his genuine identity.

The men, both currently hiding in Russia, are also charged with murdering Dawn Sturgess, a local woman who found Novichok three months after the attack in March and sprayed it on her wrist believing it was Nina Ricci Premier Jour perfume. Her boyfriend, Charlie Rowley, fell critically ill but recovered.

A European Arrest Warrant and Interpol red notice have been issued for their detention.

The Kremlin was branded shameful last night for lying about the pair being holidaymakers. Boris Johnson tweeted: 'Utterly predictable news that GRU is behind Skripal atrocity.

Tom Tugendhat, who chairs the Commons foreign affairs committee, said: It is confirmation of what we have known for a long time  that Russia is serially dishonest in its foreign affairs and has again lied about its complicity. These guys are amateurs. Their cover couldnt even survive investigation by newspapers.

The Metropolitan Police, who are investigating the poisoning, and the Foreign Office declined to comment on the Bellingcat/Telegraph report. But British defence minister Gavin Williamson appeared to confirm its veracity on Twitter.

'The true identity of one of the Salisbury suspects has been revealed to be a Russian Colonel. I want to thank all the people who are working so tirelessly on this case,' Williamson said in a tweet, which was later deleted without explanation.

Prime Minister Theresa May did not address the reports directly in a speech to the United Nations in New York, but spoke of 'the reckless use of chemical weapons on the streets of Britain by agents of the Russian GRU (military intelligence)'.

The Russian Embassy in London was not immediately available to comment. The Kremlin has previously said that the suspects have nothing to do with Putin.

Col Chepiga (pictured left speaking to RT in September) was made a Hero of the Russian Federation by decree of the President during a secret ceremony in 2014

CChepiga, posing as Boshirov, (left) was captured on CCTV laughing with Alexander Petrov shortly after the attack on March 4

Bellingcat found that Chepiga has won more than 20 awards and a Hero of the Russian Federation medal during his illustrious military career.

Born in the isolated village of Nikolayevka, on the Russian-Chinese border in 1979, he is married with a teenage son.

How Bellingcat worked out the 'Ruslan Boshirov's' true identity Acting on the assumption 'Ruslan Boshirov' was a GRU officer, Bellingcat spoke to former Russian military officers to ask where he might have been trained. One suggested the Far Eastern Military Command Academy, so they browsed through its graduation photos to find a man who resembled him. They found one possible match, which seemed to show him with a group of graduates in Chechnya (see top of the article). The photo said seven of the men had won at Hero of the Russian Federation of the award, so Bellingcat searched the award on the Internet along with 'Far Eastern Military Command Academy' and 'Chechnya'. This led to a page of the Volunteer Union website, which listed a colonel called Anatoliy Chepiga, who was linked to all three search terms. They then found his name twice in leaked lists of residential addresses, which gave his date of birth as April 5, 1979. This was one year later than 'Boshirov's' cover documents, but matched up with his graduation from the military academy. Bellingcat then obtained a passport file for Col Chepiga from 2003, and found his photo strongly matched a 2009 passport photo of 'Boshirov' released by UK police, as well as his cover passport shot. Advertisement

In 2001 he graduated from the Far-Eastern Military Command Academy before being deployed to Chechnya three times.

Its website states: Anatoly Vladimirovich Chepiga was awarded the honorary title of Hero of the Russian Federation by order of the president of the Russian Federation.

The site said that his unit had deployed three times to Chechnya, where Russia was carrying out what it called a counter-terrorist operation.

His name appears under a gold star honour list on a monument to academy alumni at a base near the Chinese border.

He won the reward at around 35, a remarkably young age to receive Russia's highest honour.

The medals are normally awarded by the president personally, and are given only to a handful of people each year.

Unlike most recipients there is little public information about Chepigas life and official documents are marked top secret.

The secretive nature of the award, combined with its timing in 2014, suggests it was for actions in Ukraine. His Spetsnaz unit was pictured on the eastern Ukraine border.

Investigators also found documents that trace Chepigas movements around Russia and Europe. He pops up at a remote military unit and in Moscow where he is likely to have studied at the Military Diplomatic Academy, or GRU Conservatory.

The GRU was betrayed by Mr Skripal before he was jailed and sent to the UK in a spy swap. He and his daughter were poisoned in March in Salisbury.

Chepiga and Petrov are also accused of murdering Dawn Sturgess, who was inadvertently poisoned when she discovered a perfume bottle filled with the deadly novichok nerve agent used on the Skripals.

This undated image is alleged to show Chepiga (circled) posing with fellow members of the Russian military

Bellingcat obtained passport files Col Chepiga which included his address and date of birth

Theresa May attacks Putin at the UN for his 'desperate fabrication' over the Salisbury spy poisoning The Prime Minister attacked Russia for its 'desperate fabrication' over the Salisbury spy poisoning as she addressed world leaders in New York in September. Britain has set out detailed evidence about the prime suspects in the nerve agent attack on former spy Sergei Skripal and daughter Yulia while Russia has only sought to 'obfuscate', she said. Theresa May lambasted Russia for its 'desperate fabrication' over the Salisbury poisoning while addressing the General Assembly of the UN on Wednesday Mrs May told the United Nations Security Council: 'We have taken appropriate action, with our allies, and we will continue to take the necessary steps to ensure our collective security. Russia has only sought to obfuscate through desperate fabrication.' Mrs May called on Russia to rejoin the international consensus against the use of chemical weapons and said there should be no doubt of the international community's determination to take action if it did not. She said: 'We cannot let the framework be undermined today by those who reject the values and disregard the rules that have kept us safe. 'It will take collective engagement to reinforce it in the face of today's challenges. And in this, as has always been the case, the UK will play a leading role.' Advertisement

Investigators had to carefully piece together a complicated paper trail to arrive at Chepiga's true identity, including information on his former military academy's website.

What is the Novichok nerve agent used against the Skripals? Novichok was secretly developed by the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold war in the 1970s and 1980s. Communist scientists developed the poison so it would not be able to be detected by Nato's chemical detection equipment. They come in the form of a ultra-fine powder, Novichok is up to eight times more potent than the deadly VX gas. Victims who are poisoned by the powder suffer muscle spasms, breathing problems and then cardiac arrest. There is a known antidote to the nerve agent - atropine can block the poison. But doctors find it very tricky to administer the antidote because the dose would have to be so high it could prove fatal for the person. Advertisement

While the achievements of his fellow award-winners are detailed extensively, Chepigas simply says it was awarded by decree from the Russian president. Bellingcat speculated that he could have been given the award for operations in Eastern Ukraine  where Russias military was secretly operating in 2014.

Senior Russian military officials have since said that so-called little green men  soldiers wearing uniforms with no insignia  were in fact members of Russias Spetsnaz deployed secretly to Ukraine.

The Bellingcat website also found an undated photograph of graduates from the Far Eastern Military Command Academy on assignment in Chechnya.

It pointed out that the man on the far right looks strikingly similar to the man named as Boshirov by the Metropolitan Police  although it said it could not prove conclusively it was the same person.

They came across the photograph after sources said the school was a likely place for a Russian military officer with a specialism in Western European operations to have trained.

After further digging, they came across the mysterious Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga. Address databases link him to the Military Unit 20662  code for the 14th Spetsnaz Brigade.

The logo of the brigade is a black bat with a yellow parachute behind it. It was formed in the 1960s and has been under the command of the GRU for much of its history. According to Yuri Shvets, a former KGB agent, GRU officers were referred to as boots  tough but unsophisticated.

This undated image shows Sergei Skripal (right) and his daughter Yulia eating at a restaurant

Dawn Sturgess (left) died after spraying Novichok on her wrists thinking it was a perfume. Her boyfriend, Charlie Rowley, (right) fell critically ill but recovered. Both photos are undated

Now looking even more shaky... The 'farcical' RT interview that saw the would-be assassins claim they were innocent civilians Revelations about the military background of Colonel Anatoliy Vladimirovich Chepiga make the interview he gave to RT in September alongside the second suspected assassin Alexander Petrov appear even more farcical. Observers quickly pointed out a number of gaping holes in their story, including: The 'accidental' visit to Skripal's home CCTV released by police places the two suspects at Sergei Skripal's suburban house. Today the men admitted they may have ended up there - but claimed it was an accident. The property, which had Novichok smeared on the door, is 25 minutes away from the city centre and its cathedral - which the men said they were there to see. Ruslan Boshirov said: 'Maybe we passed it, or maybe we didn't. I'd never heard about them before this nightmare started. I'd never heard this name before. I didn't know anything about them'. The hotel 127 miles from Salisbury Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov were guests at the City Stay Hotel in Bow, East London, before poisoning Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia. The Metropolitan Police confirmed today that 'low' levels of the nerve agent were found in the two-star 48 a night hotel in May. The men chose a spot some distance from Waterloo - the main rail route to Salisbury - despite making the Wiltshire city the focus of their visit. It is 127 miles from Salisbury. The 'bad' weather Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov claimed that they only stayed in Salisbury because of heavy snow. The pair visited days after the Beast from the East hit Britain bringing unseasonably cold weather. Describing the condition Boshirov said: 'It was impossible to get anywhere because of the snow. We were drenched up to our knees'. But CCTV pictures of the men shows the pavements were largely clear of snow. They also told RT that it snowed in the city that afternoon, but weather maps from that day show sunshine and clear skies. The missing luggage The men went straight from Salisbury to Heathrow for the evening flight. But CCTV suggested that they did not have any luggage with them on their way home. Advertisement

Once a member of the GRU, it is believed to be exceptionally difficult to leave. And those who do so to join foreign agencies are punished savagely.

What is Bellingcat? Bellingcat is a British investigative journalism website that specialises on war and the criminal underground. It started as a blog in 2012 by Eliot Higgins, and relies on information gathered by 'citizen journalists' - members of the public who do not work for a professional journalism organisation. The site first received international attention for its analysis of forged data on satellite pictures showing the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 during the war in Ukraine. Its name comes from the expression 'belling a cat', which derives from a medieval fairytale about mice which plan to make a cat harmless by putting a bell around its neck. Advertisement

Viktor Suvorov, a GRU officer who defected to Britain in 1978, said new recruits were shown a video of a traitor from the agency being burned alive in a furnace as a warning.

The GRU has become adept as using so-called non-linear warfare, which uses a combination of covert special forces operations, spying, cyber attacks and internet trolls to destabilise enemy nations.

It started as an intelligence-gathering agency for Trotskys Bolshevik Red Army, and Lenin insisted it remain separate from the other intelligence organisations.

Today it still sits apart from the SVR, the external spying service, and the domestic FSB (the equivalents of Britains MI6 and MI5).

These were created when the notorious KGB was split in 1991.

The two Russian agents on Fisherton Road in Salisbury around the time of the attack in March

This map shows the progress of the spies' assassination plot, as police managed to piece together using CCTVA 'cannibal woman' who is suspected of eating up to 30 people allegedly goaded her husband into killing a waitress who was flirting with him.

Natalia Baksheeva, 43, from Russia, faces up to 15 years in jail if convicted at an upcoming trial.

Her husband Dmitry Baksheev, 35, who is nicknamed 'Devil', is suffering from tuberculosis and his role in the macabre murder and cannibalism case will be dealt with later, according to state investigators.

Police found a gruesome collection of 'steamed' and frozen human remains in the couple's kitchen in Krasnodar.

Natalia Baksheeva (left) has been charged with inciting her husband to kill waitress Elena Vashrusheva (right)

Authorities say the remains belong to the couple's 'final victim' - 35-year-old waitress Elena Vashrusheva.

At least one jar with pickled human remains, and 19 slices of skin were also discovered.

Baksheeva has been charged with inciting her husband to kill Vashrusheva, who she believed was flirting with him.

The women had a drunken row and Baksheeva demanded that her husband Dmitry murder the waitress, according to the Russian Investigative Committee (IC), who are responsible for bringing serious crimes to trial.

Dmitry Baksheev (pictured) is suffering from tuberculosis and his role in the macabre murder and cannibalism case will be dealt with later, according to state investigators

Baksheeva was in a 'fit of jealousy', it was earlier reported.

'Because of his character and psychological state of mind Dmitry lived under pressure from his wife, so he obeyed,' an official statement on the case against Baksheeva said.

IC official Anton Lopatin said: 'Following this demand, the man took out the knife that he always kept in his bag, and stabbed the woman twice in her chest.

'The victim died from her injuries on the spot.'

The investigation found that Baksheev dismembered the woman's body and posed for selfies with severed parts.

He took some body parts home. Some were cooked, and the waitress's remains were found in his fridge and freezer.

'Genetic experts proved that all samples belonged to the killed woman,' the statement added.

Investigators say Baksheeva's role in any other murders or cannibalism cases is 'not confirmed' - despite reports last year citing law enforcement sources of her 'confession' that she had at least 30 victims over 18 years.

Police found a gruesome collection of 'steamed' and frozen human remains in the couple's kitchen in Krasnodar. Pictured, Natalia Baksheeva and Dmitry Baksheev

The victims were reportedly women lured by the couple after being found on dating websites.

It is unclear if the authorities have probed another alleged murder in 2012, or looked into a picture found at the couple's flat that is believed to show a severed human head served as dinner and garnished with mandarin oranges in 1999.

Russian law does not include a specific criminal offence of cannibalism.

A source in the Krasnodar prosecutor's office said Baksheev's case will be handled later. It is not clear if or when he would face a trial.

'He is ill with TB and can infect others,' he said.

'This disease stops us from completing standard psychiatric forensic test on his sanity.'The defense team for the white cop on trial for the first-degree murder of a 17-year-old black boy in Chicago, has been critiqued for using an animated video to recreate the moments before he was killed.

Jason Van Dyke, 40, shot dead Laquan McDonald on October 20, 2014 and lawyers called upon San Francisco 3D-Forensic to create a Toy Story-style animation to help jurors imagine the events that night.

Prosecutor Marilyn Hite Ross slammed the imagery that the animation company's CEO Jason Fries admitted made McDonald appear taller on Tuesday.

Jason Van Dyke, 40, is on trial for first-degree murder at Leighton Criminal Court Building (pictured Wednesday) for the killing of Laquan McDonald in October 2014

An animated video portraying Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke and Laquan McDonald was it's shown to the jury but the prosecution poked holes in the recreation of events

Van Dyke is shown without a bulletproof vest and McDonald appeared to be wearing black

The prosecutor also had an issue with the angles shown in the video during the court session

Jason Fries created the animated video intended to show the officer's perspective during the shooting and support Van Dyke's claim that he feared for his safety

He told Leighton Criminal Court Building that the company used forensic reports, dash cam footage, drone imagery and surveillance video to create the sequence that Ross suggested defense lawyer Dan Herbert had a heavy hand in influencing.

'He gave you specific direction about what he wanted you to do, correct?' Ross asked him. He denied the claim about the video the making of which he also compared to creating a family film like Monsters, Inc.

Laquan McDonald - who was 17 at the time of his killing - would have been 21 today

The prosecution also poked holes in the way both the victim and shooter were dressed in the animation, reports WGN9.

It showed McDonald in all black instead of the jeans he wore, and Van Dyke not wearing a bullet proof vest which was also incorrect.

Additionally, the recreation showed McDonald getting closer to Van Dyke, going from 39 feet away to 13 feet in four seconds.

The four-minute clip only showed Van Dyke shooting five times despite it being known he shot McDonald approximately 16 times.

Forensics state at least one of the bullets were shot when the victim was already on the ground.

Despite the visuals with enhanced imposing angles having a good chance of influencing viewers to believe Van Dyke was more vulnerable and McDonald more threatening and sinister by connotation, Fries admitted he believed the details were 'meaningless'.

'It's a detail that's so meaningless to me that I wouldn't spend time trying to figure that out,' he said under cross-examination.

Another officer, Leticia Velez, said Wednesday she saw McDonald holding his side and believed he had a gun on him, adding he appeared to be in a 'twilight'.

'I had believed that he had something on him,' she said during her testimony, reports CBS' Beth Bria.

She later learned he was not carrying a firearm but was holding a three-inch knife.

The video showed McDonald being shot five times but he was shot at least 16 times

The court saw imagery of where bullets hit the teenager on the night of October 20, 2014

Velez told the court on the third day for the defense presenting evidence and the seventh day of the trial she was not called to the scene but went because her work partner wanted to.

'We heard the call over the radio and it sounded like officers were in distress,' she revealed about how they came upon McDonald.

Velez said she wanted to leave her vehicle when she got to the scene but her partner wanted to keep a distance.

Van Dyke - who also had Joseph Walsh, ex-Detective David March, and Officer Thomas Gaffney on the scene - said he was in fear of his life.

The three other men go on trial November 26 faces charges they lied to exaggerate the threat McDonald posed.

Police were put under investigation when dash-cam footage a year after the incident showed McDonald backing away rather than lunging with a knife as Van Dyke had claimed.

The knife on him was found to be closed.

The prosecution wrapped up testimonies last week as McDonald's mother Tina Hunter (pictured Monday) watched

On Wednesday, Officer Leticia Velez was asked if it sounded like McDonald growled on the night he was killed

The defendant pictured leaving Leighton Criminal Court Building with his wife Tiffany Van Dyke Wednesday. They wore bulletproof vests

The prosecution wrapped up testimonies last week as McDonald's mother Tina Hunter watched.

It's not known whether Van Dyke will testify.

The defendant was pictured leaving Leighton Criminal Court Building with his wife Tiffany Van Dyke Wednesday. They both wore bulletproof vests.

Under Illinois law, defendants who claim self-defense can present evidence about the past behavior of the person they killed, even if they weren't aware of that history when the killing occurred.The phenomenon, which is hard to predict and elusive, has shown up at El Porto in Manhattan Beach and Marina del Rey this week.A Colombian woman had to fake her death after her she was savagely beaten and allegedly raped by her boyfriend because she had turned down his marriage proposal.

Several months after the brutal beating, 23-year-old Diana Luna has already undergone six plastic facial surgeries to try to erase the pain she suffered the morning of June 21 and is expected to be submitted to a few more operations.

Luna recalled playing dead on two occasions before her ex-boyfriend Julio Alexander Ortiz, 33, stabbed her in the right side of her head, just above the right ear, before she miraculously escaped.

Diana Luna narrowly avoided getting killed by her jealous ex-boyfriend after she rejected his marriage proposal in June near a scenic wooded area in Bogota, Colombia

Diana Luna's face was left unrecognizable after her jealous boyfriend brutally beat her in June after she rejected his engagement proposal. She's undergone six surgeries since then

'The only thing I thought about was what my burial was going to be like,' the southern Bogota native revealed during a media round with various outlets this week outside Tunal Hospital, where surgeons have worked endlessly to restore her normal face features.

'What is my family going to think? What will become of my daughter?'

According to the Boyaca Extra, in April, Luna decided to end her abusive relationship with Ortiz, the father of then 10-month old daughter.

Ortiz did not handle the separation well, and stalked his ex-girlfriend's moves in the vicinity of the town of Usme until he managed to surprise her with a weapon in hand and ordered her to hop on his motorcycle.

The jealous boyfriend then drove off to to a local motel where he sexually forced himself upon Luna.

A surgeon (left) at a local hospital in Bogota, Colombia inspects Diana Luna's face. She has undergone six facial surgeries since a June beating at the hands of her ex-boyfriend

From there, Luna recalled, an obsessed Ortiz then took her to a farm area in the town of El Uval where he presented her with two rings, but the young woman rejected his engagement proposal.

An enraged Ortiz reacted by attacking Luna with the use of several weapons.

Ortiz used a piece of barbed wire to disfigure Luna's face 14 times.

The crazed ex-boyfriend also took a piece a cloth and wrapped it around a small saw before delivering blows to her abdomen, back and hips.

During the beating, Luna somehow was able to place a call to her family, who with the assistance of the local police was able to track her location and save her before transporting her to a hospital.

She required 49 stitches to close off the cuts in her face.

'There were wounds that jeopardized her lips, the edge of her nose,' head surgeon Marco Antonio Salazar told Univision.

'So it always increased the reconstruction's complexity level.'

Ortiz was arrested and released the same day but after a public outcry, authorities rearrested him and placed him under house arrest.

The beating briefly led to a show of rejection from her infant daughter, worsening Luna's emotional distress levels.

"I was seemed like a monster to my daughter. It was very difficult with her because she did not recognize me,' Luna said.

'She rejected me. She would see me and wouldn't recognize me. I was breastfeeding her still and she was rejecting me.'A popular horse rider sent a message saying 'you did this' before hanging herself hours after taking cocaine, an inquest has heard.

Hannah Daibell, a past president of Liverpool University's Riding and Polo Club, was discovered dead at her student accommodation in Liverpool in July.

Tragic Hannah (pictured) had sent a cryptic text reading 'you did this' hours before she committed suicide

A coroner was told of a mystery text which the 21-year-old had sent just before her death, which read: 'Whatever you come home to, you did this.'

Her friends and family said they had not noticed any signs of her wanting to end her own life.

But the exact meaning of that message remains unclear, Liverpool Coroner's Court was told. The recipient of the text has also not been revealed.

Ms Daibell was studying veterinary science and was a lover of horses. Coroner's officer Nicola Griffiths told the court that toxicology tests had confirmed she had taken cocaine 'at some point prior to her death.

That drug-taking could have led to 'comedown' effects, it was heard, with low mood, depression and anxiety some possible consequences.

Mr Rebello said: 'The texting could mean anything. It would be wrong for me to speculate.

'The metabolite [cocaine]... it may well be that has affected her. Without having taken that she might never have been put in that position.'

Hannah Daibell, 21, committed suicide hours after taking cocaine. The inquest heard that the drug-taking could have led to 'comedown' effects including low mood

The student's death would have been 'exceptionally rapid' and could have been a 'cry for help', Mr Rebello said.

Commenting on his open inquest verdict, he added: 'It's not a cop-out.

'The text may have been alerting someone that she wanted them to come and find her.

'I know how special she was to her family.'

Ms Daibell came from Bury in Greater Manchester, but was studying at Liverpool University, living in a house in in Toxteth.

The student had a close relationship with her family and there was nothing to raise any suspicion that she wanted to die, the court was told

The student had a close relationship with her family and there was nothing to raise any suspicion that she wanted to die, the court was told.

The cause of death was recorded as compression of the neck as a result of hanging.

Following her death, students expressed their sorrow over the tragedy.

On the Liverpool University Fencing Club Facebook page, Lydia Sida Page wrote: 'After hearing the devastating news about the death of Hannah Daibell, last year's president of the riding and polo team, I just wanted to say that if anyone is ever feeling isolated or down please don't suffer in silence.

'We are a team and a family, and I know anyone of us would reach out and help someone in need.

Tragic Hannah was a student at Liverpool University (pictured) where she studied veterinary science

'So please never hesitate to send a message whatever time or day it is, even if all you want is a cup of tea and a talk.

'And if for whatever reason you don't feel you can reach out to any person in fencing then the university has set up a dedicated helpline number - 0800 358 4158 - with trained counsellors available at any time to speak to you.

'So please please please never suffer in silence - we are all here for each other.'

The student's Facebook page has been set up as a memorial, headed by the words, 'Remembering Hannah Daibell - we hope that people who love Hannah will find comfort in visiting her profile to remember and celebrate her life.'

Ms Daibell's mother and father attended the inquest, but did not wish to comment.

For confidential support in the UK, call the Samaritans on 116123, email jo@samaritans.org or visit a local Samaritans branch. See samaritans.org for details.Senate Republicans don't have the votes to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court with some senators claiming there are more lawmakers harboring doubts than being publicly said but GOP leader Mitch McConnell is projecting confidence.

'We're going to be moving forward. I'm confident we're going to win. I'm confident he will be confirmed in the very near future,' McConnell told reporters on Capitol Hill Wednesday morning.

Republicans hold a 51-seat majority, meaning they can only lose one senator, if all Democrats vote no on Kavanaugh.

GOP leader Mitch McConnell is projecting confidence that Brett Kavanaugh will be confirmed

Brett Kavanaugh leaving his home on Wednesday

And several Republican senators are closely watching how the allegations against Kavanaugh play out.

Republican Senators Bob Corker of Tennessee, Susan Collins of Maine, Jeff Flake of Arizona and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska are considered the votes to watch.

But Corker says there are more doubting lawmakers out there.

'I know the media keeps characterizing three or four people, but I feel like it's a large number of them that want to see firsthand the accusation and the rebuttal, and again, will be looking at it in a very sober way,' he told NBC News. 'So I think it's much larger than you think.'

Sen. Jon Kyl, who was appointed this month to replace the late Sen. John McCain, was Kavanaugh's guide through the confirmation process.

He supports Kavanaugh but acknowledged some senators are struggling.

'I don't doubt this accusation complicates the equation for folks considering his nomination,' Kyl said.

That adds to the pressure on Kavanaugh on Thursday when he testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Not only will the eyes of the world be watching how he handles the allegations against him, so will the lawmakers who decide his fate.

Flake is on that committee. Corker, Murkowski and Collins are not but have all said they've cleared their calendars to watch it.

Christine Blasey Ford will also testify on her allegation against Kavanaugh.

Republican leadership has been closely watching the four for signs of what they might do.

Flake, Collins and Corker have been some of the most vocal in saying they want Ford to be heard.

Bob Corker said more senators have doubts than saying

Sen. Susan Collins has met with McConnell about her concerns

Collins told that directly to McConnell.

And after Murkowski told reporters Tuesday morning an FBI investigation into Kavanaugh would 'sure clear up all the questions,' she had a 30-minute meeting in McConnell's office.

Flake is the most worrisome. He is retiring after this year and has no qualms about going against the president, whose political threats against him played a part in his decision to retire.

He took to the Senate floor Wednesday afternoon and said lawmakers must have open minds.

'I do not believe that a claim of sexual assault is invalid because a 15-year-old girl didn't promptly report the assault to the authorities, as the President of the United States said just two days ago,' he said.

'We have to have open minds. We must listen. We must do our best to seek to the truth in good faith. That is our only duty,' he noted.

'My colleagues, winning at all costs is too high a cost,' he said.

McConnell is pressuring GOP senators to toe the line even taking to the Senate floor to complain of a 'smear campaign' against Kavanaugh.

Adding to the pressure points, McConnell told his senators they should expect to work through the weekend to move toward a confirmation vote on Kavanaugh.

That line could work on Collins, who is up for reelection in 2020 and could face a primary challenger.

It's less of a problem for Murkowski, who's also up for reelection in 2020 but her state has a large independent vote population and Murkowski won her last race running as an write-in candidate after she lost the GOP primary. She had no help from the party in that contest and prevailed in a race where voters had to write in her name - and spell it correctly.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski is one to watch

Sen. Jeff Flake is the most worrisome for the GOP

McConnell's confidence among growing GOP doubts came before the latest bombshell allegation against President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee - a charge of gang rape against Kavanaugh and his high school pals from Georgetown Prep.

Julie Swetnick, his new accuser, released a sworn statement through her attorney Michael Avenatti saying that Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge were there as she was abused by a 'train' of teenage boys.

She said she was drugged 'using Quaaludes or something similar' which had been put in her drink - and that Kavanaugh and his friends would spike 'punch' at parties with grain alcohol or drugs to 'cause girls to lose inhibitions and their ability to say 'No'.'

'This is ridiculous and from the Twilight Zone. I don't know who this is and this never happened,' Kavanaugh said in a statement released by the White House.

Judge was the teenage boy Christine Blasey Ford charged with being in the room when Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a high school party in the 1980s.

Kavanaugh also has denied her charge and a second allegation from Debra Ramirez, who claims the Supreme Court nominee exposed himself and thrust his penis in her face, forcing her to touch it when she pushed him away at a college party when they were at Yale.

Trump is sticking by his nominee and said Senate Republicans should have pushed through his confirmation two weeks ago so people wouldn't be talking about the sexual allegations against him right now.

'They could've pushed it through two-and-a-half weeks ago, and you wouldn't be talking about it right now, which is frankly what I would've preferred, but they didn't do that,' the president said at the United Nations in New York on Wednesday.

That time frame would have Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court before the allegations against him came to light.

Trump called Kavanaugh an 'absolute gem.'Donald Trump said Wednesday during a press conference that he would rather keep Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein than fire him, and hinted that he might delay a scheduled Thursday meeting where the two were expected to assess Rosenstein's future.

'I would much prefer to keep Rod Rosenstein,' the president told reporters near the United Nations in New York, although 'many people say I have the right to absolutely fire him.'

He added that he Trump says he might call Rosenstein 'and ask for a little bit of a delay to the meeting' so it wouldn't 'compete' for the media's attention with a high-stakes Supreme Court confirmation hearing 16 blocks down Pennsylvania Avenue.

As of Wednesday morning, Trump hadn't decided whether to keep Rosenstein, who was accused in a New York Times story of proposing to secretly record the president in chaotic moments and use a quirk of the U.S. Constitution to kick him out of office.

'Weve had a good talk,' Trump said in the afternoon. 'He says he never said it, he doesnt believe it, he gets a lot of respect from me. Hes very nice, and well see.'

President Trump said Wednesday that he's open to letting Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein keep his job because he doesn't believe stories about him plotting to secretly record their conversations to amass evidence to justify ousting him from power

Rosenstein was expected to quit or be fired on Monday but now a White House insider says President Donald Trump's mind is still split on whether to keep him

Just two days after Rosenstein told White House Chief of Staff John Kelly that he was ready to resign, it now looks like he could remain at his post  at least through the November midterm elections.

One White House official told DailyMail.com on Wednesday that the Rosenstein situation is 'very much up in the air, and it could go either way.'

Trump will be 'is in listening mode' when he meets with Rosenstein on Thursday, the official added, and 'he'll probably hear some reasons to maintain things as they are.'

Leaving Rosenstein in his job would keep him in charge of overseeing Special Counsel Robert Mueller's expansive Russia probe, which Democrats hope will find evidence that Trump's 2016 campaign colluded with the Kremlin to meddle with the presidential election.

But Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan and other conservative Republicans who have long claimed Rosenstein is an anti-Trump schemer smell his blood in the water and are demanding he appear before a committee to explain himself.

House Speaker Paul Ryan told reporters on Wednesday that he won't step in the middle of the controversy.

Tea Party Patriots chair Jenny Beth Martin wrote Tuesday in The Hill that 'Rosenstein was not on Team Trump from the very beginning of his tenure.'

Trump is 'genuinely conflicted' about what to do, according to one source close to him who spoke to The Wall Street Journal. 'Hes got an open mind about whether Rod really tried to orchestrate this.'

Some in the Republican Party believe former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe planted the stories as payback for his firing this year.

Establishment Republicans like George W. Bush-era White House press secretary Ari Fleischer believe stories about Rosenstein plotting against President Trump were planted

Some in the GOP say the New York Times stories about Rosenstein discussing secretly taping Trump and plotting for his ouster look like a hatchet job by fired former deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe

Attorney General Jeff Sessions, once thought to be teetering on the edge of quitting, now looks like a comparatively stable part of the Justice Department heirarchy

Former George W. Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer sounded that alarm on Twitter.

'The last thing POTUS should do is fire Deputy AG Rosenstein,' Fleischer tweeted. 'That story about the 25th amendment/wearing a wire read like Andy McCabe trying to get revenge for being fired. I hope POTUS doesn't fall for it.'

Congressional Republicans are also planning to issue subpoenas for memos McCabe wrote after a meeting where Rosenstein reportedly talked about recording the president.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, a Virginia Republican, told reporters on Tuesday that he might issue a subpoena as soon as Thursday.

That's when Rosenstein is scheduled to meet with President Trump at the White House to untangle the mess.

The 25th Amendment allows a majority of the Cabinet, along with the vice president, to engineer a soft coup by certifying to Congress that the sitting president is incapable of fulfilling his duties.

Rosenstein has denied everything, saying that he 'never pursued or authorized recording the president and any suggestions that I have ever advocated for the removal of the President is absolutely false.'

But on Monday he was so certain he would be fired that a Justice Department press aide drafted a farewell statement for Attorney General Jeff Sessions to issue.

'Rod Rosenstein has served the Department of Justice with dedication and skill for 28 years. His contributions are many and significant. We all appreciate his service and sincerely wish him well,' it read.

Republican senators have signaled that they are inclined to believe Rosenstein's denials, hinting that they want him to remain atop the Mueller probe as a steady hand who operates as independently of the Oval Office as a Justice Department official can.

'If theres any attempt to fire or force out Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein, that would be a huge red flag and very problematic,' Main Sen. Susan Collins told The Wall Street Journal.

Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy also downplayed the controversy, calling it 'just another sideshow in the circus.'

Sessions has recused himself from the Russia probe, to Trump's great frustration, and left the duties of overseeing the investigation to Rosenstein.

After Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, Rosenstein appointed Mueller as special counsel to take over the investigation. Rosenstein is acting in Sessions' place to oversee the probe and has the power to fire Mueller.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller (pictured) answers to Rosenstein, and there are fears that a new deupty AG wouldn't understand the Rusia probe as well  and might not be able to withstand political pressure to wrap it up

Rosenstein makes nearly all the pivotal decisions in the Mueller investigation, including signing off on indictments.

In an investigation kept decidedly out of the public spotlight, it has been Rosenstein, not Mueller, who briefs the president and stands before microphones when indictments are announced.

If Rosenstein were to depart, Mueller and his investigators would be losing the oversight of an official who has protected their work despite the relentless attacks of Trump and his congressional allies.

There is little likelihood that a successor would be nearly as familiar with the specifics of the Mueller investigation as Rosenstein has been from Day One.

There is also no guarantee that Rosenstein's successor would be able to withstand political pressures and be similarly supportive and protective of the work of Mueller's team.An unseen letter written by Sir Winston Churchill reveals for the first time how a brazen Lord Louis Mountbatten almost shot an RAF chief dead at a secret WWII conference.

The bizarre scene unfolded at the Quebec Conference which was organised in 1943 to discuss a shared military strategy for allied forces - including among other things the Battle of Normandy.

Among the items discussed was the idea of an aircraft carrier made out of ice - more specifically out of a substance called Pykrete.

The material, which was developed by a scientist called Geoffrey Pyke, was made of frozen seawater and sawdust and Lord Mountbatten - Supreme Allied Commander of the South East Asia - wanted to show it off.

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Winston Churchill (top-right) was among representatives from Britain, the United States and Canada at the Quebec conference in 1943. He is seen here with Franklin D. Roosevelt (bottom-left), Mackenzie King (top-left) and the Earl of Athlone (bottom-right). The photograph was taken at the Quebec Conference, where they planned the invasion of France under codename Operation Overlord

Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Hastings Ismay and Lord Mountbatten (clockwise from lower right) pictured in January 1943 just months before the Quebec conference

To demonstrate just how powerful the substance was he shot at a block of the substance.

But all did not go quite to plan.

In the previously unseen extract, the wartime Prime Minister recounts the moment things took a turn to the worse.

He said: 'He first fired at the ordinary ice, which was shattered.

'He then fired at the Pykrete, which was so strong that the bullet ricocheted, narrowly missing (Air Chief Marshal Charles) Portal.

'The waiting officers outside were horrified at the revolver shots and burst into the room with cries of 'they've started shooting already!'

'But who in war will not have his laugh amid the skulls - and here was one.'

The conference, which was held between British, Canadian and United States governments, was primarily aimed at deciding how to invade France and reclaim territory from Germany.

Operation Overlord, the codename for the Battle of Normandy, was discussed alongside a future nuclear strategy.

But among all these discussions, Churchill's letter recalls a very different scene at the conference.

A second conference was held in Quebec in 1944. Lord Athlone, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, And Mackenzie King (left to right) are pictured here at that one

Lord Mountbatten (left in 1979) caused quite a stir at the Quebec Conference when he fired a gun at the recently developed substance Pykrete - a mixture of frozen seawater and sawdust. Winston Churchill (right) writes about the incident in previously unseen extract (pictured), which was not in his 1951 book Memoirs of The Second World War

That of a supersized aircraft carrier made out of Pykrete being put to the test.

The idea, named Project Habakkuk, was originally conceived in 1934 but it was not until the Quebec Conference that Churchill was shown its strength - but he had heard of the material before.

Mountbatten had intended to show the gathering how tough Pykrete was, but in proving his point he almost killed one of the bystanders as the bullet ricocheted and narrowly missed him.

Prior to whipping his gun out, he'd used a hammer to demonstrate the strength of the substance.

Churchill writes: 'Mountbatten signalled to one of his staff who wheeled in on a large dumb-waiter two blocks of ice about three feet high.

'He invited the strongest man present to chop each block of ice in half with a special chopper he had brought.

'All present voted General (Henry) Arnold into the job of 'strong man'.

'He took off his coat, rolled up his sleeves, and swung the chopper, splitting the ordinary ice with one blow.

'He turned round, smiling and clasping his hands above his head in token of victory.

'He then spat on his hands, seized the chopper again, and advanced upon the block of Pykrete.

'He swung the chopper, and as he brought it down let go with a yell of pain, for the Pykrete remained entirely undamaged, whereas his elbows had been badly jarred.

'Mountbatten then capped matters by drawing a pistol from his pocket to demonstrate the strength of Pykrete against gunfire.'

The incident caused the security service personnel from outside the room to burst in, however Churchill saw the funny side, writing 'who in war will not have his laugh amid the skulls'.

The proposal for the new aircraft carrier received support from some leading figures including Mountbatten, the Supreme Allied Commander of the South East Asia.

In the previously unseen extract (pictured), which was not in his 1951 book Memoirs of The Second World War, the war time prime minister recounts the moment Mountbatten shot at a block of Pykrete, a material mimicking ice, at the Quebec Conference in 1943 - before his bullet ricocheted and narrowly missed a nearby RAF chief

It was even passed on to the National Research Council of Canada who produced a small prototype.

But it was eventually shelved due to costs and as it was felt more conventional methods were getting the job done.

Churchill's two page letter is believed to have been written with his own typewriter which was distinctive for its larger font.

It has emerged from the estate of Commodore Gordon Allen who helped Churchill write the naval portions of the book, Memoirs of The Second World War.

However, this extract didn't make the cut when the final version was published in 1951.

The draft has been consigned for sale with American auction house Nate D Sanders and is tipped to sell for 1,500 ($2,000).

A Nate D Sanders spokesperson said: 'The story of Mountbatten shooting at the Pykrete has been mentioned elsewhere, but details such as the damage of the ricocheting bullet have differed, with Churchill now adding his recollection to the record.'

The timed auction ends tomorrow.More Americans believe Brett Kavanaugh's accuser Christine Blasey Ford than are convinced by him over her sexual assault allegation, according to a new poll.

The poll, which was conducted by NPR, Newshour and Marist and released Wednesday, found that 32 percent of Americans believed Christine Blasey Ford's claim that she was sexually assaulted decades ago.

Twenty-six percent of those polled sided with Kavanaugh and 42 percent said they were not sure who was telling the truth about the alleged incident.

The results of the poll comes on the eve of the high-stakes Senate Judiciary Committee hearing with Kavanaugh and Ford on Thursday.

The new poll released on Wednesday found that 32 percent of Americans believed Christine Blasey Ford's claim that she was sexually assaulted by Brett Kavanaugh decades ago

Ford came forward publicly earlier this month to claim that Donald Trump's nominee for Supreme Court justice had sexually assaulted her at a high school party in the early 1980s.

According to the poll, the majority of Americans would oppose Kavanaugh's nomination if Ford's allegations proved to be true.

Fifty-nine percent said he should not be confirmed to the Supreme Court if the claims were true, while 29 percent said he should still be appointed.

In testimony for Thursday's Senate hearing, Kavanaugh acknowledges drinking in high school with his friends, but says he's never done anything 'remotely resembling' the sexual misconduct alleged by his chief accuser.

Two more women have come forward this week with allegations of sexual misconduct involving Kavanaugh.

Hoping the hearing will yield no new surprises, the Judiciary Committee scheduled its own vote on Kavanaugh for Friday.

The results of the poll comes on the eve of the high-stakes Senate Judiciary Committee hearing with Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford on Thursday

According to the poll, 83 percent of Republicans said they supported Kavanaugh, compared to the 9 percent of Democrats in support of him.

Gender also proved to be a factor in public support for Kavanaugh, the poll found.

Thirty-two percent of men were 'slightly more likely' to believe Kavanaugh's denial and 28 percent believed Ford.

However, 35 percent of women said they believed Ford's version of events and 20 percent believed Kavanaugh.

The poll, which surveyed 802 registered voters from September 22-24, was focused on Ford's allegations but was conducted as a second accuser, Deborah Ramirez, alleged Kavanaugh exposed himself to her while they were both students at Yale.

A third woman, Julie Swetnick, accused Kavanaugh on Wednesday of sexual misconduct.

Kavanaugh has staunchly denied all allegations of sexual assault or misconduct.Uber won a legal victory on Tuesday as a federal appeals court said drivers seeking to be classified as employees rather than independent contractors must arbitrate their claims individually, and not pursue class-action lawsuits.

In a 3-0 decision, the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco reversed a lower court judge's denial of Uber's motion to compel arbitration in three lawsuits.

It also overturned the class certification in one of the lawsuits of thousands of California drivers who had driven for the San Francisco-based ride-hailing company since August 2009.

Drivers had complained that Uber misclassified them as independent contractors to avoid having to reimburse them for gasoline, vehicle maintenance and other expenses.

Uber won a legal victory on Tuesday as a federal appeals court said drivers seeking to be classified as employees rather than independent contractors must arbitrate their claims individually, and not pursue class-action lawsuits

Some also accused Uber of wrongly refusing to let them keep all tips from passengers.

The decertified class action included both types of claims.

Class actions let people sue as a group, and potentially obtain greater recoveries than if forced to sue individually, which might prove prohibitively expensive.

Uber's defense got a boost after the US Supreme Court, in Epic Systems Corp v Lewis, ruled 5-4 in May that companies could compel workers to waive their right to class actions and instead pursue arbitration for various workplace disputes.

In Tuesday's decision, Circuit Judge Richard Clifton said arbitration was necessary in light of the Epic ruling, as well a 9th Circuit ruling from 2016 in another case against Uber.

Shannon Liss-Riordan, a lawyer for the drivers, said the overturning of the class action was expected.

She may ask an 11-judge appeals court panel to revisit the case, but said thousands of drivers are pursuing individual arbitrations in the meantime.

'If Uber wants to resolve these disputes one by one, we are ready to do that  one by one,' she said.

A lawyer for Uber, Theodore Boutrous, said: 'We are very pleased with the Ninth Circuit's order reversing class certification.'

The decision applies in nine Western US states, but could be cited by courts elsewhere.

Drivers had complained that Uber misclassified them as independent contractors to avoid having to reimburse them for gasoline, vehicle maintenance and other expenses

Uber has faced dozens of lawsuits claiming that its drivers are employees entitled to minimum wage, overtime and other benefits not afforded to contractors.

Chief Executive Dara Khosrowshahi is preparing to take Uber public next year, and the company's ability to retain drivers is critical to its growth prospects.

In his year at the helm, Khosrowshahi has tried to improve Uber's image, including by addressing federal criminal and civil probes into its business practices and stamping out its reputation as tolerant of chauvinism.

Uber also recently agreed to pay $148million and take steps to tighten data security, after the company failed for a year to notify drivers that hackers had stolen their personal information.

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan announced the settlement Wednesday between Uber and all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Uber learned in November 2016 that hackers had accessed personal data, including driver's license information, for roughly 600,000 Uber drivers in the US.

The company acknowledged the breach in November 2017, saying it paid $100,000 in ransom for the stolen information to be destroyed.

The states sued Uber, saying the company violated laws requiring it to promptly notify people affected by the breach.

Madigan said: 'Companies cannot hide when they break the law.'US Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, says the world leaders at the General Assembly laughed at the president because they respect him and enjoy his honesty.

Haley went on 'Fox & Friends' and said the coverage of Trump being laughed at was unfair and blamed the media for the negative spin.

'The media has got this so wrong. I deal with these leaders every single day, I know exactly how they think. Do they love America? No. Do they respect America? Now they do.'

'They love how honest he is and its not diplomatic and they find it funny. When he's very truthful they're taken back by it.'

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US Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley (pictured) argued on Fox and Friends that the world leaders were not laughing at Trump during Tuesday's opening remarks and that they just respect his honesty

The audience at the UN General Assembly laughed at Trump during his opening remarks on Tuesday after he bragged about being the most effective president in his first two years

Haley also criticized any talk about having the president's fitness for office questioned and said talk about removing him with the 25th Amendment is 'disgusting'

'All day yesterday they were falling over themselves to get a picture with him, to talk about how great his speech was, how strong it was,' Haley added.

'And they've never seen anything like it, so there's a respect there. I saw that the media was trying to make it something disrespectful; that's not what it was. They love to be with him.'

During his opening remarks addressing the General Assembly Tuesday Trump boasted he 'has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country in its first two years.'

The audience began to laugh and then the laughter grew after Trump added: 'So true.' He then added, 'I didn't expect that reaction, but that's OK.'

Haley also criticized talk about Trump's mental fitness for the job.

'It's gotten so disgusting, really,' Haley said. 'The idea that he's not mentally fit, the idea that we would be talking about the 25th Amendment. None of hat is true. It could not be farther from the truth.'

'How can you honestly think a man who doesn't know what he's doing is getting this much done on jobs, on trade deals  Americans are living better than they ever have and you're going to question his leadership,' Haley said.

'I looked at the media yesterday, and they all want to talk about what the worldview of the president is,' she added. 'What they need to understand is the world doesn't understand the media in America right now.'

Last week the New York Times published a story saying Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein suggested recruiting Cabinet officials to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office.

Rosenstein has disputed the story.

Addtionally, Bob Woodward's book, 'Fear: Trump in the White House,' has examples of high ranking staff members thwarting the president's ideas out of fear he could hurt national security and international relationships.

And, a New York Times op-ed that was written anonymously by an administration official earlier this month, said White House staffers have banded together to stop Trump's 'worst inclinations.'Incredible footage shows the moment a hero bus driver body slams a drunk passenger after two police officers struggle to arrest him.

John McKendry, 40, from Portstewart was on shift at the station when the brawl broke out and succeeded in leaving the thug incapacitated on the floor.

Police were called to the bus station in Coleraine in Northern Ireland to deal with a drunk passenger from Belfast on Monday afternoon.

The footage, taken on a bystander's phone, shows two police officers struggling to detain the thug who is trying to get away from their grip.

The fight moves across the station as shocked commuters look on.

The young man appears to attempt to headbutt the officers as they try to get him against the wall to cuff him.

The video was taken on a bystander's phone and shows the two police officers struggling to detain the drunk man who is trying to get out of their grip

He gets away from the officers and shouts 'come on, then', before he punches one in the face.

The bus driver then immediately pounces on the drunk man and tackles him to the ground, leaving onlookers stunned with one commenting: 'Holy f***!'

At this point, the officers cuff him as he struggles on the ground until more PSNI officers arrived and took him away.

It is not known what caused the altercation. The PSNI could not be reached for comment.On behalf of the United Kingdom let me begin by paying tribute to an outstanding leader of this United Nations, who sadly passed away this summer.

Kofi Annan was one of the great Secretaries General, a tireless campaigner for peace and progress, and a champion of human rights and human dignity  whose influence will continue to be felt around the world for years to come.

Over the course of his lifetime he witnessed the extraordinary progress that we as a community of nations have made since this organisation was founded.

Progress in which we have more than halved the number of people living in extreme poverty in this century alone.

Progress in which the number of people killed in conflicts has fallen by three quarters in just over three decades.

And progress in which millions of our citizens lead healthier and longer lives and where  thanks to advances in human knowledge  in medicine, in science and in technology  we are presented with huge opportunities in the years ahead.

Yet today  many are concerned about whether this progress will continue, and fearful about what the future holds.

For the end of the Cold War did not  as many once believed  lead to the inevitable supremacy of open economies and liberal democracies co-operating on the global stage for the common good.

Today instead we face a loss of confidence in those very systems that have delivered so much.

The belief in free markets has been challenged by the financial crisis of 2008, by the concerns of those feeling left behind by globalisation, by the anxieties about the pace and scale of technological change and what that will mean for jobs, and by the unprecedented mass movements of people across borders with all the pressures that can bring.

And after the military interventionism at the beginning of the century, people question the rationale  and indeed legitimacy  of the use of force and involving ourselves in crises and conflicts that are not ours. While at the same time being repelled by the slaughter in Syria and our failure to end it.

These doubts are entirely understandable. So too is the demand for leadership. So those of us who believe in inclusive societies and open economies have a duty to respond: to learn the lessons of the past, to meet people's concerns with practical actions not beguiling illusions and to renew our confidence in the ideas and values that have done so much to benefit so many for so long.

For be in no doubt, if we lack the confidence to step up, others will.

In the last century  whether in the rise of fascism or the spread of Communism  we have seen those on the extreme right and extreme left exploit people's fears, stoke intolerance and racism, close down economies and societies and destroy the peace of nations. And today once more we see worrying trends in the rise of these movements in Europe and beyond.

We have seen what happens when countries slide into authoritarianism, slowly crushing the basic freedoms and rights of their citizens.

We have seen what happens when corrupt oligarchies rob their nations of the wealth, resources and human capital that are so vital to unlocking a brighter future for their citizens.

We have seen what happens when the natural patriotism which is a cornerstone of a healthy society is warped into aggressive nationalism, exploiting fear and uncertainty to promote identity politics at home and belligerent confrontation abroad, while breaking rules and undermining institutions.

And we see this when states like Russia flagrantly breach international norms  from the seizing of sovereign territory to the reckless use of chemical weapons on the streets of Britain by agents of the Russian GRU.

We have to show there is a better way to meet the concerns of our people.

That way lies in global cooperation between strong and accountable states based on open economies and inclusive societies.

That ensures strong nation states provide the bonds that bring citizens together and ensures power remains accountable to those it is there to serve.

That celebrates free markets and has the confidence to reform them when they need to work better.

And that demonstrates that delivering for your citizens at home does not have to be at the expense of global cooperation and the values, rules and ideals that underpin this.

Indeed cooperation and competition are not mutually exclusive.

Only global cooperation based on a set of agreed rules can ensure competition is fair and does not succumb to protectionism, with its certain path to lost jobs and international confrontation.

And it is only global co-operation which can harness legitimate self-interest towards common goals, producing agreements on global challenges such as climate change, proliferation and increasing inclusive economic growth.

We see this cooperation here today at this UN, as we also saw it at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting earlier this year.

And here today  as Chair-in-Office of the Commonwealth  I deliver a clear statement on behalf of the Heads of Government of its fifty-three equal and independent member states. We reaffirm our shared commitment to work together within a rules based international system to address shared global challenges and foster a fairer, more secure, more sustainable and more prosperous future. This commitment takes account of the special requirements of least developed countries, and of small and otherwise vulnerable economies, and it benefits all our citizens and the wider world.

But it is not enough for us merely to make the case for cooperation. We need action, at home and in the community of nations, to show how our ideas and values can deliver practical benefits for all our people in all parts of the world.

We must recognise the legitimacy of people's concerns and act to build a global economy that works for everyone.

We must invest in the patient work of building open societies in which everyone has a stake in the future.

And we must act to uphold the international rules based system  and stand up for our values by protecting those who may suffer when it is violated.

Let me take each in turn.

First, we must respond to those who feel that the global economy is not working for them.

The pace of globalisation that has left too many people behind.

The fear that our children and grandchildren may lack the education and skills to secure the jobs of tomorrow.

And the risk that technological change could become a source of inequality and division rather than the greatest opportunity in history.

In the UK we are driving investment in industries of the future to create new jobs  from low carbon technologies to Artificial Intelligence.

We are investing in education and skills so that workers are ready to make the most of the opportunities that lie ahead.

And we are making sure people play by the rules  so that business and innovation is celebrated for creating jobs not demonised because of grievances over tax not paid or rights not respected.

And while we strive to make our own economies work for all our people  we should do the same at a global level.

In an increasingly global economy, it is not enough to ensure people play by the rules at home.

We need global co-operation to set and enforce fair rules on trade, tax and the sharing of data.

And these rules need to keep pace with the changing nature of trade and technology.

So we need to give the World Trade Organisation a broad, ambitious and urgent mandate to reform. This must address the areas where it is not functioning effectively; deal with issues that are not currently covered; and maintain trust in a system which is critical to preventing a return to the failed protectionism of the past.

Fair and respected rules are essential for business to flourish and drive growth. But recent history shows that this cannot be sustained without deeper partnerships between governments, business, international financial institutions and civil society to ensure that growth delivers for everyone.

That is why I recently visited Africa  along with British businesses  to promote trade and investment, and encourage a new partnership based on shared prosperity and shared security.

It is why at this General Assembly I co-hosted an event with Prime Minister Trudeau, Prime Minister Kagame and President Akufo-Addo calling for more support for investment and job creation for young people in the continent.

It is why the United Kingdom will maintain our commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of gross national income on official development assistance. And we will put our development budget at the heart of our international agenda, and do more to create jobs, improve skills and increase investment in emerging economies  in both our interests and theirs.

For the best way of resisting protectionism is to ensure that this century is defined by open markets that really deliver for all our people.

Second, we must build countries, not only economies, that work for everyone  inclusive societies where every citizen has a stake in the future.

These are the firm foundations on which strong and accountable nations are built. And history has consistently taught us that giving people a stake in society is the best way to ensure stability, security and economic growth.

There is no one right way to do this.

Every country must choose its own path.

But the basic tenets are common across the world.

They include a government that is transparent and accountable.

An independent judiciary to enforce the rule of law.

Free and fair elections and a free and open media.

The freedom of expression, a right to redress and property rights that are reliably enforced.

And equality, freedom of thought, opinion, religion and conscience  all found in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, signed 70 years ago.

Those of us who believe in these tenets must set an example in defending and strengthening them at home and abroad.

That is why we must call out hate speech, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia and all forms of prejudice and discrimination against minorities wherever we find it.

Like many leaders, I suspect, I do not always enjoy reading what the media in my country writes about me. But I will defend their right to say it  for the independence of our media is one of my country's greatest achievements. And it is the bedrock of our democracy.

So too will I defend objectivity and impartiality in the face of those who treat truth as just another opinion to be manipulated.

This challenge has only become more complex with the rise in social media, and online information. That is why we agreed at the G7 Summit in June to step up our efforts to respond to disinformation. And why, together with our partners, and with tech companies, we are leading efforts to reclaim the internet from terrorists and others who would do us harm.

And just as we must stand up for the values that we adhere to, so we must support countries and leaders who choose to take the often difficult steps towards a more inclusive society.

The United Kingdom will use all the levers at our disposal to do so.

Through our aid budget and commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals we will not only protect the most vulnerable but also bolster states under threat and help others sustain their progress.

Through global campaigns we will help countries to end scourges such as modern slavery and sexual violence in conflict.

And we will mobilise wider support through our alliances and membership of multilateral organisations  not only the UN, but also international financial institutions, the G7, the G20 and NATO.

And just as there is no single recipe for an inclusive society, so there is no single model for balancing the democratic demands of our public with the imperative to co-operate internationally.

The vote by the British people to leave the European Union was not a rejection of multilateralism or international co-operation. It was a clear demand for decisions and accountability to lie closer to home.

I believe the role of leadership in these circumstances is clear: it is delivering on the democratic wishes of our people and international cooperation working with allies and partners in pursuit of our shared values.

Third, we must have the will and confidence to act when the fundamental rules that we live by are broken.

This is not about repeating the mistakes of the past by trying to impose democracy on other countries through regime change.

But we should not allow those mistakes to prevent us from protecting people in the face of the worst violations of human rights and human dignity. We should not allow those mistakes to paralyse the international community when its long-established norms are violated. And we should not let our inability to prevent some of the worst conflicts today stop us from making every effort to ensure they do not happen again in the future.

For if we stand back, we allow the world to become divided into spheres of influence in which the powerful dominate the weak, and in which legitimate grievances go unaddressed.

This is not just a moral imperative. It is also a matter of self-interest. For when barbarous acts and aggression go unchecked  dictators and terrorists are emboldened.

So, we must have the confidence to act.

When the Syrian Regime used chemical weapons on its people again in April, it was Britain together with France and America who took military action to degrade the Syrian regime's chemical weapons capability and deter their use.

And when earlier this year, Russia used a toxic nerve agent in a sickening attack on the streets of Salisbury, the UK with our NATO, EU and other allies took action, expelling over 150 Russian intelligence officers: the largest collective expulsion ever.

In Burma, following the damning report of the United Nations fact-finding mission, we should show the same confidence to hold accountable those responsible for the appalling atrocities repeatedly inflicted by the Burmese military on the Rohingya, Shan and Kachin peoples since 2011.

Similarly we should gather evidence of Daesh's crimes worldwide, so ensuring justice for their victims and deterring those who might conduct such crimes in the future.

But accountability alone is not enough. We must do more collectively to prevent such atrocities in the first place, and address the causes of instability that can give rise to them.

The United Nations has a critical role to play. And it has a wide range of levers to do so from sanctions  which show the leaders of Iran and North Korea that they cannot act without consequence  to peacekeeping missions such as that in South Sudan, which is helping to prevent suffering and the collapse of law and order.

But to be able to draw effectively on these levers, the Security Council must find the political will to act in our collective interest. The UN's agencies must deliver the reforms that the Secretary General has started  to become more agile, more transparent and better co-ordinated on the ground. And to support these reforms, we must also ensure proper funding is targeted specifically at those parts of the UN that deliver results.

70 years ago the General Assembly agreed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Today we must renew the ideals and values on which that Declaration was founded.

In doing so, we must learn the lessons of the past and show through our actions how co-operation between strong and accountable states with open economies and inclusive societies can best deliver security and prosperity for all our people.

As Kofi Annan said at the start of his second term as Secretary General: 'I have sought to turn an unflinching eye to the failures of our recent past, in order to assess more clearly what it will take for us to succeed in the future.'

In that spirit, let us show unflinching resolve to renew the promise of freedom, opportunity and fairness.

A promise which has delivered for more people, in more places than at any other period in our history.

And let us ensure that promise can be fulfilled for our children and grandchildren  and for every generation to come.

Thank you.UST Global has announced the acquisition of Bangalore based SeviTech Systems, a fast-growing chip design (VLSI) services company which has emerged as one of the top ASIC design solutions firm in India. The acquisition will bring in the advanced technology and deep end-market expertise of the two companies, delivering advanced end-to-end solutions to global semiconductor manufacturers. The acquisition reinforces UST Globals strength and focus in India, and elevates its position as a worlds most premium VLSI solutions provider, and a market leader in pre-silicon engineering.

UST Globals Semiconductor business provides an end-to-end engineering and technology services that support the entire silicon lifecycle for original device manufacturer (ODM), original equipment manufacturer (OEM), integrated hardware vendor (IHV), and ASIC (Digital & Full Custom) Design, Verification & Implementation, FPGA implementation along with embedded software development. With the added capabilities and teams from SeviTech, the company will now be able to cater to the large volume of demand from global semiconductor manufacturers.

Commenting on the acquisition, Gilroy Mathew, Global Head of Semiconductor and Head of APAC, UST Global, said, Globally, our semiconductor business has seen an inspiring and phenomenal growth over the years. The acquisition of SeviTech is an integral part of our plan to strengthen our Technical Centers of Excellence providing RTL to GDSII solutions to our customers globally. With this acquisition, UST is now placed as a leader with expertise in delivering low power, high-performance chipset solutions for Automotive, Communication, Storage and other industries. The acquisition not only reinforces our VLSI capabilities but also highlights the company as an industry powerhouse focused on the high growth opportunities in the silicon world.

Prabhu Bhairi, CEO & Co-Founder, SeviTech Systems, said, The global presence of UST Global coupled with strong ASIC engineering teams of SeviTech Systems positions us to provide innovative solutions to customers worldwide. It enhances our service portfolio and strengthens our position with customers for the end-to-end chip design solutions.

Technuter.com News ServiceYoung military veterans are increasingly committing suicide, though the overall rate of suicide among veterans of all ages has gone down slightly, according to new government data.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs released its National Suicide Data Report Wednesday, revealing that veterans ages 18-34 are among those struggling the most. The rate of suicide deaths among that population increased to 45 per 100,000 people in 2016, compared to 40.4 in 2015, the most recent data available.

Suicides among that age group have been on the rise for about a decade, but the most recent numbers reflect a significant and rapid increase among young vets, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Suicides spiked significantly among veterans age 18-34 in 2016 compared to 2015, according to new federal data released Wednesday. (Stock image)

'The numbers are deeply concerning,' said Stephanie Mullen, research director for the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.

'This is a call to action and it certainly is a public health issue,' Mullen told DailyMail.com. 'It should move all Americans to come together and find a community based solution for all veterans.'

In 2016, the total number of veteran suicides fell to 6,079 compared to 6,281 in 2015, although the overall suicide rate was virtually unchanged. In 2016, 58.1 percent of veteran suicides were among those age 55 and older.

Nationwide, veterans accounted for 14 percent of suicides despite making up just 8 percent of the U.S. population. Nearly 70 percent of veterans who kill themselves do so with a firearm  compared to less than 50 percent of civilians who commit suicide.

This is a call to action and it certainly is a public health issue. -Stephanie Mullen, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America

Women were particularly vulnerable, with female vets 1.8 times more likely to commit suicide compared to non-veterans.

Also at higher risk are veterans of the National Guard or military reserve units who never served overseas. The report attributed those higher rates, in part, to the fewer benefits available to those veterans.

VA officials did not respond to multiple requests for comment by DailyMail.com, however they have said in past reports that suicide prevention among the nation's 20 million veterans is the agency's 'highest clinical priority.'

The report also called for the expansion of treatment and prevention services, as well as a focus on crisis intervention services.

'These findings underscore the fact that suicide is a national public health issue that affects communities everywhere,' VA officials said in a release. 'Our goal is to prevent suicide among all Veteranseven those who do not and may never seek care within VA's system.'

Paul Rieckhoff, CEO of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America told the Wall Street Journal that not enough resources have been committed to the problem.

'If any other population of 20 million people were exposed to these threats it would be considered a public health priority,' he said.

In 2017, the inspector general of the VA discovered that the agency's suicide hotline had routed a large number of calls to backup call centers  an issue that officials said has since been fixed.

The latest numbers follow a report released Tuesday describing the lack of follow up care for a veteran who had sought help through the Minnesota VA for suicidal thoughts. The vet killed himself less than 24 hours after officials released him from the hospital.

Nancy Olsen, a suicide prevention coordinator at Northport VA Medical Center on Long Island, New York, said she wasn't surprised that the new numbers reflect an uptick in suicides among younger veterans, because they are the ones who have been deployed most aggressively over the past two decades.

I call it the perfect storm when you have PTSD, a traumatic brain injury and substance abuse. -Nancy Olsen, Northport VA Medical Center

'Since 9/11 we've had 17 years of working with these returning folks,' Olsen told DailyMail.com. 'We get to hear some heart wrenching stories.'

In addition to post-traumatic stress disorder  often marked by nightmares and sensitivity to loud noises  many veterans experience what experts describe as 'moral wounds,' she said.

Symptoms may not be as visible as in PTSD, but the suffering (often after taking a life) is real and can challenge a veteran's sense of right and wrong.

Vets can face a number of challenges that are unique or particularly problematic within that population.

'I call it the perfect storm when you have PTSD, a traumatic brain injury and substance abuse,' Olsen said. 'That really wreaks havoc on the individual and makes functioning and maintaining relationships very difficult.'

While Olsen said VA facilities can always use more people to work with veterans in need, she said there are many programs and resources available.

About two years ago Northport VA began using a computer program called ReachVet, which uses data collected by the VA to identify the 1 percent of the population most at risk for suicide.

The program looks at factors such as overdoses, recent emergency room visits, and multiple medications being prescribed to one person to identify which of the roughly 32,000 people served by Northport VA most urgently need outreach from a professional.

'It's really turned out to be a good tool,' Olsen said.Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has raised eyebrows by referring to the sex crimes prosecutor hired to question Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and his accuser as a 'female assistant'.

'We have hired a female assistant to go on staff and ask these questions in a respectful and professional way,' the Kentucky Republican told reporters at the Capitol on Tuesday evening, shortly before Maricopa County, Arizona prosecutor Rachel Mitchell was announced as outside counsel for Thursday's hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

'We want this hearing to be handled very professionally, not a political side show like you saw put on by the Democrats when they were questioning Judge Kavanaugh,' McConnell continued.

Mitchell's hiring was widely seen as a move to avoid the optics of having the all-male GOP members grill Christine Blasey Ford, who accuses Kavanaugh of attempting to rape her at a house party in the 1980s, when they were both in high school.

McConnell's used of the phrase 'female assistant' drew ridicule from pundits on the left, who characterized it as dated and sexist. A spokesperson for McConnell did not immediately return a request for comment from DailyMail.com.

'We have hired a female assistant to go on staff and ask these questions in a respectful and professional way,' McConnell (center) told reporters at the Capitol on Tuesday evening

Corridors of power: Rachel Mitchell was spotted in the Capitol Thursday

Senate Republicans are bringing in Arizona sex crimes prosecutor Rachel Mitchell (above in 2004) to question Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and his accuser on Thursday

''Female assistant'?! Really?' wrote New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow on Twitter. 'How about you elect female senators and place them on the committee? No, you want to use women as tools against other women. You don't want to empower them, you want to exploit them.'

'The other old white men advised McConnell that calling her a 'female assistant' instead of a 'gal' would keep all the broads happy,' one Twitter user wrote.

Shortly after McConnell's remarks, the Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, named Mitchell as the outside counsel for the hearings.

Mitchell, a Republican, has been a prosecutor since 1993, and leads the Special Victims Division in the Maricopa County Attorney's Office in Phoenix - where she would have worked with the county's controversial sheriff, Joe Arapaio, until he was voted out of office last year.

She supervises attorneys who handle cases involving child molestation, sexual assault and computer crimes against children in Arizona's most populous county.

Kavanaugh leaves his home in Chevy Chase, Maryland on Wednesday. Mitchell will question him as well as Ford if all goes as planned in the hearing on Thursday

Veteran sex crimes prosecutor Rachel Mitchell (left) will question Christine Blasey Ford (right) at Thursday's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing

Christine Blasey Ford's allegation that Kavanaugh drunkenly attempted to rape her when they were teenagers has predictably raised a political storm in the #MeToo era, and Mitchell was hired in part due to Republican concerns about the optics of having the all-male GOP members of the committee grilling the female accuser.

Utah Republican Orrin Hatch is the panel's oldest member at 84, while Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse is the youngest Republican on the committee at 46.

Ford's attorney's have repeatedly objected to an outside counsel, however, insisting that the senators themselves must conduct the questioning.

Democrats on the Judiciary Committee have also blasted the move to hire an outside counsel, with a spokesperson for ranking member Dianne Feinstein telling DailyMail.com that it would 'create a trial-like atmosphere' in the hearing.

As a prosecutor in Maricopa County, Mitchell would have worked closely with Arpaio, who was pardoned by President Donald Trump last year for ignoring a court order to cease 'rounding up' people suspected of immigration violations.

The county prosecutor's office is separate from the sheriff's office, however. In 2011, Mitchell was tasked to a unit that investigated why hundreds of sex crimes had gone unresolved or were not adequately investigated by the sheriff's office.

The crimes dated from 2007 back to 2005, the year that Mitchell was first appointed as head of the Special Victims Division in a controversial shakeup.

A 2016 audit also found some 4,000 untested rape kits in Maricopa County, a backlog that investigators are currently working through. Advocates blame a lack of funding for the backlog, and say that it is police, not prosecutors, who are typically responsibly for testing rape kits.

Mitchell, who has decades of experience prosecuting sex crimes, 'has been recognized in the legal community for her experience and objectivity,' committee Chairman Grassley said in a statement Tuesday.

Rachel Mitchell makes an opening statement in the trial of Karl LeClaire in 2004. The former priest pleaded guilty to sexually motivated aggravated assault on the trial's second day

'I'm committed to providing a forum to both Dr. Ford and Judge Kavanaugh on Thursday that is safe, comfortable and dignified,' Grassley said.

Prior to the announcement of Mitchell's hiring, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell raised eyebrows by referring to her as 'female assistant to go on staff and to ask these questions'.

Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery, Mitchell's boss, praised her experience in an interview with the Arizona Republic, calling her an 'objective prosecutor' who has a 'caring heart' for victims.

He said he was contacted by staff members of the Judiciary Committee over the weekend about Mitchell's qualifications.

Prior to leading Maricopa County's Special Victim's Division, Mitchell spent 12 years running the bureau in the Division responsible for the prosecution of sex-related felonies, including child molestation, adult sexual assault, cold cases, child prostitution and computer-related sexual offenses.

The Division's other bureau specializes in family violence. Mitchell is currently on leave from her job in Maricopa County, according to Grassley's statement.

Mitchell (left) is seen presenting at a 2016 conference of the National Native American Law Enforcement Association. She will question both Ford and Kavanaugh on Thursday

Mitchell has won several awards, including being named Outstanding Arizona Sexual Assault Prosecutor of the Year by Governor Janet Napolitano in 2003, and the 2006 award for Outstanding Child Abuse Legal Professional Award for Excellence from the Arizona Children's Justice Task Force.

In a 2012 interview with FrontLine, Mitchell explained that she had never planned to become a sex crimes prosecutor until, while working as a law clerk, she assisted in the prosecution of a youth choir director accused of abuse.

'It struck me how innocent and vulnerable the victims of these cases really were. When I became an attorney with the office I prosecuted other kinds of cases, but I was drawn back to this area,' Mitchell said.

Mitchell also spoke about the frequent reluctance of young sexual assault victims to come forward - a topic that will surely be raised on Thursday given Ford's 36 years of silence about the assault that she alleges took place when she and Kavanaugh were both in high school.

Mitchell (seen in 2004) will come under intense scrutiny from Democrats to see if she appears to side with Kavanaugh in Thursday's questioning of the nominee and his accuser

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

'People think that children would tell right away and that they would tell everything that happened to them. In reality children often keep this secret for years, sometimes into their adulthood, sometimes forever,' Mitchell said.

'And they may or they may not tell everything. They may partially disclose to see how people are going to react to them. 'I'll tell you the least embarrassing thing first, and I'm going to see whether you are going to get mad at me or whether you are going to help me. Then if I get a positive response, I may tell some more,'' the veteran prosecutor continued.

She also said that the 'largest misconception' about sexual offenses is 'that 'stranger danger' is the rule rather than the fairly rare exception', adding that 'about 90-95 per cent' of victims know the offender.

In July 2014, Mitchell prosecuted a former church volunteer in the Phoenix suburb of Scottsdale who molested children in his care as a church baby sitter and camp counselor over a seven-year period. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison with lifetime probation.

'People want to go to a church on a Sunday and feel safe,' Mitchell said at the time, adding that the settings of his actions 'should be taken into account.'

In 2015, Mitchell prosecuted a 13-year veteran of the Mesa Police Department who groped two women, one of whom had passed out.

Her tenure in Maricopa County has not been entirely without controversy, however.

In 2003, Mitchell declined to prosecute a husband accused of beating and neglecting his quadriplegic wife, the Phoenix New Times reported. The prosecutor said that the woman had changed her story and that there was not enough proof to bring the case to trial.

In 2011, Mitchell's office drew criticism by proffering a plea deal for six months in prison to a Jehova's Witness elder who had admitted to sexually abusing a teenage boy in the 1990s.

The victim came forward some 30 years after the abuse occurred - but Mitchell said that it was difficult to be sure what age the victim had been when he was abused, which can dramatically affect sentencing guidelines.

Mitchell said that specific memories that can date a claim - so-called 'time anchors' - are crucial in assessing decades-old claims.

''It's not uncommon for victims, especially teenage male victims, to tell you, 'I was this age when it happened,'' she told the New Times. 'Then, when you get 'time anchors' from them, you find out they were actually older.'

Mitchell continued: 'It's a normal thing to do where you have a coping mechanism [in which] they imagine that they were younger, because, 'If I were older I wouldn't have let it happen.''

However, Mitchell has also brought other successful prosecutions against sex offenders even though decades had passed since the the crimes.

In 2005, she won a conviction against former Catholic priest Paul LeBrun, who had been accused of molesting six boys between the ages of 11 and 13 in the 1980s and early 90s. LeBrun was sentenced to 111 years in prison.

Last year, the county attorney's office introduced a sex crimes protocol - the first in its history.

The new policy manual will ensure that prosecutors have a guide 'so that we can do the best we can for victims,' Mitchell told a local NPR station.

'It's always hard to know which victims were not victims or which people were not victims because your system worked,' Mitchell said in a January interview with Phoenix radio station KJZZ.Brett Kavanaugh will admit to drinking too much when he testifies before senators on Thursday but he will emphasize he 'never sexually assaulted anyone - not in high school, not in college, not ever.'

The Supreme Court nominee's testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee was released Wednesday and was written before a bombshell allegation that Kavanaugh abetted with drugging girls and gang raping them in high school.

Kavanaugh denied that allegation in a statement released by the White House: 'This is ridiculous and from the Twilight Zone. I don't know who this is and this never happened.'

Brett Kavanaugh leaving his home in Chevy Chase, Maryland, on Wednesday. He and Christine Blasey Ford testify Thursday

In his Senate testimony, Kavanaugh will plead with senators for his judicial career and the career appointment of a lifetime.

Not only will the eyes of the world watch how he addresses Christine Blasey Ford's allegation he sexually assaulted her while they were high school students in the 1980s, lawmakers will be weighing his every word to decide on how to vote on President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee.

Kavanaugh will admit to drinking but emphasize he never assaulted anyone.

'I spent most of my time in high school focused on academics, sports, church, and service. But I was not perfect in those days, just as I am not perfect today. I drank beer with my friends, usually on weekends. Sometimes I had too many. In retrospect, I said and did things in high school that make me cringe now,' he will say.

'I never did anything remotely resembling what Dr. Ford describes,' he will say. 'I categorically and unequivocally deny the allegation against me by Dr. Ford. I never had any sexual or physical encounter of any kind with Dr. Ford. I am not questioning that Dr. Ford may have been sexually assaulted by some person in some place at some time. But I have never done that to her or to anyone. I am innocent of this charge.'

Ford will testify before senators separately on Thursday.

Kavanaugh does not address an allegation from Debra Ramirez, who charges he exposed himself to her at a college party when they were students at Yale University, thrust his penis in her face, and forced her to touch it when she pushed him away.

He has denied that charge.

But there could be more from him to come.

His statement, released by the Senate Judiciary Committee, has brackets at the end with the words: 'additional testimony to come.'

But he does address sexual assault in general, saying it's 'horrific,' 'morally wrong,' and victims deserve to be heard.

And he repeats his charge he is a victim of a 'smear campaign.'

'There has been a frenzy to come up with something - anything, no matter how far-fetched or odious - that will block a vote on my nomination. These are last minute smears, pure and simple,' he will say.

And he again will vow to stay in the confirmation process: 'I will not be intimidated into withdrawing from this process. This effort to destroy my good name will not drive me out. The vile threats of violence against my family will not drive me out.'

His confirmation is far from guaranteed and he is in an all-out bid to save his nomination.

Kavanaugh sat for a joint interview with Fox News alongside his wife, Ashley, on Monday where he directly took on accusations by a two women who have made explosive assault allegations against him from decades ago.

'What I know is the truth, and the truth is I've never sexually assaulted anyone,' Kavanaugh told Fox News' Martha MacCallum in an interview where the couple were seated side-by-side.

And President Trump has stood by his nominee.



Kavanaugh is in an all-out bid to save his nomination, doing an interview with Fox News on Monday with his wife Ashley

Christine Blasey (now Ford) and Brett Kavanaugh in their respective high school year books

Kavanaugh's testimony ended with a note there was additional testimony to come

Republicans hold a 51-seat majority in the upper chamber, meaning they can only lose one senator, if all Democrats vote no on Kavanaugh.

Several Republican senators are closely watching how the allegations against Kavanaugh play out.

Republican Senators Bob Corker of Tennessee, Susan Collins of Maine, Jeff Flake of Arizona and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska are considered the votes to watch.

But Corker says there are more doubting lawmakers out there.

'I know the media keeps characterizing three or four people, but I feel like it's a large number of them that want to see firsthand the accusation and the rebuttal, and again, will be looking at it in a very sober way,' he told NBC News. 'So I think it's much larger than you think.'

Sen. Jon Kyl, who was appointed this month to replace the late Sen. John McCain, was Kavanaugh's guide through the confirmation process.

He supports Kavanaugh but acknowledged some senators are struggling.

'I don't doubt this accusation complicates the equation for folks considering his nomination,' Kyl said.

Their doubts come as a new bombshell dropped on Wednesday - a charge of gang rape against Kavanaugh and his high school pals from Georgetown Prep.

Julie Swetnick, his new accuser, released a sworn statement through her attorney Michael Avenatti saying that Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge were there as she was abused by a 'train' of teenage boys.

Accuser: Julie Swetnick's dramatic testimony is a new blow to Brett Kavanaugh

She said she was drugged 'using Quaaludes or something similar' which had been put in her drink - and that Kavanaugh and his friends would spike 'punch' at parties with grain alcohol or drugs to 'cause girls to lose inhibitions and their ability to say 'No'.'

'This is ridiculous and from the Twilight Zone. I don't know who this is and this never happened,' Kavanaugh said in a statement released by the White House.

Judge was the teenage boy Christine Blasey Ford charged with being in the room when Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a high school party in the 1980s.

Kavanaugh also has denied her charge and a second allegation from Debra Ramirez, who claims the Supreme Court nominee exposed himself and thrust his penis in her face, forcing her to touch it when she pushed him away at a college party when they were at Yale.

Trump is sticking by his nominee and said Senate Republicans should have pushed through his confirmation two weeks ago so people wouldn't be talking about the sexual allegations against him right now.

'They could've pushed it through two-and-a-half weeks ago, and you wouldn't be talking about it right now, which is frankly what I would've preferred, but they didn't do that,' the president said at the United Nations in New York on Wednesday.

That time frame would have Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court before the allegations against him came to light.

Trump called Kavanaugh an 'absolute gem.'Multiple activists have been arrested in Washington DC as actress Alyssa Milano led massive protests against Brett Kavanaugh on the eve of the high-stakes Senate hearing.

Demonstrators wearing 'Believe Women' t-shirts screamed and chanted on Wednesday outside the offices of several senators in protest over Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court.

Several women were arrested in the hall of the Dirksen Senate Office Building and outside the office of Alaska Republican Senator Dan Sullivan.

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Actress Alyssa Milano led protesters in the Senate on Wednesday against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh

Multiple activists were arrested in Washington DC on Wednesday as they protested against Brett Kavanaugh on the eve of the high-stakes Senate hearing

One of those women screamed for an end to rape as she was led away in restraints by US Capitol Police.

Activists also held up signs outside Maine Senator Susan M. Collins' office in a bid to persuade her to vote against President Trump's Supreme Court nominee.

Alyssa Milano led protesters as they banged on the door of Mississippi Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith to urge her staffers to listen to the stories of sexual assault survivors.

'Open the door, hear the stories,' the Charmed actress and fellow protesters chanted repeatedly.

Milano tweeted that she was in DC because 'I don't believe any man's misogyny should take precedent over a survivor's humanity'.

'We tried to see (senators) Murkowski, Collins and Hyde-Smith today and share our stories of survival. They refused to see us.'

A tearful Alyssa Milano led the massive protests against Brett Kavanaugh on Wednesday - just days after revealing she was a victim of sexual assault

Alyssa Milano led protesters as they banged on the door of Mississippi Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith to urge her staffers to listen to the stories of sexual assault survivors

Emily Thompson (fron left) recounts her story of being sexually assaulted beside protesters including actress Alyssa Milano

The Charmed actress (left) cried as she and other protesters shared stories of sexual assault as they demonstrated against the nomination of Kavanaugh

Many protesters wore shirts or sashes with 'Believe Women' emblazoned across it as they were led away by US Capitol Police

Activists hold signs up outside the office of Maine Senator Susan M. Collins in support of Kavanaugh's chief accuser Christine Blasey Ford

Activists chanted loudly in the hall of Dirksen Senate Office Building during the protest

Capitol Police arrested this activist at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Wednesday

Milano's appearance on Capitol Hill comes just days after revealing she was sexually assaulted 30 years ago but never reported the incident to authorities or told her parents because 'justice was never an option.'

Protesters have been flooding Capitol Hill all week in support of Kavanaugh's chief accuser Christine Blasey Ford.

Authorities are preparing for hundreds more demonstrators on Thursday when Senators head both Ford and Kavanaugh's sides.

In testimony for Thursday's Senate hearing, Kavanaugh has acknowledged drinking in high school with his friends, but says he's never done anything 'remotely resembling' the sexual misconduct alleged by his chief accuser.

Two more women have come forward this week with allegations of sexual misconduct involving Kavanaugh.

Hoping the hearing will yield no new surprises, the Judiciary Committee scheduled its own vote on Kavanaugh for Friday.

US Capitol Police escorted a smiling woman from the building on Wednesday

A woman wearing a 'Believe Women' shirt was escorted away in restraints by Capitol Police

A demonstrator shouts to end rape as she is arrested outside the Capitol Hill office of US Senator Dan Sullivan, Republican of Alaska, on TuesdayPresident Donald Trump refused to answer when asked if the three women accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh are lying, saying 'what's your next question.'

Trump was in a bilateral meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the United Nations General Assembly in New York when he was asked about his embattled Supreme Court nominee.

Trump, as he has done since the first allegation came out, defended Kavanaugh.

President Trump declined to answer a question if the woman accusing Brett Kavanaugh were liars

Trump defended Kavanaugh in his meeting with Prime Minister Abe

'He is a high quality person. They are bringing people out of woods. They can do it to anybody. They can do it to anybody except for Prime Minister Abe because is he so pure. They can do it to anybody what they are doing. And it's really, really sad,' he said.

Then he was asked if the three women who were accusing Kavanaugh of sexual assault are liars.

'What's your next question,' he responded, taking one on the United States' relationship with China.

Trump has upped his defensive game this week as more accusations have been hurled against his Supreme Court nominee.

The president has also shown his frustration with the slowed down confirmation process.

He said earlier on Wednesday that Senate Republicans should have pushed through Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination two weeks ago so people wouldn't be talking about the sexual allegations against him right now.

'They could've pushed it through two-and-a-half weeks ago, and you wouldn't be talking about it right now, which is frankly what I would've preferred, but they didn't do that,' the president said at the United Nations in New York on Wednesday.

That time frame would have Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court before the allegations against him came to light.

Trump called Kavanaugh an 'absolute gem.'

The president's defense of his nominee came before the latest bombshell allegation - a charge of gang rape against Kavanaugh and his high school pals from Georgetown Prep.

President Donald Trump tore into Democrats and talked up his embattled Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh

Julie Swetnick, his new accuser, released a sworn statement through her attorney Michael Avenatti saying that Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge were there as she was abused by a 'train' of teenage boys.

She said she was drugged 'using Quaaludes or something similar' which had been put in her drink - and that Kavanaugh and his friends would spike 'punch' at parties with grain alcohol or drugs to 'cause girls to lose inhibitions and their ability to say 'No'.'

Judge was the teenage boy Christine Blasey Ford charged with being in the room when Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a high school party in the 1980s.

Kavanaugh has denied her charge and a second allegation from Debra Ramirez, who claims the Supreme Court nominee exposed himself and thrust his penis in her face, forcing her to touch it when she pushed him away at a college party when they were at Yale.

Trump has stood by his nominee and unloaded on Democrats as he defended Kavanaugh, saying they were operating 'very unfairly' and charged they were running a 'con game.'

Trump picked up on his twitter attack from Tuesday night, and talked up Kavanaugh on a day his lawyer was defending his high school drinking habits while accuser Christine Blasey Ford released affadavits from people who asserted she told them about her assault allegation.

'I know this particular man, Judge Kavanaugh. He's outstanding. You don't find people like this. He's outstanding,' Trump told reporters at the UN, as Kavanaugh's youth was being put under the microscope.

Of Kavanaugh, who released his high school 1982 calendar on Wednesday, Trump said: 'He's a gem. He's an absolute gem. And he's been treated very unfairly by the Democrats who have been playing a con game.'

Trump continued with his fiery rhetoric. 'They know what they're doing. it's a con. They go into a back room and they talk with each other. And they laugh at what they're getting away with. It's a con game and that's what they play. And that's about the only thing they do well,' he said, before abruptly ending a media availability.

Trump was continuing pushback from Tuesday night, when he accused Democrats of using a 'con game' to try scuttling Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination.

The president tweeted late Tuesday: 'The Democrats are playing a high level CON GAME in their vicious effort to destroy a fine person.

'It is called the politics of destruction. Behind the scene the Dems are laughing,' he wrote.

'Pray for Brett Kavanaugh and his family!'

President Donald Trump talks about embattled Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, while meeting with Colombian President Ivan Duque during the United Nations General Assembly, Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2018, at U.N. Headquarters

'They know what they're doing. it's a con,' President Trump said, blasting Democrats

Trump also tweeted a quote by South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, who told Fox News that certain members of the FBI were out to 'destroy' the president.

'These law enforcement people took the law into their own hands when it came to President Trump,' Graham said.

Earlier on Tuesday, Trump also disparaged the account of the second woman accusing Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct, saying she herself conceded she was 'totally inebriated and all messed up.'

President Donald Trump has once again accused Democrats of using a 'con game' to try scuttling Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination

Trump also tweeted a quote from Senator Lindsey Graham, though it is not clear what the quote was referring to

Trump's remarks came as Republicans worked to shore up support for the beleaguered Kavanaugh, whose march toward Senate confirmation has been rocked by allegations of decades-old sexual improprieties from two women.

On Friday, Trump had mocked claims by Christine Blasey Ford, Kavanaugh's chief accuser, of a sexual assault at a 1980s' high school party, tweeting that she would have reported the incident to police if it was 'as bad as she says.'

While other Republicans have sought to undermine the women's accounts, Trump has gone further.

Most Republican politicians have been less acidic in challenging the women's credibility, mindful of competitive November elections in which many female voters are already expected to abandon Republican candidates because of hostility toward Trump.

In remarks to reporters at the United Nations, Trump took aim at Deborah Ramirez, Kavanaugh's second accuser.

She told The New Yorker magazine that at a party both attended as Yale freshmen in the 1980s, a drunken Kavanaugh placed his penis in front of her and caused her to involuntarily touch it.

Earlier on Tuesday, Trump also disparaged the account of the second woman accusing Kavanaugh (seen above on September 5) of sexual misconduct, saying she herself conceded she was 'totally inebriated and all messed up'

She has said she was inebriated as well and has admitted to holes in her memory of some details.

'She said, well it might not be him, and there were gaps, and she was totally inebriated and all messed up,' Trump told reporters.

'She doesn't know it was him but it might have been him and 'Oh gee let's not make him a Supreme Court judge because of that'.'

'This is a con game being played by the Democrats.'

Trump called Kavanaugh 'just a wonderful human being' and suggested that Democrats were skeptical of Ramirez, saying: 'They don't believe it themselves.'

On Friday, Trump had mocked claims by Christine Blasey Ford (above), Kavanaugh's chief accuser, of a sexual assault at a 1980s' high school party, tweeting that she would have reported the incident to police if it was 'as bad as she says'

In remarks to reporters at the United Nations, Trump took aim at Deborah Ramirez, Kavanaugh's second accuser (above). She told The New Yorker magazine that at a party both attended as Yale freshmen in the 1980s, a drunken Kavanaugh placed his penis in front of her

He said rejecting Kavanaugh would be 'a horrible insult' and 'a very dangerous game' for the US.

Trump spoke two days before the Senate Judiciary Committee plans a pivotal, election-season hearing at which both Kavanaugh and his chief accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, are due to testify separately.

That session, certain to be must-watch television for the nation, looms as a do-or-die wild card for Kavanaugh in which a split-second facial expression, a tear or a choice of words by either witness could prove decisive.

Ford has said Kavanaugh tried removing her clothes and covered her mouth to prevent screams after he pinned her on a bed during a high school party.

Kavanaugh, 53, a judge on the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals, has denied both women's stories.

In a Fox News interview Monday night, Kavanaugh said he would not let 'false accusations drive me out of this process.'

Agreeing to a television interview was an extraordinary step for a high court nominee.

Kavanaugh said on the conservative-friendly Fox News Channel that he was not questioning that Ford, his initial accuser, may have been sexually assaulted in her life.

But he added: 'What I know is I've never sexually assaulted anyone,' a remarkable assertion for a nominee to the nation's highest court.Mexican president-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has once again been accused of sexism.

The incoming president was critizied for kissing a female reporter's cheek after he dodged her question during a recent visit to Baja California.

The TV Azteca and El Mexicano correspondent asked a question about the gubernatorial election in the northwestern state.

Instead of answering, the 64-year-old politican stopped in his tracks, turned around and gave her an unexpected kiss.

Hace unos dias, #AMLO se vio "enredado" en una polemica por llamar a unas reporteras "corazoncitos"... ahora en #Tijuana, una reportera le hizo una pregunta y le dio un beso



Estoy conversando con Lorena Garcia, reportera del Periodico Mexicano en #AzucenaxFormula 104.1 FM pic.twitter.com/tKmpzoshQi  Azucena Uresti (@azucenau) September 24, 2018

Mexican president-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has once again been accused of sexism after he kissed a female reporter instead of answering her inquiry

The TV Azteca and El Mexicano correspondent (to the side of the camera) asked a question about the gubernatorial election in the northwestern state of Baja California

Instead of answering, the 64-year-old politican stopped in his tracks, turned around and gave female reporter, Lorena Garcia, unexpected kiss. He then goes on with his tour

Garcia, a veteran journalist with TV Azteca and El Mexicano newspaper, was disturbed by Lopez Obrador's gesture as a means to skip her question as a sea of reporters looked on last Thursday.

'This has never happened to me during my 19 years years as a print reporter in a profession like this,' Garcia told Grupo Formula on Tuesday night.

'There's some discomfort on my part. I am not going to say I am furious. But there's some discomfort on my behalf because at the end it's an invasion of my working space.'

Lorena Garcia, a seasoned Mexican reporter, was offended after she received a kiss on her cheek from president-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador while on assignment

Lorena Garcia is a journalist with 19 years of experience with Mexican media outlets, TV Azteca and El Mexicano, a Tijuana based newspaper

It's not the first time Lopez Obrador finds himself under fire for his treatment of female press corps members.

Earlier in September, another female reporter, Noemi Gutierrez, approached Lopez Obrador seeking comment about an alliance formed between the Green Ecologist Party and the National Regeneration Party, which he founded and led until 2017.

Lopez Obrador, who will take over office December 1, danced around the question presented by the Capital Medio journalist.

'I am not going to talk about that sweetheart,' he said before referring to a surrounding group of female reporters as 'darlings' and 'sweethearts' once again.

Lopez Obrador responded to criticism by saying he was showing respect.

'You are my darlings, my sweethearts, and I appreciate you a lot, I love you all,' Lopez Obrador said a day after the September 5 firestorm.

'I follow the philosophical principle of loving your neighbor: love and peace. How am I going to treat you? Well with a lot of affection. I am not an authoritarian. I am happy thanks to life.'Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox is to sell its 39% stake in broadcaster Sky to Comcast.

Fox said that following Comcast's victory in a 30 billion bidding war over the British broadcaster, it would either accept the US cable giant's offer or sell its stake at the offer price of 17.28.

It means that the Murdoch family will relinquish their holding in Sky.

Rupert Murdoch's family will no longer have a stake in Sky for the first time since he founded the company. The media mogul is pictured in Sun Valley, Idaho, on July 12

Sky boss Jeremy Darroch paid tribute to the Murdochs following the news.

He said: 'Nearly 30 years ago Rupert Murdoch took a risk to launch Sky and in the process changed the way we watch television forever.

'His vision and belief has enabled us to grow in to Europe's leading direct to consumer media business and I would like to personally thank him, (son) James and 21CF for their consistent support as shareholders, board members and friends.

'On behalf of all our employees I would also like to thank James for his chairmanship as we have transformed Sky over the past decade.

'With 21CF announcing its intention to sell its shares to Comcast we close one chapter while simultaneously opening another.

'Our aim is to make the next 30 years as exciting for customers, colleagues and all our stakeholders.'

Comcast's victory means that Mr Murdoch has failed for a second time to gain full control of Sky.

But since Fox made its first bid nearly two years ago, it has agreed to sell a major chunk of its business - including its existing 39% Sky stake - to Walt Disney, which has rubber stamped the sale to Comcast.

Fox said that following Comcast's victory in a 30 billion bidding war over the broadcaster, it would either accept the US cable giant's offer or sell its stake at the offer price of 17.28

Offloading the stake will net the firm around 11.9 billion.

Comcast boss Brian Roberts had said he was prepared to jointly own Sky, but Fox's decision clears the path for the US firm to seize full control of the pay-TV giant.

On Saturday evening, Comcast won the long-running battle for control of the broadcaster, beating Fox's 15.67 per share offer after the auction went to the maximum three rounds.

Comcast owns NBC Universal and is the largest cable operator in the US.

With the Sky takeover, Comcast will become the biggest pay-TV provider in the world, with around 52 million customers after adding Sky's 23 million subscribers.The doctor who branded Nxivm members with a cauterizing pen and no anesthesia is currently recruiting individuals to join her own 'wellness group.'

Dr. Danielle Roberts, 37, would allegedly sear the flesh of these woman while they were held down by four others with the initials of Keith Raniere and Allison Mack per witness accounts and federal court documents.

It was a task that would take up to an hour as the woman cried, flailed around the table and screamed out in agony per multiple reports, and yet Dr. Roberts has been cleared of any wrongdoing by the New York State Board of Health.

In fact, DailyMail.com has learned the Nxivm member is even set to speak in November at a medical conference on holistic healing, where she is promoting membership into her group, EXO/ ESO.

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Hypocritic oath: Dr. Danielle Roberts (above) has been named by former Nxivm members as the person responsible for branding women in the sex-slave cult

Flesh wounds: Dr Roberts would allegedly use a cauterizing pen to burn the flesh of young women with a brand (above) that was the initials of Keith Raniere and Allison Mack

Victim: Whistleblower Sarah Edmondson (above in 2009) described the branding process in depth as part of the podcast Escaping Nxivm

EXO/ESO is described as a 'program designed to build total mastery over the physical, emotional and thought components of human performance and, like Nxivm, carries a hefty price tag.

One class costs $750, though conference members are offered a 10 percent discount if they sign up within 72 hours.

In literature for an upcoming conference, Dr Roberts encourages people to join a group she has founded called EXO/ESO

There is also a group rate if four people sign up for a series of sessions together to learn more about Dr Roberts' teachings.

Dr. Roberts is a family doctor who had been based out of Clifton Park, the same town where DOS members and Raniere lived in upstate New York, and is still licensed to practice medicine in New York.

Sarah Edmondson described the branding process in depth while being interviewed for the podcast Escaping Nxivm, saying her best friend Lauren Salzman asked her to be her slave.

She then flew to Albany shortly after giving birth to her first child and was branded in the home of Allison Mack.

'I recognized the carpet actually, recognized that smell, recognized Allison Mack's perfume,' said Edmondson.

'I recognized her plants. She's got very ornate, well decorated, a very pretty home.'

She had previously been stripped naked and her eyes covered with a cloth to keep her in the dark as to what is going on, and the identity of the other women.

'What we've been told for everyone's security is we're not supposed to know who else is involved so please don't look, Lauren's asked us,' she explained.

At this point I'm recognizing there's no anesthetic and then Dr Roberts takes out this pen that has a laser tip to it, and i find out that it's a cauterizing iron. She's holding it over her skin. And the first touch of the first line that she's tracing is about two inches. She takes the cauterizer and just touches, like just touches her skin, and she jumps, like her whole body like jumps off the table like like like a like a flying fish. Like she just flops and lands, flips and like screams. And now she has this like little hole of burnt flesh, where the tip of the cauterizing art has cut her. Lauren has given us these medical masks to cover our noses because of smell. And I'm looking at the girl, and the woman who's at her feet. I could only see her eyes and we're both crying. -Sarah Edmondson on DOS branding

'Of course, I am gonna peek. And Lauren leads us into a small like extra bedroom, I guess that the room itself is very plain, like there's a chest and a massage table in the middle of the room. And that's it.'

Soon, the branding ceremony got underway, and all Edmondson could do in retrospect is wonder why she did not flee the scene.

'This part is a blur. Dr Danielle Roberts comes in and we're introduced to her as the is the person who's going to give us our tattoo,' said Edmondson.

'What happens first, I believe we're asked to get naked again and Dr Roberts has a stencil. We're supposed to place it on her body so that we can figure out where it needs to go so it's underneath out underwear line so we could still wear a bathing suit and people won't see it.'

At this time, none of the women know that they are being branded with the initials of Mack and Raniere.

'And Lauren tells us something about the symbol being for the four elements and ... this is the horizon, for air, and this is the mountains, for earth and it's a symbol for the elements and for our strength and our connection to the you know earth is women or some bulls***,' said Edmondson.

'The hardest part for me is just when i go through it like recognizing so many opportunities that had just to run. You know it's so hard to explain to people why I felt like I couldn't.'

She then told Salzman she did not like the symbol and it was too big, but had her complaint dismissed and was instead asked to help with the first girl.

Friend and spiritual leader: Dr. Roberts is a family doctor who had been based out of Clifton Park, the same town where DOS members and Raniere (above) lived in upstate New York

About her: She was cleared of any wrongdoing by the New York State Board of Health, and DailyMail.com has learned she will soon be speaking at a medical conference (above)

'The first person lies down on the table and Lauren suggests that someone goes to her head and kind of ... hold onto her arm, just have something to hold onto and grip,' said Edmondson.

'And suggested that two women go down and help keep her legs down so she wouldn't you know move and twitch too much, so that Danielle could do a straight line.

'At this point I'm recognizing there's no anesthetic and then Dr Roberts takes out this pen that has a laser tip to it, and i find out that it's a cauterizing iron.

'She's holding it over her skin. And the first touch of the first line that she's tracing is about two inches. She takes the cauterizer and just touches, like just touches her skin, and she jumps, like her whole body like jumps off the table like like like a like a flying fish.

'Like she just flops and lands, flips and like screams. And now she has this like little hole of burnt flesh, where the tip of the cauterizing art has cut her.

'Lauren has given us these medical masks to cover our noses because of smell. And I'm looking at the girl, and the woman who's at her feet. I could only see her eyes and we're both crying.

'And I'm I'm with a friend who's hurt, who's in pain. You know she's in deep pain and I'm supposed to help her go through this and the same time I'm thinking how am i gonna get out of here, like literally, where is the back door.

'How do I escape? How do I let enough time go by so i can figure out how to get out?

'And it takes her forty minutes at least, maybe forty five minutes to go through every line.

'And in between each line we stop and Lauren reads something about you know commitment and honor. And we started by saying master would you grab me it would be an honor.'

When is came time for Edmondson to lie down she realized the less she moved the quicker it would all go for her during the branding process.

'I thought about childbirth. I thought, I've already been through pain before,' she explained.

'The most searing awful pain was being dragged across my body like a f***ing fire, and every time i opened my eyes there is Lauren, staring at me lovingly and reading me this f***ing religious scripture about whatever the f** commitment and honor.'

When they were all done, Salzman then had them take a group photo.

'She asked us to take a photo a group photo with our brands, and we had to keep doing it until everyone's happy, everyone looks happy,' said Edmondson.

'And not hiding any part of our body, like girls on a beach, but we're not wearing our clothes like just we're just happy and that was a forced fake photo.'Just one day before U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is slated to testify in the U.S. Senate alongside Christine Blasey Ford, a woman whos alleged that he attempted to sexually assault her in high school, another woman has stepped forward to accuse Kavanaugh of further sexual misconduct.

Julie Swetnick, who claims to have attended numerous parties with Kavanaugh, has alleged that she was present when the beleaguered U.S. Supreme Court nominee spiked girls drinks and participated in gang rapes at parties in their high school years.

Shes being represented by Michael Avenatti, the lawyer known for suing President Donald Trump over the alleged Stormy Daniels affair. Notably, Swetnicks allegations come just days after another woman, Deborah Ramirez, also alleged that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her while at Yale University in the 1980s.

Swetnick is the third woman to publicly allege that Kavanaugh engaged in sexual misconduct

But just who is Kavanaughs newest accuser, Julie Swetnick? Heres all you need to know about her, including her relationship with Kavanaugh and the allegations shes made against him.

Who is Julie Swetnick?

Julie Swetnick is the third woman to publicly allege that U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh engaged in sexual misconduct.

Swetnick, 55, currently lives in Washington, D.C. and attended the University of Maryland and Montgomery College.

Shes reportedly spent years working for the Federal government in Washington, D.C., including currently at the U.S. Department of Treasury, the Internal Revenue Service and the United States Mint and has previously held security clearances for the Department of Justice, the Department of State and the Department of Homeland Security.

Additionally, shes also believed to have previously worked with the Vietnam War Commission and is reportedly one of the first 100 women in the entire world to have earned a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineering Certification.

While attending high school in Gaithersburg, Maryland between in the early 1980s, she claims to have met Kavanaugh at a house party in the Washington, D.C. area and says she was present when Kavanaugh and his friends, including Mark Judge, allegedly drugged girls drinks and participated in gang rapes.

According to a sworn declaration released by Avenatti on Twitter, Swetnick alleges: I first met Mark Judge and Brett Kavanaugh in approximately 1980-1981. I was introduced to them at a house party that I attended in the Washington D.C. area.

Following that first introduction, I attended well over ten house parties in the Washington D.C. area during the years 1981-1983 where Mark Judge and Brett Kavanaugh were present

On numerous occasions at these parties, I witnessed Mark Judge and Brett Kavanaugh drink excessively and engage in highly inappropriate conduct, including being overly aggressive with girls and not taking "no" for an answer. This conduct included the fondling and grabbing of girls without the consent.

The embattled Kavanaugh has vowed not to withdraw his nomination despite the allegations

In addition, Swetnick alleges that Kavanaugh was verbally abusive towards women and sometimes pressed himself against them in a sexual manner.

Swetnick claims that during a party in Ocean City, Maryland, she: observed Kavanaugh drink excessively (at) many of these parties and engage in abusive and physically aggressive behavior towards girls, including pressing girls against him without their consent, grinding against girls and attempting to remove or shift girls clothing to expose private body parts.

I likewise observed him verbally abusive towards girls by making crude sexual comments to them that we designed to demean, humiliate and embarrass them.

I often witnessed Brett Kavanaugh speak in a demeaning manner about girls in general as well as specific girls by name.

I also witnessed Brett Kavanagh behave as a mean drunk on many occasions at these parties.

Swetnick also alleges that Kavanaugh and his friends participated in gang rapes during house parties.

I also witnessed efforts by Mark Judge, Brett Kavanaugh and others to cause girls to become inebriated and disoriented so they could be "gang raped" in a side room or bedroom by a "train" of numerous boys.

I have a firm recollection of seeing boys lined up outside rooms at many of these parties waiting for their "turn" with a girl inside the room. These boys included Mark Judge and Brett Kavanaugh, she wrote in the affidavit.

Swetnick alleges that Kavanaugh and his friends spiked girls drinks at parties with grain alcohol and target particular girls so they could be taken advantage of during the parties.

In a shocking and heartbreaking passage of her affidavit, Swetnick accuses Kavanaugh of being present when she was reportedly gang raped at a party.

In approximately 1982, I became the victim of one of these "gang" or "train" rapes where Mark Judge and Brett Kavanaugh were present.

Shortly after the incident, I shared what had transpired with at least two other people.

During the incident, I was incapacitated without my consent and unable to fight off the boys raping me. I believe I was drugged using Quaaludes or something similar placed in what I was drinking, she wrote in her statement.

Kavanaugh, as with his other accusers, has dismissed the latest allegations as ridiculous and from the Twilight Zone while also claiming to have no knowledge of who Swetnick is and that the alleged incidents never happened.

President Donald Trump also defended his embattled U.S. Supreme Court nominee, taking a swipe at Avenatti as a third rate lawyer in a recent Twitter post.

Previously, both Christine Blasey Ford and Deborah Ramirez have alleged that Kavanaugh engaged in serious sexual misconduct. Ford is slated to testify in the U.S. Senate on September 27 while Ramirez is reportedly willing to testify as well.

Despite the sexual misconduct allegations made against him, Kavanaugh has vowed not to withdraw his nomination, calling the accusations false and uncorroborated and part of a last-minute character assassination on him.The mayor of Houston is fighting to stop the opening of a robot sex brothel where customers can pay $60 to 'play' with life-size human dolls.

The 'brothel' is due to open later this month and is the brainchild of Yuval Gavriel who already operates the business in Toronto.

He resists the term brothel and instead refers to it as a warehouse where prospective buyers can 'test out' the dolls before buying them.

The priciest doll in his KinkySDolls range is $5,000.

While there are no laws to stop him, residents in Houston and Mayor Sylvester Turner do not want to see his business take roots in their city.

These are two of the dolls sold by KinkySDolls which will soon be available for rent in Houston, Texas, at a 'brothel' where customers can 'try before they buy'. The lifelike figures heat up and range in price from $2,000 to $5,000 but patrons can rent them for $60 an hour

'This is not the kind of business I would like to see in Houston and certainly this is not the kind of business the City is seeking to attract,' Mayor Turner told DailyMail.com in a statement.

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner is fighting the opening of the brothel

An online petition calling for Gavriel's plan to be stopped has gained more than 7,000 signatures.

On the company's website, the dolls are advertised as 'warmed up, lubed and ready to play'.

'Our Love Dolls goal is to provide intense pleasure. We provide deep and satisfying experience both in the way we feel and move.

'We will allow you to fulfill all your fantasies without any limitations. We feel just like the real thing.

'We always fresh for you we get sanitized with Antibacterial Products after every session,' it reads.

The warehouse in Toronto is inconspicuous from the outside. Inside, the company has set up a condo for people to enjoy the dolls in.

Despite critics' objections, Gavriel is determined to push ahead. He has not yet hared where it will be.

He has several investors for his Houston location and says he hopes to have several scattered across the United States by 2020.

In an interview with The Washington Examiner earlier this month, where he announced his plans, he said: 'The States is a bigger market, and a healthier market, and God bless Trump.'

He said he is not breaking any laws because he does not categorize the premises as a brothel but rather a warehouse for prospective customers to sample goods before buying them.

This is where KinkySDolls currently operates a 'showroom' in Toronto. It is inconspicuous from the outside but the company has set up a condo inside where patrons can enjoy the doll

'I consulted with a lawyer and the lawyer said, "Listen, there are no rules to it, but if you are smart you don't go out and say you are operating a brothel."

Another of the lifelike dolls is pictured. Critics say their growing popularity could lead to sexual violence against real women

'He went through all the laws and all of the regulations and currently there are no regulations for this kind of service,' he added.

Houston's local politicians and residents are not the only people to protest the spread of robot sex dolls.

In Nevada, where regular brothels are legal, prostitutes have complained that a surge in popularity in dolls could promote sexual violence against women.

'Real sex, especially real sex with a sex worker, is a consensual situation where all parties respect and appreciate their lovers.

'Sex doll brothels encourage disrespect toward women and promote a lack of empathy in sexual interactions,' one worker from The Sheri Ranch told The Sun earlier this year.

There are a number of protest groups internationally that are committed to stopping the rise of the dolls.The elderly California couple who claimed the 60 pounds of marijuana they were busted hauling through Nebraska was intended as Christmas gifts have been given probation and conditional jail time.

Barbara, 71, and 80-year-old Patrick Jiron were sentenced on Monday to three years of probation, according to York County District Court records.

They'll be supervised at their Clearlake Oaks, California, home by California authorities.

The judge also sentenced them to three 30-day jail stints that can be waived if they comply with probation terms.

The two both still face felony charges in Lancaster County for a subsequent arrest in January, related to being in possession of a large sum of money that had cannabis residue on it.

Barbara, 71, and 80-year-old Patrick Jiron, who claimed the 60 pounds of marijuana they were busted hauling through Nebraska in December was intended as Christmas gifts, have been given probation and conditional jail time on those charges; The two both still face felony charges in Lancaster County related to being in possession of a large sum of money that had cannabis residue on it

When the Jirons were first arrested on December 19, they said they didn't know it was illegal to transport marijuana through Nebraska.

The couple were initially stopped when officers spotted their pickup driving over the center line and failing to signal.

Deputies said they could immediately smell the strong odor of raw marijuana when they approached the truck.

They searched the vehicle and found the drugs stored in the pickup's topper.

They told authorities the 60 pounds (27 kilograms) of pot was intended as presents for family in Vermont and Massachusetts.

In December, the Jirons were arrested for carrying about 60 pounds of marijuana in their pickup truck; The high grade marijuana had an estimated street value of $336,000

The couple were taken into custody on charges of possession of marijuana with the intent to deliver and no drug tax stamp.

Each pleaded no contest to possession of more than a pound of marijuana.

Then, the Jirons were arrested again in January, on suspicion of carrying drug money.

In that incident, they were pulled over on Interstate 80 in northeast Nebraska, according to the Lincoln Journal Star.

Law enforcement officials said that they stopped the couple in their black Toyota Tacoma at around 9.42am on January 9 for following too closely.

'During this time, reasonable, articulable suspicion was obtained that criminal activity was afoot,' the deputy wrote in the report, though it did not specify what the suspicion was.

The deputy then asked Patrick and Barbara Jiron, who were passengers, for permission to search the car. The couple refused.

A drug-sniffing dog then alerted the deputies to suspected contraband in the rear of the vehicle.

During their January arrest, their daughter, 42-year-old Mariah Jiron, was driving the truck

The Jirons still face felony charges in Lancaster County; Barbara's next court date is set for October 26, and Patrick's (pictured) is set for November 2

That led deputies to search the truck. They eventually found a duffel bag full of $18,000 in cash as well as notes consistent with marijuana sales in the cargo area.

The deputies then did field tests of the money, during which they found traces of cannabis.

In the back of the truck, deputies found an oversized garbage bag that was later found to contain residue of marijuana, according to the police report.

The driver of the truck was their daughter, 42-year-old Mariah Jiron. She was asked by a deputy to step out of the car and sit in a deputy cruiser, and was ultimately let go with a warning.

The couple 's December arrested occurred along the same roadway - in the same vehicle - just two counties west in York.

When the Jirons were arrested in York County on December 19, they said they didnt know it was illegal to transport marijuana through Nebraska. They also said they didn't know it was illegal to possess marijuana in the state.

The high grade marijuana had an estimated street value of $336,000, according to the sheriff's office.

The elderly couple told officers they were on their way to Vermont from their home in Clearlake Oaks, California.

California legalized recreational use of marijuana last year, as did Massachusetts. The state legislature in Vermont is planning to consider legalizing marijuana consumption.

Now with that case closed, the Jirons look toward felony charges in Lancaster County.

Barbara's next court date is set for October 26, and Patrick's is set for November 2.A Chicago teenager was trapped in a South Korean cult for two months after being kidnapped by her own mother.

The 17-year-old, who has not been identified, was forced to be part of the doomsday cult, Grace Road Church, after she traveled to South Korea with her mom in 2013 for what she thought was a vacation.

The girl shared her ordeal with The Guardian - a month after leader Shin Ok-ju was arrested for allegedly holding some 400 followers captive by subjecting them to violence and barbaric rituals.

The teenager, who was born in the US but whose parents are Korean, said she spent two weeks with family before her mother took her to the cult compound near Seoul.

The Chicago teen says she was trapped in the South Korean Grace Road Church cult for two months. She shared her story a month after leader Shin Ok-ju (above) was arrested for allegedly holding follower captive in Fiji

She realized she had been kidnapped after two weeks when her mother refused to let her leave the church and took away her anxiety medication and technology that allowed her to communicate with her siblings and father back in Chicago.

She said she slept on a mat in a small room with 12 other women and was dragged down the stairs screaming by three followers after refusing to attend a sermon.

The girl said she heard the cult leader telling other followers that she had a demon inside her because of her screams.

'She's calling me out and saying how much an evil person I am and how I need to accept her word and how I'm going to go to hell and how the medicine I take makes me crazy,' the girl told the Guardian.

'I thought I'm going to throw up, I can't escape. I'm looking at my mum and signing her [to say] I need my medicine, but she's completely ignoring me. I don't know what to do, I'm basically just trying not to pass out.'

The girl managed to escape one day when she ran to a nearby convenience store and was able to call her sister in the US.

Her father arranged to fly out to get her.

The girl said she was hospitalized because she self-harmed and her mother phoned her to say that people who tried to kill themselves should be in hell.

She hasn't heard from her mother since then and believes she is still with the church.

It comes a month after Shin Ok-ju and three other leaders of the church were arrested when they arrived at Seoul's Incheon International Airport.

They are accused of holding followers captive in Fiji by subjecting them to violence and barbaric rituals.

A doomsday prophet, Shin convinced her followers to move to Fiji in 2014, claiming they would be safe there from imminent natural disasters.

Once they arrived, their passports were confiscated and many were allegedly subjected to beatings and brutal rituals purportedly aimed at driving out evil spirits.

Some followers who escaped the farm told journalists that those who attempted to leave the church were subjected to severe public beatings known as 'ground thrashings'.

'A son beat his father 100 to 200 times at a ground thrashing session', a former follower told a South Korean TV programme.

'Another congregant was hit more than 600 times and he died after returning home,' a witness said.

Christian-inspired cults have been mushrooming in South Korea where around half the population are Protestants or Catholics.Theresa May last night hit back at the Archbishop of Canterbury after he criticised the governments record on helping the poor.

The head of the Church of England sparked outrage among Tories this month when he attacked government welfare reforms in a speech to the Trades Union Congress.

But speaking to journalists in New York, the PM made clear her disagreement with Justin Welby saying she believed work is the best route out of poverty.

Theresa May hit back at Justin Welby after he criticsed the government's record

Mrs May, the daughter of a vicar and a regular churchgoer, suggested she did not give any extra weight to his views because of his position.

She said: The Archbishop and I sometimes disagree on things just as I will disagree with other members of the Church of England on things.

Asked if she thought he should stay out of politics, Mrs May defended her record, and pointed to the thriving jobs market.

She said: The employment figures we see are very important because work is the best route out of poverty  having systems to encourage people to work ensuring those jobs are created is important.

Writing in the Mail earlier this month the Most Rev Welby criticised the lack of opportunity for young people and said the wealthy should pay more tax. He said: We cannot continue with an economy that works so badly for so many.Theresa May yesterday hailed the prospect of a major trade deal with the US after Brexit, saying it was 'in both our interests'.

The Prime Minister met President Trump for the first time since his visit to the UK in July on the fringes of the UN Security Council last night.

Speaking ahead of the meeting, Mrs May insisted a US/UK trade deal was still on the cards. She said: 'In relation to a trade deal in the future I would say President Trump and America want to do a good trade deal with us. It is in both our interests to do that trade deal.'

The Prime Minister met President Trump for the first time since his visit to the UK in July on the fringes of the UN Security Council last night

She added: 'I believe that when we have negotiated that deal it will be put in place. That is what coming to an agreement is about  both sides agree and both sides do it.'

Asked why she would trust the President's promises, she said he stood behind the UK on Nato and by expelling Russian diplomats after the Salisbury poisonings.

Addressing a business audience in New York earlier in the day, Mrs May suggested that Britain and the EU could still do a deal despite the acrimonious collapse of talks in Salzburg last week. She said there was much 'common ground' between the two sides.

She told the Bloomberg summit she understood there was 'uncertainty' around Brexit. 'Just if I can say this again, we believe that we will and can get a good deal.

'And that's because it's not just about the UK, it's about the EU as well, and I think that continued trading relationship is going to be good for both sides.

'But there are several weeks of intense work to be done in order to get to that point.'

President Trump praised Mrs May as hard working and said he had enjoyed getting to know her.

'It's my great honour to be here with Prime Minister Theresa May. She's working very hard, like all us, and doing a very, very good job,' he said.

'We spent a lot of time together on my last trip to the UK and I think that's where we can say we got to know each other and it was like meeting after meeting after meeting and I said this is really good.

Addressing a business audience in New York earlier in the day, Mrs May suggested that Britain and the EU could still do a deal

'Every meeting became better and better. I will say that we are talking about a lot of different things today - trade, military, security, protection all sorts of things. We have a myriad of things to talk about.

'I just want to say it's great to be with you and it's great to have you as a friend.'

Mrs May said: 'Thank you very much, it's great to be here, looking forward to the discussions we are going to have on quite a variety of topics.

'The relationship between the US and UK is a really special one, deep and enduring, but there's much for us to talk about as we go forward together, particularly obviously the ambitious and wide-ranging trade deal that we want to do between the UK and US, but also our security partnership and defence partnership and those many challenges we are facing around the world and how we can cooperate.'

Mr Trump added: 'And we will talk about them and come up with solutions and answers.'

This summer his visit to the UK got off to a terrible start when he criticised her approach to Brexit and warned it could scupper a deal with the US.

But afterwards he declared the relationship between the two countries to be at 'the highest level of special'.

He also dangled the prospect of a post-Brexit trade deal that could 'quadruple' the UK's 100billion annual trade with the US. The administration has made no secret of the fact it wants the UK to make a 'clean break' with the EU.

President Trump's visit to the UK got off to a terrible start when he criticised Mrs May's approach to Brexit and warned it could scupper a deal with the US. They are pictured together at Chequers on May 13

The PM's Chequers plan would keep Britain tied to EU regulations on goods and food.

Her Eurosceptic critics, who want a looser relationship with the EU, say it will severely curtail, if not scupper, any US deal.

Mrs May was also asked by journalists how she coped with the pressure of her job.

She said: 'Throughout my working career whatever job I'm doing, whatever job I'm taking on, I take a very simple approach to it.

'You focus on where you want to get to and then work out how to get there and then just do that and put it into practice.

'Yes different jobs have different challenges. If you believe in your goal that's how you get there.

'I believe absolutely in delivering on the people's vote and doing it in the best way for the UK.'

May admits there is uncertainty about post Brexit Britain as US business leaders warn the PM they are 'daunted' at the UK's looming departure

By Jack Doyle for the Daily Mail, Kate Ferguson and James Tapsfield for MailOnline

Theresa May today admitted there is 'uncertainty' about post Brexit Britain after she was warned company bosses are 'daunted' about the UK's looming departure.

The Prime Minister tried to reassure bosses that Britain would still be one of the best countries in the world to operate in on a trip to New York today.

But with just a month to make 'significant' progress on her Brexit plans and fears of a no deal growing, bosses said they are gloomy about the country's prospects.

Meanwhile, Mrs May and French President Emmanuel Macron looked to have buried the hatchet today after their explosive fallout over Brexit.

The two leaders were seen exchanging kisses of greeting before laughing and joking alongside Belgian premier Charles Michel.

The warm scenes were a million miles from the Salzburg summit last week - when Mr Macron led a brutal assault on Mrs May's Chequers plan for Brexit.

The PM had hoped to get a signal from her EU counterparts that they were close to a deal on the future relationship.

Prime Minister Theresa May and France's President Emmanuel Macron (right) chat with Belgian premier Charles Michel (left) before a meeting of the United Nations Security Council

The two leaders were seen exchanging kisses of greeting before laughing and joking alongside Belgian premier Charles Michel

But instead the Frenchman pushed his colleagues into issuing a blunt statement that Mrs May's blueprint 'will not work' as it would undermine the single market.

At the Bloomberg summit on Wednesday, the PM admitted that there is 'uncertainty' about the UK's departure - but promised she is committed to doing everything she can to boost investment and jobs.

Stephen Schwarzman , CEO of Blackstone investment fund, asked Mrs May at the Bloomberg summit: 'How bad can things get? It's a little daunting for those of us on the outside.'

Mrs May replied: 'I absolutely appreciate and understand from that  you're making decisions and looking ahead to what the future holds.

'And at the moment there is that uncertainty about what the future will hold in terms of Brexit.

'First of all, just if I can say this again, we beieve that we will and can get a good deal. And that's because it's not just about the UK, it's about the EU as well, an I think that continued trading relationship is going to be good for both sides.

Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel, British PM Theresa May and French President Emmanuel Macron chat before the start of the United Nations Security Council meeting

The warm scenes were a million miles from the Salzburg summit last week - when Mr Macron led a brutal assault on Mrs May's Chequers plan for Brexit

'But there are several weeks of intense work to be done in order to get to that point.'

She vowed that Brexit Britain will be 'unequivocally pro business' as she tried to drum up support for the UK ahead of the looming departure.

The Prime Minister said London's financial centre will continue to be the 'envy of the world' as she addressed business leaders in New York.

She said the Government is committed to creating a British economy that has the skills to keep it at the forefront of global trade.

She said the UK economy will be 'knowledge-rich, highly innovative, highly skilled and high quality but with low tax and smart regulation'.

Theresa May (pictured in New York today) admitted there is 'uncertainty' about post Brexit Britain after she was warned company bosses are 'daunted' about the UK's looming departure

The Prime Minister (pictured with and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg at the summit today) tried to reassure bosses that Britain would still be one of the best countries in the world to operate in

Jeremy Corbyn to meet Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier after urging May to step aside for Labour Jeremy Corbyn (pictured today speaking to Labour conference in Liverpool) will meet EU negotiator Michel Barnier in Brussels tomorrow after demanding Theresa May stand aside if she cannot get her deal through Parliament Jeremy Corbyn will meet EU negotiator Michel Barnier in Brussels tomorrow after demanding Theresa May stand aside if she cannot get her deal through Parliament. Labour's leader used his main conference speech in Liverpool to demand a General Election if the Prime Minister cannot deliver a deal. Mrs May's proposals are rejected by the Brexiteer wing of her own party, Mr Corbyn's Labour and Brussels - making them look impossible to pass. Labour's conference has been dominated by Brexit splits amid a row over whether the party should endorse a second referendum. Party policy has stumbled toward backing a new poll if Mrs May refuses a general election - prompting further splits over whether remaining in the EU should be on the ballot. Shadow Brexit Secretary Sir Keir Starmer has seen off critics in the party this week who insisted any new referendum should only be between an exit deal and no deal - making a remain option likely. But Mr Corbyn told activists: 'Keir, having got agreement yesterday in this conference hall, getting one in Brussels should be a piece of cake.' Advertisement

Mrs May made the address at the Bloomberg Global Business Forum just days after the EU flatly rejected her Brexit Chequers plans.

Brussels leaders have rubbished the PM's plans saying they are unworkable, while Tory MPs on both the Remain and Leave wings of the party have declared the plan dead.

But Mrs May continues to insist that her proposals are the only credible plan on the table.

Her speech in America today came as Jeremy Corbyn laid out his vision for a socialist government at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool today.

In words which laid bare the large gulf between Tory and Labour plans, the PM vowed to keep Britain's corporation tax at the lowest level of any G20 country.

Currently 19 per cent, the rate is due to fall to 17 per cent in 2021.

Despite sharp reductions in the tax, which is levied on company profits, revenues from it have increased in recent years.

Mrs May's comments will be seen as a sign of further tax cuts to come after Brexit.

She pledged to create 'one of the most dynamic and business-friendly economies in the world'.

She also promised to 'spread the benefits of new sectors and technologies to every part of the country'. S

She said: 'My message today is that a post-Brexit Britain will be an unequivocally pro-business Britain.

'Through our modern Industrial Strategy at home we will create one of the most dynamic and business-friendly economies in the world  driving investment opportunities for your businesses and spreading the benefits of new sectors and technologies to every part of my country.

'And internationally  as a Global Britain  we will champion our vision for the future of the global economy: a vision that is based on openness, innovation, competition, high quality and intelligent regulation.

Theresa May meets with President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the United Nations in New York

Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament's representative in the Brexit negotiations, arrives at 10 Downing Street

Theresa May attacks Russia for desperate fabrication over Salisbury poisoning Theresa May attacked Russia for its 'desperate fabrication' over the Salisbury spy poisoning at a meeting of world leaders in New York. Britain set out detailed evidence about the prime suspects in the 'reckless' nerve agent attack on former spy Sergei Skripal and daughter Yulia while Russia has only sought to 'obfuscate', the Prime Minister said. Mrs May used two key speeches at the United Nations to turn her fire on Moscow amid reports that one of the suspects in the Salisbury poisoning, Ruslan Boshirov, has been identified as Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga, a highly decorated officer in the GRU, Russia's military intelligence service. She said: 'We have taken appropriate action, with our allies, and we will continue to take the necessary steps to ensure our collective security. Russia has only sought to obfuscate through desperate fabrication.' In speeches to the UN's Security Council and its General Assembly, Mrs May warned of the dangers of the international community failing to cooperate. Mrs May indicated that Britain would bomb Syria again if chemical weapons were used against its people. She also criticised Donald Trump's decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal. She added: 'It remains the best means of preventing Iran developing a nuclear weapon, and we are committed to preserving the JCPOA as long as Iran continues to abide by its obligations in full.' Mrs May also championed international cooperation, one day after President Trump attacked globalisation and said countries should act in their own interests. She urged international leaders to step up and act when international norms, such as over the use of chemical weapons, are broken. 'Be in no doubt, if we lack the confidence to step up, others will,' Mrs May said. Advertisement

'And we will be at the forefront of sustained international efforts to address the challenges facing global trade and to build a dynamic and competitive global economy that can truly work for everyone.'

She said: 'Whatever your business, investing in a post-Brexit Britain will give you the lowest rate of corporation tax in the G20.

'You will access service industries and a financial centre in London that are the envy of the world, the best universities, strong institutions, a sound approach to public finance and a consistent and dependable approach to high standards but intelligent regulation.'The California woman who first accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault passed a 'lie detector' test in August that consisted of two questions.

Christine Blasey Ford's attorneys sent Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans a report from a polygraph examiner who interviewed her on August 10.

But they refused on Wednesday to provide the committee with copies of notes from her psychotherapy sessions. Ford has said she first spoke to a therapist in 2012 about her memories of an ordeal.

'Any request that she expose her private medical records for public inspection represents an unacceptable invasion of privacy,' attorney Debra Katz wrote.

Katz, however, handed over the polygraph results to buttress her client's accusation.

Christine Ford took a polygraph test that showed she was not being 'deceptive' when making sex-assault allegations about Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh

Ford (right) claims that during a high school party in the early 1980s, a drunken teenage Kavanaugh groped her and tried to remove her clothing while pinning her to a bed and covering her mouth

President Donald Trump says the Kavanaugh nomination should have been pushed through sooner, and he's looking forward to hearing from Kavanaugh's accusers

The test examiner asked Ford to write down a description of what happened to her at a high school party in the early 1980s, where she claims a drunken teenage Kavanaugh groped her and tried to remove her clothing while pinning her to a bed and covering her mouth.

After interviewing her about her statement, the examiner asked her a pair of yes-or-no questions about the written narrative.

'Is any part of your statement false?' he asked, followed by: 'Did you make up any part of your statement?' Ford answered 'no' to both questions.

The report doesn't mention questions about any specific parts of her story.

The polygraph examiner wrote that her two responses were 'not indicative of deception,' and that the chance she was lying was a tiny fraction of one per cent.

Most criminal courts in the U.S. don't accept polygraph tests as evidence, relying on federal court decisions that exclude it because the testing methods are not 'generally accepted' as being meaningful.

The polygraph examiner asked Ford just two yes-no questions afte rgoing through her written statement with her

Ford's lawyers refused to show the Senate notes from therapy sessions in 2012 that might conflict with the recollections she has shared publicly this year

In five states  Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia and Nevada  the so-called 'lie detector' tests can be introduced in trials if both the prosecution and the defense agree.

In Georgia, defendants who can sue polygraph examiners for damages if statements judged 'non-deceptive' turns out to be false.

The Supreme Court has suggested that using polygraph evidence in federal criminal courts can violate Americans' constitutional rights under the Fifth Amendment.

Kavanaugh is not facing criminal charges; his Senate confirmation hearings amount to a high-profile job interview.

Most federal government jobs that require security clearances come with requirements to take a polygraph. But some agencies are moving away from that standard.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection told a House Homeland Security subcommittee in April that it's evaluating alternatives.

And the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity, a sub-agency of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, is currently overseeing a competitive process to find new ways to assess people's credibility and truthfulness.

Ford is scheduled to testify Thursday in a Judiciary Committee hearing, followed by Kavanaugh's turn on the hot-seat.

In Ford's statement, signed with her maiden name 'Christine Blasy,' she scratched out some details of her story and corrected them before submitting it to the polygraph examiner

A committee vote is expected Friday morning, followed by a protracted debate on the Senate floor.

Committee Democrats are demanding a postponement after a woman claimed she attended high school parties where girls were 'gang raped,' and that Kavanaugh and his best friend participated.

'It would be an unprecedented abuse of power and abdication of our constitutional responsibilities to move forward with this nomination given the concerns about Brett Kavanaughs character and actions,' the committee Democrats wrote to chairman Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican.

'We ask that you immediately request an FBI investigation or support the withdrawal of this nominee, but at a minimum the vote that has been scheduled for Friday must be canceled.'Senate Judiciary Democrats have called on President Trump to withdraw Brett Kavanaugh's nomination or order an FBI investigation into the sex assault allegations.

The Senators issued a joint statement on Wednesday urging Trump to withdraw his Supreme Court nominee after a third woman came forward accusing Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct.

'We are writing to request that you immediately withdraw the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to be an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court or direct the FBI to re-open its background investigation and thoroughly examine the multiple allegations of sexual assault,' the statement read.

Senate Judiciary Democrats have called on President Trump to withdraw Brett Kavanaugh's nomination or order an FBI investigation into the sex assault allegations

The Judicary Dems noted that allegations made by Kavanaugh's chief accuser Christine Blasey Ford were referred to the FBI for investigation.

They said that since then, two additional women have come forward, including Deborah Ramirez and Julie Swetnick.

Ramirez allegesl Kavanaugh exposed himself to her while they were both students at Yale, while Swetnick said she witnessed Kavanaugh 'consistently engage in excessive drinking and inappropriate contact of a sexual nature with women in the early 1980s'.

'It is clear from reporting that there were others present or with knowledge of these shocking allegations who also should be interviewed,' the Judicary Dems said in their statement.

'The serious and credible allegations of one woman should have been enough to require a complete investigation by the FBI. It should not have required multiple women with consistent accounts of serious sexual misconduct by Judge Kavanaugh to trigger a meaningful nonpartisan investigation.

'Judge Kavanaugh is being considered for a promotion. He is asking for a lifetime appointment to the nation's highest court where he will have the opportunity to rule on matters that will impact Americans for decades.

'The standard of character and fitness for a position on the nation's highest court must be higher than this. Judge Kavanaugh has staunchly declared his respect for women and issued blanket denials of any possible misconduct, but those declarations are in serious doubt.'

President Trump weighed in on Wednesday, describing what is happening to Kavanaugh as a 'disgrace'.

Trump blamed the Senate Democrats and suggested that how they handled sexual misconduct allegations against Kavanaugh would help Republicans at the polls.

Kavanaugh denies the allegations.

Republicans are fighting to maintain their grip on both houses of Congress in the face of strong enthusiasm by Democratic voters who oppose Trump and his policies.

'It's disgraceful. It's a disgrace to the country. And I think you're going to see it in the midterms,' Trump said.

Trump also said 'these Democratic senators' are a 'disgrace.'President Donald Trump warmly embraced British Prime Minister Theresa May in a show of unity on Wednesday afternoon in his last meeting of the day.

Trump said that it was 'great honor' to be with May in New York on the sidelines of the United Nations.

'She's working hard like all of us, and she's doing a very, very great job,' he said. It's great to be with you and great to have you as a friend.'

He shook her hand, with May responding, 'Thank you very much Mr. President. Thank you, Donald.'

President Donald Trump warmly embraced British Prime Minister Theresa May in a show of unity on Wednesday afternoon in his last meeting of the day

May and Trump clashed earlier in the summer as the U.S. president prepared to head to the U.K. He criticized the way she was handling Brexit on the eve of his a visit in which she held a lavish dinner to welcome him to London for the first time since his inauguration.

He issued a rare apology to her at a news conference at the PM's Chequers estate, noting that the comments came out stronger than he'd intended.

Trump said Wednesday that they had 'spent a lot of time' and 'got to know each other' during the visit in meeting after meeting, and the relationship has just gotten 'better and better.'

He said as they sat down to talk that they would be discussing trade, the military, security, protection, and a 'myriad' of other issues.

May said, 'The relationship between the U.S and U.K. is a really special one that is deep and enduring.'

'Yes,' he told her.

She said they would be talking about her ambition for a wide-ranging trade deal between the UK and the US and the many challenges we are facing around the world.The white cop who fatally shot a 17-year-old black boy in Illinois four years ago was seen leaving court holding hands with his wife on Wednesday, with both of them wearing bulletproof vests.

Jason Van Dyke, 40, is on trial for the first-degree murder of Laquan McDonald, who died on October 20, 2014 in Chicago.

He and his wife Tiffany left the Leighton Criminal Courthouse on Wednesday, holding hands with the vests visibly draped over the outer layers of their clothing, but under black jackets that they each left open.

In court on Tuesday, the defense team for Van Dyke was critiqued by prosecutors for using an animated video to recreate the moments before he was killed.

Jason Van Dyke, 40, who fatally shot 17-year-old LaQuan McDonald in Illinois four years ago was seen leaving court holding hands with his wife, Tiffany, on Wednesday, with both of them wearing bulletproof vests.

Van Dyke's lawyers called upon San Francisco 3D-Forensic to create a Toy Story-style animation to help jurors imagine the events that night.

Prosecutor Marilyn Hite Ross slammed the imagery that the animation company's CEO Jason Fries admitted made McDonald appear taller on Tuesday.

He told Leighton Criminal Court Building that the company used forensic reports, dash cam footage, drone imagery and surveillance video to create the sequence that Ross suggested defense lawyer Dan Herbert had a heavy hand in influencing.

Jason Van Dyke and his wife Tiffany left the Leighton Criminal Courthouse on Wednesday with the bulletproof vests visible, draped over the outer layers of their clothing, but under black jackets that they each left open

Van Dyke (pictured on Tuesday) is being tried for first-degree murder in the Leighton Criminal Court Building for the 2014 killing of Laquan McDonald

Lead defense attorney Daniel Herbert gestures at an animated video portraying Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke and Laquan McDonald as it's shown to the jury

Officer Leticia Velez told Leighton Criminal Court Building Wednesday that she saw McDonald holding his side and believed he had a gun on him

Prosecutor had an issue with the angle shown in the video during the court session

Jason Fries created the animated video intended to show the officer's perspective during the shooting and support Van Dyke's claim that he feared for his safety

'He gave you specific direction about what he wanted you to do, correct?' Ross asked him. He denied the claim about the video the making of which he also compared to creating a family film like Monsters, Inc.

The prosecution also poked holes in the way both the victim and shooter were dressed in the animation, reports WGN9.

It showed McDonald in all black instead of the jeans he wore, and Van Dyke not wearing a bullet proof vest which was also incorrect.

Additionally, the recreation showed McDonald getting closer to Van Dyke, going from 39 feet away to 13 feet in four seconds.

The four-minute clip only showed Van Dyke shooting five times despite it being known he shot McDonald approximately 16 times.

Forensics state at least one of the bullets were shot when the victim was already on the ground.

Despite the visuals with enhanced imposing angles having a good chance of influencing viewers to believe Van Dyke was more vulnerable and McDonald more threatening and sinister by connotation, Fries admitted he believed the details were 'meaningless'.

Van Dyke appeared in court Wednesday where the truck driver who dialed 911 was present

Van Dyke (pictured with defense attorney Elizabeth Fleming) claims he shot in self-defense

Defense attorney Daniel Herbert was challenged by the judge when he questioned a a witness about the killed teenager

Leticia Velez was asked if it sounded like McDonald growled on the night he was killed

'It's a detail that's so meaningless to me that I wouldn't spend time trying to figure that out,' he said under cross-examination.

The court said Tuesday they would strike the video off if the truck driver who dialed 911 that night did not show as a witness Wednesday.

Laquan McDonald - who was 17 at the time of his killing - would have been 21 today

Rudy Barillas did testify with the help of a translator, saying he had warned McDonald he would call law enforcement if he didn't leave the truck he'd spotted him in at the truck yard.

'He couldn't talk. He was tongue-tied,' he said about the teenager who was shot around 10pm.

When Van Dyke's defense attorney Randy Rueckert asked if it sounded like the victim growled, the judge stopped him in his tracks.

'Mr. Rueckert, if you want to testify, we can swear you in,' he interjected.

Earlier this month Rueckhert was accused of striking black people off the jury after getting rid of one African-American man. He denied race being the motive.

At the time 10 people had been selected including five white, three Hispanic, one African-American and one of Asian descent according to the Chicago Tribune.

Officer Leticia Velez said Wednesday she saw McDonald holding his side and believed he had a gun on him, adding he appeared to be in a 'twilight'.

'I had believed that he had something on him,' she said during her testimony, reports CBS' Beth Bria.

She later learned he was not carrying a firearm but was holding a three-inch knife.

The video show McDonald being shot five times but he was shot at least 16 times

The court saw imagery of where bullets hit the teenager on the night of October 20, 2014

Velez told the court on the third day for the defense presenting evidence and the seventh day of the trial she was not called to the scene but went because her work partner wanted to.

'We heard the call over the radio and it sounded like officers were in distress,' she revealed about how they came upon McDonald.

Velez said she wanted to leave her vehicle when she got to the scene but her partner wanted to keep a distance.

Van Dyke - who also had Joseph Walsh, ex-Detective David March, and Officer Thomas Gaffney on the scene - said he was in fear of his life.

The three other men go on trial November 26 faces charges they lied to exaggerate the threat McDonald posed.

Prosecutors questioned why the driver and police thought they were at risk when the boy did not use a weapon as he fought with the truck driver who threw dirt and gravel at him in the confrontation.

The prosecution wrapped up testimonies last week as McDonald's mother Tina Hunter (pictured Monday) watched

Former Deputy Chief David McNaughton and ex-Chief Eugene Roy retired after the city's Office of Inspector General conducted an investigation into the shooting and recommended they be dismissed.

Lieutenant Anthony Wojcik was investigating on behalf of the police department but retired before the Inspector General finished looking into his case.

Sergeant Daniel Gallagher resigned after they recommended his firing.

The defense also called witnesses including Cook County Juvenile Detention Center's Jackie Alexander Wednesday who quoted McDonald as saying he would 'put a slug in the judge's head' when she spoke to him as he refused to go to his cell in 2014.

Richard Delk says McDonald resisted when he tried to restrain him at the same facility.

Under Illinois law, defendants who claim self-defense can present evidence about the past behavior of the person they killed, even if they weren't aware of that history when the killing occurred.

The prosecution wrapped up testimonies last week as McDonald's mother Tina Hunter watched.

It's not known whether Van Dyke will testify.

The defendant was pictured leaving Leighton Criminal Court Building with his wife Tiffany Van Dyke Wednesday. They both wore bulletproof vests.The trial for a teaching assistant accused of excessively disciplining an elementary student began Wednesday.

Maria Fountain, 47, of Rome, New York, was charged in June with endangering the welfare of a child and second-degree harassment while she taught at John E. Joy Elementary School.

Authorities said Fountain is accused of grabbing a special needs student by her arms and slamming them onto a table.

The trial for teaching assistant, Maria Fountain (left), who is accused of excessive discipline of an elementary student began Wednesday. She was charged in June with endangering the welfare of a child alongside Ashley Rasbach (right)

Fountain was charged alongside Ashley Rasbach, 30, who was also a teacher at the school, according to WKTV.

Rasbach is accused of grabbing a student by the hair and spraying them with a water bottle.

According to the station, Rasbach allegedly squeezed another student between an open door and the wall.

She then allegedly picked the student up and dropped her onto the floor. A judge will decide whether or not Fountain is guilty.

The prosecutor in the case said that Fountain broke the golden rule to treat others like you would want to be treated, according to WKTV.

Fountain's defense said that in a special education classroom, physical contact isn't always abuse.Two women are behind bars and one remains on the run after they allegedly kidnapped, beat and robbed their male co-worker at a student housing complex.

Durgen Gutierrez says the three women stole $5,000 from his wallet, pistol-whipped him until he was unconscious, and left him for dead in the woods.

Claudia Lopez-Mendez, 21, and Darlin Diveana Munoz Cano, 24, have both been arrested and charged with first-degree robbery and first-degree kidnapping.

The third suspect, known only by the name 'Leanna', remains at large.

Claudia Lopez-Mendez, 21, (left) and Darlin Diveana Munoz Cano, 24, (right) allegedly kidnapped, beat, and robbed their male co-worker at the University of Alabama

Gutierrez said the three women approached him at the parking lot of a student apartment complex at the University of Alabama on August 18 around 2pm.

He had only known the women, who were from South Carolina and had traveled to clean apartments at the university, for about two weeks.

Gutierrez told authorities that he had a 'brief conversation' with the women, who told him that 'he needed to ride with them somewhere', according to Tuscaloosa News.

When he got into the back seat of their Ford Explorer, one of the women put a knife to his throat and called a co-worker to demand $4,000 for his release, he said.

Durgen Gutierrez (pictured after the attack) says the three women stole $5,000 from his wallet, pistol-whipped him until he was unconscious, and left him for dead in the woods

But the co-worker thought it was a joke and hung up the phone.

Gutierrez said two of the women were armed with knives and the other one had a gun.

The third woman who allegedly attacked Gutierrez (pictured in the hospital after the attack) remains at large

He said that, after the co-worker hung up the phone, the women zip-tied his hands behind his back and placed zip-ties around his neck.

They then attached the zip-ties around his neck to the doors of the car, and also placed a hoodie over his head, he said.

After the women took his cash, wallet and phone, one of them began pistol-whipping him in the head with a handgun until he was knocked unconscious.

Gutierrez woke up in a wooded area in Hale County after a passerby found him and called 911.

'I was unconscious, so I didn't know where I was,' he told ABC3340.

'If it wasn't for the person that found me, I don't know where I would be.'

Guttierez was treated for a busted lip, a swollen and bruised faced, and scratches to his arms and neck.

Gutierrez (pictured after recovering from his injuries) said two of the women were armed with knives and the other one had a gun

He is now back at work, but still remains baffled at why he was targeted in the first place.

'I don't have problems with them,' he said. 'They were just other employees.'

'They beat me and took the money we were going to use to pay everybody.'

Cano and Lopez-Mendez are currently being held in the Tuscaloosa County Jail, each on $120,000 bond.Chairman Grassley, Ranking Member Feinstein, Members of the Committee.

My name is Christine Blasey Ford. I am a Professor of Psychology at Palo Alto University and a Research Psychologist at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

I was an undergraduate at the University of North Carolina and earned my degree in Experimental Psychology in 1988.

I received a Master's degree in 1991 in Clinical Psychology from Pepperdine University. In 1996, I received a PhD in Educational Psychology from the University of Southern California.

I earned a Master's degree in Epidemiology from the Stanford University School of Medicine in 2009. I have been married to Russell Ford since 2002 and we have two children.

I am here today not because I want to be. I am terrified.

I am here because I believe it is my civic duty to tell you what happened to me while Brett Kavanaugh and I were in high school.

I have described the events publicly before. I summarized them in my letter to Ranking Member Feinstein, and again in my letter to Chairman Grassley.

I understand and appreciate the importance of your hearing from me directly about what happened to me and the impact it has had on my life and on my family.

I grew up in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. I attended the Holton-Arms School in Bethesda, Maryland, from 1980 to 1984. Holton-Arms is an all-girls school that opened in 1901.

During my time at the school, girls at Holton-Arms frequently met and became friendly with boys from all-boys schools in the area, including Landon School, Georgetown Prep, Gonzaga High 2 School, country clubs, and other places where kids and their families socialized.

This is how I met Brett Kavanaugh, the boy who sexually assaulted me.

In my freshman and sophomore school years, when I was 14 and 15 years old, my group of friends intersected with Brett and his friends for a short period of time.

I had been friendly with a classmate of Brett's for a short time during my freshman year, and it was through that connection that I attended a number of parties that Brett also attended.

We did not know each other well, but I knew him and he knew me. In the summer of 1982, like most summers, I spent almost every day at the Columbia Country Club in Chevy Chase, Maryland swimming and practicing diving.

One evening that summer, after a day of swimming at the club, I attended a small gathering at a house in the Chevy Chase/Bethesda area.

There were four boys I remember being there: Brett Kavanaugh, Mark Judge, P.J. Smyth, and one other boy whose name I cannot recall. I remember my friend Leland Ingham attending.

I do not remember all of the details of how that gathering came together, but like many that summer, it was almost surely a spur of the moment gathering.

I truly wish I could provide detailed answers to all of the questions that have been and will be asked about how I got to the party, where it took place, and so forth.

I don't have all the answers, and I don't remember as much as I would like to.

But the details about that night that bring me here today are ones I will never forget.

They have been seared into my memory and have haunted me episodically as an adult.

When I got to the small gathering, people were drinking beer in a small living room on the first floor of the house. I drank one beer that evening. Brett and Mark were visibly drunk.

Early in the evening, I went up a narrow set of stairs leading from the living room to a second floor to use the bathroom.

When I got to the top of the stairs, I was pushed from behind into a bedroom. I couldn't see who pushed me.

Brett and Mark came into the bedroom and locked the door behind them. There was music already playing in the bedroom.

It was turned up louder by either Brett or Mark once we were in the room. I was pushed onto the bed and Brett got on top of me.

He began running his hands over my body and grinding his hips into me. I yelled, hoping someone downstairs might hear me, and tried to get away from him, but his weight was heavy.

Brett groped me and tried to take off my clothes. He had a hard time because he was so drunk, and because I was wearing a one-piece bathing suit under my clothes.

I believed he was going to rape me. I tried to yell for help. When I did, Brett put his hand over my mouth to stop me from screaming.

This was what terrified me the most, and has had the most lasting impact on my life. It was hard for me to breathe, and I thought that Brett was accidentally going to kill me.

Both Brett and Mark were drunkenly laughing during the attack. They both seemed to be having a good time.

Mark was urging Brett on, although at times he told Brett to stop. A couple of times I made eye contact with Mark and thought he might try to help me, but he did not.

During this assault, Mark came over and jumped on the bed twice while Brett was on top of me.

The last time he did this, we toppled over and Brett was no longer on top of me. I was able to get up and run out of the room.

Directly across from the bedroom was a small bathroom. I ran inside the bathroom and locked the door.

I heard Brett and Mark leave the bedroom laughing and loudly walk down the narrow stairs, pin-balling off the walls on the way down.

I waited and when I did not hear them come back up the stairs, I left the bathroom, ran down the stairs, through the living room, and left the house.

I remember being on the street and feeling an enormous sense of relief that I had escaped the house and that Brett and Mark were not coming outside after me.

Brett's assault on me drastically altered my life. For a very long time, I was too afraid and ashamed to tell anyone the details.

I did not want to tell my parents that I, at age 15, was in a house without any parents present, drinking beer with boys.

I tried to convince myself that because Brett did not rape me, I should just move and just pretend that it didn't happen.

Over the years, I told very few friends that I had this traumatic experience. I told my husband before we were married that I had experienced a sexual assault.

I had never told the details to anyone until May 2012, during a couples counseling session.

The reason this came up in counseling is that my husband and I had completed a very extensive, very long, remodel of our home, and I insisted on a second front door, an idea that he and others disagreed with and could not understand.

In explaining why I wanted to have a second front door, I described the assault in detail.

I recall saying that the boy who assaulted me could someday be on the U.S. Supreme Court and spoke a bit about his background. My husband recalls that I named my attacker as Brett Kavanaugh.

After that May 2012 therapy session, I did my best to suppress memories of the assault because recounting the details caused me to relive the experience, and caused panic attacks and anxiety.

Occasionally I would discuss the assault in individual therapy, but talking about it caused me to relive the trauma, so I tried not to think about it or discuss it.

But over the years, I went through periods where I thought about Brett's attack.

I confided in some close friends that I had an experience with sexual assault. Occasionally I stated that my assailant was a prominent lawyer or judge but I did not use his name.

I do not recall each person I spoke to about Brett's assault, and some friends have reminded me of these conversations since the publication of The Washington Post story on September 16, 2018.

But until July 2018, I had never named Mr. Kavanaugh as my attacker outside of therapy.

This all changed in early July 2018. I saw press reports stating that Brett Kavanaugh was on the 'short list' of potential Supreme Court nominees.

I thought it was my civic duty to relay the information I had about Mr. Kavanaugh's conduct so that those considering his potential nomination would know about the assault.

On July 6, 2018, I had a sense of urgency to relay the information to the Senate and the President as soon as possible before a nominee was selected.

I called my congressional representative and let her receptionist know that someone on the President's shortlist had attacked me.

I also sent a message to The Washington Post's confidential tip line. I did not use my name, but I provided the names of Brett Kavanaugh and Mark Judge.

I stated that Mr. Kavanaugh had assaulted me in the 1980s in Maryland. This was an extremely hard thing for me to do, but I felt I couldn't NOT do it.

Over the next two days, I told a couple of close friends on the beach in California that Mr. Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted me.

I was conflicted about whether to speak out.

On July 9, 2018, I received a call from the office of Congresswoman Anna Eshoo after Mr. Kavanaugh had become the nominee.

I met with her staff on July 11 and with her on July 13, describing the assault and discussing my fear about coming forward.

Later, we discussed the possibility of sending a letter to Ranking Member Feinstein, who is one of my state's Senators, describing what occurred.

My understanding is that Representative Eshoo's office delivered a copy of my letter to Senator Feinstein's office on July 30, 2018.

The letter included my name, but requested that the letter be kept confidential.

My hope was that providing the information confidentially would be sufficient to allow the Senate to consider Mr. Kavanaugh's serious misconduct without having to make myself, my family, or anyone's family vulnerable to the personal attacks and invasions of privacy we have faced since my name became public.

In a letter on August 31, 2018, Senator Feinstein wrote that she would not share the letter without my consent.

I greatly appreciated this commitment. All sexual assault victims should be able to decide for themselves whether their private experience is made public.

As the hearing date got closer, I struggled with a terrible choice: Do I share the facts with the Senate and put myself and my family in the public spotlight?

Or do I preserve our privacy and allow the Senate to make its decision on Mr. Kavanaugh's nomination without knowing the full truth about his past behavior?

I agonized daily with this decision throughout August and early September 2018.

The sense of duty that motivated me to reach out confidentially to The Washington Post, Representative Eshoo's office, and Senator Feinstein's office was always there, but my fears of the consequences of speaking out started to increase.

During August 2018, the press reported that Mr. Kavanaugh's confirmation was virtually certain.

Persons painted him as a champion of women's rights and empowerment. I believed that if I came forward, my voice would be drowned out by a chorus of powerful supporters.

By the time of the confirmation hearings, I had resigned myself to remaining quiet and letting the Committee and the Senate make their decision without knowing what Mr. Kavanaugh had done to me.

Once the press started reporting on the existence of the letter I had sent to Senator Feinstein, I faced mounting pressure.

Reporters appeared at my home and at my workplace demanding information about this letter, in the presence of my graduate students.

They called my bosses and coworkers and left me many messages, making it clear that my name would inevitably be released to the media.

I decided to speak out publicly to a journalist who had originally responded to the tip I had sent to The Washington Post and who had gained my trust. It was important for me to describe the details of the assault in my own words.

Since September 16th, the date of The Washington Post story, I have experienced an outpouring of support from people in every state of this country.

Thousands and thousands of people who have had their lives dramatically altered by sexual violence have reached out to share their experience and have thanked me for coming forward.

We have received tremendous support from our friends and our community. At the same time, my greatest fears have been realized  and the reality has been far worse than what I expected.

My family and I have been the target of constant harassment and death threats and I have been called the most vile and hateful names imaginable.

These messages, while far fewer than the expressions of support, have been terrifying and have rocked me to my core.

People have posted my personal information and that of my parents online on the internet.

This has resulted in additional emails, calls, and threats. My family and I were forced to move out of our home.

Since September 16, my family and I have been living in various secure locales, at time separated and at times together, with security guards.

This past Tuesday evening, my work email account was hacked and messages were sent out trying to recant my description of the sexual assault.

Apart from the assault itself, these last couple of weeks have been the hardest of my life.

I have had to relive my trauma in front of the entire world, and have seen my life picked apart by people on television, in the media, and in this body who have never met me or spoken with me.

I have been accused of acting out of partisan political motives.

Those who say that do not know me. I am an independent person and I am no one's pawn.

My motivation in coming forward was to be helpful and provide facts about how Mr. Kavanaugh's actions have damaged my life, so that you can take into a serious consideration as you make your decision about how to proceed.

It is not my responsibility to determine whether Mr. Kavanaugh deserves to sit on the Supreme Court.

My responsibility is to tell you the truth.

I understand that a professional prosecutor has been hired to ask me questions, and I am committed to doing my very best to answer them.

I have never been questioned by a prosecutor and I will do my best.

At the same time, because the Committee Members will be judging my credibility, I hope to be able to engage directly with each of you.

At this point, I will do my best to answer your questions.

And I request some caffeine.

[Some Coke or something?]

That sounds great. Thank you.Britain's biggest force relaxed its ban on recruiting officers with tattoos yesterday as it launched a drive to hire 2,000 more officers.

Scotland Yard said candidates will be considered on a 'case-by-case basis' instead of being automatically rejected.

Senior officers believe the move reflects modern Britain and the high numbers of young adults sporting body art.

Last year one in every 10 potential recruits were ruled out because of the ban brought in by former chief Bernard Hogan-Howe six years ago.

Britain's biggest force relaxed its ban on recruiting officers with tattoos yesterday as it launched a drive to hire 2,000 more officers. Scotland Yard said candidates will be considered on a 'case-by-case basis' instead of being automatically rejected.

Police officers are banned from having offensive tattoos, including ones with discriminatory, violent or intimidating slogans. (File image)

He was responding to concerns from victims of crime who complained that some young officers appeared 'thuggish'.

The force ordered a 'tattoo amnesty' in which anyone who already has marks on their hands, neck or face must declare them within weeks or be sacked.

Commissioner Cressida Dick said the move will make it 'easier' for people with tattoos to join.

She told LBC Radio: 'If you had a tattoo on your forearm, we would allow that, but there may be times where we would ask you to cover it up.

'So it's not a huge change, but we believe that it will actually show that we are a modern service.

'Huge numbers of young people, as you know, carry tattoos, and we want to get the best of London in and we don't want people to be disbarred for something which, in the modern age, shouldn't bar them.'

Miss Dick said even full-sleeve arm tattoos could be permitted 'as long as they are not offensive' and may need to be covered up for 'certain policing situations'.

Commissioner Cressida Dick (above) said the move will make it 'easier' for people with tattoos to join. She told LBC Radio: 'If you had a tattoo on your forearm, we would allow that, but there may be times where we would ask you to cover it up'

Police officers are banned from having offensive tattoos, including ones with discriminatory, violent or intimidating slogans.

Many forces say they will deal with tattooed recruits on a case-by-case basis, with the quantity, size and prominence of markings taken into consideration.

The Metropolitan Police was the only force to actively ban people with visible tattoos of any kind from joining the frontline.

Ken Marsh, who leads the Metropolitan Police Federation, said: 'We have got to reflect the society we serve.

'If tattoos are not obviously insulting, threatening or some nonsense like that then I have no issue with them whatsoever.

I don't think a draconian ban was necessary. Most young people seem to have tattoos now - it doesn't make them poor cops.'

Miss Dick was speaking at the launch of a 1.25million advertising campaign to recruit a new generation of officers.

She said the number - double the normal annual intake - was funded by an additional 110million from the London Mayor and Home Secretary.

The recruitment campaign comes as the Met battles a surge in crime as officer numbers fell below 30,000 for the first time in 15 years.

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said any tattoo considered discriminatory, offensive, racist or sexist would still be grounds to reject a candidate.

He said: 'The caveat is that any tattoo may have to be covered while on-duty for certain policing events.'A police officer is fighting for life after sustaining a critical head wound and internal injuries when he was struck by an allegedly stolen car.

Police were pursuing the allegedly stolen sedan on Brisbane Road in the Ipswich suburb of Booval, west of Brisbane at around 5am on Thursday morning when an officer was struck and dragged several metres down the road.

Police located the vehicle on nearby Vowels Street a short time later and later arrested a teenage boy and girl, who are assisting police with inquiries.

A male constable is fighting for life after he was struck by a allegedly stolen sedan (pictured) west of Brisbane. Two people are currently assisting police with their inquiries

The constable was rushed to Princess Alexandra Hospital, where he's in a critical condition.

It's understood he was trying to lay down traffic spikes when he was allegedly struck.

'Our thoughts are with this officer and his family. We would ask people to say a prayer for him,' Acting Superintendent Mel Adams told reporters.

Police remain at the scene while Brisbane Street, which remains closed with traffic diversions via McGrath Lane and Stafford Street.

Police urge motorists to avoid the area and seek an alternative route.

Investigations are continuing.A hospital worker who became the third person in the UK to be struck down with deadly monkeypox has blamed 'pathetically small' NHS gloves for failing to protect her - and fears she may have passed it to her builder husband.

The mother-of-two, from Fleetwood, Lancashire, is thought to have caught the possibly fatal virus while changing bedding at Blackpool Victoria Hospital.

The 40-year-old said: 'The gloves were too short to cover my arms and left my skin exposed while changing the bed. I think that's how I got infected'.

The healthcare assistant, who has not been identified, developed flu-like symptoms after working at the hospital, where one of the previous victims had been.

Her 50-year-old husband is also believed to have got the disease after his face broke out in spots - the tell-tale sign of the virus.

Fear of the virus spreading is high among the public, with some questioning how many patients the health worker may have treated before she was diagnosed.

Public Health England has already ordered smallpox vaccines to give to health workers treating the first two patients. It is likely staff caring for the third patient will also be given the preventative jab, proven to be 85 per cent effective in stopping patients coming down with monkeypox.

The mother-of-two, from Fleetwood, Lancashire, is thought to have caught the possibly fatal virus while changing bedding at Blackpool Victoria Hospital. The previous two victims caught the virus in Nigeria before travelling to the UK

A hospital worker who became the third person in the UK to be struck down with deadly monkeypox has blamed 'pathetically small' NHS gloves for failing to protect her. File photo

She also told The Sun: 'They told us we weren't at risk  but that's obviously nonsense. I'm terrified about what may happen to me and my family.'

The woman is the first person to catch monkeypox in the UK. She is now being treated by doctors in isolation at the specialist unit at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle.

The previous two victims caught the virus in Nigeria before travelling to the UK. Officials today confirmed they are both also still in isolation at different hospitals.

Public Health England (PHE) warned patients remain infectious for up to three weeks - until the rash has scabbed over and the scabs have dropped off.

It is thought nurses and doctors are wearing respirator masks, eye protection and disposable gowns, gloves and shoe covers to provide care. Newer antivirals may be used.

PHE revealed the unnamed medic had treated the second patient at Blackpool Victoria Hospital.

However, officials on Wednesday said she had come into contact with the patient before they were confirmed to have monkeypox.

PHE repeatedly claimed the risk of infection was low and staff, patients and visitors were safe. However, yesterday it said the new case was 'not wholly unexpected'.

It comes after PHE issued an urgent monkeypox warning in the wake of the first two cases, warning it could be spread through bedding.

In guidance aimed at doctors and nurses, the Government agency urged them to avoid touching suspected cases with their hands and to always wear gloves.

PHE said the health worker was following standard guidance because the patient they were treating had not been confirmed to have monkeypox.

Monkeypox - often caught through handling monkeys - is a rare viral disease that kills around 10 per cent of people it strikes, according to figures (stock)

The 40-year-old mother-of-two, from Fleetwood, Lancashire, is thought to have caught the possibly fatal virus while changing bedding at Blackpool Victoria Hospital (above, file photo)

DIDN'T THEY WARN IT COULD BE SPREAD THROUGH BEDDING? Health chiefs issued an urgent monkeypox warning earlier this month telling doctors and nurses to avoid touching suspected cases with their bare hands. Public Health England (PHE) gave out the official guidance after the second patient was struck down with the killer virus in the UK. Officials revealed monkeypox can be spread through contact with clothing or linen, such as bedding or towels, used by an infected person. They said medics must wear gloves when touching patients who could be infected and practise good hand hygiene because the disease can spread between people via a rash which develops into skin lesions which later scab and fall off. PHE released the guidance in a document called 'Monkeypox: information for primary care'. Advertisement

Commenting on the third case, Dr Nick Phin, deputy director of the National Infection Service at PHE, said: 'This healthcare worker cared for the patient before a diagnosis of monkeypox was made.

'We have been actively monitoring contacts for 21 days after exposure to detect anyone presenting with an illness so that they can be assessed quickly.

'It is therefore not wholly unexpected that a case has been identified.

'This person has been isolated and we are taking a highly precautionary approach to ensure that all contacts are traced.'

Andy Welch, medical director of The Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: 'We are currently treating a patient who has been diagnosed with monkeypox.

'The patient is in isolation and being cared for by specialist and highly trained staff who are experienced in dealing with a variety of infectious diseases.

'There is no risk to other patients and visitors and we have robust procedures in place to ensure our patients and staff are protected. In order to maintain patient confidentiality we will not release any further information.'

The medical professional is now being treated by doctors in the specialist unit at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle (pictured)

WHAT IS THE PROTOCOL AT BLACKPOOL VICTORIA HOSPITAL? A practice nurse whose colleague contracted monkeypox from a patient said the hospital have specific procedures for dealing with sufferers of infectious disease. The nurse, who wished to remain anonymous, said a patient with an infectious disease would usually be moved to a separate ward in Blackpool Victoria Hospital to be isolated. The nurse said: Usual procedure with a patient you believe doesn't have an infectious disease, you would give them some water or coffee without wearing any gloves. In the case [of someone who has an infection], that person would be on [a separate ward] to prevent the infection. They would be in a side room, isolated with double doors so when you open one, the one behind you closes and locks. That would be usual for an infected patient. When we know or there is a query of an infectious disease the person goes to that separate ward. It is a small ward with only around eight side rooms. In case we can't do that, the patient gets transferred to another ward with a side room. The patient would have a trolley which tells [the nurse] whether they have an infection. The nurse would wear a different apron to other nurses, it is yellow [if they have been infected]. The nurse said staff within the hospital have spoken about their concerns this morning [Sep 27] after reading about the case in the media. He added: People have spoken about it [within the hospital]. For the policies of the hospital we are very concentrated and focused on being careful. ' Advertisement

William Thirtle, from Newcastle, was being treated at the RVI for a problem with his eyesight.

The 53-year-old labourer said: 'You aren't going to want to come in to here when all you hear on the news is about this deadly and contagious disease that's here.

'I know that the woman concerned is in isolation, but who has she been in contact with?

'She contracted it because she is a nurse - so how do you know her patients she treated before she was diagnosed haven't contracted it.'

He added: 'It's worrying because these are vulnerable people. It's just awful. I am diabetic, but am here today for a problem with my eyesight.

'I wasn't sure about coming, but I thought I'd rather come and risk it then lose my eyesight.

'I have to come back here in two weeks, but if things haven't died down by then I might have to go elsewhere.'

PHE said it was following up with close contacts of the new patient to provide advice and monitor their health.

The Government agency is also seeking to make contact with anyone who made contact with the individual in the 24 hours before they noticed a rash.

The viral disease was recorded for the first time in the UK on September 7 in a Nigerian national staying at a naval base in Cornwall.

The patient was transferred to the expert infectious disease unit at the Royal Free Hospital in London the following day.

A second person was then confirmed to have been struck down with the virus on September 11.

The unidentified patient first went to Blackpool Victoria Hospital with symptoms, before they tested positive for monkeypox.

WHAT IS MONKEYPOX? Monkeypox - often caught through handling monkeys - is a rare viral disease that kills around 10 per cent of people it strikes, according to figures. The virus responsible for the disease is found mainly in the tropical areas of west and central Africa. Monkeypox was first discovered in 1958, with the first reported human case in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1970. Human cases were recorded for the first time in the US in 2003 and the UK in September 2018. It resides in wild animals but humans can catch it through direct contact with animals, such as handling monkeys, or eating inadequately cooked meat. The virus can enter the body through broken skin, the respiratory tract, or the eyes, nose or mouth. It can pass between humans via droplets in the air, and by touching the skin of an infected individual, or touching objects contaminated by them. Symptoms usually appear within five and 21 days of infection. These include a fever, headache, muscle aches, swollen lymph nodes, chills and fatigue. The most obvious symptom is a rash, which usually appears on the face before spreading to other parts of the body. This then forms skin lesions that scab and fall off. Monkeypox is usually mild, with most patients recovering within a few weeks without treatment. Yet, the disease can often prove fatal. There are no specific treatments or vaccines available for monkeypox infection, according to the World Health Organization. Advertisement

They were then sent for treatment at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital, a specialist centre.

Further information on the state of the first two patients has not yet been released.

Officials believe both the first two patients caught the virus, often spread through handling monkeys and proves fatal in 10 per cent of cases, in Nigeria before flying to England.

Nigeria was hit hard by a virulent outbreak of monkeypox last September, with 89 people infected and six deaths recorded in March.

The country had not previously reported a case of the disease since 1978.

The most recent government figures, released last year, estimate there are 190,000 people that were born in Nigeria who currently live in the UK.

Monkeypox is a rare viral infection that was first discovered in monkeys in 1958. While similar to smallpox, it is not as deadly.

The first case in a human was discovered in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1970, and since cases have been reported in central and west African countries.

Initial symptoms include fever, headache and chills. As the illness develops large welts can appear over the face and body.

Monkeypox resides in wild animals but humans can catch it through direct contact with animals, such as handling monkeys, or eating inadequately cooked meat.

It can pass between humans via droplets in the air, and by touching the skin of an infected individual, or touching objects contaminated by them.

Most people who contract the disease recover within a few weeks, but in up to 10 per cent of cases it is fatal.

The virus was recorded for the first time in the UK on Friday, September 7 in a Nigerian national staying in Cornwall, who is now being treated at the Royal Free Hospital in London (pictured)

It comes after an eminent virologist earlier this month told MailOnline monkeypox infects 10 per cent of people who come into contact with sufferers.

Professor Earl Brown, at the University of Ottawa, said hospital staff treating the patient at are particularly at risk of catching the deadly virus.

Thirty-seven people were confirmed to have been struck down by monkeypox in an outbreak in the US in 2003.

It was the first time the disease, which had been confirmed in five states, had been reported in humans outside of Africa.

Monkeypox was two years ago named as one of 37 viruses that pose a potential threat to populations around the world.

University of Edinburgh listed the virus among MERS and two strains of Ebola, a haemorrhagic fever responsible for a brutal pandemic in 2014.Theresa May last night launched a furious attack on Vladimir Putin over the Salisbury poisonings, accusing him of using 'desperate fabrication' to hide the identities of his would-be assassins.

With the country's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov sitting only metres away, the Prime Minister used a UN Security Council meeting on chemical weapons to point the finger of blame of Russia for the 'reckless' nerve agent attack.

As details of one of the suspects' true identity emerged, Mrs May said the UK had presented 'detailed evidence against two agents of the Russian state'.

She added: 'Russia has only sought to obfuscate through desperate fabrication.'

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Theresa May launched a furious attack on Vladimir Putin over the Salisbury poisonings in an address to world leaders in New York

Mrs May also used her address to indicate Britain would bomb Syria again if chemical weapons were used against its people.

In April last year Britain, the US and France bombed military bases near the capital Damascus and the city of Homs, following a chemical attack on the Syrian town of Douma.

Praising President Donald Trump, who chaired the meeting, and President Macron for their 'determination' she said the decision 'sent a clear message to the Assad regime: perpetrators of chemical weapons use cannot escape identification'.

She added: 'The regime's backers must use their influence to ensure chemical weapons are not used again. For there must be no doubt: we will respond swiftly and appropriately if they are.'

Mrs May used a UN Security Council meeting on chemical weapons to attack Russia for the 'reckless' nerve agent attack with the country's foreign minister Sergei Lavrov (pictured) sitting only metres away

Later, in a major speech to the UN General Assembly, the PM turned her fire on Russia again, attacking authoritarian countries which 'crush the basic freedoms and rights of their citizens' and rounded on 'corrupt oligarchies' and 'aggressive nationalism'.

'We have seen what happens when the natural patriotism which is a cornerstone of a healthy society is warped into aggressive nationalism, exploiting fear and uncertainty to promote identity politics at home and belligerent confrontation abroad, while breaking rules and undermining institutions.

'And we see this when states like Russia flagrantly breach international norms  from the seizing of sovereign territory to the reckless use of chemical weapons on the streets of Britain by agents of the GRU.'

In a 20-minute speech to the UN General Assembly, the PM turned her fire on Russia again

Mrs May attacked authoritarian countries which 'crush the basic freedoms and rights of their citizens'. Pictured, Vladimir Putin

In a 20-minute address, the PM urged Western leaders to be prepared to act around the world or risk allowing the rise of the 'extreme Left and extreme Right'.

Warning of a 'loss of confidence' in free market and democratic countries, she said they must have the 'will and confidence to act when the fundamental rules that we live by are broken'.

She was careful to make clear she was not endorsing 'regime change'.

But in signalling a more interventionist foreign policy, she said: 'This is not about repeating the mistakes of the past by trying to impose democracy on other countries.

STORY THAT ATTRACTED RIDICULE FROM THE START Almost as soon as the jaw- dropping claim was made, ridicule followed when the Salisbury assassins tried to pass themselves off as innocent tourists on a sightseeing weekend. Eight days after their mugshots were plastered around the world, the pair claimed they had travelled to the UK to see attractions including Salisbury Cathedral's magnificent '123-metre spire'. Paraded on the Kremlin-funded broadcaster Russia Today, the pair insisted they were 'Alexander Petrov' and 'Ruslan Boshirov', the aliases Scotland Yard said they had used to enter Britain. They added that the timing of the trip and the falling ill of a former double agent, was a 'fantastical coincidence'. Ridicule followed when the Salisbury assassins tried to pass themselves off as innocent tourists on a sightseeing weekend. Pictured, Ruslan Boshirov It came after Russian president Vladimir Putin had already claimed the pair were 'civilians' in a PR offensive after details of their mission had been revealed by the Metropolitan Police. To press the point, Petrov and Boshirov then appeared in a stage-managed interview that drew a furious response from Theresa May, who accused the Kremlin of peddling 'lies and blatant fabrication'. The Prime Minister, who had earlier told the Commons the men were members of Russia's feared GRU, said Russia's denials 'insulted the public's intelligence'. In the 25-minute recording, during which they drank cognac to 'settle their nerves', the pair claimed that their lives had been 'turned upside down' since being named as suspects. Their comments drew global condemnation, with the pair failing to explain why traces of novichok were found in the east London hotel room they used before travelling to the Skripals' home. Body language experts said the pair appeared to be reciting 'guide book monologues' about Salisbury. The men claim to have their own images of their visit but these have yet to be released. Pictures backing up their claims to have visited a park and drank coffee have also failed to emerge. Advertisement

'But we should not allow those mistakes to prevent us from protecting people in the face of the worst violations of human rights and human dignity.'

Mrs May told the Security Council there was 'no greater threat to international peace and security than the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.'

She said Russian vetoes at the UN had stopped the Security Council from 'holding the Assad regime to account'.

'It is my sincere hope that Russia will rejoin the international consensus against the use of chemical weapons.'

Mrs May said there had been a 'loss of confidence' in capitalism and liberal democracy as a result of the financial crash, mass migration and technological change.

She said the war in Iraq and other 'military interventionism' led to questions about using force overseas.

But she warned: 'Be in no doubt, if we lack the confidence to step up, others will.'The grief-stricken family of a boy who was killed while playing with friends on holiday has been described as a 'sweetheart'.

Marco Seraj was playing with four other children on a homemade swing when it toppled over and killed him on Saturday afternoon.

The four-year-old Brisbane boy died from critical head injuries in front of his father when the wooden structure gave in.

Marco Seraj (pictured) was playing with four other children on a homemade swing when it toppled over and killed him on Saturday afternoon

Marco's family was one of three staying at an Airbnb on the Sunshine Coast, the Courier Mail reported.

A witness to the tragedy, Kamran Salah Sohrabi, said Marco's parents, Arastoo and Azad Seraj, are still in shock.

'One minute they are crying, one minute they are happy, one minute angry,' Mr Sohrabi said.

'They are having a really bad time  they can't stay over at their house, so they are staying at my house. They want to move out. They don't want to live there anymore.'

Marco was believed to be on one side of the wooden swing and four other children were on the other side.

The loose structure then toppled over and hit the young boy in the head. Despite efforts from paramedics - nothing could be done to save the boy.

Marco was believed to be on one side of the wooden swing and four other children were on the other side

Authorities have now taken the swing from the rural property and are inspecting it, in order to prepare a report for the coroner.

The family had just moved to Queensland from Victoria and were an integral part of the close-knit Kurdish community, according to friends.

'It's a tragedy for them and very sad news for all our community,' Sirvan Mirkan, from Victoria's Kurdistan Patriotic Association said.

'Everybody loved them.'The location of the original Dunkin Donuts restaurant in Quincy, Massachusetts is seen above

Dunkin' Donuts was founded in 1950 by William Rosenberg in Quincy, Massachusetts, and now boasts more than 12,000 outlets in 36 countries.

Instead of the five different types of doughnuts that doughnut shops traditionally offered, Rosenberg offered 52 different varieties.

He opened the brand to franchising in the late 1950s and it steadily grew, though it's still known as a New England brand.

Dunkin' Donuts was sold in 1989 to Allied-Lyon, which also purchased their top competitor Mister Donut in 1990.

Mister Donut stores were then rebranded as Dunkin' Donuts.

The two brands' use of 'donut' instead of 'doughnut' led to the short, phonetic spelling becoming so prevalent that it's now included in the dictionary.

Since 2005 the brand has been owned by a consortium of three private-equity firms under the umbrella of Dunkin' Brands, which also owns Baskin Robbins.Jeremy Corbyn hinted Remain could be on the ballot paper in any new referendum on Brexit today.

The Labour leader used his keynote address to party delegates in Liverpool to back his Brexit Secretary Sir Keir Starmer.

Sir Keir has seen off critics in the party this week who insisted any new referendum should only be between an exit deal and no deal.

But Mr Corbyn told activists: 'Keir, having got agreement yesterday in this conference hall, getting one in Brussels should be a piece of cake.'

Mr Corbyn repeated his threat to vote down Theresa May's planned deal if it does not include a customs union and a solution on the Irish border.

And he said there must be a snap election if the PM cannot get her deal past MPs.

The Labour leader said: 'Let me say to the country. As it stands, Labour will vote against the Chequers plan or whatever is left of it and oppose leaving the EU with no deal.

'And it is inconceivable that we should crash out of Europe with no deal - that would be a national disaster.

'That is why if Parliament votes down a Tory deal or the government fails to reach any deal at all we would press for a General Election.

'Failing that, all options are on the table.'Jeremy Corbyn today vowed to 'eradicate' anti-Semitism from Labour's ranks and the wider country in a new plea to the Jewish community.

The Labour leader stopped short of making a full apology to the Jewish community as has been demanded but said he hoped to 'draw a line' under the toxic row.

He insisted in his Liverpool speech fighting racism was 'part of who I am'.

Recalling a visit to the Terezin concentration camp, Mr Corbyn said: 'The row over anti-Semitism has caused immense hurt and anxiety in the Jewish community and great dismay in the Labour Party.

'But I hope we can work together to draw a line under it.'

He added: 'We will work with Jewish communities to eradicate antisemitism, both from our party and wider society.

'And with your help I will fight for that with every breath I possess.

'Anti-racism is integral to our very being. It's part of who you all are, and it's part of who I am.'

Mr Corbyn lashed Theresa May's Tories for refusing to act against the hard-right government in Hungary.

He said: 'We won't accept it when we're attacked by Tory hypocrites who accuse us of anti-Semitism one day, then endorse Viktor Orban's hard right government the next.

'Or when they say we are racist, while they work to create a hostile environment for all migrant communities.'

Mr Corbyn repeated his promise to recognise a Palestinian state and told delegates it must be part of a two state solution alongside a 'secure Israel'.Jeremy Corbyn today admitted Russia was behind the Salisbury poison attack after sparking a storm of criticism for casting doubt over who ordered the strike.

British ministers have said the Russian state ordered two of its intelligence officials to carry out the Novichok poisoning in March this year.

The strike left former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter fighting for their lives in hospital.

It also killed British mother of three Dawn Stugess, 44, after she accidentally sprayed the poison on herself after finding it in a perfume bottle.

Theresa May said all the evidence pointed to the Russian state ordering the attempted hit - but Mr Corbyn spent months refusing to blame the Kremlin and even urged the UK to send a sample of the Novichok to Russia for testing.

But in a speech to his party conference in Liverpool today, he finally admitted the evidence shows Russia was behind it.

He said: 'We are entering a new fast-changing and more dangerous world including the reckless attacks in Salisbury which the evidence painstakingly assembled by the police now points clearly to the Russian state.'

But he also launched into an excoriating attack on the leader of America - Britain's closest ally.

And vowed to overhaul Britain's role on the world stage - warning its current position is no longer sustainable.

The Labour leader attacked Mr Trump, who he said has turned his back on the international community.

And he promised that he will not lead Britain into any more 'reckless' wars if he gets the keys to Number Ten.

In his speech to the Labour Party conference in Liverpool today, he said: 'Britains relationship with the rest of the world, our foreign policy is no longer sustainable either...

'When President Trump takes the US out of the Paris accords, tries to scrap the Iran nuclear deal, moves the US embassy to Jerusalem and pursues aggressive nationalism and trade wars - he is turning his back on international cooperation and even international law.'

The Labour leader accused the Tories of colluding with Saudi Arabia and its war in Yemen.

And Mr Corbyn - a lifelong pacifist who used to be vice president of the Campaign for nuclear Disarmament - pledged to rein in Britain's military ations abroad.

He said: 'We need a British government that can not only keep the country safe, but can also speak out for democratic values and human rights...

'That means no more reckless wars of intervention, like Iraq or Libya.

'It means putting negotiations before confrontation, diplomacy before tub-thumping threats.

'It means championing human rights and democracy everywhere and not just where it is commercially convenient.'Notable events in the US involving bump stocks, the device used in last year's Las Vegas massacre to allow guns to fire like fully automatic firearms:

1990: California bans 'multi-burst trigger activators,' which include bump stocks.

Nov. 3, 2017: Massachusetts enacts ban on bump stocks.

Dec. 19: Columbia, South Carolina, enacts ban.

Jan. 15, 2018: New Jersey ban signed into law.

Jan. 22: Denver City Council bans bump stocks.

March 6, 2018: Washington state enacts ban.

March 9: Florida enacts ban along with host of other gun-control measures.

March 23: President Donald Trump tweets: 'Obama Administration legalized bump stocks. BAD IDEA. As I promised, today the Department of Justice will issue the rule banning BUMP STOCKS with a mandated comment period.'

March 26: Lincoln, Nebraska, enacts ban.

March 29: The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives seeks public comments on a proposed change to federal regulations on bump stocks.

April 11: Vermont enacts ban.

April 18: Slide Force Solutions, the leading manufacturer of bump stocks, announces it is shuttering its business and will stop taking orders as of May 20.

April 24: Maryland enacts ban.

May 31: Connecticut enacts ban.

June 1: Rhode Island enacts ban.

June 14: Delaware enacts ban.

June 27: The comment period on the proposed ATF rule change closes.

July 9: Hawaii enacts ban.

July 27: RW Arms, a Texas-based company, announces it will start selling the leftover stock of bump stocks from Slide Force Solutions.Revelations about the military background of Colonel Anatoliy Vladimirovich Chepiga make the interview he gave to RT in September alongside the second suspected assassin Alexander Petrov appear even more farcical.

Observers quickly pointed out a number of gaping holes in their story, including:

The 'accidental' visit to Skripal's home

CCTV released by police places the two suspects at Sergei Skripal's suburban house.

Today the men admitted they may have ended up there - but claimed it was an accident.

The property, which had Novichok smeared on the door, is 25 minutes away from the city centre and its cathedral - which the men said they were there to see.

Ruslan Boshirov said: 'Maybe we passed it, or maybe we didn't. I'd never heard about them before this nightmare started. I'd never heard this name before. I didn't know anything about them'.

The hotel 127 miles from Salisbury

Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov were guests at the City Stay Hotel in Bow, East London, before poisoning Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia.

The Metropolitan Police confirmed today that 'low' levels of the nerve agent were found in the two-star 48 a night hotel in May.

The men chose a spot some distance from Waterloo - the main rail route to Salisbury - despite making the Wiltshire city the focus of their visit.

It is 127 miles from Salisbury.

The 'bad' weather

Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov claimed that they only stayed in Salisbury because of heavy snow.

The pair visited days after the Beast from the East hit Britain bringing unseasonably cold weather.

Describing the condition Boshirov said: 'It was impossible to get anywhere because of the snow. We were drenched up to our knees'.

But CCTV pictures of the men shows the pavements were largely clear of snow.

They also told RT that it snowed in the city that afternoon, but weather maps from that day show sunshine and clear skies.

The missing luggage

The men went straight from Salisbury to Heathrow for the evening flight.

But CCTV suggested that they did not have any luggage with them on their way home.The Prime Minister attacked Russia for its 'desperate fabrication' over the Salisbury spy poisoning as she addressed world leaders in New York in September.

Britain has set out detailed evidence about the prime suspects in the nerve agent attack on former spy Sergei Skripal and daughter Yulia while Russia has only sought to 'obfuscate', she said.

Theresa May lambasted Russia for its 'desperate fabrication' over the Salisbury poisoning while addressing the General Assembly of the UN on Wednesday

Mrs May told the United Nations Security Council: 'We have taken appropriate action, with our allies, and we will continue to take the necessary steps to ensure our collective security. Russia has only sought to obfuscate through desperate fabrication.'

Mrs May called on Russia to rejoin the international consensus against the use of chemical weapons and said there should be no doubt of the international community's determination to take action if it did not.

She said: 'We cannot let the framework be undermined today by those who reject the values and disregard the rules that have kept us safe.

'It will take collective engagement to reinforce it in the face of today's challenges. And in this, as has always been the case, the UK will play a leading role.'Acting on the assumption 'Ruslan Boshirov' was a GRU officer, Bellingcat spoke to former Russian military officers to ask where he might have been trained.

One suggested the Far Eastern Military Command Academy, so they browsed through its graduation photos to find a man who resembled him.

They found one possible match, which seemed to show him with a group of graduates in Chechnya (see top of the article).

The photo said seven of the men had won at Hero of the Russian Federation of the award, so Bellingcat searched the award on the Internet along with 'Far Eastern Military Command Academy' and 'Chechnya'.

This led to a page of the Volunteer Union website, which listed a colonel called Anatoliy Chepiga, who was linked to all three search terms.

They then found his name twice in leaked lists of residential addresses, which gave his date of birth as April 5, 1979. This was one year later than 'Boshirov's' cover documents, but matched up with his graduation from the military academy.

Bellingcat then obtained a passport file for Col Chepiga from 2003, and found his photo strongly matched a 2009 passport photo of 'Boshirov' released by UK police, as well as his cover passport shot.Theresa May attacked Russia for its 'desperate fabrication' over the Salisbury spy poisoning at a meeting of world leaders in New York.

Britain set out detailed evidence about the prime suspects in the 'reckless' nerve agent attack on former spy Sergei Skripal and daughter Yulia while Russia has only sought to 'obfuscate', the Prime Minister said.

Mrs May used two key speeches at the United Nations to turn her fire on Moscow amid reports that one of the suspects in the Salisbury poisoning, Ruslan Boshirov, has been identified as Colonel Anatoliy Chepiga, a highly decorated officer in the GRU, Russia's military intelligence service.

She said: 'We have taken appropriate action, with our allies, and we will continue to take the necessary steps to ensure our collective security. Russia has only sought to obfuscate through desperate fabrication.'

In speeches to the UN's Security Council and its General Assembly, Mrs May warned of the dangers of the international community failing to cooperate.

Mrs May indicated that Britain would bomb Syria again if chemical weapons were used against its people.

She also criticised Donald Trump's decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal.

She added: 'It remains the best means of preventing Iran developing a nuclear weapon, and we are committed to preserving the JCPOA as long as Iran continues to abide by its obligations in full.'

Mrs May also championed international cooperation, one day after President Trump attacked globalisation and said countries should act in their own interests.

She urged international leaders to step up and act when international norms, such as over the use of chemical weapons, are broken.

'Be in no doubt, if we lack the confidence to step up, others will,' Mrs May said.When Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger sold Instagram to Facebook in 2012, the photo-sharing startup's fiercely loyal fans worried about what would happen to their beloved app under the social media giant's wings.

None of their worst fears materialized. But now that its founders have announced they are leaving in a swirl of well wishes and vague explanations, some of the same worries are bubbling up again - and then some.

Will Instagram disappear? Get cluttered with ads and status updates? Suck up personal data for advertising the way its parent does? Lose its cool?

Scroll down for video

Kevin Systrom, CEO and co-founder of Instagram, prepares for an announcement about IGTV in San Francisco. In a statement late Monday, Sept. 24, 2018, Systrom said in a statement that he and Mike Krieger, Instagram's chief technical officer, plan to leave the company in the next few weeks and take time off 'to explore our curiosity and creativity again.'

WHY DID THEY LEAVE? Instagrams co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger frequently clashed with Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg over a range of issues, including the extent to which they could chart their own course, according to the Wall Street Journal. The co-founders also believed to be upset about tweaks to the photo-sharing app that seemed designed to promote Facebook growth at Instagrams expense, some of the people said. Many have also blamed Mark Zuckerberg's 'god complex', saying that while the app was supposedly independents, 'there was only one CEO'. Advertisement

Worst of all: Will it just become another Facebook?

'It's probably a bigger challenge (for Facebook) than most people realize,' said Omar Akhtar, an analyst at the technology research firm Altimeter.

'Instagram is the only platform that is growing. And a lot of people didn't necessarily make the connection between Instagram and Facebook.'

Instagram had just 31 million users when Facebook snapped it up for $1 billion; now it has a billion.

It had no ads back then; it now features both display and video ads, although they're still restrained compared to Facebook.

But that could quickly change. Facebook's growth has started to slow, and Wall Street has been pushing the company to find new ways to increase revenue.

Instagram has been a primary focus of those efforts.

Facebook has been elevating Instagram's profile in its financial discussions. In July, it unveiled a new metric for analysts, touting that 2.5 billion people use at least one of its apps - Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp or Messenger - each month.

While not particularly revealing, the measurement underscores the growing importance Facebook places on those secondary apps.

In this April 7, 2011, file photo, CEO Kevin Systrom, at left, chats with engineers Shayne Sweeney, center, and Mike Krieger at Instagram in San Francisco

Facebook doesn't disclose how much money Instagram pulls in, though Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter estimates it'll be around $6 billion this year, or just over 10 percent of Facebook's expected overall revenue of about $55.7 billion.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has long seen Instagram's promise. At the time, it was by far Facebook's largest acquisition (although it was dwarfed by the $19 billion Zuckerberg paid for WhatsApp two years later). And it was the first startup allowed to operate mostly independently.

That has paid off big time. Not only did Instagram reach 1 billion users faster than its parent company, it also succeeded in cloning a popular Snapchat feature, dealing a serious blow to that social network upstart and succeeding where Facebook's own attempts had repeatedly failed.

Instagram also pioneered a long-form video feature to challenge YouTube, another big Facebook rival.

Recently, Instagram has been on a roll.

In June, Systrom traveled to New York to mark the opening of its new office there, complete with a gelato bar and plans to hire hundreds of engineers.

Only a month earlier, Instagram had moved into sparkly new offices in San Francisco. In a July earnings call, Zuckerberg touted Instagram's success as a function of its integration with Facebook, claiming that it used parent-company infrastructure to grow 'more than twice as quickly as it would have on its own.'

But Instagram has also been a case study in how to run a subsidiary independently - especially when its parent is mired in user-privacy problems and concerns about election interference, fake news and misinformation. And especially when its parent has long stopped being cool, what with everyone and their grandma now on it.

Instagram's simple design - just a collection of photos and videos of sunsets, faraway vacations, intimate breakfasts and baby close-ups - has allowed it to remain a favorite long after it became part of Facebook.

If people go to Twitter to bicker over current events and to Facebook to see what old classmates are up to, Instagram is where they go to relax, scroll and feast their eyes.

Kevin Systrom (right) and Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger (left) made a shock departure from their leading roles at the social network on Monday

So, will that change?

'I don't think Zuckerberg is dumb,' Akhtar said.

'He knows that a large part of Instagram's popularity is that it's separate from Facebook.'

As such, he thinks Facebook would be wise to reassure users that what they love about Instagram isn't going to change - that they are not going to be forced to integrate with Facebook. 'That'll go a long way,' he said.

Internally, the challenge is a bit more complicated. While Systrom and Krieger didn't say why they're leaving, their decision echoes the recent departure of WhatsApp's co-founder and CEO Jan Koum, who resigned in April.

Koum had signaled years earlier that he would take a stand if Facebook's push to increase profits risked compromising core elements of the WhatsApp messaging service, such as its dedication to user privacy. When Facebook started pushing harder for more revenue and more integration with WhatsApp, Koum pulled the ripcord.

One sign that additional integration may be in Instagram's future: Zuckerberg in May sent longtime Facebook executive Adam Mosseri to run Instagram's product operation.

Mosseri replaced longtime Instagrammer Kevin Weil, who was shuffled back to the Facebook mothership.

Systrom did mention Sandberg and Zuckerberg in an outgoing 'thank you' statement shared to Instagram (pictured)

That likely didn't sit well with Instagram's founders, Akhtar and other analysts said. Now that they're gone as well, Mosseri is the most obvious candidate to head Instagram.

'Kevin Systrom loyalists are probably going to leave,' Akhtar said.

Which means Facebook may soon have a new challenge on its hands: Figuring out how to keep Instagram growing if it loses the coolness factor that has bolstered it for so long.NASA is ramping up its search for life outside of our solar system.

The space agency is hosting a workshop in Houston this week to assess the state of current efforts to find technosignatures coming from deep space and explore new areas.

These signatures are those that could be traced to an advanced civilization, reaching Earth as radio signals or other emissions caused by extraterrestrial activity.

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NASA is ramping up its search for life outside of our solar system. The space agency is hosting a workshop in Houston this week to assess the state of current efforts to find technosignatures coming from deep space

The space agencys Technosignatures Workshop in Houston will take place from September 26 to 28 to address promising areas in the field and possible investment.

Technosignatures are signs or signals, which if observed, would allow us to infer the existence of technological life elsewhere in the universe, NASA explains.

The best known technosignatures are radio signals, but there are many others that have not been explored fully.

NASAs Kepler, and now TESS mission, have led the search for worlds outside of our solar system.

But even on Earth, scientists can detect signals emanating from distant sources far beyond our own skies.

Such is the case with the mysterious fast radio bursts (FRBS) that have been repeatedly detected in the last few years, with no solid explanation as to where theyre coming from.

Technosignatures could be radio or laser emissions, for example, or even an atmosphere full of pollutants, NASA explains.

Complex life may evolve into cognitive systems that can employ technology in ways that may be observable, NASAs 2015 Astrobiology Strategy states.

Nobody knows the probability, but we know that it is not zero.

Technosignatures are signs or signals, which if observed, would allow us to infer the existence of technological life elsewhere in the universe, NASA explains. Saturn's moon Enceladus is shown

Scientists have been searching for technosignatures for decades, with NASAs own SETI (search for extraterrestrial intelligence) work beginning in 1971.

In recent years, discoveries such as the FRBs and unusual fluctuations in brightness around an object thats come to be known as Tabbys Star has fuelled the efforts.

But, signatures alone wont confirm the existence of alien life.

We will need more than an unexplained signal to definitively prove the existence of technological life, NASA says.

KEY DISCOVERIES IN HUMANITY'S SEARCH FOR ALIEN LIFE Discovery of pulsars British astronomer Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell was the first person to discover a pulsar in 1967 when she spotted a radio pulsar. Since then other types of pulsars that emit X-rays and gamma rays have also been spotted. Pulsars are essentially rotating, highly magnetised neutron stars but when they were first discovered it was believed they could have come from aliens. 'Wow!' radio signal In 1977, an astronomer looking for alien life in the night sky above Ohio spotted a radio signal so powerful that he excitedly wrote 'Wow!' next to his data. In 1977, an astronomer looking for alien life in the night sky above Ohio spotted a radio signal so powerful that he excitedly wrote 'Wow!' next to his data The 72-second blast, spotted by Dr Jerry Ehman through a radio telescope, came from Sagittarius but matched no known celestial object. Conspiracy theorists have since claimed that the 'Wow! signal', which was 30 times stronger than background radiation, was a message from intelligent extraterrestrials. Fossilised Martian microbes In 1996 Nasa and the White House made the explosive announcement that the rock contained traces of Martian bugs. The meteorite, catalogued as Allen Hills (ALH) 84001, crashed onto the frozen wastes of Antarctica 13,000 years ago and was recovered in 1984. Photographs were released showing elongated segmented objects that appeared strikingly lifelike. Photographs were released showing elongated segmented objects that appeared strikingly lifelike (pictured) However, the excitement did not last long. Other scientists questioned whether the meteorite samples were contaminated. They also argued that heat generated when the rock was blasted into space may have created mineral structures that could be mistaken for microfossils. Behaviour of Tabby's Star in 2005 The star, otherwise known as KIC 8462852, is located 1,400 light years away and has baffled astronomers since being discovered in 2015. It dims at a much faster rate than other stars, which some experts have suggested is a sign of aliens harnessing the energy of a star. The star, otherwise known as KIC 8462852, is located 1,400 light years away and has baffled astonomers since being discovered in 2015 (artist's impression) Recent studies have 'eliminated the possibility of an alien megastructure', and instead, suggests that a ring of dust could be causing the strange signals. Exoplanets in the Goldilocks zone in 2017 In February 2017 astronomers announced they had spotted a star system with planets that could support life just 39 light years away. Seven Earth-like planets were discovered orbiting nearby dwarf star 'Trappist-1', and all of them could have water at their surface, one of the key components of life. Three of the planets have such good conditions, that scientists say life may have already evolved on them. Researchers claim that they will know whether or not there is life on any of the planets within a decade, and said: 'This is just the beginning.' Advertisement

For example, there can be a lot of radio frequency interference from Earth-based sources.

NASA will continue assessing promising current efforts of research in technosignatures and investigating where investments could be made to advance the science.

Although we have yet to find signs of extraterrestrial life, NASA is amplifying exploring the solar system and beyond to help humanity answer whether we are alone in the universe.



Bombing raids by Allied forces during the Second World War were so powerful they sent shockwaves through Earth's atmosphere to the edge of space, researchers have found.

The huge bombs dropped by Allied planes on European cities were big enough to weaken the electrified upper atmosphere  the ionosphere  above the UK, 1000km away.

Researchers studying records from the time found each raid released the energy of at least 300 lightning strikes.

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The ruins of Berlin seen from above, following allied bombing raids World War Two, the collapsed suspension bridge can be seen over the Rhine, Germany, March 2nd 1945. The huge bombs dropped by Allied planes on European cities were big enough to weaken the electrified upper atmosphere  the ionosphere  above the UK, 1000km away.

'The impact of these bombs way up in the Earth's atmosphere has never been realised until now, said Chris Scott, Professor of Space and Atmospheric Physics at the University of Reading.

'It is astonishing to see how the ripples caused by man-made explosions can affect the edge of space.'

The discovery was made after researchers analyzed daily records from the Radio Research Station at Ditton Park near Slough, where routine measurements of the ionosphere were taken from 1933 to 1996, in what is the 'the longest continuous set of ionospheric measurements in the world' according to the study published in the journal Annales Geophysicae.

'Each raid released the energy of at least 300 lightning strikes,' said Scott.

'The sheer power involved has allowed us to quantify how events on the Earth's surface can also affect the ionosphere.'

THE ALLIED 'GRAND SLAM' BOMB Detailed records of the Allied raids reveal their four-engine planes routinely carried much larger bombs than the German Luftwaffe's two-engine planes could. These included the 'Grand Slam', which weighed up to 10 tonnes. The 'Grand Slam', was designed to simulate the effects of an earthquake in order to cause wide-spread destruction to critical infrastructure, was Britain's biggest conventional weapon ever. Destructive: The Grand Slam bomb was the largest conventional weapon ever deployed by the British military The bomb was the brainchild of Barnes Wallis, who is best known for creating the bouncing bombs used in the famous Dambusters raids in the Ruhr Valley. It was dropped on nine different sites in Germany in 1945 in a bid to damage morale and encourage the Nazis to surrender to Allied forces. The target of the Grand Slam was key infrastructure, such as railway bridges and submarine bays, rather than built-up populated areas. The bomb - which Wallis spent years developing before it was built - was tested just once, on March 13, 1945, when it was dropped close to a concrete bunker in the New Forest near the town of Fordingbridge. It tunnelled deep into the ground at a speed of 700mph before detonating, setting off tremors which were the equivalent of an earthquake. The crater left at the New Forest test site was 70ft deep and 130ft across, and eyewitness reports suggested that the test building could be seen shaking. Advertisement

The researchers decided to focus on major bombing raids of German cities by Allied forces and the Royal Air Force between 1943 and 1945, rather than the 'London Blitz' earlier in the war.

This is because the blitz was ongoing from September 1940 to May 1941, which means the data would be harder to separate from other seasonal changes due to the sun that might affect the ionosphere.

Researchers studied the ionosphere response records around the time of 152 large Allied air raids in Europe and found the electron concentration significantly decreased due to the shockwaves caused by the bombs detonating near the Earth's surface.

An Avro Lancaster heavy bomber seen from above during a Second World War bombing raid over Hamburg, Germany.

The first big raid by the 8th Air Force was on a Focke Wulf plant at Marienburg: Bombing raids by Allied forces during the Second World War not only caused devastation on the ground but also sent shockwaves through Earth's atmosphere which were detected at the edge of space, according to new research

This is thought to have heated the upper atmosphere, enhancing the loss of ionisation.

Detailed records of the Allied raids reveal their four-engine planes routinely carried much larger bombs than the German Luftwaffe's two-engine planes could.

WHAT IS EARTH'S IONOSPHERE? The ionosphere is a poorly-understood layer of Earth's upper atmosphere that acts as a border between our planet and space. It is home to the aurora, the international space station, a variety of satellites, and radio communication waves. Scientists know it is sensitive to weather from Earth and conditions in space, called space weather. The atmospheric layer, which contains a high concentration of ions and electrons, stretches from 37 miles (60km) to 620 miles (1,000km) altitude. It interacts with radio signals, and disruptions to the layer can cause problems with GPS signals back on Earth. Advertisement

These included the 'Grand Slam', which weighed up to 10 tonnes.

Scientists are using the findings to further understanding of how natural forces from below, like lightning, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes, affect Earth's upper atmosphere.

Professor Patrick Major, University of Reading historian and a co-author of the study, said: 'Aircrew involved in the raids reported having their aircraft damaged by the bomb shockwaves, despite being above the recommended height.

Bombing of Cologne, Germany, on 24 April 1945Bombing raids by Allied forces during the Second World War not only caused devastation on the ground but also sent shockwaves through Earth's atmosphere which were detected at the edge of space, according to new research.

'Residents under the bombs would routinely recall being thrown through the air by the pressure waves of air mines exploding, and window casements and doors would be blown off their hinges.

'There were even rumours that wrapping wet towels around the face might save those in shelters from having their lungs collapsed by blast waves, which would leave victims otherwise externally untouched.'

'The unprecedented power of these attacks has proved useful for scientists to gauge the impact such events can have hundreds of kilometres above the Earth, in addition to the devastation they caused on the ground.'A species of hummingbird newly discovered in South America is already critically endangered with only a few hundred left in existence.

Researchers came across the previously unknown Blue-throated Hillstar on an expedition in the Ecuadorian Andes last year.

But its small range, specialised habitat, and threats from human activity mean the newly described Blue-throated Hillstar is already severely endangered.

Bird experts believe there are no more than 750 individuals left and the number could even be lower than 500.

Researchers came across the previously unknown Blue-throated Hillstar on an expedition in the Ecuadorian Andes last year but it is already facing extinction because of its small range, specialised habitat and threats from human activity

WHY IS THE HILLSTAR UNDER THREAT? The Blue-throated Hillstar is specially adapted for its cold environment. Its limited range means that as its home comes under threat it will struggle to forge a new habitat. The bird's current habitat currently extends to no more than 40 square miles (100 sq km). Human activities including grazing and gold mining are believed to be responsible for the threat to the newly-discovered hummingbird. Experts believe there could be as few as 500 of the birds remaining. Advertisement

The Blue-throated Hillstar is found only along bush-lined creeks in an area of about 40 square miles.

Experts say that hillstars are unusual among hummingbirds as they live in high-elevation habitats in the Andes and have special adaptations to cold temperatures.

Threats to its habitat include fire, grazing, and gold mining, and it meets the criteria to be considered critically endangered.

Dr Francisco Sornoza-Molina, of the Instituto Nacional de Biodiversida in Ecuador, first observed and photographed a previously unknown hillstar during fieldwork in in April 2017.

Following the first expedition, he engaged fellow researchers in the study of the possible new species, returning in May to capture specimens and confirm the finding.

The researchers dubbed the new species Oreotrochilus cyanolaemus, or the Blue-throated Hillstar, after its irridescent blue throat.

Study co-author Dr Sornoza-Molina said: 'Complete support from national and international conservation agencies is needed in order to save this species.

'The action plan for the conservation of this bird is creating a network of protected areas along its geographic range.'

Professor Christopher Witt, a hummingbird expert of the University of New Mexico in the US, said: 'The hillstar hummingbirds occur in the most rugged, isolated, and inaccessible parts of the Andes.

Researchers believe there are no more than 750 individuals left and the number could even be lower than 500. An expert said the hummingbirds lived in the most 'rugged, isolated, and inaccessible parts of the Andes' in Ecuador (file photo)

'They roost in caves, forage on the ground, and spend half their lives in hypothermic torpor, so the discovery of a new species in this group is incredibly exciting.'

He added: 'This striking discovery confirms that life in the high Andes still holds many secrets to be revealed.

'The location is fitting for a new species of hillstar, because it's a remote, high mountain range that is isolated and is sandwiched between the ranges of two other hillstar species.

'The authors did a thorough job comparing the new form to its relatives in every respect.'

The findings were published in the journal The Auk: Ornithological Advances.WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton has admitted he may have forfeited users' privacy when he agreed to let Facebook acquire the popular messaging app for $19 billion.

In a wide-ranging and candid interview, Acton explained to Forbes why he left $850 million on the table when he abruptly exited Facebook in 2017, three years after it acquired WhatsApp.

The interview comes days after Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger announced they would resign from the company to 'explore our curiosity and creativity again.'

Several reports said friction with Zuckerberg had caused the departures.

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WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton admits that he may have forfeited users' privacy when he agreed to let Facebook acquire the popular messaging app for $19 billion

Ultimately, Acton's decision to leave rested on heated disagreements between him and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg over monetizing the app, he claims.

Zuckerberg and Sandberg wanted to show targeted advertisements in WhatsApp and enable businesses to communicate with users in direct messages - both of which Acton strongly disagreed with, given WhatsApp's core functionality of end-to-end encryption.

Acton believed Facebook would never abandon its plans to monetize WhatsApp and felt he had no choice but to leave.

'At the end of the day, I sold my company,' Acton told Forbes. 'I sold my users' privacy to a larger benefit. I made a choice and a compromise. I live with that every day.

'...I am a sellout. I acknowledge that,' Acton added.

Acton's grievances with the company that made him a billionaire first became apparent earlier this year when, in the midst of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, he tweeted: 'It is time. #deletefacebook.'

While Acton was at Facebook, he had fiery standoffs with Zuckerberg and Sandberg over the discussions around monetizing WhatsApp.

WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption stood in the way, and Facebook managers questioned and probed ways to offer businesses analytical insights on WhatsApp users while keeping the encrypted environment.

Acton's grievances with the company first became apparent earlier this year when, in the midst of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, he tweeted: 'It is time. #deletefacebook'

Ultimately, Acton's decision to leave rested on heated disagreements with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (pictured) and COO Sheryl Sandberg over monetizing the app

The report said Acton had proposed monetizing WhatsApp through a metered-user model, charging users after a certain large number of free messages were used up.

His plans were shot down by Sandberg, who said 'It won't scale'.

In one meeting, Acton confronted Zuckerberg and said it was clear that the company intended to implement ads on WhatsApp.

Zuckerberg reportedly responded: 'This is probably the last time you'll ever talk to me,' according to Acton.

Acton grew gradually uncomfortable with Facebook's approach to making money, describing it as 'if it made us a buck, we'd do it.'

While he asserts that Facebook 'isn't the bad guy' and that they're 'just very good businesspeople,' he ended up walking away from Facebook.

All Acton had to do was stay at Facebook one more year to claim his final set of stock grants, but he said he couldn't.

WhatsApp intends to put ads in its Status feature starting next year, but said 'messages will remain end-to-end encrypted. There are no plans to change that,' according to Forbes

WHO IS BRIAN ACTON AND WHAT HAS HE DONE? Brian Acton is the founder of WhatsApp which was acquired by Facebook for $19 billion (11.4 billion) in 2014 - the largest deal in Facebook's history. According to Forbes, Acton held over 20 per cent stake in the company, making him worth around $3.8 billion (2.7 billion). Following Facebook's acquisition of WhatsApp, Acton donated nearly $290 million (206 million) to the Silicon Valley Community Foundation. The foundation commissions research and partners donors with non-profit organisations. Acton is now believed to be worth $5.5 billion (3.9 billion) and works at Signal Foundation, which he founded earlier this year. The aim of the non-profit organisation is 'to develop open source privacy technology that protects free expression and enables secure global communication.' Back in 1996, Acton was the 44th employee hired by Yahoo as an infrastructural engineer. For the following nine years he worked at Yahoo and lost millions in the dot-com bubble in 2000. According to his Twitter he was turned down for a job at Facebook in 2009 and also spent a year travelling. In the same year he bought an iPhone and decided the App Store - which at the time had only been around for seven months - was going to rapidly expand. Him and his colleague from Yahoo, Jan Koum, decided they wanted to create something. Koum reputedly came up with the name WhatsApp because it sounded like 'what's up?' Just one week after he decided he wanted to create the app, he incorporated WhatsApp in California. Now the company is one of the biggest mobile messaging apps with 1.3 billion active monthly users. Advertisement

'It was like, well, you want to do these things I don't want to do,' Acton told Forbes. 'It's better if I get out of your way. And I did.'

The decision ended up costing him $850 million because his final stock options hadn't vested yet.

WhatsApp intends to put ads in its Status feature starting next year, but said 'messages will remain end-to-end encrypted. There are no plans to change that,' according to Forbes.

Meanwhile, Acton's co-founder, Jan Koum, left the company in April, which meant Koum could claim his final stock grants.

Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Forbes report.Ancient ruins found in the Israeli wilderness could solve the biblical mystery of the Exodus, archaeologists claim.

According to the Bible, Moses liberated the Israelites from slavery in Egypt and led them through the wilderness of Sinai, before they crossed the River Jordan into the promised land of Canaan.

Yet no historical basis for the legend exists, and experts generally agree the Israelites were in fact native to Canaan - an ancient region covering modern day Israel.

However, scientists are now analysing whether ruins near the River Jordan are proof of a nomadic Israelite people crossing into the ancient land thousands of years ago.

They suggest the small settlement was used by the Israelites during their journey from Egypt, which biblical researchers believe occurred in the 13th Century BC.

If correct, the find would constitute the first scientific evidence of the biblical account.

But some scepticism remains around the legitimacy of the research.

The site has yet to be dated, meaning it could have been built thousands of years after the proposed crossing.

Thousands of nomadic groups have built settlements across Israel over the past 2,000 years, making it extremely unlikely the newly found site was built by a crowd linked to Moses.

Archaeologists behind the find admit it does not prove the Israelites made the crossing, adding that further research was needed in order to draw this conclusion.

An ancient settlement (pictured) found in the Israeli wilderness could solve the biblical mystery of the Exodus

THE STORY OF EXODUS The Book of Exodus is the second book of the Torah and the Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament). It describes how the Israelites were enslaved by the leaders of Egypt, eventually decreeing that all Hebrew boys must be killed at birth by drowning in the River Nile. The Israelites are eventually rescued by Moses, who was given a message by God to return the group to the ancient land of Canaan. Moses confronts the Pharaoh and leads the Israelites in a daring escape. The Israelites complain that Moses has taken them to die in the wilderness, and Moses, at Gods bidding, parts the sea for the people to cross. Pharaoh follows and Moses closes the waters back again, drowning the Egyptian army. The Israelites eventually make it to Canaan, an area of land that covers modern day Israel. Advertisement

'We have not proved that these camps are from the period of the early Israelites, but it is possible,' said David Ben-Shlomo, an archaeologist with Ariel University.

'If they are, this might fit the biblical story of the Israelites coming from east of the Jordan River, then crossing the Jordan and entering into the hill country of Israel later.'

Archaeologists are now analysing whether the ruins, named Khirbet el Mastarah, are consistent with a newly-arrived nomadic people.

Researchers believe that pottery shard are from the early Iron Age, around the time traditionally associated with the Israelite arrival, though they claim they were unable to date them scientifically.

While the ruins themselves, a number of low walls, are believed to be rudimentary stone fencing for animals - consistent with known nomadic practices.

According to Dr Ben-Shlomo and his American dig partner, Ralph Hawkins of Averett University, this could explain why pottery shards at the site were found outside - not inside - the stone walls.

'The floors of the structures were virtually empty of finds, and thus, we could not date them by conventional archaeological methods,' they said.

According to the Bible, Moses liberated the Israelites from slavery in Egypt and led them through the wilderness of Sinai, before they crossed the River Jordan into the promised land of Canaan (artist's impression)

'In Bedouin settlements, people live in tents made of perishables which are relocated every season, thus artefacts would not be associated with stone architecture.

'So the structures might have housed animals, rather than people, who lived in tents around them.'

The site, five miles north of Jericho, also makes more sense as a nomadic settlement than a permanent one.

Temperatures there can easily reach a searing 45C and annual rainfall is as little as 1cm.

Experts are now analysing whether ruins (pictured) near the River Jordan are proof of a nomadic Israelite people crossing into the ancient land from outside

While the archaeological site is located in an area the Israelites could have passed through, researchers were unable to date the ruins, meaning they may have been built thousands of years after the Biblical story is set

'The landscape is arid most of the time and even in modern times most of the population here are Bedouins,' said Dr Ben-Shlomo.

Furthermore, the site is isolated and is shielded from view by the surrounding hills - perhaps implying a new population in fear of a hostile reception.

Now the archaeologists are working to confirm whether site is as old as they suspect.

Dr Ben-Shlomo said: 'Sites like Khirbet el Mastarah and other similar ones in the Jordan Valley seem - at least from survey material - to appear suddenly during the Iron Age.

'Since this area is not densely populated in many periods, this might indicate a new phenomenon like nomads suddenly creating settlements, or a new population.'

This artist's impression depicts the Israelites crossing the River Jordan. The first ever evidence of the biblical story of Exodus may have been found, after ruins consistent with a nomadic people were found near the river

Samples from beneath the walls will be tested for a build-up of electrons, which get trapped over the years and are only released by light radiation, so they could reveal the age of the structure

Soil samples from Khirbet el Mastarah have now been sent for analysis.

Samples from beneath the walls will be tested for a build-up of electrons, which get trapped over the years and are only released by light radiation, so they could reveal the age of the structure.

While samples from between the walls will be tested for elevated levels of phosphorus, which would be consistent with animal dung accruing in them.

Results are expected in a few months.

The archaeologists are also planning to excavate nearby Uja el-Foqa to determine whether it might be linked to Israelite settlement of the region.

However the work is not without its challenges - archaeologists must look for cultural clues that the site was indeed Israelite.

Samples from between the walls will be tested for elevated levels of phosphorus, which would be consistent with animal dung accruing in them

This image shows an artist's impression of the Israelites enslaved in Egypt. According to the Bible, the nomads were led by Moses in a daring escape around 5,000 years ago

'It is difficult since many aspects of the material culture of different groups (say those from east or west of the Jordan River) may be too similar or not indicative enough,' said Dr Ben-Shlomo.

The Exodus story is spread over the biblical books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.

It begins with the Israelites enslaved in Egypt, before the Pharaoh - coerced by 10 terrible plagues - agrees to release them and Moses leads them across the miraculously-parted Red Sea.

Once they reached the Sinai Peninsula, scripture says they travelled to Mount Sinai, where Moses received the 10 commandments.

They then headed to the southern border of Canaan, but being too scared to enter, were condemned to 38 years in the wilderness by god.

After passing the years at the oasis of Kadesh Barnea, the Israelites then travelled to the eastern border of Canaan, where Moses died and was buried on Mount Nebo.

In the subsequent Book of Joshua, Joshua takes over leadership of the Israelites, leading them into the promised land across the River Jordan and conquering Jericho.A computer built in the 1970s that helped launch the personal computer age as well as a trillion-dollar company has sold for $375,000.

The fully functioning Apple-1 auctioned by Boston-based RR Auction was sold at a live sale Tuesday.

RR says the winning bid came from a U.S.-based businessman who wishes to remain anonymous.

The computer is one of 60 or so remaining of the original 200 designed and built by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in 1976 and 1977, and one of 16 that still works.

A computer built in the 1970s that helped launch the personal computer age as well as a trillion-dollar company has sold for $375,000. The fully functioning Apple-1 auctioned by Boston-based RR Auction was sold at a live sale Tuesday

It sold back then for less than $700. The original owner offered to sell it to Wozniak in 1982 for $10,000, an offer that went unanswered.

According to Wozniak, the Apple-1 was nothing compared to its successor in terms of power  but, it set the stage for everything to come.

'The Apple-I was ghastly underpowered compared to the Apple-II,' said Mr Wozniak in an email to the BBC on Tuesday.

'But this Apple-I computer showed the world the formula for an affordable USEFUL computer.'

Cupertino, California-based Apple recently became the world's first publicly traded company to be valued at $1 trillion.

RR says the winning bid came from a U.S.-based businessman who wishes to remain anonymous. The computer is one of 60 or so remaining of the original 200 designed and built by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in 1976 and 1977, and one of 16 that still works

The Apple-1 sold back then for less than $700. The original owner offered to sell it to Wozniak in 1982 for $10,000, an offer that went unanswered

The Apple-1 was restored to its original, operational state by expert Corey Cohen.

The system operated without fault for approximately eight hours in a recent test and will even ship with its original keyboard designed and built during the 1970s.

The original Apple-1 operation manual, one of the items included with the fully functioning original computer

Apple co-founder Wozniak and Jobs only produced 150 models of the Apple-1 to sell to their friends and family.

The par started marketed the computer system to the electronics chain Byte Shop in 1976, after the retailer bought the first 50 units.

They originally went on sale for $666.66 as Wozniak liked repeating numbers.

Despite the Apple-1 being famed for being the first consumer PC to ship ready to use with monitor and keyboard, it was delivered as just the motherboard.

This meant users had to get hold of a power pack, keyboard, monitor, and cassette recorder of their own before they could use the device.

Most early computers used different motherboards for each component within the computer, however, Wozniak decided to put them onto a single board.

Wozniak chose to use a keyboard instead of the front panel switches featured on other early computers to make it easier to use. A cassette recorder was used to store and load software onto the machine.

The Apple-1 was restored to its original, operational state by expert Corey Cohen. The system operated without fault for approximately eight hours in a recent test and will even ship with its original keyboard designed and built during the 1970s

THE ICONIC APPLE 1 Apple founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak created the personal computer in 1976 and presented it at a Palo Alto computer club, but there were few takers at the time. Paul Terrell, owner of a retail chain called Byte Shop, placed an order for 50 of the machines and sold them for $666.66 (420) retail - once Mr Wozniak and Mr Jobs agreed to assemble the circuit boards rather than offer them as kits. The pair then produced 150 more and sold them to friends and other vendors. Fewer than 50 original Apple 1s are believed to have survived, with only eight known to be in working condition. The Apple 1 did not have a keyboard or monitor, meaning users had to supply their own. It also had a tiny 8K memory - minuscule by today's standards. Launched in July 1976, it was priced at $666.66 (420) - reportedly because Mr Wozniak liked repeating digits. Jobs sent them direct to buyers from the garage of his parents' house. It is not known how many were sold but by April 1977 the price had dropped to $475 (300). The computer helped kick-start a technological revolution that brought affordable computers out of science labs and into people's homes. The Apple II was introduced in April 1977 with an integrated keyboard, sound, a plastic case, and eight internal expansion slots. By the time it was discontinued in October 1977, around 200 Apple 1s had been produced. It is thought that only 30 to 50 of the computers still exist today and there is rarely an opportunity to buy one. Advertisement

Wozniak chose to use a keyboard instead of the front panel switches featured on other early computers to make it easier to use.

A cassette recorder was used to store and load software onto the machine.

The screen was slow by today's standards  displaying some 60 individual characters per second.

Despite the Apple-1 being famed for being the first consumer PC to ship ready to use with monitor and keyboard, it was delivered as just the motherboard. This meant users had to get hold of a power pack, keyboard, monitor, and cassette recorder of their own

Most early computers used different motherboards for each component within the computer, however, Wozniak decided to put them onto a single board

It only shipped with around 8K of in-built memory. For reference 8K, is just enough to save a 1,000 word document.

It shows the humble beginnings of Cupertino, California-based Apple, which recently became the world's first publicly traded company to be valued at $1 trillion (0.8 trillion).A painted tomb with a 2,000-year-old drawing of a banquet 'frozen in time' has been uncovered in Italy.

Archaeologists found the ornately-decorated burial site in Cumae, a ruined city in modern Italy which was among the first ancient Greek settlements in western Europe.

Researchers have been working at the site since 2001 but all the tombs they had found so far had been painted all red or white.

In June this year they found the more decorative tomb with the wall paintings, which appeared to have been raided during the 19th century.

A painted tomb with a 2,000-year-old drawing of a banquet has been uncovered in Italy where archaeologists found the ornately-decorated burial site in Cumae, a ruined ancient city

What was the settlement of Cumae? Cumae is regarded as the first settlement started by the ancient Greeks in modern Italy. It lies around 15 miles west of Naples, southern Italy. Historians believe the city was first founded in the 8th century BC. The ancient city of Cumae was twice the size of its more famous neighbour Pompeii, researchers said. In archaeological digs since 2001 researchers have found hundreds of ancient sepulchres. Advertisement

They recovered remains and traces of funerary furnishings, which archaeologists have used to date the tombs to the second century BC.

The people buried in the chamber - which now stands empty - must have had a 'high social status', experts believe.

A naked servant carrying a jug of wine and a vase is one of the most prominent drawings on the 2,000-year-old wall.

Much of the rest of the painting has faded away but it is believed that other guests at the banquet were depicted on the tomb's remaining walls.

In a bid to preserve the fresco archaeologists removed it from the Italian site along with fragments on the ground.

They then re-assembled the decor 'like a puzzle', according to the the French National Centre for Scientific Research.

A statement from the centre said: 'In addition to the excellent state of conservation of the remaining plaster and pigments, such a decor in a tomb built in that period is rare.

'Its 'unfashionable' subject matter was in vogue one or two centuries earlier. This discovery is also an opportunity to trace artistic activity over time at the site.'

A Greek sanctuary, roads and a necropolis have previously been found in the area, around 15 miles west of Naples.Recent headlines around violent crimes, vicious attacks and campus sexual assault have made college students and their parents increasingly concerned about what steps they can take to protect themselves.

Luckily, there are a slew of high-tech gadgets on the market that can help bring some peace of mind, as NBC journalist Jeff Rossen revealed today on DailyMailTV.

This includes everything from panic button apps to simple devices that can be installed in a college dorm room, like window alarms and smart doorstops.

High-tech gadgets like panic button apps and smart doorsteps can help protect college students from violent crimes and attacks, journalist Jeff Rossen revealed on DailyMailTV

An easily-installed security system for college dormitories can help detract potential attackers from entering their room via a window or door at night. Pictured is a window alarm

An easily-installed security system for college dormitories can help detract potential attackers from entering their room via a window or door at night.

What's more, many of these gadgets won't break the bank, Rossen said during his chat with host Jesse Palmer.

Amazon sells a Sabre dorm security kit, which includes a smart door stop, keychain and window alarm for just $20.

'It's really loud and it's going to get the attention of people around you,' Rossen explained.

Rossen traveled to the University of San Diego to put the security alarm kit and a panic button app, called Noonlight, to the test to see if they really do work.

Rossen traveled to the University of San Diego to put the security alarm kit and a panic button app, called Noonlight, to the test to see if they really do work

A smart doorstop can be placed underneath a door. It not only prevents the door from opening, but the minute a lever is pressed, it will play an attention-grabbing ringing sound

Demonstrating the security kit with University of San Diego senior Monica, Rossen simply attached an alarm to the student's window.

When the window is opened, the alarm immediately emits a loud beeping noise, which would surely scare off any attacker.

A smart doorstop can be placed underneath a door. It not only prevents the door from opening, but the minute a lever is pressed, the device will play an attention-grabbing ringing sound.

Rossen also gave a step-by-step look at how Noonlight, a panic button app, works in action.

Rossen also gave a step-by-step look at how Noonlight, a panic button app, works in action. Users keep a finger on a button in the app while they walk. If something happens, they release their finger from the button and the panic button engages

For users that are in a true emergency, it will immediately trigger a call from emergency responders, who will ask the user what their emergency is

Users keep a finger on a button in the app while they walk. If something happens, they release their finger from the button and the panic button engages.

If there's a false alarm, users have to enter their personal pin number to disengage the app.

For users that are in a true emergency, it will immediately trigger a call from emergency responders, who will ask the user what their emergency is.

The app sends the user's exact GPS location, a photo and description to the police.

And it's not just college students who need tips on staying safe. Rossen digs deep into how you can avoid scams and solve some of the most common, yet harrowing, problems of every day life in his new book 'Rossen to the Rescue: Secrets to Avoiding Scams, Everyday Dangers, and Major Catastrophes.'

Rossen gave a brief rundown on DailyMailTV of some easy ways people can ensure they aren't vulnerable to attacks.

'Don't post on social media where you are, when you're there. And when you're going home, tell your friends the exact route you're taking home and when you expect to be there,' Rossen explained.

'That way, if a few minutes elapses past that, they know something's wrong, they can try to call you. If they can't get you, they can call the cops.'Magic Leap, the secretive augmented reality startup backed by tech giants Google and Alibaba, and Microsoft are expected to bid for a lucrative US Army contract to build AR glasses for soldiers to use in combat.

The $500m contract could lead to the military purchasing over 100,000 headsets, according to Army documents.

It 'will provide increased lethality, mobility, and situational awareness,' according to an Army description of the program.

It comes after Google and other tech giants have faced a huge backlash over their work on military contracts.

Scroll down for video

The $500m contract could lead to the military purchasing over 100,000 headsets, according to Army documents. Pictured, Magic Leap's AR goggles

HOW THE HEADSET WOULD WORK During training, soldiers would wear the headsets to simulate ambushes and other missions. The glasses would also record their performance, allowing them to be analysed by mission commanders. In combat, the device would show soldiers digital maps, and could even show them targets to help them aim weapons, along with communication capabilities. Advertisement

The project hopes to produce a prototype headset 'Soldiers can use to Fight, Rehearse, and Train'.

It 'will significantly enhance soldier sensing in all environments, increase lethality by enhancing the ability to detect, decide, and engage before the enemy, and allow U.S. forces to conduct '25 bloodless battles before the 1st battle'' the Army said.

It was presented to potential bidders at a meeting in August.

Microsoft confirmed it attended the meeting, and according to Bloomberg, while Magic Leap's name doesn't appear on the public list of attendees for a meeting to outline the plans a company called MLH, with the website mlhorizons.com, was at the meeting.

Chosen Realities, a company owned by Magic Leap, in May filed paperwork to do business in Florida as ML Horizons, through a form called 'an application for registration of fictitious name.'

During training, soldiers would wear the headsets to simulate ambushes and other missions.

Army documents describe it as using 'Mixed/Live Reality for Combat Training and Rehearsals including Navigation, Targeting, Phase Line (Symbology), and Automatic Target Recognition (ATR)'

The glasses would also record their performance, allowing them to be analysed by mission commanders.

Army documents describe it as using 'Mixed/Live Reality for Combat Training and Rehearsals including Navigation, Targeting, Phase Line (Symbology), and Automatic Target Recognition (ATR)'

In combat, the device would show soldiers digital maps, and could even show them targets to help them aim weapons, along with communication capabilities.

'HUD 3.0 will allow the warfighter to 'Train as You Fight,' with identical training/operational weapons and equipment in any terrain,' the Army wrote in a Statement of Objectives.

An initial contract will be awarded in November, and the winning bidder would be expected to deliver 2,500 headsets, and exhibit the capacity for full-scale production

The final version of the glasses will incorporate night vision and thermal sensing, measure vital signs like breathing and 'readiness,' monitor for concussions and offer hearing protection.

An initial contract will be awarded in November, and the winning bidder would be expected to deliver 2,500 headsets, and exhibit the capacity for full-scale production.

HOW DO MAGIC LEAP'S LIGHTWEAR AUGMENTED REALITY HEADSETS WORK? Magic Leap's first device, Magic Leap One (Creator's Edition), contains three components. These are the Lightwear glasses, the Lightpack computing platform, and the Control handheld controller. The Lightwear goggles use Digital Lightfield technology, which generates digital light at different depths. While they havent yet said the exact date it will be released, or how much the device will cost, Magic Leap says its AR devices will begin shipping in the latter part of 2018 This blends with natural light to produce more lifelike objects over real world settings. The Lightpack, the firm explains, is the engine behind the spatial computing platform, with high-powered processing and graphics in a small, portable design. And, the handheld controller will give users force control and haptic feedback, and allow for six degrees of freedom. Advertisement

'Three people with knowledge of the process say that there's widespread perception that Magic Leap is the favorite,' Bloomberg claims.

Magic Leap's technology creates lifelike virtual objects that seamlessly blend with natural objects when viewed through its headsets.

'This advanced technology allows our brain to naturally process digital objects the same way we do real-world objects, making it comfortable to use for long periods of time,' Magic Leap said.

The firm was recently granted a patent for what appeared to be their AR glasses, sparking fresh rumours in summer 2017. But, at the time, they said the design was not what would be used for the final Magic Leap headset

Magic Leap's Colman Bryant demonstrated how the system can track ungloved hands without controllers.

Eye tracking and head tracking are both included, as well.

Magic Leap boasts marquee investors such as Alphabet Inc's Google, Qualcomm, Alibaba, Time Warner's Warner Bros and Singapore government-owned investment firm Temasek Holdings.

The well-funded start-up raised $461 million in its latest funding round in March, led by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's sovereign investment arm, taking the total funding to over $2.3 billion to date.NASA has outlined a new campaign to put humans back on the moon, and eventually send astronauts to Mars.

The space agency recently submitted a plan to Congress to ramp up its plans for human space exploration, with five new strategic goals to guide upcoming missions.

These goals rely on recent advances in commercial space operations and the upcoming Orion spacecraft and Space Launch System rocket.

Scroll down for video

NASA has outlined a new campaign to put humans back on the moon, and eventually send astronauts to Mars. The space agency recently submitted a plan to Congress to ramp up its plans for human space exploration

As of now, NASA says it wants to have astronauts on the surface of the moon no later than the 2020s, and have humans in lunar orbit by 2023.

'This will be the first chance for the majority of people alive today to witness a Moon landing  a moment when, in awe and wonder, the world holds its breath,' NASA says.

'However, America will not stop there.'

Missions to Mars following the moon initiatives are currently targeting the 2030s.

The New Exploration Campaign has five strategic goals, the first of which will be shifting human spaceflight activities in low-Earth orbit to commercial operations.

The agency also plans to establish operations on the lunar surface and in orbit to facilitate missions to deeper space.

'This will be the first chance for the majority of people alive today to witness a Moon landing  a moment when, in awe and wonder, the world holds its breath,' NASA says of its plans. An image from Apollo 17 is shown

They also plan to identify resources on the lunar surface using robotic missions.

And in the years to come, theyre hoping to put US astronauts back on the moon, and demonstrate the capabilities to get to Mars and beyond.

The new campaign follows Space Policy Directive-1, signed last year by President Trump, and comes just weeks after NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said he wants to put lots of humans in space.

Many of these plans rely on plans for modules called Gateway.

The Gateway craft will initially support brief science missions of about 30-60 days, and will be key to exploring the moon in greater detail than ever before.

And, in the years to follow, a second module could be used to carry astronauts to Mars.

The first Gateway is about the moon, but I think the second Gateway, being a deep-space transport, again using commercial and international partners, enables us to get to Mars, Bridenstine said., according to Space.com.

What we dont want to do is go to the surface of the moon, prove that we can do it again, and then be done.

As of now, NASA says it wants to have astronauts on the surface of the moon no later than the 2020s, and have humans in lunar orbit by 2023. Astronaut Gene Cernan is pictured above during the Apollo 17 mission

WHAT IS THE LUNAR ORBITAL-PLATFORM GATEWAY? The Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway, previously known as the Deep Space Gateway, will orbit the moon. Nasa says it will open up opportunities for future exploration of deep space, as well as a return to the moon and missions to Mars. The first modules of the station will be completed as soon as 2025 with construction starting in 2022. Similar to the International Space Station, this new space station will be open to to astronauts and cosmonauts globally. It could provide a staging point for the proposed Deep Space Transport vessel, which is designed to send astronauts and cosmonauts around the solar system. China and India as well as other members of the BRICS Nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) may join. The mission will give more information about the moon and also allow easy access to Mars. Advertisement

We want to go to stay. And the Gateway, in my view  Ive been convinced  enables us to take advantage of commercial and international partners in a more robust way so we are there to stay, it enables us to get to more parts of the moon than ever before, and it enables us to get to Mars.

The space agency plans to send a rover to Mars in 2020 to boost the search for past life, as well.

This could also demonstrate fuel production and other resources that could aid human exploration.Whether you love to chill or thrill, see city sights or spot wildlife on holiday, theres a cruise for you.

From sailing around the Caribbean to taking to the colder climes of Antarctica.

Here Caroline Hendrie reveals her pick of the best ocean cruises....

Your own Caribbean island

A Caribbean cruise could take you to the Bahamas, pictured. Next year Perfect Day CocoCay will open, which is the first of a collection of private islands created by Royal Caribbean

Perfect Day CocoCay in the Bahamas, opening next May, is the first of a collection of private islands created by Royal Caribbean. Lie on a sunbed beside the vast freshwater pool or on the crescent sandy beach.

Or race down Daredevil Peak, the highest of many heart-stopping waterslides, ride the tide of an enormous wave pool, race along a zip-line and see the view from a helium balloon flying 450ft high.

Symphony of the Seas sails year- round on seven-night Eastern Caribbean cruises from Miami with a day on CocoCay from May 2019. (royalcaribbean.co.uk, 0844 493 4005)

Treasures of Scandinavia

The new Scandinavia & Russia: Ultimate Baltic cruise aboard Norwegian Pearl is a tour of northern European capitals, starting in Amsterdam. An overnight stay in St Petersburg gives plenty of time to tour the Hermitage museum and go to the ballet.

A day-trip to Berlin is in reach of the coast from Warnemunde by special train, and there are calls at Helsinki, Tallinn, Stockholm, Riga and Copenhagen. The ship also docks at Gdynia close to the attractive city of Gdansk in Poland.

Norwegian Pearl sails from Amsterdam for 14 nights on May 25, 2019. (ncl.co.uk, 0333 241 2319)

In Shackletons footsteps

Happy feet: Chinstrap penguins on the South Shetland Islands, which passengers can spot on an Antarctic cruise

You are guaranteed a white Christmas and endless daylight on a once-in-a-lifetime cruise to Antarctica celebrating Ernest Shackletons Endurance expedition. Nicholas Crane, a former president of the Royal Geographical Society, will be on board to give background and insights.

Sailing to the Falkland Islands, South Georgia  where Shackleton is buried  Elephant Island, the Antarctic Peninsula and South Shetland Islands, youll see abundant wildlife including vast numbers of penguins, dolphins, seals, whales and albatross.

Silver Explorer sails round-trip from Ushuaia in Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, for seven nights on December 17. (silversea.com, 0844 251 0837)

Head for heights in Norway

High life: The Loen Skylift in Norway, which takes passengers to the summit of Mount Hoven in the Norwegian fjords

New ship Iona doesnt make her debut until May 2020, but cruises for her inaugural season sailing to the Norwegian fjords have just gone on sale. High-octane excursions will include riding the new Loen Skylift to the summit of Mount Hoven from Olden, whizzing along Norways fastest zip-line 1,000ft above the ground at Bergen, and kayaking past waterfalls dropping hundreds of feet into Geirangerfjord.

Iona will sail on one-week, no-fly cruises from Southampton to Norway throughout the summer of 2020. (pocruises.com, 0345 355 5111)

Heading down Mexico way

Take an off-road safari to the Sierra Madre Mountains from Puerto Vallarta, visit the turtle sanctuary at Manzanillo, jump on a Segway along the waterfront at Mazatlan and snorkel in the crystal-clear waters where the Sea of Cortez meets the Pacific Ocean at Cabo San Lucas. You can do all this on a cruise to the Mexican Riviera.

Grand Princess sails round trip from San Francisco for ten nights on February 11, 2019. (princess.com, 0344 338 8663)

Big cats and African beaches

The Grand Africa & Indian Ocean Voyage allows passengers to spot big game in Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania and Kenya

Book now for the Grand Africa & Indian Ocean Voyage aboard Marco Polo in the New Year of 2020. Sail from Bristol for nearly three months with thrilling adventures ashore.

Spot big game in Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania and Kenya. Crossing the Indian Ocean, you can feel the sand between your toes on the beaches of Mauritius, the Seychelles and the Maldives. After sailing from Sri Lanka to Jordan and Egypt, you go through the Suez Canal to make calls around the Med, returning to Bristol.

Marco Polo departs on January 6, 2020. (cruiseandmaritime.com, 0844 998 3877)Advertisement

If you dont have a head for heights, these pictures might give you sweaty palms.

Thats because they show some of the worlds most precariously perched structures  monasteries, temples, churches, castles and houses placed on rocky outcrops and cliff edges by builders with nerves of steel.

Some are so inaccessible that only those with a jet pack or serious rock climbing skills can visit.

Amazingly, some of the buildings featured here have stood strong in the same place for hundreds and even thousands of years, despite their seemingly hazardous locations.

One of the oldest most precariously perched buildings is the Hanging Temple of Shanxi, which was built into a cliff face in China in 491.

Other surely-that's-not-safe structures include the chapel of Saint-Michel d'Aiguilhe near Le Puy-en-Velay, in southern France, which is built on a volcanic plug, and the Monastery of the Holy Trinity perched high on top of a rock in Meteora in central Greece. Scroll down  and hold on!

The chapel of Saint-Michel d'Aiguilhe near Le Puy-en-Velay, in southern France. The building is over 1,000 years old and stands on a volcanic plug 280 feet tall. The chapel can be reached by climbing 268 steps carved into the rock

Behold this incredible church, which stands on top of the 130ft-high Katskhi Pillar in Georgia. For centuries locals could only look up at the mysterious ruins at its summit. Finally, in 1944, a group led by the mountaineer Alexander Japaridze made the first documented ascent of the pillar and discovered the remains of the chapel. Only those who are invited are allowed to scale the rock to reach the top

Meteora in central Greece is home to several stunning, precariously perched monasteries. This one, The Monastery of the Holy Trinity, was built in 1392 and featured in the James Bond film For Your Eyes Only. It can be accessed via 140 steps

The stunning historic town of Bonifacio in Corsica goes right to the edge of a limestone cliff. The best way to approach it is by boat - it's a jaw-dropping experience

The Hanging Temple was built into the side of a cliff near near Mount Heng in Shanxi Province, China, in 491. They definitely don't make 'em like they used to...

Don't look down: Castellfollit de la Roca is a picturesque medieval village built on a basalt column in north eastern Spain

The incredible Popa Taungkalat temple, which sits on top of Popa Mountain in Myanmar. Visitors have to brave 777 steps as well as wild monkeys to reach the top

A religious retreat is the sole building on the tiny rocky outlet of Gaztelugatxeko Doniene in the Bay of Biscay off the coast of Spain. The building dates back to the 10th century and a bridge was constructed to take people from the mainland to the island. Ideal for swooping over on the back of a dragon

The Casas Colgadas, which means hanging houses, in the province of Cuenca in Spain

Paro Taktsang, also known as the Tiger's Nest, is a Buddhist temple complex in the Himalayas in Bhutan. It was built in 1692, but was almost destroyed by a fire in 1998. However, the government of Bhutan stumped up the cash to restore the fascinating building

The Swallow's Nest Castle, which is perched on the edge of the Aurora cliff in Crimea. It was built in 1911 and has survived an earthquake. It is now open to visitors and houses an Italian restaurant

The Nugget Point Lighthouse is one of the most recognisable landmarks on the south island of New Zealand. A sloping path takes visitors to the amazing building, which was first lit in 1870 and took four years to build

The mountain fortress town of Corte in Corsica. On the top of the rocky outcrop is a citadel, a tourist office and a museum of Corsica

The picturesque village of Manarola stands on the face of a cliff in north-west Italy. It is best known for producing sweet Sciacchetra wine

The tiny village of Vernazza, which rests on a cliff on Italy's Cinque Terre coast. No cars are allowed in the tiny fishing village and it was once the point where the Italian navy would defend its shores from piratesA host of soap stars are coming together to perform an Audience With... style live show in cinemas across the UK.

The live shows premiere in Manchester, the first show featuring Coronation Street favourites Sherrie Hewson and Brian Capron, current Emmerdale star Chris Chittell, and EastEnders legends John Altman and Sid Owen.

Tying in with the launch of this soap extravaganza, fans will have the chance to audition and star in a soap of their own, alongside some of TVs biggest icons.

An X-Factor style search for a star coming to Manchester on October 14th will culminate with a lucky handful of fans starring in the new soap.

The soap, written by BAFTA winner Tony McHale, will screen at cinemas in 2019 and the producers even want to find a dog to star in the series and encourage pooches to be brought along to the auditions.

The project is the brainchild of actress Debbie Arnold, who has appeared in every major TV soap (Coronation Street, Emmerdale, EastEnders, Hollyoaks) and even featured in two soaps at the same time (EastEnders and Hollyoaks).

Arnold will co-present the live show with former EastEnders writer Tony McHale.

She said: 'When we were all in soaps, 25 million fans would tune in and theyd see us lot as old friends. Nowadays there seems to be so much less engagement with fans and thats a real shame.

'This show is all about taking soaps from the sofa to the big screen and we want the audience to be part of that! We want them to arrive as fans and leave as friends!'

The live shows kick off on October 14th at the Manchester Odeon where fans will be able to meet and quiz the stars about their favourite and most embarrassing moments on TV.

Altman, an original cast member from EastEnders, said: 'It's very rare to get this many soap stars together all in one place, so this is a great opportunity for far-flung fans from across our soap-crazed nation to see who we are and what we're all about. It's going to be a great night out.'

Each show will see vintage clips of memorable TV moments being played for the first time on the big screen  all in an intimate and atmospheric setting.

The Soap in the Cinema extravaganza is being rolled out at Odeon Cinemas starting in Manchester, then Darlington, Southampton & Brighton this year - with 19 more shows in 2019.

Tickets for the star-studded tour go on sale now.Wearing skimpy swimwear and showing off their bodies, this set of glamorous wannabes look like they should be heading for the Love Island villa.

But in fact they are the latest crop of Apprentice candidates preparing to battle to become Lord Sugars latest business partner.

The BBC One show, which traditionally saw some of the brightest businessmen and women in the country take part in various challenges, is now filled with twentysomethings desperate for fame  and social media followers.

Motivational speaker Kayode Damali sits on a jet ski and is one of the new contestants to grace the show

The 16 contestants, many of whom flaunt photos of their jet-setting lives and toned figures online, appear significantly different to those in previous series, who tended to wear ill-fitting suits and focus more on the tasks than their appearance.

Candidate Sian Gabbidon, who describes herself in the first episode as the Beyonce of business, shares images of herself in bikinis and revealing outfits with her 10,000 social media followers.

Like many Love Island contestants, the Leeds-based swimwear designer, 25, fills her online profile with pictures of gym sessions, designer handbags and flashy cars.

Meanwhile, former glamour model Sarah Byrne, 29, frequently uploads photos of herself in sexy outfits. The mother-of-one also appears to have had cosmetic surgery on her lips.

Contestant Camilla Ainsworth, who owns a Nut milk brand, flaunts her toned figure on Instagram as she lounges by the pool in a bikini

But it is not just the female contestants who seem to be chasing likes on Instagram.

Several of the men in this years line-up share topless pictures of themselves online, with 22-year-old Kurran Pooni  who hopes to be an actor  saying in the first episode: The other guys are going to say Damn that guy looks good.

Lord Sugars adviser Claude Littner hit back at the suggestion this years contestants are more suited to Love Island, saying: I just think they want to look professional, glamorous and I think theres nothing wrong with that.'

Childrens acting academy owner Sarah Byrne, 29, of Manchester

Sarah, who has previously starred in Hollyoaks and Shameless, admits shes not good with business terminology and is angered by people in business who turn their noses up at the working-class demographic.

She says: I am me, I dont have a posh accent or pretend to be anyone else. My personality sells me, my passion to succeed and work ethic.

Shes also quite happy to let her cleavage do the talking on social media.

Shameless glamour girl: Childrens acting academy owner Sarah Byrne, 29, of Manchester

Sponsorship consultant Jackie Fast, 34, from London

Having sold her company in 2016 and published a business book in 2017, Jackie claims to be a trail blazer with the sponsorship industry and wider business community and credits her success to her positive attitude.

She says: I'm not intimidated by anybody, or anything.'

Clearly able to balance tasks too...

I won't be intimidated: Jackie Fest Sponsorship consultant Jackie Fast, 34, from London

Motivational speaker Kayode Damali, 26, from Cheshire

He says: Im not here to razzle dazzle and hit you with buzzwords like Im so motivated, passionate... anyone can say those things and Im not anyone, Im Kayode Damali.

Perhaps the three hands that appear to show up in his PR shot will help his cause in the boardroom

Tough talker: Motivational speaker Kayode Damali, 26, from Cheshire

Nut milk brand owner Camilla Ainsworth, 22, from Lancashire.

Claims to be an adrenaline junkie and loves to try anything new and exciting. Shes also a fan of miniature goats.

Im a bundle of energy and certainly a one off  aint no Vanilla Camilla, she says.

She calls herself a thoroughbred hustler  not a great label in business.

No Vanilla Camilla: Nut milk brand owner Camilla Ainsworth, 22, from Lancashire

Marketing manager Frank Brooks, 27, of London

Self-proclaimed trendsetter who says he likes to push boundaries with his humour.

He claims to use charisma and charm for negotiating and building morale within a group.

He says: Theres no need to watch your back when Im already two steps in front.

He also seems to be a fan of slinky swimming briefs. Thats a tough trend to set.

Self-styled trendsetter: Marketing manager Frank Brooks, 27, of London

Swimwear brand owner Sian Gabbidon, 25, from Leeds

Owns and runs a swimwear fashion brand and claims to be the 'Beyonce of business'.

She counts Coco Chanel as a role model as she 'came from nothing and worked her way to the top.'

She believes she has been brought up to win.

'I will be merciless,' she says.

Beyonce of business: Swimwear brand owner Sian Gabbidon, 25, from Leeds

Tree surgery firm owner Tom Bunday, 28, from Southampton

Having struggled at school, Tom now runs a successful arboricultural business.

He says: There are very few people that can genuinely say theyre going to make it - but I know that Im going to.

Tom has just 289 followers on Instagram so hes got some branching out to do.She's the Neighbours star who is set to marry business adviser Ankur Dogra.

And Sharon Johal, who describes the upcoming event as 'a big, fat Punjabi wedding', revealed this week that her co-stars Ryan Moloney and Alan Fletcher plan on looking the part at the Indian ceremony.

'They are going to get amongst it and have bought Indian outfits to make the most of it,' the 31-year-old told The Advertiser on Tuesday.

'I'm having a big, fat Punjabi wedding!' Neighbours star Sharon Johal (right) is set to marry her fiance Ankur Dogra (left) in a FOUR-DAY Sikh ceremony

Sharon said that Ryan and Alan, who play Toadie and Dr Karl on Neighbours, were like 'family' and she was delighted to invite them to her wedding.

'As soon as they knew [about the wedding] they were saying, "I would love to be there and be a part of it",' the actress said.

Sharon, who stars as Dipi Rebecchi on long-running soap, will marry her fiance Ankur Dogra over four days.

'They have bought Indian outfits': Sharon revealed that her co-stars Ryan Moloney (left) and Alan Fletcher (right) plan on looking the part at the Indian ceremony

They will tie the knot at civil ceremony in Elder Park, Adelaide, followed by a reception at the Adelaide Convention Centre.

Sharon, who previously worked as a lawyer, launched her acting career after attending auditions on weekends.

It wasn't until 2016 that Neighbours was looking to cast Indian actors and she landed her big break.

Rising star: Sharon, who previously worked as a lawyer, launched her acting career after attending auditions on weekends. It wasn't until 2016 that Neighbours was looking to cast Indian actors and she landed her big break

Sharon said in an interview with SBS in January: 'There's a want and need for that cultural change and I'm really excited to be a part of it.'

Her fiance Ankur was just as happy to see this shift in society, saying: 'TV should be a true reflection of what's happening in society and in the community.

'It means different people can have role models of different ethnic backgrounds, that's why [it's important].'She's been jetting around the world promoting her acclaimed new movie.

And arriving in Paris at the same time as Fashion Week, Claire Foy gave the runway models a run for their money as she arrived for the First Man photocall on Tuesday.

Claire, 34, looked super chic in a lace trimmed blazer as she posed with her co-star and onscreen husband Ryan Gosling.

Chic: Arriving in Paris at the same time as Fashion Week, Claire Foy gave the runway models a run for their money as she arrived for the First Man photocall on Tuesday

The Crown star looked gorgeous in her black suit, with a daring lace trim which highlighted her cleavage.

She accessorised the tailored two-piece with classic black heels and slicked back her short locks to add to the androgynous vibe.

Glowing makeup and a pink lip colour were the finishing touches.

Suits you: Claire, 34, looked super chic in a lace trimmed blazer as she posed with her co-star and onscreen husband Ryan Gosling

Talented: Ryan and Claire were joined by First Man director Damien Chazelle and his actress wife Olivia Hamilton, who also stars in the film

Claire joined a dashing Ryan in front of the cameras, who showed off his quirky sense of style in a burgundy blazer and jazzy shirt.

The actors' new film, which is directed by Damien Chazelle, is based on a true story, and follows the life of Neil Armstrong on his quest to become the first man to walk on the moon.

Claire, who plays Gosling's wife in the motion picture, reportedly went to great lengths in the hopes of channelling her character Janet in the most authentic way possible.

Stunning: The Crown star looked gorgeous in her black suit, with a daring lace trim which highlighted her cleavage

Strike a pose: She accessorised the tailored two-piece with classic black heels and slicked back her short locks to add to the androgynous vibe

Oscar worthy? The actors' new film is based on a true story, and follows the life of Neil Armstrong on his quest to become the first man to walk on the moon

Mark Armstrong, one of the late astronaut's three children, opened up about the experience of seeing just how focused the British-born star was when it came to filming scenes for the movie.

'When I saw her on screen, I was overwhelmed with emotion,' Armstrong reveals. 'Mum only passed away recently so, to see her up there, alive and so real it was incredible.

'Foy wanted to know the minutiae. Mum called me Marco and my brother Ricky. She wanted to know the balance and strength of my mother. What she was really like?' Claire captured Mum's essence. She communicates so many feelings without words. I got very emotional.'

First Man is said to be in the running of being nominated for Best Picture at the 90th Academy Awards, but official nominations for next year's Oscars ceremony will be announced later this year.She reportedly began dating Chris Martin last October after they met through mutual friends.

And Dakota Johnson, 28, revealed things are going incredibly well with the Coldplay frontman, 41, as she gushed that she's 'very happy' with him.

The Fifty Shades Freed actress, who is normally tight-lipped about her romance with the father-of-two, made the admission in an interview with Tatler's November issue.

Smitten: Dakota Johnson, 28, revealed things are going incredibly well with her boyfriend Chris Martin, 41, as she gushed that she's 'very happy' with him

'I'm not going to talk about it,' Dakota said coyly, before divulging: 'But I am very happy.'

Dakota and Chris were last seen together at Beyonce's spectacular OTR11 show at LA's Rose Bowl Stadium last week.

They reportedly met through mutual friends, and were first romantically linked together in October.

The following month in November, Dakota was pictured sitting with the crew as Coldplay performed in Argentina.

Candid: The Fifty Shades Freed actress, who is normally tight-lipped about her romance with the father-of-two, made the admission in an interview with Tatler 's October issue

Cute couple: She reportedly began dating the Coldplay frontman last October after they met through mutual friends

Dakota's actress mother Melanie Griffith confirmed the relationship to People on May 10, gushing: 'I adore him! But she is very private about her life and I respect that.'

Dakota's famous father Don Johnson, 68, previously told The Sun that Chris was 'a lovely guy' and a 'very talented and gifted musician.'

The Golden Globe winner told the British mag in January: 'I've met him and you want your kids happy, no matter what shape it takes. Thats the goal, thats the key.'

Dakota, who was catapulted to fame in the racy Fifty Shades franchise, also revealed that playing sexual roles makes her feel 'powerful'.

Seal of approval: Dakota's actress mother Melanie Griffith confirmed the relationship to People on May 10, gushing: 'I adore him! But she is very private about her life and I respect that'

Empowered: Dakota, who was catapulted to fame in the racy Fifty Shades franchise, also revealed that playing sexual roles makes her feel 'powerful'

'Playing sexual characters is interesting to me. I find it powerful. I've always been fascinated by women who are in touch with their sexuality, who are proud of it, who are not passive about it,' she said.

'I don't think that in order to be respected and in order to feel powerful that you need to be sexless.'

She railed against the double standards in society that mean a man can be aggressive and admired for it, whereas 'if you're forthright [as a woman], if you're bossy, and you say what you mean and mean what you say, then sometimes you might be called a bitch or a diva. Which is wild.'

The How To Be Single actress also talked about depression, revealing that while she isn't on medication, she certainly has her 'ups and downs'.

Raunchy: 'Playing sexual characters is interesting to me. I find it powerful. I've always been fascinated by women who are in touch with their sexuality, who are proud of it, who are not passive about it,' she said

Respect: 'I don't think that in order to be respected and in order to feel powerful that you need to be sexless,' she added

'I mean, it's a thing I think a lot of people struggle with. How could you not, when you're basically an empath for a living?

'It's not like every day I have to pop a bunch of pills and stuff, no. I'm not on medication for it. But, you know, people have ups and downs. I have ups and downs for sure.'

Johnson added that she has been in therapy since the age of three, and claimed she wouldn't know how to live without it.

'I was just playing with toys with someone in an office, you know... It's not news that my parents had some troubling moments (both Griffith and Johnson had well-documented drug and alcohol problems) and I think [they wanted] just to make sure that I was safe, because they cared.'

Honest: The How To Be Single actress also talked about depression, revealing that while she isn't on medication, she certainly has her 'ups and downs'

'I love therapy': Johnson said she has been in therapy since the age of three, and claimed she wouldn't know how to live without it

She went on: 'I love therapy. I don't know what I'd do without it. Truly. Everyone should be in therapy. I have been in therapy so long that I go to the therapist that the therapists go to.

'I can psychoanalyse myself and then I'm like, "Well, but I'm still here. So, now what?"'

She said that years of analysis have taught her 'no one else is going to give you the answer. It's all within you, you just have to be true, and sometimes that's painful.'

Elsewhere in the interview, Johnson opened up about her actress grandmother Tippi Hedren, revealing how proud she was that the icon said no to Alfred Hitchcock and her support of the Metoo movement.

Legacy: Elsewhere in the interview, Dakota opened up about her actress grandmother Tippi Hedren, revealing how proud she was that the icon said no to Alfred Hitchcock and her support of the Metoo movement.

'My grandmother was like, "Guys! This has been going on forever!" It's terrible. She's so strong. She's so elegant. She's so smart and so talented,' she said.

'Her career was completely ruined because she said no. Because she stood up for herself. And so Hitchcock destroyed her.'

Dakota went on: 'It's not okay to behave in a certain way in order to put yourself in a position of power or leverage.

'I think my grandmother is extremely supportive of the movement. My mother is extremely supportive. This does need to change.'

See the full feature in the November issue of Tatler, available on digital download and newsstands on Monday 1st OctoberThe Hit Network's Ash London is taking on a new TV role alongside Grant Denyer, it was announced this week.

The 32-year-old will co-host Network Ten's Game Of Games, based on the American program created by Ellen DeGeneres.

'Game Of Games is coming to Ten super soon and I'll be playing sidekick to one of the world's best humans, Grant Denyer, who taught me so much about attitude and hard work,' Ash wrote on Instagram on Tuesday.

'I do a lot of pelvic thrusting!' Radio star Ash London (right) has announced she will co-host Network Ten's wacky new game show Game Of Games alongside Grant Denyer (left)

'This show is so much fun... Grant does all of the actual heavy lifting and I just do a lot of pelvic thrusting with audience members during the music bits,' she added.

'Fun for the whole [family] and a great excuse to laugh at people as they get dirty for the chance to win $50,000.'

Grant, 40, was first announced as the show's primary host in June.

Lots of pelvic thrusting? Ash joked that Grant does most of the 'heavy lifting' on Game Of Games while she mostly 'pelvic thrusts' with audience members during musical numbers

He said at the time: 'Ellen is an idol of mine, so to land this opportunity makes me so excited I'm dizzy! Game Of Games is a smash hit in America.

'It's wildly fun and something completely brand new and different for Australia. I can't wait to step on set and run amuck with this.'

Meanwhile, Game Of Games isn't the only show Grant and Ash will be on together.

Busy lady! Game Of Games isn't the only show Grant and Ash will be on together, as she was announced as the temporary replacement for Em Rusciano on 2Day FM's breakfast program earlier this month. Pictured on Game of Games

Ash was announced as the temporary replacement for Em Rusciano after she quit 2Day FM's breakfast show earlier this month.

Southern Cross Austereo released a statement confirming Ash would be filling in alongside Grant and Ed Kavalee until 2019's lineup is finalised.

Game Of Games debuts on Network Ten on October 7 at 7.30pmShe first debuted her short bob hairstyle at the LA premiere of A Star Is Born premiere on Monday.

And on Wednesday, Julianne Hough took to her Instagram page, explaining why she made the sudden decision to make the chop.

The 30-year-old posted a series of photos to her social media account while her caption went into detail as to what brought the change about.

What brought the change about? Julianne Hough explained her reasons for the haircut

'Detaching from what you know can be challenging, but also so freeing,' Hough told her 4.4 million followers in reference to her decision to opt for a short bob.

The Dancing With the Stars alum further added that after spending six months as a redhead, her ends were permanently damaged when she then opted to go back to blonde in July.

While most would hesitate to cut their blonde long locks, Hough says she loves trying out new things  especially if it concerns her hair.

The haircut seemed to be well overdue: The Dancing With the Stars alum further added that after spending six months as a redhead, her ends were permanently damaged

Unafraid: While most would hesitate to cut their blonde long locks, Hough says she loves trying out new things

Loving the new look: The professional dancer shared a video to her Instagram Story, and it appeared as if she was very happy with the final result

'The best thing about hair is how you get to create, play and just have fun with it! So here is a new look, courtesy of frizzy ends needing a clean cut after going from red to blonde.'

Over the summer, the Rock of Ages star had said that changing her hair color to a rich deep red had tremendously contributed to how she looks upon her femininity.

'Being a redhead helped me dive into my womanhood and embrace my sexuality,' PEOPLE quotes Julianne telling her hairstylist Riawna Capri in July.

'Now I'm ready to jump back to my roots with everything I learned and integrated into my body and spirit.'

Nicole Kidman? Some fans had taken to Julianne's Instagram stressing they had mistaken her for the Hollywood actress.

Clearly loving the new haircut, Julianne continued to express her delight with her new look by posting a video of her short bob to her Instagram story.

The Utah native debuted her new look on Monday while attending the LA premiere of A Star Is Born in Hollywood.

And she was sure to leave a notable impression in her all-white ensemble.

Edgy: Julianne Hough debuted a new haircut as she attended the Los Angeles premiere of A Star Is Born on Monday night

Her signature blonde locks were done up in a bob featuring fringe which hung down to just over her eye at the event held at the iconic Shrine Auditorium.

She kept her look simple as she sported an all-white outfit including pantsuit featuring large, bell-bottomed trousers.

Julianne accessorized with a rectangular silver clutch and matching rings.

She accentuated her porcelain skin with complementary make-up topped off with a swipe of pink lip.

Groovy: Her signature blonde locks were done up in a bob featuring fringe which hung down to just over her eye at the event held at the iconic Shrine AuditoriumCameron Crowe is looking to bring Almost Famous to Broadway.

The 61-year-old filmmaker is adapting the 2000 motion picture that earned him an Academy Award for the Great White Way.

The film, which starred Kate Hudson, Frances McDormand, Billy Crudup, and the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, was a coming-of-age tale set in the 1970s based on Crowe's experiences as a young Rolling Stone writer.

Scroll below for video

Working hard: Cameron Crowe, 61, is adapting Almost Famous - the 2000 motion picture that earned him an Academy Award - to Broadway

Crowe took to Twitter last week to deliver a sneak peek of the development of the musical, showing veteran composer Tom Kitt working at the piano.

Jeremy Herrin is set to direct the production, Deadline reported, with Kitt in charge of the music, and collaborating with Crowe on the lyrics.

Crowe, who won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for Almost Famous, told Rolling Stone he was washed over with a magic sense of nostalgia in reformatting the movie for the stage.

'I remember the first day of filming Almost Famous,' he said. 'We were standing in downtown San Diego, shooting a scene with Phillip Seymour Hoffman on the very same street where I'd first met Lester Bangs. It felt surreal. It felt like a miracle.

Nostalgic: The film, which starred Kate Hudson and Patrick Fugit, was a coming-of-age tale set in the 1970s based on Crowe's experiences as a young Rolling Stone writer

In the offing: Crowe took to Twitter last week to deliver a sneak peek of the development of the musical, showing veteran composer Tom Kitt working at the piano

Preview: The camera panned on a piece of paper with the project title on it

'I called a friend of mine and said, "How did I get here?" He laughed and said, "Enjoy it, this won't happen again."

Crowe said that 'the current miracle is that the feeling is coming alive again,' and that the preliminary planning of the production 'doesn't even feel like work.'

Crowe, the director of films such as Jerry Maguire, Vanilla Sky and Say Anything..., continued: 'It feels like a new adventure, a natural progression but still true to the question that started it all: "What do you love about music?" Can't wait to bring it to you in the coming months.'Rap diva Nicki Minaj needed three hulking bodyguards to protect her from being swarmed by Brazilian fans upon landing at Sao PauloGuarulhos International Airport on Tuesday afternoon.

The 35-year-old hip-hop star arrived ahead of her promotional TIDAL subscriber concert Wednesday in Sao Paulo, which will be her first time performing in the South American country.

'Thanks Brazil! I love you so much!' the Trinidad-born, New York-raised star - who boasts 153M social media followers - gushed.

'Thanks Brazil! I love you so much!' Rap diva Nicki Minaj needed three hulking bodyguards to protect her from being swarmed by Brazilian fans upon landing at Sao PauloGuarulhos International Airport on Tuesday afternoon

'I'm so happy to be here in your beautiful country!' The 35-year-old hip-hop star arrived ahead of her promotional TIDAL subscriber concert Wednesday in Sao Paulo, which will be her first time performing in the South American country

'I'm so happy to be here in your beautiful country!'

Nicki (born Onika Maraj) covered up her surgically-enhanced 5ft2in figure in a Versace color-block dress (likely from the SS/19 collection) selected by stylist Brett Alan Nelson.

Even Minaj's black iPhone phone case was emblazoned with the Italian label's signature Medusa statue head logo.

The 10-time Grammy nominee toted a matching floral purse, rocked a cherry-red manicure, and shielded her dimpled face with comically-large sunglasses.

Dimples! The Trinidad-born, New York-raised star covered up in a Versace color-block dress (likely from the SS/19 collection) selected by stylist Brett Alan Nelson

Fashionista: Even Minaj's black iPhone phone case was emblazoned with the Italian label's signature Medusa statue head logo

Colorful: Nicki (born Onika Maraj) toted a matching floral purse, rocked a cherry-red manicure, and shielded her dimpled face with comically-large sunglasses

Jet lagged? Hairstylist Dionte Gray coiffed the 10-time Grammy nominee's middle-parted wavy mermaid locks while make-up artist Mali Magic kept her complexion minimally made up for the 15-hour flight from Dubai

Hairstylist Dionte Gray coiffed the Queen hitmaker's middle-parted wavy mermaid locks while make-up artist Mali Magic kept her complexion minimally made up for the 15-hour flight from Dubai.

Jet lag or not, globetrotting Nicki spent her Monday riding an ATV over the sand dunes of Abu Dhabi, and she posted two videos of herself in action.

Minaj - who was in Milan as recent as last Friday - sported a Versace catsuit with b&w Chanel sneakers as she vacationed in the United Arab Emirates alongside gal pal, Rah Ali.

After the Diesel brand ambassador (and nemesis of Cardi B) charitably sent a $25K check to The Cosby Show alum Geoffrey Owens, the sometime Trader Joe's clerk passed it on to the Actor's Fund.

'Ride wit Minaj!' The globetrotting Queen hitmaker spent her Monday riding an ATV over the sand dunes of Abu Dhabi, and she posted two videos of herself in action

Versace catsuit: Nicki - who was in Milan as recent as last Friday - vacationed in the United Arab Emirates alongside gal pal, Rah Ali (L)

'I am extremely grateful to Nicki Minaj for enabling struggling actors to continue pursuing their dreams,' the 57-year-old Yale grad told TMZ on Tuesday.

'I would like to give this donation of 25k to the Actor's Fund in memory of the late, great Earle Hyman - who played Cosby's father Russell on The Cosby Show - who lived his last many years and died at the Actors' Home.'

Among Geoffrey's slew of job offers is a 10-episode gig on Tyler Perry's soap The Haves and the Have Nots on OWN, and he's already reported for duty in Atlanta.

The former Red Lobster waitress and rapper Future don't kick off their co-headlining 50-city NickiHndrxx Tour in Europe until February 21, 2019 at Germany's Olympiahalle in Munchen.

'I am extremely grateful to Nicki!' After Minaj charitably sent a $25K check to The Cosby Show alum Geoffrey Owens, the sometime Trader Joe's clerk passed it on to the Actor's Fund (pictured September 4)

Job offers rolling in: The 57-year-old Yale grad has already reported for duty in Atlanta for his 10-episode gig on Tyler Perry's soap The Haves and the Have Nots on OWN (pictured September 18)She ruled the runway during Milan Fashion Week.

And Emily Ratajowski pulled off yet another immaculate look on Tuesday, during an appearance on the Italian talk show EPCC.

The 27-year-old model ensured all eyes were on her as she stepped out in a clingy midi dress that showcased every inch of her sizzling physique.

Looking good: Emily Ratajowski pulled off yet another immaculate look on Tuesday, during an appearance on the Italian talk show EPCC

The brunette beauty certainly turned heads in the Seventies-inspired dress, which featured a racy thigh-split and a plunging scoop neckline.

Sticking to an autumnal palette, she added height with a pair of burgundy-hued suede knee-length boots.

Letting her statement outfit do all the talking, the Blurred Lines star accessorised with some gold hoop earrings.

She styled her glossy raven tresses in a simple middle-parting and framed her features with taupe lipgloss and plenty of mascara.

Turning heads: The 27-year-old model ensured all eyes were on her as she stepped out in a clingy midi dress that showcased every inch of her sizzling physique

Chic: The brunette beauty certainly turned heads in the Seventies-inspired dress, which featured a racy thigh-split and a plunging scoop neckline

Killer footwear: Sticking to an autumnal palette, she added height with a pair of burgundy-hued suede knee-length boots

Emily's outing comes after she revealed people often criticize her for flaunting her ample assets, which has apparently given the impression that she's self-obsessed when it comes to her looks.

'It's literally just my body. For women, it's such a huge part of our identity,' she told Pop Sugar magazine in July.

'I'm a human, and no one out there is perfect. You're not going to love yourself every f**king day - that's too much.'

Going for gold: Letting her statement outfit do all the talking, the Blurred Lines star accessorised with some gold hoop earrings

The mane attraction: She styled her glossy raven tresses in a simple middle-parting

Taking centre-stage: The brunette bombshell cinched in her tiny waist thanks to a tan leather belt

Dazzling sparkler: She showed off her incredible wedding ring from her nuptials to Sebastian Bear-McClard in February

'I definitely have those issues and deal with it where I look in the mirror and I'm just like, "Oh, God. Not today. Please, not today." Finding a way to kind of get past that and love yourself and give yourself a break. I love that I am imperfect.'

Meanwhile, Emily recently got married to her boyfriend Sebastian Bear-McClard exchanged vows in a secret City Hall ceremony in New York in February.

The low-key nuptials left fans shocked, coming just weeks after it was speculated that she and long-time boyfriend Jeff Magid split.

Feeling a tad peckish: After her chat show appearance, she and the host Alessandro Cattelan stepped out to get some roast chicken

and framed her features with taupe lipgloss and plenty of mascara.

But first, let me take a selfie! Alessandro seemed keen to snap some photos with the catwalk star

Hungry, are you? He also took a snap of Ratakjowski tucking sultrily into a morsel of chicken

Aside from her booming modeling career, Emily is also making a name for herself in the world of film and television.

Since her breakout role as Andie Fitzgerald in 2014's Gone Girl, Ratajkowski has landed quite a handful of acting roles in Hollywood.

She's expected to star alongside Lisa Kudrow and YouTube personality Lilly Singh in the upcoming NBC comedy Bright Futures.

According to Deadline, Ratajkowski will play girl-next-door type Sarah, a woman who can 'just as easily bro out with the guys as she can be the girliest girl.'

The pilot is not expected to premiere until 2019. An official release date has yet to be announced by the network.

Backlash: Emily's outing comes after she revealed people often criticize her for flaunting her ample assets, which has apparently given the impression that she's self-obsessed when it comes to her looks

Speaking out: 'It's literally just my body. For women, it's such a huge part of our identity,' she told Pop Sugar magazine in July. 'I'm a human, and no one out there is perfect'She may not have found love in the Mallorcan villa during her brief television stint over the summer.

Yet Hayley Hughes was happy in the arms of her man DJ Tom Zanetti as they packed on the PDA following the National Reality TV Awards 2018, in London on Tuesday.

Passionate pictures capture the moment the lovebirds got hot and heavy outside of the swanky venue, away from the reality star guest list.

Lose My Head: DJ Tom Zanetti and Love Island star Hayley Hughes couldn't keep their hands off one another after the National Reality TV Awards afterparty in London on Tuesday night

New romance: The pair have only been dating for a couple of months but appear to be very much into one another

Just moments before, Hayley could be seen affectionately doting on her DJ boyfriend as she leaned in to share a tender kiss with her man.

The blonde bombshell flirtatiously pointed at her love while the hunk smoked his cigarette following their swift departure from the star-studded party.

Having just confirmed their romance in August while abroad, the duo showed their romance was going from strength to strength.

Pulling him close: At one point, Hayley threw her arms around her beau's neck for yet more kisses

Smart: Tom swapped his trademark trackies for a smart suit and slip on studded shoes

Taking a moment: The couple kissed like the cameras weren't watching

Honeymoon period: The pair confirmed their relationship while they partied at the BH Hotel Pool Party in Mallorca in August

The pair confirmed their relationship while they partied at the BH Hotel Pool Party in Mallorca in August, kissing and cuddling as they lounged around on the day beds.

They previously cosied up at STK in Ibiza and left together hand-in-hand and were seen enjoying a romantic dinner date in London's Mayfair, according to The Sun.

Earlier in the evening on Tuesday, Hayley stormed the National Reality TV Awards at Porchester Hall in London.

The Scouse model turned heads in skimpy embellished co-ords as she joined forces with her glamorous fellow Islander, Samira Mighty.

Love (Island) is in the air! Hayley was also pictured kissing her new man outside earlier on in the evening

Smoking hot romance! The blonde bombshell flirtatiously pointed at her love while the hunk smoked his cigarette following their swift departure from the star-studded party

Picture of love: Just moments before, Hayley could be seen affectionately doting on her DJ boyfriend as she leaned in to share a tender kiss with her man

Better together: Having just confirmed their romance in August while abroad, the duo showed their romance was going from strength to strength

How sweet: The pair confirmed their relationship while they partied at the BH Hotel Pool Party in Mallorca in August, kissing and cuddling as they lounged around on the day beds

Hayley certainly took centre-stage in her two-piece, which featured a crop top boasting diamante embellishments and lace-up sleeves.

Letting her statement outfit do the talking, she added height with a simple pair of black barely-there heels.

Styling her golden tresses in voluminous waves, the glamorous reality star framed her features with smoky shadow and nude lipstick.

Looking good: Hayley proved she was very much still in the spotlight on Tuesday night, as she stormed the National Reality TV Awards at Porchester Hall in London

Stunning: The 21-year-old Scouse model joined forces with her glamorous fellow Islander, Samira Mighty, who dazzled in an embellished jumpsuit

Turning heads: Hayley certainly took centre-stage in her two-piece, which featured a crop top boasting diamante embellishments and lace-up sleeves

Glam: Styling her golden tresses in voluminous waves, the glamorous reality star framed her features with smoky shadow and nude lipstick

Cute couple: Hayley was joined at the awards by her new boyfriend, DJ Tom Zanetti, who looked dapper in a grey double-breasted suit

Double trouble: The pair confirmed their relationship while they partied at the BH Hotel Pool Party in Mallorca in August, kissing and cuddling as they lounged around on the day beds

Killer footwear: Letting her statement outfit do the talking, she added height with a simple pair of black barely-there heels

A representative for Hayley Hughes told MailOnline at the time that the pair were 'just good friends'.

Hayley and Tom reportedly met on Good Morning Britain just a few days after she was dumped from the Island, when her relationship with Charlie Frederick ended in disaster.

Since then, Hayley took to social media to share some snaps of her enjoying dinner with Tom at Sexy Fish in Mayfair, before the couple moved onto Madison rooftop bar.

He's got some cheek! Tom messed around, posing with a mask of presenter Ant McPartlin as he and Hayler left the bash

Having a whale of a time: The DJ also jokingly placed a mask of the Queen over Hayley's face

Sweet: Hayley and Tom reportedly met on Good Morning Britain just a few days after she was dumped from the Island, when her relationship with Charlie Frederick ended in disaster

Since leaving the villa, Hayley has also been getting acquainted with politician Nigel Farage, and even appeared on Daily Politics to ask about Brexit.

Hayley also made an appearance on This Morning with Nigel to talk all things politics, where she made the shock admission she still doesn't understand what the European Union is as 'no one talks about it on social media.'

Her knowledge - or lack thereof- of Brexit became a social media sensation, when she told her fellow Islanders on the show shedidn't 'have a clue' about what the word meant, before asking: 'So does that mean we won't have any trees?'

Lovely in lace: Samira looked showstopping in her one-piece, which featured a decadent lace design

The mane attraction: She wore her raven tresses in glossy waves and plumped her pout with a slick of berry lipstickAs a former winner herself, Alex Nation knows a thing or two about Bachelor finales.

So perhaps that's why the 27-year-old was called in to lend a helping hand at the conclusion of Nick Cummins' season.

Photos originally taken in June have emerged of the single mother touching down in Brisbane, reportedly after filming scenes for the show's finale in New Caledonia.

What is SHE doing there? Former Bachelor winner Alex Nation was spotted arriving in Brisbane after reportedly filming scenes for the show's finale in New Caledonia. Pictured in June

Clad in a monochrome jumpsuit and black leather jacket, Alex was spotted dragging a suitcase as she swiftly made her way through the terminal.

She was seen at the airport around the same time as one of the Bachelor finalists.

Alex won the heart of Richie Strahan on the 2016 season of The Bachelor, but their romance fell apart within a few months.

It remains unclear what Alex's potential role in the finale may be.

Spotted! Clad in a monochrome jumpsuit and black leather jacket, Alex was spotted dragging a suitcase as she swiftly made her way through the terminal

It is likely she was tasked with advising the last two contestants - Brittany Hockley and Sophie Tieman - on what to expect after the show ends.

Her experience with dealing with a public break-up may come in handy after it was confirmed earlier this month Nick had already split with the winner.

Meanwhile, it is also possible Network Ten was simply hoping for a ratings boost by bringing back a familiar face from a previous season.

However, speaking to Daily Mail Australia on Wednesday, Alex denied she was involved with the new season of The Bachelor.

'This is really funny because I don't have a role on the show at all and this [the airport sighting] is a phenomenal coincidence,' she said.

'"Plot twist - Alex Nation is a finale intruder!" Could you imagine!?'

Ghosts of seasons past! Alex initially won the heart of Richie Strahan (right) on 2016 season of The Bachelor before their romance collapsed a few months later

With the finale expected to air next week, Daily Mail Australia confirmed earlier this month that Nick had already split with the show's winner.

The final two contestants are Sophie Tieman and Brittany Hockley.

The Bachelor continues Wednesday on Network Ten from 7.30pm

Flying solo! With the finale expected to air next week, Daily Mail Australia confirmed earlier this month that Nick had already split with the show's winnerDisney faced major backlash from fans who accused the movie giant of whitewashing Princess Tiana by lightening her skin and sharpening her features for an early trailer of the Wreck-It Ralph sequel, Ralph Breaks the Internet.

Now the voice behind Princess Tiana has spoken out on the controversy surrounding the beloved character.

'This summer new images were released where she looked very different,' Anika Noni Rose said in a statement posted on her Instagram. 'I was surprised as most of her & my fans were.'

The voice of Disney's Princess Tiana, Anika Noni Rose, was 'surprised' to see the beloved character with 'lighter skin and much sharper features'

Rose added: 'Aside from my personal feelings, I noted how people felt online (and in my dms) and I was glad to see that people are still very much in love with and supportive of our princess.'

Rose went on to note that she met with The Princess and the Frog and Ralph Breaks the Internet animators three weeks ago.

'They explained how CGI animation did different things to the characters color tones in different light compares to hand drawn original characters,' Rose wrote.

'And I was able to express how important it is to the little girls (and lets face it, grown women) who felt represented by her that her skin tone stay as rich as it had been, and that her nose continue to be the little round nose that Mark so beautifully rendered in the movie; the same nose on my very own face and on many other little brown faces around the world, that we so rarely get to see represented in fantasy,' the 46-year old actress added.

Disney has reanimated some scenes from its 'Wreck it Ralph' sequel after facing backlash for lightening the skin tone of Princess Tiana in the film. Pictured left is from a trailer in August and pictured right is from a new trailer released last week

Tiana, the star of the 2009 film The Princess and the Frog (pictured above), was Disney's first black princess and was hailed at the time for bringing diversity to the screen

Disney decided to redraw the animations featuring Princess Tiana after receiving the feedback from Rose and members of advocacy group Color of Change, who campaign for black characters in Hollywood films, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Color of Change representatives said they also reviewed the changes to Tiana's animations to help ensure that the princess had darker hair and skin, as well as a wider nose and mouth.

They hailed Disney's decision as a 'victory' for the black community.

'The creation of Princess Tiana, Disney's first Black princess marked a defining moment for how Black women and girls are presented in media, specifically in animated movies,' Color of Change tweeted.

'We're glad Disney has committed to restoring Tiana to her original form to ensure authenticity.

Fans have been criticizing Disney heavily since last month after early trailers for the upcoming film 'Ralph Breaks the Internet' started teasing several princess reunion scenes featuring Princess Tiana with lighter skin (pictured above)

The studio was accused of whitewashing Princess Tiana. One scene from the film (left) shows her with noticeably lighter skin prior to it being changed (right)

Executive director of Color of Change, Rashad Robinson, said the change would mean black girls could now watch the Ralph film and see a princess of color that looked like them

Rose went on to thank Disney for working to correct the issue, which included an in-person meeting where she was shown the steps that were being taken to restore Princess Tiana.

'I also appreciate that this far into the process Disney had enough care and respect for all who love Princess Tiana and her legacy to spend time and money to make the adjustments necessary.'

Tiana, the star of the 2009 film The Princess and the Frog, was Disney's first black princess and was hailed at the time for bringing diversity to the screen.Rachel Brosnahan might have gotten married to her longtime love Jason Ralph.

The Emmy-winning actress, 27, secretly wed Ralph, 32, earlier this year, a source told People on Tuesday.

Another insider revealed to the publication that The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel star has been calling Ralph her husband while on set.

Scroll below for video

Nuptials? Rachel Brosnahan, 27, might have gotten married to her longtime love Jason Ralph, 32, a source told People on Tuesday. They were snapped at the Emmys in LA earlier this month

The two have been dating since their 2015 stint on the WGN war drama Manhattan, the magazine reported.

Brosnahan's rep said she would not comment on the personal life of the actress, the outlet reported.

Ralph, a native of McKinney, Texas, is currently on Syfy's The Magicians, and has past been seen on shows such as Younger, Aquarius and Madam Secretary.

The House of Cards actress and Ralph were both wearing bands on their ring fingers on their left hands, People reported, when they were at the Emmy awards September 17.

Victory: The actress captured the honors for Best Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for her work on Amazon's The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel earlier this month

Red carpet glitz: The couple made their way into the Golden Globes earlier this year

There, the Milwaukee, Wisconsin native - who previously captured a Golden Globe for her work on the Amazon series -won the honors for Best Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for her work on the show.

She beat out a talented field that included Tracee Ellis Ross, Lily Tomlin, Issa Rae, Allison Janney and Pamela Adlon in capturing the honors.

In her speech, the politically-outspoken performer stressed that people should vote, and encourage others to; and said she was proud to be 'a woman who is finding her voice,' as it's 'something that is happening all over the country right now.'Stacey Dooley: Face To Face With Armageddon

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Heres a tip that might spell the difference between life and death, if the bomb drops: make sure youve always got a pair of slippers with you.

Without indoor footwear, you might be barred from an underground blast shelter and so be exposed to lethal doses of atomic radiation that will fry you like an egg. Then youll wish you had slippers, wont you?

Investigative reporter Stacey Dooley found this out the hard way on Stacey Dooley: Face To Face With Armageddon (BBC1), when she visited Mayor Robert Vicino at the Vivos xPoint village of nuclear bunkers, near the Black Hills of South Dakota.

Reporter Stacey Dooley wears protective clothing in 'Face to Face with Armageddon'

Shoes off before you come in! barked Robert, as he led her into his show bunker. This lead-lined warren was equipped with every luxury, from plush carpets to an eye-level grill.

The place was stylish and terrifyingly oppressive at the same time, as if Nick Knowles and the DIY SOS team had broken into Hitlers Berlin bunker to spruce the place up before the Red Army arrived.

Dooley pictured outside a bunker - the worst place to be if the sneezing starts

During the opening night of Strictly last Saturday, Stacey kept telling us how nervous she was. Thats an act, because this woman doesnt have a twitchy nerve in her body. Deep underground while she was interviewing Robert, who kept leaning forward to deliver put- downs in a menacing tone, the lights went out. Id have gone straight into gibbering hysterics. Stacey just chuckled in the darkness and asked: Whats going on?

It transpired the generator was out of fuel. Wouldnt happen in real life, Robert claimed.

Even scarier, Robert wasnt the craziest character she met, during this one-off report on preppers  the Doomsday cultists who spend their lives waiting for the world to end. In the Colorado desert, she stayed with Rodney and his family of 11, in a ramshackle trailer surrounded by home-made mines to deter trespassers.

Rodney and his wife have spent the past 40 years pickling jars of food. Theyve shot so many rabbits that their chest freezer is overflowing. Cans and boxes are piled around their remote campsite: this is nuclear-grade hoarding.

Stacey didnt patronise these people by pretending she believed their apocalyptic ravings, about how government agents plan to turn Walmart stores into concentration camps. But she didnt mock them either. If you hadnt heard of her before Strictly, this documentary showcased her skills as an interviewer, not to mention her courage.

Preparing for the end of the world? Picture shows Dooley with Fabien and Roman at a gun range

When the end of the world comes, pickled cabbage and frozen rabbits wont save us, as we learned in The Flu That Killed 50 Million (BBC2). And if the sneezing starts, the worst place to be is a sealed bunker. This account, narrated by a grim-voiced Christopher Eccleston, gave gruesome proof of that: historys worst epidemic was incubated in 1918 on crowded American troop ships, where victims were crammed below-decks and the virus spread. Much of the programme relied on reconstructions, with actors reading from diaries and letters of the time. Often this was powerful and moving: the testimony of seven-year-old Ada in Manchester, who lost her mother, father and brother, was awful to hear.

Flu hit the young hardest. The children are simply dropping on their desks as if their roots are poisoned, wrote one official.

But the hospital scenes were a sight too graphic. Spanish flu killed by liquefying the lungs.

Another flu pandemic is now reckoned to be the worlds Number One health risk... another thing for preppers to worry about.She was announced as the spokesperson for Stella McCartney's Breast Cancer Awareness undergarment line.

And on Tuesday, Sofia Vergara kept in line with the traditional campaign color as she stepped out at Jimmy Kimmel Live!.

The 46-year-old looked absolutely lovely in a dusty rose, off-the-shoulder, dress.

What a beauty: Sofia Vergara, 46, looked absolutely lovely in a dusty rose, off-the-shoulder, dress as she stepped out at Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Tuesday

The Colombia native was styled in pink from head-to-toe.

Sofia accessorized with dangle earrings, shades, a neutral bag and layered bracelets.

The Latina stunner topped off her look with ankle strap heels and bright fuchsia lipstick. Sofia wore her glossy hair down and in soft curls.

A clear color winner: Sofia was styled in pink from head-to-toe. The Modern Family star accessorized with dangle earrings, shades, a neutral bag and layered bracelets

Elegant: The Latina stunner topped off her look with ankle strap heels and bright fuchsia lipstick. Sofia wore her glossy hair down and in soft curls

Following her pink arrival, the wife of Joe Manganiello made a quick change into an evening look.

The mother-of-one paired a strapless, black dress with silver high heels and coordinating earrings.

Sofia took to Instagram stories to show off her look.

'I'm coming for you @jimmykimmel,' read her caption.

Different: Following her pink arrival, the wife of Joe Manganiello made a quick change into an evening look

On Monday, Sofia was revealed as the new face of Stella McCartney's Breast Cancer Awareness collection.

The designer previously lost her mother to the disease in 1998, so the campaign is surely close to her heart.

Sofia herself battled thyroid cancer in 2010, but has since recovered.There was plenty of reaction to Bill Cosby's sentencing on Tuesday  but none more poignant than that of his accuser Janice Dickenson.

The former model was just one of the dozens of women who provided testimony in the sexual assault case against the disgraced comedian, who was sent to prison for between three and ten years on Tuesday.

'The harrowing memory of the rape continues to this day,' the 63-year-old said in a statement, through her lawyer Lisa Bloom.

Justice: Bill Cosby accuser Janice Dickinson reacted to his to sentencing on Tuesday, saying 'The rape is etched into my soul'

'I have reoccurring nightmares, I wake up in fear, I fear the dark. I struggle to discuss this even with my beloved husband of 6 years.'

'The rape shattered my ability to trust,' she continued. 'It made me extremely wary of becoming an actress. It affected my work. It affected my lifestyle. I lost a lot of spunk. I lost some of my effervescent attitude and lightness, qualities required of a model.

'I became less motivated to meet new people, a huge component of my daily work as a model. You dont move away from the jobs  you run towards the work. My work suffered.'

She revealed she even once moved to Milan in Italy, where she hoped not to see or hear of Cosby again.

Support: Andrea Constand is hugged by model Janice Dickinson outside the courtroom

Last laugh: Dickinson gestures outside the Montgomery County Courthouse during Bill Cosby's sentencing hearing

Compare: Many other celebrities took to Twitter to share their reactions  many of whom drawing parallels with the controversy currently surrounding Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh  including Debra Messing

'Have we learned nothing? #IBelieveDrFord #IBelieveDeborahRamirez', she wrote, naming two of Kavanaugh's accusers

'The rape is etched into my soul,' she concluded. 'Therapy has helped some but it has not helped to restore my innocence. I was never the same. I will never be the same.'

Many other celebrities took to Twitter to share their reactions  many of whom drawing parallels with the controversy currently surrounding Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

Debra Messing tweeted: 'Today a PA court deemed #BillCosby a Violent Sexual Predator b4 sentencing him. For decades people maligned &decried his accusers as LIARS. It took 60+ accusers 2 finally bring his survivors justice &vindication.

Fair? Amber Tamblyn compared Cosby's sentence to what his survivors have gone through

Sarcasm: Super fair I guess, she summarized

She added: 'Have we learned nothing? #IBelieveDrFord #IBelieveDeborahRamirez' naming two of Kavanaugh's accusers.

Chelsea Handler meanwhile joked: 'Bill Cosby is set to serve 3 to 10 years in prison, but when hes released hes expected to be nominated to the Supreme Court.'

Amber Tamblyn tweeted: 'Bill Cosby has been sentenced to 3-10 years for drugging and sexually assaulting many women over the course of many years.

Lines: Chelsea Handler was another drawing parallels

Ouch: Hes expected to be nominated to the Supreme Court,' she joked

'His survivors have been sentenced to a lifetime of brutal memories and trauma for daring to exist in the first place. Super fair I guess.'

There were jokes too off course, most centering around Cosby's famous commercials.

'Bill Cosby is going to love jail. I hear they serve Jell-O for dessert,' Whitney Cummins quipped.

Albert Brooks was on the same page: 'Bill Cosby gets new advertising campaign: Jail-O.'

Obviously: There were jokes too off course, from the likes of Albert Brooks and Whitney CummingsHe's been known to pull off a full stunts in his life, but this one may take the cake.

Actor Will Smith bungee jumped out of a helicopter over the Grand Canyon Tuesday afternoon to mark his 50th birthday.

And keeping up with his good-guy, showman image, he live-streamed the stunt to help raise awareness and donations for education campaigns run by the international advocacy group Global Citizens.

Plunging into his 50's: Will Smith bungee jumped from a helicopter in Little Colorado River Gorge, Arizona on Tuesday; the actor arrived at the scene with his wife Jada Pinkett Smith and kids Willow, Trey and Jaden

Tension building: The stunt was live-streamed to help raise awareness and donations for education campaigns run by the international advocacy group Global Citizens

The stunt was billed as a leap 'in the heart of the Grand Canyon."

As the moment of truth arrived, you could see the apprehension and tension building in the actor's eyes.

Then, just as the chopper lifted off, Smith made a heart sign with his hands. As they headed out over the canyon, he waved down below to his family, friends and fans.

'Never look down, you never look down,' the anxious star blurted out with his signature smile on his face.

Moments later the crew on board the helicopter counted down: '5, 4, 3, 2, 1.'

Wonder of the world: The Fresh Prince star jumped over a smaller gorge on the Navajo Nation near Grand Canyon National Park

The moment of truth! The chopper crew counted down: '5, 4, 3, 2, 1,' and then Smith jumped out on cue, backwards with his arms outstretched

Initial terror: Smith's first response was a terrified: 'Oh my god'

Terror to bliss: 'This is gorgeous. This is some of the most beautiful stuff I've seen in my life,' the excited actor yelled out

Exhilaration! Smith repeated: 'terror to absolute bliss' over and over

Smith jumped out on cue, backwards with his arms outstretched. At first he sounded terrified: 'Oh my god,' he yelled out during the fall, but that quickly turned to excitement when he knew the bungee chord worked.

'This is gorgeous. This is some of the most beautiful stuff I've seen in my life -- beautiful, from terror to absolute bliss.'

Once on the ground, Smith couldn't stop ranting about the experience.

'Nothing will ever be scarier than that terror to bliss. You're happy the chord worked. Then the whole Grand Canyon is mine, like me and the Grand Canyon. It's like you need the terror to enjoy the bliss.'

The actor quickly embraced his family -- including wife Jada Pinkett Smith, daughter Willow and sons Trey and Jaden. Jada, who was not in favor of the jump, had a change of heart and was overwhelmed by the stunt.

'It was really a powerful experience; a spiritual moment when you dropped; I saw that freedom,' she proudly proclaimed to her husband. 'That was so inspirational and so gangster.'

Thumbs up: 'You're happy the chord worked. Then the whole Grand Canyon is mine, like me and the Grand Canyon'

Smith's family looked on with excitement; pictured left to right: wife Jada Pinkett Smith, son Trey, daughter Willow and son Jaden

For Smith this was all about conquering a childhood fear and helping support charitable causes.

In a YouTube video posted earlier this month, he recalled visiting the Grand Canyon as a child but being terrified to walk up to the edge.

He only agreed to make the jump when the Youtube group Yes Theory challenged him.

'I hate being scared,' Smith said. 'When the guys at Yes Theory challenged me [to bungee jump] I said, Damn it, because I hate being scared.'

Smith auctioned the chance to watch the stunt play out live through Omaze last month in exchange for donations to the cause.

In the end, he faced his fear and conquered it.

'Its spectacular! I would definitely do it again! Its spectacular.'

A man on a mission: Smith made the jump to overcome a childhood fear of heights and to help support charitable causes: 'I hate being scared,' Smith said about the challenge from the Youtube group Yes Theory

Mission accomplished! Once on the ground, Smith was overwhelmed with adrenaline and a sense of accomplishmentHe was honored with an all-star 85th birthday tribute concert at the O2 Arena in London in June.

On Tuesday the birthday celebration came back across the pond in the form of Q85: A Musical Celebration for Quincy Jones at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles.

And what better way to shine the spotlight on such a festive event than to have one the one-and-only Oprah Winfrey as a presenter.

Picture of elegance: Oprah Winfrey presented at the Q85: A Musical Celebration For Quincy Jones in Los Angeles on Tuesday

Oprah, 64, was the picture of elegance in a black gown that hugged her curves from the hips up, but stylish hung off her body from the legs down.

The media mogul accessorized with a pair of high-fashion bracelets and rings.

And, on this night, she had her dark tresses styled in a shoulder-length bob, complete with major volume and curls.

Turns out, Oprah and Quincy have been friends since he discovered her for her iconic role in the 1985 period drama The Color Purple.

Icon: The media mogul shined in an elegant black gown as she paid tribute to Quincy

What a night: The tribute concert was a live television show taping that is expected to air at a future date

The tribute concert was a live television show taping that is expected to air at a future date.

The incredible line-up of performers honoring the iconic musician included Stevie Wonder, Brian McKnight, John Legend, Gladys Knight, Patti Austin, Gloria Estefan, Charlie Wilson, Ledisi, Gregory Porter, Cynthia Erivo, Jennifer Hudson and Meghan Trainor.

The birthday bash at London's O2 Arena in June, titled Quincy Jones: A Life in Song, got good reviews, according to AXS.

The three-hour show had an orchestra and featured mostly British artists who performed songs that Jones had written or produced.

Long-storied history: Oprah and Quincy have been friends since he discovered her for her iconic role in the 1985 period drama The Color Purple

Tuesday's tribute concert comes just four days after the Netflix documentary 'Quincy' premiered.

Quincy's daughter/actress, Rashida Jones, worked with filmmaker Alan Hicks on the project, which has been described as 'an intimate look into the life of the iconic music producer, trumpeter, songwriter, conductor, composer and music arranger.'

The IMDb synopsis added: 'A unique force in music and popular culture for 70 years, Jones has transcended racial and cultural boundaries; his story is inextricably woven into the fabric of America.'

Rashida, 42, and Hicks had the monumental task of sifting through 800 hours of new video they shot and 2,000 hours of archival footage.

The music legend came to prominence in the 1950s as a jazz arranger and conductor, before moving on to popular music and film scores.

Along the way he won 27 Grammys and produced albums for late musical icons such as Ray Charles, Michael Jackson, Frank Sinatra, and Aretha Franklin.

Quincy Jones turned 85 back on March 14.

Microdermabrasion has been a staple at beauty spas for eons, so much so that the trend has become somewhat 'outdated' in recent years.

But this week, the 'World's Hottest Grandma' Gina Stewart underwent the once popular facial for the first time ever at a local Gold Coast spa.

The ageless 48-year-old maintains that it was her 'first facial treatment in years,' after previously stating that she's never used any kind of artificial beauty enhancers like Botox of fillers.

All natural: The 'World's Hottest Grandma' Gina Stewart finally succumbed to beauty treatments this week by getting microdermabrasion at a local spa

'We all get low and feel bad about ourselves from time to time and sometimes all it takes to pick yourself up is to look and feel your best and to be the best version of yourself,' the mother-of-four wrote in a touching Instagram post.

'Yesterday I took a trip to Esteem medi spa at Marina Mirage Gold Coast,' she continued.

'I haven't had any facial treatments in years so decided on a microdermabrasion. I left with rejuvenated skin and a big smile on my face.'

'I haven't had any facial treatments in years so decided on a microdermabrasion. I left with rejuvenated skin and a big smile on my face,' said the 48-year-old

The social media sensation said that it was important to find treatments that were 'anti ageing without going under the knife,' and that she's excited to try out laser treatments next.

Outside of her double-E cup breast implants, Gina has always maintained that her beauty is natural and that she's never used Botox or fillers.

In May, the busty grandmother told Daily Mail Australia that the only products she uses on her face are coconut oil and rose hip oil.

'No Botox or fillers!' Outside of her double-E cup breast implants, Gina has always maintained that her beauty is natural

'Macro Organics coconut oil is my hair product, my product that I cook with and my moisturiser - $5, all organic, no chemicals,' she said.

'Rosehip oil is also my secret weapon, I swear by this, it's anti-ageing. So basically what I do is I cleanse and I put this on my face afterwards  that's my daily routine.'

She also follows a 'chemical-free' lifestyle and only drinks alkaline water.

'Rosehip oil is also my secret weapon, I swear by this, it's anti-ageing,' she previously said. 'So basically what I do is I cleanse and I put this on my face afterwards  that's my daily routine'

Despite her new love of microdermabrasion, beauty experts have called the treatment 'outdated' now.

'The field is really evolving and leaving microdermabrasion in the past,' plastic surgeon Heather Furnas told Allure in March.

'Microdermabrasion has almost become outdated compared to all the other advances in exfoliation. It's been surpassed by better options.'She's known for her outrageously intricate Halloween costumes.

And on Tuesday, Heidi Klum, 45, revealed to fans that prep for this year's costume is well under way.

'Getting ready for #heidiklumHalloween2018,' she wrote on Instagram as she shared footage from Mike Marino's prosthetic shop in Los Angeles.

Queen of Halloween: On Tuesday, Heidi Klum, 45, revealed to fans that prep for her Halloween costume is well under way. 'Getting ready for #heidiklumHalloween2018,' she wrote on Instagram as she shared footage from Mike Marino's prosthetic shop in Los Angeles

Worth the wait: Klum's top secret costume is always revealed at her annual Halloween bash

Klum's top secret costume is always revealed at her annual Halloween bash.

Last year, the German model paid homage to Michael Jackson's Thriller music video when she dressed as a werewolf.

Heidi told Ellen DeGeneres that she had to really 'give it some' after her costume fell flat in 2016.

'I had like five clones and I could just be me, but I don't think people were too impressed with that,' she explained.

Lurking in the dark: Last year, the German model paid homage to Michael Jackson's Thriller music video when she dressed as a werewolf (Photo taken 2017)

Identical twins: In 2016, Heidi cloned herself five times

Back in 2015, Klum looked unrecognizable as Jessica Rabbit from the 1988 film Who Framed Roget Rabbit.

The America's Got Talent judge said it took her more than two hours to take off her 'big boobs, big butt, and prosthetic face.'

'It's like stuck on. It's not easy, you can't just take it off,' she said to Ellen. 'When it's 4:00 in the morning and you've had a couple glasses of champagne, it's not a lot of fun.'

Va-va-voom! Back in 2015, Klum looked unrecognizable as Jessica Rabbit from the 1988 film Who Framed Roget Rabbit (Photo taken 2015)

Walk like an Egyptian: Klum dressed up as Cleopatra in 2012

But despite the 10 to 14 hours it takes to get ready, Klum still loves dressing up every year.

'I like to inspire people to dress up more,' she said. 'Everyone who comes to the party, they give it some too.'

Heidi added: 'It's so much fun because you can't recognize anyone.'They've been dating since 2013.

And fans are waiting with bated breath for Chandler Powell to get down on one knee and propose to Bindi Irwin.

Bindi's Instagram followers went into a frenzy on Wednesday when the wildlife warrior posted a loved-up throwback snap with her beau.

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'Look like an engagement announcement!' Bindi Irwin sends fans into a frenzy as she posts loved-up snap with boyfriend Chandler Powell

The picture showed the happy couple wearing scuba gear as they cuddled in the ocean near Lady Elliot Island, a coral cay of the Great Barrier Reef.

'In all the hustle and bustle of life, let's find time to adventure, explore and truly live,' the 20-year-old captioned the image.

'Every photo looks like an engagement announcement,' one fan wrote in the comments, while another flatly said 'you need to get married already'.

'Every photo looks like an engagement announcement,' one fan wrote in the comments, while another flatly said 'you need to get married already'.

'Every photo looks like an engagement announcement,' one fan wrote in the comments, while another flatly said 'you need to get married already'

The pair have been dating since they first met at Australia Zoo back in November 2013.

And ever since they have been plagued by engagement rumours, with many fans speculating when Chandler will propose to the young star.

When will he pop the question? The pair have been dating since they first met at Australia Zoo back in November 2013. Chandler and Bindi pictured together with Bindi's little brother Robert in the background

In July fans flooded the comments section beneath a couple selfie Bindi uploaded to Instagram.

'Every time you post a picture together I'm always sure it will be your engagement announcement. Wishful thinking,' one fan wrote.

While another even tagged Chandler directly, writing: '@chandlerpowell propose already, man! Come on!'

Such a gentleman! Ever since the start of their relationship the young couple have been plagued by engagement rumours. Chandler spoiled Bindi with flowers before her birthday

On an episode of ABC'S Anh's Brush With Fame Bindi's mother, Terri, revealed how the star's late father, Steve, proposed to her.

She said they were 'falling a tree' as it had been struck by lightning and died.

'We take it down in increments and then stack it all up. And I'd been doing this all day, so by the end of the day I'm sweaty and dirty and covered with leaves and bark and whatever,' the 54-year-old said.

Like her parents? Terri, revealed the low key way that the star's late father, Steve, proposed to her. Pictured right: Bindi left: Chandler

'And I was sitting there having a cool drink and Steve turned to me and said, "so, what do you reckon? You want to get married?"' Terri said.

Terri said despite never yearning to tie the knot everything felt so natural with her 'soulmate' Steve.

'I thought of one million reasons why I couldn't get married, and a little voice somewhere said, "yes! I'd love to!" she spilled.

The conservationist family have just been touring the US promoting their new show Crikey! It's The Irwins.The Block's Jess and Norm received an 'A for effort' for the transformation of their living room in the 're-do room' challenge this week.

Judge, Shaynna Blaze announced the Queensland couple won the 're-do room' contest after she graded the dwellings during Wednesday night's episode.

The self-confessed bogans were awarded $10,000 for their 'monumental' efforts - which included relocating the fireplace and adding a 10-seater dining table.

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Splashes of colour, relocated fireplace and a canary birdcage lamp: Inside the 'magnificent' transformations of the 're-do rooms' that earned The Block's Jess and Norm an 'A for effort'

'We won! Shaynna...you like us, you finally like us!' Jess exclaimed.

'Now that's what I want to see! Get out of town! This fire place is a feature!' Shaynna Blaze said as she walked into Jess and Norm's revised living area.

Next, Shaynna was seen raving over the couple's inclusion of a 10-seater dining table.

'Hang on is this a bigger table?' Shaynna said before adding: 'This is incredible. Before it felt tiny. It didn't feel like a penthouse. This is brilliant.'

'We won! Shaynna...you like us, you finally like us!' Jess (left) exclaimed after the couple won the 're-do room' challenge. Pictured alongside partner, Norm (right)

Before! The Block's Jess and Norm's living room before the 'monumental' changes

After! The self-confessed bogans were awarded $10,000 for their 'monumental' efforts - which included relocating the fireplace and adding a 10-seater dining table. Pictured Jess and Norm's revised living room

Game-changer: Jess and Norm moved their fireplace to the corner of the living area

Scott Cam proceeded to waxed lyrical about the couple's ability to move the fireplace in five hours.

Bianca and Carla also received an excellent result from the talented interior designer, scooping in an A + for their revised master bedroom.

The athletes got rid of the 'imposing charcoal wall' behind the bed and also 'installed an air-conditioning grill' in the bedroom.

Before! The athletes got rid of the 'imposing charcoal wall' behind the bed

Comfort: The athletes 'installed an air-conditioning grill' in the bedroom

A + details: The pro-netballers put a king-size bed into the room and fitted two modern wall sconces on either side

What's more the pro-netballers put a king-size bed into the room and fitted two modern wall sconces on either side.

'look I think they've done a really good job of fixing the problems. It's a big improvement,' Shaynna remarked.

Meanwhile Kerrie and Spence received glowing reviews from Shaynna for improving their room with splashes of colour and quirky details.

The B&B owners from the Barossa Valley freshened-up the room by adding some colourful artwork onto the walls.

Before! Kerrie and Spence received glowing reviews from Shaynna for improving their room with splashes of colour and quirky details

Art: The B&B owners from the Barossa Valley freshened-up the room by adding some colourful artwork onto the walls

Quirky details: The pair also injected some personality into the room by including a canary birdcage lamp (pictured) and a glass ball pendant lamp

The pair also injected some personality into the room by including a canary birdcage lamp and a glass ball pendant light.

However the couple only received a C + from the judge for their improvements.

However Shaynna slammed Courtney and Hans for their failure to deliver an impactful room.

The aviation duo channeled Hollywood regency for their second attempt at the master suite.

Before! Courtney and Hans first master suite was sans a coffee table and a round mirror but included red arm chairs

Hollywood regency: The pair added a number of glamorous highlights to the bedroom, including a plush velvet sofa in emerald with button detailing, a monochromatic coffee table and a faux-fur throw

The pair added a number of glamorous highlights to the bedroom, including a plush velvet sofa in emerald with button detailing, a monochromatic coffee table and a faux-fur throw.

Shaynna criticised the pair for under-utilising the hallway, sharing: 'You could put book cases all the way across here. You could actually put a little chair in there. You could block that off (walkway) and turn it into a nook.'

'They're not getting why we want them to re-do this room,' Shaynna concluded as she the aviation duo an 'F' for their efforts.

'You could put book cases all the way across here. You could actually put a little chair in there. You could block that off (walkway) and turn it into a nook': Shaynna (pictured) criticised the pair for under-utilising the hallway. Pictured Before (right) and After (left)

Elsewhere, Sara and Hayden received mixed reviews from Shaynna over the re-do of their first guest bedroom.

The tradesman said the pair changed the side tables, bedhead, lamps and the artwork to achieve a more cohesive feel with the rest of the apartment.

The controversial couple transformed the study nook into a comfortable sitting room which Shaynna believed is 'much better.'

Shaynna said the couple over-styled the guest room and she proceeded to strip the room of a number of items including the pink cushion and the plush grey throw.

Before: The couple were criticised for including a study nook in their first guest bedroom

'Much better!' The controversial couple transformed the study nook into a comfortable sitting room which Shaynna believed is 'much better'They each appeared on a reality dating show only to leave heartbroken and single.

So it's no wonder The Bachelor's Megan Marx had much to talk about with Married At First Sight's Ashley Irvin and Love Island Australia's Shelby Mills at a fun-filled pool party on Tuesday.

In a series of videos shared to the trio's respective Instagram accounts, the blondes can be seen cavorting around in skimpy swimwear by a backyard swimming pool.

Reality rejects unite! Bachelor star Megan Marx joined MAFS' Ashley Irvin and Love Island's Shelby Mills for a wild girls-only pool party on Tuesday

Wet and wild! In a series of videos shared to the trio's respective Instagram accounts, the blondes can be seen cavorting around in skimpy swimwear by a back-yard swimming pool

Feasting on a poolside fruit platter and drinking from wine glasses, the threesome looked to be in high spirits as they made the most of their mid-week celebration.

In one video shared to Ashley's Instagram Story, Shelby can be seen lifting up her top to reveal a skimpy string bikini, while undulating her body provocatively for the camera.

'The girls! Yeah, the girls!' cheered Ashley as she turned the camera on Megan- who performed the same racy maneuver as Shelby.

Racy display: In one video shared to Ashley's Instagram Story, Shelby can be seen lifting up her top to reveal a skimpy string bikini, while undulating her body provocatively for the camera, before Megan follows suit

Meanwhile, Shelby took to her Instagram Stories to share a snap of herself taking a dip in the outdoor spa with Megan.

Ashley was also pictured looking on from the sidelines with a wine glass in hand.

'Spa dates with my baes, Shelby affectionately captioned one snap.

Living the good life! Feasting on a poolside fruit platter and drinking from wine glasses, the threesome looked to be in high spirits as they made the most of their mid-week celebration

Megan also shared a candid video to her Instagram Stories, filming the fruit platter up close while declaring: 'I'm going to eat all of it!'

Later that day, the buxom blondes continued the fun by attending Gold Coast Fashion Week together.

Other reality stars who attended the glitzy event include Bachelor In Paradise's Jake Spence (known professionally as Apollo Jackson) and Love Island Australia's Edyn 'Mac' Mackney.

'Spa dates with my baes': Meanwhile, Shelby took to her Instagram Stories to share a snap of herself taking a dip in the outdoor spa with Megan

Tucking in: Megan also shared a candid video to her Instagram Stories, filming the fruit platter up close while declaring: 'I'm going to eat all of it!'On Sunday, she was seen enjoying a night out at Beyonce and Jay-Z's On The Run II concert, as the tour rolled into the Rose Ball in Pasadena, California.

But it was back to work for Kim Kardashan, 37, on Tuesday, as she was spotted shooting scenes for reality show Keeping Up With The Kardashians alongside her best pal Jonathan Cheban, 44, in Thousand Oaks, California.

The curvaceous mother-of-three caught the eye in an eclectic ensemble that included a black oversized jacket and snakeskin bell bottoms with towering heels as she made her way into Dick's Sporting Goods.

Shooting: Kim Kardashian was spotted shooting scenes for reality show Keeping Up With The Kardashians alongside her best pal Jonathan Cheban in Thousand Oaks, California, on Tuesday

Hiding her eyes behind a stylish pair of angular sunglasses, she wore her raven locks in long waves with a centre-parting, while a palette of impeccably-applied makeup glammed up her head-turning look.

She was seen standing at the entrance of the shop as she chatted with her close friend Jonathan, who looked casually cool in a black-and-red tracksuit.

On Sunday night, Kim appeared to be having the time of her life as she sang along to some of Beyonce's greatest hits alongside her sister Kourtney, 39, mother Kris Jenner, 62 and pal Larsa Pippen, 44.

Eclectic: The curvaceous mother-of-three caught the eye in a black oversized jacket and snakeskin bell bottoms with towering heels as she made her way into Dick's Sporting Goods

Casually cool: She was seen standing at the entrance of the shop as she chatted with her close friend Jonathan, who looked casually cool in a black-and-red tracksuit

Kim showed off her hourglass figure and ensured plenty of cleavage was on show as she slipped into a pale pink low-scoop vest, which made the most of her ample assets.

She tucked the pearlescent bodysuit into pink skintight Lycra disco-pants and added a boost to her height with metallic chain sandals.

Styling her raven locks in crimped waves, the mother-of-three finished off her glamorous concert look with black eyeliner, blush-swept cheeks and a matte pink lip and a cream Hermes bag.

Taking to Instagram, Kim shared a slew of clips of her dancing away to the songstress' smash hit Drunk In Love.

Making waves: Hiding her eyes behind a stylish pair of angular sunglasses, the 37-year-old beauty wore her raven locks in long waves with a centre-parting

Rumours of a feud between Kim and Beyonce have been circulating for years, ever since Kim took up with Kanye West, her third husband and father of her children.

Early in his career, Kanye was the protege of Beyonce's husband Jay-Z - though late in 2016, Kanye lambasted Jay-Z onstage for not paying a visit after Kim was traumatically robbed at gunpoint in a Paris hotel.

It was not the first time Beyonce and Jay-Z were regarded as having snubbed Kim and Kanye.

Jay-Z and Beyonce neglected to attend Kimye's Florentine wedding in 2014 - an absence that was so widely discussed, Kim's mother Kris Jenner was asked about it on The Kyle And Jackie O Show, where she airily waved the subject off.

Biggest fan: On Sunday, Kim took to Instagram to share footage of herself at Beyonce and Jay-Z's On The Run II concert at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California

Dreamgirl: The reality star added a love heart filter as she danced to some of Beyonce's greatest hits with her sister, Kourtney Kardashian

Kris said of Jay-Z and Beyonce's being a no-show that 'there was so much commotion and excitement, I never, ever even gave that a second thought.

'I know they sent really nice wishes to Kanye and Kim and I just assumed they were working, so I didn't hear anything other than that.'

She went on to say that 'I think that there was so much going on, if you would've been there, you would've thought that was the last thing on anybody's mind.'

Meanwhile on The Breakfast Club, Kanye admitted that 'at the time I was hurt' by the Carters' decision to skip his nuptials at the Forte Di Belvedere - having had their names engraved into the marble table.

Diva: Kim grinned as she watched Beyonce take the stage for a second night at the Rose Bowl

Best seats in the house: Kim's mother, Kris Jenner, and Kourtney also turned up the high-octane concert having front row tickets

'You know, I gotta say, you know, I was hurt about them not coming to the wedding. I understand they was going through some things, but if it's family, you know, you're not gonna miss a wedding, you know?' he said.

However, Beyonce did wish them 'a lifetime of unconditional love' via Instagram, and there were outside circumstances rumoured to have led to her and Jay-Z's non-attendance.

Between the wedding and Kanye's onstage outburst about Jay-Z's not visiting after Kim's robbery, the two couples kept their relationship publicly friendly.

Born performer: Beyonce worked her magic on stage as she performed her hits to the crowd

Flawless: Styling her raven locks in crimped waves, the mother-of-three finished off her glamorous concert look with black eyeliner, blush-swept cheeks and a matte pink lip

Kim and Beyonce were glimpsed together at public events including Kanye's show at New York Fashion Week in February of 2015.

The same year, Kanye even said that Beck should have given up his Album Of The Year Grammy to Beyonce - though he ultimately apologised to Beck.

Documenting her night, the television personality enjoyed a beverage with her pals and family before posting videos of her miming lyrics and showing off some of her sultry dance moves.

The beauty mogul, who said on this series of Keeping Up With The Kardashians she doesn't dance, channelled her inner Beyonce as she seductively shimmied along to the songs.

Way back when: Rumours of a feud between Kim and Beyonce have been circulating for years, ever since Kim took up with Kanye West, her third husband and father of her childrenHe recently started dating Tash Candyce, who dropped out of the new season of Married At First Sight to be with him.

And on Wednesday, Michael Turnbull revealed one of the more unexpected experiences to occur since they struck up a romance.

Posting a cringeworthy video to his Instagram account, the 37-year-old divulged he was now discovering new 'weird and wonderful things' in his bathroom.

Scroll down for video

'When you get a girlfriend you see all these new weird and wonderful things in the bathroom': Michael Turnbull reveals the perks of dating Tash Candyce in cringeworthy laser hair removal social media post

In the clip, which appeared to be sponsored by a laser hair removal company, the Bachelor in Paradise star could be seen shirtless as he used the device on his tattooed body.

'When you get a gf you see all these new weird and wonderful items suddenly appear in the bathroom. So... of course you have to try them,' Michael captioned the post.

'@tash_candyce you have trained me well. No more shaving for me I'm a laser man now!'

'You have trained me well' In the post, Michael (right) credited Tash (left) with changing his hair removal habits

Michael and Tash were first linked together in May this year but declared their blossoming romance had come to an end after a short-lived relationship.

The former Bachelorette star told Woman's Day the same month: 'I am 100 per cent single. Me and Tash did spend some time together after the show.'

Since then, the pair rekindled their love, with Tash giving up a spot on Married At First Sight to date Michael.

New love! Tash and Michael were first linked in May this year before splitting then rekindling their romance

In an interview with WHO magazine, the Melbourne-based real estate agent, real name Natasha Zuanetti, explained she traded her a shot at fame for an official relationship with Michael.

'[The producers] flew me up to Sydney to meet with them...They were going to shoot my backstory this weekend, so Michael had to take a decision fairly quickly!' she told the magazine earlier this month.

Michael added: 'I certainly wouldn't deny Natasha an opportunity like MAFS if I wasn't 100 percent serious. And that was one of the things I had to figure out as well.'They said 'I do' last month in a lavish ceremony in Bidard, south-west France after two years together.

And Vincent Cassel, 51, and his new bride, model Tina Kunakey, 21, continued to revel in their wedded bliss as they attended the EDAM runway show at Paris Fashion Week on Tuesday.

Putting on a cosy display, the actor looked smitten as he wrapped his arm tenderly around his striking other half's waist as they posed for photos at the event.

Wedded bliss: Vincent Cassel, 51, and his new bride, model Tina Kunakey, 21, continued to revel in their wedded bliss as they attended the EDAM runway show at Paris Fashion Week on Tuesday

Tina made sure all eyes were on her as she slipped into a figure-flaunting white midi dress with neon green detailing.

The statuesque beauty's stylish look accentuated her ample cleavage and drew attention to her narrow midriff as she arrived with Vincent to the show space.

Adding inches to her height, she slipped on a pair of strappy heels, which featured perspex detailing across the foot, making her way to the FROW.

Her raven curls were worked into a glamorous natural style and sported a flawless beauty look, which aided her radiant complexion.

Striking: Putting on a cosy display, the actor looked smitten as he wrapped his arm tenderly around his striking other half's waist as they posed for photos at the event

All eyes: Tina made sure all eyes were on her as she slipped into a figure-flaunting white midi dress with neon green detailing

Letting Tina take the fashion lead, Vincent opted for a more casual but equally stylish look.

The acclaimed actor donned a denim shirt with matching jeans and wrapped a chunky grey cardigan around his frame.

The Ocean's Thirteen star complemented his outfit with a pair of suede Chelsea boots, while covering his salt-and-pepper coif with a tweed flat cap.

Striking: The statuesque beauty's stylish look accentuated her ample cleavage and drew attention to her narrow midriff

Mane attraction: Her raven curls were worked into a glamorous natural style and sported a flawless beauty look, which aided her radiant complexion

Style: Letting Tina take the fashion lead, Vincent opted for a more casual but equally stylish look

The couple got married in a private ceremony at the city hall in Bidart, south-west France on August 24.

Tina looked breathtaking in a strapless ivory gown, which had a plunging strapless sweetheart neckline and a full princess skirt.

The couple, who live in Brazil, were first linked back in July 2016 when Tina, then 19, shared a social media snap of herself cuddling up to the then 49-year-old actor while smoking a cigarette.

All in the details: Adding inches to her height, she slipped on a pair of strappy heels, which featured perspex detailing across the foot, making her way to the FROW (Pictured alongside French actor Gilles Lellouche)

Taking the lead: The acclaimed actor donned a denim shirt with matching jeans and wrapped a chunky grey cardigan around his frame

Vincent rose to fame in Matthieu Kassovitz's 1995 film La Haine (Hate) and starred in Ocean's Twelve and Ocean's Thirteen, as well as Eastern Promises and Black Swan.

He married Italian actress Monica Bellucci, 53, in 1999 after meeting on the set of their 1996 film The Apartment.

The couple welcomed two daughters, Deva, 13, and Leonie, eight, before divorcing in 2013 after 14 years of marriage.She revealed she was battling with an outbreak of adult acne after marrying Hugo Taylor earlier this year.

And Millie Mackintosh took to Instagram on Wednesday to update her fans on her skin condition after undergoing laser treatment.

The former Made In Chelsea star, 29, who previously admitted to her 1.3million followers she found it hard to show her skin, went bare-faced in the snap, showing her acne and calling it a 'b***h'.

Getting better: Millie Mackintosh took to Instagram on Wednesday to update her fans on her adult acne after undergoing laser treatment

Millie, who regularly shows off her flawless complexion with glamorous make-up looks while walking the red carpet, shared the close-up snap of her lying on the treatment bed after undergoing her second round of light therapy.

She penned: 'I just had my second Yag laser. My acne hasn't gone but it's definitely getting better #Adultacneisab***h'.

Light therapy, or phototherapy, uses controlled artificial ultraviolet light to help reduce symptoms and slow the progress of common skin conditions.

insecurities: The former Made In Chelsea star, 29, who previously admitted to her 1.3million followers she found it hard to show her skin, called the skin condition a 'b***h'

Passion for all things beauty: Millie, who has her own make-up line, regularly shows off her flawless complexion with glamorous make-up looks on social media

Skin problems: Back in summer, the reality star proved she has the same beauty concerns as everyone else, as she revealed her battle with acne

Back in summer, the reality star, who has launched her own cosmetics line in recent years, proved she has the same beauty concerns as everyone else as she revealed she found it difficult to show her followers what her skin looked like after walking down the aisle.

Many of the star's fans were on hand to offer her advice on how to beat the unwanted spots that had appeared since her wedding.

Some fans suggested using drying oil or tea tree oil, while others simply praised her for being so open about her skin, saying that it brought comfort as they suffered with the same issue.

Millie also showed her sense of humour, as she joked that her solution for skin break outs is a pair of big shades and a smile.

The brunette beauty has a lot to smile about recently as she returned from her romantic Greek honeymoon to the islands of Crete and Kefalonia back in July, after tying the knot with husband Hugo Taylor.

The newlywed lovebirds started off their Grecian adventure at the Elounda Peninsula All Suite Hotel in Crete, before travelling to Kefalonia for the second part of their break at the F Zeen Retreat.

Millie and Hugo said their vows at his uncle's country estate, Whithurst Park, in West Sussex on June 22, with the bride wowing in a wedding dress with detachable sleeves by designer Kate Halfpenny.

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.Susanna Reid told Good Morning Britain viewers on Wednesday that she lost a stone in eight weeks after her doctor told her she had a 'top heavy' BMI.

Speaking about losing weight, the 47-year-old said: 'It was a combination of factors, but a doctor said I was at the top end of my BMI.

'He said it might benefit me if I lost a little weight.'

Revelation: Susanna Reid told Good Morning Britain viewers on Wednesday she lost a STONE in eight weeks after her doctor warned her she was at the 'top end of the BMI'

Quizzed on why she felt the need to lose the pounds, Susanna said: 'It was a combination of factors, but a doctor said I was at the top end of my BMI.

'He said it might benefit me if I lost a little weight.'

Co-host Piers Morgan said Susanna seemed happier than ever and she said her shrinking frame has made her feel good within herself.

Co-host: Piers Morgan said Susanna seemed happier than ever and she said her shrinking frame has made her feel good within herself but she never appeared to be overweight

Throwback: Susanna before she embarked on her new regime, pictured back in May (left) and on Tuesday (right) she has always been slim but wanted to make sure she felt good within herself

While it's fantastic that Susanna has embraced a healthier lifestyle, it's fair to say that she has never appeared to be overweight.

Many experts have criticized the body mass index for being a fairly limited measure of the health of our weight, yet it still remains the most popular.

According to Medical News Today, 'Body mass index (BMI) is a measure of body fat based on your weight in relation to your height.

Making changes: While it's fantastic that Susanna has embraced a healthier lifestyle, it's fair to say that she has never appeared to be overweight

'It applies to most adult men and women aged 20 and over. For children aged two and over, BMI percentile is the best assessment of body fat.'

You calculate your BMI by dividing your weight in kilograms by the square of your height in metres.

For adults, a BMI under 18.5 is considered dangerously thin, 18.5-25 is the healthy weight range, 25-30 is overweight, and 30 or over is obese.He will put his sick grooming plans into motion next week.

And Tiffany Butcher will become further embroiled in her gang member boyfriend's dark world when she discovers he is living in a run down property after taking pal Bernadette Taylor out to look for him.

The teenager doesn't seem put off by Jagger Rawley's (Aaron Thomas Ward) worrying living situation, however, as images taken on set show her heading for the front door of the house, which has boarded up windows and rags for curtains.

Sinister: Tiffany Butcher will become further embroiled in her gang member boyfriend's dark world when she discovers he is living in a run down property after taking pal Bernadette Taylor out to look for him

It seems things will quickly take a sinister turn as Jagger soon emerges badly beaten from the house, after being attacked by two crash helmeted men wielding crowbars.

Viewers recently learned that, despite Tiffany (Maisie Smith) falling head over heels for the bad boy, he has a hidden agenda.

Scenes have already showed Jagger leading Tiffany astray with late night boozing sessions. Despite feeling the wrath of sister Whitney, the youngster has defied her sibling's orders not to see him again by sneaking off to meet Jagger after he handed her a second mobile phone.

Attacked: Things will quickly take a sinister turn as Jagger soon emerges badly beaten from the house, after being attacked by two crash helmeted men wielding crowbars

Not to be trusted: Viewers recently learned that, despite Tiffany (Maisie Smith) falling head over heels for the bad boy, he has a hidden agenda

Unbeknownst to Tiffany, Jagger has been manipulating her with his cruel mind games. Upcoming episodes will also see the daughter of Bianca Jackson vie for his attention when he invites her to the cafe to meet him.

However, when she arrives she is peeved to find he is joined by the rest of his gang members, all of whom proceed to ignore her despite her desperate attempts to impress.

When Tiffany, 15, and Bernadette leave the cafe, the camera cuts to show Jagger, 19, and his evil pals smirking intently - Tiffany's desperate behaviour seemingly cementing their plans to lure her into a sex abuse ring.

Run down: Images taken on set show the house has boarded up windows and blankets for curtains

Watch out, girls! Tiffany's pal Bernadette accompanies her on the hunt for Jagger's home

None the wiser: Unbeknownst to Tiffany, Jagger has been manipulating her with mind games

Bad influence: Scenes have already showed Jagger leading Tiffany astray with late night boozing sessions

Viewers may remember that Whitney (Shona McGarty) was once at the centre of a harrowing grooming plot when she was subjected to years of abuse by her stepfather Tony King (Chris Coghill).

The dark storyline played out for several months before Whitney revealed to her guardian Bianca (Patsy Palmer) the extent of the abuse. It was the first time the subject matter had been raised in a British soap opera.

Last year rival soap Coronation Street was heralded for its attempt at raising awareness of the issue, when Bethany Platt (Lucy Fallon) was manipulated by groomer and fiance Nathan Curtis and raped by members of a sex ring, before she was almost sold as a sex slave abroad.

More trouble: Jagger is beaten by two men who are dressed in black and wielding crowbars

And they're off... The pair put their motorbike helmets back on as they quickly leave the property after the attack

No turning back: The eerie-looking house doesn't deter Tiffany from stepping inside as she heads for the front door

Risking it all: Tiffany's quest to win Jagger's heart also puts her friend Bernadette in dangerShe made a very stylish appearance at the Saint Laurent fashion show in Paris on Tuesday night.

And model Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, 31, made yet another sartorial statement the morning after when she stepped out in the French capital during Paris Fashion Week to head to a meeting at the Vivienne Westwood offices.

Showing no signs of fatigue, the mother-of-one looked incredible as she went braless under a grey knitted tank top.

Never a dull day: Rosie Huntington-Whiteley wore a SEXY knitted grey top and matching trousers as she stepped out in Paris on Wednesday

She's got the look: Showing no signs of fatigue after a busy fashion week, Rosie draped a brown leather jacket over one shoulder

She tucked it into a pair of matching trousers, draping a brown leather jacket over one arm.

Her caramel locks were styled into an elegant chignon and she wore a pair of designer shades.

Adding some extra inches to her statuesque frame, she slipped her pedicured feet into a pair of strappy leopard print sandals.

All in the details: Her caramel locks were styled into an elegant chignon and she wore a pair of designer shades

Walking tall: Rosie looked immaculate in her chic and stylish get-up

Bringing sexy back: The mother-of-one's knitted top featured a small cutaway at the base of her back as she stepped out in the Parisian autumnal sunshine

Work it! The catwalk queen later draped a chic tan lather blazer over her shoulders as she headed inside the Vivienne Westwood offices in the French capital

The evening before, Rosie, who is partnered with hardman Jason Statham, looked incredible as she attended the YSL show in a black mini dress.

The exquisite mini had a studded statement shoulder detail and a belt which cinched her in at the waist.

She wore her hair down and completed her look with a pair of suede ankle boots.

Wow thing: The evening before, Rosie, who is partnered with hardman Jason Statham, looked incredible as she attended the YSL show in a black mini dress

Working hard: Rosie has jetted across the globe for the hottest four weeks in the fashion calendar

Rosie has jetted across the globe for the hottest four weeks in the fashion calendar.

She and her fiance Jason became parents for the first time last year after the blonde model welcomed their son in June.

The Rosie and Jason love story goes way back until 2010 when they first laid eyes on each other.

Stepping out in style: In spite of her relatively low-key look, Rosie's choice of outfit was effortlessly chic and simplistically sophisticatedShe worked her model magic down a waterfall catwalk for Saint Laurent's Paris Fashion Week show.

And Kaia Gerber looked fresh-faced as she left her hotel in the French capital on Wednesday morning after leading the fashion pack the night before.

The daughter of supermodel Cindy Crawford, 17, seemed to be taking fashion tips from her mum, as she rocked a nineties-inspired look for her day in the city.

Model of the moment: Kaia Gerber looked fresh-faced as she left her hotel in the French capital on Wednesday after leading the fashion pack for the Saint Laurent show the night before

Kaia showed off her sartorial flair in a oversized pin-stripe blazer which she layered atop of a plain navy jumper.

Showing off her signature style, the model of the moment donned a white vintage Prada bucket hat and matrix sunglasses.

She paired the look with leather leggings and black trainers and slung a red-striped body bag over her shoulder.

Like mother, like daughter: The daughter of supermodel Cindy Crawford, 17, seemed to be taking fashion tips from her mum, as she rocked a nineties-inspired look for her day in the city

Trend-setter: Showing off her signature style, the model of the moment donned a white vintage Prada bucket hat and matrix sunglasses

Stylish display: Kaia showed off her sartorial flair in a over-sized pin-stripe blazer which she layered atop of a plain navy jumper

Fashion maven: She paired the look with leather leggings and black trainers and slung a red-striped body bag over her shoulder

Kaia opted for a minimal make-up look and styled her brunette locks is a lightly tousled look.

Cindy sat on the front row as her daughter took to the catwalk in front of the Eiffel Tower on Tuesday night.

The pair recently arrived in Paris, days after having soaked up the festivities surrounding Milan Fashion Week, with Kaia Gerber walking for top designers at hot-ticket shows in both cities.

Since making her runway debut back in September 2017 for Calvin Klein when she was just 16, Kaia has since walked for various brands including iconic fashion house, Chanel.

Discussing how she juggles life as a student and international model, Kaia told Harper's Bazaar in January: 'I usually use the afternoon to catch up on homework.

'I'm completing my diploma at Malibu High through an online program, and it's difficult to get much done during the week, as the Wi-Fi on planes is really annoying.

'My favourite class this year is AP Calculus because I just like math. It's definitely super hard to teach yourself derivatives, though!'She made her debut as a Victoria's Secret model back in 2013, before graduating to the coveted role of Angel for the lingerie giant just two years later.

And Martha Hunt, 29, showed exactly why she's among the chosen few who model for the brand recently, when she stepped out in a leopard-print string bikini and chic La Ligne blazer at the Barcelona edition of W Hotels' Wake Up Call music festival.

Joined by fellow Angel Romee Strijd, 23, who turned heads in a powder blue satin negligee while posing above the golden shores of the Spanish city, as the multi-day festival  which kicked off in Los Angeles earlier this month  got underway.

Fest: Martha Hunt, left, and Romee Strijd, right, were among the Victoria's Secret models who attended the Barcelona edition of W Hotels' Wake Up Call music festival over the weekend

As she soaked up the sunshine, Martha gave her barely-there swimwear a slumber party feel, complementing her ensemble with a cream pyjama blazer.

Jazzing up her look with a delicate necklace, the American beauty appeared to be in jovial spirits as she soaked up the celebratory atmosphere and mingled with VIPs.

Later in the day, the stars glammed up their looks as they stepped out in glittering gowns for the night portion of the event.

Wow: American beauty Martha turned heads as she stepped out in a leopard-print string bikini

Blazer: As she soaked up the sunshine, Martha gave her barely-there swimwear a slumber party feel, complementing her ensemble with a cream pyjama blazer from La Ligne

Nailed it: The blonde beauty made the most of the luxuries on offer as she enjoyed a manicure

True blue: Meanwhile, Dutch stunner Romee turned heads in a powder blue satin negligee while posing above the golden shores of the Spanish city

And, as they enjoyed refreshing beverages in a specially reserved VIP section of the popular hotel, the ladies were joined by fellow Victoria's Secret stars Emily DiDonato, 27, and Elsa Hosk, 29, each of whom caught the eye in their ensembles of choice.

Also among the revellers was Spanish actress Paz Vega, 42, who was joined at the event by her husband of 16 years, Orson Salazar.

During the festivities, each of the models took to their Instagram accounts to share snapshots of their time in the picturesque Spanish city as they partied day and night.

The Wake Up Call music festival is next set to stop at a W Hotel in Bali, before the event makes its way to Dubai next year.

Strike a pose: At the event, she posed alongside fellow Victoria's Secret model Emily DiDonato

Sensational: The 27-year-old brunette beauty looked sensational in a flowing black sundress

Khaki: Also joining in the festivities was model Elsa Hosk, who stepped out in a khaki ensemble

Ham: She hammed it up for the cameras as she relaxed by the hotel's sparkling swimming pool

It's been a busy month for Martha, who walked at Jason Wu's New York Fashion Week show, a day after hosting the launch of a special edition vodka.

At the show she decorated her body with temporary inkings to walk the runway in a black bra and patterned skinny pants and heels.

Martha has been a Victoria's Secret Angel since 2015, and walked in their annual show in 2013 and 2014 as well.

Born in North Carolina, she moved to New York as a teenager and signed with IMG Models. She began her modelling career in 2007 at the age of 18.

So glam: Later in the evening, the ladies switched out their day wear for glamorous ensembles

Golden girl: Romee caught the eye as she relaxed in the VIP area in a glittering golden gown

Leggy display: Martha continued to display her enviably lean legs in a pair of tiny black shorts

Always on duty: The ladies couldn't resist the opportunity to pose for selfies as they parrtiedShe was recently seen gallivanting in a skimpy red swimsuit, during a trip to The Hamptons.

And on Wednesday, Australian model Montana Cox flaunted her trim figure in a plunging grey blazer with daring cut-outs paired with a mini skirt at the Virgin Australia AFL grand final party in Melbourne.

The 25-year-old oozed confidence as she posed for snaps on the red carpet.

Peek-a-boob! Montana Cox goes braless in a plunging blazer with daring cut-outs as she attends Virgin Australia AFL Grand Final Party

The supermodel paired her edgy suit with some stunning diamonds designed by Ryan Storer and left her makeup soft and dewy, and her hair naturally out and wavy.

Other celebrity attendees included Shanina Shaik, Josh Gibson and Olivia Molly Rodgers.

Meanwhile, her Australian red carpet appearance comes after she showed off her slim frame at Amagansett Beach in The Hamptons back in June.

Chic: Montana made sure to match her entire ensemble

Stunning: The supermodel paired her edgy suit with some stunning diamonds designed by Ryan Storer and left her makeup soft and dewy, and her hair naturally out and wavy

Taking to Instagram, the 24-year-old sported a skimpy red swimsuit and held onto an American flag.

Montana opted for a vibrant red one-piece that drew the eye to her slender legs and trim pins.

Beach babe! Montana opted for a vibrant red one-piece that drew the eye to her slender legs and trim pins back in June

A strategic cut-out also accentuated her tiny waist and toned back.

Montana's brunette locks were swept into a sleek style at the nape of the neck, and her striking facial features were enhanced with a minimal makeup palette.

The IMG-represented model smouldered for the camera as she stood on the sand with the American flag flailing in the breeze.

Montana captioned the snap cryptically: 'American't even right now.'

Since being crowned Australia's Next Top Model in 2011, Montana has gone on to make numerous strides in the fashion industry.She will be keeping a low-profile after checking into rehab for post-traumatic stress disorder.

But Katie Price appeared in high spirits as she headed to The Priory earlier this week, where she was pictured laughing with a ticket inspector after catching a train to London's Victoria train station.

The TV personality, 40, beamed as she headed to the rehabilitation centre, following claims her admission was her terminally-ill mother Amy's 'dying wish'.

Beaming: Katie Price appeared in high spirits as she headed to The Priory earlier this week, where she was pictured laughing with a ticket inspector after catching a train to London's Victoria train station

The Loose Women star sported a summery style ahead of her check-in, sporting a floral bardot crop top and ripped white skinny jeans.

She finished the look by tying a red, silk bomber jacket around her waist and carried her essentials in a large black handbag.

Katie will be treated at The Priory for 28 days after her family urged her to seek help following her recent wild partying antics in Mallorca.

High spirits: The TV personality, 40, beamed as she headed to the rehabilitation centre, following claims her admission was her terminally-ill mother Amy's 'dying wish'

Vibrant: The Loose Women star sported a summery style ahead of her check-in, sporting a floral bardot crop top and ripped white skinny jeans

The glamour model, who is dealing with financial ruin and divorce from Kieran Hayler, was confronted by her loved ones after shocking footage emerged of her rapping 'I love coke' during a booze-fuelled hen do.

A source told The Sun Online: 'Amy and Katie are very close and Katies always asking her if theres something she wants to do before she gets too unwell.

'Amy basically said it was her dying wish for Katie to sort her life out and get help.

'Theres no way she could refuse. The decision was made between Katie, her management and her family that she would go to The Priory.'

Finishing touches: She finished the look by tying a red, silk bomber jacket around her waist and carried her essentials in a large black handbag

Seeking help: Katie will be treated at The Priory for 28 days after her family urged her to seek help following her recent wild partying antics in Mallorca

Katie broke down after the intervention and admitted she needed help to get over her chaotic behaviour - which has been blamed on her PTSD. Not only did the star discover her husband Kieran had been unfaithful for a fourth time, she learned just days before that her mother is battling idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a lung condition with no known cure.

WHAT IS PTSD? Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder caused by very stressful, frightening or distressing events. Someone with PTSD often relives the traumatic event through nightmares and flashbacks, and may experience feelings of isolation, irritability and guilt. They may also have problems sleeping, such as insomnia, and find concentrating difficult. These symptoms are often severe and persistent enough to have a significant impact on the persons day-to-day life. PTSD can develop immediately after someone experiences a disturbing event or it can occur weeks, months or even years later. Source: NHS Advertisement

Katie had a consultation at the clinic on Wednesday, where she was diagnosed with PTSD and will start 28 days of rehabilitation tomorrow. A source confirmed the news to MailOnline.

The reality star has been put on a curfew but will be allowed to go home in the evenings to look after her five children - Harvey, 16, Junior, 13, Princess, 11, Jett, five, and Bunny, four.

Her phone has been confiscated and she's on a social media ban. If doctors believe she's a threat to herself or fails to follow the clinic rules, she will be brought in for residential treatment.

Her dad Ray has moved into a motor home near her East Sussex home and Amy and her husband Paul will be supporting her fully.

Katie's loved ones stepped in to help her after she footage emerged of her rapping 'I love coke' after reportedly going to an after-party with two German men she met at a bar during a hen do in Mallorca.

She appeared worse-for-wear as she danced next to a shirtless man and performed a rap at the revellers' apartment, in shocking footage from the end of August.

The party-goers, named as Lewis and Patrick, claim they returned to the apartment to 'have a shower, get cosy and do drugs.'

Embattled: Katie, who is dealing with financial ruin and divorce from Kieran Hayler, was confronted by her loved ones after shocking footage emerged of her rapping 'I love coke'

This year, Katie, who split from husband Kieran in April after he admitted to cheating for a second time, enjoyed a fling with toyboy Kris Boyson, 29.

She then moved onto wealthy Essex businessman Alex Adderson, 25, who she was seen grinding and dancing with at a Mallorca pool party.

Elsewhere, Katie received backlash for missing the first day of high school for Princess, 11, and Junior, 13, her children with ex-husband Peter Andre, because she was in Mallorca.

Diagnosis: Katie had a consultation at the clinic on Wednesday, where she was diagnosed with PTSDThe drama in TOWIE's 23rd season is continuing to rumble.

So the ladies of the cast, including Georgia Kousoulou, Courtney Green and Shelby Tribble were keen to ensure their fashion was as dramatic as their storylines as they arrived for filming on Wednesday in spectacular style.

Leading the way was show stalwart Georgia, who looked phenomenal in a green ensemble which showed off her surgically-enhanced cleavage to perfection, while her co-stars ignored the autumnal chill and opted for skimpy minis.

Cheeky! Georgia Kousoulou, Courtney Green and Shelby Tribble were keen to ensure their fashion was as dramatic as their storylines as they arrived for filming on Wednesday in spectacular style

Georgia looked sensational as she hit the streets in green palazzo pants paired with a lingerie-inspired top which she seemed to struggle with as she clutched her chest.

She wore her blonde locks in bouncy waves falling form a centre parting while she opted for lavish make-up including fluttering false lashes.

She accessorised with a pair of over-sized gold hoops which injected a touch of Essex bling into the saucy yet classy ensemble.

Joining her was boyfriend Tommy Mallett, who was wholly more casual than Georgia in a hoodie, jeans and self-designed trainers.

Nude ambition: Courtney has been facing love woes of late after her love rat ex-beau Myles Barnett found love once again with Love Island star Kady McDermott

Evergreen: Georgia looked sensational as she hit the streets in green palazzo pants paired with a lingerie-inspired top which she seemed to struggle with as she clutched her chest

Cheeky! She wore her blonde locks in bouncy waves falling form a centre parting while she opted for lavish make-up including fluttering false lashes

Green girl: The stunner was strutting her stuff in an elegant style

Happy days: Joining her was boyfriend Tommy Mallett, who was wholly more casual than Georgia in a hoodie, jeans and self-designed trainers

Courtney has been facing love woes of late after her love rat ex-beau Myles Barnett found love once again with Love Island star Kady McDermott.

A teaser for Sunday night's episode saw Kady make her TOWIE debut, in which the heartbroken brunette stormed away in a tearful flurry.

Thanks to Kady's arrival, Courtney is keen to look fabulous at every turn so naturally nailed her chic ensemble during Wednesday's day at work.

Prepping: A teaser for Sunday night's episode saw Kady make her TOWIE debut, in which the heartbroken brunette stormed away in a tearful flurry

Sensational: Thanks to Kady's arrival, Courtney is keen to look fabulous at every turn so naturally nailed her chic ensemble during Wednesday's day at work

A vision: When she wasn't faced by the wind, the stunner was opting for a Fifties-inspired beauty look with curls tumbling over one shoulder and a slick of red lipstick

Strutting her stuff: She later draped a leather jacket over her shoulders

Struggling to stay covered up, the brunette beauty wore a barely-there camel coloured dress with a wide collar and high-rise hemline.

Shelby was no doubt keen to show her beau Pete Wicks what he is missing as the duo are currently at loggerheads, with their romance very much on the rocks.

Her flirty red mini dress boasted thin spaghetti straps with a plunging front and flirty hemline while she boosted her height with staggering strappy heels.

Pete meanwhile was in Newcastle, where he sported a leopard print shirt with a leather jacket while showing off his usual edgy flare for style.

Red-dy or not? Her flirty red mini dress boasted thin spaghetti straps with a plunging front and flirty hemline while she boosted her height with staggering strappy heels

Chic: She was showing off every inch of her lithe frame as she headed into the venue

Preened to perfection: She styled her hair in a sleek middle parting and framed her features with a slick of taupe gloss

Stylish: Pete meanwhile was in Newcastle, where he sported a leopard print shirt with a leather jacket while showing off his usual edgy flare for style

For the frill of it: Chloe put on a sensual display in her frayed crop top and matching straight legged trousers

On parade: Lauren Pope slipped her fantastic shape into skintight PVC leggings which she smartened up with a blazer and sheer blouseShe has been ruling runways all over the world during Fashion Week season.

And Kendall Jenner put on another dazzling sartorial display as she left her hotel in Paris on Wednesday.

The in-demand model, 22, exuded glamour in a vibrant canary yellow House of Holland power suit paired with vertiginous heels, before slipping into a chic all-white ensemble

Vibrant: Kendall Jenner put on another dazzling sartorial display in a yellow House of Holland trouser suit, before slipping into an all-white number in Paris on Wednesday

Edgy: The in-demand model, 22, exuded glamour in a vibrant canary yellow power suit paired with vertiginous heels

The suit featured a stylish wrap around blazer which cinched in at her slender waist and teased a glimpse of her decolletage.

She paired this with matching cigarette pants which clung to her lithe legs, completing the look with golden stiletto sandals.

Her raven locks were swept back into a braided bun while her pretty features were adorned with a light foundation and a slick of rose gloss.

The star accessorised with a pair of futuristic shades.

Style: The suit featured a stylish wrap around blazer which cinched in at her slender waist and teased a glimpse of her decolletage

Strut: She paired this with matching cigarette pants which clung to her lithe legs, completing the look with golden stiletto sandals

Glow: Her raven locks were swept back into a braided bun while her pretty features were adorned with a light foundation and a slick of rose gloss

For the fans: Kendall was greeted by fans as she left her lavish hotel

A-list; The star completed her look with Matrix-inspired sunglasses

Sweet: The Vogue coverstar was over the moon to pose with a die-hard fan

The model didn't walk in any shows during New York Fashion Week, which wrapped up earlier this month but did walk in London and Milan.

Kendall has said in the past that she's very choosy about which runway shows she wants to appear in, and that she's unlikely to spend Fashion Month walking on dozens of catwalks.

In an interview, Kendall told Love Magazine she was once 'on the verge of a mental breakdown' and detailed her approach to scheduling fashion shows.

Looking good: Kendall later slipped into an oversized white shirt that swamped her model frame

Monochrome maven: She completed the look with a skimpy white miniskirt and lace-up heeled sandals

Futuristic chic: Kendall completed her outfit with a pair of Nineties-style white sunglasses

Finishing touches: Kendall added a dose of colour with some stylish pink circular drop earrings

Budding beauty: The catwalk star took some time to inspect the floral display and buy herself a bouquet

'Since the beginning we've been super selective about what shows I would do,' she told the publication in August.

'I was never one of those girls who would do like 30 shows a season or whatever the f**k those girls do. More power to 'em.

'But I had a million jobs, not only catwalks but everything else.

'The whole combination was very overwhelming and I started to freak out a little bit and needed to take a step back.'

During New York Fashion Week, Kendall ended up flying to Paris, France before shows had wrapped up. She landed a week ago in the French capital, where she had model work booked, a source close to the model told DailyMail.com.

Prior to that, she was seen at a Harper's Bazaar soiree on September 7 at the Plaza Hotel, and on the next day, attended the Longchamp show in New York City.

Style: The starlet was also seen paying a visit to restaurant L'Avenue

Colourful: The star dazzled in her colourful ensemble

For the fans: The star looked delighted to be catching up with her fans

Selfie: The star looked flawless as she posed with the stylish fan

Radiant: The brunette beauty showcased her best pout for the photo

Chat: The star was seen chatting to a pal as she headed to a car

Duo: Kendall was accompanied by a bodyguard as she walked along

Sociable: The star looked in good spirits ahead of her turn on the catwalk

Supermodel looks: Joan Smalls looked sensational in her silky PJ-inspired ensemble which flattered her model figure

How to accessorise: The model toted her circular shaped lilac handbag which brought a pop of colour to her all-black ensembleThey're the childhood sweethearts, who met when they were just 14.

And on Wednesday, Billy Slater, 35, and his wife Nicole looked more in love than ever as they posed for snaps at the Dally M Awards in Sydney.

The pair, who have been married for nearly nine years, looked happy and relaxed at the star-studded event.

That's bold! NRL star Billy Slater's stunning wife Nicole wears a very unique statement dress as they attend the Dally M Awards

Melbourne Storm star Billy looked dapper in a traditional black and white tuxedo.

Nicole made a statement in a bold Jason Grech gown, complete with a cleavage-baring neckline and princess-style skirt.

'Felling like a princess,' she wrote on Instagram alongside a dress photo.

Smitten: The pair, who have been married for nearly nine years, looked happy and relaxed at the star-studded event

The dress comes two years after she wore a very unique sheer gown designed by herself and Melinda Audesho.

Last year, she opted for a more elegant number which featured a mermaid design and strapless bodice.

Earlier this year, she shared an inspiring Instagram post about body image and uplifting others.

Can't take his eyes off her! Billy admired his stunning wife as she posed for snaps

'I have so many bad days! I train, I eat ok. I try daily to be better,' she wrote.

'We are so hard on ourselves. And we are our own worse critics.

She continued: 'So why not be proud if are having a good day! More positive energy! Instead of bringing someone down for feeling good. Woman empower woman.'

Nicole and Billy share two children together - Tyla Rose, ten and Jake, eight.She's one of many fashion stars heading to France for Paris Fashion Week.

And Karlie Kloss cut a chic figure as she jetted into the French capital and made a stylish appearance at her hotel.

The 26-year-old model certainly turned heads in a plunging knit nude dress teamed with a leather trench coat.

Looking good: Karlie Kloss cut a chic figure as she jetted into Paris and made a stylish appearance at her hotel

The catwalk star teased onlookers as she flashed a peek of her lacy black bra under her knit dress.

She teamed the statement garment with chain-trim sandals and a black leather tote, as well as a delicate gold necklace.

Styling her golden tresses in tousled waves, Karlie showed off her striking features with a dewy blusher and a slick of berry lipgloss.

The blonde beauty looked equally chic as she arrived at Charles De Gaulle airport earlier that day.

Chic: The 26-year-old model certainly turned heads in a plunging knit nude dress teamed with a leather trench coat

Avert your eyes: The catwalk star teased onlookers as she flashed a peek of her lacy black bra under her knit dress

Glamorous: lStyling her golden tresses in tousled waves, Karlie showed off her striking features with a dewy blusher and a slick of berry lipgloss

Stylish: She teamed the statement garment with chain-trim sandals and a black leather tote, as well as a delicate gold necklace

Karlie went for a classic look of crisp white shirt and black tapered trousers which she teamed with a cream Max Mara trench coat, pulling back her blonde tresses into a high bun.

Karlie showed off her effortlessly sense of style as she headed to the Royal Monceau hotel, looking incredible in the simple white shirt and tailored trousers with a white stripe.

The former Victoria's Secret Angel was covered against the autumn climes with a cream coat in the veil of the Burberry classic look.

Karlie accessorised her look with comfy black flat leather loafers, shielding her eyes with round-framed black sunglasses.

Gorgeous: The blonde beauty looked equally chic as she arrived at Charles De Gaulle airport earlier that day

Flawless: She looked incredible as she teamed the crisp white shirt with black tapered trousers and a cream trench coat by Max Mara

Happy: Karlie accessorised her look with flat black loafers and rounded sunglasses to shield her bare-faced complexion

Sporting barely a scrap of makeup on her flawless complexion, Karlie pulled her blonde tresses into a messy bun as she arrived at her place to stay for remainder of Fashion Week.

The fashion star appeared to be going solo for the outing after she enjoyed some cosy time at the US open with fiance Joshua Kushner earlier this month.

The couple confirmed their engagement in July after six years together, and they are reportedly planning to tie the knot sometime next year.

Low-key: Karlie was seen touching down in Charles De Gaulle airport as she prepared to attend the fashion event

Karlie also recently spoke candidly about how her modelling career almost came to an end, after birth control caused her to go from a US size zero to a size four to six.

She told Vogue: 'I started losing jobs; I wasnt getting booked for the runway; designers stopped working with me. It felt as if my world had been turned upside down.'

Karlie admitted that she used to measure herself against Gisele Bundchen, but she realized the constant comparison to the famous model wasn't productive.

'Thats when I had a breakthrough: I realized it was time for me to do me, to embrace the things that make me who I am,' she said.He narrowly missed out on the opportunity of being The Bachelor.

But it looks like Michael Turnbull is still enjoying the high-flying life of a celebrity suitor, treating his girlfriend Tash Candyce to a helicopter ride in Melbourne on Saturday.

The 37-year-old looked every inch the modern gentleman as he offered a helping hand while Tash stepped out of the aircraft.

High roller! Bachelor in Paradise star Michael Turnbull flaunted his wealth yet again on Saturday as he whisked his girlfriend Tash Candyce away on a helicopter date in Melbourne

Michael cut a dapper figure in a long winter coat and skinny jeans, as he wrapped his arm around his glamorous girlfriend.

Tash, who recently turned down an opportunity to appear of Married At First Sight, couldn't wipe the smile off her face as she stepped out of the helicopter.

She showed off her leggy figure in a short dress, threw a fur coat over her shoulders and was seen clutching a designer handbag.

Come here, darling! The 37-year-old looked every inch the modern gentleman as he offered a helping hand while Tash stepped out of the aircraft

How exciting! Tash, who recently turned down an opportunity to appear of Married At First Sight, couldn't wipe the smile off her face as she stepped out of the helicopter

Looking good! Michael cut a dapper figure in a long winter coat and skinny jeans, as he wrapped his arm around his glamorous girlfriend

Michael and Tash were first romantically linked in May but their initial attempt at a relationship didn't last.

The former Bachelorette star told Woman's Day the same month he was '100 per cent single'.

However the pair have rekindled their romance since then, with Tash even giving up a confirmed spot on MAFS to date Michael.

Stunning: Tash showed off her leggy figure in a short dress, threw a fur coat over her shoulders and was seen clutching a designer handbag

On-again-off-again: Michael and Tash were first romantically linked in May but their initial attempt at a relationship didn't last. However, they later patched things up

In a recent interview with WHO, the Melbourne-based real estate agent explained: '[The producers] flew me up to Sydney to meet with them.

'They were going to shoot my backstory this weekend, so Michael had to take a decision fairly quickly!'

Michael added: 'I certainly wouldn't deny Natasha an opportunity like MAFS if I wasn't 100 per cent serious. And that was one of the things I had to figure out as well.'He has played multiple roles in the Star Wars franchise, after first appearing in the original trilogy as an Ewok in Return Of The Jedi.

And Warwick Davis teased his return to the sci-fi saga as he responded to rumours that he could be back for another round, saying he's 'excited' for the new chapter.

Speaking with Screen Rant on Tuesday, the 48-year-old actor said coyly to the publication: 'Who knows?'

Star Wars Episode IX: Warwick Davis teased his return to sci-fi franchise on Tuesday as he admitted he's 'excited' for the new film

'I just kind of have to wait for the phone call. I'm excited along with millions of other fans to find out the conclusion of this Saga.'

He continued: 'JJ is the most fantastic director. I enjoyed working with him the first time I worked with him on Episode 7. So I'm excited to see what he brings to this final chapter in the Skywalker Saga.'

Warwick has been a part of the franchise since 1983, and has taken a variety of roles in The Phantom Menace, The Force Awakens, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, The Last Jedi, and the latest spin-off Solo: A Star Wars Story.

Will he be back? Speaking with Screen Rant, the 48-year-old actor, who has played multiple roles in the franchise, said coyly to the publication: 'Who knows?'

Discussing playing a different character in each film, he added: 'It's nice to be involved, and since [Episode 7] there's quite a close-knit group of people who go from one film to the next.

'There's a lot of puppeteers and creature performers in particular who do that because, honestly, in each film we can be made to look different and the characters we perform are very different.'

Episode IX will be directed by J.J Abrams, who revealed he 'wanted to go beyond, and do better than we did in 7 (The Force Awakens).'

If Warwick takes a role in the final film in the new trilogy, he will join returning cast members Mark Hamill, Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac and Kelly Marie Tran.

Happy to be a part of it: Discussing playing a different character in each film, he added: 'It's nice to be involved' (pictured, Daisy Ridley in The Last Jedi)

Stellar cast: If Warwick takes a role in the final film in the new trilogy, he will join returning cast members Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver (pictured in The Last Jedi) , John Boyega, and Oscar Isaac

In July it was announced that Abrams will use unreleased footage of Carrie Fisher, which was shot for 2015's Star Wars: The Force Awakens, in the next Star Wars film to give the latest trilogy a 'satisfying conclusion.'

Fisher died in 2016 at the age of 60 after she finished work on The Last Jedi, and she has played Leia Organa since the first Star Wars film, which debuted in 1977.

'Finding a truly satisfying conclusion to the Skywalker saga without her eluded us. We were never going to recast, or use a CG character,' Abrams said in a statement.

She's back: In July it was announced that Abrams will use unreleased footage of Carrie Fisher (pictured in The Last Jedi), which was shot for 2015's Star Wars: The Force Awakens

'With the support and blessing from her daughter, Billie, we have found a way to honor Carrie's legacy and role as Leia in Episode IX by using unseen footage we shot together in Episode VII.'

Production on the new chapter began earlier this month, and John and Oscar were spotted shooting scenes outside London.

Billy Dee Williams is returning to the franchise for the first time since the original trilogy, and new members of the cast include Naomi Ackie and Richard E. Grant, both of whom are also currently taking on unnamed roles.Leah Remini spectacularly quit the Church Of Scientology in 2013 after being a member for 30 years.

And on Wednesday, the producer of documentary series Scientology And The Aftermath told LaPalme Magazine she is 'harassed constantly' by members of the church 'trying to intimidate' her, DailyMailTV can exclusively report.

'People on our show are harassed constantly, especially me,' said the 48-year-old comedienne.

Free at last: Leah Remini spectacularly quit the Church Of Scientology in 2013 after being a member for 30 years

The Kevin Can Wait actress told the magazine, 'Members of the Church go to my mother's restaurant, confront my little sister, and my step kids in San Francisco, trying to intimidate us.'

She added, 'These abusive scare tactics are what they call a religion!'

The celebrity's Emmy Award-winning A&E show exposes the church beloved by Tom Cruise and other Hollywood stars, created by the late science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard, who died aged 71 in 1986.

Harassed: The 48-year-old Scientology And The Aftermath producer told LaPalme Magazine she is 'harassed constantly' by members of the church 'trying to intimidate' her; Leah's cover dress was designed by Lavanya Coodly and her makeup was done by Stare Cosmetics

Raised as a member of the Church of Scientology from childhood, Leah quit in 2013 and began publicly criticizing the organization that many regard as a cult.

That decision to leave has cost her at least one high-profile friendship, the star of The King Of Queens told LaPalme.

She says she and Katie Holmes no longer talk, despite both women having left the controversial religion.

'Trust me, Katie's not allowed to have a meal with me, and we used to be close friends.'

Remini hinted at legal repercussions from the Church should the women interact.

'She could lose custody of Suri [the daughter she shares with ex and high profile Scientologist Tom Cruise]. It's quite sick, really.'

Speaking out: Raised as a member of the Church of Scientology from childhood, Leah quit in 2013 and began publicly criticizing the organization that many regard as a cult

Her A&E documentary series will return for a third season in 2018, says Leah.

'Season three of my show is dedicated to the IRS and their religious' tax-exempt status.'

'Hey, call yourself a religion - I don't give a f**k! They should NOT have tax-exempt status.

'They only got it because they fair gamed' the IRS  bullied them, harassed them.'

'The Mafia has more integrity!'

Broken relationships: Leah says she and former friend Katie Holmes no longer talk, despite both women having left the controversial religion

She'll be back: Her A&E documentary series will return for a third season in 2018, says Leah

Speaking to DailyMailTV, LaPalme magazine's Creative Director Derek Warburton said of the star: Leah remini is a modern day version of Robin Hood, but instead of stealing from the rich to give to the poor she is fighting against oppression and fighting for freedom.

America sees Leah as the girl next door and I wanted to show another side of her. We all know her from being on our TV screens as the star of King of Queens and I wanted to show the world that she has huge range and can be as glamorous as any of her contemporaries.

I had the most incredible experience with her. Throughout the day she would touch my face and say thank you, that is real appreciation, love and she showed how grateful she was for all of our assets.

Hug it out: Leah with LaPalme creative director Derek Warburton

I cherish a survivor and that is what Leah Remini is. From building herself into an internationally known actress and an American sweetheart into a tough fighter against religious and cult oppression. I have nothing but respect for her journey.

Leah's cover dress was designed by Lavanya Coodly and her makeup was done by Stare Cosmetics.

The actress has signed a two-year, first-look development deal to produce new projects for A&E, Deadline reported in April.

This is the first overall deal for A&Es new in-house nonfiction division, A&E Originals.

Leah will develop and produce new documentaries beyond the subject of Scientology over the next two years for the suite of channels including A&E Network, Lifetime, History, LMN and FYI.

Moving on up: The actress has signed a two-year, first-look development deal to produce new projects for A&E, Deadline reported in April

In response to Leah's remarks, the Church Of Scientology International said: 'While we would prefer to ignore yet another of Leah Reminis over-the-top rants aimed at getting attention, she unfortunately continues to incite waves of anti-religious hate crimes.'

'Ms. Reminis incessant hate speech has required increased security and law enforcement resources spent to protect lives she puts at risk.'

'Ms. Reminis ridiculous rants are unending, and the myths and tales she and her co-producer spread are growing more bizarre by the day,' say the Church.Katie Prices ex Kris Boyson, 29, has reportedly struck up a romance with Dawn Ward's daughter Taylor, 20, weeks after his split from the former glamour model, 40.

The muscle-bound athlete parted ways from the mother-of-five in early September before he connected with the daughter of the Real Housewives Of Cheshire star.

However, it appears Kris hasn't taken long to mend his heartache as sources claim he has been smitten with the heiress after meeting on a Manchester night out.

Talk about quick: Katie Prices toyboy ex Kris Boyson, 29, 'is already besotted with Dawn Ward's daughter Taylor, 20,' just WEEKS after splitting from businesswoman, 40

Things appear to be hotting up between the unlikely duo, with insiders divulging that the fitness guru often visits the Ward's sprawling Cheshire mansion.

'Kris met Taylor during a night out in Manchester and has been besotted by her ever since,' an insider told the publication.

'He was introduced to the family by close pal Rykard Jenkins and has since been welcomed into their luxury home, even enjoying a Sunday roast with Taylor's famous mum Dawn.'

Moving on: The muscle-bound athlete parted ways from the mother-of-five in early September before he connected with the daughter of the Real Housewives Of Cheshire star

The new rumoured couple are said to be going to great lengths to visit each other, with Kris trekking up north and Taylor popping down to London.

As their reported romance continues to flourish, it is claimed Kris is increasingly spending less time talking to his famous ex.

The source added: 'Katie and him have still been in touch but are speaking less now hes spending more quality time with Taylor, whos everything he wants in a girlfriend.'

No time like the present: However, it appears Kris hasn't taken long to mend his heartache as sources claim he has been smitten with the heiress after meeting on a Manchester night out

MailOnline has reached out to the representative for Dawn Ward on behalf of Taylor as well as reaching out to comment from Kris Boyson.

Just weeks ago, Kris declared his whirlwind romance with the I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here bombshell was well and truly over.

He penned on Instagram: 'This wasnt an easy decision for me to make, however @KatiePrice and I are no longer together!

Looking forward to the future: Things appear to be hotting up between the unlikely duo, with insiders divulging that the fitness guru often visits the Ward's sprawling Cheshire mansion

'Its just clear we both want different things... Who knows what the future will bring but I wish her all the best! X.'

Heartbroken Kris shared he planned to pop the question to his former lover and he claimed the pair often spoke about expanding her brood of five children.

'From then on we would talk about getting married and having kids. We would talk about it all the time,' he told The Mirror.

'She always said she wanted the fairytale ending and she wanted to live happily ever after. She always used to say, 'So we are going to get married one day, yeah?'She's cemented her place in the elite fashion industry as one of the world's most prestigious trendsetters.

And Olivia Palermo was every inch the style maven once again as she made an appearance at the Rochas show during Paris Fashion Week on Wednesday.

The entrepreneur, 32, showcased her sartorial prowess in an orange ensemble which paired a ribbed jumper with a chic midi-skirt for the Womenswear Spring/Summer 2019 show.

Stunning: Olivia Palermo showcased her sartorial prowess in an orange jumper and skirt at Rochas' Paris Fashion Week show on Wednesday

The City star wore her brunette locks into loose waves which she had parted down the middle, while keeping her accessories to a minimum.

Olivia stepped out in beige thigh high heeled boots, and cinched her waist with a slim burgundy belt, which offset her bright attire well.

She made her brown eyes pop with a generous slick of black eyeliner and smokey eye shadow, while she wore dark pink lipstick to accentuate her plump pout.

Looking good: She made her brown eyes pop with a generous slick of black eyeliner and smokey eye shadow, while she wore dark pink lipstick to accentuate her plump pout

Olivia found fame on MTV's The Hills spin-off The City, which documented Whitney Port's move to New York to work for Diane von Furstenberg in 2008.

The socialite appeared in both seasons of the reality show as Whitney's workplace friend and later rival.

Since featuring on the series, Olivia has become one of the most established front-row regulars on the fashion circuit, attending the world's most prestigious events.

Stylish: The City star wore her brunette locks into loose waves which she had parted down the middle, while keeping her accessories to a minimum

Animal print: There was an array of chic ensembles that the models displayed at the show

Still going strong and four years ago now, she was happy to marry the love of her life and model Johannes Huebl, 40, in Bedford, New York.

Discussing the secret to the couple's happy marriage, Olivia previously told Harper's Bazaar Australia they are rarely apart.

She told the publication: 'We try not to ever be separated more than seven days. Its just something we have always done.'She gave birth to her first child days ago.

And Christine Lampard showed motherhood suited her down to the ground as she looked overjoyed during her fun-filled family park visit, in London on Wednesday.

The mother-of-one, 39, was beaming as she pushed her little girl Patricia in her pram and walked alongside her dashing love, 40.

Frank and Christine Lampard PICTURE EXCLUSIVE: New mum beams with joy as she enjoys family trip to the park with newborn daughter Patricia

New mum Christine was the picture of happiness as she smiled ear-to-ear while she carried out her mummy duties during the family park stroll.

Fashion still on point, the Loose Women star looked effortlessly chic in her grey coat and black boots.

Every inch the devoted dad, Frank rushed back to his home from Manchester where his side Derby FC knocked out Manchester United at Old Trafford.

The new dad looked completely relaxed as he made the most of his time with his wife and his newborn child.

Overwhelmed with love: New mum Christine was the picture of happiness as she beamed ear-to-ear while she carried out her mummy duties during the family park stroll

Looks great! Fashion still on point, the Loose Women star looked effortlessly chic in her grey coat

Homecoming! Every inch the devoted dad, Frank rushed back to his home from Manchester where his side Derby FC knocked out Manchester United at Old Trafford

Just days ago, the couple confirmed their beautiful baby girl had arrived by sharing a sweet Instagram post capturing the couple cradling their little newborn.

In her post, Christine added the caption: 'Let us introduce you to our little girl. Patricia Charlotte Lampard! We're so in love @franklampard'.

While their new bundle of joy is the couple's first child together, Frank has daughters Luna, 13, and Isla, 11, with his former fiancee, Spanish model Elen Rivas, 43.

Staying together: The new dad looked completely relaxed as he made the most of his time with his wife and his newborn child

Family fun: The mother-of-one, 39, was happy as she pushed her little girl Patricia in her pram and walked alongside her dashing love, 40

Frank was brimming with joy as he shared their pregnancy news months ago on social media.

He penned: 'We have some exciting news we wanted to share with you. The Lampard family is growing! My gorgeous wife @christinelampard is pregnant and we all couldn't be happier!!!'

A source told MailOnline at the time the couple were not finding out the sex of their baby but were having fun trying to guess the gender and coming up with potential names with Luna and Isla.

Only eyes for you! Christine fixed her adoring gaze on her dashing love as he walked ahead of her during their leafy stroll

She's so stylish: The new mum showed motherhood suited her down to the ground as she looked overjoyed during her fun-filled family park visit

Speaking on Loose Women shortly after announcing her pregnancy, Christine said: 'I still don't want to know the gender. I think there are not enough surprises in the world anymore.

'I'm totally old fashioned. We obviously don't care whether it's a boy or a girl so I think let's find out on the day.'

But the TV personality admitted Frank was keen to find out, adding: 'Mr planner, organiser Lampard, he needs to know everything. He loves knowing.'

Love blossoms: The Christine and Frank love story goes way back with the lovebirds first meeting at the Pride of Britain Awards in 2009

Revealed: While their new bundle of joy is the couple's first child together, Frank has daughters Luna, 13, and Isla, 11, with his former fiancee, Spanish model Elen Rivas, 43

The Christine and Frank love story goes way back with the lovebirds first meeting at the Pride of Britain Awards in 2009.

Frank then proposed while the couple enjoyed a holiday in America in 2011 with a ring estimated to be worth in excess of 120,000.

The couple had a four-year engagement before tying the knot at Saint Paul's Church in Knightsbridge, central London, in December 2015.

Chart-topping Ed Sheeran performed at the glittering reception, held at the Arts Club in Mayfair.

Partnership: Frank then proposed while the couple enjoyed a holiday in America in 2011 with a ring estimated to be worth in excess of 120,000Advertisement

They've been back together for six months, having rekindled their lost love earlier this year.

And on-off couple of two years Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom looked closer than ever as they arrived at the Monte Carlo Gala for the Global Ocean at the iconic Opera de Monte-Carlo in Monaco on Wednesday evening, marking their first ever red carpet appearance together.

Hosted by Prince Albert II of Monaco, the A-list couple were in good company as they joined fellow sparkling celebrities, happily cosying up together to be photographed.

Back on: Reunited couple Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom were seen looking closer than ever as they arrived at the Monte Carlo Gala for the Global Ocean at Opera de Monte-Carlo on Wednesday evening

Sweet nothings: Orlando leaned in to his girlfriend for a quiet word, leaving her looking amused

Actor Orlando, 41, was seen leaning in to his pop star girlfriend, 33, to whisper something to her, leaving her smiling coyly as they walked the red carpet.

Katy wore a salmon, figure-hugging number, with mirrorball-inspired sleeves, which she accentuated with a pop of pink lipstick.

She wore her trademarked bleach-blonde, cropped mane swept to one side, and added sparkling diamond earrings to her look.

Katy's gown featured a thigh-grazing leg split and she added white strap heels to the ensemble, as well as a sweep of thick mascara to her lashes for added dramatic flair.

Close: Katy's gown featured a thigh-grazing leg split and she added white strap heels to the ensemble, as well as a sweep of thick mascara to her lashes for added dramatic flair

Beaming: The pair were snapped looking lovingly at one another

All scrubbed up: Orlando looked suave in an open-collar white shirt and a black suit

The look of love: Katy and Orlando shared a joke together, with Katy clearly enamored with her other half

Salmon style: She wore a salmon, figure-hugging number, with mirrorball-inspired sleeves, which she accentuated with a pop of pink lipstick

Orlando looked suave in an open-collar white shirt and a black suit as he posed closely with his partner.

Earlier in the day, the pair had gushed over one another in flirty social media posts, from a private jet that was taking them to France for the Gala.

Katy - who spent over 11 months on tour, finally wrapping things up in late August - was heard branding Orlando her her 'chocolate chip' as they traveled by plane into the French city.

Sharing videos to her Instagram from the aircraft, Katy said 'look at this mint and chip off the old block,' in an over the top English accent, while the Troy actor sat smiling at her in a mint green hoodie.

First time: This marked their first ever red carpet appearance as a couple, as they were joined by a slew of other guests

Striking: Orlando looked suave in an open-collar white shirt and a black suit as he posed closely with his partner

Rekindled: Earlier in the day, the pair had gushed over one another in flirty social media posts, from a private jet that was taking them to France for the Gala

Together again: Katy - who spent over 11 months on tour, finally wrapping things up in late August - was heard branding Orlando her her 'chocolate chip' as they traveled by plane into the French city

'I'm a chocolate chip,' responded Orlando. 'He's a chocolate chip,' reiterated the Teenage Dream singer.

Another clip shared the singer's Instagram page showed Orlando finishing up putting on a suit, obviously ahead of the Gala.

'Lemme touch ur butt' was written in bright flashing letters on a heart pasted on the clip, and Sir Mix-a-Lot's Baby Got Back played in the background as the Lord of the Rings actor dressed.

'Will you show me your trunk baby... turn around,' requested the Roar belter, to which the Elizabethtown star took the direction and shook his derriere.

With the hosts: [L-R] Albert II of Monaco and Charlene of Monaco posed with the US singer and her British actor beau

A laugh a minute: The foursome shared a laugh as they posed before entering the swanky bash

Pretty: Despite it being a particularly busy year for the singer, she has done her best to make time for romance. The couple has been spotted together in Los Angeles, London, and a variety of other locations recently, looking happy and closer than ever

Picture perfect: The hosts and their guests posed with smiles for the photographers at the blue carpet

Winning: Prince Albert presented Orlando with the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation award on stage at the Gala

Loved up: Chloe Green and Jeremy 'Hot Felon' Meeks were ready to get themselves back on the social circuit on Wednesday night, as they stepped out for the Monte Carlo Gala for the Global Ocean at Opera de Monte-Carlo

This is round two for Katy and Orlando who first got together in January of 2016. They stayed together for a little over a year before splitting in February 2017, but then resumed their relationship in April of this year.

Despite it being a particularly busy year for the singer, she has done her best to make time for romance. The couple has been spotted together in Los Angeles, London, and a variety of other locations recently, looking happy and closer than ever.

Putting on an equally loved-up display were new parents Chloe Green and Jeremy 'Hot Felon' Meeks - who were clearly ready to get themselves back on the social circuit on Wednesday night, having welcomed son Jayden to the world in June, keeping a low-profile since then.

Pucker up: Hosted by Prince Albert II of Monaco, the couple were in good company as they joined fellow sparkling celebrities on the red carpet, happily cosying up together to be photographed

Svelte: Chloe, 27, looked fantastic, dolled up in a black and grey animal print gown, nipped in at the waist with a statement black studded leather belt

A kiss for Chloe: The pair put on a romantic display as they shared a kiss for the cameras, before heading inside

Chloe, 27, looked fantastic, dolled up in a black and grey animal print gown, nipped in at the waist with a statement black studded leather belt.

The garment cascaded to the floor in wavy layers, finished with a multitude of feathered frills, and featuring a split that teased her pins.

She wore black strap heels to complete the ensemble and accessorised with simplistic diamond earrings and a silver bangle.

She let her brunette locks fall in gentle waves around her bare shoulders and lightly dusted her cheeks with a sweep of blush, and her lips with a slick of gloss.

To the nines: Jeremy looked edgily smart, as usual, in a slick black shirt, tie and velvet suit. He allowed himself a flash of bling with a gold band, which he wore around his right wrist

Looking leggy: Putting on an equally close display were Robin Thicke and April Love Geary - him in all black, her in a gold number

Shimmer: She showed off her leggy pins and her wavy raven tresses as she posed on the arm of her partner

Jeremy looked edgily smart, as usual, in a slick black shirt, tie and velvet suit. He allowed himself a flash of bling with a gold band, which he wore around his right wrist.

The pair put on a romantic display as they shared a kiss for the cameras, before heading inside.

Robin Thicke and April Love Geary - him in all black, her in a gold number - were also in attendance, putting on a close display.

Sheer elegance: Alessandra Ambrosio looked stunning in a semi-sheer bejeweled number, which fell gracefully around her frame

Dazzling: The gown draped dramatically to the floor and she highlighted the diamond theme with dangling, sparkling earrings and silver heels

Pals: Lais Ribeiro and Alessandra shared a laugh as they strutted off the red carpet

Serious faces: The models composed themselves for a snap on the blue carpet

Glistening in green: Danish model Mathilde Goehler posed in a very daring number

She showed off her leggy pins and her wavy raven tresses as she posed on the arm of her partner.

Alessandra Ambrosio looked stunning in a semi-sheer bejeweled number, which fell gracefully around her frame.

The gown draped dramatically to the floor and she highlighted the diamond theme with dangling, sparkling earrings and silver heels.

Stepping out: Model Lais Ribeiro and US surfer Kelly Slater were both in attendance

Style icon: US designer Tommy Hilfiger and his wife Dee posed upon their arrival at the soiree

Colour palette: [L-R] Toni Garrn, Charlott Cordesm and Blanca Padilla were all sure to turn heads

She tied her dark tresses tightly into a ponytail and wore flawless wash of make-up, with rose added to her pouty lips.

Also attending the event was Oscar-winner Adrien Brody, who looked just as dapper in an all-black suit and tie combo.

The smart outfit featured a loosely hung tie, which draped from around actor's unbuttoned collar.

Daring: Toni looked sensational in a hot pink satin suit with a deeply plunging front design

Also attending: Oscar-winner Adrien Brody looked just as dapper in an all-black suit and tie combo

Stylish star: The smart outfit featured a loosely hung tie, which draped from around actor's unbuttoned collar

Slick: The Pianist star looked typically handsome as he smoldered for the cameras

Man in black: Adrien sported his trademark slicked back mane and dashing beard

Model appearance: Victoria Silvstedt rocked up in typically-glam attire, turning heads in a semi-sheer, silver and white gown

Woman in white: The Swedish model made her grand entrance at the glittering bash, framing her ample cleavage with an the eye-opening neckline, highlighting her slender hourglass curves with the silver belt

Proven princess: Silver and ivory tassels were sewn into the design of the dress to add a layer of texture to the sparkling number

Victoria Silvstedt rocked up in typically-glam attire, turning heads in a semi-sheer, silver and white gown.

The Swedish model made her grand entrance at the glittering bash, framing her ample cleavage with an the eye-opening neckline, highlighting her slender hourglass curves with the silver belt.

Silver and ivory tassels were sewn into the design of the dress to add a layer of texture to the sparkling number.

The entrepreneur styled her golden locks in springy curls and she polished off her glamorous look with a mask of make-up.

Ivory style: The entrepreneur styled her golden locks in springy curls and she polished off her glamorous look with a mask of make-up

Tanned: The model looked deeply bronzed for the outing, in the backless number

Stunning: [L-R] French actress Olga Kurylenko, Italian model Lara Leito and US model Samantha Gradoville

Dapper gents: US producer and musician Nile Rodgers arrived, as well as French actor Jacques Perrin

Other names at the event included US producer and musician Nile Rodgers, French actor Jacques Perrin, Pierre Casiraghi of Monaco and his wife Beatrice Casiraghi, French actress Olga Kurylenko, Italian model Lara Leito and US model Samantha Gradoville.

This is the second Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation Monte-Carlo Gala for the Global Ocean, a major fundraising event in the heart of Monte Carlo.

The event is to support its worldwide initiatives in favor of a sustainable ocean, a crucial issue calling for immediate and collective action.

Smart: Nile looked swish in a suit and tie, adding a hat to the look

Regal: Pierre Casiraghi of Monaco and his wife Beatrice Casiraghi made a cute entrance hand-in-hand

Turning heads: The couple looked stylish in their regal attire

Lovely ladies: [L-R] Segolene Royal, Catrinel Menghia, Isabeli Fontana and Sonia Rolland

Looking sleek: Monika Bacardi and Andrea Iervolino [R] attended the Gala for the Global Ocean together, matching the style of the evening's host and hostess [L]

Smooth: US actor Robert Davi was sure to bring some Hollywood poise to proceedingsAmerica Ferrera, 34, certainly isn't shy to voice her opinion about politics.

When the former Ugly Betty actress made an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Tuesday evening she said 'government is failing.'

The star - who is plugging her new book American Like Me: Reflections On Life Between Cultures - also said the elections are a chance 'to put a check on the insanity that is happening in our administration.'

Urging viewers to vote: America Ferrera said the elections are a chance 'to put a check on the insanity that is happening in our administration' as she stopped by Colbert's show

All smiles: Ferrera looked stunning during her run to promote her book American Like Me: Reflections on Life Between Cultures

Controversial talk: The former Ugly Betty actress appeared to be in good spirits on LSWSC

She also talked about the elections.

'This is our chance. This is our first real chance to put a check on the insanity that is happening in this administration,' the television star shared.

'And if we don't show up to vote, we're giving up that chance to put a check on it.'

Ferrera, who stunned in a leopard-print dress, believes that the government isn't protecting its citizens, nor does she believe that the administration is capable of living up to their proposed plans to 'make American great again.'

'We employ these people. I mean, when has it ever been more obvious that we need all levels of government to work for us?'

Her views: Ferrera, who stunned in a leopard-print dress, believes that the government isn't protecting its citizens

Keeping a smile on his face: Colbert seemed amused by Ferrera's choice of words during their discussion

'We need all levels of government to be standing up and upholding our rights and protecting us, and they have failed,' she tells Colbert during the taping.

'They are failing. And so we need to show up as their employers and say, "it doesn't work for us" and vote out the people who aren't doing their jobs and bring in some new, inspiring, and exciting candidates.'

In her book Ferrera gathers together a group of 31 public figures, ranging from artists, writers, politicians, and activists  including Randall Park and Roxane Gay.

American Like Me: The book includes contributions from 31 different public figures

Each contributor shares the relation of either being an immigrant or having relatives that resettled in the United States in the hopes of one day achieving their American Dream.

The book, according to Bustle, sees Ferrera try and uncover what it truly means to be an American while recalling her upbringing in Los Angeles, California to Honduran parents.

Speaking Spanish at home, enjoying salsa parties with friends and relatives every other weekend were just some of the ways Ferrera identified with her 'Americanness.'

Until it seemed as if being an immigrant in America was substandard, the Superstore beauty notes.

In January 2017, the California native gave a bold statement at the Women's March in Washington; the same day Donald Trump was to serve his first day of presidency.

Out now: America seemed pleased as Colbert plugged her book to his studio audience

It makes for a good read: The book, sees Ferrera try and uncover what it truly means to be an American while recalling her upbringing in Los Angeles, California to Honduran parents

'It's been a heartrending time to be both a woman and an immigrant in this country,' she told tens of thousands of people in the crowd.

'Our dignity, our character, our rights have all been under attack, and a platform of hate and division assumed power yesterday.'

'But the president is not America,' Ferrera added, making it known she was no supporter of Trump and his administration.

'His cabinet is not America. Congress is not America. We are America. And we are here to stay.'She is often a regular on the glitzy Monaco social scene.

So of course Victoria Silvstedt made her grand entrance at the glittering 2nd Monte Carlo Gala for the Global Ocean 2018, in Monaco on Wednesday.

The Swedish model, 44, looked heavenly in her shimmering ivory ballgown and the sheer material teased a glimpse of her underwear.

Grand entrance: Victoria Silvstedt, 44, looked outstanding in a shimmering semi-sheer ballgown at glitzy Monte Carlo Gala, in Monaco on Wednesday

Victoria framed her ample cleavage in the eye-opening neckline of her gown and she highlighted her slender hourglass curves with the silver belt.

Silver and white tassels were sewn into the design of the dress to add a layer of texture to the sparkling number.

The entrepreneur styled her golden locks in springy curls and she polished off her glamorous look with a mask of make-up.

Take the plunge: Victoria framed her ample cleavage in the eye-opening neckline of her gown and she highlighted her slender hourglass curves with the silver belt

Bursting on the scene! The blonde bombshell made her grand entrance at the glittering 2nd Monte Carlo Gala for the Global Ocean 2018

Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation hosted its second Monte Carlo Gala for the Global Ocean, a fundraising event to support a sustainable ocean.

'Hot Felon' Jeremy Meeks and Chloe Green attended the glitzy event as they made their first red carpet appearance after welcoming their daughter into the world.

The blonde beauty has enjoyed a lengthy stint in the spotlight after being chosen to represent her country in the Miss World pageant in 1993.

After her pageant days, the Scandinavian stunner was spotted by Hugh Hefner and went on to become a Playboy Playmate.

Dazzling diva: The Swedish model, 44, looked heavenly in her shimmering ivory ballgown and the sheer material teased a glimpse of her underwear

Since her career rocketed, she has modelled for some of the world's most prestigious fashion houses, including Chanel, Dior and Valentino.

Despite the glamorous veneer to her lifestyle as a young model, she revealed there was a dark side in a recent interview with Female First.

Victoria said: 'I started very young to model in Paris when I was 18, I remember like starving myself to fit into the clothes and it was an amazing experience but you know I did shows for Valentino, Chanel, so it was really prestigious.

But it never felt like it was my thing, I'm not like a runway skinny model, I'm more curvy. It was torture, I put myself through starvation, you know torturing myself.

Stunning siren: The entrepreneur styled her golden locks in springy curls and she polished off her glamorous look with a mask of make-upThey've only recently been spotted out together in public after secretly dating for five years.

And things seemed as though they were stronger than ever with Katie Holmes and Jamie Fox, 50, stepped out for a bike ride in Marietta, Georgia, on Monday.

The 39-year-old - who was dressed casually for the outing - seemed quite smitten with the Oscar winner as she sat on his lap inside a black Mercedes-Benz.

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Date time: Katie Holmes, 39, and Jamie Foxx, 50, were spotted heading out on a romantic bike ride around Georgia on Monday

Showcasing their love: The 39-year-old seemed quite smitten with the Oscar winner as she sat on his lap inside a black Mercedes-Benz

Staying out of the spotlight: They have never admitted to being an item, preferring to keep their five-year romance on the down low

Katie stunned in a white singlet and a pair of form-fitting denim jeans.

She completed her casual look with flat pointed toe shoes and carried a cross-body Madewell bag around her chest.

The mom to Suri Cruise, 12, had her short brunette locks tied up into a half-up-half-down style and flaunted her age-defying fresh complexion.

Beauty: She completed her casual look with flat pointed toe shoes and carried a cross-body Madewell bag around her chest

Jamie was also dressed down in a white T-shirt and dark pair of denim jeans.

He teamed the look with black socks and crisp white sneakers.

At one point, the actor was spotted changing up his ensemble to a more bike friendly look with a black T-shirt and matching shorts.

Gorgeous: Katie stunned in a white singlet and a pair of form-fitting denim jeans

Ready to ride! At one point, the actor was spotted changing up his ensemble to a more bike friendly look with a black T-shirt and matching shorts

Jamie has spent the past few weeks in Georgia shooting his new move, Just Mercy.

The couple has been dating for years, but they have kept their relationship incredibly private. A rep spoke out about their relationship for the first time over the summer to shoot down reports of a breakup.

They have never admitted to being an item, preferring to keep their five-year romance on the down low.

Natural beauty: The mom to Suri Cruise, 12, had her short brunette locks tied up into a half-up-half-down style and flaunted her age-defying fresh complexion

Private: 'Everyone knows they are dating, but they still want to keep it private'

'Katie and Jamie are still careful about being photographed together,' a source told People.

'Everyone knows they are dating, but they still want to keep it private.'

So private that the two are often apart for long periods of time.

'Its not uncommon for them to go long stretches without seeing each other,' a source dished to ET in June.

Love: 'Theyre still very, very private. Youre not going to hear or see every time theyre together because they dont flaunt their relationship in public,' a source told ET

'And theyre still very, very private. Youre not going to hear or see every time theyre together because they dont flaunt their relationship in public.'

The only time they have been seen packing on the PDA was during a romantic beach date in Malibu in 2017.

The duo reportedly got together one year following Katie's divorce from Tom Cruise, back in 2013.

She married the famous Scientologist in 2006 and divorced in 2012. Since then the pair have not been seen together.

The former power couple have one child together, 12-year-old Suri, who the Jerry Maguire actor has not been photographed with in public for four years.They returned to ITV screens earlier this month for the latest series of TOWIE.

And Lauren Pope pulled out all the sartorial stops on Wednesday, as she stepped out for filming at BonBar in Newcastle.

The 35-year-old reality star dazzled in a sheer blouse as she was joined by her glamorous co-stars Chloe Lewis, 27, and Chloe Meadows, 23.

Looking good: Lauren Pope pulled out all the sartorial stops on Wednesday, as she stepped out for TOWIE filming at BonBar in Newcastle

Chic: The 35-year-old reality star dazzled in a sheer blouse as she was joined by her glamorous co-stars Chloe Lewis, 27, and Chloe Meadows, 23

Lauren teamed her plunging shirt with a pair of racy skintight PVC trousers that flaunted every inch of her svelte frame.

She completed her look with a towering pair of lace-up heels and accessorised with a gold pendant necklace and nude leather bag.

Chloe M, meanwhile, wasn't afraid to flash the flesh, donning a tiny tasseled bralet that barely contained her cleavage.

Flaunting a peek of her toned abs, she added some high-waisted tapered trousers with fringing detail and pointed courts.

Hot on her tails was Chloe L, who opted for utilitarian chic in a leather khaki button-down dress teamed with barely-there heels.

Turning heads: Lauren teamed her plunging shirt with a pair of racy skintight PVC trousers that flaunted every inch of her svelte frame

Legs for days: She completed her look with a towering pair of lace-up heels and accessorised with a gold pendant necklace and nude leather bag

The mane attraction: She styled her long golden extensions in tumbling waves that effortlessly framed her face

Chloe has become a star since appearing on the reality show, and recently revealed why her boyfriend Danny Flasher hasn't followed in her footsteps to become a cast member.

Speaking to This Morning hosts Eamonn Holmes and Ruth Langsford, the starlet confessed that her stock broker beau has no interest to star on the show as he has a 'good job'.

She shared: 'The show have asked me about him coming on, it's his choice he's got a good job [boyfriend whos not on the show]'.

Dare to bare: Chloe M, meanwhile, wasn't afraid to flash the flesh, donning a tiny tasseled bralet that barely contained her cleavage

Topped up her tan: She boasted a sunkissed glow and wore minimal make-up

Taking centre-stage: Flaunting a peek of her toned abs, she added some high-waisted tapered trousers with fringing detail and pointed courts

Proving their romance to be going from strength to strength, Chloe revealed in April that the pair had moved in together, telling the Daily Star: 'We are loved-up and happy and I'm living with him now.'

The brunette has refused to let her man join TOWIE following the demise of her relationship with former fellow co-star Jake Hall, who is now engaged with a newborn daughter.

Meanwhile Lauren has become somewhat of a body advocate and has always remained adamant that she would never reveal her biggest hang-ups or insecurities, as she accepts her body with all its flaws.

Simply stylish: Hot on her tails was Chloe L, who opted for utilitarian chic in a leather khaki button-down dress teamed with barely-there heels

Finishing touches: She accessorised with gold hoop earrings, a delicate necklace and a black leather mini-tote

Sultry: She framed her eyes with smoky shadow and plumped her pout with nude lipstick

She told the Daily Star last year: 'I never tell people the parts I don't like about me as thats just noting out your flaws, I've learnt how to work with what I've got and accentuate the good parts, lets put it that way.'

Last summer Lauren chose to remove her E cup implants which she had put in as part of a second boob job.

Speaking to MailOnline at the time, she said of the move: 'I'm back to small boobies! I've thought about it for a long time. It's really hard to explain but it's not a big dramatic decision. It's just I feel like I am taken seriously now in the world of business.'

Lauren rose to fame glamour model and embarked on a career as a DJ over a decade ago, but became a series regular on TOWIE in 2010 when she started dating show original Kirk Norcross.

She has since gone on to launch her successful extension line Hair Rehab London.Daz Dillinger, 45 - real name Delmar Drew Arnaud - was arrested on Tuesday at his house in Powder Springs, Georgia, on 13 felony drug counts.

TMZ reports the rapper was taken to the Cobb County jail, where he was booked on 12 counts of possession of a controlled substance and one count of possession of more than one ounce of marijuana.

This comes five months after he told his followers to hurt Kanye West for his support of Donald Trump.

Daz under arrest: Rapper Daz Dillinger, seen here in his mug shot from Cobb County Jail, was arrested in Georgia on 13 felony drug counts

Enemy: This comes five months after he told his followers to hurt Kanye West for his support of Donald Trump; Kanye with Kim in 2016

Authorities say they found 117 grams of marijuana at Dillinger's home, which is 20 miles outside of Atlanta.

This included marijuana in cigarillo packets and in a green mason jar, along with 10 THC pods, THC oil and a THC vaporizer.

There was also a container in his home studio that was labeled 'Cannabis Lean,' with police adding it was likely a 'grape drink laced with cannabis.'

On stage: The rapper was taken to the Cobb County jail, where he was booked on 12 counts of possession of a controlled substance and one count of possession of more than one ounce of marijuana; seen in July

Dillinger's bond was set at $15,000, and the rapper is currently in jail, still waiting to see the judge.

His arrest comes five months after he posted a video, asking Crips to 'f*** up Kanye' after Ye showed his support for President Trump on Twitter.

Dillinger's video was actually the topic of discussion when West appeared on TMZ Live and made his infamous 'slavery was a choice' statement.

Tha Dogg Pound together again: Dillinger with Kurupt during Summertime in the LBC festival in August 2017

The threat against Kanye never went anywhere, since gang leadership never wanted to pick a fight with the rapper, with sources within the gang claiming they actually wanted West to visit the LBC community.

The LAPD did investigate the threat posed on the video, which could have lead to criminal charges had any harm come to West.

Dillinger started his career as a producer for the infamous Death Row Records, appearing on his cousin Snoop Dogg's debut album Doggystyle.

He then teamed up with Kurupt to form Tha Dogg Pound. Their self-titled 1995 album went double platinum.

The rapper has released two albums this year alone, Dazamataz in February and Smoke Me Out in April.She's been following the European Fashion Weeks in recent weeks.

But after enjoying Milan over the week Brazilian model Alessandra Ambrosio arrived in Monaco on Wednesday for the glittering Monte Carlo Gala in aid of the Global Ocean at Opera de Monte-Carlo.

Alessandra, 37, looked stunning in a semi-sheer bejeweled number, which fell gracefully around her frame as she hit the celeb-packed red carpet.

Wow: Brazilian model Alessandra Ambrosio arrived in Monaco on Wednesday for the glittering Monte Carlo Gala in aid of the Global Ocean at Opera de Monte-Carlo

The gown draped dramatically to the floor and she highlighted the diamond theme with dangling, sparkling earrings and silver heels.

She tied her dark tresses tightly into a ponytail and wore flawless wash of make-up, with rose added to her pouty lips.

Alessandra was joined on the red carpet by a host of models and the likes of Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom but there was no sign of her new beau at the event, hosted by Prince Albert II of Monaco.

Dazzling: Alessandra, 37, looked stunning in a semi-sheer bejeweled number, which fell gracefully around her frame as she hit the celeb-packed red carpet

Ready for her close up: She tied her dark tresses tightly into a ponytail and wore flawless wash of make-up, with rose added to her pouty lips

On Sunday Alessandra looked positively smitten with her new love, Italian businessman Nicolo Oddi, as they stepped out in Milan.

Alessandra and Nicolo's romance was first reported in August, just five months after the announcement that her ten-year engagement to Jamie Mazur had come to an end.

The catwalk model recently hung up her stilettos as she retired from modelling for Victoria's Secret to focus on spending more time with her children.

Model behaviour: Alessandra posed on the red carpet with fellow Brazilian beauty and Victoria's Secret model Lais Ribeiro

Good to see you! The models larked around for the cameras as they enjoyed their catch up

Mother-of-two Alessandra shares daughter Anja, nine, and son Noah, six, with Jamie.

The exes went their separate ways for good after reports of their split first emerged in March this year.

A source told Us Weekly at the time: 'They [have] been trying to keep their split on the down low... But Alessandra has been out and about ready to mingle and hasn't been taking Jamie to anything.'He is still an amicable co-parent with his ex Kourtney Kardashian.

And a gaunt Scott Disick was glimpsed out and about with Kourtney's younger sister Kim Kardashian when at a car dealership in Calabasas on Wednesday.

This comes after the 37-year-old Mrs Kanye West said on Twitter she 'hates' the way her sister says 'issues'; Kourtney responded by telling her to stay more 'positive.'

Side by side: A gaunt Scott Disick was glimpsed out and about with his Kourtney Kardashian's younger sister Kim Kardashian when at a car dealership in Calabasas on Wednesday

Meow: This comes after the 37-year-old Mrs Kanye West said on Twitter she 'hates' the way her sister says 'issues'; Kourtney responded by telling her to stay more 'positive'

Bad vibes: Kourtney, 39, has not been getting along well with Kim lately

Scott, 35, draped his slender frame in a flowing olive green sweater and a pair of charcoal pants, slipping into black leather boots.

His previously luscious hair has been cropped close, and his eyes were on his phone as he walked beside the aunt of his children.

Meanwhile, Kim wore a wavy black hairdo and a set of sweats that emphasized her hourglass frame, balancing on an eye-popping pair of white boots.

The reality star and sex tape icon, who told her Instagram following her bum injections were to treat psoriasis, shaded her face with sunglasses.

On the go: Scott, 35, draped his slender frame in a flowing olive green sweater and a pair of charcoal pants, slipping into black leather boots

Kim has three children by West, whom she married in Italy in 2014, the year after their firstborn daughter North was born.

The couple affectionately known as 'Kimye' also share a two-year-old son called Saint, as well as an infant daughter Chicago born this January via surrogacy.

Meanwhile, Scott and Kourtney also share three children - eight-year-old son Mason, six-year-old daughter Penelope and three-year-old son Reign.

Meanwhile: Kim wore a wavy black hairdo and a set of sweats that emphasized her hourglass frame, balancing on an eye-popping pair of white boots

Kourtney and Scott, who were introduced in 2006 by Girls Gone Wild founder Joe Francis in Mexico, last ended their romantic relationship in July of 2015.

The latest season of Keeping Up With The Kardashians has chronicled a seething feud between Kim and Kourtney, including one fight that led Kim to dismiss her older and less famous sister as 'the least exciting to look at' in the family.

Kim and Kourtney, as well as their sister Khloe and brother Rob, are Kris Jenner's children by her late first ex-husband Robert Kardashian, who was infamously on the legal team that helped secure O.J. Simpson's acquittal of double murder.Thomas Ravenel reportedly will not be returning to the cast of Southern Charm.

And according to a Tuesday report from People, the rest of the cast of Southern Charm are 'relieved' that they don't have to deal with the 56-year-old former politician anymore, a source revealed.

Ravenel was arrested on assault and battery charges on Tuesday in Charleston, South Carolina.

Gone: Thomas Ravenel will not be returning to the cast of Southern Charm reported People on Tuesday (Photo from July 2016)

Relieved: The rest of the cast of Southern Charm are 'relieved' that they don't have to deal with the 56-year-old former politician anymore, a source close to the cast revealed to the outlet Wednesday

'They're relieved not to have to deal with Thomas on the show anymore,' the source told the outlet.

'Thomas was a friend at first, but that changed over the years as layers and layers of his lies and manipulation were exposed.

'What he did to Kathryn was horrible, but the allegations from his nanny became the last straw.'

Finally: 'They're relieved not to have to deal with Thomas on the show anymore,' the source told the outlet (Photo from July 2016)

'It disgusted so many of them on the show, especially [the female cast members],' continued the source.

'They've all been keeping their distance since. He's toxic.'

Adding, 'They're looking forward to start filming again, and happy to be finally be free of that.'

Changed: 'Thomas was a friend at first, but that changed over the years as layers and layers of his lies and manipulation were exposed. 'What he did to Kathryn was horrible, but the allegations from his nanny became the last straw'

Ravenel was arrested on assault and battery charges for allegedly forcing himself on his former nanny, stripping her and putting his penis in her face in January 2015.

According to an arrest affidavit obtained by DailyMail.com on Tuesday, Ravenel attacked Dawn Ledwell, 43, at his home in Charleston, South Carolina, on January 25, 2015.

She had been watching his children while he was out at dinner. When he returned home, he forcibly removed her clothes, forced her hand onto his penis and grabbed at her vagina', according to police.

No more: According to an arrest affidavit obtained by DailyMail.com on Tuesday, Ravenel attacked Dawn Ledwell, 43, at his home in Charleston, South Carolina, on January 25, 2015 (Photo taken from Southern Charm episode 105)

The affidavit claims he ordered her: 'Show me your p***y' and asked her: 'Do you like big d***s?' as he shoved his penis in her face.'

He was booked on Tuesday morning for second degree assault and battery, a misdemeanor charge which carries a maximum sentence of three years imprisonment and a maximum fine of $2,500.

Contrary to what Ledwell claimed in May this year, the police report does not describe him 'forcibly raping' her.

Ledwell said that he stripped her and that he was being investigated for first degree forcible rape in an interview with DailyMailTV in May. Ravenel denied her allegation through an attorney at the time.

His attorney did not respond to requests for comment about his arrest on Tuesday.

He was bailed out of Al Cannon Detention Center by the afternoon on a $20,000 personal recognizance bond which means he didn't have to put up any money but must promise to attend all court appearances.Twilight star Ashley Greene made headlines this summer when she posted a nude Instagram photo in July, while on honeymoon with her husband Paul Khoury.

Two months removed from the nude photo, Greene, 31, has discussed the photo in a new interview with US Weekly.

'Im a little bit more reserved when it comes to that,' Greene said. 'So its, like, a little bit wild and freeing, and I think, you know, we were just coming off of getting married, so it was fun.'

Beach ready: Greene, seen here on the set of Shangri-La Suite in 2014, said it was 'wild and freeing' to take the nude shot (above this photo) from her honeymoon in July

The actress, who showed up to support Strong by Zumbas event at Milk Gallery in New York on Tuesday, added that her husband isn't exactly a nudist, but, 'he isn't afraid of being nude.'

The Apparition star married Khoury, 30, an Australian TV personality, in the beginning of July near San Jose, California, with celebrity guests in attendance such as Josh Duhamel, Eiza Gonzalez and Aaron Paul.

'I think the most special thing about the wedding was the act that not only Paul and I, but everyone came to just feel the love,' the actress said.

Daytime PDA: The Apparition star married Khoury, 30, an Australian TV personality, in the beginning of July near San Jose, California, with celebrity guests in attendance such as Josh Duhamel, Eiza Gonzalez and Aaron Paul

She added that some of the most 'special moments' was her, 'dads face the first time he saw me and my husbands face the first time he saw me.'

The actress went on to say that, while two months have passed since their honeymoon, they're still in the 'honeymoon phase' of their relationship.

'We were crazy about each other before but really committed to being, like, full on in a partnership, the Rogue star added.

On the beach: Greene, posing with a friend in August 2017, says she and Khoury are 'committed' to being in a full-time partnership

She also added that she and Khoury plan to go beyond and above to make sure we really make this first year of marriage great, because there are a lot of transitions that you go through.

'So for me, its just been incredible,' Greene concluded. 'Its been better than it has ever been.'

Greene, best known for playing Alice Cullen in The Twilight Saga, recently starred in Accident Man with Scott Adkins and Ray Stevenson, and she has three more films coming out soon.

None of these upcoming films have release dates yet, such as Antiquities with Mary Steenburgen, the animated Max & Me, or Snowblind with Karl Urban.

Their future is bright: The actress went on to say that, while two months have passed since their honeymoon, they're still in the 'honeymoon phase' of their relationshipShe is currently on a working holiday in the Bahamas.

But busy PR maven Roxy Jacenko found some time for a bit of rest and relaxation on Wednesday.

The Sweaty Betty boss slipped into a stylish Dolce & Gabbana swimsuit to soak up the sun on one of the island's pristine beaches.

Bahamas babe! Roxy Jacenko shows off her ripped figure in a Dolce & Gabbana bikini as she continues her tropical working holiday

Clearly in her element, the mother-of-two excitedly jumped for joy on the sand.

Roxy's black and white striped floral bikini showed off the 38-year-old's gym-honed figure and accentuated her golden tan.

The businesswoman has been in the Bahamas for the last few days, networking with other industry professionals at the fifth annual Inner Circle Experience.

Business trip: The businesswoman has been in the Bahamas for the last few days networking with other industry professionals at the fifth annual The Inner Circle Experience

Before that she had a quick stop over in Los Angeles to meet with retail partners for her daughter Pixie Curtis's brand, Pixie Bows.

Named after her seven-year-old, Roxy has already expressed that she wants to take the children's accessories brand global in the next couple of years.

A retail expert recently told Daily Mail Australia that the brand could be worth $21 million by the time Pixie reaches 18.

Diamonds are a girl's best friend: Roxy was dripping in jewels as she attended a dinner in the Bahamas on Tuesday

Roxy, who owns four business, Sweaty Betty PR, Ministry of Talent, The Social Union, and Pixies Bows, has been focused on expanding her businesses.

Last month, the business dynamo PR girls know that her much sought after agency, Sweaty Betty PR, would be hiring new staff.

A listing on her company website states that candidates must be 'confident and efficient' with a 'hunger to succeed.'

Roxy stated while candidates only require '1-2 years experience' in public relations, they must have their own contacts in media and hospitality.Dawn Ledwell has broken her silence after the arrest of Southern Charm star Thomas Ravenel.

Ledwell, 43, issued her first public statement to People. 'I felt unprepared and exhausted, as the past five months have been emotionally and physically taxing,' she said.

The reality TV star was arrested on assault and battery charges for allegedly forcing himself on his former nanny, stripping her and putting his penis in her face in January 2015.

Her words: Speaking out: Dawn Ledwell has broken her silence about Thomas Ravenel's arrest, stating he needs to be held 'accountable for his actions'; her statement was issues to People

'I was offered the opportunity to appear at the hearing and give a victims impact statement. Although I was scared, I wanted to tell the judge and Thomas what I feel.'

Ravenel was granted a $20,000 personal recognizance bond.

And was ordered to turn in his passport, avoid contact with the victim and not leave South Carolina.

'Obviously, I am disappointed that he did not receive a higher bond. I am partially relieved that my family and I received an order of protection, so that eases some of my fears,' said Dawn.

'In the past, Thomas made threats in writing to "take out" anyone who helped me regarding the assault.'

According to an arrest affidavit obtained by DailyMail.com on Tuesday, Ravenel attacked Ledwell at his home in Charleston, South Carolina, on January 25, 2015.

Sad times: Ledwell, 43, issued her first public statement to People. 'I felt unprepared and exhausted, as the past five months have been emotionally and physically taxing,' she said

She had been watching his children while he was out at dinner. When he returned home, he forcibly removed her clothes, forced her hand onto his penis and grabbed at her vagina', according to police.

The affidavit claims he ordered her: 'Show me your p***y' and asked her: 'Do you like big d***s?' as he shoved his penis in her face.

Ravenel, 56, was booked on Tuesday morning for second degree assault and battery, a misdemeanor charge which carries a maximum sentence of three years imprisonment and a maximum fine of $2,500.

Contrary to what Ledwell claimed in May this year, the police report does not describe him 'forcibly raping' her.

In trouble: Ravenel, 56, was booked into jail on Tuesday morning for assault and battery

Ledwell said that he stripped her and that he was being investigated for first degree forcible rape in an interview with DailyMailTV in May. Ravenel denied her allegation through an attorney at the time.

His attorney did not respond to requests for comment about his arrest on Tuesday.

He was bailed out of Al Cannon Detention Center by the afternoon on a $20,000 personal recognizance bond which means he didn't have to put up any money but must promise to attend all court appearances.

Ledwell also expressed her disappointment that the bond was so low, although she was glad her family was granted a protection order.

'Obviously, I am disappointed that he did not receive a higher bond,' Ledwell said. 'I am partially relieved that my family and I received an order of protection, so that eases some of my fears. In the past, Thomas made threats in writing to take out anyone who helped me regarding the assault.'

His show: On season four of Southern Charm with (l-r) Craig Conover, Landon Clements, Cameran Eubanks, Shepard Rose, Kathryn Calhoun Dennis and Austen Kroll

'I mentioned that a fortune such as his will never make me fortunate,' she added. 'He needs to be accountable for his actions and realize he is hurting people.'

The police report describes how Ledwell was left with injuries on her back and chest by the underwire of her bra which cut into her as Ravenel allegedly tore at her clothes.

'[He] undressed and made sexual advances on the victim. The victim grabbed the victim's hand and placed it on his penis before attempting to remove the victim's clothing,' it said.

'While attempting to remove the victim's clothing, the victim's underwire bra cut into her skin and her shirt wrapped around her neck which caused the victim to struggle to breathe,' it said.

Ravenel then allegedly pulled down 'the victim's pants and said: "Show me your p***y" and began grabbing at the victim's vagina.

'The victim crouched down to the ground to try to prevent further assault and [he] put his penis in her face and asked: "Do you like big d***s".

The report does not say what happened next. It continues: 'After escaping the asault, the victim called her then ex-husband and sister and told them of the incident, fled the scene and notified several family members of the incident.'

It says she took photographs of her neck and chest which showed her injuries.

Debbie Holloway Perkins , 54, was allegedly sexually assaulted by him after a 2015 Tinder date

Police saw those photographs and interviewed some of the people Ledwell told, it said.

In May, she told DailyMailTV that Ravenel was being investigated for 'forcible first degree rape'.

She did not want to describe the specific sex attack in detail but said: 'I felt so humiliated especially when he was ripping my clothes off, you know I was a bigger girl back then - almost 100 pounds bigger - and he's torn my clothes off and I'm just so mortified thinking am I going to run outside in this very upscale neighborhood in the freezing January without my clothes on?' she said.

After the attack, she said she was left with scratches in between her legs, on her arms, back and her throat.

Ledwell claimed Ravenel used her t-shirt to strangle her during the attack and prevent her from escaping.

She continued to work for him for more than a year and claims he apologized for the attack after it happened.

She later told Kathryn Dennis, the mother of his two children, she said, but he allegedly denied it in front of her.

Perkins took these photographs of her injuries after Ravenel 'held her down' and sexually assaulted her on a bed in 20145 after their Tinder date. Her daughter revealed them and said her mother had been forced to sign an NDA. She was given $200,000 by Ravenel in return

'What had really hurt me was that when I was finally able to tell Kathryn he recanted.

He denied what he did and what he said and he victim shamed and bullied me,' she said.

Dawn eventually reported it to police and spoke out after hearing the story of another woman who claimed Ravenel assaulted her during a 2015 Tinder Date.

Debbie Holloway Perkins' daughter was the one who shared her story. She said her mother was paid off by Ravenel and made to sign an NDA after the incident.

Her daughter, who was not bound by the agreement, told how he held her down on a bed and sexually assaulted her.

The City of Charleston Police did not respond to DailyMail.com's inquiries on Tuesday morning, nor did Ravenel's lawyer.

He recently broke up with Ashley Jacobs, his girlfriend of 15-months.

Ravenel quit Southern Charm in August this year after the sexual misconduct allegations.

Ravenel has two young children with his Southern Charm co-star, 27-year-old Kathryn Dennis (shown above together on the show). He quit in August

At the time, he said it was because the show's producers had 'taken advantage' of him and their 'right to fictionalize' his story.

The network later said it was a mutual decision for him to leave.

Ledwell added she was 'disappointed' that Bravo has not contacted her at all, and that their, 'statement was delayed until after his arrest.'

'This is just the beginning of an extensive process that may include a trial,' the former nanny added. 'Evidence will continue to be collected and evaluated, therefore charges may be elevated in the future.'

He previously starred alongside his 27-year-old former girlfriend Kathryn Dennis. The pair have two children together.

Before his reality TV career, Ravenel served as as the State Treasurer for South Carolina but was forced out of the role in 2007 after just five months after being arrested for cocaine possession with intent to distribute.

He was sentenced to 10 months in a federal prison.

He ran unsuccessfully for the US Senate in 2004. Ravenel is the son of former congressman Arthur Ravenel Jr.A Sydney teenager gave his wife a hunting knife and black Shahada flag to look after as part of their plot to carry out a terrorist attack, a jury has been told.

"The reason she held it was so it would be available if and when they decided on a suitable target to take on," said prosecutor Nicholas Robinson QC on Tuesday.

He was continuing the Crown's closing address at the NSW Supreme Court trial of Alo-Bridget Namoa and Sameh Bayda, both now 21, who have pleaded not guilty to conspiring to do an act in preparation for a terrorist act.

The Crown alleges their agreement ran between December 8, 2015 and January 25, 2016, the day of Bayda's arrest.

Police found the sheathed knife on top of the flag in Namoa's handbag when she was staying at a friend's place.

Mr Robinson alleged the knife was planned to be used in a stabbing, while the flag would be displayed "as an indication of what the attack was about".

He referred to the "vast" amount of extremist material, including graphic videos and images, found on their phones reflecting their religious ideology of advancing Islam by violence.

Their plot allegedly involved detonating an improvised device, an incendiary device or using a bladed weapon.

Some time before December 22, the pair decided they would do what they could to prepare for a terrorist attack to take place on New Year's Eve, the prosecutor said.

"Bayda hoped he would live, Namoa feared he would die," Mr Robinson said, citing communications between them.

"Bayda was out in the city dressed as Jihadi, looking for a target."

For whatever reason, it did not occur and Bayda later was looking at instructive documents relating to stabbings.

The trial is continuing.CONSUMERS LEFT OUT OF POCKET BY DELAYS IN BREACH REPORTING BY FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS

WHAT DID ASIC FIND?

* Serious and unacceptable delays in time taken to identify, report and correct significant breaches by 12 major financial services groups including the big four banks and AMP

WHAT IS THE AVERAGE TIME FOR THE KEY BREACH REPORTING STAGES?

* 1517 days (over four years) to identify an incident; for the four major banks it's 1726 days

* 28 days for an investigation to begin

* 128 days from investigation beginning to lodging breach report with ASIC

* 226 days until compensation for affected customers starts

* All up that's 1899 days or over five years

WHAT IS THE IMPACT ON CONSUMERS?

* ASIC says consumers out of pocket for an excessive period

* In some cases consumers are permanently disadvantaged (as firm was not able to return all funds to consumers financially affected by the significant breach)

* Total financial loss $497.2 million to 4.96 million consumers

- Average loss of $1.8 million per significant breach

- Average loss of $100 per consumer

* So far $437 million in financial remediation paid

WHAT DID ASIC'S REVIEW COVER?

* Big four banks - ANZ, CBA, NAB and Westpac

* AMP, Bank of Queensland, Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, Credit Union Australia, Greater Bank, Heritage Bank, Macquarie and Suncorp

* 715 significant breaches reported to ASIC between 2014 and 2017 (279 involved financial loss to consumers)

* Superannuation accounted for 40 per cent of the significant breaches

WHAT MUST BE REPORTED?

* Significant breaches of financial services laws and licence conditions must be reported to ASIC within 10 business days of institution determining there is a significant breach

* Test of whether breach is significant is subjective

* One in seven significant breaches reported late; majority were from NAB

WHAT ARE THE CONSEQUENCES?

* Failure to report within 10 business days is a criminal offence

* ASIC says current penalty - maximum of $52,000 for a corporation - is too low to have a deterrent effect

* A taskforce last December recommended making breach reporting rules stronger, clearer and more enforceable; extending requirement to cover breaches of credit laws; introducing a civil penalty for failure to report

* Government accepted recommendations in-principle, but deferred their implementation until it has the findings of the banking royal commission.

(Source: ASIC)Drink-driver Puneet Puneet has still to be examined psychologically after his extradition hearing faced further delays over the defendant's mental state.

He was on bail in 2009 and awaiting sentence after pleading guilty to culpable driving over the 2008 death of Queensland student Dean Hofstee, when he fled Australia using a friend's passport. He was arrested four years later in India, on his wedding day.

The Patiala Court in Delhi heard on Tuesday that Puneet was initially examined but his family's permission was withdrawn after they discovered he was being kept "in the jail area" of a psychiatric hospital.

"We agreed to his assessment but we never agreed to him being put into the jail section," Puneet's defence lawyer, Khaniya Kumar Singhal, said.

Judge Gurmohina Kaur said she would contact doctors at the Institute of Human, Behavioural and Applied Sciences (IHBAS) in Delhi, which is to undertake the exam, to understand what exactly had transpired.

She told the defence: "You should have brought any such matters to the attention of the court. If he was jailed, it would contravene the orders of the court.

"We need him to be assessed. It is necessary for this case to move towards a logical conclusion."

Union of India advocates, who handle extradition matters for the Indian government, said this was a delaying tactic by the defence, and that the judge should ensure Puneet was assessed as soon as possible.

Puneet was in court - with two uncles - dressed in a green and grey sweatshirt, grey pyjamas and sandals.

Puneet, a learner driver at the time of the accident, was travelling at 150km/h with a blood alcohol reading of 0.165 when he lost control of his car and hit Mr Hofstee.

Previously, the defence had said Puneet suffered from kidney problems, schizophrenia, weight loss, at one point drank poison, and is possibly still suicidal due to his "fragile state of mind".The findings of a coronial inquest into the death of a woman at a Gold Coast hospital following a prescription drug overdose are set to be released.

Coroner James McDougall will hand down his findings into the 2014 death of Renae Mann in the Southport Court on Wednesday.

Ms Mann, 47, was found dead at the Gold Coast University Hospital hours after being medically discharged from the emergency department to a mental health assessment pod.

A pre-inquest hearing in August 2017 heard Ms Mann was left unattended for about an hour in the pod, during which she stopped breathing.

An autopsy later revealed she died from the acute toxic effects of the drug amitriptyline.

Following last year's inquest, Ms Mann's mother, Lynette Mansfield, called her daughter's death "devastating and untimely".

She blamed medical and nursing decisions by the hospital for contributing to the death.

The inquest heard a full review of hospital procedure had been undertaken following Ms Mann's death.

Hospital staff in the emergency department can no longer discharge patients to the mental health unit simply by verbal arrangement.

Instead a two-page risk assessment must be undertaken and signed off by a doctor before the patient can be moved.

Dr Thomas Torpie, who was overseeing the hospital's emergency department when Ms Mann was admitted, said the hospital had also increased staff numbers and beds in the department since 2014.Two 13-year-olds are among a group of teenagers arrested over a string of armed robberies and a car theft in inner Sydney.

The arrests follow armed robberies in Zetland, Waterloo, Chippendale, Stanmore and Leichardt in the past week, and the theft of a car from Dulwich Hill on Tuesday.

In some of the robberies, victims were wounded after a knife was produced, police said.

Officers tracked the stolen vehicle to an East Hills address in southwest Sydney on Tuesday and arrested a 13-year-old girl and three boys, aged 13, 14 and 16.

The eldest was taken to hospital in a stable condition under police guard after he was injured while trying to escape.

The other three have each been charged with stealing a car and five counts of armed robbery with an offensive weapon. The 14-year-old boy was also charged with failing to stop during a police pursuit and dangerous driving.

The teenagers who were charged are due to appear at a children's court later on Wednesday.A worker at a factory in China sews a banner for US President Donald Trump's re-election campaign that reads "Trump 2020: Keep America Great"

China said on Tuesday it was impossible to hold trade talks with the United States while Washington is imposing tariffs that are like "holding a knife to someone's throat".

Speaking a day after Washington activated tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods, vice commerce minister Wang Shouwen said China is open to negotiations but that the two sides must treat each other "equally and with respect".

"Now that the US has adopted this type of large-scale trade restrictions, they're holding a knife to someone's throat. Under these circumstances, how can negotiations proceed?" Wang told a news conference.

US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had invited Chinese officials to hold new talks, but President Donald Trump's latest salvo -- and warnings that another $267 billion of goods are being lined up -- appear to have scuttled that effort.

Wang met US officials in Washington in August but there have been no high-level meetings between the world's top two economies for months.

He said Tuesday the US measures "have made it impossible for the negotiations to proceed" and blamed the US for abandoning a consensus on trade that was struck in May, but was quickly followed by new US tariffs.

Trump's China tariffs

High-ranking officials from several Chinese government agencies held a press conference on Tuesday as Beijing rolled out a new white paper claiming to set the record straight on trade related facts.

Fu Ziying, another vice minister of commerce, noted that some in the United States accuse Beijing of engaging in unfair competitive practices, causing the huge trade deficit between the two countries.

"This is totally devoid of fact, groundless, and totally misleading," he said, adding that American firms sold $700 billion worth of goods in China each year, earning more than $500 billion in profit.

- Support for exporters -

The trade fight between the top two economic giants has steadily escalated through the summer, as the US levied two waves of new tariffs that have now hit about $250 billion worth of goods, roughly half of China's exports to the United States.

Beijing has struck back with each step, hitting $110 billion worth of US goods, or nearly everything China buys from the United States.

Experts have warned the snowballing trade spat will harm both economies and even global growth, with Fitch Ratings cutting its growth estimates for China and the world for 2019.

Vice commerce minister Wang Shouwen said the US measures 'have made it impossible for the negotiations to proceed'

China's exports to the US accounted for 19 percent of all its overseas shipments last year, according to the white paper published by China's cabinet, the State Council, on Monday.

Officials in Beijing said they planned to step up support for harmed industries and companies as they seek to offset the trade war's effects.

"We will actively take all types of measures to help companies resolve their difficulties," said Luo Wen, vice minister of industry and information technology.

China will "earnestly reduce taxes and burdens for companies and strive to optimise the business environment", he added.

Some European and American firms have already started shifting supply chains out of China, or put new investments on hold, according to industry group surveys, a potential problem for Beijing as economic growth sags.

Foreign firms said the latest round of US tariffs, hitting a wide swathe of products including electronics and furniture, would worsen their problems, according to the surveys.

Luo called the trade-related risks driving firms out of China a natural phenomenon and said Beijing would look at the situation rationally.

"We believe the vast majority of companies will remain in China and deepen their development," he said.Larry Hillbroom Jr is one of the heirs to the DHL fortune

DHL heir and convicted drug trafficker Larry Hillbroom Jr was given permission Tuesday to leave the Pacific nation of Palau to undergo addiction therapy, with a judge citing his wealth as a major factor in the decision.

The multi-millionaire has long battled substance abuse issues and was convicted in June of trafficking methamphetamine in the tiny island country.

He briefly went on the run in July after failing a drugs test while on probation and faced court on Tuesday.

Associate Justice Lourdes Materne said she would allow Hillbroom to leave Palau for treatment because there were no rehabilitation programmes on the island.

"I find myself giving you another chance," she said.

"One thing that can't be ignored is that he is an addict, and that he has a problem.

"You have been given many chances," she added.

Prosecutors asked for a 30-year sentence but Materne said Hillbroom's wealth meant he was in a unique position to seek treatment that was unavailable in Palau.

However, she said she would impose the 30-year term if he did not complete the rehabilitation programme or failed another drug test after returning to Palau.

Hillbroom, who holds US and Palau passports, is the son of the late Larry Hillblom, co-founder of the freight giant DHL, although their surnames are spelled differently.

He is one of four illegitimate children sired by Hillblom and successfully sued for a share of the billionaire businessman's fortune after Hillblom died in a plane crash in 1995.

Hillbroom's inheritance has been estimated at $100 million, although he said last year that financial mismanagement meant it was now much less.

Hillbroom, normally based in the United States, was visiting Palau in 2016 when he was arrested for allegedly arranging for two women to smuggle methamphetamine from the Philippine capital Manila to Palau.

After admitting to drug trafficking in June he was sentenced to 10 years' probation and fined $50,000 as part of a plea bargain.

The deal angered Palau President Tommy Remengesau, who said at the time that the country's zero tolerance policy on drugs should apply to all people, regardless of their wealth.

Remengesau was out of the country attending the UN General Assembly in New York when the latest decision was handed down and was not available for comment.Already squeezed by a more than decade-long Israeli blockade, Gaza's economy has been further weakened by swingeing US aid cuts and financial measures taken by Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas to try to weaken the enclave's Islamist rulers Hamas

The World Bank warned Tuesday that the Gaza Strip's economy is in "free fall" as cuts to aid and salaries add to an already crippling Israeli blockade on the Hamas-run enclave.

The bank's report will be presented to the international donor group for Palestinians, known as the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee, at its meeting in New York on Thursday on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

The meeting will coincide with the speeches to the assembly of both Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin.

Already squeezed by the more than decade-long Israeli blockade, Gaza's economy has been further weakened by US aid cuts and financial measures by Abbas's Palestinian Authority.

Abbas has been seeking to pressure Islamist movement Hamas, which expelled his loyalists from the territory in 2007, as well as save costs.

According to the World Bank, he has reduced monthly payments to Gaza by some $30 million.

US President Donald Trump's administration has meanwhile cut more than $500 million in aid to the Palestinians, including ending all support for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

"The economic deterioration in both Gaza and West Bank can no longer be counteracted by foreign aid, which has been in steady decline, nor by the private sector, which remains confined by restrictions on movement, access to primary materials and trade," the bank said.

Gaza's economy shrunk by six percent in the first quarter of 2018 "with indications of further deterioration since then," it said.

One Gazan in two now lives below the poverty line and the economic deterioration can no longer be counteracted by foreign aid, the World Bank says ahead of a key donors' meeting in New York on Thursday

The bank said one in two Gazans now lives below the poverty line and that unemployment is running at 53 percent.

More than 70 percent of young people are jobless, it said.

"Increased frustration is feeding into the increased tensions which have already started spilling over into unrest and setting back the human development of the region's large youth population," said Marina Wes, World Bank director for the West Bank and Gaza.

On September 20, UN envoy for the Middle East peace process Nickolay Mladenov told the UN Security Council that "Gaza can explode any minute."

Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza have fought three wars since 2008.

In recent months, mass protests along Gaza's border with Israel have triggered repeated deadly clashes with the army, prompting warnings of the risk of a new conflict.

At least 187 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since the protests began on March 30. One Israeli soldier has been killed in that time.

Israel says its actions are necessary to defend the border and accuses Hamas of using the protests as cover to attempt infiltrations and attacks.

Palestinians and human rights groups say protesters have been shot while posing no real threat.

Mladenov and Egyptian officials have been seeking to broker a long-term truce between Israel and Hamas, but those efforts have stalled in recent weeks.Iranian soldiers take cover at the scene of an attack on a military parade in the southwestern city of Ahvaz on September 22

Iran's intelligence ministry said Tuesday that investigators had found last week's deadly attack on a military parade in the mainly ethnic-Arab southwestern city of Ahvaz was mounted by "jihadist separatists".

"The five members of a terrorist squad affiliated to jihadist separatist groups supported by Arab reactionary countries were identified," the ministry said in a statement posted on its website.

"The terrorists' hideout was found and 22 people involved (in the attack) were arrested," it said, adding that explosives were seized along with military and communications equipment.

"Foreign sponsors and supporters of this terrorist act have also been identified. More information will be provided on them in due course," the statement said.

Twenty-four people were killed when gunmen attacked the Saturday parade in Khuzestan province commemorating the start of the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.

Iranian officials were quick to point the finger at Arab separatists, backed by Gulf Arab allies of the United States. They said that the four gunmen had been killed.

Khuzestan, which has a large ethnic Arab community, was a major battleground of the 1980s war with Iraq and it saw unrest in 2005 and 2011.

A movement called the "Ahvaz National Resistance" and the Islamic State jihadist group both claimed responsibility.Philippines senator Antonio Trillanes was arrested at a police station in Manila

A Philippine lawmaker fiercely critical of President Rodrigo Duterte's drug war was arrested Tuesday on charges for which he had been granted amnesty, a move condemned by watchdogs as persecution of the government's opponents.

Senator Antonio Trillanes was taken into custody and then posted bail in Manila shortly after a court-issued warrant forced him from the Senate building, where he has been holed up for weeks to avoid arrest.

Trillanes is the second senator critical of Duterte's drug war to be detained. Leila de Lima has been behind bars since February 2017 on charges which she says were concocted to silence her.

Duterte earlier this month voided an amnesty granted eight years ago to the senator, a former navy officer, for his role in two coup attempts in the mid-2000s.

"They twisted the law so our democracy and institutions failed," Trillanes told reporters. "This (case) has nothing to do with anything except for the vengeance of Duterte and his underlings."

Duterte issued a decree earlier this month ordering Trillanes' arrest on the grounds that he had not completed the requirements of filing an official application for amnesty and admitting guilt.

The case has prompted concern in the Philippines. Critics have questioned whether presidents have the power to undo amnesties, a repeatedly used tool in a nation plagued by insurgencies and military rebellions.

- 'Hitman mindset' -

"The arrest... is part of the persecution of critics of the Duterte administration, the latest in the relentless campaign to silence those who dared to challenge the president's murderous 'drug war'," said Carlos Conde of Human Rights Watch Philippines.

Bigger legal trouble could await Trillanes because the government is still seeking his arrest on another charge, stemming from a separate coup attempt, which does not carry bail.

The Philippines' creaking legal system is notoriously slow and defendants can remain behind bars for years before they get their day in court.

After being released on Tuesday Trillanes returned to the safe haven of the Senate, where lawmakers have a certain amount of protection against arrest.

Along with De Lima, Trillanes is Duterte's loudest critic, telling AFP last year: "This man is a sociopath and he has the mindset of a hitman."

Trillanes last year appealed to the International Criminal Court to investigate killings in Duterte's war on drugs and has repeatedly accused the president of being a mass murderer and holding secret bank accounts.

Last year Trillanes also had the president's eldest son Paolo brought before a Senate inquiry to face allegations that he was involved in drug trafficking, which the younger Duterte denied.

Trillanes had faced rebellion and coup d'etat charges for being among military officers who rose up against then-president Gloria Arroyo over alleged corruption and mismanagement.

He led scores of junior officers in taking over part of Manila's Makati business district in 2003 and seizing a luxury Manila hotel in 2007 along with several armed followers as they demanded Arroyo's resignation.Surf's up: South Africa is relaxing its visa rules, hoping to lure tourists to its stunning beaches and wildlife parks

South Africa on Tuesday announced visa reforms aimed at luring investment and tourists to help lift the continent's most advanced economy out of recession.

Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba unveiled a raft of regulations allowing frequent visitors and foreign business travellers to have long-term multiple-entry visas of up to 10 years.

The rules will take effect from next month.

"Changes to our visa architecture have the potential to boost tourism and make business travel more conducive," Gigaba told reporters.

"We are simplifying visa requirements for countries such as China and India."

Applicants from those two countries will be able to have a 10-year visa processed within five days.

"This arrangement is meant to attract business people and prospective investors," he said.

Anti-trafficking rules requiring parents to travel with birth certificates of their children will be simplified, he added.

Tourism contributes 10 percent of South Africa's total Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Visa reforms are part of an economic stimulus plan announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa on Friday to boost investor confidence after South Africa entered a recession in the second quarter of this year.

The plan also includes large-scale infrastructural development.

Data showing that South Africa had slipped into recession dealt a blow to Ramaphosa who came to office in February ahead of elections next year.Popular Indonesian rock band Boomerang, whose new music focuses on conservation, performed at the top of the refinery tanks

Greenpeace activists have scaled an Indonesian palm oil refinery with a popular rock band who played some of their pro-environment songs from the top of the structure, it said Tuesday, protesting a commodity found in everything from soap to biscuits.

The green group said 30 activists -- including several foreigners -- and Indonesian metal group Boomerang were "occupying" the site in Sulawesi island to draw attention to widespread environmental destruction caused by planting the widely used edible oil.

They painted "Dirty" in large letters and dropped a banner that read "Drop Dirty Palm Oil Now" on storage tanks owned by Singapore-listed Wilmar International, the world's biggest palm oil trader which supplies major brands including Colgate, Nestle and Unilever, it said.

One group of activists also climbed the anchor chain of a tanker ship transporting palm oil and are preventing it from moving, according to the group.

Activists also painted 'Dirty' on storage tanks owned by Singapore-listed Wilmar International, the world's biggest palm oil trader which supplies major brands including Colgate, Nestle and Unilever

Meanwhile, Boomerang -- which got its start in the mid-nineties and whose new music focuses on conservation -- performed at the top of the refinery tanks.

Greenpeace has accused Singapore-listed Wilmar of still being linked to deforestation in Indonesia -- the world's biggest palm oil exporter -- despite committing five years ago to stop logging the Southeast Asian archipelago's vast tracts of jungle.

"This refinery is loaded with Wilmar's dirty palm oil and if we weren't here it would be on its way to factories and supermarkets all over the world," Greenpeace said.

Wilmar did not immediately comment on the protest.

Last week, Indonesia's president signed a three-year moratorium on all new palm oil plantation development in the country.Japanese sumo stable master and former sumo grand champion Takanohana said his decision to step down was 'gut wrenching'

A top sumo stablemaster resigned Tuesday over a scandal that rocked Japan's traditional sport, in which one of his wrestlers was brutally beaten in a drunken brawl with another fighter.

Takanohana, a former Grand Champion or "yokozuna" who is a household name in Japan, laid the blame at the door of sumo officials for what he said was an "agonising" and "gut-wrenching" decision.

He claimed the Japan Sumo Association (JSA) had pressured him to admit he had fabricated his report over the October incident, which rocked Japan's traditional sport.

"I cannot bend the truth and say that what was in my complaint was untrue," he told a nationally televised press conference.

JSA officials were not immediately available for comment.

With his retirement, Takanohana's wrestlers and staff will transfer to another stable.

In October, one of his wrestlers, Takanoiwa, became embroiled in a fight with Harumafuji, a top-ranked yokozuna, which left him with a fractured skull.

Harumafuji, who is Mongolian, stepped down over the assault and was fined 500,000 yen ($4,400).

In a well-documented and celebrated career, Takanohana along with his elder brother Wakanohana, shot to stardom during their competitive careers during the 1990s and early 2000s.

Their rise to yokozuna boosted the popularity of sumo.

But his resignation is the latest scandal to hit the sport in recent years, from allegations of bout-fixing to drugs arrests and violent bullying -- the most serious case resulting in the death of a teenage wrestler in 2007.

Earlier this year, sumo became involved in a sexism row after women who rushed to the aid of a local mayor who had collapsed during a speech at a regional event were repeatedly told to leave a ring.

Sumo dirt rings, known as "dohyo", are viewed as sacred in the Japanese Shinto faith and women -- considered to be ritually unclean -- are not allowed to enter for fear of desecrating the hallowed soil.On the opening day of the General Assembly debate, Trump and Rouhani are to take their turn at the podium four months after the US president ditched the Iran nuclear deal

President Donald Trump said Tuesday he had no plans to meet with Iranian leader Hassan Rouhani at the United Nations "despite requests" to do so.

"Maybe someday in the future. I am sure he is an absolutely lovely man!" Trump tweeted just hours before both leaders were set to speak at the UN General Assembly, and four months after the US president ditched the Iran nuclear deal.

Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal in May to the dismay of European allies, Russia and China which had invested years in negotiations to achieve a milestone agreement on keeping Iran's nuclear ambitions in check.

Rouhani earlier said that as a precondition for any dialogue, Trump would need to repair the damage done by exiting the nuclear deal. "That bridge must be rebuilt," he told NBC news.

The United States maintains that it is seeking to ramp up pressure on Iran which it accuses of sowing chaos in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon.

In his General Assembly address, Rouhani was to stress that Iran continues to stick to the 2015 deal and portray the United States as a pariah for breaking its international commitments.Hard-pressed Afghan troops rely on US air support

The United Nations said Tuesday it was investigating "credible reports" that nine members of a family had been killed in an air strike in Afghanistan, but US Forces denied the victims were civilians.

Women and children were among those reportedly killed on Saturday after an "aerial ordnance" hit the home of a teacher in Tagab district in the eastern province of Kapisa, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said in a statement.

Six other family members were wounded in the attack on Badrab village, UNAMA added, citing "multiple, credible allegations".

"All the victims from the attack were from the same family, including grandparents and children aged between two and 12," it said.

Latif, whose home was one of three damaged in the strike, told AFP on Monday that 15 members of a family including three children were killed when a "bomb" hit their house on Saturday night.

But local officials told AFP they had not received any reports of civilian casualties.

US Forces spokesman David Butler said Afghan ground troops involved in a gunbattle had been forced to call in US air support.

"Only militants" were killed, Butler said in a statement on Tuesday, adding that US Forces "suppressed the target, killing the militants who were firing against our partners".

The Afghan National Army later reported that locals had been told to claim civilian casualties, Butler said.

A US Forces assessment showed nine militants were killed.

Initially, before the UNAMA statement was published, US Forces had said that "six militia" were wounded in the incident after a US forces helicopter returned fire "in self defense" and were being treated in a US hospital.

Local militias often work with overstretched security forces in Afghanistan.

UNAMA said it was in contact with Afghan and US forces as part of its "ongoing independent verification process".

In a separate incident, 12 members of a family were killed in airstrikes targeting Taliban fighters in Wardak province near Kabul on Monday, provincial council member Ahmad Jahfari told AFP.

But provincial governor spokesman Abdul Rahman Mangal said there had been "no reports of any civilian casualties" in the ongoing operation in Jaghato district that had so far killed more than 40 Taliban.

US Forces did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Civilian deaths from air strikes have risen sharply this year as Afghan and US forces intensify the aerial bombardment of Taliban and Islamic State group militants.

UNAMA documented 353 civilian casualties -- 149 deaths and 204 injuries -- from aerial attacks in the first six months of this year -- up 52 percent from the same period in 2017.

The Afghan Air Force was responsible for 52 percent of the casualties, UNAMA said.

"International military forces" accounted for 45 percent. The US is the only international force known to conduct air strikes in Afghanistan.

str-mam-emh-amj/st/smThe Undead Archives

I have finally salvaged my pre-Blogger TDR archives and added them into Blogger. They are almost totally in the form of one giant post for each month. And the formatting strayed from the originals. Sorry. But historians everywhere can rejoice that this treasure trove of my thoughts is restored to the world.Michael Kors is headquartered in London

Global fashion house Michael Kors said Tuesday it had agreed to buy Italian luxury giant Versace, adding a new layer to its offering after buying shoemaker Jimmy Choo last year.

Michael Kors, with roots in the United States but headquartered in London, has struck a deal to buy Versace for 1.83 billion euros ($2.1 billion), a statement said.

"We are excited to have Versace as part of our family of luxury brands, and we are committed to investing in its growth," said Michael Kors chief executive John D. Idol.

"With the full resources of our group, we believe that Versace will grow to over $2.0 billion in revenues," he added.

"We believe that the strength of the Michael Kors and Jimmy Choo brands, and the acquisition of Versace, position us to deliver multiple years of revenue and earnings growth."

Donatella Versace, artistic director and vice-president of the Italian group, said the takeover was "essential to Versace's long-term success".

She added in the statement: "We are all very excited to join a group led by John Idol, whom I have always admired as a visionary as well as a strong and passionate leader."

- Bags, watches and perfume -

Michael Kors, best known for its bags, watches and perfume, said it planned to grow the number of Versace stores worldwide by 50 percent to 300.

The deal is the latest push by Michael Kors into high-end luxury after it bought British shoemaker to the stars Jimmy Choo in 2017 for $1.4 billion.

It is seen also as positioning Michael Kors more fully as a competitor to Paris-based LVMH and Kering and the Swiss company Richemont among global heavyweights in luxury across various product lines, analysts said.

Versace was the brainchild of Gianni Versace, who was born in Calabria to a dressmaker mother and presented his first signature collection in 1978, with his brother Santo taking care of the label's business arm.

But the designer, whose bold designs were embraced by Madonna and other mega-celebrities, was the victim of a bizarre slaying in 1997 by luxury-obsessed male prostitute Andrew Cunanan in Miami.

Twenty percent of Versace, known for its Medusa head logo, was bought by US private equity group Blackstone in 2014, and the family owns the rest.

Versace chief executive Jonathan Akeroyd on Tuesday said that since joining the company two years ago, "focus has been on leveraging the company's heritage and strong brand recognition worldwide", in turn helping "to experience significant growth in all regions".

Launched in 1981, Michael Kors is named after its US founder.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the weekly cabinet meeting at the Prime Minister's office in Jerusalem on September 16, 2018

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged Tuesday to continue combatting Iranian "entrenchment" in Syria and coordinating with Russia after the downing of one of Moscow's planes.

"We will continue to act to prevent the Iranian military entrenchment in Syria, and continue the security coordination between the Israel Defence Forces and Russian army," Netanyahu told reporters.

On September 17, Syrian air defences mistakenly shot down a Russian military plane following an Israeli raid in Syria, killing 15 people.

Moscow has blamed the friendly fire incident on Israeli pilots using the larger Russian plane as "cover".

Israel disputes the Russian findings and says its jets were back in Israeli airspace when the plane was downed.

Russia announced new security measures to protect its military in Syria, including supplying the Syrian army with an S-300 air defence system and jamming radars of nearby warplanes.

Those moves prompted Netanyahu on Monday to warn Putin against "transferring advanced weapons systems into irresponsible hands".

Speaking at the airport before travelling to New York for the United Nations General Assembly, Netanyahu stressed Israel's "great success" in preventing Iranian military entrenchment in Syria and the transfer of advanced arms to Hezbollah in Lebanon over the past three years.

"That doesn't mean that there weren't exceptions, but altogether it has been very successful," Netanyahu said.

"We did this with maximal and very successful security coordination with the Russian army."

Netanyahu also noted he had agreed with Putin to have Israeli and Russian military teams meet soon to enhance the coordination.

Russia and Israel set up a hotline in 2015 to avoid accidental clashes in Syria. Israel is now concerned Russia will seek to limit its actions there.

Israel's main enemy is Iran and it has pledged to stop it from entrenching militarily in neighbouring Syria.

Iranian-backed Hezbollah is also one of its enemies.

Both Iran and Hezbollah are supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime in his country's civil war alongside Russia.A handout photo by SOS Mediterranee shows migrants resting after being rescued by the Aquarius rescue ship in the Mediterranean Sea on September 20

France is pushing for the Aquarius rescue ship to dock in Malta and unload the 58 migrants on board, a source in the presidential office said on Tuesday.

"We are clear on the fact that it shouldn't spend four to five days at sea going towards France or Spain or anywhere," the source said on condition of anonymity. "It needs to dock soon and it is close to Malta at the moment."

France, which is reluctant to accept a request to take in the Aquarius in Marseille, wants a "solution worked out with its European partners" along the same lines as the one found in August when the boat docked in Malta.

The 141 migrants on board at the time were then distributed between France, Germany, Luxembourg, Portugal and Spain.

The French presidency said it was seeking to uphold international law under which the nearest safe country should take in the boat, pointing out the ship was also close to Italy.

But Italy's far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini has vowed to prevent the Aquarius ever entering his nation's territory again and has accused it of offering a "taxi service" for migrants from Libya to Europe.

The aide to French President Emmanuel Macron lambasted the Italian government for its attitude to immigration and for blocking a new permanent solution to manage the docking and distribution of migrants rescued by charity boats in the Mediterranean.

"It's not moving forward because those who criticise the lack of French or European solidarity, starting with Italy, don't want a permanent, durable mechanism," said the aide.

"Why? Because a number of politicians are living off the migrant crisis, which is a political crisis," he added.US Secretary Of State Mike Pompeo voices US "concern" over Hong Kong's ban of a pro-independence party

The United States on Tuesday urged Hong Kong to allow freedom of expression as it voiced concern over a ban on the pro-independence party.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a statement said the United States was "concerned" by the ban on the Hong Kong National Party, a first since Britain handed back the trading port 21 years ago to China which assured it would allow semi-autonomy.

"The US supports the freedoms of expression, peaceful assembly, and association," Pompeo said.

"These are core values we share with Hong Kong, and that must be vigorously protected," added Pompeo who is in New York for the annual United Nations General Assembly.

Hong Kong said it was upholding a request from the police to ban the tiny party -- whose core membership is only around a dozen people -- in the interest of preserving public order.

Britain also said it was "concerned" about the move, while stressing that it did not advocate independence for the city.

China voiced "strong dissatisfaction" over foreign criticism, calling on countries not to interfere in Hong Kong or Chinese affairs.Russian President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attend an event marking the Holocaust and the anniversary of the lifting of the Nazi siege of Leningrad in Moscow on January 29, 2018

The accidental downing of a Russian plane with 15 soldiers on board has tested relations between Moscow and Israel, which fears President Vladimir Putin will seek to curtail its actions in Syria as a result.

Analysts say they believe Russia and Israel will eventually move past the incident without severely limiting Israel's freedom of action in Syria, where it has carried out hundreds of strikes against Iranian and Hezbollah targets.

But Russia, whose plane was shot down by Syrian air defences after an Israeli strike and strongly criticised Israel over it, has since announced it plans to send an advanced S-300 air defence system to the Syrian military.

It also says it will jam communications of planes that attack Syria from the Mediterranean.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has so far sought to strike a balance between expressing sorrow over the Russian deaths, stressing his commitment to cooperation with Moscow and vowing to continue to act against Iran and Hezbollah in Syria.

"We will continue to act to prevent the Iranian military entrenchment in Syria, and continue the security coordination between the Israel Defence Forces and Russian army," Netanyahu said Tuesday.

- 'Very serious issue' -

But Netanyahu's government has little choice but to take into account Russia's anger over the incident and the potential risk to Israeli aircraft, analysts say.

In deciding to provide Syria with the S-300 system, Russia overrode years of Israeli opposition to supplying President Bashar al-Assad's regime with the technology.

Eran Lerman, former deputy director for foreign policy at Israel's National Security Council, called it a "very serious issue" that could amount to an "intolerable situation from an Israeli perspective".

But he added that it seems communication "channels remain open and operational".

"We don't work for the same purposes, but we have a common interest in preventing clashes," said Lerman, adding that there are "mutual understandings" that can eventually prevail.

Israel and Russia put a hotline in place in 2015 to avoid accidental clashes in Syria.

In recent years, Israel has carried out repeated strikes against Iranian targets in Syria as well as what it says are advanced arms deliveries to Hezbollah.

It has hit Syrian sites where those targets were located.

Iran and Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah, two of Israel's main enemies, are backing Assad in his country's civil war alongside Russia.

Israel also remains technically at war with Syria.

Russia strongly criticised Israel after Syrian air defences downed a Russian IL-20 military plane after an Israeli air strike on the war-torn country

The hotline -- or "deconfliction mechanism" as diplomats refer to it -- failed to prevent Russia's Ilyushin Il-20 military plane being shot down on September 17 by Syrian air defences.

Syria was responding to an Israeli strike, and Russia accused the Israeli pilots of using its larger plane as "cover" while only giving one minute of advance notice for their raid.

Israel strongly denied the Russian version of events.

In a further sign of the seriousness of the Russian reaction, Netanyahu convened a meeting of his security council on Tuesday to discuss the issue before flying to New York for the UN General Assembly.

He said afterwards that he had agreed with Putin to have Israeli and Russian military teams meet soon to enhance coordination.

- 'Only concern for now' -

But Israel sees the stakes as too high to accept severe limitations on its actions against Iran and Hezbollah in Syria, some analysts said.

Its pilots have already been trained to deal with the threat of the S-300, they say.

As for the Russians, they have not forgotten the 1970 battle when Israeli Phantom and Mirage planes destroyed Soviet MiGs stationed in Egypt in a matter of minutes, said Efraim Inbar, head of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategic Studies

Lerman does not believe the Russians are looking to escalate the situation, not wanting to compromise their gains in Syria.

But he believes that Russia will try to use the September 17 incident as a "bargaining chip in the larger game that they are playing with the United States and the international community."

Russian expert Vladimir Sotnikov also does not see a severe downturn in relations.

"Russia's only concern for now is to reach a settlement in the Syrian conflict because its armed forces are there," he said.

"Israel is a very important partner for Moscow. It is an ally of the United States, with whom Moscow wants to renew dialogue."Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (L) arrives on the floor of the United Nations General Assembly at the United Nations building in New York on September 24, 2018

Canada has called out China for its human right abuses, notably of the Muslim Uighurs, officials said Tuesday.

"Every single time I sit down with any world leader, but particularly ones where there are human rights concerns, I bring up human rights," Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.

Up to one million Uighurs and other Muslim minorities have been detained in internment camps in China's far western Xinjiang region, according to estimates cited by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

Canada's Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said she met on Monday with her Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, "and I did raise the issue of the Uighurs."

"We who live in freedom do have an obligation to stand up for people who don't," she said.

Beijing has disputed the findings of the UN report, saying the actions were necessary to combat extremism and terrorism on the country's western frontier, on the border with Pakistan.

Authorities in China have long denied the existence of internment camps despite mounting evidence from both official documents and testimonies from those who have been held in them.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday denounced Beijing's religious repression.

"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.

China has stepped up a crackdown in Xinjiang against what it calls Islamic extremism and separatist elements but many Muslims in the region accuse Beijing of religious and cultural repression.US President Donald Trump was comparatively subdued in his address to the UN General Assembly, a year after he stunned the global body with his bellicose language on North Korea

President Donald Trump on Tuesday urged heavy pressure both on Iran and Washington's trading partners as he offered a robust defense of the US right to go it alone.

Addressing world leaders at the start of the annual United Nations General Assembly, Trump lashed out at the OPEC oil cartel, China's trade policies and the International Criminal Court which he vowed the United States would never accept.

Hours before Iranian President Hassan Rouhani takes the same rostrum, Trump denounced the clerical regime as sowing "chaos, death and destruction" and doubled down on the US withdrawal of an international agreement on curbing Tehran's nuclear program.

But the real estate mogul turned populist leader was comparatively subdued a year after he stunned the global body with his bellicose language on North Korea, including a threat to "totally destroy" Kim Jong Un's state.

This time around, Trump heralded his own diplomacy on North Korea including a historic summit in June with Kim, saying he has worked to "replace the specter of conflict with a bold and new push for peace."

With midterm elections in the United States little more than a month away, Trump's address at times took on the feel of a campaign address as he heralded low unemployment.

Boasting that his team "has achieved more than any administration in the history of our country," Trump was met with laughter, highly unusual in the solemn General Assembly.

"I didn't expect that reaction, but that's okay," Trump responded.

- Isolating Iran -

Iran is a major focus of the annual week of UN diplomacy, months after Trump irritated US allies in Europe by withdrawing from a 2015 agreement under which Tehran has sharply curtailed its nuclear program in return for sanctions relief.

With midterm elections in the United States little more than a month away, Donald Trump's address to the UN General Assembly at times took on the feel of a campaign address

A day after the European Union announced a new legal framework in hopes that companies can keep doing business with Iran and evade incoming US sanctions, Trump demanded that all countries take aim at Tehran -- and noted that his decision has been popular among the Shiite-majority nation's Sunni Arab rivals.

"We cannot allow the world's leading sponsor of terrorism to possess the planet's most dangerous weapons," Trump said, in an allusion to Tehran's support for Islamic militant movements such as Hamas and Hezbollah.

"We cannot allow a regime that chants 'Death to America' and that threatens Israel with annihilation, to possess the means to deliver a nuclear warhead to any city on Earth," he said.

"We ask all nations to isolate Iran's regime as long as its aggression continues."

- 'America will never apologize' -

Trump robustly attacked the "globalist" view of the world -- shared by many at the United Nations and on the political left in the United States -- and vowed: "America will never apologize for protecting its citizens."

He said that the UN-backed International Criminal Court has "no jurisdiction, no legitimacy and no authority."

His national security adviser John Bolton earlier went so far as to threaten to prosecute judges from the court in The Hague if they take up accusations against US forces in Afghanistan.

"We will never surrender America's sovereignty to an unelected, unaccountable global bureaucracy. America is governed by Americans," Trump said.

Amid a growing trade war with China, Trump said that the commercial imbalance with the Asian power "cannot be tolerated" and reserved harsh words for OPEC, the global oil cartel that includes both US allies and foes.

"OPEC and OPEC nations are, as usual, ripping off the rest of the world, and I don't like it. Nobody should like it."US President Donald Trump sparked laughter at the normally staid UN General Assembly debate when boasted that his administration had achieved more than any other in US history

Donald Trump, whose political ascent has been full of firsts, on Tuesday achieved another rare feat -- bringing laughter to the solemn UN General Assembly.

Delivering his address to the annual gathering of UN heads of state, Trump began in the hyperbolic style of a domestic campaign as he boasted of his record.

"In less than two years, my administration has achieved more than any administration in the history of our country," Trump boasted, little more than a month before US congressional elections.

As assembled global dignitaries started to chuckle, Trump interrupted his prepared remarks and insisted, "So true."

With the laughter audible, Trump smiled and said, "I didn't expect that reaction, but that's okay."

He proceeded to tout low US unemployment before proceeding with the rest of his address, a hardline defense of the US right to act on its own without bowing to global rules.

Trump urged international pressure against Iran, after he annoyed European allies by withdrawing from an agreement on curbing Tehran's nuclear program, and lashed out at the OPEC cartel over oil prices and China over the imbalance in trade.

Light moments are exceedingly unusual in the UN General Assembly, which follows a strict protocol in with each world leader is escorted to the rostrum for an address on issues of the day.

In 2015, Zimbabwe's then 91-year-old strongman Robert Mugabe was met with laughter when he shouted "We are not gays!," part of his longstanding insistence that homosexuality is non-African.US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer (left) says negotiators are running out of time to include Canada in the rewrite of the North American Free Trade Agreement

The United States and Mexico could move ahead without Canada in a new version of the North American Free Trade Agreement, US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said Tuesday, according to media reports.

Momentum appeared to have stalled last week in efforts to bridge differences between Washington and Ottawa in negotiations to rewrite NAFTA, which began last year.

Washington and Mexico City last month announced agreement on a new trade pact, but a separate track of intensive talks with Canada have so far failed to produce results.

"There is still a fair amount of distance between us," Lighthizer said at a conference in New York, according to press reports. "If Canada comes along later, then that's what will happen."

President Donald Trump has informed Congress he intends to sign a new deal, with or without Canada, by late November before Mexico's new president takes office.

But Ottawa has resisted pressure to meet Washington's self-imposed September 30 deadline for agreeing to terms to revise the 25-year-old trade deal.

Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said earlier Tuesday that there was "a possibility to build on what they agreed," but that his priority is to reach "the right deal."

Lighthizer said negotiators were "sort of running out of time" to finalized the terms by the weekend, according to The Washington Post.

If differences with Ottawa cannot be resolved by then, the Trump administration will ask Congress to approve a Mexico-only deal, he said.

Remaining sticking points concern Canada's state-managed system of dairy production, protections for Canadian cultural industries and provisions for resolving dispute that arise among NAFTA partners, which Trump is seeking to eliminate.Speaking during the UN General Assembly, Donald Trump once more defended his embattled court nominee Brett Kavanaugh -- and rejected the claims of a second woman accsuing the judge of sexual misconduct, saying she was "drunk" at the time

With #MeToo firing up millions of women against sexual abuse by male bosses and President Donald Trump routinely weighing in on the side of the accused, America faces an all-out war of the sexes ahead of November elections.

A major first battle will erupt Thursday, when the Senate, controlled by Trump's Republicans, meets in the bitter confirmation process for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

Kavanaugh, handpicked by Trump, is accused of sexual assault when he was a drunk 17-year-old schoolboy, and of waving his penis in the face of a drunk woman while attending Yale University a few years later.

It's a scandal that has not only tripped up what seemed to be an easy confirmation process, but merged with the wider #MeToo movement.

Kavanaugh says neither incident happened and Trump has not only stood by his nominee, but cast him as the true victim -- and the women bringing accusations as political pawns, insinuating that they lied.

"I'm with Judge Kavanaugh," Trump said Monday in a statement that could practically be the slogan of a #MeToo counter-movement T-shirt.

- Speaking from experience -

In an era when women's accusations of sexual impropriety -- despite being untested in court -- are enough to bring down the likes of disgraced Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, Trump's uncompromising position might seem politically risky.

But he clearly speaks from personal conviction.

Demonstrators have been gathering daily outside the US Supreme Court in protest against the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to a lifelong post on the bench

Trump has not only defended other Republicans caught in sexual assault controversies -- such as former White House aide Rob Porter who was accused of giving an ex-wife a black eye -- but faced down his own scandals.

These include multiple allegations of infidelity, sexual harassment, bursting into changing rooms at beauty contests and, most infamously, bragging that he was such a big celebrity he could walk right up to women "and grab 'em by the pussy."

An ordinary politician might have been sunk by any one of those incidents.

Trump brushed them all off, for example dismissing the "grab 'em" remark as harmless "locker room talk."

It worked. He got elected president.

But will it work two years later at the midterms, which take place in six weeks, with polls showing women set to transform #MeToo into a political force?

- 'War on women' -

Republican strategist Evan Siegfried says there's some method to what critics would see as Trump's madness.

After all, many Americans on the right feel that #MeToo is political correctness run amok, at times destroying men's lifelong reputations on the basis of nothing more than he-said/she-said disputes.

So yes, Trump's scornful comment about women coming "out of the woodwork" with decades-old allegations infuriated leftist activists and trauma counsellors.

Donald Trump has brushed off multiple allegations of infidelity, including a fling with porn star Stormy Daniels -- who was paid off by his lawyer to buy her silence

They point out that sexual assault victims typically bear their pain in secret -- or did until the #MeToo movement.

But the Republican base will greet Trump's position as a breath of fresh air, Siegfried said.

"He's hitting a really good button with the conservative base," the strategist said. "The vast majority of the conservative base is saying these are really weak allegations and even if they're true, some are saying, 'Well, boys will be boys.'"

The real problem for Republicans, Siegfried says, is that just the base won't win elections.

"We've got a big problem with women voters who are saying, 'We're done'" with the Republicans, Siegfried said. "Now the Trump administration is reinforcing the narrative that we have a war on women."

"It looks like we're going to be punished in November."

- Brace for the backlash -

Women dressed as characters from the novel-turned-TV series "The Handmaid's Tale" -- set in a dystopian America where women are severely oppressed -- turned out to protest Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court

Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said women "already were disproportionately choosing the Democratic ticket."

And Trump's position "can't possibly help Republicans to make up any ground."

At the National Women's Law Center, an advocacy group, Emily Martin warned the Republicans to brace themselves.

The election of Trump laid the groundwork for #MeToo, and his stand on Kavanaugh "only increases the energy around these issues for many, many women," Martin said.

Some on the right will be cheered by Trump's position, Martin acknowledged.

"But I think that will be overpowered by the backlash."India is the second largest cement manufacturer in the world with a total production capacity of nearly 455 million tonnes, as of 2017-18, and a per capita consumption at approximately 225 kg. The countrys demand for cement is driven primarily by the housing and real estate sector and a renewed push to develop world-class infrastructure.

Business expansion, decentrailsed manufacturing, and industry demand for variants have contributed to the industrys volume, which is estimated to be growing at 5- 6 percent every year. However, despite the growth rate, increasing competitive pressures, rising raw material and energy prices, coupled with stricter regulations for environmental protection are making efficient and sustainable use of resources a top challenge for the cement industry. Being an energy-intensive sector, cement production requires huge amounts of coal to power operations. Even a modest efficiency improvement can make a big difference to a cement producers carbon footprint and its balance sheet. The fast-paced and dynamic cement industry has started to adopt and adapt automation and digitalized technologies to help the cement industry become more competitive, efficient and sustainable.

One fine example of optimised cement production is Wonder Cements Greenfield plant in Nimbahera, Chittorgarh district, in Rajasthan. The company has differentiated itself by constantly investing in new technology to overcome traditional challenges like transportation cost of raw materials, nished cement, and utilization of pet coke. However, with the use of automation technology provided by Siemens, Wonder Cement has successfully made the leap to a higher level of capacity, efficiency, and flexibility.

This has been achieved by leveraging Siemens concept of Automation and Digitalization which uses real-time plant data to make precise predictions about quality parameters and can be integrated into the plants daily operations. From the quarry to the kiln and from the clinker silo to the shipping facility, the automation solutions, and energy-efficient drives and services cover the entire cement production process chain.

Cement is one of the oldest and most matured vertical markets in which Siemens operates. We have over the last 40 years, consistently provided market leading innovative solutions to the Indian cement industry. Our engineering, vertical knowhow and top end products offer solid foundations to build digital solutions which assist our customers enhance productivity, reliability of operations and safety of personnel and environment, Bhaskar Mandal, Country Division Lead, Process Industries and Drives, Siemens Ltd said.

Making A Smarter Cement Factory

At the heart of Wonder Cements smart factory is the Siemens CEMAT Automation software. The CEMAT automation standard, a distributed control system (DCS) based on SIMATIC PCS 7 helps give plant operators control of the complete steps within the production chain  from the extraction of raw materials through to packaging of the end products  and also offers supplementary modules for process optimization. However to ensure economical operation of the plant and avoid expensive standstills, further digitalization was essential.

For the Wonder Cement plant, Siemens also installed a Kiln Control System (KCS). An autopilot for cement kilns, KCS improves the quality as well as efficiency of clinker production. Working in tandem with Siemens Mill Control System (MCS)  a software which increases the efficiency of clinker milling - the cyber-physical systems ensure that plant operators have all the vital real time information they need about the manufacturing process. Another benefit of automating the factory was that operators were freed from monotonous routine work, so they could concentrate on key tasks. Furthermore, at any time the set points in the digital controllers can be adjusted to achieve stable production conditions at an optimum level. The solutions which are very user friendly can be easily tuned to ever-changing process conditions to optimally run the loops.

As a result of such advanced automation and digitalization, Wonder Cements Nimbahera plant has improved its efficiency through more stable production processes, and better quality thanks to well-balanced sintering conditions. Furthermore, the lifetimes of the refractory and the equipment have been extended, and emissions have been lowered. As a whole, the construction industry is being assessed in terms of energy efficiency and making cement with a lower carbon footprint goes a long way in making infrastructure development eco-friendly.

In addition to greater productivity, Siemens has also improved the flexibility with which Wonder Cement can control the scale of production. The plant currently has the capacity to produce 6.75 million tons per annum of cement, and Wonder Cement plans to increase its capacity to 10 million tons per annum.

With the thrust on expansion and upgradation of infrastructure and affordable housing in the country, the cement industry enjoys strong growth prospects. Due to the increasing demand in housing, commercial construction and industrial construction, the cement industry is expected to reach 550-600 million tonnes per annum by the year 2025 from 455 million tonnes in 2017-18. With an influx of foreign players expected to put pressure on the profit margins, companies need to level the playing field by integrating digitalization to the core manufacturing practices to achieve energy efficient and more sustainable production  and still deliver world-class quality.If you have recipes or tips to share, or a request, please send to: Conversations with Gin, P.O. Box 334, Clute TX. 77531, or email to: ginscolumn@hotmail.com.The US state of Virginia has banned female prison visitors from wearing tampons to prevent drug smuggling

Rights advocates on Tuesday blasted the state of Virginia for a "humiliating" new policy that bans female visitors to state prisons from wearing tampons or menstrual cups to prevent possible smuggling.

"Such a policy discourages those who wish to visit people who are incarcerated & requires them to set aside their dignity & health," said the American Civil Liberties Union, the leading US rights group.

"This policy is not only invasive, it is discriminatory and humiliating," the group said on Twitter.

The ACLU slammed the new policy, which was approved on Monday by the state corrections system, as "simply unacceptable."

Prison visitors will be notified of the new policy and offered menstrual pads instead.

State prison officials say the ban is aimed at cracking down on drugs, which some women in the past have smuggled into the prison in their vaginas.

According to the new rules, the female prison visitors will have to submit to a body scan to ensure compliance.Network servers and emails are the principal weak links when it comes to health care data hacks, a study in JAMA finds

There has been an explosion of health care data breaches in the United States in recent years, a study out Tuesday says.

Between 2010 and last year 176 million health records were breached, according to the medical journal JAMA. The research is based on reports that health care providers and insurance companies sent to US health authorities.

The number of hacked files jumped in 2015, increasing cumulatively from 3.3 million in 2014 to 115 million the following year and peaking at 132 million in 2017 (cumulative since 2010), according to the study.

Other types of breaches include the loss or theft of paper or film documents, and laptop files.

Network servers and emails are the principal weak links.

While health care providers represent the largest number of breaches, the vast majority of the breached records are from health care insurers, where most of the data is concentrated.

More than half of all Americans have private health insurance, while some people -- especially those over the age of 65 -- can qualify for government health care assistance.

"Although networked digital health records have the potential to improve clinical care and facilitate learning health systems," the authors wrote, "they also have the potential for harm to vast numbers of patients at once if data security is not improved."Iranian President Hassan Rouhani accuses Washington of trying to overthrow his government, in a speech at the UN General Assembly

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani accused his US counterpart Donald Trump of trying to topple his government Tuesday as he poured cold water on the idea of resuming talks with Washington after its pullout from an international nuclear accord.

"It is ironic that the US government does not even conceal its plan for overthrowing the same government it invites to talks," Rouhani said in a speech at the United Nations General Assembly.

"For dialogue to take place, there is no need for a photo opportunity. The two sides can listen to each other right here in this Assembly.

"I am starting the dialogue right here, and state, in unequivocal terms, that the question of international security is not a toy in American domestic politics."

Rouhani took the podium a few hours after Trump called for Iran's isolation in his UN address, accusing the leadership of Iran of sowing "chaos, death and destruction" as he defended his decision to ditch the Iran nuclear accord.

The five remaining parties to the 2015 accord -- France, Britain, Germany, China and Russia -- agreed during a meeting in New York late Monday to set up a payment system to preserve business ties with Iran despite US sanctions.

The Iranian leader said he was pleased that the international community did not follow the Trump administration's "unilateral and illegal withdrawal from the JCPOA," the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action as the nuclear deal is known.

"Unlawful unilateral sanctions in themselves constitute a form of economic terrorism," said Rouhani.

Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal in May, to the dismay of European allies, Russia and China which had invested years in negotiations to achieve a milestone agreement on keeping Iran's nuclear ambitions in check.

In his UN address last year, Trump bashed the nuclear deal as "an embarrassment," signalling that the United States was ready to walk away.

Trump and Rouhani declined to meet on the sidelines of the General Assembly session.Thabo Mbeki accused the ANC of abandoning its multiracial principles

Former South African president Thabo Mbeki on Tuesday accused the ruling ANC of abandoning its multiracial principles and becoming a "black party" due to its new land redistribution policy.

Current President Cyril Ramaphosa has said South Africa's constitution will be changed to explicitly allow for the expropriation of land without compensation so as to redistribute land to black people to tackle severe inequality 24 years after the end of apartheid.

Mbeki said the African National Congress, which led the fight against white-minority rule in South Africa, had "stood for the freedom of all humanity, black and white."

"The argument that has been advanced by the ANC leadership... about the land question communicates the firm statement that the ANC has changed in terms of its character," he wrote in a pamphlet leaked to the press.

"It is no longer a representative of the people of South Africa. Rather, as its former president, Jacob Zuma, said, it is a black party!"

Mbeki said that Zuma had refered to the ANC as a "black" party last year.

The pamphlet was meant for internal discussion only, the Thabo Mbeki Foundation told AFP.

Land reform has become the country's fiercest political battleground ahead of elections next year, when Ramaphosa will try to revive fading support for the ANC, which has ruled since the end of apartheid in 1994.

Mbeki succeeded Nelson Mandela, and ruled from 1999 to 2008.

The government's land policy has spooked foreign investors but Ramaphosa has vowed reforms will be within the law and not threaten stability.

According to Ramaphosa, whites, who make up eight percent of the population, possess 72 percent of private farms.Libyan militiamen loyal to the Government of National Accord (GNA), Libya's internationally recognised government, celebrate advances in the south of the capital Tripoli on September 25, 2018

Libya's internationally recognised government Wednesday announced a ceasefire deal between rival militias after a month of clashes that have left more than 100 dead south of Tripoli, the focus of armed groups vying for power since the 2011 fall of Moamer Kadhafi.

The Government of National Accord (GNA) welcomed "the return of calm" after the battle which left at least 117 dead and more than 400 injured since it broke out in the capital's southern suburbs on August 27, according to official figures, and displaced over 25,000 people.

The ceasefire, which already came into effect on Tuesday, allowed the reopening of the capital's only working airport, at a former military base in Mitiga on the capital's eastern outskirts, that had closed several times because of the clashes.

It also allowed many families to return to their homes, although others were delayed by heavy rains on Wednesday that closed off several roads.

The agreement was signed by representatives of the capital and the town of Tarhuna, southeast of Tripoli, the interior ministry said.

The deal ratified by interior minister Abdessalem Ashour calls for the rivals to implement a UN-brokered accord, signed on September 4, to form a joint security force of police from Tripoli and Tarhuna to patrol the capital's southern suburbs.

That accord held for only a few days and political analysts said the new deal could suffer the same fate.

"The problem with the notion of a ceasefire is that, in and of itself, it implies it's only a temporary solution," said Libyan researcher Emadi Badi.

He said the GNA had no real authority over armed groups.

"A successful negotiation would involve terms viewed as win-win where some parties compromise. It does not appear to be the case this time," said Badi.

The capital has been at the centre of a battle for influence between armed groups ever since dictator Kadhafi was ousted and killed in a NATO-backed uprising seven years ago.

- Militiamen posted at crossroads -

The latest feud pitted armed groups from Tarhuna and Libya's third city Misrata against militia forces from Tripoli under the nominal control of the GNA. Forces from Misrata were driven out of the city on Monday night.

Dozens of militiamen were posted at crossroads in the southern suburbs on Wednesday, manning pickup trucks loaded with anti-aircraft guns.

Under the ceasefire deal, militias and their heavy weapons are to be withdrawn from the capital.

Libyan militiamen loyal to the Government of National Accord (GNA), Libya's internationally recognised government, keep watch from a position south of the Libyan capital Tripoli on September 25

The unity government has struggled to exert its control in the face of a multitude of militias and a rival administration based in eastern Libya.

At the United Nations on Monday, France called for stronger UN sanctions on Libyans who stand in the way of a political solution in the conflict-ridden country.

The current situation "forces us to show greater firmness toward those who want to insist on the status quo for their sole benefit," French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told reporters in New York.

Sanctions should target "militia members who threaten Tripoli", he said.

Le Drian, whose government has been pushing a peace plan that includes elections by the end of the year, also called for stricter control of the cash flow from sales of Libyan oil to prevent funding of hostile groups.Burkina Faso's police and military are in the front line of a three-year-old jihadist offensive in the north of the country

Eight soldiers were killed by a blast in northern Burkina Faso on Wednesday, in the latest blow to the poor Sahel country grappling with jihadism.

"I have just learned that eight Burkinabe soldiers died after their vehicle drove over a home-made mine planted by the enemies of our people," President Roch Marc Christian Kabore said in a statement.

The convoy had been heading from Baraboule in Soum province to the town of Djibo.

"The lead vehicle in the convoy hit the mine" as it was coming off a bridge, a security source told AFP.

Kabore expressed his "deepest condolences to the defence and security forces, to the families and relatives of the victims".

"These horrible and cowardly attacks will never sap our common resolve to defend our national territorial integrity, to restore peace and security for the happiness and prosperity of the Burkinabe people."

- Mounting attacks -

In 2015, Burkina Faso, one of the world's poorest countries, joined a string of countries in the Sahel region to come under pressure from jihadists.

Rebels began staging cross-border raids in the north of the country from neighbouring Mali.

Using classic guerrilla tactics, the rebels aim at police and the military with gun attacks and roadside bombs, target buildings and personnel perceived to represent the state, and abduct individuals.

A toll released in April found that 133 people had died in the north in 80 attacks in three years, many of them state officials. Hundreds of schools and town halls have been closed.

On Sunday, three miners -- a Burkinabe national, an Indian and a South African -- were seized by armed men between Djibo and a local gold mine.

Hours later, three police officers deployed to help search for the trio were killed in a clash with armed men at Tongomael, about 30 kilometres (20 miles) away.

In August, 13 people in the north were killed by two improvised bombs, and a customs officer was killed in a raid.

The jihadists' strategy in the north has now been adopted in the east of the country. In the centre, the capital Ouagadougou has suffered three terror attacks in two years, leaving 60 dead.

- 'Build an army' -

On September 8, Kabore said additional security measures would shortly be unveiled "to eradicate the curse of terrorism".

But analysts say that, on the ground, the resources needed to roll back jihadism in the north are colossal and they require long-term resolve.

Under former president Blaise Compaore, head of state from 1987-2014, the armed forces had a trained and disciplined unit, his personal guard.

But this unit was gutted by Kabore, leaving the country "without a military culture", a senior official from France, which is anxiously monitoring the situation in Burkina, told AFP.

"They have to build an army worth of the name, and this takes time," the source said.

Bakary Sambe, director of the Timbuktu Institute, a Dakar-based centre of research into extreme violence, said political turmoil in Burkina in 2014-15 had been a major factor in delaying the response to jihadism at a critical time.

In some parts of the north and east, there was now a "vacuum of the state", enabling the jihadists to offer protection and basic services to the beleaguered population, he said.

Using an amorphous, non-centralised command structure, the jihadists find it easy to plant bombs when there is negligible security presence, a former French soldier said.

He pointed to the experiences of US forces in Iraq, which lost more men from improvised explosive devices than from actual fighting.

- Domino fears -

Sambe said the escalating attacks in eastern Burkina were especially worrying, as this could herald an extension of the violence to countries to the south such as Ghana and Ivory Coast, which lie hundreds of kilometres (miles) from the epicentre of jihadist revolt in the Sahel.

"In the fight against terrorism, Burkina is a buffer between the Sahel and the coastal countries," Burkinabe Foreign Minister Alpha Barry said. "If it falls, our neighbours will be attacked."South Korean President Moon Jae-in urges support for North Korea's moves to end its isolation, in a speech to the UN General Assembly

South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Wednesday urged world governments to encourage North Korea to advance toward denuclearization by "responding positively" to leader Kim Jong Un's "new choices".

Addressing the UN General Assembly, Moon praised his North Korean counterpart -- with whom he has held three summits -- saying he had "changed the direction of the political situation" on the Korean peninsula.

"North Korea moved out of longstanding isolation on its own initiative and stands before the international community once again," Moon said.

"Now it is the international community's turn to respond positively to North Korea's new choices and efforts."

Moon, who has embraced dialogue with the North, advocates a step-by-step approach that would push Pyongyang to scrap its nuclear and ballistic missile programs in exchange for a gradual easing of sanctions.

That stance, however, is challenged by the United States and Japan, which maintain that North Korea must have fully dismantled its weapons programs before any of the sanctions can be lifted.

Moon argued that it was time for a gesture toward Kim.

"We must assure Chairman Kim that he has made the right decision in committing to denuclearization," he said.

"We must encourage North Korea to stay on the path that leads to permanent and solid peace."

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo earlier met with his North Korean counterpart Ri Yong Ho in New York and later announced that he will return to Pyongyang next month to push ahead with denuclearization.

Pompeo will also try to arrange a second summit between Trump and Kim, whose meeting in June in Singapore was the first ever between leaders of the two states.

Led by the United States, the Security Council last year slapped three rounds of sanctions targeting North Korea's economy with the aim of cutting off sources of revenue for Pyongyang's weapons program.

The United States is facing calls from Russia and China to consider easing sanctions to create an incentive for Pyongyang to move forward.

Pompeo on Thursday will address a Security Council meeting on North Korea.

Despite the warming of ties, there has been little concrete action towards denuclearization and there remains skepticism about Kim's intentions.

At the last Kim-Moon summit in Pyongyang, the North Korean leader agreed to close a missile test site in the presence of international monitors and offered to shut down the Yongbyon nuclear plant if Washington takes "corresponding measures."Ivory Coast's President Alassane Ouattara (pictured August 2018) will pardon 4,200 prisoners, though their crimes will not be expunged from their records

More than 4,000 prisoners serving time for minor crimes in Ivory Coast are to receive a presidential pardon, the government said following a cabinet meeting Wednesday.

A statement said 4,200 prisoners of a total 19,000 nationwide would received pardons as "an act of clemency," and that, while their crimes would not be expunged from their records, the amnesty would "limit the consequences".

The measure coincided with a declaration by prison administration unions criticising overpopulation and a lack of resources for the system.

The pardons were announced almost two months after President Alassane Ouattara amnestied former first lady Simone Bgagbo, who had served seven years of a 20-year term for political violence that claimed several thousand lives in 2010-11.

Ouattara announced an amnesty for Gbagbo and 800 others in the name of national reconciliation on the eve of national independence day.CANTON, Conn. (AP) - Tom Bradley had grown accustomed to seeing black bears walk through his Connecticut neighborhood, but this month he was alarmed to find something trying to turn a doorknob to enter his house.

He used his key fob to set off his car horn, to scare away whatever was in his garage. When he went outside, he saw a bear and two cubs that had been trying to get into his mudroom.

"I think what is happening is, the bears are learning," Bradley said. "It was sort of a step from going outside to get the garbage, to going into the garage where the cans are, and now they are moving into the homes because they have discovered that is where the food is."

Bears have been encroaching on humans in record numbers this year in Connecticut, which has seen increases in the black bear population like other nearby states and is the only that one does not allow bear hunting.

There have been 24 reports of bears breaking into homes and businesses in Connecticut this year, well above the yearly average of about six, said Paul Rego, a state wildlife biologist.

In recent months, bears have shredded a car's interior, wandered into a liquor store, even woken residents in their own bedrooms.

In this July 18, 2018 photo provided by Julie Sonlin, a black bear explores the yard of Steve and Julie Sonlin in Avon, Conn. The Sonlins said they get visits from bears several times a year and the state reports that human encounters with bears are on the rise. A wildlife biologist with the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection says there have been about two dozen reports this year of bears breaking into Connecticut homes and businesses, about four times the yearly average. (Julie Sonlin via AP)

"We have many cases where bears have become very comfortable living close to humans and not being impressed by barking dogs and yelling people," Rego said.

Bear encounters are up in other states, as well. New York has received 1,282 nuisance bear reports this year, such as the animals getting into garbage or bird feeders, compared with 700 a year ago, the state Department of Environmental Conservation. Officials believe drought conditions earlier this summer, which led to fewer berries, may be a factor.

But drought wasn't an issue in Connecticut, Rego said. A study last year by the University of Connecticut showed the bears are actually choosing to make their homes near people.

As the bear population grows, the animals are finding perfect living conditions in exurban areas, where there are plenty of woods but also homes every acre or two, providing access to easy food sources, said Tracy Rittenhouse, an assistant professor of wildlife ecology at UConn.

"We have this perfect mixture of forest and human houses and the bears are moving into these places," she said. "It's not people moving into where bears occur, it's bears moving into where people occur."

Bears stop by the Steve and Julie Sonlin's home in Avon several times a year and have looked into the windows, grabbed a bag of birdseed from the garage, even taken a dip in their hot tub.

"They don't seem to be aggressive," Sonlin said. "But they don't seem to be afraid. They seem to be indifferent."

When alerted to bears encroaching on homes, the Connecticut environmental department tries to dissuade the animals it captures from coming back by "hazing" them, shooting them with rubber bullets, bean bags or paint balls, and exposing them to loud noises, Rego said.

But, he said, bears are most often rewarded for living near people and seldom face a negative consequence. He would like Connecticut to open a hunting season on bears.

Recent legislation to introduce a bear hunt has failed in the Legislature, with opposition from animal rights groups.

Maine has the largest black bear population on the East Coast at about 36,000 animals, but the number of nuisance bear complaints in the state has held about steady, averaging about 500 per year. The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife said the number of complaints usually correlates to the abundance of natural foods, such as nuts and berries.

The state uses a popular fall hunting season to try to control the growth of the population. But Bob Humphrey, a wildlife biologist and hunter in the state, said it might be time to consider adding a spring hunt, because the bear population just keeps growing.

In Connecticut, Rego and others fear that eventually there will be attacks on humans.

Bradley said he has already witnessed some close calls, such as recently when a mother bear found herself and her cubs between a neighbor's yard with a barking dog and another with a child playing in it. He alerted the child's mother, he said, and she took her child back inside the house.

"It's scary," he said. "Sooner or later, some child, some elderly person, some dog is going to walk out between a bear and her cub and it's going to be a disaster."

____

Associated Press reporter Patrick Whittle in Portland, Maine, contributed to this report.

In this Aug. 2018 photo provided by Tom Bradley, a bear eats from a garbage can outside the Bradley family home, in Canton, Conn. Connecticut reports that human encounters with bears are on the rise. A wildlife biologist with the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection says there have been about two dozen reports this year of bears breaking into Connecticut homes and businesses, about four times the yearly average. (Tom Bradley via AP)The attorney for a white Dallas police officer who fatally shot her black neighbor inside his own apartment says the officer's firing was premature and unfair.

Robert Rogers, who represents the fired officer, Amber Guyger, said Monday night that Police Chief U. Renee Hall 'bowed to pressure from anti-police groups and took action before all of the facts had been gathered and due process was afforded.'

'That's not the way our system of justice should work,' Rogers said in his first statement since the shooting.

He called the Sept. 6 shooting that left 26-year-old Botham Jean dead 'a tragic mistake' and said 'words can never express our sorrow for the pain suffered by those who knew and loved' Jean. Rogers added that Guyger 'is completely devastated by what happened.'

The Dallas Police Department fired Guyger weeks after she fatally shot 26-year-old Botham Jean inside his own apartment on September 6

Guyger's firing came the same day that Jean was being buried in his Caribbean homeland. Hall dismissed the four-year veteran of the force during a hearing Monday, according to the Police Department.

The now-former officer is charged with manslaughter, and she was fired because of her arrest, according to the department.

Court records show Guyger said she thought she had encountered a burglar inside her own home. She was arrested three days later and is currently out on bond.

A statement from police said an internal investigation concluded that on Sept. 9, Guyger 'engaged in adverse conduct when she was arrested for Manslaughter.' Dallas police spokesman Sgt. Warren Mitchell later said that when an officer has been arrested for a crime, 'adverse conduct' is often cited in the officer's termination.

Mitchell said that adverse conduct is 'conduct which adversely affects the (morale) or efficiency of the Department or which has a tendency to adversely affect, lower, destroy public respect and confidence in the Department or officer.'

One of the attorneys for Jean's family, Lee Merritt, said Jean was being buried Monday in St. Lucia.

The family's attorneys, along with protesters, had been calling for Guyger to be fired since the shooting. In a statement, the attorneys said they see the termination as an initial victory.

'However, we are committed to seeing through the next steps of the process of a proper murder indictment, conviction and appropriate sentencing,' they said in the statement.

Dallas County District Attorney Faith Johnson has said the case will be presented to a grand jury, which could decide a more serious charge than manslaughter.

During a conference call with Jean's parents and their lawyers on Sunday, Hall reported she intended to fire Guyger and explained the delay in the action, according to the family's attorneys in their statement.

Days before the firing, Hall said in a statement that she had not taken action against Guyger because she did not want to interfere with the ongoing criminal investigation.

There are conflicting narratives over what led up to the shooting.

Guyger told investigators that she had just ended a shift when she returned in uniform to the South Side Flats apartment complex where she lived.

She said when she put her key in the apartment door, which was unlocked and slightly ajar, it opened, according to the affidavit. Inside, the lights were off, and she saw a figure in the darkness that cast a large silhouette across the room, according to the officer's account.

Guyger said she concluded her apartment was being burglarized and gave verbal commands to the person, who ignored them. The affidavit said she then drew her weapon and fired twice.

She called 911. Asked where she was, she returned to the front door to see she was in the wrong unit, according to the affidavit. The 911 tapes have not been released.

But according to an affidavit for a search warrant Jean 'confronted the officer at the door.'

After the shooting, Guyger's blood was drawn to be tested for alcohol and drugs, according to Hall. Authorities have not released results.

Merritt has called into question Guyger's narrative. The lawyer has said that two independent witnesses have told him they heard knocking on the door in the hallway before the shooting.

He said one witness reported hearing a woman's voice saying, 'Let me in! Let me in!'

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings said he agrees with the decision to fire Guyger.

'The swift termination of any officer who engages in misconduct that leads to the loss of innocent life is essential if the Dallas Police Department is to gain and maintain the public trust,' Rawlings said in a statement.

Guyger graduated from Sam Houston High School in 2008, according to an official at the Arlington Independent School District. She also attended Tarrant County College, according to an official there, although it is not clear when she went to the school.

Guyger also attended the University of Texas at Arlington in fall of 2012 and spring of 2013, said university spokeswoman Sana Syed. Guyger's intended major was criminology and criminal justice, Syed said.

Dallas police say Guyger was hired in November 2013 and state law enforcement records show she was appointed as a peace officer in May 2014.

Sgt. Michael Mata, president of the Dallas Police Association, said Guyger more recently worked on a team tasked with arresting some of the city's most violent offenders. He said the association  Dallas' largest police employee organization  will be paying Guyger's legal fees.JERUSALEM (AP) - The Gaza Strip's economy is in "free fall," a report from the World Bank warned Tuesday, calling for urgent action by Israel and the international community to avoid "immediate collapse."

According to the report, Gaza's economy contracted by 6 percent in the first quarter of 2018. It said unemployment is now over 50 percent - and over 70 percent among Gaza's youth.

The World Bank cited various factors, starting with Israel's decade-long blockade against the territory's militant Hamas rulers, for the precarious downturn. It also cited budget cuts by the rival Palestinian Authority and a reduction in international aid to the Palestinians, particularly from the United States.

"A combination of war, isolation, and internal rivalries has left Gaza in a crippling economic state and exacerbated the human distress," said Marina Wes, the World Bank's director for the region.

The report was released ahead of a high level meeting of the bank's Ad Hoc Liaison Committee, responsible for coordinating development assistance to the Palestinians, on Sept. 27.

Wes said the increasingly dire economic situation in Gaza "has reached a critical point."

"Increased frustration is feeding into the increased tensions which have already started spilling over into unrest and set back the human development of the region's large youth population," she added.

Gazans have staged near weekly demonstrations along the border with Israel since late March, in part to protest the blockade enforced by Israel and Egypt since 2007, when the militant group Hamas seized the territory. Hamas has led and organized the protests, but turnout has also been driven by growing despair over blockade-linked hardship, including lengthy power cuts and soaring unemployment.

Israeli soldiers have killed at least 136 Palestinians during the weekly protests since March, including 27 minors, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. A Palestinian sniper also fatally shot an Israeli soldier. Israel contends it's defending its border and accuses Hamas of using the protests as a screen for attempts to breach the border fence to attack civilians and soldiers. Human rights groups have accused Israel of excessive and unlawful use of force against unarmed protesters.

Gaza's economic situation is likely to deteriorate further because of failed attempts to negotiate an easing of the blockade. Hamas leaders said this week that Egypt-mediated efforts to broker a long-term cease-fire with Israel have stalled.

Repeated attempts to broker a reconciliation deal between rival Palestinian factions - Hamas and President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party - have also failed. Abbas now governs just parts of the West Bank.

In the report, the World Bank calls upon Israel to lift restrictions on trade and movement of goods and people to help improve Gaza's economy, and urges development of "legitimate institutions to govern Gaza in a transparent and efficient manner."DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) - Automakers sought flexibility while environmental groups blasted the Trump administration's proposal to roll back fuel economy standards at a public hearing on the plan in the industry's backyard.

At the hearing Tuesday in Dearborn, Michigan, home to Ford Motor Co. and just miles from the General Motors and Fiat Chrysler home offices, industry officials repeated two themes: They'll keep working to make cars and trucks more efficient, but they may not be able to meet existing standards because people are buying more trucks and SUVs.

Environmental groups, though, urged the government to scrap its plan to roll back the standards and instead keep in place the ones that were reaffirmed in the waning days of the Obama administration. They said the technology to meet the standards at low costs is available, and they accused Trump's Department of Transportation of twisting numbers to justify the rollback.

Nearly 150 people were scheduled to testify at the hearing, the second on the preferred option of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Environmental Protection Agency to freeze the standards at 2020 levels.

In 2016, for the first time since the latest standards started, the auto industry couldn't meet them without using emissions credits earned in prior years, said Steve Bartoli, vice president of fuel economy compliance for Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. The reason is because with relatively low gas prices, people are buying more trucks and SUVs rather than fuel-efficient cars, he said.

Last year, cars made up only 36 percent of the U.S. new-vehicle fleet, something that wasn't expected when the current requirements were put in place six years ago, he said. "The forecasts referenced by the agencies at that time showed cars increasing from 50 percent to 57 percent of annual vehicle sales by 2025," Bartoli said.

Paul Gipe protests before the first of three public hearings on the Trump administration's proposal to roll back car-mileage standards in a region with some of the nation's worst air pollution Monday, Sept. 24, 2018 in Fresno, Calif. The day-long session by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is a means to gather public comment concerning the mileage plan, which would freeze U.S. mileage standards at levels mandated by the Obama administration for 2020, instead of letting them rise to 36 miles per gallon by 2025. (AP Photo/Gary Kazanjian)

The Obama EPA proposed raising the standard to 36 miles per gallon (15 kilometers per liter) by 2025, about 10 miles per gallon (4 kilometers per liter) higher than the current requirement. The goal was to reduce car emissions and save money at the pump.

Trump administration officials say waiving the tougher fuel efficiency requirements would make vehicles more affordable, which would get safer cars into consumers' hands more quickly.

Bartoli and other industry representatives said they'll keep making vehicles more efficient, but need the more flexible standards because of the market shift. Industry officials said they don't support a full freeze on the standards.

"FCA is willing to work with all parties on a data-driven final rule that results in market-facing fuel economy improvements that also support greater penetration of alternative powertrains" such as electric vehicles, Bartoli said.

Rhett Ricart, a Columbus, Ohio, car dealer who is regulatory chairman for the National Automobile Dealers Association, said trying to force people into efficient cars is like trying to make a 3-year-old eat vegetables. "If he doesn't like vegetables, you can't stuff his mouth full of them," Ricart said.

But environmental groups said the Obama standards should remain in place, arguing that the technology is advancing so fast that automakers can meet the standards without adding huge costs for consumers. They said by the EPA's own calculations, 60,000 jobs will be lost by 2030 developing and building fuel efficient technologies. They urged NHTSA and the EPA, which are holding the hearings, to scrap their preferred option of a freeze.

John German, senior fellow with the International Council on Clean Transportation, a group that pushes for stronger standards, said outside the hearing that the Trump administration's cost estimates per car for the Obama standards are inflated to justify the freeze. Consumer savings at the pump are roughly three times the cost, which the ICCT calculates to be $551 per vehicle.

He also said the industry has developed lower-cost improvements to internal combustion powertrains faster than expected, so auto companies can meet standards without selling a lot of electric vehicles.

Environmental groups also said the Obama standards vary with vehicle size and give the industry flexibility to meet them. "The standards are working as designed," German said.

At Monday's hearing in Fresno, California, state officials said the proposed rollback would damage people's health and exacerbate climate change, and they demanded the Trump administration back off.

Looming over the administration's proposal is the possibility that California, which has become a key leader on climate change as Trump has moved to dismantle Obama-era environmental rules, could set its own fuel standard that could roil the auto industry. That's a change the federal government is trying to block.

"California will take whatever actions are needed to protect our people and follow the law," Mary Nichols, chairwoman of the California Air Resources Board, testified at the hearing.

Automakers want one standard for the whole country so they don't have to design different vehicles for California and the states that follow its requirements.

Another hearing is planned on Wednesday in Pittsburgh.

___

Thanawala reported from Fresno, California.

California leaders, from left to right, Cal/EPA Secretary Matthew Rodriguez, California Air Resources Board Chair Mary Nichols and California Attorney General Xavier Becerra talk to the media after speaking during the first of three public hearings on the Trump administration's proposal to roll back car-mileage standards in a region with some of the nation's worst air pollution Monday, Sept. 24, 2018 in Fresno, Calif. The day-long session by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is a means to gather public comment concerning the mileage plan, which would freeze U.S. mileage standards at levels mandated by the Obama administration for 2020, instead of letting them rise to 36 miles per gallon by 2025. (AP Photo/Gary Kazanjian)

Benjamin Tuggy, left, listens to speakers during the first of three public hearings on the Trump administration's proposal to roll back car-mileage standards in a region with some of the nation's worst air pollution Monday, Sept. 24, 2018 in Fresno, Calif. The day-long session by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is a means to gather public comment concerning the mileage plan, which would freeze U.S. mileage standards at levels mandated by the Obama administration for 2020, instead of letting them rise to 36 miles per gallon by 2025. (AP Photo/Gary Kazanjian)

Benjamin Tuggy holds a sign while listening to speakers during the first of three public hearings on the Trump administration's proposal to roll back car-mileage standards in a region with some of the nation's worst air pollution Monday, Sept. 24, 2018 in Fresno, Calif. The day-long session by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is a means to gather public comment concerning the mileage plan, which would freeze U.S. mileage standards at levels mandated by the Obama administration for 2020, instead of letting them rise to 36 miles per gallon by 2025. (AP Photo/Gary Kazanjian)

Mike Stoker regional administrator of the US EPA directs speakers as Jonathan Morrison of NHTSA looks on during the first of three public hearings on the Trump administration's proposal to roll back car-mileage standards in a region with some of the nation's worst air pollution Monday, Sept. 24, 2018 in Fresno, Calif. The day-long session by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is a means to gather public comment concerning the mileage plan, which would freeze U.S. mileage standards at levels mandated by the Obama administration for 2020, instead of letting them rise to 36 miles per gallon by 2025. (AP Photo/Gary Kazanjian)KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Amnesty International and an Afghan art collective have unveiled a mural in Kabul in the memory of AFP's slain chief Afghanistan photographer, Shah Marai, who was killed in April along with eight other reporters in a double suicide bombing by the Islamic State group.

The mural unveiled Tuesday shows Marai, holding his camera, with a group of Afghan activists standing behind a banner. It's entitled Shuja, the Dari word for brave.

It's the first in a series of murals planned by Amnesty and the Artlords collective to highlight the work of Afghan activists, teachers, lawyers, students, trade unionists and others.

Samira Hamidi, Amnesty's regional campaigner, says it will "continue to push Afghan authorities to ensure human rights defenders can work in a safe and enabling environment without fear of reprisals."UNITED NATIONS (AP) - As world leaders talk peace at the U.N. this week, the people of Idlib cling to fragile hope that diplomacy will avert a blowout battle over Syria's last rebel stronghold.

Yet diplomacy hasn't served Syria well so far. Those same world powers trying to negotiate a peaceful outcome in Idlib have been using Syria as a proxy battleground for years.

Here's a look at the conflicting objectives of countries near and far with a stake in Syria's future, as Idlib holds its breath and the seven-year civil war approaches a likely end.

WHAT RUSSIA WANTS

When it comes to Syria's future, Russia is in the driver's seat.

Russian forces turned the tide in the international fight against Islamic State extremists - and then Moscow clinched victory for Syrian President Bashar Assad by sending warplanes, generals and alleged mercenaries to cripple and dissipate the Syrian rebellion.

FILE - In this Sept. 20, 2018, file photo, motor cycles ride past buildings destroyed during the fighting in the northern town of Ariha in Idlib province, Syria. As world leaders talk peace at the U.N. this week, the Syrian region of Idlib clings to fragile hope that diplomacy will help avert a blowout battle over the country's last rebel stronghold. (Ugur Can/DHA via AP, File)

After reshaping the Syrian battlefield, Russia is now trying to design the peace. Its unlikely alliance with Turkey and Iran has sidelined or subsumed parallel Western peace efforts.

And last week, Russia struck a bold deal with Turkey that averts a battle for Idlib - at least for now. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will seek broader backing for the accord at the U.N. General Assembly this week, and try to drum up Western money for Syria's costly reconstruction.

Syria's Cold War patron, Russia wants to maintain influence over Damascus once the war winds down, to keep a strategic foothold in the Mideast and a stable client for Russian weapons and commodities - and to warn the U.S. and its allies against future interference. Russia's announcement Monday that it will supply Syria's government with sophisticated S-300 air defense systems sent that message loud and clear.

WHAT TURKEY WANTS

Turkey is the last hope left for Syria's splintered rebels, but its leverage is waning after years of shifting allegiances.

Turkey has gained little from joining the Russia-Iran axis on Syria, and its relations with the U.S. and Europe are at an exceptionally low point over Erdogan's hard-line leadership. So Ankara is playing Russia and the West against each other.

As Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan takes the stage Tuesday at the U.N., he will be seeking to head off or at least delay new crises along the Syrian border. Turkey wants to avoid a new wave of refugees and stop extremists it once tacitly supported from setting up camp on Turkish soil. And most of all, Ankara wants to keep the region's Kurds at bay.

Idlib epitomizes Turkey's dilemma. Tens of thousands of opposition fighters have been preparing for what might be their last stand, digging trenches, piling up sand bags, reinforcing caves. Turkey sent reinforcements of its troops ringing Idlib, but stands little to gain from an eventual battle launched by Syria's Russia- and Iran-backed government forces.

So Turkey struck an 11-hour deal with Moscow for a ceasefire and buffer zone around Idlib, just in time for the U.N. meetings this week. But analysts and Turkey's allies alike question whether Ankara can bring the desperate and disparate rebel fighters to heel.

WHAT IRAN WANTS

Iran is playing a long, unwavering game. Syria's closest ally, Iran had fighters on Syrian soil even before war broke out in 2011. Iran has no plans to leave, and wants to maintain latitude for its proxy militia Hezbollah and keep Syria allied against Israel.

Iran is loath to see an expansion of Turkish and U.S. influence in the region, and argues that the West fueled jihadis with past support for the Syrian opposition.

Iran's economy and clout are weakened by the U.S. withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear accord and pending new sanctions. But Iran has time on its hands, and will stick it out in Syria until everyone else goes home.

WHAT THE US AND ALLIES WANT

The U.S., Europe and their Gulf allies backed the losing side in Syria's war but are loath to admit it. As the opposition splintered, then-President Barack Obama was reluctant to commit to full-scale war or regime change.

The U.S. maintains a military presence in the area to ensure that Islamic State extremists in the region are wiped out, and that Syria's civilians get humanitarian aid and aren't targeted by chemical weapons.

Western powers that for years chanted for Assad's exit are now trying to save face with some kind of political deal that allows the possibility of an eventual future without Assad.

The Russian-Turkish deal may offer that kind of cover: Western countries at the U.N. this week are trying to expand it to include political options.CAIRO (AP) - An international watchdog is accusing Yemen's Shiite rebels, known as Houthis, of committing "serious abuses" - including "taking hostages, torture and enforced disappearances" - against people they hold in detention.

Human Rights Watch said Tuesday it documented "16 cases in which Houthi authorities held people unlawfully, in large part to extort money from relatives or to exchange them for people held by opposing forces."

It urges the rebels to "stop taking hostages, free everyone arbitrarily detained, end torture and enforced disappearances, and punish those responsible for abuses."

Sarah Leah Whitson of HRW says some Houthi officials "are exploiting their power to turn a profit through detention, torture, and murder."

Yemen's civil war, which started in March 2015, pits Iran-backed Houthis against a Saudi-led coalition backing the country's internationally recognized government.CINCINNATI (AP) - A Mexican mother of four U.S. citizens who was deported despite claims of threats by a Mexican drug cartel has returned to the United States.

The Cincinnati Enquirer reports a judge last week allowed Maribel Trujillo Diaz (MAHR'-uh-behl TROO'-hee-yoh dee'-AHZ) to return to the Ohio city of Fairfield after family members paid her $1,500 bond while she awaits her asylum hearing.

Her attorney, Kathleen Kersh, says there were "tears everywhere" when Trujillo Diaz returned to Ohio for the first time since her April 2017 deportation.

An appeals court ordered immigration officials to reconsider the case after finding the U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals shouldn't have rejected her motion to reopen removal proceedings.

She can now stay with her U.S.-born children until her hearing scheduled for the summer of 2019.

___

Information from: The Cincinnati Enquirer, http://www.enquirer.comATLANTA (AP) - Two Georgia men have been sentenced to consecutive life terms in prison for kidnapping and killing a pregnant woman and her fiance.

News outlets report 44-year-old Andre Cleveland Gay and 46-year-old Richard "Fathead" Wilson pleaded guilty Monday to kidnapping and killing 21-year-old Briana Brooks and 23-year-old Jeronta Brown.

Authorities say the couple was kidnapped for ransom one night in August 2014. The district attorney's office says they were later found handcuffed together with gunshot wounds to their heads. Brooks was seven-months pregnant and survived long enough to give birth.

The men met in prison and were out on parole at the time of the execution-style slaying. Prosecutors had said they would seek the death penalty and that the men have killed at least seven people in Fulton County alone.MADRID (AP) - Five European Union countries struck a deal Tuesday to distribute between them 58 migrants rescued in the Mediterranean Sea and left stranded by continuing disagreements in the bloc over how to cope with the influx of people trying to enter illegally from North Africa.

A Spanish official who wasn't authorized to be named in media reports said Spain, France, Portugal, Germany and Malta agreed to take the migrants, who were rescued by charities off Libya last week but then stuck on a private rescue ship because it couldn't find a country which would let it dock.

The breakthrough came after days of uncertainty, with EU countries either reluctant to act on the divisive migrant issue or determined to halt the migrant flow. Humanitarian boats loaded with rescued migrants are increasingly shunted between European governments under political pressure to stem newcomers.

All the migrants from the Aquarius 2 rescue ship will disembark in Malta, and Spain will take 15 of the passengers, according to the official. Earlier, Portugal had said it would take 10 of the migrants. The other EU countries did not immediately specify how many they would accept.

Malta said it would send a military boat to take the migrants to shore, before they proceed to the other European countries.

Because the ship had its Panama registration flag yanked earlier, it will sail to its home port in Marseille, France, to "rectify its stateless position" after the migrants disembark, the Maltese government said in a statement.

FILE - In a Aug. 15, 2018 file photo, the Aquarius rescue ship enters the harbor of Senglea, Malta. Spain's maritime rescue service said Sunday, Sept. 23, 2018 that it rescued more than 400 people from 15 small boats, most of them off the country's southern coast, while humanitarian groups lamented that the sole private rescue boat operating near the deadly central Mediterranean human trafficking route risked being put out of action by Italy's anti-migrant leaders. (AP Photo/Rene Rossignaud, File)

Humanitarian groups SOS Mediterranee and Doctors Without Borders operate Aquarius 2. It is the sole private rescue boat operating near the deadly central Mediterranean human trafficking route, and Panama's decision to remove its registration threatened to put it out of action.

Panama's maritime authority said it made the move after Italy's anti-migrant leaders complained the boat's captain failed to follow orders. It said Italy argues the captain of Aquarius 2 defied instructions to return migrants to Libya that it had rescued from unseaworthy vessels launched by Libyan-based traffickers.

But the humanitarian groups say violence-wracked Libya doesn't meet international standards for safe harbor.

Meanwhile, about 400 asylum-seekers who had been held in the severely overcrowded Moria migrant camp on the Greek island of Lesbos arrived Tuesday in Greece's main port of Piraeus to be transferred to other camps and residences on the mainland.

The asylum-seekers, mainly families from Syria, Afghanistan and African countries, arrived Tuesday onboard an overnight ferry from Lesbos. They were among around 2,000 people whom the government has pledged to move out of Moria, a facility built for 3,100 people but which is at nearly three times capacity.

Charities have slammed conditions in the camp, citing cases of sexual attack, deplorable sanitation and an increase in suicide attempts among residents.

___

Barry Hatton reported from Lisbon, Portugal. Frances D'Emilio in Rome, and Sylvie Corbet in Paris, contributed to this report.

Refugees and migrants carry their belongings after they disembark from a ferry, at the port of Piraeus, near Athens, Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2018. About 400 migrants and refugees arrived at the port from the island of Lesbos as authorities have been moving hundreds of migrants deemed to be vulnerable from the overcrowded Moria camp to camps on the mainland. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

A Syrian woman with her children disembarks from a ferry, at the port of Piraeus, near Athens, Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2018. About 400 migrants and refugees arrived at the port from the island of Lesbos as authorities have been moving hundreds of migrants deemed to be vulnerable from the overcrowded Moria camp to camps on the mainland. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

A Syrian woman holds her three month old baby Mohhamed Lousman after they disembark from a ferry, at the port of Piraeus, near Athens, Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2018. About 400 migrants and refugees arrived at the port from the island of Lesbos as authorities have been moving hundreds of migrants deemed to be vulnerable from the overcrowded Moria camp to camps on the mainland.(AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

19 year old Nermi Zeitoun from Idlib , Syria, holds her three month old baby Mohhamed Lousman after they disembark from a ferry, at the port of Piraeus, near Athens, Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2018. About 400 migrants and refugees arrived at the port from the island of Lesbos as authorities have been moving hundreds of migrants deemed to be vulnerable from the overcrowded Moria camp to camps on the mainland.(AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

Refugees and migrants carry their belongings after they disembark from a ferry, at the port of Piraeus, near Athens, Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2018. About 400 migrants and refugees arrived at the port from the island of Lesbos as authorities have been moving hundreds of migrants deemed to be vulnerable from the overcrowded Moria camp to camps on the mainland. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

Refugees and migrants carry their belongings after they disembark from a ferry, at the port of Piraeus, near Athens, Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2018. About 400 migrants and refugees arrived at the port from the island of Lesbos as authorities have been moving hundreds of migrants deemed to be vulnerable from the overcrowded Moria camp to camps on the mainland. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) - Tunisia's conservative president says he has ended his alliance with the moderate Islamist party Ennahdha and that the next parliamentary elections will take place in Dec. 2019.

President Caid Beji Essebsi, 91, said during a Monday night TV interview that the consensus reached in 2015 with Ennahdha, the largest party in parliament, had ensured "relative stability" but that the alliance has come to an end - at the initiative of Ennahdha.

Ennahdha backs Prime Minister Youssef Chahed, while numerous parties, including the president's, want him to step down over policy differences.

Ennahdha had, according to the president, "chosen another path."

Tunisia has gone through a rocky transition to a democratic system since its 2011 revolution that triggered the "Arab spring."LONDON (AP) - The Latest on Britain's planned exit from the European Union (all times local):

10:45 a.m.

The head of the World Trade Organization says the trade body will try to minimize disruption caused by Britain's exit from the European Union.

Britain is due to leave the 28-nation EU in March. No deal is in place yet on withdrawal terms and the future relationship.

Asked about concerns about a "no-deal" Brexit, Roberto Azevedo said at a German business group's annual conference in Berlin that "clearly there will be an impact, and it's not going to be a good one."

Azevedo said Tuesday that the role of the WTO will be "to try to minimize the negative effects that this is going to have." He added that "if we can minimize the disruption, if we can minimize the pain ... that's what we will try to do."

Members of the public march in support of the People's Vote campaign in Liverpool, during the Labour Party's annual conference at the Arena and Convention Centre (ACC). Sunday Sept. 23, 2018. Britain's Labour Party is facing a huge choice at its annual conference, whether to back a new Brexit referendum on the country's departure from the European Union. (Peter Byrne/PA via AP)

___

10:30 a.m.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel says an agreement on Britain's future relations with the European Union shouldn't be too vague and is renewing a warning that London can't select benefits of the bloc's single market.

Negotiators aim to break a deadlock and reach a deal in November. Britain is to leave the EU in March.

Merkel said in Berlin on Tuesday that a declaration on future relations must be "as concrete as possible," because if it is too general a planned 21-month transition period could be too short to draw up a full free-trade agreement. She added that "playing for time won't help business either."

She said that "you can't belong to the single market if you only want to belong to the single market in one area but not in three others."

___

10:20 a.m.

Britain's main opposition Labour Party says it will reject Prime Minister Theresa May's proposed Brexit deal with the European Union when it comes to a vote in Parliament.

If Britain and the EU agree on a deal, it must be approved by individual nations before Britain leaves. In the U.K. that means a vote by lawmakers, and the math looks ominous for May's minority government.

Labour Brexit spokesman Keir Starmer says the party will reject a deal along the lines May is proposing because it does not meet "six tests," including protecting workers' rights and retaining access to European markets.

Starmer said Tuesday that May's negotiations with the bloc were "chaotic and failing."

Labour leaders are under pressure from members to back a new referendum on Britain's EU membership.PEMBROKE PINES, Fla. (AP) - A Florida 13-year-old who threatened to shoot up a school in a group chat on Instagram now faces a felony charge after another juvenile alerted adults.

A Pembroke Pines police news release says the boy was arrested Monday on a charge of making a false report concerning the use of a weapon in a violent manner.

Police say about nine juveniles were participating in the chat Sunday when the boy posted that he intended to shoot up Pines Middle School. Detectives soon arrived at the boy's home, where he told them he only meant the threat as a joke.

But posting a threat about a mass shooting is a felony now in Florida, where similar arrests have soared since the killings of 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.PARIS (AP) - A French investigative website has published a photo of one of President Emmanuel Macron's former security aides posing with a gun and a waitress during a campaign stop amid France's 2017 election - without any known authorization to be armed.

The report by Mediapart raised new questions about 27-year old Alexandre Benalla, his role in Macron's campaign and in the presidency itself.

The same aide was identified in July in an online video as the man beating a protester during France's May Day protests. Benalla's association with Macron has triggered the French leader's biggest political crisis.

Benalla was subsequently fired after the May Day beating and has been handed preliminary charges for violence. But critics wondered how someone so close to the country's leader could beat up a protester and get off initially with light treatment. The president's top aides had suspended Benalla for only two weeks at the time, firing him only after an explosion of public outrage.

Late Monday, Mediapart published a photo of Benalla and two other security guards posing with a waitress. Benalla is seen holding a gun.

France has strict gun control laws and the picture with the waitress seems to contradict several claims by Benalla.

FILE - In this April 29, 2017 file photo, then French centrist presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron visits a market in Poitiers, central France, while Alexandre Benalla, left, looks on. A French investigative website has published photos of Benalla, a former security aide of President Emmanuel Macron posing with a gun in a fun photo with a waitress during a campaign stop weeks ahead of the May 2017 election - without any known authorization to be armed. (Eric Feferberg/Pool via AP, File)

In July, Benalla told the newspaper Le Monde that he wasn't armed during the 2017 French presidential campaign.

Last week, Benalla told a Senate investigative committee that he was never Macron's bodyguard, even during the presidential campaign, but just a person who organized outings. He appeared to be one, however, seen often at Macron's side, ever-watchful and clearing a path for the candidate in crowds.

Asked in the Le Monde interview whether he carried a gun before Macron became president, he replied "No" because he had no permit. Police headquarters accorded him a permit but "only in (campaign) headquarters," he said.

When asked if he ever carried the gun outside, he said, "No, never," citing a risk to Macron's reputation.

But Mediapart printed a photo dating from a late-night dinner in Poitiers after a campaign stop on April 28, 2017, showing a waitress, her face blurred, posing in the midst of three security guards, including Benalla - who holds a pistol pointed inward to the group. It said the selfie was taken by the waitress in an alcove where they ate. Another photo showed the waitress with Macron, who dined in another closed alcove.

Benalla told the waitress there was a "surprise" in the selfie, according to Mediapart, which also reported that she told her boss of the incident and he asked her not to share the photo. Mediapart said the weapon was apparently a Glock, the kind Benalla was authorized to carry only inside campaign headquarters.

Mediapart did not identify the waitress or say how it obtained the photo.

Mediapart said Benalla denied the whole thing in a text message, calling it "another fake news" event. He said he didn't carry a weapon outside campaign headquarters and "I never had a photo taken with any kind of arm during the campaign."

According to the police chief's former top aide, Yanne Drouet, Benalla was only authorized in October 2017 to carry a weapon after failed previous requests.

Drouet, told the Senate investigative commission the gun permit for Benalla was authorized "in the framework of his mission." That contradicted Benalla's own testimony to the commission - he said it was for his own protection, "a guarantee for my own safety."

Benalla refused to explain to the Senate panel any potential threats to himself, saying the question was off-limits because it overlapped the judicial investigation.PIRAEUS, Greece (AP) - The Latest on Europe's migrant crisis (all times local):

11:25 p.m.

Morocco's government says the country's navy opened fire on a boat suspected of carrying migrants, wounding four.

The Moroccan Interior Ministry says that a naval unit operating in the Mediterranean fired on the boat because its Spanish captain refused to respond to warnings.

The Interior Ministry said the boat was illegally transporting migrants. The boat was seized and an investigation opened.

MAP said the four people injured were taken to the provincial hospital in the M'diq-Fnideq region.

A Syrian woman with her children disembarks from a ferry, at the port of Piraeus, near Athens, Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2018. About 400 migrants and refugees arrived at the port from the island of Lesbos as authorities have been moving hundreds of migrants deemed to be vulnerable from the overcrowded Moria camp to camps on the mainland. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

Regional authorities didn't immediately respond to requests for further details.

It was the second time in recent days that Morocco's Royal Navy intervened to stop a boat suspected of carrying migrants across the Mediterranean, and comes amid growing concerns about migrant trafficking in the western Mediterranean region.

___

6:10 p.m.

A Spanish official says Spain, France, Portugal, Germany and Malta have reached an agreement to distribute between them the 58 migrants aboard a rescue ship stranded in the Mediterranean Sea.

An official at the Spanish prime minister's office, who was not authorized to be named in media reports, said Tuesday that all the migrants from the Aquarius 2 will disembark in Malta, and that Spain will take 15 of the passengers.

The official provided no further details of the agreement. Earlier, Portugal had said it would take 10 of the migrants.

The private rescue ship is operated by the humanitarian groups Medecins Sans Frontieres and SOS Mediterranee.

The flow of migrants from North Africa across the Mediterranean has caused deep social and political divisions in Europe over how to share the burden.

___

4:50 p.m.

Portugal's government says it is taking in 10 of the 58 migrants aboard a rescue ship in the Mediterranean Sea, as part of a deal with France and Spain.

The Portuguese Interior Ministry said in a statement it was making the gesture "out of a sense of solidarity and in concert with Spain and France."

Authorities in Paris and Madrid made no immediate announcement about a possible deal on what to do with the other people on the Aquarius 2 rescue vessel.

The ship asked France on Monday to let the migrants disembark in Marseille, but Paris said there were closer ports and a need for a comprehensive European solution to the migrant problem.

Portugal said it also sought a "stable, permanent" response to rescued migrants coming from North Africa.

___

4:35 p.m.

Croatian police say they have detained two migrants from Syria for hijacking an empty a bus.

Police say the bus was stolen from a village near the Bosnian border early on Tuesday before police spotted it on a nearby road and followed it.

In a statement, police said the bus stopped after a while and the two men jumped out and tried to run away. The bus then rolled backward before hitting the police car. No one was injured.

Over the past few years, a number of migrants have entered Croatia, a European Union member, from Bosnia before attempting to move toward Western Europe.

___

4:25 p.m.

The European Union says it is not legally responsible for dealing with an NGO rescue ship in the Mediterranean Sea with 58 migrants aboard and has not been asked to help find safe harbor for the vessel.

EU Commission spokeswoman Natasha Bertaud said "this is not a boat with an EU state flag, and it was also operating in the Libyan search and rescue area, so as such it does not engage European responsibility."

In a tweet earlier, the humanitarian group Medecins Sans Frontieres, which jointly operates the ship the Aquarius 2, said the vessel was headed north toward France.

Bertaud said "we sympathize with the people aboard and hope that a solution can be found" but underlined that "the sole legal responsibility lies with the Libyan authorities, who coordinated the rescue operations."

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1:05 p.m.

A rescue vessel carrying 58 migrants pulled from the Mediterranean north of Libya is heading toward France and an uncertain welcome.

In a tweet Tuesday, the humanitarian group Medecins Sans Frontieres, which jointly operates the Aquarius 2, said it was "headed north towards France."

On Monday, the ship asked French authorities to let the migrants disembark in the southern city of Marseille. France deflected the request, saying there were closer ports and a need for a European solution.

Humanitarian boats loaded with rescued migrants are increasingly shunted between European governments under political pressure to stem newcomers. The EU has trained Libya's coast guard in sea rescues, but aid groups say Libya in no way meets the definition of a safe harbor.

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12:20 p.m.

About 400 asylum-seekers who had been held in the severely overcrowded Moria migrant camp on the Greek island of Lesbos have arrived in Greece's main port of Piraeus to be transferred to other camps and residences on the mainland.

The asylum-seekers, mainly families from Syria, Afghanistan and African countries, arrived Tuesday onboard an overnight ferry from Lesbos. They are among around 2,000 people whom the government has pledged to move out of Moria, a facility built for 3,100 people but which is at nearly three times capacity.

Charities have slammed conditions in the camp, citing cases of sexual attack, deplorable sanitation and an increase in suicide attempts among residents. The local regional governor has threatened to shut the facility unless the government improves conditions.

Refugees and migrants carry their belongings after they disembark from a ferry, at the port of Piraeus, near Athens, Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2018. About 400 migrants and refugees arrived at the port from the island of Lesbos as authorities have been moving hundreds of migrants deemed to be vulnerable from the overcrowded Moria camp to camps on the mainland. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

A Syrian woman holds her three month old baby Mohhamed Lousman after they disembark from a ferry, at the port of Piraeus, near Athens, Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2018. About 400 migrants and refugees arrived at the port from the island of Lesbos as authorities have been moving hundreds of migrants deemed to be vulnerable from the overcrowded Moria camp to camps on the mainland.(AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

19 year old Nermi Zeitoun from Idlib , Syria, holds her three month old baby Mohhamed Lousman after they disembark from a ferry, at the port of Piraeus, near Athens, Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2018. About 400 migrants and refugees arrived at the port from the island of Lesbos as authorities have been moving hundreds of migrants deemed to be vulnerable from the overcrowded Moria camp to camps on the mainland.(AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

Refugees and migrants carry their belongings after they disembark from a ferry, at the port of Piraeus, near Athens, Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2018. About 400 migrants and refugees arrived at the port from the island of Lesbos as authorities have been moving hundreds of migrants deemed to be vulnerable from the overcrowded Moria camp to camps on the mainland. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

Refugees and migrants carry their belongings after they disembark from a ferry, at the port of Piraeus, near Athens, Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2018. About 400 migrants and refugees arrived at the port from the island of Lesbos as authorities have been moving hundreds of migrants deemed to be vulnerable from the overcrowded Moria camp to camps on the mainland. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)ISTANBUL (AP) - A Turkish court has rejected a German-Turkish journalist's request for compensation for his year-long imprisonment in Turkey.

Deniz Yucel, a correspondent for Germany's daily Die Welt, was detained as part of a Turkish government clampdown in the wake of a failed coup attempt in 2016. He was released from jail pending trial earlier this year and has since returned to Germany.

Lawyer Veysel Ok said Tuesday Yucel was seeking 2,980,000 Turkish lira (or $483,000) in damages for "his unjust and unlawful imprisonment."

The court did not give a reason for its decision, Ok said.

Ok said he would appeal the case at a higher court and take it to the European Court of Human Rights if necessary.

Yucel was arrested on terrorism and propaganda charges which he denies.DALLAS (AP) - The firing of a white Dallas police officer who is charged with manslaughter in the fatal shooting of her black neighbor inside his own apartment was premature and unfair, an attorney for the officer said.

Robert Rogers, who represents the former officer, Amber Guyger, said Monday night that Police Chief U. Renee Hall "bowed to pressure from anti-police groups and took action before all of the facts had been gathered and due process was afforded."

"That's not the way our system of justice should work," Rogers said in his first statement since the shooting.

He called the Sept. 6 shooting that left 26-year-old Botham Jean dead "a tragic mistake" and said "words can never express our sorrow for the pain suffered by those who knew and loved" Jean. Rogers added that Guyger "is completely devastated by what happened."

Court records show Guyger said she thought she had encountered a burglar inside her own home. She was arrested three days later and is currently out on bond.

Guyger's firing came the same day that Jean was being buried in his Caribbean homeland, St. Lucia. Hall dismissed the four-year veteran of the force during a hearing Monday, according to the Police Department.

FILE - This file photo provided by the Kaufman County Sheriff's Office shows Amber Renee Guyger. Guyger, a Dallas police officer accused of fatally shooting her neighbor inside his own apartment has been dismissed, the police department announced Monday, Sept. 24, 2018. The Dallas Police Department fired Guyger weeks after she fatally shot 26-year-old Botham Jean inside his own apartment on Sept. 6. Court records show Guyger said she thought she had encountered a burglar inside her own home.(Kaufman County Sheriff's Office via AP, File)

A statement from police said an internal investigation concluded that on Sept. 9, Guyger "engaged in adverse conduct when she was arrested for Manslaughter." Dallas police spokesman Sgt. Warren Mitchell later said that when an officer has been arrested for a crime, "adverse conduct" is often cited in the officer's termination.

Mitchell said adverse conduct is "conduct which adversely affects the (morale) or efficiency of the Department or which has a tendency to adversely affect, lower, destroy public respect and confidence in the Department or officer."

The Jean family's attorneys, along with protesters, had been calling for Guyger to be fired since the shooting. In a statement, the attorneys said the termination is an initial victory.

"However, we are committed to seeing through the next steps of the process of a proper murder indictment, conviction and appropriate sentencing," they said in the statement.

Dallas County District Attorney Faith Johnson has said the case will be presented to a grand jury, which could decide a more serious charge than manslaughter.

During a conference call with Jean's parents and their lawyers on Sunday, Hall reported she intended to fire Guyger and explained the delay in the action, according to the family's attorneys in their statement.

Days before the firing, Hall said in a statement that she had not taken action against Guyger because she did not want to interfere with the ongoing criminal investigation.

There are conflicting narratives over what led up to the shooting.

Guyger told investigators that she had just ended a shift when she returned in uniform to the South Side Flats apartment complex where she lived.

She said when she put her key in the apartment door, which was unlocked and slightly ajar, it opened, according to the affidavit. Inside, the lights were off, and she saw a figure in the darkness that cast a large silhouette across the room, according to the officer's account.

Guyger said she concluded her apartment was being burglarized and gave verbal commands to the person, who ignored them. The affidavit said she then drew her weapon and fired twice.

She called 911. Asked where she was, she returned to the front door to see she was in the wrong unit, according to the affidavit. The 911 tapes have not been released.

But according to an affidavit for a search warrant Jean "confronted the officer at the door."

After the shooting, Guyger's blood was drawn to be tested for alcohol and drugs, according to Hall. Authorities have not released results.

Merritt has called into question Guyger's narrative. The lawyer has said that two independent witnesses have told him they heard knocking on the door in the hallway before the shooting.

He said one witness reported hearing a woman's voice saying, "Let me in! Let me in!"

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings said he agrees with the decision to fire Guyger.

"The swift termination of any officer who engages in misconduct that leads to the loss of innocent life is essential if the Dallas Police Department is to gain and maintain the public trust," Rawlings said in a statement.

Guyger graduated from Sam Houston High School in 2008, according to an official at the Arlington Independent School District. She also attended Tarrant County College, according to an official there, although it is not clear when she went to the school.

Guyger also attended the University of Texas at Arlington in fall of 2012 and spring of 2013, said university spokeswoman Sana Syed. Guyger's intended major was criminology and criminal justice, Syed said.

Dallas police say Guyger was hired in November 2013 and state law enforcement records show she was appointed as a peace officer in May 2014.

Sgt. Michael Mata, president of the Dallas Police Association, said Guyger more recently worked on a team tasked with arresting some of the city's most violent offenders. He said the association - Dallas' largest police employee organization - will be paying Guyger's legal fees.NANTUCKET, Mass. (AP) - Authorities say a fishing boat crew member has been charged with murder in an attack at sea on his colleagues.

The U.S. attorney's office says the vessel had seven crew members Sunday about 55 miles off Massachusetts. Authorities say 27-year-old Franklin Freddy Meave Vazquez assaulted another crew member with a hammer and a knife. The victim noticed another crew member lying on the deck, bleeding.

Authorities say Vazquez then struck another crew member and climbed up the mast as others tried to catch him.

A German cruise ship responded to a distress call. A doctor pronounced one victim dead.

Authorities say Vazquez is Mexican and had been living in the U.S. illegally. He had been arrested in March in Newport News, Virginia, on an abduction charge.

Vazquez is to appear in federal court in Boston. The Associated Press could not locate a lawyer for him early Tuesday.WASHINGTON (AP) - The Latest on President Donald Trump and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein (all times local):

10:30 a.m.

President Donald Trump says at the United Nations that he'll be meeting with his embattled deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein on Thursday. "Today," he says, "I'm doing other things."

Trump was asked by reporters as he entered the U.N. on Tuesday if he was considering firing Rosenstein. Trump didn't address Rosenstein's long-term future, only that they would meet when the president returns to the White House later this week.

Rosenstein expected to be fired on Monday when he met with White House Chief of Staff John Kelly. But Rosenstein and Trump spoke by phone later Monday and decided to meet in person on Thursday.

Rosenstein's future has been in question after a report that he suggested recording Trump and removing him from office. Rosenstein oversees special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russia meddling in the 2016 election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign.

FILE - In this July 13, 2018 file photo, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein speaks during a news conference at the Department of Justice in Washington. Rosenstein is expecting to be fired, heading to White House Monday morning.(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

__

7:25 a.m.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders is leaving unclear whether President Donald Trump has confidence in the No. 2 man at the Justice Department.

Speaking Tuesday on ABC's "Good Morning America," Sanders was asked whether her boss has confidence in Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein after a report that he suggested recording Trump and removing him from office.

"The president has confidence in the system," Sanders replied.

Rosenstein denied the report that first appeared in The New York Times. He expected to be fired on Monday, when he met with John Kelly, Trump's chief of staff. Instead, Rosenstein and Trump talked on the phone and questions about his future were effectively tabled until Thursday.

Rosenstein oversees special counsel Robert Mueller and his probe into Russia's meddling in the 2016 election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign.

___

12:37 a.m.

The deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, is facing a showdown with President Donald Trump over whether Rosenstein will keep his job.

He is expected to meet with the president at the White House on Thursday. A sure topic are the media reports that Rosenstein had discussed secretly recording Trump and possibly using constitutional procedures to remove him from office. Rosenstein disputes those reports.

Rosenstein met Monday with White House chief of staff John Kelly. A person familiar with the situation tells The Associated Press that Rosenstein expected to be fired. He ended up speaking by phone to Trump himself, and questions about his future were effectively tabled until Thursday.

Rosenstein oversees special counsel Robert Mueller and his Russia probe, which would fall into uncertainty if Rosenstein left the Justice Department.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein leaves the White House in Washington, Monday, Sept. 24, 2018. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)BERLIN (AP) - A top German bishop has apologized for thousands of sexual abuse cases that took place inside the Catholic Church in Germany, according to a devastating report released Tuesday that concludes at least 3,677 people were abused by clergy between 1946 and 2014.

"Sexual abuse is a crime," Cardinal Reinhard Marx, who is also the head of the German Bishops Conference, told reporters. "I'm ashamed for so many (of us) looking away, not wanting to recognize what happened and not helping the victims. That goes for me as well."

The apology came on the same day that Pope Francis acknowledged that the sex abuse scandal rocking the Catholic Church was driving people away. He said the church must change its ways if it wants to keep future generations.

The report on sex abuse inside the German Catholic Church found that more than half of the victims were 13 or younger and most were boys. Every sixth case involved rape and at least 1,670 clergy were involved. Some 969 abuse victims were altar boys.

On average, the abuses happened multiple times over a period of at least 15 months.

The German Bishops Conference released its report Tuesday, but it was already leaked earlier this month and was heavily criticized for the lack of transparency and the church's refusal to let the researchers access the original documents.

Cardinal Reinhard Marx, center, bishop of Munich and Freising and head of the German Bishops' Conference, arrives for the opening mass of the bishops' conference in Fulda, Germany, Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2018 where the bishops will discuss a study on sexual abuse in the Catholic church in Germany. (Arne Dedert/dpa via AP)

Instead of looking at the original church files, they sent questionnaires to the dioceses, which then provided the information.

The report was commissioned by the German Bishops Conference and researched by experts from the Universities of Giessen, Heidelberg and Mannheim.

The researchers wrote that there was evidence that some files were manipulated or destroyed, and many cases were not brought to justice. Sometimes abuse suspects - primarily priests - were simply moved to other dioceses without the congregations being informed about their past.

"The figures are only the tip of the iceberg," said Harald Dressing, a psychiatrist from Mannheim University who presented the report together with Marx and others in the central German city of Fulda during a convention of the German Bishops Conference.

"Generally, the risk of sexual abuse of children inside the Catholic Church continues to exist," Dressing warned. He said celibacy, the clergy's power and homosexuality inside the church were all issues that promote abuse.

German Justice Minister Katarina Barley said "the dioceses and religious orders must finally take on responsibility for decades of suppression and denial ... the church must press criminal charges in every case."

The Catholic Church has been struggling with sex abuse by its clergy for a long time.

In 2010, the German church was roiled by a sex abuse scandal triggered by the head of a Jesuit school in Berlin who went public about decades-long sexual abuse of high school students by clergy. Following that, a whole wave of victims who were sexually abused by clergy spoke out across Germany.

The church's failures in confronting sex abuse scandals have also roared back to the headlines recently with revelations of abuses and cover-ups in the United States and Chile.

Bishops and altar boys arrive for the opening mass of the German bishops' conference in Fulda, Germany, Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2018 where the bishops will discuss a study on sexual abuse in the Catholic church in Germany. (Arne Dedert/dpa via AP)

Bishops attend the opening mass of the German bishops' conference in Fulda, Germany, Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2018 where the bishops will discuss a study on sexual abuse in the Catholic church in Germany. (Arne Dedert/dpa via AP)ROME (AP) - Italian emergency authorities say a suspected arson fire in the countryside near Pisa has forced at least 700 people to flee their homes and has ravaged some 600 hectares (nearly 1,500 acres).

Tuscany Gov. Enrico Rossi told reporters Tuesday that arson was suspected and authorities were investigating.

The blaze erupted Monday night on the wooded slopes of Mount Serra and quickly threatened homes in nearby hamlets. Authorities said hundreds of those who were evacuated spent the night in school gyms and church community centers that doubled as emergency shelters.

Rossi said heavy winds up to 50 kph (31 mph) were whipping up the flames. They were also hampering the work of water-dropping planes. The strong winds were expected to last into Wednesday.MINNETONKA, Minn. (AP) - Prosecutors in Minnesota have charged a 12-year-old boy in juvenile court in the stabbing death of his 16-year-old brother.

Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said Monday the case will be handled in juvenile court and no other information will be made public because of the suspect's age.

Officers were called to an apartment in Minnetonka Saturday night. They found a 16-year-old stabbed in the chest. He was pronounced dead at a hospital.

The suspect was initially evaluated at a hospital, then released to his parents. Police continued investigating, then arrested him Sunday night.

Police believe the weapon was a kitchen knife. The mother and other family members were home at the time. Police haven't disclosed a motive except that there was some sort of altercation between the boys.BERLIN (AP) - A Swiss shipping company says it is in contact with pirates who have been holding hostage 12 crew members of a bulk carrier following a weekend attack off Nigeria's coast.

Massoel Shipping says "it is understood" that the MV Glarus crew members are together, well and unharmed.

The Geneva-based company said the ship, carrying wheat, was attacked Saturday as it sailed from Lagos to Port Harcourt. The attackers apparently boarded using long ladders and cut razor wire on the deck to reach the bridge.

Seven crew members were not taken hostage and remain on the ship in Port Harcourt after the captors fled with the 12 others.

A Massoel statement Tuesday says "the first and absolute priority" is the hostages' safe release. It declined further comment for safety reasons.ST. LOUIS (AP) - A Missouri man who admitted to participating in the rape and killing of two sisters who were pushed from an abandoned St. Louis bridge could be released as soon as 2020.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that 47-year-old Reginald Clemons has his first parole board hearing next June because the killings of 19-year-old Robin Kerry and 20-year-old Julie Kerry occurred before 1994 when the Legislature began imposing mandatory minimum prison terms for violent felonies. Missouri Department of Corrections spokesman Garry Brix says Clemons' earliest eligible release date is Nov. 9, 2020.

Clemons initially was sentenced to death. But after the Missouri Supreme Court overturned his convictions, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to five consecutive life terms . He's simultaneously serving a 15-year term for assaulting a prison guard in 2007.

___

Information from: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, http://www.stltoday.comCreative names can be a way for companies to get around the U.S. standards that spell out what constitute a particular food item. Some examples:

BRED SPRED

In the 1920s, Bred-Spred's deliberate misspelling helped protect the jam-like substance from regulators. The product had relatively little fruit and relied on coloring and flavoring to make it resemble preserves, according to Suzanne White Junod, a historian with the Food and Drug Administration. Regulators called the images of fruit on its label "deceptive." Attempts to go after it in court failed because its name.

Years earlier in a separate case, a judge had said a distinctive name was "either one so arbitrary or fanciful as to clearly distinguish it from all other things."

CHIL-ZERT

Chil-Zert was the first commercial soy-based ice cream. It was created in the 1950s by Rich Products, which made other nondairy alternatives including whipped cream and coffee creamer. Federal regulators said Chil-Zert should be labeled as an imitation and took it to court, says Xaq Frohlich, a professor of food labeling and history at Auburn University. The product eventually disappeared.

In an obituary , The New York Times called company founder Robert Rich a "food processing pioneer," noting he engaged in legal battles with the dairy industry over its attempts to have his products banned.

JIF

In the 1950s, Jif was only about 75 percent peanuts , with the rest made from oils and artificial flavors. The low peanut content was one of the reasons the Food and Drug Administration eventually established a standard of identity for peanut butter. The process was highly contentious and took more than a decade.

The FDA initially proposed that peanut butter had to be at least 95 percent peanuts. The industry pushed for 87 percent. In 1970, a finalized standard drew the line at 90 percent peanuts, a threshold that Jif now meets.

COOL WHIP

According to the standards of identity, "whipped cream" and "whipping cream" have milkfat requirements. Cool Whip's enticing but vague name doesn't require it to meet those standards.

Among the ingredients listed on Cool Whip's website : Water, hydrogenated vegetable oil, high fructose corn syrup and skim milk. It contains less than 2 percent of light cream and other ingredients.

CASHEWGURT

A yogurt alternative dubbed "cashewgurt" is now being sold by Forager. CEO Stephen Williamson said the company tried to label the product yogurt, but was shot down by regulators.

Williamson said Forager may have to rename its "cashewmilk" because the FDA has signaled that word may run afoul of the standard for milk, which is defined as coming from a cow. But he thinks "cashewgurt" is safe.

"The word 'gurt' - or the four letters g-u-r-t - attached to 'cashew' is different from the word 'yogurt'," Williamson explains.LONDON (AP) - Budget airline Ryanair has cancelled 190 flights scheduled for Friday because of strikes by cabin crew in Spain, Belgium, Holland, Portugal, Italy and Germany.

The flights represent some 8 percent of the 2,400 originally scheduled. The airline said in a statement Tuesday that all affected customers have received emails or text messages informing them of the cancellation.

Some 30,000 customers are likely to be affected out of 450,000 set to travel.

Ryanair's Kenny Jacobs has apologized to customers affected by strikes "which we have done our utmost to avoid."

Ryanair canceled hundreds of flights last year due to problems with pilot scheduling, and strikes have led to more cancellations this summer. The budget airline and pilots have wrangled over working conditions, base transfers and annual leave.WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. consumer confidence shot up to an 18-year high in September.

The Conference Board, a business research organization, says its consumer confidence index climbed to 138.4 in September from 134.7 in August. This month's reading was the highest since September 2000.

The index measures consumers' assessment of current economic conditions and their outlook for the next six months. Both improved in September.

"These historically high confidence levels should continue to support healthy consumer spending, and should be welcome news for retailers as they begin gearing up for the holiday season," said Lynn Franco, the Conference Board's director of economic indicators.

The U.S. economy grew at an annual pace of 4.2 percent from April through July, fastest rate in nearly four years.

FILE- In this Aug. 30, 2018, photo, a lot technician passes by a long line of unsold 2018 and 2019 Countryman models at a Mini dealership in Highlands Ranch, Colo. On Tuesday, Sept. 25, the Conference Board releases its September index on U.S. consumer confidence. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File)FARGO, N.D. (AP) - A North Dakota woman convicted of killing her pregnant neighbor by cutting the baby from her womb testified Tuesday that her boyfriend had pressured her to "produce a baby" after figuring out she had lied about being pregnant.

Brooke Crews told the court that she had concocted a phony pregnancy to keep from losing William Hoehn, who is on trial for conspiracy in the August 2017 death of 22-year-old Savanna Greywind. Hoehn has admitted helping to cover up the crime, but says he didn't know that Crews had planned to kill Greywind and take her baby. Crews testified that she never "explicitly" told Hoehn that was her plan.

Crews said Hoehn appeared surprised when he entered the bathroom in their apartment and discovered she had cut Greywind's baby from her body. Crews said Hoehn then retrieved a rope and tightened it around Greywind's neck, saying: "If she wasn't dead before, she is now."

Greywind's daughter survived and is being raised by family.

Hoehn spoke regularly with his attorney, Daniel Borgen, during Crews' testimony but showed little emotion. Crews was crying and sniffling throughout.

"You never told Will that you had planned to do this, is that right?" Borgen asked.

FILE - This combination of file photos provided by the Cass County Sheriff's Office in Fargo, N.D., shows William Hoehn, and his girlfriend Brooke Crews, the two people charged in connection with the murder of Savanna Greywind in North Dakota in August 2017. Greywind was eight months pregnant. Crews, ultimately admitted killing Greywind and cutting her baby from her womb. Hoehn, goes on trial Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2018, for conspiracy to commit murder. He has admitted helping cover up Greywind's murder. (Cass County Sheriff's Office via AP, File)

"Not kill Savanna for her baby, no," Crews replied.

"In fact, there was never a conversation at all about killing Savanna and taking her baby," Borgen said.

"Not explicitly," she said.

It wasn't immediately clear what Crews meant by "explicitly."

Crews described her relationship with Hoehn as rocky and violent, saying it was fueled by drugs and alcohol. She said they broke up at one point, and that's when she lied to him about being pregnant. She went so far as to email him a phony positive pregnancy test and sonogram photo.

In early August, Hoehn told Crews he didn't believe she was pregnant and said she needed "to produce a baby." Crews said she believed this was "an ultimatum."

"I took that to mean I better have a baby, no matter how it happened," Crews said.

Crews originally told police that Greywind had given her the child. She later told police they had argued and that she pushed Greywind down and knocked her out before cutting her open. A medical examiner testified Monday that there was no evidence of any head injuries.

Crews stuck to her story Tuesday, saying she pushed Greywind, who was knocked out when her head hit the bathroom sink. Crews said that's when she got a knife and began cutting the baby out.

Crews said the couple kept ropes around the house because Hoehn liked to tie her up during sex, including around her neck. She also said Hoehn expressed fantasies about killing people and Crews said she initially told him she would be interested in that too.

The medical examiner who performed the autopsy, Dr. Victor Froloff, testified Monday that he isn't sure whether Greywind died from blood loss or strangulation .

Greywind's disappearance sparked several searches before her body was found several days later, shrouded in plastic and dumped in the Red River. Crews testified Tuesday that police missed Greywind's body and her baby during three searches of the couple's apartment.

Crews testified that Greywind's body was in the bathroom closet and the baby was covered up next to Hoehn on a bed during one of those searches. She said Hoehn eventually moved Greywind's body to a hollowed-out dresser and the two of them carried it out of the apartment.

Fargo Police Chief David Todd did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment on Crews' testimony.

Crews pleaded guilty to murder and is serving life in prison without parole. She said she has no agreement with prosecutors for a lesser sentence in exchange for testifying.

Greywind's death prompted North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp to introduce Savanna's Act, which aims to improve tribal access to federal crime information databases and create standardized protocols for responding to cases of missing and slain Native American women . A similar bill has been introduced in the House.

___

The Latest updates from the trial: https://bit.ly/2Q2dR7tNEW YORK (AP) - A small but elegant exhibit tucked amid the American period rooms on the second floor of the Metropolitan Museum of Art explores the little-known story behind Chippendale furniture, and how one young man's bold idea to create a detailed manifesto about chairs and tables for the British elite transformed his name into an enduring style.

"Chippendale's Director: The Designs and Legacy of a Furniture Maker" reveals how Thomas Chippendale, an 18th century artisan of humble origins, came up with a new way of designing, marketing and producing furniture. The exhibit, featuring furniture, drawings and other objects, remains on view at the Met through Jan. 27.

Chippendale's pieces were created at the height of the Rococo period and were a British appropriation of a style imported from France, then known simply as "style moderne," says Alyce Englund, assistant curator in the Met's American Wing. She organized the exhibit with Femke Speelberg, associate curator of drawings and prints.

Other Chippendale pieces featured an Asian-inspired "chinoiserie" style, often in the form of tea stands and other tea-related furnishings popular in Britain at the time. Still other Chippendale works were in a Gothic revival or neoclassical style.

The overall look was meant to be both sophisticated and elitist, boasting adherence to Greek and Roman principals of design while featuring decorative elements so complex and upholstery so expensive that the pieces would be inaccessible to more humble classes.

Common features included chair backs pierced in an interlaced design, often using abstract leaf motifs or swirling ribbons, with the uppermost corners of the chair backs tending to project upward in a variety of fashions. Designs often included intricate fretwork for shelves and chair legs, and decorative feet, sometimes featuring a hairy lion's-paw design.

This photo provided by The Metropolitan Museum of Art shows Thomas Chippendale Ribband Back Chairs for Chippendale's Director. The book is featured in the exhibit "Chippendale's Director: The Designs and Legacy of a Furniture Maker," which runs through Jan. 27, 2019, at the museum in New York. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art via AP)

A skilled draftsman, Chippendale owed much of his fame to his publication of an enormous and detailed book of engravings called "The Gentleman and Cabinet-Maker's Director." A typical copy of the Director was 18.5-by-12 inches and weighed over 8 pounds. Its first edition featured 160 of Chippendale's lovingly rendered drawings of furniture designs, from which clients around England and its colonies were invited to order. Later editions featured still more of his detailed drawings.

The front pages of the ambitious work announced that it would edify (including "a short explanation of the five orders of architecture") and instruct, (including "proper directions for executing the most difficult pieces, the mouldings being exhibited at large and the dimensions of each design specified.")

Chippendale invited independent furniture makers to use his designs for their own creations, advising only that complex decorative elements be simplified if they surpassed the skills of the furniture maker.

"Hundreds of copies of the book were printed and sent all over Britain and the colonies. It went viral," Englund says.

In America, many in the aspiring mercantile class sought to fill their homes with furnishings in the latest fashion. And in many cases, the elaborately designed Chippendale furniture was not produced by his company in Britain but in the United States, by a wave of immigrant furniture-makers who had just arrived from Britain themselves, some bringing Chippendale's designs with them.

Eventually, much of the 18th century home furniture in the United States was thought of as "Chippendale," the name coming to describe decorative furnishings of this sort.

"Over time, Chippendale came to represent American fortitude and reverence for tradition," Englund says.

When styles later changed and a preference for a streamlined, casual lifestyle took hold, the Chippendale name "became a scapegoat for fussy traditionalism," she says.

"I think as long as Chippendale was popular there was an opposing crowd," England says.

Designers as early as the 18th century made fun of Chippendale's most famous decorative features, referring to them in their works - for instance, in streamlined chairs with the most minimalist of pierced chair backs, a playful reference to what by then were simply thought of as "traditional" chairs.

By the 1970s, even a famous group of erotic male dancers with a trademark "classy" look took on the name "Chippendales," a reference to "the classic Chippendales-style furniture that adorned the club where the guys first performed," according to the group's website.

The furniture business founded by Thomas Chippendale went out of business in 1804. The elite clients to whom he catered frequently failed to pay up, Englund explains, and the debts he'd incurred - in part to produce and distribute his influential Director - came due.

But furniture makers continued to adeptly produce his designs locally, and his name continued to spread, thanks to his detailed and inspiring drawings.

This photo provided by The Metropolitan Museum of Art shows a Side chair from the workshop of Thomas Chippendale. The chair is featured in the exhibit "Chippendale's Director: The Designs and Legacy of a Furniture Maker," which runs through Jan. 27, 2019, at the museum in New York. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art via AP)WASHINGTON (AP) - The general nominated to take command of U.S. and allied forces in South Korea says the decision to cancel several major military exercises on the Korean peninsula this year caused a slight degradation in the readiness of American forces.

Gen. Robert Abrams tells the Senate Armed Services Committee that commanders are planning a number of smaller staff exercises to rebuild the ability of U.S. and allied forces to work together. He says planning is ongoing for large exercises next year, but alliance leaders will decide if they are canceled or not.

Abrams says America must remain clear-eyed about the military and nuclear threats from North Korea, while allowing diplomacy to move forward.

Navy Vice Adm. Craig Faller, nominated to take over U.S. Southern Command, is also testifying before the panel.OMAHA, Neb. (AP) - A 92-year-old woman has been buried in Nebraska with British military honors for a secret that she held for decades: her World War II service as a code breaker of German intelligence communications.

The Union Jack was draped over Jean Briggs Watters' casket during her burial Monday, the Omaha World-Herald reported. Watters died Sept. 15.

The tribute honored Watters for her role decoding for a top-secret military program led by British mathematician Alan Turing, who was the subject of the 2014 Oscar-winning film "The Imitation Game ." Watters was among about 10,000 people, mostly women, who participated in the Allied effort to crack German communication codes throughout the war.

She operated an electro-mechanical machine , known as a "bombe," to decipher signals the German armed forces sent out from its sophisticated Enigma encryption machines. The effort at Britain's famed codebreaking center, Bletchley Park, saved lives and helped bring an end to the war. But it was kept classified until the 1970s.

"She never told anyone," said Watters' son, Robin. "She was fully aware of the gravity of what she was doing. It was haunting to her, what might happen if she made a mistake."

Jean Briggs Watters was 18 when she enlisted in the Women's Royal Naval Service. She had attended an art school in Cambridge, England, before joining the Allied war cause.

In this Monday, Sept. 24, 2018 photo, Bagpiper Malcolm WIlbur waits to play Amazing Grace for the funeral of Jean Watters at the Omaha National Cemetery in Omaha, Neb. Jean Watters was part of the super-secret team that broke the German ENIGMA code during World War II. (Chris Machian/Omaha World-Herald via AP)

She met her husband, a U.S. Army Air Corps pilot named John Watters, during the war and they married soon after. She and her husband retired to the U.S. in 1969.

Watters was placed Monday in a burial plot next to her husband, who died in June at age 101.

"She had a seriousness, and a sense of duty," Robin Watters said. "She was a really special lady. But she was tough. She did the hard things."

In this Sept. 24, 2018, photo, pallbearers move the casket of Jean Watters for her funeral at the Omaha National Cemetery in Omaha, Neb. Jean Watters was part of the super-secret team that broke the German ENIGMA code during World War II. (Chris Machian/Omaha World-Herald via AP)

In this Monday, Sept. 24, 2018, photo, Robin Watters reads from the program during the funeral for his mother Jean Watters at the Omaha National Cemetery in Omaha, Neb. Jean Watters was part of the super-secret team that broke the German ENIGMA code during World War II. (Chris Machian/Omaha World-Herald via AP)BANGKOK (AP) - Police in northern Thailand say they have discovered the buried bodies of a missing British expatriate and his Thai wife, and have arrested the woman's brother for allegedly ordering their murder.

The police commander for Phrae province said the bodies of 64-year-old retired petroleum engineer Alan Hogg and his 61-year-old wife Nhot Suddaen were discovered on the property of their home.

He said the killers had been traced after stealing the couple's pickup truck, and that they had confessed after their arrest to being hired by Nhot's brother to kill them.

Police then arrested the brother, who they said confessed to ordering the killing over a family dispute. They said the dead couple, who had been together for 30 years, had been dead for about a week.BERLIN (AP) - A close ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel was ousted Tuesday as head of her conservative bloc's parliamentary group, a surprise defeat that dealt a blow to the longtime German leader's authority in her own ranks.

Volker Kauder, who had led the parliamentary group of Merkel's Union bloc since she became chancellor in 2005, was defeated by Ralph Brinkhaus - a budget policy expert who until now has been one of his deputies.

Kauder, who had Merkel's support, had been widely expected to prevail in Tuesday's vote of lawmakers from Merkel's Christian Democratic Union and its Bavaria-only sister party, the Christian Social Union. But he was defeated by a 125-112 margin, with two abstentions.

The vote followed a wobbly start to Merkel's fourth government, a coalition of the Union and the center-left Social Democrats, which has squabbled persistently since it took office in March. It came a year after the conservative parties lost significant support in an election that saw the far-right Alternative for Germany enter parliament.

The 50-year-old Brinkhaus, who isn't well-known to most Germans, was the first challenger Kauder had faced since taking office 13 years ago.

He hasn't suggested any significant policy changes, and has stressed that his candidacy wasn't directed against Merkel but was for the "independence" of the parliamentary group. After Tuesday's vote, he said it's important to "get to work quickly."

Ralph Brinkhaus, deputy chairman of the joint faction of the Christian Democratic parties smiles before a faction meeting in Berlin Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2018. (Kay Nietfeld/dpa via AP)

The vote comes just as the government tries to get past an embarrassing two-week argument over the future of Germany's domestic intelligence chief, whom coalition leaders eventually agreed to move to a job at the Interior Ministry after had he appeared to downplay far-right violence against migrants.

Merkel said Monday that she regrets how that dispute was handled, and said the government had been "too preoccupied with ourselves in recent months."

This is largely expected to be Merkel's final term, though the chancellor hasn't yet set out her future plans.

In a step acknowledging pressures for renewal, Merkel earlier this year made a popular state governor, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, her party's new general secretary. She also chose Jens Spahn, an ambitious young conservative and sometime critic, as her new health minister.

Christian Democratic Union Chairwoman and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, right, and Bavarian's Christian Social Union chairman and German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, left, attend a faction meeting of their ruling Christian Union parties at the Reichstag building in Berlin, Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2018. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

Christian Democratic Union Chairwoman and German Chancellor Angela Merkel arrives for a faction meeting of her ruling Christian Union parties at the Reichstag building in Berlin, Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2018. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

Newly elected leader of the joint faction of the Christian Democratic parties Ralph Brinkhaus smiles after a meeting of the lawmakers in Berlin Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2018. (Michael Kappeler/dpa via AP)IRONTO, Va. (AP) - Despite the theft of nearly its entire crop of grapes, a Virginia winery will be able to raise a glass of its 2018 vintage to a new friendship.

The Roanoke Times reports Washington state's Alexandria Nicole Cellars has offered to donate the replacement for more than 2 tons of grapes stolen from Firefly Hills Vineyard two weeks ago.

Firefly co-owner Allison Dunkenberger says they've received in-state offers, too, despite the rain that hurt this year's crop. But the Pacific Northwest had a great grape year, and her husband is set to fly out this week to help harvest them.

No leads on the theft have been reported. Virginia Department of Agriculture spokeswoman Elaine Lidholm says grape heists have happened in France and California, but were previously unheard of in Virginia.

___

Information from: The Roanoke Times, http://www.roanoke.comWASHINGTON (AP) - The Navy admiral nominated to lead U.S. Southern Command is defending his decision to attend a dinner party in Hong Kong sponsored by a defense contractor who later pleaded guilty to bribery and defrauding the U.S. military.

Vice Adm. Craig Faller told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he attended only after the invitation was reviewed and approved by a Navy ethics counselor. Faller, who has been Defense Secretary Jim Mattis' senior military assistant, says nothing unprofessional happened and that the Navy cleared him of any wrongdoing.

The Washington Post reported on Monday that Faller had been under investigation for more than three years.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, told Faller the episode did not pass what she called "the smell test."The Alaska tourism board can't be all that thrilled with Jeremy Saulnier's "Hold the Dark ," a grueling but beautifully shot mystery about a small town where it seems the very best quality of life one can hope for is crippling depression. That would be at least manageable compared to what the characters are forced to endure in this film, which presents a series of escalating tragedies and atrocities with a dead-eyed nihilism that should only be reserved for first-year philosophy students.

Adapted from a novel by William Giraldi, "Hold the Dark" is about the fictional village Keelut, where wolves have been taking the town's children. A local mother, Medora Slone (Riley Keogh), is the latest to have her little boy go missing. With her husband off fighting in Iraq, she writes a letter to a wilderness expert, Russell Core (Jeffrey Wright), asking him to come out to Keelut to hunt and kill the wolf that she believes has killed her child.

There is something off about Medora, and it's not just grief. She is haunted and strange and speaks like a simple and sedated but poetic child whose wisdom is only accidental. When Core arrives at her door, she looks at him quizzically. "You're old," she says, clasping the well-worn book he authored about living in the wild with wolves for year.

Core agrees to at least go out looking for the wolf, but one wonders why after he has an extremely disquieting encounter with Medora that night and then is told by a local villager the next morning that there is evil here and to go back where he came from.

In the forest, Core witnesses a pack of wolves eating their young, and back in Keelut sees something far worse. What else could you expect from a town named after an evil Inuit spirit of death?

The film takes us next to the Middle East to meet Medora's husband, Vernon (Alexander Skarsgard), an emotionless soldier who will gun down the enemy without blinking, and even stab one of his own to stop a rape he happens to witness while walking by. An injury earns him a ticket home, where their son's body has been discovered and Medora has gone missing, which sets Vernon off on his own confusing and bloody journey.

This image released by Netflix shows Riley Keough, left, and Jeffrey Wright in a scene from "Hold the Dark." (David Bukach/Netflix via AP)

The introduction of James Badge Dale's local cop Donald Marium gives the film some much-needed life, and someone poor Wright can finally play off of, but this is frustratingly short-lived.

Those familiar with Saulnier's work - his last was the hyper-violent "Green Room" - will not be surprised by the relentless gore in "Hold the Dark." But newcomers stumbling upon this moody epic on Netflix might find themselves taken aback by the horrifying body count. There's a head stabbing, a chewed neck and an over 5-minute shootout - and those are just a few of the brutal ways people meet their end in "Hold the Dark."

At time it feels like jaw-dropping violence for violence's sake - a cartoonish manifestation of masculine frontier despair and desperation, like a lost season of "True Detective" that even Nic Pizzolatto would think was too bleak

Saulnier is expert at building tension and takes great advantage of the sprawling canvas he's been given, especially welcome after the intentionally claustrophobic "Green Room." But this is one that doesn't add up to anything sensical despite a whole kitchen sink of intriguing elements that include - but are not limited to - demonic possession, class issues, wolf masks and a lingering question about why two Nordic models are living in this town.

You can see why "Hold the Dark" might have made a compelling book, but the film is one grim and pitiless journey.

"Hold the Dark," a Netflix release, is not rated, but contains disturbing images, gun violence, blood and nudity. Running time: 125 minutes. One and a half stars of four.

___

Follow AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ldbahr

This image released by Netflix shows Jeffrey Wright in a scene from "Hold the Dark." (David Bukach/Netflix via AP)

This image released by Netflix shows Jeffrey Wright in a scene from "Hold the Dark." (David Bukach/Netflix via AP)BAGHDAD (AP) - A police official says masked gunmen have shot dead a human rights activist and mother of four outside a supermarket in the southern city of Basra.

The official says Soad al-Ali, who has been involved in organizing protests demanding better services in the city, was killed Tuesday by gunmen who fled the scene after shooting at her and her husband in their car. Al-Ali was killed on the spot while her husband was wounded and was being treated in a hospital.

The assassination - the first such incident since protests erupted this summer - occurred in the Abbasiya district in the center of Basra.

It came as protests resumed Tuesday following a two-week hiatus. Protesters are demanding basic services and the release of those detained in previous demonstrations.NEW YORK (AP) - A federal appeals court judge says the former leader of New York's Assembly can stay out of prison until a judicial panel decides whether he can remain free on bail while he appeals his sentence for public corruption.

Sheldon Silver was supposed to report to prison Oct. 5, but Judge Peter W. Hall's ruling on Tuesday will likely delay his surrender date. The judicial panel's process usually takes a few weeks.

The 74-year-old Democrat was convicted this year of accepting nearly $4 million in return for legislative favors. He was sentenced to seven years in prison.

Hall said the appeals panel can also decide whether to grant Silver's request to delay paying a $1.75 million fine.

Silver served as Assembly speaker for 21 years.GEORGETOWN, S.C. (AP) - The Latest on flooding caused by former Hurricane Florence (all times local):

4 p.m.

A North Carolina school superintendent says two of the six schools in his system will have to be demolished because of water damage caused by Hurricane Florence.

Jones County School Superintendent Michael Bracy said Jones Middle and Trenton Elementary schools received at least 3 feet (0.9 meters) of water in portions of the respective buildings. Bracy said by the time workers could get into the schools, mold and mildew had already formed.

Bracy says the system is building a brand new K-12 school for those students, scheduled to open in August 2019. In the meantime, efforts are underway to relocate them temporarily to other schools that weren't affected by Florence.

___

This Monday, Sept. 24, 2018 photo, homes are under water along the flood waters of the Black River after Hurricane Florence in Currie, N.C. Monday Sept. 24, 2018. (Ken Blevins /The Star-News via AP)

4 p.m.

A North Carolina university closed because of Hurricane Florence is about to resume its fall semester.

The University of North Carolina at Wilmington announced in an email sent to students that classes will resume on Oct. 1 for the majority of its students. The school said most students may move back into their dormitories beginning at 10 a.m. Saturday. Officials said there will be no access to the dorms before then.

The school added that ongoing work in two dorms will keep those buildings closed to students until Oct. 6. Faculty members are being encouraged in the meantime to make virtual participation available for students unable to attend classes in person.

___

4 p.m.

Federal officials have amended their disaster declaration for South Carolina to allow another county to receive financial aid to recover from Hurricane Florence.

Gov. Henry McMaster said Tuesday that the Federal Emergency Management Administration agreed at his request to allow assistance for Chesterfield County residents.

Residents in Dillon, Horry (OR-ee), Marion and Marlboro counties were already eligible to apply for the aid. The money can be used for rental assistance and essential home repairs, and also includes low-interest loans from the U.S. Small Business Administration.

Some areas of South Carolina are still experiencing historic flooding from rivers swollen by the storm, which arrived on land 11 days ago.

____

4 p.m.

The head of a national effort to fight income and racial inequality says North Carolina politicians should help those harmed the most by Hurricane Florence by increasing Medicaid coverage and the minimum wage.

The Rev. William Barber of the Poor People's Campaign lives in North Carolina. He and other state social justice advocates held a news conference Tuesday outside the old Capitol building in Raleigh.

Barber read a letter urging Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and Republican legislators during next week's special session for Florence relief to expand Medicaid to cover 500,000 more people. He also seeks more affordable housing.

Barber said the poor and uninsured people already were struggling before Florence, and will be worse off afterward.

Cooper has already backed Medicaid expansion and raising the current $7.25 minimum wage. But it's unlikely the GOP-controlled legislature will approve Barber's requests.

___

2:10 p.m.

Floodwaters from Hurricane Florence aren't in any hurry to leave South Carolina.

Eleven days after the storm made landfall, the Waccamaw River at Conway is still rising - after already reaching record levels.

Late Friday, the river broke the previous record set two years ago by Hurricane Mathew when it reached 17.9 feet (5.5 meters). Florence has caused the flooded river to rise to 21 feet (6.4 meters) as of Tuesday. It was expected to crest at 21.7 feet (6.6 meters), possibly on Wednesday.

Forecasters say that after that, it will remain above the level reached during Matthew through at least through the beginning of next week.

Former Conway City Councilwoman Vivian Chestnut says this is the worst flooding she has ever seen. She had to leave her home Wednesday as the water rose and isn't sure when she will see it again.

Georgetown is a city downriver from Conway. There, residents are also preparing for the worst flooding in their lifetimes. Officials warn it could start Wednesday.

___

2:10 p.m.

A National Weather Service meteorologist says a low-pressure area located off the coast of the Carolinas is likely to bring showers but won't significantly increase flooding threats to areas already saturated by Hurricane Florence.

Reid Hawkins is science and operations officer for the Wilmington National Weather Service office. He said in a phone interview Tuesday that the low-pressure area off the coast is expected to run into a front that will push it north. He says the system isn't expected to become anything worse than a tropical depression.

Hawkins says coastal areas around Wilmington could get some rain, but it's not expected to greatly increase any flooding and "shouldn't put much of a dent in the rivers."

___

2:10 p.m.

The U.S. Marine Corps is reporting that wastewater overflowed from a North Carolina base into a river in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence.

A news release said the spill was discovered on Monday afternoon. The Corps said about 84,000 gallons (318,000 liters) of wastewater spilled into a low-lying area at Camp Lejeune and that about 42,000 gallons (159,000 Liters) overflowed from the low-lying area and went into the New River through a storm ditch.

The news release said the spill was caused by a power-outage at a wastewater lift station during the storm and a high volume of rainfall causing an overflow of the low-lying area.

Workers removed the remaining wastewater on the base and disinfected the area. The news release said that base officials have confirmed the spill doesn't threaten its residential water supply.

State environmental officials are also working with the base to take further water samples.

___

2:10 p.m.

A bipartisan group of current and former North Carolina education leaders is asking for donations to help speed recovery for school districts harmed by Hurricane Florence.

State schools superintendent Mark Johnson and predecessors June Atkinson and Mike Ward joined others Tuesday in Raleigh to announce the Florence Aid to Students and Teachers program. Their push comes as the legislature prepares for a special session next week to begin distributing disaster-relief funding.

The past and present leaders say they're seeking donations for schools in need. Money will be distributed to districts through a special state education fund already in existence.

Many schools in districts affected by the storm remain closed. There is no official number, but Department of Public Instruction spokesman Drew Elliot says up to 1.2 million of more than 1.5 million public school students in the state missed some amount of school because of the disaster.

___

12:20 p.m.

Red Cross officials say that residents displaced by Hurricane Florence could face difficulty finding temporary housing because of storm damage and an already-tight rental housing market.

Red Cross Vice President of Operations and Logistics Brad Kieserman said that North Carolina's rental market was already tight before the storm. He said that much of the rental market in rural North Carolina was in homes and one-story structures that were susceptible to flooding damage.

He said that FEMA data indicates that tens of thousands of structures have been damaged by the storm.

He said that Red Cross shelters in North Carolina have about 1,700 people in them on Tuesday, down from a peak of 22,000. He said the number is in sync with state data because the Red Cross is operating virtually all shelters in the state now. He said about 200 people are in Red Cross-run shelters in South Carolina.

___

12:20 p.m.

Funeral services are being held for the two women who drowned while being driven to a mental health facility in South Carolina through a flooded area.

An obituary notes that 43-year-old Nicolette Green will be buried Wednesday in Mill Hall, Pennsylvania. Services for 45-year-old Wendy Newton of Shalotte, North Carolina, are listed as happening Friday in Hamlet.

It took authorities more than 24 hours to recover the women's bodies from the Horry County Sheriff's Office van that was swept away last week in floodwaters in Marion County. Crews retrieved the van itself on Monday, nearly a week after the deaths.

The two deputies driving the women were able to escape the sinking van. They have been placed on leave as the incident is investigated.

___

12:20 p.m.

The flooding in northeastern South Carolina from Hurricane Florence is providing the ideal breeding ground for mosquitoes.

Horry County officials said in a news release Tuesday that they would begin spraying for mosquitoes Tuesday night and continuing on Wednesday and later this week.

The news release said the chemicals being used are approved by the Environmental Protection Agency and pose little risk for people or animals. But county officials say those with asthma or respiratory problems may want to stay inside with doors and windows closed during the spraying.

___

12:20 p.m.

Sheriff's deputies in North Carolina are trying to determine whether the death of a man whose body was found in a ditch is related to Hurricane Florence.

News outlets reports the Wayne County Sheriff's Office said the body of 32-year-old Marcus Jamal Wiley was found by a landscaper who was cleaning up the area along U.S. 117 south of Goldsboro on Monday.

The sheriff's office said the ditch where the victim was found had been flooded for more than a week and the water had just receded.

An autopsy hasn't determined how Wiley died, and detectives are constructing a timeline.

___

11:50 a.m.

Forecasters say a storm system off the coast of the Florence-battered Carolinas will dump even more rain on the already saturated states.

The National Hurricane Center said on its website Tuesday that a broad area of low pressure about 260 miles (420 kilometers) south of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, is producing showers and thunderstorms on its north side. Forecasters said it could become a tropical depression Tuesday as it approaches the coast, and will dump rain on the coast regardless.

County officials have recommended that almost 8,000 people leave their homes - more than 10 percent of the population. Officials expect floodwaters to top several bridges, nearly cutting Georgetown County in two and leaving only one highway out during the expected crest early Thursday.

The hurricane center also warned of dangerous surf and rip currents along portions of the North Carolina coast on Tuesday.

___

1 a.m.

Eleven days ago, Lee Gantt was at a Hurricane Florence party in her neighborhood in Georgetown, where the story is that some houses near the Sampit River haven't flooded since they were built before the American Revolution.

Gantt will spend Tuesday with sandbags, watching the nearby river rise from Florence's heavy rains and seeing if the luck finally runs out on her home built in 1737.

The Sampit is one of five rivers that reach the Atlantic Ocean in and near Georgetown on the South Carolina coast. And Hurricane Florence - which started with record rainfall in North Carolina - is expected to cause record flooding downriver in Georgetown County as its final act. The county has recommended almost 8,000 people leave their homes - more than 10 percent of the population.

FILE - In this Monday, Sept. 17, 2018 file photo, floodwaters from Hurricane Florence surrounds homes in Dillon, S.C. Scientists say climate change likely boosted rainfall totals for both Florence and 2017's Harvey. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

In this Monday, Sept. 24, 2018 photo, flood waters from the Neuse River cover the area a week after Hurricane Florence in Kinston, N.C. Monday Sept. 24, 2018. (Ken Blevins/The Star-News via AP)

Shawn Lowrimore, Pastor Willie Lowrimore of The Fellowship With Jesus Ministries', son, wades into water near the church in Yauhannah, S.C., on Monday, Sept. 24, 2018. The church is on the bank of the Waccamaw River which has already risen above its record crest and is expected to keep rising for several days, forcing thousands of evacuations in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence. (AP Photo/Jeffrey S. Collins)

A car sits flooded in the middle of S.C. 905 in the Red Bluff community in Longs, S.C., Monday, Sept. 24, 2018. Red Bluff flooded along the Waccamaw River and Simpsons Creek due to Hurricane Florence's deluge, with entire neighborhoods underwater. (Jason Lee/The Sun News via AP)

John McGarva, an Horry County firefighter, looks over his his flooded home, from Hurricane Florence, in the Polo Farms neighborhood off S.C. 905, Monday, Sept. 24, 2018, in Longs, S.C. After a 36-hour shift with the fire department, McGarva was making pictures of each of his neighbors' homes to share on a community Facebook page. (Jason Lee/The Sun News via AP)

The Polo Farms neighborhood off S.C. 905 is largely underwater, on Monday, Sept. 24, 2018, in Longs, S.C., due to Hurricane Florence's deluge. (Jason Lee/The Sun News via AP)SAN ANTONIO (AP) - A federal judge has sentenced a former leader of the notorious Bandidos biker gang to two consecutive life terms and another 20 years in prison for directing a violent racketeering and drug trafficking enterprise.

John Portillo of San Antonio was sentenced Monday. The 59-year-old was the national vice president of the Bandidos Outlaw Motorcycle Organization.

Jurors in May found Portillo and the group's president Jeffrey Pike guilty of directing Bandidos members to commit murder, attempted murder, robbery, assault, intimidation, extortion and drug trafficking. Trial evidence revealed the pair's role in violent acts against rivals around Texas and trafficking methamphetamine and cocaine.

A federal investigation of the leaders arose from the 2006 killing of Anthony Benesh.

Pike is scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday. He also faces up to life in prison.UNITED NATIONS (AP) - President Donald Trump got some laughter when he addressed world leaders on Tuesday. It wasn't intentional.

The president was highlighting U.S. gains under his watch as he opened his address to the U.N. General Assembly. He said the American economy was "booming like never before" and that his administration has accomplished more in less than two years than almost any other administration.

His boast elicited laughter from the scores of heads of state and delegates in the audience for the speech.

Trump, who has long claimed that his predecessors' weak leadership prompted other nations "to laugh" at the US. appeared flustered and responded, "I didn't expect that reaction, but that's OK."

Trump says the U.S. is a "stronger, safer and richer country" than when he took office in January 2017. He says "we are standing up for America and for the American people, and we are also standing up for the world."

Some in the audience also grumbled during Trump's remarks when he said "we reject the ideology" of globalism and criticized nations such as Germany for agreeing to an oil pipeline with Russia.

President Donald Trump answers a reporters question about Supreme Court Justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh during a meeting with Colombian President Ivan Duque at the United Nations General Assembly, Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2018, at U.N. Headquarters. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

When Trump criticized socialism, a member of the Swedish delegation frowned with disapproval.AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - The owner of a Texas company that sells blueprints for making untraceable 3-D printed guns has resigned from the firm after being arrested on charges of having sex with an underage girl.

An official with Austin-based Defense Distributed said Tuesday that Cody Wilson officially resigned Friday evening to tend to "personal matters."

Paloma Heindorff is the director of development for the company. She made the announcement and says she'll be taking Wilson's place. She also says she's "a different person. I'm not trying to replace him as a character."

Wilson is accused of paying a 16-year-old girl $500 to have sex with her in Austin. He was arrested in Taiwan and brought back to the U.S. over the weekend.

After a federal court barred Wilson from posting printable gun blueprints online for free last month, he announced he had begun selling them through his website.CONCORD, N.H. (AP) - The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit against a New Hampshire police department for allegedly detaining a man on immigration violations after he helped authorities nab a suspect in another case.

In its lawsuit filed in federal court Tuesday, the ACLU accuses the Exeter Police Department of arresting Bashar Awawdeh in August on suspicion that he was an undocumented immigrant. Awawdeh was handed over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and detained for 26 days.

The ACLU contends that Awawdeh was jailed despite working as a translator for the department. In one case, the ACLU says that Awawdeh helped the police question a suspect in an assault case who was later arrested.

Exeter Police Chief William Shupe said the lawsuit was being reviewed by legal counsel.LAFAYETTE, La. (AP) - A federal judge has sentenced a soldier to more than 11 years in prison for making bombs that released chlorine gas and injured two Army investigators near a base in Louisiana.

A Justice Department news release Tuesday about 24-year-old Ryan Keith Taylor's sentencing said two investigators inhaled chlorine gas, ending their military careers.

Taylor, of New Llano, Louisiana, pleaded guilty in June to the single count of using a chemical weapon, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.

U.S. District Judge Jay Zainey sentenced him Monday in Lafayette to 11 years and 3 months in prison, plus five years' supervised release.

Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers says the sentence holds Taylor accountable and makes it clear that "we will not tolerate such conduct."AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - Republican Sen. Ted Cruz accused Democratic Rep. Beto O'Rourke of making offensive comments about police officers during their first debate of the Texas Senate race.

The attack came amid heightened attention in Texas on fatal shootings involving police officers. Last month, a white Dallas police officer shot and killed her unarmed black neighbor, whose apartment she says she mistook for her own. The officer, who was fired from her job Monday, is free on bond after being booked on a preliminary charge of manslaughter in the slaying of 26-year-old Botham Jean.

During the debate Friday, Cruz accused O'Rourke of referring last week to police as a "modern-day Jim Crow," which O'Rourke denied at the event. Following the freeing of slaves, states and cities across the South created laws, commonly known as Jim Crow, which enforced segregation and discrimination during the 19th century.

A look at Cruz's claim:

CRUZ: "Congressman O'Rourke described law enforcement, described police officers, as modern-day Jim Crow. Let me say something: I have gotten to know police officers all across this state. That is offensive."

THE FACTS: Cruz oversimplifies what O'Rourke said.

U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke, D-El Paso, a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, speaks at a campaign stop at The Social Club on Sunday, Sept. 23, 2018, in Edinburg, Texas. The surprisingly close U.S. Senate race in Texas is growing more combative, and Republican Sen. Ted Cruz and Democratic Congressman O'Rourke are staking their chances on two sharply different visions of America. (Joel Martinez/The Monitor via AP)

Cruz appears to be referring to comments O'Rourke made last week at Prairie View A&M University, a historically black college outside Houston, in which he used the phrase "new Jim Crow" while discussing the need for criminal justice reform. He described a prison system after the emancipation of slaves in 1865 that treated blacks unjustly and said problems "continue to persist today."

At the event, O'Rourke went on to say: "That system of suspecting 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, letting them rot behind bars, solely 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."

O'Rourke has also used "Jim Crow" while discussing the war on drugs, including at a town hall at a black church on Sept. 14 in Dallas. O'Rourke, who supports marijuana legalization, railed against the impact it has had on the black community.

"This justification for taking the lives of people, and disproportionately people of color on illegal drugs in this country has rightfully been called the new Jim Crow. It has kept people out of civic life in this country," he said.

___

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Republican U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, left, and Democratic U.S. Representative Beto O'Rourke, right, take part in their first debate for the Texas U.S. Senate in Dallas, Friday, Sept. 21, 2018. (Tom Fox/The Dallas Morning News via AP, Pool)BOSTON (AP) - The Latest on a fatal stabbing on board a fishing vessel off the coast of Massachusetts (all times local):

2 p.m.

Federal immigration officials say the Mexican national charged with killing a fellow crew member on a fishing vessel was released on bond after he was charged in Virginia with forcible abduction.

Franklin Freddy Meave Vasquez faces a murder charge following the fight Sunday aboard the fishing vessel Captain Billy Haver about 55 miles off Nantucket, Massachusetts.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says Vazquez is in the U.S. illegally. He had been arrested in Newport News, Virginia, in March on the abduction charge.

An ICE spokesman says an immigration judge had granted Vazquez bond despite ICE objections and he was released from custody.

The Virginia-based fishing vessel Captain Billy Haver is docked, Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2018, at the U.S. Coast Guard Station, in Boston. The U.S. attorney's office for Boston said in a statement that crew member Franklin Freddy Meave Vazquez, 27, was charged with murder and attempted murder in connection with an attack Sunday, Sept. 23, 2018 on the fishing vessel while it was underway about 55 miles off Nantucket, Mass. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

Vazquez's mother-in-law tells WCVB-TV he is a heroin addict and she thinks that was the root of the dispute on the boat.

It's not clear if Vazquez has an attorney

___

7:30 a.m.

Authorities say a fishing boat crew member has been charged with murder in an attack at sea on his colleagues.

The U.S. attorney's office says the vessel had seven crew members Sunday about 55 miles off Massachusetts. Authorities say 27-year-old Franklin Freddy Meave Vazquez assaulted another crew member with a hammer and a knife. The victim noticed another crew member lying on the deck, bleeding.

Authorities say Vazquez then struck another crew member and climbed up the mast as others tried to catch him.

A German cruise ship responded to a distress call. A doctor pronounced one victim dead.

Authorities say Vazquez is Mexican and had been living in the U.S. illegally. He had been arrested in March in Newport News, Virginia, on an abduction charge.

Vazquez is to appear in federal court in Boston. The Associated Press could not locate a lawyer for him early Tuesday.HOUSTON (AP) - An ex-Houston businessman has been indicted on U.S. charges of concealing that a 2013 trip by some members of Congress to Azerbaijan (ah-zur-by-JAHN') was paid for by that country's government.

Kemal Oksuz was named in an indictment unsealed Monday in Washington, D.C. Prosecutors say Oksuz formerly led the nonprofit Turquoise Council of Americans and Eurasians and allegedly lied on U.S. House disclosure forms about who funded the trip.

Oksuz was charged with devising a scheme to falsify, conceal, and cover up material facts and with making false statements to Congress. The Houston Chronicle reports Oksuz was recently arrested in Armenia and faces extradition.

The House Ethics Committee in July 2015 said it found no evidence of wrongdoing by lawmakers.

No working phone number could be located Tuesday for the nonprofit.ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - The Latest on a former New Mexico priest who fled the U.S. decades ago (all times local):

12:40 p.m.

A federal judge has ordered a priest who fled the U.S. decades ago amid allegations of child sex abuse to be held pending trial.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Karen Molzen ruled Tuesday that Arthur Perrault was a flight risk despite arguments from his defense attorney that he had no passport, no family and no means to leave the country.

Prosecutor Sean Sullivan argued that the 80-year-old priest was a danger to the community.

Some people who say they are victims of Perrault's attended the hearing, and applauded and exchanged hugs following the judge's ruling.

FILE -This 1989 file photo shows Father Arthur Perrault in Albuquerque, N.M. Perrault, 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, Sept. 21, 2018. (The Albuquerque Journal via AP, File)

Prosecutors say Perrault had been a chaplain at a base in Albuquerque where he is accused of sexually abusing children.

Court documents say he vanished in 1992, just days before an attorney filed two lawsuits against the archdiocese alleging Perrault had sexually assaulted seven children at his parish. He was located last year in Morocco.

___

12:30 a.m.

Prosecutors say a former New Mexico priest who fled the U.S. decades ago amid allegations of child sex abuse enticed victims with gifts, and once blamed his behavior on a cancer diagnosis he didn't have.

Arthur Perrault is scheduled Tuesday to appear in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque for a detention hearing as prosecutors seek to hold the 80-year-old until his trial for aggravated sexual abuse.

Court documents filed in federal court say victims described Perrault showering them with gifts and meals before abusing them.

Documents also said the Connecticut-born Perrault wrote an apology letter to the parents of one victim in 1971 and blamed his actions on cancer, which prosecutors say he never had.

Perrault was extradited to New Mexico last week from Morocco.

He has pleaded not guilty.

Cindy Leech, center, is greeted by Judy Deaven at the steps of the state Capitol at the conclusion of a march in support of legislation that would change the statute of limitations for child sex crimes, in Harrisburg, Pa., Monday, Sept. 24, 2018. A proposal to give victims of child sexual abuse a two-year window to sue over allegations that would otherwise be too old to pursue was overwhelmingly approved by the state House on Monday, as supporters cheered from the gallery. (Steve Mellon/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette via AP)

After announcing his support of legislation to change the statute of limitations on child sex abuse crimes, State Sen. Daylin Leach, a Montgomery County Democrat, facing camera, hugs Rep. Mark Rozzi, himself an abuse victim, at the state Capitol in Harrisburg, Pa., Monday, Sept. 24, 2018. A proposal to give victims of child sexual abuse a two-year window to sue over allegations that would otherwise be too old to pursue was overwhelmingly approved by the state House on Monday, as supporters cheered from the gallery. (Steve Mellon/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette via AP)

Daniel Dye, center, senior prosecutor for state Attorney General Josh Shapiro, acknowledges applause for his role in producing a report on child sex abuse in the Catholic church, in the Pennsylvania state Capitol in Harrisburg, Pa., Monday, Sept. 24, 2018. A proposal to give victims of child sexual abuse a two-year window to sue over allegations that would otherwise be too old to pursue was overwhelmingly approved by the state House on Monday, as supporters cheered from the gallery. (Steve Mellon/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette via AP)WASHINGTON (AP) - President Donald Trump is riding around in a new set of wheels.

A sleeker version of the armored presidential limousine known as "The Beast" is ferrying Trump around midtown Manhattan, where he's attending the annual U.N. General Assembly session.

The U.S. Secret Service says the 2018 Cadillac was added to the fleet of presidential limos last week.

On Monday, the agency tweeted a photo of the vehicle - and a double - parked at the Wall Street heliport in lower Manhattan. The caption said: "The Secret Service is ready to roll into #UNGA 2018!" The Secret Service is responsible for Trump's personal safety.

The agency says the new Cadillac continues its legacy of providing "state-of-the-art technology and performance to its protective mission."

No other details were released.

A Secret Service agent cleans the presidential limo before the arrival of Marine One carrying President Donald Trump at the Downtown Manhattan Heliport, Sunday, Sept. 23, 2018, in New York. Trump is riding around in a new set of wheels. A sleeker version of the armored presidential limousine known as "The Beast" is ferrying Trump around midtown Manhattan, where he is attending the annual U.N. General Assembly session. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

In this Sept. 23, 2018, photo, a Secret Service agent cleans the presidential limousine before the arrival of Marine One carrying President Donald Trump at the Downtown Manhattan Heliport in New York. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

A Secret Service agent cleans the presidential limo before the arrival of Marine One carrying President Donald Trump at the Downtown Manhattan Heliport, Sunday, Sept. 23, 2018, in New York. Trump is riding around in a new set of wheels. A sleeker version of the armored presidential limousine known as "The Beast" is ferrying Trump around midtown Manhattan, where he is attending the annual U.N. General Assembly session. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Iranian President Hassan Rouhani accused the United States on Tuesday of trying to overthrow his government, rejecting bilateral talks after President Donald Trump predicted stepped-up U.S. sanctions would get Tehran to negotiate over its nuclear program.

Addressing world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly, Rouhani accused the Trump administration of violating "state obligations" from the Obama administration by withdrawing from the 2015 nuclear deal that Iran signed with the U.S. and five other major powers.

"On what basis and criteria can we enter into an agreement with an administration misbehaving such as this?" Rouhani asked. "It is ironic that the U.S. government does not even conceal its plan for overthrowing the same government it invites to talks."

Rouhani invited the U.S. to come back to negotiations within the U.N. Security Council, which endorsed the nuclear deal. There, he said, both sides can listen to each other.

"Beginning the dialogue starts with ending threats and unjust sanctions that negate the principles of ethics and international law," he said.

In remarks released while Rouhani was still talking, National Security Adviser John Bolton doubled down on the decision to withdraw from the deal, echoing his president's strong language and using blunt language to dismiss any entreaties from Tehran. He called the scrapped Iran deal "the worst diplomatic debacle in American history."

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani addresses the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly, Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2018 at U.N. headquarters. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

"According to the mullahs in Tehran, we are 'the Great Satan,' lord of the underworld, master of the raging inferno," Bolton said in remarks prepared for delivery at a New York meeting convened to oppose Iran's nuclear ambitions.

"So, I might imagine they would take me seriously when I assure them today: If you cross us, our allies, or our partners; if you harm our citizens; if you continue to lie, cheat, and deceive, yes, there will indeed be HELL to PAY," Bolton said.

The capitalizations were included in the text of the quotes released to journalists.

Rouhani, in his General Assembly speech, targeted Trump in language if not directly in name. He condemned "recklessness and disregard of some states for international values and institutions."

Rouhani laid into leaders who believe they can "ride public sentiments and gain popular support through the fomenting of extremist nationalism and racism" and through what he called "xenophobic tendencies resembling a Nazi disposition."

Trump, in his own speech, said Americans "reject the ideology of globalism" in favor of what he called "the doctrine of patriotism." He also blasted what he called Iran's "corrupt dictatorship."

Rouhani also said U.S. sanctions against his country amount to an "economic war" that's disrupting trade and will harm people beyond Iran.

Trump's administration has reinstated sanctions on Iran after pulling Washington out of the multinational 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran. Trump says the deal was a "horrible" agreement that didn't do enough to contain Iranian "aggression."

In remarks earlier Tuesday, Trump predicted that the pressure from renewed sanctions would force Iran back to the table to negotiate.

But Rouhani noted that Iranians has endured sanctions before and "can overcome this difficult phase as well."

___

Associated Press writers Jennifer Peltz and Maria Sanminiatelli contributed to this report.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani addresses the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly, Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2018 at U.N. headquarters. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)WASHINGTON (AP) - The investigation into Russian election interference is often called the Mueller probe, but it's Rod Rosenstein who oversees it.

Rosenstein's fate as deputy attorney general remains in the air after a revelation surfaced last week that he floated the idea of recording President Donald Trump. Rosenstein went to the White House on Monday expecting to be fired, but the president gave him a three-day reprieve, and the two are set to have a face-to-face showdown on Thursday.

So what happens to the Russia investigation if Rosenstein loses his job after Thursday's meeting?

Some questions and answers:

WHAT IS ROSENSTEIN'S ROLE IN THE MUELLER PROBE?

Rosenstein is Robert Mueller's boss.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein leaves the White House in Washington, Monday, Sept. 24, 2018. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has recused himself from the Russia probe, to Trump's great frustration, and left the duties of overseeing the investigation to Rosenstein. After Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, Rosenstein appointed Mueller as special counsel to take over the investigation. Rosenstein is acting in Sessions' place to oversee the probe and has the power to fire Mueller - for cause - under Justice Department guidelines.

Rosenstein makes nearly all the pivotal decisions in the Mueller investigation, including signing off on indictments. In an interview with USA Today in March, Rosenstein said Mueller was "not an unguided missile."

In an investigation kept decidedly out of the public spotlight, it was Rosenstein - not Mueller - who briefed the president and then stood before the microphones when indictments were announced. He did so most recently in July, when the Justice Department charged 12 Russian intelligence officers in the hacking of Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton campaign emails during the 2016 election.

___

WHO WOULD REPLACE ROSENSTEIN IF HE IS OUSTED?

Under the Justice Department's succession plan, control of the Russia probe would be turned over to Solicitor General Noel Francisco.

He is the highest-ranking official after Rosenstein who has been confirmed by the Senate - a requirement for the position. The acting associate attorney general is actually ranked higher but would be ineligible because it is not a Senate-confirmed position.

But Francisco wouldn't take over as acting deputy. Sessions would likely move his chief of staff, Matthew Whitaker, into that position. He would take over Rosenstein's responsibilities outside the Mueller probe.

That would be a departure from the department's regular succession plan, which would make Rosenstein's chief deputy, Edward O'Callaghan, the acting deputy.

___

WHO IS NOEL FRANCISCO?

As solicitor general, Francisco is the president's top lawyer who has successfully defended controversial Trump policies, including the travel ban, before the Supreme Court.

Francisco served in President George W. Bush's administration, was a law clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia and was an attorney at the Washington law firm Jones Day, where he took on a number of conservative causes. The firm represents the Trump campaign, which could raise questions about whether he would have a conflict overseeing the Russia investigation. Francisco has recused himself from Supreme Court cases in which Jones Day represents a party.

If Francisco recuses himself from the Mueller probe, Steven Engel, the head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, would be next in line to take over the investigation.

___

WHY IS IT SIGNIFICANT WHETHER ROSENSTEIN RESIGNS OR IS FIRED?

The circumstances of Rosenstein's departure would affect Trump's ability to pick a replacement.

Under a law known as the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, if Rosenstein resigns, the president would have the power to temporarily move any Senate-confirmed appointee into the vacant post.

But Trump has less flexibility if he fires Rosenstein. The Justice Department would likely need to adhere to its succession plan, appointing Francisco as the overseer of the Mueller probe and Whitaker as deputy attorney general.

___

COULD THIS CHANGE THE COURSE OF THE MUELLER INVESTIGATION?

If Rosenstein were to depart, Mueller and his investigators would be losing the oversight of an official who has protected their work despite the relentless attacks of Trump and his congressional allies. Time and again, Rosenstein has signed off on critical investigative steps they have taken.

As the person who appointed Mueller and constructed his mandate, Rosenstein is intimately familiar with the details of the investigation. There is little likelihood that a successor would be nearly as familiar with the specifics of the investigation.

There is also no guarantee that Rosenstein's successor would be willing or able to withstand the political pressures and be similarly supportive and protective of the work of Mueller's team.

___

Associated Press writer Eric Tucker contributed to this report.BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) - A judge reinstated an oil and gas lease on land in northwestern Montana considered sacred to some tribes in the U.S. and Canada - a ruling that could test the depths of the Trump administration's support for the energy industry.

President Barack Obama's Interior Department improperly canceled the nearly 10-square-mile (26-square-kilometer) lease adjacent to Glacier National Park in 2016, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in Washington, D.C., said this week.

Solenex LLC of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, holds the lease and wants to drill for gas. It's within the Badger Two-Medicine area of Lewis and Clark National Forest - site of the creation story of the Blackfoot tribes of southern Canada and Montana's Blackfeet Nation.

Solenex attorney William Perry Pendley urged President Donald Trump's administration to let the company proceed with drilling. He argued that a failure to reverse the Obama administration decision would leave all oil and gas leases granted under Trump in danger of being ended under future presidents.

"The right to drill on these leases cannot be denied," Pendley said. "This is a property right, and it's well settled: When you get a lease, the government is agreeing you have a right to drill."

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has made energy development a top priority. Zinke last year recommended designating the Badger-Two Medicine as a national monument, but that would not automatically bar drilling.

FILE - In this March 25, 2016, file photo, the sun sets over the Badger-Two Medicine area near Browning, Mont. A federal judge has reinstated an oil and gas lease in the mountainous area that's considered sacred to some Native American tribes in the U.S. and Canada. (Greg Lindstrom/Flathead Beacon via AP, File)

Government attorneys who had defended the Obama-era lease cancellation in court were reviewing the ruling, which was issued late Monday, U.S. Justice Department spokesman Wyn Hornbuckle said Tuesday. He declined to comment on a potential appeal.

Solenex has held the lease for more than 30 years. It had not yet drilled because of numerous bureaucratic delays within the U.S. departments of Interior and Agriculture that prompted the company to sue in 2013.

An attorney for conservation groups and members of the Blackfeet tribe who intervened in the case said it was frustrating to have the lease reinstated given how long it took to get it canceled.

"Conservationists and certainly the Blackfeet have been screaming at the government for years that this lease was illegal," attorney Tim Preso said. "Unfortunately, the government had not responded in a timely fashion and when they did get around to canceling it, the court says you waited too long."

Because the lease had been under a longstanding suspension when it was canceled, its status after the ruling was uncertain.

Interior Department representatives did not immediately respond to questions about the lease's status.

Pendley and Preso speculated that the lease would remain suspended, meaning drilling could not begin pending further action by the court or government officials.

The Badger-Two Medicine area is part of the Rocky Mountain Front, a scenic expanse of forested mountains that's been subject to a long campaign to block oil and gas development and mining.

Congress in 2006 provided tax breaks and other incentives that prompted 29 leaseholders to relinquish their drilling rights, but some leaseholders declined the offers. Fifteen leases in the area were given up voluntarily by Devon Energy in 2016, and the government canceled what had been the last two leases in the area last year.

___

Follow Matthew Brown on Twitter at https://twitter.com/MatthewBrownAP .UNITED NATIONS (AP) - A gaping ideological divide cuts through this year's gathering of world leaders at the United Nations. It's not between capitalists and communists, rich and poor, East and West. It's between multilateralists who advocate nations working together and unilateralists who are pushing for national sovereignty.

Despite near-universal hand-wringing about the U.N.'s failings, it was clear who was in the minority on Tuesday.

President Donald Trump stood alone in his unashamed defense of the "America First" agenda that helped propel him to power - an isolationist worldview that questions the worth of international organizations and is embraced by a small but growing number of populist governments.

Trump was surrounded by multilateralists, many of them traditional U.S. allies, who want more cooperation, not less, to tackle global ills such as climate change, poverty and mass migration.

Key quotes from the opening session of this year's U.N. General Assembly:

U.N. SECRETARY-GENERAL ANTONIO GUTERRES: "Multilateralism is under fire precisely when we need it most."

As President Donald Trump addresses the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly, members of the media watch a video feed of the speech outside the GA Hall, Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2018, at UN headquarters. (Angela Weiss/Pool Photo via AP)

Guterres, who heads the 193-member U.N., warned of the dangers of nations turning inward in a speech that was the inverse of Trump's.

"In the face of massive, existential threats to people and planet ... there is no way forward but collective, common-sense action for the common good," he said.

He warned of "a pivotal moment" in global warming that risks runaway climate change if leaders don't act in the next two years. He urged nations to implement the Paris climate agreement that the U.S. is withdrawing from.

He also warned against rising polarization and populism, saying those who view their neighbors as dangerous "may cause a threat where there was none."

TRUMP: "America is governed by Americans. We reject the ideology of globalism, and we embrace the doctrine of patriotism."

Although it was Trump's chance to speak to the world, he appeared to play to a domestic audience and struck a triumphalist tone.

He boasted that America is a "stronger, safer and a richer country" than when he took office. He defended his trade protectionism and said the U.S. is taking a "hard look" at its foreign assistance to countries that don't have American interests "at heart."

He lambasted the U.N. Human Rights Council and the International Criminal Court, and rejected a global pact on the rights of migrants.

"We will never surrender America's sovereignty to an unelected, unaccountable, global bureaucracy," he said.

Trump didn't mention climate change. He said the U.S. stands ready to export "our abundant, affordable supply of oil, clean coal, and natural gas."

BRAZILIAN PRESIDENT MICHEL TEMER: "We live in times clouded by isolationist forces. Old forms of intolerance are being rekindled."

Temer urged world leaders to recommit to international cooperation. He said that his administration has done its part by opening Brazil's economy and by welcoming Venezuelans fleeing their country's economic collapse.

He urged reforms of the U.N. Security Council, which is dominated by five permanent members - the U.S., China, France, Britain and Russia.

RWANDAN PRESIDENT PAUL KAGAME: "The current two-track system of global governance is unsustainable."

Kagame said the trend in Africa is for more cooperation, not less. He cited the signing his year of the African Continental Free Trade Area, and increased support for African Union peacekeeping operations.

He said multilateralism is critical for the planet's future but requires more fairness.

"A few get to be the ones to define the norms, by which others shall be judged," he said.

TURKISH PRESIDENT RECEP TAYYIP ERDOGAN: "If we cannot create a minimum level of peace and prosperity for all, all over the world, no one can live safely within their own borders."

Erdogan highlighted Turkey's aid to 4 million Syrian refugees - a contrast to Trump's defense of securing U.S. borders from undocumented migrants.

He declared the U.N. to be "very important for the future of the world" but with a caveat: Security Council reform.

Erdogan struck a nationalist note too - warning "friendly countries" that fail to extradite terrorists wanted by Turkey would carry a "hefty price." The increasingly authoritarian leader referred to a U.S.-based Islamic cleric whom he blames for a failed 2016 coup attempt.

FRENCH PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: "Nationalism always leads to defeat."

Macron noted there has been increasing skepticism toward the U.N., European Union and other international bodies. He said that "you may be tired of multilateralism," but urged against complacency and isolationism.

PRESIDENT OF THE SEYCHELLES, DANNY FAURE: "In this unique forum we have equal representation."

Faure defended the U.N. and said the existence of his Indian Ocean island nation depends on states upholding global commitments to fight climate change.

IRANIAN PRESIDENT HASSAN ROUHANI: "Confronting multilateralism is not a sign of strength; rather it is a symptom of the weakness of intellect."

Rouhani's speech was dominated by Iran's bitter rivalry with the U.S. which under Trump has withdrawn from a 2015 nuclear agreement with world powers that provided sanctions relief to Tehran. The U.S. accuses Iran with supporting terrorists.

Rouhani said Trump seems determined to make international institutions ineffectual which he said, "betrays an inability in understanding a complex and interconnected world."

___

Associated Press writers Jennifer Peltz, Edith M. Lederer, Angela Charlton and Cara Anna contributed.

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres speaks during the United Nations General Assembly, Tuesday Sept. 25, 2018 at U.N. headquarters. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)

French President Emmanuel Macron addresses the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly, Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2018 at U.N. headquarters. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

President Donald Trump meets with French President Emmanuel Macron at the Lotte New York Palace hotel during the United Nations General Assembly, Monday, Sept. 24, 2018, in New York. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Rwanda's President Paul Kagame, left, is greeted by United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Monday, Sept. 24, 2018, at U.N. headquarters. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani arrives to address the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly, Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2018 at U.N. headquarters. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is slamming Norway for arresting a Russian parliamentary official suspected of spying.

Lavrov called the espionage accusations "propaganda" and said "we want to understand what happened with our citizen."

Speaking on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, Lavrov said Tuesday, "Do you realize he was invited by the Norwegian parliament? Norwegian hospitality."

Mikhail Bochkarev was arrested Friday while attending a conference on strengthening cooperation between Europe's parliamentary administrations. Moscow strongly denied the charges, calling it an example of "spy mania around Russia" and demanded his release.

Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg said the case wasn't political. Norwegian media reported that the man is a Russian parliamentary IT adviser whose behavior at the two-day conference prompted parliamentary officials to contact the intelligence service.The laughter was sudden, loud and unexpected.

It came at the expense of the U.S. president as he addressed global leaders at the United Nations, and it was witnessed by an audience of tens of millions viewing immediate clips online of a humiliating moment for Donald Trump.

The laughter followed Trump's boasts that "in less than two years, my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country."

Clearly startled by the laughter, he joked that it wasn't the reaction he expected.

It was a jaw-dropping moment in the hallowed hall where war and peace, prosperity and poverty, famine and plenty have been passionately discussed over the years.

A look at some other moments that shocked at the General Assembly.

FILE - In this Nov. 13, 1974 file photo, Yasser Arafat clasps his arms over his head as he addresses the United Nations General Assembly, at U.N. headquarters. In 1974, Arafat was invited to represent the Palestine Liberation Organization and his people before the world body, where he made it clear he was ready to use any means for statehood. He spoke of oppressed people and liberation the world over. Wearing his trademark Palestinian keffiyeh scarf, he concluded with an enduring quote: "Today I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom fighter's gun. Do not let the olive branch from my hand." (AP Photo/Marty Lederhandler, File)

KHRUSHCHEV'S SHOE

Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev did more than raise a few eyebrows in 1960 as the Cold War raged when he pounded his shoe on a desk in fury. It happened after the head of a delegation from the Philippines criticized Moscow for restricting the freedom of Eastern Europeans. His granddaughter later wrote that he was wearing new shoes that were tight, so he took them off while sitting. She and his interpreter said that when Khrushchev stood up, he pounded the table so hard with his fists that his watch fell off, and when he went to retrieve it, he saw the shoe and switched to banging that instead. The Berlin Wall went up the next year.

ARAFAT'S OLIVE BRANCH AND GUN

Yasser Arafat was the embodiment of the Palestinian quest for independence - a road littered with displacement and death. In 1974, he was invited to represent the Palestine Liberation Organization and his people before the world body, where he made it clear he was ready to use any means for statehood. He spoke of oppressed people and liberation the world over. Wearing his trademark Palestinian keffiyeh scarf, he concluded with an enduring quote: "Today I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom fighter's gun. Do not let the olive branch from my hand."

CASTRO'S LONG SPEECHES

Cuban leader Fidel Castro gave many speeches at the U.N., railing at those he characterized as his country's capitalist oppressors. The U.N. asks leaders to keep their speeches brief. But that was never for Castro: his General Assembly address in 1960 was timed at 4 1/2 hours. Clad in his trademark green military fatigues, Castro said the revolution he led 20 months earlier had ended the country's status as "a colony of the United States," but the U.S. still believed it had "the right to promote and encourage subversion in our country." In the rambling speech, Castro defended Cuba's links to the Soviet Union, expressed serious concern that America's "imperialist government" might attack Cuba, and called U.S. President John F. Kennedy "an illiterate and ignorant millionaire." Castro also complained of undergoing "degrading and humiliating treatment" in New York, including being evicted from his hotel.

GADHAFI GOES FREE FORM

Libya's Moammar Gadhafi also had a predilection for long, rambling monologues in his speeches at the world body. His 2009 address, clocked in at 1 hour, 40 minutes. Dressed in flowing brown Bedouin robes and a black beret, he chastised the United Nations for failing to prevent dozens of wars, suggested that those who caused "mass murder" in Iraq be tried, and defended the Taliban's right to establish an Islamic emirate. At one point, Gadhafi waved a copy of the U.N. Charter and appeared to tear it, saying he did not recognize the document's authority. Later that day, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told the assembly: "I stand here to reaffirm the United Nations Charter, not to tear it up."

CHAVEZ AND THE DEVIL

The late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez drew gasps at the U.N. in 2006 when he said of U.S. President George W. Bush, "Yesterday, the devil came here," adding that the podium "still smells of sulfur." The U.S. was at the time heavily embroiled in the Iraq War, which Chavez had vehemently opposed.

AHMADINEJAD AND 9/11

Iran's hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad prompted disgusted walkouts from the assembly in 2010 when he questioned whether the Sept. 11 attacks were staged. He suggested an inside job, arguing that only an explosion, not planes, could have brought down the twin towers. His visits to New York prompted fury among locals, but delighted the hard-line wing in Iran.

BIBI AND THE BOMB

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking to the General Assembly about Iran's nuclear program on Sept. 27, 2012, held up a large, cartoonish diagram of a bomb. The bomb was divided into sections marking 70 percent and 90 percent. Netanyahu said that Iran was 70 percent of the way to enriching uranium for a nuclear weapon and urged the world to draw a clear "red line" and stop the country's nuclear program. He then drew a red line under 90 percent, asserting that the Iranians would be that far along by mid-2013 and must not be allowed to get there. Netanyahu warned that "nothing could imperil the world more than a nuclear-armed Iran" and insisted that "red lines" prevent wars.

FILE - In this Nov. 13, 1974 file photo, a holster protrudes from under Yasser Arafat's jacket as he clasps his hands over his head during his appearance before the United Nations General Assembly at the U.N. headquarters. In 1974, Arafat was invited to represent the Palestine Liberation Organization and his people before the world body, where he made it clear he was ready to use any means for statehood. He spoke of oppressed people and liberation the world over. Wearing his trademark Palestinian keffiyeh scarf, he concluded with an enduring quote: "Today I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom fighter's gun. Do not let the olive branch from my hand." (AP Photo/File)

FILE - In this Oct. 12, 1960 file photo, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev pounds his desk at the United Nations with his fist during a General Assembly debate on colonialism at U.N headquarters. The Soviet leader did more than raise a few eyebrows in 1960 as the Cold War raged when he pounded his shoe on a desk in fury after the head of a delegation from the Philippines said Moscow had swallowed up the freedom of the people of Eastern Europe. The Berlin Wall went up the next year. (AP Photo, File)

FILE - In this Sept. 27, 1960 file photo, Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro speaks to United Nations General Assembly, at U.N. headquarters. The Cuban leader gave many speeches at the U.N., railing at those he characterized as his country's capitalist oppressors. The U.N. asks leaders to keep their speeches brief. But that was never for Castro: his General Assembly address in 1960 was timed at 4 1/2 hours. (AP Photo/NC)

FILE - In this Sept. 23, 2009 file photo, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi shows a torn copy of the U.N. Charter during his address to the 64th session of the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters. Gadhafi had a predilection for long, rambling monologues in his speeches at the world body. His 2009 address, clocking in at 1 hour, 40 minutes, made history as an unfocused rant against Israel, Afghanistan's Taliban, swine flu, and featured a bizarre call for a U.N. inquiry into the assassination of John F. Kennedy. He did note that the U.N. had been unable to stop more than 60 wars since its inception after World War II. But then termed the Security Council the "terror council." (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)

FILE - In this Sept. 20, 2006 file photo, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez holds a Spanish language version of Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance by Noam Chomsky while addressing the 61st session of the United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters. The late Venezuelan leader drew gasps at the U.N. in 2006 when he said of U.S. President George W. Bush, "Yesterday, the devil came here," adding that the podium "still smells of sulfur." The U.S. was at the time heavily embroiled in the Iraq War, which Chavez had vehemently opposed. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson, File)WARSAW, Poland (AP) - Poland's prime minister has received an on-camera lesson in the Polish language from his education minister after making a grammatical mistake during an election speech.

Mateusz Morawiecki seemed startled but made no comment when the minister, a teacher of Polish, told him in front of the cameras during a weekly government session Tuesday that his spoken Polish was faulty, and corrected it.

A complicated language, Polish is gender-sensitive and requires gender accord in all parts of the sentence. But at one point in his pre-local elections speech widely broadcast last week Morawiecki used a feminine form with the masculine word "year."

Education Minister Anna Zalewska was urged during an interview on private radio RMF FM to point out the mistake to Morawiecki, and had promised to do that.BANGKOK (AP) - A court in Thailand has given a second life sentence to a drug kingpin from Laos whose social connections to various celebrities were exposed by his arrest.

Bangkok's Criminal Court on Wednesday initially gave Xaysana Keophimpha a death sentence for smuggling 1 million methamphetamine pills from Laos to southern Thailand and Malaysia, but reduced his punishment to life in prison because he cooperated during the police investigation.

The same court in March had handed Xaysana a life sentence over the smuggling of 1.2 million methamphetamine pills from Laos after a group of traffickers identified him as the leader of their network.

Xaysana's case drew great attention when he was arrested last year because of unproven suspicions that some Thai celebrities with whom he fraternized were implicated in his activities.NEW YORK (AP) - Melania Trump says she'll promote child welfare in Ghana, Malawi, Kenya and Egypt in October on her first extended solo international mission.

The first lady detailed her plans Wednesday at a reception on the sidelines of the annual U.N. General Assembly.

Mrs. Trump says she looks forward to spreading the message of her domestic child-welfare initiative throughout Africa.

She's traveling without President Donald Trump, who raised ire across Africa this year after his private complaint about the continent's "s-hole countries" was leaked to journalists. Trump will also be in midst of campaigning for the November elections.

He said Wednesday that he and his wife "love Africa."

The first lady's only other solo international foray was a September 2017 day trip to Toronto to join Britain's Prince Harry for an event.

Melania Trump, center, wife of President Donald Trump, watches his address to the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly, at U.N. headquarters, Tuesday, Sept. 25, 2018. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

___

Superville reported from Washington.COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) - Danish submarine inventor Peter Madsen, convicted of torturing and murdering Swedish reporter Kim Wall last year, lost his appeal against his life sentence Wednesday, shortly after he apologized to the victim's family.

Madsen listened quietly as judge Jan Uffe Rasmussen read out the ruling by the Eastern High Court. Rasmussen said the high court had reached the same conclusion as the Copenhagen City Court, which sentenced Madsen to life in April after convicting him of murder.

In Denmark, a life sentence equates to 16 years on average, but can be extended. Madsen, 47, had wanted a time-limited sentence, not an open-ended prison term.

The prosecutor had argued that the life sentence should be upheld, saying the motive was sexual and the crime was planned.

Madsen stood up to hear the sentence and was motionless as Rasmussen read out the ruling.

Prosecutor Kristian Kirk was satisfied with the ruling.

FILE - This Wednesday, March 7, 2018 file photo shows the submarine UC3 Nautilus of Danish inventor Peter Madsen in Copenhagen, Denmark. Peter Madsen, convicted of torturing and murdering Swedish reporter Kim Wall last year, appeared in court Wednesday Sept. 26, 2018, on the last day of his appeal against a life sentence. (AP Photo/Dorothee Thiesing, File)

"It is a case of a completely unusual severity," he told reporters.

Before the ruling, Madsen apologized to Wall's family.

"I'm terribly sorry to Kim's relatives for what happened," Madsen said. Ingrid and Joachim Wall, the reporter's parents, were present in court.

Defense lawyer Betina Hald Engmark had argued that her client "has a clean criminal record and alone has been convicted for one murder."

"In comparable cases, the perpetrator often has committed moral crimes before," she said.

Madsen denies murdering Wall, saying she died accidentally inside the submarine, but has confessed to throwing her body parts into the Baltic Sea.

The Copenhagen City Court in April convicted Madsen of murder, sexual assault and the dismemberment of Wall. The court ruled unanimously that Madsen had lured Wall, 30, onto his homemade submarine with the promise of an interview.

During the appeals trial, Kirk said Wall couldn't escape and "likely had begged for her life" while Madsen carried out "a sadistic, yes inhuman, sexual fantasy."

Kirk said violent videos in which women were tortured and killed were found on Madsen's computer, and said he likely filmed the killing. He added Madsen had been planning the murder and "just waited for a victim."

"I hope we never will see such a case again," Kirk told the court.

No video of Wall's murder has been found.

"Kim Wall walked directly into a death trap," Kirk said before looking up at Madsen, who listened with his hands on the table: "I can't see any other sentence than life."

The cause of Wall's death hasn't been established.

Prosecutor Kristian Kirk talks to the media as he arrives at the Eastern High Court in Copenhagen, Denmark, Wednesday Sep. 26, 2018. Danish inventor Peter Madsen, convicted of torturing and murdering Swedish reporter Kim Wall last year, appeared in court on the last day of his appeal against a life sentence. (Liselotte Sabroe/Ritzau Scanpix via AP)Swedens prime minister has lost a vote of confidence in parliament, meaning he will have to step down  though not immediately.

Stefan Lofven, the leader of the Social Democratic Party, will continue as caretaker prime minister until a new government can be formed that has the command of the Riksdagen.

Politicians voted 204-142 against Mr Lofven, while three abstained.

Mr Lofven has been prime minister since 2014.

Tuesdays vote was mandatory after elections earlier this month delivered a hung parliament.

Neither the left-leaning bloc led by the Social Democrats nor the Moderates-led centre-right opposition managed to secure a majority in the 349-seat parliament after the September 9 vote.

Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven (Kerstin Joensson/AP)

Both have refused to co-operate with the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats.Novartis has put around 400 jobs at risk at its Grimsby factory as the Swiss pharmaceutical firm embarks on a major cost-cutting drive.

The group said on Tuesday that it will vacate the manufacturing site in north-east Lincolnshire by 2020 as it also announced stinging job cuts in Switzerland.

Novartis has been a part of the Grimsby community for many years so this has been a very difficult decision.

The Grimsby site is an effective, well-running operation that is testament to the hard-working and dedicated employees. We will treat every employee with the utmost respect, sensitivity and fairness during this difficult time, said Haseeb Ahmad, Novartis UK country president.

This decision has been made alongside broader changes to our business globally, and as a result of the changes in our product portfolio which now focuses on more specialised medicines, reflective of todays changing healthcare needs.

Mr Ahmad added that the announcement is part of a global review of manufacturing operations and is not linked to Brexit.

Novartis is leaving its manufacturing site in Grimsby (Andrew Milligan/PA)

Novartis is weighing options including selling the factory, which could potentially allow it to stay open.

The Swiss firm has a history in Grimsby of more than 50 years and produces specialist healthcare drugs at the site.

Around 395 Novartis employees at the Grimsby site are directly affected by the decision, and additional contactors employed through third parties may also be hit.Detectives investigating the murder of a hugely popular personal trainer are facing total silence with even his friends failing to speak to police.

Abraham Badru, 26, was shot dead on March 25 near his home in Hackney, east London as he went to get drink from the boot of his AMG Mercedes.

Six months on and despite a 20,000 reward on offer, no arrests have been made and investigators still know little about parts of his life.

The personal trainer received a police bravery award in 2009 after stopping a gang rape and giving evidence against the attackers despite receiving death threats.

His family believe he may have been killed as revenge, but his love life and business interests are other lines of inquiry.

Detective Chief Inspector Noel McHugh told the Press Association: Abraham was a hugely popular young man. There were 200 to 250 people at his funeral.

People have not come forward and there are big gaps in his life around his girlfriends, around his business interests that he was involved in.

The answer lies within his friends because they would have known if something was adrift or wrong or out of the ordinary.

Tributes on Ferncliff Road in Hackney, where Abraham Badru was shot dead on March 25 (Kirsty OConnor/PA)

He set out a detailed timeline of Abrahams movements in the run up to his well-planned murder:

 The night before he died, September 24, Mr Badru went to a restaurant in Chelsea, Als, with a group of nine or 10 people for a friends birthday meal between 10pm and midnight.

 The group then left and drove in convoy to a nightclub at the Arbor Hotel, after which Mr Badru spent the night with a woman.

 The following day the Liverpool fan visited his father, who is a politician in Nigeria, and they ate in Nigerian restaurant 805 in Hendon.

 After leaving his fathers house, he visited another woman for 20 minutes on his way back to the home he shared with his mother Ronke.

 During the journey he called a girlfriend and the pair had a conversation for more than 40 minutes. They were still on the phone when Abraham was shot.

Mr McHugh said: There seems to be an assumption that my information isnt important, someone else will make the call. That is where we are missing gaps in his life, critical bits of the jigsaw.

We dont know what was going on totally in his life. One of those girlfriends, I would imagine they might be sufficiently close to him that they would have noticed a change in behaviour or a nervousness.

As well as a lack of information from his friends, there has been no chatter on the street about the killing.

Ronke Badru, Abrahams mother (Kirsty OConnor/PA)

Weve just got a distinct void of intelligence, Mr McHugh said. That is where our problem comes from. One is a lack of intelligence coming from the community on the why and the who did it.

On the other side of it there is a void of people coming forward, Abrahams friends and people who knew him to say what was he doing on that night, what was his life like, who were his girlfriends. Thats two significant bits of our jigsaw that are missing.

Look at Abrahams mum Ronke, the pain that shes in six months on, and your lack of a phone call is just compounding the pain that the family is going through.

What is really frustrating is that there are a lot of friends out there for Abraham, he was a very well liked guy and people have not come forward.

Its implausible that people dont know why this has happened. People will have been talking in and around that cluster of friends. Somebody knows the answer why and who the gunman was.

So far the team has taken more than 163 statements and viewed more than 200 hours of CCTV, a painstaking process where a short clip can take hours to analyse.

Investigators have stressed they can receive information through third parties such as teachers, probation or charity staff, or Crimestoppers.

Mr McHugh said officers would be very discreet with any information received.

They are hoping Abrahams friends will publicise the hunt for his killer on social media and encourage potential witnesses to come forward.

It is heartbreaking when you look at Ronke and family and they just cant understand why arent all his friends rallying around and coming up with the information, Mr McHugh said.

Then you look further at both the criminal community and the local community and there is a silence out there on Abrahams murder.

Its a total silence. We need to find a way to try and unlock that information.

Police believe Abrahams killer, who may have been lying in wait, was riding a white bike.

He is believed to have emerged from an alleyway near the scene of the murder in Ferncliff Road, shot him twice and then escaped via another alleyway.

It is not known how the murderer knew where he would be, as he had changed his plans at the last minute.

Anyone with information can call the incident room on 020 8785 8099 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555111.Police are hunting for three masked men who carried out a despicable attack on a couple in their home in front of two young children.

The attackers were dressed in white forensic type suits, with their faces covered with masks.

The men were armed with bladed weapons when they forced their way into the house in Paisleys Ferguslie Park Avenue.

The man suffered serious head injuries and is being treated at Glasgow Royal Infirmary, with Police Scotland treating the attack on him as attempted murder.

The woman was also taken to Glasgow Royal Infirmary following the incident at 7.50pm on Monday, but was released after treatment.

While the two children were not hurt, they were left in a very distraught state, police said.

Police Scotland are treating the attack on the mas as attempted murder. (David Cheskin/PA)

Officers have still to establish a motive for the attack but it is believed the couple involved were specifically targeted.

Detective Inspector Ross MacDonald at Paisley CID said: Although we have yet to establish a motive for this violent attack we believe that the injured man and women were specifically targeted.

This despicable act of violence was carried out in front of two very young children who were within the house and has left them in a very distraught state. The injuries that the man sustained were so serious that the incident is being treated at attempted murder.

He added: A team of officers are carrying out door to door enquiries in an attempt to gain further information but at this time we believe that the three masked men may have made off in a small white car that was seen in the area.

Anyone with information is urged to contact Police Scotland via 101 or Crimestoppers phone service on 0800 555 111.New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern has made history by becoming the first female world leader to bring her baby to the United Nations general assembly.

Neve Te Aroha sat on father Clarke Gayfords lap while her mother spoke at the summit, and even received her own mock ID card.

Gayford is the babys full-time caregiver and he shared a photo of the card to Twitter, along with a rather entertaining nappy change story.

Because everyone on twitter's been asking to see Neve's UN id, staff here whipped one up.

I wish I could have captured the startled look on a Japanese delegation inside UN yesterday who walked into a meeting room in the middle of a nappy change.

Great yarn for her 21st. pic.twitter.com/838BI96VYX  Clarke Gayford (@NZClarke) September 24, 2018

I wish I could have captured the startled look on a Japanese delegation inside UN yesterday who walked into a meeting room in the middle of a nappy change, wrote Gayford. Great yarn for her 21st.

The ID card even included the title first baby.

But it doesn't say Prime Miniature.  2covet (@2covet) September 24, 2018

On June 21, Ardern, 38, became only the second world leader ever to give birth in office, after Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan in 1990, and is the first to take maternity leave.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said of Neves attendance: Prime Minister Ardern is showing that no one is better qualified to represent her country than a working mother.

(Richard Drew/AP)

Just 5% of the worlds leaders are women, so we need to make them as welcome here as possible.Pope Francis has acknowledged that the sex abuse scandals rocking the Catholic Church are driving people away and said the church must change if it wants to keep future generations.

Francis referred directly to the crisis convulsing his papacy on the fourth and final day of his Baltic pilgrimage, which coincided with the release of a devastating new report into decades of sex abuse and cover-up in Germany.

He told a gathering of young people in Estonia, considered one of the least religious countries in the world, that he knows many young people feel the church has nothing to offer them and does not understand their problems.

Those complaints recently poured into the Vatican through surveys commissioned ahead of a major meeting of bishops starting next week on how to better minister to young Catholics.

We know  and you have told us  that many young people do not turn to us for anything because they dont feel we have anything meaningful to say to them, Francis told a gathering of Catholic, Lutheran and Orthodox young people.

They are outraged by sexual and economic scandals that do not meet with clear condemnation, by our unpreparedness to really appreciate the lives and sensibilities of the young, and simply by the passive role we assign them.

Pope Francis (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

He said the church wants to respond to those complaints transparently and honestly.

We ourselves need to be converted, he said. We have to realise that in order to stand by your side we need to change many situations that, in the end, put you off.

It was a public admission of the churchs failures in confronting sex abuse scandals, which have roared back to the headlines recently with revelations of abuse and cover-up in the US, Chilean and now German churches.

The German bishops conference on Tuesday is releasing a report that found 3,677 people  more than half of them 13 or younger and nearly a third of them altar boys  were abused by clergy between 1946 and 2014.

The report, compiled by university researchers, found evidence that some files were manipulated or destroyed, many cases were not brought to justice, and abusers were sometimes moved to other dioceses without the congregations being informed about their past, according to reports in the German press.

The scandal, which erupted in Ireland in the 1990s and subsequently Australia and the US in following decades, threatens Franciss own papacy since a former Vatican ambassador accused him of rehabilitating an American cardinal who slept with seminarians.

Francis has declined to respond to the accusations, but the Vatican is expected to soon.Further cuts in the number of beds in Scotlands hospitals could have an adverse effect on the care provided, a doctors organisation has warned.

Professor Derek Bell, the president of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, spoke out after official figures showed a further drop in the number of acute specialist beds.

A reduction of 2% in 2017-18 took this down to 13,426, 4% lower than the total five years ago.

Seven out 10 (70%) of beds were for medical specialities, with 30% for those undergoing surgery.

The number of hospital beds has been reducing for many years, the NHS report said.

It added that this was the result of medical advances leading to shorter stays in hospital for patients, alongside the shift to treating more people in the community.

Figures show a drop in the number of acute specialist beds in Scottish hospitals. (PA Images/Rui Vieira)

But Professor Bell cautioned that further reductions in bed could impact on care.

He said: We note a small decrease of staffed, acute hospital beds in the past year  part of an ongoing trend in Scotland, where weve seen a 4% reduction when compared with 2012-13.

NHS boards must remain cautious about the impact that fewer acute inpatient beds may have on patients.

From the figures on unscheduled and elective care, we believe that any further reduction in bed compliment may have an adverse effect.

In addition to this he warned bed blocking  where patients remain in hospital despite being well enough to leave because they are waiting for care packages to be put in place  could further reduce acute bed optimisation.

Around one in eight people across Scotland  some 693,000 residents  were admitted to hospital in 2017-18.

And while most (69%) of this group were only admitted once over the year, there were 91,000 people who needed hospital care three or more times.

Last years figures also showed around one in three people aged 75 and over were admitted to hospital at least once  compared to around one in 12 of those aged 25 to 44.

Scotlands ageing population  with the number of people aged 65 and over set to increase by 19% between 2016 and 2026  means this demographic shift in the population will have significant implications for the future demand on hospital services.

Meanwhile about 8,000 people who live outside of Scotland were admitted to a Scottish hospital in 2017-18, with this accounting for 0.7% of all admissions.

A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: Over the last five years, we have seen a steady decline in length of stay in hospital.

This is encouraging because it reflects improved clinical practice, and we know it is better for people to be discharged in a timely manner so they can return home.

There are also signs that the growth in emergency admissions is slowing year on year, with the latest figures showing a growth of around 3,000 compared to 17,000 four years ago.

The change to the number of available beds reflects a number of factors. Our vision is for more people to be at home or in a homely setting if they do not need to be in hospital.

To achieve this, health and care partnerships are developing innovative ways of developing intermediate care, with around 700 intermediate care beds available across Scotland.

The number of beds should vary throughout the year to reflect demand. That is why we have introduced the six essential actions which include a focus on hospital capacity and patient flow.Deontay Wilder has shaded Tyson Fury as the opponent fans want Anthony Joshua to take on next when he returns to action on April 13 at Wembley Stadium.

Joshua retained his WBA, IBF and WBO heavyweight titles with a savage seventh-round stoppage of mandatory challenger Alexander Povetkin last weekend.

Attention has already turned to his next foe and, in an effort to find out who presented the most appealing option, Joshua put out a poll on Twitter that closed just after midday on Tuesday, with Wilder beating Fury and Dillian Whyte.

Nearly half a million votes were cast and WBC beltholder Wilder, the only man preventing Joshua from holding the undisputed champion tag in the heavyweight division, polled 53 per cent.

Joshua said himself after disposing of Povetkin that Wilder would be his preferred option, although the American must first get past Fury when they meet on December 1.

Fury collected 42 per cent in Joshuas poll although that number would surely increase if he were to defeat Wilder later this year.

Anthony Joshua is scheduled to be back in action next April (Nick Potts/PA)

British rival and Matchroom stablemate Whyte represents the easiest showdown to make, with the pair fierce rivals since their amateur days and Joshua claiming bragging rights when they met in the paid ranks three years ago.

However, the Brixton fighter was a far less palatable choice for most fans and only pulled in five per cent of the vote.Security barriers were not initially installed along Westminster Bridge because it was not deemed a likely location for a terror attack, one of the countrys most senior police officers has told the March 2017 attack inquest.

Metropolitan police chief superintendent Nick Aldworth, who is tasked with making the country resilient to terror attacks, said the bridge linking Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament to the west of the Thames, and the London Eye and Waterloo to the east, was not seen as a location where those protective measures were needed.

Terrorist Khalid Masood mowed down pedestrians on the landmark before stabbing Pc Keith Palmer to death as he stood guard at the Palace of Westminster on March 22 last year.

Westminster terrorist Khalid Masood (Met Police/PA)

On Tuesday, Dominic Adamson, representing two of the five victims family members, asked Mr Aldworth why the decision had not been made to introduce barriers on the bridge, particularly in the wake of the terror attacks in the French resort of Nice on Bastille Day 2016, and at the Berlin Christmas markets in December 2016  both of which involved vehicles ploughing into crowds to maximise casualties.

Cross-examining the policeman during the inquests at the Old Bailey in central London, Mr Adamson said: Despite the events in Nice and Berlin, no decision was taken to erect barriers on Westminster Bridge?

Mr Aldworth replied: Youre correct. It was not seen as a location where we needed to have barriers.

Asked if such a barrier could have been put on the bridge swiftly had it been decided the location was at risk of a vehicle-based terror attack, Mr Aldworth replied: A barrier solution could have been implemented.

Mr Aldworth said Westminster Bridge was not seen as a specific location for a specific threat and therefore there was no cause to mitigate against that threat.

Retired window cleaner Leslie Rhodes, 75, mother-of-two Aysha Frade, 44, American visitor Kurt Cochran, 54, and Romanian tourist Andreea Cristea, 31, were killed when Masood drove his hire vehicle into pedestrians, while Mr Palmer was stabbed to death inside the Parliamentary estate by the armed terrorist.

An inquest into the death of 52-year-old Masood  who was shot dead by armed officers during the attack  will take place at a later date.Anthony Joshua is on the prowl for another mega-fight after disposing of mandatory challenger Alexander Povetkin at the weekend to retain his WBA, IBF and WBO heavyweight titles.

A number of challengers have been linked with Joshua, who will return to Wembley Stadium on April 13 for what he hopes will be another blockbuster.

Here, Press Association Sport looks at the contenders who could be in the opposite corner for next years headliner.

Tyson Fury has his sights on Anthony Joshua (Liam McBurney/PA)

1. The winner of Deontay Wilder v Tyson Fury

Wilder, the WBC champion, next defends his title against former unified champion Fury on December 1 at a US venue which will be confirmed soon. The winner that evening will feel he has established himself as the worlds leading heavyweight, as well as possessing the only title to so far elude Joshua. Either against Joshua for all four world titles, to establish an undisputed champion, would become the most lucrative fight in the division.

Dereck Chisora wants to win his next bout (Nick Potts/PA)

2. The winner of Dillian Whyte v Dereck Chisora

Plans exist for a rematch between Whyte and Chisora to take place in London in December, two years after Whyte narrowly won on points in one of the fights of the year. Whyte, who defeated his bitter rival Joshua while both were amateurs, has improved significantly since then, as he most recently demonstrated by defeating Joseph Parker. On that same July evening Chisora secured perhaps his finest win by stopping Carlos Takam. Whyte will be the favourite for if and when their rematch is made, and would prove a popular opponent having forced an entertaining fight when being knocked out by Joshua in December 2015.

3. Jarrell Miller

The undefeated American must first overcome Tomasz Adamek when they fight on October 6, but he was in contention to challenge Joshua over the summer and has since had a heated, public exchange with the champion. It is also in America where Matchroom hopes to further Joshuas reputation, so he would prove a logical opponent before the pursuit of a higher-profile fight.The Labour Party has confirmed it will support a motion of no confidence in Irelands housing minister Eoghan Murphy.

Alan Kelly said the housing crisis had escalated under Mr Murphys watch.

This is really about confidence in the Government, its bigger than Eoghan Murphy, Mr Kelly said.

Its not about the individual, we dont believe hes doing a good job but there is collective Cabinet responsibility.

The housing minister faces a vote of no confidence in Dail Eireann on Tuesday evening.

The motion targeting Mr Murphy has been tabled by Sinn Fein after months of debate about homelessness and a Government response which campaigners believe is inadequate.

Housing minister Eoghan Murphy (Niall Carson/PA)

Mr Kelly said the vote was about whether they had confidence in the Government to solve the housing situation.

If we need a General Election to change the philosophy of this Government on housing, then so be it. @alankellylabour speaking on tonights motion of no confidence in the Minister for Housing. #HousingCrisis pic.twitter.com/HngFbT1x8P  The Labour Party (@labour) September 25, 2018

The answer is no we dont, he said.

The Tipperary TD added that there had been an awful lot of ribbon cutting but that in reality the Governments actions had not generated the volume of housing required.

Sinn Feins housing spokesman Eoin OBroin said the purpose of the motion was to put pressure on the Government.

Mr OBroin was joined by party colleagues outside the gates of Leinster House to highlight the homeless crisis.

The party representatives held up large posters making up the number 10,000 to mark the almost 10,000 people who are now homeless across the state.

That figure includes almost 4,000 children.

Mr OBroin told RTE Radio One that the Governments Rebuilding Ireland programme was not working.

The Governments action plan seeks to increase the overall supply of new homes to 25,000 per annum by 2020.

Speaking on the same programme, Mr Murphy called the Sinn Fein motion irresponsible.

He said Sinn Fein had an opportunity to bring forward proposals for alternative housing solutions to help the situation but had failed to do so.

Nowhere in their motion do they mention one thing they would do differently, Mr Murphy said.

If you are a young couple earning a good salary and cant afford to buy a home and dont understand why, or if you are paying a rent thats pinning you to your collar.

If youre a family waking up in emergency accommodation this morning, this motion will do absolutely nothing for you. Thats why its a stunt and, more than that, its incredibly irresponsible.

Fianna Fail has committed to abstaining on the vote.

The partys housing spokesman Darragh OBrien said the party was being responsible by doing so and that now was not the right time to have a general election.

Ive put forward alternatives, Ive put forward legislation, Mr OBrien told RTE.

Ive put affordable housing and my party at the centre of these budget negotiations and we want to see it delivered.

Meanwhile, Mr Murphy said he hoped to meet with his colleague, minister of state Catherine Byrne, ahead of the vote.

Ms Byrne refused to confirm or deny on Monday whether she was considering voting against her party colleague.

Mr Murphy said he did not know what her position was but he hoped that she would not be pulled into what he called a Sinn Fein stunt.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said that if Ms Byrne did not vote confidence in the minister, she could no longer continue as a minister herself.

Earlier this year Ms Byrne publicly opposed a new housing scheme in her constituency Dublin South Central at its launch.Any complaint against the head of the police in Scotland should be fast-tracked to avoid paralysing the force, MSPs have heard.

Gill Imery, HM Chief Inspector of Constabulary in Scotland, said concerns have been raised over how the priority of investigations are established.

She added the current situation where a complaint investigation into an officer ends if he or she leaves the force, as happened with former Police Scotland Chief Constable Phil Gormley, is unsatisfactory.

Mr Gormley quit his post in February  five months after he had been placed on special leave amid investigations into claims of gross misconduct, which he denies.

Former Police Scotland Chief Constable Phil Gormley stood down in February (Jane Barlow/PA)

Questioned on investigations being dropped if the accused leaves the force, at Holyroods Justice Committee, Ms Imery said: I agree that it is unsatisfactory, both for the person making the complaint and for the individual who has been publicly been accused of the behaviours.

Committee convener Margaret Mitchell asked: If the complaint involves the very top of the police force, the chief constable, should that be fast-tracked and is there justification for doing that because as long as there is that paralysis then it is deeply damaging to the whole force?

Ms Imery replied: Absolutely. The more quickly such an issue could be addressed and concluded, one way or another, the better.

Indeed I think that is one of the concerns that exist in some of the submissions [to the committee] about to whom is the Police Investigations and Review Commissioner accountable and to what extent can any relevant party intervene and establish the priority of investigations.

The Scottish Chief Police Officers Staff Association, which represents Scotlands most senior police officers, has previously hit out at watchdogs over the lengthy and damaging investigations into allegations of misconduct.

Auditor General for Scotland Caroline Gardner also gave evidence to the committee and said the way complaints regarding the former chief constable were handled did not help generate confidence in policing in Scotland.

She welcomed an independent review into how complaints against the police are handled currently being carried out by former Lord Advocate, Dame Elish Angiolini.

Speaking generally about the relationship between Police Scotland and the Scottish Police Authority (SPA) Ms Gardner praised the progress being made, saying improvements have been made from having turf wars between financial officers in each organisation.

She warned performance information about policing given to the SPA is falling short of enabling it to hold the force to account as envisaged by legislation.Music streaming sites Spotify and Deezer are among European tech industry players calling on the EU to get tougher on unfair business practices by US giants like Apple, Google and Amazon.

In a joint letter, the group urged European Union ministers to go beyond current proposals aimed at regulating online platforms that act as middlemen between customers and businesses.

They said the regulation does not go far enough to ensure dominant tech companies avoid practices that reinforce their privileged position or unfairly favour proprietary services.

Spotify boss Daniel Ek and Deezer chief executive Hans-Holger Albrecht were among the signatories to the letter, which was sent to EU competition and business ministers, who are scheduled to meet on Thursday in Brussels.

US firms including Apple were accused of having `disproportionate bargaining power (Philip Toscano/PA)

Travel websites, digital media companies and trade associations like the European Publishers Council and European Game Developers Foundation also signed the letter, which accused the tech giants of having disproportionate bargaining power and using their privileged position to become gatekeepers to the digital economy.

Under current proposals, the EU is seeking to introduce more transparency on how the platforms work with smaller businesses, including clarifying how they are ranked in search results and spelling out the reason for being suspended or terminated.

The proposals also aim to make it easier to resolve disputes.

The group said the proposed regulation does not go far enough. They complained that the tech giants favour their own services over third-party competitors using their platforms and force businesses to use in-house billing systems that charge excessive fees.

We stress that transparency alone will not rebalance the relationship between platforms and the businesses that depend on them, the letter said.An allowance of up to 317,000 euro a year has been paid to each president since 1998 that is not audited, taxed or scrutinised, the Dails public accounts committee has been told.

The committee, which is examining the expenditure of the Office of the President, heard from The Comptroller and Auditor General Seamus McCarthy on Tuesday that the money was an allowance, not a salary, and he could not definitively state what it was for.

Fianna Fail TD Marc MacSharry asked:Is this a payment on the blind that no one passes any remote oversight on what its spent on? Is that the case?

Mr MacCarthy replied he did not know, but the law states it is a payment paid to each president and is not surrenderable at the end of the year.

Its bizarre to me that public money is given out annually with no responsibility to anyone with no audit, Mr MacSharry said.

It was remiss of previous PACs to not hold this meeting before, its timely and informative and I can think of 317,000 reasons why it was worthwhile.

Irish President Michael D Higgins (Maxwell Photography/PA)

The allowance is paid on top of the 249,000 euro a year salary paid to the President.

Irelands highest ranking civil servant, Martin Fraser, whose responsibilities include being accounting officer for the Presidents office, appeared before the Public Accounts Committee with Mr McCarthy to explain the processes and expenses of the Aras an Uachtarain.

The decision to examine presidential expenses was made after questions were raised over the summer over claims of extravagant spending by the office including expensive hotel suites on state visits.

The committee also heard that the personnel charged with auditing of the office did not meet for over three years.

Mr Fraser was accused of passing the buck and bad governance when he admitted the committee did not meet from 2014 to 2018, but claimed there were extenuating circumstances.

The internal audit committee was formed in 2014 when Mr Fraser appointed a chair and two other members to oversee the accounts.

Due to a significant personal issue, the chair had to be recused from his duties, no substitute chair was ever appointed and the committee did not meet again until February 2018.

Members from across the political spectrum were quick to criticise Mr Frasers decisions.

When Mr MacSharry asked who does their job when theyre not available, neither of the men could offer an answer.

Is that proactive? If someone isnt there the work stops  do you appreciate thats a failing? Its poor practice of a way to run the country, he said.

Its a matter of public funds, I would hate to think that the work of the Oireachtas would stop because of the absence of one person.

The fact is when the chairman was missing, we didnt do anything for nearly three years.

Mr Fraser added that he took great assurance from Comptroller and Auditor General, who provided end of year audit reports in the absence of the committee.

Mr Fraser also received criticism for a letter he wrote to the committee stating that any investigation into the presidents expenses could be considered unconstitutional, which some members of the committee took offence at.

Mr Fraser questioned the political ramifications of examining the presidents expenditure so close to the election on October 26.

He noted the constitution, which states the president is not answerable to either house of the Oireachtas or any court for the exercise of his office.

Independent TD Catherine Connolly said that the office of the president should be held to the same standard as other institutions and that Tuesdays meeting exposed gaps in governance.

Every week we have this committee and put various organisations like Gardai through this, it would be unfair not to put presidents office through it too, she said.

Weve looked at processes and youve admitted that some processes leave something to be desired.

Mr Fraser said he was keen to stress he was not interfering, but that he was paying close attention to the constitution.

He said: I wasnt interfering with committee, I was making points it was my job to make.

The presidency is above politics, my job is different in the Aras than it would be in the Oireachtas.

The president himself is open to scrutiny and that will come out in election campaign.

Im just very careful about the constitution.

The committee also heard that although it is stated that the presidents office expenditure is 3.2 million euro a year, it is closer to 8.2 million euro when operational and other costs are considered.Life expectancy in Scotland has fallen for the first time in 35 years, official figures have revealed.

Males born in the period 2015 to 2017 can expect to live until the age of 77, new data from National Records of Scotland (NRS) showed, while girls born over the same period have a life expectancy of 81.1 years.

After three years where there had been little or no change in life expectancy, NRS said the slight decrease over the last year indicated a stall in life expectancy improvements in Scotland.

Labour health spokesman Anas Sarwar said the last time life expectancy had fallen was in 1983, when Tory Margaret Thatcher was prime minister.

For the first time in 35 years the life expectancy of both men and women has fallen in Scotland. That is a statistic which should shame both the Tory and SNP governments.

Last time was under Thatcher in 83.

For the record this is official @scotgov stats!  Anas Sarwar (@AnasSarwar) September 25, 2018

The figures were published at the same time as statistics showing the number of Scots living to be 100 years old or more is at near record level, with the country having an estimated 900 centenarians in 2017.

That is an increase of 45% from the estimated 620 centenarians a decade ago.

But the fall in life expectancy  the first time the estimates had decreased for both sexes for 35 years  prompted concern from opposition politicians, who branded it a wake-up call for the Scottish Government and others.

They hit out after data from the Office for National Statistics showed life expectancy for women fell from 81.15 years for those born in 2014 to 2016 to 81.09 years for those born in 2015 to 2017.

For males life expectancy went from 77.07 years to 77.02 years over the same period.

While life expectancy has increased by 7.9 years for men and 5.8 years for women over the last 35 years, the figures showed Scotland still had the lowest life expectancy of the four nations in the UK.

Annie Wells, Scottish Conservative public health spokeswoman, said: For years increases in life expectancy have indicated improvements in health and quality of life, therefore this decrease in life expectancy has implications.

This is indeed a wake-up call for everyone involved in public health improvement in Scotland, and demonstrates that we cannot be complacent.

In addition, Scotland still has the lowest life expectancy of all the UK nations, something that is troubling in itself.

Scotland has an estimated 900 centenarians (Phil Noble/PA)

She added: What is clear is that education, health and economic activity all have their roles to play in raising life expectancy once more.

Meanwhile Mr Sarwar hit out at both the Scottish and UK governments, saying: For the first time in 35 years the life expectancy of both men and women has fallen in Scotland.

That is a statistic which should shame both the Tory and SNP governments.

He added: After more than a decade of the SNP in charge of the countrys health service, Scotland has the lowest life expectancy rates of any part of the UK.

Liberal Democrat health spokesman Alex Cole-Hamilton stated: Life expectancy falling for both sexes, for the first time in 35 years, should ring alarm bells at the very top of government.Businessman and Irish presidential candidate Sean Gallagher has criticised the state broadcaster after it scheduled the first presidential debate at a time that clashes with Michael D Higginss engagements.

The presidential hopeful said the clash could easily have been avoided if RTE had contacted the presidents office to confirm Mr Higginss prior commitments.

A debate will take place later this week on RTE Radios News At One programme.

It had been arranged for Wednesday but was then moved to Thursday, however Mr Higgins said he could not attend as he was involved in other engagements.

Mr Gallagher is not expected to take part in any debates which Mr Higgins is not participating in.

The former Dragons Den star made the comments as he lodged his nomination papers at Custom House in Dublin on Tuesday.

Sean Gallagher was accompanied by his wife Trish and their children Bobby and Lucy (Kinlan Photography)

Joined by his wife Trish and their children Bobby and Lucy, Mr Gallagher called for RTE to contact the presidents office ahead of national debates.

Theres also been much talk in recent days about the schedule of debates so let me say this, this is not about Sean Gallagher and its not about Michael D Higgins, he said.

It is about three things. Its about respect for the office of the president, its about respect for the incumbent of that office and, importantly, it is about respect for the electorate.

This situation could easily have been avoided had RTE contacted the office of the president to find out if indeed the president was available on these scheduled dates.

Even on the public website which is available online, it was clear that the president had pre-scheduled commitments.

I think now I would encourage RTE to contact the office to find out what dates the president will be available and then schedule the debates accordingly.

He said it was important for all media organisations to contact the office of the president to confirm President Higginss available dates.

Whats important here is the principle of fairness and equality, he added.

If we want the office of president to promote inclusiveness and fairness, then the very process by which that election takes place must be based on those very same values.

Inclusiveness and fairness are at the heart of the election process. Its what democracy demands. And it is what the electorate deserves.

Before lodging his presidential nomination papers, he described it as a very important day for his family.

He continued: Its also a very important day for our family and I hope that in 20 years time when Bobby and Lucy look back on today, that it will be an encouragement for them and that if they have a dream, that they also have the courage to step forward in pursuit of that dream.A senior German bishop has apologised for thousands of sexual abuse cases reported to have taken place inside the Catholic Church in Germany.

The report released on Tuesday concludes at least 3,677 people were abused by clergy between 1946 and 2014.

Sexual abuse is a crime, Cardinal Reinhard Marx, who is also the head of the German Bishops Conference, told reporters.

Im ashamed for so many (of us) looking away, not wanting to recognise what happened and not helping the victims. That goes for me as well.

Cardinal Reinhard Marx (Arne Dedert/dpa/AP)

The apology came on the day Pope Francis acknowledged the sex abuse scandal rocking the Catholic Church was driving people away. He said the church must change its ways if it wants to keep future generations.

The report on sex abuse in the German Catholic Church found that more than half of the victims were 13 or younger and most were boys.

Every sixth case involved rape and at least 1,670 clergy were involved. Some 969 abuse victims were altar boys.

On average, the abuses happened multiple times over a period of at least 15 months.

The German Bishops Conference released its report on Tuesday, but it had already been leaked earlier this month and was heavily criticised for the lack of transparency and the churchs refusal to let the researchers access original documents.

Instead of looking at the original church files, they sent questionnaires to the dioceses, which then provided the information.

Delegates attend the opening mass of the German Bishops Conference in Fulda (Arne Dedert/dpa/AP)

The report was commissioned by the German Bishops Conference and researched by experts from the universities of Giessen, Heidelberg and Mannheim.

The researchers wrote that there was evidence that some files were manipulated or destroyed, and many cases were not brought to justice.

Sometimes abuse suspects  primarily priests  were simply moved to other dioceses without the congregations being informed about their past.

The figures are only the tip of the iceberg, said Harald Dressing, a psychiatrist from Mannheim University who presented the report with Mr Marx and others in the central German city of Fulda during a convention of the German Bishops Conference.

Generally, the risk of sexual abuse of children inside the Catholic Church continues to exist, Mr Dressing warned. He said celibacy, the clergys power and homosexuality inside the church were all issues that promoted abuse.

German justice minister Katarina Barley said: The dioceses and religious orders must finally take on responsibility for decades of suppression and denial the church must press criminal charges in every case.

The Catholic Church has been struggling with sex abuse by its clergy for a long time.

In 2010, the German church was roiled by a sex abuse scandal triggered by the head of a Jesuit school in Berlin who went public about decades-long sexual abuse of high school students by clergy.

Following that, a whole wave of victims who were sexually abused by clergy spoke out across Germany.UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres has painted a grim picture of the state of the world as leaders opened their annual meeting, spotlighting a breakdown of trust around the globe.

In his opening remarks, Mr Guterres said the world is suffering from a bad case of Trust Deficit Disorder, and pointed to rising polarisation and populism within nations, ebbing co-operation and fragile trust in international institutions.

Democratic principles are under siege, he added.

"We need to move ahead based on facts, not fear  on reason, not illusion."

 @antonioguterres to world leaders at #UNGA. Watch: https://t.co/WhwXXmCYWf pic.twitter.com/TKXquf5zIR  United Nations (@UN) September 25, 2018

The UN chief also sounded the alarm on climate change, saying the world has reached a pivotal moment in global warming and risks runaway climate change if leaders do not act in the next two years.

He said world leaders are not doing enough to combat what he called a direct existential threat that is moving faster than people are working to combat it, and called for the international Paris climate change agreement to be implemented.

US President Donald Trump has announced he is withdrawing his country from the pact, while Mr Guterres is planning a climate summit next year.

Antonio Guterres (Richard Drew/AP)

This year, 133 world leaders have signed up to attend the General Assembly session which ends on October 1, a significant increase from the 114 leaders last year.

Virtually all 193 UN member nations will be represented.

Populist leaders attending this years meeting including Mr Trump, Polish President Andrzej Duda and Italys premier Giuseppe Conte, along with the foreign ministers of Hungary and Austria.A rare beluga whale reported to be swimming in the Thames could be in trouble, conservationists have warned.

Ecologist Dave Andrews tweeted footage of the marine mammal, which he said was swimming in the river off Coalhouse Fort, Essex.

He said: Cant believe Im writing this, no joke  BELUGA in the Thames off Coalhouse Fort.

He added the beluga had been feeding around barges on the river for around an hour and had not moved more than 200m either direction on the river.

Can't believe I'm writing this, no joke - BELUGA in the Thames off Coalhouse Fort @RareBirdAlertUK pic.twitter.com/6VtrJ1PVc6  Dave A (@iPterodroma) September 25, 2018

The British Divers Marine Life Rescue, which helps with rescues of stranded cetaceans and other marine animals, said they were sending their area coordinator down to the river to monitor the situation.

A spokeswoman for the organisation said it was a very rare occurrence, and urged people not to go out in boats to get a close look at the whale, but to watch it from the shore.

A rare sighting of a beluga whale has been reported on the Thames near Gravesend (Victoria Jones/PA)

And a spokesman for the RSPCA said: The RSPCA is aware of reports of a whale, possibly a beluga, in the Thames.

We are working with other agencies to monitor the situation and ready to provide appropriate assistance if requested.

While the report of the animal prompted excitement on social media, conservationists warned that the beluga whale, normally found in the High Arctic, was lost and could be in trouble.

Danny Groves, from Whale and Dolphin Conservation (WDC) said: This is a High Arctic species thousands of miles from where it should be in Greenland, Svalbard or the Barents Sea, they are usually associated close to the ice.

He or she is obviously very lost and quite possibly in trouble. 

He urged people to give the whale space and minimise disturbance.

Mr Groves said it was not the first time a beluga has been spotted in UK waters in recent years.

In the summer of 2015 two were spotted off the Northumberland coast and one in Northern Ireland, he said.

In 2006, a whale died after it swum up the Thames into central London despite efforts to rescue the animal.More than one in 10 Scots report having two or more symptoms of depression, after a steady and significant rise in the number struggling with the condition.

A total of 11% of those questioned for the 2017 Scottish Health Survey had at least two symptoms, compared to 8% in the 2011 study.

The latest research also showed in the most deprived parts of Scotland 20% of people had two or more symptoms, compared to just 5% in the least deprived communities.

Meanwhile more than a fifth (21%) of those aged 16 to 24 reported having self harmed  figures for 2014 to 2017 showed  with 24 of females in this age group and 19% of males having deliberately hurt themselves.

Rates for self harming have gone from 3% of the population in 2008-09 to 7% in 2014-15, before dropping to 6% in 2016-17, according to the survey.

The figures were released at the same time as Mental Health Minister Clare Haughey said the Government was working towards 39 of the 40 actions laid out in its 10-year mental health strategy.

11% of Scots reported having two or more symptoms of depression (Dominic Lipinski/PA)

A total of 13 of the actions are either complete or nearly complete, she said, with work on another 26 underway.

Ms Haughey, a former mental health nurse, said only one action  a progress review of strategy in 2022  was not currently being worked on for obvious reasons.

She stated: Scotlands 10-year mental health strategy paints a clear and aspiring picture of a Scotland where people get the right help at the right time, free from stigma, and where we treat mental health with the same commitment as we do physical health. I am very proud of the achievements and progress in its first 18 months.

However, there is still much to do. People now understand mental health better and are more open and willing to seek help. We must ensure our services reflect these changing needs and demands.

We will do this through our strategy, other significant steps we are taking, and the quarter of a billion pounds of new money we will invest over the next five years.

But opposition MSPs stressed more was needed from the Scottish Government than warm words.

Concerns have been raised in Holyrood about the length of time it can take for some people to get help when they are struggling with their mental health.

Tory public health spokeswoman Annie Wells said: We all want to see mental health receive the focus it so desperately needs, however I feel this statement is missing the point.

Since the strategy was introduced last year we have seen CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services) waiting times at their worst on record, weve seen an audit into rejected referrals highlighting a consistent rate of one in five young people being rejected for treatment, and an Audit Scotland report describing childrens mental health services as complex and fragmented.

Weve heard many warm words, but things dont seem to be moving in the right direction.

Labours Mary Fee said: Everyone wants to see mental health on an equal footing to physical health, and the reality for the Scottish Government is they are nowhere near achieving that parity, regardless of their warm words.Fascism must be rooted out from Labour, shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry has told the Labour conference, admitting there are sickening individuals exploiting legitimate support for Palestine.

The admission came as she reiterated Labours commitment to recognising Palestine  which Jeremy Corbyn has said will be done as soon as we take office.

Ms Thornberry also condemned the Israeli governments racist policies and criminal actions as she gave her keynote speech in Liverpool.

She said: We all support the Palestinian cause, we are all committed to recognise the Palestinian State, and I stand here with no hesitation when I condemn the Netanyahu government for its racist policies and its criminal actions against the Palestinian people.

But I know as well, and we must all acknowledge, that there are sickening individuals on the fringes of our movement, who use our legitimate support for Palestine as a cloak and a cover for their despicable hatred of Jewish people, and their desire to see Israel destroyed.

Those people stand for everything that we have always stood against and they must be kicked out of our party the same way Oswald Mosley was kicked out of Liverpool.

Emily Thornberry highlighted the toll the conflict was taking on children (Stefan Rousseau/PA)

Ms Thornberry was speaking after a debate on Palestine saw one speaker defying the chair to whoops, cheers and scores of Palestine flags being waved in support.

Delegates chanted Free Palestine as a motion condemning the Israeli response to protests in the Gaza Strip was moved by Colin Monehen from Harlow CLP.

He said an army would be needed to remove him from the stage, prompting cheers and claps from many in the audience, after he was told his speaking time was up.

He said: If you want me off this stage youre going to have to get security up here, and they better send an army, because Eastenders, like Palestinians, dont go down easy.

Mr Monehen said the Palestinian people could not be left alone in the darkness, saying their story must be told.

I want us to send a message to Mr Trump that cutting the funding to the UNRWA, the humanitarian agency set up by the UN to assist these people in exile, born homeless, born stateless, in refugee camps, will not crush their spirit.

It will not lessen their resolve to return home.

Expelling Palestinian diplomats will not make them disappear like a snowflake in the hot sun.

The debate happened after Labour leader Mr Corbyn threw his support behind a two-state solution to Middle East peace, saying he wanted a secure and viable Palestine alongside Israel.

Addressing the Labour Friends of Palestine conference fringe event he attacked Donald Trump for moving the US embassy to Jerusalem and cutting funding for the UN Refugee Agency.

He also called for a sustainable, just peace with Israel after 51 years of occupation.

But peace cannot be achieved with the existence of settlements, human rights abuses, and a disregard for international law by the current Israeli government, like last Sundays demolition of the Palestinian village of Khan Al Amar, he continued.

The security of one country can never be achieved at the expense of another and Britain has historic responsibility towards Palestinian people.

We will continue to stand up for Palestinians, we will recognise an independent state of Palestine as soon as we take office.

At the same fringe meeting, Ms Thornberry echoed the party leader, saying an independent Palestine was needed while there is still some Palestine left to recognise.

She also highlighted the toll the conflict was taking on children, both in Israel and Palestine.Michael Kors is buying Italian fashion brand Versace, and renaming itself Capri Holdings. What is the thinking behind the deal and what will happen next?

Why is Versace being sold?

The sale could give Versace the boost it needs to compete with rivals.

Gucci, another Italian luxury brand, has far outstripped Versace under the ownership of conglomerate Kering. Last year Gucci brought in sales of 6.2 billion euro (5.55 billion), compared with Versaces 668 million euros.

Versace also sold a 20% stake to private equity giant Blackstone in early 2014. This added extra pressure for Versace to provide an exit.

Why does Michael Kors want to buy it?

Donatella Versace will still be involved in the brand (Matt Crossick/PA)

Michael Kors says it can help Versace to reach two billion US dollars (1.5 billion) in revenue.

In turn, the company, which is to be renamed Capri Holdings after the acquisition is complete, hopes the brand will help it to build overall revenues to eight billion US dollars.

Although Versace has lagged behind some peers, the brand is on course for double-digit growth in revenue, earnings and comparable sales growth.

This makes it attractive as a growth prospect, with Michael Kors chief executive John D Idol saying on Tuesday that the brand is very relevant in the modern culture today.

What will change?

Versaces new owners want to increase the amount of revenue brought in by accessories and footwear from 35% to 60%.

On a call with analysts, Idol said this could include developing items in fast-growing sectors such as mens sneakers.

The brand will also increase its store footprint across the world from 200 to 300 sites.

Combined with Michael Kors plans to expand wholesale partnerships with luxury department stores like Harrods and Galeries Lafayette, this means Versace products will be available in more physical retail spaces.

Will the Versace family still be involved?

Versaces existing senior management team, which includes Donatella Versace, her brother Santo and daughter Allegra, will continue to lead the company.

The Versace family, who currently own 80% of the brand, will also receive 150 million euro in shares of the enlarged business.

Mr Idol said on Tuesday that Donatella Versace, who has been the creative leader of the brand since the death of her brother Gianni in 1997, was an icon and that her leadership in the fashion field is a very key component in the companys success.

Will Michael Kors buy anything else?

The company has completely transformed in the last two years, going from a single-brand firm to a luxury conglomerate comprising three of the worlds best-known labels.

Mr Idol said on Tuesday: We will focus on the three brands we have right now. We will not focus on any further acquisitions for the moment.The Labour partys Alan Kelly has dubbed comments made by Sinn Feins Northern Ireland leader about Mairia Cahills rape allegations as scandalous and outrageous.

Michelle ONeill declined to state clearly last week whether she believed Ms Cahill.

Ms ONeill was asked twice in a BBC interview if she believed Ms Cahills account of the alleged abuse she said she suffered by an alleged IRA member and her claims of a cover-up by the Republican movement.

In the interview Ms ONeill said: Its not for me to say that I believe her.

Speaking outside Leinster House on Tuesday Mr Kelly said: Michelle ONeills comments were scandalous. I thought they were outrageous for someone in her position to say that effectively she didnt believe Mairia Cahill.

The Tipperary TD added: The fact that Sinn Fein as an organisation, given its past, are not willing to own up and acknowledge the hurt, distress that was caused to this very brave woman is, frankly, speaks to what type of an organisation they are and why we should always question whether an organisation like that should ever be let near the levers of power or government.

The political row is over Mairia Cahill (Brian Lawless/PA)

Mr Kelly reiterated his call for Sinn Fein president Mary Lou McDonald to sit down with Maria Cahill face to face and apologise on behalf of the organisation.

He added that even if it took hours, Ms McDonald should sit down and listen to what Ms Cahill had to say to her.

Earlier this month, Police Ombudsman Dr Michael Maguire delivered a scathing critique into police failings, and also noted that Sinn Fein did not act when Ms Cahill originally made her allegations to senior party figures in 1997, instead waiting for three years to suspend her alleged attacker.

The Sinn Fein leader unreservedly apologised to Ms Cahill in the wake of the probe.

She said Sinn Fein now had robust procedures in place for mandatory reporting of abuse allegations and that she regretted that such procedures were not in place at the time Ms Cahill made her allegations.

But Ms Cahill criticised Ms McDonalds statement saying she did not go far enough.

The SDLP councillor has claimed Sinn Fein covered up her allegations against one of its members.

Ms Cahill, a grand-niece of prominent Belfast republican Joe Cahill, claimed she was sexually abused as a 16-year-old by alleged IRA member Martin Morris.

Mr Morris, who denied all wrongdoing, was later acquitted of rape when the case against him collapsed.

Ms Cahill had alleged the republican movements response to her claims was to subject her to an IRA interrogation.

She also accused Sinn Fein of engaging in a cover-up and waging a campaign to question her integrity ever since she waived her right to anonymity.A single mother who helped her corrupt banker brother launder more than 2 million in bribes has been spared jail to look after her children  after falling pregnant again.

Tatjana Sanderson, 39, who is expecting her fourth child, let Channel Island accounts in her name be used to bank the money for Anglo-Russian sibling Andrey Ryjenko,

Last June Ryjenko, 45, was jailed for six years after he was convicted of taking backhanders while working for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).

Sanderson last month pleaded guilty to concealing, converting or transferring criminal property between September 2007 and March 2010, following a long-running bribery case which led to convictions in Britain and the United States.

The Old Bailey heard the laundered money has been seized and remains in bank accounts, having not been touched by Sanderson, who lives in her parents multimillion pound flat near Hyde Park.

Judge Nicholas Cooke QC told Sanderson she would have been jailed immediately had she benefited financially from her crime.

Andrey Ryjenko was jailed for six years (City of London Police/PA)

But he handed her a two-year prison sentence, suspended for two years, on Tuesday, after saying: Corruption in the financial world and the world of banking is something upon which the criminal justice system needs to make war because it is such a devastating problem in many, many ways.

It strikes at the fabric of society.

However, we do not make war on small children and in this case that is what in some ways I would be doing, were I to send her immediately to prison.

Sanderson broke down in tears in the dock as the judge detailed how her baby daughter was diagnosed with cancer in October 2015 before receiving years of distressing treatment.

Children with cancer need their parents to be fully committed for this extremely stressful period, the judge continued.

There is a significant chance of relapse over the next few years and so this will prove a stressful time for the family.

He added: You have become pregnant again, so were I to send you to prison there would be additional suffering.

Judge Cooke said that some may say she got pregnant deliberately to take advantage of the judges potential mercy.

But he added: I know better, having seen a doctors report that she conceived after a contraceptive device had been fitted.

At the time of the offences, Ryjenko was employed in a role which required him to consider equity investment and loan applications from firms.

The court heard he accepted more than 3.5 million dollars (then worth just over 2 million) in return for approving loans for Dmitrij Harder, then principal owner of Chestnut Consulting Group, based in Southampton, Pennsylvania, in the United States.

Their plot was formulated after financial consultant Harder revealed his company had been retained by a Russian-based oil firm to obtain project financing in September 2007.

Ryjenko seized the opportunity to abuse his position and make money corruptly by directing his employers potential clients to instruct Harder as a financial consultant in exchange for a share of the hefty fees.

Bogus business cards were produced for Sanderson to convince her bank the funds were legitimate payments for work carried out for Chestnut as the funds were funnelled into her accounts.

City of London Police were alerted in February 2010 by the chief compliance officer at the EBRD, after an anonymous tip-off sparked an internal investigation.

Ryjenko was jailed for six years after being convicted of conspiring to make or accept corrupt payments and transferring criminal property following a five-week trial at the Old Bailey.

Sanderson, who developed mental health issues, had been declared unfit to stand trial but the jury decided she was involved in the corruption as a matter of fact.

Meanwhile in the US, Harder, the former owner and president of Chestnut Consulting Group Inc, was jailed for five years for bribery.

Harder, 45, of Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania, had pleaded guilty in April 2016 to two counts of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

In sentencing, US District Judge Paul Diamond ordered Harder to forfeit 1.9 million dollars (1.4 million).

Crown Prosecution Service prosecutor Elspeth Pringle said: Tatjana Sanderson knew the millions of pounds she was storing in these bank accounts was taken through corrupt payments made to Ryjenko at his banking job.

Sanderson took the money to distance her brothers involvement in the corruption.

The CPS showed in court the extent of the corrupt payments made to Ryjenko and how the money was then followed to Sandersons accounts to secure this guilty verdict.A Canada-style Brexit trade deal that broke up the UK would be worse than no deal, Theresa May has said.

Brussels has shown hope, expectation and desire for an agreement, the Prime Minister insisted.

But she said any move that would put a border in the Irish Sea would be a bad outcome.

And she accused Labour of being ready to accept any proposals the EU put forward regardless of how harmful they were.

It comes after senior Tory Leavers including David Davis and Jacob Rees-Mogg backed proposals calling on the Government to seek a basic free trade agreement for goods of the kind struck between the EU and Canada and pointed out such a move had already been offered by Brussels.

Downing Street later said the proposals would mean Northern Ireland effectively remaining in parts of the single market and customs union.

Speaking to reporters as she flew to New York for the United Nations General Assembly, Mrs May said: First of all, I have always said no deal is better than a bad deal.

I think a bad deal would be, for example, a deal that broke up the United Kingdom.

We want to maintain the unity of the United Kingdom.

What we have put on the table is a good deal, its a deal which retains the union of the United Kingdom, our constitutional integrity, its a deal that provides for no hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, protects jobs and enables us to have a good trading relationship with Europe and also the rest of the world.

When we get to the point of a deal  and as Prime Minister I do believe we can get to a good deal  we will take that deal back to Parliament and at that point MPs will have a clear choice.

They will have a choice as to whether to support that deal.

They will have to recognise looking at their vote that what we are doing is delivering on the vote of the British people in the referendum.

What I do know is that we have a Labour Party whose position in this (is) clear.

Labour will oppose any deal I bring back regardless how good it is for the UK.

They will accept any deal the EU gives regardless of how bad it is for the UK.

That is not in the national interest, what we are doing is in the national interest.

European Council president Donald Tusk mocked Mrs Mays negotiating strategy on Twitter after last weeks Salzburg summit, posting a picture of a cake with no cherries in reference to claims the PM is trying to cherry pick the best aspects of the EU.

Donald Tusk (Rick Findler/PA)

Asked if she wanted an apology, she replied: What I welcome is the fact we have seen Donald Tusk following our response, we have seen Donald Tusk actually clarify the position that they were taking and make it clear that actually the EU side does want to look at a deal.

Mrs May said if the EU had concerns about her Brexit Chequers plan for future relations it should set them out along with any counter-proposals.

She added: What he has clarified is that there is hope and expectation and desire for a deal on the side of the European Union and there are aspects of the Chequers proposal which they are comfortable with.

The Cabinet backed proposals for EU nationals to be subject to the same rules as migrants from the rest of the world after free movement ceases to apply in the UK post-Brexit.

The PM said: I have been very clear that one of the things thats non-negotiable is an end to free movement and that is absolute.

People voted to bring an end to free movement and we will do that.

As we look at our future proposals for our immigration rules, what we want to do is ensure that we are recognising the concerns that people have about immigration, that we are working to continue to bring net immigration down but obviously we do that in a way thats going to be good for the British economy and our future.Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard has pledged to put 20 in a credit union account for every first year secondary school student in Scotland.

The new policy, costing an estimated 1.2 million a year based on the 2017 S1 intake, would come into effect if the party is elected to government and is aimed at cutting reliance on high cost credit such as pay-day lenders.

It is part of a package of reforms Mr Leonard would enact to tackle personal debt across Scotland, which includes nationalising public transport to ensure fairer ticket prices, using an industrial strategy to ensure better paid jobs and increasing child benefit by 260 a year.

I visited a great Credit Union in Liverpool this morning to announce @ScottishLabours plans to open a Credit Union account for every S1 pupil with 20 inside it.



Credit Unions provide support to communities and affordable credit to millions. #Lab18 pic.twitter.com/1aCOtBYh47  Richard Leonard (@LabourRichard) September 25, 2018

Outlining the policy on a visit to a credit union in Liverpool, where Labour is holding its UK conference, Mr Leonard said: Scotlands broken economy doesnt work for working people, with too many families having to turn to high cost credit to pay essential bills. That cannot go on.

Under Labour, the days of predatory companies profiting from the squeezed wages of working people will end. Labour will take real action on the cost of living to ensure more money in the pockets of working people.

But I also want to see generational change in attitudes towards how people access credit if they need it. Thats why a Scottish Labour government would expand support for credit unions and establish a credit union account for every first year pupil in Scotland  well put 20 in it too.

Scottish Labour has pledged to set up a 20 credit union account for S1 pupils across Scotland if elected to government (Jane Barlow/PA)

Credit unions can play a vital role in personal financial education and on the importance of an ethical economy.

This will increase awareness of credit unions among working class families and ensure that generations of young people to come have access to low cost credit.A convicted former UBS trader has been denied bail while he awaits a review of his deportation order.

Kweku Adoboli was jailed for seven years in 2012 for two counts of fraud that resulted in 1.4 billion losses, and had been due to be deported to Ghana earlier this month.

He was temporarily saved from being removed from the UK after applications by his lawyers for a judicial review and injunction against deportation were successful last week.

But he had an application for bail refused at a hearing at Hatton Cross Tribunal Centre on Tuesday, meaning he will remain in a detention centre while his case is reconsidered.

We are devestated that Kweku has been refused bail and denied the opportunity to spend time with his friends and family. Despite no official date for his judicial review, we believe the judge thinks deportation is imminent and for that reason his bail has been denied.  KeepKweku (@KeepKweku) September 25, 2018

His lawyer Jackie McKenzie stressed in a tweet after the hearing that Mr Adoboli had complied with bail conditions for the past three years and is not a flight risk.

She added: It is worrying that none of these factors appeared to have been given much weight.

Kweku Adoboli has been denied bail (Lewis Whyld/PA)

It is understood that another application for bail cannot be made for 28 days, and that the full review process could take several months.

Mr Adoboli, who left Ghana at the age of four, was released after serving half of his sentence and had been involved in teaching at several universities and working with an initiative promoting responsible leadership.

Kweku Adoboli refused bail as HO made an app for his JR to be expedited. He's complied with bail conditions for 3 years, is not a flight risk and reported even when he knew he was at risk. It is worrying that none of these factors appeared to have been given much weight  Jacqueline (Jacqui) Mckenzie (@JacquiMckenzie6) September 25, 2018

He was detained during a fortnightly check-in at Livingston Police Station, West Lothian, on September 3 and taken to Dungavel immigration removal centre in South Lanarkshire.

Despite almost 75,000 people signing a petition against his deportation, he has now been moved to Harmondsworth immigration removal centre at West Drayton.Angela Merkel has urged Britain to come to the negotiating table with a different, sensible Brexit plan as she dismissed Theresa Mays Chequers proposal.

In a speech to business leaders in Berlin, the German chancellor warned that the UK could not pick and choose between elements of the EUs single market.

Under the Prime Ministers Chequers proposal the UK would sign up to the EUs rules for goods but not services.

The rebuke follows a bruising EU summit in Salzburg last week in which the head of the European Council, Donald Tusk, said Mrs Mays plan will not work.

Mrs Merkel also warned that the 21-month Brexit transition period will not be long enough if the terms of a future trade deal with the UK are not made clear and concrete in the next eight weeks.

Speaking at the Federation of German Industries (BDI) conference, she said: We are entering the decisive phase of negotiations in autumn.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Prime Minister Theresa May (Chris Ratcliffe/PA)

There is likely to be a special council of European heads of state and government in November on which the resignation agreement must be finalised. This may succeed in October.

At any rate, future relations with Great Britain must be described as concretely as possible.

She added: I think playing for time does not help the economy either. After all, you need clarity and the ability to see how you shape your future relationships. Thats why we now have six or eight weeks of the toughest work to do in making the policy.

Of course, this also depends on what Britain really wants. Even there, the discussion is not quite clear.

Mrs Merkel reiterated the rejection of the Chequers proposals, telling business leaders one cannot belong to the internal market if one only wants to be part of the single market in one part but not in the other parts of the internal market, there we have to find different, sensible ways.

Roberto Azevedo, head of the World Trade Organisation, appeared at the same conference and said he would seek to minimise the damage of a no-deal Brexit.

He added: If we can minimise the disruption, if we can minimise the pain, thats what we will try to do.

Mondays Cabinet meeting saw Mrs May tell ministers to hold their nerve with her Brexit plan.

At the meeting, ministers also agreed to ensure that EU nationals be subject to the same rules as migrants from the rest of the world after free movement ceases to apply in the UK.

The agreement in principle came following the recommendations of the Migration Advisory Committee, which published a Government-commissioned report last week.

The study said that, if immigration is not part of the negotiations with the EU and the UK is deciding its future system in isolation, there should be no preference given to citizens from the European Economic Area, which includes the present 28 EU countries, as well as Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein.Labour has opened the door to reversing Britains decision to leave the European Union, by backing a potential second referendum.

The partys conference in Liverpool voted overwhelmingly to keep the option of a fresh vote on the table, after shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer explicitly stated that it could include the option of staying in the EU.

Sir Keir won a standing ovation from a large majority of delegates, though some remained firmly in their seats.

His declaration that nobody is ruling out Remain as an option was not included in printed copies of his speech distributed to the media, sparking speculation that he may have gone beyond the position agreed by Labours high command.

But leader Jeremy Corbyn said that the contents of the speech had been cleared by his office in advance.

He said Labour would subject any deal reached by Theresa May with Brussels to the six tests set out by Sir Keir, including that it should deliver the exact same benefits as single market and customs union membership.

Shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer (Peter Byrne/PA)

And he said Labour was prepared to vote the PMs deal down.

Both Sir Keir and shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry told the conference that they would personally vote Remain in any re-run referendum.

But Mr Corbyn himself repeatedly declined to say which way he would vote, telling Five News: It depends what the question is in the referendum We will decide as a party when the referendum comes what our position will be.

I think its pretty obvious what party members are thinking at this conference.The founder of a company that sells blueprints for making untraceable 3D printed guns has resigned from the firm after being arrested on charges of having sex with an underage girl, the company has announced.

Cody Wilson tendered his resignation to his own company on Friday to tend to personal matters, said Paloma Heindorff, director of development for Texas-based Defense Distributed.

The company is at the centre of a lawsuit filed by several states trying to shut down the firm.

Heindorff said she would be taking over Wilsons duties as director of the company and was a strong believer in the Second Amendment.

She said she would not comment on the criminal charges against 30-year-old Wilson.

Im a different person, she said during a news conference. Im not trying to replace him as a character.

She said his leaving was his own decision and we support it, adding: Going forward, as it stands, he has no role in the company.

Investigators allege Wilson met the 16-year-old girl through the website SugarDaddyMeet.com.

According to an affidavit, the girl said they met in the car park of an Austin coffee shop in August and then drove to a hotel. The girl told investigators that Wilson paid her 500 dollars (380) after they had sex and then dropped her off at a Whataburger restaurant.

He was arrested in Taiwan and taken back to the US over the weekend. He has since been freed on bail.

Nineteen states and the District of Columbia had sued the Trump administration to dissolve a settlement it reached with Defense Distributed over allowing it to disseminate its designs for making a 3D-printable gun.

The lawsuit was backed mostly by Democratic state attorneys general who argued that such weapons could be used by criminals or terrorists.

Last month, a federal court in Seattle barred Wilson from posting the designs online for free.

He then began selling them for any amount of money to US customers through his website. Heindorff said there were no plans to stop doing that.

Wilson, a self-described crypto-anarchist, has said governments should live in fear of their citizenry.

Law enforcement officials worry the guns are easy to conceal and are untraceable because there is no requirement for the firearms to have serial numbers.

Gun industry experts have said the printed guns are a modern method of legally assembling a firearm at home without serial numbers.The Duchess of Sussex has arrived for her first solo engagement  looking every inch a modern royal.

The event is a milestone in Meghans life as a member of the monarchy, as she has ventured out without the support of Harry or other royals.

The 37-year-old former actress  wearing a Givenchy outfit  joined guests at the opening of an exhibition of works from the Oceania region at the Royal Academy of Arts in central London.

Meghan wore Givenchy on her first solo royal outing (Yui Mok/PA)

The exhibition celebrates the art of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia, encompassing the vast Pacific region including New Guinea, Easter Island, Hawaii and New Zealand.

The Duchess of Cambridge carried out her first solo engagement  standing in for the Prince of Wales at a private fundraising dinner  in October 2011, almost six months after her wedding day.

Meghan, who married on May 19, is taking part in her first royal event by herself four months after becoming a member of the monarchy.

The exhibition marks the 250th anniversary of the Royal Academy, which was founded in 1768  the year Captain James Cook set out on his first Endeavour expedition.

Meghan and Harry are due to tour Australia, Tonga, Fiji and New Zealand in October and the duchess will be shown art from the four countries during her exhibition viewing.

Later she will meet the exhibitions curators, artists and descendants linked to the works on display, and view a short performance by Ngati Ranana, a Maori cultural group.Tories are the party of racism, a daughter of Windrush has told the Labour conference.

Delegates in Liverpool heard a motion to scrap the Immigration Act 2014 that enshrined the hostile environment policy in law.

The move followed the Windrush scandal, which saw the wrongful deportation of more than 60 British citizens who were part of the generation of Caribbean immigrants who arrived on board the Empire Windrush in 1948.

Shadow home Secretary Diane Abbott, who campaigned for justice for those wrongly deported or denied healthcare and benefits, has set out how she wants to unravel the hostile environment policy.

Ms Abbott said false and toxic rhetoric on protecting borders and immigration led directly to the Windrush scandal.

Shadow home secretary Diane Abbott after addressing the Labour Partys annual conference at the Arena and Convention Centre (ACC), in Liverpool. (PA/Stefan Rousseau)

Can you imagine living in a country which indefinitely detains its own citizens? Which deports them?

Which refuses them cancer treatment even when theyve lived in the country all of their adult lives?

Well, under this government we saw this happen to the Windrush generation.

Speaking in favour, Cecile Wright from Derby North described herself as a daughter of Windrush and said the scandal was a crime against humanity.

She said: Prominent Tories have for decades sought to remove, stigmatise or use racist name-calling ever since the Windrush generation arrived in this country in 1948.

Indeed, it was the Tory Enoch Powell who wanted us repatriated to avoid the rivers of blood.

It was the Tory Margaret Thatcher who told us the country was being swamped by immigrants.

It was the Tory Boris Johnson who has used the racist jibes of watermelon smiles and pickaninnies, and the Tory Theresa May who devised a hostile environment policy and removed as many black Caribbean people as possible to keep down the net migration figures.

Ms Wright asked delegates to consider the common link between the figures, and told them: The Tories are the party of racism.

Let us all in the Labour party unite against racism, for it is the Tories we need to oppose.

John Campbell from Unison also spoke in favour, saying the Windrush generation had been hounded by the Conservative government, which had left British citizens destitute and homeless.

He said: Fascists and racists have been encouraged to commit greater acts of violence, openly embracing white supremacy.

We must bring the might of the Labour movement to bear against the hostile environment we face.

This goes to the heart of our fight for social and economic justice.The Foreign Secretary has demanded rapid action leading to the release of a jailed charity worker in Tehran in his first face-to-face meeting with Irans foreign minister.

Jeremy Hunt put pressure on Iranian counterpart Javad Zarif to ensure the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe in a meeting in New York on Tuesday, where leaders are currently gathered for the United Nations General Assembly.

The British-Iranian mother was sentenced to five years in jail after being accused of spying by Tehrans Islamist regime, a charge she vehemently denies.

I again pressed for Nazanins swift release  she deserves to be back at home with her family, Mr Hunt said in a statement.

Just met Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif at #UNGA. I pressed for swift resolution on all our dual national consular cases, including Nazanin. NOT acceptable to detain innocent people arbitrarily at the cost of enormous human anguish  Jeremy Hunt (@Jeremy_Hunt) September 25, 2018

It is also absolutely essential the Iranian government take steps to ensure the release of a number of detained dual nationals, he added.

Jeremy Hunt pledged to do everything possible to secure Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffes release after he became Foreign Secretary.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is jailed in Iran (Family Handout/PA)

It followed criticism of predecessor Boris Johnsons handling of attempts to free the mother-of-one.

All our thoughts and prayers with Nazanin and her family today. Unbearable suffering to be apart from daughter with her hopes raised then dashed. We must redouble efforts to find a way to get her home #FreeNazanin  Jeremy Hunt (@Jeremy_Hunt) August 29, 2018

Prime Minister Theresa May is expected to make a personal plea for Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe to be released on humanitarian grounds to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani later on Tuesday.

A senior Government official said: The PM will express serious concern at Nazanins on-going detention and call for her to be released upon humanitarian grounds.

Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who works for the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was detained at Imam Khomeini airport in April 2016.

Last month she was granted a three-day release from Evin prison but her request for an extension was denied and she was forced to say goodbye to her four-year-old daughter, Gabriella, and return to jail.

Husband Richard Ratcliffe wrote an open letter to Irans foreign minister Javad Zarif calling the short release a cruel game.Bill Cosby was led off to prison in handcuffs on Tuesday, sentenced to three to 10 years behind bars for drugging and sexually assaulting a woman.

The punishment made him the first celebrity of the #MeToo era to be sent to prison and all but completed the dizzying, late-in-life fall from grace for the comedian, former TV star and breaker of racial barriers.

It is time for justice. Mr Cosby, this has all circled back to you. The time has come, Montgomery County Judge Steven ONeill said.

Prosecutors asked for five to 10 years behind bars, saying he could still pose a threat to women.

Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele rejected the notion that Cosbys age and infirmity entitled him to mercy.

He was good at hiding this for a long time. Good at suppressing this for a long time. So its taken a long time to get there, Steele said.

The judge ruled on Cosbys sexually violent predator status after a psychologist for the state testified that the entertainer appears to have a mental disorder that gives him an uncontrollable urge to have sex with women without their consent.

When the ruling came down, a woman in the courtroom shot her fist into the air and whispered, Yessss!

In a statement submitted to the court and released Tuesday, Constand, 45, said that she has had to cope with years of anxiety and self-doubt. She said she now lives alone with her two dogs and has trouble trusting people.

When the sexual assault happened, I was a young woman brimming with confidence and looking forward to a future bright with possibilities, she wrote in her five-page statement.

Now, almost 15 years later, Im a middle-aged woman whos been stuck in a holding pattern for most of her adult life, unable to heal fully or to move forward.

She also wrote of Cosby: We may never know the full extent of his double life as a sexual predator, but his decades-long reign of terror as a serial rapist is over.

Constand went to police a year after waking up in a fog at Cosbys gated estate, her clothes askew, only to have the district attorney pass on the case.

Another district attorney reopened the file a decade later and charged the TV star after stand-up comic Hannibal Buress riff about Cosby being a rapist prompted more accusers to come forward and after a federal judge, acting on a request from The Associated Press, unsealed some of Cosbys startling, decade-old testimony in Constands related civil suit.

In his testimony, Cosby described sexual encounters with a string of actresses, models and other young women and talked about obtaining quaaludes to give to those he wanted to sleep with.

Cosbys first trial in 2017 ended with a hung jury.

He was convicted at a retrial that opened months after the #MeToo movement had taken down such figures as Hollywood studio boss Harvey Weinstein and actor Kevin Spacey.

Constand said Cosby gave her what she thought were herbal pills to ease stress, then penetrated her with his fingers as she lay immobilised on a couch.

Cosby claimed the encounter was consensual, and his lawyers branded her a con artist who framed the comedian to get a big payday  a multimillion dollar settlement she received over a decade ago.

Five other accusers took the stand at the trial as part of an effort by prosecutors to portray him as a predator.

Cosby broke barriers in the 1960s as the first black actor to star in a network show, I Spy. He went on to superstardom as wise and understanding Dr Cliff Huxtable on The Cosby Show, a sitcom that showed America a new kind of black TV family: a warm and loving household led by two professionals, one a lawyer, the other a doctor.

He won a Presidential Medal of Freedom and countless Emmys, Golden Globes and Grammy awards.

As the allegations mounted, his career all but collapsed, Cosby Show reruns were taken off the air, and one college after another stripped him of his honorary degrees.The Duchess of Sussex described as spectacular her introduction to the art and culture of the Pacific during her first solo event and shared the famous Maori greeting.

Meghan performed a hongi, a symbolic pressing of noses, with a group of performers after touring the UKs first exhibition of historic and contemporary artefacts and art from the Oceania region.

Looking confident and relaxed as she stepped out on her own, Meghan greeted members of Ngati Ranana, a London based Maori cultural group, after they had sung at the Royal Academy of Arts, which is staging the exhibition.

Stylish in a black Givenchy dress the duchess was taken to four specific pieces from Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Tonga, nations she will be visiting in October on her first major overseas tour with Harry.

The Duchess of Sussex attends the opening of Oceania (Arthur Edwards/The Sun/PA)

When the duchess first arrived she was shown a large artwork by four female New Zealand women, blue tarpaulin woven into a large cloth that symbolised a rising wave.

Some of the group, called the Mata Aho Collective, also welcomed Meghan with the traditional Maori greeting.

Artist Sarah Hudson said: We thought it might be a nice bit of practice before she comes to the Pacific next month and its nice to be able to practice something thats customary for us.

The Duchess of Sussex waves to onlookers (Yui Mok/PA)

Shes honouring our heritage and its so humbling.

The exhibition celebrates the art of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia, encompassing the vast Pacific region including New Guinea, Easter Island, Hawaii and New Zealand.

It also marks the 250th anniversary of the Royal Academy, which was founded in 1768, the year Captain James Cook set out on his first Endeavour expedition

Meghan wore Givenchy on her first solo royal outing (Yui Mok/PA)

Video artist Lisa Reihana from New Zealand said Meghan had described the Oceania exhibition, which opens to the public on Saturday, as spectacular.

Ms Reihana, who has a large video mural showcased at the event, added: She was saying how much she enjoyed the exhibition and how special she thought it was.

She also thought it was a great introduction to the sights and sounds of that part of the world, she was looking forward to it.The interim Prisoner Ombudsman has praised a drop in the number of complaints by inmates in Northern Ireland.

The total more than halved in the past year.

The decrease was partially explained by the more stable situation at the high-security Maghaberry prison in Co Antrim and improvements in complaints handling, the watchdog said.

Its annual report for 2017-18 found that overall 1,953 complaints were received from prisoners, a 55% decrease on last year.

All but 167 were from separated prisoners on Roe three and four landings at Maghaberry prison.

Maghaberry Prison (Michael Cooper/PA)

Inmates can ask to join the separated regime if they consider themselves to be political prisoners and associate themselves with a terrorist grouping.

The report said the 167 complaints from integrated non-paramilitary prisoners were commensurate with a lower prison population.

However interim ombudsman Brendan McGuigan said the work of the office was being delayed by ongoing suspension of the Stormont Assembly.

The previous ombudsman, Tom McGonigle, retired on August 31 2017.

Without a justice minister in post, a permanent replacement cannot be appointed.

Mr McGuigan, who is also the Chief Inspector for Criminal Justice, was asked to act as interim Ombudsman and has now been doing so for more than a year.

The continuing absence of an appointed Ombudsman has in turn held up the production of the 2018-21 Corporate Plan.

The continuing suspension of the Northern Ireland Assembly has also delayed the process for placing the Ombudsmans office on a statutory footing, Mr McGuigan said.

While the Justice (No 2) Bill had received royal assent in May 2016, the underpinning regulations could not be completed before the collapse of the Assembly in January 2017.

Mr McGuigan told the Press Association: This was particularly frustrating, the legislation was there and was passed in 2016 however the Assembly then needed to ratify the underpinning regulations and that was not done.

He said the lack of statutory status means that bodies such as the Northern Ireland Prison Service and health trusts do not have to accept the Ombudsman Offices recommendations.

But he said they accept most of them because they see the importance of the work.

He confirmed his commitment to continue to oversee the Ombudsmans office so that its work can continue until such an appointment is made.

Mr McGuigan said the independent investigation of prisoner complaints helps to promote better relations.

The independent investigation of complaints by the Office of the Prisoner Ombudsman can help instil in prisoners greater confidence that their welfare is treated seriously, he said.

It can also help reduce tension and promote better relations.

My staff are dedicated to the impartial and independent investigation of prisoner complaints and I would like to acknowledge the contribution of everyone in my office and the continued cooperation received from the agencies with whom we work.

The Ombudsmans report also revealed that it looked into three deaths in custody in 2017-18, two self-inflicted and one from natural causes.

The deaths occurred in May, August and September of 2017.

The report found that follow-up activity by the South Eastern Health & Social Care Trust (SEHSCT) and the Northern Ireland Prison Service (NIPS) to support other prisoners and staff was prompt and appropriate.

In total nine recommendations for improvement were made in the published reports of the investigations into two of the deaths in custody, all of these were accepted by the Trust and the Prison Service.

Following prisoners complaints, 134 recommendations for improvement were made and 76% of these had been accepted by the Northern Ireland Prison Service.

There were 1,475 people held at Northern Irelands three prisons, Maghaberry, Magilligan and Hydebank College, on April 1 2018.The Bhutanese preliminary election to the National Assembly recently sprung quite an unexpected surprise. The ruling party has been mauled in the preliminary stages itself. It stands third among the parties that had contested.

For the country, the transition to democracy has been a peaceful process guided by the Bhutanese monarchy. Starting with a mock election to acquaint the citizens with the electoral process in 2007, Bhutan will now hold the third general election in its history.

The Bhutanese people will now elect 47 members to the National Assembly or the Lower House that provides the executive political leadership. The National Council (Upper House) has 20 seats of which 15 are elected and five nominated by the King.

The elections are conducted in two phases. In the preliminary phase, the registered parties field their candidates. Based on the results of the preliminaries, only the two topmost parties go through to the second round of polling to decide the winners in the Assembly.

Bhutan will now hold the third general election in its history. (Photo: Reuters)

The Bhutanese people went through the preliminary round on September 17, 2018. The ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) led by PM Tshering Tobgay was left behind by the Druk Nyamrup Tshogpa (DNT) and also the Bhutan Peace and Prosperity Party (Druk Phuensum Tshogpa or DPT). As such, the next and final round will be between DNT & DPT.

DNT is led by Lotay Shering, a surgeon, who has won popularity with his promise of better healthcare. The party is not in the National Assembly as of now. In the preliminaries it has won in 16 constituencies. DPT has 15 members in the current Assembly based on the 2013 election results.

Of interest to both India and China and the larger canvas of south and Southeast Asian nations would be the leanings of the new man who will become the PM once the electoral process is completed in October, 2018. Keeping the 79 day Doklam standoff between the Indian and Chinese armies in view, the leanings of the Bhutanese PM are crucial.

China has a disputed border with Bhutan that includes Doklam and a few more areas. The Chinese have reportedly offered Bhutan other areas in exchange of approximately 100sqkm at Doklam.

As per the old Indo-Bhutanese Agreement of 1949 Bhutan was to be guided by India in regard to its external relations. The treaty signed in 2007 lays down that the two governments will cooperate with each other on issues relating to National Interests. PM Tshering Tobgay and his party were with India during the Doklam standoff. The Bhutanese government had given a statement clearly stating that the Chinese were on Bhutanese territory.

Bhutanese politics, despite the transition to democracy, respects the monarchy heavily. For India, this is a major pivot to ensure continuity in India-Bhutan relations and mutually arrived at geo-political stances. However, notwithstanding the monarchys pre-eminence it would be better for India to start communicating with both the DNT & DPT leadership immediately. Whatever be the results of the final polls, both parties will be there in the Assembly to chart Bhutans policies.

A change in guard at Thimphu does not necessarily mean a pro-China tilt. (Photo: PTI)

A change in guard at Thimphu does not necessarily mean a pro-China tilt, however, it could lead to Bhutan trying to pursue a more equated relationship with both India and China. So far, the New Delhi influence has been pre-dominant. Bhutan has supported the Indian stance on most issues except for a few affirmations of independent strategic policy making on a few occasions.

The very fact that the Friendship Treaty had to be redrafted is an illustration of the faith and bonding between the two nations having been diluted.

India needs to retain its primacy in Bhutans foreign policy priorities, more so since it has lost a lot of ground in Nepal to the Chinese. The Chinese will offer greater funding than Indians can afford but Bhutan may not be looking for huge investments.

It has propagated the concept of Gross National Happiness Index over that of GDP, to the whole world. Recently, they declined to ratify the Bhutan-Bangladesh-India-Nepal Motor Vehicles Agreement. Such a connectivity was a major plank for "Indias Act East" and "Neighbourhood First" policies to be translated into facilitating projects between the South Asian countries.

The reasons advanced by Bhutan are the reservations of a section of its population on environmental grounds. As such, huge Chinese investments shouldnt be Bhutans priority. The country and its people are not focused on rapid industrialisation.

However, Bhutanese youth, like young people globally, has higher aspirations and needs jobs. With our longstanding relationship with Bhutan, the Indian focus needs to be on contributing in areas that affect the populace more and in areas that are a priority for the man on the street.

India-Bhutan relationship has a huge ancient cultural linkage which needs to be leveraged. (Photo: Reuters)

Such issues include education, healthcare, agriculture, development of the tourism industry. India already purchases hydropower from Bhutan and is committed to constructing additional hydropower projects in Bhutan. In fact, sale of power to India is Bhutans biggest foreign exchange earner.

India-Bhutan relationship has a huge ancient cultural linkage which needs to be leveraged. The revered Guru Padmasambhava associated with Vajrayana Buddhism that has a huge following in Bhutan was from India.

The Indian approach to Bhutan has necessarily to be tailored while being sensitive to the growing Bhutanese aspirations of being considered as an equal. The Bhutanese will also be loathed to be considered as just a pawn in the great game between India and China.

In the years ahead, their aspirations to have an independent strategic opinion as a sovereign state will recur more often. Obviously, they will need to be treated as equals and as such integrated economically to ensure a better balance in mutual trade.

Also read: Doklam crisis is not over: India and China are headed for more conflictsOn Tuesday, an anti-Modi colleague of mine asked for my opinion on the "Rafale scam". To which, I asked her to explain the scam first. She said, Modi has given a contract to Reliance which should have gone to HAL in the Rafale deal. I asked her what is the Rafale deal and exactly what contract has gone to Reliance instead of HAL? Puzzled for a moment, she refused to discuss it any further, calling me a biased person, and pronounced that all she wants is for Modi to lose in 2019!

This brief conversation sums up the misinformation and propaganda over the deal and the people willing to buy into it.

The Rafale controversy has now turned into a theatre of the absurd.

Due to the dwindling number of air force squadrons from 42 to 32, and the reported failure of HAL to produce Tejas jets, the UPA government floated a global tender, MMRCA to buy the multi-role fighter jets. After a long-drawn process, Rafale emerged as the winner according to the Indian Air Force. Under the deal, 108 jets were to be produced in India. But the UPA government simply failed to clinch the deal due to various reasons.

Originally, India was to buy 126 Rafale jets from French aviation firm Dassault. (Photo: Reuters)

The chief reason among them was the simple fact that the original number of 126 jets was unaffordable when the full cost of weaponry and modifications was included and it could have wrecked the defence budget. And because Dassault had raised doubts about the capabilities of HAL (the default partner) to manufacture Rafales and refused to take responsibility of the jets so produced.

In fact, as late as July 2014, the issue of responsibility sharing between Dassault and HAL for licence manufacture of aircrafts was unresolved. And lastly, the then-UPA defence minister was paralysed by the fear of corruption in this mega deal, given that scam after scam had started to rock the UPA by 2012.

The harsh fact is that the original deal reached a dead-end. Therefore, the new government in 2015 decided to scrap the older deal altogether and opted for an Inter-Governmental Agreement (IGA) signed in 2016 between the Government of India and the Government of the French Republic for the supply of 36 Rafale aircraft with India-specific modifications, weapon package, industrial support for 50 years (instead of 40 years in MMRCA), additional warranty for three years, free of charge weapon storage for six months and advanced training of IAF pilots by the French Air Force.

Also, the Modi government negotiated the higher offset requirements at 50 per cent, which must be ploughed back into India by the French companies involved in the Rafale manufacturing.

Why not him? Reliance Defence and Engineering Limited has worked on the maintenance and service of the 7th fleet of the US Navy. (Photo: Reuters)

Consequent upon this Rafale deal, there are dozens of separate deals being negotiated between the French companies and their Indian counterparts, which include both private and public sector companies. Some of them are the Mahindra Group, the Kalyani Group, Godrej, Bharat Electricals Ltd, DRDO, Tata Advanced Systems, Samtel, etc.

One of these 72 companies is the joint-venture between Reliance Defence Ltd and Dassault Aviation. And that has become the eye of the storm with the Opposition alleging undue favour to Reliance at the cost of HAL.

The false impression has been created that the original deal was tampered with in violation of the rules to take away the manufacturing of the jets from HAL to favour Reliance. But no parameters of the old deal were changed. It was simply not required as the old deal was scrapped.

What we have is an entirely new deal in full conformity with the Defense Procurement Procedure-2013.

The due process of mandating, conducting and monitoring of negotiations, etc., were observed and approval of the Cabinet Committee on Security was obtained before entering the deal. The deal is for the 36 jets in fly-by condition and there will be no manufacturing within India either by HAL or Reliance  so, the question of the contract of HAL being given to Reliance is ludicrous.

The arrangements regarding the offsets follow the Rafael deal but are separate. And HAL is very much a party to the offset deal. In fact, the joint-venture of Snecma & HAL will be producing the aero-engine parts for Rafales M88 engine whereas Reliance will be producing some parts of a business jet.

Whats more?

Unlike the technology transfer limited to the licensed production of Rafale earlier, French companies will be entering the joint development of technologies and transfer technical know-how in a range of products and services, building a broad-based capacity in India.

What scam? The whole story of misconduct is built on quicksand  and the Opposition knows it. (Photo: PTI)

Also, another fallacious objection is why Reliance, a supposedly new company in the field, was given a contract under the offset requirements? Well, why only Reliance? Most of the private Indian companies are new to defence sector manufacturing  to build them up is precisely the idea behind the offset! Also, Reliance is not exactly a neophyte in the defence sector. Anil Ambani's Reliance Defence and Engineering Limited has worked on the maintenance and service of the formidable 7th fleet of the US Navy.

Apart from a naval frigate it is building, it has produced offshore patrol vessels capable of offensive operations, with export orders in the bag. It is not difficult for Reliance to tap into its manufacturing and engineering experience and resources and redeploy them for aeronautics as it did with the creation of the new company. But here is the thing; offsets dont need to be in aeronautics or related fields. They can even be in producing spare parts of other platforms!

The whole story of a scam or misconduct is built on quicksand  and the Opposition knows it.

But it doesnt care as it is simply playing upon the socialist delusions of the public which itself prefers Airtel or Vodafone over BSNL  but has a strange love for HAL. It will stand for hours in queues for a Jio sim but somehow deems Reliance evil! And this socialist strain of the mistrust of private companies is what the Opposition is trying to cash in on.

All this anti-Rafale tirade is essentially an extension of the "suit-boot ki sarkar" jibe.

Vacuous  and unwarranted.

Also read: Rafale row in Parliament revealed one thing. Government, Opposition, media lack defence knowledgeIt is a pity for Ladakh and India that there is none to succeed Kushok Bakula Rinpoche who led the frontier region politically and spiritually for years. Lets hope that a new Ladakhi leadership emerges

The mountainous Land of the Passes, as Ladakh is known, is celebrating the centenary of one of most illustrious sons, the 19th Kushok Bakula Rinpoche. Born on May 27, 1918, at the Royal Palace of Matho near Leh, Bakula was the youngest child of Nangwa Thayas, the King of Matho. His mother was Princess Yeshes Wangmo of the Royal House of Zangla. At a young age, he was recognised by the 13th Dalai Lama as a reincarnation of Bakula Arhat, one of the legendary 16 Arhats who were direct disciples of Gautama Buddha.

In the course of his life, Bakula had a most distinguished political and diplomatic career; ending up serving as Indias Ambassador to Mongolia where he was instrumental in reviving Buddhism. Bakula was also a member of the fourth and fifth Lok Sabha. In the early 1950s, Bakula was part of the Jammu & Kashmir Constituent Assembly representing the Ladakh region. He would often speak in favour of the integration of Jammu & Kashmir. He was proud that Jammu & Kashmir was an integral part of India: That great country of high ideals and glorious traditions to which the nations of the world look for guidance and which is one of the potent factors for the maintenance of world peace.

I recently came across an episode of his life which is not well-known: The Rinpoches visit to Tibet in 1955/56. It is particularly interesting because India faced a difficult situation after the Chinese takeover of the country, at a time when Delhi was dreaming of an eternal Hindi-Chini brotherhood. Bakula, who was then Deputy Minister for Ladakh Affairs in the Jammu & Kashmir Government, soon understood the political implications of his visit.

On November 16, 1955, Fu, the Councilor in the Chinese Embassy in Delhi walked into the South Block to discuss the Lamas visit. He immediately asserted that China welcomed Bakulas visit as a private pilgrim therefore the Lama did not need to carry a passport or have a visa. Fu cited the 1954 Sino-Indian agreement: Pilgrims need not carry such documents, he said. Fus interlocutor, TN Kaul, immediately saw the trick: China was not keen to acknowledge that a Kashmiri carried an Indian passport. After a long discussion during which Kaul insisted that the trip was officially sponsored by the Indian and Jammu & Kashmir Governments, Fu had to reluctantly accept to put a stamp on Bakulas diplomatic passport. It was the first indication of the changed situation in Tibet.

The Rinpoche was accompanied by Durga Das Khosla, an official of the Jammu & Kashmir political department, Nirmal Sinha, a scholar attached to the political officer in Sikkim and four Ladakhis, attending to the Rinpoche. At that time, India was preparing for the celebrations of Buddha Jayanti to be held the following year; it was an opportunity for Bakula to talk to Vice President Radhakrishnan, who was also the Chairman of the celebrations Committee for the Dalai Lamas participation in the functions.

After an uneventful journey to Gangtok, the party crossed into Tibet at Nathu La on January 8, 1956. Their first encounter with the Chinese was near Chumpithang in the Chumbi Valley. Khosla, who wrote the report of their visit, complained of a very surprising experience: When I presented my passport to the Chinese officer in charge, an interpreter who was also a Chinese, enquired from me why was I going to Lhasa. I told him that I was on duty with Kushok Bakula. He was surprised to hear this and at once retorted that Kushok Bakula was a Ladakhi, and that Ladakh being a part of Tibet, an Indian Officer could not be connected with him. Poor Khosla had to argue at length that Ladakh was a part of Jammu & Kashmir State, to be finally allowed to proceed.

Later the sharp Jammu & Kashmir official noted: The Chinese Government has secretly circulated a new map of Tibet among their official organisations and the pro-Chinese Institutions  in which they have shown the whole of Aksai Chin (Soda Plains) hump as a part of Tibet. Kashmirs northern border as illustrated in this map shows some daring incursions into our Karakoram area of northern Ladakh and Baltistan.

It was three years before the Aksai Chin issue came to Parliament and the then Prime Minister Nehru admitted that a road had been built by China on Indian soil. Khoslas note would subsequently be dismissed, as Beijing assured Delhi that those were old maps. Bakula stayed for the next three months in Tibet; he had the opportunity to have long talks with the Panchen Lama in Shigatse, an audience with the Dalai Lama in Lhasa and could meet the whos who in the Tibetan Capital. For the Rinpoche, who had earlier studied at Drepung, Tibets largest monastery, it was an opportunity to see Lhasa again after 15 years in vastly different circumstances.

On January 26, the party participated in the Republic Day celebrations at the Indian Consulate General and Bakula hoisted the National Flag: The Maharaj Kumar of Sikkim, who was present on the occasion, also spoke a few words, Bakula recalled.

On his way back in Delhi, the Lama was received by the Prime Minister for 90 minutes and he gave Nehru a report of his tour to Tibet: There are about 20,000 Chinese troops at present working all over the country. They build roads and buildings. A few schools for teaching Chinese and Tibetan languages have been opened at Lhasa and Shigatse. One hospital equipped with an X-Ray plant is said to have been opened at Lhasa. The Chinese at present do not interfere with the normal activities of the monasteries, he said.

According to the Ladakhi Lama, the Chinese were going around declaring that they will not be interested with the religious affairs of the Tibetans for times to come. But Bakula commented: Yet the deep-seated suspicion of the Tibetans  both lamas and laymen  against the bonafides of the Chinese people is all common and contiguous. The Chinese did not keep their words and Delhi did not pay heed to Bakulas warnings.

It is a pity for Ladakh and for India, that today there is no one of Bakulas vision and capacities to politically and spiritually lead the frontier region. Even though the Dalai Lama visits Ladakh every year, it is difficult for him to defend the rights of the Ladakhis. Let us hope that a new Ladakhi leader emerges soon.

(The writer is an expert on India-China relations and an author)Two terrorists were killed during an encounter in Tujjer area of north Kashmirs Sopore town on Tuesday.

Official sources said that the encounter started after a joint team of the Armys 22 Rashtriya Rifles, Special Operations Group (SOG) and CRPF cordoned off the area. The two terrorists were shot dead during the encounter. The authorities snapped the internet services in the area for security reasons.

A police spokesperson in a statement said that during the searches, hiding terrorists fired on the search party, which was retaliated leading to the encounter.

In the ensuing encounter, two terrorists were eliminated. The identity of the killed militants is being ascertained, the spokesman said.

The spokesman said that some arms, ammunition and incriminating material has been recovered from the site of encounter.

Police has registered a case in this regard and the investigation has been initiated in the instant matter.

The encounter took place a day after five infiltrators and an army soldier were killed in a fierce gun-battle in Tangdhar sector of north Kashmirs Kupwara district in the State.A prominent face of the National Conference, its State spokesman Junaid Mattu, on Tuesday announced resignation from the party to contest urban local body polls. The NC has decided to stay away from the polls in protest against linking them with a bunch of litigations in the Supreme Court on Article 35A that guarantees special privileges to the residents of J&K.

The NC was the first regional party to announce boycott of the polls. The PDP and CPM followed suit citing the ground situation and also issues related to Article 35A as the reasons for their boycott.

Based on my humble disagreement with the partys decision to boycott the upcoming ULB and panchayat polls, I have just sent my resignation from the party to the JKNC General Secretary, Mattu wrote on Twitter.

I strongly believe that leaving our grassroots democratic institutions open to misrepresentation would inflict serious harm on the State and also wreak havoc with our social fabric and cultural legacy, he wrote.

I will announce my candidature for the ULB elections from Srinagar tomorrow Insha Allah and I will remain committed to serving my people and helping the city I grew up in meeting the challenges its faced with. I wont be addressing the media or taking any questions today, he said.

The NC in a tweet said that the Mattus resignation from the basic membership of the party was accepted.Hamirpur remained peaceful with no fresh incident of violence being reported since Tuesday night.

On Tuesday evening, members of different communities had clashed over taking out a procession during Kans Vaddha Mela in Hamirpur.

The warring mobs pelted stones in which several persons, including an additional superintendent of police, were injured.

The police later used force and burst tear gas shells to disperse the crowd.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has directed Principal Secretary (Home) Arvind Kumar and DGP OP Singh to supervise the action being taken by the local administration and ensure peace.

Senior police officers, including ADG (Allahabad Zone) reached the spot on Tuesday night to monitor the developments. DIG Banda was also camping at Maudaha.

The administration imposed an "undeclared curfew" in the area to avert any further clash.

A DGP office spokesman said that para-military forces, local police and senior officers were camping in the area to ensure peace.

Several cases have been registered in connection with Tuesday's violence and more than a dozen persons have been detained for trying to disturb peace.Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal has accepted the proposal of Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani to set up State Bhavan at Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat Complex near the Statue of Unity.

In a letter written to Chief Minister Manohar Lal, Rupani has said that State Bhavan would facilitate tourists coming from Haryana in their visit to the Statue of Unity in Gujarat.

He also thanked the people of Haryana for their contribution in making of this iconic statue.

Rupani has said that State Bhavan would be set up on a land measuring 1500 square meters to be allotted by Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Rashtriya Ekta Trust (SVPRET) at a token rate of Rs 51 lakh. This amount would be ploughed back in to develop common infrastructure and to maintain Ek Bharat Shresht Bharat Complex. The State Bhawan would be independently operated by the Haryana Government, the Gujarat Chief Minister said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi would dedicate the Statue of Unity to the nation on October 31.JAC Chairman conducts meeting with DEOs

Chairperson of Jharkhand Academic Council (JAC), Arvind Singh conducted a meeting with the District Education Officers (DEOs) including others senior officials here on Wednesday. Focusing on online registration of forms, the meeting was held. An official of JAP-IT gave a detailed presentation over the online medium, verification mode etc to the officials. Computer Operators were also present during the meet.

Transmission line by Essar Power

Essar Power commissioned the 337-km Mahan-Sipat transmission line, the final leg of a 465-km transmission system consisting of three interstate transmission lines that have been built at an investment of Rs 2,400 crore. The 400 kV lines will help Essar Powers 1,200 MW Mahan Thermal Power Plant in Madhya Pradesh to evacuate its entire generation. The Mahan-Sipat transmission line is part of the Inter State Transmission System (ISTS) that has been built by Essar Power Transmission Company Ltd. (EPTCL), an arm of Essar Power. It extends from Mahan in Madhya Pradesh to the Sipat pooling station in Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh, which is connected to the National Grid.

Parliamentary panel visits village

Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee of the Welfare of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes Dr. Krit P Solanki and its members visited Panskam village, Churgi Panchayat, (Bundu Block) situated near Dasham Fall, about 40 kms away from the State capital on Wednesday. The panel is on two-day tour of the State. MPs Faggan Singh Kulaste, Seetaram Ajmeera Naik, Anju Bala, Ram Kumar Verma, Wansuk Syiem and other Parliamentary Committee officials also accompanied them. The committee discussed the local issues with villagers and took stock of the centrally-sponsored government schemes like Atal pension Yojana, Pradhanmantri Ujjwala scheme etc. They motivated the villagers, especially parents to send their children to nearby schools and educate them so that they can also play a significant role in New India.

Narayana Scholastic Aptitude Test

Narayana IIT Academy situated at Seagull Apartments, Sakchi will conduct Narayana Scholastic Aptitude Test (NSAT) on October 7 at three centres Church School, Beldih, Bistupur, DBMS High School, Kadma and Vidya Bharati Chinmaya Vidyalaya, Telco. Registration for this exam is going on and students can register till October 5. Registration forms are available at Narayana Centres and various schools of Jamshedpur. Shyam Bhushan, Director of Jamshedpur Centre, stated that in this test students of class V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X and XI can participate. The exam will be of two hours (11.00 am to 1.00 pm). The exam will be objective based with Science, Maths and Mental Ability as subjects. The aim of the exam is to enhance the competitive temperament among students.

SBU induction programme

The valedictory programme of the ongoing induction programme was done at Sarla Birla University on Wednesday, in which Dr. Ranjeet Kumar Singh, Pro-VC of Kolhan University, Chaibasa, Chief Guest and the guest of honour was Dr. J. B. Pandey Professor of Hnidi Department, Ranchi University, Ranchi were present. Dr. R K Singh told that university is the place where systematic knowledge are gained by the students provided by teachers. He also explained the meaning of education. Education build confidence and hope also hope provide peace and happiness of the life. He also explained the aim of the education.Independent MLA from Mehsana district of Gujarat, Jignesh Mewani, said that all possible efforts were being made to prevent division of Dalits votes in Uttar Pradesh during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

He said that atrocities against the Dalits had registered a sharp increase in Uttar Pradesh after the Yogi Adityanath-led Bharatiya Janata Party government came to power in the state in March 2017.

Mewani reached Chutmalpur village of Saharanpur to meet Bhim Army president Chandrashekhar alias Ravan on Wednesday and touched the feet of Chandrashekhar's mother Kamlesh Devi.

The Bhim Army chief was arrested after Dalit-Rajput clashes in Saharanpur in April 2017 and National Security Act was invoked against him. He was recently released from Saharanpur jail.

Talking to media persons, Mewani said that the UP government had unleashed atrocities on Dalits and their leaders were being persecuted. "Chandrashekhar was arrested and the NSA was invoked against him by the government only to crush the agitation of Dalits for their civil rights," he said.

When asked about Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati disowning the Bhim Army, the Gujarat MLA said, "Behenji (Mayawati) can say anything but we are committed to preventing the division of Dalit votes in the general election." Chandrashekhar announced that Bhim Army would seek permission from the district administration and if permitted it would hold a public meeting at Saharanpur on October 9.



As many as 22,000 members of the Utkal Chemists and Druggists Association (UCDA) Odisha would shut down their medicine stores for 24 hours from September 27 midnight to September 28 midnight in protest against online sale of medicine through e-pharmacies.

On Wednesday, the UCDA announced its support to the all-India Bandh called by the All India Organisation of Chemists and Druggists (AIOCD).

Online sale of drugs would cause heavy loss for our members and it would be hazardous to the public health at large. Particularly, the tech-savvy young generation will suffer irreparable damage, pointed out UCDA president P Satyanarayana.

He said though the Central Government and the State Food and Drug Administration were informed about numerous cases of illegal online sale of medicines by e-pharmacies, they have still remained silent. Online players are rampantly violating provisions of Drugs and Cosmetic Act, he added.

He highlighted that the online companies are openly advertising in print and electronic media violating provisions of Section 18(C) of the Drugs and Cosmetic Act which prohibits sale or distribution or stock or exhibit or offer for sale any drug without a valid license.

He mentioned that total trade margin is restricted to 16 per cent to retailers and 10 per cent to wholesalers but the online players offer discount up to 50 to 70 per cent openly. It is nothing but cut throat unethical competition to drive out brick and mortar chemists shop, he added.

He said that about 10 lakh members of AIOCD and UCDA and 1 crore dependent families, staff and ancillary service providers are worried of their future for online sale of medicines.

He, however, said that few stores near medicals would be opened to ensure that no causally occurs due to lack of medicines.

Among others, UCDA general secretary Banoj Jena and PRO Pragati Mohanty, Hrushikesh Mishra, Gyana Ranjan Mohanty, and Girija Prasad Ratha were present.Inderjeet Singh Bakshi, the Principal of Dyal Singh College of Delhi University (DU), who was asked by the college Governing Body (GB) to proceed on leave pending a graft enquiry against him, has alleged undue harassment. He said he was deliberately targeted by the GB Chairman and BJP leader Amitabh Sinha by fabricating false charges overnight because he always stood against his wishes of renaming and bifurcating the college.

Eventually he failed in his intention of renaming the college after the Union Human Resource Development Minister intervened. After this I became the target of GB Chairman as my stand on the issue was against his wishes, said Bakshi.

It may be noted that Sinha had previously lobbied for renaming the college as Vande Mataram College but the proposition landed into controversy and was met with after strong protest from several quarters.

However, the recent controversy is around the issue of college students union election held this month. The principal nullified the election of college student's union president as he felt that there was violation of code of conduct for elections. When the aggrieved students approached the chairman against the principal's decision the chairman allegedly suspended the decision and advised the principal to place the matter in GB meeting, said a college functionary. Bakshi however didn't attend the GB meeting.

The GB passed a resolution to order a enquiry on alleged graft charges against the principal and asked him to proceed on leave and avoid coming to college campus during pendency of the enquiry. However, defying the diktat, Bakshi not only came to the college for the second consecutive day on Wednesday but also took classes.

The principal said that he will never comply with the order as the intent of GB Chairman is mala-fide and vindictive. He said that he will continue coming to the college and work as usual.

He said that apart from it there are host of other issues that led to his victimization as he had always stood against those decisions of Chairman that are not good for college. Bakshi said that Sinha was allegedly involved in giving contract of house-keeping and security overlooking the lowest quotation or bid in order to favor someone. Sinha has also illegally occupied the conference room of the college and is using it as his room, said the principal.

The Dyal Singh College Teachers' Association came out in support of the principal demanding immediate dismissal of Chairman Amitabh Sinha.

College Chairman Amitabh Sinha does not respond to the repeated calls and messages while P.K Sharma principal of Dyal Singh evening college who have been assigned by GB to look after the Dyal Singh College as well during the pendency of enquiry, has planned to approach GB and university against Bakshi.Our society is in a constant state of change like any society should be-growing, evolving and adapting to new ideas, technology, at times natural calamities, political upheavals or epidemics. Most of the times the changes are for the better, often aided by the efforts of the activists and lessons learnt from a highly connected world. However, sometimes the changes are less than desirable and creep upon us out of nowhere or are abetted by extreme agendas.

If someone were to ask me a few years ago about the main scourges of our people, my answer would spontaneously have been casteism, illiteracy, child labour, dowry and terrorism. However, in the past few years we have seen a latent change in our surroundings. Taking stock of the current situation in the country has compelled me to add to this list - mob lynching, communalism and gang rapes.

Reports of eve teasing, physical and sexual assault, molestation and gang rapes in newspapers and news channels have become almost a daily occurrence. Such incidences are not restricted to a region and religion, villages or towns, young or old, rich or poor.

It almost seems as if no woman is safe in this country. One wonders why this sudden spurt in crimes against women? On the one hand, we expect our girls to scale the heights of success in every possible field while on the other we cannot ensure their basic safety.

It is most reprehensible to think that we live in a society where half our population is under constant threat and is the victim of the most heinous of crimes against humanity.

From many cases in the past, we have seen that the perpetrators of such horrific crimes generally go scot-free, even in high profile cases such as that of Jessica Lal, which had caught the national imagination or other cases. The judicial system is excruciatingly slow and often much delayed and justice delayed is justice denied. Can we as civil society be just mute spectators? Does the State have no responsibility at all? This is the impression I get in my State of Uttarakhand. Also known as Devbhumi, Uttarakhand has recently been rocked by heart-wrenching episodes of gang-rapes. While I was writing this piece, we hear of another school girl in a boarding school having to face horrific sexual assault by her own school mates and the inaction of the school authority.

In all these cases, the victims were young girls not far from their homes or comfort zones. More than two months have gone by in two of these cases and we dont have any definitive movement in the investigations into these crimes. What makes it all the more shocking is the apathy of the State Government and inertia in taking quick and effective steps.

The State Government recently decided to abandon its scheme of establishing all women police stations citing various administrative reasons. Lets not forget that Uttarakhand is known for its Matr/Stri Shakti. Women of this State have been known to be at the forefront of social, cultural, environmental and political movements.

Women of Uttarakhand have played a crucial role in Chipko Andolan as well as in the movement which culminated in the formation of Uttarakhand State. For all their contributions in the social, cultural and economic growth of the State, the least we can do is provide them a safe space to flourish and achieve their dreams.

This then leads us to the question: how do we check this menace? There are a whole host of measures that need to be put in place ranging from creating social awareness to establishing fast-track courts for dispensing speedy justice. However, the State Government needs to realise that it is primarily its responsibility to establish the rule of law and to create an environment in which every citizen of the State, irrespective of their gender, feels safe and secure. Equally important is to establish an atmosphere of zero tolerance towards the law breakers and those who aid and abet in such crimes. Some simple administrative measures could go a long way in addressing the problem.

These include establishment of 24/7 helplines for women, recruitment of more women in the police force, establishment of all-women police stations, identification of a nodal point in every district for providing timely assistance to women in distress, running public transport for use by women only or the pink buses as they are often referred to, ensuring working women are not employed in night shifts (in urban areas), making it mandatory for employers to provide safe transport to their women employees should they get late at work, training girls in schools/colleges in techniques of self-defence, providing dedicated toilets for women and installing CCTV cameras in all public places. This is not an exhaustive list as many other local solutions could be included.

However, most important of them all is that the State Government has to be responsible, accountable and answerable to its people.

Let us all join our efforts, individually, as a community as well as a society to make our State of Uttarakhand a place which is safe and secure for our women, for our children, for each one of us.

Let us uphold the rich tradition of the mountains where each member is valued and no one ever feels left out or threatened in any way. Let us once again become a model society for everyone to follow.

(Having worked at the United Nations in Geneva after graduating from NALSAR University of Law and London School of Economics, the author is a social activist in Uttarakhand. Views expressed are personal)The South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) on Wednesday launched cleanliness drives in all of its four zones that saw participation of large number of Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs), citizens and students.

In Najafgarh Zone at Nangli Sakrawati and Pochanpur, several water bodies were cleaned. It is generally observed that accumulation of waste in an outside ponds result in breakout of various diseases compelling affected persons to rush to the Doctors and Dispensaries for their treatment, said a senior official.

In its Central and Western Zones, a number of vehicles, trucks, JCBs and compactors were washed besides two dozen public toilets taking up for cleanliness and sanitation exercise. Another pink toilet at Janakpuri on Wednesday started dispensing sanitary napkins through a vending machine installed there.

Already, under its segregation of waste drive, a large number of RWAs, Market Association members as well as schools have been distributing handbills to disseminate the ill effects of plastic. The officers concerned contacted traders to make them aware about the bad effect of plastic use.

One can see large number of paper bags and jute bags being used in the markets. The five markets in each zone will soon be declared plastic free, the official said.

During these drives the citizens were explained the process and benefits of source segregation of the waste and exhorted usage of jute bags instead of plastic bags, he added.

Apart from that, the Safai Karamcharis and citizens joined in the cleanliness of parks and bus stop.BJP president Amit Shah Wednesday asked Congress president Rahul Gandhi to stop daydreaming about coming to power in the upcoming elections.

Addressing party workers in Dhankya, nearly 35 km from the state capital, Shah predicted a speedy decline of the Congress from mainstream politics. The BJP president said, Rahul Baba (Gandhi) should stop daydreaming. Congress is at such a position that it would (soon) be difficult to find them with binoculars. Neither the country nor Rajasthan is secure in their (Congress) hands.

Recalling the recent successes of the BJP in state elections, Shah said Gandhi should analyse why the Congress tasted defeat in elections after Narendra Modi-led BJP government came to power in the Centre.

In a mythological reference, the BJP president compared the saffron party to 'Angad's foot' as no one could dislodge them (the BJP) in Rajasthan or even the Centre just as no one including Ravana could move Angad's foot in Hindu epic Ramayana.

Shah hit out at the Congress president for seeking an account of works done by the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre in the past four-and-a-half years, saying the people of the country want to know what four generations of his family had done for them.

He said the Centre had provided over Rs 2.63 lakh crore to Rajasthan during its tenure, whereas Congress despite having governments in the state and Centre provided only Rs 1.09 lakh crore.

"We have not done any favours to the people but have given them their rights and you (Gandhi) are seeking an account from us. First, finalise your leader under whom you want to contest elections in Rajasthan," Shah said.

Shah attacked the the Congress on the issues of National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam and surgical strike. Shah said human rights of Indian youths were more important than the interests of intruders. "We will identify the intruders and evict them one by one," he averred.

He further accused the Congress of caring only for the vote bank. Exuding confidence in party workers, Shah said it was not an election of any minister or chief minister but it was an election of party workers and the BJP.

Party workers should think only about the party symbol 'Lotus' and 'Bharat Mata' (Mother India) when they are campaigning, he said at the event.

Shah urged the party workers to end the custom of alternate governments in Rajasthan. He said this tradition will end and the lotus will bloom in the state for the next 50 years.The best country for a woman to visit has to where someone like Queen Rania of Jordan is its Queen! The definition of elegance, outspokenness, and beauty, shes an international icon of female empowerment, a strong advocate of education and a passionate philanthropist and peacemaker

Jordan blessed by nature and is rich in culture and heritage, offers complete safety and security, with a rich travelling experience that is full of adventure, great food, luxurious accommodation and historical sites.

In a recent interview with the Daily Mail Travel, Queen Rania commented, "Tourists prefer an unconventional experience and we have so much to offer, said the royal.

The Queen has been working tirelessly to raise further awareness of its many assets including one of its most popular bucket list destinations, and UNESCO sites, Petra, as well as pointing out the continued calm in capital Amman.

Talking about Jordan as a welcoming place for holidaymakers, Queen Rania said: Here in Jordan, we see tourists as more than visitors  we see them as our guests. People will invite you to share a cup of tea or a meal. You will always get a warm welcome.

About Jordan

Situated in the heart of the Arabian Desert, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is an oasis of stability and peace in the Middle East. From the hustle and bustle of the capital Amman to the southern desert; Jordan is awash with biblical, historical and cultural significance. Jordans iconic landmarks include the panoramic views from Mount Nebo; the rose-red city of Petra, which is one of the 'new seven wonders of the world'; the therapeutic waters of the Dead Sea; Aqaba on the Red Sea and Wadi Rum  a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Indian passport holders can avail of 'Visa on Arrival' in Jordan. For more information: www.visitjordan.comThe Kingdom of Morocco aims to double the number of Indian tourists by 2019 and in line with this, the destination is ready to launch its first tourism office in the capital

The Minister of Tourism, Air Transport, Handicraft and Social Economy of the Kingdom of Morocco, Mohammed Sajid, informed that the country currently has a footfall of 15,000 Indian tourists and is aiming to touch the 40,000 mark by 2019. The number of tourist arrivals is a small percentage of the total tourism arrivals in the country but given the potential of the outbound tourism market of India, the country is strengthening its presence in the India.

The Moroccan National Tourist Office (MNTO) in New Delhi would be the first in South Asia and the second in Asia, with Beijing being their first office in the continent. The kingdom operates 17 tourist offices globally.

Sajid said, India is a very big country. However, there were low numbers of foreign tourists from India to Morocco in recent years. We have a lot of similarities with India in terms of culture and development. Both countries have a very diverse tourist sector that is rooted in their civilisations. We can also learn a lot from each other's tourism sector as it is a very strategic sector that can create jobs. The minister stressed that Morocco is keen to enhance its cooperation with India in the tourism sector, in harmony with its new orientation towards emerging as a preferred destination outside the traditional Asian tourist market. He added, We are also going to sign an agreement on air transport with Air India.

The tourism minister believes that the Delhi office would help the destination in understanding the demands and requirements of the Indian tourists. It will also serve as a forum for planning various strategic promotional and awareness programs to tap the robust tourism sector in India and the dissemination of important information to the various stakeholders of the tourism sector.

The Moroccan-Indian relations are getting stronger, as Morocco prepares to implement several measures to welcome more Indian tourists in 2019. Tourism remains a vital pillar of the Moroccan economy and the countrys second biggest employer after agriculture, while India is the fastest growing outbound market after China with UNTWO predicting 50 million travelers by 2020. With rising personal income levels, changing lifestyles, a huge middle class which has an aspiration to travel, the availability of low-cost airfares and diverse travel packages, India is rapidly becoming one of the fastest growing outbound travel markets in the world. Indian tourists are among the world's highest-spending globetrotters. Their spending power has been estimated to be four times that of the Chinese and Japanese which justifies the need for a planned strategic campaign for Morocco in India.Magna International Inc. designs, engineers, and manufactures components, assemblies, systems, subsystems, and modules for original equipment manufacturers of vehicles and light trucks worldwide. The company operates through four segments: Body Exteriors & Structures, Power & Vision, Seating Systems, and Complete Vehicles. Its Body Exteriors & Structures segment provides body and chassis systems, as well as engineering and testing services; exterior systems, including fascia and trims, front end modules, front integration panels, liftgate modules, active aerodynamics, engineered glass, running boards, truck bed access products, and side doors; and roof systems, such as modular and textile folding roofs, and hard and soft tops. The company's Power & Vision segment offers dedicated hybrid, dual and e-clutch, and manual transmissions; engine drive plates and accessories; AWD/4WD products, rear drive modules, and hybrid and battery electric drive systems; transmission, engine, and driveline components; advanced driver assistance systems, camera systems, ultrasonic sensors, and electronic controllers; interior and exterior mirrors, actuators, door handles, overhead consoles, and camera monitoring systems; head, tail, and fog lamps; signal and other lighting products; and latching systems, door modules, window systems, power closure systems, hinges and wire forming, and handle assemblies. Its Seating Systems segment provides seat structures, mechanism and hardware solutions, and foam and trim products. The company's Complete Vehicles segment offers vehicle manufacturing and engineering services. It also designs, engineers, and manufactures tooling products. Magna International Inc. was founded in 1957 and is headquartered in Aurora, Canada.

Read MoreThe following companies are subsidiares of Quaker Chemical: AC Products Inc., Applied Surface Concepts Holdings Ltd. , Binol AB, Binol Biosafe OY, Commonwealth Oil Corporation, DA Stuart India Private Limited, DA Stuart Shanghai Co, ECLI Products LLC, EFHCO LLC, Engineered Custom Lubricants, Engineered Custom Lubricants GmbH, Epmar Corporation, G.W. Smith and Sons, GH Holdings Inc., GHG Lubricants Holdings Limited, GHGL London Ltd., GHI Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., Global Houghton Ltd., Houghton (Shanghai) Specialty Industrial Fluids Co. Ltd, Houghton Argentina S.A., Houghton Asia Pacific Co. Limited, Houghton Australia Pty. Ltd., Houghton Benelux BV, Houghton CZ s.r.o, Houghton Canada Inc., Houghton Denmark AS, Houghton Deutschland GmbH, Houghton Europe BV, Houghton Holdings Limited, Houghton Iberica S.A. , Houghton International, Houghton International Inc., Houghton Italia S.p.A., Houghton Japan Co. Ltd., Houghton Kimya Sanayi AS, Houghton Magyarorszag Kft, Houghton Mexico S.A. de C.V., Houghton Oil (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd., Houghton Polska Sp. Zo.o., Houghton Romania S.R.L., Houghton S.A.S., Houghton Sverige AB, Houghton Taiwan Co. Limited, Houghton Technical Corp., Houghton Ukraine ToV, Houghton do Brazil Ltda., Houghton plc, Internationale Metall Impragnier GmbH, Lubricor Inc, Lubricor Inc., Lubricor Mexicana S.A. de C.V., Lubricor USA Inc., MIH Acquisition Company LLC, MX Systems International Ltd, Maldaner GmbH, NP Coil Dexter Industries, New Houghton Brazil Inc., Norman Hay Engineering Ltd., QH Chemical Limited, QH Europe BV, QH Holdings Limited, QH International Limited, Quaker (Thailand) Ltd., Quaker Australia Holdings Pty. Limited, Quaker Chemical (Australasia) Pty. Limited, Quaker Chemical (China) Co. Ltd., Quaker Chemical B.V., Quaker Chemical CV, Quaker Chemical Canada Holdings Inc., Quaker Chemical Canada Limited, Quaker Chemical Europe B.V., Quaker Chemical Holdings South Africa (Pty) Limited, Quaker Chemical India Private Limited, Quaker Chemical Industria e Comercio Ltda., Quaker Chemical Investment Management (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Quaker Chemical Limited, Quaker Chemical MEA FZE, Quaker Chemical Operacoes Ltda., Quaker Chemical Participacoes Ltda., Quaker Chemical S.A., Quaker Chemical S.r.l., Quaker Chemical Services EURL, Quaker Chemical South Africa (Pty.) Limited, Quaker China Holdings B.V., Quaker Denmark ApS, Quaker Houghton (Finco) Ltd., Quaker Houghton Holdings Limited, Quaker Houghton Holdings Ltd., Quaker Houghton International LP, Quaker Houghton Ltd., Quaker International Holdings LLC, Quaker Italia S.r.l., Quaker Russia B.V., Quaker Sales Europe BV, Quaker Shanghai Trading Company Limited, Quaker Spain Holding SLU, Quaker Specialty Chemicals (UK) Limited, SB Decking Inc., SIFCO Applied Surface Concepts (UK) Ltd, SIFCO Applied Surface Concepts LLC, SIFCO Concepts Sarl, SIFCO Concepts Sweden, Sterr & Eder Industrieservice GmbH, Summit Lubricants Inc, Summit Lubricants Inc., Surface Technology (Coventry) Ltd, Surface Technology (Dalian) Co Ltd, Surface Technology (East Kilbride) Ltd., Surface Technology (Leeds) Ltd, Surface Technology Aberdeen Ltd, Surface Technology Australia, Surface Technology Holdings Ltd., TecniQuimia Mexicana, Tecniquimia Mexicana S.A. de C.V., Thai Houghton 1993 Co. Ltd., Ultraseal Asia Limited, Ultraseal Chongqing Limited, Ultraseal Germany GmbH, Ultraseal International Group Ltd, Ultraseal Machinery Dongguan Ltd, Ultraseal Shanghai Limited, Ultraseal USA Inc., Unitek Servicios De Asesoria Especializad S.A de C.V., Verkol S.A.U., Verkol SAU, Wallover Enterprises Inc., Wallover Oil Company Incorporated, Wallover Oil Hamilton Inc., and Wuhan Quaker Technology Co. Ltd.ENGIE SA engages in the power, natural gas, and energy services businesses. The company operates through France Excluding Infrastructures, France Infrastructures, Rest of Europe, Latin America, USA & Canada, Middle East, Asia, & Africa, and Others segments. It provides energy sales and services for buildings and industry, cities and regions, and infrastructures, as well as to individual and professional customers; and operates natural gas transportation, storage, and distribution networks and facilities, and LNG terminals primarily in France, as well as sells access rights to these terminals. The company also engages in the design, financing, building, and operation of decentralized energy production and distribution facilities; and development, construction, financing, operation, and maintenance of various renewable power generation assets, including hydraulic, wind, and photovoltaic. In addition, it is involved in the generation and sale of power through nuclear, thermal, solar, wind, biogas, and biomass resources; seawater desalination activities, as well as offers engineering services in the areas of energy, hydraulics, and infrastructure; and design of cryogenic membrane confinement systems for sea transportation and storage of LNG onshore and offshore. The company was formerly known as GDF SUEZ S.A. and changed its name to ENGIE SA in April 2015. ENGIE SA was founded in 1880 and is headquartered in Courbevoie, France.

Read MoreEnQuest PLC operates as an oil and gas development and production company, explores for, extracts, and produces hydrocarbons in the United Kingdom, North Sea, and Malaysia. It primarily holds interests in the Magnus, Kraken, the Greater Kittiwake Area, Scolty/Crathes, Alba, Thistle/Deveron, Heather/Broom, Alma/Galia, and the Dons area. The company also has interests in the PM8/Seligi and PM409 production sharing contracts in Malaysia. In addition, it holds interests in 10 operated production licenses and 3 production hubs. As of December 31, 2020, the company had proved and probable reserves of 279 million barrels of oil equivalents. Further, it is involved in the construction, ownership, and operation of an oil pipeline; marketing and trading of crude oil; and leasing activities. EnQuest PLC was incorporated in 2010 and is based in London, the United Kingdom.

Read MoreiShares Russell 1000 Growth ETF's stock was trading at $158.09 on March 11th, 2020 when Coronavirus reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization. Since then, IWF stock has increased by 91.8% and is now trading at $303.21.

View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19.This might be a short post, because my answer to the above question is "beats me."

And it could be even shorter because thunderstorms are moving in, and if the atmosphere really gets to thrashing I might have to turn off the computer.

But...quite a day yesterday. I haven't even covered all the news yet. But if you admit the idea that "camera culture" is a thing, and a thing distinct from photo culture, then, clearly, Photokina '18 is a watershed moment. Here's the capsule review:

Sony, relatively new to the camera business and very ambitious, becomes a "throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks" kind of company, embracing everything from a tiny FF fixed-lens camera to the old pellicle mirror idea (before that, last seen dying a prolonged death with the Canon EOS RT, a camera I loved but the market decidedly did not). Eventually it alights on full-frame mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras, and the spaghetti sticks to the wall: people love 'em. Sales soar, and Sony, fickle as ever, dumps resources into full-frame mirrorless (FFM), plunging its old APS-C lines into benign neglect, discontinuing the SLTs and responding to criticisms about the FFM lens line with an ambitious flurry of pro-oriented paperweights.

Meanwhile, the flourishing used market, the sufficiency of older models, the rising cost of upgrading, and the slowing of technological development puts a lasting damper on the camera market. Suddenly it's not just point-and-shoots AKA digicams being pillaged by smartphonesit begins to erode the DSLR market as well. Prestigious Leica seems to be quietly copying many of Sony's ideas, but putting its own spin on its takes on those ideas. Even Complacent Canon starts getting shaken. By some metrics, Sony begins to look like it's...winning.

So at some point, Canon and Nikon (ever mindful more of each other than of other competition or even of the market, in classic Japanese corporate fashion) decide that Sony indeed has the magic formula and they'd better protect themselves. Giant Panasonic, evidently not reaping enough profit from sustainable energy and kitchen appliances and the lovingly reimagined SL-1200G, and feeling increasingly ghettoized in the Micro 4/3 box, wants a piece of the Sony-identified pie too, and gets a creative idea to expand its longstanding Leica partnership in an innovative new way, bringing Sigma into the picture too, and the L-Mount...what's it called? Not "consortium"...alliance, that's it, alliancethe L-Mount Alliance is born.

So now the camera industry is poised, one would think, to a.) move away from legacy SLRs and consign that antiquated 1950s configuration to the dustbin of history at long last and b.) to annoint FFM as the new serious format-and-camera-configuration standard.

The only trouble being, it would seem, that the market really hasn't decided that's what it wants, entirely.

I mean, what if Sony's FFM cameras are already saturating the segment? Can the potential energy of the unmet demand really sustain the move from one and an eighth players (Sony and Leica) to four big players, one of them a three-company consortium (er, alliance)?

Is everyone (and his brother, and his uncle) going to start buying FFM system cameras now? Is the camera market going to be smartphones at the base level and FFM for pros and camerafans, with Fuji as the set-aside company that gets to be truly independent and go its own way (like, say, Woody Allen among filmmakers) and Leica as the sole Veblen Good supplier to the carriage trade?

Or will this watershed momentFFMbecome an historical diversion, a backwater, a onetime next-big-thing that fizzled? After all, with sensors getting better and better, 1-inch, Micro 4/3, and APS-C get more capable all the time, not less. And more sensible as a realistic choice for photographers as time goes by, too. And along those lines, one last question: did Olympus just get lucky, seeing its biggest competition turn to a new project and a new direction, which means that in the future Panasonic will effectively leave Olympus alone to increasingly own Micro 4/3? Or if it, too, doesn't turn to FFM, will Olympus be odd man out again, as it was in the second half of the '80s when it made the decision not to go to AF right away?

I'm doubtful that there's enough gas (pun intended) in the full-frame mirrorless market to sustain four big players in the kind of prosperity they all wantthe kind of prosperity Sony's earned after working it for five years. Because, don't forget, Sony's been working hard at it, diversifying the A7 product line and reiterating each tier several times.

But maybe there is. Maybe FFM, like pickup trucks and SUVs on American roads, is what everyone actually really wants.

And then of course there's always the specter of real disruption lurkingsome magic formula that no one has quite divined yet but that the buying public will take a shine to. These days, you can never rule such a thing out.

Mike

"Open Mike" is the editorial page of TOP. It appears with rigid regularity on Wednesdays.



Original contents copyright 2018 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

B&H Photo  Amazon US  Amazon UK

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)

Featured Comments from:

John McMillin: "FFM leaves me cold. When I bought my FF DSLR, it wasn't for greater detail capture or bigger pixels. My K5IIs gave me everything I needed in the IQ department. I just wanted a bigger optical VF, like I enjoyed in the film era, the better to study and respond to the framed image before I clicked the shutter. Once mirrorless tech came along to decouple sensor size from viewfinder optics, I see far less need for FF. Whatever full frame gives in acuity, it takes back in DOF problems. And the difference between image detail from my two-pound K-1 (plus lens) and my featherweight Ricoh GRII is surprisingly small.

"That said, there's no denying the market's zest for bigness and overcapacity. Like those jumbo, dual-tired pickups in the school dropoff lane, we like to look like we're packed for action, and better equipped than the next guy, because, who's really secure anymore? In that sense, all FF cameras are Veblen goods."

Kenneth Tanaka: "What does it 'mean'? It means 'Summers here an' the time is right for dancin in the streets!' It means that nearly all of the big camera companies are taking advantage of a now-or-maybe-never moment, albeit a year or two late, as is characteristic of cautious industrialists. Consumer confidence and spending in most developed nations has risen sharply. Money is still relatively cheap and the prospects for good return on investment figures are good. The big (mirror) box boys are sick of being called big fatties. The small-sensor boys are tired of being...small-sensor boys. It means that Leica has found new friends in their desperation to save their over-weight/over-priced/under-featured SL system. It means that Panasonic thinks it might have a path out of the languishing Micro-4/3 bog. It means that Fujifilm is enjoying a well-earned moment in the warm sun.

"What does it 'mean' for photography? Nothing, really. None of the Photokina announcements I've seen so far have any apparent relationship to the recognition of where photography as a medium is going. It's just consumer electronics."

David Raboin: "I've never seen so much exciting camera tech released in such a short period of time. Is the photography economy approaching peak GAS, or can we go higher?

"The camera manufacturers and many of us photographers are obsessed with camera specs but nobody outside of the smartphone world and Silicon Valley pays attention to the other half of photography: sharing and displaying photos. How do you consume and share most photos? In my on-the-go life (which I'm guessing is similar to your 2018 life) I do 90% of my photo sharing and communing through a phone. As an image resolution fanatic this leaves me disappointed. I wish my photos were viewed bigger and I would like to see other's work displayed bigger, but we live in a smartphone world. Every now and then I get a chance to show somebody my work on a high-res laptop screen and it always has more impact than a picture sent over the phone.

"If photographers and camera manufacturers want to save cameras from the encroachment of smart phones we need to figure out a way to more easily display our photos larger. Canikon should be dumping research dollars into making printing easier and less expensive. They should also be inventing new ways to display photos. Someone please come up with a wall-mount LCD display that's affordable and that my wife approves of. Also, us photographers need to do a better job sharing our high resolution work. We should publicly show off our photos as much as possible. It's our job to inspire the masses to want better cameras."

Jim Richardson: "I think it means that the pull of 'Full Frame' has proven to be irresistible and that all other formats (however logical or practical) are doomed."President Energy Plc engages in the exploration, evaluation, and production of oil and gas properties primarily in South America. The company holds exploration assets in Argentina, the United States, and Paraguay. It also sells hydrocarbons. The company was formerly known as President Petroleum Company PLC and changed its name to President Energy Plc in September 2012. President Energy Plc was founded in 2004 and is headquartered in Leeds, the United Kingdom.

Read MoreThe best bang for your buck! This option enables you to purchase online 24/7 access and receive the Sunday, Tuesday & Thursday print edition at no additional cost * Print edition only available in our carrier delivery area. Allow up to 72 hours for delivery of your print edition to begin. Print edition not available for Day Pass option.Maxar Technologies Inc. provides earth intelligence and space infrastructure solutions in the United States, Asia, South America, Europe, the Middle East, Australia, Canada, and internationally. It operates through Earth Intelligence and Space Infrastructure segments. The Earth Intelligence segment offers earth imagery products, including orthorectified imagery, imagery basemap, 3D and elevation, and information products; and SecureWatch, a subscription offering that provides online access to imagery and geospatial intelligence platform. This segment also offers geospatial information, application, and analytic services. It serves U.S. and other international government agencies, such as defense and intelligence agencies, as well as commercial customers in various markets. The Space Infrastructure segment provides space based infrastructure, robotics, sub-systems, and information solutions, including communication and imaging satellites and payloads; platforms for space exploration and hosting instruments for earth science; space subsystems for power, propulsion, and communication; satellite ground systems and support services; space-based remote sensory solutions; space robotics; and defense systems. This segment serves government agencies and satellite operators. Maxar Technologies Inc. was founded in 1969 and is headquartered in Westminster, Colorado.

Read MoreBanco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA engages in the traditional banking businesses of retail banking, asset management, private banking, and wholesale banking. It operates through the following segments: Spain, the United States, Mexico, Turkey, South America, and Rest of Eurasia. The Spain segment includes mainly the banking and insurance business that the group carries out in Spain. The United States segment consists of the financial business activity of BBVA USA in the country and the activity of the branch of BBVA SA in New York. The Mexico segment refers to banking and insurance businesses in this country as well as the activity of its branch in Houston. The Turkey segment reports the activity of Garanti BBVA group that is mainly carried out in this country and, to a lesser extent, in Romania and the Netherlands. The South America segment comprises of operations in n Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela. The Rest of Eurasia segment includes the banking business activity carried out by the group in Europe and Asia, excluding Spain. The company was founded in 1857 and is headquartered in Madrid, Spain.

Read MoreXcel Energy, Inc. operates as a holding company, which engages in the generation, purchase, transmission, distribution and sale of electricity. It operates through the following three segments: Regulated Electric Utility, Regulated Natural Gas Utility and All Others. The Regulated Electric Utility segment generates, transmits and distributes electricity primarily in portions of generates, transmits and distributes electricity in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, North Dakota, South Dakota, Colorado, Texas and New Mexico. In addition, this segment includes sales for resale and provides wholesale transmission service to various entities in the United States. It also includes commodity trading operations. The Regulated Natural Gas Utility segment transports, stores, and distributes natural gas primarily in portions of Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, Michigan and Colorado. The All Others segment engages in steam, appliance repair services, nonutility real estate activities, processing solid waste into refuse-derived fuel and investments in rental housing projects that qualify for low-income housing tax credits. The company was founded in 1909 and is headquartered in Minneapolis, MN.

Read MoreThe following companies are subsidiares of EnerSys: ABSL Power Solutions Inc., ABSL Power Solutions Ltd., Acumuladores Industriales EnerSys SA, Alpha Alternative Energy Inc., Alpha Broadband Services Inc., Alpha Innovations Industria e Comercio de Produtos Eletronicos Ltda., Alpha Innovations Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Alpha Mexico Network Power S.A. de C.V., Alpha Tech Energy Solutions India Private Limited, Alpha Technical Services Ltd., Alpha Technologies Ltd., Alpha Technologies Pty. Ltd., Alpha Technologies Services Inc., Alphatec Technologies (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., Argus Research Ltd., Batterias Hawker de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Battery Power International Pte Ltd., Coppervale Enterprises Inc., DCPM Engineering Sdn Bhd, EH Batterien AG, EH Europe GmbH, EH Global Holdings GmbH, EH Swiss Holdings GmbH, ENAS Industrial Batteries Morocco Sarl, EnerSys (Chaozhou) Huada Batteries Company Limited, EnerSys (China) Huada Batteries Company Limited, EnerSys (Chongqing) Huada Batteries Company Limited, EnerSys (Jiangsu) Huada Batteries Company Limited (94.7%) *, EnerSys (Luxembourg) Finance Sarl, EnerSys (Yangzhou) Huada Batteries Co. Ltd., EnerSys A/S, EnerSys AB, EnerSys AD, EnerSys AE, EnerSys AS, EnerSys Advanced Systems Inc., EnerSys Argentina S.A., EnerSys Asia Limited, EnerSys Australia Pty Ltd., EnerSys BV, EnerSys BVBA, EnerSys Battery Private Limited, EnerSys Brasil Ltda., EnerSys Bulgaria EOOD, EnerSys Canada Inc., EnerSys Capital Inc., EnerSys Cayman Euro L.P., EnerSys Cayman Holdings L.P., EnerSys Cayman Inc., EnerSys Delaware Inc., EnerSys Delaware LLC I, EnerSys Delaware LLC II, EnerSys Delaware LLC III, EnerSys Delaware LLC IV, EnerSys Delaware LLC V, EnerSys Energy Products Inc., EnerSys Europe Oy, EnerSys European Holding Co., EnerSys GmbH, EnerSys Holdings (Luxembourg) Sarl, EnerSys Holdings UK Ltd., EnerSys Hungaria Kft., EnerSys India Batteries Private Ltd., EnerSys JSC, EnerSys LLC, EnerSys Ltd., EnerSys Malaysia Sdn Bhd, EnerSys Mexico Holdings LLC, EnerSys Mexico Management LLC, EnerSys Participacoes Ltda., EnerSys Reserve Power Pte. Ltd., EnerSys S.r.l., EnerSys SARL, EnerSys SNC, EnerSys South East Asia Pte. Ltd., EnerSys de Mexico II S de R.L. de CV, EnerSys de Mexico S de R.L. de CV, EnerSys s.r.o., EnerSys sp. z o.o., EnerSystem Chile Ltda., Enersys Aku Sanaya Dis Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Esfinco LLC, Hawker GmbH, Hawker Power Systems Inc., Hawker Powersource Inc., Hawker Systems GmbH & Co. KG., ICS Industries Pty Ltd, ICS Industries Pty Ltd., ICS Sheet Metal Pty Ltd., Industrial Battery Holding Ltda., International Communication Shelters Australasia Pty Ltd., Lancord Pty Ltd., Lenmic Pty Ltd., MIB Energy Sdn Bhd, N Holding AB, National Infrastructure Pty Ltd., National Infrastructure Services Pty Ltd., NaviSemi Energy Pte Ltd., NaviSemi Inc., New Pacifico Realty Inc., NorthStar Battery Company LLC, NorthStar Battery Company LLC, NorthStar Battery DMCC, Outback Power Technologies Inc., Powercom (NSW) Pty Ltd., Powersonic S de R.L. de CV, Purcell Systems, Purcell Systems Inc., Purcell Systems International AB, Quallion LLC, Riverfront Holding S. de R.L. de C.V., Shenzhen Huada Power Supply Mechanical & Electrical Co. Ltd. , SiteTel Shanghai Co Ltd., SiteTel Sweden AB, Telecomponents & Supply (Hong Kong) Ltd., The Enser Corporation, UTS Holdings Sdn Bhd, UTS Technology (JB) Sdn Bhd, UTS Technology (PG) Sdn Bhd, YCI Inc., and Yecoltd S. de R.L. de CV.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The sextoy market is growing quite rapidly in India right now.

Although it is not a big trend, it is a hot topic on the internet as it is secretly expanding its market.

In this article, we will focus on sextoy and introduce recommended sextoy for Indian beginners of sextoy by gender.

India, the birthplace of the Kama Sutra, is very strict about sex.

Also, premarital sex is basically not allowed. Therefore, there are many people who are sexually restricted.

But what happens when you continue to be sexually restricted?

Frustration may build up and you may end up taking your sexual stress out on your partner.

If you are able to adopt sextoy in a timely manner, you can get rid of those problems.

I want to have more exciting sex than Im having now.

I want more variation in masturbation

I want to get even stronger pleasure than I do on my own.

If you have any of these problems, please stay with me until the end.

What is sex toys for Indian?

Sextoy, as the name implies, is a toy used during sex and masturbation.

It is a generic term for vibrators, Egg-vibrators, Electric massagers, dildo, handcuffs and condoms.

They are used to make regular sex more exciting or to make masturbation more pleasurable.

Because sextoy is very stimulating, it can help you to get rid of the problems and frustrations of being in a rut of sex with your partner for a long time, or if you are unhappy with the lack of pleasure in sex with your partner.

The ability to satisfy your desires with movement, texture, and size, which cannot be done by a normal human being, can help you to be satisfied with sex and, as a result, improve your relationship with your partner.

It is also said to help improve sexual dysfunction (inability to get an erection or ejaculate) and difficulty in feeling during sex (insensitivity), which is attracting more attention than in the past.

In recent years, the demand for sextoy has increased due to the spread of smartphones and the Internet and the increasing number of people using online shopping.

Even those who are concerned about the appearance of sextoy (and find it difficult to purchase) can now easily obtain it by using mail order.

In the case of online shopping, most of the stores have taken steps to ensure that the contents of the products delivered to you are not revealed, so you can purchase them without your family members knowing.

Until a while ago, you had to go to the store where the adult goods were sold to buy them, so it was quite a hurdle to overcome.

Also, many people may have an image that sextoy is somehow embarrassing to own.

But nowadays, some of them are so stylish and cute that you cant believe they are sextoy at a glance.

More and more people are using them for travel and outdoor use because they are not too bulky and are suitable for carrying around.

Sextoy situation in India

Before introducing the recommended sextoy for Indians, lets talk about one of the sextoy situations in India in recent years.

In India, due to the high concentration of population, the following six cities have particularly high sales of sextoy in India.

Mumbai

Kolkata

Bangalore

Delhi

Chennai

Hyderabad

These cities account for roughly 70 percent of sextoy sales in India.

In the future, the percentage of sextoy use will gradually increase in other cities in India as well.

If you never talk about sextoy publicly, that girl in your neighborhood might be a sextoy user too.

If you are interested in sextoy, you dont have to suppress your desire for it.

What are Sextoys for beginner?

Among all sextoys, sextoy for beginners are vibrators, dildo, masturbators, Sex Lubricants, and condoms.

Sex Lubricants and condoms, which are familiar to people who have had sex, are also a great beginners sextoy.

I will explain the details of each toy later, but there are many sextoy products that are painful to use and can only be used after some anal expansion.

I assume that the Indian readers of this article are people who have not had much experience with sextoy.

If such people use professional sextoy suddenly, they are at risk of injury or trauma.

Therefore, to introduce sextoy, you need to start with a beginners version and gradually become familiar with it.

Advantages of using sextoy for Indians

There are three advantages of using sextoy for Indians

You can masturbate in a wide variety of ways.

Can have stimulating sex

Can develop new sexual zones

If you try to masturbate with your own fingers or hands, it tends to be a pattern.

However, with sextoy, you can easily masturbate in a variety of ways.

You will definitely be fascinated by the attraction of new stimulation.

Also, your daily sex life will be more exciting than ever.

There are many things in sextoy that are visually stimulating and give you a strong and intense feeling of pleasure.

This allows you to see your partners promiscuity in a way that you wouldnt normally see it.

When you are in a relationship, sex with your partner may become a pattern, but it can also eliminate these problems.

It can also lead to the development of new sexual zones (which is the training of sexual stimulation to allow you to feel orgasms).

For more information on the development of new sexual zones, see the following articles

[Women's Erogenous Zone]How to find and develop, 7 hidden sexual zones !![In India] In this issue, we will dissect the female erogenous zone! ..." Many of you may be like that. Men, in particular, shou...

Thus, the use of sextoy can only be a good thing for the men and women of India.

Sextoy for beginner men in India

So, lets continue with the recommended goods for Indian sextoy beginners.

For ease of understanding, we will introduce them by gender. Lets start with the men!

The following five goods are recommended for novice Indian sextoy men

Masturbator

Cock rings

Love Doll

Sex Lubricants

Toys for the prostate

Lets check each one in detail.

Masturbator

The masturbator is a sextoy for men that elaborately reproduces a womans vagina, mouth, and anus, and is one of the most popular sextoy products.

It is used by men to masturbate, and it is popular because it provides stronger stimulation and pleasure more easily than using hands.

Most are made of good quality silicone, and their softness is something that cannot be achieved with ones own hands.

They can provide stronger pleasure than a real womans vagina, so be careful not to overuse them. (You wont be able to have an orgasm in a womans vagina anymore.)

Again Male masturbators are a wonderful toy. I do not need any favourite timing, bothersome bargaining. You do not have to worry too much.

Revolutionize your masturbation time! ! !

Made in Japan is a wonderful kinky toy.#sextoysindia #SexToyIndia #Japanhttps://t.co/4k70QGzoTP pic.twitter.com/tRVdxTKPpa   SEXToys India PR  (@SextoysIndia) November 12, 2018

Some of them are disposable, while others can be washed and used over and over again, so its fun to buy a few to use depending on your mood.

If you want to know more about masturbator, please click here

Really pleasant male masturbation and how to do it Are you in a rut with your daily masturbation routine? I'm going to show you five ways men masturbate that you might ...

[For Beginners] How to choose and use a male masturbator without fail Gentlemen.Have you ever used a masturbator? The person who sees this article is probably the one who has not experien...

Cock Ring

A cock ring is literally a ring-shaped sextoy that is worn on a mans penis.

It maintains an erection by binding the penis with a ring of rubber and blocking blood flow.

It is sometimes used as an accessory to be worn on the penis, and may be made of metal or plastic as well as rubber.

In some cases, cock rings have parts or vibrators attached to them that stimulate the vagina, so they kill two birds with one stone, giving a woman pleasure while maintaining an erection.

Cock rings are also sometimes used to treat erectile dysfunction.

It can help with erectile dysfunction, where the penis doesnt get hard when you get an erection or doesnt last long when you try to insert it.

Men who are prone to breakage or who are unsure of the hardness and size of their erections can use a cock ring to increase the size of their penis and maintain an erection for a longer period of time.

Cock rings vary in price from around RS700 to over RS2000 with a vibrator function.

Some of them do not fit your penis, so you should check the size of the cock ring before you buy.

You should know the size of your partners or your own penis when it is erect.

[Penis enlargement] What is a cock ring? Types and usage Cock rings can make your penis bigger and harder. It also makes sex with women more fulfilling and increases your sat...

Love Doll

Love dolls, also known as Dutchwives, are dolls with the appearance of a woman who can experience simulated sex.

There are dolls that look like a woman, but they have no face and only have their breasts and lower torso cut off, and some dolls are so realistic that they can actually be mistaken for real women.

Some expensive dolls can cost more than 1 million yen, and the quality of the doll is easily influenced by the price.

The higher the price, the higher the quality of the doll will be, the closer it will be to the real woman, and the cheaper the doll will be, the less elaborate it will be, making it look like a real doll! Something is wrong! That is also true.

You cant go wrong if you choose a balance between price and taste.

There are stores that allow you to make custom-made love dolls, so you can create a girl of your choice.

You can make a girl of your choice. You can start with inexpensive love dolls at first, and once you get used to it, you can try custom-made love dolls.

If you want to know more about Love doll, please click here

Thorough explanation of the charm of sex dolls! Have you ever heard of sex dolls that are used primarily for pseudo-sex purposes? It is a doll that is quite close to...

Sex lubricants

Sex lubricants are used as a substitute for lubricating fluid during sex or as a lubricant for men to use masturbator rules.

It is not uncommon for women to have difficulty getting wet, depending on their physical condition, or to have difficulty getting wet due to their constitution.

Forcing the penis into the vagina at such times can cause painful intercourse.

There are various types of Sex Lubricants, some with a warming effect, some with a cooling effect, and some with a scent.

Changing the Sex Lubricant used during play is recommended as a good sex accent.

If you want to learn more about Sex Lubricants, click here.

What is sex lubricant?Explain the difference and usage of each ingredient The word "sex toy" may seem like a hurdle to overcome, but lotion is actually one of the most familiar sex toys. Many...

Toys for the Prostate

Another sextoy for men is prostate toys.

The most famous prostate toys include Enemagra, which was originally a prostate massager developed by an American urologist to treat an enlarged prostate line.

Modern prostate toys are imitations of Enemagra that have spread as sextoy for men.

Many people think of prostate toys as being used by gay men, but in fact they are often used by straight men.

What is the prostate?

The prostate is an organ found only in men. It is a walnut-sized organ located deep in the pelvis, just below the bladder, and its primary role is to protect and nourish sperm.

You cannot touch the prostate gland from outside the body, but you can touch it by inserting a finger or sextoy through the anus.

By inserting a finger or sextoy through the anus and touching the prostate and developing it, you can feel intense orgasms.

Orgasms felt in the prostate are mainly dry orgasms, which are orgasms that do not involve ejaculation. (You can also feel orgasms with ejaculation through prostate stimulation.)

The prostate is called the male G-spot, and dry orgasms can be much more intense than ejaculation.

Therefore, men who are able to develop a prostate can become addicted to the pleasure.

sextoy for beinner women in India

The following are the recommended goods for Indian women who are new to sextoy.

The following three are recommended for use by women who are new to sextoy.

Vibrator.

Dildo

Electric Masserger

Lets check out what each one is in detail.

If you want to check out womens toys, click here.

[BEST25]Sex Toys for Women in IndiaThat Can Help You Have an Orgasm There are many women who pretend to feel orgasm during sex. But don't worry, you don't have to pretend to feel orgasm...

Vibrators

A vibrator is a sextoy that vibrates with an Egg-Vibrator to provide stimulation and is often referred to simply as a vibrator.

Some vibrate as well as rotate, and there are many variations of sextoy.

It is quite a popular sextoy, and is well recognized by people who do not know much about sextoy.

Its usage is similar to that of a massager, but it is more compact and easier to carry than a massager, and many of them look as cute as a lipstick or a macaroon, so they are popular among women.

For a while, a famous influencer on twitter said, This is good! You may have heard of the topic of this article by introducing the recommended vibrators.

Vibrators are great for women to use on their own, but they are also recommended for men who have difficulty satisfying women with sex.

Since it is powered by electricity, it is far less tiring than moving your hands by yourself.

This makes it easier to satisfy a woman with sex because you can caress her for longer than usual.

Vibrators are mainly used on the female side, but they can also be used on men.

When used on men, they are used to attack the nipples and glans, and in both cases it is recommended to wear a condom for hygiene reasons.

Introducing how to use the vibrator, its purpose, and how to choose it! Vibrator uses the vibrations caused by the rotation of the motor to provide stimulation. It is one or two of the most...

Dildo

A dildo is a model sextoy made to mimic a male penis.

It can be made of silicone, elastomer (think of it as a material similar to PVC), metal or glass.

A dildo can be used by a man for his female partner during sex, or by a woman for masturbation to get pleasure from it.

They are mainly inserted into women, but some can be used in the male anus as well.

It is sometimes used synonymously with vibrators, but the vibrator is not the same thing as a vibrating device.

A model of a penis that does not vibrate is a dildo.

Some of them have suction cups that can be attached to the floor or wall so that you can enjoy realistic masturbation without using your hands.

For fun, there is a dildo made in the shape of your partners penis.

This one is also popular as a gift, and if youve been together for a long time and are having trouble finding a gift for your partner, you might want to pick one.

To learn more about dildo, please click here.

What is Dildo: Orgasms with Dildos for Men and Women A dildo is a model of a male organ that is used by women for masturbation and by men to stimulate the prostate gland. Th...

Electric Masserger

A Electric Masserger is a hand-held electric massager, also known as a handheld massager, and can usually be purchased at electronics stores.

It was originally designed to relieve stiff shoulders and back pain, so the hurdle of buying one in a physical store is quite low.

Many people may have seen or used it in some form or another, as it is often installed in leisure hotels.

Such a massager is highly recommended for beginners because it is easy for women to get pleasure from it when they use it during masturbation.

It is larger than Egg-Vibrator and vibrations are stronger than those of Egg-Vibrators and vibrators, so even just hitting the clitoris can give you a great deal of pleasure.

For those women who have never had an orgasm during sex with their man, the massager may be a good way to get a feel for what it feels like to have an orgasm.

It looks and feels like an electric massager, so you wont have to feel awkward if your roommate finds out.

If you are in a rut of having sex with your partner, if you want to feel an orgasm through masturbation, or if you are thinking of using a sextoy, why dont you try it from a simple massager?

To learn more about Electric Masserger, click here.

What is a massager? Introducing types, selection methods, and usage Originally, the Magic-wand vibrator and the massage machine were sold as a home massage machine used for the back and th...

How to choose a sextoy for Indian

Now that weve covered the different types of sextoy, heres how to choose one.

Especially if you are trying sextoy for the first time, pay attention to the following three points:  Does the size fit you (the partner)?

Does the size fit you (your partner)?

Is the environment able to produce sound without problems?

Price range

First of all, the choice of size is quite important.

Most sextoy are used against or inserted into the genitals, but the genitals are very delicate organs for both men and women.

For this reason, using an inappropriate size may cause damage.

Secondly, the environment should be able to produce sound without problems.

Some sextoys not only wear, but also rotate and vibrate. Its easier to get pleasure from something that moves than something that doesnt, but the fact that it moves means that the internal rotors make some noise.

If you live in a house with thin walls or if you have roommates, you may not be able to concentrate because of the noise, so it is best to choose one that is silent or has a low noise level.

Especially in India, where many people live with their families, it is very important that you dont have to worry about sound when you use it.

Finally, there is the price range.

The price range of sextoy ranges widely, from around RS500 at the cheapest to RS10,000 or more at the highest.

Its good to consider how much money you can afford and how much you want to buy.

Do you want your family to not find out about sextoy?

I live with my family and want to use sextoy without them finding out! If you are a man, you should buy a camouflage sextoy that does not look like a sextoy at first glance.

For men, there are many masturbators that do not look like a sextoy, and for women, there are vibrators that only look like cosmetics.

If you choose such a type, youll be safe in case your family members find out.

How to buy sextoys in India

The best way to purchase sextoy is through online shopping.

For more information on how to purchase sextoy, please see the article below.

Sextoy is one of them.

Therefore, you can easily get sextoy in India by using online shopping.

SexToysINDIA is a long established and stable sextoy store and you can have sextoy delivered to any place in India.

They also offer cash on delivery, so those who are worried about shopping with a credit card do not have to worry.

Of course, the latest security is in place, so your information will not be taken out when you use your credit card.

To begin with, many people may be concerned about whether they are legally allowed to purchase sextoy.

ikmAs it turns out, its not illegal.

Right now, it is not open to the public because the Indian adult market is still in the development stage, but it will gradually spread from now on.

Take advantage of sextoy and open the door to new pleasures and culture.

Cautions for Indians using sextoy

When using sextoy, keep the following three things in mind

Keep sex toys clean

Watch out for electrical leakage

Beware of the heat generated by the body while using a sex toy

As I mentioned earlier, many sextoy products are used for the delicate zone.

Therefore, it is most important to keep the sextoy itself clean. It is very important to keep the sextoy itself clean, because if a slight scratch is created by friction, bacteria can enter and breed there.

It is safe to wear a condom when using the masturbator, just in case.

In addition, many sextoy devices are powered by a power source, so if they are not waterproof, there is a possibility of electric shock or malfunction due to wetness.

Some may even develop heat during continuous use. If the fever becomes too much, you may get burned, so be careful.

If you get a fever during use, stop driving the sextoy immediately and refrain from using it.

You will enjoy sex more if you keep it safe and use it correctly.

Summary

What did you think?

In this article, we have introduced the recommended sextoy for the beginners of sextoy in India.

The sextoy market is growing rapidly in India and it will continue to grow steadily in the future.

As India is a rather closed-minded country, it can be difficult to be open about ones sexual habits and values.

However, being faithful to ones desires by properly dissolving ones sexual desire is very effective for ones physical and mental health.

If this is your first time to learn about sextoy, or if you are interested in using sextoy, why not give it a try?

Indian Sextoys for ur best! will introduce you to sextoy and other trivia about sextoy, sexuality, and sexuality for men and women.

I want to read more! If you think its a great idea, please bookmark it.Gerresheimer AG, together with its subsidiaries, manufactures and sells specialty glass, plastic products, and drug delivery-devices and solutions primarily worldwide. It operates through three divisions: Plastics & Devices, Primary Packaging Glass, and Advanced Technologies. The Plastics & Devices division offers drug delivery systems, including inhalers, pen systems, and injection systems; sterile and non-sterile syringe systems for the pharmaceutical and biotech industries; and disposables for various analysis systems that are used in laboratories and medical practices, quick tests for patients in medical practices or hospitals, skin-prick aids and lancets for diabetics, disposables, and components for dialysis machines, and catheters and surgical devices. It also provides containers for the delivery of tablets and powders, liquid dosages, ophthalmic and rhinological applications, parenteral packaging applications, oral prescription medications, and cosmetics. The Primary Packaging Glass division offers glass primary packaging for pharma and cosmetics industries, such as ampoules, cartridges, vials, syrup and dropper bottles, tablet jars, and wide-neck jars, as well as injection, infusion, and transfusion bottles; flacons and pots for fragrances, deodorants, and care and decorative cosmetics; and bottles and jars for spirits and food. The Advanced Technologies division develops drug delivery products and platforms, such as micro pumps, which are used to self-administer medication for heart failure or Parkinson's for pharmaceutical and biotech customers. The company was founded in 1864 and is headquartered in DAsseldorf, Germany.

Read MoreThere is not enough analysis data for (GGP).

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Outperform Votes (GGP) has received 465 outperform votes. (Add your outperform vote.)

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Community Sentiment (GGP) has received 65.77% outperform votes from our community.

MarketBeat's community ratings are surveys of what our community members think about (GGP) and other stocks. Vote Outperform if you believe GGP will outperform the S&P 500 over the long term. Vote Underperform if you believe GGP will underperform the S&P 500 over the long term. You may vote once every thirty days.

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Next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 American Consumer News, LLC dba MarketBeat 2010-2021. All rights reserved.

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 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.John Hancock Premium Dividend Fund is a closed ended equity mutual fund launched and managed by John Hancock Investment Management LLC. It is co-managed by John Hancock Asset Management. The fund invests in the public equity markets of the United States. It seeks to invest in stocks of companies operating across diversified sectors, with an emphasis on the utilities sector. The fund primarily invests in dividend paying preferred stocks and common stocks of companies. It benchmarks the performance of its portfolio against a composite benchmark comprised of 70% Bank of America Merrill Lynch Preferred Stock DRD Eligible Index and 30% S&P 500 Utilities Index. The fund was formerly known as John Hancock Patriot Premium Dividend Fund II. John Hancock Premium Dividend Fund was formed on December 21, 1989 and is domiciled in the United States.

Read MoreThe following companies are subsidiares of Molina Healthcare: Aetna & Humana - Medicare Advantage, Affinity Health Plan, AmericanWork Inc., Better Health Network, Camelot Care Centers Inc, Children's Behavioral Health Inc., Choices Group Inc., College Community Services, Dockside Services Inc, Family Preservation Services Inc., Family Preservation Services of Florida Inc., Family Preservation Services of North Carolina Inc., Family Preservation Services of Washington D.C. Inc., Family Preservation Services of West Virginia Inc., Florida NetPASS LLC, Hclb Inc., Magellan Complete Care, Maple Star Nevada Inc., Maple Star Oregon Inc., Mercy CarePlus, Molina Clinical Services LLC, Molina Healthcare Data Center Inc., Molina Healthcare of Arizona Inc., Molina Healthcare of California, Molina Healthcare of Florida Inc., Molina Healthcare of Georgia Inc., Molina Healthcare of Illinois Inc., Molina Healthcare of Iowa Inc., Molina Healthcare of Louisiana Inc., Molina Healthcare of Maryland Inc., Molina Healthcare of Michigan Inc., Molina Healthcare of Mississippi Inc., Molina Healthcare of Nevada Inc., Molina Healthcare of New Mexico Inc., Molina Healthcare of New York Inc., Molina Healthcare of North Carolina Inc., Molina Healthcare of Ohio Inc., Molina Healthcare of Oklahoma Inc., Molina Healthcare of Pennsylvania Inc., Molina Healthcare of Puerto Rico Inc., Molina Healthcare of South Carolina LLC, Molina Healthcare of Texas Inc., Molina Healthcare of Texas Insurance Company, Molina Healthcare of Utah Inc., Molina Healthcare of Virginia Inc., Molina Healthcare of Washington Inc., Molina Healthcare of Wisconsin Inc., Molina Holdings Corporation, Molina Hospital Management LLC, Molina Information Systems LLC dba Molina Medicaid Solutions, Molina Medical Management Inc., Molina Pathways LLC, Molina Pathways of Texas Inc., Molina Youth Academy, NextLevel Health Illinois, Pathways Community Corrections Inc., Pathways Community Services LLC, Pathways Community Support of Texas Inc., Pathways Health and Community Support LLC, Pathways Human Services LLC., Pathways of Arizona Inc., Pathways of Delaware Inc., Pathways of Idaho LLC, Pathways of Maine Inc., Pathways of Massachusetts LLC, Pathways of Oklahoma Inc., Pathways of Washington Inc., Providence Community Services, Providence Human Services, Raystown Developmental Services Inc., The Game of Work LLC, The RedCo Group Inc., Total Care Medicaid plan, Transitional Family Services Inc., Unisys -Health Information Management, and YourCare Health Plan.Exelon Corp. operates as a utility services holding company, which engages in the energy generation, power marketing, and energy delivery business. It operates through the following segments: Mid Atlantic, Midwest, New York, Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) and other Power Regions. The Mid-Atlantic segment represents operations in the eastern half of PJM, which includes New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Delaware, the District of Columbia and parts of Pennsylvania and North Carolina. The Midwest segment operates in the western half of PJM, which includes portions of Illinois, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky and Tennessee, and the United States footprint of MISO, excluding MISO's Southern Region, which covers all or most of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, the remaining parts of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio not covered by PJM, and parts of Montana, Missouri and Kentucky. The New York (NY) segment provides operations within ISONY, which covers the state of New York in its entirety. The ERCOT segment includes operations within Electric Reliability Council of Texas, covering most of the state of Texas.

Read More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By Trend





The Russia-Azerbaijan relations can now be characterized as successful and dynamically developing, and frequent meetings of the leaders of Russia and Azerbaijan clearly testify to that, famous Russian expert Andrey Ivanov told Trend on the eve of the visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to Baku.

The main reason for this is that relations are built on a mutually beneficial basis, with full respect for each other's sovereign choice regarding any issues, Ivanov, who is also head of the Strategic Analysis Center of the Russian Innovative Development Institute, added.

"Today, Moscow and Baku have no contradictions, and this is a great achievement," Ivanov added. Moreover, important breakthroughs related to the participation of the two countries in big geopolitical projects have recently been outlined, including the signing of the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea, the emerging political axes Moscow-Baku-Ankara and Moscow-Baku-Tehran. This opens opportunities for solving such complex problems as the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

He added that Russia and Azerbaijan adhere to the principle of solving the problem on the basis of international law and adherence to peaceful dialogue.

"Of course, this is a very difficult problem that can not be solved quickly, Ivanov said. But I would like to stress that the overall dynamics of the relations in the region stipulates that we can move forward in resolving this difficult task."

I would also like to stress that the potential of the Russia-Azerbaijan relations has not been fully revealed, he added. There is cooperation in almost all spheres. But it is possible to intensify it, constantly increase the trade turnover between the countries. This concerns agricultural products, natural raw materials and modern high-tech weapons. I think that our countries will move in this direction."

Both sides are interested in participation and implementation of an ambitious project, namely, the construction of the North-South transport corridor, which must link the Indian Ocean and the Baltic Sea through Iran, Azerbaijan and Russia, Ivanov said.

"This route, which will connect Asian producers and European buyers, will be twice shorter than the current one through the Suez Canal," he said. I think this is an extremely interesting project that first of all points to the degree of trust between the parties because the construction of infrastructure requires a lot of money, and Azerbaijan on its territory has already built everything it needs, so it trusts its partners.

Earlier, head of the Russian State Duma Committee on CIS Affairs, Eurasian Integration and Relations with Compatriots Leonid Kalashnikov said that Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit Azerbaijan at the end of September.

"Presidents of Azerbaijan and Russia Ilham Aliyev and Vladimir Putin during the visit of the Russian leader to Baku will hold a working meeting to thoroughly discuss those issues that the parties agreed or did not fully discuss during the talks in Sochi on September 1," Kalashnikov said during the Baku-Moscow video-conference.







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Power Financial Corporation provides financial services in Canada, the United States, Europe, and Asia. It offers life, disability, critical illness, and health insurance products, as well as wealth savings and income products, and specialty products. The company also provides financial products, including employer-sponsored defined contribution plans, individual retirement accounts, enrollment services, communication materials, investment options and education services, fund management services, and investment and advisory services. In addition, it offers protection and wealth management products, such as payout annuity products; reinsurance products; and sub-advisory services. Further, the company provides mutual funds, pooled funds, segregated funds, separate accounts, and other investment vehicles; securities, mortgages, and other financial services; and investment management services. It offers its products primarily through distribution network of third-party financial advisors, consultants, and independent financial advisors. The company was founded in 1984 and is based in Montreal, Canada. Power Financial Corporation is a subsidiary of Power Corporation of 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 Prudential Financial: 210-220 E. 22nd Street SSGA Owner LLC, AIG Edison, AIG Star, AREF Cayman Co Ltd., AREF GP II Pte. Ltd., AREF GP Ltd., ASPF II - Feeder Fund GmbH, ASPF II - Verwaltungs - GmbH & Co. KG, ASPF II Management GmbH, ASPF III (Scots) L.P., ASSURANCE, AST Investment Services Inc., Adlerwerke CB Investment LLC, Administradora de Fondos de Pensiones Habitat S.A., Administradora de Inversiones Previsionales SpA, Aoba Life Insurance Company, Asia Property Fund III GP S.a.r.l., Assurance IQ LLC, Assurance Intelligence LLC, BSC CP LP, Braeloch Holdings Inc., Braeloch Successor Corporation, Brazilian Capital Fund GP Limited, Broad Street Global Advisors LLC, Broome Street Holdings LLC, CB German Retail LLC, CLIS Co. Ltd., COLICO INC., Campus Drive LLC, Capital Agricultural Property Services Inc., Chadwick Boulevard Investment Holdings Co. LLC, Cibecue LLC, Coconino LLC, Colico II Inc., Columbus Drive Partners L.P., Commerce Street Holdings LLC, Commerce Street Investments LLC, Coolidge LLC, Coral Reef GP, Coral Reef L.P., Coral Reef Unit Trust, Cottage Street Investments LLC, Cottage Street Orbit Acquisition LLC, DHFL PRAMERICA LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY LIMITED, DICKENS AVENUE HOLDINGS VI LLC, DICKENS AVENUE PARTNERS VI (Ireland) L.P., DICKENS AVENUE PARTNERS VI (US) L.P., Don Cesar Investor LLC, Dryden Arizona Reinsurance Term Company, Dryden Finance II LLC, EVP II GP S.a r.l., EVP II Sweden Resi I GP S.a r.l., Edison Place Senior Note LLC, Essex LLC, EuroCore GP S.a r.l., European Value Partners GP S.a.r.l., Everbright PGIM Fund Management Co. Ltd., Flagstaff LLC, GA 1600 Commons LLC, GA 333 Hennepin Investor LLC, GA BV LLC, GA Bay Area GP LLC, GA Bay Area Investor LLC, GA Belden LLC, GA CLARENDON LLC, GA Cal Crossings LLC, GA Collins LLC, GA E. 22nd Street Apartments Holdings LLC, GA East 86 Street LLC, GA JHCII LLC, GA MENLO PARK INVESTOR LLC, GA Manor at Harbour Island LLC, GA Metro LLC, GA Mission LLC, GA TRITON INVESTOR LLC, GA W Paces LLC, GA/MDI 333 Hennepin Associates LLC, GIBRALTAR BSN HOLDINGS SDN BHD, GIBRALTAR INDIA SOLUTIONS LLP, Gateway Holdings II LLC, Gateway Holdings LLC, German Retail Income CP LP, Gibraltar BSN Life Berhad, Gibraltar International Insurance Services Company Inc., Gibraltar International Service LLC, Gibraltar Reinsurance Company Ltd., Gibraltar Universal Life Reinsurance Company, Glenealy International Limited, Global Portfolio Strategies Inc., Gold GP Limited, Gold II L.P., Gold L.P., Graham Resources Inc., Graham Royalty Ltd., Green Tree GP, Green Tree L.P., Greenlee LLC, Halsey Street Investments LLC, Hirakata LLC, IVP Fund GP LLC, Impact Investments Bridges UK S.a.r.l, Inter-Atlantic G Fund L.P., Inversiones Previsionales Chile SpA, Inversiones Previsionales Dos SpA, Ironbound Fund LLC, Jennison Associates LLC, Kyarra S.a r.l., Kyoei Annuity Home Co. Ltd., LINEUP LLC, Lake Street Partners IV L.P., MC GA COLLINS HOLDINGS LLC, MC GA COLLINS REALTY LLC, MC Insurance Agency Services LLC, Manor at Harbour Island LLC, Marble Canyon LLC, Maricopa LLC, Market Street Holdings IV LLC, Morenci LLC, Mulberry Street Holdings LLC, Mulberry Street Investment L.P., Mulberry Street Partners LLC, Mullin TBG Insurance Agency Services LLC, MullinTBG Insurance Agency Services, National Family Assurance Group LLC, New Savanna, Orchard Street Acres Inc., PAI Bay Farm LLC, PAI Bayrock Groves LLC, PAI Belvidere Farms LLC, PAI Big Cypress Farm LLC, PAI Corcoran 640 Ranch LLC, PAI DeKalb Farm LLC, PAI Delano 1500 Ranches LLC, PAI Flicker Orchard LLC, PAI Good Hope Farm LLC, PAI Hawk Creek Ranch LLC, PAI Hills Valley Ranches LLC, PAI Holly Hill Groves LLC, PAI Hunt Farm LLC, PAI Jackson Bayou Farm LLC, PAI Lake Placid Groves LLC, PAI Wallula Gap Vineyard LLC, PCP V Cayman AIV GP L.P., PEREF II Co-Invest 1 GP S.a r.l., PEREF II GP S.a r.l., PEREF II PV S.r.l, PFI EM-Tech Fund I LLC, PG Business Service Co. Ltd, PG Collection Service Co. Ltd., PGA Asian Retail Limited, PGA European Limited, PGI Co. Ltd, PGIM (Australia) Pty Ltd, PGIM (Hong Kong) Ltd., PGIM (Scots) Limited, PGIM (Shanghai) Company Ltd., PGIM (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., PGIM AVP IV GP S.a r.l., PGIM Advisory (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., PGIM Agricultural Investments GP LLC, PGIM Agricultural Investors LP, PGIM Broad Market High Yield Bond Fund L.P., PGIM Broad Market High Yield Bond Partners LLC, PGIM Capital Partners Management (Feeder) VI LLC, PGIM Capital Partners Management Fund VI L.P., PGIM European Financing Limited, PGIM European Services Limited, PGIM Financial Limited, PGIM Fixed Income Alternatives Fund II L.P., PGIM Fixed Income Alternatives Fund L.P., PGIM Fixed Income Alternatives GP LLC, PGIM Fixed Income Alternatives II GP LLC, PGIM Foreign Investments Inc., PGIM Holding Company LLC, PGIM INDIA ASSET MANAGEMENT PRIVATE LIMITED, PGIM INDIA TRUSTEES PRIVATE LIMITED, PGIM Inc., PGIM International Financing Inc., PGIM Investments LLC, PGIM Japan Co. Ltd., PGIM Korea Inc., PGIM LTIF Berlin GP S.a r.l., PGIM LTIF Berlin MLP S.ar.l., PGIM LTIF GP S.a.r.l., PGIM Limited, PGIM Loan Originator Manager Limited, PGIM M Campus GP S.a r.l., PGIM Management Partner Limited, PGIM MetaProp Investor LP LLC, PGIM Netherlands B.V., PGIM Overseas Investment Fund Management (Shanghai) Company Ltd, PGIM Private Capital (Ireland) Limited, PGIM Private Capital Limited, PGIM Private Placement Investors Inc., PGIM Private Placement Investors L.P., PGIM REF EUROPE SCSp, PGIM REF Europe GP S.a r.l., PGIM REF Europe Member LLC, PGIM REF Intermediary Services Inc., PGIM Real Estate (Japan) Ltd., PGIM Real Estate (UK) Limited, PGIM Real Estate CD S.a.r.l., PGIM Real Estate Capital VII GP S.a r.l., PGIM Real Estate Carry & Co-Invest GP LLC, PGIM Real Estate Carry & Co-Invest GP S.a r.l., PGIM Real Estate Carry & Co-Invest L.P., PGIM Real Estate Carry & Co-Invest SCSp, PGIM Real Estate Co-Invest Holdings LLC, PGIM Real Estate Debt GmbH, PGIM Real Estate Finance Holding Company, PGIM Real Estate Finance LLC, PGIM Real Estate France SAS, PGIM Real Estate Germany AG, PGIM Real Estate Global Debt GP LLC, PGIM Real Estate Inmuebles S. de R.L. de C.V, PGIM Real Estate Italy S.r.l., PGIM Real Estate Loan Services Inc., PGIM Real Estate Luxembourg S.A., PGIM Real Estate MVP Administradora IV S. de R.L. de C.V., PGIM Real Estate MVP Administradora V S. de R.L. de C.V., PGIM Real Estate MVP Inmuebles IV S. de R.L. de C.V., PGIM Real Estate MVP Inmuebles V S. de R.L. de C.V., PGIM Real Estate Management Luxembourg S.a.r.l., PGIM Real Estate Mexico S.C., PGIM Real Estate S. de R.L. de C.V., PGIM Real Estate U.S. Debt Fund GP LLC, PGIM Senior Loan Opportunities Management (Feeder) I LLC, PGIM Senior Loan Opportunities Management Fund I L.P., PGIM Strategic Financing LLC, PGIM Strategic Investments Inc., PGIM USPF VI Manager LLC, PGIM Warehouse Inc., PGLH of Delaware Inc., PIFM Holdco LLC, PIIC Limited, PIISC Holdings (UK) Limited, PIM KF Blocker Holdings LLC, PIM KF Blocker V Holdings LLC, PIM USPF V Manager LLC, PLA Administradora Industrial SRL, PLA Administradora LLC, PLA Administradora S. de R.L. de C.V., PLA Asesoria Profesional II S. de R.L. de C.V., PLA Asesoria Profesional S.de R.L. de C.V., PLA Co-Investor LLC, PLA Mexico Industrial Manager I LLC, PLA Mexico Industrial Manager II LLC, PLA Mexico Residential Manager I LLC, PLA Residential Fund III Aggregating Manager LLC, PLA Residential Fund III Limited Manager LLC, PLA Residential Fund III Manager LLC, PLA Residential Fund IV Aggregating Manager LLC, PLA Residential Fund IV Manager LLC, PLA Retail Fund I Blue LP, PLA Retail Fund I LP, PLA Retail Fund I Manager LLC, PLA Retail Fund I Red LP, PLA Retail Fund II Aggregating Manager LLC, PLA Retail Fund II LLC, PLA Retail Fund II LP, PLA Retail Fund II Manager LLC, PLA Retail Fund II U.S. Carry/Co-Invest LP, PLA Services Manager Mexico LLC, PLAI Limited, PMCF Holdings LLC, PMCF Properties LLC, PPPF General Partner LLP, PR GA SCP Apartments LLC, PRAMERICA PRECAP VI GP (SCOTS FEEDER) LLP, PRAMERICA PRECAP VI GP LLP, PRECO ACCOUNT III LLC, PRECO ACCOUNT PARTNERSHIP III LP, PRECO Account IV LLC, PRECO Account Partnership IV LP, PRECO III GP LLP, PREFG Hanwha Manager LLC, PREI Acquisition I Inc., PREI Acquisition II Inc., PREI Acquisition LLC, PREI HYDG LLC, PREI International Inc., PRIAC Property Acquisitions LLC, PRICOA Management Partner Limited, PRISA Fund Manager LLC, PRISA II Fund Manager LLC, PRISA II Pooled Manager LLC, PRISA III Fund GP LLC, PRISA III Fund PIM LLC, PRREF II Fund Manager LLC, PRU 3XSquare LLC, PRUCO LLC, PRUDENTIAL CAPITAL ENERGY PARTNERS MANAGEMENT (FEEDER) LLC, PRUDENTIAL MORTGAGE SKP MEMBER LLC, PRUDENTIAL MORTGAGE SKP REIT LLC, PRUDENTIAL MORTGAGE SKP VENTURE 2 LLC, PRUDENTIAL MORTGAGE SKP VENTURE LLC, PT PFI Mega Life Insurance, Passaic Fund LLC, Pine Tree GP, Pine Tree L.P., Platinum GP Limited, Platinum II L.P., Platinum L.P., Pramerica (Hong Kong) Holdings Limited, Pramerica (Luxembourg) CP GP S.a.r.l., Pramerica (Scots) CP GP LLP, Pramerica Business Consulting (Shanghai) Company Limited, Pramerica EVP CP LP, Pramerica Financial Asia Headquarters Pte. Ltd., Pramerica Financial Asia Limited, Pramerica Fixed Income Funds Management Limited, Pramerica Fosun Life Insurance Co. Ltd., Pramerica General Partner LLP, Pramerica Holdings Ltd, Pramerica Insurance Agency (China) Company Ltd., Pramerica PRECAP I GP LLP, Pramerica PRECAP II GP LLP, Pramerica PRECAP III GP LLP, Pramerica PRECAP IV GP LLP, Pramerica Pan European Real Estate (Scots) LP, Pramerica Property Partners Fund (Scotland) Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital I (Scotland) Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital I GP (Scots Feeder) LLP, Pramerica Real Estate Capital II (Scots) Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital III (Scots) Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital IV (Scots) Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital IV GP (Scots Feeder) LLP, Pramerica Real Estate Capital IV GP Limited, Pramerica Real Estate Capital V (Netherlands) GP LLP, Pramerica Real Estate Capital V (Scots) Limited Partnership, Pramerica Real Estate Capital VI (Scots) Limited Partnership, Pramerica SGR S.p.A, Pramerica Systems Ireland Limited, Preco III (Scotland) Limited Partnership, Pru 101 Wood LLC, Pru Alpha Partners I LLC, Pru Fixed Income Emerging Markets Partners I LLC, PruVen Capital Partners Fund I L.P., Pruco Assignment Corporation, Pruco Life Insurance Company, Pruco Life Insurance Company of New Jersey, Pruco Securities LLC, Prudential 900 Aviation Boulevard LLC, Prudential Affordable Mortgage Company LLC, Prudential Agricultural Property Holding Company LLC, Prudential Annuities Distributors Inc., Prudential Annuities Holding Company Inc., Prudential Annuities Inc., Prudential Annuities Information Services & Technology Corporation, Prudential Annuities Life Assurance Corporation, Prudential Arizona Reinsurance Captive Company, Prudential Arizona Reinsurance Term Company, Prudential Arizona Reinsurance Universal Company, Prudential Bank & Trust FSB, Prudential Capital Energy Opportunity Fund L.P., Prudential Capital Energy Partners L.P., Prudential Capital Energy Partners Management Fund L.P., Prudential Capital Partners Management Fund IV L.P., Prudential Capital and Investment Services LLC, Prudential Chile II SpA, Prudential Chile SpA, Prudential Commercial Property Holding Company LLC, Prudential Customer Solutions LLC, Prudential Equity Group LLC, Prudential Financial Securities Investment Trust Enterprise, Prudential Fixed Income Global Liquidity Relative Value Partners LLC, Prudential Fixed Income U.S. Relative Value Partners LLC, Prudential Funding LLC, Prudential General Services of Japan Y.K., Prudential Gibraltar Agency Co. Ltd., Prudential Global Funding LLC, Prudential Holdings of Japan Inc., Prudential Huntoon Paige Associates LLC, Prudential IBH Holdco Inc., Prudential Impact Investments Mortgage Loans LLC, Prudential Impact Investments Private Debt LLC, Prudential Impact Investments Private Equity LLC, Prudential Industrial Properties LLC, Prudential Insurance Agency LLC, Prudential International Insurance Holdings Ltd., Prudential International Insurance Service Company L.L.C., Prudential International Investments Advisers LLC, Prudential International Investments Company LLC, Prudential International Investments LLC, Prudential Investment Management Services LLC, Prudential Japan Holdings LLC, Prudential Legacy Insurance Company of New Jersey, Prudential Life Insurance Company of Taiwan Inc., Prudential Mortgage Asset Holdings 1 Japan Investment Business Limited Partnership, Prudential Mortgage Asset Holdings 2 Japan Investment Business Limited Partnership, Prudential Mortgage Capital Asset Holding Company LLC, Prudential Mortgage Capital Funding LLC, Prudential Mortgage Capital Holdings LLC, Prudential Multifamily Mortgage LLC, Prudential Mutual Fund Services LLC, Prudential Newark Realty LLC, Prudential QOZ Investment Fund 1 LLC, Prudential Realty Securities Inc., Prudential Retirement Financial Services Holding LLC, Prudential Retirement Holdings LLC, Prudential Retirement Insurance and Annuity Company, Prudential Securities Secured Financing Corporation, Prudential Securities Structured Assets Inc., Prudential Seguros Mexico S.A. de C.V., Prudential Seguros S.A., Prudential Servicios S. de R.L. de C.V., Prudential Structured Settlement Company, Prudential Systems Japan Limited, Prudential Term Reinsurance Company, Prudential Trust Co. Ltd., Prudential Trust Company, Prudential Universal Reinsurance Company, Prudential Workplace Solutions Group Services LLC, Prudential do Brasil Seguros de Vida S.A., Prudential do Brasil Vida em Grupo S.A., Prudential/TMW Real Estate Group LLC, Pruservicos Participacoes Ltda., QMA JP EM All Cap Equity Partners LLC, QMA LLC, QMA Wadhwani LLP, Quartzsite LLC, Residential Services Corporation of America LLC, Rio CP LP, Rock European Real Estate Holdings S.ar.l., Rock Global Real Estate LLC, Rock Kensington Limited, Rock Marty GP S.a r.l., Rock Oxford S.a r.l., Rock UK Real Estate Holdings S.ar.l., Rock UK Real Estate II S.a.r.l., Rockstone Co. Ltd., Rosado Grande LLC, Ross Avenue Energy Fund Holdings LLC, Ross Avenue Minerals 2012 LLC, SCP Apartments LLC, SENIOR HOUSING PARTNERS VI GP LLC, SENIOR HOUSING PARTNERSHIP FUND VI GP LLC, SHP IV Carried Interest LP, SHP V Carried Interest L.P., SMP Holdings Inc., SVIIT Holdings Inc., Sanei Collection Service Co. Ltd. (Kabushiki Kaisha Sanei Shuuno Service), Senior Housing Partners IV L.L.C., Senior Housing Partners V LLC, Senior Housing Partnership Fund IV L.L.C., Senior Housing Partnership Fund V LLC, Sterling Private Placement Management LLP, Stetson Street Partners L.P., Strand Investments Limited, TBG Insurance Services Corporation, TENSATOR HOLDINGS LTD, TF Proveedora S.C., TMW ASPF I Verwaltungs GmbH & Co. KG, TMW ASPF Management GmbH, TMW Management LLC, TMW Real Estate Group LLC, TMW Realty Advisors LLC, TMW USPF Verwaltungs GmbH, TRGOAG Company Inc., The Gibraltar Life Insurance Co. Ltd., The Keynes Dynamic Beta Strategy (US) Fund GP LLC, The Prudential Assigned Settlement Services Corp., The Prudential Brazilian Capital Fund LP, The Prudential Gibraltar Financial Life Insurance Co. Ltd., The Prudential Home Mortgage Company Inc., The Prudential Insurance Company of America, The Prudential Life Insurance Company Ltd., The Prudential Real Estate Financial Services of America Inc., The WMF Group, Thurloe Commercial Guernsey Limited, Times Square Center Associates, USPF V - Verwaltungs - GmbH & Co. KG, USPF V Carry LLC, USPF V Co-Invest LLC, USPF V Investment LP, United States Property Fund VI GP S.a r.l., Vailsburg Fund LLC, Vantage Casualty Insurance Company, Wabash Avenue Holdings V LLC, Wabash Avenue Partners V L.P., Wadhwani Capital Limited, Waveland Avenue Holdings I LLC, Waveland Avenue Partners I (Ireland) L.P., Waveland Avenue Partners I (US) L.P., Wellness Services Ecossistema De Bem Estar Ltda., Wellness Services SRL, Yamato Life, and Yavapai LLC.The following companies are subsidiares of Quest Diagnostics: AmeriPath, AmeriPath Cincinnati Inc. (OH), AmeriPath Cleveland Inc. (OH), AmeriPath Consolidated Labs Inc. (FL), AmeriPath Florida LLC (DE), AmeriPath Hospital Services Florida LLC (DE), AmeriPath Inc. (DE), AmeriPath Indianapolis PC (IN), AmeriPath Kentucky Inc. (KY), AmeriPath Lubbock 5.01(A) Corporation (TX), AmeriPath New York LLC (DE), AmeriPath Texas Inc. (DE), AmeriPath Tucson Inc. (AZ), American Medical Laboratories, American Medical Laboratories Incorporated (DE), Associated Clinical Laboratories L.P. (PA), Associated Clinical Laboratories of Pennsylvania L.L.C. (PA), Athena Diagnostics, Athena Diagnostics Inc. (DE), Blueprint Genetics, Blueprint Genetics FZ-LLC (UAE), Blueprint Genetics Inc. (DE), Blueprint Genetics Oy (Finland), California Laboratory Associates, Cape Cod Healthcare - Business, Celera, ClearPoint Diagnostic, Clearpoint Diagnostic Laboratories LLC (TX), Cleveland HeartLab, Cleveland HeartLab Inc. (DE), Clinical Laboratory Partners, Colorado Pathology Consultants P.C. (CO), ConVerge Diagnostic Services, Consolidated DermPath Inc. (DE), DFW 5.01(a) Corporation (TX), DGXWMT JV LLC (DE), Dermatopathology of Wisconsin S.C. (WI), Diagnostic Laboratory of Oklahoma LLC (OK), Diagnostic Pathology Services Inc. (OK), Diagnostic Reference Services Inc. (MD), ExamOne Canada Inc. (New Brunswick), ExamOne LLC (DE), ExamOne World Wide Inc. (PA), ExamOne World Wide of NJ Inc. (NJ), Focus Diagnostics, HemoCue, Hoffman M.D. Associated Pathologists Chartered (NV), Institute for Dermatopathology Inc. (PA), Isabella Street Urban Renewal LLC (NJ), Kailash B. Sharma M.D. Inc. (GA), Kilpatrick Pathology P.A. (NC), LabOne, LabOne LLC (MO), LabOne of Ohio Inc. (DE), Laboratorio de Analisis Biomedicos S.A. (Mexico), Lancet Labs, MACL, Med Fusion LLC (TX), Med fusion, MedPlus, Mid America Clinical Laboratories LLC (IN), Nomad Massachusetts Inc. (MA), Nuclear Medicine and Pathology Associates (GA), Ocmulgee Medical Pathology Association Inc. (GA), Pathology Building Partnership (MD) (gen. ptnrshp.), PeaceHealth Laboratories, PhenoPath Laboratories, PhenoPath Laboratories PLLC (WA), Q Squared Solutions Holdings LLC (DE), Q Squared Solutions Holdings Limited (UK), Quest Diagnostics (Shanghai) Co. Ltd. (China), Quest Diagnostics Brasil Holdings Ltd. (UK), Quest Diagnostics Clinical Laboratories, Quest Diagnostics Clinical Laboratories Inc. (DE), Quest Diagnostics Domestic Holder LLC (DE), Quest Diagnostics HTAS India Private Limited (India), Quest Diagnostics Health & Wellness LLC (DE), Quest Diagnostics Holdings Incorporated (DE), Quest Diagnostics Holdings Ltd. (UK), Quest Diagnostics Incorporated (MD), Quest Diagnostics Incorporated (NV), Quest Diagnostics India Private Limited (India), Quest Diagnostics Infectious Disease Inc. (DE), Quest Diagnostics International Holdings Limited (UK), Quest Diagnostics International LLC (DE), Quest Diagnostics Investments LLC (DE), Quest Diagnostics Ireland Limited (Ireland), Quest Diagnostics LLC (CT), Quest Diagnostics LLC (IL), Quest Diagnostics LLC (MA), Quest Diagnostics Massachusetts LLC (MA), Quest Diagnostics Mexico Holding Company Trust (Mexico), Quest Diagnostics Mexico S de RL de CV (Mexico), Quest Diagnostics Nichols Institute (CA), Quest Diagnostics Nichols Institute Inc. (VA), Quest Diagnostics Receivables Inc. (DE), Quest Diagnostics Subsidiary Holdings Ltd. (UK), Quest Diagnostics TB LLC (DE), Quest Diagnostics Terracotta LLC (DE), Quest Diagnostics Venture LLC (PA), Quest Diagnostics Ventures LLC (DE), Quest Diagnostics do Brasil Ltda. (Brazil), Quest Diagnostics of Pennsylvania Inc. (DE), Quest Diagnostics of Puerto Rico Inc. (PR), Quest HealthConnect LLC (CA), ReproSource, Reprosource Fertility Diagnostics Inc. (MA), Solstas Lab Partners, Sonora Quest Laboratories LLC (AZ), Specialty Laboratories Inc. (CA), Summit Health, UMass Memorial Medical Center - Anatomic Pathology Outreach Laboratory Business, Unilab Corporation, and Unilab Corporation (DE).Rayonier Advanced Materials, Inc. engages in the production and sale of cellulose products, which is a natural polymer commonly used in the production of cell phone and computer screens, filters, and pharmaceuticals. It operates through the following segments: High Purity Cellulose, Forest Products, Paperboard, Pulp and Newsprint, and Corporate. The High Purity Cellulose segment manufacture and market high purity cellulose, which is sold as either cellulose specialties or commodity products in U.S., Canda, and France. The Forest Products segment manufacture and market construction-grade lumber in North America through seven sawmills located in Canada. The Paperboard segment comprises paperboard products. The Pulp and Newsprint segment involves in the production of pulp and newsprint in Canada. The Corporate segment consists senior management, accounting, information systems, human resources, treasury, tax, and legal administrative functions that provide support services to the operating business units. The company was founded in 1926 and is headquartered in Jacksonville, FL.

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SociAtA GAnArale SociAtA anonyme provides financial services in Europe, the Americas, Asia, Oceania, Africa, and France. The company offers retail banking services, including deposits and loans, vehicles and asset management, corporate finance, insurance, payments, investment, and online brokerage and financial information services; Internet, mobile, telephone, and service platforms; and online banking to individual and professional customers, businesses, non-profit associations and local authorities under the Societe Generale, CrAdit du Nord, and Boursorama Banque brands. It also provides international retail banking and financial services, comprising of deposit and loan products; consumer finance and car finance; mortgage facilities; corporate and investment banking; infrastructure, renewable energies, and agribusiness financing; life, retirement savings, and personal protection insurance products; vehicle leasing and fleet management services; and vendor and equipment finance services to corporate and individual customers. In addition, the company offers capital market services, such as fixed income and currencies, equities, and securities services; mergers and acquisitions, advisory and other corporate finance advisory services, and corporate banking and investment banking, as well as capital raising solutions for debt or equity, financial engineering, and hedging for issuers; transaction and payment services, comprising of cash management, trade finance, cash clearing and correspondent banking, supply chain finance, and foreign exchange services; and export finance, aircraft finance, shipping finance, real estate finance, and structured solutions and leasing. Further, it provides financial engineering and wealth management solutions; structured products, hedge funds, mutual funds, private equity funds and real estate investment solutions; and asset management solutions. SociAtA GAnArale SociAtA anonyme was founded in 1864 and is headquartered in Paris, France.

Read MoreBridgepoint Education, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides postsecondary education services in the United States. Its academic institutions, Ashford University and University of the Rockies, offer associate's, bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degree programs in the disciplines of business, education, psychology, social sciences, and health sciences. The company offers its programs primarily through online; and at its campuses. As of December 31, 2017, its institutions offered approximately 1,200 courses and 80 degree programs; and had 45,730 students enrolled. The company was formerly known as TeleUniversity, Inc. and changed its name to Bridgepoint Education, Inc. in February 2004. Bridgepoint Education, Inc. was founded in 1999 and is headquartered in San Diego, California.

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On Sunday, September 9, 2018 8:17 AM, Mr. Antonio Guterres < infoinfo769@yahoo.com > wrote:





UNITED NATIONS ASSISTED PROGRAMMED

DIRECTORATE OF INTERNATIONAL PAYMENT AND

TRANSFERS. UNITED NATIONS LIAISON OFFICE

LONDON UNITED KINGDOM

WIRE TRANSFER/AUDIT UNIT

Our Ref: UN/CPO/WB/845/2018



How are you today ? Hope all is well with you and family? You may not understand why this mail came to you. We have been having a meeting for the passed three months which ended two days ago with the UNITED NATIONS BOARD OF TRUSTEES AND AUDITORS with old secretary to the United Nation General Ban Ki Moon.



This message is to all the people that have been scammed in any part of the world, the UNITED NATIONS have agreed to compensate them with the sum of US$7,500,000 USD (Seven Million Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars). This includes every foreign contractors that may have not received their contract sum, and people that have had an unfinished transaction or international businesses that failed due to Government problems etc. We found your name and your email address in our list and that is why we are contacting you, this have been agreed upon and have been signed.



This funds are in ATM VISA CARD for security purpose ok? so he will send it to you through Courier Services and you can use it in any ATM machine in any part of the country, therefore, you should send your full Name and telephone number/your correct mailing address where you want her to send the ATM VISA CARD you immediately.





Thanks and God bless you and your family. Hoping to hear from you as

soon as you receive your ATM VISA CARD.



Making the world a better place.



MY BEST REGARDS.

Mr. Antonio Guterres

secretary to The United Nation.

Web: http://www.un.org/sg/

On Tuesday, September 11, 2018 7:37 PM, United Nation Help Line < info@unitednation.org > wrote:





UNITED NATIONS COMPENSATION UNIT,

IN AFFILIATION WITH WORLD BANK

From: Special Envoy to Secretary-General PAUL DONG.

ASIAN REGIONAL OFFICE.



Attention Dear,



This is to bring to your notice that we are delegated from the UNITED

NATIONS in Central Banks to pay 50 victims from your country who has

being-Victims of Internet scam .The United Nations has decided to pay you

US$950,000 USD (Nine Hundred and Fifty Thousand Dollars) each. You are

listed and approved for this payment as one of the scammed victims to be

paid this amount. Get back to this office as soon as possible for the

immediate payment of your US$950,000 USD (Nine Hundred and Fifty Thousand

Dollars) compensation funds. We have been having a meeting for the past

Seven months which ended Three days ago with the former secretary to the

UNITED NATIONS in the person of Mr. Ban Ki-Moon.



This email is to all the people that have been scammed or extorted money

from because of your contract payment execution in any part of the

world,The UNITED NATIONS have agreed to compensate them with the sum of

US$950,000 USD (Nine Hundred and Fifty Thousand Dollars) This includes

every foreign contractors that may have not

received their contract sum, and people that have had an unfinished

transaction or lost their money or international businesses that failed

due to Government problems or irregularities etc.



We found your email in our list and that is why we are contacting you,

this has been agreed upon and has been signed by the United Nations Board

of Directors and Trustees. You have to contact Paul Watson, our payment

agent in Asia, as he is our UNITED NATIONS representative in Asia, contact

him immediately for your check of US$950,000 USD (Nine Hundred and Fifty

Thousand Dollars). These funds are in a Bank Draft for security purpose.

He will send it to you and you can clear it in any bank of your choice in

your Country.



Send a copy of your response to official email:

unitednationsecton1@protonmail.com



SECURITY & FINANCIAL CONTACT AGENT: Paul Watson





EMAIL: unitednationsecton1@protonmail.com

Telephone number: +8613112206163



You are advised to send your communication particulars,



Full names

Age

Telephone

Fax numbers

Mailing Address

Occupation

Marital Status

Your Company Name And Address



Contact Paul Watson immediately for your Cashier Check.



Thanks and God bless you and your family. Hoping to hear from you as soon

as you cash your Bank Draft. Making the world a better place for the sake

of Humanity.



Give him your File Reference (RE-1077-V) and you are free to contact him

via telephone number which he will provide to you upon the receipt of your

email.



Best Regards,

Yours Faithfully,

Mr Antonio Guterres

Secretary United Nations

Asia Regional Officer

General Paul Dong.

(Financial Officer)United Nations. . http://www.un.org/sg/

On Monday, September 17, 2018 3:26 PM, United Nation Help line < lkloft@uiowa.edu > wrote:





UNITED NATIONS COMPENSATION UNIT,

IN AFFILIATION WITH WORLD BANK

From: Special Envoy to Secretary-General PAUL DONG.

ASIAN REGIONAL OFFICE.



Attention Dear,



This is to bring to your notice that we are delegated from the UNITED NATIONS in Central Banks to pay 50 victims from your country who has being-Victims of Internet scam .The United Nations has decided to pay you US$950,000 USD (Nine Hundred and Fifty Thousand Dollars) each. You are listed and approved for this payment as one of the scammed victims to be paid this amount. Get back to this office as soon as possible for the immediate payment of your US$950,000 USD (Nine Hundred and Fifty Thousand Dollars) compensation funds. We have been having a meeting for the past Seven months which ended Three days ago with the former secretary to the UNITED NATIONS in the person of Mr. Ban Ki-Moon.



This email is to all the people that have been scammed or extorted money from because of your contract payment execution in any part of the world,The UNITED NATIONS have agreed to compensate them with the sum of US$950,000 USD (Nine Hundred and Fifty Thousand Dollars) This includes every foreign contractors that may have not

received their contract sum, and people that have had an unfinished transaction or lost their money or international businesses that failed due to Government problems or irregularities etc.



We found your email in our list and that is why we are contacting you, this has been agreed upon and has been signed by the United Nations Board of Directors and Trustees. You have to contact Paul Watson, our payment agent in Asia, as he is our UNITED NATIONS representative in Asia, contact him immediately for your check of US$950,000 USD (Nine Hundred and Fifty Thousand Dollars). These funds are in a Bank Draft for security purpose. He will send it to you and you can clear it in any bank of your choice in your Country.





Send a copy of your response to official email: unitednationsecton1@protonmail.com

SECURITY & FINANCIAL CONTACT AGENT: Paul Watson





EMAIL: unitednationsecton1@protonmail.com

Telephone number: +8613112206163



You are advised to send your communication particulars,



Full names

Age

Telephone

Fax numbers

Mailing Address

Occupation

Marital Status

Your Company Name And Address



Contact Paul Watson immediately for your Cashier Check.



Thanks and God bless you and your family. Hoping to hear from you as soon as you cash your Bank Draft. Making the world a better place for the sake of Humanity. Give him your File Reference (RE-1077-V) and you are free to contact him via telephone number which he will provide to you upon the receipt of your email.



Best Regards,

Yours Faithfully,

Mr Antonio Guterres

Secretary United Nations

Asia Regional Officer

General Paul Dong.

(Financial Officer)United Nations. . http://www.un.org/sg/

To: undisclosed-recipients:;

Sent: Sat, Sep 22, 2018 6:29 am

Subject: From Mr. Antonio Guterres UN Secretary



I am,Mr. Antonio Guterres,UN Secretary, I wish to inform you that We

have actually decided to investigate the unnecessary delay of your

payment,recommended and approved claims for payment is certified as

genuine in your favor.



Understand the reason why the united nations are giving you this fund

is because your email address is among the people that was scammed

before and the united nations want to use this fund to compensate you.



During the course of our investigation,we discovered with dismay that

the payment has been unnecessarily Delayed by corrupt officials of the

Bank, who are Trying to divert the Fund into their private accounts,to

forestall this, we have established security in the form of personal

Identification so this will enable only you have direct Control over

this fund.



We have also agreed with the Citi Bank and International Monetary Fund

(IMF)that, we will handle this payment ourselves to avoid the hopeless

situation created by these corrupt Officials. We have obtained Payment

Order for your Payment, from the Citi Bank and International Monetary

Funds (IMF). We are happy to notify you that based on our

recommendation/instructions; the payment of US$ US$8,500,000.00(Eight

Million, Five Hundred Thousand,Dollars) will be released to you.



This will help the beneficiaries to pay part of the fee and receive

part of their Funds with which such beneficiary can upset the

remaining fee and receive his/her complete Funds.



To break this down:



Two Hundred Dollars ($200) fee will facilitate the release of One

Million United States Dollars (US$1,000,000.00) only. Three Hundred

Dollars ($300) fee will facilitate the release of Two Million United

States Dollars (US$2,000,000.00) only.



Five Hundred Dollars ($500) fee which is the total fee will

facilitate the release of your Full Contract/inheritance Funds in the

sum of Eight Million, Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars

(US$8,500,000.00).



This is the best the United Nations can do for you and you are advised

to take advantage of this opportunity. Kindly, Get back to me

immediately with your option so that i will forward you the contact

person at the paying Bank in United Bank Of Africa attach to City Bank

in Pennsylvania USA. to indicate your preferred option.





Contact Person: Mr. Eric L Moore



Email:



Tel: + 1 567 281 0002





NOTE: Do not be shy to indicate the amount you have in hands (no

proper-amount is so small to trigger installments-payment base on our

discussion with the Bank) so that the first payment will move to your

account for you to confirm the existence of the fund before your

proceed for the balance.





Best Regards.





From Mr. Antonio Guterres UN Secretary From: Antonio Guterres < moon67236235@gmail.com >To: undisclosed-recipients:;Sent: Sat, Sep 22, 2018 6:29 amSubject: From Mr. Antonio Guterres UN SecretaryI am,Mr. Antonio Guterres,UN Secretary, I wish to inform you that Wehave actually decided to investigate the unnecessary delay of yourpayment,recommended and approved claims for payment is certified asgenuine in your favor.Understand the reason why the united nations are giving you this fundis because your email address is among the people that was scammedbefore and the united nations want to use this fund to compensate you.During the course of our investigation,we discovered with dismay thatthe payment has been unnecessarily Delayed by corrupt officials of theBank, who are Trying to divert the Fund into their private accounts,toforestall this, we have established security in the form of personalIdentification so this will enable only you have direct Control overthis fund.We have also agreed with the Citi Bank and International Monetary Fund(IMF)that, we will handle this payment ourselves to avoid the hopelesssituation created by these corrupt Officials. We have obtained PaymentOrder for your Payment, from the Citi Bank and International MonetaryFunds (IMF). We are happy to notify you that based on ourrecommendation/instructions; the payment of US$ US$8,500,000.00(EightMillion, Five Hundred Thousand,Dollars) will be released to you.This will help the beneficiaries to pay part of the fee and receivepart of their Funds with which such beneficiary can upset theremaining fee and receive his/her complete Funds.To break this down:Two Hundred Dollars ($200) fee will facilitate the release of OneMillion United States Dollars (US$1,000,000.00) only. Three HundredDollars ($300) fee will facilitate the release of Two Million UnitedStates Dollars (US$2,000,000.00) only.Five Hundred Dollars ($500) fee which is the total fee willfacilitate the release of your Full Contract/inheritance Funds in thesum of Eight Million, Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars(US$8,500,000.00).This is the best the United Nations can do for you and you are advisedto take advantage of this opportunity. Kindly, Get back to meimmediately with your option so that i will forward you the contactperson at the paying Bank in United Bank Of Africa attach to City Bankin Pennsylvania USA. to indicate your preferred option.Contact Person: Mr. Eric L MooreEmail: securitycheckingservice@yandex.com Tel: + 1 567 281 0002NOTE: Do not be shy to indicate the amount you have in hands (noproper-amount is so small to trigger installments-payment base on ourdiscussion with the Bank) so that the first payment will move to youraccount for you to confirm the existence of the fund before yourproceed for the balance.Best Regards.From Mr. Antonio Guterres UN Secretary From: "Mr. Antonio Guterres" <

Date: September 25, 2018 at 3:14:08 AM CDT

Subject: Your Payment Confirmation

Reply-To: "Mr. Antonio Guterres" <



"Mr. Antonio Guterres" < henrywhite41@yahoo.com September 25, 2018 at 3:14:08 AM CDT"Mr. Antonio Guterres" < llucas52@outlook.com



Attn: Beneficiary



SCAMMED VICTIM (USD$2.5M) COMPENSATION PAYMENT- REF/PAYMENTS



We are United Nations representative appointed to pay scan victims scammed by Africa the sum of Two Million Five Hundred ($2.5M USD) and your name are listed and approved through our web report for this payments as one of the scammed victims, get back to the Chief Compensation & United Nation Representative officer here in west Africa in the person of Rev Martins Iyeke as soon as possible on how to receive your Atm Card compensation payment.



Yours faithfully,



Mr. Antonio Guterres



(United Nation Secretary General)

On Tuesday, September 25, 2018 1:47 PM, "Antonio Guterres < > @mobile.mramedia.com" wrote:





Dear Victim ()



This is to intimate you of a very important information which will be of a great help to redeem you from all the difficulties you have been experiencing in getting your long over due payment due to excessive demand for money from you by both corrupt Bank officials and Courier Companies after which your fund remain unpaid to you.



I am Antonio Guterres Director of international affairs in the United Nation (UN). It may interest you to know that reports have reached our office by so many correspondences on the uneasy way which people like you are treated by Various Banks and Courier Companies Diplomat(s) across Europe to Africa and Asia London UK, and we have decided to put a STOP to that and that is why I was appointed to handle your transaction here in United State.



After our meeting today, an official agreement was reached between the Board of Trustees and Glasfrew Security Company which took an immediate effects for the Security Company to issue the Award Winners/ Inheritance Award Winners/ Inheritance Funds of this () The sum of Ten Million Five Thousands United States Dollars ($10,500,000.00).



All Governmental and Non-Governmental prostates, NGO's, Finance Companies, Banks, Security Companies and Diplomat(s) which have been in contact with you of late have been instructed to back off from your transaction and you have been advised NOT to respond to them anymore since the United Nations is now directly in charge of your payment. Your fund will be release to you directly from our source with immediate effect and we shall give you further details on how your fund will be released.



You are hereby advice to provide your information as stated below: Full Name: . .Address:. . .Telephone:. . Occupation:. . . .Age :. . . . .



Sincerely

Antonio Guterres

security code? 1985

Mobile: +1 806 318 8671

Fax: +1 813 666 3100

Please do not reply if you are NOT the owner of this email address()



NOTE: If you received this message in your SPAM/BULK folder, that is because of the restrictions implemented by your Internet Service Provider, we (UN) urge you to treat it genuinely.< / From: UN Secretary General <mr.antonioguterres10@gmail.com>

To: undisclosed-recipients:;

Subject: Mr.Antonio Manuel

Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2018 23:19:49 -0700



From:Mr.Antonio Manuel de Oliveira Guterres, GCL GCC.



This is to inform you that your funds of US$15 Million has been

approved for immediate delivery to you.



For the purpose of clarification, you are advised to reconfirm your

Full Names, Direct Telephone Numbers, Physical Address with Zip Code

so that there will be no error during the delivery of the funds to you

in your country of residence.



Your quick response will be highly appreciated.



Sincerely Yours



Mr.Antonio Manuel de Oliveira Guterres, GCL GCC.



E-mail: mr.antonioguterres10@gmail.com



(UN secretary-General)



Signed and Approval By:



United Nations Headquarters,



New York, NY 10017, USA

If you received a similar letter, please ignore it. Do not answer it. If you do, you will end up on more of the mailing lists used by the criminals behind this fraud. Read more....Emirates NBD (ENBD), a leading bank in the region, said that it will provide clearing services to UAE-based Naeem Shares and Bonds.



Emirates NBD is the first UAE-based financial services entity to be approved by SCA - Securities and Commodities Authority as a general clearing member providing clearing and settlement services to trading participants of the UAEs equity markets.



Naeem Shares and Bonds joins our prestigious portfolio of customers within the UAE equity market, underlining the strong value proposition Emirates NBD brings to the UAEs capital markets, said Dr Tariq Bin Hendi, executive vice president and head of Products & Advisory for Retail Banking & Wealth Management, Emirates NBD Group.



UAE-based brokerage firms can benefit from a range of tools and products that Emirates NBD offers as General Clearing Member, contributing to increased efficiencies across operations and costs.



Youssef Medhat El Far, chief executive officer of Naeem Shares & Bonds LLC, said: We are delighted to partner with Dubais largest bank, Emirates NBD, a reliable and trusted name in the industry. Our partnership will strengthen our offering to clients and boost investor confidence in our capabilities.



We would also like to thank the Securities and Commodities Authority for their continuous efforts towards improving the overall legislative and regulatory framework of financial markets, which will potentially contribute to an upgrade in the UAEs classification to a developed market in the future, added El Far.  TradeArabia News ServiceThe movers and shapers of the financial technology (fintech) world will return to Dubai on October 30 for the third annual Fintech Summit, organised by leading regional deal facilitation company Naseba.



With the regions financial landscape rapidly evolving as disruptive technologies and the drive towards digitisation reshape business practices, activities and economies, this years event will once again provide a solid platform - and timely update - for banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) decision makers looking to remain agile amid a shifting topography.



Held under the banner theme of Enterprise Grade. Real World. Now, an influential line-up of over 20 high profile speakers will lead an intensive schedule of presentations, panel discussions, tech talks and round table discussions, alongside more than 15 solutions providers, with a supporting calendar of pre-scheduled business meetings and deal facilitation opportunities.



Fintech is gaining momentum across the region, with governments and private sector companies adopting next generation technology in their eagerness to support sustainable economic development and establish a competitive advantage. The UAE, and Dubai in particular, is accelerating investment and implementation in support of the National Innovation Strategy set out by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, who has expressed his vision to make the UAE a global leader in innovation. Against this background, todays BFSI C-suite need to be ahead of the curve when it comes to implementation, said Sandeep Chauhan, EVP, Global Head, Operations and Technology, Mashreq Bank.



Digital disruption is unavoidable. Its happening because multiple technologies are rapidly evolving all the time. While this very human approach to business may seem at odds with Mashreqs digital backbone, it does in fact drive every choice the business makes  even the creation of what Chouhan calls his Digital Workforce



The global banking industry will spend $519 billion on technology this year, an increase of 4.1 per cent on 2017 spend, with legacy system updates and next-generation back office solutions leading investment.



Recent research by Gartner put a figure of $155 billion on Mena region IT spending in 2018, with banking and securities firms leading spending growth in the last 12 months (+3.6 per cent), followed by insurance (+2.9 per cent); and making significant investment into analytics, blockchain, artificial intelligence and software applications.



A recent Ernst & Young survey found that banks were primed to invest anywhere from $5-20 million for digital initiatives and the BFSI sector in the Middle East is turning its attention to digital transformation, with Emirates NBD alone committing Dhs1 billion ($272.3 million) over the next three years.- TradeArabia News ServiceArchipelago International, Indonesia's largest hotel group, has signed a long-term master franchise agreement with Jeddah-based Warifat Hospitality, a subsidiary of Jabal Omar Development Company (JODC).



This multi-hotel agreement grants development and branding rights to Warifat Hospitality for three of Archipelago's hotel brands: Grand Aston, Aston and Harper and will enable the rollout of these brands, not only at JODC's flagship development in Makkah but throughout the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.



The first hotel being developed under this agreement will be the 560-room Jabal Omar Grand Aston, which is due for completion in July 2019. This five-star hotel is located in a prime location within walking distance to the Grand Mosque and will be Archipelago's first hotel in Saudi Arabia, a market it views as one of the most important in its continued expansion internationally.



"In strategic terms, this is a historic agreement for our company and indeed for Indonesia, as we will be the first Indonesian based hotel company to enter the kingdom's hotel market. Our hotel brands are the most widely recognised in Indonesia, which is the largest source market for pilgrims to Makkah and Madinah. This agreement foresees and caters for significant growth from the Indonesian market and it recognises Archipelago as the hotel group best positioned going forward to cater to the growing numbers of Indonesian and Southeast Asian visitors to the kingdom," said John Flood, president and CEO of Archipelago International.



Yasser Faisal Al-Sharif, chairman of Warifat Hospitality and CEO of JODC, said: "We are excited to expand our partnership with an established and leading home-grown Indonesian hotel brand, as its Master Franchisee for the Grand Aston Brand in Saudi Arabia. We are committed to offering our guests from Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Southeast Asia superior hospitality experiences that are customised to their specific needs whilst they visit the Great Mosque of Makkah, Masjid Al Haram and the holy capital. As a part of Jabal Omar Developments strategic growth plan, we believe that by choosing a brand with a proven track record, The Grand Aston Hotel at Makkah shall be a catalyst for growth from the Indonesian and Southeast Asian countries for our Hajj and Umrah pilgrims." - TradeArabia News Service

Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak is among about only 8 percent of hospitals nationwide to earn a high status designation for its nursing staff and practices.

Hospital officials said Wednesday that Beaumont earned the highest honor from the Magnet recognition program of the American Nurses Credentialing Center. The center is a subsidiary of the American Nurses Association.

The honor marks the fourth time in a row the hospital has been recognized.

Achieving Magnet status is a tremendous accomplishment, said Susan Grant, a registered nurse who is executive vice president for Beaumont Health and chief nursing officer, in a statement. To sustain that level of excellence through four  periods validates the hard work of the entire team at Royal Oak and a commitment to quality and safety that is second to none.

Surveyors from the nursing group visited Beaumont and reported:

 The hospital demonstrated strong leadership throughout the facility

 Nurse-driven efforts to improve patient care were at an extraordinary level

 The hospital promoted a non-punitive approach to improve safety and patient outcomes

 Elder care overall at the hospital is exemplary

Officials said Beaumont Hospital in Troy received Magnet recognition in 2009 while the hospital in Grosse Pointe achieved the same status in March.This appeared in Wednesdays Washington Post.

  

If the Trump administration has its way, hundreds of thousands of legal, law-abiding immigrants struggling to make their way in this country will have their hopes for a green card dashed if they accept government benefits for which they qualify. That means an immigrant family that falls on hard times and accepts noncash benefits such as housing vouchers or food stamps, even briefly, could be denied permanent legal residence in the United States. So much for welcoming the tired, poor and huddled masses.

The proposal is the administrations latest assault on immigrants who are here legally, to complement the offensive it has waged against the undocumented. In President Donald Trumps world, that distinction is increasingly without a difference, as White House officials scour federal rules in search of any available means to drive down the nations foreign-born population, now at its highest level in a century.

In this case, the new blueprint would radically shift the governments definition of immigrants classified as public charges, meaning burdens to public resources. That classification would make them ineligible for many visas and green cards, which confer nearly every privilege of citizenship except voting in federal elections. And it would do so in a rulemaking end run around Congress, which would have no say in modifying or approving the new policy.

Under existing rules, in force for nearly two decades, the government could deny green cards to immigrants who had depended on or were thought likely to depend on cash benefits such as welfare under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. Under the proposed new rules, the range of those deemed inadmissible as public burdens would be massively broadened to include immigrants who had received an array of noncash benefits including Medicaid, food assistance, prescription drugs under Medicare Part D and other forms of assistance.

That would affect families, students, employees and visa-holders already in this country applying to stay permanently  a population the administration estimates at some 382,000 annually. (Other studies suggest much higher projections.) It would also likely apply to green-card applicants abroad if they were thought likely to need public benefits.

The proposed rule is punitive, mean-spirited and self-defeating. This nation has been built with huge contributions from immigrants who arrived with nothing, needed a hand for a while and eventually prospered. The new rule would force legal immigrants to choose between advancing their prospects for a green card, and availing themselves of benefits that would keep them and their children well fed, well sheltered and in good health  a choice the proposal itself acknowledges by saying it may result in increased rates of poverty and housing instability and worse health outcomes. Even existing green-card holders may balk at using benefits, for fear their future status might be jeopardized.

Previous drafts of the rule were even more extreme, punishing immigrants by classifying them as burdens if they used home heating assistance, a federal program that helps feed pregnant or nursing women and their children, or even the widely used earned-incometax credit. The version announced this past Saturday is sufficiently draconian, however, to dovetail with the administrations relentless crusade against immigrants of nearly every variety.SSH, a leading masterplanning, infrastructure, building design and construction supervision firm in the region, said it has been signed up by leading UAE developer Emaar to carry out full architecture services on its prestigious Grande Tower coming up at Dubai's Opera District.



The luxury residential tower will be located in the radiant centre of culture and arts in Emaar's flagship development - Downtown Dubai, neighbouring the Dubai Opera and standing opposite Burj Park and lake, said a statement from SSH.



The project comprises a promenade level below a 78-storey tower accommodating retail, amenities and 866 spacious luxury apartments, including a mix of one-, two-, three- and four-bedroom units with large penthouses situated below the crown, it added.



On the win, Michael Byron, the UAE resident director said: "SSH is extremely honoured to once again be working alongside Emaar in delivering a project that will exemplify a luxurious setting for contemporary living and offer premium experiences for residents and guests alike."



The designs curved footprint embraces the fountain lake and mimics the organic sweeping lines of the existing landscape. A balanced rhythm of undulating piers and slim vertical fins accentuates the elegance and verticality of the tower up to its delicate crown.



Byron said the tower will be a significant addition to the Downtown Dubai skyline and will become a contributing and symbolic landmark in the development of the Opera District.



"While residents will be gifted panoramic views of the Arabian Gulf and surrounding landscape, the podium of the tower makes the most of its proximity to the Dubai Fountain and Burj Khalifa. Pedestrians strolling along the Fountain Lake will have direct access to retail units that will line the podiums base at promenade level," he noted.



"The podiums upper level is to include a swimming pool and expansive deck orientated, along with the tower itself, to benefit from spectacular Dubai Fountain views." explained Byron.



"A large expanse of amenity space will allow for exceptional facilities within the tower, while the basement will provide ample residential and visitor parking," he added.-TradeArabia News ServiceThe Dubai Health Authority (DHA) signed today an agreement Frances Nice University Hospital to establish a framework to provide training programmes for UAE nationals based on the experience and knowledge of the hospital.



The memorandum of understanding (MoU), which is applicable until mid-2021, was signed by Humaid Al Qutami, director-general of the DHA and Charles Guepratte, chief executive officer of Nice University Hospital in the presence of high level officials including Her Excellency Raja Rabia, the Consul General of France in Dubai and Mr. Guillaume Huart, Regional Counselor for Health  Middle East at Embassy of France.



The training will cover all medical fields and will be applicable for doctors, nurses and technicians. The training programmes will include short-term training sessions, fellowship training, master classes and workshops.



The hospital is renowned for subspecialty training such as complicated surgeries, diabetes care and management, gastroenterology etc.



Al Qutami said, The MoU is in line with the Authoritys commitment towards continuous medical education which is particularly important in the healthcare field to ensure we develop highly qualified medical professionals to serve our community. Nice University Hospital has an esteemed reputation in medical training and we are proud to collaborate with them to develop our national healthcare talent force.



Raja Rabia, the Consul General of France in Dubai said, This MoU highlights the ties between the two countries especially in the field of healthcare, which is one of the priorities of the strategic partnership between France and the UAE. This is one of the many collaborative opportunities between the two countries to exchange knowledge and expertise and to contribute to the provision of high-quality healthcare.



Charles Guepratte, chief executive officer of Nice University Hospital, said, We have a long-standing relationship with the DHA and over the years we have seen an increase in the number of healthcare professionals we have trained at the hospital. The hospital is a pioneer in medical training and we look forward to welcoming Emirati healthcare professionals. We are pleased to extend our knowledge and expertise and are proud that this programme, which is supported by the French Healthcare Industry, represents excellence and innovation in healthcare provision.  TradeArabia News ServicePanasonic has developed two models of its first Digital Single Lens Mirrorless camera with a 35 mm full-frame image sensor, the Lumix S1R and the S1.



Debuting at the opening of Photokina 2018 in Cologne, Germany, these models are equipped with the world's first 4K 60p/50p video recording function and the Dual IS image stabilisation system, said a statement from the company.



As part of the Lumix S series, Panasonic aims to release them on the global market early 2019, it said.



For 100 years since its founding, Panasonic has strived to help realise better lives for customers around the world by responding to their needs. Working on the concept of creating a new culture of photography for a digital age with digital cameras, in 2008 Panasonic released the Lumix G1, the world's first Digital Single Lens Mirrorless camera, it added.



Over the ten years since then, Panasonic has continued to lead the industry with product innovations, such as the world's first camera supporting 4K video recording, and cameras equipped with the Dual IS (image stabilisation) system, combining stabilisation both inside the camera unit and the lens.



In recent years, as telecommunications lines increase in speed while sharing of video via social media gains in popularity, more and more people are enjoying a hybrid of photos and videos, widening the range of expression in the production of contents. A new type of camera is needed for this new field that goes beyond the boundaries of photos and videos.



Against this background, Panasonic adopted the concept of Fuel the photographers' creative vision to develop a Digital Single Lens Mirrorless camera with a strong focus on the expressive capabilities for both photos and videos.



The company will bring these cameras to market as part of the Lumix S series, striving to provide "specialised value" to customers desiring higher expressiveness. The cameras have the user-friendliness and robustness essential as tools for photography or videography by professionals, while also incorporating an entire array of Panasonic technology refined over a century in the consumer electronics business and ten years developing Digital Single Lens Mirrorless cameras: digital technology like image or signal processing, plus optical and heat dispersion technology and more. The combination of these will provide customers with new value for photography and videography.



Hitesh Ojha, deputy general manager, Panasonic Marketing Middle East and Africa, said: Panasonic is delighted to introduce another game-changing innovation in imaging technology with these new models.



We have always been at the forefront of pushing the boundaries when it comes to photography, image capturing and differentiation from innovation, he said.



The creation of these new full-frame mirrorless cameras is a testament to our commitment to R&D in order to create never-before-seen camera technologies that bring new experiences for users, he added.



These launches are also a fitting tribute to mark our companys centennial milestone. I am confident that the cameras will energise photography enthusiasts  particularly in the Middle East  knowing that the advanced optical technologies will inspire them to produce content in new and exciting ways, he concluded.



Panasonic will also expand its lineup of Lumix S series compatible lenses, developing more than ten by 2020, including a 50 mm/F1.4 fixed-focus lens, 24-105 mm standard zoom lens, and 70-200 mm telephoto zoom lens.



For the Lumix G series of Micro Four Thirds Digital Single Lens Mirrorless cameras, Panasonic has started developing a Leica DG VarioSummilux 10-25 mm F1.7 lens that will achieve the world's first zoom with maximum aperture of F1.7 for the entire range. On top of this, the support services for professional photographers, which started in Japan in April last year, will be available in Europe and the US this year.



The Lumix GH5, G9, and GH5S high-end Digital Single Lens Mirrorless cameras that Panasonic has steadily released since 2017 have already gained a solid reputation among professionals and high-level amateurs across the world for the quality of their pictures and ability to capture the vitality and beauty of life, it stated.  TradeArabia News ServiceAround 80 members of the maritime industry from the Middle East and India attended a seminar in Duai, UAE, yesterday (September 25) which was hosted by leading global marine insurer North P&I Club on some of the most pressing challenges facing the industry.



The event held at the Taj Dubai focused on the practical and legal implications of the changing sanctions regime imposed on Iran and the global fuel sulphur cap being introduced on January 1, 2020, said a statement from North P&I Club.



Norths global director of underwriting Savraj Mehta said: The maritime industry has changed considerably over recent years and we are no different. We continue to enhance and refine our range of support to meet the requirements of our members in an ever-changing shipping and regulatory landscape.



Our loss prevention initiatives and seminars are specifically aimed at encouraging our members to prepare early for the likely operational impact of these changes, he said.



Mark Church, director (FD&D), updated the delegates on the US re-imposition of Iran sanctions.



He said: practical issues will continue to impact on the ability to trade with Iran even where the trade is permissible. We encourage members to enforce their own due diligence and assess high-risk areas to avoid non-compliance.



Alvin Forster, deputy director (Loss Prevention), provided delegates with an overview of the implications of the 2020 sulphur cap.



He said: This isnt a simple choice for shipowners. We want to help our members understand the key issues and support them in making informed decisions on their options for compliance.



The sulphur cap challenges faced by shipowners and charterers are not just technical. Charterparty provisions will require close attention and this will be particularly pressing when fixing long term charterparties that will span the enforcement date.



Paul Watson, group director (FD&D), said: We can assist our members with the potential contractual pitfalls that come with these new rules  we cant stress enough the importance of preparing for the change now in order to avoid charterparty disputes in the future.



Mehta closed the seminar with an interactive Q&A panel and thanked Norths Middle East and India based members for their continued support, reaffirming Norths commitment to this prominent membership region for the club, it stated.  TradeArabia News ServiceMatt Graybill will become the President of the Dayton District Council of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul on October 1. He was unanimously elected by the Council members on August 12. An installation ceremony will be conducted at St. Anthony Church on September 27 at a special prayer service celebrating the feast day of the Societys patron saint, St. Vincent de Paul.

A lifelong leader in the Dayton area, Graybill is currently Vice President of Employee Experience at Dayton Childrens Hospital, where he has been employed for over thirty years. Additionally, he has served as a board member and president for several organizations in the region. Matt is a talented executive with impressive accomplishments among constituencies whose support is vital to the future of St. Vincent de Paul, said outgoing Dayton District Council President John Glaser. We look forward to his leadership.

Graybill is a member of the St. Vincent de Paul Incarnation Conference in Centerville. He served as the president of the Dayton District Council Community Board for three years and is currently its vice president. He and his wife, Sharon, live in Waynesville, Ohio.

As president, Graybill will serve as a volunteer for a three-year term convening the Dayton District Council, which is comprised of the presidents of 32 St. Vincent de Paul Society Conferences in the Miami Valley. Led by Executive Director Michael Vanderburgh, the District includes a staff of 135 employees and 2,000 volunteers providing emergency shelter, housing, and person-to-person ministries that in 2018 will touch the lives of 100,000+ people in need in the Dayton area. Among St. Vincents most visible ministries are the operation and management of the communitys two emergency shelters for homeless men, women and children, an extensive network of transitional and permanent supportive housing serving individuals with special needs, and the Dayton communitys largest network of food pantries.Dubai-based Falcon Eye Drones, a drone-powered solutions company, said it is currently celebrating 10,000 flights across the Middle East and Africa-based projects.



The company revealed its ambitious plan to double its operations in the next few years with the drone solutions market vlaue expected reach $1.5 billion by 2022 in the GCC, it said.



The company has covered an area of nearly 34,000 km since it started operations in 2014.



Rabih Bou Rashid, managing director of Falcon Eye Drones, said: Drones are becoming an instrumental technology for many industries such as oil and gas, utilities, telecom, construction, transportation, city infrastructure developments, agriculture, archaeology, safety and security as well as photography and videography.



Drone technology is quickly growing beyond its original military applications and is making a very big impact on the commercial sector, he said.



Rashid said: In order to harvest the full potential smart city developments represent, it is important for all the industries that make an impact on this transformation, to become more cost-effective, agile and disruptive.



Civil drones will help this region to excel by introducing drone applications to collect valuable data, make measured decisions, capitalise on data automation and imaging capabilities, he added.



While the Middle East rapidly grows and innovates, drones will play an instrumental role in the development of multiple projects that are expected to be delivered in record times. Drones will not only support timely infrastructure developments but will allow citizens to experience their unlimited potential and benefits, the company said.



We constantly work on the research and development to unleash new drone capabilities. Drones are our passion. Our most recent projects involved highly regarded government authorities, companies, and organisations such as the Municipalities, DOE (Department of Energy), MBRSC (Mohamed Bib Rashid Space Center) Ras Al Khaimah Tourism Development Authority to name a few, he said.



Whether you require stunning aerial photography, 3D mapping, aerial survey, and inspection, or any other aerial service, each solution is uniquely tailored to our clients to help them to achieve their innovative excellence", he concluded.  TradeArabia News ServiceThe government is working on restructuring national Air India's finances to ensure that the airline has "sustainable debt", Economic Affairs Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg said.

New Delhi: The government is working on restructuring national Air India's finances to ensure that the airline has "sustainable debt", Economic Affairs Secretary Subhash Chandra Garg said.

The debt burden of the national carrier, which is grappling with tough business conditions, is estimated to be more than Rs 50,000 crore. Earlier this year, the government's efforts for strategic disinvestment of debt-laden Air India failed to take off.

"What government is doing in Air India is to restructure the finance of Air India in a way that Air India is there with a sustainable level of debt. Whatever is the excess unsustainable debt (it) will be taken out... Air India with sustainable debt will work as a viable entity," Garg told PTI in an interview.

Further, he sad that the airline's unsustainable debt would have to be placed in some special purpose vehicle. After the proposed strategic disinvestment of Air India did not find any takers in May, the government has been looking at ways, including sale of non-core assets, to bolster the carrier's fortunes.

Air India is staying afloat on a bailout package extended by the previous UPA regime in 2012. In the current financial year, the airline has received an equity infusion of Rs 650 crore up to June. A Turnaround Plan (TAP) as well as a Financial Restructuring Plan (FRP) were approved for Air India by the previous UPA regime in 2012.

Under these plans, the airline is to get budgetary support amounting to Rs 30,231 crore over a ten-year period and also equity support for the payment of principal/ interest of the non-convertible debentures. So far, the airline has received more than Rs 27,000 crore worth equity infusion.Out of the Rs 1.35 lakh crore, the government has already infused about Rs 71,000 crore through recap bonds.

New Delhi: Punjab National Bank (PNB) on Wednesday said it plans to seek Rs 5,431 crore capital support from the government a day after Finance Minister Arun Jaitley assured state-owned banks of all support from the government.

The meeting of the bank's board will take place on Thursday for considering infusion of Rs 5,431 crore by the government by way of preferential issue of equity share and fixing date of extra-ordinary general meeting (EGM) for obtaining shareholders' approval in this regard, PNB said in a filing to stock exchanges.

The finance minister on Tuesday committed capital support to banks after meeting heads of public sector lenders. Some of them did mention that the PCA (prompt corrective action) guidelines should be revisited because that is indirectly impacting their lending ability and that government should be more upfront in the capital requirement of some of these banks.

"I have assured them that we will immediately look at this subject because we are as keen as them, as every Indian is, that this opportunity is not missed because we want the cycle of high consumption, high growth, NPA recoveries, credit offtake really to be utilised to the fullest in order to help economy," he had said.

The government infused Rs 2,816 crore as capital infusion via preferential allotment of equity shares this month to meet regulatory ratios.

The government in July decided to infuse Rs 11,336 crore in five state-owned lenders including PNB, Corporation Bank and Andhra Bank to help them meet regulatory capital requirement.

The infusion was part of remaining Rs 65,000 crore out of Rs 2.11 lakh crore capital infusion over two financial years. The government announced Rs 2.11 lakh crore capital infusion programme October last year.

As per the plan, the public sector banks (PSBs) were to get Rs 1.35 lakh crore through re-capitalisation bonds, and the balance Rs 58,000 crore through raising of capital from the market.

Out of the Rs 1.35 lakh crore, the government has already infused about Rs 71,000 crore through recap bonds in the banks and balance would be done during this fiscal.

Besides, PSBs are also planning to tap the markets to raise more than Rs 50,000 crore this fiscal to shore up their capital base for business growth and meeting regulatory global risk norms.An extremely rare, fully functional Apple-1 computer -- one of the first PCs that did not require the users to assemble components -- was sold for USD 3,75,000 at an auction here. (Photo: Youtube)

Boston: An extremely rare, fully functional Apple-1 computer -- one of the first PCs that did not require the users to assemble components -- was sold for USD 3,75,000 at an auction here.

The Apple-1 was originally conceived by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak as a bare circuit board to be sold as a kit and completed by electronics hobbyists, their initial market being Palo Alto's Homebrew Computer Club.

Seeking a larger audience, Jobs approached Paul Terrell, owner of The Byte Shop in Mountain View, California, one of the first personal computer stores in the world, according to US-based RR Auction. Aiming to elevate the computer beyond the realm of the hobbyist, Terrell agreed to purchase 50 Apple-1 computers, but only if they were fully assembled.

The Apple-1 thus became one of the first 'personal' computers which did not require soldering by the end user. All together, over a span of about ten months, Jobs and Wozniak produced about 200 Apple-1 computers and sold 175 of them.

This Apple-1 is one of only 60-70 remaining of the original 200 that were designed and built by Jobs and Wozniak that originally sold for USD 666.66, the auction house said in a statement.

This computer was restored to its original, operational state in June 2018 by Apple-1 expert Corey Cohen.The most remarkable aspect of this Apple-1 computer is that it is documented to be fully operational. Unlike many of the known Apple-1 boards, this unit has not had any modifications to the physical board, and the prototype area is clean and unused.

"Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak and the company that they created together made the ugly and unappealing world of technology elegant and beautiful -- bringing it mainstream, to the masses and infinitely making the world a better place to live," said Bobby Livingston, of RR Auction.

"This is the machine that launched Apple Computer, a company that would define an industry and was recently able to achieve a USD 1 trillion valuation milestone," Livingston said.India is yet to take a call on complying with the US sanctions on Iran.

New Delhi: The finance ministry and the RBI will work out a mechanism to ensure that India and Iran trade does not get disrupted following the decision of the US to impose sanctions on the import of Iranian crude oil. Commerce Secretary Anup Wadhawan said on Tuesday they are telling exporters that proper mechanisms will be put in place to ensure that the trade does not get disturbed with Iran.

In May, the Trump administration had pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal and brought back economic sanctions against Tehran. The US has told India and other countries to cut oil imports from the Gulf nation to zero by November 4 or face sanctions. India is yet to take a call on complying with the US sanctions on Iran.

We are certainly urging the departments concerned to put in place an arrangement, as and when required, which ensure that there is no disruption (in trade), Wadhawan told reporters here. He added that ministry of finance and the RBI will work out various mechanisms to ensure that trade does not get disturbed. Those mechanisms will be worked out.

Iran was Indias second biggest supplier of crude oil after Saudi Arabia till 2010-11 but Western sanctions over its suspected nuclear programme relegated it to the 7th spot in subsequent years. In 2013-14 and 2014-15, India bought 11 million tonnes and 10.95 million tonnes respectively from the country. Sourcing from Iran increased to 12.7 million tonnes in 2015-16, giving it the sixth spot. In the following year, Iranian supplies jumped to 27.2 million tonnes to catapult it to the third spot.

Asked whether India is exploring the possibility of Rupee-Ruble trade with Russia, he said: We have a history with Russians of Rupee-Ruble trade ... so certainly all those options will be discussed and will be explored. He added that trade in local currencies helps in promoting balance trade, wherever India is a large importer of goods such as petroleum, gold or diamond.

On India-US trade issues, the secretary expressed hope that both the countries would soon find a solution on all the matters. We are always hopeful that we will resolve issues. I am sure, we will find a solution, he said adding US trade officials are already in Delhi for discussions.

Recently, the government, for the second time, extended the deadline for the imposition of higher customs duties on 29 products, including almond, walnut and pulses, imported from the US, till November 2.

The duty hike move by India was in retaliation to US President Trumps March 9 decision to impose heavy tariffs on imported steel and aluminium items. India is pressing for exemption from high duties imposed by the US on certain steel and aluminium products, resumption of export benefits to certain domestic products under their generalised system of preferences (GSP), greater market access for its products from sectors, including agriculture, automobile, auto components and engineering.

As many as 3,500 Indian products from sectors such as chemicals and engineering get duty-free access to the US market under the GSP, introduced in 1976. On the other hand, the US is demanding greater market access for its farm and manufacturing products, including medical devices. Indias exports to the US in 2017-18 stood at $47.9 billion, while imports were $26.7 billion. The trade balance is in favour of India.

Asked about the governments decision to impose import restrictions on imports of non-essential products, Wadhawan said, India will impose duties on imports within the norms of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to protect domestic industry and boost the economy. We will use those options to further our interests, whether it is to develop our own economy or to protect our consumers from sub-standard products or whether to regulate some products in public interest. So certainly those options will be exercised.

He said that as far as tariff policy is concerned, India is a developing economy and it has the right under the WTO to use tariff within the bound rates. Developing countrys infant industries need protection. Our bound (duty rates) in the WTO have been shaped in that philosophy. We will certainly use..., he added. Bound duty rates are tariffs over which a WTO member country cannot hike the customs duties.

The secretary said that these are policy instruments in the hands of policymakers and there are several concerns as far as imports are concerned.

One concern is public safety and health, sub-standard products getting imported, which can harm consumers, he said adding the government is taking steps put in place standards for goods to protect consumers' interest.

Earlier this month, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had announced the governments decision to relax norms for raising overseas borrowing and impose restrictions on non-essential imports as part of efforts to check rising current account deficit (CAD) and a falling rupee.Three persons, allegedly involved in a sensational bank robbery bid in which two guards were killed on September 21, have been arrested following an encounter with the police in Noida, officials said on Wednesday.

Noida: Three persons, allegedly involved in a sensational bank robbery bid in which two guards were killed on September 21, have been arrested following an encounter with the police in Noida, officials said on Wednesday.

A gun-battle broke out between the accused and the police late Tuesday night in the city's Sector 19 area in which two of them suffered injuries and were hospitalised, while the third was taken into custody, a senior official said.

"Two of their accomplices, including a minor, managed to give the police the slip in the darkness of the night," Senior Superintendent of Police Ajay Pal Sharma said. Two private security guards of the Punjab National Bank (PNB) were bludgeoned to death by unidentified assailants in an attempted robbery at its circle office in Sector 1 here on September 21.

The two security personnel, Mudrika Prasad and Mukesh Yadav, were in the guard room of the bank when the accused attacked them on their head with a baton and an iron rod, leading to their deaths. SSP Sharma said a probe has revealed that five persons, all members of a gang, were involved in the case.

"The arrested accused have been identified as Aqil Khan, Dinesh and Vishal alias Munshi. Aqil and Dinesh suffered injuries in the police firing and have been admitted in the district hospital," Sharma said.

He said during the encounter the accused had opened fire on the police team from the Sector 20 police station. "Aqil and Dinesh received bullet injuries on their feet in retaliatory action by the policemen and the duo was hospitalised. Vishal was arrested," he said.

During the robbery bid, the men had tried to break into the strongroom of the bank, located in the basement of the building, but failed. According to the police, the accused lived in the slums here and had reconnoitred the bank office in Sector 1, adjoining the national capital, a few times recently. Further probe was underway and a hunt launched to nab the absconding accused, the police said.The Congress on Wednesday welcomed the Supreme Court decision to strike down Section 57 of the Aadhaar act which allowed private parties to access Aadhaar data.

New Delhi: The Congress on Wednesday welcomed the Supreme Court decision to strike down Section 57 of the Aadhaar act which allowed private parties to access Aadhaar data.

The Supreme Court has declared the Centre's flagship Aadhaar scheme constitutionally valid. "We welcome the Supreme Court's decision to strike down Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act. Private entities are no longer allowed to use Aadhaar for verification purposes (sic)," the Congress said on Twitter minutes after the verdict.

The apex court's five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra said Aadhaar is meant to help benefits reach marginalised sections of society and takes into account the dignity of people not only from the personal but also from the community point of view. The top court said Aadhaar is serving a bigger public interest. Aadhaar means unique and it is better to be unique than be the best, it said.Women employment in the country has been affected adversely due to the increase in maternity leaves under the new law but steps can be taken to correct that, Labour Minister Santosh Gangwar said on Wednesday.

New Delhi: Women employment in the country has been affected adversely due to the increase in maternity leaves under the new law but steps can be taken to correct that, Labour Minister Santosh Gangwar said on Wednesday.

When asked if the increase in maternity leaves to 26 weeks from 12 weeks earlier had impacted women employment negatively, the minister replied that it has but there was a remedy for that.

"We think that women employment is not increasing due to this reason (Maternity Benefit Act)," the minister told reporters on the sidelines of a FICCI function to give after safety systems awards.

Earlier, a report had outlined that the most progressive reforms may make it hard for up to 18 lakh women to find jobs this financial year. The minister, however, noted that there are provisions in the Act like now women can work from home during the leave period and other measures that can help address the issue. "There is a remedy," Gangwar stressed.

Only 27 per cent of the total workforce in India is women and 14 per cent of the overall women workforce is employed in the formal sector, the bill will significantly hamper the entry of new women into the workforce, the report by staffing solutions provider TeamLease had noted.

The government in March 2018 notified the Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act, 2017, that made changes in some of the provisions of an over-55-year-old law entitling certain benefits to women employees.

The Act enhances paid maternity leave to 26 weeks from 12 weeks. The new law makes it mandatory for every establishment with 50 or more employees to have the facility of creche within a prescribed distance.

The employer is also bound to allow four visits a day to the creche by a woman employee. The measure took India to the third position in terms of the number of weeks for maternity leave after Canada and Norway where it is 50 weeks and 44 weeks, respectively.

About the employment generation in the country, the minister said that in the last two years, one crore workers were added to social security schemes run by Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) and Employees' State Insurance Corporation (ESIC).

On creating enabling environment for employment generation by the government he said, "Under the Pradhan Mantri Rojgar Protsahan Yojana(PMRPY), over 87,000 establishments' 72 lakh employees are benefited during the last two years. The government spent Rs 1,744 crore under this scheme so far."

Under the PMRPY, the government pays entire 12 per cent of basic wage as employer contribution towards social security schemes run by the EPFO for new employees for a period of three years.

He also said that over three crore workers have been provided free of cost insurance under Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana and Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana in last two years.

The scheme is expected to benefit over 50 crore population of the country." The minister also spoke about the recently launched scheme of Employees State Insurance Corporation where cash relief is directly transferred into bank accounts of insured persons.

The minister informed that this scheme will cover 3.2 crore insured persons of ESIC and benefit around 20 lakh persons every year on which an expenditure of Rs 1600 crore would be incurred.

The cash benefit is 25 per cent of average wages for 90 days of the insured person under the scheme. The minister said that the government is doing all those efforts which can improve working and living conditions of the workers in the country.Five states and the union territory of Chandigarh have agreed to move towards uniform fuel rates. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: Five states and the union territory of Chandigarh have agreed to move towards uniform fuel rates.

The five states are Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and New Delhi and these are ruled by three different parties namely, the BJP, the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

With the initiatives of Haryana Finance and Excise and Taxation Minister, Captain Abhimanyu for the economic strengthening of Northern statesand to implement 'One Nation One Tax' system, a meeting was organised on Tuesday in Chandigarh with the Finance Ministers and the senior officers of the Northern states.

During the meeting, it was agreed to bring uniformity to the rates of petrol and diesel and all the participating states decided to constitute a sub-committee for the same. It has also been decided that the committeewould convene a meeting in the next fifteen daysand all the participating stated will give their recommendations.

"The Finance Ministers and officials of Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Union Territory of Chandigarh, Uttar Pradeshand Delhi attended this meeting," said Captain Abhimanyu, while addressing the me dia after the meeting.

On behalf of Delhi, Deputy Chief Minister and Finance Minister Delhi, Manish Sisodia and on behalf of Punjab, Finance Minister Punjab, Manpreet Singh Badal attended the meeting while from other states, the other senior officials attended this meeting.

The Finance Minister said that on the advice of Delhi, similar Excise Policy will be implemented for all the North Eastern states so that there is similarity of rates of liquor for all these Northern states. Likewise, Punjab suggested that there should be a similar uniform policy for state transport so that there should be no loss of revenue from registration and permit fees since many trucks and vehicles of Punjab and Haryana have their registration from other states.

A committee of officials has also been set up for excise and transport, which would send the report to their respective state governments on the uniformity of rates.

The delegates appreciated the efforts of Haryana for holding this meeting and said that this is the second meeting of the Northern States 2015.New Delhi: Describing the Supreme Court judgement on Aadhaar as "historic", Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday said it has helped the government in saving Rs 90,000 crore every year with targeted delivery of government schemes.

A five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra held that Aadhaar is constitutionally valid but struck down some of its provisions, including its linking with bank accounts, mobile phone connections and school admissions.

The Supreme Court judgement kept the provision of Aadhaar mandatory for filing of IT returns and allotment of Permanent Account Number (PAN).

"It is a historic judgement and the whole concept of unique identity number that has been accepted after judicial review is an extremely welcome decision.

"There are now 122 crore people in India who have Aadhaar cards and our estimation is that by identifying beneficiaries of government schemes and ensuring that there are no fake or duplicate or non-existent beneficiaries, we are already saving Rs 90,000 crore every year," Jaitley said.Washington D.C.: The Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, stepped out solo for the first time after getting married to Prince Harry, for the inauguration of the new Oceania art exhibit at the Royal Academy of Arts in London.

For Tuesday's milestone event, Meghan paired her black Givenchy dress with Aquazzura heels and a Givenchy clutch, E!Online reported.

Last week, Meghan hosted her first event at Kensington Palace with Harry and her mom Doria Ragland by her side. The event honored the launch of her cookbook 'Together'. During the event, Meghan also delivered a speech in front of attendees about the cookbook and what it means to her.

Next month, Meghan and Harry will go on a royal tour to Australia, New Zealand, Tonga, and Fiji.

Interestingly, Meghan's BFF Priyanka Chopra too has plans to visit Fiji anytime soon, probably for her marriage.Ozonetel, a pioneer of cloud telephony solutions in India, said it is continuing its global expansion with its launch in the UAE.



Sagar Rane, general manager  Middle East, Ozonetel, said: We are very excited about our entry into UAE. This market has very stringent regulatory requirements and our platform has met them all.



Our cloud contact centre solution, along with KOOKOO APIs, will now also be deployed at the Etisalat Data Center in Dubai, he said.



Ozonetel already has strong presence in India, US and Singapore, said a statement from the company.



Rajiv Bharathan, senior vice president, Ozonetel, said: Our Dubai expansion is a much-awaited move for many clients who have, or are planning a presence in UAE.



They plug into the easy-to-scale platform they've always relied upon. With Etisalat as our telecommunication partner, they will be assured both compliance and connectivity, he added.



Ozonetels first client in the UAE is Zomato - the popular Restaurant Finder and Food Delivery App, it said.



Pradyot Ghate, associate vice president, Zomato, said: Ozonetel has been our cloud telephony partner in India for past eight years.



We are confident they will continue to build out a robust and scalable platform in the Middle East that will be beneficial to the small and large businesses in the region, he added.



Rane continued: We have perfected our platform over the past 10 years of providing contact centre solutions in a large and challenging market like India.



Our platform is full-stack, requires zero Capex and offers seamless CRM and social media integrations. It provides businesses with rich MIS reports which improve end-customer experience, increase agent efficiency, reduce Opex, and evaluate ROI on campaigns. It also offers advanced AI capabilities like speech analytics and enables voice bots, he added.



Ozonetel has telecom POPs (point of presence) in six locations with access to more than 180 countries globally. Last year, they launched two delivery hubs and a full-featured Plug and Play Contact Center Solution for the US market. They also made a successful partnership with Zang, Avaya, in the US.



Rajiv Bharathan, senior vice president, Ozonetel, said: We can now look forward to expanding in all regions where Etisalat has a presence.



In the immediate future, this would include more geographies in GCC and South East Asia, he added.  TradeArabia News ServiceTuesday dawned to the terrible news that musician Balabhaskars family had met with an accident at Pallippuram near Kazhakkoottam early on Tuesday. What makes the tragedy even more painful is that while Balabhaskar, 41, and his wife Lakshmi, 39, are battling for their lives, unknown to them, their two-year-old daughter Tejaswini died in the accident. The couple, married for 18 years, had the child after 14 years of prayers and treatment. The unfortunate accident happened while the family was on their way to Thiruvananthapuram after paying obeisance at various temples in Thrissur and Ernakulam for their lone child born after a long wait. Their driver Arjun, 31, too is critically injured.

The Toyota Innova multi-utility vehicle in which they were travelling from Attingal side towards Thiruvananthapuram rammed into a tree on the opposite side of the National Highway, about 150 metres from the Pallipuram CRPF camp. Hospital sources said Balabhaskar has suffered multiple organ injuries, dislocation of cervical spine, injury to brain, serious abdominal injury and femur fracture. He was subjected to emergency surgery for correcting the spinal dislocation. He is on the ventilator and will continue to remain on the life support system for 48 hours. The doctors will take a call on further surgical procedures depending on his condition during the next two to three days. Lakshmi, according to sources, has suffered fractures and is being treated for her injuries. Driver Arjun too has

sustained fractures in the accident.

The accident occurred at around 4 am and nearby residents woke up hearing the crash and rushed to the spot. A few vehicles that passed by also stopped and took part in the rescue operation. There were conflicting versions regarding who drove the vehicle. While the police said it was Arjun who drove the vehicle, some locals say it was Balabhaskar. Balabhaskar was in the drivers seat and his wife sitting in the co-driver seat. Both of them were screaming in pain, while the child was on the floor in front on the left side. The driver was in the rear side. The locals and police initially took out the child, who was almost motionless and bleeding from the nose, said Divya a nearby resident.

The car in which the musicianand his family were traveling.

Mangalapuram sub-inspector Ajayan J. said that the highway patrol team officials who carried out the rescue said that Arjun was driving the vehicle and Balabhaskar was on the front left seat with the baby on his lap. His wife was in the rear seat. We will get a clear picture only after recording the statement of the accident survivors, he said. The police highway patrol team said that the child was immediately rushed to a private hospital but was pronounced dead. The three others were taken out of the vehicle and rushed to the hospital. The driver and the passenger on the front left seat were said to be wearing seat belts and the airbags in the front got inflated in the impact of the collision. The body of the baby is kept at the hospital mortuary.

Balabhaskar, the child prodigy who started his music career at a young age of 12 with stage shows, is the youngest music composer to have worked in the Malayalam film industry by composing for the movie Mangalya Pallak while he was just 17. The Thiruvananthapuram-based musician shot to fame after his compositions in the albums Ninakaai and Aadyamai became huge hits. Exceptionally well-versed in Carnatic music, Bala has performed with noted musicians all over the world, including Ustad Zakir Hussain, Sivamani, Louis Banks, Vikku Vinayakram, Hariharan, Mattannoor Sankarankutty, Ranjit Barot and Fazal Qureshi. A recipient of the Bismillah Khan Yuva Sangeet Kaar Puraskaar in 2008, Balabhaskar has composed music for ad films, movies, teleserial titles and albums in Malayalam, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Sanskrit.

As the news of the accident spread, many from the film and music industries rushed to the hospital. Social media is abuzz with prayers for the family and the child, memories about good old times, informative posts on the importance of practising safe driving measures like avoiding night drives and using baby car seats for child safety. There are even furious reactions against splashing fake news and misinformation. What they say Santhosh Rajagopal: The unfortunate death of a 2 yr old in the accident which injured Balabhaskar. None of our vehicles has provisions for child safety. They ride unrestrained. In many countries parents would be fined for this. Time for statutory provisions to ensure child safety during travel. Prayers are just not enough (sic).

Adishankar Sundararaman: An innocent child has lost its life and parents are left facing the trauma and the loss. The details are not known but looking at the state of the vehicle after the crash, it appears that if they had been wearing seat belts and the child had been on a child seat, everyone could have survived and the injuries would have been less. With so many advanced cars with high top speeds and the many crashes, India urgently needs a clear policy on the use of child seats for cars so there is more awareness and usage (sic).

Sreekutty S. Rupesh: Please respect the situation of the family who have lost their child and are in hospital now. Do not use this time to share safety measures and travel advice and all sorts of forwarded goodness. This should have been done earlier, or a few days after this grieving. For now everyone knows that it's unsafe to travel at odd hours or to travel with small children without proper safety measures. If this was your close friend or relative,you wouldn't have been in a position to share and talk so much. Try and maintain that thought for a musician and a wonderful person whom we all love. Prayers for Balabhaskar and his family (sic)

Sajna Vinish: If at all anyone retains an iota of respect and do love the family, please do pray for Balu chetan and Lakshmi chechi instead of flooding timelines with misinformation and group selfies. I know some of them are heartfelt and genuine and I respect that. But this is one of the worst tragedies that has transpired for a family and there are family members who havent been informed about the nitty gritty details only coz we want them to stay emotionally protected for now...If you want to grieve or pray, please do so, but with dignity without using it as an opportunity to present yourself along with the tragedy (sic).She is articulate, expressive and honest. There is something immensely likeable about Bollywood actress Madhoo Shah. The stylish lady, who is best remembered for her powerful performance in Mani Ratnams iconic film, Roja, is in Bengaluru working simultaneously on two Sandalwood films. In an exclusive interview with Bengaluru Chronicle, she chats with us amidst breaks, while shooting for a film at Kanteerava Stadium.

I am working on two Kannada films Seetharama Kalyana and the one I am currently shooting for Premier Padmini. Both the movies are in their last leg and the producers are aiming to release the films during Diwali, says the charming actress who is married to Mumbai-based industrialist, Anand Shah.

Madhoo, who is a Tamilian confesses that she cannot speak Kannada or any other south Indian language besides Tamil (her mother tongue). I write the dialogues in English and rehearse the lines. I have done five-six Sandalwood movies. In fact, I have worked in all South Indian films be it Tamil, Telugu, Kannada or Malayalam. I am not a great linguist but I do understand the intonations, she says adding, After Tamil, I find it easier to speak Telugu followed by Kannada as their grammar is similar to Tamil. Malayalam is the hardest for me.

Madhoo who is best remembered for her award winning performance in the iconic Mani Ratnam starrer, Roja, (she won the Tamil Nadu State Award for best actress) believes that roles have fallen into her lap rather effortlessly. Speaking about Roja she says, I have never angled for any role. As an artiste I am most remembered for Roja so I value that movie and treat it as special. It has given me life long recognition. I think the reason why Roja continues to be popular for decades is because it is AR Rahmans first film as a music director, Mani Ratnams first Hindi movie and Arvind Swamys debut film. All these factors have contributed to its popularity over the years, she explains.

While Madhoo remains gratified for the recognition that Roja continues to bring her she insists that there are, many movies where I thought I was good. Annaya in Kannada and Yodha (in Malayalam) are also special. In fact Yodha, has completed 25 years and is considered the Baahubali of those times. The Telugu movie Allari Payudi and even Hindi films like Yashwant and Pehchan have all contributed to my growth as an artiste, she says.,

Speaking about what made her choose her current crop Kannada films, Madhoo opines, For an artiste I speak for myself there is not one criteria, sometimes its a big production with great visibility and good publicity. If you are part of an ensemble cast like Seetharama Kalyana, its great. Sometimes the story and performance should be challenging as in the case of Premier Padmini, where you can grow as an artiste. Both films are diametrically opposite to each other, says Madhoo.

The actress was last seen in Ranna in 2016 and the film that won her a nomination for a film award. She candidly states, I realised that one of my desires has been to win a popular award. Even for Roja, while I got the State Award, the popular ones eluded me. Now I am working with the hope of winning an an award. This is my dream, says the actress who has been married to Anand for 20 years and has two teenaged daughters Ameya (18) and Keya (16).

Speaking about her daughters, she admits, My older daughter is interested in becoming an actress but she is also a bright student. In fact both my girls are good at their studies. So we are still evaluating the decision. At any rate, she will have to train for a couple of years, before she takes the plunge. Whatever her final decision, I will support her. My younger daughter is not so keen about films right now.

At a time when marriages are falling apart, what is the mantra to make a relationship work? There is no such thing as perfection, everything comes from a decision. I want to stay married. I am imperfect, so is he. Sometimes its great, and sometimes annoying. There are ups and downs, why just spouse, your kids, parents, and even siblings can get annoying but they dont stop being your family. I have realised that the man I have married is the man I love. We dont hurt each other and are good together. My marriage has never been so bad that I have to break way. In marriage, acceptance and tolerance is important, she reveals.

Finally we ask her what makes Bengaluru special to her and Madhoo instantly responds, My two besties Sharmila Khanna and Suman Ranganath live her. Sharmila took me for lunch to UB City and shows me around the city. Suman took me to a fun party. Essentially I am a South girl at heart. My roots are strongly South Indian. I love the local food, visiting the temples and meeting people in this city.Seems like it is not just the popular Kannada TV artistes who are in huge demand for their talents by Telugu television industry. It appears that even Tollywood is smitten by Kannada actresses. The sensational Rashmika Mandanna, who is basking in the glory of her recent successes including the mega hit Geetha Govindam, and later bagging big star projects. Now, another Kannada actress is in the limelight for her performance in Nannu Dochukunduvate opposite Sudheer Babu. And, now even before her Telugu debut movie hit the screens last week, there are reports that the actress Nabha Natesh has signed yet another project featuring the popular star actor in Telugu, Ravi Teja.

While she is on the verge of signing one more film, the actress caught up with Bengaluru Chronicle as she talks about her Tollywood journey, and her desire to do a good content oriented movie back in Kannada.

Though I started off with Adhugo in Telugu, a film about a piglet which is under the post production for extensive graphics work, Nannu Dochukunduvate got released first and the response to it has been great. It is my debut and everyone in Tollywood is talking about my performance, which makes it even special, says Nabha Natesh.

She goes on to add, saying that after the release of her movie, which is a hit now along with good reviews, her performance has been appreciated by several in the industry. I recently met the legendary director Raghavendra Rao garu. It seemed like a dream for me to get complimented by none other than the legend by himself, and I had to pinch myself to ensure that it really happened, says the actress who even shared the moment on her Instagram account, adding that the director was very happy to know that Nabha was the lone actor from her family and blessed her with great future in films.

While the actress is yet to confirm on her next big break, it is learnt from reliable sources that she has signed her next where she is paired opposite Tollywood star Ravi Teja. She plays the female lead in his action entertainer which is being directed Vi Anand and produced by Ram Talluri.

I will soon announce something big, and I am also on the verge of signing one more. I am getting several good offers in Telugu, and the attention I am getting is quite exciting, as it was during my debut Kannada movie Vajrakaya. Talking about my next Kannada movie, I do not want to rush into it. I am determined to do a good content oriented movie in Kannada. My mantra has been simple, which is to do good projects or do nothing, she says.

The actress who is also getting a lot of calls from the Tamil industry, adds that she has just found a foothold in the industry and wants to concentrate on doing good work in both Kannada and Telugu before taking up projects in other languages.

The actress signs off by saying that apart from all her busy film activities, she has picked up the knack of learning different languages. Though I am fluent with Telugu, I am yet to dub in my own voice as I still need to refine my dialect skills. Further, I am busy with my dance practise. This has been my first love ever since my childhood. I love dancing even while chilling at home, she adds.When Bellamkonda Srinivas posted a picture of himself sitting on elephant tusks, little did he expect it would snowball into a controversy. The picture was taken in Thailand, where he is shooting for his upcoming film directed by Teja.

The actor, who was trolled after he posted the picture on his Instagram page, deleted the picture as soon as it got controversial. The actor hasnt discussed the matter and the shooting in Thailand hasnt been affected.

He is a young actor and these incidents are part of the learning process. He will be more cautious in the future when he posts something on social media, says a source close to the actor.

HT05Addiction may be caused by an ancient virus still lingering in our DNA. (Photo: Pixabay)

Researchers believe an ancient retrovirus still lingering in our DNA may the reason for addiction, the Daily Mail reported.

A team that included researchers from Oxford and Athens have traced the genomes of drug users in the UK and Greece to find out what features they had in common.

They discovered addicts were likely to have HK2, an ancient virus that tends to gather near a gene in charge of dopamine release.

While we all have ancient viruses that date back to our primate ancestors, they are not thought to be factors that can determine a person character thousands of years later.

"[N]ow we have strong proof that HERVs can be pathogenic. For the first time, we are able to make a distinction between cause and effect in HERV pathogenicity," Dr Gkikas Magiorkinis of the University of Athens is quoted as saying by the Daily Mail.

The study found has to have variations or multiple copies of HK2 in various parts of the body.

"Even more intriguing, some of these varied copes seem to be capable of coding more viruses in the human host - while most retroviruses are 'broken' blueprints, which are no longer capable of something so powerful," the report stated.

Professor Aris Katzourakis, from the University of Oxford, told the Daily Mail: "We know of clear biological roles for a small number of human endogenous retroviruses.

"However, there has never before been strong evidence in support of a role in human biology of an endogenous retrovirus that is unfixed, in other words not shared by all individuals in the population.

"Our study shows for the first time that rare variants of HK2 can affect a complex human trait. The replication of this finding in the distinct Athens and Glasgow cohorts is particularly important."The accused, Sarangi alias Saranga Venkatesh, 54, garlic and ginger seller, and his younger brother Saranga Sanjeevulu, 40, an auto driver, are residents of LB Nagar and natives of Moosapet village in Mahabubnagar district. (Representional Image)

Hyderabad: A habitual offender involved in over 300 offences for the last 30 years has been arrested by the Maheshwaram police of Rachakonda commissionerate along with his younger brother. The police recovered property worth about Rs 26 lakh from the duo.

The accused, Sarangi alias Saranga Venkatesh, 54, garlic and ginger seller, and his younger brother Saranga Sanjeevulu, 40, an auto driver, are residents of LB Nagar and natives of Moosapet village in Mahabubnagar district. They have been stealing valuables from temples located on the outskirts of villages.

Since 2017, they have committed 13 thefts at temples located in Maheshwaram, Hayathnagar, Chityala, Ghatkesar, Bibinagar, Mothkur, Medipally and Pochampally.

Rachakonda police commissioner Mahesh Bhagwat said, Sarangi has been committing thefts for 30 years.

He was earlier involved in stealing copper wires from the electricity transformers at Ranga Reddy, Nalgonda, Nizamabad, Medak, Mahbubnagar, Rachakonda and Cyberabad. He confessed to committing over 300 offences in the last 30 years.

From 2013, Sarangi committed 78 thefts. Initially, he used to steal copper wires, but recently he started stealing valuables from temples to make more money.

Sarangis brother, Sanjeevulu, was involved in 12 cases of temple thefts and also copper wire stealing.

In August 2017, Sarangi was released from jail and returned to stealing, said the commissioner.

Mr Bhagwat said that on September 11, the duo conducted recce at Venkateshwara Swamy temple in Maheshwaram to ensure no electronic surveillance was present. On the intervening night of September 15 and 16, they broke into the temple and stole valuables.

They took the articles home and cut the idols to sell them in pieces.Rachakonda police commissioner Mahesh Bhagwat said that in 2011, the LB Nagar police had arrested Khaji Mavoji on charges of burglaries. (Representional Image)

Hyderabad: Rachakonda Special Operations Team sleuths arrested an absconding member of the Chaddi gang of Gujarat on Tuesday. The accused, Khaju Mavoji, had gone absconding after obtaning bail in 2011 and was now caught, said the police.

Rachakonda police commissioner Mahesh Bhagwat said that in 2011, the LB Nagar police had arrested Khaji Mavoji on charges of burglaries. After obtaining bail from the court, Mavoji went absconding. On receiving information, the SOT sleuths rushed to Garbada in Gujarat and arrested him on Tuesday. He was produced in a court there and brought to the city on a transit warrant.

We are very confident of apprehending Parmar Megzi and Parmar Sanjay, who are absconding, said the official.The police arrested the boys mother and also the woman who purchased the baby on Tuesday and produced them before a court for judicial remand. (Representional Image)

Hyderabad: Unable to take care of her three-month old son, a 25-year-old woman working as a daily wager at Adibatla sold the infant for Rs 10,000. The police arrested the boys mother and also the woman who purchased the baby on Tuesday and produced them before a court for judicial remand.

The rescued baby has been admitted to Sishu Vihar for care and protection, said the police.

Paidala Padma, 25, a resident of Indiranagar huts in Balapur, was a daily wager. Her husband Balaraju left her a few weeks ago and she had also met with a road accident due to which she was unable to go to work regularly and earn sufficient money.

Three months ago, Padma delivered a baby boy. She thought that she could not provide proper food and care for the baby and contacted another woman, Kummari Lakshmamma of Rajiv Gruhakalpa at Balapur, and offered to sell her son. Lakshmamma agreed to purchase the baby for Rs 10,000 and gave an advance of Rs 4500 to Padma on Sunday.

On receiving a tip-off, the Adibatla police went to the house of Lakshmamma and rescued the baby on Tuesday. Based on her confession, the boys mother Padma was also arrested under sections 317 of IPC and sections 80 and 81 of the Juvenile Justice Act. Both women were remanded to judicial custody.

Ibrahimpatnam assistant commissioner of police S. Malla Reddy said that parents who could not afford to feed or take care of their children could contact Child Welfare Committee officials and handover the baby to them for protection but should not get involved in the illegal practice of selling babies.According to the police, the driver of the tanker was drunk and that caused the accident. The school bus was taking around 40 students to Sri Aurobindo High School in Wardhannapet on WarangalKhammam highway. (Representional Image)

Warangal: As many as 17 students were injured, eight of them severely, when a speeding tanker hit their school bus from behind just 100 metres away from the Wardhannapet police station on Tuesday. The injured students were shifted to the Waradhannpet Area Hospital and those severely injured rushed to the MGM hospital. None of the students was critically injured.

Those sitting at the back of the bus were mostly affected because of the impact from the collision. One student, S. Krishna, studying in class eight, sustained a fracture on his leg. Most of the students sustained injuries on their knees and head. Doctors at MGM hospital said most of them are in shock due to the accident.

According to the police, the driver of the tanker was drunk and that caused the accident. The school bus was taking around 40 students to Sri Aurobindo High School in Wardhannapet on WarangalKhammam highway. There was a culvert near the police station. Being experienced, the school bus driver slowed down. But the speeding tanker driver failed to stop the vehicle and hit the bus from behind. The impact threw the students out of their seats leaving them crying in pain and shouting for help.

The police immediately swung into action and shifted the injured students to nearby hospitals. The truck driver was taken into custody by the police.

Most of the students were residents of DC Thanda in Wardhannpet mandal. District collector Prashant J. Patil and Wardhannapet former MLA Aroori Ramesh visited the students at the MGM hospital and took stock of the situation.

Caretaker deputy chief minister and education minister Kadiyam Srihari has asked the district collector to ensure that the students received proper medical attention.(Right) Jai Kishan(65) and Mahak(20). On the left is Mahaks father in Rameswaram. DC

Chennai: Rameswaram police handed over a 65-year-old man and his wife to Punjab police after the girls parents set out on a manhunt to find their daughter whom they said the man had allegedly kidnapped.

The girl, 20, identified as Mahak, a student in Punjab, had been going to Jai Kishan, a teacher, for tutoring after college.

The man used to take interest in teaching her, her parents said. Over time, Jai is said to have seduced Mahak and convinced her to elope with him.

On September 11, Mahak, on the pretext of leaving for tuition classes eloped with Jai Kishan. The couple travelled across the country, from Punjab to Delhi after which they went to Agra, Hyderabad, Vishakapatnam before arriving in Tamil Nadu. While they were travelling across the country, the couple also got married.

The couple reached Chennai on September 23 before travelling to Rameswaram.

The Ramesharam police led by SP Om Prakash Meena, who had received prior information on their whereabouts, nabbed the couple and handed them over to the parents.

The couple has been taken back to Punjab, where further action will be taken, police sources here said.The 'shadow' economy  from counterfeit goods to illicit financial flows, to human trafficking and drugs  which is estimated to reach over $3 trillion will be addressed at the upcoming Global Illicit Trade Summit in Abu Dhabi, UAE.



The Economist Events will host the third edition of the summit at the Etihad Towers.



Newer technologies, crypto-currency, taxation, legal loopholes, rise of freezones, eCommerce and regional socio-economic instability have opened new opportunities for counterfeit, terrorism, Intellectual Property crimes and other illicit trade.



The event offers a platform to facilitate dialogue between the private and public sector/ policy makers to forge an international response against illegal activities and protect society, consumers and the economy.



"Ranked 34 out of 84 nations worldwide, UAE is a paradigm of governance showing they will not tolerate illicit activities," said Christopher Clague, managing editor, Asia and global editorial lead, trade and globalization, The Economist Intelligence Unit.



"Criminals have been quick to take advantage of ever changing market condition and loopholes. Therefore, a conversation and cooperation between the private and public sector is imperative. The event brings a diverse group of people from different industries who will share best practices and thought leadership on how to tackle a multi-faceted global problem," Clague added.



The Summit will feature a range of panel discussions, candid interviews and presentation from prominent influential leaders and experts.



"Wherever there are big price differences between markets, which are mostly driven by taxation, illegal trade takes place," said Brendan LeMoult, Anti-illicit trade and fiscal affairs Vice-president, JTI.



"Regulators, law enforcement experts and the private sector need to work together on the issue. Our joint efforts with law enforcement agencies across the world have proven to be successful. Over the last nine months, over 2 billion illegal cigarettes worldwide were seized thanks to the information we shared, he added.  TradeArabia News ServiceThe police arrested three persons in connection with this case, and filed cases against 10 persons including the arrested and Bharathi Mohan family. (Representational Images)

Thanjavur: Besides arresting three persons earlier, police here secured Dr. Bharathi Mohan of MVK hospital, his wife Anusiya, daughter Jayasri and maid Kalaiselvi, and are interrogating them in connection with the recent attack on industrialist T. Ilangovan, here by some unidentified persons.

The police arrested three persons in connection with this case, and filed cases against 10 persons including the arrested and Bharathi Mohan family.

Ilangovan was attacked by some unidentified persons with logs of wood and iron behind his office on the medical college road.

He was initially treated at the Thanjavur Medical College hospital, but later shifted to a private hospital at Chennai.CM Vijayan briefed Singh about the prevailing situation in Kerala and the steps taken by his government to bring back normalcy in the state. (Photo: File)

New Delhi: Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan Wednesday met Home Minister Rajnath Singh and requested him to expedite the process of giving financial assistance to the state, which faced unprecedented rains leading to floods and massive damage, officials said.

Vijayan briefed Singh about the prevailing situation in Kerala and the steps taken by his government to bring back normalcy in the state.

The chief minister has requested the home minister to expedite the process of giving financial relief to Kerala for the recent floods, a home ministry official said.

Last week, an inter-ministerial team, headed by a special secretary of the Home Ministry, had visited Kerala for five days to assess the damage caused by the recent devastating floods.

The team visited Kerala after the state government had sent a detailed memorandum seeking Rs 4,700 crore as compensation for the damage occurred due to rains and floods, considered to be worst in a century.

At least 488 people have died in Kerala due to the rains and floods this monsoon, which hit 14 districts of the state.

The Kerala government memorandum comprises details about the loss of human lives, properties, infrastructure and crops, another official said.

In case of any natural calamity beyond the coping capacity of a state, the state government submits a detailed memorandum indicating sector-wise details of damage and requirement of funds for relief operations of immediate nature.

Accordingly, the Kerala government sent the memorandum.

As per the existing guidelines, the Inter-Ministerial Central Team (IMCT) visits the state for on-the-spot assessment of damage and additional requirement of funds.

The IMCT report is considered by the Sub-Committee of National Executive Committee (SC-NEC) headed by the Union home secretary in conformity with the norms and then by a high-level committee, chaired by the home minister for approving the quantum of additional assistance from the National Disaster Relief Fund.

On August 21, the central government had released Rs 600 crore to flood-hit Kerala as promised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi (Rs 500 crore) and Home Minister Rajnath Singh (Rs 100 crore) during their visits to the state.

This was in addition to Rs 562.45 crore already made available in State Disaster Relief Fund of the state.The official said 6,624 voters have already been verified at the field level and the corporation would serve notices to voters prior to deletion of their names.

Hyderabad: The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation has identified as many as 1,01,470 duplicate voters and registered 1,07,343 new enrolments in 15 Assembly constituencies in Hyderabad district. A statement from the civic body showed demographically similar entries in the electoral list.

As per records, there are 7746 similar entries or duplicate voters in Malakpet constituency, 4,609 in Charminar, 10,822 in Chandrayangutta, 11,322 in Yakutpura, 10,957 in Bahadurpura, 4,587 in Khairatabad, 8,693 in Jubilee Hills, 8,363 in Nampally, 10,127 in Karwan, 3,822 in Goshamahal, 4,568 Musheerabad, 3,882 in Amberpet, 3,370 in Sanathnagar, 4,325 in Secunderabad and 4,277 in Secunderabad Cantonment Area.

Out of the total 1,01,470 duplicate entries, as many as 72,707 photos have been matched and 72,358 entries assigned to field verification for attaining 100 per cent accuracy in the voter list, said a senior GHMC official.

The official said 6,624 voters have already been verified at the field level and the corporation would serve notices to voters prior to deletion of their names.

On the other hand, 1,07,343 new voters have been registered from September 11 to September 24. There are 5,599 new enrolments in the Musheerabad constituency, 10,892 in Malakpet, 6,341 in Amberpet, 8,401 in Khairatabad, 10,975 in Jubilee Hills, 6,913 in Sanathnagar, 8,063 in Nampally, 9,365 in Karwan, 3,994 in Goshamahal, 2,111 in Charminar, 8,724 in Chandrayangutta, 6,261 in Yakutpura, 4,272 in Bahadurpura, 8,697 in Secunderabad and 6,735 in Secunderabad Cantonment Area.

An election wing official said about 10,000 voters were expected to register their names till Tuesday and the list would be updated late on Tuesday night.Bengaluru: In what could be termed as a desperate attempt to check party MLAs who in the recent past had raised the banner of revolt which had taken the coalition government to the brink, the state Congress leadership on Tuesday warned them that the high command will not tolerate indiscipline and anyone crossing the line will have to face disciplinary action. Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Siddaramaiah, who addressed the legislature party meeting, said that the high command had taken serious note of party MLAs going public with their grievances which he felt, would dent the party's image. If you indulge in this kind of activity, the BJP will benefit. To prevent the BJP from getting the upper hand, we have to stay united and discuss our differences within four walls, he said.

The meeting saw a discussion on a variety of subjects ranging from reservation in promotions for SC/ST employees to preparations for the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls. Congress MLA from the SC community vociferously demanded that the government should fight for the rights of SC/ ST community employees in government service. When the case comes up before the Supreme Court bench on Wednesday, the state should strongly pitch for providing reservation in promotions, Social Welfare Minister Priyank Kharge reportedly told the meeting. Mr Kharge got support from other SC MLAs, sources in the party said.

Reacting to this, CLP leader Mr Siddaramaiah said that he was confident that the government would take care of the issue. The former CM who had met party central leaders in Delhi on Monday, told the meeting that the top brass had asked all state units to make preparations for the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls. If we continue to fight in public, it will help the BJP which may expose out infighting before voters and consolidate its position. So, we have to be cautious and careful. Our main focus should be the preparations for the LS polls, he said.

He added, In the last election, in spite of the BJP launching a disinformation campaign against us, we got more votes in terms of percentage and this clearly proved that the Congress was more popular than the BJP." A section of MLAs including S.T. Somashekar and Bhairathi Basavaraj felt that Deputy Chief Minister Dr G Parameshwar had disappointed party MLAs by not coming to their rescue in administrative matters. CM H.D. Kumaraswamy blindly protects the interests of his party MLAs (ofJD-S). We expect Dr Parameshwar to do the same for our party MLAs, they said.

Chikkaballapur MLA Dr Sudhakar came under fire from all quarters with Mr Siddaramaiah and Dr Parameshwar objecting to his rebellious attitude and the fact that he had become a rallying point for other disgruntled MLAs. They warned all MLAs to refrain from such activities, sources said. Five MLAs were absent. Mr Siddaramaiah said these MLAs had taken permission to attend other engagements.Hyderabad: Former BJP MLA N. Indrasena Reddy on Tuesday moved a PIL before the Hyderabad High Court challenging the inaction of the state government in taking preventive measures to stop bus accidents in the state and also for not initiating action against TSRTC officials responsible for the recent major bus accident at Kondagattu in Jagitial district in which 62 passengers, including 37 women and 5 children, died due to overcrowding.

The BJP leader also highlighted the apathy of the authorities, who he alleged, did not take up relief measures to assist the families of the accident victims.

Mr Indrasena Reddy also submitted to the court that five victims in the accidents were still in the hospital as the authorities failed to provide proper treatment.

He said that after the accident, all the bodies were shifted to the government hospital at Jagitial but due to the non-availability of space in the mortuary, they were dumped in the verandah. The authorities concerned also did not provide adequate body freezers, he told the court.

He urged the court to direct the authorities to not permit more passengers than permitted in public transport vehicles particularly buses, cars, autos and so on.

He urged to the court to direct authorities concerned to provide proper medical treatment to the injured whenever accidents take place.

While requesting the court to direct the TSRTC to replace outdated vehicles with new vehicles , he urged the court to direct the station house officer, Mallial Police Station, to include the regional manager, the depot manager, Jagtial and others among the persons responsible for the bus accident at Kondagattu.Chennai: After going through an ordeal for over 18 years in facing their trial, the nine accused got reprieve with a court in Gobichettipalayam in Erode district acquitting them in the Kannada actor Rajkumar abduction case citing no evidence.

Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, Madras High Court advocate L. Shivakumar, counsel for Nakkeeran, a Tamil bi-weekly, recounted, using this case, police started committing atrocities in the forest regions and a large number of tribal people faced the troubles ranging from physical abuse to mental trauma. However, the prosecution failed to prove the charges. The acquittal comes a great relief to people.



The then AIADMK regime used such case as a political weapon against its critics, he added.

The advocate went on to say that initially, the police registered case against Veerappan and four of his close associates. However, after the change of government, the then AIADMK had used the case as a political vendetta by including Nakkeeran Gopal and three other reporters, Tamil extremists and several others as accused in the case.

When chargesheet was filed before the court on September 25, 2008, Nakkeeran Gopal and three others were removed from the case, as charges were not proved against them, he said.

When DC spoke to one of the accused, K. Amirthalingam said that they have finally won the legal battle.

We were all along going through mental agony till the courts verdict. Police, intelligence officers and CID sleuths threatened us with dire consequence, if we were not cooperated to have confessed to the case. Finally, justice won and we are happy, he said, adding that they were both physically and mentally tortured.

Similarly, another accused, who wished anonymity, said that even after such verdict, the police could look for another opportunity to land them in jail. Imagine that it has been over 18 years and we had been spending sleepless nights, he said. He faced layers of social stigma and stratification in the society and he felt ostracized. A. Kathir, executive director, Evidence, and a human rights activist, blamed investigation systems.

Now, the court has acquitted accused and the million-dollar question is that who holds responsibility for flawed investigation. Moreover, there are poor scientific, psychological and legal investigations as far as this case is concerned, he said, recounting that hundreds of people were killed and many women were physically abused during search of Veerappan by Tamil Nadu and Karnataka Special Task Forces combined operation.A senior North Delhi Municipal Corporation official said the building was about 20 years old. Its structure was weak and in a deteriorated condition, the official added. (Photo: Twitter | PTI)

New Delhi: A five-storey "weak" building collapsed in northwest Delhi on Wednesday, killing four children and two women, three weeks after the 20-year-old structure was inspected by a municipal team following complaints.

Police have registered a case under IPC Section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), punishable with a maximum jail term of 10 years, against the owner Dharmender, who had rented out the building in Ashok Vihar.

A complaint was lodged about the building being dangerous on August 16, 2017 and a team of civic body had inspected the building around 20 days ago, the police said.

Two teams of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) were mobilised for rescue operations, its spokesperson said.

The ground floor of the building housed a shop, which was closed during the incident, while the second, third and fourth floors were occupied by tenants. The first floor was vacant. There were 12 people inside the building when it collapsed. The injured were rushed to Deep Chand Bandhu Hospital.

A family lived on the second floor of the building. Two of the children, who were killed in the incident were siblings, Ashi, aged three, and Shaurya, aged two. Their mother, Seema, succumbed to injuries in evening. Two families were living on the third floor. The deceased woman, Munni, was living in one of the houses on the third floor. The second family living on that floor lost two children, Rajnesh, aged four, and Sumnesh, aged 12, the police said. The fourth floor was occupied by a couple -- Narottam and Nisha. Nisha is critical, the police said.

Bimlesh, who was present at the hospital and whose sons were Rajnesh and Sumnesh, said, "As soon as I left home and had barely walked a few metres, I heard a loud noise and when I turned back, I saw the building collapse like a pack of cards. I am waiting to hear about the condition of my family members."

Locals claimed that along with the building, a sheesham tree, adjacent to the building, also fell. A call about the incident was received at 9.25 am and six fire tenders were rushed to the spot near Sawan Park, an officer said.

A senior North Delhi Municipal Corporation official said the building was about 20 years old. Its structure was weak and in a deteriorated condition, the official added.Bengaluru: Zayn al-Ibidin Muhammed Husayn alias Abu Zubaydah (in pic), the 47-year-old Saudi national of Palestinian descent, who was one of the first men, handed over to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) post the 9/11 terror attacks, was a student of prestigious Sarada Vilas College, in Mysuru between 1989 and 1990 and had travelled to Bengaluru and Hyderabad before leaving for Peshawar and Afghanistan.

On Wednesday, the Intelligence Bureau came calling, with IB officials reportedly approaching the college for his records, looking for information on his friends and associates, particularly a woman named Flumina  his then Mysuru-based maid with whom he shared an informal relationship.

The CIA took him into custody on March 28, 2002 from Faisalabad in Pakistan, 12 years after he had left India when he was named as one of the top operatives plotting and planning death and destruction on the United States, by the then US President George W. Bush. He was put through CIAs enhanced interrogation techniques at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He has not been charged with war crimes.

College sources told DC that Abu Zubaydah and two others from Jordan had taken admission in Sarada Vilas College for an undergraduate course in Computer Science, Mathematics, Physics, English and Arabic in November 1989.

He could however, clear his exams only in Arabic and Computer Science in 1990. He did not complete his graduation and left suddenly. As per college records Abu Zubaydah, as an 18 year old, lived in Udaygiri area in Mysuru for nearly two years.

Six years ago, a Physics teacher in the college, who had taught Abu Zubaydah and has since retired, had received a yet-to-be-verified call about him. We are not sure who had called," a college spokesperson told DC.

On January 24 this year, he was delisted by the United Nations Security Council from its Islamic State and Al Qaeda Sanctions List based on the recommendation of the U.N. ombudsperson, who also concluded that Abu Zubaydah was not a member of al-Qaeda (Case 78), stated a member of Abus legal team - Charles R. Church - in his blog Lawfare.

Abus personal diaries, which he has addressed to himself as Hani,are now, declassified transcripts and are available on the Al Jazeera website. His diary notings, which have been translated into English talk about his 'journey to Mysor' (sic) after growing differences with his Palestinian-origin father. The documents have generated immense interest among the Intelligence and Human Rights organizations worldwide besides throwing the Indian Intelligence agencies in a tizzy.The baby was kept in the continuous positive airway pressure unit (like a ventilator) after it showed signs of respiratory distress. (Representational Images)

Krishnagiri: An abandoned male baby that was rescued on Tuesday with ant bites all over its body by local people, died on Wednesday at the government hospital here.

Police said the baby was found with the umbilical cord attached to it by locals in Anchettipalli village on the Hosur-Kelamangalam road, Krishnagiri.

It was surmised that the baby could have been victim of an unwanted pregnancy, and thrown into a bush either by its biological mother or her relatives, resulting in ant bites all over.

The underweight baby weighing around 1.6 kilos was handed over to staff of the Hosur government hospital where it was kept in the special newborn care unit.

Hospital sources said that the baby died at around 9.40 am on Wednesday. The baby was kept in the continuous positive airway pressure unit (like a ventilator) after it showed signs of respiratory distress.

Mathigiri police of Krishnagiri registered a case and are trying to trace the people who abandoned the baby in this inhumane way.Hyderabad: The Supreme Courts decision to take the court room into the drawing room, by ordering live streaming of court proceedings, was welcomed in legal circles.

The Supreme Court has restricted telecast of sensitive cases involving matrimonial, sexual abuse and POCSO cases. High Courts were directed consider live streaming subject to availability of technology and resources.

Welcoming the order, Prof. V. Balakista Reddy, and Proctor of Nalsar, said clients would now have an opportunity to assess the performance of their counsels and judges reactions to a point advanced by them.

It will build skills of court craft among the students of law. Even advocates can learn how to open a case and stand firm on legs while addressing the bench. Virtual courts is the future and this move would pave for Indian judiciary in that direction, Prof. Reddy said.

Senior High Court advocate Jandhyala Ravishankar said live streaming would help lawyers who were facing disciplinary action from Bar Councils. Advocates have no chance to show what actually transpired between them and the judge, he said.

Mr Ravishankar said he welcomed live streaming and looked forward to open court justice in letter and spirit. High Courts should also follow the Supreme Court and get ready for live telecast of hearings, he added.

Justice D.Y. Chandrachud who wrote a separate judgement on a writ petition filed by Supreme Court advocate Indira Jaising and others, listed out model guidelines for live streaming and archiving of the feed. He observed, For lawyers and judges familiar with the cocoon of a physical court room, live-streaming would require attitudinal changes. They include the maintenance of order and sequencing of oral arguments.

Chief Justice Dipak Misra observed, In recognising that court proceedings ought to be live streamed, this court is mindful of and has strived to balance the various interests regarding administration of justice, including open justice, dignity and privacy of the participants to the proceedings and the majesty and decorum of the Courts.ABB has been selected by the Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company (EETC) to help upgrade and digitalize the electrical grid in the Port Said region, located along the countrys Mediterranean coast and includes the landmark Suez Canal.



The region has a growing population of over 12 million people.



The scope of supply includes an ABB Ability Network Manager SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition)/Energy Management System (EMS), more than 120 Remote Terminal Units (RTUs) and a fiber-optic communications network to monitor and control the grid more efficiently. ABB Ability is the companys cross-industry digital offering.



The comprehensive initiative is part of the countrys efforts to upgrade and modernize its power grid. A reliable supply of electricity plays a critical role in operating the Suez Canal, a major artery for global commerce, through which about 17,000 ships pass annually carrying up to 800 million tons of cargo.



Demand for electricity is growing fast in the area as a result of rapid urbanization and economic growth. In addition, the country has set ambitious targets for the roll-out and expansion of renewable electricity generation as well as transmission infrastructure over the next few years. Commenting on the occasion of contract signing, Egypts Minister of Electricity and Renewable Energy, Dr. Mohamed Shaker, highlighted the need to strengthen the power grid and address the growing demand for electricity.



The ABB Ability Network Manager SCADA/EMS helps monitor and control the network to ensure high system reliability and optimize efficiency. The mission-critical communication network provides a back-bone where real-time data from equipment in the field can be quickly and reliably leveraged in the control room, maximizing efficient operations. The order is part of a larger project to upgrade the grid in Egypt and will be handled by a consortium composed of ABB and El Sewedy Electric.



ABB continues to support Egypt's efforts to upgrade and expand its power grid, said Massimo Danieli, head of ABBs Grid Automation business, within the companys Power Grids division. The digital transformation in Egypt's power network will enhance the operations of the Suez Canal and ensure reliable power supply for millions.



EETC is increasing the capacity, reliability and efficiency of the national grid in line with the Egypt Vision 2030 for sustainable development. We are pleased to work with ABB and El Sewedy Electric on this upgrade and digitalization that will benefit household and industrial consumers in the Suez Canal region, said Gamal Abdel Rahim, head of the Egyptian Electricity Transmission Company.



ABB has been a long-standing technology partner supporting the development of Egypts power infrastructure and has an extensive manufacturing presence in the country.  TradeArabia News ServiceBengaluru: The Special Investigation Team (SIT), which is probing the murder case of activist-journalist Gauri Lankesh, will also investigate the January 25 blast at Prakash Theatre in Belagavi, where the much-hyped film Padmavat was being screened.

Some unknown bike-borne miscreants had allegedly hurled a Molotov cocktail outside the theatre on January 25 around 9.30 pm. Eyewitnesses told

the police that the bomb had burnt like a ball of fire before it exploded.

Fortunately, there were no casualty or injuries reported. The unknown fringe Right group, which is allegedly behind the murders of rationalists in Karnataka and Maharashtra, is said to be behind the blast outside Prakash Theatre in Belagavi and Bhanu Sagar Talkies in Kalyan in Thane district of Maharashtra.

The Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), on a tipoff from the Karnataka SIT, had arrested Vaibhav Raut, Sharad Kalaskar and Sudhanva Gondhalekar on August 10 in the Nalasopara arms haul case and had seized huge amounts of weapons and illicit firearms. During the investigation, the ATS, after obtaining information from Kalaskars computer, had unearthed the conspiracy to carry out blasts at the two theatres and the hugely popular Sunburn music festival in Pune in 2017.

According to sources, Kalaskar and Gondhalekar, who are in SIT custody for interrogation in the Gauri murder case, were reportedly behind the Prakash

Theatre blast.Hyderabad: The Hyderabad High Court on Wednesday stayed all further proceedings in the allotment of 6,500 square yards of land at Bandlaguda to the Owaisi Hospital and Research Centre by the Telangana state government.

A division bench comprising Chief Justice Thottathil B. Radhakrishnan and Justice V. Ramasubramanian granted the stay while dealing with a public interest litigation by Ms Shaik Aneesha, an employee and resident of Nadeem Colony at Tolichowki.

The bench also issued notice to the Chief Secretary, revenue principal secretary, Hyderabad collector, GHMC commissioner, Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi, MIM former MLA Akbaruddin Owaisi and officials of the Owaisi Hospital.

The petitioner told the court that the state government had allotted the land to the Owaisi Hospital for Rs 3.75 crore, which had caused a huge revenue loss as the value of the property was about Rs 40 crore.

She submitted that the state government had allotted the land for only Rs 3.75 crore with a view to getting the support of the MIM president and the party in the upcoming elections.

Though the item was not on the agenda of the last Cabinet meet, the government had placed the issue as a tabled item and accorded sanction, Ms Aneesha added.

There was a dispute with regard to the land parcel with the Owaisi Hospital, and the government, had won the title after a prolonged legal battle.

While directing the respondents not to proceed in this matter for three months, the bench told the respondents to file their counter affidavits and posted the case to next month.During the last four years, 152 kms of new rail line, 76 kms of doubling and third line projects and 44 route kms of electrification has been completed in the state. (Representional Image)

Hyderabad: Rail development and infrastructure in Telangana has recently got a boost. A host of rail infra work took off and a new express train was flagged off on Wednesday. The rail link between Karimnagar and Mumbai, a weekly express was extended and the train has also come into operation.

Minister of state for Railways, Rajen Gohain, who was in the city, laid the foundation stone for various rail works, passenger amenities and flagged off the newly extended Karimnagar  Mumbai LTT weekly express from the Secunderabad Railway Station.

Some of the infrastructure work that have been given the green signal, include, the third railway line in Manchiryal  Peddampet Section. An Electronic Passenger Guidance System at the Malkajgiri Railway Station, additional platforms at (1&2) at the Arts College MMTS Railway Station were also introduced.

The foundation stone was laid for the third railway line in KazipetKondapalli Section and for a new Foot Over Bridge at the Lallaguda Gate Railway Station. The foot over bridge at Bolarum Railway Station will be extended, while the Secunderbad railway station will get new lifts on platform numbers 6 & 7, while Begumpet will get two lifts (on PF No. 1 & 2).

The foundation stone was also laid for 2 escalators (on PF No. 1 & 6) at Lingampalli railway station, an escalator (on PF No.2/3) at the Kazipet Railway station. As part of the redevelopment of Warangal Railway Station, it is likely to get an extended Foot Over Bridge.

Rajen Gohain said, Around Rs 1,813 crore has been allocated for rail development in Telangana in the 2018-19 budget, which is eight times higher than the allocations during the previous governments reign in 2014-15.

During the last four years, 152 kms of new rail line, 76 kms of doubling and third line projects and 44 route kms of electrification has been completed in the state. It is targeted to complete 50 kms of new rail line, 76 kms of doubling and third line projects and 345 route kms of electrification during the current year, the minister said.

Regarding the long pending MMTS Phase II project, the minister assured that the ongoing MMTS Phase II project will get due attention. With a free hand given to the Railway officials to enhance facilities for passengers, the rail ministry is set to reach out to meet the rail commuters needs, he said.

SCR General Manager, Vinod Kumar Yadav, said that, SCR had registered a growth of more than 12 per cent in originating gross earnings during the current fiscal till August. The works currently being carried out is estimated to cost Rs 2,000 crore.The then superintendent, Security, B.A. Mahesh had written a letter to the late Kannada thespian that he reportedly faced a security threat from Veerappan and had requested him to inform the police before leaving Bengaluru.

Bengaluru: A day after a court in Gobichettipalayam in Erode district of Tamil Nadu acquitted nine men accused of abducting late Kannada matinee icon Dr. Rajkumar - at the behest of late forest brigand Veerappan on July 30, 2000 - for want of evidence, Deccan Chronicle learnt that the State Intelligence had alerted the superstar a year ahead, as far back as July 1999 about a possible security threat to his life from Veerappan, said top official sources on condition of anonymity.

The then superintendent, Security, B.A. Mahesh had written a letter to the late Kannada thespian that he reportedly faced a security threat from Veerappan and had requested him to inform the police before leaving Bengaluru. Unfortunately the police were not informed about his visit to his farmhouse in Gajanur in Talavadi taluk of Erode district, said a top official source on condition of anonymity.

The police Intelligence wing had gathered credible information that Veerappan was on the look out for a high profile target in Karnataka to place his demand for the release of four of his associates in the deadly April 1993 Palar landmine blast case in which 22 police personnel and two forest guards were killed.

Veerappan had toyed with the idea of having Dr. Rajkumar as hostage because of his tremendous popularity in Karnataka and had kept a close watch on his movements," the source said.

"The bandit had a vast network of informers in the villages across Tamil Nadu, where he was looked upon as Robin Hood. The villagers also feared him because he was ruthless with traitors, said the source.

On July 30, 2000 Veerappan along with his men barged into the farmhouse at around 9pm and at gunpoint abducted Dr R.ajkumar, his son in law Govindraju and his co-director Nagappa. He handed over a pre recorded cassette, in which he had taped his demands to Dr Rajkumars wifelate Parvathamma and warned her not to leave the farmhouse before dawn. She was nervous and petrified. She left along with the driver and reached Bengaluru early morning around 3am.

She went straight to then chief minister S.M. Krishnas official residence and informed him about Dr. Rajkumars abduction. There was no time for her to lodge a complaint. A local person later had lodged a complaint and subsequently the police had recorded her statement, narrated the officer. Karnataka government was mainly concerned about the safety of Dr Rajkumar and this was the mandate of the State Special Task Force; to get him out of the forest safely. Within two-three days the CM was informed that Dr. Rajkumar was safe. He was convinced once Nakeeran Gopal sent his photographs in the forest, when he had gone to meet Veerappan, added the officer.

The trial in the case lasted 18 years, and for the Tamil Nadu STF chief Vijaykumar, who had headed Operation Cocoon in which Veerappan was killed in an encounter on October 14, 2004 the period is too long for justice to be served. Earlier the hunt was for the criminal and later it was for justice. There is an urgent need for fast track courts for speedy and timely trials, said the top cop. He added that the nine accused had however, served a long jail sentence pending trial.New Delhi: External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj is likely to raise the issue of Indias request for extradition of Punjab National Bank (PNB) scam-accused Mehul Choksi with a minister in the Government of Antigua and Barbuda whom she is scheduled to have a bilateral meeting on Wednesday evening (New York time) on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

India had earlier sent a request to Antigua for extradition of Choksi who had earlier obtained citizenship of the Caribbean nation. Antigua is examining Indias request for extradition of Choksi, with New Delhi saying in August that an extradition arrangement already exists between the two countries.

The Indian governments position is that there is already an existing facility between India and Antigua that constitutes an extradition arrangement between India and (A&B) Antigua and Barbuda under their (Antiguan) Extradition Act of 1993 which provides the legal basis for extraditing offenders from each others jurisdiction.

On August 3, New Delhi had quietly issued a gazette notification that the provisions of the Extradition Act, 1962, shall apply with respect to Antigua and Barbuda with effect from 2001 i.e. when Antigua and Barbuda notified India as Designated Common-wealth country under the provision of its own Extradition Act.

This could enable New Delhi to seek extradition of Choksi from Antigua under this already-existing arrangement. As per Antiguas own Extradition Act of 1993, a fugitive may be extradited to a Designated Commonwealth country or a state with which there are general or special arrangement or a bilateral treaty.

Significantly, the Antiguan Government way back in 2001 had then notified India as a designated Common-wealth country.The floods followed heavy rains that ravaged the Deccan for 48 hours and left an estimated 15,000 people dead. (Representational Images)

Hyderabad: The flooding of the Musi on September 28, 1908, has been recorded as the most destructive ever in Hyderabad, washing away 50,895 houses and claiming the lives of thousands.

The floods followed heavy rains that ravaged the Deccan for 48 hours and left an estimated 15,000 people dead.

The affected localities were Karwan, Kulsumpura, Sabzi Mandi, Petlaburj, Chowmohalla, Patherghatti, Chatta Bazaar, Jiaguda, Mustaidpura, Goshamahal, Troop Bazaar, Chudi Bazaar, Siddiambar Bazaar, Mahbubgunj, Afzalgunj, Feelkhana, Gowliguda, Koti, Sultan Bazaar, the Osmania Hospital, Puranapul.

City historian Muhammad Safiullah said that meteorologists had found that at intervals of 20 or 30 years, the river becomes swollen for a few hours, overflows and submerges the settlements along the banks. Once in 50 or 100 years a more serious flood occurs, sweeping away a great width of the city and taking a heavy toll of human life, cattle and property.

The extraordinary rainfall of September 26 and 27, 1908, was due to a cyclonic storm in the Bay of Bengal.

The river rose to about 15 to 20 feet in the inhabited area on both sides, enveloping houses and property for an average width of half a mile. Numerous lives were lost and about one quarter of the entire population was rendered homeless, says Dr Safiullah.

Large areas of populous quarters were demolished in the space of three or four hours. It is said that in Kolaswadi alone about 2,000 people were surrounded by the flood waters and all of them were drowned or washed away, he says.

At Ghansi Miyan Bazaar, a large group of people, variously estimated at between 500 and 3,000m climbed the city wall near Petla Burj, some to watch the flood and others to seek refuge. The wall was undermined and eroded. With the result, all this mass of humanity was overtaken and swept away.

A big tree near Kolsawadi to which about 150 people had cling for safety was swept away along with its human burden. A large house near the locality with about 150 people was eventually engulfed.

Water rose within two feet of the roof of the Victoria Zenana Hospital, but nearly all the patients were saved, together with the lady doctor who stood by them. More people were killed by falling houses, than by drowning.

Mahbub Ali Khan, the VI Nizam, was deeply affected by the calamity. Hindu priests and Moulvis approached the Nizam stating that the river goddess was angry, and that she had to be propitiated.

Mahbub Ali Khan, dressed in Hindu costumes and wearing kumkum, offered gifts of a sari, gold, silver, diamonds, pearls and kumkum to the river, amidst the chanting of mantras. The Musi, which was receding, showed perceptible reduction in depth.

Following the floods, Mahbub Ali Khan visited the flood-hit areas along with his Prime Minister Maharaja Kishen Pershad. The Nizam called the reputed engineer, Sir M. Visvesvaraya, to help prevent a similar flood.

The solution devised by Sir Visvesvaraya involved creating storage reservoirs upstream of the city that would control floods by storing water.

On Mahbub Ali Khans demise, his successor, Mir Osman Ali Khan, the Nizam VII, implemented his recommendations. The last Nizam constructed the Osmansagar and Himayatsagar, in addition to a new drainage system.

The squalid and overcrowded residential areas along the riverbank were transformed into parks and boulevards beyond which the Osmania General Hospital, the High Court and the State Central Library were constructed.

The high income group and middle income group housing scheme was also implemented.Invaluable costumes, traditional ornaments and make-up articles belonging to traditional dance and theatre forms like Koothu, Koodiyattam and Kathakali were lost to the floods.

Kochi: The Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit (SSUS), Kalady, is pinning its hopes on the aid from the World Bank to make good the loss incurred on the cultural and heritage front the floods.

The varsity authorities are struggling to identify ways to do this even if funding comes from the World Bank or any other agency.

Invaluable costumes, traditional ornaments and make-up articles belonging to traditional dance and theatre forms like Koothu, Koodiyattam and Kathakali were lost to the floods. Centuries old, it would be tough to recreate them.

World Bank disaster management specialist Piyush Sekharia and environmental specialist Deepa Balakrishnan accompanied by Ernakulam district administration officials had visited the varsity on September 15 to assess the overall losses.

The loss caused in the fine arts department is equally enormous," said registrar Dr T.P. Ravindran. "We had some rare collection of works by Namboothiri, Jayapala Panicker, Alphonso and C N Karunakaran produced at a camp conducted by the university years ago. All of them were lost in the floods. One Namboothiri painting would fetch anywhere around Rs 8-9 lakh. CN Karunakaran is no more, and it is impossible to recreate his lost work. Others we are exploring.Salem: In what perhaps was his harshest and singular attack on the DMK and on its president M K Stalin, Chief Minister, Edappadi K. Palaniswami on Tuesday lashed out at the opposition party, accusing it of collaborating with the Congress to help the Sri Lankan armed forces to decimate the Tamils in the island.

This was stated by the former Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakshe himself during his recent visit to New Delhi when he said that he would not have won the battle against the LTTE so easily, in the last phase of the civil war in 2009, but for India's help, Mr Palaniswami drove home to at an AIADMK party rally here.

It was a Congress-DMK coalition that was ruling at Delhi than and they betrayed the Tamil people, said Mr. Palaniswami, explaining the purpose of the AIADMK rally across Tamil Nadu to 'expose' the DMK and the Congress for their role in the Eelam tragedy and the massacre of the Island Tamils.

"MK Stalin and his cohorts who were also partly responsible for the tragedy that befell the Island-Tamils then should be brought to book and our party's protest rallies across the state is to draw the attention of the Central government and of the International community to these facts," Mr Palaniswami asserted.

In a ferociously attacking speech in the shrillest of tones and addressing the opposition party leader in the singular, the AIADMK leader said, ""The DMK is not at all a political party and it is functioning like a corporate company. They had created problems for former Chief Ministers MGR and Jayalalithaa in a bid to destroy the AIAMDK and the DMK is at it again in a bid to destroy us by creating problems."

Taking a dig at Mr. Stalin nursing ambitions of becoming the next Chief Minister after he took over as DMK president recently, Mr. Palaniswami said the former was only pursuing a mirage. "He (Stalin) can never become the Chief Minister; he became the party president so easily, but I have reached this level to occupy the Chief Minister's post through sheer dint of hard work, rising from the ranks from the lowest rungs of the party, union, district levels and then an MLA, a Minister and now Chief Minister." "Stalin also became MLA first in 1989, in the same year I was elected too, but he has now reached where he is through the backdoor," observed Mr. Palaniswami.

Charging the DMK with being a family-run party, Mr. Palaniswami refuted allegations of irregularity in his relatives company bagging tenders for development works. "You have now given a complaint against me as Chief Minister; anybody can give a complaint, but see what will happen and how it happens in ten days," Mr Palaniswami thundered, virtually throwing a challenge to M K Stalin. The Chief Minister also alluded to the charges against DMK in building the new secretariat complex in Chennai.Hyderabad: Presidents of the District Congress Committees in Telangana are in the race for tickets for the upcoming Assembly elections in the state.

Usually, the Congress party does not allow DCC presidents to contest Assembly elections because they have the responsibility of looking after the entire district and have to concentrate on party affairs in the entire district at the time of elections. This has been the practice for several years. A DCC president will only be allowed to contest if no strong candidate is available.

This has not deterred the majority of DCC presidents wanting to try their luck in the forthcoming Assembly elections, and they have submitted their applications to the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee for consideration.

Warangal DCC president N. Rajendar Reddy wants to contest the Warangal West Assembly seat, while Mahabubnagar DCC president Md Obedulla Kothwal wants to contest from Mahabubnagar Assembly constituency. Adilabad DCC president and former MLA Maheswar Reddy is eyeing the Nirmal Assembly constituency.

Rangareddy DCC president Kyama Mallesh is trying to contest from Ibrahimpatnam and Medak DCC president and former Minister Sunitha Laxma Reddy from Narsapur. Nizamabad DCC president Taher Bin Hamdan and Karimnagar DCC president and former MLA Katakam Mrutyunjayam are also keen to contest the Assembly elections. Ms Sunitha Laxma Reddy is likely to get the ticket.

The DCC presidents who want to contest are hoping that the party will consider their candidature, as it did in the Karnataka Assembly elections held earlier this year. Some of them are ready to give up their posts if the party gives them the chance to contest. Some are questioning why they cannot contest when the All India Congress Committee president and the TPCC president are contesting.

Warangal DCC president N. Rajender Reddy told this newspaper, For the past 20 years, I have been hearing that the DCC presidents should not contest the elections. The Congress party has given chances to many DCC presidents in Karnataka in the recent elections. I am now an aspirant for the fifth time and I am ready to sacrifice the DCC post if the party asks me to choose between the two.Hyderabad: The Disciplinary Action Committee of the Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee has kept aside the issue of Komatireddy Rajagopal Reddy.

The DAC met in Gandhi Bhavan on Wednesday as the 24-hour deadline given to Mr Reddy to respond to the show-cause notice, expired.

The committee received a message from Mr Reddys family members that he was not available due to the demise of a close relative. The committee has thus decided to give him another chance.

The committee said that no one should interfere in matters of the DAC. If there are any objections, anyone can directly meet the DAC and express their views, a committee member said.

Mr Komatireddy Reddy also spoke to media persons in Nalgonda district on Wednesday. He said that he would win the elections with a huge majority if the party provides him a ticket to contest from Munugode constituency.

I will have a huge win if I contest from Munugode. My followers and cadre are asking me to contest from this constituency. I have replied to the DAC earlier. My intention is not to target any person but to explain the feelings of the party workers. The party cadre felt that there is no recognition for hard workers in the party, he said.TechnipFMC, a global leader in subsea, onshore/offshore, and surface projects, has signed a strategic collaboration agreement with Equinor, a Norwegian multinational energy company.

The agreement states that the two parties will collaborate in continuous improvements to enable developing Equinors offshore projects globally, and covers the full scope of TechnipFMC products and services, from early phase, through project execution, including installation and subsea operations services.

It reflects the ambition of the parties to engage early through pre-FEED and Concept development in order to obtain sustainable cost reductions, said a statement.

This agreement builds on the long relationship between the two companies, including the recent successes of the companys iEPCITM (integrated EPCI) delivery on the Trestakk and Visund Nord projects to Equinor.

Doug Pferdehirt, CEO of TechnipFMC, commented: We are extremely honoured to extend our partnership with Equinor globally while enabling a new way of working together, from early engagement through integrated project execution  leveraging next-generation technology and digitalization. We firmly believe that success is achieved through collaboration and that this agreement will increase the competitiveness of both companies.

TechnipFMC is a global leader in subsea, onshore/offshore, and surface projects. With our proprietary technologies and production systems, integrated expertise, and comprehensive solutions, we are transforming our clients project economics. - TradeArabia News ServiceHyderabad: The Legislative Council session which will meet at 11 am on Thursday to fulfil constitutional obligations will confine itself to passing to condolence resolutions.

The Council will take up resolutions to condole the deaths of former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, former Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee, Tamil Nadu former chief minister M. Karunanidhi and noted Telangana mimicry artist Nerella Venumadhav. After passing the resolutions, the Gouse will be adjourned sine die.

According to the Constitution, the Assembly has to meet once in six months. The Councils need not meet in that timeframe. However Telangana state Legislative Council Chairman Swamy Goud decided to hold the session to respect the spirit of the Constitutional requirement.

It is not yet clear whether or not caretaker Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao will attend the session. Mr Rao met Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan on Wednesday at Raj Bhavan.Hyderabad: TRS cand caretaker CM K. Chandrasekhar Rao has directed all party candidates not to move out of their constituencies till the Assembly elections are over. In the wake of the proposed formation of a Grand Alliance led by Congress, the CM has made retaining power a prestige issue in the upcoming polls.

To give ample time to party candidates for election campaign, Mr Rao announced 105 candidates out of the total 119 immediately after the dissolution of the Assembly. He has directed all candidates to cover the entire constituency and meet each and every voter personally. He has been monitoring the campaign of party candidates in their respective constituencies. He is also getting feedback about the performance of candidates through his own sources.

According to sources, Mr Rao has directed some ministers also not to move from their own constituencies. Some ministers are touring in other constituencies and districts also. He feels this will create a problem in some constituencies and may lead to unnecessary controversies. Some ministers are trying to get a hold on the entire district.The post-Cold War era has seen increased identity-based hatred that has often erupted in mass murder. Much of this has targeted minorities in non-democratic or transition states emerging from autocracy, for example, Rohingyas, Bosnians, Yazidis and Tutsis.

The murderers have been official armies, militias and even common citizens, with at least one such event in every decade since the 1990s. Each time, powerful states have said never again but have watched apathetically the next time. Race, religious or ethnic tensions have been exploited by vested interests to demonise and generate hatred against a group by accusing it of being evil, illegal or harmful. This has helped rob victims of all rights in the eyes of the common people and made the committing of egregious crimes easier.

This trend is now spreading to even mature democracies via the rise of populist leaders. Populism earlier represented politics that mobilises common folk against elites via false narratives and simplistic solutions. Populism appears akin to democratic politics by pro-poor parties. But the difference lies in the use of misleading narratives rather than evidence and serious policy analysis. While promising to empower people while campaigning, populist leaders usually undermine democracy and rule autocratically.

Recent populism in mature democracies has also involved spreading hatred against minority groups and painting them as the cause of misery of the majority. Post-Soviet Western identity-based populism arose first in Europe, leaving America untouched for long. But it was there where the first bigoted populist leader gained power. Donald Trump mobilised large sections of the working white people against coloured immigrants via simplistic solutions. Later, far-right politicians also won in Europe. Narendra Modi and the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte are populist leaders from developing states. The main tools such populist leaders used have been hate, nativism, conspiracy theories and personal charisma.

While populism in mature democracies has not led to the mass murders seen in autocracies, it has produced sporadic violence and policies that harm minority groups. It has also harmed the quality of democratic debate as vacuous remedies have replaced serious policies. Given the spurious similarity between democracy and populism, and the rise of populism within democracy, the very notion of democracy is now being questioned. Some even think that populist autocracy will replace democracy. However, populisms superficial theory and ineffective practice may contain its spread. The quick failures of populist leaders is likely to soon tire people of them both in affected and other states susceptible to populist politics.

Pakistan has mostly seen traditional populism where politicians rail against non-identity-based elites. Bhutto was partly a populist, for he mixed serious socialist ideology with populist gimmicks. Benazir and Nawaz often used populist themes to fool the people. But Imran is Pakistans first purely populist leader. No leader since Bhutto has mobilised people as much against elites. Bhutto (and Nawaz) fooled the masses only. Imran has managed to fool even the educated middle class. Bhuttos politics was left wing while Imrans is right wing. Bhutto used both serious ideas and questionable narratives. In Imrans case, the tilt is towards the latter.

So austerity, dam donation appeals and recovering looted wealth have replaced serious ideas for increasing taxes, investment and saving. China and India have much bigger and richer expat groups, but have never considered building large dams via their donations. Yet, we aim to do so. If ever serious policy ideas come from this regime, they certainly wont come from Imran himself. Luckily, he is not a bigot like Modi and Trump who openly employ identity-based hatred.

Yet, identity-based hatred exists widely in Pakistani society. Also, populist bigots now attract many votes. Powerful non-elected state entities provide support to some such factions to undercut regular politicians. But the follies of corrupt, inept politicians will easily be dwarfed by those of bigoted populist ones. So, the worrying ingredients of a move towards identity-based and hate-inducing populism are present in Pakistan. Pakistan is now experiencing relative peace.

But there is no guarantee that this phase will last. Bigoted populist leaders often emerge suddenly to capture the imaginations of millions via crude messages. They convert latent anger and fear among people regarding their stagnant socioeconomic status into active hatred against specific groups based on existing prejudices against it. Anger and fear merely produce sporadic violence and policies that harm minority groups. Hate often becomes the basis for mass murders.

By arrangement with Dawn

H10The daring mid-ocean rescue of Indian naval commander Abhilash Tomy is a stirring tale of courage, adventure and international cooperation. It warms the cockles of the heart at a time when things are so contentious that international cooperation in a big rescue mission from stormy and choppy seas cant be taken for granted. The Golden Globe Race in basic utilitarian sailboats, as in the first race 50 years ago, is an audacious mission that only the most adventurous would undertake. Osiris, a French fishing vessel, got to the disabled sailor whose Thuriya was dismasted by a tropical storm 1,900 nautical miles from Perth, 5,049 km south of Cape Comorin, in a part of the Indian Ocean known for its fierce storms that could challenge the hardiest of vessels.

The help by France and Australia, besides the Indian Navy sending surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft hunting for a needle in a haystack, was noteworthy. How much the world is better for such togetherness is emphasised even as the mind boggles at the spirit of men ready to go around the world alone on a wide wide sea, as the poet said in the Rime of The Ancient Mariner. It was even more touching that Irish sailor Gregor McGuckin, similarly hit by the storm, made his way towards Tomy hoping to help, and both were rescued. The one thing that saved brave Tomy was the modern communication and navigation gear through which he could send an SOS, that could be precisely used to trace him as his sailboat bobbed in the stormy waters.

Drifting in mid-sea was no new experience for the intrepid sailor, who had circumnavigated the globe in INSV Mhadei in 2012. Being incapacitated for three days would, however, have tested the will to survive of even such a doughty man.

The lesson we draw from this adventure, where boats without modern frills race, is that GPS and communication gear are vital to seafaring. The lives of several million Indian fishermen could be more secure if we can provide them the comfort of GPS and radio or satellite phone communication. GPS would help them to not cross international maritime borders and get detained by Sri Lankan or Pakistani authorities, and better communications equipment would help them stay in touch with base even in an emergency. Much as an Indian ship could sail out soon after the tsunami and save hundreds of people, rescue missions become more pinpointed exercises if the location is known. There are huge costs involved in providing safety, but governments cant shy away from the high capital costs. While its also true that fishermen sometimes stray deliberately hoping for a better catch in foreign waters, its still the duty of governments to help our fisherfolk modernise.

H10While there are no definitive statistics on the number of Christian priests in India accused of sexual misconduct, and often even rape, the Church, whether it is the popular Roman Catholic or Malankara Syrian Orthodox (founded on the evangelical legacy of St. Thomas, who believers would like to think arrived in Kerala to spread the gospel in AD 52), has been inclined to leave the resolution of the matter, of the personal conduct of priests, generally to God. Men, in short. In shorts, too.

But not when it comes to rogue nuns. Sister Lucy Kalappura, who has been protesting in public against the inaction of the Church  in relation to Jalandhar Bishop Franco Mulakkals victimisation of a nun  had been asked to stop prayer activities in her parish in Vayanadu, northern Kerala. On Monday, her parishioners broke into the church office and forced the Mother Superior and the bishop of the diocese to retract the oral orders prohibiting Sister Lucy from catechism and other activities.

Kerala owes a lot to Christian missionaries who came in numbers since the fourth century AD. They set up schools, took pains to learn the local dialects, and through catechism classes contributed to the culture and sustenance of the natives. The collateral damage was conversion. Though many considered this an incursion, there was no religious persecution on that count.

One of the more popular churches, then as now, is the Roman Catholic Church, to which Father Mulakkal belongs. By the 17th century it had become a well-run institution. It would not be entirely off the mark to see the Roman Catholic Church as the first multinational corporation that Kerala, and perhaps India, has seen. Portuguese, Italian and Irish Jesuits preached the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Keralas progressive life indices, like literacy and health, trace their provenance and tradition to a foreign god and capital. Evangelical Protestantism was later spread to India by the efforts of British, American, German and Scottish missionaries. The Protestant missions were also responsible for introducing English education in India in an organised manner. The very many translated versions of the Bible meant Jesus could speak in Malayalam; the accessibility of God in the local language meant intimacy with the Church and the cross. Heaven and hell suddenly had Malayalam signposts. The Church grew. That growth and its influence in public and private lives are in question now, specifically with the emergence of three disturbing cases of sexual assault charges against Christian priests.

A married woman and the mother of two children had filed a complaint with the police in Kayamkulam, in central Kerala, alleging that a priest belonging to the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church had raped her in the church office after calling her to discuss a family dispute. Second, a married schoolteacher had accused four priests belonging to different dioceses of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church of blackmailing her over a confession she had made in church a decade ago and sexually assaulting her over the years on the basis of that confession, which in any Christian school of divinity is sacrosanct.

And, only weeks ago, a nun belonging to the Catholic congregation of Missionaries of Jesus in Jalandhar had filed a police complaint against Jalandhar Bishop Franco Mulakkal alleging he raped her and subjected her to perform the sexual act 13 times since 2014 at a convent in Kerala.

The last had especially caught the imagination of the public, because it focused on the precise repeatability of the incident which lent muscle to the sexist position that if the act was repeated, say 12, times over a period of years, how could it be termed as forced the 13th time? In fact, at least one prominent politician scoffed at the Mulakkal episode, saying the nun in question was making a big thing of the 13th act of rape as a reaction to her not being a promotion after the 12 incidents. Perhaps there is an element of truth in what he said. But what he failed to note was that the woman in question had every right to say no to Mulakkal at any time, and that 12 times do not justify the 13th. The prolonged nature of the duress and the establishments lack of rigour in pursuing the case also enraged the public.

To this writer, its not the sexual misconduct of Christian priests and the disrepute that brings to their institution that is so interesting as the fact that nuns are coming out of their convents and taking to the streets in solidarity with the victim. Among the supporters of the Mulakkal victim was Sister Lucy, who is by all accounts extremely popular in her parish of some 400 people.

She had emphatically supported the five nuns who had been for a while fasting in protest outside the Kerala high court in Kochi. That action had eventually led to the arrest of Father Mulakkal late last week. The nuns assertion of their rights is clearly a threat against the male bastions of Christianity. The Pope, after all, is a male, and so is Jesus. Both of course are set to change gender in the not too far future.

When Sister Lucy of St. Marys Church was issued strictures, the eruption came not from her, but from her parishioners. On Monday, they broke into the church office and questioned the functionaries of the godly wisdom of their actions. The interrogation procedures were not subtle. The results were gratifying and immediate: Sister Lucys right to spread the good word was restored.

For her part, the good sister, without batting an eyelid, said to TV cameras recording the proceedings that this was a God-sent opportunity to hold fast to the truth, and that her Mother Superior, who orally issued the strictures, and others higher up should not for a moment look back on any of the activities on the ground as a source of offence.

In short, Sister Lucy had scored a goal. Bishop Mulakkal had lost. But the match is no longer religious. It is secular. Women 1, Men 0.

H11When you hear the sound of hooves, you normally think of horses, not zebras. The architecture of the Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd (IL&FS) Group is very much like a zebra, part of the African equids or horse family, but each distinctive with their black and white striped coats. Over its 30-odd-year history, ruled by a closed user group of individuals IL&FS, which is the holding company, has created a maze of companies and while all are mentioned in the annual report, the construct is like a secret society  over a dozen companies, 23 direct subsidiaries, 141 indirect subsidiaries, six joint ventures and four associate companies. On a consolidated basis, the company closed the financial year 2017-18 with a revenue of Rs 18,798.78 crores and a loss of Rs 1,886.85 crores. The groups consolidated debt increased by Rs 11,211 crores in financial year 2017-18 to Rs 91,091.30 crores as of March 2018, according to its filings with the Registrar of Companies. Nearly 82 per cent, or Rs 74,591 crores of it, is contributed by its subsidiaries.

IL&FS downgrade to junk has put Rs 10,000 crores worth of investments by insurers and pension funds at risk, shaking the foundations of Indias financial sector. Of the companys standalone outstanding borrowing of more than Rs 16,500 crores as of May 2018, about 60 per cent is through non-convertible debentures, according to filings with the Registrar of Companies. Nearly all these instruments, documents show, are subscribed by insurance companies, and provident and pension funds, including Life Insurance Corporation of India, General Insurance Corporation Ltd and the National Pension System Trust. Practically, every corner of Indias financial spectrum is touched by this malfeasance. Three of the principal shareholders  LIC 25.34 per cent, Central Bank of India 7.67 per cent and State Bank of India 6.42 per cent  are government-owned institutions, totalling almost 40 per cent of the companys shareholding, and still the government and its regulating agencies did not see how deep the rot had set in due to continuing financial jugglery.

Of the 141 indirect subsidiaries, there are as many as 50 which are designated foreign companies  from Spain (11) to Singapore (11) to the UAE (6) to Mexico (3) to Brazil (2) to Colombia (2) to Albania (1) to Portugal (2) to Mauritius (3) to the United States (1) to Hong Kong, Indonesia (2), the UK, the Philippines (2), Nigeria, and even Seychelles, subsidiaries sprouted up all over the world, making it a true blue transnational company. The trail that starts from Marina Bay Financial Centre and leads to San Pablo, Mexico, and leads all the way to Cyber City, Mauritius, and winds its way to San Severo Madrid, criss-crosses the globe but is nothing but a labyrinth of losses.

From highways to clean energy, from maritime complexes to heritage restoration, the IL&FS Groups infrastructure verticals implemented a wide range of projects through public-private partnerships. It had a finger in every pie, it was said with losses to commensurate its diversified approach. IL&FS Transportation Networks Ltd (ITNL), IL&FS Energy Development Company Ltd (IEDCL), IL&FS Townships & Urban Assets Ltd (ITUAL), IL&FS Maritime Infrastructure Company Ltd (IMICL), Tamil Nadu Water Investment Company (TWIC) and then the financial services arms which convolute the entire spectrum of activities  allegedly complementing the groups infrastructure initiatives by offering investment banking, private equity and capital market services through subsidiaries which include IL&FS Financial Services Ltd (IFIN), which offers investment banking services and specialises in infrastructure financing transactions. It has an international presence in Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai and London  IL&FS Investment Managers Ltd (IIML): Its expertise covered the entire private equity life cycle, right from raising funds, making and planning investments, to restructuring and exit IL&FS Capital Advisers Ltd: It offers a comprehensive suite of capital advisery services customised to assist clients succeed in ever-changing financing environments. IL&FS Securities Services Ltd (ISSL): It holds leadership positions in F&O Clearing and new products such as broking back office, brokers broker and ESOP funding. It is these foreign subsidiaries, which for most part operated as a brotherhood, which brought despair and financial ruin to the group.

Global credit rating agency Moodys has pointed out that the troubles faced by the IL&FS Group would also impact banks. Banks exposure to IL&FS weak road projects may not have been recognised as non-performing loans so far on account of an expectation of parental support, the rating agency said. It added that the groups complex corporate structure could result in a high variation of ultimate losses across banks depending on where the banks specific exposures lie. IL&FS has a complicated structure, with the holding company at the top owning stakes in its financial services arm as well as in multiple subsidiary companies that operate its infrastructure assets. Concerned, the RBI has also started a special audit on the infrastructure financer after it defaulted on about Rs 250 crores worth of inter-corporate deposits to Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI). The company further defaulted on inter-corporate deposits worth Rs 150 crores to SIDBI, therefore taking its total default on inter-corporate deposits stands at Rs 450 crores, setting off reverberations across financial markets. HDFC, which has a 9.02 per cent stake in the drowning entity, tanked on Monday, down Rs 120 to close at Rs 1,718.

Ravi Parthasarathy, an alumnus of IIM Ahmedabad and co-founder of finance firm 20th Century Finance, joined IL&FS in 1987 as president and chief executive officer and was appointed as managing director in 1989. For 30 years, he operated as the uncrowned king of this corporate, the design of which is an enigma. Known in the corporate world for his deal-making skills, he was later designated executive chairman of the company. The dominoes started falling when the 66-year-old credited for having built the group resigned as its chairman after spending nearly half of his life with IL&FS. While health issues reportedly made him hang up his boots, a professional in infrastructure financing said it was too long and too opaque a tenure. Opacity became the norm at this monolith.

Remarkably, how Indian regulators failed to change the well-entrenched incumbent management at IL&FS for years remains a modern conundrum.

Finally, once talk of LIC trying to bail out the embattled IL&FS emerged in the media, action has been taken and people have been removed, not just at Yes Bank, Axis Bank and ICICI, but the IL&FS groupies were finally sent packing. Sebi too kept its eyes shut all these years despite losses mounting alarmingly. More importantly, the same management for years managed to blindside the regulators who in any case were deep in the arms of Morpheus.

H11Govt seeking shelter behind bogey of Pakistan: Ashish Dua

Obfuscation, ridicule, diversion and digression have become the trademark of replies coming from the government over the Rafale deal. The fact is that the off-the-shelf purchase of 36 Rafale aircraft was an arbitrary decision of the Prime Minister, who without any mandate from the Cabinet Committee on Security decided to do away with the three important things of the original tender for the purchase of 126 planes transfer of technology, Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) as a partner of Dassault to manufacture 108 planes, and more importantly, the approved price of Rs 526 crores that went up.

Then French President Francois Hollande has clearly claimed in an interview that in the new deal to purchase 36 aircraft, the Indian government proposed Anil Ambanis Reliance Defence for the offset contract and the French government didnt have a choice but to accept it. Admittedly, this 36-aircraft deal was negotiated between Mr Hollande and PM Narendra Modi. Neither Mr Modi nor the French government have stated that Mr Hollande is not right. So the fact remains that the interest of HAL was compromised by this government. Every other day we see new revelations in this deal. The nation is shocked at the quagmire in which the government finds itself in. Hence, to clear the air, the best course of action would be to go for a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) probe.

In the JPC, the government has got a majority so why are they afraid? I agree with the minister that she cannot reveal all the files immediately, but the JPC, consisting of a majority of the present government, can call all the files from both the proposals of the UPA and this government. Not agreeing to a JPC probe means the government is hiding something.

Instead of responding to our charges, the government is coming up with outlandish statements. The government says the Congress is in possible collusion with Mr Hollande. Now that the Rafale scam has exposed rampant corruption, the Narendra Modi government is seeking shelter behind the bogey of Pakistan. The PM is accountable to the nation and must answer them.

A delegation of the Congress already met the Comptroller and Auditor-General (CAG) pointing out gross discrepancies in the purchase of 36 Rafale aircraft. We pointed out how the exchequer lost Rs 41,000 crores by the purchase of an aircraft, which the UPA was buying for Rs 526 crores at the rate of Rs 1,670 crores by the Modi government. We pointed out how the government and Mr Modi are personally responsible for violating the Defence Procurement Procedure.

After that, our party delegation has also met the Central Vigilance Commissioner. It is for the CVC to determine who has violated (laid down procedures); and naturally we do expect that they have taken cognisance when we handed over the memorandum.

We have approached all constitutional bodies, have gone to the people and explained to them in detail the contours of this scam. Now the government should not run away instead agree to our demand and immediately constitute a JPC to ensure that all the facts come out and the guilty are brought to book.

The writer is a secretary of the AICC

Congress shifting focus from Agusta scam: Devang Dave

Much has already been discussed and debated about the Rafale deal. It is today the Congress favourite word after Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Sonia Gandhi. The twin-engine Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA), manufactured by Dassault Aviation, a French firm, is an omnirole aircraft that is capable of performing a wide range of combat roles while ensuring in-depth strike and anti-ship attack. Sadly, the aircraft that was supposed to help the Indian Air Force soar high has been reduced to a matter of pure media-fodder.

Rafale was not Indias sole choice, as six renowned aircraft manufacturers competed to bag the contract upon knowing the Indian governments mammoth plan to transform its Indian Air Force fleet. Hence, the question of favouring Reliance never occurred in the first place.

A lesser-known fact: the procurement process began way back in 2001 when there was a requirement by the Indian Air Force for fighter jets.

The then defence minister, A.K. Antony, gave a green light to the project to buy 126 aircraft in August 2007. This initiated the bidding process over a decade ago.

This deal was initially estimated to be worth Rs 54,000 crores. The plan included acquiring 126 aircraft, 18 of them imported and the rest to be manufactured by India at the Hindustan Aeronautics facility.

However, innumerable reasons, mainly due to political causes, led to the indefinite delay in signing on the dotted line.

According to sources, the price of an aircraft was about Rs 740 crores and India wanted less than 20 per cent, lesser cost. Though the initial plan was to buy all 126 aircraft, India brought it down to only 36, that too in ready-to-fly-condition.

PM Narendra Modi, after coming to power in 2014, scrapped the deal as it was going nowhere, only to gain re-momentum after Mr Modis visit to France in 2015.

The renegotiated deal, thanks to the sustained negotiations, led by the Narendra Modi government led to a further savings of Rs 12,600 crores.

The Congress resorted to cheap tricks as always. The Government of India clearly stated that the NDA was now getting 18 fighter jets for around $90 million each, against the $100 million of the Congress.

The present agreement was signed only between the two governments involving no middlemen, like the much-publicised Bofors deal under the UPA government.

Most importantly, it is to be understood that the procurement process does not involve any Indian private party or individuals, as was the case in the previous UPA government.

It is quite evident that the Rafale deal was signed after meticulous procedure and compliance.

The Congress is trying to direct attention from the infamous AgustaWestland scam. Its tried and tested formula of indulging in blame game politics is affecting an important deal involving national security.

The underlying fact is the Congress is unable to digest that the NDA government, under the able leadership of PM Modi, managed to secure a deal that was lying in the files for ages, for a considerably lower sum.

In my opinion, a joint parliamentary committee probe seems meaningless, considering the numerous facts already presented by the Modi government.

The writer is national convenor, BJYM, IT and social media committeeThe supply ship is a 9-meter- (30-foot-) long cylinder that will be retrieved by the space stations robotic arm. (Photo: 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 spacewalks to install the six lithium-ion batteries until new crew members arrive next month. They will replace ageing nickel-hydrogen batteries for the stations electric power, enabling an extension of its operations.

The supply ship is a 9-meter- (30-foot-) long cylinder that will be retrieved by the space stations robotic arm. It is named Kounotori, which means white stork.

The 5,500 kilograms (12,000 pounds) of cargo includes racks and equipment for experiments and an experimental re-entry capsule to try to demonstrate a novel technology to bring back samples from the space station.

Once it is unloaded, the supply craft will be filled with trash and sent Earth-ward. It will be destroyed when it re-enters the atmosphere.

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Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter.Alphabets Google said it would allow certain regulated cryptocurrency exchanges to advertise in the United States and Japan, easing an earlier ban on all cryptocurrency ads.

The changes will take place in October and advertisers will need to be certified with Google for the country where the ads will appear, the search engine giant said in a blog here post. The company said in March it would ban advertisements for cryptocurrencies and initial coin offerings, starting June.

Googles action follows a similar move by Facebook. The social media giant has allowed certain ads promoting cryptocurrency and related content from pre-approved advertisers while banning those tied to binary options and initial coin offerings.

Google's move to ban such ads in March had sent the price of the best-known cryptocurrency, bitcoin BTC=BTSP, down more than 10 per cent.

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Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter.Instagram has been on a roll. In June, Systrom travelled to New York to mark the opening of its new office there, complete. (Photo: AP)

When Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger sold Instagram to Facebook in 2012, the photo-sharing startups fiercely loyal fans worried about what would happen to their beloved app under the social media giants wings.

None of their worst fears materialized. But now that its founders have announced they are leaving in a swirl of well wishes and vague explanations, some of the same worries are bubbling up again  and then some. Will Instagram disappear? Get cluttered with ads and status updates? Suck up personal data for advertising the way its parent does? Lose its cool?

Worst of all: Will it just become another Facebook?

Its probably a bigger challenge (for Facebook) than most people realise, said Omar Akhtar, an analyst at the technology research firm Altimeter. Instagram is the only platform that is growing. And a lot of people didnt necessarily make the connection between Instagram and Facebook.

Instagram had just 31 million users when Facebook snapped it up for $1 billion; now it has a billion. It had no ads back then; it now features both display and video ads, although theyre still restrained compared to Facebook. But that could quickly change. Facebooks growth has started to slow, and Wall Street has been pushing the company to find new ways to increase revenue.

Instagram has been a primary focus of those efforts.

Facebook has been elevating Instagrams profile in its financial discussions. In July, it unveiled a new metric for analysts, touting that 2.5 billion people use at least one of its apps  Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp or Messenger  each month. While not particularly revealing, the measurement underscores the growing importance of Facebook places on those secondary apps.

Facebook doesnt disclose how much money Instagram pulls in, though Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter estimates itll be around $6 billion this year, or just over 10 per cent of Facebooks expected overall revenue of about $55.7 billion.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has long seen Instagrams promise. At the time, it was by far Facebooks largest acquisition (although it was dwarfed by the $19 billion Zuckerberg paid for WhatsApp two years later). And it was the first startup allowed to operate mostly independently.

That has paid off big time. Not only did Instagram reach 1 billion users faster than its parent company, but it also succeeded in cloning Snapchats popular Stories feature, dealing a serious blow to that social network upstart and succeeding where Facebooks own attempts had repeatedly failed. Instagram also pioneered a long-form video feature to challenge YouTube, another big Facebook rival.

Recently, Instagram has been on a roll. In June, Systrom travelled to New York to mark the opening of its new office there, complete with a gelato bar and plans to hire hundreds of engineers. Only a month earlier, Instagram had moved into sparkly new offices in San Francisco. In a July earnings call, Zuckerberg touted Instagrams success as a function of its integration with Facebook, claiming that it used parent-company infrastructure to grow more than twice as quickly as it would have on its own.

But Instagram has also been a case study in how to run a subsidiary independently  especially when its parent is mired in user-privacy problems and concerns about election interference, fake news and misinformation. And especially when its parent has long stopped being cool, what with everyone and their grandma now on it.

Instagrams simple design  just a collection of photos and videos of sunsets, faraway vacations, intimate breakfasts and baby close-ups  has allowed it to remain a favourite long after it became part of Facebook. If people go to Twitter to bicker over current events and to Facebook to see what old classmates are up to, Instagram is where they go to relax, scroll and feast their eyes.

So, will that change?

I dont think Zuckerberg is dumb, Akhtar said. He knows that a large part of Instagrams popularity is that its separate from Facebook.

As such, he thinks Facebook would be wise to reassure users that what they love about Instagram isnt going to change  that they are not going to be forced to integrate with Facebook. Thatll go a long way, he said.

Internally, the challenge is a bit more complicated. While Systrom and Krieger didnt say why theyre leaving, their decision echoes the recent departure of WhatsApps co-founder and CEO Jan Koum, who resigned in April. Koum had signalled years earlier that he would take a stand if Facebooks push to increase profits risked compromising core elements of the WhatsApp messaging service, such as its dedication to user privacy. When Facebook started pushing harder for more revenue and more integration with WhatsApp, Koum pulled the ripcord.

One sign that additional integration may be in Instagrams future: Zuckerberg in May sent longtime Facebook executive Adam Mosseri to run Instagrams product operation. Mosseri replaced longtime Instagrammer Kevin Weil, who was shuffled back to the Facebook mothership.

That likely didnt sit well with Instagrams founders, Akhtar and other analysts said. Now that theyre gone as well, Mosseri is the most obvious candidate to head Instagram.

Kevin Systrom loyalists are probably going to leave, Akhtar said.

Which means Facebook may soon have a new challenge on its hands: Figuring out how to keep Instagram growing if it loses the coolness factor that has bolstered it for so long.

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Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter.Big Data is high on the global agenda as a top technological disruption to organisations, according to new global research taking the pulse of board directors around the world.



The findings from the inaugural Global Director Survey 2018 by the Global Network of Directors (GNDI) representing 130,000 directors were released today (September 26).



This international survey is significant, and the first time the Global Network of Directors has taken the pulse of directors worldwide in this type of survey, said Jane Valls, executive director, GCC Board Directors Institute (GCC BDI).



We had a massive response to the survey  2,159 directors from 17 countries participated. More than half (53 per cent) sat on three to four boards which means they have a wide experience and broad insights. Of directors who responded, 36 per cent were on boards of private companies, 23 per cent were on boards of listed companies, and 22 per cent were directors of not-for-profit organisations.



This first Global Director Survey ranked Big Data high on the global agenda as a potential disruptor  63 per cent of directors from around the world regarded Big Data as the top technological disruption to their organisations, Valls added.



The challenges presented by the complexity, volume and variety of Big Data, also present opportunities for more effective use of Big Data to boost performance and mitigate risks. While it is on their radar, many boards are not taking advantage of Big Data to improve organisational effectiveness, create value, and make better decisions.



Only 28 per cent agreed that they used Big Data for decision-making. Big Data is an evolving term that describes any voluminous amount of data that has the potential to be mined for information, including structured data, such as spreadsheets and databases, and unstructured data, such as social media posts, audio, video, emails, PDFs, digital images, and GPS data. There is an opportunity for boards who are not already doing so to evaluate their data governance processes, and identify usable business insights, trends, and correlations, leveraging Big Data for better decisions and strategic objectives. Innovative tools with the ability to process and analyse Big Data are now more readily available.



Boards have a key leadership and oversight role in data governance. For a board to ask management the right questions and hold management to account, they need to understand and address data privacy and cybersecurity issues as they arise, said Valls.



The Global Director Survey found that though 61 per cent of directors had good or excellent understanding of their organisations data privacy practices, 37 per cent felt they had limited or no understanding.



Just over half (53 per cent)of directors surveyed believed their boards understood cybersecurity and cyber-risks to their organisations.



Directors are also concerned about the poverty and income inequality facing their countries.



The survey highlights that directors around the world share similar concerns and challenges as they look to the future for the organisations they govern. Social and economic concerns of poverty and inequality were important for 45 per cent of directors in the survey.



Taxation, government spending, and cost of health care are also weighing on the minds of directors worldwide as the most pressing social and economic issues for their countries, said GNDI chair Angela Cherrington, who is also chief executive of the Institute of Directors in Southern Africa (IoDSA).



Within the global picture, regional findings showed poverty and inequality were most concerning for governance communities in Africa-Middle East and Asia-Pacific. Taxation was the biggest concern for directors in the Americas. Directors in Europe were most concerned about the cost of healthcare.



Business Confidence



Directors largely feel confident about business The Global Director Survey 2018 took a snapshot of directors business confidence. The survey found 45 per cent of directors were mostly or very confident about prospects for growth over the coming year. Another 36 per cent were moderately confident Private and listed companies were more confident than not-for-profit and government organisations.



Ethnical behaviour, health and safety and employee engagement were of particular relevance to directors.



Environmental issues rated lower in the survey, however, Jane Valls, GCC BDI Executive Director expects that over time environmental issues will be more on the board radar.



Wider environmental concerns can impact the sustainability of organisations long-term. The environment, climate change, carbon-related issues and resource management will become more important and part of the conversation for more countries as the Paris Accord and United Nations Sustainable Development Goals get more attention.



The Global Director Survey was carried out by the Institute of Directors of New Zealand, on behalf of the Global Network of Directors Institutes (GNDI).



GNDI is an international collaboration that shares expertise in directorship and corporate governance. GNDI collectively represents more than 130,000 individual directors and governance professionals. It aims to develop and promote leading practices and programmes that enhance the capability of directors to drive sustainable performance for the benefit of shareholders, the economy and society.



GCC Board Directors Institute is the only Directors Institute in the region to be admitted as a member of the Global network of Director Institute.  TradeArabia News ServiceFacebooks WhatsApp is working closely with Reliance Jio to spread awareness of false messages, weeks after the Indian telecoms operator opened up the messaging service to tens of millions of customers using its cheap internet-enabled phone.

Jio this month gave its more than 25 million JioPhone customers, many of them first-time internet users, access to WhatsApp at a time when the messaging service is battling false and incendiary texts and videos circulating on its platform. Reliance Chairman Mukesh Ambani, Indias richest man, launched the JioPhone last year at a refundable deposit of 1,500 rupees ($20.60). The device is internet enabled but didnt initially allow the use of WhatsApp or have several popular smartphone features.

All new users of the JioPhone get educational material that tells them about spotting a forwarded WhatsApp message and encourages them to share messages thoughtfully, WhatsApp spokesman Carl Woog told Reuters.

We are working closely with Jio to continue our education campaign for WhatsApp users, Woog said.

In Indias smaller towns and villages, deep-seated prejudices, often based on caste and religion, and cut-price mobile data can aggravate the so-called fake news problem. Such regions are a key market for cheap devices such as the JioPhone. More than 30 people have died this year in mob violence triggered by vitriolic messages on social media and WhatsApp, according to unofficial estimates, and police have previously told Reuters that minorities have been targeted in some remote and rural regions. That has prompted New Delhi to call on WhatsApp to take immediate action to "end this menace."

WhatsApp has already taken some steps to quell the rise of fake news. It has launched print and radio ad campaigns to educate users and introduced new features on the app including limiting message forwards as well as the labelling of forwarded messages. It has also partnered with Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF), a New Delhi-based non-profit organisation, to spread digital literacy in Indias towns and cities.

DEF will host a workshop in the eastern Indian city of Ranchi this week, WhatsApps Woog said. WhatsApp also plans to expand its outreach program to existing JioPhone users. Reliance Jio did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

With more than 200 million users, India is a key market for WhatsApp but one where it has had to delay the official launch of its payments services due to the countrys push on data localisation. WhatsApp is currently looking for an India chief and a policy head for the country.

It last month appointed a grievance officer for Indian users at its Menlo Park, California headquarters, like other global tech firms whose grievance officers sit outside of India. India has, however, said it will toughen up its laws including pushing US tech giants to have their grievance officers in India.

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Click on Deccan Chronicle Technology and Science for the latest news and reviews. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter.Rouhani, in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly, said the United States had waged 'economic war' against Iran by reimposing unilateral sanctions, which were lifted under the country's 2015 multinational nuclear deal in return for Tehran curbing its nuclear programme. (Photo: File)

United Nations: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Tuesday criticized Washington for its hostile policy toward his country and said the US approach was doomed to failure.

Rouhani, in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly, said the United States had waged "economic war" against Iran by reimposing unilateral sanctions, which were lifted under the country's 2015 multinational nuclear deal in return for Tehran curbing its nuclear programme.

"The United States policy vis-a-vis the Islamic Republic of Iran has been wrong from the beginning, and its approach of resisting the wishes of the Iranian people as manifested in numerous elections is doomed to failure," Rouhani said.

President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the pact in May, and his administration reimposed sanctions on Iran in August. Harsher sanctions on Iran's oil and banking sector are expected in November.

"The economic war that the United States has initiated under the rubric of new sanctions not only targets the Iranian people but also entails harmful repercussions for the people of other countries, and that war has caused a disruption in the state of global trade," Rouhani said.

"What Iran says is clear: no war, no sanctions, no threats, no bullying; just acting according to the law and the fulfilment of obligations."

Mounting pressure from the Trump administration combined with discontent among many Iranians at the state of the economy are rattling the Islamic Republic, with little sign that its leaders have the answers, officials and analysts say.

The rial has lost 40 per cent of its value against the US dollar <IRR=> since April. Iran has blamed US sanctions for the currency's fall, saying the measures amount to a "political, psychological and economic" war on Tehran.

"Threat for threat"

To pile on the pain, Washington says all countries must end crude imports from Iran by Nov. 4, hitting the oil sales that generate 60 per cent of the country's income. Iran says this level of cuts will never happen.

Tehran has suggested it could take military action in the Gulf to block other countries' oil exports in retaliation for US sanctions intended to halt its sales of crude. Washington maintains a fleet in the Gulf that protects oil shipping routes.

"The security of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz has always been important for us ... we will confront any and all disruptive efforts in this critical waterway in the future," said Rouhani.

The Strait of Hormuz is a strategic artery linking Middle East crude producers to key markets in the Asia-Pacific, Europe, North America and beyond. A third of the world's seaborne oil passes through the strait in southern Iran.

Trump, in his annual UN speech, said he would keep up economic pressure on Tehran to try to force a change in its behaviour. But Rouhani said Iran had no intention of succumbing to the US pressure.

"The United States' understanding of international relations is authoritarian. ... Its understanding of power, not of legal and legitimate authority, is reflected in bullying and imposition," Rouhani said.

"No state and nation can be brought to the negotiating table by force," said the pragmatist president, adding that Iran did not want any war.

"Our proposal is clear: commitment for commitment; violation for violation; threat for threat; and step for step, instead of talk for talk," he said.

Rouhani expressed Iran's willingness to improve ties with the regional countries. Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia has been at loggerheads with Shi'ite Iran for decades, fighting a long-running proxy war in the Middle East and beyond that has influenced conflicts in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen.

Riyadh and its Gulf allies have hailed Trump's decision to exit the nuclear deal and to reimpose sanctions on Tehran, reflecting their concern about Iran's influence in the region.

"We believe in the formation of a collective mechanism for the Persian Gulf region with the presence and participation of all regional countries," Rouhani said.Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said that it takes very little to worsen a situation and he was a promoter of peace. (Photo: AFP)

New York: In the wake of the collapsed talks between External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, the latter on Tuesday said that it takes very little to worsen a situation and that he was a promoter of peace.

Speaking to the press at the 73rd United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) here, Qureshi said, "I have a lot to say, but I don't want to make the situation worse. We are promoters of peace and want to make things better. You need two words to worsen a situation, we don't want that."

The meeting between the two Foreign Ministers was scheduled to be held on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York after Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan made a proposal for the same in a letter addressed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

However, recurrent incidents of increased violence in Jammu and Kashmir and the killings of security personnel led to India cancelling the meet, with the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) saying that behind Pakistan's proposal for talks to make a fresh beginning, its evil agenda stands exposed and the true face of the new Pakistan Prime Minister has been revealed.

"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. 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," MEA spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said.

The abduction and killing of two SPOs and a constable by terrorists in South Kashmir's Shopian district, along with the "recent release of a series of 20 postage stamps by Pakistan glorifying (Burhan Wani) a terrorist and terrorism," were cited by India as the primary cause for cancelling the proposed meet.Trump, who addressed the UN General-Assembly's General Debate Tuesday, met Guterres on the sidelines of the high-level 73rd session of the UN General Assembly. (Photo: File)

United Nations: US President Donald Trump and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres discussed their "common interest" in resolving pressing global challenges, including terrorism, proliferation and other threats to international peace and security.

Trump has been very critical of the UN and has on various occasions complained about the huge economic burden the US has to carry in helping fund the 193-nation body. He has called the UN "a club for people to get together, talk and have a good time" and has also slammed the "utter weakness and incompetence of the United Nations".

Trump, who addressed the UN General-Assembly's General Debate Tuesday, met Guterres on the sidelines of the high-level 73rd session of the UN General Assembly.

According to a readout of the meeting provided by the White House, the two leaders discussed their "common interest in resolving some of the world's most pressing challenges, including those related to proliferation, terrorism and other threats to international peace and security".

Both leaders also pledged to remain in close contact over the coming months. The UN chief's office said that Guterres welcomed the US' efforts to bring peace and denuclearization in the Korean peninsula, as well as its support to humanitarian operations around the world.

Guterres and Trump also discussed the contributions of the UN in various peace initiatives and the US' support to these efforts. The Trump administration has pulled out of key UN bodies like the UN Human Rights Council and UNESCO besides exiting landmark UN decisions such as the Paris Climate Agreement.Since Trump came to power, promising that the world's most powerful country would follow an 'America First' foreign policy, there have been growing fears about the US commitment to multilateral institutions such as the United Nations. (Photo: AFP)

United Nations: President Donald Trump on Tuesday called for Iran's isolation while welcoming another former adversary, North Korea, in from the cold in an unabashedly boastful speech to the United Nations General Assembly which provoked laughter from fellow leaders.

Hours before Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was due to speak from the same rostrum, Trump denounced the clerical regime in Tehran for sowing "chaos, death and destruction" as he defended his decision to ditch an internationally brokered nuclear deal four months ago.

But after stunning the global body with his bellicose language on North Korea a year ago, including a threat to "totally destroy" Kim Jong Un's state, Trump instead praised his one-time arch enemy for his "courage" as he hailed progress in fragile peace efforts with Pyongyang.

Since Trump came to power, promising that the world's most powerful country would follow an "America First" foreign policy, there have been growing fears about the US commitment to multilateral institutions such as the United Nations.

In his speech at the opening of the assembly, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said trust in the rules-based global order and among states was "at a breaking point" and international cooperation becoming more difficult, without specifically mentioning Trump.

"Today, world order is increasingly chaotic. Power relations are less clear," Guterres told the 193-nation assembly.

"Universal values are being eroded. Democratic principles are under siege," he added just minutes before Trump was to take the podium.

Trump denounces 'globalist' view

Trump however robustly attacked the "globalist" view of the world and vowed that "America will never apologize for protecting its citizens."

He said that the UN-backed International Criminal Court has "no jurisdiction, no legitimacy and no authority" and said that his administration -- which has recently choked off aid to the Palestinians -- would only support "our friends" in the future.

Boasting that his team "has achieved more than any administration in the history of our country," Trump was met with laughter, highly unusual in the solemn General Assembly.

"I didn't expect that reaction, but that's okay," Trump responded.

But the most closely watched passage of his speech came when he turned to Iran.

"We cannot allow the world's leading sponsor of terrorism to possess the planet's most dangerous weapons," Trump said, in an allusion to Tehran's support for Islamic militant movements such as Hamas and Hezbollah.

"We cannot allow a regime that chants 'Death to America' and that threatens Israel with annihilation, to possess the means to deliver a nuclear warhead to any city on Earth," he said.

"We ask all nations to isolate Iran's regime as long as its aggression continues."

Adversaries such as Rouhani will get their chance to respond later in the week-long meeting while traditional allies may also voice concerns.

EU rejects sanctions

In a sign of how some allies are unwilling to automatically follow Trump's lead, the five remaining parties to the Iran nuclear agreement -- Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia -- announced Monday plans to keep business ties alive with Iran, staring down Washington's move to impose sanctions.

And French President Emmanuel Macron used his speech at the assembly to urge "dialogue and multilateralism" on dealing with Iran, crediting the 2015 accord with curbing Tehran's nuclear program.

Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal in May, to the dismay of the other parties which had invested years in negotiations to achieve a milestone agreement on keeping Iran's nuclear ambitions in check.

In his address, the Iranian president is expected to stress that Tehran continues to stick to the deal and portray the United States as a pariah for breaking its international commitments.

Even though they will be speaking from the same stage, both Trump and Rouhani have ruled out a meeting on the sidelines of the assembly.

In a tweet on Tuesday morning, Trump said he had no plans to meet Rouhani "despite requests" to do so.

"Maybe someday in the future. I am sure he is an absolutely lovely man!" he said.

Rouhani has said he does not want to meet Trump. He told NBC News that the US leader must first repair the damage done by exiting the nuclear deal. "That bridge must be rebuilt," he said.

On Wednesday, Trump will for the first time chair a meeting of the Security Council on non-proliferation that will give him a fresh opportunity to make the case for a tougher international stance on Iran.

While he praised China's President Xi Jinping for his role in the North Korea peace process, Trump had harsh words for Beijing amid a growing trade war, saying the commercial imbalance with the Asian power "cannot be tolerated".

He also reserved harsh words for OPEC, the global oil cartel that includes both US allies and foes.

"OPEC and OPEC nations are, as usual, ripping off the rest of the world, and I don't like it. Nobody should like it."Mullah Rasool, a traditional healer who wrote amulets for clients in a village in the northwestern province of Faryab, is accused of sexually exploiting and raping several women who had gone to him for help. (Representational Image)

Afghanistan: A self-proclaimed mullah in Afghanistan, who allegedly filmed himself having sex with women, is on the run after the videos went viral on social media, prompting religious leaders to order his death by stoning.

Mullah Rasool, a traditional healer who wrote amulets for clients in a village in the northwestern province of Faryab, is accused of sexually exploiting and raping several women who had gone to him for help.

Rasool, whose nickname is Landay, which means Shorty in Pashto, allegedly used the videos to blackmail the women. A number of videos began circulating on social media in recent weeks, but it is not clear when they were made or if they were filmed in Rasools village of Chinar in Pashtunkot district.

In one video posted on Facebook, a bearded and turbaned man purported to be Rasool is seen loosening his white baggy trousers, clearly aroused. A young woman, still wearing her long dress and headscarf, removes her trousers and lays on a large floor cushion where they have sex.

While the identities of the women are not yet known, their faces are visible in the videos, which have been viewed tens of thousands of times, raising fears for their safety in the deeply religious country.

We predict there will be honour killings, Faryab governor spokesman Jawed Bidar told AFP.

Provincial womens affairs department head Sharifa Azimi said the women had been tricked and has urged religious leaders to tell their worshippers that they are innocent victims, not bad women.

We are very worried that they will be murdered, Azimi told AFP.

The body of a woman was found dumped in a ditch near Chinar village several days ago, but it has not yet been identified, Azimi added. Faryabs top religious leaders have sentenced Rasool to death by stoning.

If the government arrests and punishes him, okay, otherwise the people are also after this guy and will stone him to death, said Ghulam Nabi Ghafori, deputy head of the provincial Ulema Council.

The videos and whereabouts of Rasool have become a major topic of conversation in Afghanistan where sex is a taboo subject and women are largely treated as second class citizens.

Much of the commentary on social media has targeted Rasool, who has been described as Satan and a porn star. There have been calls for him to be hanged and his genitals cut off.

But the scandal has also inspired a spoof on a popular television comedy show in which a character portraying Rasool fondles a male actor dressed up as a woman.

Traditional healers are much-revered in the ultra conservative countryside, where illiteracy remains rampant.

A lack of conventional health services forces many to rely on healers for a variety of problems -- from debilitating maladies and infertility to finding stolen items and reuniting lost lovers.

To help police track down Rasool, provincial governor Naqibullah Faiq is offering his own car as a reward to anyone with information leading to his arrest. He will be arrested. He has no place abroad, Faiq told a recent gathering.Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday accused the Congress of exploring an international alliance to oust his government, having failed in India.

His remark obliquely referred to ex-president of France Francoise Hollandes comment on the controversial Rafale deal and former Pakistan home minister Rahman Maliks subsequent prediction that Congress president Rahul Gandhi would become India's next Prime Minister.

Will foreign leaders decide Indias Prime Minister? Has the country come to such a pass? Modi wondered aloud while addressing a BJP workers gathering here to mark partys ideologue Deen Dayal Upadhyays birth anniversary. The convention was called to galvanise party cadre ahead of the assembly election due in Madhya Pradesh in November this year.

A day before, BJP spokespersons had charged Rahul Gandhi of colluding with Pakistan while rebutting his allegations against the Prime Minister on the Rafale deal.

The Prime Minister is under Congress fire for keeping mum on Hollandes assertion that Modi presented the fighter aircraft deal as fait accompli to France in 2015 for the benefit of Anil Ambanis Reliance Defence.

Alluding to Rahul Gandhis attacks on him, the Prime Minister said that the Congress had been bitterly attacking him since he became Gujarat chief minister in 2001. You (the Congress) have used all your might in abusing me. No invective in the dictionary has been spared against me. But just ask your adviser (Sonia Gandhis former political adviser Ahmed Patel) how the more you threw mud on me the stronger the lotus bloomed, he quipped rhetorically.

In his hour-long speech, the Prime Minister lashed out at the Congress for refusing to introspect as to why the 133-year-old party shrunk to just 44 seats.

We (the BJP) too had reduced to two seats in 1984 but instead of blaming others, we chose to rectify our mistakes and strengthen the cadres, he said. He accused the Congress of harbouring a sense of entitlement to rule the country.

BJP president Amit Shah too focused his speech on Rahul Gandhi and called him a daydreamer.

Let Rahul Baba daydream about regaining power in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh. But the reality is that the BJP is all set to retain power in these states.

BJP extravaganza

Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's address was devoted partly to praising the Prime Minister, whom he described as Gods gift to India. In the latter half he ridiculed Rahul Gandhi for refusing to grow up from his "amateurish habit of winking".

Recalling the Congress presidents recent Bhopal visit, Chouhan said 'Baba' called him a 'Ghoshana (announcement)-machine' vis-a-vis run-machine Sachin Tendulkar. Yes, I am Ghoshana-machine and I have fulfilled all those announcements I made to the people, the chief minister boasted.

The gathering was touted by the party as the biggest political show in the world with attendance of about 12 lakh workers. However, BJP spokesperson Rahul Kothari admitted that six lakh workers turned up for the Karyakarta Mahakumbh. Police sources put the figure at close to three lakh. Over Rs 100 crore is estimated to have been spent on the party extravaganza.Commander Abhilash Tomy, undergoing treatment in a remote Indian Ocean island after being rescued mid-sea, will possibly be taken to Mauritius when naval vessel INS Satpura reaches him on Thursday.

A defence official said the vessel is expected to reach Ile Amsterdam, a French territory, Thursday and the Indian crew will meet Tomy, a Kirti Chakra awardee.

The 39-year-old sailor had reached there Tuesday after being rescued by a French vessel, the official said.

His non-motorised sailing yacht was damaged in a storm Friday while competing in the Golden Globe Race.

A Navy official said Wednesday their priority was to shift Tomy to Mauritius, where the Indian Navy has physical presence.

"He will be taken a hospital, and if permitted he would be flown back to India," he said.

A defence spokesman said Tomy has suffered some "blunt injuries" but there is no sign of permanent damage to any body part.

"The decision on shifting him back to India will be taken only after his thorough medical check-up at Mauritius," he said.

Vice Admiral Ajit Kumar P, the vice chief of Naval staff, spoke to Tomy.

"He is doing fine and recovering fast under medical supervision. His medical reports are also fine," he said.

Navy spokesperson D K Sharma said options were open on making arrangements to shift him to India.

Tomy's mentor and race manager Commander (Retd) Dilip Donde had said earlier the sailor was stable and in safe hands at the tiny island which had sound medical facilities.

The island does not have an airstrip and Tomy would have to be taken by the sea route itself to either Mauritius, the Reunion Island or Australia, he had said.

Tomy was drifting for nearly three days in his 32-feet long yacht, Thuriya, which was damaged in a storm. Vessels and naval assets in the vicinity were deployed for his rescue.

Thuriya had tossed in the face of high tides before stabilising. Tomy texted through satellite-based device requesting for evacuation stating his back was injured and he was unable to move.

He was participating in the Golden Globe Race, where 11 participants are using 1968 vintage boats and technology to circumnavigate solo and non-stop.

The race is being held to celebrate the golden anniversary of first such solo circumnavigation in 1968.

Videos and pictures of Tomy's evacuation by the crew of Osiris were released by the Indian Navy and the Australian authorities, whose reconnaissance aircraft were in the skies whilst the rescue happened.

The pictures show Tomy being pulled out on a stretcher from the cabin of Thuriya and then carefully lowered into a small raft which had come to fetch him from the Osiris located nearby.

Tomy was placed third in the race when he faced the storm.Temple-visits and worshipping will continue to mark Congress president Rahul Gandhis campaign in poll-bound Madhya Pradesh.

He is scheduled to start the second phase of electioneering from Thursday with a visit to the famous Kamtanath temple in Chitrakoot on MP-UP border. He had launched the campaign in the state on September 17 amid chanting of mantras and blowing conches by 11 priests in Bhopal.

During his two-day tour from September 27, the Congress chief will hold roadshows in Rewa and Satna of Vindhya region. He will also address election meetings.

Rahul will launch the third phase of the election campaign from Jabalpur with puja on the banks of Narmada river on October 5. Next day, he will go to Gwalior to take part in a roadshow.

During his Bhopal tour, many posters and banners were put up showing Rahul as "Shiv bhakt". Some banners had photographs of Rahul paying obeisance to Lord Shiva in Kailash Mansarovar where he had recently visited.

The BJP mocked the Congresss depiction of its president as "Shiv Bhakt" as a poll-time drama to influence Hindi voters.President Abdulla Yameens defeat in the Maldivian presidential election is a decisive vote in favour of a return to democracy. Since he became president in 2013, Yameen had acted systematically to erode Maldives nascent democracy. In addition to arresting and jailing his political opponents, some of whom were forced to go into exile abroad, Yameen packed the judiciary with pliant judges and silenced the media. So determined was he to eliminate all challenge to his authoritarian rule that even his half-brother, the 81-year-old former president Maumoon Gayoom, was thrown into jail. Yameen tried every trick in the book to ensure that the election would return him to power for a second term. Therefore, few had expected him to lose. The verdict has therefore come as a surprise as Yameen lost the election by a huge margin. While the joint opposition candidate, Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, won 58% of the vote, Yameen secured 41.7% of the vote in an election that saw a high (89%) voter turnout.

Yameens ouster removes a major obstacle in the way of restoration of democracy in the Maldives. However, it is too early to celebrate. Although Yameen has accepted the election verdict, whether he will hand over power to Solih in November remains to be seen. Importantly, as former president Mohammad Nasheed found out in 2008, when he became democratic Maldives first president, winning an election is the easy part. More challenging is having to deal with a judiciary and police force that are stacked with loyalists of the outgoing regime. Solih is likely to face similar problems.

It is heartening that Yameens ouster was brought about by the Maldivian people via the ballot box, rather than through violence or outside intervention. The election results vindicate Indias cautious approach; it did well to ignore calls for a military intervention in the Indian Ocean archipelago. Yameens stridently anti-India economic, military and security policies saw the Maldives relations with China strengthen to an unprecedented level, at the cost of India. His defeat could pave the way for Male and Delhi to return to the cordial ties of the past. However, as part of Chinas Belt and Road Initiative, Maldives is heavily indebted to China. As was the case with Sri Lanka, the Maldives, too, could find it difficult to free itself from Chinas iron grip. The Maldives is strategically located near sea lanes through which much of Indias oil and other sea trade is conducted. Delhi must put in place a well-thought out strategy to draw Maldives out of Chinas sphere of influence. It will require India and Indian companies to invest generously in the Maldives infrastructure development to begin with.Seatrade Cruise Med, the worlds largest cruise industry event focussed on the Mediterranean and its adjoining seas, opened yesterday (September 19) in Lisbon, Portugal and continues until today (September 20) at FIL  Lisbon Exhibition and Congress Centre.



Hosted by the Port of Lisbon Authority and supported by MedCruise and Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), the event features a showcase exhibition, conference and a full networking programme. It is part of Portugal Shipping Week.



On the opening morning, Portugals Minister of the Sea, Ana Paula Vitorino, addressed more than 350 delegates in her welcome speech and said it was an excellent opportunity for Portuguese companies to showcase themselves to the cruise industry and for all government, public entities and private stakeholders to work together to build the future.



Also taking to the stage as part of the welcome were: vice president of the Municipality of Lisbon, Duarte Cordeiro and Portugal secretary of state for Tourism, Ana Mendes Godhino.

In his keynote, Airam Diaz Pastor, president, MedCruise & Commercial director, Port Authority of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, told the packed room that the Mediterranean is facing a bright future with more capacity arriving and more investment in port infrastructure.



Taking to the stage, chairman, CLIA Europe and chairman, Carnival UK, David Dingle, spoke with his CLIA (Cruise Lines International Association) hat and made mention to the fact that the state of the cruise industry is very good indeed.



He said: Last year, 26.7 million cruises were taken the world over6 per cent growth over the previous year. Assuming occupancy levels remain broadly the same this year, over 28 million cruises will have been sold in 2018, a further 5 per cent growth. European source market growth has continued steadily and if anything has been capacity-constrained due to the redeployment of some ships to Asia and other places. In 2017, 26 per cent of global cruise sales were in Europe, but we comfortably predict that this will rise to 28 per cent in 2018 and 2019 as more capacity begins to arrive.



He added: Looking at Europe as a source market, a destination and an industrial hub, what is most impressive is the growth in the economic contribution of the European cruise industry  near on 48 billion ($56 billion) in 2017, a 16.9 per cent increase since the last survey in 2015. Thats a phenomenal rise, and it comes from source market growth, more cruise operating activities in Europe and more cruise ship building, which has grown by more than 22 per cent compared with 2015 as the order book has increased to record levels, a remarkable 66 new ships by 2021 worth almost 30 billion ($35 billion).



With 7 million cruise sales in 2017, 8 per cent more than 2015, Europe is the worlds second biggest source market. Over 80 per cent of those European sales were for cruises in Europe, and adding to these the numbers of Americans, Asians and Australians coming to Europe to cruise, 6.5 million people took a cruise here last year, 6% more than in 2015.



I can see every reason for the European cruise economy to continue to grow at this rate. Even with 7 million cruises sold, European market penetration is no more than 2 per cent of the total population whilst for North America and Australia that figure is closer to 4 per cent. The new orders destined for Europe will drive a new surge in demand."



Whilst the conference area was busy, the showfloor was also vibrant with more than 2,700 attendees from 105 countries anticipated over the two days with plenty of exhibitor activities including: A Taste of Portugal networking events hosted by Cruise Portugal; a Cruise Europe Happy Hour; Caribbean Village A Taste of the Tropics Welcome Reception and Region Sud Provence French Riviera Cocktail Reception.



Seatrade Cruise Med is held biennially and is this year hosted by Port of Lisbon Authority with principal sponsor and supporter, MedCruise (The Association of Mediterranean Cruise Ports), of which Lisbon has been a member since 2000. - TradeArabia News ServiceThe Congress leadership on Tuesday urged party legislators to soldier on and put up with any hurdles that may come their way in the Congress-JD(S) coalition set-up in the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

This was the central message at the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meeting, amid disgruntlement among party legislators over the way the coalition functioned, in that they were unable to get any work done in the H D Kumaraswamy-led government.

The alliance with the JD(S) is crucial for the Congress in a bid to keep the BJP out of power.

The grand old party has formally announced a pre-poll alliance with the regional party for the Lok Sabha polls.

Still, the CLP meeting served as a platform for legislators to air their grouse. Apparently, they pointed out how Kumaraswamy was trying to micromanage things right down to the level of a constituency. This is undermining us, be it on the issue of transfer of officials to getting grants released to take up development works, the legislators said in unison, with some accusing Deputy Chief Minister G Parameshwara of not safeguarding their interests.

This disgruntlement among legislators, many of whom are ministerial aspirants, has kept the Congress on the edge.

The party is fearful that the BJP may capitalise on this sentiment.

Problems faced by legislators were discussed and the party leaders gave an assurance that they will be solved and that the party would stand with them, Food and Civil Supplies Minister B Z Zameer Ahmed Khan told reporters.

CLP leader Siddaramaiah, KPCC president Dinesh Gundu Rao, senior leader M Veerappa Moily among others impressed upon party legislators that it was their responsibility to ensure the coalition with the JD(S) was intact. The MLAs were also sounded off to beware of any attempts by the BJP to lure them.

Expansion of the Cabinet, which was to have happened now, has been put on hold till October first week. There are seven vacant Cabinet berths. The Congress can fill up six of them and the party hopes to placate disgruntled legislators with these berths.PHILADELPHIA  A Delaware County physician is facing federal charges that he illegally distributed controlled substances and submitted false individual income tax returns.

U.S. Attorney William M. McSwain announced charges Monday against Dr. Charles Garo Avetian, 55, of Newtown Square in Newtown Township.

Charges allege that Avetian, while working for entities that sold controlled prescription drugs via the Internet, issued invalid prescriptions for Fioricet, which contains butalbital, a barbiturate and Schedule III controlled substance, based solely upon his review of online questionnaires completed by the customers of the websites that employed him. The defendant also is charged with failing to report approximately $363,830 of gross receipts earned during the tax years 2012 through 2014 on his federal income tax returns.

The conduct alleged to have occurred in this case is drug dealing  plain and simple, McSwain stated in a press release. Although the defendants chosen venue was the Internet rather than a street corner, the practical effect is the same and the impact to the community is just as bad. The consequences should similarly reflect the severity of this behavior and the alleged tax fraud.

There are thousands of websites that claim to be online pharmacies offering controlled substance medications without a valid prescription and from an unregulated supply chain, which pose a serious risk to public health, said Jonathan A. Wilson, special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administrations Philadelphia Field Division. Dr. Avetian is accused of prescribing controlled substance medications outside of the usual course of medical practice and without a legitimate medical purpose, which are violations of federal law.

No matter what the source of income, all income is taxable. Each of us is responsible for filing correct and accurate tax returns, said IRS Criminal Investigation Special Agent in Charge Guy Ficco. We will vigorously investigate those individuals who knowingly and willfully evade their tax obligation.

If convicted, the defendant faces a maximum possible sentence of 139 years imprisonment, a three-year period of supervised release, a $7,250,000 million fine, and a $1,600 special assessment.

The case was investigated by the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation, and is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Frank R. Costello, Jr.WEST CHESTER  After firing a half-dozen shots from a .40 caliber Glock semi-automatic handgun at his terrified ex-wife as she ran down her West Bradford subdivisions street, and then later killing his mother and father with that same weapon as they sat side by side in easy chairs in their quiet retirement home apartment in East Goshen, Bruce Rogal got thirsty.

According to District Attorney Tom Hogan during a Wednesday press conference  at which he gave a dramatic recounting of Rogals rage-fueled attack on his family last week that culminated in his death at his own hands outside the home he had shared with his wife and son for more than 20 years  Rogal drove from the Bellingham Retirement Community in East Goshen after shooting his aged parents execution style, with one shot each to their heads, to a friends home on Strasburg Road in East Fallowfield.

The friend (later) said, He acted like nothing happened,' Hogan told assembled reporters in his law library in the D.A.s Office at the Chester County Justice Center. He complained about his family, he complained about his wife, he complained about his parents. He didnt mention a thing about shooting anybody.

He had a beer with his friend, Hogan said. Then he left.

The press conference was held to wrap up questions that had lingered in the days since Sept. 19 and 20 when the county was shocked by the report of a gunman on the loose who had killed two people and tried to kill a third.

In Hogans retelling, Rogal was a man who had a gripe with the world around him, and that anger led him to explode in rage.

This is a tragic story of a man who had a grudge against the world, Hogan said. Bruce Rogal went through his life with grudges against everybody. Everybody he met, everybody he ran into, he disliked, he despised, he fought with, he complained about, and that included his own family  his parents, his wife, his siblings.

He was angry at the way his divorce from his wife of 24 years, Catherine Christian, would end, largely because he felt Christian was hiding money from him to dilute the amount he would get in the settlement. He was angry at his parents for age-old complaints  at his mother for dropping him from a bassinet that eventually led to his recurring back pain, and at his father for having treated him too roughly as a child, the district attorney said. He was angry at his three siblings, even though they had shared equally in distribution of a million dollars from their parents sale of a summer property in New York.

Whether the signing of the divorce decree the day before his rampage set him off, however, will never be known for sure, Hogan suggested.

The only person who knows why he did what he did is Bruce Rogal, Hogan said. It was one of those things that just came to a head.

According to Hogan, Rogal had shown some tendency toward violent behavior in his marriage, having assaulted Christian during an incident just before she filed for divorce in 2015 in which he struck her with an object in their West Bradford kitchen. She was granted a Protection From Abuse order that prohibited him from living at the house or harassing her afterwards. He stuck to that order without incident, Hogan said, and was able to retrieve the two weapons he had turned over to a third party when the PFA expired in 2017.

Otherwise, he had only minor arrests for a misdemeanor in 1993 and summary citations in 2015 and 2017.

The DA said Rogal, a general contractor, was unemployed because of back surgery he had undergone, and was living in a rented home in Glenmoore from which he was facing eviction. He was dating a woman whom he had begun having an affair with when he was still living with Christian, although she did not live at the Glenmoore house. Hogan said his days largely consisted of viewing online pornography until the early morning hours, falling asleep, and waking in the middle of the day.

In the days before the rampage, Rogal had also been searching Google Maps for the area surrounding his wifes home on Vermont Lane  searching, Hogan said, for escape routes. That is (an indication) of somebody who is planning to do something at that residence, he said.

On Sept.19, he checked a porn site around 4:54 p.m. and then got into his 2002 silver Honda Odyssey mini-van and drove from his home in Glenmoore to the West Bradford subdivision off Shadyside Road. In the car were the .40 caliber Glock he had purchased the year before and a high powered Bushmaster M-4 carbine rifle, along with a stock of ammunition for both weapons.

When he confronted Christian, who was outside the house working on her car, he drew the handgun and pointed it at her. She ran from the scene and he chased her, firing six shots that missed her but struck nearby homes. She found safety in a neighbors home, where she called police. By the time units from Downingtown Police Department arrived, Rogal was gone.

Hogan chillingly told reporters what happened afterwards.

Christian called the couples adult son, Walter, who lived with her and worked in Philadelphia, to tell him what had occurred. He, thinking quickly, then called other family members to warn them that Rogal was on the loose, armed and dangerous, and that they might be in danger.

One of those calls went to his grandparents, Walter and Nancy Rogal, who lived at Bellingham. He spoke with his grandmother momentarily, then heard the phone go dead.

Walter realized this could be a big problem, and called Bellingham, Hogan said. The security office there contacted the executive director, Jon DeLuca, who went himself to the Rogals apartment. Walter and Nancy are there, and at first it looks like theyre fine, Hogan said. They are sitting in two recliners, right next to one another, just as they had spent decades of their marriage, next to each other. And they look perfectly peaceful.

But when (he) gets in there, he realizes there is blood on both of their heads, and theyre both dead. They had both been executed. Head shots, to each of his parents, said Hogan. Each of those people, Walter and Nancy, were dead, killed by their ungrateful son.

The time was 6:15 p.m.

Hogan went on to describe the massive manhunt that police across the county took to track Rogal down. They evacuated residents from Bellingham, thinking he might still be there. They kept Christian from returning home, and got Rogals siblings to leave their homes and evacuated his girlfriend from her residence. A Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) squad was dispatched to Rogals Glenmoore home. There, armed with a search warrant, they went in and found hundreds and hundreds of rounds for the two weapons that would ultimately be found in his possession, as well as two other guns that are still missing.

Hogan also showed a clip of a video taken by infrared camera from a Pennsylvania State Police helicopter that captured Rogals path from Strasburg Road, where he had apparently driven past the state police barracks at Embreeville, toward the Vermont Lane house.

When he arrived around 1 a.m., Rogal drove straight into the side of the house after cutting across a lawn. Hogan said that when he did so, he apparently put the barrel of the Bushmaster rifle in his mouth and pulled the rigger, killing himself.

The troopers who had followed him to the residence, however, saw only Rogal holding a rifle and leaning over. They fired on the car, striking him in the drivers seat, but only causing superficial wounds.

A report from Chester County Coroner Dr. Christina VandePol confirmed that Rogal had died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, and had no other life-threatening injuries. Hogan said that there had not been an exchange of gunfire between Rogal and the troopers, as was first reported.

Law enforcement officials attending the press conference, including Chester County Detective Chief Kevin Dykes, Downingtown Chief Howard Holland, Capt. James Fisher of the state police, and Lt. David Leahy of the Westtown-East Goshen Regional Police Department, praised the comprehensive approach taken by all departments to responding to the set of crimes.

This was a time when everyone stepped up to the occasion, said Dykes. We all came together, echoed Holland. We all had a common goal.

Hogan expressed sorrow in the way the elderly couple died, and said they would be missed.

Walter and Nancy Rogal, two elderly Chester County citizens, are dead at the hand of the own son, he said. They are mourned by their family. They are mourned by all of Chester County.Archipelago International, Indonesia's largest hotel group, has signed a long-term master franchise agreement with Jeddah-based Warifat Hospitality Limited, a subsidiary of Jabal Omar Development Company (JODC).



This multi-hotel agreement grants development and branding rights to Warifat Hospitality for three of Archipelago's hotel brands: Grand Aston, Aston and Harper and will enable the rollout of these brands, not only at JODC's flagship development in Makkah but throughout the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.



The first hotel being developed under this agreement will be the 560-room Jabal Omar Grand Aston, which is due for completion in July 2019. This five-star hotel is located in a prime location within walking distance to the Grand Mosque and will be Archipelago's first hotel in Saudi Arabia, a market it views as one of the most important in its continued expansion internationally.



"In strategic terms, this is a historic agreement for our company and indeed for Indonesia, as we will be the first Indonesian based hotel company to enter the kingdom's hotel market. Our hotel brands are the most widely recognised in Indonesia, which is the largest source market for pilgrims to Makkah and Madinah. This agreement foresees and caters for significant growth from the Indonesian market and it recognises Archipelago as the hotel group best positioned going forward to cater to the growing numbers of Indonesian and Southeast Asian visitors to the kingdom," said John Flood, president and CEO of Archipelago International.



Yasser Faisal Al-Sharif, chairman of Warifat Hospitality and CEO of JODC, said: "We are excited to expand our partnership with an established and leading home-grown Indonesian hotel brand, as its Master Franchisee for the Grand Aston Brand in Saudi Arabia. We are committed to offering our guests from Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Southeast Asia superior hospitality experiences that are customised to their specific needs whilst they visit the Great Mosque of Makkah, Masjid Al Haram and the holy capital. As a part of Jabal Omar Developments strategic growth plan, we believe that by choosing a brand with a proven track record, The Grand Aston Hotel at Makkah shall be a catalyst for growth from the Indonesian and Southeast Asian countries for our Hajj and Umrah pilgrims." - TradeArabia News Service

Timothy Ballard was recently with two friends when one asked about his latest books, "The Lincoln Hypothesis" and "The Washington Hypothesis." Mention of the books flabbergasted the other friend, a man who had worked with Ballard for a year.

"What books?" the man said. "I have been in Deseret Book how many times and Ive seen those books. Ive always thought, 'What a coincidence, that guy has the same name as my boss.'"

Brian Howard, the host of "Latter-day Profiles," admitted to not knowing until preparing for an interview with Ballard.

"You're also an author. I was surprised because I had heard about Operation Underground Railroad, but I didn't realize all the books you had done, and fascinating topics as well," Howard said.

Most people hear the name Tim Ballard and identify him as the founder and CEO of Operation Underground Railroad, the guy who slaps handcuffs on sex-trafficking criminals. Few recognize he is also Timothy Ballard, the best-selling author of several books that explore connections between key events and leaders in American history and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

"It's funny," said Ballard, a graduate of Brigham Young University. "People will mention the books or OUR, but it's rarely together."

For Ballard, a husband and father of seven (soon to adopt two more), his work to rescue children from human trafficking and his passion for American history are connected. Digging into and writing about the lives of key historical figures like Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and others, along with exploring battlefields and monuments, has not only inspired him but has strengthened his Latter-day Saint faith.

As Americans prepare to celebrate Independence Day, the former CIA special agent and undercover operative for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security discussed his love of U.S. history and how it has influenced his life.

Feeling something

When Ballard was in fifth grade, he went on a field trip with the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge to various historic sites in the Eastern United States.

"It was there that I felt something. History wasn't just dates and names in a book.  Being there, I felt something," Ballard said, explaining that the field trip was when he fell in love with history.

Today it's Ballard's opinion that when people visit historic sites and have soul-stirring feelings, it's not by mistake.

"I truly believe that what you are feeling (at these sites) is the Spirit, and not just the Spirit, but the spirits of those people," he said. "I believe people are at those monuments and on those battlefields to testify of the truth of what they were doing, what they were fighting for. Thats what you feel when you are walking at Gettysburg or Dorchester Heights or the Lincoln Memorial. I believe there are angels there testifying."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wjxn8DAA4iEYears later Ballard accepted a job with the Central Intelligence Agency and moved with his wife and their firstborn to Washington D.C. It was his first visit to the nation's capital, and even though it was almost midnight when they arrived, he wanted to climb the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and pay homage to the 16th president of the United States.

It was around 1 a.m., in the shadows of the grand Lincoln sculpture, that Ballard held his baby son and felt something spiritual.

"There was something about Lincoln," Ballard said. "I couldn't articulate it, but it was something connected to the Restoration."

Ballard's impression that night led him on a 10-year personal investigation into Lincoln and possible gospel ties and resulted in him publishing "The Lincoln Hypothesis" in 2014. As part of his research, Ballard went to the Library of Congress to examine its first-edition copy of the Book of Mormon, which Lincoln checked out for about eight months during the Civil War. Ballard describes his experience in great detail in his book and came away with some thought-provoking conclusions, including one about the timing of events.

"Seven days after he turned the book back in, he lays out the first preliminary copy of the Emancipation Proclamation to an awe-struck and disappointed Cabinet who didn't want to see this happen," Ballard said. "What was he doing with this book?"

Finding light

In addition to writing the "The Lincoln Hypothesis," Ballard has published "The Covenant" (2012), "The American Covenant, Vol. I and Vol. II" (2011 and 2014), and "The Covenant, Lincoln, and the War" (2012) and "The Washington Hypothesis" (2016).

Ballard never intended to be a writer.

As an undercover operator for the U.S. government, Ballard found himself in "dark places and needed light," he said. Into these circumstances he would bring his Book of Mormon and books about American history because he found inspiration and power in the lives of people like Lincoln, Washington and Harriet Tubman, "people who went into dark places and still kept the light," he said.

"They went into these dark places, darker than where Im going," Ballard said. "How did they get out of it? They found success against all odds. I sought inspiration, thats it."

The more Ballard read, the more he noticed parallels to the gospel Restoration. Ballard already knew America was the host nation for the Restoration, but through his reading and research he discovered many lesser-known details that fit together like pieces in a puzzle.

"All of a sudden my notebook was full of the inexplicable things that Washington and Lincoln did or said that only make sense with the Restoration of the gospel," Ballard said.

Over the years, Ballard has done most of his reading, researching and writing on airplanes and in hotel rooms. What he has learned from digging into American history has not only been educational, it has also greatly strengthened his faith.

"It fits too perfectly, so perfectly that its easier to believe that the gospel is real and that Joseph Smith was a prophet than it is to believe this many coincidences could just line up," Ballard said. "This is the land of the Restoration, prophesied thousands of years ago, a covenant and special place. We should expect as LDS people to dig into that history and find crazy, amazing things that happened because they are there. Are there historians in the world who are trying to hide those things? Absolutely. If not intentionally, out of not caring or not knowing the significance. So its our job to dig in.

"When you have the full context of the gospel, and the Book of Mormon, which talks so much about the covenant on this land, you have that tool and a whole new lens to read American history, and all it does is increase your testimony."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNM4r73kZl0Miracles and heroes

The era of Lincoln and the Civil War is what most resonates with Ballard.

The miracle that strikes him to the core happened in 1862 when Union Private Barton Mitchell found "Special Order 191," Confederate General Robert E. Lee's secret battle plans, giving the North the upper hand at the Battle of Antietam. With the plans, the Union was able to turn back the South, giving Lincoln enough confidence to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, Ballard said.

When asked who he would most like to speak with from any period of history, these were the names Ballard mentioned. Deseret News graphic by Elise Madsen

"Lincoln made a covenant with God that 'if we win, I will issue the Emancipation Proclamation.' They barely win in the bloodiest battle and Lincoln knows God has decided this question in favor of the slaves," Ballard said. "Barton Mitchell is walking through a field 30 miles from the battlefield and stumbles over the secret plans. No one can explain to this day how it happened.  Its hard to say that wasnt the thing that tipped the scales. It was a miracle. These are the things we find when we live in a covenant land."

It was also no surprise to Ballard that Lincoln and his secretary of state, William H. Seward, were among those whose temple work was performed in the St. George Temple in 1877 by Wilford Woodruff and others.

"It bridges the gap between the Restoration and American history," Ballard said.

Why care?

Why should Americans, and especially Latter-day Saints, care about American history? Why is it relevant today?

Ballard acknowledged we live in dark and uncertain times, but so did men like Washington and Lincoln. These men trusted in God and invoked the national covenant (promised blessings for those living righteously in his promised land) and "in ways that are incomprehensible  it was miracle after miracle after miracle," Ballard said.

"What people need to understand is we need that formula. Its a simple formula. It doesnt mean its going to be an easy process, but we need a national leader like Lincoln or Washington to stand up and invoke the covenant; its the only way out of any mess," Ballard said.

"LDS people dont have a corner on this market, but they have an advantage because the Book of Mormon teaches that covenant. Its also in the Bible. But we all need to start rising up and invoking this covenant pretty quickly."

Email: ttoone@deseretnews.com Twitter: tbtooneSALT LAKE CITY  Every so often, a talented writer will discover a story lost to history with tremendous application for today. Such is the case with Yale University historian Joanne Freeman and her latest book.

I knew that one congressman had killed another in 1838, so I plunged in there, Freeman wrote in an email interview about researching her book "The Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War" (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 480 pages)." As luck would have it, the congressmans letters that I began to read mentioned a good number of physical fights in Congress  enough to motivate me to look further.

"This was clearly a story that hadnt been told, she added.

Freemans research took well over a decade and required hurtling significant obstacles. The official congressional record did not have a complete account of all the incidents of physical violence. Furthermore, when records were created they often lacked an accurate description of specific events.

I had to triangulate snippets of evidence from letters, diaries and newspapers, and then match it up against the somewhat censored  or at least, consistently cleaned up  record of debate, she said.

A book about fighting also included a subtle challenge that required mastery of the thesaurus.

Clash, confrontation, fisticuffs, fistfight, brawl, fracas, rumble, scratch fight, honor dispute: This is the tip of the iceberg in my ongoing quest to avoid using the word fight in every paragraph, Freeman said.

My all-time favorite bit of fighting lingo comes from the 1850s and involves a fight between a Virginia congressman and a newspaper editor, she said. After the congressman nearly bit off the editors thumb during a street fight, the press reported that the editors finger had been catawampously chawed up.

This phrase is too darned good to leave in the past, Freeman said. It deserves some modern play.

Freemans book has relevance to modern times that goes beyond a look back at the colorful language of yesteryear. But stringing together years of political fights also presented an organizational challenge.

Figuring out how to tell the story of scores of fights unfolding over several decades took some time, Freeman said.

In the end  I told the kind of story that I wanted to tell, she said. A tale of ground-level violence among political power-holders, of powerful emotions and of extreme polarization that shaped the coming of the Civil War.

Freeman makes a powerful argument that political violence not only led to the Civil War, but in some ways constituted an informal beginning to the American tragedy.

In 1858, a Northerner and Southerner got into a fight on the floor of the House. When the Northerner clotheslined the Southerner, the other Southern congressmen raced to his aid. Seeing the danger, the Northern congressmen made a beeline for their endangered colleague.

Ultimately, there was a mass brawl with dozens of congressmen in the space before the speakers chair, featuring punching, shoving, and tossed spittoons, Freeman said.

People at the time noted that a group of Northerners  some of them armed  running at a group of Southerners looked remarkably like a battle of North against South, which indeed it was, she said.

Freeman continued, One could argue that the first battles of the Civil War took place in the halls of Congress.

In this regard, Freeman discovered a veritable treasure trove of largely forgotten encounters leading up to the Civil War. The value of her work is lauded on the books cover with Pulitzer Prize-winner after winner giving praise to Freemans work.

The reader is surprised such an important story should have waited so long to be told, wrote Daniel Walker Howe, author of What God Hath Wrought.

In fistfights, duels and mass brawls, her innovative account detects steps toward disunion  and changes how we think about political history, added T.J. Stiles, author of Custers Trials.

In addition to shedding light on a previously dark period in history, Freeman stressed that violent rhetoric and the deterioration of national unity is a danger today just as it was in the 1800s.

Were not on the cusp of civil warfare, she said. But its worth noting that the impact of allowing the national we to crumble can be mighty, and that discord and dysfunction on the national stage can break down the bulwark of public opinion that supports republican governance.To compare Donald Trump at the United Nations to a bull in china shop would minimize the self-restraint of the bull.

The presidents visit to this austere group last year gave us such memorable zingers as dubbing the North Korean dictator and fashionista Kim Jung Un Little Rocket Man, deriding the Iranian government as a murderous regime and calling out world leaders for failing to do their fair share to provide global peace and stability.

Its hard to believe it was only a year ago that President Trump outlined his America First policy agenda to this international audience. The shock of the world leaders was matched only by Trumps blunt talk. He stated with absolute clarity that he would always act in a way that would put America first, just as he expected other world leaders to do the same for their countries.

Since his last visit to the United Nations, Trump has lived up to that pledge to the delight of some and the horror of others. Promised tariffs have led to trade wars that are increasing prices for U.S. consumers, raising construction and housing costs across the country, and hurting farmers to such a degree that the administration has stepped in with billions of dollars of bailouts.

And what a difference a year makes in Trumps relationship with Little Rocket Man. After spending a few short hours together, Mr. Kim has gone from terrible to terrific, as Trump now regards the tyrant as a very honorable leader. The ensuing photo op and pronouncement that North Korea was no longer a nuclear threat could not have been more ridiculous had Dennis Rodman joined them on stage in a wedding dress.

On the upside, Trumps tough diplomatic and military action against the mass murderer Bashar al-Assad put a stop to the use of chemical weapons against his own people in the ongoing Syrian civil war. That may be a small victory in this horrific genocide, but it was more than Obama was willing to do after he drew his red line using invisible ink thereby undermining and diminishing the influence of the U.S. in that part of the world.

And the economy continues its strong growth, both at home and abroad. His critics are loath to credit Trump for any of the economic success, but the truth is his policies of reasonable regulation and low taxes are benefiting Americans as job growth rises and unemployment continues to fall. Current global economic growth is projected at over 3 percent, something many economists said was unrealistic just a short time ago.

So, what can we expect from Trump this week at the United Nations? World leaders will certainly be more prepared for his brash, unconventional style. They will know to take whatever Trump says with a large grain of salt. There will undoubtedly be more talk of America First and how other countries are falling short in their global responsibilities. With a year of work under his belt, there will also be a healthy dose of Trump touting his huge international successes.

In addition to the bravado, there will also be important substance as Trump chairs a Security Council meeting that will focus on Iran specifically and global security generally. As with all things involving Donald Trump, his performance at the United Nations this week is guaranteed to be daytime television at its melodramatic best.Some have suggested members of Congress should wear patches, like NASCAR drivers, to show which companies and lobbyists are sponsoring them. Members of the Supreme Court may now have to shed their black robes for blue or red robes as a result of the complete politicization of the court.

The founders established, and both political parties profess to concur, that the Supreme Court should an unbiased, uncompromised and uninhibited arbiter of the law and the Constitution. Sadly, the root cause of the politicized court falls squarely on the shoulders of members of Congress.

Members of both the House and Senate discovered years ago it is easier to get re-elected and raise money if their actions as lawmakers are less transparent. They then discovered that by ceding their lawmaking authority to the executive branch, they would also be free from real accountability during a re-election campaign.

Today, sweeping bills with broad and enticing titles are passed in the middle of the night, stuffed to the brim with unrelated spending. Worse still, many of these bills also confer implementation, regulatory and enforcement authority to executive branch agencies. Abdicating power and authority to agencies absolves members of Congress from any accountability when laws are implemented and prove unpopular or harmful to constituents.

What does this have to do with the Supreme Court? Everything. Because Congress has rendered itself almost completely irrelevant on so many levels, the political battles for the biggest issues of the day have shifted to the court. The byproduct of congressional abdication is that special interests see a Supreme Court nomination as the ultimate political battle with far-reaching ramifications to their particular cause or party.

When Obamacare was rammed through Congress without a single Republican vote and scores of blank pages with the catch-all language to be determined by Health and Human Services inserted, the law was destined for the courts.

When the Obamacare case ultimately reached the Supreme Court, the political pressure to avoid the very appearance of the court striking down President Obamas signature policy achievement was enormous. The political heat was so intense that Chief Justice John Roberts  who in his own confirmation hearing passionately stated he was to be a referee not a rule maker  melted. Roberts literally rewrote the law twice in order to save it. This is but one example of what happens when Congress doesnt do its job, obfuscates its actions and abdicates its authority.

The political right deserves equal blame in the politicization of the Supreme Court. For many years the answer to any social or regulatory policy defeat has been to file a lawsuit. During the 2016 campaign, I regularly made the case that if Hillary Clinton were to win the White House and appoint liberal judges to the Supreme Court, it would compel conservatives to focus their energy on winning hearts and minds in the public square, based on principles, instead of always turning to the comfortable confines of the courts.

Democrats can cry politics as Obama nominee Merrick Garland never received a vote. Republicans can point to manufactured Spartacus moments from members of the Judiciary Committee and the 11th hour weaponization of allegations of assault from 36 years ago. (To be clear, victims must be heard and treated fairly, and the accused must be given opportunity to state his story.) The point is that the politics of it all does irreparable damage to individuals, the institution and the republic.

Political pressure is being applied to every aspect of society. It is used to stop inconvenient speech on college campuses, to stop religions from expressing their views beyond the confines of home and houses of worship and now to stop the court from ruling objectively. The threat of political pressure and personal destruction is where the nation has descended thanks to the slippery slope of congressional abdication of power.

The threat of political pressure and personal destruction is where the nation has descended thanks to the slippery slope of congressional abdication of power.

New York Times columnist Ross Douthat took to Twitter about what the Democrats would gain from all of the political shenanigans of the confirmation process. He tweeted that the purely political scenario for the Democrats would be, Base-galvanizing in the short run, fodder for delegitimization if (Brett Kavanagh) rules against Roe, etc., and also a useful means to pressure him (and John Roberts, anxious custodian of (Supreme Court) legitimacy) not to rule against social liberal causes too often. In other words, more political pressure will be applied to the court.

Since Congress is no longer interested in really engaging in the politics of policy making through transparent debate, amendment, compromise and accountability, nominees to the court will be forced to behave more like political candidates than judges.

Award winning journalist Jeff Greenfield posited in Politico, How far this path from the majesty of the courthouse to the fever swamps of politics goes is unclear. Will we see future nominees appear at rallies with the president who nominated them? Will nominees appear personally  will they approve the message  in TV commercials urging their confirmation? Ads urging a justices confirmation already crowd the cable networks.

Perhaps their red or blue robes will need NASCAR-style patches so the public can identify who the justices are representing on the bench. We could even have a This Supreme Court question brought to you by (insert sponsoring company name here). Justice Thomas would have a nearly patch-free robe, going over a decade without asking a question.

What would happen if judges judged and lawmakers made law? History gives us a pretty good indication. Justice George Sutherland, the only Utahn to ever occupy a seat on the Supreme Court, was out of the country giving a speech in England on the morning of his nomination to the Supreme Court, Sept. 5, 1922. Before the Senate adjourned at the end of that very day, senators had confirmed Sutherland by a unanimous voice vote.

Hopefully we will return to a Congress that will take back its abdicated lawmaking authority and return to regular order, common sense and what now seems so uncommon  decency. It is the harder road, but it leads to a better place for the court, for Congress and for the country.OGDEN  This past summer, Kristin Barlow got word of yet another teen suicide in her Brigham City community. For her, it was the last straw.

Theres been this growing concern, especially in Box Elder county, with a high rate of suicide. Utah is No. 5 in the nation for suicides, and its the No. (2) cause of teen deaths in the state.  That disturbed me," Barlow told the Deseret News. "I thought, Something needs to be done.'

Barlow, who owns two dance studios in Brigham City, took quick action. Harnessing her 26 years of dance experience, she brought together dance studios from across the state and even professional dancer Sophia Lucia, who was featured on the Lifetime show "Dance Moms," for the first-ever Dance for Life Suicide Prevention Benefit Performance on Saturday, Sept. 29.

We have a great group coming to show unity for this issue  every single one of them had an experience in their own studio of someone whose family member had committed suicide.  (The support) has been amazing. We want to honor those lost, Barlow said.

Since her inspiration in July, Barlow has hit the ground running  and the outpouring of support has been unprecedented. Nearly every dance studio rearranged its packed schedules to accommodate this timely cause  including 16-year-old dancer Sophia. After reaching out to the young dancer's agent, Barlow was able to secure Sophia as the benefit concert's headliner, also booking to lead several master dancer classes the weekend of the performance.

The next step was to decide to whom the ticket proceeds should go. After extensive research, Barlow decided on NUHOPE, a coalition of mental health providers, educators and survivors who promote suicide education and prevention training in Weber County.

"NUHOPE started back when mental health and suicide were not commonly spoken about," said Kristy Jones, chair of NUHOPE Suicide Prevention Task Force, in an interview with the Deseret News. "I feel that over the past 12 years we have seen an increase in awareness in the community and a willingness to acknowledge mental health issues and suicidal ideation."

Barlow also contacted Laura Warburton, founder of Live Hannahs Hope, an organization driven to empower youths and reduce teen suicide. After losing her 16-year-old daughter Hannah to suicide four years ago, Warburton had one mission: to understand and stop this trend.

What I wanted more than anything was to learn why she decided to end her life and to help others so they wouldnt have to go through the same thing that I did, Warburton told the Deseret News.

Since her daughters passing, Warburton has been fiercely involved with suicide prevention. She has worked closely with Sen. Orrin Hatchs office to pass legislation. "Hannahs Bill" ensures that suicide hotlines are staffed and available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Warburton will say a few words before the performance starts.

For the event itself, Barlow secured a variety of esteemed Utah dance ensembles, including Ballet West and Brigham Young University Ballroom Dance, with Odyssey Dance Theatre in the works. The dances will explore sensitive topics like suicide and bullying, but the main objectives of their performances are to inspire hope and open a dialogue, through dance, about suicide prevention.

If this goes well, wed like to extend it nationally and even internationally  its a world problem, Barlow said.

(Our goal) is to get more funding for some of these nonprofit advocacy groups, to get more counseling in schools, more (conversations) about bullying, social media impact and to get over the (mental health) stigma," she said. "You know, we take care of our physical bodies so well, we need to take care of our mental health as well.

So far, Barlows reach has moved beyond nonprofit organizations and even beyond the dance world  she has also been in contact with Utah state representatives who have been very supportive of her event and plan to be in attendance. Likewise, she contacted several Utah churches for their continued backing, including local clergy and Elder Ronald A. Rasband, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and advocate for the church's suicide initiative.

As Barlow sees it, bringing together all these organizations, from government to religion to the arts, sends exactly the message of support that inspired her in the first place.

Its important for kids to be involved in something that makes them feel special, makes them have self-esteem and confidence. The reason were doing this is to bring people together for a bigger cause than dance.  Whats more important is our lives.

If you go 

What: Dance for Life Suicide Prevention Benefit Performance

When: Saturday, Sept. 29, 7 p.m.

Where: Ogden High School, 2828 Harrison Blvd., Ogden

How much: $12-$15

Website: www.tututix.comSALT LAKE CITY  A former Weber County evidence technician charged with using meth that had been collected as part of dozens of criminal investigations may soon reach a plea deal with prosecutors.

The 48-year-old Candice Barbara Follum made her initial appearance on 20 counts of altering public records, a third-degree felony, and 20 counts of drug possession, a class A misdemeanor, in Ogden's 2nd District Court on Tuesday. Follum, of Ogden, did not enter a plea during her brief first appearance in court.

Prosecutors are negotiating a possible plea agreement with Follum's lawyer, said Branden Miles, chief criminal deputy attorney for Weber County. He declined to give details on the potential resolution. Follum's attorney, Kristopher Greenwood, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

An internal Weber County Sheriff's Office investigation began last December when Follum's colleagues suspected she was on drugs at work. She was suspended and later fired after giving a written statement admitting she took meth from 15 to 20 cases, though prosecutors now believe 60 cases were affected.

"Multiple criminal cases were dismissed as a result of evidence related issues," a report on the investigation stated.

Follum told investigators in the Weber County Attorney's Office she had become addicted while working there and stole drugs from evidence over a three-year period, eating it every other day and only using the drug while at work, charges state.

In May, the sheriff's office released a report finding her supervisor at the time, the then-Lt. Kevin Burns, failed to report concerns. Burns, who later was promoted and retired earlier this year, said he actually did try to address the issues but was made a scapegoat.

Follum's colleagues filed complaints, her performance declined, and she failed to send sexual assault kits and other evidence to the State Crime Lab, among other problems, according to the report.

Follum is due back in court Oct. 23.SALT LAKE CITY  Astrid S. Tuminez, the newly appointed president of Utah Valley University, recently released a videoin which she welcomes new students to the university  in six different languages.

In the video, Tuminez also gives a brief history of her life growing up and how she came to gain a love for learning.

Born in the Philippines, Tuminezs family lived in the squatters (an impoverished area of unoccupied land) so she and her sisters could attend school.

Tuminez said that when she had no money, she would spend her recess in the library reading books.

Because I read so many books, my brain improved and got better. So what I want to say to all the students is work hard, study hard, and read a lot of books so you can finish what you set out to do at UVU," she said.

The new president goes on to explain that she knows a lot about working hard and studying hard when she discusses her collegiate experience at Brigham Young University, Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Her message: No matter where one starts, if they apply themselves to pursuing knowledge they can achieve their goals.

Watch the video below:TAYLORSVILLE  For years, Utah seniors have been targeted victims of con artists looking to scam elderly Medicare recipients. Now a change in the form of identification seniors use to access healthcare could also protect them from fraudsters.

The Utah Department of Commerce, the state Senior Medicare Patrol Program and AARP Utah Tuesday announced the introduction of new Medicare cards that will be arriving in the mailboxes of 385,000 Utah residents in the coming weeks. The difference with the new cards is Social Security numbers and gender have been removed to prevent identity theft and keep scammers from using Medicare benefits illegally, explained Francine Gianni, executive director of the state Commerce Department.

"If you happen to lose it and it falls into the wrong hands, you will not have that personal information on it," she said. However, she expressed some concern that seniors could still be targeted in the coming weeks from "official sounding" fraudsters inquiring about their new cards and benefits.

"They could be confused by phone calls they receive from people who are impostors saying they are from the government and they are not," Gianni said. "Never give personal information out on the telephone to anyone you do not know."

Seniors should look for the new cards in the mail and if they haven't received it in the next month or two, call 800-MEDICARE to inquire about getting one, she said.

"It's going to take (at least) through the month of October until everybody receives it," she said. Seniors who receive suspicious calls should report them at 800-541-7735.

Gianni also implored seniors to get help from friends or family members if they think they may be targeted by scammers.

"I sure hope that relatives, sons, daughters, friends and close neighbors are able to help some of these seniors navigate this change," she said.

Officials said that despite the upgrade, con artists have already seized upon the new cards as a way to scam seniors with false claims about how and why the changes were made. However, the new cards allow recipients to get their identification number changed more easily than when Social Security numbers were on the cards, explained Diane Moll, deputy regional administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

"Now if I call and say, 'This was not my (medical claim), somebody got a hold of my number, these are fraud charges,'" she said. "We can turn that number off and create a new one."

She said the hope is the new card will help reduce health care fraud and eliminate identity theft.

"Fraud with (any)body is bad, but fraud with the elderly is particularly bad," Moll said.

She advised seniors to remember that Medicare does not call recipients, so anyone making such a call is a scammer who should be reported. And lastly, if something seems amiss with your Medicare billing summary, inquire immediately with your doctor, she said.

"If anything seems funny or doesn't seem right, speak up," Moll said. "Listen to your brain. If something doesn't seem right, don't be gullible."

Meanwhile, Darren Hotton, program director of the Utah Senior Medicare Patrol  a program that helps seniors detect and report Medicare fraud  said the new card will help provide some protection for seniors who tend to rely on carrying their Medicare card with them wherever they go.

"They're a vulnerable population," he said. "This is a good way to at least give them some security to know that they can carry it with them and not have the same (potentially negative) ramifications.""WAIT UNTIL DARK," through Nov. 17, Hale Centre Theatre, 9900 S. Monroe St., Sandy (801-984-9000 or hct.org); running time: 2 hours (one intermission)

SANDY  There are a few long-held pop culture taboos: Don't cover songs popularized by Barbra Streisand. Don't wear Cher's old clothes. And don't step into roles that were once inhabited by Audrey Hepburn. ("My Fair Lady" doesn't count  that was a Julie Andrews role first.)

Hale Centre Theatre's staging of Hepburn's 1967 thriller, "Wait Until Dark," running through Nov. 17, boldly dares to break that third taboo. Happily for them and the audience, they largely succeed.

The Monday night performance opened on a bright, cozy, well-lit New York apartment, full of mid-century comforts and warm colors that looked as hip now as they would have in the play's 1960s setting. The apartment is the home of Susy and Sam Hendrix, a young couple as hip as their decor  he's a photographer and she is well-dressed  but it soon becomes clear that their happy home will shortly be disturbed.

"Wait Until Dark" is a slow-burn thriller. It isn't jam-packed with jumps and scares  the play's biggest thrills come in the final 10 minutes  but that doesn't make the play's building tension any less enjoyable. In fact, for all that the final scene will make you gasp with some good old gotcha moments, the play is less of an action thriller and more of a psychological thriller. Susy, expertly played by Riley Branning (Monday/Wednesday/Friday with Elise Pearce on Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday), is recently blind due to an auto accident, and it is through her vulnerabilities that the audience experiences the terrors of the story.

That story is this: A mysterious woman gave Sam (Jacob Theo Squire on Monday/Wednesday/Friday and Marshall R. Madsen Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday) a doll at the airport, asking him to take it to a child in a hospital. (If "Wait Until Dark" has no other lesson it is to avoid taking items from strangers at airports.) When she unexpectedly shows up at the apartment to collect the doll later that night, Sam can't find it. As far as Sam and Susy are concerned, the issue is over when the mysterious woman leaves. What they don't know is that the doll is packed with almost two pounds of heroin and the mysterious woman is a criminal with even worse criminal friends.

The audience never meets the mysterious woman, but they do meet those criminal friends: Harry Roat, Mike Talman and Carlino. (Lonzo Liggins and Zac Zumbrunnen, respectively on Monday/Wednesday/ Friday, with Greg Hansen and M. Chase Grant on Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday.) Harry, played with hot menace by Benjamin J. Henderson (single cast), hires Mike and Carlino to con Susy into giving back the doll, thus setting in motion an elaborate con game that slowly unravels as Susy becomes aware of the dangerous men moving through her apartment.

Branning cleverly uses Susy's frustrations with her visual impairment as a way to reveal her vulnerabilities, both physical and emotional. Her Susy is smart and resourceful, but not a superwoman, and watching her move tentatively around her apartment, reaching for objects and using her foot to find steps allows the audience to imagine their own weaknesses. And even more impactful is seeing dangers that Susy cannot  this is where that psychological drama comes in. Most of us have fears of things we can't see but suspect are there, and in Susy's case, the audience can actually see her real-life horrors. The criminals are ghosts and monsters made real, and even though she can't see them, Susy can feel them close by, waiting to hurt her.

Sound designer Dan Morgan's effects  like thumping rain and the shrilly ringing phone  and lighting designer Danna Barney's lights (or lack of light) heightened Susy's and the audience's terrors in this tight, slick production. Young Bridget Maxwell (Monday/Wednesday/Friday with Mila Belle Howells on Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday) as the neighbor Gloria also added an important support for Susy, giving the audience further anxiety: What can these two unarmed people to do against a ruthless criminal?

"Wait Until Dark" isn't the typical ghouls and ghosts type of scare some may want heading into the Halloween season, but the fears it taps into are often more frightening. It's a play that teaches a horrifying truth: Just because we can't see the danger doesn't mean it's not there.

Content advisory: "Wait Until Dark" contains thrills and shocks that would likely be too intense for young theater patrons.Studio M Arabian Plaza, a unique lifestyle hotel in Dubai designed for the budget-conscious and independent-minded traveller, has named Ursula Chidiac as its new general manager.



With over 15 years of experience, working for international hotel groups such as Le Meridien Hotels and InterContinental Hotels Group and most recently with Kin Plaza Arjaan by Rotana in Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Chidiac will oversee the entire operations of the first Studio M hotel in the UAE, offering 223 rooms and 100 apartments.



Chidiac will apply her expertise in hotel management, rooms and food and beverage operations, sales and revenue, profit and loss management and guest services operations to position Studio M Arabian Plaza as an affordable but quality accommodation, designed to target the growing millennial generation and other types of travellers who appreciate modern and trendy hotel concepts.



Commenting on her appointment, Chidiac said: I am honoured to be entrusted this exciting but challenging task of positioning the Studio M brand into the UAEs growing mid-market segment. The brands unique concept will appeal to both business and leisure travellers, even groups and families who are looking to add an authentic touch to their travel memories. Studio M Arabian Plaza offers chic and modern living spaces in which one can do work, rest and play. - TradeArabia News Service

MIDVALE  Talk about pressure.

Two fifth-graders were asked to stand in front of the entire student body at Midvalley Elementary School Tuesday afternoon to solve a subtraction problem on the fly.

Facing one another, each held a single playing card to their foreheads  face side up  and were asked to figure out what card they were holding after being told the total of the two cards.

"What card do you have?" asked Mila Gleason, owner of a Mathnasium franchise in Cottonwood Heights, which assists students grades K-12.

"Eight," said fifth-grader Dakota Barkau.

"How did you know you had eight?" Gleason said.

"Because seven minus 15 is eight," Barkau responded.

With that, the pair got a thundering cheer from their classmates.

That wasn't the only reason to celebrate Tuesday. Students and staff gathered in the multipurpose room for an announcement that Midvalley Elementary had been awarded a STEM+Families Math Night grant under a partnership between the National PTA and Mathnasium, a private math learning center with hundreds of franchises worldwide.

Midvalley is the only Utah school to be awarded the STEM+Families Grant this year.

Later this school year, the school will host a math night during which parents and students will come together to play math games, eat and bond as families and a school community.

It's fortuitous timing because the school is placing an additional emphasis on mathematics this year. For three years running, the school's math scores have been on an upward trajectory on state-required assessments, and Principal Tamra Baker wants to build on the success.

The $1,000 grant makes it possible for Midvalley to host a family night that "we would not be able to afford otherwise," Baker said.

No date has been set for the math night, but Kirsti Raleigh, president of the Midvalley Elementary PTA, said the event will likely be early next year "just to give us the time to do something really amazing."

The math night should focus on two objectives: the school's emphasis on math and the PTA's goal "to really improve family involvement," Raleigh said.

There are 19 languages spoken at Midvalley Elementary School, she said.

"My feeling was, that maybe this is the way for families to get involved without feeling like the language barrier was an issue," said Raleigh, who applied for the grant.

Baker, who is in her second year as principal at Midvalley, said the math night will also be an opportunity for parents to learn how to help their children with mathematics.

She said she has been impressed by how much Midvalley parents love their kids and their desire to be involved with their education, which can be challenging because many of the parents work more than one job.

"We needed to find ways to make it accessible for them, make it fun and engaging and give them lots of face time with their kids," she said.SALT LAKE CITY  More than a year after the launch of Operation Rio Grande to clean up Salt Lake City's most infamous neighborhood, it appears the city still faces some public perception challenges when it comes to homelessness and panhandling.

A new Utah Policy poll released Tuesday found 45 percent of 203 city residents who participated in the poll say the homeless and panhandling situation in Salt Lake City is "about the same" as when the state, city and county began the effort to root out crime in the Rio Grande neighborhood.

Twenty-six percent said the homeless situation was better, while 24 percent said the homeless problem has gotten worse over the past year. Five percent said they didn't know.

The Dan Jones & Associates survey was conducted Aug. 22 to Sept. 12, with a margin of error of plus or minus 6.8 percent.

Operation Rio Grande  the multiagency effort to address crime around the downtown homeless shelter and help the state's homeless  has been estimated to cost more than $67 million since its launch in August 2017.

At the one-year anniversary of the operation's launch, state leaders lauded efforts, yet acknowledged there's been "no mission accomplished" and more work needs to be done to connect people to services.

Salt Lake City police expected  and have been working to address  "dispersion" of criminal activity and homelessness issues into other neighborhoods as a result of the increased police presence in the Rio Grande neighborhood, said Salt Lake police detective Greg Wilking.

"This isn't a short-term fix," Wilking said. "This isn't something that we're going to snap our fingers and overnight the situation is going to be resolved."

"We think we've made some progress," the detective added. "We're moving in a good direction  at least we're dealing with it instead of ignoring it."

Wilking said he hopes Salt Lake City residents will be patient with the ongoing efforts  but also engage with police if they see something in their neighborhoods.

"There are people that will say it's worse, but are they doing anything about it? Are they calling when they see that activity or are they complacent?" Wilking said.

Several areas experiencing more crime or turning into new gathering places for homeless have recently become a new focus for Salt Lake City police, including the Gateway Inn on North Temple and green spaces near the Salt Lake Public Safety building. Wilking also said the ongoing construction at Pioneer Park to build a new multipurpose field has also likely caused some ripple effect throughout the city.

Wilking noted the poll's small sample size and large margin of error is something to consider with the poll's results. Even still, Wilking considered the 26 percent of respondents reporting a "better" outcome a positive sign.

"That's not a bad percentage," he said. "That's optimistic, and we like that."

Wilking said he expects Salt Lake City residents will continue to see change as Operation Rio Grande's programs expand, so he urged residents to be patient and diligent over the coming year.

"As we grow those other programs and get more (treatment) beds online and have more resources available, we hope to see to see that number of people saying its getting better grow," Wilking said.SALT LAKE CITY  The controversy surrounding more than $1 million contributed to Rep. Mia Love, R-Utah, for a primary race she didn't have "at most is a $10,800 problem," her newly hired election law attorney said Tuesday.

"From a legal perspective, that's all it is," said Matt Sanderson, an attorney based in Washington, D.C., who was hired less than two weeks ago to help the Love campaign deal with questions about her campaign finances raised by the Federal Election Commission.

Sanderson told reporters during a briefing arranged by the Love campaign that the campaign of her Democratic rival, Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams, is engaged in "extreme hyperbole by saying illegalities occurred."

Love is refunding a total of $10,800 in contributions from four supporters whose contributions exceed the maximum allowed by federal law, Sanderson said, and "relabeling" another $370,000 to account for two rather than three fundraising cycles.

Such actions are "just part and parcel of running federal campaigns," he said, calling the inquiry by the FEC that sparked them routine. He expects it to be resolved in Love's favor.

"There are things to tidy up, but I wouldn't characterize any of the things that have occurred so far as a mistake or a real problem," Sanderson said. "I think it's just a small housekeeping issue to deal with."

That's not how the McAdams' campaign sees the situation surrounding Love's campaign contributions, which are also the subject of a complaint filed with the FEC by the progressive nonprofit Alliance for a Better Utah that seeks a possible criminal investigation.

A new TV commercial from McAdams that began airing Tuesday asks, "What do Washington politicians do when caught with $1 million in illegal contributions? Mia Love kept the money and is using it to make false attacks against Ben McAdams."

McAdams' campaign manager, Andrew Roberts, said Love "tried to game the system to get an unfair advantage," by raising money for both the convention and primary cycles when it was clear she would have no opponent.

Love had no Republican opponents and was formally nominated at the state GOP convention in April, about two months before the state primary election. The Love campaign is redesignating money raised after the convention for the primary.

"This is what Washington, D.C., politicians try to do when they're embroiled in scandal," Roberts said. "They try to distract. They try to misinform people. This is not a complicated issue."

He said the campaign stands by the new TV commercial.

"We'll take the ad off the air when she gives back the illegal million dollars," Roberts said. "She can roll out all the attorneys in the world. It's not going to change the fact that she violated the law."

The new McAdams spot is the first negative commercial from him. Love's latest spot, which also debuted Tuesday, touts McAdams' ties to Bill and Hillary Clinton, including backing Hillary Clinton's presidential bid.

Chase Thomas, executive director of the Alliance for a Better Utah, said Love needs to refund the more than $1 million raised for the primary because it's too late to redesignate contributions.

Thomas said he didn't understand why the Love campaign was bringing it up again.

"In our view, it's a losing issue. But that's because we disagree when it comes down to what the law requires," he said. "It's going to be just a back and forth right now because ultimately the FEC isn't going to get to this until after the midterm election."

The 4th Congressional District race is seen as the most competitive  and most contentious  in Utah. RealClearPolitics.com has labeled the race a toss-up and UtahPolicy.com polling has shown it's too close to call.BULLFROG BASIN, Kane County  A Colorado man is presumed dead after going overboard from a houseboat at Lake Powell on Saturday, officials said.

Daniel Patrick McGuckin, 41, of Avon, was with a group of friends traveling from the Escalante arm of the lake to Bullfrog Basin, Kane County. His friends said he "seemed to decide to jump off" the side of the boat and was not wearing a life jacket, according to a news release from Kane County Sheriff's Office.

A "hasty search effort" began in the area 15 miles south of Bullfrog  near Iceberg Canyon  including four vessels and a dive boat, but McGuckin was not located, the release states.

Crews were still searching for McGuckin's body on Tuesday, officials said.

The National Park Service, Utah State Parks and Kane County Sheriff's Office are investigating the accident.SALT LAKE CITY  A majority of Utahns don't believe President Donald Trump deserves a second term in office, according to a UtahPolicy.com poll released Wednesday.

Asked if the president has "performed his job well enough that he should be re-elected" in 2020, 57 percent of likely Utah voters surveyed for the online political news source said it was time to give someone new a chance to serve.

Only 38 percent told pollster Dan Jones & Associates that Trump should be re-elected. The poll was conducted of 809 likely Utah voters Aug. 22-31 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percent.

The poll showed men evenly split over the president's future, while 67 percent of women said one term was enough. Among Republicans, nearly a third, 31 percent, said they want someone else in the White House after the next election.

"It certainly shows Republicans who support him in Utah have work to do if they want him to win," said UtahPolicy.com publisher LaVarr Webb, who writes a political column for the Deseret News.

Webb said Trump's numbers are "uncommonly low" for a GOP president in one of the most Republican states in the nation, suggesting concerns with his personality may outweigh support for his policies for many voters.

"I think that does have to do with tone," said Webb, who describes himself as a mainstream Republican. "He is just so bombastic and has such a great ego. All of that comes through, and it really turns off a lot of people."

But longtime Trump supporter Don Peay has no doubt Utahns will back the president again in 2020.

"Trump is going to keep doing what he said he was going to do," Peay said, citing a checklist of campaign promises including naming conservatives to the U.S. Supreme Court as well as strengthening both the military and the economy.

"He's tough enough to get them done. He's not a politician that's afraid of breaking a few eggs," Peay said. "They may not like the tone, but they're going to vote on the policy."

Chris Karpowitz, co-director of BYU's Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, said the presidential election is still two years away and it's not known who the Democratic nominee will be, or even if Trump will face a GOP challenger.

Still, Karpowitz said, the poll "does indicate that support for Donald Trump is soft in Utah, despite the fact that it is a very red state." He said support for Trump is concentrated among only the most conservative voters.

The poll found that 99 percent of Democrats want to see someone else in the White House, while just under three-quarters of unaffiliated voters  who are outnumbered only by Republicans  agreed.

"That is a fascinating result, and indicates that Trump's efforts to focus on his base have been effective, even here in Utah, but it also means that he may be alienating other types of voters," Karpowitz said.

Trump has long struggled in Utah.

Utah voters said in a March 2016 Deseret News/KSL poll that they would vote for a Democrat for president for the first time in more than 50 years if Trump became the Republican nominee.

Soon after saying they preferred Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders or former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Trump, he finished a distant third in the Utah Republican Party's caucus vote, behind Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

Even in the 2016 general election, Trump was unable to win a majority of the vote in Utah, taking the state with just over 45 percent of ballots cast, his lowest margin of victory nationwide.

In results reported earlier this month, the same UtahPolicy.com poll found that 41 percent of Utahns strongly disapprove of the job the president is doing, compared to only 23 percent who strongly approve.SALT LAKE CITY  International espionage, high-stake conspiracies and Russian mobsters  theyre the perfect ingredients for a political thriller, which is why former BYU student Val Karren used those ideas as the basis of his debut fiction novel, "The Deceit of Riches" (Fly-By-Night Press, 349 pages).

But those elements are more than mere fiction to Karren  theyre rooted in his real-life experiences.

"I just had to get it on paper," Karren said.

Serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Ukraine introduced an itch for international travel into Karrens life. That itch eventually prompted him to leave Brigham Young University and, in 1995, begin his education anew at a state university in Russias western city of Nizhny Novgorod.

It wasnt long before he met Utah businessman Mike Ramsdell, who was in Russia exploring possible real estate ventures  or so Karren thought. What Karren didnt know (and wouldnt learn until much later) was that Ramsdell was actually an undercover CIA operative stationed in Nizhny Novgorod to keep an eye on the Russian arms industry.

"I really looked up to him as a kind of guiding father figure," Karren said. "He was there doing what I wanted to be doing, pioneering business in the new free Russia  So much of what I knew about him then wasnt true."

And so Karren didnt hesitate to assist Ramsdell in a real estate side project, independent of Ramsdells CIA work. But they didnt realize that they were placing themselves in competition with the Russian mafia, which had its fingers in similar business ventures. Before they knew it, the two were in danger.

"There had been a big break-in at (Ramsdells) apartment, and thats when all the dots started to connect," Karren said. "They didnt take anything; they didnt hurt (Ramsdell and his wife)  they just wanted to scare them. And so Mike said to me, 'If they figure out were in competition together, they will not hesitate to use violence against us.'"

After that, it didn't take Karren long to leave Russia at Ramsdells prompting.

"You get that sinking feeling in your gut of, 'this is real, isnt it?'" he said.

It would take eight years before Karren finally had a full picture of what had happened in Russia before hed learn that Ramsdell had been a CIA agent. The truth only came out after Ramsdell published a book based on his life, "A Train to Potevka."

The excitement of being abroad and his near-scuffle with the mob caused Karren to reflect on his experience in the years that followed. He always wondered what would have happened had he stayed behind, had he not left despite the threats  and he allowed his imagination to run wild with the thought.

He followed Ramsdells example and began planning his own book in 2011. His fiction novel, "The Deceit of Riches," hit shelves six years later. Ramsdell penned the book's forward.

"The premise of the book is, what (would have) happened had I stayed six weeks longer?" Karren said. "You have so many of the different elements that were going on in the city and in the country  weaved together with the crazy experiences I had."

In "The Deceit of Riches," protagonist Peter Turners story begins very much like Karrens  an American student in Russia meets another American in Nizhny Novgorod. Soon after, he accidentally stumbles into a treacherous plot that puts him head to head against Russian mobsters and even government corruption. But unlike Karren, Turner doesnt leave before things take a turn for the worse.

Karren admitted he sensationalized elements in the book for the sake of good storytelling. But he also said that he rooted most of the events that take place in the story in reality, sprouting from true Russian history and his real experiences abroad.

"As I didnt stay, I dont think it would have been an exciting story," he said. "So I had to build some fiction into it to carry the themes."

While the book might feature alluring mysteries, shady characters and a high-stakes plot, Karren hopes those who read "The Deceit of Riches" will learn to better understand Russia, its culture and its people. He believes current events have led to a higher interest in the region and that some of the countrys political corruption has led to harmful stereotypes of everyday Russians. But Karren, who lives in Holland where he works in international trade, believes its more important than ever to understand our neighbors on the other side of the world.

"Your average Russian does not want to kill you or do you any harm," Karren said. "Russians are now being painted that way again, and that does not help world peace."

If you go 

What: Val M. Karren book signing

When: Saturday, Sept. 29, 2 p.m.

Where: The King's English Bookshop, 1511 S. 1500 East

Web: kingsenglish.com

Note: The event is free and open to the public.SALT LAKE CITY  Interviews with children and phone pinging helped law enforcers in northern Utah find the body of a missing woman who was allegedly murdered.

The body of Merrilee Cox-Lafferty, 37, was found Sept. 14 in a shallow grave in Left Hand Fork Canyon. She had driven to northern Utah on Aug. 17 from California with her minor daughter and was last seen on Aug. 18. She was reported missing on Aug. 21.

After her body was found, Stacy Robert Willis, 41, of Hyrum, was arrested and later charged in 1st District Court with capital murder, a first-degree felony; three counts of obstructing justice, a second-degree felony; possession of a dangerous weapon by a restricted person, a second-degree felony; two counts of drug possession, a class B misdemeanor; possession of drug paraphernalia, a class B misdemeanor; and criminal mischief, a class B misdemeanor.

With a capital murder charge, Willis could face the death penalty if convicted. Prosecutors have not said yet whether they intend to pursue that. Willis has been ordered by a judge to be held without bail in the Cache County Jail. His next scheduled court date is Oct. 1.

According to a newly unsealed search warrant, Cox-Lafferty traveled to Utah from California with her daughter to deliver drugs to Willis.

"Merrilee was bringing two large bags of marijuana from California to give to Rob to sell, so her mom could get money," the daughter told police in a Sept. 3 interview, according to the warrant.

Logan Police Capt. Curtis Hooley on Wednesday confirmed that drugs were a factor in the investigation, but he said detectives were still unsure why Willis allegedly turned on Cox-Lafferty. He said the two had known each other for a number of years.

Willis initially told police that he and Cox-Lafferty got into a heated argument in the parking lot of an apartment complex on Aug. 18.

"Rob said that Merrilee was yelling and swearing profusely," according to the warrant. "Rob said because of the fight he was four hours late for work."

A friend of Willis' told police he had to take his children inside because of the argument and that "he told Rob to tell Merrilee to stop because she would cause issues for him at the apartment complex," the warrant states.

But when police interviewed those children on Aug. 24, "none of them (recalled) this argument occurring in their presence," according to the warrant. Officers asked other tenants at the complex about the alleged fight and questioned those who Willis and his friend specifically said heard it.

"None of the persons contacted during this canvass recalled seeing or hearing the dispute as described by (the friend) and Rob," the warrant states. "Even these specifically identified individuals did not recall the dispute."

Willis claimed that Cox-Lafferty continued to text him after he went to work, to the point that he blocked her number on his cellphone, the warrant states. But when a police officer asked to see the messages, Willis "stated the call logs and messages between him and Merrilee after their fight in the parking lot were deleted when he blocked her number on his phone," according to the warrant.

Willis also claimed he eventually called emergency dispatchers to report Cox-Lafferty missing, but they told him that a person needed to be gone for 24 hours before he could file a report, the warrant states.

"Local public safety dispatch shows no record of Rob's phone number contacting dispatch. Your affiant also spoke with dispatch supervisors who explained it is not policy or practice for dispatchers to tell anybody wishing to report a person missing there is a 24-hour prerequisite," the officer who attempted to verify Willis' story noted in the warrant.

On Aug. 19, Willis drove Cox-Lafferty's daughter to a mutual friend's house in Mountain Home, Idaho, to have a woman there take care of the girl, the warrant states.

When police interviewed the daughter, she said she had seen her mother at Willis' house in Hyrum on Aug. 18. But because the two were arguing, "she didn't want to be there and asked to be taken back" to the friend's house, the warrant states.

Logan police originally announced that the discovery of Cox-Lafferty's therapy dog, that had been picked up and turned into a local shelter, was a big turning point in the investigation. Police obtained surveillance video of Willis and his friend arriving at work on Aug. 18. In the video, the men have Merrilee's Australian shepherd mix with them, according to the warrant, but there is no sign of Cox-Lafferty.

Investigators also "pinged" Cox-Lafferty's cellphone in an attempt to retrace her steps. A ping from Aug. 18 at 1:30 p.m. placed her phone in the area of Blacksmith Fork Canyon, the warrant states. A second ping about 45 minutes later placed the phone west of the intersection of 1700 South, U.S. 89/91, in Logan, near the road.

The warrant, which was written before Cox-Lafferty's body was found, was written to investigate the possible crime of homicide. The officer who wrote the warrant noted that both Willis and his friend, "have made materially false statements regarding their activities on Aug. 18, 2018."

As of Wednesday, the friend had not been arrested or charged. Hooley said, however, that "other people are being considered" as part of the ongoing investigation. When completed, the case will be turned over the Cache County Attorney's Office, which will determine what charges, if any, should be filed, he said.

Cox-Lafferty's vehicle was located in Boise and search warrants have been issued in Idaho and Utah.

Willis was convicted of felony discharge of a firearm in 2014 after firing two shots at a couple trying to pull out of a Walmart parking lot in North Logan. He was sentenced to one to 15 years at the Utah State Prison.

Utah court records show that Willis also has convictions for forgery in 2003, escape from custody in 2000 and possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance in 1999.Google has always known how to have some fun with its users. Be it creative Doodles, April Fools pranks, or matching selfies to famous paintings, the Mountain View-based company is constantly thinking up fresh ways to make its products more exciting to use for its customers. Google Search has been one such service that has, in the past, hidden entertaining surprises for creative Searchers in the form of Easter Eggs. To mark its 20th anniversary, Google shared some of its most popular Search easter eggs with us, with the story behind how they were they were conceived. Take a look and try them out.

Do a barrel roll

Go ahead and Google search Do a Barrel Roll in Search and youll experience your world turning upside down. The Easter Egg was created by Google Engineer Mike Buchanan in just a matter of hours. When I was creating it, I thought it was just one more little Easter Egg to complement askew. I never expected it to be infinitely more popular than that previous one, says Buchanan.

Atari Breakout

For the old school gamers, a search for Atari Breakout in Google Images literally breaks out into a version of the popular arcade game Breakout, complete with signature Google colours. According to Googler Aaron Sarna, the team had just launched a new system for organising image results that allowed them to create this Easter Egg. It showed off the capabilities of the new system and was also a fun and delightful surprise for users.

Zerg Rush

Search for Zerg Rush and youll see little Zergs eating up your search results. Your mouse is your gun and can be used to defend against the search eaters. If you dont move fast in fighting back against the zergs, your results will start to disappear. We came up with the prototype in just a few days for one of our demo days, where we share the latest features were working on with our colleagues. After showing it off, we got approval to keep working on it and eventually bring it live to the results page. We all liked Starcraft and were inspired to create something fun for users in Search, said Googlers William Li & Onur Tekdas.

Im feeling Curious

Possibly one of the most popular Google Search Easter Eggs, typing Im Feeling Curious in search can keep one entertained for hours with interesting trivia and facts. Google recalls, Our team was building a framework for lightweight and delightful experiences on Search, like tic tac toe or animal sounds. We gave this challenge to a Noogler on our team to come up with an idea that could help curious users find quick facts, and this is what he came up with!

Bletchley Park

If youre familiar with the Enigma Code, youll get a historical surprise in Search when you type in Bletchley Park. Within the Knowledge Panel on the right side for Bletchley Park, youll find an homage to Turing and his team of codebreakers. According to Googler Jessa Mittleman, the Easter Egg was created around Alan Turings 100th birthday as a clever way to honor him. The most interesting part of building this Easter Egg was making it work in languages that used different scripts, like Hebrew, Arabic, Cyrillic, Japanese, and Greek, said Mittleman.For over two decades, Google Search has been a key provider of information to people, especially in times of crisis where actionable information is crucial. Over the years, Google has evolved its systems to provide more accurate information so that people and authorities can better prepare themselves to be safe when disasters strike. Google has now announced that it is using Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered systems to forecast floods more accurately. The company has commenced its flood forecasting efforts with India, where 20 percent of global flood-related incidents are said to occur.

It is estimated that every year, 250 million people around the world are affected by floods, also costing billions of dollars in damages. Flood forecasting can help individuals and authorities better prepare to keep people safe, but accurate forecasting isnt currently available in many areas. And the warning systems that do exist can be imprecise and non-actionable, resulting in far too many people being underprepared and under-informed before a flood happens, Yossi Matias, Vice President, Engineering, statesin a blog post.

Flood alert shown to users in the Patna region.

Matias adds that Google is partnering with India's Central Water Commission to get the data required for rolling out early flood warnings, starting with the Patna region. According to the company, the first alert went out earlier this month after heavy rains in the region.

To help improve awareness of impending floods, we're using AI and significant computational power to create better forecasting models that predict when and where floods will occur, and incorporating that information into Google Public Alerts, the executive noted. The company uses a variety of elements like data from historical events and river level readings, to the terrain and elevation of a specific area. This data is then fed into its AI models that generates maps and runs up to thousands of simulations in each location. With this information, Google's AI was able to create river flood forecasting models that are said to more accurately predict when and where a flood might occur, along with the severity of the event.

These images depict a flood simulation of a river in Hyderabad, India. The left side uses publicly available data while the right side uses Google data and technology. Google's models contain higher resolution, accuracy, and up-to-date information. (Courtesy: Google)

Were also looking to expand coverage to more countries, to help more people around the world get access to these early warnings, and help keep them informed and safe, Matias notes. Last year, Google launched SOS Alerts on Search and Maps to make emergency information more accessible. It claims that since then, it has activated SOS Alerts in more than 200 crisis situations, in addition to tens of thousands of Google Public Alerts, which have been viewed more than 1.5 billion times.Defence India Startup Challenge deadline extended till 31 October

Defence ministry on Tuesday announced an extension of the last date for submission of applications to the Defence India Startup Challenge (DISC), being organised by the Defence Innovation Organisation (DIO) till 31 October 2018.

The Defence India Startup Challenge being organised with support from the Department of Defence Production of the ministry of defence and Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog under the Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX) scheme.

Launched by defence minister Nirmala Sitaraman on 4 August 2018, the scheme calls for proposals to address specific technological needs of the Indian defence establishment.

Applicants (startups/MSMEs and individuals) showing capability, intent, and promise to be able to produce functional prototypes or to productise existing technologies in select areas will be awarded up to Rs1.5 crore, strictly on a milestone basis in the form of grant/equity/debt/other relevant structures along with incubation and mentoring support.

The Defence India Startup Challenge throws open 11 problem statements for prospective solutions to be provided by the Indian start-up eco-system. The proposed areas of innovation include:

Individual protection system with built-in sensors,

See through armour,

Carbon fibre winding (CFW),

Active protection system (APS)

Secure hardware based offline encrypt or device for graded security,

Development of 4G/LTE based tactical local area network,

Development of advanced technology based desalination system (water purification) and bilge oily water separation system,

Artificial intelligence in logistics and SCM,

Unmanned surface and underwater vehicles,

Remotely piloted airborne vehicles, and

Laser weaponry.

Applications can be submitted online at <aim.gov.in/idex> by 31 October 2018.WTM London 2018 is hosting a unique day-long challenge, organised by The Digital Tourism Think Tank (DTTT) on November 7 that puts teams against each other to solve overcrowding in some of Europes busiest destinations.



Working with I amsterdam, the destination challenge that asks teams from start-up hubs, tech communities and innovation centres, alongside destination, industry and academia to use design thinking to come up with a solution to overcrowding in these popular tourist hotspots.



Applicants are invited to apply for their spot by filling out an application form and explaining why this topic is important to them. Applicants will then be sorted and arranged into teams ahead of the day to allow for additional preparation and research. On the day, the teams will then listen to real-life case studies from Amsterdam before getting on with the challenge and finding a solution to: How can we overcome the challenge of overcrowding in tourism hotspots and spread the value of tourism wider?



Speaking of the destination challenge and the opportunity it poses for all involved, Nick Hall, DTTT founder, said: This is a truly unique gathering of some of the brightest minds from within, and also outside, of the travel industry. For challenge participants, the opportunity is unprecedented; to pitch solutions to a hugely engaged audience of leading destination and industry professionals in the Europe Inspiration Zone. The winning team get to take their ideas to #DTTT Global 2018 in Helsinki, take part in Slush 2018, the worlds leading start-up event and have the chance to prototype their ideas with the worlds leading destinations. The Challenge Host, Amsterdam, can tap



The day itself has allocated times dedicated to each stage of the Design Thinking process, allowing the challenge to be broken down and given dedicated time to solve. There are five core stages of the Design Thinking sprint process, which are:



1. The teams use empathy to understand the challenge  Key industry mentors and leaders immerse the teams in the challenge by sharing perspective and thrashing out initial problems.

2. Teams start narrowing down, organising and clearly defining the needs  Teams organise problems into groupings and drill-down in-depth on data and insight gathered from expert meetings.

3. Intensive ideation, teams thrashing out ideas on possible solutions  With extensive knowledge gathered in the morning sessions, teams put all their ideas together, clustering and voting on those to take forward.

4. Take one idea forward and developing initial prototype concepts  Teams select one idea to intensely develop and show how a minimum viable product would look and function should they win.

5. Pitch solutions to a panel of judges on the Global Stage for voting  Each team has seven minutes to pitch their idea before the panel of judges.



The Challenge Host cities, as well as WTM London and DTTT experts, will be on-hand throughout the day to offer guidance, feedback and advice before each team pitching to a panel of judges at the end of the day. The judges will be assessing each pitch based on the strength of their solution, how realistic it is to launch, how creative their approach is and how long it is likely to last. The winning team is invited to #DTTTGlobal in Helsinki this year to pitch their winning solution to industry experts and DMO representatives from all over the world.



WTM London, Conference and Seminar Manager, Charlotte Alderslade, said: Ideas Arrive at WTM London and this session on overcrowding is the perfect example of how the event looks to tackle the industrys biggest challenges and come up with solutions.



How can we overcome the challenge of overcrowding in tourism hotspots and spread the value of tourism wider? The challenge takes place all day on November 7, kicking off at 08:00, with the final round of pitching happening at 15.00-16.30 in the Europe Inspiration Zone.



Submissions for applications to take part in the session close on October 24. Apply at https://www.thinkdigital.travel/challenge/ . -TradeArabia News Service

Investor immigration: many opportunities as nations vie for funds

Investment-based immigration has gained steam especially after the 2008 financial meltdown, as a host of countries has come up with attractive programmes to attract foreign funds, says Ajay Sharma, president of immigration and visa consultancy Abhinav Outsourcings

Over the years, investor immigration programs have become extremely popular amongst businessmen and high net worth individuals who are seeking an alternate residency or second passport for various reasons.

Canada (Quebec) Immigrant Investor program was one of the first such initiatives and continues to be the most popular among eligible applicants. It is perhaps the oldest immigrant investor program in the world.

Most of the EU countries started offering these plans after the 2008 crisis. Investments (in almost all cases) to get residency or citizenship came interest free, the only requirement being refund after 5-6 years, depending on scheme parameters. This was normally through investment in government funds and/or schemes. Most also offer options for investments in property. This serves many purposes  generates employment, grows the economy because of movement through sale of all construction and use of linked equipment and material, and overall makes finances flow through the economy.

While many Caribbean countries, especially St. Kitts and Nevis, have had investment based passport programs for few years now, they slashed the investment amounts after last years cyclones that caused huge infrastructural and financial damage in these countries. They used the programs to get the funding to rebuild their countries.

The much talked about EB-Green card program has been in operation since 1990 but got fame only after the financial meltdown of 2008. No American banks were lending money to the crashed property segment and they started collecting funds through an interest free investment vehicle called EB-5!

Political upheavals, uncertainty and rise of fundamentalism and autocracies across the world also created demand for these investor immigrant products. Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Iran. Turkey, Pakistan, and Afghanistan  the list is long.

In the Indian context, the overall media hype  on account of aggressive marketing budgets of the regional centres and consultants  indicating that Indians are applying for these programs in hordes is misplaced and misleading. A few hundreds do not make it a flood in a country of the size of India.

Unlike other countries, Indians mostly opt for these programs for betterment of quality of life and the future of their children. Corruption, difficulty in doing business, pollution and kids education and lower or negligible taxation rates continue to be the main motivators.

More and more countries are realising the opportunities such programmes bring and cheap funds they generate for their government. Various countries across the globe have formulated attractive programs to attract the investor immigrants. The list is long  Canada, the USA, Singapore, UK, Bulgaria, Malta, Ireland, Greece, Portugal, Spain, the Baltics and Caribbean countries.

Applicants make their destination choice depending on careful assessment of many factors such as

Personal net worth

Investment budgets

Application processing time frames

Timeline to getting passports

Physical residency requirements to retain the residency status

Immigration destination

Number of countries for which visa-free travel convenience is permitted by the passport

Higher educational facilities for children

Business and personal taxation rates

Ease of doing business

Weather, especially preference for less polluted destinations

Social security benefits

Permission for elderly or non-dependent children to accompany the principal applicant

Though many times it has received its share of flak, investor immigrant programs still remain a very popular option and countries globally are now in a virtual race to attract the investor migrants.Yes bank board to seek more time for Rana Kapoor as MD & CEO

The board of Yes Bank on Tuesday decided to request the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to grant more time to its managing director and chief executive officer Rana Kapoor till it finds a suitable replacement.

The board in a filing to BSE said it needs more time to find a successor for Rana Kapoor and three months is not enough.

The board has also decided to form a search and selection committee to identify a new MD and CEO for the bank, after the RBI asked Yes Bank founder Rana Kapoor to step down from the post of CEO and MD by end-January 2019.

The committee would consist of three existing members of the nominations and remuneration committee of the board as well as two external experts.

In the interim, the board said that in order to establish a long term succession plan within Yes Bank, it has been decided to appoint Rajat Monga and Pralay Mondal, currently senior group presidents, as executive directors of the bank. Appropriate recommendations would be made to the banking regulator, the board said.

Kapoors current term ends in September. In June, the bank had approved another three year term but required RBIs approval for the same. The regulator has asked Kapoor to continue till further notice

"It was decided that Reserve Bank of India be requested for an extension up to minimum April 30, 2019 for finalisation of audited financial statements for fiscal year ending 2019; thereafter subject to RBI approval, up to September 30, 2019 in order for the statutory AGM process to be completed," the bank in a statement.

Last week, the RBI in a letter had asked the Yes Bank founder Rana Kapoor to step down from the post of CEO and MD by end-January. The board had earlier approved a three-year term for Kapoor, starting September 2018.

Kapoor, along with being the managing director and chief executive, serves as the whole-time director of the bank.

While Yes Bank reported rapid growth over the last decade under Kapoor, the regulator pointed out discrepancies in the way the bank reported its bad loans. The bank had higher bad loan ratios for two consecutive years.

Kapoors is the second instance of RBI stalling a reappointment in a private lender after Shikha Sharma, managing director and chief executive officer of Axis Bank Ltd, was not allowed a term extension.

RBI asked the bank board to reconsider its approval prompting Sharmas exit. She will step down on 31 December, following which, Amitabh Chaudhry of HDFC Standard Life Insurance Company Ltd. is set to take over.

Rana Kapoor, founded Yes Bank in 2003 with his brother-in-law Ashok Kapur and colleague Harkirat Singh, becoming the first to get a banking licence under RBIs policy of allowing more private sector banks.

Rana Kapoor, Ashok Kapur and Harkirat Singh had together set up Rabo India Finance, the India arm of Netherlands-based lender Rabobank. Later all three partners sold their cumulative 25 per cent stake in the India arm to set up Yes Bank with a Rs200 crore capital.

While Harkirat Singh left the outfit due to differences among the major shareholders on who would lead the bank, Ashok Kapur tragically passed away during the Mumbai terror attack in November 2008. Since then, Kapoor has been the sole founder director to lead the bank.

Rana Kapoor also successfully fought off a challenge by his sister and Ashok Kapurs wife Madhu Kapur who dragged him and the Yes Bank board to court in 2013, seeking more powers in nominating new board members. Since Kapoos promoter shareholding had been passed on to his family after his death, his wife initially sought to appoint their daughter Shagun Gogia on the banks board.

Kapoor and the banks board opposed this appointment citing lack of experience. The bank also contested that the Kapur familys shareholding had moved to non-promoter status after the co-founders death.

The Kapur family later demanded that they have say in appointing new directors on the banks board. In 2015, the Bombay High Court ruled in favour of Kapur and Gogia, giving them powers to jointly nominate new members.Barrick Gold to acquire Randgold in a $6.5 million all-stock deal

Canadas Barrick Gold Corporation on Monday announced that it has agreed to acquire Randgold Resources Limited in an all-stock deal valuing the Africa-focused miner at $6.5 billion, to create a new Barrick Gold with a market capitalisation of $19.4 billion.

The merger will create an industry-leading gold company with the greatest concentration of Tier One Gold Assets ... and the lowest total cash cost position among senior gold peers, supporting sustainable investment in growth and shareholder returns, Barrick Gold stated in a release.

The new $19.4 billion Barrick Gold will own five of the worlds 10 lowest-cost gold mines that would also help barrack overtake Newmont Mining Corporation, Agnico Eagle Mines Limited, Goldcorp Inc and Newcrest Mining Limited, according to the company.

In 2017, Barrick and Randgold combined produced 6.64 million ounces while the next largest gold miner, Newmont, produced 5.27 million ounces.

The two companies said they were aligned on their strategy with Chinese investors after Barrick said it would make a bigger push to attract investors in China.

Randgold has mines in Mali, Ivory Coast and the Republic of Congo, where it has been facing regulatory issues, a factor that Barricks Africa unit Acacia Mining has to deal with in Tanzania.

The deal marks the biggest transaction in years in the gold mining industry, where companies have come under fire from investors for poorly managing capital, forcing them to focus on costs while dampening enthusiasm for acquisitions.

The combination of Barrick and Randgold will create a new champion for value creation in the gold mining industry, bringing together the worlds largest collection of Tier One Gold Assets, with a proven management team that has consistently delivered among the best shareholder returns in the gold sector over the past decade, John L. Thornton, executive chairman of Barrick, said.

Our industry has been criticised for its short-term focus, undisciplined growth and poor returns on invested capital. The merged company will be very different. Its goal will be to deliver sector leading returns, and in order to achieve this, we will need to take a very critical view of our asset base and how we run our business, and be prepared to make tough decisions, Mark Bristow, chief executive officer of Randgold, said.

The merger is planned to be implemented by means of a court-sanctioned scheme of arrangement of Randgold Resources Limited and the Randgold Shareholders, with the entire issued and to be issued share capital of Randgold being acquired by Barrick.

Under the terms of the merger, each Randgold shareholder will receive 6.1280 New Barrick shares for each Randgold Share. Following completion of the merger, Barrick shareholders will own approximately 66.6 per cent and Randgold Shareholders will own approximately 33.4 per cent of the New Barrick Group on a fully-diluted basis.

Following completion of the Merger, John L. Thornton, executive chairman of Barrick, will become executive chairman of the New Barrick Group.

Mark Bristow, chief executive officer of Randgold, will become president and chief executive officer of the New Barrick Group.

Graham Shuttleworth, finance director and chief financial officer of Randgold, will become senior executive vice president and chief financial officer of the New Barrick Group.

Kevin Thomson, senior executive vice president, strategic matters of Barrick, will become senior executive vice president, strategic matters of the New Barrick Group.

Two-thirds of the directors of the board of the New Barrick Group will be nominated by Barrick, and one-third will be nominated by Randgold.

Shares in the New Barrick Group issued to Randgold Shareholders will be admitted to trade on the New York Stock Exchange and the Toronto Stock Exchange, subject to the approval or acceptance of each exchange.

The merger is subject to approval by both sets of shareholders, regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions, and is expected to close by Q1 2019.Minister Joe McHugh has hosted a fact-finding mission for islanders from Oilean Thorai as part of consultations on securing a new ferry for the island.

Minister for the Irish language, Gaeltacht and the Islands, Deputy McHugh, said: I want to thank the members of Comharchumann Oilean Thorai for making the long journey south to allow me to host this consultation."

The public representative said that discussions with ferry owners in Doolin, County Clare has enabled them to learn more about sourcing a new boat for Oilean Thorai and the process that other operators have gone through to source new boats and consider designs.

The Government Chief Whip, Deputy McHugh, was joined in Doolin by manager of the Comharchumman Marjorie Ui Chearbhaill and a number of other members alongside Pol O Gallchoir, the chairperson of Foras na Gaeilge.

This consultation was not only a chance to see first-hand the different modern boats that are operating from and to other islands along the western seaboard but more importantly it gives us a chance to learn more about the process involved in bringing one of these ferries into service, Mr McHugh said.

Mr McHugh added: Along with the initiatives that we are taking here with the ferry services earlier this summer my Department secured grant funding of 359,000 for works on the islands off Donegal. We are doing works on the lighthouse road on Arranmore; we have plans progressing for new new cranes on Oilean Thorai and at Machaire Rabhartaigh, a new cargo operation, ongoing discussions on extending helicopter services and plans to publish a revised tender for a longer-term fast ferry."

He said that all these works reflect the Governments commitment to secure a new passenger ferry boat for Oilean Thorai as pledged in the National Development Plan.

I look forward to continuing to work with the Islanders of Oilean Thorai and all the islands in order to put their interests at the heart of the decisions that are made in the Department on transport, the language, connectivity, education, the environment. Our islands are truly at the heart of what is best loved and admired about Irish culture and these kind of investments demonstrate how highly we value their communities, he said.



To mark its 12th annual call for applications, the Pramerica Spirit of Community Awards launched #GetOutThere2019, a campaign calling on students, teachers and principals to acknowledge and honour young volunteers.

The closing date for nominations is October 25, and the awards ceremony will take place in the Aviva Stadium, Dublin in March 2019.

The awards launch took place at Pramerica on Tuesday morning. A number of students and teachers from local secondary schools were there for the event.

Students are eligible for the 2019 awards if they are under the age of 16 on January 1, 2019 for the Junior Category or under the age of 19 for the Senior category. A principal can then nominate two students maximum per school.

Niall Gosson, one of two national winners of the 2018 Pramerica Spirit of the Community Awards, was officially named the programmes 2019 Student Ambassador for his continued commitment to volunteering and involvement in his community.

Niall will now act as the Spirit of the Community student leader throughout the year and promote the power of youth volunteering across the island of Ireland.

To date, it is estimated that over 3000 students, from 300 schools across Ireland, have now been honoured by the Pramerica Spirit of the Community awards for their volunteering.

Andrea McBride, VP of Systems at Pramerica Systems Ireland said the Spirit of Community Awards programme was designed not only to identify great youth volunteers, but also to give schools an effective way to commend deserving young volunteers and to hold them up as role models for other young people.

At Pramerica we believe an interest in volunteering must be fostered from a young age, she said.

That is why we continue to engage with schools across the island of Ireland to encourage them to realise its value to society and praise their students who are already going above and beyond.

These awards are the only all-Ireland initiative seeking to celebrate and honour second level students for volunteer work.

Niall Gosson, 2019 Student Ambassador said he started out volunteering for Scouting Ireland and Park Run.

I never imagined I would win a Pramerica Spirit of the Community Award  its a real honour, he said.

 It meant so much to me that I was put forward by my school and it has really motivated me to continue volunteering.

I cant emphasise enough how important it is for young people to get out there and get involved, particularly as we continue to face a growing digital media obsession with students spending hours and hours a day on their phones or tablets shut off from the world and missing out on what is really important.

For further information about the Awards and how to apply go to www.spirit.pramerica.ie.The St. Gerard Majella Novena 2017 ended abruptly with the arrival of Storm Ophelia.

Since then Ireland has had snow storms, heatwaves, high winds, more Brexit tension, a referendum and the World meeting of families with the presence of Pope Francis.

Where in Gods name do the days and months go to?

Its hard to believe that it is already St. Gerard Majella Novena Time for 2018!

The St Gerard Majella Novena begins on Monday 8th October and runs for nine days until Tuesday 16th October.

Rector of St. Josephs, Fr. Michael Cusack is expecting huge crowds to converge on Dundalk to attend the popular novena in honour of St Gerard Majella in the Redemptorist Church.

This event is now part of the very fabric of life for the people of Dundalk, Newry and the surrounding towns and counties. Hard Brexit or Soft Brexit, life continues for us all with its burdens and challenges. We all have our reasons to be thankful and our special intentions to pray for. This community gathering of prayer and worship has inspired and helped many over the generations and has truly stood the test of time.

There has been devotion to St Gerard here in this region for over 100 years now. We always look forward to welcoming people back and indeed welcoming new faces. The most important message to get out there is that All are welcome.

The World Meeting of Families took place in Dublin in August and focused our minds on Family Life today and all its responsibilities and complexities. We will continue this reflection at the novena this year under the overall theme of The Joy of Love  Family Life Today.

Weekday Times are: 7.00am, 9.30am, 11.30am, 1.10pm, 2.30pm, 4.30pm, 6.00pm, 7.30pm, 9.00pm & 10.30pm. The Sunday Times differ slightly: 7.00am, 8.00am, 9.30am, 11.00am, 12.30pm, 4.30pm, 6.00pm, 7.30pm & 9.00pm.

Some of the special events this year are:

- This year our guest speaker is Eileen Hoffler from SERVE. Eileen will share with us on the theme of Sharing Responsibility for our Global Family at all novena sessions on Thursday 11th.

- On Friday 12th we celebrate as a community the Sacrament of Reconciliation at the 9.30am, 11am, 6pm and 7.30pm novena sessions.

- The ceremony of the Anointing of the Sick and Elderly takes place on Saturday 13th at 11.30am and 2.30pm.

- The great celebration of the Blessing of Babies and Children will be held on Sunday 14th at 2.30pm.

- Our preachers this year are: Fr. Richard Reid, C.Ss.R. (St. Marys, Clapham, London);

- Fr. John Littleton (Priory Institute, Tallaght), Fr. Tadhg Herbert, C.Ss.R. (Brazil Mission);

- Sr. Elizabeth Davis RSM (Newfoundland)

Fr Michael Cusack stated that the parish is looking forward to welcoming you all to St Josephs Redemptorist Church in Dundalk for this great Festival of Faith.The duo behind Instagram have announced that they will be stepping down from their roles.

Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger are stepping down from their respective roles as CEO and CTO at the image- and video-sharing giant, which is owned by Facebook.

Systrom confirmed the move in a blog post Monday evening, following an earlier report by the New York Times about the duos departure.

In the post, Systrom said he and Krieger plan to take time off to explore our curiosity and creativity again.

Systrom and Krieger, fellow Stanford alums, founded Instagram in 2010. Facebook acquired Instagram two years later for $US1 billion  and it has since grown to a community of more than 1 billion monthly users.

Mike and I are grateful for the last eight years at Instagram and six years with the Facebook team, Systrom wrote.

Weve grown from 13 people to over a thousand with offices around the world, all while building products used and loved by a community of over one billion. Were now ready for our next chapter.

Were planning on taking some time off to explore our curiosity and creativity again. Building new things requires that we step back, understand what inspires us and match that with what the world needs; thats what we plan to do.

The pairs departure raises uncertainty over the future of Instagram, which has been able to sustain a dramatic growth trajectory while largely avoiding headaches that have befallen its parent company.

Facebook has been the target of US government investigations into how its platform has been used to manipulate the 2016 election and the misappropriation of user data by consulting firm Cambridge Analytica.

When Instagram joined us, the team had only 16 people, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on the companys Q2 earnings call July 25.

We believe Instagram has been able to use Facebooks infrastructure to grow more than twice as quickly as it would have on its own. A big congratulations to the Instagram team  and to all the teams across our company that have contributed to this success.

Instagram has become a key contributor to Facebooks growth and profits, and is growing at a faster rate than Facebook.

Instagram has 25 million business profiles and 2 million advertisers, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg told investors on the July earnings call.

Systrom has credited Facebooks ownership with fuelling the growth of Instagram and helping it quickly launch new features, like live-streaming video.

Instagram became a preferred platform for celebrities and influencers because it has focused on fostering a safe and upbeat environment, Systrom told Variety in an interview last year.

People say Instagram is super positive and optimistic. In fact, we have a ton of negative stuff, but were going after it before we have a problem, he said.

With AAP.Members of the Sounding Board of the Multistakeholder Forum[1] on Disinformation Online - which includes the EBU - have delivered their final opinion on the new so-called 'Code of Practice'.

The Sounding Board, comprised of representatives of the media, civil society, journalists, consumer organizations, fact-checkers and academia, thanked the Commission and Commissioner Mariya Gabriel for convening the Forum and for the opportunity to comment on the so-called 'Code of Practice' drawn up by the working group.

As demonstrated in the Sounding Boards detailed and written feedback and comments, the so-called 'Code of Practice' regrettably contains no common approach, no meaningful commitments, no measurable objectives or KPIs, no compliance or enforcement tools and hence no possibility to monitor the implementation process.

The Sounding Board considers that the Platforms, despite their best efforts, have not been able to deliver a Code of Practice within the accepted meaning of effective and accountable self-regulation[2].

The Sounding Board has proposed that the situation is regularly evaluated by independent fact-checkers and academic researchers for a test period in the run-up to the forthcoming European elections. Furthermore the Sounding Board has requested that the European Commission puts in place a process to assess whether or not the so-called code delivers against the goals as set out in Communication - Tackling Online Disinformation: a European Approach released on 26th April 2018.

The Sounding Board encourages the European Commission to closely monitor the situation and give its assessment in the first quarter of 2019.

Sounding Board Signatories

 Gregoire Polad, Association of Commercial Television in Europe

 Vincent Sneed, Association of European Radios

 Oreste Pollicino, Bocconi University

 Monique Goyens, Bureau Europeen des Unions de Consommateurs

 Ravi Vatrapu, Copenhagen Business School

 Nicola Frank, European Broadcasting Union

 Ricardo Gutierrez, European Federation of Journalists

 Marie de Cordier, European Magazine Media Association | European Newspaper Publishers Association

 Angela Mills Wade, European Publishers' Council

 Alexios Mantzarlis, International Fact-Checking Network

 Wout van Wijk, News Media Europe

 Bilyana Petkova, Yale University

[1] The Multistakeholder Forum on Disinformation comprises two different and autonomous groups. On the one hand, major online platforms ad exchanges and their trade associations, the advertisers and agencies associations and the European advertising self-regulatory body (the Working Group), and on the other hand representatives of the media, civil society, fact checkers and academia (the Sounding Board).

[2] The European Union considers self-regulation: Self-regulation constitutes a type of voluntary initiative which enables economic operators, social partners, non-governmental organisations or associations to adopt common guidelines amongst themselves and for themselves. They are responsible for development, monitoring, compliance with and enforcement of those guidelines (See AVMS D as adopted in CULT Committee, Recital 7a).Executive summary

This fifth oversight report on card fraud analyses developments in fraud related to card payment schemes (CPSs) in the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) and covers almost the entire card market.[1] It provides an overview of developments in card payment fraud between 2012 and 2016.

The total value of fraudulent transactions conducted using cards issued within SEPA and acquired worldwide amounted to 1.8 billion in 2016  a decrease of 0.4% compared with 2015. In relative terms, i.e. as a share of the total value of transactions, fraud dropped by 0.001 percentage point to 0.041% in 2016, down from 0.042% in 2015. Compared, again in relative terms, with the levels of fraud observed in 2012, fraud increased by 0.003 percentage points in 2016. Although there was an upward trend in card fraud between 2012 and 2015, it seems the trend is changing, given that fraud went down in 2016.

With respect to the composition of card fraud in 2016, 73% of the value of card fraud resulted from card-not-present (CNP) payments, i.e. payments via the internet, post or telephone, 19% from transactions at point-of-sale (POS) terminals and 8% from transactions at automated teller machines (ATMs).[2]

With 1.32 billion in fraud losses in 2016, CNP fraud was not only the largest category of fraud in absolute value but, unlike ATM and POS fraud, it was also the only one to record an increase (of 2.1%) compared with the previous year. Data on regular, i.e. non-fraudulent, CNP transactions, which are only partially available, suggest that there was also considerable growth in CNP transactions on the whole. Based on this partial information, it can be concluded that CNP fraud grew at a lower rate than CNP transactions.

In an interview, market representatives from a European security forum[3] confirmed that there is an ongoing shift of fraud from the card-present to the card-not-present environment. However, the market has started to develop a plethora of fraud prevention and detection security tools with the objective of bringing online fraud rates down (e.g. implementation of 3D Secure, risk-based analysis, Tokenization). In addition, the European regulators have contributed to fighting online fraud with regulatory tools  the 2013 Recommendations for the security of internet payments and the 2014 Guidelines on the security of internet payments[4]. Recently, they also strengthened the security requirements for electronic payments with the revision of the Payment Services Directive (PSD2) in 2015 and specified further such requirements in the Regulatory Technical Standards for strong customer authentication and common and secure open standards of communication in 2017.

The largest drop in the level of fraud concerned card fraud committed at ATMs, with 12.4% less fraud in 2016 compared with 2015, while fraud committed at POS terminals went down by 3.0%. The lower level of ATM fraud was mainly due to a substantial decrease in counterfeit card fraud and fraud using lost and stolen cards following the migration of cards and terminals to EMV. Fraud using lost and stolen cards accounted for 47% of the value of fraud at ATMs and POS terminals, while counterfeit card fraud made up 43%. As observed in previous years, counterfeit card fraud was predominant for transactions acquired in countries outside SEPA. This trend continued in 2016, although that geographical category has seen a decrease in counterfeit card fraud compared with 2015.

For delayed debit cards and credit cards, CNP fraud was the most common type of fraud in 2016, accounting for 76% of the total value, followed by fraud occurring at POS terminals (20%) and ATMs (4%). For debit cards, CNP fraud was also the most common type, making up 71% of the total fraud value for these cards, followed by POS and ATM fraud, which accounted for 19% and 10% respectively.

From a geographical perspective, domestic transactions accounted for 90% of all transactions, but only 35% of fraudulent transactions. Cross-border transactions within SEPA made up for 8% of all transactions, but 43% of fraudulent transactions. Finally, although only 2% of all transactions were acquired outside SEPA, they accounted for 22% of all fraud. The euro area experienced slightly lower fraud levels from an issuing and acquiring perspective than SEPA as a whole.

Compared with SEPA as a whole, fraudsters in the euro area focused more on ATM and POS fraud (fraud committed at ATMs and POS terminals accounted for 30% of the total value of fraud in the euro area, compared with 27% in SEPA). The difference can be attributed mainly to the influence of the United Kingdom, which had a relatively high share of CNP fraud and, with its total level of fraud, accounted for 40% of total fraud losses on cards issued within SEPA.

This report also covers data on transactions conducted using cards issued outside SEPA, but acquired inside SEPA. These data show that there are higher fraud losses on non-SEPA issued cards used inside SEPA than there are on SEPA issued cards used outside SEPA. This also holds true in relative terms in relation to the value of transactions: 0.57% of the value of transactions acquired inside SEPA using non-SEPA issued cards was fraudulent, compared with 0.44% of the value of transactions acquired outside SEPA using cards issued inside SEPA. The finding suggests that European cardholders also benefit from high European security standards for transactions conducted outside SEPA.

For individual European Union (EU) Member States, large variations with respect to card usage were identified, as in the previous report: the number of cards per inhabitant ranged from 0.8 to 3.9[5], the number of payments made per year per inhabitant ranged from 26 to 329, while the corresponding transaction values ranged between 1,800 and more than 17,000 per year and inhabitant. Fraud shares, i.e. the fraud-related share of the transaction value or volume, ranged from 0.005% for cards issued in Poland to 0.073 % for cards issued in Denmark in terms of value, and from 0.002% in Poland to 0.043% for cards issued in France in terms of volume. There were also big differences with respect to the transaction channels used by fraudsters in the EU. Broken down by country of card issue, fraud committed at ATMs ranged from 0% to 18% of the total, the share of CNP fraud ranged from 41% to 84%, and the share of POS fraud ranged from 13% to 55%. Broken down by country of acquirer, these variations were even larger; ATM fraud ranged from 0% to 26%, CNP fraud from 33% to 93% and POS fraud from 7% to 61%.

Most of the countries with significant card markets (defined as countries with high volumes and values of card transactions per inhabitant) experienced high rates of fraud. CNP fraud was typically the most common type of fraud involving cards issued in these markets. By contrast, countries with limited card usage experienced relatively low levels of fraud.

In summary, in 2016 the total value of card fraud decreased. Fraud involving cards issued inside SEPA increased for CNP transactions and decreased across the other transaction channels. In 2016 CNP fraud accounted for 73% of total fraud losses on cards issued inside SEPA, compared with 71% in 2015. Furthermore, and unlike 2015, fraud at ATMs and POS terminals decreased in 2016 following the near completion of migration to the EMV standard within SEPA. The drop in card-present fraud could be a result not only of this migration within SEPA but also of an increasingly high adoption rate of EMV for terminals outside Europe[6]. A wider usage of geo-blocking[7], as well as increased physical security measures at terminals (e.g. lids to protect PIN entry, skimming device detectors, etc.) and the deactivation of the option to fall back to magnetic stripe (or magstripe) usage for cards might also be among the factors that contributed to this reduction. While ATM and POS fraud diminished substantially (and at a high pace between 2012 and 2016) as more countries outside SEPA migrated to EMV, CNP fraud saw a slight increase in 2016. The application of the Eurosystems Guide for the assessment of card payment schemes against the oversight standards (February 2015) could also have contributed to making card payment schemes more secure. In particular, the application of the Recommendations for the security of internet payments[8], which are incorporated into the above-mentioned guide, may have helped limit the increase of online fraud.

Introduction

In January 2008 the ECBs Governing Council approved an oversight framework for card payment schemes (CPSs). As part of the harmonised implementation of this framework, statistical information is gathered on card schemes. Each scheme is asked to supply general business data and volumes and values of transactions and fraudulent transactions per country for all Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) countries as well as in aggregate for all countries outside SEPA. For automatic teller machines (ATMs) and point-of-sale (POS) terminals, fraud figures are broken down into lost and stolen, card not received, counterfeit and other, while for total card-not-present (CNP) transactions, there is an option to provide a breakdown of the figures according to online and mail or phone fraud. Data collection is based on common templates and definitions. Please note that fraud is defined independently of whether the loss ends up being borne by the customer, issuer, acquirer or merchant.

This report summarises the information received from the following 22 CPSs: Sistema 4B, American Express, Bancontact, Oney Bank, BNP Paribas Personal Finance, Cartes Bancaires, Cashlink, Cofidis, Cofinoga, CONSORZIO BANCOMAT, Credit Agricole Consumer Finance, Dankort, Diners Club International, EURO 6000, Franfinance, girocard, JCB International, Karanta, MasterCard Europe, Quikcash, ServiRed, SIBS MB, and Visa Europe.

A comparison of the transaction data gathered from CPSs with data held in the ECBs Statistical Data Warehouse (SDW) suggests that the data available for 2016 exceed the total value of transactions within the European Union (EU) by 5%. However, this figure must be treated with caution as it may reflect both gaps in SDW data and double-counting of data reported for oversight purposes. Unfortunately, for four countries the coverage is below 90% of the value of transactions owing to the fact that either oversight requirements, including statistical reporting, were waived for some CPSs or as a result of incomplete data reporting. For another six countries the coverage is above 110% of the total value of transactions in SDW owing to the double-reporting of data  by international and domestic schemes alike  or to the fact that some types of small payment service providers (PSPs) are exempt from reporting under the ECB Regulation on payment statistics.

For Luxembourg, a further comparison of data available from other sources with the data provided for oversight purposes showed discrepancies in transaction and fraud levels.[9] Such discrepancies, as well as those mentioned earlier, have been tolerated for the purpose of the present report.

This report rests on a number of assumptions and thus data adjustments in order to avoid the double-counting of figures reported by domestic card schemes and international ones have been made. Two methodological data issues identified a few years ago remain valid for this report, namely that some CPSs allocate (i) transactions with cross-border issued cards to issuing SEPA countries by the area of use as opposed to the location of the issuer and ii) cross-border acquired CNP transactions according to the location of the acquirer instead of the location of the merchant. These methodological divergences result in some inconsistencies between data collected from the CPSs and similar data from the PSPs reported for SDW purposes; however, as they are limited to some schemes and countries they are considered tolerable.

The national central banks and the ECB have checked and processed the data with due care. Nevertheless, errors related to data provision, transmission or processing cannot be excluded.

Results from an issuing perspective refer to payments made with cards issued within SEPA and acquired worldwide. Results from an acquiring perspective therefore refer to transactions conducted using cards issued worldwide and acquired inside SEPA. Results are generally derived from an issuing perspective[10], except in Chapter 6, where the acquiring perspective is adopted for some results. In these cases, the change of perspective is highlighted.

The report is structured as follows: the first chapter presents findings on the total level of card fraud. The second chapter looks at card fraud for different card functions and is followed by a chapter on CNP fraud. Next is an analysis of different categories of card fraud at ATMs and POS terminals. Chapter 5 compares domestic transactions and fraud figures with cross-border figures both within and outside SEPA. Chapter 6, which is based on EU Member States only, looks at absolute and relative fraud levels, as well as other information about individual EU Member States. Chapter 7 concludes.

1 Total level of card fraud

The total value of card fraud using cards issued in SEPA amounted to 1.8 billion in 2016. The total value of card transactions using cards issued in SEPA amounted to 4.38 trillion in 2016.[11]

Card fraud experienced a decrease in terms of value of 0.4% compared with 2015, and an increase of 35% compared with 2012. However, since the value of all card transactions grew by 1.8% in 2016 compared with the previous year, fraud as a share of the total value of transactions decreased by 0.001 percentage point, i.e. from 0.042% in 2015 to 0.041% in 2016.[12]

Compared with 2015, CNP fraud has increased in proportion, whereas fraud at ATMs and POS terminals has become less prominent.

CNP accounted for 73%, POS for 19% and ATM for only 8% of the total value of card fraud.

Chart 1a Evolution of the total value of card fraud using cards issued within SEPA left-hand scale: total value (EUR millions); right-hand scale: value of fraud as share of value of transaction (%) Source: All reporting CPSs.

The total number of cases of card fraud using cards issued in SEPA amounted to 17.30 million in 2016. The total number of card transactions using cards issued in SEPA amounted to 74.9 billion in 2016.[13]

Card fraud increased in terms of volume by 27.2% compared with 2015, and by 92% compared with 2012. In comparison, the total number of transactions increased by only 9.6% in 2016 compared with the previous year. Therefore, fraud as a share of the total number of transactions increased to 0.023% in 2016 (i.e. by 0.003 percentage point compared with the previous year).

Compared with 2015, the relevance of ATMs as a channel for fraud has decreased when looking at fraud volumes, while the relevance of CNP and POS terminals continues to increase.

The share of ATM fraud in terms of volume was lower than its share in terms of value, owing to the high average values for fraudulent ATM transactions.

Chart 1b Evolution of the total volume of card fraud using cards issued within SEPA left-hand scale: total volume (million transactions); right-hand scale: volume of fraud as share of volume of transaction (%) Source: All reporting CPSs

2 Card fraud according to different card functions

In 2016 the total share of fraud in overall transactions declined slightly for debit cards and increased slightly for delayed debit cards and credit cards compared with the previous year.

The share of delayed debit card and credit card fraud in overall transactions remained larger than that of debit card fraud.

For delayed debit cards and credit cards:

in absolute terms, fraud increased in 2016 compared with the previous year for the CNP channel and POS terminals, but decreased for ATMs (not displayed in the chart);

in relative terms (as a percentage of total delayed debit card and credit card transactions), CNP fraud increased in 2016 compared with the previous year, while POS remained constant and ATM fraud decreased.

For debit cards:

in absolute terms (not displayed in the chart), all components of fraud (CNP, POS and ATM) decreased;

in relative terms, the share of total fraud in all transactions decreased slightly, owing to the rise of transactions and the fall in fraudulent transactions for this card function.

Chart 2 Share and composition of fraud for different card functions value of fraud as share of value of transaction Source: All reporting CPSs excluding cards issued in France and Spain.

3 Card-not-present fraud

In 2016 the total value of CNP fraud increased by 2.1% compared with the previous year, reaching 1.32 billion.

CNP fraud accounted for 73% of the total value of card fraud in 2016. This share has been growing steadily since 2008 (not displayed in the chart).

An increase in CNP fraud of 66% over a period of five years was the main driver for the 35% increase in overall fraud over this period.

Chart 3 Evolution of the value of CNP fraud and its share of the total value of fraud EUR millions Source: All reporting CPSs.

Box 1Some market perspectives on online card fraud

Card-not-present (CNP) fraud, which nowadays covers mainly online fraud, has become the most prominent type of card fraud, amounting to 73% of total card fraud losses in 2016.

Given this development, the ECB conducted a limited survey with market representatives (card schemes, banking associations and merchant/e-commerce associations) from the Card Fraud Prevention Forum of the European Payments Council on fraud modus operandi and prevention.

When asked to specify the top three types/modus operandi of online card fraud observed in its market in 2016, a merchant association provided the following classification:

1. Clean fraud  where criminals obtain genuine cardholder details including 3D Secure and Address Verification credentials, etc. It is almost impossible for merchants to recognise that the individual using the card fraudulently is not the bona fide cardholder.

2. Identity theft  where the fraudster makes use of the cardholders personal data in order to make an unauthorised transaction. This fraud can also be categorised as lost or stolen fraud since customer card details are stolen and used to purchase goods and services online for the purpose of resale, for example. This type of fraud partly overlaps with clean fraud.

3. Friendly fraud or first-party fraud  where the payer, after having performed a genuine transaction to purchase goods or services online, contacts the card issuer to claim that they have been defrauded and request a chargeback. This type of fraud has reportedly been growing in recent years.

According to the security laboratory of one banking association, the increase in digital banking services had inevitably led to a shift of attacks and fraud towards the card-not-present type. In instances of CNP fraud, cards were both the target and the vector of the attacks, given that fraudsters aimed first to subtract data and then to spend money online (preferably at online merchants that had not adopted the highest security measures). For them, phishing had turned out to be the most relevant, widespread and effective means of gathering sensitive payment card data. In addition, another banking association remarked that online card fraud in its market was mainly related to credit cards, whereas the debit card part was negligible. This was mainly due to card issuers in these markets blocking the use of debit cards in an online e-commerce environment.

In the same context, one card scheme remarked upon the noticeable continued growth in unsecured e-commerce transactions (i.e. transactions without strong customer authentication) and consequently in related fraud. The scheme also mentioned that the increased digitisation of merchant payments was changing CNP risk dynamics.

When it came to fraud prevention, the surveyed respondents made reference to detection systems implemented by card issuers and merchants. In particular, tools such as Tokenization and 3D Secure authentication, particularly when used as part of a risk-based authentication process, had been helpful in reducing online fraud. Predictive measures based on neural systems also represented an effective security tool, in some cases more than other reactive solutions.

In one market, an incremental shift from card-based payments towards credit transfer payments initiated by a third-party provider had lowered fraud rates on payments.

In addition to 3D Secure and strong customer authentication more generally, the following security tools were mentioned from a merchant perspective as the most effective for detecting and preventing e-commerce fraud:

Card Verification Code (CVV, CVN, CVC2, CID, etc.)

Address verification service (AVS)

Negative/black lists  including those provided by the international card schemes as well as internal lists within the organisation/merchant

Fraud scoring models

Geo-location

Customer purchase history

Device fingerprinting

Email verification

With respect to the expected main threats to card payment security in the future, the surveyed entities mentioned a potential shift towards attacks against mobile payments, owing to an increase in the use of mobile services. The use of social engineering to obtain sensitive payment data relating to credit or debit cards was seen as an ongoing problem.

One respondent made a more detailed distinction between internal and external weakness:

Internal weaknesses included a lack of resources within organisations, especially personnel with the relevant expertise in fraud detection and prevention (seen as a key issue), gaps in fraud tool functionality and issues related to the speed of response to emerging threats and tracking friendly fraud.

Externally, threats could come from data compromises, such as data hacks on merchant client systems, system compromises etc., which continue to concern merchants. A potential risk that the detailed regulatory regime might limit the industrys ability to adjust to new threats was also mentioned by one card scheme in this context.

Finally, as to whether a reduction in online card fraud could be expected in the near future, some respondents either already saw a decrease in online fraud figures or expected it to happen as a result of increased security measures. However, a note of caution was sounded by the market regarding the ever-evolving nature of fraud and the resulting expected shift to other fraud methods.

4 Categories of fraud committed at ATMs and POS terminals

The combined value of ATM and POS fraud decreased by 5.9% in 2016, and the values of both ATM and POS fraud also decreased individually.

The decrease in ATM fraud values  down by 12.4% in 2016  was more pronounced than for POS and was driven by considerably lower losses on counterfeit and lost and stolen card fraud in absolute values in 2016 compared with 2015.

At POS terminals, a 21.5% decrease in card-not-received fraud losses and a 1.9% decrease in counterfeit and lost and stolen card fraud in 2016 contributed to the overall decrease of POS fraud by 3.0%.

From 2015, fraud using lost and stolen cards became the most onerous type of ATM fraud, followed by fraud using counterfeit cards. At POS terminals, counterfeit card fraud and fraud using lost and stolen cards were the most relevant categories in 2016.

Over the five years in question the value of counterfeit card fraud at ATMs and POS terminals combined decreased by 24.4%, while card-not-received fraud decreased by 39.1% (albeit from a comparatively low level). Over the same period, lost and stolen card fraud increased by 9.9% and became, starting from 2014, the most prominent category of card-present fraud in absolute value.

Chart 4 Evolution of the value of fraud by category at ATMs and POS terminals EUR millions Source: All reporting CPSs.

As in previous years, counterfeit card fraud in 2016 mostly involved transactions acquired outside SEPA.

94% of ATM counterfeit card fraud and 79% of POS counterfeit card fraud concerned transactions acquired outside SEPA.

The total value of counterfeit card fraud decreased by 8.8% in 2016.

In 2016 two geographical categories saw decreases in counterfeit card fraud compared with the previous year, namely domestic counterfeit card fraud (by 13.85%) and to a smaller extent cross-border counterfeit card fraud acquired outside SEPA (by 9.76%). The latter was most likely due to the fact that migration to the EMV security standard was still ongoing in countries outside SEPA.

Chart 5 Evolution of the value of counterfeit card fraud at ATMs and POS terminals EUR millions Source: All reporting CPSs.

Box 2Some market perspectives on card-present fraud

Card-present fraud decreased substantially between 2012 and 2016, falling by 9.5%. EMV migration in Europe reached 84.9% in 2016 with respect to the deployment of EMV-chip cards, according to statistics published by EMVCo[14]. Even outside SEPA, there has been great progress in this respect, with adoption rates exceeding 50% in the majority of geographical areas in 2016.

When asked to specify the top three types/modus operandi of card-present fraud observed in their market in 2016, representatives of the Card Fraud Prevention Forum (see Box 1) mentioned:

Counterfeit card fraud  performed by cloning the magnetic stripe of a card, particularly to spend money outside SEPA in countries where EMV standards have not yet been implemented.

 performed by cloning the magnetic stripe of a card, particularly to spend money outside SEPA in countries where EMV standards have not yet been implemented. Lost and stolen card fraud  primarily lost cards being used to perform unauthorised card transactions. Theft of physical cards had also been noticed but to a lesser extent than lost card fraud.

 primarily lost cards being used to perform unauthorised card transactions. Theft of physical cards had also been noticed but to a lesser extent than lost card fraud. Identity theft/takeover  as described in Box 1, fraudsters impersonate the genuine cardholder and make use of their personal information to carry out unauthorised card-present transactions (e.g. at a POS terminal). This category of fraud may overlap with other categories such as counterfeit card fraud or lost and stolen card fraud.

One representative of a merchant association also mentioned that there had been a slight increase in fraud in relation to contactless card transactions using stolen cards; however this remained quite low in absolute terms given the need for the cardholder to key in a PIN after a number of contactless transactions or when exceeding a certain cumulative threshold.

On the question of whether counterfeit card fraud was still an issue for Europe, the surveyed entities unanimously agreed that it had become an issue of low priority for European transactions. However, given that EMV had not been implemented worldwide and the liability shift was not always in place across European borders, this type of fraud was still a problem.

5 Domestic and cross-border card fraud

From 2012 to 2016, the geographical composition of the value of all transactions was marked by an increase in cross-border transactions within SEPA.

In 2016, domestic transactions accounted for 90% of all transactions, a decrease in the share of transactions but a slight increase (of 1.2%) compared with the previous year. Cross-border transactions within SEPA, on the other hand, went up by 10.16% in 2016 compared with the previous year.

However, cross-border transactions within SEPA accounted for the largest share of fraudulent transactions in 2016 (43%), followed by domestic fraud (35%) and cross-border fraud outside SEPA (22%).

The share of cross-border card fraud within SEPA increased slightly in 2016 compared with the previous year and has been constantly rising since 2012.

Chart 6 Evolution of the value of domestic and cross-border transactions and fraud Source: All reporting CPSs.

The geographical composition of card fraud largely depends on the type of fraud:

lost and stolen card fraud typically takes place at the domestic level, whereas counterfeit card fraud is typically committed outside SEPA;

for counterfeit card fraud, the proportion of fraud committed outside SEPA decreased in 2016 compared with the year before;

for lost and stolen card fraud, there was a slight drop in the proportion of domestic fraud at the expense of a rise in cross-border fraud acquired inside SEPA.

Chart 7 Geographical composition of lost and stolen and counterfeit card fraud at ATMs and POS terminals according to fraud value Source: All CPSs, 2015 and 2016.

In 2016, domestic transactions rose while domestic fraud fell. In the same vein, cross-border transactions acquired outside SEPA increased slightly, whereas the respective fraud decreased.

Cross-border transactions and fraud acquired within SEPA both rose in 2016, with the former increasing at a higher rate than the latter.

Conversely, the number of cross-border transactions within SEPA rose more slowly than the number of those that were fraudulent (not displayed).

Cross-border fraud within SEPA and outside SEPA both exceeded their 2012 levels, whereas domestic fraud remained under its 2012 level.

Chart 8 Evolution of the total value of domestic and cross-border transactions and fraud 2012 = 100 Source: All reporting CPSs.

6 A country-by-country perspective on card fraud

Fraud shares varied considerably in different EU Member States in 2016.

From an issuing perspective[15], the rates of fraud in Denmark, the United Kingdom and France were the highest. Fraud rates in Hungary, Romania, Greece, Lithuania, and Poland were the lowest. In the case of Denmark, official statistics on card fraud[16] show that the high levels of fraud in 2016 are mostly due to the high level of cross-border e-commerce fraud, which should be viewed in the light of the large number of e-commerce transactions made in this country in combination with a high share of cross-border transactions more generally. Nevertheless, domestic fraud levels remain low in Denmark.

The euro area in particular experienced lower fraud rates than SEPA as a whole (both from an issuing and an acquiring perspective).

Fraud rates for SEPA (and the euro area) were lower from an issuing perspective than from an acquiring perspective. This indicates that cards issued inside SEPA experienced lower fraud rates for transactions acquired outside SEPA than cards issued outside SEPA for transactions acquired inside SEPA, thus providing a sense of security to European cardholders when shopping abroad.

Chart 9 Fraud share for transactions with cards issued in a specific country and acquired anywhere (blue) vs fraud share with cards issued anywhere and acquired within the country (yellow) value of fraud as share of value of transactions Source: All CPSs, 2016.

Compared with 2012, fraud as a share of the total value of transactions from an issuing perspective has increased for the majority of EU Member States. Thirteen countries have seen larger increases than the average increase of this share recorded in SEPA, which stood at around 7.86%.

Even though the growth rate of fraud as a share of transactions was highest in Finland, this was due to the comparatively low level of its respective fraud share in 2012.

Chart 10 Growth rate of the value of fraud as a percentage of the total value of transactions for cards issued in a specific country[17] or area over five years (2012-2016) Source: All CPSs.

In general, smaller countries had much higher shares of cross-border transactions than larger countries. Over the five-year period, the picture has not changed much, i.e. a much higher percentage of card transactions take place at domestic level. However, for a few countries the share of cross-border transactions increased substantially over the five-year period in question (e.g. in Malta that share increased from 20% in 2012 to 30% in 2016).

Table 1 Percentage of the value of all transactions taking place domestically or cross-border from an issuing perspective Source: All CPSs, 2016.

CNP was the main channel for committing fraud using cards issued in all but one country (Portugal).

Main fraud channel by country of issue:

CNP fraud: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Spain, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, United Kingdom;

POS fraud: Portugal[18]

There was a large variation in the fraudulent use of each channel for cards issued in different EU countries:

ATM fraud accounted for between 0% and 18%, with a median share of 8%

CNP fraud accounted for between 41% and 84%, with a median share of 71%

POS fraud accounted for between 13% and 55%, with a median share of 20%

Chart 11 Geographical distribution of the value of card fraud by transaction channel from an issuing perspective Source: All CPSs, 2016.

There was a large variation in the transaction channel used to commit fraud in different EU countries:

ATM fraud accounted for between 0% and 26%, with a median share of 4%

CNP fraud accounted for between 33% and 93%, with a median share of 69%

POS fraud accounted for between 7% and 61%, with a median share of 24%

Variations in the fraudulent use of each channel were more pronounced from an acquiring perspective than from an issuing perspective.

Chart 12 Geographical distribution of the value of fraud using cards issued worldwide by transaction channel from an acquiring perspective Source: All CPSs, 2016.

There were large variations in card use and fraud levels across EU countries.

Most of the significant card markets, which are characterised by high transaction values per inhabitant (for example, France and the United Kingdom) experienced high fraud rates. Fraud in these markets was predominantly CNP fraud (see Chart 11) and mostly occurred on cross-border transactions.

In countries where card use was rather low, e.g. Greece, Lithuania and Poland, fraud shares were typically also low.

Countries are listed according to fraud as a share of the total value of transactions.

The cell colour helps with the interpretation of the associated values:

green is associated with high card usage or low levels of fraud;

red is associated with low card usage or high levels of fraud;

darker colours indicate more extreme values;

each column in Table 2 is formatted independently.

Table 2 Card use, transaction and fraud levels from an issuing perspective Sources: Data on cards, inhabitants, transactions per card and transactions per inhabitant were drawn from the ECBs SDW; data on fraud and fraud per transaction were collected for oversight purposes by all CPSs for 2016. Therefore, the fraud/transaction indicator is constructed from data coming from the same source.Note: Values are in euro.

Table 3 reports fraud levels and changes in fraud levels in 2016 at country level in total and for selected types of fraud.

Developments in, and levels of, fraud differed significantly across different countries.

Although issuers and card schemes managed to reduce fraud in some countries with relatively high fraud rates, such as Denmark, the United Kingdom, France and Luxembourg, they experienced further growth in other markets, such as Ireland.

Similarly, among countries with low fraud shares, some, such as Poland and Slovakia, experienced a further reduction in fraud, while others, such as Hungary, experienced major growth.

The cell colour helps with the interpretation of the associated values:

green is associated with low fraud shares or reductions in fraud shares;

red is associated with high fraud shares or increases in fraud shares;

darker colours indicate more extreme values.

Fraud shares and growth rates for individual fraud categories are jointly formatted in Table 3 to allow the comparison of different types of fraud.

Table 3 Relative fraud levels and trends per channel and category from an issuing perspective Source: All reporting CPSs, 2015 and 2016.1) The fraud rate deducted from data collected using Eurosystem methodology differs from the fraud rate according to the Banque de Frances data collection (0.00064 according to data from www.banque-france.fr) owing to potential reporting inconsistencies or methodological divergence with respect to the collection of data on cross-border transactions and fraudulent transactions.2) This percentage of increase for Portugal is due to a very onerous cross-border case of POS counterfeit fraud outside SEPA reported by one payment scheme in 2016.

7 Conclusions

This report shows that the total value of card fraud decreased in 2016 compared with the previous year. The overall decrease of 0.4% was due to a decrease in fraud using the ATM and POS transaction channels, which outweighed a slight increase in CNP fraud.

CNP fraud went up by 2.1%, accounting for 73% of all fraud losses on cards issued inside SEPA. Data on total CNP transactions, which unfortunately are only partially available, suggest that fraud has grown at a slower rate than transactions. Enhanced security standards for payment service providers and card schemes issued by the EBA and the Eurosystem at the end of 2014 and beginning of 2015 seem to have led to early signs of improvement in fraud rates in the EU. The banking associations and card schemes have already noted a positive shift with respect to online fraud and believe that this type of fraud should go down in the near future.

As to the card-present environment, the lower rate of ATM and POS fraud was mainly a result of a decrease in card-not-received and counterfeit fraud levels and, from a geographical point of view, decreases in domestic fraudulent transactions. Cross-border card-present fraud  in particular counterfeit card fraud  acquired outside SEPA also decreased, while countries outside SEPA made substantial progress in migrating to EMV. However, as magnetic stripe usage in such countries cannot be completely avoided, card schemes and issuers are encouraged to adopt further measures to prevent counterfeit fraud and to improve the protection of their customers.

As in previous years, this report shows that levels of fraud were lower in the euro area than in SEPA as a whole. Data on fraud and transactions using cards issued inside and outside SEPA show that fraud losses incurred outside SEPA on cards issued inside SEPA were lower than losses incurred inside SEPA on cards issued outside SEPA. The finding suggests that SEPA residents benefit from the high security features of their cards, even though the proportion of ATMs and POS terminals outside SEPA making use of enhanced security features is still small.

Although fraud seems to have decreased slightly in 2016, the Eurosystem will keep on monitoring developments within SEPA. As mentioned by market participants, fraud has a tendency to shift from one channel to another, from one instrument to another, and evolve towards new modus operandi. Regulators and overseers should therefore remain vigilant and monitor security developments in order to take prompt action if needed.

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Apple on Wednesday unveiled three new iPhones at an event held in the Steve Jobs Theatre on its Cupertino, California, campus. Along with the iPhone Xs, iPhone Xs Max and iPhone XR, Apple introduced the Apple Watch 4.

"Our mission started with personalizing technology for the desktop," CEO Tim Cook told the audience, and it's "now personalizing it for every aspect of our lives."

Apple aims "to put the customer at the center of everything we do," he added. The iPhone X is "the No. 1 smartphone in the world," and has "an amazing 98 percent customer satisfaction [rating]."

The Apple Watch is "not only the No. 1 smartwatch in the world, it's the No. 1 watch," Cook noted. "Period."

Apple Watch Series 4

All three new X series iPhones come with 64 GB, 256 GB or 512 GB of storage.

The XR starts at US$750, the Xs at $1,000, and the Xs Max at $1,100.

The XR can be preordered starting Oct. 19, and it will begin shipping on Oct. 26.

The Xs and Xs Max can be preordered starting Friday and will begin shipping Sept. 21.

The New iPhones

Screens in all the new iPhones extend top to bottom and edge to edge, allowing Apple to use a smaller form factor. The screens are rounded at the edges.

The Xs and Xs Max have a Super Retina screen, and the XR an LCD display, which Phil Schiller, Apple's SVP of worldwide marketing, called "the most advanced LCD display ever in a smartphone."

Apple SVP Phil Schiller introduces iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max.

All three have cases that are water and dust resistant, to IP 68 for the Xs and Xs Max, and IP 67 for the XR.

"If you hang by the pool and drop the iPhone Xs into the water," Schiller said, "get it out, rinse it, let it dry, and you'll be fine. We tested it in orange juice ... tea, wine and even beer."

All three have 12-MP rear cameras with portrait mode, depth control, portrait lighting, Smart HDR, adjustable bokeh, and 4K video up to 60fps. The Xs and Xs Max have two of these cameras, and the XR has one.

All three also have a 7-MP TrueDepth front camera with the same features as the rear cameras except for video capability.

"You're going to be blown away with the photos you can take with the iPhone Xs camera," Schiller said. The Xs and Xs Max have one 12-MP wide-angle camera and one 12-MP telephoto camera in the rear, both with optics image stabilization.

The phones run on a 7nm A12 Bionic System on a Chip, with next-generation neural engine dedicated neural network hardware.

The SoC's image signal processor, working in conjunction with the CPU, automatically sets exposure, white balance, focus, and other photographic features.

The Smart HDR feature takes a four-frame buffer for each shot and merges them into one perfect photo. It also lets users shoot photos while facing the sun.

"The HDR screen is key," said Gerritt Schneeman, senior research analyst at IHS Markit.

It's a "premium feature [that] plays into a key aspect of Apple's existing UX focus -- camera experience," he told TechNewsWorld.

The new cameras' sound capabilities also drew praise.

"We can use stereo rewinding on the iPhone," noted Todd Howard, game director at Bethesda Game Studios, when demonstrating Blades, the new Elder Scrolls game coming to iOS this fall.

"This experience used to be available only on consoles in the living room," he said.

The stereo audio recording offered in the new iPhones "enhances existing content and is clearly different than before," observed Schneeman.

"Content creation -- and consumption -- is getting richer on these new devices," Schneeman remarked. "The competition is not following along with this as quickly, if at all."

The new iPhones have a longer battery life than their predecessors, and have a dual SIM card capability, using eSIM.

"The dual SIM capability is a smart move and needs to be done," said Ramon Llamas, a research director at IDC.

"They're responding to the Chinese market and the needs of the enterprise market here in the United States," he told TechNewsWorld.

The Bionic SoC and Neural Engine

The bionic SoC runs Core ML apps up to nine times faster, with one-tenth the power consumption, said Kaiann Drance, senior director of iPhone product marketing.

It also enables augmented reality experiences, she noted. Apple's developer system has been building AR apps with ARKit 2 and iOS 12.

The A12 has an "8-core machine learning engine with a smart compute system that can analyze neural network data and figure out on the fly whether to run it on the CPU, GPU or the neural engine," Schiller said. "It can process 5 trillion operations a second."

Incremental Improvements

"The newest iPhones are iterative upgrades, and in the case of the XR, an upgrade/downgrade over the iPhone X," said Ken Hyers, research director at Strategy Analytics.

Apple SVP Phil Schiller reveals the iPhone XR, which features an all-screen glass and aluminum design in six new color finishes.

None of the upgrades "are earth-shattering improvements, but for someone with an iPhone 7 Plus or 8 Plus who's looking to move on after a year or two, these improvements may be enough to get them into the store and part with the better part of a thousand dollars -- or more," Hyers told TechNewsWorld.

The specs are good, noted IDC's Llamas. "I think they're pushing in the right direction with the XS and Xs Max."

However, the differentiation among the three new models is unclear, he pointed out.

"It used to be that when you went to get an iPhone, the only issue was how much memory you wanted," Llamas said. "Now you have the XR that's between the size of the S and the S Max. If you go for a 128-GB XR, you're only a couple of hundred dollars away from the entry-level Xs, and now you have to figure in not just the memory, but also the screen size and various other features as well."

Richard Adhikari has been an ECT News Network reporter since 2008. His areas of focus include cybersecurity, mobile technologies, CRM, databases, software development, mainframe and mid-range computing, and application development. He has written and edited for numerous publications, including Information Week and Computerworld. He is the author of two books on client/server technology. Email Richard.



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Braavo Capital on Tuesday announced it has raised US$6 million in Series A funding, led by E.ventures with participation from SWS Venture Capital and Bill Smith, CEO of Shipt.

The company also converted $2 million in seed capital from investors including SV Angel and BoxGroup, bringing the total equity raised to date to nearly $8 million.

Braavo, which claims to be the first company to offer Capital as a Service to mobile app entrepreneurs and developers, will use the funds to add personnel to further its mission of funding clients in this space.

(Click Image to Enlarge)

"Our goal is to arm founders with both the capital to take advantage of every opportunity to scale and the insights to know which path will get them there," said Braavo cofounder Sergei Kovalenko.

The company offers two financing products -- Accelerate and Extend -- that employ an automated system to gather and analyze real-time business data on applicants, including current and future earnings.

The application doesn't require any personal credit checks or the applicant's Social Security Number.

Once approved, entrepreneurs begin to receive funding in one to two days.

"This fills an important niche for mobile developers," said Holger Mueller, principal analyst at Constellation Research.

"They usually have to bootstrap themselves as single workers, and may be short on cash when they need to invest into, say, another app or platform or employee," he told the E-Commerce Times.

Braavo formerly was known as "Aprenita."

"We renamed the business to have a more memorable and positive name," said Braavo Marketing Director Alexandra Northington.

The "Braavo" name "reflects better what we do -- provide performance-based financing," she told the E-Commerce Times.

The Series A funding follows combined debt and equity financing of more than $70 million, led by Mark 2 Capital, which Braavo closed last year.

Those funds were earmarked to scale Braavo's financing originations and support the rapid growth of its customer base.

Braavo's Financing Products

Accelerate gives entrepreneurs up to 85 percent of their receivables in weekly payments that they can spend as they see fit.

Entrepreneurs decide what percentage of the previous week's earnings they'll get in advance from each of their platforms, and can adjust the amount at any time. The first payment covers earnings from the beginning of the month.

Clients get a customizable reporting dashboard, consolidated weekly payments, and the visibility to know how they're doing.

Extend provides clients with funds to spend on user acquisition through approved channels, such as Facebook, Instagram and Google.

Braavo typically provides enough capital to double clients' short-term user acquisition budget. Funding terms are based on a client's current budget and performance.

Funds are deposited directly into clients' bank accounts. They can begin spending on growth immediately.

Braavo's free analytics software surfaces insights across clients' accounts so they can see the impact of their efforts and find opportunities to improve.

Loan amounts depend on clients' revenues for Accelerate, and on budget and performance for Extend, Braavo said.

The company charges a fixed percentage of future payments. It does not charge interest.

Braavo receives payments directly from ad networks and app stores, automatically deducts the money it has advanced and its fee, and delivers the remaining balance to clients the following day. The repayments correlate with earnings, decreasing in bad months.

Braavo's financing would be considered medium-risk, noted Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group.

The company "basically takes control of revenue and then pays itself, so their risk is far lower than if they were letting you collect and make payments," he told the E-Commerce Times.

Qualifying for Braavo Financing

There is some confusion over the way Braavo operates.

For example, a Highya review states that applicants' apps must have analytics that can be reviewed using sources such as Flurry, Localytics, Mixpanel or Appfigures.

Applicants also must show they have revenue coming in from their apps, the review says.

Qualifying applicants will need at least six months of revenue history for at least one active app, and most qualifying customers have at least three full-time employees with $10K-plus in monthly revenue, the review states.

However, "none of the info you've been able to gather from Highya is accurate," maintained Braavo's Northington. "We're not sure where they got their information, but we have never spoken with the company."

For analytics, Braavo integrates "with a number of platforms such as Facebook, Appsflyer, Adjust and Aplitude," she said.

Braavo's clients incude Very, Fanatee, Pixite, Homer, Studio, Radish and Spring, Northington said.

"I would think there could be demand for this kind of financing," said Michael Jude, program manager at Stratecast/Frost & Sullivan.

It gives app developers "an easy-to-qualify-for source of financing that, assuming they continue to grow, would be less onerous than using consumer credit to keep operating," he told the E-Commerce Times.

How Braavo Differs

Braavo's approach differs markedly from that of venture capitalists and equity investors.

"Venture capitalists typically want ownership and some aspect of control," Enderle remarked. "Lenders for a revolving credit line may want points up front and collateral."

Braavo lets founders retain control of their companies and not have to give up board seats or equity. It also saves entrepreneurs from spending resources looking for funders or serving their needs.

"VCs can ask for as much as 20 percent of the company plus a three-year return on investment just to say hello," Frost's Jude pointed out. "Angel funding can require not only interest, but equity in the company."

BI Analytics for Clients

Braavo also announced the rollout of a business intelligence analytics tool that will help mobile app businesses understand their performance in real time.

This is "critical if you want to sustain growth and have a reliable revenue source," Enderle said.

The tool is designed for revenue-generating long-tail and mid-market mobile apps. It will be available at no cost for the rest of this year.

"A smarter move would likely have been to partner with Flurry or App Annie rather than build their own analytics tool," Enderle suggested. They are more analytics pure-play, while Braavo is kind of a collections and revenue management agent."

Richard Adhikari has been an ECT News Network reporter since 2008. His areas of focus include cybersecurity, mobile technologies, CRM, databases, software development, mainframe and mid-range computing, and application development. He has written and edited for numerous publications, including Information Week and Computerworld. He is the author of two books on client/server technology. Email Richard.

Schools are under growing pressure to make sure that students are ready for work or job training, as well as college, when they graduate from high school. But employers say their young hires havent learned the reading, writing, and verbal-communication skills that are most important to a successful working life.

That gap between reality and expectations begs a boxful of questions about whether theres a preparation problem and, if so, how to solve it.

Should K-12 schools add workplace-oriented literacy skills to their already-heavy lineup of classics like the five-paragraph essay? Who should teach young people how to write an environmental-impact report or explain quarterly business results to investors: High schools? Colleges? Or are such skills better learned at work or in job-training programs?

Surveys of employers paint a picture of discontent. Executives and hiring managers report that they have trouble finding candidates who communicate well. Good oral-communication skills, in particular, rank especially high on employers wish lists, alongside critical thinking and working in teams.

But do companies hiring struggles mean that K-12 schools, colleges, and job-training programs are doing a poor job of preparing students for work?

Some labor economists argue that the much-ballyhooed skills gap is caused not by inadequate career preparation but by companies refusal to provide the pay and training necessary to get the workers they need. And many educators argue that the primary purpose of schooling isnt to create a jobs pipeline but to prepare young people to be informed, active citizens.

Education Weeks new special report on literacy and the workplace wont be able to resolve these arguments for you. But it can give you a glimpse of how some schools and employers are grappling with the workplace-literacy demands that young people face. Relatively few K-12 schools, it seems, are seriously exploring this kind of work.

From Mechanics to Managers

Perhaps unsurprisingly, career and technical education programs are more likely than regular K-12 schools to teach literacy skills in ways that link directly and explicitly to work. Helping aspiring engineers decode complicated technical reports, for instance, can help students make real-world connections and fire up their motivation. But they also need strong general-literacy skills so they dont bump into glass ceilings.

Are we creating students who can be lifelong learners, not just the oil changers and mechanics, but the managers, the owners of the business? If youre in it for that game, then reading is vitally important for their long-term success, said Travis Park, who studies the integration of core academics into CTE programs as an associate professor of agricultural education at North Carolina State University in Raleigh.

By most accounts, students are bringing weak writing skills into college and entry-level jobs. Eight years after nearly all states adoption of the Common Core State Standards, which call for more writing, studies show that high school students do very little substantive writing at all, let alone writing in specific genres such as business or science that would give them a taste of the working world.

The kinds of writing employers prize most are often not the most highly technical ones. They want workers who can explain things concisely, support their requests with evidence, and understand the appropriate shifts in tone necessary for different audiences. One teacher surveyed local employers and found that what they really wanted was for her to teach cursive writing, so workers could sign their paychecks.

Some kinds of workplace writing, however, should be taught by employers, because schools cant cover them all, said Steve Graham, a professor at Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College at Arizona State University, who specializes in writing instruction.

If we make an assumption that writing differs by context, some of the responsibility [for teaching students] just realistically is going to have to fall on businesses, and I think businesses should accept that, Graham said.

Schools are not going to be able to be responsible for all  the different kinds of skills that [businesses] want. And even if they were more responsive, there would still need to be some on-the-job training.

The Newest Literacy

Digital literacy is also claiming its place, alongside reading, writing, speaking, and listening, as a crucial skill set in the workplace. Education Week spent time with four employees in very different jobs at a big Delaware health-care provider and found that those new-age skills are essential at every stage of the employment ladder.

On the lower rungs, for jobs such as environmental service assistants (who clean and disinfect rooms) and patient-care technicians (who take vital signs), the ability to go beyond basic familiarity with apps and digital communications tools to manipulate and make sense of information using different software packages is a big key to advancement.

At the top rungs, people like health information management executives need deep clinical knowledge but also a rich understanding of where and how information is generated, stored, analyzed, presented, and used across different systems, and the ability to synthesize that information and use it to make strategic decisions.

Schools absolutely need to be teaching these skills. If students dont get the technological know-how and mindset to adapt to and learn these technologies, they cant be competitive, said Hiller Spires, a professor and senior research fellow in literacy education at North Carolina State University.

Matthew T. Hora, who studies workplace communication as a cultural anthropologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, urges schools and employers to embrace a blended concept of responsibility for workplace-literacy skills.

Ive talked to a lot of educators who think its not their job to prepare students for careers, that their job is to perpetuate disciplinary knowledge and build engaged citizens, Hora said.

But its problematic to completely ignore what is going to happen to these graduates when they go out into the world. We need to think about the labor market and careers and make sure that a broad range of things are on the table when we talk about the purposes of education.Mountain Road to close for more filming

The Mountain Road will close between 9.30am and 3pm next Thursday to enable filming to take place.

A closure has been granted to allow Ford to record a future edition of their Europes Greatest Roads series.

The short promotional films are published via the Ford Europe YouTube page, with previous editions featuring the Black Forest in Germany, Atlantic Ocean Road in Norway, Campocatino in Italy and Blakely Ridge in North Yorkshire.

The edition on the Mountain Road is set to feature the new Ford Mustang Bullitt.

The closure will affect the A18 route between Lheaney Road in Ramsey and Creg-ny-Baa Back Road in Onchan. Access to properties will be maintained.Postal Union calls emergency Branch meeting

The IOM Postal branch of the Communications Workers Union is to hold an emergency meeting over proposed changes at the Isle of Man Post Office.

Postal Union Boss Terry Pullinger will be attending the meeting on Sunday 30th September at the Sefton Hotel.

The Union is urging all postal members to attend to discuss a number of key concerns including pensions, pay, terms and conditions and the consultation about reform of the loss making Isle of Man Post Office.

Sources have told Energy FM that proposals include cutting Saturday deliveries and postal workers possibly moving to a 9 to 5 shift pattern.Fire Chief Todd Pangle (left) stands with DFD Squad 1 members (from left to right) Justin Rishel, Michael Sams, and Andy Brock after presenting an honor from the DEA

Two longtime members of the Dalton Police Department had their promotions to the rank of lieutenant confirmed by unanimous vote of the Public Safety Commission. Lieutenants Ricky Long and Barry Woods were both presented for promotion by Chief Cliff Cason at the commissions monthly meeting Tuesday morning.

Lt.

Long joined the Dalton Police Department in March 2000 and served as a patrol officer, school resource officer, and detective before being promoted to the rank of sergeant in May 2012. Most recently, Lt. Long was assigned to the Support Services Division as the operations supervisor, a role in which he will continue with his promotion. He is a graduate of Dalton State College and Belhaven University and is pursuing a masters degree from Columbus State University. Lt. Long is a veteran of the US Army.

Lt. Woods has served the department since February 1998. He moved into the Criminal Investigations Division (CID) in 2005, first as a drug unit detective and then later as the drug units supervisor after earning a promotion to the rank of sergeant in 2010. In 2015, he was assigned as the operations supervisor for CID, a role in which he will continue with his new promotion. Lt. Lt. Woods is a graduate of Northwest Whitfield High School and has an associates degree from Dalton State College and a bachelors from the University of West Georgia. Lt. Woods is also pursuing a masters degree from Columbus State.



Also at Tuesday mornings meeting, another DPD officer was just starting his career with the agency. Officer David Rayborn was confirmed by a unanimous 5-0 vote of the commission.

Officer Rayborn is new to the DPD but he is not new to law enforcement. He comes to the agency after serving three years as a deputy with the Murray County Sheriffs Office. He also served the Eton Police Department as a part-time officer. Before starting his law enforcement career, he worked in the public safety department at Hamilton Medical Center and as a security guard for Walden Security. Officer Rayborn is a May 2012 graduate of Southeast Whitfield High School.



Chief Cason also recognized Detective Scott Murray as the departments Officer of the Month for September at Tuesday mornings meeting. Detective Murray was honored for his role in an August investigation of a shooting at an area apartment complex. Nobody was seriously injured in the incident. Detective Murray was off duty when a report of shots fired at the complex went out and responded to the scene to interview witnesses and suspects. Detective Murrays investigation led to the arrest of two suspects in the case.

Also at Tuesday mornings meeting, Dalton Fire Chief Todd Pangle presented Firefighter Cody Manly to the commission in recognition of the completion of Manlys probationary period. Mr. Manly joined the Dalton Fire Department in August 2017 and completed the agencys recruit school in November. All probationary firefighters have a year from their graduation to complete the requirements in the Firefighter 1 task book to earn their full status as Dalton firefighters.

Five Dalton firefighters were presented with a special recognition from the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) at Tuesday mornings meeting. The DEA recognition comes after firefighters from Squad 1 responded in mutual aid to the scene of a clandestine drug lab in Catoosa County in July.



According to a letter from DEA Special Agent In Charge Robert Murphy, the scene of the clandestine lab was filled with carcinogens, fragile glassware, weapons, and electrical hazards. The Clandestine Laboratory Enforcement Team called for assistance and Squad 1 responded. Firefighters from Squad 1 assisted the DEA team by providing lighting for the scene, stand-by firefighting for the scene, and performing decontamination of all CLET personnel and equipment. Squad 1 members stated on scene until the scene was secured.

Chief Pangle presented a plaque from the DEA to Squad 1 Firefighters Michael Sams, Justin Rishel, and Engineer Andy Brock. Lt. Dan Hudson and Firefighter Greg Metcalf were also honored by the DEA but were not in attendance.

Chief Pangle also presented commendations to Engineer Brandon Elliot and recently retired Battalion Chief Steve Hollingsworth for their heroic efforts to aid a motorist injured in a crash on I-75 in Gordon County. While driving on vacation, Mr. Elliot and Mr. Hollingsworth came upon the scene of a rollover crash involving a family of five. Mr. Elliot and Mr. Hollingsworth worked together without regard for their own safety and pulled the driver from the burning vehicle in an attempt to save her life. After pulling the victim to a safe distance, Mr. Elliot and Mr. Hollingsworth assessed her and found that she did not have a pulse. They began CPR on the victim and were able to regain her pulse, but unfortunately, the victim did not survive her injuries.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.A review article published in the New England Journal of Medicine discusses the effects of alcohol use on various forms of liver disease, as well as the assessment and treatment of alcohol use in patients with chronic liver disease.

Liver-related mortality is increasing worldwide, due in large part to the increase in alcohol consumption. This review is very timely, as recent epidemiological studies have shown that alcohol consumption that does not reach the risky range is associated with increased morbidity and mortality.

Below is a summary of the review article:

Alcohol use is common among patients with liver disease and is associated with poor outcomes. In addition, advanced liver disease can complicate the pharmacologic treatment of alcohol use disorder and alcohol withdrawal syndrome. In fact, medications approved for alcohol use disorder are prescribed to a minority of patients, yet they could be used by patients with chronic liver disease.

Given that there is no safe threshold for alcohol consumption and, if it exists, it is likely very low, abstinence should be encouraged in patients with chronic liver disease. In addition, liver transplantation could be considered for patients who abstain from alcohol and present with progressive liver failure.

The authors conclude that alcohol use disorder treatment should be expanded in everyday clinical practice to include patients with advanced liver disease.

###

This article was written by Daniel Fuster, MD, PhD, attending physician and associate professor of medicine at the Internal Medicine Service-Addiction Unit at Hospital Universitari Germans Trias i Pujol, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona in Badalona (Spain) and Jeffrey H. Samet, MD, section chief of general internal medicine at Boston Medical Center and the John Noble MD Professor in General Internal Medicine at Boston University School of Medicine.

Reference: D. Fuster, J.H. Samet. Alcohol Use in Patients with Chronic Liver Disease. N Engl J Med. 2018: 379:1251-1261.Today, an international group of researchers, including Carnegie Mellon University's Rachel Mandelbaum, released the deepest wide field map of the three-dimensional distribution of matter in the universe ever made and increased the precision of constraints for dark energy with the Hyper Suprime-Cam survey (HSC).

The present-day universe is a pretty lumpy place. As the universe has expanded over the last 14 billion years or so, galaxies and dark matter have been increasingly drawn together by gravity, creating a clumpy landscape with large aggregates of matter separated by voids where there is little or no matter.

The gravity that pulls matter together also impacts how we observe astronomical objects. As light travels from distant galaxies towards Earth, the gravitational pull of the other matter in its path, including dark matter, bends the light. As a result, the images of galaxies that telescopes see are slightly distorted, a phenomenon called weak gravitation lensing. Within those distortions is a great amount of information that researchers can mine to better understand the distribution of matter in the universe, and it provides clues to the nature of dark energy.

The HSC map, created from data gathered by Japan's Subaru telescope located in Hawaii, allowed researchers to measure the gravitational distortion in images of about 10 million galaxies.

The Subaru telescope allowed them to see the galaxies further back in time than in other similar surveys. For example, the Dark Energy Survey analyzes a much larger area of the sky at a similar level of precision as HSC, but only surveys the nearby universe. HSC takes a narrower, but deeper view, which allowed researchers to see fainter galaxies and make a sharper map of dark matter distribution.

The research team compared their map with the fluctuations predicted by the European Space Agency Planck satellite's observations of the cosmic microwave background radiation -- radiation from the earliest days of the universe. The HSC measurements were slightly lower than, but still statistically consistent with Planck's. The fact that HSC and other weak lensing surveys all find slightly lower results than Planck raises the tantalizing question of whether dark energy truly behaves like Einstein's cosmological constant.

"Our map gives us a better picture of how much dark energy there is and tells us a little more about its properties and how it's making the expansion of the universe accelerate," Mandelbaum said. "The HSC is a great complement to other surveys. Combining data across projects will be a powerful tool as we try uncover more and more about the nature of dark matter and dark energy."

Measuring the distortions caused by weak gravitational lensing isn't easy. The effect is quite small and distortions in galaxy shapes can also be caused by the atmosphere, the telescope and the detector. To get precise, accurate results, researchers need to know that they are only measuring effects from weak lensing.

Mandelbaum, associate professor of physics and member of the McWilliams Center for Cosmology at Carnegie Mellon, is an expert at controlling for these outside distortions. She and her team created a detailed image simulation of the HSC survey data based on images from the Hubble Space Telescope. From these simulations, they were able to apply corrections to the galaxy shapes to remove the shape distortions caused by effects other than lensing.

These results come from the HSC survey's first year of data. In all, the HSC survey will collect five years of data that will yield even more information about the behavior of dark energy and work towards other goals such as studying the evolution of galaxies and massive clusters of galaxies across cosmic time, measuring time-varying objects like supernovae, and even studying our own Milky Way galaxy.

###

In addition to Mandelbaum, lead authors of the study are Chiaki Hikage, Masamune Oguri and Masahiro Takada of the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU) and University of Tokyo; Takashi Hamana of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan; and Surhud More of Kavli IPMU and the Inter-University Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics.

The research will be uploaded to the preprint server https://arxiv.org and will be submitted to the Publication of the Astronomical Society of Japan.Scientists have shown for the first time that immune cells in the urine of bladder cancer patients accurately reflect those in the tumour environment, according to research* published today (Wednesday) in the Journal of Experimental Medicine.

Unexpectedly, the Cancer Research UK-funded study showed that immune cells found in the urine were more representative of the tumour than immune cells from the blood, suggesting that urine, rather than blood liquid biopsies, could help to more accurately monitor response to immunotherapy in patients.

Immunotherapy has shown success in patients with advanced bladder cancer and is approved** in the UK for certain patients. Despite this, only around a quarter of patients respond to immune checkpoint-targeting drugs, demonstrating a pressing need to better understand the immune landscape of bladder cancer and develop new therapeutics.

The study, which was also supported by the National Institute for Health Research, looked at 32 patients with bladder cancer that had invaded the muscle wall. Urine and blood samples were taken on the day of surgery to remove their tumour, and these were compared with both their tumour and healthy bladder tissue.

The researchers at University College London (UCL) Cancer Institute and UCL Hospitals were able to identify T cells in the urine, which are usually absent in healthy individuals. Crucially, the T cells matched those found within the tumour environment of the bladder cancer, regardless of cancer stage and treatment history.***

Dr Sophia Wong, co-lead author from UCL, said: "Our results show for the first time that urine liquid biopsies can be used as a non-invasive window into the bladder tumour environment. This valuable information could be used to discover immunotherapy targets and aid the design of combination treatments that exploit different components of the immune system.

"This research looked at a single time point, so clinical trials that include urine analysis over time are now needed to find out whether urine-derived T cells could tell us if a patient is responding to treatment, or be an early warning that a switch in therapy is required."

The study also identified a relationship between urine-derived T cells and patients' chance of survival, as the disease was more likely to return in people with higher numbers of these cells. This indicates that urine-derived T cells may therefore also serve as a prognostic marker.

There are around 10,300 people in the UK diagnosed with bladder cancer every year. And it can be difficult to treat; just more than half (53%) of patients survive their disease for 5 years or more.

Professor Peter Johnson, an immunotherapy expert at the Cancer Research UK Southampton Centre, said: "Immunotherapy holds great promise for cancers that are difficult to treat, but a greater knowledge of the complex immune system is required to unlock their potential. By using a non-invasive urine test to profile the bladder cancer immune landscape, this small study could help us understand why only a fraction of patients respond to immunotherapy.

"If the findings are supported by larger studies, this early research suggests that urine liquid biopsies could one day help stratify patients for immunotherapy, identifying those most likely to benefit, while sparing unnecessary treatment in those who likely won't."

###

For media enquiries contact Dr Justine Alford in the Cancer Research UK press office on 020 3469 8456 or, out of hours, on 07050 264 059.

Notes to editor:

* Wong et al. Urine-derived lymphocytes as a non-invasive measure of the bladder tumor immune microenvironment. Journal of Experimental Medicine.

** Pembrolizumab (Keytruda) and atezolizumab (Tecentriq) are available through the Cancer Drugs Fund for some patients with locally advanced or metastatic bladder cancer.

*** This included the checkpoint molecules PD-1 and CTLA-4, which are targeted by approved immunotherapy drugs, and others such as TIM-3 which are being evaluated in early clinical trials.

About Cancer Research UK

Cancer Research UK is the world's leading cancer charity dedicated to saving lives through research.

Cancer Research UK's pioneering work into the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer has helped save millions of lives.

Cancer Research UK receives no funding from the UK government for its life-saving research. Every step it makes towards beating cancer relies on vital donations from the public.

Cancer Research UK has been at the heart of the progress that has already seen survival in the UK double in the last 40 years.

Today, 2 in 4 people survive their cancer for at least 10 years. Cancer Research UK's ambition is to accelerate progress so that by 2034, 3 in 4 people will survive their cancer for at least 10 years.

Cancer Research UK supports research into all aspects of cancer through the work of over 4,000 scientists, doctors and nurses.

Together with its partners and supporters, Cancer Research UK's vision is to bring forward the day when all cancers are cured.

For further information about Cancer Research UK's work or to find out how to support the charity, please call 0300 123 1022 or visit http://www.cancerresearchuk.org. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR): improving the health and wealth of the nation through research. Established by the Department of Health and Social Care, the NIHR:

funds high quality research to improve health

trains and supports health researchers

provides world-class research facilities

works with the life sciences industry and charities to benefit all

involves patients and the public at every step

For further information, visit the NIHR website (http://www.nihr.ac.uk).

This work uses data provided by patients and collected by the NHS as part of their care and support and would not have been possible without access to this data. The NIHR recognises and values the role of patient data, securely accessed and stored, both in underpinning and leading to improvements in research and care. Read more http://www.nihr.ac.uk/patientdataA new European Social Survey report has found significant public support in Europe for the introduction of universal basic income and a European Union-led social benefits scheme

Using European Social Survey data collected in 23 countries during 2016/17, the authors established that people in Europe widely endorse national government responsibility to protect vulnerable people.

Whilst people are in favour of welfare support for the elderly, financial support for the unemployed and immigrants is met with more opposition by a considerable share of the population.

Universal Basic Income

The percentage of respondents that support the introduction of a universal basic income scheme varies widely, from 33.9% (Norway) to 80.4% (Lithuania).

Support for a universal basic income is lower in more affluent countries in Northern and Western Europe, and higher in the less wealthy welfare states in the East and South.

Over 60% of respondents in Lithuania, Russia, Hungary, Israel, Slovenia and Portugal support the introduction of a universal basic income. Lowest levels of support were found in Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. The report states:

"This pattern suggests that basic income is welcomed as a way to improve social welfare rather than as a replacement for well-performing welfare systems."

A European Union-led welfare state?

67.1% of those interviewed across Europe support the introduction of a EU-wide social benefit scheme that would guarantee a minimum standard of living for the poor.

But, on average, only three in ten Europeans (30.5%) believe that more European Union involvement would lead to higher or much higher levels of social protection.

As with the introduction of basic income, support for EU involvement is higher amongst those in Eastern and Southern European countries where welfare expenditure is relatively low.

Over 80% of respondents in Portugal, Spain, Slovenia, Lithuania, Italy and Hungary support the introduction of a EU-wide social benefit scheme.

Only in Austria and The Netherlands was support for a EU-wide social benefit scheme below 50%.

Attitudes towards the unemployed

Respondents were asked what should happen to someone's unemployment benefit if they refuse to take a job that pays less than what they earned previously.

Over a quarter of respondents (26.1%) felt that the full unemployment benefit should continue to be paid; 34.3% wanted to cut a small part of the benefit; 20.6% felt it should be cut in half and 19% felt it should be cut completely.

Support for cutting unemployment benefit in these circumstances is particularly high in Italy, Norway, Poland and Slovenia, and comparatively low in Lithuania, Israel, Estonia and Russia.

Italians are the most likely to want to limit unemployment benefit if someone refuses to take a job but think the government should take more financial responsibility for the unemployed.

The Polish do not expect high levels of unemployment benefit from their government and are most likely to support benefit reductions for those who do not accept a job offer.

The opposite is true of Israelis and Lithuanians, who believe the government should offer strong protection to the unemployed, and tend to think that those who turn down new work should not have their benefits cut.

Immigrant access to welfare

The vast majority of people in Europe are open to allowing immigrants access to social benefits and services, but with some conditions.

The report's authors found that fewer than 10% of respondents think that immigrants should never be allowed access to the welfare state, whilst only 9% believe that they should be granted full access to benefits and services immediately upon arrival.

43.1% of respondents think that social rights should be granted to immigrants following residence and payment of taxes for at least a year, with a further 29.1% thinking they should only be granted to citizens.

When comparing responses to identical questions asked in Round 4 (2008/09) of the European Social Survey, the authors found no evidence that the refugee crisis led to more opposition to immigrants receiving social benefits:

"In Portugal and Spain, the percentage indicating that newcomers should receive social rights upon arrival has even increased substantially (from 9.6 to 20.3% in Portugal; from 11.7 to 18.9% in Spain)."

Eastern Europeans are considerably more reluctant to provide social rights for immigrants despite relatively low immigration rates and lower levels of social security expenditure.

Support for the Elderly

Support for the government to maintain acceptable living standards for the elderly is very high across Europe, especially in areas where perceived living standards are currently lower.

Public support for the government to provide for the elderly is highest in Israel, Iceland, Lithuania, Portugal, Russia and Spain.

In the Netherlands and Switzerland in particular, support for government responsibility is lower but may partly be attributed to the perception that the elderly have relatively higher living standards.

###

The report - The Past, Present and Future of European Welfare States - was authored by: Bart Meuleman, Wim van Oorschot, Sharon Baute, Sam Delespaul, Dimitri Gugushvili, Tijs Laenen and Federica Rossetti (University of Leuven, Belgium) and Femke Roosma (Tilburg University, The Netherlands).Scientists investigating how human-induced increases in atmospheric methane also increase the amount of solar energy absorbed by that gas in our climate system have discovered that this absorption is 10 times stronger over desert regions such as the Sahara Desert and Arabian Peninsula than elsewhere on Earth, and nearly three times more powerful in the presence of clouds.

A research team from the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) came to this conclusion after evaluating observations of Jupiter and Titan (a moon of Saturn), where methane concentrations are more than a thousand times those on Earth, to quantify methane's shortwave radiative effects here on Earth.

These findings were published online today in the journal Science Advances in an article entitled "Large Regional Shortwave Forcing by Anthropogenic Methane Informed by Jovian Observations." The paper indicates large regional variability in the ways methane acts as a solar absorber, finding that methane absorption, or "radiative forcing," is largely dependent on bright surface features and clouds.

"When we measure the impact of methane emissions on the planet, we wrongly assume it is easy to apply calculations of methane taken locally to predict what effect the gas is having globally," said William Collins, the study's lead author and director of the Climate and Ecosystems Sciences Division at Berkeley Lab. "Our work represents the importance of taking into consideration what impact methane and other greenhouse gases are having not just in general, but with regional certainty."

As greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide and methane primarily absorb heat, or longwave radiation, emitted to space by the Earth's atmosphere. However, methane and other gases also absorb incoming solar energy, or shortwave radiation, and convert it to heat, thereby warming the atmosphere by an additional 25 percent while simultaneously cooling Earth's surface.

More is known about shortwave forcing by carbon dioxide than methane, largely because the relatively complex tetrahedral shape of methane makes its physical absorption characteristics extremely difficult to quantify in the laboratory. The Berkeley Lab research team set out to assess whether previous climate assessments had suffered from uncertainties in calculations of anthropogenic shortwave forcing by methane, widely considered to be the second-most important greenhouse gas after the more abundant carbon dioxide due to methane's extreme potency.

The scientists analyzed methane absorption data from previous observations of the planet Jupiter, and Titan, the largest moon of Saturn. Concentrations of methane in the atmospheres of this Jovian planet and moon are at least three orders of magnitude greater than those on Earth, making it easy to detect absorption properties of methane using occultation measurements.

This analysis showed that estimates of the forcing using the incomplete methane absorption data from Earthbound laboratories agree with estimates using the far more comprehensive methane absorption data collected from Jupiter and Titan. Based on this finding, the current spectroscopy is sufficient for calculating methane radiative forcing in historic climate analyses and future projections.

Their work also lays to rest a previously unsettled issue that climate models might be underestimating the shortwave radiative effects of methane due to limitations of existing laboratory measurements of this gas. The measurements from Jupiter and Titan show it is possible to accurately calculate the extent of radiative forcing by methane in climate assessments, and that current climate models have been doing so.

The result then enabled the team to use existing capabilities to undertake the first global spatially-resolved calculations of this forcing with realistic atmospheric and boundary conditions. They advanced beyond the existing global annual-mean estimate of methane forcing by resolving its seasonal and appreciable spatial variability.

Not all methane created equal

Their analysis showed that methane forcing is not spatially uniform whatsoever, and exhibits remarkable regional patterns. The most striking finding from the first comprehensive calculations of methane forcing is that because desert regions at low latitudes feature bright, exposed surfaces that reflect light upwards to enhance the absorptive properties of methane, there can be a 10-fold increase in the localized methane shortwave forcing.

This effect is most pronounced in locations such as the Saharan Desert or Arabian Peninsula. These regions receive the most sunlight due to their proximity to the equator and feature exceptionally low relative humidity, which helps to further enhance the effects of methane.

Cloud cover was also shown to influence the gas' radiative effects. Increased forcing for methane overlying clouds was found to be up to nearly three times greater than global annualized forcing, and were associated with the oceanic stratus cloud decks west of southern Africa and North and South America and with the cloud systems in the Intertropical Convergence Zone near the equator. High-altitude clouds can reduce the solar flux incident on methane in the lower troposphere, reducing its forcing relative to clear-sky conditions, but over nearly 90 percent of the Earth's surface, cloud radiative effects enhance methane radiative forcing.

The researchers believe this information about the effect of methane on incoming solar energy is useful to advancing climate change mitigation strategies both for taking into account the relative strength in the greenhouse effect between carbon dioxide and methane and for determining the relative vulnerability of different regions across the world to atmospheric warming.

###

Study co-authors are Berkeley Lab researchers Daniel Feldman, Chaincy Kuo, and Newton Nguyen; Nguyen is now at the California Institute of Technology. The study was funded by DOE's Office of Science.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory addresses the world's most urgent scientific challenges by advancing sustainable energy, protecting human health, creating new materials, and revealing the origin and fate of the universe. Founded in 1931, Berkeley Lab's scientific expertise has been recognized with 13 Nobel Prizes. The University of California manages Berkeley Lab for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science. For more, visit http://www.lbl.gov.

DOE's Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit science.energy.gov.Irish astronomers are set to gain access to the world's most advanced ground-based astronomical telescopes following the signature of Ireland's Accession Agreement in Dublin today, 26 September 2018. The signing of the Agreement follows the unanimous approval of Irish membership by the ESO Council at a meeting on 6 June 2018.

The formal ratification process for Irish membership of ESO has already almost been completed, following the approval of Dail Eireann and Seanad Eireann -- the Irish National Assembly and Senate. This process will be fully completed once the instrument of ratification -- an official document -- is deposited at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which is expected to happen within a matter of days. The day of the deposit will be the official date of the Irish accession to ESO.

"We are delighted to welcome Ireland as the newest member of our organisation" stated ESO's Director General, Xavier Barcons. "Ireland's mature and thriving astronomical community will add to the broad variety of expertise in the ESO Member States, strengthening ESO's position at the forefront of global astronomy. Irish astronomers will gain access to a suite of the world's most advanced ground-based astronomical telescopes and will have the opportunity to be part of the construction of the next generation of ESO instruments in partnership with other ESO Member States. We are also very much looking forward to working with Irish industrial partners to build and operate ESO's state-of-the-art telescopes."

The accession cements the position of Ireland's astronomical research community as an asset to worldwide astronomy. With the ESO Membership, Ireland gets access to ESO's world-class suite of telescopes and instruments, including the Very Large Telescope (VLT) on Paranal and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array - (ALMA) at Chajnantor, as well as the opportunity to contribute to the construction of the [Extremely Large Telescope] (ELT) in coming years.

By joining ESO, Ireland adds to their already rich astronomical history, stretching back centuries. For several decades in the 19th century, Ireland hosted the world's largest telescope -- the Leviathan of Parsonstown -- a 1.8-metre reflecting telescope at Birr Castle (whose grounds are now home to I-LOFAR, port of a Europe-wide low-frequency radio telescope). Ireland's vibrant research community and high-tech industrial sector have supported ESO membership for many years, and will now gain access to a range of instrumentation and industrial opportunities as a result of ESO membership.

Speaking at the signing, Minister Halligan welcomed this important step in Ireland's membership process: "I am delighted to have signed this membership agreement with the European Southern Observatory. This represents the culmination of significant work by the Government and ESO as well as the Irish astrophysics community. As a member of the leading astronomical research organisation in the world, Ireland has an opportunity to gain access to excellent research, innovation, collaboration and industry contracts. This significant investment in our scientific community demonstrates the Irish Government's continued commitment to research and development in both our academic and industrial sectors."

###

More information

ESO is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and the world's most productive ground-based astronomical observatory by far. It has 16 Member States: Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, along with the host state of Chile and with Australia as a Strategic Partner. ESO carries out an ambitious programme focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities enabling astronomers to make important scientific discoveries. ESO also plays a leading role in promoting and organising cooperation in astronomical research. ESO operates three unique world-class observing sites in Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope and its world-leading Very Large Telescope Interferometer as well as two survey telescopes, VISTA working in the infrared and the visible-light VLT Survey Telescope. ESO is also a major partner in two facilities on Chajnantor, APEX and ALMA, the largest astronomical project in existence. And on Cerro Armazones, close to Paranal, ESO is building the 39-metre Extremely Large Telescope, the ELT, which will become "the world's biggest eye on the sky".

Contacts

Calum Turner

ESO Public Information Officer

Garching bei Munchen, Germany

Tel: +49 89 3200 6655

Cell: +49 151 1537 3591

Email: pio@eso.orgIn a new report, "Opportunities for soil sustainability in Europe", the European Academies' Science Advisory Council (EASAC), which represents the national science academies of the EU, Norway, and Switzerland, says its latest synthesis reveals that policy-makers need to grasp opportunities to safeguard Europe's soils and ensure their sustainability. Back in 2014, insufficient support among Member States obliged the European Commission to withdraw proposals for a Soils Directive and Europe still lacks appropriate benchmarks for soils' sustainability and needs to improve compatibility between different national monitoring systems. In recent comments, Elisabeth Kostinger from the Austrian Presidency of the EU discussed the importance of protecting soils; however, concerted action from Member States remains to be seen. EASAC launched the report today (26 September) at an event with policy-makers and stakeholders at the Palace of the Academies in Brussels.

"Soils are being destroyed and lost permanently at a rapid rate through housing, infrastructure, and mining. Soil organic carbon contents are decreasing, which increases the likelihood of further global warming, loss of soil fertility, structure, and water holding capacity. The European Union cannot afford to ignore these issues. Environmental degradation not only impacts the environment, it impacts health and livelihoods", said Professor Michael Norton, Director of Environment at EASAC.

"Soils provide the essential nutrients, water, oxygen and support for plants in our agriculture and also moderate flood risk, purify water, contain massive quantities of carbon and support a biodiverse ecosystem which suppresses soil-borne diseases and provide potential new antibiotics. We should not take soils for granted: they are non-renewable, at least in our lifetime", said Professor Wim van der Putten of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Top-line issues highlighted by EASAC include climate change; deforestation and the permanent loss of soils; biodiversity; biofuels; health; and the Common Agricultural Policy:

Climate Change

The report notes that soils contain 2-3 times as much carbon as the atmosphere. EASAC supports the '4 per mille' initiative, which aims to increase soil carbon levels because this is crucial for maintaining soil fertility and soil structure. Measures to improve agricultural soils to strengthen food security while helping climate change mitigation are fully supported. However, initial estimates of the potential for soils to substantially offset the increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide are too optimistic and detailed location-specific advice is needed for farmers.

Meanwhile, we must not forget that soil carbon is still being lost through unsustainable use of peat soils and degrading wetlands. Protection and restoration of peatlands is critical to maintaining and increasing soil organic carbon in the EU.

Deforestation and the permanent loss of soils

EASAC expresses concerns that deforestation outside the EU is being driven by continued loss of agricultural land through soil sealing (covering soil with impermeable material, such as asphalt), since this increases the demand for agricultural imports which drives deforestation in countries exporting to the EU. Planning for housing, infrastructure, and mining activities needs to minimize such destruction of the soils' capacity to produce food and many other ecosystem services.

Biodiversity

EASAC notes that although biodiversity above the ground is protected under the Habitat Directive, Natura 2000, and other biodiversity-related initiatives, what grows and lives above ground is dependent on the biodiversity of the soils beneath them. Indeed, soils themselves are extremely diverse with thousands of species in just a handful! Biodiversity initiatives should thus include soil biodiversity in their management.

Biofuels

Biofuels policies risk increasing the use of crops which are particularly sensitive to erosion (e.g. maize), whereas with the right biofuel crops, soil protection might be enhanced. Soil issues should thus be considered in biofuels and related policies.

Health

EASAC notes that the use of human and animal antibiotics is of concern for their effects on soil biodiversity, the possibility of new forms of antibiotic resistance in soil and effects on the ability of soils to control human, animal and plant pathogens. The roles of soil and crop breeding also need to be better understood to prevent that higher yielding crops are having lower concentrations of micronutrients.

Common Agricultural Policy

Short-term pressures to maximise monetary returns in agriculture may conflict with long-term sustainability of the soil. Specific targets for improving soil sustainability should be included in the next CAP revision.

EASAC also notes the need for expert advice regarding soils management through independent advisory and extension services, which will benefit both farmers and wider society.

The new EASAC report notes that the EU, national agencies, and local authorities could provide a more supportive policy environment for a soil awareness and education strategy. Labelling schemes could be developed to show that farmers have managed their soil in a sustainable way.

###

Notes for Editors

EASAC's launch event for the report will be held at the Palace of the Academies in Brussels, Belgium on 26 September 2018 from 12.00-14.00. Please register online and view the programme of speakers.

Debate on soil management across the EU reached a hiatus after the European Commission withdrew proposals for a Soils Directive in 2014. In contrast, international attention to soils has been growing, following 2015's International Year of Soils and subsequent initiatives including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Moreover, many business supply chains and the circular economy depend on soils and their ecosystem services, so the current global trend of soil degradation across 12 million hectares each year threatens future supplies of food and resources, as well as human well-being.

In view of this divergence in trends within and outside the EU, EASAC conducted a study on Europe's soils and their sustainability to see if they really should be off the policy agenda. We found the answer was no and that there are several ways in which soils can be protected even in the absence of a Soils Directive.

This project has been two years in preparation led by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and a working group of experts. The full report is on the EASAC web site (as of 26 September, 18.00) and provides additional details on policy options to improve soil sustainability in section 7.

About the European Academies' Science Advisory Council (EASAC)

EASAC is formed by the national science academies of the EU Member States, Norway, and Switzerland, to collaborate in giving advice to European policy-makers. EASAC provides a means for the collective voice of European science to be heard. Through EASAC, the academies work together to provide independent, expert, evidence-based advice about the scientific aspects of European policies to those who make or influence policy within the European institutions.

Contact information

Professor Michael Norton

EASAC Environment Programme Director

Email: Michael.Norton@easac.eu

Mobile: +44-1763-853130

Professor Wim van der Putten

The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences

Email: w.vanderputten@nioo.knaw.nl

Mobile: +316 51193157

Ms. Molly Hurley-Depret

EASAC Head of Communications

Email: Molly.Hurley-Depret@easac.eu

Mobile: +352 691 112 882

Landline: +352 26 68 91 21Astronomers have detected radio jets belonging to a neutron star with a strong magnetic field -- something not predicted by current theory, according to a new study published in Nature today.

The team, led by researchers at the University of Amsterdam, observed the object known as Swift J0243.6+6124 using the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array radio telescope in New Mexico and NASA's Swift space telescope.

"Neutron stars are stellar corpses," said study co-author Associate Professor James Miller-Jones, from Curtin University's node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR).

"They're formed when a massive star runs out of fuel and undergoes a supernova, with the central parts of the star collapsing under their own gravity.

"This collapse causes the star's magnetic field to increase in strength to several trillion times that of our own Sun, which then gradually weakens again over hundreds of thousands of years."

University of Amsterdam PhD student Jakob van den Eijnden, who led the research, said neutron stars and black holes are sometimes found in orbit with a nearby "companion" star.

"Gas from the companion star feeds the neutron star or black hole and produces spectacular displays when some of the material is blasted out in powerful jets travelling at close to the speed of light," he said.

Astronomers have known about jets for decades but until now, they had only observed jets coming from neutron stars with much weaker magnetic fields. The prevailing belief was that a sufficiently strong magnetic field prevents material getting close enough to a neutron star to form jets.

"Black holes were considered the undisputed kings of launching powerful jets, even when feeding on just a small amount of material from their companion star," Van den Eijnden said.

"The weak jets belonging to neutron stars only become bright enough to see when the star is consuming gas from its companion at a very high rate.

"The magnetic field of the neutron star we studied is about 10 trillion times stronger than that of our own Sun, so for the first time ever, we have observed a jet coming from a neutron star with a very strong magnetic field.

"The discovery reveals a whole new class of jet-producing sources for us to study," he said.

Astronomers around the world study jets to better understand what causes them and how much power they release into space.

"Jets play a really important role in returning the huge amounts of gravitational energy extracted by neutron stars and black holes back into the surrounding environment," Associate Professor Miller-Jones said.

"Finding jets from a neutron star with a strong magnetic field goes against what we expected, and shows there's still a lot we don't yet know about how jets are produced."

###

Original Publication: 'An evolving jet from a strongly-magnetised accreting X-ray pulsar', published in Nature on September 26th, 2018.

More Information:

Netherlands Research School for Astronomy

The Nederlandse Onderzoekschool Voor Astronomie (NOVA), or the Netherlands Research School for Astronomy, is a collaboration of the astronomical institutes belonging to the universities of Amsterdam, Groningen, Leiden, and Nijmegen. NOVA's mission is to carry out frontline astronomical research and to train young astronomers at the highest international level. http://www.astronomie.nl

ICRAR

The International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) is a joint venture between Curtin University and The University of Western Australia with support and funding from the State Government of Western Australia. http://www.icrar.org

The Very Large Array

The Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) is a radio astronomy observatory located in central New Mexico that comprises twenty-seven 25-metre radio telescopes deployed in a Y-shaped array. Astronomers using the VLA have made key observations of black holes, studied protoplanetary disks around young stars, discovered magnetic filaments and traced complex gas motions at the Milky Way's centre, probed the Universe's cosmological parameters, and provided new knowledge about the physical mechanisms that produce radio emission.

Swift

NASA's Swift space telescope was designed to observe gamma-ray bursts-- the brightest electromagnetic events known to occur in the universe. The Swift observatory comprises three telescopes, which work in tandem to provide rapid identification and multi-wavelength follow-up of gamma-ray bursts and their afterglows. Within 20 to 75 seconds of a detection, the observatory will rotate autonomously, so the on-board X-ray and optical telescopes can view the burst.

Contacts: Jakob van den Eijnden (University of Amsterdam)

Ph: +31 6 48163504 E: A.J.Vandeneijnden@uva.nl

Associate Professor James Miller-Jones (ICRAR / Curtin University)

James is currently travelling but will respond to media enquiries within 3-4 hours. Please call or email Pete Wheeler or Lucien Wilkinson (contact details below).

Pete Wheeler (Media Contact, ICRAR)

Ph: +61 423 982 018 E: Pete.Wheeler@icrar.org

Lucien Wilkinson (Media Consultant, Curtin University)

Ph: +61 401 103 683 E: Lucien.Wilkinson@curtin.edu.auEinstein's general theory of relativity has helped an international team of researchers measure the lumpiness of dark matter in our Universe today by analyzing images of 10 million distant galaxies, and further use it to understand dark energy.

Dark matter is responsible for the formation of galaxies in the Universe, while dark energy is responsible for the acceleration in the Universe's ongoing expansion. Together dark matter and dark energy make up 95 percent of our Universe, but why this number is so big remains a mystery. To explain the behavior and the fate of the Universe, scientists must find out what dark matter and dark energy are.

Studies to measure the amount of cosmic structure have been carried out in the past, especially when the Universe was very young, such as the European Space Agency Planck satellite. Dark energy can affect the growth rate of these structures at a later time, closer to today. Scientists are just starting to measure the growth of these structures by studying dark matter in the later Universe and thus using it to learn about dark energy.

"Fluctuations measured by Planck are like a precise arrow shot from the early Universe, and we have measured where the arrow landed with Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam," said paper author and Inter-University Center for Astronomy & Astrophysics Associate Professor Surhud More.

The Hyper Suprime-Cam Survey, which uses the 820 mega-pixel Hyper Suprime-Cam camera attached to the 8.2 meter Subaru telescope at the summit of Maunakea, allowed researchers to study galaxies billions of light years away. These galaxies existed billions of years ago but their light only reached Earth today.

Albert Einstein predicted gravitational lensing in his theory of general relativity, where gravity can bend the path of light, making far away galaxies appear distorted to observers on Earth.

Since 2014, researchers from Japan, Taiwan, and the US, led by Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU) Project Assistant Professor Chiaki Hikage, studied these minute distortions caused by gravitational lensing to reconstruct where matter is distributed in the Universe. Now the team can see how fluctuations of dark matter across the sky have changed over billions of years, and how dark energy has influenced this growth of structure.

"I had a long-cherished hope to undertake high precision cosmology research such as that enabled by WMAP and Planck. I am very excited to share the measurements of the growth of dark matter structures in the Universe with great accuracy using Subaru HSC data," said Hikage.

However, Hikage and his team knew their excitement could potentially bias their results, especially if they looked to confirm results from previous studies during their analysis. To ensure the results were sound, they performed a blind analysis, a technique well known in medical trials where no one knows which patients have been given a new treatment. Two fake data catalogs were created, and the true identity of each catalog was locked away in a box. Following an unveiling event on June 26, for the first time researchers found their analysis had revealed the Hyper Suprime-Cam Survey was indeed consistent with past gravitational lensing studies, but their result suggested cosmic structures might be evolving a tad bit slower in the Universe today than that predicted by the Planck satellite in the concordance cosmological model.

This could be a statistical fluctuation due to a small data set, or it could indicate a breakdown in the standard model of the Universe.

Luckily, there is more data for the team to analyze in the future. This result uses only 11 per cent of the full survey, because the Hyper Suprime-Cam is still taking images, and is scheduled to finish around 2020.

"This is just a first step, and the completed data of Hyper Suprime-Cam survey promises to advance our understanding of dark matter and dark energy," said Kavli IPMU Principal Investigator and paper author Masahiro Takada.

The team uploaded their paper detailing these results to the preprint server (https://arxiv.org) on September 26, and will submit their findings to the Publication of Astronomical Society of Japan (PASJ) for peer review.

###

Paper details

Paper title: Cosmology from cosmic shear power spectra with Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam first-year data

Authors: Chiaki Hikage (1), Masamune Oguri (2,3,1), Takashi Hamana (4), Surhud More (1,5), Rachel Mandelbaum (6), Masahiro Takada (1) et al.

Author affiliations:

1 Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU WPI), UT Institutes for Advanced Study, University of Tokyo, Kashiwa 277-8583, Japan

2 Research Center for the Early Universe, University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan

3 Department of Physics, University of Tokyo 1130-0033, Japan

4 National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Mitaka, Tokyo 181-8588, Japan

5 The Inter University Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Post Bag 4, Ganeshkhind, Pune, 411007, India

6 McWilliams Center for Cosmology, Department of Physics, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA

arXiv number: 1809.09148

Preprint (arXiv.org): https://arxiv.org/abs/1809.09148A small group of people living with HIV sensitive to two potent anti-HIV broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs)--3BNC117 and 10-1074--tolerated multiple infusions of the antibodies and suppressed HIV for more than 15 weeks after stopping antiretroviral therapy (ART). The new findings, from a pilot clinical trial supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and others, are reported today in Nature.

"A safe, reliable, antibody-based treatment regimen would open new possibilities for people living with HIV," said Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of NIH. "This study represents an important, early step towards that goal and, importantly, helps establish that a combination of broadly neutralizing antibodies to HIV can safely suppress the virus in certain individuals without the apparent development of viral resistance."

Rockefeller University investigators and their colleagues recruited 15 volunteers whose HIV was suppressed with ART and was initially found to be sensitive to both 3BNC117 and 10-1074. Participants received infusions of both bNAbs, stopped taking ART two days later, and received additional infusions three and six weeks later.

In previous studies, researchers found that infusions of a single bNAb did not suppress HIV because resistant strains developed in some individuals. The new study tested the theory thata combination of multiple antibodies targeting distinct regions of HIV would both suppress the virus and prevent the development of resistance.

Among the 11 people who completed the study, nine maintained viral suppression without ART for an average of 15 weeks, until the amount of bNAbs in their bodies fell below protective levels. Two of the nine participants maintained virologic control through the end of the 30-week study follow-up period. The other two participants were found to harbor HIV resistant to at least one bNAb and experienced viral rebound before 12 weeks after stopping ART.

Overall, the findings suggest that like combination ART, combination bNAb infusions may be able to suppress HIV if the antibodies are maintained at therapeutic levels in people who do not harbor resistant virus. Further research is needed to identify bNAb combinations that can suppress HIV long-term in people whose HIV sensitivity to bNAbs is unknown. The Rockefeller University team currently is enrolling people living with HIV in a larger study to evaluate an optimized regimen of 3BNC117 and 10-1074. Learn more about the study reported in Nature by visiting ClinicalTrials.gov using study identifier NCT02825797, and learn more about the currently enrolling study under identifier NCT03526848.

###

Reference: P Mendoza et al. Combination therapy with anti-HIV-1 antibodies maintains viral suppression. Nature DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0531-2 (2018).

NIAID conducts and supports research--at NIH, throughout the United States, and worldwide--to study the causes of infectious and immune-mediated diseases, and to develop better means of preventing, diagnosing and treating these illnesses. News releases, fact sheets and other NIAID-related materials are available on the NIAID website.

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov/.

NIH...Turning Discovery Into HealthAstronomers using the National Science Foundation's Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) have discovered a fast-moving jet of material propelled outward from a type of neutron star previously thought incapable of launching such a jet. The discovery, the scientists said, requires them to fundamentally revise their ideas about how such jets originate.

Neutron stars are superdense objects, the remnants of massive stars that exploded as supernovas. When in binary pairs with "normal" stars, their powerful gravity can pull material away from their companions. That material forms a disk, called an accretion disk, rotating around the neutron star. Jets of material are propelled at nearly the speed of light, perpendicular to the disk.

"We've seen jets coming from all types of neutron stars that are pulling material from their companions, with a single exception. Never before have we seen a jet coming from a neutron star with a very strong magnetic field," said Jakob van den Eijnden of the University of Amsterdam. "That led to a theory that strong magnetic fields prevent jets from forming," he added.

The new discovery contradicts that theory.

The scientists studied an object called Swift J0243.6+6124 (Sw J0243), discovered on October 3, 2017, by NASA's orbiting Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, when the object emitted a burst of X-rays. The object is a slowly-spinning neutron star pulling material from a companion star that is likely significantly more massive than the Sun. The VLA observations began a week after the Swift discovery and continued until January 2018.

Both the fact that the object's emission at X-ray and radio wavelengths weakened together over time and the characteristics of the radio emission itself convinced the astronomers that they were seeing radio waves produced by a jet.

"This combination is what we see in other jet-producing systems. Alternative mechanisms just don't explain it," van den Eijnden said.

Common theories for jet formation in systems like Sw J0243 say the jets are launched by magnetic field lines anchored in the inner parts of the accretion disks. In this scenario, if the neutron star has a very strong magnetic field, that field is overpowering and prevents the jet from forming.

"Our clear discovery of a jet in Sw J0243 disproves that longstanding idea," van den Eijnden said.

Alternatively, the scientists suggest that Sw J0243's jet-launching region of the accretion disk could be much farther out than in other types of systems, where the star's magnetic field is weaker. Another idea, they said, is that the jets may be powered by the neutron star's rotation, instead of being launched by magnetic field lines in the inner accretion disk.

"Interestingly, the rotation-powered idea predicts that the jet will be significantly weaker from more slowly rotating neutron stars, which is exactly what we see in Sw J0243," Nathalie Degenaar, also of the University of Amsterdam, said.

The new discovery also implies that Sw J0243 may represent a large group of objects whose radio emission has been too weak to detect until new capabilities provided by the VLA's major upgrade, completed in 2012, were available. If more such objects are found, the scientists said, they could test the idea that jets are produced by the neutron star's spin.

The astronomers added that a jet from SwJ0243 may mean that another category of objects, called ultra-luminous X-ray pulsars, also highly magnetized, might produce jets.

"This discovery not only means we have to revise our ideas about jets from such systems, but also opens up exciting new areas of research," Degenaar said.

Van den Eijnden, Degenaar, and their colleagues are reporting their discovery in the journal Nature.

###

The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation, operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.For the first time, the two halves of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope -- the spacecraft and the telescope--were connected together using temporary ground wiring that enabled them to "speak" to each other like they will in flight.

Although it was a significant step forward for the program, this test was an optional "risk reduction" test that took advantage of an opportunity to connect the two halves of the observatory together electrically months earlier than planned. If any issues had been found, it would have given engineers more time to fix them and without causing further delays. As a bonus, it also provided a jumpstart for the separate spacecraft and telescope test teams to begin working jointly as they will when the whole observatory is put together in one piece next year.

The James Webb telescope is both an exceedingly complex and rewarding undertaking for NASA and its international partners. Scientists anticipate its findings to rewrite textbooks on astronomy by providing revolutionary observations of the cosmos, while engineers and involved technicians forecast that its challenging design will enable and influence future spacecraft architecture for years to come.

Each piece of Webb has undergone rigorous testing throughout various historic and state of the art facilities across the United States. This ensures the entire observatory is prepared to survive the inherent harshness of a rocket launch to space, and years of continuous exposure to the extremes encountered on a mission nearly a million miles away from Earth.

In February, Webb made an important, and symbolic step forward in its path to completion when all primary flight components of the observatory came to reside under the same roof at Northrop Grumman in Los Angeles, California. This is where all flight hardware is undergoing final assembly and testing until cleared to launch from the Guiana Space Centre near Kourou in French Guiana.

"What we did now was make electrical connections between the flight telescope and flight spacecraft to understand all the nuances of the electrical interface. Specifically in this test, the spacecraft commanded mirror motion on the telescope, and the telescope replied back with telemetry confirming it. Even though we have tested each half with a simulator of the other half during their parallel construction, there is nothing exactly like connecting the real thing to the real thing. While the sunshield was being reassembled to get back into its environmental testing, we took advantage of the time and did a flight-to-flight electrical dry run right now to reduce schedule risk later," said Mike Menzel, Webb's Mission System Engineer. "The full complement of electrical and software tests will be run next year when the observatory is finally fully assembled for flight."

The James Webb Space Telescope will be a giant leap forward in our quest to understand the universe and where humans fit in the great cosmic expanse. Webb will examine every phase of cosmic history: from the first luminous glows after the big bang to the formation of galaxies, stars, and planets to the evolution of our own solar system. Allowing for unprecedented scientific observation and discovery worldwide. Webb will broaden and enrich the discoveries achieved by the great space observatories Hubble, Spitzer, and Chandra.

"This test also afforded us an early chance to ensure that the two teams, who had been working separately over the years building and testing the two separate halves of Webb respectively, were able to operate as a single observatory test team. We are enthused that the early communications and commanding risk reduction test has been successfully executed. The procedure was designed and executed by an integrated set of team members from Goddard Space Flight Center, Northrop Grumman, and Ball Aerospace," said Jeff Kirk, Test Operations Lead.

The James Webb Space Telescope will be the world's premier space science observatory. Webb will solve mysteries of our solar system, look beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probe the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international project led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency.

###

For more information, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/webb

By Thaddeus Cesari

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center'This discovery can help us devise better ways to decode speech for brain machine interfaces'

Goal to give speech back to adults and children whose muscles are paralyzed

Next step to translate decoded speech movements into words using brain machine interface

CHICAGO --- People like the late Stephen Hawking can think about what they want to say, but are unable to speak because their muscles are paralyzed. In order to communicate, they can use devices that sense a person's eye or cheek movements to spell out words one letter at a time. However, this process is slow and unnatural.

Scientists want to help these completely paralyzed, or "locked-in," individuals communicate more intuitively by developing a brain machine interface to decode the commands the brain is sending to the tongue, palate, lips and larynx (articulators.)

The person would simply try to say words and the brain machine interface (BMI) would translate into speech.

New research from Northwestern Medicine and Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences has moved science closer to creating speech-brain machine interfaces by unlocking new information about how the brain encodes speech.

Scientists have discovered the brain controls speech production in a similar manner to how it controls the production of arm and hand movements. To do this, researchers recorded signals from two parts of the brain and decoded what these signals represented. Scientists found the brain represents both the goals of what we are trying to say (speech sounds like "pa" and "ba") and the individual movements that we use to achieve those goals (how we move our lips, palate, tongue and larynx). The different representations occur in two different parts of the brain.

"This can help us build better speech decoders for BMIs, which will move us closer to our goal of helping people that are locked-in speak again," said lead author Dr. Marc Slutzky, associate professor of neurology and of physiology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a Northwestern Medicine neurologist.

The study will be published Sept. 26 in the Journal of Neuroscience.

The discovery could also potentially help people with other speech disorders, such as apraxia of speech, which is seen in children as well as after stroke in adults. In speech apraxia, an individual has difficulty translating speech messages from the brain into spoken language.

How words are translated from your brain into speech

Speech is composed of individual sounds, called phonemes, that are produced by coordinated movements of the lips, tongue, palate and larynx. However, scientists didn't know exactly how these movements, called articulatory gestures, are planned by the brain. In particular, it was not fully understood how the cerebral cortex controls speech production, and no evidence of gesture representation in the brain had been shown.

"We hypothesized speech motor areas of the brain would have a similar organization to arm motor areas of the brain," Slutzky said. "The precentral cortex would represent movements (gestures) of the lips, tongue, palate and larynx, and the higher level cortical areas would represent the phonemes to a greater extent."

That's exactly what they found.

"We studied two parts of the brain that help to produce speech," Slutzky said. "The precentral cortex represented gestures to a greater extent than phonemes. The inferior frontal cortex, which is a higher level speech area, represented both phonemes and gestures."

Chatting up patients in brain surgery to decode their brain signals

Northwestern scientists recorded brain signals from the cortical surface using electrodes placed in patients undergoing brain surgery to remove brain tumors. The patients had to be awake during their surgery, so researchers asked them to read words from a screen.

After the surgery, scientists marked the times when the patients produced phonemes and gestures. Then they used the recorded brain signals from each cortical area to decode which phonemes and gestures had been produced, and measured the decoding accuracy. The brain signals in the precentral cortex were more accurate at decoding gestures than phonemes, while those in the inferior frontal cortex were equally good at decoding both phonemes and gestures. This information helped support linguistic models of speech production. It will also help guide engineers in designing brain machine interfaces to decode speech from these brain areas.

The next step for the research is to develop an algorithm for brain machine interfaces that would not only decode gestures but also combine those decoded gestures to form words.

###

This was an interdisciplinary, cross-campus investigation; authors included a neurosurgeon, a neurologist, a computer scientist, a linguist, and biomedical engineers. In addition to Slutzky, Northwestern authors are Emily M. Mugler, Matthew C. Tate (neurological surgery), Jessica W. Templer (neurology) and Matthew A. Goldrick (linguistics).

The paper is titled "Differential Representation of Articulatory Gestures and Phonemes in Precentral and Inferior Frontal Gyri."

This work was supported in part by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Northwestern Memorial Foundation Dixon Translational Research Award (including partial funding from National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, UL1TR000150 and UL1TR001422), NIH grants F32DC015708 and R01NS094748 and National Science Foundation 1321015.COLUMBUS, Ohio - There's a surprising upside to the fact that many people edit their selfies on Instagram and other social media sites to enhance their appearance.

A new study found that when women believed that selfies of thin and sexualized women had been edited, viewing these images had less negative impact on one aspect of their mental health.

Many studies have found that viewing thin and sexualized images of models or others can lead women to put more value on being slender themselves - a line of thinking called thin ideal internalization, said Megan Vendemia, lead author of the study and doctoral candidate in communication at The Ohio State University.

This internalization can in turn lead to eating disorders or other psychological problems.

But this study found that women were less likely to internalize the thin ideal if they believed the pictures they viewed were edited.

"Women see the edited photos as less authentic and it reduces the negative effect these images can have on them," Vendemia said.

"They know that the online images might not reflect an offline reality."

The study also found that participants judged women negatively for sharing edited pictures of themselves online. Furthermore, participants evaluated the women who shared the thin, sexualized images more negatively when they believed the women were peers instead of models.

Vendemia conducted the study with David DeAndrea, associate professor of communication at Ohio State. It appears online in the journal Body Image and will be published in a future print edition.

The research involved 360 female college students from one university who were told the study was designed to determine how people evaluate images that appear on popular social media sites like Instagram.

They all viewed the same 45 selfies, taken from public Instagram accounts, of thin women in revealing clothing. Some of the photos had icons, placed by the researchers, that indicated the image was edited in Photoshop and/or included an Instagram filter.

Half of the women were told that the images were of other students at their college, while the others were told the images depicted New York City models.

And half of each of these groups saw collections in which nearly all the photos were marked as being edited. The others saw collections containing only a few photos labeled as edited.

All participants then completed a variety of measures, including one on thin ideal internalization. This asked how much they agreed with statements like "Thin women are more attractive than other women."

Results showed that the more that participants perceived that the photos were edited, the less they internalized the thin ideal. As expected, participants were more likely to believe the photos labeled as edited had been modified. But they also thought many of the non-labeled photos were edited.

"The photos are less influential if women see them as being edited," Vendemia said. "So cues that images have been altered could potentially reduce the negative effects of thin ideal images."

The more that the viewers thought the selfies were modified, the more they thought the women took their photos just to show off, to make others jealous and to brag, results showed. Participants also rated the women with edited photos as less intelligent and less honest.

And participants gave harsher evaluations to their peers than they did for models.

"Participants tended to be more forgiving of professional models than their own peers on social media sites for the exact same behavior," she said.

"They thought models were sharing selfies for more altruistic reasons, such as to motivate others or promote health."

The results suggest that women should be cautious about what selfies they share of themselves on social media.

"You may not get the same positive reaction from your friends as would a model who posted a very similar picture," Vendemia said.

But the good news of this study is that as social media users become more sophisticated in how they view photos, they may be able to avoid some pitfalls.

"Just being aware of the amount of photo editing that goes on diminishes women's endorsement of the thin ideal when they view pictures of slender people," she said.

###

The article is available for free download until November 9, 2018 at this link.

Contact: Megan Vendemia, Vendemia.1@osu.edu

Written by Jeff Grabmeier, 614-292-8457; Grabmeier.1@osu.eduAn international joint research group led by Osaka University demonstrated that it was possible to efficiently heat plasma by focusing a relativistic electron beam (REB) accelerated by a high-intensity short-pulse laser with the application of a magnetic field of 600 tesla (T), about 600 times greater than the magnetic energy of a neodymium magnet (the strongest permanent magnet). Their research results were published in Nature Communications.

If matter can be heated to temperatures of tens of millions of degrees using REB accelerated to nearly the speed of light by irradiating plasma with high-intensity lasers, it will become possible to ignite controlled nuclear fusion reactions.

In the central ignition scheme, a prevailing scheme for inertial confinement fusion (ICF), has the problem of ignition quench, which is caused by the hot spark mixing with the surrounding cold fuel. On the other hand, in the fast ignition scheme (fast isochoric heating), a portion of low temperature fuel is heated, and then the heated region becomes the hot spark to trigger ignition before said mixing occurs. Thus, the fast ignition scheme has drawn attention as an alternative scheme.

In the fast ignition scheme, first, fusion fuel is compressed to a high density using nanosecond laser beams. Next, a high-intensity picosecond laser rapidly heats the compressed fuel, making the heated region a hot spark to trigger ignition. Nuclear fusion releases a large amount of energy by burning the majority of the fuel. (Figure 1)

The REB, which is generated by a high-intensity short-pulse laser and accelerated to nearly the speed of light, travels through high-density nuclear fusion fuel plasma and deposits a portion of kinetic energy in the core, making the heated region the hot spark to trigger ignition. However, REB accelerated by high-intensity lasers has a large divergence angle (typically 100 degrees), so only a small portion of the REB collides with the core. (Figure 2)

A kilo-tesla level magnetic field is necessary to guide high-energy electrons at the speed of light, so the researchers employed magnetic fields of several hundreds of tesla. Because electrons, which are charged and have a small mass, easily move along a magnetic field line, they guided the high energy REB of 1MeV along the magnetic field lines to the core (the fusion fuel of 100 microns or less), achieving efficient heating of high-density plasma. They named the scheme "magnetized fast isochoric heating."

In this study, laser-to-core energy coupling reached a maximum of 8 percent. The laser-to-core energy coupling, i.e., the energy deposition rate of REB, depends on the density of the plasma to be heated. In calculation based on the ignition spark formation conditions, the energy deposition rate of REB obtained in this study is several times more than that obtained by the central ignition scheme. Thus, the researchers conclude that the magnetized fast isochoric heating is very efficient and useful for the development of laser fusion energy.

Senior author Shinsuke Fujioka says, "We have made progress towards the realization of laser fusion energy in cooperation with researchers from home and abroad under the Joint Use/Research Center Project. Our research results will be applied to studies on the reproduction of the core of a star in laboratory simulation and the creation of new matter under extreme environments."

###

The article "Magnetized Fast Isochoric Laser Heating for Efficient Creation of Ultra-High-Energy-Density States" was published in Nature Communications, http://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-06173-6.

About Osaka University

Osaka University was founded in 1931 as one of the seven imperial universities of Japan and now has expanded to one of Japan's leading comprehensive universities. The University has now embarked on open research revolution from a position as Japan's most innovative university and among the most innovative institutions in the world according to Reuters 2015 Top 100 Innovative Universities and the Nature Index Innovation 2017. The university's ability to innovate from the stage of fundamental research through the creation of useful technology with economic impact stems from its broad disciplinary spectrum.

Website: http://resou.osaka-u.ac.jp/en/topYour chances of forming online friendships depend mainly on the number of groups and organizations you join, not their types, according to an analysis of six online social networks by Rice University data scientists.

"If a person is looking for friends, they should basically be active in as many communities as possible," said Anshumali Shrivastava, assistant professor of computer science at Rice and co-author of a peer-reviewed study presented last month at the 2018 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining in Barcelona, Spain. "And if they want to become friends with a specific person, they should try to be a part of all the groups that person is a part of."

The finding is based on an analysis of six online social networks with millions of members, and Shrivastava said its simplicity may come as a surprise to those who study friendship formation and the role communities play in bringing about friendships.

"There's an old saying that 'birds of a feather flock together,'" Shrivastava said. "And that idea -- that people who are more similar are more likely to become friends -- is embodied in a principal called homophily, which is a widely studied concept in friendship formation."

One school of thought holds that because of homophily, the odds that people will become friends increase in some groups. To account for this in computational models of friendship networks, researchers often assign each group an "affinity" score; the more alike group members are, the higher their affinity and the greater their chances of forming friendships.

Prior to social media, there were few detailed records about friendships between individuals in large organizations. That changed with the advent of social networks that have millions of individual members who are often affiliated with many communities and subcommunities within the network.

"A community, for our purposes, is any affiliated group of people within the network," Shrivastava said. "Communities can be very large, like everyone who identifies with a particular country or state, and they can be very small, like a handful of old friends who meet once a year."

Finding meaningful affinity scores for hundreds of thousands of communities in online social networks has been a challenge for analysts and modelers. Calculating the odds of friendship formation is further complicated by the overlap between communities and subcommittees. For instance, if the old friends in the above example live in three different states, their small subcommunity overlaps with the large communities of people from those states. Because many individuals in social networks belong to dozens of communities and subcommunities, overlapping connections can become dense.

In 2016, Shrivastava and study co-author Chen Luo, a graduate student in his research group, realized that some well-known analyses of online friendship formation failed to account for any factors arising out of overlap.

"Let's say Adam, Bob and Charlie are members of the same four communities, but in addition, Adam is a member of 16 other communities," Shrivastava said. "The existing affiliation model says the likelihood of Adam and Charlie being friends only depends on the affinity measures of the four communities they have in common. It doesn't matter that each of them are friends with Bob or that Adam's being pulled in 16 other directions."

That seemed like a glaring oversight to Luo and Shrivastava, but they had an idea of how to account for it based on an analogy they saw between the overlapping subcommunities and the overlapping similarities between webpages that must be taken into account by internet search engines. One of the most popular measures for internet search is the Jaccard overlap, which was pioneered by Google scientists and others in the late 1990s.

"We used this to measure overlap between communities and then checked to see if there was a relationship between overlap and friendship probability, or friendship affiliation, on six well-studied social networks," Shrivastava said. "We found that on all six, the relationship more or less looked like a straight line."

"That implies that friendship formation can be explained merely by looking at overlap between communities," Luo said. "In other words, you don't need to account for affinity measures for specific communities. All that extra work is unnecessary."

Once Luo and Shrivastava saw the linear relationship between Jaccard overlap of communities and friendship formation, they also saw an opportunity to use a data-indexing method called "hashing," which is used to organize web documents for efficient search. Shrivastava and his colleagues have applied hashing to solve computational problems as diverse as indoor location detection, the training of deep learning networks and accurately estimating the number of identified victims killed in the Syrian civil war.

Shrivastava said he and Luo developed a model for friendship formation that "mimicked the way the mathematics behind the hashing work."

The model offers a simple explanation of how friendships form.

"Communities are having events and activities all the time, but some of these are a bigger draw, and the preference for attending these is higher," Shrivastava said. "Based on this preference, individuals become active in the most preferred communities to which they belong. If two people are active in the same community at the same time, they have a constant, usually small, probability of forming a friendship. That's it. This mathematically recovers our observed empirical model."

He said the findings could be useful to anyone who wants to bring communities together and enhance the process of friendship formation.

"It seems that the most effective way is to encourage people to form more subcommunities," Shrivastava said. "The more subcommunities you have, the more they overlap, and the more likely it is that individual members will have more close friendships throughout the organization. People have long thought that this would be one factor, but what we've shown is this is probably the only one you have to pay attention to."

###

The research was supported by the National Science Foundation, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the Office of Naval Research.

Also announced today, Anshumali Shrivastava was named to this year's @ScienceNews #SN10, which highlights young scientists revolutionizing their fields. Read that news release at http://news.rice.edu/2018/09/26/rice-u-s-anshumali-shrivastava-makes-science-news-top-10/.

Related research from Rice:

A better statistical estimation of known Syrian war victims -- June 5, 2018

Rice U. scientists slash computations for deep learning -- June 1, 2017

Researchers working toward indoor location detection -- April 17, 2017

Computer Science's Shrivastava wins NSF CAREER Award -- March 6, 2017

Rice, Baylor team sets new mark for 'deep learning' -- Dec. 16, 2016

Rice's energy-stingy indoor mobile locator ensures user privacy -- Oct. 20, 2016

Rice wins interdisciplinary 'big data' grant -- July 12, 2016

This release can be found online at news.rice.edu.

Follow Rice News and Media Relations via Twitter @RiceUNews.LA JOLLA--(September 26, 2018) Approximately 1.25 million Americans are living with type 1 diabetes (T1D), with an additional 40,000 people newly diagnosed every year. T1D is an autoimmune disease that destroys insulin-producing pancreatic islet cells. Insulin is a hormone that allows sugar (glucose) to enter cells to produce energy. Without insulin, blood sugar accumulates, causing toxic side effects. Despite active research, T1D has no cure. While treatments, including daily insulin injections, are available, managing the disease remains challenging, and poorly controlled T1D can lead to blindness, organ failure and other health issues.

Replacement therapies for beta cells (the cells that produce insulin in the islet) have been proposed as a game changer for T1D patients, potentially freeing diabetics from the daily burden of constantly managing their disease. There are two main challenges to transplanting insulin-producing islet cells: the shortage of transplantable cells and the underlying autoimmune response that destroyed the patient's own islets.

Ronald Evans, a professor in Salk's Gene Expression Laboratory and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, believes that the development of immune tolerant human islet-like organoids, or HILOs for short, may be a solution. He's not alone. The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) recently approved a $1.6 million grant to help bring Evans' HILOs to patients with diabetes.

"We are excited that CIRM has elected to support our work," says Evans. "Transplanted islet cells have the potential to dramatically improve the quality of life for people with type 1 diabetes, but we need to overcome the shortage of transplantable cells, and we need to manage the autoimmune response. We believe HILOs will do both."

HILOs build upon a breakthrough Cell Metabolism paper published in 2016, which identified the secret switch (ERR gamma;) to generating mature functional islet cells; that is, cells that secrete insulin when they sense high sugar levels. HILOs are generated from pluripotent stem cells (which have the potential to become any tissue) and can be grown in large numbers, potentially solving the transplant shortage. These organoids contain a variety of cells, as well as a blood supply, to recapitulate normal islet cell function. In addition, early animal studies have shown HILOs are highly functional, secreting insulin in response to glucose.

"Our engineered functional human islet-like organoids are designed to circumvent the shortage of donor islets," says Salk Research Associate Zong Wei, a member of the HILO project team. Salk Staff Scientist Eiji Yoshihara, a leading member of the HILO project team, notes, "In preclinical testing, our HILOs can immediately restore glucose homeostasis (balance) upon transplantation into T1D mice."

The project was funded under CIRM's Discovery Quest Program, which invests in research that can be rapidly translated into treatments. The team will use these funds to develop a safe and efficient protocol to scale up HILO production to eliminate islet cell shortages. From a therapeutic perspective, HILOs could provide the complete package: easily transplantable organoids that produce insulin, resist immune attack and can be grown in sufficient numbers.

"In addition to developing safe effective HILOs, we now have a way of cloaking the cells from the immune system, and thereby avoiding the autoimmune response that could destroy the implanted cells," says Senior Staff Scientist Michael Downes, a senior member of the HILO team. "This is an exciting time. Although it is early days, the funding from CIRM will help develop HILOs to improve the quality of patient lives."

###

About the Salk Institute for Biological Studies:

Every cure has a starting point. The Salk Institute embodies Jonas Salk's mission to dare to make dreams into reality. Its internationally renowned and award-winning scientists explore the very foundations of life, seeking new understandings in neuroscience, genetics, immunology, plant biology and more. The Institute is an independent nonprofit organization and architectural landmark: small by choice, intimate by nature and fearless in the face of any challenge. Be it cancer or Alzheimer's, aging or diabetes, Salk is where cures begin. Learn more at: salk.edu.Earthquakes in Oklahoma and Kansas had been on the rise due to injection of wastewater - a byproduct of oil and gas operations - before regulations started limiting injections. Now a new model developed by Stanford University researchers incorporates earthquake physics and the Earth's hydrogeologic response to wastewater injection to forecast a decrease in man-made earthquakes in Oklahoma and Kansas through 2020.

The model is based on publicly available data on wastewater injection into the Arbuckle formation, a nearly 7,000-foot-deep sedimentary formation underlying north-central Oklahoma and southern Kansas. Assuming wastewater injection from oil and gas operations continues at its current rate, researchers mapped the likelihood that the region will experience future earthquakes. The research appears Sept. 26 in the journal Nature Communications.

"We've created a detailed model that allows regulators to know where most of the problems are likely to occur," said co-author Mark Zoback, the Benjamin M. Page Professor of Geophysics at Stanford's School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences (Stanford Earth). "This can be used in Oklahoma, or elsewhere, to provide a scientific basis for regulatory action."

Local insights

Oil and gas operations often produce large volumes of salty water that they dispose of by injecting it deep underground to protect water in aquifers near the surface used for drinking, livestock and irrigation.

Fluid injected into the Arbuckle formation increases pressure that spreads over a large area. This pressure is problematic because it can affect large faults nearby that are already under stress from tectonic processes. These faults are capable of producing widely felt and potentially damaging earthquakes, if reached by the pressure increase caused by injection.

The same pressure increase in different areas can cause up to 100 times the number of earthquakes, according to lead author Cornelius Langenbruch, a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford Earth. The earthquakes are not necessarily concentrated in areas where the pressure change is highest. In order to understand where earthquakes will or will not occur on a local scale, the new model evaluates the pressure increase in the context of the area's vulnerable, pre-existing faults.

"It was surprising for me to see that the local susceptibility to earthquakes fluctuates by such a large amount," Langenbruch said. "The example of Oklahoma shows that the key to managing seismic hazards related to these man-made, induced earthquakes is managing how much and where the wastewater is injected."

Mandated reduction

Oklahoma's induced earthquakes increased drastically around 2009 and peaked in 2015, with nearly 1,000 widely felt earthquakes spread across the northern and central parts of the state. Oklahoma's public utilities commission, the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, mandated a 40 percent water injection reduction in early 2016 and the number of earthquakes declined thereafter.

The new model - which includes data from 809 injection wells from 2000 through 2018 - shows there will be a 32 percent, 24 percent and 19 percent probability of potentially damaging earthquakes of magnitude 5.0 or above in 2018, 2019 and 2020, respectively, suggesting that Oklahoma's policies are working. If current injection practices in north-central Oklahoma and southern Kansas continue, one potentially damaging magnitude 5.0 or larger earthquake is expected to occur through 2020.

"The result of the new study is definitely good news - it shows injection rate reductions are still effective. In 2015 and 2016 the probabilities were as high as 70 percent," Langenbruch said. "However, the problem is that earthquake probabilities in some areas are still much higher than historic rates."

Future scenarios

The predictive maps from the study allow residents of Oklahoma and Kansas to see the probability that potentially damaging earthquakes will strike close to their homes. The new model can also be used to evaluate future injection scenarios intended to mitigate seismic hazards.

"The nice thing about the methodology is not only the predictions it makes, but its ability to make new predictions based on new measures that might be taken by the regulators," Zoback said. "It turns out you can do these analyses fairly early in the process."

The researchers hope this model will also be used in other areas with expanding oil and gas operations. Places like the Permian Basin in West Texas are being developed at an incredible rate and water injection is probably resulting in earthquakes in that area already, Zoback said.

A co-author of the paper is Matthew Weingarten, an assistant professor at San Diego State University who conducted research for the study as a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford. Zoback is also a senior fellow at Stanford's Precourt Institute for Energy, an affiliate of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment and the director of the Stanford Natural Gas Initiative. Funding for the study was provided by the Stanford Center for Induced and Triggered Seismicity (SCITS), an industrial affiliates program involving 10 Stanford professors.

###MISSOULA - Rising global demand for food has led to conversion of forests and other natural habitats to farmland, with serious consequences for climate and water.

University of Montana Associate Professor Katrina Mullan recently was awarded a $1.45 million grant from the National Science Foundation to study interactions between climate, water availability and the land-use decisions made by small farmers.

"Finding ways to increase agricultural output while limiting negative environmental impacts requires understanding the dynamic feedbacks between the production choices of individual farmers, regional climate and water variability, and farmers' vulnerability to water stress," Mullan said.

An environmental economist, Mullan will work with climate scientists, hydrologists, other social scientists and veterinary scientists from six universities in the U.S. and Brazil. The team will study how clearing forests for agriculture affects the regional hydroclimate and how that affects "green" water, in the form of soil moisture, and "blue" water, in the form of surface or groundwater.

They will then collect survey data to understand how farmers' responses to water scarcity impact their production and land use, and they will develop a model of how these individual decisions combine to determine the regional landscape - as well as the extent to which land-use decisions generate feedbacks to regional water cycles.

"Research with people from other academic disciplines is hard because you tend to see the world from very different perspectives, so you have to understand each other's perspective before you can actually get to the science," said Mullan, who regularly works with researchers from other fields. "At the same time, this type of collaboration is often the only way to answer important questions about how human behavior affects the environment in situations where environmental conditions are simultaneously affecting human behavior."

The research will be based on a case study of private properties in the state of Rondonia, Brazil, where deforestation of the Amazon rainforest to create cropland and pasture has led to increased agricultural production and rising incomes for farmers, but also has raised significant environmental concerns.

"This work will help us understand the tradeoffs between the environmental costs associated with converting wildland to crop fields and pasture and the benefits of increased agricultural production and higher farm incomes," Mullan said. "It also will demonstrate new ways of modeling the feedbacks between human decisions and water availability and of linking data and models at the household and landscape scales. These approaches can then be applied by researchers in many different settings."

Montana Gov. Steve Bullock congratulated Mullan on earning the grant.

"I appreciate your commitment, and it is because of Montanans like you that my administration has the research to make informed decisions about agriculture policy in the state," Bullock wrote. "I wish you all the best on your project, and I am eager to see the results of your work."

###Evolutionary biologist Dr Alison Feder from University of California, Berkeley, has been named winner of the very first Milner Prize by the Milner Centre for Evolution

Evolutionary biologist Dr Alison Feder from University of California, Berkeley has been named winner of the very first Milner Prize by the Milner Centre for Evolution.

Dr Feder studies the evolution of infectious pathogens as they change within their hosts to understand more generally how populations adapt to overcome new and complex challenges.

Dr Feder presented her work on Thursday 20 September at the Inaugural Conference of the Milner Centre for Evolution: Evolution in the 21st Century. She talked about how HIV's high mutation rates and large population sizes makes it incredibly adaptable, especially to the drugs used in its treatment.

The lecture explored how drug resistance evolution has changed over the course of the epidemic and the role population spatial structure plays in influencing intra patient dynamics. More broadly, the talk addressed how studying evolution and disease jointly can improve our understanding of them both.

She received her prize from Dr Jonathan Milner, alumnus of the University of Bath and educational philanthropist whose donation helped establish the Milner Centre for Evolution.

Of the prize, Dr Feder says:

"I'm deeply honored to have been invited to give the inaugural Milner Prize lecture. Both the conference attendees and the members of the Milner Centre are such an impressive and inspiring group of scientists that the opportunity to present my work is really something very special."

Professor Laurence Hurst, Director of the Milner Centre for Evolution said:

"The committee were very impressed by Alison's research. Not only is it cutting-edge, but her work tackles both deep theoretical problems that have immediate relevance, to understanding how viruses like HIV adapt to drugs, thus tackling evolutionary biology closer to the clinic. We were delighted to be in a position to award the inaugural Milner Prize Lecture to such an outstanding candidate."

Dmitri Petrov, Michelle and Kevin Douglas Professor at Stanford and Alison's PhD supervisor, said:

"I was exceptionally fortunate that Alison Feder chose my lab for her Ph.D. She is an extraordinary young scientist with exceptional creativity, originality, focus, range of skills, and the sense of how to identify and then answer truly deep questions in evolution and evolutionary medicine.

"She is just at the beginning of what I am sure will be a brilliant career and I find it very fitting that she is the keynote speaker for the inaugural meeting of the Milner Centre for Evolution. It also makes me very proud."

###The University of Birmingham has been awarded 1.9 million through the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Global Health Research (GHR) Programme to fund world class research into a common heart condition in disadvantaged populations in China, Brazil and Sri Lanka.

The University's NIHR Global Health Research Group on Atrial Fibrillation will focus on ways of preventing and treating atrial fibrillation (AF) - the most global common cause of an irregular heartbeat which five times increases the risk of stroke.

Over a quarter of strokes are due to AF, and adults have a one in four life-time risk of developing the condition, the main causes of which are high blood pressure and diabetes.

Professor Neil Thomas, who is jointly leading the research at the University of Birmingham's Institute of Applied Health Research, said: "A third of people with atrial fibrillation, and even more in low and middle-income countries such as China, Brazil and Sri Lanka, do not know they have the condition.

"To reduce the risk of stroke by around two thirds, patients with atrial fibrillation are given anticoagulant drugs to prevent blood clotting, such as warfarin, however under-treatment is common in these countries, leading to missed opportunities in preventing fatal and disabling strokes.

Professor Gregory Lip, a world leading expert in atrial fibrillation, who is co-leading the research, said: "Our established group at the University of Birmingham has already successfully led changes in atrial fibrillation management in the UK, and in European countries with different healthcare systems, by promoting stroke risk assessment and enabling clinicians to initiate treatment in an integrated manner.

"Given the importance of this need, we plan to support our partners in China, Brazil and Sri Lanka to develop tailored research to improve the treatment and management of this condition in these countries."

The team plans two pilot research projects in each country, developing and adapting known effective methods to increase awareness and treatment of atrial fibrillation, by consulting with local patients, families, healthcare providers and policy-makers and findings from our systematic reviews.

On the ground training will be designed and delivered, and the team will focus on developing new funding proposals to sustain the collaboration in the long-term, including engaging with major stakeholders to develop sustainable models of best care practice.

The University of Birmingham is one of a total of 20 NIHR GHR Groups to have received a slice of 40 million funding, covering a broad range of research themes, including: improving asthma outcomes in African children; health system responses to violence against women, and preterm birth prevention and management.

Dr Louise Wood, Director, Science, Research and Evidence Directorate, Department of Health and Social Care, said: "The NIHR is adding substantive value to the field of global health and helping to keep the UK at the forefront of health knowledge for global benefit.

"These new activities complement the breadth and range of our existing portfolio of funded research to improve health outcomes across LMICs and demonstrate the NIHR's role in supporting the UK Aid Strategy."

The NIHR Global Health Research programme allocates the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC)'s Official Development Assistance (ODA) research funding, delivering internationally-outstanding applied global health research for the direct and primary benefit of patients and the public LMICs. To find out more, please see our global health webpage.

The announcement comes as September 29th marks World Heart Day, the World Heart Federation's global campaign to raise awareness of heart health.

###

For more information please contact Emma McKinney, Communications Manager (Health Sciences), University of Birmingham, Email: e.j.mckinney@bham.ac.uk or tel: +44 (0) 121 414 6681, or contact the press office on +44 (0) 7789 921 165 or pressoffice@contacts.bham.ac.uk

Notes to EditorsThe Sherpa people of the Himalayas have long been recognized for their unique ability to excel physically in the thin air of higher altitudes. But new research from UBC's Okanagan campus, published last week in the Journal of Physiology, now suggests that their specially adapted muscles give them up to twice the resistance to muscle fatigue of lowlanders.

"People who live near sea level--lowlanders--struggle with fatigue and impaired physical performance at high altitude, when the oxygen levels are very low," says Chris McNeil, assistant professor at UBC Okanagan's School of Health and Exercise Sciences and study senior author. "But the Sherpa are born and raised at low-oxygen and their ancestors have lived above 4,000 metres for 20,000 years so they are the gold standard of exceptional high-altitude performance. Unfortunately, very little research has looked at how their muscles deal with fatigue in such an extreme environment."

McNeil and his doctoral student Luca Ruggiero wanted to know if the muscle fibres of the Sherpa were just as efficient in a low-oxygen environment as their well-studied cardiorespiratory systems. To test the idea, they travelled as part of a UBC Okanagan-led expedition to the Pyramid International Laboratory, located at 5,050 metres on the Nepali side of Mt. Everest. At the Pyramid lab they performed muscle fatigue tests on 10 Sherpa and 12 lowlanders.

"We wanted to know how Sherpa muscles became fatigued after physical strain and how quickly those muscles recover compared to people who spend their lives at oxygen-rich sea level," says Ruggiero. "It turns out that the Sherpa fatigued about 33 per cent less than lowlanders and recovered nearly twice as fast."

"In fact, at 5,000 metres, where the oxygen concentration is roughly half that at sea-level, the Sherpa out-performed even the fittest lowlanders studied," he adds.

For their tests, the team connected the dominant leg of the participant to a specialized device called an isometric dynamometer to measure the force exerted by the quadriceps--muscles on the front of the thigh that straighten the knee. After determining the strength of each participant, electrical stimulation was used to make the quadriceps contract rhythmically, as they do when walking, for approximately four minutes. Muscle fatigue was measured as the drop in force from the start to the end of the four minutes.

"We specifically wanted to look at the quadriceps because they are so important in activities like walking, hiking and climbing," says McNeil. "Even with similar oxygen delivery to the muscles in both groups, Sherpa muscle fibres have a remarkable ability to use oxygen efficiently during and after exercise."

Understanding Sherpa muscle capabilities is not only interesting for researchers, says McNeil, but may also have practical applications for lowlanders living with a variety of diseases or afflictions.

"You don't need to be on Everest for the body to experience the negative effects of reduced levels of oxygen reaching tissues," says McNeil. "For example, those suffering from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease struggle with fatigue and impaired physical performance just like a healthy lowlander would if they were living at high altitude."

"A better grasp of how Sherpa muscles are able to not only survive but thrive in such a harsh environment could one day lead to exercise or pharmacological interventions and change the lives of countless people," he adds.

"That's the holy grail of studying the incredible physical abilities of the Sherpa."

###

The study was published this week in The Journal of Physiology with funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Canada Foundation for Innovation and the British Columbia Knowledge Development Fund.Scientists have known for decades that certain bacteria produce small spherical versions of themselves. Although they lack basic materials to reproduce or function like normal cells, recent interest in such "minicells" has spiked due to their proficiency as nano-sized delivery tools for drugs and vaccines to targeted cells and tissues.

Yet the natural role of minicells, which protrude like budding balloons off the ends of bacteria, has remained a mystery. Now, researchers at the University of California San Diego have demonstrated for the first time that minicells play a key function in the self-preservation of bacteria.

Publishing their results in the journal mSphere, the researchers discovered that E. coli bacteria discharge damaged proteins bundled inside minicells--a process not unlike a pod being launched from a spaceship--as a survival mechanism.

"It's amazing that even bacteria take out their garbage," said Camilla Rang, a research specialist in Division of Biological Sciences Professor Lin Chao's laboratory and first author of the paper. "We have shown that minicells can be beneficial for the bacteria and help them escape death by kicking out the damaged proteins."

To examine the link between minicells and the health of bacterial cells, the researchers tagged and tracked proteins with fluorescent markers. While under attack from antibiotics such as streptomycin, the researchers used microscopy techniques to follow damaged proteins in E. coli bacteria to the pole (end point) areas, then packaged inside the minicell and finally dispatched out of the bacteria.

"The advantage that minicells provide in the presence of streptomycin suggests that they could also play a role in helping bacterial cells resist, survive or persist when challenged with antibiotics," the researchers note in the paper.

The new findings help provide mechanistic insights for researchers who have recently used minicells as molecular drug delivery systems for diseases such as cancer. In such treatments, minicells are loaded through diffusion with therapeutic drugs, tagged with antibodies for a target cancer and injected into the blood system. The new results help describe how natural routes within minicells could instead be used for packing drug payloads.

The paper is dedicated to the memory of Distinguished Professor Emeritus William Loomis, a 50-year UC San Diego faculty member, who provided critical input to the direction of the research project. He passed away in 2016. Coauthors of the paper include UC San Diego's Audrey Proenca, Christen Buetz, Chao Shi and Lin Chao.

###Microplastics have been found deep in the sand on beaches where sea turtles lay their eggs.

University of Exeter scientists found an average of 5,300 particles of plastic per cubic metre at depths of 60cm (2ft) on beaches in Cyprus used by green turtles and loggerheads.

At the surface, up to 130,000 fragments of plastic were found per cubic metre - the second-worst level ever recorded on a beach (the worst was in Guangdong, South China).

Researchers say that if conditions worsen such pollution could eventually begin to affect hatching success and even the ratio of male and female turtle hatchlings.

"We sampled 17 nesting sites for loggerhead and green turtles and found microplastics at all beaches and all depths," said Dr Emily Duncan, of the Centre for Ecology and Conservation on the University of Exeter's Penryn Campus in Cornwall.

"Microplastics have different physical properties to natural sediments, so high levels could change the conditions at hatching sites, with possible effects on turtle breeding.

"For example, the temperature at which the egg incubates affects the sex of the hatchling - with females more likely in warmer conditions.

"More research is needed to investigate what effects microplastics have on turtle eggs."

Microplastics - defined as less than 5mm in diameter - come from numerous sources including discarded plastic items that have broken apart, microbeads from cosmetics and microfibres from clothes.

Of the microplastics categorised in this research, nurdles (pellets used in the production of plastic products) and hard fragments broken from larger items were the most common.

"Unlike the beaches in China where the highest levels of microplastics have been recorded, these beaches in Cyprus are located far from industrial practices and aren't visited by large numbers of people," said Professor Brendan Godley, leader of the University of Exeter's marine strategy.

"Therefore it seems that microplastics are arriving on ocean currents. In this case, our analysis suggests most of it came from the eastern Mediterranean basin. This is also true of the large plastic items found on the beaches in Cyprus in large numbers."

The findings support the theory that beaches act as a "sink" for marine microplastics, becoming key areas for contamination.

The research, is based on 1,209 sediment samples taken from 17 turtle nesting beaches in northern Cyprus.

The paper, published in Marine Pollution Bulletin, is entitled: "The true depth of the Mediterranean plastic problem: Extreme microplastic pollution on marine turtle nesting beaches in Cyprus."

###Finding could help diagnose toddlers with aggression before behavior becomes more ingrained

Imagine a situation where one child is teasing another. While the child doing the teasing means it playfully, the other child views it as hostile and responds aggressively.

Behavior like this happens all the time with children, but why some react neutrally and others act aggressively is a mystery.

In a new study, a University of Iowa-led research team reports it has identified a brain marker associated with aggression in toddlers. In experiments measuring a type of brain wave in 2 to 3-year-old children, toddlers who had smaller spikes in the P3 brain wave when confronted with a situational change were more aggressive than children registering larger P3 brain-wave peaks, research showed.

The results could lead to identifying at an earlier stage children who are at risk of aggressive behavior and could help stem those impulses before adolescence, an age at which research has shown aggressive behavior is more difficult to treat.

"There are all kinds of ambiguous social cues in our environment," says Isaac Petersen, assistant professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the UI and corresponding author on the study. "And, when children aren't able to detect a change in social cues, they may be more likely to misinterpret that social cue as hostile rather than playful.

"Children respond to the same social cues in different ways, and we think it's due to differences in how they interpret that cue, be it neutral or hostile," Petersen says.

The P3 wave is part of a series of brain waves generated when an individual evaluates and responds to a change in the environment--such as changed cues in a social interaction. Previous research, primarily in adults, has shown individuals with shorter P3-wave peaks when confronted with a change in the environment tend to be more aggressive. As such, scientists believe P3 is a key indicator of aggression, as well as associated with depression and schizophrenia.

To tease out those differences in children, the researchers recruited 153 toddlers and, in individual sessions, outfitted each with a net of head sensors that measured brain-wave activity while a steady stream of tones sounded in the room. As the children watched silent cartoons on a television screen, the pitch of the tones changed, and the researchers measured the P3 brain wave accompanying each change in pitch.

The change in pitch is analogous to a change in a social interaction, in which the brain--consciously or subconsciously--reacts to a change in the environment. In this case, it was the change in pitch.

Toddlers with a shorter peak in the P3 brain wave accompanying the tone change were rated by their parents as more aggressive than children with more pronounced P3 spikes.

The difference in P3 peaks in aggressive and non-aggressive children "was statistically significant," Petersen says, and the effect was the same for boys and girls.

"Their brains are less successful at detecting changes in the environment," Petersen says of the children with shorter P3 brain-wave peaks. "And, because they're less able to detect change in the environment, they may be more likely to misinterpret ambiguous social information as hostile, leading them to react aggressively. This is our hypothesis, but it's important to note there are other possibilities that may explain aggression that future research should examine."

The researchers tested the same children at 30, 36, and 42 months of age to further explore the association with the P3 brain wave and aggression.

"This brain marker has not been widely studied in children and never studied in early childhood in relation to aggression," says Petersen, who has an appointment in the Iowa Neuroscience Institute. "It might be one of a host of tools that can be used in the future to detect aggression risk that might not show up on a behavioral screening."

The research is important because early interventions are more effective for stemming aggression, says Petersen, who is a clinical psychologist.

"Evidence suggests that early interventions and preventive approaches are more effective for reducing aggression than interventions that target aggression later in childhood or in adolescence when the behavior is more ingrained and stable," he says.

The paper was published Sept. 26 in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. It is titled "A longitudinal, within-person investigation of the association between the P3 ERP component and externalizing behavior problems in young children."

The children were tested at Indiana University-Bloomington. Contributing authors at Indiana University include Caroline Hoyniak and John Bates. Angela Staples at Eastern Michigan University and Dennis Molfese at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln also are contributing authors.

###

The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development funded the research. Additional funding came from the National Institute of Mental Health, through a National Service Research Award to Petersen, and from the U.S. National Science Foundation, through a Graduate Research Fellowship to Hoyniak.PHILADELPHIA - A compound secreted in the bloodstream could be the key factor that causes wounds in older people to heal with less scarring than in younger people. The compound is called stromal cell-derived-factor-1 (SDF1), and researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania showed that blocking it could influence scar formation and tissue regeneration in mouse and human skin, potentially providing a path to scar-less wound healing in humans. Cell Reports published the findings, which were drawn from studies of both mice and lab-grown human skin, today.

"Dermatologists and plastic surgeons have consistently observed that older people's wounds heal with thinner scars than younger patients', but until now, no one has been able to answer the question of why that's the case," said the study's senior author Thomas H. Leung, MD, PhD, an assistant professor of Dermatology at Penn.

In the study, Leung and his team pierced the ears of mice of different ages - the equivalent of a 12-year-old and a 70-year-old if converted to human years. The hole closed with no scar formation in older mice, while younger mice healed with a visible scar. Researchers then exchanged the blood of young mice with old mice, pierced their ears, and found that the ears of old mice now scarred. They concluded whatever was causing the scarring must be something in the blood.

The team then took tissue samples from young and old mice and compared their gene expression signatures. They identified 80 differences, too many to study. But when they asked which gene products are found in the blood stream, the list narrowed to 13 suspects. One was SDF1, a signaling molecule that was previously shown to play a role in scar formation in the skin, liver, and lung, and it seemed like a promising possibility. They confirmed that SDF1 was expressed in younger mice but not older. To prove that SDF1 may be the causal factor, they created a mouse that lacked SDF1 in the skin. When SDF1 function was inactivated, even young mice began to regenerate skin, behaving, in this sense, like older mice.

"This is a rare instance where aging actually improves the body's ability to heal rather than diminishing it," Leung said. "When we're younger, we secrete more SDF1 into the blood stream to form scars, but as we age, we lose this ability, which allows tissue to regenerate."

To prove it, researchers exchanged the blood between young SDF1-deficient mice and older mice. This time, neither mouse scarred. The team went one step further and grew human skin in the lab, then injured it with a scalpel. Human skin also exhibited an age-dependent expression of SDF1.

Leung says this work has the ability to impact the clinic relatively quickly. SDF1 inhibitors already exist on the market and currently used as a treatment to mobilize stem cells. He and his team plan to study its use in preventing scar formation in humans.

###

This study was supported by the National Institutes of Health (K08-AR066661, P30-AR069589, T32GM008216), the Veterans Administration (I01RX002701), the Moseley Foundation, and the H.T. Leung Foundation.

Penn Medicine is one of the world's leading academic medical centers, dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, and excellence in patient care. Penn Medicine consists of the Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (founded in 1765 as the nation's first medical school) and the University of Pennsylvania Health System, which together form a $7.8 billion enterprise.

The Perelman School of Medicine has been ranked among the top medical schools in the United States for more than 20 years, according to U.S. News & World Report's survey of research-oriented medical schools. The School is consistently among the nation's top recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health, with $405 million awarded in the 2017 fiscal year.

The University of Pennsylvania Health System's patient care facilities include: The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and Penn Presbyterian Medical Center -- which are recognized as one of the nation's top "Honor Roll" hospitals by U.S. News & World Report -- Chester County Hospital; Lancaster General Health; Penn Medicine Princeton Health; Penn Wissahickon Hospice; and Pennsylvania Hospital -- the nation's first hospital, founded in 1751. Additional affiliated inpatient care facilities and services throughout the Philadelphia region include Good Shepherd Penn Partners, a partnership between Good Shepherd Rehabilitation Network and Penn Medicine, and Princeton House Behavioral Health, a leading provider of highly skilled and compassionate behavioral healthcare.

Penn Medicine is committed to improving lives and health through a variety of community-based programs and activities. In fiscal year 2017, Penn Medicine provided more than $500 million to benefit our community.Sept. 26, 2018 -- Air conditioning and heating systems are not only great for keeping a home cool or warm, but they also help clean the air of harmful pollutants.

While home thermostats control HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) systems based on temperature, engineers from the University of Utah have studied the effects of controlling them based on a home's indoor air quality. They have discovered that programming your air conditioner and furnace to turn on and off based on the indoor air quality as well as the temperature doesn't waste a lot of additional energy but keeps the air much cleaner.

Their findings, published in a paper titled Smart Home Air Filtering System: A Randomized Controlled Trial for Performance Evaluation, will be presented Sept. 26 at this year's "IEEE/ACM Conference on Connected Health: Applications, Systems and Engineering Technologies" in Washington D.C. The lead authors of the paper are University of Utah electrical and computer engineering professor Neal Patwari and U electrical and computer engineering doctoral graduate, Kyeong T. Min.

The researchers, led by Patwari, purchased a series of off-the-shelf portable air pollution sensors and connected them wirelessly to Raspberry Pis, small and inexpensive computers for hobbyists. With specialized software developed by the engineers, the computers were programmed to automatically turn on the air conditioning system whenever the particulate matter in the air reached a certain point and turn off the system when the particulate matter dipped below a certain measurement.

For the study, 12 sensors were deployed in four homes in 2017. In each house, two of the sensors were inside rooms, and one was placed outside under a covered porch. Starting at midnight each night, each home would randomly operate the sensors under one of three conditions: "Normal," in which the HVAC systems turned on and off normally based on temperature only; "Always On," in which the air system operated continuously all day, and; "SmartAir," in which the system turned on and off the HVAC fan based on the pollution measurement in the house as well as the thermostat's temperature setting.

Based on five months of data, the study revealed that operating with the "SmartAir" setting in which it turned on and off based on temperature and air quality cleaned the air almost as well as if the HVAC fan was operating all day, but it used 58 percent less energy. Meanwhile, when the heating and cooling system operates normally without regards to the air quality, the air was 31 percent dirtier than with the "SmartAir" setting.

"For someone with asthma, an exacerbation can be triggered by poor air in the home, particularly for children," Patwari says. "This kind of monitoring system could allow them to live more comfortably and with fewer asthma symptoms and fewer trips to the emergency room."

Because of ordinary activities in the home such as cooking, vacuuming and running the clothes dryer, air quality inside a home can at certain times of the day be much worse than outside. Constant exposure to indoor air pollutants can lead to short-term health effects such as irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat, as well as headaches, dizziness, and fatigue, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Long-term exposure could also lead to respiratory diseases, heart disease and cancer and could be fatal for some. Yet there are no known home or commercial HVAC systems that are controlled by air quality sensors.

###

Patwari's study involves engineering in collaboration with other University of Utah scientists, including biomedical informatics and clinical asthma researchers. It was funded as part a larger National Institutes of Health program known as Pediatric Research using Integrated Sensor Monitoring Systems (PRISMS), launched in 2015 to develop sensor-based health monitoring systems for measuring environmental, physiological and behavioral factors in pediatric studies of asthma and other chronic diseases.

Research reported in this publication was funded by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number U54EB021973. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

This news release and photos may be downloaded from unews.utah.edu.I am currently living in Madeira but planning to go traveling. I am a Portugal resident etc and plan to be based on the mainland. My question is, Can i have my mail redirected from my madeira address to a P.O. box in mainland Portugal. Any words of wisdom welcomed.Privacy Settings

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NOTE: These settings will only apply to the browser and device you are currently using.Wednesday, September 26, 2018

He identified a global problem and then worked hard to find a solution. Once he had found the solution, he implemented it on a global scale and the results were glaringly obvious. He was short on resources and time, so he found creative ways to overcome the constraints. TIME Magazine named him one of the 100 most influential minds of the 20th century. For ushering the Green Revolution." across the globe, Dr. Norman Borlaug makes it to the list of legends of leadership and management.

Identifying the problem : Very early in his career, Borlaug was approached about joining a fledgling research project being initiated by the Rockefeller Foundation in rural Mexico, in 1944. There, he first saw the plight of poverty-stricken wheat farmers barely able to sustain themselves due to repeatedly poor harvests  the primary culprit being the fungal disease, Rust, which perennially ruined the harvest. This had a huge impact on him and he shared his thoughts in a letter to his wife  These places Ive seen have clubbed my mind  they are so poor and depressing. I dont know what we can do to help these people, but weve got to do something.."

Borlaug honed in on one thing: increasing yield. For him, the complexities of poverty and hunger could be reduced to a single problem: not enough food. From there, the answer was simple: grow as much as possible, using whatever technology available.

Acknowledging and overcoming the constraints : Technology was the answer, but there was an instinctive hesitation to adopt untried new technologies on the part of the farmers, especially from an expatriate American college boy who didnt even speak their language.

Though extremely discouraged, Borlaug was determined to succeed. He started by learning the local language and that eventually induced him to get his hands dirty in the fields and connect with the local farmers.

Dr. Borlaugs initial goal was to create varieties of wheat adapted to Mexicos climate that could resist the greatest disease of wheat  the fungus called rust. Time was of the essence and manipulating wheat blossoms to cross different strains to test their resistance to rust, was time consuming. Once again, he got around the time constraint by breeding in two places  the Sonoran desert in winter and the central highlands in summer. Though this imposed heavy burdens on him and his team, it cut the overall time to come up with the new strains, in half. And it produced wheat varieties that were insensitive to day length and capable of growing in many locales.

The Mexican farmers were impressed and started adopting the new varieties and the wheat output began a remarkable climb in Mexico.

Taking technology to the next level  raising the bar : Once the problem with the rust fungus was resolved, Dr. Borlaug started focusing on increasing the yield for the Mexican farmer. At that time, the general perception within the scientific community was that huge yield gains could be induced in wheat by feeding the plants chemical fertilizer that supplied them with extra nitrogen, a shortage of which was the biggest constraint on plant growth. But the strategy had a severe limitation: beyond a certain level of fertilizer, the seed heads containing wheat grains would grow so large and heavy, the plant would fall over and ruin the crop.

Dr. Borlaug acknowledged the problem and realized that a potential solution lay in shortening the plant so it could withstand the weight of the bigger, heavier grains. So in 1953, he began working with Japanese dwarf strains which he crossbred with the varieties being raised in the hot, dry climate of northern Mexico. This had an unusual gene that had the effect of shrinking the wheat plant, creating a stubby, compact variety. The most important result was that the seed heads did not shrink  so the short plant stayed stable with the bigger, heavier grains.

Dr. Borlaug and his team transferred the gene into tropical wheats. When high fertilizer levels were applied to these new semidwarf." plants, the results were simply astonishing.

The plants produced enormous heads of grain, yet their stiff, short bodies were able to support the weight without falling over. On the same amount of land, wheat output could be tripled or quadrupled. Later, the idea was applied to rice, the staple crop for nearly half the worlds population, with yields jumping several-fold compared with some traditional varieties.

This novel idea of increasing yields by shrinking plants became the central insight of the Green Revolution across the globe.

By the early 1960s, many farmers in Mexico had embraced the full package of innovations from Dr. Borlaugs breeding program, and wheat output in the country soared six-fold from the levels of the early 1940s and as result, Mexico obtained self-sufficiency.

Implementing on a global scale  laying the foundation for success : While Mexico was getting self-sufficient in wheat, a crisis was brewing on the Indian subcontinent. The population was growing so much faster than farm output that it was not clear how mass starvation could be avoided.

Borlaug and his team now faced the seemingly impossible task of convincing the leaders of both India and Pakistan, to embrace an entirely new approach to agriculture. Once again, the pragmatic and prepared Dr. Borlaug presented the options available to the senior most political leaders of both countries. With the support of key Cabinet ministers and young scientists like Dr. M.S. Swaminathan, both countries made the courageous decision to adopt Borlaugs breakthrough technology.

One vital shipment through the Port of Los Angeles was delayed by the Watts riots of 1965, and Dr. Borlaug spent hours yelling on the phone to get it through. Finally the seed ship sailed. Borlaug went to bed thinking that the problem was finally solved, only to wake up to the news that war had broken out between India and Pakistan.

Undeterred by the armed conflict on the sub-continent, Borlaug and his team of scientists planted the first crop of dwarf wheat on the subcontinent, while working within sight of artillery flashes. Sowed late, that crop germinated poorly, yet yields still rose 70 percent. This prevented general wartime starvation in the region, though famine did strike parts of India.

Indian and Pakistani farmers took up the new varieties, receiving fertilizer and other aid from their governments. Just as in Mexico, harvests soared: the Indian wheat crop of 1968 was so bountiful that the government had to turn schools into temporary granaries

Having learnt the importance and power of engaging with the locals, Dr. Borlaug extrapolated that on a global scale by working with local scientists notably M.S. Swaminathan in India, and Robert Chandler, Henry Hank." Beachell and Gurdev Khush at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines. In the Philippines, it led to the creation of semi-dwarf varieties of rice that caused rice yields to soar. Chinese scientists ultimately followed suit and using semi-dwarf varieties, established food security in China, setting the stage for its rise as an industrial power. Latin America was next, notably Colombia, Ecuador, Chile and Brazil. Together, with countless others, they helped avert famine and starvation in much of the developing world in the second half of the 20th century.

Dr. Borlaug kept his team of young scientists motivated by impressing upon them the urgency to help feed the world. The key to success was exploiting the short window of cross breeding opportunity when wheat flowers were ready for cross breeding  you worked from sun up to sun down, because the window of opportunity closed rapidly.

More than any other single person of this age, he has helped provide bread for a hungry world,." the Nobel committee said in presenting him with the Peace Prize. We have made this choice in the hope that providing bread will also give the world peace.."

Dr. Borlaug was a visionary who was passionate about achieving results, in spite of the constraints.

We must recognize the fact that adequate food is only the first requisite for life,." he said in his Nobel acceptance speech. For a decent and humane life we must also provide an opportunity for good education, remunerative employment, comfortable housing, good clothing and effective and compassionate medical care.."Tariffs are hitting some Texas businesses bottom line and heightening uncertainty for executives  even though manufacturing activity continues to grow, according to surveys by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

The Dallas Fed in September asked 364 business executives in the manufacturing and service industries about how tariffs were affecting their companies.

Just over one-third said tariffs are currently negatively affecting their company, 45 percent said theres no current impact. Five percent reported positive effects.

More than half reported increased uncertainty.

Manufacturers appear divided on the topic. Forty-seven percent of those surveyed said tariffs are negatively affecting their firm, but that figure fell to 39 percent when they were asked how the tariffs could affect them for the long term. Nine percent said tariffs are currently having a positive impact on their business, with 15 percent expecting positive long-term effects.

READ ALSO: Former Kerrville executive accused of embezzlement wants retirement money

Many more Texas firms said that the tariff impact is negative than positive, said Emily Kerr, Dallas Fed senior business economist, in a news release Monday. The impact on manufacturers is a bit more polarized.

Sixty-five percent of manufacturers said tariffs had increased their uncertainty.

One manufacturer said tariffs could open up a new market in China and another speculated that tariffs could positively affect their finances. Others were unsure about the future impact, while some said tariffs had pushed prices up and affected inventory.

Were getting killed on aluminum pricing and potential availability, one transportation equipment manufacturer said.

A metal manufacturer said the company can pass on the cost increases, but our customers may not be able to pass them on if they compete with products made in Mexico, China or Asia. One machinery manufacturer said their input costs and prices had gone up, but customers understand the situation and continue to buy our products.

The tariffs as best as I can tell will have little or no effect on anyones buying habits, the company representative wrote.

Firms in San Antonio have seen minimal to somewhat increased impact from tariffs, depending in part on their size, said Rey Chavez, president and CEO of the San Antonio Manufacturers Association.

Many companies find the tariffs difficult, but due to higher orders for their products they are adjusting and are making profits which they in turn invest in their companies, Chavez said. Customers are the ones picking up the costs for steel and aluminum, and to date I havent heard many complaints.

READ ALSO: San Antonio-based armored car manufacturer expanding to Honduras

Manufacturers are worried about more tariffs and rising prices, contributing to feelings of uncertainty, he said. Still, many agree the current course of action by the (Trump) administration is needed to stop the manipulation and subsidizing sell prices below cost, Chavez added.

In the service sector, 30 percent reported negative effects and more than half said tariffs have no current impact on their business. Half said tariffs had increased their uncertainty.

We have been on the receiving end of bad trade deals for a long time, an educational services company told the Dallas Fed. The short-term pain of tariffs is negligible as compared with the benefits of renegotiating trade deals not in our favor, but in a more balanced way. I stand behind the administration in this effort  it is long overdue.

A real estate firm said input costs for construction materials are increasing in the midst of a project theyre working on.

Tariffs will push new projects that are marginal to the sideline, they said. The economics dont work.

The Texas Manufacturing Outlook Survey, also released Monday, indicates that factory activity continued to grow in September but at a slower pace than last month.

Kerr noted that output growth has stayed strong for more than a year, though demand growth has slowed this quarter.

This was another strong report for Texas manufacturing, although there are some signs that the expansion is moderating somewhat, Kerr said.

Texas produces more than 11 percent of manufactured goods in the U.S., according to the Dallas Fed.A bankrupt Kerrville consulting firm that has accused its former president of embezzlement is now suing him over his company retirement savings account.

US Tax Recovery Partners filed suit Tuesday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court to prevent former President Stephen A. Canty from collecting the roughly $200,000 in his 401(k) plan.

The monies were the fruits of crime, the company says in its lawsuit.

Raymond Battaglia, a lawyer for Canty, declined to comment on the lawsuit. Attorney James Wilkins, US Tax Recovery Partners bankruptcy lawyer, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

US Tax Recovery Partners is asking the court to declare that all the money belongs to the company. It also wants the money put in a constructive trust for its benefit.

The lawsuit appears to be the first legal action the company has taken against Canty, who it accused of fraud and breach of fiduciary duty by manipulating the companys books.

Canty overstated the amount of money clients owed the company by $25 million, allowing it to a tap a $27 million line of credit, its bankruptcy lawyer said earlier this year.

Canty confessed to wrongdoing and criminal activity, the lawsuit states. FBI agents have been investigating, three people familiar with the probe told the San Antonio Express-News in April. FBI spokeswoman Michelle Lee did not have any immediate comment when reached Tuesday.

US Tax Recovery Partners and related companies HJH Consulting Group, doing business as The Salt Group, and B2B Prospecting filed for bankruptcy protection April 2. Manipulation of accounting records were cited as the reason for the bankruptcy filings.

HJH has provided cost and expense reduction advice to clients for 30 years. US Tax Recovery Partners, which has ceased doing business, offered to help clients achieve tax savings. B2B Prospecting helps drum up business for HJH.

Canty, 57, was terminated March 26 after a 19-year career at HJH. State corporate records listed him as HJHs president, but he also served in the same role at US Tax Recovery Partners.

According to US Tax Recovery Partners lawsuit, all the contributions to Cantys 401(k) were payroll deductions from his salary.

Canty wants $55,000 from the account paid to him, with the remaining $145,000 going to an individual retirement account.

Patrick Danner is a San Antonio-based staff writer covering banking and civil courts. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | pdanner@express-news.net | Twitter: @AlamoPDOne of the big eye-catchers in the San Antonio Museum of Art exhibit Marilyn Lanfear: Material Memory is the triptych Uncle Clarences Three Wives.

The piece consists of three nearly-life-size portraits of the three very different women who married Lanfears uncle. All three depictions are created entirely out of buttons  thousands upon thousands of them. Look closely at the the portrait on the right of the war bride Aunt Gerry, and youll see gold military buttons stitched to the uniform jacket draped over her shoulders.

The piece rarely fails to spark one very specific question, said Suzanne Weaver, the museums Brown Foundation Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, during a stroll through the show with Lanfear.

Everyone asks me, Did she do all those buttons?, Weaver said.

Short answer? No. Although she collected all of them, an endeavor that took years, she enlisted nearly 40 volunteers to sew all those buttons in place. Their initials can be found on the sides of the pieces, Lanfear said.

On ExpressNews.com: Meet the artist behind the blue panther

When Lana Meador, who curated the exhibit, looks at the triptych, it calls to mind the way that it connects to other artworks both from the distant past and the present.

What I like to think about with this piece, particularly in the context of our encyclopedic museum, is this history of image-making with small units, said Meador, who spent much of this year working on the exhibit with Lanfear. For instance, a mosaic in our ancient Roman gallery, or you think about pointillism and impressionism, if you think about how digital images are created with pixels today, this has always been kind of a constant. So I love how it fits into that broader art historical context.

The piece is representative of much of Lanfears work, which often draws on stories from her own family. She recalled that her Aunt Billie, who is pictured in the piece on the left, met a particularly tragic end in the school explosion in New London, Texas, in 1937.

She was Clarences first wife, Lanfear said. She had moved to that town with Clarence and had just gone up to the school to say hello to her sister, who worked there. And the building exploded.

On ExpressNews.com: Artists present a fresh look at the Alamo

Nearby stands Library Table with Ink Paintings, a 2001 piece featuring a table covered with what appears to be family photographs. The photographs, though, are small paintings tucked into swing frames. The paintings were inspired by her own family photos, she said.

She was living in Oregon when she began working on the piece and picked up many of the frames in a shop there, she recalled. When she needed more, she returned to same spot and asked if they had any left.

They said, We did, but somebody just bought them all, she said. But it was I who had bought them all, but she didnt recognize me.

The idea behind the thoughtfully executed exhibit was to give a sense of the broad range of work Lanfear has created over more than four decades, said Meador. That includes several assemblages  including one made entirely of embroidery hoops  as well as drawings and sculpture.

When I started looking at her work and thinking about it seriously and thinking about what would be in the show, what really struck me was the diversity of materials and (processes), said Meador, noting that Lanfear learned how so solder lead to create the striking lead blouse sculpture and learned how to make paper for Marilyn/Marilyn, a 1994 piece that re-creates an outfit her mother had made for her when she was a child.

Meador noted how important the material is to her and the way the formal aspects of it, the physicality of it, how it evokes memories or certain associations and how that relates to the subject matter.

She is particularly taken with Untitled (WhatNot Shelves and Repisas), a 2008 work featuring more than a dozen of the shelves arrayed across two walls. Some are simple shelves, with little flash; others are much more elaborate.

As with the buttons, it took Lanfear years to collect all of them. A few came from her family, including one that was in her grandmothers house, where it held a Bible.

The toughest one to track down was the one specifically designed to be tucked into a corner, she said. As it happens, someone who knew about the project happened upon one and gave it to her.

Meador had never seen the piece displayed until it went up in the gallery.

Id seen the objects by themselves, but never on the wall as they should be, she said. To see it finally be realized, it really all came together, and you see different things in each one - each one has a different personality, and I love that about them.

Marilyn Lanfear: Material Memory can be seen through Nov. 11 at the San Antonio Museum of Art, 200 W. Jones. Visit samuseum.org or call 210-978-8100 for more information.

dlmartin@express-news.net | Twitter: @DeborahMartinEN

Deborah Martin is an arts writer in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read her on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | dlmartin@express-news.net | Twitter: @DeborahMartinENTo understand how Republican state Rep. Sarah Davis plans to survive a possible Democratic blue wave in her House district, consider the front lawn of Jeanne and Michael Maher.

Like several others in their neighborhood near West University Place, the Mahers have staked yard signs in front of their house for two political candidates of opposing parties: U.S. Rep. Beto ORourke, the El Paso Democrat running for Senate, and Davis, a moderate, pro-choice conservative.

It is a Republican-dominated Legislature, it will continue to be a Republican-dominated Legislature, and I would like to have someone who would be pulling some of the Republicans in the other direction, Michael Maher said, explaining his support for Davis.

The 65-year-old Rice University energy researcher described himself as a moderate unmoored by party affiliation.

If the blue wave does wash over Texas, Davis might be the Republican best equipped to withstand it. She represents a swing district in an affluent section of Houston that voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, and for Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in 2014.

After weathering a rough primary election in which she was called too liberal by Abbott, Davis is now being faulted by her Democratic challenger, Allison Lami Sawyer, for supporting conservative-backed legislation such as Senate Bill 4, the anti-sanctuary cities law.

More Information The candidates Sarah Davis (incumbent) Occupation: Civil defense attorney First elected: 2010 Permanent committees: General Investigating and Ethics (chair), Health and Human Services Appropriations subcommittee (chair), Appropriations, Calendars, Corrections Key quote: "I certainly don't want to be adversarial to the governor, to the lieutenant governor. But I'll stand my ground and do what I think is right for the district." Allison Lami Sayer Occupation: Scientist, entrepreneur Degrees: Engineering physics (B.S.), nanoscale physics (M.S.), finance (MBA) Background: Raised by a single mother in Alabama, aspired from a young age to start a tech company. Moved to Houston in 2007 to get MBA, start a company. First time seeking elected office. Key quote: "The No. 1 thing you can do to help women and children in this state is to expand Medicaid. We are leaving so much money on the table by not expanding Medicaid." House District 134 (2016 Census data) 70 percent Anglo voting age population 24 percent of households had annual incomes of $200,000 or more The district per capita income almost three times the statewide average See More Collapse

Sawyer, 33, promises in her campaign slogan to make evidence based decisions. She acknowledges the unconventional nature of the phrase, but contends that it will play well with the districts highly educated and politically engaged voters. In 2016, 70.2 percent of registered voters in the district turned out, a higher rate than all but two other Texas House districts.

My main problem with (Davis) is that she doesnt make decisions based on evidence. She makes decisions based on whats going to make her the most money or keep her in power, said Sawyer, co-founder of a company that develops gas leak-detecting cameras used on oil installations.

During her Republican primary, Davis knocked off Susanna Dokupil, who was backed by Abbott. The governor opposed two other Republican incumbents, but seemed to focus his attention on Davis, making six-figure TV ad buys against her.

Davis won the primary soundly, by a 12 percentage-point margin.

Now, in an election cycle that could produce strong Democratic turnout in November, Sawyer arguably presents a more dangerous threat than even an Abbott-backed Dokupil.

Yet after serving four terms, Davis, 42, is well known in her district, which encompasses the Texas Medical Center, Southside Place, Bellaire, Rice University and West University Place, where she lives. She has been re-elected three times by comfortable margins, winning by 9 and 10 points in 2012 and 2016, respectively, and a whopping 22 points in 2014. (Republicans tend to fare better in midterm years, when turnout is lower.)

This year, however, Democrats near the top of the ballot will likely boost Sawyers chances, with ORourke and 7th Congressional District candidate Lizzie Fletcher running competitive races. Davis is aiming to pull some of those voters to her side.

THE LATEST: Fletcher and Culberson go on the attack in Houston congressional race

I really believe that I am very reflective of the district that I represent, she said. I don't ever have to worry about pandering to one small group of people. That allows me to be exactly who I am, and to vote the way that I think my district supports.

Making Texas more blue

To Sawyer, the long odds of turning her entrepreneurial vision into a full-fledged company mirrors the electoral challenge she and other Texas Democrats face.

Her company, Rebellion Photonics, started with a business plan for a camera that can film things undetectable to the human eye.

She started the company with the Rice University graduate student who invented the camera, Robert Kester. After eight years as CEO, Sawyer stepped down to let Kester run the company while she runs for office.

Making Texas more blue rings true to me in the exact same way that starting Rebellion did  it feels impossible and will take a long time but is utterly the right thing for Houston, she said.

Sawyer has lived in Houston for more than a decade, but until last year lived outside District 134. She and her husband, Steven, claim a homestead exemption on a property in District 148; she moved into a condo in the district to run for office. Sawyer says shes not ashamed of renting the condo so she could run against Davis, because its totally legal.

If she beats Davis, Sawyer wants to repeal the anti-sanctuary cities law. She also wants to devote more state funding to public schools and expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. And she would introduce legislation to ban what she calls baby jails, referring to shelters where unaccompanied immigrant minors are detained.

Sawyer said some Democrats who voted for Davis in prior elections have told her they wont support Davis again because of the SB 4 vote.

For most progressives and a lot of independents in my district, that was a step too far, Sawyer said, calling the law racist.

Davis defended her vote, saying she thinks law enforcement should be required to honor Immigration and Customs Enforcements detainers. As for a controversial amendment allowing police to question a persons immigration status during routine stops, Davis noted she was in conference committee when the amendment reached a floor vote in the House.

She said she would have voted against the amendment if present, though she did vote for the final bill, which included the amendment and passed on a party line vote.

I do not believe our police should be immigration officers, Davis said. That's not what they're trained to do. But checking with ICE to see if someone they've got in their jails is wanted by ICE, that should be standard protocol and I have no problem defending that.

Davis pledges renewed push for ethics reform

In a year when many Texas Republicans are opting to drive up turnout among their conservative base rather than appeal to the middle, Davis is running as an unabashed moderate, seeking Democratic and independent votes. One of her campaign mailers, framed by red borders around a blue center, touts her independent leadership with results and does not identify her as a Republican.

"There's no campaign literature or campaign speech that I give in the primary that I could not turn around and say the exact same thing in the general, Davis said. Because it's really important to me, actually, to campaign to the widest possible audience.

Davis, chairwoman of the House Committee on General Investigating and Ethics, said she would pursue the same ethics agenda that Abbott declined to take up during last years special session. She is considering folding her proposals into an omnibus ethics bill.

Notably, Davis supports the idea of re-upping a measure introduced by state Rep. Lyle Larson, a San Antonio Republican whom Abbott also targeted, that would bar the governor from appointing donors who give a certain amount of money to his campaign. Abbott has denied that he makes appointments based on campaign contributions, and through a spokesman accused Davis and Larson of showboating.

ABBOTTS APPOINTMENTS: Ahead of Abbott fundraiser, a Lubbock developer says the unspeakable

Last year, Davis sought to bar state lawmakers from accepting contributions during special sessions, a practice that is already illegal during regular sessions.

To fend off her primary challenger, Davis spent more than $600,000 in campaign funds in the first two months of the year. But with a well-funded campaign, she reported $118,000 cash on hand at the end of June, giving her a big edge over Sawyers $21,000.

Sawyer expects backing from outside groups like Annies List  who she said recruited her to run  and Flippable, a national organization that supports Democrats.

Davis said she is ready for the challenge.

At the end of the day, this district is just so unique that I could very easily see a blue wave scenario in which some of our statewides lose this area, but others not, Davis said. My constituents, they pick up and down the ballot.

jasper.scherer@chron.com | Twitter: @jaspschererThe man who led one of the countrys largest outlaw biker clubs for more than a decade was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison without parole plus 10 years for a host of racketeering-related crimes, including directing murder and beatings to keep order in the drug-trafficking organization.

The courtroom was packed by the time the sentencing hearing began at 9 a.m.

After hearing some testimony, Senior U.S. District Judge David Ezra sentenced Jeffrey Fay Pike, 63, the former national president of the Bandidos Motorcycle Club, who was convicted in May by a San Antonio jury that heard two sides about him and his organization in three months of trial earlier this year.

On ExpressNews.com: Jury finds Bandidos leaders guilty

Now Playing: The Bandidos Motorcycle Gang is considered one of the most dangerous motorcycle gangs in America. Here's what you need to know about it. Video: San Antonio Express-News

According to Pike, he is an ordinary family man who lived in a home he built with his own hands on a 5-acre spread near Conroe, north of Houston, dabbled in restoring classic cars and motorcycles and managed a club of of like-minded men who love their Harleys and having a good time.

But according to the feds, he ran one of the worlds largest criminal syndicates with an iron hand, setting up his leadership in a way that underlings for years shielded him from arrest for the extortions, beatings and killings he ordered them to carry out against rival bikers or wayward Bandidos. Club business was compartmentalized and important information or orders disseminated on a need-to-know basis, Assistant U.S. Attorneys Eric Fuchs and John Gibson said.

In short, the prosecutors say Pike led the mafia on two wheels. They presented a case that included wire taps on Pikes vice-president, John Xavier Portillo, and the testimony of several Bandidos and former Bandidos, some of them national officers like Pike and Portillo, who painted a picture of the club similar to some episodes from Netflixs Sons of Anarchy, a series about an outlaw motorcycle club.

Jurors sided with the government, and convicted Pike and Portillo, of San Antonio, of racketeering conspiracy crimes that included attacks and murders by other Bandidos to keep rival bikers from putting down roots in Texas, the clubs turf and homeland.

The prosecutors said Pike issued secret orders to Portillo about assaults and murders he wanted carried out to maintain control of the clubs territory and profits in rackets that included drug-trafficking and prostitution, and that Portillo  whom Pike picked as his second-in-command in 2013  obliged. Among the murders was a 2006 hit on an Austin man who tried to start a Texas chapter of the Hells Angels, one of the Bandidos chief historic rivals.

By their verdict, jurors also believed Pike authorized a war on the Cossacks, a smaller Texas-based motorcycle club. The war culminated in Texas deadliest biker shootout, the May 17, 2015, gun battle involving Bandidos, Cossacks, their allies and police at a Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco. The shootout left nine bikers dead, most of them Cossacks, 20 injured and some 200 arrested on state charges of participating in organized crime.

Neither Pike nor Portillo were at the shootout, and none of the federal charges were for the Waco incident. But they were convicted for, among other things, conspiring with fellow Bandidos in attacks on Cossacks before and after the Waco shootout happened.

The pair denied ordering, authorizing or sanctioning the criminal activity of their fellow Bandidos, and Pike claimed local Bandidos chapters were autonomous and didnt act on orders of national leaders. Ezra on Monday sentenced Portillo to two consecutive life terms, followed by 20 years in prison  all without parole.

On ExpressNews.com: Judge sentences Bandidos VP to life in prison plus more

Under his leadership, Pike brought the Bandidos headquarters back to Texas from Washington state, and split the Bandidos in the Western Hemisphere from those in Europe and Australia.

Testifying in his own defense at his trial, Pike said he pursued the split because he did not like some of the ultra-violent acts by some international chapters, like the massacre of eight Bandidos in Canada in 2006 and all-out biker wars involving Bandidos in Scandinavia in the 1990s and the recruitment by some chapters of members with suspected terrorist ties in Australia. He also said he tried to instill reforms, including halting members from referring to women as property.

Pike also testified that he wanted the Bandidos to attract more mainstream and family-oriented members  different, younger people, more settled, I guess you would say. But he said he was not the dictator-like ruler of Bandido Nation.

I didnt really lead them at all, Pike said. I just set an example, and if they chose to follow me, they did.

Guillermo Contreras covers federal court and immigration news in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | gcontreras@express-news.net | Twitter: @gmaninfedlandSpanish-speaking voters in Bexar County looking for information online about the race to replace ex-Sen. Carlos Uresti were no doubt startled to find there was election drainage coming up instead of a runoff.

Thats one of the bad translations created by Google Translate on the countys elections site  it was still there Tuesday  prompting the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas to write a letter to Bexar officials, warning that the county could be in violation of the federal Voting Rights Act.

Jacque Callanen, the Bexar County elections administrator, said all of the countys departments use Google Translate online. The translation engine offers more than 100 language choices, from Albanian to Zulu and even Latin.

The issue we have with that is that it generates translations that are literal and not always meaningful for the reader, ACLU legal consultant Matthew McCarthy said.

In this case, the word runoff was translated as escurrimiento, which is Spanish for drainage, of water or nasal passages. Escurrimiento de la nariz means runny nose. A better translation would have been la segunda vuelta (the second round) or el desempate (the tie-breaker), which is what the Texas Secretary of State uses on its website and on printed ballots.

Bexar County wasnt the only one with the problem; ACLU sent letters to 35 other counties, including Val Verde, Zavala and Cameron. They are among the 88 counties in Texas that are required to post elections materials in Spanish; thats required by federal law in any county where at least 5 percent of the voting-age population, or at least 10,000 voting-age people, speak Spanish.

The letters came after the civil rights organization conducted a website audit, McCarthy said. Not all of the translation problems spotted by ACLU stemmed from using Google Translate; some counties had too few or no translations at all.

The ACLUs audit examined only online material. Most federally mandated printed material, including the bilingual ballots, are provided by the secretary of states office, which McCarthy said has very good translations.

Callanen said shes not sure how long the department has been using Google Translate, but said the office has never received a complaint from voters about the translations.

Our initial reaction was that we were grateful they brought it to our attention, said Callanen, who received the letter Monday.

There are Spanish-speaking employees in the elections department, Callenen said, but the translations were never raised as an issue, likely because of the lack of complaints.

Since Google Translate is the standard for the entire county website, Callanen added, she assumed it complied with federal translation requirements.

McCarthy said that has been the response from most counties that have replied to the ACLU so far. He said he doesnt think there was any malicious intent in the missed translations.

It might be a resource issue or it may be that they just dont have this requirement at the top of their minds, McCarthy said. I dont think theres any intention to withhold any information.

The Bexar elections department is planning to consult with the countys information technology unit Thursday to determine how to solve the issue, Callanen said.

She said the department could potentially take material from the secretary of states page, or there might be another agency in the county that has retained a translator that the elections department could use.

We may not have to reinvent the wheel here, she said.

That said, having proper translations absolutely can have an effect on elections, Callanen said.

The more our outreach goes, the better it is for everyone, she said.

Dylan McGuinness covers local politics and the Bexar County government for the Express-News. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | dylan.mcguinness@express-news.net | Twitter: @DylMcGuinnessThe strongest Democratic candidate in Texas Senate District 19 was not on last weeks special-election runoff ballot.

The person who had the best shot of preventing the Republican Party from flipping this reliably Democratic district chose to stay out of the race.

As a result, Republican candidate Pete Flores, a Pleasanton-based former law enforcement director for the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department, stunned former Democratic Congressman Pete Gallego in the SD19 runoff. Flores will be the first Republican in 139 years to represent the district.

It might have been a different story if Rey Saldana had run.

In early March, Saldana met with Gallego and Democratic state Rep. Phil Cortez at Landrys Seafood House to discuss SD19. A couple of weeks before the summit, then-Sen. Carlos Uresti had been convicted on 11 felony counts of fraud and money laundering and it was obvious that Uresti would soon have to resign.

RELATED: Flores defeats Gallego in Senate District 19

By that point, Democratic state Rep. Roland Gutierrez had been campaigning across the sprawling district for a solid year, in anticipation of Urestis resignation. The question to be decided at Landrys was who, if anyone, would offer voters a Democratic alternative to Gutierrez.

Gallego, who was antsy for another campaign after reluctantly sitting out this years U.S. District 23 primary (and after losing 2014 and 2016 general-election contests in District 23 to Will Hurd), took the plunge. Saldana and Cortez sat it out.

Gallego and Gutierrez traded punches in the early stages of the special-election race and accrued some baggage along the way. Gallego had to answer questions about whether he actually lives in the district  which stretches from South San Antonio to West Texas  and Gutierrez had to explain a string of tax liens hed collected in recent years.

Gallego outlasted Gutierrez and made it into the runoff, but ran a listless runoff campaign. An affable but bland campaigner, he demonstrated no ability to energize young voters or convince progressives that his campaign was about something bigger than his desire to return to public office.

Saldana, unlike Gallego and Gutierrez, would have entered the race with no baggage and would have brought some real electricity to the campaign.

A South San Antonio High School graduate who went on to earn two bachelors and a masters degree from Stanford, Saldana undersands the symbolism of political activism. He launched each one of his four council campaigns by literally running more than six miles from his Southwest Side home to City Hall.

RELATED: How a retired game warden defied the odds in Senate District 19

Its a testament to Saldanas standing among his constituents that last year, when three of his six fellow council incumbents were knocked out of office and another was forced into a runoff, he won with 78 percent of the vote.

His 2011 insurgent campaign was a miniaturized, South San version of what Beto ORourke has created across the state this year with his U.S. Senate campaign. That year, a 24-year-old Saldana knocked on more than 3,000 doors and became the embodiment of the Mijo Effect. His passion and charisma carried him to an unlikely win over Leticia Cantu, a former interim council member who had the ardent support of then-Mayor Julian Castro.

Ultimately, Gallegos SD19 defeat was sealed by lackluster turnout in Bexar County.

In both the 2012 and 2016 general elections, Bexar County accounted for more than 60 percent of the total vote and gave Uresti huge electoral cushions which carried him to victory. In Gallegos recent runoff defeat, Bexar County amounted to less than 50 percent of the turnout and Gallego took only 53.8 percent of the Bexar County vote.

That means Bexar County underperformed by about 11,000 votes  relative to what other counties did  in the runoff. Gallego carried the county by only 1,700 votes. A dynamic Democrat with local appeal, like Saldana, could have pushed that margin up to 8,000 votes or more. Given that Flores won the runoff by 2,665 votes, that means everything.

Saldanas obvious challenge would have been West Texas. He would have started with low name recognition there and not much time to build support. But his Bexar County strength would have made him less dependent than Gallego on West Texas votes.

READ ALSO: Judge denies Texas GOP's request that could have kept Gallego off ballot

Saldana will be term-limited out of the council in eight months, so giving up his council seat would have been a low-risk, high-reward proposition on a professional level. But it would have been tough on a personal level, given that he and his wife are expecting a child in November.

Unlike many people who have made it to the council dais over the years, Saldana never gives the impression that he views his council seat as a mere stepping stone. He genuinely loves municipal government. But going to Austin would give him a chance to take his long-standing fight for public education to the source of all its funding problems.

So when the SD19 seat opens up again in 2020, look for local Democrats to come calling on Saldana. And he just might be ready to make his move.

@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Today, the Texas uranium mining industry is virtually silent. Indeed, across the U.S., this once-thriving industry now supplies only a small fraction of our domestic nuclear energy and defense requirements, threatening our energy independence and national security.

Along with many others, the U.S. Department of Commerce, or DOC, is now asking, why?

As the worlds largest consumer of uranium, the U.S. now produces only 5 percent of the uranium needed to supply 20 percent of our nations electricity, representing nearly 60 percent of our clean, zero-carbon electricity. As recently as 1987, almost 50 percent of our nuclear fuel consumption came from domestically produced sources.

Earlier this year, Energy Fuels Resources (USA) and Ur-Energy USA Inc. petitioned the DOC to investigate the adverse effects of uranium imports on national security under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. The DOC began its investigation in July, taking a major step toward safeguarding our national security and ensuring that no nation gains the power to hold the U.S. hostage to its geopolitical goals.

Here in Texas, we have a proud 60-year history of mining more than 78 million pounds of uranium. When uranium mining was active (as recently as 2011), the industry contributed enormously to the state economy, creating $311 million in annual economic output, while supporting more than 1,100 jobs  mostly in poorer, rural communities  and contributing more than $78 million in wages, salaries and benefits, according to a Center for Economic Development and Research study conducted by the University of North Texas.

Today, state-owned enterprises in Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are flooding the U.S. with government-subsidized, cheap uranium and nuclear fuel, currently supplying about one-third of U.S. demand. That percentage is expected to increase as our close allies in countries such as Australia and Canada significantly reduce their production in response to market pressure from Russia and its allies. Additionally, our markets are being targeted by state-owned enterprises in China.

Considering that international law mandates that uranium for military and defense purposes be domestically sourced, our over-reliance on imported uranium places our country in an increasingly perilous position. Not surprisingly, the Department of Energy reported to Congress in 2015 that key government and military programs may run out of uranium as soon as the mid-2020s.

We encourage the DOC to determine why the United States has ceded so much control of this vital resource to foreign entities and to share its findings with the American public.

We look forward to working with state and federal officials to protect our energy independence and national security, and have proposed sensible solutions to these challenges. We recommend a quota that would, in effect, reserve 25 percent of the U.S. market for domestic uranium while implementing a Buy American policy for government agencies that use uranium. These are among the least onerous solutions and would help us to begin to resolve a looming national crisis with negligible cost. The benefits to our national and energy security are incalculable.

We applaud the DOC for its investigation, as domestically-produced uranium is one of our greatest sources of carbon-free electricity and a key component of our national defense. We encourage the public to submit comments using the link https://tinyurl.com/yclye83g to the DOC by today on an issue that is so vital to Americas energy independence and national security.

Paul Goranson is chief operating officer of EFR Alta Mesa LLC (an Energy Fuels company).Re: The accusations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh:

I am concerned that we are equating the judgment of two teenagers still immature at ages 17 and 15, and further limited by the influence of alcohol, with ones from more than 20 years of solid judicial experience and psychological professional experience.

If anyone is to blame, it is the parents at whose house this alleged incident occurred. We cannot apply 2018 standards to what those parents allowed in the early 1980s. Please remember that those parents were products of the rebellious 60s and were used to anything goes.

I am not going to be judgmental because I was not there, but I will ask all of us: How many thousands, perhaps millions, of worthy careers would have destroyed if teenagers were held to absolutely perfect behavior standards?

As our Lord stated, He who has no sin may cast the first stone.

John Menchaca

Vote your conscience

This is a message for all Texas women and men: If you or someone you love has been a victim of sexual abuse or harassment, or someone you love could, in the future, be such a victim, please take heed of this upcoming election. Regardless of which party you belong to, what your ethnicity or gender is, what religion you practice, or how rich or poor you are, you must carefully weigh what is at stake in the Senate election Nov. 6.

During this stressful time when a group of white, mostly elderly men are making fools of themselves during the inquiry into Judge Brett Kavanaughs Supreme Court appointment, remember this: Both of our senators are on this panel! Most of that GOP group has publicly declared they believe she is bringing a false accusation and Kavanaugh is telling the truth.

Regardless of how this important Supreme Court appointment is decided, Texas women and men, it is up to you to help change that unfortunate image of masculine misogyny that has surfaced again. I remember the Anita Hill fiasco.

One remedy is to simply vote for Beto ORourke. No one will know how you voted unless you tell them. If every woman and man in Texas goes to the polls and votes their conscience and not necessarily their party, the future of all women in this nation will be better under similar circumstances.

Mynda Holman McGuire

Gag on Lady Liberty

During their debate, Sen. Ted Cruz told Rep. Beto ORourke that immigration is simple and comes down to two factors: Legal, good; illegal, bad.

It made me wonder: With all the drastic cuts to legal immigration and everything else the Trump administration has done, does this nation even have an immigration policy anymore besides rich or white equals legal, while brown, black or poor equals illegal?

How many times have we heard of ICE rounding up legal immigrants and deporting them over past crimes, such as a DWI? Or how many times ICE has rounded up American citizens and deported them, or were in the process of deporting of them but a lawyer stopped them? Or, now, refusing to issue passports because of questions of citizenship? Or the stolen generation of asylum-seekers?

What happened to Lady Libertys, the mother of exiles, proclamation: Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

Brandelyn Wiser, Port Lavaca

What about fair?

I think our Founding Fathers possessed the greatest intellect and foresight of any group of men since. However, they did make one mistake, by omission, when they called for a free press. Had they called for a free and fair press, todays media would have nothing to stand on to defend itself.

Fred Martin, Fair Oaks Ranch

Hes bad for religion

The religious right may want to rethink its attachment to Donald Trump in its effort to save religion from secularism. Trump is hardly the company the religious sector should want to keep: vulgar, dishonest, vindictive, bigoted, misogynistic, serially adulterous.

And if Trump is indicted for obstruction of justice, he could also prove to be a felon. Not a good partner for those who consider themselves at the right hand of God.

People who are seeking a spiritual path generally consider morality as a necessity. Trump shows little, and those who align with him may be assumed to have little as well. Secularism could win out in the end.

Gay Z. Wright

Bail stats misused

Re: Dont keep public from bail hearings, Editorial, Friday:

This editorial is an excellent example of the wrong way to use statistics. It states that more people who cant pay bail plead guilty. It says this violates the presumption of innocence, apparently because they are intimidated into pleading guilty because they want to be released from jail.

But there are other much more logical and likely reasons why this is so. Judges deny bail or assign high bail to people accused of very severe crimes, or when the evidence against them is so overwhelming that their danger of flight is high. Both types tend to plead guilty more often.

Statistics tell us the way things are but dont tell us why.

Alvin Ronnfeldt

Release was mistake

Wanda Barzee, one of the two adults who brutally and repeatedly abused Elizabeth Smart in 2002, has been released by the Utah Department of Corrections, earlier than expected because her sentence was miscalculated and didnt allow for time she was held for mental evaluation.

The laws that freed her were enacted to balance the criminal justice system. As I see it, this isnt a situation where a criminals rights need to be protected. Time served should not be the only factor in considering her release. Her participation in abusing a child was morally wrong, and whatever sentence her husband got, she should get. She equally participated.

Havent we released enough people with the potential to be repeat offenders? Theres more that could be said, pro and con, but the fact is, Barzee deserves punishment, not freedom.

Carol Van CleaveNEWS FLASH

Air Serbia has placed one of its Airbus A319 aircraft onto the ACMI market for the upcoming winter season for a second consecutive year. The airline is attempting to lease out its jet, registered YU-APA, between October 2018 and April 2019. The carrier's attempts to lease out aircraft last winter did not materialise as there was insufficient interest. As part of an ACMI contract, an airline provides its aircraft, crew, maintenance support and insurance to the leasee.BRIDGEPORT - Supervisory Assistant States Attorney Margaret Kelley has been appointed states attorney for the Ansonia-Milford Judicial District.

The states Criminal Justice Commission selected the 59-year-old Shelton resident Tuesday night following interviews with 11 candidates. She replaces Kevin Lawlor, who was recently promoted to deputy chief states attorney of operations after 12 years as states attorney.

The Ansonia-Milford district handles all criminal prosecutions for the cities of Milford, Ansonia, Derby, Shelton and West Haven and the towns of Orange, Seymour, Oxford and Beacon Falls. The district also shares responsibility for oversight of prosecutors assigned to the Superior Courts for Juvenile Matters in Bridgeport, New Haven and Waterbury.

The states attorney position is an eigtht-year term and pays $157,770 a year.

For the past three years, Kelley has served as the supervisor of the prosecutors office at the Golden Hill Street courthouse in Bridgeport.

In her 31 years as a state prosecutor, Kelley had handled 80 serious criminal cases, including two death penalty cases.

Kelley joined the Division of Criminal Justice in 1987 in the Office of the Chief States Attorney. She transferred to Bridgeport Superior Court, Golden Hill courthouse in 1992 and served there until 2001 when she was transferred to the Fairfield County Courthouse on Main Street in Bridgeport, where more serious cases are heard.

In 2015, Kelley returned to the Golden Hill Street courthouse after being promoted to supervisory assistant states attorney where she has supervised 10 prosecutors, four investigators and support staff.

Kelley earned her bachelor of arts degree in sociology and social work from the University of Saint Joseph in West Hartford, and her law degree from Western New England College School of Law in Springfield, Mass.BRIDGEPORT  Towns and cities along the states coastline were in recovery-mode Wednesday after a storm and extensive flooding hit the region hard Tuesday.

Rain started to fall early Tuesday morning in Connecticut and continued to fall well into the evening. Flooding came in the late afternoon and caused problems along the coastline for hours, ranging from cars stranded on flooded streets to flooded homes.

The common denominator of Tuesdays flooding seemed to be that areas that arent typically prone to flooding took on a lot of water.

In Bridgeport, low-lying sections of Park Avenue saw enough flooding to stall cars and strand motorists. In terms of rainfall, the Bridgeport Emergency Operations Center reported 6.7 inches in North End and 5.2 in the South End.

More than 7 inches of rain came down in Trumbull, which severely flooded Trumbull High School, forcing officials to close the school Wednesday and Thursday.

Everything that happened was totally unprecedented, Trumbull Police Capt. Keith Golding said. The school was not expecting that flooding  having never had it like this before  so they werent ready for it.

Golding said once flooding started to dissipate Tuesday, around 7:45 p.m., crews went to work at the school, which doesnt normally see flooding.

The amount of water that they took in was certainly not expected, Golding said. It got into the front offices, crept all the way down the hallways and into the auditorium.

But it wasnt just the school that saw flooding.

Homeowners have a lot of damage and theyre going to be recovering for quite some time,Golding said.

Near Trumbull Center, first responders had to break the glass to a dance studio to rescue people trapped inside by rising waters, unable to open the door.

Although there were only about half a dozen instances of people trapped in cars stuck on flooded roadways in Trumbull, Bridgeport agencies handled water rescues nonstop for hours.

Between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m., Bridgeport emergency services responded to over 130 emergencies.

City spokeswoman Rowena White said residents of two homes in the Lakeside Drive area of Bridgeports North End chose to leave their homes Tuesday because of flooding. She said they were back in their homes Wednesday.

Bridgeport Public Schools operated on a two-hour delay Wednesday, but schools were back to a normal schedule for Thursday.

Following the flooding, Bridgeport officials encouraged people to reach out to insurance providers to find out options.

Any damages or loss in Bridgeport not covered by insurance should be reported to the citys EOC at 203-579-3829. White said the city will file a report about damages with the state  the first step in trying to get potential reimbursements.

Things were pretty much back to normal in Fairfield on Wednesday after seeing 6 inches of rain Tuesday, Lt. Bob Kalamaras said.

At the height of the storm, Fairfield police were out directing traffic near flooded roadways, many of which dont typically flood. Fire crews responded to over 95 calls for help between 5 p.m. and 10 p.m., officials said.

In Fairfield, 36 cars were towed after being stalled in water too deep to drive through and more than 24 people were rescued from their cars, Kalamaras said.

United Illuminating spokesman Ed Crowder said Wednesday that Fairfield saw the most outages in the companys coverage area Tuesday. At the peak, just over 900 households in town lost power, police said. UI had lights back on within a few hours.

Eversource spokesman Mitch Gross said there were scattered outages during Tuesdays storm, the worst of which were in Darien.

We had to cut the power to some 950 customers for about a half hour in order to safely remove tree limbs that were pulling down our lines and partially blocking West Avenue, Gross said.

Gross and Crowder said during storms like Tuesdays, tree limbs can pull down power lines and leave people in the dark. The two utility companies urged residents to treat downed wires as live and to report them as soon as possible.

Danbury didnt see much rain compared to towns and cities along the coast; a reported 2.71 fell in the city. Some roadways were closed by flooding, but Danbury faired much better than coastal areas.

Weve had an extraordinary amount of rain over the last 24 hours, Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton said on Twitter Wednesday afternoon.

During the height of flooding, Metro-North Railroad was forced to suspend the Danbury Branch line of service from 5:40 p.m. until 9 p.m. Tuesday.

Septembers average rainfall for the New Haven area is 3.47 inches but, in just one day, Hamden saw 8.59 inches of rain. Areas throughout town were impassable.iShares Currency Hedged MSCI Switzerland ETF's stock was trading at $26.50 on March 11th, 2020 when COVID-19 reached pandemic status according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Since then, HEWL shares have increased by 13.3% and is now trading at $30.02.

View which stocks have been most impacted by COVID-19.A convicted hare courser has now been been imprisoned following an investigation into a 100m drug dealing ring.

Thomas Jaffray, 35 from Middlesbrough, was jailed for 13 years and 4 months after being found guilty of conspiracy to supply cocaine, amphetamine and cannabis, and conspiracy to launder the proceeds of crime.

The investigation was carried out by the North West Regional Organised Crime Unit (NW ROCU) as Mr Jaffray and eight others were jailed for a combined total of more than 100 years at Manchester Crown Court on 19 September.

The men had been caught supplying millions of pounds worth of drugs to contacts in the North East of England.

The court heard how the drugs ring was run like a business, with the men wooing clients with expensive trips where he touted for their business.

Jaffray was also convicted of a hare coursing offence in Digby Fen earlier this year, handed a fine and a Criminal Behaviour Order was imposed on him preventing him from coming to Lincolnshire with dogs that could be used for hare coursing.

Chief Inspector at Lincolnshire Police, Phil Vickers said: For some time we have said that hare coursing can be linked to organised and serious crime and this conviction is another example of this.

This was a major result for us as this was also the first time that we managed to rehome a dog that had been used for hare coursing. The dog in found in his possession was called Lucky and a court order saw it taken away and placed in the care of loving owners.

We will continue to tackle hare coursing and take every opportunity to share intelligence with other forces to ensure that any organised crime is fully exposed.

The news follows farmers and landowners urging the police to take hare coursing seriously as a rural crime and prioritise tackling offenders as the new season kicks off.

Hare coursing is a rural crime where dogs are used to chase, catch and kill hares, with gambling on the outcome common practice.

The crime becomes more prevalent following harvest when large areas of arable land are cleared of crops, making it easier to travel across fields.

If you have information about hare coursing please call Crimestoppers on 0800 783 0137 to report anonymously. Alternatively call 101 or 999 if there is a risk to life.Farm groups are working with Openreach to help close the digital divide and speed up the broadband rollout in the countryside.

Access to superfast rural broadband will be generated through a newly negotiated fixed line broadband wayleave agreement and Memorandum of Understanding between Openreach, the CLA and NFU.

The new national broadband wayleave agreement and MOU is designed to make it easier for Openreach to reach agreement with landowners over locations and payment rates for cables and other electronic communications apparatus.

Smoothing the way for a faster roll-out of fixed line broadband to rural and remote areas, it comes into operation on 1 October 2018.

'Hard negotiation'

CLA Deputy President, Mark Bridgeman said landowners and farmers are a "committed and crucial" part of the solution to alleviate the rural-urban digital divide.

It has taken almost 18 months of hard negotiation but we have secured an agreement that satisfies the Government, the infrastructure providers and our members, Mr Bridgeman said.

We have shown, through constructive dialogue across the industry, that rollout is not driven by price alone. A proportionate increase in the annual wayleave payment, coupled with clear documentation and an effective Memorandum of Understanding, will hasten the rollout of fixed line broadband beyond what is achievable by the revised Electronic Communications Code alone.

A robust and effective national framework has been created which brings much needed clarity and stability to the market while at the same time injecting more money into the rural economy through accelerated deployment, he added.

'Much-needed'

Statistics from the NFU show that a considerable amount of farmers do not have access to superfast broadband and in an increasingly digital world.

NFU Vice President, Stuart Roberts said: The NFU and CLA have worked closely together to provide the means to enable landowners to easily reach an agreement with Openreach, bringing much-needed, effective broadband to rural areas.

This initiative marks another step forward to ensuring our members have all they need to establish and maintain productive, profitable and progressive farming businesses.

It follows news of a small Welsh village long suffering from inadequate broadband speeds now benefiting from some of the fastest connections in the UK thanks to the help of farmers.A farmers auction market which has occupied the same site in County Durham for over 120 years will now move thanks to a seven-figure funding package.

The Darlington Farmers Auction Mart (DFAM) is set to relocate to its new purpose-built auction premises.

The market, which has occupied the same site on Clifton Road since its establishment in 1887, will use funds from Lloyds Bank to begin building its new 6,160 square meter premises next month.

The new facility - situated next to the A68 - will increase accessibility for agricultural vehicles, which previously had to enter Darlington town centre to load and unload goods, adding a significant amount of time to their journey.

DFAM is now anticipating the volume of sales to rise by an estimated 10-15% and will be looking to hire up to five new members of staff to meet demand.

The new auction market will include space for 1000 cattle and 3000 sheep. Eleven business units will also be available for hire, and the building will include a restaurant for visitors and staff.

'Five years in the making'

DFAM, one of the UKs largest agricultural auction markets, currently hosts more than 300 visitors a week and handles more than 46m in sales every year.

Richard Heseltine, Finance Director at Darlington Farmers Auction Mart said: Our move out of Darlington has been five years in the making and theres local excitement that its finally happening.

As the town has expanded and livestock wagons have grown larger, our original premises have become increasingly difficult to access.

Mr Heseltine added: In addition to constructing our new state-of-the art market building, well also be building a new roundabout to connect the site to the A68 and are currently seeking approval to build a business park next door to provide a hub for local agricultural businesses.

This means farmers and traders will gain easier access to their customers and suppliers thanks to our enhanced connectivity to Yorkshire, the North East, and beyond.Farming Minister George Eustice will speak at a fringe event organised by The Vegan Society during the Conservative Party Conference.

Mr Eustice, who comes from a farming background, will be attending a panel discussion organised by the campaign group during the Conservative Party Conference on 2 October.

The society said "vegan rights" will feature at this years Conservative Party Conference.

This includes their Catering for Everyone campaign, which aims to have daily vegan food options on every public sector menu.

The society will be seeking signatures from government officials to secure the move.

Louise Davies, Vegan Society Head of Campaigns, who will speak at the fringe events, said: Service providers have an obligation to provide for vegans but sadly, provision for vegans in the public sector is lacking, with hospital patients and school children often going hungry.

Mr Eustice will also be attending an RSPCA fringe event looking into the future of higher welfare farming and British agriculture post-Brexit on 30 September.A leading bakery manufacturer says it is looking to source more eggs from British producers in the wake of Brexit.

London Stock Exchange AIM-listed Finsbury Food Group outlined its plans for the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union when it published its financial results.

The latest accounts show a 65.7 per cent fall in pre-tax profits to 4.5 million - a result connected with the closure of the firms loss making pastry business, Grain DOr.

Comparable sales increased by 2.4 per cent to 290.2 million, boosted by strong demand for a Mary Berry cakes range and Batman and Paw Patrol cakes.

On Brexit, the company said that the majority of trading was in the United Kingdom. However, it said in a statement: "There are sales into Europe, which includes to Lightbody Europe, our 50 per cent subsidiary. A material proportion of bakery commodities such as dairy and egg are sourced in Europe

"Any tariffs on trade, therefore, will have a bearing on the UK bakery market, the UK manufacturing industry and the group," it said. "Contingency planning is already in place looking at alternative UK sources of products."

More British

In an interview with London Evening Standard, the company's chief executive, John Duffy, said a number of butter and egg products were imported from the continent, including Holland. He said he was now looking at getting more from Britain.

I dont ever envisage a scenario where we cant bake cakes and have them on supermarket shelves," he said.

"However, in the event of a hard Brexit, we may have to put up the price of some products if they contain certain ingredients that become more expensive once we leave the EU.

The company says it is likely to face higher logistics costs and administration costs due to increased custom border checks, and it says it will require higher stock levels due to lengthening delivery times for ingredients.

"There is significant uncertainty over the type of Brexit deal the UK will agree with its European neighbours," said the company in its statement.

"Whatever the structure of the final deal, anything different from the current status quo is likely to have an impact on both the food manufacturing industry and on the group.

"The group is also likely to face higher logistic costs and administration costs due to increased custom border checks and will require higher stock levels due to lengthening delivery times for ingredients."

Low skilled labour

The company expressed concern about the availability of workers following Brexit - a concern that has been raised by others in the food and farming industry.

"The food manufacturing industry, including Finsbury, is typically reliant on low skilled labour. Labour strategies are being developed to retain and develop existing workers, attracting and hiring new workers and reducing labour whilst boosting productivity with its capital investment program.

"Finsbury is not being complacent in its response to likely Brexit scenarios and has a cross functional team preparing a number of strategies in order to minimise the impact of Brexit," said the statement.

Egg industry leaders have expressed their own concerns about continued availability of labour after the UK leaves the UK.

However, if Finsbury and other food manufacturers seek to source more home-produced eggs as a result of Brexit, it will be something that the UK egg industry has been seeking to achieve for some time.

British eggs

Calls for UK food manufacturers to use British eggs have been particularly vocal following a series of food scare in continental Europe.

In the wake of the fipronil scandal, when a banned chemical was found to have been used in a red mite treatment for laying hens in European countries, British Lion Egg Processors criticised what it saw as double standards.

It said that, whilst retailers ensured that shell eggs were British Lion, foreign egg was being imported for use in many food products.

Ian Jones, chairman of British Lion Egg Processors, said: This is just the latest of a number of food safety issues connected to eggs produced outside of the UK in recent years.

"Consumers clearly want retailers and food manufacturers to use good quality British ingredients that are produced to high standards of food safety, but in some prepared foods this is not the case.

As we approach Brexit, shoppers are growing increasingly concerned about the ingredients used in manufactured food and now more than ever want and deserve transparency on food packaging.

He added: "The egg industry believes that this is a great opportunity for retailers to listen to the concerns of their customers and reassure them by specifying the use of British eggs and using the Made with British Lion eggs logo on packs.Any period where EU and UK imports and exports are paused and the uncertainty of not knowing when they might return could have "serious implications" for British farmers.

The government's latest, and last, batch of technical notices on Brexit no deal scenarios suggest that the UK would need to be approved by the EU as an exporter  a process which could take a minimum of six months.

In order to export to the EU, Export Health Certificates would be required from the end of March 2019, with consignments needing to travel through a Border Inspection Post within the EU.

The EU would require the UK to be a listed third country, but Defra acknowledged it "cannot be certain" of the EU response to such a request or its timing.

It is expected the process could take at least six months. Without listed status no exports to the EU could take place.

The total value of agri-food exports to the EU in 2017 was 13bn, of which 3.15 billion was animals and animal products.

For the sheep industry, the UK exports some 35-40% of sheep production and 96% of this goes to the EU.

Sheep industry concerns

The National Sheep Association (NSA) said the contents of the notices reinforce why it is important a deal allowing free trade and frictionless controls is reached.

Phil Stocker, NSA Chief Executive said implications of a no deal Brexit scenario for sheep farming is "serious".

This demand will not be replaced quickly by new markets and we would be looking to the Government to work closely with us to put in place actions to underpin our market, Mr Stocker said.

But there are wider implications too, as these technical notes remind us, and the complications around approvals for trade in both directions, as well as the possibility of a delay in the UK getting listed country status and being able to export.

Mr Stocker added: Alarmingly, there is even a suggestion that the UK will allow imports to continue smoothly, while we accept a potential delay in getting approval to export.

That may help some industries, but it wont help sheep farmers, who will simply see oversupplies in the UK exacerbated.

'Catastrophic consequences'

The pig industry shares similar concerns to that of sheep farmers, with the National Pig Association (NPA) warning that this scenario could have "catastrophic consequences" for a sector increasingly underpinned by export trade.

In the first seven months of this year, more than 110,000 tonnes of pig products were exported to the EU, equating to nearly 60% of all UK pigmeat exports.

NPA chief executive, Zoe Davies said a no deal could be the "worst of all worlds" for the UK pig industry.

If exports are blocked but we continue importing pigmeat from the EU in large quantities, as the Government appears willing to do, it would blow a huge hole through the economics of the UK pig sector, Ms Davies said.

Because of carcass balance issues, the UK would be swamped with pigmeat that had little value on the domestic market, dragging down the pig price and making it very difficult for many pig businesses to continue operating.

She added: As we have repeatedly stated, EU trade is critical to ensure the UK pig sector can function properly. It is therefore essential that the Government does everything in its power to secure frictionless trade after we leave the EU.A rural Highland school has defied death threats from vegan and animal rights campaigners by continuing to post footage online of classroom butchery lessons.

In photographs uploaded online, Kingussie High School pupils practice on the carcass of a rabbit.

Last week, a cookery class prepared and cooked grouse from scratch, with the school again sharing the images online.

On a social media post, the school said: There is nothing better than peer-led lessons. [The pupil] in S3 showed the students how to skin and butcher a rabbit.

Once jointed, the meat was used to make a rabbit jalfrezi. All students are meat eaters and all participated in this afternoons lesson.

Kingussie High School teacher Rachel Richards has spoken how she first received death threats from animal rights campaigners after images were shared earlier this year of pheasants being prepared.

But Ms Richards defied the continued deaths threats, as photos were uploaded online showing her and the school's pupils demonstrating how to skin and butcher the rabbit in home economics class.

Dawn Carr, director of vegan corporate projects at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta), attacked the lessons, saying they can "desensitise" kids.

However, despite the campaigners' claims of scenes straight out of a horror movie, the images and ethos received widespread support across social media platforms.

It follows news of a similar situation affecting a rural Hampshire school which received death threats from activists who were unhappy with its decision to rear pigs on-site for food education, forcing the school to stop the practice.

Extensive media exposure of the situation helped the school re-instate the pigs following a positive public, and parent, backing.

Last year, the Countryside Alliance launched a campaign to raise awareness of the extent of online bullying targeting rural-based people and businesses.A farmer who was killed following a tragic farm accident has been described as "much-loved" who had a "passion for farming".

Harry Gibson, 25, from Beragh in County Tyrone, died on Saturday (22 September) after what his family describes as a tragic accident.

Seskinore Young Farmers Club, which Harry was a member of, posted a tribute on Facebook saying they "express sincere condolences" to the Gibson family.

The farmer was also a former pupil at Omagh Academy, who also posted a tribute saying Harry was "passionate about farming".

A family notice described Harry as the loving son of Mervyn and Susan, much-loved twin brother of Charlotte, dear boyfriend of Alison, a dearly loved grandson and nephew.

Will be sadly missed by his loving mum, dad, sister, girlfriend and the entire family circle.

Farming has the highest rate of fatal injury of all the main industry sectors, around 18 times as high as the all industry rate.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) announced its latest annual fatal injuries in its agriculture report 2017/2018, calling the figures "appalling".

29 fatal injuries to agricultural workers were recorded in the report and the sector continues to account for a large share of the annual fatality count (20%).Slurry legislation changed in Scotland to cut emissions

Changes to way that slurry & digestate is storedThe Fauquier Times is honored to serve as your community companion. To say thank you, we are excited to offer 4 weeks FREE Digital & Print access to all subscribers new and returning alike.

We are dedicated to continuing providing reliable, high quality journalism. This is possible with the trust and support of our subscribers in the community we are proud to serve.Talking with Dionne Price, Ph.D., Director, Division of Biometrics IV, Office of Biostatistics, CDER, Office of Translational Sciences/Office of Biostatistics.

Complex innovative trial designs (CID)  including the use of adaptive, Bayesian, and other novel statistical approaches  may help streamline and advance drug development and inform regulatory decision-making. Both the Prescription Drug User Fee Amendments of 2017 (PDUFA VI) and the 21st Century Cures Act contain provisions to make the use of CID in drug development and regulatory decision-making easier.

As part of a new initiative to advance the use of CID, FDA launched a pilot program in August 2018 for sponsors planning to use innovative trial designs that would provide substantial evidence of effectiveness. The CID pilot program is a joint initiative between CDER and FDAs Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, with CDERs Office of Biostatistics leading the program for CDER. Sponsors participating in the CID pilot will have additional opportunities to meet with FDA staff through two focused meetings. To encourage expanded use of CID across therapeutic areas, acceptance into the pilot requires the sponsor to agree that FDA can publicly disclose certain study design and analysis elements of the CID even before the product is approved.

Dionne Price, Ph.D., who is the Director of the Division of Biometrics IV in CDERs Office of Biostatistics, describes the latest developments in this rapidly advancing area.

How does FDA define complex innovative trial designs?

CID includes complex adaptive, Bayesian, and other novel clinical trial designs. CID has design elements and/or analysis approaches which are not trivial and generally will require computer simulations to determine the statistical properties of the trial (e.g., power, Type I error). Examples of design features include:

innovative use of external or historical control data,

formal incorporation of prior knowledge into the study design, and

ability to make prespecified adaptations to multiple design aspects and criteria of a trial if accumulating data warrant it.

What is the role of CID in drug development?

The drug development landscape is evolving and as a result, we are faced with both challenges and opportunities. We need to maximize clinical trial efficiency, while using scientifically sound methods to determine the optimal design for the question and population of interest. To date, CID has primarily been used in exploratory studies. FDAs goal is to extend their use to trials intended to provide substantial evidence of effectiveness to support regulatory approval of new therapies.

In what areas do you see the most potential benefit with using CID?

CID has the most potential benefit in areas where traditional clinical trial approaches may not be feasible, including areas where the population size is small or limited, or where there is an unmet medical need. For example, CID has particular promise in rare diseases and in pediatric indications. The CID pilot program will aim for diversity in the applications selected, both in terms of design approaches and in the therapeutic areas where these clinical trial approaches are intended to be used. A goal of the pilot program will be to apply what we learn to other therapeutic areas. For example, we have seen a high degree of innovation in oncology trials that may potentially be applied more broadly.

How has CID been used to support the approval of any currently marketed products?

The relative lack of examples of CID being used to support regulatory approvals is one of the motivations behind the pilot program. CID was used in the Partnership for Research on Ebola Virus in Liberia II (PREVAIL II) trial to test potential Ebola therapies under a single protocol, but this trial was stopped as the Ebola outbreak waned, and no drugs were approved using data from this trial.

What are the challenges in using CID to support regulatory decision-making?

It is scientifically challenging to design and analyze these complex trials, but FDA is committed to providing clear and transparent feedback to sponsors on these designs, and to increasing communication and educational efforts both within and outside of the agency. FDA is aware that industry has hesitated to propose designs with innovative features due to a misperception about the agencys willingness to accept such designs. FDA is interested in the advancement of innovative design and analysis approaches in areas where such approaches will provide benefit. The pilot is designed to facilitate and advance their use in clinical trials intended to provide substantial evidence of effectiveness.

What activities are planned to support the goal of advancing the use of CID?

FDA convened a public workshop in March 2018 to discuss various complex adaptive, Bayesian, and other novel clinical trial designs. The workshop, titled Promoting the Use of Complex Innovative Designs in Clinical Trials, aimed to facilitate information-sharing about the use of CID, and obtain input from stakeholders about the CID pilot program.

In addition, FDA is conducting a pilot meeting program and will publish draft guidance and develop or revise relevant Manuals of Policies and Procedures (MAPPs), Standard Operating Procedures and Policies (SOPPs), and/or review templates. The draft guidances  required under section 3021 of the 21st Century Cures Act and in PDUFA VI will address several areas related to CID, including the use of complex adaptive clinical trial designs, best practices for conducting simulations, the submission of resulting information, the types of quantitative information that should be submitted for review, and recommended analysis methodologies.

To facilitate the appropriate use of CID methods, FDA will also develop staff capacity to support the computationally intensive review work necessary to evaluate such designs and analyses.

Under the CID pilot meeting program, sponsors will have the opportunity to submit meeting requests on a rolling basis, and FDA will select up to two requests per quarter over a five-year period. Sponsors who are selected will participate in an initial and follow-up meeting with regulatory staff to discuss how the proposed CID approach may be used in their drug development program. The statistical staff in CDER or CBER will lead the meetings, and the meetings will include additional relevant expertise from across the agency. FDA may then use elements of the clinical trial design as a case study for continuing education and information-sharing.

What information from the CID pilot program will be shared publicly and why?

All drug development programs included in the pilot program must hold an investigational new drug application (IND) for that program or have engaged with FDA on their product through a pre-IND, with the expectation that study results will be used as evidence of the effectiveness of the therapy in a regulatory submission. By participating in the CID pilot program, sponsors will agree that FDA can publicly present certain design and analysis elements, including designs for drugs that have not yet been approved, so that all stakeholders can benefit from the knowledge gained.

Information on design and analysis will be shared on the CID web page to improve understanding of the advantages of the innovative features of these studies. Other information will be posted on the CID web page as it becomes available.Next Story : Restoring Hair Health with The Goodness of Coconut-Based Hair Oil

Long hours in the office, late-night parties, binge movie sessions or just too much caffeine. If you have not had a good nights sleep, it is likely to reflect on your health. While late nights might point to either a happening social life or a rewarding career, the effects on your skin and hair are somewhat less than flattering. Faye Remedios chalks out a complete lifestyle guide to help you wake up looking fabulous.One of the best-kept celebrity secretsbeauty industry insiders will vouch for thisis that the stars with the most flawless complexions are tucked into bed by 10 pm. And any claims to the contrary of wild partying or nights that end at sunrise are usually exaggerations. But that glow is not just down to hitting the hay early. Many factors affect your beauty sleep, including how long and how deeply you rest, what you eat for dinner and even the beauty products you use at night. Yes, you may not believe this but your sleep pattern plays a huge part in your beauty and health in general. Heres how you can do your best to get adequate shut-eye and what can happen if you dont sleep enough.Lack of sleep stresses out the body and causes it to release more cortisol, which leads to an accelerated breakdown of collagen in our tissuesand you need collagen to keep your skin firm and supple. Apart from this, the skin looks drier, especially if you have had a late night with drinks and smoking. The shadows around the eyes look more pronounced and the skin looks dull, cautions Dr Shuba Dharmana, founder, LeJeune Medspa. Women who are deprived of sleep have a disturbed skin-barrier function, and a greater loss of water from the skin. They also have far higher levels of inflammatory chemicals, which over time take, a toll on both the outer epidermal layers and the deeper dermal structures. Also, lack of sleep disturbs our hormonal balance, giving rise to pigmentation, breakouts and early signs of ageing, warns Rupal Tyagi, certified aromatherapist, perfumer and founder, Wikka. So the next time you are out partying the night away, remember that the next morning, you will probably have dark circles under your eyes, and if this trend continues, it wont be long before these become permanent.Sleeping for five hours or less a day is known to cause some serious damage, as well as accelerate the ageing process. Seven to eight hours of sleep is ideal. Yoga and health consultant Mickey Mehta says, A good eight hours of sleep and rest will restore your biorhythms. It will heal the previous days wear and tear. Typically, when food is already pre-digested, you are relaxed, your brain and other functions switch off, and sleep comes quite naturally. When you wake up, you are bursting with creativity, and feel energised and rejuvenated. So if you want to keep going and feel fresh every morning, the trick is not to down copious cups of coffee, but to sleep well at night.While we sleep at night, our body produces hormones that are powerful antioxidants. These hormones help in detoxifying the skin and body. Sleep deprivation leads to stress and aggravates skin damage and break-outs, says Shikhee Agrawal, skincare trainer, The Body Shop. Late nights cause dullness, puffy eyes and dark circles. Sleep is the bodys time to send fresh cells to the epidermis, replacing old and damaged cells. One of the easiest and free beauty tips you can receive is to not slather your face with various products, but to ensure that you get complete rest at night to keep signs of ageing at bay.You should aim to be in bed by 10 pm. Have a light dinner, read a book rather than stare at a screen and, if you can manage it, go for a brisk 20-minute walk and take a shower before bedtime. This gets your blood pumping, and opens and cleanses your pores; so any product you use will be better absorbed. Dab lavender or tea rose oil on your pillow to sweeten the deal. You cant be an early riser if you arent an early sleeper. Remember the age-old saying we learnt as kids? Early to bed and early to rise makes us healthy, wealthy and wise. It surely keeps us in good health and takes care of our beauty too.What products you use at night also play a big part in your beauty upkeep. Using the right ones can greatly take off years from your face and keep the youthfulness on when complemented with a good nights sleep. Before you crash at night, cleanse all makeup and moisturise thoroughly from head to toe. Dr Apratim Goel, dermatologist and laser surgeon, Cutis Skin Studio, suggests the best products to use at night: Use anti-ageing serums, under-eye creams and products that contain retinols and other peeling and photosensitive agents. Ingredients like vitamin C and hydroquinone are sunlight sensitive and so are better used at night. Due to the bodys supine position, the skins metabolism increases at night, and creams and antioxidants are absorbed much better as compared to day time.With time, you may find the need to add heavier moisturisers, perhaps with hyaluronic acid to plump out the skin and fill up fine lines and wrinkles. A sleeping mask can be an occasional treat. Dr Kiran Lohia, medical director, Lumiere Dermatology, Delhi, says, Sleeping masks and regular moisturisers are not too different, except that the masks may have a higher percentage of active ingredients. Also, if the sleeping mask is made of cotton or is cloth-based, then the occlusion can help improve absorption. Dr Goel also advises using the products as close to your sleeping time as possible. While having dinner or watching television, you will be exposed to light and this may change the properties of some of the products. The ideal time to apply beauty products is around 10 to 15 minutes before sleeping. In order to remember this process, keep the products next to your bed so that you make it a habit to apply them before you go off to sleep. This way, you will not just have a better skincare routine, you will also not miss it as it is right next to you.Dr Dharmana advises keeping your last meal as light as possible so theres minimal metabolic activity as you rest all night. Eat a low-carbohydrate, gluten-free meal at night and you wont wake up feeling heavy, bloated or with a sore stomach. Dont skip meals and dont go to bed hungry.A warm glass of milk with turmeric is, typically, what doctors recommend for insomniacs. A glass of warm water or chamomile or jasmine tea works just as well. Fill up on whole grains, fruits, vegetables, greens and salads. Nuts and seeds are good sources of tryptophan, the sleep-enhancing amino acid, and the minerals from fruits and vegetables are a great long-term cure for sleepless nights. What you eat surely affects your sleep. When you have a heavy dinner, you are likely to feel bloated and uncomfortable and that is going to affect your sleep. You will probably not fall asleep easily and also have indigestion. For some, a cup of green tea also works as it helps calm the senses as well as aids digestion. If youve had a heavy dinner or a late dinner, make sure you have one of these to fall asleep well at night.Its not just your skin that benefits from sleeping well. Your hair has much to gain too. And it turns out there is something in the ancient advice about brushing your hair 100 times before sleeping. Brushing the scalp stimulates the sebaceous gland, which in turn produces more sebum. When sebum and sweat combine on the scalp surface, they help to create the acid mantle, which is the skins own protective layer. Always use lukewarm or cold water to wash your hair, and dont sleep with damp hair. Also, avoid combing wet hair as they are likely to break more easily. Avoid the usage of hairstyling tools too often, and if you really must, then use a heat-protectant so that it forms a barrier and offers some protection. Make sure hair accessories like bobby pins and clips are carefully taken out before sleeping. Dr Priyanka Prakash, consultant dermatologist, Paras Hospitals, Gurgaon, warns against tying your hair too tight before sleeping, as the constant pull at the roots may result in tractional alopecia. On the other hand, the combination of loose hair and linen pillow covers increases electrostatic pressure and damages cuticles. So, a loose ponytail, a silk pillowcase and a serum or leave-in conditioner are your best bets. If youve oiled your hair and want to keep it overnight, you can tie a loose cloth around your head, or place a towel on your pillow before you sleep. Make sure you dont rub your scalp with a towel once you wash your hair, use a soft cotton cloth instead. Before you sleep, detangle your tresses to avoid friction and breakage at night.While exercising in the morning is great, if you prefer to exercise at night, cardiovascular conditioning exercises like aerobics, walking and swimming are excellent at restoring sleep cycles. Yoga too has a therapeutic effect. Mickey advises yoga poses like janu shirsasan (head to knee pose), ardha chandrsana (half moon pose), padahastasana, ardhakurmasana (half tortoise pose), ustrasana (camel pose), balasana (child pose) and shavasana (corpse pose). He also recommends doing breathing exercises to help you sleep better. When you breathe out consciously, you release tension and toxins, and deepen your focus and awareness. Lie down, take a deep breath, hold to the count of five and slowly release counting to five before inhaling again. Visualise your breath filling your body with oxygen, rejuvenating tired cells. This exercise can be done any time and as many times as you want in a day, unlike other workouts. Pranayama is one of the best exercises you can do to improve your breathing. Once you have more oxygen, your health also tends to improve in the process. Having a plant in the room is also a good idea as it can fill your room with oxygen. If you have windows, make sure you open them and let natural light come in during the day. This also helps in keeping infections at bay.Here are some tips that will help you sleep better at night:Eat light at night, and give your digestive system at least a couple of hours before bedtime to process the food.A good workout any time of day will bump up your quality of sleep so ensure you get some exercise.Avoid all caffeinated drinks after 4 pm so that your mind and body are not stimulated before sleep.Binge drinking is a sleep-destroyer so avoid having alcohol before bed.Set a deadline after which you completely switch off from work.Avoid staring into your phone or tablet right before sleeping.If you must use them, keep the light on night mode and set a time so that you dont overdo it.Keep mobiles and iPads off the bed.De-stress by meditating for 10 to 15 minutes before going to sleep. It helps to calm your thoughts so your mind is prepared to rest.Drink a glass of warm milk or water before you sleep.Listening to soothing music is also a great way to fall asleep. You can make a playlist that works for you and play it before bedtime.Reading a book can also come in handy.If you cant fall asleep, try the oldest trick of counting sheep to help you pass out.If you have trouble sleeping for days at stretch, see a doctor who could identify the root cause and help you figure out a solution.ShutterstockWith inputs from Kriti Saraswat SatpathyCategory Select Category Apparel/Garments Textiles Fashion Technical Textiles Information Technology E-commerce Retail Corporate Association Press Release

SubCategory Select Sub-CategoryDev Anand Bought His First Car After His Debut Film

His first car was a Hillman Minx, which he bought from the money he earned from Vidya, his first film opposite Suraiya- the woman he loved both, on and off-screen.

He Even Starred In A Hollywood Film

Not many know that Dev Saab was a part of a Hollywood film titled The Evil Within that even starred Zeenat Aman.

Dev Anand Was Advised Not To Wear Black After Kala Pani

It is said that after doing the film, Kala Pani, the actor was was asked not to wear a black suit in public as women would swoon and jump from buildings seeing him dressed in black.

He Was The Original Choice For Junglee & Teesri Manzil

Dev Anand was approached for Junglee and Teesri Manzil. However, the actor turned down both the films owing to his differences with the makers. Interestingly, these two films fell into Shammi Kapoor's lap and the rest is history.

How He Fell In Love With Kalpana Kartik

After his failed relationship with actress Suraiyya, Dev Anand had almost thought of quitting films, when his elder brother Chetan Anand counselled him and told him to focus on his career. During this phase, he worked with Kalpana Kartik in many films and ended up falling for her. Finally, he tied the knot with her while working on Taxi Driver.Due to heavy rain and flooding in the county and rain expected during the afternoon, Hamilton County schools are closing immediately. Buses will run within the next hour. Parents may pick up their children at any time. After school care is canceled but employees will take care of children until they can be picked up by parents. Heavy flooding, especially in the north part of the county around schools is expected to be a bigger problem later on Wednesday. The biggest issues around schools are in the Soddy Daisy area.

Public safety officials are reporting several trees across roads which may cause some buses to be rerouted. The one extra hour will provide daylight to make the trip to school safer for buses and young student drivers, officials said. Bus routes ran one hour later than normal today.

A Flash Flood Warning was extended until 1:30 p.m. Wednesday.

The Hamilton County Sheriff's Office is reporting that due to the heavy rains over the last 24 hours, almost all local low lying roads in Hamilton County are experiencing some form of water over the roadway.





Deputies are also reporting that numerous trees are down blocking several roadways.





The areas that have been affected the worst with trees down and water over the roadway are as follows:





8700 Block Hixson Pk. Tree down Hamilton Co



Hixson Pk./Warwickshire Dr. Tree down Hamilton Co



9200 Hixson Pk. Flooding Hamilton Co



Boy Scout/Echo Glen Flooding Hamilton Co



7600 Hixson Pk. Flooding Hamilton Co



9200 Dallas Hollow Flooding Hamilton Co



Dolly Pond Rd. Flooding Hamilton Co



7800 Gann Rd. Flooding Hamilton Co



1400 Yogi Ln. Flooding Hamilton Co



350 Memorial Dr. Tree down Red Bank



8942 Harrison Bay Rd.Tree down/Wires Hamilton Co



Dolly Pond/Gamble Rd. Flooding Hamilton Co



Middle Valley/Gann Rd. Flooding Hamilton Co



Middle Valley/Thrasher Flooding Hamilton Co



9017 Dallas Hollow Rd. Tree down Hamilton Co



8333 Middle Valley Rd.Tree down Hamilton Co



8300 Middle Valley Rd. Flooding Hamilton Co



Hamby Rd/Hixson Pk. Flooding Hamilton Co



13318 Birchwood Pk. Wires Hamilton Co



2817 Haywood Ave. Wires Chattanooga



700 E. 11th St. Flooding Chattanooga



Dodson Ave./Infantry Rd. Flooding Chattanooga



Lake Resort Dr./Lake Resort Ter. Tree down Chattanooga



300 Memorial Dr. Flooding Red Bank



Dowlen Rd. Tree down Chattanooga



3057 Lee Pk. Wires Hamilton Co



12500 Birchwood Pk. Flooding Hamilton Co



Birchwood Pk./Sam Smith Rd. Flooding Hamilton Co



Daugherty Ferry Rd./Dayton Pk. Tree down Hamilton Co



1701 Varner Rd. Flooding Hamilton Co



9045 Dallas Hollow Rd. Flooding Hamilton Co



6100 Highway 60 Flooding Hamilton Co



2700 Hixson Pk. Flooding Chattanooga



Fair Oaks Rd./Middle Valley Rd. Tree down Hamilton Co



6500 Queensbury Ln. Flooding Chattanooga



1321 Lovelady Lewis Tree down Hamilton Co



Dallas Hollow/E. Ridge Trail Tree down Hamilton Co



Shirley Pond Rd./ Poplar Bend Dr. Tree down Hamilton Co



5420 Mountain Creek Rd. Tree down Chattanooga



Hixson Pk./ Hunt Ln. Tree down Hamilton Co



8920 Wellthor Cir. Wires Hamilton



9900 Smith Morgan Ln. Tree down Hamilton Co



Dallas Hollow Rd./Hixson Pk. Tree down Hamilton Co



7100 Sims Rd/Sims Harris Tree down Hamilton Co



1930 Thatch Rd./Oak Dr. Tree down Hamilton Co



2900 Igou Ferry Rd./Corbett Dr. Tree down Hamilton Co



2418 Big Cedar Rd./Hixson Pk. Tree down Hamilton Co



8338 Middle Valley Rd./Crabtree Tree down Hamilton Co



4413 Paula Ln./Ely Rd. Wires down Red Bank



1320 Vanessa Dr./Aletha Dr. Tree down Chattanooga



9500 Birchwood Pk./Harrison Bay Rd. Tree down Hamilton Co



8678 Bramlett Rd./Watkins Rd. Flooding Hamilton Co





Due to people getting stuck in their vehicles and unexpected water over the the roadways, deputies are asking that motorists use extreme caution when driving and never attempt to drive through standing or rushing water when it is covering a roadway. Please avoid driving unless absolutely necessary until the water has had time to recede.





Weather reports indicate more rain will fall and storms are likely today which will create further problems and flooded roads. A Flash Flood Warning has again been issued for Hamilton County. .





Officials said, "Once again, please do not attempt to drive across roads that are flooded or have rushing water flowing over them. Any motorists who must venture out should be cognizant of their surroundings and pay particular attention to areas that are historically prone to flooding or experience flooded roadways."

This was the latest Flash Flood Warning from the National Weather Service:

FLASH FLOOD WARNING FROM 7:25AM EDT WED UNTIL 1:30PM EDT WED THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN MORRISTOWN HAS ISSUED A * FLASH FLOOD WARNING FOR... HAMILTON COUNTY IN EAST TENNESSEE... * UNTIL 130 PM EDT WEDNESDAY. * AT 722 AM EDT, DOPPLER RADAR AND AUTOMATED RAIN GAUGES INDICATED HEAVY RAIN HAS FALLEN OVER THE LAST SIX HOURS ACROSS THE WARNED AREA. THREE TO FOUR INCHES OF RAIN HAVE ALREADY FALLEN WITH ADDITIONAL RAINFALL EXPECTED THROUGHOUT THE DAY. FLASH FLOODING IS ALREADY OCCURRING, WHICH HAS LED TO NUMEROUS ROAD CLOSURES IN CENTRAL AND NORTHERN HAMILTON COUNTY. * SOME LOCATIONS THAT WILL EXPERIENCE FLOODING INCLUDE... CHATTANOOGA, SODDY-DAISY, SIGNAL MOUNTAIN, WALDEN, LAKESITE, RIDGESIDE, FAIRMOUNT, HARRISON, RED BANK, COLLEGEDALE, FLAT TOP MOUNTAIN, LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN, NORTH CHICKAMAUGA CREEK GORGE, EAST RIDGE, OOLTEWAH, MIDDLE VALLEY, BIRCHWOOD, FALLING WATER, SHADY GROVE AND APISON. PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS... TURN AROUND, DON'T DROWN WHEN ENCOUNTERING FLOODED ROADS. MOST FLOOD DEATHS OCCUR IN VEHICLES. EXCESSIVE RUNOFF FROM HEAVY RAINFALL WILL CAUSE FLOODING OF SMALL CREEKS AND STREAMS, URBAN AREAS, HIGHWAYS, STREETS AND UNDERPASSES AS WELL AS OTHER DRAINAGE AREAS AND LOW LYING SPOTS. PLEASE REPORT FLOODING TO YOUR LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCY WHEN YOU CAN DO SO SAFELY.

Urvashi Believes In Hina

Urvashi Dholakia was chosen to be Komolika in the most unexpected way. The actress said, Ekta has an eye for talent and always extracts what she wants from them. Therefore, Urvashi believes that Hina Khan is the right choice and she will be doing justice to the character.

Komolika Is Recognized Worldwide

Undoubtedly, Komolika became one of the most-talked-about characters when Kasautii first aired years ago. When asked if Urvashi is still recognised as Komolika, she said, "From remote villages of Africa to any other part of the globe."

Urvashi Doesn't Know Hina Well

Though Urvashi has high expectations from Hina Khan, she says she doesn't know her personally. Talking about her relationship with Hina, Urvashi said, "We have met socially and exchanged pleasantries. Bas, otherwise I don't know her."

Ekta Had Called Urvashi 'India's Sex Symbol'

Recollecting how Ekta cast her on Kasautii, Urvashi said, "I was shooting in Balaji office for Souten Bane Saheli, and Ekta called me to her cabin on first floor. One look at me and she said: You are going to be the next sex symbol of India, Komolika. I asked her what is Komolika. She said 'that's the name of your next character in a new show'."

She Wishes Hina Luck

Wishing Hina luck on landing the new role, the original Komolika said, "The baton has been passed and I wish Hina 'Good Luck' in all honesty."Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - September 25, 2018) - H.E.L.P. for Youth Canada Society ("HELP") is pleased to announce that it has received a $13,000 grant from the Canada Post Community Foundation for an important project, Project Backpack: Aid for street youth through education, in the Vancouver Lower Mainland, British Columbia.

Project Backpack is a community-based initiative that both provides essential items to homeless youth for survival on the streets, as well as educating students and citizens about youth homelessness. This is done through dialogue with case workers, industry experts and dedicated volunteers. Students make a difference in their community while organizing and leading their own charitable campaign."

Project Backpack has coordinated and assisted in the stuffing of thousands of backpacks, all containing basic essentials (warm clothing, toiletries, food coupons, etc.) to help youth survive on the street. These packs are then distributed to youth centres throughout Vancouver.

"We are honoured & thrilled to have received the support of the Canada Post Community Foundation, and we are confident the project will result in homeless youth being provided with essentials as well as students and citizens becoming better educated about youth homelessness." said Cara Sinclair, HELP founder and president.

About H.E.L.P. for Youth Canada Society

HELP is a private non-profit CRA registered charity, based in Vancouver, BC, which operates both The H.E.L.P. Bursary Fund and Project Backpack.

The H.E.L.P. for Youth Canada Society assists at-risk youth out of poverty by providing bursaries to allow them to pursue studies, primarily at vocational-focused schools. HELP's goal is intended to assist youth obtain an education and thus receive the skills to secure meaningful and steady employment.

About the Canada Post Community Foundation

The Canada Post Community Foundation for Children's vision is to help ensure every child in Canada is happy, healthy and part of a community that supports and cares for them. Its mission is to have a positive effect in the lives of children in the communities Canada Post serves by supporting registered charities, school programs or local initiatives that benefit children. It has granted more than $6 million to over 500 community organizations across Canada. To learn more about the Foundation, visit www.canadapost.ca/community.

For Further Information, Please Contact:

H.E.L.P. for Youth Canada Society

Cara Sinclair

Email: info@helpyouthcanada.org

Website: http://www.helpyouthcanada.org/ or www.projectbackpack.ca

Twitter: @HELPPBPAVITA Medical (ASX: AVH, OTCQX: AVMXY), a global regenerative medicine company, today announced that it has received a Research and Development Tax Incentive cash rebate from the Australian Tax Office in the amount of A$1.0 million for the year ending 30 June 2017. The R&D Tax Credit incentive program provides a cash rebate to support companies in Australia in undertaking research and development projects. Qualifying projects undertaken by AVITA Medical qualifying for the rebate included the development of its RECELL Autologous Cell Harvesting Device (RECELL System), which was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last week to treat severe thermal burns in the U.S.

"We appreciate the support of the Australian government in the development of our regenerative medicine platform, including the RECELL System," said Dr. Michael Perry, Chief Executive Officer. "Last week's FDA approval of the RECELL System was a major undertaking and resulted from the contributions by patients, clinical trial investigator teams and our dedicated employees. The non-dilutive funding provided by the R&D Credit over the past several years helped make this success possible."

ABOUT AVITA MEDICAL LIMITED

AVITA Medical is a regenerative medicine company with a technology platform positioned to address unmet medical needs in burns, chronic wounds, and aesthetics indications. AVITA Medical's patented and proprietary collection and application technology provides innovative treatment solutions derived from the regenerative properties of a patient's own skin. The medical devices work by preparing a REGENERATIVE EPIDERMAL SUSPENSION(RES), an autologous suspension comprised of the patient's skin cells necessary to regenerate natural healthy epidermis. This autologous suspension is then sprayed onto the areas of the patient requiring treatment.

AVITA Medical's first FDA approved product, the RECELL System, produces Spray-On Skin Cells using a small amount of a patient's own skin, providing a new way to treat acute burns wounds in patients 18 years of age and older, while significantly reducing the amount of donor skin required. The RECELL System is designed to be used at the point of care alone or in combination with autografts depending on the depth of the burn injury. Compelling data from randomized, controlled clinical trials conducted at major U.S. burn centers and real-world use in more than 7,000 patients globally, reinforce that the RECELL System is a significant advancement over the current standard of care for burn patients and offers benefits in clinical outcomes and cost savings. Healthcare professionals should read the INSTRUCTIONS FOR USE RECELL Autologous Cell Harvesting Device for a full description of important safety information including contraindications, warnings and precautions.

In international markets outside of Europe, our portfolio is marketed under the RECELL System brand to promote skin healing in a wide range of applications including burns, chronic wounds and aesthetics. The RECELL System is TGA-registered in Australia, and CFDA-cleared in China.

In Europe, our portfolio of medical device products received CE-mark approval as three tailored product presentations, with three individual brand names. The RECELL Autologous Cell Harvesting Device is designed for the treatment of burns and plastic reconstructive procedures; REGENERCELL Autologous Cell Harvesting Device has been formulated for chronic wounds including leg and foot ulcers; and RENOVACELL Autologous Cell Harvesting Device is tailored for aesthetic applications including the restoration of pigmentation.

To learn more, visit www.avitamedical.com.

CAUTIONARY NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

This letter includes forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements generally can be identified by the use of words such as "anticipate," "expect," "intend," "could," "may," "will," "believe," "estimate," "look forward," "forecast," "goal," "target," "project," "continue," "outlook," "guidance," "future," other words of similar meaning and the use of future dates. Forward-looking statements in this letter include, but are not limited to, statements concerning, among other things, our ongoing clinical trials and product development activities, regulatory approval of our products, the potential for future growth in our business, and our ability to achieve our key strategic, operational and financial goal. Forward-looking statements by their nature address matters that are, to different degrees, uncertain. Each forward-looking statement contained in this letter is subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statement. Applicable risks and uncertainties include, among others, the timing of regulatory approvals of our products; physician acceptance, endorsement, and use of our products; failure to achieve the anticipated benefits from approval of our products; the effect of regulatory actions; product liability claims; risks associated with international operations and expansion; and other business effects, including the effects of industry, economic or political conditions outside of the company's control. Investors should not place considerable reliance on the forward-looking statements contained in this letter. Investors are encouraged to read our publicly available filings for a discussion of these and other risks and uncertainties. The forward-looking statements in this letter speak only as of the date of this release, and we undertake no obligation to update or revise any of these statements.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180925006264/en/

Contacts:

US Media

Syneos Health Public Relations

Christian Pflaumer

Phone +1-212-229-8412

Nicole Beckstrand

Phone +1-858-431-9611

AVITAMedicalTeam@syneoshealth.com

or

OUS Media

Monsoon Communications

Sarah Kemter

Phone +61 (0)3 9620 3333

Mobile +61 (0)407 162 530

sarahk@monsoon.com.au

or

Investors:

Westwicke Partners

Caroline Corner

Phone +1-415-202-5678

caroline.corner@westwicke.com

or

AVITA Medical Ltd

Dale A. Sander

Chief Financial Officer

Phone +1-661-367-9178

dsander@avitamedical.comFully-Rugged Tablet Provides Global Connectivity, Better Performance

BIRMINGHAM, United Kingdom, Feb. 18, 2019today announced the release of the Cedar CT8 Rugged Tablet , a high-performance Android tablet made for rugged environments.



The CT8 - the third Cedar tablet from Juniper Systems - marks a major upgrade in performance and GPS capability from its predecessor, the Cedar CT7G Rugged Tablet (2017 release). Packed behind its 8-inch high-visibility display is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8-core processor running Android 8.1 with full Google Mobile Services. This highly-efficient processor results in lower power consumption, less heat generated, and better overall performance.

'The CT8 is fast, affordable, and it's got rugged bones', said Cody Draper, Juniper Systems' Cedar product manager. 'Job sites that need a formidable, cost-effective rugged tablet will find the CT8's features easily meet and exceed those needs'.

The CT8 Rugged Tablet also includes dual nano-SIM card slots and enhanced location services with a u-blox M8030 GNSS chip. It acquires and tracks different satellite systems around the world concurrently to deliver higher accuracy and reliability with maximum satellite access, including European Galileo, Chinese BeiDou, and American GPS.

Fully-rugged and rated IP67, the CT8 boasts functionality and versatility everywhere. Its 8,000 mAh removable battery, two programmable buttons, Gorilla Glass display, and optional accessories position it as an affordable rugged option for the workplace.

'We're excited about this unparalleled Cedar CT8 tablet', said Simon Bowe, managing director of Juniper Systems Limited. 'It's excellent for field professionals who face demanding work environments, and provides greater flexibility compared to most rugged tablets'.

The CT8 is available globally and works on any GSM network. Learn more here .

About Juniper Systems Limited

Based out of Logan, UT, USA, and Birmingham, UK, Juniper Systems is a world leader in the design and manufacture of ultra-rugged handheld computers and provides field data collection solutions for use in extreme environments. Since 1993, professionals have utilised Juniper Systems' innovative mobile technology in the geomatics, industrial, natural resources, utilities and public services, and military markets.

Contact:Simon Bowe, Managing Director +44 www.junipersys.com

Media Contact: Barbara Sanner +1 480 980 0298

barbara.sanner@junipersys.com

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/a534b008-040f-41fd-af39-4139ff956270Trial enrolled 111 patients, exceeding target of 102 patients

Interim results expected in early November 2018, with final results in Spring 2019

Regulatory News:

Genkyotex (Paris:GKTX) (Brussels:GKTX) (Euronext Paris Brussels: FR00011790542 GKTX), a biopharmaceutical company and the leader in NOX therapies, announces today the completion of enrollment in its Phase 2 trial of GKT831 in patients with Primary Biliary Cholangitis (PBC). The study enrolled a total of 111 patients in nine countries, exceeding the initial target of 102 subjects.

"The completion of enrolment in this Phase 2 trial represents a significant milestone for our GKT831 clinical program," said Philippe Wiesel, Chief Medical Officer of Genkyotex. "The over enrollment of the trial is indicative of the significant interest in this study from investigators. Based on the timing of enrollment completion, we expect interim results from this study in early November of this year, with final results anticipated in the Spring of 2019. We would like to thank our investigators and their staff for their invaluable contributions to this trial."

This Phase 2 trial is a 24-week, double-blind, placebo-controlled study, evaluating the safety and efficacy of GKT831 in patients with PBC and inadequate response to ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA). A total of 111 PBC patients were enrolled and allocated to three treatment arms: UDCA plus placebo, UDCA plus GKT831 at 400mg once a day, and UDCA plus GKT831 at 400mg twice a day. Following the recent positive recommendation by the study's Data Safety Monitoring Board, Genkyotex considers initiating an open-label extension for this Phase 2 trial.

GKT831 has shown potent anti-fibrotic and anti-inflammatory activity in a broad range of animal models, as well as pharmacodynamic activity in healthy subjects and diabetic patients. Mechanistic data indicate that inhibiting NOX enzymes 1 and 4 with GKT831 down regulates multiple fibrogenic pathways, including TGF-B, MCP-1 and ASK1.

"Based on the data generated to date, we believe that GKT831 has significant therapeutic potential in diseases where fibrosis plays a major role. GKT831 is currently being evaluated in two phase 2 trials, one in patients with liver fibrosis and another in patients with kidney fibrosis. Moreover, the US National Institutes of Health recently awarded a substantial grant to fund a Phase 2 trial of GKT831 in patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, further expanding the GKT831's domains of application," added Elias Papatheodorou, Chief Executive Officer of Genkyotex.

Genkyotex will host a conference call in English today, September 26, 2018 at 06:15 pm CEST 12:15pm EDST, followed by a Q&A session.

The call is accessible via the below teleconferencing information:

France: +33 1 72 72 74 03

Switzerland: +41 445 831 805

US: +1 646 722 49 16

UK: +44 207 194 37 59

Belgium: +32 240 358 16

Pin: 85798253#

Next financial press releases:

First-half 2018 results: today, September 26, 2018, after market

Q3 2018 business update and cash position: October 24, 2018 (after market)

About Genkyotex

Genkyotex is the leading biopharmaceutical company in NOX therapies, listed on the Euronext Paris and Euronext Brussels markets. A leader in NOX therapies, its unique therapeutic approach is based on a selective inhibition of NOX enzymes that amplify multiple disease processes such as fibrosis, inflammation, pain processing, cancer development, and neurodegeneration.

Genkyotex's platform enables the identification of available small-molecules that selectively inhibit specific NOX enzymes. Genkyotex is developing a pipeline of first-in-class product candidates targeting one or multiple NOX enzymes. The lead product candidate, GKT831, a NOX1 and NOX4 inhibitor is evaluated in a phase 2 clinical trial in primary biliary cholangitis (PBC, a fibrotic orphan disease) and in an investigator-initiated Phase 2 clinical trial in Type 1 Diabetes and Kidney Disease (DKD). A grant from the United States National Institutes of Health (U.S. NIH) of $8.9 million has been awarded to Professor Victor Thannickal at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) to fund a multi-year research program evaluating the role of NOX enzymes in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), a chronic lung disease that results in fibrosis of the lungs, the core component of the program will be to conduct a Phase 2 trial with the GKT831 in patients with IPF. This product candidate may also be active in other fibrotic indications. Its second product candidate, GKT771, is a NOX1 inhibitor targeting multiple pathways in angiogenesis, pain processing, and inflammation, currently undergoing preclinical testing.

Genkyotex also has a versatile platform well-suited to the development of various immunotherapies (Vaxiclase). A partnership has been established with Serum Institute of India Private Ltd (Serum Institute) and could generate approximately 150 million in future revenues for Genkyotex, before royalties on sales.

For further information, please go towww.genkyotex.com

Disclaimer

This press release and the information it contains does not constitute an offer or solicitation to buy, sell or hold Genkyotex shares in any country, in particular any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration, exemption from registration or other qualification under the securities laws of any such jurisdiction.

This press release may contain forward-looking statements by the company with respect to its objectives. Such statements are based upon the current beliefs, estimates and expectations of Genkyotex's management and are subject to risks and uncertainties such as the company's ability to implement its chosen strategy, customer market trends, changes in technologies and in the company's competitive environment, changes in regulations, clinical or industrial risks and all risks linked to the company's growth. These factors as well as other risks and uncertainties may prevent the company from achieving the objectives outlined in the press release and actual results may differ from those set forth in the forward-looking statements, due to various factors. Without being exhaustive, such factors include uncertainties involved in the development of Genkyotex's products, which may not succeed, or in the delivery of Genkyotex's products marketing authorizations by the relevant regulatory authorities and, in general, any factor that could affects Genkyotex's capacity to commercialize the products it develops. No guarantee is given on forward-looking statements which are subject to a number of risks, notably those described in the registration document (document de reference) registered by the French Markets Authority (the AMF) on 27 April 2018 under number R.18-037, and those linked to changes in economic conditions, the financial markets, or the markets on which Genkyotex is present. Genkyotex products are currently used for clinical trials only and are not otherwise available for distribution or sale.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180925006276/en/

Contacts:

INVESTORS

NewCap

Dusan Oresansky, Tristan Roquet Montegon and Emmanuel Huynh

+33 1 44 71 94 92

genkyotex@newcap.eu

or

MEDIA

NewCap

Nicolas Merigeau, Arthur Rouille

+33 1 44 71 00 15

genkyotex@newcap.eu

or

US

LifeSci Advisors, LLC

Brian Ritchie

+1-212-915-2578

britchie@lifesciadvisors.comROTTERDAM, The Netherlands (26 September 2018) - IMCD N.V. ("IMCD" or "Company"), a leading distributor of speciality chemicals and food ingredients, today announces that it has successfully completed the acquisition of 100% of the outstanding shares of Velox GmbH ("Velox"), a group of companies with its headquarter in Hamburg, Germany. The agreement on the acquisition of Velox was announced by IMCD in its press release of 29 August 2018.



Velox was established in 1993 and is a European distributor with a focus on specialities for the plastics, composites, additives, rubber, paints and coatings industries. With approximately 225 employees in 18 countries Velox generated EUR 155 million revenue and a normalised EBITDA of EUR 5.4 million in 2017.



With this acquisition, IMCD further strengthens its position as distributor of speciality plastics and additives.



About IMCD N.V. IMCD is a market-leader in the sales, marketing and distribution of speciality chemicals and food ingredients. Its result-driven professionals provide market-focused solutions to suppliers and customers across EMEA, Asia-Pacific and Americas, offering a range of comprehensive product portfolios, including innovative formulations that embrace industry trends.



Listed at Euronext, Amsterdam (IMCD), IMCD realised revenues of EUR 1,907 million in 2017 with more than 2,200 employees in over 45 countries on 6 continents. IMCD's dedicated team of technical and commercial experts work in close partnership to tailor best in class solutions and provide value through expertise for around 37,000 customers and a diverse range of world class suppliers.



For further information, please visit http://www.imcdgroup.com or contact ir@imcdgroup.com. With this acquisition, IMCD further strengthens its position as distributor of speciality plastics and additives.

PRESS RELEASE_IMCD completes acquisition of Velox (http://hugin.info/164110/R/2217745/866671.pdf)



This announcement is distributed by West Corporation on behalf of West Corporation clients.

The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein.

Source: IMCD N.V. via Globenewswire

TechnipFMC (NYSE:FTI) (Paris:FTI) has signed a strategic collaboration agreement with Equinor.

The agreement states that the two parties will collaborate in continuous improvements to enable developing Equinor's offshore projects globally, and covers the full scope of TechnipFMC products and services, from early phase, through project execution, including installation and subsea operations services. It reflects the ambition of the parties to engage early through pre-FEED and Concept development in order to obtain sustainable cost reductions.

This agreement builds on the long relationship between the two companies, including the recent successes of the Company's iEPCITM (integrated EPCI) delivery on the Trestakk and Visund Nord projects to Equinor.

Doug Pferdehirt, CEO of TechnipFMC, commented: "We are extremely honored to extend our partnership with Equinor globally while enabling a new way of working together, from early engagement through integrated project execution leveraging next generation technology and digitalization. We firmly believe that success is achieved through collaboration and that this agreement will increase the competitiveness of both companies."

Important Information for Investors and Securityholders

Forward-Looking Statement

This release contains "forward-looking statements" as defined in Section 27A of the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the United States Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. The words "scheduled," "estimated" and other similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements, which are generally not historical in nature. Such forward-looking statements involve significant risks, uncertainties and assumptions that could cause actual results to differ materially from our historical experience and our present expectations or projections. Known material factors that could cause our actual results to differ from those in the forward-looking statements include the Company's ability to collaborate successfully with Equinor to deliver continuous improvements and cost reductions. For additional information regarding known material factors that could cause actual results to differ from projected results, please see our risk factors set forth in our filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, which include our Registration Statement on Form S-4, Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and Current Reports on Form 8-K.

We caution you not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof. We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any of our forward-looking statements after the date they are made, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except to the extent required by law.

About TechnipFMC

TechnipFMC is a global leader in subsea, onshore/offshore, and surface projects. With our proprietary technologies and production systems, integrated expertise, and comprehensive solutions, we are transforming our clients' project economics.

We are uniquely positioned to deliver greater efficiency across project lifecycles from concept to project delivery and beyond. Through innovative technologies and improved efficiencies, our offering unlocks new possibilities for our clients in developing their oil and gas resources.

Each of our more than 37,000 employees is driven by a steady commitment to clients and a culture of purposeful innovation, challenging industry conventions, and rethinking how the best results are achieved.

To learn more about us and how we are enhancing the performance of the world's energy industry, go to TechnipFMC.com and follow us on Twitter @TechnipFMC.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180925006105/en/

Contacts:

TechnipFMC

Investor relations

Matt Seinsheimer, +1-281-260-3665

Vice President Investor Relations

Matt Seinsheimer

or

Phillip Lindsay, +44 203 429 3929

Director Investor Relations Europe

Phillip Lindsay

or

Media relations

Christophe Belorgeot, +33 1 47 78 39 92

Vice President Corporate Communications

Christophe Belorgeot

or

Delphine Nayral, +33 1 47 78 34 83

Senior Manager Public Relations

Delphine NayralPhase IIa RAINBOW study met all primary safety endpoints in this new patient population

Opens path for development in larger populations with more recent disease onset

Regulatory News:

GeNeuro (Paris:GNRO) (Euronext Paris: CH0308403085 GNRO), a biopharmaceutical company developing new treatments for neurological and autoimmune diseases, announced that its Phase IIa study of GNbAC1 in type 1 diabetes (T1D) met the primary endpoint of safety in this new patient population. GNbAC1 is a monoclonal antibody designed to neutralize a pathogenic envelope protein, pHERV-W Env, which has been detected post mortem in about two thirds of the pancreas of patients with T1D.

There were no serious related adverse events in the treatment arm, and the number of adverse events was lower with GNbAC1 than with placebo. No pharmacodynamic parameter showed any detrimental effect of GNbAC1 administration, irrespective of disease duration, concomitant treatment or insulin administration mode. No immunogenicity was observed, and no anti-drug antibodies were measured over the period. This confirms the very good tolerance of GNbAC1, in combination to standard treatment in this new patient population. The absence of any safety signal seen thus far opens the door to trials in larger diabetic populations, potentially in pediatric patients who represent 80% of cases at onset, and where disease modifying therapies are sorely needed.

All pharmacodynamic markers remained stable over time, without separation between the groups in this small population of adult patients with a well-controlled disease, characterized by high residual C-peptide and moderate HbAc1 levels, and low insulin consumption. Some encouraging signals were observed, such as a 32% reduction in the total number of hypoglycemic episodes in the treated group versus placebo (p<0.0001). Also noted was a 21% decrease of anti-insulin antibodies in the treatment group, versus an increase of 23% in the placebo group (p<0.01). But given the low occurrence of events in this well-controlled population and the small size of the Phase IIa cohort, these signals require confirmation through investigation in larger populations with a more recent onset.

"Meeting the primary objective of safety in this Phase IIa study with GNbAC1 in patients with type 1 diabetes supports our approach in targeting pHERV-W Env in combination with concomitant medications in a new therapeutic setting" said Dr. Francois Curtin, Chief Operating Officer of GeNeuro. "We are breaking new biological ground with this study of a drug targeting pHERV-W Env in type 1 diabetes. These results provide the basis for testing this potential disease modifying approach in larger populations, potentially in pediatric patients."

GNbAC1 is a monoclonal antibody designed to neutralize a pathogenic envelope protein, pHERV-W Env, encoded by a member of the Human Endogenous Retrovirus W family. This protein has been detected post mortem in about two thirds of the pancreas of patients with T1D, its toxicity on the pancreas has been validated in preclinical models, and it is thought be a key factor in the onset and development of the disease. Neutralizing the toxicity induced by pHERV-W Env in the pancreas may provide a specific and safe disease modifying therapy for T1D patients.

The Phase IIa randomized, placebo-controlled, signal finding study (RAINBOW) evaluated GNbAC1 in 64 adult patients diagnosed with T1D for up to 4 years, in 12 centers in Australia. The primary endpoint of the study was safety of GNbAC1 administration in combination with T1D treatments. Secondary endpoints measure T1D biomarkers such as HbA1c, insulin production based on peptide C levels, and other biomarkers associated with type 1 diabetes, such as insulin consumption, glycaemia and production of diabetic auto-antibodies. Detailed 6-month results will be presented at the Clinical Trials in Diabetes Congress on December 3-4, 2018 in Vienna, Austria. 12-month results will be available in 1Q2019, and GeNeuro will now start planning further clinical trials in T1D.

About Type 1 Diabetes

Type 1 diabetes, usually first diagnosed in children, is caused by an immune response directed against the insulin producing cells of the pancreas. There is no cure for this 'autoimmune' disease, which means patients need life-long treatment with insulin replacement. This treatment is often associated with several debilitating complications, including heart disease, blindness, and kidney disease, among others.

About GeNeuro

GeNeuro's mission is to develop safe and effective treatments against neurological disorders and autoimmune diseases, such as multiple sclerosis and Type 1 Diabetes, by neutralizing causal factors encoded by HERVs, which represent 8% of human DNA.

GeNeuro is based in Geneva, Switzerland and has R&D facilities in Lyon, France. It has 28 employees and rights to 17 patent families protecting its technology.

For more information, visit: www.geneuro.com

Disclaimer:

This press release contains certain forward looking statements and estimates concerning GeNeuro's financial condition, operating results, strategy, projects and future performance and the markets in which it operates. Such forward-looking statements and estimates may be identified by words, such as "anticipate," "believe," "can," "could," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "is designed to," "may," "might," "plan," "potential," "predict," "objective," "should," or the negative of these and similar expressions. They incorporate all topics that are not historical facts. Forward looking statements, forecasts and estimates are based on management's current assumptions and assessment of risks, uncertainties and other factors, known and unknown, which were deemed to be reasonable at the time they were made but which may turn out to be incorrect. Events and outcomes are difficult to predict and depend on factors beyond the company's control. Consequently, the actual results, financial condition, performances and/or achievements of GeNeuro or of the industry may turn out to differ materially from the future results, performances or achievements expressed or implied by these statements, forecasts and estimates. Owing to these uncertainties, no representation is made as to the correctness or fairness of these forward-looking statements, forecasts and estimates. Furthermore, forward-looking statements, forecasts and estimates speak only as of the date on which they are made, and GeNeuro undertakes no obligation to update or revise any of them, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180925006220/en/

Contacts:

GeNeuro

Jesus Martin-Garcia

Chairman and CEO

+41 22 552 48 00

investors@geneuro.com

or

NewCap (France)

Emmanuel Huynh/ Mathilde Bohin (investors)

+33 1 44 71 98 52

or

Nicolas Merigeau (media)

+33 1 44 71 94 98

geneuro@newcap.eu

or

Halsin Partners

Mike Sinclair (media)

+44 20 7318 2955

msinclair@halsin.com

or

LifeSci Advisors

Chris Maggos (investors)

+1 646 597 6970

+41 79 367 6254

chris@lifesciadvisors.comZCCM INVESTMENTS HOLDINGS PLC

[Incorporated in the Republic of Zambia]

Company registration number: 771

Share Code: ZCCM-IH

ISIN: ZM0000000037

["ZCCM-IH" or "the Company"]

APPOINTMENT OF CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER

ZCCM Investments Holding Plc (ZCCM-IH) is pleased to announce the appointment of Mrs Chilandu Josephine Sakala as Chief Financial Officer ("CFO") with immediate effect. The appointment of Mrs Sakala comes as a result of an internal reorganisation which saw the transfer of Mr Mabvuto T Chipata from the Finance Directorate as CFO to the Investments Directorate as Chief Investments Officer ("CIO").

Mrs Sakala is a Chartered Accountant with Association of Chartered and Certified Accountant ("ACCA") since 2003. Before joining ZCCM-IH, Mrs Sakala was Audit Senior Manager at KPMG, an international audit firm where she had worked since September 2003. She has vast experience in accounting and auditing which she gained while at KPMG. Mrs Sakala has led audit assignments of significant magnitude in a number of sectors including financial services, telecommunications, mining and energy and not-for-profit among others.

The Board is confident that Mrs Sakala will immensely contribute to the attainment of ZCCM-IH's strategic goals and wish her all the best in her new role as CFO of the Company.

By Order of the Board

C Chabala

Company Secretary

Issued in Lusaka, Zambia on Tuesday, 25th September 2018

Lusaka Securities Exchange Sponsoring Broker T | +260-211-232456



E | advisory@sbz.com.zm



W | www.sbz.com.zm



Stockbrokers Zambia Limited (SBZ) is a member of the Lusaka Securities Exchange and is regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission of Zambia First Issued on Tuesday, 25th September 2018

------------------------



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Full and original release in PDF format:https://www.actusnews.com/documents_communiques/ACTUS-0-55166-zccm-ih-appointment-of-cfo-sens.pdfGENEVA, September 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

The L'OCCITANE Group, the leading manufacturer and retailer of natural cosmetics comprising five beauty brands, announces today the opening of OBRATORI, its startup studio in the heart of the Cite de l'Innovation et des Savoirs Aix-Marseille (CISAM), the former emblematic art-deco building of the Castel, in Marseille.

(Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/748567/OBRATORI_Logo.jpg )

The L'OCCITANE Group unveils OBRATORI, its startup studio located, in Marseille, in the heart of the Cite de l'Innovation et des Savoirs Aix-Marseille, to reveal the future of cosmetics and well-being

For Reinold Geiger, CEO of the L'OCCITANE Group, the opening of the startup studio OBRATORI will enable new ideas to be explored and developed in a fast-moving world. "The L'OCCITANE Group has always been keen to initiate entrepreneurship and perpetual renewal, it's in our DNA." He continues: "The creation of startups around the world is an economic revolution whose consequences will be seen very quickly, they have become the most important actors in the entrepreneurial system."

OBRATORI, a partner since the genesis of this project led by Aix-Marseille University and the Metropole Aix-Marseille Provence, will welcome a dozen of selected startups within the Cite de l'Innovation et des Savoirs Aix-Marseille (CISAM). It occupies the second floor of the famous Castel building and can accommodate up to 108 workstations that will be dedicated to entrepreneurs.

Amaury Godron, General Manager of the startup studio OBRATORI says: "We are aware that innovation is key to identify new breakthrough ideas. We are proud to bring the next generation of entrepreneurs through our partnership with Aix-Marseille University and the support of the Aix-Marseille Provence Metropole and the South Region."

The startups sought are those in cosmetics and well-being, as well as in the digitalisation of solutions for retail and early growth which require technical, financial, commercial, marketing or other support. The blend of product, digital and other startups is a must-have, according to OBRATORI, to jointly develop strong synergies of innovation and to explore new concepts, ideas, products, services and brands.

Specifically, the selected startups will follow a support program lasting a maximum of 23 months. They will benefit from an adapted workspace, the support of the internal resources of OBRATORI, a network of experts and mentors, and the ecosystem of the L'OCCITANE Group. For Ingo Dauer, General Manager at OBRATORI: "These are tailor-made programs. A startup may need research expertise, marketing expertise, international visibility..."

In order to better meet the technological needs of its incubated startups, OBRATORI has equipped the 950m2 space with an L2 cellular research laboratory and a MIT compliant FabLab.

OBRATORI offers its guidance and tailored-made support to French companies and international start-ups based in Marseille.

About OBRATORI

OBRATORI, the startup studio that boosts your ideas and transforms your achievements into business.OBRATORI is the incubator and accelerator of innovation-oriented projects in the fields of cosmetics, wellbeing, and digital solutions for distribution.Created by the L'OCCITANE Group and supported by many private and public partners, OBRATORI aims to promote job creation in the South region, through the creation of innovative companies.

For more information: https://obratori.com / @Obratori

About the L'OCCITANE Group

The L'OCCITANE Group is a leading natural ingredient-based cosmetics and well-being producer and retailer with more than 3,000 retail outlets in 90 countries. A global leader in the premium beauty market, the group offers high quality products that are produced using cutting-edge technology and natural and traceable ingredients that respect the environment. The L'OCCITANE Group has five brands: L'OCCITANE en Provence, Melvita,Erborian, L'OCCITANE au Bresil and LimeLife by Alcone.

For more information:https://group.loccitane.com/--Demonstration of Robotic Logistics System--

Toshiba Infrastructure Systems Solutions Corporation (hereinafter TISS), a core company of Toshiba Group (TOKYO:6502) today announced its participation in POST-EXPO 2018, the world's largest annual postal and parcel exhibition, to be held in Hamburg, Germany from October 9 to 11.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180926005057/en/

SCARA robot (Photo: Business Wire)

TISS, and its pan-European sales representative, Toshiba Europe GmbH, can be found at Stand No.160 in Hall B2 of the Hamburg Messe. They will together introduce Toshiba's latest logistics solutions and demonstrate a new robotic logistics system-an area where TISS is focused on development of systems that enhance logistics automation and deliver comprehensive solutions. TISS will also make a presentation of the latest solutions with particular focus on robot at the POST-EXPO 2018 Conference from 11:45 a.m. on October 11 at the conference area within the Hall B2.

Robotic logistics systems are in increasingly high demand as solutions for dealing with the surge in deliveries of small parcels, the result of continuing worldwide growth in the e-commerce market. At POST-EXPO 2018, TISS will demonstrate SCARA (Selective Compliance Assembly Robot Arm), a robotic logistics solution comprising an intelligent, horizontal multi-axis automated induction system that operates without any need for prior motion programming and teaching.

TISS's many years of experience, along with its world-class engineering capabilities in areas including image recognition, mechatronics, control regulation and IT systems, have positioned the company as a leading global supplier of postal automation systems. Leveraging these essential competences, TISS is now enhancing robotic systems to support provision of total solutions for postal and logistics system, and is directing resources to addressing the challenges faced by today's postal and logistics industries

Outline of Toshiba's Exhibition 1. Demonstration of the horizontal multi-axis SCARA robot, an automated packet induction system with functionality of random picking, address side detection 2. Video of Toshiba robotic logistics system portfolio and product features 3. A panel display of Toshiba's image recognition technology and logistics IT system

For more information on POST-EXPO 2018, please visit:

https://www.postexpo.com/

To learn more about Toshiba's logistics robots, please visit:

https://www.toshiba.co.jp/sis/en/scd/robo/robo.htm

About Toshiba Infrastructure Systems Solutions Corporation

Toshiba Infrastructure Systems Solutions Corporation (TISS) is a core company promoting Toshiba Group's businesses in social infrastructure. Split off from Toshiba Corporation in 2017, TISS and its group companies promote realization of a reliable products and systems for a sustainable future that is safe and secure, and seek to improve value for customers with solutions for social and industrial infrastructure, buildings and facilities.

Find out more about TISS at http://www.toshiba.co.jp/cs/en/index.htm

Information in the press releases, including any product prices and specifications, details of content of services and contact information, is current on the date of the press announcement, but is subject to change without prior notice

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180926005057/en/

Contacts:

Toshiba Infrastructure Systems Solutions

Kenta Katsumata

Public Relations Group

Business Planning Div.

tiss-pr@ml.toshiba.co.jpExpansion in the UK accommodates increasing European market demand for digital video

LONDON and NEW YORK, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Wibbitz, the leading AI-powered video creation platform, today announced the opening of its fourth international office in Paddington, Central London, spearheaded by Managing Director and digital media expert Jane Loring. In her new role, Jane will work across the Wibbitz existing client roster of multinational media companies with a predominant presence in Europe, including Bertelsmann, Daily Mail, Reuters, Hearst, and Bloomberg, and oversee the development and daily operations of the new office. The expansion will introduce Wibbitz's automated video creation platform to more UK publishers, brands, and agencies, simplifying video creation processes to help them produce impactful video content for every platform and channel.

Digital video viewing has become omnipresent among European audiences, driven by the integration of mobile devices and social media platforms into daily lives. Among nearly 44 millions of viewers in the UK, almost two thirds watch video content on mobile and the average time spent is about an hour per day. Showing a market value of over 64 billion pounds, the UK digital media industry is expected to continue growing at around seven percent annually, validating the demand for quality video content and the urgent needs for effective video creation tools that content creators can leverage to keep up with the consumer demand.

With years of experience driving innovations and digital revenue for the country's leading media business and agencies, including GroupM, Omnicom, UM and IPG, and monetization solution platforms, including Microsoft Advertising and Playbuzz, Jane has witnessed first hand how video has transformed the digital space and the challenges publishers and brands face in striving to effectively produce compelling video content.

Jane elaborates: "many publishers and brands have realized the importance of video storytelling, but are restricted by limited resources, time constraints, and lack of video talent. The Wibbitz platform eliminates the creative bottlenecks in their daily workflow and put video production in the hands of more people. The powerful automation paired with a full spectrum of customization capabilities ensures an unprecedented scale of video while still meeting quality standards. I'm extremely excited to be part of the Wibbitz team and introduce our sure-fire video solution to the UK's thriving market."

"Our vision has always been to empower more storytellers in the world to tell their stories through video, and to break the creation barriers of region, language, and culture. Jane's expertise in digital media and her profound understanding of visual storytelling are in perfect alignment with the Wibbitz vision. We are thrilled to have her lead the development of our new branch in the UK and further growth in the European market," said Zohar Dayan, CEO and Co-founder of Wibbitz. "The new office will join our New York and Paris business teams in bringing the Wibbitz platform to more publishers and brands, helping to improve the quality of their content offerings and support their business growth."

Visit www.wibbitz.com/jobs for open positions in the Wibbitz UK office.

Media Contact:

Hilary Kay

Wibbitz

press@wibbitz.com

+1 925-518-9297

About Wibbitz

Wibbitz is an automated video creation platform that empowers professional storytellers at the world's leading publishers and brands. The platform leverages patented AI technology to simplify video production processes, helping content creators quickly and easily produce beautiful videos for every platform and channel. Creators have access to personalized video templates, intuitive editing tools, a team of in-house experts, and millions of licensed photos, videos, and soundtracks to ensure that each video captures their unique brand voice. Wibbitz supports video creation for over 600 partners, including Bloomberg, Reuters, Conde Nast, Hearst, TripAdvisor, and Birchbox. Wibbitz was founded in 2011 and has offices in New York City, Tel Aviv, Paris, and London. For more information, visit www.wibbitz.com and follow @wibbitz .

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/749952/Wibbitz_LONDON.jpg

Video - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/749953/Wibbitz_Pursues_Further_Growth_in_Europe.mp4NANJING, China, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- UNISOC announced official launch of the IC Test brand at the 2018 China IC Summit. With years of technological experiences and nearly USD 500 million of investment, UNISOC has established a quality assurance system for the whole process including product development and production testing, software integration testing, hardware testing, system testing, customer service and testing, and built up an integrated testing service brand named IC Test

The UNISOC IC TEST is composed of two parts: I Test stands for UNISOC's internal test quality system, while C Test stands for the customer's test quality system (Customer). I Test system covers the inbound ware test requirements and national field acceptance, providing 24*7 interactive service; C Test can realize all-round Android test services with a simple and easy interface, which accounts for over 20,000 use cases and more in future.

At the same time, IC Test center covers the whole process of chip development, production and testing, and supports customers with the following 5 quality assurances:

Chip R&D and production testing: the leading chip validation platform enables packaging tests at wafer, system and module levels, chip reliability validation and failure analysis on discrete devices and circuit chips to ensure chip yield is leading in the industry.

the leading chip validation platform enables packaging tests at wafer, system and module levels, chip reliability validation and failure analysis on discrete devices and circuit chips to ensure chip yield is leading in the industry. Software integration testing: the patented code-level version upgrade validation platform can block breaches and improve code quality and efficiency by monitoring code changes with the strategy of "submitting as validation".

the patented code-level version upgrade validation platform can block breaches and improve code quality and efficiency by monitoring code changes with the strategy of "submitting as validation". Hardware testing: hardware R&D and production tests are carried out on electric signals, power dissipation, voice frequency, reliability, RF and antenna. The whole of test validation services target at various platform and customer hardware projects based on constant iteration and improvements to enhance test efficiency and lower test costs.

hardware R&D and production tests are carried out on electric signals, power dissipation, voice frequency, reliability, RF and antenna. The whole of test validation services target at various platform and customer hardware projects based on constant iteration and improvements to enhance test efficiency and lower test costs. System testing: aligned with strict standards for industrial brands and quality requirements of top operators like China Mobile, pre-launch acceptance tests can be implemented on over 500 samples to testify integration, compatibility, stability, performance and user experiences.

aligned with strict standards for industrial brands and quality requirements of top operators like China Mobile, pre-launch acceptance tests can be implemented on over 500 samples to testify integration, compatibility, stability, performance and user experiences. Customer service & testing: test solutions and related services are provided to mobile phone designers, improving product validation systems to make better decisions on mass production, accelerating time to market and strengthening brand competitiveness.

UNISOC reached partnership on innovation labs with China Mobile and China Unicom and earned recognition by CNAS (China National Accreditation Service for Conformity Assessment) for ISO17025 in 2016. It joined GCF(The Global Certification Forum) in 2017 and was titled as Level-B cooperative lab by China Mobile in 2018.

John Rowland, senior vice president and chief engineer of UNISOC, said, "I am very honored to launch the IC Test brand. UNISOC is committed to providing customers with advanced technology research and development and one-stop customer service through deep understanding of the chip industry and strong global technical support. With the launch of the new IC Test brand, we will fully open up internal and external resources and work with customers in the field of mobile chips to provide customers with the best user experience and win together with customers."

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/749374/UNISOC.jpgStatement of Matthew L. Myers, President, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids

WASHINGTON, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Tobacco giant British American Tobacco (BAT) faces a new legal complaint in Brazil for the company's use of social media influencers to advertise cigarettes on social networks like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Brazil is the second country in which legal action has been initiated as the result of big tobacco's secret use of social media to advertise cigarettes.

In Brazil and around the world, the tobacco industry's marketing on social media once again demonstrates that despite their claims to be reformed, tobacco companies like British American Tobacco continue to aggressively market their deadly products - and have found new ways to secretly do so, exploiting the vast and global reach of social media networks like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Filed with the Public Prosecutor's Office in Sao Paulo and Brazil's Consumer Protection Agency, the Brazilian complaint details how social media campaigns for Kent, Lucky Strike and Dunhill cigarettes violate Brazilian laws meant to curb smoking rates. The complaint was filed by ACT Brazil, a leading Brazilian advocacy group, and was supported by several Brazilian and international public health groups. The social media campaigns identified in Brazil feature tobacco industry-driven hashtags and social media influencers hired to promote cigarette brands on social media, making it impossible for consumers to identify this tactic as paid advertisements for cigarettes.

According to the complaint, "marketing is done in a stealth manner, through various actions and strategies that try to circumventlegislation." In Brazil and around the world, Big Tobacco's goal is clear: to make smoking cool to a new tech-savvy generation of young people and ensure lifelong customers.

The most commonly used hashtags in Brazil are AheadBR, Quemtepira, TasteTheCity and Readytoroll to advertise Kent, Dunhill and Lucky Strike cigarette brands on Facebook and Instagram, according to the complaint. The complaint exposes the extensive secret marketing strategies rolled out by BAT subsidiary Souza Cruz, which dominates the Brazilian cigarette market. An influencer who promoted Souza Cruz brands on social media stated in an interview that Souza Cruz wanted "to show that people who are normal, decent, cooland even so they smoke."

Today's legal action against BAT in Brazil is the second to be filed against BAT. In August, nine leading public health groups filed a petition with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. The U.S. complaint documents more than 100 social media campaigns by multinational tobacco giants Philip Morris International, British American Tobacco, Japan Tobacco International and Imperial Brands. Combined, these deceptive social media campaigns promoting tobacco products have been viewed more than 25 billion times worldwide on Twitter alone - including 8.8 billion times in the United States according to social media research commissioned by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

Brazil is unlikely to be the last country in which legal action is taken against BAT and other manufacturers as a result of their global social media marketing. Tobacco companies and their deadly marketing tactics remain the single greatest obstacle to curbing the global tobacco epidemic that kills seven million people each year. Without urgent action, tobacco use will kill one billion people around the world this century.

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/458701/campaign_for_tobacco_free_kids_logo.jpgEffRx Pharmaceuticals SA is proud to announce that recent data from a standardized clinical database suggest an improved safety and tolerability profile of Binosto (alendronate effervescent tablets) over conventional alendronate tablets in postmenopausal women with osteoporosis, translating into higher treatment persistence of patients. Binosto was also found to be as effective as traditional alendronate tablets based on assessment of bone mineral density scores and bone turnover markers.

The data will be presented as posters at the ASBMR 2018, the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research, held from the 28th of September until 01th October 2018 at the Palais des Congres de Montreal, in Montreal QC, Canada.

The poster entitled, "Persistence with Buffered Solution of Alendronate 70mg: Prospective Observational Study," authored by Giusti et al. presentation number SAT-0322, will be presented at the Congress in the ASBMR Discovery Hall Room 220 B-E on Saturday, 29th of September from 12:30-2:30 pm.

The second Binosto safety data poster, "Effect of Buffered Solution of Alendronate 70mg on Bone Mineral Density and Bone ALP: Prospective Observational Study," authored by Giusti et al. presentation number SUN-0697, will be presented by Prof. Dennis Black a day later at the Congress in the ASBMR Discovery Hall Room 220 B-E on Sunday, 30th of September from 12:30-2:30 pm.

Binosto, the world's first and only buffered soluble alendronate for the treatment of osteoporosis, was developed with the aim to capitalize on the excellent efficacy profile of alendronate sodium while improving gastrointestinal tolerability. Upper gastrointestinal side effects are known to be problematic with tablet forms of alendronate sodium as well as of other bisphosphonates.

"Poor adherence and persistence with oral bisphosphonates can result in patients being at increased risk of osteoporotic fractures," states Lorraine Zakin, MD, Director Medical Affairs at EffRx Pharmaceuticals. She further states, "the data presented therefore strongly suggest that alendronate effervescent tablets have substantial potential by increasing treatment persistence to improve the long-term outcome of patients with osteoporosis."

The American Society for Bone and Mineral Research (ASBMR) is a professional, scientific and medical society established to bring together clinical and experimental scientists who are involved in the study of bone and mineral metabolism. The conference attracts nearly 4'000 expert attendees from around the globe.

About EffRx Pharmaceuticals

EffRx Pharmaceuticals is a commercial-stage pharmaceutical company, which focuses on developing and commercializing prescription medications for specialty and orphan indications. EffRx actively seeks collaboration opportunities with U.S. bio-pharmaceutical companies, which are looking to commercialize their products in Europe. EffRx can act as accelerator of EU go-to-market strategies and be a spring board for an initial international set-up in Switzerland.

About Binosto

Binosto (alendronate 70 mg effervescent tablets) is the first and only buffered solution for the treatment of osteoporosis with proven antifracture efficacy. The buffered solution minimizes the possibility of exposing the esophagus (in case of reflux) and the stomach to acidified alendronate and thus reducing the risk of upper gastrointestinal toxicity1,2. It is taken once a week as an easy-to-swallow, buffered solution with no risk of a tablet getting lodged in the esophagus. Binosto has the potential to improve long-term patient adherence to therapy, thereby decreasing the risk of disabling fractures.

Disclaimer

Please refer to the official Binosto prescribing information and approved indications, contraindications, and warnings in your country.

References:

1. Hodges LA et al. Modulation of gastric pH by a buffered soluble effervescent formulation: A possible means of improving gastric tolerability of alendronate. International Journal of Pharmaceutics 2012;432:57-62.

2. Binosto 70mg SPC. www.mhra.gov.uk; accessed 25.09.2018

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180926005351/en/

Contacts:

EffRx Pharmaceuticals SA

Pamela Saredi

psaredi@effrx.comLIVERPOOL, England, September 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

Time is running out for more than two million motorists who now have only one month left if they want to make a claim against German carmaker VW, over the "Dieselgate" emissions scandal.

(Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/750097/SPG_Law_Logo.jpg )

VW owners and former owners could be entitled to up to 100% of the value of their vehicles in one of the largest class actions ever seen, but they must take action before the deadline one month from today.

SPG Law are inviting people who bought a diesel VW, Audi, Skoda or Seat cars car between 2008 and 2015 to join the claim before October 26 2018 on a no win, no fee basis.

SPG Law say they want to fight for the owners of diesel VW, Audi, Skoda or Seat cars who were misled by the VW group and are bringing their 'US approach' to group litigation to UK clients.

They're the sister company of a US firm called Sanders Phillips Grossman, which has already won over $1bn for its clients in the States, against major corporations including VW, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson.

Since the discovery of the fraud, VW has paid tens of billions of dollars of compensation and fines in the United States and has paid a 1 billion fine in Germany. Despite this VW has yet to pay any compensation to SPG's clients who purchased affected vehicles.

Harris Pogust, Founding Partner of SPG Law said: "Air pollution was recently described as 'the biggest environmental risk' to public health in Europe. Time is running out for UK consumers to hold VW to account for their actions by signing up to this important group litigation."

Harris Pogust, Founding Partner of SPG Law isavailable for interviews.

Statistics

In England and Wales, the estimated regional numbers of potential Claimants are:

South of England (excluding London) - 500,000

London - 430,000

North West - 260,000

West Midlands - 220,000

South West - 220,000

East Midlands - 180,000

Wales - 100,000

North East - 90,000

Notes to editors:Scott J. Hinkle has joined Hallstar, the global specialty chemistry company, as Chief Financial Officer. He will be based in Hallstar's corporate headquarters in Chicago, Illinois, reporting directly to Chairman and CEO, John J. Paro.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180926005216/en/

Hallstar Names Scott Hinkle as New Chief Financial Officer and Head of Global Shared Services (Photo: Business Wire)

Founded in 1986, Hallstar has become widely recognized for its innovative expertise in the areas of photostability science, renewable plasticizers, eco-based actives, phthalate replacements, natural olive chemistry and polymer modification. The company boasts research and development, manufacturing, and sales operations in China, Italy, France, and Brazil, in addition to the United States.

Hallstar recently announced a structural split into Hallstar Beauty and Hallstar Industrial, effective October 1, 2018. These two businesses will be supported by a Global Shared Services organization, which Hinkle will lead as part of his corporate role.

"Hallstar has dramatically increased its global footprint over the last few years," says Paro, "and now with our two commercial businesses, we have added significant operational complexity. Scott has not only global experience in the chemical industry, but a deep understanding of how to effectively run a high-performing shared services group. Creating a global center of excellence in the areas of Accounting, Finance, IT, Corporate Development, Marketing, and HR will be a key to Hallstar's success, and will allow our two businesses to reach their potential."

Scott was previously CFO for EnviroVac Industrial Services, ANGUS Chemical, and Water and Process Services at Ecolab. Before that, he spent 11 years at Nalco Company as Chief Accounting Officer and CFO for Nalco's EMEA operation. He is a graduate of Northern Illinois University with a degree in accountancy, and a certified public accountant. He, his wife and their three children reside in the Chicago suburb of Naperville.

About Hallstar:

Hallstar is a leading global provider of specialty chemistry solutions. The company takes a collaborative approach to every engagement, delivering technical support, chemistry expertise and industry knowledge that helps its customers make the most of their products, from concepts to the first production batches.

To learn more visit www.hallstar.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180926005216/en/

Contacts:

Hallstar

Marie Paro, 312-554-7470

mparo@hallstar.comMANAMA, Bahrain, September 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

Arcapita has completed eight transactions worth $1.8 billion in the senior living sector

in the senior living sector Number of US seniors aged 75+ expected to double and hit 40 million by 2035

Arcapita, a leading alternative investments firm with a track record of 80 transactions exceeding a total of $30 billion in value, has acquired a portfolio of senior living properties in Chicago, Illinois, bringing the firm's total assets under management in the sector to $350 million.

(Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/750113/Atif_A_Abdulmalik.jpg )



The transaction comes as Arcapita, which has been operating in the US since 1998, strengthens its market presence by moving to a new office in Atlanta and bolstering its US team with highly experienced real estate and private equity investment professionals.

The Chicago portfolio comprises two premium continuing care retirement communities with approximately 1100 units and is operated by Senior Care Development and Life Care Services; the second largest senior housing manager in the US with 130 communities across 32 states.

It is Arcapita's third senior living acquisition over the last 30 months, taking it to a total of eight transactions in the sector worth $1.8 billion. Arcapita has previously acquired six senior living communities with over 500 units in Washington D.C., Atlanta, Denver and Colorado Springs, and is a continuation of the firm's strategy of targeting quality housing assets in districts with affluent seniors across the US.

Atif A. Abdulmalik, Arcapita's Chief Executive Officer, said: "We have a strong track record in the sector, having previously managed and successfully exited five senior living portfolios, comprising over 70 properties in the US and UK, which delivered double-digit IRRs to our investors."

"The senior living sector is poised to experience outsized growth and is expected to continue to outperform the broader real estate market in the US. We intend to capitalize on the sector's performance to deliver a strong yield and attractive returns for our investors."

Martin Tan, Arcapita's Chief Investment Officer, added: "The demand for senior housing facilities in the US is underpinned by robust fundamentals. The 75 and over demographic is expected to double from 20 to over 40 million during the next two decades as the baby boomer generation reaches retirement age, and the supply of quality facilities remains limited."

"We are delighted to have acquired these assets. Both communities enjoy strong occupancies due to their strategic locations and offer continuum of care services which allow residents to age in the community. The properties are run by a seasoned senior housing manager with decades of industry experience and are anchored by significant demand from a sizeable and affluent senior population within their vicinity."

NOTES TO EDITORS

About Arcapita

Arcapita is a leading alternative investment manager, with offices in Bahrain, Atlanta, London and Singapore. Arcapita's principal lines of business are private equity and real estate, and its management has a 20-year track record of over 80 investments with a total transaction value in excess of $30 billion.

Further details on Arcapita can be found at www.arcapita.com.LONDON, PARIS and MONTREAL, November 7, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

Tishman Speyer, one of the world's leading owners, developers, operators and fund managers of first-class real estate around the world, and the Public Sector Pension Investment Board ("PSP Investments"), one of Canada's largest pension investment managers, today announced the sale of Tour Pacific to Societe Generale Insurance for an undisclosed amount.

PSP Investments and Tishman Speyer acquired the 53,000 sq.m. office building, located in Paris' La Defense business district, in 2013. Following an extensive renovation and refurbishment program that transformed this 20-year-old office tower into a modern and efficient building, they have successfully leased approximately 50,000 sq.m. to over 30 tenants including CA Technologies, McAfee, Whirlpool, Manhattan Associates, RSA, NTT and Accenture.

Tour Pacific's tenants benefit from an iconic and modern design, direct access to natural light and a rooftop garden, in addition to new amenities such as a lounge, conference centre and fitness space. The building is also well-connected to major transport hubs, making it easily accessible by bus, metro, train and tram. The building is certified HQE Exploitation Excellent and Wired Certified Platinum.

"Tishman Speyer is very proud of our contribution to the transformation of Tour Pacific," said Philippe Joland, Senior Managing Director, President of Tishman Speyer France SAS. "Our goal was to attract clients in the 800-3,000 sq.m. segment by creating a highly appealing office building with new services and amenities, while providing a great work environment for the end users. We also believe that managing the asset directly creates additional value through the development of a unique relationship with the tenants. Tour Pacific has become a long-term, high-quality asset with a core profile as evidenced by the sale to Societe Generale Insurance."

"Tour Pacific is an exemplary case of PSP's ability to align itself with best-in-class partners to execute on tactical value creation strategies in core global markets," said Stephane Jalbert, Managing Director, Real Estate (Europe and Asia Pacific) at PSP Investments. "Tour Pacific was modernized through a comprehensive refurbishment to meet the demands and expectations of today's tenants, while taking advantage of the unique building design and vibrant La Defense submarket."

About PSP Investments

The Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP Investments) is one of Canada's largest pension investment managers with CAD$153 billion of net assets as of March 31, 2018. It manages a diversified global portfolio composed of investments in public financial markets, private equity, real estate, infrastructure, natural resources and private debt. Established in 1999, PSP Investments manages net contributions to the pension funds of the federal Public Service, the Canadian Forces, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Reserve Force. Headquartered in Ottawa, PSP Investments has its principal business office in Montreal and offices in New York and London. For more information, visit investpsp.com or follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

About Tishman Speyer (tishmanspeyer.com)

Tishman Speyer is a leading owner, developer, operator and fund manager of first-class real estate around the world. Founded in 1978, Tishman Speyer is active across the United States, Europe, Latin America and Asia, building and managing premier office, residential and retail space in 28 key global markets for industry-leading tenants. The firm has acquired, developed and operated a portfolio of over 167 million square feet with a total value of approximately US $88 billion spread over 406 assets. Signature assets include New York City's Rockefeller Center, Sao Paulo's Torre Norte, The Springs in Shanghai, Lumiere in Paris and OpernTurm in Frankfurt. Tishman Speyer currently has projects at different stages of development in Boston, Brasilia, Frankfurt, Gurgaon, Hyderabad, Los Angeles, New York City, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, San Francisco, Sao Paulo, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Washington, DC. The firm also operates portfolios of prominent office properties in Berlin, Chicago and London.

About Societe Generale Insurance

Societe Generale Insurance is at the heart of Societe Generale Group's development strategy, in synergy with all its retail and private banking distribution networks in France and abroad. Societe Generale Insurance also pursues the expansion of its distribution model through the development of external partnerships. Present in France with Sogecap, Antarius, Sogessur and Oradea Vie, and in 10 countries abroad, Societe Generale Insurance offers a full range of products and services to meet the needs of individual, professional and corporate clients in Life Insurance Savings, Retirement Savings and Personal Protection. Drawing on the expertise of its 2,600 employees, Societe Generale Insurance posted revenues of 11.8 billion euros in 2017. It manages 114 billion euros of outstandings and 22 million contracts. Sogecap is rated A- by Standard & Poor's. For more information, you can follow us on Twitter @SG_Assurances or visit our website http://www.assurances.societegenerale.com.

Contact:

PSP Investments

Verena Garofalo

+1-514-218-3795

media@investpsp.com

Tishman Speyer

Caroline Simon

+33-1-53-70-74-65

Caroline.simon@image7.fr

ALBANY, New York, September 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

The global aluminum market is expected to grow significantly owing to highly competitive market scenario, along with being fragmented enough. It has several number of shares taken up by the large number of players in the market. Some of the major players leading the global aluminum market are China Limited, Norsk Hydro ASA, RUSAL, Emirates Global Aluminum PJSC, and RioTinto. These firms are getting into several strategic mergers and acquisitions to secure their position in the market.

(Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/664869/Transparency_Market_Research_Logo.jpg )

One of the recent and important development in the aluminum market has been the sanctions imposed by the U.S. Government over the Russian company Rusal, which currently is the second largest producers of aluminum in the World. That being said, influx of product owing to increased capacity of China and that itself of the U.S. is expected to fill the void in the near future.

Request a Sample of Aluminum Market:https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=S&rep_id=23807

According to Transparency Market Research (TMR), the demand in the global aluminum market is prognosticated to grow at a notable CAGR of 6.4% within the forecast period of 2017 to 2025, with an estimated revenue of around US$249.29 billion by 2025-end. On the basis of product, the aluminum market is categorized into plates, sheets and foils, cables, ingots, and wires. In 2017, the segment of ingots turn up as the most dominant one among others. Geographically, Asia Pacific region is anticipated to be the most profitable region, with China being the major producer. The region was evaluated to be a major shareholder with around 60% of it in the global market, in 2016, owing to rise in automobile and construction industry in various nations such as India, China, India, Malaysia, and Indonesia.

Request For Custom Research:https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=CR&rep_id=23807

Rising Urbanization to Fuel Market Development in Future

Well-established players in this immensely competitive environment of global aluminum market have embraced multi-pronged development systems to stay ahead in the race. The development of the construction industry after the financial drop in 2008, is among the major growth factor contributing in the global aluminum market. Specifically, fast urbanization and industrialization in the developing economies are also prompting the development of public and private structures represent popularity for aluminum alloys and aluminum itself. This is a result of their properties of diminished self-weight and corrosion resistance.

Request For Multiple Chapters:https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=MC&rep_id=23807

Rising Use of Aluminum in Automobiles to Contribute in Surged Demand

The expanding utilization of aluminum in automobiles to lessen their weight for efficiency is likewise tremendously profiting the aluminum sector. Another key factor driving development of the aluminum market is development of the automobile industry. Financial advancement and increase in spending capacity in the developing economies is prompting a considerable demand for vehicles. Surge in demand for vehicles has prompted a generous rise in fuel utilization, which thusly has stimulated in fuel costs in the region. To address this, car makers are substituting steel design with alloys of aluminum that diminishes the body weight of the vehicle considerably without bargaining on the quality and weight baring ability of the vehicle.

Request For Discount On This Report:https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/sample/sample.php?flag=D&rep_id=23807

This analysis is based on a recent market research report by Transparency Market Research, titled, "Aluminum Market (Type - Pure Aluminum and Aluminum Alloy; Product - Plates, Ingots, Sheets & Foils, and Cables & Wires; End-user - Transportation, Construction, Electrical, and Foils and Packaging) - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 2017 - 2025."

Key Takeaways:

The development of the construction industry after the financial drop in 2008, is among the major growth factor contributing in the global aluminum market. The expanding utilization of aluminum in automobiles to lessen their weight for efficiency is likewise tremendously profiting the aluminum sector.

The Aluminum Market has been segmented as follows:

Global Aluminum Market: By Type

Pure Aluminum

Aluminum Alloy

Global Aluminum Market: By Product

Plates

Ingots

Sheets & Foils

Cables & Wires

Others

Browse Popular Research Reports by TMR:

Manganese Carbonate Market: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/manganese-carbonate-market.html



Nanoclay Market: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/nanoclays-market.html



Specialty Chemicals Market: https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/specialty-chemicals-market.html

About Us

Transparency Market Research is a global market intelligence company, providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. Our experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants, use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information.

Our data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts, so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With a broad research and analysis capability, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques in developing distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.

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Transparency Market Research

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Research Blog: https://cmfenews.com/VANCOUVER, British Columbia, September 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

GoverMedia Plus Canada Corp ("GoverMedia" or the "Company"), is pleased to announce the following business updates and milestones:

- As of mid-September, the number of registered users on the GoverMedia platform reached approx. 270,000. The Company has set the target of reaching 1.0 million users in the next 12 months.

- GoverMedia has signed a letter of intent with Cocos Group - an intermediary platform providing innovative solutions for cooperation between producers and traders in the fashion world, located in Israel - for joint e-commerce and promotion activities in their respective platforms.

- The Company has signed an agreement with the Russian commercial bank AkBars Bank allowing GoverMedia's users the possibility to open bank accounts at attractive terms. AkBars Bank is one of the largest banks based on asset size in the Russian Federation.

- GoverMedia participated in the Russian-Chinese intergovernmental delegation in the People's Republic of China at the beginning of Sept. where advanced discussions were conducted with the top management of Chinese companies. These included iFLYTEK CO, where an agreement was reached to draft a plan for potential cooperation.

(Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/648491/GoverMedia_Plus_Logo.jpg )



Roland Bopp, CEO, commented: "Besides expanding the user base exponentially in the Russian speaking countries, GoverMedia's strategic objective is to grow the user base in rapidly growing key markets outside the Russian speaking countries. Based upon market assessments conducted by independent third parties, we expect the e-commerce cross-border transaction volume between the Russian speaking countries and China and Israel to grow rapidly. We are pleased to have initiated these discussions with major companies in China as we see a fast user growth between these two large economies. We also signed an LoI with the Israeli fashion company, Cocos Group. GoverMedia Plus is on track to reach its objectives of 1.0 million within the next 12 months".

To read the full press release please click here.

Contact:

Roland J. Bopp

President and CEO

+1-(888) 672-4415MUNICH and MARTINSRIED, GERMANY / ACCESSWIRE / September 26, 2018 / Secarna Pharmaceuticals ("Secarna"), a new breed biopharmaceutical company focusing on the discovery and development of antisense oligonucleotide (ASO) therapies to address challenging or previously undruggable targets in a number of organ systems, announced today that results from two preclinical development programs will be publicized for the first time in two poster presentations at the 14th Annual Meeting of the Oligonucleotide Therapeutics Society (OTS). 'The Oligo Meeting' will be held from September 30 to October 3, 2018, in Seattle, Washington, USA.

Poster Title: "Targeting the Immunosuppressive Tumor Microenvironment with 3rd Generation Antisense Oligonucleotides"

Presenter: Dr. Frank Jaschinski, CSO of Secarna Pharmaceuticals

Session: Poster Session I; Sunday, September 30, 2018, 6p.m. - 8p.m. PDT

Secarna's proprietary third generation ASOs targeting immunosuppressive factors are able to achieve potent target suppression in the relevant cell types in vivo and can induce potent anti-tumor effects as a monotherapy and a combination therapy with antibody-based checkpoint inhibitors, consequently enhancing survival. In conclusion, the Company has developed highly innovative immunotherapeutic tools that have the potential to fundamentally improve treatment options for cancer patients in the future.

Poster Title: "Improving the Selection Process of Potential Antisense Oligonucleotides by Bioinformatic Tools"

Presenter: Sven Michel, PhD, Scientist at Secarna Pharmaceuticals

Session: Poster Session II; Monday, October 01, 2018, 5p.m. - 7p.m. PDT

OligofyerTM, Secarna's best-in-class high throughput screening system for the development of ASOs can be used to crawl the public databases from NCBI and ENSEMBL. Additionally, human mRNA and all associated intronic sequences, mice, rat and ape genomes were investigated to characterize each potential ASO according to its off-target profile and its potential cross-reactivity to other species. Using screening data of previous experiments, criteria for target activity were identified and implemented allowing the Company to markedly improve the activity prediction resulting in an outstanding hit-rate.

About Secarna Pharmaceuticals GmbH & Co. KG

Secarna Pharmaceuticals is the next generation antisense oligonucleotide (ASO) company with multiple innovative antisense therapies in various stages of pre-clinical development in the areas of immunooncology, ophthalmology, immunology, fibrotic diseases (airways, liver, kidney), and anti-viral applications. Secarna's mission is to maximize the performance and output of its proprietary LNAplusTM antisense oligonucleotide discovery platform, to develop highly specific, safe, and efficacious antisense therapies for challenging or currently not druggable targets. www.secarna.com

Contact

Jonas Renz

Managing Director and Co-Founder

Jonas.Renz@secarna.com

Secarna Pharmaceuticals GmbH & Co. KG

Am Klopferspitz 19

82152 Planegg/Martinsried

Tel.: +49 (0)89 215 46 375

For media enquiries:

Anne Hennecke

MC Services AG

anne.hennecke@mc-services.eu

Tel.: +49 (0)211.52 92 52 22

SOURCE: Secarna Pharmaceuticals

View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/512797/Secarna-Pharmaceuticals-to-hold-poster-presentations-on-two-development-programs-at-the-14th-Annual-Meeting-of-the-Oligonucleotide-Therapeutics-SocietyVancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - September 26, 2018) - RT Minerals Corp. (TSXV: RTM) (OTC Pink: RTMFD) (the "Company") announces that pursuant to an Agreement dated September 25, 2018, the Company has agreed to sell its 100% interest in the Dog Lake Gold Property located approximately 59 km northeast of Wawa, Ontario to Manitou Gold Inc. ("Manitou") for consideration of $5,000 and 800,000 common shares of Manitou.

This transaction is subject to the acceptance of the TSX Venture Exchange and approval by the boards of the Company and Manitou.

For more information on the Company and its properties, please visit the Company's website at www.rtmcorp.com.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Donald M. Clark

Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer

RT Minerals Corp.

Telephone: 604-681-3170

Fax: 604-681-3552

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Service Provider (as the term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy of accuracy of this news release.Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - September 26, 2018) - MediaValet Inc. (TSXV: MVP), a leading provider of cloud-based enterprise digital asset management (DAM) software, is proud to announce that it has completed migrating 100% of existing customers to its upgraded platform, MediaValet V4, announced in May 2018. All MediaValet customers now benefit from V4's benchmark application speed and platform scalability, along with powerful new innovative features, including Advanced Search, Multi-Libraries, and in-app Interactive User Guides.

Figure 1: MediaValet Completes V4 Migration Dramatically Increasing Customer Value and User-Experience, While Reducing Operating Costs

To view an enhanced version of Figure 1, please visit:

http://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/3817/38915_a1537939938659_89.jpg

"V4 is the single largest R&D project we've completed in the history in MediaValet," commented David MacLaren, Founder and CEO of MediaValet. "Today, we offer the fastest, 100% cloud-based, enterprise-class, DAM system - on the planet! We're available in-country, on more data centres, than any other DAM; And, we're the only DAM that offers unlimited users, support and training, triple redundancy and geo-replication. We do all of this and still adhere to the highest security standards in North America and Europe. As our competitors are realizing, it's simply hard to ignore us today. Thanks to V4 and the hard work of our R&D team, our sales funnel and conversion rates are the highest they've ever been."

Migrating from V3 to V4 was a significant milestone for MediaValet as it represents a complete backend rewrite using Microsoft's next generation cloud application platform, Azure Service Fabric. This is the same foundational platform at the heart of various core Microsoft Azure products, including SQL and Cosmos DB databases, and Event and IoT Hubs. In addition to providing a longer planning horizon for architectural and infrastructure product updates, some of the other benefits to MediaValet and its customers include:

Accelerated System Performance - V4 delivers unrivaled system speed, with search times >50% faster than V3, and sustained asset ingestion rates increasing to an average of 1.7 TBs per day per org unit. "V4's speed boggles the mind! Sometimes I forget MediaValet's a cloud-based application as it feels more like an on-prem solution; and in many cases, it even beats those," Commented James Word, Business Analyst at IO Integration.

Advanced Integration and Increased Adoption - Gartner reported MediaValet as having more enterprise focus in its customer mix compared to its direct competitors. V4 delivers enhanced functionality, enabling these enterprise customers to access all of MediaValet's features, as micro-services, through its industry leading API. As a result, MediaValet's developer community has more than doubled since V4 launched.

Enhanced Security - Already a leading vendor for organizations that highly value security, V4 enhances application level security by leveraging Azure KeyVault for data protection and compliance. MediaValet now uses HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) to increase protection for customers against protocol downgrade attacks and cookie hijacking.

Increased Innovation and Efficiency at Scale - Event-based architecture and implementation of microservices enables MediaValet to innovate faster and to achieve higher compute density, resulting in 45% cost efficiency at scale compared to the classic cloud compute infrastructure.

"What previously took us months of coding can now be done in a matter of days, enabling us to innovate and address customer requests at lightening speeds and at less cost," commented Jean Lozano, CTO of MediaValet.

Continued Mr. MacLaren, "We set out to make the next evolution of MediaValet truly ground-breaking. With the overwhelmingly positive feedback we've received from customers managing from as little as a few 100 GBs to well over 50 TBs, across teams of dozens to tens of thousands, believe we've not only achieved this goal, but have gone well beyond. In addition to the positive feedback, we're also seeing customer adoption and usage numbers steadily increasing. We believe this is the ultimate measure of a system's success."

Mr. MacLaren added, "From a cost perspective, we're now able to reduce our operating costs, while still continuing to provide the industry leading levels of support and innovation for which we are known. With V3 being fully retired, we expect to see an annualized reduction in cost-of-sales of $150,000, bringing gross margin back to a healthy 80% range. In addition, we are now able to lock in an annualized reduction of $400,000 in R&D costs compared to fiscal 2017 levels. With all legacy platform code now retired, we're able to achieve this cost savings without sacrificing our innovation roadmap which includes a multitude of exciting new features in the months to come. We expect that these innovations will further increase growth rate, our market share, and our customer adoption."

About MediaValet Inc.

MediaValet stands at the forefront of the enterprise, cloud-based, digital asset management industry. Built exclusively on Microsoft Azure and available within 140 countries, across 54 Microsoft data center regions around the world, MediaValet delivers unparalleled enterprise class security, reliability, redundancy and scalability while offering the largest global footprint of any DAM solution. In addition to providing all core DAM capabilities and local desktop-to-cloud support for creative teams, MediaValet offers industry leading integrations into Slack, Adobe Creative Suite, Microsoft Office 365, Oracle Marketing Cloud (Eloqua), Drupal 8, WordPress, Hootsuite and many other best-in-class 3rd party applications.

Follow MediaValet: Blog, Twitter and LinkedIn

Surf: www.mediavalet.com

For further information, please contact:

David MacLaren

Tel: (604) 688-2321

david.maclaren@mediavalet.com

Babak Pedram

Tel: (416) 644-5081

babak.pedram@mediavalet.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."PALM BEACH, Florida, September 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

Marketnewsupdates.com News Commentary

The Cannabis industry continues its eccentric growth as it becomes one of the more powerful and influential markets in the global economy. Leaders in the space are rapidly expanding operations on the heels of increased investment from both private and public sources. Cannabis is already a multi-billion dollar market in 2018 and is projected to hit $25 billion by 2025, according to New Frontier Data. Some project that number to triple by 2030 as growth continues to accelerate. Popular methods for expansion include the acquisitions of land, as well as investing into plant and equipment to increase output efficiency. With a number of states expected to advance cannabis legalization measures in the next 24 months and Canada being at the door step for full legalization, more consumers will be able to access legal cannabis in the years to come which is great news for active cannabis stocks in the markets including: CROP Infrastructure Corp. (CSE:CROP) (OTC:CRXPF), Canopy Growth Corporation (TSX:WEED) (NYSE:CGC), Aurora Cannabis Inc. (TSX:ACB) (OTC:ACBFF), Liberty Health Sciences Inc. (CSE:LHS) (OTC:LHSIF), Terra Tech Corp. (OTC:TRTC).

CROP Infrastructure Corp. (CSE:CROP) (OTCPK:CRXPF) BREAKING NEWS: CROP Infrastructure announces that its subsidiary Elite Ventures Group LLC has signed a joint venture agreement with The Hempire LLC of Nevada (the "Tenant") to purchase a 100% interest in an 1,000 acre Esmeralda County agricultural cannabis project tenanted with a suite of cannabis licenses including medical cultivation, medical production and with adult use recreational cultivation & production conditional licenses as well as an option to acquire a retail dispensary application assigned to a strategic location on highway 95 on route to Las Vegas. CROP has agreed to loan up to $4,250,000 USD over a period of the next 6 months to acquire 100% of the initial 10 acres of real estate and associated infrastructure with the additional 1,000 acres being paid for at a cost of $4,500,000 over a 20-year amortization period at 6% interest with a 3-year balloon payment. CROP will receive preferential payback on the project at a rate of 60% of the net profits from Elite.

Esmerelda County is one of the only jurisdictions in Nevada where climate and zoning allows for greenhouse or outdoor growing. This will be significant for our tenant growers and brand licensee to be able to provide high quality product on a large scale at the lowest cost possible, keeping with CROP's strategy.

The initial set up costs of outdoor 80-acre operation will be approximately $1,200,000 and should yield tenants 160,000 pounds of outdoor cannabis for extraction and edibles and a 44,000 square foot light supplemented greenhouse facility at a cost of $2.0 Million. The greenhouse facility should yield tenants 24,000 pounds of high quality flower per year with an additional 25% for extraction and edibles. The project can be expanded up to 300 acres of combined greenhouse and outdoor cultivation. Read this full announcement and more news for CROP Infrastructure at:http://www.marketnewsupdates.com/news/crop.html



Additional cannabis industry related developments from around the markets:

Aurora Cannabis Inc. (TSX:ACB.TO) (OTCQB:ACBFF) recently announced it has partnered with Elevate, Canada's Tech Week, to present a stand-out roster of panel discussions and interactive sessions with innovators and pioneers in the cannabis industry. As a gold partner of Elevate, Canada's largest tech and innovation festival, Aurora has been instrumental in shaping the Elevate Cannabis and Elevate Health tracks that will feature leading experts in research, medicine, finance and entrepreneurship in the cannabis industry. "We are thrilled to partner with Elevate this year. This conference is about showcasing Canada as a leader in technology as well as demonstrating a diverse and inclusive society. This is precisely what Aurora stands for - innovation, community, culture," says Paula Whitmore , Director, Partnerships and Events, Aurora. "The line-up of speakers and topics demonstrates our desire to work with different industries to develop innovative solutions and products in the recreational and medical environments."

Canopy Growth Corporation (TSX:WEED.TO) (NYSE:CGC) News: Organigram Holdings Inc. (TSXV:OGI.V) (OTCQB:OGRMF), the parent company of Organigram Inc. and Canopy Growth Corporation, leading licensed producers of cannabis recently announced that following Organigram's approval as a cannabis supplier in the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, the Companies have signed a two-year supply and distribution agreement. Organigram will become a key supplier of branded, finished cannabis products to Canopy Growth's Tweed-branded retail operations in Newfoundland and Labrador once adult recreational cannabis is legalized in Canada on October 17 th, 2018. Canopy Growth will also perform a B2B sales function for Organigram by marketing its portfolio to other licensed retail outlets in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Liberty Health Sciences Inc. (CSE:LHS.CN) (OTCQX:LHSIF) recently announced it has entered an exclusive partnership with AdaViv Inc., a hardware-enabled, predictive agriculture company, to improve production of cannabis at its Liberty Health Sciences 360 Innovation Campus in Gainesville, FL. AdaViv will integrate its adaptive Computer Vision software and Machine Learning platform into Liberty's 360 Innovation Campus and, together, will look to push the state-of-the-art in greenhouse technology and precision growing to new levels of productivity and efficiency. AdaViv's technology enables 24/7 plant-level inspection as well as AI computer vision to uncover hidden plant biometrics that translates data into actionable insights for growers like Liberty. Founded by an interdisciplinary team of MIT researchers and alumni, AdaViv is led by Dr. Ian Seiferling (CEO), Julian Ortiz (COO, MBA MIT Sloan '19) and Dr. Thomas Matarazzo (CTO). AdaViv emerged from MIT Delta V, the capstone entrepreneurship accelerator at MIT, and the MIT DesignX accelerator. In 2018, AdaViv was selected as one of the first grantees of Microsoft AI for Earth.

Terra Tech Corp. (OTCQX: TRTC) earlier this week announced that the City of Santa Ana has granted its East Dyer Road, East Carnegie Avenue and South Tech Center Drive locations vertically-integrated Phase I permits. These permits allow the Company to commence development of cultivation, manufacturing and distribution capabilities at these locations. Moreover, upon completion of the build-out of each location's facilities, they also confer upon the Company the right to apply for Phase II permits which are needed to commence commercial activities. The Company is expanding its presence in Southern California as the state's cannabis market continues its transformation from a black market economy into a multibillion-dollar, regulated market. By opening several locations across Santa Ana, each of which will benefit from vertical integration and will house the Company's recognizable 'Blum' dispensary brand, the Company is positioning itself as a major supplier of medical and adult-use cannabis to all the surrounding cities, such as Irvine, Laguna Beach and Newport Beach, all of which currently suffer from a scarcity of existing cannabis dispensaries. When completed, the Company's expanded cultivation and extraction capabilities will allow it to ramp production of its proprietary IVXX cannabis products, which are grown and harvested under the safest and most beneficial conditions. All IVXX products are thoughtfully produced, rigorously tested and certified to the highest standards of potency and purity for sale at the Company's proprietary Blum dispensaries as well as at third party dispensaries..

DISCLAIMER: FN Media Group LLC (FNM), which owns and operates FinancialNewsMedia.com and MarketNewsUpdates.com (FNM) is a third party publisher and news dissemination service provider, which disseminates electronic information through multiple online media channels. FNM is NOT affiliated in any manner with any company mentioned herein. FNM and its affiliated companies are a news dissemination solutions provider and are NOT a registered broker/dealer/analyst/adviser, holds no investment licenses and may NOT sell, offer to sell or offer to buy any security. FNM's market updates, news alerts and corporate profiles are NOT a solicitation or recommendation to buy, sell or hold securities. The material in this release is intended to be strictly informational and is NEVER to be construed or interpreted as research material. All readers are strongly urged to perform research and due diligence on their own and consult a licensed financial professional before considering any level of investing in stocks. All material included herein is republished content and details which were previously disseminated by the companies mentioned in this release. FNM is not liable for any investment decisions by its readers or subscribers. Investors are cautioned that they may lose all or a portion of their investment when investing in stocks. For current services performed FNM has been compensated forty nine hundred dollars for news coverage of the current press release issued above by CROP Infrastructure Corp. by a non affiliated third party. FNM HOLDS NO SHARES OF ANY COMPANY NAMED IN THIS RELEASE.

This release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended and such forward-looking statements are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. "Forward-looking statements" describe future expectations, plans, results, or strategies and are generally preceded by words such as "may", "future", "plan" or "planned", "will" or "should", "expected," "anticipates", "draft", "eventually" or "projected". You are cautioned that such statements are subject to a multitude of risks and uncertainties that could cause future circumstances, events, or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements, including the risks that actual results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors, and other risks identified in a company's annual report on Form 10-K or 10-KSB and other filings made by such company with the Securities and Exchange Commission. You should consider these factors in evaluating the forward-looking statements included herein, and not place undue reliance on such statements. The forward-looking statements in this release are made as of the date hereof and FNM undertakes no obligation to update such statements.

Contact Information:

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Unique training will be available for students and businesses to learn how to use industrial robots

Greenville Technical College (GTC) and KUKA USA have formed a unique partnership that will allow KUKA to train employees of its global customers at GTC's Center for Manufacturing Innovation (CMI) and give GTC students access to the same resources.

The partnership helps the Center for Manufacturing Innovation work to advance the level of technical training offered to students seeking associate degrees in advanced manufacturing technologies. Students will soon have the opportunity to earn an industry-recognized KUKA certificate as part of their studies.

The GTC Center for Manufacturing Innovation is one of three facilities in the U.S. that has access to this level of robotics training, the second being KUKA's North American headquarters in Michigan and the third at KUKA's west coast location in Fremont, California.

"We are excited to work with KUKA," said David Clayton, executive director at the Center for Manufacturing Innovation. "KUKA is an industry leader in robotics and automation, and this partnership will build on our vision for CMI as the hub for advanced manufacturing in the southeast. The partnership gives our students access to the latest technology and curricula, allowing them to earn a certificate that will set them apart in their careers."

Four large robot cells have been installed at CMI, and a dedicated KUKA trainer began offering classes in early September. This equipment adds to CMI's diverse set of manufacturing technologies including 5-axis machining centers, fully automated manufacturing assembly systems, and additive manufacturing technology. Thousands of KUKA robots have been installed in the region supporting advanced manufacturers.

"As manufacturing industries, such as automotive and aerospace, continue to grow in the southeast, technical and robotics training will only become more prevalent," said Joe Gemma, chief regional officer at KUKA USA. "We're excited to partner with Greenville Technical College to help students and businesses alike improve their knowledge with our advanced robots and in-depth training."

Earlier this year, the Vehicle Assembly Center opened at CMI in cooperation with Clemson University, BMW, and other partners to test new manufacturing processes and technologies away from the factory floor. Students experience scenarios related to safety, facility planning, and integrated systems without interrupting production as they complete research and development projects. This center also bridges the gap between the education of the engineer and technician, as students from Greenville Technical College and Clemson work together in teams to meet the demands of industrial clients.

Since the Center for Manufacturing Innovation opened nearly two years ago, it has helped to create awareness of opportunities in manufacturing with nearly 7,000 visitors including students from dozens of schools coming through the doors. Since 2016, enrollment in programs offered at CMI has grown rapidly, with nearly 500 students enrolled in mechatronics and machine tool technology programs and more than 800 pursuing manufacturing-related education.

To learn more about GTC, KUKA, as well as their partnership to improve training resources in the southeast, please visit www.gvltec.edu and www.kuka.com.

About KUKA

KUKA is a global automation corporation with sales of around 3.5 billion euro and around 14,200 employees. As leading global supplier of intelligent automation solutions, KUKA offers its customers in the automotive, electronics, consumer goods, metalworking, logistics/e-commerce, healthcare and service robotics industries everything they need from a single source: from components and cells to fully automated systems. The KUKA Group is headquartered in Augsburg.

About Greenville Technical College

Greenville Technical College (GTC) is a five-campus system where nearly 30,000 students are annually preparing for the strongest careers of today and tomorrow. Established in 1962, the college's mission is to transform students' lives and help the community thrive by providing a world-class, affordable education. With more than 100 curriculum program choices along with short-term training for career and personal development, Greenville Technical College gives employers a ready supply of skilled workers and provides students with an education that will help them succeed.

First accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges in 1968, the college's accreditation was reaffirmed in 2013 for a ten-year period the maximum time period possible. Regional accreditation allows students to transfer easily and gives employers assurance that job candidates from Greenville Technical College have received a quality education.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180926005274/en/

Contacts:

Greenville Technical College

Becky Mann, 864.250.8305

becky.mann@gvltec.edu

or

KUKA

Lisa Kennedy, 586.822.0413

lisa.kennedy@kuka.comContract Development and Manufacturing Organization successfully realizes a new creative format

18 participants worked over a three month period on the 'injection of the future'

Multidisciplinary teams developed new ideas for the use of digital trends

The winning idea was awarded the EUR 10,000 prize

Taking part in the Open Innovation Challenge Injection 2.0, which initially began in June, 18 participants consisting of four teams submitted their ideas on how digital trends can be made to be both useful and profitable in the everyday life of its users. Following workshops and field phases, Vetter has now awarded the winner of the challenge. A method to improve the documentation process as it pertains to the administration of drugs, helping to make the process easier, faster and safer. The winning team received a prize of EUR 10,000. As a next step, the Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization (CDMO) will decide which project ideas or elements will be worked on in the future.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180926005504/en/

Vetter management representatives including Managing Director Thomas Otto (second from right), jury members Eva-Maria Markutzik (EIT Health Germany, first right) and Prof. Dr. med. habil. Folker Wenzel (HFU Furtwangen, fifth from right) congratulate the members of the winning team at the symbolic check hand-over. Picture source: Vetter Pharma International GmbH

The four teams were arranged in a multidisciplinary fashion, including students and professionals from the fields of medicine and economic sciences, as well as members of the Vetter staff. The project itself is considered innovative, as is the employment of the user-centered method 'Design Thinking'. Following the June kick-off workshop, participants entered into dialogue with the users of injectables, in particular, caregivers and patients. With the help of this first-hand knowledge, the teams first designed initial idea concepts and prototypes for discussion and testing among potential users. Further development followed. On September 25, the four groups presented their ideas in short presentations at the company's Ravensburg Vetter West site. The jury deciding the final winner consisted of Prof. Dr. med. habil. Folker Wenzel, a practicing physician and academic dean for technical physicians at the HFU Furtwangen, Eva-Maria Makutzik, an innovation manager at EIT Health Germany, complemented by senior management representatives of the organizing company Vetter.

"As a leading Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization that teams up with our globally active pharma and biotech customers, we want to bring the needs of users into even greater focus for future activities. Only through this action can we provide patients around the world, in alliance with our customers, with even better and more up-to-date services related to the delivery of injectables," said Dr. Claus Feussner, Senior Vice President Vetter Development Service. "The format of the Open Innovation Challenge Injection 2.0, which targets new approaches in injectable delivery, was an overall success. We were impressed not only with the results of the participating teams, but also their general approach and team spirit created during the challenge."

These positive outcomes are the reasons why Vetter is considering the establishment of such formats, in addition to its proven processes. In this way, the company strives to promote and advance its innovation capabilities. Through the application of these measures, the CDMO significantly contributes to the preservation of quality of life for patients, both today and into the future.

Participant Tobias Schloegl, a project manager with responsibilities for realizing development projects of pharma and biotech customers within Vetter, also expressed his satisfaction for the challenge. "Joining the Vetter Open Innovation Challenge was a great experience. By doing so, we had the significant opportunity of developing, testing and implementing our own ideas in close consultation with subject matter experts as well as the end-users themselves. This was an exciting and demanding challenge for everyone involved, and one which only a few companies are able to offer."

Find the Vetter press kit, additional press releases, high-resolution pictures and more background information in our Download Center

About Vetter

Headquartered in Ravensburg, Germany, Vetter is a global leading contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) with production facilities in Germany and the United States. Currently employing 4,400 individuals worldwide, the company has long-term experience in supporting biotechnology and pharmaceutical customers both large and small. Vetter services range from early stage development support including clinical manufacturing, to commercial supply and numerous packaging solutions for vials, syringes and cartridges. As a leading solution provider, Vetter appreciates its responsibility to support the needs of its customers by developing devices that contribute to increased patient safety, convenience, and enhanced compliance. Great importance is also given to social responsibility including environmental protection and sustainability. Learn more about Vetter at www.vetter-pharma.com.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180926005504/en/

Contacts:

Vetter Pharma International GmbH

Markus Kirchner

Corporate Spokesperson Media Relations

Phone: +49 (0)751-3700-3729

E-mail: PRnews@vetter-pharma.comChatham, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - September 26, 2018) - AgMedica Bioscience Inc. ("AGMEDICA" or the "Company"), a licensed producer of medicinal cannabis, is pleased to announce the signing of an exclusive strategic investment and cooperation agreement (the "Agreement") with MedC Biopharma Corp. ("MEDC"), a company focused on developing and commercializing pharma-grade solutions for cannabis-related intellectual property ("IP"). As partners under the Agreement, AGMEDICA and MEDC plan to jointly develop cannabis-derived products and formulations focused on specific clinical targets in oncology, inflammation and psychological disorders.

AGMEDICA and MEDC will leverage the exclusive licensing agreements that MEDC has with Israel's Agricultural Research Organization ("ARO") in specific therapeutic areas. After a decade of research, ARO holds one of the world's largest IP repositories in pharmaceutical cannabis research. AGMEDICA and MEDC will focus their experienced management and scientific teams in Canada and Israel to accelerate the development of therapeutic products for human and veterinary use. This partnership represents a significant milestone for AGMEDICA as it seeks to investigate and develop clinically-validated cannabis-derived medicines that provide substantiated health and wellness benefits.

Under the terms of the Agreement, AGMEDICA has taken a US$2 million equity position in MEDC, which represents approximately 9% of the current shares outstanding, with an option to significantly increase this position to US$5 million, which would bring AGMEDICA's total position in MEDC to 20%. The agreement also provides AGMEDICA with the exclusive rights to commercialize therapeutics developed by MEDC in Canada and the right of first refusal for global commercialization outside of Israel.

"We are very pleased with our investment and strategic partnership with MEDC, which represent a strong base for extending the range of our pharma-cannabis products and enabling us to deliver higher quality results with a shorter time to market," said Dr. Trevor Henry, CEO of AGMEDICA. "This Agreement enables AGMEDICA and MEDC to take a leadership role in the development of medicines that can confirm the therapeutic value of cannabis and cannabis-derived products while also meeting the stringent thresholds of essential clinical data required to ascertain appropriate dosing."

About AgMedica Bioscience Inc.

As a licensed producer of medicinal cannabis, AGMEDICA is dedicated to becoming a global leader in the development and commercialization of cannabis and cannabis-derived products to support the health and wellness of our clients. We aspire to drive the evolution of the cannabis industry by focussing investment on the development and commercialization of differentiated products in the medicinal, health & wellness and pharmaceutical sectors. The Company's established Riverview Cultivation Facility is located in Chatham, Ontario, and Phase I of our first innovative multi-tier cultivation facility is currently in production with a total annual capacity of 6,000 kg of medical-grade cannabis. Construction on Phase II of the Riverview Cultivation Facility is well under way, with completion and start-up expected in Q1 2019 which will bring total annual capacity up to 26,500 kg.

About MedC Biopharma Corporation

MEDC has exclusive licensing agreements with the State of Israel's Cannabis Research Laboratory at ARO Volcani, headed by Professor Hinanit Koltai, for the development of formulated medications based on active pharmaceutical ingredients present in Cannabis. MEDC's capabilities expand into the breadth of the Israeli biopharma industry, including cooperation with companies such as Nextar Chemipharma Ltd, Nextage Ltd, and PathoLogica Ltd. MEDC plans to enter clinical trials for its first product, a treatment for CTCL (a form of skin cancer), by the end of 2018.

For media or other inquiries, please contact:

AgMedica Bioscience Inc.

Dr. Trevor Henry, CEO

P: 1-844-247-4633

E: info@AgMedica.ca

MedC Biopharma Corp.

Avi Drori, Managing Director

P: 702-482-0341

E: avi@medc.bio

Disclaimer

This press release contains forward-looking information based on current expectations. These statements should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from those implied by such statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the availability of further financing, consumer interest in its products, competition, regulation, operational and technological risks, and anticipated and unanticipated costs and delays. The Company assumes no responsibility to update or revise forward-looking information to reflect new events or circumstances unless required by law.PALM BEACH, Florida, September 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

MarketNewsUpdates.com News Commentary

The rising overall excitement building in the Cannabis markets is everywhere as many are keeping a close eye on the massive global potential of the marijuana industry as legalization is just days away in Canada. Validation of the potential seems to be apparent as it was reported by BNNBloomberg.com recently that New Age Beverages Corp., which surged as much as 45% on September 5th merely for indicating it tested a cannabis-infused beverage in Colorado at the Liolios Gateway Conference in San Francisco. Also it was reported by Bloomberg.com this month that Coca-Cola said it's monitoring the nascent industry and is interested in drinks infused with CBD -- the non-psychoactive ingredient in marijuana that treats pain but doesn't get you high. However Coke downplayed the speculation recently but did indicate "we are closely watching the growth of non-psychoactive CBD as an ingredient in functional wellness beverages around the world. The space is evolving quickly. No decisions have been made at this time." This could be a great indication of things to come all while companies are already looking to the next phase of in the booming Cannabis industry. Active Cannabis companies today include: MYM Nutraceuticals Inc. (CSE:MYM) (OTC:MYMMF), Aleafia Health Inc. (TSX-V:ALEF) (OTC:ALEAF), Choom Holdings Inc. (CSE:CHOO) (OTC:CHOOF), Auxly Cannabis Group Inc. (TSX-V:XLY) (OTC:CBWTF), InMed Pharmaceuticals Inc. (TSX:IN) (OTC:IMLFF).

MYM Nutraceuticals Inc. (OTCQB:MYMMF) (CSE:MYM.CN) BREAKING NEWS: MYM Nutraceuticals is pleased to announce that it has entered into an agreement with Amsterdam-based Dutch Passion Seed Company for the production and distribution of Dutch Passion branded products and seed genetics in Canada. This follows the August announcements of similar agreements between Dutch Passion and MYM for production and distribution of branded products and seed genetics in Australia and Colombia.



Established in 1987, Dutch Passion is the second-oldest European Cannabis seed company and for over 30 years has been a leading innovator of seed genetics. Dutch Passion has developed its own proprietary genetics and owns a seed collection of international cannabis genetics dating back to the 1970s. The company has won more than 50 Cannabis Cups for its high-THC, easy-to-grow varieties. Dutch Passion also invented feminized cannabis seeds in the 1990s and, more recently, helped pioneer the success of high-THC auto-flowering cannabis seeds.



"We are thrilled to be working with Dutch Passion in Australia, Colombia and now Canada. With over 30 years' experience in the development and distribution of cannabis seeds, they are widely recognized as world leaders," said Rob Gietl, CEO of MYM. "As legal production of cannabis has been rapidly increasing worldwide, so has the demand for seed genetics. The Dutch Passion portfolio of seeds will prove to be a very valuable asset to MYM and its shareholders."



Eric Siereveld, CEO of Dutch Passion commented, "There were a lot of options when we were considering working with producers in Canada. We chose to partner with MYM because of their strong network and organization in the global cannabis industry. We are confident that MYM has the best environment to maximize the potential of the genetic products we offer."



Dutch Passion agrees to give MYM exclusive rights in Canada to produce and distribute under the Dutch Passion brand, all products that Dutch Passion sells currently and may sell in the future, including: clones, flowers, pre-rolled joints and other cannabis products. Dutch Passion also agrees to give MYM non-exclusive rights in Canada to produce and/or distribute cannabis seeds under the Dutch Passion brand. MYM will make Dutch Passion its flagship brand of cannabis seeds for sale in Canada and Dutch Passion will list MYM as an official distributor of products in Canada.

Dutch Passion will allow MYM and its subsidiaries access to all its seed strains for MYM's breeding and production programs and will provide Dutch Passion a 1000 square-metre section in their production facility to co-develop new genetics. Read this entire Company update and more news for MYM Nutraceuticals at:http://www.marketnewsupdates.com/news/mymmf.html

In other cannabis developments of note:

Aleafia Health Inc. (TSXV:ALEF) (OTCQX:ALEAF) has entered into a letter of intent to acquire a 51-per-cent stake in One Plant, an adult-use cannabis retail operation led by members of the Serruya family, including Aaron Serruya, the president of International Franchise Inc., which has over 4,500 franchise locations in over 50 countries. The Serruya family has also been a leading force in the cannabis industry as early investors of Aphria and the majority shareholder of Liberty Health Sciences. Together, the two parties will form a joint venture. The JV marks the first phase of a multiphase strategy that will see Aleafia enter the adult use cannabis industry and related retail operations in Canada, joining Aleafia's two existing business pillars: cannabis cultivation and medical clinic operations. Pending standard due diligence to be completed within 14 days, the execution of definitive agreements and regulatory approvals, the acquisition provides Aleafia the tools to become one of the largest national adult-use cannabis retailers.

Choom Holdings Inc. (CSE:CHOO) (OTCQB:CHOOF) has been added to the Horizons Marijuana Life Sciences ETF (TSX:HMMJ). HMMJ is the world's first and largest exchange-traded fund (ETF) offering direct exposure to North American publicly listed life sciences companies with significant business activities in the marijuana industry. "Choom's addition to the Horizons Marijuana Life Sciences ETF is recognition of our efforts to building a dominant branded cannabis company. The Choom brand was created exclusively to service the retail recreational market, ensuring curious customers and cannabis connoisseurs alike can cultivate good times," said Chris Bogart, president and chief executive officer of Choom. "Our inclusion in Horizons Marijuana Life Sciences ETF provides an excellent avenue for increased exposure to the investment community."

As part of the strategic alliance and streaming agreement previously announced on March 5, 2018, Auxly Cannabis Group Inc. (TSXV:XLY) (OTCQX:CBWTF) has completed a $7.5-million equity investment in FSD Pharma Inc. Pursuant to the transaction, Auxly has subscribed for $7.5-million of publicly traded Class B subordinate voting shares of FSD at a price of $1 per share. The purchased shares are subject to a statutory hold period expiring four months and one day from the date of issuance, on Jan. 20, 2019. Proceeds from the financing will be used to finance the continuing construction of the initial 220,000 square feet of cultivation space that Auxly and FSD are jointly developing at FSD's 620,000-square-foot facility in Cobourg, Ont., pursuant to the agreed upon construction and development budget, announced on July 3, 2018. The jointly developed cultivation space, which is currently under construction, will also include a dedicated space for large-scale extraction. Auxly retains a 49.9-per-cent stream of all cannabis and cannabis-derived products produced at the facility, under partnership with Auxly, in perpetuity.

InMed Pharmaceuticals Inc. (TSX:IN.TO) (OTCQX:IMLFF) has filed a Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) application pertaining to the company's INM-405 program and other unique compositions as cannabinoid-based topical therapies for the treatment of pain, which is an important step in protecting the company's intellectual and commercial property. The patent application, entitled "Methods and Composition for the Treatment of Pain with Cannabinoids" is designed to provide protection of the company's INM-405 program in over 150 different countries including the United States and claims a priority date from Sept. 22, 2017 (PCT/CA202018/051194). Dr. Eric Hsu, PhD, InMed's vice-president of preclinical research and development, commented, "While there are numerous pharmaceutical products to treat both acute and chronic pain, the increase in the number of prescriptions for the opioid class of products (oxycodone, hydrocodone, morphine, methadone, fentanyl, etc.) has led to concerns as these products can be highly addictive and have damaging side effects, including death." According to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, since 1999, the number of overdose deaths involving opioids (including prescription opioids and heroin) quadrupled, as have the number of prescriptions for opioids, yet there has been no increase in the amount of pain reported in the general population. Thus, there is a need to find alternative treatments for chronic and severe pain that are non-addictive and have limited side effects. "InMed is researching the potential of non-THC (THC is a psychoactive ingredient in cannabis) cannabinoids to treat pain using a proprietary topical formulation," Dr. Hsu continued.

DISCLAIMER: MarketNewsUpdates.com (MNU) is a third party publisher and news dissemination service provider, which disseminates electronic information through multiple online media channels. MNU is NOT affiliated in any manner with any company mentioned herein. MNU and its affiliated companies are a news dissemination solutions provider and are NOT a registered broker/dealer/analyst/adviser, holds no investment licenses and may NOT sell, offer to sell or offer to buy any security. MNU's market updates, news alerts and corporate profiles are NOT a solicitation or recommendation to buy, sell or hold securities. The material in this release is intended to be strictly informational and is NEVER to be construed or interpreted as research material. All readers are strongly urged to perform research and due diligence on their own and consult a licensed financial professional before considering any level of investing in stocks. All material included herein is republished content and details which were previously disseminated by the companies mentioned in this release. MNU is not liable for any investment decisions by its readers or subscribers. Investors are cautioned that they may lose all or a portion of their investment when investing in stocks. For current services performed MNU has been compensated forty nine hundred dollars for news coverage of the current press release issued by MYM Nutraceuticals Inc. by a non-affiliated third party. MNU HOLDS NO SHARES OF ANY COMPANY NAMED IN THIS RELEASE.

This release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended and such forward-looking statements are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. "Forward-looking statements" describe future expectations, plans, results, or strategies and are generally preceded by words such as "may", "future", "plan" or "planned", "will" or "should", "expected," "anticipates", "draft", "eventually" or "projected". You are cautioned that such statements are subject to a multitude of risks and uncertainties that could cause future circumstances, events, or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements, including the risks that actual results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors, and other risks identified in a company's annual report on Form 10-K or 10-KSB and other filings made by such company with the Securities and Exchange Commission. You should consider these factors in evaluating the forward-looking statements included herein, and not place undue reliance on such statements. The forward-looking statements in this release are made as of the date hereof and MNU undertakes no obligation to update such statements.

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WESTCHESTER, Ill., Sept. 26, 2018 - Ingredion Incorporated (NYSE: INGR), a leading global provider of ingredient solutions, today announced US $60 million of planned investments to grow its specialty food ingredients business in Asia-Pacific (https://apac.ingredion.com/). Beginning earlier this year, the Company commenced expansion of its modified and clean-label specialty starch capabilities in tapioca, waxy corn and rice.

The Company's specialty capital investment projects include:

A 20 percent expansion of its tapioca modified food starch capacity in Thailand along with state-of-the-art upgrades to its wastewater treatment facilities.

More than doubling the capacity and increasing the regulatory standards of its specialty rice starch and rice flour business in Thailand, which it acquired in 2017 (https://apac.ingredion.com/meetingredion/news/rice_starch_thailand.html).

Completing a 30 percent expansion of its modified food starch capacity and further improving its corn wet milling capacity in China.

"These strategic investments are designed to accelerate our growth and strengthen our manufacturing network in Asia to meet increased consumer demand," said Jim Zallie (http://www.ingredionincorporated.com/investors/Governance/executiveleadershipteam.html), Ingredion president and chief executive officer. "Growing our global specialties business to $2 billion in annual sales by 2022 is an integral part of our strategy to deliver long-term profitable growth and enhance shareholder value."

"We see growing demand for both clean-label ingredients and specialty starch based texturisers throughout the region," said Valdirene Licht (http://www.ingredionincorporated.com/investors/Governance/executiveleadershipteam.html), Ingredion senior vice president and president, Asia-Pacific. "The investments will allow us to continue to evolve with our customers to provide innovative, on-trend solutions. Our local team has extensive applications and formulating expertise combined with the broadest and deepest portfolio of waxy corn and tapioca based specialty starches and a successful track record of supporting customers in the region for more than three decades. We're now excited to be building our on trend rice ingredient business and we will continue to make further investments in Asia that benefit our customers globally."

"The actions being taken in Asia are consistent with our global strategy to invest in our specialty starch franchise around the world and expand our capabilities to innovate and offer more customized solutions for our customers around the world," added Zallie.

The Company operates four manufacturing facilities in Thailand and three manufacturing facilities in China.

ABOUT THE COMPANY

Ingredion Incorporated (NYSE: INGR) headquartered in the suburbs of Chicago, is a leading global ingredient solutions provider serving customers in more than 120 countries. With annual net sales of nearly $6 billion, the company turns grains, fruits, vegetables and other plant materials into value-added ingredients and biomaterial solutions for the food, beverage, paper and corrugating, brewing and other industries. With 27 Ingredion Idea Labs innovation centres around the world and more than 11,000 employees, the Company develops ingredient solutions to meet consumers' evolving needs by making crackers crunchy, yogurt creamy, candy sweet, paper stronger, and adding fiber to nutrition bars. For more information, visit Ingredion.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains or may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. The Company intends these forward-looking statements to be covered by the safe harbor provisions for such statements.

Forward-looking statements include, among other things, any statements regarding the Company's prospects or future financial condition, earnings, revenues, tax rates, capital expenditures, expenses or other financial items, any statements concerning the Company's prospects or future operations, including management's plans or strategies and objectives therefor and any assumptions, expectations or beliefs underlying the foregoing.

These statements can sometimes be identified by the use of forward looking words such as "may," "will," "should," "anticipate," "assume", "believe," "plan," "project," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "continue," "pro forma," "forecast," "outlook," "propels," "opportunities," "potential," "provisional" or other similar expressions or the negative thereof. All statements other than statements of historical facts in this release or referred to in this release are "forward-looking statements."

These statements are based on current circumstances or expectations, but are subject to certain inherent risks and uncertainties, many of which are difficult to predict and are beyond our control. Although we believe our expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, investors are cautioned that no assurance can be given that our expectations will prove correct.

Actual results and developments may differ materially from the expectations expressed in or implied by these statements, based on various factors, including the effects of global economic conditions, including, particularly, economic, currency and political conditions in South America and economic conditions in Europe, and their impact on our sales volumes and pricing of our products, our ability to collect our receivables from customers and our ability to raise funds at reasonable rates; fluctuations in worldwide markets for corn and other commodities, and the associated risks of hedging against such fluctuations; fluctuations in the markets and prices for our co-products, particularly corn oil; fluctuations in aggregate industry supply and market demand; the behavior of financial markets, including foreign currency fluctuations and fluctuations in interest and exchange rates; volatility and turmoil in the capital markets; the commercial and consumer credit environment; general political, economic, business, market and weather conditions in the various geographic regions and countries in which we buy our raw materials or manufacture or sell our products; future financial performance of major industries which we serve, including, without limitation, the food, beverage, paper and corrugated, and brewing industries; energy costs and availability, freight and shipping costs, and changes in regulatory controls regarding quotas; tariffs, duties, taxes and income tax rates; particularly recently enacted United States tax reform; operating difficulties; availability of raw materials, including potato starch, tapioca, gum arabic and the specific varieties of corn upon which some of our products are based; our ability to develop or acquire new products and services at rates or of qualities sufficient to meet expectations; energy issues in Pakistan; boiler reliability; our ability to effectively integrate and operate acquired businesses; our ability to achieve budgets and to realize expected synergies; our ability to achieve expected cost savings under our Cost Smart program; our ability to complete planned maintenance and investment projects successfully and on budget; labor disputes; genetic and biotechnology issues; changing consumption preferences including those relating to high fructose corn syrup; increased competitive and/or customer pressure in the corn-refining industry; and the outbreak or continuation of serious communicable disease or hostilities including acts of terrorism. Our forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which they are made and we do not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statement to reflect events or circumstances after the date of the statement as a result of new information or future events or developments. If we do update or correct one or more of these statements, investors and others should not conclude that we will make additional updates or corrections. For a further description of these and other risks, see "Risk Factors" included in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2017 and subsequent reports on Forms 10-Q and 8-K

###

CONTACT:

Investors: Heather Kos, 708-551-2592

Media: Becca Hary, 708-551-2602





This announcement is distributed by West Corporation on behalf of West Corporation clients.

The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein.

Source: Ingredion Incorporated via Globenewswire

On September 25, the Social Democratic Party of Kyrgyzstan (SDPK) celebrated its 25th anniversary. On that day, in 1993, the first congress of the party was held in Bishkek. Yesterday, the party leader and ex-president Almazbek Atambayev congratulated the party members on their jubilee and acknowledged the personnel mistakes made during his term of office. He also counts on "building independent Kyrgyzstan" and "future victories". The experts regarded Atambayev's statement as a return to big politics.

Almazbek Atambayev, the founder of the SDPK, was its permanent leader until being elected president of Kyrgyzstan in December 2011. Six years later, Atambaev headed the party againafter the resignation. In March 2018, he was elected chairman of the SDPK. However, the party split by this time. Once the leading and most numerous faction in the Jogorku Kenesh (the parliament) was transferred to Kyrgyz President Sooronbai Jeenbekov's control. Party conferences under the slogan 'SDPK without Atambaev' were held in the republic. The opposition faction Ata-Meken insists on checking Atabmaev's activities as president. The deputies intend to force disclosure of information about a number of his decisions on personnel appointments, which caused major scandals in the country. Several members of the SDPK were accused of corruption and put in jail. In particular, former Prime Minister Sapar Isakov and former Energy Minister Kubanychbek Kulmatov.

However, Atambaev admitted his personnel mistakes. In his statement, he stressed the need to clean up the party ranks. "In recent years, members of our party have largely influenced personnel policy and made mistakes, and I made mistakes in human resources management myself. The closeness to power makes any party attractive for "clinging types" and unscrupulous careerists, which also affected the SDPK. We could not get rid of such personnel in time," Atambayev said. According to him, history has repeatedly put the SDPK before a difficult choice, and now the party is going through the most difficult and painful stage of purification. "Today, some of those who owe their positions and deputy mandates to our party, those who were nominated to high state posts on behalf of the SDPK, are doing their best to split our party, to discredit the SDPK. Therefore, we need to make a deep analysis of the party's activities, experience, comprehend what has been achieved and draw conclusions from the mistakes made. It also gives us a unique opportunity to clear ourselves of "clinging people" and random fellow travelers, to ensure the influx of new forces into the party," Atambaev stressed in his address. The SDPK leader said that in the future the party will rely on the accumulated experience of political activity. According to him, it is "open to everyone, including young people."

However, according to the Kyrgyz politician Ravshan Dzheyenbekov, misguided personnel policy has been conducted since the first years of gaining independence. "This phenomenon has reached a high level in the last 10 years. It was facilitated by a corrupt party system, when individual leaders, referring to the party, appointed their relatives to ministerial positions, deputy positions, even as the head of government," Dzheyenbekov told Vestnik Kavkaza.

Kyrgyz expert Mars Sariev believes that it is too early to write off Atambaev from the country's political arena. "Atambaev's political statement, recognition of his mistakes in human resources management is a principle of judo, which, incidentally, is successfully applied by Russian President Vladimir Putin - give in to win. Atambayev made it clear that he adequately perceives criticism and admits it. It's a bid for his return to the active political phase," Mars Sariev told Vestnik Kavkaza. According to the expert, Atambaev does not even need to do something special, just, as the Chinese wisdom says, "sit by the river and wait for the body of his enemy floating by."

Atambayev, most likely, will purge the party ranks and refresh them at the expense of those clans which remained out of work after Sooronbai Jeenbekov came to power. According to Mars Sariev, he "counts on the consolidation of the thinking part of the population." Atambayev will work in several planes. His resource is the Russian-speaking part of the country's population and secular, urban Kyrgyz people, who fear a bias towards Islam. These are those elites removed from "the feeding trough". This is business taxed with additional taxes. The Kyrgyz Foreign Ministry also helped, which announced Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to Bishkek. However, according to other information, the Russian president will visit only Dushanbe and Tashkent. It turns out that on the one side there are Jeenbekov, the EU, the West, Turkey and the civil society, NGOs. On the other side, there are Russian-speaking - national minorities, Russian, Slavic peoples and urban residents oriented to Eurasianism. Here is the split. Atambaev will use it," Sariev believes.

For the incumbent president the situation is exacerbated by the economic crisis. "The number of non-performing plants is not decreasing," Kyrgyz Economy Minister Oleg Pankratov said. "Currently, 38 enterprises are out of commission". The volume of direct foreign investments in the republic also decreased. According to the National Statistics Committee of Kyrgyzstan, it declined by 33.2% in the first half of 2018. This decline is explained by international investors' loss of confidence in the republic. Getting loans for Bishkek is also problematic. The Chinese direction is completely discredited by the scandalous credit received for the modernization of the Bishkek TPP. Turkey has no money, Saudi Arabia - it's unlikely that President Jeenbekov will take the risk of getting a loan from them. All that's left is Moscow. But asking for help from the Russian Federation requires changing their orientation. Now the U.S. hopes for normalization of relations with Kyrgyzstan. Remember that the American air base was abolished and the treaty of friendship was denounced under Atambayev.COLUMBIA, Missouri, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Global database technology leader FairCom Corporation announced today that it was awarded a new contract from Verizon. FairCom's c-treeACE multimodel database won the Verizon Intelligent Network Control Platform Transaction Server Migration - In-Memory Database solicitation.

The new contract strengthens a business relationship during which Verizon divisions have been using FairCom database technologies for nearly 20 years. In addition to Verizon, more than 40 members of the Fortune 100 in recent years have trusted the c-treeACE family of products for their database needs.

c-treeACE provides powerful simultaneous access to multimodel NoSQL and SQL, giving developers in companies of any size the control to customize their database to meet organizational and/or product needs. c-treeACE is ideal for mission-critical systems that require performance with reliability. It offers both full transactional mode, with durable files, as well as ultra-high performance via in-memory processing with tables fully loaded, queried and updated entirely in RAM. c-treeACE is available for more than 20 platforms, including real-time operating systems, and offers more than 22 APIs in a variety of development environments.

"FairCom continually strives to provide its customers with the fastest, most reliable database technology possible, while enabling them to manage their data as they see fit. This is exemplified by the fact that one of the world's leaders in telecommunications has chosen to continue trusting our c-treeACE multimodel database within its wireless network," said Alysha Brown, FairCom's Chief Officer of Operations.

FairCom is continually developing innovative technologies for c-treeACE and its entire product line. The most recent version of c-treeACE features new deferred index capabilities and dynamic schema management (Hot Alter Table). Different levels of durability are also available for multimodel scenarios, where in-memory tables can be configured to support both SQL and NoSQL data. In June, FairCom released the c-treeEDGE IoT Database. Based on the same technology that powers c-treeACE, c-treeEDGE is a database that is specifically built for use in edge computing. Detailed information about c-treeACE and the entire suite of FairCom products is available at FairCom.com/products .

About FairCom

FairCom Corporation is a software industry pioneer and a global database technology leader. Its reputation of innovation began in 1979 and continues today with fast, reliable products that are trusted by organizations in a broad spectrum of industries, ranging from small and medium-sized businesses to enterprise level organizations, including Fortune 100 members. The FairCom c-tree-based product line includes the customizable c-treeACE multimodel database, the c-treeRTG "Ready-to-Go" data management solutions for legacy systems, and the new c-treeEDGE IoT Database for computing on the edge. Additional information about FairCom is available at FairCom.com .

Media Contact:

Brad Thomas

FairCom Corporation

1.573.445.6833

brad.thomas@faircom.comSecurity Operations Expert John Moran Will Use Real World Cases to Explain When, Where and How Software can be Used to Safely Remediate Threats

DFLabs, the pioneer in Security Orchestration, Automation and Response (SOAR), today announced that Senior Product Manager and security operations and incident response expert John Moran will present a session how to overcome the roadblocks of security automation at this year's Borderless Cyber USA in Washington, D.C.

WHO: John Moran, Senior Product Manager at DFLabs, is an expert in security operations, incident response, digital forensics and investigations. He has served as a Senior Incident Response Analyst for NTT Security, Computer Forensic Analyst for the Maine State Police Computer Crimes Unit and Task Force Officer for the US Department of Homeland Security. John currently holds GCFA, CFCE, EnCE, CEH, and CHFI certifications as well as degrees in Digital Forensics and Information Security. WHAT: Despite the hype and high expectations associated with security automation and its ability to provide a faster response to threats and compensate for the lack of qualified experts, many organizations remain reluctant to allow software to take remediation actions. In this session, John will use real-world incident response and computer forensic cases to illustrate the common roadblocks to security automation and explain how these challenges can be overcome. He will discuss what operations should and should not be automated, where automation can be used as a force multiplier, and how to avoid automation missteps that create more, not less, work for the security operations center (SOC) team. John will also present a set of best practices for assessing SOC automation and orchestration needs, developing an incident response program, and implementing SOAR automation tools to automate incident response workflows and case management. WHEN: Wednesday, October 3, 2018 at 10:00-10:30 AM EDT WHERE: Borderless Cyber USA 2018, The World Bank Group, International Finance Corporation Headquarters, 2121 Pennsylvania Ave, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20433 HOW: To schedule an in-person meeting at the conference or a phone conversation with John Moran, contact Marc Gendron at marc@mgpr.net or +1 781.237.0341. More info: https://us18.borderlesscyber.org/en/speakers/users/detail/1154/john-moran.

About Borderless Cyber USA

Borderless Cyber is an invitation-only event hosted by The World Bank, OASIS Open Consortium, Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology and Georgetown University. It is an international, executive-level conference series that began in 2015 to bring together public and private sector cybersecurity experts to evaluate, debate, and collaborate on best practices and solutions. Borderless Cyber provides critical information on automation, information sharing, intelligence, knowing your enemy, identifying risk, and the economics of risk. A diverse, hand-picked group of global cybersecurity experts share recommendations and real-world experiences over the two-day conference program. For more information, visit https://us18.borderlesscyber.org/en/

About DFLabs

DFLabs is an award-winning and recognized global leader in security orchestration, automation and response (SOAR) technology. The company's management team has helped shape the cyber security industry, which includes co-editing several industry standards such as ISO 27043 and ISO 30121. Its flagship product, IncMan SOAR, has been adopted by Fortune 500 and Global 2000 organizations worldwide. DFLabs has operations in Europe, North America, and EMEA. For more information, visit www.dflabs.com or connect with us on Twitter @DFLabs.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180926005091/en/

Contacts:

Marc Gendron PR for DFLabs

Marc Gendron, 781-237-0341

marc@mgpr.netEsker, a worldwide leader in document process automation solutions and pioneer in cloud computing, has announced a global partnership with Rimilia, a provider of intelligent finance automated solutions that enable organizations to control their cash flow and cash collection in real time.

The mutually beneficial relationship will provide current and prospective Esker customers with a cash application automation solution; support Rimilia's expansion globally through a reseller agreement; and enhance the customer experience by leveraging the artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technology built into Esker's and Rimilia's solutions.

Under the new partnership, Esker's current and future customers will gain access to Rimilia's cash allocation solution, Alloc8 Cash. Rimilia Alloc8 Cash automates the manually-intensive process of matching payments received, reducing manual labor and transforming financial processes. The software's market-leading auto-matching rates, up to 95 percent, are recognized by industry specialists The Hackett Group.

The bidirectional partnership will enable Rimilia to apply Esker's technology to improve the speed and accuracy when capturing and reading data from remittances. Esker's intuitive, AI-powered solution will complement Rimilia's intelligent financial platform, empowering companies to guarantee and free up their cash flow in the most efficient manner.

"The order-to-cash cycle (O2C) is complex and involves a variety of moving parts within an organization. Automating the entire O2C journey, beginning with sales order processing, continuing through invoice delivery, collections management, payment and cash application, enables true business transformation," said Emmanuel Olivier, worldwide chief operating officer at Esker. "In order to offer a complete end-to-end O2C solution, we wanted to fill the market need for a cash application solution. When the opportunity came to partner with Rimilia, it made perfect sense. Both Esker and Rimilia are focused on leveraging AI to provide best-in-class automation solutions that make people's lives easier."

"Esker's strong U.S. presence will help us achieve continued global expansion," said Steve Richardson, co-founder and CCO of Rimilia. "We anticipate high adoption of our cash application solution, especially among Esker's current customers, since the technology complements Esker's collections management offering. We look forward to working with a company that shares our vision and passion for AI and machine learning."

About Esker

Esker is a worldwide leader in cloud-based document process automation software, helping financial and customer service departments digitally transform their order-to-cash (O2C) and purchase-to-pay (P2P) cycles. Used by more than 6,000 companies worldwide, Esker's solutions incorporate technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) to drive increased productivity, enhanced visibility reduced fraud risk, and improved collaboration with customers, suppliers and internally. Esker operates in North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia Pacific with global headquarters in Lyon, France and U.S. headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin. For more information on Esker and its solutions, visit www.esker.com. Follow Esker on Twitter @EskerInc and join the conversation on the Esker blog at blog.esker.com.

About Rimilia

Rimilia provides intelligent, finance automation solutions that enable organizations to cash flow and cash collection in real-time. The software solutions use sophisticated analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) to predict customer payment behavior and easily match and reconcile payments, removing the uncertainty of cash collection.

Rimilia software automates the complete account receivables process and eliminates unallocated cash, reducing manual activity by an average 70% and achieving best in class matching rates recognized by industry specialists including The Hackett Group.

Rimilia operates globally across any sector, with customers in over 50 countries spanning, USA, Europe and Australia. The cloud-based solution is easily implemented, delivering a ROI within 12 months. Customers include Santander, Wesco, Hitachi Capital, TalkTalk, Avis and Hertz.

Rimilia headquarters are in the UK with US offices in Richmond, Virginia. Privately owned and backed by private equity investors, Eight Road Ventures and Kennet Partners, Rimilia employs over 100 people worldwide. www.rimilia.com

2018 Esker S.A. All rights reserved. Esker and the Esker logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Esker S.A. the U.S. and other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180926005526/en/

Contacts:

Esker Press Contact:

Gina Leranth, 608-828-6141

gina.leranth@esker.com

or

Rimilia Press Contact:

Pam Wilde

pam.wilde@rimilia.com

or

Rimilia USA Contact:

Hazel Butters

hazel.butters@rimilia.comWerbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.Creating the Future Since 1868

Schoeller Textil AG, the global textile solutions brand specializing in the development and production of innovative technical fabrics and smart textile finishing technologies, is celebrating 150 years of tradition and future opportunities. What began as Switzerland's first worsted yarn spinning mill in 1868 has achieved worldwide recognition for its highly-technical textiles and its dedication to sustainability. For its more than 500 brand partners in 50 countries, Schoeller produces an average of over six million meters of performance textiles per year in its mills in Sevelen, Switzerland and Balingen, Germany.

When Rudolph Schoeller established what would be called "Schoeller Sohne" in Zurich in 1868, it was within an age of ground-breaking achievement and progress inspired by the beginnings of the Swiss Red Cross and the completion of the Gotthard Tunnel in Switzerland. Schoeller quickly expanded its business and in 1954 went on to purchase a textile mill in Sevelen, located in the St. Gallen Rhine Valley, which currently serves as the company's headquarters. That mill would soon launch the very first elastic fabric for the ski industry or the world's very first soft shell fabric under the name "skifans."

Forerunner in sustainability

Sustainability has always been of great importance at Schoeller. In 1994, it was the first activewear and leisurewear manufacturer to receive Oko-Tex Standard 100 certification. Schoeller also served as one of the founding developers of the bluesign system, which has since become established worldwide. Schoeller then became the very first company to receive the bluesign award in 2008.

"Being able to reflect upon 150 years of textile experience, customer relationships and progress is an incredibly proud moment for our entire Schoeller family. This milestone is one for which we would like to thank our consumers, customers and partners who have continually supported and inspired our advancements," said Schoeller CEO Siegfried Winkelbeiner. "Protecting and supporting millions of consumers in doing what they love most, and keeping a close eye on the next level of innovation every day, drives us on and gives us tremendous fulfillment just as I am sure it did for Rudolph Schoeller so many years ago."

Bio-technologies and electronics in textiles

Schoeller's innovations include its c_change membrane technology, the world's first intelligent membrane, as well as the well-known NanoSphere, coldblack and corkshell technologies. 3XDRY Bio and ecorepel Bio, the new PFC-free technologies based on renewable raw materials, were first introduced to customers in 2016. Most recently, Schoeller announced the availability of its heatable E-soft-shell, which won the DesignPrize Switzerland 2017/2018 for the textile category.

In 2012, Schoeller joined forces with the Eschler Group, experts in tailored, knitted fabric solutions, to offer an extensive range of complementary textile options to its joint brand partners. "Today, as ever, Schoeller strives to deliver what our brand partners' end users need to differentiate themselves," continued Winkelbeiner. "We work to stay ahead of the curve on all fronts providing our customers with what they need, sometimes even before they know they need it."

Fully-integrated production sites

Schoeller's Sevelen headquarters include its production facilities that house weaving, dyeing, lamination and coating departments, as well as the state-of-the-art research, development and testing laboratory. It's on-site administrative building is home to the design and sales, IT, marketing and accounting teams.

Text and image download at:

https://www.schoeller-textiles.com/en/presscorner

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180926005581/en/

Contacts:

Schoeller Textil AG

Eleanor Sachs

eleanor@schoellerusa.comAfriAg Global Plc - Interim Results for the six months to 30 June 2018

For immediate release 26 September 2018

AfriAg Global PLC

("AfriAg Global", the "Group" or the "Company")

Unaudited Interim Results for the six months to 30 June 2018

AfriAg Global PLC (NEX: AFRI), the London listed global agri-logistics specialists, today announces another sound period of trading with the publishing of these unaudited interim results for the 6-month period ended 30 June 2018.

Our global distribution footprint has continued during the year, as we moved to distributing perishable food products by road, air and sea for and to global customers (South Africa, Mauritius, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia, DRC, Kenya, USA, UK, France, Holland, Russia, Japan, New Zealand and others).

In addition, the Company recently broadened its investment strategy to include investments in the exciting global medicinal cannabis sector. And on 17 September 2018, the Company announced that it has formally engaged the London office of law firm, Hill Dickinson LLP, to assist with the Company's application process to become a licensed cultivator and producer in the UK of medical cannabis. The UK is one of the world's largest producers of legal medical cannabis under special licences granted by the UK Government.

David Lenigas, Executive Chairman of AfriAg Global, commented:

"As usual, the business is continuing to perform well. The second half of every calendar year is usually much stronger than the first half, and we see no reason why this trend should not continue. I am particularly excited about the recent shareholder approval gained to allow AfriAg to invest in the fast-growing legal medical cannabis space. We as a board have a number of near-term initiatives we are pursuing that will hopefully, if closed, add significant value to the Company."

Investment policy change to include Medical Cannabis investments :

On 12 September 2018, shareholder approval was obtained at a general meeting for the expansion of the Company's investment strategy to include medicinal cannabis. The Company has now expanded its existing investment strategy to also include investments in companies, projects or products that are progressing research in and development of medicinal cannabis and its derivatives, producing or cultivating medicinal cannabis, producing or supplying products derived from or related to cannabis (including, but not limited to, hemp and cannabidiol products); and/or commercialising or marketing medicinal cannabis and its derivatives. The Company sees tremendous opportunities in the sector.

The Board has also appointed a technical committee, comprising Masello Sello and Germina 'Mamoeti Mphoso on 20 August 2018 (the "Technical Committee").

Masello Sello qualified as a lawyer from the National University of Lesotho and since qualification has worked within the Ministry of Law and Constitutional Affairs in Lesotho where she assisted with drafting and reviewing the country's laws and regulations governing cannabis including:

 Lesotho's Drugs of Abuse (Cannabis) Regulations 2018; and

 Lesotho's Medicines Control and Medical Devices Control Bill 2018.

Masello has also worked in the Ministry of Health in Lesotho where she has gained wide experience across a number of health-related matters including the use of cannabis for medicinal purposes.

Germina Mamoeti Mphoso was awarded with a Master of Technology in Pharmaceutical Sciences from Tshwane University of Technology in South Africa. From 2010 to 2016, Germina held the position of Head of Pharmacy Strategy and Regulation in Lesotho. She was responsible for the management of pharmaceutical operations in government and private health facilities in Lesotho and compliance with relevant procedures, rules and regulations. Since then, Germina has worked as Chairman of the Lesotho Narcotics Control Bureau. Her role involves implementing Lesotho's Drug Abuse Act 2008, licensing matters and reviewing potential clients within Lesotho's cannabis industry.

As a consequence of their experiences, Masello and Germina both have an in-depth understanding of the cannabis industry and an extensive network of contacts. The Technical Committee will be responsible for reviewing potential investments and reporting to the Board on a regular basis. The Board believes that their collective experience, together with their extensive network of contacts and the Company's Technical Committee, will assist them in the identification, evaluation and funding of appropriate investment opportunities within the medicinal cannabis sector.

AfriAg Marketing Pty Ltd (100% owned by AfriAg Global Plc):

AfriAg Marketing has experienced a good period of trading activity, with revenues during the period of 1.501 million in 2018 (2017: 1.829 million).

This consistent revenue not only demonstrates strong development, it also reinforces the belief that the company's low-overhead, grower-focused structure works in today's market. The model has been keenly welcomed by both our growers and our end customers in Europe and North America.

During this year, the business has been focusing on consolidating our core activities of exporting, distribution and trading of a wide range of fruit and vegetable perishable food lines, including blueberry, passion fruit, pineapple, apple, strawberry, butternut, peas, fine beans, mange tout, sugar snap, baby corn, chillies, baby veg, and herbs to name our top product lines.

Foreign exchange management with the wild fluctuations in global currency rates always proves challenging, however profit levels remained good during the period at 38,000 (2017: 127,000). The second half of our calendar year is always stronger than the first, so we hope to see a robust second half coming up.

AfriAg (Pty) Limited (40% owned by AfriAg Global Plc):

The Company is pleased to report that the specialist global agri-logistics group AfriAg (Pty) Ltd ("AfriAg"), in which the Company has a 40% equity shareholding, continues to generate stable revenues and profits comparable to the same period last year. Full financials of this investment are generally reported with the year end financial statements.

Financial Results:

During the period, the Company had revenues of 1.501m (6 months ended 30 June 2017: 1.829m) and made a gross profit of 38,000 (6 months ended 30 June 2017: 127,000). The total comprehensive loss for the period attributable to equity holders of the parent was 82,000 (6 months ended 30 June 2017: loss 17,000).

There was a weighted loss per share of 0.007p (30 June 2017: loss per share 0.004p).

Current assets at 30 June 2018 amounted to 1,112,000 (30 June 2017: 1,141,000).

The unaudited interim results to 30 June 2018 have not been reviewed by the Company's auditor

Outlook:

The overall business is running very smoothly, and we anticipate further growth in all sectors. We reasonably expect this trend to continue. We also see our recently broadened investment strategy involving medical cannabis initiatives as an area of new focus for the Company going forward and we see tremendous upside for this sector.

The Board would like to take this opportunity to thank our shareholders, staff and consultants for their continued support and I look forward to reporting further significant progress over the next period and beyond.

The directors of the Company accept responsibility for the contents of this announcement.

David Lenigas

Executive Chairman

26 September 2018

For further information, please contact:

AfriAg Global plc:

David Lenigas +44 (0) 20 7440 0640 Corporate Adviser and Broker:

Peterhouse Capital Limited

Guy Miller / Fungai Ndoro +44 (0) 20 7469 0930

Condensed Consolidated Statement of Comprehensive Income (unaudited)

for the 6 months ended 30 June 2018

6 months to

30 June

2018

Unaudited 6 months to

30 June

2017

Unaudited Year ended

31 December

2017

Audited Note GBP'000 GBP'000 GBP'000 Revenue 1,501 1,829 3,122 Cost of sales (1,463) (1,702) (2,842) Gross Profit 38 127 280 Administration expenses (156) (195) (378) Share Based Payment Charge - - - Operating (loss) (118) (68) (98) Share of associate result 19 21 72 Finance costs - - (1) Investment income 2 (12) (11) (Loss) before tax (97) (59) (38) Tax - - - Retained (loss) for the period (97) (59) (38) Other comprehensive income Gain on revaluation of available for sale investments - 1 - Transfer to income statement 22 14 14 Translation exchange gain (7) 27 (3)

Total comprehensive income 15 42 11 Total comprehensive (loss) for the period attributable to equity holders of the parent (82) (17) (27) (Loss) per share (pence) 2 Basic (0.007) (0.004) (0.003) Diluted (0.007) (0.004) (0.003)

All of the revenues and loss above derived from continuing operations.

Condensed Consolidated Statement of Financial Position (unaudited)

At 30 June 2018

30 June 2018

Unaudited 30 June 2017

Unaudited 31 December 2017

Audited GBP'000 GBP'000 GBP'000 Non-current assets Property, plant & equipment 8 6 5 Investments in associates 1,609 1,539 1,590 Total non-current assets 1,617 1,545 1,595 Current assets Inventory - - 3 Trade and other receivables 866 1,012 846 Available for sale assets - 2 1 Cash and cash equivalents 246 127 443 Total current assets 1,112 1,141 1,293 Total assets 2,729 2,686 2,888 Current liabilities Trade and other payables (842) (907) (919) Total current liabilities (842) (907) (919) Net current assets 270 234 374 Net assets 1,887 1,779 1,969 Equity Share capital 1,461 1,381 1,461 Share premium account 8,648 8,528 8,648 Share based payment reserve 279 279 279 Revaluation reserves - (21) (22) Foreign currency reserve 27 64 34 Retained earnings (8,528) (8,452) (8,431) Total equity 1,887 1,779 1,969

Condensed Consolidated Statement of Changes in Equity (unaudited)

for the 6 months ended 30 June 2018





Share capital



Share premium Share based payment reserve

Foreign currency reserve



Revaluation reserves



Retained earnings





Total GBP'000 GBP'000 GBP'000 GBP'000 GBP'000 GBP'000 GBP'000 At 31 December 2016 1,381 8,528 279 37 (36) (8,393) 1,796 (Loss) for the period - - - - - (38) (38) Currency translation (loss) - - - (3) - - (3) Transfer to income statement - - - - 14 - 14 Total Comprehensive Income - - - (3) 14 (38) (27) Shares issued 80 120 - - - - 200 Share based payment charge - - - - - - - Total contributions by and distributions to owners of the Company 80 120 - - - - 200 At 31 December 2017 1,461 8,648 279 34 (22) (8,431) 1,969 (Loss) for the period - - - - - (97) (97) Currency translation (loss) - - - (7) - - (7) Transfer to income statement - - - - 22 - 22 Total Comprehensive Income - - - (7) 22 (97) (82) Shares issue costs - - - - - - - Total contributions by and distributions to owners of the Company - - - - - - - At 30 June 2018 1,461 8,648 279 27 - (8,528) 1,887

Condensed Consolidated Statement of Cash Flows (unaudited)

for the 6 months ended 30 June 2018

6 months to

30 June 2018

Unaudited 6 months to

30 June 2017

Unaudited Year ended

31 December 2017

Audited GBP'000 GBP'000 GBP'000 Cash flows from operations Operating (loss) (118) (68) (98) Decrease in inventories 3 9 6 (Increase)/decrease in trade & other receivables (20) (36) 130 (Decrease) in trade & other payables (77) (80) (68) Depreciation - - 4 Share option charge - - - Net cash used in operating activities (212) (175) (26) Investing activities Investment income 2 1 2 Finance costs - - (1) Receipts on sale of AFS investments 1 36 35 Payments for PPE assets (3) (2) (4) Net cash from investing activities - 35 32 Financing activities Issue of share capital - - 200 Issue costs - - - Net cash from financing activities - - 200 Net (decrease)/increase in cash and cash equivalents (212) (140) 206 Cash and cash equivalents at the beginning of period 443 240 240 Effect of foreign exchange on cash and cash equivalents 15 27 (3) Cash and cash equivalents at the end of period 246 127 443

Notes to the Condensed Consolidated Interim Financial Information (unaudited)

1. General information

The condensed consolidated interim financial information for the period ended 30 June 2018 has not been audited or reviewed in accordance with the International Standard on Review Engagements 2410 issued by the Auditing Practices Board. The figures were prepared using applicable accounting policies and practices consistent with those adopted in the statutory accounts for the period ended 31 December 2017. The figures for the period ended 31 December 2017 have been extracted from these accounts, which have not been required to be delivered to the Isle of Man Registrar of Companies, and do however contained an unqualified audit report.

The condensed consolidated interim financial information contained in this document does not constitute statutory accounts. In the opinion of the directors the financial information for this period fairly presents the financial position, result of operations and cash flows for this period.

The Condensed Consolidated Interim Financial Information was approved by the Board of Directors on 26 September 2018.

Statement of compliance

These condensed consolidated interim financial statements have been prepared in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) as adopted by the European Union with the exception of International Accounting Standard ('IAS') 34 - Interim Financial Reporting. Accordingly, the interim financial statements do not include all of the information or disclosures required in the annual financial statements and should be read in conjunction with the Group's 2017 annual financial statements.

2. (Loss) per share

The calculation of the (loss) per share is based on the (loss) attributable to ordinary shareholders divided by the weighted average number of shares in issue during the period.

6 months to

30 June

2018

Unaudited 6 months to

30 June

2017

Unaudited Year

31 December

2017

Audited GBP'000 GBP'000 GBP'000 (Loss) attributable to equity holders of the Group (97) (59) (38) Weighted average number of ordinary shares ('000s) 1,461,001 1,381,001 1,405,110 (Loss) per share - basic (0.007) (0.004) (0.003) (Loss) per share - diluted (0.007) (0.004) (0.003)

3. Events after the end of the reporting period

On 12 July 2018, the Company announced it had raised 300,000 before expenses through a subscription for 300,000,000 new ordinary shares at a price of 0.1pence per share.

4. A copy of this interim financial statement is available on the Company's website: www.afriagglobal.com.Regulatory News:

STENTYS (FR0010949404 STNT) (Paris:STNT), a French group specialized in medical technologies for interventional cardiology, today announced that it has reported 12-month results of the Clinical Study to Evaluate the STENTYS Xposition S for the Treatment of Unprotected Left Main Coronary Artery Disease (TRUNC) at the Trans Catheter Technologies (TCT) Congress held in San Diego, United States.

During a poster presentation session, Professor Corrado Tamburino (Ferrarotto Hospital, University of Catania, Catania, Italy) gave a presentation entitled "Prospective Evaluation of Drug Eluting Self-Apposing Stent for the Treatment of Unprotected Left Main Coronary Artery Disease: 1-Year Results of the TRUNC Study".

The TRUNC study is a prospective, non-randomized, multi-centre study assessing the long-term safety and efficacy of the self-expandable sirolimus eluting Xposition S stent in the treatment of unprotected left main coronary artery disease. The 12-month results confirmed the safety and efficacy of the Xposition S self-apposing stent technology in unprotected left main stenting, with a high procedural success rate and a low rate of Target Lesion Failure at 12 months of 8.3%. The study included an IVUS study, which confirmed the very high rate of completed stent apposition with 98% of stents being completely apposed.

Professor Corrado Tamburino commented: "The results of the TRUNC study are very promising, demonstrating both safety and efficacy of the self-apposing stent technology in this challenging indication, the unique features of the Xposition S stent are well adapted for Left Main stenting particularly when there is a large variance in vessel diameters."

Professor Christian Spaulding, Georges-Pompidou European Hospital, Paris, France, President of the STENTYS scientific committee, further commented: "The positive results of the TRUNC study coupled with the reduced need for additional stent optimisation techniques often required by conventional drug eluting stents puts the Xposition S stent amongst the forefront of devices for Left Main stenting."

Christophe Lottin, Chief Executive Officer of STENTYS, added: "We would like to thank all the physicians and their patients that participated in the study. We are delighted that the 12-month results of the TRUNC study have met a keen interest from the scientific community during the TCT conference in San Diego. The presented data confirms the advantages of the self-apposing technology for the treatment of unprotected left main disease, an indication which represents nearly 10% of all percutaneous coronary interventions. It also supports our growth strategy based on the Xposition S stent and its targeted indications. We firmly believe that our Xposition S stent will be used in a growing number of indications, and its unrivalled technical characteristics will establish it as a benchmark."

About the TRUNC study

TRUNC is a prospective, single-arm multi-center trial to evaluate the long-term safety and efficacy of the Xposition S stent in the treatment of unprotected left main lesions in routine clinical practice. It included 205 patients in 18 European clinical sites. The primary endpoint is Target Lesion Failure at 12 months. The trial's steering committee is composed of Prof. Tamburino and Dr. Briguori (Italy) and Dr. Baumbach (UK).

About STENTYS

The STENTYS group develops and markets minimally-invasive cardiovascular solutions for the needs of interventional cardiology. Its extensive range of innovative products, including drug-eluting stents, coronary and drug-eluting balloons as well as cardiovascular accessories, is marketed in over 60 countries. Thanks to its flagship product, Xposition S, the self-apposing stent that adapts to vessels with variable diameters and enables the treatment of complex arterial disorders, and to its portfolio of balloons and accessories, STENTYS covers all coronary indications.

Additional information is available atwww.stentys.com

STENTYS is listed on Compartment C of Euronext Paris

ISIN: FR0010949404 Ticker: STNT

Forward-looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements about the Company that are based on numerous assumptions regarding the Company's present and future business strategies and the environment in which it will operate in the future which may not be accurate. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks which may cause the Company's actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, among others, risks associated with the development and commercialization of the Company's products, market acceptance of the Company's products, its ability to manage growth, the competitive environment in relation to its business area and markets, its ability to enforce and protect its patents and proprietary rights, uncertainties related to the U.S. FDA approval process, slower than expected rates of patient recruitment for clinical trials, the outcome of clinical trials, and other factors, including those described in the Section 4 "Risk Factors" of the Company's 2016 Registration Document (document de reference) filed with the French Autorite des Marches Financiers (AMF) on November 29, 2017 under number D.17-1084.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180926005646/en/

Contacts:

STENTYS

Andre Lerebours, Tel.: +33 (0)1 44 53 99 42

CFO

investor@stentys.com

or

NewCap

Investor Relations Strategic Communications

Dusan Oresansky Alexia Faure, Tel.: +33 (0)1 44 71 94 92

stentys@newcap.euCash and cash equivalents of 9.3 million at June 30, 2018, excluding capital raised in August and upfront SIIL payment

Interim results of Phase 2 trial of GKT831 in patients with PBC expected in early November 2018

Regulatory News:

Genkyotex (Euronext Paris Brussels: FR00011790542 GKTX) (Paris:GKTX) (Brussels:GKTX), a biopharmaceutical company and the leader in NOX therapies, announces its consolidated financial results for the six months ended June 30, 2018, prepared in accordance with IFRS. First half financial statements for 2018 were subject to a limited review by the Company's statutory auditors, and the interim financial report is available in the Investors section of the Company's website (in French).

First-half 2018 financial highlights

In thousands of euros At June 30, 2018 At June 30, 20171 Other revenues 750 Research Development expenses (4,518) (5,665) Subsidies and Research Tax Credit 429 395 General Administrative expenses (1,471) (3,640) Recurring operating loss (4,811) (8,910) Other operating expenses (11,408) Operating loss (4,811) (20,318) Net loss (4,776) (20,368) Net loss per share (in euros) (0.06) (0.38)

Given its stage of development, Genkyotex has not generated any sales to date, as all of its product candidates are in the Research Development (R&D) phase. On June 30, 2018, the other revenues correspond to the upfront payment resulting from the execution of the SIIPL extension agreement announced on June 25, 2018.

The operating loss at June 30, 2018 of 4,811 thousand was mainly driven by the R&D expenses primarily related to the costs of the ongoing Phase 2 clinical trial of GKT831 in primary biliary cholangitis (PBC).

The operating loss of 20,318 thousand at June 30, 2017, included non-recurring items (with no impact on the cash position of the Company) and restructuring costs for a total of 15'325 thousand and related to the strategic combination carried out by Genkyotex in February 2017. Excluding these one-time items, the operating loss of the Company at June 30, 2017, would have been 4'993 thousand.

Genkyotex's cash and cash equivalents amounted to 9.3 million on June 30, 2018, as compared to 14.6 million on December 31, 2017, in-line with the Company's expectations. Genkyotex expects this cash position to support currently planned operations until the end of Q3 2019.

Genkyotex's cash burn for the six months ended June 30, 2018, was primarily driven by expenses related to the ongoing Phase 2 trial of GKT831 in PBC. Subsequent to June 30, 2018, the Company received the upfront payment resulting from the execution of the SIIPL extension agreement, the reimbursement of the French Research tax credit for 2017 of 0.6 million and 4.9 million received as part of the up to 7.5 million in nominal value financing obtained from Yorkville Advisors Global LP through the issuance of convertible notes with warrants attached, announced on August 20, 2018. As of today, 50 convertible notes (OCA) have been converted into shares.

Business update and outlook

During the first half of 2018, the Company's key development-related activities focused on:

Evaluating the efficacy of GKT831 in PBC, a fibrotic liver disorder . Earlier today, the Company announced the completion of patient enrollment for its Phase 2 trial of GKT831 in patients with Primary Biliary Cholangitis (PBC). The company's network of investigational centers across 9 countries delivered outstanding performance resulting in the enrollment of 111 patients, exceeding the original target of 102 patients. This Phase 2 trial is a 24-week, double-blind, placebo-controlled study, evaluating the safety and efficacy of GKT831 in patients with PBC and inadequate response to ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA). Randomized patients were allocated to three treatment arms: UDCA plus placebo, UDCA plus GKT831 at 400mg once a day, and UDCA plus GKT831 at 400mg twice a day. Genkyotex expects interim results in early November 2018 and final results in Spring 2019.

. Earlier today, the Company announced the completion of patient enrollment for its Phase 2 trial of GKT831 in patients with Primary Biliary Cholangitis (PBC). The company's network of investigational centers across 9 countries delivered outstanding performance resulting in the enrollment of 111 patients, exceeding the original target of 102 patients. This Phase 2 trial is a 24-week, double-blind, placebo-controlled study, evaluating the safety and efficacy of GKT831 in patients with PBC and inadequate response to ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA). Randomized patients were allocated to three treatment arms: UDCA plus placebo, UDCA plus GKT831 at 400mg once a day, and UDCA plus GKT831 at 400mg twice a day. Genkyotex expects interim results in early November 2018 and final results in Spring 2019. Evaluating the efficacy of GKT831 in diabetic kidney disease (DKD), a progressive fibrotic disorder. Investigators initiated in 2017 a 48-week Phase 2 clinical trial with GKT831 in patients with type 1 diabetes and nephropathy.

Investigators initiated in 2017 a 48-week Phase 2 clinical trial with GKT831 in patients with type 1 diabetes and nephropathy. Evaluating the efficacy of GKT831 in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), a fibrotic lung disorder. On July 31, 2018, Genkyotex announced that the US National Institutes of Health awarded an $8.9 million grant to Professor Victor Thannickal of the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) to fund a multi-year research program evaluating the role of NOX enzymes in IPF, a chronic lung disease that results in fibrosis of the lungs. The core component of the program will be to conduct a 24-week Phase 2 trial of the Company's lead product candidate, GKT831, in patients with IPF.

On July 31, 2018, Genkyotex announced that the US National Institutes of Health awarded an $8.9 million grant to Professor Victor Thannickal of the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) to fund a multi-year research program evaluating the role of NOX enzymes in IPF, a chronic lung disease that results in fibrosis of the lungs. The core component of the program will be to conduct a 24-week Phase 2 trial of the Company's lead product candidate, GKT831, in patients with IPF. Expanding the Company's NOX platform by continuing exploratory preclinical research programs. The Company continues to explore the therapeutic value of NOX inhibition in central nervous system disorders and oncology, and to seek opportunities for non-dilutive grant financing to support the preclinical evaluation of drug candidates in these therapeutic areas. Most recently, data in a preclinical model also showed that GKT831 efficiently targeted cancer associated fibroblasts in prostate cancer and abrogated the pro-tumorigenic influence of the tumor micro-environment. The results of this study, which was conducted by Dr. Natalie Sampson and colleagues at the Medical University of Innsbruck, were published in the International Journal of Cancer (https://doi.org/10.1002/ijc.31316).

The Company continues to explore the therapeutic value of NOX inhibition in central nervous system disorders and oncology, and to seek opportunities for non-dilutive grant financing to support the preclinical evaluation of drug candidates in these therapeutic areas. Most recently, data in a preclinical model also showed that GKT831 efficiently targeted cancer associated fibroblasts in prostate cancer and abrogated the pro-tumorigenic influence of the tumor micro-environment. The results of this study, which was conducted by Dr. Natalie Sampson and colleagues at the Medical University of Innsbruck, were published in the (https://doi.org/10.1002/ijc.31316). Continuing to execute on the partnership with the Serum Institute for Vaxiclase. On June 25, 2018, the Company announced that it had extended the license agreement for its Vaxiclase platform with the Serum Institute of India Private Ltd (SIIPL), the world's largest vaccine manufacturer, to include the developed world in their addressable markets. The initial agreement, signed in 2015, covered emerging pharmaceutical markets. Following the expansion of the agreement to these major markets, Genkyotex became eligible to receive an additional 100 million, bringing the overall agreement to approximately 150 million2 in upfront payment, development and commercial milestones before royalties. Vaxiclase is a technology platform ideally suited for immunotherapies against multiple infectious diseases or cancers, and SIIPL is utilizing it to develop a pertussis vaccine.

Genkyotex will host a conference call in English today, September 26, 2018 at 06:15 pm CEST 12:15pm EDST, followed by a Q&A session.

The call is accessible via the below teleconferencing information:

France: +33 1 72 72 74 03

Switzerland: +41 445 831 805

US: +1 646 722 49 16

UK: +44 207 194 37 59

Belgium: +32 240 358 16

Pin: 85798253#

Following the conclusion of the live call, a replay will be available for 90 days. To access the replay, please dial the following number:

Tel: +33 1 70 71 01 60

Access code: 418789188#

Next financial press release:

Q3 2018 business update and cash position: October 24, 2018 (after market)

About Genkyotex

Genkyotex is the leading biopharmaceutical company in NOX therapies, listed on the Euronext Paris and Euronext Brussels markets. A leader in NOX therapies, its unique therapeutic approach is based on a selective inhibition of NOX enzymes that amplify multiple disease processes such as fibrosis, inflammation, pain processing, cancer development, and neurodegeneration.

Genkyotex's platform enables the identification of available small-molecules that selectively inhibit specific NOX enzymes. Genkyotex is developing a pipeline of first-in-class product candidates targeting one or multiple NOX enzymes. The lead product candidate, GKT831, a NOX1 and NOX4 inhibitor is evaluated in a phase 2 clinical trial in primary biliary cholangitis (PBC, a fibrotic orphan disease) and in an investigator-initiated Phase 2 clinical trial in Type 1 Diabetes and Kidney Disease (DKD). A grant from the United States National Institutes of Health (U.S. NIH) of $8.9 million has been awarded to Professor Victor Thannickal at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) to fund a multi-year research program evaluating the role of NOX enzymes in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), a chronic lung disease that results in fibrosis of the lungs, the core component of the program will be to conduct a Phase 2 trial with the GKT831 in patients with IPF. This product candidate may also be active in other fibrotic indications. Its second product candidate, GKT771, is a NOX1 inhibitor targeting multiple pathways in angiogenesis, pain processing, and inflammation, currently undergoing preclinical testing.

Genkyotex also has a versatile platform well-suited to the development of various immunotherapies (Vaxiclase). A partnership has been established with Serum Institute of India Private Ltd (Serum Institute) and could generate approximately 150 million in future revenues for Genkyotex, before royalties on sales.

For further information, please go towww.genkyotex.com

Disclaimer

This press release and the information it contains does not constitute an offer or solicitation to buy, sell or hold Genkyotex shares in any country, in particular any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration, exemption from registration or other qualification under the securities laws of any such jurisdiction.

This press release may contain forward-looking statements by the company with respect to its objectives. Such statements are based upon the current beliefs, estimates and expectations of Genkyotex's management and are subject to risks and uncertainties such as the company's ability to implement its chosen strategy, customer market trends, changes in technologies and in the company's competitive environment, changes in regulations, clinical or industrial risks and all risks linked to the company's growth. These factors as well as other risks and uncertainties may prevent the company from achieving the objectives outlined in the press release and actual results may differ from those set forth in the forward-looking statements, due to various factors. Without being exhaustive, such factors include uncertainties involved in the development of Genkyotex's products, which may not succeed, or in the delivery of Genkyotex's products marketing authorizations by the relevant regulatory authorities and, in general, any factor that could affects Genkyotex's capacity to commercialize the products it develops. No guarantee is given on forward-looking statements which are subject to a number of risks, notably those described in the registration document (document de reference) registered by the French Markets Authority (the AMF) on 27 April 2018 under number R.18-037, and those linked to changes in economic conditions, the financial markets, or the markets on which Genkyotex is present. Genkyotex products are currently used for clinical trials only and are not otherwise available for distribution or sale.

1 The first half of 2017 includes Genkyotex's results of operations as well as Genticel's results of operations from February 28, 2017

2 The overall amount of this agreement is provided in euros for information purposes and is based on the /$ currency rate as at the signature date of the restated agreement.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180926005698/en/

Contacts:

INVESTORS

NewCap

Dusan Oresansky Tristan Roquet Montegon Emmanuel Huynh

+33 1 44 71 94 92

genkyotex@newcap.eu

or

MEDIA

NewCap

Nicolas Merigeau Arthur Rouille

+33 1 44 71 00 15

genkyotex@newcap.eu

or

US

LifeSci Advisors, LLC

Brian Ritchie, +1-212-915-2578

britchie@lifesciadvisors.comAbout Pernod Ricard Pernod Ricard is the world's n2 in wines and spirits with consolidated Sales of 8,987 million in FY18. Created in 1975 by the merger of Ricard and Pernod, the Group has undergone sustained development, based on both organic growth and acquisitions: Seagram (2001), Allied Domecq (2005) and Vin&Sprit (2008). Pernod Ricard holds one of the most prestigious brand portfolios in the sector: Absolut Vodka, Ricard pastis, Ballantine's, Chivas Regal, Royal Salute and The Glenlivet Scotch whiskies, Jameson Irish whiskey, Martell cognac, Havana Club rum, Beefeater gin, Malibu liqueur, Mumm and Perrier-Jouet champagnes, as well Jacob's Creek, Brancott Estate, Campo Viejo and Kenwood wines. Pernod Ricard employs a workforce of approximately 18,900 people and operates through a decentralised organisation, with 6 "Brand Companies" and 86 "Market Companies" established in each key market. Pernod Ricard is strongly committed to a sustainable development policy and encourages responsible consumption. Pernod Ricard's strategy and ambition are based on 3 key values that guide its expansion: entrepreneurial spirit, mutual trust and a strong sense of ethics. Pernod Ricard is listed on Euronext (Ticker: RI; ISIN code: FR0000120693) and is part of the CAC 40 index.

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.Last week a large group of residents of Chambarak organized a protest near the government building demanding compensation promised a few years ago for lost land and houses. In 1992, due to military operations in Chambarak, residents of Artsvashen village, an Armenian enclave in the territory of Azerbaijan, had to flee. In 2009, government of Tigran Sargsyan decided to compensate refugees for received damage and allocate about 12.4 million dollars to them. But by 2011 only 10% of the promised amount was paid. Apparently, the government considered this issue already resolved.

On September 20, protesters demanded a meeting with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. He offered them to choose five people who will come to the government building on October 2 to discuss all problems in detail.

Protests in Armenia are not new. They were held when previous government was in power, but experts associate today's protests with inability of the new government to solve problems. Skeptics even predict new revolution with the goal of overthrowing Pashinyan. However, most analysts believe that today's protests have become an indicator that authorities began to address various problems. The fact is that many problems in Armenia weren't solved for years: authorities either made promises, or imitated some activity, just like it happened with refugees case.

Previous authorities ensured their safety through falsifications of elections at all levels, which relieved former ruling Republican Party and its leader Serzh Sargsyan from any responsibility.

Pashinyan, who lead the "Velvet" revolution, came to power with his team on the wave of population's trust, which means he's supposed to promote the development of approaches based on citizens' desires. On the other hand, society associates its hopes with people who overthrew hateful regime. Perhaps combination of these two components helped to resolve several old problems.

Of course, only a small fraction of problems was resolbed, many of them are still awaiting resolution. It's obvious that right now the government needs trust of the population. September 23 elections to the Council of Elders of Yerevan, where more than a third of voters of the country live, demonstrated that current government has a sufficiently high credibility. Turnover reached 43.65% (usually it's around 35%), and Prime Minister's block received 81.06% of votes.Regulatory News:

Adocia (Paris:ADOC) (Euronext Paris: FR0011184241 ADOC), a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the treatment of diabetes and other metabolic diseases with innovative formulations of approved proteins, today announced that five abstracts featuring applications of its BioChaperone platform technology have been accepted for presentation at the 54th Annual Meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) being held October 1-5, 2018 in Berlin, Germany.

"We are excited to share data on the advancement of our key BioChaperone programs in the treatment of type 1 and type 2 diabetes at the EASD Annual Meeting, one of the most important and well-respected venues in the field," commented Dr. Olivier Soula, Deputy General Manager and Director of R&D at Adocia. "These data illustrate the breadth of applications that our Biochaperone technology can support and highlights its potential to bring clinical benefit and improve lives for people living with diabetes

Details of the five accepted abstracts are presented below:

Oral Presentation #57: The ultra-rapid insulin BioChaperone Lispro shows favourable pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics compared to faster insulin aspart and insulin aspart in insulin pumps

Presenting Author: Dr. Gregory Meiffren

Session: OP10 "Where, when and hows of rapid acting insulins"

Date and Time: Tuesday, October2, 2018 2:30 PM 4:00 PM

Location: Heubner Hall

Poster #811: BioChaperone technology enables the development of pramlintide-prandial insulin combinations

Presenting Author: Dr. Remi Soula

Session: PS 068 faster acting insulins: state of the art

Date and Time: Tuesday, October 2, 2018 1:15 PM 2:15 PM

Location: Poster Halls

Poster #815: Pooled analysis of clinical trials investigating the pharmacokinetics (PK) of ultra-rapid insulin BioChaperone Lispro vs lispro in subjects with type 1 and type 2 diabetes

Presenting Author: Dr. Tim Heise

Session: PS 068 faster acting insulins: state of the art

Date and Time: Tuesday, October 2, 2018 1:15 PM 2:15 PM

Location: Poster Halls

Poster #816: BioChaperone 222, the new excipient enabling the ultra-rapid BioChaperone Lispro formulation, is completely absorbed and rapidly excreted after subcutaneous injection

Presenting Author: Dr. Olivier Soula

Session: PS 068 faster acting insulins: state of the art

Date and Time: Tuesday, October 2, 2018 1:15 PM 2:15 PM

Location: Poster Halls

Poster #818: Better postprandial glucose control with BioChaperone Combo than with lispro Mix25 or separate glargine and lispro (G+L) administrations in subjects with type 2 diabetes

Presenting Author: Dr. Theresa Herbrand

Session: PS 068 faster acting insulins: state of the art

Date and Time: Tuesday, October 2, 2018 1:15 PM 2:15 PM

Location: Poster Halls

About the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) Annual Meeting

The EASD Annual Meeting is one of the largest meetings dedicated to the latest developments and insights in diabetology. The meeting attracts key opinion leaders, company executives, scientists, physicians, researchers, nurses and students interested in diabetes and related subjects. The goal of the EASD Annual Meeting is to encourage excellence in diabetes care through advances in research and education.

About ADOCIA

Adocia is a clinical-stage biotechnology company that specializes in the development of innovative formulations of already-approved therapeutic proteins and peptides for the treatment of diabetes and other metabolic diseases. In the diabetes field, Adocia's portfolio of injectable treatments is among the largest and most differentiated of the industry, featuring six clinical-stage products. Additionally, Adocia recently expanded its portfolio to include the development of treatments of obesity and short bowel syndrome.

The proprietary BioChaperone technological platform is designed to enhance the effectiveness and/or safety of therapeutic proteins while making them easier for patients to use. Adocia customizes BioChaperone to each protein for a given application. Adocia's clinical pipeline includes five novel insulin formulations for the treatment of diabetes: two ultra-rapid formulations of insulin analog lispro (BioChaperone Lispro U100 and U200), a combination of basal insulin glargine and rapid-acting insulin lispro (BioChaperone Combo), a rapid-acting formulation of human insulin (HinsBet U100), and a prandial combination of human insulin with amylin analog pramlintide (BioChaperone Pramlintide Insulin). It also includes an aqueous formulation of human glucagon (BioChaperone Glucagon) for the treatment of hypoglycemia. Adocia preclinical pipeline includes combinations of insulin glargine with GLP-1 receptor agonists (BioChaperone Glargine GLP-1) for the treatment of diabetes, a ready-to-use combination of glucagon and a GLP-1 receptor agonist BioChaperone Glucagon GLP1) for the treatment of obesity and a ready-to-use aqueous formulation of teduglutide (BioChaperone Teduglutide) for the treatment of short bowel syndrome.

Adocia and Chinese insulin leader Tonghua Dongbao recently entered into a strategic alliance. In April 2018, Adocia granted Tonghua Dongbao licenses to develop and commercialize BioChaperone Lispro and BioChaperone Combo in China and other Asian and Middle-Eastern territories. The licensing included 50 million dollars upfront and up to 85 million dollars development milestones, plus double-digit royalties on sales. In June 2018, Tonghua Dongbao agreed to manufacture and supply active pharmaceutical ingredients insulin lispro and insulin glargine to Adocia globally, excluding China, to support Adocia's portfolio development in these territories.

Adocia aims to deliver "Innovative medicine for everyone, everywhere."

To learn more about Adocia, please visit us at www.adocia.com

Disclaimer

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements concerning Adocia and its business. Such forward-looking statements are based on assumptions that Adocia considers to be reasonable. However, there can be no assurance that the estimates contained in such forward-looking statements will be verified, which estimates are subject to numerous risks including the risks set forth in the "Risk Factors" section of the Reference Document filed with the French Autorite des marches financiers on April 19, 2018 (a copy of which is available on www.adocia.com) and to the development of economic conditions, financial markets and the markets in which Adocia operates. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are also subject to risks not yet known to Adocia or not currently considered material by Adocia. The occurrence of all or part of such risks could cause actual results, financial conditions, performance or achievements of Adocia to be materially different from such forward-looking statements.

This press release and the information contained herein do not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy Adocia shares in any jurisdiction.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180926005615/en/

Contacts:

Adocia

Gerard Soula, Ph.: +33 4 72 610 610

Chairman and CEO

contactinvestisseurs@adocia.com

or

Adocia Press Relations Europe

MC Services AG

Raimund Gabriel, Ph.: +49 89 210 228 0

adocia@mc-services.eu

or

Adocia Investor Relations USA

The Ruth Group

Tram Bui, Ph.: +1 646 536 7035

tbui@theruthgroup.comIDEMIA, the global leader in Augmented Identity, today announced a strategic partnership with Microsoft to help offer the convenience of eSIM technology to Windows 10 devices users. The partnership will see IDEMIA's eSIM Orchestration Hub used to integrate with mobile network operator (MNO) networks to easily and quickly support eSIM on Windows 10 Enterprise devices.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180926005743/en/

(Photo: Business Wire)

eSIM offers a streamlined user experience when it comes to managing cellular connectivity for Enterprises. IT teams will be able to provision, deploy, and manage cellular connectivity through Mobile Device Management (MDM) vendors like Microsoft's Intune. This streamlined management process of eSIM-enabled Windows 10 PCs promises to deliver a modern and mobile workforce to enterprise customers while simultaneously making their management much simpler.

IDEMIA will work with Microsoft to utilize the eSIM Orchestration Hub as a means of simplifying the integration with each MNO network. The eSIM Orchestration Hub handles all eSIM activation and provisioning workflows on the MNO network, and by connecting to existing APIs it enables MNOs to support eSIM without making significant updates to billing and operating systems (B/OSS).

The eSIM Orchestration Hub is part of IDEMIA's Connected Device Platform (CDP), a cloud-hosted platform for the management of eSIM devices. The CDP includes a Subscription Manager (SM-DP+) and Entitlement Server, providing a complete end-to-end solution for eSIM management.

"IDEMIA has been the first supplier to make possible eSIM integration in Microsoft devices, and we are now extremely pleased to keep partnering with Microsoft to bring eSIM support to Windows 10 Enterprise devices. Our eSIM Orchestration Hub was purpose-built to handle any eSIM provisioning task and quickly integrate with MNO networks. This partnership will help scale the growth of eSIM devices in the Enterprise domain, providing significant value to operators," said Emir Aboulhosn, VP Digital Domains Connectivity and IoT Security at IDEMIA.

According to ABI Research, eSIM-enabled device shipments will grow from 224 million in 2018 to nearly 700 million in 2022 (a CAGR of 33%). The presence of eSIM in Enterprise markets worldwide will be significant, which is why Microsoft and IDEMIA have partnered to scale this growth by removing hurdles for MNOs around the world. By integrating with IDEMIA's eSIM Orchestration Hub, MNOs can quickly and easily support eSIM with minimal integration work.

"IDEMIA's eSIM Orchestration Hub is an excellent solution for MNOs looking to support Windows Enterprise eSIM devices without having to undergo significant upgrades to their network. That's why we partnered with the IDEMIA team to enable faster and easier adoption of eSIM technology in Enterprises worldwide," said David Lemson, Director of Program Management for Windows IoT and Networking, Microsoft.

For more information about the Windows Enterprise eSIM solutions, IDEMIA's eSIM Orchestration Hub, or partnering with IDEMIA, contact Christian Paul at christian.paul@idemia.com.

About IDEMIA:

OT-Morpho is now IDEMIA, the global leader in Augmented Identity for an increasingly digital world, with the ambition to empower citizens and consumers alike to interact, pay, connect, travel and vote in ways that are now possible in a connected environment.

Securing our identity has become mission critical in the world we live in today. By standing for Augmented Identity, we reinvent the way we think, produce, use and protect this asset, whether for individuals or for objects. We ensure privacy and trust as well as guarantee secure, authenticated and verifiable transactions for international clients from Financial, Telecom, Identity, Public Security and IoT sectors.

OT (Oberthur Technologies) and Safran Identity Security (Morpho) have joined forces to form IDEMIA. With close to $3 billion in revenues and 14,000 employees around the world, IDEMIA serves clients in 180 countries.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180926005743/en/

Contacts:

IDEMIA PR agency:

Havas Paris

Hanna Sebbah

idemia@havas.comRapid Testing Platforms Similar to the Atlas Genetics "io" Could Transform Patient Care

BATH, England and CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- A recent study published in BMJ Open shows that a 30-minute combined test for chlamydia and gonorrhoea could provide important cost and health benefits to patients compared to standard of care, microscopy plus a laboratory nucleic acid amplification tests. Atlas Genetics, a rapid, near-patient and point-of-care (POC) molecular diagnostics company, collaborating with Aquarius Population Health, a leading independent health economics consultancy, and the Applied Diagnostic Research and Evaluation Unit (ADREU) at St George's, University of London have published the results of an evaluation of the benefits of multi-pathogen POC tests for sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in hypothetical symptomatic patients attending clinics. The full article is available online at bmjopen.bmj.com/content/8/9/e020394.

The results show that a 30-minute POC test for Chlamydia trachomatis and Neisseria gonorrhoeae could provide healthcare benefits over the current standard of care, reducing inappropriate treatments by 58%, return patient visits by 56% and lowering the average time-to-cure from 4.3 to 2.3 days. Further, the published results report that the POC chlamydia-gonorrhoea testing decreases onward transmission to partners by 25% as well as preventing approximately one-third of pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) cases in women. The Atlas Genetics io CT/NG test, currently the subject of a multi-center FDA clinical study, could be the first commercially available 30-minute POC test for chlamydia and gonorrhoea capable of realising the improved patient outcomes highlighted in the study.

The benefits of POC testing are further increased with the introduction of a multi-STI POC test, a 4-pathogen test for Chlamydia trachomatis, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, Trichomonas vaginalis & Mycoplasma genitalium, predicting a 10-fold reduction in inappropriate treatments, a 73% reduction in return clinical visits, a decrease in the average time-to-cure from 4.3 to 1.1 days, while reducing the onward transmission to partners by 43% and preventing around two-thirds of PID cases.

The release of new British Association of Sexual Health & HIV (BASHH) guidelines highlights the importance of including Mycoplasma genitalium in the multi-STI POC test. There is growing concern within the sexual health community over the current levels of undiagnosed Mycoplasma genitalium infections and the increasing antibiotic resistance of this pathogen, propagated by inappropriate treatment as a consequence of slow turnaround times for test results and incomplete diagnostic information.

The findings of this study were derived from an analysis of a hypothetical cohort, simulating the 965,988 people attending sexual health clinics in England with symptoms. Given the breadth and power of these findings, it has supported an extension of this work, involving the restructuring and optimisation of actual clinical pathways, using the Atlas Genetics io Chlamydia/Gonorrhoea POC test, in five exemplar UK clinics, to further understand the real-world benefits and cost savings of STI POC testing in true clinical settings.

"With sexually-transmitted infections continuing to rise, the need for rapid, convenient, multiplex solutions is paramount," said Jeffrey Luber, CEO of Atlas Genetics. "We commend the teams at St. George's, University of London and Aquarius for their important work demonstrating the value that a 30-minute combined test could bring to the patient. For us, it underscores the potential for a critical link between our own point of care platform and better health."

Dr Elisabeth Adams, Managing Director of Aquarius Population Health said: "Our study shows that a multi-pathogen point-of-care test could hugely benefit patients as well as having a public health impact. We are excited to be working on a follow-on project funding by the Small Business Research Initiative through Innovate UK, in which we are developing further persuasive health economic evidence for a rapid STI POC test."

Professor Tariq Sadiq, Director of ADREU at St George's, University of London, commented: "We now know that many STIs are responsible for causing similar kinds of symptoms in patients, but this knowledge is making treatment very complicated. These tests will help doctors choose the correct treatment for the correct infection, immediately. Our research suggests, that if used, these STI POC tests could meaningfully reduce chances of transmission to partners and prevent inappropriate antibiotics being given."

About Atlas Genetics

Atlas Genetics is creating a new category of in vitro diagnostics focused on decentralised, near-patient and point-of-care (POC) testing for everyone. With routine testing rapidly moving from the "hub" to the "spokes," Atlas Genetics' io platform is poised to benefit from this growing trend in decentralised testing. The company's proprietary technology platform positions Atlas Genetics in the vanguard of the rapidly evolving and increasingly patient-directed landscape of consumer diagnostics, where convenience, rapid "test and treat," and portability of platform are becoming critical to success. Atlas Genetics aims to improve patient outcomes by arming healthcare professionals with a simple-to-use, rapid and cost-effective solution for on-demand diagnosis of infectious diseases. The company's broad infectious disease platform is designed to provide rapid turnaround times, high accuracy and low cost. The io platform offers a sample-to-answer time in about 30 minutes, making it possible to carry out infectious disease tests in primary care clinics and physicians' offices anywhere. Atlas Genetics investors include Novartis Venture Fund, Consort Medical, Wondfo Biotech, LSP Venture Capital, BB Biotech, Johnson & Johnson Innovation, RMI Investments and Southwest Ventures Fund. For further information visit www.atlasgenetics.com

About Aquarius Population Health

Aquarius Population Health was founded by Dr Elisabeth Adams, and is based in King's Cross, London. The multidisciplinary team specialise in developing creative ways to explore and solve healthcare problems. They generate independent insight and evidence to support informed decisions that can impact on policy and commercialisation and improve patient care in an efficient way. Aquarius Population Health delivers health research and consultancy for clients and collaborators in the commercial, academic, charity, and government sectors. For further information visit www.aquariusph.com

About Applied Diagnostic Research and Evaluation Unit, St George's University of London

The Applied Diagnostic Research and Evaluation Unit (ADREU) is a proven multi-institutional and multi-disciplinary group including experts in diagnostic evaluations, epidemiology and public health, clinical medicine, social science and basic and translational science, based at St George's, University of London. For further information visit www.adreu.com

Innovate UK

Innovate UK is part of UK Research and Innovation, a non-departmental public body funded by a grant-in-aid from the UK government. For more information visit www.ukri.org. Innovate UK drives productivity and economic growth by supporting businesses to develop and realise the potential of new ideas, including those from the UK's world-class research base. We connect businesses to the partners, customers and investors that can help them turn ideas into commercially successful products and services and business growth. We fund business and research collaborations to accelerate innovation and drive business investment into R&D. Our support is available to businesses across all economic sectors, value chains and UK regions.

Small Business Research Initiative (SBRI)

The SBRI programme uses the power of government procurement to drive innovation. It provides opportunities for innovative companies to engage with the public sector and gain contracts to solve specific problems. Competitions for new technologies and ideas are run on specific topics and aim to engage a broad range of organisations. SBRI enables the public sector to engage with industry during the early stages of development, supporting projects through the stages of feasibility and prototyping. For further information visit

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/sbri-the-small-business-research-initiative

Contact:

Marc Jones, Atlas Genetics

E: media@atlasgenetics.com

T: +1-646-847-8573

Dr Elisabeth Adams, Aquarius Population Health

E: elisabeth.adams@aquariusph.com

T: +44 (0) 207 993 2930

Professor Tariq Sadiq, St. George's University

E: ssadiq@sgul.ac.uk

T: +44 (0) 208 725 2886CHORLEY, England, September 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

TVS Supply Chain Solutions is proud to announce that it shall be providing Integrated Logistics consultancy support through team Equinox to the UK Ministry of Defence (MOD) for the recently awarded Defence Equipment & Support (DE&S) Programme Delivery Partner (PDP) contract.

(Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/750367/TVS_Logo.jpg )



The PDP contract has been awarded to team Equinox, which comprises Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. and Turner & Townsend as the lead contractors, with TVS as a key subcontractor.

The scope of the contract includes the provision of consultancy Project Management, Project Control and Integrated Logistics (iLog). TVS Supply Chain Solutions will provide expertise specifically in support of iLog elements of DE&S Projects.

The two-year contract, with options to extend for an additional two years, will see TVS providing functional support services in relation to Integrated Logistics Services spanning Service Delivery Management, Supply Chain Management, Technical Through Life Support and Modelling & Analysis.

DE&S is responsible for the management of all MOD equipment and support-related procurement activity. This includes the procurement of new military equipment, commodities and services, support to in-service equipment through-life and management of global logistics operations.

TVS will provide specialist iLog resource into the DE&S' matrix operating model which comprises a blend of civil servants, military personnel and Programme Delivery Partner resources. DE&S will benefit from the expertise of TVS' global Supply Chain Management and Logistics professionals who will bring industry best practice, proven commercial solutions and who will support DE&S to identify emerging technologies and innovations which can further improve DE&S' performance, increase efficiency, and deliver cost savings.

Andrew Jones, TVS Supply Chain Solutions Chief Executive Officer commented, "I am delighted that TVS is a key part of the Equinox team; we are looking forward to working alongside DE&S, Jacobs and Turner & Townsend to provide industry leading resource and expertise in support of iLog projects for the benefit of the UK Ministry of Defence."

Note to editors:

TVS Supply Chain Solutions is a global provider of world class, end-to-end supply chain services with over 100 years of experience across Automotive, Defence, Beverage and Industrial sectors.



http://www.tvsscs.com

For more information, please contact:

Sarah Litrizza, Marketing Manager TVS Supply Chain Solutions

Sarah.litrizza@tvsscs.com, +44(0)1257-225754

Proposed Combination Supports New Opportunities for Members and the Actuarial Profession

ARLINGTON, Virginia. and SCHAUMBURG, Illinois, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, the Presidents of the Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS) and Society of Actuaries (SOA) jointly announced that the CAS and SOA Boards of Directors agreed to explore a combination of the CAS and SOA into one new professional organization that has the scale and resources to support members' efforts to shape and grow the evolving areas in which actuaries practice.

The environment in which actuaries practice continues to change. From predictive analytics to technology that transforms the way actuaries work, there are new opportunities for the profession to impact business and societal issues. The CAS and SOA Boards of Directors recognize that changes will continue, so the organizations must lead - not react - to maintain the profession's competitive edge, embrace new opportunities and better serve members.

"The CAS and SOA are aligned in many ways, share similar values and are both focused on equipping members for the future," said Brian Brown, president of the Casualty Actuarial Society. "By working together as one organization, we believe we can unite our strong knowledge, resources and leadership to jointly address new opportunities and challenges for the profession."

Both CAS and SOA Boards are conducting their due diligence to explore a combination, which must pass several major milestones before an official combination could happen. The milestones include a formal presentation of the combination proposal to the Boards in October, votes by both Boards by mid-November on whether to recommend approval of the proposal and votes of members from both organizations in early 2019.

Throughout the exploration process, the CAS and SOA have identified several potential benefits a combined organization could offer, including more resources to prepare members for evolving fields and opportunities; a unified actuarial education system that leverages best practices and innovations from both organizations; enhanced diversity of thought and efficiency to serve members; and, a stronger global brand for the actuarial profession.

"Through education, research and a commitment to professional standards, the SOA and CAS share a commitment to lead the way for our profession and anticipate how we can best serve our members, prepare candidates and equip employers," said Mike Lombardi, president of the Society of Actuaries. "We are committed to keeping all of our stakeholders informed and welcome their feedback as we explore a combination and the potential benefits it could offer the profession."

In addition to hosting a fall listening tour for members, the CAS and SOA launched StrongerAsOne.net to provide more information about the proposed combination and updates throughout the process.

About the Casualty Actuarial Society

The Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS) is a leading international organization for credentialing and professional education. Founded in 1914, the CAS is the world's only actuarial organization focused exclusively on property and casualty risks and serves over 8,000 members worldwide. Professionals educated by the CAS empower business and government to make well-informed strategic, financial and operational decisions.

About the Society of Actuaries

With roots dating back to 1889, the Society of Actuaries (SOA) is the world's largest actuarial professional organization with more than 30,000 actuaries as members. Through research and education, the SOA's mission is to advance actuarial knowledge and to enhance the ability of actuaries to provide expert advice and relevant solutions for financial, business and societal challenges. The SOA's vision is for actuaries to be the leading professionals in the measurement and management of risk.

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/749927/CAS.jpg

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/749928/soa.jpgWeekly net asset value ("NAV") is calculated as of the close of business on each Tuesday and posted on the following business day. In the event that Tuesday is not a business day, the Company will calculate the close-of-business NAV as of the business day immediately preceding that Tuesday. The end-of-month NAV is calculated as of the close of business on the last day of the month and posted on the following business day. For weeks that include a month-end NAV report, PSH will provide only the month-end NAV and not report the Tuesday NAV. Monthly NAVs are published in accordance with the Decree on Conduct of Business Supervision of Financial Undertakings under the Wft (Besluit Gedragstoezicht financiele ondernemingen Wft).

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - September 26, 2018) - CENTURION MINERALS LTD. (TSXV: CTN) ("Centurion" or the "Company") announces the Company has received approval from the TSX Venture Exchange for a pricing waiver to enable it to proceed with a non-brokered private placement for up to $275,000 priced at $.02/Unit. Each Unit consists of one common share and one 2-year common share purchase warrant exercisable for 2 years and priced at $.05.

The Company contemplates that various exemptions will be utilized pursuant to this financing. It may rely upon the suitability advice exemption (B.C. Instrument 45-536) as well as the existing shareholder exemption (CSA notice 45-313) which allows for an investment of up to $15,000 within any 12-month period. There is no material fact or material change that has not been generally disclosed. Closing will be subject to TSX Venture Exchange approval and any shares issued will be subject to a four-month hold period.

Proceeds from this financing shall be used by the Company as follows:

Audit fees - $51,000; legal fees- $15,000; accounting- $10,000; operating capital-Ana Sofia Project- $75,000; rent- $10,000; office overhead- $21,000; promissory notes interest- $50,000; management and administration- $15,000; regulatory filing fees-$3,000; working capital- $25,000.

ABOUT THE ANA SOFIA PROJECT

The Ana Sofia Project includes an agri-gypsum open pit mine and processing facility having a current design capacity of 4,000 tonnes/month. Gypsum is extracted from near-surface, flat-lying beds within the sedimentary formation that extends throughout the Ana Sofia Property, located in Santiago del Estero Province, Argentina. The gypsum rock is fed into primary and secondary crushers, then screened and sorted into two agri-gypsum fertilizer products. The plant is designed to produce a pellet-sized granular product and a fine powder product (comprised of a minimum 85% gypsum content) that are each packaged into one tonne tote bags. Agricultural gypsum (calcium sulfate dihydrate) is a valuable plant nutrient and plays a vital role in maintaining soil structure and nutrient balance in South American soils, resulting in enhanced crop yields.

The Project comprises two mining concessions totalling 50 hectares (ha) in size within a larger (approximately 600 ha) exploration permit area. The Project is well situated within a region where other small producers are currently extracting agricultural gypsum and selling to fertilizer distributors and farmers. An initial inferred gypsum resource for the Project was estimated (news releases - October 31, 2016 and December 16, 2016) to comprise 1.47 million tonnes averaging 94.1% gypsum, using an 85% cut-off grade that is the minimum required gypsum content for commercial-quality agricultural gypsum products in Argentina.

For additional updates, follow our operations at:

Centurion Minerals - Twitter Account and Demetra Fertilizantes - Instagram Account

ABOUT CENTURION

Centurion Minerals Ltd. is a Canadian-based company with an international focus on the development of agri-mineral fertilizer projects. For additional information on the Ana Sofia project and applications of agri-gypsum, visit our website: www.centurionminerals.com

"David G. Tafel"

President and CEO

For Further Information Contact:

David Tafel

604-484-2161

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

This news release contains forward looking statements concerning future operations of Centurion Minerals Ltd. (the "Company"). All forward-looking statements concerning the Company's future plans and operations, including management's assessment of the Company's project expectations or beliefs may be subject to certain assumptions, risks and uncertainties beyond the Company's control. Investors are cautioned that any such statements are not guarantees of future performance and that actual performance and exploration and financial results may differ materially from any estimates or projections. Such statements include, among others: possible variations in mineralization, grade or recovery rates; actual results of current exploration activities; actual results of reclamation activities; conclusions of future economic evaluations; changes in project parameters as plans continue to be refined; failure of equipment or processes to operate as anticipated; accidents and other risks of the mining industry; delays and other risks related to construction activities and operations; timing and receipt of regulatory approvals of operations; the ability of the Company and other relevant parties to satisfy regulatory requirements; the availability of financing for proposed transactions, programs and working capital requirements on reasonable terms; the ability of third-party service providers to deliver services on reasonable terms and in a timely manner; market conditions and general business, economic, competitive, political and social conditions.

The Ana Sofia project has not been the subject of a feasibility study and as such there is no certainty that a potential mine will be realized or that the processing facility will be able to produce a commercially marketable product. There is a significant risk that any production from the project will not be profitable with these risks elevated by the absence of a compliant NI 43-101 feasibility study. A mine production decision that is not based on a feasibility study demonstrating economic and technical viability does not provide adequate disclosure of the increased uncertainty and specific risks of failure associated with such a production decision. The Company has undertaken market research and studies to try to mitigate these risks. The work carried out to date is of a preliminary nature to assist in the determination as to whether the mineral product is suitable for sale and if there are markets for the mineral product. General risks inherent in the Project include the reliance on available data and assumptions and judgments used in the interpretation of such data, the speculative and uncertain nature of exploration and development costs, capital requirements and the ability to obtain financing, volatility of global and local economic climates, share price volatility, estimated price volatility, changes in equity markets, exchange rate fluctuations and other risks involved in the mineral exploration and development industry. There can be no assurance that a forward-looking statement or information referenced herein will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements or information. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements or information. We undertake no obligation to reissue or update any forward-looking statements or information except as required by law.

The Ana Sofia mineral resource estimate is reported in accordance with the Canadian Securities Administrators National Instrument 43-101 and has been estimated using the CIM "Estimation of Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves Best Practice Guidelines" dated November 23rd, 2003 and CIM "Definition Standards for Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves" dated May 10th, 2014. Due to the relatively wide spacing of the historical quarries and the 2016 test pits, which varies between 40 m and 300 m, the Ana Sofia 2 resource described herein is categorized entirely as an inferred mineral resource. Inferred Mineral Resources are not Mineral Reserves. Mineral resources which are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. There has been insufficient exploration to define the inferred resources as an indicated or measured mineral resource, however, it is reasonably expected that the majority of the Inferred Mineral Resources could be upgraded to Indicated Mineral Resources with continued exploration. There is no guarantee that any part of the mineral resources will be converted into a mineral reserve in the future. The estimate of mineral resources may be materially affected by geology, environment, permitting, legal, title, taxation, socio-political, marketing or other relevant issues.Last week, the finance ministry reportedly rejected aviation ministry's proposal to waive Air India's working capital debt of Rs 30,000 crore in one go.

New Delhi: Discussions on a revival package for beleaguered national carrier Air India are at an advanced stage, said Jayant Sinha, Minister of State for Civil Aviation on Wednesday.

Last week, the finance ministry reportedly rejected aviation ministry's proposal to waive Air India's working capital debt of Rs 30,000 crore in one go.

The ministry, however, did not reject the demand for a waiver of the working capital debt, The Economic Times reported.

In August, sources said the Civil Aviation Ministry was in discussions with the finance ministry for a Rs 11,000 crore bailout package for the ailing airline.

Sources in the know said that the Civil Aviation Ministry was working on a bailout package for the carrier, which would be utilised to reduce high-cost working capital loans.

"Cleaning up the balance sheet of Air India will make it attractive for investors as and when the government decides to once again attempt strategic stake sale of the airline," one of the sources had said.

The airline is staying afloat on a bailout package extended by the previous UPA regime in 2012. The national carrier's debt burden was more than Rs 48,000 crore at the end of March 2017.

In the current financial year, the airline has received an equity infusion of Rs 650 crore up to June. A Turnaround Plan (TAP) and a Financial Restructuring Plan (FRP) were approved for Air India by the previous UPA regime in 2012.

All government guaranteed loans and interests thereon are being paid by the government by way of equity infusion into the airline.

Under the FRP, the high cost of working capital loans has been converted into long-term debt carrying lesser rates of interest so as to reduce the financial burden on Air India.

In June, the government shelved a plan to sell a majority stake in Air India due to lack of interest from bidders - a setback to its ambitious efforts to rescue the ailing airline that has survived for years using taxpayer funds.

With inputs from agenciesThe government announced plans to merge Bank of Baroda, Vijaya Bank and Dena Bank to create the country's third-largest lender as part of efforts to revive credit and economic growth.

New Delhi: The board of Bank of Baroda will meet on 29 September to consider the government's proposal to merge Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank with itself, its Managing Director P S Jayakumar said Tuesday.

Earlier this month, the government announced plans to merge Bank of Baroda, Vijaya Bank and Dena Bank to create the country's third-largest lender as part of efforts to revive credit and economic growth.

The meeting of Board of Directors is scheduled for 29 September to approve the merger process, Jayakumar told reporters on the sidelines of a meeting of top officials of state-owned banks called by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley here.

"As of now, at the point of the merger we are well-capitalised to continue the momentum," he said in reply to a question.

The merger process, he added would take 4-6 month and 1 April 2019 could be the possible timeline for completion of the process.

The Board of Dena Bank has already given its approval to the merger proposal.

Sources said the Board of Vijaya Bank too would be meeting soon to take up the proposal.

Jayakumar further said post-merger of the three banks, there will be one entity but multiple brands can remain. Though there may be re-location of some branches post amalgamation.

All the three brands have got their own strengths, he added.

Last year, State Bank of India had merged with itself five of its subsidiary banks and took over Bharatiya Mahila Bank, following a similar decision by the government.

The government owns majority stakes in 21 lenders, which account for more than two-thirds of banking assets in Asia's third-biggest economy.The Armenian people succeeded in unpredictable and unprecedented revolution - without any violence, victims or public disorder, Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said, addressing the 73rd Session of the UN General Assembly in New York.

"From the very beginning we declared that we ruled out any violence. We declared that even if violence was used against us, we would not respond with violence. We declared that our response would be with raised and open hands, smile and love," Sputnik Armenia cited Pashinyan as saying.

He noted that the current situation in Armenia is not just a change of government or of the ruling party.

Reflecting on the present-day political Situation in Armenia, the PM said that a completely new political culture has established in the country.

Pashinyan added that Armenia is preparing for a snap parliamentary election with that same spirit.The RBI could explore buying more bonds from the open market and open a special window for mutual funds to inject liquidity

New Delhi/Mumbai: The finance ministry wants the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to consider more steps to improve liquidity in the system, including reducing the amount of funds banks must set aside with it, a senior ministry official said on Tuesday, amid a bubbling credit crunch in the Indian shadow banking industry.

The RBI could also explore buying more bonds from the open market and open a special window for mutual funds to inject liquidity, the official told reporters.

Prime Minister Narendra Modis government faces a new challenge that could derail growth at a time when surging fuel costs and a slumping rupee are buffeting the worlds fastest-growing major economy.

The RBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the proposed ideas. Late on Monday the RBI said it would buy 100 billion rupees ($1.38 billion) of government bonds via an open market operation, in a move to ease liquidity.

The finance ministry, RBI and Indias markets regulator have this week all said they all are closely monitoring the liquidity crunch that has hit non-banking financial companies (NBFC), and they stand ready to intervene.

Investors have been unnerved by credit concerns that have engulfed one of the biggest NBFC names in India - Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) - which has this month defaulted on a series of its coupon payments and seen its debt downgraded by big rating agencies to junk from AAA, within a span of less than two months.

That, in turn, has sparked concerns around the viability of other NBFCs, leading to a sharp sell-off in the sector, higher borrowing costs for NBFCs, and growing fears of contagion.

Finance minister Arun Jaitley at a press event on Tuesday said the government was watching the IL&FS situation closely.

As far as the government is concerned, we are closely in touch with the situation and monitoring the situation, he said, adding banks were confident of maintaining liquidity for various sectors as required.

Earlier in the day, Indias largest state-run insurer, Life Insurance Corp (LIC), which owns some 25 percent of IL&FS, also said it would not allow IL&FS to collapse.

Speaking with media on Tuesday, LIC Chairman VK Sharma said all options, including increasing LICs stake in IL&FS, are open.

Markets mixed

The reassurances from Sharma lifted shares in two of IL&FSs biggest listed-units IL&FS Transportation Networks and IL&FS Engineering & Construction Co. 6.26 percent and 10 percent, respectively.

This coupled with government assurances helped Indian equity markets snap a five-session losing streak and close nearly a percent higher on Tuesday, driven by gains in banks and other financial companies.

The benchmark 10-year bond yield rose one basis point to 8.13 percent on the day. The partially convertible rupee, which is Asias worst performing currency so far this year, also weakened further on the day to close at 72.7050, after slumping as low as 72.9650 per dollar early in trading on Tuesday.

Despite the assurances, analysts and investors remain wary of NBFCs and their prospects in the near-term.

We are cautious on NBFCs that have grown asset-liability mismatches, warned Credit Suisse analyst Ashish Gupta in a note to clients on Monday, adding weaker NBFCs could see net interest margins squeezed given the rise in funding cost on the back of tightening liquidity and widening credit spreads.

Credit Suisse noted that yields on commercial paper issued by NBFCs have spiked 175 basis points in the aftermath of the IL&FS defaults.

The brokerage firm also estimates mutual funds currently own an estimated 60 percent of this commercial paper and may seek to trim their exposure in the current market environment.Led by Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani with a networth of Rs 3.71 trillion, there were 831 Indians having a net worth of Rs 1,000 crore or more in 2018, which is 214 individuals more than the 2017 list,

Mumbai: At a time when policymakers are grappling on how to reduce inequalities, a wealth report on Tuesday said there has been a 34 percent increase in the number of Indians having a net worth of Rs 1,000 crore or more. Significantly, these individuals who number 831, collectively own a quarter of the nation's gross domestic product (GDP) with a net worth of $719 billion, says the report, which quoting the IMF April 2018 data pegs GDP at $2.85 trillion.

Led by Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani with a net worth of Rs 3.71 trillion, there were 831 Indians having a net worth of Rs 1,000 crore or more in 2018, which is 214 individuals more than the 2017 list, according to a Barclays-Hurun India rich list.

Ambani has topped the "Barclays Hurun India Rich List-2018" for the seventh consecutive year, with his wealth estimated at Rs 371,000 crore, an official said on Tuesday.

Figuring next on the chart are S P Hinduja & Family of Hinduja Group, with an estimated wealth of Rs 159,000 crore, and Arcelor Mittal's L N. Mittal & Family at Rs. 114,500 crore.

Following them are: Wipro's Azim Premji at Rs 96,100 crore, Sun Pharmaceuticals Ltd's Dilip Shanghvi at Rs89,700 crore, Kotak Mahindra Bank's Uday Kotak at Rs 78,600 crore, Serum Institute of India's Cyrus Poonawalla at Rs 73,000-crore, Adani Group's Gautam Adani and Family at Rs. 71,200 crore, and Shapoorji Pallonji Mistry's Cyrus P. Mistry at Rs 69,400 crore.

In a January 2018 report presented by Oxfam at the World Economic Forum, had expressed concern on the rising inequalities, stating that 1 percent of the country's

population holds 73 percent of the wealth.

The financial capital, which presents stark contrasts like housing the largest slums in the continent as also costliest mansions like Ambani's Antilla, has the highest number of contribution to the rich list, with 233 Richie Rich, followed by 163 in the national Capital and 70 in Bengaluru.

The annual list is a compilation of the super-richest Indians having a net worth of Rs 1,000 crore or more, and this number has increased by a staggering one-third -- from 617 in 2017 to 831 in 2018, said Hurun Report India's Managing Director Rahman Junaid.

Junaid said the country is the fastest growing when it comes to people entering the rich list. "The number of Rs 1,000 crore-plus wealthy Indians have nearly doubled in the past two years-from 339 in 2016 to 831 in 2018," he said.

From a demographic perspective, the average age in the list is 60, the 24-year-old Ritesh Agarwal of Oravel Stays which runs Oyo Rooms, being the youngest and 95-year-old Dharam Pal Gulati of the masala brand MDH being the eldest.

There was a massive, 157 percent spike in the number of women in the list, which grew to 136. Pharma sector promoters/executives dominate the list with a 13.7 percent occupancy, followed by software and services at 7.9 percent and fast moving consumer goods at 6.4 percent.

Nine individuals in the list saw a doubling of wealth in 2018, with Krishna Kumar Bangur of Graphite India being the biggest gainer with a 430 percent jump in his personal fortunes.

--With inputs from agencies



(Disclaimer: Reliance Industries Ltd. is the sole beneficiary of Independent Media Trust which controls Network18 Media & Investments Ltd)Jaitley said after the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) came into force, which calls for an auction of assets of loan defaulting entities, recoveries have picked up.

New Delhi: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Tuesday said bad debts or NPAs in the banking system are on the decline as recoveries of unpaid loans have picked up.

Speaking to reporters after the annual review meet with top PSU bankers, he said last several years had been challenging for public sector banks as a large amount of lending was held up in NPAs. But after the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) came into force, which calls for an auction of assets of loan defaulting entities, recoveries have picked up.

Recoveries are better, the lending ability of banks is much better and to top it all credit growth has significantly moved upwards, he said.

"We are passing through a phase of good growth as far as the economy is concerned. Consumption has moved up, and therefore the banking activity is bound to pick up," he said.

Financial Services Secretary Rajeev Kumar said banks expect to recover Rs 1.8 lakh crore through IBC and other routes during the current fiscal.

The review meeting Tuesday discussed credit growth and asset quality, he said.

The focus should now be on arresting fresh slippages, he said adding close to Rs 18,000 crore worth of non-core assets will be sold by PSBs this financial year.A special court Tuesday directed diamantaire Nirav Modi, a key accused in the multi-billion PNB fraud case, to file his reply on 29 October

Mumbai: A special court Tuesday directed diamantaire Nirav Modi, a key accused in the multi-billion PNB fraud case, to file his reply on 29 October to an Enforcement Directorate (ED) plea seeking to declare him a "fugitive" under a new law.

Special judge MS Azmi, presiding over the court set up under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), had on 25 July issued summons to Nirav Modi, seeking his reply to the application filed by the ED.

The financial crime probe agency, in the plea, had sought direction to declare the diamond jeweller a "fugitive" under the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act.

His lawyers sought time to file the reply to the ED's plea. The judge fixed 29 October for next hearing of the matter and asked him to file his reply on that date.

The court had also issued a notice of appearance under the fugitive law against Nirav Modi's uncle and co-accused in the case, Mehul Choksi, and had asked him to appear before it on 26 September.

The agency had moved the court seeking to declare the diamond traders as "fugitive economic offenders" and nod to confiscate their assets worth Rs 3,500 crore.

The probe agency, empowered to enforce the new law enacted by the NDA government to curb big economic crimes and check the escape of perpetrators from India, had filed two separate applications against Nirav Modi and Choksi.

The agency seeks to confiscate their assets, both movable and immovable, including those located in the UK and the UAE.

The move has been made on the basis of the two PMLA charge sheets filed by the agency against the designer diamond jewellers on charges of alleged money laundering.

Nirav Modi and Choksi are being investigated by the ED and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) after it was detected that they allegedly cheated PNB (Punjab National Bank) of more than Rs 13,400 crore with the purported involvement of a few of its employees.

The scam, which reportedly began in 2011, was detected in January this year, after which PNB officials reported it to the probe agencies.

Two criminal complaints were filed by the ED in these instances after taking cognisance of CBI FIRs.

Non-bailable warrants were issued against Nirav Modi and Choksi. Also, an Interpol 'red corner' arrest warrant has been issued against Nirav Modi on the ED's request.By Eliana Raszewski, Luc Cohen and Marcelo Rochabrun BUENOS AIRES/SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Uber's fastest-growing market in the world is now Argentina, company executives say, attributing the expansion to the nation's sudden economic unraveling, which has boosted unemployment and sliced the purchasing power of Argentines. Twenty percent of its drivers in Buenos Aires, the only city where it operates in Argentina, were jobless immediately before joining Uber

By Eliana Raszewski, Luc Cohen and Marcelo Rochabrun

BUENOS AIRES/SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Uber's fastest-growing market in the world is now Argentina, company executives say, attributing the expansion to the nation's sudden economic unraveling, which has boosted unemployment and sliced the purchasing power of Argentines.

Twenty percent of its drivers in Buenos Aires, the only city where it operates in Argentina, were jobless immediately before joining Uber.

The economic downturn, "has certainly helped many people find us as an alternative source of income," Felipe Fernandez Aramburu, who runs Uber business development in Argentina, told Reuters in a recent interview.

Despite worries about the country's economy, which shrank 4.2 percent in the second quarter after its central bank hiked rates to ward off a currency crisis, the company says it does not fear that a recession could boost the number of drivers without an equivalent increase in demand.

"Our growth today is less about economic conditions on the rider side," said Andrew Macdonald, who runs Uber in Latin America. Instead, Macdonald expects what he described as a paucity of public transportation options to lift demand in Argentina and said growth was highest in the neighborhoods with the least bus and train service.

But Uber's Argentine unit still faces a snag: For most rides, the company does not charge its drivers the 25 percent commission it is theoretically owed. Due to legal and regulatory hurdles, Uber rides in Argentina can only be paid with cash or credit cards issued abroad, which almost no locals have.

When rides are paid in cash, drivers currently have no way to pay Uber its 25 percent commission, leaving many with a growing debt to the company. Commissions from drivers are Uber's only source of revenue.

Uber's Argentine conundrum of being unable to profit from its fast growth there mirrors a wider problem for the ride hailing service, which has struggled to prove that it can be profitable as it gears up for a planned 2019 initial public offering.

'TOO MANY DRIVERS'

Macdonald played down those concerns, however.

"It's not about whether we are making money in the near term," he said, adding that the company will "eventually" have to charge those commissions.

Macdonald would not say whether the Argentine market is profitable. Uber has disclosed that its operations in nearby Brazil - now the company's second-biggest market worldwide - are profitable.

Once Uber can accept local credit and debit cards, it will be able to recoup what it is owed, the company said.

Drivers, however, say the current Argentine growth rate may be temporary, tied to the lack of a commission charge.

"What's going on is that there are too many drivers currently and so there's less work for us," said Jorge, a 62-year old Uber driver who requested anonymity. "Everyone's coming to Uber because they don't charge a commission."

Uber says that in the last three months, it has had 55,000 active drivers and 1 million active users in Buenos Aires. Each day, the company said it adds between 300 and 400 new drivers and 7,000 new users. There's also attrition in the mix.

"The average lifespan for a driver in Latin America is about three to four months. It means they use Uber as something temporary," Fernandez Aramburu said.

Uber's recruitment success reflects a wider trend within Argentina, where a rising jobless rate has hit full-time jobs with benefits in particular, economists say.

"We are going through a process that is making labor rights more precarious, and formal employment is dwindling," said Hernan Letcher, director of the Center for Argentine Economic Policy.

Uber has been operating in Argentina since 2016, when it faced aggressive resistance from taxi drivers and government authorities, including legal disputes that led to the ban on credit card payments that is still in place.

There is no regulatory framework for Uber in Buenos Aires, including no way for the government to collect sales tax on the rides.

Macdonald said the company welcomes favorable regulation and that accepting local credit cards is a priority, which will make more drivers pay their 25 percent commission but could also increase Uber's business.

It's a testament to our investment in Argentina ... that we are able to grow so much even without being able to offer the convenience of all payment options," Macdonald said.

(Additional reporting by Miguel Lo Bianco and Heather Somerville; Editing by Christian Plumb and Cynthia Osterman)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.Currently, the Centre and states together hold 49 percent stake in GST Network, the company that provides IT backbone to the new indirect tax regime

New Delhi: The Union Cabinet is likely to consider Wednesday the proposal to convert GST Network (GSTN) into a government-owned company.

The GST Council, chaired by Union finance minister Arun Jaitley and comprising state finance ministers, had in May agreed to a proposal to make GSTN a government company, with Centre owning 50 percent stake and states together holding the remaining 50 percent.

"Converting GSTN to a government company may be considered by the Cabinet tomorrow," a source said.

Currently, the Centre and states together hold 49 percent stake in GST Network, the company that provides IT backbone to the new indirect tax regime. The remaining 51 percent is held by five private financial institutions - HDFC Ltd, HDFC Bank Ltd, ICICI Bank Ltd, NSE Strategic Investment Co and LIC Housing Finance Ltd.

Jaitley had in April asked finance secretary Hasmukh Adhia to "examine the possibility" of converting GSTN into a majority government company or a 100 percent government company.

Following this, the proposal was put up for approval before the GST Council in May.

The GSTN was incorporated as a private limited company on 28 March, 2013 under the UPA government. It is a Section 8 company under the new Companies Act and hence is a not-for-profit entity.

The government stake in GSTN was initially kept at 49 percent and incorporated as a private company to "allow adequate flexibility and freedom" to "ensure timely implementation of the IT infrastructure" prior to the GST rollout.

Goods and Services Tax (GST), which subsumed over a dozen local taxes, was rolled out on July 1, 2017. Over 1.1 crore businesses are registered on the GSTN portal.

With enhanced role of GSTN from just collecting taxes to data analytics, the government felt that it should now be the majority owner in the IT backbone provider.Rana Kapoor is the second chief executive at a private sector lender after Shikha Sharma of larger rival Axis Bank to face regulatory wrath in terms of extension of CEOs' tenure.

Mumbai: The Yes Bank board on Tuesday decided to seek at least a three-month extension for Rana Kapoor, managing director and chief executive, from Reserve Bank of India (RBI) beyond 31 January, 2019.

The RBI had last week curtailed the three-year term that the board had sought for Kapoor, also one of the promoters of the bank, to 31 January 2019, and asked the bank to find a replacement. The regulator offered no reasons for the curtailment of the term.

In a regulatory filing, the bank said Kapoor has been in his position since the inception in 2004 and finding a suitable successor is a "time-consuming challenge".

"It was decided that Reserve Bank of India be requested for an extension up to minimum 30 April 2019 for finalisation of audited financial statements for fiscal year ending 2019; thereafter subject to RBI approval, up to September 2019 in order for the statutory AGM process to be completed," it said.

To ensure a long-term succession plan, the board also decided to elevate senior group presidents Rajat Monga, who handles financial management, and Pralay Mondal, who heads the focus area of retail, as executive directors.

The board, which met at the bank's corporate office here this evening, also established a search and selection committee comprising three members from the existing nomination and remuneration committee along with two external experts to identify Kapoor's successor.

Meanwhile, Madhu Kapur, the wife of deceased co-promoter Ashok Kapur and also his legal heir, has written to the board asking Kapoor to be sent on leave till January 31 to ensure a fair search, sources said. She has also demanded a forensic audit of loans sanctioned under Kapoor's leadership. Kapoor owns 10.66 percent of the bank, while Kapur owns over 8 percent.

The bank had last week disclosed that the RBI has curtailed Kapoor's term by nearly two and half years. The board had reappointed him for a period of three years starting September 2018.

Kapoor is the second chief executive at a private sector lender after Shikha Sharma of larger rival Axis Bank to face regulatory wrath in terms of extension of CEOs' tenure. Both the banks were found to have under-reported non-performing assets by over Rs 10,000 crore each for two consecutive years in regulatory audits conducted by the RBI.

The apex bank move has not gone down well with the investors and the bank stock has seen steep selling in all the trading sessions since the disclosure was made.

The Yes Bank stocks shed 2.83 percent to close at Rs 219.85 a piece, a fresh 52-week low, on the BSE on Tuesday, even as a few other lenders saw a surge in share prices. The stock lost almost 40 percent since the RBI's action on Kapoor.The Supreme Court has declared the Centre's flagship Aadhaar scheme as constitutionally valid.

The Congress on Wednesday welcomed the Supreme Court's decision to strike down Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act, which allowed private parties to access Aadhaar data, and termed it a "slap on the face of BJP".

The Supreme Court has declared the Centre's flagship Aadhaar scheme as constitutionally valid.

We welcome the Supreme Court's decision to strike down Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act. Private entities are no longer allowed to use Aadhaar for verification purposes. #AadhaarVerdict  Congress (@INCIndia) September 26, 2018

The delinking of Aadhaar from private entities is a 'slap on the face of BJP", added Congress national spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi.

Slap on the face of Digital India propaganda of BJP. Jstc Chandrachud says that Digital India cant submerge identities He said-"Quest for digital India must be cognisant of the digital divide. Digital nation must nt submerge the identities of digitised citizen#AadhaarVerdict  Abhishek Singhvi (@DrAMSinghvi) September 26, 2018

He also hailed the Supreme Court's move to disallow metadata to be stored in current form.

SC rightly appreciated brilliant idea in origin; protected its core; promoted its development &eliminated its flotsam &jetsam. SC brilliantly threw out #bjp #modi accumulated dirty bathwater and saved the baby. Org intent of UPA ie to give identity 2 marginalised ppl now shines.  Abhishek Singhvi (@DrAMSinghvi) September 26, 2018

The verdict also saw reactions from other party members. Congress spoksperson Randeep Surjewala called the verdict "quashing of Narendra Modi governments surveillance tool."

#AadharVerdict Quashing of Modi Governments Surveillance Tool; Sec 57 puts an end to abuse of power. SC ends the mass surveillance exercise being carried out under the guise of Aadhar by the Central Government and the grotesque distortion of an idea conceived by the UPA.  Randeep Singh Surjewala (@rssurjewala) September 26, 2018

Congress leader Sanjay Jha also tweeted in favor of the verdict and questioned the government on taking Aadhar information when it was sub-judice.

Dear Citizens of India; Ask Mr #Modi , #PleaseGiveMyDataBack that has been taken by mobile companies and banks. Why did the government take our #Aadhar information when it was sub judice? Now they already have access to your info. How fair is that? It is daylight robbery.  Sanjay Jha (@JhaSanjay) September 26, 2018

The SC #AadhaarVerdict vindicates the Congress party standpoint: #Aadhar only for welfare subsidies. A slap on the face of #ModiSarkar for trying to forcibly make it mandatory for other private purposes like bank accounts, mobile phones, school admission etc.  Sanjay Jha (@JhaSanjay) September 26, 2018

The apex court's five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra said Aadhaar is meant to help benefits reach marginalised sections of society and takes into account the dignity of people not only from the personal but also from the community point of view. The top court said Aadhaar serves a bigger public interest. "Aadhaar means unique and it is better to be unique than be the best", it said.Several Jharkhand-based activists have moved Jharkhand High Court with a petition demanding quashing of an FIR registered against them.

Ranchi: Several Jharkhand-based activists, including Father Stan Lourdusamy alias Swamy and Aloka Kujur, have moved Jharkhand High Court with a petition demanding quashing of an FIR registered against them by Khunti police in case number 124/18 registered on 26 July under Sections 121, 121A and 124A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and 66A and 66F of the IT Act (2000). The matter is due to be heard by the court on 27 September, 2018.

Kujur, a Ranchi-based social worker, got to know about the FIR from newspapers on 28 July, two days after it was registered, she says. The activists were accused of using social media to instigate sentiments against the nation and the Constitution and disturbing communal harmony.

Though I was not surprised, I feel weird that no one from Khunti police station or Khunti SP office bothered to intimate me about the FIR till date despite charging me for an act as serious as sedition, which proves that their action (to register an FIR) is political in nature, she adds.

The FIR was registered soon after four policemen posted as security guards of former Lok Sabha deputy chairperson and sitting BJP MP from Khunti, Kariya Munda, were abducted by irate villagers, who were attacked by the police forces while a gram sabha was in process in Ghagra village on 26 July.

Theodore Kido, former Congress MLA from Kolebira in Gumla district, Ghanshyam Biruli of Jharkhand Against Radiation (JOAR), and Belosa Babita Kachchap, a young author who is also one of the leaders of Adivasi Mahasabha  considered to be the driving force behind the pathalgadi movement  were also among the people booked in the aftermath of the abduction.

Interestingly, Section 66A of IT Act was held unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in its judgment in Shreya Singhal vs Union of India case on 24 March, 2015. The apex court called it nebulous  as in open-ended, undefined, and vague.

Uncomfortable questions

Almost all of the activists charged with sedition in this case have been either highlighting the cases of social injustice being meted out to tribals in Jharkhand or have questioned the governments intention behind non-implementation of Panchayat Raj (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act 1996, bypassing gram sabhas in acquiring forest land in contravention of laid down procedure under Forest Act 2006. They have also been demanding wholehearted implementation of 5th Schedule of the Constitution, thereby actually empowering Tribal Advisory Council in the state which has been reduced to a political puppet by the government.

Supporters of the pathalgadi movement have also called for implementation of Samatha judgment of Supreme Court (1997), posters of which can be found painted across villages in Khunti and Gumla districts, where pathalgadi still stand. The Samatha judgment aimed at safeguarding with tribals the control of mining of minerals in their land, effectively giving them right over top soil, as well as minerals lying in the subsoil.

The judgment made null and void all mining and industrial operations by non-tribals or private companies in areas defined under the 5th Schedule and held that all mining activity in such areas should be taken up only by the State Mineral Development Corporation or a tribal co-operative, which would provide for a viable economic source for development of the area. Entire Khunti district is covered under 5th Schedule, as are 14 other districts out of 24 in Jharkhand.

Our questions make them squirm because they know that they are at fault in not fulfilling their promises of development and non-implementation of the directives of the honourable Supreme Court issued from time to time. Politicians need to realise that it is the people that make a country  neither the industrial houses nor political parties," says Swamy, adding that the administration can win the hearts and minds of tribals only by actually implementing the laws created to safeguard their culture and respect their customs.

Incidentally, this is the first ever case filed against Swamy after decades of work giving voice to issues related to tribals ranging from uranium mines of Jadugoda to working for tribal youths falsely implicated and languishing in jails for being Naxals.

A fit case of state oppression?

Like Swamy, Kujur too seems to have been targeted for her intervention in the cases where tribals rights were abused. Under the aegis of her NGO  Women Against Sexual Violence and State Repression and Sexual Repression (WSS)  Kujur led a fact-finding team to Kochang in the aftermath of the infamous gangrape incident reported in June.

The report they presented termed the gangrape incident as fabricated and implicated office of Khunti Superintendent of Police for staging the entire incident to create terror in blocks where pro-pathalgadi forces were dominant and to break the movement by implicating the entire leadership under false charges.

However, Kujur denies being associated with pathalgadi movement or meeting anyone involved.

I went to the villages of these five women (who were gangraped) and actually met two of them. Our findings reveal the incident was used by government as an excuse to unleash brute force on innocent villagers, provoke them to turn violent and arrest anyone associated with pathalgadi movement to suppress it, says Kujur, adding, I never posted anything about pathalgadi, so the police used a piece of information I shared on Facebook to target me. Since when did sharing information on social media become a fit case for being charged for sedition?

In an emotional letter that Swamy penned in the aftermath of the FIR challenging the government to bring charges in a court of law, he wrote: Over the last two decades, I have identified myself with the Adivasi people and their struggle for a life of dignity and self respectIn this process, I have clearly expressed my dissent over several policies and laws enacted by the government in the light of the Indian Constitution. I have questioned the validity, legality and justness of several steps taken by the government and the ruling class. If this makes me a deshdrohi, then so be it.

Battle ahead

Questioning the logic behind charging the social activists under provisions of the IT Act on the basis of Facebook posts, Shiv Kumar Singh, representing Swamy in the case, believes that the government will stand exposed in the court of law.

The premise and timing of registering FIR is a proof in itself of the motivation of Khunti SP and in charge of Khunti PS, who are working at the behest of political forces to discredit Fr Swamy and other social activists, says Singh, who will be joined by a battery of senior Supreme Court lawyers when the petition is heard by the Jharkhand High Court on 27 September.

Khunti district police establishment, meanwhile, is tight-lipped over the development. Superintendent of Police (SP) Aswini Kumar Sinha said the details of the investigation will be revealed at an appropriate time. We are verifying the antecedents of the persons named in the FIR and going through their past posts on Facebook and other social media websites. We have also written to Facebook to provide historical data of the Facebook profiles of persons in question and will try to find if anyone had posted and later deleted any objectionable post in past, says Sinha.

With inputs from AK Singh in Ranchi

Authors are freelance writers and members of 101reporters.comPrime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday rolled out the Centre's flagship Ayushman Bharat scheme.

New Delhi: The All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) has inked an MoU with the National Health Agency (NHA), the apex body implementing the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana, thus becoming the first hospital in Delhi to have become a part of the Centre's health insurance programme.

A formal MoU was signed between AIIMS Director Dr Randeep Guleria and NHA deputy CEO Dinesh Arora on Tuesday. "In accordance with the provisions of the scheme, AIIMS will provide all diagnostic and therapeutic facilities to the entitled beneficiary patients admitted in the hospital, as per approved packages," its spokesperson Dr Aarti Vij said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday rolled out the Centre's flagship Ayushman Bharat-National Health Protection Mission (AB-NHPM) from Jharkhand. The ambitious scheme, named the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Abhiyan (PMJAY), aims to provide a coverage of Rs five lakh per family annually, benefiting more than 10.74 crore poor families for secondary and tertiary care hospitalisation through a network of empanelled health care providers.

The scheme will provide cashless and paperless access to services for the beneficiary at the point of service. It will help reduce expenditure for hospitalisations which impoverishes people and will help mitigate the financial risk arising out of catastrophic health episodes. Eligible people can avail the benefits in government and listed private hospitals.

The 71st round of National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) has found 85.9 percent of rural households and 82 percent of urban households have no access to healthcare insurance. The scheme seeks to 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.

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.

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.Turkey will continue to purchase Iran's natural gas, despite the U.S. sanctions on Tehran, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in an interview to Reuters.

He said Turkey will continue to buy natural gas from Iran in line with its long-term supply contract despite Trumps threats to punish countries doing business with Iran.

"We need to be realistic ... Am I supposed to let people freeze in winter? ...Nobody should be offended. How can I heat my peoples homes if we stop purchasing Irans natural gas?," Erdogan said while in New York attending the annual United Nations General Assembly meeting.UIDAI said that the Supreme Court's Aadhaar verdict is a victory for the UIDAI and the government and has also set the pace of India's digital destiny.

The Supreme Court on Monday declared that the Aadhaar Act was constitutionally valid, though it gave the government and the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) a slap on the wrist on a number of aspects of the law. Unsurprisingly, there have been a host of reactions to the judgment, some welcoming it and others expressing disappointment.

Centre, BJP feel vindicated

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley welcomed the Supreme Court's verdict, calling it a "historic decision". At a press conference, he said it was a welcome decision that Aadhaar's concept of a unique identity number and legislation has been accepted after a judicial review. Jaitley also said that by identifying beneficiaries of the government scheme and ensuring that there were no fake, or duplicate, or non existent beneficiaries, the Centre would save Rs 90,000 every year. He also said that Aadhaar's critics should realise that technology cannot be defied or ignored any longer.

"Aadhaar is a great step forward in the use of technology in governance. It will continue to be a great benefit to the society," he said, expressing gratitude to the advocates of the Aadhaar scheme  Nandan Nilekani and Ajay Bhushan Pandey.

Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, who was resent at the press conference, called to brief the media on a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, also praised the Supreme Court's verdict, saying the decision is "a judgement of moment, empowering democracy, good governance, service delivery and also empowering the ordinary Indian".

"The purpose of Aadhaar is legitimate and in the State's interest. It is not a surveillance tool," he asserted.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) described the Supreme Court judgment on Aadhaar as a big victory for the "pro poor" Narendra Modi government. BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said that the top court had ruled that Aadhaar was safe.

"We see it as a big victory for the pro-poor Modi government. The Supreme Court has upheld the constitutional validity of Aadhaar and has also said that it does not violate privacy," Patra said.

The UIDAI, too, called it a "historical and landmark judgement". "The Aadhaar verdict is a victory for the UIDAI and the Government of India and has also set the pace of India's digital destiny," the authority said. "It has been established by the judgment that Aadhaar is not for State surveillance as profiling is not possible using the minimal data that Aadhaar has. There are sufficient safeguards to disallow any abuse."

Congress welcomes move, but for different reasons

The Congress, too, welcomed the top court's decision, but this was particularly its decision to read down Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act, which allowed private entities to access Aadhaar data. The party called the move a "slap on the face of the BJP".

"We welcome the Supreme Court's decision to strike down Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act. Private entities are no longer allowed to use Aadhaar for verification purposes," the Congress said on Twitter, minutes after the verdict was pronounced.

Several party leaders supported the court's ruling, as well.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi praised the verdict but, once again, alleged that the BJP was using the Aadhaar scheme for surveillance rather than for empowerment.

For Congress, Aadhaar was an instrument of empowerment. For the BJP, Aadhaar is a tool of oppression and surveillance. Thank you Supreme Court for supporting the Congress vision and protecting . #AadhaarVerdict  Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) September 26, 2018

Senior advocate and Congress leader Kapil Sibal said that if the BJP government does not bring the Aadhaar Act to the Rajya Sabha  the Act was passed surpassing the Upper House as it was introduced in the Lok Sabha as a money bill  the Congress will approach the Supreme Court again.

However, he denied that the verdict upholding the validity of Aadhaar was "not a setback as striking down the Act would have deprived the marginalised sections". "But we agree with Justice DY Chandrachud that it is a fraud (to introduce the bill as a money bill) on the Constitution."

'A very good, balanced judgment'

Retired justice KS Puttaswamy, one of the first to question the legality of Aadhaar, welcomed the Supreme Court verdict. "After holistic consideration, my opinion is that the majority judgment on the validity of Aadhaar Act is correct, though I have not read the whole judgment yet," the 92-year-old retired Karnataka High Court judge said. On the court upholding the mandatory Aadhaar-PAN linking, he said those who pay income tax are limited, and they belong to a separate class.

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee hailed the judgment and said: "It is a victory of the people of this country and we are very happy... The days of the BJP government are over in the country."

Attorney general of India KK Venugopal told ANI, "I am very happy with the judgment. It is a landmark and remarkable judgment."

Amitabh Kant, CEO of the Niti Aayog, agreed that it is "a good and a progressive judgment and will bring efficiency in the country". He stressed the Supreme Court's observation that Aadhaar has stood the test of constitutionality.

Leading figures from the IT sector said that the apex court's verdict is balanced. Former Chief Financial Officer of Infosys, TV Mohandas Pai told PTI, "Overall, it is a very good, balanced judgement that recognises Aadhaar as a unique entity, empowers the government to make Aadhaar mandatory with conditions in certain cases and recognises the primacy of the individual's right to her data."

Another ex-CFO of Infosys, V Balakrishnan, said the apex court has come out with a balanced view on the issue. "The Supreme Court has, in effect, addressed many of the concerns related to the wide use of Aadhaar data and resulting data privacy issues," Balakrishnan said. "The all-pervasive use of people's Aadhaar number has been curtailed by the judgment to a large extent."

Senior advocate Prashant Bhushan reacted to the Supreme Court's verdict saying that the major concerns of citizens had been taken care of, but he expressed concern with the verdict upholding the Act as a money bill.

One issue before the SC was whether the Aadhaar Act could have been passed as a money bill, thus bypassing the Rajya Sabha. Govt has been misusing the money bill provision to pass Acts having nothing to do with govt funds such as the FCRA or Representation of People Act. https://t.co/mg26G9QCFQ  Prashant Bhushan (@pbhushan1) September 26, 2018

Former attorney general Soli Sorabjee called it "a good judgment" in providing relief to citizens and said Justice DY Chandrachud's dissent was very important. "I think that on the whole, it is a good judgment. Although personally, I am happy with Justice Chandrachud's judgment striking it down on the grounds that it bothers the right to privacy," he said.

Pavan Duggal, one of the nation's leading cyber law experts, said that the Aadhaar verdict was a huge sigh of relief for citizens, though he warned that it would now be a "humongous task to ensure that the data already with private companies is not misused or sold".

Supratim Chakraborty, associate partner at law firm Khaitan and Co, also warned that there was "need to have proper safeguards as to how information is being used by private parties"

Neel Ratan, a partner at PwC India, said the verdict "provides reasonable restrictions to ensure that citizens' consent is taken and misuse of data can be controlled, while benefits of Aadhaar can be adequately passed on to marginalised groups".

Pointing out that banks should stop issuing Aadhaar cards as it has no connection to banking, the general secretary of the All India Bank Employees Association, CH Venkatachalam, said, "As far as banks are concerned, an Aadhaar card is one more card to identify a person while opening an account. No other purpose is served beyond that."

With inputs from agenciesShah accused the Congress of trying every trick to fight and defeat Aadhaar as it is the 'fountainhead of middlemen and corruption'.

New Delhi: BJP president Amit Shah Wednesday mocked Congress chief Rahul Gandhi after he claimed that the Supreme Court order on Aadhaar supported his party's vision, saying, "Yes, the Congress won today, just like they won Lok Sabha Polls in 2014".

Shah accused the Congress of trying every trick to fight and defeat Aadhaar as it is the "fountainhead of middlemen and corruption".

"They tried to mislead people on various grounds, including scare-mongering on privacy. Today they stand exposed and defeated," he said in a series of tweets attacking the Congress.

The Supreme Court judgment, he asserted, is a strong validation of Aadhaar as an instrument of service delivery and gives further impetus to empowering the poor by ensuring they get their rights.

Describing Aadhaar as a tool of oppression and surveillance for the BJP, Rahul had thanked the apex court for supporting the Congress vision and protecting India.

The BJP president said Aadhaar under the UPA government was "niradhar" (without any basis) and had no purpose.

The UPA spent thousands of crores to enrol people without any law or scrutiny, he added. "The Modi government gave it strong legal backing and integrated it in service delivery. This ensured savings of Rs 90,000 crore and benefited the poor," he said.Around 200 people are still stranded in Lahaul and Spiti district according to an official of the Himachal Pradesh State Disaster Management Authority

Shimla: Around 300 people stranded in various parts of Himachal Pradesh's Lahaul and Spiti district have been rescued and most of the 600 roads of the state reopened after being blocked following recent snowfall, officials said Wednesday.

Thirteen stranded people were airlifted to safer places by the Indian Air Force, while the Border Road Organisation (BRO) rescued many people, the officials said.

An official of the Himachal Pradesh State Disaster Management Authority said most of the 600 roads, including the Chandigarh-Manali road, of the state have been reopened.

He also said about 300 people stranded at various places of Lahaul and Spiti district have been rescued. Around 200 people are still stranded there, the official added.

Keylog Sub Divisional Magistrate Amar Negi said eight persons, hailing from West Bengal, were airlifted to safer places in Stingri in Lahaul district and Bhuntar in Kullu district on Wednesday by 11 am, while five were airlifted to Stingri on Tuesday evening.

Five of total eight persons airlifted on Wednesday have been taken to Bhuntar in adjoining Kullu district in IAF helicopters directly, he added.

Negi told PTI that two IAF helicopters are continuously airlifting people stranded in various areas including Koksar and Baralacha.

The weather conditions are favourable now and BRO personnel are on their job to clear the roads of debris, he said hoping that most of the roads would be opened by Thursday morning, the SDM said.As per the plea and submissions made by authorities in Bombay High Court, 84 kilometres of the total 555 kilometres of the highway is maintained by the NHAI

Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Wednesday wanted to know from the Maharashtra government and the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) the reasons behind the slow paced work in repairing and widening of the Mumbai-Goa National Highway.

A bench of acting Chief Justice Naresh Patil and Justice GS Kulkarni also asked whether any experts were appointed to monitor and certify the quality of such work. The HC has now sought original records of contracts awarded for the repair and widening of the highway from two lanes to four, the costs for the project and the safety measures that authorities have employed.

The bench was hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by city-based lawyer Owais Pechkar, highlighting the poor condition of the highway. Pechkar had also submitted photographs showing the entire stretch was riddled with potholes following rains this year. In the plea, Pechkar informed the court that while the widening and repair work on the highway had begun in 2011, the contractors appointed by the authorities had completed just a small portion of the work.

As per the plea and submissions made by authorities in court, 84 kilometres of the total 555 kilometres of the highway is maintained by the NHAI. The repair and widening work on the 84 km stretch began in 2011, and so far, about 70 percent of the work has been completed. However, even on this newly widened stretch, potholes had reappeared this monsoon, Pechkar said. The state government began the work on its part of the road last year.

Government counsel Nisha Mehra told the bench that the work was likely to be completed by 2020.

The high court, however, raised questions on the state's claims. "The NHAI is working on just a small portion of the highway and has failed to complete the work in eight long years. The state, meanwhile, proposes to complete the work in the next two years on a stretch of over 470 km. Is the state being ambitious or does the NHAI not have competent contractors?" the bench asked.

"What is the reason for such slow pace of work on the NHAI's portion and what is the actual progress of work on the state's area? Also, is there an independent authority to check whether the work being done is of the requisite quality?" it said.

The very reason that the Union government had decided to fund the 6,000 crore widening project for the highway was because of the increasing number of accidents on the stretch, the bench noted. Therefore, it was imperative that authorities complete the work in a time-bound manner, and in the meanwhile ensure safety of commuters using the highway, while it was under repair.

Notably, the state government and the NHAI had assured the high court last month that they would repair potholes on the Mumbai-Goa National Highway by 5 September.The directives were issued to the central public information officers of the Prime Minister's Office, External Affairs Ministry and Home Ministry on the plea of an RTI applicant seeking to know if autopsy was done on Shastri who had died on 11 January, 1966 in Tashkent in a Soviet dacha.

New Delhi: All classified records pertaining to former prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri's death should be placed before the prime minister and home minister to take call on their declassification, the CIC has ruled Monday.

The directives were issued to the central public information officers of the Prime Minister's Office, External Affairs Ministry and Home Ministry on the plea of an RTI applicant seeking to know if autopsy was done on Shastri who had died on 11 January, 1966 in Tashkent in a Soviet dacha.

"The Commission directs... to place all those so-called 'classified papers' before the prime minister and the home minister, who are recommended to consider the fundamental right to know and demand of the people... to declassify (the records) either through an expert committee or by any other process to get the mystery probed and resolved," Information Commissioner Sridhar Acharyulu said.

He also expressed surprise that there are no records with the Rajya Sabha pertaining to the Raj Narain Committee to look into Shastri's death initiated during the Janata Party government in late seventies. "Parliament is known for meticulous maintenance of documents. Every word uttered in Parliament is recorded and kept in public domain, a humongous task the office is perfectly performing. Then how such a significant record disappeared," he said.

Acharyulu recommended that the "constitutional authorities" in Parliament to probe or make efforts to secure the committee records. Shastri had died in Tashkent, hours after signing a declaration with Pakistan President Muhammad Ayub Khan post-1965 Indo-Pak war during talks moderated by Soviet Premier Alexei Keynoting.

He reportedly died from a massive heart attack but questions were raised on the circumstances of his death on foreign soil when cold war was at its peak. The conspiracy theories were further fuelled after the central government started denying documents, under the RTI Act, related to his death calling them secret and disclosure prejudicial to the interests of the country.

"In view of the startling incidents that followed the mysterious death, such as killing of his personal doctor and assistant in two separate 'accidents', disappearance of records of Rajya Sabha Committee's probe, and various significant points raised by journalists... Shastri's wife Lalitha, other family members, the Commission is of opinion that the Union government has a duty to explain the nation why and how Lal Bahadur Shastri died in Tashkent," he said. Except a medical report, nothing is disclosed, and mystery is being allowed to persist, he noted.

Section 8(1)(a) exempts from disclosure the information which would prejudicially affect the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security, strategic, scientific or economic interests of the State, relation with foreign State or lead to incitement of an offence. "People's right to know the 'truth' behind the death of Shastri cannot be brushed aside on the ground of Section 8(1)(a) en bloc. A committee of experts should be constituted to examine the need of declassification of such records," he said.

Acharyulu underlined a home ministry response in the Lok Sabha that classification of documents is not being done under the Officials Secrets Act and is being done by ministry concerned. He asked the government to answer which ministry has classified documents related to Shastri's death, nature of classifications of these documents- 'top secret', 'secret' or 'confidential' and the basis of it.

Which part of 8(1)(a) of RTI Act is invoked to deny and what is the justification for such invocation, he asked. Besides period for which classification stands, the period prescribed for classification of Shastri documents, whether any ministry is considering declassification, and why can not documents can be disclosed after severing confidential parts, he asked.

Acharyulu said the present government has taken a historical decision to declassify 33 of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose related files on 4 December, 2015, thereafter 37 and 25 files and made 100 files digitally available on 23 January, 2016, to meet the long-standing public demand to access these files. "When Pentagon papers in the US and Netaji papers in India could be declassified why not Shastri papers also," he askedThe Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the constitutional validity of Aadhaar and said that it empowers the marginalised sections of the society

The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the constitutional validity of Aadhaar and said that it empowers the marginalised sections of the society. The Congress party welcomed the verdict of the apex court calling it a victory of UPA government's policies, as the concept of Aadhaar was introduced during its regime. Senior advocate and Congress leader Kapil Sibal, however, said that if the BJP government won't bring the Aadhaar Bill to Rajya Sabha, Congress will again approach the Supreme Court.

One important part of judgment to be noted is  if in the future a Lok Sabha speaker declares a bill as Money Bill, then the court can review this and revert. We will approach a seven-judge bench to consider this verdict again as this is clearly not a Money Bill, said Sibal. "The Congress has been demanding that the Aadhaar Enabling Act should have come to Rajya Sabha since it was not a money billhad it been discussed in the Rajya Sabha, it wouldnt have reached the Supreme Court, he said.

On asked if it is a setback for the Opposition, since the majority of judges ruled in favour of Aadhaar, Sibal said, "No, it is not a setback as striking down the Act would have deprived the marginalised sections. But we agree with Justice Chandrachud that it is a fraud on the Constitution."

Sibal also hailed the striking down of Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act, stating that this will put an end to mass surveillance. "By striking down Section 57 of Aadhaar Act, Supreme Court firmly put an end to the mass surveillance exercise being carried out under the guise of Aadhar by the Central Government and the grotesque distortion of an idea conceived by the UPA," said Sibal. He also stated that it was not unconstitutional, but against democracy.

The Supreme Court reading down Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act means that an Aadhaar card is no long longer a proof of identity and cannot be demanded for that purpose. It stipulated that the State, a body corporate or person can request for Aadhaar, if required by law, which gave legislative backing to mobile companies and other private service providers to seek customers Aadhaar card for identification purposes.

However, Sabil pointed out other grey areas in the verdict. "Like a lot of people who work with their hands, when they go for fingerprint identification, they are not able to register. What happens to their right?" he asked. He questioned the government, asking that if the data that has been collected is illegal, why did the government allow it in the first place. "The Supreme Court has said that all the data that has been collected so far is illegal. Why did this government allow such illegal work?"

He also blamed the BJP government for being arrogant and allowing crores of people's biodata to land in private hands. "Had the government not been arrogant and allowed the democratic process to work, none of this would have happened. The result of all this is that crores of people's biodata is now in private hands. This is an immeasurable harm done to the polity and democracy in the country," he said.

Continuing his onslaught against the Centre, Sibal said that the passage of the Aadhaar Enabling Act violates both the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution and the Right to Privacy and is thus, a gross abuse of the money bill route.

The Congress had earlier termed the striking down of Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act as a "slap on the face of BJP". "We welcome the Supreme Court's decision to strike down Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act. Private entities are no longer allowed to use Aadhaar for verification purposes," the Congress said on Twitter minutes after the verdict.

#AadhaarVerdict upholds the individuals right to privacy. Modi Govts draconian Section 57 quashed - Bank A/c, Mobile, School, Airlines, Travel Agents, Pvt entities requiring Aaadhar Data quashed. Time to take next step to destroy the citizens data so collected now.  Randeep Singh Surjewala (@rssurjewala) September 26, 2018

The majority verdict by Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A K Sikri and A M Khanwilkar declared the Centre's flagship Aadhaar scheme constitutionally valid but struck down some of its provisions, including its linking with bank accounts, mobile phones and school admissions. The top court said that Aadhaar serves a bigger public interest as it is unique and "it is better to be unique than be the best", the top court stated.The Goa Forward Party (GFP), an ally of the ruling coalition led by the BJP, said on Tuesday that the haste with which the cabinet expansion was done on Monday by inducting two ministers could have been avoided by the state government.

Panaji: The Goa Forward Party (GFP), an ally of the ruling coalition led by the BJP, said on Tuesday that the haste with which the cabinet expansion was done on Monday by inducting two ministers could have been avoided by the state government.

GFP President Vijai Sardesai told PTI that the inductions could have been done in a better way by taking everyone on board.

Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, who is currently admitted at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi, had dropped two ailing ministers Francis D'Souza and Pandurang Madkaikar, replacing them with Milind Naik and Nilesh Cabral.

The swearing-in ceremony was held on Monday at Raj Bhavan. Governor Mridula Sinha administered oath to both the ministers.

"The cabinet expansion; the manner and the speed in which it was done, could have been avoided," Sardesai said.

"It could have been done in a better way. It should have been done by taking everyone on board," he said, adding that it has ruffled some feathers.

"I have nothing against the newly inducted ministers. It is an internal issue of the BJP, we have no right to discuss that but in politics one should ensure that any political move, which hurts people and results in bad blood, should be avoided," said Sardesai, who is the agriculture minister in the Parrikar-led cabinet.

"There are people who are aggrieved. No step should be taken which makes people aggrieved and capable of rocking the boat," he said.

Hours after two ministers were inducted, Independent MLA Prasad Gaonkar, who is supporting the Parrikar-led government, tendered his resignation as Chairman of the state-run Goa Forest Development Corporation.

Gaonkar said Tuesday evening that the government has come to a standstill.Heavy snowfall on the Rohtang Pass has cut off the Lahaul and Spiti valleys affecting a large number of tourists in Himachal Pradesh.

Kullu deputy commissioner on Wednesday confirmed that 35 IIT Roorkee students who went missing in Lahaul-Spiti district, were rescued by Border Roads Organisation (BRO). The students went missing after trekking from Hampta trekking pass in Kullu and are now at a Mountaineering Institute in Manali, ANI reported.

Over 1,500 tourists are still stranded in snow-marooned Lahaul-Spiti district of Himachal Pradesh, officials said on Wednesday adding that the evacuation is on but it might take days.

Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur has instructed officials to evacuate those stranded on a priority basis, a statement said. The Indian Air Force (IAF) has deployed three helicopters, while the state is using the chief minister's official chopper for rescue work.

On Wednesday as the weather cleared, the state government and the IAF stepped up their efforts to airlift tourists stranded for the past four days."Choppers of the IAF and the state government are on the job to airlift those stranded. Most of them will be brought to Kullu town," Kullu deputy commissioner Yunus Khan told IANS.

He further said that five nationals of Denmark and Norway have been rescued and efforts to airlift and rescue around 100 people would be made today along with those stranded in Keylong and nearby areas.

Additional District Magistrate Akshay Sood on Wednesday told ANI that people from different parts of Lahaul would be airlifted to Stingri helipad.

#HimachalPradesh: People from different parts of Lahaul will be airlifted to Stingri helipad. Our priority is immediate evacuation & bringing people to safety. We have also dispatched food items for the stranded tourists: Akshay Sood, ADM, #Kullupic.twitter.com/JH0A1LEZMa  ANI (@ANI) September 26, 2018

ANI also reported that one woman died and two Border Roads Organisation (BRO) workers were injured in Keylong Sarai area, in Lahaul-Spiti district. Body of the deceased person and the two injured persons would be airlifted soon.

Heavy snowfall on the Rohtang Pass has cut off the Lahaul and Spiti valleys affecting a large number of tourists who went to Leh and Lahaul. They have been stranded at number of isolated locations, the BRO, a wing of the defence ministry said. They have also started clearing the snow from various roads on a war footing. Some of the stretches had over eight feet of snow.

From the Project Rohtang Tunnel, a team under leadership of Major Shashi Chauhan and Captain Aashish Singla along with machinery have been deployed to clear road axis up to Sissu and Koksar in the Lahaul Valley to supplement efforts of the the BRO. They are also providing medical aid and refreshment to rescued people at the Project Rohtang Tunnel.

Early snowfall in higher reaches, cloud burst and heavy rains devastated large parts of the state from 22 September to 24 September. Kullu and Lahaul-Spiti were the worst affected districts. A total of 300 people were evacuated by Tuesday evening most of whom were faculty and students from IITs Mandi, Roorkee, Guwahati and Mumbai and some foreigners.

With inputs from agenciesAfter the bilateral talks on the Indus Waters Treaty last month in Lahore, India rejected Pakistan's objections on the construction of two hydropower projects on the Chenab river, and invited Pakistani experts to visit the sites to address their concern. The experts were scheduled to inspect the two hydropower projects by October but India cancelled it, citing some local issues.

Islamabad: India has postponed the scheduled inspection of its two hydropower projects on the Chenab river by Pakistani experts following the fresh tension in bilateral ties and cancellation of foreign ministers' meeting in New York, according to a media report on Wednesday.

The Indian authorities postponed the inspection by Pakistani experts and said that it would not be possible due to the local body elections in Jammu and Kashmir, Dawn news quoted a source as saying.

After the bilateral talks on the Indus Waters Treaty last month in Lahore, India rejected Pakistan's objections on the construction of the 1,000MW Pakal Dul dam and 48MW Lower Kalnai hydropower projects on the Chenab river and invited Pakistani experts to visit the sites to address their concern.

The experts were scheduled to inspect the two hydropower projects by October but India cancelled it, citing some local issues, the report quoted the source as saying.

"It seems to be a fallout of the recent tension emerging with the cancellation of the talks by India as other issues are normally affected in a larger context in such situations," the senior official, on condition of anonymity, said.

India called off the meeting between Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj and her Pakistani counterpart Shah Mahmood Qureshi on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, citing the "brutal" killing of three policemen in Jammu and Kashmir and the release of the postal stamps "glorifying" Kashmiri militant Burhan Wani.

The source said the Indian delegation had agreed to get the two projects inspected by Pakistani experts this month.

"Through a letter, India confirmed 7 to 11 October for the inspection of the projects by a three-member Pakistani team headed by the Indus Water Commissioner," he said.

India said that since the administration of the respective districts in Kashmir would be busy holding the local-body elections till October 5, the inspection would only be possible from October 7 to 11, the source said.

"But now the Indian authorities have postponed the scheduled inspection, stating it wouldn't be possible due to the holding of Panchayat elections in the state by the respective district administrations. They didn't give us new dates as they just stated to coordinate with Pakistani authorities soon," he said.

Meanwhile, Pakistan's Commissioner for Indus Waters Mehr Ali Shah expressed disappointment over the postponement and said that when something is mutually agreed at the state level, it should not be delayed or deferred on petty issues.

"Postponement of our visit for inspection of India's two hydropower projects at Chenab basin is an element of surprise for us despite the fact that the delegation, which visited Lahore and held a meeting with us last month, had agreed to allow us inspection of the same in the last week of the ongoing month. Later, they confirmed 7 to 11 October. But they further postponed this schedule," Shah said.

"We request our counterparts to fulfil their commitment they had made during their visit to Lahore last month," he said.

The talks on the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) in Lahore last month was the first official engagement between India and Pakistan since Imran Khan became Prime Minister on 18 August.

India and Pakistan signed the IWT in 1960 after nine years of negotiations, with the World Bank being a signatory.

The water commissioners of Pakistan and India are required to meet twice a year and arrange technical visits to projects' sites and critical river head works.

The treaty sets out a mechanism for cooperation and information exchange between the two countries regarding their use of the rivers.New Delhi's alignment to the Quadrilateral consultative forum, comprising Australia, India, Japan and the US, was a measured strategic choice to position itself better in an alternative discourse led by China in the Indo-Pacific region

Washington: New Delhi's alignment to the Quadrilateral consultative forum, comprising Australia, India, Japan and the US, was a measured strategic choice to position itself better in an alternative discourse led by China in the Indo-Pacific region, a visiting Indian expert told a Washington audience on Tuesday.

"Alignment to the Quad proposition does not necessarily suggest that India essentially wants to engage in a China-containment strategy in the Indo-Pacific construct," Jagannath Panda of the New Delhi-based Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses (IDSA) said in a presentation before the Hudson Institute, a top American think tank. "Rather, India's alignment is a strategic arch and the act of firming New Delhi's outreach in a liberal-order framework with the Quad countries. It is a measured strategic choice to position better in an alternative discourse led by China in the Indo-Pacific region," he added.

The principal intent here explained India's desire to protect its maritime interests in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), Panda explained. India's approach to the Quadrilateral consultative forum was a statement of New Delhi's plural foreign policy arch in an evolving Indo-Pacific construct, he said. Balancing China's growing outreach with the consultation of the Quad countries while concurrently firming bilateralism with Beijing explained India's strategic autonomy and pluralism in its foreign policy, Panda said.

At the same time, he noted that for India, the relationship with China was the most imperative component of its plural and non-aligned foreign policy that promoted strategic autonomy. "The India-China relationship is currently taking on a defining structure in the Indo-Pacific construct and New Delhi is more inclined to nurture it than repudiate it. Therefore, India's approach to the Quad would not be based on an anti-China proposition," Panda said.The European Union was ready to support reforms in Armenia, European Commissioner for Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn said during a meeting with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.

"Good meeting #UNGA2018 w @armenia PM #Pashinyan. Assured him of continued #EU support to his country and its reforms. Key to move ahead w implementation of our new bilat Agreement #CEPA. Will also look how our aid portfolio can be even more targeted on most pressing reforms," Khan wrote on Twitter.

Pashinyan also pointed out that the Armenian government has embarked upon the path of upward democratic development with a view to enforcing the rule of law, promoting human rights, and building a competitive and business-friendly environment in Armenia, News.am reported.Former Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah and deputy chief minister G Parameshwara assured the MLAs that they will coordinate with the government in a better way to iron out the differences.

Bengaluru: The Congress Legislative Party (CLP) meeting on Tuesday to draw strategies for the 2019 Lok Sabha election and the legislative council election saw an outpouring of grievances by the party MLAs and MLCs against the state government.

Most of the MLAs complained that development works in their constituencies had come to a standstill as no projects were getting approved, party insiders told PTI.

Yashwantpur MLA ST Somashekhar was peeved that some of the mining projects were rejected on technical grounds, whereas some Janata Dal (Secular) leaders got the same contract without any hassle, they said. His statement was seconded by almost all the MLAs.

An MLA expressed his angst over lack of say even in the police station, let alone the government.

"The MLA said that he did not get permission by the local police station to install Ganesha statue at public places during the Ganesha festival," the sources said.

An MLA said it was becoming difficult for him to continue as a member of legislative assembly and he would prefer resigning from the assembly.

There were also heated exchange of words between Congress MLAs Bhima Naik and Anand Singh from Ballari over their dominance in the district and interference by each other in their respective assembly constituencies.

Former Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah and deputy chief minister G Parameshwara assured the MLAs that they will coordinate with the government in a better way to iron out the differences.

Siddaramaiah also cautioned the MLAs against "Operation Kamal" of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to poach on the Congress MLAs. He even took to task some MLAs for leaking information to media.

Later talking to PTI, Parameshwara said the meeting was convened to discuss about the legislative council election.

"The MLAs have the grouse that whatever promises they had made to their electorate before elections were not being fulfilled. Their grouse is valid. We will look into it," he said.Two men chased a man and hacked him to death with an axe on Attapur road under PVNR Expressway as people watched in horror.

Hyderabad: A man was hacked to death in broad daylight on a busy road in Hyderabad on Wednesday even as policemen present nearby allegedly stood as mute spectators.

Two men chased a man and hacked him to death with an axe on Attapur road under PVNR Expressway as people watched in horror.

One of the attackers repeatedly dealt blows with the axe till he was certain that the victim lost his life.

Police identified the slain man as Ramesh Goud (38), the main accused in the murder of his friend Mahesh Goud in 2017.

Mahesh Goud's father Krishna Goud and uncle Laxman Goud are suspected to have avenged his murder by killing Ramesh, when he was returning home after appearing in a court in the murder case.

Witnesses said a couple of policemen present near the scene of the crime did nothing to stop the killers. Police officials, however, claimed that they had gone to get their batons.

In one video which went viral on social media, a police patrol vehicle was also seen passing by. The officials, however, clarified that the vehicle went a few yards ahead and stopped by the roadside.

Some passersby tried to stop the attackers but in vain. The assailants were not afraid even after seeing the policemen and the patrol vehicle.

The killer in the video is seen buttoning his shirt after striking a series of blows with the axe and raising his hand as if to signal "victory". The killers were later arrested by the police.

Wednesday's killing is another shocking twist in the case which appeared to be from a film. Ramesh, with the help of three men, had killed Mahesh in a brutal fashion in December, 2017 because the latter was getting close to his paramour.

According to police, Ramesh had extramarital relations with a woman but his friend Mahesh had also started developing friendship with her. As Mahesh did not mend his ways despite warnings, Ramesh hatched a plot to eliminate him.

Ramesh along with three others took Mahesh on a trip to a temple near the city. When Mahesh was fully drunk, Ramesh slit his throat with a knife in the moving car. They later burnt the body near the temple.

The crime came to light when the workers at a car service centre found blood stains in the car and alerted the police.If eyewitnesses are to be believed, three policemen sat in the vehicle instead of intervening. Why didn't they act?

Ambika Rao (name changed) had just got out of the gym. She turned on to the Attapur road on her two-wheeler a little before noon on Wednesday when she noticed there was a traffic jam. As Ambika negotiated her way, she got the shock of her life: She saw a man in a cream shirt, assisted by another man, bludgeoning a man to death on the busy road. Ambika said this occurred even as a police vehicle stood ten steps away.

"Three men in uniform were inside the police vehicle. They watched the man kill the victim with an axe. There was a huge crowd. Many of them were recording the murder on their mobile phones. I did not wait to see what happened next and sped off," Rao claimed. Video recorded on a cellphone purportedly shows the police Innova driving away even as the assailant raised his hands to exult that he had done the deed. He then removed his shirt and threw it on the body.

"The policemen went to fetch their lathis (batons) but by the time they returned it was too late. Also, they did not stop because it would have created a traffic jam there,'' said Hyberabad DCP Prakash Reddy.

Traffic constable Lingamurthy and a couple of passersby initially tried to stop the assailants. However, as the visuals show, they could not overpower them. But, if eyewitnesses are to be believed, three policemen sat in the vehicle instead of intervening. Why didn't they act?

The Hyberabad police released a press note defending itself: "After the incident, a police vehicle with constables in civil dress were moving in that direction and got down from vehicle and apprehended the accused.''

This incident that occurred beneath the PV Narasimha Rao expressway that leads to Hyderabad airport was allegedly a case of revenge murder. The victim, 24-year-old Jerigalla Ramesh, was the main accused in the murder of Mahesh Goud in December. Ramesh was alleged to have killed Mahesh and burned his body. The victim was returning from court on Wednesday when he was attacked by Mahesh's father Kishan and his uncle Laxman.

A senior police officer describes the police's response as "shocking". "The assailants did not have a firearm with which they could shoot indiscriminately and injure passersby. What is there to be afraid of? The least they could have done is turn on their police siren. The noise would have had a psychological impact and distracted the assailants," the senior officer added.

This is the third such incident in Telangana in the past two weeks. On 14 September, in Miryalguda town, just 140 kilometres from Hyderabad, a hired assassin killed a man outside a hospital in a case involving an inter-caste marriage. Last week, in the busy Sanatnagar area of Hyderabad, Manohar Charyupset over his daughter's inter-caste marriageassaulted her and his son-in-law.

These incidents reflect poorly on the law and order situation in Telangana, and show there is little fear of the law and the judicial system. With modern vehicles and surveillance systems, the Telangana Police is one of the most tech-savvy forces in the country. However, this incident seemingly exposes that many in the force have forgotten the basic qualities needed in a police officer are courage and empathy.A lawyer who had filed a petition in court 11 years back against the present Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath has been arrested for allegedly raping a woman.

A 64-year-old man, who has been pursuing a criminal case in various courts against Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath since 2007, has been arrested allegedly for raping a woman.

Superintendent of Police (City) Vinay Singh said Wednesday the woman was allegedly raped by Pervez Parvaz and another man Mahmood alias Jumman, described as an 'occultist'.

The woman was assaulted when she had come to Jumman for treatment of some ailment, the officer said. Following a medical examination of the victim, the rape has been confirmed, he added.

He said while Parvaz was arrested on Tuesday evening from a house in Nakhas area of Kotwali police station jurisdiction, he was remanded in judicial custody Wednesday. The police is on lookout for his accomplice Jumman, the officer said.

On instance of Parvaz, a social activist, an FIR had been lodged at Kotwali police station in Gorakhpur against Adityanath and others on January 27, 2007 allegedly for promoting communal hatred between two sections of the society.

It was alleged that Adityanath's "hate speech" had triggered several incidents of violence that day. The violence had continued for a few days. Though a magisterial court later had taken cognisance of the chargesheet against Adityanath, the sessions court had set aside the magisterial court's order.

Parvaz then had moved the Allahabad High Court against the sessions court order. Though the high court dismissed Parvaz's plea against the sessions court order, he subsequently moved the Supreme Court.

The apex court last month sought the Uttar Pradesh government's stand on his plea challenging the dropping of the 2007 Gorakhpur riots case involving Adityanath.

With inputs from PTIMedia outlets across the country took to express their views on the Supreme Court's decision and discuss the realistic possibility of successfully implementing it.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday left the matter of disqualification of politicians carrying criminal charges against them to the Parliament, saying that the court cannot add to the grounds of disqualification. However, the apex court handed out directions for curbing criminalisation of politics, including asking candidates contesting elections to declare their criminal antecedents.

The court also directed the Parliament to make a law to ensure that candidates with criminal records dont enter public life and take part in lawmaking.

Media outlets across the country took to express their views on the apex court's decision and discuss the realistic possibility of successfully implementing it.

The Hindustan Times argued that the court was correct in deferring to Parliaments authority over this issue. However, the paper noted the irony that the court has asked a body comprising some of the countrys foremost lawbreakers to make the very laws which would regulate their behaviour. It said that the chances of success are quite low without a combination of sustained social pressure and intense judicial scrutiny.

Underscoring the opinion that implementing the apex court's ruling may be difficult, The Times of India said that where the court is looking to curb criminalisation in politics, political parties are, in fact, recruiting candidates with criminal associations to contest elections, because such candidates have a wealth advantage that gives them a leg up in financing  and winning  increasingly competitive elections.

The Indian Express said that the Representation of the People Act (RPA) states that an individual punished with a jail term of more than two years cannot stand in an election for six years after the jail term has ended. The paper then pointed out the fact that cases drag on in courts for years, which makes this provision virtually ineffective. It even cited a 2014 report of the Law Commission, which pointed out that disqualification upon conviction has proved to be incapable of curbing the growing criminalisation of politics, owing to long delays in trials and rare convictions.

An affidavit submitted to the Supreme Court in March by the Centre also testifies to the shortcomings of the RPAs disqualification clause: There are more than 3,800 criminal cases against 1,765 MPs and MLAs across the country, of which 3,045 cases are pending, the affidavit noted.

The Times of India added that qualifying at the inconclusive stage of framing charges will lead to bias and political witch hunts. Referring to the proposed suggestions as "half-baked", the paper said that disqualifying those charged by courts as sought by the petitioners is not the answer. Instead, fast-tracking cases against politicians is the best solution, according to the report. Specifically, fast-tracking the serious cases to conviction, acquittal, discharge or closure will clean up the Augean stables, The Times of India said.Nitish Kumar said efforts were being made to ensure that all police stations in Bihar had their own premises and were equipped with special facilities for women, including separate sitting rooms and washrooms.

Patna: Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar expressed concern over attacks on police personnel in the state by anti-social elements and those involved in illegal sand mining and liquor trade. The chief minister also stressed the need for ensuring that contingents carrying out operations against such lawbreakers are adequately manned.

At a function organized in Patna on Tuesday to launch the Bihar police's "Dial 100" scheme, Kumar said the state had around 8.5 crore mobile phone users, and that a centralised helpline would enable people in any part to get help from the law enforcing machinery within 20 minutes in urban areas and 30-35 minutes in rural areas.

"We need to act tough with those involved in attacks on police personnel. The number of police personnel in the state was highly inadequate when we assumed power in 2005 and there was shortage of logistics as well.

"We have taken steps to remove many shortcomings. We need to continue making efforts to ensure rule of law", the chief minister said.

He also stressed on the need for regular monitoring of law and order by officials at various levels, besides ensuring that "social balance" was taken care of in deployment of police personnel so that "the people feel that they are having access to policing that is efficient and impartial".

Kumar said efforts were being made to ensure that all police stations had their own premises and were equipped with special facilities for women, including separate sitting rooms and washrooms.

Others who spoke on the occasion included Chief Secretary Deepak Kumar, Principal Secretary (Home) Amir Subhani and Director General of Police KS Dwivedi.Any future surgical strikes that do not yield a hundred percent success will be tantamount to political harakiri given the charged political atmosphere

The much-overhyped surgical strikes will be celebrated by the nation and tributes will be paid to the armed forces across the country from 28 to 30 September. The chief of the Indian Army General Bipin Rawat in a media interaction with TV channels on 24 September, said, "I believe there is a need for one more action (surgical strike). But I would not want to disclose how we want to do it." He added, "Surgical strike is a weapon of surprise. Let it remain a surprise."

The chief's statement has been much discussed and debated both within India and in Pakistan. The intended signal is clear: Pakistan should stop cross-border terrorism or else be prepared to pay the price. However, there is an apparent disconnect at the politico-military level, which is surprising especially as two years ago during the conduct of the surgical strikes, there was total and complete synergy at the politico-military-diplomatic and information domains  which is exceptional given our structures.

Two years ago on the night of 28 and 29 September, India demonstrated unprecedented politico-military will in executing its first-ever 'surgical strikes'  a punitive action and a reaction to the Pakistan-perpetuated terrorist attack in Uri wherein 19 soldiers were killed. The surgical strikes triggered the imagination of the people, instilling a sense of pride in a nation. India and Indians have silently suffered the consequences of Pakistan's proxy war for nearly four decades as it continues to successfully wage a 'low-cost high-effect' war with impunity, resorting to the rhetoric of nuclear weapons.

Pakistan believed that it could bleed India with a thousand cuts by carrying out terror strikes as a state policy and hence the surgical strike, which aimed to convey a strategic signal to Pakistan that it can no longer take India's patience for granted. The surgical strikes signalled a strategic resolve to execute punitive strikes and raise the costs for Pakistan. The strikes achieved the end objectives in creating a strategic dilemma for Pakistan.

Surgical strikes are a threat in being, a work in progress. This is a pragmatic and internationally acceptable response to Pakistan policy of waging a proxy war on India with a low probability of escalation. The threat of surgical strikes raises the cost for Pakistan, a cost it can ill-afford given its economic situation and hence, it is an imperative to retain the viability of this threat. Surgical strikes are also a very sensitive and delicate operation with no room for error. Failure is not an option. Even a single soldier having been left behind dead or injured can be a national embarrassment, as he will be paraded as a Pakistan victory and an Indian military failure.

These strikes are high risk and have a high probability of failure. As executing surgical strikes is a political decision, it will be near impossible for a government to risk undertaking such sensitive operations for fear of failure and the associated consequences of escalation. The Narendra Modi government took a bold decision risking a huge amount of political capital in conducting the strikes and hence, the government was justified in drawing political mileage out of it, which it did. However, to continue drawing political mileage has its own negatives and consequences, even though it may contribute to the 2019 General Election and also divert attention from the ongoing Rafale controversy.

The planned nationwide celebrations and commemoration of the surgical strikes  Parakram Parv  indicate that the chapter of further surgical strikes is closed despite Rawat's claims that these remain an option. It is unfortunate that the government has decided to commemorate and celebrate the surgical strikes after two years to draw political mileage.

What the government has effectively done by celebrating the surgical strikes akin to a Vijay Diwas is to foreclose the option of carrying out any further surgical strikes.

The strategic communication to the Pakistani military, the discerning in Pakistan and the strategic community all over the world is clear: That there will be no more strikes. The reason is simple as no government can afford the political costs of a failure on account of the overhyped celebrations leading to high expectations of the public. Any future strikes that do not yield a hundred percent success will be tantamount to political harakiri given the charged political atmosphere. The prospect of failure will be too huge a gamble for any government to take and face.

The author is a retired lieutenant-general of the Indian Army and former Director-General of Military OperationsThe Centre took to the ordinance route as it failed to get the National Medical Commission Bill passed in the Monsoon Session of Parliament this year despite it being listed.

President Ram Nath Kovind on Wednesday promulgated an ordinance disbanding the Medical Council of Indiathe Indian Medical Council (Amendment Ordinance, 2018)with immediate effect and bringing in a board of governors in the interim to perform the functions of the council till such time a new council is reconstituted.

The seven-member board under the chairmanship of VK Paul, member, NITI Aayog will be assisted by former deputy director general, Directorate General of Health Services, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Sanjay Shrivastava. The other members of the board are: AIIMS director Randeep Guleria; PGIMER Chandigarh director Jagat Ram; NIMHANS Bangalore director BN Gangadhar; AIIMS Department of Endocrinology and Metabolism professor Nikhil Tandon; Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Director General of Health Services S Venkatesh and Secretary, Department of Health Research and Director General Indian Council of Medical Research, Balram Bhargava. Both Venkatesh and Bhargava will be ex-officio members.

The Centre took the ordinance route as it failed to get the National Medical Commission Bill passed in the Monsoon Session of Parliament despite it being listed. The government is of the view that despite several path-breaking efforts and initiatives, the countrys march to achieving the Universal Health Coverage and other targets of Sustainable Development Goals and National Health Policy is constrained on account of an inadequate number of qualified healthcare professionals due to the slow pace of commensurate reforms in medical education.

The National Medical Commission (NMC) Bill, which was tabled in Parliament in December, sought to replace the Medical Council of India (MCI) and also proposed allowing practitioners of alternative medicines, such as homeopathy and ayurveda to practise allopathy after completing a "bridge course". In January, the Bill was sent to the standing committee after several Opposition members demanded it in the Lok Sabha.

"All Opposition parties have urged that the National Medical Commission Bill should be sent to a standing committee. On behalf of the government, I will say we are ready to send it to a standing committee. But I have one request, there is a Supreme Court order, and the Standing Committee on Health also recommended that a Bill should be brought soon," Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar said in Parliament.

Abantika Ghosh wrote in The Indian Express: "The parliamentary standing committee for health and family welfare has already recommended that the two most controversial provisions of the Billa bridge course for Ayush practitioners to practice allopathic medicine and an exit exam for doctorsshould be dropped from the National Medical Commission Bill. The committee recommended that instead of a separate licentiate examination for doctors, as proposed in the bill, the final MBBS examination should be the designated exit exam. Ramesh in his letter welcomed the dropping of the bridge course."

Former Union minister and Rajya Sabha MP Jairam Ramesh had recently written to Health Minister JP Nadda urging him to convene an all-party meeting to iron out the differences over the Bill.

Click here to read more on quality of medical education in IndiaThe Supreme Court has struck down provisions of the Aadhaar Act that allowed private companies to seek your data, as well as the national security provision that allowed State bodies to demand your Aadhaar number for identification.

The controversy over the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar programme has been on for years now, and all eyes were on the Supreme Court on Wednesday as it delivered its verdict on the matter. The countrys highest judicial body has upheld the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar Act by a 4:1 majority, with Justice DY Chandrachud dissenting from the other judges on the bench.

When we apply the test for adjudging the validity, what we have explained is that whether the court is to apply strict scrutiny standard, or reasonableness standard, Justice AK Sikri said as he began to read out his judgement.

While he said that the purpose of the Act is legitimate, he held that the rational connection to purpose is satisfied. He said the balancing test is satisfied by the Act insofar as Aadhaar only collects minimal data.

Even as the judges were reading out their judgments, they listed out all the contentious provisions in the Aadhaar Act that they had decided to strike or read down. This includes provisions that allowed private companies to seek your Aadhaar data, as well as the national security provision that allowed State bodies to demand your Aadhaar number for identification.

Section 57

This was arguably the most controversial section of the Act as it had mandated linked Aadhaar to avail of a number of services. The Supreme Court reading down Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act means that an Aadhaar card is no long longer a proof of identity and cannot be demanded for that purpose.

It stipulated that the State, a body corporate or person can request for Aadhaar if required by law, which gave legislative backing to mobile companies and other private service providers to seek customers Aadhaar card for identification purposes.

The five-judge bench, on Wednesday, read down this section, calling it unconstitutional, specifying that private companies can no longer mandatorily seek a persons Aadhaar details for authentication. It has been read down to the extent that "any purpose" should mean a purpose backed by law as far as State authorities are concerned.

"Private companies also cannot disable a service if their Aadhaar is not linked, legal expert Asheeta Regidi said. What we have understood is that unless there is a statutory support to a request for Aadhaar details, they cannot ask for it mandatorily.

In a nutshell, this means that banks cannot invalidate your account if you have not linked your Aadhaar with it yet. Aadhaar is no longer mandatory for enrolment in schools, opening bank accounts, for any purpose for the CBSE, NEET or UGC, or for new mobile connections  the Supreme Court has held the telecom departments notification to that effect as unconstitutional. The bench also stressed that no child can be denied benefits of any schemes for not being able to produce an Aadhaar card.

However, there is not much clarity about what those who have already linked their Aadhaar with services can now do. Its unlikely that the Supreme Court will come out with a delinking process, said Regidi. Dont think they can do much.

It also raises questions about the Reserve Bank of Indias latest regulations on e-KYC, which mandates Aadhaar. The Supreme Court made no mention of this process in its judgment.

Section 33 (1) and Section 33 (2)

The Supreme Court has read down Section 33 (1) to afford an individual an opportunity to be heard if his or her data has been sought from the UIDAI. An Aadhaar-holder can now make his or her case to not have their data disclosed and not be forced into it.

Section 33 (2) allowed the UIDAI to disclose information under the Aadhaar Act, including identity and authentication data, in the interest of national security on an order to the Centre from an officer not below the rank of a joint secretary. For example: The police could seek a first-time offenders Aadhaar details to verify his identity.

The Supreme Court has struck down this section on sharing information for national security purposes, saying that the joint secretary mechanism was arbitrary and requires a judicial warrant. Regidi asserted that the contours of this provision and what national security entails are too vague.

Section 2(d)

Section 2(d) defines an authentication record, which affects the rules on maintaining records of authentication data, Regidi said. Under this provision, the Aadhaar database could store metadata of individuals generated at the time of authentication or carrying out transactions. A persons IP address, for example. The Supreme Court has struck down this provision in its entirety.

Meta data is not core to the transaction and only included surrounding information, the legal expert said.

In addition to the ruling on metadata storage, the Supreme Court also struck down the five-year-old rule for archival storage of transaction logs. Regidi said there were surveillance concerns about this as the UIDAI stored data such as an individuals location at the time of carrying out a transaction and other data that allowed for profiling.

Section 47

Under this section of the Aadhaar Act, only the UIDAI had the authority to file a complaint on any offence punishable under the Act. It also disallowed courts below that of a Chief Metropolitan Magistrate or a Chief Judicial Magistrate from trying cases related to an offence punishable under this legislation, such as a data breach.

The Supreme Court has held that excluding individuals from filing complaints was arbitrary and has struck down this section of the Aadhaar Act. It said that even individuals must be entitled to file complaints.

Click here for LIVE updates on Supreme Court verdict on Aadhaar ActAmid a political slugfest over the Rafale deal, Air Force deputy chief Raghunath Nambiar Tuesday said the people were being 'misinformed' on the issue and that the current pact was 'much better' than what was negotiated earlier.

Amid a political slugfest over the Rafale deal, Air Force deputy chief Raghunath Nambiar Tuesday said the people were being "misinformed" on the issue and that the current pact was "much better" than what was negotiated earlier.

Nambiar, who test flew the Rafale jet in France last week, said the commercial negotiations were headed by the then Deputy Chief of Air Staff and he was responsible for completing the negotiations that continued for 14 months.

He said the Air Force met all directions of the leadership to get "better price, better maintenance terms, better delivery schedule, better performance logistic package".

Nambiar said it was "all in all a much better than what was obtained" earlier.

When asked about the charges by the Opposition over offset contract under the deal to buy 36 fighter jets, he said, "I believe people are misinformed. It is nothing like Rs 30,000 crore to one party. Dassault alone has to only do offset to the tune of of Rs 6,500 crore. Nothing more than that."

The Congress has been accusing the government of corruption and favouritism to benefit Anil Ambani's Reliance Defence through offset contract by sidelining the state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Limited.

Asked about the test flight, Nambiar said he had an opportunity to fly the Rafale and look at the capabilities that is on offer for the Air Force.

He said the aircraft is "shaping up quite well" and the Air Force is satisfied with performance of all the systems on the aircraft.Iran's oil minister Bijan Namdar Zangeneh will take part in the Russian Energy Week forum in Moscow due on October 3-5, the events program said.

Zangeneh is expected to attend a session devoted to global gas market on October 3, where Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak and Qatars Energy Minister Mohammed Saleh Al Sada will deliver a speech, TASS reported.

Iran, OPECs third largest oil producer, is facing US sanctions in November, which will ban its petroleum exports. Zangeneh opposes increasing output in the framework of the Vienna deal.According to the prosecution, Veerappan and his 14 associates kidnapped Rajkumar from his farmhouse in Dhodda Gajanure village in Tamil Nadu on 30 July, 2000 at gunpoint.

Erode: Nine associates of slain forest brigand Veerappan were acquitted by a court in Tamil Nadu's Erode area in a case related to the abduction of Kannada superstar late Rajkumar 18 years ago, holding that the prosecution has not proved the charges against them.

Gobichettipalayam Additional Sessions Judge K Mani also said the deposition of witnesses did not corroborate the prosecution case fully.

As many as 47 witnesses were examined in the case related to the sensational kidnap of the Kannada thespian.

According to the prosecution, Veerappan and his 14 associates kidnapped Rajkumar from his farmhouse in Dhodda Gajanure village in Tamil Nadu on 30 July, 2000 at gunpoint. The actor was in captivity for over 100 days in jungles spread across Western Ghats abutting Thalawady near here, leading to tension in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka and further straining the ties between the two states. After 108 days, Veerappan released the actor.

On a complaint from Rajkumar's wife, a case was registered against Veerappan and his associates under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, including those related to conspiracy, and kidnapping, besides for offences under the Arms Act.

Veerappan, a dreaded criminal involved in several killings and sandalwood and ivory smuggling, was shot dead near Dharampuri in October 2004 along with three of his men, wanted in the actor kidnap case, by the personnel of the Special Task Force set up to nab him.

While one more accused died later, another is absconding till date. The remaining nine accused were arrested and later enlarged on bail.

When the judgement was pronounced, all the accused, except Puttusamy (who absented himself on health grounds), were present in the court. A heavy posse of police personnel was deployed around the court premises.The plea said the petitioners were relying on an undated letter addressed to Chief Justice of India and circulated by the four apex court judges.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed a plea challenging the appointment of Justice Ranjan Gogoi as the next Chief Justice of India. "We are of the view that it is not the stage to interfere (with the appointment)," Chief Justice Dipak Misra said.

According to Bar and Bench, the apex court said that the petition against Gogoi's appointment was "devoid of merits".

Prior to the ruling, the bench comprising Misra, and Justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud asked petitioner advocate RP Luthra to file the mentioning memo before the court master.

In their plea, Luthra along with petitioner advocate Satyaveer Sharma said they are seeking adjudication of the question of law for which they are relying on the contents of the press conference of 12 January, called by four senior judges (Justices J Chelameswar (since retired), Ranjan Gogoi, Madan B Lokur and Kurian Joseph) of the apex court.

The plea said the petitioners were also relying on an undated letter addressed to Chief Justice of India and circulated by the four apex court judges.

"This act of the four senior-most judges of the court was not less than a sabotage to the judicial system of the country. They tried to arouse public furore in the country in the names of certain internal differences in this court," the plea said.

It said that "the petitioners are aggrieved of the actions and omissions on the part of Respondent 1 (Union of India) and Respondent 2 (Chief Justice of India), which has resulted into appointment of Respondent 3 (Justice Ranjan Gogoi) as the Chief Justice of India instead of reprimanding him for his illegal and anti-institutional act".

The petition said that act of Respondent 1 and Respondent 2 "is illegal and unconstitutional and also against the canons of law because the appointment on the highest post of the judiciary has been awarded to a person who is guilty of committing judicial impropriety and judicial misconduct".

The plea also sought quashing of the order of appointment of Justice Ranjan Gogoi as the Chief Justice of India with effect from 3 October.

On September 3, the president has appointed Justice Gogoi as the 46th Chief Justice of India. He will take oath on 3 October after incumbent Chief Justice Dipak Misra retires.

Justice Gogoi will be the first Chief Justice of India from Assam. The warrant of appointment of Justice Gogoi as Chief Justice had come in less than 10 days after Chief Justice Dipak Misra recommended his name as a successor.

Justice Gogoi would have a tenure as Chief Justice of India of about 13 months till his retirement on 17 November, 2019.

With inputs from PTIIn as much as these provisions were held to be symptomatic of a surveillance state, the Supreme Court judgment seems to have corroborated the views of Aadhaar critics who held such linking of services with biometric data an assault on privacy of citizens.

I suspect the Supreme Court has got it right on the money when the Congress and the BJP are both celebrating the Aadhaar verdict and accusing each other of suffering a setback. The Congress has called the 4:1 majority judgment of a five-judge Constitution bench a slap on the face of BJP and congratulated the apex court for protecting its core while throwing away Modi-accumulated dirty bathwater.

SC rightly appreciated brilliant idea in origin; protected its core; promoted its development &eliminated its flotsam &jetsam. SC brilliantly threw out #bjp #modi accumulated dirty bathwater and saved the baby. Org intent of UPA ie to give identity 2 marginalised ppl now shines.  Abhishek Singhvi (@DrAMSinghvi) September 26, 2018

Congress glee stems from the fact that the majority judgment appears to have struck down Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act that allowed sharing of biometric data with not just the state, but also corporate bodies and private entities. This provision allowed e-commerce firms, mobile companies, service providers, payments banks, telecom companies and other such entities to collect Aadhaar numbers and biometric data from consumers.

The majority judgment, read out by Justice AK Sikri, held: That portion of Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act which enables body corporate and individual to seek authentication is held to be unconstitutional.

In detailing the reasons behind this ruling, the court observed: Section 57 is patently unconstitutional inasmuch as it allows an unrestricted extension of the Aadhaar platform to users who may be government agencies or private sector operators. This provision clearly shows that the impugned Act has a much wider scope than what may legitimately be considered as a money bill. Moreover, this provision enables the seeding of the Aadhaar number across service providers and other gateways and thereby enables the establishment of a surveillance state.

In as much as these provisions were held to be symptomatic of a surveillance state, the judgment seems to have corroborated the views of Aadhaar critics who held such linking of services with biometric data an assault on privacy of citizens. The courts ruling can certainly be interpreted as clipping the wings of NDA governments Aadhaar project.

The ruling also held that Aadhaar cannot be made mandatory for school admissions and no child could be denied benefits of any government scheme for not possessing unique identification number. The courts ruling here is based on sound logical reasoning.

It held that Article 21A of the Constitution guarantees right to education and makes it fundamental right of the children between 6 years and 14 years of age. Such a right cannot be taken away by imposing requirement of holding Aadhaar card, upon the children In view thereof, admission of a child in his school cannot be covered under Section 7 of the Aadhaar Act as it is neither subsidy nor service. And since that cannot be done, insofar as the school admissions of children are concerned, requirement of Aadhaar would not be compulsory as it is neither a service nor subsidy, observed Justice Sikri in his judgment.

Subsequent observations from the court flow from this reasoning and hold that on that basis, CBSE, NEET, JEE, UGC, etc. cannot make the requirement of Aadhaar mandatory as they are outside the purview of Section 7 and are not backed by any law.

The Congress has sought to make political capital out of the ruling, with several of its leaders  including party president Rahul Gandhi  claiming that the apex court has "restored the sanctity" of Aadhaar as brought by the UPA, and thrown out the NDA-era's "malicious" embellishments.

The SC #AadhaarVerdict vindicates the Congress party standpoint: #Aadhar only for welfare subsidies. A slap on the face of #ModiSarkar for trying to forcibly make it mandatory for other private purposes like bank accounts, mobile phones, school admission etc.  Sanjay Jha (@JhaSanjay) September 26, 2018

For Congress, Aadhaar was an instrument of empowerment. For the BJP, Aadhaar is a tool of oppression and surveillance. Thank you Supreme Court for supporting the Congress vision and protecting . #AadhaarVerdict  Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) September 26, 2018

While upholding the linking of Aadhaar with PAN cards and keeping it mandatory during filing of Income Tax returns, the Supreme Court has ruled that it is no longer necessary to link Aadhaar with bank accounts or mobile connections  dealing a blow to governments strong push in this area. The government had been insistent on seeding of mobile SIM cards with Aadhaar to keep a tab on new and existing connections on grounds of national security.

The court held: Mere issuing an instruction to the licensees to adopt mandatory process of e-KYC by Aadhaar verification in no manner exalt the instructions or directives as a law. Circular dated 23.03.2017, thus, cannot be held to be a law and direction to re-verification of all existing mobile subscribers through Aadhaar based e-KYC cannot be held to be backed by law, hence cannot be upheld.

During a press conference held shortly after the verdict, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said: One of the purposes behind a judicial review is to figure out the dos and donts the Supreme Court has upheld the core and principle areas of the legislation but has also made some observations. It has specified areas where we cant go and where we may need a legislation, keeping alive the possibility that the government may try to bring laws to back some of the provisions struck down by the Supreme Court.

Though the Supreme Court has put a spanner in governments efforts to make Aadhaar compulsory in telecom, banking, and school services, and reduced the scope of UID turning into an all-pervasive, intrusive tool, the apex court has crucially upheld NDAs key positions  that the scheme is constitutionally valid and is not a breach of privacy. It is here that the Congresss claims of a win sound hollow, because it had moved the Supreme Court in April, 2017 to challenge the NDAs decision to treat Aadhaar as a money bill. The government had passed Aadhaar Act, 2016, in the Lok Sabha where it enjoys a majority.

According to the majority judgment, since the purpose of the Aadhaar Act was to create unique identification so that citizens can avail various subsidies, benefits, services, grants, wages and other social benefits schemes which are funded from the Consolidated Fund of India, it can be passed as a money bill.

In a dissenting ruling, however, Justice DY Chandrachud said: Bypassing Rajya Sabha to pass Aadhaar Act amounts to subterfuge and the law can be struck down. Aadhaar cannot be treated as money bill and passing a bill as money bill which is not a money bill is a fraud on the Constitution. The Congress has taken a cue from the dissenting note to declare that it will approach a seven-judge bench to challenge Tuesdays verdict.

The governments contention  that Aadhaar is not an infringe upon the privacy of individuals  was also upheld by the 4:1 majority judgment, that observed: After going through the Aadhaar structure as demonstrated by the respondents in the PowerPoint presentation from the provisions of the Aadhaar Act and the machinery which the Authority has created for data protection, we are of the view that it is very difficult to create profile of a person simply on the basis of biometric and demographic information stored in CIDR. Insofar as authentication is concerned, the respondents rightly pointed out that there are sufficient safeguard mechanisms.

On right to privacy, which has been deemed in 2017 by the Supreme Court as a fundamental right, the majority judgment observed that existence of the Aadhaar Act and delivery of welfare benefits fulfil the requirements of law and legitimacy of aim, and the scheme also achieves the third necessary condition of proportionality by ensuring that targeted beneficiaries and correctly identified and a balance is achieved between two competing fundamental rights: right to privacy on the one hand, and right to food, shelter and employment on the other.

The judgment further states that Even if there is a conflict between the right to privacy and the right to food and shelter, the Aadhaar Act strikes a fair balance. The Aadhaar Act ensures human dignity and the right to life and liberty, hence there would be no reasonable expectation of privacy and autonomy.

To the contention from critics that Aadhaar may conversely lead to exclusion of benefits for those who do not possess the document, the Supreme Court observed that insofar as the argument based on probabilistic system of Aadhaar, leading to exclusion is concerned, the authority has claimed that biometric accuracy is 99.76 percent and the petitioners have also proceeded on that basis. In this scenario, if the Aadhaar project is shelved, 99.76 percent beneficiaries are going to suffer. Would it not lead to their exclusion?

To this enlightened observation, the court also added: We also clarify that no child shall be denied benefit of any of these schemes if, for some reasons, she is not able to produce the Aadhaar number and the benefit shall be given by verifying the identity on the basis of any other documents.

The judgment therefore has also been interpreted by the BJP as a victory for India and the pro-poor Modi government, and the party highlighted the part where the court observes that insofar as Section 2(b) is concerned, which defines resident, the apprehension expressed by the petitioners was that it should not lead to giving Aadhaar card to illegal immigrants. We direct the respondent to take suitable measures to ensure that illegal immigrants are not able to take such benefits.

Jaitley pointed out that Aadhaar has led to savings of Rs 90,000 crore per year by rooting out duplicate and ghost beneficiaries among 122 crore Aadhaar users, and this money is helping the Centre and states implement more pro-poor schemes. Calling the judgment historic, Jaitley said that the apex court reinforced the importance of technology as a tool of governance, an instrument of delivering benefits to people and a tool for revenue collection. He said India cannot afford to be tech laggards, having missed the bus of industrial revolution.

The Congress may claim victory but it needs to remember that its version of Aadhaar had no legislative backing, unlike the BJPs which has now been tested on the altar of judicial review.

In balance, the judgment strikes the right notes in ensuring that an essential tool of empowerment for the poor and greater tax compliance doesnt fall prey to cynical politics, elitist conspiracy theories and Luddite concerns. Equally, it places restrictions on the government (should it wish to turn it into a mass surveillance mechanism), and stresses on need for greater data protection law. It is a landmark judgment.The Supreme Court is likely to pronounce an important verdict related to the Ayodhya issue on Thursday at around 2 pm, according to reports.

The Supreme Court is likely to pronounce an important verdict on the Ayodhya dispute on Thursday at around 2 pm, according to reports. The court will decide whether the challenge to the 2010 Allahabad High Court verdict on Ayodhya title suit be heard by a regular bench or a five-judge constitution bench.

The Muslim litigants have insisted that the matter be heard by a five-judge constitution bench as the 2010 Allahabad High Court verdict dividing the disputed land in three parts  giving one to deity of Ramlala Virajman, another to Hindu sect Nirmohi Akhara and a third to the Muslims  relied on a 1994 top court judgment.

The Muslim litigants have contested the 1994 judgment, which says that a mosque is not integral to namaaz.

In an Ayodhya-related decision, the Supreme Court on Thursday is also likely to take a call on whether to re-examine the issue of whether mosques are an integral part of Islam or whether Muslims can offer prayers anywhere.

Earlier in September, the Supreme Court had sought a report from a sessions judge in a Lucknow court on how he intends to complete the trial in the Babri Masjid demolition case involving BJP leaders, LK Advani, MM Joshi and Uma Bharti within the April 2019 deadline.

On 19 April, 2017, the apex court had said BJP stalwarts Advani, Joshi and Bharti would be prosecuted for the serious offence of criminal conspiracy in the politically-sensitive 1992 Babri Masjid demolition case and had ordered a day-to-day trial to be concluded in two years, which is by 19 April, 2019.

The apex court had dubbed the demolition of the medieval era monument a "crime" that had shaken the "secular fabric of the Constitution" and allowed the CBI's plea on restoration of criminal conspiracy charge against the VVIP accused.

With inputs from PTIThe Supreme Court on Wednesday said its 2006 verdict putting benefits of quotas in job promotions for SC/ST employees need not be referred to a seven-judge bench.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday said its 2006 verdict putting benefits of quotas in job promotions for SC/ST employees need not be referred to a seven-judge bench. The apex court also turned down the Centre's plea that overall population of the communities be considered for granting quota for them.

The unanimous judgement was pronounced by a five-judge Constitution bench. The bench, headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, also directed that states need not collect quantifiable data on backwardness of SC/ST employees for giving quota in job promotions. However, the apex court did not comment on two other conditions given in 2006 verdict which dealt with adequacy of representation of SC/ST in promotion.

The unanimous judgment was pronounced by a Supreme Court constitutional bench also consisting of Justices Kurian Joseph, RF Nariman, SK Kaul and Indu Malhotra.

The M Nagaraj versus Union of India judgment is wrong to the extent that it directs collection of quantifiable data for providing reservations, Bar and Bench reported.

The court's verdict came on petitions seeking that a seven-judge bench reconsider the court's 2006 judgment which had put conditions for granting quota benefits in job promotions for SC/ST employees.

Full text of the judgment:

With inputs from PTISharad Pawar accused Sushma Swaraj of demanding all the information to be disclosed when the Bofors issue was raised during his time in Parliament.

Pune: Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Sharad Pawar on Tuesday hit out at the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government, saying that there is no harm in disclosing the details pertaining to the Rafale deal.

The NCP leader said: "I think there is no harm in disclosing the price. I was in the Parliament when during United Progressive Alliance (UPA), Bofors issue was raised and at that time they (BJP) including External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj used to demand that all information should be disclosed."

The much-debated Rafale deal was signed in 2016 between the Prime Minister Modi-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government and the French government for 36 jets after the original UPA deal, to buy 18 off-the-shelf jets and assemble another 108 in India, was scrapped.

The war of words between the BJP and the Congress intensified after former French president Francois Hollande claimed that the Indian government proposed Reliance Defence's name as the offset partner for Dassault Aviation. However, he later backtracked and said only Dassault could comment on the partnership.The spiritual leader delivered the Nehru Memorial Lecture at JNU and spoke about a variety of issues ranging from education, democracy, monogamy and artificial intelligence and interacted with students.

New Delhi: Students should debate on issues but not take sides, said spiritual leader Jaggi Vasudev at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), while noting that the country has become "ideologically divided" like the US in the past 10 years or so.

He also expressed concern over the cases of suicides among teenagers due to education-related issues and stressed there is a need to revisit education system.

The spiritual leader delivered the Nehru Memorial Lecture at the varsity and spoke about a variety of issues ranging from education, democracy, monogamy and artificial intelligence.

He also paid homage at the Wall Of Heroes at the varsity when he had come, JNU vice-chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar said on Twitter.

In response to a query by a student on how one can remain neutral in JNU, which is a politically vibrant campus, he said, "This has become a phenomenon across the county. If you open your month to say something about the nation they will try to fix you something to some ideology. Inevitably someone is trying to pin you on some board. Unfortunately, this is how you are destroying a democracy."

"What is the point of secret ballot? What is the point of offering a citizen the choice of choosing?"

Citing the example of the US, he said citizens there are either Republican or Democrats. "We are becoming like that. US was unfortunately divided like that for decades but that was not there in India. But in the past 10 years or so, everyone belongs to some party. This is destruction of democracy. Three months before elections, one should start evaluating whether they have done something. You must evaluate according to your intelligence. There is enough information available to help you do that," he told students.

He said that a country's citizens, specially students, should not be politically inclined. "If you want a lively democracy, except for a few committed party workers, the rest of the country should not be committed to any political ideology. But unfortunately, it has become a worldwide phenomenon. I was proudly speaking in the US about Indian living democracy till sometime back. I have just kept quiet about Indian living democracy in the past five years. We have become the same thing," he said.

He urged the students to stay away from taking sides because by doing so, they are destroying democracy and creating a feudalistic society.

"You must debate on issues but do not take sides at this stage. You are just destroying democracy. It becomes a feudalistic society then. Otherwise we can function like China. But we have chosen a democratic process," he stressed.

The lecture was an interactive session where one of the students asked him about his view on the education system. "Seven thousand children below 15 years of age are committing suicide. If 12, 13 year-olds start killing themselves, are we not doing something fundamentally wrong in our society. Children aged 12 or 13, who must be exuberant about life, are taking their lives. Unfortunately 90 per cent of suicides are education-related. Definitely we need to revisit education. We are trying to put everybody through the same process and nobody is equipped to go through the same process. It's most cruel way of handling a child, he opined.

He also said India is on the threshold of possibilities and can accomplish the task of moving five hundred million people from abject poverty to reasonable level of well-being.

"The only country which has done that is China but through the use of bullets. But they have done a great job. Keeping people in poverty through generations is worse than killing them. You can condemn them or admire them. It's a set of painful wisdom for me," he said.Aadhaar verdict LIVE updates: The Supreme Court verdict on the Aadhaar Act, undermines the legitimacy of the Act, law experts have said. 'This project has little or no legitimacy left. Massive legislative and structural changes will be required. I will be writing on bits of the judgement in the coming weeks.'

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A five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra had on 10 May had reserved the verdict on the matter after a marathon hearing that went on for 38 days, spanning four-and-half months.

The Supreme Court will pronounce its crucial judgment on the Constitutional validity of the 2016 Aadhaar Act, the question of reservation in promotions, and whether live-streaming of court proceedings should be allowed.

Here is the list of petitioners who challenged the Aadhaar scheme.

As many as 31 petitions, including one by former high court judge K S Puttaswamy, have been filed in the matter. One of the lawyers appearing for the petitioners, Prasanna, tweeted saying, "Incidentally these are the people that the Government attempted to smear during oral arguments as "vested interests" and "a handful of the elite".

One of the petitioners in the case, Mathew Thomas, an ex-Army officer tweeted recently:

The Aadhaar litigation in Supreme Court has now spanned over 6 years. At least, 26 Judges have heard the matter at various points of time.

One of the lawyers appearing for the petitioners in today's crucial hearing tweeted: In December 2013, two medical practitioners working in the Adivasi inhabited regions filed an application in the Supreme Court asserting how insistence of Aadhaar had led to increase in malnutrition among Adivasi children

Aadhaar is one of the most crucial verdicts which is expected this year. This week being Dipak Misra's last week as the CJI, the verdict holds historical importance as well. One of the lawyers appearing for the petitioners, Aapar Gupta tweeted and said, "Irrespective of the verdict in tomorrow's Aadhaar judgement we will continue to negotiate the power imbalances of technology. The constitution and the courts will be key players in revitalising doctrine for the development of digital rights in India."

Expert on constitutional matters and Parliament, Meghnad, in a thread explained the Aadhaar case over the years. The thread, which attempts at simplifying the saga of Aadhaar through the ages, starts from the very beginning.

Lawyers have flagged the validity of Aadhaar for more than just the problem it poses to the digital identity. According to one of the lawyers appearing for the petitioners in the case, here are the issues of Aadhaar:

"On 18.10.2012 Justice Puttaswamy files a petition in the Supreme Court with his principal prayer alleging that the Notification dated 28.01.2009 cannot indirectly implement Aadhaar without the legislative passage of the National ID Bill."

"On 13.12.2010 the Standing committee on Finance issues its report on the National ID Bill. Calls it, conceptualised with no clarity of purpose, overbearing manner without regard to legalities and other social harm

"On 03.12.2010 a bill titled as the National Identification Authority of India Bill, 2010 is introduced in Parliament. Per PRS analysis, does not prevent any service provider from prescribing Aadhaar as a mandatory requirement. The bill is referred to a standing committee."

"On 28.01.2009 a central government notification is issued establishing the Unique Identification Database. It states that the UID authority will, own and operate the UID Database."

As Supreme Court bench will decide whether Aadhaar is valid or not, social media is abuzz with information on this mammoth case. Lawyers tweeted out the history of the case since it began 

In 2012, Justice Puttaswamy said that govt cannot indirectly implement Aadhaar without the legislative passage of the National ID Bill

We take a look why Aadhaar should not be compared with Cambridge Analytica. We also see why the idea of Google and smart card companies lobbying against Aadhaar seems unlikely.

After 38 days of what is Supreme Court's second longest hearing ever on the constitutionality of Aadhaar, a question mark looms over its future. Nikita Rana gives us a wrap of the proceedings so far with a look at the major issues petitioners have raised so far.

This judgment allowed the use of Aadhaar in a number of government schemes, but maintained specifically that the purely voluntary nature of Aadhaar would continue till the court decided one way or another on the validity of the system through a constitution bench.

While the first petition challenging Aadhaar was filed in 2012, the process for this case was kicked off by a October 2015 judgment by the Supreme Court.

2015 judgment of SC allowed use of Aadhaar in govt schemes but maintained the purely voluntary nature of Aadhaar

The Kesavananda Bharati case, which was heard by a 13-judge bench, by a majority of 7:6 had propounded the doctrine of the 'Basic Structure and of the Constitution'. It had held that the amendments which may affect this structure were subject to judicial review.

When the judgment was reserved by the court, Attorney General KK Venugopal had told the bench, which also comprised Justices AK Sikri, AM Khanwilkar, DY Chandrachud and Ashok Bhushan, that this matter had become the "second longest" one in terms of days of hearing after the historic Kesavananda Bharati case of 1973.

Besides the former high court judge, the top lawyers argued for petitioners, who included Magsaysay awardee Shanta Sinha, feminist researcher Kalyani Sen Menon, social activists Aruna Roy, Nikhil De, Nachiket Udupa and CPI leader Binoy Visman.

A battery of senior lawyers, including Shyam Divan, Gopal Subramaniam, Kapil Sibal, P Chidambaram, Arvind Datar, KV Vishwanath, Anand Grover, Sajan Poovayya and a few others, had argued on behalf of the petitioners opposing the Aadhaar Scheme on various grounds.

A key argument against the Aadhaar scheme was that it was violative of the nine-judge bench verdict that had held that Right to Privacy is a fundamental right under the Constitution.

Aadhaar violates earlier verdict which held that Right to privacy is a fundamental right

During the arguments, the Centre had strongly defended its decision to seed Aadhaar numbers with mobile phones, telling the top court that it could have been hauled up for contempt if the verification of mobile users was not undertaken by it.

The Centre, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), the governments of Maharashtra and Gujarat and the RBI had argued in favour of the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits And Services) Act, 2016 and were represented by the Attorney General, Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, senior advocates Rakesh Dwivedi and Jayant Bhushan and lawyer Zoheb Hossain.

Multiple advocates for the petitioners argued in this vein, and that by creating a surveillance state, the biometric authentication programme violates the right to privacy under Article 21 of the Constitution.

Over the course of more than 6 years, a vast range of arguments have been made against Aadhaar in court. One of them was whether or not the Aadhaar programme helped create the infrastructure that would transform India into a surveillance state. Aadhaar would create, as one lawyer put it, a system of centralised data storage, and tracking of citizens transactions over the course of a lifetime.

Three separate opinions in today's Aadhaar verdict will be by Justice AK Sikri, Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice Ashok Bhushan. CJI Dipak Misra will not give a separate judgment

From making Aadhaar mandatory for dispensing welfare schemes benefit to an attempt to bring transparency in the taxation of individuals, almost all the steps towards making Aadhaar the only gateway for complete financial and social inclusion, were challenged before the Supreme Court.

The brainchild of the UPA government, the Aadhaar Bill was passed by the BJP government with the mode of the passage of the Bill itself raking up controversy and becoming subject matter of litigation before the Supreme Court.

The Aadhaar verdict, at the least, have a major impact on the amendments made to the Aadhaar Act via the Bill, in relation to privacy and data protection practices used for Aadhaar itself. Further, the Courts rulings with respect to data protection in relation to Aadhaar will also help determine what practices are constitutional under the Bill within the terms of the judgment. For instance, a ruling on the large-scale collection of biometric data via Aadhaar can affect provisions under the Bill for processing of sensitive personal data and for the non-consent based processing of data by the State.

Apart from digital identity, there are several issues with validating Aadhaar, lawyers and civil society acitivists have argued.

Among the several crucial issues to be answered via Aadhaar, the most critical are on Aadhaar-based exclusion, violation of the right to privacy and dignity, the validity of Section 7 (mandating Aadhaar for Section 7 benefits) and 57 (allowing the mandatory use of Aadhaar by anyone), and the lawfulness of the passing of Aadhaar Act.

Many crucial issues which need to be addressed via the verdict today

Aadhaar verdict has created a huge social buzz and apart from lawyers and activists sharing their insights, there are a few who are having some fun with the verdict.

As we await the Aadhaar judgment, it may be useful to remember that there have been no real success stories of Aadhaar, other than unsubstantiated claims of savings by government and administrative ease. The actual beneficiaries have hardly seen any benefit of Aadhaar coming their way, though they may have suffered from many a losses.

Justice AK Sikri has authored judgment on behalf of himself and CJI Dipak Misra and Justice AM Khanwilkar

"How the word Aadhaar has completely dislodged the hindi dictionary meaning for Aadhaar by the Id provided by UIDAI," says Sikri.

Justice AK Sikri reads out the majority judgment in the case. Justice Sikri started his Aadhaar judgment by saying, "It is better to be unique than the best." He further added that Aadhaar has become the most talked about expression in the recent years.

It is better to be unique than the best: Justice Sikri

"The unique identification proof also empowers and gives identity to marginalised sections of the society The unique identification proof also empowers and gives identity to marginalised sections of the society."

Justice Sikri says that heavy reliance has been placed on Privacy judgment of 2017. "The main plank of challenge to Aadhaar project and Aadhaar Act is that it infringes Right to Privacy," Sikri stated.

Reading out the judgment, Justice Sikri said the ruling deals with proportionality doctrine, compelling state interest and strict scrutiny test

Sikri said, "We follow the "larger public interest" as against the "compelling public state interest" test. Respect grounded in human dignity is exposited in the judgment. Also discussed is dignity not only in reference to individual but also dignity within the community. Question on whether strict scrutiny or just fair and reasonable standard to be adopted in testing constitutionality of laws. Says Puttaswamy leaves that open. And that this judgment had adopted the latter standard."

"National security exception under Section 33 is struck down. Lays down that Joint secretary mechanism is arbitrary and requires a judicial warrant," Sikri says

Purpose of the Act is legitimate/ Rational connection to purpose is satisfied/ Balancing test satisfied by the Act insofar as Aadhaar only collects minimal data.

Whether Aadhaar act violates right to privacy. Justice Sikri says they have examined only Section 7 and 8 for this purpose.

Justice Sikri says we've applied the fair and reasonable standards. "Human dignity is based on socio-economic rights. In the present case, we've enlarged the scope of human dignity. We've applied the principle of compelling state interest."

Sikri said: "Enrolment of children only with parental consent. They should be given an option to exit on attaining majority."

Aadhaar cannot be mandated for opening of bank accounts, Supreme Court. Aadhaar cannot be mandatory for mobile connections; DoT notification to that effect unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court turns down challenge on the ground that it could not have been classified as a Money bill.

Enrolment for school admission Opening of bank accounts for new mobile connections Not mandatory for CBSE, NEET, UGC

Decision to treat a bill as a money bill is amenable to judicial review, Justice Chandrachud concurs with Justice Sikri on that aspect

"Our decision must understand the dilemma between technology and power. And Mark areas where sanctity of individual is inviolable. Society is witnessing a shift into knowledge economy. At the heart of the project lies power."

"By declaring an ordinary bill to be a money bill, it is berefting the Rajya Sabha of its power. Aadhaar act cannot be regarded as money bill. Aadhaar act does not contain provisions 'only' limited to clauses a-g."

"The case is about the rule of law and governance. All encompassing nature of Aadhaar project, magnitude, make it imperative to carefully scrutinise the project. Issue of whether money bill can be judicially reviewed."

Justice Chandrachud overrules earlier judgment on money bill whether or not speaker decision is subject to judicial review. Elaborate discussion of rule of law and judicial review. Justice Sikri agrees on this point.

Justice Chandrachud although has held the Aadhaar Act as unconstitutional on the basis of money bill, has also gone into separate provisions and the project. However he held that Aadhaar cannot have been a money bill. Not even Section 7. Passing a Bill which is not a money bill as a money bill a subterfuge and a fraud on the constitution.

Justice Chandrachud says: Section 7 of the Act suffers from over breadth because it uses services and benefits enables the government to regulate every facet of a person's life. This leads to function creep. Legitimate aim of state cab be fulfilled by using less intrusive methods.

"Section 7 of the Act suffers from over breadth because it uses services and benefits enables the government to regulate every facet of a person's life"

"Linking of Aadhaar with PAN is not valid because aadhaar act in itself is unconstitutional"

"Mandating Aadhaar for benefits and services under Section 7 would lead to a situation in which citizens will not be able to live without Aadhaar. Hence, Section 7 arbitrary and unconstitutional."

"Allowing private players to use Aadhaar will lead to profiling which could be used in ascertaining political views etc of citizens."

Even for the state authorities, use of Aadhaar will be limited to only those purposes which are backed by a law. And so, if there is no law, Aadhaar can not be made mandatory and if there is a law, it can be challenged as well.

The Supreme Court seems to have struck down these provisions as they were not necessary and proportionate to the original purpose of Aadhaar (which as stated in the Aadhaar Act is distribution of welfare subsidies). This means that now no private entity can ask for Aadhaar for the purpose of providing any service.

Section 57 of Aadhaar Act permitted State or any body corporate or any person to use Aadhaar to establish identity for any purpose. This has been read down By Supreme Court to strike down those provisions which permitted even private entities to use Aadhaar.

"Section 139AA does not infringe right to privacy," says Supreme Court. Pronouncement of judgment stands over. Bench rises.

"Decision of Speaker to certify Aadhaar bill as Money Bill is open to judicial review. Aadhaar Act has been rightly passed as money bill."

In a historic judgment, the Supreme Court upheld the validity of the Aadhaar Act and scheme by a 4:1 majority. The judgment was pronounced by a bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices AK Sikri, AM Khanwilkar, DY Chandrachud and Ashok Bhushan. Justice Chandrachud's views dissented from the majority.

Justice Sikri: "Empowers marginalised section of societies as it gives identity to such persons."

Justice Sikri: "Fundamental difference from UID and other IDs. Uniqueness of UID is the difference as claimed by Government of India."

Justice Sikri: "It is better to be unique than to be best.

Justice Sikri: Lot of people who will benefit due to inclusion cannot be denied due to exclusion of few; Cant throw baby out with bathwater

Here are a few key observations made by the majority view of the Supreme Court

Justice Bhushan said that Aadhaar passed the three fold test in 9 judge bench decision. It does not violate an individuals privacy. The judge further noted that problems in implementation and shortcomings do not make Section 7 unconstitutional. He said that the no material evidence has come to light to suggest that exclusion has increased post Aadhaar.

The majority verdict has read down Section 57, clarifying that private parties can no longer mandate Aadhaar , but statutory authorities can when there is a backing of a law. More clarity is required on what would be a valid law as per this section. The striking down of the DOT order on Aadhaar-sim linking and of the PMLA rules on Aadhaar-bank account linking indicate that every law will not be justified under this head. The striking down of Aadhaar-bank account linking further, will also impact the RBI new norms on KYC which had mandated Aadhaar subject to the decision of the Supreme Court in the Aadhaar case.

"We welcome the Supreme Court's decision to strike down Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act. Private entities are no longer allowed to use Aadhaar for verification purposes," the Congress said on Twitter minutes after the verdict.

The Congress Wednesday welcomed the Supreme Court decision to strike down Section 57 of the Aadhaar act, which allowed private entities to access Aadhaar data, and termed it a "slap on the face of BJP".

"Today's judgment as read out in court signals massive changes in the Aadhaar project and the Act. The legitimacy of its stated purposes is destroyed. Even the majority signals significant concern by reading down portions."

Individuals too can file complaint on theft of Aadhaar data: What SC did not like about original Aadhaar Act

The legitimacy of the Aadhaar Act has been undermined. This project has little or no legitimacy left. Massive legislative and structural changes will be required. I will be writing on bits of the judgement in the coming weeks.

Justice Bhushan- Decision of speaker to certify Aadhaar bill as money bill is open to judicial review. Aadhaar act has been rightly passed as money bill.

"Section 139AA does not infringe right to privacy," says Supreme Court. Pronouncement of judgment stands over. Bench rises.

"Decision of Speaker to certify Aadhaar bill as Money Bill is open to judicial review. Aadhaar Act has been rightly passed as money bill."

In a historic judgment, the Supreme Court upheld the validity of the Aadhaar Act and scheme by a 4:1 majority. The judgment was pronounced by a bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices AK Sikri, AM Khanwilkar, DY Chandrachud and Ashok Bhushan. Justice Chandrachud's views dissented from the majority.

Justice Sikri: "Empowers marginalised section of societies as it gives identity to such persons."

Justice Sikri: "Fundamental difference from UID and other IDs. Uniqueness of UID is the difference as claimed by Government of India."

Justice Sikri: "It is better to be unique than to be best.

Justice Sikri: Lot of people who will benefit due to inclusion cannot be denied due to exclusion of few; Cant throw baby out with bathwater

Here are a few key observations made by the majority view of the Supreme Court

Justice Bhushan said that Aadhaar passed the three fold test in 9 judge bench decision. It does not violate an individuals privacy. The judge further noted that problems in implementation and shortcomings do not make Section 7 unconstitutional. He said that the no material evidence has come to light to suggest that exclusion has increased post Aadhaar.

The majority verdict has read down Section 57, clarifying that private parties can no longer mandate Aadhaar , but statutory authorities can when there is a backing of a law. More clarity is required on what would be a valid law as per this section. The striking down of the DOT order on Aadhaar-sim linking and of the PMLA rules on Aadhaar-bank account linking indicate that every law will not be justified under this head. The striking down of Aadhaar-bank account linking further, will also impact the RBI new norms on KYC which had mandated Aadhaar subject to the decision of the Supreme Court in the Aadhaar case.

The SC #AadhaarVerdict vindicates the Congress party standpoint: #Aadhar only for welfare subsidies. A slap on the face of #ModiSarkar for trying to forcibly make it mandatory for other private purposes like bank accounts, mobile phones, school admission etc.

"We welcome the Supreme Court's decision to strike down Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act. Private entities are no longer allowed to use Aadhaar for verification purposes," the Congress said on Twitter minutes after the verdict.

The Congress Wednesday welcomed the Supreme Court decision to strike down Section 57 of the Aadhaar act, which allowed private entities to access Aadhaar data, and termed it a "slap on the face of BJP".

Today's judgement as read out in court signals massive changes in the Aadhaar project and the Act. The legitimacy of its stated purposes is destroyed. Even the majority signals significant concern by reading down portions.

"Today's judgment as read out in court signals massive changes in the Aadhaar project and the Act. The legitimacy of its stated purposes is destroyed. Even the majority signals significant concern by reading down portions."

Individuals too can file complaint on theft of Aadhaar data: What SC did not like about original Aadhaar Act

Today's judgement as read out in court signals massive changes in the Aadhaar project and the Act. The legitimacy of its stated purposes is destroyed. Even the majority signals significant concern by reading down portions.

The legitimacy of the Aadhaar Act has been undermined. This project has little or no legitimacy left. Massive legislative and structural changes will be required. I will be writing on bits of the judgement in the coming weeks.

Aadhaar verdict today LATEST updates: The Supreme Court verdict on the Aadhaar Act, undermines the legitimacy of the Act, law experts have said. "This project has little or no legitimacy left. Massive legislative and structural changes will be required. I will be writing on bits of the judgement in the coming weeks."

"Today's judgement as read out in court signals massive changes in the Aadhaar project and the Act. The legitimacy of its stated purposes is destroyed. Even the majority signals significant concern by reading down portions."

The Supreme Court today upheld the validity of the Aadhaar Act and scheme by a 4:1 majority. It said that the government cannot compel individuals to use Aadhaar as the sole identification tool. The court also ruled that private entities and corporates cannot hoard Aadhaar data.

The judgment was pronounced by a Bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices AK Sikri, AM Khanwilkar, DY Chandrachud and Ashok Bhushan. Justice Chandrachud dissented from the majority.

Supreme Court has noted that Aadhaar empowers the marginalised society. Justice Chandrachud although has held the Aadhaar Act as unconstitutional on the basis of money bill, has also gone into separate provisions and the project. However he held that Aadhaar cannot have been a money bill. Not even Section 7. Passing a Bill which is not a money bill as a money bill a subterfuge and a fraud on the constitution.

This is a dissent from Justice Sikri's view.

Aadhaar cannot be mandated for opening of bank accounts, says Supreme Court. Aadhaar cannot be mandatory for mobile connections; DoT notification to that effect unconstitutional. The Supreme Court said that UGC, which has made it mandatory cannot happen. "Enrollment of children, consent of parents is essential. Aadhaar for school education would not be necessary coz it is neither welfare or subsidy."

Supreme Court introduces a significant voluntary component to Aadhaar judgement. Justice AK Sikri has said struck down Section 47, Section 33, Section 57, Section 33(1) has to be read down that individual afforded hearing. 33(2)- Information shared for national security struck down. Section 57 that includes body corporates is unconstitutional. Sikri said: "Enrolment of children only with parental consent. They should be given an option to exit on attaining majority."

Justice AK Sikri said, "We follow the "larger public interest" as against the "compelling public state interest" test. Respect grounded in human dignity is exposited in the judgment. Also discussed is dignity not only in reference to individual but also dignity within the community. Question on whether strict scrutiny or just fair and reasonable standard to be adopted in testing constitutionality of laws. Says Puttaswamy leaves that open. And that this judgment had adopted the latter standard."

Justice Sikri reads out the majority judgment in the case. "The unique identification proof also empowers and gives identity to marginalised sections of the society The unique identification proof also empowers and gives identity to marginalised sections of the society."

Justice Sikri started his Aadhaar judgment by saying, "It is better to be unique than the best." He further added that Aadhaar has become the most talked about expression in the recent years.

He said it is better to be unique than the best. "Aadhaar has become the most talked about expression in the recent years," he said.

5-judge Supreme Court Bench assembles in the top court with Justice AK Sikri pronouncing his judgment now.

The Aadhaar verdict, at the least, have a major impact on the amendments made to the Aadhaar Act via the Bill, in relation to privacy and data protection practices used for Aadhaar itself. Further, the courts rulings with respect to data protection in relation to Aadhaar will also help determine what practices are constitutional under the Bill within the terms of the judgment.

The five-judge Constitutional bench of Supreme Court will pronounce the verdict at 10.30 am. During the last hearing, lawyers appearing for the petitioners told the Supreme Court that over the time as Aadhaar authenticating becomes ubiquitous, tracking and profiling will become more comprehensive.

The arguments against Aadhaar began with the assertion that data collection was happening in the absence of a law, that personnel were not qualified to collect and handle sensitive data and that the biometric process itself was unreliable. Fingerprints can be cloned and iris scanners bypassed.

The Supreme Court will pronounce its crucial verdict on a batch of pleas challenging the constitutional validity of Centre's flagship Aadhaar scheme and its enabling 2016 law. While the first petition challenging Aadhaar was filed in 2012, the process for this case was kicked off by a October 2015 judgment by the Supreme Court which allowed the use of Aadhaar in a number of government schemes.

The judgment specifically maintained that the purely voluntary nature of Aadhaar would continue till the court decided one way or another on the validity of the system through a constitution bench.

In 2012, Justice Puttaswamy had filed a petition in the Supreme Court saying that the government cannot indirectly implement Aadhaar without the legislative passage of the National ID Bill.

Aadhaar is one of the most crucial verdicts expected this year. This week being Dipak Misra's last week as the Chief Justice of India, the verdict holds historical importance as well. One of the lawyers appearing for the petitioners, Aapar Gupta tweeted and said, "Irrespective of the verdict in tomorrow's Aadhaar judgement we will continue to negotiate the power imbalances of technology. The constitution and the courts will be key players in revitalising doctrine for the development of digital rights in India."

The Aadhaar litigation in Supreme Court has now spanned over 6 years. At least, 26 Judges have heard the matter at various points of time. The verdict is expected to be read out at around 10.30 am on Wednesday.

A five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra had on 10 May reserved the verdict on the matter after a marathon hearing that went on for 38 days, spanning four-and-half months.

As many as 31 petitions, including one by former high court judge KS Puttaswamy, have been filed in the matter.

When the judgment was reserved by the court, Attorney General KK Venugopal had told the bench, which also comprised Justices AK Sikri, AM Khanwilkar, DY Chandrachud and Ashok Bhushan, that this matter had become the "second longest" one in terms of days of hearing after the historic Kesavananda Bharati case of 1973.

The Kesavananda Bharati case, which was heard by a 13-judge bench, by a majority of 7:6 had propounded the doctrine of the 'Basic Structure and of the Constitution'. It had held that the amendments which may affect this structure were subject to judicial review.

A battery of senior lawyers, including Shyam Divan, Gopal Subramaniam, Kapil Sibal, P Chidambaram, Arvind Datar, KV Vishwanath, Anand Grover, Sajan Poovayya and a few others, had argued on behalf of the petitioners opposing the Aadhaar Scheme on various grounds.

Besides the former high court judge, the top lawyers argued for petitioners, who included Magsaysay awardee Shanta Sinha, feminist researcher Kalyani Sen Menon, social activists Aruna Roy, Nikhil De, Nachiket Udupa and CPI leader Binoy Visman.

A key argument against the Aadhaar scheme was that it was violative of the nine-judge bench verdict that had held that Right to Privacy is a fundamental right under the Constitution.

The Centre, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), the governments of Maharashtra and Gujarat and the RBI had argued in favour of the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies, Benefits And Services) Act, 2016 and were represented by the Attorney General, Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, senior advocates Rakesh Dwivedi and Jayant Bhushan and lawyer Zoheb Hossain.

During the arguments, the Centre had strongly defended its decision to seed Aadhaar numbers with mobile phones, telling the top court that it could have been hauled up for contempt if the verification of mobile users was not undertaken by it.

However, the court had said that the government had misinterpreted its order and used it as a "tool" to make Aadhaar mandatory for mobile users.

The court had also not agreed prima facie with the government's contention that the Aadhaar law was correctly termed as a Money Bill by the Lok Sabha Speaker as it dealt with "targetted delivery of subsidies" for which funds came from the Consolidated Fund of India.

The counsel for one of the petitioners had termed Aadhaar as "an electronic leash" and said that the government could completely destroy an individual by "switching off" the 12-digit unique identifier number.

On the other hand, the Centre had said that the law was valid and allowed minimal invasion to ensure the right to life of millions of Indians by ensuring seamless delivery of subsidies, benefits and services to the poorest of poor.On 5 January, the Supreme Court had referred to a five-judge Constitution bench the plea challenging the validity of the penal law on adultery.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court is likely to pronounce on Thursday its judgement on pleas challenging the constitutional validity of the penal law on adultery.

A five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra on 8 August had reserved its verdict after Additional Solicitor General Pinky Anand, appearing for the Centre, concluded her arguments.

The hearing, which commenced on 1 August, by the bench also comprised justices RF Nariman, AM Khanwilkar, DY Chandrachud and Indu Malhotra, went on for six days.

The Centre had favoured retention of penal law on adultery, saying that it is a public wrong which causes mental and physical injury to the spouse, children and the family.

"It is an action willingly and knowingly done with the knowledge that it would hurt the spouse, the children and the family. Such intentional action which impinges on the sanctity of marriage and sexual fidelity encompassed in marriage, which forms the backbone of the Indian society, has been classified and defined by the Indian State as a criminal offence in exercise of its Constitution powers," the Centre had said.

Section 497 of the 158-year-old Indian Penal Code says: "Whoever has sexual intercourse with a person who is and whom he knows or has reason to believe to be the wife of another man, without the consent or connivance of that man, such sexual intercourse not amounting to the offence of rape, is guilty of the offence of adultery."

On 5 January, the apex court had referred to a five-judge Constitution bench the plea challenging the validity of the penal law on adultery.

The court had taken a prima facie view that though the criminal law proceeded on "gender neutrality", the concept was absent in Section 497.Tuesday's Supreme Court judgment may be legally sound, but it is a dampener in the struggle for clean politics

Tuesday's Supreme Court judgment may be legally sound, but it is a dampener in the struggle for clean politics. The Supreme Court has put the ball in the court of the Parliament, which has neither shown any haste nor enthusiasm in dealing with the growing menace of criminalisation in politics. But the blame is equally shared by the voters who have continued to send people with criminal backgrounds to Parliament and state legislatures. The petition adjudicated by the apex court was filed in 2011 and the situation seems only to have deteriorated since then.

Before 2014: Supreme Courts push and governments push back

In 2011, Public Interest Foundation filed the current petition specifically asking the Supreme Court to decide on the question of whether a person can be disqualified from contesting election to Parliament or state legislature or a sitting MP/MLA can be disqualified on framing of charges in certain offences. The law as it stood then provided for disqualification only upon conviction in certain offences. As the hearing began, the Supreme Court sought the views of Law Commission.

As this was underway in 2013, the Supreme Court gave a progressive ruling in the Lily Thomas petition in which it held Section 8(4) of the Representation of People Act, 1951 to be unconstitutional. Section 8 of the RP Act provided that conviction in serious offences will lead to disqualification, but sub-section (4) created an exception for sitting MPs/MLAs and permitted them to continue in office even after conviction initially for a period of three months and if they filed an appeal during those three months, then till the appeal is disposed of. Agitated by this ruling, the government sought to urgently negate it by bringing an Ordinance, a draft of which was famously torn up at a press conference by Rahul Gandhi. The Ordinance never came about.

In March 2014, Law Commission submitted its report with its views on disqualification upon framing of charges and positively supported this suggestion. It reasoned that framing of charges is preceded by investigation and application of judicial mind and recommended certain safeguards to prevent misuse. Hence, it recommended that for offences punishable with five or more years of imprisonment and where charges have been framed more than a year before the date of scrutiny of nomination papers for an election, disqualification can apply. For a sitting MP/MLA, it recommended that the trial be expedited and conducted on a day-to-day basis and concluded within a period of a year. If not concluded within a year, the sitting MP/MLA was either to be disqualified or lose the right to vote in the House, remuneration and other benefits associated with their office.

Immediately, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, then campaigning for the 2014 General Election made fast track courts for politicians a campaign pitch. It must be noticed, that only one of the Law Commissions many recommendations was taken up and perhaps the easiest one. No party seems to have committed itself to the idea of disqualification if the trial doesnt conclude within a year. And as the results of 2014 election came in, we gave ourselves a Parliament with the highest number of MPs with criminal cases. In 2014, 34 percent of MPs faced criminal charges as compared to 30 percent in 2009 and 24 percent in 2004.

After 2014: An anguished Supreme Court and weak resolve of the government

Soon after taking office, Modi directed his Cabinet colleagues to work out a mechanism to fast track cases against politicians. In this backdrop, it will also be useful to remember that up until then, fast track courts had been set up and were functioning for cases of sexual offences against women but were suffering from many problems  lack of infrastructure, funds and judges. There were also concerns about the focus on one particular offence at the cost of others and concerns over 'quality of judgment' and violation of proper procedures. The solution, therefore, is almost like an illusion  it gives the impression of progress, but has real possibilities of regress.

Three years went by without any definite step being taken until in 2017, on a petition filed by a BJP politician, the Supreme Court gave an ultimatum on fast track courts and directed state governments to set up 12 fast-track courts and even directed the Central government to allocate funds for this. The Supreme Court was informed by the Centre that there were 1,581 criminal cases pending against politicians that were to be disposed of within a year. The fast-track courts had to start functioning from 1 March, 2018. Only notifications for setting up these courts seem to have been issued so far and that too in some states, with many other states not even providing the requisite information on pending criminal cases against politicians.

This determination with which Supreme Court is following this matter indicates that perhaps it has no hesitation in intervening and issuing directions in policy matters like setting up special courts for certain offences. It did however refrain from making framing of charges in certain offences a ground for disqualification because it would amount to legislating on the subject, which falls in the domain of the Parliament. In doing so, it has ignored the real possibilities of politicians in power influencing police, prosecution and judiciary and thus vitiating trial. Without an eventual disqualification at the end of this one-year trial period, the trial can go on with no remedy.

2019: Will we choose differently?

With the Supreme Court passing the baton to an unwilling Parliament, the burden ultimately falls on the voters to finish this race. Perhaps realising this, the Supreme Court, gave a slew of directions to publicise criminal antecedents of a politician as a voter is entitled to an informed choice. For instance, it directed that pending criminal cases be mentioned in bold letters in the election affidavit of every contesting candidate; this information shall also be put up by a political party on its website and after filing of nomination papers, the information shall also be given wide publicity in print and electronic media.

But as voters do we exercise an informed choice? Perhaps we do. As political economist Milan Vaishnav argues, political parties field candidates with criminal antecedents because they come with 'deep pockets' and may be in a position not just to fund their own election but contribute to the party too. The voters too have a 'rational incentive' to vote for strongmen who may be in a position to protect and advance the interests of their communities, especially when the state machinery fails to. Thus, despite a functional democracy where voters deliberately vote for a 'criminal politician', who thrives because of fractured governance systems and absence of rule of law, only an electorate that categorically rejects tghe criminalisation of politics can ensure a thorough cleanse of the system.

The author is a lawyer and public policy enthusiast. She is also the founder of Maadhyam, a platform enabling stakeholder engagement with Parliament and policy making. Citizens can engage with Maadhyam on Twitter and Facebook.NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg shared impressions of his meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on the UN General Assembly sidelines yesterday.

"NATO and Russia have serious disagreements on a number of issues, which make our dialogue even more important. Today, we discussed military posture and exercises, including Russias recent exercise Vostok as well as NATOs upcoming exercise Trident Juncture," Stoltenberg said.

According to his press service's statement, NATO chief also "raised NATOs concerns about Russias ongoing aggressive actions in Ukraine" and expressed the alliances solidarity with the United Kingdom following the Salisbury poisoning incident.

In addition, Stoltenberg stressed that they had also "agreed to continue [their] contacts."The police identified him as Abu Maaz, a Pakistani national. 'On the basis of materials recovered, one of the slain terrorists has been identified as Abu Maaz of Pakistani origin who was operating as the top commander of LeT in north Kashmir,' a police spokesman said.

Srinagar: One of the two terrorists killed in an encounter with security forces in Sopore on Tuesday was identified as a top Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) commander who was active in north Kashmir for the past three years, police said Wednesday.

The police identified him as Abu Maaz, a Pakistani national. "On the basis of materials recovered, one of the slain terrorists has been identified as Abu Maaz of Pakistani origin who was operating as the top commander of LeT in north Kashmir," a police spokesman said.

The other terrorist who was killed in the operation in Bomai area was identified as Abdul Majeed Mir alias Sameer. The spokesman said Maaz had a criminal record since 2015 and he was involved in series of terror activities in the area, particularly in Sopore and Handwara.

"He was involved in several attacks on the security forces and killings of civilians in the area. Several cases were registered against him in police stations across the valley for terror activities," he added.

The spokesman said Maaz was involved in at least a dozen attacks on civilians and security forces since 2015 in which three civilians and an Army officer were killed.A three-storey building collapsed near Sawan Park at Ashok Vihar Phase 3 in Delhi. A call about the incident was received at 9.25 am.

New Delhi: One woman and four children were killed and at least seven injured after a three-storey building collapsed in northwest Delhi's Ashok Vihar Wednesday, police said.

The injured have been rushed to Deep Chand Bandhu Hospital, they said.

The deceased woman was identified as Munni. Two of the children were brothers, aged around 10 years, and one was a boy and another was his sister aged below five years.

Several people are still feared trapped under the debris and rescue teams are working at the spot, the police said.

A call about the incident was received at 9.25 am and six fire tenders were rushed to the spot near Sawan Park, an officer said.

Two teams of the NDRF have been mobilised for rescue operations, a NDRF spokesperson said.

A senior North Delhi Municipal Corporation official said the building was about 20 years old. Its structure was weak and in a deteriorated condition, the official added.Prime Minister Theresa May's cabinet has agreed that EU citizens should not have preferential access to work in Britain compared to people from elsewhere after Brexit, media reports said Tuesday.

London: Prime Minister Theresa May's cabinet has agreed that EU citizens should not have preferential access to work in Britain compared to people from elsewhere after Brexit, media reports said Tuesday.

Ministers gathering on Monday "unanimously supported a system based on skills rather than nationality", an unnamed source told the BBC, with similar reports in The Times and The Guardian. Citizens from the other 27 European Union member states are currently free to live and work in Britain under the bloc's freedom of movement rules, but this will end after Brexit.

A government-commissioned report last week recommended that in future, EU and non-EU citizens follow the same immigration rules, with preference given to high-skilled workers. The report's author, Alan Manning of the Migration Advisory Committee, briefed the cabinet meeting on Monday on his plan.

A Downing Street spokeswoman said: "The cabinet agreed that, once free movement is brought to an end, the government will be able to introduce a new system which works in the best interests of the UK, including by helping to boost productivity." May is now expected to make an announcement on future immigration rules at her Conservative party's conference next week, before likely introducing proposals later this year. However, any post-Brexit immigration policy could be affected by Britain's future trade deals.

The EU may well seek to negotiate continued preferential treatment in return for access to its single market, while other countries could also seek visa waivers in return for trade deals. May promised last week that even if Brexit negotiations with the EU break down, the rights of Europeans currently living in Britain "will be protected". Her spokesman said there would be formal proposals published "shortly".According to the UPSIDC, there are 264 big and small tanneries that operate in Kanpur and Unnao. Income from these tanneries is the primary source of livelihood for more than one lakh families.

Lucknow: The Government of Uttar Pradesh has taken a decision to close tanneries operating in Kanpur and Unnao, between December to March, 2019, to provide clean water for devotees participating in the upcoming Ardh Kumbh festival.

The Kumbh Mela is to be held in Allahabad for three months, between 15 January and 4 March, 2019.

This decision was taken by the Uttar Pradesh government and handed down by Renuka Kumar, principal secretary of the forest department, on 12 June. A review meeting on this decision was chaired by the Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board (PCB) on Monday, 17 September, and the copy of the order was dispatched to the district magistrates of Kanpur and Unnao, director of Uttar Pradesh State Industrial Development Corporation (UPSIDC), managing director of the Uttar Pradesh Jal Nigam (UPJN) and divisional commissioner from Kanpur range.

TU Khan, the chief environmental officer at the Uttar Pradesh PCB, says the governments orders will be followed although the Board was not consulted before a decision was taken.

According to the UPSIDC, there are 264 big and small tanneries that operate in Kanpur and Unnao. Income from these tanneries is the primary source of livelihood for more than one lakh families.

Mukhtarul Amin, chairman of the Council of Leather Exports said that the governments decision will have an adverse impact on the leather industry.

If this happens, it will be impossible for us to get back into the leather business, said Amin.

They have asked Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath for time and requested that the decision be reviewed. He added that leather exports from Kanpur and Unnao is valued at around Rs 8,000 crore, and about Rs 12,000 crore from the entire state. Amin said that the government should act swiftly to avoid consequences.

Pakistan and Bangladesh will earn the larger share in global leather exports, he said.

According to the UP PCB, these tanneries discharge 6.7 million litres of treated effluent per day. This water is treated at a chemical plant in Jajmau area, which holds the capacity to treat up to 37 million litres per day. These tanneries were once the biggest exporters of finished and unfinished leather in the international market, however, 154 tanneries have been shut down since 2016 due to excessive water pollution or illegal functionality.

To maintain the treatment plant, the government recently provided Rs 17 crore to the UPJN, according to the UP Minister for Export Encouragement, Satyadev Pachauri.

According to the PCB, wastewater coming out from tanneries is first treated at the 37 MLD chemical plant in Jajmau, after which the treated water is sent into the Ganga. The water is considered not fit for consumption, but the treatment makes it fit to be sent into the river. There are nine points in the treatment plant from where the water is dumped into the river.

According to AK Srivastava, managing director of UPJN, the treatment plants are sufficiently equipped to deal with the polluted water. The funds requested were to repair the processing unit. The department is also in process to set up more treatment plants in the future, he added.

Taj Alam, president of Uttar Pradeshs Leather Industries Association, said that the governments order will kill the leather industries in the state.

The leather industries are already in a loss and global exporters have started terming India as an unreliable market. In conditions like this, the industries will either shut down or move to different states and this will affect us very badly, he said, adding that workers are seeking employment elsewhere and a few industries are operating day and night to meet production deadlines.

As per data provided by the Council for Leather Exports, the export of leather and leather products for the financial year of 2017-18 touched Rs 9,153.321 crore, as compared to 2016-17, which recorded a negative growth of -4.89 percent at Rs 9,624.193 crore.

A report by IndiaSpend states that the leather industry employs around 2.5 million people across the country, most of them Dalit or Muslim. Indias leather industry accounts for 9 percent of the worlds footwear production, and 12.93 percent of the international production of hides/skins.

This order, for the government, is just three months, but for traders like us this is going to affect more than four months, as we will have to stop the soaking process a month before and the raw material will also rot in this period if not processed, said Alam.

Vaki Mohammad, who runs Kanpur Leather Exports, a leather showroom, said that industries have increased the cost for local dealers and shop owners are not receiving adequate supplies from tanneries due to which they would have to look for some other business. This industry is sinking and nobody cares for it other than the labourers who work there. It is not the first time that Kumbh is happening, but this type of closure is happening for the first time, he said.

Small-scale tanneries are likely to be the worst affected by the governments order.

Babu Bhai, the owner of Star House, a small tannery unit, thinks that if the government sticks to this decision, a lot of labourers and small businessmen will die.

We do not have much money like big tanneries. A lot of money is required in processing the leather and we do not have savings to feed our family for three continuous months. Most of the labourers are working overtime to complete the order before this diktat is implemented, said Bhai.

He has asked his employees to find another job during those three months as they are in no position to challenge the government order.

Rakesh Tripathi, the Uttar Pradesh BJP spokesperson, said that Kumbh is the worlds largest gathering where people from various nations visit. This step has been taken just to provide clean water, as bathing in the pure Ganga water would benefit pilgrims.

The government would not want visitors to have a negative perception of the state, he explained, adding that the government has started discussing alternative solutions, to prevent the leather industrys loss. When asked about the orders impact on workers livelihood, Tripathi said that the Kumbh Mela will generate sufficient employment opportunities to a large section of the population.Sandhya Visweswariah is internationally recognised as a world expert in gut disease. She chairs two biological research labs at the Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru and has received several grants, fellowships and awards.

Editor's note: The Life of Science and Firstpost bring you this series profiling Indian women in Science. The challenges in Indian scientific life are many  more so for women taking up this path. This series honours those who beat the odds and serve as inspirations for the next generation of Indian science  a generation that is slowly and surely on its way to becoming gender equal.

***

By Aashima Dogra

Sandhya Visweswariah | Biochemist | Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru

In a higher administration in the country, there is still an old boys club. When they think of someone [for a job], it will be a man; very rarely do they think of a woman being able to do the job. They dont see us in their boys club, said Sandhya Visweswariah, one of the few women on top in Indian science today.

Sandhya is internationally recognised as a world expert in gut disease. She chairs two biological research labs at the Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru and has received several grants, fellowships and awards from the likes of The Royal Society and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She is currently the only female grantee of WellcomeDBT India Alliances most prestigious Margadarshi fellowship and recently became a fellow of The World Academy of Sciences, for the advancement of science in developing countries.

One of the highlights of Sandhyas long, illustrious journey is her serendipitous discovery of gut disease-causing mutations. As she won international acclaim for her scientific work, back home she successfully negotiated her way through the proverbial glass ceiling that keeps women from rising to power.

Sandhya, who said she was never discriminated against nor favored for being a woman, suspects that the gender gap in Indian science is a result of a mindset which may need to be changed. Her mild and careful approach to the cause of women in science strikes a contrast with contemporary feminism that resists patriarchal power head-on. According to her, the male-dominated leadership holds an unconscious bias and fail to take affirmative action to include women in faculty positions, institute leadership and award nominations. All things being equal, I think they should positively select a woman. That may not be happening, she said.

Generally, men are a little more aggressive, said Sandhya, for example, when it comes to awards or recognition, they will go and tell a senior person: nominate me. I personally cannot and have never done that, she said, during an interview at the International Congress of Cell Biology at Hyderabad, earlier this year. She was at the conference to discuss her breakthrough work on a diarrhoea-linked molecular receptor in the gut. Additionally, she also participated in an outreach event where she pushed for science careers in local schools, an experience she told us about in a separate video conversation.

What can we do to close the gender gap, I asked her. Not much, actually, and the reason is, if you start making a big noise, you are considered a feminist and then you become strident and they avoid you. They don't want to talk to you after that, right? It's very difficult, she rued.

Like other women scientists, Sandhya has found herself in the position of the token woman in various committees. It isn't enough to have just one woman. In a committee of 10 people, you must have at least three, only then will change happen. She cites a good example of the European Molecular Biology Organisation, who insists on 30 percent women in every scientific meeting they organise.

If you happen to be a member of an organising committee, you must try and ensure [that more women are included]. This is something Sandhya has tried to do at IISc. She chaired the Womens Cell for a while and Women in Science panel at her institute. Recently, she lobbied to institute a policy at IISc that pauses the tenure clock of women researchers by one year for every child. Now, women faculty at IISc who are new mothers can apply for tenure on the backs of their publications in the last six years, or seven years in case they had two children, rather than at the end of five years like their male colleagues. I also ensured that when they do get tenured, it is back-effected [with respect to payrise and position], so it is not that you are one year behind the male colleague. Just because you give her tenure later don't put her one year behind a male colleague who joined at the same time, Sandhya explained.

Critique of policies directed at bringing back women after maternity breaks argue that these policies reinforce the stereotype of the sacrificial Indian woman. But Sandhya insists that these are affirmative actions that are the needed in the wake of realities of many of her female colleagues.

In this video by Deccan Herald, Sandhya talks further about her views on women in science in India.

From music in the UK to science in Zambia

Sandhya was born in the United Kingdom. As a little girl, she claims she had absolutely no interest in science or research; literature, music and art were more to her liking. When the family moved to Zambia, things changes. I was 16. When I reached Zambia none of these opportunities to learn music and languages were available. And so I had to completely switch my direction. I had to take up science. She pulled herself together and got the job done quite well. She stood first in the country. I got a CGPA of six out of six.

This is when Sandhya did some soul-searching. Nobody in my family threw any cold water on the thought. Despite this global upbringing, she and her siblings were constantly reminded that India was their real home. Her options were open and medicine was on her mind.

Influenced by her now late-uncle, a medic and Director at National Institute of Nutrition, Sandhya grew a desire to study medicine. I could have taken up medicine without any effort in Zambia, but I wanted to come to India, she recalled. But in India, medical schools would not accept her international report cards, they required Indian grading systems.

Sandhya moved to Hyderabad to graduate in science at Osmania University and ended up with a gold medal in botany. Around this time, she met her husband, an air force engineer. Of course, as soon as you get married, you think oh! my life is complete and everything is hunky-dory, she fondly reminisced. But my husband said nothing doing. You better find something to do with yourself because I dont think youre the kind of person who can sit at home and cook.

She tried her luck at IIT Kanpur, where her husband was headed to further his education, and to her surprise, was offered a place there too, to pursue a Masters in the Chemistry department in 1978. According to Sandhya, It was IIT Kanpur that really showed me what science could be, what education could be. The chemistry department at that time was the best in the country and maybe one of the leading chemistry departments in the world. CNR Rao had just left the year I joined. We had amazing teachers and I think that is when I suddenly realised that I am enjoying this way of working.

By 1980, Sandhya was deeply tuned to the chemistry of living things. She majored in Biochemistry and went on to pursue a PhD at IISc, which she calls the best place to do scientific research in the country.

Post-PhD, she took a year off for pregnancy, but she was lucky that upon her return, she did not have to look very far to find a job. AstraZeneca, a pharmaceutical company, had opened its research division right next door to IISc. At that time, AstraZeneca was a research pharmaceutical company and had decided that we would target diarrhoeal disease, malaria and tuberculosis.

The focus, in the beginning, was mainly on diagnostics but Sandhyas eye was on basic research. She was keen to understand the mechanisms underlying pathogenesis. For a biochemist, signal transduction, or the molecular cascade leading up to the disease state, presents a goldmine of potential discoveries. The conditions were ideal, the stage was set. Back then, they were flooded with money. I was exposed to technologies which I never would have in a regular Indian university, she said. Sandhya spent four fruitful years at the company, but beyond that, she realised that industrial/pharmaceutical research wasn't her ultimate calling.

Meanwhile, at IISc there was a new biochemistry department being set up by Sandhyas PhD advisor. There was an opening where Sandhya would fit right in. For Sandhya, rejoining the institute in 1993 was the best thing that could have happened. This time, she brought with her the progress she had made in diarrhoeal diseases at AstraZeneca. The company allowed me to take all the stuff I had done there with me to the institute.

Discovering disease-causing receptor mutations

I like to think of proteins, understand how they fold and how they move around, Sandhya said. The protein fold she knows the best is a molecular receptor in the gut called guanylyl cyclase-c (GC-C). This receptor is a binding target for a family of bacterial toxins that is the major cause of childhood diarrhoea and travellers diarrhoea.

Since joining IISc over 20 years ago, Sandhya and her research team have done extensive research on characterising this receptor to understand how it is used by the toxins to cause gut diseases. They also have gathered clues about how its function is regulated by our genes  she did this by introducing mutations in the genes coding for it. She also looks at its other roles and effects in the intestinal cell.

We were able to show that GC-C regulates intestinal cell proliferation, which meant that it is also involved in the induction of colorectal cancer. Mouse models which did not have this receptor in the gut were more susceptible to tumors.

The most important discovery in gut biology made by Sandhya and her team was a congenital disease of watery diarrhoea due to mutations found in this receptor. She narrated how this happened. A few years ago, Sandhya heard from clinicians in the University of Bergen in Norway  where she is now Adjunct Professor  about a clinical case of a 32-member family who had suffered from watery diarrhoea from childhood onwards. There were no diseases reported that correlated with mutations in this receptor that I work with. What was enigmatic [before discovering the Norwegian clinical cases] is how come this receptor is so highly conserved. What is it that makes people not have any kind of mutations in the protein sequence? But then, we heard from these Norwegians who found a mutation. Because it was a nice [co-operative] family they were able to do classical genetic analysis to identify where the mutation lies.

With the help of Sandhyas laboratory investigations, the Norwegian clinicians were able to identify the biochemical consequences of this mutation in the receptor that the family expressed. I knew nothing about them at the time. They wrote this letter, and I said yes, I would be delighted to help. I had a student make the mutation, and we together we found that it resulted in hyperactivation of the receptor. The hyperactivation of the receptor almost mimics what happens in the gut when the diarrhoea toxin binds to the receptor. That is why these people had lifelong diarrhoea. This was the first report of a mutation in this receptor associated with human disease.

We named this disease familial diarrhoea syndrome, said Sandhya, but they soon had to rename it.

Subsequent to the publication of this discovery, Sandhya heard of another clinical case  this time medically more severe. I received communication from Austrian clinicians, who came to me with four additional mutations in very sick children. She saw that these were not familial but germline mutations that the infants had acquired randomly. Their parents were perfectly normal, but the infants had been in and out of gut surgery, could not retain food orally and were dependent on injected nutrition.

We characterised the mutations in the children and what was really freaky was that one of the mutations was exactly the same one we had made [previously as part of laboratory experiments] purely from our biochemical curiosity in this receptor. When I saw the human mutation, it sent a chill up my spine, she said.

We are going to now call it congenital guanyl cycle associated disease.

Sandhyas most recent work involves using transgenic mice models with this mutation to understand the molecular basis of the rare disease. The hope is to find a cure.

Future plans: Joint PhD-MD at Medical Research Hub

Chancing upon such a discovery hugely widened Sandhyas perspective on research and disease biology in general. The work biologists do could save many lives if applied well, she realised. Bioengineering and other innovations in biology are all fine, but we need clinical partners for bringing our research into healthcare. Such a collaboration between researchers and clinicians is missing severely in the Indian context, in Sandhyas point of view.

Sandhya and her colleagues at IISc and CMC are preparing a bridge between research and clinicians, called Medical Research Hub. The striking feature of this collaboration is a novel MD-PhD program. MD students in CMC Vellore will be offered the opportunity to continue into a PhD with faculty at IISc, she described. During their MD, the candidates will be able to visit IISc several times to define the subsequent PhD project. The costs of these visits are covered by the Margadarshi fellowship that Sandhya has received for a period of five years.

We recently had a meeting with cardiologists from CMC Vellore, four or five of them came to the institute, gave talks, we had engineers sitting in the audience, bioengineers, chemical engineers and materials engineers. They got talking and they are going to start taking a few projects off the ground, she said.

The Medical Research Hub is an offshoot of Sandhya's strong belief in positive action that challenges the status quo. Non-men must participate in this change, she strongly believes. "I think affirmative action statements will make a difference. But when the decision making is left to only men, men will engineer [their agenda]."

Read more from the 'Women in Science' series here.

THELIFEOFSCIENCE.COM is a feminist science media project on a mission to make Indian women scientists more visible and investigate the gender gap in Indian academiaThe second day of the PIFF is a somber affair with two films, Winter in Lviv and Reservation discussing social struggles as a result of war and policy respectively

The Pondicherry International Film Festival kicked off on 26 September with the screening of acclaimed works such as To Let, Foot Thrill and Cry Humanity. The line-up for the five-day event features a vibrant mix of films ranging from comedies, thrillers and horrors to cinema concern the social and economic struggles of every day.

With the first day of the PIFF well underway, here are our picks for Day 2  27 September  which promises to be an interesting affair packed with features, shorts and documentaries.

Day 2

One Fine Day (2018): Living in a world of incessant woes and worries gets tough and every now and then, we all need a fairy tale to give ourselves a hearty cheer. Vibin MR's short is one such fairy tale of a young rag picker who discovers a treasure chest while on his usual route which alters the boy and his sister's life. Unlike Pandora's box, the treasure is a harbinger of joy and this Tamil film promises to be a happy and soulful story of the two siblings. One Fine Day has previously been screened at several film festivals across India.

Par Le Sang (By Blood) (2018): Once a ruthless warrior and years later a dying old man waiting for death, Guillaume Enard and Jonathan Delerue  inspired by the Dark Ages  weave the story of Mort-Lieu, a warlord who looks back upon the bloodshed of his time taking count of what exactly he had accomplished in his life. He gears up for his final battle with a mysterious knight who he believes is the Reaper coming for his life. The French work Par Le Sang was screened at the Redline International Film Festival in Toronto and bagged the award for Best Supporting Actress at the event. It was also screened at the Berlin Short Film Festival in 2018.

La Tete Haute (Standing Tall) (2015): This French feature is a part of the special screening segment at the PIFF that honours the work of women directors in cinema. Emmanuelle Bercot's work revolves around Malony, a young boy who often finds himself in juvenile court after being abandoned by his mother. But a judge and a caseworker are certain that they can help Malony find his way. The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2015 and went on to win the awards for Best Supporting Actor and Most Promising Actor at the 41st Ceasar Awards.

Reservation (2017): We have all had a taste of Irrfan Khan's wit and comedy in a film in which he struggles to get his child admitted to an English medium school. But Nikhil Manju's Kannada feature Reservation is a somber reflection of the misuse of systems which are put in place for empowering the deprived. A Brahmin family lies their way into admitting their child to an English school in this film which won the National Award for Best Feature in a Regional Language. It is a must watch for understanding the intricacies involved in the reservation process and how it can be manipulated for one's self-interest. It also highlights the challenges involved in the admission process of elementary and middle schools.

Burkinabe Rising: The Art of Resistance in Burkina Faso (2017): Resistance and political change need not always go hand in hand with violence and death. Burkinabe Rising is a must watch for every individual out there resisting injustice. Created by Cultures of Resistance Films, the documentary captures the lives of people in West Africa's Burkina Faso who have embarked upon a nonviolent resistance movement. Their weapon? Art. The revolutionary spirit of this French-speaking populace is expressed through music, films, ecology, visual art and architecture. Iara Lee paints a picture of this community that fought and overthrew the autocratic rule of Blaise Compaore who is believed to have assassinated his friend and the former president of Burkina Faso, Thomas Sankara. It is his spirit that the revolutionary people of the country are carrying forward, in their effort to bring about reform through art.

Winter in Lviv (2018): In a country suffering from economic crisis and armed conflict, four women struggle to make ends meet in the city of Lviv. A 75-year-old nurse, a pensioner who collects scraps of paper for extra money, a nearly 100-year-old woman who has survived two concentration camps and a mother who loses her son on the fronts of Eastern Ukraine are the subjects of this documentary directed by Till Mayer and Pirmin Styrnol. A black and white production, this not-for-profit film was edited voluntarily by the team and was shot in the winter months of 2016 and 2017.

Ahare Mon (Lonely Hearts) (2018): Starring Adil Hussain, the brand ambassador of the Pondicherry International Film Festival, Ahare Mon is an inter-connected romantic drama. The short film is about people who are otherwise forbidden to fall in love with each other and includes a delightful mix of an elderly couple in an old age home, a girl suffering from a terminal disease, a couple of con artists and an immigration officer at the airport. Pratim D Gupta's Bengali work follows the success of his previous film Maacher Jhol.tech2 News Staff

Recently, Google was criticised for its new update where once a user signs into any of Google's websites, they automatically get signed into Chrome also. Users felt that Google was deliberately trying to track their online activities.

In response to this, Google clarified in a blog post that when users log into any of it's website, Google automatically logs them into Chrome also, but that does not mean that Chrome's sync also gets turned on. For those who want to add their history, bookmarks, or saved pages to appear on their desktop must turn on sync. But it did not clarify if Google could still track user activity even if it means turning off the sync control and browsing despite being logged in.

As per the blogpost, it is bringing new features with it's update to its Chrome 70.

This includes the option to control if a user wants to sign into Chrome via a Google website. This means if you disable the option, you will not remain signed into Chrome even if you are signed into Gmail.

Secondly, for more clarity, Google is adding the option of user sync in its UI if a user wants to sync their bookmarks, history and pages. This can be disabled as well.

Thirdly, in the Chrome 70, it will not only delete cookies but delete the login details. Initially, even after deleting the cookies, the login details and passwords used to remain intact. However, that is going to change.tech2 News Staff

Since its inception in 1998, Google has always been a popular website and is now almost synonymous with Search. Of course, it has moved on from being a humble search engine to a conglomerate with interests in many fields. On 27 September 2018, Google Search completes 20 years of its existence.

Google Search has evolved in the last 20 years and Easter Eggs have been part of the Search product too. Easter Egg in a Google parlance is 'an intentional hidden message, in-joke or feature in a work such as a computer program, web page, video game, movie, book or crossword.' It is put in by programmers and meant only for the enterprising Google users to discover, to pleasantly surprise them.

Google is known to have some fun with its products and it is evident with its Doodles, the way it presents facts and its elaborate April Fools jokes.

So here are a few popular Google Search Easter Eggs and the interesting stories behind them.

Barrel roll

Probably one of the more famous Google Search Easter Eggs is barrel roll. To make this happen, simply run a search for do a barrel roll and the entire search page turns upside down.

It only took a couple hours to create  less than a day  and it was ready to go live. When I was creating it, I thought it was just one more little Easter Egg to complement [askew] . I never expected it to be infinitely more popular than that previous one," says Mike Buchanan

via GIPHY

Zerg Rush

This is probably the coolest Easter Egg ever. Go ahead and search for zerg rush and youll soon be in a game defending against invaders of the Search results page. If you dont move fast in fighting back against the zergs, your results will start to disappear. Get on it, bro!

"We all liked Starcraft and were inspired to create something fun for users in Search," said Zerg rush developers William Li and Onur Tekdas.

via GIPHY

Atari Breakout

You would probably already know this one, but the ones who dont, what are you waiting for? Christmas? A search for 'Atari Breakout' will transform Google Images into a block-busting game, complete with signature Google colours.

via GIPHY

"The team had just launched a new system for organising image results that allowed us to create this Easter Egg. It showed off the capabilities of the new system and was also a fun and delightful surprise for users," said Googler Aaron Sarna.

Are you feeling curious?

Even if you arent, feel it. Just type 'Im feeling curious' into the Search bar and youll find a box full of facts to explore. It's something like the 'Today's featured article on Wikipedia', except on Search you've to type the correct search term.

"Our team was building a framework for lightweight and delightful experiences on Search, like tic tac toe or animal sounds . We gave this challenge to a Noogler (a new Googler) on our team to come up with an idea that could help curious users find quick facts and this is what he came up with," said Sam Oates.

via GIPHY

Bletchley Park

The father of computing Alan Turing was the genius who built the machine that would eventually crack the German Enigma Code during World War II, back in 1941.

If youre familiar with the Enigma Code, youll be delighted by this historical surprise in Search. Within the knowledge panel for Bletchley Park, youll find a homage to Turing and his team of code breakers.

"We came up with this around Alan Turings 100th birthday as a clever way to honour him as people were looking to learn more about him with Search. The most interesting part of building this Easter Egg was making it work in languages that used different scripts, like Hebrew, Arabic, Cyrillic, Japanese, and Greek," said Googler Jessical Mittleman.

via GIPHY

So go ahead try out these Easter Eggs if you haven't already.Reuters

Qualcomm Inc on Tuesday alleged that Apple Inc stole its trade secrets and gave them to Intel Corp with the goal of improving Intels chips so Apple could replace Qualcomms chips, the latest move in a drawn-out legal dispute.

Qualcomm made the accusations in a motion to amend a complaint that was originally filed in November, when it alleged that Apple had broken a software license contract by sharing confidential details about Qualcomms chips with Intel engineers. The Tuesday allegations were made in a planned legal filing seen by Reuters.

They go further than the original complaint by alleging Apple stole Qualcomm trade secrets in a multi-year campaign of sloppy, inappropriate and deceitful conduct ... for the purpose of improving lower-quality modem chipsets, including those manufactured by Intel, a competitor of Qualcomm, to render such chipsets useable in Apple devices with the ultimate goal of diverting Qualcomms Apple-based business to Intel.

Intel is not named as a defendant in Qualcomms lawsuit.

The San Diego County lawsuit is unfolding amid a wide-ranging legal dispute in which Apple has accused Qualcomm of unfair patent licensing practices. Qualcomm, the worlds largest mobile phone chipmaker, has in turn accused Apple of patent infringement.

Qualcomm provided modem chips for the iPhone, which helped the device connect to wireless data networks. Starting with the iPhone 7, Apple began using Intel modem chips in some of its models.

Qualcomm has told investors in July that it believes its modem chips have been completely removed from the newest generation of iPhones, which were released this month, leaving Intel as the sole supplier. Tear downs of the new devices have so far confirmed that Intel is supplying modem chips.

But during the years when Apple used Qualcomm modems, Qualcomm provided Apple access to its confidential software tools to help Apple integrate the modems into the iPhone, Qualcomms suit alleges. Qualcomm on Tuesday alleged that, since the start of its lawsuit in November, it has discovered evidence that Apple engineers repeatedly used Qualcomm software to help Intels engineers to improve the sub-par performance of Intels chipsets.

In fact, it apparently improved Intel chipsets to the point where Apple decided to divert some of Qualcomms Apple-based business to Intel, Qualcomm wrote in its filing.

Qualcomm in its filing asked Judge Jacqueline M. Stern to allow it to attach the new allegations to its existing complaint rather than force it to file a new lawsuit.tech2 News Staff

In what comes across as a shocking revelation, UK's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency, commonly referred to as the MI5, today admitted to capturing and reading private data belonging to a campaign group named Privacy International.

According to a report by Bloomberg, Judge Michael Burton said in court on Tuesday that the MI5 allegedly held and accessed or examined data about the organisation. However, the London judge did not elaborate on the type of data collected or why was it viewed in the first place.

As per the report, Privacy International, who classify themselves as a global NGO, campaigns against overreaching state and corporate surveillance, which could be the reason why it was caught under the MI5 radar. What leaves everyone baffled though is the fact that how there's aren't any safeguards in place to protects organisations from being spied on.

Privacy Internationals general counsel, Caroline Wilson, in a statement argues, "Should a domestic intelligence agency charged with protecting national security be spying on a human rights organization based in London? Shouldnt such spying, if permitted at all, be subject to the strictest of safeguards?"

The UK just admitted the global mass surveillance system was used against civil societypeople like you. These programs were never about crime or terrorism, they're about power. It's about control. https://t.co/K72COnXGGJ  Edward Snowden (@Snowden) September 25, 2018

Privacy International meanwhile, believes that the documents published demonstrate that they have been caught up in MI5's investigations because its data (part of its Bulk Communications Data and Bulk Personal Datasets programmes) was part of the UK intelligence agencies vast databases.

What is even more worrying is the fact that it appears the MI5 is holding on to data associated with millions of UK citizens. Bulk personal datasets as per the MI5 website can include the electoral roll, telephone directories, and travel-related data. Bulk communications data meanwhile includes "the who, where, when, how and with whom of communications, but not what was written or said."

The organisation has also written to Home Secretary, Sajid Javid, asking him to look into the matter and make changes to the countrys laws that cover internet security, and asking for an explanation of why MI5 wanted the data it collected.An official reception marking the 100th anniversary of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic has been held in Rome.

The official reception was attended by First Vice-President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, First Lady Mehriban Aliyeva, who made a speech at the event.

Prior to the reception, the national anthems of Italy and Azerbaijan were played.

A film on the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic was screened at the event.tech2 News Staff

Facebook being in the news for the wrong reasons has become a norm rather than an exception in 2018.

A day after Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger announced their departure from Facebook, another former Facebook employee has now come on record to talk about Facebook.

WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton who left Facebook last year, was in the limelight after that famous tweet which simply said, "It is time. #deletefacebook." This was in response to the Cambridge Analytica controversy that Facebook was mired in.

Speaking exclusively to Forbes, Acton spilled the beans behind the real reason for his departure. According to Acton, he was under pressure from CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg to monetise WhatsApp. As a result, Facebook wanted to weaken the encryption to lay the groundwork to show targetted ads to help with commercial messaging on WhatsApp. Acton's decision to leave Facebook, when he did, also made him give up $850 mn in stock value.

According to Acton, Facebook wanted to go at monetising WhatsApp by either showing targeted ads in WhatsApp Status feature and wanting to sell business tools to allow businesses to chat with users. Once these businesses were finalised, analytical tools would be sold to them as well. WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption was the elephant in the room which would prevent both the approaches of monetisation.

WhatsApp's pro-privacy stance and Facebook's quest to monetise every product in its portfolio were at loggerheads, which didn't go down well with Acton as well as the other co-founder of WhatsApp, Jan Koum, who also departed earlier this year.

At the end of the day, I sold my company, said Acton. I sold my users privacy to a larger benefit. I made a choice and a compromise. And I live with that every day.

On the topic of monetisation, Acton even had a disagreement with Sandberg, who felt Acton's idea of metered monetisation (starting to charge users after a set number of free messages were used up) wasn't scalable. On his next meeting with Zuckerberg, with Facebook lawyers, things went to such an extent that Zuckerberg outright told Acton that it was the last time they would have a talk.

You can read the complete story on Forbes which goes into the details of how Facebook would go on to change the terms and conditions on WhatsApp so as to link user accounts and everything Acton and Koum did to delay WhatsApp's monetisation drive.

A month after Acton's call to #DeleteFacebook, his WhatsApp partner, Jan Koum, also announced his resignation from Facebook.

According to a report by The Washington Post, the real reason for Koum's departure was disagreement with parent company Facebook over data policy and its insistence on using personal data and weakening WhatsApp's encryption. It looked like Koum wasn't just resigning as CEO of WhatsApp, which he and Acton sold to Facebook for a massive sum of $19 bn back in 2014, he would also be stepping down from Facebook's board of directors, according to the report.

According to people familiar with the matter, Koum had made his intentions clear to senior executives at Facebook and was even seen less frequently at WhatsApp's office on the Facebook campus.

Zuckerberg's comment to Koum's departure was interesting and carefully worded, to say the least.

"Im grateful for everything youve done to help connect the world, and for everything youve taught me, including about encryption and its ability to take power from centralised systems and put it back in peoples hands. Those values will always be at the heart of WhatsApp," said Zuckerberg, which seems more like an attempt to allay any fears regarding the core philosophy of WhatsApp in a post-Koum and Acton era.

After Acton's explosive reveal, one would wonder what learning about 'encryption and its ability to take power from centralised systems and put it back in peoples hands' was Zuckerberg referring to.Julie Swetnick said Brett Kavanaugh's claim of 'innocence' and lack of sexual activity in high school was 'absolutely false and a lie.'

Another woman claimed on Wednesday to have witnessed sexually abusive behaviour by US Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and said she was gang-raped at a party in the early 1980s attended by the Supreme Court nominee.

Julie Swetnick, the accuser, said in a statement released by her lawyer that the events took place at parties she attended as a high school student in suburban Maryland.

She said that she saw Kavanaugh behave as a "mean drunk" at these parties and witnessed him "engage in highly inappropriate conduct" that included "fondling and grabbing girls without their consent."

"I observed Brett Kavanaugh drink excessively in many of these parties and engage in abusive and physically aggressive behaviour towards girls, including pressing girls against him without their consent, grinding against girls, and attempting to remove or shift their clothing to expose private body parts," Swetnick said.

"I likewise observed him being verbally abusive towards girls by making crude sexual comments to them that were designed to demean, humiliate and embarrass them," she said.

However, Kavanaugh denied the new allegations of sexual misconduct, saying they're from the "twilight zone".

In a statement on Wednesday, Kavanaugh said: "This is ridiculous and from the twilight zone. I don't know who this is and this never happened."

Swetnick said Kavanaugh's claim of "innocence" and lack of sexual activity in high school was "absolutely false and a lie."

Swetnick's statement was released by her lawyer, Michael Avenatti, who posted the document on Twitter.

She declared being a witness to Kavanaugh's consistent engagement in excessive drinking and inappropriate sexual behaviour with women in the early 1980s.

Below is my correspondence to Mr. Davis of moments ago, together with a sworn declaration from my client. We demand an immediate FBI investigation into the allegations. Under no circumstances should Brett Kavanaugh be confirmed absent a full and complete investigation. pic.twitter.com/QHbHBbbfbE  Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) September 26, 2018

Avenatti also shared a picture of Swetnick.

Here is a picture of my client Julie Swetnick. She is courageous, brave and honest. We ask that her privacy and that of her family be respected. pic.twitter.com/auuSeHm5s0  Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) September 26, 2018

However, she did not claim that Kavanaugh took part or was aware of her rape but she claimed that he and other boys in his circle engaged in similar behaviour.

She said she had witnessed efforts by Kavanaugh to "target particular girls so they could be taken advantage of."

The fresh claims appeared after two women came forward to accuse the judge of assaulting them in the 1980s, in a scandal that has tripped up what was expected to be an easy confirmation process for the conservative judge.

At a crunch Senate hearing on Thursday, California University professor Christine Blasey Ford will provide detailed allegations of Kavanaugh assaulting her at a high school party when they were both teenagers.

Kavanaugh also stands accused of exposing himself to a classmate, Deborah Ramirez, causing her to touch him without consent, during an alcohol-fueled Yale University party a few years later.

Kavanaugh was handpicked by Donald Trump for the lifelong post on the Supreme Court, and has continued to enjoy the US president's steadfast support despite the allegations against him.

Avenatti is also the attorney for porn star Stormy Daniels, who has claimed to have had a sexual encounter with Donald Trump.

With inputs from agenciesBoth leaders also pledged to remain in close contact over the coming months. The UN chief's office said that Guterres welcomed the US' efforts to bring peace and denuclearization in the Korean peninsula, as well as its support to humanitarian operations around the world.

United Nations: US President Donald Trump and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres discussed their "common interest" in resolving pressing global challenges, including terrorism, proliferation and other threats to international peace and security.

Trump has been very critical of the UN and has on various occasions complained about the huge economic burden the US has to carry in helping fund the 193-nation body. He has called the UN "a club for people to get together, talk and have a good time" and has also slammed the "utter weakness and incompetence of the United Nations".

Trump, who addressed the UN General-Assembly's General Debate on Tuesday, met Guterres on the sidelines of the high-level 73rd session of the UN General Assembly. According to a readout of the meeting provided by the White House, the two leaders discussed their "common interest in resolving some of the world's most pressing challenges, including those related to proliferation, terrorism and other threats to international peace and security".

Both leaders also pledged to remain in close contact over the coming months. The UN chief's office said that Guterres welcomed the US' efforts to bring peace and denuclearization in the Korean peninsula, as well as its support to humanitarian operations around the world.

Guterres and Trump also discussed the contributions of the UN in various peace initiatives and the US' support to these efforts. The Trump administration has pulled out of key UN bodies like the UN Human Rights Council and UNESCO besides exiting landmark UN decisions such as the Paris Climate Agreement.The Trump administration's proposed rule, under which immigrants may be denied green card if they have received government benefits in the past or are likely to receive one in the future, is likely to have a major impact on immigrants from South Asian countries,

Washington: The Trump administration's proposed rule, under which immigrants may be denied green card if they have received government benefits in the past or are likely to receive one in the future, is likely to have a major impact on immigrants from South Asian countries, a community organisation said Tuesday.

"The new rule would hit the South Asian American communities particularly hard, as over 10 percent of green card recipients in FY 2016 were from South Asian countries," the South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT) said. It condemned the Department of Homeland Security announcement of the proposed "public charge" rules that would deny permanent resident status ("green cards") to immigrants who use government services such as nutrition programmes and housing assistance.

According to a recent Pew Research Center study, one in four immigrants in the US from Bangladesh and Nepal and one in three immigrants from Bhutan already live in poverty. This new rule would put all these individuals at great risk, it said. SAALT said the term "public charge" predated federal immigration law entirely. In the early 1800s, the states would only free individual slaves on the condition that they never become a "public charge". This framework was now being expanded to criminalise the immigrant communities, it said.

"This policy is about who this administration considers a desirable immigrant. It is designed to instill fear in immigrant communities of colour and relegate the non-citizens and their families to second-class status," said Suman Raghunathan, Executive Director of SAALT. "It will punish the immigrants who rightfully access the public benefits to which they are entitled, it will punish parents for taking care of their children and it will force immigrant families to choose between citizenship and basic needs," she added. "Rather than taxing the one percent, this administration chooses to punish immigrant families over and over again. Today, on the one-year anniversary of Muslim Ban 3.0, we say no to more racist and anti-immigrant policies," Raghunathan said.

Congressman Bobby Scott from Virginia said the proposed policy was making grounds for denying legal US residency to immigrants. "The Trump administration's 'public charge' proposal would force hundreds of thousands of immigrants to make the impossible choice between receiving basic assistance for food and shelter and risking being separated from their families. "This proposal is cruel, counterproductive and in violation of the basic principles that make America an example for the world," Scott said.

According to Congressman Tony Cardenas, the policy is equal parts cruel and senseless. "Not only will this hurt the tax-paying families, but it will also have a hugely negative impact on the US economy and on American citizens," he said. In 2014, the immigrants in this country earned $1.3 trillion and paid more than $223 billion in federal taxes, while paying another $105 billion in combined state and local taxes, Cardenas said.

"We are talking about people who are vital to the American economy and it is insane to threaten people who are legal, rule-following contributors to American communities. This proposed rule will hurt the grocery stores, farmers and healthcare providers. Our American economy will suffer. It just does not make any sense," he added. "In their quest to shame and isolate immigrants to this country, the Trump administration is gambling with the health of children, wagering that their lives matter less because they were not born here," Congresswoman Judy Chu said.

Asserting that there was no justification for this rule change "outside of bald-faced xenophobia", Chu said the change applied to the immigrants who were here legally and had done nothing to merit punishment. "Immigrant families are no less entitled to food or housing support than any other person trying to get by in this unequal economy. Moreover, by working and paying taxes, many of these immigrants have actually earned these benefits. Others, like children and seniors who are not working, should not be punished for somebody else's prejudice," she said.

The American Immigration Lawyers' Association (AILA) said the new rule would prevent many immigrants from securing lawful permanent residence and remaining with their families in the US, simply because they previously received some type of basic healthcare support, nutrition assistance or other vital services. "The proposed rule is the Trump administration's latest assault on immigrant families, who are integral to the fabric of the American society and have been pivotal to our nation's success," said Benjamin Johnson, AILA executive director.Rouhani, addressing the assembled world leaders later, sharply criticized Trump's decision to withdraw from the 2015 international nuclear deal with Iran. He said he had 'no need for a photo opportunity' with Trump and suggested the US president's pull back from global institutions was a character defect.

United Nations: US president Donald Trump and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani exchanged taunts at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday with Trump vowing more sanctions against Tehran and Rouhani suggesting his American counterpart suffers from a "weakness of intellect."

Trump used his annual address to the United Nations to attack Iran's "corrupt dictatorship," praise last year's bogeyman North Korea and lay down a defiant message that he will reject globalism and protect American interests.

But much of his 35-minute address was aimed squarely at Iran, which the United States accuses of harbouring nuclear ambitions and fomenting instability in the Middle East through its support for militant groups in Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen.

"Iran's leaders sow chaos, death, and destruction," Trump told the gathering in the green-marbled hall. "They do not respect their neighbours or borders or the sovereign rights of nations."

Rouhani, addressing the assembled world leaders later, sharply criticized Trump's decision to withdraw from the 2015 international nuclear deal with Iran. He said he had "no need for a photo opportunity" with Trump and suggested the US president's pull back from global institutions was a character defect.

"Confronting multilateralism is not a sign of strength. Rather it is a symptom of the weakness of intellect - it betrays an inability in understanding a complex and interconnected world," he said.

Trump's address was met largely by silence from world leaders still not comfortable with go-it-alone views that have strained US relationships with traditional allies worldwide.

His speech, while delivered in a low-key fashion, was nonetheless a thunderous recitation of his "America First" policies. He has disrupted the world order by withdrawing the United States from the nuclear deal and the Paris climate accord and threatened to punish NATO nations for not paying more for their common defence.

"We will never surrender America's sovereignty to an unelected, unaccountable, global bureaucracy," Trump said, in language popular with his political base. "America is governed by Americans. We reject the ideology of globalism, and we embrace the doctrine of patriotism."

Besides calling out Iran, Trump also criticized China for its trade practices but made no mention of Russia's interference in Syria's war or its suspected meddling in US elections.

Rouhani was defiant in his speech to the world body. "What Iran says is clear: no war, no sanctions, no threats, no bullying; just acting according to the law and the fulfilment of obligations," Rouhani said.

Macron's alternative deal

Offering an alternative view when it was his turn at the podium, French President Emmanuel Macron told the delegates that the law of the survival of the fittest, protectionism and isolationism would only lead to heightened tensions.

Defending multilateralism and collective action, he said nationalism would lead to failure and if countries stopped defending basic principles, global wars would return. "I do not accept the erosion of multilateralism and don't accept our history unravelling," Macron told the assembly, at times raising his voice. "Our children are watching."

Macron, citing the example of Iran, said that this unilateralism push would lead directly to conflicts. Trump, who begins his political rallies with boasts about his economic record in less than two years in office, used the same rhetoric before the crowd of world leaders and diplomats, telling them he had accomplished more than almost any previous US president.

The remark led to some murmuring and laughter in the crowd, taking the president slightly aback."I didnt expect that reaction, but that's OK," he said. Trump attempted to drive a wedge between Iran's leadership and its people, days after an attack in southwestern Iran on a military parade killed 25 people and unsettled the country.

In remarks to reporters on his way to his speech, Trump said he would not meet the Iranians until they "change their tune." Though he held out the possibility of a better relationship in the future, he made clear economic pressure on Iran would not abate.

Trump's national security adviser, John Bolton, addressing a group called United Against a Nuclear Iran, called the 2015 accord "the worst diplomatic debacle in American history" and had a warning for "the mullahs in Tehran."

"If you cross us, our allies, or our partners; if you harm our citizens; if you continue to lie, cheat, and deceive, yes, there will indeed be HELL to PAY," he said.

In May, Republican Trump withdrew the United States from the deal to put curbs on Iran's nuclear program in exchange for easing sanctions. France, Britain, Germany, Russia, China and the European Union were part of the accord with Iran.

Foes for decades, Washington and Tehran have been increasingly at odds since May. The accord with OPEC member Iran was negotiated under Democratic US president Barack Obama.

"Additional sanctions will resume 5 November and more will follow and we are working with countries that import Iranian crude oil to cut their purchases substantially," Trump said. He said the United States would help create a regional strategic alliance between Gulf nations and Jordan and Egypt, a move the United States sees as a bulwark against Iran.

Trump compared US relations with Iran to what he called improved ties with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who Trump had met in Singapore in June as part of a still-unfulfilled drive to get Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons.

In his address last year to the UN, Trump insulted Kim as a "rocket man" bent on nuclear destruction. On Tuesday, Trump praised Kim for halting nuclear and missile tests, releasing Americans held prisoner and returning some remains of US soldiers killed in the 1950s Korean War.

The two leaders are trying to arrange a second summit. Trump has said sanctions on North Korea would remain for now. Delivering a harsh message to OPEC members, Trump called on them to stop raising oil prices and to pay for their own military protection. He threatened to limit US aid only to countries that are friendly to the United States.

Anwar Gargash, UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs said oil prices were driven only by markets, by supply and demand. "These are not things that can be manipulated by a decision here or there," said Gargash, whose country is an OPEC member.

Crude oil prices shot to a four-year high on Tuesday, catapulted by imminent US sanctions on Iranian crude exports and the apparent reluctance of OPEC and Russia to raise output to offset the potential hit to global supply.US president Donald Trump said Wednesday that he would 'certainly prefer not' to fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and that he may delay a highly anticipated meeting with the Justice Department's No. 2 official.

Washington: US president Donald Trump said Wednesday that he would "certainly prefer not" to fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and that he may delay a highly anticipated meeting with the Justice Department's No. 2 official.

Trump said Rosenstein denied making remarks first attributed to him in a New York Times report, including that he had discussed possibly secretly recording the president and using the Constitution's 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office.

"I would much prefer keeping Rod Rosenstein," Trump said at a news conference in New York. "He said he did not say it. He said he does not believe that. He said he has a lot of respect for me, and he was very nice and we'll see."

Trump added, "My preference would be to keep him and to let him finish up."

Rosenstein is overseeing special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and his dismissal would put that probe in jeopardy and create a political storm.

In suggesting that he might postpone Thursday's meeting, Trump said he was focused on the extraordinary Senate Judiciary Committee hearing set for the same day with Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and a woman who has accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault when they were teenagers.

"I may call Rod tonight or tomorrow and ask for a little bit of a delay to the meeting, because I don't want to do anything that gets in the way of this very important Supreme Court pick," Trump said.

The Justice Department referred questions about the scheduling of the meeting to the White House.

Any delay in the meeting would prolong the uncertainty of Rosenstein's status. Rosenstein headed to the White House on Monday morning preparing to be fired and had discussed a possible resignation over the weekend with White House officials. But after meeting with chief of staff John Kelly and speaking by phone with Trump, he got a reprieve with the Trump meeting scheduled for Thursday.

Since then, the White House has sought to tamp down anxiety that Rosenstein would be fired.

White House officials called senators Monday to say Trump had said he wouldn't be firing Rosenstein at the meeting, according to two people familiar with the conversations who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private discussions. Aides have advised Trump against taking any extreme actions ahead of the midterm elections with his party's majorities in Congress already under threat.

"Not wanting to fire Rod Rosenstein is consistent with what I have understood for weeks, not just days," said Rep. Mark Meadows, a North Carolina Republican who talks to Trump often.

Friends and former colleagues of Rosenstein say they didn't expect him to step aside and give up oversight of Russia investigation and the enormous swath of Justice Department operations for which he is responsible.

Rosenstein, who has spent his entire career in government, "has tremendous loyalty to the department," said former Justice Department lawyer and longtime friend James Trusty.

"He's a very long-run, historical-minded guy in a lot of ways," Trusty said. "I think he may have some confidence that history will be kinder to him than politicians are."

Trump's remarks Wednesday followed a chaotic period that began Friday with reports that Rosenstein had last year discussed possibly secretly recording the president and invoking the Constitution to remove Trump from office. The Justice Department issued statements Friday aimed at denying the reports, including one that said the wiretap remark was meant sarcastically.

Rosenstein appointed Mueller in May 2017, oversees his work and has repeatedly defended the breadth and scope of the probe. Trump has been critical of Rosenstein's oversight of the probe, but the two have at times displayed a warm working relationship, and Rosenstein has been spared some of the more personal and antagonistic broadsides leveled against Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Even if Rosenstein survives the week, it's not clear how much longer he'll be around. Trump has signaled that he may fire Sessions after the midterms, and Rosenstein could go with him.

But it could be sooner: Some officials around Trump believe Rosenstein's reported musings about invoking the 25th Amendment could make it defensible for Trump to part with him, even during the final sprint to Election Day.

Rosenstein's friends and former colleagues describe him as exceptionally committed to the Justice Department  one said he "bleeds" for the agency  and unlikely to leave on his own, though they say he respects the chain of command enough to resign if asked.

He joined the department in 1990, serving as a public corruption prosecutor, a Tax Division supervisor and a member of independent counsel Ken Starr's Whitewater team. He was named U.S. attorney in Maryland by President George W. Bush and held the position throughout the Obama administration  remarkable longevity for a position that typically turns over with changes in political power.

Within weeks of being confirmed as deputy attorney general, he was engulfed in controversy by writing a memo critical of then-FBI Director James Comey, which the White House cited as justification for Comey's firing.BERLIN (Reuters) - President Tayyip Erdogan urged Germany in a newspaper article on the eve of his state visit there to designate the Fethullah Gulen movement, which Turkey blames for a failed 2016 coup, as a terrorist organisation. Writing on the website of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the Turkish president also said the two allies should prevent the 'irresponsible policies' of the United States from setting off a 'reckless trade war'

BERLIN (Reuters) - President Tayyip Erdogan urged Germany in a newspaper article on the eve of his state visit there to designate the Fethullah Gulen movement, which Turkey blames for a failed 2016 coup, as a terrorist organisation.

Writing on the website of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the Turkish president also said the two allies should prevent the "irresponsible policies" of the United States from setting off a "reckless trade war".

(Reporting by Joseph Nasr; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.By Johnny Cotton PARIS (Reuters) - Lesbian couples and single women who want to bear children should have access to medically assisted reproductive treatments such as in-vitro fertilisation, France's highest bioethics body said on Tuesday. The topic has stirred political debate in France, which legalised gay marriage in 2013 in the face of often virulent opposition from the more conservative parts of the country, where the Catholic Church still commands influence. 'During the public consultation, we heard how contentious this issue is, there was no consensus,' said Jean-Francois Delfraissy, president of the National Consultative Committee on Ethics (CCNE)

By Johnny Cotton

PARIS (Reuters) - Lesbian couples and single women who want to bear children should have access to medically assisted reproductive treatments such as in-vitro fertilisation, France's highest bioethics body said on Tuesday.

The topic has stirred political debate in France, which legalised gay marriage in 2013 in the face of often virulent opposition from the more conservative parts of the country, where the Catholic Church still commands influence.

"During the public consultation, we heard how contentious this issue is, there was no consensus," said Jean-Francois Delfraissy, president of the National Consultative Committee on Ethics (CCNE).

"After listening to all of the arguments, the CCNE decided to stand by its position", set out in June 2017, that lesbian couples and single women should have the right to such medically assisted reproductive methods, he said.

The government is expected to make a final ruling later this year, which could be followed by legislation. President Emmanuel Macron's government said last year it wanted to change the law, which currently limits the treatment to heterosexual couples.

IVF assistance is widely available to all women, independent of sexual orientation, in countries including Britain, Belgium, Spain and Israel.

Campaigners welcomed the CCNE's announcement, calling it a victory over discrimination. Alice Coffin, media director for the European Lesbian Conference, said that as the law now stands, lesbian and straight couples were not treated equally.

"If I fall in love with a woman... if I can't have a child, I'm told 'No, we won't do anything to help you. We're not going to help you have a child, go and look somewhere else'," she said. "It's very brutal."

Some political commentators regard the issue as similarly socially divisive as the decision by the Socialist government to legalise same-sex marriage five years ago, a move that led to nationwide protests, some of which turned violent.

At the time, campaigners were also pushing for the legalisation of surrogacy for gay couples, but the government decided to retain the ban, deeming the issue to be too incendiary.

(Reporting by Julie Carriat, writing by Sudip Kar-Gupta, editing by Geert De Clercq and Ed Osmond)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.The remaining parties to the Iran nuclear deal on Monday agreed to keep working to maintain trade with Tehran despite skepticism this is possible as US sanctions to choke off Iranian oil sales resume in November.

United Nations: The remaining parties to the Iran nuclear deal on Monday agreed to keep working to maintain trade with Tehran despite skepticism this is possible as US sanctions to choke off Iranian oil sales resume in November.

US President Donald Trump decided in May to abandon the pact and to restore economic sanctions on Iran, including those that seek to force the OPEC members major oil customers to stop buying Iranian crude.

In a statement after a meeting of Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and Iran, the group said they were determined to develop payment mechanisms to continue trade with Iran despite skepticism by many diplomats that this will be possible.

Mindful of the urgency and the need for tangible results, the participants welcomed practical proposals to maintain and develop payment channels notably the initiative to establish a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) to facilitate payments related to Irans exports, including oil, the group said in a joint statement issued after the statement.

Several European diplomats said the SPV idea was to create a barter system, similar to one used by the Soviet Union during the Cold War, to exchange Iranian oil for European goods without money changing hands.

The idea is to circumvent US sanctions due to be restored in November under which Washington can cut off from the US financial system any bank that facilitates an oil transaction with Iran.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said the decision to set up such a vehicle had already been taken and that technical experts would meet again to flesh out the details.

In practical terms this will mean that EU member states will set up a legal entity to facilitate legitimate financial transactions with Iran and this will allow European companies to continue to trade with Iran in accordance with European Union law and could be open to other partners in the world, she said.

Many diplomats and analysts, however, are sceptical that such a vehicle could ultimately thwart US sanctions given that the United States could amend its sanctions laws to prohibit such barter transactions.

The key is to keep all possibilities open so that we can signal to the Iranians that the door isnt closing, said a senior French diplomat.

The European Union, has so far failed to devise a workable legal framework to shield its companies from US sanctions that go into effect in November and that, among other things, seek to choke off Irans oil sales, diplomats said.

Highlighting how difficult it will be for the Europeans to come up with concrete solutions, French state-owned bank Bpifrance on Monday abandoned a plan to set up a financial mechanism to aid French firms trading with Iran.

The crux of the 2015 nuclear deal, negotiated over almost two years by the administration of former US President Barack Obama, was that Iran would restrain its nuclear program in return for the relaxation of sanctions that had crippled its economy.

Trump considered it flawed because it did not include curbs on Irans ballistic missiles program or its support for proxies in Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and Iraq.

The impending return of US sanctions has contributed to a slide in Irans currency. The rial has lost about two-thirds of its value this year, hitting a record low against the US dollar this month.Irans President Hassan Rouhani says he has never asked for talks with his American counterpart, Donald Trump, stressing that such a meeting would not be appropriate, Press TV reports.

Rouhani made the remarks in an interview with CNN on Tuesday during his stay in New York for the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly.

The Iranian president was reacting to Trumps tweet on Tuesday, in which he tried to suggest that he had turned down requests to meet the Iranian president, but that he may agree to talks someday in the future.

However, Rouhani strongly dismissed Trumps claim, saying that the Islamic Republic had not requested a meeting between the two leaders.

Not this year, nor last year, he told the CNN. We have never made such a request for a meeting with the president of the United States.

Rouhani also noted that while Iran had received eight requests from US officials for a meeting last year, he did not think talks between the two sides were appropriate, then or now.

Commenting on being called a lovely man by Trump, Rouhani said the US president is merely playing with words and will not get us to any solutions.Hassan Rouhani took the podium a few hours after Trump called for Iran's isolation in his UN address, accusing the leadership of Iran of sowing 'chaos, death and destruction' as he defended his decision to ditch the Iran nuclear accord.

United Nations: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani accused his US counterpart Donald Trump of trying to topple his government on Tuesday as he poured cold water on the idea of resuming talks with Washington after its pullout from an international nuclear accord.

"It is ironic that the US government does not even conceal its plan for overthrowing the same government it invites to talks," Rouhani said in a speech at the United Nations General Assembly.

"For dialogue to take place, there is no need for a photo opportunity. The two sides can listen to each other right here in this Assembly.

"I am starting the dialogue right here, and state, in unequivocal terms, that the question of international security is not a toy in American domestic politics."

Rouhani took the podium a few hours after Trump called for Iran's isolation in his UN address, accusing the leadership of Iran of sowing "chaos, death and destruction" as he defended his decision to ditch the Iran nuclear accord.

The five remaining parties to the 2015 accord  France, Britain, Germany, China and Russia  agreed during a meeting in New York late Monday to set up a payment system to preserve business ties with Iran despite US sanctions.

The Iranian leader said he was pleased that the international community did not follow the Trump administration's "unilateral and illegal withdrawal from the JCPOA," the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action as the nuclear deal is known.

"Unlawful unilateral sanctions in themselves constitute a form of economic terrorism," said Rouhani.

Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal in May, to the dismay of European allies, Russia and China which had invested years in negotiations to achieve a milestone agreement on keeping Iran's nuclear ambitions in check.

In his UN address last year, Trump bashed the nuclear deal as "an embarrassment," signalling that the United States was ready to walk away.

Trump and Rouhani declined to meet on the sidelines of the General Assembly session.CAIRO (Reuters) - A spokesman for the Islamic State said in an undated recording released on Wednesday that an attack on Iranian Revolutionary Guards, which the group claimed on Saturday, would not be the last. 'The Ahvaz attack will not be the last, God willing,' Abi al-Hassan al-Muhajer said in the recording carried by the group's Al Furqan network on Telegram

CAIRO (Reuters) - A spokesman for the Islamic State said in an undated recording released on Wednesday that an attack on Iranian Revolutionary Guards, which the group claimed on Saturday, would not be the last.

"The Ahvaz attack will not be the last, God willing," Abi al-Hassan al-Muhajer said in the recording carried by the group's Al Furqan network on Telegram.

Gunmen killed 25 people at a military parade in southwestern Iran on Saturday, almost half of them Revolutionary Guards, in one of the worst attacks against the most powerful force of the Islamic Republic.

"The sons of the caliphate have proven just how fragile the security of the Magi State (Iran) is," he said.

Reuters could not independently verify the audio recording.

Ahvaz National Resistance, an Iranian ethnic Arab opposition movement which seeks a separate state in oil-rich Khuzestan province, and Islamic State have both claimed responsibility for the attack. The latter's news agency AMAQ released a video of three men in a vehicle who it said were on their way to carry out the attack.

(Reporting by Ali Abdelaty; Writing by Nadine Awadalla; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.By John Irish UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Trampling on the Palestinians and pushing unilateral initiatives will not resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday, taking a swipe at U.S. counterpart Donald Trump's policy on the issue. 'What can resolve the crisis between Israel and Palestine

By John Irish

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Trampling on the Palestinians and pushing unilateral initiatives will not resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday, taking a swipe at U.S. counterpart Donald Trump's policy on the issue.

"What can resolve the crisis between Israel and Palestine? Not unilateral initiatives, nor trampling on the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people to legitimate peace nor underestimating Israel's fair right to security."

"There is no credible alternative to the two-state solution living side by side in peace and security with Jerusalem as capital."

Doubts have mounted over whether Trump's administration can secure what he has called the "ultimate deal" since December, when the U.S. president reversed decades of American policy and recognised Jerusalem as Israels capital and then moved the U.S. Embassy there.

Trump's move outraged the Palestinians, who have since boycotted Washington's peace efforts, led by the U.S. president's son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner.

The Trump administration has said it would support a two-state solution if the two sides agree.

Jerusalem is one of the major issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel considers all of Jerusalem  home to sites holy to Muslims, Jews and Christians - to be its capital, a claim not widely accepted internationally. The Palestinians want the citys eastern part as the capital of a future state.

The United States has also cut off aid to the Palestinians and to UNRWA - the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees -- and has ordered the Palestine Liberation Organizations office in Washington shut, further angering Palestinian leaders.

Macron said Paris had unwavering friendship toward Israel, but called on Israel to end policies that undermined the possibility of a peace agreement.

"Continuing this path would be a mistake," he said.

French and European officials acknowledge they have little room to manoeuvre on the Middle East peace process.

However, in talks with Trump, Macron on Monday told the U.S. president that his policy of putting all the pressure on the Palestinians was not tenable and a solution had to be found, a French presidential source said.

The source said Trump had said he agreed that there needed to be progress and he would act quickly, the source said.

Macron's comments were echoed by Jordan's King Abdullah.

"There is no such thing as a unilateral agreement; it takes at least two parties to make an agreement. Helping the parties achieve that agreement, and work together to build a new future, deserves the strong, steady support of all our world," the king said.

(Reporting by John Irish; Editing by James Dalgleish, Yara Bayoumy and Jonathan Oatis)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.MALE (Reuters) - The police and military in the Maldives said on Wednesday they will uphold the result of an election in which opposition leader Ibrahim Mohamed Solih beat President Abdulla Yameen. The statements came after Yameen's party requested a delay in the publication of final election results

MALE (Reuters) - The police and military in the Maldives said on Wednesday they will uphold the result of an election in which opposition leader Ibrahim Mohamed Solih beat President Abdulla Yameen.

The statements came after Yameen's party requested a delay in the publication of final election results. Yameen conceded defeat on Monday, a day after the election.

(Reporting by Mohamed Junayd; Writing by Shihar Aneez; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.'I am also ready to break the shell of mutual distrust with North Korea, get off to a new start, and meet face to face with Chairman Kim Jong-un,' Abe said. He said although nothing has been decided yet regarding a summit, he assured there would be a high-level meeting and it would focus on resolving 'the abduction issue'.

United Nations: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has expressed his desire to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to start over afresh with Pyongyang and resolve the decades-old row over Japanese nationals' abductions.

In his speech to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, Abe said he wished to get over the past tensions between the two nations, Efe news reported. "North Korea is now at a crossroads at which it will either seize, or fail to seize, the historic opportunity it was afforded," Abe said.

"I am also ready to break the shell of mutual distrust with North Korea, get off to a new start, and meet face to face with Chairman Kim Jong-un," the longtime hardliner on North Korea said.

He said although nothing has been decided yet regarding a summit, he assured there would be a high-level meeting and it would focus on resolving "the abduction issue".

North Korea has admitted in the past to kidnapping 13 Japanese citizens between the 1970s and 1980s, five of whom were later returned to Japan. Tokyo, however, maintains that there were at least 17.

Japan proposed in March that North Korea hold a meeting between Kim and Abe, who so far has not taken part in any of the summits on regional rapprochement process with Pyongyang in 2018, such as those held with the North Korean leader and the presidents of the US, China and South Korea.

So far no progress has been made to finalise a Japan-North Korea meet, which according to Tokyo, would also focus on the denuclearisation of North Korea.

The two nations already held two summits in 2002 and 2004 in Pyongyang, when the abduction issue was discussed. However, it has never been brought up again since and the whereabouts of the other Japanese who Pyongyang kidnapped for its spy training programs still remain unclarified.

Abe said that the country wants all the Japanese hostages to return and that he was determined to make that happen. The Japanese leader also defended the global "free trade system" and hoped that the US and Japan will maintain the kind of relationship they have had.By William James NEW YORK (Reuters) - Prime Minister Theresa May said on Tuesday it would not be in Britain's national interest to hold another general election just as she is negotiating the terms of Britain's exit from the European Union. May is subject to intense criticism at home and in Brussels over her approach to leaving the EU, fuelling speculation that she could be ousted by her own party, or that her minority Conservative government could collapse.

By William James

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Prime Minister Theresa May said on Tuesday it would not be in Britain's national interest to hold another general election just as she is negotiating the terms of Britain's exit from the European Union.

May is subject to intense criticism at home and in Brussels over her approach to leaving the EU, fuelling speculation that she could be ousted by her own party, or that her minority Conservative government could collapse.

"What I'm doing is working to deliver a good (Brexit) deal with Europe in the national interest. It would not be in the national interest to have an election," May told reporters on board her official plane en route to New York, where she will attend the United Nations General Assembly.

May's Conservatives and the main opposition Labour party are running largely neck and neck in opinion polls.

She said Britain would reach a deal despite a current impasse in talks with Brussels and ruled out a second Brexit referendum. Britons voted by a 52-48 percent margin in a 2016 referendum to leave the EU.

Asked if she was "bluffing" when she said no deal is better than a bad deal with the EU, May told the BBC: "No. What we issued yesterday was some more technical notices to help businesses and others who would need to prepare in a 'no deal' situation for doing that. That's the right, sensible approach."

PRO-BUSINESS BREXIT

Addressing business leaders on Wednesday, May will pledge that her government will be "unequivocally pro-business" as it seeks to forge a future role outside the EU.

The perceived likelihood that Britain leaves the EU without a deal in just over six months is increasing because May has yet to reach a full divorce agreement with Brussels.

May will say she has no plans to abandon her current Brexit plan, shrugging off criticism at home and in Brussels after an acrimonious meeting of EU leaders last week.

Her plan to keep a close trading relationship with the EU on goods, protect manufacturing jobs and resolve arguments over the borders of Northern Ireland, while ending unrestricted immigration from the EU, was the only way forward.

"There is no other plan that protects jobs and livelihoods and also meets our commitments in Northern Ireland, while respecting how people voted in the largest democratic exercise in our history," May will say, referring to the 2016 vote.

"I am confident we can reach a deal about our future relationship. The prize is great: with the conclusion of the negotiations over the coming weeks ... business can look forward to the post-Brexit world with confidence."

Britain will have one of the world's most business-friendly economies after Brexit, she said.

"My message today is that a post-Brexit Britain will be an unequivocally pro-business Britain," May will say. She will pledge to deliver an economy that is "knowledge-rich, highly innovative, highly skilled and high quality but with low tax and smart regulation."

She also condemned policies unveiled by the opposition Labour Party at its annual conference this week.

"Frankly what we see is policies that would not be good for our economy, policies that would, as we've heard from others in business, lead to loss of jobs, and probably loss of investment."

Labour's finance spokesman John McDonnell announced on Monday that he wanted large firms to transfer a portion of their shares into a fund that would then pay out dividends to workers. The plan was swiftly criticised by business lobby groups.

"That's not helpful for people - that's putting his hand in people's pockets," May said.

(Reporting by William James; Editing by Elisabeth O'Leary and Mark Heinrich)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.The victims died on Sunday night when an 'aerial ordnance' destroyed their house in a village in Afghanistan's Wardak province, near Kabul.

Kabul: An airstrike appears to have killed 12 members of an Afghan family, most of them children, the United Nations said, citing preliminary findings, as US and Afghan forces ramp up aerial bombardments against militants.

The victims, including 10 children aged six to 15 and two women, died on Sunday night when an "aerial ordnance" destroyed their house in a village in Wardak province, near Kabul, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said in a statement late Tuesday.

The findings support earlier comments from provincial council member Ahmad Jahfari, who told AFP that 12 members of a family had been killed in an airstrike targeting Taliban fighters.

A villager called Abdullah told AFP that two of his sisters died in the attack that he said claimed the lives of more than 12 civilians. "Three other houses were also destroyed," Abdullah said. "They wanted to bomb a Taliban prison about 100 metres (330 feet) from our house."

UNAMA is also reviewing reports of civilian casualties from "a number of alleged air strikes in other parts of the country", its statement said. That includes "credible reports" that nine members of a family were killed in an air strike on Saturday in the eastern province of Kapisa. US Forces confirmed it had carried out an air strike in support of Afghan ground troops in Kapisa, but killed "only militants", spokesman David Butler said earlier. It is not clear if the air strike in Wardak was carried out by US or Afghan forces.

Afghanistan's defence ministry is investigating both incidents, spokesman Ghafor Ahmad Jawed told AFP.

US Forces said it was reviewing "relevant and credible information" relating to its operations in Wardak.

UNAMA expressed its "strong concern" at the rising number of civilian casualties from air strikes this year. Air strikes killed or wounded 353 civilians in the first half, up 52 percent from the same period in 2017. The figure accounted for roughly seven percent of total civilian casualties for the six-month period.

One of the worst incidents was in the northern province of Kunduz in April, when an Afghan air strike on an outdoor religious gathering in Dashte Archi killed or wounded 107 people, mostly children, a previous UNAMA report found. The government and military said it had targeted a Taliban base where senior members of the group were planning attacks.

US and Afghan forces have dramatically increased air offensives against Taliban and Islamic State insurgents in the past year as they try to get the upper hand in the 17-year war.

US forces employed 746 weapons in July, which was the highest monthly total since November 2010, the most recent US Air Forces Central Command data shows. That is more than double the 350 munitions used in July 2017, a month before US President Donald Trump announced his new strategy for Afghanistan that gave American forces greater leeway to go after militants.

Afghanistan's fledgeling air force also has accelerated bombardments as the United States beefs up the country's aerial capability with more aircraft and better weapons.By Lawrence Hurley and Susan Heavey WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A third woman on Wednesday accused Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump's U.S. Supreme Court nominee, of sexual misconduct in the 1980s, further inflaming an already contentious Senate confirmation process.

By Lawrence Hurley and Susan Heavey

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A third woman on Wednesday accused Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump's U.S. Supreme Court nominee, of sexual misconduct in the 1980s, further inflaming an already contentious Senate confirmation process. Kavanaugh immediately denied the allegation.

The woman, Julie Swetnick, detailed her allegation in a statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee a day before the Republican-led panel is set to hold a high-stakes hearing in which Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused him of a sexual assault in 1982, will testify.

"This is ridiculous and from the Twilight Zone," Kavanaugh said in a statement released by the White House. "I don't know who this is and this never happened."

Swetnick is represented by lawyer Michael Avenatti, who also represents adult film star Stormy Daniels in a lawsuit against Trump to void a non-disclosure agreement under which the president's former personal lawyer paid her $130,000 not to discuss her alleged relationship with Trump more than a decade ago.

Speaking to reporters in New York, where he is attending the annual U.N. gathering of world leaders, Trump said of the new allegation, "I think it's ridiculous." On Twitter, Trump called Avenatti "a total low-life" and "a third rate lawyer who is good at making false accusations." Avenatti responded on Twitter, calling Trump "a habitual liar and complete narcissist."

In her statement, Swetnick said she attended more than 10 house parties in the Washington area from 1981 to 1983 where Kavanaugh was present. She described gang rapes she said occurred in which boys would line up to rape incapacitated girls.

"In approximately 1982, I became the victim of one of these 'gang' or 'train' rapes where Mark Judge and Brett Kavanaugh were present," she said, mentioning the name of a close friend of Kavanaugh. She did not identify her attackers and did not accuse Kavanaugh of taking part.

"During the incident, I was incapacitated without my consent and unable to fight off the boys raping me. I believe I was drugged using Quaaludes (a sedative) or something similar placed in what I was drinking," she said.

She also said she witnessed efforts by Kavanaugh and others "to cause girls to become inebriated and disoriented so they could then be 'gang raped' in a side room or a bedroom by a 'train' of numerous boys," adding she remembers boys including Kavanaugh getting in lines to take part in these rapes.

She did not identify the individuals directly involved in those assaults.

Reuters was not immediately able to verify her accusations. Swetnick and Avenatti did not immediately respond to requests for comment. An attorney for Judge said he denied Swetnick's allegation.

In an interview with Fox News on Monday, Kavanaugh was asked whether he ever participated in or was aware of any gang rape at a party he attended. "That's totally false and outrageous. I've never done any such thing, known about any such thing," Kavanaugh responded.

Supreme Court appointments must be confirmed by the Senate, and Trump's fellow Republicans control the chamber by a narrow 51-49 margin, meaning Republican defections could sink his nomination. The controversy has unfolded ahead of the Nov. 6 congressional elections in which Democrats seek to take control from the Republicans.

Trump chose Kavanaugh, a conservative federal appeals court judge, for a lifetime job on the top U.S. court in July after the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy. Kavanaugh's confirmation would cement conservative control of the Supreme Court, as Trump moves to shift the high court and the broader federal judiciary to the right.

A committee vote on his confirmation is due on Friday, with a final Senate vote as early as Tuesday.

Ford, a psychology professor at Palo Alto University in California, has said Kavanaugh attacked her and tried to remove her clothing when both were high school students in Maryland while he was drunk at a party when he was 17 years old and she was 15. Another woman, Deborah Ramirez, has accused him of exposing himself during a drunken dormitory party during the 1983-84 academic year when both attended Yale University.

Kavanaugh has denied the allegations.

'A TRAVESTY'

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and all the Judiciary Committee's Democrats called on Kavanaugh to withdraw in light of the allegations, and said if he does not, an FBI investigation is needed before any Senate confirmation vote.

"If our Republican colleagues proceed without an investigation, it would be a travesty for the honor of the Supreme Court and our country," Schumer said in a statement.

Another Democratic Senator, Jeff Merkley, filed a lawsuit seeking to delay the confirmation process.

Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, the committee's chairman, said the hearing will go forward as planned and that the panel's staff is looking into the Swetnick's allegation.

Lawyers for Ford, who has accused Kavanaugh of a sexual assault in 1982, released signed documents from Ford's husband, Russell Ford, and three friends, seeking to offer corroboration for her account.

Russell Ford said his wife shared her story during a couples therapy session in 2012 and friends Keith Koegler, Adela Gildo-Mazzon and Rebecca White said Ford told them separately of the incident between 2013 and 2017.

In testimony released ahead of Thursday's hearing, Kavanaugh denied all the allegations against him but said he was "not perfect" during his high school days.

"I drank beer with my friends, usually on weekends. Sometimes I had too many. In retrospect, I said and did things in high school that make me cringe now," he added.

Trump on Wednesday faulted Republicans for not pushing the nomination through the Senate, which must confirmation Supreme Court appointments, more quickly.

The latest developments in the pitched battle over Kavanaugh's confirmation added to the perception of Washington as paralysed by partisan rancour and legislative dysfunction.

Senator Jeff Flake, a moderate Republican, issued a plea for civility.

"We sometimes seem intent on stripping people of their humanity so that we might more easily disregard or defame them and put them through the grinder that our politics requires. We seem, sometimes, to even enjoy that," Flake said of the Washington culture.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley and Susan Heavey; Additional reporting by David Morgan, Sarah N. Lynch and Doina Chiacu; Editing by Will Dunham)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, during the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender/Transsexual and Intersex (LGBTI) Core Group event  'Violence against LGBTI Individuals: Extra-judicial, summary or arbitrary executions'  on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly here on Tuesday, said that change is happening around the world.

United Nations: The UN's top human rights official cited the "landmark" decision by India's Supreme Court decriminalising consensual gay sex and urged more countries to bring their laws and practices in line with the fundamental equality of all their people.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, during the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender/Transsexual and Intersex (LGBTI) Core Group event  'Violence against LGBTI Individuals: Extra-judicial, summary or arbitrary executions'  on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly here on Tuesday, said that change is happening around the world.

On 6 September, a five-judge Constitution bench of the Supreme Court of India unanimously decriminalised part of the 158-year-old colonial law under Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code which criminalises consensual unnatural sex, delivering a ground-breaking victory for gay rights in India.

Bachelet said: "More than 70 countries criminalise consensual same-sex relationships, and also criminalise transgender people based on their appearance. These laws subject LGBT people to long prison sentences and in some cases physical punishment. They also implicitly encourage prejudice, hatred, and violence. But laws can change".

"In India, we have just seen a landmark decision by the Supreme Court, decriminalising same-sex relationships. This important discussion is taking place all over the world. Not only in Europe and North America  it is moving forward in Africa, in Asia, in the Americas, in the Caribbean, and in the Pacific," she said.

Welcoming these "vital changes", Bachelet said there is a need to see more countries taking steps to bring their laws and practices in line with the fundamental equality of all their people. She, however, stressed that there is also a need to "change minds" as at the core of killings and violence against the LGBTI community is prejudice and hate. "We will only prevent these crimes if we are brave enough to address these factors, across society," she said.

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court had unanimously struck down one of the world's oldest bans on consensual gay sex, delivering a ground-breaking victory for gay rights in India.

The Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra had unanimously held that the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) community possess the same Constitutional rights as other citizens of the country.Iranian President Hassan Rouhani criticized the United States for its hostile policy toward his country and said Washington's approach was doomed to failure.

Rouhani, in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly, said the U.S. had waged economic war against Iran by reimposing unilateral sanctions, which were lifted under the countrys 2015 multinational nuclear deal in return for Tehran curbing its nuclear program.

"The United States policy vis-a-vis the Islamic Republic of Iran has been wrong from the beginning, and its approach of resisting the wishes of the Iranian people as manifested in numerous elections is doomed to failure," Reuters cited the Iranian President as saying.

The economic war that the United States has initiated under the rubric of new sanctions not only targets the Iranian people but also entails harmful repercussions for the people of other countries, and that war has caused a disruption in the state of global trade, Rouhani said. "What Iran says is clear: no war, no sanctions, no threats, no bullying; just acting according to the law and the fulfillment of obligations."

"No state and nation can be brought to the negotiating table by force," Rouhani stressed, adding that Iran did not want any war.

"Our proposal is clear: commitment for commitment; violation for violation; threat for threat; and step for step, instead of talk for talk," he noted.

U.S. President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the pact in May, and his administration reimposed sanctions on Iran in August. Harsher sanctions on Irans oil and banking sector are expected in November.The US Congress passed the 'Reciprocal Access to Tibet Act', which seeks to ensure that Americans are given the same access to Tibet that Chinese citizens have to the United States.

Washington: The US Congress has passed a crucial bipartisan bill that seeks to impose a visa ban on Chinese officials who deny American citizens, government officials and journalists access to Tibet.

The legislation, passed by a unanimous voice vote, comes amidst the Trump administration imposing massive trade import duties on China that has started impacting the Chinese economy.

The 'Reciprocal Access to Tibet Act', which seeks to ensure that Americans are given the same access to Tibet that Chinese citizens have to the United States, was passed by the House of Representatives on Tuesday.

"The Reciprocal Act to Tibet Act is about fairness, human rights and careful US diplomacy at its core. For too long, China restricted access to Tibet, preventing journalists from observing human rights abuses in Tibet and preventing Tibetan Americans from visiting their home country. This bill seeks to reset that table," Indian-American Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal said on the House Floor.

The bill, she said, is premised on the idea that reciprocity forms the basis of diplomatic law and the practice of mutual exchanges between countries. This bill simply requires that if Chinese officials, journalists and other citizens are able to travel freely in the US, then it's only fair that their American counterparts are also able to do the same.

"And if Americans are not granted the same access to Tibet that the Chinese enjoy in the United States, then there should be consequences. This is more than reasonable and long overdue," Jayapal said.

Republican Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen worried that in the years as China has grown in strength and power, Tibet has been purchased to the periphery. "I was worried that China's bully tactics on display had extended so far that our United States Congress had no longer had the will, no longer had the desire to speak out in support of Tibet," she said.

The Congress is sending a true signal that the US has indeed not forgotten about the people of Tibet, that Congress will not accept Beijing's bullying and intimidation and that the US lawmakers will stand up for human rights for the people of Tibet, she said. "Beijing's policy's on Tibet are not only immoral and unjust, but are threatening the stability of a crucial area for the US interests. So we must put pressure on China to stop its repression," Ros-Lehtinen said.

Congressman Jim McGovern, the prime author of the bill, said that the bill imposes real consequences for China's bad behaviour.

Arguing that the basis of diplomatic law is mutual access and reciprocity, McGovern said that while Chinese diplomats and journalists travel freely in the US, the Government of China has erected many barriers in areas of China inhabited by ethnic Tibetans. US diplomats and journalists must obtain permission to enter the Tibet Autonomous Region, he alleged.

"Under this bill, Chinese authorities who are involved in the design and implementation of policies that restrict travel to Tibetan areas become ineligible to receive a visa or be admitted to the United States. This is a victory for human rights of Tibetans and Americans," McGovern said.

Speaking in support of the bill, Democratic Leader Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi asserted that the issue of reciprocity is not only a human rights issue, but is also a practical matter. It is very important for the US to have a diplomatic presence in Lhasa. The bill, she said, takes an important step to advance freedom, dignity and prosperity for the Tibetan people.

The bill, Pelosi said, sends a clear signal that China's meddling in Tibetan affairs is unacceptable. "For six decades, the people of Tibet have stood defiance in the face of oppression and brutality from an authoritarian China," she said.

Senators Marco Rubio and Tammy Baldwin have introduced a companion bill in the Senate.

The Reciprocal Access to Tibet Act includes a national security waiver, and would require the US Secretary of State to submit to Congress an assessment of the level of access to Tibet granted to American government officials, journalists, and tourists by Chinese officials.

If the secretary determines that there are restrictions on travel to Tibet, the appropriate Chinese officials will be ineligible to enter the US.After talks on Monday with Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said the Europeans would set up a 'legal entity' for businesses to transfer money without coming under Washington's scanner. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, addressing a pressure group on the sidelines of annual UN meetings, said he was 'disturbed and indeed deeply disappointed' by the EU announcement.

New York: Tensions between the United States and the European Union over Iran soared into the open Tuesday after the Europeans announced plans for a legal framework to preserve business with Tehran and evade new US sanctions.

In rhetorical exchanges that brought back memories of the feud over the 2003 Iraq invasion, the US denounced the Europeans, who, in turn, made clear they would not back down on diplomacy.

Britain, France, and Germany  along with Russia and China  had all pleaded unsuccessfully for president Donald Trump to remain in the six countries' 2015 accord with Iran on ending its nuclear programme. Full US sanctions are set to hit Iran in November and the country's economy is already taking a beating.

After talks on Monday with Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said the Europeans would set up a "legal entity" for businesses to transfer money without coming under Washington's scanner. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, addressing a pressure group on the sidelines of annual UN meetings, said he was "disturbed and indeed deeply disappointed" by the EU announcement.

"This is one of the of the most counterproductive measures imaginable for regional and global peace and security," Pompeo said in a speech that was interrupted several times by anti-war protesters. "By sustaining revenues to the regime, you are solidifying Iran's ranking as the number-one state sponsor of terror," said Pompeo, who quipped that Iran's "corrupt ayatollahs" and elite Revolutionary Guards had to be "laughing this morning".

John Bolton, Trump's hawkish national security adviser, mocked the EU for its lack of detail on the planned mechanism. "The European Union is strong on rhetoric and weak on follow-through," he told the United Against a Nuclear Iran campaign. "We do not intend to allow our sanctions to be evaded by Europe or anybody else," he said.

Bolton also issued unsubtle warnings to Iran's leaders: "We are watching, and we will come after you. If you cross us, our allies or our partners, if you harm our citizens, if you continue to lie, cheat and deceive, there will be hell to pay." Bolton has denied that the US is seeking to overthrow the regime, but before taking office, had called for efforts to destabilise the country.

The feud came as Trump and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani addressed the United Nations General Assembly, offering diametrically opposed messages.

Trump, while vowing that the US is determined to act alone, urged all nations to isolate Iran  whose arch-enemies Saudi Arabia and Israel are close to his administration.

Rouhani voiced regret that the deal, negotiated under former president Barack Obama, had become a "toy" of US domestic politics and accused Trump of seeking to overthrow his government. French President Emmanuel Macron called for continued sales of oil by Iran, saying the flow would lower global prices and also benefit peace efforts.

"What will bring a real solution to the situation in Iran and what has already stabilised it? The law of the strongest? Pressure from only one side? No!" Macron said in his address. He said the nuclear deal put Western powers in a stronger position to raise other concerns highlighted by Washington including Iran's support of militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah.

The Europeans highlight that UN inspectors have repeatedly found that Iran is in compliance with the 2015 deal, under which it scraps the bulk of its nuclear programme in return for sanctions relief.

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told reporters there was "strong unity" with Iran on minimising the impact of US sanctions. Nonetheless, a number of prominent European businesses, including French energy giant Total and German automaker Daimler, have already said they will exit Iran to avoid US sanctions.Qualcomm seems to be in no mood to stop its legal battle against Apple as the chip maker freshly accuses Apple of stealing software and tools to improve chips from its rival Intel. Qualcomm is asking the judge to include the consideration of the latest accusations to a case between the two in state court in California. The suit is due to go to trial in April next year.

With this new accusation, the total suits and counter suits between Qualcomm and Apple are now more than 70 across the globe. On the other hand, Apple is fighting legally with Qualcomm accusing it of illegally using dominance of the market to force it to pay unfair technology licensing fees. Qualcomm in response said that Apple is stealing its intellectual property and the legal assault is really a commercial dispute aimed at securing lower prices to increase profitability.

Apple currently uses Intel modems, chips exclusively to connect smartphones to cellular networks to access data and voice, in the latest versions of the iPhone. Qualcomm accuses Apple of helping Intel engineers to fine-tune the modems to improve performance using Qualcomms software and tools. Thats in breach of the terms of the licenses of that software provided to Apple when the company used Qualcomm modems and is the basis for damage claims.

Qualcomm said it gave the software and tools to Apple with strict restrictions, however, Apple demanded access to make updates to the software that runs the chips in order to make them work better in the iPhone, Qualcomm said. An Intel spokesman declined to comment, while Apple spokesperson referred to the companys earlier comments by saying: Qualcomms illegal business practices are harming Apple and the entire industry. They supply us with a single connectivity component, but for years have been demanding a percentage of the total cost of our products  effectively taxing Apples innovation.

Qualcomm in a court filing said:Googles ARCore is getting a new update that brings support for more phones and tablets including the likes of Galaxy Note9, OnePlus 6T, and ROG Phone, and the Sony Xperia X. The list of supported devices is compiled from the device profiles included within the ARCore APK.

This is not the entire list, as some of the names of the devices are still unknown, usually because they belong to currently unreleased hardware. Do note that the presence of profile doesnt mean full support, but it is an indicator. But the PlayStore listing can take a couple of hours to days.

Current list of supported devices includes Asus ROG Phone, Huawei P20 Lite, Mate 10 Pro, OnePlus 6T, Razer Phone, Samsung Galaxy Note9, Galaxy Tab S3, Galaxy J5, Galaxy J5 Pro, Galaxy J7, Galaxy J7 (2017), Sony Xperia X, Vivo NEX. As we mentioned earlier, the Play Store listing might take sometime before it hits everyone, alternatively, you can download the APK and side-load it.

ViaThe UKs trade agreement with Australia is the first it has negotiated from scratch, setting the template for a line of new deals currently underway. Analysts are... Read MoreAfter nearly a century of elevating global living standards, oil and gas companies are beginning to consider some of the negative externalities of their products and business models. A combination of regulatory, economic, and social pressures has forced the world's largest oil producers to consider an exit strategy -- even if it takes decades to play out. While most are making multibillion-dollar investments to reduce carbon emissions and create cash flow-positive businesses in renewable technologies, the road maps can vary.

The different approaches of ExxonMobil (NYSE:XOM) and Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE:RDS.A) (NYSE:RDS.B) are a great example. The former is currently going all-in on a strategy that's unique among its peers, one that looks to leverage its global refining and logistics infrastructure by bringing next-generation renewable fuels into the mainstream. The latter has a clean energy strategy that looks more similar to peers': a focus on natural gas investments today while slowly building renewable energy power generation and electricity distribution businesses.

As far as investors are concerned, which oil stock is the better buy when it comes to renewable energy strategy?

Seeing it through

Although many oil majors had a renewable fuels strategy in the mid-2000s, pretty much all of them abandoned the idea years ago to focus on market-ready technologies. But not ExxonMobil. In 2009, the energy giant announced a $600 million pact with synthetic biology leader Synthetic Genomics to chase one of the most elusive technologies in biotech: low-cost algae fuels and chemicals.

The goal is to genetically engineer a certain species of algae to efficiently produce oil compounds using only sunlight, carbon dioxide, and several added nutrients. After being grown in large outdoor facilities, the biomass would be harvested, processed by ExxonMobil in its refinery network (the oil is contained within each individual algae cell), and distributed in its global logistics network.

Despite some early hiccups, the pair haven't wavered in their commitment -- and it's paid off so far. A genetic engineering breakthrough in 2017 nearly doubled the amount of oil produced in the partnership's algae strain without significantly slowing the growth rate. That allowed ExxonMobil to announce the next leg in the ambitious project.

By 2025, the companies want to demonstrate the technical ability to produce 10,000 barrels per day of next-generation algae fuel, which works out to a facility with an annual capacity of about 130 million gallons. While "technical ability" is not the same as "this thing will be built by that date," hitting the milestone could be a true energy breakthrough.

That's because if the technology hits similar targets to past outdoor algae projects, then it might be efficient enough to produce three times as much oil as the Permian Basin with half of the footprint. In other words, ExxonMobil could produce all of America's fuel requirements with "just" 40,000 square miles of production facilities. It's worth a shot, anyway.

From liquid fuels to watts?

Royal Dutch Shell was one of the big energy producers that abandoned its ambitious, moonshot approach in renewable fuels (the idea was to turn any source of biomass into drop-in renewable fuels and chemicals). Today, it's focusing on building out a portfolio of cash flow-contributing businesses in electric and gas utility infrastructure, wind power, solar power, and energy storage.

Earlier this year, the Dutch oil major acquired a 44% stake in American solar developer Silicon Ranch, which has 880 megawatts of active projects and at least another 1,000 megawatts in the order backlog. It's part of Royal Dutch Shell's plan to invest up to $2 billion in what it calls "new energies" during the three-year period ending in 2020. While that's only 7% to 8% of the total capital investment, it should help to build a solid foundation in renewable energy.

For instance, the equity stake in Silicon Ranch provides the option to integrate solar energy into the budding electric utility business. Last year, Royal Dutch Shell acquired U.K.-based electric utility First Utility, as well as U.S.-based MP2 Energy. The latter owns a natural gas distribution network and provides services for distributed solar.

The strategy to build an electric utility and power generation business mirrors that of peer Total (and maybe a dash of Equinor if investors include its offshore wind strategy). It's also an obvious hedge against both future climate regulations and emerging transportation technologies, such as electric vehicles. After all, if Royal Dutch Shell becomes a major global electric utility, then it still has a shot of retaining business in fueling transportation -- just with watts instead of liquid hydrocarbons.

One big consideration for investors

Of course, both ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch will continue to be almost completely dependent on oil and (especially) gas in the next decade or two. Neither expects to generate a significant portion of business from renewables in the near future. But that's also one of the biggest differences to consider.

That is, ExxonMobil knows that next-generation renewable fuels from outdoor algae cultivation is a moonshot and has no expectation that the project will contribute to the business anytime soon. Royal Dutch Shell, however, demands certain rates of return on capital investments made in "new energies." For instance, the utility businesses acquired in 2017 are profitable today.

That's a huge consideration for individual investors, who prioritize building wealth, not role-playing the part of a venture capitalist. That gives Royal Dutch Shell the better renewable energy strategy, hands-down. The numbers also favor the Dutch energy giant over ExxonMobil for long-term-minded investors.

Metric ExxonMobil Royal Dutch Shell Market cap $361 billion $296 billion Forward P/E 15.0 10.1 Enterprise value/EBITDA 10.7 6.6 Dividend yield 4% 5.8%

The better buy is...

A lower-risk long-term strategy in renewable energy and more attractive valuation metrics make Royal Dutch Shell the better buy in this matchup. Both are supported by the company's energy transition strategy, which focuses more heavily on natural gas and liquefied natural gas in the next decade or so. That will then provide the option to deploy cash flow generated from those activities into the continued -- and likely accelerated -- build out of the renewable energy portfolio. That creates a sweet opportunity for investors to own a great business today and sit back for the long haul.The foreign ministers of Russia and China, Sergei Lavrov and Wang Yi, held a meeting on the sidelines of the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly in New York yesterday, Russias permanent mission to the US said.

The diplomats discussed the situation on the Korean Peninsula, the Syrian conflict and the Iranian nuclear deal during their meeting.

"The sides noted the high level of cooperation between Russia and China, including in the UN and the UN Security Council," the mission said in a Twitter post.

After a brief conversation, the ministerial meeting continued behind closed doors.US President Donald Trump has said that he is looking forward to a new meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, TASS reports.

"We do not have any exact date, but I look forward to meeting with him," Trump said in reply to a question from TASS when asked when his next meeting with the Russian leader might take place.Prospects for an improvement in Greek-Turkish relations have been evident after Greece's Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met in New York, government sources said.

The parties, who met for an hour on the sidelines of the 73rd United Nations General Assembly, reportedly broached a wide range of issues, including the Cyprus problem, migration and Turkeys relations with the European Union.

Erdogan extended an invitation to Tsipras to visit Istanbul for a working meeting, but no date was set, Kathimerini reported.

They reportedly agreed that there must be a reduction in tensions in the region, that direct and constant contact is needed between the two sides on all levels and that confidence building measures must be re-enacted.

The possibility of launching a sea link between Thessaloniki and Izmir was also discussed with both agreeing that it should be ready by next summer, if possible.

Moreover, the two leaders discussed strengthening cooperation on security matters while Tsipras emphasized the need to stem the flow of migrants from the neighboring country  which could be achieved through the full implementation of the EU-Turkey migrant deal.

With regard to the Cyprus problem, the two sides agreed that reunification talks must resume, but there appeared to be a difference in interpretation of the framework set by UN chief Antonio Guterres at the Swiss resort of Crans-Montana where talks between the two sides broke down acrimoniously last year.Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday called for a "comprehensive United Nations reform process" in an article he penned for Foreign Policy magazine, Anadolu agency reported.

Speaking about the ongoing humanitarian crises across the world, Erdogan said: "The list goes on, but it is clear that the United Nations, which was intended to be the beating heart of humanity, has no pulse."

Erdogan stressed that the UN is "suffering from an unprecedented crisis of credibility," adding: "The main reason for the UNs current troubles is the Security Councils failure to keep its promise of promoting peace and security around the world."

He urged global leaders to step up their game.

"At a time when global leadership is desperately needed, it is crucial to improve the United Nations rather than destroy it."

"If the global powers wont help, the rest of the international community must take matters into its own hands and launch a comprehensive UN reform process," the president said.

Underscoring that there are two main camps of UN critics, Erdogan said the first camp includes countries like Turkey and Germany that want to reform the UN with efforts to address the body's shortcomings.

"The second camp is smaller and includes the United States. This camp prefers to exploit the UNs weaknesses to undermine the liberal international order," he added.

He mentioned how Turkey is hosting 4 million refugees3.5 million of them Syrian nationalsadding: "Although Turkey is no military or economic superpower, it has emerged as a global leader by becoming part of the solution in Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere."An unknown person has opened fire on passers-by in Istanbul, Trend reported citing the Turkish media.

It is reported that three people were injured in the armed attack.

"All the wounded have been delivered to hospitals," the local media reported.

It is also reported that the Istanbul police are currently working to detain the criminal. Other details of the incident havent been reported.

A criminal case has been opened and an investigation is underway.Story Highlights Leadership needs to make these private sector jobs more appealing

The education system needs to be nudged toward entrepreneurship

A couple of years ago, Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) officials were shocked to discover something few believed could even exist locally: budget deficits.

Government spending and low oil prices created a deficit of $28 billion in 2016, at which time the International Monetary Fund (IMF) projected it would grow to $350 billion by 2021. Oil prices have since risen and governments have reduced spending, so the IMF has adjusted shortfall expectations down to $240 billion in 2021. Still, the IMF believes 4.4% in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will be on the high end of GCC economic growth in the region this year, and $240 billion is a lot of money.

Many leaders in the GCC (particularly in Saudi Arabia, UAE and Bahrain) have decided that this is no way to run an economy and are taking active measures to slim down -- pushing for more innovation, entrepreneurship and private sector diversification. Businesses are encouraged to create new jobs, and students are urged to take them or open their own businesses.

Thanks, but No Thanks

It's a good plan, but there is a wrinkle: too few workers want private sector jobs. According to Gallup's latest State of the Global Workplace report, 60% or more of residents in the GCC -- except for Oman where data was not collected -- prefer a government job. By way of comparison, so do 30% in the U.S. and Canada, and 26% in Western Europe. Government jobs are thought to provide more job security, fewer working hours, better perks and higher pay than private sector work.

Workers may prefer government jobs, but few of those workers are making particularly good use of their potential. Gallup has continuously found a strong connection between employee engagement and higher performance -- disengaged workers are less productive, less profitable, less safe, even less healthy than engaged workers -- and Gallup finds that only 14% of workers in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) are engaged in their jobs, while more than one in five workers (22%) are actively disengaged.

So for the GCC in particular payrolls are bloated and they're funding lower-quality work than they should be, but with too few private sector opportunities, people make the easy choice and get a government job. And the government pays for it.

There is a solution. To get workers off the government books and into private sector jobs, leadership needs to make these private sector jobs more appealing, the education system must inspire a growth-mindset in students and workplace cultures have to aspire toward higher performance.

That may sound daunting, but it's easier than covering a $240 billion shortfall. And if GCC leaders commit to invigorating the private sector, they'll create a self-sustaining system on which they can rely. But it's going to take serious, innovative attention in two key areas: nudging our education system forward and pushing for good, private sector jobs.

Nudging Our Education System

The UAE's Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, addressed college students in the spring of 2017 saying: "If you want to participate in shaping the future, then you need to stop thinking of a government job."

Clearly, GCC leaders know we need more graduates who can join the private sector. Accomplishing this requires nudging the education system toward entrepreneurship with three proven strategies:

find and nurture students with entrepreneurial talent

offer basic entrepreneurial education to all students

adjust students' perceptions about the private sector

There are burgeoning entrepreneurs in every classroom. To create private sector businesses, they need someone to spot their talent and invest in it. Gallup analytics finds that successful entrepreneurs tend to have a combination of talents for risk-taking, persistence and resilience. Those talents can be scientifically selected for; in fact, Gallup has worked with multiple countries to identify high school students with the greatest potential to be successful entrepreneurs.

In addition to finding the business builders, our educational system, primary to university, must be injected with entrepreneurial training. Young builders need classes that teach them how to create and run companies, with culturally specific encouragement that emphasizes the value of entrepreneurial talent.

To that end, officials should publicly promote the idea that private sector work is high-status work, perhaps even patriotic work. Some public policy experts have even floated the idea of reserving government jobs for people who have worked in the private sector for a certain number of years. That may be a workable plan, but only if people can take pride in a private sector job.

If leaders want to nudge people off the government payroll, they must take every opportunity to show that entrepreneurs can offer a better job to their potential employees -- ideally, a "good job."

Good Jobs

Only 24% of people in MENA work a full-time job for an employer. That doesn't necessarily mean only 24% of residents in this region work -- though it's true that half of the Middle East is out of the workforce entirely - it means very few have good jobs.

Too few good jobs, obviously, is the whole problem. And it's a snake that eats its own tail. Too few good jobs means too few engaged workers, which diminishes the network that connects people, companies and opportunity, thus hindering the creation of good jobs.

Ironically, it'll take new government jobs to create these new, good jobs. GCC leaders must develop outreach programs to teach business people and entrepreneurs how to build, grow and innovate. Schools will always need to help budding entrepreneurs reach their full potential.

Obviously, this is a culture change, and Middle Eastern business cultures are almost as old as civilization itself. Old societies don't always welcome new approaches. But there's an aspect of traditional Middle Eastern business culture that leaders can capitalize on: personal relationships.

Leaders at every level have tremendous influence over others - family members, friends and neighbors -- and if they say government jobs may be comfortable, but private sector jobs are meaningful, people will listen. These conduits need to be slightly repurposed, but they're a resource that can grow the number of good jobs in the GCC.

The GCC doesn't need private sector jobs; it needs good private sector jobs. Jobs in areas of growth, with managers who foster talent, engage workers and capitalize on the strengths of entrepreneurs. Jobs that make government work seem much less appealing.

A version of this article first appeared in Gulf Business. Reprinted with permission.The 27th International Food Exhibition WorldFood Moscow, which is called the largest food business platform in Russia, opened in Moscow on September 17. This is a unique opportunity in presenting products to a wide audience of specialists, finding new partners and customers, as well as getting acquainted with new products on the Russian market. More than 1500 companies from Russia and other countries of the world are taking part in the exhibition. For the second year in a row Azerbaijan is the partner country here.

65 countries are taking part in the exhibition. The largest expositions this year were presented by China, Italy, South Africa and, of course, Azerbaijan. The republic's stand is one of the most notable. It presents fruits and vegetables, confectionery, dried fruit, tea, water, alcoholic beverages and many other things. However, crenellations of old city walls, crowned with turrets with fire, painted pointed arches, floating ribbons of the national flag colors attracted visitors as much as Azerbaijan's well-known products.President Tran Dai Quang attended the 20th anniversary of the Special Force Battalion No1 of the Special Forces Police Command on March 9, 2017__Photo: VNA

, , ,

Sen. Lieut. Gen. To Lam, Politburo member and Minister of Public Security, has highlighted President Tran Dai Quangs contributions to the cause of protection of security and order of Vietnam in an article written in commemoration of the leader.Minister Lam noted that over his 45-year revolutionary career, Tran Dai Quang was entrusted with many important positions by the Communist Party of Vietnam, the State, the Ministry of Public Security (MoPS), and the people. The positions included Secretary of the Central Public Security Party Committee; Minister of Public Security; head of the Steering Committee for the Central Highlands region; member of the Party Central Committee for the 10th, 11th and 12th tenures; member of the Politburo of the Party Central Committee in the 11th and 12th tenures; President of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam; Chairman of the National Defence and Security Council; Commander-in-chief of the peoples armed forces; head of the Central Steering Committee for Judicial Reform; and National Assembly deputy in the 13th and 14th terms.With over 43 years serving in the public security force, including more than 20 years holding important leading and commanding positions, Tran Dai Quang has always set a bright example of loyalty to the Party, the Fatherland, and the people, as well as of the resolute combating spirit and the utmost effort for the noble goals and revolutionary ideal of the Party and for the peoples peace and happiness.He directed the entire public security force to carry out in-depth, synchronous and comprehensive reform of all aspects of their work and perfect principles, measures, and tactics to fight all types of crime and criminals. The force has kept sharp lookout for sabotage plots and activities of hostile and reactionary organisations, factors that can undermine domestic stability and criminal activities, while foreseeing possible complicated situations in order to be proactive in every circumstance. The public security force has succeeded in defeating all peaceful evolution and overthrowing schemes and activities of hostile and reactionary forces wanting to eradicate the Partys leadership and the socialist regime in Vietnam.The public security sector has designed and implemented effectively plan to ensure absolute safety for important political events, major holidays and international events held in Vietnam; international delegations on visits to Vietnam; activities of Vietnamese Party and State leaders in and outside the country; and key political, economic, cultural and social works.Lam added that during his many positions, Quang has directed drastic measures to fight all kinds of crime, especially organised, transnational, drug-related, high-tech, and environmental crimes. He also promoted the public security sectors coordination with procuracies and courts in investigating, prosecuting, and judging major economic and corruption cases and recovering stolen assets, which has been highly valued by the Party and State, as well as winning over the support of the public.Imbued with ideologies and viewpoints of Marxism-Leninism, the Party, and the late President Ho Chi Minh on the great role of the people, Tran Dai Quang paid special attention to communication and education activities to get people from all social stratas to actively engage in preventing and combating crime and law violations. He also considered the people as the source of strength and the All people defend the Fatherlands security movement as the basic condition for people to exercise the right to mastery in the safeguarding of security and order.Tran Dai Quang and the Central Public Security Party Committee and the MoPS also took the initiative in expanding the public security sectors external relations and cooperation with the security, police, and interior forces of other countries and enhancing the ministrys participation in regional and global security cooperation mechanisms. As a result, the MoPS now has an important voice in the settlement of international issues regarding crime fighting, thereby helping to improve the standing of the Vietnamese public security force; ensure national security, social order, and safety; and develop Vietnams friendship and partnership with countries around the world.Minister Lam said that while holding many important posts, Tran Dai Quang still reserved time and efforts for studying and developing theories on the peoples public security force. He has authored hundreds of scientific studies, textbooks, articles, lectures, which, along with his viewpoints, directions, and strategic decisions about security and order, has contributed to perfecting the theoretical system for the public security force and the teaching materials in institutes and schools of the peoples public security sector.The life and revolutionary career of President Tran Dai Quang  a leader of the Party, State and people, a prominent leader and commander of the peoples public security force of Vietnam  is an example for generations of officers and soldiers of the peoples public security force to learn and follow, Minister Lam stressed.-Having returned from a tour to China and Taiwan, Lee Universitys faculty-comprised Lee Piano Trio will perform Monday at 7:30 p.m. in the Squires Recital Hall. The trio includes pianist Dr. Joong Han (Jonathan) Jung, cellist Theodore Kartal, and violinist Xiaoqing Yu.

The concert will feature Haydns Piano Trio No. 39, Mendelssohns Piano Trio No. 1, and Piazollas Oblivion.

Dr. Jung joined Lees faculty in 2017 as an assistant professor of piano. He concertizes regularly across Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and the United States.

He was a featured guest artist in the Texas State International Piano Festival and the Brevard Summer Music Festival. He has also performed with the Eastman Philharmonic Orchestra, the Korean Philharmonic Orchestra of New Zealand, and the University of Auckland Symphony Orchestra, among others.

Dr. Jung received his Doctor of Musical Arts, Master of Arts, and Master of Music degree from Eastman School of Music, and an additional MM and Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Auckland.

Mr. Kartal joined Lee University in 2001. He is currently principal cellist of the Oak Ridge Symphony and Bryan Symphony orchestras, in addition to performing with the Knoxville Symphony. He has also performed with the Shreveport and South Arkansas symphonies.

As a student, Mr. Kartal won multiple competitions and prizes, such as the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion prize and first prize at the Istanbul Cello Competition. Since then he has gone on to perform with orchestras in Italy, Germany, France, and the U.S.

He received his MM in cello performance from Louisiana State University and an MM in cello performance and a BA from Mimar Sinan University in Istanbul.

Mr. Yu came to Lee in 2004, where he teaches violin, viola, chamber music, and serves as director of the Lee University Chamber Strings. Prior to Lee, Mr. Yu performed in New York with the National New Composition Orchestra and the Brooklyn Chamber Orchestra.

Presently, Mr. Yu serves as the concertmaster of the Greenville Symphony and performs with the Glimmerglass Opera Orchestra, which is an annual, 10-week summer festival in New York. While serving as principal second violinist for the American Chamber Orchestra, Mr. Yu performed in nearly 100 European cities, including Barcelona, Berlin, Brussels, Florence, and Paris.

Mr. Yu received an MM from University of South Carolina, an MM from Manhattan School of Music, and his BA from Beijing Central Conservatory of Music.

This event is free and open to the public.

For more information, call 614-8240 or email music@leeuniversity.edu.



Google's AI flood alerts feature might save a lot of lives in India News oi-Vishal Kawadkar Google puts AI to a good use.

Artificial Intelligence might not be used to its full potential on smartphones, but it's still changing the ways we interact with the world in several ways. Google has given another example of this with the release of its AI-powered flood alerts in India.

The new feature will make use of the computational power to provide more accurate flood alerts, the company noted in a blog post. Other information is fed into Google's models too, like water level readings, historical events, and the region's topography.

Google said it runs "hundreds of thousands" of simulations for a location. After these simulations, the system is able to gauge when and where a flood is likely to occur, and the severity of the event.

Google has already deployed the new technology to provide flood warnings in the Patna region of the country. The company is planning to bring the new AI-powered alerts to other countries as well, but there was no specific time for its availability.

This could prove to be one of the best use cases for the AI in smartphones, as it would be helpful to governments while allocating resources and plan accordingly. It can also come in handy for other calamities such as tsunamis, drought, and wildfires. Meanwhile, Japan's Fujitsu has also been testing the use of AI to predict tsunamis in the city of Kawasaki.

Artificial Intelligence is seeing an immense growth in the mainstream industry. Recently, artificial intelligence algorithm has outclassed experts at predicting deaths from heart disease. According to the journal PLOS One, researchers from the Francis Crick Institute make yet another case for using A.I. to inform medical diagnoses.

"We've shown that you can give a computer someone's medical records ... and predict how likely a patient with heart disease is to die," Andrew Steele, a Crick researcher, told Digital Trends. "Traditional models get experts to select the most relevant variables for making these kinds of predictions, but we did just as well without telling the computer ... the most important or relevant things to take into account."

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Indo-Pacom Wraps Up Valiant Shield 2018

By Petty Officer 1st Class Danica M Sirmans, Navy Reserve - Navy Public Affairs Support Element West / Published September 25, 2018

ANDERSEN AIR FORCE BASE, Guam (AFNS) -- U.S. military forces from the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command wrapped up exercise Valiant Shield 2018, Sept. 23rd, around the Marianas Island Range Complex and on Guam.

Participants included the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76), 15 surface ships, more than 160 aircraft and approximately 15,000 personnel from the U.S. Navy, Air Force, Army and Marine Corps.

"The Marianas Island Range Complex is a premier training environment that allows the joint force a unique opportunity to come together and train side-by-side at the high end in an at-sea environment," said exercise director Rear Adm. Daniel Dwyer. "It's extremely important. In any future conflict, no service will go alone. Any opportunity that we can come together to train as a joint force, makes us that much more lethal and capable."

Valiant Shield is a U.S. only, biennial field training exercise aimed at ensuring the joint force is ready to conduct a wide range of combat operations.

VS-18 was postponed due to Typhoon Mangkhut. The units based out of Guam, as well as the visiting units, quickly adjusted their training exercise to a defense support of civil authorities mission. More than 3,000 personnel were dispatched to assist with clean up, deliver supplies and assist with utilities.

"The U.S. military is not a fair-weather force," said Dwyer. "We'll fight in any conditions; day or night. This is just real-world operational training for us. It has been great for the crews to adapt, overcome, plan and execute. I am incredibly proud of the joint force coming together."

This year's exercise was peppered with a few firsts. The Army attended for the first time this year as they led the Multi-Domain Task Force with the 17th Field Artillery Brigade.

Army Lt. Col. Joe Hansen, MDTF commander, said he'd developed three priorities in support of Valiant Shield; to validate and improve communication systems and architecture, facilitate and integrate artillery capabilities in the Indo-Pacific maritime environment, and inform and improve upon the multi-domain operational discussion.

The MDTF is at the piloting stages on the trajectory to operational use, but another series featured in this year's exercise introduced a new shallow-mine capability update from previous iterations.

Following an Air Force and Marine Corps pairing from Valiant Shield 2016, this year the Air Force's B-52 bombers of the 96th Bomb Squadron with the Navy's P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft of Patrol Squadron Five (VP-5) deployed and assessed an updated Quickstrike precision mine outfit for the first time.

"In the past, the mines were dropped by gravity weapons, so the B-52s and bombers had to be low to meet their accuracy," said Air Force Capt. Craig Quinnett, Quickstrike's B-52 test lead. "With Joint Direct Attack Munition and the Quickstrike-extended range weapon we have the ability to deploy precision mines from a standoff role which gives us a huge capability."

Valiant Shield concluded with a sink exercise, which provided the opportunity to find, fix, track, and finish a target at sea.

"SINKEX gives us that opportunity to do an end-to-end test of our joint capabilities," said Dwyer. "It's been incredible to watch the teams come together to become more capable and more lethal."

During VS-18, U.S. forces exercised a wide range of capabilities and demonstrate the inherent flexibility of joint forces. The range of capabilities included maritime security operations, amphibious operations, anti-submarine and air-defense exercises.

This is the seventh exercise in the Valiant Shield series that began in 2006.

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U.S. Readiness in Korea Important to Diplomacy, Nominee Tells Senate Panel

Sept. 25, 2018

By Jim Garamone

DoD News, Defense Media Activity

WASHINGTON -- The North Korean military remains dangerous, and U.S., South Korean and allied forces on the Korean Peninsula "should remain clear-eyed about the situation on the ground and allow diplomacy to continue to work," President Donald J. Trump's nominee to be the next commander of U.S. forces in Korea told the Senate Armed Services Committee at his confirmation hearing today.

Army Gen. Robert B. Abrams, now the commander of U.S. Army Forces Command, is the president's nominee to replace Army Gen. Vincent K. Brooks as the commander of the United Nations Command, Combined Forces Command and U.S. Forces Korea.

If confirmed, Abrams would go to a peninsula in a state of flux. The historic meeting between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un changed the calculus, and this is a critical time. What happens in North Korea  will they indeed denuclearize  affects South Korea, Japan, China and all of Northeast Asia.

"The strategic importance of the Pacific region has grown over the past decade," Abrams said. "The foundation for success in Northeast Asia is largely due to the extraordinary relationships we have built over time with United Nations sending states and our Indo-Pacific neighbors, particularly Japan and the Republic of Korea."

Working with allies is key to what happens on the peninsula, and Abrams said he would continue that process. "Our strong combined military power with the Republic of Korea has sustained armistice conditions for 65 years and supported our diplomatic and economic efforts today," he said.

Since the armistice of 1953, alliance forces have been ready "to fight tonight," the general said, and the allies must maintain that credible deterrent "to preserve options for our elected leaders."

Command Priorities

Abrams endorsed the four long-standing command priorities: sustaining and strengthening the alliance, maintaining the armistice, transforming the alliance, and sustaining the force. "I believe these priorities remain relevant, but if confirmed, I will  make my own assessment on the way forward, and I will keep this committee informed of my conclusions," he said.

The general said he would describe the situation today as "a temporary pause and a general feeling of detente, if you will, on the peninsula."

North Korea has not made a major provocation for more than 300 days, and dialogue has taken place on many levels among the United States, South Korea and North Korea. This includes military-to-military talks between the United Nations Command and the North Korean army at the senior officer level  the first in 11 years.

Given this encouraging news, the allies still need to maintain readiness, Abrams said. North Korea is a significant asymmetric and intercontinental threat, he told the Senate panel, noting that it still has the fourth-largest conventional army in the world.

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Southcom Nominee Stresses Commitment in Confirmation Hearing

Sept. 25, 2018

By Terri Moon Cronk

DoD News, Defense Media Activity

WASHINGTON -- President Donald J. Trump's nominee to serve as the next commander of U.S. Southern Command told the Senate Armed Services Committee today that he would commit all of his energy to ensure Southcom is ready to do its part to pursue opportunity and manage challenges.

Navy Vice Adm. Craig S. Faller, now the senior military assistant to Defense Secretary James N. Mattis, will receive his fourth star if confirmed for the post.

"We're fortunate to live in the Western Hemisphere interconnected by a bridge of common cultural bonds, shared values, and with a few rough exceptions, strong democratic principles," Faller said at today's confirmation hearing.

A hemisphere that shines is a beacon of opportunity in a world awash in complexity and rapid change, he said. "During recent travels to the [Southcom] region with the secretary of defense, I saw first-hand the opportunity and willing partners like Colombia, Chile, Brazil and Argentina." Faller told the senators.

National Defense Strategy

The 2018 National Defense Strategy sets clear guidance, he noted.

"We will field a more lethal and ready force," the admiral said. "We will build new and stronger partnerships, and we will scrupulously account for every resource the Congress has authorized and appropriated."

Faller noted multiple challenges that he said must be dealt with aggressively, from the return of great-power competition with Russia and China to threat networks of criminals and violent extremists that traffic in drugs, weapons, humans, illegal immigrants and illicit goods and undermine the sovereignty and security of the United States and its partners.

Nationally, he said, the 72,000 U.S. drug-related deaths last year constitute a crisis. "And if confirmed as Southcom commander, I will remain committed to doing our part to deny, degrade and destroy this scourge," he added.

The United States military must compete and win, the admiral said.

"There is no other choice for our nation's security," Faller told the Senate panel. "Teamwork wins. Just as nations with allies and partners thrive, our combatant commands must work together with all parts of the DoD team, our interagency partners and Congress." His aim, he said, is to strengthen and enhance relationships and teamwork.

Message to Partners

Faller shared the message he plans to convey to U.S. partners.

"My plain and simple message to our friends in the region is 'the United States is a reliable and trustworthy security partner," he said. "Our commitment is unwavering. The United States is your security partner of choice. We offer unmatched military education, training and equipment with U.S. ingenuity, technology and experience to back it up.

"International military education and training,  along with foreign military sales and building-partner-capacity authorities, are strategic game changers," he continued. "We are your reliable security partner, and with ever-present threats to our homeland, teamwork is more important than ever."

The United States competes best with the power of its ideas and ideals and with its inspiration, education and commitment, the admiral said.

"Latin America and the Caribbean are not our backyard. It's our shared neighborhood," Faller said. "And like the neighborhood  where I grew up, good neighbors respect each other's sovereignty, treat each other as equal partners with respect, and commit to a strong neighborhood watch."

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U.S. Department of Defense

Press Operations

News Release

No. NR-272-18 September 25, 2018

Defense Department Selects Scientists to Participate in LUCI Program

The Defense Department announced selection of ten scientists working across Department of Defense (DoD) Laboratories to participate in the Laboratory University Collaboration Initiative (LUCI) program. These researchers will receive $600,000 over a three-year period to explore their proposed basic research ideas.

"LUCI strives to capitalize on the unrestrained curiosity driven research and innovative spirit of universities by focusing their energy and ideas on defense research," said Dale Ormond, acting director for the Basic Research Office.

"We endeavor to realize this innovation through a partnership with a scientist at a DoD research laboratory and one of our current research fellows where the primary goal is to bring better capabilities to the future warfighter, and a secondary goal of introducing young scientists and engineers to our DoD hard problems," Ormond stated.

The LUCI program supports a broad range of scientific topic areas including: applied mathematics, cognitive neuroscience, engineering biology, novel engineered materials, quantum information science, manufacturing science, and other areas of interest. LUCI also adds value to the defense enterprise by funding high risk basic research projects and providing adequate time to DoD researchers to cultivate their ideas for potential long-term research. This investment results in new knowledge and insight that can be used to fill capability gaps, generate patents, bring in human capital to the defense research enterprise, and build stronger relationships with academic researchers.

The scientists for the fiscal year 2018 LUCI class are the following:

FY18 LUCI Fellow Topic Area Service Laboratory Nathaniel Bridges Cognitive Neuroscience Air Force Research Laboratory Katherine Brodie Oceanography/Remote sensing Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory Matthew Dickerson Additive manufacturing and self-assembly Air Force Research Laboratory Alexander Efros and John Lyons Nanophotonics/2D materials Naval Research Laboratory Elizabeth Goldschmidt Quantum sensing Army Research Laboratory Michael Goodson Synthetic Biology Air Force Research Laboratory Mark Griep Nanoplasmonics Army Research Laboratory Michelle Johannes Topological materials Naval Research Laboratory Keith Knipling High temperature structural materials Naval Research Laboratory Matthew Marge and Gordon Briggs Human Machine Interaction Army Research Laboratory and Naval Research Laboratory

LUCI started in 2016 to promote, and competitively fund, three-year basic research collaborations between leading DoD scientists and Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellows and Principal Investigators for Multi-disciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) at U.S. universities in fields of critical interest to the defense enterprise. The DoD Basic Research Office, https://basicresearch.defense.gov/ oversees and manages the program.

http://www.defense.gov/News/News-Releases/News-Release-View/Article/1644286/

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NATO Secretary General joins world leaders for UN General Assembly

NATO - North Atlantic Treaty Organisation

24 Sep. 2018 - 26 Sep. 2018

Last updated: 25 Sep. 2018

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is joining world leaders in New York on Tuesday (25 September 2018) to attend the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA). During his three-day visit to the United States, Mr. Stoltenberg will meet with several world leaders and senior officials, including UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, African Union Chairperson Paul Kagame and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

NATO and the United Nations reinforce one another, as organisations committed to tackling security challenges and upholding the international rules-based order. Over the past decade, the two organisations have stepped up cooperation, working closely to support Afghanistan and Iraq. NATO has also pledged support for UN peacekeeping operations, including to counter improvised explosive devices.

On Wednesday, the Secretary General will deliver a speech on NATO's role in the fight against terrorism at the National September 11 Memorial and Museum. Following 9/11, NATO invoked its collective defence clause, Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, for the first time, in support of the United States, leading to the Alliance's operation in Afghanistan, its biggest ever. In 2015, NATO received a piece of twisted steel from the Twin Towers, which is displayed at the Alliance's new headquarters in Brussels as the 9/11 and Article 5 Memorial.

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Future USS South Dakota Delivered to U.S. Navy

Navy News Service

Story Number: NNS180925-11

Release Date: 9/25/2018 3:09:00 PM

From Team Submarine Public Affairs

GROTON, Conn. (NNS) -- The U.S. Navy accepted delivery of the future USS South Dakota (SSN 790), the 17th submarine of the Virginia class, Sept. 24.

The ship began construction in 2013 and is scheduled to commission in early 2019. This next-generation attack submarine provides the Navy with the capabilities required to maintain the nation's undersea superiority.

South Dakota is the seventh Virginia-class Block III submarine. Block III submarines feature a redesigned bow with enhanced payload capabilities, replacing 12 individual vertical launch tubes with two large-diameter Virginia Payload Tubes, each capable of launching six Tomahawk cruise missiles. This, among other design changes, reduced the submarines' acquisition cost while maintaining their outstanding warfighting capabilities.

"South Dakota's delivery is an important milestone," said Capt. Chris Hanson, Virginia Class Program manager. "It marks the penultimate Block III delivery and will be a vital asset in the hands of the fleet."

The submarine's sponsor is Deanie Dempsey, wife of former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman and retired Army Gen. Martin Dempsey.

The submarine will be the third U.S. Navy ship to be commissioned with the name South Dakota. The first South Dakota (ACR 9) was a Pennsylvania-class armored cruiser. The ship served in the Pacific until the American entry into World War I, where it patrolled the South Atlantic operating from Brazil, and escorted troop transports destined for Europe.

During World War II, the second South Dakota (BB 57) was commissioned as the lead ship in its class. The four ships of the South Dakota class are considered the most efficient battleships built under the limitations of the Washington Naval treaty. South Dakota served in the Pacific and Atlantic as a carrier escort and patrolled the North Atlantic with the British navy. During the ship's second tour in the Pacific, it helped to cripple the Japanese navy during the Battle of the Philippine Sea before helping to bombard shore defenses at Okinawa and preparing for an eventual invasion of the Japanese home islands.

Virginia-class submarines are built to operate in the world's littoral and deep waters while conducting anti-submarine warfare; anti-surface ship warfare; strike warfare; special operations forces support; intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; irregular warfare and mine warfare missions. Their inherent stealth, endurance, mobility and firepower directly enable them to support five of the six maritime strategy core capabilities - sea control, power projection, forward presence, maritime security and deterrence.

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Zimbabwean president dismisses alleged debt trap by China

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 08:16, September 25, 2018

Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Sunday dismissed claims that his country may fall into a debt trap by China, saying a large portion of Harare's debt to Beijing was for projects which generate revenue to service the loans.

He made the remarks during a meeting with Zimbabweans living in the United States, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, according to the country's state news agency New Ziana.

China has emerged as a key investor in large infrastructure projects in Zimbabwe and has also extended concessional loans to assist in the development of the economies of many African countries.

However, some Western countries have claimed that the Chinese loans, which have funded several mega projects across Africa, leave many countries in a debt crisis.

Noting that there was nothing wrong with African countries accepting Chinese financing, the president said Zimbabwe had in particular benefited immensely from Chinese funding for the expansion of Kariba South Hydro Power Station, which added 300 MW into the national grid, and that of Hwange Power Station, which would add an additional 600 MW.

"I do not see any danger where you have a project which becomes productive in terms of revenue streams to pay for itself," he said.

"When you finish paying the loan, the asset remains with us and we will continue to have electricity so I do not see the danger there," he said.

Finance and Economic Development Minister Mthuli Ncube, who is also in New York, said there was nothing sinister about the Chinese funding.

"We (Zimbabwe) have a very strong debt sustainability analysis framework which allows us to understand whether we are over indebted or not, and whether we can pay or not. The Chinese also do that analysis themselves and if they find out that you cannot pay they do not lend you the money, this is not free money," he said.

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UN chief warns of 'increasingly chaotic' world order

Iran Press TV

Tue Sep 25, 2018 06:26PM

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres has issued a stark warning of growing chaos and confusion as the rules-based global order comes under a threat of breaking down.

Guterres told the 193-member UN General Assembly (UNGA) on Tuesday that trust in the global order and among states was "at a breaking point" and international cooperation was becoming more difficult.

"Today, world order is increasingly chaotic. Power relations are less clear," said the UN chief.

"Today, with shifts in the balance of power, the risk of confrontation may increase," warned Guterres while addressing the opening session of the UNGA.

"But it runs deeper ... As guardians of the common good, we also have a duty to promote and support a reformed, reinvigorated and strengthened multilateral system," Guterres said as he opened the world's largest diplomatic gathering.

Guterres did not single out a country for criticism. But the remarks came ahead of US President Donald Trump's speech at the assembly.

The US president later opened his speech by touting his domestic policies, including tax cuts and his push to build a wall along the US-Mexico border, before addressing his foreign policy priorities.

Trump boasted that his administration had accomplished "more than almost any" other in US history. The remark drew laughter from the audience of world leaders.

There are fears among UN diplomats that the world is being carved up into spheres of influence and a return to great power rivalry.

Since Trump took office last year, Washington has violated numerous international treaties and conventions. Trump has scrapped the Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the Paris climate agreement and cut funding to the UN.

"Those who see their neighbors as dangerous may cause a threat where there was none. Those who close their borders to regular migration only fuel the work of traffickers," Guterres said. "And those who ignore human rights in combating terrorism tend to breed the very extremism they are trying to end."

"And those who ignore human rights in combating terrorism tend to breed the very extremism they are trying to end."

Guterres acknowledged that peace efforts were failing and that respect for international humanitarian norms was unraveling. "The Rohingya people remain exiled, traumatized and in misery, still yearning for safety and justice."

The so-called two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has become "more and more distant" while the nuclear threat "has not eased", the UN chief said.

Trump's recognition of occupied Jerusalem al-Quds as Israel's "capital" has already led Palestinian leaders to cut off contact with the White House.

"There is outrage at our inability to end the wars in Syria, Yemen and elsewhere," he said.

Guterres also urged leaders to tackle climate change with a greater sense of ambition and urgency. "If we do not change course in the next two years, we risk runaway climate change."

The Trump administration withdrew from a global accord to reduce emissions last year.

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Saudi-led airstrikes kill 3 people, including child, in Yemen's Hudaydah, Sa'ada

Iran Press TV

Tue Sep 25, 2018 05:46PM

At least three people, including a child, have been killed after Saudi-led warplanes hit localities in Yemen's Hudaydah and Sa'ada provinces, three and a half years after the so-called military coalition began a full-scale war against the impoverished nation.

The Arabic-language al-Masirah television network reported on Tuesday that Saudi-led fighter jets launched an airstrike on the residential area of Ghaferah of Dhahir district in the northern province of Sa'ada earlier in the day that resulted in the killing of child and wounding of several others.

It also said that a separate aerial aggression against a civilian vehicle, traveling from Jarrahi to Zabid cities in the western province of Hudaydah, leading to the killing two people.

Saudi Arabia and some of its allies, including the United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Sudan, launched a brutal war, code-named Operation Decisive Storm, against Yemen in March 2015 in an attempt to reinstall former president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi and crush the Houthi Ansarullah movement, which plays a significant role in aiding the Yemeni army in defending the country against the invading coalition.

The movement has also been running state affairs in the absence of an effective administration since the onset of the imposed war.

Since the onset of imposed war, the Yemeni army troops, backed by fighters from the Ansarullah movement, have launched numerous retaliatory attacks against Saudi-led forces and its mercenaries inside Yemen and through ballistic missile strikes deep inside Saudi Arabia.

According to a report by Yemen's Arabic-language Ansarullah news portal on Tuesday, Yemeni snipers have managed to slay or wound more than 67 Saudi-led mercenaries during the past 72 hours.

The imposed war initially consisted of a bombing campaign, but was later coupled with a naval blockade and the deployment of ground forces to Yemen. Some 15,000 Yemenis have been killed and thousands more injured since the onset of the Saudi-led aggression.

The Saudi-led war has also taken a heavy toll on the country's infrastructure, destroying many hospitals, schools, and factories. The United Nations has said that a record 22.2 million Yemenis are in dire need of food, including 8.4 million threatened by severe hunger.

Several Western countries, the US and Britain in particular, are also accused of being complicit in the ongoing aggression as they supply the Riyadh regime with advanced weapons and military equipment as well as logistical and intelligence assistance.

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In his UN address, Trump urges world to isolate Iran

Iran Press TV

Tue Sep 25, 2018 02:43PM

US President Donald Trump has used his second address to the United Nations General Assembly to attack Iran, promising hard-hitting sanctions and urging the world to isolate the Islamic Republic.

Trump used a large portion of his address to the 73rd session of the General Assembly on Tuesday ranting against Iran, accusing it of sponsoring terrorism and sowing "chaos, death and destruction," in the Middle East.

"We ask all nations to isolate Iran's regime as long as its aggression continues," he continued. "They do not respect their neighbors or borders or the sovereign rights of nations."

He condemned "the horrible 2015 nuclear deal" between Iran and six world powers and called on other countries to completely isolate the Islamic Republic.

The US president said more sanctions will follow after the resumption of oil sanctions on Iran on November 5.

UN audience laughs at Trump

The US president opened his speech by touting his domestic policies, including tax cuts and his push to build a wall along the US-Mexico border, before addressing his foreign policy priorities.

Trump boasted that his administration had accomplished "more than almost any" other in US history. The remark drew laughter from the audience of world leaders.

The audience then again began chuckling when Trump said "so true." Trump paused, and then responded: "I didn't expect that reaction but that's OK."

Trump slams OPEC, calls for lower prices

Meanwhile, Trump charged members of the OPEC oil cartel with "ripping off" the world and called for a lowering of fuel prices.

"The United States stands ready to export our abundant affordable supply of oil, clean coal, and natural gas," Trump told the General Assembly.

"OPEC and OPEC nations are, as usual, ripping off the rest of the world, and I don't like it. Nobody should like it," he said.

ICC has 'no legitimacy'

Trump also said the International Criminal Court lacks any legitimacy, saying it violated "all principles of justice."

"As far as America is concerned, the ICC has no jurisdiction, no legitimacy, and no authority," Trump said of the global court.

"The ICC claims near-universal jurisdiction over the citizens of every country, violating all principles of justice, fairness, and due process. We will never surrender America's sovereignty to an unelected, unaccountable global bureaucracy."

Only 'our friends' will get aid

Trump said his administration is "taking a hard look" at the foreign aid it provides to other countries and international organizations, saying only "our friends" will be given financial support.

"Moving forward we are only going to give foreign aid to those who respect us and frankly our  our friends. And we expect other countries to pay their fair share for the cost of their defense."

Trump also vowed to change how the US funds the UN's various programs and where US dollars are spent. "Only when each of us does our part and contributes our share can we realize the UN's highest aspirations."

Trump praises Kim but says sanctions must stay

Trump praised North Korean leader Kim Jong-un for taking some steps to disarmament, but said sanctions must remain in place on the country until it give up nuclear weapons program.

"The missiles and rockets are no longer flying in every direction, nuclear testing has stopped, some military facilities are already being dismantled," Trump said.

"I would like to thank Chairman Kim for his courage and for the steps he has taken, though much work remains to be done," Trump said. "The sanctions will stay in place until denuclearization occurs."

In his first address to the UN General Assembly last year, Trump had threatened to "totally destroy" North Korea and mocked its leader as "Rocket Man" on a "suicide mission."

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UN raises concern over rising Afghan civilian casualties in US airstrikes

Iran Press TV

Tue Sep 25, 2018 02:41PM

The United Nations mission in Afghanistan has expressed concern about the increasing number of civilian casualties resulting from airstrikes conducted by US forces this year across the violence-wracked country.

The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, known as UNAMA, in a statement on Tuesday said it had received "multiple, credible allegations" that a strike hit the house of a teacher in the province of Kapisa on Saturday. Nine civilians, members of the same family including three women and four children, were killed.

"UNAMA reminds all parties to the conflict to uphold their obligations to protect civilians from harm," the statement read.

"The Mission repeats its earlier call for government forces to uphold their commitment to regular review of targeting protocols and ensure mitigation measures and compensation for victims."

Afghanistan's Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammad Radmanish confirmed the civilian casualties during a joint operation by Afghan and US forces that involved air support. He said an investigation was underway.

In a statement on Monday, the US military in Kabul said American helicopters supporting an Afghan army operation in Kapisa came under fire from a pro-government militia that had fired in error, and returned fire in self-defense, accidentally wounding six militia members. "We have no indication of non-combatant casualties," it said.

The number of airstrikes has spiked steeply to nearly 3,000 this year across Afghanistan, with the number of bombs dropped by the US Air Force almost doubling in the first six months.

The UN said 149 civilians were killed and 204 wounded in airstrikes in the year's first half, with women and children comprising more than half of the 353 casualties. Since the figures were reported in July, the world body said it had recorded increasing numbers of civilian casualties from airstrikes.

The UN figures show that the number of civilian deaths in Afghanistan's long-running conflict hit a record high of 1,692 fatalities in the first six months of 2018.

The reports underlined one of the problems facing General Scott Miller, the new US commander in Afghanistan who took up his post this month and must balance the need to pressure the Taliban militant group with the need to avoid civilian casualties.

Despite the presence of thousands of foreign boots on the ground, Afghanistan has been rocked by a surge in terrorist attacks, some of them carried out by the Daesh Takfiri terrorists mainly active in Nangarhar Province. The country has already been torn apart by decades of Taliban-led militancy and the 2001 invasion of the US and its allies.

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Venezuela's Maduro: Chile, Colombia, Mexico aided assassins

Iran Press TV

Tue Sep 25, 2018 06:19AM

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has accused the governments of Chile, Colombia, and Mexico of having been involved in a reported assassination attempt against him in the capital, Caracas, last month.

"Today, I can say we have convincing elements of the participation of Chilean, Colombian, and Mexican diplomats in the protection of these people who undertook a terrorist act," Maduro said on Monday.

An assassination attempt was reportedly conducted against Maduro in early August. Two drones laden with explosives, exploded nearby as the Venezuelan president was speaking at an outdoor military parade in Caracas.

In his Monday remarks, Maduro showed a video of a young Venezuelan being arrested. He said the man, identified as Henryberth Rivas, had been involved in the attack.

Rivas said in televised footage broadcast on Monday night that he had been instructed by a fellow plotter after the attack to seek refuge at the Chilean Embassy in Caracas, from where he was told he would be smuggled to the Mexican Embassy, then to the Colombian Embassy, and finally over the border to Colombia.

Rivas said the Chilean Embassy was closed at the time and the plan fell through.

"I arrived at the Chilean Embassy and it was closed," he said in the video, explaining that he was then ordered to go to the house of the fellow plotter, himself reportedly linked to the Chilean Embassy.

Venezuelan Information Minister Jorge Rodriguez said on the weekend that Caracas had concluded that the three countries had been involved in the attack.

"I'm asking myself if the ambassador of Chile is ready for a polygraph test," Rodriguez told a press conference on Monday. "Chile must explain who was that official who was supposed to help this criminal escape. Colombia and Mexico also have to explain who was supposed to facilitate the escape of [the suspect]."

Rodriguez explained that Rivas had been arrested the day after the attack.

"We are ready to present confessions made by the detainees to the foreign ministers of Colombia, Chile, and Mexico," the Venezuelan information minister further said, calling on the three countries to investigate any role of their diplomats in the reported assassination attempt.

Allegations denied

Shortly after the Venezuelan government claims, all the three countries accused denied the allegations.

Chile's Foreign Minister Roberto Ampuero denied what he called the "slanderous accusations," calling on Caracas "to act with responsibility and sanity and to withdraw its slanderous insinuations against our country."

The Chilean Foreign Ministry summoned the Venezuelan ambassador for the first time at the Chancellery headquarters, where he was delivered a note that "expresses in the most energetic way the Chilean government's rejection of threats made by the government of Nicolas Maduro."

Mexico's Foreign Ministry also rejected what it called the "unfounded accusations," saying it requested the presence of Venezuela's ambassador to Mexico to hand her a letter about the issue.

"Mexico's diplomats have at all times acted in accordance with international law and the Vienna Convention," the ministry said.

Maduro had also said previously that the attack had been plotted by elements in the United States. He urged President Donald Trump to collaborate on bringing those responsible for the attack to justice.

Venezuela, once Latin America's richest nation, has been battling with political and economic crises in the past couple of years.

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UN Raises Concern Over 'Rising' Civilian Casualties In Afghan Air Strikes

RFE/RL September 25, 2018

The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) has voiced concern over the "rising" number of civilian casualties as a result of air strikes by the international coalition or the Afghan Air Force.

UNAMA said on September 25 it had received "multiple, credible allegations" that a strike hit the house of a teacher in the eastern province of Kapisa last week, killing nine members of the same family.

Those killed in the September 22 strike included three women and four children, a statement said. Six others were wounded.

Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammad Radmanish confirmed civilian casualties during a joint operation by Afghan and U.S. forces that involved air support.

He did not give details about the incident, but said an investigation was under way.

The U.S. Army in Kabul said it was reviewing information regarding the Kapisa incident, reiterating that it did all it could to avoid casualties among civilians.

"It isn't uncommon for insurgents to use these accusations to drive a wedge between the military and the population. We will provide updates as they become available," it also said in a statement e-mailed to Reuters news agency.

Afghan security forces have struggled to counter attacks from the Taliban and other militant groups since the withdrawal of most NATO combat troops in 2014.

In its statement, UNAMA urged all parties to the conflict to "uphold their obligations to protect civilians from harm."

It also reiterated its previous call for "government forces to uphold their commitment to regular review of targeting protocols and ensure mitigation measures and compensation for victims."

The number of civilians killed or wounded in air attacks has jumped by 52 percent in the first six months of this year, according to UN data.

The world body said 149 civilians were killed and 204 wounded in air strikes during the period, with women and children comprising more than half the casualties.

With reporting by Reuters

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/un-raises-concern -over-rising-civilian-casualties-in-afghan- air-strikes/29509036.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.

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Azerbaijan Warns Armenians Over Karabakh Military Drills

RFE/RL September 25, 2018

Azerbaijan has called planned military exercises by Armenian-backed forces in its breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh this week a "provocation" aimed at increasing tensions.

The de facto authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh said their air force will conduct military exercises on September 25-28 with the aim of improving pilot skills.

The announcement sparked fury in Baku, where the Defense Ministry warned that "any enemy aircraft that would attempt to approach the foremost positions of the units of the Azerbaijan Army will be immediately neutralized."

"All responsibility for possible losses will entirely rest with the military and political leadership of Armenia," a statement said.

A spokesman for the separatists said they would retaliate "if we feel a threat or any aggressive behavior from Azerbaijan."

Azerbaijan and Armenia have been locked in a conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh for years.

The region, populated mainly by ethnic Armenians, declared independence from Azerbaijan amid a 1988-94 war that claimed an estimated 30,000 lives and displaced hundreds of thousands of people.

Internationally mediated negotiations with the involvement of the OSCE's so-called Minsk Group have failed to result in a resolution. The Minsk Group is co-chaired by France, Russia, and the United States.

Azerbaijan has accused Armenia's leadership of stoking tensions ahead of a planned meeting between the two countries' foreign ministers on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York on September 26.

"We cannot exclude that the latest steps of Armenia's new prime minister are aimed at turning the situation into a military confrontation," Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov said on September 25.

Speaking at a meeting with ethnic Armenian businessmen in Moscow, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said on September 9 that he saw Karabakh as "part of Armenia" in the future.

Baku later said that the statement could damage international efforts to resolve the decades-long dispute over the region.

With reporting by AFP and Interfax

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/azerbaijan-warns-armenians- over-karabakh-military-drills/29508986.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.

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Trump Urges 'All Nations To Isolate' Iran, Tehran Accuses U.S. Of 'Economic Terrorism'

RFE/RL September 25, 2018

U.S. President Donald Trump has called at the United Nations General Assembly for "all nations to isolate" the Iranian government for as long as its leadership continues policies of "aggression" in the Middle East and beyond.

But Iranian President Hassan Rohani responded to Trump's remarks by depicting the Trump administration as a violator of its international obligations and a bully that is pressuring other countries to follow Washington's lead and withdraw from Tehran's 2015 nuclear accord with world powers.

Trump on September 25 told the UN General Assembly: "Iran's leaders sell chaos, death, and destruction. They do not respect their neighbors or borders or the sovereign rights of nations. Instead, Iran's leaders plunder the nation's resources to enrich themselves and to spread mayhem across the Middle East and far beyond."

Trump told the General Assembly: "We cannot allow the world's leading sponsor of terrorism to possess the planet's most dangerous weapons. We cannot allow a regime that chants 'death to America,' and that threatens Israel with annihilation, to possess the means to deliver a nuclear warhead to any city on earth. Just can't do it. We ask all nations to isolate Iran's regime as long as its aggression continues, and we ask all nations to support Iran's people as they struggle to reclaim their religious and righteous destiny."

Hours later, Rohani responded by telling the General Assembly that Washington's withdrawal from the nuclear accord and its "unlawful unilateral sanctions" constituted a form of "economic terrorism."

"It is unfortunate that we are witnessing rulers in the world who think they can secure their interests better, or at least in the short-term ride public sentiments and gain popular support, through the fomenting of extremists, nationalism, and racism and through xenophobic tendencies resembling a Nazi disposition as well as through the trampling of global rules and undermining international institutions," Rohani said.

"Confronting multilateralism is not a sign of strength. Rather, it is a symptom of the weakness of intellect. It betrays an inability in understanding a complex and interconnected world," he said.

"The United Nations should not allow its decisions to fall victim to the domestic election and propaganda games of some of its members and should not allow any member states to dodge the execution of its international commitments."

Trump's criticism of Iran came in the midst of a speech that largely focused on his "America First" foreign policy, and Washington's refusal to "surrender America's sovereignty to an unelected and unaccountable global governance."

Shortly after Trump finished his speech, the presidents of two NATO countries -- Turkey and France -- implicitly criticized Trump's call to isolate Iran's government.

"None of us can remain silent to the arbitrary cancellation of commercial agreements, the spreading prevalence of protectionism, and the use of economic sanctions as weapons," Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told the General Assembly.

French President Emmanuel Macron told the General Assembly that "dialogue and multilateralism" was needed on Iran -- a thinly veiled response to Trump's push for tough, U.S.-led sanctions.

"What will bring a real solution to the situation in Iran and what has already stabilized it? The law of the strongest? Pressure from only one side? No!" Macron said.

"We know that Iran was on a nuclear military path but what stopped it? The 2015 Vienna accord," Macron said. "Today we should not aggravate regional tensions but rather through dialogue and multilateralism pursue a broader agenda that allows us to address all the concerns caused by Iranian policies -- nuclear, ballistic, regional."

Trump praised Poland for working to make itself independent from Russian energy supplies and said that "Germany will become totally dependent on Russian energy if it does not immediately change course" on the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which aims to deliver natural gas from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea.

Trump also said the International Criminal Court (ICC) lacked any legitimacy and violated "all principles of justice."

"As far as America is concerned, the ICC has no jurisdiction, no legitimacy, and no authority," Trump said. "The ICC claims near-universal jurisdiction over the citizens of every country, violating all principles of justice, fairness, and due process. We will never surrender America's sovereignty to an unelected, unaccountable global bureaucracy."

On Syria's war, Trump warned that "the United States will respond if chemical weapons are deployed" by President Bashar al-Assad's forces. He said the world's "shared goals" on Syria must be de-escalation of the conflict along with a political solution that is "based on the will of the Syrian people."

He also accused the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) "and OPEC nations" of "ripping off" the world by raising prices and said member states that receive military support from the United States will have to start sharing the cost of that defense.

Trump said that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was heading an initiative to reevaluate U.S. foreign assistance.

"We are only going to give foreign aid to those who respect us and, frankly, are our friends," Trump told the UN gathering.

U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley had said ahead of Trump's speech that he planned to address "the fact that we had to take on the Russian incident" in which former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok in the English city of Salisbury in March.

But Trump made no mention of the Novichok attack in his UN speech.

Trump praised North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for "encouraging measures" since the two met in Singapore in June for a summit, thanking Kim for "his courage and steps he has taken" toward reducing tensions on the Korean peninsula.

But he said "much work needs to be done" by North Korea and that U.S. sanctions "will remain in place until denuclearization occurs."

Guterres: 'Trust Deficit'

Trump's speech to the General Assembly came after UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres opened the weeklong event on September 25 by warning that the world was "suffering from a bad case of trust-deficit disorder."

"People are feeling troubled and insecure and trust is at a breaking point -- trust in national institutions, trust among states, trust in the rules-based world order," Guterres told the General Assembly.

"Within countries, people are losing faith in political establishments," Guterres said. "Polarization is on the rise and populism is on the march. Among countries, cooperation is less certain and more difficult and divisions in our Security Council are stark."

Urging world leaders to counteract unilateralism and rejuvenate international cooperation, Guterres sounded an alarm on issues ranging from global climate change, a growing potential for nuclear conflict, the need for all people to benefit from new technologies, and the necessity to safeguard against dangers ranging from "malicious acts in cyberspace to the weaponization of artificial intelligence."

"Today, world order is increasingly chaotic," Guterres warned. "Power relations are less clear and universal values are being eroded. Democratic principles are under siege and the rule of law is being undermined."

Guterres's grim depiction of the state of the world was the first of many speeches scheduled during the General Assembly session, which runs through October 1.

Hours before the session was set to begin, Trump tweeted that he had no plans to meet with Rohani on the sidelines of the gathering "despite requests" to do so.

Rohani said earlier that as a precondition for any dialogue, Trump must repair the damage done when he unilaterally withdrew the United States from Iran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

"That bridge must be rebuilt," Rohani told the U.S.-based NBC news ahead of his speech.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's speech on September 25 is expected to focus mainly on the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Syria's northwestern province of Idlib.

Erdogan also was expected to call on the international community to share responsibility for the refugee crisis and other challenges posed by conflicts in the region.

Also due to address the General Assembly on September 25 are Kyrgyz President Sooranbai Jeenbekov; Bakir Izetbegovic, the chairman of Bosnia-Herzegovina's tripartite presidency; and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian.

With reporting by Reuters, AP, AFP, and dpa

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/world-leaders -gather-for-73rd-un-general- assembly-session/29509016.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.

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Raids On Russia-Linked Island Properties Set Finland Abuzz

Mike Eckel September 25, 2018

In Finland, as in many countries, investigations of financial crimes tend to be heavy on forensic accounting, bookkeeping evidence, and paper trails, and light on heavy paramilitary weaponry.

So when Finnish authorities over the weekend declared a no-fly zone over an archipelago of islands in the country's southwest, and sent in hundreds of law enforcement agents, including heavily armed officers via amphibious landing craft, it didn't go unnoticed.

The September 22 raids on sites on the Finnish mainland and on islands near the crucial port city of Turku surprised many Finns, who struggled to recall something like this ever happening in peacetime.

It also turned the spotlight on foreigners owning land in Finland -- Russians, broadly, but in this case, a company with Russian ties that has attracted attention for buying up decommissioned Finnish naval vessels at auction, and for spending millions on properties along key shipping routes in the Turku archipelago.

The country's main investigative agency, the National Bureau of Investigations (KRP), said in a September 24 press release that seven people had been questioned, and that three had been detained in the operation. Of the three detained, one was released and arrest warrants had been issued for the remaining two, both of whom were employees of the company under investigation of money laundering and tax evasion.

One of those facing charges was described as an Estonian, and the other a Russian. News reports said a Finnish court on September 25 ordered both held in police custody, pending further investigation.

It will take months to examine the wealth of documents seized in the raids on 17 separate properties, according to the KRP. "Probably at least until the end of next spring," lead investigator Tomi Taskili was quoted as saying.

The reports of shadowy foreign ownership prompted outcry, including questions of possible breaches of national security. In turn, a number of Finnish lawmakers called for backing new legislation, to be voted on this fall, that would put restrictions on foreigners owning Finnish land and property. According to data compiled by Finnish academics, Russians are the largest single group of foreign property holders in Finland.

"This is an important piece of legislation," Tom Packalen, a lawmaker in the Finnish parliament and former police officer in Helsinki, wrote in a blog post.

"The next war, if that ever comes, will not cross the border but [target] strategically important sites in the interior. The war will be started by small groups of people already smuggled in. That is why we have to take care of the law as well asnational defense," he wrote.

Massive Operation

The raid began on September 22 with the announcement of the no-fly zone by the national police agency. The KRP said that 100 of its personnel, as well as 300 from other government organizations -- reportedly including the tax police, border guards, and national defense units -- participated in the operation.

It caught at least one local man, on the island of Sakkiluoto, off-guard.

"My morning wakeup was interesting. I looked down at the shore to see how my boat had survived the storm overnight when I saw two big [inflatable] rubber boats on the beach, each with 20 men in camouflage, holding guns," Leo Gastgivar, who owns a vacation home on the island, was quoted by Finnish public broadcaster YLE as saying.

Finnish media said that the raid, which involved boats, aircraft, and other vehicles, targeted a Finnish-registered company called Airiston Helmi that has ties to Russia. The company, which describes itself as a tourism and accommodation company, had reportedly acquired a number of plots of land located on islands along important shipping lanes that lead into the port of Turku, Finland's sixth-largest city, located about 180 kilometers west of Helsinki.

It also attracted scrutiny for its purchase of decommissioned Finnish naval ships, which reportedly were not repainted, fueling speculation that they might have been intentionally left to resemble Finnish military vessels.

'Bad Business Or Money Laundering'

The KRP did not name the company that was targeted. A police investigator, Markku Ranta Aho, said in a statement only that "the shareholder's owners come from another EU country."

The newspaper Helsingin Sanomat said Airiston Helmi was established in Finland in 2007. The paper said public records showed the company was small, and carried heavy amounts of debt, but had still been able to regularly buy and sell properties in southwestern Finland for millions of euros.

The paper said a national land database showed the company owned several islands and lots along main shipping route leading to Turku.

"There are no commercial grounds for acquiring land, but the roads are strategically important and their military significance is considerable," Packalen wrote in his blog post, published on September 24. "If Airiston Helmi is a truly commercial company, it's run by really bad business people or it's money laundering, which led police to lead a massive operation on the site."

Meanwhile, another newspaper, Ilta Sanomat, reported that Airiston's board was made up entirely of Russian citizens as of 2014. Two years later, an Italian and a Finnish citizen had joined the board, the paper reported.

"I suppose they could observe and evaluate the area traffic, but Finland has so little naval equipment that tracking it would be trivial," Arto Pulkki, a Finnish military expert, told the newspaper.

"They could just as easily do that from the deck of a yacht, without any spy equipment. Maritime intelligence would be useful preceding a military crisis, but once again, it would be more useful for them to have intelligence on islands that are not registered under a Russian name," he was quoted as saying.

Russian Angle

Russian media reported little about the raids. The state-controlled news agency RIA Novosti, citing the Russian Embassy in Helsinki, reported on September 24 that a Russian citizen had been detained as part of a money-laundering investigation, but gave no further details.

Robin Haggblom, a Finnish military observer who publishes a blog under the title Corporal Frisk, pointed out that Airiston Helmi had purchased two surplus Finnish naval vessels in 2010, though there was no indication the purchase was illegal.

In an e-mail to RFE/RL, Haggblom downplayed theories suggesting the Russia-linked company had been buying up real estate as part of a secret infiltration by the Russian military intelligence agency known as the GRU.

"Happy enthusiasts have already decided that Airiston Helmi is a GRU-run operation, complete with vessels for false-flag operations and barracks for spetsnaz units to stay in after infiltrating the country prior to war. It is a possibility, but I am unconvinced," he wrote.

However, he pointed to growing evidence from many experts that have documented Russian intelligence agencies working with shadowy private companies, and even criminal entities, to do operations outside of Russia.

The outcry over the raid was enough to prompt Finnish President Sauli Niinisto, in New York attending the United Nations General Assembly, to weigh in, telling Finnish reporters that there had been concerns about the company in question for some time.

Another Finnish newspaper, Iltalehti, quoted two unnamed generals from the Finnish armed forces as saying it was no run-of-the-mill criminal investigation, that Finnish authorities were hiding the true motivation behind the raids, mainly in order to not provoke the Russians.

"A criminal investigation is less of a provocation than a military operation," one of the officers was quoted as saying. "I believe this is clear to everyone."

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/raids-on-reportedly- russia-linked-island-properties-sets- finland-abuzz/29509255.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.

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Armenian Leader Pushes For Early Parliamentary Elections After Big Victory In Yerevan

RFE/RL's Armenian Service September 25, 2018

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian says that the nation should hold fresh parliamentary elections "very soon" in light of his bloc's landslide victory in the mayoral race in Yerevan.

Pashinian's call for new nationwide elections on September 24 came one day after official results showed his My Step ruling alliance garnered 81 percent of the vote in Yerevan, in a lopsided victory that propelled its top candidate, popular actor and producer Hayk Marutian, into the mayor's office.

Pashinian said the results in Yerevan, where more than 40 percent of the country's population lives, give him the mandate to push for the dissolution of the current Armenian parliament and to conduct snap general elections.

The weekend vote demonstrated that the current National Assembly, which is still largely dominated by loyalists of longtime leader Serzh Sarkisian, does not reflect the popular mood in the country, he said in his latest video address to the nation on Facebook.

"The political events showed that preterm elections must be held very soon because political uncertainties hamper new investments in our economy. I think that these elections also showed that in effect the existing parliament does not have a [popular] mandate to operate," Pashinian said, speaking from New York, where he plans to address a session of the UN General Assembly this week.

Pashinian said that when he returns to Yerevan, he will meet with representatives of major political forces to discuss time frames for the snap elections he is seeking.

A government policy program approved by lawmakers in June requires new elections to be held by June 2019.

Pashinian told members of the Armenian community he met with in New York on September 23 that new elections should be held "earlier" than June and "as soon as possible." But he mentioned no specific dates.

Under the Armenian Constitution, the parliament can be dissolved only if the prime minister resigns and lawmakers twice fail to choose his or her replacement. Sarkisian's Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) currently holds the largest number of seats in the legislature.

"We see no grounds, no need for fresh parliamentary elections," the HHK's parliamentary leader, Vahram Baghdasarian, told RFE/RL's Armenian Service on September 24. He said that the parliament needs to amend the Electoral Code first.

But Baghdasarian added that he is open to "any discussions" with Pashinian.

The Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK), the second largest parliamentary faction, also expressed readiness to engage in negotiations with Pashinian. The BHK holds five ministerial posts in Pashinian's government.

With reporting by AFP



Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/armenian-prime-minister-pashinian -pushes-early-parliamentary-elections-after- big-victory-yerevan-mayors-race/29508034.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.

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Beijing Denies US Navy Request for F-35 Carrier Port Call in Hong Kong

Sputnik News

22:28 25.09.2018

China denied a request from the US Navy's USS Wasp F-35 carrier to make a port call in Hong Kong amid trade tensions between the superpowers and Beijing's recent decision to recall an admiral from participating in the International Seapower Symposium in Rhode Island.

US ships have been turned away from docking at the former British colony twice in three years despite a history of "successful" port calls, American diplomatic sources told Reuters. "The Chinese government did not approve a request for a US port visit to Hong Kong by the USS Wasp."

"We have a long track record of successful port visits to Hong Kong, and we expect that to continue," the US official added. The USS Wasp is the first ship in the US Marine Corps to carry F-35B short-takeoff vertical landing (STOVL) jets. The vessel deployed to the Indo-Pacific theater in March, Sputnik reported.

"For requests for US military ships to visit Hong Kong, China has always carried out approvals case by case, in accordance with the principle of sovereignty and the detailed situation," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said Monday.

Meanwhile, US officials "were informed that Vice Admiral Shen Jinlong has been recalled to China and won't conduct a visit with Admiral [John] Richardson," Army Lt. Col. David Eastburn told the Wall Street Journal Tuesday.

China summoned US Ambassador Terry Branstad on Saturday to inform him that the People's Liberation Army-Navy would push back US-China military discussions in the wake of Washington's decision to sanction Chinese officials for buying Russian Su-35 aircraft and S-400 surface-to-air missile systems, Reuters reported.

Washington and Beijing have also traded jabs on trade. The White House announced tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods last week that took effect on Monday, while Beijing responded with tariffs on $60 billion worth of US goods that also took effect September 24.

Adding strain to the deteriorating ties, Beijing expressed "strong dissatisfaction" Tuesday regarding the US sale of $330 million worth of F-15 and C-130 aircraft parts to Taiwan, Asia Times reported. Chinese officials view the self-ruling territory as a runaway province.

"The bigger question is how this [sale] will affect the US-China relations," Yun Sun, co-director of the East Asia program at the Stimson Center, told Sputnik News Tuesday via email. "We are now faced with escalation of tension between the two, to the extent that some are calling it a new Cold War. The arms sales to Taiwan are both a catalyst and a manifestation of this contentious relationship between Beijing and Washington."

 Sputnik

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Poland Has Money for Permanent US Military Base  Prime Minister

Sputnik News

20:02 25.09.2018(updated 20:03 25.09.2018)

WARSAW (Sputnik) - Poland has enough money to fund permanent US military presence on its soil, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki confirmed Tuesday, after the Polish president offered to pay billions for a base.

"As for money, the answer is simple: yes. We do have money for a possible payment this year and in the years to come if there is an increase in US military presence," Morawiecki told reporters.

US President Donald Trump, during a meeting with his Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda last week, said the United States was considering Warsaw's request to set up a US base in Poland.

Trump said Duda had offered to pay more than $2 billion toward the cost of the facility. The Polish president also suggested naming it "Fort Trump." The base would be an addition to US troops stationed in the Eastern European country as part of NATO.

In mid-June, Russia's Permanent Representative to the EU Vladimir Chizhov said that the possible deployment of a US armored division to Poland would violate the 1997 Russia-NATO Founding Act.

In May, the Polish Defense Ministry published a document stating that Poland was ready to pay $1.5-$2 billion for the establishment of a US military base that would host a permanent armored division in the country.

 Sputnik

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Trump Threatens Syria, Slams Iran in UN General Assembly Address

Sputnik News

17:48 25.09.2018(updated 19:31 25.09.2018)

US President Donald Trump has wrapped up his address before the 73rd Session of the UN General Assembly in New York.

Syria and Iran

Emphasizing the need for a "reinvigoration" of the UN-led Syrian peace process and saying that "our shared goals [in Syria] must be the de-escalation of military conflict along with a political solution," Trump threatened a US military response if Damascus deployed chemical weapons.

"We urge the United Nations-led peace process be reinvigorated, but rest assured the United States will respond if chemical weapons are deployed by the Assad regime," he said.

Targeting Tehran over its assistance to Syria in its fight against terrorism, Trump said that "any solution to the humanitarian crisis in Syria must also include a strategy to address the corrupt dictatorship in Iran." This, he said, included working with other countries to reduce the purchases of oil from Iran. "We will ask all nations to isolate Iran's regime as long as its aggression continues," Trump noted.

Recalling his decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal earlier this year, Trump noted that the US has launched a campaign of economic pressure to deny Iran the resources for its regional behavior in Syria and Yemen, and promised further sanctions after energy-related restrictions are introduced in November.

Daesh's Defeat

Praising cooperation between the US and its Gulf allies, Trump said this cooperation, together with the efforts of the US military, contributed to Daesh's* military defeat. "Thanks to the United States military, and our partnership with many of your nations, I'm pleased to report that the bloodthirsty killers known as ISIS have been driven" from Iraq and Syria, Trump said.

"We will continue to work with friends and allies to deny radical Islamic terrorists any funding, territorial support," Trump said.

Washington reneged

on President Trump's earlier promises to withdraw from Syria following Daesh's defeat. On Monday, Secretary of Defense James Mattis said that US forces would remain the country to train locals to "prevent the return of [Daesh] while at the same time diplomatically supportingthe Geneva process."

Trade and China

Trump accused countries of "abusing" the openness of the US market, charging some with "relentless product dumping, forced technology transfer, and the theft of intellectual property."

In a direct attack on China, Trump pointed to the loss of 3 million US manufacturing jobs to what he referred to as China's "market distortions." "Those days are over. We will no longer tolerate such abuse," he said.

Noting that the world trade system is in "dire need of change," Trump suggested that part of the problem stems from the World Trade Organization's lax standards. "For example, countries were admitted to the [WTO] that violate every single principle on which the organization is based," he said.

Washington slapped China with 10 percent tariffs on $200 billion-worth of Chinese exports on Monday amid the escalating trade conflict between the two countries.

OPEC and Energy

Complaining about rising global oil prices, Trump accused OPEC nations of "ripping off the nations of the world. I don't like it, and nobody should like it," he said.

The president also accused Germany of allowing itself to become reliant on Russian energy supplies with the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. "Germany will become totally dependent on Russian energy if it does not immediately change course," he said.

"The United States stands ready to export our abundant, affordable supply of oil, clean coal, and natural gas," Trump added, reiterating his commitment to increasing US energy exports.

Foreign Aid and US Sovereignty

Trump said that his administration is taking a "hard look" at US foreign aid to ensure that the US provides aid only to those who "respect" the US and are America's friends. The US, he noted, is the world's largest donor, "but few [countries] give anything to us."

He also said that the US would assert its sovereignty and reject "global governance, control and domination." Telling the assembly that the US would not "tell other nations how to live," Trump noted that the US expects other countries to "honor America's sovereignty in return."

In this vein, Trump said the US would "provide no support and recognition to the International Criminal Court. As far as America is concerned the ICC has no jurisdiction, no legitimacy and no authority," he noted. The Trump administration threatened to slap the court with sanctions earlier this month after the ICC said it was considering an investigation of suspected war crimes by US military personnel in Afghanistan.

Global Compact for Migration

Trump told the General Assembly that the US would not participate in the Global Compact for Migration initiative. "We recognize the right of every nation in this room to set its own immigration policy in accordance with its national interests, just as we ask other countries to respect our right to do the same, which we are doing. That is one reason the United States will not participate in the new Global Compact on Migration," he said.

North Korea: No Sanctions Relief

Praising what he called a "bold and new push for peace" in the Korean Peninsula and saying he appreciates the personal efforts by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in this direction, Trump noted that the "sanctions will stay in place until denuclearization occurs."

The remarks are a far cry from Trump's inaugural General Assembly address in 2017, during which he threatened to "totally destroy" North Korea and mocked Kim with the epithet "Rocket Man."

Venezuela: New Sanctions

Trump attacked the Venezuelan government of Nicolas Maduro, suggesting that Caracas' policies have led the oil-rich country to the brink of ruin and announced that the US has introduced new sanctions against Venezuelan officials.

Boast of "Extraordinary Progress"

"Today I stand before the United Nations General Assembly to share the extraordinary progress we've made. In less than two years, my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country," US President Trump said, with this boast prompting laughter from the audience. "Didn't expect that reaction, but that's okay," Trump said before continuing.

Ahead of his address, Trump tweeted that the US was "much stronger and much richer than it was when I took office less than two years ago."

*A terrorist group outlawed in Russia and many other countries.

 Sputnik

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Beijing Slams UK for S China Sea 'Provocation', Urges London Not to 'Take Sides'

Sputnik News

15:58 25.09.2018(updated 16:09 25.09.2018)

The Chinese government is keeping the pressure on Britain after a Royal Navy amphibious transport dock carrying landing craft and helicopters passed through the disputed Paracel Islands on its way to Vietnam earlier this month.

Beijing "hopes that Britain will truly implement its position of not taking sides in the South China Sea issue, earnestly respect China's sovereignty and territorial integrity and not do anything to disturb the mutual trust between the two countries," Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said, in a statement released by China's Foreign Ministry on Tuesday.

According to the Ministry, Wang met with British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt on Monday on the sidelines of the ongoing United Nations General Assembly, expressing Beijing's "stern position" on the sea zone and what it called the UK Navy's "provocation."

The HMS Albion amphibious assault ship passed through Chinese-claimed areas in the South China Sea in early September on its way to Ho Chi Minh City in southern Vietnam.

In Tuesday's statement, the Foreign Ministry reiterated its warning that the Royal Navy's decision to sail the ship through its waters was a risk to bilateral ties. Britain had been looking to restore a "golden era" of relations with the Asian country and clinch a much-needed free trade agreement with Beijing following its withdrawal from the European Union in early 2019.

Last week, China's Ambassador to the UK Liu Xiaoming accused "some big countries outside the region" of coming "all the way to the South China Sea to create trouble."

Beijing has repeatedly spoken of the need to resolve the territorial dispute in the South China Sea through regional governments, and pointed to the promising prospects of efforts to resolve the dispute between itself and members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Earlier this year, the countries agreed on the need to encourage a "full and in-depth exchange of views" on the creation of a 'Declaration of Conduct' in the South China Sea aimed at easing tensions.

In addition to China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Taiwan each have claims to parts of the South China Sea, a body of water which serves as a crucial trade artery accounting for as much as $3.4 trillion in shipping each year. The waterway has been a source of tensions amid competing claims in the region. These tensions have escalated in recent years amid so-called 'freedom of navigation' voyages by US, British and French warships in the area, as well as the creation of fortifications and aircraft landing strips by China and other nations in an effort to mark their claims.

 Sputnik

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The United States Imposes Sanctions on Venezuelan Individuals and Entities

Media Note

Office of the Spokesperson

Washington, DC

September 25, 2018

Today, the United States imposed sanctions on four current or former officials of the Government of Venezuela: First Lady and Former Attorney General Cilia Adela Flores de Maduro, Executive Vice President Delcy Eloina Rodriguez Gomez, Minister of Communication and Information Jorge Jesus Rodriguez Gomez, and Minister of Defense Vladimir Padrino Lopez.

In addition, the United States has designated additional individuals and entities that are part of a network supporting Rafael Alfredo Sarria Diaz, a key front person for sanctioned Venezuelan President of the illegitimate Constituent Assembly, Diosdado Cabello Rondon. The United States designated both Sarria Diaz and Cabello on May 18. The individuals sanctioned today that form part of the network associated with Rafael Alfredo Sarria Diaz are: Jose Omar Paredes and Edgar Alberto Sarria Diaz. The entities sanctioned for being owned or controlled by, or have acted or purported to act for or on behalf of Sarria Diaz are: Quiana Trading Limited and AVERUCA, C.A. In addition, the United States has sanctioned Panazeate SL for being owned or controlled by, or have acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, Edgar Alberto Sarria Diaz.

As a result of today's action, all property and interests in property of these individuals and entities that are in the United States or in the possession or control of U.S. persons must be blocked and reported to Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). OFAC's regulations generally prohibit all dealings by U.S. persons or within (or transiting) the United States that involve any property or interests in property of designated persons.

U.S. sanctions need not be permanent; they are intended to change behavior. The United States would consider lifting sanctions for persons sanctioned under E.O. 13692 that take concrete and meaningful actions to restore democratic order, refuse to take part in human rights abuses and speak out against abuses committed by the government, and combat corruption in Venezuela.

Today's action shows that the United States will continue to take concrete and forceful action against those who are involved in the destruction of democracy in Venezuela as well as those who are enriching themselves at the expense of the Venezuelan people. The United States will continue to use the full weight of American economic and diplomatic power to help create the conditions for the restoration of democracy for the Venezuelan people.

For further information, please see the Department of Treasury's press release available here.

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United States Continues To Assist Venezuelans in Need

Media Note

Office of the Spokesperson

Washington, DC

September 25, 2018

Vice President Mike Pence announced today at the 73rd regular session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, NY, more than $48 million in additional humanitarian U.S. assistance for Venezuelans affected by the man-made crisis in Venezuela.

This funding will help provide affected Venezuelans with emergency food assistance, safe drinking water, hygiene supplies, shelter, protection from violence and exploitation, and work and education opportunities, in coordination with other NGOs and government partners. This funding includes contributions to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to meet the humanitarian needs of vulnerable Venezuelans throughout the region. This funding also supports the UN World Food Program's emergency response efforts to help feed Venezuelans in Colombia as well as those who have recently arrived in Ecuador. It also supports non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that are delivering humanitarian aid to Venezuelans and hosting communities in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and other countries throughout the region.

This additional $48 million brings total U.S. humanitarian assistance for vulnerable Venezuelans and for the neighboring communities hosting those who have fled to more than $95 million since the beginning of Fiscal Year 2017. This $95 million total in humanitarian assistance is complemented by $23.5 million in economic support and development assistance dedicated to Colombia to help boost its capacity to absorb incoming Venezuelans.

The United States remains concerned about the struggle Venezuelan citizens face every day to meet their families' basic needs amid the chaos and repression unleashed by the Maduro regime, and urges increased support for the well-being of the Venezuelan people and the restoration of their democracy. Further, the United States calls on the Maduro regime to immediately allow international aid, including food and medicine, to reach Venezuela at a sufficient scale to meet growing humanitarian needs.

The United States greatly appreciates the generosity and compassion of countries throughout the hemisphere who are hosting hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans fleeing the crisis in their country. The United States commends the humanitarian contributions made by all donors, and encourages them to make additional funding available to meet the growing crisis.

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US President Trump rejects globalism in speech to UN General Assembly's annual debate

25 September 2018 - Taking the podium of the United Nations General Assembly, the world Organization that embodies greater global cooperation, United States President Donald Trump told scores of Heads of State and Government on Tuesday that his country rejects the ideology of globalism, both generally and in relation to international justice and the migration crisis.

"America is governed by Americans," he said on the opening day of the Assembly's annual General Debate. "We reject the ideology of globalism, and we embrace the doctrine of patriotism. Around the world, responsible nations must defend against threats to sovereignty not just from global governance, but also from other, new forms of coercion and domination."

At the same time, he reiterated the US commitment to making the UN more effective and accountable. "I have said many times that the United Nations has unlimited potential," he declared.

"America is governed by Americans," he said on the opening day of the Assembly's annual General Debate. "We reject the ideology of globalism, and we embrace the doctrine of patriotism. Around the world, responsible nations must defend against threats to sovereignty not just from global governance, but also from other, new forms of coercion and domination."

At the same time, he reiterated the US commitment to making the UN more effective and accountable. "I have said many times that the United Nations has unlimited potential," he declared.

US-UN relations

But Mr. Trump reiterated his past criticism of the world organization, hitting out at the UN-backed International Criminal Court (ICC) and the recently-proposed Global Compact on Migration, while stressing that the US will not pay more than 25 percent of the UN. peacekeeping budget, to encourage other countries to step up and share in the burden.

"And we are working to shift more of our funding from assessed contributions to voluntary so that we can target American resources to the programs with the best record of success," he said. "Only when each of us does our part and contributes our share can we realize the UN's highest aspirations."

He added that despite his warning to the Assembly last year that "the UN Human Rights Council had become a grave embarrassment to this institution, shielding egregious human rights abusers while bashing America and its many friends... no action at all was taken."

"So the United States took the only responsible course: We withdrew from the Human Rights Council, and we will not return until real reform is enacted."

International Criminal Court has 'no legitimacy'

"As far as America is concerned, the ICC has no jurisdiction, no legitimacy, and no authority," he declared. "The ICC claims near-universal jurisdiction over the citizens of every country, violating all principles of justice, fairness, and due process. We will never surrender America's sovereignty to an unelected, unaccountable, global bureaucracy."

Likewise, he said the US will not participate in the new Global Compact on Migration, scheduled to be adopted in Morocco this December.

"Migration should not be governed by an international body unaccountable to our own citizens," he stressed.

Turning to trade issues, in which Mr. Trump has recently imposed tariffs of steel and aluminium imports $200 billion of imports from China, Mr. Trump said the US had opened its economy with few conditions, allowing foreign goods from all over the world to flow in freely across our borders, while other countries did not grant fair and reciprocal access.

"The United States will not be taken advantage of any longer," he added. "Some countries abused their openness to dump their products, subsidize their goods, target our industries, and manipulate their currencies to gain unfair advantage over our country. As a result, our trade deficit ballooned to nearly $800 billion a year. For this reason, we are systematically renegotiating broken and bad trade deals."

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Pursue comprehensive, just solutions instead of managing crises, Qatari Amir tells world leaders at UN Assembly

25 September 2018 - The international community needs to go beyond "managing crises" and instead pursue comprehensive and just solutions, guided by international law and norms, if it is to achieve global security and stability, the leader of Qatar said at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday.

Highlighting in particular the threats posed by terrorism, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, the Amir of the State of Qatar, affirmed his country's "firm position" rejecting all forms and shapes of terrorism anywhere in the world, regardless of the reasons and pretexts.

"International cooperation [is a prerequisite] in combating violence resulting from extremism and violence directed against civilians to terrorize them and to damage civilian facilities for political ends," he said.

In that context, educating youth and ensuring their comprehensive participation can boost collective security as well as support peace and stability efforts, added the Amir.

In his remarks, the leader of Qatar spoke of deteriorating situation in the Palestinian territories, particularly in the Gaza Strip, and the continued construction in the occupied Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Underscoring the importance of the two-state solution, he said that the solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict requires a just and lasting solution to the Palestinian cause.

The Amir also drew attention to persisting conflicts in the Middle East region  Syria and Yemen  and reiterated the need on all parties to respect and abide by their obligations under International Humanitarian Law to protect civilians.

He also spoke of humanitarian support provided by Qatar to those in need of assistance.

In conclusion, the leader of Qatar also highlighted his country's efforts to promote human development and protect human rights, including its accession to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, earlier this month.

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'Old forms of intolerance are being rekindled,' unilateralism re-emerging, Brazil warns at UN Assembly

25 September 2018 - The first Head of State to address the seventy-third general debate of the United Nations General Assembly, Michel Temer, President of Brazil, denounced the rising tide of isolationism, intolerance and unilateralism that was challenging international order.

"We live in times clouded by isolationist forces. Old intolerances are re-emerging. Unilateral relapses are less and less the exception.But these challenges should not  cannot  intimidate us," the President said.

Saying that collective order "has served the greater causes of humanity," Mr. Temer noted that "imperfect as it may be," we must defend its integrity.

He emphasized that isolationism be responded to with "more openness, more integration," saying that common development depends on international flows of trade and investment; and new ideas and technologies.

By opening to others "we will build an effectively shared prosperity," he stated.

The said that deepened integration mechanisms between Brazil and Mercosur have yielded "concrete resultswith a direct impact on the day to day."

Saying that Brazil is pursuing a universalist foreign policy, he underscored," It is with openness and integration that we achieve harmony, growth, progress."

He said that his country responds to intolerance "with dialogue and solidarity."

Acknowledging that violations of international norms persist in the most diverse quarters, he asserted that Brazil has been working to preserve democracy and human rights in Latin America.

He highlighted that Brazil has received tens of thousands of Venezuelans who have left their country "in search of dignified living conditions," and, with the collaboration of the Office of the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), has built shelters to support them.

"We issue documents that enable them to work in the country. We offer school for children, vaccination and health services for all. But we know that the solution to the crisis will only come when Venezuela rediscovers the path of development," the President detailed.

When confronted by unilateralism, Mr. Temer said that Brazil responds, "with more diplomacy, more multilateralism" because "collective problems demand collectively articulated responses."

Calling the UN "the home of understanding," he urged everyone to strengthen the Organization and to make it more "legitimate and effective," including by reforming the Security Council to reflects the current world.

"We need to reinvigorate the values of diplomacy and multilateralism," Mr. Temer said, noting that he was the first head of State to sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

He also enumerated Brazil's actions in support of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement  "real milestones" that "put us on the path of economic growth with social justice and respect for the environment."

He reassured the Assembly that Brazil will remain "a firm ally of cooperation among nations."

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Trump Calls on World Leaders to 'Isolate' Iran

By Steve Herman September 25, 2018

U.S. President Donald Trump has called on world leaders gathered at the U.N. General Assembly to "isolate Iran's regime as long as its aggression continues," accusing Iranian leaders of sowing "chaos, death and destruction."

"They do not respect their neighbors or their borders or the sovereign rights of nations. Instead, Iran's leaders plunder the nation's resources to enrich themselves and to spread mayhem across the Middle East and far beyond," Trump said a speech to the General Assembly Tuesday.

Trump maintained that the Obama-era 2015 nuclear deal to end Iran's nuclear weapons program, which he withdrew from, was a "windfall for Iran's leaders" and boosted its military budget by nearly 40-percent to "finance terrorism and fund havoc and slaughter in Syria and Yemen."

The president said his administration started last month "reimposing hard-hitting nuclear sanctions that have been lifted under the Iran deal" and that more sanctions would be imposed on November 5 and beyond.

"We cannot allow the world's leading sponsor of terrorism to possess the planet's most dangerous weapons. We cannot allow a regime that chants death to America and that threatens Israel with annihilation," Trump said.

Later, speaking to reporters while he sat alongside Colombian President Ivan Duque, Trump said: "I hope we can have the same trajectory" with Iran as the U.S. has had with North Korea.

"It was me who said no, not them," on meeting with Iranian officials during the U.N. meeting. Trump added said such talks cannot occur until Tehran changes its behavior.

"Otherwise they're going to be in the worst trouble of any country anywhere in the world," said the U.S. president.

His national security advisor, John Bolton, issued an even tougher warning to Tehran in a New York speech Tuesday to U.S. advocacy group United Against a Nuclear Iran.

"If you cross us, our allies or our partners, if you harm our citizens, if you continue to lie, cheat and deceive  yes, there will indeed be hell to pay," he said.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani told the assembly that no country can be brought to the negotiating table by force. Rouhani also questioned how Iran can enter into an agreement with the U.S., which he said violates the policies of his predecessor, Barack Obama. In addition, Rouhani accused the Trump administration of trying to render all global institutions ineffectual.

Earlier Tuesday, Trump said on Twitter he rejected multiple requests to meet with Rouhani, an assertion Rouhani firmly denied.

"Not this year, nor last year," he said in a CNN interview. "We have never made such as request for a meeting with the President of the United States."

Earlier this year, Trump announced the U.S. was withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal. In November, companies doing business with Iran will have to stop or risk being shut out of the U.S. financial system. Washington wants to pressure Tehran back to the negotiating table for a new, broader deal.

Experts have warned Trump's approach toward Iran may find the U.S. somewhat isolated at the U.N. General Assembly.

"The problem for the Trump administration is that many of the U.S.'s allies, including the powers which are signatories to the Iran nuclear deal, they will not join such condemnation," noted the Middle East Institute's Ahmad Majidyar. "While these countries share Washington's concerns about Iran's controversial ballistic missile program or support for some terrorist and militant groups in the region, they strongly support the nuclear deal and they do not back Washington's unilateral exit."

North Korea

Trump also touted his relationship with North Korea, saying it has helped ease tensions on the Korean peninsula.

"The missiles and rockets are no longer flying in every direction, nuclear testing has stopped, some military facilities are already being dismantled," Trump said.

Trump added that "much work remains to be done" with North Korea and said "The sanctions will stay in place until denuclearization occurs."

His comments about North Korea were in sharp contrast from those he delivered at the assembly last year, when he threatened to "totally destroy" the country and ridiculed North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as "Rocket Man" who was on a "suicide mission."

The two leaders met in Singapore in June and the White House is working on scheduling a second summit. Despite Trump's praise of Pyongyang, the Trump administration has said Pyongyang is stalling in meeting the goals set in Singapore.

South Korea's president personally relayed a message on Monday to Trump, telling him that North Korea's leader wants to meet him again soon to make progress on denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

"You are indeed the only person who can solve this problem," Moon Jae-in, who met Kim Jong Un last week in Pyongyang, told Trump.

The U.S. president responded that he would be "having a second summit with Chairman Kim in the not-to-distant future" and the location remains to be determined but likely would not be Singapore, where he first met the North Korean leader on June 12.

"The relationship is very good  in fact in some ways it is extraordinary," added Trump.

In addition to criticizing Iran, Trump also denounced China for what he maintains are the country's unfair trade practices. The president did not mention Russia's meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election or its interference in Syria.

Multilateralism in peril?

In the year since he made his U.N. debut, Trump has cut funding to the world organization, withdrawn from the Paris Climate Agreement and the Iran nuclear deal, and quit U.N. bodies, including the Human Rights Council. He has also had difficult outings at gatherings of G-7 leaders and NATO.

"I think that a lot of leaders are going to be pretty cautious with President Trump," said Richard Gowan, senior fellow at the U.N. University Center for Policy Research. "The Europeans have been quite burned at a number of recent summits."

Without naming names, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres recently told reporters that "multilateralism is under attack from many different directions precisely when we need it most." He said he would use his meetings to press for a renewed commitment to a "rules-based global order and to the United Nations."

VOA U.N. correspondent Margaret Besheer and Wayne Lee contributed to this report.

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UN Probe Indicates Airstrikes Killed 21 Afghan Civilians

By Ayaz Gul September 25, 2018

The United Nations announced Tuesday its initial findings have indicated recent airstrikes by pro-government forces in Afghanistan killed at least 21 civilians, almost all of them women and children.

The latest Afghan civilian casualties occurred in Kapisa and Maidan Wardak provinces on Saturday and Sunday, respectively, where Afghan forces, together with coalition partners, were conducting counter-Taliban operations, local officials said.

The U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), while sharing initial details of its ongoing investigations into both the incidents, noted its strong concern with the rising number of civilian deaths and injuries from airstrikes this year.

The "aerial ordnance" destroyed a house in Jaghato district, Madan Wardak, late Sunday and killed 12 civilians, UNAMA said.

"All of the victims were women and children from the same family.  Ten of those killed were children whose ages ranged from 6 to 15. Eight were girls," the mission noted.

Afghan officials said the raid targeted a Taliban-run prison and rescued eight people, mostly members of the Special Forces. They added the operation killed more than 40 insurgents.

In the second incident in Kapisa, air operations destroyed the home of a teacher in Tagab district and killed nine civilians, including four children and three women, UNAMA said, citing multiple "credible" reports.

"All the victims from the attack were from the same family, including grandparents and children aged between 2 and 12. Five of the six other family members who were injured when their home was destroyed were women and young children," the mission said, adding it is still in the process of establishing facts.

A statement by the U.S. military Monday confirmed an airstrike in Kapisa, which wounded six members of local pro-government militias. However, it denied the attack caused "casualties of noncombatants."

UNAMA noted that it continues to work to verify whether Afghan or international military forces were responsible for the civilian casualties from recent strikes.

The U.N. mission reminded all parties to the conflict to uphold their obligations to protect civilians from harm, and called for ensuring independent and "effective" investigations into these incidents.

UNAMA has documented a 52 percent increase in civilian casualties from air operations by Afghan forces and their foreign partners in the first six months of 2018, with women and children accounting for more than half of the casualties.

The mission warned Tuesday that since the release of UNAMA's midyear report on civilian casualties, it has continued to record increasing numbers of civilian casualties caused by airstrikes.

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US General: Suspended Drill on Korean Peninsula Caused Military 'Degradation'

By Carla Babb September 25, 2018

The U.S. general nominated to be the next commander of American forces in South Korea said the suspension of a major joint military exercise between the United States and South Korea has caused "degradation" to military readiness on the peninsula.

After an unprecedented summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un earlier this year, U.S. President Donald Trump announced Washington and Seoul would not conduct their annual Ulchi-Freedom Guardian exercise, one of the largest military exercises in the world.

"That's a key exercise to maintain continuity and to continue to practice our interoperability, and so there was a slight degradation," Army Gen. Robert Abrams said Tuesday at his Senate confirmation hearing.

The general added, however, that he felt the cancellation was a "prudent risk" for the effort to "change the relationship" with North Korea.

When asked by Democratic Senator Gary Peters how many large-scale exercises could be skipped before a "significant decline in readiness," Abrams said it was "hard to judge."

"If confirmed, this will be one of my top priorities when I get on the ground on the pen[insula] to do my own personal assessment," Abrams said.

In the meantime, he said he was confident with the current U.S. Forces Korea commander's mitigation plan to sustain readiness until major exercises resume, which included U.S. and Korean participation in exercises that are smaller in scale, scope and volume.

Abrams said the U.S. military was "proceeding with planning" a large-scale exercise scheduled about six months from now on the Korean peninsula, but he cautioned execution of the exercise would be a "decision by our alliance leaders."

The U.S. conducts two major joint exercises with South Korea each year.

The first large-scale exercise, Foal Eagle, was pushed back this year so it wouldn't clash with the Winter Olympics.

Ulchi-Freedom Guardian, which had been scheduled for August before it was canceled, typically includes almost two weeks of drills for about 17,500 U.S. troops and 50,000 South Korean troops.

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has said the decision to cancel some exercises with South Korea was made in order "to provide space for our diplomats to negotiate the verifiable, irreversible and complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula."

Asked Monday whether North Korea disarmament was possible, Mattis told reporters, "It's going to be a long road, hard road, but I'm still thinking we're on the right track."

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Zambia's Sovereignty Concerns Put China in Crosshairs

By Salem Solomon September 25, 2018

In early September, James Lukuku staged a one-person protest in Zambia's capital, Lusaka, against his country's relationship with China.

Lukuku brandished a homemade sign that read: "China EQUALS Hitler." Scrawled on his T-shirt was a plea to U.S. President Donald Trump for help.

"I want every Zambian to rise and stop the influence of China," said Lukuku, who heads the opposition Republican Progressive Party. The ruling party, he added, was "selling this nation to the Chinese."

Though it was a one-man protest, Lukuku is not the only person ringing alarm bells about Zambia's relationship with China. Several opposition and civil society groups have warned that Zambia's debt payments are unsustainable, and that China could take over businesses and public assets.

Yet despite strong rhetoric, it's unclear exactly how indebted Zambia has become, or whether China has seized ownership of any Zambian interests.

And even as its relationship with China comes under increasing scrutiny, it is Zambia's ties with other players that appear to be fraying.

Withholding assistance

The International Monetary Fund, a major creditor throughout Africa, has decided to withhold $1.3 billion in financing to Zambia, while it waits for assurances the country has a solid plan to deal with its debt.

"There are currently no discussions on a possible fund-supported program given the authorities' borrowing plans compromise the country's debt sustainability and undermine its macroeconomic stability," Dhaneshwar Ghura, the IMF's chief of mission in Zambia, told VOA by phone.

"When a country gets into a situation of debt distress, the role of the IMF is to help resolve the problem," Ghura said.

That includes facilitating dialogue with creditors, he added.

But Zambia's officials must be willing to talk openly, and others have expressed concern with the country's lack of transparency and apparent corruption.

Last week, the BBC reported that the U.K. had decided to suspend aid assistance to Zambia after the Zambian government said $4.3 million in British aid money had gone missing.

Growing loans, faltering economy

Other African countries have much deeper ties to China and have prompted similar concerns over opaque deals. But Zambia's borrowing has coincided with a sharp decline in its economy, driven in large measure by falling prices for copper, the country's main export.

From 2000 to 2016, Lusaka accumulated about $6.37 billion in Chinese loans, according to data compiled by the China-Africa Research Institute (CARI) at Johns Hopkins University. Most loans have gone to transport, power and government projects, CARI found, and Zambia accumulated almost all of its debt since 2010.

A nation with a thriving economy might be able to handle the debt. But after years of growth that led to a record-high GDP of $28 billion in 2013, Zambia's economy contracted to $19.55 billion just three years later.

Amos Chanda, spokesperson for President Edgar Lungu, told VOA this month that Zambia has economic problems but is far from a debt crisis.

He also denied reports that Chinese companies were taking over public assets.

"There is no single Chinese company taking over," he said.

Zambia secured a $30 million interest-free loan and a $30 million grant at the recent Forum for China-Africa Cooperation in Beijing, Chanda added.

'Elements of risk'

Economic woes and frustration with a government that appears to be struggling to manage its debts may have soured public perceptions of China's role in Zambia.

But China itself has contributed to a problematic lack of transparency, Scott Morris, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development and the director of the U.S. Development Policy Initiative, told VOA.

"There are still elements of risk that really go back to the failure of China to sign up to and be governed by a set of rules around sustainable financing," Morris said.

"What do you do when a country is in debt stress? What rules do you follow?"

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Remarks by President Trump to the 73rd Session of the United Nations General Assembly | New York, NY

September 25, 2018

United Nations Headquarters

New York, New York

10:38 A.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: Madam President, Mr. Secretary-General, world leaders, ambassadors, and distinguished delegates:

One year ago, I stood before you for the first time in this grand hall. I addressed the threats facing our world, and I presented a vision to achieve a brighter future for all of humanity.

Today, I stand before the United Nations General Assembly to share the extraordinary progress we've made.

In less than two years, my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country.

America's  so true. (Laughter.) Didn't expect that reaction, but that's okay. (Laughter and applause.)

America's economy is booming like never before. Since my election, we've added $10 trillion in wealth. The stock market is at an all-time high in history, and jobless claims are at a 50-year low. African American, Hispanic American, and Asian American unemployment have all achieved their lowest levels ever recorded. We've added more than 4 million new jobs, including half a million manufacturing jobs.

We have passed the biggest tax cuts and reforms in American history. We've started the construction of a major border wall, and we have greatly strengthened border security.

We have secured record funding for our military  $700 billion this year, and $716 billion next year. Our military will soon be more powerful than it has ever been before.

In other words, the United States is stronger, safer, and a richer country than it was when I assumed office less than two years ago.

We are standing up for America and for the American people. And we are also standing up for the world.

This is great news for our citizens and for peace-loving people everywhere. We believe that when nations respect the rights of their neighbors, and defend the interests of their people, they can better work together to secure the blessings of safety, prosperity, and peace.

Each of us here today is the emissary of a distinct culture, a rich history, and a people bound together by ties of memory, tradition, and the values that make our homelands like nowhere else on Earth.

That is why America will always choose independence and cooperation over global governance, control, and domination.

I honor the right of every nation in this room to pursue its own customs, beliefs, and traditions. The United States will not tell you how to live or work or worship.

We only ask that you honor our sovereignty in return.

From Warsaw to Brussels, to Tokyo to Singapore, it has been my highest honor to represent the United States abroad. I have forged close relationships and friendships and strong partnerships with the leaders of many nations in this room, and our approach has already yielded incredible change.

With support from many countries here today, we have engaged with North Korea to replace the specter of conflict with a bold and new push for peace.

In June, I traveled to Singapore to meet face to face with North Korea's leader, Chairman Kim Jong Un.

We had highly productive conversations and meetings, and we agreed that it was in both countries' interest to pursue the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Since that meeting, we have already seen a number of encouraging measures that few could have imagined only a short time ago.

The missiles and rockets are no longer flying in every direction. Nuclear testing has stopped. Some military facilities are already being dismantled. Our hostages have been released. And as promised, the remains of our fallen heroes are being returned home to lay at rest in American soil.

I would like to thank Chairman Kim for his courage and for the steps he has taken, though much work remains to be done. The sanctions will stay in place until denuclearization occurs.

I also want to thank the many member states who helped us reach this moment  a moment that is actually far greater than people would understand; far greater  but for also their support and the critical support that we will all need going forward.

A special thanks to President Moon of South Korea, Prime Minister Abe of Japan, and President Xi of China.

In the Middle East, our new approach is also yielding great strides and very historic change.

Following my trip to Saudi Arabia last year, the Gulf countries opened a new center to target terrorist financing. They are enforcing new sanctions, working with us to identify and track terrorist networks, and taking more responsibility for fighting terrorism and extremism in their own region.

The UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar have pledged billions of dollars to aid the people of Syria and Yemen. And they are pursuing multiple avenues to ending Yemen's horrible, horrific civil war.

Ultimately, it is up to the nations of the region to decide what kind of future they want for themselves and their children.

For that reason, the United States is working with the Gulf Cooperation Council, Jordan, and Egypt to establish a regional strategic alliance so that Middle Eastern nations can advance prosperity, stability, and security across their home region.

Thanks to the United States military and our partnership with many of your nations, I am pleased to report that the bloodthirsty killers known as ISIS have been driven out from the territory they once held in Iraq and Syria. We will continue to work with friends and allies to deny radical Islamic terrorists any funding, territory or support, or any means of infiltrating our borders.

The ongoing tragedy in Syria is heartbreaking. Our shared goals must be the de-escalation of military conflict, along with a political solution that honors the will of the Syrian people. In this vein, we urge the United Nations-led peace process be reinvigorated. But, rest assured, the United States will respond if chemical weapons are deployed by the Assad regime.

I commend the people of Jordan and other neighboring countries for hosting refugees from this very brutal civil war.

As we see in Jordan, the most compassionate policy is to place refugees as close to their homes as possible to ease their eventual return to be part of the rebuilding process. This approach also stretches finite resources to help far more people, increasing the impact of every dollar spent.

Every solution to the humanitarian crisis in Syria must also include a strategy to address the brutal regime that has fueled and financed it: the corrupt dictatorship in Iran.

Iran's leaders sow chaos, death, and destruction. They do not respect their neighbors or borders, or the sovereign rights of nations. Instead, Iran's leaders plunder the nation's resources to enrich themselves and to spread mayhem across the Middle East and far beyond.

The Iranian people are rightly outraged that their leaders have embezzled billions of dollars from Iran's treasury, seized valuable portions of the economy, and looted the people's religious endowments, all to line their own pockets and send their proxies to wage war. Not good.

Iran's neighbors have paid a heavy toll for the region's [regime's] agenda of aggression and expansion. That is why so many countries in the Middle East strongly supported my decision to withdraw the United States from the horrible 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal and re-impose nuclear sanctions.

The Iran deal was a windfall for Iran's leaders. In the years since the deal was reached, Iran's military budget grew nearly 40 percent. The dictatorship used the funds to build nuclear-capable missiles, increase internal repression, finance terrorism, and fund havoc and slaughter in Syria and Yemen.

The United States has launched a campaign of economic pressure to deny the regime the funds it needs to advance its bloody agenda. Last month, we began re-imposing hard-hitting nuclear sanctions that had been lifted under the Iran deal. Additional sanctions will resume November 5th, and more will follow. And we're working with countries that import Iranian crude oil to cut their purchases substantially.

We cannot allow the world's leading sponsor of terrorism to possess the planet's most dangerous weapons. We cannot allow a regime that chants "Death to America," and that threatens Israel with annihilation, to possess the means to deliver a nuclear warhead to any city on Earth. Just can't do it.

We ask all nations to isolate Iran's regime as long as its aggression continues. And we ask all nations to support Iran's people as they struggle to reclaim their religious and righteous destiny.

This year, we also took another significant step forward in the Middle East. In recognition of every sovereign state to determine its own capital, I moved the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

The United States is committed to a future of peace and stability in the region, including peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians. That aim is advanced, not harmed, by acknowledging the obvious facts.

America's policy of principled realism means we will not be held hostage to old dogmas, discredited ideologies, and so-called experts who have been proven wrong over the years, time and time again. This is true not only in matters of peace, but in matters of prosperity.

We believe that trade must be fair and reciprocal. The United States will not be taken advantage of any longer.

For decades, the United States opened its economy  the largest, by far, on Earth  with few conditions. We allowed foreign goods from all over the world to flow freely across our borders.

Yet, other countries did not grant us fair and reciprocal access to their markets in return. Even worse, some countries abused their openness to dump their products, subsidize their goods, target our industries, and manipulate their currencies to gain unfair advantage over our country. As a result, our trade deficit ballooned to nearly $800 billion a year.

For this reason, we are systematically renegotiating broken and bad trade deals.

Last month, we announced a groundbreaking U.S.-Mexico trade agreement. And just yesterday, I stood with President Moon to announce the successful completion of the brand new U.S.-Korea trade deal. And this is just the beginning.

Many nations in this hall will agree that the world trading system is in dire need of change. For example, countries were admitted to the World Trade Organization that violate every single principle on which the organization is based. While the United States and many other nations play by the rules, these countries use government-run industrial planning and state-owned enterprises to rig the system in their favor. They engage in relentless product dumping, forced technology transfer, and the theft of intellectual property.

The United States lost over 3 million manufacturing jobs, nearly a quarter of all steel jobs, and 60,000 factories after China joined the WTO. And we have racked up $13 trillion in trade deficits over the last two decades.

But those days are over. We will no longer tolerate such abuse. We will not allow our workers to be victimized, our companies to be cheated, and our wealth to be plundered and transferred. America will never apologize for protecting its citizens.

The United States has just announced tariffs on another $200 billion in Chinese-made goods for a total, so far, of $250 billion. I have great respect and affection for my friend, President Xi, but I have made clear our trade imbalance is just not acceptable. China's market distortions and the way they deal cannot be tolerated.

As my administration has demonstrated, America will always act in our national interest.

I spoke before this body last year and warned that the U.N. Human Rights Council had become a grave embarrassment to this institution, shielding egregious human rights abusers while bashing America and its many friends.

Our Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, laid out a clear agenda for reform, but despite reported and repeated warnings, no action at all was taken.

So the United States took the only responsible course: We withdrew from the Human Rights Council, and we will not return until real reform is enacted.

For similar reasons, the United States will provide no support in recognition to the International Criminal Court. As far as America is concerned, the ICC has no jurisdiction, no legitimacy, and no authority. The ICC claims near-universal jurisdiction over the citizens of every country, violating all principles of justice, fairness, and due process. We will never surrender America's sovereignty to an unelected, unaccountable, global bureaucracy.

America is governed by Americans. We reject the ideology of globalism, and we embrace the doctrine of patriotism.

Around the world, responsible nations must defend against threats to sovereignty not just from global governance, but also from other, new forms of coercion and domination.

In America, we believe strongly in energy security for ourselves and for our allies. We have become the largest energy producer anywhere on the face of the Earth.

The United States stands ready to export our abundant, affordable supply of oil, clean coal, and natural gas.

OPEC and OPEC nations, are, as usual, ripping off the rest of the world, and I don't like it. Nobody should like it. We defend many of these nations for nothing, and then they take advantage of us by giving us high oil prices. Not good.

We want them to stop raising prices, we want them to start lowering prices, and they must contribute substantially to military protection from now on. We are not going to put up with it  these horrible prices  much longer.

Reliance on a single foreign supplier can leave a nation vulnerable to extortion and intimidation. That is why we congratulate European states, such as Poland, for leading the construction of a Baltic pipeline so that nations are not dependent on Russia to meet their energy needs. Germany will become totally dependent on Russian energy if it does not immediately change course.

Here in the Western Hemisphere, we are committed to maintaining our independence from the encroachment of expansionist foreign powers.

It has been the formal policy of our country since President Monroe that we reject the interference of foreign nations in this hemisphere and in our own affairs. The United States has recently strengthened our laws to better screen foreign investments in our country for national security threats, and we welcome cooperation with countries in this region and around the world that wish to do the same. You need to do it for your own protection.

The United States is also working with partners in Latin America to confront threats to sovereignty from uncontrolled migration. Tolerance for human struggling and human smuggling and trafficking is not humane. It's a horrible thing that's going on, at levels that nobody has ever seen before. It's very, very cruel.

Illegal immigration funds criminal networks, ruthless gangs, and the flow of deadly drugs. Illegal immigration exploits vulnerable populations, hurts hardworking citizens, and has produced a vicious cycle of crime, violence, and poverty. Only by upholding national borders, destroying criminal gangs, can we break this cycle and establish a real foundation for prosperity.

We recognize the right of every nation in this room to set its own immigration policy in accordance with its national interests, just as we ask other countries to respect our own right to do the same  which we are doing. That is one reason the United States will not participate in the new Global Compact on Migration. Migration should not be governed by an international body unaccountable to our own citizens.

Ultimately, the only long-term solution to the migration crisis is to help people build more hopeful futures in their home countries. Make their countries great again.

Currently, we are witnessing a human tragedy, as an example, in Venezuela. More than 2 million people have fled the anguish inflicted by the socialist Maduro regime and its Cuban sponsors.

Not long ago, Venezuela was one of the richest countries on Earth. Today, socialism has bankrupted the oil-rich nation and driven its people into abject poverty.

Virtually everywhere socialism or communism has been tried, it has produced suffering, corruption, and decay. Socialism's thirst for power leads to expansion, incursion, and oppression. All nations of the world should resist socialism and the misery that it brings to everyone.

In that spirit, we ask the nations gathered here to join us in calling for the restoration of democracy in Venezuela. Today, we are announcing additional sanctions against the repressive regime, targeting Maduro's inner circle and close advisors.

We are grateful for all the work the United Nations does around the world to help people build better lives for themselves and their families.

The United States is the world's largest giver in the world, by far, of foreign aid. But few give anything to us. That is why we are taking a hard look at U.S. foreign assistance. That will be headed up by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. We will examine what is working, what is not working, and whether the countries who receive our dollars and our protection also have our interests at heart.

Moving forward, we are only going to give foreign aid to those who respect us and, frankly, are our friends. And we expect other countries to pay their fair share for the cost of their defense.

The United States is committed to making the United Nations more effective and accountable. I have said many times that the United Nations has unlimited potential. As part of our reform effort, I have told our negotiators that the United States will not pay more than 25 percent of the U.N. peacekeeping budget. This will encourage other countries to step up, get involved, and also share in this very large burden.

And we are working to shift more of our funding from assessed contributions to voluntary so that we can target American resources to the programs with the best record of success.

Only when each of us does our part and contributes our share can we realize the U.N.'s highest aspirations. We must pursue peace without fear, hope without despair, and security without apology.

Looking around this hall where so much history has transpired, we think of the many before us who have come here to address the challenges of their nations and of their times. And our thoughts turn to the same question that ran through all their speeches and resolutions, through every word and every hope. It is the question of what kind of world will we leave for our children and what kind of nations they will inherit.

The dreams that fill this hall today are as diverse as the people who have stood at this podium, and as varied as the countries represented right here in this body are. It really is something. It really is great, great history.

There is India, a free society over a billion people, successfully lifting countless millions out of poverty and into the middle class.

There is Saudi Arabia, where King Salman and the Crown Prince are pursuing bold new reforms.

There is Israel, proudly celebrating its 70th anniversary as a thriving democracy in the Holy Land.

In Poland, a great people are standing up for their independence, their security, and their sovereignty.

Many countries are pursuing their own unique visions, building their own hopeful futures, and chasing their own wonderful dreams of destiny, of legacy, and of a home.

The whole world is richer, humanity is better, because of this beautiful constellation of nations, each very special, each very unique, and each shining brightly in its part of the world.

In each one, we see awesome promise of a people bound together by a shared past and working toward a common future.

As for Americans, we know what kind of future we want for ourselves. We know what kind of a nation America must always be.

In America, we believe in the majesty of freedom and the dignity of the individual. We believe in self-government and the rule of law. And we prize the culture that sustains our liberty - a culture built on strong families, deep faith, and fierce independence. We celebrate our heroes, we treasure our traditions, and above all, we love our country.

Inside everyone in this great chamber today, and everyone listening all around the globe, there is the heart of a patriot that feels the same powerful love for your nation, the same intense loyalty to your homeland.

The passion that burns in the hearts of patriots and the souls of nations has inspired reform and revolution, sacrifice and selflessness, scientific breakthroughs, and magnificent works of art.

Our task is not to erase it, but to embrace it. To build with it. To draw on its ancient wisdom. And to find within it the will to make our nations greater, our regions safer, and the world better.

To unleash this incredible potential in our people, we must defend the foundations that make it all possible. Sovereign and independent nations are the only vehicle where freedom has ever survived, democracy has ever endured, or peace has ever prospered. And so we must protect our sovereignty and our cherished independence above all.

When we do, we will find new avenues for cooperation unfolding before us. We will find new passion for peacemaking rising within us. We will find new purpose, new resolve, and new spirit flourishing all around us, and making this a more beautiful world in which to live.

So together, let us choose a future of patriotism, prosperity, and pride. Let us choose peace and freedom over domination and defeat. And let us come here to this place to stand for our people and their nations, forever strong, forever sovereign, forever just, and forever thankful for the grace and the goodness and the glory of God.

Thank you. God bless you. And God bless the nations of the world.

Thank you very much. Thank you. (Applause.)

END

11:13 A.M. EDT

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Guard nation comes together after Hurricane Florence

By Staff Sgt. Mary Junell | North Carolina National Guard September 25, 2018

RALEIGH, N.C. - Hurricane Florence slammed into the Carolina coast as a Category 1 storm Sept. 14, and then it sat there.

Florence quickly downgraded to a tropical storm but moved slowly enough, at about 5 mph, that someone could have jogged along in the eye of the storm, staying relatively dry.

The day after Florence's arrival, Army Aviation Support Facility 1 (AASF1) in Morrisville, North Carolina, began receiving Army National Guard aircraft and crews from all over the country to help support recovery efforts.

In addition to North Carolina National Guard's (NCNG) seven Black Hawk helicopters and two Lakota helicopters available for storm response, 13 states brought helicopters, crews, and mechanics to join in the more than 3,000 North Carolina Guard members activated in preparation for the massive storm.

"A powerful, damaging hurricane is hours away from our coast," said North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper during a news conference where he announced the mobilization of additional National Guard troops ahead of Florence making landfall. He urged residents to evacuate.

National Guard units from Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, and Mississippi brought CH-47 Chinooks, the Coast Guard provided 10 helicopters, North Carolina State Highway Patrol provided five rotary wing aircraft. The rest of the helicopters were Black Hawks brought by Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Nebraska, New York, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Michigan, and New Jersey.

At the height of the storm response the combined aviation assets, including the NCNG, totaled 50 aircraft and approximately 350 Soldiers, Airmen and first responders, with the majority flying out of the Morrisville flight facility.

"It's impressive," said Capt. Curtis Lowe, the daytime flight operations officer with the Kentucky National Guard. "The professionalism of aviation and the aircrews always shines in events like this where there are a lot of variables that we may not be used to seeing in different locations. It's just well-trained aircrews that are really proficient at their jobs that can show up in any location and accomplish the mission."

The additional aviation support more than tripled the capabilities of the NCNG, making it possible to fly 346 missions, rescuing approximately 441 people, 127 animals and moving more than 685,000 pounds of supplies and equipment. Task Force Aviation also gave leadership a way to survey the damage caused by the storm and transport 685 essential personnel.

On the evening of Sept. 20, a group of National Guard and Coast Guard helicopters and their crews rescued more than 102 people and 33 pets from Kelly, North Carolina, as severe flooding hit their small town. The aviators flew out of the AASF1 and Salisbury, and used night-vision goggles throughout the rescue.

Many of the pilots and crew have been deployed and are accustomed to the busy pace and overnight shifts that come with disaster response operations. For some though, this was their first time rescuing U.S. residents.

"Overseas I definitely like the aspects of helping others," said Sgt. Jonathan Nielsen, a flight engineer with the Minnesota National Guard whose Chinook helped rescue people from Kelly, North Carolina. "But, that feel good feeling of helping your fellow Americans is definitely the best."

Nielsen, a former Marine who had been stationed in North Carolina said he has friends who still live in the New Bern area.

"I've talked to a couple buddies and helped them coordinate how they can go about getting aid," he said. "So far it's worked out pretty well."

Sgt. Micheal Justo, a Black Hawk crew chief with the Connecticut National Guard, said this was not his first time being activated in response to a storm, but that this was the "longest and most intense" state active duty he has been a part of.

"In Connecticut, our biggest problem is snow so I've done a couple activations for that," he said. "This has been the most intense one that we've done."

Justo said his team's Black Hawk was fitted with a hoist system and started out as part of a Helicopter Aquatic Rescue Team, paired with a rescue swimmer from Oklahoma's Helicopter Search and Rescue Team.

They were later moved on to service and supply missions including a mission to move over 13,000 pounds of food to a hospital in Wilmington, North Carolina.

"The town of Wilmington was completely cut off via land transportation," he said. "We helicoptered in all the food they needed for the hospital."

Nine days after Hurricane Florence hit, most of the out-of-state aviation assets have returned home, but NCNG leadership reminded the citizens and Guard members of North Carolina that the mission is far from over.

"Remember, no mission is complete until you are returned to the arms of your loved ones back home," said State Command Sgt. Maj. Russell Prince in a video posted on the NCNG Facebook page.

Although the storm is over, the North Carolina National Guard members will continue their recovery efforts until the needs of the state are met.

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3rd Annual Advance Cyber Law Course Held at U.S. Fleet Cyber Command

Navy News Service

Story Number: NNS180925-08

Release Date: 9/25/2018 1:47:00 PM

From U.S. Fleet Cyber Command / U.S. 10th Fleet Public Affairs

FORT GEORGE G. MEADE, Md. (NNS) (NNS) -- The U.S. Fleet Cyber Command/U.S. 10th Fleet (FCC/C10F) Staff Judge Advocate (SJA), in coordination with the Naval Justice School and the Navy Office of the Judge Advocate General, co-hosted the annual Advanced Cyber Law Course at FCC/C10F headquarters, for the 3rd consecutive year, from Sept. 12-14.

The informal course was attended by over 80 attorneys from across the Department of Defense and Intelligence Community, focusing on current developments in cyber policy and law that impact cyberspace operations, planning and capability development.

Lt. Cmdr. Lena Whitehead, deputy director of intelligence, information operations and cyber law at the Navy Office of the Judge Advocate General, coordinated the course and said that although some of the information could be learned remotely, there is great value to conducting a course like this in person.

"Bringing everyone together in one place allowed us to have a robust discussion about different issues in cyber law that I don't think would have occurred if we were taking in the information from different locations," said Whitehead. "Each presenter offered the room an open forum where each attendee was able to ask challenging and questions and spark an honest conversation."

The course featured a variety of topics under the umbrella of cyber law and each was facilitated by a different attorney with diverse experiences and background. The topics ranged from Cyber Operations and the role of the staff judge advocate, to a discussion of current operational and intelligence authorities, under new policy just released from the National Security Council, to a brief on the perspective of an operator given by Vice Adm. Timothy "T.J" White, commander FCC/C10F.

"The Navy has been extremely focused on readiness in all domains of the Fleet and this conference is one way that the JAG Corps is ensuring that the information warfare community is staying prepared," said Whitehead. "These three days have been filled with information that each attorney can take back to their organizations or units and provide the best possible advice to their commanders."

Maj. Ian Klinkhamer, an operational law officer assigned to Army Cyber Command, said that cyber law is a complicated and always evolving area of law and that attending a course that featured such a variety of perspectives was a great experience.

"Almost everyone in attendance here understands that we are operating in the same space and so it was really enlightening to hear how everyone was approaching different issues and also de-conflict when it was necessary," said Klinkhamer

The cyber law course was also as an opportunity for professional development for some judge advocates who are not currently serving in operational information warfare roles.

"This is clearly an area of law that is complicated and requires a full commitment to learning the nuances and staying current on the latest developments. It's a field that I am interested in and can see myself contributing to in the future," said Lt. Cmdr. Lauren Cherry, professional development officer at Region Legal Service Office Midwest. "I learned a lot at this course that I think I'll be able to take back with me and share with the junior judge advocates that I mentor, which I hope might open up some career opportunities for them as well as for myself."

"The legal advisor in this domain is often standing at the complex intersection of emerging technology, law and policy. This course was designed to not only convey the key legal and policy constraints our operators must work through, in a system that respects the rule of law but, to also highlight the importance for the legal advisor to understand the means and methods our operators employ across the spectrum of cyber operations, to defend, collect and achieve effects that support our national security objectives" said Capt. Robert Passerello, FCC/C10F fleet staff judge advocate.

Since its establishment, FCC/C10F has grown into an operational force composed of more than 16,000 Active and Reserve Sailors and civilians organized into 26 active commands, 40 Cyber Mission Force units, and 26 reserve commands around the globe. FCC serves as the Navy component command to U.S. Strategic Command and U.S. Cyber Command, and the Navy's Service Cryptologic Component commander under the National Security Agency/Central Security Service. C10F, the operational arm of FCC, executes its mission through a task force structure similar to other warfare commanders. In this role, C10F provides support of Navy and joint missions in cyber/networks, cryptologic/signals intelligence and space.

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Ebola-hit DRC faces 'perfect storm' as uptick in violence halts WHO operation

25 September 2018 - A "perfect storm" of active conflict and traumatized communities in Ebola-affected areas of eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) could enable the deadly disease to spread, but there are "no plans" to pull UN workers out of the country despite concerns for their security, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday.

"We are now extremely concerned, that several factors may be coming together over the next weeks to months to create a potential perfect storm," said Dr Peter Salama, WHO Deputy Director-General for Emergency Preparedness and Response. "A perfect storm of active conflict, limiting our ability to access civilians, distress by segments of the community, already traumatized by decades of conflict and of murder."

The senior WHO official's comments follow a spate of attacks, including one that killed at least 21 civilians on Saturday in the city of Beni, where WHO's Ebola-response teams are based.

"We've seen attacks now on August 24, September 3, 9, 11, 16, 21 and most recently and most dramatically September 22 in the city itself of Beni," he said. He said that Beni was the base for the agency's base for the "entire operation."

Apart from the worrying targeting of civilians, Dr. Salama expressed concern that in the aftermath of the latest attack, outraged communities had declared Beni a "ville morte" so that mourners can grieve, effectively suspending UN operations.

"We've heard this morning, that that 'ville morte', which was yesterday, has now been extended right through to Friday of this week," he said, "which basically means for the UN family, including WHO, a lockdown in Beni. Our operations are in effect suspended."

The development meant that on Monday, WHO staff were able to reach only 20 per cent of the contacts they wanted to, in and around Beni, Dr Salama said.

Butembo could also declare a "ville morte" in coming days in sympathy with the people of Beni, he said, potentially increasing the chances of the situation deteriorating rapidly.

"If we do see unsafe burials that can't be responded to and symptomatic people that can't be accessed, we can see this situation deteriorating very quickly," Dr. Salama said.

In addition to many people's fear of Ebola, the WHO senior official explained that the situation was being further complicated by local politicians who "exploited and manipulated" them prior to upcoming elections.

Social media reaction to the outbreak was also adding to a "range of conspiracy theories", Dr Salama said, adding that people have been "actively fleeing" health-workers, including in places where there have been a large number of cases in recent weeks.

In the nearly two months since the outbreak was declared, there have been 150 confirmed and probable cases of the disease, and 100 people have died, as of 23 September. Ebola's symptoms include high fever and vomiting, which make it difficult to treat, because it resembles many other illnesses in its early stages.

Speaking to journalists at the UN in Geneva, Dr Salama noted that the international response to the major public health threat had been excellent and that donors have responded "very quickly and generously" to this latest outbreak, which is DRC's tenth since the 1970s.

This progress risks being undone by the uptick in violence in the Kivus region, which is home to more than 100 armed groups, he said, before noting that neighbouring countries now also face an increased risk of the disease spreading.

'There are no plans for WHO or UN staff to pull out'

"We call on the international community to continue to fund the response," he said, "both in North Kivu, but also, and this is increasingly important, in the neighbouring provinces of the Kivus and Ituri, and in surrounding countries."

One of the armed groups in DRC which pose a threat to civilians and the international response to Ebola, the ADF  Allied Democratic Forces - has sufficient military capacity to ambush blue helmets from the UN'a Stabilization Mission in DRC (MONUSCO) and government forces  the FARDC.

"The ADF in particular has enormous capabilities," Dr Salama said. "They've been able to overrun entire FARDC-bases in and around Beni, they've been able to ambush (UN) forces."

Asked whether the increasing violence may force WHO to leave the area, Dr Salama said that there were "no plans" to do so and that only a "very significant presence" of the UN and its partners could stop the disease.

"There are no plans for WHO or UN staff to pull out," he added. "You know the UN philosophy is to stay and deliver under all circumstances unless we become direct targets of violence."

"I don't believewe can stop Ebola without a very significant presence of UN and partners, despite the fact that the Ministry of Health has exerted great leadership and is doing an extremely good job in this response," he added.

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President Rouhani urges US to quit unilateralism, save JCPOA

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

New York, Sept 25, IRNA -- Iranian President Hassan Rouhani strongly criticized the US for withdrawing from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, but meantime invited that country to the negotiating table within the JCPOA framework.

'We invite you to return to that Council resolution. We invite you to come back to the negotiating table you left. If you dislike the JCPOA because it is the legacy of your domestic political rivals, then we invite you to come back to the Security Council resolution,' President Rouhani said addressing the 73rd annual session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Tuesday.

Rouhani said his US counterpart has demanded bilateral talks, while he is also running efforts to regime change Tehran.

The Iranian president went on to say that the government of the United Statesat least the current administrationseems determined to render all international institutions ineffectual.

'This government (US), having withdrawn from a multilateral agreement adopted by the Security Council, in contravention of the rules and norms of international law, invites the Islamic Republic of Iran to bilateral talks. An administration that is inviting Iran to engage in talks is not ready to consult its own experts nor willing to recognize the requirements of a modern state, including the paramount principle of continuity of state responsibility, and hence openly violates state obligations undertaken by its predecessor,' he added.

The full text of President Rouhani's address is as follows:

Madam President,

I take this opportunity to felicitate your election to the presidency of the 73rd Session of the United Nations General Assembly.

We have assembled here today as the world is suffering from the recklessness and disregard of some states for international values and institutions. The message of our presence here is that the preservation of interests and security in the world in the least costly manner is solely possible through the cooperation of, and coordination among, countries. However, it is unfortunate that we are witnessing rulers in the world who think they can secure their interests betteror at least in the short-term ride public sentiments and gain popular supportthrough the fomenting of extremist nationalism and racism, and though xenophobic tendencies resembling a Nazi disposition, as well as through the trampling of global rules and undermining international institutions; even through preposterous and abnormal acts such as convening a high-level meeting of the Security Council.

This illusion should be cast away, once and for all, that one can aspire to securing more peace and security at the cost of denying others' peace and security. We should not allow the breathing space for and growth of the line of thinking that holds others to ransom through the artificial creation of insecurity. Along this tack, confronting multilateralism is not a sign of strength; rather it is a symptom of the weakness of intellectit betrays an inability in understanding a complex and interconnected world.

Under such circumstances, negligence or inefficacy of international institutions can endanger world peace. Those seeking dominance and hegemony are enemies of peace and the perpetrators of war.

The government of the United Statesat least the current administrationseems determined to render all international institutions ineffectual. This government, having withdrawn from a multilateral agreement adopted by the Security Council, in contravention of the rules and norms of international law, invites the Islamic Republic of Iran to bilateral talks. An administration that is inviting Iran to engage in talks is not ready to consult its own experts nor willing to recognize the requirements of a modern state, including the paramount principle of continuity of state responsibility, and hence openly violates state obligations undertaken by its predecessor.

On what basis and criteria can we enter into an agreement with an administration misbehaving such as this? Any talks should be within the framework and in continuation of the JCPOA and Security Council resolution 2231, and not in a framework of breaching them and reverting to the past. It is ironic that the US government does not even conceal its plan for overthrowing the same government it invites to talks!

Distinguished Colleagues,

The approach of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the field of foreign policy has been based on multilateralism and compliance with the recognized principles of international law. Our respect for the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the long and difficult negotiations with the Group of 5+1, which led to the conclusion of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Actionthe JCPOAillustrates a clear manifestation of this approach.

We are pleased that the international community did not acquiesce to the US government's unilateral and illegal withdrawal from the JCPOA, and adopted a categorical position vis-a-vis that decision. The JCPOA is the outcome of more than a decade of diplomatic efforts and a period of intensive negotiations to resolve an artificial crisis. This document was unanimously approved by Security Council resolution 2231 and codified into an international obligation. According to this resolution, all countries and international and regional organizations were called upon to support the implementation of the JCPOA, and to refrain from any actions that undermine implementation of commitments under the JCPOA..

Based on 12 consecutive reports of the International Atomic Energy Agency  the IAEA  Iran has thus far complied with all of its commitments. However, the United States, from the very beginning, never remained faithful to its obligations. Later, the current administration, resorting to flimsy excuses and in open violation of its commitments, finally withdrew from the accord. The United Nations should not allow its decisions to fall victim to the domestic election and propaganda games of some of its members, and should not allow any Member State to dodge the execution of its international commitments.

Additionally, the United States also pressures other countries to violate the nuclear accord. And more dangerously, the United States is threatening all countries and international organizations with punishment if they comply with Security Council resolution 2231. It is the first time in the history of the United Nations that such 'a general invitation to violation of law' is coupled with 'threatening law-abiders with punishment.' This is not just peculiar to the JCPOA, but a pattern that even applies to the US approach to the International Criminal Court.

We appreciate the efforts of the international community, the European Union, Russia, and China in supporting the implementation of the JCPOA and consider the full realization of the commitments stipulated in it a precondition for the survival of this significant accomplishment of diplomacy.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Unlawful unilateral sanctions in themselves constitute a form of economic terrorism and a breach of the 'Right to Development.' The economic war that the United States has initiated under the rubric of new sanctions not only targets the Iranian people but also entails harmful repercussions for the people of other countries, and that war has caused a disruption in the state of global trade.

The Iranian people have demonstrated their unwavering resilience during the past forty years despite the difficulties and constraints caused by sanctions, and have shown that they can overcome this difficult phase as well. The multi-millennial history of our country demonstrates that Iran and Iranians have never broken in the face of a storm of eventsnot even been bowed. I state here, in clear, unambiguous terms, that the United States policy vis-a-vis the Islamic Republic of Iran has been wrong from the beginning, and its approach of resisting the wishes of the Iranian people as manifested in numerous elections is doomed to failure. Iran, with its historical and civilizational longevity, rich cultural heritage, and foremost geopolitical position, is an undeniable reality. The policy of engagement and cooperation with Iran has produced positive outcomes for other nations, as best reflected in Iran's cooperation with friendly countries in the fight against terrorism.

The United States' understanding of international relations is authoritarian. In its estimation, might makes right. Its understanding of power, not of legal and legitimate authority, is reflected in bullying and imposition. No state and nation can be brought to the negotiating table by force, and if so, what follows is the accumulation in the 'grapes of wrath' of those nations, to be reaped later by the oppressors.

We concur that, at the end of the day, there is no better way but dialogue. However, dialogue is two-way: it should be based on equality, justice, and human integrity and honor, and conducted in accordance with the rules and norms of international law. UN Security Council resolution 2231 is not a 'piece of paper'. We invite you to return to that Council resolution. We invite you to come back to the negotiating table you left. If you dislike the JCPOA because it is the legacy of your domestic political rivals, then we invite you to come back to the Security Council resolution. We invite you to remain in the international institutions. Do not engage in imposing sanctions. Sanctions and extremism are two sides of the same coin: Extremism involves negating the thinking of others, and sanctions negate the life and prosperity of people.

For dialogue to take place, there is no need for a photo opportunity. The two sides can listen to each other right here in this Assembly. I am starting the dialogue right here, and statein unequivocal termsthat the question of international security is not a toy in American domestic politics. The United Nations is not a part of the United States administration. Dialogue can resume in this Assembly from the same point and by the same person who left the dialogue table, and walked away from the accord. Beginning the dialogue starts with ending threats and unjust sanctions that negate the principles of ethics and international law.

Our proposal is clear: commitment for commitment; violation for violation; threat for threat; and step for step, instead of talk for talk.

What Iran says is clear: no war, no sanctions, no threats, no bullying; just acting according to the law and the fulfillment of obligations. We support peace and democracy in the entire Middle East. We consider nuclear knowledge an imperative and nuclear weapons prohibited.

As victims of terrorism in the past and today, we have always been and will always remain in the forefront of genuine confrontation with terrorism. Today, we mourn the martyrdom of tens of innocent people, who were recently murdered in cold blood by terrorists who shamelessly accepted responsibility from a number of Western capitals for their heinous crime in interviews with some Western-based broadcasting outfits that are financed by petrodollars. In Iran we have condemned all acts of terrorism without equivocation and will continue to do so. We welcome the strong statement from the Security Council on this issue. But why can the leaders of these terrorist operations  including the organization that has publicly claimed responsibility for Saturday's crimelive and operate freely in Western countries, and even openly solicit funds? Are these activities not in violation of international counter-terrorism norms? Why have the official State-financiers of anti-Iranian terrorist organizations with their record of financing Al-Qaeda, ISIS and al Nusrahnot only been spared any punishment but are supported and armed? If you want the world public to take your claim of fighting terrorism seriously, it is imperative to start a joint global campaign to fight this scourge, irrespective of the victims or culprits.

Distinguished Colleagues,

In the same vein, from the very beginning of the crisis in Syria, we have warned against any foreign intervention in the internal affairs of this country and the use of unlawful means, including supporting extremist and terrorist groups in order to exert pressure on the government of Syria, and have consistently emphasized that the crisis can only be resolved through intra-Syrian dialogue. To this end, the presence of our military advisors in Syria has been at the request of the Syrian government and consistent with international law, and has aimed at assisting the Syrian government in combatting extremist terrorism. Iran, Russia, and Turkey, in cooperation with the government of Syria and other Syrian parties, have succeeded through the Astana Process, the third summit meeting of which took place in Tehran earlier this month, in playing a positive role in reducing tension in Syria, and in their last common effort have prevented escalation and bloodshed in the Idlib region.

We have witnessed a tragic humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen over the past three years which has caused the destruction of infrastructure, the killing and injury of hundreds of thousands, the displacement of millions of innocent people, and the occurrence of widespread famine and chronic diseases. These inhuman acts represent clear examples of crimes against humanity and war crimes. The crisis in Yemen can be resolved solely through intra-Yemeni talks and without foreign interference. And to this end, we are ready to assist in any possible way.

The most pressing crisis in the Middle East, however, is the question of Palestine. The passage of time cannot  and must not justify occupation. The innumerable crimes of Israel against the Palestinians would not have been possible without the material and military assistance, and political and propaganda support of the United States. Israel, equipped with a nuclear arsenal and blatantly threatening others with nuclear annihilation, presents the most daunting threat to regional and global peace and stability.

The abhorrent U.S. decision to transfer its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, and the recent enactment of the racist Jewish State law are violations of international law and norms, and unmistakable manifestations of apartheid.

Madam President,

The expansion of relations with neighbors and the creation of a more secure and more developed region are among the main priorities of Iran's foreign policy. A few weeks ago Iran, along with the other four coastal states, signed the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea, which will strengthen good-neighborliness and bring prosperity and progress for all of the coastal states. We also desire the same relations with our southern neighbors in the Persian Gulf. We believe in the formation of a collective mechanism for the Persian Gulf region with the presence and participation of all regional countries. The security of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz has always been important for us, and just as we defended this security during the war imposed on us by Iraq, we will confront any and all disruptive efforts in this critical waterway in the future.

We espouse a peaceful view in political and international issues and have not sought, nor do we seek, war with any country. Iran does not need an empire. Iran is an empire in terms of its civilization and its culture; not through political domination.

Iran has served as the link between east and west and will continue to do so; remaining a meticulous guardian for a world free from violence.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is the same state that understood the fascistic nature of the Ba'athist regime in Iraq before anyone else in the world, and bravely resisted its aggression against us. We fought against the Ba'ath Party of Iraq before Kuwait was occupied by it.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is the same state that was on the forefront of the struggle against Taliban terrorism, and gave up martyrs in that struggle. We fought against Al-Qaida and the Taliban before the attacks on New York and Washington.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is the same state that fought against Daesh  a fake, distorted representation of Islam. We were engaged in the fight against Daesh before their operations in Paris, London and Brussels.

Appreciate these historical realities about Iran. Quit imposing sanctions and end extremism. The world will not have a better friend than Iran, if peace is what you seek.

I thank you for your attention

**2050

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JCPOA members reaffirm commitment to its full implementation

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

New York, Sept 25, IRNA -- The participants of a ministerial meeting of the E3/EU+2 (China, France, Germany, the Russian Federation and the United Kingdom and Iran held in New York on September 24 issued a joint statement at the end of the meeting.

In the joint statement, the participants reconfirmed their commitment to its full and effective implementation in good faith and in a constructive atmosphere.

The following is the full text of the joint statement:

1. A Ministerial meeting of the E3/EU+2 (China, France, Germany, the Russian Federation and the United Kingdom, with the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy) and the Islamic Republic of Iran, the participants of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, was held on 24 September 2018 in New York. The participants considered ways forward to ensure the full and effective implementation of the JCPOA in all its aspects. They also took stock of the process of finding and operationalizing practical solutions for issues arising from the unilateral withdrawal of the United States from the agreement and the re-imposition of sanctions lifted under the JCPOA and its Annex II, which they deeply regret.

2. The meeting was chaired by the EU High Representative Federica Mogherini and was attended by the E3+2 and Iran at the level of foreign ministers.

3. The JCPOA participants reconfirmed their commitment to its full and effective implementation in good faith and in a constructive atmosphere. They recalled that the JCPOA is a key element of the global non-proliferation architecture and a significant achievement of multilateral diplomacy endorsed unanimously by the UN Security Council through Resolution 2231.

4. The participants recognized that Iran has continued to fully and effectively implement its nuclear-related commitments, as confirmed by twelve consecutive reports by the International Atomic Energy Agency, and reiterated the need to continue to do so. Participants will continue to support the modernization of the Arak research reactor as part of the JCPOA and the conversion of the Fordow facility in a nuclear, physics and technology centre. Participants also reaffirmed their support for projects in the area of civil nuclear co-operation on the basis of Annex III of the JCPOA.

5. The participants recognized that, alongside implementation by Iran of its nuclear-related commitments, the lifting of sanctions, including the economic dividends arising from it, constitutes an essential part of the JCPOA.

6. Participants underlined their determination to protect the freedom of their economic operators to pursue legitimate business with Iran, in full accordance with UN Security Council resolution 2231.

7. The participants equally highlighted the extensive work and substantial progress undertaken to-date, the intensication of technical dialogues, efforts to maintain and improve bilateral economic relations, and the mobilisation of considerable resources by all, including with third countries interested in supporting the JCPOA and in pursuing, in a timely and effective manner, the normalization of trade and economic relations with Iran.

8. In this context, the participants welcomed the fact that updates to the EU's "Blocking Statute" and the European Investment Bank's external lending mandate to make Iran eligible entered into force on 7 August.

9. The participants re-affirmed their continued commitment to the objectives mentioned in the statement of the Ministerial session of the Joint Commission of the JCPOA on 6 July 2018, in particular to pursue concrete and effective measures to secure payment channels with Iran, and the continuation of Iran's export of oil and gas condensate, petroleum products and petrochemicals.



10. Mindful of the urgency and the need for tangible results, the participants welcomed practical proposals to maintain and develop payment channels notably the initiative to establish a Special Purpose Vehicle to facilitate payments related to Iran's exports (including oil) and imports, which will assist and reassure economic operators pursuing legitimate business with Iran. The participants reaffirmed their strong will to support further work aimed at the operationalization of such a Special Purpose Vehicle as well as continued engagement with regional and international partners.

11. The participants stressed their determination to support practical solutions concerning the above and agreed to keep progress under close review and to convene the Joint Commission, including at Ministerial level, as appropriate in order to advance common efforts.

12. The participants recalled that these initiatives are aimed at preserving the JCPOA which is in the international interest.

1396**1396

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Iranian president denies requesting meeting with Trump

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Tehran, Sept 25, IRNA -- Iranian President Hassan Rouhani flatly denied Tuesday that he has asked for a meeting with President Donald Trump.

'Neither this year, nor last year,' Rouhani told CNN. 'We have never made such a request for a meeting with the President of the United States.'

Trump started his second day at the UN General Assembly in typical fashion, with an early morning tweet. He wrote, 'Despite requests, I have no plans to meet Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Maybe someday in the future. I am sure he is an absolutely lovely man!'

Rouhani told CNN's Christiane Amanpour that while Iran received eight requests from the US officials for a meeting last year, he did not think talks between the two leaders were 'appropriate', then or now.

And as for being called 'a lovely man' by someone who labeled his country 'the leading state sponsor of terror', Rouhani dismissed the comment, saying Trump is 'playing with words and will not get us to any solutions'.

9455**2050

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E3+2 vows to establish 'special purpose vehicle' to facilitate trade with Iran

Iran Press TV

Tue Sep 25, 2018 02:44AM

Remaining parties to the Iran nuclear deal have promised to establish a 'special purpose vehicle' to facilitate payments related to Iran's exports as part of efforts to salvage the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action after the US' withdrawal.

European Union's Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif held a joint press conference on Monday night (New York local time) to elaborate on the results of a meeting between the remaining parties of JCPOA, namely France, the UK, Germany, Russia, China, and Iran.

According to a joint statement issued by the participants and read out by the two diplomats, the meeting "took stock of the process of finding and operationalizing practical solutions for issues arising from the unilateral withdrawal of the US from the agreement and the re-imposition of the sanctions lifted under the JCPOA and its Annex II."

"Mindful of the urgency and the need for tangible results, the participants welcomed practical proposals to maintain and develop payment channels, notably the initiative to establish a special purpose vehicle to facilitate payments related to Iran's exports, including oil, and imports, which will assist and reassure economic operators pursuing legitimate business with Iran," the statement read.

"The participants reaffirmed their strong will to support further work aimed at the operationalzation of such a Special Purpose Vehicle as well as continued engagement with regional and international partners," it added.

The statement said that the participants also "welcomed the fact that updates to the EU's "Blocking Statute" and the European Investment Bank's external lending mandate to make Iran eligible entered into force on 7 August."

According to the statement, the participants recognized that "Iran has continued to fully and effectively implement its nuclear-related commitments as confirmed by 12 consecutive reports by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and reiterated the need to continue to do so."

The Participants said they will continue to support the modernization of Iran's Arak research reactor as part of the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) and the conversion of the Fordow facility in a nuclear, physics, and technology center.

"Participants also reaffirmed their support for projects in the area of civil nuclear co-operation on the basis of Annex III of the JCPOA," the statement added.

The meeting between the remaining parties to the Iran nuclear deal came after bilateral talks between Zarif and Mogherini, during which the latter said Europe is finalizing its offers to meet the Islamic Republic's demands in a bid to save the JCPOA.

Speaking in the Monday meeting with Zarif, Mogherini said the bloc will finalize and implement the "operational solutions" soon.

Back in May, the US walked out of the deal and since then is working to re-impose its sanctions on Tehran and push the world to cut trade with Iran.

The EU has already offered Iran a support package to compensate for the US pullout, which obliges the European Investment Bank to support EU firms willing to enter Iranian markets, among other measures.

Earlier this month, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi had noted that the offers made by Europeans to save the Iran nuclear deal had so far failed to meet Iran's expectation, but Tehran was still hopeful Europe could convince it to remain in the deal.

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EU, Iran Vow To Keep Trying To Find Ways To Get Around U.S. Sanctions

RFE/RL September 25, 2018

The European Union is vowing to keep trying to set up a new payment system that will allow its businesses to keep trading with Iran despite the U.S. move to reimpose sanctions on Tehran this year.

After high-level talks between EU and Iranian officials at the United Nations late on September 24, the two sides issued a statement saying that they remain determined "to protect the freedom of their economic operators to pursue legitimate business."

The United States in May announced it was withdrawing from Iran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers and would reimpose economic sanctions on Tehran. But the EU and the other world powers -- Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and China -- all vowed to keep honoring the deal as long as Iran continues to adhere to its curbs on nuclear activities.

With the United States and the U.S. dollar still dominant in much of global trade, the EU statement said a new mechanism or "special purpose vehicle" is needed to "facilitate payments related to Iran's exports [including oil] and imports."

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, speaking at the UN alongside Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, said the countries were still working out the technical details.

"In practical terms, this will mean that EU member states will set up a legal entity to facilitate legitimate financial transactions with Iran and this will allow European companies to continue to trade with Iran in accordance with European Union law, and could be open to other partners in the world," she told reporters.

Several European diplomats told Reuters that the idea is to create a barter system, similar to one used by the Soviet Union during the Cold War, to exchange Iranian oil for European goods without money changing hands.

Mogherini said the plan is "aimed at preserving the [nuclear deal], which is in the international interest."

She said that Iran has continued to comply with the nuclear accord despite the U.S. sanctions, some of which went into effect in August.

Despite months of effort, the EU has struggled to create a legal mechanism to shield its businesses from the U.S. sanctions. The EU has offered measures such as euro-denominated finance lines and a law making it an offense for EU citizens to comply with U.S. sanctions.

But EU diplomats have acknowledged that these measures have not sufficed to reassure companies that they would be protected from potentially large U.S. fines or bans on their businesses in the United States if they continue to do business with Iran.

The announcement of a renewed effort at the UN came on the same day that Reuters reported that the Swedish auto giant Volvo will stop manufacturing trucks in Iran and the French state-owned bank Bpifrance is abandoning its plans to set up a financial mechanism to aid French companies trading with Iran.

Earlier this year, in response to the threat of U.S. sanctions, other major European companies announced they were suspending operations in Iran, including energy giant Total, carmakers Peugeot, Renault, and Daimler, airline companies Airbus, Air France, and British Airways, and German corporate giants Siemens and Deutsche Telecom.

With reporting by AP, AFP, dpa, and Reuters

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/eu-iran-vow-keep-trying- find-ways-get-around-us-sanctions-/29508158.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.

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EU Sets Up Payment System with Iran to Maintain Trade

By VOA News September 25, 2018

The five remaining parties to the Iran nuclear deal have agreed to establish a special payment system to allow companies to continue doing business with the regime, bypassing new sanctions imposed by the United States.

Envoys from Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China and Iran issued a statement late Monday from the United Nations announcing the creation of a "Special Purpose Vehicle" that will be established in the European Union. The parties said the new mechanism was created to facilitate payments related to Iranian exports, including oil.

Federica Mogherini, EU's foreign policy chief, told reporters after the deal was announced that the SPV gives EU member states "a legal entity to facilitate legitimate financial transactions with Iran...and allow European companies to continue to trade with Iran in accordance to European Union law and could be open to other partners in the world."

Mogherini said the financial agreement is also aimed at preserving the agreement reached in 2015 with Iran to scale back its nuclear program in exchange for relief from strict economic sanctions. The deal was reached under then-President Barack Obama, but Obama's successor, Donald Trump, pulled out of the accord in May of this year, saying it didn't address Tehran's ballistic missile program or its influence in the Middle East.

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Increasing hostilities in Libya taking heavy toll on civilians, warns UN relief official

25 September 2018 - The top United Nations relief official in Libya has voiced deep alarm at the humanitarian impact of increasing hostilities in Tripoli, which has led over two days to the deaths of 11 people, most of them civilians, and the wounding of 18 others.

Ongoing clashes between different militias in the Libyan capital have trapped many civilians and displaced numerous families, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

An estimated 5,000 families, including 1,700 in just the past two days, have sought refuge with relatives in safer parts of the city and its outskirts since fighting commenced on 26 August.

"Many are afraid to leave their homes because of looting by armed groups or criminal elements. As the fighting escalates, the number of civilians affected by violence is bound to increase," UN Humanitarian Coordinator Maria Ribeiro said in a statement.

"In addition, the clashes have led to a breakdown in basic services such as electricity and water."

The Humanitarian Country Team in Libya warned of the dire consequences of the compounded humanitarian crisis in Tripoli, and called for unconditional, unimpeded and sustained humanitarian access to the affected civilians in Tripoli.

It urged all parties to the conflict to take measures to protect civilians and civilian installations.

On 4 September, a ceasefire agreement was signed by the armed groups in Tripoli under the auspices of UN Special Representative, Ghassan Salame, and the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL).

However, an increasing number of violations of the ceasefire has led to the death of dozens of civilians.

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After long silence, US calls Myanmar crimes against Rohingya 'extreme'

Iran Press TV

Tue Sep 25, 2018 08:48AM

The United States, long mum on Myanmar's crimes committed against the minority Rohingya Muslims, has released a report blaming only the Southeast Asian country's military for the "well-planned and coordinated" atrocities.

The US State Department released the findings of what it called a survey of the atrocities on its website on Monday.

"The survey reveals that the recent violence in [Myanmar's] northern Rakhine State was extreme, large-scale, widespread, and seemingly geared toward both terrorizing the population and driving out the Rohingya residents," the 20-page report read. "The scope and scale of the military's operations indicate they were well-planned and coordinated."

United Nations (UN) investigators said in a report earlier in September that the Rohingya Muslims had faced four of five prohibited acts defined as genocide at the hands of Myanmar's military in Rakhine State. Another UN report had concluded that the military carried out mass killings and gang rapes of Rohingya Muslims with "genocidal intent" and called for the prosecution of Myanmar's military commander-in-chief Min Aung Hlaing and five other generals.

Yet, senior State Department officials were cited in a Reuters report as insisting that the objective of the US "survey" had not been to determine whether genocide had occurred but to "document the facts" on the atrocities to guide Washington's policy "aimed at holding the perpetrators accountable."

The official report suggested no new steps toward that end, either.

More than a thousand survivors interviewed in the course of the US probe described in horrific detail what they had witnessed, including government troops killing infants and small children, the shooting of unarmed men, and the burying alive of victims. They also offered accounts of widespread sexual assault by Myanmar's military against Rohingya women, often carried out in public.

Later on Monday, the Public International Law and Policy Group, a Washington-based human rights law firm contracted by the US State Department to carry out the interviews with the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh, issued a companion report declaring that it had provided 15,000 pages of documentation of "atrocity crimes."

Nearly 80 percent of the refugees said they witnessed a killing, most often by military or police, according to the report.

"Reports of mutilation included the cutting and spreading of entrails, severed limbs or hands/feet, pulling out nails or burning beards and genitals to force a confession, or being burned alive," it read.

Government and military

The UN has previously said that Myanmar's military should be removed from politics and stripped of further influence over the country's governance. The military has members in the Myanmarese parliament.

Aung Hlaing, the military commander-in-chief, has defiantly hit back at the UN.

Thousands of Rohingya Muslims were killed, injured, arbitrarily arrested, or raped by Myanmarese soldiers and Buddhist mobs mainly between November 2016 and August 2017, when many of the surviving members of the community started fleeing to Bangladesh en masse.

While the UN and Western governments have been blaming the Myanmarese military only, the head of Myanmar's so-called civilian government, Aung San Suu Kyi, has herself sided with the military in the atrocities against the Rohingya.

The UN's own former rights chief, Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein, hinted last month that Suu Kyi was complicit in the crimes against the Rohingya.

The developments come amid US reports of increasing American aid to the government of Myanmar.

The administration of US President Donald Trump, meanwhile, has been widely censured by human rights institutions and a number of American lawmakers for its guarded response to the harrowing atrocities in Myanmar, and could now encounter further pressure to adopt a tougher position.

"What's missing now is a clear indication of whether the US government intends to pursue meaningful accountability and help ensure justice for so many victims," said the head of Human Rights Watch's Washington office, Sarah Margon.

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Pundits Say Russian Vote Results Signal Protest, Not Real Change

Matthew Luxmoore September 25, 2018

As exit polls from the Khaborovsk region's gubernatorial runoff pointed to a landslide victory for Sergei Furgal, the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) candidate was asked what swayed the September 23 vote.

"People are tired," he replied to reporters. "They want change."

Furgal routed his rival, United Russia's Vyacheslav Shport, by taking nearly 70 percent of the vote. Coupled with another gubernatorial seat won by LDPR at the expense of United Russia the same day, the victory dealt a humiliating defeat to Kremlin-backed candidates and caused heads to turn in Moscow.

But analysts caution against seeing the LDPR -- or the Communists, who have also been making gains -- as any real threat to the political system established under President Vladimir Putin.

The nationalist LDPR and the Communist Party, which remains in the running in two pending gubernatorial runoffs, are widely seen as being among the handful of Kremlin-approved parties that together form Russia's "systemic opposition."

Furgal's victory in Khabarovsk, and the triumph in the Vladimir region of his party colleague Vladimir Sipyagin, may have inflicted damage to United Russia's image and weakened its hand in upcoming contests against the Communists in the process.

Few analysts see the two "opposition" parties' success as a sign of any serious shift on the political scene, however.

According to Andrei Kolesnikov of the Carnegie Moscow Center, those who cast votes on September 23 cared little what party Furgal and Sipyagin represent -- they cared only that they were not from United Russia. Writing in The New Times, an independent Russian weekly, on September 23, he said the elections should be seen as a public-opinion poll for the Kremlin, and proof that many Russians are thumbing their noses at Moscow.

Despite widespread cynicism and an overarching sense in Russia's regions that little will change, people are nonetheless motivated to head to the polls. In both the Khabarovsk and Vladimir regions, the September 23 runoff exceeded turnout in the first round.

Aleksei Makarkin of the Center for Political Technologies, a Moscow think tank, chalks this up partly to inertia and partly to anger over recent plans to hike the retirement age. A protest vote replaces a street protest, he says. "People are scared to go on the streets, and one way to express dissatisfaction with the government is to vote against United Russia," Makarkin tells RFERL.

Stanislav Belkovsky of the National Security Institute, a political consultancy based in Moscow, compared the current situation in Russia with the late 1980s in the Soviet Union, when people used the first partially free elections to elevate "freaks and outcasts" of all stripes just to spite the Communist Party.

"The authorities' contemptuous approach to the public has prompted it to vote for any opposition candidate whatsoever," Belkovsky told the Russian news portal Business Online. "But [Putin] is not reacting. He believes that the chosen governor will be on his side whatever happens, because he depends on federal financing in any case."

Precedent Set?

People have learned since 1996, when Yeltsin's reelection was engineered, that the authorities will not allow them to democratically change the government, local St. Petersburg lawmaker and veteran liberal politician Boris Vishnevsky wrote in Novaya Gazeta on September 24.

But this year's regional elections have set a precedent, he argued, by giving people a sense that power can be changed not only from above, but also from below. "It's not all the same who wins," he wrote. "Because the precedent of a change of government is more important than the 'veneer' of a new government."

Whatever the case, there are indications that the Kremlin has been rattled by its defeats in the regions.

Sources in the presidential administration told Vedomosti on September 25 that Furgal broke his promise to the Kremlin to refrain from campaigning and ultimately become his rival's deputy. The Kremlin is now seeking to punish the LDPR and the Communist Party by withdrawing assistance to their candidates in future regional elections and limiting cooperation with them, an unnamed source told the newspaper. "They crossed a red line," the source is quoted as saying. "They've turned into the nonsystemic opposition and may now share its fate."

If true, that may set the tone in two other regions preparing to head to the polls.

In the Primorye region, a rerun has been ordered after the election commission annulled the previous vote, citing fraud. In Khakasia, the United Russia candidate and incumbent Governor Viktor Zimin has pulled out, leaving his Communist rival as the favorite. The playing field seems wide open.

Might Not Matter

According to Makarkin, many Russian citizens have long bought into the idea that they are voting for real change -- just as many believed the claims made in a recent interview with state media by the men Britain accused of poisoning former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in Salisbury.

"The average voter believes that the Communists are a real opposition party," he said, "just like they believe Boshirov and Petrov are guys who went on holiday to the U.K."

But ultimately, Kolesnikov writes, "there's practically no difference between ruling party candidates and 'opposition' candidates."

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/pundits-say- russian-vote-results-signal-protest- not-real-change/29509181.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.

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S-300 Deliveries to Syria to Make Russia Reliable Arms Supplier - Arab League

Sputnik News

19:20 25.09.2018(updated 19:42 25.09.2018)

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Jaber Habib Jaber, the ambassador of the LAS to Russia, told Sputnik constant position of the LAS on S-300 deliveries to Syria, further dialogue with Russia and Russian-Turkish agreement on Syria's Idlib.

S-300 Deliveries to Syria to Help Make Russia Reliable Arms Supplier, Friend

On Monday, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that Russia would take a number of measures to boost the safety of its troops in Syria, including the deliveries of the S-300 system, in the wake of the Il-20 crash.

"From the point of view that it [S-300] is keeping the balance between Syria and Israel, I think it is better for Syria and for other Arab countries because  they are looking forward to having more advanced weapons to protect their own security and this is to give a proof that Russia is a reliable source [of weapons] for the Arab world as a friend," Jaber said.

On September 17, the Il-20 plane was downed by a missile launched by Syria's S-200 air defense system. The Syrian system was targeting Israeli F-16 jets that were attacking the facilities in the Syrian province of Latakia. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, Israel notified Russia of its operation only a minute before the attack.

Russia has blamed the incident, which claimed the lives of 15 troops, on Israel and said that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) used the Russian Il-20 as a shield.

Dialogue Instead of Sanctions on Iran

On Monday, the European Union said it would set up a special payment channel so that European and other countries could keep up trade with Iran despite US extraterritorial sanctions.

"So we should find a better way to have more dialogue, to modify the behavior of the countries which we do not like through the exchange of views rather than sanctions," Jaber said when asked about the EU plan to bypass the US sanctions regarding Iranian oil trade.

The LAS representative added that sanctions were hurting not only the government but all of the people.

Jaber cited different examples of sanctions being used in such countries as Turkey and China.

"I don't think it will help the free trade," the LAS representative said.

US President Donald Trump in May said Washington would withdraw from Iran nuclear deal, reinstating sanctions against Tehran. The first set of sanctions, concerning Iran's purchase of dollars, trade in gold and precious metals, as well as sales of commercial passenger aircraft and auto parts and related services, came into effect on August 7.

The second portion of sanctions, concerning sales of oil and related products, will be reinstated on November 4.

Arab League Welcomes Russian-Turkish Agreement on Syria's Idlib

Last week, Presidents Vladimir Putin of Russia and Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey agreed to set up a demilitarized zone in Idlib by October 15 to avoid large-scale civilian casualties that an anti-terrorist operation there might cause.

"[This has] been most welcome in our countries. We think that this avoid[s] the tragedy [including] civilian casualties. But it is important how Turkey is able to deliver their promises, whether they are able to convince the extremists to deliver heavy weapons It is important to implement this agreement on the ground," Jaber said.

The LAS believes in the importance of the political process in Syria, the ambassador said.

"Of course we should at the beginning fight terrorist groups to exclude them, and those in the resistance which been accepted by the government could be part of the solution," Jaber said.

The armed conflict has been ongoing in Syria since 2011, but last year the focus has shifted from fighting terrorists to a political settlement.

 Sputnik

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Russia making 'major mistake' by giving Syria S-300 air defense system: Bolton

Iran Press TV

Tue Sep 25, 2018 07:50AM

Russia's decision to provide Syria with advanced S-300 air defense systems is a "major mistake," US National Security Advisor John Bolton has warned, advising Russia against escalating the already high tensions in the Middle East region.

"We think introducing the S-300s to the Syrian government would be a significant escalation by the Russians and something that we hope, if these press reports are accurate, they would reconsider," Bolton said Monday, according to a report by the Associated Press.

Moscow said earlier in the day that Damascus would receive the modern missile system within two weeks.

The decision came after Israeli fighter jets attacking Syrian military posts misled the country's air defenses into shooting down a Russian Ilyushin Il-20 reconnaissance plane on September 17, killing all 15 passengers onboard.

Russia laid the blame on Israel, saying the Israeli fighter jets essentially used the Russian aircraft as a shield and pushed it into Syria's line of fire.

Bolton, however, said Israel was only defending itself against what he called "Iranian aggressive behavior" in Syria.

"The Israelis have a legitimate right to self-defense against this Iranian aggressive behavior, and what we're all trying to do is reduce tensions, reduce the possibility of major new hostilities," he argued. "That's why the president [Donald Trump] has spoken to this issue and why we would regard introducing the S300 as a major mistake."

Iran has been providing military advisory support to Syria at the request of the Damascus government, enabling its army to speed up its gains on various fronts against foreign-backed terror outfits.

The anti-Damascus militants have enjoyed Israeli support in form of weapons and medical treatment as well as recurrent airstrikes against Syrian military facilities.

Tel Aviv has also been running a campaign to convince Russia and the US to oust Iran's advisors from Syria, or at least push them back from areas close to the Arab country's southwestern border. The regime also claims to have deliberately targeted Iranian forces across the country.

US military to stay in Syria until Iran leaves: Bolton

Bolton noted in his remarks that the US plans to continue its military presence in Syria as long as Iranian advisors are there.

"We're not going to leave as long as Iranian troops are outside Iranian borders and that includes Iranian proxies and militias," Bolton said.

This goes against the longtime Pentagon policy that the US military mission in Syria would conclude once the terrorists are defeated.

US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis pointed this out hours after Bolton's remarks, claiming that while Russia and Iran had both contributed to instability in Syria, the US military remained solely focused on defeating Daesh.

"Right now our troops inside Syria are there for one purpose, and that's under the UN authorization about defeating ISIS," Mattis said, using another acronym for Daesh. "Our troops are there for that one purpose."

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Israel Warns Russia Over 'Dangers' Of Supplying Syria With Advanced Air Defenses

RFE/RL September 25, 2018

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned Russian President Vladimir Putin against delivering an advanced air-defense system to Syria, saying it will further destabilize the war-torn region.

After a call between the two leaders on September 24, Netanyahu's office said the prime minister told Putin that "transferring advanced weapons systems into irresponsible hands will increase the dangers in the region.

He also said that Israel "will continue to defend its security and its interests" by staging bombing raids on Iranian military targets in Syria."

Israel's statement came on the same day that U.S. national security adviser John Bolton warned that Russia's decision to supply Syria with an S-300 surface-to-air missile system was a "major mistake" and a "significant escalation" in Syria's seven-year civil war.

Israeli planes have carried out a number of deadly air strikes on Iranian military targets in Syria this year, largely undeterred by the Russian military presence there, apparently owing to close consultations between the Israeli and Russian militaries that Netanyahu's office said were reaffirmed during the phone call.

But last week, Russia for the first time challenged an Israeli incursion into Syria, blaming it in part for the downing of a Russian military plane that killed all 15 people on board.

Syrian air defenses mistakenly shot down the Russian Il-20 surveillance plane on September 17 following an Israeli bombing raid. Moscow claims the Russian plane was hit because Israeli pilots were using it as "cover."

Putin has described the incident as a "chain of tragic accidental circumstances."

The incident led Russia this week to announce new security measures to protect its military in Syria, including supplying the Syrian Army with an S-300 system and jamming radars of nearby warplanes.

Russia at an earlier stage in the war had suspended sending an S-300 system to Syria amid Israeli concerns that the missiles could be used against it.

But Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that "the situation has changed, and it's not our fault."

Netanyahu in the phone call with Putin continued to blame what his office called the "unfortunate incident" on "the Syrian military, which brought down the plane, and Iran, whose aggression is undermining stability."

Despite differing views of what happened, Netanyahu's office said the Russian and Israeli leaders "agreed to continue dialogue between professional teams and intermilitary coordination via military channels."

With reporting by AFP and Reuters

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/israel-warns- russia-over-dangers-of-supplying-syria-with- advanced-air-defenses/29508230.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.

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Russia's S-300 Will be Able to Close Parts of Syrian Airspace - Moscow

Sputnik News

11:09 25.09.2018(updated 13:01 25.09.2018)

On Monday, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced that Moscow would provide Syria with its advanced S-300 air defense systems to boost the security of Russian servicemen stationed in the country following the downing of the Russian Il-20 plane last week.

Addressing the Russian Defense Ministry's announcement on S-300 supplies to Syria, Vladimir Ermakov, Director of the Department for Nonproliferation and Arms Control of the Russian Foreign Ministry, said that any state had the inalienable right to provide defense industry assistance to its partners.

"This is an inalienable right of any state to provide defense industry assistance to its partners," Ermakov said.

Russia's supplies to Syria would be able to close Syrian airspace where necessary, Ermakov elaborated, adding that the arguments of Moscow's partners, who previously requested that it not deliver the S-300s to Syria, had no effect anymore.

"At a certain stage, our other partners asked us not to do it, they gave their arguments, we took them into consideration. Now the situation has developed in such a way that the arguments do not work any more," he said, apparently alluding to Israel's request in 2013.

He also stated that the chances of concluding new agreements between Russia and the US in the area of non-proliferation were not very high.

"There is nothing at all (prohibiting Russia's move) in the area of reduction of strategic offensive weapons, missile arsenals and nuclear weapons, except the Russia-US agreements. And the current situation allows to assume that the probability of concluding some new agreements in the coming years is not very high," Ermakov told a press conference.

'Significant Escalation'

Responding to US National Security Adviser John Bolton's remark that the S-300's delivery to Syria would constitute a "significant escalation" by Moscow, Ermakov stated the S-300 systems were meant for defensive purposes, and the US was fudging when saying that Russia's supplies would violate its national security.

"The systems are purely defensive, so when the US says that defensive weapons are undermining its national security, it's fudging," he said.

In addition, Ermakov stated that those steps would lead to regional stabilization, rather than escalation.

"In fact, these actions will lead to the stabilization of [the situation in the] region, as we will be able to close the airspace if and where necessary, and, most importantly, our servicemen that fulfill their international duty at the Syrian government's invitation will be protected," Ermakov said.

Earlier this week, US National Security Adviser John Bolton said that the deployment of the S-300s in Syria would escalate the situation in the region.

"We think introducing the S-300s to the Syrian government would be a significant escalation by the Russians and something that we hope, if these press reports are accurate, they would reconsider. There shouldn't be any misunderstanding here The party responsible for the attacks in Syria and Lebanon and really the party responsible for the shooting down of the Russian plane is Iran," Bolton told the press.

S-300s Will be Delivered to Guarantee Security of Russian Servicemen  Kremlin

Shortly after Ermakov's press conference, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated that the S-300s' supplies were not directed at any third country.

"They will be delivered exclusively in the interests of ensuring the security of our military," he said.

According to the Russian newspaper Kommersant, citing unofficial data, Russia will provide Syria with two regimental sets of S-300 surface-to-air missile systems.

FM: S-300 Deliveries Are Not Directed at Israel

Ermakov reiterated Peskov's statement that the supplies of the advanced systems to Syria were not directed at Israel, stressing that the country was Russia's partner.

'Adequate Measures'

On September 24, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced a set of measures to improve the security of Russian troops in Syria after the Russian Il-20 aircraft with 15 servicemen on board was downed by the Syrian air defenses in an attempt to repel an Israeli airstrike.

"The Syrian Armed Forces will be supplied with the advanced S-300 air defense missile system within two weeks. It is capable of intercepting air threats at a range of more than 250 kilometers and simultaneously hitting several aerial targets," Shoigu said.

According to the ministry, the Israeli Air Force used the Russian plane as a shield while attacking targets in Syria and was fully responsible for the crash; Tel Aviv, however, blamed Damascus for the tragic incident.

"We are convinced that the implementation of these measures will cool hotheads and prevent ill-considered actions from threatening our servicemen. Otherwise we will have to respond in line with the current situation," Shoigu stressed.

The defense minister also underscored the fact that 5 years ago Moscow had halted the supply of S-300s to Damascus at Israel's request, but the situation has changed "through no fault of Russia."

Addressing Shoigu's announcement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Russian President Vladimir Putin that delivering such systems to "irresponsible players" would only increase security risks in the region.

 Sputnik

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The RAF Museum has just published an update on the collections Westland Lysander Mk.III R9215, which has been undergoing conservation work at the RAF Museum Cosfords Michael Beetham Conservation Center for much of the past two years. The museum will be holding an open house between November 12th and 18th, 2018 where members of the public will be able to see first hand how the Lizzie is progressing, along with several other historic types under restoration in the usually off-limits building. Members of the restoration team will be on hand to answer questions. Please read the following RAF Museum press announcement to learn more details!

Michael Beetham Conservation Center Open House:

Date: 12-18 November 2018

Time: 10:15am-1:00pm

Cost: 5.00 per person

A Second World War Westland Lysander III (S.D.), the only surviving Special Duties variant of its type will soon be on show to the public. The aircraft is currently undergoing conservation work in the Michael Beetham Conservation Centre at the Royal Air Force Museum Cosford and this November the centre will be opening its doors, allowing visitors behind the scenes access to aircraft conservation projects and the chance to speak with the team who make them happen.

From 12-18 November visitors can get up close to the current projects undertaken by the team at Cosford and a highlight during this special event will be the remarkable progress on the Westland Lysander III (S.D.) last seen by the public in the static display line-up at the RAF Cosford Air Show in June.

Upon arrival at the Museum some 22 months ago, the Lysander underwent an in-depth inspection and condition assessment and work was carried out on a few minor repairs. The damaged fabric outer skin was removed and focus was put into the aircrafts engine, preservative treatments were removed and mechanical systems were cleaned and lubricated and are now functional again.

Since it was last viewed in June the aircraft has undergone a major transformation, mainly the recovering of the fuselage in a traditional Irish linen using original doping techniques. The new outer skin has already received its UV microwave protection layer and is currently being primed ready for its 161 Squadron Special Ops colour scheme to be applied within the next few weeks. Aviation fans will be able to view the newly painted fuselage section during the November Open Week and speak with members of the team who have carried out the work.

The Lysander has been a largely Volunteer led project with a team of 4-6 volunteers working two days a week on the cleaning and mechanical elements, whist the new outer skin and paintwork has been applied by the Museums skilled Surface Finish Technician.

RAF Museum Conservation Centre Manager, Darren Priday said;

During the inspection phase, we discovered some original fabric and weve taken the decision to conserve this item and keep the original paintwork. Once the fuselage section is complete, work will begin on attaching the ailerons and other flying controls which have already been covered in Irish linen; these will go through the same doping and paint process as the fuselage. The metal cowlings will be resprayed before being refitted. Over the next few months our team of Volunteers will be focussing their efforts on the wings. This work will all be on display to the public in November and in the New Year the undercarriage will be refitted as part of the rebuild phase which is expected to take upwards of 12 months.

The Museums Westland Lysander III (S.D.) is the only surviving Special Duties variant of this aircraft. It was designed to operate closely with the Army and had a remarkable performance which enabled it to get into and out of extremely small fields. A radical change in Army co-operation tactics meant that its lasting fame is not in this role but as a Special Duties aircraft ferrying Allied agents in and out of enemy occupied Europe. Four Lysander squadrons went to France in 1939 and despite some notable successes the Army Co-operation units suffered extremely high casualties  over 170 Lysanders were sent to France; only 50 came back. After their withdrawal from France, they patrolled the coastal areas of south and east England as an anti-invasion reconnaissance measure. Late in 1940 they began air-sea rescue duties in the Channel and North Sea  not only could the Lysander spot airmen in the sea and bring surface vessels to them, it was able to drop a lifesaving dinghy and supplies.

The Museums example, serial number R9125 first became operational with No 225 Squadron in 1940 as a coastal patrol and photo reconnaissance aircraft, based along the south coast of England. It took on the Special Duties role with No 161 Squadron in 1944 and was operational for a further two years until they became obsolete from the RAF in 1946. For a brief period in 1961 the aircraft was placed into storage at RAF Cosford and ten years later it was acquired by the Museum and placed on display at its London site, where it remained on display until its recent move to back to Cosford.

Visitors will also be able to view the continuing progress on the Vickers Wellington, Range Safety Launch, a project being run by a team of Volunteers, plus see a glimpse of the Dornier Do 17 smaller objects including propellers and engines, plus the First World War German LVG aircraft will also be on display to visitors. Museum Technicians, Apprentices and Volunteers will be available throughout the week to speak with visitors about their work and answer any questions they may have.

The Conservation Centre will open from 12-18 November between 10.15am and 1.00pm each day and admission is 5.00 per person (children under 16 are free and must be accompanied by an adult). The Museums other hangars will be open from 10am until 5:00pm and entry to the Museum is free of charge. For further information, please visit the Museums website or call 01902 376200.

Please click HERE to buy tickets.Maxtech Ventures Inc. (CSE: MVT) (Frankfurt: M1N) (OTC: MTEHF) (Maxtech or the Company) today provides an update on the Companys strategic mineral asset projects in Brazil.

Peter Wilson, CEO Maxtech stated We are pleased to bring our shareholders an update on our flagship assets in Brazil. Manganese and vanadium are globally high-value strategic metals. We will continue to build on our strategic metal asset base in Brazil as opportunities arise. Our current off-take partnerships stand ready to assist.

Brasnorte Manganese Project: Juina, State of Mato Grosso / Trial Mining License Update

The Brasnorte project assayed results of high-grade manganese between 51.4% to 55.9% over 4 mineral claims totaling 40,000 ha remain the Companys focus in the area. MLB DE Nogueira, our in-country asset and exploration management team, will be traveling today to Cuiaba to meet with the Departamento Nacional de Producao Mineral (DNPM) to discuss the final stages of approval of the trial mining license (Guia) in order obtain the environmental and operating licenses that the Company needs to further its exploration and trial production initiatives. The Guia documentation details how mining the manganese claims will be determined, using backhoes, rippers, draglines and other equipment. Once the first Guia is approved, Maxtech will coordinate the filing of the next Guia submissions on the remaining claims, so that the entire area in the Brasnorte Project can begin production.

Vanadium: Maracas, State of Bahia

A total of 3500 hectares located in the eastern state of Bahia close to Largo Resources producing Maracas Menchen Vanadium Mine and their Campbell pit deposit, were acquired on July 20th, 2018. The Companys Brazilian based geologist and his vanadium experienced research team will be traveling to Bahia beginning the next stage of research on the claims. There are additional areas of interest in the area which Maxtech is presently investigating.

New Business

Santana do Pirapama, Minas Gerais

Maxtech has signed a non-exclusive letter of interest in Minas Gerais to joint venture with a Brazilian based company on claims where manganese mineralization has been proven under DNPM No. 830.839/2014. The Claimholders Group and the potential joint venture partner have filed for a Guia trial mining license. Maxtech and its in-country partners are assessing the project.

About Maxtech Ventures Inc.

Maxtech Ventures Inc. is a Canadian-based diversified industries corporation focused primarily on manganese and strategic mineral properties.

For additional information see the Companys web site at http://www.maxtech-ventures.com

Email to info@maxtech-ventures.com

Phone: 604-484-8989

Further information about the Company is available on www.SEDAR.com under the Companys profile.

Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Certain statements contained in this release may constitute forwardlooking statements or forward-looking information (collectively forward-looking information) as those terms are used in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and similar Canadian laws. These statements relate to future events or future performance. The use of any of the words could, intend, expect, believe, will, projected, estimated, anticipates and similar expressions and statements relating to matters that are not historical facts are intended to identify forward-looking information and are based on the Companys current belief or assumptions as to the outcome and timing of such future events. Actual future results may differ materially. In particular, this release contains forward-looking information relating to the business of the Company, the Property, financing and certain corporate changes. The forward-looking information contained in this release is made as of the date hereof and the Company is not obligated to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities laws. Because of the risks, uncertainties and assumptions contained herein, investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The foregoing statements expressly qualify any forward-looking information contained herein.



Source: Maxtech Ventures Inc. (CSE:MVT, OTC Pink:MTEHF)

Victoria, British Columbia (FSCwire) - As a result of a review by the British Columbia Securities Commission (BCSC), Erin is issuing the following news release to clarify its disclosure.

Recently, the BCSC made technical comments regarding the Piskanja property updated resource estimate report, titled, Mineral Resource Estimate Update on the Piskanja Borate Project, Serbia (the Report) dated October 2016, as disclosed by Erin in a news release dated November 28, 2016. The technical comments by the BCSC require a revision of the current Report. As a result, the Report does not comply with the requirements of NI43-101 until such time as the required revisions have been completed. As the aforementioned mineral resources are not supported by a compliant NI43-101 technical report, they should not be relied upon until they can be supported by a compliant technical report.

On behalf of the Board of Directors of Erin Ventures Inc.,

Blake Fallis, General Manager

The technical information in this release was prepared and approved by James E Wallis, M.Sc. (Eng), P. Eng., a director of the company, who is a Qualified Person under National Instrument 43-101.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

About Erin Ventures

Erin Ventures Inc. is an international mineral exploration and development company with boron assets in Serbia. Headquartered in Victoria, B.C., Canada, Erin's shares are traded on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol "EV". For detailed information please see Erin's website at www.erinventures.com or the Company's filed documents at www.sedar.com.

For further information, please contact: Erins Public Quotations Erin Ventures Inc. Canada USA Blake Fallis, General Manager TSX Venture: EV SEC12G3-2(B)#82-4432 Phone: 1-250- 384-1999 or 1-888-289-3746 OTCBB: ERVFF info@erinventures.com Europe www.erinventures.com Berlin: EKV

To view the original release, please click here

Source: Erin Ventures Inc. (TSX Venture:EV, OTC Bulletin Board:ERVFF)

To follow Erin Ventures Inc. on your favorite social media platform or financial websites, please click on the icons below.

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Copyright  2018 FSCwireAavas Financiers IPO Opens; Should You Invest? Business oi-Olga Robert

Aavas Financiers Ltd opens its initial public offering (IPO) on 25 September aimed at raising Rs 1,734 crore. Promoters and investors of the housing finance company are selling 1.62 crore shares, and the mortgage lender is planning on issuing fresh shares worth Rs 400 crore.

These will be offered to the public at the price band of Rs 818-821 a share for a period of 3 days.

Promoters selling their stakes are Lake District Holdings Ltd., Partners Group Private Equity Master Fund LLC and Partners Group ESCL who will be selling 24.2 percent of their shareholding from the existing 81.26 percent. Other investors putting their shares on sale are Kedaara Capital (0.32 percent), Sushil Agarwal (1.24 percent) and Vivek Vig (0.17 percent).

From the anchor investors category, the company has raised Rs 520 crore from AU Small Finance Bank, DSP Blackrock Tax Saver Fund, Abu Dhabi Investment Authority-Behave, Bajaj Life Insurance, SBI Life, and Morgan Stanley India Investment.

Company Background

Aavas Financiers is the former subsidiary of AU Small Finance Bank and used to be called AU Housing Finance Ltd. It is primarily into providing housing loan to customers belonging to the low and middle-income segment in semi-urban and rural areas. Its customers are either self-employed, running small businesses like providing transportation facilities in auto rickshaw or other vehicles, running grocery shops, tiffin centers, beauty parlous and other businesses or these customers are carrying out business of agri or animal husbandry products in rural areas or salaried class people who are carrying out small jobs in private or public sector.

It has 186 branches in 8 states, namely, Rajasthan (75), Gujarat (29), Maharashtra (36), Madhya Pradesh (29), Delhi (2), Uttar Pradesh (4), Chattisgarh (5) and Haryana (6).

Loans are extended for home purchases, repairs, construction, and expansion. Its loan book has grown at an annualised rate of 58.6 percent and profit at 71.3 percent. As of March this year, its gross non-performing assets stood at 0.34 percent of total advances and net interest margin was over 7 percent.

Brokerage views

Antique Stock Broking said, "Valuations at 4.1 times on post-money book and 43 times on FY19e earnings do not leave much upside in the near term. Investors with long term outlook can look to subscribe." Emkay Global feels that as the company's overall leverage accelerates, superior returns on equity of over 20 percent can be expected. It also said that the risk of dilution was also limited due to sufficient capital in place and gave the IPO a "subscribe" recommendation.

For investment related articles, business news and mutual fund advise Allow Notifications

Story first published: Tuesday, September 25, 2018, 11:32 [IST]Linking Aadhaar With Bank Accounts, SIM Cards Not Mandatory: SC Business oi-Olga Robert

The Supreme Court today has upheld the validity of Aadhaar in its verdict today but with certain important conditions.

Here are the highlights of the verdict from the apex court bench, headed by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra:

Aadhaar linking with bank accounts not compulsory.

Aadhaar is not mandatory for the purchase of a SIM Card. The notification by the Department of Telecommunication on linking SIM cards with Aadhaar has been held unconstitutional.

Linking Aadhaar to PAN is still required.

Educational boards like CBSE and UGC cannot ask for Aadhaar mandatorily.

School admissions do not require Aadhaar, as children cannot be denied benefits for lack of the 12-digit ID proof.

The portion of Section 57 that enables corporates to seek Aadhaar for authentication was held to be unconstitutional. No private organisation can demand Aadhaar.

Records of Aadhaar authentication cannot be held for more than 6 months. Metadata cannot be stored in current form.

The court upholds passing Aadhaar as a money bill.

Individuals can approach the court to file cases under the Aadhaar Act.

Petitioners had challenged three key aspects, that is the collection of biometric data of citizens before 2016 without any statutory backing, using the 12-digit number as an identity proof to avail public services and passing the Aadhaar Act in 2016 as a money bill which doesn't require the assent of Rajya Sabha.Pope Francis has acknowledged that underground churches will suffer as a result of a landmark deal between the Vatican and China on the appointment of bishops, but praised the "martyr-like faith" of Chinese Catholics and their willingness to accept whatever was decided.



In his first public comments on the deal signed in Beijing on Saturday, Francis told reporters he understands that not everyone will agree with the decision, but that he was confident in the "great faith" of Chinese Catholics.



"I think of the endurance of the Catholics who suffered. It is true that they will suffer. There is always suffering in an accord, but they have great faith," the pope said, according to the South China Morning Post.



While certain details of the deal have not yet been disclosed, reports of the agreement indicate that Chinese officials will submit a candidate for bishop to the Vatican. Speaking to reporters, Francis explained that he - not Beijing - will have final say in the appointment of bishops.



"It's not (that the government) names them. It is a dialogue. But it is the pope who will appoint them. Let that be clear," he said of the provisional agreement signed on September 22.



China's approximately 12 million Catholics have been split between underground churches headed by bishops secretly chosen by the Vatican and churches openly operating under the state-supervised Catholic Patriotic Association.



On Wednesday, Francis released a lengthy letter to Chinese Catholics, asking them to "place your trust ever more firmly in the Lord of history and in the church's discernment of his will."



"The Catholic community in China is called to be united, so as to overcome the divisions of the past that have caused, and continue to cause great suffering in the hearts of many pastors and faithful," Francis wrote, Vatican News reports. "All Christians, none excluded, must now offer gestures of reconciliation and communion."



The pontiff said he recognized the sacrifices of Catholics who have worshiped in underground churches, risking severe persecution at the hands of the officially atheist government.



"Some feel doubt and perplexity, while others sense themselves somehow abandoned by the Holy See," he wrote, acknowledging "the gift of your fidelity, your constancy amid trials."



"Had Abraham demanded ideal social and political conditions before leaving his land, perhaps he would never have set out," the pope wrote, adding, "it was not historical changes that made him put his trust in God; rather, it was his pure faith that brought about a change in history."



While some have praised the deal for ending a long-standing schism between the Vatican and China, others have expressed concern over the implications for religious freedom.



Christian Solidarity Worldwide, a United Nations-accredited persecution watchdog NGO, said that by signing the deal, the Vatican may "appear to have indirectly legitimized China's oppressive record against religious groups, including Catholics."



"CSW is deeply concerned about the timing of this provisional agreement between the Chinese government and the Vatican," CSW's East Asia Team Leader Benedict Rogers said in a statement. "While we understand some of the motivations behind the Vatican's effort toward an agreement, there are significant concerns about the implications for freedom of religion or belief in China."



"How can Vatican justify this doctrinally?" U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, a Republican Catholic representing Florida, asked in a tweet. "They are giving a government (an atheist one) influence in choosing bishops which 'are regarded as transmitters of the apostolic line.' How does secular (and atheist) interference in that decision not break that line?"



Prior to the signing of the agreement, Cardinal Joseph Zen warned that the deal may create a schism among the local faithful and said Francis doesn't fully understand Chinese President Xi Jinping's war on religion.



"Francis is too optimistic," said Zen, 86. "The trouble is that he doesn't know the Chinese government. He doesn't have experience of a Communist regime."



"I said that, 'I'm really worried not about you, Your Holiness, but about the people around you,'" Zen said. "I said, 'The things your collaborators are doing' -- and I used a really bad Italian word, macchinando [plotting] -- 'will have tragic and long-lasting effects, not only for the Church in China, but for the whole Church.'"



China ranks as the 43rd worst country in the world when it comes to Christian Persecution, according to Open Doors USA's 2018 World Watch List.

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has confirmed that the team will be downgrading their engines from the Spec C back to the Spec B, meaning that both Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo will have grid penalties.

Verstappen will be celebrating his 21st birthday on race day in Russia, but he'll have to do so from the back of the grid. On the back of his Driver of the Day-performance in Singapore, where he fended off Sebastian Vettel for second place, he'll be frustrated to not have the opportunity to carry on the momentum and score another podium, but that's life as a Renault customer.

Ricciardo has been the victim of many mechanical issues this season, with his car simply not working with him most of the times. Maybe that's a big reason he decided to leave to the Renault works team next season.

Explaining why Red Bull will be downgrading their engine spec again, Horner argued that Russia was going to be a tough weekend for Red Bull either way.

Weve got the previous specification going in for the next race, so Sochi is going to be a tough weekend for us, Horner was quoted by GPfans.

We accepted the risks when we took this [Spec C] engine. It has delivered a bit more power and it has been a bit rough around the edges.

I think the [Red Bull mechanics] actually did a good job to tidy it up as best they could on the mapping within their parameters. With more time and more optimisation, it would only be better.

I think realistically this year, Mexico is probably the only shot weve got left [of a win] under normal circumstances, he added.Why is it that the Kavanaugh accusations are being viewed as a headlong movement dems are manufacturing so as to preserve the relevance of their party?

Its hard not to pivot to the laconic sentiment of just shut up articulated by Senator Hirono of Hawaii at this moment. Especially being a girl in high school in Hamilton County, and how the sexual assault that allegedly took place was the surrogate of male subjugation poorly guised as teenage immaturity.

And its hard to claim the absolute veracity of the situation, not only legally. Something about this entire situation though is extremely devastating and despicable, that despite the feasibility of the allegations considering the obscenities in Kavanaughs yearbook (see 100 Kegs or Bust et al.), the often belligerent and prodigal nature of Kavanaugh described in Mark Judges book (who was in the room with Kavanaugh during Blasey-Fords assault, mind you), and the onslaught of disparaging attacks Professor Ford has already faced for coming forward; one womans tragedy is being labeled as something said with malice or guile. This is absolutely unacceptable and frustrating, and I say with respects to my studenthood as a girl in high school.

The women, Deborah Ramirez and Christine Blasey-Ford, face no incentivization for this. Professor Ford or Ms. Ramirez are not subject to compensation simply for coming forward. Im dizzy and angry, not only because I believe Professor Ford and Ms. Ramirez, but also because of the agency me and my female peers loose amid unwanted sexual advances from teenage boys; often in cousinship of Professor Ford and Deborah Ramirezs allegations that have brought to the table. I keep arriving at the question: How could I possibly remove myself from this behemoth of a situation when theres a culture enabling every level of abuse among boys in our schools? And thats not locally, its not statewide, its national.

Every incident of abuse my female peers experience, it is something felt in collective and erumpent agony; by all of us and simultaneously. Its something of desiccation of freedom; freedom to talk about it, freedom to undo the intimidation of reporting an incident, freedom to live your high school career exactly how the praxis of high school intended it to be in the first place. This desiccation, at least for now, is halted as it has arrived at the table.

Indeed, it is important that the accusations have arrived at the table.

This table, though inherits termite-infested limbs, and is falling quickly with each political side polarizing in exorbitant amounts as every hour passes. This is a crisis, there is no doubt of it. The main polemicists, though, have been those who have found themselves loquaciously spewing diatribes not only dismissing the women, but silencing them. The most devastating thing about this personally is if I or many of my other female peers were to come out and speak on abuses that could have taken place during my schooling career, how would I be treated?

I ask you, Blasey-Ford and Ramirez dissenters, how would you respond to me credibly alleging a candidate for office of a sexual abuse when I was this age? Even if I had ample corroboration? Even if I was a Republican accusing a Democrat?

Would you resurrect an Anita Hill situation if I came forward, same with my peers? If not, and I assume thats a no, how can you pretend to respect Professor Ford or Ms. Ramirezs right to have voice when you are fallaciously denying their credibility, their surrounding corroboration? It is not right, not just, and absolutely not an actualized form of due process. In fact, its due process rarefied to the point of dissolution; too cloudy to be seen even if it was right in front of you.

It is lazy algebra you undertake, notwithstanding your bending over backwards to find stretched reasons as to why the confirmation must go on. You are attempting to surmount some Everest of constitutional freedom, when what is really present is a misogynistic blow unto women as an entirety. Its a rhetorical loophole; one that supports freedom of speech until it threatens the validity of an adored figure, suddenly turning into a rictus of consent. Its hirsutely bad. And Im still dizzy because of it.

The emotional intake from on behalf of the women must be brutal, and my heart aches for both these women. I pray desperately for a day not shared with impropriety, and I pray for a spiritual end to this disharmony. And it is my forefront yearning for something with peace and love, however it might be sleeping even as the sun rises.

Mae Buck

* * *

Dear Ms. Buck,

Please allow me to begin by stating that I will be writing my reply somewhere between a 4th and 7th grade level. I went much further in school than that, but obviously I did not have the education and level of reading that you have attained. Congratulations. I almost had to resort to google to clarify portions of your content.

All of the parties involved in the accusations and defense against the same have suffered. There are deep emotional scars for these women and there has been an emotional trauma for Judge Kavanaugh. It is unfortunate but thoroughly understandable that the situation has been extremely politicized and polarized within the current media environment.

Dr. Ford's letter was mishandled from the beginning. It is regrettable that she somehow felt that her accusations and her privacy could coexist. It is not possible to bring the charges she alleges without her identity being exposed in the process. Her letter was leaked to the media by one of the two female politicians that handled it.

The correct process would have been to turn that letter over to the Senate Judiciary Committee and the proper investigative authorities so as to allow the accusations to be included in the 36 hours of the committees examination of Judge Kavanaugh.

Instead, the entire situation has been played out prematurely in the media. Dr. Ford and Judge Kavanaugh have both been slandered and damaged. This was definitely a political tactic and Dr. Fords trauma was weaponized for political gain. She might have been empowered by the Me too movement, which I believe is a positive step forward for all women who have been victims of abuse.

The final word from President Trump yesterday was that his mind could be changed by the hearings scheduled for today. Of course he is an avid supporter of Judge Kavanaugh, but the only true measure will be the decision of the Senate Judicial Committee.

As a young lady, you must decide that your own judgement should never be impaired by alcohol or drugs. Its old fashioned but temperance is a choice. In addition, you must decide with all of your willpower to positively resist and report any and all unwanted advances by anyone in your life. Demand respect from those around you. I do understand the difficulty of accomplishing what I am proposing. I revealed a personal abuse in my own life recently. It was part of an opinion I posted on this website. The abuse occurred when I was about 12 years old. I hid that abuse for almost 42 years, finally sharing it privately with a relative and a friend. Now I have shared it publicly after 49 years. Its both horrifying and liberating.

I pray that women and men will continue to share these traumas and in doing so move our society toward a better place. There will always be abuse, corruption, and deceit among mankind, it is our very nature alongside our capacity for true love, compassion, and respect. Our only recourse is to shine light into the darkness.

Ted Ladd



The U.S. Navy took delivery of the nuclear-powered submarine South Dakota from the Electric Boat shipyard in Groton operated by General Dynamics, the 17th Virginia-class attack sub.

The 377-foot South Dakota carries Tomahawk cruise missiles, with the sub able to dive more than 800 feet and travel more than 25 knots. Construction commenced in 2013, with the sub slated to be commissioned early next year.GREENWICH  Jessica DelGuercio, founder of the local animal advocacy group PAWS of Greenwich, will be en route Thursday to North Carolina for a rescue mission to help pets affected by Hurricane Florence.

The marketing consultant joined forces with the co-founders of Puppy Kitty NYC, an all-volunteer nonprofit animal rescue group, to raise money and collect supplies ahead of the trip. The donations will be dropped at animal crisis centers and shelters for displaced people and pets in the South. The group will then bring back homeless animals to rescues in the Northeast.In a music industry where streaming is king, one tried-and-true format is making a resounding and timely comeback. According to the Record Industry Association of America's mid-year report, vinyl record revenue has grown 12.6% from the first half of 2017, while CD's have drastically fallen by 41.5%.

Records are quickly taking over its CD predecessor as the primary format that people are using to consume physical music, despite the technology being more than three decades older.

This popularity is evident in Connecticut, with the number of "mom-and-pop" record stores eclipsing 15 just in our small state. Shops like Redscroll Records in Wallingford, which specializes in metal and indie music, have noticed that business is booming despite the popularity of music streaming apps such as Spotify and Apple Music.

"It will never be as satisfying to play a file as it is to grab a physical item and put the music on in that way, whether it be tape, CD or record," said Rick Sinkiewicz, co-owner of Redscroll Records.

"As much as big box stores might try and have a physical media selection, they'll never be as in touch with their surrounding community as smaller brick and mortar shops are because by their nature, they aren't run by people in that community."

Mary Snyder, co-owner of Replay Records in Hamden, looks forward to a new generation of music consumers discovering the perks of vinyl.

"Vinyl never went out of style at Replay, as we've been true to that since we opened in 1989. While digital music is convenient and portable, we sell more vinyl by far every year and will continue to do so," said Snyder. "The next generation of music lovers fill our store frequently and that's fine."

Connecticut-based musician, Pete Francis, member of Dispatch and founder of the Dragon Crest Collective, is no stranger to vinyl, being both a creator of vinyl for his music while also collecting the music that defines him. He believes that vinyl can bridge the divide between the musician and the consumer in a way digital can't.

"People that love music and love the artwork get the chance to look at the artwork very large and get to read the lyrics, and who played on the record," said Francis.

For Francis, the catalyst for his vinyl obsession came at the age of 7 when he was introduced to Cat Stevens' "Tea for the Tillerman," which spoke profoundly to him then, and still does now.

"On a philosophical basis, maybe I was right when I was younger, thinking about this songwriter who's searching in his life," said Francis, who looks to songs like "Father and Son" and "Hard Headed Woman" as pillars of songwriting.

Now, Francis sees record collecting as a kind of sport to both play and watch as vinyl has been reinvented in the methods of extremely limited pressings and exclusive, colored records. Older records, especially such as jazz from Blue Note and older soul pressings, are the kings and queens of his collection.

"I think listening to vinyl on a nice stereo is a visceral experience and also very peaceful. Like you put the record on, you put the needle on, and you just assume that record's spin," contemplated Francis.By West Kentucky Star Staff Sep. 25, 2018 | 06:36 AM | FRANKFORT

Today marks National Voter Registration Day and two weeks until the close of the voter registration rolls for the 2018 General Election in Kentucky. Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes is reminding eligible Kentuckians that the deadline to register to vote is Tuesday, Oct. 9.

"Registering to vote is the first and most important step in making sure you can have your say at the ballot box on Election Day," said Grimes. "On this National Voter Registration Day, I encourage all Kentuckians who are eligible to get registered and then vote on Nov. 6."

Kentuckians can easily register and update their registration with GoVoteKY.com , the Commonwealth's online voter portal. County clerks' offices throughout Kentucky will accept online and paper applications until 4 pm local time on the deadline. Mail-in voter registration applications must be postmarked by Oct. 9.

To be eligible to vote, Kentuckians must:

 Be a U.S. citizen.



 Be a Kentucky resident for at least 28 days before Election Day.



 Be at least 18 years old on or before the General Election.



 Not be a convicted felon, or if convicted of a felony offense, must have obtained a restoration of civil rights.



 Not have been adjudged "mentally incompetent."



 Not claim the right to vote anywhere outside Kentucky.



Young people who are 17 years old but will be 18 years old on or before the Nov. 6, 2018 General Election are eligible to register as well.

Voters who have recently moved need to update their voter registration information by no later than Oct. 9, 2018.

Voters may check their current registration status and where they vote with the Voter Information Center found at GoVoteKY.com. For questions, contact your county clerk or the State Board of Elections at (502) 573-7100.In the Women Entrepreneur series My Worst Moment, female founders provide a firsthand account of the most difficult, gut-wrenching, almost-made-them-give-up experience theyve had while building their business -- and how they recovered.

Efrat Ravid, currently chief marketing officer of UX platform ContentSquare, remembers the worst moment of her career. During her first week at a previous company, the business was moving some operations to the U.S. from its Europe office. On her second day, she was tasked with firing about 35 people that shed never met before. She tells us her story and what others can learn from the experience.

What follows is a firsthand account of this persons experience. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

About 10 years ago, I was hired by a well-established tech company in Europe with 800 employees that was looking to go public. For a successful IPO, the company had made a strategic decision to move sales and marketing to the U.S.

I was hired as vice president of marketing, meaning it was my responsibility to plan and execute the transition. Although I knew beforehand that they needed to restructure and move the team to the U.S., it wasnt clear to me that I would need to look about 35 people in the eyes and let them go. I thought any changes would have already been communicated before I came.

However, that wasnt the case. On my second day at the job, I was flown to England to restructure some of their teams, which meant I had to let go of an entire marketing team of over 30 strangers. These were people that had worked there for many years.

I met with everyone one-on-one to rip off the Band-Aid. We had two discussions with each person. First, we told them it was going to happen -- 'were going to let you go' -- and then we told them when it did happen.

A marketing writer was one of the first people I had to let go. She was a little older, and she was sure she would never find a job. That was very difficult. She cried and said she wasnt sure if she could go back home with the news. She wasnt sure if she could tell her friends and family that her job was eliminated and that she wasnt needed anymore.

I did have the companys HR team to help. They knew each person, their history and strengths, and together we really tried to help each employee find another place in the organization and/or help them relocate to the U.S. if possible. We told them it wasnt about them personally, that it was about the move to the U.S., and that wed try to help them find their new future. We even tried to help them to obtain another job in the local community through recommendations and career advice.

Still, the company was located in a small town, so everyone knew each other and their families. Those affected saw me as a big bad American coming to take jobs away. That was the worst moment; I felt that everyone looked at me as an evil person.

Letting someone go is the hardest thing a manager can do. I felt like George Clooney in that movie Up in the Air. It was a horrible feeling, and I wasnt sure if I made the right decision in joining the company. I called my husband and told him I wasnt sure why I took the job, that it was the worst decision ever. I was freaked out, and I couldnt sleep for two weeks.

The good news was I was able to relocate a couple of people to the new office, hire an amazing team, and I tried to help some others with personal introductions. As a company, we started a new successful operation in the U.S. with a fun and creative campaign to rebrand the company to fit the new market. Later, the company was acquired at a good price. I do believe I did my job in the best way I could, no matter how hard it was.

From the experience, I learned that even when change is hard and sometimes not fair, sometimes a business needs to make changes for the right reasons. I also learned to absolutely not accept positions where the first steps are to fire employees and evaluate them on performance that I havent seen myself.

And for others in a similar position, Id advise to treat each person with a lot of respect. We have a saying in Hebrew: Each person is a whole world -- treat them as if they are the most important thing. I would also recommend to partner with other executives that can help and spend as much time as necessary to rebuild trust.

Related:

She Had to Fire 35 People on Her Second Day on the Job. Here's How She Handled It -- and Her Advice for Rebuilding Trust.

How These Co-Founders Balanced Growing Families With an Unexpectedly Fast-Growing Company

This Executive's Mother Passed Away Right Before Her Wedding. Here's How She Moved Forward -- and How the Tragedy Inspired a New Career Trajectory.



Copyright 2018 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reservedDARIEN  A man and a juvenile from Stamford were arrested for allegedly plotting to commit a burglary.

On Sept. 16 at 11:41 p.m., an off-duty Darien police officer alerted on-duty cops about suspicious individuals walking on West Avenue.

The individuals were described as two males with bikes, wearing dark clothing and hooded sweatshirts. Officers later found two males matching the description in the area  one a 17-year-old male from Stamford and the other Doudley Pierre, a 19-year-old Stamford resident.

While speaking with the suspects, an officer asked Pierre if he had any contraband, to which he allegedly responded he had something in his sweatshirt pocket, but that it was not real. The officer reached into the pocket of Pierres sweatshirt and removed what appeared to be a BB gun, police said.

The officer noted it resembled a real firearm and had no obvious markings on it to indicate it was a BB gun. Also found on Pierre were several pairs of latex gloves and an unwound piece of metal wire, which according to police is commonly used to pick locks.

While speaking with the juvenile suspect, it was determined the bicycles the two individuals had were stolen out of Greenwich. A small bag of marijuana was found on the juvenile, police said.

Both suspects were transported to headquarters, where police said Pierre admitted he and the juvenile suspect planned to go to a friends house in Norwalk to burglarize it. The latex gloves found on Pierre were so he left no fingerprints, he said, according to police. When asked about the BB gun, Pierre said it was for protection. Police said Pierre also confirmed the bicycle he was in possession of was stolen from Greenwich.

Pierre was charged with interfering with an officer, possession of burglary tools, carrying a dangerous weapon, sixth-degree larceny, and first-degree conspiracy to commit burglary.

The 17-year-old was charged with first-degree conspiracy to commit burglary, sixth-degree larceny and possession of less than a half ounce of marijuana.

Pierre was held in lieu of $5,000 bond and was scheduled to appear in state Superior Court in Stamford on Sept. 27.

The juvenile male was released to a parent. He was issued a juvenile summons and released on a written promise to appear in state Superior Court in Stamford.

dj.simmons@hearstmediact.com, 203-842-2568The following editorial appeared in Wednesday's Yomiuri Shimbun:

- - -

Achieving concrete results toward the denuclearization of North Korea is the top-priority issue for a second U.S.-North Korea summit. The United States must craft a firm strategy, to avoid concluding another ambiguous agreement.

U.S. President Donald Trump and South Korean President Moon Jae In held talks in New York and agreed to cooperate toward another meeting of the U.S. and North Korean leaders.

Having visited North Korea about a week before, Moon held talks with Kim Jong Un, the chairman of the Workers' Party of Korea. Revealing Kim's wish that he "hopes a second summit with Trump would take place in the near future, in order to move the denuclearization process along quickly," Moon also relayed Kim's detailed messages to Trump.

Yet what Kim expressed during the inter-Korean summit talks was merely a policy of dismantling a nuclear facility in Yongbyon and such moves, on the condition that the United States implements corresponding measures.

Does Kim truly intend to move ahead with denuclearization? Isn't he trying to realize a declaration to formally end the Korean War while retaining his nation's nuclear weapons, and to win a guarantee from Washington of the regime's survival? It is necessary to ascertain Kim's true intentions.

It is a matter of concern that Trump has apparently been too eager to hold another meeting with Kim, saying he will announce the location of the second summit shortly. As long as Trump is obsessed with appealing to the public at home, with the midterm elections slated for November, he will end up just allowing Pyongyang to take the initiative in the negotiations.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he intends to visit North Korea shortly to make final preparations for the second meeting. The top priority is to have North Korea declare all its nuclear weapons and related facilities and quickly work out a road map that includes inspections and time lines for dismantlement, as well as procedures and other elements.

Meanwhile, there have been no remarks made, either by Trump or by Moon, stressing the military significance of the U.S.-South Korea alliance and the importance of its deterrence against North Korea. It is highly likely that the agreements over military spheres signed by the defense ministers of both countries - during their talks on the sidelines of the inter-Korean summit - have influenced this situation.

With regard to a large-scale military exercise or a buildup of military capability, North and South Korea said they will negotiate through the office of a "joint military committee." Both countries have also decided on the establishment of a no-fly zone near the military demarcation line.

It is problematic for the activities of the U.S. and South Korean forces to be significantly restricted. There is also the possibility of hindering reconnaissance activities to detect signs of military provocations by North Korea. It will undoubtedly be difficult for joint military drills, canceled this summer, to be resumed.

The aim of further relaxing tensions is understandable, but North Korea's military threat has not lessened. The U.S.-South Korea alliance has contributed not only to the defense of South Korea but also to the stability of the whole Northeast Asian region.

Both the United States and South Korea should maintain cooperation in the sphere of security, without being deluded by Pyongyang's dialogue offensive.Motorola was founded in Chicago on September 25, 1928  and today it's turning 90 years old! The company is celebrating with discounts on its current phones, including a Moto Z2 Force for just $300 (AT&T model only). Theres also the Moto Z2 Play for the same price.

The Z series models support MotoMods. The speaker mods are discounted by 25% as part of the promotion.

PS. you can read more about Motorolas illustrious history in the Counterclockwise article. Moto practically invented the modern smartphone and the innovation didnt stop there.

SourceDespite what an official called gaps in the effort to prevent the spread of invasive mussels at Tiber Reservoir, for the second straight year, none have been found in the body of water.

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks announced that divers searched for invasive mussels in the reservoir south of Chester, also known as Lake Elwell, but found none of the animals.

The first detection of the invasive mussels in Montana was in 2016, when larvae were found in Tiber and a suspected detection, never confirmed, was made in Canyon Ferry Reservoir.

The Missoulian reported Tuesday that Liz Lodman, the states aquatic invasive species coordinator, acknowledged problems existed after Caryn Miske  a critic of some of the states aquatic invasive species prevention efforts  said three inspection stations at Tiber Reservoir were not operating as they should.

Zebra and quagga mussels, which originate in Russia and Ukraine, have spread through Europe and parts of the United States, especially the Great Lakes and Mississippi River basin. With no natural predators and a rapid, prolific breeding cycle, the mussels often settle on and in boats, water infrastructure, screens, water intakes, pumps, pipelines, dams and other structures.

Their presence damages the natural ecology and causes major problems with water system infrastructure including irrigation projects and municipal water supplies.

The state established a mussel response team after the discovery, with stricter rules on boat inspections and water entry.

As the only two water bodies in Montana where mussels were detected or suspected, extra precautions were put in place at Tiber and Canyon Ferry.

But the precautions might have been skipped at times.

Miske said a boat went through an inspection station without the live wells being drained and without the bait well being inspected, the Missoulian reported.

She said two entry points open to certified boaters who last boated at Tiber were unstaffed, which would allow non-certified boats to launch without being inspected.

This month, five divers from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, coordinated by Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, searched near Tiber Dam up to a depth of about 35 feet.

With its rock structure, the dam is a good habitat for the invasive mussels, which prefer attaching to solid substances, such as rocks, a FWP release said.

Deeper than 35 feet, silt reduces the habitat for mussels significantly.

The divers are part of FWPs monitoring plan for Tiber Reservoir after water samples in 2016 came back positive for aquatic invasive mussel larvae. The monitoring plan also increased the frequency of water sampling at the reservoir.

FWP also said in a release that while many people have transitioned from fishing season to hunting season, watercraft inspection season is not over.

In addition to late-season anglers, hunters are currently utilizing watercraft for bowhunting and sheep hunting, and in the next few weeks, perhaps waterfowl hunting, a FWP release said. Watercraft users need to remain Clean.Drain.Dry. and continue to follow all laws and regulations related to Aquatic Invasive Species  inspections. 

FWP reminded people that watercraft must stop at all open inspection stations, with open stations listed online at http://cleandraindry.mt.gov/.

Watercraft coming into Montana from out of state must be inspected prior to launching. In addition, anyone transporting watercraft traveling west over the continental divide or into the Flathead Basin must be inspected before launching.

FWP and U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which oversees the operation Tiber Dam and Tiber Reservoir, also are planning on moving an inspection station from Rus Tiber Marina to the intersection of roads from the island campgrounds and the marina and adding 12 new campsites to provide additional space for inspection station workers.

For more information about Montanas efforts to defend against aquatic invasive species visit http://www.cleandraindrymt.com and the Protect Our Waters Montana Facebook page.Prior to bipartisan Medicaid expansion, Montana had the highest percentage of uninsured veterans in the nation. Only 40 percent of eligible veterans are enrolled in the VA health care system. Because the VA has only one main medical center in the state, Medicaid is critical for health care for thousands of veterans and their spouses living in rural communities. They are afforded access to care that is closer to home.

Nationally, nearly 1 in 10 veterans relies on Medicaid. In Montana, fully 10 percent of our population are veterans. These numbers alone should offer us guidance on whether or not to continue Medicaid expansion in Montana.

Like many of you, I have watched the opposition to I-185, funded almost entirely by Big Tobacco companies Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds, inundate our state with ads.

Ive looked at the initiative carefully and here are the simple facts:

1) I-185 will pay for itself. The fiscal note clearly shows that. I-185 will ensure Montana continues to access critical federal funds, save the state on health care costs and provides enough revenue to cover the states match.

2) It doesnt cut veterans services. In fact, without I-185, 100,000 Montanans including 9,500 Montana veterans and their families will lose Medicaid eligibility in 2019.

3) Medicaid is saving the state money on health care costs while Big Tobacco is driving up the cost of health care for all Montanans.

I-185 sets up independently monitored accounts and dedicates over $5 million in new tobacco tax revenue for veterans services, an 83 percent increase for veterans services funded through the tobacco tax. This funding will go to veterans nursing homes and suicide prevention programs.

In 1967, I served as a C-7A Caribou pilot for the Air Force in South Vietnam. I remember vividly opening up c-rations that contained cigarettes. I foolishly smoked those cigarettes. And continued smoking for decades until I was able to finally quit. Its wrong that so many veterans who have served our nation overseas come back and have to fight for their lives from tobacco-related disease and fight for access to the care they deserve.

Sadly, the opposition to I-185 is pitting veterans against veterans. Why would they want to take away Medicaid eligibility for thousands of Montana veterans and their families? As you follow the money, the answer becomes clear.

The opposition to I-185 is funded almost entirely by the lobbying arms of some of the worlds largest tobacco corporations that were just found to be engaging in dark money political activity by the Montana Commissioner of Political Practices.

The fiscal note reports that for a 10 percent increased tax on tobacco, they anticipate a 6 percent decrease in tobacco product purchases. In a nutshell: if I-185 passes, big tobacco loses millions in profits and 100,000 Montanans wont have their current health care taken away.

The bottom line is that access to quality healthcare should not be dependent on your net income or your net worth. Support I-185.



Retired U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. Don Loranger, a Havre native, lives in BigforkOur little adventure now moves us farther north, into Idahos Teton Valley area, and a visit to Jackson, Wyoming. As we get a little farther north, my target list for bird species has diminished a bit, as there are a lot of repeats, and not many new bird opportunities. Now, the stunning mountain vistas, incredible waterfalls, seemingly bottomless canyons and a bunch of incredible animals certainly have kept this part of the drive adventurous. This seems like a great time to bring up a comment that my lovely wife, Jeanne has made a couple of times. Whenever we travelling along these scenic byways, and I make an unusual or new bird discovery, I dutifully post it on eBird.org. In these cases, their format requires me to post it as an incidental sighting, one where birding in this location was not our primary purpose. In my wifes all seeing eyes, we are ALWAYS looking for birds, and in fact that is mostly what this whole trip, or even this whole year has been about. There is never a point in time when we are driving, hiking, or even sitting in a restaurant that my eyes are not fully on alert for that Great-tailed Grackle might show up, looking for a misplaced French fry. (Ok, this really did happen) But, I digress, as this is indeed about the birds, and there is nothing incidental or casual about it. Whenever we begin to explore a new area, travelling back roads, interesting new campsites, we are always on the lookout for that perched hawk on a power pole, or the scattering of road side sparrows. Idaho has been very much that sort of exploring. We parked our 5th wheel in a very nice RV park, in Victor, Idaho, which would give us a nice base to explore both the Idaho side of the Teton Mountains, as well as making the 23 mile drive up over the Teton Pass, and down into Jackson, and the Jackson Hole area south of Yellowstone Park.

Our first morning was spent travelling from Victor, up to Driggs, Idaho and exploring the many back roads that all connect to the access points for the Teton River. The areas around this beautiful river, full of both fly-fishermen, and moose, provided nothing more than the usual Brewers Blackbirds, Osprey, Mallards Ducks, and a few Yellow-rumped Warblers. The highlight of this area came late morning when we were driving back to the RV Park for lunch. Here is one of those Incidental sightings sorts of things, as our discovery of dozens of hawks that we never get to see on the west coast, were seemingly on every other power pole. True, we did not travel thru those harvested wheat fields to look for birds, but to find Swainsons Hawks, Rough-legged Hawks and Ferruginous Hawks all within a 2 mile section of Back country road was amazing, incidental or not.

Here is one of the most beautiful Swainsons Hawks, in the light phase, I have ever seen.

And here is the same Swainsons Hawk, in the dark phase.

This Ferruginous Hawk did not wait quite as patiently on the power pole as some of the others birds did, but it did circle back and give me a very nice look at its flight plumage.

The next leg of this travel adventure, found us going over the Teton Pass, just as the sun broke. The few clouds that were present, gave a pallet of colors that my wifes photography skills allowed her to capture. That is the photo that graces the cover of this story, as yes, I was looking that the Stellers Jays and the Gray (Canada) Jay that had perched on the top of a dead snag, no doubt enjoying the sunrise as well. By the way, as a small side note, it was 25 degrees F. At that moment, so my birding observations at that point were restricted to inside the well warmed truck and within reach of my hot cup of coffee.

The only interesting birds of note in the Jackson Hole area came in the form of this tree full of all juvenile Cedar Waxwings, which we found on a hike around Jenny Lake, right at the base of the majestic Teton Mountains.

Upon our return back over this same pass later in the day, I did indeed go for a hike and came up with a nice list of birds that were happy to reside in the mountains at over 8800 feet in elevation. My lungs on the other hand, were much less happy. At least a dozen Mountain Bluebirds flitted from tree to tree as if the altitude was nothing.

This Clarks Nutcracker is well known for living at pretty high altitudes.

Here is a nice shot of a Hairy Woodpecker.

The Northern (Red-Shafted) Flicker did a very quick fly by and then it was gone.

There were a few Mountain Chickadees, and several Yellow-rumped Warblers, one of which I caught just as it flew out to hawk another small flying bug.

This was my first chance to see the Dark-eyed (Pink Sided) Juncos!

The next few days we will spend some time up in Yellowstone National Park. My sister Sue and her husband Jeff are planning on rendezvousing with us, so it will be great to catch up with her, and enjoy our nations very first National Park. Check back next week to see what we are able to find in the park.

The running totals on our Little Big Year adventure are as follows:

Little Big Year species  876

eBird submissions  278However, only 23% of businesses feel fully prepared to handle working with intelligent machines and 38% are confident about their ability to integrate AI with existing business processes.

Consequently, while Australian large businesses are aware of the trend, and keen to embrace it, they still need key directions to achieve this.

Moreover, Australian businesses mentioned three main challenges that could hinder them to implement human-machine collaboration in the workplace.

The first is related to skills in Australia, with 72% of respondents saying they were struggling to find candidates with relevant skills in the AI space.

Interestingly, the same amount of respondents (72%) mentioned a lack of training available to enable employees to work effectively with machines. But the lack of skills and training isnt specific to Australia, as respectively 70% and 68% of leaders across the APAC region also mentioned a lack of candidates and a lack of training as potential obstacles.Shoppers fill parking lot to sample new Publix

Shoppers took almost every space in the parking lot and filled the aisles as they checked out the new Publix for the first time on Wednesday. The supermarket chain opened the store at 7 a.m., plunging into the south gateway battle for food and pharmacy dollars and putting competitors to the test.

"I don't know where they would have parked if we had parked there," Assistant Manager Linda Rush said. She was referring to nearly 150 employees on duty for the grand opening, all of whom were directed to park at Mud Creek Baptist Church and shuttled to the store all day long.

The 88-year-old Lakeland, Fla.-based grocery chain moved into North Carolina in 2014, opening stores in South Asheville and Weaverville as well as metro areas in the Piedmont.

The store on Greenville Highway at White Street had been the subject of much second-guessing. The grocers plans to build a new store in Hendersonville first surfaced in February 2015 and was officially announced 16 months later. Numerous tries at a floodplain permit has delayed a final OK and even now the store opened under a temporary certificate of occupancy while it awaits final state approval of its floodplain plan.

Ive had so many questions about when you were going to open, Mayor Barbara Volk said to Kim Reynolds, the Charlotte-based community relations manager for Publix.

Besides the curious, the shoppers are likely to include the many area residents who have lived at some point in Florida, where Publix dominates the food market.

We anticipate there will be a line around the corner when we open, Reynolds said on Tuesday morning.



Sneak peek

Mayor Volk was among about 15 guests who got a sneak peek at the new supermarket on Tuesday. Now that it's open, Publix will flex its retail muscle with its reputation for service, a wide variety of fresh produce, meats and produce and Aprons Simple Meals, a cooking demonstration station offering customers two recipes a week.

The store has hired 150 employees, most of them from the area, and promoted many managers from other stores.

Publix does have a culture of promoting from within, Reynolds said.

Store manager Sanel Tufekcic comes from Palmetto, Florida, in the Tampa Bay area, where he was assistant manager. Assistant Manager Linda Rush, who transferred from the Publix store in Greeneville, Tennessee, said she had her eye on the Hendersonville store as soon as she learned it would open.

Bakery manager Emily Tompkin came north from the Villages in Central Florida.

Ive always been in the bakery, she said. I started as a decorator and actually my daughters a decorator now, too. My husbands a baker.

Kaye Strang knows her way around a kitchen. She closed the Saluda Grade Cafe when she could not find enough help. Shes now a Publix deli clerk and loving it. Her bosses like her, too.

When we first met, I thought you were a transfer from another store because you knew everything, Rush said to her.



Aprons Simple Meals

At the Aprons Simple Meals station, Bil Mitchell asked everyone whether they knew what they were having for dinner that night. No one raised their hand. Seventy percent of the time people at mid-day dont know, he said. Thats the market Publix targets with its simple recipe approach, serving up the days special from among 1,300 recipes. The station is stocked with the ingredients for that nights supper.

A lot of people struggle with what to have for dinner, he said. You can come by here and a half hour later have everything you need.

At the seafood counter, Bob Doughty boasted that the fish we sell was swimming in the ocean 1 days ago. Retired from Raytheon in McKinney, Texas, Doughty decided he still wanted to work and immediately thought of Publix.

I knew Publix from my Florida days, he said. Publix was always the place we shopped.

Meat cutter Taylor Ortiz left an assistant market manager job at Ingles in South Asheville to take a new job at Publix.

Its absolutely amazing, he said of the work environment. Every day it makes me happy to have made that decision.

Other specialties include olives, antipastos, hummus and more than 200 varieties of artisan cheeses, sushi made fresh daily, fresh soup bar, a full-service pharmacy with an expanded health and wellness section and an event planning center that can put together menus for everything from tailgate parties to weddings.

Started in Winter Haven, Florida, in 1935 by George W. Jenkins, Publix has 1,197 stores in Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia. It has 188,000 employees and reported sales of $34 billion in 2016. One of the largest employee-owned companies in the U.S., it has been named one of Fortunes 100 Best Companies to Work for in America for 20 years straight.

It opens its store in the south gateway against a recently remodeled Fresh Market, the Harris Teeter and a new Ingles and it becomes the sixth pharmacy within a few hundred yards of Greenville Highway at Spartanburg Highway.

Denise Cumbee Long, the executive director of the United Way, was among the invited guests at the preview. She had never set foot in a Publix.

Pretty impressive, she said. I think theyre going to give other stores a run for their money.

* * * * *

Publix store hours are 7 a.m.-10 p.m. seven days a week. Pharmacy hours are 9 a.m.-8 p.m. Monday through Friday, 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday. The phone number is 694-4440.What's the new brand for Henderson County farm tourism?

The Henderson County Tourism Development Authority recently completed the process to trademark Crest of the Blue Ridge for agritourism marketing.

The TDA partnered with local agribusiness agency AgHC, apple growers, cideries and wineries to come up with the name and secure the trademark. Now that it is secured, Crest of the Blue Ridge will be used by the Henderson County TDA and local producers in marketing Hendersonville as an agritourism destination. The TDA will also serve as the watchdog to ensure that no businesses or individuals use the trademark without approval.

We felt it was important to have this specific agricultural area designated, says Beth Carden, executive director of the Henderson County TDA. As agritourism has grown in our area, its become an important part of what we do, so we wanted to recognize its role in bringing tourism to our region.

Henderson Countys wine industry is in the process of obtaining a federal designation as an American Viticultural Area. Each AVA is defined by geography and communicates certain location-specific qualities  such as elevation, climate and soil  to wine consumers. North Carolina currently has five federally designated AVAs.

In its application for a federal AVA designation, the local wine industry submitted Crest of the Blue Ridge as its preferred name.

To learn more about the Crest of the Blue Ridge trademark and agritourism marketing efforts, call the Henderson County TDA at (828) 693-9708.Minister of State Catherine Byrne yesterday pulled back from the brink and agreed to back her fellow minister Eoghan Murphy in last night's no confidence vote over his handling of the housing crisis.

The Government defeated the motion by 59 votes to 49 - with 29 TDs abstaining - but only after Fine Gael TDs were ordered to attend and Ms Byrne confirmed at the last minute that she would back her party colleague.

In recent days Ms Byrne had warned that she was considering supporting the no-confidence motion or abstaining in protest at a planned development of almost 500 homes in her constituency.

Sacked

It prompted Taoiseach Leo Varadkar to warn that any minister who did not back the Government in the vote would be sacked.

Ms Byrne had publicly raised concern at plans for the St Michael's project in Inchicore, and the Government faced the embarrassing prospect that she would not support Mr Murphy in the crunch vote.

She met Mr Murphy and Mr Varadkar earlier yesterday and finally announced she would back the minister in a statement shortly before 9pm while the Dail debate was taking place.

She said they had "constructive" discussions and she would work with her colleagues to agree a plan to identify the socio-economic needs of her area that would "create a stable and vibrant community for generations to come".

Government sources last night said there were would be no consequences for Ms Byrne's role as a junior minister as a result of her wobble.

Introducing the Sinn Fein motion, the party's housing spokesperson Eoin O Broin argued that almost 10,000 people in emergency accommodation had been failed by Mr Murphy.

He denied the motion was a personal attack but said: "The buck stops with him, his plan is failing."

Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald called on Mr Varadkar to "relieve minister Murphy of his duties".

Mr Murphy responded by saying he wouldn't be distracted by "populist nonsense" that contributed nothing to solve the challenges faced in housing.

"I won't be hounded out of office by... personalised attacks against me," he added.

He said the Government did not cause the housing crisis but added "we will fix it" and said anyone who wanted the public to believe the housing crisis could be solved overnight was "dishonest and wrong".

Fianna Fail abstained from the vote under the terms of the party's confidence and supply agreement with Fine Gael.

Its housing spokesman Darragh O'Brien said everyone could agree there was a housing crisis but the vote was effectively whether or not to bring down the Government.

He said Fianna Fail believed that would be "deeply irresponsible" ahead of the Budget and amid ongoing Brexit talks.

Urgent

The St Michael's Estate Regeneration Team last night issued a statement in response to the disagreement between Ms Byrne and Mr Murphy on the plan.

It raised concern that the housing crisis and the urgent need for solutions was getting lost in the debate.

It said the St Michael's project was a "common-sense proposal" that provided a long-term "fair-rent model".A young man arrested for drunkenly trying to open a stranger's parked car in the early hours of the morning "simply did not know where he was", a court has heard.

Daniel Collins (22) did not own a car and did not know anyone with a car like the one he was caught trying to get into.

Judge Brian O'Shea said he would leave him without a conviction if he made a 150 charity donation.

Father-of-one Collins, of Kilworth Road, Drimnagh, pleaded guilty to public drunkenness and interfering with a vehicle.

Dublin District Court heard that the incident happened in Heytesbury, Dublin 8, on April 20 last year.

It was 3am and the accused was intoxicated and trying to open the door of a parked car.

Separately, he admitted having cannabis when he was stopped by gardai in Bunting Road, Walkinstown, on March 12 last year. He had no previous convictions.

Sinister

Collins had been simply pulling at the door and there was "nothing more sinister than that" in it, his solicitor Stephen O'Mahony said.

He said his client was "extremely intoxicated" at the time.

Collins was working in the pub industry when the incident happened and got into "after-hours drinking", the court heard.

He had been drinking to excess at night and sleeping it off the following morning.

He was now working in a supermarket with early starts and that did not lend itself to the lifestyle he had in the past, Mr O'Mahony said.

Collins had now stopped smoking cannabis and curtailed his drinking.

Judge O'Shea adjourned the case and said he would apply the Probation Act if Coll- ins made a 150 donation to charity.Nurses who are members of the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) have held a protest at Connolly Hospital, Blanchardstown, the latest in a series to highlight unsafe staffing levels and overcrowding.

They gathered at the main entrance to the hospital at lunchtime yesterday.

Nurses fear that the number of patients without hospital beds this winter could reach record levels, and are calling on the HSE to deliver a plan to cope.

Action

Protests have already taken place this month in Cork, Galway, Limerick, Kilkenny and Cavan.

Jade Gannon (30), from Hartstown, Clonsilla, Dublin - who is in Connolly Hospital training in her final year - joined colleagues to call for action.

A fourth-year student general nurse, Ms Gannon felt that the Government needs to take action to make pay and conditions more attractive for nurses who want to stay here.

"The Government needs to acknowledge what is going on, and not just ignore it any more. We have voices and enough is enough," she said.

"It is simple. The solution to it all is simple so why are they making it so hard?"

She is a mature student and some of her younger classmates are planning on going to places like Australia where conditions are better for graduates.

Ms Gannon said that nurses here are "overworked and underpaid".

"We are not asking for mad money. Just something that we can live on," she said.

The INMO has called on the HSE to publish a funded workforce plan, setting out how many new nurses and midwives it will aim to hire in 2018.

"This is a health service in crisis," said INMO general secretary Phil Ni Sheaghdha.

She said the HSE must publish a realistic winter plan and commit to ending the near-permanent crisis in Irish hospitals.

"This should include immediate measures to recruit and retain nurses through a pay rise. Otherwise under-staffing will only get worse," she added.

The HSE did not immediately respond to a request for a comment.A little girl who was given only weeks to live last year has made a drastic improvement thanks to a new "miracle drug" from America which the HSE still has not approved.

Two-year-old Lara McHugh, from Blanchardstown, was diagnosed with an extremely rare condition known as Type 1 Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) when she was six-weeks-old.

The life expectancy of babies with SMA is only eight months, with 80pc dying before the age of one and most of the rest dying before the age of two.

The Herald spoke last year to Lara's heartbroken father, Niall, who feared his daugh- ter, who was four-months-old at the time, would not live past Easter.

However, US pharmaceutical company Biogen gave her a second chance at life by offering her a chance to take part in its expanded access programme for "wonder drug" Spinraza.

Fight

Now, more than a year later, Lara can move, fight infections and is even starting to talk.

"She's a totally different child and wouldn't be here at all without this drug," said Mr McHugh.

"When she was first diagnosed, she lost all motor functions and couldn't move at all.

"She was getting progressively worse, and if she had caught something as simple as a cold she would have died.

"Since starting her treatment, we've seen enormous improvements. She's doing her wheelchair training now, turning pages in her books and can hold her head up - she's a totally different child.

"She has even said her own name a few times and other words like 'mama'.

"Lara was also in a very bad way earlier this year with respiratory problems, but her doctors informed us she managed to fight off the infection herself, which was just incredible."

Since the HSE is currently in negotiations with Biogen, the expanded access programme for Spinraza has stopped.

This means that any child born with SMA at the moment will not be given access to the drug.

Mr McHugh was assured, however, that anyone currently on the expanded access programme, including Lara, will not be affected.

It is understood a decision will be made on Friday on whether the expensive drug will be reimbursed in Ireland.

Only last Thursday, families, supporters and sufferers of SMA gathered outside the Dail to call for access to Spinraza.

The McHughs have seen first-hand the benefits of the drug and how the earlier a child receives it, the better their long-term prognosis will be.

"The longer kids are without treatment, the worse they'll be," said Mr McHugh.

Essential

"The drug only works before the symptoms of the condition start. This means that kids with SMA are losing the ability to walk because the effects can't be reversed.

"It's essential and so important that the HSE makes the right decision - it's truly life and death for these kids."

The disease makes muscles extremely weak, especially in the legs, upper arms and neck.

A common cold can easily turn into pneumonia, which is what usually takes the lives of affected children, along with respiratory failure when they no longer have the lung or chest muscles to be able to breathe on their own.A draw for a home in the developing suburb of Ballyfermot was the novel way in which demand for housing was tackled in 1948.

This is just one of the fascinating insights that historian Cathy Scuffil will outline in a series of lectures in the Dublin Festival of History.

The festival, which runs until October 7, includes a wide range of free walks, talks, tours and exhibitions across the city.

"The draw was held in the Mansion House," said Ms Scuffil. "You put your name into a drum like a raffle, and when your name was pulled out, you got your house.

"These were people on the list from housing, and the draw was for the 230 or so houses that were available.

Prams

"All the children were brought to the draw, and prams were parked the whole way down Dawson Street.

"Every time somebody's name was called out, a big cheer would go up, and crowds would run to the person whose name had been drawn.

"They would get claps on the back and shakes of the hand."

If people wanted to transfer to another area where their family was, they would take out an ad the following week, mainly in the Herald.

"Once you had the key, you could go and transfer yourself," said Ms Scuffil.

"It's the 70th anniversary of the Ballyfermot housing estates, and it is wonderful to see the vibrant community that was created.

Ms Scuffil will give the first of her lectures at Ballyfermot Library tomorrow.

Also on the issue of housing, Ruth McManus will talk on the suburban development of the north Dublin region of Artane and Coolock in the 1950s and 1960s, when their fields were replaced by housing

Based in the School of History and Geography at DCU, Ms McManus said: "There is an article in the Irish Independent from 1954 which says, 'Housing is the most pressing problem facing young married couples today'."

Ms McManus said that there was a lot of funding available at the time.

"The government was supporting not just the corporation to build houses, but they were also providing grants for houses of different sizes making it possible for people to own their own homes."

Ms McManus will deliver her talk in Parnells GAA Club in Coolock village tomorrow night, in association with the Coolock, Artane and District Historical Society,

The full programme of events for the Dublin City Council festival can be found at dublinfestivalofhistory.ie.

All events are free to attend, but advance booking is required for some.Hundreds of people packed into the activity room at Morning Pointe of Chattanooga  Shallowford (TN), hoping to catch a glimpse of dancers from the Kentucky Ballet Theatre (KBT). They paid a visit to the assisted living community as part of the Morning Pointe Foundations The Dance of Active Aging event. The special program, presented in partnership with Parkridge Health System, featured performances from the Kentucky Ballet Theatre dancers in a one-of-a-kind creative, active workshop in which the entire audience participated.

,

Participants learned to use their bodies to improve their nonverbal communication skills and practice positive stress-relief strategiesimportant techniques for caregivers.

Its always so beautiful to see art being used to educate and improve the lives of others. We are so honored to have the Kentucky Ballet Theatres participation," said Lori Hoeger, the executive director of the Morning Pointe Foundation. We are especially grateful for our sponsors support, including our active aging partners, the Weston Group, the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, and presenting sponsor Parkridge Health Systems. Without them, this incredible event would not have been possible!

The Morning Pointe Foundation is the philanthropic arm of Morning Pointe Senior Living. Founded in 2014 by senior healthcare entrepreneurs Greg A. Vital and J. Franklin Farrow, the 501(c)3 non-profit organization provides nursing scholarship opportunities, forms community partnerships and supports caregivers in its mission to advance the care of seniors.

Market Update Regarding Supply Chain Issues

Melbourne, Sep 26, 2018 AEST (ABN Newswire) - iSignthis Ltd ( ASX:ISX ) ("the Company") provides an update regarding its third party supply chain.A> Kobenhavns Andelkasse Bank ( http://kbh-andelskasse.dk As of the 13th September 2018, the Kobenhavns Andelkasse Bank ("KAB") was placed under the control of the Danish State administration company for banks, known as "Finansiel Stabilitet" ("FS")(see Note below). The Company is continuing to seek clarification but has received information from FS in the last 24 hours, that where a resolution was previously thought possible, means the Company's clearing and settlement of its partner card networks via KAB is no longer possible.The KAB matter has already impacted processing, clearing and settlement intermittently during July and August, and most of the September month. The Company's merchants have in the meantime made arrangements to continue to utilise their existing card processing facilities outside of the Company's present network.The Company had used KAB as part of its card and APM clearing and settlement network, including for holding Company's own, settlement and client funds in EMA's. The direct exposure to KAB is circa EUR255k, which is likely to be returned under the Danish 'Guarantee Scheme for Depositors and Investors', with the Company awaiting details as to timing of release of funds.The matter with KAB however demonstrates that execution of the previously communicated core strategy is paramount, and the main priority is for the Company to conclude the implementation of its Tier 1 (direct) connections to central banks and card schemes as soon as possible, in order to not be impacted by third party issues.B> Revenue ImpactThe Company's revenues and cash flow will be impacted this quarter as a consequence of settlement funds being returned back up the supply chain, and settlement being deferred or via alternate (non company) channels. The resulting deferred cash flows and corresponding revenues will be recognised once settled, with a further USD$500k identified in third party (non KAB) suspense accounts. Consequently, the Company advises September quarter receipts will be down significantly from last quarter, with resultant cash receipts possibly as low as $1.2m. The Company is working to manually clear funds on a priority basis.C> Central BankingThe Company has been advised by the Single Euro Payment Area (SEPA) scheme operator, the European Payments Council, that its facilities are on track to go live for processing Euro settlement and clearing via its central banking facilities on the 8th October 2018. The Company will configure its clearing and settlement supply chain directly into its central banking facilities with focus on concluding our EU Tier 1 connections for Visa, Mastercard and JCB at the same time.The Company had previously planned to use KAB to conduct an orderly transition to its own banking facilities. The KAB matter mean that the company will not be processing EU card transactions (with corresponding impact on revenues) until our own central bank facilities are commissioned. The Company's core banking and Tier 1 card processing systems will be going live progressively through October into early December as previously announced, with EMA's going live before end of October.D> Forward Looking FY 2019 - Emoney Accounts (EMA's), JCB, VISA, MastercardThe Company's forecasts announced yesterday for FY19 commencing January to December are restated, with a typographical error amended:- Card processing/ Acquiring = $13.2m- EMA = $3m- Other Services = $1.5m- Gross Profit Total = $17.7m (was stated as $17.5m in announcement dated 25/9/18)Annual Operating cost base ~ ($7m)Anticipated FY2019 EBIT: AUD $10.7m (was stated as $10.5m in announcement dated 25/9/18))E> Australian OpportunityThe Company is optimistic that the short term challenges it is facing in its European operation will not in any way impact its upcoming Australian operations. The Company continues to put arrangements in place to allow for card settlement and clearing in Australia to take advantage of the opportunities created by the 'evolving' Australian regulatory landscape and the NAB's revised risk appetite, into FY2019.F> SummaryWhilst the KAB matter has significant impact on short term revenues, the Company's Tier 1 facilities are being progressively completed and commissioned over the coming weeks in any case. The Company's principal focus is now on delivery of its EU network, and planning for its Australian network, in order to deliver against its contracted forecasts and maximise its opportunities. The Company's overall view remains optimistic and positive with regards to execution of its overarching strategy.Note: http://www.abnnewswire.net/lnk/85103D8N About iSignthis Ltd

iSignthis Ltd (ASX:ISX) (FRA:TA8) is a hybrid monetary financial institution and also a RegTech leader in remote identity verification, payment authentication with deposit taking, transactional banking and payment processing capability. iSignthis provides an end-to-end on-boarding service for merchants, with a unified payment, electronic money and identity service via our Paydentity(TM) and ISXPay(R) solutions.

By converging payments and identity, iSignthis delivers regulatory compliance to an enhanced customer due diligence standard, offering global reach to any of the world's 4.2Bn 'bank verified' card or account holders, that can be remotely on-boarded to meet the Customer Due Diligence requirements of AML regulated merchants in as little as 3 to 5 minutes. Paydentity(TM) has now onboarded and verified more than 1.5m persons to an AML KYC standard.

iSignthis Paydentity(TM) service is the trusted back office solution for regulated entities, allowing merchants to stay ahead of the regulatory curve, and focus on growing their core business. iSignthis' subsidiary, iSignthis eMoney Ltd, trades as ISXPay(R), and is an EEA authorised eMoney Monetary Financial Institution, offering card acquiring in the EEA, and Australia.

ISXPay(R) is a principal member of Mastercard Inc, Diners, Discover, (China) Union Pay International and JCB International, an American Express aggregator, and provides merchants with access to payments via alternative methods including SEPA, Poli Payments, Sofort, PRZ24 and others.

Probanx Solutions Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of iSignthis Ltd, provides API based access to CORE Banking solutions, SEPA Core, SEPA Instant and SEPA business scheme, for neobanks, banks, credit unions and emoney institutions, and provides a bridge to the Eurosystem's Central Bank of Lithuania's CENTROLink service.

Bottle Creek Acquisition Update

Canberra, Sep 26, 2018 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Alt Resources Limited ( ASX:ARS ) ("Alt or the Company") is pleased to provide the following information on the acquisition of Bottle Creek Gold Mine. In November 2017 the Company entered into a binding Option to Purchase Agreement (Option) to acquire the Bottle Creek Gold Mine located 80 kilometres north west of Menzies in the Mt Ida gold belt WA.Highlights- All conditions satisfied to complete and exercise the Option to Purchase Agreement(see Note 1 below) Bottle Creek Gold Project- Negotiations on settlement for payment of the Bottle Creek Gold Mine completed on favorable commercial terms- Final payment for Bottle Creek to be made in 2 tranches- 1st tranche payment $1.875M in November 2018- 2nd tranche payment $3.0M in November 2019In August 2018 Alt delivered the maiden JORC resource for the Bottle Creek project(see Note 2 below) being the final condition precedent to satisfy all the terms contained in the Option agreement. The amended settlement terms reflect the good will between the Vendor and the Company pursuant to execution of conditions precedent contained in the Option agreement and confidence the Vendor has in regard to the Company implementing and delivering the outstanding drilling results and the maiden JORC resource at Bottle Creek.Under the amended settlement terms negotiated the Company will pay the Vendor;- $1.875M Initial instalment in November 2018- $3.0M Final Instalment in November 2019.- $240,000 interest payment- $60,000 compensation payment- $25,000 rehabilitation security bondCEO of Alt Resources, Mr James Anderson commented, "The amended settlement terms for Bottle Creek is a significant milestone for Alt Resources and represent generous commercial terms negotiated with the Vendor to acquire the project and I'm very pleased to be able to announce this to our shareholders today. Bottle Creek is the first of our high-grade gold projects situated within the Mt Ida Gold Belt region and all our drilling to date has yielded excellent results which provide us tremendous confidence that we'll be progressing Bottle Creek to the development stage and future mining, producing gold from this asset. Next steps take us toward feasibility study and production planning which I look forward to progressing over coming months."Notes:1. http://www.abnnewswire.net/press/en/90782 2. http://www.abnnewswire.net/press/en/94236 About Aurenne Alt Resources Pty Ltd

Aurenne Alt Resources Pty Ltd is an Australian based mineral exploration company that aims to become a gold producer by exploiting historical and new gold prospects across quality assets and to build value for shareholders.

Visible Gold at Ginamwamwa

Sydney, Sep 26, 2018 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Kingston Resources Limited ( ASX:KSN ) (Kingston or the Company) is pleased to provide an update on its ongoing regional exploration activities at the Company's flagship 2.8Moz Misima Gold Project in Papua New Guinea.Highlights- Visible gold found in trenching and surface workings at Ginamwamwa- Prospect extends over 500m, open to east and west- Style of mineralisation not previously identified at Misima- Trench work ongoing with >600 assays pendingAs reported in August, field work at the Ginamwamwa prospect (see Figure 1 in link below) has defined gold mineralisation over more than 500m of strike(see Note 1 below). In a recent development, Kingston's program of trenching and mapping on the east side of Ginamwamwa has identified two locations where gold-bearing veins are visible near surface (see photographs Figure 2 and Figure 3 in link below). This style of mineralisation has not previously been identified and may be a newly-recognised style at the Misima Project. Further details relating to the style and nature of the gold occurrences are included on page four of this announcement.Ginamwamwa remains open to the west, and further mineralisation is being identified by ongoing mapping to the east. Mapping and sampling will continue to move eastward. Kingston is confident that these initiatives will broaden the scale of the prospect. The prospect is located within the Southern area of the Misima project adjacent to the historical Placer mill location and approximately 2 km South of the Umuna resource. It is outside of the Umuna Fault Zone (UFZ) which contains the bulk of the current 2.8Moz Misima JORC Resource(see Note 2 below).The Company advises that over 600 channel sample assays are pending, with ongoing results expected over the coming weeks.Kingston's Managing Director Andrew Corbett commented:"Ginamwamwa is developing into an outstanding discovery. To date we have explored from the haul road more than 500m to the east and this has yielded very positive results. It's also important to remember that sampling is yet to be done on the western side of the road, so the final size of this discovery remains untested. Current access to Ginamwamwa is from the historical mine roads developed by Placer allowing easy access to continue exploration work and ultimately drilling at the prospect. Kingston looks forward to reporting assay results as they come in."Observations on the nature of the mineralisation and its implications to the projectVisible gold has been observed associated with ferruginous oxidised quartz veins outcropping in channels excavated by the Kingston exploration team, as shown in Figures 2 and 3(see link below). Mineralised veins tend to contain "drusy" quartz, sometimes with sulphides including pyrite, galena, sphalerite and chalcopyrite. Veins generally vary in width from 1 to 70mm with an average vein density of approximately 3 veins per metre in the mineralised areas of Ginamwamwa. Visible gold is rare and the Umuna mineralisation is categorised a low-sulphidation epithermal, hence these observations of coarse visible gold in quartz veins with a sulphide association are an unusual phenomenon for the project.Work completed by the Company to date is insufficient to estimate an exploration target or mineral resource at Ginamwamwa, and it is uncertain whether further work on the project will result in a mineral resource in the future. Kingston intends to continue work at Ginamwamwa with a view to generating drilling targets for 2019.The Company makes no assertions as to the total extent or average grade of the visible gold occurrences referred to in this announcement. Further assay information from sampling in the vicinity of these occurrences will be provided as it becomes available.Notes:1 A JORC 2012 Table 1 describing sampling techniques, data, and exploration results is available in our ASX Announcement of 14 August 2018.2 ASX Announcement 27 November 2017, Misima 2.8Moz JORC ResourceTo view figures, please visit:About Kingston Resources Limited

Kingston (ASX:KSN) is a metals exploration company. Currently the Company's priority is the world-class Misima Gold Project in PNG, which contains a JORC resource of 2.8Moz Au, a production history of over 3.7Moz and outstanding potential for additional resource growth through exploration success. Kingston currently owns 70% of the Misima Gold Project.

In addition, Kingston owns 75% of the Livingstone Gold Project, WA which holds a 50koz resource and is the site of ongoing exploration and a number of high-grade historic intersections.

Annual Report 2018

Sydney, Sep 26, 2018 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Thomson Resources Ltd ( ASX:TMZ ) provides the Company's Annual Report.Chairman's ReportDear ShareholderOn behalf of the directors, I am pleased to present the eighth Annual Report of Thomson Resources Ltd. The Company's principal focus over the year remained the Bygoo tin project, near the old Ardlethan tin mine in southwestern New South Wales. Tin is proving to be a strategically important metal with increasing application in new technologies. Over the year, Thomson completed two rounds of drilling at the Bygoo tin project. Targets were tested at Bygoo North, Bygoo South and beneath intervening historical workings. High-grade tin intersections at shallow depths and of similar tenor to those previously encountered were obtained at both North and South prospects.Thomson has also broadened its exploration focus to embrace the Bald Hill tin prospect, 20km south of the Company's Bygoo prospects (also on EL 8260), and the Harry Smith gold prospect. Both prospects were drilled during the year. Three holes were drilled at Bald Hill and all intersected tin mineralisation at shallow depths; the best intersection being 15m at 0.4% Sn from 19m depth. The Harry Smith prospect shows extensive gold-in-soil anomalism defining two 500m long trends coalescing in the area of the small Harry Smith open-cut. This prospect is interpreted as an Intrusion-Related Gold (IRG) deposit related to the Grong Grong Granite. The Company's drilling in March 2018 (ASX release March 26, 2018) was focused on the anomaly trending between the Harry Smith and Golden Spray workings. Drilling was successful with all holes intersecting significant gold mineralisation with the stand-out intersection in HSRC004 of 54m at 1.0 g/t Au from a depth of 8m. This intersection includes two higher grade zones - 12m at 2.1 g/t Au and 6m at 1.6 g/t Au. A similar IRG system exists some five kilometres to the southeast and is defined by two lines of historical workings at the Gladstone and Old Belmore. There is no record of drilling on this prospect.Follow-up drilling is planned to commence shortly at Bygoo and Harry Smith. The drilling at Bygoo will further test the three tin greisens discovered to date - two at Bygoo North and one at Bygoo South. The Big Bygoo greisen will also be tested in this program. The gold exploration will include drill testing of the Harry Smith-Golden Spray line and the Silver Spray lode.During the year Kidman Resources ( ASX:KDR ) and Variscan Mines ( ASX:VAR ) withdrew from the Browns Reef Project and Achilles Joint Ventures. The tenements involved are now wholly owned by Thomson, although EL7891 was subsequently surrendered. The remaining tenements are at the southern end of the Cobar Basin and are prospective for Cobar-type deposits. Three joint ventures remain in place - Bygoo (ELs 8260 and 8163) with private Canadian investor, BeiSur OstBarat Agency Ltd; Wilga Downs (EL 8136) with Silver City Minerals Limited ( ASX:SCI ) and Havilah (EL 7391) with Silver Mines Ltd ( ASX:SVL ). Total cash payments received under the Bygoo JV (see ASX announcement of 5 July 2018) are A$1,500,000 of the $3 million investment required to earn an initial 51%. The option to acquire a further 25% for A$22m remains active. Negotiations with BeiSur OstBarat Agency Ltd towards the end of the financial year resulted in gold targets being excluded from the Bygoo JV agreement, thus allowing Thomson to independently pursue testing of the Harry Smith prospect.The construction of a tin processing plant at Ardlethan, as planned by EOE (No.75) Pty Ltd, has potential synergies for Thomson's tin projects in the area, however no substantive negotiations have taken place with the proprietors and there is no guarantee that any arrangement would be entered into.The Company has maintained an active exploration program over the year and has expanded its portfolio to include exciting gold opportunities to complement its suite of excellent tin projects. The Ardlethan area offers an immense opportunity for further discoveries of substantial tin resources and we look forward to expanding the resource base in the Bygoo JV area. The Board very much appreciates the strong shareholder support. Our CEO, Mr Eoin Rothery, must come in for special mention. His technical leadership of the Company's exploration program has been absolutely invaluable.To view the full report, please visit:About Thomson Resources Ltd

Thomson Resources Ltd (ASX:TMZ) is an NSW active mineral explorer. Thomson has several tin projects (including an advanced project near Ardlethan), as well as gold, copper and zinc targets in a range of settings. Thomson has a good record of discovery, with multiple new Intrusion-Related Gold (gold with copper, lead, zinc, molybdenum, tungsten) systems discovered in the Thomson Fold Belt in the NW of the state.For Subscribers Parents call for removal of books from school system libraries

Two of the books that have explicit content are "Lawn Boy," by Jonathan Evison, and "L8r, g8r," by Lauren Myracle.

2018 Annual Report

Adelaide, Sep 26, 2018 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Mithril Resources Limited ( ASX:MTH ) provides the Company's 2018 Annual Report.Chairmen's letterDear Fellow Shareholders,On behalf of the Board of Directors, it is my pleasure to present the 2018 Annual Report for Mithril Resources Limited ('Mithril' or 'Company').During the year under review the Company continued to focus on advancing the Kurnalpi Project where nickel sulphide mineralisation was confirmed in reverse circulation (RC) drilling. Importantly the work completed to date has demonstrated that nickel sulphides are present at Kurnalpi within favourable ultramafic rocks. We are confident that ongoing exploration will ultimately be successful, and we look forward to carrying out further drilling at Kurnalpi in 2019.Data compilation and target generation activities were completed on the Billy Hills Project where the company is targeting large scale zinc + lead +silver deposits similar to the nearby Pillara deposit. Four initial targets have been prioritised for follow-up on two newly granted tenements highlighted by elevated rock chip results up to 14.24% zinc + lead, an untested IP geophysical anomaly and broad zones of bedrock anomalism in historic drill intercepts.Late in the year the Company applied for two Exploration Licences in the highly prospective Bangemall Basin targeting base metal mineralisation. The tenements are situated northwest of Meekatharra and are in a similar geological setting to the large Abra Deposit held by Galena Mining Limited. The area's prospectivity is highlighted by a number of surface geochemical anomalies, geophysical anomalies and strong indications of copper and zinc mineralisation in some historic drill holes that require follow-up. Mithril will now conduct a target generation exercise ahead of the tenement's grant which is expected within the next 12 months.To support our exploration activities, the Company raised approximately $1.71M via several Placements to sophisticated investors and an oversubscribed Share Purchase Plan ("SPP") during the year. It was very pleasing to see that the Capital Raisings were well supported by a number of existing shareholders as well as new investors.Unfortunately, our share price has not reflected the hard work, success and dedication of our exploration team and I believe that this largely due to the prevailing negative market conditions towards junior explorers. I assure you we are working as hard as possible to provide value to our shareholders, and to ensure we maximise in-ground expenditure we have maintained low overheads and adopted a number of measures to reduce running costs and increase efficiency.I would like to take this opportunity to express my thanks to my fellow directors, management and staff for their dedication and work during the past 12 months. We are committed to progressing the Company and advancing our projects towards discovery for the benefit of all shareholders.I also take this opportunity to thank all shareholders for your continued support of Mithril.To view the Annual Report, please visit:About Mithril Resources Limited

Mithril Resources Limited (ASX:MTH) is an Australian resources company whose objective is the creation of shareholder wealth through the discovery of mineral deposits.

The Company and its exploration partners are actively exploring throughout the Kalgoorlie, West Kimberley and Murchison Districts of Western Australia for economic nickel, copper, zinc, and vanadium deposits.

In the Kalgoorlie District, Mithril is exploring for nickel on the Kurnalpi, Lignum Dam and North Scotia Projects which lie along strike from, or adjacent to previously mined high-grade nickel at the Silver Swan and Scotia Nickel Deposits.

In the West Kimberley, Mithril is exploring for zinc on the Billy Hills Project which lies adjacent to the previously mined Pillara Zinc Deposit.

In the Murchison, Mithril is exploring for copper, nickel and zinc mineralisation on the Nanadie Well Project and for copper, silver, zinc and lead on the Bangemall Base Metal Project. Mithril's exploration partner  Monax Mining Ltd is also exploring for vanadium on the Limestone Well tenements.BUTTE COUNTY, Calif. - A Cal Fire captain pleaded not guilty to sexual assault in court on Sept. 26.

Kevin Fleming, 36, of Chico, is suspected of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman in July of 2018.

If convicted, Fleming faces the possibility of eight years in a state prison and a lifetime sex offender registration.

The preliminary hearing will be on Oct. 31.Chico, Calif. -- Unseasonably warm temperatures continue this week, hitting highs today and Wednesday at about 10 degrees above normal for this first week of Fall.

Gusty northerly wind continues today so although the Red Flag Warning expires at 5 p.m. We're still not in the clear when it comes to fire danger.

This weekend, we have a slight chance of showers over the Coastal Range and northern portions of the

forecast area.

A ridge of high pressure is building today into Northern California today into Wednesday, keeping the skies sunny and temperatures continuing to warm.

We're still seeing breezy conditions with the strongest wind expected in northern and western portions of the Sacramento Valley, northeast foothills and western Shasta mountains - similar to yesterday with sustained local winds at about 10-15 mph, gusting up to about 25 mph.

We'll see that calm down a bit, though we could see some overnight gusts into tomorrow morning in Shasta County and the foothills.

That high pressure loses it's strength by mid-day Wednesday, the hottest day of the week, with a chance for triple digits in the North Valley.

Thursday stays about the same, dry and hot, and then on Friday a deep low upper low approaches.

Thursday night into Friday we'll cool down with that onshore flow, dropping about 10 degrees Friday, staying in the 80s to lower 90s for the Central

Valley with 60s to lower 80s for the mountains and foothills.

That low pressure center will push onto the coast Saturday afternoon.

This will bring significantly cooler temperatures, with highs topping at 5 to 10 degrees below normal.

There's a chance for some rain over the coastal range and northern mountains Saturday afternoon and evening.

The storm shift northeast Sunday and that's where we could see some showers over Shasta County.

WEATHER APP:

DOWLOAD OUR WEATHER APP FOR LATEST UPDATES: iOS | Android(CNN) -- The grizzly bears of Yellowstone National Park will be spared from a proposed trophy hunt, thanks to a ruling by a federal judge.

The ruling, filed Monday, effectively places the Greater Yellowstone grizzly -- the grizzly population native to areas around the park -- back on the Endangered Species list, which means they will receive special protections. It will also spare the bears from a planned hunt in Wyoming and Idaho this fall.

In the ruling, US District Court Judge Dana Christensen says the decision was not made with any kind of political stance in mind. Rather, it was an action taken in light of the 2017 decision to remove the Greater Yellowstone Grizzly from the Endangered Species List.

"This Court's review, constrained by the Constitution and the laws enacted by Congress, is limited to answering a yes-or-no question: Did the United States Fish and Wildlife Service...exceed its legal authority when it delisted the Greater Yellowstone grizzly bear?"

After the bears were taken off the list last year, Wyoming and Idaho approved plans to allow hunters, with a permit, to hunt the bears in the fall of 2018. It would have been the first hunt of its kind in more than 40 years.

In August, Christensen stepped in and granted a temporary restraining order to halt the hunt.

The bottom line, according to the ruling, is that the bears belong on the Endangered Species list and are entitled to protections and conservation efforts, and the USFWS "acted arbitrarily and capriciously" in removing them from the list.

"By delisting the Greater Yellowstone grizzly without analyzing how delisting would affect the remaining members of the lower-48 grizzly designation, the Service failed to consider how reduced protections in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem would impact the other grizzly populations."The value of global financial assets at risk from climate change is estimated at $2.5 trillion, whereas the Economist Intelligence Unit estimate is closer to $4.2 trillion, says a report in The Guardian. As an immediate example closer home, Kerala is assessed to have incurred losses of over $1.6 billion due to floods in August. The loss to crops, life, livelihoods, health and socio-economic impact of the ravaging, disastrous flood has not even been estimated yet. This damage would take the people of Kerala, the government, the private and the financial sector at least a decade to recover.

Climate change is emerging as a serious threat to Indias financial health and economic development. The Economic Survey 2016-17 estimates that India incurs losses of approximately Rs 7,000 crore annually due to extreme weather events such as floods, droughts, rising peak temperatures, and water shortages. This loss is around 0.38% of Indias GDP of $2,597 billion (2018) and may not seem alarming, but the increase in intensity and the frequency of the climate induced disasters makes this is a growing problem that needs to be addressed.

The probability of such extreme disasters is rising rapidly from one in 100-year events earlier, to one in every 10 years now for many cities. If these continue to occur, the extent of economic losses could multiply from what we have seen to date in places like Chennai and Kerala. We know that costs from catastrophic weather events are rising, not just in monetary terms, but many times more when seen in terms of loss of lives, and livelihoods, savings, capital assets, and jobs and incomes of the rural poor on a much more routine and regular basis. Thats a social catastrophe (even if not yet in economic terms) of major consequence that is already happening.

Fifty-two per cent of Indias population depends on agriculture and their concentration is even higher at 76% in the villages. Rise in temperature has a direct impact on the Rabi crop and every 1 degree C rise will reduce wheat production by four to five million tonnes. It is predicted that a loss of 10 to 40% in production may occur by 2100 due to climate change. Urban areas and associated infrastructure is not immune to these stressors either. These climate-induced events disrupt business operations directly through physical damage to infrastructure, and indirectly by additional market risks. Managing and mitigating climate risks will require private sector and government to work together to devise innovative solutions. While the government has the biggest role to play in building resilience, private sector and financial sector need to not only act on climate change to cut their losses but also to help the government deliver better and faster. The window of opportunity to act is finite.

The overall risks are rising to the financial sector. The impacts are now growing beyond the micro-enterprise and rural lending to formal sector banking and insurance companies. The industry is beginning to acknowledge these risks and needs discrete frameworks and tools to guide their decision making. Consensus on key parameters to map climate risks and categorise losses incurred due to climate change is yet to emerge. The standard disclosure from financial institutions does not lend itself to better policy recommendations and decision making on this issue. This is largely owing to the limited understanding of direct and indirect financial effects of this climate induced disasters. This move towards increased internalisation of climate change parameters is not to make financial institutions additionally risk averse, but to provide a strong rationale for a more climate-informed lending protocol. This must be ably complemented by extensive risk insurance, public disaster management funding and additional capabilities in budget, and city planning. The way forward for financial institutions is to recognise the risks of climate change and hence change the climate of Indias financial sector.

(Due to a technical glitch, 1 degree C was printed as 10 in the fourth paragraph of the print edition. We regret the error)

Vidya Soundarajan, India Regional Programme Manager, Action on Climate Today

Cristina Rumbaitis del Rio, Regional Programme Manager, Action on Climate Today

The views expressed are personalVoters in Maldives have decisively ensured that their country remains firmly within the comity of democratic nations, by voting out incumbent and controversial President Abdulla Yameen. The combined opposition candidate Ibrahim Mohammad Solih has been declared winner by an impressive margin of votes. The massive voter turnout, above 90%, presaged the probability of change via the ballot box. Solihs victory again underscores the power of the Maldivian people and their determined opposition to an autocrat who has indulged in corrupt practices, muzzling of the media and systematic suppression and jailing of judges and opposition leaders, including former President Mohamed Nasheed who was overthrown in a murky putsch and imprisoned by Yameen. Doubts about the election result have dissipated with Yameen conceding defeat. But until the president-elect takes over in November, there is no 100% guarantee that Yameen may hand over power smoothly.

The result also validates Indias strategic patience to await the election result, without being stampeded into any intervention in the domestic affairs of a friendly neighbour. The election result will reopen avenues for mending fences and bringing India-Maldives ties to an even keel. The root cause of the mistrust between India and the Maldives has been the growing Chinese footprint on the archipelago. Both India and the United States have swiftly welcomed the election result. Chinas reaction came later, calling for continuity and stability. While congratulating Solih and reiterating respect for the electoral verdict, Chinas Foreign Office stated that it would build on the friendship with Maldives and encourage Chinese companies to invest and continue to work there under market conditions. Pakistans Foreign Office has welcomed the results thrown up by the democratic process.

The geostrategic significance of the Maldives lies in its proximity to the Sea Lines of Communication in the Indian Ocean. More than 60% of trades and energy supplies traverse via this. Chinas foothold in the Maldives became a sore point for India, as well as the USA. For India, Chinas spreading tentacles into the neighbourhood pose a strategic threat to the nations security given Chinas hegemonic ambitions have been evident in the South China Sea. The Maldives, under Yameen, emerged second only to Pakistan for its growing embrace of China. Indias neighbours have all played the China card, to varying degrees for balancing India.

The Chinese sponsored Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and dollops of hard cash doled out as bribes were the tools of geo-economic seduction to which Yameen and his collaborators succumbed easily. During Yameens tenure, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia also became major players in the Maldives. Pakistans influence grew with its close ties with Maldivian security forces and Saudi Arabia played its usual Wahaabi/Salaafi card riding on petrodollars, to push Maldivians towards an ultra-conservative and intolerant version of Islam. Maldivians joined the ISIS in numbers that are a very high percentage of its small population of 4 lakhs.

The Maldivian Democratic Party, led by the President-elect Solih has voiced concern about Chinas economic dominance, a concern also voiced by Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. President Xi Jinpings visit to the Maldives in 2014 had reinforced Chinas influence. Maldives joined the BRI and China built the bridge linking Hulhule which has the international airport with Male, the capital. Maldives crossed a red line from Indias perspective when it started discussing setting up a Chinese observation post at Makunudhoo, the westernmost atoll close to India. Former President Mohamed Nasheed, now exiled, has been calling upon India to intervene and stop the Chinese encroachment. He accused China of attempting to grab islands to establish military bases. This argument gained traction because of Chinas island grabbing and militarisation in the South China Sea. Chinas mouthpiece media outlet also wrote about China intervening in case of any Indian action to overthrow Yameen.

Chinas sustained effort to spread its influence and create strategic beachheads in the Indian Ocean, has led Sri Lanka into a debt trap which was resolved by handing over of the China-built Hambantota Port to a Chinese company on a 99-year lease. This has given China a long-term foothold very close to Indian shores. This lesson has not gone unnoticed in Maldives. The election result is a direct reflection of this concern and other mostly domestic issues. Solih has also promised to review Chinese-funded projects to avoid being sucked into a Chinese debt trap leading to unintended consequences.

This election result is an opportunity for India to gain some lost ground. There should, however, be no doubt that even a friendly Solih government will continue to balance China and India, albeit in a more nuanced manner. China is likely to mount a major effort to protect its strategic investments and ongoing projects in Maldives. Solih will certainly be wooed intensely by China. India, unable to match China in money power, has to use its other tools to ensure that Maldives does not cross strategic red lines like allowing China to build military and security facilities on any island. The election result could not have come at a more opportune time.

Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty is a distinguished fellow at the Observer Research Foundation and a former Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs

The views expressed are personalActor Dalip Tahil was arrested after his car was reportedly involved in a road accident in Mumbai, a report says. He was driving under the influence of alcohol and attempted to flee the scene.

According to the Times of India, Dalips car rammed into an autorickshaw, injuring two passengers. He attempted to flee but was caught in a traffic jam caused by Ganesh Visarjan processions. The passengers reportedly caught up with Dalips car and confronted him. He is said to have got into an argument and pushed them around. The actor was taken into custody after the police was summoned.

The passengers were identified as Jenita Gandhi, 21, and Gaurav Chugh, 22.

The impact of the collision caused Ms Gandhi sustain a severe jolt to her back and neck. Ms Gandhi and Mr Chugh got off the autorickshaw and saw the car trying to flee towards Santacruz. The car could not get far as the street was crowded due to Ganeshotsav immersion processions, an officer with the Khar police told the Hindu.

The actor was booked for causing injury due to rash and negligent driving and driving under the influence of alcohol. He refused to give a blood sample and was released on bail. The three involved in the accident were taken for a medical checkup.

A photograph of the actor waiting at the police station has since been shared online.

Follow @htshowbiz for morePriyanka Chopra, Janhvi Kapoor and her kid sister Khushi are not just favourites of their many fans, even the best of our Bollywood designers cant seem to get enough of them. And one such a designer is Manish Malhotra. Bollywood favourite clothes guy shared a picture presenting three fashionistas -- Priyanka, Janhvi and Khushi -- striking a pose of the camera.

Sharing the picture, Manish wrote: When you make the fun girls give the Attitude Pose ... ??@priyankachopra @janhvikapoor @khushi05.

The same picture in a slightly altered pose was shared by Priyanka too. In the comments, we get to know that the picture has been clicked by Manish. And looks like all the celebs were busy interacting with each other. Manish wrote: Shot by me... You fun girls followed by a pink heart emoji. Priyanka, meanwhile, left a comment for Janhvi, saying: You also had a complain... If I may remind u. Playful banter?

Going by the text behind the ladies, which says Via Milano Lounge. It could be at the Malpensa airport, near Milan, Italy, when the picture has been clicked. In the picture, the girls are dressed casually (Priyanka has a ganji shirt on while Janhvi wears, what looks like, a little purple top).

Priyanka Chopra, Nick Jonas and Manish Malhotra at Como, Italy. (Instagram)

Manish enjoys a wonderful rapport with the ladies and is often seen in their company or is posting their pictures. Just recently, when a bulk of our celebs landed up at Italian tourist town of Como for the engagement of industrialist Mukesh Ambanis daughter Ishas engagement to Anand Piramal, Manish shared a number of pictures and videos of himself with the global It couple--Priyanka and Nick Jonas. While the lady wore a beautiful sienna sheer saree, Nick looked dapper in a black and white sherwani. Manish, himself, looked good in a Jodhpuri. Janhvi too was present at the do and was seen in an all-black gown, which had much of internet tripping.

Meanwhile, on the work front, both the ladies have their hands full--Priyanka has already begun shooting for her film with Shonali Bose called The Sky is Pink with Zaira Kazmi and Farhan Akhtar. She also has her Hollywood project, Isnt it Romantic?, coming up for release. Janhvi, who made a splash with her very first film, is safely ensconced in the Karan Johar camp. Her first film, Dhadak, was Karans production and in the next two films too, she will be seen in his films. These include a directorial, Takht (which has a galaxy of stars including Ranveer Singh, Kareena Kapoor and Alia Bhatt among others) and a solo untitled project, where she will be seen as an IAF fighter pilot. The latter will be produced by Karan.

Given their popularity, both their non-film related videos and pictures work wonders on the internet too, like Priyankas extended US countryside pictures with Nick in his birthday week which were a big hit with her fans. Similarly, Janhvi acing the Sui Dhaaga challenge too was popular on the internet.

Follow @htshowbiz for moreA day after revealing that she had been mistreated on the sets of a 2008 film, actor Tanushree Dutta has alleged that Nana Patekar sexually harassed her. Tanushree in an interview said that Nanas reputation of sexual misconduct is well known in the Hindi film industry, but little has been done about it.

In an interview to News18, Tanushree had said that the Me Too movement will never arrive in India because of the industrys hypocrisy. She said that we cant expect change until what happened to her in 2008 is acknowledged. In an interview to Zoom, Tanushree said, Everyone knows about Nana Patekar that he has always been disrespectful towards women. People in the industry know about his background... that he has beaten actresses, he has molested them, his behaviour with women has always been crude but no publication has printed anything about it.

Nana, a Padma Shri and National Award winner, did not respond to Hindustan Times requests for a comment. He most recently appeared in the film Kaala.

She noted that established stars such as Akshay Kumar and Rajinikanth have worked with Nana in the last eight years and that for the culture to change, people in positions of power would have to take the first step. Akshay Kumar has made few films with Nana Patekar in last eight years and Rajinikanth also recently worked with him (in Kaala)... If such big stars will keep working with these culprits then theres no hope for any movement to happen.

Tanushree had earlier said she was mistreated by an unnamed actor on the sets of Horn OK Please. I was probably one of the first people in the history of this country in the media field to speak up and stand up. Everybody saw what happened but the memory and the popular perception of it is that Tanushree Dutta spoke up against harassment and then she was no more, she said. Tanushree gave a detailed account of how the male actor had forced himself into a solo dance sequence, touched her inappropriately and even demanded an intimate scene be retroactively added to the film. Tanushree had to eventually drop out of the dance number.

The entire industry saw what happened but there was not one word of condemnation from anybody. Every single person in this country remembers my incident and this was something on national TV for three days but even today theres a stoic silence on that. So, my question is, Who is going to believe these hypocrites? These are the people who stand up and raise their voice against women empowerment, she had said.

The #MeToo movement began with allegations of sexual harassment and rape against Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein and triggered a global movement. It eventually led to structural changes in Hollywood and the launch of the Times Up campaign. Indian actors such as Radhika Apte, Richa Chadda, Swara Bhasker and Konkona SenSharma have spoken about it, without revealing names.

Follow @htshowbiz for moreCHICO, Calif. - The Paradise Host Lions Club presents "An Insightful Day" on Friday, Sept. 28 at the Enloe Conference Center, located at 1528 Esplanade in Chico. It runs from 10 a.m. - 2 p.m.

The event is for people with sight loss or blindness and is free.

The event features booths representing many organizations and agencies that provide services like The State Department of Rehabilitation Vocational Training, North State Assistive Technology and the Society for the Blind. There will also be Guide Dog Demonstrations and free vision and diabetes screening.

Lions Clubs of Northern California will be assisting with eye exams and matching some of the participants with temporary eyeglasses.

Organizers say it's also an opportunity to meet and network with others who experience vision loss or who are blind.India isnt planning to buy any Iranian oil in November, raising the prospect that Tehran will lose another major customer as US sanctions hit and spurring speculation over whether China will follow suit.

India is joining other Asian buyers such as South Korea and Japan that have already halted imports from the Persian Gulf state before American restrictions take effect in early November. Its unclear if China, the worlds biggest oil importer as well as Irans top customer, will persist with purchases.

Indian Oil Corp. and Bharat Petroleum Corp., the countrys two largest state-owned refiners, havent asked for any Iranian cargoes for loading in November, according to officials at the companies. Nayara Energy also doesnt plan any purchases, said an industry executive. Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd. hasnt made any nominations for that month, but may do so later, a company official said.

The companies are the four largest buyers of Iranian oil in India, accounting for almost all of the countrys imports from the Islamic republic. Final decisions on purchases arent due until early October, so the refiners could still change their minds. The officials and industry executive asked not to be identified because of internal policies.

Iranian exports may drop below 1 million barrels a day in November, with Indian refiners potentially loading nothing and China cutting back as well, Amrita Sen, chief oil analyst at Energy Aspects Ltd. in London, said in a note to clients.

The rapid drop in Iranian exports has helped to push Brent crude, the global benchmark, to a four-year high above $80 a barrel. Further output losses could drive prices even higher as refiners urgently seek replacement barrels elsewhere. Around the world, only Saudi Arabia and, to a lesser extent, United Arab Emirates and Russia, have the capacity to pump more.

Brent crude was up 22 cents at $82.09 a barrel by 8.15 am in London, after climbing almost 4% over the previous two sessions, just as US president Donald Trump rails against OPEC and demands the cartel lower oil prices. Futures are up about 40% in the past 12 months.

Major Buyer

On Tuesday, Trump told the United Nations General Assembly that Irans leaders sow chaos, death and destruction in a speech that also derided OPEC. However, India was among those he praised, saying the nation is a free society over a billion people, successfully lifting countless millions out of poverty and into the middle class.

India is the second-largest buyer of Iranian oil, having imported an average of 577,000 barrels a day this year, or about 27% of the Middle Eastern countrys exports, according to Bloomberg tanker tracking data. With several Asian and European nations also cutting imports to zero, the loss of the Indian refiners, even if temporary, is a major blow for the Islamic republic.

At the same time, the impending US sanctions are creating a major gap in the global oil market just as Brent crude hits a four-year high above $80 a barrel. Mercuria Energy Group Ltd. and Trafigura Group, among the worlds biggest trading houses, are predicting the loss of Irans supply will boost prices to $100 a barrel for the first time since 2014.

That risk has been echoed by some of the worlds biggest oil companies. BP Plc Chief Executive Officer Bob Dudley sees the sanctions on the OPEC nation having a bigger impact on the market this time than the previous round of restrictions six years ago.

Harder Stance

Trumps administration is taking a harder stance. It wants all oil imports from Iran to end by November, and its unclear if any waivers will be granted. In previous sanctions under Barack Obama, the government had allowed nations to continue purchases at reduced levels.

The tougher attitude is already showing in Iranian barrels vanishing from the market. South Korea became the first of Irans top-three oil customers to heed the US diktat by refraining from any purchases last month. Japanese refiners have also temporarily halted loadings.

India and China had held out hope for Iran. It was only about four months ago that Indias foreign minister said that the country wont adhere to unilateral restrictions and will continue buying Iranian crude. China also made similar comments and was said to have rejected an American request to cut imports.

When Trump in May announced plans to reimpose sanctions on Irans oil exports, the market estimated a cut of about 300,000 to 700,000 barrels a day, Trafiguras co-head of oil trading Ben Luckock said this week. However, the consensus has now moved to as much as 1.5 million barrels as the US is incredibly serious about its measures, he said.When two officers from the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) tapped on Austrian national Peter Reseles shoulder at the Indira Gandhi International (IGI) airport in Delhi, he thought he was in trouble. To his surprise, they handed over to him his smart watch which he had forgotten to collect after security check.

What amazed Resele the most was how the security personnel tracked him down inside the terminal, which was through a family photo in the background display on the home screen of his watch.

Elated to get his watch back, Resele attempted to tip the two personnel but they refused to accept any money. Resele then gave a written appreciation to the CISF.

He said he left his watch at the security check and forgot to collect it. Suddenly an officer tapped on my shoulderI thought there was a problem but he just handed me the watchHe and his female colleague had been searching for me. It was only then that a flash of absence on my wrist went to my brain. I was so stunned that all I could mutter was a repeated thank you, thank you while my mind raced through the fact that I was at a very busy Indian airport. They disappeared before I could think of anything else, Resele said.

He decided to go back and do more than just verbally thanking them. As I expected, my attempt to tip the two was outrightly refused - I hadnt been able to come up with a better idea. Then, the head officer invited me to write an appreciation note, which I was only too happy to give, in a thick, old, dog-eared book that showed I was by far not the only person who felt indebted to them. It felt good to write it and give my details, at least something I could do for them. I sincerely hope their deed is honoured by their superiors, Resele said.

The incident took place in the security hold area of the departure Terminal 1D of the IGI airport, which sees a daily footfall of more than 20,000.

Kumari Prabha Rani, a constable in the CISF, one of the two personnel who had tracked down Resele and returned him the watch, said that when she spotted the watch, she asked at least half a dozen passengers if it belonged to them. When all of them refused, I checked the watch and it turned on automatically. I saw a family picture on the home screen. There was a man, a woman and a child in that picture. We started searching for the man or the woman inside the terminal. It was just ten minutes later that we found him, she said.

Resele was also pleasantly surprised to learn that no tiring legal formalities were involved in the process of returning the watch. It would maybe have been put in a box, three forms filled out, maybe entered into an electronic database which would identify it. Then the passenger would make an inquiry and try to get it back, somehow... while already being on another continent, he said.The Delhi cabinet on Tuesday approved the Mukhyamantri Solar Power Scheme, which offers residents who install rooftop solar panels a subsidy on their electricity bill for a period of five years from the existing three.

A government spokesperson said since the existing scheme, Delhi Solar Policy 2016, was not catching up, they decided to extend the generation-based incentive (GBI) from three to five years with a new name. The government is already giving an incentive of Rs 2 per unit on solar generation for a three-year period, from 2016-17 to 2018-19, as per the Delhi Solar Policy 2016.

The cabinet chaired by CM Arvind Kejriwal also approved disbursal of GBI half-yearly instead of annually by discoms. The government pays the distribution companies as compensation for the GBI disbursed.

Under the Renewable Energy Service Co model, the domestic consumer will not have to spend any money for the installation of solar panels. It will be done by select service providers, power minister Satyendar Jain said. The cost of electricity generated through the solar power for group housing societies will be Rs 1 per unit. The Delhi government will provide a subsidy of Rs 2 per unit to the societies, he said.

Presently, nearly 105 MW of solar power installed in Delhi covers mostly government buildings such as DMRC (20 MW), DJB, technical institutions (DTU, NSIT, IP University, IGDTUW), to name a few, the minister said.

The cabinet also amended a scheme to grant ex-gratia payment to security personnel and other martyrs from Delhi. In July, the cabinet had decided to give Rs 1 crore compensation to the kin of martyrs killed on duty.

Families of the security personnel living in Delhi for the last five years will also be covered in the scheme, irrespective of the state of joining of the personnel, said revenue minister Kailash Gahlot. The final decision will be taken by the group of ministers headed by deputy CM Manish Sisodia.The amendment, he said, was made following the murder of Border Security Force head constable Narender Kumar on the India-Pakistan border. Hailing from Haryana, Kumars family lived in Delhi for some time.

The cabinet also gave its nod to a proposal of the social welfare department to provide assistance to non profit organisations for celebrating birth and death anniversaries of eminent personalities.A tree census is being planned in Delhi to count the trees native to the national capital and identify locations where exotic and invasive trees are growing in abundance, according to several senior officials from the citys forest development.

This would be the first-of-its-kind census in Delhi at a time when the question of felling trees for development projects has become a contentious issue and led to an intervention by the Supreme Court. The officials cited above said that the forest department is preparing a proposal for the Delhi cabinet to approve the plan and is in discussion with the Dehradun-based Forest Research Institute (FRI) to conduct the exercise.

Plans are going on for conducting the first full-fledged tree census in Delhi. Two years ago, we had conducted a similar exercise but at a much smaller scale. Talks are being held with the FRI, said Delhis environment and forest minister Imran Hussain.

The forest department has asked various land-owning agencies, including municipal corporations, to prepare an inventory of trees in the areas under their jurisdiction.

The agencies have been asked to enumerate the trees in their respective areas by allotting specific number or a dedicated code to each tree along with providing details of species, girth, phenotype (how does a tree look) and location with geo-coordinates, said a second forest department official.

A third official said the proposal for the cabinet will be ready by the first week of October. A number of modalities are being worked out including the number of agencies to be involved, the survey to be carried out in how many phases and the resources for the same. It is going to be a mammoth exercise, he said.

The official added that there is no exact data on the number of native trees and others that have been planted during the various afforestation and compensatory plantation programmes over the years.

The locations where invasive species such as vilayati kikar trees grow will be mapped to help weed them out as they are harmful to the growth of native plants. These trees use up large amounts of water and dont allow other trees to thrive.

This is not the first time when such an exercise is being planned, but it seems to have greater political will this time around.

In 2011-2012, residents of Sarvodaya Enclave had carried a neighbourhood census to mark the number of trees, their species and individual health. They (the Delhi government) have taken a gigantic first step to have trees counted. Now they must compile information on each tree, covering its number, location, type and girth. This should form the basis of all tree plantations, felling, pruning and compensatory afforestation measures, said Padmavati Dwivedi, who initiated the first neighbourhood census in Delhi in 2011-2012

In 2015, the Delhi government planned a tree census for the national Capital after the high court had observed that the city is not as green as official figures make it out to be. The exercise, however, did not take off.

In 2017, a few government agencies and civic bodies started a census and had counted around 18 million trees. But the exercise could not be completed and was left midway as some agencies could not submit their data.

An ecologist from the Delhi University CR Babu said the tree census could give an idea as to how prepared the city is when it comes to fighting pollution. The girth and canopy would help us know how much carbon is trapped in these trees, how much dust they can trap and how much pollution they can mitigate.

Earlier this year, a move to cut down around 14,000 trees for redeveloping some central government colonies in south Delhi was put on hold after a public outcry, with a number of public interest litigations being filed in the Delhi high court and National Green Tribunal (NGT) against it.

locations where invasive species such as vilayati kikar grow will be mapped to help weed them outA teenaged girl was allegedly killed by her male friend in southeast Delhis Nizamuddin on Sunday night, the police said. The girls mutilated body, stuffed in two bags, was found lying in a drain under the Barapullah flyover on Tuesday evening.

Police said that incident came to light after the killer walked up to a policeman and confessed to the crime.

The man was identified as 20-year-old Rizwan Khan, a resident of Nizam Nagar in Hazrat Nizamuddin area.

According to senior police officers, Khan walked up to a local constable on Tuesday afternoon and allegedly said he had killed his girlfriend.

Special commissioner of police (law and order) RP Upadhyay confirmed the arrest. Khan allegedly told the police that he killed the girl with a knife and threw her body in a drain under the Barapullah flyover after cutting it into two pieces, a senior police officer probing the matter, said, requesting anonymity.

The accused led the police to the drain under the flyover on Lala Lajpat Rai Marg where two bags were found. The bags were opened. One had a girls head while the other had her lower body. A crime and forensics team was called to the spot and the body parts were sent for medical examination, the officer said.

Police said when Khan was questioned, he said that he was dating the girl for the past 11 months.

He said he was annoyed with her after learning recently that she had befriended another man. They had an altercation on Sunday evening, which turned violent. He said that the same night, he allegedly slit the girls throat with a knife. He allegedly cut her body into two pieces and stuffed it in a bag to dispose it in the early hours of Monday, the officer said.

Police contacted the girls family to ascertain her identity.

Khan, the police said, is unemployed and lives with his mother, two elder brothers and a sister. Police said Khans father passed away in 1998.A 26-year-old man allegedly bludgeoned his wife to death in her sleep with a mini cooking gas cylinder and later tried to kill himself at their home in northwest Delhis Lal Bagh slums near Adarsh Nagar early on Tuesday.

Sunil Sharma, 26, hit his head with the same cylinder after killing his 24-year-old wife before informing the police about the crime.

Police said the man suspected that his wife, Kavita Sharma, was in a relationship with another man in their locality.

The accused was arrested and the gas cylinder was seized, police said.

Deputy commissioner of police (northwest) Aslam Khan said that around 2.30 am, a man called the police control room and said he had killed his wife. The police initially thought he was drunk but sent a team to verify his claims.

The patrolling van staff were shocked when they entered the room and saw blood all around the floor and walls. A woman, bleeding profusely from her head, was on the bed. A man, who claimed to be her husband, was standing nearby and a small gas cylinder with blood on it was found on the floor, said a police officer. The man was also bleeding from his head.

The couple was rushed to a nearby hospital where doctors declared the woman brought dead. Her husband was discharged after medication and police took him into custody.

A case of murder was filed and he was arrested.

Sunil suspected his wife was cheating on him. He had seen her talking to a man several times. The couple often had arguments and fights, the officer said.

Sunil runs a food cart in Azadpur area. His mother and two brothers live nearby.

On Monday night, the officer said, the couple had an argument over the same issue. When Sunils mother failed to pacify them, she took the couples four-year-old daughter to her other sons home.

After Kavita went to sleep, Sunil picked up the gas cylinder and repeatedly hit her head with it. He then hurt himself and called the police, the officer said.One of the modern ages biggest luxuries is being off the grid. It is a luxury restricted to the most privileged. As for the rest, being on the grid is a necessity. The mad scramble for ration cards, PAN cards, passports, and Aadhaar numbers  evident in the thriving industry-clusters helping people procure these  is proof of this. By upholding the validity of Aadhaar, the Supreme Court has, in some ways, served the needs of the average Indian who is the beneficiary of at least one government welfare scheme.

This was the original vision of Aadhaar  to, as Nandan Nilekani, the first chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India, put it, fix the plumbing and ensure that there was no leakage in government schemes. And so, by limiting it to just this, the apex court has done everyone, not just beneficiaries of such schemes, a favour. For, over time, Aadhaar began to acquire the power and status of the one number that would bind and rule. From bank accounts to driving licences to death certificates, it was sought for everything. What was not designed to be a National ID became just that.

Over the past few years, various government departments, even private firms, have started insisting that Aadhaar numbers be used for just about everything, and just about everyone. This was understandable  Aadhaar was there; it was relatively fool-proof; and it worked. It therefore became the default option for any organisation or entity, public or private, wanting to establish identity. Instead of being one way of establishing identity, it became the only way. A seemingly benign effort to ensure subsidies and incentives meant for the underprivileged reached them started acquiring darker shades of a bigbrotherish regime.

The court didnt dwell too much on issues related to security, data protection, privacy and exclusions  except in the dissenting judgement by Justice DY Chandrachud; the court ruled in favour of Aadhaar 4-1  indicating that it was satisfied by measures taken on these dimensions. India is in the process of framing a data protection law, and UIDAI does have a protocol for dealing with exclusions. The court also seems to have bought the argument that the Aadhaar architecture and database are secure. There have been reports to the contrary, although the database itself doesnt seem to have been compromised ever. But in some ways, the court itself may have struck the greatest blow for all these. By limiting Aadhaar, it has ensured that there arent too many long, inter- connected chains of data  the kind of chains that can be misused or compromised.

The court also scrapped, read down, or modified sections of the Aadhaar law to prevent overuse, misuse, and the violation of rights of individuals. It said Section 57 that allows private companies to seek authentication of biometric information is unconstitutional. It also scrapped Section 33(2) of the law that allows information to be shared with the government in the interests of national security. And it has ensured that the rights of individuals are protected by ordering that they be heard, before a District Judge can order the sharing of their Aadhaar information as mandated in Section 33(1). Providing individuals legal recourse and also control of their own data, the court also struck down Section 47 of the UIDAI Act that only allows UIDAI to file a complaint in case of breach of data; individuals can also do so now.

All these were points of contention in the various suits filed against Aadhaar and petitioners can take solace from the fact that the court has heard at least some of their concerns.

It has however decided to take the side of the government on the two larger issues. It has, as many expected it to, not disputed the governments definition of the Aadhaar act as a money bill. The project itself, the concept of Aadhaar, and the enrolment, have all also been endorsed by the court, which has dismissed concerns of profiling. By doing so, it has displayed its trust in the state after assuring itself that there are adequate safeguards. This is not the view of some of the petitioners. Their view is closer to Edward Snowdens who said with reference to Aadhaar (on Twitter): It is the natural tendency of government to desire perfect records of private lives. History shows that no matter the laws, the result is abuse.

The courts ruling is unlikely to quell those arguments which are also influenced by political affiliations. It has, however, cleared the air on a well-intentioned project, ensured that its focus returns to its original objective of empowering the disenfranchised, and protected the rights of the individual.Students appearing for the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) Class 10 board exams in 2019 are likely to have the option to choose whether to answer a standard-level or the existing-level mathematics question paper, officials familiar with the development said. The choice will have to be made when forms for the exam are filled up later this year, they added.

On May 31, HT had reported that the CBSE was considering two sets of question papers for the mathematics exam. The syllabus for the exam would remain the same; but students would be examined at two different levels so that those not keen to pursue maths for higher studies can answer a simpler question paper.

Officials added that this may start as a pilot project from March 2019 itself and, depending on its success, could be extended to the Class 12 board exams. The board has formed a 15-member committee comprising mathematics experts, and those from universities, schools and the National Council of Educational Research and Training.

The National Curriculum Framework (NCF) document states that all subjects should be examined at two levels by the board, beginning with maths and English. It also said that students should have the choice between higher and standard level, said a maths expert who was consulted.

Read: Class 10 and 12 CBSE Board exams may begin in February next year

The officials cited above further said that the committee had suggested to keep the syllabus same, including teaching and pedagogy, but the same syllabus would be examined at two levels.

An official said the higher-level paper would have more questions on applied mathematics and involve higher order thinking skills. The board had received representations to introduce two question papers from several schools across the country. The rationale was that students who do not intend to pursue maths would be able to avoid the tag they werent good at the subject if they scored low marks at the high-school level.

A number of school boards overseas follow this practice. For instance, the Cambridge International General Certificate of Secondary Education has a core curriculum in each subject, which is generally within the ability range of a majority of the students. It also offers an extended curriculum that is designed for students who are more academically able. International Baccalaureate (IB) also provides this flexibility.No Indian institution figures in the top 250 of the Times Higher Educations (THE) world university rankings 2019, though the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, has retained its position as the highest-ranked centre in the country, while the Indian Institute of Technology-Indore has risen to the highest position behind it.

The rankings, released on Wednesday, show Oxford continues to hold the first place, Cambridge second, and Stanford third. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology rose one place to number four.

There was some good news for India: number of Indian institutions in the rankings increased from 42 last year to 49, making it the fifth best-represented nation. India is the most-represented country in the table when those in the top 200 are excluded.

The India group in the ranking was again led by the Indian Institute of Science, which retained its position in the 251-300 band. But IIT-Indore became Indias second highest-ranked university  and a global top 400 institution  with its strong score for research volume and research impact.

It overtook the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay, which slipped from the 351-400 band to the 401-500 band.

Pradeep Mathur, director of IIT-Indore, told THE: Our efforts in making research the focus of the institute is now reflected in the form of citations and other impact metrics of research. We continue to make research the focus of all our programmes which is why you see even our undergraduate students are active participants of research projects and collaborations within India and internationally too.

Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham (headquartered in Tamil Nadu) saw a rise, from the 801-1000 band to the 601-800 band this year, with a particular improvement in its citation impact (research influence) score.

However, while some institutions gained this year, the majority of Indias universities remained static or declined, struggling amid increased global competition, according to the global list.The admit card for the preliminary examination to recruit probationary officers (PO) in Indian Bank was released on Wednesday on the official website of the bank. The online preliminary examination will be held on October 6.

Here is the direct link to download Indian Bank PO admit card 2018. The admit card will be available for download until October 6.

The application process for filling 417 probationary officer (PO) vacancies through admission to Post Graduate Diploma in Banking and Finance (PGDBF) course at Indian Bank Manipal School of Banking (IBMSB) began on August 1. The number of vacancies is provisional and may vary according to the actual requirement of the bank.

Candidates will be selected through a process consisting of online exam (preliminary and main) followed by an interview. Successful candidates will go through a nine month course (campus programme) at Manipal Global Education Services, Bangalore followed by a three months internship at any of the Indian Bank Branches.

On successful completion of the course, candidates will be appointed as probationary officer in any branch of the Indian Bank.

Indian Bank PO admit card 2018: Here are the steps to download from the official website

1) Visit the official website of Indian bank

2) Click on the link for careers

3) Click on detailed advertisement for PO through on Boarding

4) Click on link for link for downloading call letter

5) Key in your details and login

6) Admit card will displayed on the screenWhile there has been a small decrease in the number of employees not taking a sick day from 2016 (54%), the tendency to come into the workplace when suffering from a minor illness persists, as nine in ten (88%) admit they go into the office. Figure 1: Percentage of employees taking sick days and percentage of employees coming into work when unwell The reasons why employees were reluctant to stay at home when ill varied. Over half (53%) stated that even though they were unwell they felt it did not warrant a day off. A quarter (25%) said their workload was too great for them to take time off and one in ten (9%) admitted they didnt feel secure enough in their role to take a sick day. For those concerned about how their colleagues would perceive them, one in five (19%) believe they would be viewed as weak, 17% believe they would be perceived as lazy and 15% believe they would be viewed as inconsiderate. However, positive perceptions were also popular with 17% of workers believing they would be viewed as sensible or genuine and 15% as honest. Figure 2: Top 10 perceptions people think their colleagues would view them as if they take time off Number of sick days rises as presenteeism takes its toll

For employees who took time off when unwell, the average number of days taken rose in 2017, from 2.8 to 4.4.

The majority of those who took time off for illness in 2017 were out of the office for between one and five days. Overall, the number who took this amount of time off remained fairly static, at 30% in 2016 and 28% in 2017. However, around one in twelve (8%) took between 11 and 20 sick days in total  the highest proportion since 2015.

Figure 3: Average sick days taken 2014-2017 Employees want help to take preventative measures Employees say their wellbeing would improve with flexible working, a positive attitude towards the issue and increased workplace support. Three in ten (28%) say flexible working options would help with both their physical and mental health and this was particularly popular amongst women, with one third (33%) agreeing. A similar number of workers (27%) also said a more positive workplace attitude towards health and wellbeing would help, while a fifth (19%) said better workplace support (for example, Employee Assistance Programmes) would be beneficial. Paul Avis, Marketing Director at Canada Life Group Insurance, comments: Presenteeism is a vicious cycle; the drive to remain in the office can cause illness to spread or end up leading to a longer recovery time. It is encouraging to see that many employees view those taking time off for illness in a positive way, being described as genuine, honest and sensible. To reduce presenteeism, these positive perceptions must be encouraged so workplaces can reduce any stigma attached to taking time off. Failing to take a sick day can have a significant impact on business performance as employees fail to recuperate properly. As well as changing perceptions, employers can offer much more to support staff when they are unwell. Early Intervention Services are available alongside Group Income Protection products and include proactive absence management interventions to facilitate a return to work when employees are fit and able to do so. Employee Assistance Programmes are also provided at no extra cost and provide daily practical support as well as communicating an employers commitment to their staffs health and wellbeing.



The surprise reveal of a minor Harry Potter character in the final trailer for Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, the second film in a series of spin-offs from the Potter series, has left fans speculating online. The latest trailer for the film revealed that Lord Voldemorts snake companion, Nagini, was in fact a human.

Nagini was also Voldemorts final and most closely protected horcrux in the Potter series. Horcruxes are fragments of a wizards soul that have been housed inside objects. Voldemort had separated his soul into seven horcruxes, which Harry had systematically destroyed in the final book in the series.

In Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, the character will be played by Claudia Kim. While a large section of Twitter has reacted to the reveal with shock - the previous trailer featured another Potter cameo, by alchemist Nicolas Flamel - another section has criticised author JK Rowling for her retroactive representation.

Me: *see the new trailer of "Fantastic Beasts" * ahhh! Nagini! Hogwarts! Dumbledore! Ahhh! I want this film now! #FantasticBeasts pic.twitter.com/GIStQd1DH1  MartinaMendes14 (@Mendes14Martina) September 25, 2018

Lets retroactively turn a woman of colour into a literal object owned by a white man inspired by Nazis, one person wrote on Twitter. There are only two Asian women in Harry Potter franchise, Cho Chang and now NAGINI? wrote another. Rowling has altered several details about her Harry Potter series after its conclusion, including the reveal that Albus Dumbledore is gay - a theme that will reportedly feature in Fantastic Beasts.

Asked by a fan how long shes known about Naginis past, Rowling replied on Twitter, Only about 20 years. She also clarified that Nagini was not an Animagus, but a Maledictus.

In Potter lore, and as Rowling explained herself, Theyre different conditions. Maledictuses are always women, whereas werewolves can be either sex. The Maledictus carries a blood curse from birth, which is passed down from mother to daughter.

They're different conditions. Maledictuses are always women, whereas werewolves can be either sex. The Maledictus carries a blood curse from birth, which is passed down from mother to daughter. https://t.co/wYfvPeQFRW  J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) September 25, 2018

Here are some more reactions to the trailer:

"Nagini was a human woman all along" really is a bold addition to JK Rowling's list of post-series canon retcons. https://t.co/H3TsQplrwR  Gavia Baker-Whitelaw (@Hello_Tailor) September 25, 2018

someone is gonna write a take about how "omg this decision about nagini is actually WOKE Asians can b racist so its okay if an asian woman is portrayed as an EVIL COLD SLIT EYED ANIMAL!!!" and i really wont be here for it  the handmaiden stan (@MlMAKIRIGOE) September 25, 2018

wait so nagini is being played by an asian woman and she like.... becomes voldemort's '''pet'''???? is she.... is she a Fantastic Beast newt must Find???? oh this is bad. this is very very bad   (@neonacropolis) September 25, 2018

"Let's retroactively turn a woman of color into a literal object owned by a white man inspired by nazis." https://t.co/JYTQK6YFss  Bad Janet (@CharlesPulliam) September 25, 2018

There are only two Asian women in Harry Potter franchise, Cho Chang and now NAGINI? Not to mention Cho Chang as an Asian character's name is extremely lazy and funny (It's basically two sir names combined) and considering how Cho was used as a character.... This is REALLY BAD. pic.twitter.com/asfQImttWt  Hyein Jeon (@hyeiniillo) September 25, 2018

Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald stars Eddie Redmayne, Jude Law, Johnny Depp, Katherine Waterston, Dan Fogler and Alison Sudol. The film is directed by Potter veteran David Yates and scheduled for a November 16 release.

Follow @htshowbiz for moreAmerican TV personality, author, actor, and model Padma Lakshmi recently said that she had been raped as a teenager.

In reference to the sexual assault accusations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh that allegedly went unreported for decades, Lakshmi wrote an Op-Ed for The New York Times.

In the piece, the Top Chef host mentioned that she was 7 years old when she was assaulted for the first time and 16 years old when she was raped.

Narrating the incident, Lakshmi said that she dated a 23-year-old "charming and handsome" college student when she was 16, who would "flirt" with her at her part-time retail job at a mall in Los Angeles. But just a few months into the relationship, Lakshmi said that he sexually assaulted her while she was asleep.

"When we went out, he would park the car and come in and sit on our couch and talk to my mother," she recalled in the piece. "He never brought me home late on a school night. We were intimate to a point, but he knew that I was a virgin and that I was unsure of when I would be ready to have sex."

On New year's eve three decades ago, Lakshmi said that after a night out with her boyfriend, she fell asleep at his apartment. "The next thing I remember is waking up to a very sharp stabbing pain like a knife blade between my legs. He was on top of me," the star wrote. "I asked, 'What are you doing?' He said, 'It will only hurt for a while.' "

Unaware of what date rape meant at that point in time, Lakshmi said she was unsure of whether the incident classified as rape or sex, but continued to tell her future boyfriends that she was a virgin. "Emotionally, I still was," she noted.

Lakshmi further explained how, when she was 7 years old, she was sent to India to live with her grandparents for a year after she told her mother and stepfather that a relative had touched her inappropriately and put her hand on his penis. "The lesson was: If you speak up, you will be cast out," the star said.

"I have nothing to gain by talking about this. But we all have a lot to lose if we put a time limit on telling the truth about sexual assault and if we hold on to the codes of silence that, for generations, have allowed men to hurt women with impunity," she concluded.At least two people have been booked in Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh under the ordinance that was promulgated on September 19 to criminalize instant triple talaq (divorce).

The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Ordinance, 2018, makes all declarations of instant talaq, including in written or electronic form, illegal. It declares the practice a cognizable offence, which can lead up to three-year imprisonment.

Police superintendent Umesh Kumar Singh said they registered a case on Tuesday under the ordinance against one Gulfam in Bijnor for allegedly pronouncing triple talaq two months after marrying one Sultanat.

A local resident, who did not wish to be named, said Gulfam had an affair with a woman before his marriage but his family was against it. The woman arrived at his home on Sunday and threatened to commit suicide if he did not marry her.

He said Gulfam, his girlfriend, and other family members were brought to the police station to sort out the issue. The resident added that Gulfam agreed there to divorce his wife and marry his girlfriend.

Singh said they have ordered a probe into the role of the policemen at the station in the divorce and Gulfams second alleged nikah there.

Police said this was the first case filed under the ordinance in Uttar Pradesh since it was promulgated.

In Lucknow, deputy inspector general (law and order) Praveen Kumar said instructions have been issued to book one Moharram Ali, under the ordinance for allegedly pronouncing instant divorce on Friday.

One Saleem Khan was on Wednesday booked In Rajasthans Barmer under the ordinance for allegedly pronouncing instance talaq in writing after saying it on the phone earlier.

We registered a case under section 3/4 of the Muslim Women (Protection on Rights of Marriage) Ordinance, 2018, against Saleem Khan and his three relatives, said Sanjana Kumari, a sub-inspector at Barmers Balotra police station.

She said Khan has been also been booked for subjecting his wife to cruelty, criminal breach and for voluntarily causing hurt under the Indian Penal Code along with his family.

A police officer quoted Khans wife, Salma Bano, telling them that her husband had pronounced instant talaq thrice over the phone on September 15 when she was away with her parents.

On September 23, I was called to the police station where my husband was also present. In the presence of police, he declared talaq in written form, Bano said. HT has seen a copy of the written talaq.

Bano, a mother of three, said she has been married for 23 years.

After 10 years of marriage, my husband and in-laws began torturing me to demand Rs 15 lakh as dowry. A few months ago, my husband left me. I came to my parents house, Bano said.

When (Prime Minister) Modi has brought a law to ban triple talaq in India, then how could my husband do this? she asked.

Saleem Khan accused his wife of having an illicit relation with a man for two years. He insisted he had not pronounced instant talaq.

I pronounced the first talaq about four months ago, second about two months ago and later third time on September 15, he said. When I went to the police station, I was asked to give talaq in writing. I wrote talaq in the presence of police.

The Supreme Court had in August last year declared the instant triple talaq practice unconstitutional and asked Parliament to pass a law against it. A bill in this regard was passed in Lok Sabha in December. It has been pending for approval in Rajya Sabha, as opposition parties want the issue to be discussed further.High income inequality driven by a driven by a growing divergence between growth in productivity and wages is the biggest challenge, even as quality of work and social inequalities based on caste and gender have been coming down gradually in the Indian economy.

A monthly income of Rs 50000 or more puts a person in the top 1%

82 % of male and 92% of female workers in India earned less than Rs 10,000 a month in 2015, according to statistics given in the Labour Bureau Employment Unemployment Survey (LB-EUS) of 2015. The seventh central pay commission had stipulated a minimum wage of Rs 18,000 per month. This suggests that a large majority of Indians are not being paid what may be termed a living wage, and it explains the intense hunger for government jobs, the report says share of women workers in the lowest income bracket is 1.7 times that of male workers. A monthly income of just Rs 50,000 or more puts an Indian worker in the top 1% bracket. Being a regular/salaried worker significantly reduces the probability of being in the lower income bracket compared to self-employment or contract and casual work. These trends persist despite the fact that real wages grew across sectors between 2010 and 2015.

Class divide has increased, but social inequality is going down

A big reason for income inequality during this period is the growing mismatch between productivity and wage growth, especially that of workers, in the Indian economy. The report uses data from Annual Survey of Industry (ASI) statistics (organised manufacturing) to show that while wages for production workers have been almost stagnant, managers compensation started rising at a faster rate since 2000 onwards. Growth in labour productivity, which was always higher, experienced an even greater increase during this period. The inequality between managers and workers wages could be an underestimate because the data does not include non-wage income from stock options etc. for the former.

The report argues that increasing proportion of contract workers, who are paid a fraction of permanent worker wages, often for similar work, might have been a major contributor to low growth of wages in this sector. The report also highlights the fact that even in unorganised manufacturing the gap between productivity and wages has started rising since the middle of last decade.

While overall wage-productivity gap has increased, there is good news on the gender inequality front. The aggregate gender wage gap has decreased both in rural and urban areas for both casual and rural workers, the report shows. ASI data shows that ratio of weighted female to male wages in organised manufacturing consistently increased from around 0.35 in the beginning of last decade to more than 0.45 in 2013. This however saw a decline in 2014. According to data from the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) survey women in urban regular wage market earned 80% of what men earned. This value was around 60% in urban casual wage markets and both regular and casual wage markets in rural areas.

Gender inequality in earnings manifests itself differently across employment and educational categories. It is the highest in employer and own account worker categories and the lowest among regular workers and casual agricultural workers. In terms of educational categories, gender inequality follows a U-shaped pattern, with inequality being the highest for intermediate levels of education.

One of the biggest proofs of caste-based discrimination in Indias labour market is the disproportional representation of various caste groups across low and high income professions in India. While Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) groups have over-represented in low-income groups, the reverse holds for upper caste groups.

Controlling for gap in education leads to a significant narrowing down of caste-based inequality in earnings. Here also, the trend follows a U-shaped pattern with the gap being the highest at the level of intermediate education. While a certificate/diploma holder SC worker earns 69% of what an upper caste worker gets, the figure is 77% and 74% for graduate and post-graduate workers. This, the report argues, underlines the importance of reservations and other affirmative action policies in reducing caste inequality in the Indian labour market.

Both in case of women and deprived castes, own account/self employment leads to a bigger inequality than regular wage employment. This suggests that both social backwardness and patriarchy also create disadvantages outside labour markets.

Regular employment has increased, but by how much depends on definition

Many commentators have argued that statistics such as an increasing number of subscribers in provident fund and other social security schemes denotes an increase in the share of regular employment in the Indian economy. While the report agrees with the broad trend, it also underlines the importance of defining what a regular job means. It estimates the share of regular employment in manufacturing, construction and services on the basis of three definitions: formal 1 (simple regular work), formal 2 (regular work with provident fund or pension, gratuity, healthcare/maternity benefits, or paid leave) and formal 3(formal 2 with a written contract). In 2015, the share of formal 1 category jobs in non-agricultural employment was 60%. However, these numbers fall to 30% and 17% for formal 2 and formal 3 categories.

This statistic also finds a reflection in the relatively high share of unemployment among the young and educated workers. The report uses 2015 LB-EUS data to show that unemployment among graduate and post-graduate workers was more than seven times what it was among illiterate or barely literate workers.

Similarly, unemployment was the highest among 15-25 year olds in the country. The number of people with at least a graduate degree who are looking for a job is roughly equal to the entire population of the city of Bengaluru, the report says. The inability to find a job which matched their skills is the biggest reason for high unemployment among the educated workers.The Supreme Court has cleared mandatory Aadhaar enrolment of recipients of government welfare benefits that account for nearly 3% of Indias GDP, a core issue in a landmark verdict that on Wednesday upheld the countrys mammoth biometric identity system.

Until November 2017, nearly 252 schemes implemented by various ministries required possession of Aadhaar, the 12-digit unique identity document.

Aadhaar for welfare schemes was a legitimate exercise, the court said. It, however, defined welfare schemes as only those funded directly from the consolidated fund of India, the main corpus of all revenues received by the government. In other words, the court upheld Aadhaar for administering subsidies to the poor.

These include the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, subsidised foodgrains for two-thirds of Indians costing nearly Rs 1.69 lakh crore, social pensions, cooking gas subsidies, scholarships, and other such.

In a welfare state, where measures are taken to ameliorate the sufferings of the downtrodden, the aim of the Act is to ensure that these benefits actually reach the populace for whom they are meant. This is naturally a legitimate state aim, the court said.

The court examined the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016 and its provisions to reach its conclusions. Welfare schemes under this law are dealt with in section 7.

The court has actually read down section 7, meaning it has upheld Aadhaar for only those schemes that have a connection with the consolidated fund and constitutes a bounty rather than just any other service, said Udayaditya Banerjee, an advocate-on-record for the Supreme Court.

Officials in the rural development ministry, which runs some of the largest Aadhaar-based schemes, said they were happy and also unaffected by the verdict. If anyone doesnt have Aadhaar, he or she is never stopped from getting benefits. The onus falls on us to ensure the person gets Aadhaar at a later stage. We will take the responsibility to get him or her an Aadhaar, a ministry official said on condition of anonymity.

Those opposed to the mandatory use of Aadhaar for welfare benefits have argued it burdens the poor and leads to exclusion. The court however agreed with the governments view that Aadhaar was intended to plug out leakages.

The entire aim behind launching this programme is the inclusion of the deserving persons who need to get such benefits, said Justice AK Sikri, who delivered the majority judgement on behalf of three judges including the Chief Justice. The verdict was split four against one.

On exclusion, the court said the remedy was to plug the loopholes rather than axe the Aadhaar project.

Economist Jean Dreze, who has tracked cases of Aadhaars adverse impact on access to welfare, said: Except for the compulsory linkage with PAN cards, the middle class is largely off the hook. But the poor are expected to face the ordeal of Aadhaar seeding and authentication for every social benefit, however meagre.

On the issue of privacy, the court agreed with the governments view that the fulfilling of socio-economic rights through welfare justifies minimal invasion of the right to privacy.

The court also said Aadhaar passed the so-called proportionality test. This is a legal principle that deems a law as a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate goal by balancing opposing concerns. In the case of Aadhaar, the opposing concerns were privacy and the larger objective of welfare.Responding to the BJPs effort to link the Congresss opposition to the Rafale jet deal to his business interests, Robert Vadra on Wednesday launched a sharp attack at the BJP, which he said, rakes up his name every time they are cornered.

The rebuttal comes just days after Union minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat alleged the Rafale deal could not see the light of the day during UPAs tenure, as Vadras company had not been accepted as the middleman.

In a Facebook post, Robert Vadra, who is Congress president Rahul Gandhis brother-in-law, called the campaign against him a wholesale farce.

It used to amaze me in the beginning but now it has become a wholesale farce that the BJP rakes up my name every time they are cornered whether it is the falling rupee, soaring oil prices or this latest number when they have been totally exposed selling out the nation on Rafale, Vadra said.

Given that the government had all the agencies at its beck and call, Vadra said in the post that the government and the ruling BJP were well aware that they have indulged in a baseless political witch hunt against me for the last 4 years.

Instead they should man up with their 56 chests and tell the nation the truth about the RAFALE deal rather than hiding behind a bunch of lies that the people are fed up of hearing them repeat!! he added.

BJPs Rajya Sabha member Anil Baluni, responded to Vadras statement, saying he was trying to distract the issue at hand. Baluni alleged that he had been complicit in corruption and asked him to come clean on his relationship with Sanjay Bhandari, who he described as an arms middleman

Political opponents of Robert Vadra have often raised questions about his companys land deals in Haryana and Rajasthan. No charges, however, have been proved.

Rahul Gandhi has taken a lead role among opposition parties to accuse the government of corruption in the Rafale deal.

The Rafale controversy took a turn last week after former French president Francois Hollande claimed that the Indian government proposed Reliance Defences name as the offset partner for Dassault Aviation. Modi had announced the procurement of 36 Rafale fighters after holding talks with the then French president Hollande on April 10, 2015, in Paris. The government and the two private companies have repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.When a 28-year-old Kashmiri migrant Pandit filed his nomination papers for municipal elections in south Kashmirs Kulgam on Tuesday, he was wary of the camera held by the officials, as a necessary protocol.

The young Pandit wanted to do it in absolute secrecy. He later agreed after being assured that the video or the pictures, necessary for the official records, would not be shared publicly. Immediately after filing the nomination papers, he flew back to Jammu where he has been living since early nineties, after migrating from Kulgam due to eruption of militancy in the valley.

The young Pandit is part of a small group of 15 people who filed nominations for 21 wards of Kulgam and Devsar in the district in the first phase of urban local body polls which are scheduled to begin from October 8 to 16. It was learnt that atleast 2 candidates in this small group are migrant Pandits.

These nominations mean that one-third of wards will remain empty in Kulgam. Official sources said that seven wards in the district have drawn a blank while in rest of the 15 wards majority of the candidates will become councillors uncontested.

Threat of militancy, boycott calls

The elections are happening amid threats from militants, boycott calls from separatists and abstention from two main mainstream parties Peoples Democratic Party and National Conference.

South Kashmir has emerged as hotbed of militancy in the state with majority of local recruits from the region. Hizbul Mujhideen commander Riyaz Naikoo has threatened candidates who intend to fight elections to get shrouds for themselves besides asking local policemen to resign from their jobs. Three policemen were killed after they were abducted from their homes in Kulgams neighbouring district of Shopian last Friday.

It was my own decision. I want to work for development of the people. I know about the threats but why would anybody harm me when I have done no wrong. Besides whatever will be in my destiny I am going to get that, said the young Pandit candidate, an MBA, who left the Valley when he was four.

The young Pandit said he received tremendous respect from the locals everytime he visits Kashmir.

People have been inviting me to their homes. Nobody has ever bothered me here, he said requesting anonymity but insisting to mention the name of his little known Manav-Adhikar National Party.

Overall the atmosphere in south Kashmir has been subdued if not antagonistic against the upcoming exercise.

Police maintain strict vigilance

We have ensured all the facilities are intact and the security is up to the mark, said Kulgam deputy commissioner Shamim Ahmad Wani, the election officer for the district, adding, When PDP and NC are not fighting, the response will be obviously affected.

The officials have been very evasive about the number and details of the candidates filing nominations. Most of the candidates who have filed nominations are expected to be associated with Congress and BJP who have announced to fight the elections.

Locals fear bloodshed

Many of the locals dont want to be associated with the entire exercise. The situation is very bad. People are dying here and you are talking about polls, said a shopkeeper in Kulgam town.

A student of Anantnag town said that there will be too much bloodshed if polls went ahead. There is too much tension. Bohut Khoon Kharaba hoga. There have been boycott calls, police killings and militant threats. People are not in the mood, he said.

In Bijbehara town, a trader said that the political process has shrunk to a point where the people dont want to be associated with anything related to state.

Earlier the political process used to go alongside the militancy. There would be room for each other. But the muscular policy of BJP government has lost Kashmir for India. The BJP is winning in rest of the country at the cost of Kashmir, he said.The Congress on Wednesday claimed the Supreme Courts verdict on Aadhaar was a big victory for its stand, but added that it would challenge in court any attempt by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government to bring an amendment to the Aadhaar Act through the money bill route.

The majority judgement given on Wednesday didnt overturn the governments decision to push the Aadhaar law as a money bill  one of the points being considered by the court  but there was still enough in the minority dissenting judgement to suggest that the Speakers call on what constitutes a money bill could be subject to judicial review.

The majority judgement also scrapped some sections of the Aadhaar law, wrote down some others, and amended still others in an attempt to protect the right of individuals and prevent misuse of Aadhaar, especially by private entities.

A money bill is a one on which only the Lok Sabha (where the current government has a comfortable majority) has voting rights, and not the Rajya Sabha (where the government is in a minority).

Congress president Rahul Gandhi hailed the verdict calling it an endorsement of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) governments vision for Aadhaar. The Congress-led UPA initiated the Aadhaar scheme in 2009.

For Congress, Aadhaar was an instrument of empowerment. For the BJP, Aadhaar is a tool of oppression and surveillance, Gandhi said, thanking the SC for supporting the Congress vision and protecting the country.

Earlier in the day, senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal told reporters the party would certainly move the court if the amendments in the Aadhaar Act brought after this verdict are not brought to the Rajya Sabha for discussion.

We will approach a seven-judge bench to consider this verdict again if brought as a money bill. One important part of the judgement is that if in future the Lok Sabha Speaker declares a bill as money bill, then court can review this and revert, he said.

The decisions of the Lok Sabha Speaker can be subject to judicial review. This is the very first time that a Constitutional bench has held so. This marks the beginning of a new era of accountability for the Speaker who was, so far, beyond reproach, Sibal added.

Congress leader Jairam Ramesh challenged in court the governments decision to treat Aadhaar bill as a money bill and pass it in the Lok Sabha during the budget session last year after rejecting amendments by the Rajya Sabha. On Wednesday, a majority of the judges said that the Aadhaar bill could be treated as a money bill.

The Supreme Court is final but not infallible. But it is a partial victory in the sense that the speakers decision is now subject to judicial review which will act as a check on the executive, Ramesh said.

Later in the day, flanked by Congress general secretary in charge of organisation Ashok Gehlot and the partys chief spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala, Sibal said the decision to strike down the surveillance tool will put an end to the Modi governments abuse of power.

Through its judgment, the Supreme Court had firmly put an end to the mass surveillance exercise being carried out under the guise of Aadhaar and the grotesque distortion of an idea conceived by the UPA, he said.

The Congress stands for an Aadhaar which is voluntary and backed by a valid law. It stands for an Aadhaar which provides a genuinely stable, secure and viable alternative to existing forms of identification aimed at making it the most important tool for delivery of benefits rather than invasion of privacy.Authorities will provide each candidate contesting the local polls in Jammu and Kashmir two to three personal security officers and government accommodation, officials aware of the development said.

The facilities are being offered to ensure a greater participation in the polls amid a spike in militant violence.

The candidates will not only get government accommodation but they will be given security as well as fuel for their vehicles, said a top police officer on condition of anonymity.

Abid Ahmad, an independent candidate who has filed his nomination papers to contest municipal elections from North Kashmirs Baramulla, said he was awaiting his security cover and accommodation.

Right now, I am staying in a security zone, but I have not been allotted any security. Maybe I will get it after the scrutiny of my papers. I will get personal security and vehicle, he said.

Officials said over 40,000 additional paramilitary forces are being deployed for the polls. This is apart from 16,000 central forces, which were retained in Kashmir for the polls after the annual Amarnath yatra to south Kashmir Himalayas concluded in July. Officials said the Army has been asked to step up night patrolling ahead of the polling.

The municipal elections will be held in four phases starting from October 8. The nine-phased panchayat election will begin from November 17. As many as 16 sarpanches (panchayat heads) and panchs (members) have been killed over the last four years.

The local elections were due in January. But they were deferred after the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) coalition government told the Centre that the situation was not conducive for them.

The electoral process has been accelerated since the imposition of governors rule in June after the BJP withdrew support from the coalition government.

The Centre has been keen to hold the polls as part of its attempts to turn the tide in the state, where local militant recruitment has gone up since the killing of militant commander Burhan Wani in 2016.

Around 4,500 sarpanches and 29,000 panchs were elected in the last panchayat polls in 2011 when 75% voters had turned out to vote. The government had earlier expressed its inability to provide security to most panchayat members, citing their large numbers.

Jammu and Kashmirs biggest indigenous militant group, Hizbul Mujahideen, as well as separatist Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL), have called for boycotting the elections.

The states two main regional parties, the National Conference and the PDP, have boycotted the polls over the Centres unclear stand vis-a-vis the attempts to undo the states special status.

A bunch of petitions challenging the validity of the Constitutions Article 35A, which prevents outsiders from buying property in Jammu and Kashmir, are pending before the Supreme Court.Disagreements over Aadhaar data security and its implications for privacy continue. Whether Aadhaar is fully secure or fundamentally flawed depends on where one stands. The disagreements begin with definitions. For instance, what is a data leak? It extends to issues such as the use of biometrics for authentication and repercussions of Aadhaar numbers leak etc. Supporters dismiss as rare the instances critics highlight as Aadhaars vulnerabilities.

To understand the issue, here is a look at the pros and cons of the debate.

First: What is data security?

UIDAI view: Database is fully safe and secure

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), which is mandated to issue the 12-digit unique identity numbers  Aadhaar  has maintained that data they have collected is fully safe and secure and that there has not been a single breach from its biometric database. This is the information you share at the time of Aadhaar enrolment.

Critics view: Ecosystem is the challenge

Experts argue this is a very limited view of data security. The issue, they say, is not just about the central database. It concerns the entire ecosystem that uses Aadhaar. Even if the central database is well protected  powered by strong security and encryption mechanisms  UIDAIs control over entities that are interacting with the core database starts weakening as it moves outwards to the periphery. That creates problems, critics say, especially as identity-related information can be misused.

In any kind of system, the basic core will always be secure, but any such core system has to interact with a larger ecosystem and this ecosystem always bring the problem to the table, said Vinayak Godse, director of the Data Security Council of India, National Association of Software and Services Companies premier data protection organisation, in an interview to HT last year.

Second: Aadhaar number leaks

The ecosystem challenge is reflected in the most commonly reported Aadhaar leaks government websites inadvertently publishing millions of Aadhaar numbers on their websites. In July 2017, a website the Jharkhand Directorate of Social Security revealed personal details, including the Aadhaar numbers, names, addresses, and bank account details, of more than a million beneficiaries of the states old age pension scheme.

UIDAI view: Publication of Aadhaar numbers does not compromise privacy

According to the Aadhaar Act, making the unique identity numbers public is illegal.

Although Aadhaar has to be shared with others, it being personal information like mobile number, bank account number, PAN card, passport, family details, etc, should be ordinarily protected to ensure privacy of the person, UIDAI said in a tweet.

But UIDAI argues that in case someone gets to know your Aadhaar number, it does not compromise privacy. Aadhaar number in itself does not reveal any information about an individual, the agency says, just like a bank account number on its own does not reveal ones financial information. Aadhaar number, though a personal sensitive information, is not a secret number, UIDAI clarified in a tweet. Share freely but not in public domain.

Critics view: Publication of Aadhaar numbers can lead to identity theft

Critics say the non-secret nature of an Aadhaar number opens up avenues for fraud, especially because it cannot be changed. It is permanent.

Experts say revelation of an Aadhaar number makes individuals vulnerable to identity theft. That happens when an imposter obtains key pieces of personally identifiable information to impersonate an individual.

Consider this : In February, police found that Tarun Sureja, a 32-year old Ahmedabad resident, allegedly forged an Aadhaar card belonging to a dead man to con a finance company of ?1.53 lakh. In March, a fake Aadhaar in the name of a Bollywood actor, Urvashi Rautela, was used to book a hotel room in Mumbai.

Any data about you becoming public is a risk. With Aadhaar, the risk increases 100 times as it can be used for everything, Srinivas Kodali, an independent security researcher, said.

New feature introduced: For additional security, the UIDAI has now introduced Virtual ID. It is a 16-digit temporary identifier, which an Aadhaar holder can generate on UIDAIs website. It can be produced for authentication or verification purposes instead of disclosing the actual 12-digit Aadhaar number.

Third: Should biometrics be used for authentication?

The use of biometrics  fingerprints and iris data  for authentication is also contentious.

UIDAI view: Biometrics are safer than passwords. UIDAI does not consider the use of biometric authentication as a problem.

People must know that even the theft of biometrics in a rare eventuality will not put one to the same level of risk as the leakage of a password, UIDAI CEO Abhay Bhushan Pandey argued in an Indian Express op-ed. Physical signatures too fall into the category of biometrics, he wrote. We all widely use our physical signatures to authenticate documents and transactions. Have the critics shunned the use of thumb prints and signatures? We continue to use them because there are additional checks in the system.

Critics view: Use of biometrics as an authentication factor is conceptually flawed. Experts point to two major arguments.

First, biometric information, even though unique to individuals, are not secrets. Passwords are secret, biometrics are not. Technology is available to lift your fingerprint from a book you are reading and even from images posted on the internet. In 2014, hackers created fake fingerprint of German defence minister Ursula von der Leyen using high-resolution pictures she had posted on social media.

Second, you cannot change your biometrics, even if its compromised. This is equivalent to someone getting access to the password of your email account. In the case, you can update your password to protect your account. But you cannot change your fingerprints.

This flaw has been exploited. In July, a mobile SIM card operator in Hyderabad was arrested after he fraudulently activated over 6,000 SIM cards using the Aadhaar-based eKYC system. The accused downloaded Aadhaar credentials from Telangana governments registration and stamps department website. He forged fingerprints by downloading property registration documents and used the combined dataset set to conduct unauthorised eKYC transactions.

Fourth: Incidents raising questions on Aadhaar security

At least four major cases have highlighted security issues in the Aadhaars architecture.

Suvidhaa-Axis Bank breach: replay attack

In February 2017, UIDAI filed a criminal complaint against three companies  Axis Bank, Suvidhaa Infoserve and eMudhram  after it had found that an individual had conducted 397 unauthorised biometric transactions between July 2016 and February 2017 using a stored fingerprint.

The incident exemplified Aadhaars insider attack challenge, wherein an attacker can collude with an insider who has access to various components of the Aadhaar system to conduct rogue transactions.

The UIDAI said this was an isolated case where an employee attempted to misuse his own biometrics. The agency says this problem using stored biometrics for authorisation  will be eliminated by the new registered devices, which has additional security measures.

e-Hospital case: unauthorised eKYC transactions

In August 2017, a developer created a replica of the official e-Hospital app  used by patients to book appointments at government hospitals  to access Aadhaar numbers and personal details of thousands of people. The UIDAI servers were unable to distinguish between legitimate eKYC (Know Your Customer) requests for Aadhaar data from e-Hospital app and unauthorized requests from the developers free android app  Mygov.

Tribune expose

In January, the Tribune reported it was possible to get unrestricted access to details for any of the more than 1 billion Aadhaar numbers by purchasing hacked software available for just Rs 500.

UIDAI called it a case of misreporting, claiming there had been no Aadhaar data breach. UIDAI maintains complete log and traceability of the facility and any misuse can be traced and appropriate action taken. The reported case appears to be an instance of misuse of the grievance redressal search facility, the agency said in a statement.

Vulnerability in enrolment software

A recent HuffPost India investigation found an inexpensive, freely available, software patch exploits vulnerabilities in Aadhaars enrolment software, letting unauthorised people alter information stored in the database and enrol new users at will.

The UIDAI contested the portals claim that information can be introduced into the Aadhaar database. It said UIDAI matches all the biometric (10 fingerprints and iris) of a person enrolling for Aadhaar with the biometrics of all Aadhaar holders before issuing an Aadhaar.

How serious are these flaws?

Whether Aadhaar leaks are a security issue or not can only be assessed with serious security audits, Kodali said. But details about the audits are not publicly available. Whosoever is supposed to audit us is auditing us, Pandey, the UIDAI CEO said in an interview with HT last year. But the names cant be disclosed due to security reasons.In the past 40 years, China's development has brought huge opportunities for the world to achieve common prosperity, Zhang Ming, head of the Chinese mission to the European Union, said on Tuesday.

Zhang made the remarks at a reception in Brussels celebrating the 69th anniversary of the founding of People's Republic of China which falls on Oct. 1.

Zhang Ming, head of the Chinese mission to the European Union, welcomes the guests at a reception in Brussels celebrating the 69th anniversary of the founding of People's Republic of China, September 25, 2018. [Photo: people.com.cn]

The ambassador said that in the past 69 years, China has made strides toward greater prosperity and contributions to global peace and development.

"For years, China's contribution rate to global growth has remained above 30 percent," Zhang said in his welcoming speech.

This year also marks the 40th anniversary of China's reform and opening-up.

The ambassador said that the reform and opening-up policy was key to China's economic development in the past 40 years, and the high-quality development of China's economy in the future "can only be achieved through greater opening-up."

China's GDP expanded 6.8 percent in the first half of the year. The growth has remained between 6.7 percent and 6.9 percent for 12 consecutive quarters, highlighting its economic resilience.

Zhang stressed that despite rising unilateralism and protectionism in some parts of the world, China remains determined to pursue greater opening-up.

Since the beginning of this year, China has introduced new measures to strengthen intellectual property rights protection, ease market access, improve business environment and boost imports.

"China will firmly uphold WTO rules and the multilateral trading system, and strive to build an open world economy," Zhang added.

To achieve common development and prosperity, China has advanced the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in the spirit of consultation, cooperation and benefit for all.

"China has been working hard to build a new type of international relations and a community with a shared future for mankind," Zhang said.

He emphasized that the development of China-EU relations has been maintaining a sound momentum.

China and the EU agreed to forge synergy between the BRI and the EU's strategy for connecting Europe and Asia, which will "not only create more opportunities for China and the EU, but also contribute to global growth," the ambassador said.

"China and the EU are major supporters of multilateralism and a rule-based multilateral trade system. It is in the interests of China and the EU to jointly uphold multilateralism and contribute to global peace, development and stability," he added.Gangs dabbling in flesh trade and fixing their clients in fake rape cases to extort money are on the prowl in the state, according to the police.

In what the police describe as honeytraps or extortion rackets, the number of rape related complaints that at the initial stage of investigation are turning out to be a trap to target the customer are on the rise. At least one fake rape case a week has been reported this year so far.

This year alone the police have detected 37 honeytrap cases, which will fall flat. About 20% of the rape cases every year are being cancelled as they are found false during investigation, said BS Sandhu, director general of police (DGP).

The police say that such fake rape complaints pose another challenge to the already grappling investigators as far as cases of crime against women are concerned, especially with the alarming rise in rapes and gangrapes.

Worse still, every new rape complaint  whether genuine or fake  turns out to be worse than the previous one in terms of brutality and audacity of the crime.

Truth or lie?

Last week, a woman of Rewari walked into a police station in Jind alleging that she was gangraped. The case turned out to be the latest instance of fixing the prey in fake rape FIR. The woman, police say, was demanding Rs 2 lakh from a 58-year-old farmer, to withdraw the complaint.

We arrested her red-handed along with another woman and a man while she was receiving Rs 2 lakh from her client, a Jind police official said.

The officer added, However, in the beginning, it appeared to be a genuine rape case. The FIR was registered against two people. Suspicion arose as the woman refused to undergo medical examination and also refused to record her statement before the magistrate.

The rape accused farmer, police said, furnished a call record to prove it was the woman who was frequently calling him. Finally, we trapped the woman and her accomplices, a police investigator said.

In another case close on the heels of the Jind case, on September 22, police arrested three people, including a woman, while extorting Rs 5 lakh from a man in Kaithal by threatening to implicate him in a fake rape case.

AS Chawla, additional director general of police (operations) said, Dealing with honeytrap cases is a new challenge. The frequency of such cases is on the rise.

Cops hand in glove

Not only are the honeytraps gangs active, but sometimes policemen are also involved in these rackets. For example, in July this year, a sub-inspector in Bhiwani was awarded five-year jail for helping a woman trap a trader in a false rape case in 2013.

On May 24, the vigilance bureau arrested a driver of Hisars women police station in-charge, who was involved in extorting money to settle a rape case while the gang was allegedly run by the woman SHO.

Police say that earlier this month, a senior employee of the Hisar-based Agricultural University was accused of raping the minor daughter of his maid. The maid later began demanding Rs 25 lakh to settle the case, police said.

The police nabbed all the accused red-handed while accepting Rs 10 lakh to withdraw the case. The court sent all the accused to jail, Sandeep Kumar, inspector, who investigated the case, said, pointing out that the accused doctor had recorded the conversation in which the woman was demanding money to withdraw the rape case.

In the first week of January, police had busted at least five honeytrap gangs operating in Bhiwani, Rohtak, Sirsa and Jhajjar. Their modus operandi was to lodge false rape cases against men and extort money.

In Rohtak district, the police had arrested a brother-sister duo who were demanding Rs 95 lakh from a city-based contractor to withdraw a false rape case, while in Bhiwani, police arrested a woman and a man for demanding Rs 6.5 lakh from Tosham youth to withdraw the rape complaint, which was false, against him.

How fake victims get caught

The cops involved in investigation of these cases said the common modus operandi of these fake rape victims is that they delay recording their statement before the magistrate under Section 164 of the CrPC to hammer out a deal with the accused.

Police have to record the statement of the rape victim as fast as possible, but we cannot force the complainant, said a senior police officer. Haryana Human Rights Commission chairman justice SK Mittal (retd) said, We are ready to provide assistance if the victim writes to us about any false case. We take action if we get a complaint from anybody.

Recent fake rape cases

September 22: Three people, including a woman, arrested for extorting Rs 5 lakh from a man in Kaithal by threatening to file a false rape case against him.

September 17: Hailing from Rewari, a woman alleged that she was gangraped in Jind where she had gone to purchase medicines. Case turned out to be false.

September 11: A maid of a Hisar-based doctor, her minor daughter, son and a middleman arrested for taking Rs 10 lakh to withdraw a fake rape complaint against the doctor.

July 31: Yamunanagar police arrested a woman for alleged extortion and blackmailing a youth, who had already paid her Rs 4 lakh

May 9: A woman and two men arrested for extorting Rs 5 lakh from a 65-year-old man in a honeytrap case.

April 28: Panipat police arrested three women and a man who were blackmailing a man and threatening to file a false rape case against him lest he paid Rs10 lakh.

February 20: Kurukshetra police arrested a gang of four, including two women as they tried to extort Rs 2 lakh from a liquor contractor

January: Jhajjar police nabbed 3 women for making obscene video of youth and demanding Rs 1.5 lakh.

January: In Rohtak, brother-sister duo held for demanding Rs 95 lakh from contractor to withdraw false rape case.

January: In Bhiwani, a woman was among 2 arrested for demanding Rs 6.5 lakh and 150 sq yard plot to withdraw false rape case

January: In Sirsa, 2 women among 5 arrested for making obscene video of man, demanding Rs 10 lakh.

January: In Jind, Punjab couple arrested for demanding Rs 25 lakh from youth to withdraw false rape case against him.The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government and the principal Opposition party, the Congress, both have claimed victory over the Supreme Courts verdict on Aadhaar on Wednesday.

The Centre hailed the verdict as historic and finance minister Arun Jaitley said the Congress had cut a sorry figure in opposing a concept it pioneered when in power. The court has only disallowed Aadhaar in some cases where it is not backed by law, the minister said, adding that prohibitions on the usage of Aadhaar laid down by the apex court were not perpetual in nature.

Jaitley said the Congres brought in the unique identity programme without any legislative backing when it was in power and without specifying what it was meant for.  They introduced the idea and then did not know what to do with it.

The Congress, on the other hand, called the judgment an endorsement of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) governments vision for Aadhaar. For Congress, Aadhaar was an instrument of empowerment. For the BJP, Aadhaar is a tool of oppression and surveillance, Congress chief Rahul Gandhi said. The party, however, warned it will challenge in court any attempt by the government to bring an amendment to the Aadhaar act through the money bill route, which requires assent only by the Lok Sabha.

The government claimed it saved about ?90,000 crore by eliminating fake and duplicate beneficiaries of welfare schemes. In no field can we be a technology laggard... You have people seriously advocating this in the country, Jaitley said. The version they (the Congress) had drafted was  there shall be an Aadhaar card, this is a procedure (with) which it shall be issued; what it will be used for was unclear from the beginning, he said.

The minister questioned the Congresss criticism of technology-based governance, saying some people were advocating against unique identification and EVMs (electronic voting machines), and in favour of paper ballots and cash. You can see the thread running through this thought process but everyone, including critics of Aadhaar, should realise that we cannot afford to defy or ignore technology, he said.

The minister said the government was yet to go through the 1,448-page judgment in detail, but added that the judicial review gives it the dos and donts about the law. Some may be areas where you cant go in and some may be areas where they say it has to be backed by law, he said.

Therefore, the prohibited areas do not assume are perpetually prohibited. They could be procedurally prohibited or they could be prohibited as such, he said. Jaitley said it appeared the SC has barred usage Aadhaar by private entities in absence of a legislative backing. Section 57 (of the Aadhaar act that has been struck down by the SC) says that there can be special enabling power to allow other entities or body corporate (to use Aadhaar). I can give you my information (about the judgment). That is not permissible unless it is backed up by law. That seems to be the spirit of the judgment, he said.

Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said the court held that the purpose of issuing Aadhaar is legitimate and no surveillance is possible. He said the court has also upheld that the Aadhaar Act, which mandated assigning unique identification number for Indian citizens, was a money bill. This judgment is a judgment of empowering democracy, good governance, service delivery and also empowering the ordinary Indian, Prasad said. BJP chief Amit Shah, too, hailed the verdict.

But the Congress countered that there was enough in the judgment to suggest that the Speakers decision on what constituted a money bill could be subject to judicial review. We will approach a seven-judge bench to consider this verdict again if brought as a money bill. One important part of the judgment is that if in future the Lok Sabha Speaker declares a bill as money bill, then court can review this and revert, Congress leader Kapil Sibal said.

Commenting on the claims and counter-claims of both parties, Neelanjan Sircar, senior fellow at the Centre for Policy Research, said: I dont think either party will benefit or lose from this judgment. This is not a key electoral issue which will swing support of large groups. Both parties can see Aadhaar has a degree of popularity. They want to claim credit while blaming the other. But in terms of the electoral dynamic, this issue does not alter the status quo.Women victims of acid attack will be given a monthly pension by the Haryana government. The Cabinet on Tuesday approved a scheme to facilitate the women victims a continuous source of income throughout their life.

However, an official spokesperson said that the financial assistance will be given on the basis of the percentage of disability.

A victim with 40-50% disability will get financial aid at the rate of 2.5 times of the handicapped (Divyang) pension. For those with 51 to 60% disability, the assistance will be 3.5 times of the handicapped pension and for more than 61% disability, the assistance will be 4.5 times of the handicapped pension. At present, the state government provides Rs 1,800 per month as disability pension which will be increased to Rs 2,000 per month from November.

Any woman or girl who suffered an acid attack on or after May 2, 2011 will be eligible for the scheme. The scheme, the spokesperson said, seeks to restore, to an extent, the right to live with dignity for a woman or girl acid attack victim.

The spokesperson said in certain cases, the acid attack victims lost their ability to hear and developed other complications. Many deaths have also been reported after acid attacks. The subsequent treatment requires huge amount of money and it is not possible for every victim to afford such costly treatment. Hence, financial assistance due to disability arising on account of acid attack will be granted. The financial assistance will be admissible for women in case of disfigurement of any part of the body.

The victim herself, parents or her legal guardians may apply to the district social welfare officer for relief. In case of a minor victim, the application may be made on her behalf by a parent or guardian. In case of victim being married, the application can be made on her behalf by husband or parent or guardian. The application will be supported by documents that will include medical certificate issued by the medical board at district level, copy of the FIR or complaint.

Govt job to martyrs daughter

The Cabinet also decided to provide Group-C government job to Sujita Kumari, daughter of martyr Satya Narayan, who was killed in Operation Meghdut on November 9, 1988. He was a resident of Mamaria Ahir village of Rewari district. Kumari was 10-month-old when her father died in action. The spokesperson said she has done MA and B.Ed and that as per her qualification, she is eligible for Group-C post.

Board to run Bhimeshwari temple of Beri

The Haryana Cabinet approved Haryana Mata Bhimeshwari Devi Mandir (Ashram) Beri Shrine Act, 2018 that aims at better management, administration and governance of the shrine. After the Act comes into force, the ownership of the shrine fund and its administration will vest with the Board. While the CM will be the Boards chairman, Jhajjar deputy commissioner ex-officio member secretary and Beri sub-divisional magistrate will be the chief executive officer.

Further, all employees of the temple will be considered Board employees. The spokesperson said salary of the employees will not be less than what they are drawing at present. The shopkeepers and lease holders who are tenants of this worship place will be considered as the tenants of the board.

Other decisions

The Cabinet also decided to provide Group-D government job to Jaivir Singh, brother of martyr Satbir Singh, on compassionate grounds, by giving relaxation in the policy. Satbir Singh of Dhani Harsukh village of Bhiwani district had died in Operation Rakshak in Jammu and Kashmir on November 23, 2002.

The Cabinet accorded approval to the Panchgram Development Bill, 2018 for developing five new cities over an area of 50,000 hectares on each side of the Kundli-Manesar-Palwal (KMP) expressway.

The Panchgram Development Authority will be constituted as the apex body for policy making, development and regulation for the development of panchgram region, the spokesperson said.

Under this project, five cities along the expressway on 50,000 hectares on each side, would cover eight districts  Sonipat, Rohtak, Jhajjar, Gurugram, Rewari, Mewat, Faridabad and Palwal.

Haryana State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation(HSIIDC) will hire a consultancy firm through global tender for undertaking the master plan. The CM will be the chairperson of the authority.

The Cabinet gave nod to provide financial assistance of 93 crore in the shape of loan and subsidy to the three private sugarmills of the state for making cane arrears payment of the sugarmill farmers for the sugarcane crushing season 2017-18.

Toll rates for Kundli Manesar section approved

The Cabinet approved the toll on the inordinately delayed Kundli-Manesar section of Kundli-Manesar-Palwal expressway project being executed by the HSIIDC. An official spokesperson said the toll on the Kundli Manesar section will be levied by the HSIIDC itself or through an agency. The toll points on which the toll fee will be levied initially included toll plaza at Abbaspur village and Pipli village in Sonepat district, Mandhoti village and Badli village in Jhajjar and at Sultanpur, Patli-Hazipur and Mokalwas/Fazliwas villages in district Gurugram.

The toll fee for the financial year 2018-19 will be charges at the rate of Rs 1.35 per kilometre for cars, jeeps and passenger vans. It will be Rs 2.18 per kilometre for light commercial vehicles, Rs 4.57 per kilometre for trucks and buses and Rs 4.98 per kilometre for multi-axle vehicles.

This toll fee will remain in effect till March 31, 2019 and would be linked with price index and will be changed with effect from April 1,2019 every year on the basis of National Highways Fee (Determination of Rates and Collection) Rules, 2008.

Registration of fee for sale of assets, lease deeds hiked

In a bid to mop up more revenue, the cabinet approved an increase in the fee for the registration of non-testamentary documents relating to immovable property. Non testamentary documents relating to immovable property are instrument of sale, gift, mortgages, sale certificates, rent or lease deed, collaboration agreement, deed of exchange of property, deed of settlement and deed of partition.

As per the revised rates, if the registration of non- testamentary documents exceeds Rs 30 lakh but is less than Rs 40 lakh, a revised rate of Rs 20,000 would be levied. Similarly, if it exceeds Rs 40 lakh but is less than Rs 50 lakh, then the revised rate would be Rs 25,000. If it exceeds Rs 50 lakh but is less than Rs 60 lakh, then the revised rate would be Rs 30,000.

If the value of the consideration exceeds Rs 60 lakh but is less than Rs 70 lakh, then the revised rate would be Rs 35,000. If it exceeds Rs 70 lakh but is less than Rs 80 lakh, the revised rate would be Rs 40,000. If it exceeds Rs 80 lakh but is less than Rs 90 lakh, then the revised rate would be Rs 45,000 and if it exceeds Rs 90 lakh, the revised rate would be Rs 50,000. The levy however will remain Rs 15,000 if the value of consideration exceeds Rs 25 lakh but is less than Rs 30 lakh.Calling Aadhaar as a fraud on the Constitution, Supreme Court Justice DY Chandrachud, in his dissenting judgment said the government could not have passed the Aadhaar Act as a money bill.

Justice Chandrachud, the sole dissenting judge of the five-judge bench that decided the validity of Aadhaar, said the unique identification program violates essential norms of privacy and data protection.

Violation of fundamental rights under the Aadhaar scheme fails on the touchstone of tests of proportionality, said Chandrachud giving his reasons to differ with the majority view.

Expressing his concern with safeguards provided in the Aadhaar Act, justice Chandrachud said the act gives discretionary power to Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), the body that governs Aadhaar.

Dignity of rights and individuals cant be based on algorithm, rights of the 2 billion people cannot be tested as mere contract, said justice Chandrachud.

Read | From data security to use of biometrics: Everything you need to know about Aadhaar caseIndependent MLA Prasad Gaonkar, who had extended support to the Manohar Parrikar government in Goa, on Tuesday expressed unhappiness over the functioning of the BJP-led ruling coalition and tendered his resignation from the post of chairman of a state-run corporation.

Gaonkar claimed that in absence of Chief Minister Parrikar, who is admitted at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi because of a pancreatic ailment, the entire administration has come to a standstill.

Asked by reporters if he would withdraw his support to the BJP-led government, he said, Any decision I take about the government will be only after taking my voters into confidence. Gaonkar is among the three Independent legislators supporting the Parrikar government, which also has the backing of two regional outfits - the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party (MGP) and the Goa Forward Party (GFP) (three MLAs each)- and the NCP (one MLA).

The BJP has 14 MLAs and the Congress has 16 in the 40-member House.

The legislator from Sanguem in South Goa tendered his resignation as chairman of the Goa State Forest Development Corporation (GSFDC).

When the state forest minister himself is absent for long time, what kind of development can we expect in that department?, Gaonkar said after resigning from the post.

Parrikar holds the forest portfolio among others.

He said he is unhappy with the functioning of the Parrikar government.

I had supported Manohar Parrikar as the chief minister because I was impressed with his style of functioning. But now I find that the current government has done injustice to my people, he said.

Gaonkar was among the group of six MLAs, headed by GFP president Vijai Sardesai, who expressed solidarity with the Parrikar government before a team of BJP central observers.

The three-member team was in the coastal state last week to assess the political situation in the state in view of Parrikars hospitalisation.

Gaonkar said the BJP-led government has failed to find solutions to key issues like the ban on the mining industry, which is a source of livelihood for thousands of people in the state.

Of late, the political situation in Goa has been a matter of much speculation in the backdrop of Parrikars illness.

BJP president Amit Shah has said the 62-year- old chief minister would remain in his post.

The Opposition Congress has been claiming that all is not well in the BJP-led coalition government and has demanded a confidence vote in the Assembly.

On the other hand, the BJP has asserted that its government continues to have the support of a majority of MLAs.India and the G4 nations voiced concern over the lack of substantive progress in the long-pending Security Council reform, saying it is time to finally initiate text-based negotiations to safeguard the legitimacy and credibility of the powerful UN organ.

The G4 nations, India, Brazil, Germany and Japan, have been calling for the reform of the UN Security Council, and support each others bids for the permanent seats in the top UN body.

External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj hosted her counterparts Aloysio Nunes Ferreira of Brazil, Heiko Maas of Germany and Taro Kono of Japan at a meeting of the G4 nations held Tuesday at Indias Permanent Mission to the UN on the margins of the 73rd session of the General Assembly.

In a joint statement after the meeting, the four nations reaffirmed their commitment to multi-lateralism.

It was time to finally initiate text-based negotiations during the 73rd session of the General Assembly in line with the standard operating procedures of the UN General Assembly, the ministers said.

They stressed that adapting the United Nations to the contemporary needs of the 21st century necessarily required reforming the Security Council.

They stressed the need to safeguard the legitimacy and credibility of this UN organ which deals with international peace and security, the statement said.

The G4 Ministers reaffirmed the need for an early reform of the Council including the expansion of both the permanent and non-permanent categories of membership to enhance its legitimacy, effectiveness and representativeness.

They said that the current composition of the 15-nation Council does not reflect the changed global realities and stressed that the UNSC reform is essential to address todays complex challenges.

The ministers reiterated their support for Africas representation in both categories of membership in a reformed and expanded Security Council.

As aspiring new permanent members of a reformed Council, the ministers reiterated their commitment to work to strengthen the functioning of the UN and the global multilateral order as well as their support for each others candidatures, it said.

Reviewing progress on the UNSC reform at the Intergovernmental Negotiations (IGN), they said substantial progress had not yet been achieved even though next year would mark 40 years since the inscription of the item Question of equitable representation on and increase in the membership of the Security Council and other matters related to the Security Council on the agenda of the General Assembly.

Despite an overwhelming majority of UN member states supporting Security Council reform, the IGN has not produced substantive progress over the 10 years since its launch in 2009, the statement said adding that the ministers emphasised the need to revitalise process of the Security Council reform.

The four leaders welcomed the commitment of President of the 73rd session of the General Assembly Maria Fernanda Espinosa Garces to the reform process and expressed their readiness to extend full support to her with a view to launching negotiations based on a text comprising all positions and proposals by the member states.

The ministers agreed that all aspects of the comprehensive reform had been thoroughly discussed several times in the IGN and the General Assembly.

They reiterated their commitment to working with other member states to realise the shared vision of the overwhelming majority supporting the initiation of text-based negotiations in a democratic and transparent manner.

The G4 will intensify dialogue with other member states, especially like-minded countries and groups to achieve meaningful progress in the upcoming IGN session, the four ministers said, adding that they are determined to redouble their efforts towards securing concrete outcomes on the UNSC reform during the current session of the General Assembly.Demographic dividend is supposed to be a big propeller of Indias economic growth. However, a study released by University of Washingtons Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) published in the international medical journal Lancet shows that India fares badly in terms of human capital rankings in the world. In 2016, India was ranked 158 among 195 countries on the list. To be sure, there has been some improvement in the state of things. India was ranked 162 in the list in 1990. The 1990 rankings have been recalculated with the present study.

The rankings are based on four key parameters: life expectancy, years of schooling, learning and functional health. Each of these parameters is based on different indices. For example, one of the factors on which learning ranks are based is performance on international student assessment standards.

Similarly, health rankings are based on seven indicators  wasting, stunting, anaemia, cognitive impairment, vision loss, hearing loss and incidence of certain infectious diseases. The study also gives separate sub-rankings on each of the four indicators. India fares worst in health rankings and best in education rankings. Not only does India fare badly overall, it is also a laggard in both South Asia and Brics countries. (Chart 1 and 2)

Why are these rankings important? The study claims that these rankings give us an idea about the number of years a worker can be expected to work at peak productivity levels between the ages of 20 and 64 years. The global average on this count is 13.6 years. For India this value is just 6.5 years, around one-third the value of China (20 years). To be sure, this value has increased significantly for India from the 1990 level, when it was just 2.7. The improvement, although far from adequate, is in keeping with trends from surveys such as the National Family and Health Surveys and increasing educational enrolment levels in India.

Dr Rajeev Gupta, chairman of the Academic Research Unit at the Rajasthan University of Health Sciences, said that an increase in non-communicable diseases (measured in the study as vision and hearing losses) could be responsible for Indias poor showing in the health rankings despite the improvement in under nutrition levels.

Former union health secretary in the government of India, Sujatha Rao, said India was paying a heavy price by continuing to neglect investment in health. India spends just 1.2% of its Gross Domestic Product on public health, much less than other developing countries. Despite evidence staring at us, we still flounder, Rao said.

The new human capital study suggested increased spending in healthcare and education. Nations failing to invest in health and education are at risk of stagnating economies and lower per capita GDP, it said.

IHME director Christopher Murray was quoted in press as saying that underinvestment in people may be driven by lack of policy attention to the levels of human capital. Such reporting over the next generation  as a way to measure investments in health and education  will enable leaders to be held accountable to their constituents, he said.Retired Karnataka high court judge KS Puttaswamy, 92, who challenged the validity of the Aadhaar Act, welcomed the Supreme Courts verdict on Wednesday, upholding the constitutionality of Aadhaar, and said it appears to be fair and reasonable.

Puttaswamys name is already enshrined in Constitutional law. A constitutional case, related to an individuals fundamental right to privacy stemmed from his 2012 Aadhaar case, and in 2017, the Supreme Court, ruling in the Puttaswamy vs Union of India case, upheld privacy as a fundamental right of all Indians. Many experts said that seminal ruling on privacy, made it clear that Section 377 could not be defended; and the apex court recently wrote down that section.

Addressing the press at his residence in Bengaluru, the nonagenarian, who, in 2012 challenged the decision to make Aadhaar enrolment mandatory for all citizens  it was the first challenge to Aadhaar  said he is yet to read the entire judgment.

I have not read the full judgement. But from what has appeared on TV... My own view is the Aadhaar Act appears to be necessary particularly in cracking down on financial criminals. But for ordinary citizens or state it is not of much benefit, Puttaswamy said.

On the whole, the judgment is fair and reasonable. We cant say that it suffers from any serious lapses that are found under the Constitution, particularly Article 19, which guarantees certain rights to individuals, he said.

Puttaswamy said mandatory clause of Aadhaar for filing income tax is justified. Those who file returns earn well and they have to adhere to this provision, he said.Six years after a clutch of petitions challenged the use of Aadhaar, the 12-digit biometric based unique identity number, the Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld its constitutional validity. In an interview to Hindustan Times, Ajay Bhushan Pandey, CEO, Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), talks about the road ahead for Aadhaar. Excerpts from the interview.

Has your stand been vindicated today?

The majority verdict of the Supreme Court is a historic judgement. It will set the pace of digital destiny of our country. The court has accepted that there is a legitimate state aim in Aadhaar. It ensures dignity and empowers marginalized sections of the society. It has also held that the Aadhaar Act needs the concept of limited government, good governance and constitutional trust.

The mandatory linkage of Aadhaar with PAN card and Income Tax returns will ensure proper tax compliance, curb black money, tax evasions, and money laundering. It will also go a long way in plugging the leakage which was happening in welfare schemes through which marginalized sections were being deprived of their rights. Till March 2018, Aadhaar has helped save the government Rs 90,000 crore by weeding out ghost beneficiaries.

While upholding the constitutional validity of Aadhaar, the Supreme Court has expressed concern over issues related to data security and privacy. Is the concern justified?

The judgement clearly says that the Aadhar Act does not lead to a surveillance state. It has further said that the Act leads to constitutional trust. Having said that the court has also mandated certain safeguards such as restriction on the time period for which the authentication log has to be maintained  up to six months only, which was earlier five years. This will be done. The court has restricted the mandatory usage of Aadhaar by private companies. These conditions and restrictions will go a long way in strengthening Aadhaar and instil more confidence in the people of India.

The Supreme Court has also said that the Centre should bring a strong data protection law at the earliest. How long will it take for the data protection law to kick in?

The Justice BN Srikrishna committee, in which I was a member, had in the draft personal data protection bill suggested certain amendments to the Aadhaar Act. The Supreme Court has also suggested that these recommendations should be taken forward. So, the government will definitely consider it... I have been given to understand that a public consultation process by the IT ministry is underway.

The SC today struck down Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act, which deals with sharing of data with private companies. But what happens to data that has already been shared?

That is a question we will have to look into after going into the details of the judgement... But whatever has been mandated by the Supreme Court will be implemented in the true spirit.

The sharing of data on the grounds of national security has also been struck down by the Supreme Court. What will be its implication?

Ever since the Aadhaar Act has been implemented, there has not been a single incident where this provision has been resorted to. The Supreme Court has suggested certain safeguards on this and those safeguards will be considered by the government and then the legislature at an appropriate stage.

The Supreme Court has called for a suitable amendment to Section 47 to allow an individual / victim to lodge complaint if his right has been violated under the Aadhaar Act. Presently, the Act provides for the cognizance of offence only on a complaint made by the UIDAI or any person authorized by it. How will this be addressed?

Even this part also has been addressed in detail by Justice Srikrishna committee, which had recommended that data fiduciary (which means any person, including the State, a company, any juristic entity or any individual who alone or in conjunction with others determines the purpose and means of processing of personal data) shall notify the Authority of any personal data breach relating to any personal data processed by the data fiduciary where such breach is likely to cause harm to any data principal.

Aadhaar link has been made mandatory for all welfare schemes and PAN card as of now. But after the Supreme Court order, can the government make Aadhaar mandatory for some other services that it wants?

The fundamental principle which is being followed is that the mandatory use of Aadhaar has to be backed by the law, subject to the test of proportionality. So, in future if for any service or activity the government thinks that it will require Aadhaar then there has to be a law sanctioning such mandatory use. The purpose of Aadhaar Act is to provide the identity and the use of identity for the delivery of services. There are certain acts like the Income Tax Act which require use of Aadhaar .

Civil society campaigners have been protesting against mandatory use of Aadhaar for availing welfare services. What happens to those who dont have or got left out?

Answer is in Section 7 of the Aadhaar Act, which says that the central or state government may require Aadhaar for confirming the identity of the person who is supposed to get the services from the Consolidated Fund of India. But it also says that in case somebody does not have an Aadhaar he will be asked to enrol and till the time he gets the number the benefits will be given to him through alternative means of identification.A top Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorist of Pakistani origin, who was responsible for gunning down Army Major Satish Dhayia, was among two militants killed in an encounter in the apple town of Sopore in North Kashmir early on Wednesday, police said.

With these deaths, the number of ultras killed in the past 12 days in Kashmir has gone up to 18, they said.

Abu Maaz, who had been active since 2015, was killed, along with Abdul Majeed alias Sameer, a resident of Bomai in Sopore, they said.

Giving details, the police said that during the intervening night of Tuesday and Wednesday, a joint search operation was launched with paramilitary forces and the army following a credible intelligence input about the presence of terrorists in Nowpora area of Tujjer in Sopore.

During the searches, hiding terrorists fired on the search party, which was retaliated leading to an encounter. In the ensuing encounter, two terrorists were eliminated, a police spokesman said.

On the basis of materials recovered, one of the slain terrorists has been identified as Abu Maaz of Pakistani origin who had been operating as the top commander of LeT in north Kashmir, the spokesman said.

The spokesman said Maaz was involved in a series of attacks on security forces and killings of civilians. He was active in North Kashmir, particulary Sopore and Handwara. Maaz had masterminded an attack on an Army convoy in Handwara in February last year, in which 31-year-old Major Satish Dhaiya was killed.

Three terrorists  Abu Saad, Abu Maviya and Abu Darda  were killed in that encounter, but Abu Maaz had managed to escape after gunning down the Army Major. Since then, he was among the most wanted terrorists in North Kashmir.

With these two deaths, the number of militants killed in the past 12 days in Kashmir has gone up to 18. Five militants each were killed in Kulgam district of South Kashmir and Bandipore in North Kashmir during this period.

Another five terrorist were gunned down in Tangdhar of North Kashmir and one was killed at Tral in Awantipura of South Kashmir.The government on Wednesday dissolved the Medical Council of India (MCI), the apex body that regulated medical education in the country, and replaced it with a seven-member Board of Governors (BoG) by bringing an ordinance.

The BoG has been appointed initially for a period of one year, and will be the sole decision-making body till the National Medical Commission (NMC) Bill, 2017 -- meant to replace the MCI -- is cleared in Parliament.

The Bill is pending in Lok Sabha.

The seven members in the BoG include three doctors from the AIIMS- Dr VK Paul (former HoD paediatrics and current member, Niti Aayog), Dr Randeep Guleria (director) and Dr Nikhil Tandon (professor endocrinology).

There are two other doctors -- Dr Jagat Ram (director-PGI Chandigarh) and Dr BN Gangadhar (director- National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences) -- and two ex officio members - Dr S Venkatesh (Director General of Health Services) and Dr Balram Bhargava (Director General- Indian Council of Medical Research).

The former deputy director general, directorate general of health services, Sanjay Shrivastava, has been appointed the secretary general to assist the BoG.

The BoG took charge soon after the ordinance was passed and held its first meeting. We discussed several administrative issues today. Government has found this to be an appropriate measure at this point in time, so we welcome it..., said Dr Paul, who heads BoG.

Union finance minister Arun Jaitley said: The term of the elected body of the MCI...ends in the first week of November. Since there is no parliament session in-between, the issue had become an area of uncertainty. So, the government decided to form an interim committee on the lines of the Supreme Court-nominated oversight committee.The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has overruled the Union environment ministrys three 2016 notifications that exempted mining of minor minerals like sand in up to 25 ha area from prior public consultation and the environmental impact assessment (EIA).

EIA is an integral and most critical component of environmental clearance as it is only through the EIA that the potential impacts and potential risks of a project can be assessed and mitigation measures formulated, an NGT chairperson Adarsh Kumar Goel-led bench said in its order on Tuesday.

by exempting EIA and environmental management plan, critical environmental aspects like anticipated impacts, mitigation measures and additional studies involving public consultation, risk assessment, social impact, rehabilitation and resettlement action plans stand exempted.

The bench noted that the ministrys notifications were in conflict with the 2016 sustainable sand mining guidelines, which said an EIA should address the environmental impacts of minor mineral mining.

The ministry had amended the 2006 EIA notification and put mining of minor minerals in an area up to 25 ha in B-2 category. An environmental clearance is required under the category. But it is exempted from public hearings and EIA. The notification bypassed any detailed environmental study and only asked for basic project information.

A district environment impact assessment authority was granted powers for environmental clearance for mines spread over an area up to 25 ha.

Petitioner Vikrant Tongad had contended that the district level assessment authority had no scientific expertise in assessing environmental impacts.

Even within the B2 category mines, up to 5 ha areas were exempted from devising an environmental management plan. This had allowed miners to break large mines into patches of less than 5 ha to avoid any environmental scrutiny. These provisions quite apparently are more mine-centric rather than striving a balance between mining and environment, the bench noted.

NGT directed public hearings and EIA for minor mineral mines with 5 to 25 ha area. It added state environment impact assessment authority would evaluate smaller mines of up to 5 ha instead of district level body.

The bench ordered the ministry to incorporate a procedure to calculate the annual rate and timeframe for replenishment after mining is stopped in an area and frame guidelines for calculation of the cost of restitution of damage caused to mined out areas.

The NGT said the exemption for minor minerals violated a 2012 Supreme Court order, which held that all mining leases depending on their size would need to obtain environmental clearance.

The Builders Association of India (BAI) said the order will have a major impact on the construction and infrastructure projects. While the ministry is trying to ease the process, NGT is creating hindrances, said BAI executive secretary Raju John. He called it a very unstable situation for construction industries. Without excavating, one cannot construct anything.More than 650 people, including five foreigners, were evacuated on the second day of a mega search and rescue operation in snow-marooned district of Lahaul-Spiti in Himachal Pradesh on Wednesday.

While 24 people, including five foreigners, were airlifted by Indian Air Force (IAF) helicopters from various locations, others were evacuated through the Rohtang Tunnel by the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) personnel in the rescue operation that resumed at 7 am and continued till dusk.

The foreign tourists from Denmark and Norway, and nine from Kolkata, were airlifted from 16,020-feet-high Baralachal La pass.

An Israeli couple stuck at Kurgyak village on Himachal-Jammu & Kashmir border was rescued by helicopter of a private aviation company. Two Czech nationals and 26 Nepalese were also reportedly stranded at the same village which lies in Jammu and Kashmir.

Three people, including a pregnant woman from Nepal and a BRO labourer, have died in the past two days.

Kullu deputy commissioner Yunus Khan said IAF has deployed two Advanced Light Helicopters (ALH) and one Medium Lift Helicopters (MLH) for the rescue operation while the state is also using chief ministers Pawan Hans helicopter.

Rescued people are being brought to Manali and Bhunter and two helipads have also been built at Dhalpur ground, said Khan.

He said over 1,000 people are still stranded at various locations including Baralacha La, Surajtal, Killing Sarai, Bharatpur, Sarchu, Chhatru and Batal.

A rescue team sent to Chandertal has informed that there was no one left as all the camp owners at the lake had sent them towards Koksar the day it started snowing.

A total of 24 people have been rescued by the helicopters, Khan said, adding that the road clearing operation in Lahaul-Spiti district was on in full swing.

Telephone connectivity has been restored in the valley, but there is no electricity.

Early snowfall in the higher reaches, cloud burst and heavy rains devastated large parts of the state between September 22 and 24.

Kullu was the worst affected due to floods, while and Lahaul-Spiti was buried under 45-foot snow, leaving hundreds of tourists stranded.

Six missing trekkers found in Sangla

Six trekkers who were reported missing on the Dodrakwar to Sangla trek route have been found by a rescue team of Indo-Tibet Border Police (ITBP) at Sangla pass.

The trekkers hailing from Jubbal of Shimla and Delhi were missing since September 21. They were on a trek from Dodrakwar of Shimla to Sangla in Kinnaur.

The rescued trekkers have been identified as guide Aushutosh, Puneet and Nikhil from Jubbal of Shimla and Ashutosh Deepraj and Honey from Delhi.

Students rescued in Chamba

800 students and their teachers, who were stranded in the Holi area of Chamba district, were evacuated on Wednesday, when the Chamba-Holi road was opened after two days.The private security industry in India employed 7 million workers in 2015, making it larger than healthcare and almost as large as public administration. Two of every three Indian workers earned up to Rs 10,000 per month in 2015, much less than the stipulated minimum wage of Rs 18,000 prescribed by the seventh pay commission set up by the central government.

Most Indian manufacturing companies are sub-scale, with just 26 of every 10,000 manufacturing companies having more than 5,000 workers the same year.

The importance of the Indian IT sector is that while the share of IT companies in Indias total employment is less than 1%, the business has the greatest share of firms (4%), reporting more than 5,000 employees in the year 2016.

These are the findings of The State of Working India 2018, released on Tuesday by the Centre for Sustainable Employment based at the Azim Premji University.

Job numbers are not the only divisive issue when it comes to an analysis of Indias labour markets. One school of thought makes a virtue out of the Indian economys advances in knowledge-based sectors such as Information Technology and Business Processing Management (IT-BPM). Another counters this claim by citing millions of unorganised sector workers employed in poorly paid and insecure jobs.

Employers in skill-intensive sectors complain about education not adding to employability. At the same time, the share of young men and women who are postponing their entry into the wage market to seek higher education has been increasing. But what has happened to the lot of workers? Has it improved? Or hasnt it? Neither headlines about millionaires being created by the newest unicorn, nor those about workers dying from lack of basic safety equipment captures this reality. Put simply, have things changed for good or bad, especially in this century, when Indias economic growth has been quite high?

The answer, from the survey, is that the average Indian worker is not worse off than he/she was earlier, but that the improvement is too piecemeal to be celebrated. This is the story on all fronts: wage growth, quality of jobs, even caste and gender-based discrimination. Wages have risen, the share of regular employment has gone up, caste and gender-based inequality in wages has been coming down  but the progress is too slow.

There are significant divergences from the all-India headline numbers across regions and sectors. It is a careful examination of this diversity which brings out facts which are often lost in the important but also often simplistic binaries of India versus Bharat while analysing Indias employment challenge.

For instance, as cited above, the private security industry in India employed 7 million workers in 2015, making it larger than healthcare and almost as large as public administration. The report rightly points out that we know very little about these sectors. International comparisons show that countries with high levels of income inequality have seen a bigger growth in the private security industry, said Arjun Jaydev from Azim Premji University, and part of the team which has prepared the report. A New York Times op-ed by Jaydev shows that share of private security guards in the US, a much more unequal society, was more than five times the number in Nordic countries such as Sweden, which have lower levels of inequality. The report, which is meant to be an annual publication (this is the first report), also makes a case for using both fiscal and industrial policy to achieve growth and quality employment. At the same time it mentions some interesting policy experiments being carried out in various parts of India to encourage employment generation. For example, in 2017, the Gujarat government announced a five-year subsidy of Rs 4,000 and Rs 3,000 per month for female and male employees in the textile sector for units which generated at least 300 domicile jobs. Odisha introduced a broadly similar policy in 2016. That such demands are not being made at the national level, point towards the fact that even politics around jobs in India might be stunted.

On the question of a larger employment policy, Nalin Kohli, spokesperson for the Bharatiya Janata Party, said that different state governments have come out with different sets of policies. At the national level, Mudra scheme has been a huge success in promoting self-employment, with more than 120 million people benefitting from ?3.6 lakh crore of loans being distributed. The employment data needs to be looked at in the context of self-employment as well, Kohli added. Tackling the unemployment challenge is a priority for the Congress party. It will prepare a detailed road map to address this through the ongoing manifesto process. The broad outline of our policy will be incentive based and include a focus on reviving MSME clusters. The Congress president has already outlined this in various public platforms, said Rajiv Gowda, a Rajya Sabha MP and chairman of the All India Congress Committee research department.Injured Indian Navy sailor Abhilash Tomy, who was rescued from his stricken vessel in the Indian Ocean off Australias coast, is admitted to a hospital on a remote island where he has had food and is sounding okay, a defence spokesman said in Kochi on Tuesday.

The 30-year-old decorated Navyman got injured when his yacht was struck by a savage storm while he was participating in the Golden Globe Race and was rescued Monday after being adrift for three days.

The spokesman said a French doctor examined Tomy, a Kirti Chakra awardee.

He is stable and has no major injuries. Hes sedated but sounding okay. X-ray reportes not too bad. He has had food. He is speaking. Further medical tests in progress, the spokesman said.

He said the French fisheries vessel Osiris, which rescued Commander Tomy, reached off Amsterdam Isle by 9:30am and the sailor was shifted to the hospital there for further medical evaluation and treatment.

This handout picture released by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority on September 25, 2018 shows the French fisheries patrol vessel, the FPV Osiris, successfully locating and rescuing injured Indian sailor Abhilash Tomy in the Indian Ocean. (AFP Photo)

Tomy and Irishman Gregor McGuckin, 32, were injured in the storm and their boats lost masts Friday while competing in the prestigious race.

They were taken to hospital for X-Ray and medical check-up immediately after admission, the spokesman said.

He said the fishing vessel Osiris will remain in the area till HMAS Ballarat, an Australian warship, and INS Satpura reach the island. INS Satpura will being the commander back to India.

According to reports, the island only has a small hospital with limited facilities.

Tomys boat Thuriya was hit by a storm about 1,900 nautical miles off Perth on Friday.

The Australian Rescue Coordination Centre in Canberra coordinated the mission to evacuate the injured sailors in cooperation with many agencies, including the Australian Defence Department and the Indian Navy.Champion sailor Commander Abhilash Tomy, rescued from the remotest place on the planet in the southern Indian ocean earlier this week, and now recovering from a back injury he suffered while negotiating a storm that dismasted his yacht last week, said on Wednesday that he survived the 70-hour ordeal because of his sailing skills and military training, and rated his current health as three on 10.

That didnt stop Tomy, who was injured while participating in the worlds toughest yacht race which circumnavigates the globe, from sporting a smile in pictures released by the Indian Navy.

The sea was unbelievably rough. Me & my boat, Thuriya were pitched against natures might. I survived because of my sailing skills, the soldier bit in me and my Naval training cut-in for that fight, the Indian Navy tweeted on Wednesday, quoting the 39-year-old decorated soldier.

Tomy said he was very thankful to the Indian Navy and everyone involved in his rescue.

Tomy is currently undergoing medical treatment at a medical facility at the tiny Amsterdam Island in southern Indian Ocean.

Tomy is in a stable condition and his reports have been sent to a medical facility at Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean.

He rates his health as three on 10 as of now, said navy spokesperson Captain DK Sharma, who spoke with Tomy on Wednesday. Indian warship INS Satpura is expected to reach the island by Friday. Tomy is likely to be taken to Mauritius for further treatment if required.

Tomy was rescued by French patrol vessel Osiris in a dramatic mission.

He was then taken to Amsterdam, a 55-sq km island that is part of French territory.

Tomy suffered a debilitating back injury on September 21 after the rough seas and powerful winds pummeled Thuriya, sending it into a 360-degree spin and dismasting the 10-metre long boat built in Goa.

He was representing India in the Golden Globe Race 2018 (GGR), a punishing 30,000-mile solo circumnavigation of the globe on unpowered yachts.

When rescuers reached him, Tomy was lying on a bunk inside the yacht.

Tomy became the first Indian to circumnavigate the globe on board Mhadei -- solo, non-stop and unassisted in 2013. He was awarded Indias second-highest peace-time gallantry award, Kirti Chakra, for the feat.The government will consider whether linking Aadhaar with bank accounts and mobile numbers needs legal backing through a legislation, after the Supreme Court ruled out such linkages. In an interview, Ravi Shankar Prasad, the minister of electronics and IT, and the governments key driver of the Aadhaar project, said there is a view in the government that this must be revisited. Prasad spoke to HTs Kumar Uttam. Edited excerpts:

What is your first reaction to the SC order?

It is deeply satisfying. It is a watershed moment in the polity of India. And it is historic judgment which blends three issues in an extraordinary legal context  the right of the poor man to have his entitlement which empowers him and strengthens his voice; the dignity of the poor with a balance for privacy; and the two being in sync with good governance. This verdict, while upholding the validity of the Aadhaar law, lays the road map for good governance and strengthens nuances of Indias constitutional and administrative law.

Do you think in your quest to expand Aadhaar, the government over-reached and breached some redlines?

First of all, you must understand what it upholds. One, it says the voice of the poor is important and must be strengthened. Two, it says that this law is constitutionally valid. Third, it says it does not lead to any kind of snooping and surveillance. Fourth, it promotes good and accountable governance. Fifth, it strengthens public service delivery. Aadhaar, remember, has helped save us Rs 90,000 crore along with Jan Dhan. 122 crore Indians have Aadhaar. And finally, by upholding the linking of Aadhaar with PAN cards and Income Tax records, it has also given a signal for a clean, transparent economic management and administration.

I do acknowledge the point you are making that in case of mobile connectivity, banking connectivity, there is a view that it must be revisited, and whether it needs to be enforced with a legal architecture. All these are matters of examination and we will examine it thoroughly, at inter-ministerial levels also and come with a response.

There is a debate on privacy and national security. The court has also said national security cannot be invoked as a ground...

That may not be the right way to look at it. We have to read the whole judgment. It is 1,500 pages and I am also looking at it. In the nine-bench privacy judgment, the SC has said that privacy cannot be the shield of the corrupt and the terrorist. That is a nine-bench decision. Here the law was that biometric is sacrosanct, and even the police cannot take it for investigation.

But in case of national security, if a joint-secretary level officer recommends, and this is affirmed by the IT secretary, law secretary and cabinet secretary, it can be released for a limited period of three months. Now whether we have to go only by the secretary-level route or something higher is a matter of consideration. Our view is very clear. National security is equally paramount.

If the legal architecture needs some reinforcement, we need to do that. Remember in the constitution, under the Fundamental Rights chapter, 19(2), sovereignty, integrity and security of India are important considerations whereby even freedom of expression can be regulated. This is how we see itThe Honorable SC is equally aware of the security and sovereignty of the country. If a more healthy architecture is required for a blend between national security and the rights of the individual, we will surely look into it.

There are dense linkages between Aadhaar and welfare services. How are you going to deal with the issue of exclusion?

Even before the judgment, when I heard or read reports that poor people are deprived of benefits, I had said that no poor person will be deprived of ration or food because of lack of Aadhaar. You deliver by alternative means but ask them to come on Aadhaar. When I read that some private hospitals in Haryana were denying services, I took a serious view and said no service can be denied. As far as the issue of school exams, NEET exams, admissions etc., these are matters where we need to work across ministries.

So we will work with telecommunication ministry in case of mobile linkages, finance ministry in case of banking linkages. Then there are implications of Section 57, with regard to private sector. They have said that by contract, two parties cannot seek identity. We have to improve that. If a private service needs to be backed by law, it is a matter of examination.

SC has also expressed concern about data-sharing.

In the present legal architecture, if a private company holds data for any specific purpose, and uses it for any other purpose, those responsible for it can suffer imprisonment for three years and will have to pay a ?10 lakh fine. You may have heard that in the case of Airtel, they had to pay Rs 3 crore as fine.

What happens to the data already shared?

Obviously, the data will have to be removed. But that is a matter of detail. Telecom ministry will have to work with telecom companies; finance with banks. Those areas deemed to be prohibited areas in the current architecture needs elaborate consideration in the light of extensive study of the judgment and follow up steps will be taken. It will be a synchronised effort.

Will you go back to Parliament to make required changes in the Act?

Obviously. But that is again after collective consideration. We have to keep in mind the mandate of the law, the judgment of the SC, and convenience of the poor people to get their entitlement.

Will you respond to Justice Chandrachuds comment that passing it as a money bill was a fraud on the Constitution?

It is a role of a judge to differ and say anything. But as a student of law, not as a law minister, I can say such harsh words were avoidable.The Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to refer the 2006 judgment, which ended quotas in promotions for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes, to a larger bench but ruled that there was no need to provide quantifiable to show the communities needed the affirmative action.

The Supreme Court, in the 2006 M Nagraj case, had said states are bound to provide quantifiable data on the backwardness of Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST), the facts about their inadequate representation in government jobs and the overall administrative efficiency, before providing quota in promotions to members of these communities.

The government had strongly backed restoring quotas in promotions for SCs and STs, arguing that these communities had suffered social inequalities for years and, for the purpose of extending them reservations in government jobs promotions, it should be presumed that they remain underprivileged communities even now.

During arguments, the Centres top law officer KK Venugopal had argued that it was impossible to comply with conditions laid down by the court because the data will keep on fluctuating and filling up vacancies is a dynamic and continuous process.

The 2006 verdict effectively implied that scheduled caste and scheduled tribes employees could get guaranteed promotions only if the government produces hard data to demonstrate the compelling reasons such as backwardness of the community and their inadequate representation in government.

For all practical purposes, the older verdict had sealed any possibility of extending quota benefits to serving employees. Dalit groups argue this had adversely affected the career progression of SC/ST employees because of an inherent bias against them.The euphoria being exuded by those who claim to be pro-Aadhaar and anti-Aadhaar seems entirely misplaced. This, because the Supreme Courts verdict has only opined on the questions posed by petitioners opposed to Aadhaar.

There is nothing in the 1,448-page verdict that suggests how must the future be looked at. Project Aadhaar will evolve and take multiple shapes over time. What the Supreme Court has passed verdict on are petitions filed by those opposed to the project in its current avatar. But that is the nature of courts. They can only offer a verdict around dilemmas citizens are conflicted about.

Even as citizens were driving themselves into a funk over what way the courts may rule, the founding team that had worked on Project Aadhaar had moved on to other things. For instance, how might they deploy their learnings from India to other projects, or in other parts of the world.

Nandan Nilekani, for instance, who was the chief architect of the project, and some of his close associates were presenting how projects such as these may be deployed in other parts of the developing world at the UN headquarters in New York this week. Yet others were exchanging notes with delegates from other parts of the world in Mumbai around crafting open source systems at the same time. They conveyed the impression that for all the many glitches, the project they had set into motion is something that cannot now be rolled back.

That is why the sense of closure many may feel now about Project Aadhaar is a misplaced one. This verdict is just one more move in a game that will play itself out over many years in a dynamic world. The government has many reasons to celebrate the verdict.

To begin with, the court has recognised Aadhaar as a tool for inclusion. And rightfully so. Because the fact of the matter is, the India we now live in is a nation where many do not have a nationally accepted ID. It is morally incumbent upon any government that subscribes to any ideology to provide the faceless and nameless with an identity so they may be targeted with benefits. It must be done urgently. The court has taken cognisance of that and upheld the constitutional validity of a project in motion to urgently right that wrong.

That said, the government must be thankful as well to the dissenting note by justice DY Chandrachud, and concerns filed by petitioners. Ultimately, for any government, the only metric that ought to matter is how does Aadhaar perform on the ground. If it leads to exclusion, fraud, violations of privacy and inconvenience, the purpose is defeated.

There is no denying there are multiple deficiencies here in the broader ecosystem.

They must be fixed and the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) in its current avatar has much catching up to do. It is not the nimble, welcoming start-up that it once was. There is much more to running an entity well than just winning legal arguments in courts.

This ruling has also set into motion another opportunity for India. With the digital economy expanding, it is inevitable that India will get to be a data-rich country. There is unanimity that much like oil was a lubricant for an economy in the past, data is a lubricant for the new economy.

However, people do not have the ownership of their own data. This, because to access most services the new world offers, people have to trade their personal data. This is part of accepted wisdom in North America and China where the worlds largest technology firms are now headquartered.

This verdict opens the door for more debates to protect a users data and offers a pointer to how data can be protected as technology companies gain size.

A pointer to how that may be done can be witnessed when the judgment read down Section 57. It essentially implied that further laws need to be passed to enable private players to use Aadhaar. This will also ensure that no one uses the platform without informed consent.

When both of these are extrapolated, it goes back to the charter the founding team had started to work with. Aadhaar must be voluntary and not imposed on anybody. Their original submission always was, as this project gains momentum and more people see the benefits embedded in it, they will adopt it. To that extent, if anybody maybe quietly celebrating, it is the founding team.

And when Section 57 is looked at in its entirety, what the Supreme Court has in effect pushed the government to do is the creation of a robust data protection regime.

This is something the government is already at work on and there is a buy-in for this narrative across all political parties. That they may not state it in the public domain is another matter altogether.

This is because Indian policymakers are acutely aware that a new narrative is needed to strengthen Indias soft power. Representatives from at least 20 developing countries have studied Aadhaar and India Stack closely. There seems to be consensus this may be a credible model to think of seriously. This, because as things are, they see only two narratives to choose from. There is an American narrative, which depends on innovation by big tech firms and a Chinese one which revolves around a powerful state. Aadhaar and India Stack, which are platforms for societal innovation, offers a credible third narrative.

If they buy into it, the larger India story and development narrative gets a chance to go global. It can evolve into a core element of what Indias soft power is built on. But this begins when tough laws are first put in place. A technology framework that emerges from a country where privacy is a fundamental right makes it a very palatable one.

The Supreme Court moved early on that one, before anyone else did.

(The authors are part of Founding Fuel and co-authors of The Aadhaar Effect that will be launched by Oxford University Press next month)A majority judgment of a Constitution bench of the Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the constitutional validity of Aadhaar, but restricted its use to government welfare schemes funded by the Consolidated Fund of India in a verdict that the government and the Opposition immediately owned.

The judgment however scrapped, wrote down, or amended key clauses in the UIDAI Act to protect the rights of individuals and prevent misuse of their details , ensuring a partial victory for petitioners. Bank accounts and mobile phone numbers now no longer need to be linked to Aadhaar; and transaction details will now only be kept for six months, as against five years as the law originally mandated.

Both the majority and the minority judgments also said decisions of the Speaker could be reviewed judicially, a response to one petition against the governments definition of the UIDAI bill as a money bill, thereby ensuring that it needed to be passed only by the Lok Sabha, where the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has a majority. The majority judgment, however, refused to overturn the governments decision to define this bill as a money bill.

The five-judge Constitution bench led by Chief Justice Dipak Misra in a 4:1 verdict also added that children cannot be denied school admissions for want for Aadhaar, and asked for ways to deal with exclusions, but said the number would be required for filing income-tax returns, making it necessary to link it with PAN cards.

Justice AK Sikri who authored the main verdict on behalf of CJI Misra and justice AM Khanwilkar held: The whole architecture of Aadhaar is devised to give unique identity to the citizens of this country. Human dignity, he said, is to be treated as a fundamental right and the scheme envisaged under Aadhaar ensures dignity to the marginalised section of society.

This facet of dignity cannot be lost sight of and needs to be acknowledged, he said.

The court also struck down Section 57 of the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016 that permitted corporate entities such as telecom companies to avail biometric Aadhaar data. Such a provision had no rationale nexus to the objective of the law, the court said. Law and IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said in an interview that the telecom and finance ministries would work with banks and telcos to ensure they erased the data of those who have already completed the linkages. However, Prasad also left a window open for the government and said its understanding was that it could , with legislative backing, insist on such linkages. This view was separately echoed by UIDAI CEO Ajay Bhushan Pandey.

The court said Aadhaar intends to plug loopholes and stem corruption while reaching out to the poor and underprivileged. To this extent, the court said, the law also qualified the test of proportionality because the aim behind the program was legitimate. The government claims it has saved Rs 90,000 crore by using Aadhaar, a number disputed by activists.

Keeping in view the larger public interest, collection of biometrics such as iris scan and fingerprints under Aadhaar program was a minimal invasion into the privacy rights, the court held. By no means it can be said that it has disproportionate effect on the right holder, the bench said. Identity bestowed by Aadhaar is unparalleled and we find that the Aadhaar Act has struck a fair balance between the right of privacy of the individual with right to life of the same individual as a beneficiary, said the judgment which relied heavily on the Right to Privacy judgment delivered last August.

The sole dissenting judge on the bench, Justice DY Chandrachud, declared the law as unconstitutional. Clearing it as a money bill was a fraud played on the Constitution, he said. Justice Ashok Bhushan, who wrote a separate judgment, endorsed the view taken in the majority verdict.

The SC verdict, running into 1,448 pages, came on batch of 31 petitions with the first one being filed in 2012 when the executive order introducing Aadhaar was challenged before the court. The first petition was filed by former Karnataka high court judge KS Puttaswamy. Subsequently, several activists joined the fray. In 2016, the NDA government brought in a law and pushed Aadhaar enrolment in a big way for its welfare programs. The hearing continued for 38 days, spanning over four months, before the judgment was reserved on May 10. Advocates say the hearing was the second longest one in terms of days of hearing after the historic Kesavananda Bharati case of 1973.

Still, even as it found no fault with the Aadhaar law, the court insisted on safeguards. It ordered data cannot be stored for more than six months and also directed the government not to give Aadhaar to illegal immigrants. The provision that allowed access of data for national security, too, was struck down. The court said that if the government wants to reformulate this provision then a joint secretary-level officer and a judicial officer should be members of the oversight committee to hear complaints against sharing of data.

The court rejected the petitioners argument that Aadhaar could lead to real-time surveillance and called it far-fetched. Information of an individual cannot be released without hearing him or her, the court said.

Finance minister Arun Jaitley hailed the verdict as historic while Information Technology and Law & Justice minister Prasad said it empowered democracy.

Welcoming the verdict, Congress leader Kapil Sibal told reporters his party supports the views of justice Chandrachud. Sibal said it will certainly move court if amendments in the Aadhaar Act brought after this verdict are not brought in Rajya Sabha for discussion. West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee welcomed the verdict and termed it as a victory of the people.

Advocate Udayaditya Banerjee, who represented the petitioners before the court, said the judgement will enable citizens to de-link their Aadhaar from their bank accounts or mobile phone accounts. Although the judgment does not say it expressly, the consequence is that one can de-link Aadhaar now, he said.

The petitioners demand to delete data collected prior to the enactment of the law in 2016 was also turned down. The court said the problem can be solved by eliciting consent of all those persons who were enrolled prior to the passing of the act.

Since, we have held that enrolment is voluntary in nature, those who specifically refuse to give the consent, they would be allowed to exit from the Aadhaar scheme. Those who need to avail any subsidy, benefit or service would need Aadhaar in any case. It would not be proper to cancel their Aadhaar cards, the court said.

The court did not concur with the petitioners concern that Aadhaar should be shelved since authentication failure of biometrics resulted in the exclusion of the needy. We are only highlighting the fact that the government seems to be sincere in its efforts to ensure that no such exclusion takes place and in those cases where an individual who is rightfully entitled to benefits under the scheme is not denied such a benefit merely because of failure of authentication. In this scenario, the entire Aadhaar project cannot be shelved, the court said.External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj held bilateral talks with leaders of Fiji, Estonia and Suriname, discussing diverse issues including defence cooperation, trade and capacity building to step-up Indias ties with them.

Swaraj met Fijian Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama, foreign minister of Estonia Sven Mikser and foreign minister of Suriname Deborah Pollack-Beighle on the sidelines of the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly here on Tuesday.

Building upon a historical relationship with an important Pacific partner of India. EAM @SushmaSwaraj and @FijiPM, Frank Bainimarama discussed development assistance, capacity building and defence cooperation on the sidelines of the #UNGA, ministry of external affairs spokesperson Raveesh Kumar tweeted.

Highlighting the strong cultural connect, Swaraj met Mikser and had a good exchange of views on intensifying cooperation in IT, trade & investment, culture, education, tourism and multilateral fora, Kumar said.

Noting that India and Suriname share close, warm and friendly relations, Kumar tweeted that the two leaders discussed cooperation in capacity building, traditional medicine, pharma and followed up on President Ram Nath Kovinds visit to the South American country in June this year.

Swaraj also participated in the G4 meeting with her counterparts from Brazil, Germany and Japan.The Congress on Tuesday decided to begin alliance talks with other parties such as the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and Sharad Yadavs Loktantrik Janata Dal for the forthcoming Rajasthan assembly elections.

Congress is approaching the elections with an open mind. We are open to alliances with like-minded parties at the state and national level but it should be practical and respectable. The decision will be taken by the party president, said Sachin Pilot, state Congress president, after a meeting of party leaders in Delhi.

The meeting, attended by senior leaders such as Ashok Gehlot, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Avinash Pande, Ahmed Patel, AK Antony, Jairam Ramesh, Sachin Pilot and leader of opposition in Rajasthan assembly, Rameshwar Dudi, discussed the practicality, possibility and feasibility of alliance with other parties, Congress leaders said.

According to a leader, who participated in the meeting, the discussions revolved around having an alliance with other political parties that are opposing the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) keeping in view the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

In the larger interest of the party, we can enter into an alliance with other parties. We are working out the number of seats which could be shared, he said.

The leader said the BSP was asking for 8 to 10 seats, Loktantrik Janata Dal two and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) one.

Political parties might ask for any number of seats but the decision will be taken keeping in mind the ground reality. The BSP has won the maximum of six seats in an election in Rajasthan. The party might consider give them (BSP) around five seats, he said.

The Rajasthan Congress had shed its opposition to the alliance following intervention by Congress president Rahul Gandhi, who believes that an alliance for assembly polls in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh could help in stitching a bigger alliance against the BJP for 2019 general polls.

In July, the Rajasthan Congress was unwilling for an alliance with the BSP on the ground that it could have an adverse impact on partys prospects in the long term. However, a Congress leader said the state unit agreed for an alliance as the BSP wanted the tie-up in all the three election bound states.

The BSP in Rajasthan won only two of the 195 seats it contested in 2013 and got 3.5% of the votes polled.

In 2008, the party had won six seats bagging 7.66% of the votes polled but the winners joined the Congress, which was short of the majority mark by four seats.

BSP state president Sitaram Meghwal said: BSP in Rajasthan is working on contesting from all the 200 assembly seats and identifying winnable candidates. The decision over alliance will be taken by party president Mayawati.

Commenting on the possibility of an alliance, BJP spokesperson Mukesh Pareek said the parties that are coming together against the BJP will not make any difference to the saffron party.

People want PM Narendra Modis leadership at the Centre and chief minister Vasundhara Raje in Rajasthan, said Pareek.

Political analyst Narayan Bareth said, I dont think that an alliance with the BSP will be fruitful for Congress as they will lose their traditional schedule caste voters. Besides, BSPs graph in Rajasthan has declined in past elections. Congress might look at alliance in view of 2019 Lok Sabha as they do not want to have any differences with BSP.Over the next couple of months you will be hearing a lot about Chef Hemant Oberoi. Much of this will have to do with Hotel Mumbai, the new film on the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, which has been premiered to much acclaim in Toronto and will soon be releasing all over the world.

The films hero is a waiter, caught up in the chaos that ensued when Pakistani terrorists attacked Mumbais Taj Mahal Hotel. He is a composite based on the real waiters who were on duty that night. But one of the main characters is not a composite; he is the real life Hemant Oberoi who (along with his chefs) demonstrated exemplary courage during the siege of the hotel. Anupam Kher plays Hemant and, on the night of the premiere, was gracious enough to point to the real Hemant in the audience and say I am just a reel hero. That is the real hero.

Memories can be short so, in case you have forgotten the events of that terrible night, let me briefly remind you of what happened.

Four Pakistani terrorists entered the hotel and began hurling grenades and shooting guests at random. As panic spread throughout the hotel, Hemant who was then the Taj groups Corporate Chef, based in the Mumbai Taj, worked with the F&B team to protect the hotels guests.

They locked the doors to some restaurants (the old Zodiac Grill, The Sea Lounge etc.) and used the room service routes to evacuate other guests to the Chambers, a club on the first floor of the new wing of the Taj.

As the sound of the shots reverberated and as the hotel was rocked by explosions, guests cowered in fear inside the Chambers. Hemants hospitality training kicked in and he re-assured the guests that they had nothing to worry about and that they would soon be escorted off the premises. (He had no reason to believe this but thought it best to avoid panic by not telling the truth: the Mumbai police were unwilling to do very much and said that they needed military or paramilitary commandos to flush the terrorists out.)

To convey the illusion of normalcy he ordered coffee for the frightened guests. When some began shivering out of shock, he organized blankets for them. When others said that they were hungry he went to the Chambers kitchen to help the chef on duty to make sandwiches for them.

Dev Patel in a still from Hotel Mumbai.

As word spread in the kitchens that guests were being sheltered at the Chambers, other chefs rushed there to help Hemant look after the guests. The Chambers is an unusually located club. Though it is in the tower wing, its kitchen is connected to the main kitchen in the old wing: one of the few points of contact between the new and old Taj buildings.

As the night went on with no hope of any rescue, Hemant and his chefs told the waiting and watching Mumbai police that they would organize a rescue themselves. The guests would be led through the kitchens to the staff entrance/exit (the so-called Time Office) which would land them safely at the back of the Taj.

The guests were understandably nervous but were re-assured because, by then, the terrorists seemed to be in another part of the buildings (no shots were heard) and the chefs said they would link arms and form a human corridor to allow the guests to get away.

Dont worry maam, one of the chefs told a guest, if somebody fires at us, the bullet will hit me first. You will be all right.

Why did the chefs offer this unusual kind of assurance? Why were they willing to put their lives on the line for the sake of people they did not know?

It was service beyond the line of duty. I can think of no hotel anywhere in the world where chefs would do this. And I can think of no other Corporate Chef, let alone one with Hemants fame and stature who would take charge, turn his kitchen brigade into a life-saving force and risk his own life organizing this escape.

It would have worked but for news TV.

Late in the night an irresponsible TV reporter announced that guests were being sheltered in the Chambers. The reporter said she had spoken on the phone to one of the guests and had been assured that they were safe.

We now know, from the tapes that have since been released, that the Pakistani handlers who were watching Indian news TV called the terrorists and told them to rush to the Chambers and find the guests.

Anupam Kher and the cast of Hotel Mumbai during a discussion about the movie. (TIFF Talks Youtube channel)

The terrorists did not know where the Chambers was so they pulled a gun on a waiter they had held hostage and prised the location out of him. Once they worked out that they could access the Chambers kitchen through the old Taj, where they were, they shot at the kitchen door in the Crystal Room (a banquet hall) which led to the main kitchen. Hemant had secured the door to the kitchen from the inside but the terrorists blasted their way in. They then tried to find the Chambers kitchen.

All this happened just as the guests had begun to walk through the human cordon the chefs had provided for them. The terrorists reached the Chambers and opened fire at random. Seven chefs lost their lives and three more were injured.

The remark about the bullets hitting the chefs first had been meant as re-assurance. But it came horribly true.

I havent seen Hotel Mumbai but I gather it focuses on such events and on the way in which Hemant took charge that night.

It has been seven years now and Hemant has retired from the Taj but he is unable to talk about that night and the loss of his chefs without getting tearful. And I can understand that.

I cant think of many other chefs who have been through this sort of terror. And as the film is released around the world, I imagine that more and more people will laud Hemants bravery as well as the enormous (in some cases, ultimate) sacrifices made by the Tajs chefs.

It is a measure, however of all the things that Hemant has achieved in his remarkable career that, in the world of chefs, his role on the night of 26/11 is just one of the many things that make him special.

In terms of his historical importance as a chef, his achievements are too numerous to recount. Long before the idea of a celebrity chef took hold in India, Hemant was a celebrity in Mumbai. The Taj has a tradition of projecting its chefs but till Hemant took over at the end of the 1980s, most chefs had been self-effacing guys eager only to serve and to please.

Hemant was the first Indian chef who took the line --- through his manner, at least, if not consciously --- that guests were privileged to be able to eat his food and to meet him. Now, celebrity chefs all behave like that. But three decades ago, no Indian chef had the chutzpah to carry himself with such confidence.

He got away with its because a) he didnt really care if hotel managers thought he was arrogant (which he probably was) and b) because he delivered results for the Taj.

In that era, we didnt have much food journalism so nobody has recorded Hemant s many achievements and creations. He was the first chef that I know of to use golgappas as a vehicle for a multiplicity of flavours and stuffings: he invented the vodka golgappa at least thirty years ago. He was also the first to treat naans and kulchas as bases for pizza-like toppings, a trend that took off a few years later when everybody started doing it. The taco with an Indian filling (spiced aloo, chicken tikka etc.) is his original idea.

I could go on about his food creations but almost as significant are his generic contributions. Until Hemant took over, most banquet menus were mid-priced and boring. He invented the high-priced banquet and made it work because he taught his team how to turn out high-quality banquet food for hundreds of people in a very short space of time. At one party to celebrate a Taj anniversary, his chefs made 1400 cheese souffles and served them at roughly the same time; a feat that I have never seen replicated.

Hemant was also the first chef to open the restaurant world up to vegetarians. Until he came along, vegetarians went to Indian restaurants, ate pizzas at Italian restaurants and survived on Gobhi Manchurian at Chinese restaurants. Hemant created vegetarian menus at Wasabi (modern Japanese), The Zodiac Grill (classic French) and told vegetarians that they could go to any Taj restaurant across cuisines and find dozens of fancy menu options. No longer would they be treated like second class citizens or have to scour the menu for things they could eat.

I dont know how many of these achievements are recognised by the new generation of I-saw-it-on-Youtube-so-I-can-cook-it chefs but anyone with any experience of the profession will tell you that few people have had as much impact on the dignity of chefs as Hemant has.

With the release of Hotel Mumbai, you will hear about his valour. But dont forget a lifetime of achievements that predate the night of terror.

And I guess you will now hear even more about Hemant because in November, he opens a restaurant in Delhi.

But more about that when it happens!

Follow more stories on Facebook and Twitter: @htlifeandstyleFor the past few days, there has been speculation about Congress legislator Kalidas Kolambkar moving to the BJP, ahead of the 2019 elections. Kolambkar is a close aide of former chief minister Narayan Rane, who has already moved out and formed his own party.

The news gathered steam after chief minister Devendra Fadnavis visited the Spring Mills Ganpati celebration organised by Kolambkar in Naiguam.

Kolambkar, who was once in Shiv Sena and defected to Congress along with Rane in 2005, said he was still undecided about his future.

I have been invited by both, the BJP and the Sena to join them. Even the Congress is not keen to leave me, said Kolambkar. I will join the party which does work in my constituency.

Though Kolambkar was expected to follow in the footsteps of Rane, after the latter quit Congress in September last year, the seven-term MLA is wary of his Muslim voters from the Sewri belt whose support helped him win in the 2014 Assembly polls by 800 votes. He thinks he will not be able to retain those votes if he switches over to the BJP.

Kolambkar, who is known to have a good connect with the people in his constituency in central Mumbai, started his career as a Shiv Sena shakha pramukh before graduating to corporator and later a legislator. Many in Sena also want Kolambkar to make a comeback, but Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray is not keen, given that the former is a protege of Rane whom Thackeray dislikes.

Although the BJP would like to have him on board, there is resentment in the local party unit as they feel Kolambkar will only promote his loyalists at the cost of old BJP workers, just as he did in the Congress party.

Significantly, in recent times, Kolambkar has not been very happy with Rane.

Kolambkar feels ignored despite being a loyalist and a senior legislator. Rane was unable to back him to become a minister in the Congress-led governments in which Rane held lucrative ministries, said an aide of the legislator.The civic bodys controversial plan to allow taller buildings and higher density development around Mumbais mass transit corridors is back on track. While the state is yet to formulate a policy regulating floor space index (FSI) for transit-oriented development (TOD), the approved Development Control and Promotion Regulation (DCPR) has given an in-principle nod to TOD around mass transit corridors such as the Metro and the Monorail.

The DCPR has locked the influence zone around Metro interchanges at 500 metres. According to the regulations, buildable reservation will cease to exist on these plots which are within 500 metres of these interchanges, subject to the condition that 20% of plot area is reserved for parking lots, which may be developed under the accommodation reservation (AR) policy.

A civic official, on condition of anonymity, said, The idea is to promote walk to work culture. With plots around Metro interchanges reserved for parking lots, citizens will be encouraged to park vehicles at stations to take the Metro. He added, The FSI will be higher for buildings abutting these metro interchanges but this will be decided in a separate policy by the state government.

The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) is planning a 190-kilometre metro network across the city with Metro interchanges at Marol, Ghatkopar, Dahisar, Andheri Western express Highway, DN Nagar and Bandra Kurla Complex. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and the MMRDA have undertaken a survey to identify the Metro interchanges for the TOD policy as well as other areas near the monorail and coastal road.

The urban development department will decide the location and premiums for higher FSI along the TOD corridor after the survey. MMRDA has proposed TOD for all Metro corridors as part of its funding plan for the project.

The area for now will be developed as per the existing policy. We havent provided any extra FSI, all these points will be catered in TOD policy separately formulated by state government, said Nitin Kareer, principal secretary, urban development department.In October this year, a 95-year-old fountain with drinking water, in the heart of Mumbais Fort area, will spring back to life after falling into disrepair more than 50 years ago.

The Kothari Pyau, located right opposite the General Post Office, is an iconic heritage structure but its maintenance has long been neglected.

The fountain was built in 1923 by businessman Madhavdas Laxmidas Kothari in memory of his daughter Lilavati.

Conservationists said Kothari built the fountain to provide free drinking water to citizens and horses, and to give them a place to rest on hot days. People stopped using the fountain sometime in the 1960s, experts said.

And, over time, the area around it was encroached upon  before the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporations Mumbai Heritage Conservation Committee began the fountains restoration, a paan seller had set up shop, a police beat chowky had been built nearby, and makeshift grills had been erected around it.

While carrying out the restoration work, the civic body removed the encroachments, and replaced the grills with ones that match the structures style.

Experts used photos to recreate portions of the fountain that were damaged. The restoration was part of the BMCs plan to revive such heritage structures and fountains across south Mumbai.

The old basin in the middle was removed and replaced with a low height drinking water basin. There were a lot of encroachments and the pyau was in poor condition, said a senior civic official from the heritage department. It has now been properly restored and will soon be opened for the public. There are several such pyaus across the city that have great historic significance and are being restored, along with milestones, the official said.

Kiran Dighavkar, the assistant municipal commissioner of A ward (Fort, Colaba), said the pyaus restoration was part of a larger heritage conservation initiative in A ward. In all, 17 structures have been restored and this (Kothari Pyau) is one of them. The idea is to give back Mumbaiites their heritage and culture, Dighavkar said.

Rahul Chemburkar, of Vaastu Vidhaan Projects and a conservation architect who worked on the pyaus restoration, said, The fountain is a unique concept of philanthropy as it is a confluence of two interesting facets  the drinking water fountain is a European concept, while water charity in memory of a loved one is more of an Indian one. The pyau is an interesting architectural experience that provides drinking water to people and animals. It is always intriguing to restore such fountains.

The restored water fountain will be inaugurated by Shiv Senas youth wing chief Aaditya Thackeray in October, said civic officials.Seven people were arrested by Bisrakh police on Tuesday for allegedly driving trucks that were deemed unfit, and six 10-tyre trucks were seized.

According to police, the trucks seized by them are more than 10 years old and are, hence, automatically deemed unfit to be used as per as guidelines of National Green Tribunal (NGT).

The trucks were being used for cement mixing units in Greater Noida west.

The accused were plying the trucks across Delhi-NCR with the registration number of new vehicles that are in use in different regions.

Yash Gupta, of Ghaziabad, who is allegedly the co-owner of the trucks, was arrested on Tuesday along with Vinod Kumar, Manoj Kumar, Jitendra Prasad, Bharat Singh, Qadir and Chandrik Yadav, who were employed by Gupta as truck drivers.

Another accused Ankur Bansal, of Ghaziabad, who is also the owner of the trucks, is currently on the run.

We received a tipoff that a convoy of six trucks carrying construction material will be passing through Kisan Chowk in Bisrakh. We set up a checkpoint and arrested all seven and seized the vehicles. It came out during our investigation that truck drivers and owners were using registration numbers of new vehicles on vehicles that have been deemed unfit by the National Green Tribunal as they are more than 10 years old. These trucks were used at different construction sites for transporting construction material and cement mixing units. These vehicles contributed to pollution, said Nishank Sharma, circle officer, Bisrakh.

The accused were booked under sections 482 (punishment for using a false property mark) and 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code.

Bansal is currently on the run and we will arrest him soon. Action will be taken as per procedure, Sharma said.There are many ways to describe and analyse the Aadhaar judgment. Stretching close to 1,500 pages, it will take time for lawyers to fully digest and assimilate it. It is not only its sheer physical breadth, but the extent and the seriousness of the issues which were litigated before the Supreme Court.

This is a judgment which will require a joint national reading, for even though this judgement is about Aadhaar it travels far beyond it, and also far beyond the immediate consequences of linkages to specific services such as banking, telecom connections and tax filings.

A few notes about the Aadhaar case to understand its expanse. While it captured popular imagination as a privacy case, the case raised fundamental questions on two specific issues: the first was institutional legitimacy and the second, power and coercion.

We often hear in our fraught times that our institutions are under attack but the Aadhaar project provided a practical, tangible illustration of this challenge. The project, which was set up by an executive notification and operated for years without any legislative backing, first drew concern on the possibility of circumventing legislative checks. This became more apparent when in 2016 the Aadhaar Act was passed as a money bill denuding the right of the Rajya Sabha to vote and make amendments.

At the same time, litigations were pending in the Supreme Court in which interim orders had been issued but were repeatedly breached by the Union Executive. In its desire to ensure the success of the Aadhaar project, the government upset the constitutional balance for which both Supreme Court and the Rajya Sabha were created.

On the second issue of power and coercion, it is necessary to analyse how technology changes and reorders relationships between individuals and collective bodies, which may be state or private. While such disruption is often viewed positively, a more critical examination will reveal that without proper safeguards, which may be implemented by design ethics, or ultimately legal regulation, technology can be an instrument of oppression.

The objections to the Aadhaar project which were made on the touchstones of exclusion from essential entitlements such as rations, the electronic leash of perpetual surveillance as it became linked to more and more daily services and functions, and the concept of mandatoriness, ultimately were a real world deprivation of power of the individual to the government and corporations.

Through the application of constitutional doctrines, of a limited republican form of government, and the revitalised doctrine of privacy after nine judges reaffirmed it to be a fundamental right, the petitioners were arguing for the Supreme Court to restore power to the people.

Using this framework, let us quickly look at the broad strokes of the judgment, which was decided by five judges. There are three separate opinions. The majority which forms the operative judgment of the Court is authored by justice Sikri and accepted by the Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justice AM Khanwilkar.

There is a separate judgement by justice Ashok Bhushan, who also concurs with the Sikri opinion. Against the unanimity of four, justice DY Chandrachud strikes a bold, principled dissent, which is reminiscent of justice HR Khannas evocative dissent in ADM Jabalpur where he hopes that his reasoning will be more appealing, to the intelligence of a future day.

But before we contrast the findings of these three opinions, it will be useful to take a step back and focus on their consensus. All three indicate problems with the Aadhaar scheme, its implementation, and the lack of safeguards. While it is true that justice Chandrachud eloquently sets out an objection to the project on principle, even justice Sikris opinion recognises deficiencies most clearly on the issues of the use of metadata, privacy of minors, linking with banking and telecom services, and the use of Aadhaar by corporate entities.

Some may say this may not change the practical implementation with Aadhaar still being mandatory for tax filing and essential subsidies, but it still limits the breadth, ambition and power. By doing so, the Supreme Court which only judges constitutional validity, has put a massive question for policy makers on the desirability of this project. Part of these holdings also comes from how Aadhaar became a menace, in which a relentless campaign for enrolment and linking was carried out especially for banking and mobile services.

To some lawyers this almost seemed that the government was attempting to make this project too big to fail while the case remained pending in the court. The appearance of such obstinance and blind faith in technology, by itself, is an enemy of reason and sound public policy. It also seems to have backfired to a result when all five judges resisted and pushed back against this growing power creep of Aadhaar.

In the coming weeks, many public commentators and those in political office will read and comment on this judgement. Many areas of it will be interpreted, and will help guide us. It is hoped we learn from our mistakes, and rather than merely attempting legislative quick fixes or adversarial stratagems to circumvent a court ruling, we fulfil its promise by drawing on our constitutional values of individual rights to better serve public policy.

(Apar Gupta practises law and is a co-founder of the Internet Freedom Foundation. He assisted senior advocates who appeared for the petitioners in the Aadhaar case.)In an interview with The Guardian recently, one the worlds most eminent climate scientists Michael Mann said: The impacts of climate change are no longer subtle. We literally would not have seen these extremes in the absence of climate change . While it is reassuring for climate scientists to see their predictions coming true, Mr Mann, the director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University added,  as a citizen of planet Earth, it is very distressing to see that as it means we have not taken the necessary action. The effects of this inaction are visible across the world. In India, in a span of two months, we have seen the severe impacts of extreme weather events: Higher-than-normal rains devastated southern India, and now its northern India that is facing the same challenge. In other parts of the world, Hurricane Florence flattened the Carolinas in the US and Super Typhoon Mangkhut did the same to parts of the Philippines.

While the science of attribution  looking at how much climate change increases the odds of any one particular event occurring  has advanced remarkably, it still takes time for scientists to determine the link between climate change and specific weather events. Yet there is ample evidence, as Mr Mann said, that shows that climate change is indeed the culprit behind such extremities. Since the world doesnt have the luxury of time to wait for scientists to establish these linkages in each and every case, it is critical that the worlds -- and Indias -- priority be the reduction of the risks by making smart investments to ensure communities and expensive infrastructure are more climate-resilient.

One of the fundamental components of building this much-needed resilience is to mainstream the climate conversation, which unfortunately still remains an elite topic in India (though poorer sections will be hit much harder). So instead of only thinking about vehicular emission, green cars, and carbon footprint, there needs to be a conversation happening around better and equitable management of water and waste and building resilience of our cities and villages.Amid debate on freedom for girl hostellers in the universities of Punjab, Government Medical College in Amritsar has banned jeans, T-shirts, capris and skirts during the college hours or examination for both girl and boy students with effect from October 1.

In a written order to various departments of the college on Tuesday, Principal Sujata Sharma asked the teachers to ensure implementation of the order and take action against students who violate the new rule.

However, she made it clear that this ban is applicable only during classes (practical or theories).

Calling these dresses uncivilised, the order reads, It is usually seen that the girl students wear jeans, T-shirts, capris and skirts in classes. It looks very much uncivilised. The order is applicable on all interns and students of MBBS, B.Sc and diploma courses.

The college has directed girl students to wear salwar-suit or trouser-shirts and boys to wear formal trouser-shirt.

The principal was not available for comments.

Arun Bhagi, personal assistant to the principal, confirmed the development and added that this rule will be applicable on teachers as well. He said the directions have been issued with the aim of upholding a medical atmosphere. He made it clear that there is no ban on wearing these dresses in hostels.

Although, no students have protested against the ban so far, many of them have termed it wrong, stating these things dont matter and what matters is the kind of education provided in the college.The laughter was sudden, loud and unexpected.

It came at the expense of the US president as he addressed global leaders at the United Nations, and it was witnessed by an audience of tens of millions viewing immediate clips online of an awkward moment for Donald Trump.

The laughter followed Trumps boasts that in less than two years, my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country.

Clearly startled by the laughter, he joked that it wasnt the reaction he expected.

Later, as he left the UN grounds, he told reporters that he had meant to be funny.

Oh it was great, well, that was meant to get some laughter, so it was great, he said.

Nonetheless, it was a jaw-dropping moment in the hallowed hall where war and peace, prosperity and poverty, famine and plenty have been passionately discussed over the decades.

A look at some other moments that shocked at the General Assembly.

Khrushchevs shoe

Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev did more than raise a few eyebrows in 1960 as the Cold War raged when he pounded his shoe on a desk in fury. It happened after the head of a delegation from the Philippines criticized Moscow for restricting the freedom of Eastern Europeans. His granddaughter later wrote that he was wearing new shoes that were tight, so he took them off while sitting. She and his interpreter said that when Khrushchev stood up, he pounded the table so hard with his fists that his watch fell off, and when he went to retrieve it, he saw the shoe and switched to banging that instead. The Berlin Wall went up the next year.

Arafats olive branch and gun

Yasser Arafat was the embodiment of the Palestinian quest for independence  a road littered with displacement and death. In 1974, he was invited to represent the Palestine Liberation Organization and his people before the world body, where he made it clear he was ready to use any means for statehood. He spoke of oppressed people and liberation the world over. Wearing his trademark Palestinian keffiyeh scarf, he concluded with an enduring quote: Today I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom fighters gun. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand.

Castros long speeches

Cuban leader Fidel Castro gave many speeches at the UN, railing at those he characterized as his countrys capitalist oppressors. The UN asks leaders to keep their speeches brief. But that was never for Castro: his General Assembly address in 1960 was timed at 4 1/2 hours. Clad in his trademark green military fatigues, Castro said the revolution he led 20 months earlier had ended the countrys status as a colony of the United States, but the US still believed it had the right to promote and encourage subversion in our country. In the rambling speech, Castro defended Cubas links to the Soviet Union, expressed serious concern that Americas imperialist government might attack Cuba, and called US President John F Kennedy an illiterate and ignorant millionaire. Castro also complained of undergoing degrading and humiliating treatment in New York, including being evicted from his hotel.

Gadhafi goes free form

Libyas Moammar Gadhafi also had a predilection for long, rambling monologues in his speeches at the world body. His 2009 address, clocked in at 1 hour, 40 minutes. Dressed in flowing brown Bedouin robes and a black beret, he chastised the United Nations for failing to prevent dozens of wars, suggested that those who caused mass murder in Iraq be tried, and defended the Talibans right to establish an Islamic emirate. At one point, Gadhafi waved a copy of the UN Charter and appeared to tear it, saying he did not recognize the documents authority. Later that day, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told the assembly: I stand here to reaffirm the United Nations Charter, not to tear it up.

Chavez and the devil

The late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez drew gasps at the UN in 2006 when he said of US President George W. Bush, Yesterday, the devil came here, adding that the podium still smells of sulfur. The US was at the time heavily embroiled in the Iraq War, which Chavez had vehemently opposed.

Ahmadinejad and 9/11

Irans hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad prompted disgusted walkouts from the assembly in 2010 when he questioned whether the Sept. 11 attacks were staged. He suggested an inside job, arguing that only an explosion, not planes, could have brought down the twin towers. His visits to New York prompted fury among locals, but delighted the hard-line wing in Iran.

Bibi and the bomb

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking to the General Assembly about Irans nuclear program on Sept. 27, 2012, held up a large, cartoonish diagram of a bomb. The bomb was divided into sections marking 70 percent and 90 percent. Netanyahu said that Iran was 70 percent of the way to enriching uranium for a nuclear weapon and urged the world to draw a clear red line and stop the countrys nuclear program. He then drew a red line under 90 percent, asserting that the Iranians would be that far along by mid-2013 and must not be allowed to get there. Netanyahu warned that nothing could imperil the world more than a nuclear-armed Iran and insisted that red lines prevent wars.The US Congress has passed a crucial bipartisan bill that seeks to impose a visa ban on Chinese officials who deny American citizens, government officials and journalists access to Tibet, Chinas sensitive Himalayan region.

The US has expressed concern in the past about the lack of access to the Tibetan Autonomous Region for American journalists, diplomats, academics and others to report on alleged religious persecution in the former home of the exiled Tibetan leader, the Dalai Lama.

The legislation, passed by a unanimous voice vote, comes amidst the Trump administration imposing massive trade import duties on China that has started impacting the Chinese economy.

The Reciprocal Access to Tibet Act, which seeks to ensure that Americans are given the same access to Tibet that Chinese citizens have to the United States, was passed by the House of Representatives on Tuesday.

The Reciprocal Act to Tibet Act is about fairness, human rights and careful US diplomacy at its core. For too long, China restricted access to Tibet, preventing journalists from observing human rights abuses in Tibet and preventing Tibetan Americans from visiting their home country. This bill seeks to reset that table, Indian-American Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal said on the House Floor.

The bill, she said, is premised on the idea that reciprocity forms the basis of diplomatic law and the practice of mutual exchanges between countries. This bill simply requires that if Chinese officials, journalists and other citizens are able to travel freely in the US, then its only fair that their American counterparts are also able to do the same.

And if Americans are not granted the same access to Tibet that the Chinese enjoy in the United States, then there should be consequences. This is more than reasonable and long overdue, Jayapal said.

Republican Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen worried that in the years as China has grown in strength and power, Tibet has been pushed to the periphery.

I was worried that Chinas bully tactics on display had extended so far that our United States Congress had no longer had the will, no longer had the desire to speak out in support of Tibet, she said.

The Congress is sending a true signal that the US has indeed not forgotten about the people of Tibet, that Congress will not accept Beijings bullying and intimidation and that the US lawmakers will stand up for human rights for the people of Tibet, she said.

Beijings policys on Tibet are not only immoral and unjust, but are threatening the stability of a crucial area for the US interests. So we must put pressure on China to stop its repression, Ros-Lehtinen said.

Congressman Jim McGovern, prime author of the bill, said that the bill imposes real consequences for Chinas bad behaviour.

Arguing that the basis of diplomatic law is mutual access and reciprocity, McGovern said that while Chinese diplomats and journalists travel freely in the US, the Government of China has erected many barriers in areas of China inhabited by ethnic Tibetans.

US diplomats and journalists must obtain permission to enter the Tibet Autonomous region, he alleged.

Under this bill, Chinese authorities who are involved in the design and implementation of policies that restrict travel to Tibetan areas become ineligible to receive a visa or be admitted to the United States. This is a victory for human rights of Tibetans and Americans, McGovern said.

Speaking in support of the bill, Democratic leader Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi asserted that the issue of reciprocity is not only a human rights issue, but is also a practical matter. It is very important for the US to have a diplomatic presence in Lhasa. The bill, she said, takes an important step to advance freedom, dignity and prosperity for the Tibetan people.

The bill, Pelosi said sends a clear signal that Chinas meddling in Tibetan affairs is unacceptable. For six decades, the people of Tibet have stood defiance in the face of oppression and brutality from an authoritarian China, she said.

Senators Marco Rubio and Tammy Baldwin have introduced a companion bill in the Senate.

The Reciprocal Access to Tibet Act includes a national security waiver, and would require the US Secretary of State to submit to Congress an assessment of the level of access to Tibet granted to American government officials, journalists, and tourists by Chinese officials.

If the secretary determines that there are restrictions on travel to Tibet, the appropriate Chinese officials will be ineligible to enter the US, the bill states.

Beijing views the 14th Dalai Lama, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, as a separatist working to split Tibet from China. During the 1959 Tibetan uprising, the Dalai Lama fled to India.

(This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text.)Pipeline

26 September 2018

Driftwood Acquisitions & Development (DAD) celebrated the groundbreaking of the Canopy by Hilton, Hilton's (NYSE: HLT) lifestyle hotel brand, yesterday in Tempe, Arizona. Slated to open as a 198-room hotel by January 2020, Canopy by Hilton Tempe Downtown University Area is located in the heart of Tempe across the street from Arizona State University (ASU), one of the largest public universities by enrollment in the United States. Driftwood Hospitality Management (DHM), DAD's affiliate, will manage the hotel. DAD is an innovative hospitality industry leader with decades of experience and a strategic focus on hotel and resort acquisitions.

"Tempe is a flourishing and energetic community," said Carlos J. Rodriguez Sr., CEO of Driftwood Acquisitions & Development. "We have an outstanding and ongoing relationship with Canopy by Hilton, and we are excited to work with the brand again to bring this project to the downtown area."

Upon its opening, Canopy by Hilton Tempe Downtown will span 14 floors and feature a lobby-level cafe, a gym, more than 3,000 sq. ft. of meeting space, and a rooftop pool with a terrace bar, cabanas and a fire pit.

"Canopy Tempe Downtown is an ideal extension of this dynamic and growing neighborhood," said Gary Steffen, global head, Canopy by Hilton. "As the brand's first location in the Southwest, we are looking forward to introducing guests to Canopy's fresh take on lifestyle hospitality and the live-work-play neighborhood concept."

Allen Philp is the architect and designer of record, Sundt Construction, Inc. is the general contractor, and EoA, Inc. is the interior design firm for the development.

Canopy by Hilton is a lifestyle brand that embraces its locale, providing guests with authentic and unique local experiences. Each Canopy property is designed as a natural extension of its neighborhood with connections to local art, food, drink and culture. Guests will have access to mobile check-in, complimentary Wi-Fi, complimentary breakfast, and evening tastings of local wines, beers and spirits during their stay. Upon check-in, guests will receive a welcome gift inspired by the destination.

Canopy by Hilton Tempe Downtown will participate in the award-winning Hilton Honors guest-loyalty program for Hilton's 14 distinct brands, which offers a variety of unique benefits, including a flexible payment slider, to members who book directly through preferred Hilton channels.Appointment

26 September 2018

GreenTree Hospitality Group Inc., a leading U.S. hotel owner, operator and franchisor of GreenTree Inn, is proud to announce the appointment and promotion of Amanda Saye as Vice President of Franchise Operations.

Saye joined GreenTree in 2016 where she was tasked in leading the hotel brand's marketing strategy and development efforts throughout the U.S., including the successful launch of its GiveBack Rewards loyalty program in 2017. In addition, Saye completed a full web redesign and launch of its hotel brand website (www.greentreeinn.com), implementing all print and digital promotions, managed the day-to-day and fulfillment of its loyalty program, developed all property marketing collateral and led its public relations and communications efforts; ultimately positioning the brand and driving additional revenue streams effectively system-wide.The Vice President of Franchise Operations will serve as the primary leader within the franchise vertical. In her new role, Saye will provide overall leadership for the corporate franchise operations team to facilitate the continuing effort of de livering outstanding systems, support, and service to its franchisees. Saye will support the day-to-day hotel operations within GreenTree, franchise on-boarding, systems, brand standards and governance, marketing, and franchise relationships. Prior to joining GreenTree Hospitality Group Saye successfully launched new and industry leading brands. Saye has exceled in data analysis, market segmentation, and developing effective tactics that aligned with the growth of the organization and business objectives, ultimately producing viable, revenue-generating strategies. Amanda is an active board member and currently serves as Vice President for HSMAI, Arizona Chapter.Press Release

26 September 2018

Best Western Hotels & Resorts today marked an industry first, introducing a pair of boutique brands - Sadie HotelSM and Aiden HotelSM. Sadie Hotel will compete in the upscale segments, and Aiden Hotel will compete in the upper midscale segment. These conversion brands offer developers an opportunity to reposition existing properties to improve their performance and enhance their asset value. These brands will offer hoteliers a design program with unprecedented flexibility. Sadie Hotel and Aiden Hotel's edgy personalities will be reflected across each hotel, starting from the moment travelers enter the colorful, imaginative lobbies. The same charming style will be interwoven throughout other common areas and in unique guestrooms, services and amenities. The appealing brands will allow hoteliers to tap into the local flair of their market, broaden their customer base, and achieve higher RevPAR.

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"Sadie Hotel and Aiden Hotel are chic, sophisticated and unique hotel brands that will reflect the style and pulse of the community they are in - bringing a sense of adventure and fun to guests at each hotel," said David Kong, President & Chief Executive Officer at Best Western Hotels & Resorts. "We're thrilled to be the first in the industry to launch a pair of boutique brands - Sadie Hotel for the upscale segments and Aiden Hotel for the upper midscale segment. Both Sadie Hotel and Aiden Hotel present the opportunity for independent hoteliers or developers with branded hotels to reposition their property in a unique way, taking advantage of our cost-effective, turnkey and customized design and renovation program. A dedicated onboarding team will ensure these repositioned hotels are quickly integrated with Best Western's powerful revenue engines intended to drive a fast ramp up in business. A marketing and PR playbook for each hotel will drive social media visibility and buzz."

Innovative Design Elements

Filling a void in the upscale hotel scene, Sadie Hotel and Aiden Hotel give developers the chance to be creative and incorporate local flair into their designs, retrofitting or rebranding an existing hotel with a modern, spirited aesthetic. The brands creatively use space and technology, while eliminating some typical hotel requirements. At the center of each Sadie Hotel and Aiden Hotel is a multi-functional public area with either a cafe or bar; modern signature seating; and mobile check-in for convenient guest check-in. Properties will also have branded Sadie Hotel and Aiden Hotel items on display and available for purchase so that guests can take a piece of Sadie Hotel or Aiden Hotel home with them.

Integration with a Powerhouse Brand

Every hotel will be provided unparalleled systems and support, and will be on-boarded in a rapid ramp-up with near-immediate access to Best Western's award-winning website, global partnerships and sales team, and state-of-the-art revenue management system. Hotels will also have access to a revenue manager to maximize revenue and reduce operating costs. And similar to other Best Western branded hotels, Sadie Hotel and Aiden Hotel owners will experience the strongest brand support in the industry with attractive fees.

With the launch of Sadie Hotel and Aiden Hotel, today's Best Western portfolio includes 13 distinctive brands, continuing the evolution begun by the company's successful $2 billion brand refresh. Sadie Hotel and Aiden Hotel will benefit from Best Western's reputation for providing superior guest service and will have access to the award-winning Best Western Rewards program, which contributes about 50% of gross room revenue to hotels.

Brand Playbooks to Streamline PR & Social Media Efforts, Creating Local Market Buzz

Each Sadie Hotel and Aiden Hotel will become one of the most talked about hotels within its community and hoteliers will benefit from Best Western's robust global influencer programming and PR efforts, as the Sadie Hotel and Aiden Hotel story is told on both paid and earned channels. Customizable marketing playbooks provided by Best Western will make achieving PR and social media wins easy, including Sadie Hotel and Aiden Hotel PR and social media campaigns that are unique, full of surprises, and will tap into the flair of the local market. Best Western has the second highest social engagement rankings in the industry and brand-endorsed Sadie Hotel and Aiden Hotel campaigns will amplify the brand's media investments and strong storytelling on a local level.JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.



You should upgrade or use an You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.You should upgrade or use an alternative browserLinode is a leading cloud hosting provider. With Linode, the subscribers can create a cloud server in under a minute and add more compute, storage, and load balancing services as needed. Users can then dynamically scale their environments to meet business demands  paying for only what they use, with no long-term commitments.Linode module for HostBill enables you to resell Linodes / Virtual Machines and with HostBills advanced billing features you can charge your customers for OS Templates, Regions, autmatic backups or private networking. HostBill automation handles the whole account lifecycle from creating the account, through suspensions, unsuspension to termination, as well as package upgrades and downgrades. The well-designed client area provides the end-clients with possibility to easily create, manage (reboot, upgrade etc) and destroy Linodes, manage snapshots, setup SSH Key and more. The access to client area sections are managed by admin from admin area. Admin area also allows to control the Linodes  start, stop or reboot, manage billing details and control account lifecycle.You can view the modules details and pricing here. ***Vodia offers unified communications solutions for enterprises, contact centers and service providers. Vodia PBX software includes the most complete suite of business telephony features for on-premise and cloud based telephony systems and services.Now, thanks to HostBill integration you can use the data from Vodia to charge your customers for auto attendants on domain and conference bridges on domain or used extensions. Billing details can be viewed by client and administrator respectively in client and admin panels. The admin area also gives you the power to control account lifecycle. With this module you can keep track of metered resources without leaving your HostBill admin area!Find out more about this integration click here. ***HostBill is a powerful and flexible, all-in-one automation, billing, client management and support platform for online businesses. HostBill handles all aspects of running a successful online business, from client acquisition, through invoicing and payment collection, automated service provisioning and management, to customer service and support. Extensive range of advanced features, multitude of modules and apps and integration with various control panels, domain registrars, payment gateways, order pages, client panels and more, make it the most comprehensive solution on the market for Hosting, Cloud/IaaS/VPS Solutions Providers, Domain name and SSL Resellers around the globe to automate and manage their online businesses.With budgeting season comes the time to analyze digital marketing initiatives and plan for trends that may arise throughout the year. When constructing your budget, think about upgrades your property needs to make regarding digital technology and marketing strategy.

With budgeting season comes the time to analyze digital marketing initiatives and plan for trends that may arise throughout the year. When constructing your budget, think about upgrades your property needs to make regarding digital technology and marketing strategy.

Knowledge of where the industry's key benchmarks are headed is critical to budgeting appropriately and knowing where to focus your efforts to see results. According to STR, the US hotel industry is projected to see growth, slow yet steady, through 2019. However, supply will continue to outweigh demand in many major markets (2.3% vs 2%). Occupancy is increasing by 0.3%; ADRs are growing by 2.4%; and RevPAR is increasing by 2.7% (STR, Tourism Economics.

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 2021 Hotel News ResourceAtlanta rapper Columbia BT is being accused of trafficking over $4 million worth of cocaine by the state's district attorney's office. Columbia nee Tommie Walker was indicted on charges stemming from a multi-state distribution stream alongside another person suspected of spearheading the whole operation, Samuel Anchondo-Galaviz. The indictment was issued on September 12th, while both men were properly arraigned before a grand jury on September 21st.

"These defendants were allegedly part of a multi-state drug distribution scheme that transported and distributed cocaine worth approximately $4 million," said U.S. Attorney Byung J. Pak with both men in attendance. "Thanks to the work of law enforcement in Georgia, South Carolina, and Colorado, this drug enterprise is now history."

The Department of Justice claims that Walker used his budding drug ring to finance his vocational interest in rapping. Walker was thus reportedly able to launder his money through a less conspicuous means like BMF had done with Bleu DaVinci in the mid-2000s. The DA believes Tommie Walker was running a warehouse in the Atlanta-area where he received cargo in the form of tractor trailers, one of which driven by Samuel Anchondo-Galaviz was apprehended on its way to the facility. The DA is believed to have monitored his activities for some time, with the help of the DEA and other dragnets tasked with staying on top of narco-circulation.According to Bill Cosby's reps, he is being met with open arms by the prison population. Cosby is in day one of a 3 to 10-year jail sentence in Schwenksville, Pennsylvania. The original idea was for Cosby to seek an immediate transfer, but upon meeting the COs and prison guards, the decision was overturned. It appears the prison staff at SCI Phoenix is very enamored with the idea of hanging out with the accused sex offender.

Publicist Andrew Wyatt shared several updates with TMZ, including a "touching" moment where prison guards gave Cosby a little extra time to wrap up his conversation with wife Camille, mostly because they were somewhat starstruck by his presence. One guard, in particular, became bashful when asked to retrieve Cosby's social insurance number. Mind you these are the words of a publicist, and his assistant.

Wyatt clearly has an agenda in speaking to the press, to paint his client as an amiable person innocent of the crimes to which he stands accused. First he leads in with a play-by-play account of his reception, then we hear of Cosby's first outgoing phone call, and before long the conversation towards a testament of racial and gender discriminatory injustice. For what it's worth, public perception won't change what really goes on within those walls, in Schwenksville, Pennsylvania.Yesterday's newscasts were reporting all about Bill Cosby, going into detail about his sentencing, the victim statements, and what his first meal would be in prison, which ironically included pudding. His mugshot was released to the public yesterday and in it, he looked absolutely defeated. The man couldn't bring himself to even look at the camera as he peered at the floor while they snapped a photo. The 81-year-old was sentenced to spend 3 to 10 years in a state prison for drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand. When he arrived at his new home for the next few years, more mugshot photos were taken in his prison uniform.

Inmate number NN7687, otherwise known as Bill Cosby, was moved to a prison in Pennsylvania after his sentencing and new images were taken for their records. Considering the situation, we wouldn't expect Cosby to look any happier than he did in the previous shots but he seems just as emotionally drained in the new one than in the last. Again, he is not looking at the camera as he appears to be on the verge of tears.

The maximum security facility, which apparently houses some of the most violent prisoners in the country, will be the disgraced comedian's home for at least 3 years where he will be situated in a single cell next to the infirmary. If Cosby serves his entire 10-year sentence, he will be 91 at the time of his release.

https://twitter.com/_/status/1044915588676669441



[via]There's nothing like a motivational message to get through the day and remind you to keep hustling. It's especially appealing when it can help you visualize the results of your labor.

Drake recently took to his Instagram to drop a quick morning motivation post. The photograph features several of the Torontonian's luxury vehicles and is captioned, "Some morning motivation from back home...make sure your people are good and go get whatever you want in this life. Its a short film." The rapper has certainly achieved the success that most dream of, producing record-breaking music and amassing a net worth of approximately $120 Million.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BoMVaXknp1R



As he should, Drake has been enjoying his immense wealth, purchasing a $6.7 million plot of land in an exclusive Toronto neighborhood. Located in the Bridle Path residential community, the rapper's new home is anticipated to be one of the grander, more extravagant homes in the neighborhood dubbed "Millionaires Row." The rapper has called on the talented luxury home designer, Ferris Rafauli, to spearhead the project.

Rafauli gave fans a quick glimpse at the home revealing some of its notable features. The mansion is set to include three bars, two of which will be located close to the "In My Feelings" rapper's indoor pool. The home will also have a piano room, a screening room, two saunas, a massage room, a hot tub, and a gym.

Morning motivation indeed.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BknB-3DFqFN

WASHINGTON  For decades the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries has attempted to manage the worlds oil markets, raising and lowering oil production to try to reduce the chances of wild price swings that can bankrupt oil producers and wreak havoc on energy-based economies.

Now, a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers is raising the prospect of bringing federal charges against OPEC members such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Nigeria, claiming they are violating the same U.S. antitrust laws used to break up John D. Rockefellers Standard Oil empire a century ago. Called the NOPEC Act  as in No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels  the bill would authorize the attorney general to file lawsuits against foreign countries deemed to be working together to affect the price of oil, natural gas and petroleum-based fuels such as gasoline.

Its terra incognita. Weve never been here before, said Bob McNally, president of the Rapidan Energy Group, an energy consultancy in Washington. Given how politically sensitive gasoline prices and how much political support suing OPEC would have, it interjects enormous risk into oil markets.

The legislation has kicked around the Capitol for more than a decade, at times attracting the support of powerful figures such as Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer. But its passage was blocked by presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, who promised to use their veto power to protect U.S. diplomatic relationships in the Middle East.

That political dynamic, however, appears to be changing with the ascendance of President Donald Trump, who, in a 2011 book, urged Congress to pass the legislation. Trump has made OPEC a regular target of his Twitter feed, writing last week, They continue to push for higher and higher oil prices! We will remember. The OPEC monopoly must get prices down now!

On HoustonChronicle.com: As Trump talks down oil prices, industry shrugs

For NOPEC supporters, Trump represents an opportunity to rein in a powerful international cartel that has driven up prices on American motorists for decades and force the global oil sector to operate under the same free-market principles that govern other industries.

Whats different about oil? Theres a whole bunch of commodities you could [control prices on], from grain to coffee to rare earth metals we use in cellphones, said Seth Bloom, a Washington antitrust lawyer who championed the legislation a decade ago while general counsel for the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust. If the free markets available, it will control swings in price.

The legislation has gained enough momentum that it is beginning to worry officials in Saudi Arabia, who last month hired Washington attorney Ted Olson to lobby against the bill. Olson is a former solicitor general who argued the Supreme Court case that put Bush in the White House.

But the legislation has some powerful opponents in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Petroleum Institute, which argue that U.S. companies operating abroad could face retaliatory action by OPEC members. Among the aggrieved are Texas oil producers, who are the beneficiaries of OPECs willingness to act as swing producer, raising and lowering production to influence prices  even when it is not in their short-term financial interests.

OPECs decision in late 2016 to curtail production helped lift prices and spur a recovery in the oil and gas industry  and the Houston economy.

OPEC has kept oil prices from going too low. In 2017 oil probably would have gone to less than $20 a barrel without them. And it has helped us from having higher spikes, too, said Cactus Schroeder, owner of Chisholm Exploration, an Abilene-based oil company. Sometimes there has to be a governing body, even if you dont like it.

OPEC follows in the footsteps of the Texas Railroad Commission, which between the 1930s and 1960s largely set global oil prices through quotas on oil field production in Texas. As production from the Middle East grew, the Railroad Commission was eventually displaced by OPEC as the arbiter of oil prices. OPEC copied many of the commissions protocols.

Now, the prospect of the worlds largest oil consumer alienating the worlds foremost swing producer in Saudi Arabia is spooking energy economists, who maintain oil markets are inevitably prone to wild price fluctuations without a body controlling production.

Under the legislation, the United States could seize the U.S. assets of state-owned oil companies such as Saudi Aramco and PDVSA of Venezuela. Pipelines, storage tanks and other infrastructure could all be seized, along with big-name assets such as the Motiva refinery, which is owned by Aramco. The refinery, located in Port Arthur, is the largest in the United States.

Likewise, Qatar Petroleum has a controlling stake in the Golden Pass LNG terminal in Sabine Pass.

On HoustonChronicle.com: With oil boom on, U.S. tests geopolitical might

Roger Diwan, vice president of financial services at the research firm IHS Markit, said if the NOPEC legislation became law, it would change the relationship between the United States and Gulf producers and undermine the mechanisms that bring some stability to global markets. For example, industrialized nations depend on Saudi Arabia to maintain a production cushion that allows it to increase production if supplies grow short.

NOPEC  creates a level of uncertainty and fear, Diwan said.  I dont know how it will change [the relationship], but it will have consequences over time. We cant ask Saudi Arabia to have 2 million barrels a day of spare capacity and then accuse them of manipulating markets.

For now, no vote is scheduled for the legislation. A bill sponsored by Senators Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa; Mike Lee, R-Utah; Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.; and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. is awaiting a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee, while the accompanying House bill has already passed out of the House Judiciary Committee and is awaiting a floor vote.

If and when the bill comes to vote, it is expected to pass easily. When another NOPEC bill came up for a vote in the House in 2007, it passed 345-72.

But so far, Republican leadership has shown little inclination to bring the legislation to the floor. Among those dissenting in 2007 were House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and a number of Texas lawmakers, including Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Woodlands, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.

Im pretty sure [Republican] leadership is opposed, said McNally of the Rapidan Energy Group.  They do not like it at all. But it has strong bipartisan support, and if theres a presidential tweet, who knows.

james.osborne@chron.com

Twitter: @osbornejaBack in June comedian Mo Amer passed back through Houston, where he grew up, before heading to Austin to film a new stand-up comedy special at the Paramount Theatre.

That special now has a title and an arrival date. "The Vagabond" will begin streaming on Netflix on Oct. 8.WASHINGTON - A third woman came forward Wednesday to accuse Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct, saying he was physically abusive toward girls in high school and present at a house party in 1982 where she says she was the victim of a "gang" rape.

The woman, Julie Swetnick, a Washington resident, is represented by lawyer Michael Avenatti, who revealed her identity on Twitter and posted her photograph.

The Washington Post has not independently verified her allegations.

Kavanaugh on Wednesday dismissed the allegations of a third accuser as "ridiculous and from the Twilight Zone."

"I don't know who this is and this never happened," he said in a statement released by the White House.

Now Playing: President Donald Trump denounced Democratic efforts to block Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court confirmation as a cynical "con job" on Tuesday and launched a dismissive attack on a second woman accusing the nominee of sexual misconduct in the 1980s, ass Video: Fox5

President Trump weighed in some more on the latest allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh during a bilateral meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

In front of a White House press pool in a meeting room of the Palace Hotel, Trump called the latest accusation "ridiculous" and reiterated his disdain for the new accuser's lawyer, calling him a "lowlife."

In a declaration, Julie Swetnick, who attended Gaithersburg High School in Maryland, said she observed Kavanaugh drinking excessively at house parties and engaging "in abusive and physically aggressive behavior toward girls."

Swetnick said she witnessed efforts by Kavanaugh and others to get girls inebriated so they could be "gang raped" in side rooms at house parties by a "train" of numerous boys.

"I have a firm recollection of seeing boys lined up outside rooms at many of these parties waiting for their 'turn' with a girl inside the room. These boys included Mark Judge and Brett Kavanaugh."

Judge is a friend of Kavanaugh whom an earlier accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, said was present when she alleges Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her roughly 36 years ago.

In her declaration, Swetnick recounts an alleged incident in approximately 1982 in which she says she was the victim of a "gang rape" at which Kavanaugh was present.

She does not say Kavanaugh participated in the alleged rape or what, if any, role he played, nor does she say where the alleged episode took place.

"During the incident, I was incapacitated without my consent and unable to fight off the boys raping me," Swetnick says. "I believe I was drugged using Quaaludes or something similar placed in what I was drinking."

Avenatti, the lawyer who represents adult film actress Stormy Daniels, is exploring a bid for the Democratic presidential nomination and spoken out against Trump and his policies, making frequent appearances on cable television.

In his tweet, he called Swetnick "courageous, brave and honest" and asked that her privacy be respected.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a key ally of Trump who sits on the Judiciary Committee, dismissed the latest allegation

"If I were a true victim, the last person I would go to is Michael Avenatti," Graham said. He said he found it hard to believe that "any human being" would know about a culture of gang rape as violent as that described in Swetnick's affidavit and "not say anything."

Ford, a professor from California, has alleged that a drunken Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when both were teenagers in Montgomery County.

A second accuser, Deborah Ramirez, a classmate of Kavanaugh's at Yale University, told the New Yorker magazine that he exposed himself to her at a party when they were both first-year students.A Toronto companys plan to open a sex service in Houston offering adult love dolls available to rent before you buy has sparked opposition from city leaders and an online campaign to keep so-called robot brothels out of the city.

KinkySdollS, a Canadian company that opened the first North American robot brothel last year in Toronto, unofficially announced via Facebook last month that its first enterprise outside Canada would be in Houston, confirming on the company website that the business was coming soon to the Bayou City.

Mayor Sylvester Turner said the city is currently reviewing existing ordinances  or will consider drafting new ordinances  that could restrict or regulate such enterprises.

OPENING SOON?: Things to know about Houston's soon-to-open sex robot brothel

Now Playing: FOX 26 The News Edge at 10 p.m. reporter CoCo Dominguez and FOX 26 News anchor Jonathan Martin Video: Fox 26 Houston

This is not the kind of business I would like to see in Houston, and certainly this is not the kind of business the city is seeking to attract, Turner said in a written statement to the Houston Chronicle.

Elijah Rising, a Houston nonprofit organization whose mission is to end sex trafficking, has initiated a petition on change.org calling on the mayor to stop the business from coming to the city, with nearly 7,000 signatures collected as of Tuesday.

The business of robot dolls only reinforces the idea that women are just body objects or properties, said David Gamboa, one of the directors of Elijah Rising. We dont need this in a city like Houston where we already have a major problem with sex trafficking.

KinkySdollS did not respond to a request for comment.

Health, legal concerns

The brothel would apparently not be illegal under current laws, according to experts.

Unfortunately, there are currently no laws in the U.S. to prevent the sale of the type of dolls intended for this robot brothel, said Houston attorney Richard Weaver, who specializes in business law.

Unless a new ordinance is passed, this business will likely open and operate in Houston, Weaver said.

Albert Van Huff, a Houston attorney who is familiar with Houston's sexually oriented business ordinances, said that robot brothels would likely fall under the citys definition of an adult sexual operation, however, and could likely be regulated for visibility and distances from schools, churches and other religious facilities.

Supporters say the robot brothels can reduce human trafficking by substituting life-like dolls for real victims. Others say they pose potential health hazards and could contribute to the spread of venereal disease.

The concern from the public health standpoint is that (the dolls) would have to be very well sanitized if they are going to be shared in order to prevent the spread of diseases, said Elizabeth Perez, spokesperson for Harris County Public Health. Anywhere you are touching an area with multiple peoples traces, there is risk for potential diseases.

Perez said the use of condoms would be important to avoid sexually transmitted diseases.

Real Love Sex Dolls of Austin, the top seller of life-size sex dolls in the United States, recommends that customers refrain from sharing the dolls.

They are one-man women and not meant to be shared, said Stacey Townsend, chief executive of Real Love Sex Dolls, noting that women are also among the customer base, as are couples and people who use them for therapeutic purposes.

A material to make these ultra-realistic dolls called thermoplastic elastomer, or TPE, cannot be properly sterilized after use, she said.

Mechanized pornography

KinkySdollS offers a variety of human-like dolls with articulated skeletal structures.

The dolls are set up in a showroom where patrons can rent them for a half-hour for $80, or $120 for a full hour, according to its website. Customers can also buy the dolls for about $4,000.

The company says it offers a unique service to those who (are) looking for a companion."

Such businesses began making inroads in Asia and Europe before coming to North America. A report from the Foundation for Responsible Robotics, headquartered in The Netherlands, concludes that, although some experts have said that sexual robots could replace sex trafficking and forced prostitution, they did not find evidence of such claims.

"We have a legitimate concern that this business would encourage men to dehumanize women," opined attorney Weaver. This perception is echoed in social media by people like him that are in opposition to allowing this kind of enterprise in Houston.

For Gamboa, "This is mechanized pornography." He believes that "Robot brothels would also ultimately harm men and their understanding of healthy sexuality."

Gamboa said that Elijah Risings petition is not against sex toys in general but the robot brothels.

We want all brothels to close, but this one is just absurd, he said.

olivia.tallet@chron.com

Twitter: @oliviaptalletTom Fox, POOL / Associated Press

If you missed their first showdown, you won't want to miss this one. On Sunday, Sen. Ted Cruz and Rep. Beto O'Rourke will once again face off in a 60-minute debate.

The second of three planned debates will be hosted by the University of Houston, and unlike last week's moderated challenge, will be in a town hall-style format.This story was originally published on May 21, 2016.

Somehow, George Freda was supposed to protect much of Harris County from chemical disasters. He had a stack of files in his house, with lists of one compound after another, but he was a committee of one.

He had no staff, no money and no clear directive.

Such are the shortcomings of Local Emergency Planning Committees, the groups that the federal government says could prevent the next major incident.

Under a mandate from Congress, thousands of committees were created in 1986, two years after Union Carbide's leak in Bhopal, India killed thousands.

About the series In November 2014, four workers died at a DuPont plant in La Porte after being exposed to a toxic gas. Responding emergency workers werent sure what was in the air. The surrounding community wasnt, either. This Houston Chronicle investigation explores how another fatal mistake could have the largest consequences and probes the regulatory failures that put us in jeopardy. Click here to read the series.

The committees were the first line of defense, empowered to share information about local dangers and prepare the community for any emergency.

Thirty years on, Freda and others like him pose little defense at all. Scores of LEPCs all over Texas are disbanded or barely functioning, a Houston Chronicle investigation has found.

"If this were a battle and they were the front line," Harris County Judge Ed Emmett said, "our enemy is going to come through the front line real fast."

The Environmental Protection Agency considers the committees to be a cornerstone of reforms following the fertilizer explosion three years ago in West that killed 12 firefighters and three residents. At a minimum, LEPCs are required to disclose chemical inventories to interested residents or community watchdogs.

LATEST: New Farm Bill may undercut chemical safety measures inspired by West explosion

But Texas has circumvented federal law by withholding those reports, and the EPA does nothing to stop the state.

The Texas Attorney General's office, under Greg Abbott and now Ken Paxton, have told committees that they do not have to make inventories available, citing a state law that restricts information that might be useful to terrorists. Despite the terror threat they cite, state officials do not stop LEPCs like Freda's that choose to make inventories public.

Former New Jersey congressman James Florio, who helped craft the federal Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act, calls the Texas approach "totally irrational" and said security concerns should be addressed by individual companies. The goal of the federal law "was to hold everyone to a minimal standard of disclosure," he said. "Can you imagine if we relieved nuclear facilities of their security responsibilities, and we just tried to hide where they are?"

***

Collecting data from LEPCs across Houston is largely an exercise in futility.

Most of the 20 Houston-area LEPCs rejected the Chronicle's requests for chemical inventories, called Tier Two forms, including Brazoria, Galveston, Waller and Fort Bend counties. One of the committees that did release the information  Southeast Regional  had a trove of data from companies outside its jurisdiction, so an analysis included more than 2,500 businesses in greater Houston. Fifty-five of those facilities were found by chemical safety experts at Texas A&M to have a high potential for public harm. Close to 600 scored in the medium group, storing chemicals dangerous enough to impose serious harm in an incident.

The analysis, plus a string of chemical fires and explosions all over the area  about one every six weeks  is leading some to rethink old policies.

"There are still a lot of things being viewed through the lens of 9/11," Emmett said. "I would think people who live around a facility storing hazardous materials are going to want to know that information. That's more important to them than the risk of a terrorist attack."

Mathy Stanislaus, assistant EPA administrator, said the agency recommends that the public be made aware of facilities and what chemicals are stored there. But he defended the EPA's practice of allowing states to bypass the federal law, because it's a "locally grounded statute." The law contains a line that says it doesn't overrule state or local statutes.

The Texas Homeland Security Act, passed in 2003, made government information confidential if it could be used to plot terror attacks. For more than a decade, the law was never invoked to block release of chemical inventories. The state reversed course after widespread media interest in the data following the West explosion.

Then-Attorney General Abbott, quoting the 2003 law, issued a ruling that allows state and local agencies to withhold inventories.

Abbott told reporters in 2014 that private companies were still required to release them to the public.

"You know where they are if you drive around," Abbott said. "You can ask every facility whether or not they have chemicals ... and if they do, they tell which ones they have."

But it is virtually impossible to find all but the most obvious chemical plants, the Chronicle found. For instance, a warehouse in Spring Branch that exploded in May, about 1,200 feet from a school west of downtown, housed chemicals that had no public paper trail.

Also, many companies do not understand their responsibilities under the law.

State Sen. Rodney Ellis tried to get the data for the Chronicle from the Department of State Health Services, which ran the state's Tier Two program before another agency took over this year, but he was initially rebuffed.

Then he was told he would have to swear to keep the information secret. He declined.

"I've never heard of a legislator being required to sign an affidavit saying they were accepting criminal liability if (state records) got out of their office," Ellis said. "It makes me wonder what are they hiding?"

He pointed out that even Oklahoma, site of the worst domestic terror attack, freely divulges Tier Twos.

Ellis said legislators should carve out an exception for disclosure within the terrorism statute.

"I don't know how many tragedies like the one out in Spring Branch we have to have to do that," he said.

Abbott did not grant an interview.

A spokesman reaffirmed the governor's position that the information could aid terrorists.

At least 10 states release inventories, and no state has reported a terrorist attack on a plant, according to reviews by the Council on Foreign Relations and the Government Accountability Office. Some states don't release inventories or provide partial information, while others didn't respond to inquiries.

Houston Congressman Gene Green, whose district is among the most heavily industrial in the nation, called for a clear national standard.

Members of the Deer Park Local Emergency Planning Committee listen to a presentation about hurricane threats by Dan Reilly from the National Weather Service at their monthly meeting at Deer Park City Hall Tuesday, May 24, 2016. Attendees include representitives from chemical plants in the area, city personnel and first responders. less Members of the Deer Park Local Emergency Planning Committee listen to a presentation about hurricane threats by Dan Reilly from the National Weather Service at their monthly meeting at Deer Park City Hall ... more Photo: Michael Ciaglo, Houston Chronicle Photo: Michael Ciaglo, Houston Chronicle Image 1 of / 7 Caption Close EPA's fix on chemical safety is already broken 1 / 7 Back to Gallery

"We're not talking about state secrets here," he said. "We've ended up having 50 standards for the community's right to know."

****

Federal law does little to spell out how committees are supposed to advance plant safety.

Charles Sluder, the fire marshal for the city of South Houston, flipped through files in a cabinet to figure out who was even in charge of the local committee. The man listed as the head of the LEPC had died two years earlier.

Sluder, who is now a member of the LEPC, said he tracks which facilities have hazardous materials and makes sure the companies' chemical information is current. He also stops by once in a while.

"I know we're supposed to be proactive, but who's going to put out the information on what we're supposed to do?" Sluder asked. "And who's going to pay for it? We don't have the resources."

Sluder's complaint was echoed by many committees in the area. Congress did not fund LEPCs.

Green said the committees must be funded and monitored by the EPA. He doesn't share the agency's opinion that the committees are at the center of chemical plant safety.

"I've never been to any of them that generated a complaint to the EPA," he said.

Under the 1986 law, LEPCs are to help formulate emergency response plans. In 2014, a federal task force reported that many are incapable of doing so and need training.

Most rules regarding LEPCs relate to being the point of contact between companies and the public.

By law, they must have a chairman and an information coordinator.

They are required to have representatives from local government, environmental groups, emergency management, the media, first-responders, facilities and community groups. A single person can represent multiple groups, and there is no minimum number of members.

Most LEPCs fall short of the rules but face no consequences.

A bigger problem: Many simply don't exist anymore.

Among more than 250 LEPCs in Texas listed with the Department of Public Safety, the Chronicle found 26 with disconnected phone numbers. Emails bounced back or weren't available for 22 percent.

In 2008, the EPA surveyed committees around the nation.

Sixty percent didn't respond.

***

Greater Houston is one of the committees that answers the phone, but it also represents the struggles of the program writ large: trouble releasing information, money problems, no direction.

It initially asked the Chronicle for $8,000 to produce around 680 Tier Two forms. After months of discussions, the LEPC released all its digital copies without charge.

Tier Two Report



View a Tier Two report annotated by the Chronicle below.

Houston-Chronicle-Tier-Two (PDF)

Houston-Chronicle-Tier-Two (Text)

It later produced two boxes of documents, many in sealed envelopes, that had sat in storage.

Inside those envelopes were Tier Twos, but also uncashed checks totaling hundreds of dollars donated by some of the companies in their area.

Greater Houston covers the most territory of any local committee, stretching from Kingwood to just north of Sugar Land.

Last year, the chairman retired and moved to Kansas.

The group lost most of its emails in a technical snafu.

Its bank account was closed because the LEPC didn't have a physical address.

The city of Houston took back the office it had once provided and also reassigned an employee tasked with helping the LEPC.

Denise Walker, chief emergency management officer for Lone Star College, became chairwoman in January. Walker wants the committee to be more active and organized.

The LEPC set up a physical address to apply for grants, reopened its bank account and hired a part-time staffer. It brought in an air quality expert this year, and ran a tabletop exercise, where members verbally walked through safety scenarios, this month. It was the first such training in years.

****

Even the best-funded, smoothest-functioning committees have trouble fulfilling the government's expectations.

The La Porte LEPC meets every month and collects dues from each participating company. In 2014, the committee collected $193,626, making it one of the most well-funded in the state.

It readily provided its chemical inventories to the Chronicle.

It runs annual safety fairs for the public. It shares educational material with businesses and schools on how to shelter in place in the case of emergency.

At the LEPC's suggestion, the city does drills where dispatchers call a random company and say it is now undergoing a chemical emergency. The company then runs through its procedures.

"It's good practice for our dispatchers, too," said Kristin Gauthier, emergency management coordinator for La Porte and an officer of the LEPC.

Gauthier said she knows other committees aren't working well.

"Are you doing training? Are you reviewing plans? Are you communicating to the public? Or are you just checking off things on a list?" she asked.

All that effort didn't prevent multiple failures in response to the fatal leak at the former DuPont plant, where four workers died in November 2014.

The company's emergency vehicles broke down.

City firefighters didn't have enough oxygen for a sustained rescue effort.

The 911 caller from DuPont couldn't identify what chemical was leaking, but that didn't stop him from saying that there was no harm to the public. (In fact, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board has not determined the scope of the danger.)

The plant had a strong supervisor culture and, with the people in charge unaccounted for, no one knew what to do, said Jeff Suggs, the LEPC's vice chairman.

How could something like that happen in a community with such a strong LEPC?

"That was an anomaly. A catastrophic failure," Suggs said. "It could happen anywhere."

***

George Freda remembers the heightened awareness after Bhopal, and he remembers when things at the Unincorporated Harris County LEPC made a turn for the worse.

It came in 1995, when an industry group, the East Harris Chemical Manufacturers Association, proposed that the committee be split into smaller groups, arguing that most of the facilities were near the ship channel.

The plan was approved, and interest in Freda's LEPC waned.

Freda kept attending yearly EPA conferences about LEPCs until 2005, when the funding for those events dried up.

For more than a decade, Freda was the lone person responsible for collecting and disseminating information about hundreds of facilities.

And for all those years, no one approached him for the reports until the Chronicle asked.

He retired late last year, handing off the Tier Twos to his successor.

David Wade, the industry liaison for Harris County's Office of Emergency Management, is the new administrator.

Wade plans to change its name to Greater Harris County, and he wants to coordinate with other LEPCs like South Houston.

It will look for opportunities to put together exercises, he said.

The challenge, Freda said, will be in keeping everyone engaged. Houston has become inured to chemical plant incidents. They produce spectacular TV news footage, then people move on.

"These things tend to get localized," Freda said. "That was on the other side of the channel."

Judge Emmett said he hadn't really paid attention to the committees until now.

He was surprised to learn they are at the center of the EPA's reform efforts.

"It strikes me that the whole structure was created by Congress years ago, and everybody said, 'We've solved that,' and moved on," Emmett said. "Nobody has ever gone back to look at it and see if it works. We'll find out where it doesn't work when there's a disaster. And that's not the way it should happen."

Lauren McGaughy contributed to this story.

***

Read part 4: Federal agencies are at odds over regulation of 'critical issue'

***

Mark Collette finds the information the government and corporations don't want you to see. Contact him at mark.collette@chron.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ChronMC.

Matt Dempsey is the data editor for the Houston Chronicle. He joined the Chronicle in 2014 and has worked on several major projects, including the investigation on the dangers of chemical plants. Matt previously worked for the Arizona Republic and Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Contact him at matt.dempsey@chron.com. Follow him on Twitter at @mizzousundevil.

Subscribe

The Houston Chronicle is dedicated to serving the public interest with fact-based journalism. That mission has never been more important. Show your support for our journalism at HoustonChronicle.com/subscribe.AUSTIN - Attorney General Greg Abbott this week said private companies must release information about their hazardous chemical stockpiles, weeks after his office ruled the same information no longer would be available from state agencies.

"Homeowners who think they might live near stores of dangerous chemicals would simply ask the companies what substances are kept on site," Abbott told reporters Tuesday, adding, "And if they do, they tell which ones they have."

Not everyone agrees with Abbott's reading of the law, however.

Requests by the Houston Chronicle to 20 companies and local emergency response agencies last month produced mixed results: Half of the companies and agencies sent extensive data on the hazardous chemicals they held on site, known as Tier II reports; five sent basic chemical inventories that often did not include amounts or other details; one asked for more information; two refused to release any data; and two did not respond.

The two refusals to release the information came from mining and chemical conglomerate Orica and the Bexar County Local Emergency Planning Committee.

"I appreciate your request for information about our San Antonio site," Orica General Counsel Suzanne Thigpen told the Chronicle in a June 24 email. "We believe, however, that it is in the best interest of the community that details about our site are not disclosed to the public and that sharing those details does not serve the public interest."

'Confidential'

Harold Lovejoy, chairman of the Bexar County Local Emergency Planning Committee, said his agency would not release the requested data, believing Abbott's ruling regarding state agencies also applied to the local committee.

"According to recent instructions from the Texas Attorney General ... the information you requested on Tier II submissions is considered confidential," Lovejoy said. "I will not be asking for a separate ruling by the AG, unless you chose to file legal proceedings, in which case we'll see you in court."

Attorney General spokesman Jerry Strickland on Wednesday said Abbott's ruling on state agencies is not a blanket ban on the release of Tier II reports. Any state entity wishing to deny the release of these records must ask Abbott's office, he said, which Bexar County has not done.

Federal and state law requires Texas officials to gather Tier II reports annually for facilities that house potentially dangerous chemicals in certain quantities. For the last 30 years, that information was available upon request to any member of the public who sought to be involved in state and local emergency preparedness plans or simply wanted to know what possible dangers lie beyond their backyards.

The information was key in revealing how much ammonium nitrate was being stored at the West Fertilizer Company before the deadly blast there last year. The media was able to patch together detailed information of how the volatile chemical, a key component in fertilizer, was stored in facilities across the state through Tier II reports and state fire marshal inspections.

That all changed on May 22, when Abbott ruled the Texas Department of State Health Services did not have to release Tier II data to a Dallas-Fort Worth television station, saying the reports were confidential under a decade-old state homeland security law because the information "indicates the specific location of a chemical, biological agent, toxin, or radioactive material that is more than likely to be used in the construction or assembly" of a weapon.

Davis' response

The campaign of Abbott's Democratic opponent in the governor's race, state Sen. Wendy Davis, gleefully teed up the issue. First, Davis criticized Abbott for his May 22 ruling. This week she blasted his suggestion members of the public "drive around" to locate facilities.

"This would be hilarious if it weren't so alarming," a Wednesday press release stated. "According to the state's attorney general, the man favored to become governor next year, you should 'drive around' looking for facilities that might have dangerous chemicals, then go knock on their door, ask about dangerous chemicals, and hope whoever answers is forthcoming."

Tom "Smitty" Smith, the Texas head of consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, said "this is a huge campaign issue and should be."

"Other former attorneys general would have stood up for the citizens," Smith said. "The process Abbott has now created is almost impossible for the average citizen that doesn't have the Houston Chronicle's name to back them up."

Facing penalties

Abbott acknowledged to the Associated Press on Wednesday that the process may be more difficult than he originally had proposed, calling it "challenging" to get chemical facility information.

Abbott's statements also could encounter opposition from the business community.

Attorney General spokesman Jerry Strickland said any private company that denied the Chronicle's requests was providing the public with "misinformation" and could face unspecified "penalties."

"Chemical companies have an obligation under the Community Right-to-Know Act to disclose that information to the general public within 10 days," Strickland said in a statement to the Chronicle. "Private companies are required to provide the information. Any failure (to) do to so carries with it penalties to be assessed by the Department of State Health Services."

Strickland said Abbott's office was reaching out to the Texas Ag Industries Association, a trade group to which Orica does not belong, to ensure its members understand the law. TAIA President Donnie Dippel said he would urge his members to comply with the law.

Strickland reiterated that the refused information requests were not Abbott's choice, but what was required under state law."

Industry lawyer and lobbyist Pam Giblin said the issue was not that cut and dried.

"If the government doesn't have to release it, how in the world does a private company get this disclosure obligation thrust on it?" Giblin asked, adding she sees possible litigation on the horizon. "There are a lot of homeland security issues. ... I think you're bound to see some court tests because this just doesn't make sense."

Lobbied for many

According to state Ethics Commission reports, Giblin has lobbied for multiple companies the Chronicle contacted for public records, including Albemarle, BASF, Celanese, Chevron, Eastman and Valero, each of which provided either a Tier II report or a chemical inventory list.

The Chronicle contacted 20 companies and local emergency planning offices on June 19 and 25. Seven entities provided Tier II reports: Albemarle, Arkema, Braskem, Brenntag Southwest, Celanese, Eastman, Valero, Tomball Fire Department, Harris County Unincorporated area Local Emergency Planning Commission and the Waco McLennan County Office of Emergency Management.

BASF, Firestone Polymers, Chemtrade, Chevron and Dow provided chemical inventory lists.

ChemQuest, in Pasadena, and Blue Line Corporation, in San Antonio, did not reply to the request.

Eleven days after the original request was made, Citgo asked the Chronicle to submit a new request for information relating to its Corpus Christi refinery.WASHINGTON  A little-known provision tucked into the Farm Bill could exempt the entire chemical manufacturing industry from key workplace safety rules and jeopardize workers health, according to one of the government agencies charged with overseeing safety in the chemical industry.

Officials from the Department of Labor say the provision would create a broad exemption from Occupational Safety and Health Administration standards for managing highly hazardous chemicals, and could have the unintended consequence of allowing a large chemical facility to skirt the rules by claiming to be a retail store.

This could effectively eliminate the entire chemical manufacturing sector from coverage of the (OSHA) standard, jeopardizing the safety and health of chemical facility workers, Labor Department officials wrote, in documents obtained by the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News.

Five years ago, an explosion at a West, Texas fertilizer plant killed 15 people and injured more than 200 people.

In the aftermath of the disaster, OSHA tried to clarify existing rules to make sure facilities similar to the one in West would face more scrutiny. A Dallas Morning News investigation in 2013 found there were more than 70 sites like West Fertilizer Company in Texas alone.

A lawsuit by the fertilizer industry stopped OSHAs attempts, beginning a push and pull between lobbyists and chemical safety advocates on the right way to regulate these potentially dangerous facilities. After the 2016 election, the Trump administration swept into office backed by a GOP majority in Congress looking to roll back the reforms, which had been initiated during the Obama presidency.

The new provision, nestled into the massive Farm Bill, which passed the House in June, is being hashed out in a conference committee with the Senate, which approved its own bill without the OSHA exemption.

Congress is fast running out of time to meet a Sept. 30 deadline for reaching agreement on the five-year, $430 billion bill, struggling for agreement on key provisions, among them insistence by House Republicans on adding a work requirement to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the governments biggest food aid program.

Agriculture retailers group led effort

The fate of the proposed OSHA exemption may not be decided any time soon. Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., who chairs the Senate Agriculture Committee, worried aloud this week that negotiators would not meet the end of September fiscal year deadline and that it would be a tall order to get the legislation passed before the election.

Opponents say theres an ulterior motive to putting the new chemical safety provision in the farm bill instead of a separate piece of legislation.

Theyre trying to codify bad language into law so a future administration would be unable to do anything about it, said Katie Tracy, policy analyst for the Center for Progressive Reform, Theyre putting it in the Farm Bill where no one will ever see it.

The Agriculture Retailers Association, which represents companies big and small, spearheaded the drive for the exemptions written into the Farm Bill.

Kyle Liske, the associations public policy director, says the Obama-administration OSHA regulations would cost his industry more than $100 million.

Liske points out that retailers already comply with regulations from multiple government agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency. He says the more stringent OSHA rules are not necessary, and retailers should be exempted from them. Besides, he said, the explosion in West was fueled by ammonium nitrate, which is not regulated by OSHA. The stricter requirements would apply to a different chemical entirely, anhydrous ammonia.

Its like regulating trucks in response to a rail accident. It simply doesnt make sense, he said.

The argument over how OSHA distinguishes between retailers and manufacturers has been at the heart of resistance to the new rules.

Five years later, new safety rules in limbo

An investigation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives determined the fire leading to the explosion at West was an act of arson. The Chemical Safety Boards investigation revealed a laundry list of problems at the facility; highly combustible fertilizer was stored in wooden bins and was too close to other hazardous chemicals, chemicals would frequently mix and cross contaminate, and the site was too close to homes and school in town.

As part of the overhaul of chemical safety rules ordered by Obama, OSHA issued a guidance document that was supposed to clarify which facilities would be considered retailers, and would therefore be exempt.

The fertilizer industry challenged OSHAs guidelines in court, and won. The federal government was back to square one.

Consequently, little has changed with OSHA regulations since the West explosion and its fallout. Its still unclear who is considered a retailer under OSHA process safety regulations. The Chemical Safety Boards recommendation to consider ammonium nitrate a hazardous chemical has not been considered by OSHA or Congress.

CHRONICLE INVESTIGATION: How an industry thwarted Obama, even after tragedy

Chemical safety advocates are worried thats the way it will stay if the House provision makes it into law.

Theyre trying to make sure that OSHA never has jurisdiction over places like the facility in West,  said Rena Steinzor, a University of Maryland law professor who tracks chemical regulations. If theres not a flashlight shining on this dark corner, an explosion like West is going to happen again.

She said many of the existing regulations are not enough. For example, West Fertilizer Company had not seen an OSHA inspector in more than a decade before the explosion.

Jordan Barab, OSHAs deputy assistant secretary in the Obama administration, says that approval of the OSHA provision adopted by the House would be bad for worker safety.

If this is successful, it would be the first case of an industry saying, We understand this is important, but we want to be exempted, This really is a precedent you dont want to set, Barab said.AUSTIN - The public no longer can access key information about hazardous chemical facilities in their neighborhoods, the state attorney general has ruled, a move that local officials and advocates say threatens community safety.

"I have no clue what they're doing over there," West Mayor Tommy Muska said, referring to the office of Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott.

On April 17, Muska marked one year since a massive explosion at a local fertilizer company killed 16 people, most of them first responders, and injured many more.

"If we learned anything about the explosion in West, it's there is a lack of knowledge of where these chemicals are stored," he said.

Federal and state law requires Texas officials to gather detailed inventories, called Tier II reports, annually on facilities that house potentially dangerous chemicals in certain quantities. For the last 30 years, that information was available upon request to any member of the public who sought to be involved in state and local emergency preparedness plans or simply wanted to know what possible dangers lay in their backyards.

That all began to change late last year when Abbott told state agencies in charge of collecting the information that Tier II reports were confidential because the information "indicates the specific location of a chemical, biological agent, toxin, or radioactive material that is more than likely to be used in the construction or assembly" of a weapon.

Abbott's office said it issued the rulings in response to letters from several departments that said the Tier II reports should be confidential under state law. The earliest came from Texas A&M University System and Texas AgriLife Research in July 2013; the Department of Insurance and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality requested similar rulings from Abbott in August and November.

Based on these rulings, the Department of State Health Services, the lead agency that oversees Tier II reports, sent a request to the attorney general also stating the information should be kept confidential. On May 22, Assistant Attorney General Megan G. Holloway issued a ruling to this effect. Soon after, public records requests from media outlets began to be denied.

Data request refused

Dallas-Fort Worth television station WFAA Channel 8 broke the news this week, detailing the denial of its request for information on an ammonium nitrate storage facility in Athens. The building caught fire on May 29, a potential disaster for local first responders, but the health department told WFAA it was "not able to release the kind of information you're requesting" when it asked for the facility's Tier II report.

Carrie Williams, director of media relations at the health department, shot back at reports that all Tier II information was being blocked from release, saying the agency was considering each records request on a case-by-case basis.

"Certain aspects of Tier II information is certainly release-able," Williams said, adding the reports would continue to be provided to state and local emergency planners and fire departments. "We're not blanket denying; we're sending every request to the attorney general for a ruling right now."

She confirmed five to 10 media requests had been denied since late May.

Muska said he had not personally reviewed Abbott's rulings but could understand the need to balance public safety with the free flow of information. However, that should not mean law-abiding citizens should have less access to information, he said.

"I can agree with their point that, yes, it is something that has a terrorist kind of threat to it," Muska said. "But I think the public has to know, somehow, some way."

The West Fertilizer Co., the facility involved in the April 2013 blast, filed a Tier II report in 2012 that showed it had at least 270 tons of ammonium nitrate, a dangerously combustible chemical. The information was publicly available, but no one flagged the large stockpile.

'Goes way too far'

Tom "Smitty" Smith, Texas head of consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, said Abbott, the Republican candidate for governor, was standing up for "the polluters as opposed to the people" by upholding facilities' right to secrecy.

"The possibility that these materials may be made into a bomb is being used to create a blanket exemption that we believe goes way too far," Smith said. "They're overreacting in this, and citizens should be able to find out whether they're living next to something that could possibly blow up."

It is unclear whether federal authorities will intervene to ensure the information is publicly accessible and the Environmental Protection Agency did not answer inquiries Friday on whether the rulings from Abbott's office conflict with federal law.

According to the EPA, all information submitted under the federal Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act, including Tier II reports, is publicly accessible, unless protected by trade secret claim.

Houston Chronicle reporter Matthew Tresaugue contributed to this reportThe Texas voter rolls have grown to 15.6 million people, a new record, and a jump of 1.6 million since the last time Texas held a midterm election in 2014, said Texas Secretary of State Rolando Pablos.

That includes nearly a 400,000-person increase since March, election records show. To put that number in perspective, from 2002 to 2014, the state added just over 100,000 voters a year, on average.

Since March, the states largest counties, Bexar, Harris, Dallas and Tarrant, all saw their voter registrations grow about 2.4 percent on average.

Now Playing: FOX 26 The News Edge reporter CoCo Dominguez Video: Fox 26 Houston

Recently, we have heard from a number of county election officials who tell us they are witnessing voter registration rates and voter enthusiasm in a midterm year that we usually see before Presidential-year elections, which is phenomenal, Pablos said. On the whole, we are seeing Texans become more engaged, which is very healthy for the future of our state.

The surge of registered voters comes as Texas watches the hottest U.S. Senate race in the country between U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and Democratic Congressman Beto ORourke, as well as a half-dozen close congressional races that could determine control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

More Information Voter Registration in Texas For Midterm elections over last 20 years 2018 - 15.6 million 2014 - 14.0 million 2010 - 13.2 million 2006 - 13.1 million 2002 - 12.6 million 1998 - 11.5 million SOURCE: Texas Secretary of State See More Collapse

Over the past six months, Harris County has added 55,000 voters  more than any other county. But the growth has been even more pronounced in suburban counties ringing Houston. In Fort Bend and Montgomery counties, voter rolls grew 3 percent. In Collin and Denton counties just north of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, voter registration jumped almost 4 percent.

Two fast-growing counties that border Austin have seen the largest gains by percentage. In Williamson County, just north of Austin, the voter registration jumped over 4 percent. The biggest gain since March has been in Hays County, which saw a 4.4 percent increase in the number of registered voters.

The burst in interest from voters is evident in counties with competitive races for Congress, adding an extra degree of uncertainty to those races. The 22nd Congressional District, which includes most of Fort Bend County, the 32nd Congressional District, which includes Collin County, the 21st District, which includes parts of Hays County, and the 31st District, which includes Williamson County, are considered the races with Republicans facing some of their stiffest opposition in Texas.

The jump in registrations in those districts make sense, University of Houston political scientist Brandon Rottinghaus said.

Competitive elections increase voter interest, he said, adding that the U.S. Senate race is also a factor.

And there is still time for more voters to join the rolls before Oct. 9, the final day to register in time to vote in the midterm elections.

The surge in voter registration comes despite the difficulties of registering voters in Texas. State law requires that to register voters, a person must be trained by a Volunteer Deputy Registrar in each county they do their work, a provision that discourages many groups from doing voter registration drives.

To register to vote, Texas residents can fill out an application online or contact their county election administrators office.

Registering to vote and casting a ballot are two different things in Texas. Despite having 14 million registered voters in 2014, just 4.7 million people voted  about 34 percent of voters. In presidential cycles, voter turnout is much higher, hitting almost 60 percent in 2016 and 2012.

jeremy.wallace@chron.comWhen Blue Cross Blue Shield planted its flag in Texas, it was committed to providing quality health care. But over time, our states largest insurer lost its way.

Last year I was diagnosed with oral cancer. That diagnosis set off a chain of events that left me stuck with a massive bill after BCBS refused to pay for my cancer treatment. So far, they have demanded that I pay back more than $60,000 and when all is said and done my final bill could reach over $100,000. I now find myself in a David versus Goliath battle with the company, fighting over the necessity of the treatment that left me cancer free and without horrible side effects.

My diagnosis was followed by a whirlwind of tests and multiple consultations, after which I was told that I may need to consider traditional radiation therapy. The treatment would destroy my cancer but would also expose healthy tissue in my neck and throat to radiation with life-altering side effects and complications including the possibility of permanently damaged saliva glands, taste buds, jawbone, thyroid and a possible speech impediment.

As a former country radio show host and current voice-over actor for commercials, losing my voice was unthinkable. So, I began looking at other options and learned about proton therapy. It is effective at fighting cancer but without the harmful side effects. Doctors are able to target the bulk of the cancer-fighting proton energy on the cancerous cells while avoiding damage to healthy tissue.

That meant Id have my voice and would enjoy a quicker recovery. It was a no-brainer. However, the doctors warned me that insurers have a pattern of rubber-stamping denials for proton therapy, even though it is FDA-cleared and approved by Medicare as an effective, covered cancer treatment.

As predicted, BCBS denied my claim, and we fought through three rounds of appeals. The company was using outdated research to claim that proton therapy was unproven. They refused to consider the facts of my case, up-to-date research, or the appeals of the cancer care experts at MD Anderson who carefully explained the medical necessity of proton therapy for my specific case.

With my treatment delayed by weeks and my tumor growing, I decided to pay out-of-pocket for proton therapy. As a last resort, I wrote to my state representative who escalated my fight to the Texas Department of Insurance. After the Departments Enforcement Division got involved, BCBS began to pay claims, and ultimately paid 27 of the 33 treatments.

Ironically, the day after my hometown of Wichita Falls signed a proclamation celebrating BCBS for their dedication to the community, the company sent me 27 letters stating that my proton therapy claims had been paid in error and demanded the funds be returned. So much for delivering top-notch service.

Unfortunately, my case is not unique. Insurers have a history of unfair delays and denials targeting cancer patients seeking proton therapy. In fact, insurers initially deny 2 out of every 3 requests according to research by the Alliance for Proton Therapy Access. Cancer patients seeking chemotherapy, prescription drugs and other treatments also experience costly delays and denials. And as in my case, cancer patients cannot wait weeks or months before receiving a final decision about whether their treatment will be covered. We need to be focused on fighting cancer, not our insurers.

Insurers should not be allowed to delay or inappropriately deny a cancer patients access to the treatment their expert physicians recommend. As one of the 5 million Texans with BCBS, Im urging Texas Insurance Commissioner Kent Sullivan to step up and hold insurers accountable. He can do this by adopting and enforcing principles of the Cancer Patients Timely Treatment Bill of Rights, a set of common-sense practices that can help ensure cancer patients receive timely and fair access to the care they deserve.

Montgomery is a cancer survivor and advocate with the Alliance for Proton Therapy Access.My, how times have changed. Once rivals, President Donald Trump and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz are now fighting together against the biggest challenge to Republicans in Texas since the days of Lyndon B. Johnson.

As Democrats continue their absolutist strategy against the GOP, President Trump demonstrates greater valor by putting old rivalries firmly in the past. As a leader, the president is proving hes quick to forgive but even quicker to put Americas interests first.

One of the unsung successes in politics this year, in fact, has been the way that the GOP has united behind the leadership of President Trump. This unity was reflected in the presidentsrecent tweet when he wrote, I will be doing a major rally for Senator Ted Cruz in October. Im picking the biggest stadium in Texas we can find. As you know, Ted has my complete and total Endorsement.

Together Trump and Cruz know that losing a Senate seat in Texas to the likes of Democrat Congressman Beto ORourke would not only intensify the division in Washington, but also could even slow all the progress our country has made since Trump took office.

Texas cant let that happen.

Thats because the Republican Party under Trumps leadership is producing real results that are improving the lives of all Americans.

Despite a tough and competitive primary campaign in 2016, Trump and Cruz have become close allies in their efforts to make America great again..

After endorsing then-candidate Trump in the fall of 2016, Cruz hit the campaign trail to rally support for the Republican nominee. He made calls to voters and gave speeches with then-Gov. Mike Pence in states like Missouri and Iowa.

The formal rivals put their differences aside to prevent the nightmare of a Hillary Clinton presidency from becoming a reality, and theyre continuing to do everything possible to further the presidents successful record of achievement.

Since Trump took office, Cruz has been a stalwart defender of the America-first agenda in the Senate. Ive been proud to lead the effort to bring Republicans together, Cruz said last month. According to Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Cruz has become a confidant who gets the job done for the President of the United States. He is the go-to guy Hes the guy whos the leader in the Senate, without question, Patrick added.

The proof of this alliance is also seen in Cruzs voting record.

Hes voted over 90 percent of the time with Trump, supporting the presidents pro-middle class Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, and he introduced legislation to fund Trump's border wall and defund sanctuary cities that shelter criminal illegal immigrants.

Yet, while the Republican Party is unifying and delivering on its promises to the American people, the Democrats are drowning in discord.

They still cant accept that Trump won the election, and their feverish resistance has fractured their party on multiple levels. While some scream for impeachment, cooler heads try to soften the tone, but to no avail.

Trump and Cruz have put the past behind them and come together to protect our borders, keep our neighborhoods safe and ensure our economy continues to thrive. We must protect our progress and prevent Democrat division from interfering with the benefits America is gaining from the leadership of the Trump-led Republican Party.

Mosbacher is a former Republican National Committee finance co-chair, and spokesman for sexual assault legislation. She served as co-chair of five presidential campaigns, and is a national surrogate for President Trump.Indeed, 51% of people born pre-1964 work remotely for more than half the week, in comparison to a similar 49% of those born after 1980.

Consequently, the digital age has enabled people of all ages to work remotely more than ever before, which has in turn fuelled demand for flexible workspace.

For people born after 1980, 59% believe flexible workspace keeps employee skills up-to-date through interaction with other professionals, compared to 42% of those born pre-1964.

Ferrandon added that as attitudes to workplaces continue to change, it is more important than ever to understand the expectations of all employees to create a thriving culture.

A multi-generational workforce also appreciates different aspects of a flexible workspace, as the findings show that the generation born pre-1964 prioritise the productivity benefits, whereas those post-1980 prefer the creative aspects.High-Level Conference on Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the Mediterranean and Black Sea

September 25,2018 | Source: WWF

Fisheries Ministers, the European Commission, GFCM-FAO, and key stakeholders including WWF will meet in Malta for the official adoption of the Regional Plan of Action for Small-Scale Fisheries in the Mediterranean and Black Sea (RPOA-SSF). This will demonstrate the strong political commitment to ensure a sustainable future for the sector.



The Conference will consist of a first day dedicated to stakeholder discussions to highlight best practices in the regions, followed by a high-level event with Ministers and EU Commission on the second day.



On the 25th at 14:30 CET, WWF will moderate the panel discussion "Promoting co-management to achieve sustainable small-scale fisheries", and on the 26th, WWF, GFCM-FAO, LIFE, CIHEAM, MEDAC, and BlSAC will sign a Charter Friends of Small Scale Fishery to improve the sustainable management of SSF in the regions.

 2017 WWF - World Wide Fund For Nature 1986 Panda Symbol WWF  World Wide Fund For Nature (formerly World Wildlife Fund)

Theme(s): Others.India to set up Centre for Sustainable Aquaculture in Tiruchi

by R. Krishnamoorthy

September 24,2018 | Source: The Hindu

The Tamil Nadu Dr. J. Jayalalithaa Fisheries University (TNJFU) has been sanctioned land in Tiruchi district for establishing a freshwater ornamental fish brood bank for sustainable aqua farming.



The district administration has understandably granted enter upon permission to the university to establish the States seventh Centre for Sustainable Aquaculture on a 50-acre site near Jeeyapuram. In the next phase, more land will be required for establishing a fish farm, the Director of Directorate of Sustainable Aquaculture (DCeSA), Thanjavur, J. Stephen Sampath Kumar said.



The six other CeSAs under the control of the university's Directorate of Sustainable Aquaculture exist at Soorakkotai in Thanjavur district, Mandapam in Ramanathapuram district, Ganapathipuram and Prakkai in Kanniyakumari district, Barur in Krishnagiri district, and Bhavanisagar in Erode district.



The Directorate, a nodal agency for implementing the TN irrigated Agriculture Modernisation Program until 2023, has been providing on- campus and off-campus training programmes regularly for the benefit of the farmers, entrepreneurs, women SHG members, fisher women, and rural unemployed youth on freshwater fish farming, carp seed production, ornamental fish farming, and preparation of value-added fishery products.



The Thanjavur centre grew into a production centre with fish production and marketing through retail sale outlet (Kayalaham). Last year, the Kayalaham sales outlet was started in the campus of Fisheries College and Research Institute, Ponneri, for sale of fish products: Masala Flavour Nethili dried fish, plain Nethili dried fish, prawn pickle, dried prawn(big), Fish & Prawn kurkure and other products.



Formed to enhance aquaculture production in the State, the DCeSA is mandated with the tasks of developing and running the production centres at outstations of the University for the benefit of conducting research and experiential learning of the students; establishing new stations with focus on economically important species for the development of culture technology for adoption, establishing and running farms in the strategic locations and forming platforms for the students and staff research; and transferring the viable technologies through demonstration and training to the stakeholders.



Last year, the DCeSA had trained close to 400 persons in basic shrimp culture techniques, application of electronic equipment in fishing, basic techniques in ornamental fish culture and breeding, and basic pre and post processing techniques for fish processing workers.



Earlier this year, the TNJFU signed a MoU with National Fisheries Development Board, Hyderabad, paving way for the former to function as a Regional Training Centre to conduct various skill training in fisheries.

 2018, The Hindu

Theme(s): Fisheries Development and Aquaculture.The European Parliament to hold two meetings in October on the fisheries agreement

Next October, members of the Fisheries Committee in the European Parliament will be examining the fisheries agreement concluded last July between Morocco and the European Commission.



On Tuesday, October the 8th the parliament will take a look, with the authorities of the Kingdom of Morocco, at the partnership agreement in the field of sustainable fisheries signed by the EU and Morocco.



A similar meeting will take place the day after and will be attended by the representatives of the Western Sahara inhabitants.



For the record, Morocco and the European Union (EU) signed last July, a new fisheries agreement Morocco-EU marking the end of negotiations started a few months ago.

 Yabiladi.com 2002 - 2017

Theme(s): Fisheries Development and Aquaculture.Japan to keep up efforts to recover depleted bluefin tuna stock

September 23,2018 | Source: The Japan Times

Japans bid to expand the catch quotas for Pacific bluefin tuna by 15 percent  in light of the moderate recovery in its depleted stock following the catch limits introduced in 2015  was turned down at a recent meeting of the Northern Committee of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) in Fukuoka due to opposition from two of its members. While Japans call for raising the quotas was made in response to complaints from domestic fishermen that their livelihood is threatened by the catch limits, the lack of consensus at the regional conference indicates that an increase was still premature given that the bluefin tuna stock remains far below its peak in the 1960s.



Pacific bluefin tuna are in high demand in Japan for sashimi and as ingredients for high-grade sushi. However, overfishing in the past several decades has depleted its stocks  to the point where extinction of the species has come to be feared. The stock of adult Pacific bluefin tuna capable of breeding declined after peaking at some 170,000 tons in 1961  falling to as low as 12,000 tons in 2010.



Under the current WCPFC regulations introduced to recover the stock, its member states and areas will keep their catch of young tuna weighing less than 30 kg to no more than half the annual average over the period from 2002 to 2004, and that of the larger fish weighing at least 30 kg to no more than the 2002-2004 average. Japans catch quota is 4,007 tons for small Pacific bluefin tuna and 4,882 tons for the larger fish.



However, domestic fishermen who rely on the tuna catch say the catch limits put their livelihood in danger. Their complaints were exacerbated by prefecture-by-prefecture limits introduced by the Fisheries Agency in July to tighten its control on the tuna catch. For example, the quota allocated to the fisheries cooperative in the town of Oma, Aomori Prefecture  known nationwide for its catch of top-grade bluefin tuna  was reduced to about 70 percent of the haul last year. Fishermen from across the country staged a protest in Tokyo to let the government know of their opposition to the tightened catch limits.



Tokyos proposal at the Fukuoka gathering of the WCPFCs Northern Committee, which counts Japan, South Korea, the United States and Taiwan among its 10 members, was made in response to such complaints from the domestic tuna fishermen. The proposal called for increasing the catch quotas for each member by 15 percent as early as in 2019 and enabling the members to carry over part of their unused quota  up to 5 percent of the upper limit  to the following year.



Japan based its proposal on a recent estimate generated from international scientific research that the stock of adult Pacific bluefin tuna made a moderate recovery from the bottom in 2010 to some 21,000 tons in 2016  and that the WCPFCs tentative target of raising the stock back to 43,000 tons by 2024 would be achievable even if the annual catch quota is expanded by 15 percent. Last year, the WCPFC adopted new rules that adjust catch quotas according to the extent of stock recovery.



However, the proposal could not obtain a required consensus endorsement by the committee due to opposition from the U.S. and Cook Islands, which argued that the bluefin tuna stock has not yet sufficiently recovered. True, the estimated stock as of 2016 is still far below the peak in the 1960s, and there is still a long way to go to achieve a long-term goal adopted by the WCPFC last year to boost the stock to 130,000 tons by 2034. The Fisheries Agency itself accepts that the Pacific bluefin tuna stock, which was put by the International Union for Conservation of Nature on its red list of species facing a high risk of extinction in 2014, is still at low levels.



As the worlds largest consumer of Pacific bluefin tuna, Japan needs to keep up efforts  many of which have just begun  to recover the stock to sufficiently sustainable levels by reconciling the interests of its fisheries business with the need to protect marine resources.



Tight control of the catch by domestic fishermen to ensure compliance with the international regulations  which will contribute to the credibility of Japans efforts at preservation against international skepticism that overconsumption by Japan is pushing some species to the brink of extinction  is inevitable in order to ensure long-term sustainability of the fisheries industry. Further efforts should be made to introduce a mechanism to certify the catch in order to stop the trade in illegally caught tuna, which would also enhance the effectiveness of the catch-control scheme.

 THE JAPAN TIMES LTD.

Theme(s): Fisheries Resources.160 vessels inspected by NZ and Fiji in joint maritime patrols

September 24,2018 | Source: RNZ

New Zealand and Fiji authorities have inspected 160 vessels in Fiji waters during combined maritime patrols since June.



It is the second consecutive year the New Zealand Defence Force has deployed navy vessels to help Fiji patrol its 1.2 million square kilometres of ocean.



The first phase of this year's patrols were conducted by the inshore patrol vessel HMNZS Taupo, with the offshore patrol vessel HMNZS Otago taking over in September.



Six fishery officers and two shore-based fisheries analysts from New Zealand's Ministry for Primary Industries also supported the boarding and inspection of vessels at sea.



Fiji's Director of Fisheries Aisake Batibasaga said the New Zealand agencies provided excellent support to Fiji in enforcing its fisheries rules and regulations.



About 1,160 hours were spent on patrol during the combined operation which covered 23,000 kilometres and also involved personnel from the Republic of Fiji Navy, Fiji's Ministry of Fisheries, Revenue and Customs Service.

 Copyright  2018, Radio New Zealand

Theme(s): Fishing Craft, Gear and Fishing Methods, Freshwater ecosystems and threats.23,000 Fatima Rosary Rallies on October 13th will be Largest in History Contact: Robert Ritchie, America Needs Fatima, 866-584-6012, reritchie@gmail.com



ROSSVILLE, Kan., Sept. 26, 2018 /Christian Newswire/ -- Twenty three thousand captains are gearing up to lead individual prayer rallies nationwide to commemorate the Miracle of the Sun and Our Lady of Fatima's urgent message of conversion in the annual Public Square Rosary Crusade on Saturday, October 13, at noon.



It will be the largest network of public rosary praying in history, and it is sponsored by America Needs Fatima.



Since 2007, America Needs Fatima has organized annual rosary rallies. But in 2018, the rallies have been received with special hope.



National rosary rally coordinator, Francis Slobodnik, said:



"Deep down, people feel that we cannot keep on this path of sin and chaos. They sense the need for a pathway back to God and Our Lady on both a personal and national level. That is why 23,000 captains agreed to organize individual rallies in their own towns. This gives them a sense of hope and accomplishment -- real hope for America, because there is no human solution to the breakdown in moral standards.



"Our biggest challenge is not recruiting new captains, but rather finding the time to speak with all the people who call in and express interest."



Each rally captain received a beautiful long banner to display at their rally. The message on the banner reads: "PRAY THE ROSARY. As human efforts fail to solve America's key problems, we turn to God, through His Holy Mother, asking His urgent help." "So many people are turning to the Fatima message and especially the Rosary for hope because it offers a sure remedy to our wild and godless culture," Slobodnik continued. "Prayer, penance and true conversion are the answer to the personal problems, addictions and sufferings in so many lives."



America Needs Fatima is a campaign of the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP), which is also distributing rosaries free of charge to Catholics and non-Catholics. To join a Rosary Rally or to receive a free rosary, call toll-free: 1-866-584-6012.



For interviews:

Contact: Robert Ritchie

Phone: 866-584-6012

E-mail:

Web site:



Share Tweet "So many people are turning to the Fatima message and especially the Rosary for hope because it offers a sure remedy to our wild and godless culture," Slobodnik continued. "Prayer, penance and true conversion are the answer to the personal problems, addictions and sufferings in so many lives."America Needs Fatima is a campaign of the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP), which is also distributing rosaries free of charge to Catholics and non-Catholics. To join a Rosary Rally or to receive a free rosary, call toll-free: 1-866-584-6012.For interviews:Contact: Robert RitchiePhone: 866-584-6012E-mail: reritchie@gmail.com Web site: www.ANF.orgUF students were in the presence of royalty Tuesday night.

More than 60 people stood as Queen Quet, the chieftess and head of state of the Gullah Geechee nation, slowly entered the UF Chemistry Lab auditorium.

The queen, whose legal name is Marquetta Goodwine, was dressed in a long, patterned royal purple gown and wore her thick, curly braids underneath a black headwrap.

Golden bangles clacked on her wrist as she gently waved the Gullah Geechee flag, singing the deep, loud notes of a song in the Gullah language.

The Gullah Geechee people are African slave descendents who live in Georgia, Florida, South Carolina and the Sea Islands off of North Carolina.

The queens speech covered topics ranging from environmental issues and the exploitation of the Gullah Geechee people to the flooding the community is facing after the devastation in the Carolinas from Hurricane Florence.

Were losing the real treasures, she said.

Ryan Thomson, a 29-year-old UF sociology and criminology & law doctoral student, said he wrote his dissertation on environmental justice and the South Carolina Gullah Geechee people over the summer. Thomson and Queen Quet are working to bring post-hurricane relief aid to northeastern South Carolina and the Gullah Geechee islands.

The Gullah Geechee people are stereotyped as exotic, overly emotional natives in southern island regions of the United States, Queen Quet said. The culture is rooted in agriculture, oral history and religion, she said.

Queen Quet hugged Aaron Doziers daughters, Aayanna, 12, and Anjel, 11, after her speech.

Dozier, a 35-year-old Gainesville resident, said his father told him to listen to the Geechee music to improve his singing as a child in the church choir. He said its time for his daughters to learn about the history of African families who were brought to the Carolinas from a credible source like the queen.

We keep a piece of that history together, he said.

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Contact Angela DiMichele at adimichele@alligator.org and follow her on Twitter at @angdimi

Queen Quet, the chieftess and head of state of the Gullah Geechee nation, talked with attendees after her speech at UF Tuesday night. She is from Saint Helena Island in South Carolina.Students walking through Turlington Hall or the Plaza of the Americas have likely heard the same question: Are you registered to vote in Alachua County?

On Tuesday, students had yet another opportunity to get registered thanks to Gators Vote Everywhere and the Alachua County Supervisor of Elections. At Pugh Hall, 46 people registered to vote or updated their registration and more than 100 people pledged to vote, said Jenna Tingum, the Gators Vote Everywhere team leader.

The Alligator spoke to students at the event about why voting matters, and what they feel are the most critical issues facing the nation. Here are five of their responses:

Jenna Tingum, 20, statistics junior

Emily Thomas Jenna Tingum, 20, statistics junior

As the team leader for Gators Vote Everywhere, Tingum devoted her Tuesday to helping students register to vote. As students filtered through the doors, Tingum greeted them with a smile and a Polaroid camera to capture their civic activism.

She hopes that Tuesdays festivities inspired students to exercise their right to vote in the upcoming election.

We are among the biggest potential voting blocks, but we are among the fewest who turn out, Tingum said. If we band together and vote this election, we will have a massive effect on the democracy.

Tingum believes that encouraging students to participate in elections is the most pressing political issue. She hopes to reach potential student voters by engaging people who may not necessarily be interested in politics and relating their degrees to current political topics, she said.

I feel like each person has their niche, like what theyre really excited about and what motivates them to get out, Tingum said.

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Harjot Sodhi, 20, economics sophomore

Emily Thomas Harjot Sodhi, 20, economics sophomore

Harjot Sodhi, who also volunteers with Gators Vote Everywhere, believes voting is especially important for students because they are the ones who often feel they arent sufficiently represented in politics. Voting serves as a way to hold politicians accountable, he said.

I want to uphold our democracy, and I think that voting is one of the most important rights that we are given, and it is the ultimate way for us to be represented and have our voices heard, Sodhi said.

Like Tingum, Sodhi considers voting to be one of the most important issues facing Floridians, specifically the voting rights of felons.

In Florida there are a lot of different issues and races going on, Sodhi said. But I think one of the most important ones, which is actually quite a non-partisan issue, is the right to restore voting rights for convicted felons.

Katy Frey, 19, environmental management in agriculture and natural resources sophomore

Emily Thomas Katy Frey, 19, environmental management in agriculture and natural resources sophomore

Katy Frey used National Voter Registration Day as an opportunity to pledge to vote. Since students could be the ones sitting in Congress one day, its important to be civically engaged now, she said.

Frey believes students can use their voices to help shape the future, which she hopes to see happen in regards to the environment.

I just think a lot of things were doing are negatively impacting how we will live in the future, Frey said. So I think its really important that we put people in office that are willing to address these issues.

Jamie Lee, 21, statistics and political science senior

Emily Thomas Jamie Lee, 21, statistics and political science senior

Jamie Lee pledged to vote on Tuesday because she believes young people should be the ones making decisions for the future, she said.

For students specifically, its important because this is the age where you start to get involved in politics and the real world, so its important to start paying attention, Lee said.

Some of the issues most important to Lee include gun control and general equality, such as womens rights, civil rights and the right to sexuality, she said.

We are all people, Lee said. I dont think anyone should be discriminated against because of anything about how we are.

Dana Daley, 20, political science junior

Emily Thomas Dana Daley, 20, political science junior

Dana Daley plans to show up at the polls in November because she wants to challenge the stigma that young people dont have the power to make a change in government. College students and young people have been at the forefront of most social movements and hold more influence than they realize, she said.

Daley doesnt think the most notable political issue is immigration, voting rights or any other specific policy. Instead, she feels what the country desperately needs is for people to come together, despite party affiliation, to work toward a change everyone can agree on, she said.

I think unification is what we need more than anything, Daley said.A noose left on campus. A white nationalist rallying. A man displaying a Swastika. All within a year.

UF has been given an F ranking for racial representation by a University of Southern California Race and Equity Center study. The study was released Tuesday. It shows the university was one of eight in Florida that received the lowest grade in the racial representation category, which is measured by how black undergraduate student enrollment reflects the population of 18- to 24-year-old black Florida residents.

A look into the centers data shows that only 6.1 percent of UFs Student Body is black. This is the fourth-lowest percentage out of the 13 public Florida universities.

Mackintosh Joachim, a 19-year-old UF finance and womens studies sophomore, and the treasurer of UFs National Association for the Advancement of Colored People chapter, was not surprised that UF failed in racial representation equity.

They claim they care about diversity, they claim they care about inclusion, Joachim said. However, none of it has happened.

Eight other Florida universities received F rankings. Only three schools were given a D rating, including Florida International University. Florida Atlantic University received the highest ranking in the state at a C, according to the report.

UF was also given a C for gender equity, a B for completion equity and a B for black student-to-faculty ratio.

Joachim said he feels out of touch as the only black student in some of his classes. Its difficult to go to class with a white female professor discussing the experiences of an African-American woman, he said.

If UF hired more black faculty members, then students would most likely feel welcome at this university, Joachim said.

UF practices a race-blind admissions process, which means race is not considered when selecting a student said Rick Bryant, the UF director of admissions operations. Reports like this dont take into consideration students who dont disclose their race or those who are multiracial, he said.

We want the University of Florida to represent the best and the brightest who are in the state of Florida, Bryant said.

UF has been working to improve its race equity by reaching out to students as young as eighth grade through recruitment and partnership programs, Bryant said. He also said UF was one of the founding members of Coalition, a universal college application service that promotes diversity in race and income in college applicants.

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But for Joachim, to improve the race representation equity rates, UF needs to listen to the black student body more.

This is a wake-up call to UF and President Fuchs to try to change things on campus, Joachim said.

Contact Dana Cassidy at dcassidy@alligator.org and follow her on Twitter at @danacassidy_In 2012, when Jeremy Tepper founded Spartan Armor Systems, it was a one-man-in-a-garage side gig--mainly selling steel-plated body armor to survivalists on eBay. The border patrol program manager by day discovered a novel way to stop bullets from fragmenting upon impact with his steel plates, which are less costly than other body armor materials. He'd spray the plates with Rhino Lining, the same coating used to line flat-bed trucks. In 2015, his day job won out to his side gig. Tepper turned to Todd Meeks and Kevin Strnatka, who acquired the company in 2015. Here's how Meeks, now the CEO, formalized the business and guided it to No. 1201 on this year's Inc. 5000. --as told to Cameron Albert-Deitch

Jeremy sold the armor part-time out of his garage; he was a border patrol program manager by day. He used an old plasma table to cut the plates, and as the business started growing, it overwhelmed him.

He'd do his border patrol job from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m., run around from 2-6 p.m. gathering up materials to fulfill orders, and make the plates from 6 p.m. until 12, 1, 2, whatever it took. He'd take those orders to the post office the following morning.

At the time, I was a business broker. I'd find buyers for people who wanted to sell their businesses. My former college roommate, Kevin Strnatka, owned one of the local Rhino Linings dealers here in Arizona. He came to me and said, "I've got this guy, and I'm spraying all these plates."

"Plates?" I asked. "What are you doing?"

It would be a tough business to sell. The books were a nightmare--they were a pile of invoices and receipts in the side panel of Jeremy's truck. Kevin knew how many plates he'd sprayed, so we were able to back into a number that Jeremy was doing. That's when I realized we were onto something. A thousand plates a month meant $1.2 million in revenue in 2014.

I saw the opportunity pretty instantly.

Kevin and I bought the company together in September 2015. We moved Jeremy's equipment into Kevin's office, and then into a 10,000-square-foot warehouse space. I bought Kevin out this past June.

Our first step was improving the customer service, which isn't our industry's strength. To this date, if you call up competitors, they might not answer or return your calls. Then, we updated the website. Jeremy initially sold his product on eBay, and had a very archaic Wordpress website. We hired people and put systems in place to take care of orders, take phone calls, do everything to make this a real business.

We've put a lot of money back into the business over the past three years. If you put money back into the business, grow the brand, and create processes to offer the highest quality product you can, it should continue to grow.

The core customers were originally survivalists and preppers. My vision was to focus more toward law enforcement, and we've done that. Half of our sales now come directly from law enforcement. We're fulfilling a niche: smaller agencies, 25 to 50 officers or less. It's a market that the larger body armor companies are ignoring.

I've never met so many law enforcement first responders than I have over the past three years. They're human: When they come in here, they're very polite, very friendly, very appreciative of everything that we're doing. So when there's a shooting, it hits closer to home now. It's painful.

We saw a large increase in sales after the Pulse shooting in Orlando, the San Bernardino terrorist shooting, and the Las Vegas shooting. I think as time has gone on, our customers have become numb to it. Now, when those shootings happen, there's not as big a spike as there used to be.

We've also been impacted by the Trump administration's steel tariffs, even though our steel is made in Pennsylvania and Oregon. It seems like a lot of the steel companies knew that if other countries had to pay this 25 percent tariff, they could increase our prices by 25 percent. And they did--overnight.

We've had to increase our prices on ballistic steel products by 10 percent this year. I don't see them reducing the pricing now. This is just the way it's going to be.

Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated the Spartan Armor Systems founder's name, role within the border patrol, and plate-cutting tool.

EXPLORE MORE Inc. 5000 COMPANIESMusk invited current Tesla owners to show up at the company's delivery centers starting on Saturday and help answer questions from new buyers picking up their vehicles, Bloomberg reports. The effort to expedite sales and deliveries before the end of the third quarter appears to have been organized over Twitter, after a Tesla customer tweeted to Musk last Friday that he would be "delighted" to help with deliveries for free. Musk replied the help would be "super appreciated."

Wow, thanks for offering to help! The coming week is incredibly intense. If any current Tesla owners who'd like to help educate new owners could head to Tesla delivery centers during midday on Sat/Sun & morning/evening on weekdays, that would be super appreciated! -; Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 22, 2018

Some Tesla owners were happy to heed Musk's call. "We're complementary to the Tesla employees," Omar Sultan, a Tesla customer who volunteered this weekend at the Tesla store near Rocklin, California, told Bloomberg. "A lot of people getting the Model 3 are buying an electric car for the first time, and they have a lot of questions about charging that we're happy to answer."

Musk has been under pressure for months to prove that Tesla's business is sustainable. He told shareholders in August that Tesla would be profitable and cash-flow positive in the second half of 2018. Over the summer, Tesla laid off more than 3,000 employees--or 9 percent of its workforce--to cut down costs. The company has experienced so many delays in getting vehicles to customers that Musk recently referred to the situation as "delivery logistics hell."Google is set to testify that it "made mistakes" but has learned from the past and improved its privacy protections at a Senate committee hearing on privacy today.

Executives from Twitter, Apple, Amazon, AT&T, and Charter Communications are also set to testify. The hearing is being convened by Republican senator John Thune of South Dakota for the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. The committee will look into how giant tech companies handle users' data, and look at these companies' privacy policies.

The hearing is partly inspired by Europe's stringent new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which took effect in May. Though it doesn't go as far as GDPR, California's new Privacy Act also takes effect in 2020, prompting the Internet Association, which represents dozens of tech companies, to call for national rules that would supersede California's new law.

Against this backdrop, Keith Enright, Google's chief privacy officer, will testify that Google admits it "made mistakes" around privacy in the past, according to written testimony released by the company. He will add that Google has learned from its mistakes and "improved [its] robust privacy program."

It did seem to need improvement. In 2011, the company settled a case with the Federal Trade Commission and agreed to 20 years of privacy audits after the government sued it for violating user privacy with its new social network Google Buzz. A year later, it agreed to pay a $22.5 million civil penalty for misrepresenting its privacy practices to Apple Safari users.

This past July, Google was hit with an astounding $5 billion fine by the European Union for violating antitrust laws. That's different from a privacy violation, of course, but it does indicate a company that is accustomed to writing its own rules. Then, in August, the Associated Press revealed that Google tracks Android users' locations and shares that info with some apps--even when users have specifically turned location tracking off. (TheNextWeb's Gary Eastwood tested this by turning off his location tracking and wandering into a Walmart. Sure enough, he received a promotion from that Walmart moments after he'd left.)

Fewer resources for innovation.

According to Reuters, Amazon's representative plans to argue that complying with GDPR has taken resources away from "inventing new features for our customers." Twitter's representative, on the other hand, will call for a "robust privacy framework" that protects users' rights without crippling innovation.

Twitter's stance is unusual--in general tech companies have sought to avoid laws governing privacy, preferring to be self-regulating. But now that GDPR and the California Privacy Act are law, they may believe they're better off influencing a new national law rather than being subjected to different rules in every state.

And, at least initially, Congress seems like it might be inclined to enact such a law. Thune wrote in The Hill: "The question is no longer whether we need a national law to protect consumers' privacy. The question is what shape that law should take."The head of Bird global safety advisory board David Strickland, left, and New York City Council member Antonio Reynoso, right, advocate for New York to change its laws to legalize e-scooters at a press conference in Williamsburg, Brooklyn on Sept. 24, 2018. Chris Beier

Bird, the California-based e-scooter rental company valued at $2 billion, is planning to launch in New York City, a traffic-choked metropolis whose aging subway system is driving residents bonkers. And, maybe, driving them to e-scooters.

"Our vision for New York is a fully integrated transportation solution for the twenty-first century eventually," says Matthew Kopko, the director of public policy at Bird.

There is one initial problem: Electric scooters are currently illegal in New York. While Bird got its start a year ago by nesting in cities like Santa Monica and San Francisco without first asking for permission, the company is learning to play politics better. So, before launching, Kopko says the company has been meeting with dozens of New York City Council members in an effort to change the laws. Currently, council members Ydanis Rodriguez and Rafael Espinal Jr. are drafting legislation to make New York e-scooter-friendly. Spokespeople for the councilmen say they hope to submit a draft, which will be subjected to a public hearing and then a vote, soon.

Kopko, who with 12 other employees is operating out of Bird's recently opened office in a WeWork space in the Financial District, says the company is working with legislators on a bill that would only allow small, lightweight, electric-powered scooters that have a maximum speed of 15 miles per hour to be street legal. "The goal is a super-surgical amendment [to the broad ban on electric-scooters] that can be done with about six words to allow devices that go under a certain speed," says Kopko.

The company is also working with Bradley Tusk, founder of Tusk Strategies. Tusk is known for his work helping Uber, and other companies like FanDuel and Eaze, successfully navigate regulatory hurdles.

On Monday in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, City Councilman Antonio Reynoso and Bird executives held a press conference to explain how e-scooter rental companies could help offer alternative transportation options when the L train, the neighborhood's main subway line, shuts down for a planned 15-month overhaul, beginning in April 2019.

"The L train shutdown is looming. It is real, it is going to happen, it's going be disruptive, it'll be a disaster," says Reynoso. "We need to be smart and allow for more options to exist to give people more alternatives. The city needs to be as open-minded as possible."

Reynoso says if e-scooters are legalized, he believes the devices could help the hundreds of thousands of people who live along the L train corridor get to work, or to scoot to other trains and ferries. Reynoso also thinks e-scooters represent technological progress that could usher in a new era of cutting-edge alternative modes of transportation as the city's 114-year-old subway system is dealing with decaying infrastructure and daily service delays.

"We need to be open to innovation. We do not want to be the last city in the country to allow e-scooters," says Reynoso.

If e-scooters are legalized, the companies would still have to go through a competitive bidding process to get licensed by New York's Department of Transportation.

The DOT, which regulates all things transit in the five boroughs, allowed Lime and Pacer to launch limited bike-share programs in Staten Island, the Bronx and the Rockaway Peninsula this summer. A spokeswoman says that even though e-scooters are currently illegal under state law, the agency is "not outright opposed" to the devices being legal and regulated.

"This is an exciting and challenging time in urban transportation, with many innovative technologies hitting our streets, but that also brings regulatory and safety concerns we must address," the DOT spokeswoman says.

Safety is a big concern for many cities that are now home to e-scooter rental programs. According to the Washington Post, emergency rooms in 12 cities have seen a spike in e-scooter injuries. There have been two rental e-scooter fatalities--a rider in Dallas, and another in Washington, D.C. During the press conference, Reynoso and David Strickland, a lawyer hired to run Bird's global advisory board, said safety risks need to be taken in context. "Over 200 pedestrians in New York have died because of vehicles, and no one is advocating to rid the city streets of cars," says Reynoso.You all saw me as a poor, oppressed Muslim woman. I am an engineer. I am a jihadi.

The words delivered the last twist in BBCs Bodyguard series, revealing the seemingly meek Nadia to be a terrorist mastermind and expert bomb maker.

Her characters transformation sparked fierce debate on social media, where some of the show's 10.9 million viewers accused writer Jed Mercurio of playing into Islamophobic tropes.

But it mirrors warnings long sounded by security experts over the dangers of casting all female extremists as unwilling victims coerced by male terrorists, or jihadi brides living out a perverse romantic dream.

Hundreds of women are believed to have travelled from Europe to Isis territories in Syria and Iraq since the group declared its caliphate in 2014, where several became key recruiters and radicalisers.

Women have also attempted to launch terror attacks in their home countries, including the UKs first-known all female jihadi cell, who were jailed earlier this year.

Safaa Boular was just 16 when she started a plot to attack the British Museum, passing it on to her sister after she was detained for trying to travel to Syria.

Prosecutors said that while her foreign fighter boyfriend  Naweed Hussain, from Coventry  had undoubtedly done much to encourage Boular in these plans, the intention underlying those plans was always hers.

 Britain's youngest female terror plotter Safaa Boular found guilty

Research by the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies (RUSI) found that women were attracted to Isis territories by complex factors including a rejection of Western feminism, contact with recruiters, jihadi ideology, and the chance to be part of something new, exciting and illicit.

Emily Winterbotham, the reports co-author, said the use of the term jihadi bride to describe all female Isis members was reductive.

Most people we interviewed believed women had been lured over to Isis by men, social media and marriage, with the men being the bad ones, she told The Independent last year.

Theres an implied rationality around male radicalisation and passivity around women  but the decision-making process of these individuals isnt only about being manipulated and brainwashed  theres a clear rationale.

British women are among some of the most prominent online radicalisers and propagandists, including the White Widow Sally Jones, Londoner Khadijah Dare and Aqsa Mahmood, a former Scottish university student who has been put under international sanctions for her role as an online recruiter.

Under the online pseudonym Umm Layth, she operated now-deleted social media accounts and blogs calling for terror attacks, romanticising life under Isis and issuing detailed instructions for women wishing to travel to its territories.

While initially positioning female members in an ideological role, and calling on them to give birth to the next generation of fighters, Isis has since called for them to fight and launch attacks.

Today, in the context of the war against the Islamic State, it has become necessary for female Muslims to fulfil their duties on all fronts in supporting the mujahedeen in this battle, said an article in its Arabic propaganda newspaper last year.

Then in February, a video emerged on Isis propaganda channels appearing to show women fighting on the frontlines for the first time, wielding AK-47s while wearing full veils.

A female Isis fighter featured in a propaganda video released on 7 February

The footage followed reports of female Isis fighters, snipers and suicide bombers in battles including Deir Ezzor and Mosul, while terrorist groups including Boko Haram and al-Qaeda have also deployed women in attacks.

Nikita Malik, director of the Centre on Radicalisation and Terrorism at the Henry Jackson Society, said many of the 900 people who have travelled from Britain to Syria and Iraq are women.

Some of them have self-radicalised, some of them have converted and they very much have the same kind of drive that men would to leave this country and go and join a terrorist organisation, she added.

Theyre attracted by the same things and its often more disturbing when they try to take their children with them.

We do overlook it because we very much come from a perspective in the security world that women are more vulnerable.

In some cases they are, but there is a danger in underestimating them.Queen of the World (ITV)



Most media folk understand the nature of access. You, the desperate TV producer in an overcrowded market, get the opportunity to do some informal filming of, in this case, the Queen or the Duchess of Sussex (better known still as Meghan Markle off Suits) plus a few stilted interviews with the Prince of Wales and the Princess Royal. In return for this nice but hardly revelatory footage, you behave yourself  an unspoken Faustian pact around which much of our world turns.

And so it is that viewers were confronted with a whole hour of Queen of the World, a documentary for which the word deferential can hardly do justice. It is as if socialism, punk, even democracy had never been invented. No one would be expecting Dennis Skinner to pop up and bang on about over-privileged spongers, parasites and scroungers. Even so...

Early on in the commentary we were told that ITV had been given this glimpse behind the scenes at Buckingham Palace in this historic year, that being 2017. For a moment I had to think. Historic? Brexit? Well, not really, that being the referendum of 2016 or Brexit itself (if it happens) in 2019. The snap election? Hardly historic. The Diamond Jubilee? That was back in 2012.

Then, some way in, when we spotted Meghan having another look at her lovely wedding dress, I realised the event that made 2017 an historic year was the marriage of Meghan and Harry, the sixth (last time I looked) in line to throne, which I recall as a pleasant distraction but not much more.

The crew had obviously only been given limited access to Meghan, and she didnt really have that much to say as she chatted to the royal conservator about the frock that was going to be put on display at Buck House. So we were treated to about 10 minutes of quite, well, inconsequential conversation about the embroidered version of the national flowers of each of the 53 states of the Commonwealth of Nations. We learned  well, I speak for myself  that Australias is wattle, and Papua New Guinea has its own special orchid, and Canada the maple leaf (I knew that one).

I was just about intrigued enough to be told that Meghan had decided on these gestures herself, in recognition of her role, with Prince Harry of youth ambassador to the Commonwealth. It was also nice to know that it echoed a similar gesture by the Queen when she told Norman Hartnell what she wanted sticking on the Coronation gown in 1953. But Im afraid the Meghan/Commonwealth flowers chit-chat went on for an awfully long time. Thank goodness I was not personally in the presence of royalty, or else Id have had to stifle a sizeable yawn, plus a couple of smirks.

It was nice  and there is an awful lot of niceness around the Commonwealth  to see some chefs from the Caribbean come as scholars to be trained at Buckingham Palace, and to see the big fashion show for Commonwealth designers that theyd laid on at the palace. The archive footage from royal visits in the glory years of empire was fascinating, but mainly because it all just looks and sounds so dated now  as far away from our own time as was the late Victorian era when the then young Queen went on our gigantic tour of the Commonwealth and empire in 1954.

For example, I very much doubt that any broadcaster today would intone solemnly that Sierra Leone stands expectant as the royal yacht Britannia sails up the estuary to Freetown  even if the yacht hadnt been retired some years ago. It was, as the programme told us, a floating palace and mobile embassy, but its moored up in Scotland somewhere now, and will never again sail down to the Gilbert and Ellice Islands.

There is no doubt that Elizabeth II, even though she doesnt do long haul anymore, is the countrys premier diplomatic weapon  not just because her recent competition has included Boris Johnson  and it was heartening to see the younger negation as it was delicately put over images of Prince Charles (70 in November) and Camilla (70), as well as William and Harry doing their have you come far shtick. For all the hatred they seem to stir up in sections of middle England, Kate and Meghan also seem to be the kinds of useful envoys the nation needs, being so ineffably nice. Post-Brexit, we will need them and the Commonwealth more than ever.

Access unlimited streaming of movies and TV shows with Amazon Prime Video Sign up now for a 30-day free trial Sign up



Youd need to have had a heart of stone, and a stomach of cast iron, not to have reacted in the appropriate way to The Flu that Killed 50 Million. Yes, 50 million died in the Spanish flu of 1918  10 times as many as in the Great War. It was called the Spanish flu not because it came from Spain, but because of censorship. The flu in fact originated in Kansas, and came to Europe with the American troop ships (the first victim was a Kansas poultry farmer named Albert Gitchell who contracted what we now call, of course, bird flu, in March 1918. By the summer it had killed a couple of hundred thousand and was well entrenched in Europe.

In most of western Europe, still at war, news about the lethal effects of the flu was suppressed for fear of damaging morale and causing panic: it exacted a 10 per cent death rate on the 30,000 British soldiers who caught it. Yet Spain was neutral, and when King Alfonso XIII fatally succumbed, the news was duly reported in Britain, but the pretence was adopted that it was confined to Spain. Official reluctance to take much decisive action and use the press to make the public aware of the dangers undoubtedly cost many lives, and in the most horrible deaths.

In short, then, the most important lesson of the influenza pandemic of 1918 for the next one when it arrives is that a free and responsible media is the best defence we have. Remember that when someone starts on about fake news.#MeToo will outlive its hashtag. It will outlive Twitter. It will likely outlive social media. Long after we have graduated, past the prime of our college lives, the heydays of our careers and the golden years of our old age, the Me Too movement will persist.

Women have always existed under a system that discourages them to speak up about sexual assault. Misconduct which should have been immediately addressed goes undisclosed and unpunished for years because that system is not yet dead. Women bury assaults for fear of embarrassment or ridicule because coming forward with an old accusation is a surefire way to get it dismissed as an ancient wrongdoing.

Even if sexual assault were eradicated tomorrow, the movement would march on. Two-thirds of sexual assaults go unreported. The number is greater among college-aged students, who only report sexual assault one-fifth of the time. Every day the number of unreported assaults grows.

Each accusation, no matter how old, is not yet treated with deference and respect. That day is still far ahead, down a road of social progress we have not travelled far along.

Current hearings in the U.S. Senate show that to be the case. Judge Brett Kavanaugh, whom President Donald Trump nominated to be an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, is saddled with sexual assault allegations from the 1980s that are complicating his confirmation hearings. Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, a former classmate of Kavanaughs, accused him of holding her down, putting his hand over her mouth to silence her and trying to remove her clothes at a party in 1982, according to USA Today. Her lawyer said Ford considers it to be an attempted rape. Those allegations first came forward Sept. 16.

On Sunday, Deborah Ramirez, a former classmate of Kavanaugh at Yale University, came forward with more allegations. She said Kavanaugh exposed himself to her and shoved his penis in her face at a dormitory room party during their freshman year of college while playing a drinking game.

Ford is appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday to testify on the alleged assault. Ramirez is not yet scheduled to testify.

But as the hearings unfold, keep a watchful eye on how many times Ford is asked to provide vivid details from a traumatic event which allegedly happened 36 years ago. Keep close tabs on how many times she is doubted, told that her story doesnt seem credible and asked why she failed to report this sooner. Keep a lookout for senators who tell Ford she is making it up. That its a smear. That its a witch hunt. Note the senators who act as if they know more about the assault than Ford does.

It happened to Anita Hill, who accused Judge Clarence Thomas of sexual misconduct at his confirmation hearings. Thomas is now Associate Justice Clarence Thomas. It will happen to Ford, testifying against Kavanaugh. When asked if Kavanaugh would be confirmed, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said, Were going to be moving forward. Im confident were going to win, confident that hell be confirmed in the very near future, according to Reuters. So to answer the question on everyones mind: Yes, Kavanaugh will likely become Justice Kavanaugh.

But in spite of his confirmation, women will not stop. They will continue to do the right thing. They will bring their stories to the Senate floor. They will speak out against their assaulters. They will keep chipping away at the stigma of being a victim. Gradually, women today will lay the groundwork for women to follow, so those who come after can have a platform from which they can speak with authority. They will make sure #MeToo never dies  that it survives until the day sexual assault is a relic of a time long past. We hope that day comes soon.

Enjoy what you're reading? Get content from The Alligator delivered to your inbox Subscribe NowHollywood star Carey Mulligan went to the United Nations in New York yesterday to campaign for help for children caught up in conflicts, saying The Independents Learn to Live appeal had put the subject back on the news agenda.

Mulligan, who is supporting our campaign to twin London children with those in war zones, joined War Child bosses to meet political leaders attending the meeting of the United Nations General Assembly after saying that our appeal had highlighted the importance of the issue.

She said: I think the campaign is brilliant. The more we can do to understand people in all different walks of life gives perspective on the world and really builds empathy.

We are all stuck in our own lives and its fair to say there is a lot going on for everyone.

She added: People are sitting on the tube and reading these stories when they might not otherwise.

Thats why this campaign is so exciting. It will be particularly important in the cases of Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo where these conflicts have been going on for so long they are not part of the daily news cycle.

This is bringing them back into peoples minds.

The Learn to Live campaign aims to increase empathy and understanding between children from different backgrounds. The pupils will carry out joint projects and learn about different cultures and ways of life.

Mulligan said: I have a romantic idea about penpals  there is something wonderful about having the ability to connect with someone you have never met.

This is a variation of that. Children have an extraordinary ability for empathy and understanding. As adults we become closed off. I am really excited.

 Vanessa Kirby backs the Independent's 'Learn to Live' campaign

She said knowing that other children are thinking of them will give young people in war zones great comfort. She added that it takes a great deal of hope and courage and inner strength to spend year after year in a refugee camp.

For the London children taking part in the project she said: I think it will be a bit challenging and eye opening. It would have been for me when I was that age... It is important and really enlightening.

Mulligan is a global ambassador for War Child and in her role has visited refugee camps in Jordan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

She said the camp in Goma in DRC was one of the worst places I have ever been in my whole life. It was an unbelievable, shocking, eye opening experience. Two children had died that week of malnutrition. It was just horrendous.

But she was impressed that the War Child workers spoke directly to the children there, asking what they needed to make them feel safe.

She added: That is representative of the charity as a whole.

The thing that always struck me, which is why this campaign is perfect for their approach, is War Child has always been focused on what the children think of their experiences.

A lot of time people in these appalling situations with good intentions come and do everything they can to help, but are not able to see what the children really need.

 Sadiq Khan calls on all Londoners to get behind Learn to Live campaign

I am so proud of getting to work with them. This work is really, really, really crucial and  I feel  specific to this charity.

She added that the campaign is an amazing opportunity to take advantage of that youthful optimism and generosity that children have.

If we could all have done that we might have a different view of the world.

Rob Williams, the CEO of War Child UK, said the visit to the United Nations General Assembly was crucial as it enabled the messages being highlighted in the The Independent and Evening Standard campaign to be raised with world figures.

The Learn to Live Campaign is providing a crucial platform for War Child to fulfil one of our promises to the children we support  to ensure that their voices and wishes are shared with those who have the power to make a real difference to their lives. Were incredibly grateful to our partners at both the Evening Standard and The Independent for elevating such an important issue, and its fantastic to be here in New York with our Global Ambassador Carey Mulligan to raise the needs of these children with the highest international powers. he said.Its one of the most iconic memes of the past couple of years: the distracted boyfriend.

Its been applied to all sorts of situations, from Love Island to Brexit.

Now, however, the distracted boyfriend meme - in which a young mans head is turned by a passing woman, leaving the woman whose hand hes holding aghast - has been criticised for being sexist by an advertising watchdog.

According to Swedens Advertising Ombudsman, the use of the meme, by a company looking to recruit new employees, is degrading to both men and women.

Bahnhof, a Swedish internet service provider, posted the meme with the girlfriend labelled as your current workplace, the distracted boyfriend as you and the passing woman as Bahnhof.

The meme, which first went viral in summer 2017, was shared on Facebook alongside a caption encouraging people to apply for jobs as salespeople, technicians and skilled web designers.

However many people took offence with the use of the meme, with some commenting on Facebook that they thought it was sexist and unprofessional.

And the Swedish advertising watchdog has criticised the meme - which was shared on both Bahnhofs Facebook and Instagram accounts - as being gender-discriminatory due to its depiction of women as interchangeable and sex objects.

After the advert was reported, Swedens Advertising Ombudsman came to a unanimous decision and made the following judgement: It portrays women as interchangeable objects, and that only their appearance is interesting.

The statement also pointed out that there was no clear link between the objectified image of women and Bahnhof as a company.

According to the committee, the objectification is reinforced by the fact that women are designated as workplace representatives while the man, as the recipient of the advertisement, is being produced as an individual, The Local reported the judgement as saying.

However they also pointed out that the meme is not just degrading to women but to men too: It gives the impression that men might change female partners in the same way they change jobs. One notifier pointed out that Bahnhof may put off female applicants with the advertisement.

The CEO of Bahnhof, Jon Karlung, released a statement in defence of the use of the meme, arguing that the aim was solely to make the company appear attractive and that those who have a slightly less good employer could be interested in us.

Everyone who follows the internet and meme culture knows how the meme is used and interpreted, the statement read. [Whether someone is a] man, woman or neutral gender is often irrelevant in this context.

We are an internet company and are conversant in this, as are those who would look for a job with us, so we turned to that target group. If we should be punished for anything, its for using an old and tired meme.Late-night pizza cravings can now be satisfied with vegan versions, as Domino's has revealed it is testing out a vegan pizza option across the UK.

The new vegan pizza, the Vegan Supreme, will be available in select stores, according to the pizza chain.

The chains first vegan offering in the UK is made with vegan crust, peppers, corn, mushrooms, tomatoes and dairy-free cheese, and is reportedly offered on the restaurants delivery app as well - an option originally pointed out by people on Twitter.

On social media, the brand confirmed the plant-based pizza is available in 43 stores across the UK, and that it can be ordered in most major cities including London, Liverpool, Bristol, Leeds and Newcastle.

According to the chain, the vegan pizza is part of a trial in September to help us gain customer feedback.

Of the decision to release a vegan version, a Dominos spokesperson told VegNews: We want as many people as possible to enjoy the great taste of Dominos and the appetite for us to offer a vegan pizza has continued to grow.

Were delighted to say weve developed the Vegan Supreme in response to this, which we think will hit the spot. The Vegendary pizza is in trial across a few stores in September to help us get as much feedback on the product as possible.

Dominos recently released three vegan pizzas in Australia after a poll revealed a high demand for the plant-based versions.

The Australian versions feature cheese from the vegan brand Follow Your Heart, whereas the UK version is reportedly made using dairy-free cheese from Bute Island Foods, according to VegNews.

10 best vegan foods Show all 10 1 /10 10 best vegan foods 10 best vegan foods Provamel Organic Almond Original This almond drink is a milk alternative that works for your coffee, muesli or baking. Although it wont froth up as well as the regular white stuff, it makes up for its textural shortcomings with a delicious nutty taste. 2.59, goodnessdirect.co.uk 10 best vegan foods Marigold Engevita Nutritional Yeast Flakes Going vegan means there are vitamins, especially B12, normally found in meat, that youll have to get from elsewhere. Put this in anything from stews to salads to add a cheesy, nutty flavour to your cooking. 2.80, ocado.com 10 best vegan foods Bute Island Foods garlic & herb Creamy sheese Bute Island Foods makes a range of dairy-free sheeses. Ignore the silly name, they are a good substitute for the real thing, particularly this spreadable alternative. With a creamy texture and a rich, garlicky flavour it goes very well on a piece of toast. 2.48, goodnessdirect.co.uk 10 best vegan foods Clif Chocolate Almond Fudge Bar Active types will like this rich, sweet treat made from oats, rice syrup, soybeans and almond puree, among other goodies. It tops up energy levels fast, making it ideal for runners, cyclists or hikers. A delicious chocolaty vegan-alternative to a brownie. 1.25, thehealthbay.com 10 best vegan foods Macsween Vegetarian Haggis Just because youre meat- and dairy-free doesnt mean you have to opt out of Sunday roasts. This family-run business, famous for its traditional haggis, also makes a vegan/vegetarian alternative. Its surprisingly rich in flavour, with the mushrooms, lentils and oatmeal providing a good chunky texture. And its lighter than the meaty alternative. 3.55, waitrose.com 10 best vegan foods Soulful Food OnePot Butternut, Lentil & Spinach hotpot This low-fat, tasty hotpot is ideal if you need something quick and easy for dinner. With hints of Indian spices, and chunks of cauliflower and butternut squash, its good as it is, or you can beef it up with some extra veggies. 3.49, ocado.com 10 best vegan foods Pudology Gluten- and Dairy-Free Chocolate Puds Its hard to believe this rich chocolate pudding is completely dairy-free. Made with coconut milk chocolate ganache and Madagascan vanilla, it is our favourite from the Pudology range, which also features banoffee and strawberry desserts if chocolates not your thing. 2.76 (2 x 85g), ocado.com 10 best vegan foods Yu! Jus Fruit Blueberry Pieces Sweet treats can be healthy. These bite-size blueberry pieces are free from added sugar, and with a similar texture to wine gums, kids will be fooled into thinking theyre the real deal. 67p, tesco.com 10 best vegan foods Rude Health Spelt Oaty This small company prides itself on using natural ingredients that arent over-processed. Its high-fibre biscuits made from Scottish oatmeal, spelt flour and extra-virgin olive oil are a tasty addition to a packed lunch. 1.99 (4 x 50g), waitrose.com 10 best vegan foods Alara Into the Garden Organic active Muesli This light, crisp breakfast offering made from a mix of amaranth, quinoa, finely chopped seeds and nuts and naturally sweetened with dried apple pieces, is just as tasty as your regular cereal. Try it with almond milk. 4.66, goodnessdirect.co.uk

Fortunately, Domino's sauces and dough are already vegan.

As the news of a vegan option in the UK has been met with joy on social media, it seems likely the pizza will be added as a permanent menu option.

OMG Domino's are finally bringing out a vegan pizza in the UK. Could this year get any better? one person tweeted.Tinder is currently trialling a new feature in the app in India that allows its female users to decide whether or not they want to be the ones to start the conversation when they match with a man.

The feature, called My Move, gives women the option in their settings on the app to decide if they want to let either party send the first message or if they want to be the ones to take control.

The aim of the feature is to make women feel more secure when using dating apps.

Tinder has been testing the "My Move" feature over the past few months in India.

If the initial tests prove successful, the dating app may then make the feature available to its millions of users worldwide.

While the function may be new to Tinder, the concept of encouraging women to make the first move when matched with a man on dating apps isnt a new phenomenon.

Bumble has been employing the same technique ever since the dating app was launched in December 2014 by Tinder co-founder Whitney Wolfe Herd.

 Facebook unveils online dating feature

The online dating platform, which has been described as feminist for its focus on its female users, was created by Wolfe Herd after she left Tinder and sued the company for sexual discrimination and harassment.

The fact that the "My Move" function has been launched in India in order to make women feel safe when using dating apps is very significant.

A few days ago, it was announced that India had launched a sex offenders register in an effort to tackle the country's "rape epidemic".

Official figures state that there are around 40,000 cases of rape in India every year.

According to Taru Kapoor, general manager for Match Group, the company that owns Tinder, giving female Tinder users in India the option to take control of the conversation may make them feel more safe when dating.

Were a platform based on mutual respect, consent, and choice, she told Reuters. We are focused on making the experience of women safer.

One male Tinder user praised the use of the feature, saying: "I know the kind of creeps out there on Tinder and other dating apps.

"One extra layer of security doesn't do much harm to men apart from slimming their chances of striking up a conversation."

While some may approve of the "My Move" feature, others remain doubtful that it will change the way in which men and women converse with one another on dating apps.

"Even after carefully picking someone, if they turn out to be nothing like you imagined, there is always an unmatch option," said a 25-year-old woman in Bengaluru.One in 10 UK businesses say customs delays of just 10 minutes to half an hour are likely to push them into bankruptcy, according to a survey.

The Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply (Cips) polled 1,310 UK and EU-based supply chain managers  the professionals responsible for navigating customs and negotiating with suppliers.

Respondents reported that the longer the delay, the more likely their business would fail. One to three hours of additional waiting for goods at the border could put 14 per cent of firms out of business, rising to 15 per cent for a 12- to 24-hour delay, the results suggested.

Business groups and leading industry figures from a number of sectors have warned for months of the potentially disastrous impact of customs delays if the UK does not secure a trade deal with the EU before Brexit on 29 March.

Despite the potential chaos of a no-deal Brexit, 10 per cent of supply managers surveyed said they would prefer that outcome than the Chequers deal currently being proposed by Theresa May.

The prime ministers blueprint is supposed to allow the greatest possible access to the EU while respecting the referendum result and solving the problem of the Irish border.

But it has faced fierce opposition from within the Ms Mays own party and was humiliatingly rejected by EU leaders at a summit in Salzburg last week.

No customs checks are currently required for goods entering the UK from the EU and any additional admin or paperwork threatens business models that rely on frictionless trade.

Nearly a quarter (23 per cent) of UK businesses said they are planning to stockpile goods to mitigate the effects of delays, while 4 per cent have already started doing so.

A fifth of companies said they have looked to make contracts with suppliers more flexible while 21 per cent have sought alternative suppliers outside the EU.

Half of UK companies bringing in goods from the EU said they would struggle to find the suppliers and skills they need if they were forced to bring production parts of their supply chain here post-Brexit.

Almost two-fifths (38 per cent) said future trade arrangements are still too unclear for them to prepare at all for Brexit.

John Glen, an economist at Cips, said the UK economy could fall off a cliff as a result of border delays of just 10 minutes.

Businesses have become used to operating efficiently with exceptionally lean, frictionless supply chains, where quick customs clearance is a given, he said.

Customs delays would not only affect businesses but would also lead to a shortage of products on shelves and an increase in prices for consumers as well.

Stockpiling is not an option for all firms, he said, because many do not have available storage facilities or simply cant build up supplies because the items they buy and sell are perishable.

To prevent an economic meltdown, the government must ensure that goods continue to flow seamlessly across the border post-Brexit, Mr Glen added.

He said a deal is required quickly because the majority of businesses say they need at least a year to prepare for Brexit.The Budget will be delivered on Monday 29th October this year, the Chancellor Philip Hammond has confirmed.

The Treasury said Mr Hammond will will set out the governments plan to build a stronger, more prosperous economy, building on the recent Spring Statement and last years Budget.

The chancellors report on the state of the economy comes earlier than usual this year, and will fall before an emergency Brexit summit scheduled for November.

According to previous reports, the reason for bringing the Budget forward is so the Finance Bill can pass through parliament before any potential Brexit legislation is presented before MPs.

This is only the second autumn Budget, since Mr Hammond announced in 2016, shortly after he was appointed, that he was abolishing the long-held tradition of delivering the annual government Budget in March.

He said that the Budget would instead be held in the Autumn, around the time that the Autumn Statement, previously the second fiscal event of the year, was held.

At the time, Mr Hammond said he was making the timetable changes because no other major economy makes hundreds of tax changes twice a year, and neither should we.

The government recently recorded the biggest budget surplus for the month of July in 18 years, leading to calls for an end to austerity in the UK.

Mr Hammond has already hinted that he will scrap the eight-year freeze on fuel duty in the Budget, telling MPs the impact of the policy must be looked at again.

He said the freeze had saved the average car driver 850 and the average van driver more than 2,100.

However, he added: "It is important that we remember the other side of this coin, the fuel duty freezes since 2011 have meant the Exchequer has foregone around 46bn in revenues through to 2018-19 - and a further 38bn will be foregone over the budget forecast period as a result of these previously announced freezes.

For context, this is about twice as much as we spend on all NHS nurses and doctors each year.Britain has been surpassed for the first time as the second most represented nation in global university rankings  but Oxford and Cambridge have nonetheless retained the top two positions.

The pair have once again topped the World University Rankings, with Oxford in first place and Cambridge in second. But the national picture shows stagnation and modest decline.

Intensified global competition has seen the reputation of UK universities dip and experts are warning that Brexit could pose a further risk to Britains status and research capabilities.

The Times Higher Education (THE) rankings  which assess teaching, research and international outlook  show that Asias ascent continues while UK entrants remain static or have declined.

The University of Dundee and Royal Holloway have slipped out of the global 200 and Tsinghua University in China has overtaken the UKs LSE and the University of Edinburgh.

The UK, which has 98 institutions in the full list of more than 1,250 universities, is no longer the second most represented nation in the rankings. Japan has overtaken it this year, claiming 103 positions.

The US still leads the way with 172 institutions in the annual global league table. Californias Stanford University is third on the list, maintaining its position from last year.

Phil Baty, editorial director of the THE global rankings, told The Independent: The UK dip in reputation is significant  but we can only speculate as to why. While the UK has grappled with Brexit and a more isolationist direction, in contrast weve seen a marked increase in global engagement from Japan, and others, as more and more universities clamour to be visible and collaborative on the international stage.

Mr Baty warned that the risk to the UKs reputation and research capabilities from Brexit was very real.

Student news in pictures Show all 34 1 /34 Student news in pictures Student news in pictures South Korean policemen detain a student demonstrator during a protest against South Korean President Park Geun-Hye EPA Student news in pictures South Korean policemen detain student protestors during a protest against South Korean President Park Geun-Hye outside the National Assembly in Seoul, South Korea. The protesters demanded that the parliament takes steps to impeach President Park Geun-Hye EPA Student news in pictures Filipino demonstrators face off with anti-riot police during a protest near the US Embassy in Manila, Philippine EPA Student news in pictures Hundreds of protesters including Indigenous People, students and militant groups marched towards the US Embassy to protest against the presence of US military troops and condemning the violent dispersal which left at least forty people hurt including twenty police officers and three people who were run over by a police van EPA Student news in pictures A federal judge in Mexico has ordered that a once-fugitive police chief be held on charges of kidnapping in the disappearance of 43 students Student news in pictures A man holds up a photograph of a missing student with a caption reading 'We are missing 43,' during a meeting marking the 25-month anniversary of the disappearances of 43 students in the southern state of Guerrero, in Mexico City. A federal judge in Mexico has ordered that a once-fugitive police chief be held on charges of kidnapping in the disappearance of 43 students AP Student news in pictures Miguel Perez, an intern student from the University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine, puts away his cell phone before walking into the operating room at the Dr. Isaac Gonzalez MartInez Oncological Hospital in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Once they complete their general surgery training, many residents are moving to the United States in search of better wages, one of the main factors linked to the current shortage of specialists in the Island Student news in pictures Fewer EU students have applied to start university courses in the UK next autumn. There was a 9% fall in the numbers who had applied for courses, according to admissions service UCAS. PA wire Student news in pictures University students protest against President Nicolas Maduro, in Caracas, Venezuela. Masses of protesters jammed the streets of Venezuela's capital on the heels of a move by congress to open a political trial against Maduro, whose allies have blocked moves for a recall election AP Student news in pictures University students protest against President Nicolas Maduro, in Caracas, Venezuela AP Student news in pictures Thousands, most of them high school students, march during a demonstration in Madrid, Spain, on a one day strike to protest about the country's education law that increases the number of annual exams AP Student news in pictures Students gather on the west mall to confront the Young Conservatives of Texas student organization over a controversial bake sale on The University of Texas campus in Austin, Texas. The Young Conservatives of Texas chapter at the University of Texas-Austin sparked the protest with an affirmative action bake sale. The club encouraged students to buy a cookie and talk about the disastrous policy that is affirmative action Student news in pictures Donald Parish Jr, right, confronts Electrical and Computer Engineering senior Dewayne Perry over a controversial bake sale on The University of Texas campus in Austin, Texas. The Young Conservatives of Texas chapter at the University of Texas-Austin sparked the protest with an affirmative action bake sale. The club encouraged students to buy a cookie and talk about the disastrous policy that is affirmative action AP Student news in pictures Brigham Young University announced that students who report sexual assault will no longer be investigated for possible violations of the Mormon-owned school's strict honor code that bans such things as alcohol use AP Student news in pictures Students of secondary education march to protest against the final examinations and LOMCE (The Improvement Quality Education Law) law, after a call by trade unions, in Murcia, Spain EPA Student news in pictures South African police have used stun grenades and rubber bullets to disperse hundreds of protesters who had marched to the parliament building to call for free university education, where the finance minister was giving a budget speech AP Student news in pictures Police break up student protests outside the parliament in Cape Town, South Africa Reuters Student news in pictures South African Policemen fire rubber bullets at student protestors in Cape Town, South Africa AP Student news in pictures A student protestor is hit by a rubber bullet in Cape Town, South Africa AP Student news in pictures An injured student is helped by colleagues during protest outside the parliament during South African Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan's medium term budget speech in Cape Town, South Africa Reuters Student news in pictures Plaintiffs and bereaved families of elementary school students killed in the tsunami that followed a major earthquake in northeastern Japan in 2011, show banners that say 'victory in a suit filed with the Sendai District Court' in Sendai. A Japanese court ordered municipalities to pay $13.7 million dollars to families of school children who were swept away to their deaths by the 2011 tsunami Getty Student news in pictures A group of student at Ewha Womans University calls for a thorough investigation into those involved in years of engagement with state affairs backstage by Choi Soon-sil, a personal confidante of South Korean President Park Geun-hye, at the school's front gate in Seoul, South Korea EPA Student news in pictures Students raise placards during a strike action called by the student union, in Madrid against university entry exams Getty Student news in pictures Libyans throw a newly graduated student into a fountain as they celebrate during the graduation ceremony for students from the Faculty of Pharmacy at the Al-Arab University in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi Getty Student news in pictures Libyans celebrate as they attend the graduation ceremony for students from the Faculty of Pharmacy at the Al-Arab University in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi Getty Student news in pictures Libyans celebrate as they attend the graduation ceremony for students from the Faculty of Pharmacy at the Al-Arab University in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi Getty Student news in pictures Thousands of Thai Catholic students take part in mourning tributes and in singing the Thai Royal Anthem to honour late Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej at Saint Dominic School in Bangkok, Thailand EPA Student news in pictures Students of Silpakorn University paint portraits of the late Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej at the university campus in Bangkok Getty Student news in pictures A student of Silpakorn University paints a portrait of the late Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej at the university campus in Bangkok Getty Student news in pictures St Andrews University students take part in a foam fight known as Raisin Monday in the Lower College Lawn behind St Salvator's Quadrangle following the Raisin Weekend PA wire Student news in pictures St Andrews University students take part in a foam fight known as Raisin Monday in the Lower College Lawn behind St Salvator's Quadrangle following the Raisin Weekend, an annual tradition where student 'parents' inflict tasks on the unfortunate first-years they have adopted as 'children' as part of a mentoring scheme PA wire Student news in pictures Students at the Cuba's National Ballet School (ENB) in Havana, Cuba Reuters Student news in pictures Students at the Cuba's National Ballet School (ENB) take part in a practice in Havana, Cuba Reuters Student news in pictures Students at the Cuba's National Ballet School (ENB) wait in line to enter a classroom in Havana, Cuba Reuters

He said: Maintaining world class excellence amid cuts and creeping isolationism is simply unsustainable  especially amid intensifying global competition, with many emerging nations currently placing their own universities at the heart of national economic growth strategies.

He added: The groundbreaking work of UK universities mustnt be undermined by complacency and politicking. To ensure they continue to thrive on the global stage, positive immigration and investment policies are crucial. They must be free to attract and retain the very best international talent and international students post-Brexit, and they must be protected from cuts, the flow of research funding and academic talent mustnt be impacted.

Alistair Jarvis, chief executive of Universities UK, said: What is clear from all the various international rankings is that the UK continues to have one of the strongest university sectors in the world. This is based on our well-deserved international reputation for high quality teaching, learning and research, delivered by talented and dedicated staff.

Recommended This is how we can change universities

He added: But we know that other countries are seeing the benefits of higher education and are investing heavily in developing their universities. If the UK is to maintain its leading position, we must match this investment, and ensure that the UK projects a more open and welcoming message for talented international staff and students.

This is more important than ever as Brexit negotiations near their end and the UK looks to enhance its place in the world.

Universities minister Sam Gyimah said: The 2019 Times Higher Education world rankings show that, with three universities in the top 10 and 11 in the top 100, the UK continues to be a world-leading destination for study and research. But as the list shows, international standards are improving, so it is more important than ever for our universities to remain competitive.

The Times Higher Education World University Rankings: Top 10 in UK

= is used to denote a joint place with an international universityThe government has said sorry for the infected blood scandal at the inquiry into the treatment of thousands of people given products containing hepatitis and HIV.

But the son of one of the victims said that the apology does not feel genuine.

The government told the inquiry on Wednesday the treatment of information surrounding the use of contaminated blood products has been at worst, a cover-up, at best a lack of candour about past events.

Eleanor Gray QC made the comments to the Infected Blood Inquiry on behalf of the Department of Health and Social Care.

The public probe will consider the treatment of thousands of people in the 1970s and 80s who were given blood products infected with HIV and hepatitis viruses.

The inquiry has pledged it will consider whether there have been attempts to conceal details of what happened through the destruction of documents or withholding of information.

Thousands of people in the 1970s and 1980s were given blood products infected with hepatitis viruses and HIV (PA)

Ms Gray told the inquiry: I say unreservedly that we are sorry. We are sorry that this should be so, that this should have happened when it should not.

She said things went wrong, and that the Department of Health welcomes this inquiry and are committed to co-operating with it and assisting it.

Jason Evans, 29, said he was not convinced by the apology.

His father Jonathan was born with haemophilia, but died in 1993 aged 31 having contracted hepatitis and HIV from the transfusion of Factor VIII blood products. Jason was aged just four.

He said: What the Department of Health say and what theyre doing are two different things.

My main takeaway from the Department of Healths statement was that the QC admitted what happened was wrong.

They admit wrongdoing, but continue to fight myself and about 700 others on the same issue in a group legal action at the High Court.

It just doesnt feel genuine to me.

The inquiry has heard from a number of victims of the scandal over the last three days.

On Wednesday, Peter Burney accused the government of a cover-up on an industrial scale, which reads like something out of a spy novel.

He contracted hepatitis after two blood transfusions in 1976.

Offering his condolences to the families of those who died, Mr Burney said: To watch someone you love pass through no fault of their own  the responsibility of others  takes the Great out of Great Britain.

Michelle Tolley, 53, contracted Hepatitis C from blood transfused in 1987 and 1991 after childbirth.

She said of her infection on Tuesday: The impact has been one of devastation, destruction and ultimately death.

Those responsible for this tragedy must be identified, must be held responsible for their actions, and prosecuted if necessary.

Chairman of the inquiry, retired judge Sir Brian Langstaff said on Monday it is estimated that the number of infected could reach above 25,000.

The inquiry will continue next year.

Press AssociationA healthcare worker has been quarantined with monkeypox in a bid to prevent the potentially deadly virus from spreading, public health officials have confirmed.

The patient, who had not been named, was transferred from the Blackpool Victoria Hospital to Newcastles Royal Victoria Infirmary, where they were placed in isolation.

The facility in the northeast has previously treated patients that have contracted the virus.

Those previous cases had, however, each independently travelled to Nigeria where there was a major outbreak of the disease in 2017.

Public Health England (PHE) said it is taking a highly precautionary approach to the virus, which can be serious in rare cases, adding that it was monitoring closely anyone who has been in contact with an infected person.

The virus spreads through close contact and it takes 16 days for symptoms, including fever, headaches and a rash that can form crusted blisters, to appear.

Anyone who had been in contact with the healthcare worker 24 hours before they noticed the rash is now being traced.

Dr Nick Phin, deputy director at PHEs National Infection Service, said: This healthcare worker cared for the patient before a diagnosis of monkeypox was made. We have been actively monitoring contacts for 21 days after exposure to detect anyone presenting with an illness so that they can be assessed quickly. It is therefore not wholly unexpected that a case has been identified.

Health news in pictures Show all 40 1 /40 Health news in pictures Health news in pictures Coronavirus outbreak The coronavirus Covid-19 has hit the UK leading to the deaths of two people so far and prompting warnings from the Department of Health AFP via Getty Health news in pictures Thousands of emergency patients told to take taxi to hospital Thousands of 999 patients in England are being told to get a taxi to hospital, figures have showed. The number of patients outside London who were refused an ambulance rose by 83 per cent in the past year as demand for services grows Getty Health news in pictures Vape related deaths spike A vaping-related lung disease has claimed the lives of 11 people in the US in recent weeks. The US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention has more than 100 officials investigating the cause of the mystery illness, and has warned citizens against smoking e-cigarette products until more is known, particularly if modified or bought off the street Getty Health news in pictures Baldness cure looks to be a step closer Researchers in the US claim to have overcome one of the major hurdles to cultivating human follicles from stem cells. The new system allows cells to grow in a structured tuft and emerge from the skin Sanford Burnham Preybs Health news in pictures Two hours a week spent in nature can improve health A study in the journal Scientific Reports suggests that a dose of nature of just two hours a week is associated with better health and psychological wellbeing Shutterstock Health news in pictures Air pollution linked to fertility issues in women Exposure to air from traffic-clogged streets could leave women with fewer years to have children, a study has found. Italian researchers found women living in the most polluted areas were three times more likely to show signs they were running low on eggs than those who lived in cleaner surroundings, potentially triggering an earlier menopause Getty/iStock Health news in pictures Junk food ads could be banned before watershed Junk food adverts on TV and online could be banned before 9pm as part of Government plans to fight the "epidemic" of childhood obesity. Plans for the new watershed have been put out for public consultation in a bid to combat the growing crisis, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said PA Health news in pictures Breeding with neanderthals helped humans fight diseases On migrating from Africa around 70,000 years ago, humans bumped into the neanderthals of Eurasia. While humans were weak to the diseases of the new lands, breeding with the resident neanderthals made for a better equipped immune system PA Health news in pictures Cancer breath test to be trialled in Britain The breath biopsy device is designed to detect cancer hallmarks in molecules exhaled by patients Getty Health news in pictures Average 10 year old has consumed the recommended amount of sugar for an adult By their 10th birthdy, children have on average already eaten more sugar than the recommended amount for an 18 year old. The average 10 year old consumes the equivalent to 13 sugar cubes a day, 8 more than is recommended PA Health news in pictures Child health experts advise switching off screens an hour before bed While there is not enough evidence of harm to recommend UK-wide limits on screen use, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health have advised that children should avoid screens for an hour before bed time to avoid disrupting their sleep Getty Health news in pictures Daily aspirin is unnecessary for older people in good health, study finds A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine has found that many elderly people are taking daily aspirin to little or no avail Getty Health news in pictures Vaping could lead to cancer, US study finds A study by the University of Minnesota's Masonic Cancer Centre has found that the carcinogenic chemicals formaldehyde, acrolein, and methylglyoxal are present in the saliva of E-cigarette users Reuters Health news in pictures More children are obese and diabetic There has been a 41% increase in children with type 2 diabetes since 2014, the National Paediatric Diabetes Audit has found. Obesity is a leading cause Reuters Health news in pictures Most child antidepressants are ineffective and can lead to suicidal thoughts The majority of antidepressants are ineffective and may be unsafe, for children and teenager with major depression, experts have warned. In what is the most comprehensive comparison of 14 commonly prescribed antidepressant drugs to date, researchers found that only one brand was more effective at relieving symptoms of depression than a placebo. Another popular drug, venlafaxine, was shown increase the risk users engaging in suicidal thoughts and attempts at suicide Getty Health news in pictures Gay, lesbian and bisexual adults at higher risk of heart disease, study claims Researchers at the Baptist Health South Florida Clinic in Miami focused on seven areas of controllable heart health and found these minority groups were particularly likely to be smokers and to have poorly controlled blood sugar iStock Health news in pictures Breakfast cereals targeted at children contain 'steadily high' sugar levels since 1992 despite producer claims A major pressure group has issued a fresh warning about perilously high amounts of sugar in breakfast cereals, specifically those designed for children, and has said that levels have barely been cut at all in the last two and a half decades Getty Health news in pictures Potholes are making us fat, NHS watchdog warns New guidance by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), the body which determines what treatment the NHS should fund, said lax road repairs and car-dominated streets were contributing to the obesity epidemic by preventing members of the public from keeping active PA Health news in pictures New menopause drugs offer women relief from 'debilitating' hot flushes A new class of treatments for women going through the menopause is able to reduce numbers of debilitating hot flushes by as much as three quarters in a matter of days, a trial has found. The drug used in the trial belongs to a group known as NKB antagonists (blockers), which were developed as a treatment for schizophrenia but have been sitting on a shelf unused, according to Professor Waljit Dhillo, a professor of endocrinology and metabolism REX Health news in pictures Doctors should prescribe more antidepressants for people with mental health problems, study finds Research from Oxford University found that more than one million extra people suffering from mental health problems would benefit from being prescribed drugs and criticised ideological reasons doctors use to avoid doing so. Getty Health news in pictures Student dies of flu after NHS advice to stay at home and avoid A&E The family of a teenager who died from flu has urged people not to delay going to A&E if they are worried about their symptoms. Melissa Whiteley, an 18-year-old engineering student from Hanford in Stoke-on-Trent, fell ill at Christmas and died in hospital a month later. Just Giving Health news in pictures Government to review thousands of harmful vaginal mesh implants The Government has pledged to review tens of thousands of cases where women have been given harmful vaginal mesh implants. Getty Health news in pictures Jeremy Hunt announces 'zero suicides ambition' for the NHS The NHS will be asked to go further to prevent the deaths of patients in its care as part of a zero suicide ambition being launched today Getty Health news in pictures Human trials start with cancer treatment that primes immune system to kill off tumours Human trials have begun with a new cancer therapy that can prime the immune system to eradicate tumours. The treatment, that works similarly to a vaccine, is a combination of two existing drugs, of which tiny amounts are injected into the solid bulk of a tumour. Nephron Health news in pictures Babies' health suffers from being born near fracking sites, finds major study Mothers living within a kilometre of a fracking site were 25 per cent more likely to have a child born at low birth weight, which increase their chances of asthma, ADHD and other issues Getty Health news in pictures NHS reviewing thousands of cervical cancer smear tests after women wrongly given all-clear Thousands of cervical cancer screening results are under review after failings at a laboratory meant some women were incorrectly given the all-clear. A number of women have already been told to contact their doctors following the identification of procedural issues in the service provided by Pathology First Laboratory. Rex Health news in pictures Potential key to halting breast cancer's spread discovered by scientists Most breast cancer patients do not die from their initial tumour, but from secondary malignant growths (metastases), where cancer cells are able to enter the blood and survive to invade new sites. Asparagine, a molecule named after asparagus where it was first identified in high quantities, has now been shown to be an essential ingredient for tumour cells to gain these migratory properties. Getty Health news in pictures NHS nursing vacancies at record high with more than 34,000 roles advertised A record number of nursing and midwifery positions are currently being advertised by the NHS, with more than 34,000 positions currently vacant, according to the latest data. Demand for nurses was 19 per cent higher between July and September 2017 than the same period two years ago. REX Health news in pictures Cannabis extract could provide new class of treatment for psychosis CBD has a broadly opposite effect to delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main active component in cannabis and the substance that causes paranoia and anxiety. Getty Health news in pictures Over 75,000 sign petition calling for Richard Branson's Virgin Care to hand settlement money back to NHS Mr Bransons company sued the NHS last year after it lost out on an 82m contract to provide childrens health services across Surrey, citing concerns over serious flaws in the way the contract was awarded PA Health news in pictures More than 700 fewer nurses training in England in first year after NHS bursary scrapped The numbers of people accepted to study nursing in England fell 3 per cent in 2017, while the numbers accepted in Wales and Scotland, where the bursaries were kept, increased 8.4 per cent and 8 per cent respectively Getty Health news in pictures Landmark study links Tory austerity to 120,000 deaths The paper found that there were 45,000 more deaths in the first four years of Tory-led efficiencies than would have been expected if funding had stayed at pre-election levels. On this trajectory that could rise to nearly 200,000 excess deaths by the end of 2020, even with the extra funding that has been earmarked for public sector services this year. Reuters Health news in pictures Long commutes carry health risks Hours of commuting may be mind-numbingly dull, but new research shows that it might also be having an adverse effect on both your health and performance at work. Longer commutes also appear to have a significant impact on mental wellbeing, with those commuting longer 33 per cent more likely to suffer from depression Shutterstock Health news in pictures You cannot be fit and fat It is not possible to be overweight and healthy, a major new study has concluded. The study of 3.5 million Britons found that even metabolically healthy obese people are still at a higher risk of heart disease or a stroke than those with a normal weight range Getty Health news in pictures Sleep deprivation When you feel particularly exhausted, it can definitely feel like you are also lacking in brain capacity. Now, a new study has suggested this could be because chronic sleep deprivation can actually cause the brain to eat itself Shutterstock Health news in pictures Exercise classes offering 45 minute naps launch David Lloyd Gyms have launched a new health and fitness class which is essentially a bunch of people taking a nap for 45 minutes. The fitness group was spurred to launch the napercise class after research revealed 86 per cent of parents said they were fatigued. The class is therefore predominantly aimed at parents but you actually do not have to have children to take part Getty Health news in pictures 'Fundamental right to health' to be axed after Brexit, lawyers warn Tobacco and alcohol companies could win more easily in court cases such as the recent battle over plain cigarette packaging if the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights is abandoned, a barrister and public health professor have said Getty Health news in pictures 'Thousands dying' due to fear over non-existent statin side-effects A major new study into the side effects of the cholesterol-lowering medicine suggests common symptoms such as muscle pain and weakness are not caused by the drugs themselves Getty Health news in pictures Babies born to fathers aged under 25 have higher risk of autism New research has found that babies born to fathers under the age of 25 or over 51 are at higher risk of developing autism and other social disorders. The study, conducted by the Seaver Autism Center for Research and Treatment at Mount Sinai, found that these children are actually more advanced than their peers as infants, but then fall behind by the time they hit their teenage years Getty Health news in pictures Cycling to work could halve risk of cancer and heart disease Commuters who swap their car or bus pass for a bike could cut their risk of developing heart disease and cancer by almost half, new research suggests  but campaigners have warned there is still an urgent need to improve road conditions for cyclists. Cycling to work is linked to a lower risk of developing cancer by 45 per cent and cardiovascular disease by 46 per cent, according to a study of a quarter of a million people. Walking to work also brought health benefits, the University of Glasgow researchers found, but not to the same degree as cycling. Getty

This person has been isolated and we are taking a highly precautionary approach to ensure that all contacts are traced.

The UKs first case was reportedly a Nigerian citizen and naval officer who was staying at a base in Cornwall. They are currently being treated at a specialist unit at the Royal Free Hospital in London.

PHE said it was working to trace people who may have shared their flight to the UK.

The second case was diagnosed in Blackpool in a person who had independently visited Nigeria. They are currently being treated at the Royal Liverpool University Hospital.

The disease, is related to smallpox but is much milder and was first identified in humans in 1970 in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

It has mostly been spread on the African continent through the handling of infected monkeys. However, it is thought that Gambian giant rats and squirrels, along with other rodents are the most likely source of the virus.

Deaths have been recorded, particularly among the young, and the World Health Organisation reports that one in 10 cases are fatal  though this is predominantly in countries with less developed health systems.

In Nigerias outbreak in 2017, the largest ever seen, 172 suspected cases of monkeypox were identified and 61 confirmed cases were reported across the country. Seventy-five per cent of sufferers were male and aged between 21 and 40 years old.

Eating inadequately cooked meat from infected animals is another possible risk factor, according to the World Health Organisation.

Healthcare staff or people who may have come into contact with either infected person should contact PHE for health advice.It is hard to imagine that the two little girls, chattering about teddy bears in pretty dresses with bows in their hair, were two years ago pulled out from under the rubble of an airstrike that killed their parents: hardened Isis fighters.

Sara, 11, and Layla, 9, are not related but their fates are eerily similar. Both their parents were part of the hardcore cadre of the global terror group that fought to the very end in the Iraqi city of Mosul.

The little girls both miraculously survived missile strikes that pounded Isis hideouts in Mosuls Old City, the site of the bloodiest battles of the Iraqi armys offensive on the groups largest stronghold. The pair are now living in the Zahour orphanage in the city, a place of refuge trying to care for the children left behind by Isis.Six years ago, the Florida Dream Defenders put forth an action to change the name of the Reitz Union. This was in response to the not-so-new-found knowledge that ex-UF President Julius Wayne Reitz (1955-1967) was both incredibly homophobic and undeniably racist. This was met with antipathy by the white fraternity and sorority members of the Student Senate. The action was denied over claims it violated the Student Constitution. The Reitz family still contributes money to UF, which was a major influence on the Student Governments dismissal of the action. This also shows money is more important than a students feelings of security and what is considered appropriate.

An explanation about Reitz: During his tenure as the president of UF, he allowed witch hunts for homosexuals and leftists, yet this building honors him. A low estimate touted by UF states 22 people on staff were fired and students were expelled for being homosexual. The staff was dismissed without tenure after being accused by a state senator. Yet this building honors him. He is quoted in 1988 as saying As a matter of fact, Ill be the first to admit that anyone who was a homosexual was a complete aberration.

Among the 85 black students Reitz denied was Virgil Hawkins, whose name should have replaced that of Reitz. Hawkins sued the school, and a court order ultimately forced integration. UF credits Reitz with helping integrate the campus for obviously double-minded reasons.

But we need to stop giving bad actors, such as Reitz, a pass. Whats always brought up is they were a person of their time, which could work if its a medieval doctor who didnt anesthetize patients. But, on matters such as this, its important to remember there were always people who knew to treat other human beings with respect. These controversies with Reitz occurred in the 1960s, but in 1924, Society for Human Rights was founded, and in the 1950s the Mattachine Society was formed. Both of these groups were dedicated to gay rights, and the information was out there. Reitz was just a bad person at his core.

This isnt the only reason the name change is necessary. In 2018, many students whom Reitz would not have wanted at this school still attend. The students within marginalized communities who he targeted are still targeted to this day  being pushed off the stage at graduation, for example. A task force of UFs Black Affairs found last year that of 600 polled, nearly a third of the black students felt they didnt belong at UF and over half experienced microaggressions. Reitzs name and actions were actually cited as an isolating factor. Having a bigot retain power in name only empowers bigots.

It doesnt stop there. Other buildings, such as the OConnell Center, Buckman Hall and Smathers Library, are named after problematic figures. I understand that renaming the building won't erase Reitzs actions, but it will help diminish their legacy. In 2015, SG passed a resolution encouraging the renaming of Reitz Lawn. Its time to rename both the building and lawn. Pressure SG. Reitz continues to harm students.

Levi Cooper is a UF English senior. His column appears on Wednesdays.Boris Johnson was in outrageous form, aggrandising his achievements as Londons Mayor to a large audience from the property and construction industries at the London Infrastructure Summit on Thursday.

He had figures to show that life expectancy in the capital has risen on his watch and implied that because he is mayor, any Londoner can live to be 100. He joked that Birmingham is on the way to becoming the 34th London borough, and that London was in a position to grab part of northern France.

The Mayor has reasons to be chirpy, with so many Conservative Party members gagging to have him as their MP. After the veteran Tory MP for Louth and Horncastle, Sir Peter Tapsell, announced that he is pulling out at the next election, Tony Bridges, a Lincolnshire county councillor, told the Grimsby Telegraph that Johnson could be a very effective MP, as he has been a very effective mayor.

Almost simultaneously, further south, a district councillor, Mark Howell, was talking to the Cambridge News about rumours that another safe seat might become vacant if the Leader of the Commons, Andrew Lansley, is appointed EU Commissioner when the incumbent, Baroness Ashton, reaches the end of her term of office. If Boris were to put himself forward, I think we would love it, it would be wonderful, said Howell. I think the people of south Cambridgeshire would love it too  I think they would welcome him with open arms.

Lansley was asked in the Commons on Thursday about whether he is bound for Brussels, and replied demurely: I cannot comment on such issues, because they are matters for the Prime Minister.

But the smart money says that the next EU Commissioner will not be Lansley: it is more likely to be the former Foreign Secretary, Sir Malcolm Rifkind. He holds the plum London seat of Kensington, comfortably close to the London Mayors headquarters, with a solid Tory majority and a track record for sending colourful characters to Parliament. Rifkinds predecessor was the diarist and serial adulterer, Alan Clark. A more congenial berth for Boris Johnson would be hard to imagine.

Plain-speaking Sally

One of the many who judged Nigel Farage the winner of his match against Nick Clegg was Sally Bercow, who tweeted: Dont agree with Nigel Farage but he is a brilliant, articulate communicator. Have to admit he whipped Cleggs arse.

Repetitive strain interview

The Sky News interviewer Eammon Holmes has issued a public warning to guests who appear on his morning show Sunrise that whatever they have to say, they should say only once. This follows a bad-tempered exchange with the Schools minister, David Laws, about the teachers strike, during which Holmes asked: Did you write lines at school? Because you keep repeating the same things! ... You dont have to keep repeating, repeating!

He has now announced on Twitter: Notice served on politicians appearing with me on Sunrise. Give your message once  if you repeat, I will laugh at you.

Kimballs bombshell

Overshadowed by the passing of more famous figures, the death of the former Tory MP, Lord Kimball, 85, has prompted little comment. He was not a major public figure, but he did perform one extraordinary act in his political life. During the occupation of the Falkland Islands by the Argentinians in 1982, when most Tories and the Labour Shadow Cabinet were clamouring for war and at least one caller to a radio phone-in advocated dropping a nuclear bomb on Buenos Aires, Marcus Kimball, then MP for Gainsborough in Lincolnshire, suggested to government whips: Let the Argentinians have the Falklands with as little fuss as possible.

He was not bold enough to repeat that idea in public. It was not until 30 years later that it became known he said it at all, when the comment turned up in papers released by the Margaret Thatcher Foundation.What percentage of Scottish secondary school children avoid using their school toilets? The best quiz of last week was set by Professor Philip Cowley for the annual conference of the Elections, Public Opinion and Parties group, known as Epop. The questions were all based on opinion polls, and this was one of them. My guess was out by a lot more than the permitted margin of error, plus or minus three points. The answer is at the end of this page.

Policy seconds

The second most important political speech of last week was Nick Clegg's address to the Liberal Democrats in Glasgow. The one news story in it, that there is such a thing as a free lunch after all, had been released the day before, and so, apart from a photo in The Independent, the speech didn't make any of the front pages the next day. Meanwhile, the best analysis of the free-school-meals policy came from Mark Pack, the Lib Dem blogger: "The Lib Dems may not be promising motherhood, but they are promising apple pie."

Nothing to shout about

Clegg's speech included two lists, one of nasty things that the Lib Dems had stopped, and another of the nice things that the Lib Dems had secured in government. The nasty things included the "Go Home" vans addressed to illegal immigrants, which Clegg said the Lib Dems would have stopped if they had known about them. The list of nice things was not much more impressive. It included many things that were also Conservative policy, such as scrapping identity cards and raising the aid budget to 0.7 per cent of national income. One of the few things that the Lib Dems could definitely claim as their own was this: "We've ended child detention in the immigration system." Unfortunately it is not true.

The Independent on Sunday reported three weeks ago that 242 children had been detained last year. My colleague Jonathan Owen quoted a Home Office spokesperson who insisted the Government had met its commitment to end child detention by ensuring the "welfare of the child is at the heart of the decision and removals process". The problem, as Clegg ought to have discovered, is that you cannot run an immigration system without detaining people, and if they have families it is better that the children stay with them. It was a foolish promise, which should not have been given. The Home Office website says that in July, the latest month for which figures are available, 27 children were detained.

Anti-green policy

In other Lib Dem news, my spies report that Menzies Campbell, the former leader whose role in the unseating of his predecessor Charles Kennedy has never been fully told, picked the rocket leaves off his pizza. He doesn't like greenery, he said. Chlorophyll is for wimps, obviously.

Young Nigel's school daze

So to the main event of last week, as Nigel Farage's party is still ahead of the Lib Dems in most opinion polls: the Ukip conference in London. In a pre-speech interview, Nicky Campbell, the BBC's best interviewer, asked Farage about the story that he was a racist and a fascist at school. Farage said he didn't think he marched up and down singing Hitler Youth songs, but admitted that he enjoyed winding up "left-wing teachers". Campbell interrupted: "Left wing? At Dulwich College?" Oh, yes, said Farage. It was all the spirit of 1968 and teachers who thought they were Bob Dylan. Campbell asked how many seats Ukip would win at the next general election, but before Farage could reply said: "The answer is blowin' in the wind."

And in other pizza news

Sir Nicholas Monck, who died last month, was an old-school Treasury mandarin. One story that was not in his obituaries concerned the day in the 1980s when he had been working late on the Budget. He stopped for a bite to eat on the way home, and managed to leave a draft of the Budget in the Swiss Centre pizzeria in Leicester Square. The following morning he realised what he had done, reported it to the police and turned up at the Treasury with his resignation letter in his case. He was greeted by a colleague, who told him: "This has been handed in. It was found by a member of the public who thought it might be important."

Out-pedanted!

Oliver Kamm, a leader-writer for The Times, is a fellow member of the guild of pedants. Last weekend he opened my eyes to the "flat adverb", of which I had never heard. Apparently these are adverbs that don't end in -ly. Oliver says that it is not wrong to say that someone wrote that sentence wrong. I quite like it. I shall start writing like that immediate.

Secrets of lies

The most original contribution to the niqab debate last week came from my friend Ian Leslie, author of Born Liars, about the human animal's complicated relationship with truth. He pointed out in the New Statesman that many studies have debunked the myth that you can tell someone is lying by their face. Good liars can look honest and poor truthtellers can look shifty. This was confirmed by a report in this newspaper last week of an experiment which found that poker players give themselves away by how they move their hands to place their bets rather than by their facial expressions. Thus justice would be best served if all witnesses and defendants appeared in court with their faces completely covered.

And the answer is...

More than half of Scottish secondary school children, 56 per cent, said they avoided using their school loos in an Ipsos/Mori poll published this month: 10 per cent "never" use them and 46 per cent only if they "really have to". Any political party that launched a Campaign for Decent School Loos would win the grateful votes of a generation in perpetuity.

Matthew Bell is awayMichael Gove is a no-nonsense sort of chap, unafraid to shake his fist at the Human Rights Act. In 2011, the Education Secretary vowed to crack down on unruly pupils, whatever Europe said about their rights, and last year he led the cabinet's huffing and puffing when it looked as if Abu Qatada couldn't be deported. So how surprising to learn he is the trustee of a charity dedicated to promoting, er, human rights! The Charity Commission lists Gove as one of only two trustees of something called the European Freedom Fund. The other is the neocon writer and activist Douglas Murray. Their objective is "the promotion of respect for human rights as set out in the European Convention of Human Rights and fundamental freedoms adopted by the members of the council of Europe on 4th November 1950 and the convention's five protocols". This could put Gove in a tricky position when the Tories come to replacing the Human Rights Act with a British Bill of Rights. Still, the EFF hasn't been too busy: no money has gone in or out since it was founded in 2007. Molto strano!

The boys in Brazil

Mick Jagger enjoyed his gig at Glastonbury so much that he is launching his own festival. Apparently he is planning a kind of Woodstock in the jungle for November 2014, in Brazil. As yet it doesn't have a name, but it will replace the Rock in Rio event that normally takes place in September. I'm told Mick is keen to have a hippyish vibe, and that he has stipulated the closing song will be "All you need is love". Bands will be a mix of international heavyweights and local talent. My man at the Copacabana whispers that there's talk of a Beatle performing. Sadly, these days, that's a field of two. I think I can guess who he means.

Jeremy's easy ride

Red faces in Whitehall after the revelation that Britain's most senior civil servants are having part of their tax bill paid with public money. Among those enjoying this perk is the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Jeremy Heywood, whose chauffeur-driven Toyota Prius has cost the taxpayer 172,100 over the past two years. The timing of The Daily Telegraph's story is particularly embarrassing for Sir Jeremy, whose arduous journey to work is from Clapham in south London to Westminster. Only a few weeks ago he was on record saying nothing annoys good civil servants more than lazy ones. Quite so.

Hostess jolly

Fresh from the excitement of JCB tycoon Anthony Bamford becoming a life peer, his wife, Carole, has sent out invitations for the launch of A Love of Food, a collection of recipes from the Daylesford farm shop. Affectionately known as "doors to manual" for her early stint as an air hostess, Lady Bamford is the darling of the Chipping Norton set, who congregate at the slick Daylesford deli on her 1,700-acre Cotswold estate. Her book is published by 4th Estate, an imprint of Rupert Murdoch's HarperCollins, and foodies from Raymond Blanc to Tom Parker Bowles are falling over themselves to praise it. "My first ever experience of organic farming and produce was at Daylesford, which from that moment opened my eyes and taste buds to a whole other level," pants chef Tom Aikens. Chums come from across the political spectrum: they once lent their Barbados villa to the Blairs, and the Camerons are neighbours. The book's launch in Islington should be quite a party.

Royal paw-trait

Royal portrait painter Nicky Philipps has revealed it was her decision to include the Queen's corgis in the new full-length painting commissioned by the Royal Mail. "The Queen asked how many I wanted and I said: 'All four, please'," she says. "I couldn't have just one because the Queen is always seen trailed by a pack." HMQ was, of course, "delightful", and "has the most wonderful infectious laugh". And the dogs? "The session was quite chaotic," she admits. "But they were not nearly as aggressive as people make out." Tactfully put.

Smart Fossil collection

Students of Bristol University are clearly braced for the brutal job market awaiting them after graduation: they have taken a musical to Edinburgh called Take It Interns, the witty story of five ad agency interns who find themselves accidentally running a campaign for bottled air. But something tells me they won't be interns for long: their other show, Morag and Keats, a film noir parody, has pulled off the theatrical coup of casting Rich Fulcher, the American comedian best known for playing Bob Fossil in The Mighty Boosh, as narrator. "We found his email address, sent him the script, and asked if he would record the part," says co-author Will Farrell. "Amazingly, he said yes. When we asked about payment, he said, 'Don't worry', and quoted that line from The Godfather: 'One day, I will ask you for a favour. You can repay me then.'"

Fringe rallies round

Amid the laughter in Edinburgh comes sadness. Paul Byrne, 36, brother of Mock the Week comedian Ed Byrne and a highly respected comedy director in his own right, has been diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma. The discovery was made as the Fringe Festival kicked off, and he is already undergoing chemotherapy. The comedy community is rallying round, with a gig in his honour this Wednesday at the McEwan Hall. John Bishop is travelling to Edinburgh specially and Ed Byrne, Jason Byrne (no relation), Phill Jupitus and Glenn Wool are all taking part. Fringe stand-up hit Andrew Maxwell is MC. Funds raised will go to Paul who, as a freelance, can't afford to take time off sick.

Clarkson cleans up

A car once owned by Jeremy Clarkson goes under the hammer next weekend. Anyone interested in snapping up a V-reg Jaguar XJR for a bargain 2,500-4,500 should head to King's Lynn. Clarkson used to complain regularly in his column about keeping the black car clean, but the auctioneers are confident of finding a buyer: "The car is bound to attract interest from people who want to be able to say, 'Jeremy Clarkson cleaned my car.'" Hard to imagine they'll be mown down in the rush.Reporters on The Daily Telegraph reeled in a scoop after submitting a Freedom of Information request to the Palace of Westminster, asking who had the biggest unpaid bar bills.

Imagine their surprise when the list came back, only to find their own Guy Black, the Telegraphs executive director, at the top. Lord Black reassures me it was the consequence of an unfortunate admin glitch. I dont have, and never have had, an unpaid bar bill, he sighs. He explains that the sum was for a reception he hosted for the chocolate conglomerate Mars back in July. They were launching a campaign to save the Nepalese tiger. Apparently, the bill wasnt settled within 30 days, which is why Lord Black got a black mark. Once the admin glitch was brought to his attention, it was settled immediately. Funnily enough, the Telegraph has yet to publish its scoop.

Book of revelation

George Osborne has been faintly embarrassed by the Paul Flowers scandal, after David Davis said the Treasury had serious questions to answer about the Co-ops colourful chairman. But at least last weeks coke and prostitutes headlines had nothing to do with the Chancellor himself. So what to make of Natalie Rowes claims that the truth will be told when she speaks live on air tomorrow? Rowe is the ex-prostitute with whom Osborne was pictured partying back in the 1990s. Now she has published a kissntell book, Chief Whip: Memoirs of a Dominatrix, which she is vigorously publicising. The Chancellor has always denied claims they were anything more than acquaintances, and Rowes own version of events has not always been quite clear. Downing Street is thought to have seen the book and is braced to respond. On Friday, ahead of tomorrows live and uncensored interview on thepeoplesvoice.tv, she tweeted: And as for you David Cameron, your dirty secrets are coming out next, how long did you think you could hide behind George skirt tails. Tin hats at the ready!

Diamond jubilee

Works by Anish Kapoor, Damien Hirst and Jasper Johns were among the star lots at an auction in Dallas, Texas, yesterday. Much chatter surrounded the sale as to whom the works belonged to: the collection was billed in auction-house patter as the property of a distinguished gentleman. An art world sleuth tells me the man in question is Georges Marciano, co-founder of Guess Jeans, who has been through the mill a bit of late. The one-time tailors assistant amassed a 300m fortune, but then lost most of it in 2011, after losing a libel case which left him with a 225m bill. He had accused five employees of stealing his emails and wine. When Marciano had money, he knew how to flaunt it. His Hollywood mansion was infamous for having 11 Ferraris on the drive, and he once paid 10m for the Chloe diamond, one of the worlds biggest. An attempt to become governor of California failed, despite his touching motto: Putting People First, Not the Rich.

Off the rails

Julian Fellowes once berated this newspaper for nitpicking over historical inaccuracies in Downton Abbey. But its not just us. A reader writes to the Radio Times to point out that it would have been jolly difficult for Lady Edith to travel to London and back in a day, and be home in time for dinner, as she did recently. Indeed, Russell Hollowood, associate curator of railways at the National Rail Museum in York, has dug up the timetables. She might have caught the restaurant car express from Newcastle, which stopped at York at 9.51am, he says. The train arrived at Kings Cross at 1.35pm. By the time she had taken a taxi to her appointment, she would have faced a journey back of four to five hours. So like most people in those days, she would probably have chosen to stay overnight. Otherwise, her dinner would have had to be reheated by Mrs Patmore! Its the looniness that keeps on giving.

Get your house in order

Its a victory for the Beast. Three weeks ago, I highlighted how the Mauritian embassy in London had allowed its handsome Kensington HQ to slip into a state of decay. Council officers were in despair, because they are technically unable to interfere with embassies, which are mini countries. This column has more power: after years of neglect, the Mauritians have swung into action and embarked on a full renovation. Desks have been cleared and the whole building is covered in scaffolding. Its quite astonishing, says one local resident. They must have been embarrassed into action. Happy to help!

Ivory towers of paper

When Mark Damazer quit as head of Radio 4 to become master of an Oxford college, it was said he wanted to escape the bureaucracy of the BBCs upper command. Damazer had been tipped as a possible DG, though the scathing Hutton report possibly set him off course. Now he says that being master of St Peters College, Oxford isnt without its downsides. I had been warned (by no less an authority than Lord Mandelson) that Oxford would a more political organisation than the BBC, he writes in the FT. I have not yet found that to be the case. He adds wistfully: Perhaps we have all been sedated by the copious paperwork that accompanies meetings here.

To Hull and back

Tory MP Graham Stuart is all worked up about the use of the term Humberside. Apparently, this is wrong; the area should be referred to as East Yorkshire. Well, maybe. But his constituents are wondering why he hasnt got anything more substantial to get his teeth into, after he launched a campaign urging them to use preprinted stickers to return unwanted mail addressed to Humberside. It is time to send these incorrectly addressed letters back where they came from, he fumes. Im asking Beverley and Holderness residents to stick it to the Royal Mail and join my campaign by sending back wrongly addressed junk mail. Readers of the Hull Daily Mail ask why Mr Stuart has nothing better to do than spout drivel like this. His timing was certainly unfortunate, coming in the week Hull was named UK City of Culture. Surely a better cause to champion.

Bristling with rage

Michelle Pfeiffer, 55, says she likes to walk round the house naked now that her children have left home. But she admits to having Naomi Campbell-style moments of madness: she recently smashed up her electric toothbrush. I dont know what I was mad about, but I was stressed and having a bad day. I just slammed it in the sink. Watch out!Second World War bombing raids were so intense they changed the edge of the Earths atmosphere, a new study has found.

The violent bombing campaigns had vast and dramatic impacts on the ground below the planes. But they also rose as much as 1,000km up into the sky, changing the very limits of our atmosphere.

The shockwaves produced by the huge bombs weakened the electrified upper atmosphere, known as the ionosphere, the new research from the European Geosciences Union claims.

 USS Lexington: Wreck of Second World War aircraft carrier found in Coral Sea after 76 years

The findings could help shed light on the mysterious ways that natural events like lightning, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes change the same parts of the atmosphere. The ionosphere is important for modern technologies such as radio communications, GPS systems, radio telescopes and some early warning radar  but the precise way it changes over time is unknown.

The images of neighbourhoods across Europe reduced to rubble due to wartime air raids are a lasting reminder of the destruction that can be caused by manmade explosions. But the impact of these bombs way up in the Earths atmosphere has never been realised until now, said Chris Scott, professor of space and atmospheric physics.

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

It is astonishing to see how the ripples caused by manmade explosions can affect the edge of space. Each raid released the energy of at least 300 lightning strikes. The sheer power involved has allowed us to quantify how events on the Earths surface can also affect the ionosphere.

To conduct the work, researchers looked at contemporary records taken at the Radio Research Centre in Slough. They sent up radio pulses into the sky that allowed them to measure the height and concentration of ionisation in the upper atmosphere.

They found that the electron concentration dropped around the time of large allied bombing raids. The shockwaves from those bombs are thought to have heated the upper ionosphere and caused the loss of ionisation.

That tallies with reports of the strange and dramatic effects that the bombing raids could have on those around them, said experts.

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Aircrew involved in the raids reported having their aircraft damaged by the bomb shockwaves, despite being above the recommended height, said professor Patrick Major, University of Reading historian and a coauthor of the study.

Residents under the bombs would routinely recall being thrown through the air by the pressure waves of air mines exploding, and window casements and doors would be blown off their hinges. There were even rumours that wrapping wet towels around the face might save those in shelters from having their lungs collapsed by blast waves, which would leave victims otherwise externally untouched.

The unprecedented power of these attacks has proved useful for scientists to gauge the impact such events can have hundreds of kilometres above the Earth, in addition to the devastation they caused on the ground.Investigative journalists claim to have unearthed the real identity of one of the men Britain has accused of poisoning double agent Sergei Skripal in Salisbury.

According to a joint report published by Bellingcat and The Insider, the assassin identified by UK police as Ruslan Boshirov is a highly-decorated GRU colonel called Anatoliy Vladimirovich Chepiga.

In 2014, this same officer was awarded Russias highest military award by presidential decree. While the Hero of the Russian Federation honour was awarded secretly, given the dates involved, it is likely to relate to operations in Crimea and/or eastern Ukraine.

Apart from Ukraine, Colonel Chepiga also served in Chechnya as part of an elite special forces unit under GRU command. At some point between 2003 and 2010, he was assigned the Ruslan Boshirov alias.

The investigation makes several ingenious, or highly informed, leaps of assumption in the road to identifying the officer.

First, it hypothesises where the suspect may have received specialist education earlier in his career. This leads investigators to a military academy in Blagoveshchensk, Russia's Far East, apparently known for excellence in foreign language training and clandestine operations.

A 2018 article about the academy provides an archive picture taken in Chechnya, and the first possible photographic match of Boshirov/Chepiga. The photograph is then verified by cross-referencing with passport data. Here the match is persuasive. A passport photograph of a young Chepiga, from 2003, is remarkably consistent with the passport photograph of Ruslan Boshirov from 2009.

The new revelations cast further doubt on the official Russian account, already largely discredited by previous investigations. These revealed classified passport files, empty save for a "top secret" stamp and a phone number that rang through to the Russian defence ministry.

In an interview published on the Kremlin-funded RT network, the two men claimed to be simple Russian tourists, fulfilling a long-held ambition to visit Salisburys gothic cathedral. They said they did not know where Mr Skripal lived and that their decision to walk towards his home  rather than towards the cathedral  was pure coincidence.

Earlier this month, British prosecutors charged the two men with the attempted murder of Mr Skripal and his daughter Yulia; more charges relating to the other novichok victims Charlie Rowley and Dawn Sturgess will follow. It is unlikely the men will ever face trial given the hostility of the Kremlin to such an outcome, and the provisions of the Russian constitution, which rule out foreign extradition.

Following publication, British Minister of Defence Gavin Williamson appeared to confirm the conclusions made by Bellingcat and The Insider.

The true identity of one of the Salisbury suspects has been revealed to be a Russian Colonel. I want to thank all the people who are working so tirelessly on this case, he said in a tweet.

Police release images of suspects in connection with Salisbury attack Show all 19 1 /19 Police release images of suspects in connection with Salisbury attack Police release images of suspects in connection with Salisbury attack CCTV  Salisbury train station The two suspects charged in relation to the attack on Sergei and Yulia Skripal at Salisbury train station at 16:11hrs on 03 March 2018 Metropolitan Police Police release images of suspects in connection with Salisbury attack Suspects Suspects Ruslan Boshirov and Alexander Petrov, Russian nationals, approximately 40 years old, who travelled on a Russian passport. It is likely that they were travelling under aliases and that these are not their real names Metropolitan Police Police release images of suspects in connection with Salisbury attack Evidence Bottle and applicator recovered by police from Charlie Rowleys address in Muggleton Road Metropolitan Police Police release images of suspects in connection with Salisbury attack Evidence A counterfeit perfume box that was discovered by nerve agent victim Charlie Rowley, who later gave it, and the bottle inside, to his girlfriend Dawn Sturgess Metropolitan Police/AFP/Getty Police release images of suspects in connection with Salisbury attack Rowley has previously said he felt lucky to be alive after giving a perfume bottle that contained the nerve agent Novichok to his girlfriend Dawn Sturgess, who later died Metropolitan Police/AFP/Getty Police release images of suspects in connection with Salisbury attack Suspeccts The CPS has issued European Arrest Warrants for the extradition of 'Boshirov' and 'Petrov' in connection with the Novichok poisoning attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in March Metropolitan Police/PA Police release images of suspects in connection with Salisbury attack CCTV  Boshirov' at Gatwick airport Movements in detail - At 3pm on Friday, 2 March, the suspects arrived at Gatwick airport, having flown from Moscow on Aeroflot flight SU2588 Metropolitan Police Police release images of suspects in connection with Salisbury attack CCTV  Petrov at Gatwick airport From the airport it is believed that they travelled by train into London, arriving at Victoria station at approximately 5.40pm Metropolitan Police Police release images of suspects in connection with Salisbury attack CCTV  Salisbury train station, 11:48hrs on 4 March 2018 They then travelled on London public transport to Waterloo station and were in the area between approximately 6pm and 7pm. They travelled to the City Stay Hotel in Bow Road, East London, where they stayed on Friday, 2 March, and Saturday, 3 March. On Saturday, 3 March, they left the hotel and took the underground to Waterloo station, arriving at approximately 11.45am, where they caught a train to Salisbury, arriving at approximately 2.25pm Metropolitan Police Police release images of suspects in connection with Salisbury attack City Stay Hotel in Bow Road Police officers stand outside the City Stay Hotel in Bow where on Sunday, 4 March, 'Boshirov' and 'Petrov' made the same journey from the hotel as they did the previous day, again using the underground from Bow to Waterloo station at approximately 8.05am, before continuing their journey by train to Salisbury Getty Police release images of suspects in connection with Salisbury attack CCTV  Wilton Road, Salisbury, 11:58hrs on 4 March 2018 CCTV shows them in the vicinity of Mr Skripals house and we believe that they contaminated the front door with Novichok Metropolitan Police Police release images of suspects in connection with Salisbury attack CCTV  Fisherton Road CCTV image of both suspects on Fisherton Road, Salisbury at 13:05hrs on 4 March, 2018 Metropolitan Police Police release images of suspects in connection with Salisbury attack CCTV  Salisbury train station, 13:50hrs on 4 March 2018 They left Salisbury and returned to Waterloo Station, arriving at approximately 4.45pm and boarded the London Underground at approximately 6.30pm to London Heathrow Airport Metropolitan Police Police release images of suspects in connection with Salisbury attack CCTV  Heathrow airport security, 19:28hrs on 4 March 2018 From Heathrow Airport, they returned to Moscow on Aeroflot flight SU2585, departing at 10.30pm Metropolitan Police/PA Police release images of suspects in connection with Salisbury attack Scene investigations The police investigation was carried out over 6 months. Ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were found on March 4 in a critical condition on a bench outside the Maltings shopping centre in Salisbury AFP Police release images of suspects in connection with Salisbury attack Victims Former Russian spy Sergei Skripal, right, and his daughter Yulia Rex Police release images of suspects in connection with Salisbury attack Victims Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey who rushed to the aid of the Skripals was also taken to hospital in a serious condition after falling ill when attempting to help them PA Police release images of suspects in connection with Salisbury attack Victims Dawn Sturgess, a 44-year-old mother of three, died after falling ill when partner Charlie Rowley gave her a perfume bottle that contained the nerve agent Novichok Facebook/AFP/Getty Police release images of suspects in connection with Salisbury attack Scene investigations The home of Charlie Rowley in Muggleton Road, Amesbury, where he and Dawn Sturgess were exposed to the deadly nerve agent Novichok PA

The positive identification of a decorated GRU officer is likely to have far-reaching consequences for international diplomacy.

A senior Russian military expert quoted in the report contends it would be highly unusual for a colonel to be sent on a field mission such as this.

This, he suggested, was evidence the job was ordered at the highest level.Far-right figurehead Tommy Robinson faces being jailed for a second time for allegedly committing contempt of court.

The 35-year-old, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, will appear at the Old Bailey in London on Thursday.

::Follow the latest updates from the Old Bailey as Tommy Robinson attends new hearing::

The Recorder of London, Judge Nicholas Hilliard QC, will consider allegations that he published a matter which is likely to cause contempt of court during ongoing trials in Leeds.

Robinson was originally jailed for 13 months over a Facebook Live video he broadcast from outside the citys crown court in May, but the findings were overturned last month and he was freed.

Court of Appeal judges ordered a rehearing, saying the alleged contempt was serious and the sentence might be longer than that already served.

Robinson is also accused of breaching the conditions of a three-month suspended sentence he was handed for a separate contempt offence in Canterbury in 2017.

In a video posted on his official Facebook page on 20 September, Robinson vowed that he would not apologise or make any admission of guilt, and said he was expecting to be jailed again.

Supporters have organised a protest to start outside the Old Bailey ahead of the hearing on Thursday morning and a significant police presence is expected to separate them from counter-demonstrators.

Free Tommy protesters outside the Court of Appeal during a hearing on Tommy Robinson's 13-month prison sentence on 18 July (Alamy)

Two large Free Tommy protests in London saw disorder break out earlier this year, with police attacked and demonstrators performing Nazi salutes and blockading a bus driven by a Muslim woman.

Robinson was released from prison on 1 August, when high-profile backers including the Ukip leader Gerard Batten, Dutch opposition leader Geert Wilders and the former Breitbart London editor Raheem Kassam hailed the verdict as a victory for freedom of speech.

The Court of Appeal found that procedural failings by the judge who jailed Robinson for 13 months at Leeds Crown Court gave rise to unfairness and meant proceedings were fundamentally flawed.

Recommended Ukip to debate inviting Tommy Robinson to join party

The Lord Chief Justice and two other judges said that while Geoffrey Marson QC was right to bring Robinson before him to have the Facebook video deleted and protect jury deliberations, the case was dealt with too fast and did not follow criminal procedure rules.

There was no clarity about what parts of the video were relied upon as amounting to contempt, what parts the appellant accepted through his counsel amounted to contempt and for what conduct he was sentenced, their judgment read.

There should have been an adjournment to enable the particulars of contempt to be properly formulated and for a hearing at a more measured pace.

The Court of Appeal found that Judge Marson proceeded on the basis that the appellant had admitted his contempt after Robinsons lawyer apologised on his behalf, but he was not asked to respond to the particulars of the allegations himself.

The failings meant that Robinsons family circumstances were not considered and he was recorded as a criminal, rather than civil, prisoner and deprived of visits, free communications and other freedoms he should have been allowed.

Judges did not say Robinson had not committed contempt of court, and accused him of delaying the appeals for tactical reasons and collateral advantage.

The Tommy Robinson protest: in pictures Show all 27 1 /27 The Tommy Robinson protest: in pictures The Tommy Robinson protest: in pictures Protesters scuffle with police at the junction of Whitehall and The Mall during a 'Free Tommy Robinson' protest AFP/Getty Images The Tommy Robinson protest: in pictures A protester wearing a mask of US president Donald Trump was among thousands of supporters of far-right activist and former English Defence League leader Tommy Robinson staging a protest outside Downing Street in central London. Rex Features The Tommy Robinson protest: in pictures A man empties his beer over passing police AFP/Getty The Tommy Robinson protest: in pictures Reuters The Tommy Robinson protest: in pictures Dutch far-right opposition leader Geert Wilders addresses thousands of supporters Rex Features The Tommy Robinson protest: in pictures Demonstrators clash with police Getty Images The Tommy Robinson protest: in pictures Rex The Tommy Robinson protest: in pictures Protesters scuffle with police on Whitehall during a 'Free Tommy Robinson' protest on 9 June AFP/Getty Images The Tommy Robinson protest: in pictures Police watch supporters of Tommy Robinson PA The Tommy Robinson protest: in pictures People take part in a support rally for Tommy Robinson Rex Features The Tommy Robinson protest: in pictures Supporters of far-right spokesman Tommy Robinson demonstrate in Trafalgar square AFP/Getty Images The Tommy Robinson protest: in pictures Protesters scuffle with police at the junction of Whitehall and The Mall during a 'Free Tommy Robinson' protest on 9 June AFP/Getty Images The Tommy Robinson protest: in pictures A man climbs on one of the lions in Trafalgar Square Getty Images The Tommy Robinson protest: in pictures Protesters scuffle with police at the junction of Whitehall and The Mall AFP/Getty Images The Tommy Robinson protest: in pictures Police clear supporters PA The Tommy Robinson protest: in pictures Beer is thrown as demonstrators clash with police Getty Images The Tommy Robinson protest: in pictures Demonstrators clash with police Getty Images The Tommy Robinson protest: in pictures Demonstrators clash with police Getty Images The Tommy Robinson protest: in pictures Protesters scuffle with police AFP/Getty Images The Tommy Robinson protest: in pictures Demonstrators clash with police Getty Images The Tommy Robinson protest: in pictures Demonstrators clash with police Getty Images The Tommy Robinson protest: in pictures Demonstrators clash with police Getty Images The Tommy Robinson protest: in pictures Demonstrators clash with police Getty Images The Tommy Robinson protest: in pictures Supporters of English Defence League (EDL) founder Tommy Robinson clash with the police in Whitehall, London on 9 June Reuters The Tommy Robinson protest: in pictures An injured police officer during a 'Free Tommy Robinson' protest in London on 9 June AFP/Getty The Tommy Robinson protest: in pictures Protesters take over a sight-seeing bus on at the junction of Whitehall and The Mall during a 'Free Tommy Robinson' protest on 9 June AFP/Getty Images The Tommy Robinson protest: in pictures Police watch supporters of Tommy Robinson during their protest in Trafalgar Square PA

Their judgment suggested that Robinson may have committed contempt both by violating reporting restrictions and with generally prejudicial remarks, including on the ethnic and religious backgrounds of the defendants.

These comments were, at least potentially, capable of amounting to a freestanding contempt of court, it continued.

The alleged contempt was serious and the sentence might be longer than that already served if a finding is again made against [Robinson].

The Court of Appeal refused to quash a separate finding of contempt from Canterbury Crown Court in May 2017, saying criticism by Robinsons legal team had no substance.

In that case he was handed a three-month suspended sentence for trying to film defendants inside the court during jury deliberations, after being told to stop and warned filming was against the law.

Judge Heather Norton said at the time: This contempt hearing is not about free speechit is about justice, and it is about ensuring that a trial can be carried out justly and fairly.

Contempt of court laws aim to ensure fair trails in Britain by preventing juries from being swayed by information from outside the hearing, and apply to all forms of online and offline publications.

The offences are covered by a strict liability rule, meaning that intent and knowledge of committing them are not necessary for a conviction.

But Robinsons case has become a cause celebre for far-right groups around the world, who characterise his treatment as a crackdown on free speech.

Free Tommy Robinson supporters and Pro-Trump supporters come together on Whitehall, London (PA Wire/PA Images)

International protests started almost immediately after Robinson was jailed and he received almost 20,000 in Bitcoin during his imprisonment.

Robinson's following on Facebook and YouTube also surged and was publicly supported by figures including the US president's son, Donald Trump Jr.

Id have done six months just for that recognition, he purportedly wrote in a letter from prison.

As Robinsons website and his former employees at Rebel Media asked for donations, US think-tank the Middle East Forum also claimed it was paying his legal defence.

Donald Trumps ambassador for international religious freedom reportedly lobbied the British government over Robinsons case, while former Breitbart executive chairman Steve Bannon used it to publicise The Movement, which will seek to influence European politics.

Robinson characterises himself as an independent reporter, but the Court of Appeal found that his interest in both the Canterbury and Leeds trials was ethnicity or religion of the defendants.

He reached national prominence after founding the far-right English Defence League in 2009, later leaving the organisation and attempting to set up a British chapter of the German anti-Islam group Pegida.

Robinsons activity has been interrupted by jail sentences for entering the US with a false passport, and mortgage fraud, while he has also been convicted of offences including common assault and threatening and abusive behaviour.

Robinson was employed by the alt-right Canadian website Rebel Media but quit and now funds his videos through donations from supporters around the world. Close Tommy Robinson arrives at Old Bailey court to large crowd of supporters

A judge has adjourned Tommy Robinson's rehearing over alleged contempt of court.

The 35-year-old, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, attended the Old Bailey on Thursday morning as hundreds of his supporters protested outside.

The Recorder of London, Judge Nicholas Hilliard QC, invited parties in the case to make written submissions on whether there should be a "substantive hearing" and how it should proceed.

He will make a decision on what will happen next at another hearing, which may take place next month

Please allow a moment for the live blog to load

Tommy Robinson supporters protest outside the Old Bailey Show all 16 1 /16 Tommy Robinson supporters protest outside the Old Bailey Tommy Robinson supporters protest outside the Old Bailey A Tommy Robinson supporter in London after former English Defence League (EDL) leader Tommy Robinson left the Old Bailey where his contempt of court case was adjourned PA Tommy Robinson supporters protest outside the Old Bailey A Tommy Robinson supporter outside the Old Bailey in London where the former English Defence League (EDL) leader is accused of contempt of court PA Tommy Robinson supporters protest outside the Old Bailey Tommy Robinson supporters outside the Old Bailey in London before former English Defence League (EDL) leader Tommy Robinson arrives accused of contempt of court PA Tommy Robinson supporters protest outside the Old Bailey Supporters of far-right figurehead Tommy Robinson demonstrate outside the Old Bailey Getty Tommy Robinson supporters protest outside the Old Bailey Supporters of far-right figurehead Tommy Robinson demonstrate outside the Old Bailey Getty Tommy Robinson supporters protest outside the Old Bailey Supporters of former English Defence League (EDL) leader Tommy Robinson protest at the Old Bailey Courthouse EPA Tommy Robinson supporters protest outside the Old Bailey Supporters of former English Defence League leader Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, or 'Tommy Robinson', who was jailed for contempt of court in May and later released, wait for him to arrive at the Old Bailey to attend a court hearing Reuters Tommy Robinson supporters protest outside the Old Bailey Supporters of far-right figurehead Tommy Robinson demonstrate outside the Old Bailey Getty Tommy Robinson supporters protest outside the Old Bailey Tommy Robinson arrives for his hearing at the Old Bailey Reuters Tommy Robinson supporters protest outside the Old Bailey Supporters of far-right figurehead Tommy Robinson demonstrate outside the Old Bailey Getty Tommy Robinson supporters protest outside the Old Bailey Supporters of far-right spokeseman Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon, AKA Tommy Robinson, the former leader of the right-wing EDL (English Defence League) wave flags as they demonstrate outsise The Old Bailey AFP/Getty Tommy Robinson supporters protest outside the Old Bailey Supporters of far-right figurehead Tommy Robinson demonstrate outside the Old Bailey EPA Tommy Robinson supporters protest outside the Old Bailey EPA Tommy Robinson supporters protest outside the Old Bailey Robinson gestures to supporters from inside the Old Bailey AFP/Getty Tommy Robinson supporters protest outside the Old Bailey AFP/Getty Tommy Robinson supporters protest outside the Old Bailey EPA

A judge will later consider allegations that he published a matter which is likely to cause contempt of court during ongoing trials in Leeds.

Robinson was originally jailed for 13 months over a Facebook Live video he broadcast from outside the citys crown court in May, but the findings were overturned last month and he was freed.

Court of Appeal judges ordered a rehearing, saying the alleged contempt was serious and the sentence might be longer than that already served.

Robinson is also accused of breaching the conditions of a three-month suspended sentence he was handed for a separate contempt offence in Canterbury in 2017.

In a video posted on his official Facebook page on 20 September, Robinson vowed that he would not apologise or make any admission of guilt, and said he was expecting to be jailed again.

Two large Free Tommy protests in London saw disorder break out earlier this year, with police attacked and demonstrators performing Nazi salutes and blockading a bus driven by a Muslim woman.

Robinson was released from prison on 1 August, when high-profile backers including the Ukip leader Gerard Batten, Dutch opposition leader Geert Wilders and the former Breitbart London editor Raheem Kassam hailed the verdict as a victory for freedom of speech.

The Court of Appeal found that procedural failings by the judge who jailed Robinson for 13 months at Leeds Crown Court gave rise to unfairness and meant proceedings were fundamentally flawed.

The Lord Chief Justice and two other judges said that while Geoffrey Marson QC was right to bring Robinson before him to have the Facebook video deleted and protect jury deliberations, the case was dealt with too fast and did not follow criminal procedure rules.

They found that Judge Marson proceeded on the basis that the appellant had admitted his contempt after Robinsons lawyer apologised on his behalf, but he was not asked to respond to the particulars of the allegations himself.

Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release Show all 50 1 /50 Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release Far-right protesters demanding the release of jailed EDL founder Tommy Robinson brought chaos to central London The Independent Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release Supporters of English Defence League founder Tommy Robinson demonstrate in London REUTERS Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release The Independent Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release The Independent Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release The Independent Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release Protesters blocked a bus being driven by a woman in a headscarf Staff Photographer Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release EDL block the roads in London Staff Photographer Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release EDL fly the St George flag at a Tommy Robinson support rally Staff Photographer Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release Protesters hold up placards and wave Union flags AFP/Getty Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release The Independent Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release The Independent Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release Supporters of English Defence League founder Tommy Robinson REUTERS Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release EDL shout through pub window REUTERS Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release The Independent Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release The Independent Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release Supporters of English Defence League founder Tommy Robinson are confronted by police REUTERS Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release The Independent Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release EDL display the St George flag to a bus driver Staff Photographer Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release The Independent Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release EDL supporters in London Staff Photographer Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release The Independent Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release The Independent Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release The Independent Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release The Independent Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release The Independent Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release The Independent Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release EDL in Trafalgar Square Staff Photographer Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release The Independent Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release The Independent Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release The Independent Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release Pro-Tommy Robinson suport topless holds up a bus Staff Photographer Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release The Independent Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release The Independent Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release Police stop EDL Staff Photographer Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release The Independent Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release The Independent Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release EDL hold up traffic in London Staff Photographer Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release Bus and passengers held up by EDL fury Staff Photographer Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release Free Tommy Robinson supporters and Pro-Trump supporters come together on Whitehall PA Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release Protest placards REUTERS Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release Protesters hold up placards at a rally by supporters of far-right spokesman Tommy Robinson AFP/Getty Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release Protesters march down Whitehall in support of far-right Tommy Robinson AFP/Getty Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release London EDL protests REUTERS Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release Demonstrators hold banners supporting EDF founder Tommy Robinson and President Trump REUTERS Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release A protester dressed as a knight takes part in a rally by supporters of far-right spokesman Tommy Robinson in central London following the jailing of Tommy Robinson for contempt of court AFP/Getty Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release Free Tommy Robinson supporters PA Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release Protesters march down Whitehall AFP/Getty Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release Supporters of English Defence League founder Tommy Robinson REUTERS Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release Supporters of English Defence League founder Tommy Robinson demonstrate REUTERS Tommy Robinson march: Far-right protesters demand EDL founder release Supporters of English Defence League founder Tommy Robinson clash with police REUTERS

Judges did not say Robinson had not committed contempt of court, and accused him of delaying the appeals for tactical reasons and collateral advantage.

Their judgment suggested that Robinson may have committed contempt both by violating reporting restrictions and with generally prejudicial remarks, including on the ethnic and religious backgrounds of the defendants.

These comments were, at least potentially, capable of amounting to a freestanding contempt of court, it continued.

The alleged contempt was serious and the sentence might be longer than that already served if a finding is again made against [Robinson].

Contempt of court laws aim to ensure fair trial in Britain by preventing juries from being swayed by information from outside the hearing, and apply to all forms of online and offline publications.

The offences are covered by a strict liability rule, meaning that intent and knowledge of committing them are not necessary for a conviction.

But Robinsons case has become a cause celebre for far-right groups around the world, who characterise his treatment as a crackdown on free speech.The decision to class the Westminster Bridge attacker, Khalid Masood, as someone who did not pose a risk to national security was sound, a senior MI5 officer has said.

Giving evidence at the inquest into the victims deaths, the officer, identified only as Witness L, said the atrocity could not have been stopped.

There simply wasnt enough intelligence for us to work on that would have allowed us to identify his plot and work with the police to frustrate it, he said.

He told the Old Bailey: Masood engaged in attack planning on his own. Its very difficult to make a decision as to when he decided to mount the attack.

The court heard how Masood came to the attention of MI5 in 2004, when his number was found in the phone of Waheed Mahmood, one of a group of terrorists who plotted to plant fertiliser bombs.

He also had contact on a number of occasions between 2004 and 2009 with another suspect under investigation by MI5. The suspect had his address, email addresses and phone numbers.

In February 2010 there was a vague and uncorroborated report of someone called Khalid Masood  an extremist based in Saudi Arabia  helping a UK terror cell plan to travel to Pakistan to receive training from al-Qaida.

He was initially classed as someone who posed a threat to national security, but was downgraded to someone who may pose a threat a month later, when MI5 investigators discovered Masood was not involved.

In December that year a review found that as Masood was not involved in facilitating travel or in any other aspect of the plot, he could be downgraded again.

In pictures: Westminster attack Show all 9 1 /9 In pictures: Westminster attack In pictures: Westminster attack An air ambulance lands after gunfire sounds were heard close to the Palace of Westminster in London PA wire In pictures: Westminster attack MPs wait until the situation is under control in Westminster. 'The alleged assailant was shot by armed police,' David Lidington, leader of the House of Commons, told the house. BBC News In pictures: Westminster attack Crowds gather in Westminster after shooting incident, which police are treating as terror attack BBC News In pictures: Westminster attack Police were also called to an incident on Westminster Bridge nearby AP In pictures: Westminster attack Early reports indicate the car, which mounted the pavement on Westminster Bridge and mowed into around a dozen people, was the same vehicle which then rammed into the railings of the Palace of Westminster, just around the corner Reuters In pictures: Westminster attack Security sources described the suspected assailant as a middle-aged Asian man, who is understood to have left the car before attacking a police officer with a seven-to-eight inch knife PA wire In pictures: Westminster attack Police have asked people to avoid the immediate area to allow emergency services to deal with the ongoing incident AP In pictures: Westminster attack One woman has died and a number of others, including the police officer, have been hurt, according to a junior doctor at St Thomas' Hospital Reuters In pictures: Westminster attack At least three gun shots were heard by those inside Westminster, and proceedings in the House of Commons have been suspended AP

Witness L told the Old Bailey: He was downgraded to a target who was not considered to be a risk to national security.

No record was made at the time of the reasons why the decision was taken.

Counsel to the inquest Jonathan Hough QC read from a written statement by Witness L which said: We have reviewed the decision to close Masood (as a person of interest) with the benefit of hindsight and we conclude the decision was sound.

The officer went on: It was logical, necessary and proportionate to consider him a closure.

Between December 2010 and October 2012 Masood was associated with a number of subjects of interest to MI5 and there was an indication that he consumed extremist material, the court heard.

For the next four years he appeared intermittently in connection with a number of other subjects of interest, including some linked to banned extremist group Al-Muhajiroun, but at no stage was there considered to be enough information to justify investigating him further.

The officer said that even though Masood had a history of violent offending, had been linked to multiple terror suspects, and in 2013 expressed satisfaction that the 9/11 attacks had drawn people to Islam, the decision not to investigate him was a sound one.

Witness L said: None of these indicators were enough to say that he was involved in activities of significant concern to us.

At the time of the attack in 2017 the service was facing an unprecedented scale of work, with around 500 investigations into Islamist terrorists, 3,000 people considered subjects of interest (SOIs) and 20,000 who had previously been classed as SOIs.

Mr Hough read Witness L a conclusion from a report by former terror watchdog David Anderson after the atrocity that said: Not everything can be stopped, there will always be a danger of a determined attacker getting through.

The officer replied: Im afraid thats true.

He also gave his condolences to relatives of those who died.

On behalf of both myself and my service I offer my profound sympathies to the families of those who were killed in Khalid Masoods attack, those who were injured in the attack and anyone else who was affected by it.

Everyone in my service comes to work every day to stop attacks.

The Metropolitan Police commissioner, Cressida Dick, and deputy assistant commissioner Dean Haydon, a senior counter-terrorism officer, were in court as Witness L gave evidence.

Masood, 52, ploughed a hired vehicle into pedestrians Kurt Cochran, 54, Leslie Rhodes, 75, Aysha Frade, 44, and Andreea Cristea, 31, on Westminster Bridge on March 22 last year, before stabbing Pc Keith Palmer, 48, to death near the Houses of Parliament.

Gareth Patterson QC, for the families of the four civilians killed in the attack, said: I suggest a proper investigation would have been likely to have revealed not only his extremist views, which were there to be discovered, but the danger that he posed.

Witness L replied: I believe that such a hypothetical investigation would have exposed his extremist views, I dont believe it would have exposed his attack planning.

Additional reporting by Press AssociationAs MPs reassembled after the weekend break, ministers from the Communities and Local Government Department assembled to focus their minds on the oral questions they were going to have to answer in the House. That, anyway, is what they should have been doing, but Nick Boles, a very clever junior minister, was focused on his handset, tweeting: Distracted from Orals prep by this topical question: which of my colleagues would best fill the role of Khaleesi?

Khaleesi is, of course, a Dothraki title taken by the wife a khal in the fantasy Game of Thrones. Emilia Clarke played one: her character is a dab hand at dealing with dragons.

Liz Truss, the schools minister, and Esther McVey, the work and pensions minister, were the first names to come to Nick Boless mind. Let's face it either of them would be magnificent with three dragons at their command, he reckoned. Same goes for the Labour MP Stella Creasy, or the maverick Tory Nadine Dorries, he added.

It possibly may be relevant to add that Nick Boles is gay.

PM decides to shop around

David Camerons disappointment at the coverage he got for his recent visit to Waitrose, in Cheadle, is understandable. There he was, in the north west, not far from the Labour voting big cities, talking to shop staff about how chatty and engaged their customers are, and all he gets for it is a roasting because Waitrose is branded as the supermarket for the posh.

You can almost hear him ordering his staff to find a supermarket that is absolutely not posh and fix up a visit, and quickly. Hence his early morning call on the Clapham Junction branch of Asda, to tell them how delighted he is that the supermarket chain is about to create 12,000 new jobs. If he has never shopped in Asda, that is understandable: the nearest branch to Chipping Norton is more than 20 miles away, in Oxford.

Caution: chain reaction

Staff coming in to work in Parliament on Sunday discovered the normal entrance was shut and the yard beneath Big Ben was full of suffragettes, watched by a police officer dressed in uniform a century out of date. It was a temporary film set. If this keeps happening, some enraged employee is liable to chain himself to the railings.

Not enough of a Tory boy?

Andrew Rosindell, Tory MP for Romford, is so solidly right wing that you would think that you would think he would be the poster boy for the old Tory dinosaurs. He is Parliaments foremost champion of the Union Jack. He campaigns for St Georges Day to be a national holiday. On his website, beneath a picture of himself standing alongside Margaret Thatcher, he modestly describes himself as one of Westminsters more patriotic MPs. True, in 2001, he resigned from the Monday Club, which was calling for immigrants to be sent back whence they came, but that was because the then Tory leader, Iain Duncan Smith, ordered him to.

And yet it seems, Rosindell is just too modern and middle of the road for some of his fellow Essex Tories, such as Eric Munday, Mayor of Havering, who was quoted by the Romford Recorder as saying: After 36 years continuous serviceI have been condemned as a dinosaur and de-selected by the Romford Conservative Association following it being taken over by Andrew Rosindell.

Complaining that the government is not hard enough on immigration, Councillor Munday has gone over to Ukip, with two others, thereby depriving the Tories of overall control of Havering Council. Mr Rosindell is understandably annoyed. They have benefitted from the partys support and now it is sad they chose to do the dirty on the party. It is so selfish, he said.New members of the House of Lords, who are alive, take a more active role in its affairs than former members, who are dead. I owe this startling insight to Lord Foulkes, a venerable Labour peer who was complaining to the Chairman of Committees about the shortage of space in the building caused by the arrival of 117 new peers created by the present government.

New working peers are, quite rightly, attending more frequently than those who have left or have died off, Lord Foulkes observed.

Lord Sewel, the Chairman of Committees, tentatively concurred: It is likely that the new creations are more active than those who are no longer with us, he said.

Note that neither man was alleging that those peers who are no longer with us are entirely inactive. This would suggest that they can not be entirely sure whether any of their colleagues, in fact, dead. Anyone who has witnessed a House of Lords debate will understand their difficulty.

One still among the living is Lord Hanningfield, the former Tory leader of Essex County Council, who has not spoken in any Lords debate nor asked any oral or written questions since he was charged with fiddling his expenses in February 2010. But since being released from prison, he has seldom let pass any opportunity to sign in and claim the 300 a day attendance allowance to which he is still legally entitled. The register shows that up to the end of last May  the latest month for which figures have been published  he had claimed 40,800, plus travel expenses.

So lets hear it for those dead peers: they might not be contributing any more than Lord Hanningfield to Parliaments debates, but at least they are not costing anything.

McBride spins himself a promotion

Belated congratulations to Damian McBride. The disgraced former Downing Street spinner has been promoted. From being in charge of a team of six press officers at the Catholic charity, Cafod, he is Head of External Communications at the same organisation, with a 17-strong department formed by merging the media office with a section known as CCS.

His elevation may come as a surprise, as the last we heard was that Cafod had declined to accept any royalties from sales of McBrides notorious memoirs and the charitys trustees were considering its implications and debating whether action is needed.

McBride was promoted in December, but the news has only just been posted on Cafods website, where a hack from the Catholic newspaper, The Tablet spotted it. The same hack rang to ask whether McBrides book is on the agenda for this weekends Cafod board meeting, but could not get an answer.

At least you could say they grow on you...

We Brits are said to hold our politicians in low esteem, but our view of the Commons is reverential compared with what Americans think of the US Congress, according to a survey by Public Policy Polling. One question asked whether they had a higher opinion of Congress or toenail fungus: 49 per cent said toenail fungus, 41 per cent said Congress, and 15 per cent did not know.

A cliffhanger of a complaint

The Tory MP Tim Loughton made a curious claim during his Commons tirade this week against the Sussex police. He accused them of failing to see he is a victim of harassment after a constituent allegedly sent him a message urging me to commit suicide. Mr Loughton tweeted about a childrens charity event in which volunteers were to abseil down a Sussex cliff. His tormentor replied: Go on, Tim, make the kidss lives better by jumping off a cliff. That, surely, is a joke: not a nice joke, but hardly one to detain the police.

Something just doesnt add up

The House of Commons has this week been dealing with the issues of adult literacy and numeracy, inspiring the blog LeftFootForward to dig up this exchange from when the Education Secretary, Michael Gove, appeared before the education committee last year. Question: If good requires pupil performance to exceed the national average, and if all schools must be good, how is this mathematically possible? Answer: By getting better all the time. Question: Were you better at literacy than numeracy, Secretary of State? Answer: I cannot remember.Filibustering is heroic, if you happen to agree with the person doing it. It takes obstinacy, verbal skill, and stamina.

The Texas Senator Wendy Davis won so much kudos for talking non-stop for 11 hours last June to prevent an anti-abortion bill going through the state legislature that she has attracted $1.2m (770,000) worth of political donations in the past month alone.

On this side of the Atlantic, the Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg was fuming after Labour peers spent 33 hours in January 2011 arguing over just eight out of 80 proposed amendments to the Electoral Reform Bill that was going to cut the size of the House of Commons. The same ruse has been put to good use from time to time in the House of Commons. In 2007, a former Tory chief whip, David Maclean, introduced a Private Member's Bill that was intended to prevent the Freedom of Information Act from applying to Parliament.

Two Liberal Democrat MPs, Simon Hughes and Norman Baker, spent five hours arguing about the detail in a bid to stop it going any further.

In 1989, Labour's Dennis Skinner spoke for hours on whether to move the writ for a by-election, to prevent Ann Widdecombe introducing a bill that would have restricted abortion.

Such tactics may be admirable in their own way, but do they do anything for the reputation of Parliament? The cross-party Procedure Committee thinks not, because rarely can they be successfully used to stop the Government getting legislation on to the statute books.

They are much more commonly used against bills that backbench MPs are trying to introduce. The committee, chaired by the Tory MP Charles Walker, is demanding a change in the rules so that the Commons business managers can impose a timetable on debates about Private Member's Bills.

Even if the committee gets its way, that will not help James Wharton, the youngish Tory MP who has a Private Member's Bill that would force the Government to hold a referendum on whether the UK should stay in or leave the EU, because any rule change would have to be delayed until next year.

English as it is organised  but not spoken

As if frustrated that there will be no British bombers flying over Damascus, the Blairite wing of the Labour Party launched a strike yesterday against the English language.

Rachel Reeves, a Shadow cabinet star tipped as a future Labour leader, is just back from maternity leave, and has agreed to be guest speaker at an event at Labour's autumn conference organised by Movement for Change.

That organisation, which emerged out of David Miliband's ill-starred 2010 leadership campaign, is described by its acting head, Mike Kane, as a place of people coming together to make change happen.

The movement took to Twitter to publicise its upcoming meeting, with a graphic that included a quotation from Reeves  Organising around Living Wage is a policy development that is linked to the lives of ordinary people  but not linked at all to ordinary speech.

Ukip's credit for Middle East peace

What drove Barack Obama to refer the decision on striking Syria to Congress? What was the real explanation for the Government's parliamentary defeat last week?

The surprising answer to both questions is personified in that international colossus and latter-day peacenik, Nigel Farage.

My source for this startling revelation is Henry Reilly, above, a Ukip member of Newry and Mourne district council who will also be a candidate for Northern Ireland in next year's Euro election. He said, via Twitter: Proud of Ukip  stopped UK bombing Syria and prompted US Congress to consider democracy  Ukip, the only real opposition  think Ukip  peace.

More or less clear on energy merits

I notice that an item went up on The Carbon Brief website at the weekend, under the headline Shale gas: more or less polluting than coal? which discusses the issue without arriving at a definitive conclusion. It reminds me of a paper issued a couple of years ago by the Policy Exchange think-tank called: Gas Works? Shale gas and its policy implications. It was written by Simon Moore, and edited by Simon Less, which answers the question, sort of.

Ireland's other prophetic poet

Seamus Heaney, who was buried in Dublin yesterday, was described by the BBC as the best-known Irish poet since Yeats. Possibly, but today is the 50th anniversary of the death of another Irish poet of some distinction.

Louis MacNeice was never quite as famous as Heaney, but did compose lines which aptly sum up the ongoing debate on Syria: The argument was wilful,/ The alternatives untrue,/ We need no metaphysics/ To sanction what we do/ Or to muffle us in comfort/ From what we did not do.

a.mcsmith@independent.co.uk; twitter.com/@andymcsmithThe conference season is a long, expensive interlude in politics which stretched this year from 9 September, when the TUC assembly began in Bournemouth, until 2 October, when the Conservatives dispersed from Manchester. Did any of it have any lasting effect? The answer, according to a YouGov poll, is almost none. But the one party whose conference was an admitted failure was Ukip.

After all good publicity was sucked out of the event by the antics of Godfrey Bloom, Nigel Farage disconsolately told delegates that the conference had been "destroyed". Yet its destruction has had no measurable impact on Ukip's support in the country, which remains where it was a month ago, at around 11 per cent, a little ahead of the Lib Dems. It is arguable, of course, that a rip-roaringly successful, Bloom-free conference would have pushed Ukip's support higher, but that is merely speculation.

The other parties are also pretty much where they were before the conference circus began. There is just one significant difference between then and now: Ed Miliband's personal rating has shot up. How much of that is due to his policies, how much to his conference speech, and how much to a reaction to the Daily Mail's misdirected attack on his late father Ralph, the figures do not tell.

But before Labour supporters rejoice in their leader's new-found success, they should realise that his standing could hardly have got any worse than it was a month ago. On the latest figures, 29 per cent think he is doing well, 59 per cent that he is doing badly, a net rating of minus 30. Previously, he was at minus 46. As YouGov's president, Peter Kellner, put it, he has "lifted his position from catastrophic to lousy."

Let's talk about Blair, baby

Martin Sheen, currently starring as the eponymous Dr William Masters in the Channel 4 drama Masters of Sex, has been reflecting in the Radio Times on the role that first made him famous, 10 years ago, when he played Tony Blair.

"I only met him once at a dinner party after I had done The Queen," he said. "His official line is that he has never seen any of the things I've done about him, but he seemed to have a fairly good working knowledge."

Boris suffers from Potter mouth

Boris Johnson, on a trade visit to China, has tried to kid the Chinese that Harry Potter's girlfriend Cho Chang was a "Chinese overseas student" at Hogwarts. Here in the UK, there are a vast number of under-25 Potterologists who could have told him that Cho Chang (played by Katie Leung) is actually British. In the film, she is a Scot.

Tax avoidance: bad when it's not you

Two charities, War on Want and the USA's Change to Win Federation, are launching an important report today accusing the pharmaceutical firm Alliance Boots of avoiding at least 1.1bn in tax. Also involved in producing the report is the union Unite which, by an unfortunate coincidence of timing, has been presented by the tax authorities with a bill for 2.3m in unpaid VAT. Unite denies that it has been avoiding tax, and says that discussions are ongoing.

Expensive work, living like a lord

Last week, I mentioned Lord Hanningfield's practice of claiming 300 a day in attendance allowances at almost every opportunity since serving a jail sentence for fiddling his expenses, though there was no sign he had contributed anything to the House of Lords since his arrest. I learn from the East Anglian Daily Times that he has broken his silence.

He had not yet said anything in the main Lords debating chamber, but did speak during a committee session on Thursday on East Anglia's rail network. He told the newspaper: "I intend to speak quite regularly now. I used to speak every single day."

Of the 40,800 in attendance allowances that he claimed in the first 14 months since his return, he added: "It is not a great amount of money. I have to live."David Cameron heads off to Russia on Thursday for the G20 summit of world leaders, promising that he is not going to shy away from tackling Vladimir Putin, pictured, about a couple of very serious differences between Russias regime and ours.

While Syria is the bigger and more urgent, the Foreign Office has said that the Prime Minister will also raise the question of the law that the Russian parliament passed in June, banning the promotion of non-traditional sexual relations.

What with that and the suspicious deaths of the Russian lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, and the defector, Alexander Litvinenko, you might think that the British Conservatives are not exactly soulmates with Putins United Russia party.

But here is a strange thing: whenever the parliamentarians who make up the Council or Europe meet, almost all the leading European centre-right parties  including Germanys Christian Democrats, whose leader is Angela Merkel, and Frances Union pour un Mouvement Populaire, founded in 2002 by Jacques Chirac  go into one room, while the Tories walk wistfully by and into another room, to commune with the delegates from United Russia.

The reason is that when Mr Cameron was running for the Tory leadership, back in 2005, he promised to pull the party out of the grouping called the European Peoples Party, to which other conservative parties belong, because it is too enthusiastically pro-EU. There are disadvantages to belonging to no political group in Europe, so the Conservatives landed themselves with their strange bedfellows in the European Democrat Group.

It was reported that Mr Cameron was going to pull the Tories out five years ago, when Russia was behaving aggressively towards Georgia, but they are still there, because of an election promise he made eight years ago, as a sop to his restive and generally ungrateful right wing.

Can Tony avoid pitfall?

Tony Blair has been called upon to help sort out a crisis that is threatening 1,700 jobs in a copper mine on the edge of a vast desert. He will shortly be making a trip to Mongolia to advise them on how to negotiate with Rio Tinto Zinc, whose annual earnings match the countrys GDP. It owns two-thirds of a vast new mine, Oyu Tolgoi, on the edge of the Gobi desert. The other third is owned by the Mongolian government.

This is one of the biggest investments in Mongolias history, and the government is anxious to extract as much as possible to finance the countrys growth.

RTZ is not in such a hurry: its concern is to cut costs and reduce debt  though last month the company announced underlying earnings of $4.2bn (2.7bn) in the first six months of this year. Mongolias GDP in the year 2011 was $8.7bn. The argument has yet to be sorted. Over to you, Mr Blair.

Stop wasting police time, Yvette

One thing you might suppose the public is entitled to know is how quickly they can rely on their local police to answer a 999 call. Staff working for Yvette Cooper, the shadow Home Secretary, thought they would ask around, to see if police cuts were making police responses slower, so sent a Freedom of Information request around the various forces.

We do not know how long it takes us to answer a 999 call, Dyfed Powyss finest replied. They added that finding out would entail plodding through records of every 999 call made for four years, and since they receive up to 68,000 such calls a year, answering the question would use up 8,471.26 hours of police time. Move along, please.

Porn sites top of Parliaments list?

The Huffington Post website reveals that thousands of attempts have been made from computers on the parliamentary network to access pornography  114,844 in the peak month, last November, though only 15 this February.

The total of almost 300,000 requests (more than 800 a day) was released by Palace of Westminster IT chiefs in response to an FOI request. It is all for research purposes, I am sure.

Avoid those cliches like the plague

Bloomberg journalist Robert Hutton has just produced a book on newspaper slang and cliches, which tears the lid off a spiralling wave of blistering jargon engulfing readers. This inspires me to pay tribute to the Sky News website, which headlined a story about a US police officer who used a picture of a councillor for target practice Police Chief under fire for Shooting Councillor. Was he under fire or was he firing? The intro does nothing to end the confusion: A Pennsylvania police chief says he expects to be fired 

a.mcsmith@independent.co.uk; twitter.com/@andymcsmithLike a sinner at confession, Damian McBride has owned up to trashing the reputations of Charles Clarke, John Reid, and others who crossed his master, Gordon Brown. But as the saying goes, it takes two to tango: for McBrides malicious briefings to work, there had to be political journalists who willingly leant him their ears.

He tactfully does not name those he used as outlets, but a sift through the records turns up a number of stories with the McBride touch.

McBride admits that in 2005 he orchestrated what looked like a briefing war between Clarke and a prominent civil servant, Louise Casey. An example of what appears to be his handiwork was dated 3 July: Tony Blair has issued a furious dressing-down to Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, for going soft in the fight against crime ... [and] has ordered Louise Casey, the director of the Governments antisocial behaviour unit, to report directly to him.

More details emerge on 31 July: At a meeting ... the Prime Minister repeatedly sided with Ms Casey against Mr Clarke, at one point warning the Home Secretary that he needed to develop a sense of conviction...

By 28 May 2006, Clarke was gone, replaced by John Reid, and both men were hit in one opening paragraph of another report: John Reid, the Home Secretary, has gone on holiday to France while his Whitehall department battles with a string of crises The Home Secretary, who took over from Charles Clarke [right] three weeks ago, boasted that he would do whatever it takes to sort out his troubled department, which he described as not fit for purpose

And so on. What all these reports and many more have in common is the byline by Patrick Hennessy  the same Patrick Hennessy who has just joined Ed Milibands office to sharpen Labours attack stories. Hopefully that means attacking politicians outside the party.

Browns navy larks

If Labour is in power after the 2015 election, with Ed Miliband installed as prime minister and Ed Balls as chancellor, Im sure theyll invite Gordon to the first Downing Street Christmas party, and get him to tell his Japanese admiral joke, writes McBride. But tantalisingly, nowhere in a long extract from his book does he let on what the joke was.

I am in a position to enlighten, but first I must stress that I am not saying it is funny, merely that this is a joke Brown told on many occasions. The story goes that the late Jimmy Wray, Labour MP for Glasgow Govan until 2005, came from a family so poor that they used to send him to school in second-hand clothes. One day, he met someone who said that they had had the same experience, to which Wray retorted: Aye, but you didnt have to go as a Japanese admiral. Boom, boom.

An old hand from Gordon Browns office said: I think we all laughed because it was so not funny.Prince George of Cambridge is too young to care, though it may upset him when he is older: the Green Party would take away his, his fathers, and his grandfathers inborn right to be king. But the good news is, as the Greens meet in Brighton for their annual conference this weekend, they may change their policy in the way that would give the Prince a chance to run for election, if he still wants the job that now runs in the family.

Howard Thorp, the partys campaigns co-ordinator, is proposing that there should be a referendum that lets the people decide whether they want to dispense with the monarchy, and whether they want an elected head of state for what could no longer be known as the United Kingdom.

The party leader, Natalie Bennett, has no objection  but others have. Molly Cato, leader of the Green group on Stroud council, said: Some of the Green Party lefties will go for it but we old, sensible ones will oppose it because it flies in the face of public opinion and it wont have any effect.

I dont think it will get through. Somebody only has to get up and say we might have Tony Blair for president and theyll vote against.

Mr Thorp said: I accept the fact that the present monarch is extremely popular, but this would be a policy for a Green government, and we dont anticipate a Green government in the near future. There are people who wouldnt want a Boris Johnson or a Tony Blair to be head of state, but if you have an elected head of state that you dont like, you can vote them out.

Blings the thing, says Government minister

Tony Egginton, Mansfields independent elected mayor since 2002, has furnished photographers with some memorable photocalls during his time, including one in which he presented the Olympic athlete Rebecca Adlington with a pair of golden Jimmy Choo shoes.

The trouble is, the councils Labour leader, Martin Lee, thinks he is naff. He has reportedly accused him of parading around in bling and has claimed that the ceremonial chains of office belong around the neck of the council chairman, not the mayor. For now, the civic adornments are locked in a safe while the argument rages on. None of this has anything to do with the Government, as junior Communities minister Brandon Lewis acknowledged in a written reply to a businessman who asked him to intervene. But that did not deter him from ventilating his opinion. Where councils have historic civic regalia, I believe they should be worn with pride, he wrote. This Government strongly supports celebrating our countrys tapestry of local historic traditions.

Democracy is diminished if one whitewashes all colour and ceremony in some bland, vain, politically correct bid to modernise. Indeed, my children have advised me that bling is actually quite fashionable these days; this observation reflects the fact that reactionary modernisers are generally out of touch with the people. I suspect the public would rather have their civic event opened by a dignitary wearing impressive chains of office than some municipal official only wearing a stuffy suit.

What if they got elected and nobody noticed?

The most powerful Green, a technocrat named Jason Kitkat, is 35 today. He is leader of Brighton & Hove Council, the only Green-led council, with ultimate control of a 750m annual budget. Under his guidance, Brighton has become the worlds first One Planet City. That is not because the Greens have a separate planet: the title refers to Earth, and was awarded by a charity called Bioregional in recognition of Brightons ambitious sustainability plan.

Brightons experience suggests when Greens take power, things stay much as they were. Their main achievement so far has been to minimise the impact of the cuts. Whether voters will reward them for that is unresolved, because as the councils deputy, Lizzie Deane, commented ruefully: People dont notice when their libraries remain open: they notice when they close.

Fallon slips away to deal with another meltdown

Michael Fallon, the Business Minister, dropped in to address the World Nuclear Association, the international trade body for companies that run nuclear plants, in London today.

He gushed about the great future this Government has planned for nuclear energy, but disappointed participants by then rushing off. He was unique amongst the participants in not taking questions, my spy tells me. Even the Chinese stayed for questions, but he just marched off the platform and was never seen again.

But Mr Fallon is a busy man: he has the soon-to-be-strike-bound Royal Mail to privatise.

7-mile pink peace scarves  what fun

It is easily overlooked what fun can be had protesting against nuclear weapons. This is from the latest issue of Peace News: We put up banners, sang together, and read from the accounts left by survivors of the terrible bombings in Japan And we knitted for peace, to help make a seven-mile scarf that will join Aldermaston and Burghfield. The seven-mile scarf will be pink.

a.mcsmith@independent.co.uk; twitter.com/@andymcsmithAngela Merkel said on Tuesday night a detailed version of Britains post-Brexit plans must be worked out in the next month  but there has been no sign of any progress since the prime ministers humiliation in Salzburg last week.

Following her defiant televised address on Friday, the tone of Theresa Mays meetings with officials from the EU are said to have been frosty, just as the two sides need to thrash out an agreement.

In Brussels people privately speak of a genuine collapse in trust between the two sides, with each responding to an escalation by the other with their own escalation. Everyone is waiting to see how the Tory conference will pan out next week  will they even be negotiating with May by the end of the year?A Foreign Office minister has criticised Donald Trumps latest aggressive threats towards Iran, warning they make a major confrontation more likely.

Alistair Burt also insisted the UK would stand firm against Washingtons pressure to abandon the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran and continue to pursue progress in a different way.

The comments came after the US president told the UN general assembly: Iran's leaders sow chaos, death and destruction.

Recommended Trump attacks Germany but praises increasingly authoritarian Poland

They do not respect their neighbours or borders or the sovereign rights of nations. Instead, Iran's leaders plunder the nation's resources to enrich themselves and spread mayhem across the Middle East and far beyond.

Mr Trump added: We cannot allow a regime that chants death to America and that threatens Israel with annihilation, to possess the means to deliver a nuclear warhead to any city on earth. We just cant do it.

John Bolton, Donald Trumps national security adviser, warned Iran there would be hell to pay if it continued to cross the US and its allies.

Asked about the comments, Mr Burt told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: We believe it's best to engage with them and seek to affect changes in behaviour and that's what we do, but the president has his own way of putting it.

He added: I think language matters. I think if language is ramped up and is seen to be aggressive it's not necessarily certain that people respond in the way that you want.

People dig themselves in, in these circumstances. Language often covers an inability to do things.

There are real frustrations in the region. It's not possible to solve every problem from outside. There are a number of different conflicts, but a potential confrontation with major powers being involved is only an incident away. That's why it's essential to de-scale them.

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Mr Burt said Britain wanted to use the right sort of language to warn people and to do what they can to try and de-scale and get people to realise the risk they are running.

I think that's a role the UK should take and I think our language should reflect that. It's firm but it's appropriate.

Earlier, Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state, criticised European countries that have organised a parallel payments system as a way of bypassing US anti-Iran sanctions.

This is one of most counterproductive measures imaginable for regional and global peace and security, he said.

Mr Burt also said Jeremy Hunt, the Foreign Secretary, held a one-to-one with Iran's foreign minister on matters including the nuclear deal and the detention of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

We continue to make the point. This is a woman who should be reunited with her family and we honestly hope that will be the case, he said.

The charity worker was jailed for five years last September on allegations of spying and attempting to topple the Iranian government.

She had been visiting her parents to introduce them to her daughter, Gabriella, who remains at their Tehran home, while her father is in London.Labour MP Laura Smith has called for a general strike to bring down Theresa Mays government if the prime minister refuses to call a general election.

Speaking at a Momentum fringe event at the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool, the member for Crewe and Nantwich made the call for nationwide industrial action in response to faltering Brexit talks with the European Union, bringing a standing ovation from her audience.

The last time the UK collectively downed tools was in 1926, an extraordinary episode in 20th century British history.

What led to the general strike?

The strike was called one minute before midnight on Monday 3 May 1926 by the General Council of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in sympathy with the 1.2 million coal miners who had been locked out of the pits after a dispute with company bosses.

The British coal industry had been hard hit by the First World War. The countrys own use of the fossil fuel had been heavy during the conflict while exports to Europe had ceased, allowing competitors from the US, Poland and Germany to fill the shortfall.

Prices for the mineral had also fallen as a result of the Dawes Plan, which required Germany to provide France and Italy  two key markets  with free coal as part of its reparations. With mine bosses as profit-minded as ever, miners wages had slumped from 6 per day to 3.90 in the post-war era as production fell from 247 tonnes per man per year to 199.

With the country still mired in post-war economic depression, British miners were angered by management demands that they work an extra hour per day and accept a 13 per cent wage cut, a position legitimised by a royal commission report into the industry undertaken by Sir Herbert Samuel. Not a penny off the pay, not a minute on the day was the Miners Federation of Great Britains response.

When TUC negotiations  led by JH Thomas  proved fruitless, the shafts were shut down for two days and the men turned away at the gates, after which the national strike was called as a last resort.

Who joined the general strike?

Labourers from across British industry joined the TUCs call to arms, men ceasing work at docks, building sites, factories, warehouses, depots, steel and iron mills, power stations, print works, gas works and chemical plants.

The Triple Alliance of mining, rail and transport unions had formed in 1913 after an earlier period of industrial unrest and vowed to support one another in the event of a strike, a pledge they were now duty bound to honour.

Mounted police clearing the streets in New Cross, London, during the general strike (Kirby/Topical Press Agency/Getty)

The Labour Party was opposed to the action on the grounds that association with the more revolutionary elements among the unions, many of whom had one eye on the Bolsheviks in Russia, might damage it at the polls. The Daily Mail in particular had done much to whip up hysterical anti-communist sentiment at the time.

What happened during the general strike?

On 4 May, more than 1.75 million people were out on strike, bringing the countrys transport network to its knees as cars flooded the roads to compensate for the lack of buses or trains operating. The strike would ultimately last for nine days and bring chaos to Britain.

Stanley Baldwins Conservative government had been preparing for such an eventuality for nine months, reacting aggressively and sending in teams of middle-class volunteers and strikebreakers, many of them well-to-do housewives, to keep essential services operational.

Seeking to control the narrative by reining in the BBC, the state used its newspaper British Gazette to insist there were still 200 buses on the street. There were actually 86 and several were set on fire by protesters.

Lady engine drivers, in light shoes, turn their hands to shovelling coal on a steam engine during the general strike (Fox Photos/Getty)

Fights soon broke out between strikers and police in major cities, from London, Liverpool, Middlesbrough, Preston and Hull to Glasgow, prompting the government to recruit a militia of 226,000 special constables called the Organisation for the Maintenance of Supplies, an organisation at no little risk of being infiltrated by fascists.

Whitehall also dispatched a naval warship to Newcastle after protesters derailed the Flying Scotsman express train in Northumberland, leading to the arrest of 374 communists.

When grocery lorries were held up at the London Docks, the armed forces were sent in to escort them in convoy to Hyde Park, offering protection from potential looters. On arrival, aristocratic ladies served tea to members of the public arriving to pick up emergency supplies of milk and other domestic goods.

A crowd watches as a food convoy guarded by armoured cars drives down India Dock Road in east London (Topical Press Agency/Getty)

King George V attempted to soothe the situation with an expression of sympathy for the miners. Try living on their wages before you judge them, he said.

Winston Churchill, then chancellor of the exchequer, also made sure his voice was heard, using his editorial in the Gazette to attack the strikers: It is a very much more difficult task to feed the nation than it is to wreck it.

Commenting in the same periodical, Prime Minster Baldwin wrote: The General Strike is a challenge to Parliament and is the road to anarchy and ruin.

A British armoured tank leaving Wellington Barracks in London on the penultimate day of the general strike (Hulton Archive/Getty)

Even the Roman Catholic Church entered the fray (on the governments side), branding participation in the mass action a sin on 9 May.

On 12 May, the TUC struck a deal with the mine owners and the strike was called off. The men were forced to go back to work, completing longer shifts at reduced pay after all.

What was the general strikes legacy?

The British coal sector boomed as the nation returned to work, with productivity hitting 300 tonnes per man per annum by 1939 and the eve of the Second World War. But the cost was high: employment in the sector fell by a third.

Membership of the TUC also tumbled - over what some regarded as a betrayal - from 5.5 million in 1925 to 3.75 million in 1930.

Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Show all 24 1 /24 Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Leader Jeremy Corbyn addresses a pre-conference rally at Pier Head in Liverpool on Saturday Getty Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Deputy leader Tom Watson cycles at the party conference as part of the Labour Cycles scheme PA Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Leader Jeremy Corbyn and Deputy Leader Tom Watson sit together on stage on Sunday Reuters Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell speaks at a fringe event at the party conference on Sunday REUTERS Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Delegates are welcomed to the conference at the Arena and Convention Centre in Liverpool Getty Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell speaks at a fringe event at the party conference Reuters Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Leader Jeremy Corbyn and Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry attend a vigil in Liverpool for those who are affected by the war in Yemen PA Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Anti-Brexit supporters demonstrate outside the conference in Liverpool on Sunday Getty Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Anti-Brexit supporters demonstrate outside the conference in Liverpool on Sunday PA Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Mayor of London Sadiq Khan arrive at the conference on Sunday EPA Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell speaks at a fringe event at the party conference EPA Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Delegates at the Arena and Convention Centre in Liverpool, where the conference is being held PA Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Badges worn by a delegate at the conference on Sunday EPA Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott speaks at a fringe event at the party conference EPA Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Anti-Brexit supporters demonstrate outside the conference in Liverpool on Sunday Reuters Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Deputy leader Tom Watson poses for a selfie on Sunday AFP/Getty Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Leader Jeremy Corbyn listens to a speech on Sunday Getty Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures General Secretary of the Labour Party is welcomed to the stage by leader Jeremy Corbyn on Sunday Reuters Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures An anti-Brexit protester Reuters Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Leader Jeremy Corbyn speaks at a vigil in Liverpool for those who are affected by the war in Yemen PA Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures An anti-Brexit protester AFP/Getty Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Anti-Brexit supporters demonstrate outside the conference in Liverpool on Sunday AFP/Getty Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Leader Jeremy Corbyn and Deputy Leader Tom Watson sit together on stage on Sunday Reuters Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Anti-Brexit supporters demonstrate outside the conference in Liverpool on Sunday Reuters

To avoid a repeat of the chaos, Baldwins government passed the 1927 Trades Disputes Act, which banned sympathy strikes outright. The governments strong-arm response to the situation was unpopular, however, and Labour stormed to victory in the 1929 general election.

Repealed in 1946 under Labour, Margaret Thatcher reintroduced the act in the 1980s and the ban is still in place to this day.

While the general strike of 1926 has often been regarded as a heroic failure, it is hard to disagree with the assessment of James Hiltons beloved school teacher Mr Chipping in Goodbye, Mr Chips (1934), who hailed the action as a a very fine advertisement for Britain, the dispute carried out on a national scale with not a life lost... and not a shot fired.Jeremy Corbyn has told Theresa May he will back a Brexit deal she brings back from Europe as long as it means Britain is staying in a customs union, protecting jobs, workers rights and standards for the environment.

The Labour leaders pledge appears to hold out a lifeline to a prime minister who finds herself at the mercy of Tory Brexiteers who have vowed to torpedo her proposals.

But it also represents an adjustment in Labours Brexit rhetoric, coming after a week in which shadow cabinet minister Sir Keir Starmer indicated his party was likely to vote down any deal Ms May secured.

Mr Corbyn also used his conference speech to try and draw a line under the antisemitism row dogging his party, telling the Jewish community we are your ally and committing a Labour government to provide resources to protect it.

He argued only radical policies promised by Labour in Liverpool could prevent the return of populist xenophobia to the UK, and accused both Theresa May and Boris Johnson of encouraging them.

Mr Corbyns speech comes after a week in which Sir Keir won a hard-fought consensus that the party would back a new referendum if Ms Mays deal is voted down by parliament and there is no general election  though a new row erupted over whether any new vote would contain an option to Remain, with the decision on that deferred.

The leader reasserted the position that all options for the referendum remained open, albeit fleetingly and without actually referring to a referendum, before going on to what would be the key Brexit message from his speech.

He said: Let me also reach out to the prime minister, who is currently doing the negotiating.

 Jeremy Corbyn pledges to push for a second EU referendum if Labour members vote for it

Brexit is about the future of our country and our vital interests. It is not about leadership squabbles or parliamentary posturing.

If you deliver a deal that includes a customs union and no hard border in Ireland, if you protect jobs, peoples rights at work and environmental and consumer standards  then we will support that sensible deal. A deal that would be backed by most of the business world and trade unions too.

The comment took a different tone from the shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir who gave a heavy signal in his own speech that Labour would oppose any deal Ms May brings back, as it would be unlikely to meet the partys six tests.

They include one that the prime ministers deal should deliver the exact the same benefits as the single market and customs union, but they were not referred to by Mr Corbyn.

The leaders language potentially represents an attempt to maintain unity, by signalling to Labour voters who backed Leave that the party is not trying to wreck Brexit, despite its policies shifting towards stronger support for a new referendum this week.

At the same time Labour strategists will be aware that any sign that Ms May would work with Mr Corbyn to get her plans through parliament, would enrage Tory Brexiteers who are attempting to push her into a more eurosceptic position.

The speech was peppered with standing ovations for Mr Corbyn from his supporters, with none louder than during the section in which he gave full-throated support for the Palestinian cause.

Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Show all 24 1 /24 Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Leader Jeremy Corbyn addresses a pre-conference rally at Pier Head in Liverpool on Saturday Getty Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Deputy leader Tom Watson cycles at the party conference as part of the Labour Cycles scheme PA Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Leader Jeremy Corbyn and Deputy Leader Tom Watson sit together on stage on Sunday Reuters Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell speaks at a fringe event at the party conference on Sunday REUTERS Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Delegates are welcomed to the conference at the Arena and Convention Centre in Liverpool Getty Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell speaks at a fringe event at the party conference Reuters Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Leader Jeremy Corbyn and Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry attend a vigil in Liverpool for those who are affected by the war in Yemen PA Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Anti-Brexit supporters demonstrate outside the conference in Liverpool on Sunday Getty Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Anti-Brexit supporters demonstrate outside the conference in Liverpool on Sunday PA Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Mayor of London Sadiq Khan arrive at the conference on Sunday EPA Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell speaks at a fringe event at the party conference EPA Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Delegates at the Arena and Convention Centre in Liverpool, where the conference is being held PA Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Badges worn by a delegate at the conference on Sunday EPA Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott speaks at a fringe event at the party conference EPA Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Anti-Brexit supporters demonstrate outside the conference in Liverpool on Sunday Reuters Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Deputy leader Tom Watson poses for a selfie on Sunday AFP/Getty Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Leader Jeremy Corbyn listens to a speech on Sunday Getty Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures General Secretary of the Labour Party is welcomed to the stage by leader Jeremy Corbyn on Sunday Reuters Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures An anti-Brexit protester Reuters Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Leader Jeremy Corbyn speaks at a vigil in Liverpool for those who are affected by the war in Yemen PA Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures An anti-Brexit protester AFP/Getty Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Anti-Brexit supporters demonstrate outside the conference in Liverpool on Sunday AFP/Getty Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Leader Jeremy Corbyn and Deputy Leader Tom Watson sit together on stage on Sunday Reuters Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Anti-Brexit supporters demonstrate outside the conference in Liverpool on Sunday Reuters

But he also dedicated a significant section of his speech to an attempt to put an end to the months long antisemitism crisis that even Labour insiders accept has damaged their partys reputation.

Citing how he recently visited the former Nazi concentration camp at Terezin, he said: I say this to all in the Jewish community  this party, this movement, will always be implacable campaigners against antisemitism and racism in all its forms. We are your ally.

And the next Labour government will guarantee whatever support necessary to ensure the security of Jewish community centres and places of worship, as we will for any other community experiencing hateful behaviour and physical attacks.

He also used the section to launch an attack on Ms Mays hostile environment policies which he branded a shameful brainchild of the present prime minister that led to the Windrush scandal and lashed out at Conservative support for the far-right government of Hungarys Viktor Orban.

 Boris Johnson gives journalists tea while avoiding burka questions

Another broadside was saved for Boris Johnson whom he accused of islamophobia and dog whistle jibes, following his articles containing offensive comments about burqas, niqabs and suicide vests.

Underlining the leftwing agenda set out by his party this week  more free childcare, worker representation on boards and shareholding, public ownership, an expansion in green energy and a second-homes tax  he said only radical policies could now stop populism and xenophobia taking hold.

But he had a clear message for delegates in the hall who have squabbled over how to move forward: If we are to get the chance to put those values into practice in government we are going to need unity to do it.

Our movement has achieved nothing when divided. The only winners have been the rich and the party of the rich, the Conservatives.

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

Apparently focusing in particular on the ferocity and aggression that has characterised internal Labour rows in recent weeks, Mr Corbyn said: Real unity is based on the freedom to disagree and debate and then come together around democratic decisions, as we have done this week.

So we need to foster a much greater culture of tolerance. An end to abuse, online and in person. We must learn to listen a bit more, and shout a lot less.

Brandon Lewis MP, chairman of the Conservative Party, responded to the speech by saying Mr Corbyn had shown at every turn he is unfit to govern.

He went on: All he offers are failed ideas that didnt work in the past and would leave working families paying the price with higher taxes, more debt and more waste  just like last time.

He confirmed Labour are opening the door to re-running the referendum, which would take us all back to square one.

And he didnt even apologise to Jewish people for his total failure to tackle the anti-Jewish racism that is rife in the Labour Party.Thousands of anti-Brexit activists will take to the streets this Saturday to demand a public vote on any deal Theresa May negotiates with the EU.

More than 2000 people are expected to join over 100 events across the country on the eve of the Conservatives annual conference in Birmingham, where Brexit is expected to dominate the agenda.

The National Day of Action is being organised by the Peoples Vote campaign and is the groups largest ever day of campaigning.

Activists will take part in more than 1000 door-to-door leafleting sessions to deliver more than a million leaflets as support grows for the public to be given a Final Say on the Brexit deal.

Recommended Labour conference passes motion on fresh Brexit referendum

Over the summer, Peoples Vote organised a series of rallies across the country, including in Bristol, Edinburgh, Newcastle, and Cambridge.

Campaign efforts have been stepped up in advance of a major March for the Future event in London on 20 October, which is being organised in conjunction with The Independent. The march is expected to be the largest ever anti-Brexit event.

Peoples Vote is attempting to build public support for a referendum on the final Brexit deal and convince voters that Brexit is not inevitable.

The Conservative conference is expected to be dominated by the partys splits on Brexit, with Ms May under pressure to ditch her Chequers plan after it was rejected by EU leaders and many of her own MPs.

She is likely to use her keynote speech at the gathering to explain how she intends to secure an agreement with Brussels, having last week admitted that talks were at an impasse.

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

The Peoples Vote day of action comes after Labour took a significant step towards backing a Final Say referendum when delegates at the partys annual conference in Liverpool voted overwhelmingly for a motion that said it must support all options remaining on the table, including campaigning for a public vote.

David Gwyther, field manager at the Peoples Vote campaign, said: Our largest ever day of action this Saturday will be a fantastic demonstration of the levels of support across the country for a Peoples Vote on the terms of Brexit.

Thousands of volunteers and campaigners will be taking part across the whole UK, in areas that voted both leave and remain in 2016. The facts have changed massively since then and people want to make their voices heard on Brexit through a Peoples Vote.

Brexit is going to affect generations for generations, so its only right that everyone gets a say in the path we take, not just 650 MPs in Westminster. Thats why we are demanding a Peoples Vote on the terms of Brexit.A lot of men and women in their late forties and early fifties did stupid things in the 1980s of which they would rather not be reminded, so we need not be surprised if the strutting young class warriors who once sported the slogan Hang Nelson Mandela are now shy about coming forward.

A certain amount of mythology has grown up around this tale. It is not true, for example, that delegates turned out to conferences of the Federation of Conservative Students (FCS) in Hang Nelson Mandela T-shirts, though the truth is bad enough.

In the UK, no one apart from a hardy band of anti-apartheid campaigners was much interested in Nelson Mandelas fate until the early 1980s, when the white supremacist regime in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe collapsed and interest suddenly awakened in who would rule a post-apartheid South Africa.

Conservatives from Margaret Thatcher downwards did not like the look of the ANC, which they thought might be a communist front.

Their preferred choice was the Zulu politician Mangosuthu Buthelezi, but he did not have the political base, or the aura building up around the imprisoned Mandela, who was propelled to cult status among the young in Britain when the single [Free] Nelson Mandela by the Special AKA hit the charts in 1984. The infamous Hang Nelson Mandela stickers popped up a year later.

Harry Phibbs, a Hammersmith councillor who was then prominent in the FCS, says: A group of people at Warwick University made stickers that were a parody of the stickers people were wearing saying Free Nelson Mandela and all ANC prisoners, which said Hang Nelson Mandela and all ANC terrorists.

The motive was to disrupt the conference of the National Union of Students [NUS]. It was never proposed by the FCS officially. I suspect that it wasnt even a view really held by the people who produced that sticker. It was a rather immature way to stir things up.

By 1986, the FCS had attracted so much bad publicity that Norman Tebbit, the Thatcherite Conservative Party chairman, shut it down. The current Speaker, John Bercow, was the last ever FCS chairman.

He was never seen wearing a Hang Mandela sticker, but there is an old photograph of David Hoile, who was vice-chairman of the FCS in 1985, with a sticker on his tie. Dr Hoile, who is now Director of the European-Sudanese Public Affairs Council, did not return my call.

Proof politics is no place for a teenager

The Labour Party is so anxious to draw the young into active politics that two of the days at their annual conference last year were designated youth days. Further back, they were delighted to announce that three 18-years-olds, including Tony Benns granddaughter, Emily, had been selected as candidates for the 2010 general election.

What they and other political parties have yet to establish is why any normal 18-year-old would want to spend his or her time being an MP, or councillor. In 2011, Labour pulled off a sensational coup by getting an 18-year-old, Jake Morrison, elected to Liverpool Council, making him the youngest in the citys history.

That success has since turned to disaster. Councillor Morrison had a falling out with Luciana Berger, the MP for Liverpool Wavertree, who accused him of not being a team player. He took to social media to publicise the row. He was advised by Liverpools Mayor, Joe Anderson, to give it a rest, but carried on and was suspended from the party.

The latest twist is that he has decided to run for Parliament against Ms Berger, as an independent. Yesterday he tweeted: Some say Im naive, stupid, that Im having a tantrum, Im an idiot. Etc etc. I call it standing up for what is right. Later, he added: Ill say one thing  I wont lose any sleep because a few party careerists are licking arse. People want change and hope, Im offering it!

It is easy to see how this story will end. Either he will change his mind or he will get a derisory vote and quit politics. The moral of this story is that 18 is too young to cope with the tedium of being a councillor.

It was The Sun editor wot went to Columbia

David Dinsmore, the newly appointed Editor of The Sun, is a well-educated fellow, to judge by the CV on his LinkedIn page, where it says education  Columbia University, Columbia Business School, Strathallan. Columbia is one of the worlds most prestigious universities. To be one its graduates is a distinction indeed. Except hes not. The giveaway is further down the page where it says what and when he studied. The answer is general management, 2009. In 2009, Dinsmore was a long-standing Murdoch employee, and editor of the Scottish Sun. A general management course at Columbia lasts 10 days.

The lady wasnt for turning away gay people

One Tory who kept in touch with Margaret Thatcher to within weeks of her death was Conor Burns, MP for Bournemouth West, who is gay. What did the lady think? She was completely and utterly uncensorious, Burns said, when interviewed by Pink News. She was very naive about the issue of homosexuality, as someone who was born in 1920s Grantham would have been. She was always very surprised to learn that people are gay.

Burns was not the only gay in Thatchers circle. The journalist and former MP Matthew Parris worked for her in the early years. He got more of a negative reaction from her when she learnt that he had jumped into the Thames to rescue a dog than he ever did over his sexuality.

Stop press! Its National Frozen Yoghurt Day

An email arrives from a PR firm handling the Yoomoo frozen yoghurt account inviting me to a Girls Night Out at which I am promised a manicure and a glass of champagne. So begins the build-up to next months National Frozen Yoghurt Day. Don Draper, eat your heart out.

Twitter: @andymcsmithThe red flag has been flying proudly in Liverpool this week as the city played host to the Labour Party Conference 2018.

The institutions and traditions of the British left have enjoyed a resurgence in recent years under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn and nowhere is this more apparent than in the revival of the partys rallying cry for action, sung again by the entire auditorium at the close of Mr Corbyn's latest leader's speech.

The Red Flag has been the official anthem of the Labour Party since its founding in 1900 but the song was seldom heard under New Labour as leader Tony Blair regarded it as an outmoded relic of the partys past and an embarrassment to the centrist reforming agenda that saw him drop Clause IV from its constitution  the commitment to the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange.

The lyrics to The Red Flag were written by Irish activist and journalist Jim Connell in December 1889, its six stanzas usually sung  perhaps due to the month of its composition  to the tune of the traditional German Christmas carol O Tannenbaum, despite its authors preference for using the Robert Burns melody The White Cockade instead.

The colour of the banner alludes to the blood ties that unite the brotherhood of international socialists while the lyrics honour those who have fallen in the fight for social justice.

The Red Flag is a passionate ode to defiance in the face of the rich mans frown and an expression of faith in the power of collective action and the hope of peace at last.

It quickly proved popular with radical left-wing circles in Britain, the US and South Africa in the early 20th century and was sung by dockers, miners and industrial workers as a gesture of solidarity and demonstration of union might.

The party first sang it in the House of Commons on 1 August 1945 to cheer Clement Atlees defeat of Winston Churchill at the ballot box and it has remained a firm favourite among the party faithful.

You can read the songs lyrics in their entirety below.

The Red Flag (1889) by Jim Connell

The Peoples Flag is deepest red,

It shrouded oft our martyred dead,

And ere their limbs grew stiff and cold,

Their hearts blood dyed its every fold.

Chorus:

Then raise the scarlet standard high.

Beneath its shade well live and die,

Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer,

Well keep the red flag flying here.

Look round, the Frenchman loves its blaze,

The sturdy German chants its praise,

In Moscows vaults its hymns were sung

Chicago swells the surging throng.

(chorus)

It waved above our infant might,

When all ahead seemed dark as night;

It witnessed many a deed and vow,

We must not change its colour now.

(chorus)

It well recalls the triumphs past,

It gives the hope of peace at last;

The banner bright, the symbol plain,

Of human right and human gain.

(chorus)

It suits today the weak and base,

Whose minds are fixed on pelf and place

To cringe before the rich mans frown,

And haul the sacred emblem down.

(chorus)

With head uncovered swear we all

To bear it onward till we fall;

Come dungeons dark or gallows grim,

This song shall be our parting hymn.

(chorus)Britain will be unequivocally pro-business after it leaves the European Union, Theresa May will promise investors.

The prime minister will tell the Bloomberg Global Business Forum in New York that the UK will be the low tax, high-skilled place to invest after Brexit.

Speaking days after EU leaders rejected her plans for future trading relations, Ms May will insist she is confident a deal can be reached.

She will say the UK has a plan to create an economy which is appealing to investors across the world, with corporation tax the lowest among leading industrialised nations.

My message today is that a post-Brexit Britain will be an unequivocally pro-business Britain, Ms May will say.

Corporation tax in the UK is 19 per cent but will fall to 17 per cent under Conservative manifesto plans, the lowest rate in the G20 group of industrialised nations.

Ms May has frequently clashed with Jeremy Corbyn over the issue of low taxation post-Brexit, during heated Prime Ministers Questions sessions.

Also on Wednesday, Mr Corbyn is to denounce greed is good capitalism at the Labour conference in Liverpool.

 Labour votes to keep open the option of second Brexit referendum

Ms May will say the UK wants to forge the most dynamic and ambitious free trade agreements with old friends and new allies alike.

Crucially we also have a plan to deliver an economy that is knowledge-rich, highly innovative, highly skilled and high quality but with low tax and smart regulation, she will add.

So let me say this bit very clearly. Whatever your business, investing in a post-Brexit Britain will give you the lowest rate of corporation tax in the G20.

You will access service industries and a financial centre in London that are the envy of the world, the best universities, strong institutions, a sound approach to public finance and a consistent and dependable approach to high standards but intelligent regulation.

Brexit casualties Show all 10 1 /10 Brexit casualties Brexit casualties Andrea Jenkyns - Resigned from Parliamentary Private Secretary at the ministry for housing, communities and local government role May 2018 - The Morley and Outwood MP said: We want to see a new relationship with Europe, with a new model not enjoyed by other countries  nothing that leaves us half-in, half-out. And in order to achieve this, we need to leave the customs union. Ms Jenkyns also said she wished to dedicate more of her time to Parliaments influential Exiting the European Union select committee, after a series of unbalanced reports produced by MPs PA Brexit casualties David Davis - Resigned from Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union role July 2018 - quit following a major row with May over her plans for post-Brexit relations with the EU. Davis resignation letter said: As you know there have been a significant number of occasions in the last year or so on which I have disagreed with the Number 10 policy line, ranging from accepting the [European] Commissions sequencing of negotiations, through to the language on Northern Ireland in the December Joint Report. At each stage I have accepted collective responsibility because it is part of my task to find workable compromises, and because I considered it was still possible to deliver on the mandate of the referendum, and on our manifesto commitment to leave the Customs Union and the Single Market. I am afraid that I think the current trend of policy and tactics is making that look less and less likely. He went on to argue that the general direction of Ms Mays policies would leave the UK in at best a weak negotiating position, and possibly an inescapable one. AFP/Getty Brexit casualties Steve Baker - Resigned from Minister at the Department for Exiting the European Union role July 2018 - Mr Baker, a key Tory figure in the Leave campaign, was David Daviss main lieutenant at Dexeu, and was hailed as courageous and principled by other Brexiteer Tories as he also left. Reuters Brexit casualties Boris Johnson - Resigned from Foreign Secretary role July 2018 - resigned over May's Chequers plan. In his resignation letter to the prime minister, Mr Johnson said: "On Friday, I acknowledged that my side of the argument were too few to prevail and congratulated you on at least reaching a Cabinet decision on the way forward. "As I said then, the government now has a song to sing. "The trouble is that I have practised the words over the weekend and find that they stick in the throat." Reuters Brexit casualties Conor Burns - Resigned from Parliamentary Private Secretary to Foreign Secretary role July 2018 - A Brexit supporter who worked alongside Boris Johnson stated in his resignation letter: I've decided it's time to have greater freedom. I want to see the referendum result respected. And there are other areas of policy I want to speak more openly on. Rex Brexit casualties Chris Green - Resigned from Department for Transport role July 2018 - The Bolton West MP said: "Parliament overwhelmingly decided to give the decision of whether to leave or remain in the European Union to the British people and they made an unambiguous decision that we ought to leave. "I have always understood the idea in 'Brexit means Brexit' is that the final deal should be clear to me and my constituents - that we have, in no uncertain terms, left the European Union. Twitter Ads info and privacy "The direction the negotiations had been taking have suggested that we would not really leave the EU and the conclusion and statements following the Chequers summit confirmed my fears. "I recognise that delivering Brexit is challenging, however I had hoped at tonight's meeting that there would be some certainty that my fears were unfounded but, instead, they have been confirmed. "I have been grateful for the opportunity to serve as Parliamentary Private Secretary and it is with regret that I offer my resignation with immediate effect." PA Brexit casualties Maria Caulfield - Resigned from Conservative Party vice-chair for women role July 2018 - resigned over May's Chequers plan. Lewes MP warned that the direction of travel did not fully embrace the opportunities that Brexit can provide. Ms Caulfield said in her letter to the PM: The policy may assuage vested interests, but the voters will find out and their representatives will be found out. This policy will be bad for our country and bad for the party. The direct consequences of that will be prime minister Corbyn. PA Brexit casualties Ben Bradley - Resigned from Conservative Party vice-chair for young people role July 2018 - resigned over May's Chequers plan. The Mansfield MP said: I admit that I voted to Remain in that ballot. What has swayed me over the last two years to fully back the Brexit vision is the immense opportunities that are available from global trade, and for the ability for Britain to be an outward looking nation in control of our own destiny once again. I fear that this agreement at Chequers damages those opportunities; that being tied to EU regulations, and the EU tying our hands when seeking to make new trade agreements, will be the worst of all worlds if we do not deliver Brexit in spirit as well as in name, then we are handing Jeremy Corbyn the keys to No10. PA Brexit casualties Robert Courts - Resigned from Parliamentary Private Secretary role July 2018 - resigned over May's Chequers plan. MP Mr Courts said: I have taken a very difficult decision to resign my position as [parliamentary private secretary] to express discontent with the Chequers [plans] in votes tomorrow. I had to think who I wanted to see in the mirror for the rest of my life. I cannot tell the people of Woxon that I support the proposals in their current form. Getty Brexit casualties Scott Mann - Resigned from Parliamentary Private Secretary role July 2018 - resigned over May's Chequers plan. "I fear elements of the Brexit white paper will inevitably put me in direct conflict with the views expressed by a large section of my constituents. I am not prepared to compromise their wishes to deliver a watered-down Brexit. "The residents of North Cornwall made it very clear that they wish to have control over our fishery, our agricultural policy, our money, our laws and our borders. I will evaluate those principles against the Brexit white paper and ensure that I vote in line with their wishes." Rex

Ms May, who was dealt a humiliating blow at a summit of EU leaders in Salzburg last week when they rejected her Chequers blueprint for post-Brexit relations, will insist there is no other plan that respects the result of the referendum and resolves the Irish border issue.

Our relationship with the EU will change with Brexit. But we will still be neighbours, we will still be part of the European family of nations, and we will continue to champion the same beliefs  standing for freedom, democracy and the rule of law, underpinned by a rules-based global order, she will say.

This is why I am confident we can reach a deal about our future relationship that is built in this spirit.

She will also insist there is no other plan that meets all the of the UKs Brexit red lines in the way Chequers will.

Ms May is attending the United Nations General Assembly, where she is scheduled to meet with Donald Trump on Wednesday evening to push for a post-Brexit trade deal.

Such a trade deal is considered an important way for Ms May to help offset the economic impact of leaving the EU in March next year. It was high on the agenda when the prime minister ensured she was the first foreign leader to visit Mr Trump in Washington following his inauguration last year.

Support from the US president could boost Ms Mays struggle to win over her critics, who have argued her exit plan is unworkable.

On Tuesday, she said a general election before Brexit would not be in the national interest.

Speaking to reporters as she flew to New York for a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, Ms May said: What Im doing is working to deliver a good deal with Europe in the national interest. It would not be in the national interest to have an election.

She also staunchly rejected a second Brexit referendum.

Additional reporting by agenciesThe Meuse-Argonne Offensive was a deadly battle in which tens of thousands US soldiers were killed in France as part of an allied effort to push the German army out of the country.

The deadly battle that took place a century ago is notably credited as one of the allied attacks that helped bring an end to the First World War.

US troops have recently travelled to the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery in France to honour those who fought and sacrificed their lives.

What was the Meuse-Argonne Offensive?

The Meuse-Argonne Offensive of 1918 took place in the Verdun region of France. The battle lasted for several weeks with ten of thousands of men on all sides killed  and a reported number of more than 26,000 US soldiers lives lost. Historians have labelled it Americas deadliest fight.

In its scale and in the number of American and French troops involved, not only infantry but artillery, tanks, engineers just the logistics in this, made it the largest operation that the American armed forces had been in to that point, said Doran Cart, a senior curator at the National WWI Museum and Memorial in Kansas City in an interview with Fox News.

When did the Meuse-Argonne Offensive take place?

The battle began on 26, September 1918.

 Thousands evacuated after World War Two bomb found near Berlin's central rail station

How is the battle recognised today?

The Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery and Memorial in France covers 130 acres and rest the largest number of our military dead in Europe, a total of 14,246, the site states.

Officials and descendants of soldiers visited the memorial located in Romagne-sous-Montfaucon, a village in northeastern France on Sunday 23, September. Volunteers read soldiers names aloud as part of the commemorative event.

No longer unknown: Stories behind portraits of First World War soldiers are revealed Show all 4 1 /4 No longer unknown: Stories behind portraits of First World War soldiers are revealed No longer unknown: Stories behind portraits of First World War soldiers are revealed 435898.bin No longer unknown: Stories behind portraits of First World War soldiers are revealed 435899.bin No longer unknown: Stories behind portraits of First World War soldiers are revealed 435900.bin GETTY IMAGES No longer unknown: Stories behind portraits of First World War soldiers are revealed 435901.bin

William M. Matz, secretary of the American Battle Monuments Commission told the Associated Press he believes it is important for younger generations to learn about this part of history.

I think its important for their teachers, their parents to bring them to these beautiful sites, let them walk through the rows of crosses, let them look at the walls of remembrance, let them go into the cemetery chapels and let them learn the history of what these men did 100 years ago.Bravo TV star Thomas Ravenel has been arrested and charged with assault and battery in the second degree in South Carolina, according to jail records.

The Southern Charm star was arrested on Tuesday following allegations of sexual assault against him. Mr Ravenels attorney had previously denied the assault accusations against him.

My client enjoys a certain degree of fame and unfortunately has become  unfairly  a target for an individual who has, in my opinion, dubious motivations, his attorney said in a statement according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Bravo has since confirmed that Mr Ravenel will not be returning as a cast member of Southern Charm.

Mr Ravenel had previously publicly said that he planned to make an exit from the series.

Police began investigating Mr Ravenel earlier this year after he was accused of sexual assault.

Local WCSC-TV reported that a judge had ordered Mr Ravenel to turn in his passport and stay in the state. He was given a personal recognisance bond and has reportedly been ordered to not have any contact with the unidentified victim in the case.In what will undoubtedly prove to be a pivotal moment in the potential confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, Dr Christine Blasey Ford  the first of at least three women to come forward with sexual misconduct or assault allegations against the nominee  is set to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee as controversy swirls around President Donald Trumps pick to join the nations highest court.

Mr Kavanaughs nomination has been mired in scandal since Ms Ford came forward, setting off a whirlwind of efforts both for and against the conservative judges confirmation.

Since Ms Ford came forward with her allegations, Mr Kavanaughs confirmation process has turned into a media frenzy the likes of which have not been seen since the confirmation of Associate Justice Clarence Thomas in 1991, who was also accused of sexual harassment during his confirmation.

Mr Kavanaugh has categorically denied all allegations of sexual misconduct.

Here is what you need to know ahead of the hearings.

What are the accusations, and who has accused him of what?

Mr Kavanaugh is facing accusations from at least three women that he sexually assaulted them, or that they witnessed him sexually assaulting others.

Ms Ford, now 51, has alleged that Mr Kavanaugh drunkenly forced her down onto a bed during a house party in 1982 in Maryland, and then groped her, attempted to remove her clothes, and held his hand over her mouth so that she could not scream for help. A second male, Mark Judge, was said to have been in the room at the time, and was allegedly amused by what he saw before toppling into the two and stopping the assault. All three would have been teenagers at the time, and both went to schools somewhat close to one another.

Both Mr Kavanaugh and Mr Judge have denied such an incident occurred, and Mr Judge has denied memory of any such incident.

"I categorically and unequivocally deny this allegation. I did not do this back in high school or at any time, Mr Kavanaugh said in a statement.

The second accusation came from Deborah Ramirez, now 53, who said that Mr Kavnaaugh exposed himself to her at a dorm party at Yale University when they were both freshmen. She says that Mr Kavanaugh and a group of other students were play a drinking game, and that she became intoxicated. Mr Kavanaugh, she alleges, then shoved his penis in her face.

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Ms Ramirez told The New Yorker that she was initially reluctant to come forward with her accusation because she was drunk at the time and her memories contained gaps.

In response to Ms Ramirez's accusations, Mr Kavanaugh said the following in a statement: "This alleged event from 35 years ago did not happen. The people who knew me then know that this did not happen, and have said so. This is a smear, plain and simple. I look forward to testifying on Thursday about the truth, and defending my good name -- and the reputation for character and integrity I have spent a lifetime building  against these last-minute allegations".

The third accusation, which became public on Wednesday, comes from Julie Swetnick, now 55, who graduated from a Montgomery County, Maryland public high school. Mr Kavanaugh and Ms Ford both attended schools in the county, but went to private schools.

Ms Swetnick  who says she has received security clearances while working for the State Department of Justice, and Department of Homeland Security  said that she witnessed Mr Kavanaugh and his former classmate, Mark Judge, attempt to get teenage girls inebriated and disoriented so they could then be gang raped in a side room or bedroom by a train of numerous boys.

She said that she was the victim of one of those gang rapes, but did not single Mr Kavanaugh or Mr Judge out as one of her assailants.

In response to the Ms Swetnick's accusations, Mr Kavanaugh said the following in a statement: "This is ridiculous and from the Twilight Zone. I don't know who this is and this never happened".

What do these allegations mean for the Supreme Court?

The nomination of Mr Kavanaugh could have incredible impacts on the future of the court, which currently is split with four roughly conservative justices and four roughly liberal justices.

If Mr Kavanaugh is confirmed, it could shape the court for decades to come, and leave a lasting conservative imprint on the United States that traces back to Mr Trumps presidency.

The court could be asked to rule on some pretty heavy topics, from same sex marriage, to the right of women to have abortions, to environmental protection standards. Of particular concern, especially in light of the nature of allegations against Mr Kavanaugh, is the affirmation of repeal of Roe v Wade  the Supreme Court decision that affirmed the legality of abortions in America.

 Donald Trump says Deborah Ramirez was 'drunk' in fiery defence of Brett Kavanaugh

What would need to happen for Mr Kavanaugh to not be confirmed?

There are a lot of moving parts here, of course, but the bar bones answer is: Senate Republicans, who currently hold a slim 51-seat majority, would need to lose two votes (assuming Democrats, with 49 votes, unanimously vote against him).

At least eight Republicans have announced that they will wait until after Ms Fords hearing on Thursday, and Mr Kavanaughs hearing, before making up their mind.

But, just four  Senators Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, Bob Corker, and Jeff Flake  are truly considered to be potential swing votes. Whether the whirlwind of controversy and Ms Fords testimony is enough to shift two of those votes is to be seen.

It is not clear that Democrats will all vote against Mr Kavanaugh, however.

There re 10 Democrats running for re-election in red states, and who could potential backlash come November if they dont vote to confirm a Supreme Court candidate favoured by a Republican president. Of those, three voted for Justice Neil Grouch  another pick of Mr Trump.

Time shall tell whether those Democrats think they have enough cover from their voters back home  Mr Kavanaugh is historically unpopular  to vote against the conservative judge.

What does all this mean for Mr Trump and Republican chances in November?

Mr Kavanaughs nomination presents the chance for Mr Trump to have picked two Supreme Court justices within his first two years  which would undoubtedly be considered a major win for him and his legacy.

Mr Trump and the Republicans could potentially use that victory to energize their base going into the November midterm elections  which could prove to be a potentially powerful counterbalance to Democratic enthusiasm that has been expected for months now as those elections have drawn closer.

That said, win or lose, Democrats could feel emboldened by the outcome and drive significant numbers to the polls as well. Democrats are showing signs that they could make major gains in the House of Representatives  and some have speculated that it may be possible for them to retake the Senate as well.

What seems likely is that, especially if Mr Kavanaugh is confirmed, the outcome could influence women in the US both to vote and to run for office. A record number of women are already running in the 2018 midterms, and it is theorized that the election of Mr Trump  a man who has been accused of sexual assault himself  may have played a significant role in that calculus.A day before Christine Blasey Ford and Mr Kavanaugh were to appear before senators in one of the most anticipated events in Capitol Hill for years, Ms Ford sent senators statements by other people she said confirmed her alleged sexual assault. It came as, in another staggering twist, a third woman  Julie Swetnick  revealed she had filed a lawsuit claiming Mr Kavanaugh and one of his close friends were present at "gang rapes".

One of those to have signed a document is Adela Gildo-Mazzon, who said she had been a friend of Ms Ford for 10 years. She wrote that during a June 2013 meal in California, the academic had appeared upset.

Christine told me she had been having a hard day because she was thinking about an assault she experienced when she was much younger, she wrote. She said she had been almost raped by someone who was now a federal judge. She told me she had been trapped in a room with two drunken guys, and that she had escaped, ran away and hid.

Another person, Rebecca White, a neighbour and friend for more than six years, said Ms Ford revealed the alleged assault in 2017.

She told me she had read a recent social media post I had written about my own experience with sexual assault, she said. She then told me that when she was a young teen, she had been sexually assaulted by an older teen. I remember her saying that her assailant was now a federal judge.

The statements, first reported by USA Today, have further raised the stakes for the testimony to be given by Ms Ford and Mr Kavanaugh, who has strongly denied accusations of sexual misconduct from two women, when they appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

In turn, Mr Kavanaughs lawyers sent the committee pages from his 1982 calendar to try and bolster his claim that he was not present at the high school party in Maryland where Ms Ford alleges he tried to forcibly remove her clothes.

 Fox News' Jeanine Pirro ties 'hypnosis' to accusations against Brett Kavanaugh

Rather than question the pair themselves, Republican senators have hired an Arizona-based lawyer, Rachel Mitchell, with experience in sex crimes prosecution, to carry out the questioning. It is believed Democratic senators will question Ms Ford and Mr Kavanaugh themselves.

Politico said Ms Ford would appear first, followed by Mr Kavanugh, and the committee has given senators or a counsel if they wish, five minutes to question the pair. Chairman, Republican Chuck Grassley was provisionally scheduled a committee meeting for Friday to vote on whether to pass Mr Kavanaughs nomination to the full senate for confirmation. That could happen as early as next Tuesday,

At the same time, the committee appears unwilling to hear testimony from another woman, Deborah Ramirez, who has accused Mr Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct when she and the judge were students at Yale University. Ms Ramirezs lawyer, John Clune, told two television channels on Wednesday she had not been invited to speak to senators but would likely be willing to appear.

Mr Trump, reportedly becoming increasingly frustrated over the hold-up in confirming his second conservative justice to the Supreme Court, something Republicans want to campaign on ahead of the midterm elections, has defended 53-year-old Mr Kavanaugh.

Having for several days kept a diplomatic tone about his nominees accusers at the United Nations in New York this week, the president resorted to language to which people are more accustomed to.

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She said she was totally inebriated and she was all messed up and she doesnt know it was him but it might have been him, Mr Trump said of Mr Ramirez, whose claims were first reported by the New Yorker. Oh, gee, lets not make him a Supreme Court judge because of that.

The third person to sign a declaration in support of Ms Ford was Keith Koegler, who said she had revealed the alleged assault to him in 2016, when the two parents were watching their children play and discussing the light sentencing of Stanford University student Brock Turner, who was convicted of sexual assault.

Christine expressed anger at Mr Turners lenient sentence, stating that she was particularly bothered by it because she was assaulted in high school by a man who was now a federal judge in Washington DC, Mr Koegler wrote.

 Brett Kavanaugh denies assault allegations in interview

The fourth person to have signed a sworn statement is Ms Fords husband, Russell. He said he learned of the alleged sexual assault around the time we got married. Details were not shared until they attended a couples therapy session in 2012.

Mr Ford wrote: I remember her saying that her attackers name was Brett Kavanaugh, that he was a successful lawyer who had grown up in Christines home town, and that he was well-known in the Washington DC community.

The New York Times said Republicans were becoming anxious ahead of Thursdays testimony and were especially concerned about another of their partys swing voters, senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. She told the newspaper it was essential the senators not prejudge the sexual assault allegations against the nominee.

We are now in a place where its not about whether or not Judge Kavanaugh is qualified, Ms. Murkowski told The Times. It is about whether or not a woman who has been a victim at some point in her life is to be believed.

With a 51-to-49 majority, senate Republicans can afford to lose only one vote, assuming they get no Democrats. Republicans are also concerned about whether Mr Kavanaugh will receive the support of Maine senator Susan Collins.Donald Trump has accused China of interfering in the upcoming US midterm elections, but left out any mention of Russia whose alleged election meddling is the subject of a probe by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

The US leader was speaking at the UN Security Council meeting during the General Assembly in New York.

He characterised the alleged "meddling" in the elections set to take place on 6 November as "against my administration," adding: they do not want me or us to win because I am the first president to challenge China on trade".

Recommended Follow live updates as Trump chairs UN Security Council meeting

"We are winning on trade. We are winning at every level. We don't want them to meddle or interfere in our upcoming election," Mr Trump continued, without offering any proof of his accusation against Beijing.

The US intelligence community has also not made public any evidence of the matter. Last month, US National Security Adviser John Bolton told ABC News Russia, North Korea, Iran, and China are all potential election hackers: "I can say definitively that it's a sufficient national security concern about Chinese meddling, Iranian meddling and North Korean meddling that we're taking steps to try to prevent it, so it's all four of those countries, really".

He also did not offer evidence of the claim at the time.

 Defence Secretary James Mattis says Iran is going to be held accountable

China has denied any wrongdoing when it came to American electoral systems and the 2018 elections. "China has all along followed the principle of non-interference in domestic affairs. We did not and will not interfere in ANY country's internal affairs," Wang Yi, the foreign minister said.

The president, however, made no mention of Russia in this portion of his remarks as the FBI investigation into alleged collusion between Russian officials and the president's campaign team continues.

It was also determined by the majority of US intelligence agencies Russia did indeed hack the 2016 US election and the Trump administration has also issued sanctions of individuals and entities for doing so.

Mr Trump later elaborated on his charge, tweeting China placed "propaganda ads" made to look like news articles in an Iowa newspaper.

Iowa has been historically been treated as a good indicator of who will win presidential elections.

"China is actually placing propaganda ads in the Des Moines Register and other papers, made to look like news. That's because we are beating them on Trade, opening markets, and the farmers will make a fortune when this is over!, he wrote.

The president has not explained what beating China at trade means and the White House has not immediately responded to a request for comment.

The current US Ambassador to China is Terry Brandstad, the former governor of Iowa.

The meeting was actually being held for an entirely different purpose - to discuss the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, particularly concerning Iran and the nuclear deal Mr Trump had refused to re-certify earlier this year.

The meeting comes just a day after Mr Trump's harsh criticism of President Hassan Rouhani and the regime in Tehran in front of the whole General Assembly.

 Donald Trump calls on nations to isolate Iran's regime at United Nations

Irans leaders sow chaos, death and destruction, Mr Trump said yesterday during a speech experts told The Independent was "bleak" and "dark" but altogether less bombastic than his previous appearance at the UN podium.

Echoing those statements in today's appearance in front of the Security Council, Mr Trump said Iran "exports violence, terror, and turmoil" and are the "world's leading sponsor of terror".The future of Donald Trumps nominee for the Supreme Court has been thrown into fresh doubt after a third woman came forward to accuse Brett Kavanaugh of sexual offences or misconduct, claiming the judge was present during a gang rape and frequently drugged young women to enable them to be assaulted.

Just 24 hours before the Senate Judiciary Committee was to hear from Mr Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused him of sexually assaulting her at a high school party three decades ago, attorney Michael Avenatti added a dramatic 11th hour twist  identifying Julie Swetnick as a woman who claimed to have been present at parties when Mr Kavanaugh and one of his close friends, Mark Judge, carried out a number of alleged crimes, including drugging young women so that they could be raped by a succession of boys.

Mr Kavanaugh has dismissed the latest claims as has all the claims of sexual assault as an attempt to derail his confirmation. This is ridiculous and from the twilight zone. I dont know who this is and this never happened, he said. Mr Judge has also denied the allegations.

On Wednesday, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer called on Mr Kavanaugh to withdraw in light of the latest sexual misconduct allegations against him, and said if he did not, an FBI investigation was needed before any senate vote.

If our Republican colleagues proceed without an investigation, it would be a travesty for the honour of the Supreme Court and our country, Mr Schumer said.

For now, Mr Trump is sticking with his man. Avenatti is a third rate lawyer who is good at making false accusations, like he did on me and like he is now doing on Judge Brett Kavanaugh. He is just looking for attention and doesnt want people to look at his past record and relationships  a total low-life, he tweeted.

Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee said they wanted to speak to Ms Swetnick. Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana said the committee would be be extending an invitation to Ms Swetnick to provide a sworn statement, and South Carolinas Lindsey Graham said he wanted the committee to talk to her today.

They spoke after news spread of the allegations made by Ms Swetnick in an an explosive signed document that has been sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Ms Swetnick said in the 1980s, she witnessed efforts by Mr Kavanaugh and Mr Judge to get teenage girls inebriated and disoriented so they could then be gang raped in a side room or bedroom by a train of numerous boys.

I have a firm recollection of seeing boys lined up outside rooms at many of these parties waiting for their turn with a girl inside the room, she said in the statement. These boys included Mark Judge and Brett Kavanaugh.

Mr Kavanaugh, 53, has repeatedly denied the sexual assault and misconduct allegations levelled against him  now from three women.

Ms Swetnick said she has not alleged Mr Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her.

Two other women, Christine Blasey Ford and Deborah Ramirez, have come forward with their own allegations against Mr Kavanaugh. Mr Ford has claimed the judge held her down and tried to remove her clothes while they were both in high school in Maryland.

Ms Ramirez alleged that Kavanaugh exposed himself to her while they were freshmen at Yale University. Ms Ford has provided senators with sworn testimony from people who say she had spoken about the alleged assault several years ago.

In her declaration, Ms Swetnick alleges that in 1982, she became the victim of one of these rapes where Mark Judge and Brett Kavanaugh were present.

 Fox News' Jeanine Pirro ties 'hypnosis' to accusations against Brett Kavanaugh

She says she told at least two people what had happened and she says she was incapacitated and unable to fight off the boys raping me Ms Swetnick believes she was drugged with Quaaludes or something similar placed in what I was drinking.

Ms Swetnick has said there were at least 10 house parties in the Washington, DC area she attended, and that Mr Kavanaugh and Mr Judge was always there.

I observed Brett Kavanaugh drink excessively at many of these parties and engage in abusive and physically aggressive behaviour towards girls, including pressing girls against him without their consent, grinding against girls and attempting to remove or shift girls clothing to expose private body parts, she wrote.

She adds: I likewise observed him be verbally abusive towards girls by making crude sexual comments to them that were designed to demean, humiliate and embarrass them. I often witnessed Brett Kavanaugh speak in a demeaning manner about girls in general as well as specific girls by name. I also witnessed Brett Kavanaugh behave as a mean drunk on many occasions at these parties.

An lawyer for Mr Judge, denied the claims, according to MSNBC. Mr Judge vehemently denies Ms. Swetnicks allegations.

Mr Swetnick, who attended high school in Gaithersburg, Maryland, claims that she attended the parties with Mr Kavanaugh and Mr Judge between 1981 and 1983. In her sworn statement, she said she held active clearances for her work with the US Department of Treasury, US Mint and Internal Revenue Service. She said she also previously had security clearances with the US Department of State, Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection.

According to her online resume, Ms Swetnick was worked at the state department as a senior production web master from 2002 to 2005 and held the same job with the DOJ from 2006 to 2009, Heavy.com reported. With Homeland Security and CBP, she worked as a senior web production manager in 2012.Donald Trump built his international stardom with a simple tag line: "You're fired!"

On Thursday, the president may just use his favourite phrase once again to oust the man overseeing a federal investigation into his 2016 presidential campaign.

Rod Rosenstein's fate as the deputy attorney general within the Justice Department remains in question after explosive reports on Friday alleged he questioned Mr Trumps fitness to serve in the Oval Office in multiple private conversations with federal officials. Those discussions were reportedly drafted into memos that were subsequently disseminated among top officials at the federal agency.

As Mr Trump and Mr Rosenstein prepare for their highly-anticipated meeting, here's background on how the deputy attorney general found himself on the presidents bad side  and what could potentially come next.

Who is Rod Rosenstein?

Mr Rosenstein is the top official in the Justice Department currently overseeing the Special Counsel investigation into Russias interference in the 2016 presidential election. Jeff Sessions recused himself after Mr Trump appointed him to spearhead the federal agency due to his involvement in the presidents campaign.

The position of deputy attorney general is ordinarily a relatively low-visibility one in Washington, but Mr Rosenstein has assumed outsized significance given his appointment of Robert Mueller to investigate potential ties between Russia and Trumps 2016 presidential campaign.

Why is Mr Rosensteins job in jeopardy?

Tensions began brewing between Mr Rosenstein and Mr Trump again last week after an explosive New York Times report alleged the deputy attorney general discussed wearing a wire and secretly recording the president while attempting to recruit his Cabinet member to invoke the 25th Amendment.

By Monday, the president reportedly had not decided whether to fire Mr Rosenstein for supposedly questioning his fitness to serve in the Oval Office.

Mr Trump told Fox News in an interview that he was looking into Mr Rosensteins reported actions  and what to do about them  following the newspaper report, noting the deputy attorney general was hired by Jeff Sessions.

"We will make a determination," he said at the time. "Its certainly a very sad story."

The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Show all 17 1 /17 The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Paul Manafort Mr Manafort is a Republican strategist and former Trump campaign manager. He resigned from that post over questions about his extensive lobbying overseas, including in Ukraine where he represented pro-Russian interests. Mr Manafort turned himself in at FBI headquarters to special counsel Robert Muellers team on Oct 30, 2017, after he was indicted under seal on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. Getty The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rick Gates Mr Gates joined the Trump team in spring 2016, and served as a top aide until he left to work at the Republican National Committee after the departure of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort. Mr Gates' had previously worked on several presidential campaigns, on international political campaigns in Europe and Africa, and had 15 years of political or financial experience with multinational firms, according to his bio. Mr Gates was indicted alongside Mr Manafort by special counsel Robert Mueller's team on charges that include conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, unregistered agent of a foreign principal, false and misleading US Foreign Agents Registration Act statements, false statements, and seven counts of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts. AP The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation George Papadopoulos George Papadopoulos was a former foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign, having joined around March 2016. Mr Papadopoulos plead guilty to federal charges for lying to the FBI as a part of a cooperation agreement with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Mr Papadopoulos claimed in an interview with the FBI that he had made contacts with Russian sources before joining the Trump campaign, but he actually began working with them after joining the team. Mr Papadopoulos allegedly took a meeting with a professor in London who reportedly told him that Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. The professor also allegedly introduced Mr Papadopoulos to a Russian who was said to have close ties to officials at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mr Papadopoulos also allegedly was in contact with a woman whom he incorrectly described in one email to others in the campaign as the "niece" to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Twitter The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Donald Trump Jr The President's eldest son met with a Russian lawyer - Natalia Veselnitskaya - on 9 June 2016 at Trump Tower in New York. He said in an initial statement that the meeting was about Russia halting adoptions of its children by US citizens. Then, he said it was regarding the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. In a final statement, Mr Trump Jr released a chain of emails that revealed he took the meeting in hopes of getting information Ms Veselnitskaya had about Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. He and the President called it standard "opposition research" in the course of campaigning and that no information came from the meeting. The meeting was set up by an intermediary, Rob Goldstone. Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort were also at the same meeting. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jared Kushner Mr Kushner is President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a key adviser to the White House. He met with a Russian banker appointed by Russian President Vladimir Putin in December. Mr Kushner has said he did so in his role as an adviser to Mr Trump while the bank says he did so as a private developer. Mr Kushner has also volunteered to testify in the Senate about his role helping to arrange meetings between Trump advisers and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Rob Goldstone Former tabloid journalist and now music publicist Rob Goldstone is a contact of the Trump family through the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant, which took place in Moscow. In June 2016, he wrote to Donald Trump Jr offering a meeting with a Russian lawyer, Natalya Veselnitskaya, who had information about Hillary Clinton. Mr Goldstone was the intermediary for Russian pop star Emin Agalaraov and his father, real estate magnate Aras, who played a role in putting on the 2013 pageant. In an email chain released by Mr Trump Jr, Mr Goldstone seemed to indicate Russian government's support of Donald Trump's campaign. AP images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Aras and Emin Agalarov Aras Agalarov (R) is a wealthy Moscow-based real estate magnate and son Emin (L) is a pop star. Both played a role in putting on the previously Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow. They allegedly had information about Hillary Clinton and offered that information to the Trump campaign through a lawyer with whom they had worked with, Natalia Veselnitskaya, and music publicist Rob Goldstone. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Natalia Veselnitskaya Natalia Veselnitskaya is a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin. She has worked on real estate issues and reportedly counted the FSB as a client in the past. She has ties to a Trump family connection, real estate magnate Aras Agalarov, who had helped set up the Trump-owned 2013 Miss Universe pageant which took place in Moscow. Ms Veselnitskaya met with Donald Trump Jr, Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort in Trump Tower on 9 June 2016 but denies the allegation that she went there promising information on Hillary Clinton's alleged financial ties to Russia. She contends that the meeting was about the US adoptions of Russian children being stopped by Moscow as a reaction to the Magnitsky Act, a US law blacklisting Russian human rights abusers. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Mike Flynn Mr Flynn was named as Trump's national security adviser but was forced to resign from his post for inappropriate communication with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. He had misrepresented a conversation he had with Mr Kislyak to Vice President Mike Pence, telling him wrongly that he had not discussed sanctions with the Russian. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sergey Kislyak Mr Kislyak, the former longtime Russian ambassador to the US, is at the centre of the web said to connect President Donald Trump's campaign with Russia. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Roger Stone Mr Stone is a former Trump adviser who worked on the political campaigns of Richard Nixon, George HW Bush, and Ronald Reagan. Mr Stone claimed repeatedly in the final months of the campaign that he had backchannel communications with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and that he knew the group was going to dump damaging documents to the campaign of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton - which did happen. Mr Stone also had contacts with the hacker Guccier 2.0 on Twitter, who claimed to have hacked the DNC and is linked to Russian intelligence services. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeff Sessions The US attorney general was forced to recuse himself from the Trump-Russia investigation after it was learned that he had lied about meeting with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Carter Page Mr Page is a former advisor to the Trump campaign and has a background working as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch. Mr Page met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Mr Page had invested in oil companies connected to Russia and had admitted that US Russia sanctions had hurt his bottom line. Reuters The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Jeffrey "JD" Gorden Mr Gordon met with Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak during the 2016 Republian National Convention to discuss how the US and Russia could work together to combat Islamist extremism should then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump win the election. The meeting came days before a massive leak of DNC emails that has been connected to Russia. Creative Commons The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation James Comey Mr Comey was fired from his post as head of the FBI by President Donald Trump. The timing of Mr Comey's firing raised questions around whether or not the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign may have played a role in the decision. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Preet Bharara Mr Bahara refused, alongside 46 other US district attorney's across the country, to resign once President Donald Trump took office after previous assurances from Mr Trump that he would keep his job. Mr Bahara had been heading up several investigations including one into one of President Donald Trump's favorite cable television channels Fox News. Several investigations would lead back to that district, too, including those into Mr Trump's campaign ties to Russia, and Mr Trump's assertion that Trump Tower was wiretapped on orders from his predecessor. Getty Images The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation Sally Yates Ms Yates, a former Deputy Attorney General, was running the Justice Department while President Donald Trump's pick for attorney general awaited confirmation. Ms Yates was later fired by Mr Trump from her temporary post over her refusal to implement Mr Trump's first travel ban. She had also warned the White House about potential ties former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn to Russia after discovering those ties during the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign's connections to Russia. Getty Images

Mr Rosenstein vehemently denied any wrongdoing, claiming the Times report was inaccurate. The Associated Press then confirmed he was heading to the White House with the expectation that he would be fired.

White House spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Mr Trump and Mr Rosenstein had an extended conversation Monday to discuss the recent news stories at the deputy attorney generals request.

What happens if Mr Rosenstein is fired?

Any firing or resignation of Mr Rosenstein spells immediate uncertainty for an investigation that he oversees and would place that responsibility in the hands of a replacement who Democrats fear would be less respectful of Mr Muellers independence and mandate. Even some congressional Republicans and White House aides have warned for months against firing Mr Rosenstein for fear that it could lead to impeachment.

The commotion about Mr Rosensteins future has added to the turmoil roiling the administration, just six weeks before midterm elections with control of Congress at stake. In addition to dealing with the Mueller investigation, the White House has also struggled to win confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in the wake of sexual misconduct allegations.

 Brett Kavanaugh denies assault allegations in interview

Mr Rosenstein could be replaced by Noel Francisco, a conservative appointee of Mr Trump who has fought for expansive executive powers and is currently tasked with arguing in support of the administrations agenda to the Supreme Court.

When will we find out the fate of Mr Rosenstein?

The Trump-Rosenstein meeting will be on the same day as an extraordinary Senate committee hearing featuring Brett Kavanaugh and a woman who has accused him of sexually assaulting her when they were in high school.

Mr Trump, who on Friday said that he would remove a lingering stench from the Justice Department, did not publicly reveal any plans over the weekend.

On Monday, he said he hoped Thursdays meeting would help him figure out "whats going on."

Over the weekend, he appeared undecided on Mr Rosensteins fate, reportedly asking confidants, both inside and outside the White House, how to respond to the situation. Some urged him to fire Mr Rosenstein, the Associated Press reported, while others suggested restraint while checking whether the report was correct or if it was planted by an adversary.

The Associated Press contributed to this report Close Donald Trump accuses China of interfering in 2018 midterm elections

Donald Trump has chairing a United Nations Security Council meeting - a first for the US president.

It means that most of the attention that would have been focused on events at the General Assembly - where UK Prime Minister Theresa May would later defend the Brexit vote - was instead focused on the UN's most powerful body, where the US currently holds the rotating presidency.

While the meeting of the council addressed the issue of nonproliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, Mr Trump himself used the platform to attack Iran and accuse China - but not Russia - of meddling in 2018 midterm elections.

On Tuesday, during an unabashedly "America First" speech, Mr Trump said Iranian leaders "sow chaos, death and destruction" and "spread mayhem across the Middle East and far beyond." His national security adviser, John Bolton, also warned that there would be "hell to pay" if Tehran crossed the US, its allies or their partners.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani responded by accusing the Mr Trump administration of violating the rules of international law and "state obligations" by withdrawing from the 2015 nuclear deal that Iran signed with the US and five other major powers.

Iran parliament reacts after Trump's withdrawal from nuclear deal Show all 10 1 /10 Iran parliament reacts after Trump's withdrawal from nuclear deal Iran parliament reacts after Trump's withdrawal from nuclear deal Iranian MPs burnt a US flag in parliament after Donald Trump announced America's withdrawal from the nuclear deal. AFP/Islamic Consultative Assembly News Agency Iran parliament reacts after Trump's withdrawal from nuclear deal US President Donald Trump displays a presidential memorandum after announcing his intent to withdraw from the JCPOA Iran nuclear agreement in the Diplomatic Room at the White House. Reuters Iran parliament reacts after Trump's withdrawal from nuclear deal Some Iranian MPs reacted after Trumps decision by shouting 'death to America'. AFP/Islamic Consultative Assembly News Agency Iran parliament reacts after Trump's withdrawal from nuclear deal Iranian lawmakers prepare to burn two pieces of papers representing the US flag and the nuclear deal. AP Iran parliament reacts after Trump's withdrawal from nuclear deal Iran said it will hold talks with signatories to the nuclear deal after Trump's decision to withdraw from the accord, which it branded "psychological warfare". AFP/Islamic Consultative Assembly News Agency Iran parliament reacts after Trump's withdrawal from nuclear deal Several Iranian MPs stood chanting in the Tehran parliament. AFP/Islamic Consultative Assembly News Agency Iran parliament reacts after Trump's withdrawal from nuclear deal Iranian MPs burning a US flag AFP/Islamic Consultative Assembly News Agency Iran parliament reacts after Trump's withdrawal from nuclear deal President Hassan Rouhani addressed the nation in a televised speech in Tehran. He said he'd send his foreign minister to negotiate with countries remaining in the nuclear deal after Trump's decision to pull America from the deal, warning he otherwise would restart enriching uranium "in the next weeks." Iranian Presidency Office via AP Iran parliament reacts after Trump's withdrawal from nuclear deal Iran's press condemned Trump's withdrawal from a multi-party nuclear deal but was divided over whether Tehran should react with patience or withdraw itself. AFP Iran parliament reacts after Trump's withdrawal from nuclear deal Trump announced the US withdrawal from what he called the "defective" multinational nuclear deal with Iran, and said Washington would reinstate sanctions against the Islamic republic. AFP/Getty

Mr Rouhani did not to attend the Security Council meeting that. The council is populated by five permanent members -- the US, China, Russia, Britain and France -- and 10 other member states, who occupy a council seat for two-year terms. Iran is not among them.

Please allow a moment for the liveblog to load.A passenger has been removed from a flight in India for trying to enter the cockpit to charge his phone, the latest in a string of bizarre incidents in the country.

Police told reporters the man was drunk and moved towards the cockpit while the IndiGo plane was still on the ground at Mumbai, saying he wanted to recharge his mobile.

A spokesperson for IndiGo said the incident involved an unruly passenger on a Kolkata-bound flight on Monday. The man was promptly told to leave the cockpit and ultimately ejected from the plane into police custody.

Following standard operating procedures the captain operating Flight 6E-395 initiated the offloading of the passenger on grounds of security violation, the spokesperson told the PTI news agency.

Police said the man, who was around 35 years old, was taken into custody but later released without charge. An officer said police did not find any offence against him to charge a case.

The incident took place two days after a similarly bizarre case, where a first-time flier tried to open the rear door on a flight from Delhi to Patna, mistaking it for the bathroom.

That flight, operated by another budget airline GoAir, was already mid-air when the mans actions sparked pandemonium among his fellow passengers.

A spokesperson for GoAir said the man was eventually intercepted by the crew after other passengers raised the alarm. The man was taken into police custody upon arrival, but again released without charge after it was established he had made a genuine mistake.

Last week, a Jet Airways plane was forced to turn back and make an emergency landing at Mumbai after the oxygen masks dropped down and multiple passengers reported ear pain and bleeding from the nose.

It later emerged that the pilots had apparently forgotten to flick a switch that regulates cabin pressure, causing a rapid loss of pressure as the plane climbed to 11,000ft.

The incident prompted aviation minister Suresh Prabhu to launch what officials called a full safety audit of all airlines and airports. The pilots involved have been suspended pending a full inquiry.Japans PM Shinzo Abe has said he is open to meeting face to face with North Koreas Kim Jong-un, calling for a new start in relations between their two countries.

Mr Abes address to the UN General Assembly showed what a difference a year could make in international relations, after his speech last year called for greater international pressure on North Korea following a number of near-miss missile tests by Pyongyang.

Speaking in New York, Mr Abe reflected on the challenges he has faced during his tenure with what he called the post-war structure of northeast Asia, and said the denuclearisation of North Korea remained a top priority.

But he said the normalisation of international relations with North Korea  which started with inter-Korean cooperation at the Winter Olympics and culminated in a summit between Mr Kim and US president Donald Trump  would not be complete unless Pyongyang resolves the issue of past abductions of Japanese nationals.

In order to resolve the abduction issue, I am also ready to break the shell of mutual distrust with North Korea, get off to a new start and meet face to face with Chairman Kim Jong-un, Abe said in his UN address.

It is the first time talks between Japan and North Korea have been mooted since the days immediately after the Trump-Kim summit in Singapore, when the atmosphere of rapprochement prompted officials in Tokyo to start planning for a possible Kim-Abe meeting as early as the Eastern Economic Forum that took place on 10-13 September.

Since Singapore, talks between North Korea and the US have stalled, with Washington bemoaning the lack of concrete steps towards denuclearisation and Pyongyang accusing the Americans of wanting it to making concessions unilaterally.

North Korea was also on the agenda during Mr Trumps speech at the UN on Tuesday. The president praised Mr Kim for his courage in taking steps to disarm, but said much work still had to be done and sanctions must remain in place until North Korea denuclearises.

"The missiles and rockets are no longer flying in every direction, nuclear testing has stopped, some military facilities are already being dismantled," Mr Trump said in his address.

I would like to thank Chairman Kim for his courage and for the steps he has taken, though much work remains to be done.

North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits Show all 16 1 /16 North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits In the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea, portraits of former supreme leaders Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il are required by law to be hung in the home, the classroom, the factory and all manner of other private and public places Reuters North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits In the classroom AFP/Getty North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits In the living room AFP/Getty North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits In the maternity ward of the hospital Alamy North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits On board the ship Reuters North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits At the ballot box Mannen av bord North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits In the office AFP/Getty North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits On the bridegroom Reuters North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits On the Pyongyang subway Reuters North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits On a government building Reuters North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits In the teacher training facility AFP/Getty North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits In Kim Il Sung square in Pyongyang Reuters North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits In the home AFP/Getty North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits At the military parade Reuters North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits In the hall Reuters North Korea's pervasive leaders: the Kim portraits At the Chinese border AFP/Getty

Like Mr Abes, Mr Trumps remarks were very different from those in his speech last year at the assembly, when he threatened to "totally destroy" North Korea and mocked the North Korean leader as "Rocket Man" on a "suicide mission.

At a meeting last week with South Koreas president Moon Jae-in, Mr Kim promised to dismantle a missile site and also a nuclear complex if the US took "corresponding action.

Mr Moon told an event in New York on the sidelines of the UN meeting this week that declaring a formal end to the 1950-53 Korean War would encourage North Korea to take further steps.

Mr Moon said Mr Kim had told him the "corresponding measures" he was seeking were security guarantees Mr Trump pledged in Singapore, and moves towards normalisation of relations with Washington.

"I believe that setting a timetable for all these measures is a task for the second US-North Korea summit," Mr Moon said, and in an interview with Fox News suggested such a summit could take place before the end of this year.

US secretary of state Mike Pompeo said on Monday he hoped to travel to North Korea again before the end of the year to make final preparations for a second Trump-Kim summit.Posters on the streets outside described the plans to raise the pension age as genocide. Inside parliament, barrel-chested communist deputies wore white T-shirts claiming their implacable opposition to the reform. And ordinary Russians had shown their disapproval, with a million of them putting their signatures to a petition.

In the end, the vote to pass the Kremlins contentious pension bill in its second reading went without so much as a whimper.

The tightly controlled State Duma removed the last significant legislative hurdle by 326 to 59, with a proforma third reading scheduled for Thursday. Few will be on the edge of their seats by the time the Federation Council and the president are asked to add their seal of approval next Wednesday.

Wednesdays vote followed party lines. The ruling United Russia party voted for; the token opposition voted against. And when it came down to the presidential amendments, everyone was in favour. They were for the president, one deputy argued, but against his reform.

There is something we can all agree on, the speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said once the unanimous vote passed.

Following the amendments, the pension age will eventually rise by five years, to 65 for men and 60 for women. Rarely has a government policy provoked such rage among Russians.

Opinion polls suggest eight out of 10 Russians are against the bill, and over half are ready to join protests. Opponents of the bill say it strikes at the heart of the countrys social contract. In some regions, the proposals take the male pension age beyond the male life expectancy.

After the government first presented its plans in the summer, the ratings of both president and ruling United Russia party nosedived by 20 per cent. Performance in regional elections this month was also dire, with voters rejecting hand-picked candidates across the country. In a sign of the Kremlins nervousness, opposition leader Alexei Navalny was twice arrested ahead of protests.

Authorities initially tried to keep the president above the fray. It was a matter for government, not the president, spokesperson Dmitry Peskov would tell journalists. But, eventually, Vladimir Putin was forced to intervene. On 29 August, he made a TV address to the nation, calling for a moderate softening of the bill but describing it as necessary medicine.

 Putin offers concessions to controversial pension reform plan

The Kremlin understood it would take a hit, said Tatyana Stanovaya, founder and CEO of the political analysis firm R.Politik, but it might have overestimated its reserves. And its tactics have contributed to a sense of the president being detached from his people.

There is still a huge problem of dialogue, she told The Independent. People are expressing anger at three things. First, they see international politics being handled with far greater urgency than internal economic problems. Second, they dont see any positive agenda, only warnings that if you dont support them, things will get worse. And third, they recoil at the language of ultimatum, the absence of discussion.

Sergei Kurginyan, head of the neo-Marxist movement that organised the million-strong referendum against the bill, said he was disappointed, but not surprised, by the outcome.

Of course we didnt like the way that the deputies voted, but they are absurdly dependent and act like children around a father, he told The Independent. They committed political suicide today, but they voted for that suicide because they are nothing without the president.

Mr Kurginyan said the vote would have broad consequences for the political stability of the country. There was a danger of late-Soviet collapse, he said: There is already a slow, creeping process of disillusionment, but it will become more pronounced.

According to Ms Stanovaya, the Kremlin plans to manage the growing public discontent by renewing the regional elite with new faces. By evening, the president had already moved to replace two governors. But this corporate approach did nothing to solve the fundamental problems of distrust in the system and in a president who has lost his magic wand.

Sooner or later, the Kremlin will be left with a choice, she said.

They can either turn the screws further and risk creating a pressure-cooker environment. Or they can introduce moderate liberalisation, and risk things getting out of control.A Moroccan woman has been killed and three people injured when the Moroccan navy opened fire on a migrant boat off the coast of the country.

Moroccan Interior ministry officials said the speedboats driver, a Spanish national, refused to obey orders to stop in waters off Mdiq-Fnideq, forcing the naval officers to open fire. The group of 25 people were believed to be attempting to cross illegally to Spain on Tuesday. The woman, identified locally as a 22-year-old law student, later succumbed to her injuries in hospital. Another of the injured was left in critical condition and had to have their arm amputated.

The Spanish captain was arrested unharmed, a local official added.

Recommended UN launches probe into treatment of refugees in Italy and Austria

Morocco has become the main thoroughfare for migrants looking to cross the Mediterranean to Europe, ever since Italy began turning away migrants this year after allegedly paying off smugglers in Libya to stop their people-trafficking trade. The journey to Spain is significantly shorter and so safer than the central Mediterranean route.

Morocco said it has foiled over 54,000 attempted crossings to nearby Spain in the last six months in alone.

Despite their attempts to crackdown on the illegal trade, the International Organisation for Migration said this year at least 38,000 people have successfully arrived in Spain by sea and land, three times the number who made the crossings in the same period last year. According to figures from the government, these included 7,100 Moroccans.

 Migrants allowed to disembark the Diciotti ship in Italy following nine days stand-off

Posts on Facebook now advertise crossings to Europe for 7,000 dirhams (630 euros). Several videos circulate on social media showing Moroccan youth boarding small rubber boats flashing victory signs. Morocco is suffering from a soaring youth unemployment rate which has risen to nearly 30 per cent in recent months.

Morocco is trying to crack down on the smuggling trade, after nearly 400 people died this year attempting to get to Spain. Late Tuesday the Moroccan authorities announced they had arrested a Spanish citizen and his Moroccan accomplice accused of smuggling migrants to Europe by boat.

The suspects allegedly "extorted" people looking to leave the North African country before "illegally" sending them across the Mediterranean in inflatable vessels, the General Directorate of National Security said.Buzzing with energy, surprising with quirkiness, impressing with history, Odessa may be one of the most fascinating places Ukraine has to offer. Being a relatively young city, only founded in 1794, this lively port has its own distinct character and a vibrant atmosphere that cant be found elsewhere in the country.

With new Ryanair flights direct from London to Kiev, reaching Ukraine has never been easier  from Kiev, take an intercity train to Odessa in around seven hours.

What to do

Admire the Potemkin Stairs

One of Odessas most famous sights, the Potemkin Stairs, were featured in Sergei Eisensteins silent film, Battleship Potemkin. The scene in which they feature is regarded as one of the most influential in cinematic history, due to the innovative use of montage. The stairs also offer outstanding views over Odessas port, and at the top a statue of the citys first mayor, Duc de Richelieu, serves as the most popular photo spot in town.

The Potemkin Steps inspired one of cinemas greatest montages (Getty Images)

Visit one of Europes most beautiful opera houses

The most precious gem in Odessas architectural crown, the Odessa Opera is a sight to behold. Its magnificent baroque facade makes it worth admiring from street level but its also worth experiencing the interior. The horseshoe-shaped hall is known for its unique acoustics, making even the lowest sound from the stage audible everywhere in the hall. Tickets cost between 40 and 200 hryvnias (1-5).

Hit the beach

One of Odessas nicknames is the pearl of the Black Sea, and no visit is complete without a trip to one of the citys many beaches. Start with the central Langeron, which offers plenty of seaside fun during the summer and melancholic natural beauty during the colder months. For the epicentre of Odessas raucous nightlife, head to Arcadia, a long promenade featuring luxury hotels, plenty of restaurants and bars and a wide array of clubs, as well as one of the best beaches in town.

Odessa has a range of beaches to explore (Getty Images)

Go on an architectural walk

Odessa has one of the most impressive historic cores in Eastern Europe. Visit the Passage, a covered street of shops with impressive facades and numerous statues. Be sure to stroll around the central Derybasivska Street and check out the endless palaces of Pushkinska Street. Finally, uncover the citys best kept architectural secret  a cosy, neo-Moorish courtyard in the magnificent Philharmonic Theatre.

Where to stay

If you want to plunge into the atmosphere of old Odessa, the Frederic Koklen Boutique Hotel is a great base. Set in a 19th-century manor, its as central as it gets, just a few steps away from the major landmarks. Beautifully designed rooms reflect the splendour of the past, yet remain comfortably modern. A high-end restaurant complements the elegant atmosphere of the hotel. Doubles from 70, B&B.

The Passage is decked out with intricate facades (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

A highlight of Odessas design hotel scene, Rooms and Rumours has six music-themed rooms that make for a fun and stylish stay. Apart from high-spec furnishings and sleek design, each room has a vinyl record player. Doubles from 54, B&B.

One of the coolest budget options is Hostel Friday. New, spacious and centrally located, it provides a cheap and cheerful base for exploring the city. Fun-orientated, it has a huge movie screen for collective film watching as well as a PlayStation game zone. Doubles from 18, room only.

Where to eat

Occupying a thoroughly renovated 19th-century summer cottage, Dacha is the perfect spot to try all the Odessa food highlights, including tyulka  a Black Sea sprat  fishballs and marinated chicken neck with tsimmes  a sweet stew made from carrots and dried fruits.

Bratia Grill is a centrally located restaurant dishing up mouthwatering steaks, burgers and an extensive selection of fresh seafood.

Odessa has plentiful seafood restaurants (Getty Images)

For a unique street food experience, head to the City Food Market, featuring 13 food stands and six bars under one roof. With Greek gyros, Vietnamese pho, Jewish falafel, Italian pasta and Georgian khachapuri, this place wont leave you hungry. Frequent live music events make it one of Odessas favourite hangouts.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, so why confine it to just the morning? Benedikt serves brekkie 24 hours a day, with an impressive choice of 20 meal options and croissants served 12 different ways.

Where to drink

Stylish, welcoming and affordable, Stakan is the go-to spot for high quality drinks at friendly prices.

Coffee aficionados should head to Foundation Coffee Roasters. The beans are roasted and ground before being served up in cappuccinos and espressos. Minimalistic design, a central location and heavenly desserts add to the charm.

Foundation Coffee Roasters is the place for a caffeine hit (Foundation Coffee Roasters)

A theatre of mixology, The Fitz serves the best cocktails in the city. Hidden barbershop by day, by night it transforms into the finest drinking institution in Odessa, complete with cool design and even cooler crowd.

Where to shop

For an authentic market experience visit Privoz, a legendary Odessa institution and one of the largest farmers markets in Ukraine. Theres a local saying that if you havent been to Privoz you havent been to Odessa. Visit the seafood section for freshly caught fish.

The Archaeological Museum is one of the citys most beautiful buildings (Getty Images)

If youre into flea markets, Starokonnyi is a treasure trove of antiques  locals joke its impossible to come back empty handed.

Benya&Zubrik may well be one of the most beloved and well-known Odessa fashion brands. It makes witty T-shirts and hoodies that mock famous brands  perfect for original, authentic souvenirs.

Architectural highlight

Built at the end of the 19th century, the Archaeology Museum impresses with a splendid neoclassical look.

Nuts and bolts

What currency do I need?

Ukrainian hryvnia (UAH).

What language do they speak?

Ukrainian is the official language but Russian is widely spoken as well.

Should I tip?

Tips are usually 10 per cent of the bill.

Whats the time difference?

Two hours ahead of the UK.

Whats the average flight time from the UK?

There are no direct flights from London to Odessa. A flight with a change would take six hours.

Public transport

The historic centre is easily navigated on foot. Take buses or trolleybuses to get around the city, or Uber if you want a taxi. Avoid marshrutkas  privately owned minibuses.

Best view

Look out over Odessa harbour from the Mother-in-Law bridge.

Insider tip

One of the biggest and most influential arts events in Eastern Europe, the Odessa International Film Festival brings the worlds top movie talent to the city every July.Budget transatlantic flights from Edinburgh and Belfast are to end.

The low-cost airline, Norwegian, is blaming its retreat from Edinburgh on the Scottish governments failure to cut tax, and recommending Belfast passengers head for Dublin, Shannon or Cork.

Norwegian will stop flying from Scotlands busiest airport to Stewart International in upstate New York and Providence, Rhode Island, at the end of the winter season. The links served New York City and Boston respectively.

A Norwegian spokesperson said: Following a comprehensive review of our services from Edinburgh, we have decided to withdraw routes to the New York and Boston areas, Barcelona and Tenerife with the last flights departing on 30 March 2019.

Our affordable US flights were launched with the prospect of a reduction in air passenger taxes that was unfortunately postponed by the Scottish government and this has led us to fully withdraw our transatlantic services.

The Independent has asked the Scottish government for a response.

Air Passenger Duty is 78 for long-haul economy flights from England, Wales and Scotland. Northern Ireland has a special rate of 13, because of competition from airports in the Irish Republic.

But the Norwegian links to Stewart and Providence end on 27 October.

Following a comprehensive review of our services from Belfast in response to customer demand, we have decided to withdraw our routes from Belfast to the New York and Boston areas, the spokesperson said.

New York and Boston-Providence remain well served by Norwegian from Dublin, Shannon and Cork with up to 33 weekly departures, giving customers in Northern Ireland an alternative for booking daily affordable flights to the US.

 IAG and Ryanair chief executives discuss their participation in Norwegian airlines expansion

Belfast International Airport called the decision moronic.

While Norwegian retreats, British Airways is expanding. BA is relaunching flights from Heathrow to Kansai in Japan, serving the cities of Osaka and Kyoto. Four weekly flights begin in April 2019.

The airline flew to the airport until 1998, but struggled to fill flights even when fares were cut to below 300 return. Prices for the revived link start at 599.

BA is also starting twice-daily services from London City Airport to Munich.

Travellers from UK regional airports aiming for Las Vegas will get a new option when KLM starts flight from Amsterdam to the Nevada city in June 2019.One of Italys busiest airports has remained closed almost all day because of severe forest fires in the area.

An Alitalia flight took off from Pisa's Galileo Galilei Airport shortly before 7am, but no planes have left since then.

Among the 40-plus cancellations are Ryanair flights to and from Stansted and East Midlands, easyJet to Bristol, Jet2 to Manchester and Newcastle and British Airways to Gatwick and Heathrow.

Recommended This is why the Leaning Tower of Pisa is still standing

The last landing was at 3am, when a Ryanair flight from Gothenburg touched down. Since then more than 40 arrivals have been cancelled.

Around 12,000 passengers have had their flights cancelled so far today.

Eurocontrol told airlines: Not available for departures or arrivals on 26th between 0500-1738 UTC [7am to 7.38pm] due to firefighting activity.

Ryanair initially scheduled departures to Stansted, Leeds Bradford, Valencia, Brussels and Catania simultaneously for 7.40pm, just after the restriction was due to be lifted, but later delayed them by several hours.

An easyJet departure to Luton was planned to depart four hours late, with a Gatwick flight three hours behind schedule.

Pisa is one of the top 12 busiest in Italy, handling an average of around 15,000 passenger per day.

The Foreign Office said: If you're due to travel, contact your airline for information on any delays and cancellations.

Passengers on easyJet's grounded flights were told: Were very sorry that your flight has been cancelled, and we understand that this is late notice.

This is due to Pisa airport being closed due to fires close to the airport.

British Airways told its Heathrow-bound travellers: Were very sorry, this flight has been cancelled due to airport restrictions.

Passengers whose flights within Europe are cancelled are entitled to accommodation, meals and replacement flights, regardless of the cause.

Local news reports suggested that the fires may have been set deliberately.We sincerely apologise to those customers affected by these unnecessary strikes on Friday, which we have done our utmost to avoid, given that we have already offered these unions recognition agreements, Collective Labour Agreements, and a move to local contracts/law in 2019.

These repeated unnecessary strikes are damaging Ryanairs business and our customer confidence at a time when oil prices are rising strongly, and if they continue, it is inevitable that we will have to look again at our capacity growth this winter and in summer 2019. We hope these unions will see common sense and work with us to finalise agreements for the benefit of our pilots and cabin crew over the coming weeks without further disrupting our customers or our flights.

When we can successfully do deals with unions in Ireland, the UK, Germany and Italy, why are some unions in Belgium, Holland and Spain not doing similar deals?

Ryanairs Kenny Jacobs.Thomas Trutschel/Photothek via Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- The sudden departure of Instagram's founders seems to have caught many people off guard -- not just at Facebook, but investors as well.



Facebook stock dropped 2.45 percent lower to $161.35 ahead of the market opening Tuesday, before it recovered in afternoon trading to close at $164.91.



Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger abruptly resigned Monday night, leaving a leadership vacuum at the crown jewel of Instagram's troubled parent company.



"A lot of people were pretty surprised," Scott Kessler, director of Equity Research at CFRA, told ABC News. "They hadn't gotten the sense they [Systrom and Krieger] were on the way out."



The sudden departure of Instagram's CEO and CTO puts the focus squarely on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Tensions with Zuckerberg were cited by many reports and analysts as the reason for their exit.



"Kevin and Mike are extraordinary product leaders and Instagram reflects their combined creative talents," Zuckerberg said in a statement. "I've learned a lot working with them for the past six years and have really enjoyed it. I wish them all the best and I'm looking forward to seeing what they build next."



Systrom and Krieger founded Instagram in 2010 and later sold it to Facebook for $1 billion.



The Instagram departures rattled some investors already concerned about Zuckerberg's dominance at the company.



"We're deeply concerned with the whole spectrum of operational problems at the company," said Jonas D. Kron, director of shareholder advocacy at Trillium Asset Management, which owns 52,000 shares of Facebook. "We think there needs to be systemic change."



The fund has pushed for "Zuckerberg to relinquish the role of chairman of the board of directors and focus on the CEO role," Kron said, noting that companies such as Oracle, Apple, Microsoft and Twitter all have independent chairs. "Facebook is too big and too complex for one person to have this much power."



Facebook's momentum appears to have has stalled, as many users have reportedly abandoned the platform or begun to use it less amid privacy and fake-news scandals. In contrast, Instagram has grown rapidly to 1 billion users - including a mostly younger audience that's particularly attractive to advertisers. It's also disrupted traditional advertising and media models as companies work with attractive, fashionable "influencers," who are sometimes paid tens of thousands of dollars to travel or use their products and post photos of themselves doing so.



In the past three years, Facebook has become notably less important to teenagers.



From 2014 to 2015, 71 percent of teenagers reported using Facebook, and no other platform was used by a clear majority. Only 52 percent of surveyed teens said they used Instagram.



In 2018, teens used YouTube, Instagram and Snapchat more than Facebook, with users of the original social network dropping to 51 percent, according to a Pew Research Center study.



Facebook declined to comment on who would succeed Systrom and Krieger, and the company did not respond to additional requests for comment from ABC News related to investors' concerns over Zuckerberg.



In April, the founders of WhatsApp, the global messaging platform Facebook bought for $22 billion in 2014, resigned, leaving $1.3 billion on the table, according to The Wall Street Journal. Founders Jan Koum and Brian Acton left after years of simmering tensions about privacy and making money off the app, pitting the duo against Zuckerberg and Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg.



The Instagram situation is similar, Kessler said.



"What's really apparent is that Instagram is the growth engine, and Facebook has increasingly tried to monetize that platform with offerings and expanding its user base and those two things have caused tension at the company," Kessler said. "If you think about Instagram now versus a year or two ago, the amount of promotional advertising is markedly different. That's clearly the work of corporate executives."



Announcing their departure, Systrom, Instagram's co-founder and CEO, wrote in a post on Instagram's website: "Mike and I are grateful for the last eight years at Instagram and six years with the Facebook team. We've grown from 13 people to over a thousand with offices around the world, all while building products used and loved by a community of over one billion. We're now ready for our next chapter," he added. "We're planning on leaving Instagram to explore our curiosity and creativity again. Building new things requires that we step back, understand what inspires us and match that with what the world needs; that's what we plan to do."

Copyright  2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.A Major Gathering in Jerusalem of Millennial Evangelicals *FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC *



A Holy Convocation in Jerusalem, launching at this year's Day of Prayer for the Peace of Jerusalem



Contact: Wendy Miller,

716-583-4033



JERUSALEM, Sept. 25, 2018 /



Keynote speaker - MK Michael Oren. Joining him will be Rabbi Marc Schneier, former head of the World Jewish Congress. A host of other luminaries and leaders from Israel and around the world are expected to attend.



Robert Stearns, the head organizer of the event, has long been a leading figure in the pro-Israel global community. He leads both Eagles Wings, a New York based organization, and a sister organization in Los Angeles, the Israel-Christian Nexus. "We are hearing a lot of reports about a decline of next generation evangelical support for Israel," Stearns said. "But gatherings like this one are a strong part of the remedy to that. Millennial evangelicals simply need a re-introduction to Israel, not only from a biblical basis, but also from a basis of things which speak to them, like human rights and social justice."



32 year old Adam Mesa, senior pastor of the 8000 member Abundant Life Worship Center outside Los Angeles, was profoundly impacted by a Stearns journey to Israel. "Israel was very important to my parent's generation because they witnessed the rebirth of the Jewish State and it fit in with their view of Bible prophecy. For me, I was not very interested in Israel, until I went with the Nexus trip. I was amazed when I went to Israel with Bishop Stearns to learn other facts, such as the reality that Israel is the only nation in the Middle East where the Christian population lives in real security and religious freedom. An awareness and support of Israel is now a part of my daily life and ministry. I feel like my life has been married to Israel."



Hundreds are expected to attend the event and are coming from approximately 20 different nations. In preparation, many have been on a 21 day fast, which began on Rosh ha Shana and is scheduled to end on the last day of Succoth.



The main "kick-off" event, The Global Day of Prayer for the Peace of Jerusalem, will be held on Sunday, October 7th at the Tayelet Haas Promenade at 4pm.



This will be broadcast live globally by G-D TV and will take place in churches and congregations around the world that Sunday. G-D TV is one of the largest Christian television networks in the world with millions of viewers. Immediately following the Day of Prayer for the Peace of Jerusalem will be the Awake Jerusalem opening session, also, televised on G-D TV, from 6pm-8pm. We will continue our non-stop worship and prayer watches at King of Kings beginning at 8pm and continuing through the night. Our Monday and Tuesday schedule includes ministering at different locations in and around Jerusalem (please see schedule below) as well as main sessions in the evenings and continuous overnight watches.



------------------------------------------



"I have seen Robert Stearns work for Israel up close. It is nothing short of transformational. If the Jewish community wants to know the future of Christian Zionism, look to Robert Stearns and Eagles Wings, and get behind him with all your heart and all your soul." -- RABBI PINI DUNNER



------------------------------------------



After the main event, the group will be doing "prayer vigils" at key sites throughout Jerusalem, such as Yad Vashem and the Southern Steps of Temple Mount. The group will also be holding an event in Bethlehem, in cooperation with the Palestinian Christian population. Palestinian Christian leader Maher Canawati said, "Robert Stearns and Eagles Wings are one of the primary Christian groups who always, faithfully remember the difficulties of the Palestinian Christians. Even in the most difficult of times, he has always brought his groups into Bethlehem and brought much assistance to the Christians living here. Robert is one who is building a trusted bridge between the sons of Isaac and the sons of Ishmael."



The Day of Prayer for the Peace of Jerusalem event, Sunday, October 7, at 4 PM (seating by 3:45), is free and open to the public.



Media kits and interviews will be available on location. Press check-in is at 2:30pm.



Share Tweet Contact: Wendy Miller,716-583-4033JERUSALEM, Sept. 25, 2018 / Christian Newswire / -- The first Sunday of every October marks the annual Day of Prayer for the Peace Jerusalem. Launched in 2002, by Evangelical Christian Leaders, Dr. Jack W. Hayford and Bishop Robert Stearns, millions around the world now join in on this annual observance. This year, however, hundreds of millennial evangelicals are not just praying, but they are engaging in a 21 day fast, and then traveling to Jerusalem, many of them for the first time.Keynote speaker - MK Michael Oren. Joining him will be Rabbi Marc Schneier, former head of the World Jewish Congress. A host of other luminaries and leaders from Israel and around the world are expected to attend.Robert Stearns, the head organizer of the event, has long been a leading figure in the pro-Israel global community. He leads both Eagles Wings, a New York based organization, and a sister organization in Los Angeles, the Israel-Christian Nexus. "We are hearing a lot of reports about a decline of next generation evangelical support for Israel," Stearns said. "But gatherings like this one are a strong part of the remedy to that. Millennial evangelicals simply need a re-introduction to Israel, not only from a biblical basis, but also from a basis of things which speak to them, like human rights and social justice."32 year old Adam Mesa, senior pastor of the 8000 member Abundant Life Worship Center outside Los Angeles, was profoundly impacted by a Stearns journey to Israel. "Israel was very important to my parent's generation because they witnessed the rebirth of the Jewish State and it fit in with their view of Bible prophecy. For me, I was not very interested in Israel, until I went with the Nexus trip. I was amazed when I went to Israel with Bishop Stearns to learn other facts, such as the reality that Israel is the only nation in the Middle East where the Christian population lives in real security and religious freedom. An awareness and support of Israel is now a part of my daily life and ministry. I feel like my life has been married to Israel."Hundreds are expected to attend the event and are coming from approximately 20 different nations. In preparation, many have been on a 21 day fast, which began on Rosh ha Shana and is scheduled to end on the last day of Succoth.The main "kick-off" event, The Global Day of Prayer for the Peace of Jerusalem, will be held on Sunday, October 7th at the Tayelet Haas Promenade at 4pm.This will be broadcast live globally by G-D TV and will take place in churches and congregations around the world that Sunday. G-D TV is one of the largest Christian television networks in the world with millions of viewers. Immediately following the Day of Prayer for the Peace of Jerusalem will be the Awake Jerusalem opening session, also, televised on G-D TV, from 6pm-8pm. We will continue our non-stop worship and prayer watches at King of Kings beginning at 8pm and continuing through the night. Our Monday and Tuesday schedule includes ministering at different locations in and around Jerusalem (please see schedule below) as well as main sessions in the evenings and continuous overnight watches.------------------------------------------"I have seen Robert Stearns work for Israel up close. It is nothing short of transformational. If the Jewish community wants to know the future of Christian Zionism, look to Robert Stearns and Eagles Wings, and get behind him with all your heart and all your soul." -- RABBI PINI DUNNER------------------------------------------After the main event, the group will be doing "prayer vigils" at key sites throughout Jerusalem, such as Yad Vashem and the Southern Steps of Temple Mount. The group will also be holding an event in Bethlehem, in cooperation with the Palestinian Christian population. Palestinian Christian leader Maher Canawati said, "Robert Stearns and Eagles Wings are one of the primary Christian groups who always, faithfully remember the difficulties of the Palestinian Christians. Even in the most difficult of times, he has always brought his groups into Bethlehem and brought much assistance to the Christians living here. Robert is one who is building a trusted bridge between the sons of Isaac and the sons of Ishmael."The Day of Prayer for the Peace of Jerusalem event, Sunday, October 7, at 4 PM (seating by 3:45), is free and open to the public.Media kits and interviews will be available on location. Press check-in is at 2:30pm.Thousands of Ryanair passengers booked to fly on Friday face confusion and uncertainty because of coordinated strikes across Europe  even though they were told their flights would be unaffected.

Cabin crew in Spain, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal and Italy will be joined in the walk-out by Dutch pilots.

On Tuesday, Ryanair informed around 25,000 passengers booked on 150 flights that their departures had been cancelled; they were offered the choice of rebooking or obtaining a refund.

Recommended Everything you need to know about the Ryanair strike

The airline said: All Ryanair customers flying on Friday 28th who have not yet received an email or text SMS notice today can expect that their flight will operate as scheduled.

Over 90 per cent of Ryanairs 2,400 flights and 450,000 customers on Friday will be unaffected by these unnecessary strikes.

But some confused passengers booked to travel on Friday have contacted The Independent about an invitation made by Ryanair to switch flights to avoid the possibility of disruption.

The airlines customer service team also sent out emails to around 7,000 passengers that began: Due to a possible strike on Friday 28th September, we are offering you the option to move your flight to an alternative date to minimise any disruptions that this may cause.

It is standard practice for airlines facing disruption  whether caused by strikes, adverse weather or other issues  to offer passengers the option of booking on alternative days.

But the email is at odds with the assurance to travellers who have not been told their flight is cancelled.

They are invited to click on a link to rebook on another day.

If they take no action, the airline says: If you decide to remain on your scheduled flight Ryanair intends to operate as normal on Friday September 28.

It adds: Should this change Ryanair will notify you of any cancellation or delay via email and SMS.

A spokesperson for Ryanair said: We were expecting more cancellations but our crews have confirmed that more flights than originally planned will operate, so were now expecting just 150 of 2,400 flights to be affected.

Passengers rights will be unaffected if they take no action. Airlines that cancel flights are obliged to provide replacement flights, accommodation and meals.

In addition, the Civil Aviation Authority has urged Ryanair passengers grounded by strikes to claim 250 or 400 in compensation under European air passengers rights rules.

Ryanair said it would reject any compensation claims for strikes because they were caused by extraordinary circumstances.

The International Transport Workers Federation said: Demands of Ryanair workers  such as pay for all hours worked and an end to long-term agency employment  continue to go unaddressed.

Earlier this month the organisation wrote to Ryanair shareholders asking them to vote against the re-election of David Bonderman as the airlines chairman. His re-appointment was approved by just over 70 per cent of shareholders.Three years and three months after 38 people were gunned down at the Tunisian resort of Sousse, British visitors are returning in greater numbers than expected.

In the attack on 26 June 2015, 30 UK holidaymakers were killed by an Islamist gunman named Seifeddine Rezgui.

After the massacre, the Foreign Office placed the country on the no-go list. The ban was lifted in July 2017.

Package holidays began again in February 2018, initially with Thomas Cook operating three charter flights a week with accommodation in the resort of Hammamet.

Demand was strong and the programme quickly expanded. Its giant rival, Tui  whose customers were the victims of the terrorist rampage  also returned to Tunisia.

As the summer season draws to a close, the director of the Tunisian National Tourist Office in London has said that visitors numbers are beyond what we expected.

Wahida Jaiet told The Independent: We were expecting 85,000 British customers over the full year, but we have already welcomed more than 90,000.

Its been very emotional, the coming back of the British people.

By the end of 2018, the number is expected to reach 105,000.

The planned flights programme for 2019 indicates the holiday firms expect to carry 170,000

Before the attack in 2015, the number of British visitors to Tunisia in a year was expected to top half-a-million for the first time.

The Foreign Office still warns: Terrorists are still very likely to try to carry out attacks in Tunisia, including against UK and Western interests. Security forces remain on a high state of alert in Tunis and other places.

In more remote areas of the country, including tourist sites in southern Tunisia, security forces response times to an incident may vary.

Some areas of the country are still off-limits.

Green light: Foreign Office map of Tunisia showing areas considered safe in green, and dangerous in orange and red (Foreign Office)

French and Russian visitors have returned to Tunisia in large numbers. The country is perceived as offering better value than Spain. For a departure on Tuesday 9 October, Thomas Cook is offering a weeks five-star all-inclusive holiday in Port El Kantaoui in Tunisia for 442, compared with 691 for the cheapest equivalent deal in Mallorca.

On Monday, Thomas Cooks chief executive, Peter Fankhauser, said: Prices in Spain cannot keep on going up, and up, and up without having an effect on volumes. His company is increasing the number of departures to Tunisia in 2019.Q We are flying from Heathrow to Sydney in November. When would be the best time to apply for and upgrade to premium economy?

Michael H

A Premium economy offers more legroom than economy class (typically an extra seven inches) and more elbow room, often with extra touches such as separate check-in and pre-flight champagne. So first calculate how much it is worth to you.Theyve got your number

What links Richard Griffiths, James McAvoy and Hugh Jackman? Too tough? Ill tell you. They have called for plays to be halted so they could berate someone in the audience for using a mobile phone. Probably best, then, if they all stayed away from the show that just opened at the Battersea Arts Centre in London. I Wish I Was Lonely is an exploration of our relationship with the Gods in our pockets and comes with an instruction for anyone attending to NOT switch off their mobile phone. The show also encourages theatregoers to call and text each other during the performance.

It is the work of Hannah Jane Walker and Chris Thorpe, and is, in the words of Walker, participatory theatre for people who dont like participatory theatre. At one point, Walker and Thorpe ask: If we threatened to take your phone and wipe all its data, would you leave? Its interesting, says Walker, because about half the audience say they would, which is kind of like admitting that their phone is more important to them than being here.

But Walker is keen to point out that the show is not in any way judgemental. Were not saying mobiles are bad, only that technology has advanced faster than our ability to cope with it.

Dont believe the hype

Public relations people do a great job and where would we be without them, etc. To celebrate their work, here are five real-life press releases that crossed my desk this week:

1) Watering cans just got sexy (Klaras Keira watering can, above).

2) New erotic novel puts spotlight on domestic violence (a book, perhaps aptly, called I Sh*t You Not).

3) With the incubation of spaces, both digital and physical, our aim is to foster compelling movements (the Design Hotels website).

4) The collection is a new micro-environment, a scenography which comes to life through materials, functionality and forms (the Se furniture collection).

5) Camerons kitchen style goes viral (Kenwood kitchen appliances).

Block busters!

The process of turning toys into films can be traced back to Raggedy Ann and Andy (1977). Since then weve had Bratz: The Movie, Transformers, My Little Pony: The Movie and so on. None, though, has seen quite the success of The Lego Movie. Which means every toy manufacturer in the world is currently contemplating the suitability of its product for the big screen. Many have had plans in development hell for decades, all are being dusted off and reconsidered. So, what are the blockbusters we can expect to see in 2015 and beyond? Universals live-action Barbie film might finally see the light of day. As might the Hungry Hippos animation. Most intriguing, though, is Sony Pictures Monopoly: The Movie, with Ridley Scott at the helm. If Hasbro ever gets to turning everyones favourite word game into a film, can this column offer the following anagrammatic title: Scrabble: Eh, Motive.

Answers on a postcard

The RCAs Secret sale celebrates its 20th birthday this year. As usual, prospective art collectors will pay 50 for a postcard-sized work of art that could be by someone established (Grayson Perry, Jeremy Deller and Zaha Hadid) or might be the work of an RCA student or graduate. The works are available to view  without knowing who did what, of course  from 22 March, but one of this years established contributors has a point to make about the whole venture.

Pete Fowler is known for his Monsterism series of toys and merchandise. When asked why he has donated work for this years event, he says: Its a cause Im happy to help as support of the arts is under attack and we must counter attack! Right on! Changing the world, one postcard at a time.

If we could talk to the animals

From Doctor Dolittle to Up we have long been obsessed by the idea that we might, one day, be able to converse with our four-legged friends. Well, that day just got closer with the news from the Nordic Society for Invention and Discovery that its No More Woof device will be available soon. In fact, prototypes of No More Woof  which translates dogs brain waves into basic statements such as Im hungry  can be pre-ordered now (from $65/39) for delivery in April (nomorewoof.com). And while were on the subject, you might want to pair your No More Woof with a device called Petchatz, which allows you to connect and interact with your pet wherever you may happen to be ($349, petchatz.com). Insert your own barking mad joke here.

The name of this band is ...

Indie bands in need of a name, look no further. A distinctly NSFW (thats Not Safe For Work for the uninitiated) website went live recently that purports to show, in real time, what people are searching for on a variety of pornographic websites. Fit-for-print favourites from a cursory  for work purposes, naturally  look last week include: Masculinity Fail, Naughty Bookworms, Pokemon Hentai, Son Loser, Ghost Parent, Bust Sway, Horse Hung, and Granny Voyeur. Youre welcome.

For no rhyme or reason

Another in an increasingly regular series of limericks based on recent events:

All those flashes and cameras and staring

To walk Oscars red carpet takes daring

But here is a primer

For any first-timer

Be sure to know who you are wearing

twitter.com/@simmyrichmanI reach out to everybody, Jeremy Corbyn said in an unscripted aside during his closing speech to the Labour conference. To everyones surprise, that included Theresa May. Despite Labours repeated warnings that it will vote against her Brexit deal in parliament, Corbyn suggested that it might yet support her.

It was a reassuring nod to Leave voters after a heated debate this week on whether his party would put staying in the EU on the ballot paper in any second referendum.

Corbyns conciliatory move probably wont lead anywhere; its still a safe bet that Labour will vote against any May deal. But making it proved he was talking to the country as well as the party faithful, a good thing for a leader sometimes accused of being more interested in entrenching the lefts power in his party than winning it.It may well be that claims the Labour Party has been turned into a personality cult are not completely fair, and never before has Jeremy Corbyn worked harder to counteract this unjust narrative than when he, Corbyn, stood on stage before his leaders speech, joining in with the crowds as they chanted Oooaaah Jeremy Corrrr-byn.

They held aloft scarves reading Oh Jeremy Corrr-byn. They sang the words Oaaaah Jeremy Corr-byn, and there, both on the stage and towering above on gigantic television screens, Corbyn mouthed along to the song, of which 66 per cent of the lyrics are his own name.

To Corbyns credit, it certainly placed on proceedings a Waco siege-style edge he would not otherwise have engendered through the power of oratory alone. As he descended into a spiral of circular arguments on the mainstream media, furtive glances were made at the door, wondering when special forces might finally storm the place and liberate the captives.

There was no clearer evidence of the civil war that still hides in plain sight in the party than the fact that its deputy leader, the now seven stone lighter Tom Watson, did not address the conference from its main stage. But it would be nice to think his contribution to the party did not go entirely unacknowledged as he led the shadow cabinet on to the stage to the sound of the Liverpool Peoples Choir singing He Aint Heavy, Hes My Brother.

Corbyns twin positions, that the mainstream media is attacking him, and that he is also taking his partys antisemitism crisis seriously cannot be squared, because without the mainstream media attacks pointing it out, he would still be gladly ignoring it all.

He blamed the billionaire press owners who dont like us one little bit, before not long later, trying to tell Britains Jewish community: We are your ally. Britains Jewish community dont believe him. They believe the stories theyve read in the Daily Mail.

He stood up for journalists in Myanmar, Turkey and Colombia who are being persecuted for doing their jobs. But here, he said, a free press has far too often meant the freedom to spread lies and half-truths. And he told his supporters to challenge their propaganda of privilege by using the mass media of the 21st century: social media.

It is depressing to have to point out that arguably the two most powerful and influential outlets of Corbyns new mass media  Skwawkbox and Aaron Bastanis Novara Media  spent the days after the Grenfell fire spreading demonstrable fake news about a government D-Notice which did not even exist, which was instructing the mainstream media to conceal the real death toll.

Earlier, hed said how, online, everyone needs to listen a bit more, and shout a lot less, before seconds later, issuing what has quite rightly already been labelled as a license for online pile-ons.



Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Show all 24 1 /24 Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Leader Jeremy Corbyn addresses a pre-conference rally at Pier Head in Liverpool on Saturday Getty Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Deputy leader Tom Watson cycles at the party conference as part of the Labour Cycles scheme PA Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Leader Jeremy Corbyn and Deputy Leader Tom Watson sit together on stage on Sunday Reuters Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell speaks at a fringe event at the party conference on Sunday REUTERS Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Delegates are welcomed to the conference at the Arena and Convention Centre in Liverpool Getty Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell speaks at a fringe event at the party conference Reuters Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Leader Jeremy Corbyn and Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry attend a vigil in Liverpool for those who are affected by the war in Yemen PA Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Anti-Brexit supporters demonstrate outside the conference in Liverpool on Sunday Getty Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Anti-Brexit supporters demonstrate outside the conference in Liverpool on Sunday PA Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Mayor of London Sadiq Khan arrive at the conference on Sunday EPA Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell speaks at a fringe event at the party conference EPA Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Delegates at the Arena and Convention Centre in Liverpool, where the conference is being held PA Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Badges worn by a delegate at the conference on Sunday EPA Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott speaks at a fringe event at the party conference EPA Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Anti-Brexit supporters demonstrate outside the conference in Liverpool on Sunday Reuters Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Deputy leader Tom Watson poses for a selfie on Sunday AFP/Getty Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Leader Jeremy Corbyn listens to a speech on Sunday Getty Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures General Secretary of the Labour Party is welcomed to the stage by leader Jeremy Corbyn on Sunday Reuters Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures An anti-Brexit protester Reuters Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Leader Jeremy Corbyn speaks at a vigil in Liverpool for those who are affected by the war in Yemen PA Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures An anti-Brexit protester AFP/Getty Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Anti-Brexit supporters demonstrate outside the conference in Liverpool on Sunday AFP/Getty Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Leader Jeremy Corbyn and Deputy Leader Tom Watson sit together on stage on Sunday Reuters Labour Party conference 2018: in pictures Anti-Brexit supporters demonstrate outside the conference in Liverpool on Sunday Reuters

Despite these criticisms, it was still the finest speech I have heard Corbyn give. It was an hour in length, it did not stray into lengthy rambles about his own private foreign policy obsessions, which while important, are not the business of a would be prime minister.

And he ended with some smart electoral politics on leaving the EU. He doesnt want to squabble with Theresa May on Brexit, he said. If you deliver a deal that includes a customs union and no hard border in Ireland, if you protect jobs, peoples rights at work and environmental and consumer standards  then we will support that sensible deal, he said.

Its a deal he knows she cant get, which is precisely why he then told her, at the top of his voice, that if she cant get it, then, MAKE WAY FOR A PARTY THAT CAN.

There is no party that can deliver that deal. Not Conservative, nor Labour. Labours six tests on Brexit, to which he refers here, were set up to replicate false promises made by David Davis, to hold him to account for them. The whole point of them is that they cant be passed. And now here is Corbyn, shouting at the conference hall that, actually, his is the party that can deliver on them.

Corbyn offers no solution to the problems of Brexit, the problem that sets all his other initiatives  like putting workers on boards, or increasing free childcare  into the shade.

But that doesnt matter. He knows all he has to do is look the part, sound the part and wait for the desire for change to come to him, which there is every chance of it doing in the coming months and years  and fast.

He left the stage to the sound of Marc Bolan singing: No, you wont fool the children of the revolution.

The fact is, he probably will. Labour never quite fooled Bolan, by the way. In the 1970s, he moved to Monaco to escape their income tax rate of 83 per cent. If the revolutions coming, it might have a touch of deja vu.The new Patient Safety Bill legislation for mandatory open disclosure for patients could save the HSE money, the Oireachtas Health Committee has heard.

The committee met with the Chief Medical Officer for the Department of Health Dr Tony Holohan, head of Patient Safety Policy and Advocacy David Keating, and Patient Safety and Advocacy policy officer Elizabeth Adams to scrutinise the new legislation.

The bill provides for the mandatory open disclosure of serious patient safety incidents to the people who have been affected.

Really important day as Patient Safety Bill goes to Oireachtas Health Committee for scrutiny. This landmark law will provide for mandatory open disclosure for serious reportable events in our health service. It will establish a duty of candour. Significant patient safety measure.  Simon Harris TD (@SimonHarrisTD) September 26, 2018

Examples of serious patient safety incidents include wrong site surgery, patient death or serious harm associated with a diagnostic error, or errors that emerge in screening programmes and maternal deaths.

The committee heard that doctors who fail to comply with open disclosure face summary and indictment sanctions, including fines and potential imprisonment.

It is hoped that mandatory disclosure will help rebuild trust between patients and doctors in the wake of scandals including the Scally Report into the misreporting of cervical cancer results this year and the death of children at Port Laois Hospital in 2014.

We thank Dr Scally and his team for carrying out a thorough inquiry and producing a robust report. (12k documents examined, hundreds of interviews, labs visited and examined) The Government accepts the findings and recommendations. #ScallyReport  Leo Varadkar (@LeoVaradkar) September 12, 2018

Chair of the committee, Independent TD Michael Harty, raised concerns that due to the spectre of sanctions, doctors may perform unnecessary examinations and perform defensive medicine to avoid litigation, therefore increasing the cost to the health service.

Dr Holohan agreed the issue could be raised, however, practice in other jurisdictions proves otherwise.

He said: There is a lot of literature available on this issue, and what it points to is a situation whereby when disclosure happens, when trust and confidence is maintained, it actually reduces the likelihood of litigation.

Other jurisdictions demonstrate a reduction of litigation, I know theres a fear that in making disclosures individuals are contributing to their own legal risk, but we think that may be counter-intuitive.

If disclosure happens in every circumstance, it may actually contribute to a reduction in medical litigation.

The cost of the implementation of the bill has not yet been estimated, Labour TD Alan Kelly raised concerns adding the implementation would be a mammoth task that has to happen quickly.

He said: This is priority for us as a country, Im not confident that the resources are going to be there to implement this, Im not confident this is going to be doable in the time required.

Expand Close Dr Gabriel Scally holds a copy of the Report of the Scoping Inquiry into the CervicalCheck Screening Programme (Brian Lawless/PA) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Dr Gabriel Scally holds a copy of the Report of the Scoping Inquiry into the CervicalCheck Screening Programme (Brian Lawless/PA)

Mr Keating noted that an additional 3.4 million euro had been give in last years budget before Dr Holohan admitted resources are not at the level they would want them to be.

He said: I can give you assurances we will do the best we can, planning has already started and its an ongoing process.

Resourcing is not where we want it to be, we have to make a case overall for whatever available public funding there is to support and ensure adequate priority is given to this, in line with competing interests.

Minister for Health Simon Harris is to appear before the committee next week to further discuss the bill, which was published in line with the recommendations contained in the recent report by Dr Gabriel Scally.

The Minister said following the committee meeting: Today is a really important day as the Patient Safety Bill goes to Oireachtas Health Committee for scrutiny.

This Bill will be a significant milestone in embedding a culture of change within the Irish health service.Irelands top judge has laid bare the significant challenges that face the judicial system after Brexit.

Chief Justice of Ireland, Justice Frank Clarke, used his opening speech of the new legal year to warn of the impending implications after the United Kingdom leaves the European Union next year.

Mr Justice Clarke outlined some of the burdens Ireland now faces as the only full common law country in the European Union.

Unfortunately there seems to be little greater clarity at this stage as to the precise terms on which the United Kingdom will leave the European Union, he said.

Expand Close A general view of the Four Courts in Dublin (Niall Carson/PA) / Facebook

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But significant challenges lie ahead for the Irish courts not least in the context of the fact that Ireland will become, after Brexit, the leading common law jurisdiction within the European Union.

While outlining his priorities ahead of the new legal year, Mr Justice Clarke said that the Irish Supreme Court has been involved in the organisations which represent Supreme Courts throughout Europe for many years.

He continued: Because systems differ there are, in effect, three such organisations representing respectively Constitutional Courts, Supreme Administrative Courts and general Supreme Courts.

While we have always played our role in all of these bodies, it is highly likely that we will be called on to play a much greater role in the future.

Furthermore, those bodies are regularly consulted by the European Commission and other institutions and thus can influence the laws and required practices which emanate from Brussels.

There is unfortunately a significant risk of unintended consequences if European Union laws are made without a real input from the common law countries.

The United Kingdom has, to date, played a significant role in that regard but a particular burden will now fall on Ireland.

The top judge also used his speech to call for a major investment in the IT systems within the courts.

He called for the overhaul and modernisation of the IT system saying the current system is a long way short of where it should be.

A key component of the contribution which we in the courts can make is to ensure that our procedures are modern and accessible so that they do not place any unnecessary difficulty in the way of those accessing the courts whether with the benefit of legal representation or not.

He said that the Supreme Court will become an e-court with online filing of appeals and submissions.

Plans are under way to develop a comprehensive on-line system where the virtual documents will reflect the official court records.

Expand Close Chief Justice of Ireland Justice Frank Clarke makes his statement (Brian Lawless/PA) / Facebook

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He also highlighted the importance of courts being as open as they can be so the public can understand what is going on and why.

Following the successful pilot of broadcasting Supreme Court judgments, he revealed that discussions are under way to allow the broadcasting of legal argument in the Supreme Court.

Returning to Brexit, he said it was important for the Irish judiciary to continue to attend meetings with the German Constitutional Court, the Court of Justice in Luxembourg as well as the Court of Human Rights.

Providing personnel from a small judiciary to attend such meetings and, perhaps equally importantly, engage in the additional work which membership of such bodies generates, is a particular burden for us.

While attendance at such meetings and conferences may sometimes be portrayed as unnecessary I am convinced that a failure on our part to take up the slack which will be left by the departure of the United Kingdom has the potential, by leaving the common law voice largely unheard, to lead to significant complications, and indeed cost, within the Irish legal system.

The senior Irish Judiciary are committed to ensuring that the common law voice will continue to be heard.Sales force: Next, which already has 28 stores in Ireland, said failure to strike a deal could see prices rise by 0.5pc

Retail giant Next has established a company in Dublin that will manage its cross border customs issues inside the European Union if there is a hard Brexit.

In its interim results yesterday the group said it was "well advanced" in its preparations and is setting up the administrative, legal and physical infrastructure that will be needed to operate effectively if the UK and European Union are unable to agree on a free trade agreement.

The company, Next Retail Ireland Limited, was set up earlier this month and the firm told the Irish Independent that the structure will facilitate its customs registration inside the EU. "Next already operates retail stores in Ireland (and pays corporation tax in Ireland). However, a registered European entity is needed for customs duty registration purposes.

"As detailed in Next's results for the half year ending July 2018, the Group has established an Irish entity that could take ownership of stock that is already sold in Ireland, when the UK leaves the EU.

"Next is monitoring Brexit negotiations to determine how it structures its Irish business in the future," the company said.

"We are confident all the necessary arrangements we need to make will be in place by March of next year," the group said.

The fashion and homeware chain already operates 28 stores in Ireland.

A no-deal Brexit does not pose a material threat to its operations and profitability in the UK or to its 212m business turnover in the EU, the company said.

However, it warned the biggest risk to the business in the event of a hard Brexit was the likelihood of queues and delays at UK and EU ports.

It added that a sharp fall in the value of the pound and increased tariffs also posed a threat.

Next said in the "unlikely event" that free-trade agreements were not put in place, it could send the cost of goods soaring by up to around 20m (22.3m), which would add less than 0.5pc to its prices.

CEO Simon Wolfson - a prominent Brexit supporter - called on the British Government to give businesses clarity on what measures could be taken to relax customs procedures and border controls.

"If the ports seize up it will be a problem," Mr Wolfson said.

"In fashion you're always selling out of the best-sellers. The ports that will have the biggest problems will be the ones having more EU goods, so basically Dover."

Details of its no-deal plans came as it upped its full-year profit outlook after a better-than-expected first half, with interim pre-tax profits up 0.5pc at 311.1m (347m).

Shares rose nearly 10pc in afternoon trading on the London Stock Exchange.

The group said it sourced around 10pc of its products from the EU and Turkey, but played down the impact of tariff hikes.

Next urged the British government to take early action to ease firms' fears of customs and port problems in the event of a 'no-deal'.

Interim results showed full-price sales surged by 4.5pc in its first half of the year as a robust online performance continued to offset high street woes.

It now expects full-year profits of around 727m, up slightly on the 726.1m seen the previous year.

Additional reporting by PAFinance minister Paschal Donohoe has warned of "major disruption" to the Irish economy from a no-deal Brexit.

He told the Oireachtas Budgetary Oversight committee that it would hit national income growth rates if Britain crashes out of the EU next year without a transitional arrangement.

He noted that Irelands most important trading partner will leave the EU in 184 days.

He said an agreement on the future relationship with the UK can only be made once Britain leaves and stressed the importance of a status quo transitional arrangement as a result.

He said the risk of a more adverse outcome than expected is the reason the government have to put in place measures like targeting a balanced budget, using windfall receipts to reduce public debt, setting up a rainy day fund, and increase capital expenditure.

Fianna Fail TD Michael McGrath asked Mr Donohoe to assess the impact of a no-deal scenario on the economy and the Budget.

Mr Donohoe said a Brexit shock in the form of a very hard or disorderly Brexit would be equivalent to a .75pc to 1pc impact on national income growth.

He said: that is a shock that will materialise over the year as opposed to over a number of years.

He said its likely that the economy would still grow but it would be at significantly lower rate.

Mr Donohoe said the medium-term impact of a shock like that occurring is that it could be worth 3pc to 3.5pc growth points in the years afterwards.

So were that to occur it would be a very significant shock to our economy.

He said the government would have to respond to swings in the value of Sterling which would have many difficult consequences for or trading economy.

And he said there would also be risks to the financial sector.

Mr Donohoe said the early phases of the recruitment of new customs officers are ongoing and will be funded in the upcoming Budget.Posted on: September 26, 2018 4:02 PM

An ecumenical group of female leaders from across Australias Churches and Christian organisations have gathered in capital Canberra for an advocacy visit. In addition to advocating for policies of justice and care for the worlds poor, the group will meet with senior ministers and members of parliament from both of the countrys major political parties, including some women MPs, to thank them for their public service and to encourage them to lead Australia in continuing its commitment to creating a just world, a spokesperson for Micah Australia, which organised the gathering, said.

Every week, Christians across the country pray for our elected leaders to exercise moral leadership: to make the hard, but right decisions on our behalf, said Dr Kate Harrison Brennan, Chief Executive of Anglican Deaconess Ministries, said. Our visit to Canberra is a reminder that the Christian faith prioritises the poor and vulnerable, and seeks this type of moral action. Australians know how to be good neighbours, across backyard fences; we want our leaders in Canberra to do this on our behalf, across borders.

We see this as an opportunity to encourage our female representatives for their leadership but also to keep crucial justice issues like poverty elimination and refugees on their agenda.

In addition to Anglican Deaconess Ministries, the group come from a wide variety of Christian groups, including the Salvation Army, the Baptist Church and Hillsong Church. The purpose of the gathering is not only to bring Christian women leaders together with a unified voice, but also to talk about the issue of women in leadership, the Executive Director of Micah Australia, Tim Costello, said.

As part of the trip, the women will meet key ministers and shadow ministers at Parliament House. They are also hoping to put forward the case for continued support for the overseas aid budget and supporting some of the poorest and most vulnerable families around the world. The leaders will also be advocating for the release of children and their families from the Nauru off-shore refugee detention centre, joining over 100,000 people who are calling for Kids Off Nauru.

This feels like a significant moment, said 2016 Olympic finalist Eloise Wellings, who will accompany the group. Ms Wellings is founder of the NGO Love Mercy. Too often, the church is known for its internal disagreements that become public, but to have women leaders joining together from across the denominational spectrum shows a significant act of unity and one that we hope will be an encouragement to the government and opposition.The funeral of a young farmer from Co Tyrone will take place today after his death in an accident.

Harry Gibson (25), from Beragh outside Omagh, died suddenly on Saturday, his family said.

A funeral notice said he would be sadly missed by his father Mervyn, who is a well-known cattle dealer, mother Susan, his twin sister Charlotte, girlfriend Alison and wider family circle.

This week, Charlotte paid tribute to her twin by sharing recent and childhood pictures taken with her brother on social media.

His girlfriend Alison also shared a collection of smiling pictures of herself and Mr Gibson on social media and commented: "My Harry. This world is a cruel, cruel place."

Local councillor Bert Wilson said he understood Mr Gibson had been working with a sick cow on the farm when the accident occurred.

"They're a very popular and well-known family and it is a terrible shock for the area," he said.

"It must be dreadful for the family: I have known them for three generations now.

"I believe Harry was in some of the local bands here and was a hardworking young man."

Mr Gibson had worked on the family farm and helped out with neighbours when needed.

"I'm told he had to put down an animal that was sick and a dreadful accident happened," said Mr Wilson.

"There's so many farm accidents now, with farmers killed while dealing with animals.

"In a lot of cases they would be fairly elderly, but this was a young man with his whole life in front of him which makes it so much more tragic."

Mr Wilson continued: "He was an only son as well with a bright future that is now at an end. My thoughts are with his twin sister Charlotte as well, it's really a disaster for the family.

"I don't know how they will bear the pain of it although there will be a lot of support for them in the community," Mr Wilson said.

Thomas Buchanan, a DUP MLA for West Tyrone, also knew the family.

"This is a terrible tragedy that happened to a young man that was passionate about farming and was just starting out as a 25-year-old," he said.

"It's quite a large farm holding and this accident and tragedy has really shocked the community. I wish to express my sincere sympathies to the entire family circle."

A spokesperson for the Health and Safety Executive said that it was making enquiries into the incident.

Mr Gibson's funeral will take place at 2pm today at Sixmilecross Presbyterian Church with interment afterwards in the adjoining graveyard.

Yesterday Seskinore Young Farmers Club, where Mr Gibson was a longtime member, cancelled its weekly meeting as a sign of respect.

Further tributes came from Mr Gibson's former school, Omagh Academy. A statement described him as "a quiet gentleman who was passionate about farming".

Attending for seven years with his sister, he was the top try scorer for the 1st XV rugby team in 2010-11 and was part of the school's Young Enterprise company.

The statement added: "We would like to express our sincere sympathy and condolences to the Gibson family circle and to Harry's many friends at this sad time."

The Gibson family have requested any donations, if desired, are made to the Northern Ireland Air Ambulance, care of J H Anderson & Sons, 60 Main Street, Beragh, BT79 0TA.The online payments firm founded by two Limerick brothers is now worth $20bn after raising $245m in its latest investment round.

Founded in 2010 by Patrick and John Collison, Stripe's current valuation is more than double its valued worth less than two years ago.

With initial backing from Tesla founder Elon Musk and PayPal's Peter Thiel, the tech start-up now employs more than 750 people.

The San Francisco-based company has expanded its customer base recently to include clients such as Uber and Spotify.

Stripe said it would use the money from its latest fundraising to expand faster around the world, intending to open a new hub in Singapore.

The Collison brothers have invested in startups themselves, including contributing to a funding round for digital bank Monzo.Daniel ODonnell is set for UK and Australian dates

Accumulated profits at the main entertainment firm owned by Donegal crooner Daniel O'Donnell last year dipped marginally, to 2.66m.

New accounts filed by O'Donnell's DOD Promotion Ltd show that the company recorded a loss of 77,014 in 2017, following a loss of 123,343 in 2016.

The figures show the company's current assets - the bulk of which is made up of in cash - last year decreased from 1.76m to 1.52m.

Daniel sits on the board with his wife Majella O'Donnell, and Patricia Swan.

The company's assets also include fixed assets valued at 1m.

A household name in Ireland and the UK for more than three decades, Mr O'Donnell will be adding to his coffers with a string of dates in the UK.

Underlining his global appeal, he has a number of dates pencilled in for Australia in February and March.Undated handout artists impression of the new building to be built on the Apollo House site in Dublin, one of two new redevelopments for the city centre. Photo: Office of Public Works/PA Wire

The former Apollo House site in central Dublin has been put up for sale by receivers appointed by Nama - who are understood to be seeking 40m.

Apollo House hit the headlines in the winter of 2016/ 2017 when it was occupied by housing campaigners and used as an unlicensed shelter for homeless people.

Since then the building has been levelled and now the 0.72-acre site, with planning permission for a 10-storey office block, has been put up for sale on the instruction of Simon Coyle and Tom O'Brien of Mazars. Estate agent Savills has been appointed to handle the sale.

Award-winning architects Henry J Lyons has designed the new scheme, with a double basement providing 40 car parking spaces and 166 bicycle spaces - with associated shower and toilet facilities.

A wrap-around terrace on the eighth floor will give panoramic views over Dublin, with additional outdoor space available on most of the upper levels. The planning permission includes ground floor retail, cafe, bar and restaurant units.

Market sources said the sellers will expect to fetch in excess of 40m for the site, at the corner of Tara Street and Poolbeg St in Dublin 2.

Mark Reynolds of Savills Ireland said the site is one of the last of its scale available in Dublin's central business district (CBD). "There are very few sites with development potential remaining in Dublin's CBD, so this truly is one of the last opportunities to acquire a site of scale in a location where demand for office space is strong," he said.

"We expect there to be interest from a variety of buyers, including developers, Reits, pension funds and investors."HIGHER earners are the big winners from the tax relief system for pensions savings, according to university academics.

Their paper calls for reform of the tax relief system before the automatic enrolment scheme is set up.

However, actuaries pointed out that public servants would be the big losers if the tax relief was abolished.

The paper, by UCD's Shane Whelan and UCC's Maeve Hally, found that those on the 40pc tax rate get more "generous" relief compared with lower-paid people.

It suggests more lower-paid workers would take up pension saving if the tax reliefs were abolished and replaced with a matching contribution from the Exchequer. It is suggested this could see the State contributing 1 for each 1.60 saved. This would be an effective subsidy of 38pc. This is in line with the 2009 Commission on Taxation.

The paper worked out the current tax incentive to save for pension expressed if it was a State subsidy for every 1 invested.

The paper looked at a married, one-income household. It found that if the household earned 30,000 a year then the equivalent Government subsidy for investing in a pension works out at 35c.

If the household earns 50,000 its subsidy for investing in a pension is 1.04.

With earnings of 120,000, the subsidy falls to 69c.

However, actuary Tony Gilhawley said public servants could be the big losers if the tax relief was abolished.

Mr Gilhawley, of Technical Guidance, said: "The group who 'consume' most of the cost of private pension tax relief are the 260,000 or so who joined the public service before January 1, 2013 and who benefit from a hidden average employer contribution rate estimated at 29pc."

Referencing calculations in an actuarial review of pension provision carried out by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, he said gardai benefit from a higher "hidden employer contribution rate", estimated at 53pc.

The average employer defined-contribution scheme contribution in the private sector is 7pc a year for about 330,000 private sector workers in defined contribution schemes, he said.

Any cut in private pension tax relief, to be equitable, has to take account of the implied or hidden public service employer contribution rate for pre-2013 entrants, Mr Gilhawley said.China is set to become a leading force and disrupt the world of aviation, according to a paper from the World Economic Forum (WEF).

American and European companies have traditionally led the way in the aviation industry.

Companies such as Boeing and Airbus have had a duopoly in passenger aircraft manufacturing, while the Federal Aviation Administration and European Aviation Safety Agency's regulatory leadership has set the global standard for aviation safety.

However, the WEF has outlined three reasons as to why Chinese progression in the industry is happening on such a large scale. Firstly, the Chinese are innovating faster. The drone industry, it notes, is characterised and driven by one company; Da-Jiang Innovations (DJI). This company has over 70pc of the global market share for the consumer drone industry, and in 2017 the business posted revenue of $2.7bn (2.3bn).

Given its comprehensive supply chain integration, manufacturing pipeline, innovative pace and logistics support, it has clear competitive advantages over other companies operating in the sector.

In addition, the report states that Chinese manufacturers are well ahead of their competitors in the development and testing of autonomous systems for personal mobility.

The second factor that will help China become a major player in the aviation industry concerns its size.

With around 1.4 billion people, and many cities on the top 20 list for highest density, China has an urgent need for greater movement of people, property and services.

JD.com, China's second-largest online retailer, has built a drone delivery business that reaches 100 villages in the country, leveraging 40 unmanned aircraft. In comparison, in the US, Amazon is still hoping for approvals to begin flight testing.

As an estimated eight in ten business to consumer deliveries are falling into the high-value, low-weight category, drones will soon be a disruptive force in last-mile delivery in China, then the rest of the world, according to the WEF.

The third factor behind why China will be in a position to take on the West's aviation industry is down to state support.

The WEF states that it is the government's ability to both invest heavily into the technology and aerospace sectors, while also supporting both through regulatory agility, that may be the country's greatest asset as it develops its presence in the sector.

President Xi Jinping's 'Made in China 2025' initiative will play an important role in leading the aerospace industry globally, the paper finds. With China projected to become the world's largest passenger aviation market by 2024, much of the technology being developed for drones will transfer to larger aircraft and autonomous personal mobility platforms.Two of the country's biggest publicity hounds - broadcaster Matt Cooper and Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary - have become embroiled in a spat over the contents of a new book about the airline chief.

Mr Cooper claimed in his new biography of Mr O'Leary that the aviation veteran had dinner in London during the summer with Willie Walsh, the chief executive of Aer Lingus owner IAG, which also owns British Airways and Iberia.

Mr Cooper claims that rumours subsequently spread in Ryanair that Mr O'Leary had discussed the possibility of Mr Walsh returning to Ireland to run the low-cost airline after Mr O'Leary's current contract expires next year.

But Mr O'Leary, who last week said he was happy to continue working at Ryanair after 2019, yesterday dismissed any suggestion that he had discussed possible succession with Mr Walsh.

"Willie Walsh, the CEO of IAG, has not been 'sounded out' to join Ryanair," said Mr O'Leary in a statement.

"I meet Willie, and the CEOs of Europe's other leading airlines on average once or twice a year to advance the Airlines 4 Europe (A4E) agenda."

A4E is a lobby group that includes airlines from around Europe.

Mr O'Leary said: "I have long been an admirer of Willie Walsh, but have frequently explained that when I eventually step down from Ryanair, I expect the board will make a decision on my replacement, choosing from a number of excellent internal candidates, while also advertising externally, so that they can select the best candidate to replace me to lead Ryanair."

The publisher of Mr Cooper's new book, Penguin Random House, rushed out a statement backing the broadcaster's work.

It said it stood over the publication, and was "fully supportive of the book and its contents".

Video of the Day

Mr Cooper said that the book "is neither a PR job for Ryanair nor is it hostile to Ryanair or Michael O'Leary".

He added that he believed Mr O'Leary would find it "fair and accurate" when he reads it, "even if he might not like to agree with some or much of it".

"I would not judge a flight merely on the quality of the take-off before it has landed safely. He should judge the book on reading it cover to cover," said Mr Cooper.Irish actress Evanna Lynch was disappointed with the judges' scores when she made her debut on the American version of Dancing With The Stars.

The Harry Potter star, who played Luna Lovegood in the film series, has swapped scripts for sequins as she takes part in the 27th season of the celeb dancing show.

She has been partnered with professional dancer Keo Motsepe, who Evanna said had helped her overcome her disappointment with her scores after their first dance on Monday.

She said the South African had helped her stop focusing on her mistakes and get ready for her second performance on the dance floor last night.

Evanna also thanked her fans for their kind messages after her performance, as many thought the actress had been underscored.

Evanna and Keo were hoping to get back into the judges' good books by dancing a foxtrot last night.

"Thank you to all you amazing people for voting and for the super kind and feisty comments," Evanna said.

"I'm not concerned about the score because I learned something important from the show today and from Keo.

"Right after the performance I was all sad and focusing on my mistakes and the score.

"Keo turns to me and says: 'Great - a lower score means we have something to fight for and a chance to prove those opinions wrong. Tomorrow we show them what we're made of'.

Video of the Day

"I literally watched him transform a negative attitude into a positive intention.

"I am so blessed to have such an awesome teacher in this."Sons of Anarchy star Paul John Vasquez has died aged 48.

The actor was found dead at his father's home in San Jose, California in the early hours of Monday morning.

TMZ reports that he died of a suspected heart attack.

Vasquez joined Sons of Anarchy in its fourth season, playing Angel Ganz, and also played minor roles in series including 21 Jump Street, NYPD Blue, ER and CSI.

"This news has come as a surprise to us. Our hearts are heavy. He was a kind, creative and loving man. He will be missed," Vasquez's rep said in a statement to Fox News.

The actor was born and raised in San Jose and moved to Hollywood after graduating high school in 1988.

The news comes just three months after fellow Sons of Anarchy star Alan O'Neill, died at the age of 47.Posted on: September 26, 2018 11:06 AM

The Diocese of London has launched another new church in its programme to develop 100 new worshipping communities by 2020  this time on a floating barge in the River Lea Navigation. St Columbas Church will eventually be housed in a new purpose-built floating barge, but last week it launched in its temporary home on board the Elsdale II. The launch coincided with the move of another London congregation  the large St Barnabas Church  from its Edwardian home in a quiet residential street in Holden Road, to a 1980s office block on the busy North Finchley High Road. The new premises will enable the Church to develop its growing ministry.

It was a pleasure to join with colleagues and friends in celebration of the launch of St Columba, Bishop Adrian said after blessing the floating Church with water from the canal and praying for the new venture. While not yet in a permanent home, the foundation of the worshipping community here in East London is a clear and positive sign that many here in the Capital share a vision for a Church that is Christ-centred and outward looking.

The River Lea Navigation is a short canal between the River Lea and the Thames  Londons main river. The new St Columbas Church is moored in the East Bay  close to the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park (QEOP) and home to a thriving development of houses, retail, leisure and community spaces.

St Columbas Church will be a community hub, run in partnership with the parishes of St Pauls Old Ford and St Mary of Eton. It will help serve the new and existing communities of Hackney Wick, Fish Island and Here East.

With so many changes happening in Hackney Wick and Fish Island its important to keep the sense of community that is here and ensure it is open to others, Dave Pilkington, the Missioner for the QEOP, said. After Sundays well-attended launch Im convinced that St Columba will become an important fixture in the local area, bringing a deeper sense of connection between people, centred in hope and love.

The Vicar of St Pauls Old Ford, James Hughesdon, commented: The new worshipping community has the potential to play an enormous role in the local area, building on the 125 year presence that St Pauls and St Marys have had in East London. Im sure I speak for everyone at St Pauls when I say that we all look forward to seeing what the future holds for St Columba.

Sue Makin, the Vicar of St Mary of Eton, added: It is a delight to welcome Dave and St Columba into our Parish here at St Mary of Eton, and to celebrate with so many of the community here. We are already enjoying a rich collaborative relationship, and are excited that the community in Hackney wick has been so inspired by the Barge.

We very much hope it will be a place where everyone feels welcome, and were already looking forward to the next stage with the new boat next summer. All Aboard!

Meanwhile, in north London, more than 500 people took part in a procession in North Finchley from the Edwardian building in a quiet residential street which has been home to the Parish of St Barnabas for more than 100 years, to its new home in Solar House on the North Finchley High Road. In its new location, more than 53,000 people will pass the churchs new front door every single week.

After an address by the Vicar, Henry Kendall, the congregation toured the new place of worship with has dedicated floors for childrens work, youth work, homeless outreach and worship space.

The building has undergone a 12 million investment that upgraded the interior. Further work will see the creation of a 500-seat auditorium.

It was thrilling to welcome over 500 people from across North London to our new home in Solar House, and to join with them in celebration of a new era at St Barnabas, Kendall said. The move to Solar House will give us an even greater springboard for mission  both into our local area, across north London and around the world.

This video from 2015 explains St Barnabas vision for its new premises:Khuram Butt (inset) was the leader of the terror attack on London Bridge, which claimed the lives of eight innocent people

The scariest thing about Irelands Jihadis (Virgin Media One) was that it felt like a chilling warning destined to go unnoticed until too late.

The documentary, presented by crime reporter Paul Williams, set out the degree to which fundamentalist jihadists had infiltrated Ireland  and painted an unsettling picture of Irelands intelligence services as ill-equipped to deal with global terrorism.

Our entry point into the jihadists world was Aaliyah (not her real name), an Irish woman whose own radicalisation occurred in deeply peculiar circumstances. She had lived through 9/11 as a child but rather than flinching from the appalling destruction found herself drawn to the the teachings of Osama bin Laden and later Isis.

This was how she had crossed paths with two of the three London Bridge attackers who mowed down eight passersby last year before being killed by police. Rachid Redouane had passed back and forth to Ireland  but gardai were of the opinion that his accomplice, Khuram Butt, had not entered the state.

That was not the belief of experts, who pointed out that, because of our open border with the UK, there was no way of tracking the movements of fundamentalists. They had only to take a flight or ferry to Belfast and travel by road to the Republic. Just as troubling was the discrepancy between the garda estimation of 30 or so radicals in Ireland and the assessment of figures within the Muslim community that the figure stood at around 150.

The relationship between Ireland and Britain was characterised by former MI5 undercover operative Aimen Dean as mutually unhealthy. Irelands underdeveloped security services made the country a convenient bolt-hole for extremists seeking to lay low. Conversely, the majority were radicalised in Britain in the first place  meaning we are essentially cheek-by-jowl with a terrorist production line.

There were also interviews with eye-witnesses from London Bridge and with Shaykh Umar al-Qadri, a Blanchardstown Imam who has spoken out against extremism. It added up to a disquieting portrait of a security establishment which seems to believe the best defence against terrorism is complacency.Almost 50 students have reported incidents of rape and sexual assault in Galway in the past six months alone.

The figures follow the news that three students reported rape in the first two weeks of college in Cork.

Rape crisis centres across the country have said reports of rape and sexual assault among "vulnerable" first-year students during the first few weeks of college are common, and a reoccurring issue.

The head of Cork's Sexual Violence Centre said at least three female students reported rape during the first two weeks of college.

Mary Crilly shared the figures at the Cork Joint Policing Committee (JPC) yesterday and said, while the statistics were "awful", it is something the centre sees every year.

However, executive director of the Galway Rape Crisis Centre Cathy Connolly said the numbers were not "uncommon" and that the amount reported did not reflect the number of incidents, as many did not report it until months after it happened.

"It's an ongoing thing, we've seen between 45-50 students in the last six months. They don't always come forward to report immediately," Ms Connolly said.

"We would see people as young as 14. It happens in all our colleges across Ireland and in Galway it's not uncommon at all, unfortunately."

Ms Connolly explained that a trigger might encourage students to report sexual assault or seek help after it happened.

She added that September and October were busy months as the college year begins. "We are always very busy when colleges come back. First-years can be quite vulnerable, but you might not see the figures straight away."

Noeline Blackwell, CEO of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, said while it received many calls during freshers weeks, they received a "stream" all year round with reports of incidents from students.

"From talking with the team that run our phone lines, indeed there were a few calls from people who are newly arrived in Dublin colleges over the last few weeks to report sexual assault," Ms Blackwell said. "But the one thing they told me was that it's not an unusual occurrence. This happens annually."

Ms Blackwell added that consent was something that colleges should discuss with students as they learn to balance their "new levels of freedom". "It's a pity that at a time when people are experiencing new levels of freedom and choice, they don't have the language around respect and consent."

Dublin Rape Crisis Centre's National 24-hour Helpline on 1800 77 8888A student whose Leaving Cert marks were wrongly totted up says the error, which has denied her a place in veterinary medicine at UCD, is an "absolute and utter disgrace".

Rebecca Carter (18) has brought High Court proceedings against the State Examination Commission (SEC) over its decision not to re-check her results before mid-October, effectively costing her a place at UCD.

Ms Carter, of Ardcolm Drive, Rectory Hall, Castlebridge, Co Wexford, also seeks an injunction against UCD restraining the college from refusing her a place on the course.

"It is an absolute and utter disgrace that this error has denied me a place in veterinary medicine," stated Ms Carter in a court document.

Both the SEC and UCD have opposed the action, which opened before Mr Justice Richard Humphreys, and deny any wrongdoing in the matter.

Ms Carter repeated Leaving Cert exams in May 2018 and was just six points short in the first round of offers for veterinary medicine in UCD.

She was one point short in the second round. She sought a re-check of her business exam script, which revealed that the examiner had wrongly totted up the marks.

The commission was contacted but she was told it could not correct the error until mid-October, the court heard.

Micheal P O'Higgins SC said it was hoped that "common sense would prevail" and that "bureaucratic tape would be cut".

Counsel said this was not the case and the SEC and UCD appeared to be blaming each other over the matter.

The case continues today.A Leaving Cert student whose exam points were wrongly totted up by State Examinations Commission markers has won her High Court case.

Mr Justice Richard Humphreys told Rebecca Carter in the High Court today that had her points been correctly added up she would have achieved an extremely high mark that would easily have qualified her for a place at the UCD veterinary medicine course.

Rebecca (18) of Ardcolm Drive, Rectory Hall, Castlebridge, Wexford, had sued the Commission, challenging its decision not to re-check her points score in time to allow her obtain a place at UCD.

She had spent four days in the High Court listening to legal teams present evidence and argue legal points with regard to her case and today hugged family and friends in the courtroom after hearing the judge rule in her favour.

Judge Humphreys told Micheal P OHiggins SC, who appeared with barrister Brendan Hennessy for Rebecca, that he would direct the Commission to carry out the necessary corrections to her exam paper by noon on Friday and notify UCD two hours later of the result.

Ms Carter will be informed by 5pm on Friday of the decision.

Judge Humphreys said the situation faced by Ms Carter had been highly unfair and described the process engaged in by the Commission as manifestly unfit for purpose, and a situation which should not repeat itself next year.

He said the delay in dealing with her request for a recount had caused her distress.

Conor Power SC, who appeared with Aoife Carroll for the Commission, asked the court to consider a stay on its decision but Judge Humphreys said that to grant a stay would nullify his decision and allow Ms Carter no benefit from her successful legal challenge.

Following the decision Rebecca hugged her mum Anne Marie and her father Niall and said she was delighted with the outcome. Her mother said she was absolutely delighted for Becky who, she said had always wanted to be a vet.

Judge Humphreys had initially been told that UCD had agreed to reserve Rebeccas potential placing until September 30.

The court heard that Rebecca had repeated her leaving certificate exams and had received 554 points, just six short of the required number for veterinary medicine at UCD. The points required for the course had dropped to 555 in the second round offer which had left her only a point short.

Mr OHiggins, who was instructed by Dublin solicitor Eileen McCabe, said Rebecca had not been satisfied that the result fairly reflected her exam performance and took part in a review in the presence of two teachers.

It had been discovered that her points total had been wrongly totted up and had the error not have occurred she would have surpassed the level required for the veterinary course.

Judge Humphreys said that one important factor in reaching his decision was that had the exam paper been correctly marked Rebecca would have had a prima facie case in winning a place at UCD.

He said he would hand down a written judgment later and adjourned the proceedings for mention on Tuesday afternoon.AN 800-pupil international school is to open in south Dublin in September 2018, it was confirmed today.

The school will cater for both local and expatriate pupils, aged between three and 18, on a campus in refitted former Microsoft office block at South County Business Park, Leopardstown.

It is a partnership between Nord Anglia Education, which runs 43 international schools globally, and Irish entrepreneur Barry OCallaghan, who started the educational software company, Riverdeep.

There is a growing market in international education at second-level, much of it driven by families in places such as Asia who want an English-speaking education for their children.

International schools are also often favoured by multinational executives, many more of whom are expected in Ireland as a consequence of Brexit.

The availability of school places is a critical issue for companies asking senior executives to relocate, and payment of private school fees are generally included in the remuneration package.

Nord Anglia, which has its headquarters in Hong Kong, has links with world-leading third-level institutions such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Kings College London and the New York performing arts conservatory, Juilliard.

The company says the Dublin campus will feature extensive facilities, including specialist arts and STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and maths) facilities to support the delivery of its collaborations with Juilliard and MIT, respectively.

Nord Anglia Head of Brand, Sarah Doyle, said they were still developing their curriculum offering and could not confirm whether the International Baccalaureate would be the only programme available for students. She said their education team in Oxford was fine-tuning the offering for Dublin and the standard practice was develop an offer best suited to the needs of each market.

She could not state what the fees would be. However, they are expected to be far in excess of charges at other fee-paying day schools in Dublin.

Schools operated by Nord Anglia across Europe generally charge in the region of 20,000 a year for second-level day pupils.

The school is not yet open for applications but it is inviting interested parties to register on its website for updates.

Barry OCallaghan said he believed the partnership could be the beginning of systemic educational innovation for Irish education.

As a leading, global education company, not only will they bring international educational expertise into the Irish market together with a host of world leading academic partners, but they are also a significant multinational company who are committing meaningful capital and resource to the Irish market which in turn will lead to the creation of significant jobs over the coming years," he said.

Nord Anglia chief executive, Andrew Fitzmaurice, CEO said, as one of the fastest growing economies in Europe, Ireland is an increasingly attractive destination for families, fuelling demand for international education from both expatriate and local parents alikeIreland has been dealt another blow in international university league tables.

Trinity College Dublin has fallen three places to 120th in the prestigious, Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings 2019.

The slip has been attributed to increased competition from high spending universities around the world, as the higher education sector in Ireland continues it battle with the Government for more investment.

It marks a retrograde step in more ways than one because, last year, Trinity had jumped 14 places to 117th position.

After Trinity, University College Dublin and the Royal College of Surgeons are next in line for Ireland, in the 201-250th bracket, both unchanged since last year.

Overall, Ireland retains nine universities  RCSI and Dublin Institute of Technology are included  in the top 1,000 worldwide. Only two Irish institutions progress this year - University College Cork ascending to the top 350 and Maynooth University into the top 400.

Ellie Bothwell, the rankings editor for UK-based THE, said there were examples of progress from Ireland this year, but the broader picture does give cause for concern, with several declining or remaining static.

She said the country boasted immense potential for greater higher education success and visibility globally  and had a real opportunity ahead of it.

Somewhat like Canada  as the US becomes more inward-looking  Ireland has an opportunity to reap the benefits of being open to the world, as Britain grapples with the potential impacts and restrictions of Brexit and tightened international student numbers. But to excel, its universities will require strong investment, the drive and ability to attract and retain the very best global talent, and a much-strengthened focus on research.

Although it dropped three places, Trinitys result was helped by high scores in research and citations.

Trinitys highest score was in international outlook, which demonstrates the universitys capacity to attract staff and students from around the world, as well as participate in and leading significant international research collaborations, while it suffered a dip in its teaching score.

Professor Linda Doyle, who is dean of research at Trinity, welcomed the universitys increase in performance across four of five ranking categories.

Bur she said it was a measure of how competitive the field is that better performance on our part is not reflected in the rankings. Increased investments made by our global competition versus a reduced government investment in Ireland continue to have a direct impact on the rankings.

Funding to Irish universities was cut by about 30pc during the austerity-era, while a cap on the number of permanent employees has led to a 20pc reduction in staff numbers.

Oxford and Cambridge retain the top two positions in the THE 2019 listing  but Japan surpasses UK as second most-represented. While the US still dominates the table, China, which, like other emerging nations position universities at the heart of national economic growth strategies, is rising swiftly.Collapse: A still image taken from drone footage of the sinkholes in Co Monaghan. Photo: LOU METZGER

Dramatic footage has emerged of two more large sinkholes in a field near a GAA pitch and community centre.

It led to fresh fears amongst residents in the area that their houses are vulnerable despite mining company Gyproc Ireland insisting the issue is confined to a 2km zone.

Evacuated residents fear they won't be allowed home before Christmas amid the safety concerns.

A deal to move the GAA club's training grounds to a new site has also been put on ice.

Magheracloone GAA club in Co Monaghan had been negotiating a deal with mining company Gyproc Ireland to move the training grounds several hundred metres away.

However, after the massive sinkhole appeared in its current grounds the agreement is to be shelved until safety concerns can be remedied.

Now footage has emerged which shows further damage to a nearby field, with two holes apparent from the air.

"It's the uncertainty over the whole lot of it - even people living there don't know what's going to happen under them," local man Daniel Boylan said.

Francis Jones, chairman of Magheracloone GAA club, said: "We have had talks with Gyproc and they said they were going to relocate us but the final details hadn't been signed off. We had our plans up and it was to be a couple of hundred metres away from where we are now. It would be four or five years down the line but we would want everything thoroughly investigated before we move anywhere now. We won't move unless it is.

"All the neighbouring clubs have offered to help us and we were due to have a senior game on Saturday in Meathill that was supposed to be a home game here.

"It looks like this will be a long process, unfortunately."

Yesterday, a team of geologists working with Gyproc Ireland and Monaghan County Council began a survey of the region to assess impact and risk of further collapse.

The outcome of that survey is not expected for a number of days while an exclusion zone remains and a number of residents have been evacuated to nearby hotels.

A spokesperson for Gyproc Ireland said it was still investigating a 2km zone in the region and said all areas outside remain unaffected.

But Mr Boylan said: "We're lucky in one way that it wasn't someone's house but we just don't know... Christmas is coming up and there is a question of whether they are going to get back into their houses."

A huge community effort is under way to support the club.

Boylan's pub and venue has agreed to host functions planned for the damaged community centre, and residents have set about fundraising for the club's activities. Local resident Evelyn Matthews, whose son trains with one of the GAA club's underage teams, set about raising thousands to replace inaccessible equipment locked in the clubhouse.

"My nine-year-old was upset because he didn't think he was going to get back to training. So we're trying to get them all back up and running."Taking a stand: Ann Lennon at home with her daughter Isobel (8) and son Cathal (9), who created the petition. Photo: Arthur Carron

The mother of an eight-year-old girl whose First Holy Communion was scrapped for "any Mass day" next year said her daughter is so upset that she now believes God hates her.

Ann Lennon from Askea, Co Carlow, said that her daughter Isobel is now devastated.

"My girl, who is in second class, saw her brother celebrate his communion last year with his entire class.

"It was a great family day out and he had loads of fun with all his friends. Everyone also had a small role to play in the church, which made their communion even more special.

"Isobel was so excited for her big day next year and when she found out that she may have to celebrate it without all her friends she was extremely disappointed.

"My son Cathal lost his hair from alopecia last year and just the other day I heard my daughter say: 'God hates me and Cathal. He took his hair and now I can't even make my communion with my class'.

"To hear her say this was very heartbreaking and it just goes to show how much it's affecting her."

Yesterday, parents of children making their communion this year said that they were told at a meeting last week that children at Askea National School, Tinryland National School and the local Gaelscoil could make their communion on any day when Mass is being held in May or June.

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But parents are arguing that they dont want the tradition of the day to die down and vowed to protest outside Mass on Sunday October 7 if they dont hear a response from the parish officials.

Ms Lennon, who started the petition against the move, said she hopes the community's opposition will convince the parish to reverse its decision.

"I think it was a pie in the sky idea that the priest thought everyone will just go along with.

"No one actually knows what their child's first holy communions will be like now.

"Anyone who I've talked to about this can't see the logic to it and are afraid that this much-loved tradition will become extinct.

"The schools, however, can't be blamed for any of this since they must go along with what the church says. I just hope the sheer opposition to this ridiculous idea will put pressure on the church to reverse its decision," she said.

The local parish priest was unable to speak to KCLR96 FM this morning but said he would speak with the parents first.

Independent.ie has contacted the parish priest for comment.Sorcha and Pixie Byrne were at the protest outside Connolly Hospital yesterday. Photos: Justin Farrelly

Angry nurses today moved a step closer to strike action after 92pc of delegates at a special conference in Dublin rejected the Governments pay proposals.

The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation said it is to begin a ballot on the proposals among its members next month.

Depending on the result  which is expected to be a resounding rejection  it will proceed to a ballot for strike action.

The conference in Croke Park today was told the Governments proposals for a change in increments for some recent recruits and alterations to allowances for specific nurses and midwives do not go far enough.

Expand Close INWO chief Phil Ni Sheaghdha warned of more difficulties. Photo: David Conachy / Facebook

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Whatsapp INWO chief Phil Ni Sheaghdha warned of more difficulties. Photo: David Conachy

Nurses warned they will have impact on the majority of nurses and midwives in Ireland.

They insisted the proposals will not resolve the problem of recruitment and retention of nurses leaving wards and services understaffed coming into winter."

INMO General Secretary Phil Ni Sheaghdha said: The message from todays conference was clear. Nurses and midwives are deeply frustrated with our health service.

They are the lowest paid health professionals in Ireland, and many believe its because they are mostly women.

The governments proposals are simply not going to make a dent in the number of vacancies across Ireland. We are calling for members of political parties to stand with us to secure the future of our health service.

Without a pay rise across the board, our health service will not be able to recruit and retain the nurses and midwives Ireland needs. That means more overcrowding and pressure on staff, with patients suffering as a result.

As ever, we remain open to further discussion with the government.

Following the conference, INMO President Martina Harkin-Kelly said: We are proud to be a democratic union, and now it is up to members to have their say.

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Whatsapp Pressure: Nurses and midwives protesting outside Cork University Hospital yesterday. Photo: Michael Mac Sweeney/Provision

This conference has recommended that member reject the governments insufficient, divisive proposals.

The INMO members will vote on the governments pay proposals, with a recommendation from the union that they vote to reject.

This does not, in itself, mean that a strike will be called should there be a rejection.

That would require a further decision to ballot members by the INMO Executive Council.

The ballot will likely take place over the first three weeks of October.A pensioner diagnosed with terminal cancer has been told she is not eligible for a life-saving drug despite tests that indicate it would add years to her life.

Bridie OHaire (73) from Newport, Co Mayo was diagnosed with stage four stomach and liver cancer in May and was put on a course of chemotherapy.

After three intense episodes of treatment she was forced to stop when it left her in a zombie state, taking a severe toll on her quality of life.

We knew she had to come off and couldnt finish the last round of chemo, Bridies daughter Breege explained.

She had no energy she was feeling so unwell and in bed the whole time. She had no interest in anything.

She was such an active lady and shed be out all the time but she had lost interest in that.

Bridies family spent thousands on testing an alternative treatment option involving the drug Pembrolizumab in the UK.

Test results showed that the treatment positively reacted with her cancer causing it to reduce in size, potentially adding years to her life.

However, a response to a letter to Health Minister Simon Harris asking for access to the treatment within the HSE said she would not be eligible and the drug was "not authorized to treat stomach or liver cancer".

At present, the drug is currently only available through the HSE for patients diagnosed with lung and skin cancers.

The minister came back to us and said it was not authorised to treat the cancer. In the words of mam, the government would rather let people die than give them a chance, Breege said.

Test results were also sent on to Bridies consultant at St Vincents Hospital in Dublin, who told the family immunotherapy using the drug, commonly known as Pembro, would work.

Thats why its so frustrating," Breege said.

Wed love just to get mam on a clinical trial. Other than the tests that weve got done all we want is to get somebody to consider it here.

It would be everything to us and it would be like another lease of life for her. Weve only one mother at the end of the day.

The lifesaving drug gained public attention earlier this year when Vicky Phelan, who helped bring to light failings within the cervical check programme, fought to get access to the treatment.

A spokesperson for the Department of Health said clinical trials were being undertaken outside of Ireland but there was no other indications that the current uses for the drug would change.

Clinical trials are ongoing globally in relation to a range of other possible uses which may receive marketing authorisation in the EU over the next number of years, a spokesperson said.Spending in the HSE can be difficult to examine because of the way it juggles its finances - moving funding from one area to another during the year, according to a new paper.

It is the latest bid to throw some light on what has been called the "black hole" of health spending as the HSE faces a deficit of 600m this year.

The analysis by the Oireachtas Parliamentary Budget Office looked at the HSE's National Plan that is published every January, setting out how it will carve out its allocation from the Exchequer in various areas of the health service.

The analysis shows that funding can be shifted around during the year from one service to another.

Annette Connolly, director of the Parliamentary Budget Office, said: "Given the excess of expenditure over profile of some 300m on the health vote so far in 2018, understanding the relationship between this vote and the HSE's budget is essential for Oireachtas oversight.

"Our analysis highlights that the link between the monies voted by the Dail and HSE expenditure is difficult to navigate. It also illustrates that the budgetary documents produced by the HSE at the start of the year cannot be taken as a complete statement of the financial needs of divisions within the HSE.

"Expenditure is frequently transferred between service areas throughout the year, so that the end-of-year allocations differ significantly from those at the start of the year."

Hospitals got the greatest portion of extra money in 2016, while some funding for health and well-being and the national cancer control programme was used elsewhere.

The paper analyses how the make-up of the HSE's annual service plan changed between 2011 and 2018. During this period, the net annual current spending allocation of the health service increased from 12.9bn to 14.6bn.

The significance of the net allocation in the annual plan is that this is the figure that must be met from the Exchequer.

But HSE gross current spending rose to 16.1bn in the same period.

Centralising the processing of financial and procurement data onto a single system, rather than the range of systems used today, should allow for much more detailed and accurate presentation of data to the Dail, the Parliamentary Budget Office said.Almost a fifth of complaints by the public about doctors to the Medical Council relate to poor communication.

The watchdog, which is responsible for regulating doctors, said this behaviour is unacceptable and cannot continue.

It was responding to the recent report of Dr Gabriel Scally on the CervicalCheck scandal - which revealed how women and bereaved relatives were left distressed by some doctors' insensitive comments, which bordered on "misogyny".

The doctors had delayed giving women who developed cervical cancer internal CervicalCheck audits showing they had got the wrong test result.

During consultations in the handover, one doctor told a bereaved family that "nuns don't get cervical cancer" and another suggested a woman "watch the news" when she asked how she would get more information.

In response Dr Rita Doyle, president of the Medical Council, said its members had met to discuss the report and it is taking it "extremely seriously".

"We have initial plans in place to address some of the findings in the report and will continue to carefully examine the report, striving to ensure that real improvements will be delivered to patient care by working in partnership with doctors, employers, medical schools and the post-graduate training bodies," she said.

The Medical Council has decided on a series of actions to ensure the implementation of Dr Scally's report.

It proposes that improvements are made in line with the spirit of the report's recommendations.

"Issues of poor communication are not acceptable - either to the patient or the Medical Council. Almost 20pc of complaints to the Medical Council in 2017 related to communication issues and this cannot continue," she said.

"The Medical Council's Guide to Professional Conduct and Ethics highlights that good communication is central to the doctor-patient relationship and essential to the effective functioning of healthcare teams. Good communication involves listening to patients and colleagues, as well as giving information, explanations or advice.

"When communicating with patients, a doctor should be honest and give all relevant information.

"A doctor should welcome questions from patients and respond to them in an open, honest and comprehensive way.

"As a GP for over 30 years, I strongly encourage the public to continue to attend for screening appointments when invited to do so."

Invite

She said it is planning a multifaceted approach to the report and will invite some of the women and families caught up in the CervicalCheck controversy to have an input into the plan.

"The public has got to know many of them and have taken them into our hearts," she added.

Health Minister Simon Harris has indicated he will draw up an implementation plan setting out how the Scally report's 50 recommendations would be put into action.

This is expected to take three months.

In the meantime, the report of Judge Charles Meenan is due early next month. It will look at what alternative options to courts should be open to women seeking compensation for alleged negligence in reading their test results.

It is expected to suggest a form of private arbitration be included as an option for women.It is an out-of-this-world tale involving truth serum, a drug required to endure the 'Vomit Comet' and plans for future travel in deep space.

Engineers from Trinity College Dublin were among an elite team which recently returned from a research expedition to France where they flew in a modified aeroplane that can create a zero-gravity environment. The zero-G simulates outer-space-like conditions and allows experiments that could offer solutions for deep space travel.

But the phenomenon is so physically jarring that many people experience extreme nausea - hence the plane's nickname, the 'Vomit Comet'.

The solution is a dose of scopolamine - an agent previously used in interrogation as a 'truth serum' - and also an antidote for motion sickness.

The research team is concerned with better understanding how water behaves in the absence of gravity. This is because water or steam is seen as the golden bullet for powering spacecraft deep into space. In contrast to solar energy, or other options, steam holds by far the greatest potential as there are megawatts of power that could be unlocked.

A number of experiments on the recent trip were led by Dr Tony Robinson and Dr Seamus O'Shaughnessy. Dr Robinson is associate professor in Trinity's School of Engineering, and a funded investigator with Connect, the Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre for Future Networks.

Dr O'Shaughnessy is Ussher assistant professor in energy and sustainable international development. Their team collaborated with others from the University of Pisa, Italy.

Dr Robinson said: "We are trying to drill down to the very basic physics of how water evaporates in space, and the idea is we keep building from here until we know enough that we can engineer really lean equipment for spacecraft.

"In space, there is no room for over-design and certainly no room for mistakes."The Defence Forces are struggling to cope with a manpower crisis as the numbers leaving the military almost match those coming in.

The strength of the organisation, according to the latest figures, is 8,923, the lowest number for decades.

This compares with the establishment figure of 9,500 and is despite successful recruitment campaigns over the past couple of years.

Figures compiled for an 11-month period from September last year up to the end of July show that the Defence Forces recruited 699 personnel.

But over the same period the organisation lost 632 members - a net gain of 67 people, or 0.7pc.

The main reason for the massive exodus from the military is poor pay and the Government so far does not appear to have any plans to overcome that problem.

The troops had been banking on the outcome of a review of their wages by the Public Service Pay Commission, which selected workers in the health service and Defence Forces for priority examination.

Flow

As a result of the findings on the health service, however, it now seems that any favourable recommendations from the commission will focus on specialist groups in the military rather than raising the overall rate of pay, which is the lowest in the public sector.

But that will have little impact in stemming the flow of personnel out of the Defence Forces.

Many of those leaving are highly experienced and have skills that are in big demand in the private sector and attract better pay rates.

It will take several years to recover from this brain drain, even if corrective action is taken by the Government before the end of 2018 by sanctioning improved pay.

Pdforra, which represents soldiers, sailors and air crew, said last night it was extremely concerned that military strength had dropped to 8,923 and was worried that it could fall further, given the significant exodus rate recently from the Naval Service.

The shortage of crew for the Naval ships also created health and safety issues, the association added.

RACO, which represents military officers, pointed out that the failure to prevent the loss of so many of its members was financially counter productive, as well as badly affecting morale.A US tourist who had to be dramatically airlifted from the top of Blarney Castle after suffering a heart attack earlier this year returned to the iconic tourist attraction to fulfill his dream of kissing the Blarney stone.

David Motte (59) from North Carolina triggered a major emergency rescue operation when he collapsed last April near the top of the medieval castle.

Paramedics quickly assessed that he had gone into cardiac arrest.

Because of the narrow stone spiral staircase, paramedics made the decision to airlift him from the top of the castle - and the speedy rescue and treatment were instrumental in saving Mr Motte's life.

Mr Motte, who was on holidays in Ireland last April with his wife, Joy, said he will remain eternally grateful to Ireland, its emergency services and medical teams at Cork University Hospital (CUH).

"I owe my life to them," he said.

"I am ever so grateful - people were so caring, generous and kind. Everyone we met was so wonderful earlier this year."

The couple have now returned to Ireland - and Mr Motte fulfilled his dream of kissing the Blarney stone today.

He also took time to meet all the staff and people who had kindly assisted him when he fell ill.

Mr Motte said they have fallen in love with Ireland.

"I was a goner - I really shouldn't be here. I've been told that," he said.

"It was a miracle - it really was. The doctors I have spoken to have told me that. I just wanted to say thank you from the bottom of my heart to all the people who helped me that day and in the days afterwards."A parish in Co Carlow is at loggerheads with the Church after a decision was made to change how children celebrate their first communion in the area.

More than 250 people have signed a petition protesting at moves to allow boys and girls make their first communion "on any Mass day in May or June", rather than holding it on a specific date.

Parents in Askea, Co Carlow, now fear their children will no longer be able to celebrate their big day with their class.

They were told at a parish meeting last week that children at Askea National School, Tinryland National School and the local gaelscoil could make their communion on "any day" when Mass is being held in May or June.

But parents are arguing that they don't want the tradition of the day to die and vowed to protest outside Mass on Sunday October 7 if they don't get a response from the parish officials.

One local parent, Naomi Cahill, said that many children were upset by the decision.

"We went to the meeting and asked for the communion date, and the priest said your child can make communion any day in May or June. Everyone was devastated," Ms Cahill told the Irish Independent.

She added that while the families behind the petition understand the increasing costs behind communion days, they don't want to take the day away from their children.

"They can't get rid of our tradition. They said because of the tradition of people going out in big dresses, they don't want others to feel bad who can't afford it, which we totally understand, but it's only as costly as you make it.

"Children want to make their communion with their classmates and have the excitement of practising together. Our children want to take the creed for themselves with their head held high and with their friends, offering gifts and singing with the choir.

"No one is saying you have to wear a dress, but they're going to a Catholic school. My mother was reared that way, my granny was reared that way."

Ms Cahill also said that other parents didn't want it to set a precedent for other traditions in the future.

"We're afraid of what it holds for Irish traditions in the future, we don't want it to become extinct.

"We always bring all different cultures into the school, but we have to stand and do something so this one doesn't die out."

Other local residents praised the decision to remove the set date for communion, saying that it would remove the pressures of spending money on communion days and focus on the sacrament instead.

"Great idea, less expenses for family. Religion and State schools should be separated and if families want to celebrate they can do so in their own time - well done," one listener told local radio station KCLR96 FM.

"I think it's a great idea, well done to those schools. They shouldn't be preparing in school either, religion is a personal thing," another parent said.

Parish priest Fr Tom Little and Fr Tommy Dillon of Askea and Bennekerry parish were unavailable for comment last night.At the launch for the Irish Red Cross Humanitarian Awards were; Liam OBrien, Director of Strategy & External Affairs Vodafone, Pat Carey, Chairman Irish Red Cross, Tara Justin, Irish Red Cross, Mary Rose Burke, CEO Dublin Chamber, Peter OHalloran, Brigadier General Irish Defence Forces, Hannah McGee, Dean & Chief Academic Officer at RCSI and Dr Niall Holohan, Chairman of the Arab Irish Chamber of Commerce.

THE wife of John Hume is to be honoured with a lifetime achievement award by the Irish Red Cross, recognising her decades of public service.

Pat Hume worked alongside her husband from the beginning of civil rights movement in the 1960s, continuing during the Troubles, right through to the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. Pat ran operations on the ground, manning Johns constituency office in Derry. She met many young people caught up in the Troubles and dealt with issues presented to her by thousands who were encountering housing problems, social security issues and health and education concerns.

Pat is now primary carer for John, who has been suffering with dementia for almost 20 years.

She will accept the award at the Irish Red Cross Humanitarian Awards Ball which takes place in the Clayton Hotel Burlington Road Dublin on 24 November. While the Lifetime Achievement Award is a pre-determined category, entries for five other categories are open.

"We are calling those of you with relevant experience to apply, or nominate your peers, across five of our awards categories  the Journalism Excellence Award, Humanitarian of the Year Award, Innovation for Change Award, Corporate Impact Award and Student Humanitarian Award," Tara Justin from the Irish Red Cross said

"The deadline for entries is Friday 5 October. We want to highlight the efforts of those who have given a voice to humanitarian issues. We are recognising Pat Hume with the Lifetime Achievement Award for her decades of support and commitment to the Derry public and her wider contribution to the peace process, but we also want to hear from you. If you have a humanitarian achievement youre proud of, no matter how big or small, make sure to get your entries in by 5 October.

For more information visit the websiteDUP leader Arlene Foster speaks to the media outside number 10, Downing Street following a meeting with British Prime Minister Theresa May in London, England. Photo: Leon Neal/Getty Images

Arlene Foster has accused former DUP minister Jonathan Bell of pressing "the nuclear button" and helping bring down power-sharing with his explosive Nolan Show interview on the Renewable Heat Incentive.

The DUP leader told the RHI Inquiry yesterday that she should have sacked Mr Bell when she became First Minister but feared he would "go rogue".

In her evidence, Mrs Foster strongly defended her party's special advisers and said the DUP appointed people "who had third-level education" unlike some other parties.

She insisted she was "accountable but not responsible" for her special adviser Dr Andrew Crawford who leaked confidential RHI information to relatives. He is also alleged to have crucially delayed cost controls, which he denies.

Mrs Foster told the inquiry that ministers were "thrown in at the deep end" at Stormont and there was "no training day".

The DUP leader told the inquiry that Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment (Deti) Minister Mr Bell "pressed the nuclear button" by giving an interview to the BBC's Stephen Nolan in which he made a range of allegations on the cash-for-ash scandal.

Mrs Foster claimed that Mr Bell "contributed" to the collapse of devolution by speaking out.

He "spoke to Nolan in a fashion that contributed to the breakdown of the Assembly", she said. "Jonathan had to take what was coming to him in terms of the reaction it caused.

"We (the DUP and Sinn Fein) had agreed a plan, a way forward to deal with this issue."

Mrs Foster said those proposals had included an inquiry, a cost-control plan, and her making a statement to the Assembly.

But following Mr Bell's BBC interview, Mrs Foster said Sinn Fein withdrew from that plan. "We were then on a trajectory to the Assembly collapsing and the Executive collapsing," she added.

Mrs Foster said it was "a great regret of mine" that she hadn't removed Mr Bell as a minister when she became First Minister in January 2016 but there were concerns he would "go rogue" if replaced.

Mr Bell "hero-worshipped" former DUP leader Peter Robinson and never really accepted her leadership, she said.

Senior party members generally shared the view that Mr Bell wasn't a suitable candidate for a ministry, she claimed. But the view predominated that it was best to allow him to remain in office until the election.

"Clearly with hindsight, I shouldn't have left him there; the view was expressed to me, how much harm can he do in three months? It would cause a lot of problems and he would go 'rogue' if he was replaced as a minister," she said.

"Clearly the relationship between myself and himself deteriorated. He retreated and basically wouldn't speak to anyone. He did of course speak to the former First Minister on many occasions and take his counsel rather than deal with the person who had been appointed leader by the party.

"He never really accepted my leadership. He hero-worshipped Peter and had a real difficulty when Peter left."

Mrs Foster pointed out that she didn't reappoint Mr Bell after the election. She claimed he didn't take his ministerial job seriously enough.

"He saw it as a role where he was to be served rather than to serve, and therefore I thought he wasn't an appropriate person to serve as a minister," she said.

Mr Bell told the inquiry earlier this month that the DUP was trying to "fit him up" over RHI and blame him. Mrs Foster denied this and said "paranoia had set in".

The inquiry has heard of clashes between Mr Bell and his Deti spad Timothy Cairns. Mrs Foster said she agreed with Timothy Johnston, now the DUP's chief executive, that the minister and his aide "were as bad as each other and both should be dismissed from their posts".

Mrs Foster said it was Mr Robinson's decision to put the two men together despite knowing Mr Bell "had a temper".

Under questioning about how the DUP appointed its spads, Mrs Foster said: "I don't think we were any different at all, if you look at the Ulster Unionists, the SDLP, certainly Sinn Fein put people into posts from their backroom team, we were no different.

"I will say this, all of the special advisers that the DUP appointed were people who had third-level education, and who had an ability to work within the system. I am not sure that that can be said about every other special adviser."

Inquiry chair Sir Patrick Coglin said the code on appointing Spads was clearly not being observed. Mrs Foster replied. "I'm not going to say there's not room for improvement."

She revealed that discussions have taken place with other parties around governance at the Stormont institutions, and that the appointment of Spads was included in those discussions.

The DUP leader said if she had been aware that her special adviser Dr Andrew Crawford had sent a confidential government document about RHI to a relative, she would have spoken to the department's permanent secretary and taken advice on how to deal with the breach. When asked what degree of responsibility she had for her Spad's actions, Mrs Foster said she was ultimately accountable - but as she was not aware of what he had done, she wasn't responsible.

"If he had committed a criminal offence as a Spad, I don't see how the panel would be asking me to be responsible for that. I'm accountable but I'm not responsible," she stated.

Mrs Foster told the inquiry that as a Stormont minister, you were "thrown in at the deep end". There was "no training day" and the minister relied "on advice, your own reading and senior civil servants".

She added: "I think that is a shortcoming and is something that needs to be rectified when or if the Assembly gets up and running again."

When asked about a note from a whistleblower raising "very serious concerns" about people abusing the RHI scheme, Mrs Foster said she had passed it onto the head of the Civil Service.

"I was essentially acting as a post box so that it could be dealt with by the appropriate department," she said. Mrs Foster claimed that the late Deputy First Minister (DFM) Martin McGuinness knew about the whistleblower's warning.

Sinn Fein adviser Aidan McAteer has claimed the note "was not shared" with Mr McGuinness "at that time". Mrs Foster insisted her recollection was "clear" and if she didn't show it to Mr McGuinness, she spoke to him about it.

When asked about Mr Cairns removing a reference to the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister from a submission to close the RHI - which the inquiry heard was done to "curry favour" with her - she described it as a "very strange episode". She said she had "no understanding" as to why he did that.Junior minister Catherine Byrne pulled back from the brink and agreed to support embattled colleague Eoghan Murphy as he faced a no-confidence vote over his handling of the housing crisis.

The Government defeated the Sinn Fein motion by 59 votes to 49, with 29 TDs abstaining.

It came after Fine Gael TDs were ordered to attend, and Ms Byrne confirmed at the last minute that she would back her party colleague.

In recent days, Ms Byrne had warned she was considering supporting the no-confidence motion or abstaining in protest over a planned development of almost 500 homes in her constituency.

It prompted Taoiseach Leo Varadkar to warn that any minister who didn't back the Government in the vote would be sacked.

Ms Byrne had publicly raised concern at plans for the St Michael's Project in Inchicore, Dublin, and the Government faced the embarrassing prospect that she wouldn't support Mr Murphy in a crunch Dail vote.

She met with Mr Murphy and the Taoiseach yesterday and finally announced she would back him in a statement shortly before 9pm while the Dail debate was ongoing.

She said they had "constructive" discussions and she would work with her colleagues to agree a plan to identify the socio-economic needs of her area that would "create a stable and vibrant community for generations to come".

Government sources said last night there were no consequences for Ms Byrne's role as a junior minister as a result of her wobble.

Introducing the Sinn Fein motion, the party's housing spokesperson Eoin O Broin argued that almost 10,000 people in emergency accommodation have been failed by Mr Murphy.

He denied the motion was a personal attack but said: "The buck stops with him, his plan is failing."

Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald rejected remarks by Mr Murphy that the motion was a stunt, and called on Mr Varadkar to "relieve Minister Murphy of his duties".

Mr Murphy responded to the motion by saying he wouldn't be distracted by "populist nonsense" that contributed nothing to solve the challenges faced in housing. He added: "I won't be hounded out of office by... personalised attacks against me."

He said the Government did not cause the housing crisis but added "we will fix it", and said anyone who wants the public to believe the housing crisis can be solved overnight is "dishonest and wrong".

Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe and Health Minister Simon Harris also spoke in support of Mr Murphy during at times heated exchanges in the Dail.

Fianna Fail abstained from the vote under the terms of the party's confidence and supply agreement with the Government.

The party's housing spokesman, Darragh O'Brien, said everyone could agree there's a housing crisis but the vote before the Dail was effectively whether or not to bring down the Government.

He said Fianna Fail believed that would be "deeply irresponsible" ahead of the Budget and amid ongoing crucial Brexit talks.

Mr O'Brien added: "Not a single further house would be built while political parties play political games."Presidential spending is set to dominate the race for the Aras, after it emerged more than 2.2m was paid to Michael D Higgins's office without being audited.

Rival candidates are now calling for changes to the system of allowances to the presidential office, and increased accountability of funds.

It emerged that the President's office receives a 317,000 allowance each year that is not audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General or the Government.

The 317,000 annual payment is separate to the President's salary. The specific nature of how the money has been used is unclear - and the legislation behind it does not state exactly what it should be used for.

But Aras an Uachtarain last night said it is primarily used for additional expenses not covered by other public funds. It said this included hospitality and State dinners.

The cost of the presidency in 2016, including maintaining Aras an Uachtarain, totalled 8.2m, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) heard yesterday. Details of the allowance emerged during a PAC meeting as members questioned presidential spending.

The Secretary General at the Department of An Taoiseach, Martin Fraser, and the Comptroller and Auditor General, Seamus McCarthy, both appeared at the meeting to explain what oversight they have over the use of taxpayer funding in the President's office. Mr Fraser is the accounting officer to Aras an Uachtarain.

Mr McCarthy confirmed the fund is not surrenderable to the State, and is not taxable as it is not classed as a salary.

"I don't audit that. I audit the issuing of the payment from the central fund of the Exchequer, ensuring the amount that is paid over is not in excess of the amount provided for in law. The purpose [of the allowance] is not prescribed in law other than that it is a payment that can be made to the President."

The allowance was raised by Fianna Fail TD Marc MacSharry. He called for the procedures used to govern the use of the 317,000 to be disclosed and asked for an indication of how much had been spent over the past 20 years.

"What we have established is 317,000 per year is paid to somebody and nobody has oversight of what it is spent on and that is significant," Mr MacSharry said.

Other election candidates said they were surprised to hear of the allowance. Senator Joan Freeman and businessmen Peter Casey and Sean Gallagher all said it should be audited.

A sitting president is entitled to an annual salary of 325,000 but Mr Higgins wrote to the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform shortly after assuming office in 2011 asking this be reduced to 250,000.

Mr McCarthy went on to tell the committee former President Mary McAleese returned a sum of 357,000 when her two terms concluded in 2011.

However, concern was raised that an audit committee tasked with scrutinising spending at Aras and Uachtarain was founded in 2014 but only held its first meetings this year. Mr Fraser, who sits on the audit committee, conceded this was "suboptimal" but came about because its chairman was "indisposed".

Mr Higgins is set to formally launch his re-election campaign today. His communications will be handled by Forsa trade unionist Bernard Harbor, who is on leave from his role with the union.

Sarah Clarkin, who has worked for the National Women's Council of Ireland, is also on the communications team.

His election agent is barrister Conor Power, who represented former Labour minister Joe Costello in a recent court action during a dispute over constituency boundaries.Sinn Feins presidential candidate Liadh Ni Riada has declined to say if her daughters have had the HPV vaccine.

She was speaking to RTE Drivetime programme, who are carrying interviews with each of the six presidential candidates today.

Ms Ni Riada has been forced to clarify her support for the vaccine after comments she made on radio in 2016 where she said she had written to her daughters school and retracted consent for the vaccine.

Ms Ni Riada has since said she is supportive of the vaccine and said her concerns related to a lack of information from the HSE.

Pressed on whether or not her daughters have since had the vaccine Ms Ni Riada declined to say, citing the privacy of her children who she said have asked her not to discuss it further. She said questions from journalists on the issue were "rather sinister".

Im hoping that reporters wouldnt be that intrusive looking for my daughters' private medical records. It should suffice to say that I am completely in favour of it and will continue to campaign for [the] HPV vaccine, she said.

I find it rather sinister that journalists are obsessed with my childrens private health records, she said.

The Sinn Fein MEP said that there is no mention of the party on her posters as the role of the presidency is above party politics. She said everybody knows that she is part of Sinn Fein.

The Cork native said she believed that Ireland has changed radically since the last presidential election. She committed to addressing the Oireachtas if necessary to remind legislators of their duty of care to all citizens.

Ms Ni Riada also said she would meet with the grandmaster of the Orange Order.

Meanwhile, President Michael D Higgins has dismissed claims from an election opponent that the timing of a security breach at the Aras was a little bit of a coincidence as irresponsible.

Separate investigations are underway into a security breach in the presidential residence on Friday September 14, when a woman in her 50s drove through the front gate and confronted Mr Higgins in his office.

Speaking as he lodged his nomination papers in the Customs House former Dragons Den investor Peter Casey bizarrely suggested that the timing of the breach was a little bit of a coincidence.

Today Mr Higgins said he did not understand what was meant by Mr Caseys comments and said it was irresponsible.

I rarely comment but quite frankly its irresponsible to be thinking that I as president would be operating some kind of.... I dont want to use the language that the person to whom it is attributed used," he said.

Mr Higgins said he was very happy to speak to the woman but refused to say what was discussed out of respect for her.

On the same programme Sean Gallagher, who lost out in 2011 to Mr Higgins, was questioned on his record in public life over the last seven years and asked why he did not run for elected office at local, national or European level.

He rejected the notion that he has been an outside in the intervening period.

The businessman said he has been involved in many substantial issues but not always in the public eye.

He said he did not want to engage in public debate on some issues lest that be perceived as speaking against the office of the president.

Mr Gallagher also claimed that in the aftermath of the presidential election he wrote to then-Taoiseach Enda Kenny and then minister for enterprise Richard Bruton offering his energies to the government to work with them to address the challenges being faced by the country but did not receive a reply.

Meanwhile, his former Dragon Dens co-star, Gavin Duffy, said his idea for a youth corp which would allow young people to work in developing countries has not been costed.

He said he will offer a different type of presidency and suggested that presidential elections are focused on the personality of the candidates.

At the end of the day it comes down to do you like the personality of the president?, he said.

The third Dragon in the race Peter Casey withdrew his remarks that the timing of a security breach in the Aras. He said the comment was tongue in cheek and not worthy of mention for another day in the news.

Mr Casey spoke about his plans to join the dots between the Irish abroad and Irish people at home.

Questioned on a controversial and now deleted tweet in which he expressed support for Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte's controversial drugs clampdown.

Mr Duterte has been criticised by human rights organisations amid allegations of extra-judicial killings and more than 7,000 deaths in his "war on drugs" in the first six months of his presidency.

Mr Casey said we all make mistakes when questioned about the tweet and said that he had not researched Dutertes record but had just read that he was cracking down on drugs.

Thats just atrocious. Obviously it was a tweet that I shouldnt have made, I should have done my research. I just read that hes cracking down on drugs and I thought that was a good thing to do because Im very anti-drugs - because drugs are the curse of our society - but you certainly shouldnt be going butchering 7,000 people, he said.

Meanwhile, Joan Freeman - an Independent Senator and Pieta House founder - said that she was shocked at the disclosure of an unaudited allowance if 317,000 to the office of the president

I really think that no office in the land should be allowed not to be transparent, she said.

However, Ms Freeman also questioned the timing of the scrutiny of the allowance when it was not been questioned over the past seven years.A software firm which sacked an office manager with an incurable degenerative disease while she was on sick leave has been ordered to pay her 46,000 in compensation.

CoreHR has been ordered to pay Natasha Lawson 23,000 after the Work Relations Commission found the firm carried out a discriminatory dismissal.

In his decision, adjudication officer Stephen Bonnlander also ordered the firm to pay an additional 23,000 for its refusal to make a reasonable accommodation of her disability in the workplace.

Mr Bonnlander found the delay in Ms Lawson's return to work as a result of a road accident did not give the employer a right to terminate her employment or to withdraw its previous offer of a phased return to work.

Ms Lawson has fibromyalgia, which is incurable and characterised by widespread musculoskeletal pain. Ms Lawson was with the firm from 2015 and in May 2017 she went on sick leave following a car crash. In November 2017, she was dismissed during a company conference call.

Ms Lawson said the reason she was given was her incapacity and "the problems her absenteeism were causing".

She stated her dismissal "knocked her back", personally and in terms of her career aspirations and caused her and her husband considerable financial hardship.

In its defence, CoreHR stated it could not hold Ms Lawson's position indefinitely and disputed it did not offer reasonable accommodation.A former British Army soldier who was arrested after a foiled suspected hit on the brother of Gerry The Monk Hutch is fighting for his life following a prison overdose.

Independent.ie has learned that Robert Brown (35), who is charged with firearms offences connected to the Hutch-

Kinahan feud, is in a critical condition in hospital after being found unconscious in his cell yesterday.

The Dubliner was rushed to the Mater Hospital after being discovered by a prison officer at around 10am in his cell at Mountjoy Prison.

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He is being held on remand as he awaits trial for possession of firearms and ammunition.

Brown and three other men were arrested after heavily armed gardai swooped on a suspected hit team who were on their way to target Patsy Hutch, the brother of Gerry The Monk Hutch, in Dublins north inner city earlier this year.

A source told the Herald that Brown was found unresponsive and on his own in his cell on the prisons B-Wing.

Mountjoy officials believe he overdosed on heroin and do not suspect any foul play at this stage.

There was no alert by anyone nearby in their cell. A prison officer came across him, a source said last night.

A doctor and ambulance paramedics worked on him for some time before he was brought to hospital.

The outlook isnt great at the moment and Brown is still in a very serious condition.

Brown previously served in the British Army and it is understood that he went on tours of Afghanistan and Iraq.

A spokesman for the Irish Prison Service confirmed that an inmate was taken to the Mater Hospital yesterday morning.

Brown and three other men were arrested in March following a lengthy surveillance operation that was carried out by officers from the Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau.

Detectives believe a Kinahan cartel hit team were about to target Patsy Hutch when they were intercepted by members of the Emergency Response Unit.

The foiled suspected hit is one of more than 50 life-saving interventions by gardai since the outbreak of the Hutch-Kinahan feud.

On the morning of the operation, the property of a distant Hutch relative was damaged in an incident that gardai believe was an attempt by the hit team to lure Patsy Hutch out of his home on Champions Avenue.

Days later, Brown, of Phibs- borough Road, Dublin 7, appeared before Dublin District Court, charged in connection with the bust.

He faces charges for the unlawful possession of firearms and ammunition at Belmont Apartments, Gardiner Street, Dublin 1, on March 10.

It is alleged that Brown, along with two other men, was in possession of a sub-machine gun, a .38 revolver and two pistols as well as 42 rounds of various ammunition.

Brown was also charged with possession of a stolen car at the same location.

At the initial hearing at Dublin District Court in March, Det Gda Ian Pemberton gave details of arresting Brown and said he replied Not guilty to the charges.

Since being charged, Brown has been on remand at Mountjoy awaiting trial.A violent Dublin criminal is a chief suspect after an aggravated burglary in a Border town during which a couple were attacked in their home.

The shocking break-in took place in the Fanad area of Co Donegal over the weekend and saw two completely innocent people beaten and robbed.

A multi-agency investigation is under way after the two suspects involved in the vicious aggravated burglary fled into Northern Ireland.

Gardai believe that the break-in was a targeted crime but that the injured couple were not the intended victims.

The man is in his early 60s while the woman is in her mid-50s.

The two raiders suspected of involvement in the attack have since been arrested in the North after allegedly committing a robbery there.

They began their cross-Border crime spree shortly after 8pm on Sunday when they broke into a home in the Doaghbeg area of Fanad.

Two men were searching for a younger male living in the area, but when they couldn't find him they launched a vicious assault on the 62-year-old man and his 56-year-old partner.

The Irish Independent has learned that one of the men identified as a suspect in the burglary is a violent criminal from the capital.

The 32-year-old, who is originally from the Tallaght area, is known to gardai for involvement in drugs and assaults, while he has also been investigated for theft.

It is understood that a second 33-year-old man is also from Dublin.

A source said that the burglary investigation was still at an early stage. "Gardai do not believe that the couple who were attacked were the intended targets. It appears that two men were looking for another male, but when they couldn't find him they decided to attack the innocent homeowners," the source said.

Following the attack, the raiders stole a small number of items before fleeing the area and crossing the Border.

Local gardai were alerted and they informed their colleagues in the PSNI of the break-in.

The couple reported to gardai that the men involved had strong Dublin accents and also gave a description of the vehicle believed to be involved.

Later that night a robbery was carried out at a service station in Strabane, Co Tyrone, just 50 metres over the Northern Irish Border. The suspects were later arrested and taken to Omagh police station in Tyrone.

Among the items allegedly stolen at the Strabane premises was a can of Lynx deodorant spray.

Efforts will now be made to have the two suspects returned here in order to question them in relation to the aggravated burglary.

A Garda spokesman said: "Gardai are investigating an aggravated burglary at Doaghbeg, Fanad, Co Donegal.

"The incident occurred on September 23, at approximately 8.15pm. Two men were arrested by the PSNI and taken to Omagh station."

The joint operation and arrests comes at a time when gardai are demanding more resources along the Border after Brexit.

Senior gardai have previously warned that intelligence-gathering operations and day-to-day policing will be affected by the UK's departure.In April 2014, I was rushing around from one school drop-off to another pick-up, living in a stress bubble of work, getting thinner by the day, not really knowing I was secretly dieting, but delighted with my skinny frame all the same. Two babies and waist 28-inch jeans? Fantastic, I thought as I bought a new pair to go on a weekend trip with my sister to see our other sister in London. Drinking, dining, fashion awaited us. We always have the best times together.

While I was away, I started bleeding again, something that had been going on for months. My sister, a nurse, made me promise to visit my GP. It was a "it's not normal" conversation and after months of justifying my symptoms as some sort of post-pregnancy side-effect, I made the appointment.

My GP has known me for years. He was quite reassuring that it was probably just a cyst or my cycle settling down after breastfeeding. We decided to arrange a smear test, but before leaving, he checked my stomach. I will never forget his face. He asked if I could feel what he was feeling and moved my hand to replace his. I could feel this large mass protruding from my body, on both sides. I could feel the pain I'd been experiencing for months and been writing off as too much, or not enough, food. The air sucked out of the room. This was one of those you can't really hear or think moments. An ultrasound was arranged for the following day.

The only other time I'd had an ultrasound was in pregnancy, so I nervously cracked jokes about it being a boy or a girl, but the radiographer's response was no joke. It was the first of many "this is very serious" moments. Within minutes of having the ultrasound, my GP phoned. Thankfully my husband Colm was with me, as I'm pretty sure I would not have been able to drive home. My GP wanted to discuss the results and make "a plan". "A plan", "results", "this is serious"; words I was not used to hearing and I was getting quite terrified. When we got to our GP, he told me my ovaries were swollen and needed to be examined urgently.

Next to the gynecologist and an operation to remove my ovaries was planned. I arrived, nervously, at the hospital for the surgery. But it had been cancelled. My first thoughts were of embarrassment, I'm nearly ashamed to admit. I thought there had been some big mix-up and all the 'serious' conversations were everyone being over-cautious and there was nothing wrong. But then the hushed tones and knowing looks became apparent. I was told the doctor wanted to see me.

There are days in your life where things happen around you and you have no idea what is going on - this was one of those. My amazing super-sister, Siobhan, a specialist oncology nurse in the hospital, was waiting for me in the room, which was strange. She grabbed my hand and I saw tears in her eyes. In walked my doctor and to this day I really don't remember what he said apart from "high levels of cancer cells". It was all a blur after that and the next step was to see my oncologist, Prof Desmond Carney, who has been a consistent presence of support, advice and reassurance.

My initial diagnosis was of the very serious variety. The primary cancer site was my appendix - itself very rare and unusual. It had metastasized to my colon, bowel, uterus and ovaries, causing the swelling that had prompted me to visit my GP. Appendiceal cancer is very hard to diagnose due to a lack of symptoms so, in a way, I was lucky the tumours moved to my ovaries.

My treatment plan was six months of chemo to shrink the tumours, before a large operation to remove the tumours, my womb, uterus, ovaries and a large part of my bowel. My surgeon performed ground-breaking HIPEC surgery also, which essentially washed my body with chemotherapy during surgery - only a few people had been treated like this at the time. Post-surgery recovery was long, as I was left with a stoma (an artificially created hole in the abdomen so faeces can still leave the body) , which I had to get used to. I was propelled into the menopause due to a hysterectomy.

Cancer treatment and recovery can really impact on family life. I'm incredibly lucky and have outstanding support from my husband, in-laws, parents, friends and siblings, especially my aforementioned sister. I honestly don't know what I would do without her advising and minding me when I can't mind myself. I've been cared for by the outstanding nurses in the Mater Hospital and the Mater Private Hospital. How they look after their patients with such heart, day-in, day-out, cannot be easy. Cancer patients are either experiencing the worst day of their lives receiving a diagnosis or having really tough times with treatment. They are true life-angels to get us cancer crusaders through.

They put me in touch with ARC Cancer Support Centres, which provide practical life support for people with cancer, from counselling to yoga to support groups. It can even be just a cuppa and a chat with their volunteers on a good or a bad day. As a mum to Lughan (10) and Fionn (6), I can attest to the fact that their latest programme, CLIMB, for children whose parent or significant adult is going through cancer, is fantastic.

Although I've exceptional support, it was great to use the free counselling sessions to 'let it all out'. The counsellors helped me think through my 'new life'. I'm luckily not terminal, but in the past four years, I've had another three diagnoses of tumour regrowth. So, to combat this, I'm on bi-weekly chemotherapy sessions for the rest of my life.

There have been many ups and downs as I travel through what I call 'Cancerland', but without the support of family, friends, my employers Tesco Ireland, my doctors, nurses, husband and children, I'm sure I'd have given up long ago. I've made so many positive changes to my life as a result of cancer that although it has changed me physically, it has improved my mental approach.

I'm still ambitious for my future, I've plenty of life to live, even though it's with certain limitations now. I recently achieved a life-long dream by being accepted to art college. A great friend once told me "never turn off the dream machine". I have no intention of doing so. I may have cancer. But it doesn't have me.

Alison will be a torch-bearer in the ARC Cancer Support Centres' Torch of Hope Relay around Dublin Bay on Sunday, October 21. Visit arccancersupport.ie/torch-of-hope. Cancer Week Ireland - a national initiative to get people talking about cancer and how to spot it - runs until Sunday. Visit cancerweek.ieNow 80 years old, Jane Fonda is frequently heralded in the media as an 'ageless wonder'. What's her secret? Well, there's the healthy diet, the fitness routines made famous in her exercise videos... and then there are the facelifts.

The actress told The Guardian earlier this year, "They bought me an extra 10 years", and has previously spoken of the addictive nature of cosmetic procedures. "The danger with surgery is you say: 'Oh this is good, let me do more.' It can be an addiction," she said in 2015.

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But now, in a new documentary about her life, Fonda has expressed regret at having given into pressure to stop the ageing process.

"On one level, I hate the fact that I've had the need to alter myself physically to feel that I'm okay," she said. "I wish I wasn't like that. I love older faces. I love lived-in faces. I loved Vanessa Redgrave's face. I wish I was braver. But I am what I am."

Fonda isn't the only A-lister to have second thoughts about surgery. Earlier this year, Kylie Jenner told fans she had "got rid" of her lip fillers, and in 2017, Courteney Cox admitted she had undone her facial fillers. In 2014, Victoria Beckham had her breast implants removed, and wrote in a letter to her younger self for Vogue: "Don't mess with your boobs."

But a reversal procedure isn't as simple as you might think.

"You can't reverse a procedure completely," says Dr Ahmed Ramzi Salman of Dublin's Auralia Clinic. "You can try to either bring people back to how they were before, plus a scar, or you can try to correct a procedure that was badly done."

'Getting rid' of fillers means getting an injection of an enzyme called hyaluronidase to dissolve the hyaluronic acid-based dermal fillers in lips, cheeks or elsewhere in the face. The treatment can cost between 150-300, although Dr Salman warns that certain practitioners charge up to 600.

"Of late, unfortunately, a lot of people are chancing their arms with Botox and filler in little beauty salons or substandard clinics. Up to the last two years, maybe in a year we would dissolve one or two fillers that went wrong," Dr Salman observes. "Now, I'm doing two or three a month."

Dr Peter Prendergast, Medical Director of Venus Medical in Dundrum, has noticed a similar trend. "Fillers are categorised as medical devices rather than medication, so people can get them from beauty therapists, for example, who certainly wouldn't be able to deal with complications," he explains.

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"We see people coming in with lumpy fillers, unsightly asymmetries or, even worse, sometimes the blood supply of the face can be compromised if the filler gets into a blood vessel. That's really an emergency, where the filler has to be immediately dissolved before you get a permanent scarring around the eyes or nose."

He says that in the past, fillers would have used liquid silicone or bio-alcamid (substances that are still prevalent in South American buttock injections), which can prove very dangerous if there's a delayed allergic reaction or an infection. They require surgery to cut out, leading to scarring and complications.

Modern treatments to remove facial fillers are not without their drawbacks, however - patients can be allergic to hyaluronidase, so will need to undergo a patch test first, plus the substance can potentially dissolve all filler, even if a patient only wants to remove a bit of it. If the patient wants to top it up, they'll have to wait a few days and start from scratch.

"It's kind of a false economy where people look around for the cheapest place to go, then end up spending more trying to correct it than they would have originally if they'd gone to a reputable clinic where there are more experienced doctors performing the treatments," says Dr Prendergast.

Now, many of the treatments Dr Prendergast offers are largely reversible. The notable exception is Botox.

"Once it's been injected, if someone has a problem like a drooping of their brow or eyelid, you just have to let it wear off," he says, a wait that can take up to six months.

A reversal can cost double the initial treatment, and the figure only grows in the case of liposuction or breast implants, which are particularly difficult to correct. On top of that, you'll have to wait three to six months for swelling to resolve before proceeding with any touch-ups or reversals.

And yet, 'botched' jobs haven't put people off.

"When you look at the statistics of the amount of fillers and Botox used worldwide, the numbers are actually going up," argues facial plastic surgeon Dr Kambiz Golchin of Beacon Face and Dermatolgy.

"What is happening though is that there has been a shift over the last few years and people want a more natural look. It's the same with anything else in life: at some point the pendulum goes too far right or left and at some point, it has to come back to the middle."

Of Jane Fonda, he says: "One of the things I always say to people is that timing is crucial. You can have things done too soon and the reality is that nothing is permanent in life."

Dr Golchin emphasises the importance of getting "the right procedure for the right patient at the right time".

"The effects of a facelift last about seven years, so if you have it done too early in life it's likely that you'll have to go back for a revision. Let's say someone is in their mid-40s when they get their first facelift. By the time they are in their early 50s, they are at their second and by the time they are in their 60s, they are at their third. At that point, it doesn't look natural anymore and that's part of the problem."

This is when you go past the tipping point, where smooth becomes immovable and plump skin becomes pillow cheeks. It's the 'too-far' face.

Back in 2015, when Kylie Jenner first admitted to having lip injections at the age of 17, her doctor, Simon Ourian, mused: "I saw a new trend of younger women who suddenly felt empowered to unapologetically want to look more beautiful." But the trend for super-sized lips seems to be gradually dying down, again spearheaded by Jenner.

"The Kylie Jenner [look], that doesn't suit everybody and, to some extent, that is the job of the practitioners and the doctors. They should be responsible about it and say, 'You're too young and you shouldn't be getting this at this point'," says Dr Golchin.

"There is an onus of responsibility for the doctors, but also for the patient themselves. They have to be mindful of these fashion things, because we know fashion changes."

But he warns: "There is no doubt about it - if you have too much of any of these procedures, that's not the right approach. It's not a good look and in fact it can make people look older rather than younger."

Additional reporting by Katie ByrneA bottle of pills for one dogs environmental allergies has gone viral after its owner cannily labelled the medicine to butter up her pooch.

Christine Nangle is a television comedy writer from Philadelphia, and she is the owner of Philby (named, Christine says, with no knowledge of notorious Soviet spy Kim Philby).

Philby is a five-year-old pit bull mix, rescued from a shelter, who suffers from some environmental allergies that require him to take pills. And while he apparently hates taking them, who could refuse these?

My dog Philby has to take allergy meds everyday but he doesnt need to know that. pic.twitter.com/5oFUVCb5bG  Christine Nangle (@nanglish) September 21, 2018

He hates taking pills, Christine told the Press Association. Im always having to find new ways to trick him into it with treats.

It just became a joke with myself, to make it less of a chore for me.

Whenever were on a walk and hear sirens or see cops, I warn him that its him they are coming for because hes too handsome and there are laws against that kind of thing.

The tweet received well over 100,000 likes on Twitter, and while Christine has been attempting to stop using the social media website so much, she said: This made it hard because people were so fun.

Many many people have said either the pills are clearly working or he doesnt need them, These people are very smart to notice that Philby is incredibly handsome.

And for those worrying about mislabelled pills causing confusion, Christine assures them this is simply a joke for she and Philby to share.

When someone else is taking care of him, either at boarding or my sisters house, I give them a properly labelled bottle, she said.

Whatever Philbys secret is, hes definitely one of the most handsome dogs around.Boohoo has posted booming interim sales and profit as the online fashion retailer raised its full-year guidance.

The company booked a 50% rise in sales to 395.3 million in the six months to August 31, while pre-tax profit rocketed 22% to 24.7 million.

Boohoo said group revenue growth for the year to February 2019 is now expected to be between 38% and 43%, up from its previous guidance of 35% to 40%.

Boohoo saw strong revenue growth across all geographies in the period, with the UK seeing a 43% rise in sales to 234 million and international a 62% hike. The retailers international arm now accounts for 41% of group revenue.

Both of the firms sub-brands, PrettyLittleThing and Nasty Gal, saw revenue growth of more than 100%.

Joint chief executives Mahmud Kamani and Carol Kane said: Our group results for the first half-year show yet another strong performance, delivering record sales and profits. All of our brands performed extremely well across all territories as we continue to gain market share.

We achieved market-leading growth in all markets, with Rest of Europe and the USA being particularly pleasing. Growth in the UK, our largest market, remains very strong.

The figures from Boohoo stand in stark contrast to the woes afflicting high street retailers, many of which have been forced to close hundreds of stores.

Boohoo announced earlier this year that Mr Kamani and Ms Kane are to be replaced as joint bosses by John Lyttle from March 15 2019.

Mr Kamani will become executive chairman, moving him away from the day-to-day running of the business, while Ms Kane stays on as group co-founder and executive director.Russian oligarch and Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich has withdrawn an application for residency in Switzerland after authorities made clear that it would be rejected, officials said.

Lawyers for Mr Abramovich hit out at defamatory allegations involving money laundering and denied that he has links to organised crime.

Mr Abramovich had apparently wanted to relocate to the Alpine town of Bagnes.

The Swiss town of 8,000, mayor Eloi Roussier pointed out, is known for the Verbier ski resort, its summertime classical music festival and a tax structure that allows residents to pay fixed rates based on the value of their property.

The Russian-born tycoon made his application to the south-western region of Valais, which includes Bagnes, according to Jacques de Lavallaz, head of the regions population and migration service.

Mr Lavallaz said his service supported Mr Abramovichs request and sent it on to federal migration officials for approval, but they rejected it based on an analysis by federal police.

Any suggestion that Mr Abramovich has been involved in money laundering or has contacts with criminal organisations is entirely falseDaniel Glasl, lawyer for Roman Abramovich

Federal police spokesman Florian Naef declined to comment on the case.

The representatives of Mr Abramovich withdrew their clients request before the negative decision was handed down, Mr Lavallaz said in an email to the Associated Press.

Daniel Glasl, a lawyer for Mr Abramovich, suggested that the Swiss police analysis wrongly linked his client to money laundering and organised crime.

He denounced the claims and said he had requested that Swiss police conduct a correction of facts.

Any suggestion that Mr Abramovich has been involved in money laundering or has contacts with criminal organisations is entirely false, Mr Glasl said.

He suggested the allegations related to a two-decade-old legal case in Switzerland involving Mr Abramovichs long-defunct trading firm, Runicom, and millions of euros in alleged debts that it owed to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

That case was settled in June under undisclosed terms, and Mr Glasl said Runicom was long ago cleared of any wrongdoing after a thorough investigation by Swiss authorities.

Mr Abramovich, who has split his time between Moscow and London, received Israeli citizenship this year after his British visa was not renewed, apparently as part of British authorities efforts to crack down on associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Britain has pledged to review the long-term visas of rich Russians in the aftermath of the March poisonings of Russian former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the English city of Salisbury.

Britain blames Russia for the pairs exposure to a military grade nerve agent, an allegation that Moscow denies.

After Mr Abramovichs Swiss application ran into trouble, his lawyers went to court to block details of the process from becoming public.

On Friday, a federal court lifted the temporary media ban.

Mr Glasl criticised Swiss media group Tamedia for publishing details of the process, calling it a clear violation of Swiss criminal law and Swiss data protection laws.

Tamedia spokesman Patrick Matthey called it a victory for freedom of the press.A rescuer makes his way down the entrance to the cave complex where 12 boys and their football coach went missing in Thailand (Sakchai Lali/AP)

A man who was among four hapless would-be helpers who needed rescuing during the bid to reach a youth football team trapped in a cave in Thailand has said he would like to thank the British divers who saved them.

Surapin Chaichompoo, president of the Thai Well Water Association, told how he and three employees spent two days draining water from the cave in an attempt to help the rescue, took a nap and found themselves trapped inside with the water rising.

He said that on their third day, two British divers searching for the 12 boys stumbled upon them and improvised a rescue.

Mr Surapin said he was unable to contact them afterwards but would still like to thank them.

Several British divers were involved in the boys rescue in July, including Rick Stanton, from Coventry, and John Volanthen, from Bristol, who were the first to reach the stranded group in the Luang Nang Non Cave.President Donald Trump has lashed out at Iran, with national security adviser John Bolton also warning there would be hell to pay if Tehran crossed the US.

Speeches by the president before the UN General Assembly and by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Mr Bolton at a New York City hotel marked an escalation of rhetoric.

Mr Trump blasted what he called Irans corrupt dictatorship and accused its leaders of enriching themselves through embezzlement and raiding state coffers to spread mayhem.

Mr Trump also vowed to continue to isolate Iran through US sanctions that are being re-instated following his withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal.

The next round of sanctions will take effect in early November.

He later predicted that the pressure from renewed sanctions would force Iran back to the table to negotiate.

Irans leaders sow chaos, death and destruction, the president told the UN General Assembly in a 34-minute speech that was more critical of Iran than any other country.

They do not respect their neighbours or borders or the sovereign rights of nations. Instead Irans leaders plunder the nations resources to enrich themselves and to spread mayhem across the Middle East and far beyond.

In an even more fiery to a group opposed to the Iran deal, Mr Bolton went further.

If you cross us, our allies, or our partners; if you harm our citizens; if you continue to lie, cheat and deceive, yes, there will indeed be hell to pay, he said.

The murderous regime and its supporters will face significant consequences if they do not change their behaviour. Let my message today be clear: We are watching, and we will come after you.

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Mr Pompeo also spoke at the event hosted by United Against a Nuclear Iran, being held to coincide with UN General Assembly.

In his speech, Mr Pompeo unveiled a long list of Iranian misdeeds, from its support of Syrian president Bashar Assad and Houthi rebels in Yemen to sponsoring or plotting attempted terrorist attacks in Africa, Asia, Europe and beyond.

It is truly an outlaw regime, he said.

There can be no question Iranian destructive activities are truly global in scope. It is therefore incumbent on every country to join our efforts to change the regimes lawless behaviour. The ongoing, multi-national, multi-continental nature of Iranian malign activity leaves no room for inaction or indecision.

Iranian president Hassan Rouhani, who also addressed the UN, launched a scathing attack on Mr Trump and his administration for abandoning international norms and imposing sanctions that amount to economic terrorism.

He accused the United States on Tuesday of trying to overthrow his government.

The United States understanding of international relations is authoritarian, Mr Rouhani said.

In its estimation, might makes right. Its understanding of power, not of legal and legitimate authority, is reflected in bullying and imposition.

Recently, #Iran-supported militias in Iraq launched rocket attacks against the U.S. embassy in Baghdad and our consulate in Basra. Well hold #Irans regime accountable for any attack on our personnel or facilities, and respond swiftly and decisively in defense of American lives. pic.twitter.com/nqbmogbeCA  Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) September 25, 2018

Mr Trump and his aides, meanwhile, stepped up their attacks on the nuclear deal, which was a signature foreign policy achievement of the Obama administration.

Mr Trump called it horrible and maintained that many Middle Eastern countries had supported the decision to withdraw.

In fact, only Israel and Gulf Arab nations such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates enthusiastically backed the move.

The other parties to the deal, under which Iran agreed to curbs on its nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief, remain in the agreement and met on Monday in New York to reaffirm their support for it.

Aside from Iran, the other participants are Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the European Union.

After that meeting, the top diplomats from those countries and the EU agreed to establish a financial facility in the European Union to facilitate payments for Iranian imports and exports including oil, a key move sought by Tehran as it attempts to fight back against the re-imposed US sanctions.

They said in a joint statement that the so-called Special Purpose Vehicle will assist and reassure economic operators pursuing legitimate business with Iran.

Mr Pompeo harshly criticised those countries for attempting to subvert US sanctions.

This is one of the most counterproductive measures imaginable for regional and global peace and security, he said.

By sustaining revenues to the regime, you are solidifying Irans ranking as the number one state sponsor of terror, enabling Irans violent export of revolution and making the regime even richer while the Iranian people scrape by.Trump said the "US will always choose independence and cooperation over global governance". Photo: Reuters

President Donald Trump has lashed out at Iran, with national security adviser John Bolton also warning there would be "hell to pay" if Tehran crossed the US.

Speeches by the president before the UN General Assembly and by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Mr Bolton at a New York City hotel marked an escalation of rhetoric.

Mr Trump blasted what he called Iran's "corrupt dictatorship" and accused its leaders of enriching themselves through embezzlement and raiding state coffers to spread "mayhem".

Mr Trump also vowed to continue to isolate Iran through US sanctions that are being re-instated following his withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal.

The next round of sanctions will take effect in early November.

He later predicted that the pressure from renewed sanctions would force Iran back to the table to negotiate.

"Iran's leaders sow chaos, death and destruction," the president told the UN General Assembly in a 34-minute speech that was more critical of Iran than any other country.

"They do not respect their neighbours or borders or the sovereign rights of nations. Instead Iran's leaders plunder the nation's resources to enrich themselves and to spread mayhem across the Middle East and far beyond."

In an even more fiery to a group opposed to the Iran deal, Mr Bolton went further.

"If you cross us, our allies, or our partners; if you harm our citizens; if you continue to lie, cheat and deceive, yes, there will indeed be hell to pay," he said.

"The murderous regime and its supporters will face significant consequences if they do not change their behaviour. Let my message today be clear: We are watching, and we will come after you."

Mr Pompeo also spoke at the event hosted by United Against a Nuclear Iran, being held to coincide with UN General Assembly.

In his speech, Mr Pompeo unveiled a long list of Iranian misdeeds, from its support of Syrian president Bashar Assad and Houthi rebels in Yemen to sponsoring or plotting attempted terrorist attacks in Africa, Asia, Europe and beyond.

"It is truly an outlaw regime," he said.

"There can be no question Iranian destructive activities are truly global in scope. It is therefore incumbent on every country to join our efforts to change the regime's lawless behaviour. The ongoing, multi-national, multi-continental nature of Iranian malign activity leaves no room for inaction or indecision."

Iranian president Hassan Rouhani, who also addressed the UN, launched a scathing attack on Mr Trump and his administration for abandoning international norms and imposing sanctions that amount to "economic terrorism".

He accused the United States on Tuesday of trying to overthrow his government.

"The United States' understanding of international relations is authoritarian," Mr Rouhani said.

"In its estimation, might makes right. Its understanding of power, not of legal and legitimate authority, is reflected in bullying and imposition."

Mr Trump and his aides, meanwhile, stepped up their attacks on the nuclear deal, which was a signature foreign policy achievement of the Obama administration.

Mr Trump called it "horrible" and maintained that many Middle Eastern countries had supported the decision to withdraw.

In fact, only Israel and Gulf Arab nations such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates enthusiastically backed the move.

The other parties to the deal, under which Iran agreed to curbs on its nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief, remain in the agreement and met on Monday in New York to reaffirm their support for it.

Aside from Iran, the other participants are Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the European Union.

After that meeting, the top diplomats from those countries and the EU agreed to establish a financial facility in the European Union to facilitate payments for Iranian imports and exports including oil, a key move sought by Tehran as it attempts to fight back against the re-imposed US sanctions.

They said in a joint statement that the so-called "Special Purpose Vehicle" will "assist and reassure economic operators pursuing legitimate business with Iran".

Mr Pompeo harshly criticised those countries for attempting to subvert US sanctions.

"This is one of the most counterproductive measures imaginable for regional and global peace and security," he said.

"By sustaining revenues to the regime, you are solidifying Iran's ranking as the number one state sponsor of terror, enabling Iran's violent export of revolution and making the regime even richer while the Iranian people scrape by."Donald Trump launched a scathing attack on Iran yesterday, accusing its leaders of sowing "chaos, death and destruction" in a speech to the United Nations.

Making his second appearance at the annual gathering of world leaders, he urged countries to turn their backs on multilateral organisations and prioritise their own countries' needs. "We reject the ideology of globalism and we embrace the doctrine of patriotism," he told delegates in defence of his America First foreign policy.

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Earlier, he sparked a moment of levity when his claim to have "accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country" was met with laughter.

"Didn't expect that reaction but that's OK," he said. Swiftly returning to his theme, he said he would "never surrender America's sovereignty to an unelected, unaccountable, global bureaucracy".

The president insisted the US would not cooperate with the International Criminal Court, and reiterated his refusal to accept the new Global Compact on Migration. He defended his decision to reduce the number of refugees admitted to the US to the lowest level in history, and criticised the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec).

"Opec and Opec nations are as usual ripping off the rest of the world, and I don't like it," he said. "Nobody should like it. We defend many of these nations for nothing and then they take advantage of us by giving us high oil prices. Not good."

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Foreign aid was also presented through a transactional prism - "We are only going to give foreign aid to those who respect us and, frankly, are our friends," he announced.

The New York-born billionaire celebrated his decision to relocate the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and - in contrast to last year - praised Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader.

Gone was last year's "rocket man" - now he was "Chairman Kim", with whom he had "highly productive" talks.

"The missiles and rockets are no longer flying in every direction. Nuclear testing has stopped. Military facilities are being dismantled," he said.

Venezuela was also singled out. "All nations of the world should resist socialism and the misery that it brings to everyone," he told the hall.

But it was to Iran he devoted most of his speech, attacking what he called its "corrupt dictatorship", accusing it of enriching itself through embezzlement.

Hours before he spoke, the UK, France, and Germany defied the White House by announcing they were setting up a financial mechanism to help European firms continue to do business with Iran. Analysts, however, were sceptical the EU's Special Purpose Vehicle would do much to reassure European companies, which are worried about being hit with US sanctions.

Today, Mr Trump chairs a Security Council meeting focusing mainly on Iran - a position likely to see him confronted by Theresa May and, in particular, French president Emmanuel Macron, who in his speech thumped the podium as he railed against Mr Trump's unilateralism.

Mr Trump, clearly pleased with his performance, retweeted a comment by Mark Levin, a right-wing radio host, that "DONALD TRUMP'S UN SPEECH IS SPECTACULAR."

Hassan Rouhani, Iran's president, later accused Mr Trump of trying to topple his government.

"It is ironic the US government does not even conceal its plan for overthrowing the same government it invites to talks," Mr Rouhani said in his speech to the UN.

"The United States' understanding of international relations is authoritarian. In its estimation, might makes right. Its understanding of power, not of legal and legitimate authority, is reflected in bullying and imposition." ( Daily Telegraph, London)President Donald Trump yesterday continued a long-standing tradition by giving a speech at the United Nations General Assembly. Unlike most of his predecessors, Trump found himself isolated in front of the international community. Indeed, at one point during the speech, the president was laughed at.

That isolation is, at least in part, self-imposed. Trump said the "US will always choose independence and cooperation over global governance". Compare those words to President Harry S Truman's at the opening session in 1946: "This meeting of the assembly symbolises the abandonment by the United States of a policy of isolation."

Under Trump, that long-standing vision - embraced by both Democrats and Republicans - has been not only abandoned, but denigrated.

This is an unforced error, a step toward isolation that harms US interests and weakens its leadership on the world stage. It comes as the US-led world order is under assault from the re-emergence of a powerful and ambitious China and the meddlesome and aggressive behaviour of smaller nations such as Russia.

To confront the current crises requires a strong and committed executive. But, most importantly, one that is also compassionate and approachable. US presidents have been central to sustaining a world order for generations. They understood it was a responsibility that required allies, sometimes putting the interests of those allies ahead of America's to maintain America's larger interest in a stable world order.

President Bill Clinton demonstrated this when he intervened in Kosovo's ethnic genocide in the 1990s at the request of the European nations. Even President George W Bush, who had his fair share of conflict with the international community, asked UN member countries in 2002 to "stand" with the United States and bring democracy to the Middle East. He claimed it would "show that the promise of the United Nations can be fulfilled in our time".

Historian AJP Taylor famously wrote that wars are like road accidents. If that's the case, these recent developments indicate we are in the midst of a slow-moving 21st century "wreck of nations". A world order in transition for the first time since World War II is the general cause of our current "wreck". Unless Americans acknowledge this new reality, the results of that "wreck" will be a more dangerous world order than the one we now know.

To be sure, decades of unsuccessful foreign interventions - like Vietnam and the second Iraq War - have made Americans and the rest of the world wary. But there's no denying the world has become safer under US leadership.

People are richer, happier and healthier today than in any other period in recorded history. The explanation for the success of this "Age of America" is simple: The US is the first global power to establish a world order that is in actuality a de facto system of universal liberalising norms.

There is no other nation with a similar set of values that is capable of taking over for the United States as the guarantor of the most successful world order in history. So the US better hang on, for its own interests and for those of its allies. And there's no better way to do so than by remaining a good-faith partner to the international community - and not a loner state. ( Washington Post Service)Danish submarine inventor Peter Madsen, convicted of torturing and murdering Swedish reporter Kim Wall last year, has lost an appeal against his life sentence.

Madsen listened quietly as Judge Jan Uffe Rasmussen read out the ruling by the Eastern High Court in Copenhagen, which came shortly after he apologised to the victims family.

Judge Rasmussen said the High Court had reached the same conclusion as the Copenhagen City Court, which sentenced Madsen to life in April after convicting him of murder.

I'm terribly sorry to Kim's relatives for what happenedPeter Madsen

In Denmark, a life sentence equates to 16 years on average but can be extended.

Madsen, 47, had wanted a time-limited sentence, not an open-ended prison term.

The prosecutor had argued that the life sentence should be upheld, saying the motive was sexual and the crime was planned.

Madsen stood up to hear the sentence and was motionless as Judge Rasmussen read out the ruling.

Prosecutor Kristian Kirk was satisfied with the ruling.

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It is a case of a completely unusual severity, he told reporters.

Before the ruling, Madsen apologised to Ms Walls family.

Im terribly sorry to Kims relatives for what happened, Madsen said.

Ingrid and Joachim Wall, the reporters parents, were present in court.

Defence lawyer Betina Hald Engmark had argued that her client has a clean criminal record and alone has been convicted for one murder.

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In comparable cases, the perpetrator often has committed moral crimes before, she said.

Madsen denies murdering Ms Wall, saying she died accidentally inside the submarine, but has confessed to throwing her body parts into the Baltic Sea.

The Copenhagen City Court in April convicted Madsen of murder, sexual assault and the dismemberment of Ms Wall.

The court ruled unanimously that Madsen had lured Ms Wall, 30, on to his homemade submarine with the promise of an interview.

During the appeals trial, Mr Kirk said Ms Wall could not escape and likely had begged for her life while Madsen carried out a sadistic, yes inhuman, sexual fantasy.

Mr Kirk said violent videos in which women were tortured and killed were found on Madsens computer, and said he probably filmed the killing.

He added Madsen had been planning the murder and just waited for a victim.

I hope we never will see such a case again, Mr Kirk told the court.

No video of Ms Walls murder has been found.

Kim Wall walked directly into a death trap, Mr Kirk said before looking up at Madsen, who listened with his hands on the table: I cant see any other sentence than life.

The cause of Ms Walls death has not been established.US President Donald Trump has accused China of trying to interfere in the upcoming US congressional elections because it opposes his tough trade policies.

The White House provided little evidence of anything close to the level of Russias meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

They do not want me or us to win because I am the first president ever to challenge China on trade, Mr Trump said as he chaired the UN Security Council for the first time.

He made his accusation against the backdrop of the special counsels investigation into Russian interference in the last election to help him and amid concerns that this Novembers elections also could be vulnerable.

Asked later what evidence he had, Mr Trump said there was plenty but didnt provide details. Instead, he zeroed in on Chinas propaganda efforts to flood the heartland with ads and statements against Mr Trumps hundreds of billions of dollars in punishing tariffs

Mr Trump added: I dont like it when they attack our farmers and I dont like it when they put out false messages. But beside that, we learned that they are trying to meddle in our elections and were not going to let that happen just as were not going to let that happen with Russia.

Chinas foreign minister shrugged when he heard Mr Trumps statement via translation at the Security Council.

We do not and will not interfere in any countrys domestic affairs, said Wang Yi.

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We refuse to accept any unwarranted accusations against China, and we call on other countries to also observe the purposes of the UN charter and not interfere in other countries internal affairs.

A senior Trump administration official who briefed reporters about Mr Trumps comments said China was stepping up covert and overt activities to punish those who support Mr Trumps tough trade stance and interfere in the political system.

The only specifics given by the official were that China is hurting farmers and workers in states and districts that voted for Mr Trump.

Democrats on the House intelligence committee requested information from the Trump administration on the Chinese efforts.

This afternoon, President Trump participated in a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Abe.  pic.twitter.com/PvSINQY7yq  The White House 45 Archived (@WhiteHouse45) September 26, 2018

Mr Trump, in his meeting with Japans Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, warned China again that they cannot get involved with our elections.

It was strong rhetoric in contrast to his reluctance to acknowledge or condemn Russias efforts to interfere with the 2016 election.

Mr Trump has repeatedly cast doubt on the conclusions of US intelligence agencies and refused to chastise Russias Vladimir Putin during their summer summit in Helsinki.US president Donald Trump has denounced Democratic efforts to block Brett Kavanaughs Supreme Court confirmation as a cynical con job and launched a dismissive attack on a second woman accusing the nominee of sexual misconduct in the 1980s.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell predicted that Mr Kavanaugh would win approval, despite the new allegations and uncertainty about how pivotal Republicans would vote in a roll call now expected early next week.

Like much of America, politicians awaited a momentous Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in which Mr Kavanaugh and chief accuser Christine Blasey Ford are to testify on Thursday, though not together.

Committee chairman Chuck Grassley said Arizona prosecutor Rachel Mitchell would be brought in to handle questioning of Mr Kavanaugh and Ms Ford.

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Ms Mitchell comes from the Maricopa County Attorneys Office in Phoenix, where she is the chief of the Special Victims Division, which covers sex crimes and family violence.

Hanging in the balance is Mr Trumps chance to swing the high court more firmly to the right for a generation. Despite Mr McConnells forecast that Republicans will win, Mr Kavanaughs fate remains uncertain in a chamber where Republicans have a scant 51-49 majority.

Hoping the hearing will yield no new surprises, the Senate Judiciary Committee scheduled its own vote on Mr Kavanaugh for Friday, and Republican leaders laid plans that could keep the full Senate in session over the weekend and produce a final showdown roll call soon after  close to the October 1 start of the high courts new term.

Given that the Judiciary Committees GOP members are all male, Mr McConnell said the panel was hiring a female assistant to handle the questioning for Republicans in a respectful and professional way.

Mr Grassley identified Ms Mitchell in a press release late on Wednesday, describing her as a career prosecutor with decades of experience prosecuting sex crimes.

Each senator on the 21-member panel will be allowed five minutes to ask questions, said committee spokesman Taylor Foy.

Meanwhile, the Republicans were still assessing what Mr Kavanaughs interview on Monday on the Fox News Channel  an unusual appearance for a Supreme Court nominee  indicates about how he would do in Thursdays hearing.

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During the interview, Mr Kavanaugh denied sexually assaulting anyone. He also denied the account of a second woman, Deborah Ramirez.

Mr Kavanaughs accounts of his behaviour in high school and college have faced intense scrutiny, with some of his former classmates coming forward to challenge his claims.

James Roche, a Yale graduate who says he was Mr Kavanaughs roommate in 1983, issued a public statement saying he was close friends with Ms Ramirez and cannot imagine her making up the story about Mr Kavanaugh exposing himself.

While a few Republicans have strongly challenged the credibility of Mr Kavanaughs accusers, Mr Trumps words have been more biting.

Last week, he lampooned Ms Fords allegation that an inebriated Mr Kavanaugh trapped her beneath him on a bed at a high school house party and tried to take her clothes off before she escaped. Surely she would have reported it to police if the encounter was as bad as she says, the president said.

Its a con game theyre playing, he said. Theyre really con artists. They dont believe it themselves, OK?

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Mr Trumps latest broadside was aimed at Ms Ramirez, who conceded to The New Yorker that she had been drinking at the time she says Mr Kavanagh exposed himself. She also said she was uncertain of some details.

The second accuser has nothing, Mr Trump told reporters at the United Nations. The second accuser doesnt even know  thinks maybe it was him, maybe not. She admits she was drunk. She admits time lapses.

In a phone call with Judiciary Committee staff of both parties, Mr Kavanaugh denied Ms Ramirezs story, panel spokesman Mr Foy said.

Ms Ramirezs lawyer, John Clune, said his client stood by The New Yorker story and said he and Mr Grassleys committee were trying to decide how to provide more information to the panel.

He said an FBI investigation is the only way to get the truth.US President Donald Trump has said he has rejected a one-on-one meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over the tariff dispute involving the two countries.

He is also threatening to place tariffs on cars imported from Canada as trade talks between the two neighbouring countries drag on.

Mr Trump said during a news conference in New York that Canada has treated the US very badly during the trade talks.

Watch LIVE as President Trump hosts a press conference. https://t.co/EmsdctGWtd  The White House 45 Archived (@WhiteHouse45) September 26, 2018

Canada was left out when the United States and Mexico reached an agreement last month to revamp the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta).

The US and Canada are under pressure to reach a deal by September 30.

Mr Trump is suggesting he may go forward with a revamped Nafta without Canada. The president says it would be called USM, for the US and Mexico, instead of USMC.Julian Assange has been living in the Ecuadorian Embassy in the UK for six years (Dominic Lipinski/PA)

Ecuadors president says his country and the United Kingdom are working on a legal solution for Julian Assange that would allow the Wikileaks founder to leave the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in the medium term.

President Lenin Moreno told The Associated Press that Mr Assanges lawyers are aware of the negotiations. He declined to provide more details because of the sensitivity of the case.

Mr Assange has been holed up in the embassy for more than six years.

The famous whistleblower and computer engineer faces an arrest warrant in the UK and fears he could be extradited to the US, where high-level officials have spoken about prosecuting him for stealing classified information.

Mr Moreno says his country will seek to protect Mr Assanges rights.

Being five or six years in an embassy already violates his human rights, he said, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. But his presence in the embassy is also a problem.

Ecuadors previous left-leaning administration gave Mr Assange asylum in 2012, saying it feared his life was in danger for publishing thousands of diplomatic cables that put US officials in a difficult position.

But Mr Assanges relationship with the Ecuadorian government has soured since the centrist Mr Moreno became president.

Over the past two years Mr Assanges access to the internet was suspended on several occasions, as he continued to publish material from the hacked accounts of politicians from different countries and made controversial statements on his social media accounts.

I understand that currently he has no access (to the internet) to stop him from doing that again, Mr Moreno said. But if Mr Assange promises to stop emitting opinions on the politics of friendly nations like Spain or the United States then we have no problem with him going online.

Ecuadors government has said Mr Assanges activities in the embassy, including the publishing of thousands of Hillary Clintons emails prior to the 2016 election in the US, have compromised its relations with other countries.

I dont agree with what he does, Mr Moreno said. To see someone violating peoples right to communicate privately makes me feel uncomfortable.

Mr Assange has long argued that he is simply monitoring the actions of some of the worlds most powerful politicians and exercising his right to free speech.Melania Trump speaks during a reception at the US mission to the UN in New York (Jason DeCrow/AP)

Melania Trump has said she will promote child welfare in Ghana, Malawi, Kenya and Egypt in October on her first extended solo international mission.

The US first lady detailed her plans at a reception on the sidelines of the annual UN General Assembly.

Mrs Trump said she looks forward to spreading the message of her domestic child welfare initiative throughout Africa.

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She is travelling without President Donald Trump, who raised ire across Africa this year after his private complaint about the continents shithole countries was leaked to journalists.

Mr Trump will be in the midst of campaigning for the November elections.

He said that he and his wife love Africa.

The first ladys only other solo international foray was a September 2017 day trip to Toronto to join Britains Prince Harry for an event.Rani Mukerji-starrer "Hichki", which received a standing ovation at the Shanghai International Film Festival (SIFF), will hit the screens in China on October 12 as "Teacher with Hiccup". The actress is hopeful it will resonate with the audience there.

Produced by Yash Raj Films and directed by Siddharth Malhotra, the inspiring social drama which projects a message on equality and inclusivity has won the hearts of many across the world with its social message of equality.

"It's truly amazing when films can crossover to different cultures and languages because of its universal story. 'Hichki' is a reflection of society, a reflection of how we all have weaknesses and we need to overcome them to make the world a better place.

"Social dramas find a connect with audiences in China and I am hopeful that my film will resonate with everyone especially the teachers, students and parents," Rani said in a statement.

With the film, the actress made a positive impact with her performance as Naina Mathur, a school teacher dealing with an involuntary nervous system disorder, Tourette Syndrome. She won awards and accolades for playing the role of a specially-abled character, who not only changes her life but also the lives of children from economically backward areas by not succumbing to life's obstacles.

China has opened up to Indian movies significantly over the past few years.

Be it Aamir Khan's "Three Idiots", "PK" or "Dangal", Irrfan Khan's "Hindi Medium", Salman Khan's "Bajrangi Bhaijaan" or S.S. Rajamouli's mega-hit "Baahubali: The Conclusion" or Akshay Kumar's "Toilet - Ek Prem Katha" -- they have all hit the right notes in China, which has a limited quota for foreign films.



After dating each other for about five years, Sonam Kapoor and Anand Ahuja finally got hitched in a private ceremony in Mumbai in attendance of their families and friends. Sonam and Anand tied the knot in a traditional ceremony on May 8. The wedding festivities ended on a high note, with a star-studded reception on the same night.

The couple has been winning hearts with their oh-so-adorable pictures from Italy. Recently, Sonam Kapoor and hubby Anand Ahuja were in Italy to attend the Ambani engagement bash. The gala affair took place at Lake Como, Italy and saw the high and mighty celebs making their presence felt. The couple shared a passionate kiss while they were out relaxing.

Check out the post here:A "Cherokee" tribe is said to be interested in pursuing a casino in Georgia, according to The Jackson Herald.

The paper said a 1,000-acre site in Maysville is under consideration. The area is only about 60 miles outside of Atlanta, making it attractive for a casino.

The tribe wasn't named in a summary posted by the paper. The United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians at one point was said to be interested in returning to its ancestral lands in Georgia.

We cant come back as fast as Georgia kicked us out, a tribal official said in February 2017 when reports surfaced about the tribe's potential plans.

Nothing concrete surfaced after that story. But lawmakers are considering plans to legalize casino-style gaming, Bisnow Atlanta reported, which could rekindle interest.

Meanwhile, the tribe is pursuing a casino closer to its headquarters in Oklahoma. Plans for a facility in the city of Enid would require approval from both the Bureau of Indian Affairs as well as the state governor.

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Related StoriesBittersweet ruling strikes down ICWA

PIERRE  On September 14, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit vacated a lower court ruling that challenged the constitutionality of 48 hour hearings, some lasting as little as 60 seconds, that took Indian children from their families and placed them in custody of the South Dakota Department of Social Services.

The 2013 class action lawsuit, filed in Federal Court by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on behalf of the Oglala and Rosebud Sioux Tribes, alleged that state judges and state social workers removed Indian children from their homes in violation of their constitutional and Indian Child Welfare Act rights.

According to ACLU, the lawsuit sought to halt state judges and social workers from removing Indian children from their homes unless the parents are provided with basic guarantees of due process of law and rights afforded by the Indian Child Welfare Act. These include the right to a fair and prompt hearing, the right to notice of the charges against them, the right to an attorney, the right to present evidence, and the right to cross-examine the state's witnesses.

South Dakota Department of Social Services issued a press release heralding the September 14 ruling as a victory , The opinion overturns the district courts prior orders which granted partial summary judgment and declaratory and injunctive relief for plaintiffs in a case that challenged state court proceedings in 48-hour custody hearings involving temporary removal of Indian children due to emergency circumstances. The decision sends the case back to the district court with instructions to dismiss the claims that give rise to the orders.

Although this is an ongoing case, the department is pleased with the decision issued by the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, said state Department of Social Services Secretary Lynne Valenti.

The Eighth Circuit based its ruling on a procedural issue called the abstention doctrine stating that the federal court should not have been involved.

"The issue is whether the federal court should refrain from exercising jurisdiction and allow the claims to be resolved in the state proceedings," Judge Steven Colloton of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit wrote in the September 14 decision

Senior ACLU Staff Attorney Steven Pevar in an interview with Native Sun News Today stated, Essentially the Eighth Circuit Court held that we should have filed our complaints and allegations in state court. The abstention doctrine broadly holds that the federal court should abstain when doing so would interfere with ongoing state proceedings. In other words with these 48 hour hearings, the parents should have raised these claims in state court.

In 2015, Chief Federal District Court Judge Jeffrey L. Viken ruled in favor of the plaintiffs and found that the state had violated the rights of Indian parents and confirmed that: State employees were removing children from their homes and then holding hearings in state court within 48 hours, in which parents were not assigned counsel to represent them, were not given a copy of the petition accusing them of wrongdoing, and no state employee was called to testify. Moreover, the parents were not permitted to testify, call witnesses, or cross-examine any state employee.

Attorney Dana Hanna. Courtesy photo Attorney Stephen Pevar. Courtesy photo Judge Steven Colloton. Photo: Robert Westrich

However, 18 months later, in August 2016, Viken found it necessary to convene a compliance hearing as the state continued to disregard his ruling. In December of 2016 Viken ordered an immediate halt to further violations and issued a formal injunction stating failure to comply could result in a contempt of court violation.

In a nutshell Judge Viken found they violated eight federal rights during those 48 hour hearings, Pevar said and since that ruling the state has radically changed the way it conducts those hearings. The judge issued an injunction to make eight changes and they made those changes. The families, children and tribes have already benefitted from the case.

The Eighth Circuit Court didnt say Judge Viken was wrong, they are just saying the families should have filed in state court and made their complaints known, Pevar explained.

The Senior ACLU attorney said he hates to lose any case, however the newest ruling is bittersweet, If you lose a case where the defendants have already made the changes we asked for, then essentially the families have already won.

At the 48 hour hearings, parents now have the right to an attorney, the affidavit of the charges against them, the right to a fair and prompt hearing, the right to present evidence, and the right to cross-examine the state's witnesses he said.

I really doubt that the state will go back to their old ways, Pevar continued.

Rapid City Attorney Dana Hanna applauds the changes DSS and the courts have made.

The procedures that we are now following, created a much more fair procedure that hadnt existed before we filed the lawsuit, Hanna said. We are hopeful that the States Attorney in Pennington County will want to continue with the system that we created, even though the circuit court is ruling that he is not ordered to do so.

8th Circuit Court of Appeals Decision

Contact Ernestine Chasing Hawk at sales3@nativesunnews.today

Copyright permission Native Sun News Today

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Related StoriesAmerican Southern Plantation Colonial Mentality

By Dr. Arthur W. ZimigaNative Sun News Today Columnist

The American Southern Plantation Colonial Mentality as described by foreign governments and many Americans is for example their thoughts on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in Western South Dakota. As a matter fact this includes all the created American Indian Reservations in the United States. Indian Reservations have been depicted as unworthy cultural entities, the most reprehensible characterized groups within the United States.

For example, the Lakota Oyate many dehumanizing words far inappropriate have been used to disgrace and label the Lakota people. The fear and resentment was followed by hatred was created by the US Military, Governmental Administration and US Congress. It became a common practice in middle of the 1800s for squatters, homesteaders, merchants, and governmental officials to openly scorn the Lakota people. Many US Citizens used this phrasing which had its orientation in the deep American Southern Plantation Colonial Settlements. Even in the eastern United States it was a common practice to mock the Lakota people relating to them as a defeated Nation having only limited abilities to govern themselves.

As the War against Brothers ended, the American Civil War 1861-1865, as the Lakota called it, started the Lakota land grab in the West. The same tactics of Treaty Making with the United States and US Military begin with the Lakota people in 1851 and 1868. The United States Government was bankrupt after the American Civil War with large deficit spending besides increase growing poverty in the East and South. New politicians solutions were seeking the coming of the second El Dorado in the west. The vision focused on the trespassing gold discovery in the Black Hills of the Dakota Territory. Bankers, land developers, speculators, immigrants, miners and swarming unemployed city people all looked to the West for the second coming of exploitation and wealth gathering. The only problem was the Lakota Oyate owned the land and the resources upon them. The Americans interpretation allegedly they held the area in trust under government agreement stated in the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights recognized by the United State Government. The 1868 Treaty in fact clearly spell it out and declaring the area in question was Lakota Homeland.

The United States could not legally take Lakota land without just compensations as established by International Law. They were a Sovereign Nation as stated in the US Constitution with all the nationality legal rights to govern and determine for their selves their own destiny as a free people. These over failing treaty arrangements stated clearly the Lakota people did not want the enactment of US Federal powers settlements. They were not US Citizens and they did not want to be governed by the United States. The Lakota Nation already had treaties and trade agreements before with England, Spain, France and other Tribal Nations identifying Lakota sovereignty and their place of origin. It would be Lakota Oyate land as long as the grass grows and the waters flow was stated in the 1851 and 1868 Treaties as written declarations. A sovereign nation established with all the rights given to them by their Creator and ancestral privileged authenticities included language, customs, rituals, and ownership.

Pine Ridge Sioux Indian Reservation once the Red Cloud Agency was and still is made into a primary American Southern Plantation Colonist Settlements. The Reservation was and still has a strong characteristic identification with colonialism and racism. These historical facts and the Lakota peoples journey of intervention with imposing US federal laws, Treaties of Broken Promises, limited Lakota culture and heritage education was forced with the description of being called Oglala Sioux. Then followed was the mandatory narrative designated as the Pine Ridge Oglala Sioux Indian Reservation. This was imposing to say the less by totally negating the sovereignty of the Oglala Lakota Teton Oyate. The foreigner names: Sioux, Indian, American Indian, family name changes or indigenous was substituted to disenfranchise and disinherit the Lakota Oyate (Nation) from their homeland, culture and natural resources. The United States Government had implemented its own classic INDIAN GOVERNMENTAL REFORM POLICY, This Indian Governmental Reform Policy was created in order to have oversite and authority over Sioux People whom they described in their American political congressional strategies and administration.

The United States historical texts of these implanted names were used in creating the identifications for the destruction of the Lakota people. The facts these reports were used solely for the purposes of dehumanizing, racist prejudice, white superiority, and colonial governance in order to destroy Lakota leadership. When Lakota leadership called for the Lakota Reform Policy of the governing powers of the United States in 1873 many were threatened, jailed, beaten, murdered or regard as unworthy to be called Sioux Leaders by the United States Government and US Military. They were named the Wild Oglala, renegades, and hostiles because they wanted to insure the freedom to be called the Lakota Oyate Nation/people not US Government Indians.

Large numbers of Free Lakota did not sign any treaty. They had been promised to have their own Lakota set aside lands so they could live their lives away from the drunkenness and exploitation by outsiders. These tormenting behaviors by those who continually frequent the Government forts, Indian agencies, frontier towns and mining camps created discontentment and encouraged lawlessness, rape, prostitution, women suffrage, human tariffing and discontentment amongst the Wasicu (fat taker) and also between the Lakota they called Indians. Disruption of the life style chosen for them by the US Government was a life sentence of dissatisfaction and social suffering. All the while the Free Lakota were being forced with rifles, swords, pistols and bayonets pointed at their backs by U.S. Soldiers and mounted US Calvary prodding the Lakota families. Free Lakota leadership grudgingly marched to the US Federal chosen Indian Reservation lands fearful the people would be killed if they did not follow.

The dream of reform for the Lakota people never left their minds and has been pasted down from one generation to another. The Free Oglala leadership had and has seen the weakness of those who were selected to lead and knew of the disappointments that would follow. Several small Lakota families escaped to the Black Hills where they were born and raised. They continued to reside there without any federal intervention because the US Government did not want to recreate any new problems while the majority of the Reservation Indians submitted to US Federal directives. This is even true today a great number of Oglala Lakota people live off the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation as well as other Sioux Reservations in the Black Hills seeking a better life for themselves and their families. Rapid City has one of the largest numbers of Lakota people living there in the entire State of South Dakota followed by Sioux Falls.

This is the dark continues legacy and shabby treatment by the US Government toward the Lakota people who suffer the injustice of being denied human rights and agonized in unashamed discrimination. It can be said of American History, from the various religious pulpits, to the lectern stand of education institutions, federal and state legislators, governmental agencies, Presidential decrees and US Congressional hearings and legal chambers the colonized word Sioux, Reservation and wards of the government can still be heard. Every immigrant, homesteader, pilgrims, refugee and illegal alien in search of the American Dream looking for freedom are walking on the backs of Native Americans sufferings of the past and present.

Art Zimiga is an Oglala Lakota. He holds a PhD from Harvard and is now retired.

Copyright permission Native Sun News Today

Join the ConversationRepublicans are intent on advancing the high-stakes nomination of Brett Kavanaugh even as more Alaska Natives come forward to oppose the controversial U.S. Supreme Court pick.

The GOP chairman of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary scheduled a vote on Kavanaugh on Friday , just a day after the panel is due to hear from the nominee and a professor who came forward with a sexual assault allegation. But Native elders are calling for a more thorough investigation of the claims, which date back to the judge's teen years in the early 1980s.

Violence against our Native women and children in Alaska is not part of our culture, but is unfortunately an epidemic in Alaska," the Bering Sea Elders Group said in a newly-adopted resolution. "A persons actions, beliefs, and ways of being show you who they are, and it is our way to know a person, their actions, their beliefs, and their way of being before elevating them to an important position in the community."

"Kavanaugh has been accused of sexual assault and attempted rape and this should be fully investigated, the elders continued

Though the group is small in numbers, it represents elders from 39 tribes in Alaska's Yukon-Kuskokwim and Bering Strait regions . And their stance underscores the role of Alaska's two U.S. Senators in determining the fate of Kavanaugh's imperiled nomination.

Arrests of Alaskan Indigenous activists now taking place outside Dan Sullivans office. We came here to ask him to #CancelKavanaugh. This is how hes responded. #BelieveSurvivors Posted by Women's March on Tuesday, September 25, 2018 Arrested: Alaska Native activist Fred John, wearing a red sweatshirt, can be seen toward the end of a video clip shared on Facebook by Women's March.

In hopes of swaying Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), some Native activists and allies went all the way to Washington, D.C., to protest the rushed nature of this week's proceedings. They ended up being arrested outside of his office by the U.S. Capitol police on Tuesday, according to a video posted by the Women's March group.

Among those who were arrested was Fred John , who is the 75-year-old son of the late Katie John , the Native matriarch whose subsistence rights battles remain active in the legal system. One such case, known as Sturgeon v. Frost , will be heard by the Supreme Court on November 5.

"The importance of subsistence fishing to Alaska Native subsistence users cannot be overestimated," attorneys for Nora David, Katie John's daughter, wrote in a brief to the high court

"Nora David is Katie Johns daughter and representative of the John family seeking to preserve her mothers legacy," the brief states.

In addition to Sturgeon, three Indian law cases from the lower 48 states, affecting everything from treaty rights to sovereign borders, are on the docket. The workload has the Alaska Federation of Natives , the largest organization of its kind in the state; the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Tribes ; which represents over 30,000 citizens, Alaska Gov. Bill Walker (I) and Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott (D), who is Tlingit; as well as the Bering Sea Elders Group alarmed about Kavanaugh's understanding of their issues.

According to the Bering Sea Elders Group, "Kavanaugh has demonstrated he does not understand the inherent status, rights, and roles of federally recognized tribes and puts at risk the 229 federally recognized tribes in Alaska.

Kavanaugh's "overly narrow and legally incorrect views of the relationship between federal and tribal governments will jeopardize the Indian Child Welfare Act, the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, the Violence Against Women Act, and other laws related to our self-determination," the resolution states.

Last week the Bering Sea Elders Group (BSEG) held its annual Summit at which we passed several resolutions, including a... Posted by Bering Sea Elders Group on Monday, September 24, 2018

But Sullivan, who is serving his first term in the Senate, does not think Kavanaugh threatens the rights of the first Americans and he has previously indicated his support for the nomination. In a statement released after the arrests, he pointed out that his wife and children are Native.

"As I stated before, if I believed or saw evidence that Judge Kavanaughs views were somehow opposed or hostile to Alaska Natives  a very important population of our state that includes my wife, daughters, and mother-in-law  I would not support his confirmation," Sullivan said in the statement

"Lastly, on recent claims made against Judge Kavanaugh. I would like to reiterate that allegations of sexual assault should be taken seriously. Both Professor Ford and Judge Kavanaugh deserve the right to be heard on this matter," he added, referring to Christine Blasey Ford, who is due to testify at the Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday

When asked about the need for an investigation into the Kavanaugh allegations, which include an additional claim reported by The New Yorker , Murkowski said on Tuesday: It would sure clear up all the questions, wouldnt it? in a video posted by NBC News

Asked if there should be an FBI investigation into Judge Kavanaughs past, Sen. Murkowski says: It would sure clear up all the questions, wouldnt it? pic.twitter.com/jMKzXjqY8h  NBC News (@NBCNews) September 25, 2018

The Judiciary Committee hearing takes place at 10am Eastern on Thursday. The only people on the witness list are Dr. Ford and Judge Kavanaugh, and the only person who apparently will be able to ask them questions is Rachel Mitchell, a prosecutor who was hired by the Republican majority.

"The goal is to de-politicize the process and get to the truth, instead of grandstanding and giving senators an opportunity to launch their presidential campaigns," Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the chairman of the committee, said in a statement on Tuesday

The executive business meeting is due to take place at 9:30am Eastern on Friday. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California), the top Democrat on the panel, questioned why a vote was scheduled so quickly.

Its clear to me that Republicans dont want this to be a fair process, Feinstein said in a statement

The Supreme Court's October 2018 term starts on October 1. Republicans have long hoped to confirm Kavanaugh in time for the session and could still get him seated in the next few days if they are able to clear the committee vote and get the nomination to the Senate floor early next week.

Of the four Indian and Native cases on the docket, the Supreme Court has scheduled arguments for two. Washington State Department of Licensing v. Cougar Den , a treaty and taxation case affecting the Yakama Nation , will be heard on October 30. Sturgeon, the Alaska subsistence case, will be heard a week later, on November 5.

The court has yet to schedule arguments in Herrera v. Wyoming , another treaty rights case , this one involving the Crow Tribe . A date for a hearing in Royal v. Murphy , a high-profile reservation boundary dispute affecting the Muscogee (Creek) Nation , is also pending.

Senate Committee on the Judiciary Notices

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Related StoriesA horrific incident of a man beating another to death by wielding an axe in broad daylight has left the common people in shudders.

The video of the murder, which took place on a busy street in Hyderabad shows a man in a yellow-coloured shirt killing another man mercilessly. A crowd of around hundred people witnessed the event and a police van can also be seen passing by.

Reportedly, eyewitnesses alleged that there were three cops inside the van but they didnt stop by to take control of the situation.

Warning : Very disturbing pictures : Murder on a busy road in #Hyderabad in front a police vehicle. Shocking. pic.twitter.com/k19G1Q5Uwo  T S Sudhir (@Iamtssudhir) September 26, 2018

A few of the people present at the spot try to stop the ruthless man but he doesnt give up. While one of the men throws a hat at him, another one intervenes to push him back. After hacking the man to death, the accused strikes a pose like a hero as a crowd watches the entire episode.

Journalist T.S Sudhir posted a video of the same on micro-blogging site Twitter and alleged that the murder happened in Rajendranagar-Attarpur area of Hyderabad. This area comes under the Cyberabad police jurisdiction.

Ramesh, the man who was killed today, is Accused number 1 in the murder of one Mahesh Goud, who was killed in Dec 2017. Mahesh's relatives killed Ramesh. The police defence is that the traffic cops went to fetch lathis but by the time they returned, the duo had killed Ramesh.  T S Sudhir (@Iamtssudhir) September 26, 2018

It is being ascertained that the man who was beaten to death was known as Ramesh who was the main accused in the death of another person, Mahesh Goud killed in December 2017.

Maheshs relative killed Ramesh, writes Sudhir in one of his tweets. Though two assailants in this incident have been arrested, a probe is on-going. The police is looking at this killing as a revenge-murder.The Apple-1, one of the first ready-made computers from the company, is an iconic piece of the companys history. Its also incredibly rare, with only 200 ever made.

And now, one of these antique desktops just sold at an auction for over Rs 2.7 crore.

RR Auction

The Apple-1 in question here belonged to Corey Cohen, an expert technology restorer. Bought in 1977 for $666, he restored it to its original working state, and its now been sold at an auction for $375,000 (approximately Rs 2.72 crore).

The Apple-1 was a milestone for the company, being that it was one of the first PCs that didnt require assembly when bought. Conceived by Apple co-founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, they initially only sold them in Palo Alto's Homebrew Computer Club, and then The Byte Shop in Mountain View, California through 1976 and 77.

The two only ever produced 200, and sold only 150. The auctioned Apple-1 is believed to be one of only 60-70 remaining in the whole world. More importantly though, it was the first personal computer Apple ever manufactured, which served as the blueprint for its more polished descendant, the Apple Mac.A female journalist in Saudi Arabia made history as she became the first woman news presenter to deliver an evening newscast on state-owned television. Weam Al Dakheel garnered a lot of attention after she was seen co-hosting the news bulletin alongside a male news anchor.

Alongside anchor Omar Al Nashwan, she appeared to present the news on TV and became the first female in the history of state-owned Channel 1 to present the nightly 9:30 newscast.

The Khaleej Times reported explaining why this is a significant milestone, Traditionally, men have dominated hard newscasts in Saudi Arabia, while female presenters focused more on soft morning newscasts, womens programmes, cooking shows and weather updates,

# |   :            . pic.twitter.com/54xl02356f     (@saudiatv) September 24, 2018

Jumanah AlShami was the first women to present morning newscasts in 2016. Today history repeats itself as #WeamAlDakheel becomes the presenter of the main nightly newscast, setting a precedent in a historic first for Saudi TV 1, the channel said on its official Twitter handle on Thursday.If you are looking to hear about a weird story we have just the one for you.

A fig seed in a murdered man's stomach grew into a tree - is that weird enough?

Picture For Representation

According to reports, this story is about Ahmet Hergune who was killed during the conflict between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots in 1974, but his body went missing for decades.

A researcher spotted a fig tree growing in an unusual place in the mountains and so he dug the area around the tree and was horrified to find remains of a human body there.

The dead man had been taken into a cave with two others and both of them had been killed by dynamite that was then thrown in after them, reports Live Science.

Facebook/ Remains that were found

The dynamite also blew a hole in the side of the cave, which allowed light to enter. And that's probably what allowed the fig tree to grow from the man's body.

The bodies remained missing for close to 40 years. "For years we searched for my brother in vain," said 87-year-old Munur Herguner, Hergunes sister

Munur Herguner added that her brother was believed to have been the one that had eaten the fig, and blood samples from her family matched DNA fragments which confirmed it was her brother's final resting place, reports the Mirror.India is a major global producer of flake graphite. The country has been ranked amongst the top five graphite producers by the USGS, with reserves of nearly 11m tonnes.

Graphite occurrences are reported from different states including Jammu and Kashmir, Arunachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Odisha, Chattisgarh and Rajasthan.

However, the deposits of economic importance are located in Andhra Pradesh, Chattisgarh and Arunachal Pradesh, which are yet to be exploited. As far as mining and processing of graphite is concerned, Jharkhand, Odisha and Tamil Nadu are the only states where operations are being conducted.

Indian graphite resources

 Reserves - 10.75m tonnes

 Resources available - 158.02m tonnes

Table 4: Indian graphite industry - Operational reserves and available resources 2013

States Graphite reserves Andhra Pradesh 0.43 Arunachal Pradesh 72.75 Chattisgarh 1.01 Gujarat 3.35 Jammu & Kashmir 62.74 Jharkhand 10.37 Karnataka 0.26 Kerala 1.45 Maharashtra 1.16 Odisha 5.42 Rajasthan 1.91 Tamil Nadu 7.91





(*Quantity in tonnes)

Source: Geological Survey of India

Graphite resources

Of the total graphite resources available in India, Arunachal Pradesh accounts for 43%; followed by Jammu & Kashmir (37%), Jharkhand (6%), Tamil Nadu (5%) and Odisha (3%) (Figure 1).

However, in terms of reserves, Tamil Nadu holds the leading share of about 37%, followed by Jharkhand (30%) and Odisha (29%), as these are the only operational graphite spots (Figure 2).

Figure 1: Total India graphite resources





Figure 2: Operational Indian graphite resources





Figure 3: Indian graphite producers

Source: Geological Survey of India, IM Data

Graphite production

Being one of the major producers of natural crystalline flake graphite, India registered production of 30,000 tonnes in 2013, down 14% from the previous year due to lower demand and the temporary closure of mines.

The estimated production for 2014 is expected to be limited to 20,000-25,000 tonnes due to the lack of required infrastructure, energy resources, toughening government legislation and increasing environmental regulations.

Out of the total production, eight principal producers including Tirupati Carbon & Graphite, Chotanagpur Graphite Industries, Carbon & Graphite Products, Agrawal Graphite Industries, Pradhan Industries, T.P. Minerals, G.R. Graphite and TAMIN Minerals account for nearly 85% of the total production, while the remaining 15% is contributed by other small miners (Figure 3).

The illustrated map (Figure 4) highlights major graphite resources in India, operational mines and leading graphite producers in Jharkhand, Tamil Nadu and Odisha.

Figure 4: Indian graphite map





Current market scenario

India currently produces around 89 minerals under different groups, with fuel minerals, metallic minerals, non-metallic minerals, atomic minerals and minor minerals. The country has immense potential for mining resources and reserves and is currently among the top 10 global producers of many industrial minerals.

Graphite is another major mineral produced in the country and, according to IMs Natural Graphite 2012 Report, India is the fourth largest producer of graphite in the world. The countrys graphite production dropped by 15% to 30,000 tonnes last year and is likely to fall below the 25,000 tonne mark this year.

This is mainly owing to toughening government regulations, increased judicial scrutiny and adverse mining conditions, which are not only restricting existing producers expansions but also keeping explorers at bay.

According to market sources, the Indian graphite market is showing a downtrend since last year. Although the market is improving as industries move back into production, another downfall cannot be ruled out because of the recent orders passed by the Supreme Court of India which are going to negatively affect the sector (See table 6).

Many miners in the mineral-rich states of Jharkhand, Karnataka, Odisha and Tamil Nadu are struggling because of the bans imposed and increased judicial scrutiny.

Table 5: Major graphite producers

Company State Mining Projects Production Capacity Tirupati Carbons & Chemicals Jharkhand Rabda, Gaura, Ekta 20,000 tpa Chotanagpur Graphite Industries Jharkhand Satbarwa Bishrampur 10,000 tpa Carbon & Graphite Products Jharkhand Latehar, Palamu 7,000 tpa Agrawal Graphite Industries Odisha Belpara, Sambalpur 10,000 tpa Pradhan Industries Odisha Rayagada 12000 tpa T.P. Minerals Pvt. Ltd. Odisha Dangachacha, Sargipali 8,000 tpa G.R. Graphite Industries Odisha Balibandha, Sambalpur 6,000 tpa Tamil Nadu Minerals Limited Tamil Nadu Sivagangai, Madurai 8,400 tpa





Table 6: Major Challenges in the Indian Mining Industry

New Government Although the new government aims to modernise its mining industry, the policies and procedures yet remain unclear. Environmental clearances To obtain environmental clearance is mandatory, however the procedure is time consuming and the decision is mainly at the discretion of Supreme Court. Social license to operate Opposition from local landowners living near mining areas has made it even difficult to obtain a social licence. Infrastructure access Access to energy resources, transportation and skilled labour is limited. Competition for land usage Problems related to land usage for new mines amidst legal, environmental and social concerns. Fraud and corruption Lack of transparencies in policies is fuelling corrupt practices. Regulations Regulatory and policy framework is outdated.





Major developments

Overseas expansion

Amidst the prevailing industrial turmoil, it has become more difficult for existing miners or new players to invest in mining before they meet the required regulations.

According to market sources new projects in India are substantially delayed when awaiting final clearances owing to increased regulation. In light of the current mining environment in India, it will be a while before new projects in India materialise.

Consequently, many producers have started looking for other feasible graphite resources available outside the country. Another major graphite producer of the country has acquired a 25km2 mine with large flake graphite deposits in Madagascar.

According to the company, detailed exploration in the delineated target area is in progress and considering the present timelines, the company expects to roll output of 12,000 tpa of large flake graphite from the project by Q4 2015.Shootin' the Bull Swift Trading Company - 49 minutes ago Feeder cattle are in a pitch battle with feed costs. As the higher fed cattle price is anticipated to be friendly towards both, I anticipate the two to jockey back and forth as they have this week. ...

Chart of the Day: Ranpack - A Top 100 Stock Barchart - 1 hour ago The Barchart Chart of the Day belongs to the paper products company Ranpack (NYSE: PACK ). I found the stock by sorting Barchart's Top 100 Stocks list first by the most frequent number of new highs... PACK : 40.45 (+1.53%)

Sugar Prices Settle Mixed on Weakness in Crude Barchart - 1 hour ago March NY world sugar #11 (SBH22 ) on Friday closed down -0.11 (-0.55%), and Dec London white sugar #5 (SWZ21 ) closed up +4.40 (+0.84%). Sugar prices on Friday settled mixed with London sugar climbing... SBH22 : 20.01s (-0.55%) SWH22 : 516.10s (+0.02%) CLZ21 : 80.86 (-0.89%)

Cocoa Prices Consolidate This Week's Gains Barchart - Fri Nov 12, 1:33PM CST Dec ICE NY cocoa (CCZ21 ) on Friday closed down -15 (-0.60%), and Dec ICE London cocoa #7 (CAZ21 ) closed down -16 (-0.95%). Cocoa prices on Friday closed moderately lower as they consolidated below Wednesday's... CCH22 : 2,525s (-0.47%) CAH22 : 1,703s (-0.93%)

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Cattle Market Weaker Barchart - Fri Nov 12, 11:39AM CST Front month fat cattle futures are 27 to 87 cents in the red for Fridays midday. Feeders are down by triple digits so far reflecting the higher corn market. Cash sales so far for this week had been... LEZ21 : 132.125s (+0.19%) LEJ22 : 139.900s (-0.25%) GFX21 : 156.250s (-0.68%) GFF22 : 157.725s (-0.85%)The submission, prepared by counsel assisting the commission, raised the prospect of an outright ban on selling insurance through outbound call centres, Fairfax Media reported.

Should the direct sale of insurance via outbound telephone calls be banned? If not, is the current regulatory regime governing the direct sale of insurance via outbound telephone calls adequate to avoid consumer detriment? the submission said.

Outbound calls account for the majority of the sales of a number of life-insurance distributors, including the embattled ASX-listed Freedom Insurance, but ASIC has been highly critical of the aggressive sales tactics often used by the businesses to sell insurance via unsolicited phone calls, the report said.

The submission also proposed a ban on the sale of add-on insurance by motor dealers, which the corporate regulator slammed as expensive and often useless.

The commission lawyers also questioned the insurance companies treatment of claimants with mental-health conditions, after the inquiry heard that people making mental-health claims were more likely to be surveilled by their insurer.

Should life insurers be prevented from engaging in surveillance of an insured who has a diagnosed mental-health condition or who is making a claim based on a mental-health condition? the submission said.

Another key issue raised relates to the banning of conflicted remuneration from general and life insurance, as the commission continues to unveil problematic incentives offered to financial-sector workers.

The submission additionally questioned whether there was any reason to exempt the insurance

industry from unfair contract terms, and whether ASIC should regulate insurance-claims handling, which is currently only policed by the industry.

The Insurance Council of Australia and the Financial Services Council, which represents life insurance companies, are yet to comment on the questions, Fairfax said.I think different parts of the industry are in different stages of development, said Baxter. Larger corporates are moving in that direction quite quickly, in part because shareholders expect that. But for the small broker space in the suburbs, you might not see as much emphasis on diversity and inclusion.

Baxter noted that there is variety of reasons why businesses may be resistant to change; sometimes it may be a lack of education or awareness, while there are those who are simply stuck in older patterns. Accordingly, wider societal pressure can be leveraged as a positive means of change.

I know it sounds a bit cliched, but if brokers want to effectively represent their customers  who come from all across Australias population  theyre going to have to be open to different types of people, said Baxter.

On another level, Baxter noted that diversity is not simply the right thing to do, it also serves a tangible financial purpose.

The research shows that people who are happier in the workplace work more effectively, and so the business makes more money, said Baxter. Diversity makes good business sense.

Baxter also highlighted the importance of symbolic gestures too, which can serve a greater function than many realise. He points to the Housing Outlook report, which he worked on for QBE last year.

We made a conscious decision to include a gay couple in the Housing Outlook report, said Baxter. Now on the surface, thats a small thing  but it also serves as a symbol for the customer base as a whole. Its an opportunity for them to see themselves represented.

The Dive In Festival finishes in Sydney today.A writ filed by Maurice Blackburn lawyers on behalf of Augustine to the WA District Court said the 60-year-old lodged a claim for insurance benefits through OnePath Life, and alleged the insurer promised to pay her a monthly benefit of more than $2,000, so long as she was totally disabled due to illness, Fairfax Media reported.

The ANZ-owned insurer declined the application for the benefit in 2015, and again after a review of the original decision was carried out.

Augustine told WAtoday her cancer treatment caused her bones to become extremely brittle and made her unable to work.

Last year, she underwent surgery after a contact with a kerb caused her to break her tibia. She also required surgery earlier this year because of a ripped tendon on her shoulder.

Augustine also tried to go back to work last year, but she eventually quit because she found it very hard.

Maurice Blackburn lawyers said Augustine and her husband, Geralds, meeting with a financial adviser was central to the case.

In one of the meetings, the adviser made an electronic application for insurance through OnePath Life. The application was completed with the adviser encoding Augustines answers to the questions. The necessary forms were later signed by Augustine to process the application.

But Maurice Blackburn alleged the electronic application was riddled with mistakes, such as that Augustine had never been pregnant, when she has four children.

Meanwhile, OnePath Life claimed that Augustine did not fully disclose her medical history and would have exceeded the maximum number of exclusions under the policy. These exclusions related to knee, back, shoulder, and other health issues.

In response, Maurice Blackburn lawyers said that none of those exclusions related to the reasons why Augustine stopped working.

"Marjory met with an insurance adviser and gave honest and open answers to all questions put to her," Phil Gleeson, Maurice Blackburn principal, told the publication. "The rejection of Marjory's insurance claim is a terrible blow for someone battling cancer. It is made more hurtful when the rejection is for non-disclosure and yet it is glaringly obvious to anyone reading a form where a mother of four children denies ever being pregnant that her actual answers clearly have not made their way into her application form.

An ANZ spokesman said the company was "aware of the matter and was looking into it."

"We are continuing to engage in good faith with the customers solicitors about some of the complex details involved in this matter," the spokesman told Fairfax. "While it is currently before the court it would be inappropriate to comment any further at this stage."Andrew Boal, head of Australasia for Willis Towers Watson played host to the event, with attendees including representatives from ANZIIF, Arthur J. Gallagher, AXA XL, Berkshire Hathaway, Chubb Australia, Insurance Council of Australia, JLT, Lloyds Australia, Macquarie Bank, Marsh, Munich Re, QBE, Steadfast and Zurich.

We discussed a lot of things that businesses are already doing well, as well as some of the challenges we face in this area, said Boal. We also agreed that we need to hold ourselves more accountable for diversity and inclusiveness at the leadership level.

Boal stressed the importance of leaders being accountable to the wider public, citing comparisons to AICDs approach to achieving gender balance on ASX 200 boards.

Theres a real strength in setting targets, making your goals public and owning your commitment, said Boal. One attendee commented that you can only be what you can see  so that puts the onus on us to support the development of diversity at the leadership level in our businesses.

Boal also noted that encouraging diversity would require new approaches within the workplace, rethinking traditional workplace roles and how they are filled.

If were going to move the needle on diversity, that also means we need to look outside the industry for talent, and provide new criteria for roles were looking to fill, said Boal. Theres lots of diverse talent available, but theyre not necessarily feeling encouraged to step forward  we need to change that, and do our best to support diverse talent in reaching and succeeding in leadership roles.

The Dive In Festival finishes in Sydney today.They dont have insurance, Craig Stewart of the Insurance Bureau of Canada told CBC News. They are at the good graces of [the] governments, Red Cross, and any donations the community can provide to support them.

David Bergevin is one of those homeowners whose lack of insurance has left him helpless even after the storms have passed.

Bergevin owns an apartment unit in Gatineau, Quebec, where he lives with his girlfriend and stepson. Unfortunately, his building was particularly hard hit by the weekend storm. Although the structure still stands, the wind damage has left his unit exposed to leaking rainwater, damaging whatever household belongings that survived following the tornado.

They have told us [that the structure is unsafe], Bergevin told CBC News, But then all of a sudden, its now considered safe. I dont even understand, to be honest.

To Bergevins misfortune, his lack of renters insurance means he cannot have the leaks repaired to stop further water damage. His family also cannot afford a storage unit or even a moving truck to temporarily keep their possessions safe and dry.

He was also sent an email that directed his family to clear the apartment as soon as possible.

After everything that has happened, Bergevins family hopes to find an affordable place to live.

Right now, its a race against time. But with everything thats going on  lack of money and lack of resources  we dont really know from one second to the next, he remarked.

They might not be out of the woods yet, as costs for temporary living might be another problem.

[The] city is telling us that there are apartments in and around town, said Canadian Red Cross vice-president for Quebec Pascal Mathieu. The thing is, its a matter of price. Will we find enough apartments at reasonable prices? Thats the challenge, and I dont have the answers yet.

Mathieu, however, offered assurances that Gatineau is working on the issue.

Related stories:

Two tornadoes hit Ottawa-Gatineau area  could cause millions in insured damage

IBC: 2018 summer storms in the Prairies caused over $200 million in insured damageIn 2015, four Florida residents and a Pennsylvania resident filed class-action lawsuits against mortgage servicing companies Caliber Home Loans and Specialized Loan Servicing, along with American Security Insurance Co. (ASIC), according to a report by Daily Business Review. The lawsuits alleged that the companies engaged in a scheme to inflate the costs of force-placed insurance. The suits alleged that Caliber and Specialized Loan Servicing received rebates from ASIC, but failed to pass the savings on to borrowers, Daily Business Review reported.

The lawsuits also alleged breach of contract, racketeering, and violations of the Federal Truth in Lending Act and the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.

However, in a 2-1 decision, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a US district court decision to dismiss the cases. According to the court, state regulators approved the rates charged by ASIC. The decision also cited a legal concept known as the filed-rate doctrine, which seeks to keep courts out of rate-setting decisions, according to Daily Business Review.

The plain language of the complaints  shows that the plaintiffs are challenging the reasonableness of ASICs premiums; and since these premiums are based upon rates filed with state regulators, plaintiffs are directly attacking those rates as being unreasonable as well, Judge Danny J. Boggs wrote in the courts majority opinion. Because the plaintiffs should be understood as meaning what they say, we find that they have challenged ASICs filed rate. As such, there can be no doubt that their causes of action are barred by the filed-rate doctrine.The U.S. Department of Labors Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has cited L.L.E. Construction LLC for exposing employees to fall and other hazards at a construction worksite in Bridgeport, Conn. The company faces $146,554 in proposed penalties.

OSHA inspectors observed employees installing shingles and a skylight without fall protection. The company was cited for failing to provide fall protection, train employees to recognize fall hazards and properly anchor fall protection equipment. It was also cited for using a damaged ladder and exposing employees to falls from ladders, failing to provide eye protection and conduct regular inspections of worksite, materials and equipment. OSHA cited the company for fall and eye protection hazards in 2010, 2012 and 2013.

L.L.E. Construction LLC has 15 business days from receipt of the citations and proposed penalties to comply, request an informal conference with OSHAs area director or contest the findings before the independent Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission.

Under the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, employers are responsible for providing safe and healthful workplaces for their employees. OSHAs role is to help ensure these conditions for Americas working men and women by setting and enforcing standards and providing training, education and assistance.

Source: U.S. Department of Labor

Topics Workers' Compensation Construction ConnecticutAXA XL announced two senior promotions within its Excess Casualty Insurance business.

Effective immediately Vivienne Moniz and Elaine Scully have been appointed as head of Excess Casualty, Bermuda, and head of Excess Casualty, Dublin, respectively.

Their responsibilities will include driving strategic growth and operational objectives within their regions and ensuring the highest degree of underwriting standards and profitability while maintaining superior broker and client satisfaction.

Moniz will report to Patrick Tannock, chief executive officer, Insurance, for XL Bermuda Ltd, With more than 15 years of industry experience, Moniz has held progressively senior roles within the company including most recently head of Healthcare, Bermuda. She holds a bachelors degree in business, specializing in international business from the University of LaTrobe, Melbourne Australia. She also has Associate in Claims and Chartered Property Casualty Underwriters designations.

Scully, who will report to Donnacha Smyth, AXA XL Insurance president, Global Excess Casualty, has more than 11 years of industry experience. Prior to her new role, Scully was senior underwriter, vice president with the Excess Casualty team in Dublin. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors, specializing in international insurance and European studies from the University of Limerick in Ireland. She has a Construction Risk and Insurance Specialist (CRIS) certification from the International Risk Management Institute and an ACII designation from the Chartered Insurance Institute.

AXA XL is a division of AXA Group, which operates through four business groups: AXA XL Insurance, AXA XL Reinsurance, AXA XL Art & Lifestyle and AXA XL Risk Consulting.

Source: AXA XL

Related:

Topics Excess Surplus AXA XL Casualty BermudaIndustry insured losses from Typhoon Mangkhut in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau will be between US$1 billion and US$2 billion, according to catastrophe risk modeling firm AIR Worldwide.

After making landfall in the Philippines, Typhoon Mangkhut doused a less densely populated agricultural area of Luzon with 300 millimeters (12 inches) of rain, with some regions receiving 700 mm (27 inches) of rain on Sept. 15. By the time it had crossed Luzon into the South China Sea later that day, Mangkhut had weakened to the intensity of a Category 3 storm.

The storm continued northwestward across the South China Sea over Sunday, Sept. 16, with wind speeds of about 160 km/h (100 mph), said Dr. Peter Sousounis, vice president and director of meteorology of Boston-based AIR Worldwide, a subsidiary of Verisk.

As it moved toward landfall in mainland China, Mangkhut bypassed Hong Kong and Macau, he added. The center of the typhoon passed 130 km west of Hong Kong and 70 km west of Macau, both of which felts its effects due to a massive wind field. Hurricane-force winds extended 160 km from its center and tropical storm force winds extended 510 km from its center. Storm surge was as high as 3.38 meters in Tai Po Kau, Hong Kong.

Mangkhut maintained its wind speed and made landfall in Taishan, Guangdong Province, China, at around 08:00 UTC (4 p.m. local time) on Sept. 16 as a Category 3 hurricane, bringing heavy rain and strong wind to the province before weakening to a tropical storm and moving farther inland, AIR said.

Record-breaking storm surges were recorded at Quarry Bay and at Tai Po Kau of 2.35 meters (7.7 feet) and 3.38 meters (11.1 feet) , respectively, surpassing the previous records of 1.77 meters (5.8 feet) in Quarry Bay from Typhoon Wanda in 1962 and 3.23 meters (10.6 feet) at Tai Po Kau from Typhoon Hope in 1979. Heavy precipitation brought waist-high flooding to some areas, inundating buildings, the modeling company continued.

AIR noted that glass windows on commercial skyscrapers in Hong Kong were shattered and contents were damaged, while hundreds of windows were smashed across the city. The storm tore off roofs, downed trees, toppled signs, and produced wind-borne debris.

In the resort city of Macau, the largest gambling hub in the world, all casinos were ordered to close for the first time ever. Power was cut to about 20,000 households in low-lying areas and the inner harbor. Extensive flooding impacted the area, rising above head height in some locations and damaging buildings and contents.

Along the coast of southern China, strong winds caused high rises to sway and blew out windows. Heavy precipitation and storm surge flooded coastal hotels and businesses; thousands of vehicles also suffered flood damage.

Source: AIR Worldwide

Related:

Topics Catastrophe Natural Disasters USA Profit Loss Flood ChinaInsurtech startup Coya has launched home content insurance cover, designed to be affordable, transparent and easily accessible. But Berlin-based Coya said home insurance is just the start and many other forms of insurance are planned.

Coyas flexible contracts can be cancelled at any time, have clear and understandable terms and conditions, while providing one of the best deals on the market, starting at 1.79 euro ($2.10) per month, the company said in a statement.

Users can become insured with only a few simple clicks on their smartphone or personal computer, Coya said. All clients need to do is type in basic information like name, postal code and size of their home, to directly receive their digital offer.

Coya.com is also available in English, so foreigners living in Germany can also get insurance. Being paperless, Coya puts an end to the chaos and sea of paper contracts.

Home contents damage can be reported via smartphone, said the company, noting that it is focusing on people who are comfortable with digital technologies, who prefer this type of interaction to visits from an insurance consultant.

Between long cancellation notices, complicated terms & conditions and cryptic paper contracts, insurance is not only an opaque but annoying matter for many people, the company affirmed

Micro Policies Planned

With new forms of technology like artificial intelligence, Coya plans to offer customized products adapted to clients individual needs. Coya also will soon offer so-called micro policies that allow clients to insure individual objects for only a few days or even hours. For certain products, Coya is also looking into partnerships with brands.

You can reach only new heights, if you set ambitious goals, says Coya founder Andrew Shaw. He was inspired to create an entirely digital and always accessible insurance after a trip when he fell ill on a distant tropical island. Our vision and the idea to create a new type of insurance that is adapted to a digital world began about two years ago.

Today, the company consists of a team of 60 people and is a licensed insurance company in Germany.

Digitalization has allowed us to be in direct contact with many clients at once, said Thomas Munkel, chairman of the board at Coya.

We want to make the insurance process so simple, that clients will not require assistance from a consultant to understand and use their plan, he continued. Naturally, we expect to be there for clients and help them not only in the case of an emergency and acute damage, but also supporting them in their day-to-day life.

With an investment of about $40 million after the Series-A investment round, Coya is supported (among others) by Valar Ventures, e.ventures, La Famiglia, yabeo and various different business angels such as Mato Peric and Rolf Schromgens.

Source: Coya

Topics InsurTech TechA Minnesota construction contractor has been charged with labor trafficking, insurance fraud and theft by swindle for using undocumented workers on his construction crews and threatening to have them deported unless they followed his orders, including working long hours without overtime pay, according to the Minnesota Commerce Department.

The Twin Cities contractor also did not provide workers compensation insurance, as required by state law. When one worker was severely injured on the job, he lied about how it happened and forced the worker to apply for public and charity medical assistance, totaling more than $45,000.

The charges were filed against Ricardo Batres, age 46, of Crystal, by the Hennepin County Attorneys Office, based on an investigation by the Minnesota Commerce Fraud Bureau.

Batres was arrested on Sept. 25 and is expected to make his first court appearance Wednesday or Thursday. Prosecutors have asked for bail of $200,000.

The case is one of the first times a labor trafficking charge has been brought in Minnesota. It is the result of information reported by labor unions, the Center for Workers United in Struggle (CTUL) and The Advocates for Human Rights.

By underpaying and failing to purchase workers compensation insurance, Mr. Batres took work away from employers and their workers who were playing by the rules, Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said in a statement. Further, when one of his employees was seriously injured, he claimed it did not happen on a worksite and government agencies and charities paid thousands of dollars to help with the injured mans care. This is reprehensible. We will vigorously prosecute Mr. Batres and we hope this serves as a warning to developers and general contractors to not turn a blind eye to this kind of illegal activity.

According to the criminal complaint:

Batres recruited men to work for his company, American Contractors and Associates LLC, to do wood wall framing and sheetrock installation. Batres knew the men were undocumented workers and used that leverage to force them to work long hours at low pay and without adequate safety protection. He also did not purchase workers compensation insurance, as required by law. He told his employees they would lose their job and be deported if they went to a doctor for injuries suffered on the job.

Batres started his company in 2008 and received a residential building contractors license. Some of the illegal conduct began then, but the complaint focuses on 2017. In May of that year, he hired about a dozen men, promising them wages, benefits and, in some cases, housing. However, once they arrived at the job sites, they learned that they were working 10 to 12 hours a day, usually six days a week. They were not paid any overtime and they were often working as high as six stories above ground without proper safety equipment.

During that summer, a number of employees were injured on the job. They stepped on nails, had the prefabricated walls fall on them and sometimes fell from various heights to the ground. Batres had lied to state agencies, claiming he employed no workers and therefore did not have workers compensation insurance. Instead, he would send the injured workers to a massage therapist and promise to pay them while they were not working. That turned out not to be true, and several employees returned to the job site while still injured.

Around July 5, 2017, a number of the workers began talking about leaving Batres. They were angry about the injuries that were occurring and the lack of medical care. Batres also had put them up in a house in Bloomington that was overcrowded and had no hot water, and he had stopped paying their rent. Batres knew of the talk among the men and Batres said he would be ruined if they stopped working for him.

On July 11, as the men left the Bloomington house, agents from Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) arrested them. Some were quickly deported, but one man was able to get an immigration bond and was released. Batres was there waiting for him. He helped the worker fill out paperwork in English and allowed him to come to Batres home to make his weekly check-in call to ICE. During one of these meetings, Batres told the worker: Dont leave me, you have to continue working with me until we finish this. If you try to leave, I can harm you. If you leave me, youll lose all of the good opportunities you have with me.

The man stayed. However, in November 2017, he was seriously injured when a prefabricated wall fell on him. Over Batres protests, his co-workers drove him to the hospital. Batres caught up to them and translated for the man with the doctors. He lied to the hospital staff, telling him the accident occurred at Batres house, not at a job site, because he knew he did not have workers compensation insurance.

As a result, the injured mans care was paid for by taxpayers and charities. More than $31,000 was covered by Medicaid, more than $10,000 by MinnesotaCare and an additional $4,200 was paid by Hennepin County Charity Care program.

Source: Minnesota Commerce Department

Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Fraud Workers' Compensation Abuse Molestation Minnesota ContractorsThe head of the main U.S. agency for aiding developing country infrastructure projects said on Monday the ability to extend funding for such investments is expected to double if new legislation is approved by the U.S. Congress. Ray Washburne, president of the Overseas Private Investment Corp., told Reuters that the inclusion of the Build Act into must-pass legislation reauthorizing the Federal Aviation Administration will accelerate the expansion and redesign of the agency.

Weve got our running shoes on now, Washburne said, highlighting that the legislation will allow OPIC to extend its financing portfolio to up to $60 billion from its current $29.5 billion.

You have to remember, (legislation) is going to double the size of an agency. It is going to take some time to get it out there, he said, noting the vote in the House of Representatives is due on Wednesday, with the Senate expected to vote soon thereafter.

A key provision will allow it to take an equity stake in projects rather than just lend money or provide political risk insurance to help foster private investment in emerging markets, an area where competition from Chinese state-owned enterprises has become particularly fierce.

Equity authority gives us the ability to go in an participate with other countries. Thats one of the important things. The United States is being left behind in a lot of countries because we didnt have the same financing products that other countries have, Washburne said.

If the legislation passes, OPIC will be renamed the U.S. International Development Finance Corp. Last year, Washburne said, OPIC made $270 million in profit.

He earlier spoke before the Concordia Annual Summit, an event on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York where he said Chinas Belt and Road infrastructure initiative is everywhere, but that the United States was looking to re-engage in places like Latin America.

The Chinese have thrown $1 trillion at this. We are not trying to match them dollar-for-dollar, he said. Again, our deals have to pencil-out economically. A lot of their projects dont. Were not going in building bridges-to-nowhere type things, whereas the Chinese seem to have done that, to a big extent.

(Reporting by Daniel Bases; Additional reporting by David Lawder in New York Editing by Leslie Adler)

Topics Legislation USA ChinaU.S. accident investigators probing a San Francisco incident last year in which a jetliner was mere feet from landing on top of at least one other plane are poised to recommend new automated safety warnings and better pilot-fatigue protections.

An Air Canada flight mistakenly tried to touch down on a taxi strip where four other jetliners were awaiting takeoff. Both pilots told investigators that they were tired as they neared the airport at almost midnight. Because they lived in Toronto, it was the equivalent of 3 a.m. on their body clocks.

The National Transportation Safety Board on Tuesday is scheduled to adopt its findings and make recommendations on the July 7, 2017 incident that could have become one of the worst airline disasters in decades if the Air Canada plane had descended just a few feet more.

Investigators have concluded that the tired pilots erred by failing to identify the runway and hadnt adequately reviewed pre-flight warnings about potentially confusing construction at the airport, according to a person briefed on the proposed findings. The action was described by a person familiar with the agencys work who wasnt authorized to speak publicly.

Instead of aiming for a runway, the captain, who was at the controls, flew on a parallel path toward a taxiway, where the other jets were idling.

Where is that guy going? a pilot on a United Continental Holdings Inc. jet radioed as the Air Canada plane approached. Hes on the taxiway, the United pilot said three seconds later as the other plane passed just overhead.

10 to 20 Feet

The Air Canada pilots eventually aborted the landing and climbed, but it was so late that they were still descending when they passed above the United plane and flew just 10 to 20 feet (3 to 6 meters) over a Philippine Airlines Inc. jet, according to the NTSBs review of flight data and surveillance video.

While the NTSBs findings are subject to change at the meeting, the staff has proposed citing pilot actions as the cause of the incident, with the flight crews fatigue and other issues as factors, said the person. The NTSB is also preparing to ask Transport Canada, that nations aviation regulator, to adopt stricter rules for pilots who fly in the U.S., according to the person.

Air Canada didnt respond to a request for comment.

Canadas rules governing how many hours a day a pilot can fly havent been changed since 1996, according to a 2014 advisory by Transport Canada. Since that time, many other nations have adopted new regulations as the science of sleep has shown the dangers of fatigue. Canada announced its intent to bring its rules more closely in line with U.S. and European standards in a 2014 advisory.

Transport Canada intends to finalize its updated regulations as soon as this year, it said in an emailed statement. The agency referred questions about the San Francisco episode to the NTSB, which makes safety recommendations but has no regulatory power.

Wee Hours

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration adopted new pilot work rules in 2011 that limited how long crews on passenger planes could fly during the wee hours and increased the minimum rest period between shifts from 8 hours to 10. The rules only apply to U.S.-registered airline crews.

The issue of pilots inadvertently landing on taxiways, wrong runways or even the wrong airports has been a concern in recent years. The NTSB is also preparing several recommendations to the FAA seeking more research on the issue and better technological safeguards.

One of the NTSBs proposed recommendations would call on the FAA and aircraft manufacturers to develop technology that would automatically warn pilots when theyre not flying toward the proper runway.

It would also ask for the FAA to adapt current radar systems that monitor planes on the ground to track aircraft as they arrive and warn air-traffic controllers when one is lining up to land on a taxiway. The agency said a year ago it was planning to make such changes.

There have been 596 instances of aircraft landing on the wrong runway or at the wrong airport  or almost doing so  in the past two years, according to the FAA. The vast majority of those cases involve smaller private planes, such as when actor Harrison Ford landed a small plane on a taxiway in February 2017 at John Wayne Airport in California.

However, there have been a troubling number of large airliners on which pilots made similar blunders. The NTSB is also investigating a Dec. 29 incident in Pullman, Washington, when a Horizon Air plane operated by Alaska Air Group Inc. landed on a taxiway. A Delta Air Lines Inc. plane came within 60 feet of the ground in Atlanta before climbing as pilots mistook a taxiway for a runway on Nov. 29.

Since the San Francisco episode last year, the FAA has taken several steps to address the issue in addition to the ground radar adaptation. It held a forum on the issue in August and is also exploring whether it can use other radars to create a more comprehensive warning system, the agency said in an emailed statement.

The NTSB has raised concerns about collisions on the ground for decades. A collision on a runway in Tenerife, Canary Islands, between two Boeing Co. 747s in 1977 killed 574 people, according to the NTSB, making it the deadliest airline accident.

Copyright 2021 Bloomberg.

Topics Legislation USA Tech Aviation CanadaA law firm says a Georgia jury has awarded $31 million to a boy for a botched circumcision he received as a newborn.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports the award was handed down Friday in northern Georgias Clayton County.

A lawsuit filed by the boys family says he was 18 days old in October 2013 when part of his penis was severed during a circumcision at Life Cycle Pediatrics in Riverdale.

The familys attorney, Neal Pope, says nobody recommended emergency surgery to fix the problem. The lawsuit says the boy suffers pain and will have a lifetime of mental anguish.

Attorney Terrell W. Benton represents the nurse midwife and physician who were found liable. Benton told jurors that $1 million should cover the boys medical expenses and costs of long-term therapy.

Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics GeorgiaThe city of Orlando has asked a federal judge to dismiss a civil rights lawsuit that was filed on behalf of victims and survivors of the Pulse nightclub shooting.

The Orlando Sentinel reports the lawsuit accuses Orlando police Det. Adam Gruler of failing to intervene to stop the June 12, 2016, massacre.

Authorities say Gruler, who was working an extra-duty shift, fired at Omar Mateen from two locations outside Pulse, but didnt pursue him inside.

The lawsuit claims that it was Grulers job to go inside the club to neutralize the shooter even though it would have risked his life.

A motion filed Sept. 14 by lawyers for Gruler and the city argues Grulers reaction to the violence doesnt constitute a violation of the victims right to due process.

Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics LawsuitsThe number of Tennessee residents who died of drug overdoses has risen more than 8 percent, setting another record in 2017.

The state Health Department said 1,776 Tennesseans died from overdoses last year, the most since reporting began. The number was up from 1,631 in 2016, also a record and a 12 percent increase from 1,451 in 2015.

The agency said almost three-fourths of drug overdose deaths in Tennessee last year were associated with opioids. Of the 1,268 deaths linked to opioids, 644 were associated with prescription opioids for pain. That was the largest group associated with overdose deaths.

The Health Department said in a news release that there was a 70 percent increase in deaths associated with fentanyl, which is similar to heroin but more potent and dangerous.

Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Trends Tennessee DrugsThe soggy remnants of Florence keep causing chaos in coastal South Carolina long after the hurricane swirled ashore, with rivers still flowing far beyond their banks and a new storm gathering more rain just offshore.

Authorities urged up to 8,000 people leave their homes in Georgetown County, on the South Carolina coast, as the Pee Dee and Waccamaw rivers overflowed with a record 10 feet (3 meters) of flooding reaching a crest in their communities Tuesday.

Some places along Georgetowns waterfront were predicted to flood for the first time since record keeping began before the American Revolution.

The National Hurricane Center said a broad area of low pressure about 300 miles south of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, is producing showers and thunderstorms on its north side. Forecasters said it could become a tropical depression Tuesday as it approaches the coast, but will dump rain regardless on coastal areas of North and South Carolina.

Pastor Willie Lowrimore and some of his congregants initially stacked sandbags around their South Carolina church as the hurricane approached. Then they moved the pews to higher ground. Finally, the rank black water seeped around and over the sandbags on Monday, flooding the sanctuary.

Im going to go one day at a time, Lowrimore said as the river ruined the church he built almost 20 years ago. Put it in the Lords hands. My hands arent big enough.

Ten days after Florence came ashore, the storm caused fresh chaos Monday in Yauhannah and elsewhere across South Carolina, where rivers kept rising and thousands more people were told to be ready to evacuate.

Georgetown County offered free transportation to emergency shelters from noon to 4 p.m. Tuesday in Pawleys Island, saying pets are welcome as well as long as theyre kept in crates and have food and supplies.

The economic research firm Moodys Analytics estimated that Florence has caused around $44 billion in damage and lost output, which would make it one of the 10 costliest U.S. hurricanes. The worst disaster, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, cost $192.2 billion in todays dollars. Last years Hurricane Harvey cost $133.5 billion.

___

Associated Press writers Gary D. Robertson and Alex Derosier in Raleigh; Meg Kinnard in Columbia, South Carolina; Sarah Rankin in Richmond, Virginia; and Sarah Brumfield in Washington contributed to this report.

Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Hurricane South CarolinaUber drivers seeking pay and benefits like those employees get were handed a big defeat by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday.

A panel of court justices ruled that drivers must go through arbitration and could not continue with a class action complaint.

The panel in its decision reversed a district courts denial of Uber Technologies Inc.s motions to compel arbitration, reversed the district courts class certification order, and reversed as moot and without foundation the district courts orders in several putative class actions brought by current and former Uber drivers.

The drivers were alleging violations of various federal and state statutes arising from Ubers classification of drivers as independent contractors rather than employees in what has been one of the gig economys most closely watched labor fights.

The ruling essentially bars hundreds of thousands of drivers from suing as a group for better pay and benefits.

In general, I would say it gives the drivers a lot less bargaining power, said Harry Campbell, who runs the Rideshare Guy website.

Uber spokesman Matt Kallman said the company is pleased with the courts decision.

The decision handed down by the panel on Tuesday rejected plaintiffs additional arguments alleging that arbitration agreements were unenforceable because they contained class action waivers that violated the National Labor Relations Act of 1935.

The panel held that this argument was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court in Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis in 2018. The high court ruled in May that employers can force workers to use individual arbitration instead of class-action lawsuits to press legal claims. That decision, some experts said, could have broader implications than just ridesharing and could cripple enforcement of all the major employment laws.

Judge Richard R. Clifton wrote Tuesdays opinion for the panel.

Plaintiffs offer additional arguments in the current appeal why the arbitration agreements are unenforceable, but those arguments are unpersuasive, Clifton wrote. As the class certification by the district court was premised on the district courts determination that the arbitration agreements were unenforceable, the class certification must also be reversed.

The case dates back to a class action complaint filed in 2013 by two Uber drivers against the San Francisco, Calif.-based firm.

The complaint alleged claims for failure to remit the entire gratuity paid by customers to drivers in violation of California Labor Code, and for misclassifying the drivers as independent contractors and failing to pay their business expenses in violation of California Labor Code.

The plaintiffs also filed a motion requesting that the district court declare the 2013 arbitration agreement unconscionable or requiring Uber in the alternative to provide enhanced notice and opportunities for the drivers to opt out of arbitration.

The district court granted the plaintiffs alternative request, enjoined Uber from enforcing its arbitration agreement against those drivers who entered into the agreement but did not opt out, required Uber to revise the agreement to include enhanced notice provisions, and directed Uber to extend the opt out period for an additional thirty days once the revised agreements were distributed.

The plaintiffs moved for certification of a class of roughly 160,000 individuals who had driven for Uber in at any time since Aug. 16, 2009, and the district court granted class certification in part in an order filed on Sept. 1, 2015.

However series of rulings over recent months, including Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, indicated a decision was coming from the 9th Circuit that wouldnt be favorable to defendants.

We have, unfortunately, been long expecting this, one of the attorneys for the drivers, Shannon Liss-Riordan, with Lichten & Liss-Riordan, said in a statement. This panel of the Ninth Circuit had previously ruled against Uber drivers, and the U.S. Supreme Courts decision in Lewis v. Epic Systems earlier this year removed one of our remaining arguments for why Uber should not be able to use its arbitration clause to avoid certification of a class for its widespread labor violations.

The drivers are considering options, which could include an en banc appeal to the entire 9th Circuit, according to the statement.

In the meantime, because the Ninth Circuit reversed the district courts ruling on Ubers arbitration clause, we are urging all Uber drivers who want to pursue these misclassification claims to contact us immediately to sign up for individual arbitration, Liss-Riordan said. Thousands of drivers have already signed up for individual arbitration. If Uber wants to resolve these disputes one by one, we are ready to do that  one by one.

Campbell said hes now being approached by drivers about the arbitration process, but he believes many will find it intimidating.

Ive already gotten lots of emails from drivers who want to know Where do I start,' Campbell said. Most drivers out there they just drive, they want to make money.

Campbell said the argument from drivers that they should be treated as employees is a compelling one, because Uber controls where drivers go, how much money they make from rides, when drivers pick up, drivers dont know where they are going until a passenger gets in the vehicle, and drivers who cancel too many rides are in danger of being deactivated.

Its pretty clearly not independent contract work, he said.

Bloomberg reports contributed to this story

Related:

Topics Lawsuits Personal Auto Contractors Sharing Economy RidesharingDespite more marijuana licenses available from the state, parts of rural Nevada continue to shun the business.

But in other parts of rural Nevada, seeds of industry might be sprouting.

Las Vegas dispensary Acres Cannabis has a dispensary under development in Ely. Acres CEO John Mueller said he hopes once his and other dispensaries under development in rural Nevada become operational, other cities and counties might warm up to marijuana.

All of us fight for city of Las Vegas tourists, Mueller said. The rural market is underserved, really, across the country.

Representatives in Churchill, Douglas, Elko, Pershing, and Storey counties and in Elko told the Review-Journal they either have ordinances on their books that prohibit marijuana sales locally or have not seen any interest in local sales.

Mueller said that he expects to open his dispensary in Ely on Jan. 1 and that it will serve medical patients at least. But he should learn by Nov. 30 whether his business is licensed for both medical and recreational sales.

Silver State Relief has a medical marijuana dispensary under development in Fernley, and Deep Roots Medical has one under development in West Wendover.

Fernley city Manager Daphne Hooper said the city allows medical marijuana sales and dispensaries that sell both medical and recreational marijuana. The city doesnt allow solely recreational dispensaries.

West Wendover City Manager Chris Melville said the city allows medical marijuana dispensaries but no cultivation or production businesses for marijuana used recreationally.

Elko City Manager Curtis Calder said the marijuana ordinance could come up for debate after a new city council is seated in January.

Two council members are termed out, and mayoral candidate Marcey Logsden has publicly supported medical marijuana.

Logsden is running against Councilman Reece Keener, who voted to ban medical marijuana dispensaries locally. The mayors race is nonpartisan.

A letter signed by Wells City Manager Jolene Supp said the city will allow one local dispensary.

And Winnemucca-based lawyer Rendal Miller is expected to ask Humboldt County commissioners in October to approve his marijuana business despite a 2017 ordinance prohibiting growth and sales.

It is my sense that the board will not reverse their position, but you never know, county Manager Dave Mendiola said. The core issue is really the federal ban on marijuana.

Miller did not return requests for comment.

A marijuana sales ban but allowing people to sell sex in parts of rural Nevada may have outsiders scratching their heads.

In the city of Elko, home to places like Desert Rose Gentlemans Club and Legal Brothel, peoples attitudes may be the product of history.

They are a cultural part of the community and are viewed in a positive light, Elko City Manager Curtis Calder said.

Though Elko County has outlawed brothels in its unincorporated areas, county Commissioner John Karr said the brothels in the Elko area dont impact locals as much as legalizing local marijuana sales would.

I have heard of marriage lost at a brothel, Karr said. But not addictions.

Related:

Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Cannabis NevadaA Portland, Ore. rental management company has agreed to pay $105,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by an ex-tenant who claimed she endured deplorable living conditions.

The Oregonian/OregonLive reported the settlement came from A&G Management after they had sent a collection agency to get Aleina Langford to pay more than $1,500 in what her lawyer said were bogus charges.

The property management company agreed to pay Langford the settlement instead. The case had been scheduled to go to trial next week in Multnomah County Circuit Court.

Langfords attorney Michael Fuller says hes heard of only two other tenant-landlord lawsuits in Portland in which landlords have ended up paying more than $100,000. In both those cases, the former tenants had claimed they were physically injured.

A woman who answered the phone at A&G Rental Management said she wasnt knowledgeable enough about the case to comment.

Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Lawsuits OregonVANCOUVER, British Columbia - September 26, 2018 (Investorideas.com Newswire) GoverMedia Plus Canada Corp. (CSE: MPLS) (FSE: 48G) (WKN: A2JF6W) ("GoverMedia" or the "Company"), is pleased to announce the following business updates and milestones:

As of mid-September, the number of registered users on the GoverMedia platform reached approx. 270,000. The Company has set the target of reaching 1.0 million users in the next 12 months.

GoverMedia has signed a letter of intent with Cocos Group - an intermediary platform providing innovative solutions for cooperation between producers and traders in the fashion world, located in Israel - for joint e-commerce and promotion activities in their respective platforms.

The Company has signed an agreement with the Russian commercial bank AkBars Bank allowing GoverMedia's users the possibility to open bank accounts at attractive terms. AkBars Bank is one of the largest banks based on asset size in the Russian Federation.

GoverMedia participated in the Russian-Chinese intergovernmental delegation in the People's Republic of China at the beginning of Sept. where advanced discussions were conducted with the top management of Chinese companies. These included iFLYTEK CO, where an agreement was reached to draft a plan for potential cooperation.

Roland Bopp, CEO, commented: "Besides expanding the user base exponentially in the Russian speaking countries, GoverMedia's strategic objective is to grow the user base in rapidly growing key markets outside the Russian speaking countries. Based upon market assessments conducted by independent third parties, we expect the e-commerce cross-border transaction volume between the Russian speaking countries and China and Israel to grow rapidly. We are pleased to have initiated these discussions with major companies in China as we see a fast user growth between these two large economies. We also signed an LoI with the Israeli fashion company, Cocos Group. GoverMedia Plus is on track to reach its objectives of 1.0 million within the next 12 months".

To read the full press release please click here.

About GoverMedia Plus Canada Corp.

GoverMedia Plus Canada Corp. is a Canadian holding company with a fully owned Russian technology subsidiary. GoverMedia has developed a fully operational state of the art internet platform offering all-inclusive online services such as, e-commerce, social media, multimedia, corporate auctions, corporate database, messaging platform and crowdfunding services. We believe the GoverMedia platform is the first and only internet platform offering such a wide range of online services accessible via only one account. The Companys management and advisors have extensive expertise in the Telecommunications, High-Technology, Corporate Development and Finance fields. http://www.gm.plus and http://www.govermedia.plus.

For further information, please contact:

Roland J. Bopp

President and CEO

(888) 672-4415

This press release is not an offer of securities of the Company for sale in the United States. The Common Shares of the Company may not be offered or sold in the United States absent registration under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the U.S. Securities Act), or an exemption from such registration. The Common Shares have not been and will not be publicly offered in the United States. The Common Shares have not been and will not be registered under the U.S. Securities Act or any state securities laws.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

The statements made in this press release may contain certain forward-looking statements concerning potential developments affecting the business, prospects, financial condition and other aspects of GoverMedia. The words "will", "may", "anticipate", "intend", "plan" and similar words and expressions are used to identify forward-looking information. These statements include that the Company will resume trading on the CSE. The actual results of the specific items described in this release, and the Company's operations generally, may differ materially from what is projected in such forward-looking statements. Although such statements are based upon the best judgments of GoverMedia's management as of the date of this release, significant deviations in magnitude, timing and other factors may result from business risks and uncertainties including, without limitation, GoverMedia's dependence on third parties, general market and economic conditions, technical factors, the availability of outside capital, receipt of revenues and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of GoverMedia. GoverMedia disclaims any obligation to update information contained in any forward-looking statement unless required by applicable securities laws.

SOURCE: GoverMedia

Disclaimer/Disclosure: Investorideas.com is a digital publisher of third party sourced news, articles and equity research as well as creates original content, including video, interviews and articles. Original content created by investorideas is protected by copyright laws other than syndication rights. Our site does not make recommendations for purchases or sale of stocks, services or products. Nothing on our sites should be construed as an offer or solicitation to buy or sell products or securities. All investment involves risk and possible loss of investment. This site is currently compensated for news publication and distribution, social media and marketing, content creation and more. Contact each company directly regarding content and press release questions. Disclosure is posted for each compensated news release, content published /created if required but otherwise the news was not compensated for and was published for the sole interest of our readers and followers. More disclaimer info: http://www.investorideas.com/About/Disclaimer.asp

Disclosure: GoverMedia Plus Canada Corp. (CSE: MPLS) is a paid PR news and social media client effective March 1, 2018 , More info http://www.investorideas.com/About/News/Clientspecifics.asp

Please read Investorideas.com privacy policy: http://www.investorideas.com/About/Private_Policy.aspBy Padraig Hoare

Shareholders and owners of giant global firms who get away with paying no tax should be targeted by countries like Ireland to make up for corporation taxes on the wane globally, according to one of the worlds leading economists.

Simeon Djankov, a Bulgarian former finance minister and chief economist at the World Bank, told the Oireachtas finance committee that shareholders of global giants such as Amazon and Google were essentially escaping taxation.

High corporation tax yields would soon be a thing of the past, he said, as the likes of the US and France lower rates to be more competitive, but Fortune 500 company shareholders could make up the losses by paying dividend taxes.

It could yield 2.3 trillion in extra European revenues, said Mr Djankov.

A former director of the Financial Markets Group at the London School of Economics and visiting lecturer at Harvard Universitys Kennedy School of Government, Mr Djankov was in Dublin to brief TDs and senators before the publication of the World Development Report 2019, which has analysed future work trends throughout the world.

It is not that I am recommending (corporation tax as a revenue of the past) but this is the trend of what is happening, and the reason countries are relying more and more on consumption-based taxes and excise taxes [is] because they are not able fully to capture the corporation tax income, he told TDs and senators.

Shareholders manage, by and large, to get away globally without paying much, if any, taxation. Fortune 500 shareholders essentially dont pay taxes, primarily because they are located in the Bahamas or other tax havens. Globally we need to do something about this.

There has been this premise in public finance, and indeed in economics, that while the company may be situated and produces in Ireland, the shareholders can receive wherever they are  in other words, there is no link between shareholders and production. But actually, there is a link, especially in this new wave of companies where the main shareholder typically is also the majority owner, if you think of Amazon and Google and so on.

Mr Djankov continued: Its not that there are a million owners with a tiny share, it is two or three owners that have 80% of the corporation. But just as Ireland taxes the corporation, they should be entitled to tax a share of the revenues of shareholders  its called tax on location, it doesnt matter where the shareholder is based; what matters is where the money is made.

If dividend taxes proportionately are shared for the 500 largest corporations where the money is made, the EU as a whole will see about 2.2 trillion in additional revenue.

That money is significant enough to then ease the burden on consumption taxes. But currently we dont have it, it is just parked somewhere.

Ireland could take a lead role in taxing shareholder dividends, said Mr Djankov.

Ireland has such companies so you have knowledge of these companies and shareholders. You can be, in my view, one of the countries to create this innovative taxation model.

Brazil and South Korea, for example, do manage to collect much more taxation from these types of companies than do European countries.By Jimmy Woulfe

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and the Irish ambassador in Washington DC, Dan Mulhall, are spearheading a critical lobbying effort in the US to stave off a threat to almost 700 jobs at Aughinish Alumina on the Shannon Estuary.

Rusal, the owner of Aughinish Alumina, is majority owned by En+, a company controlled by Russian billionaire oligarch Oleg Deripaska, who has been targeted by the US government, because of his purported ties to the Kremlin.

The US treasury has given Mr Deripaska until October 23 to divest his interest in Aughinish Alumina, or face further sanctions which could put the future of the plant at risk.

Rusal is currently having to cope with some US sanctions.

Paul Manafort, President Trumps presidential campaign chairman, who was found guilty of financial fraud and made a plea deal to co-operate with Robert Muellers investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, received a $10m loan from Mr Deripaska.

Prosecutors in Mr Maniforts trial argued this money was never repaid to Mr Deripaska.

The jobs of 450 permanent staff and 220 contract workers at Aughinish Alumina have now been entangled with Washingtons targeting of Mr Deripaska.

Aughinish Aluminium produces alumina which is exported to be smelted into aluminium.

One of Rusals customers was quoted in an industry publication stating: We cant agree a deal with Rusal on the basis that sanctions will be lifted by October 23. Anyone that has a relationship with Rusal will be preparing for sanctions to remain in place for now.

Minister of State at the Department of Finance, Patrick ODonovan  whose constituency takes in the Shannon Estuary  said: The Government, at the highest level, is working with the company and in Washington through our ambassador to the US, Dan Mulhall, to get a solution. This work through diplomatic channels is ongoing with the embassy, the Department of the Taoiseach and the Department of Foreign Affairs. This is being worked on at the highest level, here and in Washington, to make sure Aughinish Alumina can continue to operate into the future. All the support the Government can give, is being given.

The Irish representations are being made to the US State Department, the US Treasury and other US government agencies.More than 3,000 people would have been forced into emergency accommodation last year were it not for the efforts of Dublin Simon, with the organisation also expanding its network of services as far as Cavan and Louth to sustain tenancies.

The Dublin Simon annual report showed that 6,285 people and families were supported last year  a 22% increase on 2016 figures.

That included 612 adults and children housed through the organisations independent housing, 729 households supported in moving out of homelessness by its resettlement services, and 576 households prevented from becoming homeless through advice clinics and other supports.

Dublin Simon Community have today released their 2017 Annual Report and outlined their impact on #housing #homelessness. Read the full report here: https://t.co/QVrNkCYkzy #DubSimonAR17 pic.twitter.com/xuAY1Rp45V  Dublin Simon (@Dublin_Simon) September 25, 2018

Dublin Simon CEO Sam McGuinness said: In 2017 and into this year, we have continued to work at an accelerated pace. Our homelessness prevention, sustainment, and resettlement teams worked tirelessly to keep more people in homes. Without this work, 1,637 adults and 1,477 children would be otherwise reliant on emergency accommodation.

The situation has worsened this year, with new monthly records set for the number of people now in emergency accommodation. The last count put that figure at just under 10,000, with the situation most acute in the capital.

However, the sprawling nature of the problem was outlined in the annual report, with Dublin Simon extending its prevention services to provide tenancy sustainment in Cavan and Louth. It also provided support services across Kildare, Wicklow, and Meath last year, working with a total of 396 individuals or families during 2017.

We helped keep over 600 adults and children in their homes last year. If we could continue to increase this number then we wouldnt have such high numbers in emergency accommodation. Sam McGuinness, Head of Dublin Simon Community #DubSimonAR17 #Homeless #Housing pic.twitter.com/Wpf2sbIIea  Dublin Simon (@Dublin_Simon) September 25, 2018

Padraig McKeon, Dublin Simon chairperson, wrote in the report: The 2017 numbers beggar belief, up 12% on what we despaired at a year previously, despite an evident recovery in the general economy. It is now affecting every corner of the region.

He said that since the lack of accessible and affordable housing is now one of the defining issues, Dublin Simon is pressing ahead with plans to increase its own housing provision. It already manages up to 450 tenancies.

However, Mr McKeon said housing is not the only deficit, referencing other obstacles that prevent people from returning to a home.

Last year, the Rough Sleeper Team had 5,701 contacts with clients, while its Medical Residential Treatment and Recovery Facility at Ushers Island is the only one in the country working with homeless people to address addiction and health issues related to their mental and physical health.

At yesterdays report launch in Dublins Mansion House, Mr McGuinness said: We helped keep more than 600 adults and children in their homes last year. If we could continue to increase this number, then we wouldnt have such high numbers in emergency accommodation.

The event also heard from Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy, who said: We are making progress in the housing and homeless crisis. Were putting parts of the jigsaw together, but more needs to be done.

The report also featured the story of one service user, Geoff, who was homeless for seven years.

and said

I was rock bottom, Geoff said at yesterdays launch.

I had lost the will to live. I went into detox and Dublin Simon Community built me back up. They wrapped me in cotton wool and they helped me find myself again.

*dubsimon.ieIt was just about to land in bookshops when Matt Coopers tome on Michael OLeary encountered turbulence on the approach.

The Ryanair boss chewed over extracts  and then decided to chew out the author for what he said was this unauthorised and sadly unsubstantiated book.

Specifically, Mr OLeary disputed the books account of the departure of two senior executives from the airline. Mr Cooper wrote that Howard Millar and Michael Cawley were the first to be ushered out during its 2014 rebranding.

In a statement yesterday, Mr OLeary said both men freely chose to pursue other career goals.

The board and I tried to persuade them to remain working in Ryanair, he said, adding they were offered share options and positions as non-executive directors to try to persuade them.

Mr Cooper also wrote that Mr OLeary had sounded out former Aer Lingus and British Airways boss Willie Walsh, now chief executive officer of International Airline Group, about taking over from him at Ryanair.

Not so, said Mr OLeary, who said the Ryanair board would decide on his successor when that time came  although he admitted that he had long admired his rival.

Mr OLeary continued that he had politely declined Mr Coopers request to co-operate with the biography, Turbulent Times For The Man Who Made Ryanair.

I explained that I dont like personal publicity and, for the sake of my family, I asked him not to proceed, said Mr OLeary.

I was disappointed to learn over the weekend that other people who I know and admire, are being subjected to false claims and innuendo in this book.

I sincerely regret any hurt or damage that may have been caused to Michael Cawley, Howard Millar, and Willie Walsh by these false and inaccurate claims.

Mr Cooper, broadcaster with Today FM and Virgin Media One, wasnt fazed. In fact, his response was delivered with a touch of OLearian colour.

The book is an unauthorised biography and is neither a PR job for Ryanair nor is it hostile to Ryanair or Michael OLeary, he said.

As the book is only in bookshops today I do not believe that Mr OLeary has had a chance to read it, and when he does so, I believe he will find that it is fair and accurate, even if he might not like to agree with some or much of it.

I would not judge a flight merely on the quality of the take-off before it has landed safely. He should judge the book on reading it cover to cover.

Mr Coopers publishers, Penguin said: We are fully supportive of the book and its contents.Weighing children in a school setting should become the norm according to Fianna Fail's Spokesperson on Children and Youth Affairs.

Height and weight assessments have been introduced as part of the under-6's GP scheme.

The Joint Committee on Children and Youth Affairs have today been discussing tackling childhood obesity.

Fianna Fail's Anne Rabbitte says a database is needed to monitor the problem.

"The norm I talk about is the setting because with the other representatives we had in from the various teaching unions and stuff like that, they spoke about the stigmatisation, the bullying aspect.

"I believe if the normalisation starts at the early intervention years, it's just normal, it's part of the data. It's the collection of it, it's no different."

Meanwhile, the Department of Education says it has no intention to ban schools from having vending machines.

It was revealed that 27% of secondary schools have vending machines, with many using them to supplement their income.

Chair of the Committee, Senator Catherine Noone did not accept the Department's position that it was a matter for individual schools to decide.

"Why is it a matter for the boards' management, in all fairness?" she said.

"The Department doesn't let them teach whatever curriculum thay want on different subjects.

"I think it's a really good policy, healthy policy for us to have.

"Please go away and think about this as a policy that we should implement in our schools."

It comes as research was highlighted during the UN General Assembly in New York showing that a 5% reduction in childrens body mass index (BMI) in Ireland would reduce the cost of obesity by almost a quarter.

A paper launched by the World Obesity Federation and the World Health Organisation during the Assembly stated that the total lifetime financial cost of child obesity here could be cut by 1.1 billion from a current estimated total of over 4.5 billion, which is 1.6% of our GDP.

The Irish Heart Foundation has today called for sugar tax revenues to be ringfenced in the Budget to fight child obesity

"These figures clearly demonstrate that any notion that Ireland cant afford to tackle its obesity crisis is simply wrong," said Irish Heart Foundation Head of Advocacy, Chris Macey.

"From an economic standpoint, as well as the human toll of the estimated 85,000 children living on the island today who will die prematurely due to overweight and obesity, we cant afford not to tackle it.

"Last year investment in obesity prevention initiatives by the HSEs Health and Wellbeing Division totalled just 2.7 million  or just over 10 for every Irish schoolchild the World Obesity Federation says will be overweight or obese in Ireland by 2025.

"Meanwhile no funding has been allocated to implement the national obesity action plan since it was launched two years ago.Update - 1.07pm: The Alcohol Beverage Federation of Ireland (ABFI) has said that Ireland's food and drinks industry will become "a global pariah" after the Government introduces cancer warning labels on all alcohol products sold in Ireland.

The ABFI said that "the anti-small business and anti-trade measure" would impact the reputation of Irelands quality drinks brands and claimed it will hit jobs.

They called for the measures in the Alcohol Bill to be proportionate and evidence-based and that the idea of picking and choosing one disease over the other health risks associated with alcohol consumption was "confusing and nonsensical".

Patricia Callan, Director of Alcohol Beverage Federation of Ireland (ABFI) said: We all agree that alcohol misuse and underage drinking should be addressed, and we support the objective of the Alcohol Bill in this regard. But it is imperative that the end result is a piece of legislation that is effective, evidence-based, compliant with EU law, and does not do undue harm to an important Irish industry.

As an industry we support giving consumers factual information to help them make an informed choice about their health.

"But this is exactly why a sweeping and heavy-handed alcohol causes cancer statement makes little sense.

Many studies on alcohol consumption show a J-shaped relationship between alcohol and health, whereby a low level of consumption can result in certain health benefits, whereas a high level of consumption is associated with increased health risks.

"Focusing on one health issue alone (cancer) does not give a full or accurate picture to help consumers make an informed choice about their drinking."

They are calling for two amendments to the bill, the removal of the cancer warnings and the exemption of distillery and brewery visitor centres from advertising restrictions.

John Quinn, Global Brand Ambassador of Offalys Tullamore Dew, said: We are growing our business around the world and our distillery and visitor centre are very important elements of that drive.

"The new bill would not allow us to direct tourists to our visitor centre. The amendments would ensure that the tourists to Offaly will be directed to the home of the whiskey they enjoy in their home country.

"This tourist attraction is a very important contributor to the economy of the town and county of Offaly.

Earlier: Minister to continue with cancer warnings on alcohol labels as planned

Cancer warnings will be placed on alcohol products under new legislation.

There had been reports Minister Simon Harris was to drop the proposal from the Public Health Alcohol Bill.

However, the Minister will bring forward the cancer labels, though he noted it may make it more difficult for the legislation to be cleared under EU rules.

The Minister has said it is his intention to clearly highlight the link between alcohol and cancer.

Yesterday, it emerged at least 12 TDs  four from Fine Gael, four from Fianna Fail, and four Independents  said they want to delete the planned cancer warning from the new bill.

The 12 TDs are Peter Burke, Tony McLoughlin, Pat Deering, and Peter Fitzpatrick of Fine Gael; Bobby Aylward, Kevin OKeeffe, Eamon Scanlon, and Declan Breathnach of Fianna Fail; and Independents Noel Grealish, Michael Fitzmaurice, Carol Nolan, and Michael Collins.

The bid to scrap the health warning has been backed by the Alcohol Beverage Federation of Ireland, with its director Patricia Callan saying the planned new law is wrong as focusing on one health issue alone does not give a full or accurate picture.

In plans due to be put back before the Oireachtas, Mr Harris is expected to say minimum unit pricing, the regulation of certain alcohol advertisements, the separation of alcohol products from other items in shops, and health warnings will still be included in proposed new laws.By Liam Heylin

A married woman in the process of separation was terrified when her husband and a mad-looking man wearing a foxy wig and headband banged the roof and windows of the van in which she sat with a friend.

The womans husband, Gary Cotter, aged 53, of Cois Coillte, Coolatanavalley, Carrigrohane, Co Cork, denied engaging in threatening or insulting behaviour in Douglas at 10pm on Sunday, June 25, 2017.

His friend, John Garrett, aged 53, of Maulrane, Grenagh, Co Cork, also denied being threatening and, further, assaulting John Buckley.

Garrett also denied evidence he was wearing a foxy wig and a headband during the whole disputed incident.

I dont possess a wig. I never wore a wig in my life, he said.

Mr Buckley and his friend Deirdre Cotter, who had been for a walk together, both testified that Garrett was wearing a wig and headband.

John (Garrett) was wearing this ludicrous wig like a madman, she said, adding that he and her husband, from whom she was separating at the time, started banging on the roof and windows of Mr Buckleys van.

It felt like an ambush, she said. It was absolutely terrifying.

In his judgment in the case, Judge John King raised the matter of Garrett wearing a wig. It is so bizarre I dont think anyone in their right mind would make it up, he said.

John Garrett and Gary Cotter claimed that they suspected she was having an affair but that they only went up to politely reprimand her, but the story of the defendants is a big concoction out of the events.

At Cork District Court, the judge said while both men were guilty as charged, he did not want to criminalise them out of this incident.

He gave both the benefit of dismissals under the Probation of Offenders Act, provided they each make contributions to charity.

Cotter must pay 250. Garrett must pay 200, plus 300 expenses to John Buckley, who was out of work for two days after the assault.

Mr Buckley said he and Ms Cotter were friends and went for a walk on the evening in question.

Afterwards, at Douglas Court car park, they were in Mr Buckleys van when he said Garrett arrived in a frenzy, wearing a foxy wig and headband screaming insults at Ms Cotter and calling Mr Buckley a scumbag and telling him to get out of the van to face him like a man. Mr Buckley said Cotter was in a severe temper at the scene.

He said Garrett reached in, pulled the keys out of the ignition, and threw them into the van and punched him three times in the head.

Garrett told his solicitor, Sean Durcan, he had said a few words and was sorry for that, but he did not assault Mr Buckley. He claimed Mr Buckley had driven over his left foot, leaving him unable to work again. Mr Buckley denied the claim.

Garrett claimed that Mr Buckley and Ms Cotter were kissing in the van.

He said in his evidence: I dont know but I dont kiss any of my friends.

Gary Cotter told his solicitor, Elaine OSullivan: I never touched the van. I never raised my voice to John or Deirdre.

Finalising his order in the cases against Garrett and Cotter, Judge King said: All I will say is everyone, grow up.Health Minister Simon Harris is set to drive ahead with planned cancer health warnings on all alcohol products despite staunch opposition from a vocal minority of TDs and senators.

Department of Health sources said Mr Harris will move to ensure the new label rule will be included in the Public Health Alcohol Bill when the legislation is put before the Oireachtas again in the coming days.

Yesterday, it emerged at least 12 TDs  four from Fine Gael, four from Fianna Fail, and four Independents  said they want to delete the planned cancer warning from the new bill.

The 12 TDs are Peter Burke, Tony McLoughlin, Pat Deering, and Peter Fitzpatrick of Fine Gael; Bobby Aylward, Kevin OKeeffe, Eamon Scanlon, and Declan Breathnach of Fianna Fail; and Independents Noel Grealish, Michael Fitzmaurice, Carol Nolan, and Michael Collins.

The bid to scrap the health warning has been backed by the Alcohol Beverage Federation of Ireland, with its director Patricia Callan saying the planned new law is wrong as focusing on one health issue alone does not give a full or accurate picture.

Despite the concerns, it is understood Mr Harris will still attempt to force through the new health warnings, with Department of Health sources saying the minister remains determined to address the harms caused by the misuse of alcohol.

In plans due to be put back before the Oireachtas, Mr Harris is expected to say minimum unit pricing, the regulation of certain alcohol advertisements, the separation of alcohol products from other items in shops, and health warnings will still be included in proposed new laws.

While taking account of concerns from a vocal minority of TDs and senators, he will say he is clear that the link between alcohol and cancer must be highlighted.

The doubling-down on the stance by Mr Harris is expected to be strongly backed by the Irish Cancer Society, which has repeatedly urged the health minister not to give in to what the group has described as the vested interests of the alcohol industry.

It is also likely to be supported by a number of high-ranking medics, including one of the countrys top liver specialists and chair of the Alcohol Health Alliance, Prof Frank Murray, who has said there is a compelling argument for having warning labels.By Tom Shiel

Management at Mayo University Hospital, one of the west of Irelands largest hospitals, has apologised in writing to a number of former patients whose confidential medical records were found in a housing estate.

The personal data, discovered in a refuse sack at the residential complex in Castlebar, related to patients recently discharged from MUH.

Refuse staff attached to Mayo County Council made the find earlier this month. The council immediately alerted hospital management.

MUH management has now written to the patients informing them of the serious breach of data protection.

In its letter, management says it acted promptly to arrange for the retrieval and securing of the data involved. It also apologises for the breach of confidentiality.

The letter of apology contains an assurance that MUH treats such matters with the utmost seriousness.

Corrective measures have been put in place to prevent such an incident from ever happening again, states the letter.

MUH says the matter has been reported to the HSE consumer affairs department and, in line with HSE data protection breaches management procedures, the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner.

One of the patients involved, a middle-aged man living in Castlebar town, said he was shocked when informed by the hospital that confidential information relating to a recent hospital stay had gone astray.

I was told that the bag which was found contained some information which clearly identified me, such as my name and date of birth, as well as other details, he said.

Michael Kilcoyne, an Independent member of Mayo County Council, said he was alarmed to learn of the data blunder and called for a full investigation.

Its mind-boggling that hospital medical data of such a sensitive nature could end up in a refuse bag in a housing estate about a mile from the hospital involved, said Mr Kilcoyne.

He added that over the years there have have been a number of data breaches relating to the HSE West region and questioned whether the HSE is ever going to learn.By Anne Lucey

Gridlock in Killarney is endangering the tourism industry for the whole county, the local Chamber of Commerce has warned amid growing frustration by tourists and residents over a chronic lack of parking and traffic management plans.

Traffic jams of up to 20 minutes are continuing well into the autumn, with all approach roads from Tralee, Killorglin and Cork affected as well as the National Park hit. A 2016 consultants study commissioned by the council at a cost of more than 50,000, recommending a range of measures including changes to parking permits and relocating the jarveys, remains to be implemented.

Locals complain that recent traffic measures by the council such as reducing the size of the traffic lanes to widen footpaths seem to have worsened matters.

Now in an unusually strongly-worded statement, the towns main business representative body, the Killarney Chamber of Tourism and Commerce, has lashed out at the lack of progress by the council on traffic management in Killarney.

It said the town is the main driver for tourism in the whole county and it was high time the local authority addressed the issues that have been continually raised with them for the past three years, it said.

The statement, signed by Chamber president Paul ONeill, described the situation this summer  where Killarney featured regularly on AA roadwatch  as an ordeal for motorists, saying it was alarming that senior council officials recently said it might take 12 years for an outer relief road.

There seems to have been little or no progress on short-term remedies such as the proposed inner relief road at the Monsignor Hugh OFlaherty Road, the development of the Rock Road car park or the relief road at Deerpark, the statement said.

There is a clear and present threat that the Killarney brand will be significantly damaged, it added, calling on the local authority to act to solve the towns traffic problems and implement the main findings of the traffic review.

Lack of progress in Killarney traffic projects was also highlighted at the Local Property Tax meeting in Tralee earlier this week in which councillors voted down an increase in the tax for 2019.

Meanwhile, Kerry County Council said it was continuing to engage with TII in relation to an outer relief road for Killarney and was engaging with local groups and progressing measures.By Sean ORiordan

The association which represents the bulk of the Defence Forces will today lodge papers in the High Court seeking to challenge military law which prevents soldiers, sailors, and aircrews joining public marches.

PDForra is seeking to exercise its rights under Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights for Freedom of Association.

The initiation of legal action followed a declaration by military authorities that attendance of Defence Forces members at parades was inconsistent with military service.

Defence Forces members were informed of this prior to last weeks Parade for Respect and Loyalty.

Hundreds of retired servicemen and families of serving Defence Forces members attended the parade in Dublin, which culminated in petitions for better pay and conditions for military personnel being handed to a number of party leaders outside the Dail.

It was organised by a retired regimental sergeant major and the lobby group Wives and Partners of the Defence Forces.

The Irish Examiner understands that PDForra had been engaged in correspondence through its solicitor with the Department of Defence in the days leading up to the parade, but was unable to gain clarity about the departments attitude to the European Convention.

A PDForra spokesman said if serving personnel had attended they may have faced charges. These could have included offences such as disobeying the order of a superior officer, conduct to the prejudice of good order and discipline, and incitement to disaffection

, amongst others

.

The Irish courts have recognised the general principle that members of the Defence Forces enjoy the same constitutional rights as ordinary citizens and that such rights cannot be abrogated by citizens simply becoming members of the Defence Forces, said the spokesman.

Martin Bright, deputy general secretary of PDForra, will initiate the legal challenge at the High Court today.

The association is hopeful that the action undertaken by Mr Bright will bring some degree of clarity to members of the Defence Forces regarding their human rights, the PDFORRA spokesman said.

His association won a landmark case last June when the High Court ruled a female soldier couldnt be excluded from the Organisation of Working Time Act, 1997. She is to be given annual leave she lost in 2015 and an ex-gratia sum in compensation as a result of the decision.

PDForras solicitors are preparing to take a further 30 cases to the High Court under this legislation.A 32-year-old man who been extradited from Spain to the North in the early hours of this morning.

He was arrested in Barcelona on August 23 by Spanish National Police on foot of a European Arrest Warrant.The Government has survived a no confidence motion in the Dail and avoided losing a junior minister over the housing crisis after a special deal agreed by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar.

Government negotiations with junior health minister Catherine Byrne went down to the wire and she only agreed to support Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy at the last minute during the Dail no confidence vote.

Sinn Fein attacked the housing minister, saying his policies had failed and that soaring house prices, rising rents and unprecedented homelessness numbers were an indictment of the Governments work.

However, Mr Murphy said he would not be hounded out of office by personalised attacks and populist politics, as he faced down the motion against him.

Sinn Fein TD Eoin O Broin said homelessness in the last two years had increased by 60%, child homelessness by 77%, while the number of pensioners without a home was up by 80%.

The Dublin Mid-West TD noted how the Taoiseachs own proposals for a vacant property tax had been quietly dropped.

Minister Murphy knows Rebuilding Ireland is fundamentally flawed, he said.

Mr Murphy, while noting that families were tragically still presenting without homes, said that 5,000 had left homelessness in the last year and that the housing supply was going up.

More new homes were provided this year than anytime in a decade, he told the Dail. We have a plan, it is working.

Mr Murphy insisted that he would not be distracted by populist claims or hounded out of office by personalised attacks.

Housing Minister @MurphyEoghan tells Dail he won't be hounded out of office by personalised attacks against him. He accuses Sinn Fein of being "dishonest" over making people think the #housingcrisis can be solved overnight as @CByrneTD slips into Dail chamber.. pic.twitter.com/kJNmOQ3tIe  RTE Politics (@rtepolitics) September 25, 2018

Mr Murphy and the Government, as expected, survived the no confidence motion with Fianna Fail abstaining for the vote, as is agreed under the government support pact with Fine Gael.

Despite support for the motion against the housing minister from the Greens, Labour, Social Democrats, People Before Profit, Independents, and Sinn Fein, Government TDs rallied around Mr Murphy.

Fianna Fail housing spokesman Darragh OBrien said his party were not supporting the motion as this would be an irresponsible action weeks before the budget and in the middle of Brexit negotiations.

Nonetheless, he said Fianna Fail would push for new measures in the budget, including more reliefs for tenants, tax breaks for landlords and affordable homes. The Government were also addicted to spin and announcements, having produced six plans for housing since 2011, said Mr OBrien.

However, much attention ahead of and during the Dail debate focused on junior health minister Catherine Byrne. After negotiations with the Taoiseach yesterday evening, Ms Byrne finally in a statement said that she would back Mr Murphy.

Her support had been in doubt after the Dublin South Central TD fell out with Mr Murphy over planned rental builds in Inchicore, Dublin.

Instead, after private talks with Mr Varadkar, her statement said: I will be supporting my Government colleague this evening. Over the days and weeks ahead I will continue to work constructively with all of my colleagues on the issues I have raised relating to housing and community development.Ryanair has pre-cancelled 190 of its scheduled flights on Friday due to the unnecessary strike by a tiny minority of cabin crew in Spain, Belgium, Holland, Portugal, Italy, and Germany.

The airline said 30,000 customers were likely to be affected and that all would have received emails and text SMS messages yesterday morning.

These strikes are unnecessary when Ryanair has already agreed to the union demands for local contracts and local terms and conditions, it said.

As these strikes are being promoted and driven by competitor employees, they are regrettably beyond Ryanairs control.

The airline warned that if strikes continue at a time when oil prices were rising, it is inevitable that we will have to look again at our capacity growth this winter and in summer 2019.

Yesterday, Dutch pilot union Vereniging Nedelandse Verkeersvliegers (VNV) said that its pilots would join with the cabin crew and go on strike for a second time on Friday.

For the last 10 months, the Dutch Airline Pilots Association has tried to negotiate a collective labour agreement between Ryanair and the Dutch ALPA without any result, said the union.

Also, this second strike of Dutch-based Ryanair pilots should be a signal for the Ryanair management.

Our goal is clear #RyanairMustChange and respect the rights of their workers.

It said its demands are modest.

Dutch law should be applied; no more bogus self-employment and a sufficient sick pay and pension, said the union.

Ryanair Pre-Cancels Under 190 Of 2,400 (8%) Scheduled Flights On Fri 28th Sept: https://t.co/yErvVaCLgm  Ryanair (@Ryanair) September 25, 2018

Ryanair also announced it had agreed a collective labour agreement with the three main cabin crew unions in Italy to cover all of its Italian based cabin crew from October 1.

It said that agreement would run for three years and be governed by Italian law and the Italian courts.

Its chief people officer Eddie Wilson said the deal was a further sign of the significant progress Ryanair is making in reaching agreements with our people and their unions in different EU countries, and disproves false claims made by smaller unions not involved in these negotiations, and who are threatening strikes, which will either not take place or be unsuccessful. He said the company had invited its German, Portuguese and Spanish unions to meet with it so that we can negotiate and hopefully agree similar CLAs in these other larger markets.By Niall Murray Education Correspondent

The Government is likely to pass this weeks proposed pay restoration measures for teachers at next months budget with the possibility of school strikes looming large.

Ballots on the deal will be under way by October 10 among more than 70,000 members of the three main teacher unions, despite Finance Minister Paschal Donohoes insistence that there is no further funding to 2020 to improve the reduced pay for those who joined the public service after 2010.

The benefits range from 1,360 to 3,500 for those affected by reduced salaries next year, but teacher unions say the measures do not go far enough on restoration of pay equality for new entrants

to the profession.

Their annual conferences in April mandated ballots on industrial action if any deal does not end pay inequality in the profession.

Teachers could forego salary increases scheduled under last years Public Service Stability Agreement if they breach its terms by taking industrial action. It would mean losses of up 6,500, for example, for those with 20 years service.

The Irish National Teachers Organisation (INTO) central executive will not be recommending acceptance when its 36,000 members are asked to vote in a ballot issuing next week.

It will simply inform them of the details of the proposals presented to public service unions at the Department of Finance after several months of negotiations.

INTO general secretary Sheila Nunan said the proposals provide full upward pay equality for new entrants from 2017, and deliver significant progress for earlier new entrants.

The union said the proposals do not fully restore pay equality for the earliest group of entrants to teaching after 2011, even with a two-point salary scale jump for 2011 entrants next year over the incremental salary increase they would be scheduled to receive anyway.

The Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) 180-member central executive council will have to meet first to consider a response, which is not likely to happen until Saturday week at the earliest, days before Budget 2019.

After the proposals were announced on Monday, ASTI president Breda Lynch said they do not resolve pay inequality.

She said there were also outstanding issues around qualification allowances for teachers and the starting point on teachers pay scales.

It is bitterly disappointing that, seven years after the introduction of discriminatory pay scales in teaching, this unacceptable discrimination continues for thousands of teachers.

Ahead of an executive meeting in the coming days, the Teachers Union of Ireland (TUI) said the proposals represent further movement but will not, of itself, deliver pay equality.

Because the most significant difference in scales will still be in the initial career stage, the TUIs concern about the crisis of teacher recruitment and retention remains, said the union.

TUI will most likely issue ballot papers in the days before the budget, but the outcome could depend on whether its executive decides to make any recommendation on voting, and whether it asks members to accept or reject the proposals.

Education Minister Richard Bruton said the proposals complement earlier improvements that will see teachers starting salaries rise to 36,318 next month, and to almost 38,000 in two years, which he described as very attractive starting salaries for graduates.

Many post-2010 teachers have said on social media that back-pay of lost earnings has not been dealt with.

At the union conferences last Easter, some teachers spoke of losing out on around 30,000 each in the last four or five years alone.Both vintners and a students union say more can be done to increase safety after the revelation that three students had been raped in Cork since the start of the academic year.

Mary Crilly, head of the Sexual Violence Centre in the city, had told Cork City Joint Policing Committee of the attacks and said none had been reported to gardai.

Mary Crilly, head of the Sexual Violence Centre

Ger Kiely, owner of the Old Oak where the local Ask for Angela campaign was launched earlier this year, said more could be done.

He said his premises had upgraded CCTV and trained staff, and that in some cases, if staff had a doubt about a possible situation, they would take photographs on their phone as a precaution or deterrent.

If you have worries or concerns it is not that we are ignoring them, he said, adding that if someone was even passing his venue with a concern they should feel free to raise concerns with staff.

It is not known which colleges the students are attending.

A spokesperson for Cork Institute of Technology said it understood none of its students were involved but that it had been in touch with Ms Crilly to say it was happy to become involved in any initiatives.

Kelly Coyle, UCC Students Union deputy president, said the organisation was looking at greater co-operation with venue owners.

We were all shocked and really devastated and concerned for the students involved, she said.

A number of initiatives have already taken place on campus, including around Freshers Week, but she said: We need to up our campaign around it and get better engagement.

UCC law lecturer Catherine OSullivan tweeted My heart breaks for these students, and said the reports underscored the importance of initiatives such as consent workshops and the Bystander programme adapted for UCC by senior law lecturer at the college, Louise Crowley.

My heart breaks for these students. Underscores the impi of initiatives such as #ConsentWorkshops by @UCCFemSoc running this week & the #Bystander programme adapted for @UCC by @LouiseCrowley2/ https://t.co/irmnNtXlfd  Dr Catherine O'Sullivan (@cathosx) September 25, 2018

Launched in January 2017, it encourages an understanding of the dangers of abusive behaviour and the capacity of a bystander to intervene.

Noeline Blackwell, CEO of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, said its 24-hour helpline had also received a number of reports understood to be from people who come to the Dublin area for college and who reported sexual assaults.

She said while it is never, ever the fault of the person who is raped or assaulted, some cases also highlighted how some people attending third level for the first time can be unequipped for some aspects of life as a student.

People coming out of secondary school do not have the communication skills to explain when they are comfortable with sexual activity and when they are not, she said.

Just this week, the Oireachtas published a new report written by Ann Nolan, senior parliamentary researcher (social science) entitled School-based relationships and sexuality education (RSE): lessons for policy and practice, which found that there is clear evidence that school-based sex education programmes can improve sexual health outcomes.

Last April the Minister for Education and Skills, Richard Bruton announced a review of the RSE curriculum.The Cry begins on BBC One on Sunday night, writes Gemma Dunn

Having withdrawal symptoms from the end of Bodyguard? Fear not, for the BBCs next heart-stopping drama is within touching distance.

The Cry, an intense, four-part psychological thriller, follows Joanna (Jenna Coleman) and Alistair (Ewen Leslie), who are faced with the unthinkable when their newborn baby is abducted from a small coastal town in Australia.

Dealing with the white light of public scrutiny, the young couple, who had travelled Down Under from Scotland due to a separate custody battle, suddenly find their lives and relationship changed forever.

Gripped? Heres what else you need to know...

ITS AN ADAPTATION

The Cry, based on Helen FitzGeralds acclaimed novel of the same name, was adapted for the small screen by Jacquelin Perske, and called on the talents of director Glendyn Ivin and executive producer Claire Mundell.

It was all-encompassing narrative that drew them to a reworking, Mundell says: The story of a couple and in particular, a young woman like Joanna, caught in a situation such as she finds herself.

Ive never seen a lead protagonist in a domestic-set thriller that was so accessible and captured so many things at once.

Issues about what its like to be a young mother and all the stuff people dont speak about, she adds.

But that this was all wrapped up in the most incredible page turner of a thriller.

These are very relatable people who find themselves in a circumstance that could happen to anybody, really. Its not a world of other or external crime. This is just ordinary life. Domestic life.

IT TACKLES THE JUDGEMENT OF NEW MOTHERS

As well as turning the protagonists world upside down, the harrowing turn of events proves a catalyst for a journey into the disintegrating psychology of a young woman, exposing the myths and truths of motherhood.

Joanna, as we meet her, is a new mum and has a baby, Noah, of about three months, Coleman states.

We find her struggling with the change. Struggling, I suppose, with new motherhood. She feels exhausted. She feels like shes lost her identity and shes struggling to connect with Noah.

Its post-natal depression but I dont think she knows that yet. Thats where we begin.

When it comes to the judgement of women in situations like this, we felt it was important to convey what that would feel like for a young woman, like Joanna, to be instantly judged because she cries or doesnt cry or the way she behaves, says Mundell, who had Coleman in mind for the complex role from the off.

LEFT HOLDING THE BABY

A mothers life disintegrates while the world looks on.@Jenna_Coleman_ is Joanna in #TheCry. Starts Sunday at 9pm BBC One. pic.twitter.com/x84VU1QkC1  BBC One (@BBCOne) September 25, 2018

Casting such young babies was no easy feat  but the tiny stars left a lasting impression on set.

Its tricky working with actors, as well as newborns, Ivin confesses.

The real babies, twins Noah and Oliver, were six weeks old and its pretty real. You put them down, they cry, everyone gets very alert and you film. Then you take them off and theyre not crying anymore.

But weve been unbelievably lucky, Coleman adds. The babies were like these magic, genius actor babies who seemed to know what the word action means and what the scene required. Theyve made my job very easy!

It hasnt put her off motherhood, then?

No it hasnt, but its opened my eyes up to the realities of motherhood, and to a lot of what my friends are experiencing, perhaps, confides the actress, who is in a long-term relationship with her Victoria co-star Tom Hughes.

Adding that she has also realised people dont really talk about it that much, she says: But its not put me off forever or scarred me forever.

The Cry starts on BBC One on SundayIt is difficult to believe that the politicians we imagine, in the widest sweep of the term, to be social democrats are capable of sustaining that system, one that created more equality, more wealth, more tolerance, and a longer-lasting peace than any other political credo in history.

Familiarity has bred contempt for the reality that social democracy must be nourished and be seen to be fair and honest, if it is to survive.

Right-wing populism grows, because the centre is asleep at the wheel.

The world looks on with deepening incredulity as the consequences of the headline moment  US president Donald Trumps election  in that slide stagger towards unknown destinations.

Trump was elected because Americas social democrats carelessly over-estimated Hilary Clintons appeal, but grossly under-estimated the anger with snouts-in-the-trough dynasties.

We are all culpable, but a never-ending flow of detail means we can no longer plead ignorance.

Last week, North Antrims MP Ian Paisley barely survived a do-or-die recall petition, set up because he accepted inappropriate gifts.

Just yesterday, his DUP party leader Arlene Foster made her second appearance at an inquiry into a botched green-energy scheme.

Though she is not accused of under-the-counter behaviour, she is accused of ineptitude that cost millions of pounds. Whether that differentiation rehabilitates her reputation remains to be seen.

Apart from Trumps Russian-roulette-as-diplomacy, those issues are, however, very much in the happeny place.

A ruling this week, by the EU Court of Justice, that MEPs expenses can remain secret, flies in the face of transparency around how public funds are used to support politics.

The EUs legitimacy is undermined by a huge democratic deficit, so a two-fingers ruling like this damages European solidarity all the more.

That idea is strained because of Brexit, and rulings that go against the real spirit of democracy, not to mention the principles of social democracy, sadly lend legitimacy to those who excoriate EU institutions.

MEPs are paid 8,611.31 a month, plus pension. On leaving the parliament, they receive a golden parachute worth up to 206,664.

The case was centred on expenses, including the 4,416 monthly general expenditure allowance to fund constituency offices.

MEPs are also refunded first-class travel expenses and get a 313 daily allowance while in Brussels or Strasbourg.

Most MEPs claim the maximum office allowance. There is no requirement to provide invoices, receipts, or any details on how the funds are spent.

Journalists from 28 EU states sought records on these payments, but the Luxembourg-based court ruled the documents concerned contained personal data and could not be published.

The ruling may reflect the law, but it is a real scandal in public administration.

Some MEPs may rejoice at the ruling, but the smarter ones will not.

They know they must face the electorate next May and what was once a housekeeping detail is now a top-10 election issue.

After all, who would be so foolish as to vote for someone who hides behind this let-them-eat-cake ruling?

This unfortunate decision attacks the very heartbeat of social democracy and the culture that sustains it. It cannot stand.In the interest of balance you need to look at Gaza and the West Bank also from an Israeli position.

After all they have been the victims of suicide bombers, regular violent personal attacks & have had thousands of expensive rockets fired at them from impoverished Gaza.

Israel is actually the only democracy in the Middle East and there are 1.6m Arabs (21% of the population) who are Israeli citizens and enjoy all the benefits of same.

On the other hand, the Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza are governed by military dictatorships.

Hamas charter has long called for the destruction of Israel and refuses to recognise the legitimacy of the Israeli state.

Hamas led the charge in using suicide bombings against Israel in the 1990s and 2000s, though in recent years it has shifted to rockets and mortars as its weapons of choice

The Palestinian Authority has a fund paying a monthly cash stipend to the families of Palestinians killed, injured or imprisoned for involvement in attacking, assisting in attacking, or planning to attack Israel.

In addition, it provides pocket money to all Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli jails for ordinary crimes. The scheme has been rightly described by Israelis as a pay for slay, and has been criticised as encouraging terrorism.

There is a lot of talk about Palestinian refugees. However, in total 900,000 Jews were forced after 1948 to leave Arab and other Muslim countries in the Middle East and North Africa.

They received no compensation from these relatively wealthy Arab states and no help from the UN either.

600,000 of these settled in the new state of Israel, and 300,000 emigrated to France and the US.

Incidentally, Gaza has a border with Egypt so they have direct access to a large and potentially friendly country.

However, in October 2014 Egypt announced that they planned to expand the buffer zone between Gaza and Egypt, following a terrorist attack from Gaza that killed 31 Egyptian soldiers

At one stage, Gaza was under Egyptian rule after 1948 and Yasser Arafat, the late Palestine Liberation Organization leader, was actually an Egyptian.

So one logical move would be for Gaza to become part of Egypt where they share a common culture, language, and religion.

Liam de Paor

Loreto Rd

Carrickane

CavanIn Person USDP Spokesman Says Govt Should Do More to Shield Military

USDP spokesman U Nanda Hla Myint. / Htet Naing Zaw / The Irrawaddy

U Nanda Hla Myint, spokesman for the opposition Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), recently sat down with The Irrawaddy senior reporter Htet Naing to discuss the partys views on the current political landscape, the Rakhine issue, the November by-election and the countrys democratic transition.

We heard that the ex-generals are forming a political party. Some of the party leaders are former USDP members. So did they split from the USDP?

I have no comment about ex-generals forming a political party. Party leader U Soe Maung was once a USDP member, and contested the election as a USDP candidate.

But he has officially resigned from the party, and we have no comment about him forming a political party according to his beliefs and political ideas. He neither cooperated nor consulted with us [to form another party]. It is not the case that he has split from our party.

U Soe Maung served as the Presidents Office minister under the previous government. So will former President U Thein Sein support his party?

Former President U Thein Sein remains a member of our party. He served as the chairman of our party. After our partys 2016 conference, he continued to support the party as the patron of the partys leading committee. But then he retired from the leading committee after handing down the party to the younger generation, saying that he wanted to lead a peaceful life due to his age and health.

However, he is the parent and patron of our party. We hold him in esteem, and he remains a party member. So Id say that he is on our side.

There are allegations that the USDP, illegally and without transparency, took over all the property and buildings owned by the government-backed Union Solidarity and Development Association when it was transformed into a political party in 2010. What do you want to say about that?

The USDP has acquired all the land and buildings in line with the law. In this era of democracy and transparency, you can review the law if you think certain things were done against the law in the past. We deny the untrue allegations that we stole public property. We dont accept those allegations.

In this era, legal action can be taken anytime if we act unlawfully. So Id say that both our party and the public will not believe or accept those allegations.

Two Reuters reporters were sentenced to seven years in prison under the current government. Do you think it will impact press freedom?

The U Thein Sein government prioritized press freedom. It was under his government that private media were allowed. His government paved the way for free speech, which resulted in todays press freedom. The stance of our party is to prioritize press freedom.

But regarding the case of the two Reuters reporters, every citizen in the country must respect and adhere to the existing laws. I have no comment about the ruling of the court. History will decide if it is right or wrong.

If the two reporters think the verdict is unfair for them, they can appeal. We have no comment about the decision of the judicial branch. But the policy of our party is to support press freedom in a democracy.

The International Criminal Court has decided that it has jurisdiction over Myanmar regarding the Rakhine issue. How will it impact Myanmars politics?

We are not an ICC member, so the ICC cant exercise jurisdiction over Myanmar. The ICC is still discussing whether it is possible to exercise jurisdiction over Myanmar through Bangladesh, which is a signatory and member of the [Rome] Statue.

There are a variety of factors that have yet to be fulfilled for the ICC to take action against the government and Tatmadaw [Myanmar military]. A lot of strong evidence is still needed. There are still difficulties and I think it is unlikely that the ICC will be able to exercise jurisdiction over Myanmar.

Does the government provide protection to the Tatmadaw, which is facing various allegations and is under international pressures because of the Rakhine issue? What do you think? Does the government need to protect the Tatmadaw?

Personally, I think there is a need to provide proper and adequate protection. We can draw the conclusion from previous cases that there was no proper protection. In fact, we are a sovereign state. Though the US approached the Rakhine issue from the human rights perspective, Washington pulled out of the [UN] Human Rights Commission when Israel, whose people are not its citizens, was affected.

The armed forces in each and every country have to protect the sovereignty and citizens of their country. The Tatmadaw protects our citizens and does not commit human rights abuses as claimed by the international community. We dont accept that. We assume that it is a blatant insult to the sovereignty of our country.

The government should also not accept international pressures under the pretext of human rights. The Tatmadaw is part of the government, so allegations against the Tatmadaw are allegation against the government. So for the sake of the national interests and national security, the government must decisively repel international pressures against anyone, not only the Tatmadaw. But the government has not yet done enough in that regard.

What will the USDP do in the 2020 election if it doesnt win in the coming by-election?

How can you say we wont win it? We are a big political party, and we have served as a government. We have proven our capacity and our performance to the people. People can compare us with the current government.

After we became the opposition, we have only engaged in smart politics. We are not an opposition that puts the government into a tight corner, that incites people to take to the streets or to riot. We will support all the good actions of the government peacefully.

But when the interests of the country and citizens are at risk, or when there are policies and actions that would trouble the country, we will inform the people and make demands of the government. We will release statements and provide solutions.

We havent put the country and people into a tight corner as the opposition. We believe that we will get a certain degree of public support if people can objectively assess all the things we have done. So we will win a certain number of seats in the by-election.

We will prove ourselves with hard work and win the trust of the people. And we believe that people will also trust and vote for us in the 2020 election.

Do you think the countrys democratic transition is irreversible, or can it be reversed?

To make a comparison, the USDP government led by President U Thein Sein emerged after the 2010 election and managed the country from 2011 to 2016. His cabinet systematically developed short-term and long-term plans for five to 30 years in coordination [with other political actors]. So nobody asked during those five years whether the country would reverse, and people were not concerned about it.

Two years into the NLDs administration, people have started to worry about a possible reversal. The reversal they fear is a military coup. They are worried about it.

It depends on the policies and actions of the current government. It has the responsibility to implement the right policies and provide the right leadership to ensure stability and prevent a reversal during the transition period. Whether democracy will reverse depends on the management of the government. The Constitution clearly states that the Tatmadaw has to provide protection if the sovereignty of the country is at risk, so my understanding is that we need not worry [about a coup] unless and until that happens. Cooperation, effort and leadership by the government will be the key to prevent it.

As you said, people are worried that the army may stage a coup again. Under the current government, there is increasing international intervention regarding the Rakhine issue. And there are also racial and religious conflicts. What issues could cause a reversal?

It can be caused by the weakening of the rule of law, increased foreign intervention, and foreign pressure. And we have to take underlying causes into consideration.

The main reason the Tatmadaw government switched to democracy is because the Tatmadaw thought it was time to change to a democracy according to the wishes of the people. So it paved the way for democracy, and political parties have joined it.

Of course there are a lot of challenges and difficulties during the transition period. But the Tatmadaw is the last front to safeguard our three main national cause. I mean if the union is at risk of breaking up, if we are at risk of losing sovereignty, if national solidarity is at risk and if the country is experiencing a period of anarchy, the Tatmadaw cant just stand by. If it stood by, it would be blamed by history.

To prevent this, the current government has to act with great caution, correct policies and correct management. The U Thein Sein government also faced a lot of challenges during the transition period, no less than now. But it managed to systematically control foreign pressure and domestic unrest.

The current government is under increased international pressure. There are nationalist problems, racial problems, religious conflicts, economic crisis, weak rule of law, and frequent clashes with ethnic armed groups.

So the current government should study what its predecessor did and how it maintained control under such circumstances. Based on its study, it may mend its weaknesses. If it can cooperate with better management based on that, there is no reason for a reversal.

The [current government] consults no one and cooperates with no one. If it thinks highly of itself and acts without regard for the opinions of others, then the situation that people dread may reoccur any time.

Is former military leader U Than Shwe still playing a role in Myanmars politics? Does he still have political influence?

As far as Im concerned, [former] Senior General Than Shwe has shunned politics since the USDP formed a government after the 2010 election. He is not involved in our party, either.

As far as I know, he now lives a peaceful life of reading and praying. He was sometimes mentioned in books, for example, written by U Shwe Mann, [according to which] he took Daw Aung San Suu Kyi to meet him. And President [U Thein Sein] pays his respects to him as his seniors in the Thadingyut.

When party leaders pay their respects to him, he reportedly says nothing about politics. I heard he said that he had handed [over the country] with trust and called for unity to spur greater development than during his time. He is no longer involved in politics. He does not discuss politics and lives a peaceful life, so I heard.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko.Food Authentic Kachin Dishes Served in Fine-Dining Style

Authentic Kachin dishes served in fine-dining style at Mu Ai / Htet Wai / The Irrawaddy

YANGONMyanmar is home to several major ethnic groups and over 100 ethnicities in all, each with their own distinct culture and unique cuisine. Among the many authentic ethnic eateries to be found in Yangon, the countrys largest city, is the Kachin restaurant Mu Ai.

The restaurant is located in a hidden-away spot on a small side street off Hledan Road, but its easy to find. All you need to do is walk almost to the end of the road and you cant miss Mu Ai.

The restaurants name means delicious in the Kachin language. Yes, the food is amazingreally delicious and so creative. The special thing about this restaurant is that they serve authentic Kachin food in fine-dining style.

The restaurant was surprisingly small, with only six tables, but its clean, and the atmosphere has a pleasant vibe. The decor is very simple, limited to some traditional bags and a few photos of Kachin people hanging the wall.

The menu is wide ranging, with plenty of dishes to choose from. Various courses are served including appetizers, mains, soups, noodles and rice setsall at very reasonable prices.

Prior to visiting Mu Ai I only knew a few Kachin dishes, like Kyat Kachin Chet (Kachin chicken curry), Kachin Pounded Goat Meat and Beef Noodles. So, I asked the chef to prepare a few dishes that I hadnt tried before.

He chose a few dishes from each section and cooked them immediately. They were freshly cooked to orderI had to wait a while, but it was worth it.

From the appetizer menu, the Kachin Chicken Taco (4,000 kyats) is a fusion dish mixing Kachin and Mexican styles served in a bamboo tube. It contained small pieces of chicken cooked in curry with phet phel, a traditional Kachin herb made from a leaf, as well as ginger and ground coriander, on a homemade taco shell.

Many of the ingredients use in Mu Ais kitchen, including phet phel, sesame oil, chili and other Kachin herbs are sourced in Kachin State.

The dish included four tacos. The taste was a bit sweet but the flavor was really great. The homemade taco shell was soft, not crispy, and it made for a beautiful appetizer.

The Shat Jam (2,500 kyats) is a rice set. It features rice cooked with vegetables and herbs, and came with three slices of cooked beef. (You can choose beef, pork or chicken.)

The plate was garnished with cucumber and carrots and topped with half a boiled egg. It came with its own sauce, and served on a banana leaf. The presentation of the dish was really pretty and it had my mouth watering.

The brown beef slices were so fresh; the meat, while not super tender, wasnt overdone. It was cooked mediuma bit chewy but perfect with the vegetable rice.

Kachin Yoe Yar Say Kyat Poun (Kachin traditional herb chicken stew, 7,500 kyats) is one of Mu Ais main dishes. It features stewed chicken breast with Kachin herbs, ginseng liquor (made from pieces of ginseng root soaked in alcohol) and ginger.

The dish, while not a soup, has soup-like qualities. The chicken breast floats in a white broth containing ginseng liquor, topped with ginseng root. Even though it is a stew, the chicken meat is not over-cooked. When you cut the chicken, you can see the tenderness of the flesh. The soup was sweet, combining ginseng and ginger flavors.

Another main dish, Kachin Style Pork Belly Stew (7,500 kyats), was just as awesome and another triumph for the chef. That one was also served in a gravy-style curry, including two big cuts of pork belly. The juicy fat layer did not include too much fat and the meat was tender. The dish seemed at first glance to be too fatty, but it wasntthe oil in the gravy curry in fact came from the pork.

The last item was one of Mu Ais signature dishesthe Pounded Goat Meat (4,000 kyats). This one was also served in a bamboo tube. Dried goat meat pieces are boiled and then pounded with lime, chili, Kachin herb and garlic. The strips of meat are really small and melt in the mouth; the ingredients are wonderfully fresh.

All the dishes are very creative and tasty; the chef uses very fresh ingredients and removes the fat from the meat before cooking; this is why the meat isnt that juicy. They dont use a lot of oil; some dishes have none at all.

Padang Laroi, 33, is the tall, apron-clad chef and co-founder of Mu Ai. He creates the restaurants menu and designs the presentation of the food.

We opened Mu Ai two years ago, but in a different location, in North Okkala. Many of our customers asked us to move closer to the downtown area, Ko Padang Laroi said.

Ko Padang Laroi is from Bhamo, a town in Kachin State. He has nine siblings, but he was the one who joined his mother in the kitchen to cook meals for the family. He has been passionate about cooking since childhood.

My mom is a really good cook and always knows which herbs or ingredients are good for us. I learned everything from her, though I wasnt planning to become a chef at that time, he said.

After his matriculation exam, he traveled to Yangon to attend university. He graduated with a business degree after receiving a scholarship from the Graceworks Myanmar organization of the Australian Council for International Development.

I chose food as my main subject and learned everything about food for several years, and received job training at some famous local hotels, he said.

Then, he decided to open a restaurant that presented Kachin cuisine in a fine-dining context. He has put many of the lessons he learned in his scholarship program to use at the new restaurant.

The food presentation is fine dining, but the flavors are still Kachin flavors. Some dishes are fusion and some limit the use of local herbs, because most people would find them too strong. So, I have tried to present flavors that are agreeable to a broader audience, the chef explained.

Most of Mu Ais regular customers are foreigners living near the shop who have become lunchtime regulars.

Some are from Italy, some are Japanese and we have some other European customers. We also have local customers as well, Ko Padang Laroi said.

Overall, the food was amazing, and the presentation was really outstanding, living up to the chefs description of traditional Kachin food served in fine-dining style. The prices are really reasonable considering the quality of the food.

So, you dont need to travel far from Yangon to taste authentic Kachin cuisine: Just take a ride to Hledan 1st Street.Police have opened a murder case and are looking for suspects.

Ko Poe Lone served in Sittwe Township military security affairs before being transferred to Yangon military security affairs. It is not immediately clear how long ago he was transferred to Yangon or why he was in Sittwe.

His wife saw a man who she said was about 5 feet tall running from the scene. The corporal was shot in the back of the head.

He, his wife and their daughter visited the fair. Ko Poe Lone was buying ice cream for his daughter when his wife heard the gunshot. Then, she saw Ko Poe Lone fall down. He died on the way to the hospital, the police officer said.

The victim, Win Htike (aka) Poe Lone, was a corporal with military security affairs. He was gunned down while he visited a fair with his family at Wingabar Grounds in the state capital, a police officer of Sittwe Township No. 2 Police Station confirmed to The Irrawaddy.

SITTWE, Rakhine State  A member of the Military Security Affairs Office of the Myanmar Army was fatally shot in Rakhine State Sittwe on Tuesday evening.

Ko Poe Lones wife holds him after he is shot. / The Irrawaddy.

Ko Poe Lones wife holds him after he is shot. / The Irrawaddy.

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We do not encourage viewing this site in this width. Please increase the size of your window.Burma Victim Age Limit in Child Rape Cases Too Low: Womens Rights Activists

A photo campaign against child sex abuse cases in Mandalay calls for harsher penalties for the offenders. / Zaw Zaw / The Irrawaddy

YANGON  Womens rights activists have opposed setting the legal age limit of victims of child rape at 12 years old in a bill amending the Penal Code in order to give harsher punishments in cases of child rape.

The bill submitted to Parliament last month adds a specific provision on child rape under Article 376 of the Penal Code. Under the drafted provision, the punishment for the rape of a woman who is a person with disabilities or a child below 12 years of age is to be a 20-year imprisonment or imprisonment for the rest of life.

A member of Upper Houses bill committee and lawmaker U Aung Thein who submitted the bill to the Parliament on Aug. 10 told lawmakers that a separate punishment needs to be adopted to effectively deter rapists.

The existing punishment, according to Article 376 of the Penal Code, ranges from 10 to 20 years imprisonment, but it does not identify a separate punishment for child rape.

Womens rights activists and members of the public have called for harsher penalties to be imposed on child rapists. However, activists have pointed out that setting the victims age, for the rape to be considered child rape, at below 12 years old is contrary to existing laws and also provides a loophole for rapists in cases involving underage victims to avoid receiving harsher penalties.

Ma May Sabe Phyu, director of the Gender Equality Network, said she totally disagrees with the suggestion that only the rape of a victim under 12 years of age should be defined as child rape. She calls for the imposing of harsher penalties amid an increasing number of cases of sexual abuse and violence against underage girls.

Rape is the most common among those classed as major crimes in Myanmar, with child rape cases making up 60 to 70 percent of all reported rapes. According to the Ministry of Home Affairs report published in February, there were a total of 1,405 rape cases in 2017of which 897 were committed against minors under the age of 16. In 2016, of an overall 1,100 cases, 671 were child rape cases.

Meanwhile, under the current 1993 Child Law, a child is defined as a person under the age of 16. This means the rape of any victim below the age of 16 is to be considered child rape. Last month, however, a revision to the law was made by the Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement and submitted to the parliament. In the revised law, the childhood status is to be extended to 18 years old in order to be in adherence with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) which the country signed in 1991.

How can we have children defined as different ages in separate laws? It should be consistent, Ma May Sabe Phyu said, adding the age should be set at under 18 years to be consistent with the revised Child Law and CRC, as well as to effectively protect underage girls.

Lawyer and director of Legal Clinic Myanmar Ma Hla Hla Yee said the proposed age bracket in the bill amending the Penal Code itself is also contrary to a provision under the Penal Codes Article 375 which says that with or without consent, sex between an adult and a minor under 16 years old is rape.

She also raised concerns over another provision under the bill. In the bill, Article 376 (2) states that a person who commits rape against his own wife, and who is over twelve years of age, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term of up to two years, or with a fine, or both.

The lawyer said this provision would lead to an increase in child marriage.

Six Upper House lawmakers discussed the amendment to the Penal Code on Sept. 7. Two male lawmakers agreed that for the rape to be considered child rape, the victims age should be set at under 12 years of age; two other male lawmakers urged for the age to be set at under 10 years old; while one male lawmaker urged for the age to be set at eight. Some of them suggested that the death penalty is issued against perpetrators of child rape.

Naw Susanna Hla Hla Soe, a womens rights activist who is now an Upper House lawmaker, disagreed with all of them. She suggested for the limit to be set at 16 years old, citing the significant rise in rapes against underage girls.

Ma May Sabe Phyu of Gender Equality Network said they would send suggestions regarding the amendments to the parliamentary commissions and that they are ready to negotiate with them.Burma Yangon Govt to Clear Squatters from Main Roads

A motorbike taxi rank on the Yangon-Twante road. / The Irrawaddy

YANGON  The Yangon Region government will take legal action against those who squat or do business without permission on main roads in Yangon.

In response to a question by Twante Township lawmaker U Ne Naing Oo at the regional Parliament on Tuesday about the governments response to squatters on main roads, regional electricity, industry and transportation minister Daw Nilar Kyaw said that legal action would be taken under the Highways Law.

The regional government has sued squatters in 17 cases who opened shops or extended their housing into the boundaries of main roads in townships in the outskirts of Yangon such as Twante, Kungyangon, Kawhmu, Dala and Hlaingtharyar.

Seven additional cases are yet to be opened, said Daw Nilar Kyaw.

According to the Highways Law, legal action will be taken against anyone who squats with road boundaries, she said.

Some people, lawmaker U Ne Naing Oo said, start with a stand to sell small snacks, then open a kiosk, and finally squat on main roads.

Ko Kaung Myat, a Yangon resident who has to travel frequently to Twante for work, said that drivers have to be very careful driving on Yangon-Twante highway.

The main problem with roadside shops is that people drive at high speeds and it is dangerous for children who run onto the road from these shops, he said.

According to the 2014 Highways Law, which was then amended in 2015, opening eateries and shops within road boundaries without the permission of the Roads and Bridges Department is punishable by six months imprisonment and/or a fine of a minimum 50,000 kyats to a maximum 500,000 kyats.

The law also prescribes a fine of a minimum 100,000 kyats to a maximum 500,000 kyats for constructing a building within road boundaries. Second-time violations carry a one-year jail sentence plus a fine of up to 1 million kyats.

The Department of Roads and Bridges under the Construction Ministry has reportedly warned road squatters across the country to leave as soon as possible or face legal action under the Highways Law.News Court Refuses Bail for Elderly Trio Detained Over Land Protest

The Alpha cement factory is seen under construction in Patheingyi Township, Mandalay Region. / Zarni Mann / The Irrawaddy

MANDALAY  The Mandalay District Court on Wednesday denied bail to three residents of Patheingyi Township who were detained after protesting against the construction of a new cement factory in their area.

The court said the case is still in the witness-questioning stage, so it cannot allow the trio to be bailed out, said U Sithu, their lawyer.

Daw Mya, Daw Mya Mya and U Than Paing of Aung Thabyay village were arrested in July after they refused to give up their land to make way for the expansion of a road in preparation for the building of the cement factory. A lawsuit was opened against them under regional road and transportation laws.

They staged a protest against the project after being told that they would not be compensated for the land.

A fourth detainee, Daw Aye, who was seriously ill at the time of her arrest in July, was earlier granted bail.

The Patheingyi Township Court rejected an initial appeal for bail submitted by the three detainees families at the time of their arrest. In August, the lawyer submitted another bail appeal to the Mandalay District Court.

It is a bailable offense and we dont understand why the court did not grant it. There is no danger that these three people will run away. They are old and too weak to stay in prison. The court should think about their health, too. We will submit another appeal to the divisional court, the lawyer said.

According to their families, Daw Mya and Daw Mya Mya are not in good health. They are suffering from depression due to their stay in prison and the constant fear of losing their land.

The trio is detained at Obo prison. Under the lawsuit opened against them at Patheingyi Township Court they face six months to three years imprisonment.

Four other villagers are also the subjects of lawsuits under Article 19 of the Peaceful Assembly Act at the same court for participating in the protests in July. Like the detainees, they were protesting the construction of the cement factory and the road-expansion project after being told they would not be compensated for their land.

Chinese-owned Myint Investment Company is constructing a coal-powered cement factory on over 600 acres of land in the Aung Thabyay village area, about 37 km north of Mandalay.The Royal Anguilla Police Force on Tuesday 25th September, 2018 at about 8:50pm responded to a report of a shooting incident in Tanglewood in the area of The Little Mermaid that left a 22 year old male nursing gunshot wounds. Officers who responded to the scene met and spoke with the victim who was later attended to and transported to the Princess Alexandra Hospital by Emergency Medical Technicians where he remains hospitalized.

As the Police continues their investigation into this matter they are appealing to members of the public who may have been in Tanglewood in the area of The Little Mermaid, and may have witnessed this shooting incident or have any information regarding this shooting to contact the Valley Police Station with such information. The telephone number is 497-2333 and asks for the Criminal Investigation Department or to speak to any Police Officer of their choice.

Additionally information can be sent via the RAPF Tips Website by logging on to www.gov.ai/911 which is a secured website.The Snowflake data warehouse is now generally available on Azure.

As foreshadowed by its July preview, Snowflake Computing's data warehouse as a service is now available to all customers.

Snowflake integrates with Azure Blob Storage, Azure Data Lake Store, PowerBI and other Azure services, and is initially available in the Azure East-US-2 region. Other regions will be added "in the months and years ahead."

Snowflake chief executive Bob Muglia previously told iTWire that one or more of Azure's European regions will be first on the list outside the US, and that availability in an Australian region won't happen this year.

"The demand for a cloud-built data warehouse continues to grow as more companies move their data and analytics workloads to the cloud, Muglia said.

Microsoft customers and multi-vendor cloud users prompted us to offer Snowflake on Azure. Were a customer-centric company and offering Snowflake on Azure is about delivering customer choice. We look forward to serving these customers.

Microsoft welcomed the news.

Corporate vice-president for Azure compute, Corey Sanders, said "Having worked closely with Snowflake to create an outstanding user experience on Azure, I am really excited about this announcement.

"Through this collaboration, both Snowflake and Azure customers will benefit from Snowflake's performance, concurrency and flexibility along with Azure's hybrid, intelligent and trusted cloud capabilities."Charles Sturt University is using the Dell Boomi integration platform as part of a five-year IT transformation designed to improve its business agility and development and rollout of student and staff services efficiently.

CSU says the Boomi solution underpins a refresh of its core applications as part of the IT transformation  and the decision to deploy the integration platform-as-a-service over other providers followed a market evaluation and discussions with fellow Australian universities, including Deakin University and Flinders University.

We developed our enterprise systems renewal program in order to speed up the delivery of new resources for our stakeholders, said Tim Mannes, executive director, division of information technology, CSU.

To successfully execute on our objectives, however, we seriously needed a reliable, seamless and highly-integrated flow of information across our new enterprise environment. Thats the strategic background to our implementation of the Boomi platform.

Under the contract with CSU, the cloud native Boomi iPaaS serves as the linking mechanism between all of CSUs renewed operational systems. This includes customer relationship management, human resources, finance, research, student management system, data warehouse and identity management platforms, as well any bespoke applications that are incorporated in the future.

The move to Boomis iPaaS has given us a high-reliability environment for business continuity, said Shane Jeffries, manager integration, division of information technology, CSU.

While we have been using integration for a decade, our old integration platform made upgrades difficult, and required a lot of resources to maintain  combined, it demanded a serious amount of effort that impeded our focus on whats most important: the experiences of students and staff.

The higher education space is hotly-contested in Australia, with universities under constant pressure to differentiate themselves to existing and prospective students by demonstrating innovative services, said Michael Evans, managing director Asia-Pacific and Japan, Boomi.

By connecting systems and operations with Boomis platform, CSU is in a better position to understand its students than ever before. As a connected university with digital services, processes and insights, the organisation can optimise its investments in the resources that students need most, ultimately providing students a better learning experience that will enhance their suitability in the workforce of tomorrow.An educational toolkit, to help girls of school age understand the range of careers open to them in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, will be developed and delivered by Education Services Australia next year.

Industry, Science and Technology Minister Karen Andrews said in a statement that the toolkit would be created by ESA using $580,000 in funding allocated in the May Federal Budget.

The statement said this initiative was aimed at addressing the gender bias and stereotyping in science and mathematics, which begin in primary school and continue through high school to university and research.

The government announced $4.5 million in new funding in the Budget to encourage more women to pursue STEM education and careers. Previous investments, made through the National Innovation and Science Agenda, total $13 million.

Education Services Australia is a national not-for-profit company owned by the state, territory and Australian Government education ministers. It won the grant process to develop the Girls in STEM Toolkit.

The Girls in STEM Toolkit will feature articles and case studies to motivate students on a new digital platform to be launched next year, Andrews said.

Increasing female participation in STEM will make Australias research, scientific and business capability stronger.

We need all our young people to understand the importance of STEM skills to jobs of the future and the Coalitions toolkit will help young women further engage with STEM subjects."

She said the toolkit would include practical resources for educators, career counsellors and families, so that girls would receive support at school and at home.

Australias future success depends on us developing and encouraging the next generation of scientists, problem solvers and leaders  regardless of their gender, background or any other factor," Andrews added.

By providing our girls studying STEM with information and encouragement to stick with it, we will help them achieve their full potential as scientists, innovators or entrepreneurs.Three British intelligence agencies  MI5, GCHQ and MI6  have admitted illegally collecting private data relating to the charity Privacy International as part of its bulk communications data and bulk personal datasets programs.

The disclosure comes less than a fortnight after the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the methods used by GCHQ to collect information through bulk interception of online communications violated privacy and did not provide enough safeguards.

A statement from Privacy International said the agencies had denied on more than one occasion that their programs were the equivalent of mass surveillance of people who were innocent of any crime.

The mea culpa from the British agencies occurred during the course of a challenge by Privacy International to the powers for the BPD and BCD programs before the Investigatory Powers Tribunal, a court that hears claims against British intelligence services.

Privacy International said following the disclosure, it had written to Home Secretary Sajid Javid to ask what changes would be made to the Investigatory Powers Act which is better known as

Privacy International's general counsel Caroline Wilson Palow said: "Today's revelations are troubling for a whole host of reasons. The UK intelligence agencies' bulk collection of communications data and personal data has been shown to be as vast we have always imagined  it sweeps in almost everyone, including human rights organisations like Privacy International.

Not only was Privacy International caught up in the surveillance dragnet, its data was actually examined by agents from the UK's domestic-facing intelligence agency  MI5. We do not know why MI5 reviewed Privacy International's data, but the fact that it happened at all should raise serious questions for all of us.

"Should a domestic intelligence agency charged with protecting national security be spying on a human rights organisation based in London? Shouldn't such spying, if permitted at all, be subject to the strictest of safeguards? In an era when human rights and democracy are under threat all over the world, the UK should demonstrate leadership by protecting human rights defenders.

Privacy International therefore urges the UK Government to critically examine its mass surveillance powers, as enshrined in the Investigatory Powers Act 2016. They have now been called into question twice in two weeks - by today's revelations and by last week's judgment from the European Court of Human Rights.

"The UK should be a beacon of light in a world where democracy is under threat. Its refusal to curtail the mass surveillance powers of its intelligence agencies casts a shadow over all of us."The Information Technology Innovation Foundation, a self-proclaimed non-partisan Washington DC think tank which includes representatives of the largest US tech multinationals on its board, has slammed moves by the Trump Government to investigate the big three US social media giants amid escalating complaints about anti-conservative bias on their platforms.

An ominously titled open letter published in USA Today, which has the undertones of a threat, warned US Federal Attorney-General Jeff Sessions and conservatives not to mess with Google, Facebook or Twitter".

Sessions is scheduled to meet a number of Republican state attorneys-general today to discuss opening a federal investigation over possible consumer protection or anti-trust law violations against the three social media companies with a view to exploring options for breaking the companies up into separate smaller businesses. The meeting includes state attorneys-general from Alabama, Louisiana, Nebraska, Tennessee and Texas, all of whom believe that the platforms are stifling the free exchange of ideas".

The letter, jointly penned by ITIF vice-president Daniel Castro, a former Democrat lawmaker, and research assistant Michael McLaughlin, acknowledges that there is a groundswell of commentators who believe that the Internet platforms are censoring conservative voices and ideas.

However, the authors claim that there is only sketchy evidence of bias on the social media platforms and the complaints stem from misunderstandings about recent changes to how the social media sites display content".

An example of the so-called sketchy evidence, also described as circumstantial in the letter, is the leaked internal Google video that emerged recently showing a company meeting before an audience of employees in which Googles most senior executives engaged in a public hand wringing session over President Donald Trumps 2016 election victory.

Despite this, Castro and McLaughlin claim there is no merit to the argument that there is anti-conservative political bias within the social media organisations but, to the contrary, the meeting of the federal and state attorneys general is politically motivated.

While the letter claims that conservative consumers are crying wolf over the complaints of political bias, it also strangely states that they should not demand that the social media platforms prioritise political neutrality in their search results.

That would necessarily force them to de-emphasise other factors such as timeliness, relevance and accuracy, which consumers tend to favour, according to the authors.

Finally, the authors claim that the social media giants are not scary monopolies and consumers would be worse off if they were broken up, citing that their value to consumers derives from the fact that they allow people to communicate with their friends and families with a single click.The term "fake news" has become a staple in the US, after Donald Trump became president and started using it every second day, and in situations where it doesn't fit.

But closer to home, there are genuine instances of such bogus stories, with one surfacing two days ago, in the wake of Linux creator Linus Torvalds stepping down temporarily from managing the kernel project.

The headline of said story claimed that kernel developers were threatening to remove the code they had contributed to the project, if they were disciplined under a new code of conduct which had been introduced along with Torvalds' temporary departure. [The headline has now been changed, though the time and date of publication remain the same. Strange. A screenshot of the original is below.]

But the sources which are cited in the story do not say anything similar to the headline. The old adage of not bothering with the facts when they do not suit a storyline comes to mind.

One source,to the Linux kernel mailing list by a non-developer, pointed out that the licence under which the kernel is released  the GNU General Public Licence version 2.0  allows developers to rescind their contributions.

There was no mention of anyone having yet done so.

There are a couple of additional points to be borne in mind: one, when corporate contributions are made to the kernel, the developer has to assign copyright to the corporation. Ninety percent of code contributed to Linux fits in this bracket.

And two, soon after the SCO Group announced its decision in 2003 to sue IBM for copyright over UNIX code that it (SCO) claimed to own, the Linux kernel project decided to ask developers to provide a standard, signed form in which they assigned copyright for code changes they submitted to the project to the people running said project.

These two factors may not get in the way of some upstart wanting his/her code back. But it definitely will not make it any easier.

The second source for this article is a man of the past, Eric Raymond, once a luminary of the open source community, but now only a fringe player. Raymond wrote a blog post about the Torvalds episode, and the throwaway line "let me confirm that this threat (ie. developers asking for their code back) has teeth" seems to have got the author of the article in question a little excited.

What Raymond meant was the same as in the first post: yes, the developers could ask for their code back and it was a viable form or protest. Not that anyone had done so.

Yet this was the excitable intro to the story: "Open source legend Eric S Raymond has weighed in on governance of the Linux Kernel after developers threatened to withdraw their code from the OS."

The extent of Raymond's clout in the free and open source community can be seen by the fact that nobody has bothered to even respond to his post when he submitted it to the Linux kernel mailing list.

There has been a tendency among some tech writers to use Torvalds' outbursts down the years as fodder for page impressions  what is commonly known as clickbait. Rarely have these shouting matches on the Linux kernel mailing list been reported in a sober manner.

Thus, perhaps one should not be surprised at this latest attempt to milk events around Torvalds for traffic.A former member of the NSA's elite Tailored Access Operations unit has been sentenced to 5 years in jail, followed by three years of supervised release, for what the US Justice Department has characterised as "willfull retention of classified national defence information".

Vietnamese American Nghia Hoang Pho, 70, of Ellicot City, Maryland, entered a guilty plea on 1 December 2017 to the charge of taking national defence information home from 2010 to 2015 and retaining it at his residence.

Prosecutors had sought a jail term of at least eight years for Pho, while his own counsel had request no jail time, but a long period of home confinement. Pho has claimed he took the classified material home so he could craft a review that would bring a pay hike which would increase his income when he retired.

There had been hints after Pho's arrest that he may be the source who unwittingly leaked NSA exploits to a group known as Shadow Brokers which exposed them on the Web.

I think Pho's sentence is excessive. Yes, Pho was dumb. No, he doesn't deserve this. I've said it before: Pho's superiors and team members knew he was taking home classified (or should have). He deserves to lose his retirement and maybe a short sentence. Not this. 10/10  Jake Williams (@MalwareJake) September 25, 2018

No connection was shown between Pho and the Shadow Brokers, but there has been at leastthat claimed exploits from Pho's PC had been exfiltrated by Russian hackers who then released them, either through the Shadow Brokers or by themselves under the same name.

The NSA exploits are claimed to have leaked to the Russians through Pho's use of Kaspersky Lab's anti-virus software; like any A-V solution, the software uploads suspicious files to a server for later analysis and when it encountered the NSA files on this man's machine, it did the same.

How the Russians obtained these exploits is a mystery though the obvious implication has been that after they reached Kaspersky's Moscow offices, they were handed over to government hackers. Kaspersky has denied any involvement.

One more ex-NSA man, Harold Martin, is yet to be sentenced after being arrested for a similar offence as Pho: taking NSA data home. Martin pleaded guilty to the charge of illegal retention of information relating to US national security in January.

Announcing Pho's sentence, Assistant Attorney-General for National Security John Demers said: "Phos intentional, reckless and illegal retention of highly classified information over the course of almost five years placed at risk our intelligence communitys capabilities and methods, rendering some of them unusable.

Todays sentence reaffirms the expectations that the government places on those who have sworn to safeguard our nations secrets."

US Attorney for the District of Maryland Robert Hur said: Removing and retaining such highly classified material displays a total disregard of Phos oath and promise to protect our nations national security.

As a result of his actions, Pho compromised some of our countrys most closely held types of intelligence, and forced NSA to abandon important initiatives to protect itself and its operational capabilities, at great economic and operational cost.

Special Agent in Charge Gordon Johnson of the FBIs Baltimore Field Office said: The privilege of working for the US Intelligence Community requires strict adherence to laws governing the lawful secrecy of its work.

We cannot have a functioning Intelligence Community without the protection of sources and methods, and taking classified information and placing it in a vulnerable setting has profound and often disastrous consequences.

"This case is a clarion call to all security clearance holders to follow the law and policy regarding classified information storage. The FBI will leave no stone unturned to investigate those who compromise or mishandle classified information.Chip maker Qualcomm has fired a broadside against Apple, accusing the latter of "a campaign of false promises, stealth and subterfuge in the long-running patent-infringement battle between the two firms.

In a filing made in a California court, and reported by Axios, Qualcomm said, it is now apparent Apple engaged in a years-long campaign of false promises, stealth and subterfuge designed to steal Qualcomm's confidential information and trade secrets for the purpose of improving the performance of lower-quality modem chipsets, with the ultimate goal of eliminating Qualcomm's Apple-based business.

The two companies have been fighting each other in court for some time now, with the iPhone-maker now said to have moved away to using Intel chips.

From 2011 to 2016, Apple used only Qualcomm chips; it then started using a mix from both Intel and Qualcomm.

In its filing, Qualcomm claimed it had allowed Apple access to its software and tools but had placed limits on how the knowledge it acquired could be used.

But, Qualcomm alleges, Apple used the knowledge it gained to advise Intel how to improve its chips.

The filing was made in a bid to change the breach of contract suit it has against Apple.

Apple and Qualcomm have been on the warpath since January last year when Apple filed a suit against Qualcomm in the US, followed by two cases in China the same month. Two months later it filed a case in the UK.Motorola Solutions has participated in fund raising events to help increase awareness of the risks faced by Victoria Police officers and to honour officers killed in the line of duty.

Motorola employees helped raise funds and supported the Victoria Police Blue Ribbon Foundation as the company marked its 50th anniversary in Australia and 90th anniversary globally.

Motorola Solutions' charitable arm, The Motorola Solutions Foundation, also donated US$5000 to support Blue Ribbon's valuable community health and wellbeing programs including the provision of life-saving medical equipment for hospitals in Melbourne.

Motorola Solutions vice-president and managing director Steve Crutchfield said it was an honour for Australian employees to support a cause so closely connected to Motorola Solutions' work.

"Motorola Solutions has supported Victoria Police over many decades by providing mission-critical communications technologies that its officers depend on each day," he said.

"It was a very special experience for our employees to support the Victoria Police Blue Ribbon Foundation's annual day and to honour the sacrifice of officers who have fallen in the line of duty.

"We sincerely value the commitment of all Victoria Police officers and now feel even closer to the work they do each day to protect and serve our community."(ANSA) - Rome, September 26 - The director of Human Rights Watch for Europe and central Asia, Judith Sunderland, on Wednesday said in an article on the Aquarius migrant rescue ship that "the the current Italian government's inhuman approach to refugees and migrants has touched the bottom once more." Sunderland repeated claims that the government, led by Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, put pressure on Panama to stop the ship using its flag.

The Aquarius, operated by SOS Mediterranee and Doctors Without Borders, was rejected by Italy and sailed on for three days before before finding a landing spot in Malta.

Its 58 migrants will be distributed among France, Spain, Portugal and Germany.

Online bank ME has achieved earnings of $96.5 million for the full year 2018  an increase of 13% on 2017  and attributes its results to strong growth.

The industry super fund-owned bank says statutory profit after tax  which includes a realised gain on hedging instruments ($3.6 million), and spending on IT projects ($10.9 million)  was $89.1 million, up from $61.9 million in 2017.

ME chief executive Jamie McPhee said: It is vitally important to have a bank directly aligned with the interests of customers performing strongly, particularly in the current environment.

ME is owned by industry super funds and is charged with helping all Australians get ahead. Realising that mission is about growing our business and reaching more customers.

McPhee said earnings growth reflected a 7% increase in the banks asset portfolio to $28.3 billion and higher net interest margin, up 12 basis points to 1.62%, on the previous financial year.

Underlying earnings have grown at an annual compound rate of 19% since June 2014, he said.

Our home loan portfolio grew 1.3 times the industry average due to $6.2 billion in new home loan settlements.

Customer deposits grew 17% to $14.8 billion while household deposit growth topped the industry, up 27% or nearly five times the industry average, and provided improvements to the quality of MEs funding profile while ensuring consistently high rates of return for customers.

Customer numbers grew 13% to 474,000 and have increased at an annual compound growth rate of 11% since June 2014.

Underlying return on equity of 8.1% was in line with target. The cost-to-income ratio was 64.5%, a slight increase due to accelerated amortisation of legacy software systems.The Australian Communications and Media Authority has expanded its Consumer Consultative Forum, with the appointment of eight new members.

The organisations appointed to the forum by ACMA are:

Consumer Policy Research Centre

Country Womens Association of Australia

Deaf Australia

Federation of Ethnic Communities Council of Australia

LegalAid NSW

NSW Business Chamber

South Australian Council of Social Services

WEstjustice

Authority member, Fiona Cameron who leads the ACMA on Consumer Safeguards issues, will chair the renewed CCF, joining standing members Australian Communications Consumer Action Network, Communications Alliance and Australian Mobile Telecommunications Association to discuss key telecommunications issues.

"Consumers face a range of issues when it comes to navigating the communications landscape," Cameron said.

These new appointments will help industry and government better understand community needs.

Cameron says the CCF will focus on a broad range of issues of interest to all communications consumers, including those faced with a disability, regional and remote communities as well as low income groups.

The ACMA has stated its strategic objective is to maximise the economic and social benefits of communications and media for Australia  and the CCF plays an important role in assisting the Authority to achieve a regulatory framework that anticipates change through monitoring our environment and influencing regulatory responses.A university developed photonic chip, which you'd think would be visual, is claimed to be able to "harness sound waves to speed up local networks".

We're told that it used to be known as the "information superhighway", but is actually "the fibre-optic infrastructure on which our gigabytes and petabytes of data whizz around the world at (nearly) the speed of light".

Like any highway system, we know that "increased traffic has created slowdowns, especially at the junctions where data jumps on or off the system".

"Local and access networks especially, such as financial trading systems, city-wide mobile phone networks and cloud computing warehouses, are therefore not as fast as they could be", according to the University of Sydney.

It turns out this is because "increasingly complex digital signal processing and laser-based local oscillator systems are needed to unpack the photonic, or optical, information and transfer it into the electronic information that computers can process.

"Now, scientists at the University of Sydney have for the first time developed a chip-based information recovery technique that eliminates the need for a separate laser-based local oscillator and complex digital signal processing system."

Dr Elias Giacoumidis, joint lead author of a new study, said: Our technique uses the interaction of photons and acoustic waves to enable an increase in signal capacity and therefore speed. This allows for the successful extraction and regeneration of the signal for electronic processing at very-high speed.

The University explains: "The incoming photonic signal is processed in a filter on a chip made from a glass known as chalcogenide. This material has acoustic properties that allows a photonic pulse to capture the incoming information and transport it on the chip to be processed into electronic information.

"This removes the need for complicated laser oscillators and complex digital signal processing."

Dr Amol Choudhary from the University of Sydney Nano Institute and School of Physics said: This will increase processing speed by microseconds, reducing latency or what is referred to as lag in the gaming community. While this doesnt sound a lot, it will make a huge difference in high-speed services, such as the financial sector and emerging e-health applications.

The photonic-acoustic interaction harnesses what is known as "stimulated Brillouin scattering, an effect used by the Sydney team to develop photonic chips for information processing".

Dr Choudhary continued: Our demonstration device using stimulated Brillouin scattering has produced a record-breaking narrowband of about 265 megahertz bandwidth for carrier signal extraction and regeneration. This narrow bandwidth increases the overall spectral efficiency and therefore overall capacity of the system."

Group research leader and Director of Sydney Nano, Professor Ben Eggleton, said: The fact that this system is lower in complexity and includes extraction speedup means it has huge potential benefit in a wide range of local and access systems such as metropolitan 5G networks, financial trading, cloud computing and the Internet-of-Things.

The study was published today in Optica.

Dr Choudhary said the research teams next steps would be to construct prototype receiver chips for further testing.

The study was done in collaboration with Monash University and the Australian National University.Information security is the central political question of our times.

Security pros know well that grappling with these issues requires us to develop a tough mental attitude, both individually and collectively. No amount of security mitigation matters if your despair or optimism clouds your judgement about the effectiveness of that mitigation.

The resulting hysteria plays out large, for example, in the current frenzy surrounding voting machine security. The Russians are hacking our elections!!! Them Russkies are changing vote totals!!! Putin's ghost hangs over your shoulder in the voting booth!!!

Let's calm down a bit, shall we?

Humans are really bad at assessing risk. We tend to fixate on catastrophic but unlikely occurrenceslike terrorism, for examplewhile ignoring mundane risks that cause cumulative harm such as eating poorly, or not maintaining bridges, or failing to save for retirement.

This difficulty in assessing and responding to risk is especially pronounced in information security, where non-technical people, in particular, find themselves forced to choose between extreme paranoia (and thus, a defeatist attitude) and unrealistic optimism (we live in the best of all possible worlds!).

Neither is a productive attitude. Both are damaging in their own way.

Nerds, nerd harder!

The extreme of unreasonable optimism afflicts those blissfully ignorant of information security issues. Let me punch this straw man: "Nerds, nerd harder!" Yet for all the caricature that represents, there is a grain of truth. We put a man on the moon, for crying out loud, people say. Fix your fiddly computer thingumabobbers already. Sheesh!

This is a toxic attitude, especially for policy makers in government. Perfect security is impossible, and good security is very hard. Making policy and governing based on the stern admonishment to nerds to "nerd harder" is a disaster waiting to happen. Not to mention a sure-fire way to insult the nerds who not only know better, but who you want to do your bidding.

Unreasonable optimism eventually gives way to panic and hysteria, and leads to defeatism. We see this with the abrupt jolt to our republic's spine during the 2016 presidential election. Suddenly, a large number of people became aware of security issues and freaked out. In their continued ignorance, the panic has subsided to despairing numbness, followed by weary resignation, followed by hopelessness and despair.

Security people know this condition well. We call it security nihilism.

Security nihilism: Nietzsche would be proud

Yes, share this article with your less-technical colleagues. We feel the tug of these two extremes, too, do we not? "Everything is broken, we're doomed, we're hacked, hacked I tell ya!" With bulging eyes as the camera pans down a rain-swept street with goons smoking cigarettes in dark doorways, waiting to pounce.

Mitigations that improve, but by definition do not perfect, security are worth nothing if we are not able to calibrate our trust to the level of security they provide. I trust that the lock on the front door to my apartment is good enough to withstand all but the most determined attacks. But if someone with a battering ram, explosives, or a talented black bag team want to get into my apartment, I know that I can't prevent intrusion by those kinds of attackers. Nevertheless, I don't stay awake at night obsessing over unlikely threats or threats I cannot defend against.

Nothing better illustrates the dangers of both security nihilism and unwarranted optimism than the state of voting security.

The right mental attitude toward voting security

Consider first the optimistic froth around blockchain-based online voting. As soon as we hear the magic incantation  "abracadabra, BLOCKCHAIN!"  an astonishing number of faith healers leap from the woodwork and start doing their medicine man crypto bruh dance, assuring us with great fervor that blockchain will be our salvation, the balm to heal all wounds, the future, hope.

Yet few proposals to secure electronic voting are easier to expose as complete nonsense than the idea of online voting, even when potioned by the magic blockchain spell. As CSO has previously reported, online voting is impossible to secure. Voting security expert Matt Blaze has delivered devastating broadsides against this nonsense, publicly saying again and again and again that blockchain has no place in voting security today.

The other extreme nonsense position  which we can call "nihilism" or just flat-out "denial"  is the loud insistence, fingers in ears, that nothing is wrong, everything is fine, nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah, we can't hear you.

A judge in Georgia said as much a few days ago, reluctantly ruling that insecure voting machines could be used in the midterm elections in November, but publicly rebuking government officials for having their "heads in the sand."

"The States posture in this litigationand some of the testimony and evidence presentedindicated that the Defendants and State election officials had buried their heads in the sand," the judge's ruling says.

Prevailing attitudes seem to be that either nothing can be done, nothing is wrong, or that some magical buzzword will save us. None of these is correct. The right answer requires us to calm down and do the work.

Ignorance the root of the problem

Security requires critical thought and a tough mental attitude, and if our republic is to survive the information security threats our voting machines face, then we need to educate the public to think critically about what defense looks like, what it can and cannot do, and move beyond security nihilism into an improved collective security posture based on a sane understanding of the threats and our defenses.

How do we do that?

Well, the midterm elections are coming up. The result of despair is lost trust. Attacks on voting machines are calibrated not to change votes, but to weaken trust. The purpose of technical security mitigations, perhaps even more so than in other contexts, therefore becomes a question of calibrating the precise amount of trust warranted.

The current level of trust warranted, unfortunately, is very low. As the 2018 DEF CON voting village demonstrated, electronic voting machines are woefully insecure. But woeful insecurity can and should be improved  and giving in to the anxiety in the pit of your stomach that all is hopeless, All is Lost, OH MY GOD DEMOCRACY IS OVER!!!! is not a particularly helpful attitude.

Too many politicians and policymakers have their head in the sand about this, however. The idea that weak information security could ever become a partisan political position is ludicrous, especially when the result is lost trust in elections. Our political discourse, so long the stage for grandstanding nonsense, has finally discovered information security. The consequences of pursuing policies like "everything is fine!" when it comes to voting machine security could be fatal to our republic. (One wonders if that is a bug or a feature.)

Information security is the central political question of our times. It is a hard problem that can never be solved perfectly. But the gap between the status quo and strong-enough security is a yawning chasm. Neither despair nor optimism will help us bridge that gap. A tough mental attitude is the best defense. Security professionals can and should lead by example.(ANSA) - Rome, September 25 - Residents on Rome's outskirts blocked a road with a 'wall' of trash Tuesday protesting that rubbish has not been collected for days leading to foul-smelling piles of trash, attracting insects and rats.

Rome Mayor Virginia Raggi has endured several trash crises and a string of woes at city rubbish collection company AMA.

(ANSA) - Rome, September 25 - Rome's famed 'botticelle' horse-drawn tourist carriages are to move from the streets of the Italian capital to its villas' parks under a measure passed by the environmental committee on Tuesday.

The move is set to be put to final approval by the mobility committee "within the fist few days of October", sources said.

"Among the key aims of the measure is to avoid all suffering to the horses, taking the botticelle activities to more suitable locations like parks and historic villas," said the head of the Rome environmental committee, Daniele Diaco of the ruling anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S).

It will also be possible for drivers to switch jobs and apply for taxi licenses, he said.

Since no new botticelle licenses will be issued, the carriages may disappear if all 32 drivers apply to become taxi drivers.

Animal rights groups have long complained that the horses are subject to too much stress and strain on Rome's hot cobbled streets.

(ANSA) - Vatican City, September 26 - Pope Francis on Wednesday urged the Chinese government, in the wake of a deal between the Holy See and Beijing about appointing government-approved bishops, to continue dialogue with the Vatican.

"May friendship grow," the pontiff said in a message to the Chinese people on the accord struck at the weekend.

Francis urged Chinese Catholics to be "united and also good citizens" and said they should be the "artificers of reconciliation".

Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 25)  Opposition senator Risa Hontiveros has a message for the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), which reiterated the supposed existence of an ouster plot against the President.

"Malungkot ako [I'm sad], because I know [AFP] Chief of Staff Sir Charlie Galvez... as a decent person and a strong supporter of the peace process, especially in the Bangsamoro," Hontiveros told CNN Philippines' The Source on Tuesday. "Nanawagan ako sa kanya  sa top leadership ng AFP - huwag sana sila magpagamit sa ganitong klaseng pulitika, which further damages our democratic institutions."

[Translation: I am calling on him  and the top leadership of AFP  not to let themselves be used by this politicking, which further damages our democratic institutions.]

President Rodrigo Duterte has repeatedly claimed opposition lawmakers are in cahoots with the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) for a planned ouster.

The military has affirmed that there is such a plot, and said it warned Tindig Pilipinas  a coalition of groups critical of Duterte  against being "unwittingly used by communists to overthrow the government."

"We don't have the details yet, but according to the grand plan we were able to uncover... If that fizzles out, they have another plan this coming November," said AFP Asst. Deputy Chief for Operations BGen. Antonio Parlade.

The AFP said its supporting sources were seized during anti-insurgency operations. They did not provide more details, saying the documents have not been declassified.

Hontiveros hit the AFP for not being able to back up their claims.

"Gen. Parlade talks about plans, but he admits they have no details. I'm sorry, hindi iyan maayos na intel... Ang sloppy," she said.

[Translation: I'm sorry, but that's not good intel... it's sloppy.]

The government also previously sought a terrorist tag for around 600 names, including UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Victoria Tauli-Corpuz. The Department of Justice maintained she and others on the list were affiliated with the CPP. However, the document was also slammed as defective by critics who found it included the names of people who were dead and missing.

Vice President Leni Robredo on Tuesday also denounced the accusation, saying that the move to link opposition groups and personalities to an extra-constitutional plot was "alarming."

The opposition has repeatedly denied such a plot, maintaining that Duterte himself is the country's "destabilizer."

Hontiveros called on the AFP to see that different people, including the opposition, "are engaging in our democratic system in a constructive way and according to all the rules."

CNN Philippines Senior Correspondent David Santos contributed to this report.IOM says 4,000 Tunisians have left illegally in 2018 Says challenge requires better cooperation between countries

(ANSAmed) - TUNIS, SEPTEMBER 26 - Lorena Lando, Tunisia Head of Mission for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), said on Wednesday that 4,000 Tunisians have left the North African country illegally since the beginning of 2018, compared to 60,000 regular migrants.



Lando spoke at the 9th International Forum of NGOs in partnership with UNESCO, taking place in Tunis on September 26 and 27.



Lando said IOM manages various international programmes aimed at ensuring migrants' rights and their integration into society.



She said the role of civil society in host countries is important in terms of migrant integration, and that migration is a challenge that requires better cooperation between countries.



Abdelbasset Ben Hassan, president of the Arab Institute for Human Rights (AIHR), said migration is no longer seen as a source of wealth and diversity, although it is or should be.



He said the politicising of migration has favored the rise of "radical speech" and he highlighted the need to focus on the marginalisation and exclusion stoking this type of speech.



AIHR Executive Director Lamia Grar said Tunisia needs to adopt measures to fight illegal immigration but must also face the economic and social causes at the root of the problem.



She said the country must also ensure necessary protection to illegal migrants through negotiations and accords with host countries.(ANSAmed).



Israel emphasizes role as international cybersecurity hub Ambassador at Cybertech Rome says country among most attacked

(ANSAmed) - ROME, SEPTEMBER 26 - Israeli Ambassador to Italy Ofer Sachs, speaking at the Cybertech Europe conference on Wednesday in Rome, said his country is among those receiving the most cyberattacks worldwide.



"It's no secret who our main enemies are," Sachs said during a press conference held at Cybertech under the title "Israel Cybersecurity Ecosystem: A World Leader on Cyber Risk Mitigation and Data Protection".



"Two years ago the Israeli government decided to make cybersecurity an important part of our efforts," Sachs said, adding that Israel has become a very important international hub for cybersecurity over the past 20 years.



The press conference was sponsored by the Israeli Embassy, the Israeli Economy Ministry, and the Israel Export Institute.



Sachs said that in Israel, the government, the private sector, and defence agencies are working together to create better cyber solutions for Israeli security and economic development.



"We're living in an extraordinary time of radical changes in terms of the digital revolution," Sachs said.



"Revolutions also bring challenges and risks. We see that there's a cynical use of our daily digital activities, in terms of finance, mobile, medical information, and automotive," he said.



He said in Israel, there are thousands of active cyber companies, and that in the past two years there has been a significant increase in investments in cyber activities.



Yaara Sabzerou of the Israel Export Institute said 2017 data showed that the industry in Israel is worth 1.4 billion dollars, with a slight increase expected in 2018. In the first six months of 2018, Israel led the pack in cybersecurity investments from international venture capital funds, in the millions, foreshadowing a growing trend.



Israeli computer-security startups raised 801 million dollars in 2017, representing a 40% increase in terms of money raised and a 19% growth in terms of the number of investments on 2016, when investments totaled 571 million.



Three Israeli startups - Be-Strategic Solutions, Pcysys and Silverfort - were presented during the press conference, selected from exhibitors at the Israel Startup Pavilion as examples of cybersecurity innovators.



The startups represent diverse strategic solutions in terms of identifying and mitigating cyber threats and defence in critical infrastructures.



Ambassador Sachs said Cybertech Europe is one of the most important events in Europe.



"We want it to be a good platform for institutions and societies to meet and interact," he said.(ANSAmed).



TORONTO, Sept. 26, 2018 /CNW/ - First Cobalt Corp. (TSX-V: FCC; ASX: FCC; OTCQX: FTSSF) (the "Company") is pleased to announce results of its first NI 43-101 Mineral Resource Estimate for the 100%-owned Iron Creek Cobalt Project in Idaho, USA.

Highlights

Inferred mineral resources of 29.6 million tons (26.9 million tonnes) grading 0.11% cobalt equivalent (0.08% cobalt and 0.30% copper) under a base case scenario pit constrained and deeper mineral resource. An alternative underground-only scenario results in 4.9 million tons (4.4 million tonnes) grading 0.30% cobalt equivalent (0.23% cobalt and 0.68% copper)

under a base case scenario pit constrained and deeper mineral resource. An alternative underground-only scenario results in 4.9 million tons (4.4 million tonnes) grading 0.30% cobalt equivalent (0.23% cobalt and 0.68% copper) Resource contains 45 million pounds (20,411 tonnes) of cobalt and 175 million pounds (79,379 tonnes) of copper for 62.9 million pounds (28,528 tonnes) of cobalt equivalent

Resource is considered to be open along strike and at depth, with true widths between 10m and 30m

and Preliminary metallurgical testing concludes that simple flotation methods are applicable, yielding recoveries of 96% for cobalt and 95% for copper in rougher floatation

30,000m drill program ongoing to double the strike length for an updated resource estimate planned for early 2019

Trent Mell, President & Chief Executive Officer, commented:

"The initial resource estimate and the pace of progress at Iron Creek have exceeded our expectations. We have delineated a sizeable primary cobalt deposit on patented property and mineralization continues to expand to the east, west and at depth. The mineralogy is simple and initial metallurgical test work is very encouraging with high metal recoveries. Cobalt is associated with pyrite rather than minerals containing arsenic, which may offer processing and offtake advantages."

Mr. Mell went on to say, "Idaho has a long history of mining and we have enjoyed strong support from the State and in Washington, DC. This initial Inferred Resource estimate is an important step forward to a potential source of ethical cobalt in America. Drilling is now underway to test the mineralization strike length from 450 metres to over 900 metres, while also systematically testing depth extensions to over 300 metres to support an updated resource estimate in early 2019."

Mine Development Associates (MDA) in Reno, Nevada was retained to prepare a resource estimate for the Iron Creek cobalt and copper project, located in Idaho, USA. The resource estimate was based on data from 62 diamond drill holes, totaling 49,983 feet (15,235 metres), drilled by the Company in 2017 and early 2018.

The estimate of Inferred cobalt and copper resource is 29.6 million tons (26.9 million tonnes) at average grades of 0.08% cobalt and 0.30% copper, for a cobalt equivalent grade of 0.11%. These are reported at a cutoff of 0.03% CoEq for pit-constrained mineralization and 0.18% CoEq cutoff for potentially underground mineralization. As an alternative, an underground only scenario was estimated at a cutoff of 0.18% CoEq.

The tabulations at 0.15%CoEq, 0.20%CoEq and 0.35%CoEq represent material that could be available if only an underground scenario is to be considered.

Table 1: Summary of Inferred Resource Estimate

Cutoff

% CoEq(2) Tons

(000s) Tonnes

(000s) CoEq

(%) Cobalt

(%) Cobalt

(Mlbs) Copper

(%) Copper

(Mlbs) 0.03/0.18(3) 29,630 26,880 0.11 0.08 45.4 0.30 175.4 0.15 6,223 5,645 0.27 0.21 25.5 0.64 79.2 0.18(4) 4,858 4,407 0.30 0.23 22.3 0.68 66.7 0.20 4,100 3,719 0.32 0.25 20.2 0.71 58.4 0.35 1,144 1,038 0.47 0.39 8.9 0.84 19.2

(1) Mineral Resources which are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. The Inferred Mineral Resource in this estimate has a lower level of confidence than that applied to an Indicated Mineral Resource and must not be converted to a Mineral Reserve. It is reasonably expected that the majority of the Inferred Mineral Resource could be upgraded to an Indicated Mineral Resource with continued exploration. The Mineral Resources in this press release were estimated using the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (CIM), CIM Standards on Mineral Resources and Reserves, Definitions and Guidelines prepared by the CIM Standing Committee on Reserve Definitions and adopted by CIM Council. (2) Cobalt equivalent is calculated as %CoEq = %Co + (%Cu/10) based on US$30/lb Co and US$3/lb Cu. No metallurgical recoveries were applied to either metal because it is expected that the metallurgical recoveries will be similar for both metals. (3) All classified resource blocks located between the surface and the open pit shell with grades greater than 0.03% CoEq were included in the reported mineral resources and resource blocks located below the pit-confining surface and with grades greater than 0.18% CoEq were included in the reported underground mineral resources. (4) For the underground-only scenario, a 0.18% CoEq cutoff grade was used for estimating the potential underground material in the reported mineral resources (5) The cutoff grade utilized in the above table was derived from US$30/lb Co and US$3/lb Cu.

Technical and economic factors likely to influence the "reasonable prospects for eventual economic extraction" were evaluated using the best judgement of Mr. Steven J. Ristorcelli, C.P.G., Principal Geologist for MDA and a Qualified Person under NI 43-101. Potential for underground mining was assessed by running stope optimizations using mining costs, processing costs, and anticipated metallurgical recoveries for similar size operations in the western United States. For evaluating the open-pit potential, MDA ran a series of optimized pits using variable cobalt and copper prices, mining costs, processing costs, and anticipated metallurgical recoveries related to flotation recovery and smelting of the concentrates, and hydrometallurgical extraction for cobalt, and appropriate G&A costs for modest-sized open pit and underground mining operations.

MDA reports resources at cutoffs that are reasonable for deposits of this nature given anticipated mining and processing methods and approximate though current operating costs, while also considering economic conditions. MDA used an inverse distance estimation methodology to estimate block-diluted Inferred resources at several cobalt equivalent grades.

MDA identifies a little over half of the resources as lying within the No Name Zone, with the remainder in the Waite Zone, in the footwall to the No Name Zone. More drilling internally should upgrade these resources. The deposit remains open along strike in both directions and at depth.

Figure 1. Open Pit and Underground Scenario  Applying >=0.03% CoEq within open pit and >=0.18% CoEq in underground. Diamond drill holes are shown in black. Grey outline is an optimized pit outline. View is azimuth 175 deg. and dip -33 deg.



Multiple cutoff grades are presented to provide an indication of material that would be available for potential exploitation as underground resources (Table 2).

Table 2: Inferred Resource Estimate at Various Cutoff Grades

Cutoff

% CoEq Tons

(000s) Tonnes

(000s) CoEq

(%) Cobalt

(%) Cobalt

(Mlbs) Copper

(%) Copper

(Mlbs) 0.03 41,590 37,730 0.09 0.07 58.2 0.22 185.5 0.04 33,501 30,391 0.11 0.08 54.2 0.26 175.5 0.06 21,173 19,208 0.14 0.11 44.5 0.36 152.0 0.08 13,915 12,624 0.18 0.13 36.7 0.47 129.4 0.03/0.18(2) 29,630 26,880 0.11 0.08 45.4 0.3 175.4 0.10 10,232 9,282 0.21 0.16 31.9 0.54 111.3 0.12 8,182 7,422 0.24 0.18 29.0 0.59 96.4 0.14 6,789 6,159 0.26 0.2 26.3 0.62 84.3 0.15 6,223 5,646 0.27 0.21 25.5 0.64 79.2 0.16 5,723 5,192 0.28 0.21 24.3 0.66 75.0 0.18 4,858 4,407 0.30 0.23 22.3 0.69 66.7 0.20 4,100 3,719 0.32 0.25 20.2 0.71 58.4 0.25 2,610 2,368 0.37 0.29 15.2 0.79 41.4 0.30 1,707 1,549 0.42 0.34 11.6 0.83 28.4 0.35 1,144 1,038 0.47 0.39 8.9 0.84 19.2 0.40 756 686 0.53 0.44 6.6 0.87 13.1

(1) See footnotes at Table 1. (2) All classified resource blocks located between the surface and the open pit shell with grades greater than 0.03% CoEq were included in the reported open pit mineral resources and resource blocks located underground with grades greater than 0.18% CoEq were included in the reported underground mineral resources.

Figure 2. Underground-only Scenario  Applying >=0.18% CoEq Inferred resources as an underground only scenario. Diamond drill holes are shown in black. Topographic surface is shown for reference. View is azimuth 175 deg. and dip -33 deg.





Flotation Tests

McClelland Laboratories Inc. (McClelland) conducted preliminary mineral processing and metallurgical testing commissioned by First Cobalt which is described within the report. Flotation results indicate that a fairly standard bulk sulfide flotation reagent suite (a combination of dithiophosphate and PAX) worked well for generating high rougher flotation cobalt and copper recoveries of 96% cobalt and 95% copper.

Preliminary flotation tests were completed using three bulk samples extracted from one of three adits on the property. McClelland notes two samples had copper grades close to 1.0% and all three had cobalt grades in the range of 0.25% to 0.40%. All samples responded very well when subjected to rougher flotation using standard conditions. Copper recovery into the bulk concentrate averaged over 97% for the two high-grade samples and 92.5% for the low grade sample. Cobalt was recovered in the pyrite product. For all three bulk samples this product contained more than 90% of the cobalt at grades of 1.2% to 1.8% cobalt.

No testwork has yet been done on recovery of the cobalt from the pyrite concentrates. However, McClelland states that two approaches appear to be technically viable. One is to roast the concentrate, followed by leaching the cobalt from the resulting sinter and concentrating the cobalt using solvent extraction. Final recovery of the cobalt would be as a salt or electrowon metal. The second approach is the use of an autoclave to oxidize the pyrite and solubilize the cobalt, to be subsequently recovered by solvent extraction.

Iron Creek Property

The Iron Creek property consists of mining patents and exploration claims covering an area of 1,698 acres. Significant infrastructure is in place to support multiple drills and underground activity. Historic underground development includes 600 metres of drifting from three adits and an all-weather road connecting the project to a state highway.

The No Name and Waite Zones are roughly parallel and dip roughly 75 to the north, remaining open at depth. Additional mineralization has been encountered during drilling and some holes in the 2018 program are intended to confirm the potential for additional mineralized zones beyond No Name and Waite. The No Name Zone and the Waite Zone have true widths between 10m and 30m. Mineralization also occurs between the No Name and Waite Zones as 1m to 5m pods.

Cobalt-copper mineralization occurs as semi-massive and disseminated pyrite and chalcopyrite along stratabound bands within finely layered meta-sedimentary rocks consisting of interbedded argillite and quartzite. Cobalt is associated with pyrite. Thin veins of chalcopyrite also cut the bands and meta-sedimentary rocks. Quartzite units make up the hangingwall and footwall to the mineralized meta-sedimentary horizon. This stratigraphic sequence has been mapped at surface and by drilling to extend along strike for at least two kilometres.

The principal mineral assemblage consists of pyrite, chalcopyrite, pyrrhotite, and magnetite with much lesser quantities of native copper and arsenopyrite locally. Scanning-electron and microprobe tests indicate the cobalt occurs largely or entirely within pyrite and there is a distinct lack of cobaltite, a common cobalt ore mineral containing arsenic. Drill results demonstrate that the cobalt and copper mineralization are in part separated from each other spatially, and in part overlapping.

Recommendations

MDA notes that thicker zones can be correlated with the present drill spacing with moderate confidence. Infill drilling will be required for upgrading the Inferred resources to Measured and Indicated classifications. MDA also concludes that the resource estimate should be considered only as a snapshot in time as the Company is continuing to explore the Iron Creek deposit.

MDA concludes that the Iron Creek Project is a project of merit requiring additional exploration and infill drilling along strike and at depth. They believe that First Cobalt's planned exploration drilling, both inside and outside the main resource area, totaling 70,000ft (21,336m) and a total planned budget of ~$8.6 million is justified.

On June 11, First Cobalt announced a $9 million program intended to extend the known mineralization along strike and bring a portion of the Inferred Mineral Resource estimate into a Measured and Indicated Resource estimate. Longer holes will test cobalt-copper mineralization intersected by 2017 drilling in the footwall, which may extend to surface. Drilling will also test the down dip extension of mineralization below the existing underground adits.

An NI 43-101 Technical Report to be prepared by MDA with an effective date of September 18, 2018, will be posted on www.firstcobalt.com and the Company's profile on SEDAR at www.SEDAR.com within 45 days of the date of this news release.

Qualified and Competent Person Statement

The technical content of this press release has been reviewed by Steven J. Ristorcelli, C.P.G., P.G. of Mine Development Associates, a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101. Dr. Frank Santaguida, P.Geo., is the Qualified Person who has reviewed and approved this news release. Dr. Santaguida is also a Competent Person (as defined in the JORC Code, 2012 edition) who is a practicing member of the Association of Professional Geologists of Ontario (being a 'Recognised Professional Organisation' for the purposes of the ASX Listing Rules). Dr. Santaguida is employed on a full-time basis as Vice President, Exploration for First Cobalt. He has sufficient experience that is relevant to the activity being undertaken to qualify as a Competent Person as defined in the JORC Code. The term "Competent Person" is not recognized by Canadian securities regulatory authorities, and the term is used by the Company with reference to the JORC Code, and to ensure compliance with the ASX Listing Rules and applicable reporting requirements in Australia.

About First Cobalt

First Cobalt is a vertically integrated North American pure-play cobalt company. First Cobalt has three significant North American assets: the Iron Creek Project in Idaho, the Canadian Cobalt Camp and the only permitted cobalt refinery in North America capable of producing battery materials.

On behalf of First Cobalt Corp.

Trent Mell

President & Chief Executive Officer

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This news release may contain forward-looking statements and forward-looking information (together, "forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable securities laws and the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements, other than statements of historical facts, are forward-looking statements. Generally, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of terminology such as "plans", "expects', "estimates", "intends", "anticipates", "believes" or variations of such words, or statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might", "occur" or "be achieved". Forward-looking statements involve risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results, performance and opportunities to differ materially from those implied by such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements are set forth in the management discussion and analysis and other disclosures of risk factors for First Cobalt, filed on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Although First Cobalt believes that the information and assumptions used in preparing the forward-looking statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on these statements, which only apply as of the date of this news release, and no assurance can be given that such events will occur in the disclosed times frames or at all. Except where required by applicable law, First Cobalt disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Cautionary Note to Investors - Resource Estimates

In accordance with applicable Canadian securities regulatory requirements, all mineral resource estimates of the Company disclosed or incorporated by reference in this news release have been prepared in accordance with Canadian National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101"), classified in accordance with Canadian Institute of Mining Metallurgy and Petroleum's "CIM Standards on Mineral Resources and Reserves Definitions and Guidelines" (the "CIM Guidelines").

The Company uses the terms "mineral resources", and "inferred mineral resources". While those terms are recognized by Canadian securities regulatory authorities, they are not recognized by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") and the SEC does not permit U.S. companies to disclose resources in their filings with the SEC. Pursuant to the CIM Guidelines, mineral resources have a higher degree of uncertainty than mineral reserves as to their existence as well as their economic and legal feasibility. Inferred mineral resources, when compared with measured or indicated mineral resources, have the least certainty as to their existence, however, it is reasonable to expect that the majority of inferred mineral resources could be upgraded to indicated mineral resources with continued exploration. Pursuant to NI 43-101, inferred mineral resources may not form the basis of any economic analysis, including any feasibility study. Accordingly, readers are cautioned not to assume that all or any part of a mineral resource exists, will ever be converted into a mineral reserve, or is or will ever be economically or legally mineable or recovered.VANCOUVER, Sept. 26, 2018 /CNW/ - Boreal Metals Corporation ("Boreal" or the "Company") (TSXV:BMX) is pleased to announce the commencement of a 1,000 metre exploratory diamond drill program at its Burfjord copper-gold project in Norway. The Burfjord Copper-Gold Project is host to numerous high-grade veins with associated copper-rich envelopes developed across a large, 4 by 6 kilometre area and represents an attractive exploration drilling target with bulk tonnage mining potential.

Figure 1 - Example of stockwork vein zones flanking ridgeline ridgeline outcrops at Burfjord.

"We are highly optimistic that the current drill program will deliver widespread copper mineralization as observed on surface by our geological team. With some luck, the Burfjord project will bear economic zones that can excite our shareholders," stated Karl Antonius, President and CEO. "Discovering significant mineralization in the subsurface at Burfjord represents an exciting near-term growth opportunity for the Company."

Only limited exploration has taken place in the modern era and only one prospect area has been drill tested to date. The best historical drill intercept consists of 7 metres @ 3.6% copper1, and was obtained from the Cedarsgruve (mine) area in the northern portion of the claim block.

________________________ 1 Source: NGU Deposit Factsheet, Deposit Area 1943-010, 1997. Boreal's property reviews have confirmed the geologic setting and occurrence of mineralization on the Project, and considers the historic exploration data to be relevant as reported in public disclosures and government reports.

Overview of the Burfjord Project

The Burfjord Copper-Gold Project, located in the Kafjord Copper Belt near Alta, Norway is highly prospective for Iron Oxide Copper Gold (IOCG) and Sediment Hosted Copper mineral deposits which contribute significantly to copper production globally.

High-grade copper-gold veins at Burfjord (Figure 1) are surrounded by envelopes or disseminations of copper mineralization extending tens to hundreds of metres laterally into the host rocks. Boreal believes this mineralization represents an attractive bulk tonnage exploration drilling target. Copper bearing veins in the area are dominated by ferroan carbonate and iron-oxide minerals (magnetite and hematite), but also contain the economically important minerals chalcopyrite, bornite and chalcocite in addition to cobalt-rich pyrite as generally coarse-grained (often 0.5 centimetre to multi-centimetre scale) disseminations in the veins. Discreet zones of cobalt and nickel mineralization are also present on the property.

The Burfjord project is comprised of six exploration licenses totaling 5,500 hectares in the Kafjord Copper Belt. Copper mineralization was mined in the Burfjord area during the nineteenth century, with over 30 historic mines and prospects developed along the flanks of a prominent 4 x 6 kilometre fold (anticline) consisting of interbedded sedimentary and volcanic rocks. Many of the rocks in the anticline are intensely hydrothermally altered and contain sulphide mineralization.

About Boreal Metals Corporation

Boreal is a mineral exploration company focused on the discovery of Zinc, Copper, Silver, Gold, Cobalt and Nickel deposits in exceptional, historical mining project areas spanning Sweden and Norway. The Company aims to discover new economic mineral deposits in known mining districts that have seen little or no modern exploration. The Company is led by an experienced management team and technical team, with successful track records in mineral discovery, mining development and financing.

Qualified Person

Daniel MacNeil, P.Geo, a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101, has read and approved all technical and scientific information related to the Burfjord project contained in this news release. Mr. MacNeil is Vice President Exploration for Boreal.

On behalf of Boreal Metals Corporation

Karl Antonius, President

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This news release contains certain statements that may be deemed "forwardlooking statements". Forwardlooking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects", "plans", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "projects", "potential" and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will", "would", "may", "could" or "should" occur. Although Boreal Metals Corp. believes the expectations expressed in such forwardlooking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance, are subject to risks and uncertainties, and actual results or realities may differ materially from those in the forwardlooking statements. Such material risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, Boreal Metals Corp.'s ability to raise sufficient capital to fund its obligations under its property option agreements, to maintain its mineral tenures and concessions in good standing, to explore and develop its projects, to repay its debt and for general working capital purposes; changes in economic conditions or financial markets; the ability of Boreal Metals Corp. to obtain the necessary permits and consents required to explore, drill and develop the projects and if obtained, to obtain such permits and consents in a timely fashion relative to Boreal Metals Corp.'s plans and business objectives for the projects; the general ability of Boreal Metals Corp. to drill test its projects and find mineral resources; if any mineral resources are discovered or acquired, the Company's ability to monetize any such mineral resources; and changes in environmental and other laws or regulations that could have an impact on the Company's operations. Forwardlooking statements are based on the reasonable beliefs, estimates and opinions of Boreal Metals Corp.'s management on the date the statements are made. Except as required by law, Boreal Metals Corp. undertakes no obligation to update these forwardlooking statements in the event that management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change.Lima, Peru--(Newsfile Corp. - September 26, 2018) - Kaizen Discovery Inc. (TSXV: KZD) today announced that it has acquired ITOCHU Corporation's 10% interest in the Pinaya Project in Peru as a result of ITOCHU's decision to exit the project. Kaizen's ownership in Kaizen Peru Holdings  the indirect holder of the Pinaya Project  now has increased from 90% to 100%.

Kaizen intends to proceed with its planned drilling program at Pinaya.

"While it is disappointing that we are losing ITOCHU as our partner at Pinaya, we still consider the project to be one of the more compelling copper-gold prospects in Peru. Securing 100% control of the project will provide us with additional flexibility to potentially secure new partners seeking the discovery opportunities that are abundant in Peru," said Tom Peregoodoff, Kaizen's President and Chief Executive Officer.

"Our review of data acquired with the project suggests that the high-grade copper and gold mineralization at Pinaya continues along strike from the currently defined resource area, and we will pursue that drilling in our initial program. The recently recognized Pedro Dos Milles target provides us with an opportunity to significantly expand the size of the resource. We plan to actively explore this and other targets along the mineralized trend."

Qualified Person

Kaizen's Chief Operating Officer, Mark Gibson, PrNatSci, is the Qualified Person as defined under NI 43-101 who has reviewed, approved, and is responsible for the scientific and technical information presented in this news release. Mr. Gibson is not independent of Kaizen. Mr. Gibson has verified the technical data disclosed in this news release.

About Kaizen Discovery

Kaizen is a Canadian mineral exploration and development company with exploration projects in Peru and Canada. More information on Kaizen is available at www.kaizendiscovery.com.

Information Contact

Bill Trenaman +1-604-669-6446

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements in this release constitute "forward-looking statements" or "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws, including without limitation (i) statements regarding Kaizen's intention to proceed with its planned drilling program at the Pinaya Project and all statements related to the targets intended to be drill tested in the planned program.

Although Kaizen has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements, there can be other factors that cause results, performance, or achievements not to be as anticipated, estimated, or intended. There can be no assurance that such information will prove to be accurate or that management's expectations or estimates of future developments, circumstances, or results will materialize.

Forward-looking statements involve significant risks and uncertainties, should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results, and will not necessarily be accurate indicators of whether or not such results will be achieved. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from the results discussed in the forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, the factors discussed here, as well as unexpected changes in laws, rules, or regulations, or their enforcement by applicable authorities; the failure of parties to perform as agreed; social, political or labour unrest; changes in commodity prices; limitations and availability of capital; and the failure of exploration programs or studies to deliver anticipated results (including the actual results of drilling and exploration activities); or results that would justify and support continued exploration, studies, development, or operations.

Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements in this news release are made as of the date of this news release, and Kaizen disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise such information, except as required by applicable law. Kaizen does not assume any liability for disclosure relating to any other company herein.Mexican President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on Wednesday promised the parents of 43 students who went missing in 2014 to create a commission to investigate the case, on the anniversary of their suspected massacre.

Four years on, the unsolved disappearance of the students from the Ayotzinapa teachers college in the southern state of Guerrero still haunts Mexico.

It has become a symbol of the gruesome violence rocking the country, and a stain on the human rights record of the man Lopez Obrador will replace, outgoing President Enrique Pena Nieto.

Speaking after meeting with the students parents, the leftist president-elect vowed to work to unravel the case starting from the day he takes office.

On December 1, if it has not already been done, we will sign a decree to create an investigative commission and define the procedures we will follow until the truth is found and justice is done, said Lopez Obrador.

We also agreed to throw open the doors of the next government and the country to the international human rights organizations that have battled to prevent this case from being closed and enabled us to get closer to the sad, regrettable facts, he told journalists.

 Unsolved mystery 

The 43 students were enrolled at a rural teachers college known for its tradition of rowdy demonstrations for left-wing causes.

On the night of September 26, 2014, they commandeered five buses to travel to a protest  a long-standing tradition at their school  and were attacked and then detained by municipal police in the city of Iguala, Guerrero.

According to federal prosecutors, corrupt police officers then handed the students over to hitmen from the drug cartel Guerreros Unidos, who slaughtered them and incinerated their bodies at a garbage dump.

However, independent investigators from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights who carried out a forensic analysis of the supposed crime scene found that version of events was impossible.

There was no sign that such an enormous bonfire had burned at the site, they said.

The governments failure to clarify the case has caused widespread speculation about an elaborate cover-up.

The independent experts hypothesized the students may have inadvertently hijacked a bus loaded with heroin bound for the United States.

In a country known for murky links between powerful drug cartels and corrupt officials, that has raised questions about who could have been behind such a shipment.

The case has drawn international condemnation of Pena Nietos government, which continues to insist on the prosecutions version of events, which it dubbed the historic truth.

 Untenable case 

The students parents had urged Lopez Obrador to deliver on his pledge to do justice in the case.

Well never find out what happened if we just use the ordinary means of the (Mexican) justice system, said the parents lawyer, Vidulfo Rosales, ahead of the meeting.

The United Nations meanwhile repeated its criticism of the governments official version of events, calling it untenable.

It is worrying that the government has focused on reiterating the untenable and trying to silence or discredit voices who question it, said the Mexico office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in a statement.

Mexico has seen an explosion of crime in recent years linked to brutal violence by drug cartels.

Last year, the country registered a record 28,702 homicides, and grisly discoveries of mass graves have become a regular occurrence.Student dies in Moroccan navy migrant shooting All Moroccans, on boat headed to Spain

(ANSAmed) - RABAT, SEPTEMBER 26 - The victim toll stands at one woman dead and three others injured on Wednesday after the Moroccan navy opened fire Tuesday on a migrant boat in the Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of M'diq.



The incident has sent off shockwaves in public opinion, with no similar incident ever taking place in recent memory.



The boat, which was carrying only Moroccans and not any migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa, has caused the country to face the issue that its own citizens are also trying to flee the country.



The country's daily newspapers, most of which are owned by King Muhammad VI, are divided in their accounts of the incident.



Most of the papers have published the official version from a statement by the M'diq prefecture, which said the boat was captained by a Spanish citizen who didn't stop when requested to on several occasions by the military, which then fired on the boat.



News sources going against the official Moroccan account are raising questions about the incident, but are for the most part relying on eyewitness accounts from social media.



The victim's identity was made public on Facebook: Hayat B., a 20-year-old originally from Tetouan studying law in Martil, not far from Tangier.



Three other Moroccans - Lahabib, 26; Hamza, 25; and Mouad, 32 - were injured and are in hospital in M'diq.



The country's royal navy has closed ranks and intensified its patrols in the face of increased migrant flows.



Authorities said the boat in question was "not clearly visible and recognisable" and said the Spaniard captaining the boat was arrested and under investigation to understand why he made the boat available.



Police have set up border checkpoints at the entrances to cities in the north, from Tangier to Tetouan, where the Spanish coast is easily reachable and where at night groups of "harraga" - young people who wish to immigrate to Europe - crowd the tourist beaches.



The journey can cost from 3,000 to 8,000 euros, according to the difficulty, and takes place with all kinds of vessels, including jet skis.



Vessels wait for a calm sea and the passage of oil tankers, cargo ships or large cruise ships to create a sort of obstacle course that makes following them impossible.



Landing on the Spanish shore is reserved only for the most fortunate, while the others are thrown into the water some miles offshore, even if they don't know how to swim.



Those organising the crossings make fishermen's shacks available on the beaches for sleeping there until conditions are ideal for departure, and along with the fee for the crossing they also take documents and cell phones, with few refusing to go.



Those who return home tell of the danger, the risk, and the fatigue they underwent, without success.



Those who manage to make it post on social media their experience in the form of a tutorial for others.



In recent days, Morocco repatriated 40 irregular migrants from the airports of Tangier and Casablanca to Abidjan in Cote d'Ivoire, and initiated a collaboration with diplomatic representatives of several African countries to repatriate those without documents.(ANSAmed).



(ANSAmed) - CAIRO, SEPTEMBER 26 - Tripoli's Mitiga airport, the only functioning airport in the capital of Libya, is set to reopen, according to the airport's Facebook page on Wednesday.



The airport was forced to close at the end of August due to clashes between rival militias, and the announcement of its reopening is a de facto confirmation that the current ceasefire in the capital is holding.



"Airlines are expected to resume their flights starting at the beginning of next week," the post read, most likely by the weekend, although according to sources cited by the website Libya Observer, the airport may begin operations as early as today.



Intermittent clashes between rival militias have been taking place in southern Tripoli for the past month.



On Tuesday, the militias agreed to a new ceasefire that immediately resulted in two formations leaving the capital, where their attacks had caused at least 115 deaths and 560 wounded.



Mitiga airport closed on August 31 and reopened on September 7, but then closed again on September 12 due to a rocket launch.



The airport is just eight kilometres from Tripoli's Martyr's Square and is the only functioning airport in the Libyan capital.



The capital's other airport, 25 km outside the city and referred to simply as "International", has been closed since summer 2014, when it was damaged in fighting.(ANSAmed).

Jordan: Parliament refers tax law to economic committee MPs vow to say No to the controversial bill

(ANSAmed) - AMMAN, September 26 - Jordan's parliament on Wednesday referred a controversial IMF-guided income tax bill to its economic committee for study and recommendation during a heated session where MPs warned of social and economic instability as a result of the guided law.



Several members of the parliament said they will vote NO to the bill and warned prime minister Omar al Razaz against facing similar fate to the sacked former prime minister Hani al Mulki.



A number of seemingly enraged MPs vilified Razaz over the introducing the law "without taking into consideration recommendations of the civil society groups," and warned they will reject the bill under its current form.



However, observers said the pro-regime MPs, most of which are businessmen, tribal leaders and security generals have "proven time and gain their loyalty to the government and would ultimately vote in favour of the law, despite the current exhibition in the parliament." MPs told ANSA they expect some amendments to the bill in order to ease the impact of the law on the middle class.



Meanwhile, parliament sources told ANSA that the discussion over the bill will be during the ordinary parliament session in October.



Earlier this summer, the income tax law proposal triggered nationwide protests that lead to the sacking of the government and withdrawal of the bill.



The government last year under taken a number of decisions to generate income for the treasury, including lifting subsidies on bread, imposing sales tax on numbers of items, but the measure was not enough as authorities seek annual JD 300 million to pay creditors.



Razaz, however has said his government is committed to the IMF guided "economic correction" policy that aims at increasing revenues. He also promised to tighten spending and fight corruption, but observers insist the new prime minister has little power as the royal court remains well in control of the kingdom's economic and political policies. (ANSA)Libya: new ceasefire in Tripoli after 115 deaths Rebel militias withdraw. Macron insists on December vote

(by Rodolfo Calo) (ANSAmed) - CAIRO, SEPTEMBER 26 - Amid bloody clashes between militias that have been intermittently raging in the southern part of Tripoli, a new ceasefire has immediately led two groups to leave the capital. The two groups had attacked it by fighting against the position of Premier Fayez Al Sarraj, causing at least 115 victims and 560 wounded.



Although it is still unclear how long this second truce could last, French President Emmanuel Macron, from the UN General Assembly in New York, has stressed Paris' position in favor of elections to be scheduled in Libya in December. ''Only this can accelerate the road towards a long-lasting solution'', the head of State said. ''The status quo is only producing gains for traffickers and terrorists''. However, the international community, as emerged in New York, currently does not see the conditions of stability necessary to hold correct elections.



The agreement on a ceasefire was announced by the Department of security in Tripoli and by the ''Force of protection'' in the capital, a new coalition of nine militias that defended the premier from the attack of the Seventh Brigade rebel group from Tarhuna and by Somoud (Resistance) of Misrata-based hawk Salah Badi.



The accord ended the second round of clashes after the first ceased with a truce agreed on September 4 under UN supervision but violated on September 17. In that first phase of clashes, which lasted nine days, 78 were reported dead and 103 wounded.



The agreement, whose details were reported by media outlets including Al-Arabiya and Libya Observer, provides for the return of the Seventh Brigade to its base in Tarhuna, about 70 km south-east of Tripoli, and the withdrawal of Somoud from a position it had occupied near the airport in Tripoli.



Overnight the new Force of protection, created Saturday by, among others, militias Trb, Abu Salim (also called Ghnewa) and Rada, announced on Facebook that the withdrawal of the two groups had been completed.



The agreement provides for the handover of all positions at the center of the conflict to the joint force formed by the Presidential Council led by Sarraj.



There is also a recognition for the Seventh Brigade which sparked the clashes and which is now considered part of the staff of the national unity government although it was dissolved last April.



The clash, as stressed by prominent analyst Tarek Megerisi, was an attempt by the two attacking militias to replace those in power in Tripoli and, at least as shown by the current truce, those that have been confirmed as the strongest. (ANSAmed).



Macedonia: referendum on name, almost 10,500 observers Vote to endorse a name deal between Skopje and Greece

(ANSAmed) - SKOPJE, SEPTEMBER 26 - The referendum next Sunday in Macedonia on an agreement with Greece on the new name for the former Yugoslav country - ''North Macedonia'' - will be monitored by some 10,500 observers. Private broadcaster Telma said that the great majority, or about 10,000, will be local observers from civic and social organizations while 500 will be foreign observers, in particular from Osce and various embassies. (ANSAmed).



ISTANBU - The withdrawal of militants from ''radical groups'' has started in Idlib, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in an interview released during his visit to New York to attend the UN General Assembly.

The move is part of an agreement signed about ten days ago in Sochi with Vladimir Putin, which provides for the evacuation of ''terrorist'' militias - in particular Qaedist groups - and the creation of a 'demilitarized zone' of some 15 km on the frontline separating the army of Damascus from anti-Assad rebels.Pints for Pups event features dogs, beers, conversation for a cause The 42 North Brewing Company in East Aurora is holding an event on Veterans Day that will involve dogs, beer and raising money for a good cause. On Thursday, the...

YMCA, FeedMore teaming up to fight hunger through fall food drive For the 11th straight year, YMCA Buffalo Niagara is teaming up with FeedMore WNY to help fight hunger this holiday season through an annual food drive. The organizations are asking...

Town man indicted on manslaughter, drug charges Town of Tonawanda resident Zaire Pittman, 25, was arraigned last week on an indictment charging him with felony vehicular manslaughter, in connection with a car accident that took place in...

Cardinal OHara to present Little Women in person next weekend Drama club students at Cardinal OHara High School will be presenting their first in-person fall play next weekend, following a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic. The production will also...

News Brief Following the FDAs emergency use authorization of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine for ages 5 through 11, the Erie County Department of Health is asking parents to fill out this survey...Uh-oh! It could be you, or it could be us, but there's no page here.201 Shares Share

Every few months, there happens to be another breathless news story about racism in health care. Mass media seems shocked, progressives angrily tweet, while conservatives claim that somehow it was all President Obamas fault.

Meanwhile, the four relatively unknown and certainly underappreciated historically black college or university (HBCU) medical schools in the United States (Howard University, Meharry Medical College, Morehouse School of Medicine, and Charles R. Drew University) continue to doggedly pursue their missions to train black physicians and eliminate health disparities.

Research has shown that African-Americans are more likely to receive poorer quality care from relatively simple to complex medical treatments. Systemic and chronic discrimination are more likely to lead to adverse health outcomes like coronary artery disease, and pregnant women who face racism are more likely to give birth to low-weight infants.

Further, in a study from the University of Virginia, conducted of medical students and health care professionals, revealed that almost 50 percent believe at least one false stereotype like African-Americans feel less pain that their white counterparts, black skin is thicker than white skin or even that black blood coagulates faster than white blood.

The two oldest HBCU medical schools, Meharry Medical College and Howard University, have combined to produce over 80 percent of African American doctors and dentists practicing in the United States today.

This is remarkable when you consider that only four percent of physicians are black. These physicians are essential in giving black patients allies in health care, an important factor since black patients tend to be far less trusting of the medical establishment than other races.

More than that the doctors play important roles in educating their colleagues and elevating the level of cultural competency in our medical and dental offices today.

Unfortunately, the number of black men enrolling in medical school from 1978 to 2014 has decreased from 542 to 515, peaking at 683 in 1998. The main reason tends to revolve around the fact that there is not a sustainable pipeline bringing black males into medicine. Everything from the lack of role models to poor schooling to low test grades to discrimination and discouragement have been named as factors in the decline. Solutions vary just as much; mentoring programs, decreased emphasis on standardized tests and expanded financial aid options have all been proposed.

Politically, the challenge is exacerbated by the Trump administration and its decision to appoint an inexperienced head for the HBCU initiative as well as slashing federal funding for HBCUs, creating uncertainty among HBCU administrations. In their own cities, Nashville and Washington, D.C., Meharry Medical College and Howard run hospitals that are chronically underfunded and operate in the red, a political dilemma in its own right, because their hospitals take on the complex cases of uninsured and indigent populations.

Obviously, as institutions, HBCUs are not perfect. Across the nation, HBCUs are faced with debt and instances of mismanagement. Critics ask if HBCUs are even necessary now that universities that previously denied black students are now accepting the best and brightest. They also point out that declining enrollment often leads to more lax standards, leading medical students to accept students that would not have been accepted elsewhere.

However, as a graduate of Meharry Medical College, I have witnessed the incredible education and perspective instilled at an HBCU medical school. Too often, black students come to Meharry because most other medical schools refuse to give them a shot.

Yet upon graduation, the perceived gap in performance has been narrowed, and residency programs at Harvard, Stanford and the Mayo Clinic are eager to scoop up our students. We have turned being underfunded from a detriment to an advantage; we do more with less.

Even more, the HBCUs are reaching out to their communities, visiting schools and inviting high school students to spend time on campus. The goal is to ensure that there is a pipeline of development for young black boys and girls interested in health care.

Marybeth Gasman, PhD, a leading expert on HBCUs and an associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania recommended in a policy brief that federal, state, and private funding should be committed to enhancing the fundraising infrastructure of HBCUs. This would allow them to improve grants management technology, increase staff, provide training for faculty and staff in grant writing (ideally through the White House Initiative on HBCUs), and garner more donations from alumni and a growing African American middle class.

Additionally, Dr. Gasman recommended that the federal government support loan forgiveness for new PhDs, especially those in STEM fields, who choose to teach at HBCUs. These long-term funding solutions are essential for HBCU medical schools because of the important role they play in educating black physicians, in creating a safe space for people of color to receive care without judgment and in discrediting unacceptable stereotypes that exist among their colleagues.

In 2008, the American Medical Association made an unprecedented and bold apology for the role it played in discriminating against African-American physicians. This was a major and much-needed acknowledgment, yet more than that is necessary to close a slowly increasing gap, especially because people of color will be the numerical majority in 25 years.

If we want to maintain a strong and trustworthy health care system, the diversity of our physician workforce is essential. Studies have shown that a diverse workforce leads to better communication, increased problem solving and innovation, and decreased health disparities.

Therefore, undergraduate universities and medical schools should continue to make efforts to recruit and enroll underrepresented minorities. Hospitals and health systems should continue to hire a diverse workforce and to implement cultural competency in their training. And the federal government should maintain and even increase funding and grant opportunities for HBCUs to provide scholarships and research opportunities for their students.

With continued disparity, the health care system will continue to suffer  a pain we will all have to bear equally.

Bassam Zahid is an emergency resident resident who blogs at his self-titled site, Bassam Zahid.

Image credit: Shutterstock.comOf all the heavy bombers that saw action during the Second World War, none earned as much admiration, gratitude, and affection from their crews as the B-17. It was durable, maneuverable, easy to fly. It was fast for its size and well-armed. It could bring you back alive even with its tail shot off, or with gaping holes blown in a wing, or with three of its four engines out and a fuselage ripped by hundreds of bullets. It could cruise six miles above the ground, beyond sight of the naked eye. It could dive at speeds of more than four hundred miles per hour and was known to do complete loops without tearing off its wings.

NY FILM FESTIVAL REMINDER: A newly restored print of William Wylers World War II air-combat documentary The Memphis Belle and Erik Nelsons new documentary The Cold Blue (created from recently discovered raw footage shot during the filming of Memphis Belle) are to be featured in screenings on Saturday and Sunday (Sept. 29 and 30) at the 56th New York Film Festival.

Dubbed the Flying Fortress by a reporter back in 1937, when an early model was being tested, the B-17 carried a ten-man crew: pilot, co-pilot, navigator, radio operator, bombardier, engineer doubling as top-turret gunner, tail gunner, two waist gunners, and a ball-turret gunner. It was a loud plane, primitive in its amenities. The noise of four Wright Cyclone engines, each throbbing with twelve hundred horsepower, made conversation impossible except on the radio intercom. The Plexiglas nose gave the pilots and bombardier a wraparound view of the huge sky above and the ground laid out below. The fuselage, which looked from the inside like an empty metal drum, had a thin catwalk running lengthwise above the bomb bay. The plane was not pressurized. When it flew above ten thousand feet, the crew needed walk-around oxygen bottles. At higher altitudes they worked in subzero temperatures that fell to sixty below. On bombing raids lasting anywhere from three to nine hours frostbite was not uncommon.



The Germans at first were not impressed by the Flying Fortresses, at least not when the British were flying them before the American entry into the war. No single bomber could defend itself against a concerted fighter attack. Though it bristled with fifty-caliber machine guns  ten in all, making it the most heavily armed bomber until then  the B-17 needed to follow certain tactical rules for protection against fighters. The main rule was to fly in tight formations, with enough B-17s grouped together to create a wall of overlapping machine-gun fire in all directions. The British sent their B-17s on daylight bombing raids in twos and threes, not enough to keep from being picked off by swarming Messerschmitts and Focke-Wulfs. It wasnt long before the Germans took to calling the new American bombers Flying Coffins.

The Ninety-first Bomb Group of the U.S. Eighth Army Air Force had so many B-17s laid up for repair that it could muster only twenty planes on Capt. Robert Morgans twelfth mission  his crews thirteenth  a raid on Bremen. Ordinarily, the 24-year-old pilot and the equally young crew flew the Memphis Belle. But it was grounded for repairs from damage on a raid ten days earlier on the submarine pens at St. Nazaire. The Belle had taken two bad hits. One damaged the right wing and the other knocked out the number-two engine. The bomber had managed to limp home, its crew unscathed. Six B-17s from other groups were lost.

On the Bremen mission they flew a B-17 nicknamed the Jersey Bounce. This was one of those missions when nothing happened as it should, according to waist gunner Clarence Winchells diary. Some squadrons assigned to the mission arrived late at the rendezvous point and had trouble forming up. Over the North Sea, the lead navigator miscalculated the wind velocity, which put the formation on a heading south of the intended course. The planes encountered heavy antiaircraft fire. As the formation approached Bremen, clouds obscured the harbor. We turned off and headed for [our secondary target] Wilhelmshaven, constantly accompanied by and attacked by German fighters, Winchell wrote.

To the bombardier Vincent Evans, Wyler looked like this over-age major who didnt seem fearful of anything. He marveled that Wyler kept walking the open catwalk of the bomb bay five miles above Germany, breathing out of a walk-around oxygen bottle. The major, in a bulky flight suit for insulation againt the forty-five-below temperature, kept pointing his hand-held camera at the flak bursts, then at the German fighters, which were trying to break up the formations. We could hear him cuss over the intercom, Evans recalled. By the time hed swing his camera over to a flak burst, it was lost. Then hed see another burst, try to get it, miss, see another, try that, miss, try, miss. Then wed hear him over the intercom, asking if [Morgan] couldnt possibly get the plane closer to the flak. Evans couldnt believe it.

When the bomber groups returned to their bases around two in the afternoon, roughly six hours after takeoff, the casualties were tallied. Seven planes didnt come back at all, the worst losses for a single day until then. Forty-one men  the equivalent of four full combat crews  were wounded in the Ninety-first alone.The Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) Ireland has been running a competion, 'Irelands Best Places', to celebrate some of the most attractive and inspiring places across the country.

The top 10 best places in Ireland have been whittled down by the Irelands Best Places judging panel from nominations from the public, and Kilkenny city centre has made the cut!

In order for our beautiful city to win, Kilkenny County Council has urged all locals to vote in the competition.

The full list of the top 10 includes:

Abbeyleix, Laois

Cobh, County Cork

Cork City Centre, Cork

Dingle, Kerry

Grand Canal Square, Dublin

The Great Western Greenway, Mayo

Greystones, Wicklow

Kilkenny City Centre, Kilkenny

Lough Boora Parklands, Offaly

Tully Cross, Galway

Marion Chalmers, Chair of RTPI Ireland said: The competition has reminded us of the passion we have for places we love. The finalists, places clearly loved by the public, have been protected, carefully planned or improved by the planning system. I encourage everyone to get behind their favourite place to ensure it wins.

To help Kilkenny win, vote here.

The winner will be crowned 'Ireland's Best Place' in November.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.Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 26)  It's been almost a week since a deadly landslide hit the City of Naga, Cebu, and some citizens are rearing to fight back.

The death toll rose to 64 people. Their bodies were retrieved from the landslide, and over twenty are still missing.

Some citizens are preparing to sue APO Land and Quarry Corporation, which conducts quarrying operations near the landslide area.

Residents living within the one-kilometer radius of the landslide site were asked to evacuate after the incident, including those living in Sitio Greyrocks in the village of Pangdan. A quarry site has been in operations in the sitio since December 2017. Residents are opposing the ground excavation.

Cherrie Candol, a resident of Sitio Greyrocks, said she has documents to prove that her family owns part of the quarry site.

"Kaya ayaw ko talagang galawin nila. Hindi naman sila nagpaalam sa amin. Wala naman public hearing (That's why I never wanted them to touch it. They didn't ask permission. There's no public hearing)," Candol said.

Her fight is more than just ownership. Residents also have complained about the noise of the quarrying operations, and fear that the ground extraction could cause another deadly landslide.

"Mula noong nag umpisa yan, hindi tayo makakatulog. Parang ano ba hindi tayo hindi tayo makatulog. Stressed talaga tayo (Since it began, we couldn't get to sleep. We're really stressed)," Candol said.

In the community, banners expressing the citizens' opposition to quarrying were displayed.

APO Land refused to comment on the possible suit against them.

"Our focus is mainly on helping the government in its rescue and retrieval operations, as well as ensuring that the growing number of evacuees in the evacuation centers are taken care of," said Chito Maniago, the company spokesperson.

The Mines and Geosciences Bureau is currently conducting an assessment on the company's compliance with environmental regulations.

Quarrying operations in the Philippines have been temporarily suspended following an order from the Environment Secretary.The Sensex tumbled 109.79 points to 36,542.27, and the broader NSE Nifty shed 13.65 to close at 11,053.80.

The Nifty closed lower by 13.65 points, or 0.12 per cent, at 11,053.80. Intra-day, it shuttled between 11,145.55 and 10,993.05.

Mumbai: The Sensex settled with losses in a choppy session on Wednesday as buying sentiment remained subdued amid liquidity concerns in the NBFC space.

Investors also remained on the sidelines ahead of US Federal Reserves policy outcome as well as expiry of September derivative contracts on Thursday, brokers said.

On the global front, crude oil traded above $81 per barrel while the trade spat between the US and China showed no signs of easing.

The Sensex tumbled 109.79 points to 36,542.27, and the broader NSE Nifty shed 13.65 to close at 11,053.80.

IT and FMCG counters came under robust selling pressure, while stock-specific action was seen in banking and financial service sectors.

The Sensex touched a high of 36,938.74 at the outset after domestic investors pressed on with buying. However, it soon turned choppy and hit a low of 36,357.93. It finally closed lower by 109.79 points, or 0.30 per cent, at 36,542.27.

The Nifty closed lower by 13.65 points, or 0.12 per cent, at 11,053.80. Intra-day, it shuttled between 11,145.55 and 10,993.05.

On a net basis, foreign investors sold shares worth Rs 1,231.70 crore, while DIIs bought equities to the tune of `2,284.26 crore, as per provisional data.United Nations, Sep 25 (AFP) Iranian President Hassan Rouhani accused his US counterpart Donald Trump of trying to topple his government Tuesday as he poured cold water on the idea of resuming talks with Washington after its pullout from an international nuclear accord.

"It is ironic that the US government does not even conceal its plan for overthrowing the same government it invites to talks," Rouhani said in a speech at the United Nations General Assembly.

"For dialogue to take place, there is no need for a photo opportunity. The two sides can listen to each other right here in this Assembly.

"I am starting the dialogue right here, and state, in unequivocal terms, that the question of international security is not a toy in American domestic politics." (AFP)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)Riyadh, Sep 25 (AFP) Riyadh rejected accusations by Tehran that Saudi Arabia was behind last week's deadly attack on a military parade in the southwestern Iranian city of Ahvaz, state media reported Tuesday.

"The kingdom completely rejects the deplorable false accusations by Iranian officials regarding the kingdom's support for the incidents that occurred in Iran," a foreign ministry official said, quoted by the Saudi Press Agency.

"The kingdom of Saudi Arabia's policy is clear regarding its non-interference in the domestic affairs of other countries," he said.

On Monday, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei charged that gunmen who killed 24 people at the military parade were funded by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

UAE's minister of state for foreign affairs, Anwar Gargash, has also dismissed Iran's accusation as "baseless".

"This official campaign launched in Iran against the UAE is regrettable and has escalated since the Ahvaz attack," Gargash tweeted earlier this week.

Four militants attacked Saturday's parade commemorating the start of the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, spraying the crowd with gunfire in an attack that left civilians among the dead.

Iranian officials have blamed jihadist separatists, backed by Gulf Arab allies of the United States, for the attack.

Speaking to a group of Iranian athletes, Khamenei said the attack "once again shows the Iranian nation faces many enemies on its proud path of progress and development".

"This cowardly act was the work of those very individuals who are rescued by the Americans whenever they are in trouble in Iraq and Syria and who are funded by the Saudis and the (United) Arab Emirates," he said. (AFP) KUN

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)INS Satpura is on way to Ile Amsterdam, where 39-year-old Tomy, reached Tuesday after being rescued by a French vessel.

In this photo provided by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, Indian sailor Abhilash Tomy, left, transfers to an inflatable boat as rescuers collect him from his damaged yacht, Thuriya, in the southern Indian Ocean. (Photo: AP)

Mumbai: Commander Abhilash Tomy, undergoing treatment after being rescued mid-sea, will meet the Indian crew on Thursday when naval vessel INS Satpura is expected to reach the island where he has been admitted to a hospital, a defence official said.

Indian Naval stealth frigate INS Satpura is on way to Ile Amsterdam, an island in the southern Indian Ocean, where 39-year-old Tomy, a Kirti Chakra awardee, reached Tuesday after being rescued by a French vessel, he said.

His non-motorised sailing yacht was damaged in a storm Friday while competing in the Golden Globe Race.

Tomy's mentor and race manager Commander (Retd) Dilip Donde had said earlier the sailor was stable and in safe hands at the tiny island which had sound medical facilities. The island does not have an airstrip and Tomy would have to be taken by the sea route itself to either Mauritius, the Reunion Island or Australia, he had said.

Indian sailor Abhilash Tomy lays on the floor of an inflatable boat as rescuers transfer him from his damaged yacht. (Photo: AP)

A Navy official said Wednesday their priority was to shift Tomy to Mauritius, where the Indian Navy has physical presence.

"He will be taken a hospital, and if permitted he would be flown back to India," he said.

A defence spokesman said Tomy has suffered some "blunt injuries" but there is no sign of permanent damage to any body part.

"The decision on shifting him back to India will be taken only after his thorough medical check-up at Mauritius," he said. Vice Admiral Ajit Kumar P, the vice chief of Naval staff, spoke to Tomy.

"He is doing fine and recovering fast under medical supervision. His medical reports are also fine," he said.

Navy spokesperson D K Sharma said options were open on making arrangements to shift him to India. Tomy was drifting for nearly three days in his 32-feet long yacht, Thuriya, which was damaged in a storm.

Vessels and naval assets in the vicinity were deployed for his rescue. Thuriya had tossed in the face of high tides before stabilising. Tomy texted through satellite-based device requesting for evacuation stating his back was injured and he was unable to move.

He was participating in the Golden Globe Race, where 11 participants are using 1968 vintage boats and technology to circumnavigate solo and non-stop.

The race is being held to celebrate the golden anniversary of first such solo circumnavigation in 1968. Videos and pictures of Tomy's evacuation by the crew of Osiris were released by the Indian Navy and the Australian authorities, whose reconnaissance aircraft were in the skies whilst the rescue happened.

The pictures show Tomy being pulled out on a stretcher from the cabin of Thuriya and then carefully lowered into a small raft which had come to fetch him from the Osiris located nearby. Tomy was placed third in the race when he faced the storm.New Delhi, September 26: Commander Abhilash Tomy, who was rescued by the French Navy on Monday, issued a statement today crediting his naval training for surviving the unprecedented storm which struck the Indian Ocean while he was participating in the Golden Globe Race 2018.

Tomy, who is being treated at the remote Amsterdam Island, located 2,735 km away from Mauritius, is now reported to be in a stable condition. According to the Indian Navy, Tomy would be flown to Mauritius as soon as his condition further improves. First Visuals of Rescue Operation of Commander Abhilash Tomy, Injured Navy Officer; Watch Video.

"The sea was unbelievably rough. Me and my boat Thuriya were pitched against the nature's might. I survived because of my sailing skills, the soldier bit in me and my naval training cut-in for that fight. Very thankful to Indian Navy and all who rescued me," Commander Tomy was quoted as saying by the Navy Spokesperson.

The sea was unbelievably rough. Me & my boat Thuriya were pitched against the nature's might. I survived because of my sailing skills, the soldier bit in me and my Naval training cut-in for that fight - Cdr Abhilash Tomy. Very thankful to #IndianNavy & all who rescued me pic.twitter.com/vNhZN2fJjj  SpokespersonNavy (@indiannavy) September 26, 2018

Commander Tomy was participating in the Golden Globe Race, where 11 participants are using 1968 vintage boats and technology to circumnavigate solo and non-stop. The race is being held to celebrate the golden anniversary of first such solo circumnavigation in 1968.

The naval officer, who holds the record of being the only Indian to circumvent the globe, lost contact with the race organisers after being hit by a severe storm in the Indian Ocean.

After losing contact for nearly 48 hours, an injured Tomy reached out to the French Navy via satellite messages seeking help. Subsequently, the French vessel Osiris was sent to rescue him.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Sep 26, 2018 06:19 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).New Delhi, September 26: With an aim to boost airport infrastructure, the Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved construction of a new Domestic Terminal at Patna Airport. Union Finance Minister held a media briefing after the cabinet meeting today and approved a wide range of projects including a domestic terminal at Patna Airport, transfer (disinvestment) of incomplete projects of Hotel Gulmarg Ashok and Hotel Patliputra Ashok, Patna to the State Governments of Jammu & Kashmir and Bihar respectively, financial assistance worth Rs 825 Crore for relining of Sirhind Feeder Canal(Punjab) and Rajasthan Feeder Canal among others.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) also approved the construction of other allied structures at the Patna Airport. Reports inform that the existing domestic terminal is more than 20-year old and the ATC tower, technical block and administrative offices are all in the same domestic terminal building. 'Supreme Court Vindicates Our Stand, Congress Cuts a Sorry Figure Here', Says Arun Jaitley.

During the press meet, the Cabinet also approved disinvestment for completion of incomplete projects. "CCEA approves transfer (disinvestment) of incomplete projects of Hotel Gulmarg Ashok, Gulmarg and Hotel Patliputra Ashok, Patna to the State Governments of Jammu & Kashmir and Bihar respectively," Kar tweeted.

Earlier this month, the Airports Authority of India (AAI) had said that it has plans to set up a new domestic terminal at Jai Prakash Narayan International (JPNI) Airport, Patna that can handle 4.5 million passengers per year with modern amenities on par with the GRIHA-4 rating. According to a report by PTI, the AAI had sought various clearances from the Environment Ministry for expansion of five airports, including Vijayawada, Lucknow and Patna, involving an investment outlay of Rs 3,258 crore.

The report further states that the meeting of the latest expert appraisal committee (EAC) under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, the AAI sought environmental clearance for Patna, Lucknow, Dehradun and Jabalpur airports.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Sep 26, 2018 03:41 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).Greenpeace activists scaled an Indonesian palm oil refinery to protest against the use of palm oil in everyday products from soap to crackers. The activists were accompanied by members of a popular rock band who occupied the refinery towers belonging to Wilmar International.

The rock band played some of their pro-environment songs from the top of the structure. The green activist group said 30 activists - including several foreigners - and Indonesian metal group Boomerang were "occupying" the site in Sulawesi island to draw attention to widespread environmental destruction caused by planting the widely used edible oil.

The activists also painted "Dirty" in large letters and dropped a banner that read "Drop Dirty Palm Oil Now" on storage tanks owned by Singapore-listed Wilmar International, the world's biggest palm oil trader. Wilmar International supplies palm oil to major brands including Colgate, Nestle and Unilever, it said.

Today, 30 courageous activists from around the world (and one Indonesian rock band!) occupied a palm oil refinery for half a day. Why? To show Wilmar that we wont stand for #DirtyPalmOil in our products. Join them >> https://t.co/lYQ7ZImEBm pic.twitter.com/XfVCekR46x  Greenpeace (@Greenpeace) September 25, 2018

The use of palm oil is varied but in recent years it is being used even more widely in the snack food industry, since it is transfat-free and therefore seen as healthier than the shortening agent it replaces.

Greenpeace has accused Singapore-listed Wilmar of still being linked to deforestation in Indonesia - the world's biggest palm oil exporter - despite committing five years ago to stop logging the Southeast Asian archipelago's vast tracts of jungle. "This refinery is loaded with Wilmar's dirty palm oil and if we weren't here it would be on its way to factories and supermarkets all over the world," Greenpeace said.

One group of activists also climbed the anchor chain of a tanker ship transporting palm oil and are preventing it from moving, according to the group.

Wilmar did not immediately comment on the protest.

The warm, humid climate of the tropical countries offers perfect growth conditions for oil palms. Huge tracts of rainforest covered land is cleared in Southeast Asia, Latin America and Africa to make room for more palm plantations, releasing vast amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. As a consequence, Indonesia  the worlds largest producer of palm oil  temporarily surpassed the United States in terms of greenhouse gas emissions in 2015.

Today palm oil production is the largest cause of deforestation in Indonesia and other equatorial countries with dwindling expanses of tropical rainforest. Indonesias endangered orangutan population, which depends upon the rainforest, has dwindled by as much as 50 percent in recent years.

Last week, Indonesia's president signed a three-year moratorium on all new palm oil plantation development in the country.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Sep 26, 2018 04:13 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).Iran has always called Israel its number one enemy but under Donald Trump, the U.S. could soon replace its ally as Tehrans enemy number one. The reason and tension was on display at the 73rd Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

U.S. President Donald Trump and his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani clashed sharply at the UNGA as both spoke on the same day and targeted barbs at each other. Trump called on the global community to isolate Iran while Rouhani called U.S. sanctions as economic terrorism.

Trump dedicated a considerable part of his annual speech to hitting out at Iran, saying, Iran is the world's leading sponsor of terrorism." "Iran's neighbours have paid a heavy toll for the regime's agenda of aggression and expansion," Trump said, accusing Iranian leaders of having "embezzled billions of dollars" from the country's treasury to wage proxy wars.

"The dictatorship used the funds to build nuclear-capable missiles, increase internal repression, finance terrorism, and fund havoc and slaughter in Syria and Yemen," he said. "We ask all nations to isolate Iran's regime as long as its aggression continues."

President Rouhani who spoke a couple of hours later targeted Trump personally for his decision to pull out of the multilateral 2015 nuclear deal. Confronting multilateralism is not a sign of strength. Rather it is a symptom of the weakness of intellect  it betrays an inability in understanding a complex and interconnected world, Rouhani said. He added, The government of the U.S. - at least the current administration - seems determined to render all international institutions ineffectual."

The Iranian leader said he was pleased the international community did not follow the Trump administration's "unilateral and illegal withdrawal from the JCPOA".

The Trump Administration has reimposed economic sanctions on Iran and will impose another round of sanctions on those trading with Iran from November 4. The five remaining parties to the nuclear deal also referred to as the JCPOA - France, Britain, Germany, China and Russia - agreed during a meeting in New York late on Monday to set up a payment system to preserve business ties with Iran despite U.S. sanctions.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Sep 26, 2018 05:17 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).The Supreme Court has declared the Centre's flagship Aadhaar scheme constitutionally valid.

Supreme Court said Aadhaar is meant to help benefits reach marginalised sections of society and takes into account the dignity of people not only from the personal but also from the community point of view. (Photo: File)

New Delhi: The Congress Wednesday welcomed the Supreme Court decision to strike down Section 57 of the Aadhaar act, which allowed private parties to access Aadhaar data, and termed it a "slap on the face of BJP".

The Supreme Court has declared the Centre's flagship Aadhaar scheme constitutionally valid.

"We welcome the Supreme Court's decision to strike down Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act. Private entities are no longer allowed to use Aadhaar for verification purposes," the Congress said on Twitter minutes after the verdict. The de-linking of Aadhaar from private entities is a 'slap on the face of BJP", added Congress national spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi.

"Slap on the face of BJP. Justice Sikri judgement strikes down Section 57 of Aadhaar Act, 2016, which says private body corporates can seek Aadhaar data. Says it's unconstitutional. All plans to monetise biometric data now fail," he tweeted.

He also hailed the Supreme Court's move to disallow metadata to be stored in current form.

"If the information of a person's personal information is sought to be released, he or she shall have an opportunity to be heard. SC rightly appreciated brilliant idea in origin; protected its core; promoted its development and eliminated its flotsam & jetsam. SC brilliantly threw out #bjp #modi accumulated dirty bathwater and saved the baby. Org intent of UPA ie to give identity 2 marginalised ppl now shines (sic)," he said.

The apex court's five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra said Aadhaar is meant to help benefits reach marginalised sections of society and takes into account the dignity of people not only from the personal but also from the community point of view.

The top court said Aadhaar serves a bigger public interest. Aadhaar means unique and it is better to be unique than be the best, it said.Sep 26, 2018, 3:49am ET

California considers additional EV subsidies

Motorists who buy an electric car could gain an additional $2,000.

California is considering giving motorists who buy an electric vehicle an additional $2,000. Decision-makers presented the extra incentive as a way to keep buyers interested in electric cars once federal subsidies begin expiring.

Electric car buyers in California are currently eligible to receive a $7,500 tax credit from the federal government and a $2,500 rebate from the state. The federal credit decreases incrementally once a company sells 200,000 units; the state rebate stays flat.

Tesla already reached the 200,000-car point and General Motors is within 10,000 units of it; they're the two companies that would benefit from the extra state subsidies in the immediate future. Nissan, BMW, and Ford are much further behind. That means Californians who buy a Leaf or an i3 could get up to $12,000 off before dealer discounts enter the equation.

Mary Nichols, the head of the California Air Resources Board (CARB), told Bloomberg she still hopes congress will raise the 200,000-car threshold. If that doesn't happen, CARB will need to find another way to draw buyers to electric cars, like putting an additional $2,000 behind the charging flap.

Bloomberg adds the money would come directly from companies who buy credits in order to comply with California's Low Carbon Fuel Standard. It's not surprising, then, that lawmakers are also considering enforcing stricter carbon intensity regulations.

This week's agenda also includes discussing whether to increase subsidies for fast-charging stations and hydrogen filling stations across the state, and whether to force California's transit systems to buy exclusively buses that run on electricity or hydrogen by 2030.

Photo by Ronan Glon.Sep 26, 2018, 10:49am ET

Ford CEO claims $1B lost profit from metal tariffs

"If it goes on longer, there will be more damage," the executive says.

Ford chief executive Jim Hackett has made a bold claim that the Trump Administration's metal tariffs have already knocked $1 billion off the company's profits this year.

"The metals tariffs took about $1 billion in profit from us -- and the irony is we source most of that in the US today anyways," he told Bloomberg. "If it goes on longer, there will be more damage."

Trump rolled out tariffs on steel and aluminum earlier this year. Automakers represent some of the biggest buyers of both metals and the most vocal industrial group opposing the administration's strategy.

In response to Trump's proposed tariffs on imported vehicles, Ford recently said it had killed plans to import the Focus Active crossover from factories in China.

Hackett is urging the president to establish agreements with Europe and China to eliminate the tariffs.Sep 25, 2018, 5:37pm ET

Volkswagen to use simulations for assistance system development

Running virtual simulation tests has helped Waymo stay ahead of established automakers in the race toward fully self-driving vehicles.

Volkswagen has announced plans to begin using computer simulations to speed up development of driver assistance systems.

Traditionally, the company has focused on a hardware-based validation model that requires components to be physically connected to a test rig via data interfaces. The approach has become more complicated and drawn out as the number of interconnected systems and complexity increases.

The company is now using virtual simulations to test driving scenarios that might be encountered in the real world. Running parallel simulations in a scalable virtual environment is expected to quickly provide the equivalent of millions of test miles in the real world.

Engineers will be able to review performance, tweak control algorithms and watch how assistance systems behave in a 3D graphic environment. The tests will create a virtual library of driving situations that can be used for further development work.

The German automaker's first trials involve an application that simulates thousands of individual parking lots with freely definable parameters, such as traffic and architecture. The pilot program is already being used to develop assistance systems that will be used on the ID family of electric vehicles.

The announcement suggests established automakers are learning a lesson from Waymo's clear lead in the race to develop fully self-driving vehicles. The Alphabet subsidiary employed simulation to scale tests far beyond what would have been viable in a fleet of physical test cars during the same period.

As of July, Waymo's physical fleet of vehicles had reached eight million miles as virtual simulation surpassed five billion miles. Together, the knowledge gained from both avenues has launched the company to the head of the pack.

Volkswagen may be one of the few established automakers talking about following Waymo into the virtual test world, but many others are likely exploring similar paths. Nvidia hopes to open the door to all, launching a new server-based computing platform, known as Constellation, to support virtual testing for its Drive autonomous platform.If all the world's a stage, that includes the porches on College Hill.

A new festival coming to Easton this year will host about 150 musicians in 44 performances on 24 porches throughout the neighborhood. The inaugural College Hill PorchFest runs Sunday, Sept. 30 from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.

Fest-goers can meander among the porches to see the free performances by acts playing jazz, bluegrass, classical, rock and more. Artists include local favorites like Acoustic Kitty Project and Gene Perla. You can find the full schedule and map here.

Attendees should bring their own blankets or folding chairs to set up at each porch.

The PorchFest model first began in Ithaca, New York in 2007, College Hill PorchFest said in a release. Today, there are many versions of the event through the United States and Canada.

College Hill PorchFest will culminate with Big Easy Easton Brass leading a second line parade through College Hill, inviting spectators to join them in the march. Participants can join in by blowing bubbles, shaking a tambourine or playing another instrument, or even just dancing along.

You can learn more about the festival at facebook.com/collegehill.porchfest.3 or collegehillporchfest.org.

Andrew Doerfler may be reached at adoerfler@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @adoerfler or on Facebook.Editor's Note: Interested in the marijuana business industry? NJ Cannabis Insider is a new premium intelligence briefing that features exclusive weekly content geared toward entrepreneurs, lawyers and realtors. View a sample issue.

The state senator leading the way on marijuana legalization in New Jersey, Nicholas Scutari, D-Union, has long said that it's better to get it done right than to get it done fast.

If proceeding slowly means creating a better marijuana bill, then lawmakers should have a pretty good plan, as they've now missed another self-imposed deadline.

Sources close to the bill have said that it will not be introduced before the end of September, something Senate President Stephen Sweeney, D-Gloucester, had aimed for and other lawmakers said was a genuine possibility.

For those lawmakers and Jersey residents eager for legalization, this is just the latest in a series of missed marijuana deadlines, and it's still not clear when the bill will be introduced, much less passed. But as the debate continues, the plan for recreational marijuana is getting closer to what leaders said they wanted.

First, there was talk of passage within the first 100 days of Gov. Phil Murphy's administration -- ambitious, but never likely. Talk then turned to legalization happening before the June 30 budget deadline. There was real effort from lawmakers to get it done by then, with multiple bills introduced and informal hearings held across the state. But fiscal concerns trumped marijuana, and the possibility of legalization faded into the summer. It has now been further delayed.

But delays have led to more debate among lawmakers and the inclusion of ideas that hadn't previously been considered -- ones that aim to help the people Murphy and lawmakers have said they want to help.

The most recent version of the legalization bill would allow people to apply for micro-licenses to grow, process or sell marijuana. These licenses would be for smaller businesses that don't require as much startup capital, theoretically allowing people into the industry who may not have been able to afford it previously.

Opening the potential marijuana industry to small businesses has been a stated goal of state officials since the debate began, and this bill does more to that end than previous versions.

Another area where cannabis advocates expect improvement is on expungements. Previous versions of the bill said that, once marijuana is legal, people with low-level marijuana possession convictions would be able to apply to have those charges expunged.

Social justice advocates, including Dianna Houenou of New Jersey United for Marijuana Reform, said that didn't go far enough.

Now, Assemblywoman Annette Quijano, D-Union, and Assemblyman Jamel Holley, D-Union, are writing a separate expungement bill -- to be considered along with the legalization bill -- that lawmakers say will make it easier for people to get old marijuana convictions expunged.

Legislators are still working with Murphy to iron out some of the bill's specifics, taxes being one of the biggest points of contention.

A report from Politico New Jersey last week suggests that Murphy is unhappy with the 10 percent tax presented in the new legalization bill, which would be the lowest marijuana tax in the country.

Murphy has tried to distance himself from that report, saying that his administration hasn't made up its mind about marijuana taxes.

"We typically don't talk about legislation while they're getting baked," the governor said. "We're not ruling anything out. We want to get it right."

Murphy had previously called for a higher tax on marijuana, which suggests that taxes could be one of the first points of contention between the governor and legislators.

But as the marijuana debate moves into October, there's still little certainty from lawmakers as to when they will introduce a cannabis bill.

Earlier this year, Murphy, as if anticipating the delays, told lawmakers that he wants to sign a legalization bill by the end of 2018. At this point, there's no reason to think it will be delayed beyond December.

Are you interested in the N.J. cannabis industry? Subscribe here for exclusive insider information from NJ Cannabis Insider.

Payton Guion may be reached at PGuion@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @PaytonGuion. Find NJ.com on Facebook.UPDATE: Alleged child rapist on the run was an Army scout, Iraq veteran

A 47-year-old Bucks County man, who is charged with 12 counts of child sexual assault and has been on the run for days, may be driving a stolen white 2016 Toyota Avalon with the Pennsylvania license plate PD3759P, authorities report.

David Allen Hamilton Jr., of Lower Southampton Township, took the Avalon on Tuesday night from the 200 block of Bobwhite Road in New Hope, the U.S. Marshals Service reported. The marshals service's Eastern Pennsylvania Violent Crime Fugitive Task Force has joined the search and a $1,000 reward is being offered for information directly leading to Hamilton's arrest.

Hamilton is white, 5 feet 11 inches tall with hazel eyes and brown hair, the marshals service said.

He was initially driving a white Toyota Corolla, but that was recovered days ago in Morrisville, Pennsylvania, Solebury Township police said.

He fought with a police officer on Friday before disappearing into nearby woods, police said. He was charged with aggravated assault in that incident, authorities said.

If anyone sees Hamilton or the Avalon, they are asked to call 911, police said.

He may be camping along the Delaware Canal in New Hope/Lambertville area, the marshals service said. He may be sleeping in a tent with a red top, the marshals service said.

Hamilton is charged in Lower Southampton, which less than 20 miles from Solebury, with two counts of rape of a child, two counts of aggravated indecent assault on a child younger than 13 and 16, one count of photographing, filming or depicting on a computer a sex act with a child and seven related counts, court records show. The crimes took place in the past five years in the Lower Southampton, the marshals service said.

The arrest warrant is dated Sept. 19, but the charges stem from Jan. 1, 2013, records show.

At one point on Friday, Hamilton was seen crossing a bridge into Trenton, police said. But he was back in Pennsylvania later in the day, police added.

David Allen Hamilton Jr., 47, of Lower Southampton Township, is seen Sept. 15, 2018, leaving a store. Hamilton, who may be camping along the Delaware Canal in the New Hope/Lambertville area, is sought on 12 child sex abuse charges. (Courtesy photo | For lehighvallleylive.com)

Tips can be called in to the marshals service at 866-865-8477, a news release said.

"Serving warrants on sex offenders is a top priority of the marshals service and we intent to use every resource available to locate and apprehend Mr. Hamilton," marshals service Supervisory Deputy Robert Clark said in a news release.

Tony Rhodin may be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyRhodin. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.Prosperous woman Katrina Costello, whose documentary The Silver Branch was nominated for an IFTA award, is embarking on a nationwide tour.

And the film will be shown in the Moat Theatre, Naas, on Sunday, October 14 at 7pm.

Watch the trailer here.

She revealed that the documentary is doing very well on the International Film Festival circuit, including winning the Top 10 Audience Award at Hot Docs, one of the most prestigious festivals in north America.

Read also: Ireland's Biggest Car Market is now on leinsterleader.ie

I am sure the Irish audience will love it too, if I can get them to the theatre to see it, she told the Leinster Leader.

The film will be shown in eight locations around the country. The most accessible spots for Kildare audiences will be the Moat Theatre and the IFI in Dublin from Friday, October 5 for one week.

The documentary is about the man who is the owner of the house in Father Ted, and yet his story is a far more serious one than Fr Teds.

Ms Costello, on location

Patrick McCormack has his own fascinating story to tell and 'The Silver Branch' depicts the life and insights of this inimitable philosopher and poet and brings us a rare glimpse of a disappearing way of life with all its richness and roguery. McCormack is a fifth generation farmer in the austerely beautiful Burren in Co. Clare, longs to farm in the quiet pace his ascendants did.

He dedicates himself to the ancestral song  the symphony of life we were born into and has a simple wish - to live without fear. However, his life gains a different momentum when hes called to battle in the Supreme courts to decide on the fate of this iconic wilderness.

Though the documentary is centred around this remarkable storyteller and his search for unity of being, this beautifully shot film explores more universal themes.

It is a story of life, love, family, grief, of commitment and of the struggles of modern day life, which invites the viewer to follow in mindful meditation, to take a journey into the self and exam the relationship between man and landscape, between tradition and spirit, between body and soul.

A scene from the film

Actor Brendan Gleeson has describes the film as Magical  a unique and an important cinematic gift. It is film making as it should be in Ireland today, finding the universal in the local with a sure-footedness that is most unusual.

The Silver Branch is by first time Director/Cinematographer Katrina Costello and is at The Moat Theatre, Naas for one night only on Sunday 14th October.

Tickets are 8 and available from the Moat or 045 883030

Read also: Land at Coneyboro, Athy, for sale for 1.1 millionThe results mark the first time this technology has been able to completely suppress a population.

Malaria is a parasitic disease that is carried by Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes. (Photo: Pixabay)

A major research breakthrough has had scientists saying that there is new hope in the fight against malaria.

Following a series of laboratory experiments, researchers from Imperial College London succeeded in wiping out a population of caged mosquitoes using a type of genetic engineering known as a gene drive.

The process allowed them to tweak the genes of mosquitoes and block female reproduction in them.

The research, published in the journal Nature Biotechnology says that the scientists managed to eliminate the population in less than 11 generations.

According to them, the gene drive technique could be used to control the spread of malaria.

Malaria is a parasitic disease that is carried by Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes.

Co-lead author of the study, Andrea Cristani said that it would still be at least 5 to 10 years before they can consider testing any mosquitoes with gene drive in the wild.

The results mark the first time this technology has been able to completely suppress a population.

In future, scientists intend to release mosquitoes carrying a gene drive and they will then spread female infertility within local malaria-carrying mosquito populations, causing them to collapse.

Gene drives alter DNA and drive genetic changes through multiple generations by overriding normal biological processes and the new technique is designed to target the specific mosquito species Anopheles gambiae that is responsible for malaria transmission in sub-Saharan Africa.

The new breakthrough comes after the World Health Organization warned that global progress against malaria is stalling and could be reversed if momentum in the fight to wipe it out was lost.Three Kildare companies have made it through to this autumns Google Adopt A Startup programme.

Some 26 startups from across Ireland and four from Europe are currently taking part in an intensive 12-week mentoring programme, and will attend lectures and workshops at the internet giants Dublin offices.

The Kildare companies taking part are:

Access Earth, based in Celbridge, which has developed an app that lets users find and rate places by their accessibility needs.

Beauty Buddy, based at Maynooth University. The company is developing an app that allows users to scan the barcode of a beauty item to access usage instructions, reviews and other information, plus create a virtual makeup bag.

Tixserve, based in Clane, which has created a secure digital ticket fulfilment platform.

At the end of the twelve weeks, eight startups will get the opportunity to showcase their results from the programme and pitch their business to the panel of judges which includes senior members of Google Irelands leadership team and prominent figures from the Irish startup community.

The winning startup will receive 10,000 in AdWords credit as well as eligibility for the Google Cloud programme which comes with $100,000 Google Cloud credit. One company will also win three months free hot desking in Dogpatch Labs, a Google For Entrepreneurs partner.

Edel OShea, Tracy Leavy and Wendy Slattery of Kildare based BeautyBuddy with James Allen and Rebecca Walsh, Program Managers of Googles Adopt A Startup

Paddy Flynn, Director, Google said: Dublin is lauded for its strong start-up ecosystem, so for Google, it's really important that we reach out to support the many vibrant startups located outside Dublin. Half of the startups in our Autumn programme are located in the regions and we're excited to see this diverse regional spread. It's reflecting the strong entrepreneurial mind-set emerging across the country. We also have four category winners from the European Digital Top 50 competition taking part in this years edition of the programme.

The programme has been in existence for six years.The play, Kings of the Kilburn High Road, is coming to the Moat Theatre in the coming weeks.

The play, by Jimmy Murphy, will feature several of Naass best actors - Padraig Broe as Jap, Conal Boyce as Maurteen, Pat Breslin as Shay, Gerry Kavanagh as Git and Mark Neville as Joe.

Playwright Jimmy Murphy left Dublin to work on the building sites in London in the mid-1980s and was inspired to write about the Irish men he met there. The play he wrote was Kings of the Kilburn High Road. It was premiered by Waterfords Red Kettle Theatre Company in 2000.

It tells of Jap, Maurteen, Shay, Git and Joe; men who found themselves living in London longer than they ever had in Ireland, and who had given up their original plan to return home. Secrets are revealed and lies uncovered in a fog of alcohol as they gather to pay respects to one of their number who has passed away.

Read also: Call to repair public lighting in Athy

These are men from our recent history, said Ann Hurley who directs the show at the Moat. You will be shocked, sad and sorry for them. This play asks us to face up to a part of our history that we would, perhaps, like to forget. But it also gives us the opportunity to remember our Irish emigrants.

Director Ann Hurley had the opportunity to raise any questions she had with the playwright when he visited the Moat Theatre over Culture weekend to see a Moat Club production of Whats Left of the Flag, one of Murphys short plays.

Kings of the Kilburn High Road by Jimmy Murphy, directed by Ann Hurley, runs from October 9 to 13 at 8pm nightly. Tickets on 045 883030 or at the Moat.

Read also: Ireland's Biggest Car Market is now on leinsterleader.ieA man who was involved in a car crash offered 100,000 to a young man who he had just crashed into to discourage him from contacting Gardai.

Lithuanian man Henrikas Kazlauskas, 57, whose address is listed as 240 Drummin, Carbury, faced several charges at Naas District Court last Tuesday, September 18.

He pleaded guilty to drink driving charges at at Drummond, Carbury, on January 29, 2018 and at Drummin on December 26, 2016, as well as driving without insurance on the same date. On the latter occasion, he had crashed into a 22-year-old man, leaving him with long lasting pain in his knee and regular nightmares.

The young man gave evidence that the defendant had offered him 100,000 not to go to Gardai. In evidence, through an interpreter, the defendant said it was only 1,000.

Judge Desmond Zaidan asked why the defendant kept breaching the road traffic laws. Representing him, Conal Boyce said that his client has several daughters back in Lithuania who are being looked after by the eldest of them.

Their mother, his wife, has died. He is sending money back to them. He understand where he stands, Mr Boyce said.

The judged noted that the case demonstrated how alcohol can destroy a life. Judge Zaidan sentenced the defendant to 10 months in prison in total and disqualified him from driving for six years.There is opposition to the proposed cutting of direct bus services to Dublin city from Celbridge and Leixlip.

Kildare North TD, Frank ORourke, has called on the National Transport Authority (NTA) to retain the direct bus services from Celbridge and Leixlip namely Route 67X and 66A respectively. Deputy ORourke was speaking after organising a public meeting on Bus Connect proposals in Maynooth during the week.

Read also: Teenage boy missing from Newbridge

General Election candidate, Emmet Stagg, has called for Express Services from Celbridge to the City Centre, bypassing Leixlip and Lucan, and describing the present proposals as an attempt to sabotage Public Bus Transport in Celbridge.

Mr Stagg welcomed the new W8 Service linking Maynooth, Celbridge and Tallaght, the new 259 Service linking Celbridge and Leixlip and the fact that Celbridge would have a dedicated C4 route service, commencing at the Salesians.

But he objected to the removal of Express Services from Celbridge to the City Centre. However the new C4 and Route 324 services represent a major downgrading of direct services to the City Centre for Celbridge Commuters. Currently the 67X has 9 direct services to the City Centre and onto UCD and is an invaluable Express Service. Its replacement, a combination of C4 and Route 324, is a major downgrade in public transport for Celbridge Commuters, requiring them to have to travel through both Leixlip and Lucan.

Mr. Stagg said the buses will be full, so directing them through Leixlip and Lucan will in itself be futile and could drive Celbridge Commuters away from using bus services. What is proposed for Celbridge is anything but a fast and reliable Public transport Service. It will add to the discomfort of passengers and will result in additional car usage. It will not increase train usage which at present is already at peak usage'.

Mr. Stagg therehere is also an issue with the frequency of services at the weekends proposed for the C4 route.

Deputy ORourke, called on the National Transport Authority (NTA) to retain the direct bus services from Celbridge and Leixlip namely Route 67X and 66A respectively. The direct bus services that are currently in place for commuters in the Celbridge, Leixlip, Maynooth area must be protected under the Bus Connect proposals. For instance the 66A, providing 17 services linking River Forest, Confey to the Dublin City Centre is to be replaced by one direct service to Dublin City and UCD. 

Bus connects has many positive proposals. It will provide a 27% expansion of services, which will be made up of increased driver hours and an increase of around 10% in the bus fleet.

So there are many positives in the Bus connects proposals, but we must ensure that the proposals that negatively affect service levels are removed from the plans, said Deputy ORourke.

Meanwhile, Dep Fiona O'Loughlin also expressed concerns about changes to the Ballymore Eustace service.

She said she has received information relating to route 65 that serves Ballymore Eustace and Blessington.

Under the Bus Connects proposals, Route 65 will be replaced by Route 244.

I have been in touch with the NTA in relation to the potential impact the Bus Connects proposals will have on commuters living in Ballymore Eustace and the surrounding rural towns that the bus currently services," she said.

In a recent response I have been told that the primary differences are that the new Route 244 would operate more frequently but it would terminate in Tallaght, where passengers will be able to connect to other bus services to reach their final destinations.

She said she is now investigating the potential changes to service times and to bus stops for the area and will be making a submission to the NTA on these proposed changes by this Friday, September 28 to ensure the service users are not left with little or no public bus service.A NEW TV documentary is set to feature claims by an Irish woman that one of the London Bridge attackers travelled to Limerick on several occasions prior to last years terrorist attack.

Eight people were killed in central London on June 3, 2017 when three attackers  Khuram Butt, Rachid Redouane and Youssef Zaghba  drove a van into pedestrians on London Bridge and launched a knife attack at the nearby Borough Market.

All three were shot dead by police who were on the scene within eight minutes.

Presented by investigative journalist Paul Williams, Irelands Jihadis: True Lives is set to lift the lid on Islamic extremism in Ireland.

One of the interviewees  named as Aaliyah  reveals how she became obsessed with Islamic extremism and befriended Khuram Butt.

In the documentary, Aaliyah claims Butt travelled to Ireland to see her on numerous occasions and that they travelled to locations in Limerick, Clonmel and Cavan.

I would have altogether met Khuram Butt, about thirty or forty times Id say. We went to Limerick. We went to Cavan together as well. We would have went down to Clonmel. He would have wanted to go to visit people, she claims.

Aaliyah also claims there are over 150 Islamic extremists living in Ireland and that they are using this country as a base.

Her claims are supported by leading cleric Shaykh Umar Al Qadri who tells Paul Williams that he believes a similar number of extremists are living in Ireland preaching hate.

Irelands Jihadis: True Lives will be broadcast on Virgin Media One (formerly TV3) at 10pm this Wednesday.THERE is good news for West Limerick on the jobs front with two Rathkeale-based companies creating a total of 42 new jobs.

DesignPro is to add 30 new, cutting-edge jobs through the creation of a new, dedicated robotics division at its plant in Rathkeale which will trade as a separate sister branch, DesignPro Robotics, the companys managing director Paul Collins said.

Recruitment for five positions is already underway and the remainder of the roles are expected to open up very shortly.

This is an important milestone for DesignPro, having now been at the Rathkeale facility since 2015 and we are excited about this next, new step, Mr Collins said.

The addition of the Robotics branch will not only bring team growth and new opportunities but will ensure DesignPro stays at the forefront of Automation and Robotics going forward.

DesignPro works across a variety of industries including automotive, pharmaceutical and renewable energy, but wants to build on the success it has had integrating robots, particularly in the medical industry.

Earlier this week, the company showcased its facilities and capabilities, including its recently opened R&D facility, to a group of 50 hand-selected customers from leading multinational companies in the medical sector.

A highlight of the event was having the KUKA demonstrailer and team on site. KUKA Robotics is a leading, global robot manufacturer and since May 2015, DesignPro has been the leading industry partner for KUKA Robotics in Ireland.

Since the company was established in 2004, DesignPro has installed hundreds of robots across a wide variety of industries and applications and their integrated solutions can be found in leading multinational companies in China, Mexico, Europe, India, South Africa and the US.

Funding from Enterprise Ireland of 534,000 will help the company gain a larger foothold in the robotics market.

Also located in the Rathkeale Industrial Estate is ABS Engineering Control Systems Ltd which is creating 12 new jobs with support from the Local Enterprise Office in Limerick. Set up in 2017 the company provides and installs state-of-the-art building energy management systems (BMS) in commercial, industrial and pharmaceutical sites.

Their control solutions manage functions such as heating, cooling, energy usage and monitoring from one centralized location.

The company is currently developing a Smart Building project for the Indian market and its client base includes Clayton Hotels, Dromoland Castle, Glenstal Abbey and Design Pro.THE award-winning CBS Sexton Street Pipe Band will welcome the audience at this Saturdays European premiere of the of National Geographic Symphony For Our World at Limericks Gaelic Grounds.

The spectacular, 90-minute concert will also welcome the All-Ireland winning hurlers and the Liam MacCarthy Cup, with the team to meet and greet fans at the show.

The first time the National Geographic symphony has taken place on these shores, it will be presented on two of the largest high-definition screens in Europe, with an 80-piece orchestra and the Limerick Chamber Choir performing to an audience seated in the Mackey Stand.

In a series of firsts for the venue, there will also be a licensed bar, thanks to the Woodlands House Hotel, as well as artisan food producers selling their goods.

Thousands of tickets have been sold and though there has been high demand, there are still some up for grabs, according to Gaelic Grounds chairperson Paul Foley. The concert is expected to have a significant economic boost for Limerick also, in the region of 6m, according to estimates.

Mr Foley said it was great to see the Gaelic Grounds with a new lease of life.

Any occasion when you have thousands of people going out to an event of this quality, they will celebrate afterwards, have a meal, have a few drinks. There has to be, and there is, great economic benefit and leverage from it, he explained.

The 25-piece CBS Sexton Street Pipe Band will welcome the audience with a special performance on the pitch to open proceedings.

Then, Symphony for Our World will combine awe-inspiring National Geographic natural history footage perfectly synchronised with an original symphony, performed live on stage by the orchestra, led by Irish Composer Kenneth Rice.

Steven Lemke, technical director and production stage manager on the show, told the Leader recently that playing a large outdoor venue like this with the largest LED screens Europe has to offer is just what this show calls for.

We will have a 7m screen over the stage and 10m screens on either side so the imaging is going to be spectacular! This kind of footage deserves to be shown on a grand scale and when you see the imagery of the beautiful majesty of our planet on a screen like that, its amazing.

The major section of the music in the show was composed by the Emmy and BAFTA-nominated Andrew Christie and Austin Fray of Bleeding Fingers Music, with the concert described as an immersive symphonic experience, a feast for the eyes, for the ears and for the heart.

The show is being produced in Ireland by Limerick production company CWB, who ran the successful Feile Classical concerts last weekend.

See Ticketmaster.ie for tickets.The vice-chancellor made these comments at the Nehru Memorial Lecture.

Violence erupted in JNU between members of Left student groups and the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad. (Photo: File)

New Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) campus is the most peaceful, its vice-chancellor M Jagdesh Kumar said on Tuesday, weeks after violence erupted there between members of Left student groups and the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP).

The vice-chancellor made these comments at the Nehru Memorial Lecture. Spiritual leader Jaggi Vasudev, also known as Sadhguru, delivered the lecture that was in a question and answer format.

"When Mohit Chauhan was singing here, he said, have come to JNU for the first time and I have heard so many things'. Sadhguru, please believe that our campus is the most peaceful campus," Kumar said as students started clapping loudly.

He also said he is proud of his students, which was again met with a loud applause from students.

"Our students are real gems. I am very proud of my students and they have one very good quality. They engage in debate, discussion and critical thinking," he added.

Violence erupted on the JNU campus after a united front of Left student groups won all four central panel posts in the union defeating the ABVP by considerable margins in the early hours on September 17.A RETAIL premises which was ordered to close following a HSE inspection has reopened after the closure order was lifted.

The order, under the provisions of the FSAI Act 1998, was served on the proprietor of Echemas Trading Store at Upper Gerald Griffin Street on September 19.

According to the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI), the order was served after HSE inspectors identified issues of concern when they visited the premises.

Exact details of the inspection and the reason for the closure order have not been publically disclosed by the HSE or the FSAI.

The order was formally lifted two days after it was served (September 21) after the issues of concern were rectified.

According to a report on the FSAI website, the store has been categorised as 'retailer-other'.

According to external signage at the front of the small store, it deals in all African foods, clothes, money transfer, video rentals and services.

The closure order was just the second in Limerick city this year.

In January, a closure order, under the provisions of the FSAI Act 1998, was served on the propreitor of Hot Spot, Parnell Street after environmental health officers conducted an inspection of the premises. The order was lifted in February.May 3, 2021, 7 PM

The Oct. 10-12 Daniel F. Kelleher auction includes this rare example of the imperforate 1851 1 type I Benjamin Franklin stamp with clear margins. The sale features U.S. and worldwide stamps and postal history.

The upcoming auction in Danbury, Conn., will include this Great Britain 1840 Mulready envelope. Though unused, it has a message written in Mulreadys hand, according to Daniel F. Kelleher Auctions, to Coll. J. Trumbull.

By Michael Baadke

The imperforate 1851 1 type I Benjamin Franklin stamp (Scott 5) is one of the more challenging stamps to obtain when building a collection of United States classics.

In its Oct. 10-12 Flagship sale in Danbury, Conn., Daniel F. Kelleher Auctions is offering a used example of the elusive stamp with clear margins.

The stamp in the auction is additionally interesting because it is an example of the dark blue color, not the standard blue of the major variety. The dark blue is noted in the Scott Specialized Catalogue of United States Stamps and Covers, but no value has been assigned to it because the information needed to establish a value is lacking.

The 1 type I stamp is known to collectors as 7R1E, because this fully intact variety of the Franklin design and its framing ornaments occurred only in position 7 of the right pane on the early printing of plate 1.

Fewer than 100 surviving examples of Scott 5 are recorded today, most of them used. On many examples, the stamp frame has been cut in because the stamps when printed were very close to each other on the sheet.

This example, as Kelleher describes, features four clear gigantic margins all around showing every glorious bit of the type.

The stamp is struck with a black New York large-slug-in-circle cancel that was used on circular mail. With tiny corner creases at top, a small sealed tear at bottom and small thins, the stamp has very fine to extremely fine centering, Kelleher notes.

The stamps provenance includes prominent researcher Stanley B. Ashbrook, and it is accompanied by a 1957 certificate from the Philatelic Foundation and a 2018 certificate from Professional Stamp Experts.

With no Scott value listed for the dark blue shade, Kelleher notes that the value in the 2018 Scott U.S. Specialized catalog for a used stamp in blue is $67,500.

The auction firm estimates this stamp at $40,000 to $60,000, with an opening bid of $20,000.

The Kelleher Flagship sale brings together a diverse selection of material from numerous sources, including the RGB collection of United States, the Howard Herzog collection of U.S. and worldwide stamps, the William B. Martin collection of stamps and covers of the world, and others.

The worldwide material in the three-day auction includes a nice run of Germany and German states, Scandinavia and Italian area.

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More than 340 lots of Great Britain and British Commonwealth are being offered, beginning with an unusual unused example of Britains 1840 1-penny Mulready envelope in black (Scott U1). Named after the designer, William Mulready, this example has a manuscript endorsement across the front in Mulreadys hand, according to Kelleher, reading Specimen of B. [British] Govt. envelope for Coll. J. Trumbull,

It is described as a Very Fine and unique Mulready specimen, possibly given to renowned American soldier and painter John Trumbull as a sign of admiration.

The envelope is lightly soiled with a small wax seal hole on reverse. With an estimate of $5,000 to $7,500, it opens at $2,500.

The auction catalog for the Flagship sale can be viewed at www.kelleherauctions.com, with online bidding options available.

For additional information contact Daniel F. Kelleher Auctions, 22 Shelter Rock Lane, Unit 53, Danbury, CT 06810.Sep 26, 2018, 4 AM

An 1870 cover mailed from Hawaii to Albany, N.Y., franked with a diagonally bisected 1864 2 rose vermilion stamp in combination with the 1866 5 blue stamp to pay the 6 rate. The cover will be offered during the Schuyler Rumsey auction at the Oct. 12-14 Sescal show in Ontario, Calif.

A special Schuyler Rumsey auction scheduled for Sunday features more than 840 lots of advertising covers, including this whimsical allover illustrated design of a locomotive created from the components of a printing press.

By Michael Baadke

San Francisco-based auctioneer Schuyler Rumsey will offer three days of auctions during the Oct. 12-14 Sescal show outside Los Angeles.

Sponsored by the Federated Philatelic Clubs of Southern California, the show is taking place at the Ontario Convention Center, 2000 E. Convention Center Way in Ontario, Calif.

The Rumsey auctions at the show are organized in two catalogs. The first, extending over all three days of the show, is for the Sescal general sale and includes a significant run of United States postal history, along with U.S. stamps (with postmasters provisionals and back-of-the-book), Civil War and Confederate States, U.S. possessions, and U.S. and worldwide collections.

The second catalog, for an auction beginning on Saturday morning, offers more than 840 lots from the Max Mayo collection of allover advertising covers and the Ernst Sielaff collection of advertising covers.

The general sale opens with California postal history and Western Express covers, followed by additional postal history, including covers with waterway agent markings and examples of trans-Atlantic mail.

The stamps on offer include an impressive selection of the 5 and 10 stamps from the U.S. 1847 issue (Scott 1-2).

A used example of the 1911 3 deep violet George Washington stamp known as the Orangeburg coil is offered among the 20th-century material.

This stamp was struck with a wavy line machine cancel, and is attractively centered for this notoriously off-centered issue with design centered to top yet well clear, rich deep color, small usual flaws with tiny unobtrusive repair, according to Rumsey.

Only a small supply of these stamps was issued by the Post Office Department and used by Bell Pharmaceutical in Orange-burg, N.Y., to mail samples to potential customers.

A used single Orangeburg coil in the grade of fine is valued at $10,000 in the Scott Specialized Catalogue of United States Stamps and Covers (with the value printed in italics to denote an item that can be difficult to value accurately).

The example in this sale is accompanied by certificates from the Philatelic Foundation (1995) and Professional Stamp Experts (2005).

Among the stamps and covers for U.S. possessions is an 1870 cover from Hawaii to Albany, N.Y., franked with the 1866 5 blue King Kamehameha V stamp (Scott 32) and a diagonally bisected 1864 2 rose vermilion King Kamehameha IV stamp (31b).

Mail exchanged between Hawaii and the United States was greatly simplified by the Postal Convention signed May 4, 1870, effective July 1, 1870, which established the 6 single-letter rate to the United States, Rumsey explains. The 6 stamps were not available until late Spring 1871, and so the rate was made up using three 2 stamps. As the supply of 2 stamps dwindled, the post office permitted some bisects to be used with 5 stamps for the 6 rate.

Scott 31b, Half used as 1 on cover with #32, is valued at $18,000 in the Scott U.S. Specialized catalog, again with the value in italics. This cover has a 2015 Philatelic Foundation certificate and is identified as ex-Peters.

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Rumsey previously offered the Gary Peters collection of Hawaii in 2016.

Some 160 additional lots of Hawaii stamps and postal history are offered in the upcoming auction, including town markings, picture postcards, postal stationery and more.

On the last day of the show, collections are the auction focus, with many accumulations of U.S. and worldwide material available.

In the specialized catalog for the advertising covers, Rumsey remarks: The Western Express section is one of strongest we have had the pleasure of offering with 14 Pacific Union and 60 Wells Fargo designs. Topics range from Agricultural, Cameos, Expositions, Railroad, Tobacco to Tools and Hardware. A significant group of Spanish American War patriotics and Confederate States are present.

Among the highlights of this sale is a buff cover mailed within Ohio, from Cincinnati to Armstrong Mills, franked with the 1851 3 dull red Washington stamp (Scott 11A) tied by a bold blue Cincinnati circular datestamp.

The allover caricature design advertises the Daily Times Steam Printing Office with a fanciful steam locomotive printing press.

The cover carries an estimate of $2,000 to $3,000.

The range of cover designs and subjects in this sale provides much for the collector to choose from.

Both catalogs for the Rumsey sale at Sescal can be found online at www.rumseyauctions.com, with online bidding options available.

Information is also available from Schuyler Rumsey Philatelic Auctions, 47 Kearny St., Suite 500, San Francisco, CA 94108.As with all small countries, the Maldives too is being closely scrutinised by a raft of global players.

Whether in hijab or bermudas, theres hardly a Maldivian who doesnt believe in Jinnis  invisible spooks both good and nasty that can tease the islanders of the beautiful archipelago till they are appeased by a fanditha, an offering.

A day before the presidential elections in the Maldives on Sunday, any voodoo queen worth her chicken claws would have gloomily predicted that the biggest jinni to plague Maldivians in recent times, dictatorial President Abdulla Yameen, would cling to his office. After all, the President had arrested or forced into exile two former Presidents (one his own half-brother), jailed members of the Opposition and judges of the Supreme Court. Rumours of corruption and personal enrichment abounded even as Mr Yameen struck deals with Saudi Arabia and China over entire atolls, encouraged the spread of Riyadh-style Wahabism and snubbed regional ally India. In a last-ditch effort to flex muscle, Mr Yameen even ordered a police raid upon the office of the Oppositions candidate, Ibrahim Mohamed Ibu Solih, the day before the election.

Whether it was divine intervention or not, Abdulla Yameen was defeated by Mr Solih, and the man said to be a reformer will be sworn in as President in November. Through the sensational election, the gentle and hospitable nationals of the Maldives, who were frequently derided for their seeming submissiveness under Mr Yameen, strutted the stern stuff they are made of.

Meanwhile, its silly season on the social media. Indian pundits are gloating foolishly over the defeat of China, while simplistic Western commentators are equating the departure of Mr Yameen to that of Islamic conservatism (read fundamentalism) and hyperventilating that democracy has returned to the beautiful coral playgrounds of the global rich (and, in other words, made the country theirs again).

Rather uncharitably towards Maldivian voters and yawn-inducingly in India, the Big Brother syndrome has struck our neighbours. South Asian analysts are pinning the election result on their favorite jinni  Indias Research and Analysis Wing (RAW).

Whether RAW can really be credited with black magic or not, India got off the mark even before an official announcement by Males Election Commission. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, too, peppered his congratulatory phone call to Mr Solih with key words like democracy and peace. Far from being comatose over events in the Maldives as it has been accused of, South Block had its eyes wide shut all this while.

President-elect Ibu Solih is a relative of former President Mohammed Nasheed, a well-liked parliamentarian and co-founder of Mr Nasheeds Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP). But its not going to be smooth sailing in the idyllic country, not even for an experienced administrator like Mr Solih.

The coalition he will have to eke out a government from couldnt be more disparate. Indeed, it would be well advised to take lessons from neighbouring Sri Lanka, where a similarly motley crue is fighting hard to survive. Much like in Colombo, where the countrys two largest rival parties joined hands merely to oust a former President, the Maldives longest-serving head of state, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, is part of the victorious coalition along with the very man who ended his own rule  the countrys first democratically-elected President, Mohammed Nasheed. Then there is the right-of-centre Jumhooree Party, which envisages liberalism, nationalism and an Islamic democracy. Its erstwhile coalition partner, the right-wing Adaalath Party, which helped bring about the defeat of Mr Gayoom in 2013, is also on board. So far, the glue of the euphoria of toppling Mr Yameen is holding. But will the partners see eye-to-eye over governance once the honeymoon is over? Or will the Maldives see a fragmentation of the kind being witnessed in Colombo, where the President and Prime Minister are at loggerheads and governance is in all kinds of knots? Latest reports from Male indicate that President Yameen is pressuring the Election Commission to delay the announcement of the final results and cook up intelligence reports on flawed polling. He will certainly try and wiggle out of prosecution for many seamy moves in the coming months. If the new government is in disarray, he may even move in again for the kill.

As with all small countries, the Maldives too is being closely scrutinised by a raft of global players. Western analysts vapidly assume that democracy, even in countries as culturally alien to them as the Maldives, must be a mirror image of their own interpretation of it. Though they will never voice it, Western capitals will confuse conservatism with fundamentalism and expect changes that are myopic from an Asian point of view  that the hijab vanishes, that Islamic teaching is moulded in a manner most suited to Western liberalism, and so on.

Despite the MDPs own purported closeness to, and the enormous support it has received from Western countries during its struggle in exile, the new Maldivian government must stand firm and respect the democratic rights of all Maldivians, even those who choose a culturally-conservative form of Islam.

And despite all our warts, there are lessons that tiny Maldives could learn from democratic India, home to the worlds third largest Muslim population, whose practice of Islam ranges from conservative to ultra-liberal without anyone in global capitals getting their knickers in a twist and launching pedantic diatribes against New Delhi. India, on its part, can learn from the Maldives the art of classy and stringently eco-conscious island tourism, which in sarkari hands has proved abysmal in Lakshadweep (part of the same volcanic chain as the Maldives), the Andamans and elsewhere.

New Delhis lightning speed at greeting Mr Solihs victory only reinforces the happy impression that South Block is getting increasingly pragmatic about Chinas investments in the Indian Ocean region. It would do well for Indias chattering classes to recall that it was under the victorious MDPs Mohammed Nasheed that China first showed interest in the Maldives, and that it is the sovereign right of any country to invite investment from wherever it likes. But given Indias flawless track record of springing to the Maldives rescue whenever invited, Male, in turn, must remember that India is well justified in asking it to ensure that Chinese investment or not, Indias regional and geostrategic interests must be protected.The electorate could be asked whether or not it accepts the deal negotiated by its government with the EU.

At its annual conference in Liverpool, the British Labour Party came close this week to endorsing a second referendum on the United Kingdoms exit from the European Union (EU), although it was not initially very clear exactly what question might be put to the vote.

The electorate could be asked whether or not it accepts the deal negotiated by its government with the EU, or it could simultaneously be given the option of reversing the result of the 2016 referendum by altogether rejecting the very idea of a Brexit. Not surprisingly, Labour is divided on the issue, even though a majority of its members and supporters appear to favour the possibility of Britons being given the right to rescind the choice they made two years ago.

The argument against such an open-ended choice is that the 2016 verdict was clear-cut, and that its infeasible in a functioning democracy to bring up the same question every couple of years. That makes sense at one level. On the other hand, though, it could be argued that some of the most prominent campaigners on both sides deliberately distorted the facts; that almost 28 per cent of the electorate did not cast a vote, through either apathy or uncertainty; and that there was a generational divide, with younger people  who are inevitably more concerned about the future, and whose numbers have been strengthened in the interim  more clearly inclined to favour the Remain option.

At the same time, nobody had any idea of how Brexit negotiations would go. Last week, British Prime Minister Theresa May took her controversial Chequers plan to an EU summit in Salzburg, and returned humiliated. This was her second embarrassment on that particular basis, following the fiasco in July when she corralled the Conservative Party front bench in Chequers, the Prime Ministers country residence, and insisted on everyone signing up to a strategy hardly any of them had been given the opportunity to absorb. They went along with the charade, but both her Brexit secretary, David Davis, and foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, felt obliged to resign from the cabinet in the days that followed, alongside a handful of lesser-known luminaries.

May ought to have realised that the EU would be disinclined to accept any proposal whereby Britain gets to pick and choose whichever elements of its relationship with Europe it wishes to retain. One of the main bones of contention relates to the UKs only land border with the EU, between Britains last significant colony, Northern Ireland, and the Irish Republic. That divide was rendered a lot less rigid in the wake of the Good Friday Agreement, and hardly anyone favours a return to the status quo ante. Permitting its Irish province to remain a part of the European customs union while mainland Britain adopts contrary rules entails a degree of incoherence. The simplest way out would be to agree to a long overdue reunification of Ireland  but that is hardly an option for May, who relies for her parliamentary majority on an alliance with the Democratic Unionist Party, which represents the Protestant hard core of Northern Irish separatism. But even the Labour Party would, at least for the time being, be wary of backing a united Ireland, at least without some kind an Irish referendum.

The Labour Partys leader, Jeremy Corbyn, and his shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, have lately been under pressure to articulate a coherent alternative to the Tory Brexit strategy, rather than merely relishing the Conservative chaos, and hoping that it will sooner or later entail Britains third general election since 2015. Its not that they dont have a plan  but their radical policy platform, with several elements that boast considerable popular appeal, relates primarily to the domestic economy.

At the moment, the likeliest outcome appears to be the worst-case scenario: a no-deal Brexit in March 2019, which its relatively few Tory proponents say will work out just fine, while some of them at the same time are advising British citizens to stock food and medicines. Just in case it becomes impossible to keep calm and carry on.

A change of government would probably be the best option for Britain in the short run. But time is running out, and theres no guarantee of a desirable result in either a third election or a second referendum.

By arrangement with DawnMANILA (CNN Philippines, September 26)  Former National Security Adviser Jose Almonte branded the Duterte government's actions against opposition Senator Antonio Trillanes IV as "unfair" and "disproportionate," warning that this could prompt the public to act against it.

Almonte, speaking to reporters by phone on Wednesday, reacted to the President's order to void the amnesty accorded to Trillanes for his involvement in a number of coup attempts that happened over a decade ago.

Almonte said this could impact the amnesties that previous administrations have handed out.

"Ang mahirap dito yung basis e. Hindi lang ma-locate yung original, hindi ba, hanggang ngayon? E you do not punish the one amnestied, just because the original was not located. You punish the custodian of the document," Almonte said.

(Translation: The difficulty is the basis. The original just cannot be located until now, right?)

Almonte is an alumnus of the Philippine Military Academy (Class 1956), just like Trillanes.

After retiring from the Armed Forces of the Philippines in 1986, Almonte served former Presidents Cory Aquino and Fidel Ramos in various military intelligence and security-related positions.

Now in his 80s, Almonte said he finds the efforts to make Trillanes face the court martial ridiculous, insisting that public sentiment should also be considered in resolving the former rebel soldier's case.

"Hindi lang tayo mag depend sa (We should not just depend on) legal argument, you know. We have to consider the common sense of the people, the collective common sense, kung acceptable o hindi (if acceptable or not)," Almonte said.

"Common sense will not accept that kind of situation where you are already removed from military service. You were already incarcerated. You ran for senator and won. And then, you will be recommissioned just to be court marshalled? Mahirap ata yun (That's difficult)," he asserts.

Almonte said since Trillanes is a politician, it is only but natural he takes on political beating as a member of the opposition.

But Almonte also warned the Duterte administration against resorting to "disproportionate" actions against its critics.

"I hope it will not happen, but over time, this creates, yung sinasabi ni [former Manila archbishop Jaime] Cardinal Sin noon na compelling moral imperative  a moral command that binds people together, to radically disobey," Almonte said.Start-ups and major tobacco firms have launched more than a dozen new high-nicotine devices with Juul-like designs.

The FDA set the August 2016 deadline to rein in the fast-growing industry but allowed sales of Juul and other older devices to continue without regulatory approval until 2022. (Photo: Pixabay)

The sleek Juul electronic cigarettes have become a phenomenon at US high schools, vexing educators and drawing regulatory scrutiny over their sweet flavours and high nicotine content.

Now, a new wave of lower-priced Juul knock-offs is showing up at convenience stores, vape shops and online - despite a US Food and Drug Administration rule banning the sale of new e-cigarette products after August 2016 without regulatory approval.

Start-ups and major tobacco firms have launched more than a dozen new high-nicotine devices with Juul-like designs since the FDA imposed the deadline, according to a Reuters review of the companies online advertisements, social media posts and public statements.

The FDA earlier this month threatened to ban Juul and four other leading vaping products unless their makers take steps to prevent use by minors. But the warning came after companies introduced a slew of new Juul copycats following the August 2016 deadline with no regulatory consequences.

In a statement to Reuters, the agency said it was investigating whether certain brands are being improperly sold without FDA approval and that it plans to take additional action on this front very soon. The agency said it would focus on products with high-nicotine concentrations and flavours appearing to target young people and take swift action wherever appropriate.

The FDA set the August 2016 deadline to rein in the fast-growing industry but allowed sales of Juul and other older devices to continue without regulatory approval until 2022.

The companies that started marketing new devices after the deadline include startup firms such as Kandypens, Myle Vapor and VGOD, as well as large multinational tobacco companies including British American Tobacco Plc and Imperial Brands Plc.

Kandypens touted its new Rubi vaping device last October - more than 14 months after the August 2016 cutoff - with an Instagram post saying it had been working hard over here for the last 12 months on the product. Vaping distributor VGOD posted on its website in May that it was an honour to finally introduce the STIG, referencing its Stig Pods, a disposable three-pack of high-nicotine devices.

British American Tobacco chief executive Nicandro Durante said on a July 2018 earnings call that the company would be launching its higher-nicotine Vuse Alto product in the United States the following month. Imperial Brands announced its myblu brand of e-cigarettes in a February 2018 press release.

Kandypens, Myle and VGOD did not respond to requests for comment.

Spokespeople for Imperial Brands and British American Tobacco said their products were compliant and on the market before August 2016. Imperial Brands said it had purchased an existing e-cigarette brand and renamed it. British American Tobacco did not respond to questions about its marketing or sales.

A spokeswoman for Juul Labs Inc, Victoria Davis, said the company is cooperating with regulators and working to prevent underage use of a product designed to help adult smokers quit tobacco cigarettes.

No minor or non-nicotine user should ever try Juul, Davis said.

E-cigarettes vaporize a liquid that contains nicotine, the addictive stimulant that gives smokers a rush. The Juul design mimics a flash drive - with plug-in cartridges of concentrated nicotine juice. It is far more compact than earlier vaping devices and produces less vapour, making it easy to use without being detected - an attribute some health advocates say attracts teenagers.

Juuls imitators are also small and compatible with higher-nicotine blends, though some can also be filled with lower-strength juice.

The Chinese company Suorin introduced several such devices to the United States over the past year. Many high-schoolers and college students said they have switched to these products because buying widely available nicotine liquids is less expensive than Juul pods.

In a statement, Suorin said it didnt have clear guidance from the FDA on regulations governing its newer products but hopes to better understand how to fully comply. The company said its products are only intended for adult smokers.

One Juul pod has the nicotine content of about 20 cigarettes  the number in a traditional pack  according to Juuls marketing. A pod can be consumed in a day by a heavy user, according to interviews with Juul customers.

Many of the newest blends from Juul and its imitators - called nicotine salts in the industry - contain a compound called benzoic acid, which lowers the pH level of the liquid. That reduction allows users to take in more nicotine without a bitter taste, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

In addition to the devices, dozens of high-nicotine e-liquids have arrived on the market with names such as frozen mystery pop, rainbow drops and Tokyo chocolate banana, which critics say are designed to attract young customers.

Vaping proponents argue the Juul and similar new products give cigarette smokers looking to quit a much better option than lower-nicotine e-cigarettes.

It gives the same exact sensation as a cigarette, except you dont wake up coughing at 2 a.m., said Charles Trejo, a manager at V for Vape, a Los Angeles retailer.

Public health researchers say high-nicotine vaping devices like the Juul have proven adept at drawing in new customers, including teenagers, who never used tobacco.

What theyre doing is creating addicts in large numbers, said Dr Robert Jackler, a professor who heads a group studying the impact of tobacco advertising at Stanford University.

High-nicotine vaping devices amount to a weaponization of the drug, he said, citing research showing young people are particularly susceptible to nicotine addiction, which could lead them to other addictions including cigarettes.

The companies launched the copycat devices as Juuls market share surged from 13.6 per cent of the e-cigarette market in early 2017 to more than 70 per cent now, according to a Wells Fargo analysis of Nielsen retail data, which does not include online sales.

The FDAs regulation of e-cigarettes has come under scrutiny in recent months as Juuls popularity has taken off. Anti-smoking advocates complained about the Juul lookalikes in an August letter to the FDA, saying the agency had failed to assert its authority over companies that had evaded the review process. The FDA said it planned to respond to the letter but declined further comment.

Vaping increased by nearly eightfold between 2011 and 2017 among US high school students, according to the most recent CDC data. Experts say last years survey likely underestimates the increase because it was conducted before a surge in Juul sales.

Many high schools have resorted to locking bathrooms  jokingly called Juul rooms by students. Marcella Bianco, who helps develop school anti-vaping curriculum for the non-profit organization Catch My Breath, said elementary schools have recently started requesting materials.

Educators fear the high-nicotine devices could erode decades of progress in reducing youth tobacco use. Smoking among high school students declined from 15.8 per cent to 7.6 per cent between 2011 and 2017, according to the CDC, but e-cigarette use grew from 1.5 per cent to 11.7 per cent over the same period.

Its like a flashback to 20 years ago, said Kathryn Hensley, a school board member in St. Lucie County, Fla. Are we starting all over again?

E-cigarettes have occupied a regulatory grey area in the United States since they emerged a decade ago. Only in 2016 did the FDA finalise rules to regulate e-cigarettes, including the requirement that companies get approval for new products.

Research on the long-term health effects of e-cigarettes is limited. They are widely viewed as safer than tobacco cigarettes because they dont contain the same cocktail of toxic and cancer-causing chemicals.

The UK Royal College of Physicians said in a 2016 report that e-cigarettes were 95 per cent less harmful than smoking tobacco, citing a reduction in the risk of serious disease and death. The CDC has said e-cigarettes are safer than conventional cigarettes but has not assigned a specific risk reduction because the products can vary widely.

Some health experts are particularly worried about the impact of nicotine from e-cigarettes on adolescents. Research from a 2016 US Surgeon Generals report found that such exposure could have lasting adverse consequences for brain development and cognition on teenagers. A study released by the National Academy of Sciences this year cited evidence that vaping among young people increases the risk of eventually smoking tobacco.

High-nicotine vaping devices and liquids are not allowed in many other parts of the world, including in the European Union and the United Kingdom, which have both set nicotine limits at 20 mg/mL in e-cigarette liquids. Regulators said that level was effective for most smokers trying to quit.

Juul pods are rated at 59 mg/mL, according to the companys marketing. Israeli regulators last month banned Juul out of concern over its high nicotine content, saying the device posed a serious danger to public health.

Davis, the Juul Labs spokeswoman, said in August the company was incredibly disappointed with what it called the Israeli governments misguided decision to crack down on healthier alternatives to tobacco cigarettes.

The company has since introduced a lower-nicotine version of the product in Israel that it says complies with regulations there. Davis said Juul believes the higher-nicotine version of the product still provides the best option for smokers trying to quit.

Imperial Brands new myblu product arrived in the United States earlier this year. Matt Kessler, a spokesman for Fontem Ventures, the Imperial Brands unit that owns myblu, said the brand complies with the FDA rules because it is a re-imagination of a similar e-cigarette that was marketed by a company that Imperial brands acquired a year earlier.

The new myblu brand, however, offers 4 per cent nicotine strength, meaning at least 40 mg/mL, according to company advertising, higher than any previously offered by the earlier e-cigarette model, called My Von Erl.

Devices that vaporize higher-nicotine liquids fall under the definition of new products subject to FDA review, according to the 2016 regulation. Kessler declined to comment further on nicotine levels in myblu, saying only that the product is compliant with FDA regulations.

Durante, the CEO of British American Tobacco, acknowledged on the July earnings call that its Vuse Alto device had not been widely available before the August 2016 deadline. He said thats not required under FDA rules.

To be grandfathered by the FDA, he said, you could be in the market, in one store, two stores only in the whole country.

The FDA declined to comment on whether myblu and Vuse Alto are compliant or if availability in one or two stores would be considered on the market. The agency said it would consider the totality of the evidence to decide a whether a vaping product had been commercially available before the regulatory deadline.

As new high-nicotine Juul competitors arrive, vaping enthusiasts on YouTube are posting reviews of the next Juul killer aiming to take a piece of the red-hot market.

Milo Gringlas, a freshman at Cornell University, said Juul has become so ubiquitous on campus that a popular late-night food truck now sells vaping devices and nicotine liquids.

Everybody either has one or is looking for one, he said.

Austin Tompkins, who lives in Los Angeles, has struggled for the last six months to kick his addiction to Juul, which he started using about three years ago when he was 19. He realized he needed to stop when he would wake up in the middle of the night needing another hit.

In his latest attempt, hes made it two months without vaping. The urge hasnt gone away.

Im telling you, right now, I would love a hit of a Juul, he said.

(Source)Buzz Aldrin salutes the U.S. flag on the surface of the moon during the Apollo 11 mission on July 20, 1969. Some conspiracy theorists believe that NASA faked the landing.

Here's a theory: President Barack Obama was not born in the United States. Here's another: Climate change is a hoax. Here's one more: The "deep state" spied on Donald Trump's campaign, and is now trying to destroy his presidency.

Who believes this stuff? Conspiracy theories have been cooked up for ages, but for the first time in history, we have a president who has regularly endorsed them. Assuming that President Donald Trump's preoccupation is genuine, he shares it with many fellow Americans. What explains it?

I'm a psychologist who studies, among other things, people's worldviews and belief systems. I wanted to figure out why some people gobble up conspiratorial explanations, while others dismiss them as the raving of lunatics.

Consistency in views

By and large, people gravitate toward conspiracy theories that seem to affirm or validate their political views. Republicans are vastly more likely than Democrats to believe the Obama "birther" theory or that climate change is a hoax. Democrats are more likely to believe that Trump's campaign "colluded" with the Russians.

But some people are habitual conspiracists who entertain a variety of generic conspiracy theories.

For example, they believe that world politics are controlled by a cabal instead of governments, or that scientists systematically deceive the public. This indicates that personality or other individual differences might be at play.

In fact, some people seem to be downright devoted to conspiracy theories. When conspiracy maven Alex Jones' content was recently banned from several social media websites, the popularity of his Infowars news app skyrocketed.

Scientific research examining the nature of the "conspiratorial disposition" is abundant, but scattershot. So in a pair of new studies, and with help from my student Molly Graether, I tried to build on previous research to piece together a more comprehensive profile of the typical conspiracy theory believer, and for that matter, the typical non-believer.

Common traits

We asked more than 1,200 American adults to provide extensive information about themselves and whether they agreed with generic conspiratorial statements. We tried to measure as many personal factors as possible that had been previously linked to conspiracy belief. Looking at many traits simultaneously would allow us to determine, all else being equal, which ones were most important.

Consistent with previous research, we found that one major predictor of conspiracy belief was "schizotypy." That's a constellation of traits that include a tendency to be relatively untrusting, ideologically eccentric and prone to having unusual perceptual experiences (e.g., sensing stimuli that are not actually present). The trait borrows its name from schizophrenia, but it does not imply a clinical diagnosis.

Schizotypy is the strongest predictor of conspiracy belief. In addition to experiencing the world in unusual ways, we found that people higher in schizotypy have an elevated need to feel unique, which has previously been linked with conspiracism. Why? Probably because believing in non-mainstream ideas allows people to stand out from their peers, but at the same time take refuge in a community of like-minded believers.

In our studies, conspiracy believers were also disproportionately concerned that the world is a dangerous place. For example, they were more likely to agree that "all the signs" are pointing to imminent chaos.

Finally, conspiracists had distinct cognitive tendencies: They were more likely than nonbelievers to judge nonsensical statements as profound  for example, "wholeness quiets infinite phenomena"  a tendency cheekily known as "bullshit receptivity."

They were also more likely to say that nonhuman objects  triangle shapes moving around on a computer screen  were acting intentionally, as though they were capable of having thoughts and goals they were trying to accomplish.

In other words, they inferred meaning and motive where others did not.

Is Trump a conspiracy thinker?

Although we can't know how he would score on our questionnaires, President Trump's public statements and behavior suggest that he fits the profile fairly well.

First, he does display some schizotypal characteristics. He is famously untrusting of others. Donald Trump Jr. has described how his father used to admonish him in kindergarten not to trust anyone under any circumstances. The elder Trump is also relatively eccentric. He is a unique politician who doesn't hew consistently to party lines or political norms. He has espoused unusual ideas, including the theory that people have a limited lifetime reservoir of energy that physical exercise depletes.

President Trump also seems to see the world as a dangerous place. His campaign speeches warned about murderous rapist immigrants flooding across the border and black communities being in "the worst shape" they've ever been. His inauguration address described a hellish landscape of "American carnage."

Chaos needs comfort

The dismal nature of most conspiracy theories presents a puzzle to psychologists who study beliefs, because most belief systems  think religion  are fundamentally optimistic and uplifting. Psychologists have found that people tend to adopt such beliefs in part because they fulfill emotional goals, such as the need to feel good about oneself and the world. Conspiracy theories don't seem to fit this mold.

Then again, if you are a person who looks at the world and sees chaos and malevolence, perhaps there is comfort in the notion that there is someone to blame. If "there's something going on," then there is something that could be done about it.

Perhaps, then, even the darkest and most bizarre conspiracy theories offer a glint of hope for some people.

Take the "QAnon" theory that has recently received a flurry of media attention. This theory features a nightmare of pedophile rings and satanic cults. But some adherents have adopted a version of the theory that President Trump has it all under control.

If our research advances the understanding of why some people are more attracted to conspiracy theories than others, it is important to note that it says nothing about whether or not conspiracy theories are true.

After the Watergate scandal brought down a president for participating in a criminal conspiracy, the American public learned that seemingly outlandish speculation about the machinations of powerful actors is sometimes right on the money.

And when a conspiracy is real, people with a conspiracist mindset may be among the first to pick up on it  while others get duped. The rub is that the rest of the time, they might be duping themselves.

Joshua Hart, Associate Professor of Psychology, Union College

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates  and become part of the discussion  on Facebook, Twitter and Google +. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on Live Science.Ever since astronomers spotted 'Oumuamua, the first-ever object from beyond our solar system, it has offered more questions than answers:  What is it? Where did it come from? Why is it so darn weird?

But a team of scientists has announced they may have made major progress on that second question, narrowing down the object's origins to just four stars.

The research is based on data gathered in June that suggested 'Oumuamua wasn't just hurtling through space willy-nilly. Instead, it seemed like when the object was near the sun, it picked up a bit of extra speed, as if, like a comet, it carried something like ice that could turn to water vapor and propel the object forward a little faster than usual.

Accounting for that fact nudged 'Oumuamua's entry trajectory into our solar system a bit. (Scientists only spotted the object on its way out of the solar system, then had to retrace its path to track its origin.)

Then, the scientists consulted a huge batch of data produced by the European Space Agency's Gaia mission to pinpoint the precise locations of stars. That atlas is important not just to allow scientists to identify potential source solar systems, but also to calculate how nearby stars and their gravity tugged the object off-course along its journey.

Combining those two pieces of information, the team identified four possible stars that could have birthed 'Oumuamua: red dwarf HIP 3757, sunlike star HD 292249, and two other stars without such manageable nicknames as of yet.

Astronomers believe that 'Oumuamua (the name means "messenger from afar arriving first" in Hawaiian) must have come from a solar system with at least one large gas giant planet in order for it to have been kicked out and set off across the universe. As of yet, all four candidate stars are planet-less  but that could always change.

The new research is described in a paper posted Sept. 24 to the preprint site arXiv.org and has been accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal.

Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her @meghanbartels. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.A newly discovered species of swamp eel is a blind, blood-red mouth-breather that tunnels through dirt and will lunge straight into your nightmares.

The slippery eel is native to northeast India and while it's a type of fish, it has neither fins nor scales, and its elongated, limbless body makes it look more like a snake. Dubbed Monopterus rongsaw, its species name comes from the word in the local Khasi language for "red"  a nod to the creature's vivid color, scientists reported in a new study.

Swamp eels are unusual among fish in that they are able to live out of water and breathe air, and the new discovery is no exception  researchers found the slender, eyeless eel writhing under moist, rocky soil about 164 feet (50 meters) from a nearby stream. Its bright red color is a hallmark of an adaptation for surviving on land, where other fish would swiftly suffocate. [Photos: The Freakiest Looking Fish]

Fish typically draw oxygen from water by filtering it through their gills. But swamp eels, also known as synbranchids, have reduced gills, and instead suck oxygen directly from the air through their mouths, using specialized tissue threaded with a dense network of blood vessels, lead study author Ralf Britz, a fish researcher with the Department of Life Sciences at the Natural History Museum (NHM) in London, told Live Science in an email.

And the newly discovered eyeless swamp eel has one more trick for extracting oxygen from air: "skin breathing," or absorbing oxygen directly through its skin, Britz said. Like the flesh in its mouth, the eel's skin is also crammed with blood vessels, which lend the animal its red color, he explained.

No eyes, no problem

The researchers discovered M. rongsaw unexpectedly, while they were digging in the dirt in search of caecilians, a type of legless amphibian. They found only one specimen of the blind, blood-red swamp eel, at a depth of about 16 inches (40 centimeters) below the surface, according to the study. Its underground lifestyle likely eliminated its need for sight; its eyes were tiny, covered with skin, and "barely visible externally," the researchers reported.

Differentiating between swamp eel species can be very tricky; fish biologists typically compare physical features such as fins or scales in order to tell species apart. Unhelpfully, swamp eels have none of those features.

To find out whether the blood-red newcomer was a unique species, the scientists needed to look at its bones. Clues to its idenity would lurk in the number of its vertebrae, and in details in its skull shape and in the structure of the skeleton around its gills, Britz said.

To do so, they used noninvasive computed X-ray tomography (CT) scanning to examine what the eel looked like on the inside in 3D, and to confirm that it represented a species that was new to science.

The region of India that the eel calls its home was long thought to be a dispersal gateway  a zone through which numerous species pass  rather than a habitat for permanent residents, but the blood-red swamp eel and other recent discoveries show that northeastern India harbors its own communities of unique species, study co-author Rachunliu G. Kamei a postdoctoral researcher at NHM, told Live Science in an email.

The findings were published online Aug. 2 in the journal Ichthyological Exploration of Freshwaters.

Originally publishedon Live Science.Men who work in female-dominated professions that require a lot of socializing, such as restaurant and hotel work, are the most likely to divorce, new research suggests.

Work sucks, and it impacts pretty much every aspect of your life. What you do for a living can affect your health, happiness, financial security and general stress  and all of that can take a toll on your relationships.

There's no denying that work can be hard on a marriage. But yesterday (Sept. 25), a new study published in the journal Biology Letters asks an interesting question: If you work around lots of co-workers of the opposite sex, are you more likely to get a divorce?

The availability of alternative partners is just one of many factors that relationship scientists link to divorce. Indeed, a 2015 study in the journal Royal Society Open Science found that men who live in communities dominated by women are more likely to favor shorter relationships. According to Caroline Uggla, a postdoctoral researcher at Stockholm University and lead author of the new study, a big problem with investigations like these is that they don't consider the gender ratios where people spend most of their day, and likely encounter a majority of potential mates: at work. [13 Scientific Signs You're in Love]

To address that scientific shortcoming, Uggla and her colleague Gunnar Andersson (also from Stockholm University) scoured 30 years of Danish population data for links between the gender ratio in various job sectors and divorce rates among those workers.

"We found that having more potential partners in the workplace was associated with higher risk of divorce," Uggla told Live Science. "Interestingly, this relationship varied for men and women. The relationship was stronger for men."

Working hard, or hardly working?

Using data from Statistics Denmark  a government organization that began recording demographic information about the Danish population in 1945  the researchers compared the relationship and employment histories of hundreds or thousands of Danes. For their sample size, the team looked at any man or woman born in Denmark since 1945, who married an opposite-sex partner between 1981 and 2002, and who held at least one job for any of those years.

Among this massive sample, 102,453 men and 113,252 women reported getting a divorce within that 30-year window. When looking at the commonalities behind these scores of Danish divorcees, the researchers controlled for known risk factors such as age of marriage, education level and number of children. Instead, they focused on the jobs.

According to the data, men who worked in fields dominated by other men  such as construction  showed a noticeably lower risk of divorce than women who worked in those same fields. Conversely, the more women in a man's job sector, the more likely he was to get a divorce.

Overall, the job sectors that showed the highest divorce risk for both men and women were also those that required the most social interaction: hotels and restaurants. On the flip side, folks with the lowest risk of divorce worked as farmers or librarians.

However, while the overall trend proved true for both genders, men who worked around lots of women were ultimately more likely to get a divorce than women who worked around lots of men.

"It might be cultural, but it's more accepted for men to enter a new partnership and get a divorce," Uggla said. "Or it might be that men, for some reason, are more inclined to respond to that opportunity [of more potential mates] than women."

Uggla and Andersson also noticed an education component to work-related divorce risk among both men and women. It seemed that college-educated men faced a much higher risk of divorce in female-dominated fields than men with less education did. For women, the reverse was true.

Should we all be librarians?

Any study based purely on data leaves room for multiple interpretations. One might be that many female-dominated fields, such as nursing, tend to be associated with lower income than many male-dominated fields, and that factor is affecting the divorce risk, not the availability of potential partners. A married man who works full time as a nurse might be faced with social and financial stressors that could have an impact on his marriage, Uggla suggested. [13 Facts on the History of Marriage]

According to Eli Finkel, a professor of psychology at Northwestern University who was not involved in the study, Uggla and Andersson's findings do agree with decades of relationship research. "Any study like this is subject to alternative explanations, but these findings align with the broader research literature, which makes the authors' interpretation of their results quite plausible," Finkel told Live Science in an email. "This is an impressive study, especially in terms of the massive participant sample."

Ultimately, though, there's only so much that surveys can tell us. Each person's situation will be a little different, and the available data cannot account for things like financial security, stress levels or personality. More work needs to be done to truly tease out the links between work and divorce.

Or, as Uggla put it, "We need more detailed, qualitative research to say what characteristics about librarians in Denmark lead to lower divorce risks."

(Note: This study only accounted for opposite-sex marriages. Same-sex unions, known as "registered partnerships," were first legally recognized in Denmark in 1989, while same-sex marriages were officially legalized in 2012. Denmark was the first country in the world to grant legal recognition to same-sex partnerships.)

Originally published on Live Science.Glaciers are mighty rivers of ice that can carry boulders on their backs and grind valleys into rugged mountain ranges. But now, scientists say that humans might need to think about trying to engineer these formidable forces of nature.

Propping up glaciers in the Arctic and Antarctic might be the most targeted  and, amazingly, the cheapest  way to slow sea-level rise in a warming world, according to a new paper in the journal The Cryosphere. A seawall, or even just a series of artificial seamounts for the glacier to get stuck against, could hold back unimaginable amounts of meltwater, the research suggests.

Unlike building seawalls and dykes on coastlines the world over, engineering glaciers could slow sea-level rise at the source, leveling the playing field between wealthy nations and poorer ones. [Images: Greenland's Gorgeous Glaciers]

But the idea of engineering glaciers leaves some scientists uneasy, particularly because of the potential for unintended side effects. Talk of geoengineering can also give the public a false sense of security, said Valentina Roberta Barletta, a postdoctoral researcher who studies ice-sheet dynamics at the Technical University of Denmark.

"As a theoretical exercise, it's okay, it's good," Barletta, who was not involved in the current research, told Live Science. But, she said, "playing with public opinion about this stuff, it can be a little bit dangerous."

Runaway melt

The authors of the new paper certainly don't intend their research to be taken as an excuse to shrug off the consequences of greenhouse gas emissions. For one thing, said study co-author Michael Wolovick, a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton University, trying to slow the flow of glaciers does nothing to stanch the other catastrophes of climate change, from ocean acidification to droughts and floods to the inevitable sea-level rise that comes not from melting ice, but from seawater expanding as it warms.

But ice sheets are no small potatoes, as far as climate impacts go. Unfortunately for humanity, the Antarctic Ice Sheet is what is called "overdeepened." Its edges are grounded against seafloor that's shallower there than it is at its middle. If you were to imagine traveling from the edge of the ice sheet to the center, the seafloor would slope away beneath you. The point at which the ice transitions to being anchored on land to floating is called the grounding line.

Antarctica's glaciers are its bridge between ice shelf and ocean. As temperatures rise and glaciers melt, their grounding lines retreat  and the seafloor they're retreating onto is deeper than where they started. This means that the ice is prone to start floating, like an ice cube in a glass, said John Moore, a professor of climate change at the University of Lapland and the chief scientist at the College of Global Change and Earth System Science at Beijing Normal University. And floating ice is more prone to melt than grounded ice.

It's a positive-feedback system: The more the ice melts, the more likely it is to melt even more. If this marine ice sheet instability gets going, and some scientists think it has, even if all carbon emission came to an abrupt halt, the ice would still be gone, Moore said.

"You then think, 'Well, do we wave goodbye to the ice sheet, or are there actually any alternatives?" he said.

Stopping glaciers

Waving goodbye is an unappealing option. Even a sea-level rise of 3.9 feet (1.2 meters) in the next century could swamp coastlines and create a million climate refugees per year, the researchers wrote. Another several hundred million people would likely have to temporarily relocate each year, fleeing floods. A 2014 study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences estimated that protecting coastlines around the world will cost between $12 billion and $71 billion each year.

The outlet glaciers and the ice streams that will dump all this meltwater into the sea are relatively small compared with all that coastline, Wolovick and Moore said.

"The ice streams and outlet glaciers are very high leverage points in the climate system," Wolovick said.

The researchers used a very simple computer model to find out if engineering the glaciers would even be possible. They considered two possible solutions: First, they could build an undersea wall that would keep warm water away from the base of the ice, where it can do the most damage; second, they could create a series of small artificial mounds that would catch against the glacier, allowing it to reground, or stop floating. These structures would be built with dirt and rock either from the nearby seafloor, or perhaps barged in from elsewhere. [Images of Melt: Earth's Vanishing Ice]

Because there are many questions about how glaciers calve off icebergs and how they slide against the bedrock, the researchers ran multiple scenarios, altering those variables in each. They chose Antarctica's Thwaites Glacier as a test case because it's an enormous "cork" holding back the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.

"Thwaites Glacier is the big one, the most difficult," Moore said. "If it works on Thwaites, really what we're saying is that other, smaller glaciers should be easy."

In 100 percent of the scenarios, a seawall that blocked all warm water from circulating near the glacier kept Thwaites from collapsing, the researchers found. A seawall that blocked half the warm water worked 70 percent of the time. In a heartening finding, just studding the seafloor with seamounts to reground the glacier without blocking any water at all worked 30 percent of the time.

Unimaginable solutions

The scenarios used in the research were very simplified, Barletta said. In the real Antarctic, there would be many more potential feedback loops to account for in the model. Her research has found, for example, that the seabed itself may pop upward as the glaciers retreat, relieving the weight pushing the bedrock down. In the short term, at least, the rising seabed could provide its own grounding point for the retreating glaciers.

"It's quite easy to see that [geoengineering] could potentially have a lot of other effects other than stopping a glacier," Barletta said. "If you think of all this thermal energy that is being stopped, where is it going? Another glacier? Is it changing the ocean current? What is it going to do? We don't know anything about this."

Although it might seem that scientists are more focused on Antarctica and the Arctic than ever before, there is actually less infrastructure at the poles now than at the height of the Cold War, when the military considered them strategically valuable, Moore said. Nations need to open their checkbooks again to advance research on how ice sheet collapse works, he said. Should Wast Antarctica's ice collapse, the world could see a sea-level rise of 11 feet (3.4 m). East Antarctica contains enough ice to send sea levels up a whopping 62 feet (19 m). (Scientists don't expect these levels until 2200 or 2300 in even the worst-case climate-change scenarios.)

"Certainly, a lot of the knowledge that we need in order to be able to do this kind of work is what we need, even if we decide not to do this kind of work," Moore said.

A scheme like the one the researchers explored in the new study would be best tested on a small glacier in Greenland first, Moore said.

This isn't the first glacial geoengineering scheme, Wolovick said. Other possibilities include massive seawater pumping schemes that would pull water from the ocean and put it on top of ice sheets to refreeze. Some scientists have suggested drying schemes to try to remove seawater from underneath the base of grounded ice, Wolovick said, or attempts to thicken the sea ice in front of glacial outlets to reduce how fast icebergs calve. But it will be decades, if not a century, before geoengineering glaciers is technically feasible, he said.

While these ideas don't negate the need to get carbon emissions under control, they represent a more sophisticated approach to geoengineering, Moore said. Rather than trying to alter the entire atmosphere to cool the globe, geoengineers can seek small, but high-value, targets. As for concerns about deliberately altering the planet? That ship has sailed, Moore said.

"We do control the climate of the Earth," he said. "We need to take responsibility for it."

Editor's Note: This article was updated to correct the sea-level contributions from the West and East Antarctic ice sheets.

Original article on Live Science.This Bronze Age hand has a gold cuff. Next to it, sit a dagger, a bronze pin and a spiraled hair ornament. The two gold flakes likely came from the metal hand.

Treasure hunters in Switzerland have unearthed a hand-some artifact: a 3,500-year-old bronze hand outfitted with a gold cuff, Swiss archaeologists announced last week.

The slightly smaller-than-life hand, crafted during the Bronze Age, is the oldest metal sculpture of a human body part in Europe, the archaeologists said.

An ancient artisan placed a hollow socket at the bottom of the hand, a clue that the body part was once mounted on another object, such as a statue or a scepter, the archaeologists said. Perhaps it was even used as a prosthetic or during rituals, Andrea Schaer, head of the Ancient History and Roman Archeology Department at the Archaeological Service of the Canton of Bern, told National Geographic.

Treasure hunters armed with metal detectors made the handy discovery near Lake Biel in the Swiss canton (province) of Bern in October of 2017. The next day, the discoverers gave the hand, along with a bronze dagger and rib bone found with it, to the Archaeological Service of the Canton of Bern. [Body Beautiful: The 5 Strangest Prosthetic Limbs]

"We had never seen anything like it," Schaer told National Geographic. "We weren't sure if it was authentic or not  or even what it was."

The hand of Preles, weighing nearly 18 ounces (17 grams), was cast in bronze with tin. (Image credit: Copyright Philippe Joner/Archaeological Service of the Canton of Bern)

Radiocarbon dating on the glue used to attach the gold foil to the bronze hand revealed that ancient people had made the hand between 1500 B.C. and 1400 B.C. These dates jibed with the age of the bronze dagger, the archaeologists noted in a statement.

Intrigued, the archaeologists went to the site this past spring to see if any more artifacts from that period lay buried there. Their due diligence paid off; Schaer and her colleagues found a damaged grave near the small village of Preles, not too far from Lake Biel. The grave held the bones of an adult man, as well as a bronze fibula (leg bone), a spiral-shaped bronze hair ornament and tiny pieces of gold plate, which match those on the bronze hand.

In addition, the archaeologists found a broken-off bronze finger at the site, which gave more evidence that the hand had been buried there.

The archaeologists found another surprise beneath the grave: a stone structure constructed by ancient people. It appears that the man, the likely owner of the bronze hand, was deliberately placed over this structure, the archaeologists noted.

"He must have been a high-ranking character," the archaeologists said in the statement. The hand's "gold ornament suggests that it is an emblem of power, a distinctive sign of the social elite, even of a deity."

This excavation shows where the hand and the man's grave were unearthed. (Image credit: Copyright Guy Jaquenod/Archaeological Service of the Canton of Bern)

The scientists said they plan to study the chemical makeup of the hand to figure out if it was made in the region or in a distant land. The finding is truly one-of-a-kind, as there aren't any other known metal sculptures like this in Central Europe dating to the Bronze Age, the archaeologists added.

The hand will be on display through Oct. 14 at the New Biel Museum (Neues Museum Biel). The hand's purpose, however, may remain a mystery.

"Finds like this remind us how many gaps there still are in our knowledge about the past," Stefan Hochuli, the head of the Department of Monument Preservation and Archaeology in the nearby Swiss canton of Zug, told National Geographic. "It gives us a glimpse into the spiritual world of this society  and it's a lot more complex than we often think."

Originally published on Live Science.In March of this year, strange reports began to emerge: Synthetic pot was making people's eyes bleed. And what started out as a handful of people who were affected has grown to more than 250 people across the U.S., with cases continuing to pop up.

Soon after the outbreak began, the culprit was identified as synthetic marijuana contaminated with brodifacoum. Used as a rat poison, brodifacoum can cause severe thinning of the blood, leading to bleeding in multiple parts of the body.

The outbreak marks the first time that the drug has been contaminated with this poison, which made diagnosing and treatment of affected patients particularly challenging, according to a new report of the cases, published today (Sept. 26) in The New England Journal of Medicine.

"People came in bleeding, [which] for young people without trauma, is pretty unusual," said lead author Dr. Amar Kelkar, a clinical fellow in hematology and oncology at the University of Florida College of Medicine, who treated some of the initial patients in the outbreak in Illinois. [27 Oddest Medical Cases]

Although the cases are highly unusual, doctors are now learning how to better identify and treat people who used the tainted drugs. However, treatments have proved challenging, with patients requiring months-long therapy and massive doses of the antidote, vitamin K, the report said.

Mysterious cases

Kelkar was a medical resident on call at the Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria, Illinois, in late March when an unusual case showed up in the emergency room. A relatively young man had blood in his urine, and pain in his sides. Imaging scans showed strange findings, including increased blood flow to the man's kidneys in a pattern that is not typically seen, Kelkar said.

"Things just didn't seem to add up as to why they were bleeding," Kelkar told Live Science.

But a standard lab test revealed an important clue: A blood test that measures the time it takes for blood to clot was off the charts. "[The] marker was maxed out on the scale," Kelkar said.

This test uses a value called the "international normalized ratio," or INR. Healthy people typically have an INR of 1.1 or below; and people on the blood thinner warfarin can have an INR of 2 to 3, according to the Mayo Clinic. But this patient's INR was 20, the maximum value the test could show.

The patient turned out to be one of the first cases tied to the drug outbreak. A collaborative effort from the Illinois Poison Center, the Illinois Department of Public Health and doctors throughout the area helped link the outbreak to synthetic marijuana contaminated with rat poison.

By the end of May, more than 160 cases linked to the outbreak were reported in Illinois, and several dozen more cases reported in other states, including Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More cases were reported over the summer, and just last week, the Wisconsin Department of Health Services reported 16 additional cases linked to the outbreak. Eight deaths have been tied to the outbreak.

Dangerous poison

The new report details findings from 34 patients who were treated at Saint Francis Medical Center. Kelkar said the report is meant to help doctors recognize and treat patients who may be affected by the rat-poison-laced drugs.

"We realized that this is not something that [doctors] see very often," Kelkar said. "We didn't want people to continually have to reinvent the wheel" when treating these patients, he said.

All of the patients had recently used synthetic marijuana, sometimes called K2 or spice, with many patients reporting use the day before they went to the hospital.

The most common symptom was blood in the urine. But many patients also had bleeding from their gums, mouth or nose, blood in their stool, or symptoms of vomiting or coughing up blood. When patients were tested for several different blood thinners, all were positive for brodifacoum.

Brodifacoum belongs to a class of drugs known as "superwarfarins" because they are much more potent than warfarin. The drugs block the activity of vitamin K, which is needed in the body for the production of important proteins involved in blood clotting.

To reverse the vitamin K-blocking effects of warfarin or brodifacoum, people need to take vitamin K supplements. But the amount of vitamin K required to treat brodifacoum poisoning is much higher than that needed during warfarin therapy  for a typical patient on warfarin, doctors might prescribe a single dose of 5 to 10 milligrams of vitamin K, but patients who used the tainted drugs needed as much as 150 mg per day. What's more, patients with brodifacoum poisoning often needed treatment for many months.

"The sheer volume of vitamin K needed, and the length of time needed toget [the brodifacoum] fully out of your system," was surprising, Kelkar said.

Another obstacle for doctors was the high cost of vitamin K  15 mg of the drug can cost about $170 out of pocket, according to an editorial published alongside the report. All told, the doses required for patients in the outbreak could cost around $24,000 to $34,000 per month.

"Getting these really, really high doses we need for these patients, at least initially, proved to be exorbitantly expensive," Kelkar said.

To help address the outbreak and the cost of treatment, the hospital created a multidisciplinary team that managed the patients, worked with local pharmacies and insurance companies to address drug pricing, and arranged for deliveries of vitamin K to the area. Eventually, the company that makes the prescription vitamin K supplement ended up donating 800,000 tablets for the outbreak.

Questions remain

Officials still don't know how the synthetic marijuana ended up contaminated with brodifacoum. But it's possible that brodifacoum many have been intentionally added, either with the goal of prolonging the effects of the synthetic marijuana, or by someone with a malicious intent, the report said.

The authors hope that law enforcement continues to investigate the cause of the contamination "just to help bring this to a close" and bring the people who did this to justice, Kelkar said.

Originally published on Live Science.The Senate, led by Trump's fellow Republicans, plans to move forward quickly with a confirmation vote.

In a break from convention, the outside lawyer, whose name was not released, will question Ford and Kavanaugh on behalf of the committee's Republican senators, 11 white men. (Photo: File)

Washington: President Donald Trump, fighting to shore up his nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the US Supreme Court in a divided Senate, on Tuesday called sexual misconduct allegations against the judge "a con game being played by the Democrats."

Trump's escalation in his rhetoric defending Kavanaugh came as the Republican-led Senate Judiciary Committee announced the hiring of a woman lawyer who is "an expert sex crimes prosecutor" to question one of the nominee's accusers, Christine Blasey Ford, at a high-stakes hearing scheduled on Thursday.

In a break from convention, the outside lawyer, whose name was not released, will question Ford and Kavanaugh on behalf of the committee's Republican senators, 11 white men. Typically, senators do the questioning themselves.

The move brought a rebuke from Senator Kamala Harris, a Democratic member of the Judiciary Committee.

"By hiring a private attorney to cross-examine Dr Blasey Ford, Republicans are trying to intimidate her and avoid being held accountable by voters," Harris said in a Twitter posting.

The Senate, led by Trump's fellow Republicans, plans to move forward quickly with a confirmation vote. Senior Senate Republicans said the committee could vote on Kavanaugh as soon as Friday, with a confirmation vote in the full Senate as early as next Tuesday.

Senate confirmation of Kavanaugh, a conservative federal appeals court judge chosen by Trump for a lifetime post on the high court, has been imperilled by the decades-old allegations by Ford and another woman, Deborah Ramirez.

"We're going to be moving forward," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters. "I'm confident we're going to win, confident that he'll be confirmed in the very near future."

Ford, a university professor in California, has accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her in 1982 when both were high school students in Maryland. Ramirez accused Kavanaugh in an article published on Sunday in the New Yorker magazine of exposing himself to her at a drunken dormitory party during the 1983-84 academic year at Yale University.

Kavanaugh has denied both allegations.

Trump said Ford's allegation was 36 years old "and nobody ever heard about it." Of Ramirez's allegation, Trump said: "And now a new charge comes up. And she says: 'Well it might not be him.' And there were gaps. And she said she was totally inebriated, and she was all messed up, and she doesn't know it was him, but it might have been him."

"Oh, gee, let's not make him a Supreme Court judge because of that? This is a con game being played by the Democrats," Trump added.

Asked whether Ramirez should also be allowed to testify, Trump said: "The second accuser has nothing."

The Kavanaugh confirmation fight comes just weeks before Nov. 6 congressional elections in which Democrats are trying to take control of Congress from Republicans, against a backdrop of the #MeToo movement fighting sexual harassment and assault.

Kavanaugh's confirmation would firm up conservative control of the Supreme Court and advance Trump's goal of moving the high court and the broader federal judiciary to the right.

Kavanaugh and his Republican allies have framed the allegations as part of a "smear campaign" by Democrats who have opposed his nomination from the beginning.

'A different decision

Republicans hold a slim 51-49 Senate majority, meaning Kavanaugh's confirmation prospects may hinge on the votes of a handful of moderate Republican senators who have not yet announced their intentions, They include Senators Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins and Jeff Flake.

Comments by Murkowski on Tuesday after she met with McConnell could be an ominous sign for Kavanaugh. Murkowski told reporters: "We have kind of moved beyond the qualifications of the nominee, and it has become more about whether or not women who have been subject to any form of assault, violence, intimidation are to (be) believed. That's a different decision than 'is Judge Kavanaugh qualified?'"

McConnell said the outside lawyer would question Ford "in a respectful and professional way." The panel's Democratic senators, four women and six men, were expected to question Ford and Kavanaugh but those details were still not final, Senator Dick Durbin said.

Ford's legal team on Monday had objected to the possibility Republicans would use an outside lawyer to question her.

Ford, a psychology professor at Palo Alto University in California, said in an interview published in the Washington Post last week that Kavanaugh attacked her and tried to remove her clothing while he was drunk at a party when he was 17 years old and she was 15.

In an interview with Fox News aired on Monday night, Kavanaugh said he "never sexually assaulted anyone," had "always treated women with dignity and respect" and "did not have sexual intercourse or anything close to sexual intercourse in high school or for many years thereafter." Regarding alcohol, he said he never drank so much that he could not remember what happened the night before.

"I think all of us have probably done things we look back on in high school and regret or cringe a bit, but that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about an allegation of sexual assault. I've never sexually assaulted anyone," Kavanaugh said in the interview, sitting alongside his wife.

"I'm a good person," Kavanaugh added.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer called on McConnell to apologise to Ford "for labeling her allegations a 'smear job,'" adding: "I challenge you, Leader McConnell, if you are so convinced this is a smear campaign, you'll have no problem with an FBI investigation to prove your case."John Davenport, STAFF / San Antonio Express-News

In the four years since oil prices began to collapse, Texas has led the industry recovery and was the "most resilient" of the top energy producing states, according a new analysis.

The analysis, by the research firm IHS Markit, found that Texas economy "is already firing again on all cylinders," while in the hardest hit states such as North Dakota, "it will take time for overall employment levels to recover from the energy-induced recession."Wireless carriers have spent years pounding each other with discounts like family plans, taxes-included offers, unlimited data and free Netflix. Now they're putting their targets on the cable industry.

Verizon Communications plans to launch the nation's first 5G -- or fifth generation -- wireless service in four cities next week. Using new frequencies that beam data straight to home receivers, the phone giant promises to match or beat the fastest cable offerings and deliver the ultra-HD videos consumers have come to expect on their living-room sets.

Even with its limitations -- potential interruptions caused by weather, the need for thousands more antennas -- 5G could become a new cord-cutting option for almost 90 million U.S. households that now get broadband, phone and TV via cable or satellite. And if the wireless industry's history is any guide, it'll be cheaper, a break for consumers who pay $150 a month or more for those services now.

"The idea that wireless was a risk to cable broadband didn't make sense, until now," said Reed Hundt, the former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.

Like Verizon, AT&T Inc. is also poised to launch 5G, underscoring the urgency among wireless carriers to challenge the cable industry's dominance in broadband and TV. Together, the big four U.S. wireless companies have more than 260 million customers -- a ripe audience to target with new internet and TV services for the home.

"Certainly 5G is going to be the future of TV," said Amy Yong, an analyst with Macquarie. "5G mobile TV will force cable companies to rethink how to sell video."

First, though, the phone industry has to clear some hurdles.

Two decades ago, major carriers made a similar promise: that fiber-optic lines would revolutionize internet service and make them viable competitors to cable.

That project hit a wall. Installation costs in the tens of billions of dollars -- approaching $2,000 per home -- kept AT&T and Verizon from ever reaching more than a few million homes with their speediest connections. As of June 30, AT&T had 15.8 million broadband subscribers, while Verizon had 7 million. The cable industry has 68.5 million.

5G faces its own challenges. The signals are so fragile they can be disrupted by mist or rain drops. Such interference may mean the new service can never deliver the speed and quality customers demand. If consumers don't embrace 5G in a big way, the phone companies may not complete their build-out of the networks.

Because 5G waves don't travel very far, the phone companies will need to erect more antennas -- lots more. This represents an enormous investment -- like the national fiber-to-the-home networks the carriers never completed -- with no guarantee of payback.

Researcher IHS Markit estimates the phone carriers, their suppliers and others in the product chain will spend $200 billion annually on 5G technology, though some of that will lay the groundwork for new services like driverless cars. The FCC voted 4-0 Wednesday to cut the fees localities can charge for permission to install the new antennas. The agency also tightened deadlines for towns and cities to consider applications to put antennas on publicly owned poles.

Still, for all these reasons, the phone giants are starting small.

New York-based Verizon is limiting its 5G effort to four cities this year. Dallas-based AT&T is launching in six cities, while T-Mobile plans to use an assortment of airwaves to create a national 5G network by 2020.

And even with Verizon starting service, 5G is still very much in development phase. Lab tests on new equipment are just moving into the field. This month, for example, the company and Nokia Oyj performed their first successful outdoor data transmission in Washington using newly standardized network gear. Fortunately it didn't rain, according to records of the test.

Big cable, meanwhile isn't standing still. In the past year, both Comcast and Charter have added wireless services to their bundle by selling mobile-phone service under contract with Verizon. Competition could force them to adopt a 5G strategy. Comcast, the largest provider, is also expanding overseas with its proposed $39 billion purchase of Sky.

Cable customers are a loyal group, despite all the attention going to cord-cutting and rival video services like Netflix and Amazon Prime. Monthly defection rates, or churn, for the cable industry have been under 2 percent. Adding wireless service could retain customers even more.

Cable executives like Greg Maffei, chairman of Liberty Broadband, Charter's largest shareholder, have addressed the technology threat with a touch of denial and swagger. Speaking to investors at a conference in November, Maffei said there's "no such thing as 5G really. It's just a radio format. And we have a lot of radio formats at our disposal."

Others in the industry like Leo Hindery, a former cable executive and managing partner of the private equity firm InterMedia Partners, say that at the end of the day 5G's real impact may be on the profit and loss statements of the combatants.

Verizon's initial entry into the 5G broadband market, at $50 a month, is modestly lower than cable company prices -- and typical for the largest U.S. wireless carrier, which usually emphasizes service quality over price. The company's is also offering YouTube TV and an Apple TV box to new customers.

Rather than triggering an epic industry upheaval, the more likely result is a bloody price war, where wireless companies relentlessly lower the cost of their fastest internet services and offer TV at below-cost prices, forcing the cable industry to respond.

"It's a nightmare scenario, as the plethora of Verizon ads already touting 5G as the next best thing are evidencing," Hindery said.The Apprentice: Trump, Russia and the Subversion of American Democracy

By Greg Miller

Custom House. 431 pp. $29.99

---

We called Watergate our long national nightmare. The presidential scandal captured headlines for two full years, from 1972 until President Richard Nixon resigned in August 1974. But our collective obsession with the scandals of President Trump, elected just under two years ago, seems somehow far more excruciating. We are exhausted from trying to absorb revelations involving a wide cast of characters - not to mention the president's almost daily barrage of tweets, some merely outrageous and not a few bordering on the nonsensical. Even the most careful readers of the The Washington Post and other serious news outlets must sometimes struggle against a definite sensation of vertigo.

We cannot understand what happened in the 2016 election, Russia-gate or the imploding Trump presidency by reading the 24-hour digital news on our phones or watching the talking heads on partisan cable news platforms. Fortunately, we still have a simple technology invented nearly six centuries ago: books. Greg Miller has written a damn good one. "The Apprentice" is not as breathless as Bob Woodward's recent "Fear: Trump in the White House," nor as anecdotally investigative as this spring's "Russian Roulette," by Michael Isikoff and David Corn. Miller's book paints on a broad canvas, showing readers the full arc of an incredibly complicated political tale. Miller has twice won Pulitzer Prizes for his reporting on national security issues for The Washington Post. He and other Post reporters, including Adam Entous and Ellen Nakashima, have broken many of the hard news stories about the Trump presidency. But Miller puts it all together in "The Apprentice," placing the story in a comprehensible historical and political context. The resulting portrait of our very weird president is certainly not flattering - but somehow it is reassuring that Trump comes off as a politician more in the tradition of the dangerous but clownish Silvio Berlusconi rather than the fascistic Benito Mussolini.

Miller's sources are more or less transparent, and his writing is measured and clear. Miller makes no pretense about knowing the end of the story and acknowledges that at this point he does not know whether the special counsel, Robert Mueller, will accuse the president of any crimes.

But Miller's account of the Russian hacking of the Democrats is highly persuasive. He shows how a "troll factory" called the Internet Research Agency, housed in a drab office building in St. Petersburg, broke into the Democratic National Committee's servers and made off with 50,000 emails belonging to Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. It was a hack - not a leak - and the stolen information was then astutely disseminated by WikiLeaks in a timely manner designed to embarrass Hillary Clinton. Similarly, Miller documents how the Russians planted disinformation on Facebook and Twitter.

Miller has written about this in The Post, but the book explains much more. He cites the example of a Facebook advertisement paid for by the Russians that featured a grizzled U.S. Navy veteran, homeless and destitute, complaining that there were 50,000 veterans like him "starving" in the streets - allegedly because of liberals who favored immigrants over taking care of "our own citizens." This single fake story was posted more than 724,000 times, and Facebook has acknowledged that such provocative postings by the Internet Research Agency reached 126 million Americans. Similar Twitter postings routinely referred to Clinton as "Killary" and hammered away on Trump's anti-immigrant themes. Clearly, the Russian disinformation campaign poisoned the well of civic discourse. But the Russians didn't need Trump to do this.

Miller is careful to acknowledge that Russian efforts were not the only factor in Clinton's defeat - or even necessarily the decisive factor. FBI chief James Comey's clumsy handling of the Clinton email server investigation weighed heavily, and so did "Clinton's own undeniable failings as a candidate." Like most of us, Russian President Vladimir Putin thought Clinton would win, and he waged his disinformation campaign against the Democrat hoping merely to weaken her coming presidency.

Miller is also measured in his treatment of whether Trump consciously colluded with the Russian efforts. This remains an open question to be answered by Mueller's investigation. But Miller's account of what happened after the 2016 election makes clear that many of Trump's current troubles stem from "self-inflicted" wounds. The man is inept and plagued, writes Miller, by "his impulsiveness and excessive confidence in his own instincts."

Firing Comey is a case in point. Miller writes that Trump would have been better off with Comey inside the tent than outside. Be that as it may, Trump foolishly believed that by dismissing the FBI director, he would close down the Russia investigation. Needing a less self-serving excuse, he asked Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to write a memo cataloging Comey's mishandling of the Clinton email server probe. Rosenstein did so. But Miller writes that in the wake of Comey's firing, Trump "failed to anticipate how Rosenstein would react to being manipulated." Eight days later, Rosenstein, a 27-year career Justice Department civil servant, retaliated by ambushing the president with the appointment of a special counsel. Trump thus brought the relentless Mueller to his own doorstep.

At the end of his book, Miller wonders what exactly Putin has on Trump. Citing the infamous but increasingly plausible "dossier" by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, Miller suggests that "kompromat" images of prostitutes urinating on a hotel bed in Moscow, even if true, might not be "decisive leverage on a man who has survived scandals including his taped admission of sexually assaulting women, and payoffs to a porn star and 'Playboy' model for affairs while his wife was tending to their young child." Trump, he writes, "appears beyond shame when it comes to his relationships to women and money."

So what explains Trump's strange submissiveness to the new czar of Russia? Yes, perhaps the Mueller investigation will uncover "financial entanglements with Moscow that he seems determined to keep hidden." But Miller also cites unnamed CIA officials speculating that the answer is "in plain sight." What happened is what we saw, a presidential candidate openly soliciting a foreign power's help with opposition research: "Russia, if you're listening," Trump said at a news conference on July 27, 2016, "I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing." But for Trump, this is the one thing he can never admit - that "his victory might not have been earned free and clear."

If so, it seems that the president's narcissism is about to drive the country into a full-blown constitutional crisis.

---

Bird is a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and the executive director of the Leon Levy Center for Biography at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City. He is working on a biography of President Jimmy Carter.Courtesy photo

The Interfaith Environmental Network of Houston, a Houston affiliate of the Texas Interfaith Center for Public Policy, invites the public to an educational talk on going green for events at houses of worship.

Lisa Brenskelle, who has organized a number of green events for her church/Christian denomination, will address her tips and tricks to do so.WASHINGTON - Republican senators have selected Arizona prosecutor Rachel Mitchell to question Judge Brett Kavanaugh and the woman who has accused the Supreme Court nominee of sexually assaulting her when they were teenagers, a top senator announced Tuesday.

Mitchell, the sex crimes bureau chief for the Maricopa County Attorney's Office in Phoenix, will query the two at Thursday's highly anticipated Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. A registered Republican, Mitchell has worked for the Maricopa County Attorney's Office for 26 years.

In enlisting Mitchell to join their staff, Republican senators are taking an unusual step. They are turning to her to ask what are expected to be personal and potentially painful questions about the woman's youth on live television, sparing the all-male panel of 11 Republican senators on the committee some uncomfortable exchanges that could sway the public's opinion about the session.

"The majority members have followed the bipartisan recommendation to hire as staff counsel for the committee an experienced career sex-crimes prosecutor to question the witnesses at Thursday's hearing," Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said in a statement. "The goal is to de-politicize the process and get to the truth, instead of grandstanding and giving senators an opportunity to launch their presidential campaigns."

He added, "I'm very appreciative that Rachel Mitchell has stepped forward to serve in this important and serious role."

Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when they were both in high school, will testify under oath on Thursday. Kavanaugh will testify separately on the same day.

Mitchell did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Representatives for Kavanaugh and Ford did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The division Mitchell heads deals with family violence, physical and sexual abuse of children, and sex offenses, including sex assault cases. Mitchell oversees about 40 to 50 people in the division, said Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery. Mitchell has a long history of investigating years-old sex crimes and allegations that are difficult to corroborate, including in her role re-examining hundreds of cases that were unresolved and inadequately investigated by the sheriff's office, Montgomery said."

Over the course of Rachel's career, she has dealt with victims in this very circumstance of delayed disclosure and circumstances where allegations were difficult to corroborate," Montgomery said. "She has had to make a decision as a prosecutor whether or not those cases can move forward."Senate Judiciary Committee staff contacted Montgomery over the weekend asking about her experience, and Montgomery encouraged the staff and Mitchell to communicate directly, he said.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said earlier Tuesday that Republican lawmakers hired "a female assistant" to "ask these questions in a respectful and professional way. We want this hearing to be handled very professionally, not a political sideshow."

In a 2011 interview, Mitchell said she was drawn to sex crimes work after she was paired with a senior lawyer prosecuting a youth choir director after joining the office as a law clerk awaiting the results of her bar exam. "It was different than anything that I would have ever imagined it being," she said in an interview with FrontLine Magazine, which is affiliated with the conservative Christian group Foundations Baptist Fellowship International. "It struck me how innocent and vulnerable the victims of these cases really were."

She is now a supervisor, where her duties include analyzing legislative changes and managing other attorneys. In an interview earlier this year on a local NPR radio station, Mitchell talked about the nuts-and-bolts of the office's adoption of a new sex crimes protocol, the first in office history, intended to improve the investigation and prosecution of cases. She said the new manual would ensure prosecutors "have something to look at to say, okay, these are the best practices, so that we can do the best we can for victims."

Tracy Westerhausen, a Phoenix defense attorney who has gone up against Mitchell in 30 cases, over more than 20 years, said she has developed a close friendship with Mitchell over their time on opposite sides of the courtroom.

"Part of the reason we're very good friends, she is a very nuanced and wise prosecutor," she said. "She doesn't pigeon-hole defendants. In my experience, she is a very pointed questioner of adverse witnesses. But she is also very fair."

Westerhausen, who called herself a lifelong Democrat, said she has never discussed politics with Mitchell but considers her a good choice for the high-stakes job. "As an American, it would make me more comfortable to see her selected. I really do think that she's a very professional person, who is out to make sure the right thing is done," Westerhausen said.

Bruce Feder, a defense attorney in the county, said that as a manager, Mitchell spends less time now in the courtroom but had plenty of experience questioning both victims and people accused of wrongdoing.

He helped represent a priest who was prosecuted by Mitchell in 2004 for abusing a boy. Media reports indicated that the priest, the principal of a local school, was one of the first to be prosecuted for sex abuse in the county. The priest pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated assault with sexual motivation on the first day of his trial.

"She's been either a trial lawyer or a supervisor for decades. I'm guessing she knows what she's doing," he said.

As the head of the sex crimes unit, Mitchell was one of the prosecutors tasked with finding out why hundreds of sex crimes were unresolved or not adequately investigated by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, said Cindi Nannetti, former county prosecutor and Mitchell's predecessor at the unit. The controversy had roiled the sheriff's office for years and were unearthed after reports by victims and the media, and an internal audit.

"She is one of the finest prosecutors in the country," Nannetti wrote in a text message.

Jerry Sheridan, former county chief deputy sheriff who oversaw the re-examination of unresolved cases, said the unit under Mitchell had a key role in establishing protocols and victims crisis centers across the Phoenix metro area to in the wake of the controversy.

"The deputy county attorneys were assigned to the crisis centers to help all the law enforcement agencies in the East and West Valley," Sheridan said. "They had a very active role."

Congressional hearings are typically plum opportunities for lawmakers to grab the spotlight, draw attention to the issues they care about, and on occasion, create a moment that goes viral online.

But this time, Republicans on the committee prefer to keep lower profile.

"I'm going to let the professional person do it," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said he expected the counsel would conduct all questioning of Ford, "although I'm very capable of doing it."

Grassley said he appointed a woman from the outside in order to "depoliticize" the process and prevent a rerun of Anita Hill's testimony at Justice Clarence Thomas's 1991 confirmation hearing.

"The whole point is to create an environment where it's what Doctor Ford has asked for, to be professional and to not be a circus," said Grassley.

Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., who is not on the Judiciary Committee, said, "Inadvertently somebody will do something that's insensitive. I would not be wanting to ask questions about something like this."

Before Mitchell's name was revealed, Democrats criticized their Republican colleagues for leaving them in the dark and accused them of shirking their senatorial duties.

"Who is going to speak for all of the 11 Republican senators? We don't have the name, do we?" said Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. "Someone has been given a new job, a person we don't know. At some point, that secrecy has to be unveiled. We should at least know who's going to take the place of 11 duly-sworn senators of the United States."

- - -

The Washington Post's Seung Min Kim, Michelle Ye Hee Lee, Alice Crites, Gabriel Pogrund and Emma Brown contributed to this report.Trump said dreams that fill UNGA hall are as diverse as people who have stood at this podium and as varied as countries represented in UN.

In his about 35-minute address, he said over the years, history has transpired in the halls of the UN General Assembly. (Photo: File)

United Nations: US President Donald Trump on Tuesday called India a "free society" and lauded its efforts to lift millions of its citizens out of poverty as he addressed world leaders at the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly.

In his second address to the General Debate of the UN General Assembly that opened here Tuesday, Trump said, "There is India, a free society (of) over a billion people, successfully lifting countless millions out of poverty and into the middle class."

In his about 35-minute address, he said over the years, history has transpired in the halls of the UN General Assembly.

"We think of the many before us who have come here to address the challenges of their nations and of their times and our thoughts turn to the same question that ran through all their speeches, resolutions and through every word and every hope."

"It is the question of what kind of world will we leave for our children and what kind of nations they will inherit," Trump said.

He said the dreams that fill the UNGA hall today are as diverse as the people who have stood at this podium and as varied as the countries represented in the United Nations.

"It really is something. It really is great great history."

Trump also cited Saudi Arabia's bold new reforms and Israel "proudly celebrating" its 70th anniversary as a thriving democracy in the Holy Land.President Donald Trump chaired a meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Wednesday. The meeting, which unusually took place at the level of heads of state or government, was called to deal with issues surrounding nonproliferation.

However, for Bolivia's leftist leader Evo Morales, it was also a chance to meet face-to-face with his American counterpart - and the Bolivian president used the opportunity to offer a lengthy criticism of U.S. foreign policy excesses and failures.

"In no way is the United States interested in upholding democracy," Morales said at one point. "If that were the case, it would not have financed coups d'etat and supported dictators." Later, Morales accused the U.S. of promoting torture and said the Trump administration had "separated migrant children from their families and put them in cages."

Morales spoke fifth at the meeting, after representatives of the United States, France, Poland and Equatorial Guinea. The country is not a permanent member of the Security Council but has a rotating seat for 2017 and 2018.

While representatives of some of the nations present at the meeting offered critical comments about Trump's foreign policy - and in particular, his decision to pull out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear agreement with Iran - Morales went further, linking Trump's actions to a broader U.S. history of intervention in countries such as Iran.

"In 1953, the United States financed, planned and implemented a coup d'etat against a democratically-elected government," he said, referring to Iran. "After that, for many decades the United States supported an authoritarian government that allowed the profits from oil companies to line the pockets of transnational countries.

"This situation endured until the revolution of 1979," Morales added. "And now that Iran has retaken control of its own resources, it is once again the victim of a U.S. siege."

The Bolivian leader also said that the United States was responsible for the "most egregious acts of aggression committed during the 21st century," including the military invasion of Iraq, the military intervention in Libya and the civil war in Syria. Morales also crit1icized Trump for threatening Venezuela and for its opposition to the International Criminal Court.

Morales' harsh words drew surprise from some observers, as Trump is not frequently challenged by world leaders so directly.

But while some experts on the United Nations had expressed concerns that Trump would respond angrily to criticism at the Security Council meeting this week, he offered little visible reaction after Morales spoke. Though Secretary of State Mike Pompeo looked toward the Bolivian leader, sometimes appearing to smirk, Trump mostly stared down at his papers.

When Morales had finished speaking, he simply responded: "Thank you, Mr. President."

Under Morales, Bolivia has been a fierce critic of U.S. foreign policy. In 2008, it expelled the U.S. ambassador and threw out American departments such as the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Speaking earlier this week, Bolivia's ambassador to the United Nations, Sacha Llorenti, said that the country was using its seat at the Security Council to protect the U.N. charter from being undermined by countries such as the United States.

"The United States uses multilateralism and the United Nations as someone would use a lemon: They squeeze it as much as they can, and when they don't use it, they throw it away," he said.Thanks to two court decisions in New York, the Trump administration may be about to confront a moment of reckoning over one of its most controversial decisions: to include on the 2020 census a question demanding to know the citizenship of those surveyed.

Specifically, Judge Jesse Furman of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York has ordered depositions from Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who is accused in at least five lawsuits of misrepresenting his reasons for the census decision, and from Acting Assistant Attorney General John Gore, head of the department's Civil Rights Division, who the lawsuits and documents say helped Ross out. Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, based in New York, upheld Furman's decision to depose Gore, which the government had resisted.

The census question decision in March by Ross was intensely criticized by states with large immigrant and minority populations as well as immigrants' rights organizations and Democratic leaders, who said it could repress the response rate from minorities of immigrant descent, particularly Latinos. Advocates say the question decision could produce an undercount that could significantly alter congressional redistricting, which is based on the census, as well as the distribution of federal funds.

The struggle became even more explosive because of documents showing that Ross, who by virtue of being secretary of commerce oversees the Census Bureau, didn't initially tell the full story when and why he acted. That and other factors suggested, in Furman's opinion, that the government acted in "bad faith" to conceal discriminatory intent.

A trial will decide those allegations, which the government deny.

In the meantime, Furman and the plaintiffs in the case, which include 18 states and the District of Columbia, want answers from both Ross and the Department of Justice. And they may soon have a chance to get them in the Gore deposition and perhaps that of Ross.

The Justice Department had no comment Tuesday night about whether it would appeal that ruling or Furman's order to depose Ross. While the government has told Furman it would challenge any Ross order, the appeals court decision on an unusual writ of mandamus filed by the government suggested that the administration might have a difficult time protecting the secretary from the same result.

Furman, the three-judge appellate panel said as it rejected the government's position, "made careful factual findings supporting" his conclusion that further information was required in the case. Such information "may be appropriate when there has been a strong showing in support of a claim of bad faith or improper behavior on the part of agency decisionmakers," the panel said. The case is State of New York et al vs. the Department of Commerce.

The government has vigorously resisted letting either man be questioned or bringing in witnesses or evidence not already part of the court record.

While the administration has denied any discriminatory effect or intent, five lawsuits, including the one in New York, are pending.

The whole battle has been simmering in the courts under the radar, lost amid wave after wave of Trump Twitter storms and donnybrooks over the Russia probe, and now over the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh. But in some courtrooms, particularly in Furman's courtroom in the Southern District of New York, it was not forgotten.

On March 26, Ross directed the Census Bureau to include a question on the 2020 census about the citizenship of people being surveyed. Ross acted, he claimed at the time, in response to a letter from the Department of Justice, specifically from Gore, saying the information was for the benign purpose of enforcing the Voting Rights Act.

Ross had days earlier told the House Ways and Means Committee exactly the same thing: The "Department of Justice, as you know, initiated the request inclusion of the citizenship question," he said.

Ross's announcement provoked a wave of lawsuits contending, among other things, that inclusion of the citizenship question was an unconstitutional act of discrimination and that the way it was made violated federal law and procedure.

Then, on June 21, Ross dropped a bombshell in the middle of the case.

He had not told the full story, he informed the courts in a "supplemental memorandum." Ross said in the letter that he had been considering adding the citizenship question for some time before bringing in the Justice Department. Ross got the department to "initiate" the request, asking for a letter from Gore that claimed the question was necessary to enforce the Voting Rights Act. "My staff and I consulted with Federal governmental components and inquired whether the Department of Justice would support, and if so would request, including of a citizenship question as consistent with and useful for enforcement of the Voting Rights Act," Ross wrote.

There were more revelations to come. Freedom of Information Act documents later showed that a year earlier, then-White House strategist Steve Bannon had discussed the question with Ross.

At Bannon's direction, so had Kris Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state placed in charge of President Donald Trump's now-defunct commission on voter fraud.

The reasons, the documents suggested, had nothing to do with the Voting Rights Act and everything to do with congressional redistricting. All of this is now part of the court record.

Asked about the new documents by The Post's Tara Bahrampour at the time, a Commerce Department spokesman called everything standard practice. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, he said "executive branch officials discussing important issues before formulating policy is evidence of good government. . .."

Furman, appointed by President Barack Obama, wants to get beyond the anonymity and has made no secret of his skepticism about the administration's motives. The government's behavior - the Ross letter included - suggested that "Secretary Ross's sole proffered rationale for the decision, that the citizenship question is necessary for litigation of Voting Rights claims, may have been pretextual," a cover story, he said in a opinion on July 26 which let the case go forward.

That, and a lot of other factors, Furman said, left open the strong possibility - worth going to trial to determine - that "Secretary Ross's decision to reinstate the citizenship question on the 2020 census was motivated by discriminatory animus and that its application will result in a discriminatory effect."

"While Secretary Ross initially (and repeatedly) suggested that the Department of Justice's request triggered his consideration of the issue, it now appears that the sequence of events was exactly opposite," Furman wrote.

The Commerce Department has denied that.

Even after Ross's admission, the Commerce Department told The Post in July that "Secretary Ross clearly explained his decision to reinstate the citizenship question on the 2020 Decennial Census in his March 26, 2018 decision memorandum, which details his exhaustive examination and review of the relevant data."

Furman strongly disagrees.

"Defendants - and Secretary Ross himself - have placed the credibility" of Ross "squarely at issue," he wrote in his order. ". . .Additionally, in sworn testimony before the House of Representatives, Secretary Ross claimed that DOJ had 'initiated the request for inclusion of the citizenship question."

"The record," added Furman, "casts grave doubt on these claims. ...Equally significant, Secretary Ross testified under oath that he was 'not aware of any discussions between him and 'anyone in the White House' regarding the addition of the citizenship question.

"But there is now reason to believe that Steve Bannon, then a senior adviser in the White House, was among the 'other government officials' whom Secretary Ross consulted about the citizenship question."Several Maryland lawmakers representing Montgomery County, Maryland, are calling on local law enforcement officials to investigate the sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, arguing the state's statute of limitations may not apply to some allegations.

"We request an investigation be conducted if Christine Blasey Ford or other complainants support such an investigation," reads the letter, which was signed by 11 of the 24 members of the county's House delegation. "We believe local law enforcement has the authority to investigate allegations of crimes without need for a formal complaint, and we further believe third parties have standing to bring such complaints."

The letter from the Democratic lawmakers comes on the eve of Kavanaugh's hearing before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. It is signed by Dels. Kumar Barve, Al Carr, Bonnie Cullison, Ariana Kelly, Marc Korman, David Moon, Pam Queen, Kirill Reznik, Shane Robinson, Ana Sol Gutierrez and Jeff Waldstreicher.

Capt. Paul Starks, a spokesman for the Montgomery County Police Department, said Wednesday the department is aware of the letter and is preparing a response to it. He noted Montgomery detectives follow a "victim-centered" model for sexual assault investigations and cited a statement on the Kavanaugh allegations released by the department two days ago.

The statement read, in part: "The department recognizes that victims of sexual assault may not want to involve law enforcement and/or initiate a criminal investigation, and we respect that position. The department, however, stands prepared to assist anyone who reports being the victim of a sexual assault."

Earlier this month, Ford went public with her allegations that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were teenagers. She said he corralled her into a bedroom during a gathering of teens at a house in Montgomery County more than three decades ago.

Since Ford's allegation, two other women have come forward with allegations against Kavanaugh.

"County officials may be within the jurisdiction to pursue such an inquiry and are uniquely positioned to investigate publicly announced allegations of sex assaults that may have occurred within our borders," reads the letter, which was sent to the county chief of police, the county prosecutor and attorneys Michael Avenatti and Debra Katz.

Last week, state Sen. Cheryl Kaga, D-Montgomery, wrote a letter to Gov. Larry Hogan, R, asking him to direct the state police to investigate. Hogan spokeswoman Amelia Chasse said in a statement that state police are "free to investigate any matter in accordance with established procedures. The governor has never used the state police to pursue investigations at his personal whim. That is a very dangerous and slippery slope."

In a separate statement, Maryland State Police said: "It is the policy of the Maryland State Police to initiate a criminal investigation when a criminal complaint is filed. There has been no complaint filed with the Maryland State Police regarding this issue.

"In addition, the Maryland State Police has a memorandum of understanding with Montgomery County that requires any crime of this nature to be investigated by the Montgomery County Police. As such it would be the responsibility of the Montgomery County Police to investigate an alleged sexual assault."Trump said Americas economy is booming like never before and since his election, the US has added USD 10 trillion in wealth.

'Didnt expect that reaction but thats okay,' Trump responded, as the delegates in the UNGA hall laughed and clapped. (Photo: AFP)

United Nations: US president Donald Trump evoked laughter at the UN general assembly as he boasted about his administrations accomplishments in his speech.

Today, I stand before the United Nations general assembly to share the extraordinary progress we have made. In less than two years, my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country. So true, Trump said at the top of his speech.

His remarks elicited laughter from the world leaders gathered in the UN general assembly hall for the general debate.

Didnt expect that reaction but thats okay, Trump responded, as the delegates in the UNGA hall laughed and clapped.

Trump said Americas economy is booming like never before and since his election, the US has added USD 10 trillion in wealth.

The stock market is at an all-time high in history  African-American, Hispanic-American, and Asian-American unemployment have all achieved their lowest levels ever recorded, he said.

Trump said his administration has added four million new jobs including half a million manufacturing jobs and has passed the biggest tax cuts and reforms in American history.

We have started the construction of a major border wall and we have greatly strengthened border security. We have secured record funding for our military, USD 700 billion this year and USD 716 billion next year. Our military will soon be more powerful than it has ever been before.

In other words, the United States is stronger, safer, and a richer country than it was when I assumed office two years ago. We are standing up for America and the American people, and we are also standing up for the world, he said.The allegations of sexual assault against Judge Brett Kavanaugh have a common element of binge drinking, and highlight the powerful effects alcohol can have on adolescents and their still-developing brains. Alcohol not only changes behavior - sometimes with disastrous consequences - it can also interfere with memory formation, creating gaps that experts refer to as blackouts.

"In the moment, the person can be functioning normally, with no sign there's going to be memory impairment. But because those memories never get consolidated and stored, it's like they never occurred, so you can't recall them later on," said Kate Carey, a clinical psychologist at Brown University School of Public Health. "Which doesn't mean it didn't happen."

Binge drinking and the imperfection of memory are likely to be discussed during Thursday's hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Christine Blasey Ford said the Supreme Court nominee became "stumbling drunk" and attacked her at a party in high school. Kavanaugh has denied the allegation. He also said in a television interview that he'd never had a blackout from alcohol.

Binge drinking among U.S. high school students peaked in the early 1980s, when Kavanaugh was a student at Georgetown Preparatory School. High school binge drinking has declined in recent decades in part because dozens of states, as well as the District of Columbia, raised the minimum legal drinking age to 21 in the 1980s, said Katherine Keyes, an epidemiologist at Columbia University and an expert on alcohol consumption.

Alcohol impairs memory formation, but not in a simple or easily anticipated way, researchers say. There's no clear cut-off point at which memory will be suppressed. David Nutt, a psychiatrist and alcohol expert at Imperial College London, said alcohol blocks the neurotransmitter glutamate, which is essential to memory formation. That typically happens when people are "very, very drunk," he said.

Adolescents are at risk of getting very drunk, in part because they are less sensitive to sedative effects, such as sleepiness or stumbling, that tell adults they've had too much, according to Marisa Silveri, director of the Neurodevelopmental Laboratory on Addictions and Mental Health at McLean Hospital.

At the same time, they are more vulnerable to the effects of alcohol on memory. Studies suggest that alcohol has a more pronounced negative effect on memory formation in the immature brain. And the kind of drinking teens are likely to engage in at weekend house parties are a particular risk factor for memory impairment.

"High quantities in short periods of time - that's exactly the kind of drinking that's likely to raise blood alcohol concentration to high levels, and raise it quickly. And a rapid rise is predictive of having memory impairment," Silveri said.

But even before then, alcohol can lead to impulsive behavior, including sexual disinhibition. Teenagers already have less impulse control than adults because their brain's prefrontal cortex - the region responsible for self-control - is not yet mature. Alcohol can dampen inhibitions further. It affects brain systems that regulate behavior and impulse control.

"The frontal lobes make us tell the truth, make us be on time, make us be nice to people even if we don't want to," Nutt said. "Alcohol switches off the frontal lobes or dampens them down, so you're less able to control these deeper impulses."

This is a feature and not a bug for many young people, notes Marion Nestle, professor emerita of nutrition and food studies at NYU.

"The whole purpose of binge drinking is to go blotto so you can behave terribly and you're not responsible for it," she said.

A person can have both a partial blackout or a complete blackout after intense drinking and not even realize it.

"Sometimes people don't remember that they blacked out. Someone has to say, 'Remember when you did that last night?' and you say 'No,' " Keyes said.

A second accuser, Deborah Ramirez, said she and Kavanaugh participated in a drinking game in a dorm room during their first year at Yale. She acknowledges gaps in her memory due to intoxication, but alleges that Kavanaugh exposed himself and thrust his penis toward her face before she pushed him away. Kavanaugh has denied the story.

Other questions about the nature of memories are likely to arise during Thursday's hearing. Senators supportive of Kavanaugh may question why some details are vivid to Ford while others, such as where and when, exactly, the party was held, are not. Researchers say traumatic events can become indelible in a spotty fashion, where stressful details may haunt people for a lifetime, but others may fade.

"If there's a strong emotion associated with an event, that event is inscribed in the machinery of memory in bold type, as opposed to other memories that don't have an emotional component to them - which are inscribed basically in a lighter font," said Daniel Weinberger, director of the Lieber Institute for Brain Development affiliated with Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.

Researchers said that whatever the outcome of Thursday's hearing, the accusations against Kavanaugh bring a critical public health issue into a national spotlight.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 37 million U.S. adults in 2015 engaged in binge-drinking once a week, consuming seven drinks per binge on average. That was according to the drinkers themselves; people are known to underreport or underestimate the amount of alcohol they consume.

Although alcohol consumption among high schoolers has dropped in recent decades, about one-third of students report consuming alcohol in the past month, and half of the drinkers said they engaged in binge drinking, according to Robert Brewer, head of the CDC's alcohol program.

"There are still large numbers of teenagers and high school kids who engage in drinking and partying that is really dangerous," said Susan Tapert, a psychologist at the University of California, San Diego. "Even if you emerge from the evening unscathed, you're doing some harm to your body, and you're definitely doing some harm to your brain."Over the years, he headed a kindergarten, ran two parishes, led an outreach programme for alcoholics and helped young people affected by depression. Arriving in Japan at the age of 25, he was forced to be "reborn into a new world". He baptised many Japanese, three of whom entered the seminary. It is not the expertise of the missionary that attracts: it is his faith, the faith that can be seen even if one does not hear with words. One word defines his 53 years in Japan, thanks. As for the future, it is in Gods hands".

Sunagawa (AsiaNews)  Brother Narciso Cavazzola, a Franciscan, has been in Japan for 53 years. In all this time, he has been and still is, among other things, the head of a kindergarten, a pastor in two parishes in Sunagawa, counsellor to young people in need and organiser of a programme for people with a drinking problem.

Most of the missionarys work has been focused on the northern island of Hokkaido, in the north-east. Here he has taught Italian, English and piano. He is an aficionado of Japanese dance. He has baptised many people, three of whom have entered the seminary. "I pray for each of them."

"As the director of a kindergarten, I had the opportunity to meet many families. So many experiences, which I wrote about in five books. One that stayed with me was anonymous alcoholics. We provide the premises, and they meet twice a week, from 7 pm to past 8 pm.

Some time ago, there was an Ainu*. Alcohol made him see things that do not exist, frightful things. He would see Rommel the Nazi. He thought streetlights were after him. With such distress, he went to the hospital, where he was advised to come to church meetings."

Thanks to the support of anonymous alcoholics, he managed to free himself from the addiction, which left him with a void and questions about the meaning of life, which he answered through the Bible, given to him by the missionary.

In July 1965, Brother Cavazzola was a young 25 years old. "When I arrived in Japan I was 25 with a Western mindset. The Japanese understand with feelings, the heart. I had to forget everything I had learnt until I was 25 in order to 'reborn' in a new world, not to mention the issue of the Japanese language. "For a long time, I wondered if I would ever really learn how to talk to these people."

"Children look you into the eyes, the missionary said. Once, a child asked me: 'Do you like your face?'. This took me by surprise! So, with a little shrewdness, I told him: 'And do you like your face?' Smiling, he answered, 'Yes, my mother and the good God made this face for me. You can learn many things from children."

In 53 years of service, Brother Cavazzola came into contact with some young people in difficulty, including three girls suffering from agoraphobia. "One of them tried to commit suicide 16 times. I followed their case, keeping in touch with their doctor, who told me to encourage them. After three years, they went back to school. All three got married and have children." Even if they are not baptised, the young respect the Church because of the selfless support they received from the missionary.

"It is not the expertise of the missionary that attracts: it is his faith, the faith that can be seen even if one does not hear with words.

Brother Cavazzola remembers an old missionary who could not speak Japanese. Every week he taught catechism to a Japanese who wanted to be baptised. "At the party for his baptism, the man told him: 'Father, I thank you for the year that you spent with me, but I have to tell you: you spoke as you could, but I never understood anything of what you said. But dont worry, I saw that you spoke so confidently that what you said must be true.

Perhaps I speak Japanese better than that priest, but it is the same thing: faith is passed on if it can be seen. My favourite passage in the Gospel is 'Blessed are the poor in spirit' because they do not pretend to do things with their own strength, but ask God to use them. The power to propagate faith is not in me, but it is God who works through me."

"My coming to Japan was a call from the Lord, said the Franciscan. If I had one word to say about these 50 years, it is thanks. Thanks for everything, the past, the experiences, the suffering, all the people who loved me and those who made me suffer. As for the present, I try to do my best. The future is in Gods hands, and lets leave it to Him."

* Ainu are an ethnic minority that was once persecuted.by Sandra Awad*

Refugees who lived in a former jihadi stronghold near Damascus have stories of pain and solidarity to tell. A woman talks about life under jihadi rule, without food or hope for the future. Today she is taking care of her family as well as an orphaned disabled nephew. However, with the feared winter coming, she wants to return to her home village.

Damascus (AsiaNews)  Refugees from Eastern Ghouta, a town on the outskirts of Damascus, have long and sad stories to tell. For a long time, they were under the control of anti-Assad rebels. As tragic as their tales are, they contain kernels of hope and solidarity, like that of a mother who welcomed as a grace the military call-up of her eldest son, which she considers a better fate than living under jihadi rule.

This is part of Caritas Syrias work to support displaced people, most of them Muslims, whom Caritas Syria communication director Sandra Awad met and whose stories and views she collected. In recent weeks, the charity handed out aid  basic necessities and food  to thousands of people. Here is the third part of her report. For the first and second parts, click here and here.

Thank God that my son has joined the army. Although he is now in the middle of the war, but his situation is much better than the black days we had been through during the siege of Ghouta; fear, hunger and misery. Believe me, his situation now is far way better. I pray day and night that God protects him, and soon my second son will join the army, too, like his brother...".

Lina started to cry with such grieve, so I placed my hand on her shoulder and tried to calm her down, and I asked her: "Where does your eldest son serve?"

After I asked my question, her weeping became even more while saying: "Idlib".

Everyone in the room became silent, and although that silence hit me in the deep, yet a very low voice came out hardly from inside me: "May God protect him".

She pulled herself together and said to me, as if she was trying to convince herself with an idea: "Believe me, ma'am, his situation now is better. During the past years, we were starving. The days on which we slept hungry were much more than the days on which we ate. My children and those of the neighbours used to move around in the landfill to look for something eatable between the garbage. The barley bread that we used to bake was a torture itself. I thank God that we are so much blessed now."

I looked around me to find "the blessing" that Lina had just mentioned, a house with no doors or windows, shredded curtains with which the wind was playing, few mattresses were spread here and there on the bare floor, her children and husband were wearing old, dirty and ragged clothes. Their feet were inside ragged plastic slippers, and their faces and hands were covered with dust.

Lina carried on: "Now, at least, my children are wearing something in their feet, and now they have beautiful clothes to wear, and what matters most is that now we eat real bread. I thank God thousands of times for the bread for it keeps us full, and my kids now know what potato chips, apples, biscuits and money are. Imagine that my seven-year-old daughter was keeping a Syrian five-pound note for many years, dreaming that she would buy a piece of candy after the war is over, but she was too disappointed upon knowing that this currency is no longer in use, and that the smallest piece of biscuit costs ten times more than this piece of paper that she owns.

The little girl drew close to me and gave me the little piece of money. I asked her: "What is your name, beautiful girl?"

She answered: "Assinat".

"Your name is beautiful yet strange. What does it mean?"

"It means the moonlight", Lina answered.

"Oh my! How beautiful it is!", I said, "How many kids do you have, Lina?"

"I have five; three boys and two girls", she replied, "I am also raising up Abdulrahman, my husband's nephew, his parents were killed during the war, he is paralyzed and he can't walk, and he can barely move his arms.

During the siege, I used to hide some of the barley bread for him to eat as he is the weakest of my children".

I said to her touched by her words: "You really consider him as one of your own children?"

"Of course, I do ", she replied with her eyes full of love while looking at Abdulrahman who was sitting on the ground, holding a pencil and a sheet of paper trying to write his name on it with his weak fingers.

"His parents were some of the dearest people to my heart, and he is no different. I pity this boy, ma'am, during winter. As you see, we live in this apartment which we don't own until we are able to go back to our village.

No windows or doors to protect us from the cold of the winter, yet we can all move around, the thing that provides us with some warmth, but Abdulrahman sits during the entire time which makes him feel the cold more than we do. I used to send my kids to collect plastic pieces to light some fire with them in front of him to provide him with some warmth, yet sometimes we find nothing to light the fire to start with."

I felt pain squeezing my heart, for winter is coming very soon, and the tragedy of this family will start again with the cold like every year, yet Lina said with such optimism: "I thank God that now are eating and drinking from the humanitarian aids which we receive, but my husband and I want to go back to our house in Al-Abbadeh since we own a piece of land full of olives over there. My husband will take care of it again so we can live with dignity and go back to like we used to be, farmers that plant and reap of our own sweat."

At that moment we heard a woman calling from outside, and Lina invited her to come in, and said that she was her neighbour Um Hussain.

She said: "I invited Um Hussain to come and live with us in our village, for she raises the kids of her daughter who was killed alongside with her husband during the war, and she carries a very heavy load. There in the village, we can assist each other in everything"

"Is she one of your relatives?", I asked.

"No, she's not" she answered, "and I have only known her for few months."

"Lina noticed that I lived on the street with my sons and grandchildren after we had cleaned many of the destroyed apartments to live in, and every time the owner used to come to tell us to leave the apartment, so we decided to stay on the street at the end of the day, but one day Lina approached me and invited me to live with her and her family. We lived with them for a few days until we cleaned one of the apartments on the same block, and moved to it, we became neighbours, and now she wants me to go back with her to her house in the village"

I asked: "Is your house there suitable to be inhabited, Lina?"

"No, it's not", she replied, "and it was robbed, but we will clean it and hang the curtains just like we did here. My two sons will be in the army, as for me, my husband and the rest of my children, it is better to go back there to our house in Abbadeh. I pray that God protects my sons in the army, but believe me ma'am that their situation now is far way better than the dark days we had been through."

I left the borrowed house as Lina called it, and as the thousands of families who live in Ghouta call the houses they are living in, too, due to the displacement and the cruelty of war, and a great feeling of love, appreciation and pride was filling me toward that mother whom the war was able to destroy everything around her and steal everything she had, yet it couldn't touch her extremely good spirit at all.

Blessed are those whom the cruelty of war couldn't leak into their hearts, and remained loving, forgiving and giving to the final extent, for with such people our Syria is still alive.

* Communications director for Caritas SyriaBret Stephens: Good morning, Gail. I know well have plenty to say about Blasey v. Kavanaugh today, but, first, Rod Rosenstein! The New York Times had a bombshell story last week saying the deputy attorney general felt so badly used by President Donald Trump last year after the firing of James Comey that he considered wearing a wire to record the presidents ranting. Rosenstein denied it categorically and the Republican establishment urged Trump not to fire him.

First thing Monday morning, news breaks that Rosenstein is close to resigning. Or not. Two questions for you. First, should we rename Eighth Avenue, where we converse, Avenue of the Rosenstein? Second, is this the beginning of the end for the Trump presidency or the beginning of the end for the Justice Department?

Gail Collins: Yow, Bret. What was that old Chinese curse about living in interesting times?

I have a lot more faith in the staying power of the Justice Department than in the staying power of the president. But well see. And renaming Eighth Avenue  you know the way Rosensteins fate has been bouncing around, Im thinking maybe we could find him a nice traffic rotary upstate.

Bret: If Trump fires Rosenstein, he gets rid of the guy who has been Robert Muellers main protector at Justice. Yet firing him on charges of insubordination means believing that the Fake News got the story about Rosensteins 25th Amendment musings right. This may be the ultimate Trumpian dilemma.

Lets switch tack and talk about Brett Kavanaughs nomination. Trump broke radio silence on Christine Blasey Fords accusation against the judge by tweeting that if the attack had been bad she or her parents would have reported it to the police.

I have mixed views about the case, but if you are going to defend Kavanaugh this seems to me as nearly the worst argument to make. Your thoughts?

Gail: The Kavanaugh story is about sex, but its also about class. The country now sees Brett Kavanaugh as a rich, drunken thug who left some young women with very traumatic memories.

Ive been wondering if he could survive this by simply saying: I never thought of myself as someone who abused women but listening to these stories I realize now that I was. If one of my daughters was ever mistreated in that way Id want to kill the kid who did it. This happened long, long ago but thats no reason to say it isnt important. Whether my nomination is approved or not, Ill spend the rest of my life trying to be a better man.

I still wouldnt want to vote for him. But as things stand now, even if hes confirmed hell still be the walking, talking symbol of how men just dont get it.

Given the way things are cartwheeling around right now, I wouldnt put any bets on how this will end. What about you?

Bret: I think the Senate does need to hear from Blasey and Kavanaugh directly, either in public session or behind closed doors. Mark Judge, whom Blasey has identified as the other guy in the room, should testify as well, along with anyone else who was supposedly at the party or with Blasey or Kavanaugh at the time of the alleged assault. I also think the FBI ought to conduct an expedited investigation, recognizing, first, that it cant drag on forever, and second, that there are limits to what it can be expected to find about a 36-year-old case that went unreported at the time. We are not going to get to a beyond a reasonable doubt standard of proof, but we might try to reach the clear and convincing evidence standard often used in civil or administrative cases. Id even settle for the somewhat lower preponderance of evidence standard.

Basically, I think Blasey has a right to be heard and have her claims impartially examined. And Kavanaugh is entitled to a presumption of innocence and an opportunity to clear his name.

Gail: As usual youre being extremely reasonable. And if I was running the committee I would totally follow your directives.

But deep down, this isnt really about whether Christine Blasey Ford is telling the truth. I suspect most people, including many of the Judiciary Republicans, privately think she is. The real issue is whether a respected judge can be held accountable for a drunken sexual assault he made as a teenager.

Or at least that was the issue until a woman from Kavanaughs college years spoke up. Bret, I have no idea how many issues  and charges  were going to have before this is over. What I do know is that were at a marker in the transformation of Western culture  hows that for a sweeping statement? Powerful men are going down because they failed to realize women were genuinely equal, not only when it comes to getting jobs and promotions, but also when it comes to how theyre treated at work, and even at a party of drunken teenagers.

Bret: Oh, good, we disagree (I think). There are all sorts of important conversations to be had about cultural transformation. And there is every reason to embrace a transformation that moves in the direction of full and meaningful equality for women, as well as vastly greater awareness of sexual harassment and assault, and far less tolerance of it.

But thats not what this moment is about. I think its about the truth and who is telling it: Blasey or Kavanaugh. I dont want to accept a world in which Blaseys allegation  and now another accusation from Deborah Ramirez, a classmate of Kavanaughs at Yale  is breezily dismissed as some kind of unprovable charge about some no-big-deal event from long ago. But neither do I want to accept one in which mere accusation without substantial corroboration can destroy a persons career and reputation. I dont think that helps anyone.

I dont know what the Republicans on the Judiciary Committee privately believe about Blaseys accusations. But it seems to me the right approach is to acknowledge that none of us really knows, that prejudgment is bad judgment, and that we should try to get as much information as possible to reach a clearer determination.

Question for you: What kind of evidence would persuade you that Kavanaugh is being truthful?

Gail: Well, if somebody else appeared and said, No, I was the one who molested that girl  Brett was in the other room passed out in front of the fireplace, Id expect the committee to listen.

But heres my other bottom line. Nobody deserves a lifetime Supreme Court nomination. This isnt like the right to buy a home or to be employed. Its an exceptional honor. If the Senate decided Kavanaugh should stay in the superpowerful Court of Appeals, I dont see it as the equivalent of putting him in the stockades.

Bret: There you go again, Gail, getting me to agree with you. My rejoinder is that a baseless accusation is wrong no matter what, even if the result is something other than jail. And certain accusations, especially if they concern sexual assault, will hang on the accused forever, which is why it is particularly important to ensure they are true. But go on.

Gail: Well, weve got a ways to go before this ones done. Lets talk for a minute about something else. Whats your favorite congressional race right now? Im obsessed with the Texas Senate seat but Id totally understand if you picked the Republican congressman in Arizona whose siblings made a commercial begging people to vote for the other guy.

Bret: That commercial was really something. We should get that family into some sort of group therapy.

I share your enthusiasm for the Texas Senate race, for a couple of small reasons and one very big one. Small reasons: I like Beto ORourke, the Democratic challenger, and I like the idea that Texas can turn a bit purple if you have a candidate with energy, wit and a human touch.

The big reason is that I despise Ted Cruz. That is D-e-s-p-i-s-e, in case I havent spelled out my loathing clearly enough. Would you like to know why?

Gail: Oh, gosh, please go on.

Bret: Because hes like a serpent covered in Vaseline. Because he treats the American people like two-bit suckers in 10-gallon hats. Because he sucks up to the guy who insulted his wife  by retweet, no less. Because of his phony piety and even phonier principles. Because I see him as the spiritual love child of the 1980s televangelist Jimmy Swaggart and Jack Nicholsons character in The Shining. Because his ethics are purely situational. Because he makes Donald Trump look like a human being by comparison. Because New York values. Because his fellow politicians detest him, and thats just among Republicans. Because he never got over being the smartest kid in eighth grade. Because hes conniving enough to try to put one over you, but not perceptive enough to realize that you see right through him. Because hes the type of man who would sell his family into slavery if thats what it took to get elected. And that he would use said slavery as a sob story to get himself re-elected.

Otherwise, you might say Im his No. 1 fan.

Gail: Well, OK. Not much I can add on that end.

But wait a minute, I do have one question. This is a six-year term. Presuming a Democrat defeats Trump in 2020 (pause for short novena to the Blessed Mother), what if the Senate was still teetering by a one vote-margin? Say the new presidents priorities included increasing government regulation, moving the U.S. embassy back to Tel Aviv from Jerusalem and raising taxes on high-income people and corporations.

If the deciding vote on all these things you dont like was going to be the Senator from Texas, who would you want it to be  the highly principled and sincere Democrat Beto ORourke or a certain Republican slimy snake?

Bret: Not fair, Gail. The fate of the Republic versus my self-respect. Let me answer that in our next conversation.The recently renamed Riverside Retail Centre will throw open its doors this Friday as it hosts a two day Longford Business Expo, which is being organised by Longford Chamber of Commerce.

President of the Chamber, Niamh Donlon, said that there has been tremendous interest in the event and over 100 local firms will exhibit over the two days.

ALSO READ: Riverside Shopping Centre to host Longford Business Expo

The Chamber has been working closely with the team at the Longford Enterprise Office and stressed that the event would not be happening were it not for the support of the LEO team, namely Michael Nevin, Catherine Kane, Anna Lane and Norma Foley as well as Barbara Heslin, Director of Services, and Paddy Mahon, Chief Executive of Longford County Council.

The event is also backed by LCRL and the Leader project and Ms Donlon extended a special word of thanks to Margaret Walsh in LCRL and Martina Glennon of Optimum Events who is coordinating the event.

The event will open to the public at 1pm this Friday but there's a full programme of activities for the exhibitors from early Friday morning.

RTE journalist, Sinead Hussey, will be MC and will introduce a team of speakers that will include Mark Christal from Enterprise Ireland; Bobby Kerr, broadcaster and former chairman of Insomnia Coffee and Tom Parlon, Director General at the Construction Industry Federation.

The event then opens to the public from 1pm and there is an opportunity to see the huge range of businesses and employers now operating in diverse sectors right across the county.

For Saturday the emphasis will be on retail, according to Ms Donlon: "Retail is hugely challenged at the moment but remains the bedrock of our commercial centres and it is vital that we strive to point a way forward for existing and new businesses and we hope that Saturday's fashion forum will provide some insight and advice for retailers or start-ups."

The Fashion Forum kicks off at noon on Saturday when leading retail and fashion expert, Eddie Shanahan leads a panel discussion on devising a modern business model. Panel members will include leading Irish designer, Heidi Higgins; local fashion success stories Wendy Louise Knight and Siobhan Quinn (Ballyboy Design) and Louise Brennan (Fabiani).

From 2.30pm then on Saturday afternoon the riverside setting will come alive to the sound of a jazz trio and exhibitors will get a chance to reflect on what is shaping up to be a real showcase event for Co Longford.National Broadband Ireland submitted its final tender to the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment (DCCAE) for the delivery of the National Broadband Plan (NBP).

A spokesperson for the company said the documentation lodged demonstrated the Consortiums commercial, financial, legal, as well as technical solutions for the delivery of world-class Gigabit (1,000Mbps) broadband to every home, farm and business in the country.

ALSO READ: Longford firm takes aim at latest setback to hit national broadband rollout

The submission also nominates a number of key partners for the project including enet, Nokia, Actavo, The Kelly Group and KN Group.

David C McCourt, founder and CEO of Granahan McCourt said the company was delighted to submit its final tender to the Department.

It marks a significant milestone for the development of broadband infrastructure in Ireland, he added.

We have assembled a world-class team with financial resources, unrivalled construction expertise and proven experience of operational capabilities to deliver this project for the Irish Government and for the citizens in rural Ireland.

He went on to say that throughout his career, the businesses he had been involved with had serially improved connectivity in technologically underserved regions of the world and pioneered the roll out of telecom networks of substantial scale.

We know this experience will prove to be crucial for the NBP and thats why I can be so confident in our ability to co-ordinate all the elements required to finance and deliver a project of this size and complexity, he added.

The Consortium is committed to the projects success from a policy and a commercial perspective and we look forward, subject to being awarded the contract, to delivering world-class high-speed broadband to every home, farm and business in the intervention area.Music, Movies & Entertainment, Local News, Arts & Culture, Press Releases

By Tom Needham Published: September 26 2018

Legendary actor, Tom Berenger, is Tom Needhams exclusive guest this Thursday on WUSBs The Sounds of Film.

Stony Brook, NY - Sept. 26, 2018 - Emmy Award winner, Tom Berenger, is Tom Needhams special guest this Thursday at 6 pm on Emmy Award winner, Tom Berenger, is Tom Needhams special guest this Thursday at 6 pm on WUSB's The Sounds of Film. He will be discussing his latest film, American Dresser.

American Dresser is a modern day motorcycle road trip film written, produced and directed by Long Island native Carmine Cangialosi. The film, which has elements of a classic western, features Tom Berenger, Keith David, Gina Gershon, Penelope Miller and Bruce Dern. American Dresser follows a Vietnam veteran, John Moore (Tom Berenger) who decides to confront the mistakes of his past by fulfilling a lifelong dream of completing a cross-country motorcycle road trip. Joined by his best friend, Charlie (Keith David), they take off exploring new territories, meeting interesting characters and learning important life lessons.

Tom Berenger is an award-winning actor known for his roles in movies and television. In 1986 he was nominated for an Academy Award for his portrayal of Staff Sergeant Bob Barnes in Oliver Stones Platoon. Through the years, he has appeared in many memorable films including Looking for Mr. Goodbar, The Big Chill, Eddie and the Cruisers, Betrayed, Gettysburg, Training Day, and Inception. He also won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie for his performance in Hatfields & McCoys.

About the Sounds of FilmThe Iranian president against the White House that "does not hide" the plan to topple Irans leaders, while calling for dialogue. International security, he adds, "is not a game of domestic politics". Trump: Tehran sows "chaos, death and destruction". Pompey accuses Brussels over new payment model to circumvent the sanctions.

New York (AsiaNews / Agencies) - A new chapter in the economic, diplomatic and verbal war between the United States and Iran opened yesterday at the United Nations General Assembly in New York. In his speech, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani accused the US counterpart Donald Trump, who spoke before him, of "trying to overthrow" the legitimate government of Tehran.

The Iranian leader has also excluded, at the moment, the possibility of talks with the White House to renegotiate the terms of the nuclear agreement (JCPOA), after the US president cancelled it imposing new sanctions against Tehran, the toughest in history.. " It is ironic that the U.S. government does not even conceal its plan for overthrowing the same government it invites to talks," Rouhani said.

"For dialogue to take place, there is no need for a photo opportunity. The two sides can listen to each other right here in this Assembly. "I am starting the dialogue right here, and state, in unequivocal terms, that the question of international security is not a toy in American domestic politics

Rouhani has repeatedly denounced Trump's "absurd" position, which had previously invited the rest of the world to "isolate" the Iranian government by calling it "corrupt". "What Iran says - concluded its president - is clear: no war, no sanctions, no threats, no pressure, act only in accordance with the law and to respect obligations".

Speaking at the UN, the head of the White House - backed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who intends to continue "fighting" Iran in Syria - had accused Iranian leaders of "sowing chaos, death and destruction". According to Trump they "do not respect their neighbors, the borders, or the sovereign rights of nations" and intend only "to enrich themselves and spread chaos throughout the Middle East and beyond".

In these hours, Washington has also attacked the new model of parallel payments devised by the European Union to curb US sanctions. The head of US diplomacy Mike Pompeo said he was "disturbed and deeply disappointed" by the announcement of Brussels, for one of the most "counterproductive" "measures" for regional peace and security. National Security Adviser John Bolton added that the United States will be "aggressive and inflexible" in applying sanctions against Iran.Local News, Crime, Press Releases

By Long Island News & PR Published: September 26 2018

Richard Quitoni, Owner and Operator of Quitoni Transportation, Inc., Allegedly Submitted Inflated Toll and Excessive Mileage Claims to Medicaid.

New York, NY - Sept. 26, 2018 - Attorney General Barbara D. Underwood today announced the arrest and arraignment of Richard Quitoni, 29, of Middletown, owner and operator of Quitoni Transportation, Inc., for allegedly stealing over $200,000 from Medicaid by submitting false claims for medical transportation services.

Transportation for beneficiaries is a critical piece of the Medicaid program ensuring access to quality healthcare  especially for those that live in rural areas and have to travel long distances to the nearest healthcare provider, said Attorney General Underwood. My office will continue to prosecute and hold accountable those who steal from Medicaid to line their own pockets.

In court papers filed in Walkill Town Court in Orange County, the Attorney General alleges that from August 30, 2013 to October 1, 2017, Quitoni submitted false claims seeking inflated levels of payment from Medicaid by allegedly submitting individual mileage claims for each Medicaid recipient traveling together in the same vehicle, instead of submitting claims for mileage incurred in one trip as required by Medicaid rules and regulations. Medicaid reimburses group trips at a lower amount than individual trips because the cost to providers is lower than the cost of transporting each recipient individually. The defendant also allegedly knowingly falsely represented and increased the amount of Medicaid reimbursement for tolls than what his vehicles actually incurred, claiming the maximum amount of $50 in toll expenses to Medicaid. There are no $50 tolls in New York and no combination of tolls on trips that his vehicles made, when aggregated, could have totaled $50.

Defendants Quitoni and Quitoni Transportation, Inc. were charged with Grand Larceny in the Second Degree, a class C felony, and multiple counts of Offering a False Instrument for Filing in the First Degree, a class E felony.

Richard Quitoni was arraigned on September 25, 2018 before the Honorable Judge Peter W. Green and released on his own recognizance. The case was adjourned to October 3, 2018 for further proceedings and for Quitoni Transportation, Inc. to be arraigned.

If convicted of the top count, Quitoni faces a maximum prison sentence of 5 to 15 years. Both defendants are subject to permanent exclusion from participating as providers in all government-funded healthcare programs  including Medicaid and Medicare.

The charges are merely accusations and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.

The investigation was conducted by Medicaid Fraud Control Unit (MFCU) Investigators Frank Bluszcz and Peter Olsen with the assistance of Supervising Investigator Peter Markiewicz and Deputy Chief Investigator Kenneth Morgan. Auditor Investigator Sandra Alvarez and Principal Auditor Investigator Lora Pomponio conducted the financial analysis with the assistance of Regional Chief Auditor John Regan.Tech & Science, Local News, Business & Finance, Press Releases

By Long Island News & PR Published: September 26 2018

Settlement with 50 States & DC Also Requires Uber to Adopt Model Data Breach Notification and Data Security Practices, Corporate Integrity Program.

New York, NY - Sept. 26, 2018 - Attorney General Barbara D. Underwood today announced an agreement with ride-sharing company Uber Technologies, Inc. (Uber) to settle allegations it intentionally concealed a 2016 data breach in violation of state data breach notification laws. The settlement, which was reached with all 50 states and the District of Columbia, requires Uber to adopt model data breach notification and data security practices and a corporate integrity program for employees to report unethical behavior, and hire an independent third party to assess its data security practices. It also requires Uber to pay a record penalty of $148 million.

New Yorkers deserve to know that their personal information will be protected  period, said Attorney General Underwood. This record settlement should send a clear message: we have zero tolerance for those who skirt the law and leave consumer and employee information vulnerable to exploitation. We'll continue to fight to protect New Yorkers from weak data security and criminal hackers.

In November 2016, hackers based in the United States and Canada secretly informed security officials at Uber that they had downloaded the personal information of 57 million riders and drivers, 25 million of whom were in the United States and 7.7 million of whom were drivers. The information stolen included names, email addresses, and mobile phone numbers; drivers license information pertaining to approximately 600,000 drivers nationwide was also stolen. After providing proof of the massive data breach, the hackers demanded six figures to delete the data and not disclose the breach. Uber ultimately paid the hackers $100,000 to conceal the breach.

In the spring of 2017, Ubers Board of Directors directed a law firm to investigate Ubers security team in the wake of unrelated litigation involving the alleged theft of trade secrets related to self-driving cars. As part of this inquiry, the law firm learned of the breach and ransom payment. Upon learning of the breach, the board hired a forensic firm to investigate the breach. Uber ultimately provided notice of the breach in late November 2017, a year after the breach.

General Business Law  899-aa requires companies that experience a breach involving certain personal information, including drivers license numbers, to provide notice in the most expedient time possible and without unreasonable delay. By intentionally concealing the breach and failing to disclose it for a year, Uber violated GBL  899-aa.

As part of the nationwide settlement, Uber has agreed to pay a record penalty of $148 million to the states. New York will receive approximately $5.1 million.

The settlement between New York and Uber requires the company to:

Comply with New Yorks data breach and consumer protection laws regarding protecting New York residents personal information and notifying them in the event of a data breach concerning their personal information;

Take precautions to protect any user data Uber stores on third-party platforms outside of Uber;

Use strong password policies for its employees to gain access to the Uber network;

Develop and implement a strong overall data security policy for all data that Uber collects about its users, including assessing potential risks to the security of the data and implementing any additional security measures beyond what Uber is doing to protect the data;

Hire an outside qualified party to assess Ubers data security efforts on a regular basis and draft a report with any recommended security improvements. Uber will implement any such security improvement recommendations; and

Develop and implement a corporate integrity program to ensure that Uber employees can report any ethics concerns they have about any other Uber employees to the company.

This settlement also addresses and resolves allegations that Ubers conduct violated an earlier 2016 settlement with the Office of the New York Attorney General. In the earlier investigation, the office found that on May 12, 2014, a hacker accessed an Uber database that included names of roughly 50,000 Uber drivers and their drivers license numbers. Uber discovered the breach in September 2014 but did not provide notice to the affected drivers and the office until February 26, 2015, over five months later. The prior 2016 settlement required Uber to comply with GBL  899-aa. It also required Uber to adopt protective technologies for the storage, access, and transfer of certain personal information, and credentials related to its access, including the adoption of multi-factor authentication, or similarly protective access control methodologies.

The New York Attorney General independently investigated the current breach, but later joined the multistate investigatory process, where it took a leadership position, to effectuate settlement.

The Attorney General's office has also proposed legislation to close gaps in New York's data security laws and comprehensively protect New Yorkers personal information from data breaches.Nature & Weather, Local News, Press Releases, Politics

By Long Island News & PR Published: September 26 2018

Public Comment Period Also Extended 45 Days.

Huntington, NY - Sept. 26, 2018 - Congressman Tom Suozzi (D  Long Island, Queens) has received confirmation from Col. Thomas Asbery, of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, that the Corps is willing to hold a hearing in his district, within the next 45 days. The Corps also agreed to extend the deadline for public comment an additional 45 days for a related feasibility study. On Thursday, Congressman Suozzi requested the Army Corps of Engineers hold a hearing in his district on the proposed Long Island Sound tidal gates to be located near the Throgs Neck Bridge.

I am willing to work together with the Army Corps, on behalf of my constituents, and am pleased that they are willing to hold hearings within the coming weeks. The people who live along our North Shore in Queens and Nassau Counties need to know all the ramifications of these proposed tidal gates, said Congressman Suozzi.

I am very pleased that Congressman Suozzi was able to convince the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to hold a public hearing on this critical issue and to extend the public comment period an additional 45 days. A more thorough investigation must be conducted on this proposal to construct sea barriers in Long Island Sound to protect New York City during major storms. This proposed plan could have the unintended consequence of causing some of our North Hempstead communities outside of these barriers to absorb those very flood waters. Its an issue that surely needs more discussion, stated North Hempstead Town Supervisor Judi Bosworth.

The Hempstead Harbor Protection Committee is thankful that the Army Corps will hold a hearing in our area. We are concerned about the impact of induced flooding on our coastal communities. Member municipalities have spent many millions of dollars to improve their shorelines and do not want their investment jeopardized. We welcome the hearing to explore in more detail the potential impacts on our communities and residents and we are very grateful for Congressman Tom Suozzis efforts to bring about this hearing, stated Eric Swenson, Executive Director of Hempstead Harbor Protection Committee

Our initial review of this plan has set off alarm bells. The proposed plan to place sea walls in Long Island Sound and harden coastlines could set us back decades of progress. A public hearing is necessary for Long Island communities that may be harmed by the plan and we are delighted to work with Congressman Suozzi on this important issue. Planning for extreme weather and climate change should be an open process, inclusive of all impacted communities. We cannot allow Long Island to be sacrificed to save New York City, both must be protected, stated Adrienne Esposito, Executive Director, Citizens Campaign for the Environment.

The purpose of the gates is to protect New York City, and area residents, from possible flooding due to extreme weather events, and rising sea levels, caused by climate change. We need to know what the impacts will be along Long Islands North Shore.

Congressman Suozzi represents the North Shore of Long Island and Northeastern Queens. The District stretches from the Throgs Neck Bridge in Queens, through Nassau County to the western portion of King Park in Suffolk County. It includes the shoreline communities of Little Neck Bay, Manhasset Bay, Hempstead Harbor, Oyster Bay, and Huntington Bay.

Over the past 20 years, New York, Connecticut, and federal government have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to improve the water quality of Long Island Sound. The Sound is healthier than it has been in decades. The federal government has a responsibility to avoid, minimize and mitigate any actions it takes that would impact the environment. Therefore, it is essential that the Army Corps take the time that is necessary to conduct a full and thorough review of not only the impact on study area, but also of the impacts on the areas immediately outside the study area, including those on my district, said Suozzi.Local News, Crime, Business & Finance, Press Releases, Politics

By Long Island News & PR Published: September 26 2018

The new law will make it a class A misdemeanor, Cuomo says.

Albany, NY - Sept. 26, 2018 - Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today signed legislation (S.6343-A/A.10574) to protect barbershop, beauty shop and salon service providers against individuals who steal their services. The bill closes a loophole in the law to include the failure to pay for services provided by a barbershop, salon, or beauty shop. The new law will make it a class A misdemeanor.

"Beauty salons and barber shops are no different than other small businesses whose livelihoods depend on the support of their communities," Governor Cuomo said. "This legislation closes a nonsensical loophole that gives these businesses equal protection under the law once and for all."

"With this new law, we are taking a major step forward to prevent theft and protect beauty shops and barber shops across New York," said Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul. "These small businesses are cornerstones of communities from Buffalo to Brooklyn, and when they lose out on compensation for the services they provide, it often brings significant financial hardship. By strengthening the law to allow for theft of services prosecution, we are bringing peace of mind to small business owners who work tirelessly day in and day out."

Under current law, an individual who knowingly fails to pay for a service is not subject to criminal prosecution, leaving certain small business owners at risk of great financial loss. This bill will amend the law to protect those merchants who provide nonmaterial products by making it a criminal offense to obtain services from a barbershop, beauty shop or salon without paying for that service.

Senator Marisol Alcantara said, "Small businesses like beauty shops and barber shops depend on the patronage of their community members, and when individuals take advantage of local businesses it puts them at great financial risk. By adding this protection for small business owners, this bill will ensure that these businesses that are so critical to local economies can continue to thrive and succeed. I thank Governor Cuomo for his continued support of small business."Ordained priest in 1976, the Filipino prelate reached Mongolia in 1992 together with two confreres to open a mission. In August 2003, he was named bishop of Mongolia by Pope John Paul II. Throughout the country there are now seven parishes and three missionary centers, serving about 1,300 Catholics. In 2016, Msgr. Padilla celebrated the ordination of the first Mongolian priest.

Ulaanbaatar (AsiaNews) - Mongolian Catholics are mourning the sudden death of Msgr. Wenceslao Selga Padilla (photo), apostolic prefect of Ulaanbaatar and first bishop of the young Catholic community in Mongolia. The Filipino prelate, belonging to the Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (Cicm), died yesterday in the Mongolian capital at the age of 68, from a heart attack.

Ordained priest in 1976, Msgr. Padilla reached Mongolia in 1992 together with two confreres, to open a mission "where the Church had no physical structure or members to be considered its own". The country had just abolished the Soviet-style socialist political system and established diplomatic relations with the Holy See. "The idea of giving birth to a Church from nothing seemed like a frightening effort, full of challenges, but also of excitement", the bishop told AsiaNews in 2012.

In August 2003, he was named bishop of Mongolia by Pope John Paul II. With his work, Msgr. Padilla has contributed to the growth of the local Church. Throughout the country there are now seven parishes and three missionary centers, serving about 1,300 Catholics. There are 77 missionaries in all, coming from 22 nations of the world and belonging to 10 congregations. Among these, there are 26 priests and 45 nuns, plus a voluntary lay woman. On August 28th 2016, Msgr. Padilla celebrated the historic ordination of Fr. Joseph Enkhee-Baatar, the first Mongolian priest, in the cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul in Ulaanbaatar.

Two weeks ago, the apostolic prefect had taken part in a pilgrimage to Seoul along with other Asian bishops. On September 14th, at the sanctuary of the Seosomun martyrs, the ceremony with which the Vatican proclaimed the South Korean capital "international pilgrimage site" took place.Meghan Markle is taking to her royal duties pretty well if you ask us, if her latest media appearance is anything to go by. Monika Barton from NewsHub has more:

Meghan Markle was all smiles as she participated in a hongi during her first solo royal engagement.



The Duchess of Sussex partook in the traditional Maori greeting with several New Zealanders, including NZs UK high commissioner, Sir Jerry Mateparae and his wife, at the opening of the Oceania exhibit at London's Royal Academy of Arts on Tuesday evening (local time).

Meghan learned about some of the 200 artifacts on display during a private tour, serving as preparation for her upcoming tour of the South Pacific with husband Prince Harry.

She called it a "great introduction to the sights and sounds of that part of the world", reports the Daily Mail.

During her visit, the former Suits star met with the creators of Kiko Moana, a large textile piece created by a collective of Maori artists.

The Daily Mail reports the Duchess told Kiwi video artist Lisa Reihani she thought the work on show was "spectacular".

She was also treated to a waita performance from the Ngati Ranana London Maori Club.

The royal couple will visit Australia, Fiji, the Kingdom of Tonga and New Zealand later this year.

Credit to Newshub.Advertisement

Stunning photographs show the moment a deer sheds its velvet in the wild.

The natural process happens just before rutting season when bucks shed the velvet from their antlers depending upon many factors including the animals age and the latitude at which they live.

Gary Kramer captured a barren ground caribou shedding its velvet at Denali National Park, Alaska.

Stunning images show the deer shedding its velvet from its antlers. The process happens at this time of year and can depend upon many factors including the animals age and the latitude at which they live.

Deer antlers are used primarily to battle other male deer for mating rights. Male deer grow their first set of antlers when they hit puberty, at approximately one year of age.

When the antlers, which unlike horns have blood vessels, nerves and cartilage, are growing, they are soft to the touch or spongy which is called 'deer velvet'.

Gary Kramer, 70, captured a barren ground caribou shedding its velvet at Denali National Park, Alaska

When the antlers, which unlike horns have blood vessels, nerves and cartilage, are growing, they are soft to the touch or spongy which is called 'deer velvet'. Although there is a lot of blood, the process doesn't cause the deer any discomfort

By late summer, when testosterone levels are at their peak, the blood vessels shut down around the base of the antlers and they harden into bone.

Although there the antlers shed bloody red velvet, the deer do not feel any discomfort from the outgrowth.

Velvet peeling typically takes a day or two to complete and those lucky enough to witness this process will often see the deer rubbing their antlers against tree branches.

The process usually happens before rutting season and takes about a day or two to fully come off. The harder antlers are used for fighting off competition

Gary, a 70-year-old wildlife biologist from California, said: 'This was very unique opportunity to photograph a barren ground caribou in Alaska on the day the animal was shedding the velvet.

'In the early fall the males rub their antlers against trees and shrubs to remove the velvet that now cover the hardened antlers that will later be used for sparing and fighting with other males during the rutting season that is approaching.

People who catch this extraordinary scene will sometimes see the bucks rubbing their antlers on trees to pull the fur or 'deer velvet' off

'I saw this bull in the morning and the velvet was mostly in place with the rubbing just beginning.

'I returned the same afternoon and took these images. I saw the bull the next day and the blood had dried, and the antlers were brown, and all the velvet was gone.'Theresa May today admitted there is 'uncertainty' about post Brexit Britain after she was warned company bosses are 'daunted' about the UK's looming departure.

The Prime Minister tried to reassure bosses that Britain would still be one of the best countries in the world to operate in on a trip to New York today.

But with just a month to make 'significant' progress on her Brexit plans and fears of a no deal growing, bosses said they are gloomy about the country's prospects.

Meanwhile, Mrs May and French President Emmanuel Macron looked to have buried the hatchet today after their explosive fallout over Brexit.

The two leaders were seen exchanging kisses of greeting before laughing and joking alongside Belgian premier Charles Michel.

The warm scenes were a million miles from the Salzburg summit last week - when Mr Macron led a brutal assault on Mrs May's Chequers plan for Brexit.

The PM had hoped to get a signal from her EU counterparts that they were close to a deal on the future relationship.

Prime Minister Theresa May and France's President Emmanuel Macron (right) chat with Belgian premier Charles Michel (left) before a meeting of the United Nations Security Council

The two leaders were seen exchanging kisses of greeting before laughing and joking alongside Belgian premier Charles Michel

But instead the Frenchman pushed his colleagues into issuing a blunt statement that Mrs May's blueprint 'will not work' as it would undermine the single market.

At the Bloomberg summit on Wednesday, the PM admitted that there is 'uncertainty' about the UK's departure - but promised she is committed to doing everything she can to boost investment and jobs.

Stephen Schwarzman , CEO of Blackstone investment fund, asked Mrs May at the Bloomberg summit: 'How bad can things get? It's a little daunting for those of us on the outside.'

Mrs May replied: 'I absolutely appreciate and understand from that  you're making decisions and looking ahead to what the future holds.

'And at the moment there is that uncertainty about what the future will hold in terms of Brexit.

'First of all, just if I can say this again, we beieve that we will and can get a good deal. And that's because it's not just about the UK, it's about the EU as well, an I think that continued trading relationship is going to be good for both sides.

Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel, British PM Theresa May and French President Emmanuel Macron chat before the start of the United Nations Security Council meeting

The warm scenes were a million miles from the Salzburg summit last week - when Mr Macron led a brutal assault on Mrs May's Chequers plan for Brexit

'But there are several weeks of intense work to be done in order to get to that point.'

She vowed that Brexit Britain will be 'unequivocally pro business' as she tried to drum up support for the UK ahead of the looming departure.

The Prime Minister said London's financial centre will continue to be the 'envy of the world' as she addressed business leaders in New York.

She said the Government is committed to creating a British economy that has the skills to keep it at the forefront of global trade.

She said the UK economy will be 'knowledge-rich, highly innovative, highly skilled and high quality but with low tax and smart regulation'.

Theresa May (pictured in New York today) admitted there is 'uncertainty' about post Brexit Britain after she was warned company bosses are 'daunted' about the UK's looming departure

The Prime Minister (pictured with and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg at the summit today) tried to reassure bosses that Britain would still be one of the best countries in the world to operate in

Jeremy Corbyn to meet Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier after urging May to step aside for Labour Jeremy Corbyn (pictured today speaking to Labour conference in Liverpool) will meet EU negotiator Michel Barnier in Brussels tomorrow after demanding Theresa May stand aside if she cannot get her deal through Parliament Jeremy Corbyn will meet EU negotiator Michel Barnier in Brussels tomorrow after demanding Theresa May stand aside if she cannot get her deal through Parliament. Labour's leader used his main conference speech in Liverpool to demand a General Election if the Prime Minister cannot deliver a deal. Mrs May's proposals are rejected by the Brexiteer wing of her own party, Mr Corbyn's Labour and Brussels - making them look impossible to pass. Labour's conference has been dominated by Brexit splits amid a row over whether the party should endorse a second referendum. Party policy has stumbled toward backing a new poll if Mrs May refuses a general election - prompting further splits over whether remaining in the EU should be on the ballot. Shadow Brexit Secretary Sir Keir Starmer has seen off critics in the party this week who insisted any new referendum should only be between an exit deal and no deal - making a remain option likely. But Mr Corbyn told activists: 'Keir, having got agreement yesterday in this conference hall, getting one in Brussels should be a piece of cake.' Advertisement

Mrs May made the address at the Bloomberg Global Business Forum just days after the EU flatly rejected her Brexit Chequers plans.

Brussels leaders have rubbished the PM's plans saying they are unworkable, while Tory MPs on both the Remain and Leave wings of the party have declared the plan dead.

But Mrs May continues to insist that her proposals are the only credible plan on the table.

Her speech in America today came as Jeremy Corbyn laid out his vision for a socialist government at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool today.

In words which laid bare the large gulf between Tory and Labour plans, the PM vowed to keep Britain's corporation tax at the lowest level of any G20 country.

Currently 19 per cent, the rate is due to fall to 17 per cent in 2021.

Despite sharp reductions in the tax, which is levied on company profits, revenues from it have increased in recent years.

Mrs May's comments will be seen as a sign of further tax cuts to come after Brexit.

She pledged to create 'one of the most dynamic and business-friendly economies in the world'.

She also promised to 'spread the benefits of new sectors and technologies to every part of the country'. S

She said: 'My message today is that a post-Brexit Britain will be an unequivocally pro-business Britain.

'Through our modern Industrial Strategy at home we will create one of the most dynamic and business-friendly economies in the world  driving investment opportunities for your businesses and spreading the benefits of new sectors and technologies to every part of my country.

'And internationally  as a Global Britain  we will champion our vision for the future of the global economy: a vision that is based on openness, innovation, competition, high quality and intelligent regulation.

Theresa May meets with President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the United Nations in New York

Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament's representative in the Brexit negotiations, arrives at 10 Downing Street

'And we will be at the forefront of sustained international efforts to address the challenges facing global trade and to build a dynamic and competitive global economy that can truly work for everyone.'

She said: 'Whatever your business, investing in a post-Brexit Britain will give you the lowest rate of corporation tax in the G20.

'You will access service industries and a financial centre in London that are the envy of the world, the best universities, strong institutions, a sound approach to public finance and a consistent and dependable approach to high standards but intelligent regulation.'Outreach to young people and the lack of priests are great challenges. Maintaining a link with the spiritual homeland is necessary. The patriarch calls for an emergency government. For Lebanon, a million and half Syrian refugees is an unbearable burden.

Montreal (AsiaNews)  The first official meeting of the Conference of Maronite dioceses in the diaspora opened today in Canada in the presence of Patriarch Cardinal Beshara Al-Rahi.

The conference brings representatives of the dioceses of Brooklyn, Los Angeles, Montreal, Australia, Argentina, Brazil and France.

A report on the life of the dioceses with particular focus on young people will be presented. The bishops will also discuss the liturgy as a unifying factor among Maronites, and the link between Lebanon and the Lebanese Diaspora.

The agenda includes religious and national issues, such as the current political stalemate and the impact of such issues on the country and the Maronite community.

One of the most burning topics will be the lack of priests in the ever-expanding diaspora. In this regard, during the last synod of the Maronite Church in June, all the dioceses were invited to select priests who could serve abroad.

The assembly will have to deal with the problem of maintaining a distinct Maronite religious and cultural identity in the countries of emigration, where the quality of life is often higher than in Lebanon.

The Maronite Patriarch is set to focus on the links between the Christian faith and the Lebanese identity, stressing the importance of preserving the link with Lebanon, the Maronites "spiritual homeland".

For the Church leader, this is his second pastoral visit to Canada; the first was in 2012.

Yesterday, together with Canadian Maronite bishop Mgr Marwan Tabet, Card al-Rahi welcomed representatives of Lebanese parties at Saint-Maron Cathedral in Montreal.

On this occasion, he underlined "the importance of diaspora solidarity" and, slamming Lebanons domestic divisions", he recommended "that they not be exported".

Yesterday, the prelate spoke at the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Canada during its meeting in Cornwall (Ontario). He spoke about the difficulties facing Christians in the Middle East and condemned the states that "supply weapons and money to certain extremist groups" who have caused suffering to many Christians in Iraq and Syria.

In an interview in Canada with Lebanons Agence nationale de linformation (ANI), the cardinal reiterated his call to Lebanese political parties to form an emergency government, accusing them of muddling the situation in Lebanon, which is "economically and financially dead", even at a time when the international community is preparing an aid package of some US$ 11.5 billion to help breathe new life into the countrys ailing economy.

(Fady Noun contributed to this article)HARTFORD -- The Connecticut Department of Transportation said Tuesday it has completed four miles of a second railroad track between Hartford and Windsor, Connecticut.

The second track allows trains to pass each other, adds capacity and speeds Hartford Line passenger and freight service.

ConnDOT said some follow-up work will occur through November.

"This is another milestone for the NHHS (New Haven-Hartford-Springfield) Rail Program and the Hartford Line service," said Connecticut Transportation Commissioner James P. Redeker. "It also represents another step closer towards the 2030 vision of expanded rail passenger service in New England."

ConnDOT is now designing a second track between Windsor and Enfield, but it doesn't yet have the funding. This Windsor-to-Enfield project would connect with an existing double-track line between Enfield and Springfield. Connecticut is also in designing new stations in North Haven, Newington, West Hartford, Windsor, Windsor Locks and Enfield, but construction funding has yet to be secured.

Connecticut officials say more track north of Hartford might mean more trains to Springfield. CTrail's Hartford line service began in June.

Between state-run CTrail and Amtrak, trains will provide a total of 34 daily trips on weekdays, including 11 Springfield-to-New Haven and 12 New Haven-to-Springfield trips.

There will be 12 trips on Saturdays -- eight each Springfield-to-New Haven and New Haven-to-Springfield -- and 13 trips on Sundays and holidays, with nine each Springfield-New Haven in both directions.

It's Connecticut's first new train service in more than 20 years.

Amtrak trains operating on the Hartford Line reach speeds of up to 110 mph on portions of track in Berlin, Newington, New Britain and West Hartford and speeds up to 100 mph between Meriden and Berlin.

CTrail trains travel at speeds of up to 80 mph.

The trip from Springfield to New Haven can take as little as 81 minutes.

Springfield-New Haven CTrail service will cost more than $760 million in construction. Of that, the state of Connecticut is spending $564.3 million and $204.8 million came from the federal government.Are you a Verizon Wireless customer experiencing an issue with service? You're not alone.

Customers are reporting outages across the country.

"Verizon Wireless is currently experiencing an intermittent voice, text and data services interruption," the company said in a statement Tuesday. "Our engineers are aware of the issue and are working diligently to resolve it."

It remains unclear when the issue will be resolved nationwide, though service has been restored in much of the South, which was heavily impacted Tuesday.The region's largest parade celebrating Polish heritage and commemorating General Casimir Pulaski, hero of the American Revolution and Father of the American Cavalry, will take place here Oct. 8 as the Polish Heritage Committee of Northampton sponsors the 32nd annual Pulaski Day Parade.

Part of the celebration of Polish culture and history, the event will include local farmers, organizations and Polish groups from throughout the New England region.

The day begins with a Memorial Mass at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church, 99 King St., Northampton, at 10 a.m.

It has been a tradition, beginning at the former St. John Cantius Church and now at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church, to begin the day's event with a Mass not only to remember Pulaski but also the many Polish-American citizens who have made contributions to the United States. The Rev. Piotr Pawlus, pastor of Most Holy Redeemer Church in Hadley and a native of Poland, will celebrate the Mass.

The parade begins at about 11:15 a.m. at Lia Parking Lot on King Street, marching to Main Street and ending at Pulaski Park for a commemorative program honoring Pulaski.

This year's co-parade grand marshals are State Reps. John Scibak of the second Hampshire District and Stephen Kulik of the first Franklin District. The keynote speaker for the ceremony is Stephanie Kraft who for 40 years worked as a reporter for the Valley Advocate. She first visited Poland in 1988 on assignment for the newspaper and has been translating Polish literature since 1999.

Proclamations honoring Pulaski and the contributions made by Polish Americans are expected from Northampton Mayor David Narkewicz and Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker.

"Since 1608 when the first Polish settlers arrived in Jamestown, Virginia, Polish people have been an important part of American history and culture," said Robert A. Gibowicz, chairperson of the Polish Heritage Committee. "Now, in the 21st century, we see changes. Ethnic drift-away, residential dispersal, inter-marriage and geographic mobility require a different approach than was used in the days of the tight-knit Polish neighborhood."

America as a whole is changing, and Polonia is one of its component parts, he continued. "If we don't promote our heritage, who will? We can learn so much from others, but it is useless unless we have something to compare it to. We must first understand who we are and where we came from. This makes us better people, and that is how American Polonia can survive."

Gerald S. Budgar grew up in Ward 3 of Northampton, which was traditionally known as "the Polish ward." He had a lot of friends, classmates and neighbors who were Polish, and he enjoys them and their warm, family-oriented culture. He was honored to be asked to become a committee member and likes working on the parade and seeing "the joy in the faces of so many old friends as the units march by."

He is co-chair of the Pulaski Day Parade and celebration and has been working on the committee for the past several years. "I was recruited for the Polish Heritage Committee by some friends who were members who felt I could assist with the parade because I am a good event organizer," he said.

President Herbert Hoover signed a congressional resolution in 1929 declaring an annual Pulaski Day. The granite monument in Northampton was erected shortly after; former President and Northampton Mayor Calvin Coolidge unveiled it.

This holiday is celebrated every year on Oct. 11 by Presidential Proclamation, to commemorate Pulaski's death from wounds suffered at the Siege of Savannah on Oct. 9, 1779, and to honor the heritage of Polish Americans.

According to John F. Skibiski, a committee member, Poles came in small groups into the Northampton area about 1885 to work on farms. "Later factories had agents in Europe with picture posters selling the virtues of work in new factories here which attracted many," he added.

They came penniless, without the benefit of knowing English, honored to take farm and factory work in the area. "They came as both industries needed laborers to maintain the farms and develop factory products and jobs were easily found. Some factories even offered housing," Skibiski said. "This was a time when America was beginning to evolve from its agricultural roots into an expanding 'white collar' society with jobs open to those who could speak and write English as those 'locals' moved toward the glamour jobs of secretarial, clerking, teaching, sales representatives, mechanic type jobs."

The earliest Pole known to arrive in Northampton was a young exiled nobleman, August A. Malczewski vel Jakubowski, who came, after a failed uprising against Russian rule, to teach French at Miss Dwight's Seminary in 1837; soon after three other exiles joined him as they taught French, poetry and guitar.

Polish immigrants brought with them their homeland customs and traditions, their food, their work ethic and thrift and their Catholic religious rituals. "The various patriotic events are still observed as they unfold into modern times," Skibiski said.

The Polish Heritage Committee is active in the Northampton area sponsoring the Pulaski Day Parade and harvest dinners and recognizing patriotic holidays like May 3 Constitution Day during which Poland celebrates the world's second Constitution (the United States' was the first). It also sponsors language classes and a Christmas caroling event.

For more information go to facebook.com/genralpulaski.Two bishops who chair committees of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops have called the federal government's proposed changes to exclude legal immigrants receiving public assistance from permanent residency status "harmful to families, raising fear among immigrant families already struggling to fulfill the American Dream."

"Yesterday's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking undercuts decades of administrative policies and guidelines on how immigrants are treated by the United States government. This further compounds strict eligibility guidelines already in place preventing many immigrants from receiving federal aid," said Bishop Joe Vasquez, chair of the USCCB's committee on migration and bishop of Austin, Texas, together with Bishop Frank Dewane, chair of USCCB's committee on domestic and social development and bishop of Venice, Florida.

"While just beginning to review the Proposed Rule, upon initial analysis, it appears that this will be very harmful to families, raising fear among immigrant families already struggling to fulfill the American Dream. Further, it is likely to prevent families from accessing important medical and social services vital to public health and welfare."

The proposed changes to existing rules issued by the Department of Homeland Security can be made without Congressional approval, but do require a period of public input.

The proposed changes could affect more than 300,000 people annually and would "require all aliens seeking an extension of stay or change of status to demonstrate that they have not received, are not currently receiving, nor are likely to receive, public benefits as defined in the proposed rule."

Immigrants seeking permanent residency are asked they have received or a likely to receive public assistance, but non-cash benefits in the form of food stamps, housing vouchers and access to medical treatment have generally not been used to exclude them from obtaining a status that allows them to work.

Refugees, who enter with the right to work and are limited in terms of access to public benefits, are excluded by law from the proposed changes. Other orders by the current administration have greatly reduced the number of refugees annually allowed to enter the country.

The 447-page proposal called, "Inadmissibility on Public Charge Grounds," is published on the Department of Homeland Security's website as well as on the website of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.

The state website gives phone numbers for further information for those concerned about the proposed changes.

Much of the proposal, issued by DHS' U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, reads like a budget document. It details in-depth its right to make the changes, who would be affected and how factors would be weighed.

It would increase fees for change of status, including the current $1,670 for applying for permanent residency.

It excludes any assessment of what immigrants contributed economically as it terms studies showing significant benefit not verifiable.

It does acknowledge that the result of immigrants not applying for or withdrawing from public assistance in order to live and work legally in the country could produce "worse health outcomes," housing instability, and "reduced productivity and educational attainment" for the effected population.

Information provided by the Kaiser Family Foundation indicates some 20 million children in immigrant families could be affected by such changes.

The proposed changes also note "that reductions in federal and state transfers under federal benefit programs may have downstream and upstream impacts on state and local economies, large and small businesses, and individuals."

It also recommends that "immigration lawyers, immigration advocacy groups, health care providers of all types, non-profit organizations, non-governmental organizations, and religious organizations, among others, may need or want to become familiar with the provisions of this proposed rule."

It adds, "The primary benefit of the proposed rule would be to help ensure that aliens who apply for admission to the United States, seek extension of stay or change of status, or apply for adjustment of status are self-sufficient, i.e. do not depend on public resources to meet their needs, but rather rely on their own capabilities and the resources of their family, sponsor, and private organizations."

Supporters of the proposed changes include Mark Krikorian, the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, who told the New York Times the issue is "not a moral one" in terms of screening of immigrants.

"A Honduran with a sixth-grade education level isn't morally flawed, but he works three jobs and still can't feed his family," Krikorian said.

"Immigrants with low levels of skill are a mismatch for a modern society like ours."The Republican each week will put together a slideshow of select clips and comics from the archive from the past 100 years.

This week's selection of clips, headlines and comics from the past 100 years. This week we feature clips from 1943, 1953 and 1968.

From the September 27, 1968 edition of The Springfield Daily News

Seventy years ago, this week, local freshman women at the Massachusetts State college in Amherst, were getting moved in to fraternity houses on campus. Dormitory space for women students had been taken over by Army trainees, so the women took over the frat houses.

From the September 25, 1943 edition of The Springfield Daily News

On the same day, the family of Myron Albert, of Springfield, learned that their son may be safe in Siberia. Previously listed as missing after a bombing mission over the Kuriles Islands, it was announced that he may have been on one of the seven planes that landed in Soviet territory on the way back to base in Alaska. The Red Cross was requesting further information from the Russians.

From the September 25, 1943 edition of The Springfield Daily News

Ten years later, the E Pluribus Unum Fraternity of Springfield hosted a benefit jazz dance at the Auditorium. Several hundred participants enjoyed the music from 9 till 1. Martha Holmes, of Springfield, was the special guest having been prviosly crowned 'Miss E Pluribus Unum Fraternity of 1953.'

From the Septemebr 26, 1953 edition of The Springfield Union

And back in 1968, the Red Cross expressed concern over a Defense Department blood collection center opened at Westover AFB. The concern was that the Westover collections, sent to Vietnam, would pressure local blood banks that were already short on blood. The base quota of one thousand pints of blood per year for the war effort equaled the one thousand pints that Westover personnel had previously donated to local blood banks.

From the September 27, 1968 edition of The Springfield Daily News

The pages of The Republican and its predecessors can be found online through the Newsbank Historic archive. The Historic Archive includes editions from 1824 to 1989. Pages and clips can be printed or downloaded in pdf format.A private transportation company seeks to offer a new form of travel connecting Boston and New York in under an hour.

Boston-based Transcend Air Corporation is developing the Vy 400, a six-seat, vertical take-off and landing aircraft. "It takes off and lands straight up and down," the company said of the aircraft's design. "This means we don't need runways and airports. We're able to depart and arrive right in major city centers."

The company says the prototype can travel more than 400 miles per hour - three times faster than traditional helicopters - cost less to operate and offers a quieter ride than a helicopter.

"The Vy will provide faster, more affordable door-to-door service than either helicopters or conventional airplanes, without the need for airports," the company said in a statement. "Transcend will deliver service right from major city centers, such as Manhattan and downtown Boston, using VTOL-ready landing pads."

The company plans to launch commuter services between multiple North American cities in early 2024. Current planned services include: flights connecting New York City and Boston in as little as 36 minutes; Los Angeles and San Francisco in 55 minutes; and Montreal and Toronto in 25 minutes.

Announced prices are comparable to commercial flights between cities: $283 to-and-from Boston; $315 for West Coast flights; and $325 for Canadian travel.

Transcend Air says they hope to expand to dozens more cities in later years.

"This is a necessary and transformative addition to city-to-city transportation options," Greg Bruell, co-founder and CEO of Transcend said. "It solves multiple problems at once: we'll take cars off congested roads, reduce pollution around airports, and lower the cost of air transportation while drastically reducing travel times."SPRINGFIELD -- Police are working to identify a suspect who broke into a Liberty Heights neighborhood pharmacy early Wednesday and made off with the cash register.

The break-in occurred at the Walgreens at 50 St. James Blvd. about 3:30 a.m., said Ryan Walsh, spokesman for Springfield police.

The cash register, the only item taken, is believed to have been empty, Walsh said.Francis announces a message about the Vatican's agreement with China on the appointment of bishops, "aimed at fostering a more positive collaboration between the Holy See and the Chinese authorities for the good of the Catholic community in China and for the harmony of the whole society ". Looking over the stages of the trip to the Baltic countries, he recalled the prayer "in the rooms where the regime's opponents were detained, tortured and killed. They killed more or less 40 a night. It is moving to see how far human cruelty can come ".

Vatican City (AsiaNews) - The trip to the Baltic States ended last night had a particular "ecumenical dimension" because in those countries "the challenge is to strengthen the communion among all Christians, already developed during the harsh period of the persecution ". This was the theme of Pope Francis general audience today, at the end of which he announced the publication of a message on the agreement between the Holy See and China.

"Last Saturday, September 22, a Provisional Agreement was signed in Beijing between the Holy See and the Peoples Republic of China, on the appointment of Bishops in China. The Agreement is the fruit of a long and pondered path of dialogue, geared to fostering a more positive collaboration between the Holy See and the Chinese Authorities for the good of the Catholic community in China and for the harmony of the entire society.

In this spirit, I decided to address to Chinese Catholics and to the whole universal Church a Message of fraternal encouragement, which will be published today. With this, I hope that a new phase will open in China, which will help to heal the wounds of the past, to re-establish and maintain the full communion of all Chinese Catholics and to assume with renewed commitment the proclamation of the Gospel. Dear brothers and sisters, we have an important task! We are called to accompany our brothers and sisters in China with fervent prayer and fraternal friendship. They know that they are not alone. The whole Church prays with them and for them. I ask Our Lady, Mother of Hope and Help of Christians to bless and protect all Catholics in China, while we invoke from God the gift of prosperity and peace for all the Chinese people".

Previously, recalling the stages of his journey, Francis told the 30 thousand people present in Saint Peter's Square that it took place on the centenary of the independence of these countries. " One hundred years, half of which they lived under the yoke of Occupations, first the Nazi and then the Soviet. They are people that have suffered much and, because of this, the Lord has looked at them with predilection. Im certain of this".

" My visit happened in a rather changed context from that which St. John Paul II found. My mission was to proclaim anew the joy of the Gospel and the revolution of tenderness, of mercy, because freedom isnt enough to give meaning and fullness of life, without love, the love that always comes from God. The Gospel, which in the time of trial gives strength and encourages the struggle for liberation, in the time of freedom is light for the daily journey of people, of families, of the society, and salt that gives flavour to ordinary life and preserves it from the corruption of mediocrity and egoisms".

Francis emphasized that in the meeting with the authorities of the three countries he encouraged dialogue between the elderly and the young, "so that contact with the roots can continue to fertilize the present and the future. I exhorted to always combine freedom with solidarity and hospitality, according to the traditions of those lands. ". In particular, " In Latvia with the elderly I stressed the close bond between patience and hope. Those that have gone through harsh trials are the roots of a people, to protect with Gods grace, so that the new shoots can draw from them and flower and bear fruit. The challenge for those growing old is not to harden inside, but to remain open and tender in mind and heart, and this is possible with the lymph of the Holy Spirit, in prayer and in listening of the Word".Western Massachusetts homeless shelters have no reported cases of hepatitis A, but will continue following health protocols after an alert about an outbreak concentrated in the eastern part of the state.

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health reported Monday that 65 people experiencing homelessness or substance use disorder had contracted the virus, which affects the liver and can cause severe illness. One of those people died as a result of the infection.

State data indicate a total of 67 people diagnosed with the virus in Massachusetts as of Tuesday.

The state reported 32 cases in Suffolk County, with Plymouth County reporting eight and Essex County seven. There were six cases reported in Bristol County, four each in Middlesex and in Norfolk counties, three in Barnstable County and two in Worcester County.

There was just one reported case in Hampden County and none in Berkshire, Franklin or Hampshire counties.

Massachusetts is one of nearly a dozen states with reported outbreaks, according to the the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

ServiceNet runs shelters in Northampton, Greenfield and Pittsfield. Amy Swisher, vice president of community relations with ServiceNet, said the virus tends to affect people living on the streets more than those in shelters, where "we observe universal hygiene" protocols to keep guests safe.

She said people exposed to urine and feces outdoors are more at risk.

State officials say hand washing is vital because the virus is often spread when infected people do not wash their hands, or do not wash them adequately, after using the toilet.

Swisher said the ServiceNet shelters will continue to observe "universal precautions" following the alert.

The largest Boston shelter for the homeless also did not have any cases but is trying to vaccinate more of those living on the streets or seeking shelter.

The Pine Street Inn, which provides 675 beds in four locations, "is taking proactive measures, offering vaccinations and education," said spokeswoman Barbara Trevisan. She said the shelters are offering hand-washing clinics as well.

While the shelter has not had any cases, Trevisan said, the alert is "enough of a concern, we are definitely paying attention to it. We'll do everything we can (to reduce the risk)."

William J. Miller, executive director of Friends of the Homeless, said there have not been any cases of hepatitis A at its shelter on Worthington Street in Springfield. But he said the organization is working with health care staff and hoping the state will make more vaccines available "for people in the population who are at risk.

"People with compromised immune systems, substance users, anyone living in homeless shelters is at risk," he said.

While the state alert "gets our attention," Friends of the Homeless is "not unduly alarmed."

"We run a very sanitary environment," he said.

Miller said "we're most concerned about the physical health needs, mental health needs and substance abuse needs. ... The opioid crisis is staring us in the face."

Symptoms of hepatitis A include fever, tiredness, loss of appetite, stomach pain, nausea, diarrhea and jaundice, according to the state Department of Public Health. Symptoms appear between three weeks to a month after exposure.WEST SPRINGFIELD - Officials with the Massachusetts Department of Transportation are hosting a town hall meeting on Tuesday to prepare West Springfield and Agawam residents of traffic impact of the upcoming $21.5 million overhaul of the Morgan-Sullivan Bridge.

The public meeting is planned for 6:30 p.m. in West Springfield Town Hall on Central Street.

It is intended to give residents the opportunity to hear about the project and to ask questions.

The Morgan-Sullivan bridge connects West Springfield and Agawam along the major artery of Suffield Street and Memorial Drive.

Preliminary work is scheduled to begin next month, and Work is expected to begin in November and last until the end of 2021.

By November, traffic on the bridge will be reduced to one lane in each direction instead of two. This configuration will remain in place until the work is completed.

The work planned will replace the bridge, which was built in 1945. It is considered structurally deficient, which means is it safe for travel but needs attention.

The project also calls for reconstructing and adding new traffic signals on Memorial Avenue in West Springfield, at Springfield Street in Agawam at Main and Suffield streets, and at Walnut Street.Stephen Crosby, the chairman of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, resigned Wednesday, effective immediately.

"With a profound sense of sadness, regret--and yes, frustration--I am resigning as Chair of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, in order to give you the best possible opportunity to do your work without distraction," Crosby said in a letter to the four remaining commissioners and agency staffers.

The full text of the letter is available below.

Crosby pointed to having "twice been accused" of pre-judging the outcome of the commission staffers' ongoing investigation into whether Wynn Resorts is still suitable to hold the eastern Massachusetts casino license after sexual misconduct allegations were detailed against casino mogul Steve Wynn. Wynn stepped down from the company while denying the allegations earlier this year.

The accusations against Crosby from opposite sides of the fight over Wynn Resorts' suitability -- Steve Wynn's attorney and an attorney for former rival Mohegan Sun -- were based on Crosby's response to a question from MassLive earlier this month.

"Based on our experience, I have reason to expect that the Commission's objectivity--even if I recuse myself from the current proceedings--will be challenged," Crosby said in his letter.

Before he was tapped by Gov. Deval Patrick as chairman of the Gaming Commission, Crosby was the founding dean of UMass Boston's McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies. He also served as the state budget chief under Gov. Paul Cellucci and Gov. Jane Swift, and managed the 1979 re-election campaign of Boston Mayor Kevin White.

"There has never been a shred of truth or accuracy to any charge of bias, favoritism, corrupt practice, ethics violations, or prejudgment in my execution of this job," Crosby wrote to the other commissioners. "I established our core value that our work must be 'participatory, transparent and fair.' I live that core value, as you do."

Under Crosby, the Gaming Commission has overseen the openings of MGM Springfield and Plainridge Park Casino, a slots parlor near the Massachusetts-Rhode Island border.

The Sept. 27 meeting of the Gaming Commission is still set for 10 a.m. in Boston, according to a commission spokeswoman. The hearing process for how to handle the investigators' report on Wynn's suitability remains on the agenda.

To the Commissioners and Staff at the Mass Gaming Commission--

Just recently, I have twice been accused of prejudging the outcome of the Investigations and Enforcement Bureau's ongoing investigation regarding the suitability of Wynn Resorts.

On September 17, 2018, I received a letter from a lawyer for Steve Wynn insisting that I had already made up my mind against Steve Wynn regarding the allegations of sexual misconduct. On September 25, 2018, our counsel received a letter from counsel to Mohegan Sun, which has sued the Commission over the award of the Region A license to Wynn, insisting that I had already made up my mind in favor of Wynn Resorts in the suitability investigations.

Simultaneously, Suffolk Downs filed a $3 billion lawsuit against Wynn Resorts, in which pages of accusations regurgitated false claims of bias made against me in the past.

Sadly, we've been here before. It was about four years ago that the Gaming Commission was battered by lawsuits and accusations of bias in the matter of the Region A licensing process. I was often at the center of these lawsuits and accusations. As the Commissioners now prepare to receive and deliberate on the IEB investigation of the suitability of Wynn Resorts to hold the Region A license, the lawsuits, threats of lawsuits and false allegations have begun anew.

Based on our experience, I have reason to expect that the Commission's objectivity--even if I recuse myself from the current proceedings--will be challenged.

Four years ago, I made a statement that is equally true today: "I have said repeatedly over my years as Chair that the single highest priority for our work is that we protect the integrity of the decision-making process. And I've said repeatedly that the appearance of integrity as well as the reality of integrity is critical."

I simply cannot let my involvement in these critical deliberations be used by others to hamper the Commission's ability to do its work, or to undermine the confidence of the public in that work.

There has never been a shred of truth or accuracy to any charge of bias, favoritism, corrupt practice, ethics violations, or prejudgment in my execution of this job. I established our core value that our work must be "participatory, transparent and fair." I live that core value, as you do.

We have done extraordinary work at the Gaming Commission, under the most daunting of circumstances. We have launched a mixed-use development project in Springfield, anchored by the casino, that has the potential to dramatically regenerate the economy of that rising post-industrial city. We built a casino in Plainville that has repatriated tens of millions of dollars of out-of-state spending, and employed nearly 150 unemployed or underemployed residents. Our research agenda is unprecedented globally, and will provide a comprehensive picture of all of the social and economic consequences--good or bad--of the introduction of casinos. Our commitment to diversity and inclusion, internally and with our licensees, has surpassed all previous standards of a diverse casino construction workforce, has created hundreds of millions of dollars for women, minority and veteran-owned businesses--and has been central to a statewide initiative to provide women opportunities in the construction trades.

Our partnership with the Department of Public Health to design and implement the most creative and effective programs to prevent, ameliorate and treat problem gaming is the only partnership of its kind in the United States. Our own responsible gaming strategies inside the casino--GameSense, PlayMyWay, and engaged Voluntary Self-Exclusion--have made Massachusetts the envy of responsible gaming activists around the world.



That is your work, and it has been phenomenal. It is also demanding, exhausting, intensely scrutinized, and at times challenged by people of both good will and ill will. I cannot let my role here make it all the harder for you to do your work.

With a profound sense of sadness, regret--and yes, frustration--I am resigning as Chair of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission, in order to give you the best possible opportunity to do your work without distraction. And I leave the leadership of this organization in the very capable hands of your four Commissioners.

I am deeply proud of the work we have done together--and I know you will continue your remarkable innovative work on behalf of the people of Massachusetts.

Thank you.

SOne of the six men added to the Massachusetts State Police Most Wanted Sex Offenders list this month has been captured after police tracked him to a trailer park in New Hampshire, Wednesday.

Richard F. Fleurant, 79, is a Level 3 sex offender and was allegedly in violation of the state requirement to register. Warrants for his arrest had been issued from Boston and Gardner, police said.

He is the third of six men to be captured from the department's Most Wanted Sex Offenders list in the past two weeks. Roberto Jiminez, 35, was arrested in an apartment on Sargeant Street, Holyoke, within 24 hours of police announcing his name had been added to the list. Michael Joslin, 54, of Fitchburg, has also been apprehended, police said.

Fleurant was convicted in 1977 of committing unnatural acts with a child under 16 in connection with multiple incidents that occurred in Weymouth. He worked as an apartment building superintendent and victimized teenage boys who frequented the premises. He spent years in state prison and was ordered to abide by lifetime sex offender registration requirements, police said.

Trooper Thiago Miranda, a member of the Violent Fugitive Apprehension Section, learned Fleurant had been living in Gardner in the spring. During his investigation, he discovered Fleurant had moved to a trailer park in New Hampshire.

At about 10 a.m., members of the task force apprehended Fleurant at the Maple Grove Campground in Pembroke. He was arrested without incident and brought to Merrimack County Jail in Boscawen, New Hampshire. He is being held pending rendition to Massachusetts, police said.PITTSFIELD - A 28-year-old man was sentenced to three years in prison and two years of probation after pleading guilty to raping and abusing a child who is now 17.

Julian D. Medina-Aviles, of Pittsfield, pleaded guilty Tuesday to two counts of rape and abuse of a child and one count of posing or exhibiting a child in a sexual act. Berkshire Superior Court Judge John Agostini agreed to dismiss charges of witness intimidation and violation of an abuse prevention order, Fred Lantz, spokesman for Berkshire District Attorney Paul Caccaviello.

Medina-Aviles was arrested on charges that he abused a girl in Pittsfield between February 27. 2016 and Nov. 19, 2016. The girl is now 17, he said.

Pittsfield Police investigated the crime, Lantz said.As members of the Springfield Police Department continued to be hauled before a grand jury investigating an alleged beating of four men by off-duty officers, the city is preparing to pay up.

Lawsuits brought by the alleged victims in the 2015 fight outside Nathan Bill's Bar and Restaurant will be settled for $885,000, the city said in a news release.

Herman Paul Cumby, who lost his job after suffering a concussion, fractured ankle and damaged teeth in the attack, will receive $750,000.

"We're happy that the city settled, at this point," Cumby's attorney Michelle Cruz said. "Even though the city settled and there's not going to be a trial, it's still difficult. He still has lifetime injuries, lifetime struggles. Physically, he's limited and disabled."

Jackie Ligon, Jozelle Ligon and Michael Cintron filed a separate lawsuit against the city in April accusing individual officers and the police department as a whole of violating their civil rights and covering up the assault. The city settled with them for $135,000, Springfield's law office said in a statement.

Their attorney, Joe Smith III, did not return requests for more detailed information about the settlement.

"While this ends the civil litigation, the city's police commissioner and Labor Relations Departments will continue to move forward on the disciplinary charges pending against the officers, with the assistance of Independent Counsel and retired Judge Bertha Josephson, and a hearing before the Community Police Hearing Board," Mayor Domenic Sarno said in a statement.

The city participated in mediation with the plaintiffs and their attorneys for several weeks before reaching an agreement, Springfield City Solicitor Ed Pikula said in a statement. The settlements were approved by the City Council during executive session, and the payouts are scheduled for a public council vote on Oct. 1.

Cumby's settlement is the city's second largest pre-trial settlement in a police misconduct case since 2006, and the largest related to an alleged police beating, according to the city's 2017 Community Police Hearing Board report. In 2016, Charles Wilhite received a $1.4 million settlement after being wrongfully imprisoned for murder.

In 2014 the city paid out a $1 million settlement to the family of 15-year-old Delano Walker Jr. after a jury sided with the family and concluded that officers had violated Walker's civil rights. Walker was killed in 2009 when struck by a car during an encounter with police.

The alleged 2015 beating is also the subject of an ongoing grand jury run by the office of Attorney General Maura Healey, which is considering possible indictments against officers involved in the fight.

Cumby, the Ligon brothers and Cintron claim that on April 7, 2015, they were having drinks at Nathan Bill's when a group of off-duty officers started an argument. Jozelle was whistling at a bartender for a drink, but Officer Daniel Billingsley accused him of whistling at Officer Melissa Rodriguez, his girlfriend, the men told internal investigators.

After a verbal argument, which Cumby and Jackie Ligon said they attempted to defuse, Billingsley allegedly told staff that the men were not welcome in the bar. Uniformed police officers responded to the bar but made no arrests as the dispute remained nonviolent.

Cumby and his group left the bar, where they separated, with Cumby walking down the street while speaking to his girlfriend on the phone and the Ligons and Cintron waiting in the parking lot of a nearby store for Cumby to return and drive them home, according to interviews with the alleged victims.

Cumby, who has said he was afraid he would be targeted and pulled over if he drove away while the off-duty officers were still at the bar, reunited with the other men around 2 a.m. - and saw a crowd of 10 to 15 bearing down on them, he said.

Leading the way was Billingsley, according to Cumby's lawsuit, who allegedly began yelling at the men and hit Jozelle. Jackie threw a punch in return, and Cumby - who has said he was trying to peacefully end the fight -- was allegedly struck from behind by a baton and knocked unconscious.

Cumby suffered a broken leg and loosened teeth in the fight, according to medical records reviewed by MassLive.

The department's Major Crimes Unit launched a criminal investigation after Cumby filed a complaint, and the Hampden District Attorney's Office concluded that the men were victims of an assault -- but that no charges could be brought due to unclear identifications of the attackers.

The FBI launched their own investigation of the fight, before turning potential prosecution over to the state Attorney General's Office. In February, the AG's office began calling witnesses before a grand jury in Worcester, which is still ongoing.SUFFIELD - Police on Wednesday identified the victim of a Monday night fall at Suffield Quarry as Myles Simons, 22, of Southwick.

Simons was killed when he fell from a rock formation while hiking along a steep trail inside the private quarry.

A witness called police at 6:30 p.m. to report hearing a man yell and then fall from the rock formation and tumble down the steep slope, he said.

Police, fire and EMS personnel responded to the scene and prepared for a rescue operation but Simmons was found to be already dead. His body was transported to the Connecticut Office of the Chief Medical Examiner for autopsy.

The cause and manner of the death remains under investigation, according to Suffield police. Police are conducting a "close examination of the days prior" to the fall in the hopes of determining what events led to his death, police said.

People with information are asked to call Suffield Police at 860 668-3870.

The quarry is posted private property but is a popular hiking area for some. Police are warning people to stay away from the property, and have the owner's permission to charge people found there with trespassing.

Drone footage of Suffield Quarry by Flannagan Production, via Youtube videoPointing to the recent indictments of three former lieutenants of the Massachusetts State Police, Democratic candidate for governor Jay Gonzalez is planning to call for the removal of the head of the troubled law enforcement agency.

Gov. Charlie Baker appointed Col. Kerry Gilpin almost a year ago to clean up the State Police as the agency struggled with a series of scandals, including alleged overtime abuse within the now-defunct Troop E. Gilpin has referred troopers' names and information from an internal audit to prosecutors.

A total of eight current and former troopers face state and federal charges. Dozens more remain under investigation.

But Gonzalez is expected to say Gilpin, superintendent since November 2017, should have acted on some of the apparent issues within the agency when she held a previous State Police job in the division of standards and training, a campaign source said.

Gonzalez will also demand that new agency leaders, with no ties to the State Police, be appointed instead to carry out investigations, and he'll criticize the Baker administration for not moving more quickly to implement proposed reforms, according to the campaign source.

MassLive reached out to the Baker campaign for comment Tuesday night. GPS technology was activated within cruisers in May and the body camera program is expected to be in place by the end of the year.

At the press conference planned for outside the State House at 10 a.m. Wednesday, Gonzalez is also expected to call for the removal of Baker's public safety chief, Dan Bennett.

Baker, a Republican who took office in January 2015, has called the overtime abuse scandal a "conspiracy" that goes back years.

The amount of money pulled in by state troopers has often drawn attention and surprise: In 2011, 23 people within the State Police earned more than $200,000, according to a 2012 MassLive/Springfield Republican report.

Alongside the charges that are resulting from separate but related investigations by Andrew Lelling, the US attorney, and Maura Healey, the state attorney general, state officials have moved towards other reforms of the tarnished law enforcement agency.

The Massachusetts Department of Transportation, which had never exercised its right to audit tens of millions of dollars in funding sent to the State Police for overtime programs in prior years, now has plans to audit payments twice a year.

A special State Police audit unit, included in the state budget passed by lawmakers and signed by Baker, is staffing up with the aim of focusing on waste and misuse of public funds.

And the State Police announced this week that they're hiring the consulting firm Ernst & Young to audit and assess its policies and protocols.

"We are substantively increasing the operational and fiscal oversight of this agency to increase efficiency and accountability to the public," Gilpin said in a statement announcing the hire.SOUTH HADLEY -- John Forbes Kerry said he believes American democracy is the best political system on earth -- and that it can survive internal and external threats, but only if people get involved and commit to an ethos of national service.

"We Americans have stumbled upon something pretty special," he said. "If people will vote and we restore facts -- not alternative facts -- to the political dialogue, we will regain our country and its future."

Kerry spoke Tuesday at Mount Holyoke College in support of his new autobiography. He returned time and again to themes of optimism and engagement, with the occasional sharp barb.

"Nobody can retire right now. We have to save our country," he said.

In Every Day is Extra, Kerry writes about his childhood and teen years, his time at Yale and as a Naval officer in Vietnam, and his return to the U.S. as an anti-war and environmental activist. Kerry attended law school at Boston College, worked as a prosecutor, was Massachusetts lieutenant governor, a five-term United States senator, and Secretary of State under President Barack Obama.

Kerry expressed bitterness when speaking of his failed 2004 presidential run against George W. Bush. "They put out the swift boat attacks, attacked my record, and lied and lied and lied again," he said.

He railed against members of the Senate "who care more about party and president than the oath they took to uphold the constitution of the United States." He praised the late Senator John McCain, who he said embodied a sense of bipartisan compromise.

"That's what we have to restore today," said Kerry.

When asked if he would consider a run for president in 2020, Kerry said the midterms are what's important now. "All focus should be on electing a House and Senate," he said.

Asked by a young woman how to stay motivated, Kerry said to think of those who have gone to prison or risked their lives for their beliefs.

"We are here because some people were willing to risk hanging at the end of a British rope," he said of the country's founders. He also spoke of Civil Rights Era heroes who were killed, attacked by dogs, or spent time behind bars.

Kerry talked about the Paris Climate Accords, and said states with renewable portfolio standards will help drive policy change in the American energy sector, even if the White House won't.

He said President Donald Trump cut a bad deal in North Korea because he failed to gain information and data and didn't get concessions going in.

"We wanted to engage; we had back channels; we were prepared -- provided they were genuinely prepared to denuclearize," Kerry said of the Obama administration. In contrast, "Trump made the decision to just have a big Singapore bash" with no method to ascertain the size and location of any arsenal.

Kerry praised his own Iran deal and said it was the "single strongest most accountable transparent nuclear agreement with any country in the planet" and that defense, intelligence, and energy departments had all signed off on it.

"We demanded Iran take specific steps before we did anything," he said, such as getting rid of stockpiles of enriched Uranium.

Kerry said armed conflict is not a good thing, and that "before you send young men and women into war, you'd better damn well exhaust all avenues of diplomacy."Springfield state Rep. Angelo Puppolo is defending Col. Kerry Gilpin as Jay Gonzalez, Democratic candidate for governor, calls for her removal as head of the Massachusetts State Police.

In a release, Puppolo called Gonzalez's push for her ouster "political nonsense" and headlined his comments with "Gilpin must stay."

"Yes, there were many significant problems at the State Police but Col. Gilpin has been proactive and aggressively tackling these issues one by one, and in 10 months she has instituted many reforms with more to come," said Puppolo, a Democrat who serves as the chairman of the House Committee on Technology and Intergovernmental Affairs.

Puppolo noted that lawmakers created a State Police special audit unit through the state budget that Gov. Charlie Baker, a Swampscott Republican who is running for a second four-year term, signed into law.

The Gonzalez campaign is pointing to the recent indictments of three ex-lieutenants as part of the overtime abuse scandal and saying Gilpin should have acted on the State Police issues when she was working for the agency's division of standards.

State lawmakers have also displayed some reticence to tackle the issues at the State Police, with Sen. Kathleen O'Connor Ives saying her oversight panel had its plate "full."

"The State Police situation is so huge in terms of its seriousness and potential criminality, that it's actually beyond the scope of this committee," she told reporters in June.

Gilpin, installed by Baker to overhaul the State Police, is conducting her own internal investigation on overtime abuse and has passed along the names of dozens of current and former troopers to prosecutors. The agency this week announced it's hiring Ernst and Young, a consulting firm, to look into payroll practices.Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 26)  A Filipino worker in Farasan Island, Saudi Arabia was shot after allegedly killing his Saudi manager, Pakistani co-worker and wounding several others, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said in a statement Wednesday.

"The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) has been informed that an overseas Filipino worker in Saudi Arabia was shot and killed after allegedly stabbing to death his Saudi manager and a Pakistani co-worker and wounding several others on Wednesday afternoon," the statement said.

It said the department had received reports from the Philippine Consulate General in Jeddah about the incident.

According to initial reports, "the Filipino allegedly first stabbed the Pakistani (co-worker) after an argument, then also stabbed the Saudi (manager) and several other co-workers when they tried to intervene."

The DFA said according to Consul General Edgar Badajos, security personnel of the company, which is a subcontractor of the Saudi Electric Company, "immediately responded and shot and killed the Filipino."

"A team from the Consulate is being dispatched to Jizan, located more than 600 kilometers from Jeddah, to gather more information about the incident and assist in repatriating the remains of the Filipino whose identity is being withheld pending notification of next of kin," the DFA said, quoting Badajos.

Farasan Island is 60 kilometers offshore from Jizan City.Two UN agencies met people and held consultations to develop possible projects with the Myanmar government. UN teams worked freely and were not limited in any way. Bangladesh authorities plan to move Rohingya refugees from camps in Cox's Bazar to those under construction on Bhasan Char Island.

Naypyidaw (AsiaNews/Agencies)  The UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHRC) have completed their first assessment in Rakhine State, western Myanmar.

The agencies are analysing the data gathered, said Aoife McDonnell, reporting officer of the UNHCR. The fact-finding process follows local inter-ethnic violence, especially at the expense of Rohingya Muslims.

Staff from the two agencies met with people and held consultations to try to understand their needs and identify possible projects with the government to improve the lives of those affected by the conflict in 23 settlements in 16 village tracts in northern Rakhine.

For the first time since the outbreak of violence, Myanmar authorities on 12 September allowed UN officials into the conflict-torn area.

The UN had been waiting for authorisation since June when it had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Myanmar to help repatriate about 700,000 refugees who had fled to Bangladesh.

U Aung Thurein, a senior member of the Union Enterprise for Humanitarian Assistance, Resettlement and Development in Rakhine (UEHRD), said the UN teams were allowed to work freely and were not restricted in any way.

Through the UEHRD, an initiative undertaken by Myanmar State Councillor Aung San Suu Kyi, the government in October 2017 pledged to implement the directives of the Advisory Commission on Rakhine State chaired by Kofi Annan.

For their part, Bangladesh authorities plan to move Rohingya refugees from Cox's Bazar camps (pictured) to those under construction on Bhasan Char Island.

Located on the estuary of the Meghna River, where the latter meets the Bay of Bengal, the island is subject to flooding.

If Dhaka and the UN deem the camps on the island habitable, the process of transfer could start as early as next November, said Muhammad Habibul Kabir Chowdhury, head of Refugee Affairs at the Bangladesh Disaster Management and Relief Ministry, after he conducted an inspection in the area.On Thursday morning, a psychology professor from California will sit before lawmakers to accuse a Supreme Court nominee of sexual assault -- while all of Washington, and much of the nation, watches it live. It's a high-stakes, high-drama moment with the power to sink Judge Brett Kavanaugh's chances of winning a seat on the high court and to shift the dynamic in the upcoming midterm elections.

How will Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford prepare for the make-or-break event? Here's a look at what it takes to get ready for a public grilling.

REHEARSAL SESSIONS

First, they will practice. Both Kavanaugh and Ford have undoubtedly spent time with lawyers and other experts in the art of mounting a strong public defense.

These sessions can be nasty, merciless and rough -- often called murder boards. They're designed to squeeze frustration or even anger out of a nominee before the public hearing. Better that it come out in private than in front of the cameras, the thinking goes.

Justices John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor all underwent this grilling before their confirmation hearings. So do presidential candidates ahead of televised debates. Ohio Republican Sen. Rob Portman, for example, played Democrats Al Gore and Barack Obama in mock debates with George W. Bush and Mitt Romney to help the Republicans withstand anything that might throw them off-stride.

Kavanaugh spent hours at a time in the White House complex last week preparing for the upcoming hearing. He was joined by a team of officials including White House counsel Don McGahn and members of his staff, officials from the Justice Department, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, deputy press secretary Raj Shah and communications director Bill Shine. Shine's presence was noteworthy, since he was ousted from his previous job at Fox News in part due to his handling of sexual harassment claims at the company.

TEST THE MESSAGE

Kavanaugh had a dry run of sorts with his Monday night interview with Martha MacCallum of Fox News Channel.

With wife Ashley at his side, the appellate court judge denied at least six times ever sexually assaulting anyone. He said 15 times that he wants a "fair" hearing. He refused to speculate on Ford's motives for making such an accusation. He volunteered that he was a virgin throughout high school and for years afterward.

Kavanaugh, 53, even seemed emotional -- not necessarily a bad thing, according to Josh Kroon, a Washington-based expert in crisis communications for the firm Levick International.

"I think it played well for the people at home," Kroon said of the glimmer of Kavanaugh's frustration. "I think he's going to have to expand on the language. He has to get away from 'fair process' and 'I didn't do it.'"

Ari Fleischer, former press secretary to President George W. Bush, said, "The challenge for Brett will be conveying the expected emotion that would come with a full-throated denial. His nature is to be quiet, buttoned-down and studious, and if I'm accused of something I didn't do, I get a little hot, I get a little emotional."

Dan Pfeiffer, former aide to President Barack Obama, suggested that Kavanaugh came across as insincere and the product of elite society.

"He seemed entitled," Pfeiffer said. "He left a lot of additional ground for the Senate to cover on Thursday."

After the interview aired, the sense in the West Wing was relief that Kavanaugh was able to present an image to counter the allegations. Yet there remained concern among aides, and Trump himself, as to how Kavanaugh, who appeared shaken at times during the interview, would hold up facing far fiercer questioning from Senate Democrats on Thursday, according to a White House official not authorized to speak publicly about private conversations.

As for Ford, 51, she and her team have said nothing about how she's preparing for the hot lights to which she is even less accustomed than Kavanaugh. She works as a psychology professor in a consortium between Stanford and Palo Alto University.

PREPPING THE QUESTIONSThe scandals dogging the Massachusetts State Police were thrust back into the 2018 race for governor, as Democratic challenger Jay Gonzalez, hoping to oust Republican incumbent Charlie Baker, said the tarnished law enforcement agency has a "culture of corruption" that still needs fixing.

Gonzalez said Baker was slow to act on reforms and called for him to remove the head of the State Police the governor installed to carry out the reforms, Col. Kerry Gilpin. The state's public safety chief who oversees the State Police, Daniel Bennett, should also lose his job, Gonzalez said.

Gilpin, conducting her internal investigation since she took the top job in Nov. 2017, has referred the names of troopers to prosecutors for potential criminal charges in the overtime abuse scandal roiling the agency. Three current and former troopers have pleaded guilty to federal charges.

Baker defended Gilpin while speaking to reporters at an unrelated event in South Boston.

"She's the one who submitted the documentation to both the attorney general and the U.S. Attorney's office that has led to these indictments," Baker said.

The overtime abuse scandal, which is atop others involving the altered arrest report of a judge's daughter and a payroll director who pleaded guilty to stealing nearly $24,000, has surfaced in the governor's race before. Former Newton Mayor Setti Warren issuing similar criticisms of the Baker administration before he dropped his campaign earlier this year.

Baker has called the scandal a "conspiracy" and a "scam" that goes back years. The governor is "proud of his administration's record delivering on crucial reforms to solve long-standing problems at the State Police, bringing in outside experts to review and reform its practice," a Baker campaign spokesman said in a statement.

But Gonzalez said Baker needs to act more with a "sense of urgency to fix the culture of corruption and management failures."

"He just now is hiring an outside firm to review the payroll practices and personnel management practices," he added, referring to this week's announcement that the agency tapped Ernst & Young for $275,000.

Additionally, Gilpin was responsible for reviewing overtime abuse in a previous State Police job and she should've investigated further, according to Gonzalez. People without ties to the State Police should be installed atop the agency, he added.

Asked whether the overtime issues with State Police surfaced during his tenure as Gov. Deval Patrick's budget chief, Gonzalez said, "Not that I recall."

Tim Whelan, a Republican state representative from Brewster who served in the State Police for 21 years, defended Gilpin, noting she is the second female colonel in the State Police's history.

"He doesn't even know what he's talking about," Whelan said, adding that Gilpin "walked into the middle of a very difficult situation" that can't be completely fixed in 10 months.

When Gilpin was working in the division of standards and handling audits, she did not have access to radio and computer data that is now being used to the prosecutions of current and former troopers, Whelan added.

"It's a convenient argument for him that's rooted in absolute ignorance of what was available at the time to Gilpin when she was conducting her audits," Whelan said of Gonzalez.

Springfield state Rep. Angelo Puppolo, a Springfield Democrat, also came to Gilpin's defense and called Gonzalez's criticism "political nonsense."

Gonzalez said he disagrees with Puppolo. "I hear a lot from people on the campaign trail who are disgusted with what's happening at the State Police," Gonzalez said. "And it feels like every day there's one new revelation after the other."

Gonzalez said the guilty pleas and indictments of current and former troopers are based on alleged criminal conduct during Baker's tenure.

But prosecutors are attempting to go back further.

"We will go back as far as we can," U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling told reporters in June, after the arrests of three current and former troopers.

"Allegations like this where you could have widespread, systemic corruption -- in some ways petty corruption, not showing up for a shift and lying about having worked it -- I think you need someone to look at that because that kind of rot tends to spread," he said.India has launched the worlds biggest public health scheme promising free coverage for half a billion of its poorest citizens.

The National Health Protection Scheme, popularly known as Modicare, plans to provide around $7,000 of medical coverage to 100 million families or 500 million people, accounting for around 41 percent of people who fall below the poverty line.

The aim is to provide medical care to the people standing at the very margin of society. It has been a dream to provide health care to the needy and that dream is coming true today, Indian prime minister Narendra Modi said in a speech after inaugurating the scheme.

This is the first time in the world that a health care program is being launched where an individual will have an insurance cover of 5 lakh rupees ($7,000), he said as the schema was launched ahead of the May elections.

The program has been launched in 400 districts out of 640 in India.

The intervention is meant to take the burden off the government hospitals and bring the expensive private hospitals within the reach of poor people.

But critics and political rivals have questioned how the government plans to fund such an enormous safety net.

This is going to be another scam. It will benefit only private insurance companies. The citizen of the country will realise later that it is nothing but an election gimmick, said Sanjay Nirupam from Indias main opposition Congress Party.

There is a lack of clarity on this issue in the new scheme as well, says Dr. Shakil, a cardiologist based in Patna, the capital of the eastern Indian state of Bihar.

Talking to Arab News, he asks: How will you identify the real beneficiaries? Besides, the scheme will not build public health infrastructure but give benefit to the private players, which I think is the real drawback of this policy.

The government is in a hurry to launch the scheme and not many preparations have gone into it before inaugurating it.

Economist Venkat Narayana questions the budgetary provisions for the scheme. Under the scheme 60 percent of expenses would be borne by the central government and 40 percent by the state government. But the poorer states cannot afford the huge sums involved in the expenditure, says Narayana, who also runs NGOs for poor people in Warangal district in the South Indian state of Telangana.

My experience suggests that such a program does not address the real health care needs of the people living in villages and smaller cities. The money that the government plans to spend on insurance can be spent in expanding and enriching the medical infrastructure across the country.

Over the past few decades, rapid economic growth has allowed millions of Indians to lift themselves out of poverty. But the lack of quality and affordable medical care has meant that millions continue to be deeply vulnerable to health shocks.

A Mint analysis of data from the last National Sample Survey Office health survey conducted in 2013-14 shows that 36 million households incurred health expenses that exceeded the annual per capita consumption of those households.

Catastrophic health shock is defined as something that leads to annual expenses greater than the annual per-capita consumption of a household.

While the poorest are the most exposed financially to health shocks, even among those who are better-off, a significant proportion face health-related financial shocks.

Many families are simply too poor to contemplate a long-haul hospital stay.

The measures are Modis latest attempt to reform a public health system that faces a shortage of hospitals and doctors. The government has also in recent years capped prices of critical drugs and medical devices and increased health funding.

Still, India spends only about 1 percent of its GDP on public health, among the worlds lowest, and the health ministry estimates such funding leads to catastrophic expenses that push 7 percent of the population into poverty each year.Over the past weekend members of Canadas Ismaili community gathered in communities across the country to engage in a day of civic engagement and voluntary service.

The Ismaili CIVIC Initiative is part of a larger effort by the Canadian Ismaili Community to volunteer their service to Canada in helping to improve the quality of life for their fellow Canadians.

The Ismaili CIVIC Initiative is part of a larger effort by the Canadian Ismaili Community to volunteer their service to Canada in helping to improve the quality of life for their fellow Canadians.

Last year, in celebration of both Canadas 150th Anniversary and the Diamond Jubilee of His Highness the Aga Khan, the Canadian Ismaili community pledged to contribute 1 million hours of voluntary service to improving the quality of life for all Canadians. In cities across Canada including Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, Montreal, and Ottawa Ismaili volunteers joined hands with a number of civil society organizations to improve the quality of life of Canadians across the country.

Samir Manji, President of the Ismaili Council for British Columbia expressed, We in Canada have the privilege of living in a healthy vibrant democratic society. This is a rare opportunity and one that must be cherished dearly. We must actively participate in and contribute to the improvement of the societies, and the communities in which we live.

This, of course, is not only because of the value we place on the ethics of volunteerism but it is also our responsibility as citizens and as active members of Canadian society.Global Medical Device Regulations continue to evolve, as devices become more diverse and sophisticated. Understanding the regulations and requirements in your targeted markets will expedite speed-to-market of innovative products and assist patients needing access to life-saving products and technologies. Government Regulatory Authorities, needing to become more efficient with their time, are looking for ways to better use their internal resources without compromising safety in products, which become marketable. One such example is the Medical Device Single Audit Program [MDSAP], where Authorized Organizations would be allowed to carry out a single GMP audit on medical device manufacturing facilities and have it stand to support registrations across the current participating member countries: U.S. Canada, Brazil, Australia and Japan.

This two-day seminar is focused on understanding the Medical Device Single Audit Program, the scope of the program, how to apply, the Authorized Organizations, the rating system developed and what you can expect when signing onto the program. The seminar will discuss how such audits are organized, what to expect during a MDSAP audit, how does this differ from a typical certified body audit, along with document movement and timeline expectations in receiving the facilitys certificate.

The key Regulatory Requirements for Medical Devices will also be covered for the participating MDSAP Countries of: U.S., Canada, Brazil, Australia and Japan.

Learning Objectives:

The Medical Device Single Audit Program (MDSAP)

Device Classification

Licensing Pathways

Medical Device GMP

Inspections

Device Labeling

License Holder Responsibilities

Timelines and Fees

Country Specific Cultural Considerations and Challenges

Adverse Event Reporting

Who Will Benefit:

This two-day seminar will provide invaluable assistance to all personnel in the Medical Device industry, who have a stake in expanding their business into a MDSAP participating country and for those interested in more information about MDSAP and how it may apply to them.

This seminar will be particularly useful for those involved in research and development, document creation for regulatory submission, data handling and for those conducting/monitoring/coordinating clinical investigation, performing risk management and post-market vigilance/surveillance. This seminar is a must for those who are looking to apply for a medical device registration and product license in a MDSAP country.

Those employees working in the following roles will significantly benefit by attending:

Regulatory Affairs

Quality assurance, quality control, and quality systems

Product development personnel

Contract research organizations

Business management

Site managers

Senior and executive management

Contractors and subcontractors

Distributors

Consultants

Learn more and register: Medical Device Single Audit Program [MDSAP] Implementation & Participating Country Regulatory Processes: U.S., Canada, Brazil, Australia and JapanBy Dan Kelly

With an elementary-school-age son, a heavy workload and an often unpredictable travel schedule, I know that I would be lost if I didnt have a tremendously supportive and understanding spouse (who balances her own full-time work schedule). If asked, Im sure many working Canadians would report the same.

But for independent business owners, a spouse or partner is something even more.

Running a small business can mean shouldering the burdens and celebrating the payoffs of hard work without colleagues or professional mentors to lean on. Spouses and family members of small business owners frequently become not only their biggest cheerleaders but also their closest professional partners, in both formal and informal ways.

A majority of small business owners  more than two thirds  employ family members, according to a 2016 CFIB member survey. A separate survey found that more than half of small businesses compensate the owners spouses for their contributions to the business  often through a salary, dividends or some combination of both.

Being the spouse of a small business owner doesnt stop at devoting ones time and skills to the business. Spouses often have to maintain an outside job to provide stability while the business establishes itself. They might have to take on a greater proportion of the domestic labour, child or elder care, while their partner devotes long hours to running their business. And Ive met many spouses who have had to step in and run the business when something happened to their partner so they could keep the doors open, the lights on and the employees paid.

Spouses also have to share the uncertainties and the sacrifices owners make for their business  often including the inability to take a family vacation, difficulty qualifying for a mortgage, an unclear financial future, or even family bills going unpaid during bad months.

So it was jarring when the federal government introduced new rules on income splitting late last year, severely limiting small business owners ability to include their family members contributions in their tax calculations as of Jan. 1, 2018. Even more so because details of the changes were announced only two and a half weeks before they were to come into effect, with next to no consultation and despite protests from business groups, tax professionals and the Senate.

The government claimed the suite of new rules for sharing dividends or salaries with family members would have only a modest impact, affecting a handful of high-income earners. Unfortunately, upon greater review, this will affect tens of thousands of independent family businesses. In fact, the independent Parliamentary Budget Officer has estimated that the new tax revenue to the government will be two to three times higher than the government estimated and noted that it is extremely difficult to determine who will be affected by the new rules.

One of my greatest concerns is that it remains very difficult for any business owner  even for tax professionals  to clearly understand the new rules. A confusing mix of bright line and reasonableness tests, exemptions for some, but not for others will now be passed to the Canada Revenue Agency to interpret and sort out. And this was all done essentially retroactively before business owners were able to sort out and make changes to accommodate the new rules. Expect another round of panic among business owners when the audits of the 2018 tax year begin.

What is clear is that it will be nearly impossible for the CRA to sort out all of the formal and informal ways family members are involved in a business. Even family members who are not actively involved in the day-to-day operations are heavily implicated  as risk takers, extra labour, potential successors and investors.

I think back to a lunch I had with a woman whose husband runs a Quebec trucking firm. She told me that while her husband was the president and sole shareholder of the business, she has been keeping a handwritten note in their household safe noting the money she lent her husband to get the business going. I think of the woman I know who suddenly had to quit her day job in Manitoba to lead the family auto-body shop when her husband suddenly dropped dead. Or the husband of the dentist who does the books at home while his wife focuses on running the practice. How CRA will interpret the thousands of unique and often informal roles spouses play over the life of a business is anyones guess.

What has gotten lost in the discussion around income sprinkling is who these measures were originally designed to help. These arent CEOs of large corporations looking to offload some income on an uninvolved spouse so they can dodge taxes. These are typically long-running, independent businesses in which everyone in the family lends a hand when needed.

The contribution of family members, particularly spouses, should not be erased by a government that hasnt really tried to understand the reality of running a small business. CFIB is calling on all parties  including the current government  to commit to a full spousal exemption when business income or dividends are shared. The spouses of Canadian small business owners deserve this kind of respect.

Dan Kelly is the President, CEO and Chair of the Board of Governors of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB)The rising awareness about oral health and advancements introduced in the dental implants industry has fueled the expansion of the dental implants market. Market Research Future (MRFR) has unfolded in its latest report that the global dental implants market will reach a valuation of USD 5,944.5 Mn growing moderately at 4.6% CAGR.

To Get Sample Report visit https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/2753

One of the key factors driving growth in the dental implants market is the exponentially rising geriatric population. The elderly population of the world is rising exponentially which has paved the way for an accelerated demand for dental implants. Furthermore, the increasing awareness about oral health and the availability of implants as a solution for maintaining dental hygiene is projected to propel the market growth globally. The increasing count of patients suffering from oral cancer has escalated the demand for dental implants as a rehabilitation measure. Another factor responsible for the escalation of revenue generated from the market is the developments ushered in cosmetic dentistry treatment market.

However, long-term complications, pricing policies, post-surgery infections, etc. are some of the major restraints holding the growth of the market.

Industry Developments:

BIOLASE Inc., which is a company that develops, manufactures, markets, and sells laser systems in dentistry and medicine has BIOLASE User Community Initiative for promoting the use of laser in dental practices such as implants.

Key Players for Global Dental Implants Market

The key players profiled by MRFR in its latest report for a deeper insight into the market forecast include

Institut Straumann AG (Switzerland),

Osstem Implant (South Korea),

Dentsply Sirona (US),

CAMLOG Biotechnologies AG (Switzerland),

3M (US),

Nobel Biocare (Part of Danaher Corporation)(US),

Zimmer Biomet (US), and,

Neobiotech USA. Inc. (US) among others.

The growth strategies employed by the prominent players for catalyzing their revenue generation include competitive pricing, adoption of latest technology, post-surgical care, etc.

Segments for Global Dental Implants Market

By procedures, the Global Dental Implants Market has been segmented into comprises root-form dental implants, plate-form dental implants, and others.

By types of materials, the global market for dental implants is segmented into zirconium implant, titanium implant, and, others. The titanium implant segment will dominate a significant share of the market due to its characteristics such as biocompatibility, resistance to corrosion, strength, durability, etc.

By end-users, the dental implants market has been segmented into dental hospitals & clinics market, dental research laboratories, and, others.

Regional Analysis for Global Dental Implants Market

By region, the market has been segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and, Rest of the World (RoW). North America market will generate the highest share of market revenue owing to the advancements witnessed in the oral healthcare industry. The region will captivate 37.6% of the market size across the projection period. Growing awareness about aesthetics is the primary driver of the market in this region. Furthermore, increasing count of facial injuries will catalyze the market expansion in the region. Europe market will proliferate at a steady pace throughout the assessment period owing to factors such as increasing count of elderly people, rising incidences of oral diseases, etc. Moreover, the growth strategies employed by the top-notch players will intensify the competition in the market leading to an escalated rate of market growth in the region. Asia Pacific market holds potential for growth and will expand at the highest CAGR of 7.2% over the next couple of years. The established healthcare sector in emerging economies such as India and China will complement the growth of the market in the region. Japan will play an important role in the growth of Asia Pacific market due to booming healthcare sector coupled with increasing healthcare expenditure. The Middle East & Africa market will grow but at a slow pace due to minimum market penetration, sub-standard healthcare sector, poor economic conditions, etc.

To Get an Exclusive Discount on Report Visit https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/check-discount/2753

About Market Research Future:

At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Statistical Report, Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.

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Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.comMicroscopy Devices are garnering a huge prominence, finding a range of applications in Bio-engineering and electronics. Extensive uptake of electron microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) in electron micrographs methods are driving the market growth.

Global Microscopy Devices Market  Key Players

Some of the key players in this market are: FEI, Meiji Techno, Nikon Metrology NV, Woodley Equipment Company Ltd, Radical Scientific Equipments Pvt Ltd, Bruker, Mauna Kea Technologies SA, Icon Analytical Equipment Pvt. Ltd, Olympus Corporation, NIDEK Inc., Sonix, Inc., Konan Medical USA Inc., Carl Zeiss, Leica Microsystems and others.

Industry/ Innovation/ Related News

November 2017  Researchers of Germany and Portugal collaboratively developed the first microscope to concurrently monitor movement and neuron activity in zebrafish larvae without interfering with their behavior. To enable wider use in the research community, the neurobehavioral tracking microscope uses off-the-shelf components and is open source.

October 2017  Researchers at Keio University, Japan developed a single-step, laser-based method to produce small, precise hybrid microstructures of silver and flexible silicone that could enable factories to mass-produce customized devices that combine soft materials, like engineered tissue, with hard materials that add functions, like glucose sensing.

October 2017  Researchers at Brown University (US) innovated a laser terahertz emission microscopy (LTEM), a powerful technique to characterize the performance of solar cells and study a wide variety of materials to the Nano level.

October 2017  company M Squared (Glasgow, UK) developed the Aurora laser microscope that accurately images large biological structures at a cellular level, with the cutting-edge microscope capable of capturing 3D images 500-times faster than conventional technology. Creating images of neural connections with this level of detail could lead to breakthroughs in understanding neurodegenerative disorders.

Get Sample Report @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/sample_request/2313

Global Microscopy Devices Market  Segmentation

The MRFR analysis is segmented into four key dynamics for the convenience of understanding;

By Types: Comprises Optical Microscopes, Electron Microscope, and Scanning Probe Microscope (SPM), among others.

By Applications: Life Science, Material Science, Pathology, and Nanotechnology among others.

By End-Users: Comprises Hospitals & Clinics, Academic & Research Institutes, and Diagnostics Centers among others.

By Regions: North America, Europe, APAC and Rest-of-the-World.

Global Microscopy Devices Market  Regional Analysis

As per Market Research Future analysis, the global microscopy devices market has grown tremendously in Asia-Pacific, North America, and Europe and Middle East & Africa region. Geographically, Asia-Pacific holds the largest share of more than 40% of microscopy devices market and is expected to be the leading market during 2016-2022. Asia-Pacific market for microscopy devices is growing due to increasing investment in the research and development in these regions by the governments. Such as, China is the worlds second largest investor in research and development programs according to World Bank data. Furthermore, new development in semiconductors industry in the emerging nations has derived the growth of this market.

After Asia-pacific region, North American market is the second largest market in the global microscopy devices market. Increasing focus on R&D in nanotechnology and life sciences industries coupled with large federal and corporate funding serves as a significant driver for this region.

To Know More Enquire @ https://www.marketresearchfuture.com/enquiry/2313

Major Table of Content

Chapter 1. Report Prologue

Chapter 2. Market Introduction

2.1 Definition

2.2 Scope of the Study

2.2.1 Research Objective

2.2.2 Assumptions

2.2.3 Limitations

Chapter 3. Research Methodology

3.1 Introduction

3.2 Primary Research

3.3 Secondary Research

3.4 Market Size Estimation

Chapter 4. Market Dynamics

Continued.

About Market Research Future:

At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.

In order to stay updated with technology and work process of the industry, MRFR often plans & conducts meet with the industry experts and industrial visits for its research analyst members.

Contact:

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Email: salesteam@marketresearchfuture.comVuzix, a New York-based supplier of smart glasses and augmented reality solutions, has partnered with 1Minuut Innovation, a Dutch healthcare innovation company, to provide a real-time life experience solution for low-mobility patients. The system consists of the Vuzix M300 smart glasses and the 1Minuut Genzo app, and it allows patients who are confined to their house or bed to view a point-of-view (POV) live stream from someone wearing the glasses. The system is also useful for telemedicine, whereby a doctor can view a patient remotely and advise someone wearing the glasses on the most appropriate course of action.

At present, many patients with debilitating illnesses are confined to their house, bed, or a healthcare facility. This means that they can miss out on activities, experiences, and social interaction, significantly reducing their quality of life. Technology offered by Vuzix and 1 Minuut could help.

Their platform consists of smart glasses equipped with a camera and microphone. Using an app, a wearer can live stream a POV feed while wearing the glasses. Low-mobility patients can view the feed on a phone or tablet, helping them to be part of the experience. The list of possible experiences is endless, from trips to the zoo to family gatherings. 1Minuut has already started rolling the technology out within the Dutch healthcare system.

See a video below about someone who has benefited from the system:

Another application is telemedicine, in which the glasses can be worn by a healthcare assistant, such as a nurse in a nursing home or hospice, who can stream a live feed to a doctor in a remote location. The doctor can then guide the healthcare assistant in assessing and treating a patient and provide advice and feedback. The solution allows doctors to serve more patients, as it removes the travel time required for home visits.

Heres a video illustrating the telemedicine capabilities of the technology:

Link: Vuzix company homepage

Via: Vuzixby Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, September 26, 2018

Watching the new Murphy Brown brings with it a whole new category of pain for which the only recourse for relief is a preventative measure: Don't do it.

To the decision-makers at CBS who OKd it, the idea of bringing back Candice Bergen, 72, and her former co-stars after a 20-year absence to do fictional battle with the Trump administration might have looked good on paper.

But the finished product has a musty air to it, like the whole thing was just recently unpacked from deep storage and reeks permanently of mothballs.

Bergen is listless. The writing is juvenile. The sets, such as the bar Murphy and her co-workers repair to after their show is over (now manned by Tyne Daly), are so unrealistic that they look like they were designed and built by set decorators who last worked before the advent of high-definition television.

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The attacks on Trump are inevitably predictable. Worse, they are the same thing various sitcoms and late-night comedy shows have been doing for the last three years or more -- ever since (if not before) Trump first descended into the lobby of Trump Tower on an escalator to announce his candidacy for president in June 2015.

The new Murphy Brown is a very late arrival to this party, to say the least. If you watch the show, you might even conclude that old Murphy (as Donald Trump fictionally labels her on the show) has missed the anti-Trump boat entirely.

Do not hold your breath waiting for this show and its outspoken lead character to come up with anything new to say about Trump, the news media in general or Fox News Channel in particular.

On this show, Fox News has been fictionalized as the Wolf network. Get it? Fox? Wolf? Who is writing this show? Twelve-year-olds?

On the show, Murphy is seen waking from a deep sleep on Election Night 2016 like a latter-day Rip Van Winkle. Where has she been since 1998, when the old Murphy Brown went off the air? I could try and explain that here, but since nobody cares, I will refrain.

As the premiere episode airing Thursday night proceeds, Murphy is offered a two-hour morning show by a fictional cable network.

At the same time, her son -- the now-grown Avery who was born during the old show and who is now a swashbuckling TV journalist -- is offered his own morning show in the very same time slot on the dreaded Wolf network.

The scene in which mother and son each reveal their new-show news to each other is so poorly rendered -- with neither of them reacting with the kind of surprise you might expect over the setting up of this one-in-a-million mother-son competition on cable news -- that it's a wonder CBS didn't order it to be redone.

Much of the show consists of Bergen making windy speeches and then appearing visibly out of breath after doing so.

Among other things, she describes the Wolf network as a place where all the men are conspiracy theorists and all the women are dead behind the eyes! Cue canned laughter.

She refers to the Wolf network as the ministry of propaganda and, at various times, Murphy and her cohorts take shots at disgraced real-life news personalities such as Charlie Rose and Matt Lauer.

Taking shots at real-life people in the news and news media seems to be the theme of this show. In Episode One, Murphy has a Twitter war with Trump.

In Episode Two, Murphy sneaks into the White House disguised in a wig like she's Lucille Ball sneaking in somewhere with a false mustache in a late episode of Here's Lucy.

Once inside the White House, Murphy then spars with Sarah Huckabee Sanders at a press briefing and delivers a long-winded sermon about journalism.

In the process, Murphy blatantly calls Sanders (who is rendered in the scene by cutting her in from videotape of real-life press briefings) a liar.

Oh, and by the way, if anyone from Wisconsin is reading this, please note that Murphy Brown hates your state.

She says so in Episode Two when she describes the delight she experiences when spitting out her car window onto Wisconsin Avenue in Washington because, she explains, Wisconsin was once a blue state that turned red.

In response, people from Wisconsin or anywhere else might ask the newly awakened Murphy Brown: Who asked you?

The new Murphy Brown premieres Thursday (September 27) at 9:30 p.m. Eastern on CBS.by Ray Schultz , September 25, 2018

Salesforce opened its Dreamforce event by announcing several new products and upgrades for use by email marketers and brands in general  in a heated environment.

The event in San Francisco has drawn 171,000 registrants. But it has also attracted immigrant rights activists, who are displaying an "800-pound, 14-by-10-foot cage to protest the detention of asylum seekers at the U.S. border, according to Fast Company.

At the same time, the company announced that Salesforce.org is donating $18 million toward Bay Area education, homelessness and cleanliness.

The upgrades to the firms Customer Success platform include Salesforce Customer 360, a platform that will allow admins to connect Salesforce apps and manage customer data across clouds with a click-based user interface, the firm says.

Also being offered is MuleSoft Anypoint Platform, an application network graph that provides information on all systems, apps and their metadata and how they interrelate. And Einstein Voice will empower users to talk to Salesforce and navigate cloud services, the firm adds.

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Another new tool, Quip Slides, provides users with a single canvas for collaboration without forcing them to toggle between apps, the firm continues.

In addition, Salesforce has announced a strategic partnership with Apple, marrying CRM and iOS. Salesforce says it is redesigning its app to embrace the native mobile platform and adding new features on iOS.

The firm has also expanded its alliance with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to allow customers to share and synchronize data across AWS and Salesforce services.

Founder and co-CEO Marc Benioff welcomed attendees by saying they need new tools and skills to thrive in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Meanwhile, Dreamforce has drawn activists from Fight for the Future, Color of Change, Demand Progress and Defending Rights. Some have signed an open letter protesting the firms arrangement with the U.S. Border Patrol, which was announced in March.

In July, Benioff tweeted: Our employees asked me to review how CBP uses us & I included themSalesforce doesnt work with CBP regarding separation of families at the border. We dont have an agreement with ICE. When queried, a Salesforce spokesperson referred MediaPost to that statement.

In August, Benioff joined other members of the Business Roundtable, including Apples Timothy D. Cook and JP Morgan Chases Jamie Dimon, in signing a letter charging that U.S. immigration policies threaten the livelihoods of skilled foreign workers, and the nations economic growth, according to The New York Times.

Benioff and his wife Lynne recently announced they are acquiring Time magazine for $190 million.by Ray Schultz , September 25, 2018

Valimail, a provider of email authentication services, has joined the Microsoft Intelligent Security Association and will offer DMARC coverage free to Microsoft Office 365 customers.

The objective is to give Office 365 users visibility and control over how domains are being used  and abused  to send email, states Steve Mock, vice president for business development at Valimail.

Built from its IDEA platform, Valimails new DMARC for Office 365 will provide email users with knowledge of all senders worldwide who send email as them, the company says.

DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance) is a standard email verification tool that purportedly detects and blocks impersonation attacks while improving email deliverability and protecting a companys brand.

Microsoft hopes to give its customers greater ability to protect their users and gain control over how their email domains are being used, states Ryan McGee, director, Microsoft security marketing at Microsoft Corp.by Tanya Gazdik , September 26, 2018

Winter is coming, and the Aruba Tourism Authority is hoping to motivate some vacation planning with a campaign launching today.

The integrated campaign features dozens of Arubans, making a human connection between One happy island and its visitors -- a connection todays experiential traveler craves, according to the tourism group.

The effort, from Concept Farm, includes three niche-focused landing pages hosted by three local Arubans.

One- to two-minute videos highlight the islands attributes that are culinary (Samil), cultural (Vanessa) and romantic (Lilian).

Three 30- to 90-second videos feature residents who give mini-lessons about the culture and flavor of the island, including Frank (who explains the Papiamento language -- Cerbes Friu" equals cold beer): Irina (discussing Arubas Carnival costumes) and Sergio (helping visitors eel the rhythm of Aruban music).

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The campaign also includes GIFs and interactive content across TV, digital, social, native, influencers, print, out-of-home and trade shows. It all can be found on the Aruba Tourism Authoritys website. The tagline for the effort is: Our happy island. Your happy island. One happy island.

Creative highlights one of the destinations strongest lures for visitors: its warm and sunny people. "Local storytelling stimulates experiential travel and on-island spend," says Ronella Tjin Asjoe-Croes, CEO, Aruba Tourism Authority, in a release.

The campaign does more than just present activities in a beautiful setting, says John Speers, strategy and client director at Concept Farm. The storytelling drives real emotional engagement and conversion.

The agency uses a process called the Brand Being, which unearths the human essence of a destination.

Theres much talk of engagement in the business, but at the end of the day, people engage with people, not things, he says.

The campaign will be featured in an installation throughout the Metro-North platforms at Grand Central Station from Oct. 29 to Nov. 24, including more than 140 panels highlighting a sweepstakes to win a trip to Aruba with a stay at the Ritz-Carlton. The installation is specifically tailored to the environment using headlines such as Take The Express to Local Aruba and "Take a paddle board, not a train.

The agency shared metrics from earlier executions for the Aruba Tourism Authority. The local-focused content resulted in YouTube completion rates over four times travel benchmarks. There were 6 million publisher video views and over a million social views, with average engagement 87% above Facebook benchmarks.

Aruba has experienced record-setting visitation increases over the last five years with a 10% increase in 2017 alone.. North American visitation has grown to nearly 700,000 per year and Aruba has set the pace for the Caribbean with nearly 85% hotel occupancy rates. Commensurate with those big numbers comes an increase in on-island spend, which is critical as Aruba is the most tourism-dependent island nation in the Caribbean.

Digital drives the travel industry today, but it can also factor out the human element (with online booking, etc), Speers says. Creating a personal connection is difficult, which is why this campaign succeeds on so many levels by putting the human back into the digital in ways that create a true two-way dialogue, he adds.by Larissa Faw , September 26, 2018

The Specialist Works (TSW) is opening its first new office since the recent management buyout of the company, led by CEO Martin Woolley and COO Parry Jones, as well appointing Neligan as managing director.

TSW Los Angeles is what the agency calls a direct response to client demand for help expanding into new territories, signifying a move to target specific companies in the ecommerce, app and gaming sectors.

The shop opens with clients including video game publisher Gameloft, software company Zoho and gaming app Huuuge Casino.

Led by Richard Downey, the agencys global business director, the new location will be supported by the company's TV buying team in New York City and print media specialists in Atlanta.

There are several people from the London office going over with Downey as his inaugural team. The office will be making hires in the next six months to bolster new business.

Our biggest growth over the next few years will come from the U.S. market; and with Richards extensive knowledge of ecommerce and app marketing, it was an obvious decision to have him lead the LA office," stated Woolley.There are currently no treatments that cure or slow Alzheimers. Now, for the first time since scientists recently agreed that the cause most likely lies in toxic clumps of oligomer protein, a strategy for creating drugs to target them has emerged.

Share on Pinterest Alzheimers, which is a neurological condition, gradually kills brain cells.

This plan is the result of joint work between the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom and Lund University in Sweden.

A paper about the study is shortly to appear in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Hundreds of clinical trials have assessed drugs for Alzheimers disease but none specifically targeted the pathogens responsible, the investigators say.

Until very recently, says senior study author Michele Vendruscolo, a professor in the Department of Chemistry at Cambridge, scientists couldnt agree on what the cause was so we didnt have a target.

As the pathogens have now been identified as small clumps of proteins known as oligomers, we have been able to develop a strategy to aim drugs at these toxic particles, he adds.

The new strategy shows not only that is there a way to design compounds that target the toxic protein clumps, but also how to make them more potent.The new research was jointly supervised by Dr. Nicholas Leeper, an associate professor of surgery and cardiovascular medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine in California and Dr. Erik Ingelsson, a professor of cardiovascular medicine at Stanford University.

Also, varicose veins may be moderately painful and aesthetically unpleasant to some people. Now, a large-scale genetic study published in Circulation suggests that a persons height may determine their risk of developing varicose veins.

The condition is generally considered quite harmless, but previous studies have found a strong association with serious cardiovascular problems, such as blood clotting and deep vein thrombosis .

According to the most recent estimates, the condition affects approximately 33 million people in the United States.

Varicose veins  also known as spider veins  are swollen, twisted veins that can usually be seen right beneath the skin on a persons legs.

A genetic study of nearly half a million people concludes that height is not just a correlated factor, but an underlying mechanism leading to varicose veins.

Dr. Leeper and his colleagues applied machine learning and statistical methods to examine the genetic data of 493,519 people who were registered in the UK Biobank database.

Furthermore, the researchers conducted a genome-wide association study in 337,536 of these individuals, 9,577 of whom developed varicose veins.

The study confirmed previously known risk factors for varicose vein disease, such as age, sex, weight, and lifestyle habits including smoking and being sedentary.

However, the study also identified some new risk factors. We confirmed that having had deep vein thrombosis in the past puts you at increased risk in the future, Dr. Leeper explains.

Recent research suggests that the converse appears to be true as well. Having varicose veins puts you at risk of these blood clots.

Of all the new risk factors identified, the scientists deemed height as the most surprising. [G]reater height remained independently associated with varicose veins, the study authors report.

We were very surprised to find that height came up from our machine-learning analyses, says co-first study author Alyssa Flores, a Stanford University medical student.

Our results strongly suggest height is a cause, not just a correlated factor, but an underlying mechanism leading to varicose veins, says Dr. Ingelsson.

He adds, By conducting the largest genetic study ever performed for varicose vein disease, we now have a much better understanding of the biology that is altered in people at risk for the disease.

Genes that predict a persons height may be at the root of this link between height and varicose veins and may provide clues for treating the condition. Dr. Nicholas Leeper

The recent study also identified 30 genes that are not just tied to varicose veins, but also to deep vein thrombosis.

[Varicose vein disease], says Flores, is incredibly prevalent but shockingly little is known about the biology. There are no medical therapies that can prevent it or reverse it once its there.

Were hoping, she adds, that with this new information, we can create new therapies, as our study highlights several genes that may represent new translational targets.The final trailer of the much-awaited 'Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them: The Crimes Of Grindelwald' is out, and Potterheads are in a frenzy right now.

Fans have been freaking out about a new revelation in the trailer, and it just reiterates our belief, that when it comes to weaving a story that will engulf you into its layered depths, till you're completely submerged and are gasping for that elusive bit of clarity, all the while enjoying your whirlwind ride in its quest through the story, JK Rowling is undoubtedly the mother of them all.

While the trailer gave us a lot to talk about, let's focus on the biggest, most obvious bomb it dropped - the truth about Nagini's mysterious past.

 YouTube

 YouTube

From the trailer, it became obvious that Nagini, the huge, terrifying snake that's also Voldemort's loyal pet and the last Horcrux, wasn't just a regular snake. She used to be a woman, who was very much human. The first guess of fans, obviously, was that Nagini was an Animagus, but Rowling was quick to quash that theory and clarified, that Nagini wasn't an Animagus, but a 'Maledictus' instead.

 Twitter

For the uninitiated, an 'Animagus' is a witch or wizard with the rare ability to transform into a particular animal at will. A 'Maledictus', on the other hand, is a female individual who is a carrier of a blood curse that would eventually lead her to turn into a beast. The curse is carried from birth and is passed down from mother to daughter. Rowling clarified this after a fan asked her whether Lycanthropy (the transformation of a person into a wolf, one that werewolves go through) was related to the condition.

 Twitter

About the etymology of the word 'Maledictus', Mal- is a prefix of Latin origin meaning "bad", "wrongful", or "ill". Dictus in Latin means "spoken". Roughly translated, Maledictus could mean "spoken ill of" or "cursed". However, could it also have another hidden connotation? Perhaps something related to - one who can speak 'bad' or 'evil'? Perhaps, wait for it, Parseltongue? Given Nagini was a woman who could transform into a snake, and eventually went over to its irreversible form, she had to be a Parselmouth.

Also, as we all know, 'Nagini' or 'Nagin' refers to a female snake or a woman who can transform into a snake at will. Let's just say, Rowling + Etymological/Linguistic Symbolism = Goosebumps.

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Now, let's move over to why this new revelation is more twisted than meets the eye. As no one knows the story yet, let us just put forth some questions that the fandom is crazily invested in at the moment:

1. Were Credence and Nagini a couple? In the poster, we can see them sitting together, like a couple.

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Credence joined the Arcanus Circus because of his capabilities as an Obscurus, and Nagini was already a part of it as 'The enchanting snake girl'. They probably sought comfort in each other, while fighting their respective battles?

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2. Was Voldemort's pet Nagini the same Nagini we see in the trailer? Or was she the possible daughter of Credence and Nagini- the one in the trailer? We know that a mother Maledictus passes it on to her daughter, after all.

3. What was Voldemort's relationship with Nagini? Was it only of a master and his pet? Or was it more than meets the eye? He was extremely fond of her, and that probably had more to do with her being a Horcrux. Is there a history? Could she still have been a human when he found her in Albania? Or had she already irreversibly transformed into her snake self?

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4. Actress Claudia Kim has mentioned that Nagini wasn't always evil, and that we will get to see a humane and vulnerable side of her in the movie - that of a girl who wanted to stay human. Did she continue to not be evil post her transformation? Did Voldemort convert her into a murderous serpent once he turned her into a Horcrux? What did he mean when he asked Wormtail to 'milk' Nagini?

All we can say is that our minds are blown, and we need answers. If you can't wait for the movie, high five! *Screams internally*

Here's the trailer.Thank you for subscribing!

By signing up to this free newsletter you agree to receive occasional emails from us informing you about our products and services. You can opt out of these emails at any time.Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 26)  The Supreme Court dismissed suspected drug lord Peter Lim's petition to stop the Justice Department's reinvestigation on drug charges against him.

In a resolution received by the parties on September 24, the high court said it junked the businessman's plea for failure to show any "grave abuse of discretion."

"The Court resolves to dismiss the petition for failure to show any grave abuse of discretion in rendering the challenged order and resolution, which, on the contrary, appear to be in accord with the facts and the applicable law and jurisprudence," the document said.

State prosecutors in August recommended the refiling of drug charges against Lim, who was earlier cleared by a different justice panel.

Lim is accused of supplying narcotics to self-confessed drug dealer Kerwin Espinosa for distribution in the Visayas, thus violating the Comprehensive Dangerous Drugs Act of 2002.

READ: Where is Peter Lim?

Meanwhile, the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) said it is "pleased" with the court's latest resolution.

"Although Mr. Lim remains at large to this day, the dismissal of his petition stands as proof that the judicial system in the Philippines is at its best," the OSG said in a statement.

Malacanang earlier asked Lim to surrender, assuring him that he would be given fair trial. Arresting officials, however, have yet to locate the alleged drug lord.Woman nets jail time for home invasion

A Pontiac woman was sentenced to 73 days in jail during court proceedings this week for a third-degree home invasion.

Danielle Leigh Surrett, 44, received credit for 73 days served and was placed on probation for a period of 12 months.

She was ordered to pay $130 to the Crime Victims Rights fund, $68 in State Minimum Costs and $60 toward DNA testing.

Surrett was ordered to complete outpatient substance abuse treatment and must seek mental health treatment. She cannot consume alcohol or enter any bars.

Surrett was represented by Bad Axe-based attorney Dallas Rooney.

Woman jailed for assaulting officer

A Port Hope woman was sentenced to 180 days in jail this week for one count of assaulting a police officer.

Andrea Michelle Merritt, 29, was given credit for 74 days served.

She was ordered to pay $130 to the Crime Victims Rights fund, $68 in State Minimum Costs and $60 toward DNA testing.

Merritt was represented by Bad Axe-based attorney Dallas Rooney.

Two sentenced for probation violations

Two individuals were sentenced to jail during court proceedings for previously violating conditions of their probation.

Michael James Hilton, of Roseville, was sentenced to 185 days in jail with credit for 177 days served. His probation was revoked.

Hilton was represented by Sebewaing-based attorney Jill Schmidt.

Patricia Frances Fox, 42, of Port Huron, was sentenced to 30 days in jail with credit for 18 days served. She was discharged from probation.

Fox previously waived her right to an attorney.

Man confesses to three charges

A Pigeon man, in court this week, pleaded guilty to two counts of uttering and publishing and one count of delivery of a controlled substance.

Kristopher Louis Osentoski, 28, is scheduled to appear in court for sentencing on Nov. 19.

Osentoski is being represented by Bad Axe-based attorney Andrew Lockard.

Man admits to third OWI

A San Antonio, Texas, man pleaded guilty in court this week to a charge of operating while intoxicated-third offense.

Hilbert Herrera, 48, also pleaded guilty to being a third-time habitual offender. He is scheduled to appear for sentencing Nov. 19.

Herrera is being represented by Bad Axe-based attorney Dallas Rooney.

Man pleads guilty to drug charge

A Birch Run man pleaded guilty to delivery of a controlled substance during court proceedings this week.

James Martin Klein, 34, is scheduled to appear in court next on Nov. 19 for sentencing.

Klein is being represented by defense attorney Debra Kauten.

Woman admits to violating probation

A Harbor Beach woman pleaded guilty in court this week to violating terms of her probation.

Reba J. Easley, 40, is scheduled to appear in court for disposition on Dec. 10.

Easley is being represented by Bad Axe-based attorney Kyle O'Mara.MIDDLETOWN  Wesleyan Universitys College of East Asian Studies Gallerys exhibit Chado: The Way of Tea, is curated by Stephen A. Morrell and supported by a grant from the Freeman Foundation.

For more than a century, American artists, architects and landscape designers have been inspired by the beauty, simplicity and underlying philosophy of traditional Japanese arts. The aesthetic characteristics that inform these arts and the underlying spiritual basis can be traced back to monasteries in China and Japan, where they have evolved for over 1,000 years in the arts of Zen, according to a press release.Reported crimes in Connecticut are at their lowest level since 1967.

Thats what Governor Dannel P. Malloy said is contained in a report released by the states criminal justice policy and planning officer and underscored by FBI data.

Over the last several years, Connecticut has had a dramatic reduction in violent crime and projections are showing that this trend will continue, Malloy said. Recently enacted criminal justice reforms, which were supported by experts from both side of the aisle, are showing real results.

The statistics available from the FBI do not break the data down by city or town and links from Malloys press release refer to 2017 data as the most current available for most crimes except murder.

Malloy said other states are looking to Connecticut as an example of smart policy reforms that are having a positive impact. We have to remember that this data represents real change in our communities - our policies are making our neighborhoods safer while at the same time providing young people who may otherwise get trapped into a cycle of crime the ability to lead successful lives.

But State Sen. Leonard Suzio, R-Meriden, said Malloys announcement apparently isnt focused on the states early release program which began in 2011.

What theyll find is its been a catastrophic failure, Suzio said. There have been over 14,000 serious violent crimes that have been committed by individuals who have been discharged from prison early. Im talking murder, homicide, rape, kidnapping, all kinds of serious assaults.

Suzio said he has been compiling information for some time and will be releasing his report later this week.

It shows that every single one of these crimes has been committed by a person who has not been reformed. The prisons are springing out populations by the boatload, he said.

More Information Homicide statistics 2011 to 2017 2011: Bridgeport 20; Hartford 27; New Haven 34 2012: Bridgeport 22; Hartford 23; New Haven 17 2013: Bridgeport 11; Hartford 23; New Haven 19 2014: Bridgeport 11; Hartford 19; New Haven 12 2015: Bridgeport 19; Hartford 23; New Haven 15 2016: Bridgeport 10; Hartford 14; New Haven 13 2017: Bridgeport 21; Hartford 29; New Haven 7 2018: Bridgeport 6; Hartford 18; New Haven 8 See More Collapse

The crime that hits closest to home is the June 27, 2012, murder of Irahim Ghazal, who three weeks earlier opened a gas station and convenience store called EZ Mart on Meridens East Main Street.

Its just blocks from my home, said Suzio.

Two months earlier Frankie The Razor Resto had received early release on a 20-year sentence he was serving for two armed robberies. Store surveillance shows Resto entered the store around 1:30 a.m. that day, displaying a gun and demanding money from the 70-year-old Ghazal.

After Ghazal turned the money over, Resto shot him. The hollow point bullet tore through the 70-year-old store owners chest immediately killing him.

Resto is now serving 53 years in prison for murder.

The announcement on the drop in crime comes at a time when Malloy is being battered by low public approval ratings and by gubernatorial candidates claiming the states economy is in dire straits resulting in residents and milennials moving elsewhere.

Malloy said the data shows the states police departments reported 71,883 crimes last year, a 2 percent drop from the previous year. Since 2011, reported crimes have declined 19 percent, which includes a 19 percent drop in violent crimes, the governor said.

The total number of statewide arrests for all crimes dropped by 41 percent between 2009, when statewide arrests peaked at 138,719, and 2017, when there were 81,408 arrests -- a drop of 7.5 percent from 2016. By analyzing recent trends, the criminal justice policy and planning office is projecting that there will likely be about six percent fewer arrests in 2018 than there were in 2017.

Malloy said the state reimagined its criminal justice system with a focus on second chances rather than permanent punishment and stigma during his tenure.

In doing so, the state modernized criminal drug laws, reformed the bail system by focusing less on a persons affluence, raised the age of juvenile jurisdiction, enhanced the states criminal justice data system, provided more support to school districts to encourage students to stay away from criminal situations and implemented policies that providing incarcerated individuals with the tools necessary to end a cycle of crime.

Governor Malloys comprehensive criminal justice reforms have yielded measurable and sustained improvements in public safety over the past eight years, Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection Commissioner Dora Schriro said.

The collaboration of the state with its local and federal partners is integral to Connecticuts success. All of the men and women who make up the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection are proud to have had a significant role in these efforts and the realization of its favorable outcomes, Schriro said.

As crime in the state has dropped, so has the prison population, Malloy said. Since January 2011, the prison population has dropped by 4,097 inmates -- a 23 percent decrease. At the same time, the states Risk Reduction Earned Credit system is ensuring that high-risk prisoners are serving a greater portion of their original sentence in prison than they previously had been serving.

If current trends continue over the next few years, Connecticut is poised to become the first state in the nation to cut its prison and jail population in half, the governor said.MIDDLETOWN  Local crews were out early in the southern portion of the city Wednesday, cleaning up the effects of heavy downpours and flash flooding that hit the state Tuesday and left motorists stranded in as much as 3 feet of water and forced the state to close a 7-mile stretch of Route 9 in both directions.

As much as 6 inches of rain fell in less than two hours Tuesday night, officials said. The north and southbound lanes of Route 9, from exits 16 to 11, were closed from about 6 to 8 p.m. Later in the night, a single lane was reopened running northbound, according to Connecticut State Police.

Here in the south end, it hit us pretty hard. Its just basically the way the terrain is set up  we have these big hills and this valley where everything drains to, South Fire District Chief Michael Howley said Wednesday morning, surveying the damage.

There is a gulley between exits 11 (Randolph Road/Route 155) and 12 (Silver Street), he said. Nearby Sumner Brook overflowed its banks, which also left portions of Lee Street and Millbrook Road by the pump station under water, he said. When you get to that bottom, it floods with anywhere between 2 and 4 feet of water. We had cars stuck down there. One individual was actually sitting on the roof of his car.

The damage halted traffic in both ways on Randolph Road, causing backups, the chief said. The state Department of Transportation was on scene throughout the evening. It took a couple of hours for the waters to recede, the chief said.

In the valley near the South District firehouse, water flowed down from Xavier High School, causing flash flooding on Ridge Road. Crews used an old brush truck to easily navigate the waters.

[Drivers] were stuck in their cars. Firefighters went out there with the larger, military-style truck we have and picked them up. We had multiple people stranded at different times, Howley said.

Throughout the duration, the station was inundated with weather-related calls: flooded basements, water getting into homes, leaks and impassable roads, the chief said. Usually, its a short-term thing  as long as that rain is not continuously in that heavy downpour mode.

Chamberlain Road, mostly a dirt street, was entirely washed out, the chief said. Finally, between 11 p.m. and midnight, the waters subsided.

You would not even know that Randolph Road was flooded, Howley said Wednesday morning. For this area to handle more than 4 inches of rain in a short amount of time, we know were going to get some flooding. Luckily, the rain slowed down by 10 oclock, because if it did not, I can guarantee the firehouse would have been compromised at one point if we had closer to that 10-inch mark.

In comparison, the citys downtown area was mostly unaffected. In my district, we had nothing. Maybe one or two water calls, that was it, said Middletown Fire Chief Robert Kronenberger.

Meanwhile, Howley urges people always to heed warnings of emergency management officials. You hear about it on the news, and they tell you do not drive through the water. I cant emphasize that enough. Pay attention.

The DOT set up orange safety cones and signs as soon as they arrived at the flooded portion of Randolph Road but at least one motorist tried to drive around the deep water, the chief said. Somebody decided to try and go around it, or they didnt know their way around and said, Im still going through, and obviously, they didnt make it. Now youve got to go out there again. Now its putting firefighters at risk to go out there and rescue you.

Managing Editor Cassandra Day can be reached at cassandra.day@hearstmediact.com or Twitter @cassandrasdis.MIDDLETOWN  A $145,381 FEMA grant, which will allow the citys South Fire District to purchase new breathing apparatus critical to its operations, couldnt have come at a better time.

The Assistance to Firefighters Grant will allow Chief Michael Howley to replace 18-year-old equipment that is nearing the end of its usefulness with new, state-of-the-art technology.

FEMA awards about $344,000 million annually to about 2,500 deserving fire companies. But its a finite fount, said the chief, who doesnt expect the program to continue in the years to come.

It is very significant to us. It really impacts us here heavily. It would have been really hard for the department if we had not gotten this  for the community, because, obviously, it means taxes, said Howley, who took the helm last December after former Chief Robert Ross took a job in the private sector.

South Fire serves about 14,400 residents over 25 square miles: from South Main Street to the Connecticut River.

This is the fourth grant the department has earned this year. The others were given by private companies, including a $2,500 public fire education gift from FM Global Commercial Property Insurance of Boston.

Many of these funding sources will only allow fire departments to apply once every three years  or longer. Thats the way a lot of these corporations work. They have limits, the chief said.

In August, South Fire earned a $7,000 gift from Firehouse Subs because we fall within the coverage area between Wallingford and Glastonbury, he said. That paid for two $3,500 emergency air packs for the rapid intervention team used for downed firefighters.

When we have a major incident, we always have a rapid intervention team standing by. These are group of firefighters, between four and six, that are ready to help a fellow first responder experiencing distress, the chief said.

The third was a $17,000 gift from Lowes Home Improvement, which has a location nearby in Cromwell. Those funds will allow the department to redo the ceiling in the apparatus floor, replacing the tiles and insulation.

Heating is a big cost in the 50-year-old facility, which has not been updated since it was built. Its easily going to save us a couple thousand of dollars a year in heat loss, because the tiles are old and falling apart and the lack of enough insulation up above it, Howley said.

We have taken a lot of equipment out of service over the last couple of years, but we havent had the funding to replace it, he said, pointing to air bottles, which only last 15 years.

Many of the packs are not worth fixing because theres so much to repair on them and theyre so costly, he said. A new air pack, which includes the pack, oxygen tank and mask, costs about $8,500 for a single firefighter.

There are 34 personnel on staff at South Fire. The department usually has about 28 airpacks on hand. On any given shift, eight or nine firefighters use the equipment.

Howley started working on the grant last September, spending 70 hours to get the application in order. A lot of it is in your narratives, explaining the community, department, history, call history, critical infrastructures that you protect: the power plant, the Department of Defense contractor Pratt & Whitney.

This will solve the problem for the next 15 years, Howley said.

Fire officials are beginning to put money aside for these types of capital non-recurring projects because in another decade and a half, the process will begin anew.

Its very hard, because technology changes dramatically. This new equipment has changed in the last 15 to 18 years in how it helps us do our jobs. It is amazing what this new equipment has compared to what we bought back in 2001, he said.

The air capacity is greater, so firefighters can do the work longer. There are now thermal imaging cameras built right into the mask, and there is a tracking device in each one that sounds a loud alarm when the pack stops moving. It wont say which firefighter is in distress, but the device alerts safety officers that one went down, so the team can locate him or her, Howley said.

Paying for top-of-the-line apparatus is always a balancing act when it comes to budget time.

Were the type of service you dont want. Were like insurance. You dont want to pay for it, but, boy, when you need it, whether its an EMS call or some type of disaster, or we have a hurricane coming through here, or a flood, you want somebody thats going to be there with the right equipment to help you out, Howley said.

He points to a 6-inch green binder full of paperwork, which he used to apply for the grant. FEMA can come knocking on the door anytime, and they do check, to see if you bought what you said you were going to buy.

The department is ready to undergo a $1 million state-funded project to renovate and build an extension onto the existing structure. Howley expects the groundbreaking will take place within the next three to six months.

Landmark Architects, P.C. of Middletown is in charge of the project.

The plan includes the construction of a new tax office, enlargement of the sleeping quarters, as well as the building of new showers/changing areas for female firefighters. The chiefs office will also be turned into a conference room.

For information, visit fema.gov/firegrants or southfiredistrict.com.

Managing Editor Cassandra Day can be reached at cassandra.day@hearstmediact.com or Twitter @cassandrasdis.The F.B.I. recently released their 2017 annual Crime in the United States report, which breaks down crime rates by a state's individual towns and cities. The report includes reported instances of manslaughter, robbery, aggravated assault, and rape during the year of 2017.

To determine the crime rate in each city, per 1,000 individuals, the Connecticut Post took the number of violent crimes in a given area, divided that number by the population total for that area, and then multiplied that result by 1,000. Given that math, we have calculated the crime rate number for each city and town. Numbers less than one signify a lower crime rate and numbers higher than one signifying a higher crime rate.CLINTON  The Dance Corner will present the second annual Dancing From the Heart, a concert to benefit Child Life at Yale New Haven Childrens hospital, Oct. 13, 4 p.m. at the Clinton Town Hall Auditorium, 54 East Main St, Clinton.

The show will feature performances from Connecticut dance companies including, Sonia Plumb Dance, Ballet Hartford, Ballroom Dancin Fools, River Valley Dance Project, Farmington Valley Dance and Music and Moxie Dance. Students from The Dance Corner will also perform. All proceeds from the concert will be donated to the Child Life Department at Yale New Haven Childrens Hospital.

Child Life at Yale New Haven Children's Hospital helps children cope with the adjustments of being in a hospital by providing a variety of play experiences. These activities help both children and families gain a greater understanding of medical procedures, which helps reduce stress and fear of the unknown. Money raised by this concert will directly benefit pediatric patients at Yale.

Carrie Smith, director of The Dance Corner said, It has been a longtime dream of mine to bring professional and student dancers from our community together for a performance to benefit those in need, said Carrie Smith, Dance Corner director. Our mission at The Dance Corner is to promote dance in our community and to give back. This event will do both. Last year this event raised more than $2000 for Child Life. We hope to exceed that this year.

Tickets to the Dancing From the Heart show are $15 for adults and $10 for students and seniors. Tickets include a post show reception and meet-and-greet with the dancers, and light refreshments. Tickets can be purchased in advance at The Dance Corner, 206 Route 80, Killingworth or at the door. The program should run about 90 minutes.

The Dance Corner is dedicated to providing its students with a well-rounded education in all facets of dance. Classes are designed to increase confidence, build self-esteem and develop coordination in an interactive, group environment. With instruction for all ages and levels of experience. Fall class registration is open, and free trial classes are available for prospective students.

Located on Route 80 in Killingworth, The Dance Corner is easily accessible from the towns of Madison, Clinton, Deep River, Chester, Essex, Ivoryton, Centerbrook, Haddam, Higganum, Westbrook, Guilford and East Haddam. To register or schedule a trial class visit TheDanceCorner.com.The U.S. Army should authorize commanders to allow combat troops to leave the service's heavy, over-designed body armor behind on certain missions to increase physical performance, according to a new report from the Center for a New American Security.

"Body armor provides increasingly advanced protection, but at a cost in soldier performance," according to "The Soldier's Heavy Load," part of the "Super Soldiers" series of reports that Army Research Laboratory commissioned CNAS to conduct looking at soldier survivability.

"Increased soldier load not only slows movement and increases fatigue, but also has been experimentally demonstrated to decrease situational awareness and shooting response times," the report added.

The document draws on past reports that have estimated soldiers routinely carried an average of 119 pounds apiece in Iraq and Afghanistan. As a result, one-third of medical evacuations from the battlefield between 2004 to 2007 were due to spinal, connective tissue, or musculoskeletal injuries -- twice as many injuries as were sustained from combat.

The authors of the report make several recommendations to the Army, one being that the service should "clearly delegate authority to company-level commanders to modify the level of protection as needed, based on the specific threat and mission."

"Wearing heavy body armor may not be operationally practical on a long-range multi-day patrol in mountainous terrain, such as in Afghanistan," the report states. "In practice, the decision of which protective level to wear is usually restricted to senior leaders."

Army researcher James Zheng added in the report that "body armor is essentially parasitic weight; it contributes nothing to the soldier's operational effectiveness until the moment it is required to resist a potentially lethal threat."

Paul Scharre, one of the authors of the report, told Military.com that commanders were concerned "not just that they were going to get heat from higher up, but [that] the Army is going to get dragged before Congress, saying 'why aren't our people wearing this body armor.'"

"We issue protective equipment, and that is great, because body armor is effective and saves lives, but it's also extremely heavy. It takes up a significant fraction of the weight that soldiers can effectively carry," Scharre said.

The report also recommends that the Army conduct an assessment of the feasibility of tailored body armor and potential advantages in reduced weight, increased area coverage, and improved mobility.

The report, however, only refers to the Army's Improved Outer Tactical Vest, or IOTV, a body armor system that was first fielded in 2008. It does not mention more recent efforts by Program Executive Office Soldier to improve body armor.

PEO Soldier declined to comment on the report because it was produced for Army Research Laboratory, but pointed out that last year it announced last plans to field the Modular Scalable Vest -- part of the larger Soldier Protection System, or SPS. That vest at its heaviest weighs approximately 25 pounds, which is five pounds lighter than the IOTV.

"The SPS system is modular, scalable, and tailorable," Alton Stewart, a spokesman for PEO Soldier said in a statement. "It defeats current threat levels while also reducing weight."

The report also relies on a graphic that provides inaccurate weights of individual soldier equipment, stating, for example, that the "Army Combat Helmet" weighs 6.5 pounds.

The Army awarded a contract to Revision Military in March 2017 worth up to $98 million to make 293,870 of the Advanced Combat Helmet, Gen II, which is made of high-density polyethylene instead of the current helmet's Kevlar.

The ACH Gen II weighs about 2.5 pounds in size large, which is about 24 percent lighter than the current ACH.

Scharre said an earlier Super Soldiers series report released in April covered these newer body armor efforts, such as how the Army in 2009 "reduced weight with the plate carrier and the Army's current goal with the Soldier Protection System."

The Soldier Plate Carrier System, or SPCS, which was first fielded in 2009, is about nine pounds lighter than the IOTV, which weighs a little over 30 pounds, depending on the size.

The SPCS was the result of a detailed study, conducted in 2008 by the Army's Asymmetric Warfare Group and other Army organizations such as the Rapid Equipping Force. It involved studying how excessive soldier load in impacted dismounted soldier performance.

The study fielded combat units in Afghanistan with lightweight equipment that ranged from plate carriers to Mk 48 7.62mm machine guns, a special operations weapon that weighs just over 18 pounds, compared to 27 pounds for the Army's M240 machine gun.

"No, we don't talk about that; I am actually not familiar with it. I am familiar with some of those changes that have been made, but I have not seen the report," Scharre said.

Another recommendation that Scharre stressed is that the Army should launch an authoritative study to better assess the relationship between load and combat effectiveness.

The Army didnt have charts and tables demonstrating the relationship between weight and performance, Scharre said.

"So if you could have tables that a commander would look at [and say] 'all right, I am sending my folks out on a foot patrol and I add another 20 pounds of gear; here is how I can see a measurable way, for an average dismounted soldier, that this affects performance,'" he said. "Things like increasing mobility, increasing performance, reducing physical and cognitive fatigue, those things make a difference and those need to be part of the equation ... you've got to be able to look at both sides of the equation, because right now, you don't see enough of that."

Military.com reached out to Army Research Lab for comment on the report but did not receive a comment by press time.

Scharre said ARL officials thanked CNAS for the report, but have not provided specific feedback.

"I would not say they signed off on it [in the sense of] agreeing with the recommendations, that's certainly not the case," Scharre said. "In no way is this a representation of the Army's views on the issues."

The report is intended to examine is how much weight can soldiers effectively carry and that how protective equipment eats up "a tremendous fraction" of that fighting load, Scharre said.

"There is a cultural problem here, which is, every time you take away little bit of weight, people just pile on more stuff," Scharre said, explaining that the fielding of a plate carrier doesn't solve the problem.

"We are dramatically overweight; we are not nine pounds overweight. The Army should set a limit: this is the amount of equipment we should issue people. And if you want to add any new pieces of gear, something's got to go."

-- Matthew Cox can be reached at matthew.cox@military.com.Students at Brewster Middle School on Marine Corps Camp Lejeune, North Carolina returned to classes today despite water damage and mold that is now making them sick, according to parents who spoke with Military.com.

Brewster Middle School sustained extensive water damage from Hurricane Florence, the parents said, with a power outage that lasted nine days. Teachers were brought back to school Sept. 24, they said, while students returned to class today.

But when some parents visited the school to look at conditions, they found molding tiles and vents, buckled floors and small bugs in an area used by special needs students, they told Military.com.

"My kids are not going to go back to school until I see proof that they've actually had professionals come out and do what they're trained do," said Laura Shuler, whose daughter and special needs son both attend Brewster.

Shuler's son, an eighth-grader, has cerebral palsy and is wheelchair bound, she said. After dropping him off this morning, she walked around the school to review conditions, but was horrified by what she identified as mold growing on tiles, door frames and air vents, among other locations.

Shuler pulled her son and daughter from school after seeing the mold. She said her son had developed a rash during his short time in the building on his neck and her daughter, who has documented mold allergies, had a severe headache.

"I knew that the electricity had been out and that it had just come back on on Sunday, and just knowing how hot and humid it gets here, that there would be mold," she told Military.com.

Becca Jordan, said she visited the school Sept. 24 to decide if her son, Jaxson, who has an autoimmune condition, should return.

"I knew the minute I walked in there I wasn't going to be able to let Jackson go," she said.

Photos shared with Military.com and on social media appear to also show extensive mold growth.

An official with Marine Corps Installations East said as a result of the parents' complaints base officials today sent a team to inspect the school and assist the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) with the issues.

"They have sent an industrial hygiene inspection team from Naval Medical Center Camp Lejeune to help DoDEA and mitigate it with [DoDEA's] cleaning crews," said Nat Fahy, a spokesman for Marine Corps Installations East.

Fahy said whether or not school is in session tomorrow at Brewster is up to DoDEA. Officials with DoDEA did not respond by deadline for requests for comment.

A video posted to Facebook, however, appeared to contain audio of a meeting held today between several Brewster parents and a man one parent identified to Military.com as DoDEA's Camp Lejeune school superintendent Todd Curkendall.

"I went over there today and walked the entire northeast corner and I directed them to replace some tiles in the sensory room and there was some little bugs in there," the man reported to be Curkendall said in the video. "I asked our facilities guys to authorize four hours of overtime for four people this evening to go in and do more deep cleaning in the classrooms."

The man confirmed an inspection by base environmental officials had not been done before the school was reopened, but did not say in the recording whether or not school would be closed for further clean-up.

"I understand people are sensitive," he said.

-- Amy Bushatz can be reached at amy.bushatz@military.com.A new survey shows military spouses of active-duty troops are significantly less likely to participate in elections than their service members, possibly because they receive limited absentee voting outreach and education, experts said.

The survey, conducted by the Military Officers Association of America (MOAA) with Syracuse University and the Democracy Fund, polled about 3,000 troops, veterans and their families.

Among other questions, researchers asked how likely both troops and their spouses were to vote in presidential, congressional, state, local and primary elections.

In almost all categories, military spouses were significantly less likely to vote than service members. For example, 95 percent of active-duty troops said they are likely to vote in a presidential election, while 89 percent of spouses said the same. About 71 percent of troops said they are likely to vote in local elections, while about 52 percent of spouses said they would vote then.

Only in primary elections were spouses and troops close to the same rate. For those elections, 50 percent of troops said they would likely vote, while 49 percent of spouses reported the same.

That discrepancy, said retired Air Force Col. Mike Turner, MOAA's vice president of development, could be due to a lack of voter education for spouses.

"We believe we need a greater outreach effort to military spouses to inform them about the process and encourage them to vote," he said.

Active-duty troops, he said, receive help with voting registration and the absentee ballot process from base officials or their chain of command. But military spouses don't have that kind of support and outreach directed at them. Instead, they are left to figure the system out on their own, and may not vote because they don't understand the absentee system or in which state they should be registered.

However, the levels of likely voters among both spouses and troops who do receive support are much higher than his team expected, Turner said.

"The good news is military families really believe it's a civic duty to vote and, by and large, they vote very frequently," he said.

Voter turnout for the 2016 presidential election sat at about 61 percent, far below the percentage of spouses and troops who said they plan to vote in those races. And for local races where turnout is notoriously low -- around 20 percent nationwide in 2011, for example -- over 70 percent of active-duty military members said they intend to turn in a ballot in the next election.

In the long term, Turner said officials should address the spouse voting problem by increasing education outreach. "Anything that we can do that leads to greater enfranchisement of active-duty family population is good," he said.

For now, MOAA has changed how it is targeting its messaging around voting in the midterm elections to focus on the spouse population.

"We're adjusting our outreach efforts this year, and seeing what kind of results we get," Turner said.

-- Amy Bushatz can be reached at amy.bushatz@military.com.SOUTHWEST ASIA -- "Life comes in seasons," said Air Force Tech. Sgt. Nakisha Simon, the 386th Expeditionary Medical Group bioenvironmental engineering noncommissioned officer in charge. "If I didn't get the help I needed, I don't believe I would have seen the next one."

Simon is deployed in support of Operation Inherent Resolve. Whether she is testing base drinking water, identifying and reducing hazardous noise in the workplace, identifying the need for chemical-protective clothing or improving indoor air quality, her job is to help her fellow airmen keep the mission going.

However, at one point in her life, Simon, a former victim's advocate and 15-year veteran from Pasco, Washington, was the one who needed assistance.

"I was at a very stressful point in my life," she said. "When I was in my sophomore year of high school, I felt there was a lot of pressure on me to succeed. Looking back, I know I placed much of that pressure on myself. But to me, it was overwhelming. And that's the thing. What may not be a big deal to one person may be a big deal for someone else."

Unfortunately, this combination of stress and anxiety resulted in Simon's attempts to make an irrevocable decision. Upon waking in the hospital room and seeing her loved ones worried for her, she realized life had other plans in mind.

"I remember waking up and thinking, 'What did I just do?'" she said. "That's when I realized how precious life is and that this decision would not only affect me, but affect the people who loved me as well."

Joining the Military

Simon progressed through school and eventually decided to join the military. While there was the opportunity to pursue her passion for dance, she said, the benefits the Air Force provided were more appealing. However, the most attractive facets were the structure, discipline, and guidance the military life would offer, which Simon said have given her a fulfilling Air Force career.

"There always seems to be a negative stigma that if someone goes to mental health and receives assistance, they might have issues with their career, or even be separated from the military," she said. "However, I would like to think of myself as an example. You can get the help you need and still be successful. Getting help does not make you a liability."

Simon, who is deployed from the 355th Aerospace Medicine Squadron at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona, said her previous experience has not been a weakness during her tenure as an airman. She has actually transformed it into a way to help others, and is known as 'Mom' in her workplace.

Taking Care of Airmen

"I got the nickname because I am always asking how people are doing on a personal level and trying to care of them," she said. "I just do my best to be there for the airmen, because while you may not always have the exact answer they need, you can at least listen to them. Sometimes venting an issue and just getting it into the open can be therapeutic."

When she isn't serving as her shop's mom, Simon serves as an actual mother for her 2-year-old daughter, Alexis. She said Alexis and her husband, Byron, help keep her focused on her goal of eventually becoming a first sergeant. She said they also inspire her to be the best version of herself.

"Even though I am deployed, I am lucky to be here today," she said. "Talking to them and video chatting every day reminds me of how beautiful life really is, and how lucky we are to have one another. As Alexis grows, I'll give her the same advice I would give a younger version of myself: Life comes in seasons. There will be times where life seems too hard to go on, but know that you will make it through. Love yourself, know you matter, and never be ashamed if you need help."Some military family members and retirees can renew their military ID cards online, thereby keeping ID card office visits under 10 minutes, thanks to a pilot program running on a handful of Air Force bases worldwide.

The program, started early this year, lets users do the bulk of the ID card renewal process, including submitting paperwork, via a secure online portal. Once finished, users can walk into the office and pick up their new card within a few days.

The service is currently available at 10 base locations.Those bases are Patrick Air Force Base and MacDill Air Force Base, Florida; Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska; Travis Air Force Base, California; Fairchild Air Force Base, Washington; Texas Joint Base San Antonio locations Fort Sam Houston, Lackland and Randolph; Ramstein Air Base, Germany; and Kadena Air Base, Japan.

An additional three locations will start the online service soon. Those are Hanscom Air Force Base, Massachusetts; Hill Air Force Base, Utah; and Schriever Air Force Base, Colorado.

The program does not support Common Access Card renewals or ID card applications for new military dependents.

Although the program is administered by the Air Force, military dependents and retirees affiliated with any branch can use at the participating bases.

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About 4,360 ID cards have been renewed online since the process started, Air Force officials said.

The program began after officials at Patrick Air Force Base studied their 2017 ID card office wait times, officials said.

"Under the previous process, some customers were waiting up to 38 days for an appointment to renew their expiring ID cards or waiting long hours at the Force Support Squadron Customer Service Office," Erika Yepsen, an Air Force spokesperson, said in a statement. "With the new online process at Patrick, the wait is now three days or less -- and some customers may receive same-day service depending on the workload at the FSS Customer Service Office."

As part of the rollout, some participating bases have done away entirely with walk-in ID card services. Although they still allow emergency help for lost or stolen ID cards, all other renewals at Travis Air Force Base, for example, are appointment-only. That means instead of waiting hours to be helped, most customers can plan ahead and be in and out in 10 minutes, officials there said in a release early this year.

But the new system has not been without a few bumps. For example, officials had to figure out how to help users who may not have a home computer, a problem addressed by installing a self-service kiosk at the ID card office. Several locations also had to upgrade their websites to support the Safe Access File Exchange system, which ensures documents are transferred securely.

While there is currently no timeline for rollout across the Defense Department, Yepsen said officials with the Defense Manpower Data Center are studying how they could roll it out to the system's 1,700 ID card locations.

-- Amy Bushatz can be reached at amy.bushatz@military.com.MARINE CORPS BASE QUANTICO, Va. -- The company that created the popular high-intensity tactical training containers that have popped up at military installations and forward operating bases around the world are taking their products to new heights.

BeaverFit's new Air Delivery Platform lets troops rappel from 60-foot towers built to mimic helicopter exits and skids. They can also practice scaling down walls or fast-roping from rooftops using the new stacked container-tower system.

"Our business started so we could support the services from a functional fitness standpoint," Bryan Studebaker with BeaverFit told Military.com here during the Modern Day Marine Expo. "... But a lot of different folks were reaching out since we were doing a lot of custom stuff with modifying containers, welding, the whole 9 yards."

BeaverFit was founded by Navy riverines and British bridge builders, a fact company owners say gives them an edge on serving the military community.

Since one of the company's mottos is, "We create what does not yet exist," Studebaker said they've been hearing people out and coming up with solutions for how to help troops train.

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The Air Force Special Operations Command's pararescue community has awarded BeaverFit multiple contracts to support some of its training needs, he said. That includes training complexes and rappel towers.

Once the containers are stacked and secured, Studebaker said the company customizes the insides depending on training needs. It has created everything from rescue elevator shafts to movable walls that mimic a more urban environment.

The company is also creating sturdy, steel-frame obstacle assault-course training systems, which would be an upgrade to some of the wood-based obstacle courses on military bases today. Those courses include breaching doors, balance beams, net walls and agility logs.

Since all of the products BeaverFit builds are modular, they don't require hefty construction contracts and can be moved around, depending on spacing needs.

"They don't have to go out and apply for a three-, four-, five-year period with funding obligations for a construction project," Studebaker said.

-- Gina Harkins can be reached at gina.harkins@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @ginaaharkins.Two F-35A Joint Strike Fighters are still slated to be delivered to Luke Air Force Base, Arizona, for the Turkish pilot training program unless new direction from the Defense Department, expected in November, prohibits the move, Military.com has learned.

Luke is expected to receive two more of the fifth-generation fighters for the program in early 2019, according to an industry source familiar with the matter. The base already has two jets for the training program.

Furthermore, the first two fifth-generation fighters are still on track to fly to Turkey sometime between July and September next year, barring any new evidence from Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that the transfer must be indefinitely blocked per the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the source said.

For now, "there has been no change to our contract or our relationship with Turkey as a partner, with Turkey as a supplier. Nothing's changed," said Greg Ulmer, vice president and general manager of the F-35 program at Lockheed Martin Corp.

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Ulmer sat down with Military.com at the annual Air Force Association Air, Space and Cyber conference earlier this month.

"The decision relative to the NDAA language is really government-to-government. They have to decide," Ulmer said. "Business is normal; [we're] still supporting the program."

A Defense Department spokesman said the program of record will continue until the report is delivered to Congress. Per the NDAA, Mattis and Pompeo have until mid-November to submit a report to lawmakers describing the current U.S.-Turkey relationship and whether keeping the F-35 from Turkey would hurt production, training or other partnerships.

The spokesman said Tuesday that, once produced, the report will be classified and likely won't be submitted to lawmakers until November. It's possible that Mattis may visit Capitol Hill for closed meetings on the matter.

Luke personnel also emphasized that the training course has not shifted or changed.

"There has been no change to training or aircraft delivery at Luke Air Force Base," said 56th Fighter Wing spokeswoman Maj. Rebecca Heyse during a phone call. "Pending official guidance from [the Office of the Secretary of Defense], there has been no change to the Turkish pilot training or aircraft delivery."

Turkey, a NATO ally and coalition member in the fight against the Islamic State, plans to buy more than 100 F-35As, the conventional takeoff and landing model of the stealth fighter.

In conjunction with Lockheed Martin, Turkish defense companies already help produce part of the plane.

The juxtaposition of the two efforts highlights the complex relationship the U.S. has with Turkey, which hosts Incirlik Air Base, a key Air Force hub.

But lawmakers and U.S. officials in recent months have not been happy that Turkey has made a deal for Russia's S-400 system, known by Moscow as the "F-35 killer."

Earlier this year, Turkey firmed up a $2.5 billion deal for the purchase of S-400 surface-to-air missile systems.

Turkey last July agreed to purchase four Russian-made S-400 mobile missile batteries over the next few years. It finalized the deal in September 2017.

It was one of a few reasons cited in the NDAA for halting additional sales to the NATO-member country.

Another reason is the ongoing captivity of American pastor Andrew Brunson, who was arrested in 2016 on charges of being a spy after an attempted coup d'etat against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Section 1278 of the budget bill raises concerns about Brunson, as well as all Americans being held by the Erdogan government, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.

-- Oriana Pawlyk can be reached at oriana.pawlyk@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @Oriana0214.ANN ARBOR, MI - Without hesitation, "Hamilton" producer Jeffrey Seller revealed his secret to success on Broadway to a crowd of students at his alma mater last week

"I'm going to say this to you again and again: How you work with your friends and make shows with your friends is going to determine your future," Seller told the students from the University of Michigan's School of Music, Theatre & Dance last week.

The advice Seller gave students was the blueprint he used more than 25 years ago to transition from his time as a student in UM's College of Literature, Science, and the Arts to New York City.

Seller, who has gone on to produce some of the most popular musicals on Broadway in the past two decades, including "Rent," Avenue Q," "In the Heights," and Hamilton," was active in the Ann Arbor arts scene before moving to New York after school.

He was in "Hello Dolly" and then directed another production with the Ann Arbor Civic Theatre, and he led a youth theater group called Young People's Theater.

Still, Seller had the fever to get to New York City. He used UM's Musical Theatre Department's world premiere of Sheldon Harnick's "A Wonderful Life" as an opportunity to pitch writing a series of five feature articles on the production for The Ann Arbor News.

The articles served as a springboard for Seller's first job working at a public relations agency on West 44th Street in New York City.

"Those articles got me my first rung on that ladder in New York," said Seller, who said he was paid $35 each.

"Basically, I made the decision to get the degree in a liberal arts discipline like (political science) and take theater classes and do theater every semester," he added. "Any time I wasn't doing theater, I was writing."

As a producer, Seller is instrumental in communicating criticism, deadlines and suggestions for those putting the show together.

"My job is to often say, 'Can we do better?'" Seller said. "And then it is my job to raise the money, and then it is my job to decide: Are we going to start in a nonprofit or a commercial production, when are we going to Broadway and what Broadway theater?"

Getting started in New York City

In the decades that followed his time in Ann Arbor, Seller, of Oak Park, has become one of the biggest names on Broadway. "Hamilton," which still commands sold-out performances, has made investors returns of roughly 600 percent on an initial investment of about $12.5 million, according to Fortune. His shows also have won four Tony Awards for Best Musical, with "Hamilton" winning 11 of a record-breaking 16 nominations.

At the age of 25, Seller arrived in New York working as a Broadway booker in the producer's office, while moonlighting doing shows with his friends in small venues at night across the city. He went with a friend to see a rock monologue then called "Boho Days" by Johnathan Larson in a small performance space.

The performance had an indelible impact on Seller.

"As I was watching him tell this story through a series of songs, which I'm sure many of you now know, I was amazed that this man I had never met in my entire life or heard of seemed to be telling my story," Seller said. "He was telling it in that rock vernacular that was making the hair on my arm stand up, and I cried."

Seller knew he had to work with Larson and wrote the playwright a letter that eventually led to a collaboration in "Rent," which Larson had only started working on at the time.

Seller worked with then-business partner Kevin McCollum to raise money for the production at the New York Theatre Workshop. The show would go on to critical acclaim, running at Broadway's Nederlander Theate for the next dozen years.

"I knew I wanted to do a musical that spoke like that," Seller said of "Rent." "That spoke to what we're feeling today in a vernacular that was contemporary musical.

"It became such a sensation that, when we needed to raise $3.5 million to go to Broadway, they were throwing money at us," he later added. "I can happily say I haven't had to worry about raising money for a show since."

The 'Hamilton' phenomenon

Seller later collaborated with an up-and-coming writer Lin-Manuel Miranda to produce "In the Heights," which gathered four Tony Awards including Best Musical.

Jeffrey Seller, broadway producer, talks during the True Blue a Tribute to Michigan event at Hill Auditorium on Saturday, April 8, 2017. The event was part of the University of Michigan bicentennial celebration and featured many distinguished alumni, student and faculty participants. ANN ARBOR NEWS

The partnership led to them to team up with McCollum and director Thomas Kail for "Hamilton," which fused elements of rap music with American history to create a Broadway phenomenon.

The success of "In the Heights," Seller said, helped prove theater audiences were ready to be stimulated in a new way.

"Who has ever married rap to Broadway choral singing?" Sellers asked. "Once again, my ears were pricked in a way they had never been before. I had never heard anything like that before. (Miranda) was bringing something that was new, and he was stimulating my ears in a different way. That's what made me say 'I want to do this,' because I loved the world that he was creating."

Still, the challenges of selling a show with a concept like "Hamilton" behind a writer who had not yet gained the confidence of a public icon he would later become presented its challenges, Seller said. The musical started at The Public Theater in front of audiences of just 300, before eventually welcoming sold out audiences of 1,300 nightly on Broadway.

"Hamilton's" larger than life role in mainstream popular culture thrust Seller and the musical into the spotlight shortly after the 2016 election when Vice President-elect Mike Pence and his wife, Karen, came to see the show on Broadway.

Learning Pence and his wife were planning to attend the musical while he was in line to catch an afternoon movie, Seller recalls writing a message to Pence on behalf of the cast and crew of "Hamilton," many of whom found the result of the election "heart wrenching."

Seller sent the speech to Kail and Miranda, who both signed off on in before it was read at the close of the show by cast member Brandon Victor Dixon," asking that the future presidential administration recognize the rights of all of those in the theater community.

"I think at 'Hamilton' we had a special ability to really dig into the text and into the lyrics and music to tell the story of America as it looks today and to tell this story that reflects the best values of America, the best inclinations of America," Seller said. "It celebrates what makes our democracy unique and special.

"It was one shot that rang across the world," he added.

As Seller's career has become more assured and solidified in the theater world, he says he continues to look for shows that will excite him.

He encouraged young theater majors to do the same by going and creating their own theater companies so that they can get their big break. It's the same instinct he used in moving from Ann Arbor to New York all of those years ago, and it hasn't steered him wrong yet.

"As I've gotten older, I am less assured that when I say something that it's the right thing than I was 15 years ago," Seller said. "I think one of the qualities we all need to try and have is the open mind to say, 'I think I know the answer, but I'm not positive it's the answer.'"ANN ARBOR, MI - Following Michigan's enactment of stricter state regulations for lead, Ann Arbor officials say many homeowners may need their water service lines replaced.

For people with galvanized steel pipes previously connected to lead components in the city's water system, there could be lead built up inside those decades-old service lines, said Brian Steglitz, the city's water treatment plant manager.

"Galvanized services are known to house lead in them," Steglitz said, adding that even though all known lead components on the city's side of the system have been replaced with copper, there still are many galvanized service lines on private property.

"So, even though the lead has been removed, it remains a source potentially of lead, and that's what the literature presents to us."

Water service lines on private property are normally the responsibility of homeowners to maintain and replace, but the state's new regulations make it an issue for cities to address.

Ann Arbor officials are now starting to discuss next steps for tackling the problem here, starting with a preliminary inventory of galvanized service lines that may need to be replaced with new copper pipes.

That's due to the state by Jan. 1, 2020, and then the city must gradually replace the old pipes -- potentially around 2,500 of them -- starting in 2021. A complete distribution system inventory is due to the state by Jan. 1, 2025.

How those replacements will be funded and to what extent homeowners may have to pay remains to be seen. Replacing a water service line can cost several thousand dollars.

"We will be subsequently developing and incorporating into our future capital improvement plans for the city the removal of those additional galvanized services that are on the customer side," Steglitz said.

"Clearly there are some challenges associated with that we would have to navigate, because it's on the customer side, private property, but we will be working through those issues."

Michigan established new lead and copper standards in June, with Gov. Rick Snyder touting them as the most robust in the nation.

"The federal Lead and Copper Rule simply does not do enough to protect public health," Snyder said. "As a state, we could no longer afford to wait on needed changes at the federal level, so Michigan has stepped up to give our residents a smarter, safer rule - one that better safeguards water systems in all communities. With these more stringent standards, Michigan will serve as a role model to other states looking to improve their own public health protections."

The new regulations reduce the state's lead action level from 15 parts per billion to 12 ppb starting in 2025, requiring utilities to take action if they're above that level. Steglitz said that doesn't really impact Ann Arbor since the 90th-percentile lead level here is 3 ppb.

"The city has had the foresight to remove all of the lead components that we are aware of in the city's system, so our lead levels are very low and that puts us in a very good position," he said.

But the state's new regulations now address the homeowner side of the service line, the part beyond the curb stop.

"So, if there are any galvanized service lines, and we know that there are some galvanized service lines associated with the sites where we had lead goosenecks, those need to be abated under the new program," Steglitz said.

The pipe connections between the city's water mains under streets and private water service lines that go up to people's homes are known as "goosenecks," and thousands of them used to be lead.

As the Flint water crisis gained national attention two years ago, Ann Arbor officials acknowledged there still were about 118 known lead pipe connections in the city's water system, and the city took steps to replace the last of them as of last year.

As streets are repaved, the city's portion of galvanized water service lines also have been replaced with copper, which is flexible and does not require lead goosenecks.

"We've replaced all of those lead goosenecks, so no longer is there any lead on the city's side of the curb stop," Steglitz said.

The city plans to adhere to the state's requirement to replace the service lines at an average rate of 5 percent per year starting in 2021, but not to exceed 20 years total unless an alternate schedule is approved by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality.

City spokesman Robert Kellar said the city hasn't started doing an inventory yet, so at this point there are no locations to share as far as homes or neighborhoods that might be affected.

The Ann Arbor News has filed a Freedom of Information Act request for records showing where there were lead pipes in the system and what areas might be targeted.

When the issue was discussed at last week's City Council meeting, Council Member Julie Grand, D-3rd Ward, asked how many potential service lines could be affected.

Craig Hupy, the city's public services administrator, said it's going to be more than 1,000, and he guesses maybe about 2,500 out of about 24,000 total service lines are going to have to be dug up.

Water service lines are typically buried in people's front yards and sometimes under driveways.

"When I started with the utility, we were up over 1,000 lead goosenecks, so that would be our first target to look at those services to see if the customer side still has lead," Hupy said. "When we removed the lead gooseneck, we took the galvanized out of the city side and replaced it with copper, so we have to go back and look at that."

Council Member Sumi Kailasapathy, D-1st Ward, pushed for clarification on whether residents will have to pay for their pipe replacements.

"That's not clear because the legislation is making the city responsible for inventorying and replacing it," Hupy responded.

"How we go about financing and doing that is not yet determined, so I'm not going to say that the resident is responsible for that."

Kailasapathy said she's expecting a lot of residents to have questions and concerns, and some with young children may not want to wait years to have their pipes replaced by the city.

"I would suggest that they sample their drinking water for lead," Hupy responded, adding Steglitz can help them do that.

"Their threat is probably more from their fixtures in their house. If they have older fixtures, they'll have lead in the older fixtures more likely than they'll have it in the galvanized piping."

Based on all of the city's testing data, Kellar said, further treatment of city tap water for lead removal is not necessary. But if residents have concerns, the city suggests they can do a few things:FRENCHTOWN TWP., MI -- A tornado touched down in Monroe County around 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday.

The EF-1 tornado on Sept. 25 caused damage to trees near Reinhardt and Heiss roads and tore up homes near Toben and South Stoney Creek roads in Frenchtown Township, the National Weather Service reports.

Several pieces of sideboards and shingles flew off of homes and into trees, windows busted and garage doors were blown in.

At the height of the storm, power was impacted for about 6,000 customers, according to Randi Berris, DTE Energy spokesperson.

"Given the extent of the damage, we're happy to see the vast majority our customers kept their lights on," Berris said.

Most of the power was restored but about 400 customers are still impacted, Berris added. The anticipated restoration time is about 3:30 p.m.

Damage from trees caused the outage, according to DTE.

DTE is asking customers to be on the lookout for down power lines and to stay at least 20 feet away. If noticed, call a local utility immediately.

"There could still potentially be down power lines that we don't know about," Berris said, adding they could be hiding under leaves or branches.MILAN, MI - Multiple videos allegedly showing Washtenaw County high school students making racist remarks have been circulating on social media recently.

Milan Area Schools and Lincoln Consolidated Schools have issued responses to two separate videos.

Milan High School students posted a video on social media that included "racist comments using terms referring to slavery and derogatory terms for African Americans," according to a statement from Superintendent Bryan Girbach on Wednesday, Sept. 19.

The video - originally posted to Snapchat - shows two vehicles in a parking lot connected by jumper cables, and one white male teenager says "that b**** is deader than a n***** on a slave ship."

"Hate and racial prejudice have no place in our school and our community," Girbach wrote in the statement to the Milan Schools community. "Our school and our district find the words used in this video to be deplorable and we strongly denounce the actions and words of these students."

Girbach acknowledged the harm done to students of color in Milan who saw the video and said "additional effort must be made to repair that damage."

In addition to disciplinary measures for violating school rules, he said school staff will implement "restorative practices" that emphasize repairing the relationship between the individuals who caused the harm and those who were harmed.

"When it comes to discipline, there are a lot of factors that get involved - did it happen on school grounds, did it happen during the school day, was it done using district technology," Girbach said.

Lincoln Consolidated Schools administrators considered a separate video of students using racial slurs to be a threat and reported it to law enforcement, who determined the threat was "non-viable," according to an email sent Monday, Sept. 24, to Lincoln families.

"We need your help and are asking parents to talk with their children about posting on social media," says the message to families from Lincoln Schools administrators. "Once posted, the message and subsequent comments will follow them into adulthood, possibly affecting their ability to further their education or find employment."

The video involving two Lincoln students - according to Superintendent Sean McNatt - shows four white males sitting on the tailgate of a pickup truck at night repeatedly using racial slurs. Girbach said there may have been a Milan student in that video too.

"Black lives do not matter" and "You hang better on a tree than apples do," the boys say in the video, which was originally posted on Snapchat.

McNatt said Tuesday that school staff had met with the family of the two Lincoln students in the video, and they decided to withdraw the students from Lincoln schools.

"This school district is a district that respects and honors diversity," McNatt said. "We work closely with our community to keep our parents informed of things when we find them out."ANN ARBOR, MI - The newest student high-rise in Ann Arbor's South U district welcomed its first residents for the fall semester.

Six11 offers 90 apartments, with 320 bedrooms, catering to University of Michigan students who want to live off-campus but still easily walk to their classes.

The 13-story building at 611 E. University Ave. spans the width of the city block from East University to Church Street. City council approved the project in August 2016.

Residents started arriving in August, and the building is 98 percent occupied, said architect J. Bradley Moore, who worked on the project with Washington, D.C.-based WDG Architecture. Collegiate Development Group was the project developer.

"As much housing as we can build in Ann Arbor, it's all in demand," Moore said.

Six11 has studio, four-, five- and six-bedroom apartments, ranging from 408 square feet to 2,044 square feet.

Monthly rent per person is $1,225 for a standard room in a five-bedroom apartment. It's $2,059 for a studio.

The building's main attractions are found on the top floor, where a rooftop deck with seating, outdoor fire pits and a grill station offers views of the city skyline.

The deck adjoins a penthouse lounge, with plenty of seating and tables, a fireplace, TVs and a kitchenette, which leads back to a meeting room and "cyber lounge" with computers and a printer. A fitness center also sits on the top floor.

Retail space occupies the ground floor of Six11, and two levels of parking are located above that. Tenants are lined up for the retail spaces, which are still under construction.

Residents pay an additional fee to lease one of the 56 parking spaces, and the building also has a bike parking room. An Amazon hub in the lobby allows for secure delivery of packages to residents.IOSCO COUNTY, MI -- Investigators with the Federal Aviation Administration have identified human remains at the site of a plane crash in rural Iosco County.

Michigan State Police confirmed the discovery of the remains Tuesday night, but they added a positive identification of the victim has not yet been made at this time.

The Federal Aviation Administration contacted Iosco County Central Dispatch around 7:30 a.m. Sept. 25, to report a missing plane.

A dual-propeller King Air, 10-passenger plane had been en route to Kalitta Air in Oscoda and had left the Ypsilanti Willow Run airport earlier in the morning.

The plane was last observed on radar southwest of the airport at a rapid descent. Michigan State Police troopers, Oscoda Township police and firefighters, and Iosco County Sheriff's deputies searched the area.

Ground crews found the plane's wreckage around 10:30 a.m. Tuesday morning in Iosco County's Wilber Township, though its pilot was not present.

The pilot, believed to be the lone occupant on the plane, is a 33-year-old man from Orlando, Florida.

Officers from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and the United States Forest Service also assisted at the scene.BAY CITY, MI -- A Bay County man alleged to have driven more than 100 miles -- one-way -- to abduct a preteen girl, bring her to his home, and sexually assault her has accepted a plea deal.

Chad D. Michael, 36, on Sept. 24 appeared before Bay County Circuit Judge Joseph K. Sheeran and pleaded no contest to one count of third-degree criminal sexual conduct using force or coercion. The charge involves penetration and is punishable by up to 15 years' imprisonment.

In exchange, prosecutors agreed to dismiss three counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct with a victim between the ages of 13 and 15, which is a life offense.

Bay County Prosecutor Nancy E. Borushko also said the agreement stipulates Michael will serve a minimum 10 years in prison.

Michael's trial was to begin Sept. 25.

By pleading no contest, Michael did not verbally admit to having committed a crime. Rather, Judge Sheeran had to rely on police reports to enter a conviction on the record.

Bay County Sheriff Troy R. Cunningham previously told MLive that about 11:30 p.m. on Feb. 18, an 11-year-old Dimondale girl was reported missing by her parents. Deputies in Dimondale's Eaton County pinged the girl's iPad and determined it was in or near a Frankenlust Township apartment building.

The Eaton County deputies contacted their Bay County counterparts, who went to the unit in the 7000 block of Mackinaw Road early Feb. 19. Deputies met with Michael. Inside his unit, deputies found the girl.

Police arrested Michael and transported the girl to an area hospital for an evaluation. She was later returned to her family.

Deputies subsequently learned the girl had met Michael several weeks prior via a Craigslist casual encounters portal, Cunningham has said. The night of Feb. 18, Michael had driven the roughly 110 miles to the girl's house and picked her up, then drove her back to his apartment, the sheriff has said.

Sheeran is to sentence Michael at 9 a.m. on Nov. 5.FLINT, MI - Two people had to jump from the balcony of a third-floor apartment and others were pulled out by firefighters as flames engulfed the building early Wednesday morning.

The Flint Fire Department was called around 2 a.m. on Sept. 26 to The Pines Apartments at 3901 Hammerberg Road, according to Battalion Chief Mark Kovach.

Residents heard some noises in the hallway and looked out to see the fire everywhere, called 911 and jumped off the balcony, Kovach said.

He said he's not sure how many had to jump - possibly two adults and two small children. They were gone from the scene when firefighters arrived, according to Kovach.

Two people were hospitalized - one for leg and back pain and one for smoke inhalation.

"When we got there, the fire was on the third floor blowing out of the balconies of two different units' sliding glass doors," Kovach said.

He said the first crew on scene started attacking the fire and the second crew used a ladder to get upstairs and carried people down the ladder from the third-floor windows.

Eight of the building's 12 units had families inside, according to Kovach.

It took firefighters about 30 minutes to get the fire under control.

The third floor of the building was severely damaged by fire, Kovach said, while the second floor sustained mainly water damage.

"I think they got to it and put it out quick enough where the building might even be repairable," he said.

The residents of the building will not be able to return and are being assisted by the American Red Cross.

There were five pumps and 23 firefighters battling the blaze and there no firefighters were injured, according to Kovach.

The cause and origin of the fire is under investigation.BURTON, MI -- Former Burton City Clerk Teresa Karsney has pleaded no contest to a reduced charge in connection with a 2016 land deal.

Karsney's plea on Sept. 18 in Genesee District Court led to a charge of violating Michigan's Notary Public Act involving real property being dropped to a misdemeanor notory public violation and faces no jail time in connection with the incident.

A no contest plea is not an admission of guilt but is treated as such during sentencing.

She is required to pay a $325 fine and received one-year of unsupervised probation, according to district court records. Karsney faced up to four years and/or a $5,000 on the felony charge.

Rik Hayman, the city's chief of staff, confirmed Karsney was fired on June 13. Bette Bigsby has since been hired as the acting clerk.

An investigation by Burton police revealed that Karsney notarized a signature that was made outside of her presence and concerned a transaction involving real property.

A police report obtained by MLive-The Flint Journal through the Freedom of Information Act Request showed Deputy Clerk Racheal Ervin-Boggs agreed in July 2016 to purchase property on McLean Street from another resident.

Karsney signed documents in connection with the deal when all the people were not present, according to investigators.

The property owner told police he agreed to payments for the parcel but was not paid in full, according to the police report. Ervin-Boggs said she paid $1,000 -- the agreed amount -- but the property owner said she owed $500 more. Ultimately, Ervin-Boggs backed out of the deal.

The owner later discovered Ervin-Boggs had paid taxes on the property and a quitclaim deed for the property was notarized by Karsney and filed with the Genesee County Register of Deeds on behalf of Ervin-Boggs, the police report said.

A quitclaim deed is used to transfer ownership of property from one person to another.

The owner claimed he never signed the deed and Karsney was not involved in the transaction, according to the police report.

Ervin-Boggs told police a lease agreement was signed but she broke off the deal after the owner repeatedly asked her to pay an additional $500. She claimed to not have seen the property owner since the agreement and the quitclaim deed was signed -- on the same day.

Police said Ervin-Boggs could not provide an explanation to police on how Karsney could have notarized the signatures if the owner never went to Burton City Hall. A notarization is required to take place with all parties involved present, the report claims.

Karsney and Ervin-Boggs were placed on administrative leave in September 2017 following a citizen complaint about the land deal. The leave initially included pay, but it was changed to unpaid leave in December.

Ervin-Boggs was not charged in the case. She was fired on the same day as Karsney, but she returned to the deputy clerk role on Sept. 5 following a grievance settlement, Hayman said.

Karsney has filed a lawsuit against the city while on unpaid leave, alleging she was punished for speaking out against misdeeds allegedly occurring within the city government.FLINT, MI - Genesee Circuit Judge Joseph J. Farah denied proposals from attorneys on Wednesday that aimed to get juvenile sentences for four teens charged with throwing a rock off a highway overpass that killed a Mt. Morris man.

Farah said it was the second time he was denying potential resolutions in the case for 17-year-olds Mark Sekelsky, Mikadyn Payne, 16-year-old Alexzander Miller and 15-year-old Trevor Gray.

Attorneys for the four aim to have 10 of the 11 charges each teen faces dropped and have a second-degree murder charge amended to manslaughter if the deal is accepted in Genesee Circuit Court.

They're charged with the Oct. 18, 2017, killing of 32-year-old Kenneth A. White, who died after a rock was dropped from the Dodge Road overpass onto southbound Interstate 75 in Vienna Township, crashing through the windshield of a vehicle he was riding in.

"There will be no juvenile sentencing without a juvenile sentencing hearing in open court with live witnesses and input from all involved," Farah said. "This court is not going to be party to any sort of resolution that is created without the transparency of such a public hearing."

The plea proposals Farah denied Wednesday did not include any public juvenile hearing.

Farah said attorneys have 21 days to submit new proposals to the court.

"This desire for a public hearing is not born out of any desire to make things more uncomfortable for the victims, but this court has a duty to ensure that such a weighty matter as to whether or not these young men are treated as juveniles must be accompanied by sufficient courtroom evidence and not evidence that lurks outside the freshly lit and open air of the courtroom," Farah said.

Kyle Anger, 18, of Vienna Township, also faces second-degree murder, conspiracy to commit second-degree murder, malicious destruction of property and other felony and misdemeanor charges in connection White's death.

He has been bound over to circuit court on the charges and is awaiting trial.

Investigators previously said tires and an engine piston also were thrown from the Farrand Road overpass onto I-75, roughly three miles north of where White was killed. Several other vehicles sustained damage, including flat tires, from items thrown onto the interstate.

The rocks, one weighing 20 pounds, were gathered from a dead-end street in Vienna Township and put in the flatbed of a pickup truck, police previously said.FLINT, MI -- An attorney for Michigan Department of Health and Human Services Director Nick Lyon says he expects to request that a jury from outside Flint decide whether his client committed involuntary manslaughter during the city's water crisis.

Lyon, whose case was bound over to Genesee Circuit Court for trial last month, appeared for the first time before Judge Joseph Farah on Wednesday, Sept. 26, and his attorney, Chip Chamberlain, said he expects he will ask the court for a change in venue.

That's not expected to happen until Farah -- and potentially the state Court of Appeals -- rules on another motion that asks to dismiss the bindover of the case from Genesee District Court.

Lyon contends there was insufficient evidence to warrant that move.

Chamberlain's comments Wednesday aren't the first time Lyon supporters have suggested the director can't get a fair trial in Flint, the site of a federally recognized health emergency that he's accused of having some responsibility for.

The water crisis, including charges of criminal wrongdoing by Lyon and others, has been discussed extensively in forums, public meetings, traditional news reports and on social media here.

Although a jury would be drafted from all of Genesee County, Flint residents -- potential victims of the water crisis crimes -- could be a part of that mix.

Lt. Gov. Brian Calley said on Twitter in August that District Judge David Goggins made a "political decision" when he bound Lyon over on two counts of involuntary manslaughter, misconduct in office and willful neglect of duty.

Calley went on to call for any trial to be moved outside Flint.

Farah told special prosecutor Todd Flood to respond to the motion to quash Lyon's bindover by Nov. 5 and told Chamberlain he would have until Nov. 16 to reply to that response.

The judge said both sides will make oral arguments on that issue after Nov. 16, but in "this calendar year, I assure you."

Farah has been assigned the cases of Lyon and former Flint emergency manager Gerald Ambrose -- the first two water crisis prosecutions to arrive in circuit court.

As he did in a scheduling hearing for Ambrose Tuesday, Sept. 25, the judge said Wednesday that he expects the cases will take time but will move forward at "a good, steady pace."

"We don't handle things willy-nilly on any case -- especially this one," he told Lyon, noting that he intends to read "every page" of a 2,800-page transcript generated in District Court.

Farah said he's been told the status of other Flint water prosecutions by Genesee District Court judges who are overseeing them.

In the case of Dr. Eden Wells, the state's chief medical executive, a bindover decision is expected to be made by the end of October, Farah said.

In the case of former Flint emergency manager Darnell Early, a preliminary examination is expected to begin Oct. 14, the judge said.GENESEE COUNTY, MI -- The Westboro Baptist Church plans visits to three mid-Michigan schools next week, according to the group's website.

The stops planned for Friday, Oct. 5, by the group include Southwestern Classical Academy in Flint, University of Michigan-Flint during the Society of Environmental Journalists conference, and outside Grand Blanc High School.

"The condition of these children is very sad; they have no hope, no jobs, no money ... only judgment in this life and the next, all because the selfish adults in their lives (parents, preachers, teachers and leaders) have lied to them from the cradle," reads a release from the Kansas-based group on its scheduled visit to the Flint high school.

The group has been labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

"The group is basically a family-based cult of personality built around its patriarch, Fred Phelps," according to the SPLC's website. "Typified by its slogan, 'God Hates Fags,'" WBC is known for its harsh anti-gay beliefs and the crude signs its members carry at their frequent protests."

Derrick Lopez, Flint Community Schools Superintendent, offered a statement Wednesday night after learning of the impending visit.

"Picket protesters will not be permitted on Flint Community Schools grounds or inside the school," he said. "Flint Community Schools strives to create a warm and welcoming learning environment--it is our hope that all guests to our campus would do the same."

While respecting the group's to voice its beliefs under the Constitution, Lopez added "we do not support or in any way sanction the message they intend to share."

In reference to the group's release, he noted "Instead of being met by children who have 'no hope' as their promotional materials allege, I believe these protestors will be pleased to see the opposite -- children who, in the face of adversity, are some of the most committed around."

Members of the church have taken place in pickets over the years at military funerals killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The group rose to prominence after picketing the trial and funeral of Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old gay man killed in October 1998.

Westboro officials did not immediately respond to messages by MLive-The Flint Journal for comment on the reasons behind their pickets at the University of Michigan-Flint or Grand Blanc High School on homecoming day.

A statement from Clarence Garner, superintendent of Grand Blanc Community Schools, clarified the "planned demonstration is scheduled to take place on property that is public domain in the vicinity of Grand Blanc High School, not on school property."

He added the Grand Blanc schools "in no way 'allowed' this demonstration to take place" and were informed by law enforcement of the possible event to accordingly prepare students and staff.

"While first amendment rights afford some protections to those that choose to spread a message of hatred, our school seeks to provide a safe, healthy environment for each and every one of our students to learn and grow," according to a district statement, noting police will be present.Hudsonville Creamery & Ice Cream Company has built a new test kitchen and pilot plant at its headquarters on 48th Street in Holland, a $1.6 million investment to help the company grow its distribution network and create new flavors.

The pilot kitchen expands Hudsonville's ability to create "small batch flavors," such as those that are part of the company's Michigan Artisan Collection, according to a news release from Lakeshore Advantage, an economic development organization that helped the company obtain a tax cut on the investment.

The city of Holland provided the company with a 12-year tax abatement that will cut the tax bill, related to the expansion, in half. Without the abatement, the company would have paid $582,402 in taxes over a 12-year period. Instead, it's expected to pay $291,201.

"Hudsonville Ice Cream is known and loved throughout this region, and this investment is the perfect way to honor our heritage here," CJ Ellens, the company's director of sales and marketing, said in a statement. "We are immensely proud of our West Michigan roots, and it is our hope that it shines through in every batch of ice cream we make. Our facility expansion is a reflection of our plans for the future, and we are committed to growing our operations here in Holland for years to come."

Hudsonville's expansion, which also included a new silo for storing raw materials, was completed in May, according to a company spokesperson.

The company expects to hire 25 new employees within two years of the project's completion, according to information the company submitted to the city of Holland. Those workers are expected to earn an hourly wage between $16 and $18.

The project did not require the construction of additional space. Rather, the company repurposed existing space within its building, according to the company.

"Congratulations to Hudsonville Ice Cream for their growth and establishing new levels of deliciousness to be tested and produced right here in West Michigan," Jennifer Owens, president of Lakeshore Advantage, said in a statement.Uber will pay Michigan $1 million as part of a settlement reached to address its one-year delay in reporting a data breach to its affected drivers.

The deal is part of a larger settlement with the other 49 states and the District of Columbia in which the California-based ride-sharing company will pay $148 million.

Michigan will receive $1,803,472.49, money that will be used to provide each Michigan Uber driver impacted with a $100 payment.

"Companies have a responsibility to be upfront and transparent with their customers, employees, and stakeholders," said Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette. "Uber failed to do that and now they are seeing the consequences of their actions."

Uber learned in November 2016 that hackers had gained access to its driver's personal information, including drivers' license information pertaining to approximately 600,000 drivers nationwide.

However, Uber failed to report the breach in a timely manner. It did not do so until November 2017.

Michigan drivers eligible to receive the $100 payment are those whose driver's license numbers were accessed during the 2016 breach. Some of those drivers may not still be driving for Uber today.

A settlement administrator will be appointed to provide notice and payment to eligible drivers.DETROIT - "White Boy Rick" has hit the big screen.

The film starring Academy Award-winning actor Matthew McConaughey tells the fact-based story of Richard Wershe Jr., a Detroit teenager who became an undercover informant for the FBI during the 1980s and was ultimately arrested for drug-trafficking and sentenced to life in prison.

The film has received mixed reviews from critics, but there's nothing mixed about the reaction from Wershe's sister, Dawn Scott, who expressed frustration over her family's portrayal in an exclusive interview with WXYZ in Detroit.

"We were portrayed in the film as low-class dirt poor scuzz bags," she said. "I don't know what other words to use, not the way it was."

British actress Bel Powley portrays Dawn in the film, which hit theaters nationwide on Sept. 14.

McConaughey plays their father, Richard Wershe Sr., who raised his kids on the east side of Detroit. He is seen throughout the film dealing firearms on the street and complying with his son's drug activity.

One of the first scenes of the film, which is also featured in its trailers, shows a strung-out Dawn fighting with her father in the street in her underwear. Dawn's heroin use is a major characteristic of her character in the film.

"Well, they never really say (what drug it is)," Dawn told WXYZ reporter Carolyn Clifford when asked about the drugs. "But that's what we're all assuming, that's the drug of choice just by the way she acts, and I have never done heroin in my life."

Dawn and Rick's grandparents are also in the film. They are mostly portrayed as aloof and out-of-touch by Bruce Dern and Piper Laurie, despite living across the street from Richard Wershe and his kids.

But according to Dawn, just about all of the family dynamics portrayed in the movie are wrong.

"They look like a bunch of drunks that just didn't care, wild and crazy, but they are the best people you'd ever meet," she said, noting that her grandparents helped raise her.

Dawn goes on to say that her family was never consulted for the film, but McConaughey did visit with Wershe Jr. at Oaks Correctional Facility in Manistee in March 2017 for more than 4 hours to prepare for the role.

White Boy Rick was arrested in 1987 for possessing cocaine in excess of eight kilograms and sentenced to life in prison.

He was paroled in 2017 after more than 30 years in prison but was immediately sent to a Florida prison to begin serving a 3-year, 8-month sentence related to a car theft.A 53-year-old Sault Ste. Marie man was killed in a Monday afternoon, Sept. 24 crash after police say his car sustained a "catastrophic brake failure" at an intersection.

The Chippewa County Sheriff's Office reports in a news release that Kirk Mortinsen, 53, was killed in the 3:10 p.m. Monday crash at the intersection of Riverside Drive and 7 Mile Road in Bruce Township.

Mortinsen is believed to have been heading east on 7 Mile Road when he was unable to stop at a stop sign and was struck by a southbound vehicle. He died as a result of his injuries suffered in the crash the next day at the hospital.

Police say the other driver was injured in the crash, but was treated and released from the hospital.

The sheriff's office was assisted by the Michigan State Police and Chippewa County Central Dispatch at the scene. The incident remains under investigation as "additional information is being collected."JACKSON, MI - Nine residents have been displaced after the city of Jackson shut down a property it says has hundreds of inspection violations.

The seven-unit building at the 700 block of Lansing Avenue was shut down on Monday, Sept. 24.

City officials helped the displaced residents find housing, with help from the Salvation Army, Community Action Agency, city landlords and Department of Health and Human Services, Public Information Officer Aaron Dimick said in an email.

While some tenants were connected with All-Pro - a Jackson-area property management company - for permanent housing, tenants with dogs deemed an "aggressive breed" could not be accommodated, tenant Nita Lentz said.

Lentz, who lived at the property for six months, said the landlord put her up in a motel for three nights.

"I have nowhere to go, as of tomorrow morning, again," Lentz said.

She's been told by multiple groups she'll need to drop her dog off at the shelter if she wants to have a place to stay. Lentz isn't sure what she'll do, saying "My pets are family, to me."

The conditions at the Lansing Avenue property were poor, however, Lentz said.

"Every time it would rain, it would leak in the doorway," Lentz said. "The cockroaches just got worse and worse and worse. It was horrible. It wasn't livable at all. But when you have nowhere else to go, what else are you supposed to do?"

Tenants were alerted of their impending eviction three days in advance, city officials and Lentz said. The property has 260 violations, Dimick said.

"A lot of the violations concern trash in and around the property, along with structural violations, rodents and roach infestations," Dimick said. "Inspectors found it to be in poor condition and does not meet city codes."

The landlord, Steven Hunt, owes the city more than $8,700 in fines and fees related to the property, per city officials. After several inspection cycles, the property was never brought back up to code.

Hunt has owned the 3,077-square-foot property since 2007, per city documents.

"The city believes this is a dangerous structure and it is unfit for residents to be living in it," Dimick said.KALAMAZOO, MI -- Metro transit users can look forward to new buses and upcoming improvements to make routes safer, more efficient and reach new areas of Kalamazoo County.

Seven to eight aging buses will be replaced through $3.5 million total in grants from the U.S. Department of Transportation, providing 80 percent of the funding, and Michigan Department of Transportation. Kalamazoo County's transportation authority is also preparing to present a plan that will guide improvements to the transit system for the next several years.

Grant funds will modernizing the Central County Transportation Authority's fleet of 40 fixed-route buses, which provide nearly 3 million rides annually. Buses are routinely replaced after around 15 years and can accumulate up to 600,000 miles.

Each of the buses is around $450,000, said Sean McBride, executive director of the Central County Transportation Authority.

In August, U.S. Rep. Fred Upton, R-St. Joseph, wrote a letter to DOT Secretary Elaine Chao expressing "unfettered support" for the project.

"Affordable public transportation is vital for so many students and families and the grant will directly help them and improve this critical community service," Upton said in a release. "This is very welcomed news for Kalamazoo."

Bus stops at more than 300 locations throughout Kalamazoo County could change as part of planned improvements to the transit system. There are around 700 marked stops across the county, McBride said.

The main reason for changes is to improve safety and efficiency, McBride said. This could bring new benches and sheltered bus stops, while others are moved to safer locations.

Stops with few riders could be discontinued, while others are added to areas where there are gaps in the transit system.

Kalamazoo Metro hosted two meetings and collected online comments this summer to receive public feedback. Those areas were studied by Metro while it considers consolidating, relocating and adding bus stops.

The CCTA will review recommendations at its Monday, Oct. 8 meeting.

Next summer, changes will be implemented to improve customer experience, operational safety and prioritize capital investments across the transit system. McBride said it will take several years to implement the changes.

A full listing of proposed changes can be seen through an online map.

The Central County Transportation Authority was created in 2014 and is funded through a county-wide 0.75-mill tax and state and federal grants.

The authority covers the cities of Kalamazoo, Portage and Parchment, the townships of Comstock and Kalamazoo, and a portion of Oshtemo Township.GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- A Kalamazoo man will serve more than 19 years in federal prison for his role in a methamphetamine distribution ring in Southwest Michigan.

Michael Donnell Neeley, 39, was sentenced to 19 years, seven months in prison for the drug ring that moved pounds of meth at a time through the mail.

Neeley, one of eight people charged in the drug operation, was convicted by a jury in May 2018 of conspiring to distribute methamphetamine. He also was found guilty of possession with intent to distribute marijuana and possession of a firearm after a previous felony conviction.

In addition to his prison term, Neeley was sentenced to five years of supervised release and must pay a fine of $3,000. U.S. District Court Judge Janet Neff determined Neeley merited an increased sentence because of his extensive criminal history, for possessing a firearm during the crime and for committing perjury while testifying in his own defense at trial, the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Western District of Michigan said in a press release.

Eight people were charged in December 2017 with conspiracy to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute methamphetamine, and various other drug and firearm charges.

Authorities say the conspiracy started in July 2016 when the leader, Noel Saldana, and Thomas Cowley met Jesus Ramirez-Luna, a Phoenix-based meth supplier. Ramirez-Luna supplied Saldana with pounds of meth on a monthly basis for him to distribute throughout Kalamazoo and Van Buren counties. Ramirez-Luna would ship the meth using the U.S. Postal Service and the United Parcel Service, and Saldana would coordinate receipt of the delivers with Thomas Cowley and Sheryl Ayad, according to police. After receiving the meth, Saldana gave it to Cowley, Neeley, Smith and others to distribute it in Southwest Michigan.

Over the course of the investigation, authorities intercepted more than 11 pounds of crystal meth from the mail.

Neeley's co-defendants have also been sentenced:

Noel Francisco Saldana of Hartford: 17 years, six months

Jesus Manuel Ramirez-Luna, of Phoenix, Arizona: 10 years and one month

Thomas Lee Cowley of Kalamazoo: 11 years, 4 months

Sheryl Lynn Ayad of Kalamazoo: One day time served plus two years of weekend confinement

Thomas Lewillan Cowley Jr. of Kalamazoo: 10 years

Justin Owen Smith, of Watervliet, 10 years

Robert Eugene Nichols of Kalamazoo, three years

David Leroy Strickler of Galesburg, one year and one day

"Make no mistake, this organization preyed on our communities and destroyed West Michigan neighborhoods by distributing methamphetamine and various drugs. These sentencings are a step toward disrupting the poison pushers in America," Timothy J. Plancon, Special Agent in Charge of the Detroit Field Division of the Drug Enforcement Administration, said.

The DEA led the investigation and was assisted by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the Kalamazoo Valley Enforcement Team and the Southwest Enforcement Team. The investigation, called "Operation Crystal Misery, was part of the U.S. Department of Justice's Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces program.MUSKEGON, MI - Muskegon Community College is seeing a decline in student enrollment this fall.

There are 4 percent fewer students on the MCC campus this fall compared to fall 2017. However, those students are taking more classes as credit hour enrollment dropped by 1.76 percent.

The decrease in students follows local and national trends, said MCC President Dale Nesbary. He doesn't expect it to cause a budgeting problem.

"For this year, we expect that we'll be able to manage the difference between enrollment and what we budgeted through staffing levels and related items," he said. "There won't be an issue in balancing the budget and serving students."

The 4 percent student decline reflects a loss of 174 students from fall 2017 to fall 2018. Fall 2018 enrollment is 4,129. Returning students account for about 73 percent of the population.

"Enrollment has been down by a percent or two for the past 5 years," Nesbary said. "This (decrease) follows that trend and follows national trends. It's actually leveling off in our case."

It is estimated that the number of high school students will decrease by 10 percent nationally between 2013 and 2023, Nesbary said. That decline is affecting enrollment at all educational institutions.

The decline in student numbers does not seem to be related to the 8 percent tuition increase that the MCC Board of Trustees passed during the spring, Nesbary said.

The tuition increase along with a $5-per-contact-hour fee increase was expected to generate about $1.4 million in revenue for the 2018-19 fiscal year.

The board has approved tuition increases every year for the past 5 years, ranging from 3-6.9 percent. The larger increase this year is meant to support the completion of capital projects, especially the $9 million art center, Nesbary said.

Other building projects include the finished science center and Carolyn I. and Peter Sturrus Technology Center in downtown Muskegon. The health and wellness center is under construction.

Even with declining numbers of late, there's still a need for more space and infrastructure, Nesbary said. The campus, 221 Quarterline Road, opened in 1967 with about 2,000 students. Since then, the physical infrastructure has increased by about 25 percent while student count more than doubled.

MCC was founded in 1926.

MCC saw a 5 percent increase in full time students this fall compared to fall 2017. There are now 1,557 full time students, about 38 percent of the population, compared to 1,482 during fall 2017.

In-district students make up 61 percent of the student body with 39 percent from outside the district. Most out-of-district students come from Ottawa, Newaygo and Oceana counties.FREELAND, MI -- A Freeland-area couple is accused of abusing an infant and lying to investigators.

On Aug. 22, Amber K. Simpson, 26, and live-in boyfriend Lonnie D. Hackett II, 27, took Simpson's 3-month-old son to an area hospital. They told hospital staff the baby had been involved in an accident 10 days prior and had been exhibiting symptoms they believed stemmed from that.

Investigators determined the child's injuries were consistent with shaken baby syndrome, according to prosecutors. As police investigated, both Simpson and Hackett claimed the baby had been accidentally injured.

While they were at the hospital, a Tittabawassee Township police detective seized Simpson's and Hackett's phones. However, before the detective obtained a search warrant to examine the devices, Hackett performed a factory reset of Simpson's from a laptop, prosecutors allege.

Prosecutors on Aug. 27 issued charges against the pair for evidence tampering and conspiracy to commit that crime. They were arraigned on those charges the next day.

On Monday, Sept. 24, prosecutors issued more charges against the couple. Police arrested Simpson and Hackett that evening and the following morning they appeared in Saginaw County District Court for arraignment on charges of second-degree child abuse and lying to a peace officer.

Second-degree child abuse is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

The baby has since been released from the hospital and is recovering, but is not in his parents' custody, prosecutors said.

Simpson is represented by Brian K. Jean of Bay City firm Triton Legal.

"Ms. Simpson is presumed innocent, and has been distraught over the injuries her child sustained," Jean told MLive. "I would note that by all accounts, Ms. Simpson acted appropriately in getting her child to the hospital. Thankfully, it appears through the medical records which we have already obtained that the child will recover fully, and the injuries sustained were not severe."

Jean added he believes investigators "jumped to conclusions about what occurred, and made rash decisions without considering other possibilities."

Unrelated to the child abuse matters, Simpson in January was arraigned on counts of arson of an insured dwelling and insurance fraud. Those charges stem from prosecutors alleging she lit her Tittabawassee Township residence on fire, severely damaging it.

Arson of an insured dwelling is a life offense.

Prosecutors dismissed those charges in June. However, they refiled them and Simpson was again arraigned on them on Sept. 4.

"It is our belief that this ... is simply a pressure tactic to try to force Ms. Simpson into some sort of plea deal, since there was no effort by the investigating officer to seek any additional evidence in the arson case until this case came up," Jean said.

On their latest charges, both Simpson's and Hackett's bonds were set at $10,000 cash-surety or 10 percent. They are scheduled to appear for a preliminary examination at 2:30 p.m. on Oct. 12.SAGINAW TWP, MI -- Plans are in motion for Texas Roadhouse restaurant to open next spring at a busy intersection in Saginaw Township.

A preliminary site plan for Texas Roadhouse was approved by the Saginaw Township Planning Commission on Thursday, Sept. 20.

The 7,163-square-foot restaurant will be located at 4900 Bay Road, at the intersection of Tittabawassee, where a Sears Auto Center now sits.

"They're going to demolish it (Sears Auto Center) and buy a chunk of land from Sears. It will be mostly fronting Bay Road," said Connie Edlinger, administrative assistant for Saginaw Township Community Development.

The auto center is still open and Sears could not be reached for comment about the project.

"We are interested in the area but have not signed a lease yet," said Travis Doster, a representative with Texas Roadhouse.

The site plan calls for 212 parking spaces and extensive landscaping that includes 51 trees and 102 shrubs. The restaurant is planning to hire 115-130 employees, said Steve King, director of community development for Saginaw Township. It's not known how many people work at the Sears Auto Center.

Texas Roadhouse is a Western-style eatery that opened in 1993 and now has more than 500 locations. The company is based in Louisville, Kentucky.

King said he's not sure of the timeline for construction in Saginaw Township, but the business could be open early 2019.The Detroit Red Wings experienced an offensive outburst against a Chicago Blackhawks club that dressed its best players on Tuesday.

Andreas Athanasiou scored two goals and picked up a pair of assists while Thomas Vanek scored twice and contributed an assist in an 8-6 victory at the United Center.

The Red Wings are 5-0 in the preseason.

Athanasiou leads the team with four goals and six points. Vanek has three goals and four points.

Anthony Mantha picked up a goal and two assists. Dylan Larkin and Darren Helm each contributed a goal and an assist. Luke Witkowski scored a goal.

Jimmy Howard played the entire game, stopping 30-of-36 shots.

The Red Wings recorded only 25 shots and went 0 for 1 on the power play.

The Blackhawks lineup featured Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews, Brandon Saad, Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook.

The Red Wings visit Boston on Wednesday and Toronto on Friday before wrapping up the preseason Saturday against the Maple Leafs at Little Caesars Arena.Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 26)  The Presidential Electoral Tribunal has directed its head poll revisors to refer to the election returns in classifying votes in the contested vice presidential elections.

The Supreme Court, sitting as PET, said the head revisors should refer to the electoral returns - the printed document that contains the total vote count of a polling precinct - to segregate and classify ballots in the protest filed by losing candidate and former Senator Bongbong Marcos against Vice President Leni Robredo.

"The Head Revisors are hereby directed to refer to the election returns to verify the total number of votes as read and counted by the vote counting machines," the dispositive portion of the 21-page resolution issued on September 18 read.

It added, "The segregation and classification of ballots shall be done by referring to the election return generated by the machine used in the elections."

Segregating and classifying ballots will give the Marcos and Robredo camps the opportunity to register their objections on the votes. PET clarified there is no final vote counting yet.

"It is only after the Tribunal has deliberated and ruled on the validity of the objections or claims that a deduction or addition of votes will take place," Justice Alfredo Caguioa said in the resolution.

Former Comelec Commissioner Sixto Brillantes said the focus should be on the election returns, not the shading threshold.

"Sinasabi nila (PET) na tignan natin ang election returns. Importante be ang threshold? Sa ngayon hindi pa," he told CNN Philippines.

Shading threshold

PET has amended its old rule on the 50 percent threshold shading and recognized the Commission on Elections (Comelec) ballot shading threshold of 25 percent in the recount of the 2016 poll votes.

"From the foregoing, for purposes of the 2016 elections, the fifty percent (50%) shading threshold was no longer applied. It is likewise clear however that a new threshold had been applied," it said.

The Tribunal added, "In examining the shades or marks used to register the votes, the head revisor shall bear in mind that the will of the voters reflected as votes in the ballots shall, as much as possible, be given effect, setting aside any technicalities."

PET said it was not informed that Comelec has set a 25 percent shading threshold during the 2016 national elections. It said it only knew about it when Robredo filed her motion.

Brillantes said the PET ruled to follow the threshold used by Comelec in the 2016 polls.

"Since ang ginamit ng Comelec na threshold ay 25 percent, ang lalabas sa election returns ay based on the shading based on 25 percent," he told CNN Philippines.

Bongbong Marcos, who protested Robredo's election, pushed for a 50 percent shading threshold after he claimed the Comelec did not declare the change in shading threshold rules. The Office of the Solicitor General also echoed Marcos' plea, even dropping its client Comelec in favor of Marcos.

Meanwhile, the PET resolution also denied Marcos' opposition to using decrypted ballot images in the revision process. Marcos earlier claimed the images were "compromised."

"He has not submitted any proof or evidence to show that the decrypted ballot images are compromised or that they are dubious or questionable. Mere allegations are not proof," it read.

The decision also stated Marcos' representatives were allowed to observe Comelec's process of decryption, adding they were even required to authenticate the images which they called dubious.

Robredo camp celebrates

Robredo, who heard of the PET resolution Tuesday afternoon, said the decision was a big relief.

"Parang natatawa kami sa sarili namin earlier, kasi parang two years dumaan, parang lahat na lang bad news for us," she said in a media briefing Wednesday.

[Translation: We found it funny, because it's been two years, and it's a been a slew of bad news for us.]

She then said the ruling also belied Marcos' claims on the ballot images and the shading -- adding that the ruling upheld the voter's intent.

"Ultimately kami 'yung nakikita na nagsasabi ng totoo {we are the ones seen telling the truth}," Robredo said.

Robredo's legal counsel, Romulo Macalintal, repeated no election protest has been one based on the manual recount of the ballots. He said the results of the manual recount must tally with the result of the vote counting machines.

"We are now confident that the physical count will now tally with the election returns," he said.

Macalintal called the development a "significant legal and political victory" on Robredo's behalf.

Marcos camp eyes clarification

While the Robredo camp celebrates, the camp of Marcos said it may seek a clarification from the PET about its ruling.

Lawyer Vic Rodriguez told CNN Philippines the Tribunal's ruling is clear there is no basis to change the 50 percent shading threshold for the vote recount in the vice presidential race.

"Malinaw sa ruling ng Tribunal na ibinasura ang kaniyang motion for reconsideration regarding the threshold. Klarong-klaro at sinasabing ang threshold is 50 percent," he told CNN Philippines.

But Macalintal countered Rodriguez, saying the PET will not order the retraining of revisors if there are no changes that will be implemented.

Malacanang, meanwhile, deferred all actions to the PET.

"None, because the President is not a party to the protest... Let the PET do its job," Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said.Representative image

In continuation of the disinvestment policy of the government, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs on September 26 approved handing over of two ITDC hotels in Jammu and Kashmir and Bihar to the respective state government, according to a statement.

Incomplete project of Hotel Gulmarg Ashok in Gulmarg will be transferred to Jammu and Kashmir and Hotel Patliputra Ashok in Patna to Bihar, it said. These were properties of India Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC).

"As per the disinvestment policy of the government...the properties may be returned back to the state governments at its officially valued price...The policy had been formulated keeping in view that running and managing hotels on professional lines is not the job of government or its entities," the statement said.Representative Image

Facebook, Google and other tech firms have agreed on a code of conduct to do more to tackle the spread of fake news, due to concerns it can influence elections, the European Commission said on Wednesday.

Intended to stave off more heavy-handed legislation, the voluntary code covers closer scrutiny of advertising on accounts and websites where fake news appears, and working with fact checkers to filter it out, the Commission said.

But a group of media advisors criticised the companies, also including Twitter and lobby groups for the advertising industry, for failing to present more concrete measures.

With EU parliamentary elections scheduled for May, Brussels is anxious to address the threat of foreign interference during campaigning. Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Poland, Portugal and Ukraine are also all due to hold national elections next year.

Russia has faced allegations - which it denies - of disseminating false information to influence the US presidential election and Britain's referendum on European Union membership in 2016, as well as Germany's national election last year.

The Commission told the firms in April to draft a code of practice, or face regulatory action over what it said was their failure to do enough to remove misleading or illegal content.

European Digital Commissioner Mariya Gabriel said on Wednesday that Facebook, Google, Twitter, Mozilla and advertising groups - which she did not name - had responded with several measures.

"The industry is committing to a wide range of actions, from transparency in political advertising to the closure of fake accounts and ...we welcome this," she said in a statement.

The steps also include rejecting payment from sites that spread fake news, helping users understand why they have been targeted by specific ads, and distinguishing ads from editorial content.

But the advisory group criticised the code, saying the companies had not offered measurable objectives to monitor its implementation.

"The platforms, despite their best efforts, have not been able to deliver a code of practice within the accepted meaning of effective and accountable self-regulation," the group said, giving no further details.

Its members include the Association of Commercial Television in Europe, the European Broadcasting Union, the European Federation of Journalists and International Fact-Checking Network, and several academics.According to the EOW, the accused colluded with the former promoters of Religare Enterprises, Malvinder Mohan Singh and Shivinder Mohan Singh. (Image: Reuters)

Puneet Shah and Niharika Rao

The time is ripe for the first class action suit in India.

The allegations of oppression and mismanagement in the entities connected to the Singh brothers, promoters of Fortis Healthcare and Religare Enterprises, suggest reasonable grounds for initiating a class action suit by shareholders of these firms.

A class action suit is one that allows a large number of people having a common cause of action to jointly file or pursue a litigation. Under the Companies Act 2013, 100 or more shareholders, or shareholders having 10 percent or more voting interest in the company can collectively approach National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) for redressal of their grievances.

In the Singh brothers case, the allegations primarily relate to two loans: One, an inter-corporate deposit of Rs 473 crore by Fortis Healthcare in three entities connected to the Singh brothers. Two, an alleged diversion of Rs 750 crore from Religare Finvest (a non-banking finance arm of listed Religare Enterprise) to RHC Holding, the flagship holding company of the Singh brothers.

Earlier this month, Shivinder Singh, the former promoter of Fortis Healthcare, moved the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) against older brother Malvinder, and a former employee of Religare Enterprise alleging oppression and mismanagement into the affairs of Fortis Healthcare. The NCLT application was subsequently withdrawn, but these kinds of allegations require closer scrutiny.

Undertaking related party transactions without appropriate approvals in place and siphoning of funds for the benefits of promoters related entities indicate a serious governance failure at these entities and questions the role of audit committee, independent directors, statutory and internal auditors in ensuring the transparency and adequacy of internal control.

While SEBI and SFIO have started probing the dealings of these firms, should the aggrieved shareholders consider a class action?

In the developed world, class actions are the most prominent form of shareholder activism. The USD 6.1-billion settlement in shareholder fraud litigation in the WorldCom case, the USD 7.2-billion verdict in favour of Enrons defrauded shareholders, and the USD 3.1-billion settlement in favour of investors in the Cendant case are a few noticeable examples.

India had its first brush with class action suits in 2009 when the Satyam Computer Services scam erupted. While shareholders of Satyam in the US (it was also listed on the New York Stock Exchange) successfully filed class action suits against Satyam and its defaulting promoters, and were swiftly awarded compensation, Indian shareowners were helplessly chasing capital market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO). Thats because the erstwhile 1956 Companies Act which was in force at that time had no specific provisions allowing class action or derivative suits against the delinquent promoters and expert advisors involved in wrongdoings.

Unlike 1956 Act, the 2013 Companies Act allows shareholders to seek damages or compensation from the company, its directors, auditors and even advisors for any fraudulent, unlawful or wrongful act or omission.

Apart from class action, the law also provides an individual holding at least ten percent voting interest to approach NCLT for redressing oppression and mismanagement in a company. This was the provision used by the family investment firms of Cyrus Mistry that alleged oppression and mismanagement in Tata Sons.

However, such a remedy comes with its own set of limitations. First, shareowners holding less than ten percent voting interest cannot take any such action. Second, multiple suits instituted by interested shareholders, each holding at least ten percent of the voting interest will lead to multiple court proceedings that may delay the resolution process and may prove to be financially inefficient. Other alternatives are approaching SEBI, other regulatory authorities, filing a public interest litigation, initiating a collective civil action, and so on are all inefficient.

Despite such clear benefits, not a single class action suit has been filed in India so far. One key reason is that Indian lawyers are not allowed to charge a contingent fee on a case-success basis. In other words, clients dont have to pay any upfront fee unless the case is won. Such a practice is prevalent in the US, but the current Indian law prohibits such payments to lawyers. In the US, it acts as a natural incentive and encourages aggrieved parties to approach law firms to initiate class action without worrying about the potential outcome of the case as they dont need to bear any upfront cost of litigation. Litigating lawyers, on the other hand, are incentivised to win the case as their fee depends on the case success.

Its high time that India allows lawyers to charge their fee on success basis. In the meantime, SEBI and other regulatory authorities in India should utilise the investor education and protection corpus to fund such expenses for class action.

In India, despite having strong and lengthy legal provisions in the rulebook, the protection of investor interest through efficient enforcement mechanisms has always been missing. Although, of late, there is a wave of increasing shareholders activism and any such class action by the aggrieved parties may set a precedent in the right direction.Search engine giant Google will resume posting cryptocurrency adverts after banning them earlier in the year.

According to a report in CNBC, regulated crypto exchanges will be allowed to purchase adverts through Googles platform in the US and Japan from next month.

The California-based company first imposed a ban on cryptocurrencies and related content in June this year. Reports suggest that the company will continue to reject ads for Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), adverts for crypto wallets and trading advice.

According to a report by The Verge, the hype over skyrocketing value of digital currencies and 'the negative side-effects associated' may have prompted Google to lift the ban.

However, Google is not the only tech giant that has lifted the ban. Facebook, which was amongst the first to put in place a large-scale ban on crypto adverts, removed the ban in June on certain crypto-related adverts.

Like Google, Facebook continues to ban ICO ads. The company also asks crypto exchanges to comply with certain requirements, by filling a form, if they wish to run ads on the platform.The Supreme Court (SC) has ruled that Aadhaar is not mandatory for pension schemes. In its verdict on the constitutional validity of Aadhaar, the SC said a benefit like pension cannot be part of Section 7 of Aadhaar Act. Under section 7, the central/state government can ask for Aadhaar to establish the identity of an individual.

We also make it clear that a benefit, for example, pension by a government employee, cannot be covered under Section 7 of the Act, as it is the right of the individual to receive such benefit, the verdict said.

Lawyers Moneycontrol spoke to said Aadhaar can be necessary for subsidy schemes, but no benefit can be denied for non-disclosure of Aadhaar.

Earlier, a lot of government-aided schemes had mandated Aadhaar. The benefits would only be provided if Aadhaar details were disclosed.

Essentially, the SC has taken the necessary but not mandatory position which means that while quoting an Aadhaar number is ideal, an individual cannot be denied basic rights and services only because he/she did not disclose Aadhaar.

Individuals can submit other relevant identification documents to continue getting access to those benefits.business Editor's Take | SC: Aadhaar not mandatory for bank accounts, mobile numbers and school admissions Gaurav Choudhury decodes the landmark Supreme Court verdict on constitutional validity of the Aadhaar Act, 2016.live bse live

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The Finance Ministry on September 26 said it would examine the capital demands raised by public sector banks including Punjab National Bank and Central Bank.

Government is examining demands raised by PSBs for the advancement of recapitalisation of banks, said Rajeev Kumar, Secretary, Department of Financial Services (DFS) adding that PSBs have asked the government to advance the recapitalisation programme.

The statement assumes importance as two PSBs  PNB and Central Bank of India  have informed the stock exchange (BSE) of their respective proposals to the government to infuse more capital.

PNB will put forward request for capital infusion of Rs 5,431 crore at its board meeting on September 27, 2018, and Central Bank of India will request for Rs 2,354 crore at its board meeting on September 28, 2018.

PNB wishes to raise capital via a preferential issue of equity share while Central Bank of India wants to raise capital by issuing equity shares to the government on preferential basis.

Kumar said Central Bank's request for capital is regulatory in nature while PNB has requested capital for growth purposes.

In July, PNB had received governments approval for capital infusion of Rs 2,816 crore by way of preferential allotment of equity shares, which Kumar said was, for regulatory purposes.

Union Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley, on September 25 held an annual review meeting of PSBs to take stock of their respective performances vis-a-vis recovery of non-performing assets, credit offtake and capital needs.

Also read: Banks expect to recover Rs 1.80 lakh cr from NPAs: FM Arun Jaitley

Whatever profits that banks were making were going towards provisioning. Therefore, on the basis of April-June quarter, banks are projecting (for the quarters to come) declining NPA as recoveries have picked up, Jaitley said while addressing the media.

Q1FY19 saw lenders recovering close to Rs 36,551 crore, 49 percent higher year-on-year. During 2017-18, banks recovered a total of Rs 74,562 crore.

PSBs have seen severe capital crunch consequent to swelling NPAs. The banks have suffered a cumulative loss of Rs 87,357 crore in 2017-18, with scam-tainted Punjab National Bank registering the highest loss of approximately Rs 12,283 crore.

An official from Bank of Maharashtra said during the review meeting, banks under Reserve Bank of Indias (RBI) prompt corrective action (PCA) requested the government for an early capital disbursal to support their regulatory as well as growth requirement.

During the review meeting, banks also requested the government to look into the minimum threshold of capital suggested by the RBI. Kumar said that banks requested relaxing provisioning norms and "strict" adherence to Basel-III norms.

The RBIs interpretation of Basel III norms requires banks to maintain a minimum common equity (CET) Tier-I ratio of 5.5 percent of risk-weighted assets. Under the original Basel III guidelines, banks need to set aside a minimum of 4.5 percent of their assets.

Jaitley said banks were assured of the immediate consideration of the matter.

Kumar said quantum for recapitalisation bond of Rs 65,000 crore will not change for the current fiscal.

Last year, the government announced a recapitalisation package of Rs 2.11 lakh crore to help the ailing PSBs. Out of this, Rs 1.35 lakh crore will come from the sale of recapitalisation bonds and the remaining Rs 76,000 crore will be through budgetary allocation and fundraising from the markets.The government is rethinking its decision to come out with a comprehensive e-commerce legislation, after major players like Amazon and Flipkart opposed the move, Mint reported.

Commerce secretary Anup Wadhawan said the policy has diverse elements.

"Various elements of the policy will go into implementation; they will get processed and will move forward. It is not some single composite effort," Wahdhawan was quoted as saying.

The commerce secretary also said that a single umbrella legislation will be introduced if required, adding that either a new set of rules and regulations will be brought in or changes will be made to existing ones in order to fill gaps in the e-commerce industry.

In July, a draft e-commerce policy had been leaked to the media. The document reportedly suggested that the Centre may consider a national regulator for e-commerce under a proposed legislation to keep in check all aspects of the electronic industry. The proposed regulator would ensure compliance with foreign investment caps in the sector.

As the sector grew from strength to strength, the government thought it important to protect the interests of the consumers as well. Presently, 100 percent foreign direct investment (FDI) is allowed in online stores following the marketplace model, while no FDI is allowed for firms following the inventory model.

The inventory model is one in which an inventory of goods and services is owned by the e-commerce entity. An example of this would be China's Alibaba. In the marketplace model, many vendors come together to sell their product on one common platform. Flipkart and Amazon follow this model.

The government ruled out allowing FDI in e-retailers functioning on an inventory-based model last month. However, the leaked draft proposed allowing 49 percent FDI for businesses following the inventory model and selling locally-produced goods on their platforms.

When Commerce Minister Suresh Prabhu headed a meeting with key stakeholders of the industry, then commerce secretary Rita Teaotia had said the policy would be out in six months. However, Wadhawan gave no specific timeline.

Some elements of the draft policy have already been implemented, Alok Chaturvedi, Director General of Foreign Trade, told the paper. These include increasing the limit of e-commerce exports through courier services to Rs 5 lakh from Rs 25,000 earlier.live bse live

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Shares of Punjab National Bank (PNB) gained 3 percent intraday Wednesday as company board is going to consider capital infusion by government.

The Board of Punjab National Bank (PNB) will consider capital infusion of Rs 5,431 crore by the government on September 27.

A meeting of board of directors of the bank is scheduled to be held on September 27 for considering infusion of Rs 5,431 crore by Government of

India by way of preferential issue of equity share.

Board also fix date of extra ordinary general meeting (EGM) for obtaining shareholders' approval in this regard at a price determined in terms of SEBI (ICDR) Regulations.

At 14:00 hrs Punjab National Bank was quoting at Rs 68.40, up Rs 1.35, or 2.01 percent.

Posted by Rakesh Patillive bse live

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Shares of SJVN down 4 percent, while Power Finance Corporation (PFC) was up 1 percent in the early trade as government is planning to sell its stake in the companies.

The Centre plans to sell stake in hydropower producer SJVN and Power Finance Corporation to other public sector companies to net close to Rs 20,000 crore to help maintain its FY19 fiscal deficit target, sources told Bloomberg.

The government will sell its 63.8 percent stake in SJVN to NTPC, Indias largest thermal power producer, to garner close to Rs 8,000 crore, while Rural Electrification Corporation will acquire 65.6 percent stake in PFC.

These deals showcase the government's resolve to usher consolidation in the power space.

Amit Mantri, founder of 2Point2 Capital Advisors, told the wire that this a disinvestment proxy. By selling stake in one state-run company to another, the government can claim to have monetised its stake. But this is only an optical reduction in fiscal deficit, he added.

The Centre has raised Rs 9,200 crore from asset sales so far, which looks feeble against its FY19 target of Rs 80,000 crore.

At 09:17 hrs Power Finance Corporation was quoting at Rs 81.50, up 0.99 percent and SJVN was quoting at Rs 27.70, down 3.99 percent on the BSE.live bse live

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Share prices of auto companies which earn major revenue from global business hit badly on Wednesday after German automaker BMW lowered its full year revenue as well as profit guidance.

The share price of Tata Motors, which owns luxury car maker Jaguar Land Rover, fell as much as 4.6 percent. Anto ancillary company Motherson Sumi Systems, which gets around 5 percent of revenues from BMW, cracked 7.5 percent intraday to hit a fresh 52-week low of Rs 244.50, taking total fall to around 20 percent in September.

In last one year, Tata Motors corrected 43 percent and Motherson Sumi lost 24 percent.

German carmaker BMW on Tuesday warned its pre-tax profit would fall this year, against earlier expectations for a flat outcome, and cut its profit margin guidance for cars, blaming intense price competition following new emissions rules.

International trade tensions, which have given rise to import tariffs, are also fuelling market uncertainty, BMW said. As a result, full-year pre-tax profit is expected to moderately fall, rather than remain on a par with last year.

The operating margin in BMW's automotive division is now expected to be at least 7 percent, rather than in line with the group's target corridor of at least 8-10 percent, BMW added.

Automotive revenues are now expected to fall slightly from the 88.6 billion euros ($104.4 billion at the current exchange rate) it generated last year, the company said. It previously told investors sales would rise.

Sanjay Sinha, Founder of Citrus Advisors said globally trade tariff war will have some impact on auto demand and realisation in many of geographies, but currency depreciation is positive for export-oriented auto ancillary companies.

Tata Motors has been under pressure for almost a year now due to too much volatility in JLR's profitability and also in sales volumes.

At 12:40 hours IST, Tata Motors share price was quoting at Rs 233.50, down Rs 7.40, or 3.07 percent and Motherson Sumi Systems was trading at Rs 254.45, down Rs 9.90, or 3.75 percent on the BSE.

(With inputs from agencies)live bse live

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The S&P BSE Sensex has fallen over 2,000 points from record highs, or by about 6 percent, but many stocks have plunged in double digits in the same period.

But, corrections like these give investors one of the best levels to enter. Indian market fell on the back of both global (crude oil, Fed rate hike, trade war fears) as well as domestic factors which include concerns over liquidity in NBFCs, fiscal concerns as well as high valuations.

Experts are of the view that if investors are planning to expand their portfolio or add more stocks, this is the right time to take their bets. Dont follow herd mentality and liquidate holdings because bears are in control.

Markets are often irrational in the short-term because they are based on herd mentality. But, such irrationality offers good buying opportunity of quality companies as the so-called fear is hypothetical and hence wont last for long, Jimeet Modi, Founder & CEO, SAMCO Securities & StockNote said.

Once the fear subsides the stocks will rebound. As Warren Buffett had quoted The best thing that happens to us is when a great company gets into temporary trouble. We want to buy them when they're on the operating table, he said.

If we look at what happened in the 2008 financial crisis, investors got impatient and forgot to maintain discipline when the market went into a tailspin. One big reason was that a lot of investors entered towards the top of the market in late 2007 and early 2008, and got spooked by the fall in markets and exited in a rush which resulted in large losses.

Investors got spooked after a sudden drop in prices who entered markets in late 2007 or early 2008. However, investors who even came in during the top, but remained patient and disciplined, and continued with their SIPs/investments  would have generated handsome returns and created wealth for themselves, Sampath Reddy, CIO, Bajaj Allianz Life told Moneycontrol.

As they say, Its time in the market, and not timing the market  that matters, as the latter is quite difficult.

Also, the famous quote by Warren Buffet comes to mind  The stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient.

We have collated a list of 10 fundamentally strong stocks on which various brokerages initiated coverage that could give 18-60 percent returns in the next 1 year from Tuesdays closing price on the BSE:

ICICI Securities: Buy| LTP: Rs 298| Target: Rs 352| Return 18%

HDFC Securities initiated coverage on ICICI Securities with a buy recommendations and a target price of Rs 352 which translates into an upside of 18 percent.

ICICI Securities is one of the strongest retail investing platforms for direct equities (9.2 percent vol. market share). The company has retained its market leadership position despite intense competition.

It has also built a strong financial products distribution business (26.2 percent of revenues). We believe that ISEC will be a key beneficiary as financialization of savings grows.

NOCIL: Buy| LTP: Rs 163| Target: Rs 256| Return 57%

SMC Institutional Equities initiated coverage on NOCIL with a buy recommendation and a target price of Rs 256. NOCIL Ltd, part of Arvind Mafatlal Group is the largest rubber chemical manufacturer in India with a dominant 40 percent domestic market shares and 4-4.5 percent global market share.

The domestic brokerage firm expects the Revenue/EBITDA/PAT to grow at a CAGR of 16.4 percent /14.4 percent /15.9 percent over FY18-21E. While the company has delivered EBITDA margins of 27.4 percent in FY18, we have factored in 26 percent margins in the base case scenario.

LT Foods: Buy| LTP: Rs 42.10| Target: Rs 70| Return 66%

Indsec Securities and Finance Ltd initiated coverage in LT Foods Ltd with a buy recommendation and a target price of Rs 70. LT Foods is a branded specialty food Company dealing in branded basmati rice, organic foods, and rice-based convenience products.

LT Foods has historically witnessed a steady growth. Additionally, its focus on premiumization and venture into organic & VAP business are key growth drivers going ahead.

Considering the shift from unorganized to organized segment, the brokerage firm believes that LT Foods is in a good position to capitalize on the opportunity in the domestic market while it continues to witness a strong growth internationally as well.

Petronet LNG: Buy| LTP: Rs 225| Target: Rs 321| Return 42%

Ventura Securities initiated coverage on Petronet LNG with a buy recommendation with a target price of Rs 321. Petronet LNG is the largest logistic player for gas imports (which is expected to grow at a CAGR of 26 percent over the period of FY18-25), is expected to be the biggest beneficiary as India migrates to alternative fuel environment.

Surge in gas consumption due to a change in Indias energy mix to diversify its energy requirements is a big positive. The Govt is planning to raise the gas contribution in the energy mix from 7 percent in 2017 to 15 percent by 2022 and 20 percent by 2025, which translates into a 3X expansion in the mix on a base which is growing YoY.

Zydus Wellness: Buy| LTP: Rs 1428| Target: Rs 2009| Return 40%

BP Equities initiates coverage on Zydus Wellness with a buy rating and a target price of Rs 2009. Zydus Wellness Ltd the wholly owned subsidiary of Cadila Healthcare Ltd, operates into Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) space with a specific focus on customer health & wellness.

It enjoys a market leader position in 4 products segmentsFace Scrubs, Face Peel Offs, Sugar substitutes & Margarine spreads. In face scrubs, face peel offs & sugar substitutemarket size witnessed double-digit growth rates in all 4 quarters of FY18, compared to single-digit growth in a corresponding period of FY17.

ZWL is sitting on cash & cash equivalent and current investment, net off long-term debt, to the tune of Rs 536 crore as on March 2018. Management has been under deliberation to drive revenue growth by way of acquisition into wellness & health space to extend product portfolio.

Sheela Foam: Buy| LTP: Rs 1696| Target: Rs 2039| Return 20%

Axis Securities Ltd initiated coverage on Sheela Foam with a buy rating and a target price of Rs 2039. Sheela Foam Ltd. (SFL) is Indias largest Polyurethane foam (PU) manufacturer. They are also amongst the leaders in the mattress market and sell under the flagship brand of SLEEPWELL.

Sheela Foam is expected to be a big beneficiary of the shift in taste following urbanization and changing lifestyle. Being one of the top 3 players, SFL would be riding the growth wave due to shift from unorganized to organized segment, product innovation and under penetration. W

The brokerage firm estimate revenue to grow at CAGR of 11 percent over FY18-FY20E and PAT to grow at CAGR of 36 percent over FY18-FY20E.

MM Forgings: Buy| LTP: Rs 583| Target: Rs 809| Return 38%

Anand Rathi initiated coverage on MM Forging with a buy rating and a target price of Rs 809. The company is progressing to becoming a large component player in forgings, MM Forgings has planned vigorous capex for the next two years.

It has added higher presslines with more machining content which augurs well for its growth and profitability. While its exports are expected to grow with strong Class 8 and Class 5 trucks, its domestic business growth would be a function of the new component launches in the next two years.

Dr Lal Pathlabs: Buy| LTP: 963| Target: Rs 1184| Return 22%

IDFC Securities initiated coverage on Dr Lal Pathlabs with a buy rating and a target price of Rs Rs 963. Dr Lal PathLabs (DLPL) is one of the largest diagnostic chains in India with a pan India presence.

DLPLs strong brand franchise, focus on service & quality and a broad basket of test offerings have enabled the company to create a leading position in North India. The company seeks to replicate this success in East and Central India (commissioning of Kolkata reference lab) and make gradual inroads in the South and West.

Focus on volume growth, backed by competitive pricing strategies and steady network expansion underpin IDFC Securities estimate of 16 percent revenue CAGR and steady 26 percent margin over FY18-21E.

Indostar Capital Finance: Buy| LTP: Rs 351| Target: Rs 593| Return 68%

LKP Securities Ltd initiated coverage on Indostar Capital Finance with a buy rating and a target price of Rs 593. Indostar Capital Finance is promoted by Mauritius based PE Everstone Group, one of well-known India & Southeast Asia focused PE firm.

The company has strategized to bring diversity in business mix and increase the size of non-corporate loans sizeably going forward. In the next 5 years, it aims AUM mix of  VF 35 percent, corporate loans 35 percent, SME 15 percent and housing loans 15 percent.

Over the FY18-22E period, the brokerage firm anticipates AUMs to grow at 50 percent CAGR which would be mainly driven by vehicle finance loans.

Crest Ventures: Buy| LTP: Rs 153| Target: Rs 317| Return 107%

Equity99 initiated coverage on Crest Ventures with a buy rating and a target price of Rs 317. The company is involved in the development and management of various real estate properties, such as residential, commercial, and township properties. The Company was formerly known as Sharyans Resources Limited and changed its name to Crest Ventures Limited in September 2014.

Crest Ventures is a diversified company having an interest in real estate, financial services, and investment & credit segment. Company's all verticals perform very well since last five years and strong performance remains to continue in next 2-3 years.

The company has successfully established its reputation by developing townships, large format retail properties, residential and commercial properties.

: The views and investment tips expressed by investment experts on moneycontrol.com are their own, and not that of the website or its management. Moneycontrol.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions.Continuing with our attempt to highlight interesting stock picks after the Q1 results season, in this edition we highlight a couple of stocks from the Chlor-Alkali value chain, which pertains to production of caustic soda.

Favorable supply demand dynamics and better end markets have led to improved operating performance in this segment. A couple of names that grabbed our attention are Gujarat Alkalies and Chemicals (GACL) and Chemfab Alkalis.

Chart: Global end-market usage

Source: IHS Markit conference, 2016

Global factors supportive

Improving end-market demand (paper, alumina, water treatment, personal care) and supply cuts, due to plant closures in China and Europe, have led to a sharp improvement in caustic soda prices.

While stricter environmental compliance has led to reduced production in China, in Europe, the lower supply is due to closure of mercury process based chlor-alkali units (26 percent of regional capacity amounting to 1.3 million tonne).

It is noteworthy that European Union regulatory norms required discontinuation of such units beyond December 2017.

Product price cycle remains firm

In the last fiscal year, international caustic soda prices firmed up from around $400 per tonne to around $750 per tonne.

Although prices seem to have softened since the beginning of the current fiscal year, recent spot prices, and guidance from international peer Olin Corporation, point toward another surge in prices.

Also, commentary from DCM Shriram suggests that the demand dynamics for chlorine, which is a major by-product, have improved and that the challenge of its disposal has subsided.

Chart: Caustic Soda/ Chlorine prices in North America

Chart: Caustic Soda spot prices in China

Source: www.sunsirs.com

Indian caustic soda industry:

The total installed capacity for production of caustic soda is around 39 lakh tonne per annum. On average, 83 percent of this capacity is put to use.

Expansion plans of domestic manufacturers and reduced global supply mean that India's dependency on imports is reducing. Net import of caustic soda is currently around 3.3 lakh tonne, which constitutes around 10 percent of the total demand.

In FY17, the total quantity imported declined by 18 percent year on year, while in FY18, imports were broadly at a similar level.

End market break up for India Caustic Soda

Source: AMAI

Technology change supportive for margins

In recent years, the industry has transitioned to membrane cell process technology, which is energy-efficient when compared to mercury cell technology.

It is reported that earlier, the industry's average power consumption was 3,150-3,300 kWh/tonne. This has now been scaled down to 2,300-2,450 kWh/tonne.

Gujarat Alkalies and Chemicals ltd. (GACL)  One of the largest manufacturer

GACL (Market cap: Rs 4,300 crore) is a major manufacturer of caustic soda (54 percent of sales) and enjoys a market share of about 15 percent. It has an installed capacity of 4.29 lakh tonne.

With 36 products in the portfolio, the company is fairly diversified with products like sodium chlorate (paper and water treatment chemicals) witnessing high demand.

Prospects for the sodium chlorate business are good, particularly in light of the anti-dumping rules curtailing imports from Canada, China and EU.

Strong quarterly result

The company reported a strong set of numbers of Q1 FY19, with a sales growth of 38 percent year on year and 8 percent quarter on quarter. A strong operational performance resulted in a 989 bps year-on-year jump in EBITDA margin to 38 percent.

Factors working in the company's favor

A robust product price cycle has helped in improving the company's free cash flow (~Rs 900 crore in FY18) by more than four times over the last fiscal year.

Further, a strong balance sheet with virtually no debt helps the company embark upon a Rs 1,700 crore (~50 percent debt funded) capex program over the next three years. This includes expanded capacities for a range of downstream products like chloromethanes, hydrogen peroxide, poly aluminium chloride.

The stock has corrected 37 percent from its 52-week high and is now trading at 12-month trailing P/E multiple of 7 times. It is available at an interesting level.

Chemfab Alkalis

Chemfab Alkalis (Market cap: Rs 218 crore) is a relatively small player based out of Tamil Nadu with a caustic soda capacity of 45,600 tonne per annum. Its revenue majorly comes from caustic soda (71 percent of sales) and sodium chlorate (15 percent of sales).

Capacity expansion on cards

The company has got an in-principal approval to increase capacity to 200 tonne per day (from 125 tonne per day). Operationalization of this capacity by Q4 FY19 would take its overall capacity to 72,000 tonne per annum.

Diversification to PVC pipe business

The company is diversifying into the PVC-O (Oriented PVC) pipe business (Rs 50 crore investment). The manufacturing facility is expected to get operational in Q3 FY19.

The stock, after its recent correction, is trading at a high single-digit trading multiple and offers an opportunity to accumulate.

Risk factors to watch out

The above-mentioned companies are involved in an energy-intensive business wherein cost of power constitutes the bulk of all operating cost and hence, any adverse movement in prices of gas and power needs to be watched out for.

Also, the caustic soda business is highly cyclical in nature and the price cycle relies on global supply-demand dynamics.

Follow @AnubhavSaysNaval Goel

Before CY2000, the health insurance industry in our country was confined to a few basic insurance plans. With the liberalisation of this sector by the government, a galaxy of private insurance companies entered the arena and revolutionised the entire industry with innovative plans and operational methods to woo a large population of citizens who were only too keen to grab the opportunity. It ushered in an era of customised health insurance protection backed by excellent service.

What is health insurance?

It is a contract between you and an insurance company for bearing your expenses in a hospital in the event of future medical emergencies, including accidents, against a premium, for a fixed tenure, generally a year. Needless to say, it is required to be renewed every year.

Types of health insurance:

The health insurance plans are broadly classified as: Individual health insurance: Designed to provide coverage to individuals for a specified sum with features to suit his needs and affordability. Family floater insurance plans: You and your family are covered for health emergencies and you and any member of your family may utilise the coverage to the extent of the sum assured.

 Group insurance plan: Companies buy this plan for their employees as a group. The cover may not always be comprehensive.

The health plans have many variants now and you need to analyse your needs before buying a plan.

How does health insurance function?

In case of a medical emergency, you need to get yourself treated in a hospital as an in-patient. If you are covered under health insurance, your expenses are borne by the insurance company. There are generally two methods of payment, apart from a few exceptional features available in some policies.

 Cashless: The bill relating to your hospitalisation expenses is directly paid to the hospital by the insurance company after due approval subject to the sub limits defined in your policy.

 Reimbursement: You submit your hospitalisation bill to the company after the treatment as per norms and the company reimburses you with the approved amount subject to the prescribed features in your policy.

The need for TPA:

With the present high penetration, diversity of health insurance plans and the complexities of rendering service of a consistently high quality necessitated the need for professional organisations capable of managing the myriad operations of health insurance industry. Third Party Administrators (TPAs) are outsourcing entities that hold a licence issued by the IRDA to provide management solutions to the industry. They act as intermediaries in the system. The stakeholders are:

 The Insurance Companies Healthcare Providers (Hospitals and clinics)

 The policy Holders

TPA operations:

The concept of TPA was introduced by the IRDA in the year 2001. They are entrusted with a wide gamut of activities encompassing all the aspects of the health insurance industry and additionally, health care. Their primary area of operations involves processing your claims and settlement of your hospital bills, be it cashless or reimbursement. They may be broadly listed as:

 Accepting intimations of treatment Approving cashless claims Disbursing claims Other activities involving: Utilization review Managing Healthcare provider network Enrolment; and

 Premium Collection.

TPAs are known to provide the following value-added services for your benefit.

 Ambulance Services Specialized Consultation. Availability of beds. Maintenance of 24 hours toll-free help lines. Dissemination of knowledge on Lifestyle issues and spreading awareness on diseases and ailments. Managing well-being programs. Maintaining medical supplies.

 Database management.

Impact of the role played by TPA:

It goes without saying that the TPAs have played a significant role in the industry. They may be tabulated as: Ensures greater efficiency in the delivery of services. Assured improved standardization of procedures. Increase knowledge in healthcare. Rationalize costs and minimize expenditure. Develop protocols to minimize delays.

 Pave way for reduced premiums and the addition of new features for coverage.

Bottom Line:

Notwithstanding the pious goals set with the introduction of TPAs, the ground reality reveals a great chasm between the aims and achievements. There is a lot of room for improvement, in which the TPAs have to play a proactive role. The co-ordination amongst the stakeholders and a constant endeavor to upgrade their infrastructure manned by able professionals for various fields can only lead to a meaningful approach.Qualcomm escalated a legal war with Apple, accusing the iPhone maker of stealing secrets and sharing them with mobile chip rival Intel, according to court documents.

The California mobile chipmaker on Monday added the sizzling accusation in an amendment to a lawsuit filed against Apple last year in California state court in Qualcomm's home city of San Diego.

The modified filing contends that Apple "engaged in a years-long campaign of false promises, stealth, and subterfuge designed to steal Qualcomm's confidential information and trade secrets" in order to help Intel and other rivals field competing mobile chips, Apple's goal was to buy mobile chips from Intel instead of depending on Qualcomm, the dominant maker of mobile phone processors, the court document claimed.

Qualcomm general counsel Don Rosenberg said in response to an AFP inquiry that the latest filing showed that "Apple has flouted its contractual commitments and misappropriated Qualcomm's property rights in an effort to improve its performance and increase its profits."

In response to a request for comment, Apple directed AFP to a comment the Silicon Valley company made in June of last year regarding its clash with Qualcomm.

"Qualcomm's illegal business practices are harming Apple and the entire industry," Apple said.

"They supply us with a single connectivity component, but for years have been demanding a percentage of the total cost of our products -- effectively taxing Apple's innovation." Apple's ongoing legal battle with Qualcomm includes accusations that the chipmaker has been charging for invalid patents.

Apple had long relied on Qualcomm for chips for iPhones, but turned to Intel after the onset of legal wrangling.

Early last year the iPhone maker filed a lawsuit complaining that Qualcomm -- which produces chips widely used in smartphones and tablets around the world -- abused its market power to demand unfair royalties, and demanded billions of dollars in compensation.

Apple filed similar complaints against Qualcomm in China. Qualcomm countersued, claiming that Apple breached agreements and encouraged regulatory attacks worldwide on the chip firm.

Last month, Qualcomm settled a long-running antitrust investigation in Taiwan for around $90 million.

Qualcomm still faces huge fines linked to similar probes in South Korea, the European Union and the United States, while it is also involved in a long-running licensing dispute with tech titan Apple.

Qualcomm in 2015 agreed to pay USD 975 million to settle antitrust charges in China.India is undergoing an 'urban renaissance but the success of smart cities is largely dependent on active involvement of the citizens and smart leadership for successful implementation of plans, feels Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu.

Naidu was speaking at the inaugural session of the three-day Smart City Expo India 2018 in Jaipur on September 26.

"Success of smart cities is dependent on smart vision, smart implementation and smart execution," he said.

The event is being organised by Quantela, Jaipur Development Authority (JDA) and Fira Barcelona International, with CII as the industrial partner.

Under Prime Minister Narendra Modis Smart City Mission, 100 smart cities in India will act as lighthouses to inspire, encourage and motivate other cities in India as well as across the globe, he said.

Addressing the gathering, Housing and Urban Affairs minister Hardeep Singh Puri informed the audience that

Currently, 433 smart city projects worth Rs 7958 crore have been completed in the country. Furthermore, over 800 projects worth Rs. 32,500 crore are being implemented. Puri said that 48 out of the 100 smart city projects in India are based on a Public Private Partnership (PPP) model.

Governor of South Australia Hieu Van le AC said that the Smart City mission is a giant step towards improving the quality of life for millions in the country adding that through the use of technology, information and data, improved services can be provided to the citizens.

He said that an MoU was signed between Government of Rajasthan and Adelaide last year for smart city initiatives. The MoU facilitates mutual cooperation in the field of smart city initiatives between Jaipur and Adelaide in lighting and other environmental initiatives, tourism initiatives, transport, traffic management and car parking systems, among others.

Arun Chaturvedi, Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment, Government of Rajasthan, said smart cities must have robust government structures, sufficient outlets for recreation as well as sustainable mass transportation.

Four smart cities in the state have in place Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs). The Jaipur SPV  Jaipur Smart City Ltd  is working on three primary verticals  waste management, water management and energy management, he said.

Minister for Housing & Urban Development, Government of Rajasthan, Shrichand Kripalani said that in Rajasthan, smart city projects worth Rs 784 crore are under implementation in four cities  Jaipur, Udaipur, Kota and Ajmer.

Vaibhav Galriya, Commissioner of Jaipur Development Authority, said that delegates from more than 20 countries are participating at the Smart City Expo. These include global companies and experts.SpiceJet | Company reported loss at Rs 105.6 crore in Q2FY21 against loss at Rs 461.2 crore, revenue fell to Rs 1,070.5 crore versus Rs 2,848.3 crore YoY.

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Domestic airline SpiceJet is in talks with Airbus to buy the latter's wide-bodied A330neo aircraft, The Economic Times reported.

Six top executives of Airbus flew down to Delhi earlier this month to meet SpiceJet's senior management, led by Chairman Ajay Singh. This was reportedly the second such meeting.

The airline has been considering buying wide-bodied aircraft for some time now with an eye towards starting long-haul operations.

While there has been no confirmation on SpiceJet's plan to start long-haul operations as yet, the move indicative of the airline firming up plans to fly to international destinations such as Europe.

Read  SpiceJet to start dedicated air cargo services from September 18

The report did not specify the number of A330neo planes SpiceJet is considering to buy. The A330neo, priced at $260 million, can have close to 300 seats in a two-class  economy and business  configuration.

Read  SpiceXpress, SpiceJet's cargo airline, is full of promise; but there is turbulence ahead

As of now, SpiceJet has 36 Boeing 737 planes and 22 Bombardier Q400 jets in its fleet. It has a pending order of 155 Boeing 737 Maxes and 24 Q400s. The first lot of the 737 Maxes is scheduled to arrive later this week.

The airline has purchase rights for another 50 Boeing aircraft, all of which it can upgrade to the wide-bodied Boeing 787 Dreamliner to take on A330s. It also has an option to buy another 25 Q400s from Bombardier.

Read  SpiceJet to enter into major business partnerships with US companies: CMD Ajay Singh

There is a need for SpiceJet to add capacity on domestic and international routes. Its passenger volumes for August increased by just 3 percent on year, according to the Director General of Civil Aviation's (DGCA's) latest monthly passenger traffic data.

In comparison, the airline's peers IndiGo and GoAir witnessed a monthly passenger trafficgrowth of 29 percent and 30 percent, respectively, for the same period.Low cost of running business and the potential of high net returns are some of the key reasons why startup investors with heavy pockets are going to Tier 2-3 cities in search of their next unicorn.

Ahmedabad, Pune and Surat are the three non-metro cities that attracted the maximum amount of investments from the investors during the first nine months of 2018  $183 million collectively, according to data shared by Tracxn with Moneycontrol.

Investors such as Singapores Fullerton Financial Holdings pumped in $87 million in Ahmedabad-based fintech firm Lendingkart in one of the biggest deals bagged by a non-metro startup in 2018. The company has raised $154 million overall so far.

Pune-based Faasos raised $6 million from its existing investors LightBox Ventures II, Sequoia Capital India, RuNet South Asia and RB Investments, this year. It has raised $63 million in total till date.

Multiple other companies from over 25 non-metro cities such as Guwahati, Trivanthpuram and Vadodara bagged $293 million collectively from investors during just the first nine months 2018, according to Tracxn. This is slightly lower than $313 million raised by the companies across the 22 cities, last year.

The numbers point towards a growth trajectory given that $293 million has been raised in just nine months of 2018 against $313 raised throughout 2017.

According to Anil Joshi, managing partner, Unicorn Ventures, government initiatives to set up incubation centres is creating a fertile startup ecosystem for young minds in smaller cities. He also stressed that the next wave of opportunity lies in smaller cities given that the metros have already been acquired by marquee investors and the equity is expensive there. "Instead of investing in companies headquartered in the metros, local business households in smaller cities are now seeing the opportunity of investment in smaller towns," he said.

One clear difference between setting up a company in a metro city vs a non-metro city is the cost of running the business," he further said adding that angel investors get good deals by investing a small amount in a startup.

Joshi has invested in six tech startups in Tier 2-3 cities.

Another investor Venture Catalysts told Moneycontrol that the fund is networking with local high net individuals to mentor and invest in startups in small cities through their incubation centres. It invested around $21 million across 44 startups in Tier 2-3 cities in 2017. The firm is setting up incubation units in cities such as Ahmedabad, Surat, Hyderabad, Kochi, Lucknow, Raipur, Pune and Nagpur.

According to a report on high net individuals and households, Top of the Pyramid by Kotak Wealth Management, 56 percent of ultra high networth households (HNHs) hail from four metro cities while 18 percent of ultra HNHs are based out of cities such as Ahmedabad, Pune, Hyderabad and Nagpur, among others.

Investments are happening in Tier 2 cities because the ecosystem is maturing. Local HNIs are interested in investing in these startups because there is demand. Good startup ideas are coming up from these areas and so are the investments. Cities such as Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh are coming up with interesting technology and product startup. It is a demand and supply theory, said Alok Mittal, angel investor, co-founder of Indian Angel Network.OYO Rooms (Representative Image)

Oyo which raised $800 million in a round led by internal investor SoftBank plans to invest a significant amount of this money in upgrading the assets of its hotel partners in China, according to a senior executive of the company.

"Majority of capital will be used to help in transformation and upgradation of assets. We will also be using a significant part of the funds to set up Oyo skill institutes to train our hotel staff, so that they maintain high service quality standards," Abhishek Gupta, Chief Finance Officer of Oyo told Moneycontrolin an email response to Moneycontrol.

Gupta, however, categorically denied if the company would offer minimum guarantee to the hotel owners. Minimum guarantee is a well-known capital guzzling exercise used by startups to attract suppliers. For instance, companies offer the hotel owners an assurance of a minimum monetary compensation even if a portion of the inventory is not sold.

Oyo started off by offering aggressive minimum guarantees to partner hotels. The company however claims that it doesn't engage with hotel owners this way anymore and sticks to revenue share model. "We do not provide guarantees in China. Our commitment to our hotel partners is to offer the best possible transformation and upgradation of the property, operational expertise, and revenue management, etc., as a part of our franchising or leasing arrangement," Gupta said. The round which is expected to give Oyo a valuation of $3-4 billion also saw participation from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Sequoia and Greenoaks Capital. Oyo has also received a commitment of an additional $200 million, bringing the total amount to $1 billion in this round. This money is also expected to be coming from the same set of investors. Close Related stories SoftBank could invest $10 billion in India next year, says Rajeev Misra

Storyboard18 | upGrad CEO Arjun Mohan: "MBA is a big focus for us and its pretty much 50-50 ...

Hello World | Your mind has a new guide, and it lives on your phone Launched in May 2013, by 23-year old Ritesh Agarwal, Oyo used to aggregate select rooms across hotels and offer them on its website. Oyo now claims to have transitioned to a 100% full inventory full-stack fulfillment led platform. The company says it has 125,000 rooms in India and 87,000 in China.

According to Ritesh Agarwal, founder and chief executive officer of Oyo Chinas hospitality landscape is as fragmented as India's.

"China offers a tremendous opportunity both in terms of the market size and travelers. The countrys tourism industry is on the cusp of booming and flourishing and enjoys a steady influx of both domestic and international tourists," said Agarwal.live bse live

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Here are the stocks that are in news today:

Bank of Baroda: Moody's affirms bank's ratings, outlook stable.

DLF reappoints KP Singh as chairman for 5 years w.e.f. october 1, 2018

Bank forms search & selection committee to identify new MD & CEOSearch & selection comprises of 3 existing board members and 2 external experts

To ask RBI to give Rana Kapoor time beyond Jan 31, 2019 as MD & CEO

IL&FS Transportation - Brickworks revised rating on NCD worth Rs 3,550 cr to BWR C(SO) from BWR BB-(SO)

Godrej Properties adds new residential project in Ghodbunder Road, Thane

RITES: Company has a joint venture company i.e. BNV Gujarat Rail Private Limited. Company has remitted second tranche of investment for an amount of Rs 24,70,000 to subscribe joint venture company's right issue.

NHPC: Unit 2 of Parbati-II HE Project (4 x 200 MW) in Himachal Pradesh has been successfully synchronised with the grid at 10-11 MW load. Further, the Load throw off test on Unit 2 has been carried out successfully at 25 percent load (50MW) and at 100MW (50 percent load).

Piramal Enterprises approved issue of compulsorily convertible debentures worth Rs 81 crore

Adani Green Energy has won tender for setting up 300 MW Wind generation project

Glenmark Pharma: Board meeting will be held on September 28 to consider opportunistic tenders or buybacks of any part of its Singapore listed foreign currency convertible bonds, being, its $200 million 2 percent resettable onward starting equity linked securities due June 28, 2022 issued in 2016 (FCC Bonds) and / or, its $200 million 4.5 percent senior notes due 2021 issued in 2016 (FCY Bonds).

Blue Dart Express: Company expands reach in order to deliver to every Indian Home by December 2018.

Central Bank of India's board meeting on September 28 to consider additional equity capital upto Rs 2,354 crore via pref equity issue to GoI

Minda Industries: Uno Minda appointed Sunil Bohra as Group Chief Financial Officer on retirement of Sudhir Jain.

Mahindra CIE approved scheme of merger between Bill Forge (Subsidiary) and Mahindra CIE

Cosmo Films: Company announced installation of a new solvent less lamination machine at its Karjan plant, Vadodara.

Sumeet Industries: Brickwork Rating India has revised rating of bank loan facilities of the company.

Uflex: FlexFilms forays into online space with the launch of its E-Commerce website FLEX-BuzzR to market its entire range of films in European region.

Majesco: Company appointed Adam Elster as Chief Executive Officer, effective October 1, 2018. Ketan Mehta, Majesco Co-Founder and current CEO, has decided to retire from the operational role after 36 years of service and will continue to serve Majesco as the Chairman of the companys board of directors.

Avenue Supermarts: Company has issued Commercial Paper of Rs 65 crore; CRISIL has upgraded its rating on the long term bank facilities and non-convertible debentures of the company from AA/Positive to AA+/Stable.

Kallam Textiles: Board to consider Right Issue on September 29.

VXL Instruments: MV Nagaraj has resigned as Chairman and Managing Director of the company.

Greenply Industries sets up Euro 11-mn facility in Gabon

- CARE upgarded credit rating for bank facilities from CARE A positive to CARE A+ stableThe Aadhaar Act could not have been passed as Money Bill as it amounts to a fraud on the Constitution and is liable to be struck down, Supreme Court Justice D Y Chandrachud said Wednesday.

Justice Chandrachud, who was part of the five-judge Constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, wrote a separate judgement saying he had expressed some views different from that of the verdict pronounced by Justice A K Sikri.

Justice Chandrachud's dissenting opinion doesnt mean much in this case at present. But there have been cases where a majority judgement has been overturned some years later and dissenting opinion has been upheld.

A dissenting judgement also leaves open the possibility of being referred to a larger bench at a later stage.

Bypassing the Rajya Sabha to pass the Aadhaar Act amounted to subterfuge and the law was liable to be struck down as being violative of Article 110 of the Constitution, he ruled.

Article 110 has specific grounds for Money Bill and the Aadhaar law went beyond this, Justice Chandrachud said, adding that in the current form, the Act cannot be held to be constitutional.

He observed that the enactment of the Act does not save the Centre's Aadhaar scheme.

Noting that mobile phone has become an important feature of life and its seeding with Aadhaar posed a grave threat to privacy, liberty, autonomy, he favoured deletion of consumers' Aadhaar data by the mobile service providers.

Maintaining that the Prevention of Money Laundering Act Rules proceeded on assumption that every bank account holder is a money launderer, he said the assumption that every individual who opens a bank account is a potential terrorist or a launderer is "draconian", he said.

Justice Chandrachud also said collection of data may lead to individual profiling of citizens.

He said the Aadhaar programme violated informational privacy, self-determination and data protection. It has been admitted by UIDAI that it stores vital data which is violative of the right to privacy, he added.

This data was vulnerable to be misused by a third party and private vendors, and that too, without the consent of an individual, Justice Chandrachud maintained and said the Aadhaar project has failed to remedy the flaws in its design, leading to exclusion.

Allowing private players to use Aadhaar will lead to profiling, which could be used to ascertain the political views of citizens, the judge, who pronounced his separate verdict, said.

He also held that denial of social welfare measures was violation of fundamental rights of citizens.

There is no institutional responsibility of the UIDAI to protect the data of citizens, he said, adding that there was absence of a regulatory mechanism to provide robust data protection.

However, he said it was now impossible to live in India without Aadhaar but it was violative of Article 14. If Aadhaar is seeded with every database, then there is chance of infringement of right to privacy, he said.

Justice Chandrachud said while Parliament possesses the right to make a law, the absence of protection leads to violation of various rights.Ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the key political parties of Uttar Pradesh seem to have chosen their favourite gods.

With the BJP apparently sticking to Lord Ram, the Samajwadi Party seems to have chosen Vishnu and the Congress Lord Shiva to spur their poll fortunes, if remarks by their leaders are any indication.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi, fresh from his Mansarovar Yatra, was greeted in his Lok Sabha constituency Amethi this week by hundreds of 'bol bam'-chanting party activists, all dressed up as "Kanwariyas", the devotees of Lord Shiva.

The BJP's UP chief Mahendra Nath Pandey's reiterated the saffron party's backing for a Ram temple on the disputed site in Ayopdhya. He said the party is trying to ensure that the temple is built in Ayodhya through consensus.

Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav, on the other hand, has pledged to develop a grand city named after Lord Vishnu, complete with a spectacular temple in it on lines of Cambodia's Angkor Wat, in the state, if voted to power.

Uttar Pradesh sends 80 MPs to the Lok Sabha. In the 2014 parliamentary elections, the BJP won 71 seats, its ally Apna Dal got two, while the SP bagged five and the Congress remaining two.

Fresh from his recent Kailash Mansarovar pilgrimage, the Congress chief Monday was presented a portrait of Lord Shiva by Shiva devotees at Fursatganj.

In a video footage that went viral on social media, Gandhi is seen with his forehead smeared with sandalwood paste with a prominent red 'tilak' in the centre.

With a scarf around his neck, he is seen taking part in a 'puja'.

He was greeted with posters hailing 'Shiv bhakt Rahul Gandhi' on his first visit here after undertaking the arduous 12-day pilgrimage in August to Kailash, the abode of Lord Shiva.

The Congress chief had announced his intention to undertake the pilgrimage after a mid-air scare when his plane had plunged hundreds of feet down during one of his flights during the Karnataka poll campaign in April.

The pilgrimage was aimed at seeking the blessings of Lord Shiva for the country's prosperity, Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala had said earlier.

In the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the entire spectacle is being seen by some as the Congress bid to woo Hindu voters.

UP BJP chief Mahendra Nath Pandey, meanwhile, said Sunday, "Ram temple is the centre of faith and devotion for us. It should be built as per the law and we are committed to this."

The BJP is making efforts to build the Ram temple through consensus, he had said.

"The people know Lord Ram was born in Ayodhya and they want a Ram temple there. The feeling of every Indian is the feeling of the BJP," Pandey had said.

SP chief Akhilesh Yadav has declared his intent to "develop a city in the name of Lord Vishnu over 2,000 acres of land near Lion Safari (Etawah)."

"We have a lot of land in Chambal ravines and the city will have a grand Vishnu temple akin to the famous Angkor Wat temple."

Yadav's comments had come in the wake of BJP leader and UP Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya raking up the Ram temple issue and suggesting a legislative route for it.

Yadav, however, has promised that, if voted to power, he would develop a city after the name of Lord Vishnu, with both Lord Ram and Lord Krishna being his incarnations.

A team of experts will be sent to Cambodia to plan the city, which will be a centre for culture and knowledge of our ancient times, the SP chief said.

Angkor Wat in Cambodia is one of the largest religious monuments in the world which was originally a Hindu temple dedicated to the Lord Vishnu but gradually transformed into a Buddhist shrine.Priyanka Gandhi Vadra with her husband Robert Vadra at the coronation ceremony of Rahul Gandhi in New Delhi. (PTI)

UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi's son-in-law Robert Vadra broke his silence on the charges of corruption levelled against him by the BJP and said the ruling party had been indulging in a "baseless political witch-hunt" against him for the last four years.

The ruling party rakes up his name every time it is cornered and this time it stands exposed on the Rafale issue, he said, describing the situation as a "wholesale farce".

"Having all the agencies under their beck and call no one knows better than the present government and the BJP that they have indulged in a baseless political witch hunt against me for the last 4 years.

"Instead they should man up with their 56 chests and tell the nation the truth about the Rafale deal, rather than hiding behind a bunch of lies that the people are fed up of hearing them repeat," Vadra said in a statement.

He said in a Facebook post that he was amazed in the beginning. However, it has now become a "wholesale farce" that the BJP rakes up his name every time it is cornered on the falling rupee, soaring oil prices or the latest on the Rafale issue on which it has been "totally exposed", he added.

The BJP dragged the Gandhi family into the intensifying political row over the fighter aircraft deal, with Union minister Gajendra Shekhawat alleging that the UPA government had called off the multi-billion dollar deal after a private company linked to Vadra was not chosen as a broker.

The Rafale controversy took a new turn last week after Francois Hollande, who was French president when the Rs 58,000 crore deal was announced, was quoted as saying by French publication Mediapart that France was given "no choice" on selection of the Indian partner for Dassault and the Indian government proposed the name of Reliance as offset partner for the French aerospace giant.

Modi had announced the procurement of 36 Rafale fighters after holding talks with Hollande on April 10, 2015, in Paris.Raj Thackeray

The country is missing the wisdom of Manmohan Singh at a time the economy is in the hands of the "economically unsound leadership", MNS chief Raj Thackeray said while praising the former prime minister on his birthday.

Thackeray described Singh, who had served as the prime minister for two consecutive terms between 2004 and 2014, as a leader who "pioneered the country to a path of economic reforms and liberalisation".

Singh, born on this day in 1932 in Gah, Punjab (now in Pakistan), turned 86 Wednesday.

Thackeray, who was a supporter of Prime Minister Narendra Modi when the latter was the chief minister of Gujarat, has turned into his vocal critic in the last five years.

Ahead of 2014 polls, the MNS chief had supported Modi's candidature for the post of prime minister.

"Today, our economy is in the hands of economically unsound leadership and thus heading to a state of anarchy," Thackeray said in a post on twitter without referring to any leader or government.

"In such times, the people of India, including me, definitely miss your wisdom and presence," Thackeray said in a post on Twitter.

He claimed that the beneficiaries of the "economic openness" heralded by Singh in 1991 have chosen against acknowledging it. Stating that criticism is part of politics, Thackeray said his party has the grace to appreciate what is good.

"In this context, I remember Dr Manmohan Singh's words from one of his speeches: 'History will be kinder to me'. The Maharashtra Navnirman Sena wishes you a very happy birthday," Thackeray said on the micro-blogging site.

Singh, while rejecting criticism that he was a "weak Prime Minister", had in January 2014 asserted that history would be kind to him than the then Opposition and media, and contended that he had done the best in the given political circumstances.Aadhaar Card

Prem Malhar says his 50-year-old father died of hunger a few months ago because he did not have the government's Aadhaar identity card that would have given him access to subsidised food.

At least 14 people have died of starvation in Jharkhand, the state where the Malhars live, activists say. They say the deaths have occurred since authorities cancelled old handwritten government ration cards last year and replaced them with the biometric Aadhaar card to weed out bogus beneficiaries.

Taramani Sahu, an activist with the Right to Food Campaign, blamed the Jharkhand government for delays in issuing the Aadhaar cards after one million old cards were cancelled. For some who depended on the rations for subsistence, the results were fatal, she said.

In July, three sisters under the age of 10 died of hunger in New Delhi, sparking accusations of government apathy. The deaths were not linked to possession of the Aadhaar card, but there has been widespread outrage that people are dying of hunger in a country where, according to government and industry data, grains and produce worth 580 billion rupees ($8 billion), or 40 percent of total output, go to waste every year.

Opposition parties have seized on the issue ahead of three big state elections this year and the national election in 2019, whittling into support for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Modi's office did not respond to requests for comment on the starvation deaths.

Nishikant Dubey, a BJP lawmaker and a member of a parliamentary panel on the Aadhaar policy, said linking the card to welfare programmes was the best way to check siphoning off funds meant for the poor.

On the deaths, he said: "The opposition is being irresponsible by blowing it out of proportion for political mileage."

Malhar, who lives in a hut made of twigs, leaves and mud in a hamlet near the town of Ramgarh, says he and his brother now have the Aadhaar cards, but are still not eligible for subsidised food because of what he called "bureaucratic ineptness".

"My father died because he couldn't get his Aadhaar card during his lifetime and I'm not getting food because my Aadhaar card is not linked with the ration shop," said the 25-year-old, dressed in a red vest and tattered trousers.

Reuters spoke to three ration shop owners in the area who said they could not give subsidised food to those who did not have Aadhaar cards or failed the biometric identification process. They said the Malhars' cards were not linked to the system because that had to be done by another government department.

In the state capital, Ranchi, Jharkhand's food minister Saryu Rai said he had ordered local officials to distribute subsidised food to the poor even if they didn't possess the Aadhaar card. But activists say those orders have not been transmitted to the shop level.

Rai told Reuters it was not clear that the deaths in Jharkhand had occurred because of starvation. Officials have previously said people had died because of illness, not lack of food.

"There must be a system to know what constitutes starvation deaths and I welcome food activists to work with us on this," Rai said.

DIGITISE ECONOMY

Officials in other states say they have eased rules that insist on Aadhaar. Still, activists claim that the decree has deprived some families of subsidised food in Rajasthan, that is also ruled by the BJP.

Aadhaar is part of an ambitious effort to digitise India's economy, and almost all transactions with the government are dependent on the card, including banking, food subsidies and tax and other payments.

Among other things, the government says the use of Aadhaar will plug theft and leakages in the $23.63 billion a year food welfare programme that guarantees ultra-cheap rice and wheat to nearly two-thirds of India's 1.3 billion people.

Nearly a third of the food meant for the poor gets stolen every year, with middlemen, traders and government employees colluding to sell the produce in the open market, economists estimate. The government says nearly 30 million fake and duplicate cards have been weeded out, saving about $2.35 billion.

But in a vast nation where many of the people are unschooled and dirt poor, the Aadhaar system is far from foolproof.

Some of the poor have not enrolled in the programme, or their fingerprints do not match those on the database, the largest in the world. Others suffer because the identification system requires functioning electricity, an internet connection and operational servers, not always assured in interior India.

Ajay Bhushan Pandey, chief executive of the Unique Identification Authority Of India that runs the Aadhaar programme, has said that connectivity and power problems do crop up, but added authorities have been told not to withhold social benefits if people can provide other, acceptable identification.

"People are dying because of government callousness," said Hemant Soren, the leader of the opposition and a former chief minister of Jharkhand. "Mark my words, voters will teach them a lesson in the next election."

In the hamlet near Ramgarh, Malhar and other men took shelter under a tree as a light drizzle came down, seeping through the makeshift roofs of their huts. They were joined by some women who said they were struggling to light damp firewood inside their huts.

Malhar lives with his 22-year-old brother Videshi in the hut with four other family members their sole possessions are a few utensils and clothes that look like rags. They subsist on the brothers earning between 70 cents to $2.70 per day, picking through trash or working nearby rice paddies.

"We've lost our faith in the government which is responsible for my father's death," said Prem Malhar. "The most unfortunate part is that authorities still continue to be callous and their callousness is starving poor families like ours."The Supreme Court delivered its judgment on the petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar Act. A five-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, Justice AK Sikri, AM Khanwilkar, DY Chandrachud and Ashok Bhushan, ruled that Aadhaar will stay, but with conditions.

The verdict on the case was reserved by a constitutional bench earlier this year. Justice Sikri read out the majority verdict.

Here are the 10 key takeaways from the judgment:

1. It is no longer required to link your Aadhaar card to phone numbers and bank accounts. The Supreme Court struck down Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act, which means that private companies cannot insist on Aadhaar details of customers.

2. The Supreme Court has ruled that the Aadhaar card has to be mandatorily linked to ones PAN card. SC upheld the 139AA of Income Tax Act. It is mandatory to quote Aadhaar/Enrolment ID of Aadhaar application form for filing of return of income.

3. The SC struck down Section 33 (2) of the Aadhaar Act, which permits disclosure of identity information and authentication records for national security.

4. Aadhaar is not mandatory for school admission, Justice Sikri said while reading out the judgment. CBSE, UGC and NEET cannot make Aadhaar mandatory. Children will be given the option to opt out of Aadhaar benefits after becoming adults.

5. The purpose of the Aadhaar Act is legitimate but it is satisfied only if Aadhaar collects minimal data, Justice Sikri observed, and that adequate measures must be in place to protect data. Aadhaar eliminates any chance of duplication, he said.

6. Justice Sikri called the Aadhaar enrolment process foolproof but asked the central government to come up with a stronger data protection law as soon as possible.

7. Aadhaar empowers marginalised sections of society by giving them an identity, Justice Sikri said. The top court said many people benefiting from Aadhaar cannot be denied their rights due to exclusion of a few.

8. Justice Sikri said it is better to be unique than the best and Aadhaar is based on being unique. The architecture of the Aadhaar Act reveals that UIDAI is a statutory body for assigning unique numbers and authentication. Uniqueness is based on submission of demographic and biometric data submission to UIDAI, he said.

9. Justice Sikri said heavy reliance has been put on the privacy judgment of 2017 and that human dignity is already a settled right from an individuals point of view. He added that profiling is not possible using Aadhaar and that sufficient safeguards are in place to disallow it.

10. The Supreme Court said only an authority above Joint Secretary can take a call on sharing data. There has to be consultation between a secretary-level officer and a sitting or retired judge to decide if data is to be shared in national interest.live bse live

nse live Volume Todays L/H More 

The Congress on accused the Narendra Modi government of bringing India to the "verge of economic collapse" and demanded a Supreme Court-monitored probe into "financial mismanagement" in the Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) group, which has over Rs 91,000 crore in debt.

Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari claimed the company was on the verge of bankruptcy and warned if that happened it would have a domino effect and "far reaching consequences" on the country's economy.

"This could be termed as the 'Lehman Brothers moment of India', as the collapse of Lehman Brothers in United States led to the 'great economic meltdown' of 2008...Something similar is happening in India today," he said, warning that "the Indian economy may plunge into a very deep crisis".

The Congress leader alleged that the Prime Minister's Office and the Finance Ministry was putting pressure on the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), State Bank of India (SBI), Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) and National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to bail out the company, and sought to know the rationale behind it.

He said IL&FS is an unlisted infrastructure development and financing company, which is 40 percent owned by the public-sector LIC, SBI and Central Bank of India.

"Why is the NDA/BJP government going overboard to bail out IL&FS?" he asked.

"The Prime Minister's Office and the Finance Ministry are putting pressure on the Reserve Bank of India, State Bank of India, LIC and NHAI to bail out this company and the logical question is why this is happening?" he said.

The government is trying "to help save foreign investors' money with the help of Indian tax-payers' money", he alleged.

"We demand that there should be a Supreme Court-monitored multi-agency investigation into all issues linked with IL&FS. This is a very serious issue," he said.

"The NDA-BJP government has brought India to the verge of an economic collapse and the manner in which the affairs of IL&FS fanned out is symptomatic of how this government has handled the Indian economy," he said.

According to the Congress leader, "some market analysis have been saying that this requires a very radical solution, it requires almost Satyam Computers like solution."

"But, the problem here is that why did it come to this pass? Why is it, that now LIC is saying that we will increase our stake. It is not the money of LIC boards and it is not private money," he said.

He also took a swipe at the prime minister saying this matter of IL&FS is a clear case of "telephone banking that prime minister Modi was referring to when he recently talked about 'phone a loan' system during the Congress government", referring to political influence in grant of bank loans.

Referring to the prime minister's reference to 'videshi mahagathbandhan', he said, "This is that foreign alliance of the NDA-BJP government, where taxpayers' good money is being used to save the foreign bad money".

He described the ILFS issue as a "crisis" in Indian economy and said the Finance Minister needs to answer what the government nominees in the company's board were doing.

"How did the debt of the company jump by 44 percent in the last three years? The state of affairs in the ILFS is a symbol of the Government handling of the Indian economy," he said.

"This is bigger scam than Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi all rolled into one," he alleged.

The Congress leader said the company has an opaque corporate structure and its profitability has declined 900 percent and it does not have sufficient reserves and surpluses to service its interest-bearing loans and redeemable debentures and pay back its loans.Aadhaar Card

The Supreme Court will deliver the verdict on the constitutional validity of Aadhaar on September 26. The top court had reserved its judgment on the same earlier this year.

Former High Court judge K Puttaswamy and others had filed a clutch of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of Aadhaar on the ground that it violated the citizens Right to Privacy under Article 21 of the Constitution of India.

The matter was being heard by a five-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, which had reserved its verdict in May 2018 after a 40-day hearing which had spanned across five months.

Although the plea challenging the constitutional validity of Aadhaar was filed in the apex court in 2012, it witnessed a major twist last year after a nine-judge bench of the Supreme Court unanimously held that the Right to Privacy was a fundamental right and part of every citizens Right to Life.

The nine-judge bench, headed by the then Chief Justice JS Khehar, had then transferred the Aadhaar matter to a five-judge bench.

After Justice Khehars retirement, incumbent CJI Dipak Misra constituted the five-judge bench comprising Justices AM Khanwilkar, AK Sikri, Ashok Bhushan, DY Chandrachud and himself. Justice Chandrachud is the only link between the five-judge bench and the nine-judge bench that announced its verdict on the Right to Privacy.

The bench took over the case in December 2017, even as India witnessed vehement protests against the Centre's order to compulsorily link their bank accounts and mobile phones with Aadhaar. On March 13, 2018, the bench had extended the deadline for the Centres order until the pronouncement of this judgment.Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan met Home Minister Rajnath Singh and requested him to expedite the process of giving financial assistance to the state, which faced unprecedented rains leading to floods and massive damage, officials said.

Vijayan briefed Singh about the prevailing situation in Kerala and the steps taken by his government to bring back normalcy in the state.

The chief minister has requested the home minister to expedite the process of giving financial relief to Kerala for the recent floods, a home ministry official said.

Last week, an inter-ministerial team, headed by a special secretary of the Home Ministry, has visit Kerala for five days to assess the damage caused by the recent devastating floods.

The team visited Kerala after the state government had sent a detailed memorandum seeking Rs 4,700 crore as compensation for the damage occurred due to rains and floods, considered to be worst in a century.

At least 488 people have died in Kerala due to the rains and floods this monsoon, which hit 14 districts of the state.

The Kerala government memorandum comprises details about the loss of human lives, properties, infrastructure and crops, another official said.

In case of any natural calamity beyond the coping capacity of a state, the state government submits a detailed memorandum indicating sector-wise details of damage and requirement of funds for relief operations of immediate nature.

Accordingly, the Kerala government sent the memorandum.

As per the existing guidelines, the Inter-Ministerial Central Team (IMCT) visits the state for on-the-spot assessment of damage and additional requirement of funds.

The IMCT report is considered by the Sub-Committee of National Executive Committee (SC-NEC) headed by the Union home secretary in conformity with the norms and then by a high-level committee, chaired by the home minister for approving the quantum of additional assistance from the National Disaster Relief Fund.

On August 21, the central government had released Rs 600 crore to flood-hit Kerala as promised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi (Rs 500 crore) and Home Minister Rajnath Singh (Rs 100 crore) during their visits to the state.French President Emmanuel Macron has said that the Rafale deal was a "government-to-government" discussion and he was not in power when the multi-billion dollar agreement for 36 fighter jets was signed between India and France.

Addressing a press conference on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session, Macron was asked if the Indian government had at any point told France or Dassault - the French aerospace major - that they had to accept Reliance as the Indian partner for the Rafale deal.

India had inked an inter-governmental agreement with France in September last year for procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets at a cost of around Rs 58,000 crore, nearly one- and-half years after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the proposal during a visit to Paris. The delivery of the jets is scheduled to begin from September, 2019.

"I will be very clear. It was a government-to-government discussion and I just want to refer to what Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi very clearly said a few days ago," Macron, who became French President in May last year, told reporters here Tuesday without elaborating.

"I don't have any other comment. I was not in charge at that time and I know that we have very clear rules," he said in his first comment on the issue.

Macron, emphasised that this is a government-to-government discussion and "this contract is part of a broader framework which is military and defence" coalition between India and France.

"This one is very important to me because this is a strategic" coalition and not just an industrial relation. "That is my point. I just want to refer to what PM Modi said on this situation," he said.

A huge controversy over the Rafale deal has erupted in India after a report in the French media quoted former president Francois Hollande as saying that the selection of the Indian company in the Rafale deal was done at the behest of New Delhi.

Hollande said 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.

His 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 Limited despite not having any experience in the aerospace sector.

The Congress party recently raised several questions about the deal including the rates, and accused the government of compromising national interest and security while promoting "crony capitalism" and causing a loss to the public exchequer.

The report 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."

Prime Minister 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 French government has said it was in no manner involved in the choice of Indian industrial partners.

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.BJP national president Amit Shah

BJP president Amit Shah asked Congress president Rahul Gandhi to stop daydreaming about coming to power in the upcoming elections.

Addressing party workers in Dhankya, nearly 35 km from Jaipur, Shah predicted a speedy decline of the Congress from mainstream politics.

The BJP president said, Rahul Baba (Gandhi) should stop daydreaming. Congress is at such a position that it would (soon) be difficult to find them with binoculars. Neither the country nor Rajasthan is secure in their (Congress) hands.

Recalling the recent successes of the BJP in state elections, Shah said Gandhi should analyse why the Congress tasted defeat in elections after Narendra Modi-led BJP government came to power in the Centre.

In a mythological reference, the BJP president compared the saffron party to 'Angad's foot' as no one could dislodge them (the BJP) in Rajasthan or even the Centre just as no one including Ravana could move Angad's foot in Hindu epic Ramayana.

Shah hit out at the Congress president for seeking an account of works done by the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre in the past four-and-a-half years, saying the people of the country want to know what four generations of his family had done for them.

He said the Centre had provided over Rs 2.63 lakh crore to Rajasthan during its tenure, whereas Congress despite having governments in the state and Centre provided only Rs 1.09 lakh crore.

"We have not done any favours to the people but have given them their rights and you (Gandhi) are seeking an account from us. First, finalise your leader under whom you want to contest elections in Rajasthan," Shah said.

Shah attacked the Congress on the issues of National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam and surgical strike. Shah said human rights of Indian youths were more important than the interests of intruders. "We will identify the intruders and evict them one by one," he averred.

He further accused the Congress of caring only for the vote bank. Exuding confidence in party workers, Shah said it was not an election of any minister or chief minister but it was an election of party workers and the BJP.

Party workers should think only about the party symbol 'Lotus' and 'Bharat Mata' (Mother India) when they are campaigning, he said at the event.

Shah urged the party workers to end the custom of alternate governments in Rajasthan. He said this tradition will end and the lotus will bloom in the state for the next 50 years.The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has asked the telecom companies to make the process of mobile number portability (MNP) for customers easier and hassle-free. The regulator has now cut the time for processing porting requests within a circle from four days to two days.

According to the draft guidelines on MNP, the regulator has proposed two sets of disincentives in case the telcos delay the porting processes. If the companies do not share customer details with the MNP service provider within 24 hours of a customer submitting a porting request, they will be fined Rs 5,000. The penalty will be Rs 10,000 if the companies wrongfully reject porting requests.

Nearly 45 percent of the porting requests rejected by the telecom companies between April 2017 and May 2018 said porting code mismatch and invalid/expired codes. The draft stated that in order to protect the consumers, these financial disincentives will come in handy.

The requests for porting have peaked after the closure of Aircel, Telenor and RCom. There is heavy demand from customers of these companies to move to other operators. Present operators wish to ensure customers are not inconvenienced during the process, therefore appropriate systems and infrastructure must be put in place, the draft read.

MNP was introduced in India in 2011 but was restricted within a circle. TRAI had started a process to reinvent the porting process in April this year. The regulator also slashed the fees of porting from one service to another by 80 percent to a mere Rs 4. The regulator has sought comments from stakeholders on the draft MNP policy by October 24.

At present, the donor operator generates and communicates UPC to subscriber and it takes up to four days for subscriber to learn about his eligibility for porting mobile number.

A telecom operator can reject MNP request of its subscriber on various grounds like non-payment of bill or connection given under special schemes etc.

With average porting requests per month of 52.35 lakh, the average rejections on the ground of 'UPC mismatch' and 'UPC expired' jointly come out to be approximately 2.3 lakh per month between April 2016 to March 2017.

Industry body Cellular Operators Association of India Director General Rajan S Mathews said MNP demand has peaked after the closure of Aircel, Telenor and Reliance Communications and the heavy demand from customers of these companies to move to other operators.

He said said that present operators wish to ensure customers are not inconvenienced during the MNP process and hence are working to put the appropriate systems and infrastructure in place to comply.

"It is our opinion that penalties are extremely blunt instruments to ensure compliance. Rather, a partnered approach with TRAI to ensure our mutual goals are met and difficulties ironed out, is the preferred approach," Mathews said.

The draft is open for public comments till October 24.aadhaar

The Congress welcomed the Supreme Court's verdict on the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar Act, calling it  a slap on the face of BJP.

The top court on September 26 read the judgment on the Aadhaar scheme, keeping it constitutionally valid while striking down some of its provisions, including mandatory linking with bank accounts and mobile phones, as well as for school admissions.



SC rightly appreciated brilliant idea in origin; protected its core; promoted its development &eliminated its flotsam &jetsam. SC brilliantly threw out #bjp #modi accumulated dirty bathwater and saved the baby. Org intent of UPA ie to give identity 2 marginalised ppl now shines.

 Abhishek Singhvi (@DrAMSinghvi) September 26, 2018

After the verdict was pronounced, Congress national spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi welcomed the decision and said the top court protected the "brilliant idea" of the Aadhaar, which was originally proposed by the UPA government.

In a series of tweets, Singhvi cited several observations from the judgment to attack the Centre. He tweeted, Slap on the face of Digital India propaganda of BJP. Justice Chandrachud says that Digital India cant submerge identities. (sic)

Citing the judgment which now allows individuals to lodge complaints under the Aadhaar Act, Singhvi said the Supreme Court is ripping off the Aadhaar Act".



Another major blow to the BJP govt. Justice Chandrachud says that Aadhaar Act needn't have been a money bill. Through a dictatorial and undemocratic act, the BJP govt passed the Act without the Rajya Sabha debating it. #AadhaarJudgment #AadhaarVerdict  Abhishek Singhvi (@DrAMSinghvi) September 26, 2018



Congress leader Kapil Sibal, at a press conference, told reporters that the Aadhaar Act was against democracy. He said, "The BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi had passed the Aadhaar Act as a money bill which was wrong... because of this, data of the people are today in the hands of private players".

"We need to know what the government is planning to do about those people who are unable to reap the benefits [of Aadhaar] because of biometric failures. If there is no provision for them, we will file a plea for them in court," Sibal added.

Congress MP from Kerala, Shashi Tharoor, told reporters that the "good aspect of the judgment was its emphasis on data protection" and that the major problem was not with Aadhaar per se, but with the "issue of linking it" to avail the benefits of government schemes.

Meanwhile, the BJP called the Supreme Court verdict a victory for Aadhaar and victory for the Modi government. Speaking to news agency ANI, the saffron partys national spokesperson Sambit Patra said the top court's decision showed that Aadhaar was safe and cannot be duplicated, adding that it gives strength to poor people.

Taking a shot at the Congress, Patra said the Rahul Gandhi-led party wanted Aadhaar to be struck down as they wanted to be middlemen. Congress stands exposed as the Supreme Court has said it is not for immigrants, he added.

Former Attorney General of India Soli Sorabjee, welcomed the decision, calling the top court's decision a good judgment. However, he personally appreciated Justice DY Chandrachud's minority judgment, striking it down on the ground that it violates a citizen's Right to Privacy, which was pronounced as a fundamental right under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution last year.

Trinamool Congress (TMC) has also welcomed the verdict. From day one Mamata Banerjee and TMC's views on Aadhaar have been consistent, well-articulated and well known. Both inside and outside Parliament, West Bengals ruling party tweeted.

So you do not need to give your Aadhaar to private bodies like banks, schools, mobile companies. Trinamool and Mamata Banerjee fought hard for this, TMC said in a statement.Prime Minister Narendra Modi

Gulshan Sachdeva

Vice President Venkaiah Naidu has just visited Greece, Romania and Serbia. Just before that, President Ram Nath Kovind had made a visit to Bulgaria, Cyprus and the Czech Republic. Normally these are routine, low-key ceremonial affairs. Apart from official media, they generate limited interest.

Looking carefully, however, it seems these visits are part of a well-planned Indian strategy to re-enter a neglected area, suddenly becoming geo-strategically important.

Traditionally, the erstwhile Eastern Europe was a friendly area with significant political, economic, cultural and defence ties. The nature and character of the then India-Soviet relations broadly determined our commercial ties with this region as well. These were institutionalised through rupee-rouble trade agreements with individual countries. Yugoslavia had strong connections with India, as it was one of the strong pillars of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).

After the Soviet break-up, the countries in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) moved towards the European Union (EU) and NATO. As a result of their economic and political transformation as well as move towards Europeanisation, our trade and economic ties declined considerably.

Although India has a strong goodwill in the region, our commercial engagement has been relatively limited. Indias overall trade with the region is about $6 billion. Some Polish companies have made significant investments in India. Indian IT and pharmaceutical companies are active in the CEE. More and more Indian students are also discovering universities in the region where they can get reasonably good education at a relatively low price.

Todays geopolitical scenario in the region is more complex than before. The former Yugoslavia has been replaced by six new independent nations  Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia. Kosovo, another Serbian autonomous area, also declared its independence. Supporting Serbia's sovereignty and territorial integrity, India does not recognise Kosovo.

As many of the CEE countries have joined the EU, they became part of the larger India-EU partnership. Although some of the economies are doing well, the earlier fascination with the EU has faded. Populism is on the rise.

Some of the countries, such as Hungary and Serbia, are seriously working with China and Russia. Since 2012, China is engaged in the region through its 16+1 initiative. Under this format, Beijing has intensified its ties with 11 EU member states from the region and five Balkan countries. In the region, it has signed strategic partnerships with Poland, Hungary and Serbia. Apart from Greece, many of the infrastructural projects under the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) are implemented in central and south-eastern Europe. The region is also important for the recently announced EUs Europe-Asia connectivity strategy.

So long as these countries were becoming part of the EU institutional framework, New Delhi was relaxed. A proximity towards Serbia and Russia was equally fine. However, with Beijings increasing influence in the region, New Delhi seems to have woken up.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made more than a dozen official visits to West European capitals. However, he has not made a single visit to this region. New Delhi has strategic partnerships with the EU as well as France, Germany and the United Kingdom. Some of the countries from the region, such as Poland, are traditionally close to India and have significant weight within the EU institutions. Still, India has no strategic partnership in the region.

With a clear strategy, India has the potential to regain its influence. Similar to the India-Nordic summit, New Delhi must initiate formal institutional engagements. At the moment, these countries are covered under the India-Europe 29 Business Forum (IE29BF). The fourth IE29BF took place in Delhi in March. These 29 countries are part of the Ministry of External Affairs central Europe division, which covers not only the CEE, but also the Nordic and Baltic regions as well as Turkey. This is too large and diverse a platform for any meaningful engagement.

The initial engagement in the region can begin with Visegrad-4 (the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia), which could be extended to others later. Already our trade with Visegrad-4 is close to $5 billion. Overall, Indian investments in the region have concentrated in the IT sector and pharmaceuticals.

All major Indian IT firms, including Infosys, TCS, WIPRO, HCL, etc. have a strong presence in the region. Apollo Tyres have made a 475-million-euro investment in a greenfield plant in Hungary. Romania is another country which is important for petrochemicals. ArcelorMittal has made significant investments in Romania.

Apart from an annual regional summit, there is also a strong case for engaging one or two key countries through strategic partnership. Any positive movement on the India-EU FTA would further help our commercial ties with this region as well.Viju Cherian

On Tuesday, the Supreme Court of India decided against debarring charge-sheeted lawmakers from contesting elections. It, however, asked Parliament to pass laws barring those accused of crime from fighting elections, and strengthen the election commissions hands. The court said it cannot legislate for Parliament and as conscience-keepers of the Constitution, we (Supreme Court) can ask you (Parliament) to do it.

One cannot but sigh in disappointment. This is not only because the legislature does not inspire confidence, but also because the judiciary usually comes to the rescue when the legislature fails.

Yes, such a law could work against legislators who are accused (and not convicted) of a crime. The potential for such legislation being misused by rival parties, and especially the party in power, weakens the case for it.

That said, it is wishful thinking to expect political parties to do a course correction on their own. If various political parties are yet to bar criminals from contesting on their ticket, what hope is there that they will have a change of heart now?

In 2013, when the Supreme Court ruled that legislators convicted for two or more years in prison would be immediately expelled, the then Congress-led UPA government moved a bill in Rajya Sabha and an ordinance to nullify the judgment. After widespread resentment, and an impromptu reaction by Rahul Gandhi at a press conference at the Delhi Press Club where he called the ordinance a complete nonsense  the government pulled back.

Given this precedent, it is hard to believe that our legislators would channel their conscience and pass a legislation to prevent the criminalisation of politics.

There is also another reason for this scepticism. This is because over the years the number of people with criminal antecedence winning elections has been on the rise. According to reports by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), 185 winning candidates in the 2014 general elections had criminal cases against them compared to 162 in the 2009 polls. Similarly, in 2009, 15 percent of the winners had serious criminal cases, such as murder, attempt to murder, communal disharmony, kidnapping, crimes against women against them. This rose to 21 percent in 2014. The 2014 ADR report shows that the chances of winning for a candidate with criminal cases was more than for one with a clean record.

A law against criminals entering the political system will only further strengthen Indias democracy, but in a system where political funding is still opaque, it is the cold, hard cash that forces political parties to select candidates with criminal records.

Unfortunately corruption and the presence of criminals in politics is yet to become an electoral issue. Political parties are likely to address this issue effectively when it becomes an electoral issue. Sadly, at the moment there is no sign to show that the rap sheet of a candidate is a discouraging factor for a political party when choosing a candidate.With the Supreme Court barring private companies from seeking Aadhaar details from consumers, registration of new vehicles may get impacted. The authority to give registration number to a vehicle rests with regional transport offices (RTOs), which are controlled by the state governments.

The registration is done by Deemed District Transport Office (DTO) on behalf of the government. These DTOs are run by private dealers. Aadhaar, though not mandatory to buy vehicles, is used by the DTOs for registration of vehicles.

"Dealers do not use the Aadhaar card details for themselves and is purely used they are asked to. In cases where Aadhaar is not available, a passport can be used (for consumer details), said a dealer selling Hero Motocorp models.

The Supreme Courts decision today, however, has left the dealer community confused. With todays ruling, consumers could refrain from submitting Aadhaar details to the dealer.

We are running deemed DTOs where the government function of registration is done by us. We have to do temporary registration too. We are not sure if we will still be allowed to ask for Aadhaar details of a consumer after the Supreme Court verdict, said a Mahindra & Mahindra dealer.

The Road Transport and Safety Bill, which is still not yet passed by the government, has a provision allowing vehicle registration to be done by the dealer. All the paperwork, issuance of number plate and the process of registration will be done by the dealer. RTOs will however, continue to issue the registration number through online payment of tax.

As the process would be in the hands of the private players, RTOs had opposed the governments move. Transport minister Nitin Gadkari had alleged that the issue of paying bribes at RTOs was a major concern with the government and the bill looked to abolish that system.Northern states Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh and UT Chandigarh Tuesday agreed to fix uniform tax rates on petroleum products, amid rising fuel prices.

Besides, the states also agreed to bring uniformity in taxes on liquor and registration of vehicles and transport permit, according to an official release.

The finance ministers of five states and officials of UT Chandigarh held a meeting here to deliberate on fixing uniform rate of taxes on petrol and diesel.

"It was agreed during the meeting to bring uniformity on the tax rates of petrol and diesel," said an official release.

The participating states also decided to constitute a sub-committee, which would give their recommendation with regard to uniformity in tax rates in next fifteen days, release said.

Haryana Finance Minister Captain Abhimanyu said it was decided in the meeting that an effort should be made to bring uniformity in VAT rates on petrol and diesel in order to provide relief to consumers.

It was also discussed in the meeting that with uniformity in tax rates, the diversion of trade will be curbed.

Notably, Punjab has one of the highest rates of VAT on petrol in the country and it is second to Maharashtra.

The price of petrol in Punjab is over Rs 88 a litre, around Rs 8 per litre costlier than that in Chandigarh. The state levies about 36 per cent VAT and surcharges on petrol.

Participating in the discussion, Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said northern states have shown consensus on having same tax rates on liquor also.

"It will lead to increase in the government revenue and at the same, curb black marketing," Sisodia said.

Punjab Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal during the meeting suggested that there should be a uniform policy for the state transport so that there should be no loss of revenue from registration and permit fees because of different tax rates.

He pointed out that it was seen that many trucks and vehicles of Punjab and Haryana get their registration done from other states.The Indian Navy is looking to find new jets for its indigenous aircraft carrier under construction in Kochi. The requirement is for 57 jets. France is pitching Rafale Marine, the fighter jet, as a contender for the Indian Navys requirement, reports The Economic Times.

Undettered by the controversy over the Rafale deal, France is confident about its prospects for a deal with the Indian Navy.

Rear Admiral Gilles Boidevezi, in-charge of foreign relations for the French Navy, told the paper that Rafale has demonstrated its ability to operate from foreign carriers. The Rafale went to the United States and was deployed on American aircraft carriers, said Boidevezi. The Rafale was perfectly integrated with the US carriers and has shown its capability to work with non-French platforms, he added.

The current Rafale offer sees no impact due to the earlier deal for 36 planes the air force had ordered. In fact, several rounds of talks had taken place with Indian Navy regarding the Rafale offer, industry sources revealed.

Defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman is likely to be in Paris from October 11 for a bilateral meeting. During this meet, it is expected that she will be briefed on all ongoing projects, including Scorpene submarines and progress on Rafale production.

Until now, the navy has used Russian MiG 29 K jets. However, it wants to shift to a new aircraft due to several technical problems with the fleet.

There seems to be a straight contest between the Boeing-made F/A 18 Super Hornet and the Rafale Marine for this deal.

However, both the F/A 18 and Rafale Marine fighter jets have been operating from aircraft carriers but are rigged for catapult launches. This may pose problems for India as the Navy uses the ski-jump system, which involves a runway that curves upward.

According to sources, the French side has conducted extensive tests and software analysis on the Rafale to show that it can operate with a meaningful load from ski-jump carriers.

The tenders for the contract are expected to be issued shortly.We had mentioned in Tuesdays closing report that Nifty, Sensex may record a relief rally. The major indices of the Indian stock markets were range-bound on Wednesday and closed with losses over Tuesdays close. On the NSE, there were 844 advances, 903 declines and 312 unchanged. The trends of the major indices in the course of Wednesdays trading are given in the table below:

Profit booking ahead of the September Futures and Options (F&O) expiry subdued the Indian equity markets on Wednesday. Accordingly, selling pressure was witnessed in auto, IT (information technology) and FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) counters.

HCL Technologies signed a new 5-year infrastructure services contract with Anglo American, a company headquartered in UK which runs mining operations across Southern Africa, North and South America and Australia, with a workforce of 69,000 people worldwide. The companys shares closed at Rs1,090.35, down 2.33% on the NSE.

Torrent Power emerged as the winning bidder for capacity of 115 MW project in the E-reverse auction process conducted by SECI for setting-up of 1,200 MW ISTS connected wind power projects. The bid tariff for capacity addition is Rs2.76 / kWh. Torrent Power shares closed at Rs228.95, up 0.35% on the NSE.

Reliance Industrial Investments and Holdings (RIIHL) of Reliance Industries has made a further investment of US$ 8 million in NetraDyne Inc., USA by subscribing to 40.58 lakh CCPS taking its total holding to 37.4% in NetraDyne. RIIHL had previously invested US$ 16 million in NetraDyne. Reliance Industries shares closed at Rs1,253.50, up 1.86% on the NSE.

TCS BaNCS for Market Infrastructure has been selected by the Kuwait Clearing Company (KCC) for Central Counter Party (CCP) Services. TCS' solution is to increase liquidity, reduce risk, support new asset classes, and deliver Innovation to the Kuwaiti financial market. Tata Consultancy Services shares closed at Rs2,147.15, down 1.65% on the NSE.

Adani Green Energy won the tender for setting up 300 MW Wind generation project to be set up anywhere in India and connected through ISTS. The fixed PPA tariff is Rs2.76/kWh for a period of 25 years and is expected to be commissioned by Q2 FY 2021. The companys shares closed at Rs45.30, up 1.68% on the NSE.

Minda Industries board has approved Rs500 crore investment proposal for setting up a new manufacturing plant of 2-Wheeler Alloy Wheel in Maharashtra, for supplies to OEMs. The project would be completed in two phases. The start of production is expected from November, 2019. Minda Industries shares closed at Rs368.50, up 2.95% on the NSE.

Reliance Communications (RCOM) on Wednesday said it plans to expand its data centres in India, including those in Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai. Reliance Communications shares closed at Rs12.85, up 11.74% on the NSE.

The top gainers and top losers of the major indices are given in the table below:

The closing values of the major Asian indices are given in the table below:The Australian Pharmaceuticals Industries Ltd [ASX:API] share price took a severe hit today, down 10.71% to AU$1.69 at time of writing. The pharmacy chains share price fell to a two week low, with no news from the company regarding the fall at this stage.

API is one of Australias leading pharmaceutical distributors and fastest growing health and beauty retailers with a market cap of $835.65 million.

What caused the drop in Australian Pharmaceutical Industries share price?

Fundamentally, API is a financially robust company with a strong record of great dividend payments. Its sound financial health means its well placed to meet all of its upcoming liability payments, implying API manages its cash and cost levels well.

So, what caused the drop? It was likely sparked by a broker note out of Credit Suisse this morning. The note downgraded the pharmaceutical giants shares from a neutral rating to underperforming, cutting the price target from $1.69 to $1.55.

API has posted strong performance since its acquisition of skincare brand Clearskincare in August, recently recording a 52-week high of $1.94 on the back of its expansion into the skincare market.

However, Credit Suisse fears any gains could be diminished when the company posts its results in October.

Free Report: Discover four red hot ASX profit plays for 2018. Read Now

The companys managing director and CEO, Richard Vincent, believes that the acquisition is complementary to API, allowing it to apply its operational capabilities and scale to accelerate Clearskincares growth. As he stated:

The acquisition fulfils our criteria for aligning with a robust business in a burgeoning sector of the health and beauty marketand to which we can add further value for customers, clinic teams and shareholders.

This sentiment appears to have pleased investors, however, Credit Suisse analysts are cautious. APIs core business has faced increasing challenges with a number of pharmaceutical manufacturers, deciding to bypass the CSO wholesalers and directly supply their medicines to community pharmacies.

Whats next for API?

Compared to its peers in the healthcare industry, API is trading below par, relative to earnings generated. However, ongoing issues between manufacturers and distributors are have put both PBS and retail revenues under pressure.

Credit Suisse has further cautioned that APIs shares could be de-rated in October when the full extent of the tough trading conditions are realised, implying a further downside for the companys shares over the next 12 months.

Will this be a continuing trend for API?

Only time will tell, but with other pharmaceuticals also suffering from tough trading conditions it is best to be mindful of these facts.

Regards,

Ryan Clarkson-Ledward,

For Money Morning

PS: Youll find over 2,000 stock listed on the ASX and on any given day a bunch will rise, just like Telstra. Its near impossible to monitor these on your own. Our analyst Sam Volkering has picked out four Aussie stocks he believes could be top performers in 2018. Check out his free report The Four Best ASX Stocks for 2018.Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 26)  The government settles for short-term solutions to ease Metro Manila traffic for now - as it catches up on infrastructure that should have been built decades ago.

This was the general sentiment of government officials and resource persons who talked about issues in the metro during CNN Philippines' Town Hall on Wednesday.

Architect and urban planner Paulo Alcazaren said traffic "is just a symptom" to the country's perpetual problem. "The problem is the lack of an efficient, integrated transport system."

While the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) agrees, it admits it would take years for the government to fix mass transport.

"Yung traffic sa Metro Manila, it did not happen overnight. This was 30, 40 years behind. We cannot solve this overnight also," MMDA General Manager Jojo Garcia said.

The Philippines, notorious for having one of the worst traffic situations in the world, is estimated to have lost about P3.5 billion due to traffic daily. A study by the Japan International Cooperation Agency projects losses to traffic could go up to P5.4 billion per day by 2035 if no interventions are made.

Garcia said while the government has started building better roads and transport facilities, "we can't wait without doing something."

Carpooling, regulating car purchases?

Carpooling tops the traffic authority's list of short-term solutions.

The MMDA has been pushing for carpooling, saying it would not only enable participants to save money and help reduce air pollution, but it could also bring people closer.

"Baka may crush kayo isabay niyo na 'Yan ang advantage ng carpooling bukod sa makakatipid ka na, may socialization," Garcia said, drawing laughter from members of the audience who were mostly students of the De La Salle University.

[Translation: "If you have a crush, consider carpooling with that person. This is the advantage of carpooling, aside from saving money, you also socialize."]

The MMDA, however, has put on hold a policy that would further encourage carpooling -- the ban on driver-only vehicles on EDSA during rush hour. This controversial policy drew criticisms even as the MMDA assured it was only a band-aid solution, as big ticket infrastructure projects are underway.

Garcia also mentioned more extreme measures such as regulating the number of cars people can buy. He said many Filipino car owners do not have their own garages for parking, and occupy roads meant for the public.

"Lahat ng tao, yung tapat ng bahay niyo, hindi po inyo yan sa gobyerno yan (The lot in front of your house is not yours, it's the government's)," Garcia said, lamenting that double-parking also causes traffic.

Meanwhile, he said the MMDA is letting go of the modified odd-even scheme it has proposed on EDSA, for now. The coding scheme allows cars on EDSA at a scheduled time only depending on their plate numbers. But he said it might only encourage people to buy more cars.

Catching up on infrastructure

Officials blamed previous administrations for the lack of infrastructure, and poor urban planning specifically on EDSA.

"We have underinvested in infrastructure, so now we have to play catch up," Transport Undersecretary for Planning Benny Reynoso said.

He, however, assured that transport facilities are now on the pipeline, including the first ever subway in Metro Manila, with a groundbreaking set by the end of this year.

"Sa Pilipinas lang walang subway. All countries na maunlad, may subway lahat 'yan," Garcia said.

[Translation: "Only the Philippines has no subway. All developed countries have a subway."]

The P356-billion Metro Manila Subway is a flagship project under the government's "Build, Build, Build" infrastructure program. The 25-kilometer underground railway from Mindanao Avenue in Quezon City to the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Pasay, is expected to benefit 370,000 passengers daily.

As for EDSA, Alcazaren said the 24-kilometer stretch was not meant to be dotted with commercial establishments in the first place.

"EDSA was designed as a thoroughfare, no stopping," Alcazaren said.

Even President Rodrigo Duterte has given up on EDSA, as Congress has yet to give him emergency powers to ease traffic on Metro Manila's main highway, which would allow him to bypass bidding procedures.

Call for discipline

But, whatever policy the government comes up with would be useless if people would not cooperate, Garcia said.

He noted an average of 70,000 traffic violations monthly, caught on video through the MMDA's no-contact traffic apprehension policy. Closed-circuit television and digital cameras, and other gadgets across the metro capture erring motorists, who end up on MMDA's "May Huli Ba?" database.

"We can only do so much. We really need the participation of all of you," Garcia said.

MMDA envisions a Metro Manila where traffic enforcers no longer to guard streets because motorists and commuters are disciplined.

"Right now we're not yet ready You need to intimidate first the public for them to follow the law," Garcia said.Wongs chapter is an at times harrowing tale about her childhood that she says, at 3,000 words, provides only a snapshot of her life. Upon being disowned by her parents and dealing with what she describes as being massively rejected, Wong eventually found her way.

I mention that I lost my parents young in life, but not through death, she said. I explain that in the book and it helps people understand where I come from, why Im as different as I am, because I dont fit into the corporate box but Ive been successful because I believe in what Im doing and I have a passion for helping people.

Spearheading The Magical Unicorn project, which helps women become better versions of themselvesand encourages great men to support themis only one way in which Wong keeps herself busy these days.

Im hoping to encourage more women to go out there and not be afraid and to take risks, be bold and go after their dreams. Live a life that they really want and live a truly empowered life. Thats what my Magical Unicorn Project is all about. I talk about it in the chapter and Im hoping to achieve greater awareness, promote equality, diversity and inclusion, and doing it in a way that it isnt deemed a battle of sexes. The whole reason its Unicorn is the uni in Latin means oneness. I dont see equality as a battle between men and women, I see it as something were working on together with oneness.A national mortgage company is slashing more than a third of the workforce in its Michigan office.

Denver-based LenderLive has announced plans to lay off 58 employees in its Madison Heights, Mich., office, according to a report by Crains Detroit Business. The company employs around 1,000 people in the US and focuses on origination and mortgage services.

The layoffs come as LenderLive consolidates its origination business to two hubs in Colorado and Florida, according to Crains. The cuts involve mostly underwriters and loan coordinators.Karen Warren

The French energy major Total and its partners said they will soon start construction on a new plastics plant at Total's Bayport campus near Pasadena, a project estimated to create more than 1,700 construction-related jobs.

The $1 billion project involves building a new plant to annually produce 625,000 metric tons - more than 1.3 billion pounds - of polyethylene, which is the world's most common plastic.What the crown prince wants, the crown prince gets.

International crude oil prices broke above $80 a barrel this week on news that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting States, Russia and their allies are not in a big hurry to meet President Donald Trumps demand for cheaper fuel. This should come as no surprise.

OPEC is led by Saudi Arabia, and the kingdoms Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced in April that $70 oil was not going to cut it. Saudi officials hinted to Bloomberg News at the time that $80 a barrel will allow the nation to pay for reform plans and not slow the global economy.

"We believe oil prices will get higher in this year and also get higher in 2019, Salman told Time magazine in early April. When you lead the organization responsible for a third of the worlds oil production, its easy to make your predictions come true.

Oil is a globally traded commodity, so Brent crude, the international benchmark, drives local gasoline and diesel prices. Politicians know that little spreads unhappiness quicker than higher fuel prices.

In April, I wrote that Texas oil and gas explorers should send the crown prince a thank you note for setting prices at a comfortable level for all. After all, American shale drillers were responsible for flooding the world with crude and triggering the price collapse in 2014.

Texas oilers should also thank Salman for the tough-love life lessons. OPEC initially allowed the oil price to float freely, which led to 18 months of prices below the cost of production. Salman had hoped those low prices would break the Permian Basin, but instead, operators learned how to drill more cheaply.

Low prices, though, also hurt OPEC nations and Russia, which is why they formed an unprecedented coalition to cut production in late 2016. Prices have trended upward ever since. This coalition, which pundits call OPEC+, met last weekend to discuss next steps.

No one was more disappointed than Trump. He wants to take nearly 2 percent of the global oil supply off the market through sanctions on Iran, but he doesnt want to pay higher oil prices. Sensing the danger in higher pump prices ahead of the midterm elections, he employed his style of diplomacy.

"OPEC and OPEC nations are as usual ripping off the rest of the world, and I don't like it. Nobody should like it," he told the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday. "We defend many of these nations for nothing, and then they take advantage of us by giving us high oil prices we are not going to put up with it, these horrible prices, much longer."

Comments like this do not help matters. Saudi Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih said OPEC+ would maintain the current quantity of oil on the market. The coalition will make up for any shortfalls from Venezuelas economic collapse or U.S. sanctions, but the alliance will not expand production.

Oil-producing nations need prices at $80 to begin recovering from years of economic hardship caused by low prices, said Jim Krane, an expert on energy geopolitics at Rice Universitys Baker Institute.

This is asweet spot for them; its as high as you can get without destroying demand, he said. The prudent ones know they need to retool their economies, and they need to do that on the back of high oil prices while they can get it.

Salmans Vision 2030 plan to overhaul the Saudi economy relies on generating as much cash from oil as possible before demand drops. The advent of electric cars and stricter emission regulations have created real doubts about how long demand for oil will grow.

Public opinion is also important, even to authoritarian monarchies. Trump is unpopular in the Middle East for his policies toward the Muslim world. No leader wants to kowtow to him.

These ministers do not want to be Trumps errand boys, and so thats going to make it tougher on them to raise production. If they do, theyll be seen as caving into Trumps demands, Krane explained.

When given a choice between bolstering domestic finances and popularity or pleasing Trump, the choice for Middle Eastern leaders is easy. They know the U.S. can no less afford to lose regional allies. No one here has the upper hand.

And after all, Trumps trade war may solve the problem of higher oil prices by slowing down global demand for fuel. IHS Mar-kit, an economic advisory firm, reduced forecasts for economic growth this week due to the tit-for-tat tariffs with China.

Lowering oil prices that way, though, has serious side effects. Not the least for Texas oil companies.A man who offered private tutoring services and allegedly had an inappropriate relationship with a student was being held Tuesday in the Midland County jail, according to court documents.

Nicholas Richard Conn, 27, was facing second-degree felony charges of sexual assault and improper relationship between an educator and a student. Bond had not been set as of that afternoon.

Midland ISD in a Sept. 14 press release said Conn previously offered private tutoring services to some band students and was not a district employee.

A lieutenant was dispatched to Lee High School at about 11 a.m. Aug. 29 to assist a MISD police officer with an investigation.

A Lee student went to Conns apartment in August 2017, where the two engaged in sexual activity, according to his arrest affidavit. Conn and the student had discussed starting a dating relationship after her graduation, according to the affidavit.

The 2017 incident was discovered when another student alerted campus administrators, according to a previous Reporter-Telegram story. Police during the subsequent investigation conducted interviews and examined text messages, according to the affidavit.

Conn, who has a Midland address, was arrested in Bexar County on Sept. 13. MISD police had issued a warrant for his arrest, which was handed to the U.S. Marshals Office in San Antonio, according to the previous report.

Conn was an adjunct faculty member at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin and had been relieved of his teaching and other duties while a full investigation was conducted, according to that report.

If convicted of a second-degree felony charge, Conn could face up to 20 years imprisonment.by Matt Zdun

Texas Tribune

Organizers of the "Protect Texas from Radioactive Waste Tour" plan to travel to five Texas cities over the next week in protest of a proposed plan to store used nuclear materials in West Texas.

Several Texas organizations gathered in Houston on Tuesday to kick off their Protect Texas from Radioactive Waste Tour, the beginning of a renewed push to block a proposal to transport used nuclear fuel by train through Texas and store it in West Texas.

The tour's organizers said they want to make people aware of the "high risk" implications of a proposal to build and operate a facility for 40,000 metric tons of irradiated fuel rods at an existing site in Andrews County.

If approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the project by Interim Storage Partners, a joint venture between Waste Control Specialists and Orano USA, would transport nuclear waste from around the country to the consolidated site in Texas and store it until a long-term storage site becomes available, according to the venture's website.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said in an August letter it would begin reviewing Interim Storage Partners' license application and that its safety, security and environmental reviews of the proposal could conclude as early as August 2020.

Karen Hadden, the executive director of the Sustainable Energy and Economic Development Coalition, told The Texas Tribune that announcement triggered renewed opposition to the project and is one of the reasons for the tour.

The organizations involved  the Coalition of Community Organizations, Nuclear Information and Resource Services, Beyond Nuclear, the Sustainable Energy and Economic Development Coalition and Public Citizen  held a news conference by a railroad crossing in Houston, said Tom Smith, the special projects director of consumer rights advocacy group Public Citizen. Smith, who helped organize the tour, said in an interview with the Tribune that the news conference featured a 16-foot railroad container meant to replicate the transport cask that Interim Storage Partners would use to transport used nuclear fuel.

Were by the railroad tracks because were emphasizing that Texas businesses, hospitals and schools by the railroads are at high risk, Hadden said. Its a bad idea to bring [nuclear waste] from around the country into Texas.

The organizations instead want the used nuclear material to be kept at reactor sites in sturdier containers until a permanent storage site becomes available.

Smith said the proposed project presents a number of risks. A railroad accident would be disastrous, he said, because it could expose the public to harmful radiation and could cost municipalities hundreds of millions of dollars to clean up.

He also said nuclear waste on railcars running through densely populated areas like Houston, Dallas and San Antonio is at "high risk of terrorist sabotage."

Interim Storage Partners did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding the tour, but on its website, it emphasizes the safety of its operations.

Since 1965, more than 2,700 shipments of used fuel have been safely transported nearly 2 million miles across the United States  and there has never been a radiological release caused by a transportation accident, Interim Storage Partners' website said.

The website adds that the transport cask surrounding the canister is specifically engineered with multiple barriers, including containment boundary, structural shell, gamma shielding material, and solid neutron shield, and that the canister is sealed in thick-walled concrete when it arrives at the storage facility.

Smith said that after the news conference, the organizations planned to ask the Houston City Council to adopt a resolution against the proposed transportation of the nuclear material. He added that commissioners in San Antonio and Midland have already adopted similar resolutions.

Were trying to raise awareness because a lot of people dont know this is planned, Hadden said. She also said she hopes the tour will encourage people to submit comments on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's website before the Oct. 19 deadline.

Smith and Hadden said they have gone on nuclear waste tours before, one in West Texas last year and another this year for a separate proposed nuclear site in New Mexico. Over the next week, the current tour will continue at outdoor locations near railroads in San Antonio, Dallas, El Paso, Midland and Andrews, Smith said.

Interim Storage Partners' license application, which proposes a 40-year lease, is the second filed by the company. The first was submitted in April 2016, but its review was halted after Waste Control Specialists struggled to find the funds needed to continue with the application.

We look forward to an energized and timely process and continuing to provide high-quality responses to any NRC requests for additional information, Interim Storage Partners said in a written statement last month.

Federal lawmakers are mulling an amendment to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 that could accelerate the development of nuclear material storage sites. The amendment would require the Department of Energy to start its own program to consolidate and temporarily store commercial spent nuclear fuel during the development, construction, and operation of a permanent nuclear waste repository.After months of renovations to a former addiction treatment center site in Jacksonville, the Gateway Foundation is set to open a new addiction treatment center in its place.

Gateway Foundation Jacksonville officially opens to the public with an open house from 3:30 to 6 p.m. today and a ribbon-cutting at 4 p.m. today at 1300 Lincoln Ave.

The Gateway Foundation bought the former Wells Center site earlier this year after that facility closed in 2017. Subsequent renovations gave the old center a serious face lift, said Kerry Henry, the new centers executive director.

It looks extremely different, we completely redid the entire facility, Henry said. It will be a big change for people who knew it then and what it looks like now. So were excited to have this here for Jacksonville and this community.

Henry also runs the Gateway center in Springfield.

Were going to offer all levels of care in Jacksonville, she said. This will be the first center in Illinois that will be all under one roof. We will have recovery home, residential treatment, intensive outpatient, basic outpatient and day treatment.

Springfields center does not offer home recovery and, while it does offer outpatient services, those are at a separate site. The Springfield center also offers a female Medicaid unit but not a male Medicaid unit, while the Jacksonville centers Medicaid unit will treat both men and women with a focus on men, Henry said.

Theres a large number of males in the state that cant get into treatment, she said. One of the ideas was to open the center in Jacksonville and it is predominately male, especially for the residential and the recovery home, because its a licensed Medicaid unit. It gives opportunity for males to receive treatment, where there was a service gap in central Illinois.

The center also will offer walk-in hours from noon to 2 p.m. each Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

They can walk in and have a free assessment and talk to our staff, Henry said. If they want to get some guidance or theyre interested in having someone assessed or just want to come in to talk to somebody about their substance abuse or someone elses substance abuse problem, thats what were here for. They can just walk in. They dont need to have an an appointment.

Gateway has worked in recent months to get to know its new neighbors in Jacksonville, Henry said.

We have linkage agreements with almost everyone that can help our clients, she said. We did it early on and the community really embraced it. We have about 58 linkage agreements in Jacksonville and the surrounding communities.State police are investigating whether an explicit video posted on a pornographic web site was taped at the Illinois School for the Deaf in Jacksonville and involves underage students.

WCIA-TV was reporting Illinois State Police are investigating an alleged incident that happened in April at the school, but that the investigation is ongoing.The third summit between South Koreas President Moon Jae-in and North Koreas Kim Jong-un  their first in the North Korean capital  devolved into a talkfest in which one thing was clear: Kim is not about to give up his nukes and the missiles for carrying them to distant targets, including the United States.

Hes not giving up, though, on President Donald Trump, with whom he agreed on June 12 in Singapore to bring about complete denuclearization. It was Thanks to this (U.S.-North Korea meeting), Kim said, that regional conditions stabilized and a more advanced outcome is expected.

Moon, whom Kim first met in the truce village of Panmunjom on the south side of the North-South line in April, had helped find the start of the historic North Korea-U.S. talks.

The prospect of a second Trump-Kim summit assumed paramount importance in Moons meetings with Kim.

Thus Moon after the summit said Kim had expressed willingness to continue taking additional steps toward denuclearization, but they would be conditioned on corresponding steps by the United States. The statement signed by Moon and Kim said the North would even agree to the permanent shutdown of its main nuclear facility at Yongbyon provided the United States took corresponding measures a la the statement signed by Trump and Kim calling for complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.

The inference was plain: nothing would happen unless the United States agreed on a peace declaration viewed by Trumps closest advisers as a prelude to a peace treaty under which the United States would withdraw most of its 28,500 troops from South Korea. A treaty would also mean dissolution of the U.N. Command under which U.S. and South Korean forces, and troops from 16 other countries, fought the Korean War.

Moon said Kim had agreed to shut down a site in Dongchang-ri for testing the engines of missiles, but there was no hint that North Korea would provide a list of all its nuclear facilities or an inventory of the nukes and missiles that it has already manufactured. Moon claimed, however, the South and the North had discussed denuclearization steps for the first time but did not mention complete, verifiable irreversible denuclearization, as the Americans have demanded.

Kim obviously viewed the outcome of the summit as a victory, saying the declaration that he signed with Moon would open a higher level for the improvement in relations (between the South and the North)  and bring closer the era of peace and prosperity.

Against the advice of some of those around him, notably national security adviser John Bolton, Trump appeared delighted by the results and possibly amenable to a peace declaration or at least a second summit with Kim. Trumps tone seemed almost triumphant, as if the summit were a vindication of the rapport he claimed to have struck with Kim in Singapore.

Kim Jong-un has agreed to allow nuclear inspections, subject to final negotiations, and to permanently dismantle a test site and launch pad in the presence of international experts, Trump said in the tweet. In the meantime, he added, there will be no Rocket or Nuclear testing.

The test of this weeks Moon-Kim summit will not be whether the North gives up its nukes and missiles and the facilities for making them, as the Americans demand, but whether they can fulfill lesser deals reached this week. For instance, the South Koreans are closing some of their guard posts south of the military demarcation line, as agreed Wednesday, but who knows what the North Koreans are doing?

Other sensitive issues either never arose or were swiftly brushed aside. The North Koreans are saying nothing about withdrawing several hundred thousand troops within striking distance of the South or pulling back several thousand missiles that could rain fire and fury, just as Trump famously threatened last year to do to the North. Nor was anything said about systemic human rights abuses, notably those of several hundred thousand prisoners consigned to spend the rest of their shortened lives within the Norths sprawling gulag system.

But otherwise how important was the summit? Well know more when or if Kim pays a return visit to Seoul, as Moon said was agreed. Kims father, Kim Jong-il, at his summit with Kim Dae-jung in 2000, promised to visit Seoul but never made it.

Donald Kirk has been a columnist for Korea Times, South China Morning Post many other newspaper and magazines. He wrote this for InsideSources.com.We are still far from where ...Hale County Commissioners on Monday granted approval of Mario Martinez's request to use Precinct 2 funds to build a pavilion in Petersburg.

The project is projected to cost $27,250, which will be taken out of the precinct's $56,474 budgeted for spending.

"Everything (from materials to erecting the pavilion) is $27,250," Martinez said.

The court also granted approval to assist Petersburg with money to build a bus barn for its EMS fleet.

That project is projected to cost about $50,000 and Petersburg City Manager Ron Heggemeier attended the board's work session Friday morning to ask for assistance in making up half of that cost.

During Monday's meeting, Martinez said the Main Street Church of Christ of Petersburg was donated to the city by a citizen earlier this year. Prior to its donation, the city's EMS and fire department shared a space. That posed problems when there was a callout and one agency had to move to make room for the other agency to leave.

The court voted Monday to give $25,000 for the construction of a bus barn so that will no longer be an issue.

Martinez, whose wife is the mayor of Petersburg, abstained from both votes, which were unanimously approved by the court members present. Commissioner Benny Cantwell, Precinct 4, was absent.

The court also approved the run reports and financial statements of Hale Center EMS and Petersburg EMS.

Petersburg EMS responded to 10 calls around the city in August and Hale Center EMS responded to 43 calls.

Prior to those votes, which were accepted unanimously, the court approved a $1,000 bid for a tax-forfeited property at 1314 Nassau and a sales contract for another tax-forfeited property at 1114 Itasca in the amount of $111,200.

In other business, the court approved a line item transfer of $3,500 for fire protection from the county's contingency funds before also approving a Vine Service Agreement between Appriss and Hale County for the maintenance contract for the Victim Information and Notification Everyday (VINE) Program, which is slated to end Aug. 31. The transaction is $16,995.37.

Commissioners also granted approval for Coleman to sign a maintenance grant contract for the Statewide Automated Victim Notification Service (SAVNS). The service, according to the Texas Attorney General's website, ensures that crime victims are kept up-to-date on what's going on with their cases.

Commissioners also approved minutes from six previous meetings and hearings, approved a purchase of a printer for the Justice of the Peace #3 office and approved a pay increase for a new jailer at the Sheriff's Office.

Ida Tyler, with the Hale County Treasurer's Office, presented a financial statement for August, which was calculated at $18,155,093.80. The commissioners unanimously approved it.

Commissioners then moved on to approve a resolution in support of a $3,010 grant for the local Meals on Wheels organization, which Coleman said delivers meals to homebound persons.(Bloomberg) -- A new accuser against Brett Kavanaugh said the Supreme Court nominee took part in efforts during high school to get girls intoxicated so that a group of boys could have sex with them.

"I have a firm recollection of seeing boys lined up outside rooms at many of these parties waiting for their turn with a girl inside the room," Washington resident Julie Swetnick said in a sworn affidavit released by attorney Michael Avenatti. "These boys included Mark Judge and Brett Kavanaugh," she added. Judge was a high school classmate of Kavanaugh.

The White House had no immediate comment. The allegation comes one day before Kavanaugh is set to testify at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing along with another accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, who says Kavanaugh held her down and tried to take her clothes off when they were in high school.

George Hartmann, a spokesman for Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, said the hearing is still going forward Thursday as scheduled. Another committee spokesman, Taylor Foy, said the panel received Swetnicks declaration Wednesday and "committee lawyers are in the process of reviewing it now."

Kavanaugh has denied Fords accusation as well as another from a former Yale University classmate who said he exposed himself to her at a drunken party. He has said, "Ive never sexually assaulted anyone in high school or otherwise."

The new allegation comes one day before Kavanaugh is set to testify at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing along with another accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, who says Kavanaugh held her down and tried to take her clothes off when they were in high school.

Swetnick said in the affidavit that she saw Kavanaugh, Judge and others seek to cause girls "to become inebriated and disoriented so they could then be gang raped in a side room or bedroom by a train of numerous boys."

Swetnick said she was a victim of one of those incidents in the early 1980s and that Kavanaugh and Judge had been present, though she did not say whether they had sex with her. "I believe I was drugged using Quaaludes or something similar placed in what I was drinking," she said in the statement.

Kavanaughs claim during a Fox News interview Monday that he was a virgin until "many years" after high school was "absolutely false and a lie," Swetnick said. She added, "I witnessed Brett Kavanaugh consistently engage in excessive drinking and inappropriate contact of a sexual nature with women during the early 1980s."

"I also witnessed Brett Kavanaugh behave as a mean drunk on many occasions at these parties," Swetnick said.

The affidavit said she has clearances to work with multiple federal agencies, including the Treasury Department.

Republicans have been hoping to win confirmation for Kavanaugh by early next week. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has been preparing a weekend session to run the procedural clock out, an unusual move reflecting the high stakes and the desire to let GOP senators campaign on Kavanaughs confirmation in the November election.

Republicans hold a 51-49 advantage in the Senate and cant afford more than one defection to ensure confirmation without Democratic support.

Swetnick is the third woman to come forward with allegations of sexual misconduct by Kavanaugh. The New Yorker magazine quoted Deborah Ramirez as saying Kavanaugh exposed himself to her during a dormitory party that involved drinking when they both were Yale University freshmen.

Avenatti is best known as the lawyer for Stephanie Clifford, the adult film star known as Stormy Daniels who says she had an affair with Trump before he was elected president. Avenatti has said he is exploring his own bid for the presidency as a Democrat.

--With assistance from John McCormick.

2018 Bloomberg L.P.ABC/Paula LoboLuke Bryans gearing up for his tenth Farm Tour this weekend, which kicks off Thursday at Ayars Family Farm in Irwin, Ohio.

The yearly trek raises money for scholarships for students from farming families, but before Luke ever sings the first note, hes already paying it forward: he's partnering with his sponsor to help fight hunger.

Getting pumped for #FarmTour2018 this weekend, Luke shared on Twitter. Lets keep it going -- post on your channels using #HeresToTheFarmer. For every post shared with #HeresToTheFarmer, Bayer will donate a meal through Feeding America.

Chase Rice, newcomer Jon Langston and the Peach Pickers are set to join Luke on the six-date trek, which continues on to Illinois and Iowa on Friday and Saturday, before resuming next week.

Copyright  2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.(CNN)  China's deputy trade negotiator on Tuesday acknowledged the challenge in resuming negotiations with the U.S., saying: "How could you negotiate with someone when he puts a knife on your neck?"

Wang Shouwen made the remarks at a press conference in Beijing aimed at highlighting a newly issued government policy paper on bilateral trade frictions, in which China portrays itself as a victim of U.S. protectionism and bullying.

The paper was released Monday shortly after U.S. President Donald Trump slapped 10% tariffs on $200 billion (10.8 trillion) worth of Chinese imports. China has retaliated with 5-10% tariffs on $60 billion (3.2 trillion) worth of American goods.

Echoing a position outlined in the 36,000-word document, Wang left the door open for further trade talks but emphasized it was "entirely up to the U.S. side" to show respect and sincerity for negotiations to restart.

He pointed to agreements reached at previous four rounds of talks but only to have Trump tear the deals apart shortly afterwards.

Several senior Chinese officials attending the press conference reiterated other points in the policy paper, stressing the chaos on global trade caused by Trump's trade war and rebutting his claims of China enjoying unfair trade advantages over the U.S..

Citing robust trade data and examples of new deals that replaced lost American partnerships, the officials also projected confidence in China's capability to withstand a protracted trade conflict with the U.S., whose impact on the Chinese economy they called "unavoidable but manageable."

The country's top trade negotiator, however, dodged CNN's question about if trade talks are becoming pointless if, as indicated in numerous state media commentaries, the Chinese leadership under President Xi Jinping increasingly views Trump's trade war as a strategic move to contain the rise of China.

"Containing China or fighting a trade war  neither is in line with the direction of peace and development for mankind," Fu Ziying said. "Someone has to pay the price for a trade war. Who? It will be the ordinary people."

Lose-lose scenario

Wang Shouwen's comments follow those made by Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, the country's top diplomat, who on Monday warned that confrontation between China and the United States would only mean both sides lose.

Wang Yi, who is attending the United Nations General Assembly, met with a group of U.S. business leaders in New York, hours after the U.S. moved to implement its latest round of tariffs.

He told the representatives that "certain U.S. forces have been making groundless accusations against China on trade and security, generating confrontational sentiments and poisoning the atmosphere of bilateral ties," according to a statement released Tuesday by the foreign ministry.

Just a day earlier, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on the "Fox News Sunday" television program that "we are going to win it" when asked about the trade war, which Trump launched in July to punish China for what he considers unfair trade practices.

"We're going to get an outcome which forces China to behave in a way that, if you want to be a power, a global power  transparency, rule of law, you don't steal intellectual property," Pompeo said.

The U.S. had invited Chinese trade negotiators to Washington to resume talks earlier this month. The potential visit fell apart last weekend after Trump, citing a lack of Chinese efforts to address his concern on protecting American intellectual property, decided to go ahead with the new tariffs.

Before Monday, the two countries had already imposed 25% tariffs on $50 billion worth of goods from each other, but the latest round of tariffs is expected to hit average people on both sides as the thousands of targets now include not only industrial items but also consumer products.

This story was first published on CNN.com "US is putting a knife to China's neck, says trade negotiator"Tariffs are hitting some Texas businesses bottom line and heightening uncertainty for executives  even though manufacturing activity continues to grow, according to surveys by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

The Dallas Fed in September asked 364 business executives in the manufacturing and service industries about how tariffs were affecting their companies.

Just over one-third said tariffs are currently negatively affecting their company, 45 percent said theres no current impact. Five percent reported positive effects.

More than half reported increased uncertainty.

Manufacturers appear divided on the topic. Forty-seven percent of those surveyed said tariffs are negatively affecting their firm, but that figure fell to 39 percent when they were asked how the tariffs could affect them for the long term. Nine percent said tariffs are currently having a positive impact on their business, with 15 percent expecting positive long-term effects.

Many more Texas firms said that the tariff impact is negative than positive, said Emily Kerr, Dallas Fed senior business economist, in a news release Monday. The impact on manufacturers is a bit more polarized.

Sixty-five percent of manufacturers said tariffs had increased their uncertainty.

Firms in San Antonio have seen minimal to somewhat increased impact from tariffs, depending in part on their size, said Rey Chavez, president and CEO of the San Antonio Manufacturers Association.

To read more about how Texas businesses are dealing with tariffs, see Wednesdays Business section or click here to visit our subscriber website, ExpressNews.com.While the rest of the country celebrates the annual return of Starbucks' pumpkin spice latte, sweet-toothed San Antonians wait for Bill Miller Bar-B-Q's seasonal pie.

This week, thousands of Bill Miller pumpkin pie fans excitedly shared a 2-year-old Facebook post announcing an Oct. 3 release date. That information may be old but there's good news coming: Pumpkin pie will return Oct. 1 to all locations.A CBD craze is sweeping the nation, and San Antonio has not been left out.

CBD, short for cannabidiol, comes from the same plant from which marijuana is obtained. It doesnt get people high, but it is legal in all 50 states and is marketed as having therapeutic effects. Across the country, people have been using CBD in everything from coffee to dog food.

In San Antonio, a hemp cafe recently launched Unrolled, the citys first CBD yoga, according to an instagram post by the company. The coffee shop is already scheduling its next class, but a date hasn't been set.

RELATED: Review: Dab Hemp Cafe brings good vibes to the Five Points neighborhood

On Wednesday, local advocates are bringing a cannabis club to the city, providing the opportunity to discuss all things cannabis in a stigma-free environment of like-minded individuals, according to Facebook event details. Members and attendees will discuss health benefits, the cannabis business and more over coffee, the event page said.

And in October, Folklores Coffee House and Lady Grace CBD Distributor are celebrating their grand opening with a "bites and frights" Halloween event featuring CBD-infused drinks, food and more, according to the event page.

The San Antonio events come amid national buzz on the topic. Recent news reports say Coca-Cola may be in discussions with a Canadian cannabis producer to develop CBD-infused beverages, and popular vegan chain By Chloe announced Monday it will be partnering with a CBD company to infuse its dessert offerings.

According to a report earlier this month, the $1 billion CBD industry is on pace to reach $22 billion in sales by 2022.

S. M. Chavey is a staff writer for mySA.com. Read more of her stories here. | sarah.chavey@express-news.net | 210-250-3122 | Twitter: @smchaveySan Antonians and butterflies both have places to be but members of the latter group aren't reaching their final destination thanks to members of the first.

As swarms of butterflies fly through the city, bumpers and windshields of cars have become graveyards for hoards of the winged insects and San Antonians are airing their remorse on Twitter with memes and apologetic tweets.WASHINGTON - Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee intend to subpoena memos written by former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe and call several key witnesses to testify, including former FBI director James Comey, according to panel Democrats.

Committee Republicans informed panel Democrats of their intent to subpoena McCabe's memos Tuesday night. The committee's procedures require that the minority be given 48 hours' notice before subpoenas are issued for documents or testimony, meaning the subpoena could be issued as early as Thursday.

Committee Democrats also learned that Republicans were planning to call Comey, as well as former attorney general Loretta Lynch, former acting attorney general Sally Yates, former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos - who recently pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI - and Glenn Simpson, the head of Fusion GPS, the research firm behind a now-famous dossier detailing allegations of Trump's business and personal ties to Russia.

Democrats were upset that committee Republicans had been negotiating with potential witnesses without consulting them. They only discovered that the witnesses had been contacted at all because of communications with one witness' lawyer, according to a spokesman for the panel's minority; Democrats then demanded to know whether any other letters had been sent out.

"The Republican majority was initiating negotiations with interviewees without consulting with us, while presenting it as if they were," said a spokesman for Judiciary Committee Democrats. "That is not just dishonest, it is misleading."

House Republicans have been weighing how to respond to reports that McCabe's memos indicated Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein suggested secretly recording President Donald Trump, potentially as part of a plan to remove him from office by invoking the 25th Amendment to the Constitution. Rosenstein has denied ever saying such things, but the controversy has fueled calls from conservative Republicans to bring Rosenstein back to Capitol Hill for additional questioning about his reported comments. Last week, Rosenstein even told White House officials he was willing to resign, prompting a chaotic start to the week as speculation swirled that he might even be fired. Rosenstein and Trump are now set to meet Thursday when the president returns from the U.N. General Assembly.

The Republicans' notice of their intent to subpoena McCabe's memos does not include any similar summons for Rosenstein's testimony, according to committee Democrats, making it unlikely that lawmakers hoping to grill him again will get a chance to do so before Congress departs Washington for an extended midterm campaign season.

A spokeswoman for House Judiciary Committee chairman Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., confirmed that the committee had subpoenaed McCabe's memos. She did not immediately respond late Tuesday when asked about additional planned interviews with Comey and others.

Demanding the memos does, however, give conservative Republicans something they were looking for in addition to more face time with Rosenstein: documents they had been after since the summer.

"Give us the McCabe memos - I asked for those back in July in the meeting with the Justice Department," Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said in a Monday interview - even though, he added, he didn't "know how accurate they are" or "if you can trust" McCabe. Prosecutors are using a grand jury to assist in their investigation of McCabe, who was fired earlier this year for misleading FBI officials probing unauthorized media disclosures.

Jordan and several of his conservative GOP peers were disappointed earlier this week when Trump recanted on a recent promise to declassify several pages of the FBI's application to conduct surveillance on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, along with supporting documents, as well as the official notes from interviews that Justice Department official Bruce Ohr conducted with former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, the author of a memo detailing Trump's alleged personal and business ties to Russia.

Democrats have warned that disclosing the information might compromise sources and methods; Republicans have countered that the biggest risk to the FBI is that the information might embarrass them.

"Let us see that information and all the other stuff that we have asked for," Jordan said.Cases disposed for the week of Sept. 18-25:

 Brandon John Dean, 24, of Bad Axe, operating while visibly impaired-first offense, one day in jail, nine months probation, five days community service, $1,115 in fines and costs; breaking and entering  illegal entry, $550 in fines and costs.

 Samantha Marie Foster, 30, of Pigeon, operating while visibly impaired-first offense, one day in jail, six months probation, four days community service, $995 in fines and costs.

 Anthony Charles Galietti, 25, of Clinton Township, speeding 1-5, $115 in fines and costs.

 Amanda Marie Jackson, 31, of Minde City, bound over to Huron County Circuit Court on single counts of larceny in a building and retail fraud; no operator's license, $360 in fines and costs; no proof of insurance, $195 in fines and costs.

 Emily Kay Kiehl, 27, of Traverse City, no operator's license, $350 in fines and costs.

 Cody Douglas Kleppert, 23, of Saginaw, no proof of insurance, $150 in fines and costs.

 Conner James Kwiatkowski, 21, of Bad Axe, operating while visibly impaired-first offense, five days in jail, nine months probation, $1,150 in fines and costs.

 Michael Scott Landenberg, 34, of Bad Axe, driving while license suspended, $525 in fines and costs.

 Andrea Michelle Merritt, 29, of Port Hope, child endangerment, 60 days in jail, $725 in fines and costs; assault and battery, 60 days in jail, $475 in fines and costs.

 Steve Michael Michalski, 28, of Kinde, bound over to Huron County Circuit Court on single counts of larceny greater than $1,000, but less than $20,000 and motor vehicle-unlawfully driving away.

 Robert Roy Miron, 24, of Snover, trespassing, $250 in fines and costs.

 Dean Emory Murray, 34, of Bad Axe, drunk and disorderly, $315 in fines and costs.

 Andrew John Oprea, 23, of Vassar, drunk and disorderly, $500 in fines and costs.

 Keith Allen Osterhout, 29, of Bay City, operating while visibly impaired-first offense, one day in jail, nine months probation, five days community service, $1,150 in fines and costs; speeding 16-20, $140 in fines and costs.

 Joseph Michael Phillips, 36, of Bad Axe, retail fraud-third offense, 93 days in jail, $280.97 in fines and costs; malicious destruction of a building, 180 days in jail, 12 months probation, $583.67 in fines and costs.

 Chad Eric Roggenbuck, 39, of Harbor Beach, operating while intoxicated-first offense, 10 days in jail, 12 months probation, $1,295 in fines and costs.

 Jacob Lyle Schutlz, 31, of Sebewaing, bound over to Huron County Circuit Court on two counts of assaulting/resisting a police officer and one count of domestic violence.

 Shana Mary Umbreit, 28, of Pigeon, child endangerment, five months probation, $475 in fines and costs.Rep. Barbara Comstock, R-Va., one of the loudest voices of the #MeToo movement on Capitol Hill, swiftly called for the resignation of lawmakers accused of sexual misconduct.

But as the congresswoman faces a tough reelection fight, she has reserved judgement on her longtime friend, Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, amid allegations of sexual assault.

When Kavanaugh was nominated in July, Comstock tweeted support for him and said Trump had made an "excellent choice."

"Last night, with Judge Kavanaugh, the American people saw the heart and humility of the man I have known for 20 years, who is a man of great character, integrity, and professionalism who reveres the Constitution and the rule of law. #VA10," she wrote.

The day after The Washington Post published an interview with Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who has accused him of pinning her down and groping her at a party in the 1980s, Comstock said Kavanaugh and Ford should testify under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee. A hearing is now set for Thursday.

Another woman, Deborah Ramirez, a classmate of Kavanaugh's at Yale University, told the New Yorker magazine that he exposed himself to her at a party when they were both first-year students.

Comstock has declined to say whether she believes Kavanaugh's accusers or if she thinks the FBI should investigate the claims.

"Barbara has talked with many victims and knows the difficulty in bringing forward claims which is why she has fought to reform sexual harassment laws and policies," her campaign manager, Susan Falconer, said in a statement Tuesday, adding that due process is key to any reforms.

The lengthy statement explained how Comstock knows Kavanaugh, her work in Congress on combatting sexual harassment with members of both parties and how she has carefully considered each case and figured out the most judicious way to respond.

"Each case is unique," Falconer said. She added that Comstock "supports any alleged victim having a fair process to be heard."

"Barbara has focused on creating an environment of zero tolerance and providing victims with strong protections and procedures to address wrongdoing and have accountability," she said.

The two-term congresswoman has known Kavanaugh since the 1990s. She met him through her late friend and colleague Barbara Olson and her husband, former solicitor general Theodore Olson.

In 1995, Comstock was a lead attorney on the House Government Reform committee investigating whether the White House travel office staff were replaced with Clinton allies. At the time, Kavanaugh was a deputy to independent counsel Ken Starr. Their work lead to the impeachment of former president Bill Clinton.

Documents released after Kavanaugh's nomination show Comstock once called Kavanaugh to ensure "Travelgate" hearings would not interfere with the Starr investigation.

She has been outspoken in her support for a streamlined process for women working on Capitol Hill to report harassment and abuse.

Comstock helped craft House measures last year that require lawmakers and staff to complete mandatory anti-harassment training and prohibit sexual relationships between lawmakers and their employees.

In November, she said she believed the women who accused Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore, Fox News head Roger Ailes and movie mogul Harvey Weinstein "because they were substantiated and consistent with the stories of how sexual predators operate."

Around the same time, she called on Democrats John Conyers Jr. and Al Franken and Republican Blake Farenthold, to step down in light of what she considered to be credible accusations. Each has since resigned from Congress.

Jennifer Wexton, the Democratic state senator challenging Comstock, accused the congresswoman of perpetuating a double standard by reserving judgment about Kavanaugh.

"It's indicative of how far we still haven't come," Wexton said in an interview. "Twenty-seven years after Anita Hill and Barbara Comstock has an opportunity to be a leader on this issue. She is billing herself as some leader and champion for women. There's an opportunity to be not only a leader for women but to stand up to her party."

Wexton said if she were in Congress she would publicly express her support for Ford and call for an FBI investigation into the allegations.

"What is she doing when it's her friend who is the subject of allegations?" she said.

The race between Comstock and Wexton is one of the most competitive in the nation and both parties consider it a must-win for control of the House.

After a debate between Comstock and Wexton on Friday, a group of liberal activists descended on Comstock and one woman asked her, "Do you think the Senate is treating Dr. Ford appropriately?" The congresswoman hesitated.

"I'm not sure..." Comstock said and turned away to reporters without finishing the thought.

Within an hour, Dump Comstock, an activist group trying to unseat the congresswoman, tweeted a cell phone video of the exchange.

Some of Comstock's GOP colleagues have weighed in on the controversy.

GOP Senate nominee Corey Stewart, in an interview with the Richmond Times-Dispatch, called Ford's allegations "a bunch of crap."UNITED NATIONS - President Donald Trump on Wednesday directly accused China of interfering in the U.S. midterm elections this fall in retaliation for the ongoing trade war between Washington and Beijing, marking a new front in the deepening hostilities that have threatened to upend bilateral relations.

The president made the allegation during his opening remarks at a U.N. Security Council meeting on nonproliferation, asserting that China "has been attempting to interfere in our upcoming 2018 election, coming up in November, against my administration. They do not want me or us to win because I am the first president to ever challenge China on trade, and we are winning on trade - we are winning on every level. We don't want them to meddle or interfere in our upcoming election."

Trump presented no evidence for his claims, and his top national security advisers told reporters in August they had not found specific examples of interference ahead of the midterms from countries other than Russia, though they warned it remained a possibility. In his remarks at the Security Council meeting, Trump made no mention of Russian interference, though he did say later that his administration also will not let Moscow interfere in the elections.

Afterward, in a hastily arranged media call intended to explain the president's remarks, a senior administration official said China has hurt "farmers and workers in states and districts that voted for the president because he stood up to the ways China has taken advantage of our country economically." The official added that the activities include "targeting certain districts and states with tariffs, but go beyond that." He did not elaborate.

Later Wednesday, while fielding questions from the media at a news conference, Trump insisted: "We have evidence. It will come out. I can't tell you now. But it didn't come out of nowhere. That I will tell you. They've actually admitted that they've gone after farmers."

Trump's allegation comes weeks before the midterm elections in which polls suggest his Republican Party could suffer significant losses.

Chinese officials denied the allegation.

"China has all along followed the principle of noninterference in other country's domestic affairs," Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said at the U.N. meetings. "We did not and will not interfere in any countries' domestic affairs. We refuse to accept any unwarranted accusations against China."

Republicans are facing a difficult midterm election cycle, and Trump has been holding campaign rallies in key states in support of GOP candidates. The president's frustration with China also could be aimed at blaming outside forces if the party is unable to maintain control of Congress.

The Chinese state media purchased a four-page advertising supplement in the Des Moines Register in Iowa this week touting China as "an example for the world" and even noting President Xi Jinping had studied in the state when he was a college exchange student. Trump tweeted about the ad on Wednesday, after his speech.

China, Russia and other countries have been purchasing such advertisements for many years in many newspapers, including The Washington Post.

In a photo op with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Trump referred to the advertising supplements and said Beijing was aiming to punish U.S. farmers through high tariffs.

"China is going and attacking the Farm Belt, our farmers," Trump said. "They're attacking our industrial - with ads and with statements that do not look like ads, they look like editorial, but they're not. They're made up by China."

The president added that Chinese markets are down and U.S. markets are up, implying that the United States is winning the trade war.

"China is getting hurt," Trump said. "I don't like it when they attack our farmers and I don't like it when they put out false statements. Besides that, we find out they're trying to meddle in our elections, and we're not going to let that happen - just like we're not going to let that happen with Russia."

Trump's remarks appear consistent with a White House strategy, devised in the immediate aftermath of his Helsinki summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, to spread blame for election interference beyond Russia. At the July summit, Trump appeared to give more credence to Putin's denials of 2016 election interference than to U.S. spy agencies' assessment to the contrary.

In August, national security adviser John Bolton said the president was working to bolster the resilience of election systems and processes "to confront Russian and other foreign malign influence in the United States."

U.S. intelligence agencies have long tracked Chinese efforts to spy on the United States both through cyber and traditional human means. The Chinese have for years tried to cultivate contacts in U.S. universities, think tanks, businesses and government agencies to gather information on policies, technology and more.

Trump's accusation is likely to reverberate in Beijing, where Chinese leaders have become increasingly convinced that the Trump administration is pursuing a strategy aimed at containing the country's economic growth. Hard-liners in the ruling Communist Party have been eager to highlight the increasingly harsh rhetoric from Trump and his aides as evidence that the United States is seeking to punish China.

The two sides have engaged in a fast-escalating trade war, having both implemented tariffs on more than $250 billion worth of goods. Trump has boasted that the U.S. economy is performing at record levels while China's is struggling as evidence the United States is winning the dispute.

But economists have warned the tariff battle could do damage to both sides over the long term if a deal is not reached.

During a speech to the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, Trump said he maintained "great respect and affection for my friend, President Xi" but added "our trade imbalance is just not acceptable. China's market distortions and the way they deal cannot be tolerated."

Trump continued to call Xi his "good friend" during his news conference, but when pressed by a reporter, the president acknowledged that the growing tensions have taken a toll. "Maybe we're not anymore," he said.

On Tuesday, in remarks at The Citadel, a military college in South Carolina, Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats said the Chinese government is "targeting U.S., state and local governments and officials" and "trying to exploit any divisions between federal and local levels on policy."

He did not specify which states, officials or policy divisions China was trying to exploit.

In 2008, the Chinese government hacked the campaigns of presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain. The cyber intrusions were seen by U.S. officials as classic intelligence-gathering operations to glean insights into the China policies of the potential next president.

The Chinese did not, however, release any of the position papers or emails they'd obtained into the public - or appear to use the information in any way other than for intelligence purposes. By contrast, the Russian government in 2016 hacked the Democratic Party's system, as well as the personal email accounts of Hillary Clinton's advisers, and strategically released the information through the online platform WikiLeaks to disrupt the Democrats' national convention and exploit divisions within the party - a move that threw the campaign into chaos and hurt Clinton's electoral chances.

---

Nakashima reported from Washington. The Washingtn Post's Philip Rucker, Shane Harris and Gerry Shih in Washington contributed to this report.Keystone School, just north of downtown San Antonio, is one of the top 100 elementary schools in the United States, according to rankings recently released by Niche.

The school, which charges nearly $20,000 in yearly tuition for the highest grade offered, earned an A+ from Niche and was ranked No. 75 in the country. It was also named one of the most diverse private high schools in Texas and one of the best private K-12 schools in Texas.A man was hospitalized in critical condition after being shot at a northwest Houston business Tuesday afternoon.

Houston police officers were called to a business in the 6800 block of Thornwall Street around 1:30 p.m. for the shooting.

When they arrived, they learned a man had opened fire and struck the victim. It is unclear what precipitated the shooting.

MUGSHOTS: Sex trafficking investigation leads to numerous drug arrests

The victim was rushed to an area hospital in serious condition, according to the Houston Police Department.

Officers took one person into custody who detectives were interviewing, although it unclear if that person will be charged.

No other information was available. Check back for updates on this developing story as they come in.

Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message.

Jay R. Jordan covers breaking news in the Houston area. Read him on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and our subscriber site, HoustonChronicle.com | Follow him on Twitter at @JayRJordan | Email him at jay.jordan@chron.comA woman was killed Wednesday afternoon when her vehicle was struck by an 18-wheeler in Wilson County, officials said.

Texas Department of Public Safety spokesman Sgt. Deon Cockrell said a trooper was called to the collision at about 1 p.m. at U.S. 181 and FM 775.San Antonio police are searching for eight people accused of assaulting and robbing several people on Sept. 9 on the West Side.

The fight erupted outside of a club in the 8300 block of Marbach Road. According to police, the eight suspects involved assaulted several victims and then robbed them.With each story, San Antonios new federal courthouse loses a bit more stature.

The footprint has shrunk dramatically out of cost concerns, and now the city is close to losing a key judicial training center.

Plans for the courthouse on the west end of downtown do not include space for the Adrian Spears Federal Judicial Training Center, which hosts magistrate judges from throughout the country. Those trainings will occur in another community unless San Antonios congressional delegation, especially U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, can intervene.

Cornyn is a former judge, member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and majority whip. He and U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Democrat, were influential in securing funding for this new courthouse.

Originally, the idea was to build a 305,000-square-foot courthouse, but the estimated cost of about $180 million proved prohibitive. The project was downsized to 230,536 square feet, and then downsized again to 225,127 square feet after the judicial training center was removed from plans for the $144 million project (of which $117.4 million will go toward construction).

Officials have said including the training center in the proposed building triggers a number of expensive engineering requirements. OK, but why cant it be built on another local site? Why should San Antonio lose this training center simply because its getting an overdue new courthouse?

The John H. Wood Jr. Federal Courthouse is a repurposed theater from HemisFair 68 that is in no way appropriate for 2018. The Western District of Texas is one of the busiest in the federal judiciary, and home to plenty of trafficking cases involving cartels. Even as a repurposed building, the Wood courthouse was never meant to handle such a high case volume. There are security concerns with the buildings design. Drinking water there has had high levels of lead.

Despite these issues, San Antonio tumbled down the General Accountability Offices courthouse project priority rankings in recent years  until Cornyn, Cuellar and other members of our congressional delegation intervened. They are going to have to do so again.

A new courthouse is desperately needed, but the reduced size and the potential loss of the judicial training center raise questions of inadequacy. Specifically, can such a dramatically smaller courthouse truly meet the long-term needs of such a fast-growing region? And why is it that in the eyes of federal officials, at least, San Antonio has to lose something in order to gain something?

In this case, thats losing the training center in order to accommodate a new courthouse that is 70,000 square feet smaller than what was originally planned.President Emmerson Mnangagwa says his government is working on mechanisms of bringing in the opposition in the governance fold by creating a portfolio that recognises leaders of opposition parties as part of the governance structure to harmonise Zimbabwes political structural system in a way that is more inclusive to enhance greater peace and harmony and sharpen national focus on economic recovery and nation building.

This came out of a bilateral meeting between President Mnangagwa and United Kingdom Minister of Africa Harriet Baldwin in New York this week.

Briefing Zimbabwean journalists covering the UN General Assembly, Deputy Chief Secretary Presidential Communications Cde George Charamba said the development is in keeping with President Mnangagwas pronouncement at his inauguration of the formation of the second republic which triggers certain institution building processes to validate the claim of a second republic.

He said the proposed new institution is one that requires Zimbabwe to depart from the past where there was opposition on one side and the governing party on the other and seek bring the opposition on board in governance.

Cde Charamba categorically stated that the proposed institution is not an offer to an individual but is an institution that is being created in a forward looking spirit to ensure that Zimbabwe harmonises its political infrastructural system for peace and stability and leaving no-one behind.

He said whether the disposition of the current opposition leader is positive or negative, that will not stand in the way of the formation of the political structure by the second republic as future opposition may have a different view.

This comes in the wake of a tweet by opposition leader Nelson Chamisa that there has not been an invitation by President Mnangagwa for talks about the creation of the opposition portfolio in government.

Another issue that came up for discussion with Minister Baldwin was to do with assistance to Zimbabwe to access lines of credit through the Lima strategy.

President Mnangagwa requested the UK government to support Zimbabwe in the coming Bali multilateral financial institutions meeting a follow-up to Lima.

The President and the UK minister also spoke about normalisation of political and economic relations and readmission into the Commonwealth.

A Commonwealth assessment team has since submitted a positive report signaling that Zimbabwe may be on the way to readmission into the club of former British colonies.

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Related Zimbabwe Latest NewsSelf exiled former cabinet minister professor Jonathan Moyo has thrown a jibe at President Emmerson Mnangagwas intention to formally recognize leader of the opposition, saying the model adopted from the commonwealth is anchored on the supremacy of parliament which is different from Zimbabwe where the constitution reigns supreme.

Moyo, a fierce critic of President Emmerson Mnangagwa since the November 15 military coup that displaced long time ruler former President Robert Mugabe said the model Mnangagwa is trying to adopt works in a country where the head of government is a Prime Minister not a President.

Heavens know what he had in mind but a Commonwealth parliamentary democracy is one where Parliament, not the Constitution, is supreme and where the head of government is a Prime Minister; not a President, said Moyo while posting on Twitter.

Mnangagwa who is currently attending the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) has revealed his intention to adopt the commonwealth democracy model by creating an official office of the opposition leader.

In a phrase, its a British colonial relic! he added.

Moyo said Mnangagwas offers to recognise the biggest opposition party and its leadership was just but a pipe dream.

All things considered, and rationally speaking, its impossible to weigh another persons pipe dream.

Nelson Chamisa has said he was ready to weigh any offers tabled by President Emmerson Mnangagwa to enable them to work together for the good of the country, but cautioned that dialogue would be centred around five key issues his party wants addressed first.

The five key issues Chamisa wants to discuss with Mnangagwa include ensuring that future elections are safeguarded so that they are held in a transparent manner and can never be disputed again, that there are moves to ensure the country returns to legitimacy and normalcy following what the opposition claims was a stolen July 30 election.

The opposition leader also wants to have dialogue centred around the economy to avert a complete meltdown.

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Related Zimbabwe Latest NewsThe price of bread is set to increase for the second time within a month owing to exorbitant production costs, the National Bakers Association of Zimbabwe (NBAZ) has revealed.

NBAZ president Ngoni Mazango told the Daily News that his association is engaging with stakeholders to deliberate on pricing.

Yes the price of bread is likely to increase, because of cost pressures we are facing. But we are still engaging with stakeholders, he said.

Earlier this month the price of bread went up by 10 percent due to an increase in the cost of wheat.

Figures obtained from the Grain Millers Association of Zimbabwe indicated that the price of wheat had increased by about 10 percent from $375 per metric tonne to $415.

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Related Zimbabwe Latest NewsThe price of fuel has increased marginally as the local market reacts to global developments.

A survey by the Daily News showed that service stations in Harare have adjusted their prices by at least two cents per litre, which is quite something in a United States dollar economy.

Petrol, which was retailing at $1, 38 is now going for between $1, 39 to $1, 40 per litre, while diesel is fetching $1, 31 from $1, 29.

Energy and Power Development minister Joram Gumbo told the Daily News yesterday that the local pricing of fuel was determined by international trends.

As you know, fuel prices internationally have gone up, he said.

The price of fuel, however, is inspected by the Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority (Zera). They have certain charts that they use to deal with the fluctuations of fuel prices in terms of the exchange rate. So, the fuel price in service stations is always within the stipulated rate, they cant sell using prices outside those set by Zera, he added.

Gumbo said owing to the changes in the global market, the money being allocated by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) to the petroleum industry was no longer enough to buy the quantities that it used to buy before, thus creating a deficit.

He said this, compounded with some logistical challenges, has also resulted in the fuel shortages that have of late been experienced in the country.

RBZ should increase the allocation to $25 million or $30 million, so that we have sufficient fuel in the country, he said.

The Energy minister said because of the logistical challenges, some unscrupulous business people were now taking advantage of the situation by creating artificial shortages and increasing prices.

This has resulted in the booming of the black market, where prices are also inflated, as the demand continues to increase.

Zimbabwe has over the last few months been experiencing intermittent fuel supplies, which has been previously blamed on foreign currency shortages.

RBZ governor John Mangudya last week told the Daily News that they apex bank was allocating at least $20 million per week for the supply of fuel.

We do allocate $20 million per week, which is $80 million a month and thats a lot of money, because you are also aware (that) we are also allocating foreign currency to import wheat, which is basically to supplement local production.

In fact, the local production is supplementing imports, because, if we produce 120 tonnes, it means its only good for three months; we spent about 40 000 metric tonnes, thats about $16 million per month, over and above that you guys need (for) cooking oil, which is about $20 million per month, so it means that you need to export more, Mangudya said.

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Related Zimbabwe Latest NewsGokwe-Nembudziya Member of Parliament (MP) Justice Mayor Wadyajena has paid a moving tribute to Foreign Affairs and International Trade minister  Sibusiso Busi (SB) Moyo  who is currently recovering after undergoing surgery for a yet-to-be disclosed kidney ailment.

Moyo missed the on-going United Nations General Assembly meeting in the United States, where Zimbabwe is represented by President Emmerson Mnangagwa.

The retired lieutenant general became an instant celebrity when he announced live on State television last Novembers military intervention which led to the popular ouster of long-ruling leader, Robert Mugabe.

This saw the affable and articulate former senior military officer earning the moniker General Bae among his admirers.

Yesterday, the youthful Wadyajena used micro blogging site twitter to pay tribute to one of Mnangagwas highly-regarded ministers whom he said was sorely missed as he recuperated from his ailment.

Sending prayers to Gen @MinisterSBMoyo. One of the sharpest minds we have & best Foreign minister to ever represent us.

In Nembudziya this year I saw that he works with laser focus and is truly principled.

He has no time for gossip & dubious intel from shady Cdes! Good morning Zimbabwe, Wadyajena wrote on twitter.

Moyo was a guest of honour at Wadyajenas rally in Nembudziya in the run up to the July 30 harmonised national elections.

The Foreign Affairs minister was taken ill last week at Avenues Clinic with a kidney complaint although other sources told the Daily News that Moyo  who apparently had been on dialysis for some time  had undergone emergency surgery which was likely to keep him at the Avenues Clinic for at least a week.

The deputy minister of Information Energy Mutodi later confirmed to the Daily News that Moyo was admitted at the hospital  adding that he was recovering well from a minor illness.

It was not clear whether Moyo had gone through a transplant, with insiders at Avenues Clinic saying the hospital had both the skills and the capacity to carry out such procedures.

Moyo, who retired from the military following his appointment as a minister by Mnangagwa, in the aftermath of last Novembers military intervention, was born at Mnene Mission Hospital, in Mberengwa, in 1960.

He joined the liberation struggle as a teenager in 1977  abandoning his Form 3 studies at the time.

Moyo announced on live television on November 15 last year the militarys intervention in the governance of the country.

The curtain later fell on Mugabe on November 21, when the nonagenarian resigned from his office moments after Parliament had started damaging proceedings to impeach him.

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Related Zimbabwe Latest NewsProspects for dialogue between President Emmerson Mnangagwa and MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa now hang by the thread in spite of attempts by western power brokers to get them to smoke a peace pipe, the Daily News reported.

Mnangagwa is presently under pressure to strike a deal with Chamisa to end political tensions inflamed by the closely-fought July 30 plebiscite in which the Zanu-PF leader edged his nemesis by a razor-thin margin.

The European Union and Britain have particularly been linked to behind-the-scenes manoeuvres to get Mnangagwa to recognise Chamisa as the official opposition leader in order to placate the youthful politician who is refusing to accept the poll outcome.

While Mnangagwa, who is currently in the United States  attending the United Nations General Assembly in New York  has revealed that he is ready to accept Chamisa as the official opposition leader, his rival has rejected the arrangement, throwing the whole plan into disarray.

Justice minister Ziyambi Ziyambi had already indicated that once the two leaders have hammered a deal, the countrys Constitution would need to be amended to give Chamisa a role in the legislative assembly.

Following Mnangagwas pronouncements, Chamisa has come up with a plethora of conditions he says the Zanu-PF leader should first meet before any engagements take place.

Describing Mnangagwas offer as mafia-style, and an attempt to buy him with a few pieces of silver, Chamisa said his bitter rival must first accept that he is an illegitimate leader.

The former student leader said, through his spokesperson Nkululeko Sibanda, that he declines Mnangagwas offer as it is an attempt to bribe him into accepting results of a sham election.

He (Chamisa) despises the Mafia-coloured politics where the gang leader thinks that all problems are solved by the parcelling of perks and positions. Zimbabwe is bigger than people who believe that they can abuse State coffers to corruptly buy the presidency they lost in an election. This mentality is simply old school for our times it is unrecognisable in this century, said Sibanda.

The five key issues Chamisa wants to discuss with Mnangagwa include ensuring that future elections are safeguarded so that they are held in a transparent manner and can never be disputed again, that there are moves to ensure the country returns to legitimacy and normalcy following what the opposition claims was a stolen July 30 election.

The opposition leader also wants to have dialogue centred around the economy to avert a complete meltdown.

The fourth issue is around national healing, starting from the Gukurahundi massacres to the August 1 shootings.

The MDC Alliance leader also wants measures put in place to allow constitutional Chapter 12 and 13 institutions  the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission and the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission, among others,  to have complete independence without undue influence from political players.

On this point, he includes implementation of devolution in full.

Yesterday, Zanu-PF responded by describing Chamisa as childish as prospects for dialogue between the two parties fizzle out due to the contentious issue of legitimacy.

Zanu-PF secretary for legal affairs Paul Mangwana said Mnangagwa has gone out of his way like a true statesman to engage his rival but they will not force crybabies into negotiations.

We cant force them to behave to be normal people, the president will continue to handle the situation like a true and mature statesman, its up to them to behave as normal opposition or crybabies, our president is a statesman, he is a leader, unfortunately we have that kind of opposition who are sore losers but that will not stop the country from running, we will not lose sleep over sore losers, said Mangwana.

Political observers told the Daily News yesterday that Mnangagwa, who is battling to revive the countrys economy through wooing investors to Zimbabwe, must accommodate Chamisa otherwise his efforts to reengage the world will fail.

Professor of World Politics at the London School of Oriental and African Studies Stephen Chan said Mnangagwa should match his rhetoric with action.

Everyone is also waiting for concrete results to emerge in his policies that suggest he is serious in his fine words. This includes stabilising the economy and relations with the International Monetary Fund, some sense of capacity to deal with the cholera outbreak and, above all, achieving a guaranteed space for the opposition to do its work of questioning and opposing government policy at both the legislative and local levels, said Chan.

Crisis Coalition director Piers Pigou also said Mnangagwa is under pressure to accommodate the opposition.

Many eyes will be on Emmerson Mnangagwa, especially to hear how he intends to build on the general commitments he had made with respect to economic reform and addressing political polarisation, said Pigou.

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Related Zimbabwe Latest News- Ghanaian man of God, Bishop Obinim, has revealed that he is set to buy one of two private jets yet to arrive in the country

- The pastor while speaking in an interview made a phone call to a man in UK, presented to be the middle man involved in the purchase of the jets

- 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 on 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 Prempeh, all the documentation needed to purchase the private jet had been completed and the only thing needed is Obinim's signature to seal the deal.

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Obinim. Credit: Supplied

READ ALSO: UK-based man surprises his girlfriend with beautiful proposal in Lagos

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.

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, 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

The man of God, 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, Legit.ng 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: Nigerians lambastes Wizkids first babymama Shola Ogudu for commenting on Davidos post

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 about N108m. 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 gospel sensation, Florence Obinim.

Who is The Most Influential Nigerian Pastor? | Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit- A Nigerian man has shared details contained in a love letter written by a female student to her teacher

- According to the Twitter user identified as Amflomotion, the lover letter was written to a corps member, Jide who's currently serving in Kaduna

- Social media users reacted to the details contained in the letter

A young student identified as Abubakar Aisha has thrown the internet into a frenzy after a love letter she addressed to her teacher surfaced online. Legit.ng earlier shared the details contained in the letter, where, Aisha expressed deep love for her teacher who is a corps member serving in Kaduna.

A Twitter user identified as Amflomotion shared a copy of the letter on social media and many people have been debating if such is to be expected of a young girl.

Luckily, it appears, the corps member didn't take the wooing to heart as it would have been a case of him taking advantage of an underage girl.

READ ALSO: Tonto Dikeh calls Kokun a snitch after depression post

Abubakar who is obviously too young to be in relationship with an adult can be seen defending her age in the letter. Many social media users who have come across the letter have had a lot to say.

Read the letter below:

Some social media users reacted to the letter with most agreeing that the young girl is going through a normal phase, where the opposite s3x captures her attention and she's willing to explore.

They however advised that proper mentoring should be provided, so she doesn't lose her way.

READ ALSO: Snoop Dogg becomes a grandpa again as he welcomes his first granddaughter (video)

Here are some of the reactions below:

Na wa o!

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Should a Lady in a Relationship Have a Back Up Boyfriend? Street Gist Nigeria on Legit.ng TV:

Source: LegitTen Essential Mobile Apps to Have in Mexico City

Mexico City - It's safe to say, in one of the most densely populated cities in the world, the arrival of the digital era has most definitely been a positive contribution to daily life in the country's capital. Not only have mobile apps made the task of getting around easier, they also help to find food, have things delivered to your door step, communicate with one another, and so much more.

Here is a list of 10 apps that we think are essential to life in the big city:

 Mexico es Cultura: Stay in the know when it comes to cultural activities in the city through reviews, schedules and prices.

 Mercado Libre: The #1 e-commerce website in all of Latin America.

 WhatsApp: The main digital communication platform in Mexico  even included in most phone plans whereas traditional texting is not.

 Rappi: Order anything you need from the comfort of your home and have it at your doorstep within the hour.

 Moovit: All of your public transportation route needs at your fingertips.

 Uber: Don't feel like taking public transit? Uber picks you up at your location and drops you at your destination. Payments can be made through the app too, which avoids the need for cash.

 Vampiritos: Delivers alcohol to your doorstep long after stores have stopped selling. You'll never have to worry about running out of drinks at a party again.

 SpanishDict: If you're not fluent in Spanish, this app will be a lifesaver.

 SkyAlert: Designed and developed in the country, this app notifies you of an Earthquake warning even before the city alarms go off, giving you a little extra time to get to safety.

 Time Out: A guide to find places to eat and drink, plan your event calendar and even save your favorite searches on a personalized home screen.

Mexico City is a fascinating city to visit, but it's an even more fascinating city to live in, and these digital apps will help when it comes to daily life in the big city.

When you decide to make your move to Mexico City, contact the experts at MEXLend, the most experienced residential mortgage broker in Mexico. We are here to help you secure the loan you need to make that move into the home in Mexico City you've been dreaming of or to find that perfect vacation home for you to guarantee time spent in Mexico whenever you wish.

Click HERE to learn more about residential loans and home financing with MEXLend, a leading mortgage broker in Mexico.Celebrity comedian, Bill Cosby, has been sentenced to three to 10 years in state prison for sexual assault by Judge Steven O'Neill.

Consequently, Cosby was categorised as a sexually violent predator. This means that the comedian must must undergo counselling for life and be listed on the sexual offender registry, BBC reports,

He was also reported to have declined to make a statement when a judge gave him the opportunity.

READ ALSO: Buhari addresses United Nations (video)

The 81-year-old star of The Cosby Show was found guilty in April of drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand in 2004.

The court in Norristown, Pennsylvania, has scheduled two days for the sentencing, to give witnesses the opportunity to speak before the judge.

However, Cosby's lawyers said he will appeal the conviction, which observers say could push the case up to Pennsylvanias highest court and take several years.

More than 50 women have come forward to publicly accuse Cosby of sexual assault spanning several decades.

But Cosbys conviction on three counts of aggravated indecent assault refers solely to accusations from Constand, a former employee at Temple University in Philadelphia, Cosbys alma mater.

Legit.ng had reported that various women came out to reveal how 78-year-old American stand-up comedian, actor, author, and activist, Bill Cosby defiled them.

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Although the comedian once denied the allegations from the first few women that came out to reveal the comedian's unbelievable act, it is however turning out to be true.

What Can Ever Make You Get Back With Your EX? Street Gist Nigeria - on Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit- The direct primary option adopted by the Lagos state chapter of the APC seems to favour politicians with formidable structures

- Bayo Osinowo, a senatorial aspirant for Lagos East, is set to benefit from the direct primary option due to his influence in the area

- The area coordinator, Dele Ajayi, has told party members to begin door to door campaign for him

A front-line senatorial aspirant for Lagos East, Bayo Osinowo is leaving no stone upturned in his bid to secure the ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC) ahead of the October 2, 2018 direct primary.

Osinowo, a very prominent member of Lagos state House of Assembly, popularly known as 'Pepper,' is gearing to battle with the incumbent; Senator Gbenga Ashafa.

Osinowo's campaign organisation known as 'Team Pepper,' has been consolidating on his senatorial aspiration of Osinowo with district-wide visits and important meetings, to ensure that he wins the ticket.

The director general of the campaign organisation, Primate Charles Olugbesi, said the meetings were convened to further woo party members ahead of the primary.

READ ALSO: Osun rerun: Fayemi leads APC chieftains to visit Omisore

He described the direct primary option adopted by the party as the best, adding that it has widened the scope of participation of party members, unlike previous arrangement (indirect primary) where the choice of electing candidates were determined by a few.

Every political period comes with a new approach, in the past years, political parties are structured to elect their various candidates through delegate system, but as change is constant, we are now witnessing a new approach.

Hence, we must work in conformity with the new strategy to woo party members, so that an all-embracing victory will be achieved," he said.

Thousands of APC party faithfuls across Lagos East senatorial district came out in their respective local governments to attend the inaugural simultaneous meetings of the campaign organisation.

The meetings which held across the sixteen local governments, making up the district, were well-attended by party adherents, and provided a veritable platform for marketing the ideals of Osinowo to every member of the party.

Addressing a mammoth crowd of party supporters in Ibeju-Lekki local government, the area coordinator, Dele Ajayi, informed party members that Osinowo is the genuine formula to attract accelerated development to the district, adding that, there is a need to raise the bar from the ongoing cosmetic approach to an all-inclusive model.

He continued: In the past seven and a half years, we have witnessed a representation below par in the district, it is more worrisome to seeing the cosmetic touch in the delivering of governance, this has bottle-necked development in the district.

However, if we are concerned about the development of our district, there is a need for us to stand with a performer, stabilizer and a unifier, and these ideals can be found in the candidacy of Hon. Bayo Osinowo.

I urge you all to begin door to door campaign for him, as scores of party members witnessed here today is a testimony that the primary is done and dusted.

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Likewise, in the Epe axis of the district, it was a carnival galore across the three local councils making up the area, as party members were treated to different kind of music and political conversations.

Speaking to scores of party adherents in the area, the coordinator, Bola Daudu described Hon. Bayo Osinowo as a complete party man, who understands the plight of every party man.

Speaking to journalists recently, Osinowo said his political consultations have imbued him with some fresh ideas that will enhance the provision of effective, visionary and purposeful leadership when he resumes as a senator.

He, therefore, called on the good people of the district to remain supportive of his candidacy, promising to raise the bar of representation beyond the expectations of all and sundry

Nigeria News Today: No Lawmaker is in the House of Assembly for the People | Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit Newspaper- A South African man identified as DJ Techzi has been left heartbroken by his girlfriend

- According to him, his woman lied to him about being under the whether only for him to find photos of her partying with famous rapper, Casper Nyovest

- He resolved that women are trash

Love is sweet but betrayal torments the soul. A South African man identified as DJ Techzi has been left heartbroken by his one and only girlfriend.

According to the Twitter user, his lady retired to bed early, claiming she wasn't feeling too well only for him to find photos of her at a pool party online. He shared photos of him and the love of his life and other ones where she was spotted partying with South African megastar rapper, Casper Nyovest.

A heartbroken DJ Techzi told the world that he spoke to her just few hours before he found the photos and she had claimed she was under the weather and will be going to bed early. He however had his heart shattered with betrayal when he saw she was in fact living her best life as an apparent cheat and liar.

READ ALSO: Nigerians lambastes Wizkids first babymama Shola Ogudu for commenting on Davidos post

Too heartbroken, the disc jockey resolved; women are trash.

His revelation had some Twitter users believing women are trash as much as men are scum. Every other day, a story of how a man did the most horrible thing to a woman is debated online and people are quick to scream the phrase; men are scum.

It appears, in this present age, no one is spared as some women have dealt with men who would ordinarily go above and beyond for them.

For DJ Techzi however, it is definitely the most horrible way to find he can't trust his partner and people were quick to share a piece of advice as well as make fun.

Here are some reactions below:

READ ALSO: Davido buys the latest iPhone for his signees

Meanwhile, a 75-year-old father of 10 identified as Charles Okafor allegedly took his own life. According to reports, Charles ended his time on earth following a suspicion of his wife's crooked loyalty.

The broken-hearted spouse decided life was worthless and took his own life as he found his wife's infidelity unbearable.

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Should a Lady in a Relationship Have a Back Up Boyfriend? Street Gist Nigeria on Legit.ng TV:

Source: Legit Nigeria- Issa Aremu, general secretary of the Textile and Garment Workers Union, says he supports the strike action declared by the organised labour over minimum wage

- Aremu, a governorship aspirant in Kwara state, asks government to urgently conclude negotiations to forestall the strike action

- He promises to mobilise members of the Labour Party from all the states and Federal Capital Territory on a protest

The general secretary of the Textile and Garment Workers Union, Issa Aremu, on Tuesday, September 25, backed the decision of the Organised Labour to proceed on strike over new national minimum wage.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Aremu, a governorship aspirant in Kawra state under the Labour Party said in a press statement issued in Kaduna that he fully supports the agitation to secure decent living wage for workers in the country.

READ ALSO: My visit to Omisore is neither on political issue nor rerun election  Fayemi

He, however, said it was not too late for the government to avert the strike if it would conclude the year-long negotiation before the expiration of the deadline.

Aremu said the Labour Party would not hesitate to mobilize its members in the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory to join the mass protest by organised labour if no agreement was reached.

The key to sustainable development is labour productivity in both public and private sectors which is only possible with motivated paid workers and through adequate pensions, he added.

The report quoted Aremu as noting that government economic recovery would make little impact unless the country end the persistent crisis of compensation of the working class through enhanced purchasing power which is only possible through prompt and adequate payment of minimum and living wage for the employed workforce.

For us in the Labour Party, we remain committed to decent work agenda which include payment of a living wage to all categories of workers in the public and private sectors, as investment in human capital is an investment in nation building.

Legit.ng earlier reported that the governors of the 36 states of the federation reportedly said they will not fall for any blackmail or attempt to stampede them into reaching an agreement on the new minimum wage currently threatening peaceful industrial relations in Nigeria.

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The statement by the governors came at a period the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and its affiliate unions announced commencement of a nationwide industrial action starting from midnight on Wednesday, September 26, to protest the delay in fixing a new minimum wage for public servants.

I have evidence that they added to APCs votes| Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit- The Buhari/Osinbajo campaign organisation faults Bukola Saraki for saying Nigerians need competent leaders to lead them

- The organisation says President Muhammadu Buhari with uncommon leadership qualities is a blessing to Nigeria

- A governorship aspirant of APC, Abdulfatai Yahaya-Seriki, says that Senate president Bukola Saraki, offered him SSA appointment to drop his ambition

The Buhari/Osinbajo campaign organisation has warned that Senate president Bukola Saraki might be on his way to prison if he has underrated the long arm of the law regarding investigations of the Offa bank robbery incident.

The group issued the warning in a statement by its spokesperson, Steve Bayode, in response to what it called the Senate presidents attacks on President Muhammadu Buhari, The Nation reports.

The organisation said it was laughable for Saraki, who is a presidential aspirant of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), to say Nigerians need competent leaders to lead them, when he is yet to clear his name over the Offa bank robbery incident.

READ ALSO: Osun rerun: Omisore meets Oshiomhole, APC governors, agrees to work for ruling party

If the Senate President has underrated the long arm of the law, he is in for a long walk to the prisons," the group said.

It insisted that Sarakis presidential ambition was fueled by self-greed and inordinate ambition, noting that on the contrary, President Muhammadu Buhari, with uncommon leadership qualities was a blessing to Nigeria.

The release from the group read: The statement credited to the Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki, that Nigerians need competent leaders to lead them and they cannot afford to have mediocres at the helm of their affairs in the country is laughable.

On a good day, this statement and others of its kind could refer to no one else than the Senate President, himself and others like him who came to power by accident.

READ ALSO: 2019: APC approves mode of primaries for states, FCT

On the contrary, President Muhammadu Buhari, with an uncommon leadership qualities is a blessing to Nigeria.

President Muhammadu Buhari has, among other qualities, the track record of restoring our pride by taking our country out of recession and sustaining its growth in the recent times.

PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 news app

In the inferences of the Senate President, leaders must have the energy and vision to entrench justice and egalitarianism for all citizens, irrespective of ethnicity and religion. Doesnt this looks out of place coming from a man yet basking in the gory lighting of the Offa robbery?

If the Senate President has underrated the long arm of the law, he is in for a long walk to the prisons.

The Senate president has declared his intention to contest the 2019 presidential election. The question Nigerians should ask him is what has he done with the office of the Senate President he has occupied for three and a half years?

Bukola, should be told hes being pushed by self greed and inordinate ambition. He knows he could not realize his ambition in a formidable Party like the APC, so, good riddance he jetted out in time to seek his luck under the decrepit umbrella.

As said, Nigerians should ask their potential president to explain where lies the depositors fund that disappeared from the vault of his bank, the Societe Generale?

Bukola Saraki boasted of his long political career spanning a decade to have equipped him with the requisite experience and exposure to hold the exalted office of the President. Wait. Nigerians can recollect quite vividly these 10 years of which eight, as the governor of Kwara State, was simply entrusted on his hands by his father, who he later disgraced out of politics and sent to his grave in shame.

This is a testament that Bukola Saraki cannot and must not be trusted. If he could disgrace his father and mentor in public, he can simply deny and denounce his promises to the electorate at the appointed time."

Meanwhile, a governorship aspirant of All Progressives Congress in Kwara state, Abdulfatai Yahaya-Seriki, has said that the Senate president, Bukola Saraki, tried to lure him with an appointment to defect to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

The Punch reports that Yahaya-Seriki, one of the 13 Kwara APC governorship aspirants, told newsmen in Abuja, on Monday, 24, that he rejected the offer and other entreaties by the Senate president.

Legit.ng gathered that while speaking on the insinuations in some quarters that he could be working for Saraki in the APC, Yahaya-Seriki said he was a self-made man and he had no godfather anywhere.

Nigeria News Today: Ibrahim Babangida on Saraki's Nigeria Election 2019 Presidency Bid | Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit Newspaper- Former governor of Nasarawa, Abdullahi Adamu, has accused Governor Tanko Al-Makura of blackmailing him

- Adamu claimed he is being probed to force him to accept Al-Makura's choice of governor for 2019

- The former governor added that Al-Makura is wasting taxpayers' money to probe him for fraud

The former governor of Nasarawa state, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, has accused the incumbent governor, Tanko Al-Makura, of wasting taxpayers' money to probe him in other to intimidate him into silence in the party, All Progressives Congress (APC).

Governor Al-Makura had set up a 10-member committee to investigate the circumstances that led to the abandonment of the the N4.5 billion Farin-Ruwa independent power plant project during Adamu's administration.

READ ALSO: 2019: APC approves mode of primaries for states, FCT

Adamu, however, described the committee as a mismanagement and misplacement of the state resources.

He said: Al-Makuras decision to probe me is being carried out to see if I will be forced into accepting the abuse of democratic process enshrined in the constitution of our party, APC, in the process of selecting a governorship aspirant of the party for the 2019 elections.

Meanwhile, Legit.ng earlier reported that Tanko Al-Makura, revealed that he commenced a probe of his predecessor, Abdullahi Adamu, who is now a senator, because some of his activities were just unfolding.

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Adamu, a key supporter of President Muhammadu Buhari in the Senate, currently represents Nasarawa West district on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The report quoted Al-Makura, who was screened in Abuja on Thursday, September 20, for a Senate seat, saying government is dynamic and some activities provoke other activities.

Osun Election 2018: How Much is Enough to Vote for a Politician? Osun Residents Speak | Legit.ng TV

Source: LegitNollywood actor Zubby Michael is no doubt basking in the success of his career over the years. The 33-year-old actor is a model, TV personality and entrepreneur and a philanthropist. He is well known for playing criminal roles in movies.

Born in Yola, Adamawa state, the talented young man hails from Ozubulu, Okwusigo area of Anambra state. He completed his primary education in Yola and obtained his West African Senior School Certificate in the same state.

Michael proceeded to Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka in Anambra state where he graduated with a bachelors degree in mass communication. Ever since his graduation from the university, the young man decided to pursue a career in the movie industry.

READ ALSO: Timi Dakolo shares hilarious photo showing how his wife served him lunch

From 2006 till date, Zubby Michael has achieved a lot for himself and has featured in loads of Nollywoods blockbuster movies.

On Tuesday, September 25, Michael took to his Instagram handle to share pictures of his newly completed mansion. The pictures were shared with the caption: My house warming loading #nawedeyhere #blessup. One day holiday biko.

See posts below:

PAY ATTENTION: Best love tips and relationship advice on Africa Love Aid group!

Legit.ng earlier reported that Davido Music Worldwide (DMW) boss, David Adeleke, shared a video of the gift he bought for his newly signed artistes on his Instagram story. In the story, he wrote: New iPhones for the gang!

Congratulations!

Rapper Chinko Ekun Interview: Nigerians are Hypocrites When it Comes to Music | Legit.ng TV - on Legit.ng TV.

Source: Legit.ng- The Administration of Criminal Justice bill has been signed into law in Plateau state

- Governor Simon Lalong signed the bill on Tuesday, September 25

- The law will end the transfer of suspects in Plateau state to Abuja for trial

Governor Simon Lalong of Plateau state on Tuesday, September 25, signed the Administration of Criminal Justice bill into law.

The law, among other provisions, has put to a stop, the constant transfer of criminal suspects to Abuja for trial, NAN reports.

Legit.ng gathers that the governor, in a brief remark after signing the bill into law, said that it would reinforce the framework for the effective prosecution of criminal cases in the state.

READ ALSO: 2019: Army vows to prosecute soldiers supporting political parties

He said: We have often had cases of people suspected of committing crimes in Plateau, moved to Abuja for trial. That has ended from today."

According to report, the bill was among the three endorsed by the Plateau chief executive. Others included the Plateau State Information and Communication Technology Development Agency Law, 2017, and the Penal Code of Plateau State, 2018.

Governor Lalong expressed confidence that the laws would ensure quick dispensation of justice in the state.

He commended the efforts of the three arms of government  executive, legislature and the judiciary  that ensured the speedy passage of the bill into law.

The signing of the bills into law was witnessed by Joshua Madaki, speaker, Plateau House of Assembly, and Justice Yakubu Dakwak, chief judge of the state.

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Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that Governor Simon Lalong of Plateau state declared that his administration was deeply feeling pains of the insecurity, but assured that frantic efforts were being made by federal and state governments to end the killings.

Lalong said the state government would not play politics with human lives as killing of villagers continued unabated in Miango and Jol communities of Bassa and Riyom local government areas of the state.

The governor said government holds every single life as sacred and cannot play politics with human lives.

Nigeria Latest News: IDPs in Plateau - The Herdsmen Have Taken Over Our Villages | on Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit Newspaper- Kebbi state police command has warned loyalists to political parties against arms carrying

- It said anybody caught would be fined or sent to jail for 12 months

- It also warned political parties against using abusive slogans in the media

Kebbi state police command had on Tuesday, September 25, warned political party supporters against openly wielding offensive weapons, saying they risk jail term of 12 months.

The commissioner of police in the state, Ibrahim Kabir, gave the warning at a stakeholders meeting in Birnin Kebbi on the 2019 elections, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports.

Legit.ng gathers that he also promised to prosecute and convict those caught, and also make them face a fine of N500,000.

READ ALSO: Osun rerun: Omisore meets Oshiomhole, APC governors, agrees to work for ruling party

Kabir said: candidates of all political parties must not allow their supporters to carry any offensive weapons such as axes, machetes, swords and sticks.

Any person caught with offensive weapons commits an offence and is liable upon conviction to a maximum fine N500, 000 or imprisonment for 12 months.

He also warned against use of electronic, online or print media to abuse political opponents.

He added: Political campaign or slogan shall not be tainted with abusive language directly or indirectly likely to injure religious, ethics, tribal or sectional feelings.

The police commissioner said that such offence attracts a maximum fine of N1 million or two months imprisonment upon conviction.

In the case of a political party, the fine of N2 million in the first instance, and N1 million for any subsequent offence.

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Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that the Lagos state police had arrested some masquerades who were reported to have been robbing innocent residents in Elere, Agege area of Lagos state.

Following their arrest, the masquerades were taken to the Ikeja police command and paraded before the commissioner of police, Imohimi Edgar, who disclosed that he had gotten several reports about their criminal activities before he ordered their arrest.

Edgar further disclosed that the masquerades did not have any mission other than tormenting innocent people.

BUSTED: Professional Hacker Nabbed Over Fraudulent Purchase of N28million Porshe | Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit- Usani Usani, Nigerias Niger Delta affairs minister, boasts that Buhari's presidency is better than the years of PDP

- Usani maintains that the government of Buhari has upgraded infrastructure in the Niger Delta region

- The minister insists that all the projects commissioned so far have far-reaching impacts on the people of the Niger Delta

Usani Usani, Nigerias Niger Delta affairs minister, has declared that the three years President Muhammadu Buhari has so far spent in government in the country surpasses the 16 years of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Leadership reports that Usani said this as he answered questions from journalists few days after handing over ultra modern town hall building/solar power boreholes to the Ishibori community of Ogoja local government area of Cross River state.

READ ALSO: My visit to Omisore is neither on political issue nor rerun election  Fayemi

The report quoted Usani as stressing that the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari made tremendous impact in the upgrading/infrastructural provision within the Niger Delta region.

Usnai commended Buhari and his administration for leading the country right just as he stressed that all the projects that he has executed since he came in minister had impacted positively in the lives of the people of the region.

According to him, the president has ensured that contractors who often abandoned projects in about nine states in the south south region suddenly resumed work to ensure that they met the target before the year ends.

Legit.ng earlier reported that Chris Ngige, Nigerias labour and productivity minister, said it would be better for Igbo people to vote for President Muhammadu Buhari in the 2019 election because of favourable indications that he would win.

Ngige said this when he addressed reporters. He accused Igbo people of suffering from self-inflicted marginalisation even when they have opportunity to redeem their predicament.

PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 new app

Ngige said only Buharis presidency in 2019 could guarantee Igbo presidency in 2023, adding that the president is the only one that would relinquish power after the next four years.

Dr. Nicolas Felix: I am the one who can restore safety to Nigeria - Prezy Aspirant | Legit.ng TV

Source: LegitPresident Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday, September 25, addressed the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly. The president in New York unfolded Nigerias positions on various international matters before the global audience.

In this piece, Legit.ng compares what the president's speech at the United Nations 72nd session in 2017 with his speech at the 73rd session in 2018.

Global conflicts/Terrorism and the need for adequate security

In the 2018 speech, President Buhari spoke at length on the global conflicts and threats to world peace, mentioning the continuing plight of the Rohingyas in Myanmar, the protracted Israeli/Palestinian conflict, the wars in Yemen, and Syria, and the fight against international and local terrorism such as Boko Haram and Al-Shabaab...

He particularly commended the efforts of the leaders of the United States, North Korea, and South Korea, to realise our shared goal of a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.

Buhari also acknowledged the commitment to peace shown by President Donald Trump and Chairman Kim Jong-Un by initiating a historic summit.

In the 2017 speech, President Buhari also talked about the global conflicts, commending the UNs role in helping to settle thousands of innocent civilians caught in the conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

A notable difference is that in the 2018 speech, President Buhari talked about the farmers/herdsmen conflict that is rampant in some parts of Nigeria.

President Buhari delivering Nigeria's statement at the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly in New York on Tuesday, September 25. Credit: Facebook/Muhammadu Buhari

Source: Facebook

Migration

Another topical issue President Buharis 2018 speech is irregular migration which he said is a consequence of the current conflicts around the world mainly affecting people from the Middle East, Afghanistan, and Africa.

He said irregular migration entails huge avoidable loss of human lives, puts strains on services in host countries and communities, and fuels anti- immigrant and racist sentiments in Europe.

He listed conflicts alone, effects of climate change and lack of opportunities at home as major reasons for migration.

President Buhari, in his 2017 UN speech, did not talk about migration.

READ ALSO: Osun rerun: Omisore meets Oshiomhole, APC governors, agrees to work for ruling party

Corruption

In the 2018 UN speech, President Buhari also addressed the issue of corruption at the UN 73rd session. He charged all the UN member countries to be united in the fight against corruption.

The president also talked about corruption in the 2017 speech especially focusing on how his administration is strengthening state institutions are being strengthened to promote accountability, and to combat corruption and asset recovery.

Climate change

President Buhari also mentioned, in the 2018 speech, the challenges of climate particularly from Nigerias experience, saying that it is partly responsible for irregular migration.

Climate Change remains one of the greatest challenges of our time. Very close to us at home, it is our lot in Nigeria, together with our neighbours around the Chad Basin, to live with the Climate change consequences of a drastically shrunk Lake Chad and the parching up of otherwise fertile arable lands, he said.

In the 2017 speech, he briefly made reference to migration issue, particularly mentioning the Paris Climate Change Agreement.

Significance of United Nations and a call for reformed Security Council

In the 2018 speech, President Buhari noted that the UN remains the organisation that has the required system to fight the global challenges the world is facing. He, however, called for a reformed Security Council with expanded membership in both the permanent and non-permanent categories.

The 2017 speech did not address the above issue.

President Buhari speaking at the UN 72nd session in 2017.

Source: UGC

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Nigerias important role in the UN

President Buhari, while calling for a reformed Security Council, highlighted the significant roles Nigeria has played in the organisation since it joined in 1960.

From the date we joined in 1960, we have contributed our quota to the fulfilment of the mandate of the UN. We have been active participants in many Security Council and African Union authorised Peace Keeping operations around the world, beginning with the Democratic Republic of Congo operations in 1960.

Furthermore, Nigeria has always mobilised the required human and material resources to achieve set United Nations goals, including the recently adopted 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. We are resolute in complementing the efforts and examples of the United Nations to promote gender equality and youth empowerment as necessary pillars for sustainable development, the president said.

He also briefly mentioned this in the 2017 speech.

President Buhari cheered by his wife and daughter after his UN speech on Tuesday, September 25, 2018. Credit: Facebook/Muhammadu Buhari

Source: Facebook

Democracy and good governance

In the 2017 speech, President Buhari spoke about democracy and the importance of free and fair elections, and enthronement of the rule of law.

Our faith in democracy remains firm and unshaken. Our regional organisation ECOWAS came together to uphold democratic principles in The Gambia  as we had done previously in Cote DIvoire, he said.

The 2018 speech did not focus on the above issue.

President Buhari's full speech at the 73rd session of United Nations General Assembly delivered on Tuesday, September 25 can be read here.

President Buhari on 2019 Presidential Election: Will You Vote For Him? | Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit.ng- The 30 political parties in Nigeria say their alliance is only in relation with the need to rescue Lagos from the godfathers

- Peoples Trust led by prominent lawyer, Olisa Agbakoba, unveils Grand Alliance for New Democratic Lagos to achieve this goal

- Governor Akinwunmi Ambode is battling Babajide Sanwo-Olu and Femi Hamzat for the ticket of the APC

At least, 30 political parties in Nigeria are currently rallying round the governor of Lagos, Akinwunmi Ambode, as he battles hard to win the ticket of the ruling All Progressives Congress ahead of the 2019 general elections.

Governor Ambode is currently having it tough with his party with most of the members tilting towards Babajide Sanwo-Olu, a former commissioner in the state.

This Day reports that the Peoples Trust led by prominent lawyer, Olisa Agbakoba, has indicated its intention to join forces with 30 other political parties to mobilise the residents for the takeover of Lagos state.

READ ALSO: My visit to Omisore is neither on political issue nor rerun election  Fayemi

The report quoted the political parties as stating that they would take the opportunity of the alleged rift between Ambode and the leadership of the party to take power from those considered godfathers.

In a statement by its national publicity secretary, Segun Obe, the Peoples Trust unveiled what it called a Grand Alliance for New Democratic Lagos, saying it would begin consultations with critical stakeholders today in its Lagos state secretariat, Ogba.

Noting that the alliance is strictly a Lagos affair, the political parties said: Our grand mobilisation is purely against the imposition of anointed candidates in Lagos by godfathers and power brokers.

This is the only strategic way to deter self-serving political godfathers and power brokers in the country from actions tending towards taking electorate and voters for a ride.

We are indeed very optimistic and quite upbeat that our movement is now in a better situation to galvanise political stakeholders and electorate in Lagos to take advantage of the heightening power tussle within the ruling APC in ensuring that the third force and the Lagos Voters produce the next governor of Lagos State in 2019.

We strongly view the unfortunate power display of a clique of kingmakers of the ruling APC in Lagos as a mockery of internal party democracy.

It also demeans the value and power of the teeming electorate and voting populace in Lagos to the effect that they can jettison the performance of Ambode, who is regarded as the whiz-kid of development in Lagos for the blind loyalty of their political crony and protege.

The Osun governorship elections could not have come at a better time than this as the outcome has turned out to be a signpost of what is to happen in Lagos and other progressive states in 2019.

We are therefore of the firm opinion that the electorate should be wise enough this time around to reject any anointed candidate of APC power brokers.

The undemocratic attempt of Lagos king makers to deny Ambode his second term in office should really send a strong signal to the Lagos electorate and voters that their power and mandate are already being undermined for them to rise in defence of their electoral power.

PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 new app

Apart from Sanwo-Olu supported by the Mandate Group led by Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, Ambode is being challenged by Femi Hamzat, a former works commissioner and supported by the Justice Forum.

It was learnt that the Governors Advisory Council (GAC) operational in Lagos state, met and decided that Ambode and the other contenders should go and battle for the partys ticket.

Legit.ng earlier reported that the Yoruba Ronu Leadership Forum says it stands with Governor Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos state over his second term ambition.

Legit.ng gathers that Malaolu expressed concern over what he called the gang up being organised by some political leaders over the second term ambition of Governor Ambode.

I have evidence that they added to APCs votes| Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit- Titi Atiku-Abubakar said she has never embezzled government funds

- Abubakar said she assisted many trafficked boys and girls without using government's fund

- The former vice president's wife recently sponsored a private bill against human trafficking

Titi Atiku-Abubakar, the wife of former vice president Atiku Abubakar, on Tuesday, September 25, said she never stole governments money to run Women Trafficking and Child Labour Eradication Foundation (WOTCLEF).

She said this at the second edition of African Women Intercultural Dialogue, organised by All Africa Media Network, an NGO in Abuja.

The theme for the 2018 edition is: Calling African women and policy makers to action against human trafficking forced labour, domestic servitude and sex slavery.

According to her, when she was in the villa as the wife of the vice president, she assisted many trafficked boys and girls, especially in accommodating them.

READ ALSO: How I rejected Buharis invitation thinking it was 419  FEPSAN President

But I didnt use governments money to take care of these girls and some boys who were rescued from traffickers. The only thing was that they fed on governments food and government food is Nigerias food," she said.

The former vice president's wife said that she sponsored a private bill to the National Assembly (NASS) to curb the menace of human trafficking in the country. She said that there were lots of challenges before the bill could scale through, adding that she became a regular visitor to the NASS before it was passed.

She said that she conceived the dream to fight trafficking 30 year ago and when her husband became the vice president, it was an opportunity to push the course through.

 I have been doing this job for almost 20 years; I conceived the dream 30 years ago. I was a lecturer at the Kaduna Polytechnic and I interacted with a lot of girls on campus which informed the idea," she said.

READ ALSO: 2019: APC approves mode of primaries for states, FCT

The wife of the former VP said that traffickers often came with sugarcoated mouth by telling their victims that life is better outside.

I have counseled over 10,600 boys and girls; while some of the trafficked girls I helped to rescue are now graduates," she said.

The News Agency of Nigeria reports that WOTCLEF, founded in 1999, carried out advocacy campaign to strengthen the fight against trafficking in Nigeria and Africa at large.

Earlier, Obaapa Awindor, the executive director, Obaapa Development Foundation, an NGO based in Ghana said that human trafficking was not peculiar to Africa.

When we are talking about human trafficking, it is not only about Africa, but the world at large, in Ghana there are agencies that send people abroad for trafficking," Awindor.

She said that in Africa, poverty was responsible for parents giving out their children for trafficking and some of them were used for prostitution.

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She commended the role of social media in curbing the menace of trafficking, while calling on parents to join the fight to stem the tide of trafficking.

Awindor said that the traditional authority also had a big role to play to stop the menace of trafficking, urging all to go back to the traditional system.

Our television and internet are taking us away from cultures, and what use to bring us together like cultural issues are fading away with the advent of Internet," she said.

Legit.ng earlier reported that supporters of presidential aspirant, Atiku Abubakar, pleaded with ex-president, Olusegun Obasanjo, to end his rift with his former vice president in order to enhance Atikus chances in the 2019 presidential election.

Atiku, who served as vice-president during the Obasanjo administration, reportedly fell out with the ex-president after an alleged botched third term bid of his principal.

The group under the umbrella of Reset Foundation, said they were practically pleading on their knees for Obasanjo to support Atikus presidential bid.

Nigeria Latest News: Atiku Abubakar - Exclusive Comments About The Elections | Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit Newspaper- Governor Ortom of Benue state has made new special appointments

- He appointed 13 news special advisers who will be sworn in on Thursday, September 27

- The Benue state governor had earlier sacked 12 special advisers

Benue state governor, Samuel Ortom, on Tuesday, September 25, announced the appointment of 13 new special advisers from various districts in the state.

The new advisers are: Sanwua Tarnogo, Jerome Tar, Reverend Samuel Ivartse, Dr Terghter Ayargwer, Austin Okoh, Dr Bem Melladu and Paul Iyajir.

Others are Reverend Jacob Ayenyi, Okoh Achegbulu, Jacob Oguwche, Reverend Joseph Ogezi, Alhaji Isah Usman and Peter Otakwu.

READ ALSO: Osun rerun: Omisore meets Oshiomhole, APC governors, agrees to work for ruling party

The Punch reports that a statement issued by the secretary to the state government, Professor Tony Ijohor, said that the newly appointed special advisers would be sworn in on Thursday, September 27, by the governor at the new Banquet Hall in Benue Peoples House, Makurdi.

Recall that Ortom had on July 8, 2018, sacked 12 special advisers and retained seven of them.

Legit.ng had previously reported that Benue state government on Wednesday, September 19, said that it had started recovering official vehicles of sacked political appointees adding that it was not witch-hunting those affected.

The special adviser to Governor Ortom on security matters, retired Col. Paul Hembah, who disclosed this, denied allegations that sacked political appointees loyal to Senator George Akume are currently being witch-hunted through the recovery of their official vehicles

Hembah maintained that the affected people were duly communicated, through letters, phone calls and text messages, to willingly return the governments vehicles in their custody.

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Meanwhile, Governor Ortom has commended the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Osun state for taking the lead in the governorship election which was later declared inconclusive by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

In a statement sent to Legit.ng by his spokesman, Terver Akase, the governor said that the conduct of the Osun election reflects the resolve of many Nigerians to reject impunity and give their mandate to PDP in the 2019 elections.

He also commended the people of Osun state for the peaceful manner they conducted themselves during the polls.

Osun 2018: I have evidence that they added to APCs votes - PDP Chairman on Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit.ngGod works in miraculous ways as he rescues a 17-year-old teenage boy from the sea. Identified as Aldi Novel Adilang, the Indonesian boy disclosed that he spent 49 days on the sea living in a fishing hut before he was rescued.

According to BBC, Adilang disclosed that this is not his first survival story but his third and the longest time so far. He added that he was working on a floating fishing trap when suddenly one of the seabed (ropes) snapped and sending him adrift.

The young boy added that during the first few days, he survived on his food supply which only lasted him a week. This took place near his parents home in the city of Manado, North Sulawesi.

Aldi Adilang was working on a rompong when he was sent adrift into the sea Photo: BBC

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Young girl sends love letter to male corps member teacher

Adilangs father said: My rompong's rope snapped after it rubbed against my friend's romping. Unfortunately he was asleep so he didn't know I was adrift. Rice, clean water, spices, cooking gas, and other supplies ran out.

The 18-year-old boy also said: To survive I caught fish and burned the rompong's wooden fences to make a fire for cooking. I even ate raw fish.

He admitted that at some point on the sea, he considered killing himself but reading the Bible and singing Christian songs helped him stay alive. Adilang further explained that on August 31, he sighted a ship carrying coal and the only thing he could do was shout Help! Help!. He was rescued afterwards by the Panamanian-flagged vessel who gave him clothes and water to drink.

Every week he will be brought fresh food supplies, water, fuel as someone from the company comes to collect fish. He was paid $134 (N48,508) monthly.

Aldi Adilang is now back safe in his parent's home Photo: BBC

Source: UGC

The teenager remained in the vessel for a week till they arrived their destination in Japan, on September 6, and flew back to Indonesia two days after.

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After his experience, the young man promised to sail again. Because of his special rompomgs lamps which he created to attract fish, Adilang has signed a one-year contract deal with an undisclosed company.

Aldi Adilang with other members of his family Photo: BBC

Source: UGC

Amazing!

Nigeria Chef Fregz: I Used to Steal Recipes from the Library During my School Days. | Legit.ng TV - on Legit.ng TV.

Source: Legit.ng- The defence headquarters say a trending video revealing alleged plights of soldiers in the forest is meant to dampen their morale

- Brigadier General John Agim notes that there is nowhere in the world where soldiers in the battle field live in comfort

- Agim further mentions some of the challenges that soldiers battling in the forest face

The Nigerian defence headquarters, on Wednesday, September 26, accused those it called fifth columnists of trying to collaborate with enemies of the country just to prolong their own interests.

In a statement, Brigadier General John Agim, the director Defence Information, said the defence headquarters was reacting to a trending video clip and story alleging that the soldiers fighting Boko Haram terrorists beg for food and sleep in classrooms.

The statement obtained by Legit.ng said the story and its accompanying video are some of many strategies targeted at breaking the cohesion and the fighting spirit of the troops.

READ ALSO: My visit to Omisore is neither on political issue nor rerun election  Fayemi

It is a known fact that all over the world, the battlefront is not a playground. What differentiates soldiers from civilians is the ability to endure hard conditions and make sacrifices.

Same goes for accommodation at the battlefront as the soldiers are either on the move or in trenches. Accommodation, where necessary, are makeshift and not expected to be luxurious. That is the reality and price of the Military profession. There is no easy way.

For those who may not know, there is no barracks in Sambisa forest and several other troops locations in the north east.

Also, troops are promptly paid approved operational allowances aside other welfare and administrative arrangements.

Whereas there may be challenges in the battle-space which is normal, appropriate measures are being taken to address them.

The story is a failed attempt to distract the purposeful direction in the counter-terrorism fight.

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The Nigerian Armed Forces is stating categorically here that its fighting spirit is indomitable and no amount of falsehood can distract the military from fighting terrorism to a conclusive end.

The public is hereby enjoined to disregard the publication and continue to give the military the needed support and cooperation. Together we shall bring total peace and security to our fatherland, the statement read.

Legit.ng earlier reported that Maj-Gen Abbah Dikko, the 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.

Nigeria News Today: Police Arrest Soldiers Dismissed for not Fighting B/Haram During Jonathan Regime - on Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit- An Osogbo high court has ordered the police to release a PDP chieftain, Fatai Diekola, and two others from detention

- The order was given by Justice A.O Ayoola following an application filed on behalf of Diekola, Sikiru Lawal and Segun Adekilekun

- The PDP chieftain was reportedly attacked by hoodlums who claimed to be loyal to the APC

Emerging reports claim that an Osogbo high court on Wednesday, September 26, charged Nigerian Police Force to release a Peoples Democratic Party chieftain, Fatai Oyedele Diekola and two others from detention.

The Punch reports that the charge was given by Justice A.O Ayoola following an application filed on behalf of Diekola, Sikiru Lawal and Segun Adekilekun.

The reports also have it that a certified true copy of the order, was in Osogbo, made available by a former commissioner of information, Sunday Akere, who is Diekolas friend.

READ ALSO: Omisore meets Oshiomhole, APC governors, agrees to work for ruling party

Meanwhile, Legit.ng had reported that Fatai Oyedele, a top chieftain of the PDP was reportedly attacked by hoodlums who claimed to be loyal to the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Oyedele, popularly called Diekola, was allegedly attacked following the decision of Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) to declare the state's gubernatorial election held on Saturday, September 22, inconclusive.

Diekola with some PDP's member in the state had come to Alekuwodo Ward 5, Unit 17 to canvass for votes ahead of the Thursday rerun election.

The alleged APC members, along with thugs, were reportedly also at the place for the same mission, leading to a clash which led to the attack on the PDP chieftain.

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In a related development, the APC said Senator Ademola Adeleke of the PDP would suffer defeat in the Osun state governorship rerun election even if he gets the support of the SDP candidate, Iyiola Omisore.

Kunle Oyatomi, the director of publicity, research and strategy of the APC in Osun made the statement on Tuesday, September 25, when reacting to reports that Senator Bukola Saraki had visited Omisore to woo him ahead of the rerun poll holding in seven polling units in four local government areas of the state.

The APC chieftain said Adelekes chances in the election were slim because the PDP governorship aspirant was the least educated and qualified candidate.

Osun 2018: I have evidence that they added to APCs votes - PDP Chairman | Legit.ng TV:

Source: Legit.ng- A partnership between Nigeria and Austria on renewable energy is underway

- The partnership is part of efforts to deepen bilateral trade between the two countries

- According to report, the partnership will be on renewable energy and agriculture

Nigeria is set to partner with Austria on renewable energy as part of efforts to deepen bilateral trade between the two nations.

Vivian Okeke, Nigerias ambassador to Austria stated this in an interview with the Europe correspondent of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) at a conference in Zurich.

Legit.ng gathers that Okeke said that Austria is very strong in renewable energy - and that such partnership would ensure a transfer of technology to Nigeria.

READ ALSO: Osun decides 2018: APC, PDP accuse each other of electoral malpractice

According to her, the partnership is in line with governments effort in diversifying from the oil sector which accounts for a large percentage of the nations GDP.

The envoy also listed trade in machineries, agricultural produce and seedlings as new areas of partnership.

While speaking on the cordial relations between the two countries, Okeke said that the proposed areas of partnership would further boost the current trade volume which stands at 300 million euros. The trade volume is in favour of Nigeria with the bulk of the money being from sales in oil and gas.

Nigeria and Austria established formal diplomatic ties in 1962, but their relationship dated back to 1909 when the then Austria-Hungary opened a consulate in Lagos.

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Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that Austria had completed the process of organising skills acquisition programmes for at least 1000 Nigerian irregular migrants in Austria before their repatriation.

The countrys director general, International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD), Michael Spindelegger, said this in Abuja at a meeting with foreign affairs minister, Geoffrey Onyeama.

Spindelegger said that ICMPD, with its headquarters in Austria, would start the programme with Nigeria as a pilot scheme before extending to others.

He said that the programme was to prepare the migrants for gainful employment which some Austrian companies were to set up later in Nigeria.

Which country would you leave Nigeria for? - on Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit- A photo of Governor Obaseki sleeping at the ongoing UN conference has surfaced online

- The Edo state government has, however, released a statement concerning the viral photo

- The statement claimed that Governor Obaseki slept due to fatigue experienced after a long flight

The Edo state government has reacted to pictures of Godwin Obaseki sleeping while President Muhammadu Buhari was delivering his speech at the United Nations conference in New York.

A statement signed by Crusoe Osagie, the special adviser to the governor on media and communication strategy, said Governor Obaseki can also experience fatigue and exhaustion, an indisputable fact of life, to which all humans are susceptible, Premium Times reports.

Our attention has been drawn to a mischievous campaign designed to smear the image of the Edo state governor, Governor Obaseki.

READ ALSO: Why Adeleke will lose Osun rerun election even with Omisore's support - APC

The disparagers have populated the internet with photographs of the governor when he momentarily succumbed to fatigue after a long flight, preceded by a chaotic itinerary in Edo state before heading to New York for the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly, in the United States of America.

The idle hands and mischievous minds behind the smear campaign against governor Obaseki are clearly not people to be taken seriously.

Osagie said the internet is awash with photographs of outstanding world leaders who have at one time or the other yielded to fatigue at meetings.

Highlighting his work schedule prior to the trip, Osagie said despite Obasekis rare work culture, unmatched by his peers, we have never portrayed him as a machine.

Below is a tweet showing pictures of the Edo state governor sleeping at the at the United Nations conference in New York.

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Meanwhile, Legit.ng had previously reported that an All Progressives Congress (APC) chieftain, Charles Idahosa, said Governor Obasekis alleged hostility towards politicians can be traced to the way he was fleeced by them during the indirect primaries that led to his emergence as the ruling partys candidate for the Edo state governorship election.

Idahosa, who served as a political adviser to the immediate past governor of the state, Adams Oshiomhole, made the comment in an interview with Vanguard.

Idahosa opined that the delegate system of enthroning political party candidates was sufficed with corruption, and this put Obaseki off from politicians when he emerged as governor of the state.

Cartoon Comedy: When politicians die, they go to hell - on Legit.ng TV:

Source: LegitThe Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has called on all its members and affiliate unions to join its nationwide strike over federal government delay in the implementation of a new national minimum wage.

The strike was called due to the refusal of the federal government to reconvene the meeting of the tripartite national minimum wage committee to enable it conclude its work.

According to Premium Times, Ayuba Wabba, the NLC President, said this while briefing journalists in Abuja on Wednesday, September 26, adding that the strike will commence from midnight of September 26.

READ ALSO: Omisore tells supporters whom to vote for at Osun governorship rerun

Wabba noted that the NLC was open to dialogue on the strike. He said: In compliance with this mandate, all workers and private sector at all levels across the country have been directed to comply.

All public and private institutions, offices, banks, schools, public and private business premises including filling station are to remain shut till further noticed."

TUC, had also asked its members to commence the strike.

The workers are demanding a new minimum wage of about N50,000 instead of the current national minimum wage of N18,000. Most state governors as well as proponents of true federalism have, however, argued that states should be allowed to set their own minimum wage especially as many states are barely able to pay the current N18,000 minimum wage.

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In a previous report by Legit.ng, the Trade Union Congress (TUC) on Tuesday, September 25, insisted organised labour would commence strike from early hours of Thursday, September 27, following the federal governments failure to honour its ultimatum on the new minimum wage.

A statement signed by the secretary-general of the union, Musa-Lawal Ozigi, in Abuja stated that the decision to embark on strike was sequel to the resolve of the Central Working Committee of TUC on September 24.

Ozigi said that following the mandate of the CWC, TUC leadership would take all necessary action to effect the ultimatum on the new minimum wage in collaboration with other stakeholders.

Nigeria News: President Buhari's Return Will Teach Nigerians Sense on Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit- The federal government met with the leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress

- The meeting is sequel to the directive given to all labour unions and civil society groups by NLC president, Ayuba Wabba, to embark on strike

- The meeting is said to have ended in a deadlock

A meeting between the federal government and the leadership of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has ended in a deadlock and the latter has insisted on its planned strike.

This is coming after a warning was given by the union to commence an indefinite strike starting from 12 am, Thursday, September 27, Channels TV reports.

Legit.ng gathers that on Wednesday, September 26, NLC president, Ayuba Wabba, directed all labour unions and civil society groups to embark on strike.

NLC, which is demanding a new minimum wage of N56,000, said its decision to embark on strike is because the federal government has failed to reconvene the tripartite committee on a new national minimum wage.

Legit.ng previously reported that the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) called on all its members and affiliate unions to join its nationwide strike over federal government's delay in the implementation of a new national minimum wage.

The strike was called due to the refusal of the federal government to reconvene the meeting of the tripartite national minimum wage committee to enable it conclude its work.

Ayuba Wabba, the NLC president, said this while briefing journalists in Abuja on Wednesday, September 26, adding that the strike will commence from 12 am, Thursday, September 26.

Also previously reported by Legit.ng was that the federal government on Monday, August 13, assured Nigerians and the labour workforce that the new minimum wage would begin by the end of September.

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The minister of labour and employment, Chris Ngige, said federal government would announce the new minimum wage before the end of the third quarter, which is September.

Ngige, while speaking at the 40th Anniversary of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) in Abuja, said the federal government aimed at determining a decent work agenda for Nigerians.

Who should get higher salary - doctors or teachers? - on Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit- Lagos state governor, Akinwunmi Ambode has expressed his readiness to participate in the governorship primary election

- The governorship primary election of All Progressives Congress (APC) Lagos state is scheduled for Saturday, September 29

- Ambode expressed gratitude to the national leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, party elders and executives, GAC members, all APC members and every Lagosian

Goverbor Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos state on Wednesday, September 26, expressed his readiness to participate in Saturdays primary election where members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) across the state are expected to choose the partys flagbearer through direct primaries.

In a statement issued by the commissioner for information and strategy, Kehinde Bamigbetan, said the governor is restating his readiness in line with the choice of the party in Lagos state and the validation given to the direct primary preference by the Governors Advisory Council.

The statement read: As our great party approaches Saturday, September 29th, 2018, earmarked for the direct primary election to choose the candidate to fly our partys gubernatorial flag at the next general election, I am happy to restate my commitment to participate in that process having procured and submitted my nomination form and having formally declared my intention to seek a second term to continue on the path of unprecedented growth and development that our State has witnessed since 2015."

READ ALSO: Edo governor Obaseki caught sleeping at UN general assembly, state govt reacts (photos)

Ambode expressed profound gratitude to the national leader of the party, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu; party elders and executives; GAC members; all APC members and every Lagosian whose support, understanding and prayers have assisted me in no small measures in being used as an instrument through which our State has redefined the concept of greatness.

The statement added that the governor is approaching the founding fathers and teeming members of the party with a grateful heart, open arms and a pledge to open and deeper attention to the concerns of this one, big family.

It added that a return of the partys ticket to Governor Ambode will guarantee the stability of the states growing economy; ensure the continuation of the growth and development it has witnessed over time and ensure that the opposition does not take root in the state.

The statement congratulates the governors co-contestants for the courage and commitment to the party and urges party faithfuls to come out en masse and vote peacefully in all the 20 Local Governments and 245 wards where the election will take place

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Legit.ng previously reports that the Lagos state chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) on Tuesday, September 18, inaugurated a seven-member committee to screen aspirants for the October 4 state assembly primary.

Tunde Balogun, the state chairman of the party, inaugurated the committee at the ACME road secretariat of the party.

The members of the committee include: former deputy-governor of the state, Femi Pedro; the commissioner for health, Jide Idris; a party chieftain, Wale Oshun; and member of the partys Governors Advisory Council (GAC), Abayomi Finnih.

Ambode Second Term and Tinubu's Approval - Nigerian Opinion | Legit.ng TV:

Source: Legit- Activities lined up for the commemoration of the 2018 independence anniversary celebration has commenced

- The first in the series of the celebration is a photo exhibition, tagged The Footprints of Nigerias Political Leaders

- Vice President Yemi Osinbajo declared the exhibition open

- According to Lai Mohammed, the photo exhibition showcases Nigerias political history, from pre-colonial era till date, as well as Nigerias rich cultural heritage

The federal government has kick-started activities lined up for the commemoration of the 2018 independence anniversary celebration with a photo exhibition, tagged The Footprints of Nigerias Political Leaders, which was curated by the ministry of information and culture.

Speaking at the opening of the exhibition at the International Conference Centre (ICC), Abuja, on Tuesday, September 25, the minister of information and culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said the 1st of October every year provides an opportunity to reflect on the nations unity, patriotism and commitment to nation-building.

READ ALSO: Get prepared, another economic recession looms in Nigeria - CBN issues warning

Todays event commemorates Nigerias 58th Independence Anniversary celebration. There is no doubt that this day is special to every Nigerian as it is a day to reflect on our unity, patriotism and commitment to nation building. Therefore, one cannot help but be excited as this day approaches annually.

Over the years, the country has gone through trials and tribulations, but the 1st of October is always a day for celebration and thanksgiving, because it occupies a very important place of pride in the political history of our country. It also serves as a poignant reminder and appreciation of the Labours of our heroes past, he said.

Alhaji Mohammed said for those who were not old enough to have witnessed Nigerias independence in 1960, they can at least look at the pictures of pre-independent Nigeria and the handing-over ceremony of the colonial masters to the Nigerian leaders to have an idea of how things were and the hopes for a bright future ahead.

He said the photo exhibition also showcases Nigerias political history, from pre-colonial era till date, as well as Nigerias rich cultural heritage.

I wish to therefore use this opportunity to encourage all participants, especially the youth, to spend time to view and savour this significant and historical exhibition," he said.

READ ALSO: Meeting between FG and NLC leadership ends in deadlock, union insists on strike

While declaring the exhibition open, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo said the occasion helps Nigerians to recognize the incredible leadership provided by all the nations political leaders, from the colonial days to the present day, who have shown greater wisdom, wits and courage at all times.

Professor Osinbajo said even though the event reminds Nigerians of the twists and turns in the nations historical journey, the present administration has resolved not allow history to determine the countrys future but only as the precursor to a greater Nigeria that is prosperous, united and treats everyone fairly and justly.

He said each phase of the nations political history has tested the resolve to remain united and maintain the integrity of the country.

Professor Osinbajo also commended the ministry for adopting a very creative and innovative way to celebrate the nations independence day.

I must commend the ministry of information and culture for this very innovative way of celebrating our independence and political history. I think the federal ministry of information and culture and its leadership, especially the honourable minister of information and culture, deserve our commendation, he said.

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Dignitaries who attended the exhibition include the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Mr. Boss Mustapha and minister of defence, Brig.-General Mansur Dan-Ali (rtd).

The photo exhibition is open till Friday, September, 28 at the ICC, Abuja.

Meanwhile, the federal ministry of transportation has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Japan for cooperation in promoting quality infrastructure investment and continuing cooperative relationship between Nigeria and Japan.

Nigeria's minister of transportation, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, signed the MoU on behalf of the federal government with Japans state minister of land, infrastructure, transport and tourism, Tsukasa Akimoto at the ministry's headquarters in Abuja.

The Japanese minister who was accompanied by Japans ambassador to Nigeria Yutaka Kikuta, expressed excitement on the partnership between Japan and Nigeria in developing infrastructure.

Nigeria Latest News: The Abuja Metro is West Africa's First Light Rail Network | Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit.ng- Federal government says the latest flood data has indicated that the worst is over

- This is coming as the water level at Lokoja and Lagdo Dam in Cameroon dropped significantly

- The minister of water resources, Alhaji Suleiman Adamu, said the water level at Lokoja has dropped by six centimetres

The federal government says the latest flood data has indicated that the worst is over as the water level at Lokoja and Lagdo Dam in Cameroun dropped significantly.

The minister of water resources, Alhaji Suleiman Adamu, made this known when he briefed State House correspondents on the outcome of the meeting of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) on Wednesday, September 26.

The meeting was presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo at the Council Chamber of the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

READ ALSO: Adeleke can't win Osun rerun even with Omisore's support - APC

According to the minister, the water level at Lokoja has dropped by six centimetres, while that of Lagdo Dam has continued to go down.

I was able to brief Council on the latest flood data. I was happy to report to council that as at Saturday, the water level at Lokoja had dropped by six centimetres and is still going down. The water level in Lagdo Dam in Cameroun is also going down.

So, hopefully, the worst is over except if there is an unforeseen and unprecedented amount of rainfall, which is very unlikely but not also unlikely to happen, we dont hope it will. I think that the worst is over and we should be able to see most of the flood water receding from now," he said.

Adamu also revealed that the Council approved N612 million as revised estimated total cost for the completion of Cham Dam and development of 100 hectares of irrigation scheme in Balanga local government area of Gombe state.

He said the project was initially awarded in 2011 at the cost of N832 million, saying the augmentation had now brought the total cost of the project to N1.44 billion.

Council today approved the revised estimated total cost for the complete rehabilitation of Cham Dam and development of 100 hectares of irrigation in Balanga Local Government Area of Gombe State.

As part of our process to complete projects that we inherited we brought this project which was started in 2011 but had suffered paucity of fund. Works had stopped around 65 per cent. We now need to complete it and we had to re-negotiate with the contractors. Therefore, we brought request for augmentation of N612million for that project."

According to him, the project is being executed by the Upper Benue River Basin Development Authority.

He said: The Dam was originally constructed in 1982 but after some unprecedented rainfall and probably due to inadequate provision of spill ways the dam was breached about 10 years ago and therefore, it has to be reconstructed and this is why we came for this augmentation of N612million.

It will now bring the contract sum to N1.44billion. The original contract sum was N832million in 2011, thats about 11 years ago."

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In a previous report by Legit.ng, a rice farm belonging to Garba Shehu, the senior special assistant to the president on media and publicity, was said to have been affected by floods which have been causing devastation in many states.

Garba in a tweet on Monday, September 24, shared pictures of his farm in Hadejia, Jigawa state, which he said took a hit from the floods.

In the shared photos, the presidential aide could be seen standing in a field covered by water.

Nigeria Breaking News: Kogi Flood Sacks Residents from Their Homes | Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit- Governor Nyesom Wike has threatened that he would withdraw his support from any candidate in support of moving PDP convention from Port Harcourt

- He said some desperate PDP presidential aspirants were sabotaging the economy of the state by fighting the hosting of the partys presidential primary in Port Harcourt

- He warned that Rivers people would teach the party a bitter lesson if it allows planted desperate presidential aspirants to scuttle the hosting of the presidential primary in the state

Rivers state governor, Nyesom Wike, has declared that his government would not support any desperate Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential aspirant who is sabotaging the economy of the state by fighting the hosting of the partys presidential primary in Port Harcourt.

Legit.ng gathered that in a statement by his special assistant on electronic media, Simeon Nwakaudu, the governor further warned that there would be consequences if the party succumbs to pressures from planted PDP presidential aspirants to move the partys national convention away from Port Harcourt.

He warned that Rivers people would teach the party a bitter lesson if it allows planted desperate presidential aspirants to scuttle the hosting of the presidential primary in Port Harcourt as agreed by all leaders of the party.

READ ALSO: Breaking: Im ready, prepared for Saturdays primary election - Ambode

Speaking during a consultative visit by the Gombe state governor and PDP presidential aspirant, Ibrahim Dankwambo to Port Harcourt on Wednesday, September 26, Wike said any presidential aspirant fighting Rivers state should forget about the support of the state, during and after the national convention.

He said He said: "Let me warn the party, if you dare, Rivers state will teach the party a lesson. Those days have passed when they took Rivers state for granted. Nobody can use and dump Rivers state.

No Presidential Aspirant can use and dump Rivers state. We never lobbied for it, we never asked for it, but it will boost the economy of the state. People will make money.

Those who are against Rivers people from making money to improve their businesses, will not get our support."

The governor said that whether the national convention holds in Jigawa or Adamawa, the winner preferred by the delegates will emerge.

I dont know why anyone who wants to be president, will be afraid of a venue. Then you are not prepared for the election.

Nobody should dare Rivers state any longer. Enough is enough. PDP should know that we are not a punching bag. We are not people you can use and push. We are not harlots. Whenever you want, you come. When you finish, you push us aside.

We will retaliate at the appropriate time. When you go, tell your colleagues, the presidential aspirants. We were not interested, but having given it to us, you cannot insult us, Governor Wike said.

The governor pointed out that there are persons who are not Presidential Materials but have bought forms simply because the Presidency is zoned to the North.

He wondered why a Presidential Aspirant would declare that he is uncomfortable with Port Harcourt as a venue but would love Rivers oil.

He said: You come here to deceive us about restructuring. Just that Rivers State is a venue, you fight it. Then, when you are there, what will happen?

You think we are fools where you preach restructuring, then when you get the position, you abandon restructuring.

Governor Wike said that at the appropriate time, he will reveal the names of presidential aspirants working with the APC federal government to scuttle the presidential primary.

He added that no presidential aspirant would use a few members of the Board of Trustees of PDP to scuttle the decision of the party to host the presidential primary in Port Harcourt.

The governor described Governor Dankwambo as eminently qualified to contest the position of President. He said Dankwambo would be considered when Rivers delegates meet to decide on who to support.

Earlier, Gombe state governor and PDP presidential aspirant, Ibrahim Dankwambo called on Rivers PDP delegates to support his aspiration as he has the capacity to set the country on the path of growth.

He said that the crisis of development being suffered by the country is as a result of the leadership vacuum at the federal level.

While saying that he has the training, exposure and experience to lead the country in the right direction, Dankwambo urged Nigerians not to make the error of 2015 when they chose promises ahead of performance.

The presidential aspirant said that he would support whoever emerges as presidential candidate, should it turn out that party delegates vote in a different direction.

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Meanwhile, Legit.ng had previously reported that Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential aspirants allegedly opposed to the holding of the partys October 5 and 6 national convention in Port Harcourt were lambasted by the Rivers state governor, Nyesom Wike.

PDP's magnificent 7 for 2019 - on Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit.ng- The Nigerian Army vowed to find missing retired Maj.-Gen. Idris Alkali

- The Army said it will drain a pond in Du District to search for him

- It was claimed that the retired officer was pushed into the pond

The Nigerian Army has vowed to completely drain a particular mining pond in Du District of Jos local government area of Plateau, where it said it believed missing retired Maj.-Gen. Idris Alkali was pushed into.

Maj.-Gen Augustine Agundu, the commander of Operation Safe Haven, stated this on Wednesday, September 26, while giving update on the whereabouts of Alkali, a former chief of administration of the Army, declared missing since September 3. The senior officer retired from service on June 7 after 35 years.

READ ALSO: Breaking: Omisore forms alliance with APC for Osun rerun, gives reasons

Agundu, who spoke at the conclusion of the 2nd and 3rd combined Chief of Army Staff Conference in Abuja, explained that intelligence and investigation by the Army indicated that the missing general was pushed into the pond.

He further explained that on September 2, gunmen stormed a village in the district and killed 11 innocent people and wounded several others.

Agundu said the youth of the district reacted to the killing the following day - September 3 with protest by barricading the road and attacking motorists and other innocent citizens. He said it was believed Alkali was a victim of the protest.

Our deduction, therefore, is that Maj.-Gen. I. M. Alkali could have run into the protesting youth on September 3 in Du District as recorded by his cell phone.

Various eyewitnesses have attested to the fact that they saw a black car that was pushed into a mining pond," he said.

The operation safe Haven commander said there were about twenty ponds in the district, but that the army zeroed in on the particular one, where the missing senior officer was believed to have been pushed into.

Agundu said that the wife of the officer, Salamatu Alkali, drew the attention of the Army authorities to a suspected case of the missing senior officer on September 5. He said the wife stated that the retired officer left his home in Abuja for Bauchi on September 3 and he traveled without his driver and orderly but drove himself in a black Toyota Corrolla.

He said since the Army attention was drawn to the incident, it had been making efforts to locate Alkali. The commander urged Nigerians to ignore the campaign by one Idris Ahmed, residing abroad that the army was complicit in Alkalis disappearance and unconcerned about his missing.

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.

PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 new app

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The son of former president Olusegun Obasanjo, Abraham Olujonwo Obasanjo, has expressed his willingness to work for the re-election bid of President Muhammadu Buhari.

In a letter addressed to Festus Keyamo who is the director, strategic communications of President Buhari 2019 Presidential Campaign, the son of the former president called on Nigerian youths to support Buhari.

READ ALSO: Breaking: Omisore forms alliance with APC for Osun rerun, gives reasons

He said the Buhari government is serious about the country's development and called on all Nigerians to support him.

In the signed cover of the letter to Keyamo, Abraham Obasanjo wrote: "Dear Sir, please find attached a statement of my public declaration and support for the 2019 second term re-election bid of our highly esteemed President Buhari.

I have taken a personal decision to release the statement and to notify you of my availability to work for the re-election of our dear President Muhammadu Buhari with sincerity and loyalty.

Please accept my assurances of the highest regards.

Read his in full letter below:

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This is coming even though his father is opposed to Buharis re-election bid.

Recall that Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigeria's former president, on Tuesday, January 23, asked President Muhammadu Buhari, not to seek re-election in 2019 as he is already being pressured to do by some Nigerians.

In a statement: The Way Out: A Clarion Call for Coalition for Nigeria Movement, Obasanjo said President Buhari has performed far below expectation just as he added that the All Progressives Congress (APC) is not the solution to the country's challenges.

Nigeria Election 2019: What are Bukola Sarakis chances against President Buhari - on Legit.ng TV

Source: LegitDespite the appearance of the CalPERS board backing CEO Marcie Frost via granting her a salary increase and an $85,000 bonus and pointedly ignoring documents that clearly demonstrate that Frost made multiple misrepresentations during her hiring process and after she joined CalPERS, one of the adults in the room is not willing to sweep the scandal under the rug.

The Associated Press and the Sacramento Bee reported that Treasurer John Chiang has called for an independent investigation of Frost. As much as this is a big step forward, it begs the question of why Chiang is taking this move when the board does not meet again for two months. Is this to allow him to have it both ways, to say he tried to do the right thing in a way that may come to naught? The proof will come if he takes any follow up measures that show he is serious.

Regardless, Chiangs press release confirms that the allegations are serious enough that Frost and the board cannot try to brazen this controversy out and they need to have a truly independent investigation. Frost is already tainted and we are getting more and more reports from CalPERS employees of how they feel betrayed by the board by (until now) giving Frost a free pass.

And where, pray is the other designated adult in the room, Betty Yee? Why has she been been absent without leave? Shes a statewide elected official and a trustee, and shes evidenced no interest in doing what is right for CalPERS beneficiaries and California beneficiaries. Perhaps this dereliction of duty is the result of her being confident in her odds of being re-elected this November?

From the Treasurers website:

Since her appointment in June 2016, Marcie Frost has largely proven her competency as the CEO of the nations largest pension fund, and I have submitted extensive performance evaluations that reflect my favorable opinion of her. However, recent ethical questions are not so much focused on her work once on the job, but rather on how she got the job to begin with. Now, some are accusing her of knowingly and willfully making false and misleading statements regarding her pursuit of a college degree at the time she applied to CaIPERS. Others concede that the misstatements may have been the result of benign misunderstandings, but point to her benefitting from the misimpressions by failing to set the record straight in a timely way. I can no longer sit on the sidelines, watching how some have been quick to paint Ms. Frost as an untruthful villain, while others have too casually dismissed what are serious allegations. Both are a rush to judgement. As someone who has always favored evidence-based decision-making, I believe we must focus on a fact finding mission that ascertains what information was initially submitted and where that information was unfortunately distorted. Integrity and transparency matter. Ms. Frosts, as well as the pension systems long-term success depend on vigilantly maintaining the publics trust. Therefore, I am requesting we conduct an independent review  by a neutral third party  that removes any inherent bias that the Board, including myself, may have towards our CEO. This will allow us to say, with a straight face, that CalPERS does not act in an arbitrary manner. Once this independent firm reviews the allegations and reports its findings to the Board, we will have the objective information necessary to make an informed decision. An opaque process that lacks independent fact-finding, due process, and thoroughness is no way to conduct state business or resolve a situation impacting millions of members and billions of dollars. While I believe Ms. Frost has performed well in her role and hope she will be completely exonerated, my fiduciary responsibility to CalPERS and its nearly two million members must come first. We have a duty to follow the facts to whatever ends serve the best interests of our members. An organization with the strong reputation of CalPERS needs to have a leader with unimpeachable integrity. If we do nothing, we will be perpetuating a double standard. Worse yet, a cloud of controversy will continue to hang over the head of the nations largest public pension fund. Until that cloud is removed, pundits will continue to question the decisions made by its leadership.

This is a big step forward. The part that concerns me is that Chiang calls for the report to be given to the board. Why not the wider public?

Unfortunately, the press still is running interference for Frost. Even though the Associated Press was first out of the gate with this story, and in the headline and first paragraph cited Chiangs call for an investigation, it closed with:

The CEO, who led Washington states pension system before moving to California, is accused not of lying but of failing to correct a misperception.

This is simply not accurate. We have repeatedly shown documentary evidence showing misrepresentations by Frost, including her misrepresenting her educational status on a form sworn under the penalty of perjury in Washington. The Financial Times confirmed our reporting and even went out of its way to do so by headlining its story, CalPERS CEO Misstated Educational Background During Hiring Process. The Los Angeles Times, more politely, described how Frosts and CalPERS excuses dont add up:

Its implausible that the communications office simply fabricated the assertion that Frost was pursuing a dual bachelors and masters degree at Evergreen in 2016. More recently, the communications office has pointed a finger at Heidrick & Struggles. According to a document Webber reproduced, Heidrick & Struggles informed CalPERS in 2016 that Frost was currently matriculated in a dual degree program for a bachelors and masters degree at Evergreen. But where did that impression come from?

And Chiang acknowledges that: ..some are accusing her of knowingly and willfully making false and misleading statements.

The Associated Press story makes it sound as if this controversy is all about an unnamed blogger, ignoring that it has been widely picked up by the press, including Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal, and distorts what Chiang clearly said, by inaccurately claiming that The CEO, who led Washington states pension system before moving to California, is accused not of lying but of failing to correct a misperception.

And Adam Ashton minimized the importance of the Heidrick & Struggles report, which clearly stated that the Frost was currently matriculated in a dual bachelors/masters degree program, which Heidrick & Struggles clearly states, The accompanying report represents a composite of information furnished by the

candidate. Heidrick & Struggles, a top headhunter, has been downgraded by Ashton to being a mere consultant.

Ashtons story also includes lengthy quotes from board members Bill Slaton and Priya Mathur, with Slaton saying that Chiangs deputy had the opportunity to question Frost in her annual review (as if that is at all the same as an actual investigation), and Mathur, who defended the bribe-taking, now imprisoned former CEO Fred Buenrostro to the bitter end, saying that Frost is the right person to run CalPERS. Help me.

If you live in California, it is important to back Chiangs call for an investigation, since the the rest fo the CalPERS board, ex Margaret Brown, seems determined to keep doing the wrong thing. Underscore why this probe is essential, applaud his call for it to be independent and ask for the findings to be released to the public. Please write or e-mail Chiang at:

Mr. John Chiang

California State Treasurer

Post Office Box 942809

Sacramento, CA 94209-0001

john.chiang@treasurer.ca.gov

(916) 653-2995

It would be very helpful to write Betty Yee by including the letter to Chiang with a cover note asking why she has been silent on Frosts resume misrepresentations and hasnt joined Chiangs demand for an investigation. Or if this you are time-stressed, you can just cc her:

Ms. Betty Yee

California State Controller

P.O. Box 942850

Sacramento, California 94250-5872

(916) 445-2636

b.t.yee@sco.ca.gov

On the letter to Chiang be sure to cc:

Ms. Betty Yee

California State Controller

P.O. Box 942850

Sacramento, California 94250-5872

(916) 445-2636

Dr Richard Pan (Senator.Pan@senate.ca.gov.; fax 916- 651-4906 or 916-914-2179 and Freddie Rodriguez in the Assembly (Freddie@FreddieRodriguez.com; fax 909-902-9761).

Board President Priya Mathur (priya.priyamathur@gmail.com) on behalf of the CalPERS Board and Marcie Frost (Marcie.Frost@calpers.ca.gov).

Thanks so much!The CalPERS board has decided to fight the inevitable by backing CEO Marcie Frost even though her days are clearly numbered. The boards Performance, Compensation & Talent Management authorized a 4% salary increase and a $85,000 bonus payment yesterday which is sure to be ratified by the full board today.1

But as our story today shows more and more people are disturbed that Frost continues to get away with misrepresentations and performance exaggerations that go back much earlier than her time at CalPERS. People who have worked closely with Frost for many years in Washington are coming forward with first hand accounts of her poor performance and cover-ups.

Two employees of the Department of Retirement Systems (DRS), the back office/call center portion of the Washington state pension system where Frost worked for over a decade, contacted me to confirm the accuracy of our reporting on Marcie Frost and voice their concerns about her conduct and performance in Washington and its implications for CalPERS. As one put it, The taxpayers of California need to know the truth.

Both individuals spent many years at DRS and their tenures overlapped with that of Frost as Executive Director. Each at different times had substantial direct interaction with her and went to meetings and conferences with her. Each of them had also worked outside DRS. Through either direct experience at other agencies or having worked in interface roles with other agencies, they were also confident of the information one provided and the other was able to confirm about Frosts claims regarding her work at her employer prior to DRS, the Department of Labor & Industries.2

The bottom line is that Frost is a poor manager who is nevertheless, as one put it, cunning and very skilled at self promotion. Each source described multiple instances of how Frost took credit that was not warranted for her work early in career and grossly misrepresented her initiatives at DRS, falsely depicting efforts that were either failures or never completed as successes.

As one stated:

Marcie ran the agency like a high school student body  unprofessional, catty, and a con game. She was an incompetent and dysfunctional manager.

As the other wrote:

Everything you say in the CalPERS articles is spot on about Frost. She highly embellishes everything she touches and is untrustworthy to her employees and her organization for her own personal gain, and regularly throws people under the bus. Not unexpectedly, she schmoozes well with upper management. Many people I know would not recommend her for the CalPERS job and were actually surprised to hear she got the job.

The specific issues we will cover are Frosts poor management decisions, her misrepresentation and exaggeration of her supposed accomplishments, and her toxic management style.

Poor management decisions. After Frost returned to DRS in 2010, she decided to reorganize its call center. As you can imagine, the call center is the key interface between beneficiaries and DRS. It is not just their first but often their only channel for getting questions answered and problems resolved.

As readers may recall, DRS handles roughly 15 separate defined benefit pension plans, including those of teachers, judges, and firefighters, along with a defined contribution plan. Each of the defined benefit plans has its own terms and they are often complex. Historically, each plan had its own dedicated call center reps who were familiar with the idiosyncrasies of the plan they handled. The system had worked well for 20 years.

Frost decided to end the specialized call center teams and have every call center representative handle all plans. This radical change was implemented without giving the staff much in the way of additional training or upgrading the caliber of the staff. The apparent aim was to improve efficiency.

The initiative backfired. Not only did wait times rise and beneficiaries increasingly wind up having their calls go into voicemail, but even worse, the overloaded call center workers were making significant errors more often. One of several examples provided was of a retiring employee who had over $10,000 of accumulated vacation which would by default be paid out as a lump sum. Instead, he asked (as was permissible) to have it treated as deferred compensation and rolled over into his defined contribution account at DRS. Even though the call center agent said she was going to implement his request, the funds were paid to him, with 20% withheld, resulting in him paying more in taxes than necessary. He was not able to get DRS to reverse this transaction.

The misguided combining of call center operations also hurt other beneficiary service efforts. DRS also had a walk-in customer service center, where wait times had seldom been longer than ten minutes before Frosts reorganization. The queues increased greatly.

What did Frost do when confronted with these problems? She did not attempt to fix them, say by increasing training of the call center staff or undoing or partly undoing her reorganization (one option would be to re-create dedicated teams for the 3 or 4 biggest plans and have the rest handled by another group). She instead resorted to scapegoating and external image management.

Frost pressured the managers of the call center, getting them to write up the front line staff for their supposed performance failures, based on new metrics Frost had implemented, when in fact the new system imposed unreasonable demands on them. As one put it:

People in the call center were crying. They even left when they had no new job lined up. But Frost cherry picked data to present to the Governor [Jay Inslee], even though it was an utter failure.

Needless to say, high turnover in an operation where staff performance problems result in large measure from them lacking sufficient knowledge to execute a greatly expanded job scope is a recipe for continued poor results and higher expenses. New employees are guaranteed to need time to learn the required information and are likely to make mistakes. Hiring staffers in and of itself involves costs, plus new employees require training, yet another cost.

And the charge of cherry-picking data is credible since Frost has been doing that at CalPERS.

At the end of this post, weve embedded the slides from a presentation at the July 2018 offsite from the presumably most persuasive, two case studies Frost could show to demonstrate that her implementation of lean management techniques was paying off.

If you dont know any better, the slides look compelling. The problem is the underlying work is bogus.

Weve embedded the slides from the first of the two examples at the end of the post. They show an egregious case of data distortion.

CalPERS implemented alleged lean changes in its death benefits processing and the slides depict CalPERS as having achieved marked improvements, such as reducing the number of cases that took more than 45 days to process.

Why are the touted results clearly the result of cherry-picking?

CalPERS used an obviously cooked-up basis of comparison. Rather than take the same time period in successive years, CalPERS instead chose a set number of cases to examine (300 each) before and after a suspiciously-artbitrary-looking cutoff date, February 12. Under questioning, the presenters admitted the before cases included ones submitted in November and December.

Why does this matter? The beginning of November through end of January is certain to be the worst time of year in terms of efficiency for a government agency. First, you have a high density of holidays compared to the rest of the year (Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Martin Luther King Day). Output suffers due to distractions like holiday shopping, more interaction with family members, and even getting out of the mood to work. Second, many employees also take vacation days around these holidays (and recall that CalPERS employees have generous vacation allowances). So there was also almost certainly reduced manpower to process claims during this period.

Finally, even if this comparison had been constructed properly, a single iteration proves nothing. Any apparent improvement could be the result of sheer happenstance. You would need to have multiple properly-contructed comparisons before you could conclude anything.

The second case study, on purported improvements in the processing time of disability benefits, suffers from similar deficiencies. Again there is only one performance comparison. And there is no control for quality, such as proportion of claims rejected. Any improvement in turnaround could be due to rejecting more difficult cases, the same way that the fastest way to reduce average time per call in a call center is to hang up more often.

Even third party evaluators who have reason to be as nice as possible to CalPERS cant do enough in the way of porcine maquillage to hide what is going on. The normally very CalPERS-friendly Chief Investment Officer Magazine reported CalPERS Gets a D for Fixed Income Management, But B For Overall Program:Consultant Wilshire Associates also gives overall CalPERS leadership a C grade. If you click through and read the article, the reason for giving the giant pension fund a D in fixed income (vacancies in too many key roles) applies even more so to private equity, which accounts for more than half the investment risks and fees CalPERS incurs. So how exactly does that add up to an overall B grade, with leadership also getting a C?

Misrepresentation and exaggeration of accomplishments. The call center fiasco shows Frost misrepresenting a terrible outcome as a success. This is not an isolated case. Frost has a pattern of exaggerating results that goes well beyond acceptable apple-polishing.

Frost has represented herself repeatedly at conferences in Washington, and presumably also to CalPERS, as an expert in migrating systems off mainframes to desktops. That is flat out false:

DRS reliance on mainframes was not seen as a good thing. Marcie was going to all these IT conferences telling the audience how wed gotten off them. The IT staff from DRS at them would be poking each other in the ribs about her statements. We did have a huge number of projects to get off the mainframe, but we havent made any substantial progress. 90% to 95% of the IT processing power at DRS is still on the mainframe.

Another clear misrepresentation was one we cited on our website, that of Frost claiming she had implemented the first human resources IT system in the State of Washington:

Washington was one of the first states to adopt computer processing in the 1960s and 1970s, as you wrote earlier. It was her embellishment to claim that she had anything to do with a first implementation. And Labor & Industries [the department she worked in] was not the one that developed human resource systems. That was the Department of Personnel. The most she would have been responsible for was training for the rollout of a Department of Personnel systems program. The only other thing she might have referred is Labor & Industries working on their own version of a leave system (sick leave, vacation leave, etc) using the enterprise Department of Personnel data. But the creation of that interface would be considered a worst IT practice, not a best IT practice. It would be like a vendor modifying a Microsoft product. So predictably, that Labor & Industries system has had ongoing problems, even though the people at Labor & Industries would try to deny that. Employee leave balances were many times out of sync with the official Department of Personnel leave balances. This would result in people taking vacation leave for example, when they did not have the official balance to take the time off. It became challenging to manage at L&I. On top of that, when the Department of Personel made a change to their enterprise system, L&I had to scramble to change their system. It was an ongoing maintenance challenge.

Toxic management style. Frost was an abusive, scapegoating boss:

Marcie said she believed in six sigma type practices, such as the the leader-servant style of management, where low-level employees had a lot of authority, just like factory workers at Toyota could stop the production line if they saw something wrong happening. But what she would say and what she would do were two different things. She would regularly discredit and embarrass junior people before senior management. Morale plunged. Frost also is politically well connected and vengeful, so her victims and people who saw this sort of thing happening and were unhappy about it felt powerless to do anything about it.

If you look at LinkedIn, you can see a significant number of bios on it with short times of employment at DRS, which is not what youd expect from a government agency, since staffers get good benefits and have strong incentives to stay in order to get a pension. These insiders confirmed that DRS suffered from a high level of departures under Frost:

Turnover was much higher under Marcie since Marcie returned to DRS from WSECU around 2010. That is when Marcie reorganized the call center to everyone does everything, and people started getting written up. People were stressed out and leaving at higher rates than in the past. I am pretty confident you could confirm this from information you could get by FOIA, but Marcie admitted to it by her aggressive attacks on managers at DRS. Marcie blamed the turnover on the the human resources management and secondarily on the call center managers, accusing them of not creating a supportive environment. In actuality, the front-line phone reps were overwhelmed by the new demands and there was nothing their supervisors could do to change that. The higher turnover numbers were numbers that were reported to Governor Inslee on his performance measures so Marcie refused to take responsibility for the higher turnover and blamed the HR management. The head of HR eventually quit, and most people I know at DRS believe that it was directly due to Marcies unfair criticism and pressure.

The reports also suggest that the level of CalPERS employees contacting me about Frosts misrule is certain to rise. California civil servants are well protected from dismissal, and it would not be difficult to provide evidence of problems at CalPERS without exposing confidential information. So keeping Frost at the helm will guarantee a continuing flow of bad news about CalPERS.

____

1Frosts salary level last year was $318,000 and her bonus was $80,000.

2 The sources insisted on anonymity out of a belief that Frost would seek to retaliate and still had the connections in Washington to be able to do so. A third potential source backed out due to a stated fear of Frosts vindictiveness.By Lynn Parramore, Senior Research Analyst at the Institute for New Economic Thinking. Originally published at the Institute for New Economic Thinking website

A Nobel Prize-winning economist and the second-most-famous democratic socialist in America sit down together

New Yorkers crowded into historic Riverside Church on Monday evening where Anya Schiffrin of Columbia Universitys School of International and Public Affairs joined New Yorks 14th Congressional District candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Columbia Business School Professor Joseph Stiglitz, who is Schiffrins spouse, to discuss the countrys political and economic trajectories.

The 28-year-old Ocasio-Cortez, a democratic socialist, recently sent shock waves through the Democratic Party when she snatched a primary victory from powerful incumbent Joe Crowley. Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winner and author of several books, including The Price of Inequality, has been sharply critical of policies that exacerbate the divide between the rich and the rest.

Ocasio-Cortez spoke of the frustration she had witnessed of working class Americans sliding into poverty. She criticized the Democratic Party for not being more responsive to the problem of economic inequality and observed that many reluctant Trump voters shared anger with her supporters over the countrys economic divide.

Theres consensus that the rich are getting richer and poor are getting poorer, she said. The candidate noted that the party and the people have been parting ways too often, observing, for example, that 70% of all Americans and 84% of Democrats currently support an improved and expanded Medicare for all.

So why arent 84% of Democratic members of Congress cosponsoring this legislation right now? asked Ocasio-Cortez. She also called upon the party to develop a more comprehensive and intersectional argument for working people.

Among the topics discussed were climate change and fate of Puerto Rico, which suffered devastation from Hurricane Maria in 2017. The candidate blasted politicians and financiers whom she said were trying to drive Puerto Ricans away so that they could turn the island into a resort, adding that what was needed instead was a new Marshall Plan for Puerto Rico and a future-based program of 100% renewable energy. (See Martin Guzman: Puerto Rico is Getting Squeezed).

The issue of racism threaded many of the evenings discussions. Ocasio-Cortez accused President Trump of opening racial wounds in order to distract from runaway income inequality. During an exchange on Mexico, the candidate said that Trump had opened Pandoras Box of racial tension. When Stiglitz asked for her view of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), she did not mince words.

We know that NAFTA really set up the slide of the Democratic Party for thirty years, she said, faulting the policy for creating environmental imbalances and exacerbating economic inequality. Gains of trade should be enjoyed by all workers who helped create those gains, she insisted.

Both Stiglitz and Ocasio-Cortez emphasized that issues of race, the economy, and the environment were intertwined. The candidate cited Hurricane Katrina, which battered New Orleans in 2005, as disaster capitalism at its finest. She decried a situation in which a city was allowed to be ravaged by a storm, neglected in recovery, and its people left worse off than they were before. She criticized the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for focusing on rebuilding what was there before the storm instead of looking for sustainable solutions and a just transition that focused on peoples needs and updating infrastructure.

On racial and economic justice, Stiglitz added, Martin Luther King put it very strongly that those two are really two sides of the same coin.

Schiffrin observed that programs like Medicare for all and free college tuition would not be possible in a world in which companies refuse to pay taxes. Stiglitz added that the Republicans 2017 tax bill, when fully implemented, would raise taxes on the majority of people in the middle class to finance a tax cut for the corporations and the billionaires. He said that the same people who resisted a stimulus in 2009-10, citing fears of the deficit, were now fine with adding trillions to the deficit to finance a tax cut for the rich.

Ocasio-Cortez, calling the tax bill a wealth transfer from working people to the very rich, asked why it is that this type of transfer was business as usual when any wealth transfer in the reverse would be deemed inconceivable.

Stiglitz touched upon the problem of student debt, noting that it has ballooned to one-and-a-half trillion dollars. Whats striking over the last five to ten years, he said, is that there has been almost no new lending. Its mostly just compound interest on the debt that had already accumulated. Ocasio-Cortez expressed outrage that an entire generation was delaying the milestones of getting a house, getting married, or buying a car and that student debt was having a profound dragging effect on economic activity.

Stiglitz emphasized that other countries with fewer resources were able to give young people greater access to education, noting such investment was a matter of choice. Its not that we cant afford it, he said. Weve been making some very bad choices which are putting into jeopardy our future economy and the wellbeing of large portions of our country.

When asked about what she could do in Congress to address the problems discussed, Ocasio-Cortez observed that much depended on the outcome of the midterm elections and the future composition of the House and Senate. But solutions, she noted, had to come from the mass mobilization of organizing. Women in Congress, she noted, were not leading the MeToo movement, but rather acting as part of it in response to the mobilization and protesting of constituents. That why people needed to stay, as she put it, loud and active.

Stiglitz pointed out that the types of candidates both parties were supporting in the midterms would set the stage for 2020. Ocasio-Cortez agreed, noting the importance of Democrats having messages that energize people and drive them to organize, much as Republicans had learned to do. We need to be unafraid to take strong moral stances, she said.

If we dont find a way to win against this administration? I mean, come on! said Ocasio-Cortez. This should be a slam-dunk, and we dont have to be afraid of alienating people with morally reprehensible views.

Schiffrin, noting that the Upper West Side, where the event was held, had been a bastion of American socialism, asked the candidate if she considered it a moral choice to be a socialist.

Ocasio-Cortez responded by stating her commitment to acknowledge the world as it is but to fight for it as it should be. A moral economy is one in which a nation that is exceedingly wealthy can work towards the economic dignity of all people, she said.

On an evening in which news of Judge Brett Kavanaugh, President Trumps nominee for the Supreme Court, had flooded the headlines, Schiffrin asked the candidate to weigh in on this topic and the position of women in the country. Ocasio-Cortez said the situation with Kavanaugh had been retraumatizing for women. She called the MeToo movement an awakening because women were able to recognize behavior as abusive that had long been normalized. She described the actions of Senate Republicans who had sought to speed up Kavanaughs confirmation after learning of accusations against him as unforgivable and wondered at a party that has a harder time nominating women than people accused of sexual assault. 

Stiglitz closed out the discussion asking Ocasio-Cortez to comment on how women were currently impacting the political scene. The rage of women, she said, had been concentrated in the political process and noted, to thunderous applause, that 256 women have been nominated for the House and Senate in 2018.Why Did the Ancients Bury Their Dogs like Family Members? Nautius (David L)

Paradise Wildlife Parks snow leopard surprised at new camera BBC

Via Truck And Helicopter, Mountain Goats Find New Home NPR (David L)

How some animals use the Earths magnetic field to navigate Economist (David L)

Were moving to higher ground: Americas era of climate mass migration is here Guardian (David L)

AP Explains: The US push to boost quantum computing Associated Press

Walmart to salad growers: If you want to sell, you have to blockchain Los Angeles Times (David L)

Mosquitoes Genetically Modified To Crash Species That Spreads Malaria NPR (David L)

The Cat Who Could Predict Death Vice (David L). About more than the cat.

Saving liberal democracy from the extremes Martin Wolf, Financial Times

China?

British cave divers also rescued four trapped Thai rescuers in Tham Luang Cave Darkness Below

Merkel loses key ally in conservative rebellion Politico

Opinion: German Chancellor Angela Merkels time coming to an end DW

Brexit

Theresa May rejects calls for a general election over Brexit Sky. Not a surprise if you have been paying attention. The last thing the Tories and DUP want to do is lose control of the Government. UK Brexit proposal would spell end of Europe, says Bruno Le Maire Financial Times. Pretty unfortunate that the Government cannot grasp the meaning of simple words like no.

New Cold War

How Russia Helped Swing the Election for Trump New Yorker. UserFriendly: God, just shoot me. Even taking the premise russia did hack; Its all Russias fault for leaking, not Hillarys for saying them in the first place.

Putins Quest for Growth Spells Doom for Russias Iconic Railcars Wall Street Journal :-(

President-Elect of Mexicos Bombshell: Economy in Situation of Bankruptcy Wolf Richter. EM Ha, imagine the hue and cry that would have a arisen had a certain recent US president insisted on similar total-compensation restrictions on execs at bailed-out US banks. (To say nothing of actually prosecuting the leaders of the TBTF fraud cartels.)

Syraqistan

Drought Plagues Afghanistan Washington Post (Bill B) US warns Iran of hell to pay if crossed BBC. Someone should tell Bolton this is not how a powerful country behaves.

Big Brother is Watching You Watch

Tariff Tantrum

Trump Transition

Kavanaugh

Campaign Snapshot: Maine Race Is a Test of Democrats Rural Appeal Bloomberg

#TheFutureIsVoting

Millennials will be the largest voting bloc in 2020. They love Bernie. 42% of Americans identify as Independents. They love Bernie. 29% of Americans identify as Democrats. They love Bernie. POLL

How can Democratic Rising Star Kamala Harris get their votes?  Peter Douche's Liaison (@SilERabbit) September 25, 2018

Where Did the Children Go? Intercept. GlennF:

From the article: Carlisle, and hundreds of federally funded boarding schools like it, were key to the U.S. governments project of destroying Indigenous nations and indoctrinating children with military discipline and U.S. patriotism.

Fake News

Facebooks New Propaganda Partners FAIR (UserFriendly) No News Is Good NewsJacob Silverman, The Baffler. UserFriendly: Facebook is hiring the most awful people. Yes, let's get back to those halcyon days of "normal news," like the Iraq War, Katrina, the financial crisis, bailouts, no prosecutions of Wall St, the BP spill, Hurricane Sandy, widening inequality & Dems losing every level of government while MSNBC pundits made millions https://t.co/tILiLpjVMS  David Sirota (@davidsirota) September 26, 2018

Gunz

Dominos offered Russians a lifetime of pizzas if they got tattoos of the company logo  and then they had to shut down the offer because too many people got inked Business Insider. UserFriendly: ROFL I would totally have done this. Free food for a not totally ugly tattoo?

Top Uber Deal Maker Disciplined After Probe Into Office Conduct Wall Street Journal. Including this because Hubert Horan had said that all the elements of Ubers culture that were the cause of bad press and calls for reform are the very same ones that were critical to its success, such as it is (losing money hand over fist). So failing to change behavior is entirely expected.

Exploring the effectiveness of social media  Part 3 Bill Mitchell (UserFriendly). On Modern Monetary Theory . I was invited to speak at this weekends conference but cant even attend due to a host of reasons.

This is my greatest honor to date. pic.twitter.com/aGMKpkmSVE  Deep Cultist (@NathanTankus) September 24, 2018

To try to keep up with orders, Tesla is building its own car carriers Autoblog (EM)

Class Warfare. Notice how Kavanaugh has crowded out class warfare stories? That is not an accident.

Antidote du jour. A 2016 submission I missed! Hope Phil H has not given up on us.

Visiting 17 year old cicada. Taken a few days ago at our place in NE Ohio. We live at the edge of a woods & wake each morning to the raspy thrum of thousands of cicadas calling to each other. I expect the brood is passing its peak as the volume seems to be a bit less these days, & were now finding the scattered carcases of expired insects on the deck. Those are presumably the ones that have finished with their reproductive duties. Perhaps next year I can send you some raccoon photos. As I recall, 17 years ago the cicada year was followed by a raccoon population explosion year. Lots of hungry raccoons found our decks potted plants a possible source of grubs  after removing those pesky plants!

See yesterdays Links and Antidote du Jour here.By Josh Owens, the Content Director at Oilprice.com. Originally published at OilPrice

While Washington slaps another $200 billion worth of tariffs on Chinese goods with one hand, it is offering a $330-million weapons deal to Taiwan with the other  adding yet more fuel to the U.S.-China trade war fire.

The U.S. State Department has approved the sale of F-16 fighter plane parts and other military aircraft to Taiwan in a deal worth up to $330 million, leading Beijing to suggest that the move will hinder any efforts at cooperation on tariffs.

This is where U.S.-China relations really could hit a boiling point, with China claiming self-ruled Taiwan as its territory and Washington threatening to disrupt the status quo.

The Pentagon says the deal would contribute to the foreign policy and national security of the United States, recognizing Taiwan as an important force for political stability, military balance and economic progress in the region.

But to Beijing, its a very thinly veiled threat, and where it concerns Taiwan, the view in the mainland is that this is a breakaway province that must be brought back into the fold, even if that means through the use of force. So selling weapons to Taiwan is a call to arms.

We urge the U.S. side  to immediately cancel this deal and cut off military ties with Taiwan to avoid doing serious damage to China-U.S. relations, peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and cooperation between U.S. and China in important areas, Chinas Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a press briefing on Tuesday. The same sentiment was issued by the Chinese Defense Ministry.

Chinas Vice Commerce Minister Wang Shouwen said at a news conference on Tuesday that on trade, the U.S. was putting a knife to Chinas neck. Adding a Taiwanese weapons sale to Trumps trade attacks is only adding pressure to that knife.

Of course, its a major victory for Taiwan, which views the proposed deal as a prop for helping it face security challenges from Beijing. Its also a very bold new commitment on the part of Washington to the Taiwan Relations Act.

Its a tricky relationship because the U.S. does not have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, in accordance with the One China policy. In 1979, Washington recognized Beijing as the sole government of China. But the Taiwan Relations Act muddies these waters and offers support short of diplomatic recognition.

The Trump administration has been all over Taiwan, where others have been more cautious in the past about ruffling Chinas feathers. If this new $330-million deal goes through, it will be the second big arms package for Taiwan in two yearsunder Trump. Last year, it was a $1-billion deal.

But this time around, the timing is more poignant.

On midnight Monday, the Trump administration put into effect another round of tariffs targeting $200 billion in Chinese goodsraising the total tariff target on Chinese goods to $250 billion. He also threatened additional tariffs on $267 billion in new goods, which would cover almost everything that comes out of China.

But cooperation is now at stake, far beyond trade, according to Chinese analysts cited by the South China Morning Post.

Beijing is much more confident now, and its in a better position to take countermeasures than it was before, SCMP quoted Shen Dingli, director of the Programme on Arms Control and Regional Security at Fudan University in Shanghai, as saying.

The U.S. has to work with other countries, including China, in areas like counterterrorism, non-proliferation, anti-money laundering and infectious disease control, he said. It cant expect China to cooperate whenever it makes a demand while it is hurting Chinas interests.The new LaGuardia Airport will be one of the biggest American infrastructure projects of recent times. The catch? They must keep the existing airport 100% operational without descending into chaos and delays?

Thursdays from 8:30pm AEDT.A charity Miles for Michael cycle/walk takes place in Tipperary town on Sunday, October 7 at 10am in aid of the Michael Mullan Cancer Fund.

26-year old Michael Mullan from Eadestown Kildare is fighting cancer for the third time and is currently out-living a diagnosis of 6-months left to live on his 24th birthday.

Michaels mother Patricia grew up in Breansha and he is the nephew of Dick and Carmel Donovan, Breansha, Tipperary Town.

When Michael was 16-months old he was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a cancer affecting his adrenal glands and stomach.

At the time there was a one in four chance of survival but after chemotherapy, surgery and a bone marrow transplant he remained cancer free until the age of 22. He was studying in his final year at Trinity when he was diagnosed with renal cell cancer that required a partial nephrectomy, surgery to remove a third of a kidney, on his 22nd birthday. Despite the treatment and recovery time, Michael graduated that year with a first class honours and was awarded a scholarship to Harvard. Four months into his masters at Harvard in Boston, 24-year old Michaels dreams were crushed again with his third cancer diagnosis metastasized renal cell cancer with a life expectancy of six months.

At 24 years of age Michael had to make a choice between fighting cancer for the third time with debilitating treatment or making the most of his last six months on earth? He chose to fight and after an unsuccessful chemotherapy treatment he took a leap of faith with a new immunotherapy treatment. Although the immunotherapy kept the cancer from spreading, it was extremely tough resulting in liver damage and 3.5 stone weight loss forcing Michael to give up his studies at Harvard and to take a break from all cancer treatments.

With a tremendous resilience Michael began a new-targeted chemotherapy called Cabozantinib but due to visa and health insurance restrictions he also had to resume his studies at Harvard despite undergoing chemotherapy.

Remarkably, and with the help of his girlfriend Melissa who waited outside every one of his classes with a blue sick bag and a wheelchair, Michael completed his thesis from his hospital bed and graduated from Harvard Law in May 2017. However, to keep the cancer at bay, he has to stay in the US to continue maintenance treatment that is not available in Ireland. His medical insurance covers part of the cost but there are still substantial fees that are not covered. Michael would not be alive today if he had not got this specialised treatment. Because he was a student, he had health insurance and as long as he is a student he can retain his student visa to remain in the US and he can keep the health insurance to continue his cancer treatment."

Michael and his partner Melissa currently live in Washington DC where Michael is enrolled as a PhD student in the law school at the American University.

Michaels extraordinary fight against cancer has a back-story of a life-long dedication to helping others. Michael often visited St. Johns cancer ward in Crumlin where he was treated as a baby, with presents for the patients. He volunteered with the Irish Teenage Cancer Trust, Harvards Disability Project, assisted victims of crimes in court and helped out with Best Buddies.

He helped organise Kildares Relay for Life which raised 30K and Michael's parents have also been instrumental in setting up the Ronald McDonald housing in Our Lady's Children's Hospital, Crumlin. Following Michael's treatment for neuroblastoma, his family and friends came together to give back to the hospital in 1994 and 1995 raising over 50,000 in total. This was used to help with the construction of the Ronald McDonald parent accommodation unit.

Michael has dedicated his personal and professional life to helping those most vulnerable in society. So it is with a heart-felt humility that fundraising is now taking place to help Michael continue his maintenance treatment to beat cancer for the third time.

The 40K cycle or 5K walk leaves Sean Tracey Park, Tipperary Town on Sunday October 7, at 10am. Registration is from 9am. The walk is 20 and the cycle is with donation. Kids go free. For sponsorship cards contact Dick Donovan on 086 314 0722 or Email niamh.donovan@gmail.com

Michael and his partner Melissa say they deeply appreciate all the vital fundraising work being done by friends and communities in Ireland, which is crucial in enabling him to continue to battle cancer.

If youd like to donate online to help towards Michaels ongoing treatment go to gofundme Michael Mullan Cancer Fund.On Wednesday, September 12th, the now annual Cycle Against Suicide Ambassador Schools Awards ceremony was held at the honourable society of Kings Inns, Dublin.

These awards recognised the immense efforts of 99 schools around the island of Ireland who have completed the Ambassador Schools Programme, and became actively involved in mental health promotion.

The Ambassador Schools Programme is one aspect of a wide range of Cycle Against Suicide initiatives and programmes, 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 Its OK not to feel OK; and its absolutely OK to ask for help.

The programme provides a framework for schools to integrate mental health activities into the school plan, and rewards schools who go the extra mile. The programme also aims to recognise innovative and effective initiatives, and facilitates schools to share and showcase good practice.

At the special reception, Cashel Community School was awarded the prestigious status of Ambassador School by Cycle Against Suicide in recognition of their fulfilment of the Five Gears, and their exceptional commitment to the promotion of positive mental health. CCS was represented at the event by Link Teachers Ms. Ann-Marie Ryan and Ms. Nicola Gilmore and students Aoife Linehan and Jack Currivan, who understandably are very proud of their achievements.

The Ambassador Schools Awards ceremony was a great day. Its wonderful to attend such a positive event, and have the efforts of the students recognised. Our participation in the Ambassador Schools Programme has had an enormously positive impact on our school community, fostered a school-wide approach to the promotion of positive mental health, and provided incredible opportunities for student leadership said Ms. Ryan speaking at the event. Minister of State for European Affairs Helen McEntee, Dr. Harry Barry author and mental health expert and Adam Weaver actor and musician presented the awards to students on what was a very positive enjoyable day for all involved.NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg paid tribute to the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and outlined NATOs role in the fight against terrorism in a speech at the National September 11 Memorial and Museum on Wednesday (26 September 2018). The Alliance invoked its collective defence clause  Article 5 of the Washington Treaty  for the first time in support of the United States, after 9/11.

"In the days that followed 9/11, NATO planes helped to patrol American skies. Soon after, troops from NATO Allies deployed to Afghanistan, to prevent that country from ever again becoming a safe haven for international terrorists," said the Secretary General. He stressed that NATO Allies continue to stand with the United States, training Afghan security forces and providing surveillance aircraft to the US-led Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS. Mr. Stoltenberg noted that NATO is boosting its contribution to the fight against terrorism, with a new training mission in Iraq and more support for partners, such as Jordan and Tunisia. Training local forces is one of the best weapons we have in the fight against terrorism, he said.

Warning that terrorism comes in many forms, the Secretary General recalled that the 2011 attacks in Norway were perpetrated by a white Norwegian. He stressed that to fight terrorism, we need military might, but also political, diplomatic and social tools. Our response to terrorism  in all its forms  wherever it appears  is to unite around our values, and stand up for our open and free societies, he said.

The Secretary General also thanked the National September 11 Memorial for giving NATO an important piece of American history: a piece of twisted steel from the Twin Towers, which is displayed at the Alliances headquarters in Brussels as the 9/11 and Article 5 Memorial. Mr. Stoltenberg announced that one of the Survivor Tree seedlings will soon be planted at NATO headquarters, in honour of fallen Allied armed forces. The Survivor Tree is a Callery pear tree which survived the 9/11 attacks and was nursed back to health.

The Secretary General presented two gifts to the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum: a photograph of the alliance's 9/11 and Article 5 Memorial, and a copy of NATO's Founding Treaty. He underlined that these gifts enshrine the enduring bond between Europe and North America and the Alliances commitment to its core values of democracy, freedom and the rule of law.

The Secretary General is concluding a three day trip to New York, where he took part in the opening of the UN General Assembly and met with several world leaders.(Natural News) Acute pancreatitis can be treated with Chinese ginseng (Panax notoginseng) according to a study published in the journal BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

Researchers from Kunming Medical University and its affiliated hospitals in Kunming, China looked at the protective effects of Chinese ginseng extracts against acute pancreatitis. In conducting the study, they first gave Chinese ginseng extract to mice by intravenous injection. After two hours, they administered taurocholate to induce severe acute pancreatitis.

The next day, they measured the expression levels of miR-181b, microtubule-associated protein II light chain 3 (LC3-II), myosin-like B-cell lymphoma 2 (Blc-2) interacting protein (Beclin1), protein kinase B (Akt), and mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) signaling pathways involved in the regulation of autophagy, which indicates the development of pancreatitis.

The research team also measured the expression levels of Caspase-3 and Blc-2 and amylase and lipase levels. In addition, they assessed apoptosis and conducted a histological analysis.

The results of the study revealed that Chinese ginseng increased the miR-181b expression level, which led to a significant reduction of pancreatic injury and autophagy and increases in apoptosis. It also prevented the formation of autophagosomes. The formation of autophagosomes plays a role in the development of pancreatitis and Chinese ginseng extract inhibited this.

In addition, the treatment improved pancreatitis by reducing autophagy activation via increasing the mTOR/Akt pathway. It also reduced Bcl-2 expression, blocked autophagosome markers Beclin1 and LC3-11, and enhanced Caspase-3 expression. Moreover, the Chinese ginseng extract substantially reduced lipase and amylase levels.

These results provide evidence on the protective effects and the potential of Chinese ginseng as a treatment for acute pancreatitis. (Related: TCM herb found to be effective at treating pancreatitis.)

Other benefits of Chinese ginseng

Chinese ginseng is used in traditional Chinese medicine in treating various diseases. Chinese ginseng is also referred to as San Qi, which means Three Seven. The name comes from the belief that the herb is more effective when harvested between three and seven years after planting. It is said that the best quality Chinese ginseng is grown in southern China. Wenshan in Yunnan province and Jingxi in the province of Guanxi have moderate temperatures and enough rainfall to grow the finest Chinese ginseng.

Chinese ginseng can relieve pain: In traditional Chinese medicine, poor blood circulation may be the cause of aches and pains. Chinese ginseng is said to improve blood flow, thereby relieving pain.

In traditional Chinese medicine, poor blood circulation may be the cause of aches and pains. Chinese ginseng is said to improve blood flow, thereby relieving pain. Chinese ginseng helps stop bleeding: Chinese ginseng is widely used in traditional Chinese medicine to treat traumatic injuries and different kinds of bleeding. It can be used to make a drink that promotes the healing of small scrapes and cuts.

Chinese ginseng is widely used in traditional Chinese medicine to treat traumatic injuries and different kinds of bleeding. It can be used to make a drink that promotes the healing of small scrapes and cuts. Chinese ginseng may help in growth and development: Chinese ginseng is also believed to promote the growth of children during puberty. This may be due to its ability to promote circulation and prevent blood stasis, which in turn, improves the flow of nutrients to the bones and body.

Chinese ginseng is also believed to promote the growth of children during puberty. This may be due to its ability to promote circulation and prevent blood stasis, which in turn, improves the flow of nutrients to the bones and body. Chinese ginseng is a remedy for women after giving birth: This herb can be helpful to women who have given birth, because of its ability to inhibit excessive bleeding and postnatal discharge. However, it should not be used in the middle of pregnancy.

This herb can be helpful to women who have given birth, because of its ability to inhibit excessive bleeding and postnatal discharge. However, it should not be used in the middle of pregnancy. Chinese ginseng is good for the heart: This herb can lower cholesterol levels. According to studies, Chinese ginseng can help lessen chest pain caused by coronary heart disease.

Read more news stories and studies on natural treatments for pancreatitis by going to ChineseMedicine.news.

Sources include:

Science.news

EuYanSang.com.sg(Natural News) Googles secret plan to undermine President Trumps travel ban has just been leaked. According to reports, the Big Tech behemoth conspired to manipulate search results in an effort to rally against Trumps travel ban. Fox News host and Daily Caller co-founder Tucker Carlson has uncovered internal emails which show Google employees brainstormed ideas for manipulating search results to take on the Trump administration in perhaps the most unethical way possible: By turning their search engine into a propaganda-pushing machine.

Google claims that they never actually acted out their plans to manually engineer search results on specific topics like Iran or Islam, but their plot to deceive users remains in question. Is Google using their status to influence users and push their political agenda  or perhaps more accurately, would Google actually admit to doing such a thing?

As The Daily Caller reports, Mackenzie Thomas, a Google product marketing manager, sent an email to other Google employees that read: There is a large brainstorm going on throughout the marketing org, on January 29, 2017. Thomas went on to suggest ways for Google employees to actively counter algorithmically biased results, specifically regarding search results for terms like Islam, Iran, Mexico and Latino.

Bias in the land of the Left really just means search results that contradict our preferred narrative.

Search engine algorithms are mathematical calculations carried out by computers  they are virtually incapable of bias as we know it. Further, given that Googles algorithms are designed by and large by liberals, its likely that their tech is already biased to the Left. And they still arent liking what they see.

Shortly after taking office, President Trump issued his now famous travel ban. Almost immediately, Google employees began plotting ways to undermine the presidents executive order, Carlson stated.

In other words, Google employees wanted to alter search results to make them more positive, for political reasons. Thomas also suggested promoting links for making donations to organizations fighting the travel ban, he explained further.

To make matters worse, other employees had no qualms about joining in on Thomas plan to manipulate and deceive the public in order to promote their left-wing agenda. A reply from Google product manager Rami Banna read, Were absolutely in, Mackenzie. Anything you need. Will put together a list of orgs with Meryl and H-L team.

In response to the damning report by Carlson, Google gave the following statement to Fox News:

These emails were just a brainstorm of ideas, none of which 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. Our processes and policies would not have allowed for any manipulation of search results to promote political ideologies.

It seems that Google doesnt see any issue with its employees planning to alter search results to fit their agenda, provided they can still find a way to weasel their way out of taking blame. While Google may say its against code to promote political ideologies, one might ask if countering biased algorithms is within their policy. Theres more than one way to cook an egg, after all.

It wasnt the first attempt to alter information

Googles far-left bias has been exposed repeatedly, especially in recent times. From the firing of James Damore for speaking out about his political values, to the rigging of search results during the 2016 election, to the companys failure to condemn political violence, there is no shortage of fodder for Googles dumpster fire.

See more coverage of left-wing lunacy at Libtards.news.

Sources for this article include:

DailyCaller.com

WSJ.com(Natural News) The Scandinavian cesspool of leftism known as Sweden is systematically committing cultural suicide  and its all because of the radical feminists in charge who insist upon handing the country over to Islamic refugees from Africa and the Middle East who care nothing about the native culture, and who are raping and murdering native Swedes at an alarming rate.

The bold and always blunt Paul Joseph Watson addresses this ongoing total collapse of Sweden in a recent video available for viewing at Brighteon.com. Watson highlights the utter hypocrisy of the virtue-signaling feminist government of Sweden, the policies of which are making an already serious problem that much worse.

How could I forget about my favorite country  he only country to have a feminist government while being the rape capital of the continent, Watson jokes about the utter lunacy of whats going on in Sweden these days. Sweden has come up with a novel, new way of addressing its rampant rape problem. Stop importing the rapists? No. Arrest and fine the people who complain about it.

Be sure to watch the full eye-opening video at Brighteon.com below:

Native Swedes are being persecuted by their government for pointing out the new Muslim rape and crime culture of Sweden

Watson points out a slew of noteworthy cases in which native Swedes have been targeted, arrested, and even fined by the countrys feminist government, simply for pointing out that the continued importation of Muslim refugees is causing massive problems for Swedish society.

A 55-year-old Swedish man, for instance, was recently fined the U.S. equivalent of $1,265 for committing a crime of opinion after he wrote on Facebook about how Sunni Muslims are responsible for much of the gang-related crimes and rapes being committed in Sweden.

A Swedish police officer is also under investigation for merely observing and pointing out that foreign-born offenders are largely responsible for Swedens prolific gang-rape problem, which has soared to epic proportions ever since Swedens feminists decided to embrace the politically correct stance that native Swedes dont belong in their own country.

There are people actually being prosecuted for telling the truth, Watson reveals.

80-page investigation found that 95.6 percent of rapes and 90 percent of group rapes in Sweden are committed by men from the Middle East and Africa

Since the feminist Swedish government refuses to actually track crime statistics, a 40-year-old former truck driver decided to take matters into his own hands to identify the culprits who are committing the most crimes in Sweden. He found that almost all of the rapes and gang rapes against women in Sweden are being committed by refugees from the Middle East and Africa.

These figures are based on statistics from 4,142 separate rulings regarding sex-related crimes that were issued by 40 different Swedish courts between 2012 and 2014, its important to note.

Two out of three rapes with aggravated circumstances were committed by newly arrived migrants or approved asylum seekers, Watson says. Official crime statistics show that reported rapes have increased 34 percent in the last 10 years  but dont worry, because Swedens feminist government is fighting back  by changing sexist street names, he mocks.

Sweden is so politically correct, Watson further points out, that:

The police responded to a recent wave of grenade attacks, including grenade attacks against police stations, by expressing concern for those who pulled the pin.

It hired a Muslim migrant to be the head of its national heritage board  a guy who admits he hasnt read anything about cultural heritage, and opposes Swedes who want to protect their culture. Meanwhile, iron age Viking artifacts are being declared meaningless and melted down.

One of its leading cultural journalists says Swedes dont deserve their own national day, and that nationalism should be wiped out.'

And on and on it goes in the peoples police state of Sweden, which is quickly turning into just another Muslim-dominated culture dominated by Sharia Law.

Be sure to watch the full video with Paul Joseph Watson at Brighteon.com.

Sources for this article include:

Brighteon.com

NaturalNews.com(Natural News) Over the past several days Project Veritas has published a number of videos featuring its undercover journalists exposing Deep State operatives within various federal agencies. On Tuesday, the group released another video, and its every bit the bombshell the previous videos have been.

The latest video  the fourth in the series thus far  features two people identified as employees of the Internal Revenue Service claiming that the agencys former commissioner, John Koskinen, actually deleted emails so as to hide them from investigators so he could cover up a major IRS scandal.

As reported by Breitbart News, the two employees are seen condoning the IRS unjust treatment of conservative non-profit groups in the run-up to the 2012 election, and one seems to affirm allegations that the former IRS commissioner appointed by Barack Obama deleted evidence to cover up that scandal.

One of the named employees is identified as IRS lawyer Jerry Semasek who said mistakes were made in the way the agency handled the discrimination scandal involving several 501(c)(4) non-profit organizations that had names like tea party or patriots in them. Those groups, it was later revealed, were singled out for additional scrutiny and in some cases denied non-profit status or had it delayed so they could not engage in political activities supporting conservative candidates during the election cycle.

As government watchdog Judicial Watch noted, President Obamas IRS was used against his political opponents to help him win reelection.

Said Semasek on the video: The law requires that an organization cant be political, it cant be partisan to be tax exempt Those employees in Cincinnati, Ohio, started to separate them and put them in a pile. And it turns out that they were like the Tea Party group of people.

He noted further, And I think they did, like Lois Lerner and maybe some of her employees were more liberal-leaning or Democrats so I dont know if they disallowed them, but they required them to produce more documentation to try to prove that they werent partisan.

I dont care if its a crime

In a separate meeting, an undercover journalist from PV engages with a man identified as Thomas Sheehy, an IRS tax examiner and member of the Austin [Texas] Democratic Socialists of America. In the video, he appears to heap praise on former IRS Commissioner Koskinen for the way he handled the scandal, saying he could not be held to account because he deleted all the emails.

Conservatives got really mad at him, says Sheehy. He was so cool, though, because he deleted all the emails so they could not hold any evidence against him.

At the time, Congress had subpoenaed all emails related to the targeting scandal, but Koskinen repeatedly ignored the subpoenas. Eventually, he claimed they were backed up on tapes but then the tapes magically disappeared three weeks later  destroyed, along with all the evidence GOP lawmakers were seeking.

Democrats at the time dismissed allegations that what Koskinen did amounted to a scandal and impeachable offense, claiming they were baseless Republican attacks, in the words of Rep. Elijah Cummins, D-Md.

Yeah, I dont give a s**t if that is a crime for doing that becauseyou should increased scrutiny to [Tea Party] groups because a lot of them are just f**king fronts for the Koch brothers or whatever, Sheehy said.

The tax examiner said what other federal employees outed by Project Veritas in its Deep State series have said: There are more Democratic Socialists working at the IRS besides himself. That, and he and the others also take advantage of lax oversight to conduct DSA business while on the taxpayers dime.

As our Deep State investigation continues to unfold, four government agencies have responded resulting in the removal of two federal employees from their job duties. Stay tuned to see which Government Agency we unmask next, said PV founder James OKeefe.

Read more about the notorious Deep State and its subversion of our governing system at DeepState.news.

Sources include:

FederalNewsRadio.com

Breitbart.com(Natural News) If crinkled leaves and lower yield are all farmers are worried about while spreading cancerous pesticides on millions of acres of farms, were all in big trouble. After all, killing weeds is big business, but killing bees, butterflies and humans, well, thats nothing to consider at all, according to biotechnology monster corporations like Bayer (which now owns Monsanto). Yes, all the sleezy chemical agriculture shills are slithering around the internet, pushing out the Crop Science propaganda about Dicamba all over their huckster websites and blogs, including via Genetic Literacy Project, a shameless chem-ag apologist front-group for Monsanto.

After complaints rolled in the past few years about the high drift and volatility of the controversial weed killer concoction Dicamba, Bayers shills and charlatans figure theyll put some new words in the EPA officials mouths (and probably some money in their pockets) to change the label on their 60-million-pound-a-year poison they pour on American tolerant soy and cotton. Their goal is to preempt the regulatory decision by pretending that HOW the toxins are applied to crops matters at all, then hoping the EPA officials buy in to their propaganda and faked science.

Tolerant soy and cotton means the crops are genetically mutated in a laboratory to contain cancer-causing weed killer in their DNA

Biotechnology is the practice of inserting into plant seeds specific genes that kill weeds and bugs, while denying those same toxic genes have any detrimental affect at all on the environment, soil nutrition, or the health of insects, farm animals, and humans. Yet, once this insidious crop science kills off all the pollinating bees, butterflies, birds, and dragon flies, 70 percent of all edible produce will disappear from the Earth forever.

The ultimate propaganda mantra of all biotech shills is to refer to anyone who calls out this toxic form of weed and bug control as anti-science, even though they are really the ones denying the science that proves the chemicals are fueling the cancer and dementia epidemics that are sweeping across America. So its a double whammy to spray toxins all over crops that already contain carcinogenic genes in their DNA. Still, by next year, over 60 million acres of the U.S.A. will be doused with Dicamba, completely annihilating the migratory habitat of the monarch butterfly, just for starters.

Monarch populations have already dropped 80 percent in the past twenty years. Glyphosate is another deadly weed killer thats eliminating Monarch butterflies by killing off milkweed, a native wildflower where Monarchs lay their eggs and the primary food source for the Monarch caterpillars.

Critically downplaying the volatile threat of Dicamba on milkweed, insects, and humans is essential for EPA approval

Biotechs weed experts are running a gambit, sacrificing small losses in order to win big in their game of chemical chess. Theyre willing to sacrifice a pawn (some minor regulations on use) in order to capture the queen (extend legal use of toxic Dicamba all across the United States corn belt while denying volatilization). Killing all the milkweed is the only way the biotech shills claim that farmers will be able to cost-effectively control other weeds. Again, the shills are fighting for their one-way street to environmental destruction, insect genocide, and human population reduction, and its all disgustingly disguised as crop science.

Dicamba drifts into crops that are not Dicamba-resistant, devastating them and destroying plant biodiversity across our country

Soybeans that arent bred in a laboratory to contain the weed-killer toxins shrivel up when doused with Dicamba. This is a massive problem in regards to plant biodiversity, a problem every biotech journo-terrorist is scrambling to cover up, before the EPA makes their decision about Dicamba use in the next few weeks.

According to research and statistics gathered by the University of Missouri for 2017, nearly 4 million acres of soybean were damaged by Dicamba drifts (offsite movement). This according to nearly 3,000 damage reports from injury cases under investigation. Imagine all the cases that go unreported by farmers intimidated by the thugs working for the cabal under the Chem-Ag monopoly known as Bayer/Monsanto. These reports mainly come from the center of our country, where state agriculture officials are begging the EPA to outright ban the killer herbicide, or at least limit its application.

Dupont, another ag-giant, also faces lawsuits over GMO lines of soybeans that are tolerant to poison spray. The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) issued a report last February concluding that Dicamba is killing off milkweed, saying that Dicamba can not be used safely on soy or cotton. Thus, CBD is calling on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to let a two-year registration for its use expire this year.

What will the future of our food supply be? Keep up with this story as it develops by reading EvilBayer.com.

Sources for this article include:

AgProfessional.com

TruthWiki.org

EcoWatch.com

IPM.Missouri.edu

NaturalNews.com

NaturalNews.com

Pesticide.news

BiologicalDiversity.org(Natural News) Osteoarthritis is one of the common degenerative diseases seen in older people. In Ayurvedic medicine, osteoarthritis is treated with yoga basti. A study published in the International Journal of Ayurvedic Medicine provided scientific evidence on the use of yoga basti in improving the symptoms of osteoarthritis.

For the study, researchers from India looked at the effects of yoga basti on osteoarthritis by recruiting 30 people with osteoarthritis between 40 and 70 years old. They then had the participants undergo yoga basti treatment every morning for a period of eight days.

After the treatment with yoga basti, the researchers observed improvements in the symptoms of osteoarthritis. The treatment reduced pain, swelling, tenderness, and crepitus in patients. It also eased stiffness of the knee joint and relieved fatigue. In addition, it greatly improved the walking speed of the participants. Yoga basti was also found to be safe and effective as the participants did not experience any side effects and complications  all responded to the treatment positively.

Based on the findings of the study, the researchers concluded that yoga basti is a safe and effective alternative treatment for osteoarthritis as it reduces pain, swelling, tenderness, and crepitus, and improves the patients ability to walk.

What you need to know about osteoarthritis

Osteoarthritis, sometimes referred to as a degenerative joint disease or wear and tear arthritis, is the most common form of arthritis. In the U.S., osteoarthritis affects more than 30 million adults.

In most cases, osteoarthritis affects the hands, hips, and knees. This disease causes the cartilage and bones within a joint to break down. It develops slowly and gets worse over time, causing pain, stiffness, and swelling. Eventually, it can lead to disability. The signs and symptoms of osteoarthritis include pain, stiffness, decreased range of motion, and swelling.

People with joint injury and those who are obese are at a greater risk of developing osteoarthritis. The risk of developing this disease also increases as you age. Women are more likely to develop osteoarthritis than men, especially after the age of 50.

Managing osteoarthritis and improving life quality

Join physical activity programs: It is recommended that you exercise at least 150 minutes each week or 30 minutes a day for five days. Walking, swimming, or biking can be done as these are moderate-intensity and low-impact. However, for those who are unsure which exercises are safe, they can join physical activity programs. These programs can help them reduce pain and disability related to arthritis, enhance mood, and improve their ability to move. Classes are often offered and conducted in parks and community centers.

It is recommended that you exercise at least 150 minutes each week or 30 minutes a day for five days. Walking, swimming, or biking can be done as these are moderate-intensity and low-impact. However, for those who are unsure which exercises are safe, they can join physical activity programs. These programs can help them reduce pain and disability related to arthritis, enhance mood, and improve their ability to move. Classes are often offered and conducted in parks and community centers. Engage in a self-management education class: Joining a self-management class can help improve your understanding of how arthritis affects lives. It can also help boost your confidence in managing symptoms and living well.

Joining a self-management class can help improve your understanding of how arthritis affects lives. It can also help boost your confidence in managing symptoms and living well. Lose weight: Losing weight, particularly in people who are overweight or obese, can help reduce pressure in joints, especially weight-bearing joints like the hips and knees. Achieving and maintaining a healthy weight can ease pain, improve function, and hamper the progression of osteoarthritis.

Losing weight, particularly in people who are overweight or obese, can help reduce pressure in joints, especially weight-bearing joints like the hips and knees. Achieving and maintaining a healthy weight can ease pain, improve function, and hamper the progression of osteoarthritis. Try these home remedies: Pain due to osteoarthritis can be relieved with hot and cold compresses. These can ease muscle pain or spasms surrounding a joint. Another remedy is to drink green tea. Green tea contains polyphenols, which are compounds that help lessen inflammation and the need for medications. Taking turmeric can also help relieve osteoarthritis symptoms. Studies show that curcumin, a compound in turmeric, relieves pain, inflammation, and stiffness during an osteoarthritis flare-up. (Related: Exploring the potential of non-invasive complementary therapies for knee osteoarthritis.)

Read more news stories and studies on alternative osteoarthritis treatments, like yoga basti, by going to AlternativeMedicine.news.

Sources include:

Science.news

CDC.gov

Healthline.com(Natural News) And now for the grand finale of the deranged, clinically insane Left that will stop at nothing to halt the U.S. Senate confirmation of future U.S. Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh: Theyve ginned up a desperate accusation that no one believes, claiming Brett Kavanaugh was present at a party where gang rape assaults took place back in 1982 (when Kavanaugh was in high school).

This accusation comes from none other than Michael Avenatti, the creepy porn lawyer who represented Stormy Daniels in his previous attempt to destroy President Trump. Avenatti is so outrageous and unethical that even Democrats are warning each other to steer clear of his allegations. But that hasnt stopped him from claiming one insane hoax after another, and if this one falls apart, hes no doubt ready to declare that Brett Kavanaugh raped a female Bigfoot while visiting a secret moon base run by aliens from planet Zorg.

Oh yeah, and Avenatti is also running for President in 2020. Seriously.

Julie Swetnick says somebody raped her at a party, but it wasnt Kavanaugh

The new accuser is named Julie Swetnick, and according to Avenatti, Ms. Swetnick, in a sworn statement says she was a victim of one of these gang or train rapes where Brett Kavanaugh and Mark Judge were present. Swetnick also claims she was drugged with Qualuudes or something similar.'

Wait a minute, you mean she wasnt touched by Brett Kavanaugh? Her entire claim is that Brett Kavanaugh was present, so even if her own tragic story is true, shes not claiming Kavanaugh assaulted her or raped her.

By her logic, you could also say she was gang raped by boys who attended a high school that Brett Kavanaugh also attended, or that she was raped by boys who lived in the same city as Brett Kavanaugh. How is this Kavanaughs fault, again?

Kavanaugh has responded, saying, This is ridiculous and from the Twilight Zone I dont know who this is and this never happened.

But the Twilight Zone is exactly where Democrats are living these days. Without any evidence whatsoever, Swetnick says Kavanaugh and others spiked drinks to cause girls to drink alcohol. Gosh, say it isnt so! You mean to tell me that in 1982, teenagers at a party had access to alcohol that they poured into the punch? And then somebody had too much to drink  not Kavanaugh  and Swetnick found herself sexually assaulted by inebriated boys who also werent Kavanaugh?

Is Swetnick asserting that the kind of girls who go to these parties have no idea the punch is spiked with alcohol? Cmon, people. Its high school. Party girls dont go to parties that are just serving fruit punch. Now that would be Twilight Zone.

As The Gateway Pundit explains, Swetnick by her own admission was standing around and partying while ignoring girls being gang raped. Swetnick, according to the report, claims that she hung out partying while lines of guys waited to gang rape inebriated women. She also claims that she continued going to these parties knowing they were gang raping other young women  until it happened to her.

As TGP writes, To borrow from Madeleine Albrights famous phrase  theres a special place in hell for women who party while other women are being gang raped.

Democrats are desperate to stop Kavanaugh by any means necessary and they will parade a train of women in front of America to make endless false allegations

The Dems are desperate. Now theyre actually bringing forward claims of gang rape carried out by people who were NOT Kavanaugh. This should be called the Kavanaugh didnt rape me allegation, which is essentially the same allegation also being fronted by Christine Blasey Ford, who insists she also was not raped by Kavanaugh.

There is a gang rape taking place in all this, however: Its the American people who are getting psychologically raped every day by this insane, incessant, desperate train of false allegations and character smears being aggressively catapulted into national consciousness by the deranged, lunatic Left. We now see they will stop at nothing to prevent the confirmation of Kavanaugh, even if it means rolling out Kavanaugh didnt rape me allegations from political activist women who have their own twisted histories to answer for.

After this false accusation implodes, look for Michael Avenatti to claim he used a Ouiji board to communicate with a dead woman who told him Kavanaugh raped and murdered her in 1986, and thank God Avenatti can communicate with the dead or else no one would have ever learned the truth!

You are watching the downfall of civilization here, folks. When Democrats lose elections and lose the Supreme Court, they must now resort to what is essentially character assassination terrorism to destroy individuals who represent a threat to their power.

None of this means Swetnick wasnt raped. But she sure wasnt raped by Brett Kavanaugh. (And shes not even claiming she was.)

#ConfirmKavanaughNow(Natural News) Twitter is under fire for approving, and promoting, an advertisement for female genital mutilation. With the companys history of blacklisting the pro-life message, the promotion of female genital mutilation is a huge slap in the face. The Left claims that being pro-choice is about womens rights and that supporting access to abortion is integral to female reproductive health  and yet, FGM lies in direct opposition to both of those things. Indeed, it would seem that womens rights only matter to the radical Left when it fits their agenda, otherwise, theres room to compromise.

The World Health Organization considers FGM to be a violation of human rights for girls and women on multiple accords. And yet, there are multiple instances of Democrat politicians and other members of the Left wing advocating for the procedure. In March 2017, Senate Democrats in the state of Nevada were reportedly tripping over themselves to vote for a bill that would legalize FGM. Now were seeing advertisements for the procedure circulating on Twitter.

Twitter runs promotion for FGM

As Breitbart reports, Dawoodi Bohra Women for Religious Freedom (DBWRF), was recently allowed to promote a tweet intended to make FGM, calledkhafz by the group, look like a safe, everyday procedure.

The post read, My daughters have also undergone khafz, and theyre growing up as perfectly as other children of their age. As a mother, I can never do anything to harm them. The promotion also featured a video testimony which further claimed that the procedure is healthy and part of their religious rite.

My daughters have also undergone khafz, and theyre growing up as perfectly as other children of their age. As a mother, I can never do anything to harm them says Arwa Sohangpurwala, Chartered Accountant, Kolkata.#FCisNotFGM#VoiceOfADawoodiBohraWoman pic.twitter.com/t2MIPAf2Zk  DBWRF (@dbwrf) September 9, 2018

According to the WHO, there are no religious scripts prescribe the practice but practitioners often believe the practice has religious support. The organization also states, FGM has no health benefits, and it harms girls and women in many ways. It involves removing and damaging healthy and normal female genital tissue, and interferes with the natural functions of girls and womens bodies.

Many Twitter users were outraged to see such an advertisement in their feeds, with some noting that the promotion violating human rights should be against the companys community standards.

Twitter is now saying that the ads approval was an accident. After massive backlash for the posts promotion, a Twitter spokesperson stated the ad was approved in error and the decision was immediately overturned by our teams.

As Breitbart notes, however, the post is still up on DBWRFs Twitter feed. Further, the groups feed features multiple posts intended to promote and normalize the practice of FGM.

Given Twitters penchant for blacklisting conservatives, especially those who promote the pro-life message, this is highly hypocritical. The promotion of FGM is just as harmful to women as the procedure itself. Under the politically correct liberal dogma, daring to speak against the promotion of FGM is basically racist  but under the same deranged leftist views, a Christian woman who promotes pro-life messages is a threat to womens rights.

Once again, the Left echoes George Orwells 1984: Torture and mutilation is healthy, slavery is freedom and propaganda is truth.

The fact that the DBWRF page still stands, while conservatives like Elizabeth Heng have been censored for criticizing oppressive regimes, is proof of the fact that Big Techs arbitrary community standards are only enforced when they see fit  or rather, when it fits their agenda.

See more coverage of stories about hypocrisy and information control at Censored.news.

Sources for this article include:

Breitbart.com

WHO.int

FreeP.comThere's a tell-tale wobble as the Earth spins on its axis that has caught scientists' eyes for years  and now they know what's causing it.

As with many of the strange, abnormal phenomena in the planet, the uneven spin can be traced back to climate change.

The Earth's Odd Wobble

According to Live Science, scientists have noted subtle shifts in the Earth's spin as far back as thousands of years ago. As technology developed, measurements reveal that the axis of rotation drifts toward the Hudson Bay in Canada by a few centimeters every year. All in all, the planet has shifted roughly 34 feet since 1899.

A fraction of the wobbling is known to be due to glacial isostatic adjustment, which is when glaciers retreat and relieve the underground land of mass. As a response, the land rises like bread dough.

However, in a study published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, researchers reveal that human impact on the environment is the main driver behind the planet's wobble.

As a whole, environmental processes cause 1.7 inches of wobble every year. The melting of the Greenland ice sheet was particularly momentous as it involved a large mass of previously locked in water to be redistributed. It was enough, scientists say, to have a notable effect on the planet's rotation.

Finally, a third of the wobble was accounted for when the scientists took a peek inside the Earth. Here, the mantle is constantly in motion with the process of convection. The activity, when the hot material rises and the cooler material sinks, creates a cycle of motion that contributes to the shifting spin of the planet.

What The Wobble Means For Earth

The authors assure that the Earth's wobble is not expected to cause adverse consequences or calamities on agriculture, climate, or the environment. Even any effect on navigational equipment could be easily amended.

Surendra Adhikari, lead researcher of the study and an Earth system scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, explains that the regular drift that occurs in the Earth's spin is not a large amount.

The findings of their study remain significant, though, especially for those who are analyzing the planet's mass and how it is affecting the environment.

"That fact is important for climate scientists because they can understand, in a global sense, which are the most important mass transports that are going on today," Erik Ivins, coauthor of the study and a senior research scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, explains.Seconds after bursting through the door of a Hayward motel room, the Alameda County Narcotics Task Force already had the man it was hunting in custody. Ten seconds later  lips tingling, eyes burning  the veteran detective who was first through the door realized something was wrong. Pale and sweating profusely, a few more seconds ticked by as the detective stepped outside to get some air. Thats where all hell broke loose  and where the detective says he nearly died.

I remember thinking I can barely hold myself up right now, said the detective, who NBC Bay Area is not identifying because of his undercover work. My whole body was starting to shut down. I felt it taking over my whole body.

Somewhere in that hotel room, he would later learn, the detective had been exposed to a potentially lethal dose of Fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid 50 times more powerful than heroin and morphine.

The detective credits two things for saving his life that day: The quick thinking of his sergeant, and the foresight of Alameda County Sheriffs Deputy Fenton Culley, who saw the opioid epidemic moving west across the country and made sure his department began stockpiling the anti-overdose drug naloxone. Because of Culley, the Alameda County Narcotics Task Force officers were some of the first Bay Area law enforcement officers to carry naloxone as a matter of protocol.

Without starting our Narcan (naloxone) program a year ago, I probably wouldnt be here, the detective said.

Federal law enforcement officials in the Bay Area are now highlighting this incident in an effort to convince California law enforcement and public health agencies to buy in on two tools they describe as critical in the fight against the opioid epidemic.

One of those tools is naloxone, something they say most police officers should now be equipped with. The other tool is something called OD Map, a web portal that collects real-time information from first responders on where opioid overdoses are occurring. Officials say the data serves as an early warning when bad batches of drugs, often drugs laced with fentanyl, hit the streets. Both tools have widespread use on the East Coast, where the toll of the opioid crisis has been extreme. But despite the fact that fentanyl deaths have risen by more than 400 percent since 2013 in California, West Coast police departments have been far more hesitant to adopt those tools.

Federal law enforcement has come up with a tool to combat the opioid crisis and save lives. So why are so few California agencies using it? Investigative reporter Liz Wagner reports in a story that aired on Sep. 25, 2018.

Culley said thats a mistake.

Every community has some sort of opioid problem or at least the potential for exposure, he said. You are fooling yourself if you think this doesnt affect your community in some way shape or form.

Near Death at a Hayward Motel

As the Alameda narcotics detective stepped out into the hallway to get some air, the task forces sergeant watched as the detectives condition deteriorated. Working narcotics, the sergeant knew what an overdose looked like, and it sure looked like the detective was overdosing.

He was ghost white, his lips were blue, he was pouring down sweat  this was not characteristic of that detective, the Sergeant said.

I had come to realize this is whats going on. It makes sense. It fits all the categories. So its time to take action. At this point, I pulled my Narcan right off my vest.

In one of his last memories before losing consciousness, the detective recalls his sergeant putting the naloxone into his hand.

My supervisor who was there handed [the naloxone] to me and said, take this, the detective said.

As his Sergeant watched, the detective squirted the drug up his own nose. But it was quickly apparent that one dose wasnt going to cut it.

I saw a little bit of relief come back to him, then instantly his eyes rolled into the back of his head, the Sergeant said.

The detectives skin turned white. Then he stopped breathing. So the Sergeant dosed him again, and this time the detective woke up.

We were removing his vest to start CPR and I thought that we were going to lose our detective right there, the Sergeant said.

I was dying, the detective said. Thankfully they gave me another [dose] and it brought me back.

But just as the detective was coming to, the Sergeant began falling victim to an overdose himself. By now, they only had one dose of naloxone left, and the Sergeant says he didnt want to use it in case one of his other detectives began getting sick.

I had to weigh the fact that we didnt have enough [naloxone] to go around, and all I could keep thinking about was what if one of my other guys got exposed.

So, the Sergeant held off taking the last dose until paramedics arrived and rushed them both to the hospital. Now, he knows the team should have been stocked with more medication: two doses per person, he says.

Culley, a former member of the narcotics task force himself, also learned from that experience. Hes now trying to quadruple the departments naloxone supply by years end. Since the incident, Culley says other law enforcement agencies have been bombarding him for information about naloxone and his departments naloxone policy.

Without question this is something that you have to have, Culley said. You are taking a huge risk if you arent equipping your officers with this. Not only is it affecting law enforcement, its affecting the public.

The Office of National Drug Control Policy recently released fentanyl safety recommendations for first responders, which can be read here.

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OD Map

It was early 2016 when Justin Saens, a father of six, was looking for some relief from the pain. A bad motorcycle accident in front of his home left Saens an amputee. It also made it hard for him to work, and when Saens lost his health insurance, his sister Margaret says Justin turned to a guy selling what he thought were Norco pain pills online.

Saens had no idea there was a batch of fentanyl-laced Norco pills going around Northern California at the time, which killed 12 people and led to at least 52 overdoses.

The pill Saens took in April, his family would later learn, was also laced with fentanyl. Investigators, according to the criminal complaint against the man who sold Saens the pill, suspected Saens pill came from the same batch that had already left a trail of dead.

Justin Saens

Justins sister, Margaret, vividly remembers waking up to the screams of her mother, who found Justin slumped over and unresponsive in his room.

Firefighters go in and they check on him, and they apologize to me, say they are sorry, there is nothing we can do, hes already gone, Margaret Saens said. I hear my dad crying, I hear my mom crying, and I just break down. No one should have to see what we saw. The last time I saw my brother was in a body bag being hauled away.

Saens is now trying to warn people about the dangers of fentanyl.

"The pill looked just like a regular Norco pill, just like he had taken before to ease his pain," Saens said. "But whoever manufactured the pill broke it down and added fentanyl."

Her brother was not an addict, she said, just a regular, good-hearted guy trying to get some relief from the chronic pain that dogged him since his accident.

He wasnt a junkie, he was just a normal guy, Saens said. He was on disability. He loved his kids. He loved his family. He was our world.

The OD Map tool wasnt around when Saens died. But supporters of OD Map say if it had been in place during that rash of overdoses, police might have been able to track the overdoses in real time and respond more quickly.

With this tool, when we have an OD in one community, they are able to anticipate where those drugs are going to go, the poisonous ones that are killing people instantaneously, and warn those people and hopefully reduce the number of deaths we are having, said Mike Sena, Executive Director of the Northern California High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program and the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center.

The problem that we currently have, though, is we arent able to capture the statistics of those overdoses across California effectively.

Sena said OD Map asks first responders to input three pieces of information on their cell phone: Where the overdose occurred, whether it was fatal, and if first responders administered naloxone.

OD Map, Sena said, is being widely used on the East Coast. But hes trying to get more law enforcement and public health agencies on the West Coast to get on board. So far, he says, 16 California agencies have signed up.

We cant wait, Sena said. The longer we wait, the more risk we impose to our communities, and thats my plea to each agency out there.

Click here for more information on OD Map from the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program.

For Margaret Saens, who later helped law enforcement track down and arrest the man who sold Justin the pill, said the pain of losing her brother wont ever go away. But shes counting on Bay Area agencies to embrace this new tool that can help protect others from opioid overdoses.

If you are going to help save someone elses family member, why wouldnt you do it? she said.

If you have a tip for the Investigative Unit email theunit@nbcbayarea.com or call 888-996-TIPS. Follow Liz at @LizWags and https://www.facebook.com/LizWags/BART directors are set to hear a proposal to create a community ambassador program that would help beef up security at the transit system's stations.

The program would be modeled after SF Muni's Transit Assistance Program, which trains unarmed employees to resolve fights on buses.

After a summer of violent attacks at BART stations, some are wondering whether it will be enough.

Two BART directors are hoping to bring community liaisons like that to the BART system in the latest push to make BART safer for riders.

For BART Director Lateefah Simon, who is legally blind, the transit service is her lifeline, she said.

"Without safe and reliable BART service, I dont get to work, and my little one doesnt get to school," Simon said, adding that safety concerns on BART are a personal issue for her, especially after the stabbing death of 18-year-old Nia Wilson on the MacArthur Station platform. "Its not just up to sworn law enforcement to keep us safe; were all responsible for that."

While BART police struggle to fill more than two dozen open positions, Simon is calling for a cadre of community to fill the void.

"There cant be a police officer in every car, but like the MTAP program in SF, which is again hiring folks to be second lenses of eyes and ears who come from the communities that we serve," Simon said.

With MTAP, unarmed men and women are trained in de-escalation techniques and patrol Muni buses near San Francisco schools, where fights are known to break out.

"Its cheaper than hiring police officers," Simon said. "We know we need to hire police officers, but what Im proposing is more community members to work in our system, to be our eyes and ears."

One BART rider agreed a nonviolent approach is better than none at all.

"Its not a bad idea," Angel Mitchell said. "Theres a lot of stuff that goes on around BART."

BART director Bevan Dufty is teaming with Simon to propose the community ambassador program during Thursdays board meeting. Simon said theyre going to ask BARTs general manager and her team to look into how much it would cost to hire and train the workers.The East Bay is divided over plans to build a new IKEA store along 580 at Hacienda Drive in Dublin. While some people want it, others think big business will bring in bigger problems.

The 340,000 square-foot store would sit on a 27 acre site creating about 1,100 jobs, meaning more cars on the already-crowded 580 freeway.

"Traffic is huge the noise the safety," said Tammy Ficarra from Dublin for Change. "If you have one accident on Dublin Blvd youve created a nightmare for those who have to travel from east to west."

IKEA officials say they are sensitive to traffic concerns.

"Currently Ikea has 48 stores, everywhere we go people ask us about the issues of traffic," said Latisha Bracy from IKEA. "One of the things we pride ourselves on doing is making sure we address the issues that come up in the best way for that community."

Other residents think IKEAs placement would bring a great deal of revenue to the city of Dublin.

IKEA conducted a study saying the project would generate $14 million in one-time impact fees and then nearly $2 million each year after that.

Dublins City Council will have the finals say.San Francisco's brand new Transbay Transit Center will remain closed at least until next week after crews on Wednesday discovered a second crack in one of the steel beams adjacent to another beam where crews discovered the first crack on Tuesday.

The executive director of the $2.26 billion transit center, Mark Zabaneh, said at a news conference Wednesday that an "adjacent beam to the beam in question" sustained some cracking, though not to the same extent to the crack discovered on Tuesday.

Zabaneh said the cracks are localized to the East side of the building on the Fremont Street section of the center.

"We have no reason to believe at this point whatsoever that the situation is anywhere but the Fremont Street, but again, out of abundance of caution and for public safety, we're going to expand our investigation," Zabaneh said.

The Grand Hall is the main entrance to the Salesforce Transit Center. Public art adorns the floor and the windows above, as you walk under the giant skylight. - Spherical Image - RICOH THETA

The structure supporting the skylight in the Grand Hall goes all the way down to the basement, bringing daylight to what planners hope will one day be a bustling train station. - Spherical Image - RICOH THETA

Two stories beneath the Transit Center, the train box has room for six tracks surrounding three platforms  but right now, its just a concrete box, while planners search for funding to extend Caltrain and finish Californias high speed rail project. - Spherical Image - RICOH THETA

Though there are no trains yet, transit planners say theyve saved tax dollars by making the Transit Center rail ready. This is the spot where tracks could one day curve southward under 2nd Street to connect with todays existing Caltrain tracks. - Spherical Image - RICOH THETA

With no trains yet, the $2 billion Transit Center has been called the worlds most expensive bus terminal. But commuters say they love the clean, covered platforms where buses arrive on a dedicated ramp from the Bay Bridge, instead of congested streets. - Spherical Image - RICOH THETA

For many, the highlight of the Transit Center will be its sprawling rooftop park, spanning 4 city blocks, in a neighborhood that was sorely lacking green space. BlackRock, IBM, Slack, Trulia and Deloitte are just a few of the offices with park views. - Spherical Image - RICOH THETA

Far more than just open space, Salesforce Park has a packed schedule of vendors and free programs keeping it lively. Yoga, art, books, games, hot dogs and beer are among the initial offerings. Planners say activities help keep the park safe and clean. - Spherical Image - RICOH THETA

Mayor London Breed visited the four-story transit center Wednesday to meet with Transbay Joint Powers Authority leaders and city department heads to discuss the investigation into the crack in a support beam.

"We must have a thorough and transparent investigation to determine the causes, severity, and impacts of this discovery, as well as a plan to re-open the Transit Center as soon as it is safe to do so," Breed said.

Buses will be diverted to the old Temporary Terminal, located at Howard and Beale streets. Transbay users should be aware Fremont Street between Howard and Mission streets is also closed, according to the SFMTA.

Crack in Support Beam Prompts Closure of San Francisco's Transbay Transit Center

Workers discovered the first crack early Tuesday while installing roofing tiles at the Salesforce Transit Center, Zabaneh said. Engineers spent the day inspecting the damage, and Zabaneh said they decided to shut down the station around 5 p.m. Tuesday, just as the afternoon rush hour started.

Zabaneh said the cause and the extent of the damage were unknown and the decision to close the terminal was made out of an "abundance of caution."

"The behavior of the beam is unpredictable," Zabaneh said.

He said structural engineers would continue inspecting the building Wednesday to assess whether it is safe for people to return.

It is not clear at this time when officials will provide an update on the status of the transit center.

Two weeks after its heavily attended grand opening, San Franciscos new Salesforce Transit Center is still packed  only now, its packed with people waiting for buses.

The TJPA said in a statement that crews discovered a fissure in one of the steel beams in the ceiling of the third level bus deck on the eastern side of the transit center, which was named the Salesforce Transit Center after tech giant Salesforce bought its naming rights.

"Out of an abundance of caution, the TJPA, after conferring with design engineers and contractors will temporarily close the transit center as the agency works with Webcor/Obayashu and structural engineers Thornton Tomasetti to investigate and repair this issue and conduct an exhaustive inspection of all steel beams throughout the transit center. Inspections have begun," the TJPA said in their statement.

Its the center that will take us into the future: For residents in San Franciscos SoMa neighborhood, the Salesforce Transit Center is more than just a fancy bus stop. Some say the rooftop park has transformed the neighborhood  in a good way.

TRAFFIC IMPACTS:

There are several transit and traffic impacts due to the center's temporary closure as well as the closure of Fremont Street between Mission and Howard, particularly during peak commute hours, the Transbay Joint Powers Authority said.

Motorists are asked to avoid driving downtown, transit riders are encouraged to allow extra time for their commute and call 511 or go to 511.org to get up-to-the-minute transit information.

AC Transit Lines will drop off and depart from the previously used bus bays at the temporary Transbay Terminal. Routes affected are: B, C, CB, E, F, FS, G, H, J, L, LA, LC, NL, NX, NXC, NX1, NX2, NX3, NX4, O, OX, P, S, SB, V, W, Z.

Muni routes also will drop off and depart from the temporary Transbay Terminal. Affected routes include: 5 Fulton, 5R Fulton Rapid (on Howard at Main), 7 Haight/Noriega (on Main at Howard), 25 Treasure Island (on Beale and Folsom), 38 Geary, 38 Geary Rapid (On Main at Howard).

For the latest details on street closures and bus routes affected, go to the SFMTA website.

Transbay Transit: Then u0026 Now

Nearly two decades in the making, the transit center opened in August, connecting thousands of Bay Area residents to the city's downtown area.

Stretching four city blocks, the transit center boasts pop-up retail shops, art displays, shopping, dining and a 5.4-acre rooftop public park. The next phase of construction, the $4 billion Downtown Extension Project, will connect 1.3 miles of underground rail between the center and the Caltrain station at Fourth and King streets. That project is expected to be completed in 2028.

Transit agencies currently operating at the transit center include Alameda-Contra Costa Transit, Greyhound, San Mateo County Transit District, the Western Contra Costa Transit Authority, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency and the outside bus plaza in June.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.What to Know Markeis McGlockton had confronted Michael Drejka initially after he spotted the man arguing with his girlfriend over a handicapped space.

An autopsy in the July shooting outside a Florida convenience store that sparked outrage and a renewed debate over controversial Stand Your Ground laws showed the victim was not moving toward the shooter.

The Tampa Bay Times reports that the Pinellas-Pasco Medical Examiners Office released their findings on Tuesday, saying that the path in which the bullet entered and exited 28-year-old Markeis McGlockton was consistent with surveillance video outside the Clearwater store showing him not moving toward 47-year-old Michael Drejka.

Authorities on Monday released hundreds of new pages in the case where Drejka said that if McGlockton had retreated, or even stayed still, he wouldn't have used his gun.

McGlockton had confronted Drejka initially after he spotted the man arguing with his girlfriend over a handicapped parking space  all while the couples young children were in the car.

Britany Jacobs, whose interview with officers was in the newly released documents, said after parking, the 28-year-old McGlockton had gone into the store. That's when another vehicle pulled up and a man later identified as Drejka got out and started looking at her car in the disabled spot, then started hassling her, saying, "'Well, you need to move your car,' and all this and this, you know, 'Cause, you know, I got family that's handicapped,' and all this and this. So, I'm saying, 'Dude, uh, no. I don't know you, so, you know, leave me alone.'"

The two exchanged more heated words. McGlockton then came out of the store and knocked Drejka to the pavement.

"Markeis came running out and he pushed him," Jacobs said. "He was like, you know -- you know, um, 'Stay away from my girl,' or something, he said. And then all of a sudden, dude was on the ground, and he pulled out a gun and shot him."

Said Jacobs: "All he did was backed up. 'Cause, you know, anybody, you know, with a gun pointed at him, he gonna, you know, shut up and not say nothing."

NBC affiliate WFLA-TV reports that the autopsy also showed McGlockton had traces of the drug ecstasy in his system at the time of the shooting, likely ingested shortly before the incident. The station also reported that Drejka told investigators he has been taking the anti-anxiety drug Xanax as well as anti-depressant and sleeping pills while drinking two energy drinks each day.

During the interview, the retired tree trimmer said he'd carried a gun since he was 22, and that people parking illegally in handicapped spots at that store was a pet peeve, and that he'd approached people before.

"Does it ever go through your mind ... that they might not take that right? That this might go sideways a little bit?" the detective asked.

"Um, well, sure. But that's why I take precautions, as well," Drejka said.

When asked what kind of precautions, Drejka replied: "Well, I'm a very careful person and I have a permit."

In an interview with a local TV station since his arrest, Drejka said that parking spaces for the disabled "have always touched a nerve" because his high school girlfriend and his mother-in-law used disabled parking spots.

McGlockton's family has been outspoken in their dismay over how the case was handled, and hired attorney Benjamin Crump, who gained national prominence representing the family of Trayvon Martin after the black teen's fatal shooting by a Hispanic man in 2012.A man was grazed by a bullet and a woman was injured Wednesday afternoon in a shooting outside a convenience store in Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood.

Boston police said they received a report of a person shot at Pimentel Market at 340 Centre St. just before 3 p.m.

The shooter's bullet grazed a male victim outside the market. The victim ran inside the store. His injuries are not believed to be life threatening.

A woman who was inside the store at the time of the shooting was hit by broken glass. She is also expected to be OK.

"Our neighbor was actually walking her dog when it happened, so she saw him walk up, just shoot into the store and run away," said Lauren Sullivan, who lives nearby.

Pimentel Market's owner says the shooter was waiting for the male victim, his intended target, outside the store.

"He saw the guy about to shoot him, so he turned back into the store, and I guess the guy shot at him," Alvin Guerrero said.

Multiple bullet holes could be seen in the store's glass door. Guerrero credits bulletproof glass with protecting the people in the store.

"I guess she was real close to the glass and it ricochets off the glass and cuts her," Pimentel said of the female victim.

"It's awful. It's awful for the poor woman who's in there, just comes to do some shopping," police Capt. John Greland said. "This is a gunfight, basically, you know, a guy cuts loose with rounds."

"It's horrible. I haven't seen anything like this up here in a long time."

Police are still searching for the suspect, who is believed to have fled on foot. A description is expected to be forthcoming.

This is the second shooting in the past week at a Jamaica Plain business after a man was shot and killed at Professional Barber Shop on South Street last Saturday.Two women from "The Bachelor: Vietnam" surprised viewers this weekend when they ditched the man handing out the roses and left the show together.

During the rose ceremony, contestant Minh Thu revealed her true feelings to Bachelor Nguyen Quoc Trung.

"I went into this competition to find love and I've found that love for myself, but it isn't with you," she said. "It's with someone else."

She then turned around to Truc Nhu, who had already received a rose, and asked her to "come home with me." Nhu seemed torn.

"I'm sorry. I really want to get to know you because you're someone who made me feel special and I haven't felt that way in a long time," she told Trung.

Trung then urged her to follow her heart.

"I want to ask....If you decide this, would you feel regretful?" he asked. "This doesn't change my decision. I'm not going to give my rose to anyone else. You only get one chance in this life, and you need to take it. Only you, not anyone else."

The Bachelor's Colton Underwood Meets His First 3 Ladiesand Puts Them to the Test



Seemingly anticipating her response, he then reiterated he worried she would regret her decision. However, Nhu decided to return her rose anyway.

"I'm sorry. I'm giving you back your rose," she said before giving him a hug goodbye. She then assured him, "I know you'll find someone who really loves you, who understands you, knows how to take care of you, who can look at you from afar and know how you're feeling. I'm sorry."

The two contestants then left the show together. However, it looks like Nhu later had second thoughts. The website NextShark published a screenshot of Nhu hugging Trung and seemingly reuniting.

"After talking to Trung, I've changed my mind to accept his rose and continue on this journey," she said.

Nhu and Thu aren't the first Bachelor alumni to find love with a fellow contestant. Megan Marx and Tiffany Scanlon also found love on "The Bachelor: Australia." However, the two eventually called it quits.A horrific crash in the northwest suburbs occurred Tuesday morning, leaving two people dead.

It happened at the intersection of Munger and Stearns streets in Bartlett shortly before 6 a.m.

Bartlett police say a man driving a Chevy Cobalt west on Stearns somehow crossed into on coming traffic and slammed into two cars, a Nissan Altima and a Land or Range Rover. The driver of the Altima died at the scene and the driver of the Cobalt, who hit the Altima, suffered life-threatening injuries and had to be transported to a hospital in nearby Hoffman Estates. That person was later pronounced dead, police said.

People who know Bartlett well say the area has been a shortcut through local construction.A man wanted on a warrant from southwest suburban Kankakee County was shot while allegedly trying to break into a Wisconsin home after an armed robbery and police chase overnight.

Two men armed with handguns robbed a gas station shortly after 10 p.m. on State Highway 20 in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, according to a statement from the Kenosha Sheriffs Department.

[NATL] Top News Photos: Pope Visits Japan, and More

By 10:24 p.m., authorities from Mount Pleasant and the Racine Sheriffs Department had requested assistance from Kenosha County officers with a high-speed chase of the suspects, who were driving a stolen car southbound on I-94, the sheriffs department said. A Kenosha County deputy used a tire deflation device on the car just north of Wilmot Road in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin.

The car exited the interstate and headed west on Wilmot until about 11:45 p.m., when it crashed into a Mount Pleasant squad car east of County Highway MB in Bristol, Wisconsin, the sheriffs department said. Two suspects then got out and ran away on foot.

About 3:45 a.m. Wednesday, a resident of the 14600 block of Wilmot Road in Bristol called authorities to report that someone had tried to break into his home, authorities said. The resident shot the attempted intruder with a handgun and the suspect ran away.

Several hours later, a deputy spotted a man in his early 20s riding a bicycle on I-94 and took him into custody on a felony warrant from Kankakee County, according to the sheriffs department. He told the arresting deputy that hed been shot and was treated at a hospital before being brought to the Kenosha County Jail.

The sheriffs department did not release the mans name or further details about the warrant Wednesday morning.

The second suspect from the gas station robbery remained at large until 11:52 a.m. Wednesday, when someone matching his description asked to use the phone at a business near the scene of the crash, authorities said. He was being questioned by Kenosha County and Mount Pleasant officers.

While it appears that this is the second suspect in this investigation, the Kenosha County Sheriffs Department would like to remind all residents to remain diligent and aware, police said in a statement.More than a year and a half after he won election  the mayor of Markham was finally sworn in Tuesday. A previous felony conviction prevented him from taking office, so last week Gov. Bruce Rauner stepped in.

Roger Agpawa arrived for his swearing in 17 months after winning the election. A 1999 felony conviction for mail fraud in a medical insurance case barred him from taking municipal office. The state appellate court ruled against him earlier this year.

But Rauner on Friday sent Agpawa a letter, restoring his rights, which Agpawa said allows him to take office.

An overflowing crowd cheered Agpawa's swearing in Tuesday at the Markham City Hall.

Agpawa, who is a lifelong Markham resident, is also the fire chief of country club hills.

Because of the appeal, he did not take reporters' questions after the swearing in ceremony.What to Know Van Dyke is charged with murder in the shooting death of 17-year-old McDonald nearly four years ago

The Chicago police officer was captured on dashcam video shooting McDonald 16 times the night of Oct. 20, 2014, on the city's Southwest Side

Van Dyke entered a plea of not guilty

Defense attorneys for Jason Van Dyke on Wednesday said the Chicago officer never should have been charged with murder in the shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald because of an Illinois law that protects peace officers trying to arrest fleeing felons.

The lawyer who trains the city's police officers testified to explain what the department considers to be justifiable.

"So this second justification would be reasonable and necessary to prevent the defeat of the arrest and the person," police department attorney Yolanda Sayre said, "and the person to be arrested has attempted to commit or has committed a forcible felony involving the infliction or threatened infliction of great bodily harm or death."

That's what happened, the defense said, prior to the October 2014 shooting when police were called when McDonald allegedly confronted truck driver Rudy Barillas with a knife.

"He pulled out a knife and tried to hurt me," Barillas said. "What did he do with the knife? He came towards me and tried to stab me."

Barillas said McDonald appeared to be disoriented and unable to speak.

The prosecution said McDonald posed no real threat.

"So you were able to fend off this man with nothing more than a cell phone and some rocks? Is that right?" Joseph Cullen asked Barillas, who confirmed he was able to.



McDonalds great uncle said he watched Wednesday as more witnesses testified to alleged violent incidents involving McDonald as a juvenile.

"It is an unjust ploy to paint Laquan McDonald as the perpetrator," Rev. Marvin Hunter said. "He is a victim. He is the victim in this case. He is not on trial."

Dr. Jeremy Stayton, who treated McDonald the night he was shot, said the teen had no blood pressure, no respiration and no pulse.



A wound to his pulmonary artery, Stayton said, caused McDonald, to lose more than half the blood in his body.

"The chances of him surviving are very low in any case," Stayton said, then answering what the chances would have been, "I dont know if anyone has ever done a paper on it, but I would say less than 1 percent."

In a scene that looked like it was taken from a video game, jurors in Van Dyke's trial on Tuesday were shown a recreation of the fatal shooting, but this time from the officer's perspective.

The recreation was based on laser analysis of the scene and was played over police radio audio from the shooting itself.

According to defense attorneys, the video showed that McDonald was closing the distance between himself and Van Dyke before the officer opened fire. Prosecutors have argued dashcam video shows McDonald appearing to walk away as Van Dyke shot the teen 16 times on Oct. 20. 2014.

Tuesday would have been McDonald's 21st birthday.

Van Dyke was charged with six counts of first-degree murder more than a year after he shot McDonald on the city's Southwest Side. He entered a plea of not guilty.

Special prosecutors rested their case against Van Dyke Thursday after calling 24 witnesses over three and a half days.

So far in the trial, the jury saw dashcam video of the shooting, graphic autopsy images of the more than a dozen gunshot wounds on the body of McDonald, video recreating the shooting from Van Dyke's point of view and video showing 16 gunshots in under 14 seconds.

They have also heard testimony from several Chicago police officers and witnesses at the scene, seen the weapon Van Dyke used, and watched as FBI specialists demonstrated the shooting.

What remains unclear is whether or not Van Dyke himself will testify.

1:27 p.m.: Doctor who treated Laquan McDonald at Mount Sinai Hospital says he suffered from a bullet wound to his pulmonary artery. If he suffered such a wound, the doctor says, the chances are 99 percent he would be dead today.

12 p.m.: Jackie Alexander, who was working at the Cook County Juvenile Detention Center, testified that in April of 2014, Laquan McDonald made threats to other inmates that he would beat them up. He also allegedly threatened to put a bullet in the judge's head.

11:45 a.m.: Police officer testifies that in the wake of the MacDonald shooting, there was an officer safety alert for a gun that resembled a knife.

11:25 a.m.: Truck driver Rudy Barillas testifies that McDonald tried to stab him twice after he found the teen trying to steal radios from trucks parked at his lot at 41st and Pulaski.

10:50 a.m.: Velez testifies that her first instinct was to call her police union, not an ambulance, after the McDonald shooting.

10:21 a.m.: Testimony in the trial of Jason Van Dyke has resumed. The first witness is Leteshia Velez, an officer in a squad car approached by Laquan McDonald. She remembers the expression on his face...the look in his eye.President Donald Trump is insisting he has evidence that China is attempting to meddle in the U.S. midterm elections.

At a news conference Wednesday in New York, a reporter asked Trump what evidence he has to back up the accusation, which China has denied.

He says he can't disclose what evidence he has, but that it will come out. He says his allegation did not come "out of nowhere."

The Trump administration says China is stepping up covert and overt activities to stifle free speech, punish those who support the president's tough trade stance against China and interfere in the U.S. political system.

The administration says China is hurting farmers and workers in pro-Trump states and districts.

According to Trump, China has "actually admitted that they're going after farmers."

"They do not want me or us to win because I am the first president ever to challenge China on trade," Trump said as he chaired the U.N. Security Council for the first time. He made his accusation against the backdrop of the special counsel's investigation into Russian interference in the last election to help him and amid concerns that this November's elections also could be vulnerable.

Asked earlier what evidence he had, Trump said there was "plenty" but didn't provide details. Instead, he zeroed in on China's propaganda efforts to flood the heartland with ads and statements against Trump's hundreds of billions of dollars in punishing tariffs

Trump added: "I don't like it when they attack our farmers and I don't like it when they put out false messages. But beside that, we learned that they are trying to meddle in our elections and we're not going to let that happen just as we're not going to let that happen with Russia."

China's foreign minister shrugged when he heard Trump's statement via translation at the Security Council.

"We do not and will not interfere in any countries' domestic affairs," said Foreign Minister Wang Yi. "We refuse to accept any unwarranted accusations against China, and we call on other countries to also observe the purposes of the U.N. charter and not interfere in other countries' internal affairs."

A senior Trump administration official who briefed reporters about Trump's comments said China was stepping up covert and overt activities to punish those who support Trump's tough trade stance and interfere in the political system. The only specifics given by the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, were that China is hurting farmers and workers in states and districts that voted for Trump.

The official said China stifles free speech on U.S. campuses and punishes or rewards businesses, think tanks, movie studios and political candidates for criticizing or supporting Chinese politics. The official added that more information would be declassified in coming days and that Vice President Mike Pence was expected to speak on the issue next week.

Democrats on the House intelligence committee requested information from the Trump administration on the Chinese efforts.

Trump leveled his charge against China amid a whirlwind day of diplomacy at the United Nations, where he had meetings with Japan's Shinzo Abe, Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu and Britain's Theresa May. Alongside Netanyahu, Trump offered his most explicit endorsement yet of the two-state solution to bring an end to the decades-long conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

The president also used his moment chairing the Security Council meeting on nuclear proliferation to issue a strong warning to nuclear-aspirant Iran, which he deemed the "world's leading sponsor of terror" fueling "conflict around the region and far beyond."

Trump, in his meeting with Abe, warned China again that "they can't get involved with our elections," strong rhetoric that stood in stark contrast to his reluctance to acknowledge or condemn Russia's efforts to interfere with the 2016 election. Trump has repeatedly cast doubt on the conclusions of U.S. intelligence agencies and refused to chastise Russia's Vladimir Putin during their summer summit in Helsinki.

There is extensive evidence linking Russia to attempts to penetrate U.S. elections systems and to influence U.S. voters. Facebook announced in July that it had uncovered "sophisticated" efforts, possibly linked to Russia, to influence U.S. politics on its platforms. Thirty-two accounts were removed from Facebook and Instagram because they were involved in "coordinated" political behavior and appeared to be fake. Nearly 300,000 people followed at least one of the accounts.

Microsoft also said it had discovered that a fake domain had been set up as the landing page for phishing attacks by a hacking group believed to have links to Russian intelligence. A Microsoft spokesman said Monday that additional analysis had confirmed that the attempted attacks occurred in late 2017 and targeted multiple accounts associated with the offices of two legislators running for re-election.

With the elections less than two months away, U.S. intelligence and election-protection officials have not cited any specific, credible Chinese efforts.

Officials say China's cyber-espionage operations targeting U.S. defense and commerce have been formidable, however. And Trump's claim comes amid an escalation of tensions between Washington and Beijing, spurred by their growing trade dispute.

Each imposed tariff increases on the other's goods Monday, and Beijing accused the Trump administration of bullying. A Chinese official said China cannot hold talks on ending the trade dispute while the U.S. "holds a knife" to Beijing's neck by hiking tariffs. Trump later tweeted out a photo of an advertising insert called "China Watch," saying China was placing propaganda ads in the Des Moines Register and other papers to make it look like news.

U.S. intelligence officials have said they are not now seeing the intensity of Russian intervention registered in 2016 and are also concerned about activity by China, Iran and North Korea. Trump's statement caught lawmakers and some national security officials off guard as Beijing has not been singled out as the most worrisome foe.

"I haven't received any briefing on this and would have if it was a serious threat," said Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., a member of the House intelligence committee. "If the president really wants to protect elections, there are many bipartisan bills he could support."

Thomas Rid, a Johns Hopkins cybersecurity expert, said, "I am not aware of any evidence of Chinese interference in the midterm elections." He added: "Chinese influence operations tend to be more subtle, less public, and business-related."

China has been accused of interfering in an election before, although not in the United States. Cybersecurity firm Fire Eye released a report in July describing "active compromises of multiple Cambodia entities related to the country's electoral system," including the National Election Commission, before the country's July 29 general elections.

The hackers' methods matched a Chinese-linked hacking group tied to multiple cyber operations that have breached U.S. defense contractors, universities and engineering and maritime technology development firms.

"I've seen zero evidence in our own monitoring work that China is doing anything like that," said Jake Williams, president of Rendition Infosec, a Georgia cybersecurity firm, "and none of the people in industry I share threat intelligence with have had a whisper of that."Federal authorities are investigating allegations of discrimination against Asian-American applicants to Yale University.

The Education Department said in a letter to the Asian American Coalition for Education on Wednesday that it will investigate a 2016 complaint the group filed against the Ivy League school. The Justice Department will join in the investigation.

Yale President Peter Salovey confirmed the investigation but strongly denied that Yale discriminates against any racial group.

The complaint from the New Jersey-based coalition says Yale, Brown University and Dartmouth College unfairly denied Asian-American applicants by treating them differently based on their race. The Education Department said it had enough information to investigate Yale.

Coalition President Yukong Zhao says he's "very excited" by the response.

The Justice Department is also investigating similar allegations at Harvard University.Some school districts have announced closures or delays for this morning after flooding caused dangerous conditions that left first responders rescuing people trapped in vehicles on impassable roads Tuesday night.

Schools in East Haddam and Lebanon are closed for the day. Trumbull High School is also closed for the day because of flooding.

Officials advise drivers to never drive through flooded areas of the roadway. If you come across a water-covered roadway or a roadblock, turn around. Multiple towns and cities reported emergency calls due to vehicles stuck in flood waters.

Evacuations were underway around midnight in Clinton along the Indian River according to the Clinton Police Department. The Volunteer Fire Department reported water rushing over roads in town, including Route 81 and River Road. The Indian River in Clinton swelled to its highest level since 1982 after more than 7 inches of rain.

As of Wednesday morning, police said much of the water receded off the roads, but they urge people to be cautious and not drive around barricades.

Connecticut Water said the rapid rise of the Kelseytown Reservoir in Clinton prompted the evacuation of residents downstream in Clinton and Westbrook until engineers can check the dam. They said the tap water is safe to drink. The evacuation order has been lifted as of 11 a.m.

The Housatonic River rose five to 10 feet above normal and boat crews throughout region five searched for a vehicle that might be submerged in the river in North Canaan, according to Jon Barbagallo, the public information officer in Norfolk, said. Crews returned from the search early Wednesday morning and wull continue the search later in the morning.

In southeastern Connecticut, swollen rivers continued to rise.

The Yantic River in Norwich is above flood stage and is expected to reach "major flooding" benchmarks by daybreak. Flooding is expected along West Town Street in Yantic Flats and around the Norwichtown Mall.

Around 3:30 a.m. Wednesday, Yantic Fire Engine Company 1 rescued two people from an RV near Norwichtown Mall after the river overflowed and surrounded the vehicle.

Into the night, first responders scrambled to rescue drivers trapped by rising waters on dark and impassable roads.

Lebanon firefighters reported multiple calls for help Tuesday night and encouraged drivers to stay off the roads if possible and use extreme caution.

In North Haven, the roadway at Kings Highway at Mount Carmel Road collapsed due to the flooding.

Middletown firefighters say they were called in to rescue a person stranded on a flooded car on Route 9. The highway was shut down but has since reopened.

@IAmTwoWheeler

In Stamford, fire officials asked residents to stay off the road as they worked to make "dozens" of water rescues. Photos posted on social media show emergency crews rescuing students from a school bus stuck on Dale Street off Cove Road.

Photos of Flooding and Heavy Rain September 25, 2018

Westport firefighters rescued two adults and two children from vehicles that were swept off the road by floodwaters. Crews had to break a window to extricate one victim, but no injuries were reported.

Town of Westport Fire Department

Darien police also warned drivers to avoid flooded areas and posted photos of flooded areas. Officials in Westport, Hamden, Shelton and Bridgeport also reported flooding issues.

Street flooding in Darien, Conn. Video courtesy of: Justin Mass

Part of Interstate 95 was flooded near exit 16 in Norwalk. Traffic cameras showed vehicles driving through the flooded section of the highway, and one vehicle appeared to be stuck in the water.

Many local roads remain closed while officials wait for floodwaters to recede.

In North Haven, Hartford Turnpike was closed between Mansfield Road and Upper State Street because power lines are across the road and it was expected to be closed for several hours.

The weather also caused Metro-North delays.

For more on the severe weather threat, click here.

Photos of Flooding and Heavy Rain September 25, 2018The body of a missing Massachusetts man was found in the Housatonic River, about a mile from the scene of a crash last week.

A dive team began searching the river in North Canaan late on the night of Tuesday, Sept. 25 after receiving a report from police in Sheffield, Massachusetts about a missing person.

A man identified as 60-year-old German Perez, of Ashley Falls, Mass. Had left Lakeville around 6 p.m. that night for home in his black Toyota Tundra, according to police. When he hadn't arrived home by 8 p.m., police were called and Connecticut state police assisted in the search for Perez.

Troopers found an area on Route 44 in North Canaan that had a damaged guardrail and other evidence that a vehicle might have gone off the road and into the Housatonic River, according to police.

On Wednesday, a dive team located a vehicle in the river.

On Wednesday, state police said a dive team located Perezs body in the Housatonic River, around a mile south of the scene of the crash.

The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner Farmington will perform an autopsy.A new agreement between Connecticut State Colleges and Universities and Follett Higher Education Group is going to help college students save more than $4 million in textbook costs.

I think that's something that students get very worried about when they hear textbooks and with these negotiations I think students can get a lot less worried when they hear about the cost of textbooks, said Andrew Albert, a student at Tunxis.

Textbooks can cost students hundreds of dollars they sometimes dont have, and often are only used for one semester.

The new contract between the schools and Follett will help with that by providing savings through a combination of campus bookstore upgrades, price matching, a scholarship fund, rental and buyback programs, and a 10 percent discount on new books.

Books and supplies are necessary tools for academic success, said Paul Brodie, president of Gateway and Housatonic Community Colleges.

CSCU President Mark Ojakian said students told him directly that their academic success would be in jeopardy if the cost of textbooks didnt come down.

Listen... every dollar that a student saves is important to that student it allows that student to stay in school and complete on time, Ojakian said.

The savings are much needed. According to The College Board, the average college student spends $1,200 a year on textbooks.President Donald Trump said Wednesday he is open to changing his mind on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh  if the evidence at Thursday's Senate committee hearing is compelling.

Trump said at a news conference in New York that he'll watch the testimony from Kavanaugh and a woman who's accusing Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct.

The president was asked about whether he might be persuaded to withdraw Kavanaugh's nomination. Trump said: "If I thought he was guilty of something like this ... yeah, sure."

Trump called Kavanaugh was "one of the highest quality people" he's ever met. The president insisted the accusations are false and he accused Democrats of playing politics.

Trump spoke after a third woman came forward with allegations of sexual misconduct agains Kavanaugh. Her lawyer, Michael Avenatti, revealed her accusation on Twitter Wednesday, just a day before Kavanaugh was set to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Julie Swetnick said in the written declaration that she observed Kavanaugh "engage in abusive and physically aggressive behavior toward girls" including trying to expose their private parts during high school parties, as well as trying to inebriate and disorient girls so they could be "gang raped" at parties. She said she recalls Kavanaugh and his close friend, Mark Judge, waiting in lines to take part in such attacks, which she said were referred to as a "train."

Swetnick said she was the victim of such an attack, though she did not specifically allege Kavanaugh took part  she believes she was drugged at the time, she said.

She wrote: "In approximately 1982, I became the victim of one of these 'gang' or 'train' rapes where Mark Judge and Brett Kavanaugh were present. Shortly after the incident, I shared what had transpired with at least two other people. During the incident, I was incapacitated without my consent and unable to fight off the boys raping me. I believe I was drugged using Quaaludes or something similar placed in what I was drinking."

NBC News has not independently verified the accusations, which Kavanaugh forcefully denied.

"This is ridiculous and from the Twilight Zone," Kavanaugh said in a statement. "I don't know who this is and this never happened."

An attorney for Judge told NBC News that "Mr. Judge vehemently denies Ms. Swetnick's allegations."

Trump said at his news conference he wont get into that game when asked if the three Kavanaugh accusers are lying. He also called Democrats "obstructionists" and "con artists."

The hearing featuring Kavanaugh and accuser Christine Blasey Ford is still scheduled for Thursday. Judiciary committee lawyers are in the process of reviewing Swetnick's declaration provided by Avenatti, said a spokesman for Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.

All 10 Democrats on the committee wrote to President Donald Trump that Kavanaugh should withdraw from consideration or be withdrawn in light of the accusation, which Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer echoed in a speech in the Senate.

"If he will not, at the very least, the hearing and vote should be postponed while the FBI investigates all of these very serious and very troubling allegations," Schumer said.

Trump stood by Kavanaugh and lamented the accusations against him, saying Wednesday that "they could do it to anybody." He said in earlier remarks that the judge is "an absolute gem."

Shortly after Swetnick's account came out, the committee released Kavanaugh's prepared testimony, in which he defended his character and called the allegations against him "last-minute smears."

"There has been a frenzy to come up with somethinganything, no matter

how far-fetched or odiousthat will block a vote on my nomination," Kavanaugh wrote. "These are last-minute smears, pure and simple."

Kavanaugh said he "drank beer with my friends, usually on the weekends," during high school, and that "sometimes I had too many. In retrospect, I said and did things in high school that make me cringe now."

But he flatly denied the allegation brought by Ford, that Kavanaugh held her down and tried to take off her clothes at a party in high school. Kavanaugh also called sexual assault horrific, "morally wrong," illegal and deserving of a public hearing. He didn't question whether Ford was sexually assaulted, but said "I have never done that to her or to anyone."

In a Fox News interview on Monday night, Kavanaugh denied that he ever gang raped anyone, an allegation Avenatti had hinted at on Twitter. Kavanaugh called such allegations are "false and outrageous."

Swetnick said she went to Gaithersburg High School, which is about 10 miles from Kavanaugh's high school, Georgetown Preparatory School, in the Washington, D.C., suburbs. Montgomery County Public Schools confirmed that a Julie Swetnick graduated from the high school in 1980.

She said she saw Kavanaugh's aggressive behavior toward women on one instance during "Beach Week" in Ocean City, Maryland. Kavanaugh referred to a "Beach Week" in a 1982 calendar provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which released them Wednesday.

After releasing the information, Avenatti said on MSNBC that Swetnick stands by her allegations "100 percent" and noted that she has received security clearances from the U.S. government. He said Kavanaugh's nomination should be withdrawn in light of the allegations against him.

Two other women have claimed that Kavanaugh engaged in sexual misconduct with them: Ford will testify Thursday about her claim, which was bolstered Wednesday by affidavits from four people who say they'd been told about her assault before Kavanaugh's nomination. Deborah Ramirez told The New Yorker that Kavanaugh caused her to touch his penis at a party when both were Yale freshmen.

Kavanaugh has denied both claims.

All three women who have brought allegations against Kavanaugh have called for the FBI to investigate their claims, which Trump and other top Republicans have resisted.

Sen. Jeff Flake, the Republican from Arizona who sits on the judiciary committe, is one of a few in his party who are publicly undecided on how to vote in the hearing. He delivered a speech on the Senate floor Wednesday bemoaning how the confirmation process has dehumanized both Ford and Kavanaugh, both of whom he believes to be well-intentioned.

"However this vote goes, I'm confident in saying that it will forever be steeped in doubt. This doubt is the only thing of which i am confident in this process," Flake said.

Avenatti said in recent days that his client would be coming forward. On Sunday, he tweeted his email to the chief counsel for nominations of the Senate Judiciary Committee where he listed questions Kavanaugh should answer.

"We are aware of significant evidence of multiple house parties in the Washington, D.C., area during the early 1980s during which Brett Kavanaugh, Mark Judge and others would participate in the targeting of women with alcohol/drugs in order to allow a 'train' of men to subsequently gang rape them," Swetnick wrote.

Avenatti alleged "multiple witnesses that will corroborate these facts."

Avenatti also represents Stormy Daniels in her legal fight with Trump, who nominated Kavanaugh to the court.

Trump lashed out at Avenatti Wednesday, saying he is just seeking attention: "Avenatti is a third rate lawyer who is good at making false accusations, like he did on me and like he is now doing on Judge Brett Kavanaugh. He is just looking for attention and doesn't want people to look at his past record and relationships - a total low-life!"

Avenatti replied by calling Trump a "habitual liar and complete narcissist who also is a disgrace as a president and an embarrassment to our nation."A premature baby was saved by doctors after its mother was fatally wounded in a shooting at a home in Dallas.

Investigators said 21-year-old Delashon Jefferson, who was 8 months pregnant, got into an argument with her common law husband, 25-year-old Lagarius Donnell Rainey, inside a home on the 2600 block of Marbug Street at about 7 p.m. Sunday.

"It happened so fast, I really just thought that it was just a dream," Lajoice Roberson, Jefferson's sister said.

When the argument got physical, police said family members tried to force their way into the bedroom and that's when Rainey started shooting.

Jefferson was struck in the gunfire along with 25-year-old Daveron Sanders. Both were rushed by Dallas Fire-Rescue to area hospitals for treatment.

Doctors were able to save Jefferson's child, but she died of her injuries.

"We named the baby girl Delashon Jefferson, the doctors said to keep her in your prayers," Jo Jones, Jefferson's Aunt said.

Sanders' condition is not known.

Dallas police said they located Rainey not far from the home and took him into custody. Though he was interviewed by detectives, police did not say what sparked the fight that led to the shooting.

Rainey, who has been charged with murder, was booked Monday into the Dallas County Jail where he's being held on a $350,000 bond.The family of Botham Jean, the Dallas resident fatally shot earlier this month by an off-duty Dallas police officer who says she mistook his apartment for her own, intends to file a federal lawsuit claiming excessive use of force.

Attorney Lee Merritt told the Associated Press Wednesday that Jean's family will name Amber Guyger and the city of Dallas as defendants in the lawsuit.

Merritt didn't say when the lawsuit will be filed or what damages the family would be seeking.

Guyger told investigators she had just ended her shift Sept. 6 when she returned to her apartment complex, but she went to the wrong unit. The door was ajar and swung open to reveal a figure in the darkened apartment.

Investigators said Guyger drew her service weapon moments later and fired twice, striking Jean.

An arrest warrant affidavit released later said Guyger didn't realize she was at the wrong apartment until she was on the phone with 911 while providing first aid to Jean.

Guyger, who has been charged with manslaughter in the shooting and is free on bond, was fired Monday by the Dallas Police Department. Guyger's attorney, Robert Rogers, said Tuesday that her firing was premature and unfair.

After a memorial service in Dallas Sept. 13, Jean's body was returned to St. Lucia and buried Tuesday.

Coverage of Jean's shooting has reached national levels. During last Friday's Senate debate between U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-El Paso), both candidates fielded questions about the shooting and the unfolding investigation.

The candidates addressed the recent shooting death of Botham Jean by off-duty Dallas police officer Amber Guyger.There's a new fight brewing in Denton between residents and oil and gas companies.

Denton became synonymous with fracking for natural gas back in 2014, when residents voted to ban it.

"It was a big deal. Nobody had ever banned fracking," explained resident Ed Soph.

But within months, the grass roots effort was overturned by the Texas legislature with House Bill 40.

"They took away our democracy quite frankly. It's unbelievable," Soph added.

Soph is on a new crusade to increase the city's reverse setback ordinance.

Reverse setbacks dictate how close new homes and businesses can be built to an existing well.

"That setback distance, currently in Denton, is only 250 feet," Soph said. "That's for anything. A public school, a hospital, a library, a childcare center."

Soph wants to at least double that. He recently took his plea to Denton's city council, citing studies that show living too close to a well could be harmful to your health.

"Research studies, the most current one this past March, is saying anything closer than 500 feet and you're really dealing with some serious risks," he added.

Denton resident Debbie Ingram agrees. Her house backs up to a natural gas well. And when the company was drilling and fracking, Debbie says she got sick.

"I ended up having quite a few nose bleeds and I haven't had a nose bleed since I was 13 years old," she said. "I had shortness of breath. It made me have horrible headaches."

Her neighbor Gene Inzer lives across the street from a different well.

In 2013, he took pictures as crews moved in to drill and frack that site.

"Oh, right away, we were like, 'what is going on?' All of a sudden these two dusty tanks in the back became alive and they grated off the area, dust like crazy," Gene remembered.

Gene and his wife moved to Denton to be closer to family, but soon they questioned whether or not they should have their grandkids come over.

"We kinda really thought twice about it and didn't have them over nearly as much as we have liked to have had," Gene added.

We reached out to Eagleridge Energy for comment, but they declined our request.

The Texas Railroad Commission says Eagleridge doesn't have to disclose the chemicals it uses in the hydraulic fracking process, because the Texas law that now demands more transparency, didn't exist when the well near Gene's house got it's drilling permit back in 2003.

The company's permit also allows them to re-frack the well whenever they want, which would potentially raise the same health concerns all over again.

"Prevailing wind is basically southwest to northeast, so we're right down wind of that whole mess," Gene said. "I can't escape from it and I have no idea what the effect is on me is. I might have, heaven only knows, some lung cancer 10 years from now because of that. I don't know. Nobody knows."

So how does the city of Denton move forward with possibly increasing reverse setbacks, without drawing the attention of lawmakers in Austin, who could potentially step in, again?

Denton city councilman Paul Meltzer has a different approach. He suggests working with developers, to see if they will voluntarily pull back to at least 600 feet, to build more densely. Essentially, swapping open space for density.

The question is, can a conversation be just as strong as regulation?An ex-Houston businessman has been indicted on U.S. charges of concealing that a 2013 trip by some members of Congress to Azerbaijan was paid for by that country's government.

Kemal Oksuz was named in an indictment unsealed Monday in Washington, D.C. Prosecutors say Oksuz formerly led the nonprofit Turquoise Council of Americans and Eurasians and allegedly lied on U.S. House disclosure forms about who funded the trip.

Oksuz was charged with devising a scheme to falsify, conceal, and cover up material facts and with making false statements to Congress. The Houston Chronicle reports Oksuz was recently arrested in Armenia and faces extradition.

The House Ethics Committee in July 2015 said it found no evidence of wrongdoing by lawmakers.

Lawmakers obtained prior approval for the trip from the ethics panel "in good faith" and did not know that two groups that claimed to sponsor the trip had apparently lied about the true source of their funding, the ethics panel said.

A total of 10 members of Congress -- six Democrats and four Republicans -- went on the trip, including four from Texas: Democrats Ruben Hinojosa and Sheila Jackson Lee and Republicans Steve Stockman and Ted Poe.

Also on the trip were Democratic Reps. Gregory Meeks and Yvette Clarke of New York, Danny Davis of Illinois and Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico, as well as Republican Reps. Jim Bridenstine of Oklahoma and Leonard Lance of New Jersey.

Bridenstine, Stockman and Hinojosa no longer serve in Congress. Bridenstine is administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

No working phone number could be located Tuesday for the nonprofit.Federal officers with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcements (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) team arrested 98 criminal aliens and immigration violators in North Texas and Oklahoma during a 10-day enforcement action, the agency says.



Deportation officers made arrests in 38 Texas cities including Amarillo (2), Arlington (2), Athens (1), Big Spring (1), Bridgeport (1), Canton (1), Carrollton (1), Dallas (11), Denton (3), Fort Worth (5), Frisco (3), Garland (1), Gilmer (4), Grapevine (1), Greenville (1), Haltom City (1), Haslett (1), Hawley (1), Irving (6), Jacksboro (2), Kaufman (1), Lewisville (2), Longview (2), Lubbock (9), McKinney (3), Mesquite (2), Palestine (2), Pampa (4), Perryton (2), Plainview (2), Plano (1), Sache (1), San Angelo (2), Sherman (2), Tyler (1), Wichita Falls (1) and White Oak (1).



A total of 11 arrests were made in Oklahoma in Oklahoma City (3) and Tulsa (8).



Of the 98 arrested, 67 had criminal convictions; 87 men and 11 women were arrested ranging in age from 19 to 62 years old; arrestees were natives of the following countries, Mexico (82), El Salvador (7), Honduras (6), Marshall Islands (1), Pakistan (1) and Peru (1); 29 had illegally re-entered the U.S. after having been previously deported -- a felony punishable by up to 20 years in federal prison.



"Most of the aliens targeted by ERO deportation officers during this operation had prior criminal histories that included convictions for the following crimes: alien smuggling, assault, burglary, dangerous drugs, discharge of a firearm, domestic violence, driving under the influence, drug trafficking, fraud, illegal entry, hit & run, homicide, larceny, lewd or lascivious acts with a minor, marijuana possession, possessing a weapon, probation violation, resisting officer, sex assault, sex offense, sex offense against a child, traffic offense and trespassing," ICE said. "Five confirmed and documented gang members were also arrested during this operation."



The operation ended last Friday, Sept. 21.The firing of Dallas police officer Amber Guyger, who has been charged with manslaughter in the fatal shooting of her neighbor, Botham Jean, inside his own apartment, was premature and unfair, Guyger's attorney said.

Robert Rogers, who represents Guyger, said Monday night that Police Chief U. Renee Hall "bowed to pressure from anti-police groups and took action before all of the facts had been gathered and due process was afforded."

"That's not the way our system of justice should work," Rogers said in his first statement since the shooting.

He called the Sept. 6 shooting that left the 26-year-old Jean dead "a tragic mistake" and said "words can never express our sorrow for the pain suffered by those who knew and loved" Jean. Rogers added that Guyger "is completely devastated by what happened."

Court records show Guyger said she thought she had encountered a burglar inside her own home. She was arrested three days later and is currently out on bond.

Guyger's firing came the same day that Jean was being buried in his Caribbean homeland, St. Lucia. Hall dismissed the four-year veteran of the force during a hearing Monday, according to the Dallas Police Department.

A statement released by police said an internal investigation concluded that on Sept. 9, Guyger "engaged in adverse conduct when she was arrested for Manslaughter." Dallas police spokesman Sgt. Warren Mitchell later said that when an officer has been arrested for a crime, "adverse conduct" is often cited in the officer's termination.

Mitchell said adverse conduct is "conduct which adversely affects the (morale) or efficiency of the Department or which has a tendency to adversely affect, lower, destroy public respect and confidence in the Department or officer."

The Jean family's attorneys, along with protesters, had been calling for Guyger to be fired since the shooting. In a statement, the attorneys said the termination is an initial victory.

"However, we are committed to seeing through the next steps of the process of a proper murder indictment, conviction and appropriate sentencing," they said in the statement.

Dallas County District Attorney Faith Johnson has said the case will be presented to a grand jury, which could decide a more serious charge than manslaughter.

During a conference call with Jean's parents and their lawyers on Sunday, Hall reported she intended to fire Guyger and explained the delay in the action, according to the family's attorneys in their statement.

Days before the firing, Hall said in a statement that she had not taken action against Guyger because she did not want to interfere with the ongoing criminal investigation.

There are conflicting narratives over what led up to the shooting.

Guyger told investigators that she had just ended a shift when she returned in uniform to the South Side Flats apartment complex where she lived.

She said when she put her key in the apartment door, which was unlocked and slightly ajar, it opened, according to the affidavit. Inside, the lights were off, and she saw a figure in the darkness that cast a large silhouette across the room, according to the officer's account.

Guyger said she concluded her apartment was being burglarized and gave verbal commands to the person, who ignored them. The affidavit said she then drew her weapon and fired twice.

She called 911. Asked where she was, she returned to the front door to see she was in the wrong unit, according to the affidavit. The 911 tapes have not been released.

But according to an affidavit for a search warrant Jean "confronted the officer at the door."

After the shooting, Guyger's blood was drawn to be tested for alcohol and drugs, according to Hall. Authorities have not released results.

Merritt has called into question Guyger's narrative. The lawyer has said that two independent witnesses have told him they heard knocking on the door in the hallway before the shooting.

He said one witness reported hearing a woman's voice saying, "Let me in! Let me in!"

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings said he agrees with the decision to fire Guyger.

"The swift termination of any officer who engages in misconduct that leads to the loss of innocent life is essential if the Dallas Police Department is to gain and maintain the public trust," Rawlings said in a statement.

Guyger graduated from Sam Houston High School in 2008, according to an official at the Arlington Independent School District. She also attended Tarrant County College, according to an official there, although it is not clear when she went to the school.

Guyger also attended the University of Texas at Arlington in fall of 2012 and spring of 2013, said university spokeswoman Sana Syed. Guyger's intended major was criminology and criminal justice, Syed said.

Dallas police say Guyger was hired in November 2013 and state law enforcement records show she was appointed as a peace officer in May 2014.

Sgt. Michael Mata, president of the Dallas Police Association, said Guyger more recently worked on a team tasked with arresting some of the city's most violent offenders. He said the association -- Dallas' largest police employee organization -- will be paying Guyger's legal fees.Neighbors who live in the Oaks at Hilltop Ranch, just west of Mansfield, are worried about plans for a concrete batch plant that could possibly be constructed near their homes.

"You look we have a very nice, country neighborhood. That's why we all moved out here, and we'd like to keep it that way, said Sandye Simpson, who lives in the neighborhood.

Less than a mile away, Bosque Solutions LLC has applied for an Air Quality Standard Permit through the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to construct a concrete batch plant.

TCEQ sent out a notice to residents in the area alerting them of the news and adding that the proposed facility will emit the following air contaminants: particulate matter including (but not limited to) aggregate, cement, road dust, and particulate matter

Tarrant County Commissioner Andy Nguyen said he was notified in June of this year about the application to TCEQ for a permit to construct the plant.

Nguyen said shortly after, his office began receiving emails and calls from residents in Kennedale and Mansfield with concerns.

For many neighbors, like Breanna Clary, air quality is the top concern.

"I have a 6-year-old and 9-year-old, two boys, healthy, running around, constantly on their bikes I want my kids to be healthy, and I don't want them breathing in these toxins," Clary said.

Nguyen told NBC 5 in part, "I am concerned with the health and safety of our residents. According to the EPA, concrete batch plants could be a significant source of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and carbon monoxide, which are associated with negative health and environmental impacts

Simpson said she has more concerns.

"It's also been mentioned that if that goes in it will lower the value of this neighborhood and the individual homes," she said.

Simpson is also concerned about the plant bringing big trucks to their small roads in the area, and causing traffic issues.

Nguyen said that hes been working with local elected legislators, Senator Konni Burton, and Representative Bill Zedler, and they have scheduled a public meeting with TCEQ to discuss the permit.

The meeting is set for October 18th at 7PM at Reds Roadhouse on Kennedale Parkway.

"We will try to fight it as long as we can, and hopefully it won't go in," said Clancy.

Josh Butler, the consultant that prepared the air permit application, discussed the neighbors concerns with Bosque Solutions LLC and provided the following comments

In regards to air quality, when the Air Quality Standard Permit that Bosque Solutions is applying for was developed by the TCEQ, The TCEQ performed computerized air dispersion modeling to show that, when a facility is operated under the standard permit's conditions, emissions from the facility would not result in a violation of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS). These standards are put in place by the EPA to protect public health and the environment. Based on this information, along with the information found within the air permit application associated with this facility, the operation of the subject concrete batch plant under the standard permit's conditions would not have a detrimental impact to the air quality in the surrounding areas.

Butler also added that Bosque Solutions, LLC would always emphasize that it intends to carefully comply with the environmental controls designed by the State of Texas, that it plans to be a good neighbor, and it wants to keep open lines of communication between Bosque and its neighbors during this process and in the long term.A Waxahachie mother claims her school district failed her son when his school didn't provide the help he needed.

Natasha Carriere's son, Nicholas, has always had special needs. He was born four-months premature with Cerebral palsy, spina bifida, and autism. He's been wheelchair-bound since July, when he fell off a tricycle. Since then, Nicholas has lost much of his mobility and speech.

Carriere said she told his school, Dunaway Elementary, he needed help using the restroom and changing his diaper, but his first day at school last Wednesday, Carriere said the school nurse didn't help. "She wheeled him into a handicap stall, from my understanding," said Carriere. "And basically told him that he needed to figure it out himself."

Nicholas was not always in a wheelchair. Pictures show him on school field trips using leg braces. The wheelchair is new since the summer.

"We were just kinda getting started with our physical therapy," explained Carriere. "So he hasn't safely been taught how to move to and from his chair."

Carriere said she knew something was wrong when Nicholas got home from school last week with sores on his back side, and 9 of the 10 diapers she numbered and sent to school with him came home in his bag.

"His chair has feces on it. He had dried feces on his bottom. His diaper was full," explained Carriere. "So even though he may have some delays and disabilities, he's still a 10-year old boy who sat in a class full of his peers in a dirty diaper."

Carriere believes it comes down to money.

"They have the funds. I think it's just the special needs community is last on their list of things to provide for," said Carriere. "It's really sad, because they're the ones that need it the most."

A spokeswoman for the Waxahachie Independent School District told NBC 5 that federal privacy laws prevented them from commenting on the case, but said, "The safety and care of all of our student is our number one priority."

When asked if he wanted to go back to school, Nicholas moaned and shook his head 'no'. "He loved school before all of this," his mom said.There was push back Tuesday on the reform plan unveiled by Dallas Police Chief U. Renee Hall Monday at a city council committee meeting. City council members mostly supported the plan. Opposition among police officers was strong Tuesday according to a union leader.

George Aranda, president of the National Latino Law Enforcement Officers Association, Dallas Chapter said turnout for their regular monthly meeting was much higher than normal.

"We had a packed house today," Aranda said. "We had close to over 80 people in here who were concerned and upset over the new policies that are being put in place."

Hall's proposed policy changes are billed as "21st Century Policing Best Practices," a reference to policy research completed by the International Association of Chiefs of Police.

Hall's recommendations include removing a 72-hour waiting period before officers are required to give a statement about critical incidents and giving more power to the Dallas Citizens Police Review Board.

Hall was hired from Detroit, where 11 civilian police commissioners oversee police hiring, discipline and policy. Seven of the Detroit commissioners are elected by the public and four are appointed by the mayor.

Monday, Hall said she believed expanded civilian oversight power was necessary in Dallas to build trust in the community.

"These are things that I intend to push forward and it's not without the officers input," Hall said.

Aranda said there was no input from his organization and members are most unhappy with removing the 72-hour waiting period.

"We did our research and it totally contradicts 21st Century Policing," Aranda said.

The union leader said the waiting period is intended to help get complete information from officers who may be under intense stress during a critical situation. Without it, Aranda said officers may fear making a partial statement.

"I'm surprised that we were not reached out to and briefed on it. You can't make a big policy change like that without talking to your officers," Aranda said.

Bishop Omar Jahwar, with a community action group called Urban Specialists, said he agreed there was a need for police reform in Dallas, but he said Hall's plan goes too far.

"We're trying to stop the innocent from being harmed. We're trying to stop the good police from being caught in this massacre of character assassination," Jahwar said.

He said he supported additional power for the Dallas Civilian Review Board but not as much power as civilians have over police in Detroit. He said police officers should have time to collect their thoughts after a critical situation, but 72 hours may be too long.

"You want to have a police department that's disciplined, that's balanced and fair. And I believe we can get there, but you've got to be strategic," he said.

Hall told the city council public safety committee Monday that her proposed changes are not final.

The committee chairman, councilman Adam McGough, attended the union meeting Tuesday. He declined to comment afterward except to say that he is doing a lot of listening.A 20-year-old Texas mother whose two toddlers died after they were left for hours inside a hot vehicle has pleaded guilty.

The Kerrville Daily Times reports Amanda Kristene Hawkins pleaded guilty Monday in Kerrville to two counts each of child abandonment, child endangerment and injury to a child in the June 2017 deaths of her two daughters.

Hawkins could receive up to 20 years in prison for each count when she's sentenced Dec. 12.

Investigators believe Hawkins intentionally left 1-year-old Brynn Hawkins and 2-year-old Addyson Overgard-Eddy in her vehicle through the night and into the following day while she visited friends. Temperatures reached the 80s while the girls were in the car.

Kerrville is 65 miles northwest of San Antonio.A West Texas man has been accused of beating his 1-year-old daughter and gluing her mouth and eyes shut.

El Paso County records show 29-year-old Johnnie Lee Carter was being held Wednesday on a charge of injury to a child causing serious bodily injury.

Carter was arrested Monday at an El Paso motel and faces extradition to Odessa.

Odessa police Sept. 16 responded to a domestic disturbance. Police said Carter fled but his toddler was found with facial injuries and her eyes and mouth glued shut.

She was transported to a hospital for treatment. Her current condition is not known.

An affidavit said the mother told police that her husband choked and punched their toddler before applying adhesive. A super glue stick was found nearby.

Online records didn't list an attorney representing Carter.A week ago, firefighters in Conway went to a neighborhood and told surprised residents their houses would flood from Hurricane Florence even though they had never had water in them before.

On Monday and Tuesday, those same firefighters checked on those same South Carolina neighborhoods with maps that detailed each of the nearly 1,000 homes that could expect to be inundated.

"It's kind of playing out exactly like we forecast," Conway Fire Chief Le Hendrick said.

Twelve days after the once-fierce hurricane arrived on the coast, and more than a week after it blew north and dissipated, rivers swollen by its relentless rains are still flooding homes and businesses in their paths as they make their way to the sea.

The slow-moving disaster has allowed forecasters to pinpoint exactly who will flood. There have been few rescues or surprises in South Carolina  just black, reeking water slowly seeping in and even more slowly receding.

"You find yourself sitting around a lot and thinking, 'What if,' or, 'I wonder what things are like right now,'" said Vivian Chestnut, who left her home in Conway a week ago and might not get back until well into October. "And wondering what you are going to find when you finally get back."

The Waccamaw River, which flows through the city of 23,000, was expected to crest on Wednesday at 21.7 feet (6.6 meters). It surpassed the previous record high of 17.9 feet (5.5 meters) set in 2016 by Hurricane Matthew on Friday.

The waterway was not expected to drop below 18 feet (5.5 meters) or so until sometime next week. The river floods at 11 feet (3.4 meters).

All that water is making its way to Georgetown, where five different rivers reach the sea. Officials there said the worst of the flooding would start Wednesday and last until Thursday, likely leaving only one highway into the city.

And if that weren't bad enough, more weather was forming off the coast in a hurricane season that still has two months to go. National Hurricane Center forecasters watching a low pressure area about 200 miles (320 kilometers) south of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, said it could become a tropical depression as it approaches the coast before moving quickly to the north.

While it will likely dump some additional rain on the Florence-battered city of Wilmington, it wasn't expected to be significant enough to worsen the flooding.

"It shouldn't put much of a dent in the rivers," said Reid Hawkins, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Wilmington.

Officials at South Carolina's state-owned utility were still warily monitoring two coal-ash ponds near Conway. Santee Cooper officials said floodwater from the Waccamaw River had already made it into one pond, but most of the ash had already been removed from it during an earlier cleanup project.

The river is likely to flood the second pond soon, but the utility promised it has taken steps to lessen the environmental impact, such as installing silt fencing and a floating environmental containment boom.

Not far from the ash ponds, engineers are keeping an eye on U.S. Highway 501, the main link to Myrtle Beach. Water is now touching a temporary barrier of sand and plastic that has been erected to keep water off the bridge. Called the Lifeline, the temporary wall will remain effective if the water doesn't rise more than an additional 5 feet (1.5 meters) from its current level, according to the state Department of Transportation.

In North Carolina the rivers have stopped rising, but the recovery process is really just beginning. In rural Jones County, between Kinston and New Bern, two of the county's six schools will have to be demolished after floodwaters left mold and mildew in their wake, School Superintendent Michael Bracy said..

Associated Press writers Jonathan Drew, Gary D. Robertson, Alex Derosier, Meg Kinnard and AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein contributed to this report.A man suspected in a deadly double shooting at an Escondido bar has been identified as the older brother of one of the shooting victims, police said Tuesday.

Antonio Martinez, 35, died from wounds suffered when a gunman opened fire at Pounders Bar around 1 a.m. Saturday. The suspected shooter has been identified as Manuel Eliseo Martinez, 32, a documented gang member and the victim's younger brother.

The incident began when Manuel and Antonio Martinez sped off in a car from the bar, skidding along the way. A bar patron yelled at the pair and the Martinezes came back to confront the man, according to police.

Manuel Martinez pulled a gun on the bar-goer and another person intervened. That's when Manuel Martinez fired two rounds; one struck Antonio Martinez and the other that stuck the person who intervened in the confrontation.

The man who intervened was injured but is expected to survive. He had no relationship to the brothers and was not involved in any gang activity, police said.

Manuel Martinez was taken into custody after a brief foot chase around 1 a.m. Saturday and was booked into the Vista Jail on murder charges, among several others.

His brother was taken to Palomar Medical Center where he died from his wounds, police said.

Manuel Martinez was a wanted suspect in three other violent crimes committed in Escondido since 2017, police said. He has been deported from the United States six times, and Escondido police and ICE have been actively searching for him.

Escondido police continue to investigate the shooting.In the wake of declining enrollment statewide, San Diego County schools are trying to attract more students.

Enrollment numbers are important because when districts grow they get more funding, but when they shrink they get less - about $10,000 less for each student.

In Vista, one school has parents practically knocking down the door to get their kids in.

Its the first year of a dual immersion program in the Vista Unified School District.

Billy, who attends Grapevine Elementary, says he learns something new every day. "First I go to English class next door then I do Spanish right now in the afternoon," he told NBC 7.

Superintendent Dr. Linda Kimbel says its one of the programs thats attracting more students to the district. "Its a competition for students now," she says.

The Vista Unified School District's enrollment is down more than 4.6 percent over the last five years. This year alone, the decline translates to a loss of $4 million in funding.

San Diego Unified School Districts (SDUSD) enrollment is also down 1.3 percent in district schools and 2.1 percent in charter schools for this year over last year.

The Charter School Association said SDUSD's enrollment rate has been steadily declining since the early 2000s.

During that time, their charter school growth has been steady so the decline in enrollment may also come from other factors, including a decline in birth rates and an increase in families moving away from San Diego, according to the Charter School Association.

In contrast, Poway Unified School District's enrollment is growing at a rate of one percent a year. San Marcos Unified School District is also reportedly growing.

In both districts cases, new housing developments in their areas seem to be a factor.What to Know Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday morning

Ford has accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct while the two were in high school in the 1980s

A female, outside counsel has been retained to question Ford and Kavanaugh

On Thursday morning, a psychology professor from California will sit before lawmakers to accuse a Supreme Court nominee of sexual assault  while all of Washington, and much of the nation, watches it live. It's a high-stakes, high-drama moment with the power to sink Judge Brett Kavanaugh's chances of winning a seat on the high court and to shift the dynamic in the upcoming midterm elections.

How will Kavanaugh and Ford prepare for the make-or-break event? Here's a look at what it takes to get ready for a public grilling.

REHEARSAL SESSIONS

First, they will practice. Both Kavanaugh and Ford have undoubtedly spent time with lawyers and other experts in the art of mounting a strong public defense.

These sessions can be nasty, merciless and rough  often called murder boards. They're designed to squeeze frustration or even anger out of a nominee before the public hearing. Better that it come out in private than in front of the cameras, the thinking goes.

Justices John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor all underwent this grilling before their confirmation hearings. So do presidential candidates ahead of televised debates. Ohio Republican Sen. Rob Portman, for example, played Democrats Al Gore and Barack Obama in mock debates with George W. Bush and Mitt Romney to help the Republicans withstand anything that might throw them off-stride.

Kavanaugh spent hours at a time in the White House complex last week preparing for the upcoming hearing. He was joined by a team of officials including White House counsel Don McGahn and members of his staff, officials from the Justice Department, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, deputy press secretary Raj Shah and communications director Bill Shine. Shine's presence was noteworthy, since he was ousted from his previous job at Fox News in part due to his handling of sexual harassment claims at the company.

TEST THE MESSAGE

Kavanaugh had a dry run of sorts with his Monday night interview with Martha MacCallum of Fox News Channel.

With wife Ashley at his side, the appellate court judge denied at least six times ever sexually assaulting anyone. He said 15 times that he wants a "fair" hearing. He refused to speculate on Ford's motives for making such an accusation. He volunteered that he was a virgin throughout high school and for years afterward.

Kavanaugh, 53, even seemed emotional  not necessarily a bad thing, according to Josh Kroon, a Washington-based expert in crisis communications for the firm Levick International.

"I think it played well for the people at home," Kroon said of the glimmer of Kavanaugh's frustration. "I think he's going to have to expand on the language. He has to get away from 'fair process' and 'I didn't do it.'"

Ari Fleischer, former press secretary to President George W. Bush, said, "The challenge for Brett will be conveying the expected emotion that would come with a full-throated denial. His nature is to be quiet, buttoned-down and studious, and if I'm accused of something I didn't do, I get a little hot, I get a little emotional."

Dan Pfeiffer, former aide to President Barack Obama, suggested that Kavanaugh came across as insincere and the product of elite society.

"He seemed entitled," Pfeiffer said. "He left a lot of additional ground for the Senate to cover on Thursday."

After the interview aired, the sense in the West Wing was relief that Kavanaugh was able to present an image to counter the allegations. Yet there remained concern among aides, and Trump himself, as to how Kavanaugh, who appeared shaken at times during the interview, would hold up facing far fiercer questioning from Senate Democrats on Thursday, according to a White House official not authorized to speak publicly about private conversations.

As for Ford, 51, she and her team have said nothing about how she's preparing for the hot lights to which she is even less accustomed than Kavanaugh. She works as a psychology professor in a consortium between Stanford and Palo Alto University.

PREPPING THE QUESTIONS

Senators and their staffs are preparing, too, for a hearing that they may see as unavoidable. Ahead of the hearing, they're honing strategies, questions and follow-ups, all while laboring to avoid an election-year spectacle like the 1991 confirmation hearings of Justice Clarence Thomas with his accuser, Anita Hill.

This time, the all-male Republican members of the Judiciary Committee are hiring an outside female counsel to, in effect, cross-examine Ford.

Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, senior associate dean for leadership studies at Yale University, said Thursday's hearing is unprecedented.

"This is different from all others," he said. "We don't have a press for comity the way we did for Anita Hill, with a lot of senators trying to avoid a partisan mud-throwing situation. Here, we're almost already there."

Fleischer said there is pressure on Republican senators to not appear too harsh when they interview Ford, but he said there's also pressure on Democratic senators interviewing Kavanaugh.

"If they come off looking like they have their fingers in Brett's chest, lecturing him ... they risk riling up half the nation," Fleischer said.

Associated Press writers Jonathan Lemire, Juliet Linderman and Eric Tucker and researcher Jennifer Farrar contributed to this report.Four people who know professor Christine Blasey Ford have signed sworn affidavits that say she previously told them about being assaulted by a federal judge when they were both teenagers, evidence meant to bolster her allegation that Judge Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were in high school in the 1980s.

The affidavits from her husband and three friends have been submitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Ford's legal team said, ahead of a Thursday hearing where she and Kavanaugh will be questioned about the allegation, which the Supreme Court nominee denies.

In addition, Ford's lawyers have provided the Senate Judiciary Committee with the results of a polygraph test on her accusation. The documents indicate the Ford took the test on Aug. 7 at a Hilton Hotel in Maryland.

Ford Legal Team

Ford has told The Washington Post she hired a former FBI agent to conduct the test as she considered whether to come forward with her accusation, and she's said she passed it.

The newly released documents seem to support her claim, but there's no independent expert verification.

Top Republicans are pushing to confirm Kavanaugh within a week, but Ford's allegation and those of two other women  including one who came forward Wednesday  have jeopardized that effort  a few Republican senators have expressed reservations, and the party has a narrow majority in the Senate.

One friend of Ford's said that, in the summer of 2016, she told him "she was assaulted in high school by a man who was now a federal judge in Washington, D.C." She had been upset by the short sentence given to Brock Turner, a Stanford student who sexually assaulted an unconscious woman on campus.

The friend, Keith Koegler, said that she emailed him again in June 29, 2018, to say that her attacker was President Donald Trump's favorite to be nominated to the Supreme Court. When the friend asked her what his name was, she replied, "Brett Kavanaugh."

The two other friends say that Ford told her in 2013 and 2017 that she had been assaulted by a federal judge, though they didn't say Kavanaugh's name came up.

"She said that she had been almost raped by someone who was now a federal judge. She told me she had been trapped in a room with two drunken guys, and that she then escaped, ran away, and hid," said Adela Gildo-Mazzon in her affidavit.

That is the story that Ford came forward with this month, during Kavanaugh's confirmation process. At the time, she said she'd told her husband during a 2012 couple's therapy session and offered the therapist's notes as evidence. Her husband's affidavit contains the same information.

Ford, 51, is a psychology professor in a consortium between Stanford and Palo Alto University. She went public with her account to The Washington Post, saying that Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed at a Maryland house party in the early 1980s and tried to take her clothes off. He put his hand over her mouth when she tried to scream, she said, and she feared he might inadvertently kill her. She said she was around 15 at the time and he would have been about 17.

Ford also said Kavanaugh's classmate Mark Judge was in the room for the alleged assault, but Judge has said he doesn't remember any such party.

Kavanaugh has vehemently denied sexually assaulting anyone and submitted pages from a calendar he kept in 1982 as evidence against Ford's allegation. He also denied the account of a second woman, Deborah Ramirez, who told The New Yorker magazine that Kavanaugh caused her to touch his penis at a party when both were Yale freshmen.

He has also denied taking part in any gang rapes, but on Wednesday, Julie Swetnick came forward in a declaration released by her attorney Michael Avenatti to say that she saw Kavanaugh try to inebriate women at high school parties like one where she was raped. NBC News has reached out to Kavanaugh for comment on the allegation.

Ford and Kavanaugh are both set to testify Thursday, though not together, at a momentous Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. An Arizona prosecutor will handle the questioning, committee Chairman Chuck Grassley said. Resisting calls from Ford and Democrats, Grassley won't call other potential witnesses to testify.

Senate Majority Leader McConnell forecast that Republicans will "win" approval of Kavanaugh, though the confirmation remains uncertain in a chamber where Republicans have a scant 51-49 majority.

"I will be glued to the television," said Sen. Susan Collins, a moderate Republican from Maine, who has yet to declare how she will vote on confirmation.

Some Republicans have questioned why Ford's accusation only surfaced publically so late in the confirmation process. Ford was initially reluctant to come forward with the accusation, but passed it via Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., to the top Democrat on the committee, Sen. Diane Feinstein, in a letter dated July 30. Feinstein's referral of the letter to the FBI this month  Feinstein said she was seeking ways to honor Ford's privacy  eventually prompted Ford to go public.

President Donald Trump has asked that Ford bring forward proof that she filed charges against Kavanaugh at the time of the attack to corroborate it, comments that sparked stories on social media from sexual assault survivors across the country under the hashtag #WhyIDidntReport.

Trump on Wednesday denounced Democratic efforts to block the confirmation as a cynical "con game" and praised Kavanaugh as "an absolute gem."

On Tuesday, Trump launched a dismissive attack on Ramirez, asserting that Kavanaugh's second accuser "has nothing."

Ramirez is willing to testify to the committee but hasn't been invited to do so, her attorney told the "Today" show Wednesday.

Hoping Thursday's hearing will yield no new surprises, the Senate Judiciary Committee scheduled its own vote on Kavanaugh for Friday, and Republican leaders laid plans that could keep the full Senate in session over the weekend and produce a final showdown roll call soon after  close to the Oct. 1 start of the high court's new term.

Given that the Judiciary Committee's GOP members are all male, McConnell said the panel was hiring a "female assistant" to handle the questioning for Republicans "in a respectful and professional way." Grassley, R-Iowa, identified Mitchell in a press release late Wednesday, describing her as "a career prosecutor with decades of experience prosecuting sex crimes."

"My gut is they're trying to avoid a panel of all white guys asking tone-deaf questions," said Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware.

Each senator on the 21-member panel will be allowed five minutes to ask questions, said committee spokesman Taylor Foy. That's a tight rein for such a major hearing.

Meanwhile, the Republicans were still assessing what Kavanaugh's Monday interview on the Fox News Channel  an unusual appearance for a Supreme Court nominee  indicates about how he would perform in Thursday's hearing.

Kavanaugh's accounts of his behavior in high school and college have faced intense scrutiny, with some of his former classmates coming forward to challenge his claims and others continuing to attest to his character.

Fellow former students have also spoken out in defense of the integrity of Kavanaugh's two accusers.The investigation into Russian election interference is often called the Mueller probe, but it's Rod Rosenstein who oversees it.

Rosenstein's fate as deputy attorney general remains in the air after reports last week that he floated the idea of recording President Donald Trump. Rosenstein went to the White House on Monday amid conflicting reports about his fate in the administration. But the president gave him a three-day reprieve, and the two are set to have a face-to-face showdown on Thursday.

So what happens to the Russia investigation if Rosenstein loses his job after Thursday's meeting?

Some questions and answers:

WHAT IS ROSENSTEIN'S ROLE IN THE MUELLER PROBE?

Rosenstein is Mueller's boss. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has recused himself from the Russia probe, to Trump's great frustration, and left the duties of overseeing the investigation to Rosenstein. After Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, Rosenstein appointed Mueller as special counsel to take over the investigation. Rosenstein is acting in Sessions' place to oversee the probe and has the power to fire Mueller  for cause  under Justice Department guidelines.

Rosenstein makes nearly all the pivotal decisions in the Mueller investigation, including signing off on indictments. In an interview with USA Today in March, Rosenstein said Mueller was "not an unguided missile."

In an investigation kept decidedly out of the public spotlight, it was Rosenstein  not Mueller  who briefed the president and then stood before the microphones when indictments were announced. He did so most recently in July, when the Justice Department charged 12 Russian intelligence officers in the hacking of Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton campaign emails during the 2016 election.

WHO WOULD REPLACE ROSENSTEIN IF HE IS OUSTED?

Under the Justice Department's succession plan, control of the Russia probe would be turned over to Solicitor General Noel Francisco.

He is the highest-ranking official after Rosenstein who has been confirmed by the Senate  a requirement for the position. The acting associate attorney general is actually ranked higher but would be ineligible because it is not a Senate-confirmed position.

But Francisco wouldn't take over as acting deputy. Sessions would likely move his chief of staff, Matthew Whitaker, into that position. He would take over Rosenstein's responsibilities outside the Mueller probe.

That would be a departure from the department's regular succession plan, which would make Rosenstein's chief deputy, Edward O'Callaghan, the acting deputy.

WHO IS NOEL FRANCISCO?

As solicitor general, Francisco is the president's top lawyer who has successfully defended controversial Trump policies, including the travel ban, before the Supreme Court.

Francisco served in President George W. Bush's administration, was a law clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia and was an attorney at the Washington law firm Jones Day, where he took on a number of conservative causes. The firm represents the Trump campaign, which could raise questions about whether he would have a conflict overseeing the Russia investigation. Francisco has recused himself from Supreme Court cases in which Jones Day represents a party.

If Francisco recuses himself from the Mueller probe, Steven Engel, the head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, would be next in line to take over the investigation.

WHY IS IT SIGNIFICANT WHETHER ROSENSTEIN RESIGNS OR IS FIRED?

The circumstances of Rosenstein's departure would affect Trump's ability to pick a replacement.

Under a law known as the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, if Rosenstein resigns, the president would have the power to temporarily move any Senate-confirmed appointee into the vacant post.

But Trump has less flexibility if he fires Rosenstein. The Justice Department would likely need to adhere to its succession plan, appointing Francisco as the overseer of the Mueller probe and Whitaker as deputy attorney general.

COULD THIS CHANGE THE COURSE OF THE MUELLER INVESTIGATION?

If Rosenstein were to depart, Mueller and his investigators would be losing the oversight of an official who has protected their work despite the relentless attacks of Trump and his congressional allies. Time and again, Rosenstein has signed off on critical investigative steps they have taken.

As the person who appointed Mueller and constructed his mandate, Rosenstein is intimately familiar with the details of the investigation. There is little likelihood that a successor would be nearly as familiar with the specifics of the investigation.

There is also no guarantee that Rosenstein's successor would be willing or able to withstand the political pressures and be similarly supportive and protective of the work of Mueller's team.

Associated Press writer Eric Tucker contributed to this report.A Florida man is now behind bars after being accused of tossing another man 30 feet off a bridge during an altercation Saturday afternoon in Daytona Beach.

A police officer arrived on scene just in time to catch 21-year-old Derrick Goodin on bodycam video lift up a man and threw him over the Main Street bridge.

Goodin was involved in an argument with a woman over money as she and a another man walked a bike with a flat tire over the bridge, WESH reports.

The woman was approached by Goodin and the two got into a verbal argument over a prior money exchange, according to an arrest report. Goodin allegedly slapped the woman in the face, and threw the mans bike off the bridge when he stepped in to defend her.

A man in a row boat spotted the bloodied victim in the water and rowed him to shore.

The woman refused to press charges, but officers still arrested Goodin and charged him with aggravated battery and disorderly conduct.What to Know A Volusia County Sheriff's Office report says Ryan Athey submitted a check from the "County of Voulisa" this month and spent the cash.

Deputies say Athey has admitted to knowing the check was a fake.

A Florida inmate is accused of cashing a fake county department of corrections check for $350 that misspelled the county's name.

The Daytona Beach News-Journal reports 34-year-old Ryan Athey was charged Thursday with passing a counterfeit bank bill and grand theft. A Volusia County Sheriff's Office report says Athey submitted a check from the "County of Voulisa" this month and spent the cash at the jail commissary.

It says Athey was serving time at the county jail on charges including driving with a suspended license. Deputies say the check matches others used at a convenience store, and they have a suspect they believe is distributing them.

Deputies say Athey has admitted to knowing the check was a fake. Athey is in jail custody. It's unclear if he has a lawyer.What to Know Gillum, who is seeking to become the first black governor in the states history, got 54 percent of the support in the poll released Weds.

94 percent of those polled said they had made up their mind about who they will vote for on November 6th.

With less than six weeks to go until Floridians go to the polls to elect the states next governor, the latest Quinnipiac University poll gives Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum a nearly double digit lead over his opponent, former Rep. Ron DeSantis.

Gillum, who is seeking to become the first black governor in the states history as well as the first Democrat elected to the office in two decades, got 54 percent of the support in the poll released Wednesday  up from 50 percent three weeks ago  while the GOP nominee, who pulled in upset win in the primary thanks to the support of President Donald Trump, got 45 percent.

The poll surveyed 888 voters and has a margin of error of +/- 4 percent.

The results came after a NBC News / Marist poll released Tuesday showing Gillum, as well as longtime Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, having a slight lead in both their races that remained within the margin of error.

Gillums support in the latest poll came mostly from women (59 percent to 39), Independents (56 percent to 40) and minority groups, with 98 percent of black voters and 59 percent of Hispanic voters saying they would vote for him as opposed to DeSantis.

The former U.S. Representative from Jacksonville held a slim lead among male voters (51 percent to 48 percent) while 53 percent of white voters said they would vote for DeSantis while 45 percent said they would vote for Gillum.

94 percent of those polled said they had made up their mind about who they will vote for on November 6th with each candidate solidly having the support of their partys base (90 percent of GOP voters supporting DeSantis and 96 percent of Democrats supporting Gillum.)

With his candidacy backed by Vermont Sen. and former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, 39 percent of those polled labeled Gillum as too liberal while 39 percent of those polled called DeSantis too conservative.

Those polled also were asked what issues were the most important, with the economy topping all others at 20 percent followed by immigration, education and health care (14 percent each), the environment (13 percent) and gun control (12 percent).

If Gillum does become the first black governor in state history, 25 percent of voters think race relations will get better in the state while 27 percent think they will get worse and 43 percent think they will stay the same. 13 percent of voters think relations will get better if DeSantis wins while 38 percent think they will get worse and 45 percent think they will stay the same.What to Know Officials say a number of issues could come up in Wednesday's hearing, including the release of evidence and witness interviews.

Lawyers for Parkland school shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz told a judge Wednesday they want to interview potentially hundreds of witnesses that prosecutors have placed off limits in the massacre that killed 17 people.

The Cruz lawyers asked Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer to allow additional interviews of some of more than 450 secondary witnesses rather than relying on written statements or other documents from prosecutors. Court documents show these witnesses appear to have minimal involvement in the case, but Cruz's attorneys want greater access to many of them.

"We don't know what this person did. We won't know until we talk to them," said Assistant Public Defender David Frankel. "We're letting them (prosecutors) control what is pertinent and what is not."

Prosecutor Jeffrey Marcus, however, said such a lengthy interview process would produce scant results and that the defense will have all statements and documents from those witnesses.

"They are not entitled for a fishing expedition. There is no need for it," Marcus said. "They have no direct knowledge."

Ultimately, Scherer denied defense requests to interview seven of the initial eight so-called "C'' witnesses but said she was willing to revisit the issue. Scherer also ordered Cruz lawyers to begin interviewing the top-level witnesses who were directly involved in the shooting and the law enforcement reaction to it.

"We have to start," the judge said. "Otherwise, this case is going to be pending for three years. Nobody wants that."

It is not unusual for death penalty cases in South Florida to take much longer than three years.

Cruz, 19, is charged with charged with killing 17 people and wounding 17 others in the Feb. 14 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. His lawyers say he would plead guilty in exchange for life in prison, but prosecutors reject that.

On another issue, Cruz's lawyers claimed either prosecutors or the Broward Sheriff's Office may have violated his rights by improperly releasing his mental health records to a separate commission investigating the shooting. Assistant Public Defender Melisa McNeill asked Scherer to hold either or both the state attorney's office and sheriff's office in contempt for the records release to the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Public Safety Commission earlier this year.

Scherer previously ordered that Cruz's medical records be released only to law enforcement investigators and lawyers directly involved in the case.

"These are records that are private, federally protected, mental health records. The commission is in possession of records they should not be in possession of," McNeill said.

Another prosecutor, Steven Klinger, said government officials did not release the records to the Stoneman Douglas commission.

"The state and sheriff's office are well aware of this court's orders and we will follow this court's orders," he said.

Scherer did not immediately rule on the contempt motion. She set another hearing for Nov. 15.Health officials issued a rabies alert Tuesday after a cat tested positive for rabies in North Miami Beach.

The Florida Department of Health in Miami-Dade County said in a statement an unvaccinated pet cat had to be euthanized after it showed neurological symptoms consistent with rabies while in quarantine.

"There were four human exposures who had been advised to receive rabies post exposure prophylaxis," the statement read.

The rabies alert is issued for 60 days and ends on Nov. 24, 2018. It covers the following areas:

NE 163rd Street to the North,

NE 151 Street to the South,

Biscayne Blvd to the East,

NE 14th Avenue to the West

This is the seventh confirmed rabid animal, including six raccoons, that have been identified in Miami-Dade.

"There is a lot of feral cats inside the community, and people dont have the cats fixed, and Im afraid Katz are going to get scratched, and its just an amount of time before a kid gets scratched," said resident Sheila Allen

Rabies is a nervous system disease that can be fatal in humans and warm-blooded animals  with the only treatment for human exposure being a specific immunization.

DOH officials advise all residents to keep their pets vaccinations up to date and keep them under supervision while outside and to avoid wild animals, including raccoons, bats, foxes, coyotes and others.

Miami-Dade Animal Services and city officials will be going door to door in the area to alert residents as well as offer free rabies shots for animal owners.

Humans are also not advised to feed wild animals or bring them into their home. Anyone who may have been exposed to a wild animal can call the DOHs Miami-Dade office at 305-324-2400.

Click here for more information about rabies.One of two high school students who was brutally assaulted at Florida International University's Biscayne Bay campus earlier this month spoke out Wednesday to plead for help to find her attacker.

With a black eye and a cast on her arm, 15-year-old Isabela Perdomo spoke with reporters at a news conference on FIU's north campus. Perdomo and her friend and classmate, 16-year-old James Critz, were attacked by a man in a wooded area of the Biscayne Bay campus on Sept. 10.

"I think I went straight into survival mode at that point. I dont remember, all I remember is being scared but not focusing on being scared, I just remember trying to get out of the situation as fast as possible," Perdomo said. I was just thinking 'OK, let me try not to die.' I was thinking maybe he would throw us in the bed, I was trying to think of what his intentions were and how to get around them."

Perdomo suffered two gashes to her head, a fractured arm, hearing loss, skull fractures, and vision problems as a result of the attack. Critz also suffered numerous injuries, including a fractured skull.

Police have released a sketch of the suspect, who is described as a dark-skinned male around 16-18 years old. No arrests have been made.

"I want to catch him and get past it," Perdomo said.

Elizabeth Perdomo, Isabela's mother, said her daughter has attended numerous doctor's appointments and is still trying to get caught up on school work.

"I cant believe this happened to my own child and this guy is out there and it could happen to someone else," she said. "We need to get this guy.

A reward is being offered for information leading to an arrest. Anyone with info is asked to call Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers at 305-471-TIPS.Minnesota's Democratic Party chairman said Monday that he expects an investigation of allegations of physical abuse against Rep. Keith Ellison to be completed and released soon, well ahead of the November election.

A former long-term girlfriend accused Ellison of physical abuse last month, just days ahead of his victory in the crowded Democratic primary for Minnesota attorney general. Karen Monahan said Ellison once dragged her off a bed by her feet while screaming obscenities. She claims to have video footage of the 2016 incident but has refused to release it, saying it's embarrassing.

The longtime Minnesota congressman and Democratic National Committee deputy chairman has called the allegations false and tried to ride out the storm of questions after winning the Aug. 14 primary. But the old sexual assault allegations that have thrown Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination in doubt have renewed focus on Ellison and a six-week-old investigation into his conduct that has shown few outward signs of progress.

In Minnesota and Washington, Republicans have called Democrats hypocrites for stalling Kavanaugh's nomination in the Senate while failing to address Ellison's situation. Republican Karin Housley, running against Democratic Sen. Tina Smith to complete former Sen. Al Franken's term, bashed Smith for campaigning with Ellison as she calls for an investigation of Kavanaugh.

Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party Chairman Ken Martin said he believes the investigation has concluded and that a final report should be issued in the coming days.

"I'm starting to get a little frustrated because it's been a long time now, almost two months," he said. "I hope soon. I hope any day here."

While the state party's attorney initially investigated the allegations against Ellison, Martin decided after the August primary to hire an external investigator to ensure "that it wouldn't be colored by people with associations with the party." They hired Susan Ellingstad, a partner at a Minneapolis law firm with state party attorney Charlie Nauen.

Ellingstad did not immediately respond to a voicemail seeking comment on the status of the investigation.

The Democratic National Committee also is waiting on the state party. Chairman Tom Perez directed Martin to lead the review of Ellison's conduct rather than have the national party conduct a separate investigation.

Democrats in Minnesota are concerned that the allegations against Ellison could impact their chances in November to hold onto an attorney general's office they've held for more than four decades. Public polling shows Ellison in a close race with Republican Doug Wardlow, a little-known former state lawmaker who has turned the allegations into a campaign issue.

A recent poll performed for the Star Tribune and Minnesota Public Radio News showed Ellison with just 41 percent of voters' support a 5 percentage point edge over Wardlow  while more than 18 percent of respondents were undecided. The poll surveyed 800 likely voters between Sept. 10 and 12 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

Their race has been marked by a slow drip of developments in those allegations. Monahan recently published on Twitter alleged medical records from late 2017, in which she relayed to a doctor emotional and physical abuse from a former partner she identified as Ellison and that she "worried about retribution if she identifies him publicly." The doctor's progress report notes Monahan did not previously have physical injuries that required an examination.

Ellison said in a recent debate with Wardlow that those medical records were from more than a year after he left their relationship and suggested Monahan was "putting together those allegations" after the fact. An earlier medical record that Monahan also published on Twitter mentions a past "emotionally abusive relationship" but does not mention Ellison or any physical abuse.

Monahan did not respond to a message seeking comment on the status of the investigation and whether she had been interviewed. Ellison's campaign spokesman, Sam Fettig, said the congressman is cooperating fully with the investigation.What to Know More businesses in New York City are capitalizing on the growing popularity of cannabidiol, or CBD

The compound found in the cannabis plant is said to have several medical benefits, including anti-anxiety, and stress relief

CBD-infused products as varied as pastries, cocktails and topical creams are popping up in stores and restaurants throughout the city

More businesses in New York City are capitalizing on the growing popularity of cannabidiol, or CBD, as merchants tout its health benefits to sell CBD-infused products as varied as pastries, coffee and topical creams.

The controversial compound found in the cannabis plant is said to have several medical benefits, including anti-anxiety, stress relief, pain relief and anti-inflammatory properties. It's even been approved by the FDA to treat seizures linked to two rare forms of epilepsy.

Research is still emerging on the use of CBD for medical conditions, and the jury's still out on risks and side effects, according to a News 4 I-Team investigation. But with the increased interest in CBD, New York City shops have recognized an opportunity to sell products containing the oil.

Ian Ford sells CBD-infused drinks ranging from $6 to $7, along with lollipops, caramels and jams at his Brooklyn cafe, Caffeine Underground. He says regulars come in to purchase CBD foods three to four times a week, claiming they help with issues such as arthritis, stress, and even ADHD.

Caffeine Underground

"People are buying this product because it helps them get through their day," Ford told News 4 New York. "Theyre regular people who suffer from stressful jobs and come in to relax. CBD mixed with the caffeine in our coffee gives them the energy to go about their day without the constant stress and anxiety they suffer through."

Caffeine Underground was the first coffee shop in New York to roll out the drinks in March, and ever since, Ford says his business has improved significantly.

"One-third of our business comes from CBD-infused drinks alone," he said, adding that inquisitive foreigners also frequent his shop after finding out about it online.

In Two Bridges, Oliver Coffee is also selling coffee infused with cannabinoid. For an additional $3, baristas will add the oil to any drink.

Ultimately, owners of these specialty shops emphasize the importance of informed shopping. Luis Sagar, owner of The Alchemist Kitchen in the East Village, wants his shoppers to come into his store with questions and leave with the knowledge to form their own opinions.

Customers who enter his shop will always have a consultation with a trained herbalist, to limit confusion. "From the beginning, we dont sell right off the shelf we like to inform first," Sagar said.

The Alchemist Kitchen

Sagar sells the CBD in four forms: drops, gel caps, water soluble CBD for infusing drinks, and topical creams and lotions. The four versions are processed differently, but all include CBD in some form.

"CBD is definitely growing in popularity Alchemist is benefiting [because people] know theyre not walking into some hippie place selling herbs."

By CHLOE, the popular vegan chain restaurant, has also taken a bite out of the CBD craze and will unveil "Feelz by Chloe" on Sept. 27. It is partnering with CBD lifestyle brand Toast to bring customers more than 25 menu items including cakes, brownies, whoopee-pies and bubble tea.

By CHLOE co-founder Samantha Wasser said in a press release, "I am a big believer in the benefits of CBD and the potential of this ever-expanding industry."

Other businesses like Bubbys in Tribeca is selling CBD-infused cocktails. For around $20, you can drink a Banana Rum Old Fashioned or a Summer Margarita  all mixed with a CBD sweetener. Bubby's partnered with Azuca to introduce a CBD infused sweetener to the menu, which they put in their cocktails, coffees and teas.

CBD and THC are two active ingredients found in marijuana, but unlike THC, CBD is not psychoactive, meaning it does not create the mind-altering "high" that THC does, according to Medical News Today, a website indexing health news. A number of reputable medical centers are doing research into the safety and effectiveness of CBD, the I-Team reports. One business report predicts the industry could hit $22 billion by 2022.The Crazed and Spooky Tales of One Oregon Coast Lighthouse

Published 09/26/2018 at 4:44 AM PDT

By Oregon Coast Beach Connection Staff





(Cannon Beach, Oregon) - The truth behind this old lighthouse off the north Oregon coast is certainly weirder than fiction itself  or any of its ghost tales, for that matter. The Tillamook Rock lighthouse has never been accessible to the public, and thus has always sparked the imagination with its mysterious silhouette lying more than a mile away. (Photos courtesy the Furnish family, circa 1970).

As the Halloween season descends upon the Oregon coast, it seems like a prime time to spin the ol' yarns.

Construction on this blob of rock began in the 1880s, after initial plans were scrapped to put it on a fog-prone, blind spot area atop Tillamook Head.

Things did not get off to a good start. The first man to step on the rock to do some surveying drowned, creating an immediate public outcry that perhaps this wasnt a good idea.

After the top was blasted, construction crews had to endure insane conditions, living under soggy tents and enormous waves that constantly knocked at them. The crews lived in rotating shifts on the rock, and there were so many casualties in these conditions that men waiting onshore to work there were actually sequestered away from the public and from talk of what went on there.

These robber barons of old in charge of the project went to incredible lengths to keep construction workers away from the truth. They were housed in various places along the southern Washington coast, away from Seaside, and for a while even on a ship anchored just offshore.

Once it was built, lightkeepers lived there in shifts too: four of them, usually a few months at a time. It was a brutal existence, and one keeper reportedly went mad from the solitude.

A giant winch was used to bring supplies and personnel from visiting ships to the rock, which was a dangerous and unwieldy endeavor under even the best conditions. They were put inside an object called a breeches buoy  which is essentially a giant pair of pants encircled by a floatation ring, attached to the cables overhead. Numerous men were lost doing this.





The place was ripe for ghost stories. It didnt help that local tribes purportedly said it was inhabited by evil spirits.

There are rumors of such paranormal tales over the years, including the claims of voices heard over the din of storms from the lens area and other isolated or dark parts of the lighthouse. Sometimes, stories about ghost ships appearing in the fog and drifting past are associated with the place as well, but usually these have foundations in actual events involving near misses from real ships.

Indeed, a ship called the Lupatia nearly hit the lighthouse in dense fog, but was warned away just in time. However, it did soon after slam into Tillamook Head, killing all aboard except the ships dog.

One local legend has it that you can sometimes still hear the dog howl in the night near Tillamook Head.

Another almost spooky tale from the lighthouse comes from a keeper who felt something brush past his face in the dark while lying in bed. All of a sudden, he heard strange footsteps in the pitch black, and after a time, bolted towards the light switch, arms swinging wildly in an attempt to smack whatever trespasser was there. When he turned on the light, he found only an injured bird that had somehow made its way into his bedroom. The odd footsteps were its broken wing hitting the floor.

The lighthouse was decommissioned in 1957, with the last keeper, Oswald Allik, proclaiming I return thee to the elements.

In the 80s, after numerous failed ownerships, a firm called Eternity at Sea bought the Tillamook Rock lighthouse property, and for a time it served as a columbarium  a place for ashes of the dead.

Rather comically, that firm ran ads in the early 90s or so offering free satellite TV for life  if you reserved your resting place early. Presumably, they figured if you were making such arrangements you wouldnt be around too long.

That firm was bankrupt and also deceased by the early 2000s, and no one  or nothing  is in charge of the old Oregon coast lighthouse now. Lodging in Cannon Beach - Where to eat - Maps and Virtual Tours





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All Content, unless otherwise attributed, copyright BeachConnection.net Unauthorized use or publication is not permittedWhat to Know A New York City couple has been indicted in connection with the murder and dismemberment of a Bronx woman, prosecutors announced Tuesday

Daquan Wheeler, 31, and Ciara Martinez, 30, are facing numerous charges in connection to Lisa Marie Velasquez's murder in August

Velasquez, 25, was allegedly hit in the head with a hammer and dismembered, her body parts scattered among two Bronx parks, prosecutors say

A New York City couple has been indicted in connection with the murder and dismemberment of a Bronx woman, prosecutors announced Tuesday.

Daquan Wheeler, 31, was indicted on murder in the second degree, manslaughter in the first degree, criminal facilitation in the second degree and criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree, while Ciara Martinez, 30, was indicted on concealment of a human corpse, tampering with physical evidence and conspiracy in the fourth and fifth degree, Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark said, describing the crime as a series of horrifying acts.

Wheeler is due back in court Jan. 8, 2019, while Martinez is due back on Dec. 20, 2018.

Top Tri-State News Photos

Attorney information for Wheeler or Martinez was not immediately available.

Prosecutors say that on Aug. 22, 2018, Wheeler struck Lisa Marie Velasquez, 25, in the head with a hammer, killing her, when she visited the apartment Wheeler shared with Martinez on Longfellow Avenue in the Bronx.

Allegedly, Velasquez went to the apartment to aid Martinez, who was fighting with Wheeler. Wheeler apparently got upset when he found out that Velasquez had called police.

Prosecutors say that the couple moved Velasquezs body from the bedroom to the bathroom and cleaned the bedroom to conceal the murder. The couple then allegedly placed their and Velasquezs clothes in garbage bags and took them to a park nearby, where they dumped them in the water.

According to the investigation, prosecutors say, the couple subsequently went to a hardware store and bought garbage bags and a machete.

They allegedly then cut up Velasquezs body and put the dismembered parts in the bags, placing some of the bags in the water off of Barretto Point Park and some in Crotona Park.

Prosecutors say the couple then went back to their apartment to further clean the scene and paint the interior to conceal the crime.

Two days later, on Aug. 24, a city Parks Department worker found the bags in Crotona Park, while visitors discovered the bags containing the human remains in Barretto Point Park on Aug. 28, prosecutors say, adding that the remains were matched to Velasquez who was reported missing.

In an eerie twist of fate, in 2006, when she was only 12 or 13 years old, Velasquez's pregnant mother was murdered in front of her and her siblings. Cops said the mother was beaten, stabbed and strangled by her on-again, off-again boyfriend, who was arrested in the killing.What to Know An ex-TV director from NY was sentenced to sex offender probation for admitting to spying on the familys nanny through a camera bathroom

Daniel Switzen, 45, was sentenced on a charge of unlawful surveillance in the second degree

He was sentenced to five years sex offender probation, will have to register as a sex offender after admitting to spying on the teen

A former television director from New York was sentenced to sex offender probation for spying on the familys teen nanny through a camera bathroom, prosecutors say.

Daniel Switzen, 45, was sentenced on a charge of unlawful surveillance in the second degree, Westchester County District Attorney Anthony A. Scarpino, Jr. announced Tuesday.

Switzen was arrested in November 2017 and pleaded guilty in May for spying on the familys nanny in the bathroom.

He was sentenced to five years sex offender probation and will have to register as a sex offender.

Prosecutors say that on Nov. 13, 2017, Switzen placed a hidden camera in a bathroom inside his Pleasantville home. The camera was allegedly hidden inside a tissue box and was discovered by the victim, the familys teenage nanny.

Switzen admitted to placing the camera in the bathroom to capture the teenage girl and her friends on video.

A Sex Offender Registration Act (SORA) hearing is scheduled for Nov. 13.What to Know Bill Cosby, once heralded as America's Dad, left a Pennsylvania courthouse in handcuffs after he was sentenced to 3-10 years for sex assault

Six MTA buses were taken out of service as officials investigated a possible bedbug infestation, but no bedbugs were found, authorities say

Dunkin' is dropping the donuts - from its name, anyway

Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2018

Happy Wednesday! Don't put away that rain gear just yet, you are going to need it one more day as some severe storms could roll in later this afternoon in areas around the tri-state with highs in the low 80s. As always, get the latest forecast at nbcnewyork.com/weather.

1. Judge Sentences Bill Cosby to 3 to 10 Years in Prison

Bill Cosby, once heralded as America's Dad, left a Pennsylvania courthouse in handcuffs after being sentenced to three to 10 years for a 2004 sex assault in the Philadelphia suburbs.

The courtroom went silent when the sentence was read. With his Hollywood career and good-guy image in ruins, the 81-year-old comedian did not make a statement. Instead, Cosby sat back in his chair, his head on the headrest, as the sentence was handed down.

Outside the court room, Cosby could be seen emptying his pockets and removing his tie before being taken to a Montgomery County processing facility.

He spent a few hours at the county jail before heading to SCI Phoenix, a 3,830-bed facility on the property of SCI Graterford in Collegeville, Pennsylvania.

Read more here.

2. No Bedbugs Found on MTA Buses After Riders Claim They Saw Critters

Six MTA buses were taken out of service as officials investigated a possible bedbug infestation, but no bedbugs were found, authorities say.

The buses were temporarily decommissioned in the Bronx this week after the MTA received complaints from riders and some bus operators, New York City Transit Authority president Andy Byford said.

Three buses were quarantined at the Kingsbridge depot, and another three were quarantined at the depot on Tuesday. The MTA's vendor reported no bedbugs on the buses, and deemed them safe and clear to go into service.

Read more here.

3. Just Dunkin': Dunkin' Donuts to Change Its Name

Dunkin' is dropping the donuts - from its name, anyway.

Doughnuts are still on the menu, but the company is renaming itself "Dunkin'" to reflect its increasing emphasis on coffee and other drinks.

The change will officially take place in January, when the new name will start appearing on napkins, boxes and signs at its U.S. stores. The name change will eventually be adopted by international stores.

Read more here.

For the latest entertainment news and things to do, tune in to New York Live, Monday through Friday at 11:30 a.m. on NBC 4 New York.What to Know Uber has agreed to pay a record total of $148 million to resolve a multi-jurisdiction investigation into an alleged data beach

The settlement will be divided among all 50 states  with about $3.75 million going to New Jersey and about $5.1 million going to New York

All 50 states and DC sued Uber saying that the company violated laws notification of the data breach in a timely fashion

The ride-sharing company Uber has agreed to pay a record total of $148 million to resolve a multi-jurisdiction investigation into an alleged data beach that compromised personal information of both Uber riders and drivers and violated data breach notification laws.

The settlement will be divided among all 50 states  with about $3.75 million going to New Jersey and about $5.1 million going to New York.

The settlement reached with all 50 states and the District of Columbia, which all sued Uber saying that the company violated laws requiring it to notify people impacted by the breach in a timely fashion, requires Uber to adopt model data breach notification and data security protocols and a corporate integrity program for employees to report unethical behavior.

Additionally, the settlement requires the company to hire an independent third party to assess its data security practices.

According to court documents, in November 2016, hackers based in the United States and Canada allegedly informed security officials at Uber that they had downloaded the personal information of riders and drivers. The information stolen included names, email addresses, and mobile phone numbers as well as drivers license information of about 600,000 drivers nationwide, New York and New Jersey officials say.

Although the data breach occurred in 2016, it was not disclosed by Uber until a year later, in November 2017.

After providing proof of the massive data breach, the hackers allegedly demanded six figures to delete the data and not disclose the breach, with Uber ultimately paying the hackers $100,000 to conceal the breach, documents say.

In the spring of 2017, Ubers Board of Directors allegedly directed a law firm to investigate Ubers security team in the wake of unrelated litigation involving the suspected theft of trade secrets related to self-driving cars. As part of this inquiry, the law firm allegedly learned of the alleged breach and ransom payment.

This is a significant settlement for New Jersey residents and for Uber users everywhere -- not only because the payout is historic, but because it requires that Uber adopt new policies and procedures that will more effectively safeguard the personal information of its riders and drivers in the future, New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal said in a statement.

New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood echoed similar sentiments, saying that New Yorkers deserve to know that their personal information will be protected.

Underwood added that the record settlement should send a clear message: we have zero tolerance for those who skirt the law and leave consumer and employee information vulnerable to exploitation.

Tony West, chief legal officer for Uber, said in a statement that the decision by current managers was "the right thing to do" and "embodies the principles by which we are running our business today: transparency, integrity, and accountability."

West added that "an important component of living up to those principles means taking responsibility for past mistakes, learning from them, and moving forward."What to Know The Queens International Night Market returns for the fall season Saturday, Sept. 29

The open-air market brings international dishes, art and performances to New York Hall of Science at Flushing Park

The Queens International Night Market will be open from 6 p.m. to midnight every Saturday through Oct. 27

Yes, it may be autumn, but that shouldnt stop one from enjoying an outdoor flea market or food bazaar.

The Queens International Night Market returns for the fall season Saturday, Sept. 29, bringing along with it a plethora of international dishes, art and performances.

The Queens International Night Market is an open-air night market that features up to 100 independent vendors selling merchandise, art and food. Some of 2018s food vendors include Bstro, Don Ceviche, The Malaysian Project, Panda Cafe, Areppas and Sams Fried Ice Cream.

The market also features cultural performances, celebrating the diversity and heritage of, not only, Queens but New York City as a whole.

On Saturday DJ Lil Buddy, Brewster Moonface, Os Clavelitos and The Big Happy are all scheduled to perform.

The Queens International Night Market will be open from 6 p.m. to midnight every Saturday through Oct. 27 at New York Hall of Science at Flushing Meadows Corona Park.

For more information, visit queensnightmarket.com.What to Know Bill Nelson faces off against Rick Scott for Florida's U.S. Senate seat, while Andrew Gillum and Ron DeSantis battle over the governorship.

The midterm general elections are scheduled for Tuesday, Nov. 6.

Democrats are ahead in the competitive Senate and gubernatorial races in Florida, according to a new NBC News/Marist poll of this key battleground state, although their leads are within the margin of error.

In Florida's Senate contest  which could help decide which party controls the U.S. Senate after November  incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., gets support from 48 percent of likely voters, while Republican Rick Scott, the state's current governor, gets 45 percent. Six percent say they're undecided.

Among the larger pool of registered voters, Nelson leads by five points, 48 percent to 43 percent, which is essentially unchanged from the Democrats four-point edge in June's NBC/Marist poll.

And in the Sunshine State's gubernatorial race  arguably the nations top contest for governor  Democrat Andrew Gillum is ahead of Republican Ron DeSantis by 5 points, 48 percent to 43 percent.

Among registered voters, Gillums advantage expands to 8 points, 49 percent to 41 percent.

The political environment in Florida, overall, is tipping in the Democrats favor, said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion, which conducted this survey for NBC News.

In the Senate contest among likely voters, Nelson leads with African Americans (78 percent to 15 percent), young voters ages 18-29 (65 percent to 30 percent), Latinos (57 percent to 37 percent), independents (53 percent to 37 percent) and women (53 percent to 40 percent).

Scott, meanwhile, is ahead with whites (52 percent to 40 percent), men (50 percent to 42 percent) and likely voters 45 and older (48 percent to 45 percent).

In the gubernatorial race, Gillum is up with African Americans (86 percent to 9 percent), those ages 18-29 (61 percent to 30 percent), women (54 percent to 37 percent), Latinos (52 percent to 38 percent) and independents (51 percent to 38 percent).

And DeSantis holds the advantage with whites (51 percent to 41 percent), men (50 percent to 42 percent) and those 45 and older (47 percent to 45 percent).

Nelson and Gillum also enjoy higher favorable ratings than their GOP opponents do.

Forty-four percent of likely voters hold a favorable view of Nelson, versus 36 percent who have a negative view (+8). Thats compared with Scotts 46 percent-to-45 percent rating (+1).

And for Gillum, 46 percent of likely voters give him a thumbs-up, versus 27 percent who give him a thumbs-down (+19). By contrast, DeSantis fav/unfav rating is 42 percent-to-37 percent (+5).

Trumps approval rating in Florida is in the mid-40s

The NBC/Marist poll also finds 46 percent of likely voters in Florida approving of President Donald Trumps job performance, while 48 percent disapprove.

Among registered voters, its 44 percent approve, 48 percent disapprove  essentially unchanged from June, when it was 45 percent approve, 46 percent disapprove.

In addition, the poll shows Democrats leading Republicans by 3 points in congressional preference: 48 percent of likely voters say they prefer a Democratic-controlled Congress, while 45 percent want Republicans in charge.

Among registered voters, the Democrats edge grows to 6 points, 49 percent to 43 percent  up from their 3-point advantage in June.

And by 52 percent-to-40 percent margin, likely voters in Florida say their vote in November will be a message for more Democrats to check and balance Trump, rather than more Republicans who will help Trump pass his agenda.

The top issues in the state: health care and the economy

Finally, the top issues in Florida are health care and the economy, according to the poll.

Twenty-four percent of likely voters list health care as the No. 1 issue that might decide their vote for Congress in November  followed by the economy and jobs at 23 percent, immigration at 17 percent and guns at 10 percent.

Among Democrats, the top issues are health care (35 percent of Democrats say this) and guns (17 percent), while the top issues among likely Republican voters are the economy (29 percent) and immigration (22 percent).

The NBC/Marist poll of Florida was conducted September 16-20 of 829 registered voters, which has a margin of error of plus-minus 4.0 percentage points. And the margin of error for the 600 likely voters is plus-minus 4.7 percentage points.What to Know A student at Penn State Universitys University Park campus is recovering from bacterial meningitis, the school confirmed.

The case of meningococcal meningitis was confirmed by local health officials Monday.

The student was treated for the infection and is recovering at the Mount Nittany Medical Center.

A student at Penn State Universitys University Park campus is recovering from bacterial meningitis, the school confirmed.

The case of meningococcal meningitis was confirmed by local health officials Monday. The student was treated for the infection and is recovering at the Mount Nittany Medical Center.

Penn States University Health Services is working with the Pennsylvania Department of Health to monitor the case. Those who were in close contact with the student were notified and given antibiotic prophylaxis.

Meningococcal meningitis is a form of bacterial meningitis treated with antibiotics. Bacterial meningitis causes inflammation of the brain and spinal cord membranes.

Symptoms include a sudden onset of fever, headache, stiff neck, nausea, vomiting, sensitivity to light, confusion and an altered mental state.

Bacterial meningitis is spread through close contact with an infected person, including kissing, sharing food and beverage or breathing in bacteria spread by sneezing or coughing.

Learn more about bacterial meningitis, including treatment and prevention, here.What to Know Bruce Rogal, armed with guns, took out his 'grudge against the world' on his ex-wife and parents, the Chester County district attorney said.

Investigators say Rogal a final divorce order received earlier on Sept. 19 "set him off."

Rogal was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after police fired on his crashed minivan.

A gunman who rampaged through Chester County last week, killing his elderly parents and shooting at his ex-wife, took his own life during a gun battle with police, officials revealed Wednesday morning.

Chester County District Attorney Tom Hogan said Bruce Rogal was "a man who had a grudge against the world."

"All that grudge, all that rage, culminated on Sept. 19, the same day his divorce decree was mailed out to him," Hogan said.

The 59-year-old Glenmore man killed himself early Thursday after a seven-hour manhunt and brief police chase, Hogan said at a Wednesday morning news conference.

Rogal and his ex-wife have an adult son who was in Philadelphia about to take a train home to the West Bradford home he lived in with his mother when his mother told him about the Wednesday evening shooting, Hogan said. The son called his grandparents to warn them when the phone went dead as he spoke to his grandmother.

The executive director of the Bellingham Retirement community in East Goshen opened the door to the Rogals' room around 6:15 p.m. Wednesday to find both Walter, 89, and Nancy, 87, sitting next to each other in their recliners, each dead of gunshot wounds to the head.

"They had both been executed... killed by their own ungrateful son," Hogan said.

Bruce Rogal's killing spree started around 5:45 p.m. on Sept. 19 when he drove to the house he had shared with his ex-wife in West Bradford Township. Rogal shot at her several times as she changed her car's oil in the driveway. Rogal missed and the woman ran for help at a neighbor's home.

Then, Rogal drove to his parents' retirement center and killed them both.

Rogal's grudge against his parents went on for years, according to Hogan. He blamed his mother for dropping him out of a bassinet as a child and often complained about his parents and siblings, officials said.

But Rogal's fury extended beyond his family.

He was unemployed at the time of his rampage, having suffered a back injury, and angry with most of the people he came in contact with, Hogan said.

Everybody he ran into he disliked, he despised, he fought with, he complained about, that included his own family, Hogan said.

The killings stunned suburban neighborhoods outside of Philadelphia and led to blockades and lockdowns that stretched for miles. Hogan said police in Chester County were alerted to be on the lookout for many hours.

Authorities also made a push on social media and in the news around 10 p.m., seeking the public's help. "That paid off," Hogan said.

Around 11 p.m. on the night of the shootings, police got a call from Rogal's friend. Rogal reportedly stopped for a beer at the friend's house in East Fallowfield and acted "like nothing happened," never saying a word about his murderous spree. Rogal stayed at the home from about 7:30 to 8:30 p.m.

A trooper heading to the East Fallowfield home then spotted Rogal's minivan driving near the agency's Embreeville Barracks shortly before 1 a.m. Thursday.

A high-speed chase ensued as police realized that Rogal was heading back to his ex-wife's neighborhood, Hogan said. When they arrived at her house, Rogal had crashed his car into the home.

Troopers got out and told Rogal to put down the gun he held, Hogan said. Rogal appeared to turn toward the troopers and troopers opened fire.

Rogal was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in the driver's seat, surrounded by a Glock handgun and Bushmaster M-4 Carbine rifle. It was unclear if Rogal was already dead before troopers opened fire, Hogan said.

No troopers were hurt during the incident.

Rogal had a "minor criminal history," Hogan said. But, he had a long history of domestic violence incidents involving his ex-wife, according to a protection from abuse order she obtained in June 2015.

He had previously surrendered his guns after the PFA was issued, but got his firearms back after the order expired in 2017, Hogan said.

Rogal spent his last days up late at night looking at pornography websites, Hogan said.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE HELP: The National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233 or 800-787-3224 (TTY) provides people in distress, or those around them, with 24-hour support.

SUICIDE PREVENTION HELP: Here is information on suicide prevention from the National Institute of Mental Health. If you are in crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255 or reach out to the Crisis Text Line by texting Home to 741741.

What to Know More severe storms are expected Wednesday, a day after a Tornado Warning as severe storms moved through.

The First Alert is in effect from 5 p.m. Wednesday to midnight for the potential of strong winds, flooding and isolated tornadoes.

Storms Tuesday led to flooding in parts of our area.

Severe storms led to a tornado warning and flash flooding for parts of the region Tuesday and more stormy weather could be on the way Wednesday.

A First Alert is in effect for Philadelphia and the rest of the region, with the exception of the Jersey shore, from 5 p.m. Wednesday until midnight as storms packing the potential for damaging winds, torrential downpours and flooding. An isolated tornado can't be ruled out.

The First Alert comes a day after a Tornado Warning for parts of Burlington County, New Jersey, and Flash Flood Warnings in other parts of the area for several hours Tuesday.

Severe storms led to a Tornado Warning in parts of Burlington County, New Jersey, as well as flooding throughout the region.

A severe thunderstorm capable of producing a tornado was located over Tabernacle, New Jersey, according to the National Weather Service and a Tornado Warning was issued for east central Burlington County, New Jersey, Tuesday evening. The warning expired shortly before 7:30 p.m.

A Flash Flood Warning was also in effect Tuesday night for Burlington, Camden and Gloucester counties in New Jersey as well as Bucks County, Philadelphia and Delaware counties in Pennsylvania.

Martin Luther King Drive was closed in Philadelphia from the Falls Bridge to Montgomery Drive due to the flooding, Philadelphia Police tweeted.

SkyForce10 was over heavily flooded roads in South Jersey and Lower Moreland.

Heavy Rain Causes Flash Flooding Throughout Region

The Huntingdon Valley and Bryn Athyn Fire companies were dispatched for multiple water rescues Tuesday afternoon and evening in Lower Moreland.

At one point, officials reported 15 vehicles in the water at Philmont Avenue and Red Lion Road in Lower Moreland. Both companies completed 10 rescues of people trapped in their vehicles.

Two medics who were inside an ambulance that was stuck on a flooded road on North 19th Street and Harrison Avenue in Camden, New Jersey, had to be rescued as well. They were not injured.

More severe storms with damaging winds, torrential downpours, possible flooding and possible isolated tornadoes are expected to hit our region Wednesday.

NBC10

Stay with the NBC10 First Alert Weather team for the latest weather updates.San Francisco's brand new Transbay Transit Center will remain closed at least until next week after crews on Wednesday discovered a second crack in one of the steel beams adjacent to another beam where crews discovered the first crack on Tuesday.

The executive director of the $2.26 billion transit center, Mark Zabaneh, said at a news conference Wednesday that an "adjacent beam to the beam in question" sustained some cracking, though not to the same extent to the crack discovered on Tuesday.

Zabaneh said the cracks are localized to the East side of the building on the Fremont Street section of the center.

"We have no reason to believe at this point whatsoever that the situation is anywhere but the Fremont Street, but again, out of abundance of caution and for public safety, we're going to expand our investigation," Zabaneh said.

Mayor London Breed visited the four-story transit center Wednesday to meet with Transbay Joint Powers Authority leaders and city department heads to discuss the investigation into the crack in a support beam.

"We must have a thorough and transparent investigation to determine the causes, severity, and impacts of this discovery, as well as a plan to re-open the Transit Center as soon as it is safe to do so," Breed said.

Buses will be diverted to the old Temporary Terminal, located at Howard and Beale streets. Transbay users should be aware Fremont Street between Howard and Mission streets is also closed, according to the SFMTA.

Crack in Support Beam Prompts Closure of San Francisco's Transbay Transit Center

Workers discovered the first crack early Tuesday while installing roofing tiles at the Salesforce Transit Center, Zabaneh said. Engineers spent the day inspecting the damage, and Zabaneh said they decided to shut down the station around 5 p.m. Tuesday, just as the afternoon rush hour started.

Zabaneh said the cause and the extent of the damage were unknown and the decision to close the terminal was made out of an "abundance of caution."

"The behavior of the beam is unpredictable," Zabaneh said.

He said structural engineers would continue inspecting the building Wednesday to assess whether it is safe for people to return.

It is not clear at this time when officials will provide an update on the status of the transit center.

Two weeks after its heavily attended grand opening, San Franciscos new Salesforce Transit Center is still packed  only now, its packed with people waiting for buses.

The TJPA said in a statement that crews discovered a fissure in one of the steel beams in the ceiling of the third level bus deck on the eastern side of the transit center, which was named the Salesforce Transit Center after tech giant Salesforce bought its naming rights.

"Out of an abundance of caution, the TJPA, after conferring with design engineers and contractors will temporarily close the transit center as the agency works with Webcor/Obayashu and structural engineers Thornton Tomasetti to investigate and repair this issue and conduct an exhaustive inspection of all steel beams throughout the transit center. Inspections have begun," the TJPA said in their statement.

Its the center that will take us into the future: For residents in San Franciscos SoMa neighborhood, the Salesforce Transit Center is more than just a fancy bus stop. Some say the rooftop park has transformed the neighborhood  in a good way.

TRAFFIC IMPACTS:

There are several transit and traffic impacts due to the center's temporary closure as well as the closure of Fremont Street between Mission and Howard, particularly during peak commute hours, the Transbay Joint Powers Authority said.

Motorists are asked to avoid driving downtown, transit riders are encouraged to allow extra time for their commute and call 511 or go to 511.org to get up-to-the-minute transit information.

AC Transit Lines will drop off and depart from the previously used bus bays at the temporary Transbay Terminal. Routes affected are: B, C, CB, E, F, FS, G, H, J, L, LA, LC, NL, NX, NXC, NX1, NX2, NX3, NX4, O, OX, P, S, SB, V, W, Z.

Muni routes also will drop off and depart from the temporary Transbay Terminal. Affected routes include: 5 Fulton, 5R Fulton Rapid (on Howard at Main), 7 Haight/Noriega (on Main at Howard), 25 Treasure Island (on Beale and Folsom), 38 Geary, 38 Geary Rapid (On Main at Howard).

For the latest details on street closures and bus routes affected, go to the SFMTA website.

Transbay Transit: Then u0026 Now

Nearly two decades in the making, the transit center opened in August, connecting thousands of Bay Area residents to the city's downtown area.

Stretching four city blocks, the transit center boasts pop-up retail shops, art displays, shopping, dining and a 5.4-acre rooftop public park. The next phase of construction, the $4 billion Downtown Extension Project, will connect 1.3 miles of underground rail between the center and the Caltrain station at Fourth and King streets. That project is expected to be completed in 2028.

Transit agencies currently operating at the transit center include Alameda-Contra Costa Transit, Greyhound, San Mateo County Transit District, the Western Contra Costa Transit Authority, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency and the outside bus plaza in June.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.Calls to the national sexual assault hotline were up 57 percent over the weekend compared to an average Friday to Sunday, according to Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network press secretary Sara McGovern.

On Friday and Saturday, alone, the rate of calls increased 42 percent from a normal weekend, and the weekend numbers suggest that callers did not let up on Sunday.

Local counselors believe recent headlines are the reason for the notable increase.

With Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination under scrutiny due to accusations related to alleged incidents that took place decades ago, sexual misconduct and sexual assault are in the national spotlight.

To pour fuel on the fire, President Donald Trump took to Twitter on Friday and wrote, "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!"

The tweet led to a social media response with people using "#WhyIDidntReport" on Twitter to share personal stories of why they did not report sexual assault.

At the local Southern California hotline center, calls are up more than 20 percent with local counselors pointing to recent headlines as the cause for the uptick.

"This 'MeToo' and 'Time's Up' movement has elevated the platform to have these conversations, to expose it and say we cannot ignore women, men and children being sexually assaulted," says Yvette Lozano, Peace Over Violence CEO. "And we need to do something about it."

Peace Over Violence counselors, who answer the calls, are trained to provide support, including accompanying assault survivors to get medical attention--if necessary. The counselors will also go to police interviews if the callers decide to press charges.

If you've been the victim of sexual assault, even if it was years ago, and need someone to talk to, you can call the local hotline at 1-213-626-3393.State Sen. Joel Anderson (R-San Diego) was issued a letter of reprimand after an allegation of sexual harassment was substantiated by an outside law firm hired to investigate an Aug. 13 incident in a Sacramento bar.

A lobbyist for the California Nurses Association filed a complaint last month alleging Anderson threatened to b---- slap her, after consuming a number of drinks at the Diplomat Steakhouse near the Capitol building during a fundraiser.

An outside law firm hired to investigate found Anderson had several drinks and then rubbed the complainant's shoulders for about 10 seconds in a manner that was not invited and likely not welcome.

The law firm interviewed nine witnesses, the lobbyist and Senator Anderson. It also obtained surveillance video of the incident, which did not have audio but did provide visual confirmation of witness statements, according to a written report of their investigation obtained by NBC 7.

According to that report, Anderson then complained about a lack of a relationship and said I oughta b---- slap you.

Senator Andersons statement was interpreted by the complainant and witnesses to be offensive, verbally threatening and potentially racially insensitive to the complainant, the report said.

As the report states, at issue was the context of our conversation. The investigation doesnt substantiate all the wild claims reported in the press, and I stand by my original statement," a statement released by the Senator Tuesday said.

Anderson previously issued an apology for his behavior in the bar on August 13.

In a letter of reprimand released to NBC 7 on Tuesday, Senate Pro Tem Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) describes the substantiated allegations as completely unacceptable. Atkins writes to Anderson: The Rules Committee instructs you to interact in a professional manner going forward.

New rules were adopted by the state Legislature this year to increase transparency and allow victims of sexual harassment an outlet to make accusations at the Capitol. The Senate will hire outside law firms to investigate and the outcome of substantiated claims will be released to the public.

Senator Joel Anderson represents the 38th Senate District in the California Legislature, which includes Bonsall, Borrego Springs, El Cajon, Escondido, Fallbrook, Julian, Lakeside, Lemon Grove, La Mesa, Poway, Ramona, Rancho San Diego, Rancho Santa Fe, San Marcos, Santee and Valley Center. He was first elected to the State Assembly in 2006 and to the State Senate in 2010.Maryland state employees will have an additional 60 days of paid leave after the birth or adoption of a child under 6.

Gov. Larry Hogan announced Tuesday he will introduce legislation to create tax credits to encourage small businesses to provide parental benefits.

The new paid parental leave benefit is part of legislation the governor signed this year. Currently, parents can use up to 30 days of sick leave.

Hogan says his administration is moving a step further by allowing parents to use the 60 additional days of leave anytime within the first six months after birth or adoption. Traditionally they've had to use the time all at once.

The additional paid leave will be granted after the employee has used annual and personal leave. The benefit begins Monday.A jury found a Virginia man guilty of capital murder for killing his wife and a rookie police officer working her first shift in 2016.

Ronald Hamilton, 34, of Woodbridge also was found guilty of attempted murder and assault using a firearm for shooting two other police officers.

Jurors heard evidence that 29-year-old Crystal Hamilton called 911 in February 2016 after her husband struck her and slammed her to the floor. Jurors heard the 911 call which ended with Crystal Hamilton pleading, "Stop!" Prosecutors said Ronald Hamilton shot his wife four times with a Glock handgun.

Several Prince William County police officers responded to the 911 call. The officers tried to enter the house to check on Crystal Hamilton's welfare, but Ronald Hamilton refused to let them in. One of the officers then kicked open the front door, only to find Hamilton crouched with an AK-47 rifle opening fire. All three officers who initially responded to the home were struck, including 28-year-old Ashley Guindon, who had just been sworn in as an officer. Officers Jesse Hempen and David McKeown, who testified at the trial, survived but suffered serious injuries.

Gene Hart, one of Hamilton's public defenders, acknowledged to the jury during Tuesday's closing arguments that Hamilton is guilty of the slayings. But he argued that the killings lacked the premeditation necessary for a capital-murder conviction and possible death penalty. Instead, he urged the jury to convict on lesser charges of either second-degree murder or voluntary manslaughter, saying Hamilton was acting in the heat of passion.

Prosecutor Richard Conway said the most obvious evidence of premeditation is the fact that Hamilton selected a Glock handgun to shoot his wife, and then upgraded to a more powerful AK-47 rifle in preparation for the anticipated police response.

The sentencing phase, which likely will involve several weeks of testimony, begins Monday. Jurors will consider two options: execution or life in prison.NEC showcases aviation security solutions at AVSEC World Day and GAPS in Greece

Tokyo, September 26, 2018 - NEC Corporation (NEC; TSE: 6701) today announced its participation in AVSEC World Day 2018 and the Global Airport and Passenger Symposium (GAPS), where leaders in the aviation field gather to showcase the latest products, solutions and innovative ideas for improving the industry, from October 1-4 in Athens, Greece, at the Athenaeum Intercontinental Hotel Athens.



Maintaining the safety and security of airports and flightpaths is vital to preserving the stability of global business and travel. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) is sponsoring AVSEC World Day in order to enable leaders in the aviation security field to share ideas and solutions on the challenges facing the industry. Participants in the event include international executives from airlines, airports, law enforcement agencies and immigration authorities.



NEC joins the inaugural AVSEC World Day as a Bronze Sponsor, where Mr. Michael O'Connell, vice president and executive advisor with NEC Europe, will join the Aviation Security 2030 Session as a speaker from 9:30 a.m. at the Athenaeum Intercontinental Hotel's Athenaeum Ballroom I.



Immediately following AVSEC World Day, NEC will participate in the first GAPS exhibition, where the company will showcase its vision for the airport of the future with its Mobile Authenticator, a mobile identification solution using facial recognition with liveness detection. NEC's facial recognition technology has been evaluated as the world's most accurate*, and has been adopted by governments and businesses around the world in order to quickly and easily confirm the identity of individuals and ensure security.



For more information on NEC's aviation solutions, please visit the following links:



NEC Airport Solutions

https://www.nec.com/en/global/highlights/safety/campaign/map/airports/



NEC Public Safety Solutions: Aviation

https://www.nec.com/en/global/solutions/safety/aviation/index.html ***

Note: * NEC's Video Face Recognition Technology Ranks First in NIST Testing

http://www.nec.com/en/press/201703/global_20170316_01.htmlWhat to Know Forty-seven-year-old Allen Warner was ordered to be held without bail Wednesday in Plymouth District Court.

Police allege Warner shot and killed his estranged wife, Shana Warner, Monday evening in Marshfield.

Warner was captured at a Dunkin' Donuts in Whitman on Tuesday following a manhunt.

A Massachusetts man prosecutors say followed, then stabbed, shot and ran over his estranged wife, has been sent to a psychiatric hospital for a 20-day evaluation.

Allen Warner, 47, of Rockland, was ordered held without bail Wednesday at his arraignment on a murder charge in Plymouth District Court in connection with the shooting and stabbing death of Shana Warner. A court psychologist also recommended that he be sent to a psychiatric hospital for a 20-day evaluation.

Shana Warner's family and boyfriend were in court to hear the painful details as prosecutors revealed them in court. "Officers observed a wound to her neck, a deep laceration to her chin, and several other cuts and bruises throughout her body," said a prosecutor. "The left lung had damage from the bullet and possibly from one of the stab wounds."

Warner, who is reportedly "well-known" to authorities, was taken into custody Tuesday afternoon following a massive, hours-long manhunt on the South Shore.

Officials allege Warner brutally attacked his estranged wife just before 6 p.m. Monday. Warner is accused of shooting her in the head while she was driving in Marshfield; however, prosecutors also said the victim had stab wounds in addition to lacerations and bruises in several places all over her body as a result of the attack.

At one point, Shana Warner called 911 for help, though officials said it was unclear if she had called 911 to say Allen Warner was chasing her before or after she was shot.

Prosecutors said they spoke with Allen Warner's mother after Shana Warner's death, and she allegedly said, "I'm sure Allen did it. I'm sure he did it. She just drives him up a wall."

"I don't know what else to say except that he's pure evil and he's committed an atrocious act of domestic violence," said Marshield Police Chief Phil Tavares, who was in court.

Allen Warner's attorney, however, questioned the evidence in the case, including witness identification, and noted that no weapons have been recovered.

"As far as I'm concerned, this is somewhat referred to as a 'who done it'", said Warner's attorney Drew Segadelli. "They haven't identified this fellow."

Tom DeFlippo, Shana's father, told NBC10 Boston on Tuesday he was devastated over the loss of his daughter.

"We are best friends ... we argue sometimes, as usual, but we are always best friends, and at the end of the day, we come here and we enjoy a glass of wine together," he said.

Prosecutors said Allen Warner attacked Shana Walker at the first stop sign she would have come across when leaving her father's home, and that Allen Warner had police called on him in that area.

Following the shooting on Monday evening, Warner fled and was on the run for more than 12 hours. He was arrested at a Dunkin' Donuts after employees called police to tell them the suspect had crashed a vehicle into their drive-thru. They said he was a regular at the Whitman donut shop.

"They told us if we didn't call, then the guy would have never gotten caught," Dunkin' Donuts employee Hailey Holmes said.

Court documents show the Warners married in 2008, and that Shana Warner filed for divorce three times, with the first time being in June 2011 because her husband was "physically and verbally abusive due to his drug use behavior."

The last time she had filed for divorce was in May of 2018, according to court documents.

The investigation is ongoing.

"My job right now is through my office to get justice for this young woman who was brutally murdered," said Plymouth District Attorney Timothy Cruz.A Massachusetts woman has been released from a South Florida hospital after suffering a shark bite in the Bahamas on Sunday.

Maggie Ewing, 34, was spearfishing off Treasure Cay Coast when the shark went after a fish on her spear and inadvertently bit her hand, according to Abaco Fire Chief Colin Albury. Officials said the woman was in shock and severe pain.

Ewing was airlifted to Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood, Florida by Trinity Air Ambulance. She spoke about her ordeal with reporters at the hospital on Tuesday afternoon.

Ewing, who is from the Boston area but has a vacation home in the Bahamas, said she was spearfishing with her boyfriend in an area they had been to hundreds of times before. She had speared a hogfish and was trying to get it out of a small cave when the shark came over her shoulder and latched onto her hand.

"I felt the pain instantly," Ewing said. "I think he let go pretty quickly, probably felt the spear."

"I know sharks aren't really going for me, he was totally going for the fish," she added. "It was my mistake, but nonetheless, he got me."

Several of her fingers were badly injured in the attack, but doctors said they were able to save them. She was released from the hospital late Tuesday and said she is planning to return to the Bahamas.

Shark attacks in the Bahamas aren't a common occurrence, but they have been known to happen, according to Albury.

"It's part of nature," he told NBC News. "We're in their territory and things happen."The worlds favorite nanny is coming back to the big screen! After nearly 50 years, the umbrella wielding mistress of magic is returning. Disneys Mary Poppins Returns takes place 20 years after the conclusion of the 1964 classic and will follow Mary Poppins as she guides the now grown up Banks siblings and their children through a new set of challenges and difficulties.

One synopsis of the film reads: Mary Poppins Returns is set in 1930s London, which is the time period of the original novels by P.L. Travers. The story follows Michael (Ben Whishaw) and Jane Banks (Emily Mortimer), who are now grown up. Michael is living with his three children (Pixie Davies, Nathanael Saleh, and Joel Dawson) and housekeeper Ellen (Julie Walters), in the house on Cherry Tree Lane. After Michael has a personal loss, Mary Poppins (Emily Blunt) comes back into the lives of the Banks family. She is joined by a street lamplighter named Jack (Lin-Manuel Miranda), and an eccentric cousin named Topsy (Meryl Streep). Dick Van Dyke will also play a role in the film as Mr. Dawes Jr., the chairman of Fidelity Fiduciary Bank, which is now run by William Weatherall Wilkins (Colin Firth). Angela Lansbury is also in the cast as the Balloon Lady, a treasured character from P.L. Travers Mary Poppins books.

According to Emily Blunt, her portrayal of the character is set to draw more from the original literary version of Mary Poppins than Julie Andrews iconic depiction. I just loved how eccentric and wacky she is in the books  incredibly vain and rude to the children, Blunt said. As a British person, I really responded to that lack of saccharine relationships. I find it comforting the idea of someone just sweeping in whos no-nonsense and cleaning everything up and making everything right again in a magical way thats not sentimental.

The trailer for the film is now available online, and fans of the original Mary Poppins seem equally excited and nervous. As is usual, many people are skeptical about making a sequel to such an iconic film especially after so many years have passed since the original was released. That said, there are an equal number of people who are delighted at the chance to return to Mary Poppins world after so many years away. Mary Poppins Returns is set to be released on Wednesday, December 19, 2018, and one can only wait to see if the modern sequel lives up to the charm of the original or if fans will need a very large spoonful of sugar to help the film go down.Officials started distributing space heaters and hot plates to thousands of residents in the Merrimack Valley after a series of explosions and fires left them without natural gas, but not every home has them yet despite the falling temperatures.

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker had said the space heaters would be sent to homes by electricians to assure the devices were installed safely.

However, authorities say homes must pass inspections first, forcing many families to sleep in winter clothes as fall temperatures dip into the 50s.

Arsenio Ramos of Lawrence said he slept under his American Red Cross blanket, a sweatshirt and jacket Monday night.

"It wasn't comfortable at all," Ramos said.

Ramos said he lives in the home with his 84-year-old grandfather.

"Oh my God... I need heat," he said.

The space heaters are being distributed by the National Guard at the Columbia Gas resource claim center in Lawrence, where Theresa Graf waited for hers in a winter hat and scarf. She arrived an hour early, hoping to score a device to keep warm.

"It's hard for everybody, but when you're older, it affects you more, you know? Walking around your own house with hats and coats, it's ridiculous," said the North Andover resident.

Graf ended up leaving the claim center and was told instead she needed to set up an appointment.

Back at the Ramos home, they're not sure if they will even qualify to get a heater.

"We're going through a lot right now. Hopefully they work faster. Hopefully they work harder so this won't happen ever," Ramos said.

Columbia Gas officials said if a home is deemed safe for a space heater, it will receive one only.A real estate broker for a Maine island once owned by Arctic explorer Robert Peary says the island has a potential buyer.

Karen Reiche tells the Portland Press Herald that Crab Island was placed under agreement Sept. 14, close to a month after it was put up for sale.

The 1-acre island is priced at $950,000, and it includes two private beaches and a camp.

Reiche says the deal has not closed yet, and the buyers do not want to be identified.

The Peary family sold the island in the 1950s to current owners Virginia and Alden Waterhouse of New Hampshire. The Waterhouse family says they wish to sell due to a "change in lifestyle."The chair of the Massachusetts Gaming Commission stepped down Wednesday after being accused of pre-judging the outcome of an investigation into Wynn Resorts.

Chairman Stephen Crosby announced his resignation in a public message to fellow commissioners and staff. Crosby said he had received a letter from Steve Wynn's lawyer last week claiming he had already made up his mind about the sexual assault allegations against the casino mogul.

"Simultaneously, Suffolk Downs filed a $3 billion lawsuit against Wynn Resorts, in which pages of accusations regurgitated false claims of bias made against me in the past," Crosby added.

The chairman said he would leave the commission to do its work "without distraction."

"I simply cannot let my involvement in these critical deliberations be used by others to hamper the Commission's ability to do its work, or to undermine the confidence of the public in that work," he wrote.

Crosby said he hopes his resignation will allow the commission to investigate objectively.What to Know Arthur Medici died after being attacked by a shark while boogie boarding off Cape Cod on Saturday.

The shark attack happened around noon just off Newcomb Hollow Beach in Wellfleet.

The attack was the first fatal shark attack in Massachusetts since 1936.

The Massachusetts town where a man was fatally attacked by a shark this month is holding a public meeting to consider how the community can respond.

Officials in Wellfleet on Cape Cod are hosting a forum Thursday evening at a local elementary school. The head of the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy and a seal researcher at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution are among those invited to speak.

The forum comes after 26-year-old Arthur Medici, of Revere, was bitten by a shark while boogie boarding off a Wellfleet beach Sept. 15. He was the state's first fatality from a shark attack in more than 80 years.

Medici moved to the U.S. from Brazil four years ago to pursue a degree in engineering, Brazilian news outlet OGlobo reported. He was a student at Bunker Hill Community College and worked as a pizza delivery driver for a local restaurant.

Witnesses at the scene told officers that Medici and another male were in the water about 30 yards off the beach boogie boarding when the attack occurred. They said Medici was wearing a wetsuit and flippers. A group of people, including first responders, carried him down the beach to the parking lot, giving him chest compressions on the way to the ambulance.

The attack was the first fatal shark attack in Massachusetts since 1936, and the second shark attack this season.

A 61-year-old New York man was severely injured Aug. 15 after fighting off a shark off Truro, about 4 miles north of Wellfleet. He's currently recovering in a Boston hospital.

There were 53 unprovoked shark attacks in the U.S. in 2017, but none were fatal, according to the International Shark Attack File. On average, there are only six deaths around the world each year from unprovoked shark attacks.

There were frequent shark sightings this summer along the outer Cape, often leading to beach closings. The National Park Service, which manages many of the picturesque beaches where white sharks tend to congregate, said it closed beaches for at least an hour about 25 times this year, more than double the annual average.Drug and alcohol misuse charity The Matthew Project this week opened the doors of its Norwich recovery hub to its supporters and the wider community.

Drug and alcohol misuse charity The Matthew Project this week opened the doors of its Norwich recovery hub to its supporters and the wider community.

Make friends and re-fuel at Fakenham church centre Salvation Army leaders in Fakenham are inviting people in the town to come and attend two new community groups which started this autumn. Read more

YMCA Norfolk needs an On-Track Coach YMCA Norfolk is looking for an On Track, giving the advice and help young people need to make the most of the things they are good at. Read more

Chance to see epic tale of man who changed China The epic tale of a Norwich man who gave up all to change the Chinese nation is being told in the feature documentary, Children of Shanghai at Cinema City Norwich on Tuesday November 23 at 6pm. Read more

Broadland Christian offers free tech support A Christian living in Wroxham is offering free technology support to anyone who is retired or disabled through an organisation called AbilityNet. Read more

Lady Dannatt praises Community Chaplaincy Norfolk Lady Dannatt, the Lord Lieutenant of Norfolk, applauded the work of Community Chaplaincy Norfolk (CCN) when she spoke at its annual meeting. Read more

Running the race with Jesus Regular columnist Ruth Lilley has been running a half marathon, but she did have some help Read more

Christian care home celebrates Fran's service Tenants at Brakendon Close independent living community enjoyed a delicious afternoon tea in celebration of nearly ten years dedicated service by Fran Veale. Read more

Convert Nissar to tell his story at Norwich dinner Nissar Hussain, a high profile convert from Islam to Christianity, who has suffered persecution for his decision, is the speaker at the Christmas dinner of the Norwich FGB on December 13 in Norwich. Read more

Norfolk charity provides some soul space for young people As we move into a new season North Breckland Youth for Christ is finding innovative ways to engage with young people. Read more

Eaton quilt of kindness displays bright things from darks times A Quilt of Kindness produced by a crafters group in Eaton will be on display in Christ Church later this month. Read more

Engagement, property and youth worker needed YMCA Norfolk is looking for a Housing Engagement Worker, a Property Co-ordinator and a Youth Project Lead. Read more

New cross sculpture illuminates Norwich church The Open Door Christian Fellowship in Norwich switched on its new illuminated cross which sits a top The Building in Ramsey Close. Read more

Christmas Events Week at Dereham bookshop Green Pastures Christian bookshop in Dereham is holding a Christmas Events Week. The managers, Irene Humphrey and Helen Cockburn, explain. Read more

When God the master chef gets to work. Regular contributor Jane Walters has been creating soup, and marvels at how such a combination of sometimes disparate and random ingredients can produce a nourishing and worthy end product. Read more

Diocese of Norwich votes to sell fossil fuel shares Today the Diocese of Norwich Synod voted overwhelmingly (by 61 votes to 5) to approve a motion to divest from fossil fuels, following a thoughtful debate. Read more

YMCA to stage Christmas craft fayre in Norwich YMCA Norfolk will be staging a Christmas Craft Fayre at its Aylsham Road Community Hub in Norwich on November 27. Read more

Fakenham Baptists building for the future Fakenham Baptist Community Church is developing a brand-new building on the outskirts of Fakenham which they will use to provide a range of amenities to serve the community as well as for worship. Read moreOver the past five years, SD-WANs deployments have skyrocketed. And for good reason: They increase network agility and cut the cost of network transport.

One common myth about SD-WANs, however, is that they improve application performance. They certainly can under some circumstances, but there is no guarantee they will under all situations. SD-WANs address only part of the transformation of the network to becoming a digital enabler. SD-WANs must now become smarter, or application aware, to optimize user experience, improve customer service, and increase worker productivity.

The requirement to have an application-aware network has never been more urgent, as application performance has a direct impact on a companys top and bottom line. For example, according to an Accenture survey, 66 percent of millennials have changed their brand loyalties because of a bad user experience. Also, a recent ZK Research survey found that workers are 14 percent less productive than they could be as a result of poor application performance. Make no mistake; poorly performing applications are costing companies today.

Application awareness maximizes SD-WAN value

An application-aware network can identify and classify applications and then apply the appropriate optimization techniques to ensure optimum performance per user. The diverse types of applications  real-time, streaming, cloud, and others  require different optimization methods, so its important for the SD-WAN solution to support a wide range of network performance improvement features, including the following.

5 criteria for application-aware SD-WANs

Application visibility understands who is using which applications and how these are performing. Also, operations teams need end-to-end visibility to quickly focus on where problems are occurring and speed up the time to resolution. Visibility should be thought of as the foundation for a high-quality user experience, as IT professionals need to know what applications are running and how they are performing to deliver the best user experience. Application quality of experience (QoE) controls sets priorities that match business objectives and prioritize critical business applications over recreational ones. Without this capability, network engineers would need to manually adjust the network as the network environment changes. This might have been sufficient a decade ago when changes were infrequent, but the environment is changing too fast for manual processes. Application QoE conditions the application traffic to dynamically mitigate any application performance problems that arise from network congestion. Dynamic path selection ensures application flows get the best available network path based on their priorities and live network traffic conditions. This improves application performance and availability by routing traffic over different links when network issues arise. This is something that does require some homework as from vendor to vendor, the way dynamic path selection functions do vary widely. The technology should continually check multiple link characteristics to make the right decision and work on a per-app-session basis. Dynamic path selection is particularly beneficial for real-time applications, such as Skype for Business and video. WAN security secures applications delivered over internet links. The rise of hybrid WANs means more companies are doing local internet breakout at the branches, changing the security paradigm. This drives the need for businesses to deploy security tools at the edge or in the cloud. Application intelligence can provide a map of how to direct traffic to use the security tools most effectively. Whether terminating IPsec tunnels, connecting to a secure web gateway or filtering traffic at the edge, security is critical to an SD-WAN, but without application intelligence in the network, businesses may not be maximizing the efficiency of their security tools. WAN optimization improves the performance of non-real-time applications, reduces bandwidth usage, and delays network upgrades. WAN optimization is the biggest no-brainer for SD-WANs and is a core component of being application aware. The use of it can significantly reduce bandwidth usage and optimize performance over slow links without having to upgrade the network. In fact, many businesses have told me they have been able to delay a network upgrade by as much as three years by deploying SD-WANs. Also, when using broadband with SD-WANs, the bandwidth can vary quite a bit between DSL, cable, wireless, and others. WAN optimization can deliver uniform application performance across the network, even when the sizes of the pipes are different.

For application-aware, its all five criteria or bust

When discussing this topic with network professionals, Ive been asked which of the five criteria is most important, and my answer has remained the same: All of them." Each feature performs a different function and plays a key role in being application aware.

For example, WAN optimization improves the performance of non-real-time apps, and dynamic path selection makes real-time applications work better. Think of application awareness as providing the intelligence that is required to take SD-WANs to the next level. All five must work together to meet the demands that digital transformation brings.Hitachi Vantara launched a wide range of new hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) systems, software management, and automation tools at its Hitachi Next 2018 conference taking place in San Diego.

The move is meant to be a convergence of products, just as Hitachi Ventara as a company is going through a convergence. The U.S. subsidiary of the Japanese tech giant was formed last year by combining three business units: Hitachi Data Systems, the systems and storage infrastructure business; the Hitachi Insight Group IoT business; and the Pentaho Big Data business.

With on-premises hardware falling out of favor to the cloud, Hitachi Vantara is trying to help customers that keep on-prem systems get the most out of their systems and bring as much of the cloud experience to the data center.

People are trying to right-size apps they want to manage rather than what they want in the cloud, said Bob Madaio, vice president of infrastructure solutions marketing at Hitachi Vantara. We tend to support customers that will use the cloud to augment them, but most of the data and apps are on prem.

So, the focus becomes how to make on-prem systems more automated and how to make the process of spinning up new services faster.

One reason people go to the cloud is when a line of business asks for services, it tends to go slower than the cloud. They want the experience to be the ability to light up a new service fast without having to move apps to the cloud, he said.

Hitachi Vantara's new and updated products

Hitachi Vantara has updated its Unified Compute Platform, or UCP, line of converged and hyperconverged infrastructure offerings with several new technologies, most notably an all-NVMe SSD storage solution.

The V124N comes with hyperconverged appliances, offering up to eight NVMe SSDs plus up to four 3D XPoint-based Intel Optane SSDs for high-performance caching of the SSDs. All told, thats 72TB of all-flash capacity in a 1U appliance.

The company also introduced the Hitachi Advanced Server DS225 with Nvidia Tesla GPUs for applications requiring advanced graphics capabilities. The Hitachi Solution for Databases has been updated to improve overall performance and scalability. And the Oracle Enterprise Data Warehouse now allows admins to offload workloads to Hadoop.

On the software side, Hitachi Vantara upgraded its Hitachi Unified Compute Platform Advisor IT management and orchestration software with new automated and rule-based deployment policies. It also offers newly certified SAP HANA appliances, and enhancements to its Smart Data Center solution that adds the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and real-time analytics to further optimize all aspects of IT operations across data centers.

Its all aimed at helping customers better manage what they keep on premises, said Madaio.

Customers are thinking through the architectures they want to manage, looking where is HCI is more applicable, he said. They are looking at what they want to keep, improving by making it simpler to deploy and speed it up. For apps that require the highest availability, they are looking at how do they bring more flash and easier management into a converged infrastructure.A Connecticut Navy veteran who was sexually assaulted while serving in Japan has been awarded an honorable discharge after she challenged the bad paper discharge status she had been given.

Bianca Cruz successfully defended her Navy record in an appeal to the Naval Discharge Review Board, which concluded that she served honorably as evidenced by no punitive items in her record. She was separated from the Navy in 2015 with a general (under honorable conditions) discharge, started the appeal process the next year and filed her appeal in November 2017. The board ruled Aug. 7 and notified her by email Sept. 17.

I feel like its a nightmare coming to an end, said Cruz, 24, of North Branford. I feel like I can give hope to other military sexual assault survivors.

The board changed her military re-entry status from one that prohibited her from re-enlisting to one where she can re-enlist if she receives a waiver, something she said she wants to do. Her discharge upgrade entitles her to GI benefits, including $30,000 in current and retroactive housing costs while attending the University of New Haven, where she is slated to graduate in May.

Cruz was assaulted in 2014 while serving on a ship in Japan. She reported the assault, was transferred to South Carolina to get away from her attacker  who was also a sailor  attempted suicide, and was ultimately discharged.

Doctors at VA Connecticut Healthcare diagnosed her with post-traumatic stress disorder that stemmed from the assault.

She has attended UNH year-round since January 2017, working toward a bachelor of science degree in criminal justice, and she is doing an internship at the Orange Police Department.

Cruzs experience reflected the findings of a Rand Corporation report released last week called Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment in the U.S. Military. Its study of 560,000 service members focused on 2014, the year of Cruzs assault. It found that Navy members serving on ships had the highest risk of being sexually assaulted, and cited assignments in Japan as having one of the highest risks of assault, with about 150 sexual assaults on sailors there that year.

The report also states that in many cases, military installations with high concentrations of young and junior-ranking personnel were at greatest risk of being sexually assaulted.

It fits me to a T, Cruz said of the report.

Cruz called the review boards decision life-changing, explaining that among other things, it opens up employment opportunities I wasnt able to get otherwise. She said her attempts to obtain jobs in law enforcement were thwarted by her military discharge status.

Cruz was represented in her appeal by the nonprofit Connecticut Veterans Legal Center, based in West Haven. Margaret Kuzma, its director of discharge upgrade practice, said Cruzs upgrade is a confirmation that what happened to her was wrong. Kuzma said its absolutely huge for both Cruzs dignity and life opportunities that she will likely be able to re-enter the service, use the GI bill, and talk about her service with pride.

The review board noted that it gave liberal consideration to Cruzs PTSD and military sexual trauma. In 2014, the U.S. Department of Defense guided military review boards to give liberal consideration in upgrade cases involving PTSD and traumatic brain injury and in 2017, it expanded the guidance to include military sexual trauma.

I hope stories like Biancas will inspire other men and women who have been twice victimized  by a sexual predator and then by the militarys mishandling of their discharge  to come forward and fight to remedy those injustices, Kuzma said.

She said the legal center is now working on 52 discharge upgrade cases, 11 involving military sexual trauma.

According to the Pentagon, there were 6,769 reported cases of military sexual assault in the 2017 fiscal year, a 10 percent increase over the previous year and the highest since 2006, when the data started being recorded.

This story was reported under a partnership with the Connecticut Health I-Team, a nonprofit news organization dedicated to health reporting. (c-hit.org)SOUTHBURY  Members of the Pomperaug Christian Youth Club met Wednesday morning around the flagpole at Pomperaug High School to pray for their community.

More for you Pomperaug's Lungarini named executive director of the Connecticut Association of Schools

The gathering was part of See You at the Pole, an annual event where Christian students pray for their friends, families, teachers, school and nation.BRIDGEPORT  Angies at Aqua Seafood Market will be open on Thursday, Sept. 27 from 3 to 6 p.m.

The Market is run by students in the regional Bridgeport Aquaculture School, located at 60 St. Stephens Road near Captains Cove. Walk-ins are welcome. Orders may also be emailed to angiesaqua@bridgeportps.net in advance for pick up on Thursday. All sales are by cash.WASHINGTON  Most people in town probably already know the story of the white colonial known as Cogswell Tavern, where George Washington once ate breakfast nearly three centuries ago.

But only a few have likely gotten the chance to see inside the historic home  at least until now.

The tavern-turned-home will be one of five featured this weekend in the Washington Environmental Councils House and Farm Tour, a scholarship fundraiser that offers visitors the opportunity to visit and learn about significant properties in towns.

I think, like all of us, many people wonder whats behind (Cogswell) doors, Karen Silk, one of the councils directors, said. We thought that would be the linchpin because it is such a famous house.

The tour will let attendees visit the homes in any order and talk with council representatives at each property.

At Cogswell Tavern, they can see many of the sites original features that have been maintained since it was used as a rest stop for travelers in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Paula Krimsky, whose family has been close friends with the owners family for generations, will be on hand to discuss the homes expansive history. Krimsky had helped the family sort through a collection of artifacts and papers found in the attic during a restoration in the early 2000s.

Like typical New Englanders, they never threw anything out, Krimsky said. They had unbelievable treasures up there.

The tavern was built in 1756 by Maj. William Cogswell, who served with Gen. George Washington in the Revolutionary War and was one of New Prestons first settlers. Cogswell bought the property from Chief Waramaug, a prominent Native American leader at the time.

Cogswell was a justice of the peace, a selectman in New Milford, a member of the 1774 Committees of Correspondence, a moderator for Washingtons first town meeting, the towns first selectman and a representative on the General Assembly.

Perhaps the homes most notable claim to fame occurred on May 25, 1781, when George Washington stopped by with his troops on their way to West Point, which is noted in Washingtons diary.

Anna Whittlesey Cogswell was about to sit down for breakfast when a rider came and said General Washington is on his way and that she would have to feed 300 troops, said Sally Woodroofe, who lives in the home and is an eighth-generation descendent of Cogswell.

The fireplace that Cogswell likely used to cook for guests can still be seen when entering the home, along with antique pots and a Revolutionary War musket hanging above it. It is believed the floors, ceilings and other features in the house are part of the original structure.

Krimsky and Woodroofe said family stories attribute the home to other brushes with history  including as a stop on the Underground Railroad  though it is difficult to confirm many of the exact details.

Other properties to be featured on the tour include Back 40 Farm, a ranch renovated by two notable designers, a house built from a Sears Roebuck kit and an arts and crafts house with solar panels that produce 24,000 kilowatt hours of electricity per year.

All proceeds from the $50 tickets, which include a reception at Gunn Memorial Library, will go toward scholarships to students studying the environment.

The tours and reception will be from 1 to 5 p.m. Saturday.

aquinn@newstimes.comNEW MILFORD  The Town Council is considering a letter of intent from a company to turn the Lillis Building, which houses the school districts central offices, into affordable housing.

The letter of intent is for Dakota Partners to purchase 50 East St. for $1.6 million, which is what the property is appraised. Jim Peys, director of acquisition for Dakota Partners, said the investment is a couple million dollars more because of the asbestos and lead-base paint removal and the historic preservation.

Our intent was to create a revenue source for the town with taxes and the $1.6 million, but also affordable housing, he said.

He said the firm is not getting a tax abatement from the town and will pay taxes based on the rents it receives, not on market value. The apartments are considered affordable workforce housing.

Under the proposal, Dakota Partners would restore the historic facade of the old school and add 15 to 20 apartments, a gym and a leasing office. It would also build two apartment buildings in the back. There would be 75 to 80 units.

The breakdown of the range and percentage of affordable housing will be determined by the state based on income, expenses and state funding.

We want people in the community to afford to live in the community they work in, Peys said.

This wouldnt be the companys first affordable housing project in New Milford. Dakota Partners also built the apartment complex next to CVS. Peys said theres a wait list of about 350 for the 38 units.

Before Dakota Partners builds anything, the town must sign the letter of intent and a purchase agreement, then the company will do an engineering and architectural report.

The Town Council, the school and finance boards, as well as residents, would also need to approve it.

Council members decided to wait to get more information.

They approved applying for a $20,000 grant with the state Historic Preservation Office that will cover a third party study into what the building can be reused for.

This study will include public meetings to find out what residents want. The final report will have these uses and estimated costs to make them reality, as well the historic value, proximity to downtown and demographics that might use it.

The grant application goes out the first week of October and will be reviewed the first week of November so the report can be compiled over the winter.

Tammy Reardon, the towns grant writer, said she believes the town has a very high chance of being selected.

Councilman Peter Mullen was skeptical the study would reveal something new.

The cost per square foot is more than any other building in town, he said. Its a money pit.

Others said the office has experience with salvaging old buildings and finding new uses for them. It also gives residents a chance to comment.

Peys said the market study, appraisal and a lot of the information Town Council wants is needed as part of the application for affordable housing and by signing the letter of intent, Dakota Partners would be responsible for the costs.

School officials have been considering the future of the building for months and whether it makes the most sense to renovate the building and make it more accessible or to move central offices to a different location.

In 2016, then-Mayor David Gronbach proposed the town relocate the district offices to the John Pettibone building once it became a community center, but that fell through because Gronbach changed the memorandum of understanding to have the school district front the money for the renovations.

Though the building under the schools ownership is grandfathered in and doesnt have to meet the Americans with Disabilities Act, school officials want to make it more accessible. Total recommended costs to repair the building and make it more accessible exceed $5.17 million.

That becomes our problem, Peys said. When we made the offer, we did it with our eyes open.Credit: Flickr/IFPRI

What we found

Monthly values of Benins informal and formal trade with Nigeria, million FCFA, September 2011. 2011 exchange rate: 1USD=506FCFA. Re-exports, transit trade and gasoline trade are excluded. Credit: Customs, INSAE, authors calculations.

Reasons for trade informality

How to address trade informality

There are a host of shortcomings that limit trade: non-tariffs barriers, red tape and insufficient infrastructure. Tariff barriers remain high outside areas covered by the agreements. Enhancing trade integration between African countries could yield large economic gains. This idea motivated the latest initiative for integration, the continental free trade area However, a large part of cross-border trade between African countries is informal. It either avoids customs entirely, or goes through official posts but is not recorded. Informal trade is difficult to measure. Most studies have relied on estimates based on partial surveys, or on accounting exercises. They concluded that a substantial share of Africas regional trade was informal, on the order of 30% to 40% Informal trade is pervasive for agricultural goods as well as many industrial goods. Some traders are entirely informal; others are registered businesses but escape trade regulations and duties nonetheless.This gap in the measurement of actual trade is problematic for trade policy. Why is it so pervasive, and what should governments do about it?Our recently published study goes some way to filling the gap by looking into the magnitude, composition and determinants of informal trade in Benin.In 2011, the national statistics of Benin identified 171 non-official border points to conduct a survey of informal trade. As in many African countries, informal trade is pervasive in Benin. It operates in the open, and is tolerated, for the most part, by officials. Each border post was surveyed for a period of ten days. Each trader crossing the border (in either direction) was asked a short questionnaire about products and quantities traded, prices, origin and destination.The rate of response to the survey was high. This means that, for the first time, theres a representative sample covering all informal trade at a countrys borders that can be compared with the official trade data such as customs data.Using this data, our study confirms that informal trade is, in effect, a vital part of the trade system. For example, informal trade makes up the major part of trade in domestic products between Benin and Nigeria. Official statistics underestimate total trade by 50% for imports, and by about 85% for exports.These figures are broadly in line with previous estimates for sub-Saharan countries. This confirms that trade statistics on the continent suffer from a serious blind spot.Our study also shows that formal and informal trade differ by product composition. Informal trade isnt restricted to livestock and a few agricultural goods. Product and sector diversity is high. For example, industrial products, such as textiles, agro-food, and transportation equipment are traded heavily on this channel.Another noteworthy feature is that the product overlap between the formal and informal channels is very low: most goods are traded exclusively on one or the other.This suggests that official statistics are also massively underestimating the product diversity in regional trade.So why are some products traded formally, while others are exclusively traded informally?We estimate that products facing high tariffs are more likely to be traded informally. Non-tariff barriers, such as sanitary and phyto-sanitary regulations, or technical barriers to trade (such as labelling requirements, quality standards), are also associated with more informality.This suggests that complying with these regulations represents a cost for traders. They are therefore willing to avoid them by skipping the customs controls.This raises serious questions around issues of product quality. Theres no doubt that controlling product quality and enforcing regulations is necessary for consumer protection. Frequent cases of food poisoning in Nigeria , and their association with informal trade show the importance of this issue.The difficulty lies in distinguishing between enforcement and excessive requirements. For example, our research shows that a lot of perishable products are traded exclusively on the informal channel. This suggests that traders arent avoiding formal channels because they want to smuggle products that dont meet health and safety standards. They simply want to sell products that would otherwise be spoiled if kept for too long.There is a great deal of evidence that trade costs are high in sub-Saharan Africa . This is due to inadequate infrastructure, excessive regulations and requirements at customs, as well as harassment and bribery. The pervasiveness of informal trade is a symptom of this.Reducing tariffs should help formalise some of this informal trade. But it is difficult to predict by how much. Its possible that incentives to go informal remain high for many traders, even under the continents proposed free trade agreement, especially if preferential treatment is costly or difficult to obtain.Some authors suggest giving specific support to informal traders, for instance access to simplified trade regimes . The rationale for this is that there are too many obstacles  procedural and infrastructural  preventing informal traders from operating within the official framework.Informal trade is, in effect, a vital part of the trade system on the continent, improving food security, and providing a source of income for a substantial share of the population. By reducing trade costs for a large share of (less visible) trade operators, specific facilitation measures could offer valuable opportunities to reduce poverty.Kenyan TV presenter, Waihiga Mwaura, has been awarded the BBC World News Komla Dumor Award, after impressing judges with his storytelling ability and on-screen presence.

Kenyan TV presenter, Waihiga Mwaura, winner of the BBC World News Komla Dumor Award.

Komla Dumor Award 2017: Seeking a future star of African journalism https://t.co/iU7gt53x9K  BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) February 15, 2017

Komla Dumor

Waihiga, from Nairobi in Kenya, is a presenter on the 8pm news on the national station, Citizen TV. A well-known and respected face across Kenya, he has recently been hosting the Citizen TV prime-time breakfast show.As he accepts the BBC World News Komla Dumor Award at a ceremony in the BBC Radio Theatre in London, Waihiga begins his three month placement at the BBC.To kick off, Waihiga will attend a course with the BBC Academy. He will then join BBC News teams - across TV, radio and online  which will provide him with the opportunity to gain skills and experience across BBC News multifaceted platforms.Towards the end of his placement, Waihiga will have the opportunity to travel to a country in Africa, with a top BBC producer, to report on a story for a global audience. The story will then be broadcast on BBC platforms, which reach audiences of 376 million across the world each week.Waihiga said, Its such an honour to win this award. I was inspired by Komla; by the way he brought so much life and passion to African stories. I believe its really important to continue his legacy, to take risks in pursuit of excellence and to tell the stories which are often overlooked by other international broadcasters. As an African I feel proud to have the opportunity to be able to tell the African story to audiences across the world.Waihiga impressed judges with his storytelling ability and on-screen presence. His passion for giving Africans a voice and his investigative journalism set him ahead of other entrants. Much like Komla, Waihiga is committed to challenging preconceived stereotypes by asking the questions that provide clarity, unlock insights and have the potential to deepen understanding. His passion for telling these stories will resonate with BBCs global audiences.Jamie Angus, director of BBC World Service Group, said, Having personally worked with Komla on the launch of Focus on Africa on BBC World News, I know he was a highly respected journalist, not only among his peers, but also by audiences across the continent and beyond.To recognise and empower some of Africas leading talent in journalism in his honour over the past few years has been a learning curve for both the winners and BBC News. Were excited to have Waihiga with us for this placement and look forward to welcoming him to the BBC.The award was set up in honour of presenter Komla Dumor, who died in January 2014, and aims to continue Komlas legacy by celebrating African journalism and finding exceptional talent. The judging panel included Alice Muthengi from the BBC Africa service; Jonathan Munro, head of Newsgathering at the BBC; Audrey Sitsofe, a journalist and a Professor at the University of Ghana.Waihiga will be interviewed on Focus on Africa radio on 26September at 1730 GMT. He will also host a discussion, Does social media strengthen or endanger democracy in Africa?on Focus on Africa radio on 27September at 1730 GMT.When assessing whether preschoolers are overweight, health professionals should use other measures such as waist-to-height ratio in addition to the Body Mass Index (BMI). A study published in the Springer Nature-branded journal Pediatric Research shows that this is because measuring the BMI of younger children often fails to identify those with excess stomach fat and possible associated health problems. Lead author Annelie Lindholm of Halmstad University and the Research and Development Center Spenshult in Sweden says that adequate screening is important, given that people with excess stomach fat are known to have a greater risk of developing metabolic syndrome and subsequent heart problems - even from a very young age onwards.

The number of overweight or obese children worldwide has increased significantly in past decades. According to a recent study, one in every ten children already suffers from metabolic syndrome, which has been traditionally only been found in adults. Metabolic syndrome is linked to being overweight (especially around the stomach area, which is referred to as abdominal adiposity), hypertension, being insulin resistant or glucose intolerant. Overall, being overweight increases a person's chances of developing cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. Worryingly, these risk factors are increasingly found in preschool children. There is therefore a need to identify at risk children so that they can make potentially life-saving lifestyle changes early on.

BMI is a screening tool that combines a person's weight and height. It has been criticized for not adequately screening people at risk of developing cardiometabolic disease and for not distinguishing between fat mass and fat free mass, or specific parts of the body where fat is located. Because abdominal adiposity is a common indication that someone might, in future, develop cardiovascular disease, measurements like the waist-to-height ratio (WHtR) have been developed. This screening method incorporates a person's waist circumference together with his or her height.

In this study, Lindholm and her colleagues compared whether BMI or WHtR was better able to identify preschool children who had increased waist circumference in relation to their height. For this purpose, the researchers analyzed data from 1540 five-year old children who were part of the Swedish Halland Health and Growth Study. Their body measurements were taken at regular intervals, and factors that could influence their health and growth were noted as part of the initial study.

The researchers found that the BMI viewed 55 per cent of five-year olds who had a higher than normal waist-to-height ratio, and therefore carried more fat around their stomachs than children with normal WHtR, as being of normal weight.

"The BMI missed every second child who had a waist to height measurement greater than 0.5 by the age of five years old," says Lindholm. "Therefore, if only the BMI is used as a screening method, children who might need further investigation for cardiometabolic risk factors could be missed despite having an elevated waist-to-height ratio."

Lindholm explains that the measurements and calculations needed for WHtR are easily made and reproduced as well as being cost effective. "But since WHtR is not routinely used for screening children today, more research is needed specifically focusing on this age group before these findings can be implemented," she says.A multi-disciplinary research team is bridging the gap between psychology and gamification that could significantly impact learning efforts in user experience design, healthcare, and government.

The research, conducted by researchers at the University of Waterloo and the University of Minnesota, has integrated models from psychology with human-computer interaction, which allows for a more deliberate, interactive connection between the two disciplines in the understanding of gameful experiences.

Gamification is the use of game elements in applications that are not games. For example, a user experience designer can borrow elements from games, such as quests, stories, and badges, to motivate users to interact with a product, system, or service.

Gameful experience is the state a person is in when interacting with a gameful system, now defined as an interactive state. Gameful experience occurs when a person is engaged in meaningful, fun, and achievable goals that motivate them for learning and working.

"Clarifying and defining this term will provide a unifying foundation for any future work on gamification and help psychologists, user experience designers, and game developers better understand each other," said Lennart Nacke, professor in Communication Arts and director of the Human-Computer Interaction in Games research group at Waterloo. "Gamefulness is often loosely defined, relying on researchers applying their own intuitive understanding of games."

"The historical, inconsistent use of the term gamefulness by people working in the field has caused confusion and hindered progress in this important area."

Vital to their unifying approach is the understanding that a gameful experience is a state resulting from the interaction of three psychological characteristics: perceiving presented goals to be non-trivial and achievable, being motivated to pursue those goals under arbitrary externally-imposed rules and believing that one's actions within these constraints are voluntary.

The researchers examined literature and practices--from design to player experience to psychological states--to come up with the key characteristics that define gameful experiences.

With a unifying concept, researchers, designers, and developers of gameful systems will work more effectively.

"Clarifying the terminology will help us create more gameful systems which will help people use this kind of technology to learn more effectively," said Gustavo F. Tondello, co-author and a PhD candidate in Computer Science at Waterloo.The Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, the largest private financier of research in Sweden, is making a S$9 million cash gift to Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) to establish a new postdoctoral fellowship program to support up to 40 fellows over the next six years.

Through this Wallenberg-NTU postdoctoral fellowship, some of Sweden's most outstanding young scientists will spend two years at NTU Singapore to conduct postdoctoral research.

NTU President, Professor Subra Suresh, believes that the partnership will leverage the strengths of NTU Singapore and Swedish universities to nurture talent and build intellectual capacity in many disciplines critical to the economy and society.

Professor Suresh said, "We are deeply grateful to the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, whose new generous gift comes after their S$12.6 million donation to NTU just three months ago. The Wallenberg family is known for their passion for cutting-edge research and technologies, and NTU is privileged to be one of only three international universities to benefit from the Wallenberg Foundation's recognition and support."

In July this year, NTU received a S$7.6 million gift from the Foundation to set up a postdoctoral fellowship to nurture early-career scientists and an additional S$5 million over five years in support of the postdoctoral fellows. With this latest S$9 million gift, the university has raised, with government matching, almost $30 million to date arising from the generous gifts by the Wallenberg Foundation to NTU in support of a new university-wide postdoctoral fellowship program established by President Suresh.

"This new gift by the Foundation to NTU will benefit not just the two countries, but the rest of the world. It will allow some of Sweden's most promising young scientists to carry out their research over a two-year period at NTU Singapore in many different disciplines across all our colleges and schools. It will support a cohort of young researchers working in many areas of importance and benefit to society," said Prof Suresh.

Mr Peter Wallenberg, chairman of the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, said, "We are pleased to extend our post-doctoral program for young Swedish scientists to NTU, in addition to our present collaboration with Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)."

Under this new Wallenberg-NTU postdoctoral fellowship, 40 new Fellows will be appointed over the next several years. The fellowship support will enable them to carry out their research at NTU, over a two-year period, in any discipline offered by Colleges and Schools across the entire university. Fellows who decide to return to a Swedish University after the two-year period may receive further support from the Foundation.

The Fellowship comes after the university's town hall meeting last month where Prof Suresh announced ambitious plans to create 350 new two-year postdoctoral positions, over 5 years, to attract the best and the brightest young researchers from around the world to perform research at NTU Singapore.Treating insomnia with digital programs can improve insomnia symptoms, daytime functioning and overall health, a new study from the University of Oxford and Northwestern Medicine has found.

In a year-long study involving 1,711 people, researchers found online cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) improved not only insomnia symptoms, but functional health, psychological well-being and sleep-related quality of life.

The study was published Sept. 25 in JAMA Psychiatry.

A major limitation of insomnia treatments is the lack of providers to deliver CBT, but this study used an online platform that made it easily accessible to users. It also automated and tailored the treatment based on the user's sleep patterns.

Study co-author Jason Ong said there is a four-to-six month wait for an insomnia patient to get an appointment in his sleep clinic.

"We can reach many more patients with insomnia by using a digitally based program," said Ong, associate professor of neurology in sleep medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

Insomnia has been identified as a risk factor for the development of mental health disorders, cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes.

"Sleep ranks with air, water and food as one of the essentials of life, yet 10 to 12 percent of the population doesn't get enough of it due to insomnia," said lead study author Colin Espie, Oxford University professor of sleep medicine and chief medical officer of Big Health, a provider of automated and personalized behavioral medicine programs for mental health. "Our study suggests that digital medicine could be a powerful way to help millions of people not just sleep better, but achieve better mental and physical well-being as a result."

The study provides new evidence that the clinical benefits of digital CBT extend beyond sleep to also improve a person's daytime functioning.

"Typically, what leads patients to seek treatment is when their insomnia begins to impact their quality of life or daytime functioning," Ong said. "The fact that we saw improvements in both of these areas shows that the digital program has benefits around the clock."

Though insomnia has traditionally been treated with pharmaceuticals, new guidelines published in 2016 by the American College of Physicians recommend that CBT be used first-line, ahead of sleeping pills.

Study participants received treatment using the Sleepio program and an associated iOS app. Sleepio, a digital sleep improvement program featuring CBT techniques designed by Espie, is a product of Big Health.

Delivery was structured into six sessions lasting an average of 20 minutes each, with participants having access to the intervention for up to 12 weeks. Researchers assessed the study participants online at 0 weeks (baseline), four weeks (mid-treatment), eight weeks (post-treatment), and 24 weeks (follow-up). Program content was based on CBT manuals and included behavioral, cognitive and educational components.

Additional study findings were as follows:

In the digital CBT (dCBT) group, 689 participants (80.8 percent) logged on for at least one session, 491 participants (57.6 percent) completed at least four sessions, and 413 participants (48.4 percent) completed all six sessions.

At weeks four, eight and 24, dCBT was associated with significant improvement in global health and mental wellbeing. Improvements in insomnia mediated these outcomes.

Symptoms of depression, anxiety, sleepiness and cognitive failures all demonstrated significant differences in favor of dCBT at weeks four, eight and 24. While the degree of change was relatively small, the changes were statistically significant.

The degree of change for fatigue was moderate to large at weeks four, eight and 24.

Regarding productivity at work due to sleep problems, results showed a small to moderate improvement after dCBT.

A small but significant effect in terms of reduced absenteeism attributed to poor sleep and increased job satisfaction was observed at week 24.

There were no significant effects at any time on relationship functioning.

"In clinical studies, dCBT has repeatedly achieved statistically significant and clinically meaningful results for outcomes including sleep, mental health and daytime functioning," Espie said. "Our latest results indicate that dCBT can be an effective, inexpensive way to help insomnia sufferers achieve better health over the long term through behavior change."Tradeshow Talks SWORD Health Sandrine Ortega

An interview with Sandrine Ortega from SWORD Health, at the NHS Health and Care Innovation Expo, discussing the greatest barriers to physiotherapy in the UK, and how SWORD Phoenix is improving patient outcomes for musculoskeletal disorders.

What are the biggest challenges for healthcare systems such as the NHS when it comes to providing physiotherapy?

One of the biggest challenges is access to physiotherapy. It takes months to get an appointment with a physiotherapist through the NHS as there is only one physiotherapist per 2000 inhabitants.

There is also the problem of the UK population getting older, meaning more and more people are in need of physiotherapy.

This low number of physiotherapists, combined with a high demand for services, means that patients are not receiving the gold standard of care when it comes to rehabilitation. This reduces the number of patients that make a full recovery and increases the length of time spent in the health care system.

What is the SWORD Phoenix?

SWORD Phoenix is an AI-powered digital therapist that allows physiotherapists to deliver home-based rehabilitation programs.

SWORD Phoenix is bringing physical therapy home Play

How do physiotherapists engage with the system and ensure patients are doing the exercises correctly?

The physiotherapist is there in every step of the way with the patient. They are plugged into the system, and they can monitor each of their patients individually, as well as seeing how they are performing as a cohort.

They monitor the patient by assessing the results and changing the prescription accordingly with the max efficiency since everything is data based.

Has the technology been proven to work clinically?

We are the first AI solution with clinical trials published in reputable journals showing better patient clinical outcomes when compared with the standard of care.

Patients feel more supported, knowing that their physiotherapist is observing their performance and are more engaged with higher compliance.

How is the SWORD Phoenix helping the NHS cope with the increase in population size?

Physiotherapists using SWORD Phoenix have been shown to increase their productivity by five times, meaning they can treat five times more patients per hour.

This helps solve the waiting list problem in the UK and means that many patients receive a high quality of care early on, reducing the likelihood of their condition becoming worse.

Image Credit: Brian A Jackson / Shutterstock

The difference in patient outcomes is astounding, with SWORD Phoenix resulting in 25% better outcomes than the current system.

Our technology is also highly cost-effective and scalable, which is very important for a tax-payer funded system like the NHS. SWORD Phoenix allows physiotherapists to treat more patients at a lower cost than face-to-face counseling.

Patients are able to make a conscious decision about when to do their therapy, and where to do it. This results in 90% of patients adhering to the treatment, which is a much higher number than the current system.

What does the future hold for SWORD Health? Could the platform be extended to other areas of medicine?

At the moment, SWORD Phoenix can be used to treat around 90% of musculoskeletal disorders and its available in the UK, Portugal, Australia, the USA, and Canada. As consequence, we arent looking to expand to other conditions but to expand to other regions to increase the access of quality therapy to everyone.

Where can readers find more information?

www.swordhealth.com

About SWORD Health

SWORD Health is a healthcare company that is rebuilding physical rehabilitation through SWORD Phoenix - a digital therapist powered by AI that is sensor based and user-friendly. In 2015, SWORD was recognized by the European Commission as one of the most innovative companies in Europe.Two recent studies in the journal Leukemia present a new approach for bone marrow donation and transplant that preclinical laboratory tests suggest could make the life-saving procedure safer and more effective for patients.

Researchers at the Cincinnati Children's Cancer and Blood Diseases Institute say their studies demonstrate that use of an experimental drug called CASIN in laboratory mice results in higher efficiency when harvesting blood stem cells from donors and less toxicity in transplant recipients.

Designed to repair the body's blood-making machinery inside the bone marrow, a stem cell transplant can be life-saving for people with cancers like leukemia or those battling immune deficiency diseases. But prepping patients for transplant involves using toxic chemotherapy to kill off a person's existing and malfunctioning blood-making system. This allows it to be replaced with healthy blood stem cells called hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs).

In addition to toxicity for patients, the procedure doesn't always work. Harvesting effective donor HSCs can be a challenge. And once transplanted the cells often do not engraft in sufficient numbers to make the patient healthy, according to Yi Zheng, PhD, senior investigator on both studies and director of Experimental Hematology and Cancer Biology.

Getting Cells to Mobilize

In one Leukemia study, Zheng's team rationally designed the drug CASIN. The drug mimics the action of an important gene called CDC42 that helps regulate blood stem cells. Tests in mouse models show that CASIN can effectively mobilize blood-making stem cells and promote their exit from the bone marrow. The study indicates that blood stem cells harvested from CASIN-treated donor mice have better long-term reconstitution potential following transplant than cells harvested with regimens currently used in clinic.

In the second study, researchers used CASIN to precondition mouse transplant recipients to make the body's bone marrow compartments more receptive to new and healthy blood stem cells. The drug does this by prompting existing blood stem cells to vacate the bone marrow and migrate to peripheral blood, which is located in circulating blood not sequestered to the bone marrow. This lessens the amount of chemotherapy needed to precondition the bone marrow in transplant recipients. It could allow effective transplant preconditioning when a recipient is unable to tolerate a chemotherapy-based procedure.

"Our data demonstrate that the new regimen of CASIN application has the potential to improve both sides of the transplant practice. It mobilizes higher quality donor HSCs during stem cell harvest and it would condition transplant patients beforehand to increase engraftment efficiency," Zheng said. "This would be a major step forward, especially for the most vulnerable patients who cannot withstand the toxicity of chemotherapy conditioning regimens or are non-responsive to current blood-stem-cell mobilization regimens."

How it Works

CASIN works by modulating the function of the CDC42 gene's target protein, Cdc42 (cell division control protein 42). In blood stems cells Cdc42 levels are tightly controlled and altering its activity can cause a transient change in function and movement of HSCs. Zheng and his colleagues explain that careful control of Cdc42 activity during stem cell donation and bone marrow transplant produces the benefits of 1) high-quality stem cells harvested from donors and 2) improved preconditioning for transplant recipients.

Although Zheng said the laboratory findings establish a proof of principle for the new regimen, the researchers caution the procedure using CASIN remains in pre-clinical testing. The current study was conducted in donated human cells, mouse cells and mouse models of bone marrow transplant. Results in such studies don't always translate to human patients.A recent study assessing the relationship between nursing specialty certification rates and surgical site infections (SSI) provides an innovative option for future research exploring relationships between nursing and hospital procedures and medical and/or surgical adverse events. Published in the July/August issue of the Journal of Nursing Administration (JONA), the peer-reviewed journal for nursing managers and executives, the research was conducted by representatives from the University of Kansas Medical Center, the National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators (NDNQI), the Competency & Credentialing Institute (CCI) and the University of Wyoming. It was sponsored through a grant from CCI.

The study examined data from 69 hospitals, 346 units and 6,585 registered nurses (RNs) participating in the National Database of Nursing Quality Indicators (NDNQI), as well as the Centers for Disease Control National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN) SSI data on 22,188 patients who underwent colon (COLO) and abdominal hysterectomy (HYST) procedures. The study found higher American Society of Anesthesiologist (ASA) scores, longer surgical procedure time, and contaminated or dirty wounds were associated with higher SSI occurrence.

"This study represents the first time researchers have had the opportunity to review extensive amounts of data for nursing outcomes by combining a large, nursing-focused database (NDNQI) with a large national database of patient outcomes (NHSN) and paves the way for future models of study down the road," said Emily Cramer, Ph.D., research assistant professor, University of Kansas Medical Center and study researcher. "Having access to this level of detail into care settings, procedures, nursing education and certification, surgical details, patient wound characteristics, and more allows us to have a unique understanding of what is truly impactful and essential when it comes to what surgical nurses require to ensure successful patient care."

The study authors utilized a "structure-process-outcome" framework utilized by Tavlov & colleagues, finding that structures and processes of care influenced care outcome. Effects of structure--provider (nurse), patient, and system (hospital) characteristics--were examined on the outcome of SSI. Utilizing this framework allowed researchers to control for other structural characteristics that might affect SSI occurrence, including: 1) system characteristics, such as Magnet  status, ownership, and teaching status; 2) provider characteristics, such as nursing education and years on the unit; and 3) patient characteristics of ASA score and wound class. (See Figure 1. SSI study structure, process and outcome variables.)

The study also found 40 percent lower odds for SSIs among hospitals with Magnet designation after adjusting for other hospital characteristics, patient/procedure characteristics, certification rates, and RN covariates.

"These findings reinforce the already well-known and well-researched benefits of Magnet status within a hospital system," said James Stobinski, PhD, RN, CNOR, CSSM, CEO, CCI, and study author. "Whether for recruiting top talent, maintaining a superior level of patient care and safety, or fostering a collaborative environment, the benefits of obtaining Magnet hospital status provides returns on investment and ample opportunity for nursing and hospital staff growth. The results of this study remind us of the intrinsic benefits of Magnet status to hospital staff and patients alike."

Moving forward, the researchers hope to explore further the relevance of Needleman's recently proposed Expanded Conceptual Model for Credentialing in Nursing. Needleman's expanded theory adds three intervening pathways between structure and outcomes (i.e. "invisible architecture") such as organizational and unit climate, culture and leadership, including how specialty-certified nurses provide secondary benefits to those not in their care, creating multiple associations and causal pathways that affect outcomes.

"The two large national databases contained multiple levels of data, so we have access to an overwhelming amount of information, but the datasets lacked information about organizational invisible architecture that may hinder or enhance nursing autonomy and patient success," said Diane K. Boyle, Ph.D., RN, FAAN, Professor at the Whitney School of Nursing, University of Wyoming and study author. "To build upon the findings of this study, we would next hope to explore the concept of nursing autonomy within Needleman's theoretical framework in a given setting and its benefits to nurses amongst co-workers, with other medical staff, with patients, and within the larger hospital setting."

The study was a secondary analysis of 2014 data from the NHSN and the NDNQI annual RN survey, including more than 285,000 nurses on more than 16,000 units, spanning perioperative, surgical intensive care (SICU) and medical-surgical intensive care (MSICU), in nearly 850 hospitals. Participating NDNQI hospitals were required to submit 2014 SSI data to NHSN, resulting in 72 hospitals submitting 2014 NHSN SSI data on COCO and HYST surgical procedures to NDNQI.

The analysis was restricted to hospitals with eligible perioperative units, adult SICU, MSICU, surgical units, and M/S units, as well as hospitals where at least one perioperative unit and at least one SICU, MSICU, surgical, or M/S unit participated in the survey. To complete the NDNQI survey, RNs must have been employed on the unit for at least three months and spent fifty percent or more of their time in direct patient care.

Source: http://www.seacrestcompany.com/Every year, millions of people have vacations and business trips ruined when they succumb to "traveler's diarrhea" during their journeys. A major cause of traveler's diarrhea is bacteria called Enterotoxigenic E. coli, or ETEC. A joint effort between the University of Georgia and the University of Texas at Austin has discovered how ETEC works to cause disease. They are using this information in an effort to develop a preventive vaccine for travelers.

The researchers, led by the University of Georgia's Dr. Stephen Trent--a professor in the department of infectious diseases--teamed up with the U.S. Navy Medical Research Center and the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health to study samples taken directly from citizens who volunteered to become infected with ETEC.

"If we can understand how ETEC causes disease, we can develop new vaccines to prevent infections," Trent said.

Ingesting contaminated food or water can lead to ETEC infection, which can cause diarrhea for up to a week. Considering the fact that up to 200 million people become infected annually, an estimated 1 billion days of human productivity are lost every year due to ETEC infections.

Visiting the doctor to get vaccinated before a trip can prevent travelers from catching a disease. Unfortunately, there are no available vaccines to prevent ETEC infections, so travelers must constantly be concerned about what they eat and drink while on vacation.

The group examined how ETEC behaved inside humans during infection compared to how it behaved in the laboratory. They were surprised to find that ETEC produced more toxins when grown in the laboratory than it did in human infection samples. Bewildered, the researchers sought to figure out why. They discovered that ETEC could sense oxygen in the atmosphere, and that controlled the amount of toxins produced by ETEC. This explained their surprising data: There is more oxygen in the atmosphere than there is in the digestive tract, which resulted in the differing levels of toxin expression.

This breakthrough gives researchers hope that they have identified the "cue" that ETEC uses to determine when to make toxins that cause disease. How ETEC causes disease via toxins has been studied exhaustively for decades. Previous groups have identified numerous factors that contribute to toxin production in ETEC, but this is the first-time oxygen has been identified as a major player in ETEC virulence. Lead author and University of Texas graduate student Alex Crofts said, "We think ETEC can sense the oxygen given off by our own cells as a cue to produce toxins."

The group now hopes to use this oxygen-sensitive ETEC response against the bacteria to prevent infections. "Beyond toxins, we found ETEC regulates many other factors in response to oxygen, and some of those are promising new targets for future vaccines," explained Trent. "ETEC is a global burden on society, and we are doing all we can to advance our understanding of the disease."The central nervous system of older individuals responds to movement and initiates muscular contraction differently compared to young individuals. This is the result of a study led by researcher Simon Walker at the University of Jyvaskyla with Postdoctoral Researcher funding from the Academy of Finland. Walker's team also found links between the ability to sense movement and balance control.

The team performed a series of studies, testing healthy young (aged 35 and under) and older (aged 6575) individuals who did not regularly exercise. The results revealed changes in the functioning of the older individuals' central nervous system.

In the first study, the researchers rotated the test subjects' both feet independently, up and down, with a specially built device and recorded brain signals using magnetoencephalography. They then analyzed the results with a technique known as coherence, comparing the amount of similarity between two signals, in this case the frequency of brain signals and the frequency of the foot movement. They found stronger coherence levels in the older participants. The coherence level was related to the amount of body sway during quiet standing.

"We interpret these findings to mean that those who require greater brain processing of movement have a compromised ability to sense movement. Therefore, they are not as efficient in controlling movement or standing," Walker explains.

In a separate study, Walker's team investigated coherence between two thigh muscles during a voluntary contraction. Here, the older individuals showed lower coherence at several frequencies. According to Walker, this possibly means that older people cannot control their leg muscles as well as young people.

Exercise was used to try to improve the functioning of the central nervous system. However, 14 weeks of resistance training did not change the level of coherence between the muscles of the older individuals during the contractions. "We don't know yet if this is because this type of intervention doesn't enhance central nervous system function, if the duration of the intervention wasn't long enough, if the changes in the central nervous system of older people aren't redeemable, or if it's some combination of all these things," Walker says.

Both of these results occurred in apparently healthy older individuals. These people had a high physical function and good balance control. Nevertheless, they displayed a compromised central nervous system function.

"Hence, there are probably other mechanisms that need to be enhanced to maintain the level of function. Also, it's apparent that when older people need to produce force voluntarily, the electrical signals that control such movement are different compared to young people. Therefore, aging modifies not only the sensing of movement but also the execution of movement. We need to continue to design interventions and tests to determine whether these changes are reversible," Walker says.It's early morning and a team of more than 20 professionals cram around a long table in a dark room, peering at slide after slide of black-and-white mammogram images crossing the screen.

All the stories are different. The ages of the patients. The stages of the cancer. The prognosis. The diagnosis.

What remains the same throughout each case, though, is the intensity of the discussion and the wide breadth of comments based on the specialty of the medical professionals who are weighing in. There are radiation oncologists, surgical oncologists, medical oncologists, breast cancer nurse navigators, radiologists, geneticists and pathologists, all with their pagers on silent.

Some of the questions on the table: Does this patient have the right diagnosis? What's the best treatment? What are other lifestyle considerations? Do they need cryopreservation - freezing of their eggs to preserve fertility? What are their wishes in how they get treated?

Occasionally, the professionals disagree. The discussion deepens, as the options are debated.

At the head of the table guiding the discussion is surgical oncologist Nancy DeMore, M.D., of the Hollings Cancer Center at the Medical University of South Carolina. She, more than most, knows the value of a multidisciplinary tumor board. It's one reason she and colleagues decided to conduct a study.

Published in the Annals of Surgical Oncology, the study looked at the value of a second opinion for breast cancer patients referred to a National Cancer Institute-Designated cancer center with a tumor board. Researchers concluded that a review by a multidisciplinary tumor board at an NCI-Designated cancer center changed the diagnosis for 43 percent of the patients who presented for a second opinion for breast cancer.

"Our results show our second opinion really does provide value in potentially changing the diagnosis, which in most cases will eventually change treatment," she said. "I would hope this study would empower patients to seek a second opinion at centers that specialize in oncology."

Researchers in this retrospective study analyzed breast cancer patients who had been diagnosed at an outside institution and who received a second opinion at MUSC Health from August 2015 to March 2016. Radiology, pathology and genetic testing reports from outside institutions were compared with reports generated after a review by a multidisciplinary tumor board and a subsequent workup at MUSC.

The review included 70 patients seeking second opinions. A total of 30 additional biopsies were performed for 25 patients, with new cancers identified in 16 patients. Overall, 16 or 22.8 percent of the 70 of patients had additional cancers diagnosed (either in the same breast, the contralateral breast or a metastasis to an axillary lymph node).

"Those findings would drastically change care," she said. "In addition, we found the pathology review changed in 20 percent of people. And 16 percent of people who met guidelines for genetic testing by the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) guidelines for genetic testing had not been referred for testing."

In other areas of the nation where similar studies were done, the percentage of change in diagnosis resulting from second opinions was not as high as what was shown in this study. DeMore said this could be attributed to the higher level of rural areas in the state and that Hollings Cancer Center is the only NCI-Designated cancer center in the state, she said.

The S.C. Rural Health Association designates more than 75 percent of the state as rural.

In South Carolina, there are only three academic medical centers, which are centers with a hospital that works in conjunction with an academic institution. Less than 10 percent of the patients in the study who came for a second opinion had their first opinion at an academic medical center, DeMore commented.

"There are other states where there are many top medical centers available to patients," she said. "Whereas in our state, there are only a few places in the state that have this type of expertise. In this state, we are the only NCI-Designated Cancer Center, and MUSC has the only radiology residency program."

That means MUSC's radiology residency program has the leading experts in the field hired to teach the next generation, and they are doing research to set the next standard of care, she said.

"All of our radiologists at MUSC have done extra training with breast fellowships in breast imaging. All they do is breast imaging. The majority of our surgical oncologists have done surgical oncology fellowships, and the medical oncologists specialize in just breast medical oncology, and our pathologists have done fellowships in breast pathology. We're a center with really specialized care."

Many people may not know the level of specialty care when they seek care, and patients can be in a state of shock when they get a cancer diagnosis. "It's important to pause and regroup and make sure you have the right plan."

Denise Garcia, M.D., a general surgery resident and first author on the study, said that the findings surprised her because she's just learning about the important role that a review by a tumor board can play in getting the right diagnosis.

"This made me value that process even more after doing the research on this. I actually recommended this to my family members. The discussions that go on in that room are very valuable. People are bouncing stuff off one another and really listening to one another. It's a really positive process."

Garcia said she knows some people are hesitant to offend their physician by asking for a second opinion. "It's your health, and you have a right to go hear what other people are saying. It also can give you more confidence in your treatment."

DeMore agrees. "As a surgeon, when someone asks me if they should get a second opinion, I always encourage it."Writer-director Johannes Ferdinand 'Ferdi' van Zyl shares a few thoughts with Daniel Dercksen about his astounding film The Recce, a film that poignantly shows that without a past, there is no future.

Well done on an excellent film. It seems that the border war is still a subject that needs exploring, following Craig Gardners My Fathers War and Chistiaan Olwagens Kanarie. Why do you think the subject has been shied away from?

The Recce is a very personal and heartfelt film, tell me about what inspired you to write the screenplay?

Its always better to write from the heart, dont you agree?

Did you write the screenplay knowing that you will be sitting in the directors chair?

Have you always wanted to be a filmmaker? Where did it start for you, that moment that you knew you wanted to be a filmmaker?

Tell me about the process you undertook writing the screenplay?

Was it an easy process from page to screen? How long did it take and what were major obstacles?

What did it feel like sharing the film with an audience?

You mention that the film is beyond genre, tell me about this?

Filmmaking is a cathartic process for you, tell me about this?

Your views on the South African film industry?

Is it difficult to get a film made in South Africa independently?

Any advice for screenwriters who would like to get their work out there?

Has there been a response from Recces regarding the film?

What do you hope audiences will get from watching The Recce?

What's next for you?

Greg Kriek delivers a powerhouse performance as a young Recce who is wrongfully declared dead behind enemy lines, and must use every resource he has to get home to his distraught wife and family, who are, in turn, fighting their own emotional battles.Van Zyl established his passion for cinema at a very young age when he worked as an usher at the local bioscope in his hometown during his teens. After completing a diploma in photography and video production, he spent three years in London, to feed his curiosity for life. Upon his return to South Africa, he heeded the inherent call and decided to study film and television at UCT where he graduated with distinctions in screenwriting.With nothing but a Western pilot episode under his arm, he entered the local television and film industry and has since secured numerous series development contracts, before throwing his anchor down at The Aleit Group as producer, director, and screenwriter for the companys film division Afilm.Over the last two years, he created countless audiovisuals and high-quality music videos for top bands such as aKing. Ferdinand recently released his directorial debut, Die Versoening Van Daniel Du Randt, followed by a dark country gothic short film entitled Selah, featuring Albert Maritz. He spends his free time writing and developing feature film screenplays. Van Zyl teamed up with producer Jac Williams from Man Makes a Picture where MMAP produced his feature film directorial debut The Recce.I dont think its something that is necessarily shied away from, I think its something that takes time to percolate in the consciousness of South Africa before we can address it without prejudice. There have been films like The Stick (Darrel Roodt), and Regardt Van Der Bergs Boetie Gaan Border Toe that explores that specific time at a specific time. The new generations are uniquely positioned to look at those events objectively, and try and find meaning maybe, use it as a vehicle to explore identities, etc. Theres a lot of questions regarding that war, and I think its time that we create dialogue and begin a healing process. The subject of the war, as the war itself, has had no resolution, and we need equilibrium to heal.The Recce is incredibly reminiscent of Terence Malicks Thin Red Line with its hushed intensity, where we explore the mindscape of the characters on a harrowing surreal journey, where your brilliantly crafted screenplay and masterful vision unite.The journey was completely intuitive and instinctive, the use of voice-over, albeit very reminiscent of Malick's films and Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now, was a cathartic exercise and a vehicle to explore my own Afrikaner identity and heritage.Well, Ive had a fascination with the idea of a special forces operator, and the Janus-faced nature of what that entails, for quite a while. I grew up with a recce in my family, and I also grew up hearing all the bad and bullshit stories about them being these volatile and wounded men quaking under the pressures of PTSD  ready to snap at any moment. However, that was never my experience with my family member - he was a kind and gentle man - and that duality I find fascinating. Nevertheless, ideas come and go. I latched onto this image I had in my head of a dying soldier clutching at a photo of his wife (very melodramatic) and that kind of sparked a wildfire in my imagination. I started drawing a lot from my wife and kids.Writing from the heart is difficult to define; if by that you mean writing intuitively, then yes it is, for me at least. It also serves as a method to abstain from any sort of writing block, dont overthink scenes or themes, because that might lead to a stalemate with your reason and imagination. Let the characters, organically guide you through the story.Yes, I try to really impose a definitive vision in the text, so that there is little room for interpretation, visually at least. However, these days I also find the idea of writing stuff and just letting them go very comforting and less apprehensive.Yes. I worked at the local cinema in my hometown, Worcester, from the age of about 13. The place was called the Star Gazer. It was run by the Daily Twin Brothers. I worked the coffee bar, the kiosk, the till, as an usher, a cleaner, and as projectionist. We would watch cult films in the back room, and after I got introduced to Stanley Kubrick and David Lynch, at a very young age, that was it for me  I was hooked.Writing is always daunting, but liberating at the same time. Once you have an idea, you need to exercise it, get it down on paper and push forward. It is a labour of love, but the emphasis is on labour. Nothing brings me more joy than to nail a scene on the page, but you always have to abandon it at some stage. Once I commit to a story, I am very careful as to what I expose myself to, with regards to other films and stories. What I am writing about at a specific time, encapsulates everything in my life. Its hard, psychologically and emotionally its very taxing, but its nourishing.When you make personal films, its always difficult to get it realised or onto the screen. In my case, it took about four years from the day I put pen to paper. Financially, arthouse/personal films arent very viable, unless you have a following or become a brand in itself, which has its own pitfalls, because then everyone expects a certain thing or certain type of film from you and that is the death of art, when you repeat yourself and stop experimenting and evolving  when you stop searching. The biggest problem or obstacle was artistic compromise.The act of filming the movie was incredibly physical, expensive, and stressful, but it fails in comparison when you are forced into a situation where your artistic integrity falls under the guillotine, due to budget or time. Luckily, we all navigated those situations quite well, and we are very proud of the final product. We took a big chance, we stuck to our guns and made a crazy film our way - and it paid off.When you write and direct something for the international stage; it is extremely revealing, theres no place to hide or no one to hide behind, this your story, told in the way you wanted to. You basically stand naked on a stage and ask the world to judge you, especially if its a personal film like The Recce. The making and finishing of the film is the reward at the end, that is where the buck stops for artists, everything else is noise, but its damn f*cking loud!When I wrote the first draft, I stuck to the conventions I was taught when I studied. And the first draft was great, however, I wasnt necessarily creatively satisfied, so I started from scratch, ignoring all the structural rules of writing a screenplay, and just wrote intuitively. Once you do that, genre conventions fall by the wayside. I wrote a film that I wanted to go watch at a local cinema. The idea, which came organically, was to present local audiences with a local film with a new cinematic language. I used abstractions and metaphors to summon a reaction from the audience, forcing them to interpret things in their own manner. Everyones interpretation is valid, and that makes the film universal.Yes, it is. Catharsis is the psychological relief through open expression. I look up to filmmakers like Sam Peckinpah, who sought relief through violence in his films, he was a troubled man, but a poet nonetheless. Even David Lynchs Eraserhead could be seen as a piece of art that dealt with his fears of becoming a father. I used certain narrative techniques and devices in The Recce to explore what it means to be an Afrikaner as a means to navigate and comment on my own heritage, I find solace in expressing my own personal views through certain characters and their thoughts. Its a kind of alchemical process, in old mystic terms. Theres a transformative process that takes place when you dream, write, and film it.We are experiencing a new wave, theres an excitement in the air. My peers are making incredible films, and its so inspiring to be a writer and director at this moment. The bar is set very high, and its an honour to be making movies at this time. There are a lot of issues that need to be addressed, things that are hindering our sustainability in the industry, but artistically we are experiencing an indefinite crescendo.Yes, it is. The spirit of independent cinema is where the filmmakers put their livelihood on the line to make the film, that is the essence of independent cinema. You dont have a studio, network, or channel behind you, you dont necessarily have distribution from the get-go; you beg, borrow and steal the money from somewhere. In any country, an endeavour like that is risky, because you as the filmmaker sign surety, you are responsible to the investors, and in a country like South Africa that is extremely difficult. Obviously, we have rebates, etc. here, but it's the startup capital, its like any other investment, except, this is a high risk, high reward industry, its volatile, and there is no proven record for success.Just keep on writing, if you write because you dont why you are writing, then you are on the right track.Yes, they see the film for what it is; an ode to everyone who fought.I hope that this film will create a dialogue, I hope that this film can bring some relief, and I hope that they accept our ode with sincerity.We just wrapped our second feature film at Man Makes A Picture, and we are busy developing our slate for the years to come, some series, documentaries, and a lot more features.Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and collaborators in Nicaragua have been given a five-year, $2.7 million R01 award from the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) to better understand the epidemiology of Zika virus in pregnancy and the impact the virus has on infant neurodevelopment.

Zika, a mosquito-borne infection, is also transmitted in utero from mother to child. Zika is the only flavivirus known to cause birth defects, including microcephaly. More than 1,000 cases of Zika infection have been documented in Nicaragua in the past year.

"We do not have a lot of data about Zika virus because it is an emerging infection," said Elizabeth Stringer, M.D., M.Sc., the study's principal investigator and an associate professor of maternal and fetal medicine in the UNC Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. "During this study, we will follow up with infants exposed to Zika in Leon and Managua, Nicaragua."

Stringer will work with UNC colleagues Sylvia Becker-Dreps, M.D., and Aravinda de Silva, Ph.D, as well as Filemon Bucardo, Ph.D, and other collaborators at the University of Nicaragua (UNAN) in Leon. This current study will build off of a pilot study funded by UNC's Office of Research. Stringer and colleagues collected blood from pregnant women during the peak of the Zika outbreak in 2016 in Nicaragua. When the women returned to deliver their babies, blood was collected again and cord blood was also saved.

The new study will use this remnant blood to investigate rates of mother-to-child transmission of Zika. The team will also test new diagnostic protocols under development at the UNC School of Medicine, investigate the fetal/newborn immune response to Zika virus exposure, and follow a cohort of infants for neurodevelopmental outcomes.

"We know Zika causes microcephaly in infants, but what other neurodevelopmental problems exist?" Stringer said. "We will check the infants' neurodevelopmental function through the use of the Mullen assessment as well as the Ages and Stages Questionnaire, and have a pediatric ophthalmologist conduct eye exams."The University of Birmingham has been awarded 1.9 million through the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Global Health Research (GHR) Program to fund world class research into a common heart condition in disadvantaged populations in China, Brazil and Sri Lanka.

The University's NIHR Global Health Research Group on Atrial Fibrillation will focus on ways of preventing and treating atrial fibrillation (AF) - the most global common cause of an irregular heartbeat which five times increases the risk of stroke.

Over a quarter of strokes are due to AF, and adults have a one in four life-time risk of developing the condition, the main causes of which are high blood pressure and diabetes.

Professor Neil Thomas, who is jointly leading the research at the University of Birmingham's Institute of Applied Health Research, said: "A third of people with atrial fibrillation, and even more in low and middle-income countries such as China, Brazil and Sri Lanka, do not know they have the condition.

"To reduce the risk of stroke by around two thirds, patients with atrial fibrillation are given anticoagulant drugs to prevent blood clotting, such as warfarin, however under-treatment is common in these countries, leading to missed opportunities in preventing fatal and disabling strokes.

Professor Gregory Lip, a world leading expert in atrial fibrillation, who is co-leading the research, said: "Our established group at the University of Birmingham has already successfully led changes in atrial fibrillation management in the UK, and in European countries with different healthcare systems, by promoting stroke risk assessment and enabling clinicians to initiate treatment in an integrated manner.

"Given the importance of this need, we plan to support our partners in China, Brazil and Sri Lanka to develop tailored research to improve the treatment and management of this condition in these countries."

The team plans two pilot research projects in each country, developing and adapting known effective methods to increase awareness and treatment of atrial fibrillation, by consulting with local patients, families, healthcare providers and policy-makers and findings from our systematic reviews.

On the ground training will be designed and delivered, and the team will focus on developing new funding proposals to sustain the collaboration in the long-term, including engaging with major stakeholders to develop sustainable models of best care practice.

The University of Birmingham is one of a total of 20 NIHR GHR Groups to have received a slice of 40 million funding, covering a broad range of research themes, including: improving asthma outcomes in African children; health system responses to violence against women, and preterm birth prevention and management.

Dr Louise Wood, Director, Science, Research and Evidence Directorate, Department of Health and Social Care, said: "The NIHR is adding substantive value to the field of global health and helping to keep the UK at the forefront of health knowledge for global benefit.

"These new activities complement the breadth and range of our existing portfolio of funded research to improve health outcomes across LMICs and demonstrate the NIHR's role in supporting the UK Aid Strategy."

The NIHR Global Health Research program allocates the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC)'s Official Development Assistance (ODA) research funding, delivering internationally-outstanding applied global health research for the direct and primary benefit of patients and the public LMICs. To find out more, please see our global health webpage.

The announcement comes as September 29th marks World Heart Day, the World Heart Federation's global campaign to raise awareness of heart health.The Conversation Africa is an independent source of news and views from the academic and research community. Its aim is to promote better understanding of current affairs and complex issues, and allow for a better quality of public discourse and conversation.Go to: https://theconversation.com/africaMeet the Jewish mobster who is punching Nazis in We Only Kill Each Other

Writer Stephanie Phillips assembles an all-star creative team for '30s period Comixology crime comic We Only Kill Each OtherThe Committee to Protect Journalists urged Ethiopian authorities to ensure internet is available, including during times of unrest when access to information provided by journalists is crucial. Mobile internet was unavailable in the capital Addis Abba, from September 17 to the morning of September 19 amid protests and clashes, according to media reports and Berhan Taye, who leads Access Now's #KeepItOn campaign against internet shutdowns, which CPJ is part of.

 Andriy Popov via 123RF

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Berhan told CPJ on September 18 that she was able to verify access to the internet had been cut by analyzing traffic data and speaking with about 20 people across the city. Ethiopian authorities did not to respond to CPJ's questions about whether they ordered access to be cut.The shutdown came the same day as protests in Addis Ababa over clashes in which ethnic minorities were targeted, according to these same media reports and Atnafu Berhane, an Addis-based journalist who spoke with CPJ."Restricting access to the internet stifles press freedom by making it difficult for journalists to communicate with sources, to distribute news, and to verify information. It cuts off members of the public from the critical information they need to make decisions during times of crisis," said CPJ Sub-Saharan Africa representative Muthoki Mumo. "We urge Ethiopian authorities to keep to the path of greater press freedom forged in recent months, and to desist from future shutdowns."Berhan told CPJ that residents who use fixed lines to access the internet could still go online. However, many Ethiopians rely on mobile technology to access the internet, and Berhan said that the shutdown made it harder for journalists to verify what was happening and for citizens to access information on safety.Belay Manaye, an Ethiopian journalist and blogger, told CPJ he believes that the protests in Addis Ababa would have better covered had mobile internet been available.CPJ's calls and messages to the communication affairs minister, Ahmed Shide, and ministry spokesperson, Mohamed Seid, went unanswered on September 19. Fitsum Arega, the prime minister's chief of staff, told CPJ on September 19 that mobile data was back on in Addis Ababa, but when asked what led to it being cut he referred CPJ to the state-owned phone telecommunications company Ethio Telecom, for an explanation.When CPJ called Ethio Telecom's internet-listed phone numbers, an individual who answered said that there had been a "problem" with the internet on those dates. When CPJ asked to be transferred to an official spokesperson who could elaborate, the individual said that they did not know the appropriate person to respond.CPJ's September 20 email to Ethio Telecom spokesperson Abdurahim Ahmed was not answered. Abdurahim could also not be reached on his mobile phone and a text message to the same line went unanswered.The shutdown came amid protests in Addis Ababa on September 17 over clashes that had left at least 23 people dead in the capital's outskirts, according to media reports Amnesty International said in a September 17 statement that at least 58 people had been killed in the clashes, including five people shot dead as police dispersed protesters. The Amnesty report and Behran both said that "hate speech" had been observed on social media during the clashes.Despite Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's inauguration promises to respect free expression, authorities have previously cut access to the internet. Authorities temporarily blocked access to the internet during a political crisis in the country's Somali region in August, according to research by Access Now and reports.United Nations : President Donald Trump on Tuesday before the United Nations General Assembly demanded that changes be urgently made to the "world trading system" and defended his trade war with China, saying that the US trade deficit with the Asian giant is "not acceptable".

"Last month, we announced a groundbreaking US-Mexico trade agreement. Yesterday, I stood with (South Korean) President Moon (Jae-in) to announce the successful completion of the brand-new US-Korea trade deal," said the US leader in a somber and calmly forceful address to the General Assembly, Efe reported.

"This is just the beginning. Many nations in this hall will agree that the world trading system is in dire need of change," he declared.

Trump warned that the US "will no longer tolerate it and we will not allow our workers to be victimized, our companies to be cheated, and our wealth to be plundered and transferred."

" The United States has just announced tariffs on another $200 billion in Chinese-made goods. The total so far of $250 billion," he said.

"I have great respect and affection for my friend, (Chinese) President Xi (Jinping), but I have made clear that our trade imbalance is just not acceptable. The market distortions and the way that they deal cannot be tolerated as my administration has demonstrated," Trump said.

In the same vein, Trump said "We reject the ideology of globalism and accept the ideology of patriotism."

"Sovereign and independent nations are the only vehicle where freedom has ever survived, democracy has ever endured, or peace has ever prospered," said the US leader.

"Together, let us choose a future of patriotism, prosperity, and pride. Let us choose peace and freedom over domination and defeat," he urged the assembled world leaders and delegates.

Trump arrived late for his scheduled speech and sparked laughter from the crowd with one of the earliest statements of hyperbole in his speech.

"In less than two years, my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country," he claimed, engendering a smattering of laughter from the crowd, which then increased when he quipped, with a broad smile, "I did not expect that reaction. That is OK."United Nations : President Donald Trump on Wednesday threatened to impose sanctions that are "stronger than ever" on Iran, while his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, demanded a "long-term strategy" to deal with Iran's nuclear programme that not only focuses on economic restrictions.

Trump - chairing the UN Security Council session - once again called the 2015 nuclear pact with Iran and other world powers a "horrible, one-sided deal (that) allowed Iran to continue its path toward a (nuclear) bomb and gave the regime a cash lifeline when they needed it the most."

In August, the Trump administration re-imposed a number of economic sanctions on Iran and will impose new sanctions on Tehran's oil sales in November, and - the US leader said - "will pursue additional sanctions, tougher than ever before, to counter the entire range of Iran's malign conduct," Efe reported.

"Any individual or entity who fails to comply with these sanctions will face severe consequences," he said.

The US announced in May that it was withdrawing from the nuclear deal signed with Iran in 2015, along with France, the United Kingdom, China, Russia and Germany, and in August Washington once again imposed certain sanctions that had been lifted as per the pact.

In November a new round of sanctions will enter into force penalizing various countries and companies that buy Iranian oil or negotiate with Tehran's central bank in what is anticipated to be a heavy blow to Iran's battered economy.

Macron spoke after Trump at the Security Council session, saying that although the 2015 nuclear pact is not perfect, it constitutes a "decisive step," and he criticized the US sanctions.

"We need to build together a long-term strategy to manage the crisis that cannot be reduced to a policy of sanctions and containment of Iran," said Macron.

British Prime Minister Theresa May also expressed her commitment to preserving the nuclear deal, which she called "the best way" to prevent Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

The session was focused on the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, but Trump took advantage of the forum to denounce Iran and accuse it of exporting "violence, terror and turmoil" to the Middle East and elsewhere.

He said that such a regime must never be allowed to possess nuclear weapons.

Trump did thank Russia, Iran and Syria for following his advice - he claimed - and "substantially slowing down their attack on Idlib province," the last bastion of forces opposed to Syria's Bashar al-Assad regime, but he went on to say "Get the terrorists, but I hope the restraint continues. The world is watching."Sorry!

This content is not available in your regionIncubeta is an international team of experts in marketing, technology, data, and creative.Mumbai:

Oman is expecting over 10 per cent growth in tourist arrivals from India this year and is planning to focus on promoting the meetings, incentives, conferences and events (MICE) segment. The Sultanate of Oman had got 321,161 travellers from India in 2017, according to data by the Oman tourism ministry.

We have been growing steadily since 2013. This year, we are expecting a double-digit growth of over 10 per cent on the back of focused marketing, tyeing up with more trade partners and more visibility, Oman tourism ministry India representative Lubaina Sheerazi told PTI.

Also Read | Maternity leave hike made it hard for women to find jobs in India: Labour Minister

She said Oman has also simplified the visa process, which is expected to boost the growth. Oman, which has been focusing more on leisure and family segment, is now tapping the huge MICE segment in India. We are infrastructure-ready to host MICE with the recent launch of the Oman Convention and Exhibition Centre in Muscat, which supports international and local organisations in hosting large events, she said.

The country is not only seeing a surge in MICE travel, but is also a preferred wedding destination for many, according to Sheerazi.

Read More | Quota in Job Promotion: How BSP chief Mayawati reacted to SC verdict

Being under three hours away from India and having good air connectivity with 11 Indian cities have made Oman a preferred wedding destination for Indians. Simple visa access is also boosting the destination wedding segment, she said. Positioned as an aspirational destination, Oman is targeting niche and well travelled people over 24 years, said Sheerazi.

Meanwhile, Maitha Saif Al Mahrouqi, undersecretary of the Oman tourism ministry, said that the country, being a safe destination, is also looking to tap independent travellers and groups especially women.

Read More | 2.0 beats Baahubali to become Bollywood's costliest movie of all time

National carrier Oman Air is connected through 161 direct flights every week with major Indian cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, Lucknow, Kozhikode, Kochi, Goa, Jaipur and Thiruvananthapuram. Besides, Air India, Jet Airways, SpiceJet and IndiGo also connect the country to various Indian cities. Sunil VA, regional vice-president - Indian sub-continent, Oman Air, said the airline is in talks with the government to extend direct connectivity to Ahmedabad and Kolkata.

For all the Latest Business News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.Mumbai:

Salman Khan, Bollywood superstar who had launched several new faces in the industry, dropped couple of wise words for newcomers in the tinsel town, urging them to be patient during rough times and do good work.

"I tell them (newcomers) don't play games. Just be enthusiastic in what you want to do. Be patient and don't jump into anything. If there is no work, it is fine as the work that you do has to be good work... Otherwise working everyday may lead to some bad work and it will not let you get work in the future. And good work does come, maybe in different forms, be it from (mainstream) movies, different kind of cinema, TV and web," Salman told reporters in a group interview in Mumbai.

Read | Happy Death Day 2U: 'Life of Pi' star Suraj Sharma to join the sequel

The 52-year-old actor, who see launching newcomers in Bollywood as a huge responsibility, feels that one should never stopped working with new entries "you had worked with".

"I believe that you should never stop working with them...New people will keep on coming in but those people whom you worked with you should work with them again because that time you had thought that there's something in them, which maybe didn't work out that time," Salman said.

Also Read | Bigg Boss 12: Jasleen Matharu kisses Anup Jalota openly; watch video

The actor is launching his brother-in-law Aayush Sharma with the film Loveyatri.

"We are making a very sweet beautiful love story, like earlier the films were used to be made. It has love and then the whole festival...," Salman Khan, the host of the reality TV show Bigg Boss, said.

For all the Latest Entertainment News, Bollywood News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.New Delhi:

The Happy Death Day makers will soon roll out its horror sequel - and Life of Pi star Suraj Sharma will join Jessica Rothe and Israel Broussard in Happy Death Day 2U, according to sources.

The making of Happy Death Day 2U - the sequel to the 2017 horror hit Happy Death Day - was announced by Blumhouse Productions and Universal Pictures.

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The horror film, to be once again written and directed by Christopher Landon, will feature original leads Jessica Rothe, Israel Broussard and Suraj Sharma. Jessica Rothe, Israel Broussard also starred in Netflix's rom com To All the Boys I've Loved Before.

In the first film followed Tree Gelbman (Rothe), who wakes up on her birthday alongside Carter (Broussard) and gets brutally killed later in the day. She relives the day of her murder in "Groundhog Day" style.

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In the sequel, Tree will discover that dying over and over was surprisingly easier than the dangers that lie ahead. Happy Death Day was released in October 2017 and grossed $122.7 million worldwide.

Happy Death Day 2U, to be produced by Jason Blum, is scheduled for February 14, 2019 release.

Read More | 5 Sure shot natural remedies to prevent hairfall

For all the Latest Entertainment News, Hollywood News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.Los Angeles:

According to Billboard, Glover's final tour as his hip-hop alter-ego has been currently put on hold after reportedly struggling with an injured foot. Fam Rothstein, co-principal of the creative collective Wolf + Rothstein, a partnership with Glover and Chad The Wolf Taylor, took to Twitter to assure fans the dates were "postponed, not cancelled".

"This is America tour is postponed, not cancelled. My guy played through the pain, but has to sit some dates out. Back before the years over," Rothstein wrote.

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His comments came after Forum in Inglewood announced the rap star's Wednesday show was postponed and the tickets will be honoured at a new date.

"Tomorrow's Childish Gambino show at the Forum has been postponed. Tickets will be valid at the newly scheduled date when announced. Thank you," the tweet read.

It is currently unclear how many gigs will Glover not perform in.

Besides Forum concert, the artiste is booked for 11 more dates.

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Glover's last gig will be October 12 at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville and a single show in New Orleans late October.

For his international shows, he has three concerts in Europe and a run in Australia and New Zealand.

On September 14's Madison Square Ground gig, Glover announced 'This is America' was his last tour as his hip-hop act "ever.

For all the Latest Entertainment News, Hollywood News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.New Delhi:

Vice Air Chief Marshal Shirish Baban Deo accidentally shot himself in the thigh on Wednesday, reported news agency ANI. Deo was immediately rushed to Delhias Army Research and Referral hospital in critical condition.

TheA Vice Air Chief Marshal was currently undergoing treatment in the hospital where his condition was stated to be stable. At the time of writing the news, there was no official statement from the Air ForceA but sources said that the incident happened while he was cleaning his gun.

Vice chief of the Indian Air Force, Air Marshal SB Deo has accidentally shot himself in the thigh. He is in RR Hospital, Delhi and is stable. pic.twitter.com/Ly5dyIyZv8 a News Nation (@NewsNationTV) September 26, 2018

Deo was born in Nagpur Maharashtra and commissioned into the fighter stream of the Indian Air Force in 1979. He assumed the office on 31 December 2016 fromA Air Chief MarshalA Birender Singh Dhanoa.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.Kullu:

The Assistant District Magistrate (ADM) of Kullu in Himachal Pradesh on Wednesday said that people stranded in different parts of Lahaul will be airlifted to the Stingri helipad.

ADM Akshay Sood tweeted about the rescue and evacuations operations in the Kullu district even as about 50 IIT-Roorkee students on a trekA A Lahaul valley were rescued by Indian Air Force helicopters, while more than 500 people remain stranded in other areas in Lahaul and Spiti district.

#HimachalPradesh: People from different parts of Lahaul will be airlifted to Stingri helipad. Our priority is immediate evacuation & bringing people to safety. We have also dispatched food items for the stranded tourists: Akshay Sood, ADM, #Kullu pic.twitter.com/JH0A1LEZMa a ANI (@ANI) September 26, 2018

A

However, a team of six trekkers from New Delhi and Himachal Pradesh is missing in Kinnaur district, officials had said on Tuesday.

So far, heavy rains and snowfall in Lahaul and Spiti have claimed 10 lives, with four more deaths being reported on Tuesday in the northern state.

Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur told reporters the state had suffered losses totalling Rs 1,200 crore after three days of rains, beginning Saturday.

The incessant rains had triggered flash floods and landslides in the hill states of Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana, killing at least 11 people on Monday. There were rains also in Punjab and Uttarakhand.

No fresh casualties were reported in the other states on Tuesday. But in Himachal Pradesh's Shimla district, two labourers died when a rock fell on their home.

Also, two people were killed when a car skidded off a slippery road in the state's Kinnaur district.

Read More |A Rafale deal: 'Govt-to-govt' discussion, wasn't in-charge when agreement reached, says French president Macron

There were only scattered showers in the state on Tuesday and the Met department predicted that the weather will hold on Wednesday as well.

But several roads, including portions of the Chandigarh-Manali route, remained blocked due to landslides and snowfall.

Apart from the rescue of the entire group of trekkers from the Indian Institute of Technology-Roorkee, the IAF also rescued a German couple trapped in a blizzard while trekking from Ringdum to Dibling near Lahaul-Spiti.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.New Delhi:

More than 1,500 tourists are still stranded in snow-marooned Lahaul-Spiti district in Himachal Pradesh even as rescue operations are on a war footing. However, in a much-needed respite, the state witnessed a "dry weather" on Wednesday,A according to reports.

Incessant rains triggered flash floods and landslides in hill states of northern India, with at least 11 people killed on Monday in Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana.

On Tuesday, an official said around 300 people, including 45 IIT Roorkee students, stranded in various parts of Lahaul and Spiti district, were rescued.Following the snowfall, the Rohtang Pass and inner roads got blocked due to which about 300 people, including the students, who were on a trekking expedition, got stranded.

Himachal Pradesh: Pictures of snow-clad Keylong in Lahaul-Spiti district pic.twitter.com/Ua0IKzefOi a ANI (@ANI) September 26, 2018

The administrative centre of Lahaul-Spiti, Keylong, received 55 cm and 35 cm snow on September 23 and September 24, respectively, it added.Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday assured all assistance to Punjab and Himachal Pradesh.A

"Spoke to Himachal Pradesh CM @jairamthakurbjp Ji and Punjab CM @capt_amarinder Singh Ji regarding the flood situation in Himachal Pradesh and Punjab," Modi tweeted.

He said he has assured all possible support from the Centre in mitigating the situation arising due to heavy rains and floods in the two states.A An official spokesperson of Himachal Pradesh government said in Shimla that Prime Minister Modi called Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur to enquire about the situation in the state following the rains.A Thakur apprised Modi that the state had suffered losses to the tune of Rs 1,250 crore due to heavy rains during the current monsoon.

"The prime minister assured the chief minister of all possible assistance by the Centre," the spokesperson.Thakur thanked the prime minister for providing three helicopters for rescuing stranded persons in far-flung areas of the state after snowfall and heavy rains, he added.A

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.New Delhi:

Union Labour Minister Santosh Gangwar on Wednesday said that the hike in maternity leaves under the new law had adversely affected women employment in the country, but assured that there was a remedy for that.

When asked if the increase in maternity leaves to 26 weeks from 12 weeks earlier had impacted women employment negatively, Gangwar said, We think that women employment is not increasing due to this reason (Maternity Benefit Act).

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In March 2018, the government had notified the Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act, 2017, that made changes in some of the provisions of existing law that entitled certain benefits to women employees.

The Act increased paid maternity leave to 26 weeks from 12 weeks. The new law made it mandatory for every establishment with 50 or more employees to have the facility of creche within a prescribed distance.

The minister, however, asserted that the certain provisions in the Act like now women can work from home during the leave period can help address the issue. There is a remedy, the minister added.

Also Read | Aadhaar Verdict: Supreme Court strikes a fine balance

Earlier, a report had outlined that the most progressive reforms may make it hard for up to 18 lakh women to find jobs this financial year.

Only 27 per cent of the total workforce in India is women and 14 per cent of the overall women workforce is employed in the formal sector, the bill will significantly hamper the entry of new women into the workforce, the report by staffing solutions provider TeamLease had noted.

(With PTI inputs)

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.New Delhi:

The United Nations has awarded Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Emmanuel Macron with UNs highest environmental honour- Champions of the Earth  for their outstanding championing the International Solar Alliance. Both leaders have been recognised in the policy leadership category of the United Nations.

Emmanuel Macron, President of France and Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India, are recognized in the Policy Leadership category for their pioneering work in championing the International Solar Alliance and promoting new areas of levels of cooperation on environmental action, including Macrons work on the Global Pact for the Environment and Modis unprecedented pledge to eliminate all single-use plastic in India by 2022, the United Nations said in a press release.

Also Read | Google, Facebook among major tech firms agree EU 'fake news' code of conduct; what does it mean?

Announced today (Wednesday), the Champions of the Earth Awards, the UNs highest environmental honor, will be presented to six outstanding environmental changemakers, including Modi and Macron.

Besides Modi and Macron, Joan Carling - Secretary-General, Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact, plant-based burger startup Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, Chinas Zhejiangs Green Rural Revival Programme, Cochin International Airport will also be awarded with the UNs highest environmental honour.

The Champions of the Earth Award and Young Champions of the Earth Prize recognize those not afraid to chart unknown waters or be the voice of the voiceless. These people are changing our world today for a better tomorrow, said Erik Solheim, Head of UN Environment.

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The champions are recognized for their achievements in the categories including Policy Leadership, Entrepreneurial Vision, Science and Innovation, Inspiration and Action, and Lifetime Achievement.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.New York:

Speaking on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday said that the Rafale deal was a government-to-government discussion and he was not in power when the multi-billion-dollar agreement for 36 fighter jets was signed between India and France.

Addressing a press conference, Macron was asked if the Indian government had at any point told France or Dassault - the French aerospace major - that they had to accept Reliance as the Indian partner for the Rafale deal.

Read More | BJP wary of destabilising Karnataka govt ahead of Lok Sabha elections 2019

India had inked an inter-governmental agreement with France in September last year for procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets at a cost of around Rs 58,000 crore, nearly one-and-half years after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the proposal during a visit to Paris. The delivery of the jets is scheduled to begin from September 2019.

I will be very clear. It was a government-to-government discussion and I just want to refer to what Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi very clearly said a few days ago, Macron said without elaborating.

I dont have any other comment. I was not in charge at that time and I know that we have very clear rules, he said in his first comment on the issue.

Also Read | AADHAAR: Supreme Court verdict on validity, mandatory linking today; Here are the four contentious issues

Macron, who assumed the presidency in May last year, emphasised that this is a government-to-government discussion and this contract is part of a broader framework which is military and defence coalition between India and France.

This one is very important to me because this is a strategic coalition and not just an industrial relation. That is my point. I just want to refer to what PM Modi said on this situation, he said.

(With PTI inputs)

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.Bengaluru:

For the present, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) seems to have suspended its operation Kamala 2 that involves weaning away few Congress MLAs to bring the HD Kumaraswamy government down. Over the past fortnight or so, the local media in Bangalore was full of speculations of an imminent fall of the government, engineered by persons close to former Chief Minister and Karnataka state BJP chief BS Yeddyurappa.



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He and his followers enthusiasm and energy in this regard, was however, not shared by some leaders in the BJP who were cautioning the party against any such move to destabilise the government as it could dent the image of the central party leadership. Yes, the Janata Dal (S) Congress coalition government is surviving on a wafer-thin majority, but with each and every move of the BJP under close observation, it was becoming difficult for it to poach the eight MLAs it needed to fell the government and stake a claim to form its government.



Although the BJP would love to step in should the coalition government fell on its own it threw in the towel, so to speak, on Monday when it failed to field candidates for three byelections to legislative council, as a defeat here would have exposed the fact that all the attempts of the BJP to get the MLAs to cross-vote had failed.



Members to the legislative council are elected by the MLAs and each of the candidates has to secure 112 votes to win. If the BJP, with a strength of 104 in the assembly, failed to win it would have exposed its lack of strength and also give a psychological boost to the Congress  JD (S) combine ahead of the general elections to the Lok Sabha.



It was at the proverbial eleventh hour that the BJP pulled out of the contest after word reached the local unit that the central unit may frown at these efforts, seen as a precursor to felling the government.



BJP leaders do admit that recent moves by persons close to the former chief minister had dented the image of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi as also they gave ammunition to the Congress and Janata Dal (S) to target the BJP central leadership as well. The partys central leadership is averse at the moment to queer the pitch ahead of the general elections to the Lok Sabha.



In fact, the hard-hitting attack of state minister and Congress heavyweight DK Shivakumar on misuse of IT and ED only caused more embarrassment to the BJP as its moves apparently backfired. Congress MLA after MLA came out in the open and declared support to the coalition government as also they cited allurements from the other side to defect. State Congress chief KC Venugopal quoted one of his party MLAs to charge Yeddyurappa with the attempt to bribe him via watsapp.



The Congress strategy seems to be to counter the BJP and its predatory moves aggressively to build a perception that the BJP was being a bad loser and was using all means foul to get into power through the backdoor.



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Now this is an impression that is being built against the BJP. Since the party can ill afford such an image ahead of the Lok Sabha general elections, the party seems to have reigned in the state unit for the time being.



Karnataka deputy chief minister and Congress leader G Parameshwara had maintained that the political drama in the Congress was produced and directed by the BJP but will end in a whimper. The frustrated BJP tried every leaf in its book to destabilise the coalition government, including spreading false rumours, but they have completely failed because Congress MLAs stood firm, the deputy chief minister said.



For the present, the government saved itself, but the question remains  for how long.San Francisco:

Qualcomm escalated a legal war with Apple, accusing the iPhone maker of stealing secrets and sharing them with mobile chip rival Intel, according to court documents.

The California mobile chipmaker on Monday added the sizzling accusation in an amendment to a lawsuit filed against Apple last year in California state court in Qualcomms home city of San Diego.

Read More | BJP wary of destabilising Karnataka govt ahead of Lok Sabha elections 2019

The modified filing contends that Apple engaged in a years-long campaign of false promises, stealth, and subterfuge designed to steal Qualcomms confidential information and trade secrets in order to help Intel and other rivals field competing mobile chips, Apples goal was to buy mobile chips from Intel instead of depending on Qualcomm, the dominant maker of mobile phone processors, the court document claimed.

Qualcomm general counsel Don Rosenberg said in response to an AFP inquiry that the latest filing showed that Apple has flouted its contractual commitments and misappropriated Qualcomms property rights in an effort to improve its performance and increase its profits.

In response to a request for comment, Apple directed AFP to a comment the Silicon Valley company made in June of last year regarding its clash with Qualcomm.

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Qualcomms illegal business practices are harming Apple and the entire industry, Apple said.

They supply us with a single connectivity component, but for years have been demanding a percentage of the total cost of our productseffectively taxing Apples innovation. Apples ongoing legal battle with Qualcomm includes accusations that the chipmaker has been charging for invalid patents.

Apple had long relied on Qualcomm for chips for iPhones, but turned to Intel after the onset of legal wrangling.

Also Read | Amit Shah to attend BJP workers meet in Jaipur today

Early last year the iPhone maker filed a lawsuit complaining that Qualcommwhich produces chips widely used in smartphones and tablets around the worldabused its market power to demand unfair royalties, and demanded billions of dollars in compensation.

Apple filed similar complaints against Qualcomm in China.

Qualcomm countersued, claiming that Apple breached agreements and encouraged regulatory attacks worldwide on the chip firm.

Last month, Qualcomm settled a long-running antitrust investigation in Taiwan for around $90 million.

Qualcomm still faces huge fines linked to similar probes in South Korea, the European Union and the United States, while it is also involved in a long-running licensing dispute with tech titan Apple.

Qualcomm in 2015 agreed to pay USD 975 million to settle antitrust charges in China.New Delhi:

Major tech companies, including Google and Facebook, agreed on Wednesday on a code of conduct published by the European Commission to combat online fake news in the European Union. The critics, however, said the commitments were too weak.

The code called in particular for the withdrawal of advertising revenues from disseminators of "fake news".

The companies also agreed that the source of advertisements should be clearly labelled and also agreed to closer scrutiny of ad content disseminated on platforms. These will also track the misuse of automated bots to distribute fake news and expand the possibility for users to lodge complaints about suspect posts.

EU Digital Economy Commissioner Mariya Gabriel said the commitment was "a step in the right direction", but also called for further efforts by Silicon Valley giants.

Gabriel maintained her threat of EU regulation if the voluntary commitment did not swiftly lead to tangible results.

EU sources said Facebook and Google, including its video sharing site Youtube, have so far backed the code of conduct, with big tech lobby Edima also one of the signatories.

The push against fake news by the European Commission gained traction this year after a scandal involving the illegal harvesting of Facebook users' data in the election campaign of US President Donald Trump.

Fears in Brussels now centre on the European Parliament elections next year after alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential ballot and the Brexit vote in Britain the same year.

In a statement, Gabriel said she hoped the code of conduct would "contribute to a transparent, fair and trustworthy online campaign in the run-up to the European elections in spring 2019." At the same time, "Europe's fundamental principles of freedom of expression, free press and pluralism should be fully respected".

Harsh criticism came from an advisory body of media representatives, associations and academics also convened by the Commission.

The code does not contain "a common approach, no clear and meaningful obligations, no measurable objectives" and no sanctions for enforcement, a statement said.

Therefore, there can be no question of "self-regulation".

"Let's face it. Platforms which make money from advertisements displayed alongside fake news articles and posts are just not well-placed to tackle this problem," said Monique Goyens, head of the European Consumer Organisation (BEUC).

(With AFP inputs)

For all the Latest World News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.PARIS - The government of Malta announced Tuesday that it would allow the 58 migrants aboard the Aquarius 2 - a private migrant rescue ship - to temporarily disembark on the shores of the island nation, after which point they would be distributed among France, Spain, Portugal, Germany and Malta.

The decision ended a days-long standoff among European states over shouldering responsibility for the latest group of migrants rescued from the waters off the Libyan coast. The news came in the wake of French President Emmanuel Macron's Tuesday address to the United Nations in New York, which focused on the need for multilateralism, as well as French officials' refusal to allow the ship to dock in France.

"Malta and France again step up to solve the migrant impasse," Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat announced on Twitter late Tuesday afternoon. "With Emmanuel Macron and other leaders we want to show [a] multilateral approach [is] possible."

"Once again, a European solution has been found, humane and effective," French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said in a statement. "It respects two essential principles of responsibility and solidarity: landing in a nearby safe harbor and the care of the people on board."

Spain will take 15 of the 58 passengers, according to a Spanish official quoted by the Associated Press. Portugal will take 10, and France will take 18, according to Philippe's statement. Germany will take 15.

The ship - managed jointly by the aid organizations SOS Mediterranee and Doctors Without Borders - had been the subject of a fierce debate among European governments for days. The United Nations has declared Libya an unsafe destination for migrants. As recently as November 2017, video footage showed young sub-Saharan migrants being sold in apparent Libyan slave auctions. Still, European Union policy prefers that the Libyan coast guard return migrants to North Africa, rather than having aid groups bring migrants to European shores.

For months, the Aquarius has found itself at the center of Europe's struggle to manage the political fallout of a historic migrant influx in 2015, even as the numbers of arrivals have fallen to pre-2015 levels.

The Aquarius made international headlines in June when Italy's new populist government refused to allow it to dock in Sicily. Macron initially accused his Italian counterparts of "cynicism and irresponsibility" for refusing to admit the Aquarius, but he soon came under fire for doing the same. The ship was stranded off the coast of Malta at the time, with 629 migrants aboard. It then had to sail an additional three days to the port of Valencia in eastern Spain.

The migration issue has proved to be a major challenge to the tolerant, global image that Macron has sought to cultivate in a European climate marked by the rise of nationalism.

Macron is typically seen as the principal opponent to Hungary's Viktor Orban and Italy's Matteo Salvini, both of whom have embraced hard-line anti-migrant policies.

"He is at the head of the political forces supporting immigration," Orban said in August, speaking with Salvini in Milan. "On the other hand, we want to stop illegal immigration."

But Macron's critics point out that his administration has pursued an agenda that has likewise made life more difficult for migrants in France. In August, the French parliament signed into law Macron's controversial asylum bill, which favors political asylum seekers over economic migrants and eases the process for expelling those who do not qualify.

"Despite Macron presenting himself as a welcoming, tolerant figure on the European stage, as the inverse of Orban and Salvini, in fact, he's the same thing, at least in terms of the rescue operations," said Michael Neuman, director of the research division of Doctors Without Borders.

Others see a more calculated strategy designed to stave off a potentially bigger migrant influx in the future, even if the latest incident involved just 58 people.

"This stopped being about the actual numbers of people a long time ago," said Elizabeth Collett, director of the Brussels-based Migration Policy Institute Europe. "It's about the fear of whether saying yes once means you'll have to say yes in the future. That's what this conversation has become about between states."

"Macron doesn't want to do anything - or not do anything - which would lock him and France into a posture that would be extraordinarily difficult to live with two or three or four years down the pike," said Francois Heisbourg, a former French presidential adviser on national security and a Paris-based political analyst.

Rescue ships run by aid groups have been withdrawing from the Mediterranean under political pressure. Aquarius is one of the last, and it is unclear whether it will be able to continue its missions. The ship is registered with the Panamanian government, and Panama announced Saturday that it would begin withdrawing that registration. Speaking to France's Le Monde newspaper, Francis Vallat, the head of SOS Mediterranee France, decried what he called a "political" operation of Italian threats against Panama.

Although the numbers of migrants reaching Europe have fallen, the death rates have not. About 1,600 migrants died in the Mediterranean in the first seven months of 2018, according to U.N. data releasedthis month.

The figure represents the highest death rate since the peak of Europe's migrant influx in 2015. The United Nations concluded that a "major factor" is the decreased rescue capacity off the Libyan coast.The growing furor over the Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination has Republicans trapped between their conservative base and the female voters who will be pivotal to deciding control of Congress in November.

President Donald Trump and his conservative allies are rallying behind Kavanaugh, calling allegations of sexual misconduct brought by two women a Democratic smear campaign intent on blocking his confirmation to the high court. But they're doing so amid a widening gender gap that has women increasingly breaking toward Democrats six weeks before the midterm elections.

"The Republicans are in a pickle because the base - Christian right and Federalist Society types - are demanding this seat, but the party is losing support with the critical suburban females who want to hear Dr. Ford out," said Dan Eberhart, a major Republican donor and chief executive officer of the oil drilling-services company Canary, LLC. He was referring to Christine Blasey Ford, a California college professor, who alleges Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they both were in high school.

Kavanaugh has vehemently denied the accusation.

The battle is playing out in races across the country.

In Wisconsin, Republican Senate candidate Leah Vukmir, who's trying to unseat incumbent Democrat Tammy Baldwin, dismissed the allegations against Kavanaugh as "politically motivated character assassination" and called for a vote this week.

Baldwin, who's said she'll vote against Kavanaugh's nomination, said in an interview this week that "due diligence" requires reopening the FBI background check investigation into Kavanaugh. "I would call on the president and the White House to do that."

Vukmir's strategy of standing with Kavanaugh mirrors that of other Republicans, including Nevada Sen. Dean Heller, who are relying on a heavy conservative turnout to power them to victory on Nov. 6.

In two key Senate races, Democrats running in states Trump won in 2016 are being pushed ahead with backing from women.

Florida Sen. Bill Nelson opened up a 53 percent to 46 percent lead over Republican Rick Scott, the state's governor, in a Quinnipiac University poll conducted after the accusations against Kavanaugh were made public. They were dead even in a Quinnipiac poll conducted earlier in the month and in other recent polls. Women back Nelson 58 percent to 41 percent -- a 5 percentage point increase from the earlier poll -- while men are more evenly split.

In Arizona, where Democrats are trying to flip a seat now held by the GOP, Democratic candidate Kyrsten Sinema leads Republican Martha McSally among likely voters 48 percent to 45 percent in an NBC News/Marist College poll. Sinema leads among women 53 percent to 38 percent.

The risk for Republicans and the potential advantage for Democrats isn't uniform. Some Democrats running in states the president won by a wide margin, and where they'll need Republican votes to get re-elected, are moving cautiously on the nomination.

"I'm approaching this with an open mind and think he should have an opportunity to clear his name," West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin said of Kavanaugh.

Indiana Sen. Joe Donnelly, like Manchin, declined to say which way he was leaning on the confirmation vote. "I just want to hear all the facts and hear what everybody has to say," he said.

Another Democrat running in a Trump state, Missouri's Claire McCaskill, said she's not hearing much from constituents about the Kavanaugh nomination.

"People in Missouri are really worried about whether or not they can ever afford to retire, whether or not they can afford to buy their medicine, whether their kids can afford to go to college, that kind of stuff," she said.

Several GOP lawmakers who remain publicly undecided -- most notably Alaska's Lisa Murkowski and Maine's Susan Collins, as well as Arizona's Jeff Flake and Tennessee's Bob Corker, who are both retiring -- said they want to hear what Kavanaugh's accusers have to say before making up their minds.

"He certainly has the credentials, but we now have a serious allegation made and I look forward to the hearing on Thursday," Collins said.

"It's important to remember that the vote is about Judge Kavanaugh and his qualifications," Murkowski said. "We have kind of moved beyond the qualifications of the nominee and it has become more about whether or not women who have been subject to any form of assault, of violence, intimidation are to be believed. That's a different issue than whether or not Judge Kavanaugh is qualified."

Trump has abandoned the initial strategy of the White House and GOP Senate leaders to tread delicately in addressing the accusations and the woman who made them as a way to avoid angering female voters already motivated by the #MeToo movement highlighting sexual harassment and assault.

Last Friday, he cast doubt on Ford's credibility by questioning why she didn't report the alleged assault decades ago. On Tuesday, he called Deborah Ramirez, who has accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct when they were in college, "all messed up" and "totally inebriated" at the time of the alleged incident.

Late Tuesday night he said on Twitter that the "Democrats are playing a high level CON GAME in their vicious effort to destroy a fine person. It is called the politics of destruction."

Trump made pushing the court to the right a central promise of his 2016 campaign and some Republican Party leaders have warned a failure to confirm Kavanaugh would discourage GOP voters. In a sign of the stakes, Trump earlier on Tuesday tweeted a quote from a conservative radio host:

"Rush Limbaugh to Republicans: 'You can kiss the MIDTERMS goodbye if you don't get highly qualified Kavanaugh approved.'"

Some recent polls illustrate the bind for Republicans.

A Fox News poll conducted last week found 50 percent of registered voters oppose his confirmation and 40 percent support it. In an August poll 45 percent supported Kavanaugh and 46 percent were opposed.

A plurality of 36 percent of all voters said they believe Ford, Kavanaugh's accuser, compared with 30 percent who believe the nominee's denials. But that splits along partisan lines, with 59 percent of Democrats saying they believe Ford and 60 of Republicans backing Kavanaugh. Women are more likely to believe Ford by a 10-point margin. Among suburban women, that increased to a 17-point margin.

"It's quite a pickle for the GOP," Eberhart said. "Trump's credibility on ramming through judicial nominations is on the line."

--Bloomberg's John McCormick, Mark Niquette and Steven T. Dennis contributed.The recent Al Awda flotilla referred to in writer Gulamhusein Abbas letter of Sept. 18 was an organized attempt to call attention to Israels embargo of Gaza and to reinforce the ongoing Hamas-led right of return violent border demonstrations.

However, the international media attention given to the flotilla should not be allowed to mask the violent terrorist history of Gaza under Hamas that has led to never-ending conflict with Israel and economic disaster for its population.

The original Palestinian Authority leadership in Gaza, which hoped to someday have a state of its own including the West Bank and Gaza, was subsequently overthrown by Hamas in 2007 and this has created a three-way nightmare for Israel, the PA and the civilian population of Gaza.

Hamas does not recognize Israels right to exist and decades later is still focused on the overthrow of Israel and the right of return of all who were displaced by the 1948 Arab War against the new State of Israel.

Hamass import of rockets and other weapons subsequently fired by the tens of thousands against Israel populations and the construction of infiltration tunnels under Israels border led to the embargo of arms and strategic materials.

When Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005 there was hope that given its location along the sea and its agricultural resources, that the Palestinians would build housing for those in refugee camps and hotels along the sea and new industry that would lead to economic development and jobs and self-sufficiency for its residents. Instead their leadership diverted resources to terrorism and used civilians as shields against counter attack.

International humanitarian aid still enters Gaza through the port of Ashdod and by daily trucks from Israel and via the United Nations. But as long as Hamas rules Gaza, there is no reason to expect that the future will be brighter for its long-suffering civilian population since this is a government that prioritizes hatred, war and martyrdom over past defeats, instead of fulfilling the current and future needs of its population.

Bert Boyson

SouthburySyracuse, N.Y. -- About half of the leaves in the Adirondacks are changing colors, New York's tourism agency reported today in its weekly report.

"Gorgeous fall colors at the midpoint of change have arrived in some areas of the Adirondacks region," the Empire State Development Division of Tourism said. "Projected colors throughout the rest of the state are expected to remain at the early stages of change through the weekend."

The Adirondacks is always the first region in the state to see fall colors, thanks to it northern location and higher elevations. This year's colors could be pushed a little earlier by very dry conditions; much of the Adirondacks have received just half or less of the normal rainfall in the past two months.

Here's a look at this weekend's expected color change, as provided to the tourism agency by spotters around the state.

Adirondacks

Saranac and Tupper lakes, about 45 percent color change

Old Forge, 35 percent

Lake Placid, Lake Pleasant and Ticonderoga, 10 to 15 percent

Capital Region

Saratoga Springs, Gloversville, 15 to 20 percent

Rensselaer County, 10 to 20 percent

Catskills

Belleayre Mountain in Highmount, Ulster County, 25 percent

Central New York

Mohawk, 30 percent

Schoharie County, 25 percent

Utica, Binghamton and Chittenango, 15 to 25 percent

Cooperstown and Norwich, 10 to 15 percent

Onondaga County, 10 percent

Finger Lakes

Seneca, Chemung and Steuben counties, 25 to 30 percent

Cayuga, Monroe counties, 15 percent

Other areas of the state are at 10 percent color change or less.

Contact Glenn Coin: Email | Twitter | Google + | (315) 470-3251New estimates put the number of people in Japan age 70 or older at more than a fifth of the population for the first time.

Japans population is one of the fastest-aging and declining in the world. The working-age population fell by 4.6 million from 2012-2017, from 80.6 million to 76 million.

There have been some emergency measures to raise the retirement age and bring more women into the workforce. The Japanese government has approved plans for raising the optional age for drawing public pensions to 71 or older. Japan said they would finalize the plans as part of a set of legal changes after April 2020.

Japans overall population is predicted to shrink to 88 million by 2060. The number of working age 18-65 is set to shrink to less than 50 million.

Between 2015 and 2020, Japans workforce is shrinking by 3.3 million (4%).

From 2020 to 2030, Japans working-age population (ages 20-64) will fall by around 4.8 million to 5.6 million.Heading into the third debate between governor hopefuls Ned Lamont and Bob Stefanowski Wednesday, heres the tally from the first two battles on Sept. 12 and 17.

Stefanowski spoke a grand total of 44 times including rebuttals, opening and closing statements; twenty-two times in each debate. He mentioned taxes in 34 of those responses.

Taxes, the actual word, as in his childish promise to cut state taxes by more than 60 percent  not just code words like reform or fundamental change. No, hes sticking to that T word almost no matter what the question.

That included responses about paid family leave, the racial achievement gap in schools, health care costs, union contracts, the state Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities, legalized marijuana, immigration enforcement and on and on.

We get that Stefanowski, the Republican, understands the sluggish state economy is issue No. 1 and hes right. Guess what  Democrat Ned Lamont agrees.

We get that lowering taxes is Stefanowskis answer to every problem  hey Bob, if a Connecticut resident falls off a building, what should we do? Lower her taxes!

But heres the rub: All these side issues Stefanowski refuses to address fully, if at all  they are the economy. Womens reproductive health? Economy. Drug policy? Economy. Casinos? Economy. Protecting immigrant rights? Economy. Housing policy? Economy.

The concept isnt hard.

It doesnt matter whether youre liberal or conservative. The pieces of our lives that make us care about where we live come in all shapes and sizes. And right now in Connecticut, the giant economic puzzle were trying to solve is that not enough people want to be here, so those pieces matter  all of them, not just taxes.

Stefanowski wants to sneak a fast one past the voters by denying that the job of governor is multifaceted. Take legalization of marijuana, for example. Maybe at some point we look at it but weve got so many fundamental economic problems in this state right now we need to focus on fundamental tax reform, the Madison resident declared at the Garde Arts Center in New London on Sept. 12.

Or the shortage of lower-cost housing, which is quashing job growth nowhere more than lower Fairfield County. I think we should leave it up to the towns, he said at the Shubert Theater in New Haven five days later.

No, Bob. The answer to everything isnt lets do less and give money back to residents. Its not that I think an anti-government approach to everything is wrong. Its not about ideology at all.

No, the issue is that by funneling every possible answer through a lens of cutting taxes, this candidate is doing worse than starving the campaign of ideas. Hes shortchanging the very issue we all agree is No. 1.

Its smart politics because hes forcing Lamont to play tit-for-tat on taxes while all other issues wither away.

Even in the big picture, a governors ability to cut taxes depends on his or her ability to manage, as much as ideology. Stefanowski claims hes got the great management resume but sadly, he knows almost nothing about the very agencies he hopes to target. Instead he uses his imposing size and deep, sarcastic voice on stage to try to intimidate as he avoids all issues except taxes. That worked in fourth grade and sadly, its working for him here.

Hes right. Taxes are too high. But details matter and he aint got none because he hates government so much he hasnt taken the trouble to study it.

To repeat, its not about ideology and its not about experience. David Stemerman and Steve Obsitnik, the vanquished, neophyte Republicans from Greenwich and Westport, respectively, took the trouble to study exactly what state government needed, one small piece at a time. Liberals didnt agree with much of what they said but they both understood the economy has many parts.

So does J.R. Romano, the Republican state chairman, who can and will argue all issues. But he also knows the path to victory is narrow. If you go into a diner right now and ask them what the No. 1 issue is, its taxes, its high taxes, Romano said. So why shouldnt we be talking about the biggest issue in our state right now?

This week, Lamont wants Stefanowski to speak up about womens reproductive rights. That matters to the economy if we want to attract more young, professional women.

Good luck getting Stefanowski to focus on it, Ned. We desperately need a look at all the pieces and we wont get it in this campaign as long as voters believe an $11 billion tax cut is possible.

dhaar@hearstmediact.comA West Palm Beach, Fla., teacher is out of a job after she refused to give students any credit for work they didn't complete.

The 8th-grade history teacher at West Gate School in Port Saint Lucie had assigned an explorer notebook project to her students last month  and gave them two weeks to complete it  but many did not turn in the homework, according to local media reports.

Before giving the students who blew off the assignment no credit, Diana Tirado checked the school's grading policy, which is spelled out in the school's student and parent handbook.

ALSO: 'Parenting at its absolute worst': Driver notices baby crawling across busy road

Instead of a zero, the policy dictates students must be given 50 percent credit. That didn't seem right to Tirado. So she checked with administrators.

"But what if they don't turn it in, and they say we'll give them a 50. Oh no we don't," said Tirado, according to WCMH ABC 8.

The school terminated her Sept. 14. On her final day, she wrote a note to her students on a classroom white board. The message, a photo of which was posted on her Facebook page, said the following:

"Mrs. Tirado loves you and wishes you the best in life! I have been fired for refusing to give you a 50% for not handing anything in."

Tirado had been in her probationary period, and the termination letter from the principal listed no reason for the action.

When asked about the no-zero policy, Kerry Padrick, the school district chief information officer, released this statement. It read in part:

"There is no District or individual school policy prohibiting teachers from recording a grade of zero for work not turned in. The District's Uniform Grading System utilizes letter grades A-F, numerical grades 100-0 and grade point averages from 4-0."

But what about the handbook's 50 percent rule? Padrick's response did little to clarify the issue. He told the Orlando Sentinel, "Some classroom teachers and school faculties have discussed the range of points for work submitted in each grading category."

If Tirado was fired for a reason other than handing out zeroes for work not completed, the district is not saying what it is.

---

Read Mike Moffitt's latest stories and send him news tips at mmoffitt@sfchronicle.com.

Start receiving breaking news emails on wildfires, civil emergencies, riots, national breaking news, Amber Alerts, weather emergencies, and other critical events with the SFGATE breaking news email. Click here to make sure you get the news.HAMDEN  Residents weighed in on the potential closure of elementary schools in the towns south end Monday, as three new options for the likely redistricting of the community were presented to the Board of Education.

The three scenarios presented by board-hired consultants Michael Zuba, associate director of planning with Milone & Macbroom, and John Ireland, architect with Hamden-based firm Silver, Petrucelli & Associates, discussed the closure of, alternatively, Church Street and Dunbar Hill, Church Street and Shepherd Glen, and Dunbar Hill and Helen Street.

In all three possibilities, the board would retake control of the Wintergreen Interdistrict Magnet School building, using the institution for K-5 and individual instruction classes; shift sixth-grade students to a to-be-constructed addition at Hamden Middle School; and build an addition at either Dunbar Hill or Shepherd Glen, depending on which institution would be closed.

The board is hoping to come to a plan for redistricting in the coming weeks. It would then be instituted in the next two to three years, according to Superintendent Jody Goeler.

Parents, teachers and students came forward to offer thoughts on the three plans Monday. Some shared their love for their home schools, including Dunbar Hill teacher Patricia Smyth Avitable, Helen Street parent Wes Fortier, and Dunbar sixth-grader Keanna Sammy.

Dunbar Hill is not just a building, not just a school. It is a home away from home, said Smyth Avitable. In such an unstable world, we bring stability, routine, structure, comfort, and state-of-the-art teaching. Please do not take Dunbar Hill School away from our children  tread softly because you tread on our dreams.

My wife went to (Helen Street School); her father went there; his father went there. It goes pretty deep for us, said Fortier. Its a community over there and we really dont want to see it go

These teachers, all of these parents here today, they really dont want Dunbar Hill to close  including our brothers, sisters, friends. Dunbar Hill has a lot of memories  the love, the friendship, the kindness, (does) all of that go away? Sammy said. Please find some way in your heart... please dont let Dunbar Hill close. We really want to stay open.

Others asked questions and offered guidance to board members.

Queries raised included: the future of teachers at the schools that would be closed, including whether sixth-grade teachers, given their current certification, could teach in a secondary-education model; if the plans would save money; how the state defines minorities, and what would happen if the number of current Wintergreen students projected to come back  estimated at 70 percent in the aforementioned scenarios  failed to hit the mark.

Wintergreen teacher Carmella Rossomando-Heise asked the board to clarify the future of her home school, allowing the students and instructors there to feel safe and certain.

Terrence Jennings Jr. suggested that educational data be used in the boards calculations.

Erica Sapp said closing a school in a predominantly black neighborhood would send the wrong message to residents there  that they and their school are not good enough.

Valen Grandelski urged the board to keep the most vulnerable members of the district  special education students, children with disabilities, working class people, and communities of color  at the center of their decision-making, going against the historic trend in the United States.

When were looking at doing right by our kids, we need to think about protecting those that are most vulnerable, said Grandelski. And we need to have that in the forefront of our minds.

The board has moved to consider redistricting plans to cut costs as financial pressure mounts on the district and the community and address impending racial imbalances at Church Street, Helen Street and Shepherd Glen, board Chairman Chris Daur and Superintendent Jody Goeler said Monday.

Enrollment in the district has been declining, Zuba said, and the trend is expected to continue. There are 5,350 students currently attending classes in Hamden; by 2027-28, that total is expected to drop to approximately 4,520, which has and will continue to open space in the district, allowing students to be shifted to other institutions.

All three plans offered up Monday are expected to mitigate, but not eliminate, the issue of impending racial imbalance in community schools. At least two schools would still incur this status under the projections shared.

Goeler said the goal of the redistricting process is to build a sustainable, long-term plan for the Hamden schools, reacting to current pressure and opportunities to create a vision for the future and sustain the good work that has made the district attractive for families.

There are really all these unsustainable trajectories right now that were facing as a board, said Goeler. You hear often about how generations have kicked... the can down the road. And as difficult as this process is, the board is making a commitment to say were going to pick up the can. We cant keep doing that.

We want to make sure that the schools that we love now are there for the future, he said.

Three special board meetings will be held Oct. 2, Oct. 16, and Nov. 1 to discuss redistricting and allow residents to offer further input. The board is hoping to hear more from the public, Daur said Monday.

Members hope to approve a plan in approximately six weeks, member Myron Hul said Monday.

More information about the redistricting plan, including the presentations made Monday, is available at https://www.hamden.org/page.cfm?p=5313.

william.lambert@hearstmediact.comNEW HAVEN  Eleven cats have already found their forever homes thanks to the Mew Haven Cat Cafe, a Whalley Avenue business that focuses on cats and coffee.

The cafe first opened as a temporary pop-up in December 2017, featuring five shelter cats but no coffee. After a two-week test run where all five felines at the cafe got adopted, owners Angela and Michael Pullo applied for zoning permits to expand their Westville location and health permits to open the cafe area. More than 1,000 neighbors signed a petition supporting the business, which helped get the process moved forward.NEW HAVEN  The city is on its way to an agreement that puts the Residences at Ninth Square on a solid footing by settling the debt it owes the city in exchange for a continuation of the same percentage of apartments remaining affordable.

The Joint Community Development and Tax Abatement Committee of the Board of Alders voted unanimously Tuesday in favor of selling the large project with its 335 units to Beacon Communities, LLC of Boston, a deal that will be final once the full board votes on it next month.

It is a large development in the middle of our downtown and losing it would leave us with a huge hole in our city, Serena Neal-Sanjurjo, head of the Livable City Initiative and a main negotiator on the project, told the alders in explaining the importance of the deal.

The development, which opened in 1994, transformed the Ninth Square to a stable neighborhood of housing and retail, although recently the number of empty commercial spaces has increased.

McCormack Baron and the Related Companies, operating under Ninth Square Limited Partnership LLC, found that it could not get out from under the millions it owed, mainly to the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority, but also to the city, Yale and others who came together 24 years ago to help underwrite it.

The new owners will keep 56 percent of the apartments affordable by renting to tenants who earn no more than 60 percent of Area Median Income. The remaining 44 percent will be market rate housing, which is consistent with the current mix.

Beacon will make a payment of $2 million to the city in return for forgiveness of all the subordinate loans owed to New Haven, whose liens were encumbering the site.

The city bonded $3.75 million toward the project more than two decades ago and was supposed to earn various amounts of interest on it. It also passed through a federal $8.9 million Urban Development Action Grant to the development.

Because the city was fourth or fifth in line in terms of being paid back by the bankrupt development, there was little likelihood it would be paid back, Economic Development Administrator Matthew Nemerson said

For this reason, the $2 million payment the city negotiated was a good deal, he said.

New Haven will pay $80,000 for the lots at 31 and 39 George streets and the city already has brownfield money to begin remediation that will be needed to turn this at a later date into a development site.

With the tax-exempt bond and Low Income Housing Tax Credits from CHFA, Beacon will put $13.2 million in capital improvements into the Ninth Square, upgrading all the apartments.

On taxes, New Haven agreed to fix those at $600,000 per year in a 20-year PILOT, or payment in lieu of taxes, which will increase every five years by a percentage equal to the increase in adjusted gross revenue.

The 290-car garage at 270 State St. is being bought for $3.6 million in 30 annual payments of $120,000. At the citys choice, these payments may be replaced by a reduction in the PILOT. The current tenants will have first right of refusal to continue to use that garage, but at market rates.

The alders were pleased with the plan.

I think we should go with this because it is a deal. It is the best deal the city could get at this moment, Alder Ernie Santiago, D-15.

Alder Aaron Greenberg, D-8, said the Ninth Square apartments and the new units at what was Farnam Courts are important opportunities to put our money where our mouth is on affordable housing. There is a real affordable housing crisis in the city.

He said he hears the testimony month after month from constituents addressing the task force established to study housing needs.

Dara Kovel, president of Beacon Development, said the property was put up for sale almost a year ago and she has been in contract with CHFA for about four months. When the financing is complete, there will be a closing, with construction expected to take 14 months.

All the terms of the deal have been settled, Kovel said.

Neal-Sanjurjo, in addressing the aldermanic committee, said it would have been devastating if CHFA pulled the bonds and the housing mix was lost.

Beacon committed to keeping the same maintenance and property management staff for a year and if they demonstrate that their work was up to their performance standards, they could stay on.

Barbara Tinney, who runs New Haven Family Alliance at Monterey Housing, which is owned by Beacon, testified to the quality maintenance staff at that facility.

mary.oleary@hearstmediact.com; 203-641-2577.The following is a statement from Yale President Peter Salovey:

The Department of Justice and the Office for Civil Rights of the Department of Education are investigating whether Yales undergraduate admissions policies improperly discriminate on the basis of race, particularly in regard to Asian-American applicants. This investigation takes place in the context of legal challenges at other universities aimed at overturning Supreme Court precedent permitting the consideration of race in college admissions. I write now to state unequivocally that Yale does not discriminate in admissions against Asian Americans or any other racial or ethnic group, to share information about our undergraduate admissions practices, and to affirm our unwavering commitment to diversity as a pillar of this university.

One goal of Yales admissions processforged through decades of experience and reviewis to create a vibrant and varied academic community in which our students interact with people of different backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. Because our pool of applicants is extraordinarily strong, we are able to create this community while upholding the highest standards of academic achievement. Yale College could fill its entire entering class several times over with applicants who reach the 99th percentile in standardized testing and who have perfect high school grade point averages, but we do not base admission on such numbers alone. Rather, we look at the whole person when selecting whom to admit among the many thousands of highly qualified applicants. We take into consideration a multitude of factors, including their academic achievement, interests, demonstrated leadership, background, success in taking maximum advantage of their secondary school and community resources, and the likelihood that they will contribute to the Yale community and the world. This whole-person approach to admissions complies fully with all legal requirements and has been endorsed repeatedly by the Supreme Court.

Yales policies have resulted in an outstanding and increasingly diverse student body. The incoming Class of 2022 set several new admissions records. Eighteen percent of first-year students are the first in their families to attend a four-year college. One in five members of the Class of 2022 receives federal Pell Grants for low-income students. We are proud that first-year enrollment among students receiving Pell Grants has nearly doubled over the past six years, and first-year enrollment among first-generation college students has increased more than 75 percent during the same time.

The creation of a diverse academic community has not come at the expense of applicants of any racial or ethnic background. For example, over the past fifteen years, the number of Asian Americans has grown from less than 14 percent of the incoming first-year class to 21.7 percent in the Class of 2022.

Diversity along many different dimensions strengthens Yales community of learning. As part of our mission to educate aspiring leaders worldwide who serve all sectors of society, we strive to recruit and retain students, faculty, and staff from all backgrounds and to empower them to pursue their intellectual and professional goals. In our judgment as educators, based on experience with admissions policies at Yale dating back over fifty yearsand in my own judgment and experience as a psychologist, professor, and former dean of Yale Collegea diverse student body and faculty greatly enhances students academic experiences and maximizes their future success. By bringing people of different backgrounds, talents, and perspectives together, we prepare our students for a complex and dynamic world.

I want to assure you that while Yale will cooperate fully with the inquiries conducted by the federal government, we also will vigorously defend our ability to create a diverse and excellent academic community.

More News Yale School of Medicine prof stripped of endowed chair

This investigation takes place in the context of legal challenges at other universities aimed at overturning Supreme Court precedent permitting the consideration of race in college admissions, Salovey said, adding that he will affirm Yales unwavering commitment to diversity.At the risk of getting reams of hate mail, I feel compelled to say the obvious (what I think is the obvious). People dont move away because of high taxes. Not high taxes alone. They just dont.

People relocate out of state for all the reasons you would expect: because of jobs, because of housing, and because of education. High taxes might be part of a larger cost-benefit analysis, but they are only part of it. This isnt just my opinion. They are loads of studies. Go ahead. Google them.

In addition to ordinary reasons for moving out of state, theres this: most people dont notice that theyre paying high taxes, so the odds of their moving away because of them are slim. Why dont people notice? Because they havent noticed an appreciable decline in purchasing power.

Again, this isnt my opinion. Im deferring to the authority of Robert Frank, a Cornell economist, who wrote about something called utility loss with respect to absolute consumption.

Im not sure what that means either, but the bottom line, Frank said, is that even when income declines, as is the case when taxes increase, purchasing power remains the same. Frank said people overstate the pain theyll suffer if they pay higher taxes in support of public goods.

I know, I know. Whats this dross, right? I mean, everyone knows if you take more money out of my pocket in income tax, I have less money.

Indeed, thats the traditional theory. It takes the individuals view. But Frank says thats wrong. It does not take a societal view. Its a cognitive error, he wrote in a book called Economic Ideas You Should Forget that reinforces the tax resistance that has made it so difficult to restore our crumbling public infrastructure.

Why do I feel compelled to bring all this up (and risk a deluge of hate mail)? Two reasons.

One is the myth that people are leaving Connecticut because of high taxes. This is a myth. This is a myth that will never die. This is myth that compels one to debunk it periodically. One debunks it in order to get people to pay attention to the real reasons residents leave.

Two is that Bob Stefanowski, the Republican gubernatorial candidate, keeps hammering his Democratic rival, Ned Lamont, for wanting to raise taxes. Fact is, Lamont said he would raise sales taxes, not income taxes. But even if he wanted to raise income taxes, that probably wouldnt hurt much, because few would notice an appreciable decline in purchasing power.

Robert Franks economic thinking is new, or newish. That makes him easy to dismiss for a guy like Stefanowski. Or, if a guy like Stefanowski wants to make some hay, he can hire, as Stefanowski has, the man most responsible for one of the Economic Ideas You Should Forget: supply-side economics, or the conventional view that slashing taxes fuels economic growth.

It doesnt. But that hasnt stopped Arthur Laffer from milking his reputation as the Father of Reaganomics for everything its worth (which isnt much anymore). For $75,000, Laffer sold his endorsement of Stefanowskis campaign plan to phase out the state income tax. Part of the deal, it would seem, was writing one of the most intellectually dishonest op-eds Ive seen.

In Tax cuts and smart spending, the ways forward, Laffer makes one lazy incoherent assertion after another. Some are quizzical. He says the state is overtaxed without explaining what that means, if it means anything. He says Connecticut has a gift tax and estate tax while at the same time noting that we have high personal and corporate income. How do you parse that?

But then there are howlers like this: before the income tax, Connecticut was prosperous, he says. After the income tax, it fell on hard times. That might be good enough cause-and-effect for the barber shop, but not for an economist. Tell me, Dr. Laffer, did anything else happen in this state between the 1990s and today? Im pretty sure.

Then theres intellectual fraud like saying that Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton cut taxes to fuel economic growth without saying that both presidents raised taxes when needed. Better to leave out inconvenient facts in order to sell what George H.W. Bush called voodoo economics.

Connecticut doesnt need voodoo economics. We need 21st-century economics. We need to talk about our real problems, realistically. We can start by leaving the 1980s  and Laffer  behind.

John Stoehr is the publisher of the Editorial Board, a newsletter about politics. He lives in Westville.A police sergeant has been indicted on charges he chased another officer on a highway at high speed before pulling a gun on him during a roadside encounter.

Sgt. Teddy Cerra, of the Franklin Township police in Somerset County, is charged with second-degree possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, and two counts of aggravated assault: one third-degree and the other fourth-degree. Burlington County Prosecutor Scott Coffina announced the indictment, dated Sept. 20, in a news statement Tuesday.

Cerra, a 43-year-old Southampton resident, is suspended without pay from the department after the Nov. 1 incident last year.

That all started, Coffina said, when an off-duty Lumberton police officer was driving his personal car in Southampton.

That officer noticed Cerra driving "in an erratic manner," notified police dispatch and tailed Cerra in his car. The two stopped on the shoulder of Red Lion Road, where Cerra got out of his car, pulled a gun and pointed it at the Lumberton officer, Coffina said.

Prosecutors said at a detention hearing that Cerra told the Lumberton officer about his law enforcment status, saying "I'm blue."

"I'm blue, too," the Lumberton officer said, getting on the ground when he saw Cerra's gun.

He showed Cerra his police ID before getting back in his car and driving away. This time, Cerra was chasing him. At the detention hearing, prosecutors said the vehicles broke 100 mph in parts of the chase.

The chase ended when Cerra struck a vehicle and mailbox. New Jersey State Police apprehended him and took the gun from his waistband.

Cerra also received summonses for reckless driving and operating a motor vehicle under the influence of liquor or drugs.

Joe Brandt can be reached at jbrandt@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JBrandt_NJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tipsThere are a growing number of Hispanic restaurants in the Trenton area offering the cuisines of Latin America. But for authentic Spanish cuisine that has its origins in the Iberian Peninsula, there is Malaga Restaurant in Hamilton.

Brother and sister Romeo and Angela Rodriguez opened the restaurant more than 28 years ago, and most of the menu has remained constant throughout that time. Customers come back for the familiar dishes, said Romeo Rodriguez, plus the specials that date back to the owners' grandmother in Spain.

We started our meal with the family recipe for empanadas, $16.95, and a bowl of lentil soup, $4.95. The empanadas were excellent, handmade and filled with a mixture of beef, cheese and olives and served with salsa on the side. The silky soup was also very good, fragrant with garlic and thickened with pureed lentils.

About 70 percent of the menu at Malaga is seafood, which is no surprise since much of Spain and Portugal touch the sea. The menu offers two kinds of paella, and both are customer favorites, said Rodriguez.

We chose the paella a la Valenciana, $23.95, which was a combination of shellfish, chicken, sausage, and saffron-flavored rice. We decided it is as good as any dish you could find in the Ironbound district of Newark. It is a mix of a variety of fresh shellfish plus fragrant sausage, chicken and the house rice and is plenty for a hearty appetite.

A special of the day was langostino, $27.95, which here meant four oversized prawns. They were fresh and flavorful, and, were way too much to eat in one sitting. They were served with slices of roast potato and the vegetable of the day.

An order of chicken cutlets in wine sauce was two good-sized cutlets served in a lovely pink sauce made with touches of garlic and hot sauce that gave it some spark. More of the potatoes and saffron rice filled out this hearty, filling meal.

Pitchers of the house sangria, $17.95, appeared on nearly every table when we were there, making it clear that this is a house favorite. Mostly made up of red wine and fruit, it was bolstered with whiskey to give it a kick.

For dessert we tried the rice pudding, $5.50, which was nicely done, moist and dense with a touch of cinnamon.

Malaga is located in the Deutzville section of Hamilton, one of its oldest of the township's neighborhoods and filled with single-family and twin homes that date from as early as the 1890s. Some customers come from the neighborhood, while others come from a 25- to 30-mile radius, Rodriguez said, returning year after year for the authentic Spanish cuisine.

The restaurant has ample parking in a lot located behind the building, one more draw for a restaurant that has shown it offers consistently good quality cuisine. Or, as one of my companions called it, a "hidden gem" in Mercer County.

MALAGA RESTAURANT

511 Lalor St., Hamilton

609- 396-8878, malagarestaurant.com.

HOURS: Open 11:30 a.m.-9:30 p.m. Mon.-Thu., 11:30 a.m.-11 p.m., Fri., noon-11 p.m. Sat., 12:30-9:30 p.m. Sun.

CREDIT CARDS: Most major.

FOOD: Very good food made using authentic Spanish recipes.

SERVICE: Attentive, helpful.

AMBIANCE: Little changed after 28 years, the restaurant is decorated in the style of a Spanish hacienda.

COST: Appetizers $4.95-$14.95, entrees $17.95-$35.95, lunch entrees $14.95-$17.95.

Full bar

Follow NJ.com on Twitter @njdotcom. Find NJ.com on Facebook.There is only one official Bruce Springsteen Facebook page. It's denoted with a small blue checkmark and has 5.4 million followers.

Yet there are dozens of fake social media accounts purporting to be The Boss, and apparently one might scam you big time.

CBS Chicago reports a woman -- called "Mary" for anonymity's sake, no relation to the dress-waving gal from "Thunder Road" -- was nearly scammed out of thousands of dollars from one such account, with which she chatted for nearly a year after she commented on the fake Springsteen page and "Springsteen" himself sent her a message.

The relationship grew and reportedly "turned flirty." Fake Bruce said he was set to divorce his wife, Patti Scialfa, but because Scialfa had all his bank accounts tied up, he -- you guessed it -- needed money, preferably in the form of iTunes gift cards.

Mary obliged her new flame, sending him hundreds of dollars in gift cards before he laid down the big con: He needed even more cash to get a stash of gold, "worth millions," shipped out of Dubai.

"My mind was just so, so like maybe brainwashed or something, I said OK how much money," Mary told CBS.

The poor woman was asked to send someone $11,500 via MoneyGram, Western Union and a cashier's check before she realized she'd been taken for a ride down Highway 9.

"I was vulnerable at the time, but you know it hurt, it hurts and you feel so stupid," Mary told CBS.

Again, unless Springsteen is messaging you from an account with a blue checkmark on it -- which almost certainly will never happen -- please be wary of brilliant disguises.

Bobby Olivier may be reached at bolivier@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @BobbyOlivier and Facebook. Find NJ.com on Facebook.Philip Roth had it all planned.

"Many years ago, I received in the mail a letter in which he outlined the instructions for his memorial service," his close friend Joel Conarroe told a gathering of hundreds Tuesday during a tribute at the midtown Manhattan branch of the New York Public Library.

The author of "American Pastoral," ''Portnoy's Complaint" and other celebrated novels was as precise about his death, Conarroe explained, as he had been about his life and work.

Attendees included Robert Caro, Salman Rushdie, Mia Farrow and Don DeLillo and speakers ranged from Conarroe, president emeritus of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, to fellow authors such as Edna O'Brien, Norman Manea and Judith Thurman. The setting, the library's Celeste Bartos Forum and its glass domed ceiling, was requested by Roth. So were the speakers, even though the list changed over time as such previous choices as Saul Bellow and William Styron passed away. Roth also picked out the music, Gabriel Faure's "Elegie in C Minor, op. 24, which ended the nearly 2 1/2-hour ceremony.

Roth died in May. He was 85.

According to Conarroe, Roth wanted as much laughter as tears, and guests shared memories of his wit and of the surprising tenderness for a man so direct and unsparing in his work. Thurman spoke of driving around Connecticut with Roth as he searched for a proper burial spot, what he called "A tomb with a view." New Yorker staff writer Claudia Roth Pierpont noted that he referred to his Manhattan neighborhood, where other authors lived nearby, as "Writers' Block." Roth never had children, but friends remembered his rapport and sense of play with their kids, whether collaborating through email on stories with them or sitting on the floor of his darkened studio and shining a light on the ceiling to make the room seem like a planetarium.

Roth despised sentimentality nearly as much he hated death, but he apparently had exceptions. Bernard Avishai, a Dartmouth College professor who wrote a book about "Portnoy's Complaint," remembered Roth's improbable joy after adopting two kittens. "I am really hypnotized," he said of them. But his feelings changed and his mood was darker the next time Avishai spoke with him.

"I had to return my dear two kittens," Roth told him. "I fear I have become dependent."

Roth often struggled with depression and physical ailments but his friends described a contented man over the last few years, after he shocked the literary world by revealing that his 2010 novel "Nemesis" would be his last book. Retirement did not leave him helpless, but liberated. He read, swam, walked, socialized and referred to his post-publication years as a welcome return to the rebellious but loving son he had been when growing up in Newark, New Jersey. "I am home," he liked to tell friends. "I won."

His health rapidly failed in 2018 and he spent his final weeks in the hospital, a farewell poignant and comical. Various ex-girlfriends looked in on him. Manea, just three years younger than Roth, recalled that he and his friend competed over who had more stent procedures. Pierpont remembered Roth looking around his hospital room and expressing relief that he didn't have to write about it. Even the nearness of death, what the longtime atheist called "the enemy," did not throw him.

"I have been to see the great enemy and walked around him and talked to him," he told the writer Ben Taylor. "And he is not to be feared. I promise."A Paterson man suspected of crashing a school bus with a child inside into four cars and two poles was released from jail following his detention hearing Wednesday afternoon.

Wayne Carmichael, 53, is facing a second-degree charge of endangering the welfare of an 11-year-old boy who was in the bus during the multiple crashes in East Orange and Orange last week.

Carmichael was also issued approximately 27 summons by East Orange Police police for driving under the influence, reckless driving, driving with a suspended license and other violations.

Carmichael's lawyer argued that his client was not a bus driver, but actually a mechanic who was asked to drive for the bus company, A-1 Elegant Tours, that day.

Court records show Carmichael was represented by the law offices of Steven Plofsky. Neither A-1 Elegant nor Plofsky's law office could be reached for comment.

When officers arrived at the scene of Carmichael's last crash on the morning of Sept. 18, the officers said the boy on the bus was crying and complained of being in pain on his side and legs. He was treated by EMTs at the scene. It is still unknown where the school bus was headed.

Carmichael was drooling at the mouth and unable to stand upright on his own, according to the affidavit. He was also treated before he was taken into custody for suspicion of driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

An aide on the bus told officers that Carmichael begin to nod off while driving, and that she tried to wake him as he began hitting the cars.

The officer noted in the affidavit that the bus aide appeared to be on a narcotic.

In court, Carmichael's lawyer said his client had suffered a heart attack, but noted the results from the blood and urine test were not in.

Arguing for Carmichael's detention, prosecutors mentioned that Carmichael had seven previous felonies. But due to the non-violent nature of those earlier charges, and Carmichael's scores on the pretrial assessment, he was not detained for his charge of endangering a child.

Superior Court Judge Martin Cronin did order Carmicahel to not get behind the wheel of a car, and to stay away from drugs and high consumptions of alcohol.

The company that Carmichael drivers for, A1 Elegant Tours, is owned by Shelim Khalique, the brother of Paterson councilman Shahin Khalique.

A1 Elegant Tours has had several infractions for lack of cameras on buses, drivers without commercial licenses, no aides on the buses and leaving a sleeping child on a bus.

Previously, the company has had contracts with schools in Clifton. The company was banned earlier this year by the Paterson School Board after a teacher reported missing students and the driver discovered a student sleeping on the back of the bus, according to schools Superintendent Eileen Shafer.

Carmichael is due back in court on Oct. 15.

Taylor Tiamoyo Harris may be reached at tharris@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @ladytiamoyo.

Find NJ.com on Facebook.JERSEY CITY -- Testimony in the trial of a West New York veteran charged with trying to kill two police officers continued this afternoon with responding officers on the stand, including a former North Bergen cop who described being shot at and returning fire.

Emmanuel Hernandez, 28, a Navy veteran who both the defense and state psychiatrists agree suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, is accused of attempting to murder two officers just after 2 a.m. on Jan. 5, 2017 in his backyard on 57th Street.

Hernandez's attorney, Peter Willis, contended in his opening statement this morning that his client is not responsible for his actions because of mental issues he suffered by being traumatized while serving in the Persian Gulf.

The first person to take the stand today was North Bergen Police Officer Robert Garcia who responded to Quick Chek on Kennedy Boulevard after a 911 call was placed regarding a man in a red Infiniti who appeared agitated. Hudson County Assistant Prosecutor Kevin Roe said Hernandez was arguing with some teens at the location.

Garcia testified that he approached Hernandez with his gun drawn and holstered it when he saw that Hernandez was not holding a weapon. He said he scuffled with Hernandez who managed to drive away, running over the officer's foot as he fled.

Former North Bergen Police Officer Zavier Romo testified that as he arrived at the Quick Chek he saw the Infiniti exit the parking lot, strike a police vehicle and another vehicle that was passing by. A cruiser driven by Lt. Gorge Raposo was in pursuit and Romo said he joined the chase as the Infiniti sped through red lights on Kennedy Boulevard.

"The minute I make a right onto 57th Street I see the vehicle make a complete stop -- 57th and Jefferson," Romo said. "I saw a male run out of red car and run into an alleyway ... I was the first one to enter that alleyway."

Romo said he and Raposo yelled "North Bergen police. Come out with your hands up at." as they went down the alley with flashlights out and guns drawn. He said he stopped at the end of the alley and flashed his light around the yard.

"As I stepped into the backyard I saw a shed right in front of me and I think he must be hiding behind this," Romo said, adding that he then saw a muzzle flash to his left. "Someone was shooting at me." He said he dropped his flashlight so he would be harder to spot.

"I turned to my left and saw another muzzle flash followed by a large bang," Romo said. "It seemed like the man had moved after the first shot... I was able to see someone standing there and pointing an object at me. I immediately returned fire." He said he "I thought I was going to die."

Romo said the man entered what appeared to be the building's basement door. Rapso told Romo to back away and he backed halfway down the alley before turning and running to the street. Romo asked someone to check if he had been hit. He said he wasn't sure because so much adrenaline was pumping through his veins.

Romo said two more shots rang out from the alley and appeared to strike buildings. Hernandez surrendered after a 12-hour standoff. He is charged with aggravated assault on police officers, resisting arrest, eluding police, weapons offenses, two counts of attempted murder and was issued multiple summonses.

Romo said the gunman was about 15 feet away when he fired at him. Willis told The Jersey Journal in an interview prior to the trial that his client had fired into the air and was having a flashback at the time.

"Do you know he's a sharpshooter?" Willis asked Romo.

"No, I did not," Romo replied.

"You don't know anything about this person," Willis said.

"At that point, no sir," Romo replied.

"You don't know if he was proficient with a weapon," Willis continued.

"No, I don't," Romo answered.

"You are proficient with a weapon," Willis said.

"Yes," replied Romo.

"If I'm standing 15 feet in front of you and you shoot at me, you are going to hit me aren't you?" Willis asked.

"Yes, I am," Romo said.

The trial will resume tomorrow at 9 a.m. before Hudson County Superior Court Judge Mark Nelson in the Hudson County Administration Building in Jersey City.JERSEY CITY  In front of the Jersey City Planning Board on Tuesday was case No. P18-102.

The applicant's attorney stepped to the mic to address the seven-member board and ask for a one-year extension on his clients' plans, which the board first approved back in 2016. The attorney, Eugene Paolino, called the matter "a standard request."

There was no discussion. All seven members voted yes. The whole thing took a few minutes.

You wouldn't have known from the ho-hum proceeding that the applicants aren't just anyone: they are Kushner Companies and KABR Group, the developers who are suing the city and Mayor Steve Fulop in federal court over another stalled Journal Square project of theirs that they claim the city is holding up because of the developers' ties to President Trump.

Tuesday's hearing included no mention of the lawsuit, Trump or his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, whose family runs Kushner Companies.

The delay approved on Tuesday, for the developers' 30 Journal Square project, represents another hiccup for the Kushner family's plans to remake Journal Square, even as another side of the warring Kushners is moving ahead with the second high-rise of a three-tower project nearby.

Kushner Companies want to transform 30 Journal Square, formerly the longtime home of The Jersey Journal, into a 72-story residential tower, open-air market and public plaza.

The project at the center of the claims in the lawsuit is One Journal Square, a two-tower plan slated for a vacant lot across the street from 30 Journal Square. Both plans received approval during the same Planning Board meeting on Aug. 16, 2016. Work has started on neither.

Rich Boggiano is the Journal Square councilman. He said the continued delays in the Kushners' Journal Square projects are bad for the area because those projects will bring more retail to the city's center.

"It means we don't have supermarkets, we don't have restaurants," Boggiano said. "It's a mess now."

Asked about the delay, a Kushner Companies spokesperson said, "There are no immediate plans to commence construction at 30 JSQ, which can be developed regardless of any legal dispute pertaining to 1 JSQ."

The One Journal Square lawsuit stems from the continued delays on that project. The city alleges the project is in jeopardy because the developers broke an agreement to start construction by Jan. 1, 2017. The developers, in the lawsuit they filed June 27, claim the city is holding up necessary tax subsidies because Fulop, a Democrat, fears that awarding a tax break to Kushner's family would anger the city's liberal voters.

The city has asked a judge to toss the lawsuit. The developers' response to that request is due Oct. 1.

Terrence T. McDonald may be reached at tmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @terrencemcd. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook.JERSEY CITY  Khemraj "Chico" Ramchal, the former councilman who resigned in disgrace in 2016 after admitting he drove drunk in a city car and took money for a "no show" county job, had his sentence of probation ended one year early by a judge on Friday.

Hudson County Superior Court Judge Mitzy Galis-Menendez agreed to shave the final year off Ramchal's three-year sentence after the former councilman argued that for two years he has stayed out of trouble, has volunteered to help the community and has been working as a consultant for a firm called NC Funding.

The reduced sentence means no travel restrictions, allowing Ramchal to visit his family in Florida and his girlfriend in Seattle and pursue job opportunities outside of the area, the former councilman wrote in an Aug. 10 certification.

A request for comment from Ramchal, 43, was not returned.

"Mr. Ramchal has served almost two thirds of his sentence, been fully compliant with all conditions, paid all fines/assessments, obtained and remained in gainful employment and taken on and performed numerous public service activities as a volunteer," reads an Aug. 14 letter his attorney, John T. Coyle, sent to the court. "There is little to be gained from serving the remaining year of his probationary term."

Ramchal, a Democrat, was elected in 2013 to serve as the councilman for Jersey City's Ward B, which includes the West Side. He was arrested in March 2015 and charged with drunken driving, an incident that led to investigations by The Jersey Journal that showed that Ramchal was using a city vehicle for numerous after-hours trips and that his car was at home or elsewhere in Jersey City when he was supposed to be working in Newark for the Hudson County Improvement Authority.

He was charged with assault by auto  a man in a car Ramchal struck the night of his arrest claimed to be injured  and later with theft by deception, related to the "no show" job with the HCIA. In May 2016, he pleaded guilty to those two charges and agreed to plead guilty to drunken driving in municipal court. In September of that year, he was sentenced to three years of probation and barred from public office and employment.

He never truly left public life and has remained active in Jersey City politics. Mayor Steve Fulop, who ran Ramchal on his 2013 ticket, paid the former councilman to act as a consultant for Fulop's re-election campaign in 2017. When Politico New Jersey wrote about that last year, then-city spokeswoman Jennifer Morrill said Ramchal had been struggling to find employment since he left the council.

In his Aug. 10 certification, Ramchal said he had turned down a job offer out of Florida because of the travel restrictions he faced while serving probation.

Terrence T. McDonald may be reached at tmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @terrencemcd. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook.JERSEY CITY -- Jurors at the trial of a West New York veteran charged with trying to kill police officers heard a recorded phone call in which a police lieutenant worked hard to get him to surrender with the promise of treatment for his PTSD.

"I do not consider you a criminal whatsoever, so don't think of yourself as a criminal," West New York police Lt. Joseph Cocciadiferro told Emmanuel Hernandez, 28, as the defendant was barricaded inside his 57th Street apartment with a handgun and shotgun on Jan. 5, 2017.

Hernandez, who served in the Navy and suffers from PTSD, was charged with attempted murder after shooting at police officers during what turned into a 12-hour standoff.

"Things that happened, that's in the past," Cocciadiferro told Hernandez during the call, which was played for the jury by the prosecution. "The only thing we can do for you now -- take care of things that are in the future ... We want to bring you down and get you the best help we possibility can ... So what do you think?"

Hernandez told Cocciadiferro he didn't want to hurt anyone and was off his medications. He said he wanted to be taken to a hospital and not to jail. The officer repeatedly assured Hernandez he would be taken to a hospital to get care. He told Hernandez, who cried during the conversation, that all he had to do was walk out.

"I'm trying help you lead a long life, but we have to start at some point," Cocciadiferro said. "We have to start at the point where you come out to my officers and then we're going to take you down to the hospital. It all has to start at one point ... As far as your PTSD from the military, anything that's needed we will provide you."

But during the hour-long call at the beginning of the standoff, Hernandez said he wanted to call his mother to say goodbye and became angry as Cocciadiferro tried to keep him on the line.

"I don't want you to say goodbye to your mom because this isn't the end -- this is just the beginning of us trying to help you," Cocciadiferro said. "We don't want this to end in violence. Come on ... You don't want to go that route, and you certainly don't want to call your mother and say goodbye."

Getting agitated and using more and more expletives, Hernandez then said: "You know what, why don't' you just come in ... Come in with your officers and get me out."

Hernandez then hung up, but Cocciadiferro immediately called him back. Eventually the line goes dead for good. The sound of the officer dialing could be heard on the recording but the call goes to messages. He tried again and the same thing happened.

The commander of the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office SWAT team was first on the stand Wednesday. He said residents of the first floor of the building were evacuated through a window before SWAT team members entered the building and got second floor residents out.

He said robots were sent in and they caught glimpses of guns and Hernandez pacing. SWAT team members took up positions inside the building.

A negotiator spoke to Hernandez and when talks broke down, the SWAT team fired teargas canisters into the basement apartment. Hernandez eventually gave up. He was taken to the Jersey City Medical Center and has remained in custody since then.

Defense attorney Peter Willis said Hernandez was diagnosed with PTSD in the Navy and received treatment in the service and after his honorable discharge. The Navy deemed Hernandez 50 percent emotionally disabled and he receives a disability check each month.

Willis is arguing that his client is not guilty due to insanity and was in a dissociative state during the incident. However, the state's psycshiatrist and defense psychiatrist disagree on that contention.

Cocciadiferro is now beginning cross-examination by Willis. The trial is before Hudson County Superior Court Judge Mark Nelson in the Hudson County Administration Building in Jersey City.HOBOKEN  The city woman charged by federal prosecutors with promoting a cash-for-votes bribery scheme is tied to a committee that unsuccessfully campaigned to weaken the city's rent control regulations in 2013.

The committee, Let the People Decide, paid Lizaida Camis $1,600 for "campaign work" in two $800 increments in September and October 2013, campaign records show. She was one of nine people the committee reported paying for campaign work in those two months.

In October and November of that year, prosecutors allege, Camis arranged to pay at least three voters $50 each to apply for and cast mail-in ballots in that year's municipal race. The U.S. attorney's office arrested Camis on Sept. 20 and hit her with a bribery charge.

Let the People Decide reported giving nearly 350 people $50 each to act as "campaign workers" in November 2013, totaling over $17,000, in its effort to pass the rent control referendum. The ballot question failed by 122 votes.

The committee is linked to real-estate developer Frank Raia, who unsuccessfully ran for mayor in 2009 and for a City Council seat in 2013. When the referendum intended to weaken rent control laws first went to voters in 2012, Raia, known as "Pupie," was listed as the Let the People Decide chair in the group's campaign finance reports. Andrew Canonico was named as the treasurer.

When the issue went before voters again in 2013  a judge rejected the 2012 results  Let the People Decide's campaign reports listed Canonico as its chair and treasurer.

Phone calls and a text seeking comment from Raia were not returned. Reached by phone, Canonico said he did not know anything about the charges facing Camis.

"I guess we'll find out in the future," he said.

Raia and Canonico listed their address on Let the People Decide's campaign reports as 450 Seventh St. in Hoboken. On a resident directory in the building's lobby, Raia's name appears next to a third-floor unit and Canonico's next to a fourth-floor unit. Property records show Raia owns both units.

The arrest has stunned political folks in this city, both because of the length of time between Camis' alleged misdeeds and her arrest and because she is unknown even to some people who are deeply involved in Hoboken's elections.

Prosecutors allege she told voters to pick up their $50 "from the Jefferson Street office." 520 Jefferson St. is the address of Raia's social club, which is furnished with some couches, a television and a framed "Hillary 4 Prison 2016" shirt hanging on the wall. Two men who were there on Monday night said Raia was not around.

Roman Brice, who blogs at Mile Square View, posted a picture in 2013 of people lined up outside 520 Jefferson St. the night after that year's election. He quoted one woman who told him she had been paid to vote.

A phone call seeking comment from Camis' attorney, Brandon D. Minde, was not returned.

Camis' criminal complaint does not say which campaign she worked for. The mayoral candidates in 2013 were Dawn Zimmer, the incumbent and winner; Tim Occhipinti; and Ruben Ramos, currently the City Council president. Zimmer said Camis did not work for her campaign. A request for comment from Occhipinti was not returned. Raia ran for council on Occhipinti's ticket.

Camis shows up on Ramos' campaign finance reports, via a $250 donation on June 28, 2013 from his campaign to Camis for a "community health fair donation." Ramos told The Jersey Journal Camis did not work for his campaign and he said the $250 was a donation to her church.

Terrence T. McDonald may be reached at tmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @terrencemcd. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook.A Woodbridge man was sentenced to five years in state prison for the armed robbery of two Rutgers University students and for threatening a juvenile detention officer, authorities said Tuesday.

Najee Hall, 18, pleaded guilty on July 31 to two counts of armed robbery and one count of making terroristic threats to the officer while Hall was in custody.

Hall was sentenced on Sept. 19, Middlesex County Prosecutor Andrew C. Carey said in a statement.

The guilty plea was part of an agreement Hall's attorneys reached with the prosecutor in the case, according to Carey. Hall must serve at least four years of the sentence.

New Brunswick police arrested Hall on Nov. 26, 2017, for the armed robberies of two Rutgers' students on Baldwin Street in New Brunswick.

Hall was arrested again on July 19 for making terroristic threats while in custody at the Middlesex County Juvenile Detention Center, according to Carey.

Anthony G. Attrino may be reached at tattrino@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyAttrino. Find NJ.com on Facebook.Authorities stressed the importance Wednesday afternoon of finding a stolen car they believe a fugitive charged with child rape may be using, as he continues to elude investigators.

David Allen Hamilton Jr., 47, of Lower Southampton Township in Bucks County, is a 20-year veteran of the U.S. Army and was a Cavalry scout who served two tours in Iraq, township police Chief Ted Krimmel revealed. He said the information on Hamilton's background came anecdotally from friends and family of the suspect.

Local and federal investigators described the car reported stolen Wednesday morning in the New Hope area of Bucks County as a white Toyota Avalon with Pennsylvania license plate PD3759P.

The car was stolen from the 200 block of Bobwhite Road in the Fox Run Preserve neighborhood of Solebury Township in Bucks County. It belonged to a neighbor of a woman accused of helping Hamilton to hide out from Friday night or early Saturday through Tuesday night.

The woman, Meredith Custodio, was arrested Wednesday on charges of hindering apprehension, police announced at a news conference. Familiar to Hamilton, Custodio was the caregiver to a 78-year-old woman living in Fox Run and is believed to have sheltered Hamilton in the elderly woman's home.

Detectives developed information Custodio knew Hamilton and visited the house two times, Friday and Tuesday. She denied knowledge of Hamilton's whereabouts, police said. She was charged after police investigated the stolen car report next door, and sent to Bucks County prison in lieu of 10 percent of $150,000 bail.

Authorities on Wednesday also released a surveillance photo that shows Hamilton purchasing a white tent with red top Sept. 15 from the Oxford Valley Target, according to Robert Clark, a supervising deputy with the U.S. Marshals Service based in Philadelphia.

"He's got clean clothes, obviously some money and a vehicle so he's mobile and he can go anywhere," Solebury Township police Chief Dominick Bellizzie told reporters Wednesday at the township building. "I don't know if he's still in the area or not."

Accused child rapist David Allen Hamilton may be hiding out along the Delaware River. Law enforcement is discussing the case and they want you to let them know if you see any evidence that Hamilton is in our area. Posted by lehighvalleylive.com on Wednesday, September 26, 2018

On the run from authorities since last Wednesday, Hamilton is believed to be hiding out in woods along the Delaware River separating Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

"He has the tent, he's camping out, he has the Army background," Bellizzie said. "We believe he may be down by the river in a wooded area like he was before. That's why we're concentrating a lot of our efforts there."

Hamilton is charged with the rape of two young girls, described as relatives of each other but not of him. Law enforcement has been watching the victims and their family, including visiting their school daily, as Hamilton continues to elude investigators.

"We're confident they're going to be OK" while Hamilton remains on the loose, said Kimmel, the Lower Southampton chief.

Investigators ask anyone who sees the stolen Toyota sedan or the white tent with red top to call the U.S. Marshals tip-line at 866-865-8477 (TIPS) or 911.

The Marshals Service is offering a $1,000 reward for information leading directly to Hamilton's arrest.

"It's imperative for us right now to find that vehicle," Clark said. "It gives us a starting point of where Mr. Hamilton may be. And it's just important for the public to be vigilant to try and locate that vehicle and also if they've seen that tent any time in the last week ... I'd ask the public to be vigilant in reporting that tent if they've noticed that."

Police described Hamilton as dangerous and possibly armed. In addition to raping two children, he fought with a New Hope police officer on Friday and tried to steal the officer's firearm before fleeing, authorities said.

An archery hunter spotted Hamilton in the woods Friday and supplied photos of him to investigators.

Authorities do not anticipate having to limit recreational activities in the search area, and say hunters may be of assistance if they see Hamilton, the stolen car or the tent. A heavy law enforcement presence aims to keep the public safe during the manhunt.

"I don't think it's unsafe to be out and about," Bellizzie said. "As I said, I'd keep my eyes open."

David Allen Hamilton Jr., 47, of Lower Southampton Township, is seen Sept. 15, 2018, leaving a store. Hamilton, who may be camping along the Delaware Canal in the New Hope/Lambertville area, is sought on 12 child sex abuse charges. (Courtesy photo | For lehighvallleylive.com)

Marshals on Friday wrapped up a three-month manhunt that led to the arrest in Ohio of Shawn Christy, the New Jersey native and Pennsylvania resident accused of threatening President Donald Trump and other officials.

"We're well-versed in rural searches, long-term searches," Clark said. "The Marshals Service specializes in finding sex offenders. So we believe we're prepared and we're up to the task and we hope to bring Mr. Hamilton into custody as soon as possible."

Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KurtBresswein and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.After a fellow Yale University alumna spoke out against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, accusing him of sexual misconduct, bestselling Montclair author Christina Baker Kline said he knew she had to act.

Kline, who previously accused former president George H.W. Bush of groping her, joined forces with other women who attended Yale to write a letter of support for Deborah Ramirez. In the letter, posted online Monday, the women call on the Senate Judiciary Committee to delay Kavanaugh's confirmation vote until allegations from Ramirez and others can be investigated and all witnesses can testify.

As of Wednesday, more than 2,500 Yale alumnae have signed the letter, which has also spurred a letter of support for Ramirez from men who graduated from Yale.

"We expected 200 signatures," Kline said on Wednesday, as news of a third allegation against Kavanaugh filled headlines. "That is really exciting to see and I hope helpful to the woman who came forward."

In a story published on Sunday, Ramirez told The New Yorker that Kavanaugh 53, allegedly exposed himself to her at a drunken party when they were students at Yale in the early 1980s. Ramirez, 53, who was the second woman to make a public allegation against Kavanaugh, claims that he caused her to touch him without consent as she pushed him away.

Kline, 54, author of the 2017 novel "A Piece of the World" and the 2013 book "Orphan Train" and a 1986 graduate of the university, says she didn't know Kavanaugh or Ramirez, but has friends who knew Ramirez. She teamed up with fellow Yale alumnae Kate Manning and Rebecca Steinitz to write the letter.

"We are coming forward as women of Yale because we have a shared experience of the environment that shaped not only Judge Kavanaugh's life and career, but our own," reads the letter from Kline and the Yale alumna.

"We commend her courage in coming forward," the letter says. "We ask that she be afforded respect and security to protect her privacy, quality of life, and emotional stability."

Kline says she also experienced sexual misconduct at Yale.

"I did myself have two incidents that I never mentioned publicly and I never will unless one of them is nominated for office or runs for president," she says.

On Monday, students at Yale protested Kavanaugh's nomination by staging a sit-in at the university's law school and making their position known in Washington, D.C. The Associated Press reports that faculty have also sent a letter sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee calling for a ''fair and deliberate'' confirmation process.

Kline says she is heartened by the student protests, but knows full well the kind of backlash women can face when they make these kind of allegations. She experienced the venom last year after writing about her encounter with Bush.

WATCH: Dozens of students sit in silence, wearing black demanding thorough look into accusations against Yale alumnus and Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. 31 law school classes have been cancelled today in light of protest. #nbcct pic.twitter.com/yCthpadhuj -- Shannon Miller (@_ShannonMiller) September 24, 2018

"In some ways, it's disheartening because you'd like to think that we've moved far ahead yet so many people resist these women's stories," she says. On the other hand, "I'm not sure that men of Yale would've written that letter 25 years ago," Kline says.

The author says she understands all too well why women would chose not to come forward unless the men involved were up for public office.

"Why would you create those headaches for yourself?" she says. "She knew it would bring her grief and stress and it has, she was right," Kline says of Ramirez. She added that she thinks it will be hard for Republicans to move forward, given the three allegations against Kavanaugh.

"I would not be surprised if they withdrew his nomination," she says. "Having three women testify is not something that the Republicans want."

Like Kavanaugh, Ramirez graduated from Yale in 1987, a year after Kline. Kavanaugh was a member of the fraternity Delta Kappa Epsilon.

The letter from the men who graduated from Yale, signed by hundreds of alumni, credits students having to adapt to the college's recent transformation into a co-ed institution (in 1969) during the '80s as well as an increase in the drinking age, from 18 to 21, with boosting fraternity and sorority culture (and the parties and drinking that come with it) among students.

"Many of our female friends and classmates struggled to forge new paths in centuries-old male-only traditions; some of our male friends and classmates did not make this process easy," reads the letter. "The harrowing accounts we've recently heard -- of harassment, misconduct and assault -- are sadly consistent with the campus culture at the time."

Kline says drinking and party culture was not necessarily the domain of fraternities when she was a student.

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh holds a copy of the Constitution as he testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 6. Three women have accused him of sexual misconduct. (Drew Angerer | Getty Images)

"The drinking age was changing every year that I was there," she says. "When I got to Yale, the university itself was holding keg parties -- it was sort of more out there." Fraternities on campus were new, and came with controversy.

Kline says Kavanaugh was not as active on campus in a "positive" way as other prominent students who went on to become luminaries in their fields.

"The portrait that is emerging is that he did seem to work hard as a student and his other interests were being a part of his fraternity and going to parties and all that," she says, describing "two aspects to his personality."

Ramirez's allegation follows a claim from Christine Blasey Ford, 51, a research psychologist at the Stanford University School of Medicine and psychology professor at Palo Alto University, who says Kavanaugh pinned her down and tried to take off her clothes at a house party when they were high school students. Ford, who has reportedly received death threats and has had to move out of her home after coming forward, is set to testify in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday.

Kavanaugh has denied Ford's allegations. In a statement provided by the White House, he called Ramirez's allegation "a smear, plain and simple."

A third allegation against Kavanaugh comes from Julie Swetnick, who was a high school student in Gaithersburg, Maryland when she met Kavanaugh in the early '80s. On Wednesday, Stormy Daniels lawyer Michael Avenatti posted a declaration from Swetnick, his client, to Twitter, in which she alleges that she became the victim of a gang rape in 1982 after she was drugged at a house party where Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge were in attendance. The declaration has been sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Swetnick, 55, said she often saw Kavanaugh and Judge trying to spike the punch and prey on girls at various house parties in the '80s, with Kavanaugh allegedly pressing up against girls without their consent and trying to remove their clothing.

In October, as the #MeToo movement began to gain speed after the revelations about Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, Kline went public with her own story.

After two women alleged that former President George H.W. Bush had groped them while they posed for photos, Kline came forward in an essay for Slate to say that Bush had allegedly groped her during a photo op in 2014 at a fundraiser for the Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy. Kline claimed that the former president, who was seated in his wheelchair, tried to tell a joke before the incident. Her husband also posed for the photo.

She said Bush told her she was beautiful, then asked, "You wanna know my favorite book?"

"David Cop-a-feel," he allegedly told her before squeezing her rear end, "hard," she said, adding that she instinctively swiped his hand away. Other women who claim the former president groped them described Bush using variations on the "cop-a-feel" line.

After her story was published, Kline told NJ Advance Media that she received plenty of hate mail. She wanted to speak out, she said, because she couldn't stand by as other women were maligned.

"Think about the first woman who came out, publicly," she said at the time. "She was totally vilified."

After Kline came forward with her story, she was contacted by other women who shared similar allegations against Bush.

Amy Kuperinsky may be reached at akuperinsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @AmyKup or on Facebook.The Ramapough Lenape Nation has made changes to its federal lawsuit against the Township of Mahwah and a group of homeowners to focus it more on what the tribe says its ongoing fight is really about -- religious discrimination.

"The amendment is trying to streamline and focus the lawsuit to what we see as the real issue -- religious discrimination against the Ramapough Lenape tribe," said Darius Charney, an attorney for the Center for Constitutional Rights, which joined the lawsuit in August.

The legal complaint was originally filed in May by the tribe to stop fines totaling $12,500 per day from being waged by the township against the tribe for using a 14-acre tribal prayer ground.

The land in question, known as Split Rock Sweet Water, is located on Halifax Road, along the Ramapo River at the entrance to the Ramapo Hunt and Polo Club -- an enclave of million dollar homes.

The property was gifted to the tribe in 1995 by the developer of the homes and has been used as a prayer site since before Christopher Columbus arrived in America, tribe members have said.

It drew complaints from neighbors and town code enforcement officials in December 2016 when the tribe erected teepees, a prayer circle and other structures. Mahwah sued the tribe in May 2017 for violating zoning laws. And a Superior Court judge in November 2017 found the tribe liable for 39 of 43 violations -- a decision the tribe has appealed.

The federal lawsuit, filed by the tribe against Mahwah and the Polo Club, originally contained 11 counts but was trimmed down to seven after a nuisance claim against the Polo Club, a forced eviction claim against both the township and homeowner's group and a two other counts that the tribe's lawyers deemed repetitious were removed, Charney said.

"The nuisance one is really a state law claim and we wanted to focus on the constitutional issues here," he said.

Among them, Charney said, "both the town and Polo Club are conspiring together to discriminate against the tribe."

Calls to Township Attorney Brian Chewcaskie and an attorney for the homeowners were not returned.

Mahwah, last week, settled a lawsuit with the Attorney General's Office in which it was accused of targeting Orthodox Jews with two ordinances. The township did not admit wrongdoing and was not fined, although it would have to pay the state $350,000 if it engages in unlawful conduct within the next four years.

Asked if the timing of the amendment to this federal lawsuit from the tribe had anything to do with the Attorney General's settlement, Charney said no.

"The timing was solely due to the fact that the judge told us we had until Sept. 21" to file papers in response to the defendants' motion to dismiss the case, he said.

The township, homeowners group and the tribe's attorneys are expected to meet Thursday for their first mediation session, per the judge's instructions.

Ramapough Chief Dwaine Perry said said he is hoping for a "balanced and fair settlement."

The fines being incurred by the tribe, meanwhile, now total "a little over a million dollars," Perry said, adding, "I find it incredible that we're being fined for assembling to pray on our own land."

If a settlement can't be reached during mediation, the Ramapoughs are ready to go to court.

"It would be great to reach a resolution where all the parties are satisfied," Charney said. "But if that's not possible we're prepared to litigate this case to vindicate the tribe's rights."

The Ramapough Lenape Nation, which consists of about 5,000 members living around the Ramapo Mountains in Bergen and Passaic counties in New Jersey and Rockland County, New York, were recognized by the state of New Jersey in 1980 as a Native American tribe, but are not recognized federally.

Allison Pries may be reached at apries@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @AllisonPries. Find NJ.com on Facebook.By Nancy F. Munoz

It has been nearly 250 days since Gov. Phil Murphy said a "full-scale" audit of NJ Transit would be completed.

His deadline was 100 days, which would have been April 2. Instead, we are still waiting for the company that received a $1.3 million contract on April 30 to conduct the audit and release its report.

Since then, there has been a morass of train delays and cancellations that are exceeded by whole train lines being shutdown to commuters. Unfortunately for those who use the Raritan Valley line in North Jersey or commute to and from Atlantic City, the Murphy administration decided the best solution is not using the lines at all.

That is just one example of the utter mismanagement of NJ Transit, and the governor's public misdirection about what should be done and what he has done.

After commuter anger boiled over this summer while he was vacationing in Italy, Murphy admitted that he underestimated how badly NJ Transit had deteriorated. Either he wasn't aware or he didn't care; but neither is acceptable.

Murphy even agreed to legislative fixes that can quickly be done to help the agency with its staffing and commuter issues. A bill passed the Senate in June to eliminate the requirement that Transit employees live in New Jersey and giving commuters representation on Transit's board. The former Murphy proposed recently, and the latter was one of his campaign promises from last year.

But, contradicting himself, Murphy requested Assembly Democrats not pass the bill because the audit was still not completed.

Other things he promised would help NJ Transit include hiring an emergency manager, finding a dedicated source of revenue and weekly public reporting of NJ Transit's performance. The excuse for not doing anything he promised to do is the same as always: we need to wait for the audit.

None of these promises need to wait for an audit, and all of them would receive support from the legislature.

Perhaps no promise fell as short as tripling funding for NJ Transit, which would require another $242 million. The budget shows an increase of only $166 million, but $78 million is covering for lost revenue -- which leads to another disingenuous promise from our governor.

Murphy continually vowed to end the raiding of NJ Transit's capital budget to pay for day-to-day operations; a practice that over the last 11 years has deprived the aging system of $5.74 billion in infrastructure improvements. His word is a good as fool's gold, because he perpetrated one of the largest raids in history, shifting an incredible $511 million from fixing our rail to paying for daily operations. Because that wasn't enough, he and some Democrat leaders, who somehow consider themselves environmentalists, also grabbed $82 million from the clean-energy fund for Transit -- part of a total $136 million raid.

The largest problem throughout all of these fibs and misdirections over the course of this year is that the deadline to install positive train control -- a collision-avoidance system required by Congress in 2008 -- is Dec. 31.

Installation is needed on 326 miles of track statewide and on 440 locomotives. A Federal Railroad Administration report from the end of June said installation was only 38 percent complete. NJ Transit said during hearings two months later that it is 58 percent complete. The original deadline was 2015, but Congress voted to extend it to 2018. There should have been better progress previously, but that buck was passed on, and now it stops with Murphy.

If PTC is not in place by the end of the year then there could be stiff fines or an extreme cutback on usable rail. Amtrak has threatened that it will not allow any trains without PTC to use its tracks. It has already punished NJ Transit by rejecting additional federal aid and fining the agency $12,000 -- the largest penalty ever imposed for failing to meet a previous deadline.

The best way to meet the PTC deadline and end sudden train cancellations is to increase staffing. Plenty of the proposals that have been on hold because of the much delayed audit could help address this issue.

In August, the state transportation commissioner said the audit would be publicly released next week. Let's hope that it is, because inaction, misdirection and commuter nightmares need to end, and the excuses need to end too.

Nancy F. Munoz has been an Assemblywoman since 2009, serving as Republican WHIP since May 2017. A resident of Summit, she represents parts of Union, Somerset, and Morris counties in the 21st legislative district.

Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook.The Most Extensive and Reliable Source of Information Related to the Mexican Drugs Cartels.



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By John F. McKeon

Nine states and the District of Columbia have voted to legalize the growth, use and distribution of recreational marijuana within their borders.



Many others, including New Jersey, are earnestly debating whether to follow suit. While there are many issues that need to be thoughtfully considered, any legislation that I would support must include focus on two areas of concern.



Specifically, our state must protect the still-fledgling medical cannabis industry. Under Gov. Phil Murphy's leadership, more than 1,000 patients per month who had been unable to qualify for the program now enjoy an improved quality of life through the medicinal properties of cannabis.

[enhanced link]



The University of California Agricultural Issue Center reported revenue from the sale of medical marijuana dropped from $2 billion in 2016 to $1.4 billion the next year. The temptation of a medicinal patient to "self-medicate" will impact upon appropriate dosages and medical professional tracking, and will have a chilling effect on investment in medical research to expand our level of knowledge on how treatment and palliative care may be improved.



As such, any establishment of a legal recreational structure should operate in a fashion so as to subsidize the continued existence of the medical product marketplace. Exemption from taxation on the medical front or price supports may also be necessary.



In addition, it is significant that the deposits of investors into the accounts of recreational dispensaries must be made via the creation of a strong, independent New Jersey bank.



Because the federal government designates marijuana as a Class I drug, national banks cannot offer loans or financing to cannabis businesses. Moreover, they cannot serve as repositories for the millions of dollars that will be generated by the industry.





Cash exchanges are too much of a temptation to avoid taxes and attract bad actors. A state bank, exempted from federal oversight, could overcome this regulatory obstacle and, through an institution whose mission is to create an independent record of the financial exchanges, be in a position to provide loans that stimulate small-business activity.



As my colleagues in the Legislature proceed diligently in the creation of rules and regulations to rectify social justice and health safety concerns, we must support the medical networks and be as assured of a reliable financial system as the bulwark to the industry.



Assemblyman John F. McKeon, D-Essex, is the chair of the Assembly Financial Institutions and Insurance Committee.

Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook.By Steven Adler

It has been 27 years since the Clarence Thomas hearings. This time around, however, to quote the rock group The Who, "We won't get fooled again."

The public should not be under the false pretense that the Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee are in search for the truth with regard to the fitness of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to hold the most coveted legal position in our country.

The upcoming hearing is about one thing, and one thing only, raw politics. The conservatives want control of the Supreme Court regardless of how they gain it.

Times are different now compared to when Clarence Thomas went through this same process. Anita Hill's credibility was attacked because she hadn't complained at the time Thomas allegedly harassed her.

The Republicans have indicated they intend to go after Dr. Christine Blasey Ford the same way.

They will question whether she truly was sexually assaulted since she waited more than 30 years to come forward. This time, however, the Republicans' tactic likely will not work even if Ford cannot recall various details from all of those years ago.

The public now understands that there are various, legitimate explanations why women often don't come forward to complain, whether it is embarrassment, fear of disbelief, not wanting to be put through the ordeal of a legal proceeding, concern about social or professional retaliation or other understandable reasons.

According to a 2016 task force study by the U.S. Equal Opportunity Commission, roughly 75 percent of individuals who experience harassment fail to report the behavior or file a claim.

The #MeToo movement also has made this clear considering that many actresses never came forward to complain at the time despite the egregious behavior of their assailants. Recently, a number of companies also have fired senior executives even though the accusations of sexual harassment or assault dated back many years. This trend of promptly firing even those at the very top of an organization by companies' boards of directors based upon alleged conduct from years ago is a new phenomenon in the private sector.

The Republicans have painted themselves into a corner by plowing ahead without even the pretext of a fair hearing.

Nowhere but in politics will you see a member of a committee charged with conducting a good faith investigation of an applicant's qualifications for office admit, before the hearing even begins, that he doesn't believe a witness who has yet to testify. Yet a number of members of the Senate Judiciary Committee claim they have done so solely because the victim hadn't come forward sooner.

At least in the Clarence Thomas hearing, the FBI investigated the allegations. Here, the Senate Judiciary Committee has not asked the FBI, which it oversees, to become involved even though the accusers would be exposed to criminal prosecution if they weren't truthful as part of such an investigation.

Without an investigation, the Republication members of the Senate Judiciary Committee will be left with a "he said, she said" affair and they will be limited to arguing Ford isn't credible because she didn't complain years ago when she was just a young teenager.

It is highly doubtful that their tactic will fly. We, the people, are now much more enlightened about sexual harassment and assault. As in civil lawsuits -- where management-side attorneys often argue unsuccessfully that harassment must not have occurred because the alleged victim didn't timely file a complaint with Human Resources as required by company policy -- it likely will not work here.

Do not misinterpret my point. I have not reached a decision, prior to Judge Kavanaugh and Professor Ford testifying, concerning who is telling the truth. That would be hypocritical.

Rather, the full Judiciary Committee should only consider Kavanaugh, or any other nominee, after a thorough investigation and not just based upon party politics.

Steven Adler, of Tenafly, co-chairs the Employment Law Department at Mandelbaum Salsburg in Roseland. The opinions expressed herein are solely his own.

Bookmark NJ.com/Opinion. Follow on Twitter @NJ_Opinion and find NJ.com Opinion on Facebook.A Superior Court judge in Passaic County has been removed from office by the state Supreme Court, which determined she had interfered in a custody dispute and then lied about it.

The Supreme Court's order came after Judge Liliana DeAvila-Silebi decided not to fight the recommendation of a three-judge panel appointed by the court.

The panel had recommended DeAvila-Silebli be removed from office after its investigation found she had misused her position to intervene in a custody dispute involving a former intern.

A May 9, 2015, phone call placed by the judge to the Fort Lee Police Department had prompted officers to retrieve the intern's child from his grandmother and transfer her to the woman's custody, after the judge claimed the former intern had a court order supporting her custody rights that weekend.

No such order existed.

Testifying before the Advisory Committee on Judicial Conduct, the panel's report said, DeAvila-Silebi claimed she had received a call earlier that morning from "either an attorney, a sheriff's department or the prosecutor's office or a local police department," claiming the caller had read the order to her over the phone.

That call, the panel found, had been placed from the former intern's cellphone number.

When asked for her phone records from that day, the panel said, the judge provided a list of calls that had been cropped to conceal whether the calls were incoming or outgoing.

The judge also claimed she was on emergency duty in Bergen County at the time of the calls, the panel said, when she had in fact recently been reassigned to the court's Passaic County branch.

"We are compelled to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that respondent's continued deceitful conduct justifies her removal from office," the panel said.

DeAvila-Silebi's attorney could not immediately be reached for comment Wednesday afternoon.

Thomas Moriarty may be reached at tmoriarty@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ThomasDMoriarty. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

Have a tip? Tell us. nj.com/tipsWASHINGTON -- Hillary Clinton will help embattled U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez raise money for his re-election next month, a campaign spokesman said Tuesday.

Clinton will be the featured guest at an event raising money for Menendez, his leadership political action committee, and the New Jersey State Democratic Committee. at the Liberty Prime Steakhouse in Jersey City on Oct. 15. Tickets range from $500 to $5,400, according to an invitation posted on Twitter.

The fundraising dinner chairs include two unsuccessful Democratic congressional candidates, Lisa Mandelblatt and Linda Weber.

Menendez, D-N.J., supported Clinton's presidential campaigns in both 2008 and 2016, against her Democratic primary opponents. In endorsing Clinton shortly before the June 2016 New Jersey primary, he called her opponent, Donald Trump, "an unmitigated disaster."

"She knows what's at stake in this election and knows that New Jersey needs to send Senator Menendez back to Washington," Menendez campaign spokesman Steven Sandberg said.

His Republican challenger, former Celgene Corp. executive Bob Hugin, was a big financial supporter of Trump. He donated the maximum $5,400 to Trump's campaign and gave an additional $233,200 to the Republican National Committee in support of the president, according to Federal Election Commission records.

Hugin has lent his campaign $15.5 million of his own money through June 30, giving him a financial advantage over Menendez, $16.7 million to $9 million. Menendez's fundraising started off slow as he faced a trial over federal corruption charges and then was "severely admonished" by the Senate Ethics Committee.

Well this is interesting: @HillaryClinton doing a fundraiser for @BobMenendezNJ at Liberty Steakhouse in mid October.



From $500 to $5,400 per person pic.twitter.com/p6doDgMn8p  Nick Corasaniti (@NYTnickc) September 25, 2018

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 city that plays hosts to government offices and New Jersey's Statehouse could get a boost from Gov. Phil Murphy's administration.

At least, that's the hope.

Murphy on Wednesday signed an executive order that teams state government up with Trenton to help revitalize the city, the governor's office announced.

It established the New Jersey State Capital Partnership. The group will act as an advisory board, according to the executive order.

The state will, among other things, review Trenton's masterplan to with the aim of "identifying funding and resources to implement" the initiatives, create a redevelopment "action plan" and support public safety initiatives.

"Trenton played a pivotal role in the fate of our state and nation and yet for years it has not received the rightful level of support and attention it deserves," Murphy said in a statement.

"Today, I am directing agencies within the executive branch to throw their support behind Trenton and work in partnership with Mayor Gusciora and Mercer County officials to help our capital city realize its true potential," he said. "I am confident that under Trenton's new leadership we can restore the vibrancy of our capital and secure its place as a leader in today's innovation economy."

Reed Gusciora, who was elected mayor earlier this year, is a former state assemblyman.

He called the initiative "a true partnership between the capital city and the state."

"In the past, one side or the other may have been striving for this collaborative approach," he said. "But rarely have two administrations been on the same page as much as myself and Gov. Murphy."

Trenton, the city in the shadow of the Statehouse, has stagnated for decades, plagued by poverty, high crime and an unstable economic base.

Matt Arco may be reached at marco@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MatthewArco or Facebook.It'll get personal Thursday between U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and some New Jersey state lawmakers.

At the same a psychology professor from California will sit before Washington lawmakers to accuse President Donald Trump's pick for the nation's high court of sexual assault, our state's Democrat-controlled Legislature will send its own message to Kavanaugh: Your nomination should be revoked.

"We don't want Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court," state Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg, D-Bergen, said Wednesday.

The rebuke of Kavanaugh comes in the way of a resolution that will voted on the floors of the state Senate and Assembly Thursday -- just hours after Kavanaugh and his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, are slated to giver testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The resolution isn't about Kavanaugh specifically. Instead, it urges the president and Congress to "reject Supreme Court nominees who would impose new limits on reproductive freedom."

However, the measure specifically calls out Kavanaugh.

Kavanaugh, who's currently a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals, "has a history of ruling to impose and uphold limits on a woman's ability to access safe and legal abortion, and his potential appointment to the Supreme Court therefore poses a serious threat to women's reproductive rights," the resolution reads.

It adds: "This house respectfully calls upon the Congress and the president of the United States to reject or revoke the nomination."

New Jersey Republican lawmakers will all but certainly oppose the resolution. But the Democrat-controlled chambers ensure its likely approval.

"It is obvious that New Jersey is a pro-choice state," Weinberg said.

If the Supreme Court overturns or weakens the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that established a nationwide right to abortion, the procedure could be immediately outlawed in about two-dozen states.

While that list doesn't include New Jersey, Weinberg said she shudders to think how it would harm countless numbers of women across the nation.

"I can go back to when I was in high school," Weinberg, 83, who grew up in southern California, recalled. "A girl 'in trouble' took a trip to Tijuana."

In other words, women would get abortions. But they wouldn't be safe, Weinberg argued.

Ford claims Kavanaugh covered her mouth and tried to remove her clothing at a high school party.

A second woman, Deborah Ramirez, has said Kavanaugh exposed himself to her when he was in college. Ramirez claimed that Kavanaugh exposed himself at a drunken dormitory party, thrust his penis in her face, and caused her to touch it without her consent as she pushed him away.

And on Wednesday, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee said it is reviewing allegations of sexual misconduct made by a third woman. Attorney Michael Avenatti provided a statement from his client to the committee.

According to a document Avenatti posted on Twitter, the woman alleges she witnessed Kavanaugh "consistently engage in excessive drinking and inappropriate contact of a sexual nature with women in the early 1980s."

Avenatti, however, has yet to provide additional details.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Matt Arco may be reached at marco@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MatthewArco or Facebook.Life is turning around for the homeless man who was shamed for shaving on an NJ Transit train earlier this month, with job interview offers and a Go-Fund Me campaign started to help him get on his feet.

Anthony Torres told the Washington Post that he currently can't work because of a past work related injury and medical conditions, but that he is heartened by the potential offers.

One of those interview offers, Torres told the Washington Post, is from the agency that runs the trains that he rode during his embarrassing shave, NJ Transit.

Spokeswoman Nancy Snyder couldn't confirm the offer or position because NJ Transit "doesn't comment on prospective employees."

Torres plight came to the public eye after he was caught shaving on a moving NJ Transit Northeast Corridor line train using shaving cream and a old-school razor. The video was posted on Twitter, got three million hits and comments that ranged from mocking to from amazement about his shaving skill.

"I feel so happy. I feel like a new man," Torres said about the change in his plight.

Public derision that left Torres scared to ride a train again turned to charity.

A GoFundMe page set up to help Torres topped its $35,000 goal and was at $41,675 on Wednesday morning. The fund raiser was started by Jordan Uhl of Washington D.C. who felt compassion after hearing Torres story.

Torres, 56, had just left a New York City homeless shelter and was headed to Atco in Camden County to the home of his brother, Thomas, when he was filmed shaving on the train on September 14. According to Uhl, Torres was jumped and robbed on the morning of the video as well.

Torres told the Associated Press the reason he was shaving on the train because he wanted to clean up before seeing his family.

Torres and his four brothers grew up poor on a farm in Hammonton, according to The Associated Press, and he worked several jobs including casino security guard as well as construction, moving to wherever he could find work, even going as far as Florida, and has spent time living in motels and sleeping in bus depots.

He told the Washington Post that he is happy for the help.

"Now people know the real story," he said.

Larry Higgs may be reached at lhiggs@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @commutinglarry. Find NJ.com on Facebook.Louisiana lawmakers are trying a new approach to determine how much the state will spend on Medicaid services each year, as the program has ballooned to more than one-third of the state's budget and added hundreds of thousands of people during theIn a program called Hello Nordics that is launched today, we will support innovative social entrepreneurs with creative and impactful solutions for tackling integration in the Nordics, with focus on social and financial inclusion of those marginalized in society.

Our customers, employees and communities are urgently calling for Nordic corporations to take the lead in modelling behaviours that contribute to society and leverage their scale for a greater good. Being the biggest bank in the region we want to actively contribute towards the wellbeing of society at large, says Nordea Group CEO Casper von Koskull.

Ten social entrepreneurs have been selected  two each from Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden and two international  with different approaches to fostering integration and inclusion. During the next six months they will participate in an accelerator with the aim to significantly scale up their activities, primarily by entering one or several Nordic countries outside their origin.

As main partner Nordea will support the entrepreneurs with our employees expertise wherever needed, co-facilitate the modules during the program and host the final event.

Hello Nordics is the first program of this kind in the Nordic region, says Erik Feldt, Head of Community Engagement in Nordea. Through this we seek to engage both customers and employees in a unique opportunity to have a positive impact on society.

The accelerator looks for system changing solutions that can address the root cause of a problem in a systemic way by involving policy makers, lawmakers, communities and target groups. Examples of Ashoka fellows with systemic change solutions are Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and Nobel Peace Prize winner Kailash Satyarti who has created a global movement against child labour.

Ashokas ambition is to create positive systemic change in society. With this partnership we bring together Nordeas know-how, networks and expert employees with Ashokas experience, network of social entrepreneurs and innovative approach to support proven and impactful innovations to scale across the Nordic region, says Emma Lindgren, head of Ashoka in Sweden and part of the Ashoka Nordic team.

Acando, Oliver Wyman and Vinge are also partners in the Hello Nordics program which will run until February 2019. To read more about the selected entrepreneurs and Hello Nordics click the link below:

http://www.hello-europe.eu/nordics/

For further information:

Erik Feldt, Head of Community Engagement, +46 733-57 71 10

Afroditi Kellberg, Chief Press Officer Sweden, +46-733-50 55 99

DocumentsNordea Bank AB (publ) and Nordea Bank Abp have decided to execute the re-domiciliation of the parent company to Finland, a member state of the European banking union. The re-domiciliation will take effect on 1 October 2018.

Nordea Bank AB (publ) and Nordea Bank Abp have today decided to execute the merger plan, and consequently to carry out the re-domiciliation of the parent company of the Nordea Group to Finland with effect as of 1 October 2018. The decisions are based on the Nordea Group having obtained all relevant material approvals needed for the execution of the merger.

Domiciling in a country that is participating in the banking union is the best way to secure a fair, stable and predictable regulatory environment for Nordea on a par with its peers.

The re-domiciliation is expected by Nordea to promote the interests of customers, shareholders and employees. Nordea will continue to be a trusted partner that aims to offer its customers the best service in the market anytime, anywhere, and no changes in the day-to-day operations are expected from a customer perspective.

All banking business is carried out by Nordea Bank AB (publ) up until 30 September 2018. As from 1 October 2018 it will be carried out by Nordea Bank Abp.

For further information:

Afroditi Kellberg, Chief Press Officer, Sweden, +46 73 350 5599

DocumentsTo hear the entire podcast of the interview from Sept. 17, 2018, log on to www.541radio.com and go to KQEN podcast.Isa Genzken, the prolific and elusive German artist, has won the 2019 Nasher Prize, which honors excellence in sculpture and comes with $100,000.

For four decades, Ms. Genzken has drawn praise for her exploration of many aesthetics and mediums, including video, photography and collages. Her perceptive architectural installations and their historical themes, including reconstruction in Germany and the War on Terror, have made her one of the leading artists of the postwar era.

Her works have been featured at major institutions and exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale, Documenta in Germany and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. In 2013, the Museum of Modern Art presented a survey of her sculptures; Roberta Smith wrote in her New York Times review that the exhibit makes the museum feel alive and part of the art world, rather than a tourist destination.The CBS Corporation on Tuesday named Richard Parsons, a longtime business and media executive, as interim chairman of the board of directors  the latest move in a continuing shake-up during what has been a turbulent few months for the company.

Mr. Parsons, the former chairman of both Time Warner and Citigroup, replaces Leslie Moonves, who was the companys longtime chief executive and the boards chairman. Earlier this month, the CBS Corporation negotiated Mr. Moonvess departure after new sexual harassment allegations emerged against him. As part of the same deal, the board also installed six new directors, swelling its size to 13.

Mr. Parsons had been nominated to become a director earlier this year, and he officially joined as one of the six new board members earlier this month. He was unanimously approved by the CBS board, the company said in a statement, which also announced that two other board members are stepping down.

Dick Parsons has a combination of deep industry knowledge and unmatched corporate and board experience, Candace Beinecke, the chairwoman of CBSs nominating and governance committee said. We are fortunate to have Dick in this leadership role.PARIS  Its official: America has its first global luxury group. Michael Korss purchase of the Italian brand Versace for $2.1 billion vaults the company  to be renamed Capri Holdings, after the Italian island  into the ranks of fashion conglomerates, a rarefied world defined by Kering and LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton.

Everyone is chattering about what the deal might or might not do for growth, for taking advantage of the Asian market, for back-room synergies and so forth. In his announcement on Tuesday, John D. Idol, chief executive of Kors, called it a milestone.

He was right, and not just in terms of Kors but in terms of the fashion and luxury industry itself.

There are implications that go beyond the purely financial to the root of luxury identity and the international fashion world. And they have the potential to be as disruptive, and formative, as any revenue stream. They speak to national pride, and to luxurys sense of its own history.

And that is why, even as analysts muse over the stock price implications, consumers have taken to Donatella Versaces Instagram feed to voice their fears and horror about what it could mean, with comments such as: donatella why would you sell versace? its an iconic ITALIAN brand. im a pround italian, why would you sell it to an american brand?Frances Edelstein, a Holocaust survivor whose potato latkes, matzo ball soup and blintzes brought cholesterol-loving pilgrims to the Cafe Edison in the theater district of Manhattan for more than 30 years, died on Monday at her home in Manalapan, N.J. She was 92.

Her granddaughter Lindsay Edelstein confirmed the death.

With her husband, Harry  a childhood friend who had fled German invaders with her in their native Poland  Mrs. Edelstein turned the former ballroom at the Hotel Edison on West 47th Street into a hangout for actors, directors, playwrights and producers and a not-so-fancy eatery for tourists craving a heavy nosh (and a celebrity spotting).

Mrs. Edelstein was often in the kitchen of what was called the Polish Tea Room  a poke at the upscale Russian Tea Room  cooking from her recipes or making sure her chefs did not veer from her instructions.

You eat this, youll be happy all day, she told The Daily News in 1996 as she ladled two big matzo balls into a bowl of soup. Thats why they come here. You think its because they like me?Donald Trump campaigned for the presidency claiming the world is laughing at us. Now it really is laughing  at him.

Apparently mistaking the United Nations General Assembly for a campaign stop on Tuesday, Mr. Trump opened his annual address  usually a somber occasion for a president to assess the state of the world  by boasting that his administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country.

Thats when the other world leaders started chuckling.

Didnt expect that reaction, Mr. Trump said, like a comic in a roomful of hecklers, but thats O.K.

Actually, its not O.K. Americas president is now openly derided in the most important international forum.When Kam Tam came to the United States at age 16 from China 50 years ago, he spoke little English, had a mouthful of rotten teeth and active tuberculosis, and weighed just 96 pounds. Through perseverance and a little help, he got his health back in order. The providers at his publicly funded community health center in San Francisco pulled four molars and cured his tuberculosis.

It was the character instilled by his parents that got him through college and pharmacy school, Dr. Tam said. Today, he is a successful businessman and pharmacist who has repaid society for the support he and his family received. He continues to generously give back by donating his professional services and financial resources to vulnerable families in Oakland.

Yet under a rule proposed last week by the Department of Homeland Security, legal immigrants could lose their chance to become a success story like Dr. Tam because they used government benefits they were entitled to. The Trump administration wants lawful permanent residence, also known as green-card status, to be denied to greater numbers of legal immigrants for having received public assistance.

A more narrow version of this rule has been in place for years. Currently, immigrants can be refused green cards if they are deemed to rely on government cash assistance for more than half their income. But the Trump administration has proposed expanding the scope of the rule to potentially deny green cards to immigrants who have used any of a much wider range of non-cash public benefits.SAN FRANCISCO  In a companywide meeting earlier this year, Mark Zuckerberg was asked if Instagram could have hit one billion users if it had not been bought by Facebook.

Probably not, he said. At least, not as quickly.

But at a later meeting a mile or so down the road at Instagrams headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., a few streets, interestingly enough, off a thoroughfare called Independence Drive, the popular photo-sharing apps co-founders, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, had a slightly different answer to that question.

Perhaps. Eventually.

We will never know who was right. But we will know soon enough what Instagram will be like without its co-founders. On Monday evening, Mr. Systrom, Instagrams chief executive, and Mr. Krieger, its chief technology officer, abruptly announced they would leave the company, though they did not give a specific date.

No one thing led to their decision to part ways with Facebook, which acquired Instagram for $1 billion in 2012. But little things added up over time: disagreements over tweaks to their product, staffing changes and how over the last year Mr. Zuckerberg asserted more control over their business, which had essentially operated independently inside Facebook.Is it chance or synchronicity that brings Bernhardt/Hamlet, a muscular comedy about a woman unbound, to Broadway at this grim transitional moment in gender politics?

Either way, Theresa Rebecks new play, which opened on Tuesday at the American Airlines Theater, is so clever it uplifts, so timely it hurts.

Thats a depressing thing to say about a story set in 1899 in that temple of chauvinism, the French popular theater. Janet McTeer stars as Sarah Bernhardt, then in her mid-50s and aging out of the dying courtesan roles that made her world-famous. As far as Shakespeare is concerned, she is caught in the gap between Ophelia and Gertrude.

So why not try Hamlet?

Enter the men: Edmond Rostand (Jason Butler Harner), one of Frances greatest young dramatists; Alphonse Mucha (Matthew Saldivar), the Art Nouveau illustrator of Bernhardts gorgeous posters; and Louis (Tony Carlin), a critic so parsimonious with praise I suppose its only fair that hes given no surname.After Bill Cosby was sentenced to prison on Tuesday, his defense team made fiery accusations of racism and sexism in statements outside the courthouse, framing their clients downfall as an unjust product of the #MeToo era.

Speaking under an umbrella in pouring rain, Mr. Cosbys publicist, Andrew Wyatt, said his clients defeat was part of the sex war happening in Washington, comparing it to accusations of sexual misconduct against Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh that are roiling the capital.

Mr. Wyatt said that Mr. Cosby, once a beloved actor and comedian, had endured the most racist and sexist trial in the countrys history.

On Tuesday, Mr. Cosby, 81, was sentenced to three to 10 years in prison for drugging and sexually assaulting a woman, Andrea Constand, at his home outside Philadelphia in 2004. Judge Steven T. ONeill also ruled that Mr. Cosby qualified as a sexually violent predator under state law.OXFORD, Miss.  The first time Howard Kirschenbaum registered voters in Mississippi was during the summer of 1964, when he was arrested and thrown in jail. The second time was on Tuesday, after returning to the Southern state more than a half-century later to support a new generation of voting rights activists.

In the quiet of a rainy morning, Mr. Kirschenbaum helped to register students on the campus of the University of Mississippi, and before long, he was in tears. Memories of Freedom Summer 1964, the historic campaign to register African-American voters in Mississippi, came rushing back.

In that moment, there must have been five or six students, all waiting patiently to fill out the registration form, said Mr. Kirschenbaum, 73, recalling the summer he spent in Moss Point, Miss., 54 years ago. I am witnessing this moment. They want to vote. They are able to vote. The connection between then and now was so palpable. This is what we worked for all those years ago.

Four veteran volunteers of Freedom Summer, now in their 70s and mostly retired, returned to the state this week to join a nonpartisan youth group, Mississippi Votes, for a voter registration campaign called Up2Us. Young and old, two full generations apart, gathered at a Jackson church, in nearby neighborhoods, on the balcony of an Oxford bookstore to talk about the perils and stakes of voter activism, then and now.WASHINGTON  A United States Army reservist from China was arrested Tuesday on allegations of secretly providing information about American defense contractor employees to a Chinese intelligence officer, law enforcement officials said. The Chinese government was trying to recruit them as informants, they said.

The suspect, Ji Chaoqun, 27, was arrested in Chicago, where he attended graduate school before joining the Army Reserves, and charged with violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA.

Mr. Jis handler at a regional arm of Chinas Ministry of State Security, which collects domestic and foreign intelligence, was also arrested, according to an F.B.I. affidavit. The officer, identified only as Intelligence Officer A, was arrested sometime before April. It is not clear where he was arrested or by whom.

An F.B.I. arrest of a Chinese intelligence officer would send a strong signal to China that American counterintelligence agents are keenly focused on its activities in the United States. Such an arrest would also be an embarrassment to Chinese intelligence, revealing sloppy tradecraft and exposing operations in the United States.Just before he died, Governor Onaga announced that he would rescind his predecessors approval to use landfill in the construction of the runway, the latest in a series of legal maneuvers he used to thwart the bases relocation.

Miwako Aragaki, a clerk at a grocery store in town, said she voted for Mr. Onaga four years ago because of his opposition to the new base and would vote for Mr. Tamaki this time.

During the campaign, American military officials are trying to remain as invisible as we can humanly be, said Lt. Gen. Eric M. Smith, the commander of the Third Marine Expeditionary Force on Okinawa.

In an interview in his office overlooking an expanse of ocean about 20 miles south of Henoko, General Smith said it would be up to Okinawa to negotiate with Tokyo over the location of any new bases.

That is really an internal question for the government of Japan, he said.

On the campaign trail, Mr. Sakima has steadfastly avoided talking directly about the American bases, focusing instead on the economy. At a campaign event in Yonabaru on the southern end of the island on Tuesday night, Mr. Sakima touted his work to reduce school lunch fees and medical costs as mayor of Ginowan.

Ryogo Okuhira, 31, a construction worker who attended the campaign event, said he liked Mr. Sakimas focus on the economy and was skeptical that Mr. Tamaki would lure new businesses to Okinawa if he was preoccupied with the fate of the military base.

Reality is more important than ideals, Mr. Okuhira said.BERLIN  A close ally of Chancellor Angela Merkel was ousted Tuesday as head of her conservative blocs parliamentary group, a surprise defeat that dealt a blow to the longtime German leaders authority in her own ranks.

Volker Kauder, who had led the parliamentary group of Merkels Union bloc since she became chancellor in 2005, was defeated by Ralph Brinkhaus  a budget policy expert who had been one of his deputies.

The vote followed a wobbly start to Merkels fourth government, a coalition of the Union and the center-left Social Democrats that has squabbled persistently since it took office in March. It came a year after the conservatives lost significant support in an election that saw the far-right Alternative for Germany enter Parliament.

Mr. Kauder had been widely expected to prevail in Tuesdays vote of lawmakers from Merkels Christian Democratic Union and its Bavaria-only sister party, the Christian Social Union. But he was defeated 125 to 112 margin, with two abstentions.The Trump administration issued a stark warning to the United States closest European allies on Tuesday, promising to sharply penalize European governments or companies that continue to do business with Iran.

We do not intend to allow our sanctions to be evaded by Europe or anybody else, John R. Bolton, the national security adviser, said in a speech Tuesday at a forum sponsored by a group intensely critical of the Iran nuclear accord.

Mr. Bolton promised terrible consequences for anyone who continues to do business with Iran after Nov. 4, the day the United States will reinstate the remaining sanctions it had lifted under the deal.

Many European countries, including Britain, France and Germany, have announced their intention to continue doing business with Iran. The European Union has passed a law forbidding European companies from complying with American sanctions.UNITED NATIONS  They laughed.

Not even a minute into the speech. They laughed.

On the planets biggest stage, with more than 100 world leaders gathered with their ministers, ambassadors and dignitaries of every stripe, while news cameras from as many countries broadcast the speech in as many languages, they laughed.

President Trump seemed surprised when he heard it. Attendees of the United Nations General Assembly, normally a scripted annual gathering of presidents, prime ministers and wizened diplomats, do not typically break decorum, let alone laugh at the most powerful man in the room.

[The president doubled down on his America First foreign policy.]

But there it was, soon after Mr. Trump commenced his highly anticipated speech on Tuesday, as he bragged about how much his administration had accomplished in two years, more than almost any administration in the history of our country.

For Mr. Trump it was little more than a minor boast, a well-worn line trotted out frequently at rallies with ardent supporters across America that rarely warrants special mention anymore. But for some reason, at the United Nations on Tuesday, it resonated.In 1842, a prosperous clothing salesman named Lazarus Morgenthau recorded memories of his impoverished, nomadic childhood in the territories that later became modern-day Germany. Mr. Morgenthau, then 27, used a small brown notebook to record begging for food, barely attending school and apprenticing with cruel bosses. He wanted his relatives to understand their humble origins, he wrote, so that neither pride nor arrogance may gain a foothold in my family.

On Wednesday, his great-grandson Robert M. Morgenthau, 99, the district attorney in Manhattan from 1975 to 2009, donated the document to the Leo Baeck Institute at the Center for Jewish History in New York after recently unearthing it in his files.

In 1866, Lazarus Morgenthau packed the memoir into his luggage when his family moved to New York. In 1933, one of his granddaughters, Louise Heidelberg, published a translated and edited version of the notebooks contents along with a biographical sketch of her forebear. In America, she wrote, he prospered in various businesses and supported charities while gradually growing estranged from his wife, Babette, and other family members, because of his eccentricities and his violent temper.

Robert Morgenthau said he remembers hearing relatives stories about his ancestor, who had great trouble adapting to life in the United States.What is the significance of Robert Blackburn in your life?

I wouldnt be doing any of this if it werent for him. I was training to be an artist. He gave me opportunities to see how real artists work, to work with real artists and actually, ultimately, to work with his Printmaking Workshop collection, which is why I decided to be a curator. He just framed my whole way of being in the world. He was so welcoming. He was always trying to put people together.

Which piece is your favorite?

This is a Rafael Ferrer paper bag. I worked with Rafael and his wife on a retrospective of his when I was at El Museo del Barrio. They kept on trying to give gifts. Curators arent supposed to accept gifts, especially when theyre working on a show. Finally, after, like, 10 years, he mailed it to my house. I do have to confess, I kept it. He did this series where he did faces on paper bags.

If there were hundreds of them, what was the significance of this piece?

He chose to give it to me, so I like to think theres a special significance. I always think of his mischievous sense of humor when I look at that because its sort of like the face is looking to the side. If you took it out of the frame and you opened it, you could put it over your own head.When Murphy Brown (Candice Bergen) walks back into Phils Bar (now run by Tyne Daly as Phils sister, Phyllis), the studio audience applauds. Why wouldnt they? The original Murphy Brown was a cultural milestone, and Ms. Bergens acid performance as a brilliant, abrasive TV journalist was a classic of the form.

In another episode, Murphys old colleague Jim Dial (Charles Kimbrough) tells her not to give in to pressure to interview the white nationalist blowhard Ed Shannon (David Costabile, wearing multiple shirts lest you miss the Steve Bannon rhyme). You dont have to give equal time to someone who claims Tom Hanks is running a shadow government, Jim says. Again, the audience applauds.

Later, Murphy runs into Shannon at the bar, and immolates him in an argument, telling him that hes going to end up a sad, sad, sad, sad dinosaur who went extinct.

The audience applauds, and applauds again.

You see the pattern. The revival, beginning Thursday on CBS, is feisty and eager to meet the Trumpian moment. But its become the kind of sitcom that prefers applause to laughs. (Or at least it goes for clapter, the kind of laughs audiences award like merit badges for validating their beliefs.)Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown of the previous nights highlights that lets you sleep  and lets us get paid to watch comedy. If youre interested in hearing from The Times regularly about great TV, sign up for our Watching newsletter and get recommendations straight to your inbox.

I Did Not Expect That Reaction

President Trump has often vowed to restore the United States international reputation, complaining in speeches that the world is laughing at us. On Tuesday, his fears became reality.

Speaking at the United Nations General Assembly, Trump boasted that his administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country. But world leaders around the room tittered at him, causing the rattled president to admit, I did not expect that reaction, but thats O.K. President Trump takes another swipe at China.

In opening remarks to the U.N. Security Council, Mr. Trump accused China of meddling with U.S. midterm elections. He provided no evidence, but the president has previously criticized Chinas retaliatory tariffs aimed at industries in politically crucial states. They do not want me or us to win, because I am the first president to ever challenge China on trade, Mr. Trump said. He also attacked Iran in his speech, calling it the worlds leading sponsor of terror.

Cutting a very different figure is Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand, whose youth, progressive politics and 3-month-old baby have grabbed the worlds attention. She will be speaking at the U.N. today.

PS: The 15-member Security Council is the U.N.s most important arm, with the power to impose sanctions and authorize military interventions. Heres more about what the U.N. actually does and how it works.A key senator is wavering on the nomination, and the president could lose his chance to put another conservative judge on the Supreme Court.

In Pennsylvania, Bill Cosby was sentenced to three to 10 years in prison for sexual assault, completing the precipitous downfall of the actor once known as Americas dad.

Meanwhile, the American actor Jimmy Bennett sat for a TV interview in Italy about his allegations that he was raped by the actress and former #MeToo figure Asia Argento. He faced skepticism from the TV presenter.

And we explored how trauma and time can alter significant memories.

In Opinion: Padma Lakshmi, the author, actress and model, writes that she was raped when she was 16  and she explains why she didnt speak out about it until now.

_____The next wave of cellular technology, known as 5G, will roll out on a timeline and budget determined by the federal government, not local officials, the Federal Communications Commission decided on Wednesday.

The new rules, which were backed by telecom companies but widely opposed by mayors, are meant to speed up the installation of 5G equipment, which delivers wireless internet at speeds far faster than the current standard.

In the global race to 5G, the stakes are high  it is about economic leadership for the next decade, Brendan Carr, the commissioner who led the push to pass the rules, said in a statement.Over the past six years, 110 villages in Africa and Asia received their power from solar panels and batteries that use zinc and oxygen. The batteries are the basis of an innovative energy storage system created by NantEnergy, a company owned by Patrick Soon-Shiong, a biotech entrepreneur and surgeon originally from South Africa.

Thomas Edison tried to develop batteries made with zinc 100 years ago. But he did not figure out how to make them technologically viable. NantEnergy says its zinc air batteries are the first to become commercially available.

Scientists at NantEnergy said they had achieved two key goals: to make the batteries rechargeable, and to lower their cost for energy storage to $100 per kilowatt-hour. That is a figure that some people in the industry have said is essential to creating a carbon-free electric grid that operates even when the sun is down and the wind abates.

Zinc air batteries are one of several potential alternatives to lithium-ion batteries, which have been the focus until now for large-scale power storage and electric vehicles.In August, the dispute was resolved. The outcome was surprisingly generous to the owners of those sales-tax bonds. They were offered new bonds that would be valued at either 93 percent or 56 percent of what the old ones originally were worth, depending on the terms of the old bonds. (The amounts that investors in many other bonds will receive havent yet been settled.)

That was a boon for many investors, given that the bonds were trading for as little as 9 percent of their face value as recently as December.

McKinsey owns some of those bonds.

The investments were made through a subsidiary of the consulting firm, MIO Partners. MIO manages roughly $25 billion for McKinseys thousands of employees, alumni and retirees. MIO, in turn, runs three hedge funds  Compass CSS High Yield, Compass ESMA and Compass TSMA  that have reported owning the sales-tax bonds and are seeking $20 million in repayments, according to regulatory filings and bankruptcy claims in San Juans federal court.

Even if all of those $20 million in bonds were redeemed at the lower amount of 56 percent, that would be an $11.2 million payment for McKinsey. The actual amount will probably be bigger. Filings by Compass CSS indicate that it stood to recoup about $10 million of its $16.3 million claim. Compass CSS originally paid $4.5 million for its bonds, the filings show, so the McKinsey-owned hedge fund could more than double its investment.

Mr. Carella, the McKinsey spokesman, said its internal investments were managed by an independent unit, separate from McKinseys consulting operations.

Another McKinsey investment in Puerto Rico appears to be through a company called Whitebox Advisors, which as of 2016 managed about $100 million for McKinseys retirement plans, according to regulatory filings.LONDON  To some people it is just an innocent joke about a man who cant keep his eyes on his own girlfriend.

To others, it is a comment on the interchangeability of women.

Swedens advertising ombudsman, an industry body, has gone with the latter interpretation of a widely shared meme, known as the distracted boyfriend.

In a decision published this week, the organization found that Bahnhof, an internet service provider, had broken its rules against gender discrimination by using the image of a man turning to ogle a passing woman as his girlfriend stares in disbelief.

The image had been widely shared by the time Bahnhof used it in a Facebook post. In 2017 it prompted one Twitter user to write up the back story of the three characters, and turned the models into celebrities of sorts.If youve ever wondered what its like to work at an isolated research station in the high Arctic, weve got some great photographs for you. The images show life at Station Nord, a Danish military outpost in Northern Greenland, and the work of scientists there who measure the thickness of sea ice.

The photographer, Esther Horvath, is no stranger to polar regions. The two trips to Station Nord, this summer and late last winter, were her fifth and sixth to the Arctic. She also has a voyage to Antarctica under her belt.

Ms. Horvath, who studied economics in her native Hungary, had been dabbling in photography for years before deciding in 2012 to come to New York and study the subject. Her first Arctic trip was in 2015, when she documented a United States Coast Guard search-and-rescue operation in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas.Want climate news in your inbox? Sign up here for Climate Fwd:, our email newsletter.

WASHINGTON  The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday placed the head of its Office of Childrens Health Protection on administrative leave, an unusual move that appeared to reflect an effort to minimize the role of the office.

Dr. Ruth Etzel, a pediatrician and epidemiologist who has been a leader in childrens environmental health for 30 years, joined the E.P.A. in 2015 after having served as a senior officer for environmental health research at the World Health Organization. She was placed on administrative leave late Tuesday and asked to hand over her badge, keys and cellphone, according to an E.P.A. official familiar with the decision who was not authorized to discuss the move and who asked not to be identified.

The official said Dr. Etzel was not facing disciplinary action and would continue to receive pay and benefits. No explanation was offered to the staff on Tuesday.

An E.P.A. spokesman, John Konkus, declined to give a reason for the administrative leave.

Four people within the E.P.A. and a dozen or so who work closely with the agency said that Dr. Etzels dismissal was one of several recent developments that have slowed the work of her department, the Office of Childrens Health Protection. Created by President Bill Clinton in 1997, it advises the E.P.A. leadership on the specific health and environmental-protection needs of children, which often leads to tougher or more stringent regulatory standards than those that might be required for adults.PARIS  Under the twinkling lights of the Eiffel Tower at dusk, below a row of 10 towering white palm trees reflected in the black mirror of an infinity pool, in front of rows of gawking onlookers gathered on the steps up to the Trocadero, the first model of the Saint Laurent show appeared  and began to walk on water.

Or, to be fair, to walk through it, but since it was only an inch or so deep, and she was wearing towering platform heels, it looked as if she was walking on it. In a mans black trouser suit, a white shirt undone practically to her navel.

Welcome to the second coming of sex.

Its been out of fashion for awhile now, but Anthony Vaccarello, Saint Laurents creative director, is on what seems like a mission to bring it back.Started in the 1960s by Mr. Moon, the matching practice and blessing ceremony has modified in recent years. Since Mr. Moons death in 2012, his wife, Hak Ja Han Moon, who currently leads the movement, oversees the annual mass blessing in Korea. For those who participate, the cost runs approximately $3,000 per couple and includes fees, travel and rings, as well as hair and makeup for the bride.

Some of the bigger changes came in the years before Mr. Moons death: The Moons passed the responsibility for matching to members themselves, particularly to first-generation parents and senior members of the church, a shift that started in the early 2000s, said Crescentia DeGoede, the director of the Blessing and Family Ministry for the movements United States chapter.

Because there were no specific guidelines in the United States, Ms. DeGoede, who is based in New York, said, In the beginning, people really just tried things out. Families thought about who they knew or would reach out to members of the community, she said. Around 2010, she said, it became apparent that some kind of guideline or support system was needed.

How did it happen? Where did they go through? Where did they meet? What was the process that you went through? said Matthew Learey, Denthew Leareys father, reflecting on questions he asked other parents regarding the matching process. Though the responsibility to match his children didnt come as a total shock  he remembers Mr. Moon talking about the transition  it was still a somewhat nerve-racking thought to reckon with as his son neared adulthood.WASHINGTON  The House and Senate have reached agreement on a big package of measures to address the opioid epidemic. The legislation, backed by leaders of both parties, is a rare bipartisan achievement that lawmakers are eager to have in hand when they go home to campaign for the midterm elections.

The 653-page bill contains a mix of law enforcement and public health measures, including one that aims to block deadly fentanyl from being imported through the mail and one that will allow more nurses to prescribe medication for opioid addiction. Another provision could make it easier for Medicaid recipients to get inpatient care for substance abuse over the next five years.

While there is more work to be done, this bipartisan legislation takes an important step forward and will save lives, a group of Republican and Democratic committee leaders said in a statement.

But addiction experts say that while many of the measures will help incrementally, the investment remains meager and scattershot compared with what is needed, and with what the government spent to stem the tide of AIDS-related deaths in the 1990s.How did our election system get so vulnerable, and why havent officials tried harder to fix it? The answer, ultimately, comes down to politics and money: The voting machines are made by well-connected private companies that wield immense control over their proprietary software, often fighting vigorously in court to prevent anyone from examining it when things go awry. In Ohio in 2004, for example, where John Kerry lost the presidential race following numerous election irregularities, Kerrys team was denied access to the voting-machine software. We were told by the court that you were not able to get that algorithm to check it, because it was proprietary information, Kerry recalled in a recent interview on WNYCs Brian Lehrer Show. He was understandably rueful, arguing how wrong it was that elections are held under the purview of privately owned machines, where the public doesnt have the right to know whether the algorithm has been checked or whether theyre hackable or not. And we now know they are hackable.

The ballot box is the foundation of any democracy. Its not too grand to say that if theres a failure in the ballot box, then democracy fails. If the people dont have confidence in the outcome of an election, then it becomes difficult for them to accept the policies and actions that pour forth from it. And in the United States, its safe to say, though few may utter it publicly, that the ballot box has failed many times and is poised to fail again.

There are roughly 350,000 voting machines in use in the country today, all of which fall into one of two categories: optical-scan machines or direct-recording electronic machines. Each of them suffers from significant security problems.

With optical-scan machines, voters fill out paper ballots and feed them into a scanner, which stores a digital image of the ballot and records the votes on a removable memory card. The paper ballot, in theory, provides an audit trail that can be used to verify digital tallies. But not all states perform audits, and many that do simply run the paper ballots through a scanner a second time. Fewer than half the states do manual audits, and they typically examine ballots from randomly chosen precincts in a county, instead of a percentage of ballots from all precincts. If the randomly chosen precincts arent ones where hacking occurred or where machines failed to accurately record votes, an audit wont reveal anything  nor will it always catch problems with early-voting, overseas or absentee ballots, all of which are often scanned in county election offices, not in precincts.

Direct-recording electronic machines, or D.R.E.s, present even more auditing problems. Voters use touch screens or other input devices to make selections on digital-only ballots, and votes are stored electronically. Many D.R.E.s have printers that produce whats known as a voter-verifiable paper audit trail  a scroll of paper, behind a window, that voters can review before casting their ballots. But the paper trail doesnt provide the same integrity as full-size ballots and optical-scan machines, because a hacker could conceivably rig the machine to print a voters selections correctly on the paper while recording something else on the memory card. About 80 percent of voters today cast ballots either on D.R.E.s that produce a paper trail or on scanned paper ballots. But five states still use paperless D.R.E.s exclusively, and an additional 10 states use paperless D.R.E.s in some jurisdictions.

The voting-machine industry  an estimated $300-million-a-year business  has long been as troubling as the machines it makes, known for its secrecy, close political ties (overwhelmingly to the Republican Party) and a revolving door between vendors and election offices. More than a dozen companies currently sell voting equipment, but a majority of machines used today come from just four  Diebold Election Systems, Election Systems & Software (ES&S), Hart InterCivic and Sequoia Voting Systems. Diebold (later renamed Premier) and Sequoia are now out of business. Diebolds machines and customer contracts were sold to ES&S and a Canadian company called Dominion, and Dominion also acquired Sequoia. This means that more than 80 percent of the machines in use today are under the purview of three companies  Dominion, ES&S and Hart InterCivic.

Many of the products they make have documented vulnerabilities and can be subverted in multiple ways. Hackers can access voting machines via the cellular modems used to transmit unofficial results at the end of an election, or subvert back-end election-management systems  used to program the voting machines and tally votes  and spread malicious code to voting machines through them. Attackers could design their code to bypass pre-election testing and kick in only at the end of an election or under specific conditions  say, when a certain candidate appears to be losing  and erase itself afterward to avoid detection. And they could make it produce election results with wide margins to avoid triggering automatic manual recounts in states that require them when results are close.The story is a mess, but the setting, animals and actors make for solid bait. A retired naturalist who has written about wolves, Core travels to Keelut after receiving a letter (a genuine paper missive) from Medora (an egregiously misused Riley Keough), who says that her son has been snatched by wolves and that the authorities are useless. For reasons that remain inexplicable at best (hes got family troubles and appears depressed), he buys Medoras tale and is soon impassively hunkered down in her home as she spins a story that seems a whole lot like a web. By the time shes meandering around naked in the middle of the night wearing a wolf mask youre wondering why Core hasnt booked a seat on the next plane out.

Mr. Wright projects persuasive thoughtfulness no matter how silly the material, but he cant turn Core into a credible character. He at least gets to keep his clothes on, unlike Ms. Keough (or her body double). For the most part, he knits his brows and tries to look serious and engaged as Core descends deep, then deeper into the wild and the clotted story. A few other folks further complicate things, notably Donald (James Badge Dale), a good, principled cop who oversees the most sadly (and disastrously) inept police force since the Keystone Kops, and Vernon (a determined-looking Alexander Skarsgard), Medoras very bad husband. Hes an American soldier who has some serious skills, an awfully big knife and what might politely be called issues.

Vernon first shows up in a long, needless interlude in Falluja, Iraq, which largely demonstrates that Mr. Saulnier had the budget to shoot in Morocco. Stuff happens; blood spurts (there are multiple neck wounds). Additional characters come and go  including Yupik residents played by Julian Black Antelope and Tantoo Cardinal  but theyre grievously under realized, mostly just placeholders for ideas that never emerge. The physically imposing Mr. Black Antelope prominently figures in the extended gun battle that swallows the movie and clearly consumed Mr. Saulniers interest. The shootout is well staged, grindingly grim and mostly seems to exist so that a great deal of artificial blood can be spattered across all that pretty white snow.Take your racist ad and shove it, he wrote on Twitter.

Mr. Lieu said on Wednesday that he was personally offended by the advertisement. As an Asian-American who grew up speaking Mandarin Chinese with his family, Mr. Lieu said he felt the ad conveyed the idea that speaking another language was un-American.

This is an issue that has affected the Asian-American community, and for Chris Collins to do this is wholly unacceptable, Mr. Lieu said in an interview. He is playing to racial stereotypes that have been particularly hurtful to Americans who happen to be of Asian descent.

Mr. Lieu said he does not have a personal relationship with Mr. Collins, but he was looking to confront him about the ad.

I would call him a racist to his face the next time I see him and ask him to take the ad down, he said.

The controversy over the campaign ad is the latest challenge for Mr. Collins, a New York Republican who is seeking a fourth term in the House to represent the Buffalo area.Good morning on this wet Wednesday.

Subway riders, prepare to meet your new station managers.

Think of these Metropolitan Transportation Authority employees as customer service reps, tasked with making sure your stop is garbage and graffiti free and the MetroCard machines and escalators are working. And  if they are not  they are ready to listen to your complaints.

In the coming days, a poster with your stations manager will be placed at your stop, along with the managers contact information.

Each of the roughly two dozen new station managers will oversee about 25 stations. Feel free to reach out about any aspects of the station environment, from cleanliness and customer service to safety concerns.

We recently spoke with Kenneth Davis, one of the new station managers in Zone 7, which consists of 59th Street Columbus Circle all the way down to Canal Street on the A, C and E lines, about his new role. His responses have been condensed.In 1956, Constance Sutton, a recent masters degree graduate of the University of Chicago, was hired by Margaret Mead, the pre-eminent anthropologist, to edit her latest book. Dr. Mead, who was teaching at Columbia University, was impressed by Ms. Suttons credentials but was baffled by one question: Why, after finishing all of her course work, hadnt she gotten her doctorate?

Dr. Sutton (she eventually did earn her Ph.D.) later recalled that she didnt even pause to reflect: Her doctoral adviser, she told Dr. Mead, had demanded to know how she could possibly conduct on-site research abroad when she was already on her second marriage and when neither of her husbands was an anthropologist.

Either you had to be a spinster, or you could accompany your husband if he was an anthropologist, Dr. Sutton explained in 2015 in an interview with the New York Public Librarys Community Oral History Project. But to go yourself as a woman anthropologist to do field work was not heard of.

Margaret Mead, in her characteristic way, said, Thats fiddlesticks. 

Dr. Sutton added, I realized I had moved into a very different setting than I was around at the University of Chicago, where it was not imaginable that you would leave your husband if you were married.Ion Ficior, who was imprisoned for the deaths of 103 political inmates while in charge of a Communist-era labor camp in Romania, died on Wednesday. He was 90.

Bianca Filote, a spokeswoman for the governments Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes, confirmed the death, at Jilava prison hospital outside Bucharest, the capital.

The institute began to pursue Mr. Ficior and other former prison guards in 2013, handing over evidence to prosecutors.

Since March 2017 Mr. Ficior had been serving a 20-year sentence for crimes against humanity. He denied wrongdoing and said he had simply been following orders.The men instantly became martyrs to the anarchist movement, and de Cleyre channeled her outrage at the infamy of the trial and executions into a vigorous endorsement of anarchism, speaking annually at Haymarket memorials and returning to the subject again and again in her writings.

The question Why I am an Anarchist,  she wrote in 1897, I could very summarily answer with, because I cannot help it. 

Beyond her activism, De Cleyre had many romantic entanglements but none were fully satisfying, , according to a biographer, Paul Avrich. The labor activist Dyer D. Lum, who was 27 years her senior, was the first man to treat her as an intellectual equal, but he left her heartbroken when he took his own life. She bore her only child, Harry, with James B. Elliot, a carpenter who was a believer in the writings of the freethinker Thomas Paine. Yet eventually she pushed both away, reluctant to be a mother or wife.

The assassination of President William McKinley by the anarchist Leon Czolgosz in 1901 unleashed a wave of anti-anarchist sentiment. When Senator Joseph R. Hawley of Connecticut offered $1,000 to anyone who shot an anarchist, de Cleyre responded with a letter telling him to save his money; he could kill her.

I will stand straight before you at any distance you wish me to, and you may shoot, in the presence of witnesses, she wrote. Does not your American commercial instinct seize upon this as a bargain?

The following year de Cleyre had her own brush with an assassin. A former student of hers who had become romantically obsessed with her shot her in a jealous rage. She survived, and then worked for his release on her recovery.

It would be an outrage against civilization if he were sent to jail for an act which was the product of a diseased brain, she wrote.In an analysis published in July in the journal Nature Climate Change, 10 Brazilian scientists concluded that the abandonment of deforestation control policies and the political support for predatory agricultural practices will make it impossible for Brazil to to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to the level the country promised in Paris. Continued weak environmental governance, the scientists warned, could lead to the loss of up to 17,000 square miles of rain forest a year, endangering the entire Amazon ecosystem.

Why this change in policy? The scientists put it succinctly: In exchange for political support, the Brazilian government is signaling landholders to increase deforestation.

Opinion Conversation The climate, and the world, are changing. What challenges will the future bring, and how should we respond to them? What should our leaders be doing?

Al Gore, the 45th vice president of the United States, finds reasons for optimism in the Biden presidency.

Al Gore, the 45th vice president of the United States, finds reasons for optimism in the Biden presidency. What are the worst climate risks in your country?

Select a country, and we'll break down the climate hazards it faces.

Select a country, and we'll break down the climate hazards it faces. Where are Americans suffering most?

Our maps, developed with experts, show where extreme heat is causing the most deaths in the U.S.

Our maps, developed with experts, show where extreme heat is causing the most deaths in the U.S. What does climate devastation look like?

In Sept. 2020, Michael Benson studied detailed satellite imagery. Here's the earth that he saw  and the one he wants to see.

President Temers minister of justice is pushing plans to allow agribusiness to rent indigenous land that had been off limits to developers. Other proposals would effectively freeze the creation of new protected areas, open others to resource exploitation and block the mapping of boundaries of indigenous lands, potentially opening native communities and their forests to invasion by miners and ranchers.

Indigenous territories contain more forest than all of the governments conservation units combined, and historically Brazils native peoples have been far more effective in defending the rain forest than the government or private landowners.

The anti-environment agenda is being pushed by of a coalition of large landowners and agribusinesses in Congress (the bancada ruralista or so-called ruralists). Regular revelations of corruption involving government ministers, legislators  and also, President Temer himself  have provided them with cover to pursue regressive measures, like a proposed constitutional amendment that would prevent Brazils regulators from blocking environmentally unsound road and development projects.

Scores of such projects planned for inaccessible regions of the Amazon may be fast-tracked should the amendment pass and the environmental review process is gutted as a result, as now seems likely. For example, the 540-mile long BR-319 highway would, if completed, open a vast area in the central and northern Amazonia to deforestation.

Not only is little being done to prevent illegal land use, some laws have encouraged it. Last year, the  grileiro or land-grabber, law legalized tracts of nearly 6,200 acres that were taken illegally  a boon to land speculators and others who seize public lands for their own use.In contrast to the Pakistani Army, the Indian Army is seen as subservient to the civilian authorities. Pakistani democrats like to remind us that the Indian Army stays away from politics and thats why democracy has flourished in India. But after the Indian Army chiefs promise of pain, the Pakistani governments spokesman declared that he was acting like a B.J.P. functionary.

Here is the Pakistani army, which has ruled this country directly for more than half its life, accusing the Indian Army of interfering in political affairs. Irony said a final namaste and jumped into the Ganges.

Pundits say Fridays turnabout is all about elections in India. Mr. Modi faces a tough election next year, and his government is rankled by a scandal involving more than $9 billion given to an Indian tycoon for manufacturing French jet fighters. The tycoon has never built anything remotely looking like a plane before. Mr. Modi is being called corrupt by his political opponents. His answer? Look behind you! Pakistan is planning to kill us all.

A few months ago when Mr. Khan was campaigning, his mantra was that the incumbent Nawaz Sharif was soft on India. His supporters declared Mr. Sharif Modi ka yaar (Modis bestie) because Mr. Sharif had attended Mr. Modis inauguration as prime minister in 2014 and the Indian premier had paid a surprise private visit to Mr. Sharifs estate outside Lahore in 2015. Now the B.J.P.s ruling party head honcho, Amit Shah, says: Look, Pakistan wants Mr. Modi gone, as does the Indian opposition leader Rahul Gandhi. If there is trouble at home, you throw your trash at your neighbor and call your fellow countrymen traitors.

On Sep. 2830, India is scheduled to hold a mega celebration to mark the so-called surgical strikes, or the lightning attack, it waged on Pakistan two years ago, in which Indian soldiers crossed the Line of Control and taught Pakistani forces a lesson. Pakistan denies that any such strikes took place. Then again, it routinely celebrates wars with India which it never won. Now India is going to celebrate a battle that Pakistan says never happened.

This warmongering helps cover up some basic issues on both sides. In a recent TV interview, the son of a slain Indian soldier was asked whether he wanted revenge for his dads death. The boy seemed confused, looked around as if he didnt know why he was being asked the question. My dad cant come back, he said, but can you guys get my younger brother a job? How many times do I have to ask for a job for my younger brother?

Do people want revenge or do people want jobs? While on both sides millions struggle to feed their families, for many people, beating the war drums is a lucrative job. A perma-war means a perma-job.HAMBURG, Germany  Angela Merkel is the chancellor of Germany, not the prime minister of Britain, but its becoming increasingly clear that she played a critical, if indirect, role in Britains 2016 vote to leave the European Union. If not for her decision not long before the vote to allow for uncontrolled mass immigration into the heart of Europe, the pro-Brexit forces might have lost.

Remember that, like President Trumps election that same year, Brexit was dismissed as an impossibility, until it happened. But unlike in the United States, Europe has not done much in the way of asking what happened, and why.

In late 2015, the Leave campaign started putting up placards which showed the exodus of refugees from Syria and other countries through the Balkans, and adorned them with slogans like Breaking Point and Take Back Control. With Ms. Merkel declaring an open-door policy, the message hit home for millions of worried Britons and Europeans. Not coincidentally, it was around this time that support for Brexit began to tick up.

If members of the chancellors government recognize her complicity, they dont show it. Ms. Merkels diplomats in Berlin treat the looming farewell of the second-biggest economy in the European Union as if it were merely another tiresome bureaucratic process that needs to be handled according to the treaty rules. If they consider the bigger picture at all, it is to think of ways to scare off other union members from following Britains lead.Religious liberty has become a particularly politicized topic in recent years, and recent months were no different. In a long-awaited June decision , the Supreme Court decided in favor of a Christian baker who refused to make a custom wedding cake for a gay couple. In July, Attorney General Jeff Sessions introduced a religious liberty task force that critics saw as a mere cover for anti-gay discrimination. And Judge Brett Kavanaughs record has been scoured for evidence of what his appointment to the Supreme Court would mean for future decisions in which Christian beliefs clash with law and policy.

But when it comes to religious liberty for Americans, theres a disturbing trend that has drawn much less attention. In recent years, state lawmakers, lawyers and influential social commentators have been making the case that Muslims are not protected by the First Amendment.

Why? Because, they argue, Islam is not a religion.

This once seemed like an absurd fringe argument. But it has gained momentum. John Bennett, a Republican state legislator in Oklahoma, said in 2014, Islam is not even a religion; it is a political system that uses a deity to advance its agenda of global conquest. In 2015, a former assistant United States attorney, Andrew C. McCarthy, wrote in National Review that Islam should be understood as conveying a belief system that is not merely, or even primarily, religious. In 2016, Michael Flynn, who the next year was briefly President Trumps national security adviser, told an ACT for America conference in Dallas that Islam is a political ideology that hides behind the notion of it being a religion. In a January 2018 news release, Neal Tapio of South Dakota, a Republican state senator who was planning to run for the United States House of Representatives, questioned whether the First Amendment applies to Muslims.

The idea that Islam, which has over 1.6 billion adherents worldwide, is not a religion was even deployed in a 2010 legal challenge of county approval of building plans for a mosque in Murfreesboro, Tenn. The plaintiffs argued that Islam is not a religion but rather a geopolitical system bent on instituting jihadist and Shariah law in America. Because Islam is not a religion, the argument went, the mosque construction plans should not benefit from the county or federal laws that protect religious organizations. The local court ruled against the mosque, but the Tennessee appellate court overturned the ruling and the mosque prevailed.The United States announced last month that it intends to keep troops in Syria to support Kurdish-led fighters there until the Islamic State has been completely routed and the area stabilized. Although this long-term commitment is critical, real stability and security can be ensured only by providing political recognition and practical support to the Kurdish administration governing northeastern Syria.

The United States has been backing the Kurds in Syria but has insisted on keeping the relationship strictly military. Since the first American weapons drop to Kurdish fighters besieged by the Islamic State in the Syrian town of Kobani late in 2014, Washington has focused on defeating the Islamic State and avoided statements or actions that could imply support for Kurdish autonomy or the Kurdish-led federation in Syria.

Today, largely thanks to the sacrifices of these Kurdish fighters from the Peoples Protection Units, known as the Y.P.G., Islamic militants have lost control over almost all of northeastern Syria, including their self-proclaimed capital, Raqqa. The last Islamic State stronghold, in Deir ez-Zor province, is under attack by Kurdish fighters and their umbrella Syrian Democratic Forces and will fall soon.

The Kurds now control more than a quarter of Syrian territory where an estimated 1.5 million to two million people live. They have created their own administration to govern and provide services. As part of their vision for a decentralized and inclusive Syria, their institutions operate according to rules that promote equal participation for women and equal representation for ethnic and religious groups.Now, anyone who looks at the actual effects of international trade knows that the first proposition is wrong: trade isnt just about selling stuff, its about getting better, cheaper stuff both to consume and to use as inputs in production. But you might assume that at least the second proposition is true: a round of tariff retaliation should reduce foreign exports to the U.S. more than it reduces U.S. exports to the rest of the world, simply because those foreign exports are bigger to start with.

But maybe not. A new study from the European Central Bank suggests that even though the U.S. runs trade deficits, a trade war would reduce demand for U.S. goods more than it would reduce demand in the rest of the world. The Bank of England has reached a similar conclusion.

Lets be clear: these are the results of models, not actual experience, and could be wrong. But its still worth asking why the modelers are getting this result. The short answer is the phenomenon known in the field as trade diversion.

For simplicity, think of the world as three economies: America, China, and Europe. Both the ECB and the BOE are assuming scenarios in which America raises tariffs on China and Europe, with China and Europe retaliating. But China and Europe dont raise tariffs on each other.

Such a scenario gives both foreign consumers and foreign producers a lot of options to diversify away from America. Chinese producers, facing U.S. tariffs, can sell more to Europe instead; Chinese consumers, instead of paying tariffs on goods imported from America, can seek substitutes from Europe. The story for Europe is the same. But U.S. consumers and businesses wont have comparable flexibility.To the Editor:

Re Once a Model of Fatherhood, Now an Inmate (front page, Sept. 26):

What a tragic end to what was an illustrious career. That such a public figure who did so much good for Americans, and African-Americans in particular, could also be a sexual predator surprised me.

Mr. Cosby, 81 , is paying his debt to society late and in poor health. The statement by Andrea Constand, the woman he sexually assaulted, is incredibly sad. That he took her youthful innocence and destroyed it for his own sexual pleasure is not something his defenders should forget in their loyalty to Mr. Cosby.

Sorry for you, Bill, but Im far more sorry for the women you preyed upon. The days of men getting away with sexual battery are over.

Ken Solin

Berkeley, Calif.

To the Editor:

Although I cheered and applauded when I saw Bill Cosby in handcuffs, tears came to my eyes when I saw several of his victims and heard from two of them outside the courthouse. I only hope that what these women have said about being victims is heard and absorbed by all our senators and remembered at the Judiciary Committee hearing when they listen to Christine Blasey Ford.To the Editor:

Re Trump Takes Aim at New Accuser: She Has Nothing (front page, Sept. 26):

We may never know what happened between Brett Kavanaugh and his accusers, but we do know who Judge Kavanaugh is.

I am the mother of three daughters, now in their late 20s, who attended Holton-Arms School in Bethesda, Md., which Christine Blasey Ford attended. My daughters had many friends who attended the elite all-boys private schools in the Washington area, including Georgetown Prep, which Judge Kavanaugh attended. I can tell you unequivocally that the culture of committing, encouraging and boasting about sexual violence against girls was still prevalent at these schools in the 2000s.

I knew many boys at these schools, however, and most of them did not conduct themselves in the manner of Judge Kavanaughs group of friends. And most young men do not join college fraternities that debase women. It was Judge Kavanaughs choice to join the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity at Yale, finally exposed in 2011 for its pledge chant, No means yes, yes means anal. It was Judge Kavanaughs choice to join the all-male Yale secret society Truth and Courage, also referred to as Tit and Clit .

The appalling fact that victims of sexual violence are still being discredited and shamed by our societys power structure shows that little has changed over the last three decades. Most men in our society, however, have never committed, or tolerated, debasing acts toward women. Judge Kavanaugh is just not one of these men.Unfortunately, the cacophony surrounding Mr. Almagros declarations and the Times article distorted an essential discussion. There are three aspects to the Venezuelan nightmare. First is the attack on democracy and respect for human rights by the Maduro regime, and before Mr. Maduro, by Hugo Chavez.

According to the 2001 inter-American Charter, signed by every country in the Western Hemisphere, except Cuba, an attack on democracy itself is justification for suspending the government from the O.A.S. Second is the humanitarian crisis. Millions of Venezuelans are hungry, ill and even dying for lack of food, medicines, basic necessities, electrical power and even a police force able to patrol Caracas, one of the worlds most violent cities. Lastly, there are the regional consequences of the humanitarian disaster: some 2.3 million Venezuelans have left their country and two million more could leave by 2020. Hundreds of thousands are exiled in Peru, Chile, neighboring Colombia and Brazil. Tens of thousands live now in Spain, Mexico, Florida and Argentina. This is the largest migration in the history of Latin America since the slave trade.

This is no longer a domestic Venezuelan matter. The exiles place an immense strain on human services in the nations where they settle or pass through: health, education, shelter, law enforcement and the like. They have generated hateful xenophobic reactions, even lynching, in several host nations. The crisis directly affects most of the region.

In 2002 a nearly successful coup sought to overthrow Mr. Chavez. A presidential summit of the Rio Group  bringing together practically every country in Latin America  was in session in Costa Rica when it took place. With two exceptions, all members condemned the attempted ousting and the threat to constitutional rule that it represented. As President Vicente Foxs of Mexicos foreign minister at the time, I was especially adamant about the group not suggesting support for the coup, even if no one there held any sympathy for the Chavez regime. That was then; the situation today is radically different.

Mr. Chavez was a democratically elected head of state, who had engaged in a few damning episodes of repression, but was not yet anywhere close to being a dictator. Mr. Maduros election last May was dismissed by most countries in the region and by members of the European Union as fatally flawed. On Mr. Maduros orders, more than 100 people, mainly students, were shot in the streets last year. Nongovernmental organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, as well as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, have denounced these egregious human rights violations. Moreover, there were few foreign implications of Mr. Chavez harebrained schemes or endless rhetoric.Dear M 

The dream where Im legless

isnt a nightmare, and Im not

afraid  theres light and a river

and everything is exactly

how Id hoped. Im not tethered

to the earth. Im not tied down

by gravity, dragging my legs

along the bank gravel, not searching

for the softest patch of moss.

Im not even tired, and though

Im certain the dream

is an elegy, it sounds exactly like

a praise song. In the dream

my legs break free of me

and I watch them float away.

The coffin in my chest

blows open in the wind,

and for once I think I know

what its like to be without

all our dead and heavy things.

Dear S 

Ive said this all before

and anyway, you had

already been picked up,

held down, put under,

and refashioned;

you were already

dreaming your body

in some gravity-less

country, already calling

it a river, Mars. Lets go

back to wherever it is

we were made for first:

to water, or a rusted

windswept planet where

everything floats and women

are part horse or fox, knocked

off kilter and galloping left

to get where they were meant

to go. Wed miss it here eventually.

The boat that brought us, I believe

in it. But having found you

I am seeking out the channel

where we came from.

Sister, take my hand?

Dear M 

What we leave down

in the canyon  the stain

of us  red on red,

hemoglobin on hematite,

the trace of us the one true

map well ever leave. Hidden

out of sight, a place only

forgotten animals tread, were

pinned to rock in outline

and sketch, the idea of us

a puzzle no ones yet seen

or read. Unclasped

by bodies and their weight,

we start again, we take

another shape, we learn

our worth by learning

what were not, like new

animals or children who,

finding themselves wingless, still

test the air and fall.

Dear S 

Look, there, our dead

and heavy elements

are piled high beside

the silhouette of what

we were before  look,

there our prior selves

hush out like matches

once theyve lit the pyre.

The light climbs high,

too far away from anybodys

home to be a flare. Look,

lets watch until the whole of it

cools first to smoke, then goes.

S, I think we will be suited for it:

being legless, weightless,

wingless, leaping off 

Dear M 

Id like to think as we lift

ourselves to go, in this newness

we leave it all behind  a grave, a name,

a birthday, a face  in favor

of what we know is ours

to make, this record

of our speech, our grief,

that well turn away from

all the doors that wouldnt

open, every collapsed bridge,

and hail instead the space

between us, shapeless and

endless as it is, though

we hold it between us

just the same.The news about Brett Kavanaugh and Rod Rosenstein is addictive, but spare just a moment for crimes against humanity that the United States is supporting in far-off Yemen.

President Trump didnt mention it at the United Nations, but America is helping to kill, maim and starve Yemeni children. At least eight million Yemenis are at risk of starvation from an approaching famine caused not by crop failures but by our actions and those of our allies. The United Nations has called it the worlds worst humanitarian crisis, and we own it.

An American bomb made by Lockheed Martin struck a Yemen school bus last month, killing 51 people. Earlier, American bombs killed 155 mourners at a funeral and 97 people at a market.

Starving Yemeni children are reduced to eating a sour paste made of leaves. Even those who survive will often be stunted for the rest of their lives, physically and mentally.The role of evangelical Christianity in American politics today has been a hotly discussed topic since President Trumps election, both politically and spiritually. Many evangelical leaders have publicly supported Mr. Trumps policies, and others have pushed back.

Im a national correspondent for The Times, covering religion and politics. Ive written dozens of stories about evangelicals over the past few years. Ive been traveling the country ahead of the midterms, and Im interested in hearing more from young evangelicals  the future of the evangelical movement.

If you are an evangelical born after 1980, Id love to hear about the relationship between your faith and politics today. And if you grew up evangelical and your views are shifting, feel free to share that, too. We may publish a selection of the responses.A reader emailed The Times on Tuesday asking about our selection of photographs for President Trumps Supreme Court nominee, Brett M. Kavanaugh , and the woman who has accused him of sexually assaulting her in high school, Christine Blasey Ford.

Why in this highly charged political atmosphere of TV and print news are we always seeing pictures of Brett Kavanaugh in a business suit looking sober and professional, and those of Dr. Blasey in informal clothing, sunglass wearing, wind in her hair, smiling as if for a travel brochure? wrote Myrna Simms, from Tucson.

Equal representation? I think not.

We asked our photo editor in Washington, Marisa Schwartz Taylor, to respond:

We have tried several times to get more photos of Dr. Blasey (offering to have one of our photographers shoot a portrait of her and also asking if she could send us better photos of herself to publish), but she and her lawyers have declined all of our photo requests.

Judge Kavanaugh, on the other hand, has been photographed in public during his confirmation hearings and on visits to Capitol Hill by New York Times photographers.MAZZETTI No evidence has emerged to date showing direct contact between President Trump and Russians involved in the operation to interfere with the 2016 election. Mr. Trump developed relationships with Russians when he took the Miss Universe pageant to Moscow in 2013, and some of those people were involved in setting up the June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower. President Trump has denied he knew about that meeting when it occurred, and no evidence has come out suggesting otherwise.

What I dont understand is why Russia wanted Mr. Trump as president and not Mrs. Clinton? Why are Russia and Mr. Putin better off with Mr. Trump?

 Tony Olds, Lansing, Mich.

SHANE One answer is that Mr. Putin had clashed repeatedly with Mrs. Clinton when she was secretary of state and saw her as a hawk who would provide strong backing for NATO and other Western institutions. As a candidate, Mr. Trump, by contrast, expressed admiration for Mr. Putin and seemed eager to pursue better relations with Moscow even at the expense of NATO and the European Union.

In practice, the Trump administration has produced a contradictory record: Mr. Trump has kept up the Putin-friendly rhetoric even as his cabinet has persuaded him to take a series of tough actions, escalating sanctions, expelling Russian diplomats suspected of spying and supplying defensive weapons to Ukraine.

Is Mr. Putin seeking to overtake the United States in terms of dominance and presence on the world stage? Does Mr. Putin believe that with President Trumps help Russia will emerge as a rejuvenated world power, with the United States in a diminished capacity?

 John C. Turley, Chicago

SHANE Russias population, 142 million, is less than half that of the United States; its oil-dependent economy is about one-fifth the size of the American economy and is suffering under Western sanctions; its military, while modernized under Mr. Putin, has a fraction of the resources of American armed forces. So there seems to be no realistic prospect that Russia will overtake the United States on the world stage in the foreseeable future.

What Mr. Putin has demonstrated, however, is that by using the cheap, new tools of hacking, leaking and social media manipulation, Russia can cause outsize trouble for the United States and other countries. Presumably one of Mr. Putins goals is to convince Russians and their neighbors that the United States is a deeply troubled, bitterly divided country whose brand of democracy should be a model for no one. Russia is a much-discussed, much-feared player on the world stage, and that may be enough for Mr. Putin.PARIS  On Sunday afternoon, a line had formed outside Echo, waiting for tables for brunch. Inside, juices, grain bowls and a Larry David plate (bacon, eggs and dukkah, the Middle Eastern spice blend) were on the menu.

Silver Lake? Almost, but not quite. Echo is a deli Californien on Rue dAboukir, with food by Mailea Weger, an alumna of Gjusta and Gjelina in Los Angeles, and one of the latest signposts of the California dreaming that has seized Paris. For several years, the French have been decamping for, and setting up shops and studios in, the City of Angels  now they are bringing it back home as well.

We used to hear a lot about New York in the past, said Jennifer Cuvillier, the fashion director of Le Bon Marche. Now its more and more about Los Angeles.On a spring day in 1976, a customer stomped into a Chemical Bank in the West Village complaining about a forged check. He happened to be fairly distinctive: Rolling up in a limousine, he wore a dress fashioned from Christmas-tree netting, tangled-up counterfeit money and a strategically placed toy fighter jet, and had only a single shoe on; atop his head hovered a comic-book-like speech bubble reading, Even though you may be forged  Chemical still banks best! He spoke passionately to the manager with a hint of a Kentucky accent. After being denied service, he took a fountain pen and perforated the condoms he had affixed to his upper body to imitate breasts. Animal blood streamed out; he used it to sign checks for $0,000,000, or none-million dollars. Then, he left  reportedly to a round of applause.

More than four decades later, Stephen Varble, the artist behind what he called the Chemical Bank Protest, will be the focus of an exhibition at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art  his first institutional retrospective. It has come together thanks to a little bit of luck, says the shows curator, David J. Getsy, a professor of art history at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the main fount of Varble-related information. Getsy originally learned of Varble from unpublished transcripts of the sculptor Scott Burton speaking to The Advocate in the early 80s. But he found little else until 2011, when the arts organization Visual AIDS invited him to curate an online gallery from its slide archive, which included photographs of Varble. Getsys fascination became an increasingly bigger project. As soon as my name appeared alongside Varbles on the internet, people started to contact me and to send me videotapes and manuscripts, he says, noting the artists aversion to established museums. I helped one of his lifelong friends clean out her porch, looking for old diaries and other materials. Most of this has not been library research  its been research in basements and garages and a lot of conversations.The business world has long been plagued by Apple catastrophists  investors, analysts, rival executives and journalists who look at the worlds most valuable company and proclaim it to be imminently doomed.

The critics worry for Apple is understandable, even if their repeated wrongness is a little hilarious. Apples two-decade ascent from a near-bankrupt has-been of the personal computer era into the first trillion-dollar corporation has defied every apparent rule in tech.

Companies that make high-priced hardware products arent supposed to be as popular, as profitable or as permanent. To a lot of people in tech, Apples success can seem like a fluke, and every new hurdle the company has faced  the rise of Android, the death of Steve Jobs, the saturation of the smartphone market, the ascendance of artificial intelligence and cloud software  has looked certain to do it in.

But this year, as it begins to roll out a new set of iPhones, the story line surrounding Apple has improbably shifted. In an era of growing skepticism about the tech industrys impact on society, Apples business model is turning out to be its most lasting advantage.SAN FRANCISCO  Google is facing increased scrutiny by lawmakers in Washington over its size and influence. Now, a research scientist who recently resigned from the company in protest is urging them on.

In a harshly worded letter sent this week, the former employee, Jack Poulson, criticized Googles handling of a project to build a version of its search engine that would be acceptable to the government of China. He said the project was a catastrophic failure of the internal privacy review process.

He said lawmakers should increase transparency and oversight of the company and technology industry, saying that there is a broad pattern of unaccountable decision making.

Dr. Poulson left the company after news articles revealed the existence of the project last month. It was first reported on by the Intercept news site.MUMBAI, India  In a landmark ruling on Wednesday, Indias Supreme Court placed strict limits on the governments national biometric identity system while also finding that the sweeping program did not fundamentally violate the privacy rights of the countrys 1.3 billion residents.

A five-justice panel of the court decided by 4-1 to approve the use of the program, called Aadhaar, for matters involving the public purse, such as the distribution of food rations and other government benefits and the collection of income taxes.

But the panel struck down Prime Minister Narendra Modis efforts to require the digital ID for other purposes, including verifying the identity of students taking exams, and established new protections meant to prevent the government from misusing the data in the name of national security.

The justices also threw out a powerful provision in the 2016 Aadhaar Act that had allowed private companies like banks and cellphone companies  sometimes at the governments behest  to use the ID to verify customer identities. That was at least a temporary blow to the dreams of technology billionaires, like Nandan Nilekani and Vinod Khosla, who saw the system as crucial to a new generation of digital businesses like online vehicle insurance and pre-employment background checks.SAN FRANCISCO  Uber will pay $148 million to settle a nationwide investigation into a 2016 data breach, in which a hacker managed to gain access to information belonging to 57 million riders and drivers. The breach included names and drivers license numbers for 600,000 drivers.

The investigation, led by state attorneys general across the United States, focused on whether Uber had violated data breach notification laws by not informing consumers that their information had been compromised.

Rather than disclosing the breach when it occurred, Uber paid the hacker $100,000 through its bug bounty program, which financially rewards hackers for discovering and disclosing software flaws. The ride-hailing company persuaded him to delete the data and stay quiet about it with a nondisclosure agreement.

The incident became public a year later when Ubers chief executive, Dara Khosrowshahi, announced it as a failure and fired the two employees who had signed off on the payment.Blackburn Inn, which opened in May, is offering a Our First Fall promotion, which includes 15 percent off starting rates when booked 14 days in advance and a $15 daily food and beverage credit. Available from Sept. 1 to Nov. 30. Bookings start at $169 a night.

Mountain views in New Hampshire

Up north, in North Conway, N.H., The White Mountain Hotel & Resort, in the heart of Mount Washington Valley and with views of mountain scenery that shows of the stunning New England foliage, has a Fall Foliage Escape. The offer includes two nights of accommodations, breakfast and one dinner at the propertys elegant Ledges Restaurant. Bookings from $148 a person.

Coastal beauty in Maine

Even further up the seaboard, Cliff House Maine, a coastal resort in Southern Maine, has a Fall in Love with Fall in Maine package. It includes accommodations, a map of the areas best fall foliage spots, a $200 credit to the on-site spa, two tickets for a local food tour, a bag of locally made maple candy and a blanket. Bookings start at $519 a night, and the promotion is valid from Sept. 22 to Nov. 30.

Zip line through the leaves in Georgia

A zip line ride through autumnal leaves? Its possible in the North Georgia mountains. Amicalola Falls State Park & Lodge has an Elevate Your View package that gives guests the chance to get an up close sight of the changing of the leaves by ziplining past them in Aerial Adventure Park. The package includes accommodations and a zip line tour in the park. Bookings start from $99 a person.

Food, wine and foliage in Michigan

The prime season for Mackinac Island, in Michigan, may be summer, but visitors who come in the fall will get a feast of foliage as they hike on miles of trails as well as go on horseback and bike rides. Mission Point, an 18-acre lakefront property, has a two-night Fall Foliage, Food & Wine package that includes accommodations, a welcome amenity of a glass of wine per adult, breakfast, one dinner with a bottle of wine, a half- day rental of two bikes with a boxed lunch and a private horse and carriage ride. Bookings from $380 a night.This database also provides two novel measures: trust ratings of those articles by blind reviewers, who are significantly more impartial, and a comparison with the ratings of people with a normal news consumption experience that allows them to see the brand.

Consider that a readers trustworthy rating of a news article is the sum of the articles inherent qualities, the readers personal views and brand prejudice. The experimental and control groups are alike, except that brand prejudice is removed from the experimental group. The difference in an articles trustworthiness score between the two groups is equal to the brand prejudice  or bias  of the control group (those who can see the news source).

For those in that group, an individuals bias was calculated for each article by taking the absolute value difference in trustworthiness ratings between his or her rating and the mean score for that article as provided by blind reviewers; the rating uses a scale of one to five, with increments of 0.5.

Who is at greatest risk of bias?

Among all readers in the group who could see the news source, 35 percent exhibit large bias  meaning their trust rating of an article diverged from the blind-review group by 1.5 points or more on the 1-to-5-point scale.

Not surprisingly, those with more extreme political views tend to provide more biased ratings of news. Those who described their political views as very liberal or very conservative exhibited large bias across 43 percent of the articles they rated, whereas those who described their views as moderate exhibited bias just 31 percent of the time. Likewise, those who leaned toward one party but did not fully identify with it exhibited about the same bias as the moderates.

The data also suggests that those who approve of President Trump rate news articles with more bias than those who disapprove of the president (39.2 percent versus 32.8 percent). However, Trump supporters tend to be less biased than those identifying as very liberal.They often report headaches, stomach problems and an increased heart rate, on top of changes in appetite and sleep patterns, she said.

Although therapists generally discourage avoidance in people with post-traumatic stress disorder, Dr. Wright said it is healthy for survivors to limit their news consumption or set boundaries for when and how they tune in.

It gives us some control over what feels like an uncontrollable situation right now, she said.

There are also more active ways to cope, Dr. Nicholson said, like engaging politically or telling a personal story to put rage into words, as so many have been doing on social media.

It has to go somewhere, because if it doesnt go somewhere, it will hurt you, said Soraya Chemaly, a feminist writer and activist. It can literally make you sick.

Ms. Chemaly, who recently published a book titled Rage Becomes Her, said political movements powered by womens anger were nothing new. During the temperance movement that began in the 1800s, many women pushed for bans on alcohol as a response to husbands who spent too much money on liquor and were violent while drunk.

In more recent history, anger over the inauguration of Mr. Trump, who has also been accused of sexual assault, prompted millions of people to attend Womens Marches, taking to the streets en masse.

On Monday, protesters gathered in New York and Washington to demonstrate their opposition to Judge Kavanaughs nomination to the Supreme Court. By Wednesday, three women had publicly accused Judge Kavanaugh of sexual assault or misconduct.The doctors tapped by the federal government to medically screen immigrants seeking green cards include dozens with a history of egregious infractions, according to a report from a federal watchdog agency.

The report looked at more than 5,500 doctors across the country used by United States Citizenship and Immigration Services as of June 2017 to examine those seeking green cards. More than 130 had some background of wrongdoing, including one who sexually exploited female patients and another who tried to have a dissatisfied patient killed, the report said.

The report, made public Tuesday by the Department of Homeland Securitys Office of Inspector General, said the failure to effectively screen the doctors put immigrants at risk of abuse.

USCIS is not properly vetting the physicians it designates to conduct required medical examinations of these foreign nationals, and it has designated physicians with a history of patient abuse or a criminal record, the report states. This is occurring because USCIS does not have policies to ensure only suitable physicians are designated.The cases are not that similar, but the way the Judiciary Committee is handling them is eerily similar.

How so?

I am concerned about how Professor Ford will be treated. Im not sure shell be treated a lot better than Professor Hill was. Maybe shell get some better treatment because there are some women on the committee. But some comments have already come out from Senator Grassley and others, theyve already made it clear that it doesnt matter what she says, theyre going to vote to put him on the bench.

How would you compare the way Senator Grassley is running the hearings compared to the chairman at the time of the Hill hearings, then-Senator Joe Biden?

I think Joe Biden was pretty much useless. He tried so hard to be neutral when the situation called for anything but neutrality.

Why didnt you volunteer to testify  you had said you were upset watching Anita Hill get vilified?

I didnt want to get involved in that process. My opinion was that the F.B.I. should have properly vetted him to start out. If theyd properly vetted him, they would have talked to me. I would have told them about the man I experienced. I wanted to be a journalist, I didnt want to be the news. I had info I thought was pertinent. I didnt mind giving them a statement. It was a fine line for me to try to walk, wanting to be an impartial journalist and having an experience in a news story that was relevant.

If youd testified, do you think it would have made a difference?

I do think it would have made a difference in public opinion. They were allowed to characterize Anita Hill as lovesick, jealous because he married a white woman. Id like to think that having my voice, and then there were other women also willing to testify, Id like to think that would have made a difference. I think the vote was close enough that had I testified he might not have been on the bench.

What do you think about having an experienced sex crimes prosecutor who is a woman questioning the witnesses instead of the Republican male senators, as is planned for Dr. Blasey?WASHINGTON  President Trump has some advice for Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh as he prepares for Thursdays climactic Senate hearing to confront sexual misconduct allegations: Be more aggressive, show more outrage, push back more. In other words, be more like Mr. Trump.

But what works for Mr. Trump might not work for Judge Kavanaugh. His challenge is not to look like he is attacking his accusers. Anger could touch off a backlash, advisers said, though at the same time he needs to show more indignation than he did during a Fox News interview on Monday when he stuck closely to talking points and looked rehearsed.

For Christine Blasey Ford, the California university professor who will testify about the night she said a drunken Mr. Kavanaugh held her down on a bed and tried to remove her clothes, the challenge is different. An unknown figure, she will be introducing herself to the senators and the nation for the first time, explaining who she is, what happened 36 years ago and why her account is more credible than his denial. She faces a veteran sex crimes prosecutor who will question her for Republicans, a scenario that could rattle even a more seasoned witness.

In her case, according to political veterans, details will matter. She has not been able to determine the date or location of the incident, so the more she can recall about the event, the more specific her account is, the stronger her case will be. She is no veteran of the klieg-light culture of Washington.President Trumps pick for the Supreme Court, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, is facing sexual assault allegations by multiple women. Here are the accusations and how Kavanaugh has responded. Dr. Christine Blasey Ford said Kavanaugh assaulted her at a party in high school. According to her, he was drunk when he pushed her into a bedroom, started grinding his body against hers and tried to undress her. She said he tried to muffle her screams by covering her mouth with his hand. In an interview with Fox News, Kavanaugh responded. Ive never sexually assaulted anyone, not in in high school, not ever. The second accuser is Deborah Ramirez. She and Kavanaugh were both students at Yale when, she said, he exposed himself to her. Ramirez said he held his penis near her face during a drinking game in a dorm room. When she pushed him away, she said, she accidentally touched it and saw Kavanaugh laughing and pulling up his pants. Kavanaugh reacted to the allegations, saying: I never did any such thing. Never did any such thing. The third accuser is Julie Swetnik. She said she met Kavanaugh on several occasions at house parties between 1981 and 1983. At these parties, Swetnik said, she saw a drunk Kavanaugh participate in a range of aggressive behaviors toward women: from pressing and grinding his body on them to trying to remove their clothes. She also alleges that Kavanaugh was there when what she described as gang rapes took place. Swetnik says she was raped by a group of men at one of these parties in 1982. Swetnik is also the first accuser to give an on-camera interview to the media. She spoke to Showtime on Sept. 26: This is something that occurred a long time ago and its not that I just thought about it. Its been on my mind ever since the occurrences. In a statement released by the White House, Kavanaugh called the accusations ridiculous and from The Twilight Zone and said it never happened. A fourth anonymous accusation was made in a letter sent to Senator Cory Gardner of Colorado. The author of the letter says her daughter saw a drunk Kavanaugh aggressively push a woman he was dating against a wall outside a bar in 1998. Kavanaughs response: This is crazytown. Its a smear campaign.The fight over control of the House of Representatives runs through suburban battlegrounds, where Democrats and Republicans both believe they need to win the votes of college-educated white women, particularly independents who voted for President Trump in 2016. Those women are more inclined than most voters to say that Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh should not be confirmed for a seat on the United States Supreme Court following decades-old allegations of sexual assault against him.

Republican women running in those districts have had to calibrate their response to those allegations; to avoid alienating female voters, while not straying from the partys support of Judge Kavanaugh, they have argued that his accusers must be heard. And in an indication of how fraught the situation is, many Democratic women running for those seats have so far largely held back from deploying the allegations as a weapon against their opponents.

Some Democrats have issued statements supporting Christine Blasey Ford, who has said Judge Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a drunken party when they were teenagers, and have urged the F.B.I. to investigate her allegations. Many have also supported another woman who says Judge Kavanaugh exposed himself to her during a drinking game when they were students at Yale.

Several candidates, including those running in swing districts in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, stood on stage at an event Monday for Emilys List, the Democratic fund-raising group, wearing black in solidarity with victims of sexual assault and holding signs saying I Believe Christine Blasey Ford. Others embraced the #BelieveWomen hashtag on Twitter.NORTHAMPTON TOWNSHIP >> After listening to more than four hours of public comment, the board of supervisors on Wednesday night voted to deny Provco its request for preliminary/final land development approval for a new Wawa convenience store and gas station in Holland. The vote brought immediate applause from Holland residents who have been fighting the project for months and who...[Read our story debunking 5 viral rumors about Judge Kavanaughs accusers.]

On Wednesday afternoon, more than 60 classmates from Georgetown Prep and women from sister schools who say they knew Judge Kavanaugh in high school signed a letter to rebut Ms. Swetnicks allegations and deny ever having met her. We never witnessed any behavior that even approaches what is described in this allegation. It is reprehensible, said the letter, which was addressed to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Brett Kavanaugh is a good man. He has always treated women with respect and decency.

Mr. Avenatti had been using his Twitter account for days to promote what he said would be explosive allegations against Judge Kavanaugh. And immediately after he shared what he called a sworn affidavit from Ms. Swetnick, it drew immediate coverage across social media and cable news as another revelation to rock the confirmation process.

Asked in a brief interview why Ms. Swetnick would be attending parties with high schoolers during her college years, Mr. Avenatti said that the parties in question included people of both high school and college ages.

Mr. Avenatti said he had corroborating witnesses who could back up Ms. Swetnicks accounts, but was not ready to present them because he was waiting to see if the Senate Judiciary Committee would begin a full investigation into her claims as he demanded, along with an F.B.I. inquiry. In her statement, Ms. Swetnick said she would be willing to appear before the committee.

In an email to Mr. Avenatti on Wednesday afternoon, Mike Davis, the committees chief nominations counsel, offered to arrange an interview with Ms. Swetnick.

Please let me know immediately whether your client will agree to an interview by committee investigators today, Mr. Davis wrote in the email, which was obtained by The Times. We can do a telephone interview anytime this afternoon or evening.

In recent days, Judge Kavanaugh and Mr. Trump, who nominated him in July, have been pushing back against the allegations relating to Judge Kavanaughs treatment of women. Mr. Trump called the claims a con game by Democrats who were trying to delay and obstruct his confirmation.Allegations, facts. I think thats what people are conflating here. On both sides, people are saying, I believe her or I dont believe her  as you point out, never having actually heard from her. Ive heard you talk about due process a lot. So explain why some of your colleagues havent been willing to say as forcefully as you have that she deserves to be heard.

I can only speak for me. I dont know that this is going to be a battle of truth as much as its going to be a battle of memory. Thirty-six years is a long, long time.

My mind doesnt work, my memories dont work like a computer file where I can just retrieve them and, boy, there it is. My mind is selective in terms of memories. When I try to think back to college or high school, there are gaps. I try to fill them in. But I cant tell you its always the truth. People see things differently and remember things differently. Its why if somebody robs a liquor store and there are four witnesses theyll often disagree.

Is there anything about this process thats opened your eyes, as a man, about women whove experienced assault  if thats made you change the way you look at these allegations?

Heres what this has opened my mind to. I guess Im naive, or I havent looked or Ive led a sheltered life. But Ive been out in the world for a few years. And I have been astonished at the amount of sexual harassment, particularly in the workplace where men  usually its men, sometimes its women, but usually its men  use power to force themselves physically on women.

Ive talked to friends of mine who are women who said, What planet did you just parachute in from? This has been going on for years. Now I confess, I havent seen it a lot. Ive been part of big organizations. I know now it existed. And were going to take it seriously. But I dont agree with some of my colleagues that the accuser has to automatically be believed. I think that the accuser and the accused have to automatically receive fairness and serious considerations and due process.

What about any of these latest allegations? The one reported in The New Yorker, the writings in the yearbook (from The Times). Do those change your mind at all?Can you tell me what incidences occurred  of the ones youve described to us  occurred in his office? The incident with regard to the Coke can  thats spelled out in my statement. Would you describe it once again for me, please? The incident involved his going to his desk  getting up from a work table  going to his desk, looking at this can and saying, Who put pubic hair on my Coke? Are there any other incidences that occurred in his office? I recall at least one instance, in his office at the E.E.O.C., where he discussed some pornographic material. What was the content of what he said? Well, this was a reference to an individual who had a very large penis and he used the name that he had been referred to in the pornographic material. Um  Do you recall what it was? Yes, I do. The name that was referred to was Long Dong Silver. You testified this morning in response to Senator Biden that the most embarrassing question involved  this is not too bad  womens large breasts. Thats a word we use all the time. That was the most embarrassing aspect of what Judge Thomas had said to you? No, the most embarrassing aspect was his description of the acts of these individuals, these women. The acts that those particular people would engage in. It wasnt just the breasts. It was the continuation of his story about what happened in those films with the people with this characteristic  physical characteristic  With the physical characteristic of  The large breasts. Well, in your statement to the F.B.I., you did refer to the films. But theres no reference to the physical characteristic you describe. I dont want to attach too much weight to it. But I had thought you said that the aspect of the large breasts was the aspect that concerned you. And that was missing from the statement to the F.B.I. Ive been  I have been misunderstood. Are you a scorned woman? No. Are you a zealot, civil-rights believer  that progress will be turned back If Clarence Thomas goes on the court? I  no, I dont. I think that I have my opinion. But I dont think that progress will be turned back. I think that civil rights will prevail no matter what happens with the court. Do you have a militant attitude relative to the area of civil rights? No, I dont have a militant attitude. Do you have a martyr complex? No I dont. Well, do you see that coming out of this, that you can be a hero in the civil-rights movement? I do not have that kind of complex. I dont like all of the attention that Im getting. I dont  I would not  even if I liked the attention, I would not lie to get attention. Why in Gods name  when he left his position of power or status or authority over you  and you left it in 1983  why in Gods name would you ever speak to a man like that the rest of your life? Thats a very good question. And Im sure that I can not answer that to your satisfaction. That is one of the things that I have tried to do today. I have suggested that I was afraid of retaliation. I was afraid of damage to my professional life. And I believe that you have to understand that this response  and that, and thats one of the things that I have come to understand about harassment, that this response, this kind of response, is not atypical. And I cant explain. It takes an expert in psychology to explain how that can happen. But it can happen because it happened to me.Her husband, James Lawton, has documented some of the harassment on his Facebook page. Much is in the form of social media posts that use foul or racist language and images.

Even without the harassment and threats, Ms. Morris said she found the work of state government to be rewarding but draining. I am proud of that work, but I need the space to breathe because for that exchange it exacts a huge cost, she said.

She pointed to the low pay for legislators  $13,000 a year for five to six months of intensive work  as a barrier that keeps women, people of color and the working class out of state politics. And she said there were few positions in state government that paid enough for people to support themselves or their families.

To serve in this state requires sacrifice, literally even financial sacrifice, she said. It is a system set up for the wealthy and the retired.

The decision by Ms. Morris to end her re-election campaign last month sent a jolt through Vermont politics and elevated questions of racial justice in one of the most racially homogeneous states in the country. The United States Census Bureau estimated in 2017 that the population of Vermont is more than 94 percent white and slightly more than one percent African-American.

In the state of Vermont, no elected official, candidate or person should be fearful of their safety because of the color of their skin or their point of view, Senator Bernie Sanders said in a statement to The Burlington Free Press in August. This corrosion of political discourse is destructive to our democracy, and we cannot let it take hold."

Ms. Morris and her lawyer, Robert Appel, accused the Bennington Police Department of failing to appropriately respond to her concerns since at least 2016. She said her experience illustrated that as a state we are not familiar, we are not prepared, we are not ready at all to deal with issues of racial justice.Hi. Welcome to On Politics, your guide to the day in national politics. Im Lisa Lerer, your host.

[Get On Politics delivered to your inbox.]

President Trump is back to his standard playbook for sexual assault allegations: Deny, dismiss and blame the accuser.

The tactic was on full display at a news conference in New York City this evening, in one of those vintage stream-of-consciousness appearances that the president rode into the White House. He rejected all three allegations of sexual assault against Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh as false. Democrats, he said, were dishonest people running a con job on the American public.

And, perhaps most strikingly, the president said his personal experience with accusations of sexual assault absolutely influence his thinking about the allegations against Judge Kavanaugh. During the 2016 campaign, Mr. Trump was accused of sexual misconduct by more than a dozen women.

Ive had a lot of false charges made against me, he said. So when I see it, I view it differently than somebody sitting home watching television.

Mr. Trump saved his empathy not for the women, but for the man facing the claims.

Theyve destroyed a mans reputation, and they want to destroy it even more. And I think people are going to see that in the midterms. What theyve done to this family, what theyve done to these children, these beautiful children of his, and what theyve done to his wife, and they know its a big fat con job. And they go into a room and I guarantee you, they laugh like hell.

Even by Mr. Trumps standards, the news conference was rambling and at times almost jaw-dropping. He veered from talking about North Korea to the employment state of Rod Rosenstein. He made misleading claims, including that he won a majority of womens votes in 2016. He said Chinese leaders respect his very large brain. And he wondered aloud whether George Washington had a bad past.Good Wednesday morning. Here are some of the stories making news in Washington and politics today.

 President Trump accused Democrats of a con game against Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, his Supreme Court nominee, and dismissed a woman who accused him of sexual misconduct as a student as messed up and drunk at the time. [Read the story]

 But its not just Democrats raising concerns: One Republican senator, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, warned her colleagues that the accusations against Judge Kavanaugh should be taken seriously. [Read the story]

 Mr. Trump, speaking at the United Nations General Assembly, doubled down on his America First foreign policy. But he did have a few kind words for North Korea. [Read the story]

 Curious what it takes to protect the president while hes visiting New York this week? Nearly 50 dump trucks, several street closings and millions of dollars in direct and indirect costs. [Read the story]WASHINGTON  The Trump administration is investigating whether Yale University illegally discriminated against Asian-American applicants, according to a letter delivered on Wednesday, escalating its effort to challenge race-based admissions policies at elite universities.

The Justice and Education Departments have begun a civil rights investigation into whether Yale discriminated against Asian-Americans by treating applicants differently based on race during the admissions process, according to a letter from the Education Departments Office for Civil Rights sent to the student who filed a complaint against Yale. The letter was obtained by The New York Times.

The Justice Department is also investigating Harvards use of race in its admissions policies, and last month it publicly backed students who accused Harvard in a lawsuit of systematically discriminating against them by suppressing the number of Asian-Americans who attend the school to make room for less-qualified students of other races.

The Harvard and Yale investigations and the lawsuit could have far-reaching consequences for college admissions policies and for affirmative action, a tool born in the civil-rights era to make American education and opportunity more equitable. Some conservative groups have long opposed affirmative action, and a handful of states have banned affirmative action policies at public universities.Adding to their frustration with the taxes, a number of the utilities have not been reimbursed by FEMA for sending their workers and equipment to Puerto Rico in the first place. That will only take place once a careful review of the invoices is concluded, officials said. Mr. Caetano said that about $940 million of $1.8 billion invoiced for the electrical work has been reimbursed so far.

How storms, missteps and an ailing grid left Puerto Rico in the dark

Some analysts with long experience in the substantial economic, legal and cultural differences between Puerto Rico and the mainland said the tax laws on the island should not be taken as an affront, and that negotiations may yield positive results.

The 15-year recession in Puerto Rico has left municipalities eager to collect taxes, said Tomas J. Torres, executive director of the Institute for Competitiveness and Sustainable Economy, a nonprofit in San Juan. He said that linemen from the mainland making much more than their Prepa counterparts could not help but produce an impression that the utilities could easily pay the tax  whether they made profits in Puerto Rico or not.

They should not be mad, Mr. Torres said. This is an issue of communication and understanding Puerto Rican law more than anything else. He added, Its a matter of sitting down at the table and sorting out any argument that they have.

Omar J. Marrero Diaz, Puerto Ricos chief recovery officer, appointed by Gov. Ricardo Rossello, said he knew of seven or eight municipalities that had sent tax bills. Part of the reason they are desperate for money, he said, is that like the utilities themselves, they are still waiting for FEMA to disburse funds  in this case, most of the $3.7 billion allocated for disaster relief.

We have been trying to serve as a mediator between the companies and the municipalities, said Mr. Marrero, adding that some mayors have indicated a willingness to compromise or waive the taxes. Thats the way we feel, even though we have been complying with the overly bureaucratic process at FEMA, he said.

On the time frame for payments, Mr. Caetano said, We trust but verify. The speed of disbursement is driven in a large part by the quickness by which we receive accurate and required paperwork from our partners.Rachel Mitchell, an Arizona prosecutor specializing in sex crimes, questioned Christine Blasey Ford, Judge Brett M. Kavanaughs first accuser, on Thursday on behalf of the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

[Read our live updates on the hearing]

The move allowed the 11 Republicans on the committee  all white men  to avoid the image on national television of them grilling Dr. Blasey in a hearing about the sexual assault she has accused Judge Kavanaugh of carrying out in high school. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, referred to Ms. Mitchell as a female assistant, a description criticized by some as sexist and disrespectful to women.

Dr. Blasey had sought to have the senators question her instead of a lawyer.

In announcing the selection of Ms. Mitchell, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Charles E. Grassley, called her a career prosecutor with decades of experience prosecuting sex crimes.

Im very appreciative that Rachel Mitchell has stepped forward to serve in this important and serious role, Mr. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, said. Ms. Mitchell has been recognized in the legal community for her experience and objectivity.MEXICO CITY  The federal and state police, backed by the Mexican Army, took over security in the Pacific Coast city of Acapulco on Tuesday, responding to suspicions that the city police force had been infiltrated by organized crime, the authorities said.



Two police commanders were arrested on homicide charges and the rest of the force will face investigation, according to the Guerrero Coordination Group, a combined military and police task force for the embattled state of Guerrero.

The decision to disarm the local police was prompted by rising crime in the resort city and the nonexistent response of the municipal police to the phenomenon, a statement from the group said.

The director of the city transit police was also detained after he was found to be carrying unauthorized weapons. The Guerrero state police, backed by soldiers, marines and federal police officers, will replace the local police force, the statement said.But this was the first time that Mr. Trump has directly accused China of interfering in American politics in an effort to challenge him. And it is at odds with his repeated comments that he has a strong relationship with Chinas leader, Xi Jinping, who presumably has had a strong hand in each of the retaliatory actions taken by Beijing.

A month ago, the director of national intelligence, Dan Coates, warned that the system is blinking red for the coming elections. But he was referring chiefly to fears of Russian activity, his aides said at the time, and he made almost no mention of China. DAVID E. SANGER

Trump turns down meeting with Trudeau

During a news conference, President Trump confirmed that he rejected a one-on-one meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and slammed Canada for recent disagreements over trade.

Frankly, we are thinking about just taxing cars that are coming in from Canada, Mr. Trump said. We are very unhappy with the negotiations  with the negotiating style  of Canada.

He went on to criticize Canadas negotiations over the Nafta trade deal  an agreement he called very bad for the U.S.  and the recent tariffs put in place on American-made products.

Canada has treated us very badly, they have treated our farmers in Wisconsin and New York State very badly, he said. So Canada has a long way to go, I must be honest with you, we are not getting along with their negotiators at all.

While he did not rule out the prospect of a new trade deal with Canada, he said it would probably be very different from what the Canadians are seeking.  MEGAN SPECIAKABUL, Afghanistan  The number of civilians killed by Afghan and American airstrikes is rising, the United Nations said Tuesday, as the Afghan government increasingly relies on airpower in its fight against a resurgent Taliban.

The United Nations mission in Afghanistan said 21 civilians were killed in two airstrikes last weekend and urged all parties to the conflict to take stronger measures to protect civilians.

After the release of the United Nations statement, an airstrike on Tuesday in the Chardara district of Kunduz Province killed three more people, a 45-year-old woman and two teenage girls, according to Sher Mohammed, the husband of the woman who died.

On Wednesday, angry residents carried the bodies of two of the victims to the city of Kunduz, the provincial capital, and chanted slogans against the government and American forces.WELLINGTON, New Zealand  Jacinda Ardern, New Zealands prime minister, shared the debut of a new assistance package for families from her couch in a Facebook Live video in which she could be seen cradling her 10-day-old daughter, Neve, in a bundle of blankets.

Between parenting jokes and policy explanations, she called the $5 billion package of tax cuts and payments the most significant change to the countrys welfare system in decades. Of all her governments efforts, this is the thing Im most proud of, she said, telling the audience that if she looked tired it was only because she was not wearing makeup.

The video from July was just one example of Ms. Ardern testing the reach of what she describes as politics with a bit of heart.

In many ways  temperament, style and policy, among them  Ms. Ardern is the polar opposite of President Trump and other brash male leaders.Though Mr. Wei insists that creating the Communist Party shrine was his own idea, locals have expressed concerns  with no direct evidence  that Mr. Wei is acting as a proxy for the Beijing government, a suspicion that has been amplified by recent revelations about Chinas efforts to influence the domestic affairs of countries like Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

That possibility, Mr. Chen said, is alarming.

While freedom of speech is important, this is also about the national security of Taiwan, he said. The government and people in Taiwan should consider this more seriously.

The demolition comes as Beijing has been ramping up pressure on Taiwan, which Chinas Communist government sees as part of its rightful territory but has never ruled. Under President Tsai Ing-wen, whose Democratic Progressive Party is skeptical of closer relations with China, cross-strait relations have worsened. This month, Beijing and Taipei exchanged new accusations of espionage.

In a statement on Wednesday morning, An Fengshan, spokesman for Chinas Taiwan Affairs Office, said the demolition of the temple addition showed that some people in the Democratic Progressive Party not only tolerate and ignore separatist behavior promoting Taiwan independence, they also attack and persecute Taiwanese who favor unification.

Such an action must be subject to strong opposition and condemnation from people on both sides of the strait, he added.

Reached by telephone on Wednesday, Lee Pai-jan, Mr. Weis wife, said it was not convenient for Mr. Wei to talk.

For now, though, there is relief in the village. Since 2012, after Mr. Wei took over the temple and evicted the nuns of Biyun Temple, the nuns have been living in a makeshift encampment adjacent to the temple property and making their case to move back to the temple, to no avail.ROME  Responding to confusion about his agreement with the Chinese government, Pope Francis on Wednesday urged Chinese Catholics to trust in his decision to unify the Roman and state-run Catholic churches, assuring his often-persecuted flock that he appreciated their sacrifices but that China represented a land of great opportunities for the church.

Under the deal announced on Saturday, a historic breakthrough after 70 years of icy relations between the Vatican and Beijing, the pope recognized the legitimacy of seven bishops appointed by the Chinese government and lifted an order excommunicating them. Through three pontificates, the church had tried to reach an accord with China, but the fate of those seven bishops, and the question of who gets to appoint new bishops in the country, had been impassable barriers.

There were few details about the deal in the Saturday announcement, fueling questions about just how much autonomy Francis had given up to make greater inroads into China, the worlds most populous nation, where the growth of Protestantism is far outpacing the spread of Roman Catholicism. That lack of clarity prompted Francis to write a lengthy letter, released on Wednesday, to the estimated 10 to 12 million Catholics in China.

In the letter, he acknowledged certain confusion about the agreement, but did not divulge any new details. Instead, invoking his title as the successor of Peter, he asked Chinese Catholics to place your trust ever more firmly in the Lord of history and in the churchs discernment of his will.The Mardini sisters fled the civil war in Syria, made their way across Turkey and were herded by smugglers onto a flimsy boat to cross a few miles of Aegean waters to reach the Greek islands. Hundreds of thousands of people made similar crossings  and thousands died trying  but the sisters story had an extraordinary twist.

As night fell, their overloaded dinghy began filling with water and its motor failed; most of the 20 people aboard did not know how to swim. So Sarah, then 20, and Yusra, 17, and two men went into the sea and swam, for hours, in the dark, the sisters said, pushing the boat to the island of Lesbos.

Months later, after they settled in Germany, their tale drew worldwide attention when Yusra was selected for the first-ever refugee Olympic team, to compete in the 2016 games in Rio de Janeiro. She wrote a book about her experiences, which is being made into a film, and became a good-will ambassador for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Around the same time the Mardinis left Syria, Mr. Moraitis, the chief executive of a maritime security business, founded Emergency Response Center International, one of hundreds of organizations that responded to the migration crisis. When migrants are at risk of drowning, the group sends boats to rescue them, and it provides services to those who reach Greece.

Sarah Mardini  whose sister wrote of her, no one can get her to stay quiet  began volunteering with the group in 2016.

In late August, she was arrested as she waited to catch a flight back to Germany, where she was enrolled at Bard College Berlin. Also arrested around the same time were two Greek citizens who work for the group, Nassos Karakitsos and Mirella Alexou, and a German volunteer for it, Sean Binder.

Weeks passed before the authorities acknowledged holding any of them, though their detention had been widely reported, based on the accounts of friends and co-workers. Under Greek law, they can be held for up to 18 months before trial.LIVERPOOL, England  Jeremy Corbyn, leader of Britains opposition Labour Party, doubled down Wednesday on his platform, promising to sweep away greed is good capitalism and expand the states role in the economy as he closed an annual conference dominated by divisions over European Union withdrawal.

Outlining a radical plan to rebuild and transform Britain, Mr. Corbyn underscored his ambition to shift economic policy leftward  a position that he described as the new common sense of our time after a decade of stagnating wages and squeezed living standards.

In a speech intended to present him as a prime minister in waiting, Mr. Corbyn said that it would be a national disaster if Britain quit the European Union without a deal. If Prime Minister Theresa May cannot negotiate a satisfactory withdrawal agreement, he said, she should make way for a party that can and will.

Mr. Corbyn had harsh words for familiar adversaries in the British news media, which is mainly hostile to him and which, he said, enjoys the freedom to spread lies and half-truths.UB, HWI and partners awarded $22.5 million to capture biology at the atomic level using X-ray lasers

BioXFEL is revolutionizing bioimaging through collaborations with academia and industry, including Google Brain

With this renewal, we will be able to understand the complete dynamics of biological mechanisms. 

BUFFALO, N.Y.  A research consortium led by the University at Buffalo has been awarded $22.5 million from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to continue its groundbreaking work developing advanced imaging techniques for critical biological processes that are difficult, if not impossible, to see with conventional methods.

BioXFEL, an NSF Science and Technology Center and UBs first such center, was created in November 2013 with an initial, $25 million award to UB, Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute (HWI) and partner institutions.

The successful renewal of UBs first NSF Science and Technology Center award confirms Western New Yorks leadership in the areas of X-ray crystallography and structural biology, historically based in the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute and related departments at UB, including, most recently, the Department of Materials Design and Innovation, said Venu Govindaraju, PhD, vice president for research and economic development at UB.

BioXFEL center scientists have made revolutionary advances in just a few years, using X-ray lasers to probe phenomena previously hidden from view, he said. They have discovered about 350 new molecular structures, expanding the knowledge base by describing these structures in more than 500 publications. With these incredibly powerful new tools, they are helping us better understand some of societys most intractable health and science problems.

In addition to UB and HWI, BioXFEL partners include Arizona State University, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Stanford University, Cornell University, Rice University, the University of California, San Francisco and Miami University in Ohio.

The goal of the research is to harness the power of X-ray lasers to transform a broad range of scientific fields, focused on structural biology and drug development and extending to potential innovations in environmental technologies and the development of new materials.

Intensely bright, incredibly short pulses

Called BioXFEL, short for Biology with X-ray Free Electron Lasers, the consortium of UB, HWI and their partners, is dedicated to using X-ray free electron lasers, which produce incredibly intense X-rays in extremely short pulses.

X-ray lasers provide two huge advantages over conventional methods, explained Edward Snell, PhD, BioXFEL director, president and CEO of HWI and professor in the Department of Materials Design and Innovation in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at UB. They are intensely bright beams that allow us to see much smaller things, like nanocrystals. And their pulses are incredibly short, which allows us to see critical processes, like how drugs bind, at rates as fast as a billionth of a billionth of a second.

BioXFEL is developing the next-generation of X-ray-based structural biology research, a field in which Buffalo has a long and rich history. In 1985, the Nobel Prize was awarded to the late Herbert Hauptman and Jerome Karle for their work developing the groundbreaking direct methods technique, a robust means of obtaining the shape and form of pharmaceuticals and their targets that is still used today, Snell explained.

From photograph to movie

In the few years that BioXFEL has existed, Snell explained, its researchers have significantly expanded the detail with which biological and other processes can be imaged. Initially, the molecular images we made were based on distinct snapshots of molecules at certain timepoints, he said. Now were going from the photograph to the movie, were able to see the continuous process. With this renewal, we will be able to understand the complete dynamics of biological mechanisms.

HWIs role in BioXFEL stems from its high-throughput crystallization center that over the past two decades has generated 180 million images from crystallization experiments. Many of these crystals were too small to be analyzed by conventional techniques, but may be deciphered using the power of X-ray lasers.

The same images have attracted a collaboration with Google Brain, in this case promoting the use of artificial intelligence to expedite new discoveries in protein crystallization. Buried within all those images are clues about how to go about finding the useful data in them more easily, but there is a lot of noise and weve got to work out a way to tease out the clues by somehow automating the process, he said.

Its well-known that we have this archive of images at HWI generated by our High-Throughput Crystallization Center, so crystallization centers and major pharmaceutical companies worldwide have been eager to collaborate with us, Snell said.

Particles in solution

UB scientist Thomas Grant, PhD, based at HWI, has used X-ray free laser techniques to develop a new way to look at molecular structures in solution, critical for understanding how proteins function in the human body. Other BioXFEL advances include:

 Developing a method that dramatically reduces the amount of sample needed for analysis.

 Viewing the motions of molecules during reactions called time-resolved imaging dynamics, which allowed researchers to see how antibiotic resistance develops in tuberculosis and how a virus infects its host.

 Using X-ray lasers to probe molecular motion studies for new technologies and materials.

 Eight supported faculty at Arizona State University, where a compact campus XFEL is under construction, who use worldwide XFEL facilities to obtain movies of molecular machines at work in photosynthesis, viruses and drugs, while developing experimental techniques and new algorithms.

 Four supported faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, leading to the first movies of biological processes underlying vision, antibiotic resistance, and the extrusion of the genome from a virus.

 New technology developed at Cornell University that has enabled the first millisecond scale mix and inject experiments: watching proteins as they work with near atomic resolution.

The scientific work of BioXFEL takes place through collaborations between all of the partner institutions. The initial X-ray laser experiments can only be done at the Linac Coherent Light Source at BioXFEL partner Stanford University, where a mile-long facility produces a beam one-tenth of the thickness of a human hair. A handful of these facilities are opening worldwide and BioXFEL is leading research at all of them.

BioXFEL has also implemented a diverse and vigorous set of training programs to help prepare young scientists for careers in XFEL science, including summer intern programs, graduate student support, and postdoctoral career development activities.

BioXFEL is headquartered at 700 Ellicott St. on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus in the building that houses both HWI and members of the UB Department of Materials Design and Innovation.

The NSF Science and Technology Centers: Integrative Partnerships program supports innovative, potentially transformative research and education projects that require large-scale, long-term awards. The centers foster cutting-edge research, education of the next generations of scientists and broad distribution of the knowledge and technology produced.They say no good deed goes unpunished, and this kindhearted North-Carolina woman who took in dozens of abandoned pets as Hurricane Florence ravaged the US state is a prime example of that. She was arrested and is now facing several misdemeanor charges for practicing veterinary medicine without a license.

As Hurricane Florence was getting ready to make landfall in North Caroline, Tammie Hedges decided to turn a warehouse she had been remodeling into a shelter for pets. Pets came from the streets, where they were picked up by volunteers, but also from their owners, who had to evacuate but couldnt take their animals with them. All in all, she sheltered 27 pets  17 cats and 10 dogs  during the storm, and also administered some medical treatments to ensure their well-being. But whereas most people considered her actions an act of kindness to animals, local authorities saw them as a violation of the law and charged her with several misdemeanors.

Photo: GoFundMe

On September 17, three days after Florence hit Wayne County, an Animal Services official visited Hedges warehouse at the request of the state Department of Agriculture. He apparently reported serious concerns that Tammie Hedges was practicing veterinary medicine without a license.

According to the Facebook page of Crazys Claws n Paws, a non-profit founded by Hedges, she had indeed administered medications such as amoxicillin and a topical antibiotic ointment to the animals, but only because she had to. One of the cats brought in by volunteers was bleeding from a wound at the neck, while others were seriously neglected and infested with fleas.

She had to do what she did. If she hadnt done what she did, then theyll be charging her with animal neglect and cruelty.  The Wayne County animal shelter has taken issue with that because it wasnt a hundred percent by the book and by the law, said Kathie Davidson, a volunteer with Crazys Claws n Paws.



What was she supposed to do? Davidson asked The Washington Post. The animals were sick and hurting. We just want to help animals, we dont want to do anything wrong.

The animals sheltered by Tammie Hedges basically had nowhere else to go. All veterinary offices in the area had closed before Florence struck, and it was impossible to transfer the 27 pets to the only emergency clinic in Wayne County during the storm. But authorities didnt seem to care much about these details. To them, it was just about the violation of the law.

Control officers told Hedges that she was breaking the law by operating a shelter without a permit, and they took the animals away to be reunited with their owners, which the woman did not oppose. However, that was not the end of the story. On Friday, Tammie Hedges was arrested and charged with multiple misdemeanors. She was soon released on a $10,000 bond, but news of her arrest for helping animals when no one else would rallied people behind her.



Hedges was notified that she was due to appear in court on October 17, but following a public outcry  including a petition signed by over 26,000 people  on September 25 she was made aware that the charges against her had been dismissed. Also, a campaign on crowdfunding site GoFundMe raised over $40,000 toward a new Crazys Claws n Paws shelter.

She loves animals and wants to help them.  She takes it to heart. She cries for days when she loses an animal, Davidson said about Tammie Hedges. We just want to go back to what we do.  Thats our mission now, to get past this, to get back to doing what we do.A 6-year-old girl from Chinas Ningxia autonomous region managed to melt the hearts of millions with her dedication to her disabled father who she has been taking care of ever since her mother left them.

Tian Haicheng, a 38-year-old man from Haiyuan County, in Ningxia, had his entire world turned upside down four years ago, when he was involved in a serious car accident. He lost his ability to walk, and was left with use of arms, which made him unable to work and support his family. His wife took their son and abandoned him and their 6-year-old daughter. But instead of Tian having to somehow take care of his girl, she was the one who took up most of the responsibilities, including cooking, cleaning, and making sure that Tian was well taken care of.

Its hard to believe that a 6-year-old could take care of herself, let alone her severely disabled father, but this little girl is living proof that its possible. In a video that has been doing the rounds on Chinese social media, she can be seen tending to her fathers wounds, helping him get into his wheelchair, helping him eat, reading to him and even tucking him in at bedtime. It should be the other way around, but life isnt always fair.

With his daughters help, Tian was able to overcome his depression and is now looking into the future as a hopeful man. Even though the car crash left him a cripple, the 38-year-old hopes that he can recover enough to relieve some of the burden currently on his daughters shoulders.

The proud father started sharing photos and videos of himself and his young caretaker on social media, and it didnt take long for people to take notice of their situation. They were recently featured in a Pear Video, which has been shared thousands of times on WeChat.

While most people expressed their amazement at the girls maturity and commended her on her dedication to her disabled father, there were also those who expressed their sadness at seeing such a young child having to grow up so fast instead of spending her time playing like most of her peers. But, again, life isnt always fairA Minnesota couple has been accused of abandoning a 5-year-old child in the woods as punishment for wetting his pants. The couple did reportedly come back for the boy after driving away a short distance, but couldnt find him.

Lynda Michel and Gregory Wilson can kiss away their chances of winning a parents of the year award after showing off their parenting skills  or lack thereof  late last month, when they left a young child all by himself in a forest to teach him a lesson after he reportedly wet himself. The couple allegedly came back to get him after driving off a short distance, but the boy was nowhere to be found. He was spotted by a motorist on Aug. 28 walking along a highway south of St. Peter in Minnesota, all wet and sobbing.

Photo: 12019/Pixabay

When asked by police how he had ended up all by himself, the 5-year-old said that he had been dropped off by his mom and dad because he had been naughty. Wilson, who is the child biological father, and his partner Michel were still searching for him when they were found by police, but they had yet to report his disappearance. A third adult, who was in the car when the couple abandoned the boy, told authorities that he had tried tried talking them out of it, but failed.

Multiple black and blue and red bruises were found on the boys back, buttocks and hips, indicating that he had been caused over a longer period of time. Wilson admitted to regularly spanking the boy with an open hand. He and his partner charges of gross misdemeanor malicious punishment of a child and misdemeanor domestic assault. The 5-year-old boy was taken into protective custody and is currently in foster care.

So the next time you feel like leaving your child all alone in the woods, no matter how naughty he\she is, dont, just dont!

Ashraf Ghani

Afghanistan has brought on DLA Piper to handle its communications with US government officials as president Trump has famously expressed his desire to Get the Hell out of Afghanistan.

Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis made an unannounced visit to Kabul earlier this month in an effort to restart peace talks with the Taliban.

The US team met with Afghanistan president Ashraf Ghani and CEO Abdullah Abdullah to discuss peace talks and other issues, according to the Sept. 7 New York Times.

It reported the Americans departed from previous US insistence that talks with the Taliban should begin with the Afghan government, which the Taliban dismiss as a puppet regime.

The US invaded Afghanistan 17 years ago in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks.

DLA Pipers Jessica Woolley and Matthew Bernstein help Afghanistans DC Embassy in its interactions with the Trump White House, Congress and individuals/groups involved in US public policy matters.

The firm bills the Afghans on an hourly basis.Motion will provide PR and digital support for Exelon Corporations inaugural HeForShe STEM Innovation Leadership Academies to promote opportunities for women in science, technology, engineering and math. The academies are part of Exelons three-year commitment to the HeForShe initiative, to which the companys charitable foundation has made a $3 million commitment. Motion has also added consumer experience center World of Whirlpool and Trulucks Restaurant Group, a seafood and steakhouse with locations across the country, to its client roster. The agency, which merged with AgencyMSI in February, has also moved into new offices and has recently launched a new website.

Sheila Donnelly & Assocs. has added Aerion Supersonic to its client roster. Aerion is working with GE Aviation on the first new civil supersonic engine in more than 50 years and has joined forces with Lockheed Martin to design the Aerion AS2 supersonic business jet. The company expects the AS2 to be the first in a series of increasingly capable and efficient supersonic aircraft. SDA will support Aerions public relations and marketing efforts and is focused on supporting the program as it progresses toward first flight and entry into service.



Tyler Seguin

SBX Group has signed on to represent NHL All-Star and Stanley Cup champion, Tyler Seguin. SBX will work with Seguin and his sports agency, The Will Sports Group, to expand and create multiple lines of business: expansion of e-commerce and merchandising, development of non-traditional partnerships outside of endemic hockey brands, extension of charitable efforts and the launch of new proprietary brands and businesses in lifestyle, entertainment and fashion. SBX chief executive officer Danny Fritz and chief strategy officer David Corelli will co-lead Seguins account. Seguin, one of the most dominant forwards in the NHL, signed a $78.8 million, eight-year contract extension with the Dallas Stars last month.Laughter is the best medicine, according to the old saying.

The United Nations yesterday prescribed a hearty dose of medicine to president Trump, after he made the audacious claim that his administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country.

Hoots, howls and guffaws erupted from the audience of global leaders. C'mon, Donald! Tell us another.

And for a moment, the ever-scowling tweeter-in-chief broke into a smile. Didnt expect that reaction, but thats okay, said Trump. Who was that guy?

In that ever-so-brief period of time, Trump appeared human, one with the audience. They understood that it's all smoke and mirrors when it comes to Trump. The leader of the free world was outed on the world's biggest stage.

Perhaps due to respect for the Office of the US President, the UN audience held back the laughs, when the always-boastful-one, tried out this gem:

"Our economy is the envy right now of the world. We're the fastest-growing economy in the world. Think of it. As large as we are, we're the fastest-growing economy in the world, up $10 trillion."

The New York Times shot that down, reporting that the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development rated the US the No. 8 fastest-growing economy during the second quarter among its 36 member countries and nine other economies.

The US grew at a 4.1 percent clip during the second-quarter, trailing China (6.7 percent) and India (8.2 percent).

While many in the audience that laughed at the US president are hardly advocates for democracy, their laughter brought to mind a quote from John Cleese of Monty Python fame.

Laughter connects you with people. Its almost impossible to maintain any kind of distance or any sense of social hierarchy when youre just howling with laughter. Laughter is a force of democracy, said Cleese.

After two years of Trump, the US could use a couple of laughs.Independent Offaly TD Carol Nolan has spoken out about what she calls "the growing advancement of vulture funds to seize control of family farms" in Ireland, describing as "reprehensible."

Speaking from Leinster House Deputy Nolan said, this Government has given the green light to Banks to move farm holdings beyond the reach of the Financial Regulator."

"These vultures have one single purpose and that it to prey upon distressed borrowers for the purpose of making a profit at the expense of the mortgage holder. The Government permit for these transactions is reprehensible as it is knowingly endorsing a black market trade of Irish land, farms and family homes," Carol commented.

"So-called vulture funds are privately owned speculative Hedge Funds and Equity Funds whose operations do not fall under the remit of the Financial Regulator," Nolan explained.

"In the past couple of months a number of banks including Permanent TSB and KBC Bank Ireland. Most recently Ulster Bank sold 1.4b worth of loans to the US Investment Fund Cerberus which includes the title to some 2,300 owner occupied family homes."

Deputy Nolan stated that these transactions are nothing short of legal racketeering, contrived to benefit profiteering investors at the expense of ordinary hard-working farm families. These vultures are faceless entities who know nothing of the business of farming and care even less for the plight of farm families, many who have worked their land for generations," she added.

Speaking in response to Minister of State for Financial Services Michael DArcys "recent comments that suggested vulture funds were easier to deal with than banks," Deputy Nolan stated that Minister DArcy has no legal or moral authority to make such a statement."

"The fact of the matter is that these funds are beyond his control and they can do what they like. His anecdote is unsubstantiated hearsay, behind which he is abdicating all responsibility for his Department. In May of this year I called on Minister Paschal Donohue to intervene in this matter yet since then weve witnessed the distressing scenes of forced land sale attempts by vulture funds. I am once again calling for Government intervention."

Deputy Nolan is supporting calls from the IFA and other farming organisations, to bring these funds within the regulatory jurisdiction of the Central Bank and extend some safeguards to borrowers and homeowners.As nominations close for the upcoming Presidential Election, the make-up of the ballot paper is now clear for October 26.

After Michael D Higgins announced his intention to seek a second term in the Aras, candidates wishing to challenge him emerged. Some controversial characters, including Bunty Twuntingdon-McFuff, took to the campaign trail with county councils around the country, needing four to secure a nomination.

When the miles had been clocked and the pitches had been given, Sean Gallagher, Peter Casey, Joan Freeman and Gavin Duffy emerged as the councils' choices to contest the vote. Sinn Fein deliberated and eventually bookended the ballot paper with the name of Liadh Ni Riada.

Gemma O'Doherty, a self-professed 'anti-corruption' candidate, managed to secure just one endorsement from Laois County Council, effectively bringing an end to her tilt for the park.

The six names on the upcoming ballot paper are Michael D Higgins (incumbent); Sean Gallagher; Peter Casey; Gavin Duffy; Joan Freeman; and Liadh Ni Riada.

The Presidential Election will be held on October 26. Scroll back up and let us know which candidate you would like to see in the Aras for the next seven years.Pictured, left to right: Brenna Bergeron, 2018 OBU grad, along with junior Caleb Frank and senior McKenzie Reece showed their Bison spirit during a theatre workshop in New York City July 29-Aug. 4 at the Open Jar Institute. Submitted photos. Pictured: Reece during a class at the Open Jar Institute. Submitted photos.

OBU Theatre Students Hone their Craft in New York, Nevada September 26, 2018

It is every college students dream to participate in a workshop, camp or an internship in their future career field. Experiencing their dream job outside of a classroom setting is an invaluable opportunity to gain knowledge, make connections and grow their portfolio when applying for jobs. This summer, three theatre students and a member of 2018 graduating class from Oklahoma Baptist University all had the chance to participate in these kinds of life-changing opportunities.



Scott Roberts, a senior theatre major, attended a workshop at Stage Craft Institutes of Las Vegas June 3-8. This all-expense-paid trip resulted from him winning The Award of Excellence in Stagecraft and Design from the Stagecraft Institute of Las Vegas. He earned the award by competing in the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival (KCACTF) Region VI competition in San Angelo, Texas, in March. Roberts was able to take a 45-hour course in modeling and drafting for free that allowed him to further his skills. He gained hands-on experience from professionals in his field and saw many things students of his major do not get to see while in school.



Caleb Frank, a junior, McKenzie Reece, a senior, and recent OBU graduate Brenna Bergeron all participated in a workshop in New York City July 29-Aug. 4 at the Open Jar Institute. The students also were chosen by competing in the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival (KCACTF) Region VI competition. They were three out of only four students selected from Region VI, which includes Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arkansas and Louisiana.



The Open Jar Institute is a program for students who are selected by audition to attend a week-long workshop where they receive one-on-one training from Broadway professionals. They also received an opportunity to see Broadway shows and work exclusively with those cast members.



I was blessed to have my experiences from OBU in the areas of vocal technique, acting training, and wisdom in how to engage a diverse world when attending Open Jar, Reece said. One of the coolest experiences I had was getting to work with Timothy Hughes who is on Broadway in Frozen the musical but also played the Strongman in The Greatest Showman. He gave us tips about auditions as well as transitioning ones performance from stage to film.



My favorite moment of the week was when I was one of nine students chosen out of the sixty who attended Open Jar to go backstage after we saw Carousel. It was my first time on a Broadway stage and I was breathless and deeply moved. When I looked out into the empty house, I knew that my desire to perform on a stage would not return void because the Lord has placed this desire and mission field on my heart. I am so blessed to have grown my craft at Open Jar and I am looking forward to the roles I will play thanks to the audition workshops and support of my fellow artists.



The Theatre Department at Oklahoma Baptist University allows students to follow their dreams of theatre production while teaching them in a way that honors and glorifies The Lord. This summer, Caleb Frank experienced this firsthand.



The biggest thing that I took away from the New York trip was a newfound appreciation for OBU and the theatre department, he said. I saw how far ahead OBU is from many of the other universities and colleges that surround us. The training we receive in not only performance, but also the technical side of theatre, is something that many other students said they lacked at their colleges.

Learn more about OBU Theatre.Campus News

UBs Global Partner Studio expands international experiential learning

By CHARLES ANZALONE

When you put these together with UBs commitment to innovation, the possibilities are limitless. 

When Mara B. Huber, associate dean for undergraduate research and experiential learning, took on the task of designing an office to serve as a hub for credit-based experiential learning at UB, she knew she wanted a model that was collaborative and catalytic.

She wanted a model that tapped into the connections and talents of UB faculty, encouraging them to think big and travel far.

Huber launched the Experiential Learning Network in fall 2017 with programmatic opportunities and support, and an evolving framework for collaboration and innovation. Now, as the ELN begins its second year of bringing together students and faculty for high-impact experiential learning opportunities, it will unveil its most comprehensive and global initiative to date: the Global Partner Studio.

The Global Partner Studio is an innovative platform for cultivating and leveraging high-impact experiential learning opportunities. By transforming partnerships into catalysts for pedagogical innovation, Huber, director of ELN, hopes to lead UB in a bold new direction for global collaboration. The GPS signature event, the Global Partner Studio Institute, is set to take place Oct. 1-5 at different sites on the North Campus.

The inaugural institute will bring partners from Ghana, Jamaica, Tanzania and Zimbabwe together with interested faculty, students and community members to learn about and work toward developing new ideas for courses, collaborative research, projects and travel-based learning.

Huber hopes the community will take advantage of this unique opportunity.

Although UB faculty and select students get to travel to these countries, Huber says, we are opening up engagement opportunities by bringing our partners to UB. By learning about their respective countries and the work that is already happening through their partnerships, we can catalyze new ideas for engagement, collaboration and student learning.

The institute will open with partner presentations at 3 p.m. Oct. 1 in 145 Student Union, with a reception to follow. After learning about the partner countries and priorities for collaboration, participants will be invited to attend studio sessions throughout the week and submit ideas for new projects and collaborations. A complete schedule and event registration is available on the ELN website.

While all ideas are welcome, Huber and the Experiential Learning Network team will focus on several specific types of learning that will be showcased in a Pedagogical Innovation session to be held from 9-11 a.m. Oct 2 in the Center for Educational Innovations (CEI) new Faculty Collaboration Studio in 6 Norton Hall.

These include COIL (collaborative online international learning), virtual reality (VR), UBs new Global Partner Studio open-source digital journal, Global Collaboration digital badge, project-based learning and customized short-term study abroad programs.

Participants will also learn how to integrate these experiences within ePortfolios, an exciting component of UBs new integrative curriculum.

Huber explains these innovative platforms can deepen and extend student learning, while at the same time driving lasting impacts for the communities and regions touched by UB students and faculty.

For example, recent UB Honors Program alum Danielle Nerber transformed a short-term study abroad experience in Tanzania into a social innovation project that is changing the lives of women and girls in the rural countryside while also shaping her own future career as a global health physician.

What began as a final project exploring the relationship between girls menstrual maintenance and educational attainment in rural sub-Saharan Africa led to a successful GoFundMe campaign that supported the training of a UB partner organization in the Mara region of Tanzania to produce reusable sanitary pads, engaging women through various sewing and empowerment groups.

In addition to generating much needed income, the project is spawning new spinoffs and has been embraced by national, municipal and faith-based leaders committed to improving the lives of women and girls, especially in challenged regions such as the Mara region.From potholes to garbage, when will Bengaluru roads be liberated?

Bengaluru

oi-Pushyarag Shetty

Bengaluru, Sep 25: With a week to go to make the city pothole free, BBMP has pulled up it's socks to make Bengaluru a pothole free city. But with heavy rains battering the city almost every day, has the BBMP really up to the task remains an unanswered question.

BBMP has already declared that almost 90% of the potholes are covered in the city. The High court has formed a commission to check the ground reality of the palike's claims. The concentration has been the roads in West Bengaluru and according to BBMP Malleshwaram, west zone: 7 out of 44 wards in Malleshwaram, 7 wards in Mahalaxmi layout and four out of 11 wards in Yelahanka are pothole free.

Oneindia spoke to some of the residents of the respective wards and answers received were not supporting the BBMP's claims. Though the roads are repaired and potholes are covered in most of the roads, question looms over the quality of the work done.

"This is not the first time the BBMP has repaired the roads and it will definitely wont be the last time," said Prajwal, a resident of Nagarbhavi. He said that every time the BBMP repairs the roads, it is only for a limited time. Over a period of time the roads will again ware off and same situation rises, he added. Prajwal runs a juice centre in Nagarbhavi.

'BBMP presented imaginary budget', says AAP leader

Another resident of Mahalaxmi layout, Arpitha Patil, an IT professional said that it has become a laborious work just to get to office and return home in the evening with the persistent traffic and the heavy rains thanks to the pothole ridden roads in the area. She also urged the BBMP to finish the works of the roads as soon as possible.

Along with the potholes in the roads, another menace that is bothering the commuters is the stench that is coming from the garbage dumped on the sides of the roads. "Almost half of the roads are covered in garbage and the other half is covered with potholes," an angry student from Dayanand Sagar college, Kumarswamy layout said to Oneindia.

Will Bengaluru be pothole free by today? HC fixes deadline

With one week time to go, BBMP has a lot to achieve and prove to the High court that it is capable of providing a hazard-less and less constraint travel through the city roads to the residents of Bengaluru. Along with the High court, Bengalureans too are waiting with much anticipation for BBMP's reply that has to be showed through their work.

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Story first published: Wednesday, September 26, 2018, 13:39 [IST]Step by step instructions on how to lock and unlock your Aadhaar biometrics online

Aadhaar data cannot be shared on ground of national security says SC

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Sep 26: The Supreme Court while upholding the validity of Aadhaar however said that data cannot be shared on the ground of national security.

The Aadhaar verdict simplified: A ready reckoner

The court struck down the provision in the Aadhaar Act that allowed sharing of data on the ground of national security.

This means that Section 33 (2) of the Act has been struck down by the court. Under this section a provision was made to share data on the ground of national security.

Technology has taken us back to thumb impressions from signatures: SC in Aadhaar verdict

The section read," nothing contained in sub-section (2) or sub-section (5) of section 28 and clause (b) of sub-section (1), sub-section (2) or sub-section (3) of section 29 shall apply in respect of any disclosure of information, including identity information or authentication records, made in the interest of national security in pursuance of a direction of an officer not below the rank of Joint Secretary to the Government of India specially authorised in this behalf by an order of the Central Government."Aadhaar verdict appears correct says main petitioner Justice Puttaswamy

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

Bengaluru, Sep 26: The lead petitioner in the Aadhaar plea before the Supreme Court says that the verdict to him appears to be correct. Justice K S Putaswamy from Bengaluru, was the main petitioners in the case and challenged the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar Act.

He tells Oneindia that looking at the matter in its entire view, it appears as through the majority verdict is correct. On the whole the judgment is fair and reasonable. We cannot say that the verdict suffers from any serious lapses that are found under the Constitution, particularly Article 19 which gives certain rights to citizens.

The Aadhaar verdict simplified: A ready reckoner

I am yet to read the entire verdict and would be able to comment further after that. From what I gather, this is a split verdict and a majority in the Bench (3:2) has upheld the validity of the Aadhaar Act. Justice Puttaswamy said that some sections such as 33(2) which has the national security clause and Section 57 which permits private players to seek Aadhaar details have been struck down.

The Aadhaar Act in my view was needed to crack down on criminals. For ordinary citizens like you and me, it is not of much benefit and not useful to the state either. The state has decided to collect all the data of individual citizens and will release it on certain conditions, he further added.

Who is Justice K S Puttaswamy, first petitioner in the privacy case

On the whole the judgment is fair and reasonable. We can't say verdict suffers from any serious lapses that are found under the constitution. Looking at all the matters in its entire view, the majority verdict appears to be correct, Justice Puttaswamy also said.

Justice K S Puttaswamy is a retired Judge of the Karnataka High Court who was is also the original petitioner in the Aadhaar case. He had filed a writ petition in 2012 and over the last five years, 26 other petitions were tagged along with his, challenging the scheme.

Aadhaar constitutionally valid, but banks, mobile companies can't ask for it says SC

K.S. Puttaswamy studied at the Maharaja's College, Mysore and the Government Law College in Bangalore.Step by step instructions on how to lock and unlock your Aadhaar biometrics online

Aadhaar verdict today: This is the second longest case ever

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Sep 26: The Supreme Court will deliver its verdict on the constitutional validity of Aadhaar on Wednesday. The court after hearing a batch of petitions reserved orders on May 10 2018.

The matter was heard for 38 days and stretched over for four months. The hearing in the case started in January and went on for 38 days, which incidentally makes it the second longest case in the history of India.

Hectic day in SC: Aadhaar, live streaming and many more cases up for judgment

The longest case heard by the SC was the Keshavananda Bharti vs Union of India matter.

This order considered to be the mother of all judgments dealt with the powers of the Parliament to amend the Constitution. It questioned whether the Parliament's power to amend the Constitution was unlimited, to the extent of taking away all fundamental rights. The hearing went on for five months.

In the Aadhaar case, the court examined if the 12 digit Unique Identification number violates the Right to Privacy, which it may recalled was named as fundamental right by the Supreme Court last year.

DoT puts Aadhaar based face authentication on hold

The petitioners contended that Aadhaar was built on a massive biometric database that comprised fingerprints and iris scans and this cannot be made mandatory. The petitioners also argued that the database was open to compromise. To back their contention, they cited various instances of data breach.

The Centre however defended Aadhaar and said that it ensured the proper distribution of benefits to millions of people. The Centre also said that Aadhaar acts as a guard against siphoning of funds while also adding that data was safe and not prone to breach.

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Story first published: Wednesday, September 26, 2018, 7:40 [IST]Aadhaar verdict: What does not need Aadhaar linking?

India

oi-Chennabasaveshwar P

New Delhi, Sep 26: The Supreme Court in its judgment ruled that Aadhaar should not be linked to accounts, mobile numbers. Justice Sikri while reading out majority judgment, said, "Aadhaar need not be made compulsory for school admissions."

Aadhaar cannot be mandatory for mobile connections and for obtaining a new SIM card, hence, the DoT notification to that effect will become unconstitutional. Also, CBSE, NEFT, UGC cannot ask for Aadhaar.

Private entities cannot demand Aadhaar: Section 57 struck down

Section 57 of Adhaar Act permitting private entities to avail Aadhaar data struck down by Majority Judgment.

The SC Bench stated that benefits and services under Section 7 should be of the nature of welfare schemes targeted at a particular deprived community. The Bench cautioned that no child shall be denied the benefit of any scheme, if, by any means, they are not able to submit Aadhaar.

No need for quantifiable data of SC/ST for reservation in promotion says SC

The apex court had heard this matter for a record 38 days spanning over four months, thus making it the second longest case in the history of India after the Keshavananda Bharti case, which spanned over for five months. The bench comprising Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra and Justices AK Sikri, AM Khanwilkar, DY Chandrachud and Ashok Bhushan passed the verdict in the case.Appointment of Justice Gogoi as next CJI challenged in Supreme Court

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Sep 26: The appointment of Justice Ranjan Gogoi as the next Chief Justice of India has been challenged in the Supreme Court. The petitioner advocates, R P Luthra and Satyaveer Sharma have relied on the contents of a press conference called by the top four judges including Justice Gogoi earlier this year.

The petitioners claimed that the four judges of the Supreme Court tried to arouse public furore in the country in the name of certain internal differences in the court. "This act of the four senior-most judges of the court was not less than a sabotage to the judicial system of the country," the petitioners stated.

Hectic day in SC: Aadhaar, live streaming and many more cases up for judgment

A Bench headed by Chief Justice of India, Dipak Misra asked the petitioner to file the mentoring memo before the court master. The matter would be heard today.

The petitioners sought the adjudication of the question of law for which they are relying on the contents of the press conference of January 12.

The petitioners are aggrieved of the actions and omissions on the part of respondent 1 (Union of India) and respondent 2 (Chief Justice of India), which has resulted into appointment of respondent 3 (Justice Ranjan Gogoi) as the Chief Justice of India instead of reprimanding him for his illegal and anti-institutional act, the petition stated.

Congress welcomes Justice Gogoi's appointment as CJI

The petition said that act of Respondent 1 and Respondent 2 "is illegal and unconstitutional and also against the canons of law because the appointment on highest post of judiciary has been awarded to a person who is guilty of committing judicial impropriety and judicial misconduct".

The plea sought to quash the order of appointment of Justice Ranjan Gogoi as the CJI with effect from October 3. On September 3, the President had appointed Justice Gogoi as the 46th CJI. He is set to take oath on October 3.

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Wednesday, September 26, 2018, 5:51 [IST]Arun Jaitley hails Aadhaar verdict, says Congress cuts 'sorry figure'

India

oi-Deepika S

New Delhi, Sep 26: Terming the SC verdict as a "historic order", Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said, "Aadhaar's concept has been accepted after judicial review. We welcome this decision of the Supreme Court."

"Everyone who has been criticizing Aadhaar should understand that they cannot defy technology. The mainstream should accept changes, one can understand the fringe being against," Jaitley said. Upping the ante against the Congress, he said, "The Congress cuts a very sorry figure here, they had introduced the idea but they did not know what to do with it."

In Aadhaar verdict, word of caution to Centre on illegal immigrants

"Congress introduced the idea and did not know what to do with it. Even during tabulation, it was unclear what it was going to be used for. The concept is when you want benefits, you need some identification. Haven't read the full text on the verdict. We will study it in detail. We were breaking new ground. While doing so, we were entering uncharted areas. What are the dos and dont's," Jailey further said.

"An Estimated 122 crore people have Aadhaar card. Our estimation is that by identifying beneficial of government schemes and ensuring non duplication, we are saving 90,000 crore every year. The amount of money being spent on new/old schemes have resulted in revenue collection. We have made all of that tech based," said Arun Jaitley.

Private entities cannot demand Aadhaar: Section 57 struck down

"The money left from old schemes, through Aadhaar, we hope to serve the poor better. Tech as a tool of governance as instrument of revenue collection, is a concept no one can deny and Supreme Court, after reviewing this has held it constitutionally valid," he added.

In a 4:1 verdict, the Supreme Court has declared the Centre's flagship Aadhaar scheme as constitutionally valid, but with conditions.

The majority verdict of the five-judge Constitution Bench has ruled that there is no need to link Aadhaar with bank accounts and mobile phones, but held that Aadhaar could be passed as a money bill.Step by step instructions on how to lock and unlock your Aadhaar biometrics online

For BJP, Aadhaar is a tool of oppression: Rahul Gandhi

India

oi-Deepika S

New Delh, Sep 26: Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday hailed the Supreme Court for its historic Aadhaar verdict and said that Aadhaar was a tool BJP intended to use to oppress people.

Reacting hours after the verdict, the Congress chief said "For Congress, Aadhaar was an instrument of empowerment. For the BJP, Aadhaar is a tool of oppression and surveillance," Gandhi tweeted. "Thank you Supreme Court for supporting the Congress vision and protecting," he added.

For Congress, Aadhaar was an instrument of empowerment.



For the BJP, Aadhaar is a tool of oppression and surveillance.



Thank you Supreme Court for supporting the Congress vision and protecting . #AadhaarVerdict  Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) September 26, 2018

The Congress party welcomed the Supreme Court decision to strike down the "draconian" Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act which allows any private entity to demand the unique identity document from citizens for the purpose of identification.

Aadhaar constitutionally valid, but banks, mobile companies can't ask for it says SC

It added that the next step was to destroy the citizen's data already collected by the government under the Aadhaar Act. "We welcome the Supreme Court decision to strike down Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act," the party said in a tweet. Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala said the verdict had upheld the individual's right to privacy.From Bofors to Rafale: Defence scams that rocked India

India

oi-Vikas SV

New Delhi, Sep 26: In the wake of allegations being levelled against the ruling BJP government over the Rafale fighter jets deal, it is worth looking at some of the defence deals of the past that rocked the nation. The defence deals in India are controversy's favourite child. It really is sad that everytime a major defence deal is struck, fingers are pointed at it.

What complicates matters further in case of defence deals is that because it concerns national security a lot of details must be kept under the shroud of secrecy which unfortunately leaves scope for foulplay.

Here are some of the infamous defence deals that shook the nation:

Tatra trucks scam:

Tatra all-weather all-terrain trucks are used to transport missiles, artillery and troops. These trucks are manufactured in the Czech Republic. Since 1986, the Indian Army has bought over 7,000 Tatra trucks. The alleged Tatra trucks scam came to light when General VK Singh was the Army Chief. It was alleged that BEML officials and the defence ministry siphoned-off at least Rs 750 crore in bribes and commissions in the purchase of Tatra trucks and its components. According to the defence procurement guidelines, all purchases should be made from the original equipment manufacturer (OEM). But BEML had been flouting the guidelines and has been making purchases from a middleman in London.

'Rafale' vs 'Bofors': Can the two defence deals be compared?

CBI on August 26, 2014, closed its probe into the Tatra scam saying that there was insufficient evidence to file a charge sheet in the case. The agency filed its closure report before Special CBI court in New Delhi on Tuesday.

Scorpene Submarine scam:

The Scorpene deal scam was a bribery scandal, in which USD 175 million (Rupees 1,100 crores) were alleged to have been paid to government decision makers by Thales. The then Defence minister Pranab Mukherjee had approved a deal to build Scorpene-class submarines worth US$3 billion (Rs 19,000 crores) with Thales, France in October 2005. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), found no evidence of corruption in the deal in 2008. The amount of US$ 175 million was allegedly channelled and paid to middleman billionaire arms dealer Abhishek Verma who is known as the Lord of War and is the prime accused in the Navy War Room spy scandal and many other defence scandals in India.

In 2008, the CBI told the Delhi High Court that after investigations, it had found no evidence of payment of kickbacks in the US$ 6 billion deal. However, the case dragged on for 8 years in Delhi High Court. On January 13, 2016, the Chief Justice of Delhi High Court dismissed the PIL (Public Interest Litigation) filed by Prashant Bhushan in 2007, thereby exonerating Abhishek Verma.

Scorpene submarines are now being built in India under a technology transfer agreement that was part of that contract.

AgustaWestland chopper scam:

In February 2010, India had inked a deal to acquire the 12 three-engine AW-101 helicopters from AgustaWestland worth Rs 3,700 crore for IAF's elite Communication Squadron, which ferries around the President, PM and other VVIPs. On 12 February 2013, controversy over the contract came to light, with arrest of Giuseppe Orsi, the CEO of Finmeccanica, AgustaWestland's parent company by Italian authorities following which then Defence Minister AK Antony scrapped the contract in January, 2014 and ordered probe.

Amid Rafale offensive, Congress highlights 'A to Z' scams of BJP

Defence Ministry had allegedly tweaked technical requirements to enable Finmeccanica to bid for the deal with its AW 101 helicopter. Rs 375 crore was allegedly paid as bribery to the middlemen in the deal. Former IAF chief SP Tyagi was allegedly bribed by Finmeccanica to swing the AgustaWestland chopper deal in the company's favour. Tyagi admitted having met one of the alleged middlemen but refuted the charge saying that the whole process started after he retired. A recent revelation by Italian court indicts Tyagi of being a participant in this choppergate.

SP Tyagi did not depose before the Italian court and is currently facing investigation at home by both the Central Bureau of Investigation and the Enforcement Directorate in India.

Coffin scam:

After the Kargil war of 1999, there were allegations of corruption in the purchase of coffins by the then BJP-led Government. The government had incurred a heavy loss of 1,87,000 dollars in the entire transaction. Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG)'s report had found several frauds in the transaction of coffins. The caskets were purchased from Buitron and Baiza, a company based in United States Of America rendering funeral services.

The then ruling government National Democratic Alliance had purchased 500 caskets worth $2500 each which was presumed to be thirteen times the original amount. However, the ambassador from both the countries India and United States had declared in writing that those caskets had a cost worth 2,768 dollars each.

The CBI investigated the case and filed a charge sheet against three Indian Army officers in August 2009. In December 2013, a special CBI court found no evidence and hence discharged all the accused

Bofors scam:

The Rajiv Gandhi government decided to replace the old field guns and artillery with the induction of a bigger caliber 155 mm howitzers. A deal was signed in 1986 between the Indian government and Swedish Armament major AB Bofors for $285 million i.e. roughly about 1500 crores rupees.

BJP drags Robert Vadra-Sanjay Bhandari link into Rafale debate

About a year later, on 16 April 1987, Swedish Radio alleged that Bofors paid kickbacks to people from a number of countries including top Swedish and Indian politicians and key defence officials to seal the deal. The middleman associated with the scandal was Ottavio Quattrocchi, an Italian businessman who represented the petrochemicals firm Snamprogetti. Quattrocchi was reportedly close to the family of Rajiv Gandhi and emerged as a powerful broker in the 1980s between big businesses and the Indian government.

The Bofors case not only cost Rajiv Gandhi his Prime Ministership, but also severely dented Congress' reputation.

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Story first published: Wednesday, September 26, 2018, 6:03 [IST]Hurting local sentiments: Why Hizbuls threat to local cops will blow up on the face

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Sep 26: The Jammu and Kashmir government said that the submissions of resignations by special police officers who have been threatened by the Hizbul Mujahideen was a phenomenon restricted to certain parts of the state only.

The Hizbul Mujahideen in a recent video had warned the cops in Kashmir, especially the SPOs to quit or face the bullet. The outfit even followed up the warning by killing three SPOs, following which many tendered their resignations.

While decoding the threat handed by the Hizbul, it becomes clear that the SPOs were playing a vital role in gathering intelligence on the ground. This had led to the targeted killing of several Hizbul Mujahideen commanders over the past year and half. The issue is not about Kashmiri pride, but the fear that the local intelligence was getting the better of them.

Also Read | To deal double blow to Pak, not one but many surgical strikes on the anvil

However experts say that this threat by the Hizbul Mujahideen would backfire. The ground level support that these terrorists enjoy in certain parts of the state will start to reduce, if they continue to kill locals, even if they are police personnel. What is worse, the terror group has issued a similar warning even to the lady police personnel and this is not going to go down too well with the locals.

The Kashmiris may have watched silently these developments, but it is only a matter of time before they go against these local terrorists, feels Air Marshal B K Pandey (retd). He feels that this move by the Hizbul would backfire badly as it would affect the sentiment of the locals.

Security officials too say that ever since the Hizbul Mujahideen has started to target the locals the sentiment on the ground has slowly begun to change. The locals will not tolerate their own being killed. Moreover there is this clear perception that is there in the minds of the people that this is being orchestrated by Pakistan.

Also Read | Quit or face a headshot: Hizbul stoops to new low as it threatens women cops

An Intelligence Bureau report prepared following the killing of the three SPOs pointed to a clear Pakistan hand. It was the Pakistan modules and security establishment which suggested that the local cops be targeted. They wanted to create panic and also an element of fear. The intention was to drive across the message that if the cops are not safe, then nobody is. Officials say that this new strategy is going to backfire.

The J&K government on the other hand admitted to special police officers (SPOs) submitting their resignations in the face of militant threat, but said that the number was "negligible" and the phenomenon was restricted to certain parts of south Kashmir only.

Last week, the killing of three SPOs following their abduction by militants in southern Shopian district triggered resignations by a number of policemen and SPOs in the Valley and some of them posted videos on social media confirming it.

Also Read | Avoid your homes, at least for now, J&K cops told

But the ministry of home affairs (MHA) was quick to deny that any policeman had resigned and termed such reports are "untrue and motivated" and part of a false propaganda by certain "mischievous elements". It also said, "There are some mischievous elements who are deliberately trying to create an impression that those SPOs whose services have not been renewed due to administrative reasons, have resigned".

However, J&K's chief secretary B.V.R. Subrahmanyam said at a press conference here on Tuesday that the number of those SPOs who have quit is "negligible" and that the problem is restricted to certain areas only".

J&K has 30,000 SPOs and the number of those resigning is negligible. The problem is restricted to certain areas of south Kashmir only. There is by and large no such problem in north and central Kashmir," he said.

Also Read | Spooked over pinpointed intelligence, here is why Hizbul wants cops targeted

He also said that all SPOs have been asked to take precautionary measures regarding their personal safety whereas the government is in the process of enhancing their honorarium. He said that the honorarium of SPOs was enhanced from Rs 3,000 to Rs 6,000 per month some time ago and the same will be hiked substantially. He, however, refused to give out figures and said that it be decided by the state administrative council headed by the governor in a few days.

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Story first published: Wednesday, September 26, 2018, 16:27 [IST]Hyderabad rape case: The rapist will be caught and killed in encounter, Telangana minister

Hyderabad: Man hacked to death in broad daylight, people remain mute spectators

India

oi-Madhuri Adnal

Hyderabad, Sep 26: In yet another shocking incident, a man was hacked to death in full public view in Hyderabad's Rajendranagar Attapur road near Pillar 143 of the PV Narasimha Rao expressway in Cyberabad police limits.

The video immediately went viral on various social media. The video shows the victim lying on the ground, being attacked with an axe 13 times in 21 seconds even as vehicle pass by.

According to the police, it is a case of revenge murder. The victim who was killed was involved in a murder case last year and was attacked by that victim's relatives.

Also Read | Double murder in Delhi's Mianwali area, Police begins probe

The police said that they arrested two assailants in connection with the murder.

It is learnt that the deceased identified as Ramesh, was an accused number 1 in the murder case of one Mahesh Goud, who was killed in Dec 2017. Mahesh's relatives killed Ramesh. The police also said that the traffic cops who was seen in the video trying to stop the assailants but they even pushed him away.

Also Read | 5 Juveniles murder warden and inmate as their supply of 'cough syrups' shuts off

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Story first published: Wednesday, September 26, 2018, 15:56 [IST]IGNOU December 2018 term end exam: Is Aadhaar mandatory

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Sep 26: The IGNOU December 2018 term end exam form submission has begun. Although it says that Aadhaar is mandatory, it would be interesting to see what would happen of this rule in the wake of the Supreme Court pronouncing its verdict.

The SC would deliver its verdict and decide whether Aadhaar is mandatory or not.

The last date to submit the Term End Examination form for December 2018 is October 31, 2018. Students who miss the deadline will have time from November 1 to November 10, 2018 to submit the examination form with a late fine of Rs. 1000.

Students must make sure that their registration is valid and they are eligible for the course they are submitting the examination form for. The student must also have submitted the assignments for the course they have applied to failing which their admit card will not be issued for the course in which they have not submitted their assignment.

Students whose TEE June, 2018 results are not declared yet, they need not to wait for results. They are advised to fill the Examination Form for TEE December, 2018 on or before last date of submission of Exam form as per schedule above.

Students also need to provide Aadhaar card details in the application form.

Students will have to pay Rs. 120 per course (for both practical and theory papers respectively). Application fee can be submitted online only through debit card, credit card or netbanking.SC directs Tripura govt to ensure no political party is prevented from local body polls campaign

In Aadhaar verdict, word of caution to Centre on illegal immigrants

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Sep 26: In the big Aadhaar verdict by the Supreme Court, there was a word of caution for the Centre, where the illegal immigrants are concerned.

In the order, the court said, " ensure that illegal immigrants do not get Aadhaar cards."

The observation assumes importance in the wake of illegal immigration being a major issue in the country. Statistics show that there are over two crore illegal immigrants in the country. These are however as per official statistics.

Also Read | Aadhaar constitutionally valid, but banks, mobile companies can't ask for it says SC

This issue had been debated widely following the Assam NRC issue. In the recently published final draft it was found that 40 lakh people were excluded from the document for want of valid citizenship documents.

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Story first published: Wednesday, September 26, 2018, 13:59 [IST]In landmark verdict, SC okays live streaming of its proceedings

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Sep 26: The Supreme Court has said that constitutional court proceedings in the SC will be live-streamed. The court said that this would bring about transparency in proceedings and serve public interest.

The court however said that necessary rules to balance the rights of the public and protect dignity of litigants would be brought out soon.

Aadhaar constitutionally valid, but banks, mobile companies can't ask for it says SC

On the earlier date of hearing, the Centre had said that it supported live-streaming of court proceedings in the Supreme Court. It should start with the court of the Chief Justice, the Centre said.

The Centre further said that the government is in favour of the idea and that modalities could be devised to suit the needs. It can be done on a pilot basis and should begin in the CJI's court.

Attorney General Venugopal said that live streaming should first be confined only to matters heard by the Constitution Bench. These matters are of great interest to lawyers, law interns and others. There could be screens installed in the court premises as well to enable lawyers and law interns to watch.

Reservation in promotion: No need to collect quantifiable data on backwardness says SC

The petitioner in the case, Indira Jaisingh said that certain safeguards need to be in place so that the clips are not commercially exploited or misused.

The Supreme Court had sought the assistance of the Attorney General of India on a petition that seeks live streaming of proceedings of the Constitution Bench in cases having national importance.

In her petition, Jaisingh said that the norm world over was to allow proceedings to be recorded. She further added that some judges on the Constitution Benches were reluctant about this as it would capture every sentence in the banter between judges and advocates which were merely a way to elicit responses and not a sign of how the judge would finally decide the case.

Aadhaar data cannot be shared on ground of national security says SC

She however added that there were different methods to resolve such reluctance and also listed the methods that courts globally had adopted. Some courts allow publication after a gap of 30 minutes, some ban recording of proceedings only in trial courts as that would compromise witnesses, some give edited versions of the proceedings, some record the proceedings but do not air it in public, some give out transcripts of proceedings, she also said in her petition.In mystery killing of Indian Mujahideen ringleader, link to an Azamgarh Madrasa crops up

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Sep 26: The mystery death of an Indian Mujahideen ringleader in Nepal has left many baffled. Investigations till date have not been able to ascertain the motive behind the killing of Khursheed Alam who was a prime facilitator for the Indian Mujahideen and the accused in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case.

Alam died on the spot after being shot at by four bike borne assailants.

It is a very well known fact that Alam was politically well connected. It was this connection that saved him from an extradition request that India had made over 20 years back. In fact after his death, he was declared a martyr and a huge compensation was paid to his family.

Hit job: The story behind the killing of Indian Mujahideen's ring leader in Nepal

Apart from his political clout, he used several other methods to remain undetected and go about his activities. He had been undercover as a Maulana and then a teacher at the Raiyan National School in Nepal.

Interestingly, he ran an NGO called the Dawa Islah, which was directly connected to a Madrasa in Azamgarh in Uttar Pradesh. It must be noted that the Azamgarh module of the Indian Mujahideen was the most powerful and the intelligence files indicate that the outfit was born in this place, which was once dubbed as a terror nursery.

It was from Azamgarh that the likes of Abdul Subhan, Dr Shahnawaz, Bada Sajid and others were born. The NGO run by Alam worked closely for several years with the Jamiat-ul-Islah, a Madrasa at Azamgarh of which Alam was an alumni.

Al-Qaeda has the intent to hit, but remains a non-starter in India

During the peak of the Indian Mujahideen, some of the Madrasas especially in Azamgarh were under the scanner of the Intelligence agencies. It was alleged that they not only radicalised the youth, but also provided cover/shelter to the operatives.

Alam's link to the Indian Mujahideen was born at Azamgarh. It was this Madrasa that brought him close to a key IM operative Shakir. The Special Cell of the Delhi police while probing the Batla House encounter said that the key accused Ariz Khan who managed to get away got in touch with Alam. Khan who also is a product of the Azamgarh module is the nephew of Alam. It was Alam who got him in touch with another Nepal operative Naimuddin, who in turn prepared the Nepal Citizenship Card and passport as a result of which he was able to escape.MEA responds to Khalistan militant row, says 'don't know how the visa was issued'

LeT commander behind killing of Army Major among two militants dead in Kashmir encounter

India

oi-PTI

New Delhi, Sep 26: A top Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorist of Pakistani origin, who was responsible for gunning down Army Major Satish Dhayia, was among two militants killed in an encounter in the apple town of Sopore in North Kashmir early on Wednesday, police said.

With these deaths, the number of ultras killed in the past 12 days in Kashmir has gone up to 18, they said.

Abu Maaz, who had been active since 2015, was killed, along with Abdul Majeed alias 'Sameer', a resident of Bomai in Sopore, they said.

J&K: 5 terrorists killed, 1 soldier martyred as infiltration bid foiled in Tangdhar

Giving details, the police said that during the intervening night of Tuesday and Wednesday, a joint search operation was launched with paramilitary forces and the army following a credible intelligence input about the presence of terrorists in Nowpora area of Tujjer in Sopore.

"During the searches, hiding terrorists fired on the search party, which was retaliated leading to an encounter. In the ensuing encounter, two terrorists were eliminated," a police spokesman said.

NIA gets a dressing down from HC as key accused in terror funding case is granted bail

"On the basis of materials recovered, one of the slain terrorists has been identified as Abu Maaz of Pakistani origin who had been operating as the top commander of LeT in north Kashmir," the spokesman said.

The spokesman said Maaz was involved in a series of attacks on security forces and killings of civilians. He was active in North Kashmir, particulary Sopore and Handwara. Maaz had masterminded an attack on an Army convoy in Handwara in February last year, in which 31-year-old Major Satish Dhaiya was killed.

Three terrorists - Abu Saad, Abu Maviya and Abu Darda - were killed in that encounter, but Abu Maaz had managed to escape after gunning down the Army Major. Since then, he was among the most wanted terrorists in North Kashmir.

With these two deaths, the number of militants killed in the past 12 days in Kashmir has gone up to 18. Five militants each were killed in Kulgam district of South Kashmir and Bandipore in North Kashmir during this period.

Another five terrorist were gunned down in Tangdhar of North Kashmir and one was killed at Tral in Awantipura of South Kashmir.Mamata gives her party Trinamool Congress credit for Supreme Courts Aadhaar verdict

India

oi-Shubham Ghosh

Milan, Sept 26: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday, September 26, welcomed the Supreme Court's verdict on Aadhaar, saying it was a victory for the people. Currently on a tour of Europe where she has gone to woo investors for her state, Banerjee said she was always against the idea of linking Aadhaar number with bank and mobile phone details for she thought that breached people's privacy.

"If we link Aadhaar with bank accounts and mobiles, then people's privacy gets violated. In some areas, the government has to maintain privacy which we support. But by linking Aadhaar with bank accounts and mobiles, one only violates people's rights. Our MLA Mahua Moitra had filed a PIL in this regard and we are happy the Supreme Court upheld it. This is a win for the nation," Banerjee told reporters.

Aadhaar constitutionally valid, but banks, mobile companies can't ask for it says SC

It can be mentioned here that in November 2017, the apex court rejected a plea filed by Moitra, a legislator from Karimpur, challenging the linking of bank accounts with Aadhaar. It said several petitions challenging Aadhaar were already pending before it and it could not entertain more pleas on same issue.

Will Aadhaar data with private persons be deleted? De-coding the SC verdict with Justice Hegde

Earlier this month, the Centre told the Supreme Court that it was willing to accommodate the suggestions made by Moitra in the proposal of UIDAI (Unique Identification Authority of India) to hire a social media agency to oversee online platforms.

Mamata lashes out at BJP in Italy

Banerjee also took a strong dig at the BJP, especially in the context of its 12-hour strike in Bengal over the recent deaths of two students in a school in Islampur in North Dinajpur.

SC rules, Aadhaar not compulsory for educational services including mid-day meal

Defending her foreign trips, she said she only embarks on tours that matter for her state and not like Prime Minister Narendra Modi. She said the PM goes abroad several times but those haven't helped the country.Modi in Nepal again in December: Hindutva, strategic reasons on agenda

India

oi-Shubham Ghosh

New Delhi, Sept 26: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to visit the northern neighbour of Nepal for the fifth time this year end. He will visit Nepal to inaugurate the first cross-border rail link between the two neighbours and also participate in a major Hindu festival at a temple dedicated to Sita, the wife of Lord Ram.

This visit is significant from a number of perspectives. It amalgamates the element of Hindutva with strategic aims of winning Nepal's confidence back. The neigbouring country has displayed an effort to diversify its foreign policy of late under the communists by deepening its engagement with the Chinese and for old ally India, these are uncomfortable signs. Modi is thus set to embark on yet another visit to Kathmandu for the betterment of relations that were soured in 2015 over an economic blockade allegedly put up by India over issues on Nepal's new constitution. The rise of the communists since then who strongly gripped the power last year put Nepal on a course which seemed closer to China than India. Nepal also joined China's much-vaunted Belt and Road Initiative while India did not.

Also Read | PM Modi on his 3rd visit to Nepal: The first two that exuded bonhomie now look distant dream

Rail connection plus Hindutva mobilisation

India next plans to counter China's move of connecting Nepal with Tibet. The broad gauge railway line between Bihar's Jainagar and Janakpur in Nepal is in the final stages of completion and in a meeting between Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj and her Nepali counterpart Pradip Kumar Gyawali on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, September 25, where talks were held over Modi's upcoming visit to Nepal and also timely completion of the bilateral projects.

On the Hindutva front, Modi is also likely to lead a high-level delegation to Janakpur to attend the Ram-Janaki Bibhawa Panchami on December 12, an occasion which coincides with the wedding of Lord Ram and Goddess Sita. The PM is even expected to lead a symbolic 'barat' (wedding procession) from India to Janakpur where the Janaki Mandir is located and considered the abode of Sita. He could also be accompanied by top Indian officials and BJP leaders.

Also Read | 'Sabka sath, sabka vikas' not limited to India, includes Nepal as well, says Modi

According to observers, the second programme is aimed at not only wooing Nepal but also mobilise the majoritarian sentiments in the adjoining states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar that are considered Hindi belts and are extremely important for Modi in his bid to renew the mandate in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. In fact, he also has three important state elections (Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh) coming up in the Hindi belt in central and western India this year end.

In May this year, Modi went to Nepal and offered prayers at Janaki Temple a day before the state of Karnataka went to the Assembly elections. The Opposition blamed the BJP for trying to woo the Hindu sentiments in the poll-bound state through the prime minister's act on a foreign land. The BJP improved his poll performance in the state by emerging as the largest party but could not form government as Oppositions Congress and JD(S) joined hands to get the numbers.

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Story first published: Wednesday, September 26, 2018, 16:59 [IST]Security beefed up outside Mukesh Ambani's Antilia after alert from taxi driver about suspicious passengers

Mukesh Ambani increased his wealth by Rs 300 crore daily last year: Barclays Hurun report

India

oi-PTI

Mumbai, Sep 26: At a time when policymakers are grappling on how to reduce inequalities, a wealth report on Tuesday said there has been a 34 per cent increase in the number of Indians having a networth of Rs 1,000 crore or more.

India's richest person Mukesh Ambani increased his wealth by Rs 300 crore per day over the past one year.

Led by Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani with a net worth of Rs 3.71 trillion, there were 831 Indians having a networth of Rs 1,000 crore or more in 2018, which is 214 individuals more than the 2017 list, according to a Barclays- Hurun India rich list.

A January 2018 report presented by Oxfam at the World Economic Forum had expressed concern on the rising inequalities, stating that 1 per cent of the country's population holds 73 per cent of the wealth.

Mukesh Ambani pips Jack Ma to become Asia's richest

The financial capital, which presents stark contrasts like housing the largest slums in the continent as also costliest mansions like Ambani's Antilla, has the highest number of contribution to the rich list, with 233 richie rich, followed by 163 in the national Capital and 70 in Bengaluru.

Anas Rahman Junaid, managing director and chief researcher at Hurun India says the country is the fastest growing when it comes to people entering the rich list.

From a demographic perspective, the average age in the list is 60, the 24-year-old Ritesh Agarwal of Oravel Stays which runs Oyo Rooms, being the youngest and 95-year-old Dharam Pal Gulati of the masala brand MDH being the eldest.

There was a massive, 157 per cent spike in the number of women in the list, which grew to 136.

Nine individuals in the list saw a doubling of wealth in 2018, with Krishna Kumar Bangur of Graphite India being the biggest gainer with a 430 per cent jump in his peronsal fortunes.

According to the report, India is going through one of the most interesting periods in wealth creation. Despite rupee depreciation and rising crude oil prices, wealth creation rate in India is at an all-time high.

PTI

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Story first published: Wednesday, September 26, 2018, 15:06 [IST]No new points in hands still Congress to continue to target government on Rafale

India

oi-Vinod Kumar Shukla

New Delhi, Sep 26: Though the Congress has failed to come up with something new on Rafale deal but this is part of its strategy and campaign to repeat old issues like cost of the Rafale deal, the issue of transfer of technology and why preference was given to Reliance Defence Ltd instead of public sector Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd.The Congress wants to keep the government on back foot.

A senior Congress said that definitely all these three points are part of he Congress strategy for its political and election campaign. He said that the Congress has to make the deeds of the Modi government understand to the most common people of the country. It is very easy to make people understand that higher prices have been paid in the purchase of fighter jets and the work of a government undertaking has been snatched to give it to a private entity and in such a situation doubt is inevitable to get generated in the minds of common people.

Also Read | How does the BJP see international conspiracy in questioning Rafale deal: Kapil Sibal

A senior Congress leader said that causing doubt in the minds of people about the political opponents is a big victory in politics. He further says, things that starts from doubt later help creating perception about that political party or to say about opponents. If this is against the government, it is taken hand in hand. The Congress leader said that the party was repeating just three issues cost of the Rafale deal, transfer of technology and preference given to Reliance Defence Ltd instead of Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd so the perception against the government could be made so strong from where reversal is not possible.

The Congress said that former chief of public sector undertaking Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd's statement intensified the doubt about the deal even more among the people. The Congress wanted to start a campaign against Rafale and absconding businessmen but after the statement made by former President of France Francois Hollande, the Congress is going play the same song on Rafale for now.

Also Read | BJP fumes at Rahul's 'fun has just begun' remark; calls him a 'liar'

However, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party is more offensive and is coming out with new expose everyday. A senior BJP leader said that the party is ready to answer any question on the issue. Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has gone to the extent of saying that she would visit the entire country to fight this perception battle.

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Story first published: Wednesday, September 26, 2018, 11:03 [IST]Cabinet approves MoU between NDMA and Department of Civil Protection of Italy

Patna airport to get new domestic terminal

India

oi-Vikas SV

New Delhi, Sep 26: Among several decisions taken at a meeting today (September 26), the Union Cabinet has approved construction of a new domestic terminal at Patna Airport.

"With the aim to boost airport infrastructure, CCEA approves construction of New Domestic Terminal Building and other allied structures at Patna Airport," government spokesperson Sitanshu Kar said in a tweet.

Cabinet likely to take a call on leasing out Pragati Maidan land for 5-star hotel

The Union Cabinet also approved financial assistance worth Rs 825 Crore for relining of Sirhind Feeder Canal in Punjab and Rajasthan Feeder Canal.

The cabinet has approved a comprehensive policy to deal with excess sugar production in the country.

Cabinet clears HDFC Bank's proposal to raise Rs 24,000 cr by selling equity to foreign investors

"CCEA approves transfer (disinvestment) of incomplete projects of Hotel Gulmarg Ashok, Gulmarg and Hotel Patliputra Ashok, Patna to the State Governments of Jammu & Kashmir and Bihar respectively," Kar tweeted.

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Story first published: Wednesday, September 26, 2018, 15:56 [IST]Petrol and diesel prices continue to soar

India

oi-Chennabasaveshwar P

New Delhi, Sep 26: Fuel prices in the country continued to rise on Tuesday with a litre of petrol now costing Rs 82.86 per litre in Delhi, while it is priced at Rs 90.22 per litre in Mumbai. Diesel is Rs 74.12 per litre in Delhi and Rs 78.69 in Mumbai.

Petrol prices in Bangalore have been turning more volatile, as prices of crude oil have been showing a firm trend. Today petrol price in Bangalore stood at Rs 83.52 per litre.

Also Read | Karnataka government cuts Petrol, Diesel prices by Rs 2/litre

At the international level, the oil industry is witnessing volatility. The crude prices have hit a record high prices since November 2014 amid the looming U.S. sanctions against Iran and hesitancy by the OPEC member countries to increase oil output to support the market requirements.

Also Read | Petrol breaches Rs 90-mark in Mumbai

Petrol prices were revised daily in India with effect from June 15, 2017. This was a marked departure from the earlier practice of revising petrol prices every fortnight.

City Today Petrol Price Yesterday's Price New Delhi 82.86 82.72 Kolkata 84.68 84.54 Mumbai 90.22 90.08 Chennai 86.13 85.99 Gurgaon 83.14 83.19 Noida 82.39 82.11 Bangalore 83.52 83.37

City Today Diesel Price Yesterday's Price New Delhi 74.12 74.02 Kolkata 75.97 75.87 Mumbai 78.69 78.58 Chennai 78.36 78.26 Gurgaon 74.86 74.92 Noida 74.37 74.09 Bangalore 74.50 74.40SC directs Tripura govt to ensure no political party is prevented from local body polls campaign

Private entities cannot demand Aadhaar: Section 57 struck down

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Sep 26: The Supreme Court today struck down Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act.

Section 57 allows not only the State but also any "body corporate or person" or private entity to demand Aadhaar from citizens for the purpose of identification.

This is the provision that gives mobile companies, private service providers to seek Aadhaar card for identification purposes.

Aadhaar verdict: A timeline of events leading up to SC ruling today

Section 57 says "nothing contained in this Act (Aadhaar Act) shall prevent the use of Aadhaar number for establishing the identity of an individual for any purpose, whether by the State or any body corporate or person."

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Story first published: Wednesday, September 26, 2018, 11:26 [IST]SC directs Tripura govt to ensure no political party is prevented from local body polls campaign

Reservation in promotion: SC verdict is welcome to a certain extent, says Mayawati

India

oi-Chennabasaveshwar P

Lucknow, Sep 26: Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati said the Supreme Court judgment on the reservation in promotion for SC/ST in govt jobs is 'welcome to a certain extent'.

After the apex court did not refer the 2006 verdict in Nagraj case on reservation in promotion for SC/ST in govt jobs to larger SC Bench, Mayawati said, "Judgment welcome to a certain extent since SC didn't impose a restriction in this regard & clearly said that centre or state governments can provide reservation if they want."

The Supreme Court has said that the states need not collect quantifiable data on the backwardness of SC and ST employees before giving reservation in promotion

Also Read | Aadhaar constitutionally valid, but banks, mobile companies can't ask for it says SC

The court said that there was no need to reconsider the 2006 verdict in Nagraj case. The court delivered the verdict on a batch of petitions seeking that a seven-judge bench reconsiders the court's 2006 judgement which had put conditions for granting quota benefits in job promotions for SC/ST employees.

Also Read | What will be the fate of SP and BSP alliance considering reservation in promotion issue?

A Constitution Bench headed by Chief Justice of India, Dipak Misra passed the orders after the Centre's push to provide accelerated promotion with consequential seniority for Schedule Castes/Schedule Tribes members in public employment.SC rejects plea challenging appointment of Justice Ranjan Gogoi as next CJI

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Sep 26: The Supreme Court has rejected a petition that challenged the appointment of Justice Ranjan Gogoi as the next Chief Justice of India.

The petitioner advocates, R P Luthra and Satyaveer Sharma had relied on the contents of a press conference called by the top four judges including Justice Gogoi earlier this year.

In landmark verdict, SC okays live streaming of its proceedings

The petitioners claimed that the four judges of the Supreme Court tried to arouse public furore in the country in the name of certain internal differences in the court. "This act of the four senior-most judges of the court was not less than a sabotage to the judicial system of the country," the petitioners stated.

The petitioners sought the adjudication of the question of law for which they are relying on the contents of the press conference of January 12.

Aadhaar constitutionally valid, but banks, mobile companies can't ask for it says SC

The petitioners are aggrieved of the actions and omissions on the part of respondent 1 (Union of India) and respondent 2 (Chief Justice of India), which has resulted into appointment of respondent 3 (Justice Ranjan Gogoi) as the Chief Justice of India instead of reprimanding him for his illegal and anti-institutional act, the petition stated.

The petition said that act of Respondent 1 and Respondent 2 "is illegal and unconstitutional and also against the canons of law because the appointment on highest post of judiciary has been awarded to a person who is guilty of committing judicial impropriety and judicial misconduct".

Reservation in promotion: No need to collect quantifiable data on backwardness says SC

The plea sought to quash the order of appointment of Justice Ranjan Gogoi as the CJI with effect from October 3. On September 3, the President had appointed Justice Gogoi as the 46th CJI. He is set to take oath on October 3.Supply of VVPATs and EVMs is on track and not a matter of concern: ECI

India

oi-Madhuri Adnal

New Delhi, Sep 26: The Election Commission of India on Thursday said that they would like to allay any unfounded apprehensions regarding the supply of VVPATs for the Lok Sabha Election in 2019. The Commission is committed to 100% deployment of VVPATs at all polling stations in future General, as well as bye elections to the Lok Sabha and State Legislative Assemblies.

In order to meet the requirement of 100% VVPATs for all polling stations for the upcoming Lok Sabha Election in 2019, the Commission placed an order of 17.45 lakh VVPATs to Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL), Bangalore and Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL), Hyderabad.

Till date, 9.45 lakh units have been produced by the PSUs. Both PSUs have assured the Commission that the remaining VVPAT units (8 lakh) will be manufactured and supplied to the various States/UTs comfortably before end of Nov 2018.

The Commission has been consistently and periodically reviewing the status of production and supply of VVPATs with the CMDs of PSUs, as well as the Technical Expert Committee (TEC), to ensure that the design, production and supply activities of all the units of EVMs and VVPATs is streamlined and completed in a time-bound manner after incorporating the features suggested by the TEC which is carrying out a rigorous supervision of the production process and product performance. The officers of the Commission are monitoring the manufacturing and supply of machines on a daily basis in order to ensure timely delivery and pre poll preparedness.

The Commission has indeed enhanced the requirement of additional VVPATs from 125% to 135% considering the trend of failure rate of VVPATs in past elections. The Commission has estimated 171% Ballot Units, 125% Control Units and 135% VVPATs requirements for upcoming Lok Sabha Elections. It may be noted that in case of any error in VVPAT, only VVPAT is replaced with the reserve one, whereas, in case of any error in Ballot Unit or Control Unit of the EVM, entire set of Ballot Unit(s), Control Unit and VVPAT is changed, resulting in an increase in requirement of VVPATs than the requirement of Control Units of EVMs.

It is pertinent to mention that learning from experience of Kairana and Bhandara-Gondiya bye-polls held in May, 2018 where the errors were mainly caused by excessive exposure to illumination in the polling stations, the Commission has adopted the hardware improvement recommended by the Technical Expert Committee to prevent auto shutdown of VVPATs due to excessive light.

It is also pertinent to note that comprehensive and systematic preparatory activities for the Lok Sabha Elections, including the detailed First Level Checking of EVMs and VVPATs have already commenced across various States/UTs and will be completed in an efficient, effective and timely manner. First Level Checks workshops and trainings of polling officials are being regularly conducted by the Commission to minimize EVM/VVPAT failures due to human errors.

It may be appreciated that over the last twenty years, the Election Commission of India has successfully conducted 113 State Legislative Assembly Elections and 03 Lok Sabha Elections using EVMs. Since, June 2017, Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) machines have also been used successfully along with EVMs in General as well as Bye elections in all State Assembly and Parliamentary constituencies for enhanced voter verifiability. The Commission is fully geared to use VVPATs in all forthcoming elections.

The Election Commission of India is mandated under Article 324 to 329 of the Constitution of India to provide superintendence, direction and control for conduct of elections in accordance with the law in force.

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Story first published: Wednesday, September 26, 2018, 18:48 [IST]Step by step instructions on how to lock and unlock your Aadhaar biometrics online

No denial of Covid vaccine, treatment, essential services for want of Aadhaar: UIDAI

SC landmark verdict on Aadhaar: Who said what

India

oi-Deepika S

New Delhi, Sep 26: The Supreme Court Wednesday declared the Centre's flagship Aadhaar scheme as constitutionally valid but struck down some of its provisions including its linking with bank accounts, mobile phones and school admissions.

A five-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra held that while Aadhaar would remain mandatory for filing of IT returns and allotment of Permanent Account Number (PAN), it would not be mandatory to link Aadhaar to bank accounts and telecom service providers cannot seek its linking for mobile connections.

Congress welcomes SC decision on Aadhaar, says it is 'slap' on BJP's face

The Congress on Wednesday welcomed the Supreme Court decision to strike down Section 57 of the Aadhaar act, which allowed private parties to access Aadhaar data, and termed it a "slap on the face of BJP".

Aadhaar constitutionally valid, but banks, mobile companies can't ask for it says SC

"We welcome the Supreme Court's decision to strike down Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act. Private entities are no longer allowed to use Aadhaar for verification purposes," the Congress said on Twitter minutes after the verdict.

The delinking of Aadhaar from private entities is a "slap on the face of BJP", added Congress national spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi. "Slap on the face of BJP. Justice Sikri judgement strikes down Section 57 of Aadhaar Act, 2016, which says private body corporates can seek Aadhaar data. Says it's unconstitutional. All plans to monetise biometric data now fail," he tweeted.

Private entities cannot demand Aadhaar: Section 57 struck down

He also hailed the Supreme Court's move to disallow metadata to be stored in current form. "If the information of a person's personal information is sought to be released, he or she shall have an opportunity to be heard. SC rightly appreciated brilliant idea in origin, protected its core, promoted its development and eliminated its flotsam and jetsam. SC brilliantly threw out the BJP and Modi accumulated dirty bathwater and saved the baby. Original intent of UPA, i.e., to give identity to the marginalised people now shines (sic)," he said.

BJP claims victory for Modi government

Speaking to news agency ANI, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) National Spokesperson Sambit Patra has claimed that the Supreme Court verdict today was a "victory for Aadhaar and victory for the Modi government."

"The Supreme Court has upheld the constitutional validity of Aadhaar and that it does not violate privacy," he said.

Aadhaar verdict appears correct says main petitioner Justice Puttaswamy

Patra said that the top court decision showed that Aadhaar was "safe and cannot be duplicated", adding that it "gives strength to poor people"

"The Modi government wants to give benefits directly to the poor," he added.

Taking a shot at the Congress, Patra said that the Rahul Gandhi-led party wanted Aadhaar to be struck down as they wanted to be the middlemen.

"Congress stands exposed as the Supreme Court has said it is not for immigrants," he added.

Subramanian Swamy

BJP leader Subramanian Swamy reacts to the Aadhaar verdict. "I am happy with the Aadhaar ruling. It should be made mandatory only where it is really needed," he said.

TMC hails SC verdict on Aadhaar

The Trinamool Congress Wednesday hailed the Supreme Court judgement which struck down Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act which allowed corporate entities to access its data.

"SC strikes down section 57 of Aadhaar Act, 2016. So you don't need to give your Aadhaar to private bodies like banks, schools, mobile companies. Trinamool and @mamataofficial fought hard for this," the party said in a tweet.Swaraj to have over half a dozen bilateral engagements at UNGA including one with Nepal

India

oi-Vinod Kumar Shukla

New Delhi, Sep 26: External affairs minister of India Sushma Swaraj will have over half a dozen bilateral meeting with her counterparts besides attending meeting of the Ministerial Committee of the NAM on Palestine. India had planned one such meeting with Pakistan at the sidelines of United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) that was later called off due to Pakistan position towards terrorism but Swaraj would be meeting with the Nepalese PM there.

The external affairs minister will have her first bilateral engagement of the day with Germany's foreign minister Heiko Mass. In this meeting all the bilateral issues concerning India and Germany will figure especially business and security issues. After Germany, the Indian foreign minister will be meeting vice president and foreign minister of Panama Isabel de Saint Malo de Alvarado.

I love India, give my regards to my friend PM Narendra Modi: Donald Trump greets Sushma Swaraj

After these two bilateral meetings are over, Sushma Swaraj will attend a meeting by secretary general on climate change which is a major concern for developing countries like India. Issues related to carbon emission norms will be taken up in the meeting.

The external affair minister will then have two more bilateral meetings one with external affairs minister of Austria Karin Kneissi and the other with the Armenian foreign minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan. But after these two bilateral engagements, the meeting of the Ministerial Committee of the NAM on Palestine is an important engagement for the external affairs minister of India. The issue of Palestine for India has been very important as India maintains a good relations with Israel as well which is not only India's good business partner but also strategic and technology partner specially in agriculture, irrigation, water and software sectors.

For now deferred, but talks between India and Pakistan might happen anytime soon

Once the external affairs minister is through with the meeting on Palestine, she will have four back to back bilateral meetings including with one of the other neighbour country of India that is Nepal. Sushma Swaraj will meet Prime Minister of Nepal K P Sharma Oli. But before meeting with Oli, she will have a bilateral meeting with the leader of Antigua and Barbuda. Foreign minister of Bolivia Fernando Huanacuni Mamani's bilateral meeting is also scheduled with Swaraj. The external affairs minister will also be meeting with Chile's foreign minister Roberto Ampuero and Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javed Zarif which the issue of oil supply to India and US sanctions might figure in the bilateral talks.

Indian external affairs minister already requested world leaders present at the United Nations Genaral Assembly to work towards ending conflict, terror and hateful ideologies transcending national borders.

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Story first published: Wednesday, September 26, 2018, 9:56 [IST]VHP criticizes former PM Manmohan Singh for his remark on 1995 SC verdict on Hindutva

India

oi-Vinod Kumar Shukla

New Delhi, Sep 26: Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) on September 26 has condemn remarks made by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh against the 1995 Supreme Court Judgment describing 'Hindutva is a way of life'.

The former PM while delivering second memorial lecture of Late Shri A B Bardhan referred to the 1995 judgment of the Supreme Court of India that had described 'Hindutva is a way of life'. The former PM is reported to have said that Justice Verma's judgment virtually disturbed 'a kind of constitutional sanity'.

Manmohan Singh slams Modi govt over demonetisation, GST and job creation

International working president of Vishwa Hindu Parishad Alok Kumar said that Congress president was describing himself as Shiv Bhakt whereas its leaders are challenging the sanity on the Supreme Court in describing Hidutva as a way of life.

He said that words used by the former PM against the judgment show his frustration due to the rejection of his party in various elections. It is surprising that while one leader of his party is described as Shiv Bhakt while the other is questioning Supreme Court order.

Leave Teen Murti Bhawan "undisturbed": Manmohan Singh writes to PM Modi

The VHP leader further says, "By making such remarks, Singh is completely out of sync with the views almost unanimously held by the respected philosophers and spiritual leaders including Dr S Radhakrishnan and Yogi Aurobindo. Such comments of Singh has exposed his lack of understanding of the Indian ethos and values." The VHP condemns his remarks and holds that there is no occasion to review the judgment.

"We also wonder that in 10 years when he was the Prime Minister, Singh never raised this question and did not take any step for the review of the said judgment. It is amusing that such aggression is only occasioned when he is in opposition," the VHP working president said.

VHP starts expanding its base in villages to fight against Love Jihad

The VHP said that even in 2016 a seven judge constitutional bench presided by the then Chief Justice T S Thakur declined to review the 1995 Judgment. Moreover, Singh had himself expressed his willingness to know how many Muslims are there in the army which was kind of communalization of armed forces.

The VHP added that organisation wishes to make it clear that creating such controversies in the build up to 2019 General Elections shall not help the diminishing party but shall boomerang by the collective will of Indian people.West Bengal bandh: BJP workers block rail routes; vandalise govt buses

India

oi-Deepika S

Kolkata, Sep 26: The BJP has called for a 12-hour bandh in West Bengal to protest the death of two students during a demonstration over the appointment of school teachers in Islampur area in North Dinajpur district. While the Trinamool Congress government vowed to take action against those trying to enforce bandh, a combative BJP warned of "repercussions" if the ruling party attempted to foil the stir.

The opposition BJP took out rallies in the city and the state on Tuesday in support of the 'Bangla bandh', while the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) countered it with processions denouncing it.

The BJP claimed that the shutdown would be a complete success as the people of Islampur, where the clash took place on Thursday over appointment of Urdu teacher, and the entire state are fed up with the "misrule of TMC".

RSS to propagate facts about NRC in West Bengal

Security beefed up in Howrah district The Howrah district administration has beefed security in the city in view of the 12-hour bandh called by BJP in West Bengal today. The party is protesting against the death of two students in a clash with police in North Dinajpur's Islampur area. Bandh supporters have vandalised several buses and bus drivers are wearing helmets for safety. Train service in Sealdah South and Howrah main line disrupted BJP cadres and ABVP workers have descended on the streets trying to stop usual traffic from running. The bandh supporters also blocked railway lines disrupting the Sealdah South and Howrah main lines of the local train. BJP protesters vandalise government buses State-owned buses were vandalised and burning tyres were dropped on roads to thwart the traffic. Several BJP workers were also reportedly arrested after they tried to stop rail traffic in the city. Bus drivers wear helmet for safety Bus drivers were seen wearing helmets as protesters vandalised government buses and burnt tyres in Midnapore, Cooch Behar and other places.

West Bengal BJP chief Dilip Ghosh's vehicle attacked in East Midnapore

On September 20, a clash erupted between police and students after they stopped two newly-recruited teachers from entering Daribhit High School in Islampur. The students have been protesting over the recruitment of Urdu and Sanskrit teachers as they wanted vacancies in English and Science subjects to be filled.

Two students, Rajesh Sarkar and Tapas Barman, died in the clash. The BJP alleged that the two were killed in police firing, but the police have denied the claim. District Superintendent of Police Sumit Kumar has maintained that police did not resort to firing during the incident.

The trouble began over the recruitment of Urdu and Sanskrit teachers as the protesting students said they needed Science and English teachers instead.Why Justice Chandrachud staunchly opposed treating Aadhaar as Money Bill?

India

oi-Vikas SV

New Delhi, Sep 26: Justice DY Chandrachud, during the hearing on the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar today (September 26), came down heavily on the Union Government's move to introduce the Aadhaar Bill as a Money Bill in the Rajya Sabha and went to the extent of calling it "a fraud on Constitution".

Money Bills can be introduced only in the Lok Sabha, and the Rajya Sabha cannot make amendments to such bills passed by the Lok Sabha. It needs to be noted that the BJP-led Centre has majority in the Lok Sabha and not in Rajya Sabha. So, the Centre took the Money Bill route to ensure that the legislation cannot be the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha.

While dissenting with the majority, Justice Chandrachud said that there was no need for passing the Aadhaar Act as a money bill.

Also Read | Aadhaar constitutionally valid, but banks, mobile companies can't ask for it says SC

"Passing of bill as money bill when it does not qualify as a money bill is a fraud on Constitution, violates Basic Structure," he said.

He further said the Lok Sabha Speaker was wrong in classifying Aadhaar Bill as a Money Bill as it denuded the federal structure of law making by limiting the role of Rajya Sabha in Aadhaar Bill.

Bypassing the Rajya Sabha to pass the Aadhaar Act amounted to subterfuge and the law was liable to be struck down as being violative of Article 110 of the Constitution, he ruled.

The majority verdict by Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A K Sikri and A M Khanwilkar declared the Centre's flagship Aadhaar scheme as constitutionally valid but struck down some of its provisions including its linking with bank accounts, mobile phones and school admissions.

Also Read | Private entities cannot demand Aadhaar: Section 57 struck down

Even the opposition had vehemently opposed the Centre's move to pass Aadhaar as Money Bill in the Upper House. Congress' Jairam Ramesh had then moved the Supreme Court challenging the treatment of the Aadhaar Bill as a Money Bill. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who moved the Bill and piloted them in both the Houses, had turned down the Opposition argument that Parliament cannot legislate as the matter is before the Supreme Court.

What is a Money Bill?

Money Bill refers to a bill introduced in the Lok Sabha which generally covers the issue of receipt and spending of money, such as tax laws, laws governing borrowing and expenditure of the Government, prevention of black money etc. It can be introduced only in the Lok Sabha. The bill is placed in Rajya Sabha thereafter and Rajya Sabha can return the Bill with or without its recommendations.

Also Read | Aadhaar mandatory for filing IT Returns and PAN: Supreme Court

In any case, the Bill has to be returned within a period of 14 days from the date of its receipt by Rajya Sabha. Otherwise it is deemed to have been passed by both Houses at the expiration of the said period in the form in which it was passed by Lok Sabha.

A defeat of Money bill in Lok Sabha is deemed political defeat of the government of the day. Speaker has unquestionable powers to decide if a Bill is a Money Bill or not. Rajya Sabha's dissent on a Money Bill is of no political significance, as the Lok Sabha has overriding powers on Money Bills.Will Aadhaar data with private persons be deleted? De-coding the SC verdict with Justice Hegde

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Sep 26: The Aadhaar verdict is out and by a 4:1 majority the Supreme Court has held it as constitutional. There were however several riders, the major one being with regard to private companies such as cellular firms and banks collecting Aadhaar details in order to avail their services.

The majority however struck down Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act, which had allowed private firms to collect Aadhaar data. The confusion however is what happens to the data that is already out there in the system. Millions of people have already linked their Aadhaar details with mobile companies, Amazon pay, Paytm, banks among other services.

OneIndia spoke with retired Supreme Court judge, Justice Santhosh Hegde, who helped us decode various aspects of the judgment. On the issue relating to data already present in the eco-system, the majority on the Bench were silent on the next course of action.

Also Read | Aadhaar constitutionally valid, but banks, mobile companies can't ask for it says SC

However Justice D Y Chandrachud, who gave a dissenting view said that seeding mobile phones with Aadhaar posed a grave danger to individual liberty. He instructed that telecom operators should delete all data that they have collected from the users.

Does a minority view matter?

Justice Hegde says that in this case the directive by Justice Chandrachud can become the law of the land. " I say this because the other four judges on the Bench have not gone into the aspect relating to data deletion. Considering the the majority has not gone into this aspect specifically, it has to be interpreted as a judgment of the court."

Also Read | What happens to Aadhaar data already collected by mobile companies, banks

Further this point has arisen from the main petitions. The foundation of the fact is that it has arisen before the court. Hence it is not an addition into the judgment and hence in my view it would count, Justice Hegde also says. The main point is that it has arisen in the matter and the other four judges have not gone into it, he further adds.

A person aggrieved with the fact that his or her data is still in the system could seek a clarification from the court on this. Even if someone were to go to court seeking a directive for his or her data to be deleted, then this point made by Justice Chandrachud could be cited.

The long and short of the matter is that the other judges have not discussed it and hence it becomes a judgment of the court. It cannot be negated just because it is a minority view, Justice Hegde further adds.

Also Read | Want to de-link Aadhaar details from Banks, mobile mumbers and digital wallet? Here's how to do it

On the judgment per se, I would say that they have done something good. The constitutional validity of Aadhaar has been upheld. On the point that no private person can seek Aadhaar data, I think the people will find some relief in this, Justice Hegde also adds.India-Pakistan enmity costing them trade worth $35 billion annually: World Bank report

International

oi-Shubham Ghosh

Washington, Sept 26: Just when India and Pakistan are witnessing a phase of verbal warfare against each other, the World Bank (WB) has come up with a revelation which should make both the sides worried.

According to a report published by the WB titled 'A Glass Half Full: The Promise of Regional Trade in South Asia' released on Monday, September 24, the rivalry between the two South Asian countries is costing them annual trade worth $35 billion. The report highlighted a long list of product restrictions between the two countries' bilateral trade.

IMF projects 7.3, 7.5 pc growth rate for India in 2018, 2019

The financial body has asked South Asia, one of the least integrated regions of the world, to cooperate more instead of fighting. The report published last week said India and Pakistan - South Asia's largest economies - could see their trade jump to $37 billion from a mere $2 billion if they decided against continuing their feud.

The WB also said "intraregional" trade in goods could reach $67 billion from $23 billion if the South Asian nations got rid of tariffs and non-tariff barriers.

However, it doesn't seem the political leaderships of the two countries are giving it a thought. Last week, the meeting between the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) was scuttled because of the two countries' mutual suspicion and it was followed by strong verbal attacks from either side of the border.

World Bank rankings: This country also ended up as 6th largest economy

India cancelled the meeting saying Islamabad's "evil agenda" had been exposed and any talks between the two sides would be "meaningless". This happened a day after India's foreign ministry said it accepted Pakistan's request for a foreign minister-level meeting on the UNGA sidelines. Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan was aghast with India's move and attacked the Indian leadership saying "small men who occupy big offices and lacked the vision to see the larger picture".Meet the man who took care of New Zealand PMs 3-month-old baby at UN when she delivered speech

International

oi-Shubham Ghosh

United Nations, Sept 26: The UN General Assembly is a place where all serious matters take place. But on Tuesday, September 25, something unique happened on the international stage when New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern brought with her, her three-month-old daughter Neve Te Aroha during her speech. The baby was being taken care of by Ardern's partner Clarke Gayford when its mother delivered her speech.

Gayford is a fishing television presenter and takes primary care of his 38-year-old prime minister wife. He has accompanied Ardern and their daughter to take care of the child while the premier will be busy. He posted a photo of the baby on Twitter which has the caption "first baby" of New Zealand. He also revealed a small incident related to Neve's debut at the UN when a Japanese delegation entered during a nappy change.

42 weeks pregnant, New Zealand minister cycles to hospital to give birth to her first baby

"I wish I could have captured the startled look on a Japanese delegation inside UN yesterday who walked into a meeting room in the middle of a nappy change. Great yarn for her 21st (birthday)," he said on Twitter.

Gayford's home employment is something that caught a lot of headlines. He has become an example of sort in a country where stay-at-home dads has become a cultural phenomenon in the island-nation.

According to a report in UK-based Grazia Daily which spoke to 'First Bloke' Gayford, 40: "Around 3% of New Zealand men not in work listed 'looking after children' as their main activity last year, compared to 1.1% in the UK. Despite its macho beer and rugby culture, progressive change is rippling through the country."

Go get your own flag, New Zealand tells Australia

"A few weeks ago, Clarke and Jacinda were invited into the dressing room of the All Blacks rugby team after they had won a treasured trophy against Australia. 'About three or four big, burly players came straight over and the first thing they wanted to talk to us about was their kids,' he (Clarke) says. 'Even their captain was getting so excited about his girls. It was really refreshing. I think the All Blacks are an extension of who we are and there's been a real change in the culture here. So, going in there, having those conversations, made me realise we're in a pretty cool place.'"Rohingya crisis: US to give over $185 mn in additional aid

International

oi-Shubham Ghosh

New York, Sept 25: The United States, which has been expressing its discontent over the displacement of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar and Bangladesh, has almost doubled its aid for the displaced, US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said on Monday, September 24, as Great Britain hosted a ministerial meeting on the continuing crisis.

Myanmar faced worldwide criticism after its army launched a crackdown in the western state of Rakhine in 2017 following attacks by Rohingya militants on lawkeepers and military posts. Over seven lakh stateless minority people fled across the border into Bangladesh.

Rohingya observe 'black day' one year after Myanmar violence

UN-mandated investigation later said that the army carried out mass killings and gang rapes of the Rohingyas with intent of genocides. Myanmar, however, said the findings were "one sided" and defended the counter-insurgency operation as legitimate.

Ambassador Haley said the US will give over $185 million in additional humanitarian assistance and of that $156 million would go to the refugees and host communities in Bangladesh. It will mean that the US's aid for its total humanitarian aid for the crisis reached nearly $389 million in one year.

"We continue to call on the Burmese government to do more to hold those who have engaged in ethnic cleansing accountable for their atrocities? end the violence, and allow full humanitarian and free press access," Haley was quoted as saying in a statement.

Calling the US "generous", Haley said it would going to show its generous face to only those shared its values and wanted to work with it and not those who are "counterproductive".

'Ram Mandir, Rohingya and Bangladesh issue main agenda before VHP'

The closed-door ministerial meeting on the crisis was hosted by British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt on the sidelines of the annual UN gathering here on Monday. Hunt went to Myanmar last week and said the government must ensure that those responsible for the crimes are not let off the hook, Reuters reported.

The Myanmar army chief, on the other hand, warned against any kind of foreign interference, the report added.

For Breaking News and Instant Updates Allow Notifications

Story first published: Wednesday, September 26, 2018, 6:34 [IST]| BY Ricki Green |

Epicas latest category Topical and Real Time Advertising celebrates the art of turning around an ad quickly to reflect the news.

As brand communications is now a 24-hour, always on affair, agencies and brands have to be as reactive as journalists. Whether its a tweet, a post, a viral video or even a print ad in a newspaper, an ad that cleverly refers to a current event can attract multiple shares and global fame.

Says Mark Tungate, Epicas editorial director: Topical and Real Time is a relatively new form of advertising that requires attention, risk-taking and close collaboration between agency and client. Theres no room for bureaucracy and triple-checking if you want to catch that wave at its peak. Some agencies have the equivalent of newsrooms, constantly tracking events that may become material for a branded post or tweet.

Tungate said his favourite example was the Brand Is Single print ad from Norwegian Airlines, proposing cheap flights to Los Angeles I the wake of a news story about Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie splitting up.

Says Tungate: This straightforward ad in a newspaper was shared online all over the world, he remarked.

He added that brands occasionally attempt a reaction to an event and get the tone wrong, generating negative reactions.

Says Tungate: This makes the form even more tricky. Its also very relevant to us, with our jury of journalists who are well-versed in tackling stories as they break.

The Epica Awards are open for entries until September 30. 2008-2021 One News Page Ltd.

All rights reserved.

One News is a registered trademark

of One News Page Ltd.| BY Ricki Green |

McCann Queensland has this month completed the creative and strategic brand rejuvenation of iconic Queensland bedding retailer Pillow Talk.

As the beloved Queensland brand moves into an even more enthusiastically competitive retail era, senior management identified the need for monumental strategic and creative change.

Despite a vast and loyal customer base that had been engaged throughout the brands history, the inevitability of millennial irrelevance was looming. How does a brand with such profound equity keep itself fresh and relevant for the next generation of customers? Transformation was the answer.

A many months long exploration into the brands purpose and ability to deliver on its promises yielded; a commitment to comfort. A truly universal concept that deftly bridged the gap between Pillow Talks loyal and soon to be loyal customers.

Pillow Talks central principle became: for the love of comfort. An expression that was to guide every single interaction that they themselves, as well as their customers would experience with the brand.

New interior design, new signage, new store layouts and wayfinding and of course, new brand films that articulate the depth and breadth of what comfort means to all of us. Featuring the Pillow Talk staff themselves, these brand films explore the many places that each member finds comfort. From blankets, to beach towels, passports to puppy dogs, comfort is something unique to all of us.

And if theres one thing the Pillow Talk teams truly understand: its comfort.

Says Kate Spencer, general manager, Pillow Talk: Comfort. Its such a simple and humble idea that stretches the breadth and width of humanity. Im so very proud that at Pillow Talk we can celebrate such a universal human need with the conviction and authenticity that a subject of this importance deserves.

Says Benjamin Davis, executive creative director, McCann Queensland: If youre going to talk about comfort with any sense of authenticity, youve got to talk about more than just lying down on a bed. Comfort is so much more than that. Its emotional. Its memory. Its everything thats true and its true that its different for everyone. I think Pillow Talks new platform now owns that space and will do for years to come.

Says Phillippa Netolicky, managing director, McCann Queensland: We extracted a simple universal truth that already existed within all aspects of the business, and by telling it well, it has created a transformational and powerful platform for Pillow Talk for years to come.

Agency: McCann Queensland

Benjamin Davis  Executive Creative Director

Phillippa Netolicky  Managing Director

Jessica Allen  Account Manager

Alex Moore  Copywriter

Brooke Dobbie  Art Director

PR: The Red Republic

Rebbecca Kent  Account Director

Pillow Talk

Heath Goddard  Managing Director

Kate Spencer  General Manager

Greg Ferguson  National Operations Manager

Kristy Stevens  Digital Marketing Manager

Taryn Watt  PR Executive

Production

Cave Studios  Production

Paul Baiguerra  Director

Pete Dixon  Producer

Dan Macarthur  Director of Photography| BY Ricki Green |

Independent Melbourne agency Magnum Opus Partners has spent two years further establishing itself as a full service creative and strategic marketing house. Reflecting its resulting growth, the business has appointed a new account director, Jasmine Kha.

Previously with Finlayson Communications for nine years, Kha is assisting the agencys directors with their major clients and will also manage the account service function for the agency.

Agency managing director Erin Lightfoot, who joined the business as part of its development from Magnum Opus Advertising to Magnum Opus Partners, and who has a background across private and public sectors in CEO, general management and marketing roles, is excited about the appointment.

Says Lightfoot: Jas is a highly skilled and experienced account director with a fine eye for detail,

a friendly, no-nonsense manner, and a strong sense of what makes strategic communications really work. With fourteen years senior account service background  this is actually her second stint at Magnum Opus  and we are delighted to add her huge range of client experience across both blue chip companies and Government for our clients.

In the last two years we have very consciously broadened the business base of the company away from just creating advertising towards also being a strategic advice channel for clients, turning our thirty years of practical business experience into actionable, insight-creating consulting. MOP is using professional standards of research, situation analysis, strategic planning and decision support to our traditional output of great advertising and communications campaigns. And clients are enjoying the strategic depth and results-driven work we are producing for them: we are seeing the application of smart and structured business consulting that is leading the decisions being taken about major marketing and digital communications campaigns.

We are finding that what our clients are valuing more and more from the agency relationship is the strategic insights we provide that are needed for them to make informed business decisions, and to decide what they should be communicating, and how. This adds real value to their marketing effort. Superb original campaigns with crisp copywriting and great art direction, will, of course, always be critical for overall business success. But increasingly the direction of that creative work will have a stronger strategic basis.| BY Lynchy |

This years Spikes Asia Festival of Creativity has attracted an overall total of 4056 entries from 26 countries.

This is just 245 entries less than last years total number of entries (4301).

Spikes Asia in 2016 saw an entry total of 5132 entries. There were 4351 in 2015 and in 2014 the festival attracted 4984 entries.Our website uses cookies to improve your experience. Learn moreAutism Disorder and Treatment Market Top Trends | Pivotal Players as Pfizer, Eli Lilly and Company, Allergan, Merck & CO, etc

Autism Disorder and Treatment Market

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MarketResearchFuture.com (MRFR) in its recently Announced study report asserts that the Global Autism Disorder and Treatment Market. Registering 4.37% CAGR Along with Top Companies and Mega Trends.Autism Disorder and Treatment Market  HighlightsIncreasing mutations of genetic and environmental influences are fuelling the detection of autism cases. Market reports associated with the healthcare sector made accessible by Market Research Future along with published reports on other sectors have been lately put out along with a report on this industry. The market is anticipated to expand with a CAGR of 4.37% over the forecast period.Factors responsible for market growth are enlargement of diagnostic criteria, improved diagnostic tools, better awareness and improved reporting. Environmental and genetic factors are also increasingly attributed with the rise of the cases globally. The markets growth is expected to be buoyed by the likely approvals of many off-label treatments in the upcoming years.Request for Sample Report atCompetitive Analysis:The core success factors and competitors inclinations are progressively inclined to the strategies being used by market companies. The external factors are determining the markets course which is dependent on the practices and the strategic roadmaps that are used by the market players. The pioneering innovations in products and services are the chief factor contributing to the market's success and influencing the trends that have gained importance in the market. The availability of a proficient labor force along with resources is increasing the overall market development. The market is relatively well defined in terms of its volume and value.The dominant players in the market comprise of Eli Lilly and Company, Pfizer Inc., Allergan, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., Merck & CO Inc., Novartis AG, Intra-Cellular Therapies Inc., Bristol-Myers Squibb, Otsuka Holdings Co., Ltd., Coronis Partners Ltd., Consern Pharma Private Limited, Curemark LLC, Johnson & Johnson Services, Inc, Heptares Therapeutics Limited, Saniona AB, and few others.Check Discount Here atIndustry Updates:Aug 2018 Epidiolex which has been approved by The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency for the first time. It is a compound that is derived from marijuana to treat certain types of epilepsy which may spell good news for autism research. The amendment in the classification of marijuana compounds to Schedule 1 drugs would ease the path for researchers investigating whether marijuana can alleviate autism traits.Detailed Regional Analysis:The autism disorder & treatment market consists of regions such as Europe, Americas, Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa, with Americas controlling the major market share trailed by the European region. In the Americas, the North American region is responsible for the major market due to the growing detection of autism cases in this region. Besides, the approval and likely introduction of the atypical anti-psychotic such as Namenda and Latuda is anticipated to generate amplified sales in the U.S. post-approval. The Asia Pacific is anticipated to be the fastest rising market while the Middle East & Africa are displaying stable growth during the forecast period.Segmental Analysis:The market for autism disorder and treatment is segmented by treatment type, type, and drugs. By treatment type, it is segmented into ABA (applied behavioral analysis), hyperbaric oxygen therapy, chelation therapy, oxytocin therapy, and others. By type, the market is segmented into Pervasive Developmental Disorder, Asperger Syndrome, and others. By drug, it is segmented into anti-convulsant, SSRIs, anti-psychotic stimulants. Anti-psychotics are further segmented into Risperidone and Abilify (aripiprazole).Ask Any Question atAbout Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.ContactMarket Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune  411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.comGlobal Heat Transfer Fluids Market Analyze By Top Leading Companies Like Exxon Mobil Corporation, Royal Dutch Shell plc, The Dow Chemical Company, BP P.L.C. and Eastman chemical Company

Heat Transfer Fluids Market

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The report Heat Transfer Fluids Market By Product (Silicones & Aromatics, Mineral Oils, Glycol-Based Fluids and Others)  Global Forecast to 2022, issued by Crystal Market Research, the market has come across substantial development in the recent years and is projected to grow significantly over the forecast period.Inquire for sample copy at:Heat Transfer Fluids Market by Product and Application - Global Industry Analysis and Forecast to 2022: Industry AnalysisThe global heat transfer fluids market was evaluated around USD 1.75 billion in the 2012 and is expected to reach approximately USD 4.12 billion by the end of 2022 while registering itself at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.92% over the forecast period. Speedy industrialization in BRICS countries, especially in production sectors involving metal processing, automotive, oil & gas, and chemical, is anticipated to be a key factor fueling the demand. Growth driving factors for production segment in these areas include technological know-how, availability of large pool of skilled labor and encouraging overseas investment norms. Extensive development in oil and gas production is expected to influence the market growth during the forecast period positively. Concentrated solar power (CSP) is a promising technology to recuperate solar energy. This needs a mean to transmit the generated heat from the collectors to the generators and sequentially constantly chill the PV surface. Rising CSP plants installation in countries including the United States, China, and France is anticipated to boost the demand for product in this section during the projected future. These substances are also necessary for chemical and pharmaceutical plants to preserve the temperature of equipment and furnace in group processes. They are also utilized as heat recovery fluids and coolant in thermal reactors throughout these industries. Rising chemical and pharmaceutical production industries in BRIC countries are expected to fuel product demand in these sections. Strict environmental regulations along with the uneven raw material (including base oil, crude oils) supply-demand scenario are anticipated to hamper market growth over the projected period.Global Heat Transfer Fluids Market: Competitive Outlook and Trend AnalysisGlobal heat transfer fluids market is extremely fused with leading five participants including Exxon Mobil Corporation, Royal Dutch Shell plc, The Dow Chemical Company, BP P.L.C. and Eastman chemical Company, reporting for around 75% in 2014. In 2014, the Dow Chemical Company was the market leader with a market share of around 28% of the global market revenue. The company presents thermal fluids for an extensive host of industries involving pharmaceutical, energy & water, industrial, and chemical. Key products presented in the heat transfer section involve inhibited glycol fluids and artificial fluids. Market players are investing a lot in research and development to expand bio-based thermic oils due to strict environmental regulations concerning the synthetic equivalents. Market players have also been funding to commercialize nanofluids with improved thermal characteristics and multi-utility in a variety of applications.For more information about this report visit:The global heat transfer fluids market is segmented as follows By Product:Silicones & AromaticsMineral OilsGlycol-Based FluidsOthersBy Application:Oil & gasChemical industryCSPFood & beveragesPlasticsPharmaceuticalsHVACOthersBy Region: North America: (U.S, Canada & Mexico), Europe: (Germany, France, UK, Italy, Spain & Rest of Europe), Asia-Pacific: (Japan, China, Australia, India, South Korea, Rest of Asia-Pacific) and Rest of the World: (Brazil, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates & Others)Pre Order Enquiry at:Global Heat Transfer Fluids Market: Regional AnalysisIn 2014, European heat transfer fluids market ruled the global market, with an overall demand more than 140.0-kilotons. It is anticipated to lose market share to elevated growth industries including South & Central America and Asia Pacific during the forecast years. Augmented population along with elevated energy demand has stimulated the energy and power sector. Fresh developments seen in new solar plants together with rising energy needs are anticipated to fuel the heat transfer fluids market in the European region. Rising need for utilizing surplus energy and heat dissolute in key industries like HVAC, concentrated solar power (CSP), chemical plants are anticipated to fuel market penetration in this region during the forecast years. Asia Pacific regional heat transfer fluids industry is predicted to experience the high benefits during the forecast years and reports for around 24% of the overall market share by 2022. Growing renewal energy segment and brisk expansion in thermal management are anticipated to fuel the heat transfer fluids market in Japan and China. North America region is expected to witness a sluggish growth due to steady demands in key end-user industries, reporting for around 28% of overall market revenue by 2022.Key Topics Covered of Global Heat Transfer Fluids Market:Chapter 1. Introduction1.1. Report Description1.2. Research MethodologyChapter 2. Executive Summary2.1. Key HighlightsChapter 3. Market Overview3.1. Introduction3.1.1. Market Definition3.1.2. Market Segmentation3.2. Market Dynamics3.2.1. Drivers3.2.1.1. Increasing Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) Industry3.2.1.2. FDA Approval For Food Grade Heat Transfer Fluids3.2.1.3. Growing Importance Of Thermal Fluid Systems Over Steam Systems3.2.2. Restraints3.2.2.1. Stringent Environment Regulation3.2.3. Opportunities3.2.3.1. Emerging Markets to Offer Lucrative Growth OpportunitiesChapter 4. Heat Transfer Fluids Market, By Product4.1. Introduction4.2. Heat Transfer Fluids Market Assessment and Forecast, By Product, 2012-20224.3. Silicones & Aromatics4.3.1. Market Assessment and Forecast, By Region, 2012-2022 ($Million)4.4. Mineral Oils4.4.1. Market Assessment and Forecast, By Region, 2012-2022 ($Million)4.5. Glycol-Based Fluids4.5.1. Market Assessment and Forecast, By Region, 2012-2022 ($Million)4.6. Other Products4.6.1. Market Assessment and Forecast, By Region, 2012-2022 ($Million)Chapter 5. Heat Transfer Fluids Market, By ApplicationChapter 6. Heat Transfer Fluids Market, By RegionChapter 7. Company ProfilesRead Full Table of ContentsReasons to Buy the Report:This report focuses on various levels of analysisindustry trends, market ranking of top players, and company profiles, which together form basic views and analyze the competitive landscape, emerging segments of the rapid microbiology testing market, and high-growth regions and their drivers, restraints, challenges, and opportunities. The report will help both established firms as well as new entrants/smaller firms to gauge the pulse of the market and garner greater market shares.(Early customers will receive 10% customization in this report.)Avail Quality Discount at:About Crystal Market Research:Crystal Market Research (CMR) is a main industry insight arrangement that gives all statistical surveying reports from top distributers, a U.S. based market research and business Intelligence Company. Crystal offers one stop solution for market research, business intelligence, and consulting services to help clients make more informed decisions. It provides both syndicated as well as customized research studies for its customers spread across the globe. The company offers market intelligence reports across a broad range of industries including healthcare, chemicals & materials, technology, automotive, and energy.Contacts Us:Judy | 304 South Jones Blvd, Suite 1896,Las Vegas NV 89107,United StatesE-mail: sales@crystalmarketresearch.com | Tel: +1-888-213-4282Web:Global M-POS Technology Market 2018: Market Growth with Trends, Analysis by Regions, Type, Application, Restraints, and Top Key Players - Global Forecast to 2023

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A new report Global M-POS Technology Market has been recently devised by the experts of Report Consultants based on the Global Status, Forecast, by Key Players, Types and its Application. The report also scrutinizes an elaborate assessment of key drivers and demands, prominent business use cases, notable opportunities, emerging trends, and recent technological advancements.The global M-POS Technology Market is expected to reach US$+9.8 billion by the end of 2023, growing at a CAGR of +12% between 2017 and 2023.Mobile point-of-sale (M-POS) technology is a committed remote gadget including cell phone and tablet that capacities as a money enlist or electronic point of sale terminal. Mobile gadgets are progressively embraced by a wide range of dealers as point-of-sale terminals, and MasterCard's Mobile point-of-sale (M-POS) program encourages acquirers to gain by this pattern. For procuring new shippers and adequately updating card installments, M-POS prepare for an expansion in electronic exchanges that are sheltered and secure. M-POS arrangements recognize card installments from shippers of all sizes that grasp way to-entryway salespeople, private companies and huge retailers, through remote gadget. M-POS helps in boosting instinctive UIs for both the shipper and shopper for exchange reason.Get Sample Copy of Report with TOC @Top Key Players:Recruit Holdings Co. Ltd., PAX Technology Ltd., Intuit Inc., Ingenico S.A., PayPal Holdings Inc., iZettle AB, VeriFone Systems Inc., First Data Corp., Oracle Corp., Posiflex Technology Inc., Zebra Technologies Corp., Square Inc., Dspread Technology Inc., Citizen Systems Europe GmbH, Hewlett-Packard Development Co. L.P., and Bixolon Co. Ltd.The major players of the M-POS Technology Market were identified across regions, and their offerings, distribution channels, and regional presence are understood through in-depth discussions. Also, average revenue generated by these companies, segmented on the basis of region, is used to arrive at the overall market size. This overall market size is used in the top-down procedure to estimate the sizes of other individual markets through percentage splits from secondary sources directories, databases, and primary research.Grab Special Discount on Report @The worldwide M-POS Technology Market has been visualized to acquire request from prominent sorts of items, for example, outer utilize, oral and applications, for example, family unit and doctor's facility. While the danger of substitutes and innovative dangers could unfavorably affect the worldwide market, potential applications and openings from rising areas have been foreseen to raise the expectations of industry players. The significant players of the market were distinguished crosswise over locales, and their contributions, conveyance channels, and provincial nearness are comprehended through top to bottom talks. Likewise, normal income created by these organizations, portioned based on district, is utilized to touch base at the general market measure. This general market measure is utilized in the best down strategy to assess the sizes of other individual markets through rate parts from auxiliary sources catalogs, databases, and essential research.Major questions replied in this report1. What will the market estimate and what will the development rate be in 2023?2. What are the key market patterns?3. What is driving this market?4. What are the difficulties to showcase development?5. Who are the key merchants in this market space?6. What are the market openings and dangers looked by the key merchants?7. What are the qualities and shortcomings of the key merchants?Know More about this Report @In the event that you have any extraordinary prerequisites, it would be ideal if you let us know and we will offer you the report as you need.Table of Content:1. Market Overview of Global M-POS Technology Market2. Competition Analysis by Players3. Company (Top Players) Profiles4. Software Market Size by Type and Application5. US Market Status and Outlook6. EU Development Market Status and Outlook7. Japan Market Development Status and Outlook8. China Market Status and Outlook9. India M-POS Technology Market Status and Outlook10. Southeast Asia Market Status and Outlook11. Market Forecast by Region, Type and Application12. Market Dynamics13. Market Effect Factor Analysis14. Research Finding/ Conclusion15. AppendixAbout Us:Report Consultant - A global leader in analytics, research and advisory that can assist you to renovate your business and modify your approach. With us, you will learn to take decisions intrepidly. We make sense of drawbacks, opportunities, circumstances, estimations and information using our experienced skills and verified methodologies.Our research reports will give you an exceptional experience of innovative solutions and outcomes. We have effectively steered businesses all over the world with our market research reports and are outstandingly positioned to lead digital transformations. Thus, we craft greater value for clients by presenting advanced opportunities in the global market.Contact us:Rebecca Parker(Report Consultant)Akasaka biz tower,5-3-1 akasaka minato-ku,Tokyo, JapanContact No: +81-368444299sales@reportconsultant.comBidets Market in Global Industry : Demands, Insights, Research and Forecast 2018-2025

Bidets Market

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This report researches the worldwide Bidets market size (value, capacity, production and consumption) in key regions like North America, Europe, Asia Pacific (China, Japan) and other regions.Download sample PDF Brochure @This study categorizes the global Bidets breakdown data by manufacturers, region, type and application, also analyzes the market status, market share, growth rate, future trends, market drivers, opportunities and challenges, risks and entry barriers, sales channels, distributors and Porter's Five Forces Analysis.A bidet is a low fixed container in a bathroom that you can use to wash your bottom.It looks like a toilet but has warm-water jets for personal hygiene after you use the toilet. Bidets are normally situated near the toilet, and are especially helpful to lots of people: people who are recovering from surgery, people who have physical disabilities, people with dexterity or other problems that limit their range of motion, people who have various medical conditions, such as hemorrhoids, diarrhea, dysentery, difficult bowel movements, or other ailments that involve the rectal or genital areas, people who have developmental disabilities, such as Down's Syndrome, mental retardation, autism, or cerebral palsy, men and women who want better hygiene before or after sexual activities, and women who want more effective feminine hygiene during monthly menstrual periods.Order a Copy of Report @The Bidet industry concentration is relatively low; there are many manufacturers in the world, which located in Europe and APAC.The key players are TOTO, ROCA, Villeroy & Boch, Kohler, Hocheng Group (HCG), LIXIL Corporation, Geberit Group, NCM, Duravit, Panasonic, Brondell, CowayTOTO is the No.1 players, it takes about 1/3 of the global market value size, this type product is very popular in Japan and South Korea.The key consumption markets locate at South Europe, Japan, Korea and Americas. The APAC takes the market share of 34%, followed by Europe with 32%, North America has a very fast growth of CAGR 9%The prices between different producers are different. The price of add-on type is about 60% higher than that of conventional ones. The shower type is much less than the other two types, and mainly used in Finland, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and some region of Middle East.With the global economic recovery, more and more people pay attention to rising environment standards, because the bidet can save the use of toilet paper, now many countries encourage the use of bidet to save resources, so the need of Bidet will increase from 11.7 million units in 2017 to 18.3 million units in 2023, with a CAGR of 7.7%.Global Bidets market size will increase to 4660 Million US$ by 2025, from 3350 Million US$ in 2017, at a CAGR of 4.2% during the forecast period. In this study, 2017 has been considered as the base year and 2018 to 2025 as the forecast period to estimate the market size for Bidets.Ask Discount @This report focuses on the top manufacturers' Bidets capacity, production, value, price and market share of Bidets in global market. The following manufacturers are covered in this report:- TOTO- ROCA- Villeroy & Boch- Kohler- Hocheng Group (HCG)- LIXIL Corporation- Geberit Group- NCM- Duravit- Panasonic- Brondell- CowayThe study objectives are:- To analyze and research the global Bidets capacity, production, value, consumption, status and forecast;- To focus on the key Bidets manufacturers and study the capacity, production, value, market share and development plans in next few years.- To focuses on the global key manufacturers, to define, describe and analyze the market competition landscape, SWOT analysis.- To define, describe and forecast the market by type, application and region.- To analyze the global and key regions market potential and advantage, opportunity and challenge, restraints and risks.- To identify significant trends and factors driving or inhibiting the market growth.- To analyze the opportunities in the market for stakeholders by identifying the high growth segments.- To strategically analyze each submarket with respect to individual growth trend and their contribution to the market.- To analyze competitive developments such as expansions, agreements, new product launches, and acquisitions in the market.- To strategically profile the key players and comprehensively analyze their growth strategies.Get Complete Report @List of Tables and FiguresFigure Bidets Product PictureTable Bidets Key Market Segments in This StudyTable Key Manufacturers Bidets Covered in This StudyTable Global Bidets Market Size Growth Rate by Type 2018-2025 (K Units) & (Million US$)Figure Global Bidets Production Market Share 2013-2025Figure Conventional Bidets Product PictureTable Major Manufacturers of Conventional BidetsFigure Bidet Shower Product PictureTable Major Manufacturers of Bidet ShowerFigure Add-on Bidets Product PictureTable Major Manufacturers of Add-on BidetsTable Global Bidets Market Size Growth Rate by Application 2018-2025 (K Units)Figure HouseholdFigure CommercialFigure Bidets Report Years ConsideredFigure Global Bidets Revenue 2013-2025 (Million US$)Deep Research Reports are a digital database of syndicated market reports for global and China industries. These reports offer competitive intelligence data for companies in varied market segments and for decision makers at multiple levels in these organizations.We provide 24/7 online and offline support to our customers.Contact us on +1-888-391-5441 or share your details on sales@deepresearchreports.com with your requirements of market research reports and business intelligence needs.2018 Animal Health Market ||Company Analysis of Bayer AG, Merck & Co., Inc., Eli Lilly and Company and Zoetis Inc.

2018 Animal Health Market Analysis

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The research report "Global Animal Health Market: Industry Analysis & Outlook (2018-2022)" gives a broad research and definite investigation of the present market alongside future viewpoint. The report discusses the major development drivers and challenges of the market, covering North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific regions alongside the worldwide market. The report profiles the key players of the market including Bayer AG, Merck and Co., Inc., Eli Lilly and Company and Zoetis Inc.Complete report on Global Animal Health Market spread across 91 pages providing 4 company profiles, 4 tables and 58 charts available atAnimals, like humans, also suffer from diseases and hence require proper care from veterinarians, farmers and pet owners. Improving the health of companion animals and livestock and treating them is the foremost objective of animal health industry. The animal health industry can be broadly classified into two parts - production and companion segments. Every animal has distinct need of its own and thus, requires different treatments in accordance to its breed. Further, on the basis of products, animal health market is divided into three main sections; pharmaceuticals, vaccines, and medicinal feed additives.The key factors driving the growth of animal health market include rising disposable income, urbanization, rising demand for animal protein, faster regulatory approvals, increasing pet expenditure in the U.S., and favorable demographic supporting pet market. Some of the noteworthy trends and developments of this industry include consolidation of the market, increasing companion ownership, and rising incidences of zoonotic diseases. However, the expansion of animal health market is hindered by highly competitive landscape for new entrants and high cost of product development.Order a copy of this report @Major Points from Table of Contents:1. Overview2. Global Animal Health Market3. Regional Markets4. Market Dynamics5. Competitive Landscape6. Company ProfilesFew Points from List of Charts Provided in Global Animal Health Market Report:Animal Health Industry by Animal TypeAnimal Health Market by Product SegmentsAnimal Health Market Value Chain AnalysisGlobal Animal Health Market by Value (2013-2017)Global Animal Health Market Forecast by Value (2018-2022)Global Animal Health Market by Product (2017)Global Feed Additives Market by Value (2013-2017)Global Feed Additives Market Value Forecast (2018-2022)Global Pharmaceuticals Market by Value (2013-2017)Global Pharmaceuticals Market Value Forecast (2018-2022)Global Vaccines Market by Value (2013-2017)Global Vaccines Market Value Forecast (2018-2022)Global Animal Health Market by Animal Type (2017)Global Production Animal Health Market by Value (2013-2017)Global Production Animal Health Market Forecast by Value (2018-2022)Global Companion Animal Health Market by Value (2013-2017)Global Companion Animal Health Market Forecast by Value (2018-2022)Explore More Latest Healthcare Market Research Reports @About Us:Market Reports Online is a comprehensive online library of more than 100,000 reports, in-depth market research studies on thousands of micro markets and a range of industries. The reports are analytically and statistically rich, and offer a comprehensive view of the dynamic market scenario across the globe. We offer online and offline support services to ensure your research requirements are met on time.Contact Info:Name: Hrishikesh PatwardhanEmail: sales@marketreportsonline.comOrganization: MarketReportsOnlinePhone: + 1 888 391 5441Source URL:Cashew Nuts Market Business Growth Statistics and Key Players Insights: Aryan International, Agrocel Industries, CBL Natural Foods, Delphi Organic, Cascade Agroindustrial

Cashew Nuts Market

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The Global Cashew Nuts Market 2018 to 2025 renders deep perception of the key regional market status of the Cashew Nuts Industry on a global level that primarily aims the core regions which comprises of continents like Europe, North America, and Asia and the key countries such as United States, Germany, China and Japan.The report on Global Cashew Nuts Market is a professional report which provides thorough knowledge along with complete information pertaining to the Cashew Nuts industry a propos classifications, definitions, applications, industry chain summary, industry policies in addition to plans, product specifications, manufacturing processes, cost structures, etc.The major manufacturers covered in this report Aryan International Agrocel Industries CBL Natural Foods Delphi Organic Cascade Agroindustrial Ajanta Industries Alien Green Bata Food Aurora Products Divine Foods Achal Cashew nuts Multiple Organics Tierra Farm Pro Nature Organic FoodsGet Sample Copy of this Report @On the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split intoBy Form Whole Roasted Powder Paste SplitsBy Food Type Dairy Products Bakery Products Snacks & Bars Confectionaries Cereals Desserts BeveragesOn the basis of the end users/applications Retailers Convenience Stores Supermarkets Specialist StoresThe potential of this industry segment has been rigorously investigated in conjunction with primary market challenges. The present market condition and future prospects of the segment has also been examined. Moreover, key strategies in the market that includes product developments, partnerships, mergers and acquisitions, etc., are discussed. Besides, upstream raw materials and equipment and downstream demand analysis is also conducted.Check Discount @Report Includes:-The report cloaks the market analysis and projection of Cashew Nuts Market on a regional as well as global level. The report constitutes qualitative and quantitative valuation by industry analysts, first-hand data, assistance from industry experts along with their most recent verbatim and each industry manufacturers via the market value chain.The research experts have additionally assessed the in general sales and revenue generation of this particular market. In addition, this report also delivers widespread analysis of root market trends, several governing elements and macro-economic indicators, coupled with market improvements as per every segment.The study objectives of this report are:To analyze and study the global Cashew Nuts sales, value, status (2013-2017) and forecast (2018-2025).Focuses on the key Cashew Nuts manufacturers, to study the sales, value, market share and development plans in future.Focuses on the global key manufacturers, to define, describe and analyze the market competition landscape, SWOT analysis.To define, describe and forecast the market by type, application and region.To analyze the global and key regions market potential and advantage, opportunity and challenge, restraints and risks.To identify significant trends and factors driving or inhibiting the market growth.To analyze the opportunities in the market for stakeholders by identifying the high growth segments.To strategically analyze each submarket with respect to individual growth trend and their contribution to the marketTo analyze competitive developments such as expansions, agreements, new product launches, and acquisitions in the marketTo strategically profile the key players and comprehensively analyze their growth strategies.BUY NOW @About Us:QY Research Groups is a company that simplifies how analysts and decision makers get industry data for their business. Our unique colossal technology has been developed to offer refined search capabilities designed to exploit the long tail of free market research whilst eliminating irrelevant results. QY Research Groups is the collection of market intelligence products and services on the Web. We offer reports and update our collection daily to provide you with instant online access to the world's most complete and current database of expert insights on global industries, companies, products, and trends.Contact us:Email- sales@qyresearchgroups.comWeb-Oligonucleotide Synthesis Market Deals, Supply and Utilization 2017 Investigation and Figures to 2022

Oligonucleotide Synthesis Market

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The report of Oligonucleotide Synthesis Market by Market Research Future comprises extensive primary research along with the detail analysis of qualitative as well as quantitative aspects by various industry experts, key opinion leaders to gain a deeper insight of the market and industry performance.Get Premium Sample Copy @Market Scenario:The global market of oligonucleotide synthesis is growing at a rapid pace. The global oligonucleotide synthesis market is growing at the CAGR of around 10.3% for the forecasted period. The major factors that are influencing the market for oligonucleotide synthesis are increasing advancement in field of healthcare, increasing demand for innovation in the field of life science and medical academics, increasing investment by the government for the development of genomic technologies, increasing demand for oligonucleotide synthesis technologies by the public and private research firms. Furthermore increasing application of oligonucleotide synthesis in diagnostic, genetic testing, research, therapeutics, gene synthesis, library preparation, drug target screening, and others is further influencing the growth of the oligonucleotide synthesis market globally.Key Players for Oligonucleotide Synthesis Market:Integrated DNA Technologies, Inc (U.S), GE Healthcare (U.S.), Agilent Technologies Inc. (U.S.), Sigma-Aldrich Corporation (U.S.), Bioautomation Corporation (U.S.), Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (U.S.), L.G.C Biosearch Technologies (U.S.), Eurofins Genomics (Germany), Eurogentec S.A (Belgium), and Nitto Denko Avecia Inc. (Japan) and others.Segments:Global Oligonucleotide Synthesis Market has been segmented on the basis of product type which comprises synthesized oligonucleotides, reagents and equipment. On the basis of application the market is segmented into diagnostic, genetic testing, research, therapeutics, gene synthesis, library preparation, drug target screening, and others. Furthermore on the basis of end users the market is segmented into academic research institutes, diagnostic laboratories and pharmaceutical & biotechnology companies.Regional Analysis of Oligonucleotide Synthesis Market:North America is the largest market of global oligonucleotide synthesis market. The North American market for oligonucleotide synthesis is expected to grow at the CAGR of 9.8%. Europe is the second largest market for oligonucleotide synthesis which is expected to grow at a CAGR of 10.0%. Asia Pacific region is expected to be fastest growing region of the global oligonucleotide synthesis market.Exclusive Discount @Table of Contents1 Report Prologue2 Market Introduction2.1 Definition2.2 Scope Of The Study2.2.1 Research Objective2.2.2 Assumptions2.2.3 Limitations2.3 Market Structure3 Research Methodology3.1 Research Process3.2 Primary Research3.3 Secondary Research3.4 Market Size Estimation3.5 Forecast Model4 Market Dynamics4.1 Drivers4.2 Restraints4.3 Opportunities4.4 Mega Trends4.5 Macroeconomic Indicators5 Market Factor Analysis ContinuedReports Enquiry @uous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.Market Research Future (MRFR), enable customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, IndiaPhone: +1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.comNew Report On Topical Drug Delivery System Market 2018 Global Analysis By Key Players  Glaxosmithkline, Johnson & Johnson, Novartis

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Topical Drug Delivery System 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 Exclusive FREE PDF Sample Copy of This Report @UpMarketResearch offers a latest published report on Global Topical Drug Delivery System Market Analysis and Forecast 2018-2025 delivering key insights and providing a competitive advantage to clients through a detailed report. The report contains 92 pages which highly exhibit on current market analysis scenario, upcoming as well as future opportunities, revenue growth, pricing and profitability.Topical Drug Delivery System 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 Topical Drug Delivery System Industry 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 Topical Drug Delivery System market analysis & forecast 2018-2025 is segmented into Product Segment, Application Segment & Major players.Region-wise Analysis Global Topical Drug Delivery System Market covers: North America Europe China Japan India Southeast Asia Other regions (Central & South America, Middle East & Africa)The Major players reported in the market include: Glaxosmithkline Johnson & Johnson Novartis Galderma S.A. Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, Inc. Bayer AG 3M Drug Delivery Systems Crescita Therapeutics Inc. Medpharm CiplaBuy Topical Drug Delivery System Market analysis & forecast 2018-2025 Report along with complete TOC @Global Topical Drug Delivery System Market: Product Segment Analysis: Skin Drug Delivery Ophthalmic Drug Delivery Rectal Drug Delivery Vaginal Drug Delivery Nasal Drug DeliveryGlobal Topical Drug Delivery System Market: Application Segment Analysis: Hospitals and Private Clinics Home Care Settings OthersGlobal Topical Drug Delivery System Market: Key Stakeholders: Topical Drug Delivery System Manufacturers Topical Drug Delivery System Distributors/Traders/Wholesalers Topical Drug Delivery System Subcomponent Manufacturers Industry Association Downstream VendorsIn this study, the years considered to estimate the market size of Topical Drug Delivery System are as follows: History Year: 2013-2017 Base Year: 2017 Estimated Year: 2018 Forecast Year 2018 to 2025The Report covers in-depth analysis as follows: Chapter 1 Report Overview Chapter 2 Global Growth Trends Chapter 3 Market Share by Key Players Chapter 4 Breakdown Data by Type and Application Chapter 5 United States Chapter 6 Europe Chapter 7 China Chapter 8 Japan Chapter 9 Southeast Asia Chapter 10 India Chapter 11 Central & South America Chapter 12 International Players Profiles Chapter 13 Market Forecast 2018-2025 Chapter 14 Analyst's Viewpoints/ConclusionsTopical Drug Delivery System Market 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.For More Information, Please VisitKey Reasons to Purchase: To gain insightful analyses of the market and have a comprehensive understanding of the Global Topical Drug Delivery System 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 Topical Drug Delivery System market analysis and forecast 2018-2025.Customization 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: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.Multiplex Assays Market Future Patterns - Business Diagram, Late Improvements, Organization Profile 2023

Multiplex Assays Market

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The report titled Multiplex Assays Market Research Report  Forecast to 2023 is a direct appreciation by Market Research Future of the market potential of the Multiplex Assays Market. The report intends to provide accurate and meaningful insights, both quantitative as well as qualitative. It can be said with high confidence level, that this report will satisfy the need for comprehensive insights needed to compete and beat other players in todays winner takes all market!The Global Multiplex Assays Market is expected to reach an approximate CAGR of 7.2% during the forecast period.Get Premium Sample Copy @Global Multiplex Assays Market Key Players:Luminex, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Illumina, Bio-Rad Laboratories, Qiagen, Abcam, Becton Dickinson and Company, Merck, Agilent Technologies, Meso Scale Diagnostics, Randox Laboratories, Quanterix, Bio-Techne, Olink, Seegene, and others.Market Overview:The increase in high-throughput screening tests in research and development for detection of biomolecules of various diseases drives the market growth. Multiplex assays are used for diagnosing various autoimmune diseases, infectious diseases, and chronic diseases such as cancer and cardiovascular diseases. According to the National Institutes of Health (2012), autoimmune diseases are most prevalent as compared to other diseases and 23.5 million people in America suffer from autoimmune diseases, whereas 9 million people have cancer. Thus, growing prevalence of such diseases and rise in government funding for the R&D sector influence the growth in this market. The growing demand for rapid and precise measurement of analyses, operational and labor cost reduction, rising use of multiplex assays for diagnostic uses, and technological advancements are also the key factors for the market to grow.However, factors such as expensive multiplex assays, heavy capital investments, shortage of skilled labor, and others are expected to restrict the market growth during the forecast period.Segmentation:The global multiplex assays market is segmented on the basis of product and service, type, technology, application, and end-user. The multiplex assays market, by product and service, is sub-segmented into consumables, instruments, software and services, and others. On the basis of type, the market is categorized into protein multiplex assays, nucleic acid multiplex assays, cell-based multiplex assays, and others. Protein multiplex assays are further sub-segmented into planar protein assays, bead-based protein assays, and others. Nucleic acid multiplex assays are further sub-segmented into planar nucleic acid assays, bead-based nucleic acid assays, and others. The technology segment includes flow cytometry, fluorescence detection, luminescence, real-time multiplex PCR, and others. On the basis of application, the market is categorized into research and development and clinical diagnostics. The research & development segment includes drug discovery and development and biomarker discovery and validation. The clinical diagnostics segment includes infectious diseases, cancer, cardiovascular diseases, autoimmune diseases, nervous system disorders, metabolism and endocrinology disorders, and others. On the basis of end-user, the market is segmented into pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, hospitals and research institutes, reference laboratories, and others. On the basis of region, the global multiplex assays market is segmented into the Americas, Europe, Asia Pacific, and the Middle East and Africa.The Americas is sub-segmented into North America and South America. The North American region is further segmented into the U.S. and Canada. The European region is divided into two, namely, Western Europe and Eastern Europe. Western Europe is further classified into Germany, Italy, France, the U.K., Spain, and the rest of Western Europe. The Asia Pacific region is sub-segmented into Japan, China, India, Australia, the Republic of Korea, and the rest of Asia Pacific. The Middle Eastern and African region is sub-segmented into the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar, and the rest of the Middle East and Africa.Apply for Attractive Discount @Regional Market Analysis:The multiplex assays market is dominated by North America owing to strong R&D activities in this region. According to the International Trade Administration (ITA), the United States is the leading country in Biopharmaceutical Research and Development (R&D) activities and conducts around half the world's Research and Development (R&D) in pharmaceuticals. Increased adoption of technologically advanced devices and the high amount of healthcare expenditure drive the market in this region.It is estimated that Europe stood second in the global multiplex assays market. Increasing healthcare expenditure and health care activities and increase in the use of diagnostics and unmet needs for health care are driving the growth of this market in Europe. The use of multiplex assays for diagnostics influences the market growth in this region. According to the European Heart Network (2017), 45% of deaths in Europe are due to cardiovascular diseases. Thus, increasing prevalence of cardiovascular diseases in Europe drives the market growth. Furthermore, growing biotechnology sector in Europe is expected to boost the market in this region.Asia Pacific was projected to be the fastest growing region for the global multiplex assays market. Key factors such as rising number of patient population, increase in the prevalence of chronic diseases, and growing research and development activities in pharmaceuticals for the treatment of diseases, such as cancer and other infectious diseases influence the market in this region.The Middle East and Africa holds the least share in the global multiplex assays market due to the presence of stringent government policies and poor economies. However, increasing investment by private market players in this region can boost the market growth.TABLE OF CONTENT:Chapter 1. Report PrologueChapter 2. Market Introduction2.1 Definition2.2 Scope of the Study2.2.1 Research Objective2.2.2 Assumptions2.2.3 LimitationsChapter 3. Research Methodology3.1 Introduction3.2 Primary Research3.3 Secondary Research3.4 Market Size EstimationChapter 4. Market Dynamics4.1 Drivers4.2 Restraints4.3 Opportunities4.4 Challenges4.5 Macroeconomic Indicators4.6 Technology Trends & AssessmentContinued!Enquiry about Reports @Market Research Future (MRFR), enable customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, IndiaPhone: +1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.comAyurvedic Medicine Market: 2018  2025 | Companies (Maharishi Ayurveda, Dabur, The Himalaya Drug Company, Herbal Hills, BioBaxy Technologies...), Types, Applications, Opportunities, Challenges, Strategies & Forecasts

Ayurvedic Medicine Market, Ayurvedic Medicine Market Player, Ayurvedic Medicine Market Region, Ayurvedic Medicine Market Type

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This report studies the Ayurvedic Medicine market with many aspects of the industry like the market size, market status, market trends and forecast, the report also provides brief information of the competitors and the specific growth opportunities with key market drivers. Find the complete Ayurvedic Medicine market analysis segmented by companies, region, type and applications in the report.Ayurveda is a system of medicine with historical roots in the Indian subcontinent. Globalized and modernized practices derived from Ayurveda traditions are a type of alternative medicine. In countries beyond India, Ayurveda therapies and practices have been integrated in general wellness applications and in some cases in medical use.Globally, the demand for Ayurvedic products is on a continuous rise, which has led to the emergence of Ayurvedic centers in the U.S. and Europe. Within the Asia-Pacific region, India has attained global prominence for its wide Ayurvedic product range, thereby becoming a preferred destination for medical tourism. It holds a negligible share in the overall Ayurvedic products market, as quality standards are not maintained according to international specifications. However, the Government of India is taking initiatives to increase this share, for instance, it has setup Ministry of AYUSH to ensure the optimal development and propagation of Ayurveda. China also has history of this ancient science, and is a major market for Ayurvedic products.Factors driving consumer preference for Ayurvedic products are rising awareness regarding their benefits, increasing cognizance about ill-effects of allopathy, easy availability, and growing disposable income. Lack of RandD for high yielding varieties, irregular supply of raw material, absence of a standardized procedure to manufacture Ayurvedic products, and safety regulations are major challenges faced by the market players. Increase in knowledge about natural ingredients in health and personal care products in developed countries, namely the U.S., Canada, Australia, Singapore, and Japan, offers growth opportunity for Ayurvedic products manufacturers.This report focuses on the global top players, covered:Maharishi Ayurveda, Dabur, The Himalaya Drug Company, Herbal Hills, BioBaxy Technologies, Planet Ayurveda, Arvincare...Inquiry for buying a sample copy @Ayurvedic Medicine market continues to evolve and expand in terms of the number of companies, products, and applications that illustrates the growth perspectives. The report also covers the list of Product range and Applications with SWOT analysis, CAGR value, further adding the essential business analytics. Ayurvedic Medicine market research analysis identifies the latest trends and primary factors responsible for market growth enabling the Organizations to flourish with much exposure to the markets.Market segment by Regions/Countries, this report covers:North America, Europe, China, Rest of Asia Pacific, Central and South America, Middle East and AfricaMarket segment by Type, the product can be split into:Healthcare Products, Personal Care Products, Skin Care, Hair Care, Oral Care, OthersBrowse full table of contents and data tables@The Ayurvedic Medicine market research report completely covers the vital statistics of the capacity, production, value, cost/profit, supply/demand import/export, further divided by company and country, and by application/type for best possible updated data representation in the figures, tables, pie chart, and graphs. These data representations provide predictive data regarding the future estimations for convincing market growth. The detailed and comprehensive knowledge about our publishers makes us out of the box in case of market analysis.Market segment by Application, the market can be split into:Women, Men, KidsIf you have any special requirement, please let us know and we can provide you the report as your requirement.Key questions answered in this report What will the market size be in 2028 and what will the growth rate be? What are the key market trends? What is driving this market? What are the challenges to market growth? Who are the key vendors in this market space? What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the key vendors? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the key vendors?Inquiry for Discount on Report Copy @About Us: - MarketResearchNest.com Market Research Nest (MRN) is an offering of GRN Research Pvt. Ltd. It is a one-stop-shop for market research products and services. At MRN, we offer reports from almost all top regional and global publishers and research firms who specialize in their domains. We ensure that you receive the most reliable and up to date research data. We update our collection daily to help our clients have an access to a most up-to-date database of expert insights on global industries, organizations, products, and trends. Our database covers research studies including periodic updates on a range of industries, companies, products, SWOT profiles, recent marketing, and other trends.Contact us: - Mr. Jeet Jain, Sales Manager, sales@marketresearchnest.com ;+1-240-284-8070, +44-20-3290-4151;Connect with us: Google+ | LinkedIn | Twitter | FacebookNuclear Medicine Imaging Equipment Market: 2018  2025 | Companies (Digirad Corp. (US), GE Healthcare Plc (UK), Mediso Medical Imaging Systems (Hungary)...), Types, Applications, Opportunities, Challenges, Strategies & Forecasts

Nuclear Medicine Imaging Equipment Market, Nuclear Medicine Imaging Equipment Market Player

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This report studies the Nuclear Medicine Imaging Equipment market with many aspects of the industry like the market size, market status, market trends and forecast, the report also provides brief information of the competitors and the specific growth opportunities with key market drivers. Find the complete Nuclear Medicine Imaging Equipment market analysis segmented by companies, region, type and applications in the report.Nuclear Medicine is science of using Nuclear energy for peaceful purpose. Radiopharmaceuticals (radio trackers) are molecules or chemicals that are attached to a small amount of radioactive isotope that once administered to the patient are able to specifically localize within organs and/or organ systems in health and disease. The imaging is done with highly sophisticated equipment known as GAMMA CAMERA SYSTEM. Nuclear medicine is used to diagnose a wide range of conditions. The patient will inhale, swallow, or be injected with a radiopharmaceutical. This is a radioactive material. After taking the substance, the patient will normally lie down on a table, while a camera takes pictures. The camera will focus on the area where the radioactive material is concentrated, and this will show the doctor what kind of a problem there is, and where it is. Types of imaging techniques include positon emission tomography (PET) and single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT).The various contributors involved in the value chain of the product include manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, intermediaries, and customers. The key manufacturers in this market include:Digirad Corp. (US), GE Healthcare Plc (UK), Mediso Medical Imaging Systems (Hungary), Philips Healthcare (US), Positron Corporation (US), Siemens Healthineers (Germany)...Inquiry for buying a sample copy @Nuclear Medicine Imaging Equipment market continues to evolve and expand in terms of the number of companies, products, and applications that illustrates the growth perspectives. The report also covers the list of Product range and Applications with SWOT analysis, CAGR value, further adding the essential business analytics. Nuclear Medicine Imaging Equipment market research analysis identifies the latest trends and primary factors responsible for market growth enabling the Organizations to flourish with much exposure to the markets.Geographically, this report is segmented into several key regions, with sales, revenue, market share and growth Rate of Nuclear Medicine Imaging Equipment in these regions, from 2013 to 2025, covering: North America (United States, Canada and Mexico) Europe (Germany, UK, France, Italy, Russia and Turkey etc.) Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India, Australia, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia and Vietnam) South America (Brazil etc.) Middle East and Africa (Egypt and GCC Countries)By the product type, the market is primarily split into:Full Ring PET Scanners, Partial Ring PET ScannersBrowse full table of contents and data tables@The Nuclear Medicine Imaging Equipment market research report completely covers the vital statistics of the capacity, production, value, cost/profit, supply/demand import/export, further divided by company and country, and by application/type for best possible updated data representation in the figures, tables, pie chart, and graphs. These data representations provide predictive data regarding the future estimations for convincing market growth. The detailed and comprehensive knowledge about our publishers makes us out of the box in case of market analysis.By the end users/application, this report covers the following segments:Oncology, Cardiology, OthersIf you have any special requirement, please let us know and we can provide you the report as your requirement.Key questions answered in this report What will the market size be in 2028 and what will the growth rate be? What are the key market trends? What is driving this market? What are the challenges to market growth? Who are the key vendors in this market space? What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the key vendors? What are the strengths and weaknesses of the key vendors?Inquiry for Discount on Report Copy @About Us: - MarketResearchNest.com Market Research Nest (MRN) is an offering of GRN Research Pvt. Ltd. It is a one-stop-shop for market research products and services. At MRN, we offer reports from almost all top regional and global publishers and research firms who specialize in their domains. We ensure that you receive the most reliable and up to date research data. We update our collection daily to help our clients have an access to a most up-to-date database of expert insights on global industries, organizations, products, and trends. Our database covers research studies including periodic updates on a range of industries, companies, products, SWOT profiles, recent marketing, and other trends.Contact us: - Mr. Jeet Jain, Sales Manager, sales@marketresearchnest.com ;+1-240-284-8070, +44-20-3290-4151;Connect with us: Google+ | LinkedIn | Twitter | FacebookMedically Prescribed Apps Market 2018 - 2027 with SWOT Analysis regarding upcoming Changes and Technology Adaptations in Global Healthcare Sector

Medically Prescribed Apps Market

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Namely Medically Prescribed Apps Market Report has Been Published by Market Research Future Which Covers All the Geographical Locations with Demand, Trend Analysis with near about Forecasted results and Also Covers the Market Expectations.The Global Medically Prescribed Apps Market Key Players are Pathfinder International (U.S.), Fueled (U.S.), Y Media Labs (U.S.), ArcTouch (U.S.), Intellectsoft US (U.S.), InnovationM (India), Sourcebits Technologies, WillowTree, Inc (U.S.), OpenXcell (India), Contus (India), Savvy apps (U.S.)Get Premium PDF Copy @Market Overview:Medically prescribed apps are software applications which is designed to help individuals manage their medical routine, calculate medical data, help acquire information regarding the availability of doctors, determination of critical health parameters, provide e-prescriptions, notifies about new treatment options and much more. They have been on the rise lately and finds its application in diabetes management, multi-parameter tracker, cardiac monitoring and others. These apps offer a variety of applications ranging from treatment-related recommendations to self-managing diseases, and they can be downloaded from the Google's Play Store or Apple's App Store. A diverse range of benefits and ease of use has proven to be a driving factor for the market growth. Medically prescribed apps are experiencing enormous demand and gaining acceptance among consumers. The global medically prescribed apps market is projected to expand at a CAGR of 18.8% over the forecast period 2017-2027, reveals a study by Market Research Future (MRFR). This thriving growth can be attributed to the ubiquity of smartphones and proliferation of mobile apps. Medically prescribed apps are helpful in monitoring diseases such as diabetes and obesity as they require continuous supervision; rise in patient pool of diabetes and other such lifestyle disease has contributed significantly to the growth of the medically prescribed Apps market. Rising prevalence of cancer and other chronic diseases, rise in geriatric population, unhealthy lifestyle, and lack of physical activity has spurred the growth of these apps. Additionally, increase in R&D activities, and broad adoption of medically prescribed apps, growing awareness for fitness are adding fuel to the growth of the market. Medically prescribed apps, however, have not been very successful in proving their efficacy and their reliability thus far has been questionable. The aged pool of patients and less tech-savvy patients who are not well acquainted with smartphones may face trouble using these apps which is a significant constraint to the market growth. Lack of awareness among patients, inadequate healthcare infrastructure in specific areas and unavailability of smartphones are factors impeding the market. Medically prescribed apps have also been reported to have produced inaccurate data and misidentify diseases.Segmentation:The global medically prescribed apps market has been segmented based on types, devices, operating system and application. By types, the market has been segmented into wellness management apps, diseases and treatment management apps, womens health & pregnancy apps, diseases specific apps, and others. By Devices, the market has been segmented into personal digital assistant, smartphone, tablet computer, and others. By operating system, the market has been segmented into windows, android, iOS system, and others. By application, the market has been segmented into diabetes management, multi-parameter tracker, cardiac monitoring, and others.Industry Trends/Updates:In June 2018, a company developing mobile medical applications for the management of chronic diseases, Tilak, announced the achievement of CE marking for Odysight, its first mobile medical game in Ophthalmology. Odysight can be availed only through medical prescription on the App Store and Google Play.Get Standard Discount @Regional Analysis:The key markets of the global medically prescribed apps market include the Americas, Europe, Asia-Pacific and the Middle East and Africa. The Americas lead the medically prescribed apps market owing to growing prevalence of chronic diseases, unhealthy lifestyles, high expenditure on healthcare, increasing government aid and concentration of major key players in the region. North America is a major contributor of the region due to presence of countries like US and Canada which have robust technology and healthcare sector. The Americas is followed by Europe. Strong economic conditions and government support for R&D activities favor the growth of the market in the region. Asia-Pacific is slated to emerge as the fastest growing market for medically prescribed apps due to rapidly growing healthcare sector in developing countries such as China and India, wide adoption of medical apps and prevalence of chronic diseases in the region. On the other hand, poor economic conditions, low literacy rate, low internet penetration and lack of awareness in the Middle East & Africa region restricts the growth of the market.Table of Content1 Report Prologue2 Market Introduction2.1 Definition2.2 Scope of the Study2.2.1 Research Objective2.2.2 Assumptions2.2.3 Limitations3 Research Methodology3.1 Introduction3.2 Primary Research3.3 Secondary Research3.4 Market Size Estimation4 Market Dynamics4.1 Drivers4.2 Restrains4.3 Opportunities4.4 Challenges4.5 Macroeconomic Indicators4.6 Technology Trends & AssessmentCollect More Enquiry @Market Research Future (MRFR), enable customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, IndiaPhone: +1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.comGoat Milk Market Report 2018: Segmentation by Product (Type 1, Type 2, Type 3, Others) by Application (Application 1, Application 2, Application 3, Others)

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Global Goat Milk market research report provides company profile for Groupe Lactalis, Hay Dairies, KAVLI, SUMMERHILL GOAT DAIRY, Delamere Dairy, Emmi Group, Gay Lea Foods, Granarolo and Others.This market study includes data about consumer perspective, comprehensive analysis, statistics, market share, company performances (Stocks), historical analysis 2012 to 2017, market forecast 2018 to 2025 in terms of volume, revenue, YOY growth rate, and CAGR for the year 2018 to 2025, etc. The report also provides detailed segmentation on the basis of product type, application, end user and regional segmentation. The regional segment is further bifurcated on country level.The goat milk products include fresh goat milk, also known as unpasteurized, raw, unadulterated, or unprocessed and processed goat milk.Request for Free sample copy of ready Report @Report Coverage:Top Manufactures/vendors of Goat Milk market:Delamere DairyEmmi GroupGay Lea FoodsGranaroloGroupe LactalisHay DairiesKAVLISUMMERHILL GOAT DAIRYOthers (Note: We can profile additional players without any additional charges)Goat Milk Product Type:Type 1Type 2Type 3OthersApplication of Goat Milk:Application 1Application 2Application 3OthersRegions covered in Goat Milk Market Research Report:North America (USA, Canada and Mexico)Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia, Italy and Others)Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India, Southeast Asia and Others)South America (Brazil, Argentina, Columbia and Others)Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria, South Africa and Others)(Note: We can provide country or region specific report on request; please contact us for your specific requirement)The Global Goat Milk Market analysis report covers detailed value chain analysis of Global Goat Milk Market. The value chain analysis helps to analyze major upstream raw materials, major equipments, manufacturing process, downstream customer analysis and major distributor analysis.The report also covers in-depth description, competitive scenario, wide product portfolio of prime players active in this market and business strategies adopted by competitors along with their SWOT analysis. The report also provides Porter analysis, PESTEL analysis and market attractiveness which helps to better understand the market scenario on macro and micro level. Side by side, it also explicitly provides information about mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, and all the other important activities occurred in the market during current and past few years. The Global Goat Milk Market report explores manufacturers competitive scenario and provides market share for all major players of this market based on production capacity, sales, revenue, geographical presence and other major factors. The report also covers import/export data across all major regions covered in this report. Moreover, we can exclusively provide information about import/export data across any particular country as per requirement.How helpful this report will be? Goat Milk Market share (regional, product, application, end-user) both in terms of volume and revenue along with CAGR from 2018 to 2025 Key parameters which are driving this market and restraining its growth What all challenges manufacturers will face as well as new opportunities and threats faced by themEnquire before Buying @......Table of Content:PART 01: EXECUTIVE SUMMARYPART 02: SCOPE OF THE REPORTPART 03: RESEARCH METHODOLOGYPART 04: MARKET LANDSCAPE........................Continue (What does Report Include?Historic Data: What was the Goat Milk Market data (Size, competition, company share, YoY growth rate, etc.) from 2013 to 2018.Current Market Status: A comprehensive analysis of current market Size, trends, growth drivers, industry pitfalls, challenges and opportunities for players.Market Forecast: Report will comment and provide details about market growth and forecast till year 2025.Customization: We can provide following things 1) On request more company profiles (competitors) 2) Data about particular country or region 3) We will incorporate the same with no additional cost (Post conducting feasibility).Contact UsJason Smith,Sales Manager, Global Business Development,Website: marketreportscompany.comEmail: jasonsmith@marketreportscompany.comContact us: +1-888-220-3424Address: 20 N State Street, Chicago, Illinois, 60602 United StatesFood Technology Market to Emerging Consumer Market places During 2018-2028

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Food Technology Market: OverviewEmerging food technology is innovating the way local restaurant food is sourced and distributed and creating growth opportunities for food technology or online delivery platforms as well internet kitchen in the market. This advancement in food technology or online delivery platforms is generating lots of opportunities for restaurants in the food ordering industry. Consumers nowadays prefer ordering their favorite meal through online platforms, with unlimited access to the number of restaurants. Consumers also have the convenience of selection, customization and can order food from the restaurants based on ratings and reviews. Due to the superior ease of accessibility of online food delivering platforms, the food technology market is growing at a faster pace. The food technology web platforms are highly adopted by consumers and are proliferating due to the increase in usage of smartphones and the internet. These food technology platforms help restaurants in achieving customer reach and to earn additional revenue as well as improve their resource utilization. Food technology is the listing platform that helps restaurants in increasing the awareness about the business. With the changing lifestyle and high standard of living, consumers are mainly dependent on services that help them in saving time and offer convenience simultaneously. The trends of food delivery have transformed profoundly, particularly in the ways many restaurants and food chains are generating revenue. The advertisement for food technology apps such as online food ordering and online grocery apps is an upcoming method of generating revenue. The food technology companies are offering restaurants with a large customer traffic and in exchange of that the food technology companies take the transactional fee on ordering food online through the restaurants on their application, which helps them to increase their revenue.Food Technology Market: DynamicsThe increasing penetration of the internet and usage of the smartphones are the primary factors driving the growth of the food technology market. Also, these food technologies are used as online food delivery platforms that help restaurants in increasing their customer reach and generate additional income. This is one of the factors driving the growth of the food technology market.A sample of this report is available upon request @Many restaurants who have collaborated with food applications for delivering their services are unable to reach customers because of factors such as low ratings over the application and user reviews that may not be true.Global Food Technology Market: Competition LandscapeExamples of some of the key players operating in the global food technology market are Food Panda, Deliveroo, Uber, Zomato, Tesco PLC, Sainsbury, Grub Hub Inc., Dominos Pizza Inc., Delivery Hero Holding GmbH, Eat24, McDonald's Corporation, Panera Bread Company, Pizza Hut International, Doordash Inc., and Papa John's International, etc.Food Technology Market: Regional OutlookThe food technology market is dominated by Western Europe followed by North America and Asia Pacific. The market in Western Europe is expected to witness higher growth due to increase in online delivery penetration in the U.K. and other countries of Western Europe. The demand for the food technology in North America is increasing and is expected to contribute to the market growth owing to the presence of food technology giants. The primary growth factor is the introduction of multiple online delivery platforms to increase customer traffic in the Asia Pacific region. Latin America and MEA markets are projected to contribute a significant share in the global market over the forecast period.To view TOC of this report is available upon request @About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA  Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:Healthy Snack Market Report 2018: Segmentation by Product (Cereal & Granola Bars, Nuts & Seeds Snacks, Meat Snacks, Dried Fruit Snacks, Trail Mix Snacks, Others)

Healthy Snack Market

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Global Healthy Snack market research report provides company profile for General Mills, Mondelez International, Inc., PepsiCo Foods, Nestle S.A., B&G Food Inc., The Kellogg Company and Others.This market study includes data about consumer perspective, comprehensive analysis, statistics, market share, company performances (Stocks), historical analysis 2012 to 2017, market forecast 2018 to 2025 in terms of volume, revenue, YOY growth rate, and CAGR for the year 2018 to 2025, etc. The report also provides detailed segmentation on the basis of product type, application, end user and regional segmentation. The regional segment is further bifurcated on country level.The demand for healthy snacks has been increasing in adult population due to evolution of on-the-go lifestyle and availability of convenient snacking options. The rising popularity of snacking among the young population has boosted the need for healthy eating habits and is expected to propel the market demand over the next eight years. In addition to on-the-go lifestyle, snacking option that provides adequate nutrition is influencing the buyers decision.Request for Free sample copy of ready Report @Report Coverage:Top Manufactures/vendors of Healthy Snack market:Nestle S.A.B&G Food Inc.The Kellogg CompanyGeneral MillsMondelez International, Inc.PepsiCo FoodsOthers (Note: We can profile additional players without any additional charges)Product OutlookCereal & granola barsNuts & seeds snacksMeat snacksDried Fruit snacksTrail mix snacksOthersRegions covered in Healthy Snack Market Research Report:North America (USA, Canada and Mexico)Europe (Germany, France, UK, Russia, Italy and Others)Asia-Pacific (China, Japan, Korea, India, Southeast Asia and Others)South America (Brazil, Argentina, Columbia and Others)Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria, South Africa and Others)(Note: We can provide country or region specific report on request; please contact us for your specific requirement)The Global Healthy Snack Market analysis report covers detailed value chain analysis of Global Healthy Snack Market. The value chain analysis helps to analyze major upstream raw materials, major equipments, manufacturing process, downstream customer analysis and major distributor analysis.The report also covers in-depth description, competitive scenario, wide product portfolio of prime players active in this market and business strategies adopted by competitors along with their SWOT analysis. The report also provides Porter analysis, PESTEL analysis and market attractiveness which helps to better understand the market scenario on macro and micro level. Side by side, it also explicitly provides information about mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, and all the other important activities occurred in the market during current and past few years. The Global Healthy Snack Market report explores manufacturers competitive scenario and provides market share for all major players of this market based on production capacity, sales, revenue, geographical presence and other major factors. The report also covers import/export data across all major regions covered in this report. Moreover, we can exclusively provide information about import/export data across any particular country as per requirement.How helpful this report will be? Healthy Snack Market share (regional, product, application, end-user) both in terms of volume and revenue along with CAGR from 2018 to 2025 Key parameters which are driving this market and restraining its growth What all challenges manufacturers will face as well as new opportunities and threats faced by themEnquire before Buying @......Table of Content:Chapter 1. Methodology and Scope1.1. Research Methodology1.2. Research Scope & Assumptions1.3. List of Data Sources1.4. List of Abbreviations........................Continue (What does Report Include?Historic Data: What was the Healthy Snack Market data (Size, competition, company share, YoY growth rate, etc.) from 2013 to 2018.Current Market Status: A comprehensive analysis of current market Size, trends, growth drivers, industry pitfalls, challenges and opportunities for players.Market Forecast: Report will comment and provide details about market growth and forecast till year 2025.Customization: We can provide following things 1) On request more company profiles (competitors) 2) Data about particular country or region 3) We will incorporate the same with no additional cost (Post conducting feasibility).Contact UsJason Smith,Sales Manager, Global Business Development,Website: marketreportscompany.comEmail: jasonsmith@marketreportscompany.comContact us: +1-888-220-3424Address: 20 N State Street, Chicago, Illinois, 60602 United StatesVenturi Masks Market Growth Factors, Application, Demand, Product Type & Analysis by 2023 by BD, Smiths Medical, Salter Labs, Care.com, Intersurgical, and ECA Medical Instruments

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Venturi Masks Market is a complete background analysis of Medical Device industry, which includes an assessment of the parental market. The Report contains all the Market shares and approaches of key players in global market.The report consists of all the detailed profiles for the venturi masks markets major manufacturers and importers who are influencing the market. 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.A venturi mask or an air-entrainment mask is a medical device that delivers a known oxygen concentration to patients on controlled oxygen therapy. It can deliver oxygen concentrations ranging from 24% to 80% with flow rates of 4-12 L/min. The major clinical applications of venturi masks include COPD and asthma. The other applications include respiratory distress syndrome, cystic fibrosis (CF), pneumonia, acute myocardial infarction, severe trauma, and neuromuscular diseases causing ventilatory failure.Some of the Key Players in Venturi Masks Market Include: BD Besmed Health Business Flexicare Medical Smiths Medical Salter Labs DEAS For Care Enterprise Intersurgical Sure Care Tylenol Medical InstrumentRequest Free Sample Copy of the Report @This report focuses on the Venturi Masks in global market, especially in North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific, South America, Middle East and Africa. This report categorizes the market based on manufacturers, regions, type and application.According to the report, one driver in the market is increasing prevalence of chronic respiratory disorders. The healthcare industry has witnessed a paradigm shift from hospital care to homecare over the last decade. This trend is especially evident among the older population and people with chronic diseases. Technological advances and improvement in healthcare services are influencing many people to access home-based medical care to improve patient outcome and reduce healthcare expenditure.The availability of venturi masks with improved designs that are easy to use, combining comfort and efficiency, is increasing patient's preference for homecare to reduce the burden of high cost and lengthy hospital stays.Market Segment by Type, covers 24% Oxygen 28% Oxygen 31% Oxygen 35% Oxygen 40% OxygenMarket Segment by Applications, can be divided into Hospitals And Clinics Homecare ASCsRequest for Report Brochure for Latest Industry Insights @Major Table of Contents:Part 1 Industry OverviewPart 2 Industry OverallPart 3 Venturi Masks Market by ProductPart 4 Key Companies ListPart 5 Market CompetitionPart 6 Market Demand by SegmentPart 7 Region OperationPart 8 Market InvestmentPart 9 ConclusionWhat our report offers:- Market share assessments for the regional and country level segments- Market share analysis of the top industry players- Strategic recommendations for the new entrants- Market forecasts for a minimum of 9 years of all the mentioned segments, sub segments and the regional markets- Market Trends (Drivers, Constraints, Opportunities, Threats, Challenges, Investment Opportunities, and recommendations)- Strategic recommendations in key business segments based on the market estimations- Competitive landscaping mapping the key common trends- Company profiling with detailed strategies, financials, and recent developments- Supply chain trends mapping the latest technological advancements.Reasons to Purchase this Report Current and future of global oncology nutrition market outlook in the developed and emerging markets The segment that is expected to dominate the market as well as the segment which holds highest CAGR in the forecast period. Regions/countries that are expected to witness the fastest growth rates during the forecast period The latest developments, market shares, and strategies that are employed by the major market playersCustomization Options All segmentation provided above in this report is represented at country level and can be customized according to needs. All products covered in the market, product volume and average selling prices will be included as customizable options which may incur no or minimal additional cost (depends on customization).Inquiry Before Buying@About Research for Markets:Research for Markets indulges in detailed and diligent research on different markets, trends and emerging opportunities in the successive direction to cater to your business needs. We have established the pillars of our flourishing institute on the grounds of Credibility and Reliability. RFM delve into the markets across Asia Pacific, North America, South America, Europe, Middle East and Africa.Contact:Mr. A NaiduResearch for MarketsTel: +44 8000-4182-37 (UK)Email: alan.naidu@researchformarkets.comZika Virus Testing Market Type and Applications, Industry Growth Factors and Business Forecast 2023

Zika Virus Testing Market

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Namely Zika Virus Testing Market Report has Been Published by Market Research Future Which Covers All the Geographical Locations with Demand, Trend Analysis with near about Forecasted results and Also Covers the Market Expectations.Overview:The daunting sway zika virus had held over the populace in recent past has a far-reaching impact on governments in terms of initiatives undertaken. FDA had recently made it mandatory for zika virus testing of all the blood testing done across the U.S. in hospitals and laboratories just to keep the virus at bay. Borne by Aedes genus of mosquitoes, this disease can be easily transmitted to another person even via sexual intercourse and pregnant women, if affected, can forward that to her newborn child as well.Get Premium Sample Copy @These initiatives have resulted in the growth of zika virus testing market, and the market is all set to witness a considerable hike during the forecast period (2017-2023), asserts Market Research Future (MRFR) in an extensively analyzed report. FDA and the U.S. government have taken considerable steps to outclass this disease by having it properly tested and developing drugs that can contain the virus. The outcome is quite overwhelming. The World Health Organization (WHO) is also quite aware of the impacts of the virus and has taken steps accordingly. For instance, in 2016, it had declared a health emergency in the Americas, where the disease was spreading its wings. Subsequently, testing kits for the disease found a significant market and started growing in leaps and bounds. These precautionary decisions can act like a global market booster for the zika virus testing.Top Vendor Analysis:Prominent companies playing a significant role in the zika virus testing market are Luminex Corporation, ARUP Laboratories, Roche Molecular Systems, Hologic, and Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics.Segmentation:The global zika virus testing market can be segmented by tests and end-users.By tests, the market can be further sub-segmented into serological/Zika virus antibody and molecular/nucleic acid amplification. The latter is the most commonly used test for zika virus detection.Based on end-users the market includes diagnostic units, hospitals, pathology labs, and others.Get Quality Discount @Industry Trend:Researchers from Brigham and Womens hospital have recently come out with their discovery where they have used nanotechnology and digital health systems to detect zika virus. In the process. They have involved smartphones as necessary equipment for the testing. The method is known as nanomotor-based bead-motion cellphone (NBC) system, which can have considerable impacts in afflicted regions.Technology firm Inovatech, in collaboration with the Sao Paulo Research Foundation, developed a test at the Butantan Institute that can detect antibodies against zika virus in samples with great precision to declare infection, if any, caused by the virus previously.Regional Analysis:Region-specific analysis of the global market has regions Asia Pacific (APAC), Europe, Americas, and the Middle East and Africa (MEA) under its coverage.The Americas are in-charge of the market and Latin American countries, where the outbreak of the disease hit massively, are contributing more than the regions far in the distance. Projects initiated by Health and Human Services (HHS), and Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) to deter the disease from further growth and cure the affected populace can be seen as a market influencer. Brazils National Development Bank (BNDES) has also infused USD 136.6 million for further researches that can help the market grow considerably.Reports Enquiry @Continued!Market Research Future (MRFR), enable customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, IndiaPhone: +1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.comCommunity Care Facilities for the Elderly Market Promising Growth Opportunities over 2017 to 2025

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Community Care Facilities or Residential Care Facilities are services provided to geriatrics to assist their day-to-day routine of care, supervision and assistance with activities such as bathing and grooming and providing medicine as per regimen. In many cases high level of care and supervision is required when people are unable to ambulate by themselves but who do not need 24 hour nursing care. They are considered non-medical facilities and are not required to have nurses, certified nursing assistants or doctors on staff. These services are provided either home to home or at a private facility away from the patients home. Community care facilities are strictly regulated for quality of environment and expertise of the staff.The demand for community care has increased exponentially over the years particularly due to decreased focus and attention meted out to geriatrics by family. This is further fueled with low awareness and training in handling of serious medical situation for old people such as Alzheimers Parkinsons, heart attack, post-surgical care and palliative care. In many situations, end-of-life care is required to be provided which cannot be given in hospitals due to over occupation of hospital premises. Other services may include adult day health care, companionship, delivery of consumables and medical supplies, counseling, emergency alert response, home repair, home-delivered meals, home nursing, legal assistance, material aid, medical therapeutic services, personal care, transportation, and other community-based services.Request for Report Sample :The largest market for elderly community care services is estimated to be in North America which accounts for approximately 37% of the global market followed by Europe. China and Japan, are the worlds largest geriatric population regions where the market is expected to rise significantly in coming years. Cultural differentiation has affected the decision of hiring community care facility as aged people tend to misconstrue the move as abandonment by families which can strain health further. This is expected to remain a constant challenge in developing regions. Rapid urbanization and changing mindset may lead to better acceptance of these facilities in future. Home Community Care will be accepted much faster than care provided at a different facility such as an old age home.Since the facilities are strictly regulated, many of the facilities are government based facilities. Private companies such as Visiting Angels, Care Pathways, Home Instead, Senior Homes and Maxim Home Care are just a few examples in a market teeming with hundreds of players. Unique aspect of this industry is the fact that local players can have a market space of their own regardless of global leaders. Thus the market is expected to remain highly fragmented in coming years as well.Request for Report TOC :About UsPersistence Market Research (PMR) is a third-platform research firm. Our research model is a unique collaboration of data analytics and market research methodology to help businesses achieve optimal performance.To support companies in overcoming complex business challenges, we follow a multi-disciplinary approach. At PMR, we unite various data streams from multi-dimensional sources. By deploying real-time data collection, big data, and customer experience analytics, we deliver business intelligence for organizations of all sizes.Contact UsPersistence Market Research305 Broadway7th Floor, New York City,NY 10007, United States,USA,Canada Toll Free: 800-961-0353Email: sales@persistencemarketresearch.comWeb:Global Avanafil Market to Reflect Enormous Expansion by 2025 |Key Players VIVUS, Menarini Group, Auxilium Pharmaceuticals

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This report focuses on the global Avanafil status, future forecast, growth opportunity, key market and key players. The study objectives are to present the Avanafil development in United States, Europe and China.Avanafil refers to any system designed to ensure that contractors and sub-contractors are paid even in case of dispute.Go for Sample PDF PagesThe following key players of Avanafil which are covered in this report: VIVUS, Menarini Group, Auxilium Pharmaceuticals, Sanofi, Endo International, JW Pharmaceutical.Avanafil Market analysis by product type: 50 mg Avanafil, 100 mg Avanafil, 200 mg Avanafil,Avanafil Market Size split by Application: Erectile Dysfunction (ED), Application 2.Avanafil Market size split by Region: North America, United States, Canada, Mexico, Asia-Pacific, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Europe, Germany, France, UK, Italy, Spain, Russia, Central & South America, Brazil, Rest of Central & South America, Middle East & Africa, GCC Countries, Turkey, Egypt, South Africa United States, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia, India, Central & South America.The study objectives of this report are:To study and analyze the global Avanafil market size (value & volume) by company, key regions/countries, products and application, history data from 2013 to 2017, and forecast to 2025.To understand the structure of Avanafil market by identifying its various subsegments.To share detailed information about the key factors influencing the growth of the market (growth potential, opportunities, drivers, industry-specific challenges and risks).Focuses on the key global Avanafil manufacturers, to define, describe and analyze the sales volume, value, market share, market competition landscape, SWOT analysis and development plans in next few years.To analyze the Avanafil with respect to individual growth trends, future prospects, and their contribution to the total market.To project the value and volume of Avanafil submarkets, with respect to key regions (along with their respective key countries).To analyze competitive developments such as expansions, agreements, new product launches, and acquisitions in the market.To strategically profile the key players and comprehensively analyze their growth strategies.Find more information on this report atList of Tables and Figures:Figure Picture of AvanafilFigure Global Avanafil Production (K Pcs) and CAGR (%) Comparison by Types (Product Category) (2013-2025)Figure Global Avanafil Production Market Share by Types (Product Category) in 2017Figure 50 mg Avanafil Product PictureTable Major Manufacturers of 50 mg AvanafilFigure 100 mg Avanafil Product PictureTable Major Manufacturers of 100 mg AvanafilFigure 200 mg Avanafil Product PictureTable Major Manufacturers of 200 mg AvanafilTable Global Avanafil Market Size Growth Rate by Application 2018-2025 (K Pcs)Figure Erectile Dysfunction (ED)Figure Application 2Figure Avanafil Report Years ConsideredFigure Global Avanafil Market Size 2016-2025 (Million US$Figure Global Avanafil Sales 2016-2025 (K Pcs)Table Global Avanafil Market Size by Regions 2016-2025 (K Pcs) & (Million US$)Table Global Avanafil Sales by Regions 2016-2025 (K Pcs)Table Global Avanafil Sales Market Share by Regions 2016-2025Figure Global Avanafil Sales Market Share by Regions 2016-2025Figure 2017 Global Avanafil Sales Market Share by RegionsTable Global Avanafil Revenue by Regions 2016-2025 (Million US$)and more.Talk to our Analyst to know more about AvanafilAbout InForGrowth:We are a market-intelligence company formed with the objective of providing clients access to the most relevant and accurate research content for their growth needs. At InForGrowth, we understand Research requirements and help a client in taking informed business critical decisions. Given the complexities and interdependencies of market-intelligence, there is always more than one source to explore and arrive at the right answer. Through our smart search feature and our reliable & trusted publishing partners, we are paving way for a more simplified and relevant research.For all your Research needs, reach out to us at:Address: 6400 Village Pkwy suite # 104, Dublin, CA 94568, USAEmail: info@inforgrowth.comPhone: +1-909-329-2808Dynamic Application Security Testing Market Key Growth Analysis On Accenture, IBM, Veracode, Pradeo, Rapid7, Micro Focus

Dynamic Application Security Testing

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Market Study Report adds global Dynamic Application Security Testing market report that gives meticulous investigation of current scenario of the market size, share, demand, growth, trends, companies active in the industry and forecasts for the coming years.Web-based application security testing is the dominant segment across the application landscape of DAST market, owing to a growing number of organizations embracing DAST solutions to protect their digital assets from likely vulnerabilities and malicious activities. DAST market share from mobile application security testing however, is expected to garner massive demand in 2018-2024 due to escalating penetration of mobile phones and cloud services.Request a sample of this premium report at:Dynamic Application Security Testing Market has gained positive momentum in the last few years, mainly driven by the amplifying business risks attributable to cyber-attacks and application vulnerabilities. Outrageous events of security breaches worldwide are stimulating businesses to deploy cutting-edge application security testing solutions in order to alleviate hacker attack risks. Incidentally, the DAST technique has the potential to rightly spot vulnerabilities in running applications, allowing technology professionals to locate and evade bugs prior to product?s release. Other promising advantages of DAST include risk reduction, security function and feature enhancement like auditing, authentication, and encryption.Despicable security apprehensions like application manipulation for illegal access, unveiling of sensitive data, modification, and breach are likely to spur the DAST solutions market. Also, establishments are incessantly concentrating on application security testing to detect cyber-attacks and internal flaws to deliver a secure, and trustworthy working environment that assists business goals. However, it is imperative to mention that monetary constraints and a dearth of trained people to perform DAST are likely to be the main constrictions decelerating market growth.It is prudent to mention that industries like IT & telecom, BFSI, retail, and healthcare are leveraging the power of DAST technology to guard their business against cyber-attacks. Apparently, BFSI is the prime end-user of the DAST market attributed to digitization and surge in demand for online banking and mobile banking. With a growing number of business applications, application security becomes inevitable. DAST market from the healthcare space is also anticipated to grow at a commendable pace owing to the robust deployment of DAST for security and safety in healthcare applications.Request a discount on standard prices of this premium report at:Speaking about the geographical outlook, North America is projected to lead the global market owing to rising instances of breaches in private organizations & government networks. To mitigate these risks, private and public organizations are joining forces with security companies. A classic example worth mentioning is that of IBM and Cisco where they both collaborated to manage cyber threats. As a part of this venture, Cisco incorporated its security solutions with QRadar of IBM, an enterprise safety solution to safeguard organizations across endpoints, cloud, and networks.Asia Pacific DAST market is expected to exhibit unparalleled growth in future, which will be fueled by the rapid advancement in IT infrastructure and digitization drives in the region. In the face of growing application related problems, the security solution vendors in the region strive to encounter the challenges and ascending data vulnerabilities. Last year, Promon and SecureMetric collaborated to support organizations in Southeast Asia to escalate data protection and lessen data breaches by shielding the mobile phone applications. Furthermore, with the budding software application milieu, the necessity of competent processes for quality assurance and security has augmented in the app development lifecycle.The most renowned players in the global DAST market include Accenture, IBM, Veracode, Pradeo, Rapid7, Micro Focus, Synopsys, Tieto, WhiteHat Security, and Trustwave. Indeed, these market leaders undertake strategic partnerships to expand their product range and enhance their customer base. For instance, HCL and IBM joined forces to spark growth and facilitate advancement in the application security domain. Likewise, recently WhiteHat Security joined hands with RiskSense for application security risk administration in a bid to automate business impact evaluation of web vulnerabilities, management, and scoring.Complete report for 2018-2024 on Dynamic Application Security Testing market is now available atAbout Us:Marketstudyreport.com allows you to manage and control all corporate research purchases to consolidate billing and vendor management. You can eliminate duplicate purchases and customize your content and license management.MarketStudyReport.com4 North Main Street,Selbyville, Delaware 19975USAPhone: 1-302-273-0910US Toll Free: 1-866-764-2150Email:sales@marketstudyreport.comWebsite:Blog:Pulse Oximeter Market Global Development Trends, Challenges, With Future Upcoming Trends To 2025: Philips, Medtronic, Masimo, CAS Medical Systems, Drager, Edan Instruments, Inc., GE Healthcare, iHealth Labs, MEDITECH

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The forecast period 2018-2025 is going to be great for the pulse oximeter market which will be the face changer for Medical Devices industry. The users are increasing day by day hence increasing the sales, import, export, revenue and CAGR values. The SWOT analysis shows what the market drivers and restrains are for the pulse oximeter market.The key players and brands are the driving factors for the market that are using moves such as product launches, joint ventures, merges and accusations. This report provides a thorough synopsis on the markets definition, classifications, applications, and engagements.In November 2013, CareFusion Corp. acquired Vital Signs division of GE Healthcare from U.S., China and various other locations. This transaction was worth USD 500.0 million and is expected to expand the size of specialty disposable business.Click Here for Free Sample Report Visit @Market Analysis: Global Pulse Oximeter MarketThe Global Pulse Oximeter Market is expected to reach USD 2.83 billion by 2025, from USD 1.72 million in 2017 growing at a CAGR of 6.5% during the forecast period of 2018 to 2025. The upcoming market report contains data for historic year 2016, the base year of calculation is 2017 and the forecast period is 2018 to 2025.Some of the major countries covered in this report are U.S., Canada, Germany, France, U.K., Netherlands, Switzerland, Turkey, Russia, China, India, South Korea, Japan, Australia, Singapore, South Africa and, Brazil among others.Major Market Competitors/Players: Medtronic, Philips Healthcare, Masimo, CAS Medical Systems, Criticare Systems, Dragerwerk, Edan Instruments, FaceLake, GE Healthcare, iHealth, Korrida Medical Systems, Med Shop and Beyond, Meditech, Mindray Medical International, Nihon Kohden, Nonin Medical, Omron Healthcare, Opto Circuits, Spacelabs Healthcare, Suaoki, Technocare Medisystems among others.Request for Table of Content @Major Market Drivers and Restraints: Increasing healthcare costs and preference of home care Occurrence of target diseases Rising patient monitoring in diagnosis and treatment regime Price erosion Lack of awareness in developing countriesMarket Segmentation: Global Pulse Oximeter Market The Global Pulse Oximeter Market is segmented based on Type, End-users, and Geography By type the global pulse oximeter market is segmented into fingertip pulse oximeters, handheld pulse oximeters and others. On the basis of end-user the global pulse oximeter market is segmented into hospitals and other healthcare facilities, homecare and others. Based on geography, the market report covers data points for 28 countries across multiple geographies namely North America & South America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and, Middle East & Africa.Key Developments in the Market: In January 2017, Masimo launched patient monitoring products in India, Rad-97 Pulse-CO Oximeter and SedLine Brain Function Monitoring. These products are to improve the patient monitoring capabilities of clinicians in the India. In 2016, Masimo got the FDA clearance of forehead sensor and also the CE mark for RAS-45.Competitive Analysis: Global Pulse Oximeter MarketThe global pulse oximeter market is highly fragmented and the major players have used various strategies such as new product launches, expansions, agreements, joint ventures, partnerships, acquisitions, and others to increase their footprints in this market. The report includes market shares of pulse oximeter market for global, Europe, North America, Asia Pacific and South America.Any specific requirements are you looking for? Ask to your Industry Experts @Related ReportGlobal Medical Aesthetics Market  Industry Trends and Forecast to 2024Global Medical Aesthetic Market, By Product Type (Aesthetic Laser Devices, Energy Devices, Skin Tightening and Body Contouring Devices, Aesthetic Implants, Facial Aesthetic Devices), By Applications (Anti Aging and Wrinkles, Facial & Skin Rejuvenation, Vascular Lesions, Body shaping & cellulite, Breast Enhancement, Scars, Pigment Lesions, Reconstructive Surgery, Tattoo Removal, Hair Removal, Psoriasis & Vitilgo, Skin Surgery, Skin Tightening), By End-User (Hospitals , Dermatology Clinics, Cosmetic Centers, Medical Spas & Beauty Center), By Distribution Channel (Direct Tenders, Retail), By Geography (North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, South America, Middle East and Africa)  Industry Trends and Forecast to 2024Report Access:About Data Bridge Market Research:Data Bridge Market Research set forth itself as an unconventional and neoteric Market research and consulting firm with unparalleled level of resilience and integrated approaches. We are determined to unearth the best market opportunities and foster efficient information for your business to thrive in the market. Data Bridge endeavors to provide appropriate solutions to the complex business challenges and initiates an effortless decision-making process.Contact:Sopan GedamData Bridge Market ResearchTel: +1-888-387-2818Email: sopan.gedam@databridgemarketresearch.comDigital Signatures Market: Incredible Growth in Technology Industry, Trends, Share and Top Key Vendors (SIGNiX, DocuSign, eSignLive, SafeNet, ePadLink, Ascertia, DigiStamp, GlobalSign) | Global Forecast to 2022

Digital Signatures Market

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Global Digital Signatures Market Report 2018 report provides the newest industry data and industry future trends, allowing you to identify the products and end users driving Revenue growth and profitability. The industry report lists the leading competitors and provides the insights strategic industry Analysis of the key factors influencing the market.Global Digital Signatures Market Overview:The report spread across 112 pages is an overview of the Global Digital Signatures Market Report 2018. The Global Digital Signatures Market is projected to grow at a healthy growth rate from 2018 to 2022 according to new research. The study focuses on market trends, leading players, supply chain trends, technological innovations, key developments, and future strategies.Available Exclusive Sample Copy of this Report @The Global Digital Signatures Market is expected to grow at an impressive Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) from 2018 to 2022. The rising need for digital signature solutions, effective authentication, and the need for security are increasing the demand for the Digital Signature Market.The Digital signature solution offers various advantages such as increased efficiency, reduced turnover time, lower costs, and enhanced security. Also, it ensures enhanced data integrity, scalability, and transparency, and customer satisfaction, propelling the digital signature market growth. Rise in online banking as well as e-commerce activities and increase in internet penetration fuel the adoption of digital signature across various industries.Based on Solutions, the Software Solution segment is expected to grow with a higher CAGR than the hardware solution segment. The main reason for this explicitly is software solutions are gaining traction, based on the need to decrease cost and time-taken for transactions. The software sub-segment is majorly contributing to the growth of this market, due to the need for its implementation among different industries for improved compliance and greater enduser benefit.On the basis of regional analysis, North America held the largest market share in 2016, while Europe would be the fastest-maturing in terms of CAGR. Since newly introduced electronic signature regulations in Europe would boost cross-country trading among the European countries, the need for secure reliable transactions, authenticating the identity of the user over digital network, and the new release of regulations for electronic signatures by the European Electronic Messaging Association are driving the adoption of digital signature solutions in Europe.Purchase this report online with 112 Pages, List of Tables & Figures and in-depth Table of Contents on Global Digital Signatures Market Report 2018 @Major Key Players:1 SIGNiX2 DocuSign3 eSignLive4 SafeNet5 ePadLink6 Topaz Systems, Inc.7 Ascertia8 DigiStamp9 GlobalSign10 RightSignature LLC and More..............Market segment by Regions/Countries, this report covers:1 North America Country (United States, Canada)2 South America3 Asia Country (China, Japan, India, Korea)4 Europe Country (Germany, UK, France, Italy)5 Other Country (Middle East, Africa, GCC)Grab Your Report at an Impressive Discount @This study answers to the below key questions:1 What will the market size be in 2022 and what will the growth rate be?2 What are the key market trends?3 What are the challenges to market growth?4 Who are the key players in this market?5 What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the key players?In the end, this report covers data and information on capacity and production overview, production, market share analysis, sales overview, supply, sales, and shortage, import, export and consumption as well as cost, price, revenue and gross margin of Digital Signatures Market.Major Points in Table of Contents:Global Digital Signatures Market Report 20181 Industry Overview of Digital Signatures2 Global Digital Signatures Competition Analysis by Players3 Company (Top Players) Profiles4 Global Digital Signatures Market Size by Type and Application (2013-2018)5 United States Digital Signatures Development Status and Outlook6 EU Digital Signatures Development Status and Outlook7 Japan Digital Signatures Development Status and Outlook8 China Digital Signatures Development Status and Outlook9 India Digital Signatures Development Status and Outlook10 Southeast Asia Digital Signatures Development Status and Outlook11 Market Forecast by Regions, Type and Application (2018-2022)12 Digital Signatures Market Dynamics13 Market Effect Factors Analysis14 Research Finding/Conclusion15 AppendixAbout usBusinessindustryReports.com is digital database of comprehensive market reports for global industries. 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.Media ContactBusiness Industry ReportsPune  Indiasales@businessindustryreports.com+19376349940Global Push-To-Talk Market trends estimates high demand by 2025, Worldwide Top Players : Verizon, AT&T, Sprint Corporation, Ericsson, KPN, HipVoice

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Qyresearchreports include new market research report Global Push-To-Talk Market Size,Status and Forecast 2025 to its huge collection of research reports.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.Popularly known as PTT, also known as press-to-transmit, Push to Talk (PTT) is a service that enables wireless cell phone users to instantly communicate. Users activate this feature by simply pushing a button. The button switches your cell phones mode from voice transmission mode to voice reception mode.Click to get Sample PDF:PTT expands wireless coverage from 4G LTE, 4G HSPA+, and 3G to access Wi-Fi networks. For PTT users, the addition of Wi-Fi provides maximum in-building coverage and reduces international communications costs.Modernization of commercial voice and Date projects has led to the increasing demand for Push to talk. Increasing mobile networks projects across the globe, especially in the developing countries is another major factor, driving the growth of the PTT market during the forecast period.In 2017, the global Push-To-Talk market size was 4460 million US$ and it is expected to reach 9760 million US$ by the end of 2025, with a CAGR of 10.3% during 2018-2025.This report focuses on the global top players, coveredVerizonAT&TSprint CorporationEricssonIridiumChina TelecomChina Mobile Communications CorporationCSpireGRID Communications Pte LtdKPNMaxisHipVoiceSmart CommunicationsCCM Systems Company LimitedMarket segment by Type, the product can be split into3G4GWi-FiMarket segment by Application, split intoPublic SafetyTransportGovernmentBusiness & CommercePAMR (Operator)OtherThe study objectives of this report are:To study and forecast the market size of Push-To-Talk in global market.To analyze the global key players, SWOT analysis, value and global market share for top players.To define, describe and forecast the market by type, end use and region.To analyze and compare the market status and forecast between China and major regions, namely, United States, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia, India and Rest of World.To analyze the global key regions market potential and advantage, opportunity and challenge, restraints and risks.To identify significant trends and factors driving or inhibiting the market growth.To analyze the opportunities in the market for stakeholders by identifying the high growth segments.To strategically analyze each submarket with respect to individual growth trend and their contribution to the marketRead Comprehensive Overview of Report @Key StakeholdersPush-To-Talk ManufacturersPush-To-Talk Distributors/Traders/WholesalersPush-To-Talk Subcomponent ManufacturersIndustry AssociationDownstream VendorsQYResearchReports.com delivers the latest strategic market intelligence to build a successful business footprint in China. Our syndicated and customized research reports provide companies with vital background information of the market and in-depth analysis on the Chinese trade and investment framework, which directly affects their business operations. Reports from QYResearchReports.com feature valuable recommendations on how to navigate in the extremely unpredictable yet highly attractive Chinese market.1820 AvenueM Suite #1047Brooklyn, NY 11230United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Web:Email: sales@qyresearchreports.comAsia-Pacific Autoimmune Disease Diagnostics Market Top Leaders: F. HOFFMANN-LA ROCHE, SIEMENS HEALTHINEERS, NOVARTIS AG, THERMO FISHER SCIENTIFIC, MYRIAD GENETICS, ABBOTT LABORATORIES and BIO-RAD LABORATORIES

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Asia-Pacific Autoimmune Disease Diagnostics Market HighlightsThe Asia-pacific autoimmune disease diagnostics market is expected to register a CAGR of around 8% during the forecast period, 2018 to 2023. Autoimmune diseases are a group of diseases characterized by inflammatory reactions caused by immune responses mistakenly generated against body tissues. The term autoimmune disease refers to a varied group of illnesses that involve almost every human organ system. Environmental, infectious, and genetic factors play an important role in initiating or exacerbating autoimmune diseases.Get your sample report now @Note: If this link doesnt work in Internet Explorer, kindly try copy pasting it in other browsers.Japan Lead the Market in Asia-pacific RegionThe Japan autoimmune disease diagnostics market holds the largest market share in 2017 in Europe region with a CAGR of over 7.5% due to the presence of large number of population with autoimmune condition as of 2017 in Japan. Rheumatoid arthritis is the most prevalent autoimmune condition in the country.Key Developments in the Market:August 2017 u2013 Thermo Fisher Scientific has acquired the Patheon, a leading contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) serving the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectorsMajor players:F. HOFFMANN-LA ROCHE, SIEMENS HEALTHINEERS INC, NOVARTIS AG, THERMO FISHER SCIENTIFIC, MYRIAD GENETICS, ABBOTT LABORATORIES and BIO-RAD LABORATORIES, among others.Get Discount on this report @Note: If this link doesnt work in Internet Explorer, kindly try copy pasting it in other browsers.Partnerships with Physicians and Clinical LaboratoriesTreatment of autoimmune diseases requires diagnosis of the disease at the onset of disease or later. This involves clinical laboratories checking for symptoms and providing the information to physician for better treatment of the disease. All the diagnostic laboratories do not have proper equipment for carrying out immunoassays. In that case, patient will face trouble in getting the tests done and then handing over the result to the physician. To overcome these problems, recently physicians and clinical laboratories started collaborating. Since, a physician knows where proper immunoassays and immunodiagnostics can be carried out, physician collaborates with that laboratory and suggests patient to get their tests done from there and the results will directly be sent to the physician. And, with increasing usage of Electronic Medical Records (EMR), labs have access to real-time test data and metrics extracted from the Laboratory Information System (LIS) and physicians too have access to these records, which increases efficiency in diagnosis, thus boosting autoimmune diagnosticsmarket. The other factors such as improved laboratory automation, growing public awareness of autoimmune disease, technological advancements and expansion in coverage allowed by patient protection and affordable care act are driving the Asia-pacific autoimmune disease diagnostics market.Slow Turnaround Time for Autoimmune Disease Diagnostic Test ResultsDiagnosis of autoimmune diseases is a time consuming process. It involves procedures, such as serum testing for diseases, like rheumatoid arthritis, Addisons disease, Hashimotos disease, and others. Testing protocols allow autoimmune disorders to be diagnosed in a highly efficient, cost effective manner. However, turnaround time for the test results is slow, owing to lesser automation techniques. It takes days to deliver all test results to the patients with proper explanation of false positive results. For example Auto-immune Lymph proliferative Syndrome is an autoimmune disease with turnaround time of up to 12 weeks; single gene sequencing takes 4 weeks. Therefore, this slow turnaround time is hindering the Asia-pacific autoimmune disease diagnostics market. The other factor, such as high frequency of false positive result is also hindering the growth of the market.For More Information, Please Visit @Note: If this link doesnt work in Internet Explorer, kindly try copy pasting it in other browsers.About Market PrognosisWe at Market Prognosis believe in giving a crystal clear view of market dynamics for achieving success in todays complex and competitive marketplace through our quantitative & qualitative research methods.We help our clients identify the best market insights and analysis required for their business thus enabling them to take strategic and intelligent decision.We believe in delivering actionable insights for your business growth and success.Contact us:ProgMark Pvt Ltd,Thane - 421501India.Contact No: +1 973 241 5193Email: sales@marketprognosis.comRelease Agents Market 2018 Share  Top Players Like Associated British Foods PLC, DowDupont, Avatar Corporation, Mallet & Company, IFC Solutions

Release Agents Market

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The release agents market is estimated at 687.21 USD Million in 2017 and is expected to register a CAGR of 2.9% till 2025. Need for the food production on industrial level is the prime reason for the increase in popularity of release agents. Prevention of bonding of the main product with the environment is the prime function of release agents. Other functions include storage and structuring of the food surface.Browse more details on this report @Other vital aspects including the market share, size and growth rate for the forecast period, 2018 - 2015 also forms an important of the study and valuable resource for business owners, stakeholders, and marketing personnel planning to zero in on their business strategy.Application of interview and investigation technique is clearly visible in research report especially when it comes to the analysis of the growing investment pockets, technology advancements, and new entrants. Researchers further take a closer look at some of the intangible elements of the Release Agents industry including but not limited to profits, product value, product price, demand and supply, import and export status, supply chain management and gross margin.Market Segment on the basis of manufacturers, the report covers the following companies-ADM, AAK B, Cargill, DowDupont, Avatar Corporation, Associated British Foods PLC, Mallet & Company, IFC Solutions, Lecico, Bakel Group and othersMarket Segment on the basis of Form Type Scenario (Revenue, USD Million; 20162025), the report covers: Solid LiquidMarket Segment on the basis of Ingredient Scenario (Revenue, USD Million; 20162025), the report covers: Vegetable Oil Wax Esters Emulsifiers AntioxidantsBuy Release Agents Market Report @Market-O-Nomics Bakery Segment registered the highest growth in this segment. Bakery products across the globe witnessed a growth of more than 13 % during the period 2015-2017 with majority of the demand being associated with the European region with the North American region staying in close second USA showed signs of declining production of release agents during the period 2014-2025 after an all-time high production rate in 2013. Production in this area has increased by 9% during the period 2016-2017 By consumption the highest demand comes from APAC as this region accounts for more than 37.5% share of the global market Highest penetration rate of 36% has been observed in paints and varnish industry for release agents during the period 2016-2017, followed very closely by the leather and the textile industry India and China dominate release agent consumption in the APAC region from the industrial sector. The demand for release agent from the baking sector in this region accounts for 18%Importantly, the study assesses the financial reports and profile of the prominent market players and shares their information in terms of volume/output and profits. Analysis of the major driving forces, opportunities and restraining factors responsible for influencing the progress of the Release Agents market in the report will empower business owners to build, make or break their business strategies likewise.The research provides answers to the following key questions: What will be the estimated market size and the growth rate of the Release Agents market for the forecast period, 2018 - 2025? What are the major driving forces shaping the progress of the Release Agents market worldwide? Who are the key industry players dominating the Release Agents industry and what has been their performance status so far? What are the major trends and challenges that have influenced the growth of the Release Agents market across different regions? What type of opportunities can the major market players bank on for the forecast period, 2018 - 2025?Browse the full Report@About Us:Team Reports and Data united for one reason  to deliver accurate, highly dependable and revealing market insight. Proudly independent, our solutions purely focus on your purpose to locate, target and analyze consumer behavior shifts across demographics, across industries and help you make a smarter business decision.Contact us :40 Wall St. 28th floor New York CityNY 10005 United Statessales@reportsanddata.com+1-212-710-1370Smart Medical Devices Market Growth and Business Opportunities | Key Players: Apple, Fitbit, Abbott, Dexcom, F. Hoffmann-La Roche, Zephyr, Medtronic

Smart Medical Devices Market

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Global Smart Medical Devices Market size is projected to experience significant growth from 2017 to 2024. Smart medical devices market size is likely to witness momentous growth owing to soaring adoption of smartphones across the globe, surging demand for smartphone-compatible and wireless medical devices, rising awareness and focus on health and fitness.Make an inquiry for purchasing this report @Moreover, steep rise in health concerns worldwide, mounting preponderance of chronic diseases, strengthening expenditure on healthcare and the high-pitched demand for wearable devices will impel the smart medical devices growth exponentially. Companies such as Fitbit, Apple and Medtronic have been launching ingenious products, which will in turn accelerate the business growth. Smart blood pressure monitors and smart clothing will help garner a momentous market share over the forecast period.Spiraling technological advancements, owing to whooping investments in the field of smart medical devices, smart and digitally accessed medical devices coupled with intensifying awareness among patients to manage their health conditions efficiently will drive the smart medical devices market growth. For instance, Googles smart contact lenses for diabetes patients wearing glasses. The novel technology originates from the fact that an individuals glucose level can be measured through their tears fluidal composition.Insulog launched a campaign for a connected insulin tracker for diabetic patients using insulin pens. Aim of this campaign was to meet the needs of the patients, still using manual data entry or pen-paper to manage their diseases. Prohibitive costs pertaining to the technological advancements coupled with limited reimbursement policies can impede the smart medical devices market growth over the forecast period.The diagnostic & monitoring segment directed the industry in 2016 with a substantial revenue share, but noted a moderately lower growth rate comparing to the therapeutic segment. The paramount factors attributable to the business growth includes elevating awareness, rising healthcare spending, and supporting initiatives by the government relating to the improvement in patient care.Get Table of Content of this Report @Online channel is the sturdiest growing segment be indebted to rising inclination towards online purchasing through smartphones, increased flexibility and availability of a wide range of products. Hospitals segment is envisaged to grow at fastest rate owing to elevated utilization of digital therapeutic applications for delivering affordable emergency care to patients. By the emergence and usage of mobile care facilities, hospitals can help patients browse healthcare services and reduce stress.North America held the largest revenue share in 2016 due to cognizance of advanced technologies and presence of a well-proportioned healthcare sector. The regional market has benefitted greatly owing to growing per capita income, favorable economic conditions and improved standard of living.Europe smart medical devices market is foreseen to gain significant industry revenue share over the forecast period. As per the Reflection and Orientation Paper, in 2016 European Union contributed USD 43.5 million for the innovation of wearable medical devices, hence, driving the business growth. Asia Pacific is the fastest growing region due to soaring population, improvement in standard of living, owing to waxing disposable income and the demand for novel products which positively impacts the demand for smart medical devices in the region.Key Players:Key industry players include Apple, Fitbit, Abbott, Dexcom, F. Hoffmann-La Roche, Zephyr, Medtronic, and Johnson & Johnson. The major players focus on innovative product launch and strategic alliances with an aim to expand their business portfolio as main strategies. In January 2015, Medtronic announced the acquisition of Covidien. This acquisition will increase the market penetration by expanding its product portfolio and lessen the production cost.Global Market Insights Inc. is a global market research and management consulting company catering to leading corporations, non-profit organizations, universities and government institutions. Our main goal is to assist and partner organizations to make lasting strategic improvements and realize growth targets. Our industry research reports are designed to provide granular quantitative information, combined with key industry insights, aimed at assisting sustainable organizational development.Global Market Insights, Inc.4 North Main StreetSelbyville, Delaware 19975 USAPhone: 1-302-846-7766Toll Free: 1-888-689-0688Email:sales@gminsights.comGlobal Healthy Snack market research report provides company profile for General Mills, Mondelez International, Inc., PepsiCo Foods, Nestle S.A., B&G Food Inc., The Kellogg Company and Others. This market study includes data about consumer perspective, comprehensive analysis, statistics, market share, company performances (Stocks), historical analysis 2012 to 2017, market forecast 2018 to 2025 in terms of volume, revenue, YOY growth rate, and CAGR for the year 2018 to 2025, etc. A 22-year-old man was shot by a Beaverton police officer earlier this month after stealing a candy bar at a 7-Eleven, followed a store worker while holding a large knife and running away while officers yelled for him to stop and drop the blade, court documents show.

Anthony A. Shaner survived the Sept. 7 shooting in Beaverton, and Washington County jail records show he was booked Tuesday on suspicion of unlawful use of a weapon. He was indicted on the charges by a county grand jury on Friday.

Beaverton Police Officer Dan Coulson, who shot Shaner, remains on paid administrative leave as the shooting investigation continues, police said. Coulson has been with the department for 22 years.

According to a search warrant affidavit, someone called police the morning of the shooting to report seeing a man in the area who appeared to be under the influence of drugs riding a bike while holding a large knife. The man was later identified as Shaner.

An employee at a 7-Eleven on Southwest Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway told police that Shaner came into the business with a bag of soda cans and left after taking a candy bar without paying, the affidavit said. The employee said he chased after Shaner, confronted him outside the store and told him to pay for the candy.

The worker said Shaner pulled out a large knife from his pants pocket, showed it to the employee and followed the worker back inside the 7-Eleven, the affidavit said.

Shaner stopped when the employee told him not to follow him behind the counter and then cut open the bag of cans, spilling them onto the counter, according to the affidavit. Shaner picked up the cans when asked, then left again without paying for the candy.

According to the affidavit, a Beaverton police officer arrived as Shaner was leaving the store, and the officer opened the door allowing him to leave. The employee said he then told the officer that the man leaving stole from the store and had a knife.

One witness of the shooting said he saw two officers go into a nearby BottleDrop Redemption Center location with firearms drawn, where they ordered a man to get on the ground, the affidavit said. The man ran out of the BottleDrop as the officers gave chase and yelled for him to stop.

The witness said the man stopped at one point, turned toward the officers about 6 feet away him and was shot by an officer who fired a rifle, the affidavit said.

Another witness who was inside the BottleDrop reported the officers ordered the knife-wielding man on the ground and told him to drop the knife and he was shot after running out of the BottleDrop.

-- Everton Bailey Jr.

ebailey@oregonian.com

503-221-8343; @EvertonBaileyThirteen state lawmakers on Wednesday said no appeal should be filed opposing a judge's opinion that TriMet's indiscriminate fare enforcement stops violate the state's constitution.

The legislators - all Democrats from Multnomah, Washington or Clackamas counties - sent a letter to Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum saying they "strongly believe" Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge John Wittmayer's ruling "was the correct one."

Wittmayer on Friday ruled that Ana del Rocio's arrest and citation on a TriMet platform in March violated the state's constitution and found del Rocio was "stopped and seized without individualized suspicion."

The letter comes as it remains unclear whether the state will appeal the ruling, which could have significant ramifications for the public transit service's fare enforcement strategy.

"A policy of sweeping fare enforcement searches violates the constitutional rights of transit riders," the lawmakers wrote. "This practice exacerbates disparities in the criminal justice system and contributes to the over-policing and over-prosecution of people of color, people with disabilities, and people experiencing homelessness and other forms of economic insecurity."

The Democratic lawmakers urged Rosenblum to step in.

In a statement, Rosenblum thanked the lawmakers for the "thoughtful letter from a diverse group of prominent legislators of all backgrounds, including law enforcement," but she declined to say whether the state would appeal the ruling.

Rosenblum said her office is doing what it does under any circumstances where it faces an adverse ruling: It reviews the ruling, discusses it with the district attorney and convenes a team to discuss the issue. She did not say where the office is in that process.

Katie Suver, Marion County deputy district attorney who argued the case against del Rocio, filed a memo with the court saying the state "is considering the possibility of an appeal" and would decide within 30 days of Wittmayer's decision.

The state lawmakers said the judge's ruling "presents an opportunity for the impacted agencies to respond with a renewed focus to truly protect and serve the public by developing an equitable, effective transit system."

TriMet has already changed its punishment for fare evaders in the past year, offering community service and reduced fines as a way to limit citations' impact. The agency also launched a low-income fare program, which has more than 4,000 participants.

The lawmakers said TriMet should invest its money in "further fare relief" for its vulnerable riders, "instead of militarized fare enforcement, enclosure of public transit infrastructure, and continued criminalization of transit riders."

The ACLU of Oregon is also weighing civil litigation, the group first told Willamette Week.

In a statement, legal director Mat dos Santos said, "TriMet's insistence on using a constitutionally deficient practice will cost them, and ultimately taxpayers, a lot of money that they should be spending on creating a more just and equitable system for riders."

At a Wednesday Board of Directors meeting, TriMet General Manager Doug Kelsey addressed the judge's ruling and said the agency was "making some adjustments to our fare enforcement activities right now."

Kelsey declined to cite specifics. "We will continue to deploy them in a manner that we think, frankly, is very lawful," Kelsey told the board.

Kathy Wai, a TriMet board member, said she has received many emails from TriMet riders who said they've had similar experiences with law enforcement on the transit system.

-- Andrew Theen

atheen@oregonian.com

503-294-4026

@andrewtheen



Clarification added below.

The nationwide recall of ground beef possibly contaminated with deadly E. coli has expanded to include meat sold at Target stores in Oregon.

Cargill Inc. on Wednesday recalled more than 132,600 pounds of contaminated ground beef that food-safety investigators think has caused 17 illnesses and one death.

USDA investigators are concerned contaminated products may be inside consumers' freezers.

The beef originated at a Cargill slaughterhouse in Fort Morgan, Colorado, which was also linked to a recall of 25,000 pounds of ground beef last month.

In mid-August, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's food-safety division and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention began investigating a potential E. coli outbreak, with cases predominantly in Florida.

The USDA and CDC eventually traced the E. coli contamination to beef shipped from Cargill's Fort Morgan plant as "the probable source of the reported illnesses." That determination led to Cargill's latest recall.

The beef products in question were produced and packaged on June 21 and bear the plant identification number "EST. 86R," which can be founded inside the USDA inspection mark on the outside of the package.

The products were shipped nationally.

Most types of E. coli are harmless, living within the intestines of both humans and animals. But several strains are pathogenic and pose serious human health risks. The USDA identified the August recall of beef produced at Cargill's Fort Morgan plant as E. coli 0157. Wednesday, the federal agency identified this second recall as E. coli 026.

Both strains can cause similar illness, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

People usually become sick within a week of consuming contaminated foods. Most people develop diarrhea, often bloody, and vomiting. Some infections are more severe with people developing a type of kidney failure.

According to the USDA, these stores may have sold the recalled beef products:

Aldi (stores in Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Wisconsin)

Sam's Club (nationwide)

Target (nationwide)

Meijer (nationwide)

Safeway/Albertson's (stores in California, Colorado, Hawaii)

Vons (stores in California)

Pak N Save (stores in California)

Clarification: The initial report from the USDA on Wednesday said that the contaminated beef may have been sold at Safeway/Albertson's stores nationwide. The agency later clarified that the beef may have been sold at Safeway/Albertson's stores in California, Colorado and Hawaii, but not in Oregon or Washington.

-- Tribune Media Services contributed to this story.The old County Cork pub in Northeast Portland neighborhood is closing. In its place? Rose City Book Pub, Portland's first bookstore bar.

Wait, did you say "bookstore bar?"

Well, yes, and it's exactly what it sounds like, a working bookstore that happens to pour beer and wine. As noted by Eater PDX, which broke the bar news last week, this will be Portland's first such establishment, joining Boston's Trident Cafe, the Spotty Dog in Hudson, or Afterwords in Washington, D.C.

Owned by Northeast Portland native Elise Schumock, the new pub will add built-in bookshelves, hidden nooks and a "cafe-style menu to" the already charming County Cork space. The bar will feature Northwest spirits and around 20 taps for beer and wine.

The bookstore side of things will feature children's books and used literature, including books from Schumock and her parents' own collections.

Look for Rose City Book Pub to open Oct. 14 in the former home of County Cork, 1329 N.E. Fremont St.; rosecitybookpub.com

-- Michael RussellA man suspected of assaulting a stranger Tuesday in the Corbett area has been arrested, deputies say.

Pavel Mikhay

Pavel Mikhay, 26, was taken into custody without incident after a Corbett resident spotted him in the area Wednesday morning, according to the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office.

The agency had asked anyone who saw him to call 911 immediately.

Deputies initially responded to a house on the 33400 block of the Historic Columbia River Highway about 6:30 a.m. Tuesday on a reported assault against a woman, said Sgt. Brandon White, a sheriff's office spokesman.

A family member had called the police. A responding deputy spotted the suspect's vehicle heading east, White said, and Mikhay stopped and fled.

The woman who was attacked had minor injuries and was sent to a hospital. The injuries are not life-threatening, said White.

UPDATE (8:55am)

Around 8:30am, a Corbett resident in the area of Thousand Acres believed they saw the suspect from yesterdays assault. Deputies responded to the area, located the subject, and positively IDd him as Pavel Mikhay. Mikhay was taken into custody without incident. https://t.co/mPnCXytyFw  Multnomah Co Sheriff (@MultCoSO) September 26, 2018

Tuesday's incident prompted authorities to close local schools and part of the historic highway.

-- Jim RyanA founder of a central Oregon marijuana company says a former business partner encouraged anti-Semitic attacks against him online after their relationship soured amid significant crop losses, according to a lawsuit filed this month in Deschutes County Circuit Court.

Aviv Hadar, CEO of Oregrown, is asking the court to order Justin Crawn and his nephew, Jordan Crawn, to stop harassing him online. He is seeking $700,000 in damages.

The lawsuit is one of two legal claims related to Oregrown and grower Justin Crawn. In a separate lawsuit filed last month, Oregrown accuses Crawn of defamation and trademark infringement among other allegations. It claims that Crawn's inability to produce "marketable flower with any sort of consistency" cost the company millions of dollars. It seeks $2.6 million.

"Many of the crops grown under Crawn's care were complete losses in terms of producing shelf-worthy flower," the lawsuit claims.

Oregrown operates an 84-acre production facility in Deschutes County and a retail store in downtown Bend. The business has an active retail license for a Eugene store as well and has submitted applications for stores in Portland and Cannon Beach, according to the Oregon Liquor Control Commission.

It also holds state licenses for processing, production and wholesale operations.

Its processing license was suspended in August for violating state rules regarding hemp, according to the commission. The suspension extends until Oct. 5.

Crawn is listed as an interested party on Oregrown's retail licenses. That means he owns or controls at least 10 percent of the business.

Hadar's lawsuit says Justin Crawn was a grower in Oregon's medical marijuana program with a track record of successfully operating small-scale grow sites when he was brought into Oregrown to oversee production.

But the business saw multiple crop failures under Crawn and, according to the lawsuit, Hadar and his partners early this year approached Crawn with the idea of separating from the company.

After the meeting, Crawn returned to the production site and removed cannabis seeds and plants that had been entered into the state's tracking system, the lawsuit alleges.

Sometime after that, Crawn returned to the facility with his nephew and "ransacked" the place, taking plants and specialized lights, the lawsuit claims.

Justin and Jordan Crawn could not be reached Tuesday for comment.

The Crawns later engaged in a "virulent campaign of harassment" that has "spiraled into incitement of naked anti-Semitism and threats of violence," Hadar's lawsuit claims.

Hadar claims Crawn published "blatant lies" on social media, including accusations that Hadar "ordered the sale of mold-contaminated cannabis."

The attacks devolved into a "campaign of hate, anti-Semitism, intimidation and violent threats" as others on social media chimed in on the posts, the lawsuit states.

Hadar's reputation suffered and he fears he and his wife and their young child will be victims of a hate crime, according to the lawsuit.

Members of Oregon's marijuana industry "have stated that they will no longer do business with Oregrown or Mr. Hadar," the suit says.

-- Noelle Crombie

503-276-7184

@noellecrombieTwo recent developments encapsulate the lethargic state of leadership in Oregon education these days.

The Oregon Department of Education released the results of standardized exams taken by public school students last year. The overall takeaways: Math scores are declining, language arts scores are stagnant and some of the state's data is unreliable due to many students skipping the test. Yet there was little urgency in superintendent Colt Gill's public remarks about the need to improve Oregon's bleak situation.

Then, just hours later, the Oregon Board of Education voted to loosen requirements on how much school time districts must provide students in their senior year. Instead of pushing for full schedules that will best prepare students for college or career, the board authorized a swath of exemptions that let districts offer seniors who are "on track" to graduate fewer classes, provided their local school boards agree. The decision marks a reversal from the strong stand the board took just three years ago after parents protested the "part-time" education that Portland Public Schools provided high-school students.

It's almost as if state education leaders are content with the lack of progress for Oregon's students. And, apparently, they think it's fine for thousands of students to skip tests designed to show whether the education system is improving. It appears they also believe that "on track" for earning enough high school credits to graduate means a student is fully equipped for college. That conclusion is at odds with the reality that many Oregon graduates have to take remedial courses before enrolling in college-credit classes. In fact, more than one-quarter of the 2017 Portland Public Schools high-school graduates who enrolled in Portland Community College in fall 2017 had to take a "pre-college" math class, according to PCC.

Both of these developments should motivate Oregonians to step up their pressure on state and local leaders to treat Oregon's persistent education failures with the urgency they require. Continuing down the path of least resistance only guarantees that Oregon's students will continue to be underprepared. And while Oregonians can and should support increased education funding, they should insist on an ambitious strategy that smartly spends money in ways that make a difference.

Unfortunately, when faced with the opportunity to rally Oregonians with a clear vision of what the state plans to achieve, however, Gill and the state education board punted.

Gill did not respond to requests from the Oregonian/OregonLive Editorial Board to discuss the test results or instructional time rollback. But he did comment on the test results in a press release: "Annual tests give us a snapshot of student learning, but there is more we should be doing to give teachers the tools to target complex thinking in students... Shorter, more focused testing throughout the year can give teachers insights into activities that can help students think and work out problems. That is how we get better results."

If "that" is the strategy Gill is offering to improve students' outcomes, then Oregonians should steel themselves for more of the same: third-worst graduation rate in the country; a widening achievement gap that leaves low-income and minority populations behind; persistently mediocre test scores; and an epidemic of students graduating from high school without mastery of basic material needed for entry-level college courses.

Instead, Gill could have explained how the state will take lessons learned from low-income and diverse districts like McMinnville, whose students are handily outperforming the state average in math, as The Oregonian/OregonLive's Betsy Hammond reported. Or he could have talked about how the state will improve student participation in test-taking, by showing families that these tests are critical to assessing the system's progress as a whole and determining whether key efforts to support minority and low-income students are working. He could have said any number of things to assure Oregonians that he and Gov. Kate Brown recognize the state is unacceptably failing its students.

A lackluster response, however, seems to be the norm. The state board of education, whose voting members are appointed by the governor, similarly failed to champion students' needs when it voted Thursday to change its instructional time policy. Instead, at the behest of the Oregon School Boards Association and the Confederation of School Administrators, the state board authorized four exemptions to the current policy that requires school districts to ensure that at least 80 percent of students in a school receive 966 hours of instruction in a year. School districts need only get permission from their local school boards to enact the exemptions, which allow for scheduling fewer classes for students who are "on track" to earn enough credits to graduate. But a student can be on track while failing to show proficiency in a subject, like math. Shouldn't they be scheduled to repeat such coursework in high school rather than be forced to pay for remedial classes at college?

It's difficult to see how the instructional-time decision squares with Brown's newly-professed interest in extending the school year to 180 days. This doesn't give anyone a longer school day. And while the education department sought to celebrate the "flexibility" that this new policy will give students, it's the district administrators who will benefit. Districts can continue to collect Oregon taxpayer dollars meant for educating thousands of seniors full-time, while offering them a part-time schedule. Those dollars can then be used to backfill any number of other expenses, administrative, programmatic or otherwise.

Thankfully, the state education board explicitly said that seniors who proactively demand a full schedule should be allowed to have one. A small victory - and one that will likely benefit only students with the most-engaged parents.

Oregonians should insist their local school boards reject exemptions that cheat students out of their education. With education "leaders" standing on the sidelines, parents, students and community members will need to light the way.

- Helen Jung for The Oregonian/OregonLive Editorial Board

Editorial Agenda 2018

Press for a student-focused education system

Help defuse Oregon's ticking time bombs

Focus attention on the root causes of homelessness

________________________

Oregonian editorials

Editorials reflect the collective opinion of The Oregonian/OregonLive editorial board, which operates independently of the newsroom. Members of the editorial board are Laura Gunderson, Helen Jung, Therese Bottomly and John Maher.

Members of the board meet regularly to determine our institutional stance on issues of the day. We publish editorials when we believe our unique perspective can lend clarity and influence an upcoming decision of great public interest. Editorials are opinion pieces and therefore different from news articles. However, editorials are reported and written by either Laura Gunderson or Helen Jung.

To respond to this editorial, post your comment below, submit an OpEd or a letter to the editor.By EUGENE ROBINSON

Washington Post Opinion

WASHINGTON -- Republicans are learning that "we're going to plow right through it" is a dangerous way to approach a minefield.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., used that agricultural metaphor Friday to promise conservatives the Senate would confirm Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh no matter what. Now, with a second woman accusing Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct and more potentially on the way, Republicans can neither advance nor retreat without risking disaster.

Make no mistake, this is a crisis of the GOP's own making. Republicans are in such a hurry to cement a conservative, anti-abortion majority on the high court -- and to do so before the midterm election -- that they refused to meaningfully alter their fast-track timetable for Kavanaugh's confirmation even after a respected psychologist, Christine Blasey Ford, accused the nominee of sexually assaulting her when they were both in high school.

Now Deborah Ramirez, a college classmate of Kavanaugh's, has accused him of exposing himself to her at an alcohol-fueled party when both were students at Yale, a claim first reported Sunday in The New Yorker. And crusading lawyer Michael Avenatti said on Twitter that he has a client with information about misconduct by Kavanaugh in high school.

Kavanaugh vehemently denies any and all allegations. At this point, however, it is obvious that an actual FBI investigation is required -- as opposed to the "he said, she said" hearing the Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hold with Kavanaugh and Ford on Thursday. Ford has asked for the FBI's thorough scrutiny. Kavanaugh, for some reason, has not.

Republican senators are embarrassing themselves by calling the accusations "last-minute" or "eleventh-hour." We are near the end of the process only because McConnell and Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, set arbitrary deadlines to speed things up. The seat vacated by Anthony Kennedy's retirement has only been open for eight weeks. There is no reason to be in such a rush to fill it -- except political calculation.

I'm tempted to say that President Trump, who called the allegations against Kavanaugh "totally political," is also embarrassing himself. But of course Trump is beyond shame.

Why are Republicans in such a hurry? There's a chance that Democrats could take control of the Senate in November, turning McConnell back into the minority leader and dramatically reducing the chance that Trump will be able to appoint another far-right conservative ideologue to the Supreme Court. The odds of the Senate switching hands have been seen as pretty long, however -- although the Kavanaugh fiasco seems to be improving them.

GOP senators are primarily motivated by fear. The party's activist base believes Kavanaugh will provide a decisive fifth vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, end affirmative action, and weaken protections for same-sex married couples in the name of "religious freedom." Republicans control the presidency and both chambers of Congress. If GOP officials can't deliver now, why should conservatives bother voting for them?

Plowing ahead, however, now looks much riskier than turning back.

The main reason is that Republican senators don't know what they don't know. Two on-the-record accusers have emerged in the past week. Are there facts and evidence that could help establish Kavanaugh's innocence or guilt? Will more accusers follow? Were the Supreme Court nominee's high school and college years one long re-enactment of "Animal House"? Did he, at the very least, treat women in ways that he should regret, and for which he should now apologize?

Beyond those issues of substance are questions of appearance. It cannot be an exaggeration to say that millions of American women have had to fight off the unwanted advances of obnoxious, boozed-up frat boys. Are Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, all of whom are male, going to tell women that they were to blame in those encounters? That the frat boys shouldn't be held responsible at all, because they were only 17 or 18 at the time and grew up to hold high-status jobs?

Lots of luck with that message in the first national election of the .MeToo Era.

One thing we should have learned by now is that women do not lightly subject themselves to the exposure, scrutiny and vicious attacks that inevitably come from making public accusations of sexual misconduct against powerful men. Another thing we should have learned is that some men go through life wearing a carapace of entitlement that can render them insensate to women's vulnerability and distress.

Kavanaugh's accusers want to be heard and taken seriously. Kavanaugh wants to clear his name. None of this can ever happen without a proper investigation.

-- Eugene Robinson's email address is eugenerobinson@washpost.com.

(c) 2018, Washington Post Writers GroupBy Dwight Holton

"I'm in the woods with a gun, and when we're done with this call, I'm going to kill myself." Those are the first words our call counselor at Lines for Life heard that day. Every hour of every day, our counselors are there for people in crisis. And every hour of every day, those counselors help people find a way forward -- literally saving their lives.

That caller came out of the woods and put his gun away. He connected with his family and found reasons to live.

We are in the midst of a public health crisis: More than 750 people die by suicide in Oregon each year. That's two friends, neighbors and loved ones we lose each day. The suicide rate among youth is growing at an alarming rate, with suicide as the second leading cause of death among young people in Oregon. But middle-aged men are the most at risk.

We know there is hope and that connecting with people helps build resiliency to prevent suicide. The good news is that we are reaching people like never before. At Lines for Life, we've nearly doubled our connections in the last few years. In 2014, we spoke with about 12,000 people on the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. That number has grown to more than 25,000 calls over the past year.

But public conversation around suicide is sparse. More than twice as many people die by suicide in Oregon each year than die from opioid overdose. But think about the news coverage you see: Does suicide occupy even a fraction of the public conversation that the opioid crisis (rightly) consumes?

The reality is that news organizations struggle with reporting on suicide for very understandable reasons. First, there is family confidentiality. Second, there is the fear of contagion - the risk that reporting might prompt other suicides. And of course, there is the stigma. We tend to keep talk of suicide and depression and mental illness in the shadows.

The result is a stunted conversation about a leading public health crisis that is killing hundreds of Oregonians. From neighbors and co-workers to legislators in Salem, few people understand the scope of the suicide crisis and few carry the urgency we need to address and prevent it.

Lines for Life is teaming up with reporters and news organizations from around the state to convene the "Summit on Reporting on Suicide," a conversation with the director of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and other experts from across the nation. Leading broadcast, print and digital reporters will guide our conversations along with top editors and news directors.

Our goal is to bring the conversation about the suicide crisis out of the shadows and into the public, safely and respectfully. We are confident that with greater public discussion, we can reach more people in need with the message of hope and resiliency that saves lives. We hope to have a public conversation that will drive ideas -- and ultimately consensus - for new public policy to address the challenge of suicide.

The summit will focus on research about reporting tactics that work, and those that hurt. We'll discuss strategies for the investigative reporting that is the lifeblood of journalism's search for the truth. And we'll talk about how stigma affects reporting, and vice versa.

When the crisis calls come in, as they do by the hundred every day, we know that building a better public conversation will help us spread the message of hope, and better equip us for the public policy change we need to prevent suicide.

-- Dwight Holton is chief executive officer of Lines for Life, a nonprofit dedicated to preventing substance abuse and suicide. Reach Lines for Life at 1-800-273-TALK.

Share your opinion

Submit your essay of 800 words or less on a highly topical issue or a theme of particular relevance to the Pacific Northwest, Oregon and the Portland area to commentary@oregonian.com. Please include your email and phone number for verification.By Laurence H. Tribe and Norman L. Eisen

The Washington Post Opinion

Whatever happens to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, he should not resign. If President Donald Trump is determined to oust him, Rosenstein should insist that he be fired rather than leave voluntarily.

That is the case, first, because Rosenstein has done nothing wrong. He has denied Friday's bombshell allegations that he acted inimically to Trump. We know Rosenstein to be a man of integrity, and any comments about wearing a wire were likely the same sarcasm that was on display in some of his recent televised jousting with Trump's congressional proxies. We take Rosenstein at his word that he did not seriously contemplate authorizing surveillance of the president or advocate for the president's removal from office.

Second, by forcing Trump to fire him, Rosenstein would be daring the president to show his true colors. Rosenstein's termination would, following that of former FBI Director James Comey, mark the second occasion on which the president has fired someone with responsibility for investigating him. Rosenstein's standing his ground and forcing the president to act would represent the next logical step in his so-far sterling defense of the rule of law.

Third, as Rosenstein is surely aware, the manner of his departure could have a significant impact on Trump's ability to choose his successor. The Federal Vacancies Reform Act gives the president the power to name any other Senate-confirmed person as a temporary replacement in the event that the holder of a position "dies, resigns, or is otherwise unable to perform" the functions of the office.

Trump has already shown his proclivity for using the law, replacing departed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director Richard Cordray with loyalist Mick Mulvaney, notwithstanding Mulvaney's day job as the director of the Office of Management and Budget. We do not doubt that he would be even more tempted to do the same at the Justice Department in order to take hold of it, a centerpiece of his complaints about the "corruption" of the "deep state."

But the statute says nothing about the president's ability to name a replacement in the event of a firing. Congress certainly could have included the word "termination" in the list of triggers - but it did not, and for good reason. Allowing the president to fire people at will and replace them with whomever he chooses is contrary to the purpose of the statute: to give the president the power to fill vacancies, not to encourage him to create them. Trump intentionally ousting someone confirmed by the Senate for a particular job with someone chosen by his White House also flies in the face of the legislature's constitutional "advice and consent" role.

Trump might even go so far as to push his new appointee to try to oversee the investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Fortunately, that is contrary to department practice of prohibiting "double acting" appointees - that is, an appointee who is both acting attorney general for purposes of the Russia investigation (because Attorney General Jeff Sessions is recused) and acting deputy (because of the Trump appointment to that role). That practice is rooted in Justice's application of the law that gives the attorney general the authority to set the line of succession within the department.

We recognize that not everyone agrees with our view that the Vacancies Reform Act excludes firings. In 1999, the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) suggested that the legislative history of the statute implies that a firing might constitute "inability to perform the functions and duties of the office." But the OLC is known for protecting the prerogatives of the president, and in our view, that interpretation runs counter to the language and purpose of the statute itself. The OLC's opinions are not law, and in this case we think the OLC is wrong.

No one knows how this controversy would be resolved, but Rosenstein has nothing to lose but his pride by forcing the president to fire him. The country, by contrast, may have a great deal to gain. For that reason, Rosenstein should insist that, if he is to be removed, Trump must utter the words he is so famous for: "You're fired."

-- Laurence H. Tribe is a professor of constitutional law at Harvard Law School and co-author most recently of "To End a Presidency: The Power of Impeachment." Norman L. Eisen is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and chair of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics.Former Oregon gubernatorial candidate Chris Dudley is among several college peers of Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh talking about Kavanugh's drinking habits or lack thereof amid sexual misconduct allegations from two women.

Both women have said Kavanaugh was drunk during their encounters with him in high school and in college.

Dudley, a friend of Kavanaugh's from their days attending Yale University, told BuzzFeed News and The Washington Post that he regularly was out on Friday nights in college with Kavanaugh and never saw him drinking to the point of blacking out.

"There was drinking, and there was alcohol," Dudley told The Washington Post. "Brett drank, and I drank. Did he get inebriated sometimes? Yes. Did I? Yes. Just like every other college kid in America."

Both stories spoke to people who've known Kavanaugh since high school and college and descriptions of his drinking habits range from him not being "a stumbling drunk," who was never interested in drinking to excess to "notably heavy drinker" who became incoherent, aggressive and belligerent when inebriated.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote Friday on Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court. The vote comes a day after Kavanaugh and former high school classmate Christine Blasey Ford are set to testify about her allegation that he sexually assaulted her at a party when they both were teens.

Deborah Ramirez, a Yale classmate, said Kavanaugh exposed his genitals to her at a party while in college.

Kavanaugh has denied both allegations.

 The Oregonian/OregonLiveAt least 46 Oregonians have been ordered to surrender their guns under a new type of court order intended to stop suicides and mass shootings, law enforcement and court officials testified to state lawmakers Wednesday.

Ten of the cases affect people in Multnomah County, where authorities have seized more than 50 guns from people found to pose a danger to themselves or others, Mike Reese, the county sheriff, told a joint meeting of the Senate and House judiciary committees. Washington County follows with at least eight cases, then Josephine County, with at least seven, according to documents submitted to the committees.

In a June news story "Shots Not Fired," The Oregonian/OregonLive reported on the first several dozen gun seizure orders issued under the new law. The newsroom's analysis showed judges ordered guns seized mostly from people affected by substance abuse, anger or mental health problems. Research presented to lawmakers Wednesday indicates that trend has continued.

Reese told lawmakers that most "extreme risk protection order" cases in Multnomah County arose from a person's threats of suicide. In several cases, people brandished weapons and threatened to shoot themselves or others before authorities took those guns under the court-granted order, he said.

"I believe that this legislation is an important component of a comprehensive approach to gun violence reduction," Reese testified.

Judge Maureen McKnight of the Multnomah County Circuit Court testified that three-fourths of gun removal cases involved threats of suicide. Domestic violence was a factor in one-third of cases, she said.

Responding to lawmaker's earlier concerns that the gun-removal orders would be subject to abusive overuse by spurned exes or power hungry officers, Travis Hampton, the Oregon State Police superintendent, said those worries "have not borne out in the evidence."

In its analysis, The Oregonian/OregonLive noted that the new law does not require people subject to gun removal orders be referred to mental health professionals  a requirement in Connecticut, where the first such law was adopted. Oregon lawmakers did not discuss that element of the gun-removal process Wednesday.

-- Gordon R. FriedmanMEDFORD  A Medford City Council candidate with a long history of profane and demeaning online posts has ramped up those attacks against other community members, referring to one Senate candidate as a "whore" and the leader of a children's nonprofit group as a "dumbass slovenly pig."

Curt Ankerberg, who is running in Ward 1 in northeastern Medford, finished second in the Senate District 3 Republican primary in May to Jessica Gomez.

Political observers say they fear he could win the council race as he has name familiarity from 10 unsuccessful runs and the vote will be split among four candidates. Two candidates have Medford political experience: business owner Alex Poythress is on the city Planning Commission, and Steve Dickson, an employee with the Veterans Administration, is on the Budget Committee. The fourth candidate is David Dobrin, formerly with sales at Lithia Dodge.

Ankerberg, a certified public accountant, also has drawn scrutiny for issues related to his work. In January, U.S. Tax Court Senior Judge Mary Ann Cohen found Ankerberg had committed tax fraud in 2012-2014, failing to report $111,366 in income and improperly claiming $67,000 in deductions.

Despite his tax issues, Ankerberg lost by only 500 votes to Gomez, who has been a frequent target of his invective.

In a Sept. 11 post on political commentator Peter Sage's blog, Ankerberg wrote about Gomez, "Let's call a spade a spade. Gomez is a whore of PACs." Ankerberg also called her a 'lying piece of crap."

On Aug. 18, Ankerberg responded to Sage, "You folks are f---ing sick in the mind. You too, Peter! You're a sick mother----er ... You're sick in the mind, just like the transsexual lifestyles your party promotes."

He added, in response to another poster, "It's nice that Peter Sage allows anonymous sex deviants like you to post on his blog."

On Facebook, Ankerberg attacked Sunny Spicer, executive director of Kid Time in Medford, writing, "Spicer ... why don't you run for the school board, you dumbass slovenly pig."

Spicer responded, "Ah yes  the threatening, expletive laced message I just received from Mr. Ankerberg just confirmed my concerns. Thank you for validating."

Ankerberg's response to Spicer was: "Bitch ... I don't know your lame ass but you started making comments about me. Stop playing the victim. You started this, a--hole."

In another post, Ankerberg wrote, "You're a worthless hog."

Spicer said she was so concerned about the tenor of Ankerberg's verbal attacks that she sent his comments to Medford police. She said she was concerned not just for herself, but also for her organization.

"It caused me concern because it was like he was saying, if he gets on City Council, you'll need a new place for your organization," Spicer said.

Ankerberg actually said that very specifically, writing: "Now ... if I were to get on the city council, then you'd be looking for a new office space for your business."

Kid Time has been negotiating a contract with the city of Medford to house its organization inside the former Carnegie library on West Main Street. Kid Time is currently located on Central Avenue downtown.

"That to me seems to be quite the abuse of power," Spicer said. "In a fit of rage he could change everything, because he's angry, not knowing who we are and what we're doing."

The verbal attack against Spicer started when she referred to Ankerberg as "Anger Burger" in a July 12 post on Medford Councilor Kevin Stine's Facebook page.

Stine said Ankerberg's reaction was over the top.

"He's a different breed," Stine said. "I don't know anybody locally who gets criticized and blows up like Curt does."

He said he thought it was a relatively soft comment for Spicer to call Ankerberg "Anger Burger."

"And then he just exploded and called her a pig and a bitch," Stine said.

Stine said he supports candidates who want to shake things up at City Hall but doesn't think Ankerberg's angry and profane approach would serve that purpose.

Ankerberg may have had second thoughts about the remarks himself. Stine said Ankerberg removed the comments sometime after posting them. But numerous screen captures by online readers preserved a record of the posts. (All of Ankerberg's comments referenced in this story are documented through online posts, emails or in hard copies from screen captures.)

Despite Ankerberg's inflammatory nature, Stine said Ankerberg stands a good chance of winning the council seat because he came close not only in the May Senate primary, but also in a previous council race against Dick Gordon.

"This is probably his best chance, looking at it from a political science standpoint," Stine said.

Sage, a former Jackson County commissioner, wrote in this blog that Ankerberg was "intemperate, angry, vile and destructive," but also added, "He just might be elected to the Medford City Council."

This is far from the first time Ankerberg has engaged in name calling and expletive-laden comments, with many of those comments dating back years.

An election complaint filed against Ankerberg on May 9 by Reagan Knopp, son of Sen. Tim Knopp, R-Bend, elicited this reaction from Ankerberg: "Hey, you little pr--k .. You lose c--ks---er, and I'll show Bill Meyer your complaint and have him roast your little ass. You can suck my d**, motherf****r. You lose."

Ankerberg also has dumped on national political figures. In response to a Facebook post by Meyer, a talk show host on Medford radio station KMED, about Sarah Palin not being invited to the funeral of Arizona Sen. John McCain, Ankerberg wrote, "McCain was just pissed that Palin wouldn't show him her hooters."

And Ankerberg has fired off numerous insults toward journalists.

He called a Mail Tribune reporter "a dirtbag liar and a freak show" and a freelance reporter "a yellow journalist and a racist."

Ankerberg referred to the editor of the alternative Rogue Valley Messenger newspaper as a "real assclown."

An editor at the Mail Tribune was called by Ankerberg a "biased bigoted a--hole." Ankerberg added, "you don't smell so swell yourself."

Ankerberg has refused to speak with the Mail Tribune and has informed the newspaper he will file a harassment complaint with police if he is contacted by newsroom staff.

 Damian Mann | Medford Mail TribuneA woman who researches and develops policy for the Oregon Legislature filed a federal lawsuit on Tuesday, accusing the state of paying her less than male co-workers with similar qualifications and job duties.

Cheyenne Ross, an analyst for the Legislative Policy and Research Office, already has a lawsuit pending in Marion County Circuit Court, which Willamette Week reported in July.

In the complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Eugene, lawyer Loren Collins stated that Ross has worked for the office since 2009 and has experience as a lawyer in both the public and private sectors.

"Despite this extensive experience, plaintiff has been paid less than her male co-workers who have the same or less experience, and for the same or comparable work performed," Collins wrote. "One male analyst with comparable skills, experience and responsibility was paid 40 percent more than Plaintiff  a difference of over $30,000 per year."

At the time, Ross was being paid approximately $87,000 a year, Collins said in an interview Wednesday.

"The cases are about fundamental fairness and pay equity between men and women which have been on the books, both federal and state, for well over 20 years."

Lawmakers passed a law last year aimed at further chipping away at pay disparities that persist despite longstanding laws against compensating employees differently based on their gender.

Employees in the office raised concerns in April and May about "unfair salary disparities," Ross says in her lawsuit, and the state gave Ross a $14,000 increase as part of an "urgent reshuffling" of the office.

"Despite those changes, a significant pay inequity continues to exist between plaintiff and her male co-workers," according to the court filing. Ross contends the state owes her back pay, plus an unspecified amount of damages and attorney fees.

Collins said Ross believes her male colleagues who are being paid more for comparable work have not done anything wrong and that "she has great respect for them."

"However, the pay inequity is the fault of the administration and the leadership of the Legislature who have failed to follow the pay equity laws," Collins said.

Dexter Johnson, a lawyer for the Legislature, said he would not comment on pending litigation.

Meanwhile, the state faces an ongoing lawsuit by former legislative lawyer Gail Stevens, who alleges she was improperly terminated from her job. Stevens, whose case is currently scheduled to go to trial next year, accuses Johnson, the head legislative lawyer, of terminating her employment in retaliation for Stevens "reporting mismanagement, opposing and reporting unlawful practices, discussing wages and opposing pay inequity," Willamette Week reported last year.

In a motion to dismiss part of Stevens' lawsuit last year, Oregon Department of Justice lawyer Tracy Ickes White wrote that Stevens' complaints to others working at the Capitol were not protected under the First Amendment because the "speech concerned her own job conditions, not a matter of public concern."

The state provided 10 examples of concerns Stevens discussed with Johnson and other employees at the Capitol.

"As part of her job duties, which included providing employment advice, plaintiff reported to Mr. Johnson mismanagement and legal and ethical violations she identified in personnel matters at the Capitol," Ickes White wrote.

-- Hillary Borrud

503-294-4034; @hborrudAn autopsy conducted on a man found dead Monday in a Northwest Portland apartment during a visit by Multnomah County Parole and Probation officers did little to help determine the man's cause of death, manner of death and his identity, according to Portland police.

The Oregon State Medical Examiner's Office did the examination Tuesday, and the man's death remains under investigation, said Sgt. Chris Burley, a Portland police spokesman.

Police said the man's death appeared to have occurred under suspicious circumstances. He was discovered by county parole and probation officers who went to the unit at the Sally McCracken Apartments on Northwest Everett Street to check on a person who missed an appointment, Burley said.

The officers called police around 12:05 p.m. Police have declined to say the gender of the person sought by the parole and probation officers or whether that person has been accounted for. It's not clear when the man died.

Portland police ask anyone with more information on the man's death to contact Detective Todd Gradwahl at 503-823-0991, todd.gradwahl@portlandoregon.gov, or Detective Brad Clifton at 503-823-0696, brad.clifton@portlandoregon.gov.

-- Everton Bailey Jr.

ebailey@oregonian.com

503-221-8343; @EvertonBaileyUpdated 6:47 p.m.

Marcine Herinck never tired of community service, even after the 89-year-old could no longer drive herself to and from the food pantry and thrift store in Northeast Portland. She simply finagled rides from her family.

That devotion may have led to her death.

A registered sex offender with a self-described history of mental illness is suspected of killing the 4-foot-10 grandmother after he trailed her home from her volunteer shift at Portland Adventist Community Services.

Authorities on Wednesday charged Timothy Joseph Mackley, 58, in Herinck's death. Her body was found in Mackley's car Monday night during a traffic stop, police said.

Timothy J. Mackley

Herink's family announced her death Tuesday night on Facebook. They had last seen her Sept. 18, when her daughter-in-law dropped her at the Wilkes neighborhood home where she lived alone.

"Marcine will be remembered for her soft, gentle spirit and the life she lived dedicated to others," the family said.

That commitment shined at the faith-based service center on Northeast Halsey Street where she began volunteering in 2014. Mark Fulop, the organization's executive director, said Herinck had logged more than 1,900 hours stocking and cleaning shelves in the thrift store.

"She brought her wit, her humor and a passion for community service," he told The Oregonian/OregonLive. "She was loved by staff and customers."

Mackley might have been one of the people she had helped. He had been in the store during Herinck's final shift, Fulop said. Staff members contacted detectives about Mackley after Herinck was missing for several days, he said.

According to police, detectives two days ago determined Mackley was involved in Herinck's disappearance. Authorities suspect Mackley saw her at the faith-based service center and followed her home.

When police stopped his Toyota Camry in the 9200 block of Southeast Holgate Boulevard, officers discovered the remains in the trunk of his car and arrested him, said Sgt. Chris Burley, a Portland police spokesman.

An autopsy by the Oregon State Medical Examiner's Office ruled the woman's death a homicide. Authorities didn't say how she was killed.

Mackley pleaded not guilty Wednesday to murder charges in Multnomah County Circuit Court.

He appeared to roll his eyes, bounce up and down and speak to himself during the arraignment. At various points Mackley turned his back to the judge and to members of the courtroom.

Some in the audience gasped. Others cried. Mackley was ordered held without bail.

"It's been very, very troubling for us," Jeff Herinck Sr., Marcine's son, said after the hearing. "She was a great person."

Records show Mackley was convicted in 1989 of sodomy and sex abuse and sentenced to 20 years in prison. He was later ordered not to be around any children or schools.

After his release, he failed to register as a sex offender and has told court officials he was diagnosed as having bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, records show.

Mackley told court officials he lives on disability payments of less than $1,000 a month and drives people to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings in his spare time.

His apartment was less than two miles from where Herinck went missing last week and about three miles from Portland Adventist Community Services, records show.

Her disappearance prompted a frantic search to find her.

Friends, family and volunteers plastered fliers around her home in the 1500 block of Northeast 150th Avenue. They used a drone to fly over woods and brushy areas, they said.

Police, meanwhile, asked the public for help and distributed photos of Herinck.

Herinck had early stage dementia and didn't drive, her family said. But she still lived alone and babysat her grandchildren. She attended church regularly, where she led Bible studies and organized toy drives for kids.

"Marcine was one of those quiet rocks in our community," said Chris Blair, the pastor at Crossroads Church on Northeast 102nd Avenue. "She was a tiny little thing. But she had boundless energy."

Jeff Herinck told KATU News that he drove to his mother's house a week ago on Sept. 19 and found it empty.

The front and garage doors were open. His mother's cellphone, purse and keys were still in the kitchen. A cup of cold coffee sat in the microwave.

"I just feel something has happened to her," Jeff Herinck told KATU. "I just feel like she was taken, I really do."

The Oregonian/OregonLive's Everton Bailey, Jr., Maxine Bernstein, Aimee Green and Jim Ryan contributed to this report

-- Shane Dixon Kavanaugh

skavanaugh@oregonian.com

503-294-7632 || @shanedkavanaugh



1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.

2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.

3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.

4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.

5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.

6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.

7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.

8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.

9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.

10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.

11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)

12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.

13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.

14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.

15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.

16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.

17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

18. Gain control of all student newspapers.

19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.

20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.

21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.

22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."

23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."

24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.

25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.

26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."

27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."

28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."

29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.

30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."

31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.

32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.

33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.

34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.

36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.

37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.

38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand.

39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.

40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.

42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.

43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.

44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.

45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.A 38-year-old man who punched the windshield of a Portland Streetcar must pay $3,900 for the cracked glass and undergo a mental health evaluation.

Roger Mitchell Eikenberry was overheard yelling (expletive) TriMet while pacing in the middle of the tracks on the Broadway Bridge as a streetcar approached on April 23, according to court papers filed by the prosecution. Eikenberry then walked up to the front of the streetcar and dealt it a powerful blow with his fist.

Eikenberry may not have been aware that although the Portland Streetcar system contracts with TriMet for its operators, the system itself is owned by the city. TriMet is a regional transit system that provides MAX light rail and bus service.

Court records show Eikenberry has a troubled history with TriMet. In the year leading up to the windshield punch, hed been cited three times for riding TriMet without paying his fare. Each time he was fined $175 and his cases had been referred to a collection agency for failure to pay.

In September 2016, Portland police said he assaulted them after refused to get off a TriMet bus. The case was dismissed months later, for reasons that court records don't make clear.

On April 23, prosecutors think Eikenberry had been using drugs just before he attacked the streetcar.

Eikenberrys court-appointed attorney, Kami White, declined comment for this story.

Earlier that same day, a TriMet supervisor reported seeing Eikenberry kick the glass doors of a parked MAX train, causing more than $2,000 in damage from cracked glass. Eikenberry originally was charged in that case, too, but a judge dismissed the case after a key witness failed to show up to a court hearing.

Tuesday, Eikenberry pleaded no contest to first-degree criminal mischief for the damage he caused to the streetcar.

Multnomah County Circuit Judge Kenneth Walker ordered him to pay for the streetcar glass and said he must be evaluated to see if he needs mental health and drug treatment.

He also was sentenced to three years of probation and to report to the Multnomah County Justice Reinvestment Program, which is designed to connect offenders with drug treatment, housing and other necessities that could help stabilize their lives.

Eikenberry already had spent more than 60 days in jail, leading up to his plea.

Roberta Altstadt, a TriMet spokeswoman, said she doesnt have exact numbers, but its not uncommon for members of the public to break windows on the TriMet system out of anger, she said.

Its not unheard of, unfortunately, Altstadt said.

-- Aimee GreenA man with a history of mental illness who broke the nose of a security guard at the Social Security Administration's office in Portland was sentenced Wednesday to four years and three months in federal prison.

Nathanial Michael Williams, 25, who receives Social Security disability benefits, punched the guard after he was accused of wearing a stolen hat on May 12, 2017.

Nathaniel M. Williams, 25

Williams tried to leave the office, but the guard stopped him and later sprayed him in the face with pepper spray to try to subdue Williams to get him handcuffed, defense lawyer Mark Ahlemeyer said. Williams, who was wiping his eyes, turned and swung at the guard.

Williams, who has been a defendant in 24 criminal cases in Multnomah County Circuit Court since 2012, admitted hitting the guard with a closed fist.

Ahlemeyer asked U.S. District Judge Robert E. Jones to keep Williams in custody until he can be placed in residential mental health treatment, which he argued can't be accomplished behind prison bars.

Williams already has been in custody nearly a year and a half, his lawyer said. He has a history of getting arrested on misdemeanors, kept a couple of hours and then released.

"Additional prison time really won't get at the root cause here,'' Ahlemeyer said.

Prosecutor Natalie Wight sought the prison sentence for Williams, arguing that any treatment must be provided in a secure setting for the safety of the community.

"Defendant has an extensive, and violent, criminal history, and a 51-month sentence will promote respect for the law, reflect the seriousness of the offense, and deter this defendant from harming law enforcement officers, or others, in the future,'' Wight wrote in a sentencing memo.

Williams stood briefly but was incoherent in his address to the judge, repeating, "My name is Doff,'' several times.

"You obviously need help to control yourself,'' Jones said, and sentenced him to the prison term.

The judge said prison will help Williams "live a more stable and peaceful life and still protect the public.''

Once the hearing concluded, Williams remained seated at the defense table and objected to the sentence. "I signed paper for 29 months. I got 51 months,'' he repeated, before he stood, was cuffed by federal marshals and led out of the courtroom.

Williams has been involved in the criminal justice system since age 11, according to state records.

He lived in Mississippi until age 19, when he came to Oregon. In Mississippi, he had a history of assaulting probation officers, school officials and family, records show. He lived with family when he first moved to Oregon, but that didn't last, and described himself as homeless to court officials.

His record in Multnomah County includes 12 misdemeanor convictions and 14 probation violation convictions on such allegations as theft, disorderly conduct and interfering with an officer.

He's told court officials he'd been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and other mental illnesses.

Six days before he punched the guard at the Social Security office, he was accused of punching an 82-year-old usher at the Oregon Convention Center when he approached a gate without a ticket, according to state court records. Police did not obtain a warrant to arrest Williams until May 23, 2017, after he was in custody on the second assault that occurred at the Social Security office, according to state records. For the punch at the convention center, Williams pleaded no contest to fourth-degree assault and was sentenced to 120 days in jail.

-- Maxine Bernstein

mbernstein@oregonian.com

503-221-8212

@maxoregonianThe Portland City Council on Wednesday approved a $7,010 payment to a homeowner who had his door kicked in by police when they responded to the wrong address.

Officers mistakenly came upon Stanley Horak's home in the Irvington neighborhood when responding to reports of a woman with a knife in her chest in the early morning hours of February 5, according to a city memo.

"We hear this pounding on the door," Horak said. "I hear someone say, 'We're gonna have to kick the door in,' and bang, they kick it in."

Officers rushed in, only to find Horak, a retired attorney, and his wife Fay, a neuroscientist who works at OHSU, stunned awake by the chaos  and no medical emergency to be found.

Police realized they were at the wrong house and hurried to the correct one, just down the street, Horak said. Officers later returned to apologize and tell Horak he could file a damage claim against the city.

"They were very nice about it," Horak said. "Very polite and courteous."

He said it's fortunate that officers were not aggressive.

"Lucky I wasn't black, who knows what would have happened," Horak said.

At least the payment will fully reimbursed him for the damage to his door and its frame, Horak said, adding, "Mistakes happen."

-- Gordon R. Friedman

Have a tip about Portland City Hall? Contact Gordon: GFriedman@Oregonian.com.Instagram is known for its celebrity posts and photos of enviable vacations. But it has also become a sizable open marketplace for advertising illegal drugs. The company has pledged a crackdown in recent weeks, but it is struggling to keep pace with its own algorithms and systems, which serve up an array of personalized drug-related content aimed directly at people who show an interest in buying substances illicitly.

Recent searches on Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, for hashtags of the names of drugs -- such as #oxy, #percocet, #painkillers, #painpills, #oxycontin, #adderall and #painrelief -- revealed thousands of posts by a mash-up of people grappling with addiction, bragging about their partygoing lifestyle and enticements from drug dealers.

Following the dealer accounts, or even liking one of the dealer posts, prompted Instagram's algorithms to work as designed -- in this case, by filling up a person's feed with posts for drugs, suggesting other sellers to follow and introducing new hashtags, such as #xansforsale. Ads from some of the country's largest brands, including Target, Chase and Procter & Gamble, as well as Facebook's own video streaming service, appeared next to posts illegally selling pills.

Even as top executives from Facebook and Twitter, which has also long struggled with posts offering drugs illegally, promised earlier this month during a congressional hearing that they were cracking down on sales of opioids and other drugs, their services appeared to be open marketplaces for advertising such content. Facebook's chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, said her company was "firmly against" such activity. Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey said he was "looking deeply" at how drug-selling spreads on the site.

But activists and other groups have warned tech companies about illegal drug sales on their platforms for years. In recent months, lawmakers, the Food and Drug Administration and some advertisers have stepped into the fray. In April, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb charged Internet companies with not "taking practical steps to find and remove opioid listings." Sen. Joe Manchin III, D-W.Va., called social media companies "reckless," saying, "It is past time they put human life above profit and finally institute measures that crack down on these harmful practices, preventing the sale of illegal narcotics on or through their platforms. "

The prevalence of drug posts on social media -- which the FDA says has helped fuel the opioid epidemic that claimed more than 40,000 lives in the United States last year -- shows how tech companies are often outsmarted by the software they created. The algorithms that power social media spread illicit content - from illegal drug ads to misinformation and hate speech -- faster than the companies know how to take it down. The most common features of social platforms, such as hashtags and algorithms that deliver personalized feeds, drive drug-sale posts directly to users who have expressed interest in them -- potentially exposing the most vulnerable people to addictive drugs.

"Just as drug use rewires the brain to crave more of the substance, social media platforms have designed their sites in such a way that after a single search for an illicit drug, the algorithm gets rewired to advertise drugs to the already vulnerable user," said Rick Lane, a longtime technology policy adviser who helped push legislation known as FOSTA-SESTA through Congress this year. That law holds technology companies liable for prostitution and sex-trafficking ads on their platforms. He is now pushing for similar legislation for drug ads.

Facebook's vice president of global marketing solutions, Carolyn Everson, said Instagram was paying more attention to illegal sales of drugs because of a growing focus on safety and on preventing abuses of the company's platform, from Russian meddling to fake news. "We're not yet sophisticated enough to tease apart every post to see if it's trying to sell someone illegal drugs or they are taking Xanax cause they are stressed out," said Everson, referring to the company's artificial intelligence technology. "Obviously, there is some stuff that gets through that is totally against our policy, and we're getting better at it."

Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger said late Monday that they were exiting the company. Adam Mossieri, a longtime deputy to Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, is likely to become the photo-sharing app's next leader, according to a person familiar with the matter.

"Some of the emergent behaviors we've seen have presented a new challenge, and we're focused on tackling them alongside law enforcement, our peers and the FDA," said Twitter spokesman Ian Plunkett said.

Pharmaceutical companies are allowed to promote their brands on social media, but the process is highly regulated by the FDA, and companies and individuals are not allowed to sell actual drugs through social media.

Technology companies, which are lightly regulated compared with other industries, face the prospect of stricter rules if they cannot control the problems. During this month's technology hearings, Manchin told the executives that his state had been hard-hit by opioid addiction and that he was interested in launching a bill modeled after the sex-trafficking law that would hold companies liable for drug dealing taking place on their services.

John Montgomery, executive vice president for global brand safety for the ad-buying giant GroupM, whose agencies work with companies such as Procter & Gamble and Target, said Instagram was moving too slowly. "With illegal pharma content, there is little nuance. So it should be possible to identify and block faster than we've seen," he said.

Instagram has become one of the most potent platforms for drug marketing, said Libby Baney, senior adviser for the advocacy group Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies. Its growing use among teenagers as well as the service's emphasis on visuals, its sophistication at personalizing content and its allowance of anonymous accounts have turned it into a hotbed of illegal promotion of drugs, she said.

Eric Feinberg, a researcher and the chief executive of GiPEC, a New York City-based cyberintelligence start-up that tracks illegal activity such as counterfeit goods and terrorist content on technology platforms, began hunting for drug posts in June by searching for obvious hashtags. He found hundreds of Instagram posts appearing alongside content from 60 different advertisers. Some of the Instagram dealers touted corresponding Twitter accounts, and Feinberg began tracking those accounts, too. Some of the Twitter accounts were even more brazen and had been up for years.

Once he followed the sellers' accounts, Instagram's algorithms began delivering posts marketing drugs directly into his feed, suggesting other drug sellers for him to follow and introducing him to additional hashtags that he used as clues. At one point, posts from sellers constituted about 40 percent of his feed, he said. Feinberg said he plans to sell his monitoring software, but his company doesn't yet earn any revenue.

Facebook said Feinberg's feed was not a real representation of what the vast majority of people see in their feeds, because he exclusively followed bad actors and some brands, prompting the company's algorithm to cluster the two types of content together. "That being said, even a single piece of bad content on our platforms is one too many, and we're working hard to improve our detection and enforcement," Facebook spokesman Joe Benarroch said.

Most of the posts that appeared to be from dealers had a similar format: Photos of different types of drugs captioned with a string of hashtags and instructions to contact the account holder through a channel outside Instagram, such as email or messaging platforms Wickr, Facebook-owned WhatsApp and Kik. (Most drug posts included explicit instructions to avoid "DMs," or direct messages, on Instagram itself. Such messages could be more easily traced.)

In recent months, Instagram took what it described as an extreme step by blocking search results for certain hashtags, such as #fentanyl, #cocaine and #heroin, even though that had the unwanted side effect of limiting people's ability to seek support for substance abuse issues, Facebook's Everson said. The hashtags can still be used and the posts can still be found through a person's network, even though they are unavailable through a public search.

To get around blocked hashtags, sellers now market opioids under Xanax- and Adderall-related hashtags, many of which are searchable, Feinberg said. They also slightly tweak the spelling of drug names and include their contact details in the photos themselves, such as writing them on a piece of paper and then photographing it, to avoid software tools that can identify problematic keywords in a caption. Instagram appeared to suspend some hashtags when asked about them by The Washington Post.

Dealers appear to employ a "spray and pray" strategy designed to get around Instagram's monitoring, Feinberg said. They post frequently, with individual posts getting a small number of likes before many were taken down by Instagram's systems within 48 to 72 hours, often because users flagged them as problematic. As soon as one account was taken down, dealers created multiple Instagram accounts with similar names, such as a cluster including FoxPharm, FoxPharm12, FoxPharm69 and FoxPharm90, all featuring the same contact information.

Some appeared to have been created automatically, Feinberg said, suggesting the sellers are using bots. The different iterations of the name reminded him of Islamic State terrorist accounts and disinformation groups, which use a similar tactic.

"They are playing whack-a-mole here. They take them down, and then they come back again," Feinberg said. "If [the tech companies] were really doing a full-court press, we wouldn't keep finding what we are finding."

Everson said Facebook and Instagram were in the early stages of developing artificial-intelligence tools that could flag drug content. She compared it to Facebook's efforts, starting two years ago, to building AI software that it says can detect the majority of Islamic State accounts before people can see them. Now they are building visual classifiers that can recognize photographs of particular pills and detect common patterns, such as the inclusion of a phone number to move the transaction onto an encrypted messaging platform.

Facebook also gives advertisers tools to block their messages from appearing alongside certain publishers or categories of content, including tragedy or controversial social issues.

This month, Instagram also launched a pop-up notification that appears when someone searches hashtags for opioids, prescription medications or illegal drugs. The pop-up offers to connect people with free and confidential treatment referrals and information about substance use, prevention and recovery.

-- Elizabeth DwoskinThe Michigan State Police Tri-City Post is hosting a free recruiting seminar from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday, Oct. 13, at the Tri-City State Police Post, 2402 Salzburg Road, Freeland.

Recognizing the importance of a diverse workforce, the MSP is committed to reflecting the communities it serves. This seminar will explain the variety of career opportunities available. Troopers, supervisors and command officers will provide insight and answer questions on recruit training, the lifestyle of a trooper, positions available, and the application process.To the editor:

I am an Italian citizen, currently a resident-alien of this country. I have been living in Midland for a little more than two years, and I have had the chance to interact, work, and befriend people from various backgrounds. I would like to share a few thoughts on the loss of Sen. John S. McCain III. Though politically I disagreed with about 80 percent of what the senator saw as good policy, not for a minute did I think he did not have the good of this country as his guiding principle. His conciliatory yet firm statements during his concession speech, his behavior in the years after, and his political acts since the 45th president took office have consistently shown him as a man of honor. I wish we had hundreds of men like him in my home country.

On Aug. 26, as I read what Amy Moolenaar wrote to Republicans across the district, the TV was broadcasting some of Sen. McCains speeches, including words about then-candidate Obama. The contrast between the alarmist yet empty words of the letter, and the gracious, elegant position of the senators words could have not been more staggering.

Using divisiveness, half-truths, even criticizing the Democratic candidate for being a critic of Bill Schuette, and praising the support of religious groups was a good reminder of the how low the Republican Party  the party that led the U.S. to victory against treacherous slave owners, that penned the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the party that first discussed instituting a universal federal basic income  has sunk.

Through his service to this country, Sen. McCain left us with a standard against which we can weigh current GOP candidates  a standard to be met through hard work, selflessness, honesty, and constructive ideas. Ms. Moolenaar failed this standard with a fearful mockery of an "attack campaign initiative" rooted in fear, fear of the same cherished values that have driven this country toward a more perfect union for centuries. Accusing the opponent of Annette Glenn, the Democratic candidate Sarah Schulz, of divisiveness because of "many street protests," shows a lack of understanding for the basic constitutional principles on which this country was built.

MARCELLO GRAZIANO

MidlandThe Cuban Missile Crisis is typically the gold standard for nuclear close calls. For 13 days, America had nuclear missiles ready to deploy from Italy and Turkey, while Russia did the same in Cuba. It is widely considered the nearest that we have ever been to all-out nuclear war, but there is another, more harrowing instance that has been lost to American history (likely because the hero of this tale is Russian). Every human alive should know the name Stanislav Petrov: the man who may have literally saved the world.

In the early hours of September 26th, 1983, the Soviet Unions early-warning systems detected incoming missiles from the United States. This incident came three weeks after the U.S.S.R. shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007killing all 269 people on board, including a U.S. congressmanso a retaliatory strike was surely anticipated by the Soviet high command. The climate of 1983 was dramatically different than the Cuban Missile Crisis 1962. For one, the United States had waged endless war in Vietnam, demonstrating that we were willing to take the fight anywhere on the Asian continent in order to combat the U.S.S.R.s communism (whatever the hell that meant). Secondly, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979, and a year later, President Ronald Reagan and U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher introduced a new foreign policy of the rollback of the Soviet Unioneffectively declaring intent to wage war.

According to a Gallup poll in 1961, a staggering 81% of Americans preferred all-out nuclear war to living under communist rule. To call Americans brainwashed is an understatement. We laugh at North Koreas propagandistic relationship with their rulers, but the baby boomers came of age in an America that thought communism was worse than ubiquitous nuclear radiation. Its not like we could feign ignorance about the power of atomic weapons at that point, as it had been sixteen years since we dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Cuban Missile Crisis occurred one year after this immensely depressing poll, and the next two decades were defined by wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan, and people in America trying to succeed Joseph McCarthys legacy of whipping up a Soviet hysteria that appealed to at minimum, four out of five Americans.

Combine those rising tensions with the growth of the military industrial complex, and the stage for all-out nuclear war was set for the 1980s, where NATO deployed 108 Pershing II nuclear missiles in Western Europe that had the ability to strike targets in Ukraine, Belarus or Lithuania in 10 minutes. From 1981 to 1983, the United States executed psychological maneuvers designed to test Soviet radar vulnerabilities. We were literally running operations intended to make the Kremlin think we were waging war against them. Yuri Andropov, the head of the KGB, initiated Operation RYAN in 1981 to collect intelligence on Reagan in preparation for a first nuclear strike by the United States. Its difficult to overstate how bad relations between the United States and the Soviet Union were at the beginning of the 1980s. Bruce Blair, an expert on Cold War nuclear strategies said that the relationship between the U.S. and U.S.S.R.:

had deteriorated to the point where the Soviet Union as a systemnot just the Kremlin, not just Soviet leader Yuri Andropov, not just the KGBbut as a system, was geared to expect an attack and to retaliate very quickly to it. It was on hair-trigger alert. It was very nervous and prone to mistakes and accidents. The false alarm that happened on Petrovs watch could not have come at a more dangerous, intense phase in U.S.-Soviet relations.

With all that history at the forefront of your mind, lets travel back to that fateful night in 1983. Stanislav Petrov was the officer on duty at the Serpukhov-15 bunker near Moscow. The lieutenant colonels job was to monitor the Oko early warning networka Soviet array of satellites designed to look for nuclear missile launches. Here is what happened in Petrovs own words, per an interview with the BBC in 2013:

The siren howled, but I just sat there for a few seconds, staring at the big, back-lit, red screen with the word launch on it.

A minute later the siren went off again. The second missile was launched. Then the third, and the fourth, and the fifth. Computers changed their alerts from launch to missile strike.

The computers were issuing their highest confidence possible that America had just fired nuclear weapons at the Soviet Union. NATO had nuclear weapons that could reach Soviet targets on their western flank in 10 minutes. Every second was precious, and if Petrov did what his marching orders commanded him to do and reported these computer messages up the chain of command, we could have been in a nuclear war in a matter of minutes. Petrov continued about those tense moments:

There was no rule about how long we were allowed to think before we reported a strike. But we knew that every second of procrastination took away valuable time; that the Soviet Unions military and political leadership needed to be informed without delay.

All I had to do was to reach for the phone; to raise the direct line to our top commanders  but I couldnt move. I felt like I was sitting on a hot frying pan.

The reason why he didnt report the strike to his superiors was that there were roughly 30 checkpoints for the system to go through, and he didnt think it was possible for the system to pass all of them that quickly, so he decided to call a duty officer in the Soviet armys headquarters and report a malfunction with the system. After making the call, all Petrov could do is sit and wait, hoping that no nuclear missiles would land in the following moments. Petrov pegged his estimate at 23 painstaking minutes before realiz[ing] that nothing had happened. He was right, it was a malfunction. Had he reported the false positive up to his superiors, you and I may not be here right now. Stanislav Petrov is one of the true heroes of the Cold War, and the entire world owes his good judgement a debt of infinite gratitude.

Jacob Weindling is a staff writer for Paste politics. Follow him on Twitter at @Jakeweindling.Special counsel Robert Mueller has been looking into a meeting between Trumps and Putins allies as part of his larger investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

A little bit of backstory, in case you (somehow) forgot what were referencing: Erik Prince, former head of an American private military company, and Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of a Russian sovereign wealth fund, held a meeting just weeks before President Donald Trumps inauguration. The twosome met on Jan. 11, 2017, at a hotel bar in Seychelles, East Africa. George Nader, a Lebanese-American businessman and advisor to the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates, was also present.

Around a year after the meeting, Prince told the House Intelligence Committee that his chat with the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) CEO was unplanned and took place over a beer. Prince also said he did not attend as a representative of Trump.

Since Princes testimony before Congress, Muellers team has received information that the meeting was a planned endeavor to set up a backchannel between the Trump administration and the Kremlin, according to The Washington Post.

Why did that meeting happen? said Rep. Jim Himes, a Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee who questioned Prince. This is obviously something differentthis is a hush-hush meeting in the Seychelles that at least one of the participants has been a little bit fuzzy about.

But this case of he said/he said might finally be resolved: A memo sent by Dmitriev after the meeting has now been found and reviewed.

The two-page memo provides a summary of some of the ideas discussed in the Seychelles. The document lists four opportunities for cooperation and calls for an action plan to improve U.S.-Russian relations over the next year, as reported by The Daily Beast.

The first bullet point advocates for the U.S. and Russia working together on military coordination and joint actions in Syria against ISIS. The plan was to set up a joint special forces mission where together the U.S. and Russia take out a key ISIS person or place or frees an area then announces it after. The document also proposes the countries share terrorism intelligence and implement a combined large-scale humanitarian effort to improve the quality of medical attention in rebel areas.

Second, the memo proposes a serious joint effort by U.S. and Russia to actively address the threat of nuclear, biological and chemical (WMD) terror. While both Trump and Putin have expressed the desire to up their respective nuclear stockpiles, the memo suggests the two countries work together on nuclear nonproliferation. The document discusses the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), which works to reduce the risk of nuclear attacks, as one potential venue. The Washington nonprofit has backed conversations between American and Russian diplomats throughout the years, and the company set up a bank to purchase uranium in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan.

Third, the memo suggests that the U.S. and Russia develop win-win economic investment initiatives that both of their electorates would applaud. Understanding U.S. production by foreign companies is a focus of the new administration, the memo says, noting that Russian companies would make investments with RDIF financing to serve the U.S. market in the Midwest, creating real jobs for hard hit area with high employment. Translation: Russia proposed a way to help make Trumps campaign promise of bringing back jobs to Midwestern towns come true. The document also suggests a joint RDIF fund with OPIC [Overseas Private Investment Corporation] to support U.S. investment in Russia to make U.S. businesses competitive in Russia, undeterred by subsidized Chinese business.

Fourth, the memo says the U.S. and Russia should have an honest and open and continual dialogue on differences and concerns. One of the issues listed is resolving the Ukraine crisis, which began with Russias invasion and annexation of Crimea in 2014, through ensuring Ukraine fulfills its commitments. Sounds  vague.

To conclude the document, the memo proposes the U.S. and Russia set up a small working group with 2-3 people from each side authorized to finalize an action plan for a major improvement in the U.S.-Russia relationship and proposes coordination across major agencies and government bodies to achieve tangible impact in the next 9-12 months.

Theyre trying to do this through this weird backchannel, remarked Evelyn Farkas, an Obama administration Pentagon official who focused on Eastern Europe and Russia, to The Daily Beast.

Mieke Eoyang, VP of think tank Third Ways national-security program and former House Intelligence Committee staffer, expressed similar concerns to The Daily Beast: They call it shuttle diplomacy for a reason: Theres a back and forth on it. But youre not letting them inside your decision-making loop.Good Wednesday Morning, Fellow Seekers.

There's no doubt that these are interesting times for our politics.

In just a few short weeks, Pennsylvania voters will be asked to choose candidates for governor, U.S. Senate and Congress, as well as the Legislature. Because it's a mid-term year, and trends historically swing against the party in power, these are particularly interesting times to be a Republican.

A congressional map imposed by the state Supreme Court that's friendlier to Democrats means that the GOP will very likely lose seats come November. At the top of the ticket, the GOP candidates for governor and U.S. Senate currently trail the Democratic incumbents by double-digits. And competitive races in the Philadelphia suburbs have created some opportunities for Democrats as well.

Then there's that guy in the White House.

In the midst of all this, we sat down recently to chat with Pennsylvania Republican Party Chairman Val DiGiorgio. The Chester County attorney, who succeeded former, long-serving party boss Pete Gleason, is about 18 months into his tenure. In a wide-ranging discussion, we talked about the key races; the challenges of fundraising at a time of diminished influence for party organizations; the party's woman problem in the age of #MeToo and the Brett Kavanaugh controversy, and the Twitter habits of the Commander-in-Chief.

(The interview below has been lightly edited for content and clarity.)

Q: We're 42 days out from the election. How are you feeling about things?

A: I feel good. I mean, the generic ballot, which was tied, there's been some separation in the last month. So that ebbs and flows depending on what's happening in Washington D.C.

For our local candidates, they're all working hard. They all have their own brand. To the extent that you have your own brand in this environment, and you're hitting doors, they'll do fine. I like the work ethic that our candidates are showing.

Q: What is the Republican brand right now, if you had to explain it to someone, in the age of Donald Trump?

A: I think it depends on where you are in the state. Upstate, they want to see a more robust support of the president. They're a little more socially conservative up there.In the southeast, it's tax cuts, it's the economy. And it's job. And, really, for that matter, all over the state, I think the Republican Party and the president have shown themselves making a top priority the economy; providing Americans with opportunity and the ability to pursue their own happiness.

Q: Yet, when you look at the polling data, it doesn't look like the message has penetrated. Why do you think that is?

A: We still get the better numbers than the Democrats on the economy, consistently, in polling. That's one issue where we've been consistently out-polling the Democrats. People, generally, believe the economy is better run by Republicans.

Q: Yet, the tax cut numbers, they're 7 points in their disfavor. Why do you think the message hasn't penetrated. What's the disconnect there.

A: I think the Democrats have done a good job in portraying the narrative as a tax cut that benefits the rich. In actuality, you see what's happening. Incomes are going up. Consumer confidence is at an all-time high. Minority and female employment is at an all-time high. Voters are going to go to the polls and they are going to remember that.

Yesterday, there was a Gallup poll that showed the Republican brand was at an all-time high, better than Democrats (Editor's Note: The Gallup poll showed GOP popularity at a 7-year high, beating Democrats 45-44 percent.)

Q: To what extent have you reconciled yourself to losing some Congressional seats?

A: The Supreme Court did a number on us. I'm on-record saying it was an unconstitutional power-grab by a hyper-partisan court. And they made it exceedingly difficult for us to win three seats and they've made it less competitive for us in three or four seats.

So, yes, we'll lose some seats ... To the extent we lose those seats, it's not because of our candidates, or our messaging, it's just because of what we call 'judicial-mandering' around here. And again, it's another attempt by the left to do through the courts what they cannot do through the ballot box.

Q: We're in the middle of the Kavanaugh controversy. You have the president and his issues. What specific challenges does that pose when you're trying to reach out to female voters?

A: One thing is that I'm a big proponent of recruiting more women to run. I've always been. Down in Chester County, our courthouse is populated with women. We've recruited a strong woman to run for Harry Lewis' seat. The first thing we have to do is to recruit more women to run.

Two, we have to point out that [women] are doing better under this economy; more opportunities for women. And to see through some of the noise out there.

And third, I would say, on this Kavanaugh issue, the most vocal support I've seen for Kavanaugh, the most outrage I've seen for what the Democrats are doing is from other women. I see it all the time on social media, where women are worried for their sons, who could be accused at any moment of awful things, without proof and have their lives destroyed.

The woman vote is not a monolithic vote. The most vocal and ardent supporters right now for us are women who are knocking doors, putting events together, and leading county committees, and on and on.

Q: Do you ever wake up some mornings and just think, "Oh God, stop tweeting?"

A: I never do. And, by and large, I like what he tweets. It's not the tweeting - he could deliver the same message at a press conference. The tweeting is great. It goes directly to the people.

And I think, whether you're on the left or the right, we've always wanted to have politicians and a president who tells us what's on his mind. You get an unfiltered view of what the president is thinking. I think that's refreshing, even when I don't necessarily agree with what he tweets on a given day. And I think too much is made of it.

Q: There are about eight or 10 House seats in the southeast that are in play. There are six or eight seats on the Senate side that could go one way or the other potentially. Where do you see potential for pick-ups or consolidation that could act as a bulwark against any losses?

A: There's Wendi Thomas in Bucks. We expect to win that. She had an under-vote on the special election ballot. If her primary vote had been 300 votes higher, she would have won. I think we can potentially pick up Nick Deminski in Chester County, running against Carolyn Comitta. He's got a great grassroots there. Then you have some other pick-ups There's Stephanie Borowicz, up in Clinton County. I'm hearing that's very much in play. You have Betsy McClure in Greene County, she's running hard.

Q: Are you going to hold onto Nick Miccarelli's seat [in Delaware County]?

A: That's very much in play. I don't know if we can hold it. That can go either way. But we have a very good candidate there. That was one of the seats I was thinking about. It wasn't a pick-up, but a hold. That race is in play. It's a matter of resources, too. With so many seats in play, there's a matter of who's going to have resources. The good news is, what I'm seeing, for state reps who are working hard, and have their own brand, they should be pretty good. Warren Kampf. Becky Corbin. Eric Roe. People like that.

Q: There's this unavoidable truth, both for Democrats and Republicans, and that's the minimized influence of the state parties. Races are getting nationalized. Donors are giving directly to candidates, instead of the parties. How much has that complicated things for you?

A: It's a challenge. It's been a challenge for this building for years now. It doesn't get any easier. Our message has been to convince donors, and we've done that, that we're doing the things the candidates can't do for themselves. We're handling the absentee ballot program. We're partnering with the RNC in regard to implementation for GOTV, 41 staffers who are out in the field. As the chairman, who's out doing the messaging. And when you tell donors that you're doing that, the money comes. It's just a lot of hard work, telling them what the state party does.

Q: So what's a [typical] week look like for you?

A: I might have a Commonwealth Club event out in Pittsburgh and we'll schedule committee events and donor meetings around that. We'll do media ... and then Scott Wagner might have an event somewhere that we'll head out to after that. We'll do media with him, When I'm back in the southeast, I'll be back at my desk, doing my law practice for a little bit. And then the southeast, it's easy for me to hit events. I can drive to Bucks, Montgomery, Chester, whatever. Where I can hit depending on where they are. Today, I came in for a press conference, a lunch that I had, then this [interview]. The interesting part is that it varies so much. But what we try to do is when we're heading for a region, is to try to schedule a whole series of events. If we're heading up to Erie, we'll hit Centre County on the way and meet with leaders there. And maybe go to Forest County and do the same.

Q: What does Scott Wagner have to do in the next 40 days to close a 14-point polling gap. Or Lou Barletta for that matter? (Editor's Note: Since this interview, the RealClear averages showed 15-point advantages for Gov. Tom Wolf and Sen. Bob Casey)

A: don't know that it's a 14-point gap. Our polling has it more single-digit, high single-digit gap in both cases. Our data is very reliable. Every day, we're in the field, we're surveying thousands and thousands of people. We get the [Republican National Committee] to update that model regularly. So we don't have it as a double-digit race. That being said, there's a gap that needs to be closed. A lot of it will depend on the president's numbers. We're seeing that their numbers tend to go up and down, based on the president's numbers.

Scott has a great - I'm very excited by Scott's willingness and ability to go into places like Philadelphia and take our message. And Scott will overperform there. He will do very well. And, not only that, that message sells in the Philadelphia suburbs, with compassion for the inner city. So I'm very pleased by that.

Lou? For Lou, a big part of it is making sure that Trump base is fully energized and winning in places like he did in Hazleton, where he won 2-1, and he won; That's what Lou needs to do. And Lou has a very energetic campaign going on right now. He's got to raise money to get his message out

Q: Why can't he raise money? What's the problem there?

A: I don't think it's that he can't raise money. It's that it's a tough environment for money right now. There's a lot of competition for dollars right now. I know he had a very successful fund-raising week last week. We're waiting for the numbers. It's just a tough environment.

Scott came out of the primary, and spent a lot of money on the primary, and it's taken time to build that war-chest up. It's just a matter of getting on the phone with donors every day and asking them for money, telling them how things are going. And you have to ask for money every day. So whether they'll have enough or not, I don't know. I know Lou is pleased with his week last week.

Q: Was the [gubernatorial] primary good or bad for the state party?

A: I know the way it was conducted was not good. It was ... very personal attacks were made against Scott Wagner. It was decisive. Some of them were untrue or taken out of context. And I came out and defended Scott, which I would not have done otherwise.

Because I figure politicians can stick up for themselves. But when I saw personal attacks, that were false, I felt obligated to do something. So it took some time to get back the [former GOP hopeful Paul] Mango people into the fold. Scott, by and large, has done that.

I don't hear a lot of people with negativity out there. Scott has unified the party and that takes time. The bigger problem is the money that was spent. That was $14 million that could have been used to go after the governor and weaken the governor's numbers. So you get to June or July before you're able to do that.

Q: Only one [governor's] debate? Is that a little ridiculous?

A: Well if you were at [Pennsylvania[ Press Club yesterday [Monday] you saw why.

Q: Well, he [Wolf] explained why. He gave an explanation of why. He figures the contrasts are stark enough.

A: Well that's what he said. But you saw how poorly he did?

Q: I know you believe he did poorly.

A: It was embarrassing. He talked out of both sides of his mouth. He fumbled around questions. He talked about how he's not going to see a tax cut in the next term. Now, mark my words ... he's already on record seeking a tax increase on natural gas. We have some real nuggets for Scott Wagner yesterday in that press event.

Q: They're going to end up in ads?

A: I hope so. But I haven't talked to them about what they might be thinking.

I think it does a great disservice to the voters by not having one debate in every region I think that's what you do when you want to run from your record or you don't have a message. And he doesn't have a record of real accomplishment.

Q: You've been in this job for 18 months. What's surprised you the most? Or confounded your expectations?

A: You hit on it earlier - the extent to which the candidates raise their own money and the donors give money to candidates directly, rather than supporting the state party. To raise the $1.5 million to $2 million you have to raise here, it takes work every day. And I'm no stranger to fund-raising. I did it in Chester County [as chairman]. It's the stratification of fund-raising, to the candidates and away from the party itself that has been the most surprising.

Q: How distracting was the reporting about unrest in the state party [in City & State]?

A: It was a one-day issue around here. I had to call a couple of people. But it didn't take us off our game. I know where that came from. It was a hit-job from someone who had an axe to grind. We have a great staff. We're fully staffed in every department. Last year, we did something that state party hasn't done for a while. We put $350,000 into get out the vote in the field, instead of leaving it staff here. And then I get accused of not having enough staff here. That's something that donors want to see, that we're putting money in the field, into digital, into mail. You always want to do more. I wouldn't mind raising another half-million.

Q: Anything you want to add? Anything you think people should know?

A: For me, the big surprise, the big thing that continues to shock me, is how far left the Democrats have gone. In a mid-term year like this, when they should be running away from it. They're not.

They've overplayed their hand on just about everything. They've let their reaction to Trump cloud their political calculus.

The way they're handling this Kavanaugh thing, there will be a big backlash, from what I can see.A 22-year-old former U.S. Navy serviceman remains jailed in Lackawanna County, charged by federal prosecutors for possessing an illegal machine gun.

But the real worry, according to court papers, is the man's "Nazi and white supremacist-related ideologies" and his social media threats to possibly commit a hate crime.

All this, according to the Citizens Voice, which writes that the attorney for John Jacob Hasay says he's no Nazi -- just an immature kid who posted some "stupid stuff" on social media - and the lawyer is seeking to get his client out of jail.

Officially, Hasay is charged by the feds with possessing a machine gun and possessing an unregistered firearm, the newspaper writes. The charges do not allege he was engaged in a plot to commit an act of violence. But the complaint against Hasay is sealed.

Hasay's attorney, Al Flora Jr., told the Citizens Voice the charges against his client stem from his alleged possession of a semi-automatic pistol that had been illegally modified to make it fire automatically.

But that's not the real reason Hasay remains behind bars.

According to the Citizens Voice, the U.S. Attorney's Office argued Hasay should be detained pending trial because he is a danger to the community. This, following Hasay's arrest last month:

"The United States furnished (the) court with examples of Hasay's written promise to commit a hate crime, ready access to illegally modified firearms and black-market firearm component dealers, and reoccurring advancements of Nazi and white supremacist-related ideologies," Assistant U.S. Attorney Phillip J. Caraballo wrote in one filing.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Joseph F. Saporito Jr. subsequently ordered Hasay detained, noting that while he is not charged with a violent offense there is the potential for violence "based on statements made by (Hasay) through social media or letters."

But now that Hasay has undergone a psychiatric evaluation because of a "depressive disorder," and has been discharged with instructions to continue taking an anti-depressant and a finding that he "does not pose an acute danger to himself or the community" - his attorney wants him out of jail and has filed a motion for pre-trial release.

The motion for release is pending.A truck driver who failed to stop at an intersection, causing a deadly chain-reaction crash, is now admitting his guilt in the case.

WFMZ 69-News reports the driver, Gary Pellegrino, 67, of White Plains, New York, pleaded guilty this week to homicide by vehicle, aggravated assault by vehicle and six counts of reckless endangerment.

The chain-reaction crash on Route 222 in Lehigh County back in 2016 involved five other vehicles stopped at the red light and took the life of an 81-year-old woman.

This, as Pellegrino failed to stop for that same red light and plowed his tractor-trailer into the line of stopped vehicles.

It happened on Route 222 and the intersection with Krocks Road on Dec. 5, 2016.

Killed in the crash was Fay Parry, 81, who died at the scene. Several others were injured.

There was no immediate word on sentencing in the case.Years of small upgrades to Flinchy's dining room no longer cut it.

The Lower Allen Township restaurant was starting to look tired. Even worn.

"We put lipstick on the pig when we first opened. We did what we could," said Matt Flinchbaugh, owner with his father, Dawson Flinchbaugh.

But after 15 years of business, it was time for a rehab. For a few weeks over the summer they closed the restaurant, gutted the dining room and started from scratch.

"We did our own Bar Rescue," Matt Flinchbaugh joked. "I really didn't realize how outdated the restaurant was until I saw the before and after."

They skipped hiring a decorator. Instead, they found inspiration off a Google search and a photo of a sharp, yet aesthetic bar space accented with stone and wood. The space evolved as Matt Flinchbaugh purchased materials such as lights and faux stone columns from sites such as Amazon.

Regulars will notice an open space. That's because they eliminated a divide between the bar and dining room.

Now, a row of raised booths down the center of the dining room provides height as well as a place for bar patrons, who previously had no choice but to mill around in the bar, to take a seat.

Unlike the previous booths, the new stately ones are sleeker and not nearly as puffy and overstuffed.

The Flinchbaughs played off the train theme with the decor. The restaurant is located next to train tracks and its Train Wreck Deck is a popular outdoor venue.

They incorporated three photos of trains designed to look like windows into the design.

Matt Flinchbaugh said he came up with the idea after attending an art show in Stone Harbor, New Jersey. There, he saw single photos of beach scenes split into three canvasses.

Once he returned home, he asked a photographer friend if he could make three canvasses out of one using photos of the local train yards.

The Flinchbaughs said they are still making tweaks and will be installing wine coolers in the bar. The restaurant reopened a few weeks ago but to celebrate the new Flinchy's, a ribbon cutting will be held at 5 p.m. Oct. 3.Tiny Estates, a tiny-house community which opened less than a year ago on the site of the former Ridge Run Campground in Elizabethtown, is now the largest tiny-house community in the U.S.

With 23 tiny houses on site, the Lancaster County community has surpassed the previous record-holder, Colorado's WeeCasa, which has 22 tiny houses on 10 acres, according to Lancaster Online.

Abby Hobson of Tiny Estates told the Lancaster Newspapers website that the local community, which allows for a combination of full-time residents and nightly rentals, "has exceeded our projections every month for occupancy and revenue.

"Many full-timers in tiny homes have campgrounds or parks they reside at," she says, "but they are next to campers or RVs."

Tiny houses generally have less than 400 square feet of interior space that encompasses kitchen, dining, living and sleeping space, as well as storage. They are built on wheels to retain their mobility and versatility.

Sarah Susanka and her 1997 book, "The Not So Big House," is often credited with starting the recent tiny house movement, which financial restraint, eco-friendly choices, shared community experiences and a move away from consumerism.

The financial crisis of 2007-08 helped the tiny-house movement to attract considerable attention.

According to Lancaster Online, Tiny Estates has about 20 units available for rent, several permanent leases and signed leases for eight more tiny houses, with construction under way.

Here's some additional coverage of tiny homes in Pennsylvania:The restaurant industry has to contend with a new giant.

The parent of Arby's, Inspire Brands Inc., announced on Tuesday that it had agreed to acquire Sonic Corp. in a deal valued at about $2.3 billion, adding more than 3,600 locations of the burger chain to a portfolio that also includes Buffalo Wild Wings and Rusty Taco.

The deal would give Inspire, controlled by private equity firm Roark Capital, a total of about 8,200 locations and make it one of the 10 largest restaurant companies in the U.S. by that measure.

That scale could help Sonic compete in an industry where it's been squeezed by tough competition from bigger rivals including McDonald's Corp., Burger King and Yum! Brands Inc., which operates the KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut chains. The larger companies have the advantage of using their scale to get supplies at a better price, said Michael Halen, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.

"The value wars are still going strong right now," said Halen, referring to Inspire's entry into the battle for burger diners. "McDonald's and Burger King are really the source of Sonic's troubles."

Inspire will continue to operate Sonic as an independent brand, according to a statement Tuesday. The deal, unanimously approved by Sonic's board, represents a 19 percent per-share premium to Sonic's closing price on Monday, the company said. Inspire will pay $1.57 billion for Sonic's equity and assume about $700 million of debt, according to Bloomberg calculations.

The deal would significantly expand Inspire's U.S. footprint, and with more than 8,000 locations there it would be larger than industry stalwart Wendy's. Still, the company will need to go on the hunt for acquisitions if it wants to pass some of its other competitors.

As of last year, Yum! Brands had more than 18,000 domestic locations, according to industry researcher Technomic. Burger King is controlled by Restaurant Brands International Inc., which also operates Tim Hortons and Popeyes. Overall, the company has roughly 10,100 U.S. stores.

Sonic is the latest struggling chain to be acquired by Inspire, which is credited with mounting a turnaround at sandwich chain Arby's. Sonic, caught in the competition to offer the lowest prices, has posted declining same-store sales for eight consecutive quarters. The chain relies on cheap drinks, catchy commercials and promotions to lure customers, and it's struggled to stand out in a crowded restaurant space.

Inspire was co-founded by Paul Brown of Arby's and Neal Aronson, who started Roark Capital Group. Last year, Arby's - which is majority owned by Roark -- agreed to buy restaurant chain Buffalo Wild Wings for about $2.4 billion, adding it to the private equity firm's stable of eateries. In August, Wendy's Co. agreed to sell its stake in Inspire, marking another ownership change in a rapidly shifting restaurant industry.

Andrew Boord, a portfolio manager at Fenimore Asset Management Inc., said "it looks like a good price" for the Sonic acquisition. Fenimore's FAM Small Cap Fund held about 235,000 Sonic shares as of June 30.

"Sonic has gone through a big turnaround," Boord said. "Things are looking better."

--

Reporters Craig Giammona and Gerald Porter Jr. wrote this story, with assistance from Bloomberg's Anne Riley Moffat.YORK - Driving was his life. Greg Hodnett lived it and he breathed it.

But he somehow struck a fine balance that's difficult to achieve.

"Greg was a good family man and top of his racing, and it's hard to balance both of those," his friend, Neil Gunnet, said today. "Greg was, to me, a great person because not only did he know how to win, but he knew how to lose, too. He was a good sportsman and always strived to do his best."

Sprint Car racing legend Hodnett, 49, of Spring Grove, died in a crash at the BAPS Motor Speedway in Newberry Township on Thursday when he lost control of his vehicle in Turn 1, causing him to hit a wall at high speed.

Today, a couple hundred people - drivers, fans, friends and family -- lined up at his viewing to say goodbye. They filed into the church, passing Hodnett's Sprint Car - the vehicle that fueled his passion - displayed outside.

"Driving was his life," Charles Miller, said, holding in the emotion and struggling for the right words to describe his son-in-law. "He was just a great guy. A great driver. Fantastic."

In his years of racing, Hodnett built up a reputation as not only a top driver, but a great man, too.

"He was an exceptional driver," said Glen Gohn Jr., who was an organizer of the Daryl Gohn/Glen Gohn Sr. Memorial Race, which Hodnett won one year. "Real nice to talk to. Easy going."

Hodnett was successful in the national World of Outlaw series, winning its Rookie of the Year honor in 1993, beating some of the top drivers around.

Nathan Hauck, who drives micro Sprints, knew Hodnett since he moved to central Pennsylvania, becoming one of the most dominant racers on the circuit here. But Hauck's fondest memories come from Hodnett's life off the track.

"Every time I saw Greg, he was more concerned about how my kids were doing, and he was just a genuine person of concerns outside of racing. Things that really matter." Hauck said. "He was just a true friend outside of the track."

The fans appreciated him, too. Chris Snyder brought her daughter, Brie, to the races when she was little, and she has been a big fan of Hodnett's ever since.

"He's always been a positive, great racer," Brie said.

"On the track, he was one of the best we have in the area," another fan, Scott Myers, said. "He was fierce and smart and knows how to drive."

"He was awesome to watch," fan David Britton agreed. "He was a great driver. He loved the fans. He made racing."

But in all things - his friendships, his family life, his racing - he always put his best effort forward, and for many, it's hard to narrow down this life of passion, of racing and of family to just one memory.

"There is no one fond memory," his father-in-law, Miller, said. "Greg is the fond memory."

Hodnett's funeral is set for 10:30 a.m. Wednesday at the Grace Fellowship Church, 1405 Seven Valleys Road, York.Millions are expected to be watching when Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who has accused him of sexual assault, testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday.

The highly anticipated hearing is a pivotal step in determining whether Kavanaugh will serve on the nation's highest court. Interest in the hearing is so intense that some financial analysts predict volume on the stock market could drop substantially Thursday, MarketWatch reported.

Those looking to watch the hearing will have plenty of options.

Expect widespread coverage from cable and broadcast networks. The hearing begins at 10 a.m. Thursday but networks will likely be offering coverage and commentary before the hearing begins.

Ford alleges that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a party while they were in high school. Kavanaugh vigorously denies the allegations.

Here's a quick roundup of coverage for Thursday's hearing. Some networks haven't announced their plans as of early Wednesday.

ABC

George Stephanopoulos, one of the anchors of Good Morning America, and David Muir, the ABC News evening anchor, lead the coverage, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

CBS

The network is offering gavel-to-gavel coverage. News anchor Jeff Glor leads coverage. The hearing will also be shown live on CBSN, the CBS News 24/7 streaming service.

CNN

The cable news network will offer live coverage at 10 a.m. Thursday. Anchors Jake Tapper and Wolf Blitzer will lead coverage, The Hollywood Reporter said.

C-SPAN 3

The network broadcasts a host of congressional hearings and certainly will air this one. C-Span 3 will offer live coverage starting at 10 a.m.

FOX

Fox News will begin its coverage starting at 9 a.m. Thursday. The news team of Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum will anchor coverage, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

MSNBC

The network is offering live coverage of Thursday's hearing.

VICE NEWS

Vice plans live coverage of the hearing, according to The Indianapolis Star.

ONLINE

If you're not near a television, you'll still be able to watch the hearing on your device of choice. Facebook and YouTube will offer live coverage. The Hill, a publication covering government and politics, streamed the previous Kavanaugh hearings on its Facebook page.Harrisburg school officials on Tuesday said hotdogs that had spots and appeared to be spoiled were destined for the trash rather than the trays of students.



One of them, Beth King, the director of food services, further said boxed food items that were left outside on a hot day were canned, non-perishable items that wouldn't quickly spoil.



However, photos of the items show tater tots and Aunt Jemima pancakes that are typically frozen, and other boxes that are labeled "keep frozen."



So soon after assuring reporters there are no food quality problems, they were confronted with a factual error that potentially undermined their assurances.



King, through a district spokeswoman, later issued this statement: "During today's conversation with the media, I misspoke about the items in the food delivery. There were perishable and non-perishable items as part of the delivery. This does not change the fact that the delivery was promptly picked up and delivered to the intended school, and that a cross-functional quality assurance team conducted a careful review of all food inventory, preparation records and serving processes. No product quality or preparation issues were found with the delivery or on any campus."

About a week ago, photos of the hotdogs and boxed items were anonymously posted on social media, resulting in news coverage and public concerns over the quality of food served in district cafeterias.



At Tuesday's news conference, King was joined by John Weinert, vice president of regional operations for Southwest Food Service Excellence, the firm that recently won the contract to prepare cafeteria food at district schools.



King and Weinert said they had investigated the photos and the overall food operation and concluded there were no lapses that impacted quality of food.



King said she was unable to determine exactly where the photos of the hotdogs were taken, but is convinced the hotdogs, which were uncooked, were meant for the trash. She said there have been no complaints of anyone being served substandard food. King further insisted Southwest, which offers things including a salad bar at each school, is an upgrade over the previous food vendor, which was let go for unspecified reasons.



She said her best explanation was that the hotdog photo may have been taken by an employee upset by new job procedures, apparently to make the district look bad.



The cafeteria food is prepared by a staff about 75, with about half of them district employees and half employed by Southwest, which took over at the beginning of the year.



King said posting the photos may well have been the result of the pushback by employees that sometimes accompanies workplace change.



Weinert, who stressed that his company makes many food items from scratch, said employees now cook in smaller batches and have to perform certain tasks "more often."



Regarding the delivered items left outside, King and Wienert said it resulted from a mistake by the delivery company that has been addressed.



Both King and Weinert insisted the quality of food has been good and, although there have been a few early kinks, the district is highly satisfied with Southwest.



"I think we are meeting our goals and we will continue to meet our goals," she said.



Meanwhile, the social media photos prompted a visit by Harrisburg's health officer, who said she found assorted problems and has reached agreement with Southwest to correct them.



In an email, the health officer, Nelva V. Wright, said that includes:



-- Revising the food distribution system -- which would include reducing the number of shipments per week at each location and using more local food suppliers;



-- Managers will be alerted as to when deliveries are about to arrive at the school, so there will be someone to accept and store the shipment immediately;



-- All shipped items will be placed off the floors, docks, etc.;



-- Additional monitoring will be done to determine how much food each site is actually using and shipments will be adjusted accordingly (to be fully rolled out by 10/15/18);



-- Management will continue to undergo certification training;



-- All staff will be re-trained monthly and more frequently, if needed, with Wright attending some of the sessions and providing input;



-- Additional staff will continue to be hired and trained



Weinert, in a follow up interview late Tuesday, said he agrees with Wright's assessment and he plans to "continue to partner with her."Bill Cosby was sentenced to between three and 10 years in state prison on Tuesday, which will send him through Pennsylvania's state prison system.

Amy Worden, a spokesperson with the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, said they have no indication of when Cosby will be transferred to a state facility.

However, Worden said Tuesday that Cosby will have a stop at the State Correctional Institution - Phoenix, which is close to the Montgomery County facility. It replaced replaced SCI Graterford, which was built in 1929.

Here's a video that PennLive photographer Dan Gleiter assembled in 2017 when he toured the grounds and buildings with reporter Wallace McKelvey, who wrote this story after the tour.An ex-student who had sex with a teacher aide who became pregnant with his child can keep suing a Pennsylvania school district, a federal court ruled Wednesday.

That decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit resuscitates a sexual harassment lawsuit the student lodged against Philipsburg-Osceola Area School District in Centre and Clearfield counties and Central Intermediate Unit 10.

In an opinion by Judge Kent A. Jordan, the circuit judges overturned a ruling by U.S. Middle District Judge Matthew W. Brann dismissing the former student's claims against the district and IU.

Jordan's court disagreed with Brann's finding that no reasonable jury could conclude school officials knew the aide posed a danger to students.

The student, identified in court documents only by his initials, filed suit against the school and IU officials and former aid Hope Wrye in 2015. Wrye was 31 and married when she had sex with the 15-year-old special needs student in 2001 and 2002, court filings state. She gave birth to the boy's child in 2003.

Jordan found Brann's dismissal of the claims against Philipsburg-Osceola and the IU wasn't justified because there are considerable questions regarding what and when district and IU officials knew about Wrye's improper interaction with the student.

A school cafeteria worker who was a neighbor of Wrye claimed she saw the boy at Wrye's home and witnessed the pair hugging and kissing, Jordan noted. He cited the neighbor's claim that she might have reported that to a physical education teacher and another aide.

School officials said they did not remember the origin of information that prompted them to meet with Wrye in 2000 or 2001, the judge noted. One official said that meeting was prompted by a "gossipy report" that Wrye was driving students home in her car.

Jordan cited Wrye's testimony that she was confronted at the meeting with allegations that she was acting inappropriately with a student After the meeting, Wrye was told not to come to school for a few days. She also was assigned to a different classroom.

Given those facts, a jury could conclude school officials "had actual knowledge that Wrye posed a substantial danger to (the student) and other students and that the (officials) were indifferent to that fact," Jordan wrote.

That same set of facts could also be interpreted to reach the opposite conclusion, he conceded. That, Jordan said, is why a jury should be allowed to weigh the case.A Dauphin County judge correctly allowed prosecutors to use an intellectually disabled Harrisburg mother's confession to scalding the hands of her 8-year-old son, a state Superior Court panel ruled Wednesday.

That decision upholds the aggravated assault and child endangerment convictions against 36-year-old Keisha Moore, who is serving a 10-year probation term.

Moore had asked the state court to void county Judge Deborah E. Curcillo's refusal to suppress her confession regarding the July 2013 incident. Police said Moore eventually admitted holding her son's hands under piping hot water in a kitchen sink as punishment for misbehaving.

The boy required hospital treatment for the burns. Police said at first Moore claimed the boy's injuries were due to spider bites.

On appeal, Moore insisted her confession to police should have been suppressed because she didn't fully grasp the meaning of the interrogation. She cited testimony from a defense psychologist who concluded she was unable to make legal decisions independently.

That doctor stated Moore did not know the capital of Pennsylvania, thought there are only nine states in the U.S. and believed the nation is only 110 miles wide. Moore's lawyers also claimed she has the communication skills of a 6-year-old.

Judge Carolyn H. Nichols rejected that mental impairment argument in the state court opinion denying Moore's appeal. Nichols cited a prosecution psychologist's finding that Moore had the mental capacity to understand what was happening when she talked to the police after being read her Miranda rights.

"A low IQ alone does not establish that a waiver of Miranda rights is involuntary, unknowing or unintelligent," the state judge wrote.

She found that Moore wasn't handcuffed during two hours of questioning at the police station and that her interrogators didn't act inappropriately or aggressively.

Curcillo convicted Moore following a nonjury trial in 2017. Moore, who served 44 days in county prison after her arrest, was placed on probation in September of that year.

Moore's parental rights to her two children were terminated. Curcillo barred her from having contact with any other children as well.Lancaster City Council voted 6-1 Tuesday night to amend a city ordinance in favor of decriminalizing marijuana.

Fox43 reported the amendment changes the city's ordinance so that it now classifies possession or usage of marijuana as a summary offense instead of a misdemeanor.

People found in possession of marijuana or related paraphernalia will be fined $25 for the first and second offense, and $50 for a third offense, the station reported. Community service is an option to replace the fines.

Lancaster Council President James Reichenbach told the station they are not trying to circumvent Pennsylvania laws regarding marijuana use:

"This is within our purview. We're not on our way to legalization in the city. That's not in our purview. We are not even thinking about that right now," Reichenbach told the station.Editor's note: This story was updated to correct that John Butler is no longer employed by Lower Dauphin High School.

A teacher who resigned from Lower Dauphin High School in November was charged Wednesday with having indecent contact with a student last year, according to Hummelstown police.

Police said they were notified by Lower Dauphin School District on Nov. 15, 2017 about a possible crime involving teacher John Butler and a student.

Court records show Butler, 34, of Hummelstown, is charged with indecent assault in connection with an incident that occurred in April 2017. Police said they conducted an investigation and charged Butler through recommendation of the Dauphin County District Attorney's Office.

Lower Dauphin district officials issued a statement saying Butler was hired as a social studies teacher in the 2009-10 school year. The district was made aware of allegations against him in early November 2017, at which time he was placed on administrative leave, the district said.

The district notified the appropriate agencies and cooperated -- and continues to cooperate -- with all investigative bodies, according to the statement.

Butler resigned from his job with the district effective Nov. 27, 2017.

Butler was arraigned Wednesday by Magisterial District Judge Lowell Witmer. He was released on $10,000 unsecured bail, according to court documents.In a ruling that could have widespread reverberations, the state Supreme Court has reinstated the attorney general's lawsuit against a nursing home chain accused of misrepresenting its level of resident care.

The decision comes 18 months after a Commonwealth Court panel dismissed that suit against Golden Gate National Senior Care and its statewide affiliates, including several nursing homes in the midstate that operate under the Golden Living Centers name.

Justice Christine Donohue found in the Supreme Court opinion that Commonwealth Court was wrong to deem that the Golden Gate care claims the AG attacked as false constituted mere "puffery" that isn't legally actionable.

Unlike the Commonwealth Court, Donohue also concluded the AG's claims against the chain under the state's Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law were not too vague to support the suit.

The AG's battle with Golden Gate is in its third year. The case was launched in 2015 under the administration of former AG Kathleen Kane and is now being pursued by AG Josh Shapiro.

In filings in the case, Shapiro warned the Supreme Court that a decision upholding the Commonwealth Court dismissal could gut the state's ability to enforce its consumer protection laws.

The crux of the dispute is the AG's claims that Golden Gate exaggerated the level of care provided to its customer and deliberately understaffed its facilities to maximize profits.

During the course of the legal fight, Golden Gate sold several of its midstate centers that were named in the AG's complaint. Those sold included Golden Living West Shore, Golden Living Camp Hill, Golden Living Blue Ridge Mountain in Dauphin County and Golden Living Gettysburg. Also included in the suit are the Golden Living centers in Lancaster and Reading.

Donohue found the Commonwealth Court's dismissal of the case faulty on several accounts. For starters, she concluded, the AG's false advertising allegations are based on more than boastful "puffery"- exaggerations that aren't legally actionable.

Rather, Donohue wrote, the AG is claiming Golden Gate wasn't delivering on specific promises it made to attract its elderly and/or disabled customers.

She cited the AG's contention that despite Golden Gate's stated promises to provide prompt food and sanitary services, residents of its facilities "routinely have to wait hours for food, assistance with toileting, changing of soiled bed linens and other elements of basic care and sometimes must forgo them entirely."

Those claims, if true, contradict Golden Gate's advertising that paints an idyllic picture of the services provided at its facilities, Donohue noted.

"We hesitate to conclude that consumers seeking a nursing home would necessarily find statements promising to provide food, water and clean linens to be hyperbolic in any respect, or to be a vague statement of optimism or intent," she wrote. "There is no reason to think that a consumer would not take these statements seriously."

Nor did Donohue agree with the Commonwealth Court's finding that the AG's suit lacked specifics. The suit was based on information investigators claimed to have gotten from Golden Gate's customers and staff, she noted. The allegations made in the complaint are sufficient to put Golden Gate on notice as to why it is being sued.

The only aspect of the Commonwealth Court ruling the Supreme Court upheld was the finding that the state's accusation of unjust enrichment was premature. That issue can be addressed if the AG wins the case, Donohue found.Claiming it is being attacked by internet pirates, a maker of adult movies is asking a federal court to, in essence, protect its porn.

Strike 3 Holdings LLC is adamant about that, too.

The Delaware-based firm filed seven complaints in U.S. Middle District Court this week asking Chief Judge Christopher C. Conner to enforce the copyrights for its films.

Each individual lawsuit is against a Comcast customer Strike 3 accuses of downloading its movies without permission. At this point Strike 3 says it only knows the customers' IP addresses, not their names.

The thefts have been "rampant" and dozens of illegal downloads of its "award winning, critically acclaimed adult motion pictures" have been made, it contends.

Strike 3 claims in the suits that its films are the best-selling adult DVDs in the U.S. The movies are distributed through the web sites "Blacked," "Tushy," "Vixen" and "Blacked Raw," which attract more than 20 million visitors a month, the firm states.

"The brands are famous for redefining adult content, creating high-end, artistic and performer-inspiring motion pictures produced with a Hollywood style budget and quality," Strike 3 attorney Andrew W. Bonekemper wrote. He added that one of Strike 3's owners, director Greg Lansky, "has been dubbed the adult film industry's 'answer to Steven Spielberg'."

Strike 3 claims its products "are among the most pirated (internet) content in the world." The same headache afflicts non-X-rated movies and TV, it notes.

The firm is asking Conner to order the alleged pirates to stop downloading Strike 3's products illegally, delete the films they've already stolen and pay unspecified monetary damages and attorney's fees.By AVALON ZOPPO, Special to PennLive

Bill Cologie closed his eyes and blindly selected a novel from a shelf tucked in the back of News Transit, the only convenience store in the historic Harrisburg train station.

"'A Tale of Two Cities,'" Cologie says as he thumbed its pages. "That's a good one."

Cologie, 69, has been owner of the small shop since the 1990s, when he left his job at the Cable Association of Pennsylvania and followed his lifelong dream of selling books. A wooden shelf stocked with 300 paperbacks sits in the back of the store, among rows of toiletries, snacks, and knick-knacks. Posters line the walls with quotes from famous figures about finding joy of reading.

But now, Cologie is fighting to keep the store alive after the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation announced in March a $15 million plan to renovate the Harrisburg Transportation Center. The proposal calls for a cafe, pedestrian bridge, restaurant and new concourse seating.

Bill Cologie has owned the news agency and bookstore in the Harrisburg train station since the 1990s. 'To me, it's a little island of sanity in the chaos of business travel,' he says.

News Transit, which opened in 1984, was not included in the plans. Amid a reshuffling, the store would be replaced with administrative offices for Amtrak employees and three kiosks would be set up on the main concourse to meet travelers' needs.

Uncertain of his fate, Cologie and his wife Martha started a petition last month to send to state officials urging them to leave the store as is.

The desire to preserve the small piece of Harrisburg's station has resonated with more than 1,000 travelers who signed the petition. Cologie's store, he contends, isn't your typical Barnes & Noble. The shelf holds classics that he hand selects rather than bestsellers.

His philosophy is simple: "Popular fiction is like chewing gum for the mind," Cologie says. "Life is short, so why not read good books."

Thousands walk through the shop each week, most of whom Cologie says are trying to escape "the chaos of business travel." A traveler himself, Cologie says he was inspired by a newsstand he found in the Pittsburgh airport in the 1980s that was stocked with hard-to-find titles.

"To me, it's a little island of sanity in the chaos of business travel," he says. While Cologie says book sales have dropped in past years, the shop still has $500,000 annual revenue.

Hal and Suzanne Kivlan stopped at the shop for snacks before heading to New York City on Wednesday. The Mechanicsburg couple visited News Transit at the suggestion of friends.

"You don't get that home feel from kiosks ... I vote for the tradition" she says. "I think we need to keep our past."

READ MORE: Plans for Harrisburg Transportation Center could bring big improvements to city: PennDOT

Still, those who rely on the store don't have to worry immediately.

PennDOT spokesman Richard Kirkpatrick says the initial renderings of the station layout are not final. Design plans are on hold at least a year while PennDOT evaluates leasing or acquisition options with Amtrak.

Transit News currently has a lease with the Harrisburg Redevelopment Authority, which manages all tenants in the station.

"When the project design resumes at some point in the future, the results will be re-evaluated," he says. "We have no immediate plans to do anything with this lease or any lease held by any tenant in the station.WILLIAMSPORT - Two men have been accused of participating in a scheme while federal inmates to defraud the Internal Revenue Service out of nearly $110,000 over a nearly two-year period.

Former inmate Larry Paul Benavides, 43, of North Versailles, Allegheny County, and current inmate Eric J. Judkins, 43, are charged with conspiracy to defraud the IRS.

They were indicted in July in U.S. Middle District Court, but the charges were sealed until Tuesday because Benavides was not in custody. He was arrested earlier this month in South Carolina.

They and several unindicted co-conspirators are accused of selling and filing fake tax forms 1040EZ from between January 2011 and Oct. 6, 2012, claiming refunds totaling $109,431.

Participants in the scheme inflated the amount of money they actually earned from inmate employment at the Allenwood Federal Prison complex and provided false information on what was withheld, the indictment states.

Benavides, Judkins and the others are accused of using powers of attorney to enable them to cash the refund checks.

The conspirators would fill out the tax forms with false information regarding employment, income, taxes owed and withheld and refundable credits but leave the name and signature blocks blank, the charge states.

They then sold the forms to other inmates who completed them and sent them to the IRS for a refund, the government says.

According to prison records, Benavides was released from Allenwood on May 30, 2017.A woman and two children were hospitalized with minor injuries after a Toyota Prius got trapped under a tractor trailer on the Pennsylvania Turnpike in Lancaster County.

Crash on the Pennsylvania Turnpike on Sept. 25

The Denver Fire Company posted that they were called to assist in a vehicle accident around 6:49 a.m. Tuesday, and when they arrived learned of the car under the tractor trailer.

LancasterOnline reported that the crash occurred when the driver of the Prius lost control while attempting to pass a truck in the westbound lane in West Cocalico Township.

The Prius hit the tractor trailer and the concrete barrier near mile marker 281.6, and both vehicles stopped with the Prius trapped underneath.

The woman and both children were removed from the car and transported to Hershey Medical Center with minor injuries, LancasterOnline reported.By Keith J. Coyle

A pipeline incident that occurred in Beaver County recently is bringing increased attention to the issue of pipeline safety.

Many residents are concerned about the pipelines that pass by their homes, schools, and places of business. Some are even going a step further and calling for a statewide moratorium on all pipeline construction.

I've spent the past decade working on pipeline safety issues as an attorney-advisor for the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), a member of Gov. Tom Wolf's Pipeline Infrastructure Task Force, and an attorney in private practice.

I understand the anxiety that people feel after a pipeline incident. They want to know that their families are safe, and that the folks in charge are doing what is necessary to protect public safety.

Every incident serves as a reminder of the additional work that needs to be done to make pipelines safer. But that does not mean that we should ignore the important role that pipelines play in improving our lives or disregard the efforts that are being made to build upon the industry's strong safety record.

Pipelines are a critical part of the nation's energy infrastructure. There are more than 2.7 million miles of pipelines in the United States, and Pennsylvania is home to approximately 91,000 miles of pipelines, according to the latest PHMSA data.

These lines carry the energy products that heat our homes, run power plants, provide fuel for transportation, and deliver the feedstock that is used to make countless consumer goods.

Pipelines are the safest and most reliable means of transporting energy products.

The Frasier Institute, a Canadian-based research organization, found in a recent study that pipelines are 4.5 times safer than other comparable modes of energy transportation.

PHMSA's data shows that the number of serious pipeline incidents involving fatalities or injuries has gone down significantly over the past two decades, from 70 in 1998 to 26 in 2017.

While pipelines are the safest means of transporting energy, the industry is committed to further improving safety.According to a 2015 report from the American Gas Foundation, the pipeline industry invests about $21 billion per year on safety.

These investments fund critical pipeline operations, maintenance, and integrity management activities; research and development initiatives for the next generation of pipeline safety technologies; public awareness, education, and community outreach programs; and the repair, replacement, and rehabilitation of high-risk infrastructure.

A statewide moratorium on pipeline construction will make Pennsylvania less safe.

According to the latest data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, natural gas is the primary heating fuel for 51 percent of Pennsylvania households. and the second largest fuel source for electricity generation..

Banning new infrastructure development would place Pennsylvania's existing pipeline infrastructure under increasing strain in the meantime, and consumers would face energy supply shortages and increased prices.

Power plants would be idled, schools and hospitals would be closed, homes would be left without heat, and stores would no longer be able to sell basic consumer products.

The industry's first priority is pipeline safety. Better results can only be achieved if we recognize the ways that pipelines improve our lives, and how different the world would be if they did not exist. That world would not be a safer place, which is why I urge Pennsylvanians to oppose a ban on pipeline construction.

Keith J. Coyle, a Pennsylvania native, is a member of Babst Calland's Washington D.C. practice where he specializes in energy, environmental and transportation safety. He is a former attorney-advisor for the U.S. Department of Transportation's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration.By Christine Flowers

Humans are attracted to tragedy, like moths to a flame. We can't resist gaping at an accident that, even though it tugs at the heartstrings, still manages to titillate that baser part of our brains.

Christine Flowers (PennLive file)

We enjoy the misfortune of others, even if it's only a reminder about how much better off we are.

That was the sensation that I had watching the interview on Fox, where Judge Brett Kavanaugh and his wife Ashley sat down and exposed the most intimate parts of their lives to millions of viewers.

It was a tragedy that these good, simple, normal people were forced to talk about things that only the Real Housewives of Wherever enjoy parading before salivating strangers.

But this is 2018, and #Metoo has changed the ground rules for sex, gender and offense. Now, we are all in confessional mode.

Brett Kavanaugh understands confession. He is a lifelong Catholic, a former altar boy, practicing and devout.

His high school and college yearbooks contain the same random boasts that many boys spread around for the consumption of friends they are leaving behind, and Kavanaugh had his share of brash, alcohol-drenched quotes.

Frankly, what I read and what appeared to happen off campus at Georgetown Prep is pretty much the same thing that happened at St. Joe's Prep, where my brothers went to school or at the Haverford School, where I taught. Hormones, high IQs and money are a heady mixture and don't always yield the best judgment, let alone Franciscan monks.

But they also don't yield rapists or sex offenders, despite what the media would have us believe, based on the words of a woman who remembers bad things from a long ago party. More importantly, simply because that woman points a finger and there is a knee-jerk acceptance that young boys are all randy beasts, that doesn't give us the right to destroy a gentle person's character.

I watched that Fox interview, and my heart ached for Kavanaugh and his wife. You only had to look at them, uncomfortably perched on a sofa and looking as if they wanted to be anywhere but under the glare of harsh and hostile lights, to understand that this was purgatory, real and seemingly interminable.

Kavanaugh was forced to reveal that he had been a virgin in high school, and beyond. Watching him say those words with an embarrassed look in his eye made me sad, empathetic and then angry.

I was sad because I know how hard it is in this society to admit, especially if you are a man, that you weren't "getting any"as a teenager. I was empathetic because I, too was a virgin in high school, and for so many years after that I was in all respects but the uniform, a nun. And I was angry, because Kavanaugh was being assassinated, accusation by accusation, as a proxy for Trump. It was cruel.

The irony is that the Democrats talked about how we needed to have compassion for an alleged victim of sexual assault, while they simultaneously assaulted the character of a man based on allegations that would be laughed out of court. True, Kavanaugh is not a criminal defendant, and proof beyond a reasonable doubt is neither necessary nor appropriate in this context. But the way in which the opposition has ridiculed and vilified this nominee while simultaneously demanding respect and compassion for his growing stable of accusers is so nauseating that only one word conveys its real nature: sadistic.

After watching Brett Kavanaugh and his wife subject themselves to a humiliating expose of their most private moments, I realize that regardless of what happens with this nomination, we have entered the realm where winning is no longer the only thing that matters. Now, we need to destroy the people on the other side, and we delude ourselves into thinking that it's righteous. The Democrats think they are helping women by both believing their tales of sexual assault and by preventing a justice who might put the nail in Roe's coffin from making it to the high court.

Or maybe that's not really what they believe. Maybe they just like gaping at human tragedy.

Christine Flowers, an attorney, is a columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer. Her work appears frequently on PennLive Opinion.By Karen Tumulty

In Tuesday's speech to the U.N. General Assembly, President Donald Trump made it as clear as he ever has how he views America's place and purpose in the world.

Karen Tumulty (Washington Post photo)

As a bully, not a beacon.

His speech lashed out at all the familiar foes, but Trump's main target was the international order itself.

Trump warned the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries that the United States may no longer help defend its member nations if they do not lower their oil prices. He said foreign aid should be based not on compassion or need but on what is offered in return. He boasted of his withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, his tough immigration policies and his trade war with China.

The president also spoke with disdain about international organizations, including the World Trade Organization ("in dire need of change"), the U.N. Human Rights Council ("a grave embarrassment to this institution") and the International Criminal Court ("no jurisdiction, no legitimacy and no authority").

Trump crowed about how he has advanced the agenda that he calls America First. "We reject the ideology of globalism, and we embrace the doctrine of patriotism," he declared.

But this extremely self-interested form of nationalism also represents a stark repudiation of American exceptionalism. That is the ideal of a "shining city on a hill" Ronald Reagan borrowed from John Winthrop, and the belief - expressed by nearly 60 percent of Americans in a 2010 poll by the Public Religion Research Institute and the Brookings Institution - that "God has granted America a special role in human history."

Trump has a dark vision of an America that is under siege by the rest of the world, not one that is leading the way for it.

And in his speech before the United Nations, he also suggested that no country lays any particular claim to being exemplary in its values or its responsibilities.

"Each of us here today is the emissary of a distinct culture, a rich history and a people bound together by ties of memory, tradition and the values that make our homelands like nowhere else on Earth," the president said. "Many countries are pursuing their own unique visions, building their own hopeful futures and chasing their own wonderful dreams of destiny, of legacy and of a home."

It was not so long ago that Republicans lambasted Barack Obama for supposedly voicing a similar view of the world, when he was asked during his first overseas trip as president in 2009 whether he subscribed to a school of American exceptionalism that sees this country as uniquely qualified to lead the world.

"I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism," Obama said.

The difference, of course, is that Obama was arguing for more engagement with the rest of the world, while Trump believes that countries should work together only when their interests are in sync.

One danger in rejecting globalism is that others will not. While Trump's tactics may provide some short-term leverage, the countries he pushes around will start exploring their other options. China in particular stands ready to move into the vacuum that is being left as the United States withdraws from the international order.

Even some of the examples that Trump chose to cite in his speech cast doubt on its premise. "There is India, a free society, over a billion people, successfully lifting countless millions out of poverty and into the middle class," he said. But is there a better argument than India for the benefits that can be reaped from globalism?

"Sovereign and independent nations are the only vehicle where freedom has ever survived, democracy has ever endured or peace has ever prospered," Trump said. "And so we must protect our sovereignty and our cherished independence above all."

America built much of the international order that Trump now seeks to turn the nation's back on. We can only hope that it is strong, resilient and vital enough to go on, even if this country is no longer the one leading the way.

Karen Tumulty is a Washington Post columnist covering national politics. She joined The Post in 2010 from Time magazine and has also worked at the Los Angeles Times. Her work appears frequently on PennLive Opinion.'Up North in Michigan' reminds readers to get out and exploreBy Sharon Bernstein

(Reuters)  A popular former Tennessee Democratic governor positioned himself as a centrist in a race that will help determine control of the U.S. Senate on Tuesday, while his Republican rival strove to paint him as a mere follower of Washington Democrats.

Former Governor Phil Bredesen and U.S. Representative Marsha Blackburn are locked in an unexpectedly close race in deeply conservative Tennessee. Democrats see the race as an opportunity to win one of the two additional seats they need to wrest control of the Senate from Republicans and gain the power to slow or stop elements of U.S. President Donald Trumps populist conservative agenda.

The number one issue for Tennesseans has got to be the overarching issue of how dysfunctional Washington has become, said Bredesen, 74. Its become hyperpartisan. Its become almost impossible to get things done.

Once a reliably Democratic state, Tennessee has not elected a Democrat to statewide office since Bredesens 2006 gubernatorial victory. Trump won the southern state by more than 20 points in 2016, though retiring Senator Bob Corker, who holds the seat Bredesen and Blackburn are vying for, has become one of his most vocal Republican critics.

Blackburn tried to tie Bredesen to national Democratic leaders, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Trumps former rival Hillary Clinton and former President Barack Obama.

A vote for Bredesen, she said repeatedly, is a vote for Chuck Schumer, though Bredesen said he would not vote for Schumer in a leadership role.

The president has endorsed Blackburn, 66, and is due in the state next week to campaign for her, but neither candidate made much mention of Trump during the debate at Cumberland University in Lebanon, Tennessee.

Blackburn echoed many of the Trump administrations buzzwords, saying she wanted to drain the swamp in Washington and end sanctuary city policies, under which many jurisdictions limit the interactions of local police with immigration enforcement.

Democrats are focused on taking away your Second Amendment rights, she said when asked about gun control. That is something that is paramount for them.

Polls over the past few weeks have shown a tight race, with experts saying that Bredesen must win over independents and Republicans in addition to Democrats to win.

A poll last week by the Republican firm Vox Populi Polling gave the Democrat a 2 percentage point lead over Blackburn. The poll had a 4 percent margin of error.

Both candidates criticized Trumps trade policies, which have hurt farmers in the state, through Blackburn described the tariffs as a necessary economic defense.

Asked to name a Trump policy that he agreed with, Bredesen praised the presidents efforts to win concessions from North Korea, saying he was willing to give Trump some elbow room to find ways to deal with the state and its autocratic leader, Kim Jong Un.

Blackburn reiterated her support for Trumps latest Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, despite accusations of teenage sexual misconduct. Bredesen said he would want to hear from Kavanaughs accuser before deciding.

(Reporting by Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, California; Editing by Scott Malone)1.9k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard

According to a highly-respected opinion poll released on Tuesday Democratic Senator Bill Nelson of Florida has taken a significant lead over his formidable GOP opponent, Governor Rick Scott.

The Quinnipiac University Poll is widely followed so the fact that its new poll shows Nelson with a seven point lead over Scott has captured national attention. It shows incumbent Nelson leading Scott by 53 percent to 46 percent among Florida likely voters.

This is far outside the statistical margin of error, and the fact that it shows the preference of just likely voters instead of all registered voters gives it more weight.

Here are other significant findings from the Quinnipiac Poll:

A September 5 survey showed a 49  49 percent tie between Nelson and Scott, so all movement in Nelsons direction has happened in the past three weeks. Women support Sen. Nelson by a 58 percent to 41 percent margin. But men are more evenly divided, with 51 percent supporting Gov. Scott and 47 percent for Sen. Nelson. White voters support Scott by 53 percent to 45 percent while black voters support Nelson 90 percent to 10 percent and Hispanic voters support Nelson 61 percent to 39 percent. Republicans back Scott 89 percent to 10 percent while Nelson has a 94 percent to 5 percent lead among Democrats. Nelson leads 56 percent to 40 percent among independent voters. Among Florida likely voters who name a candidate choice, 94 percent say their mind is made up.

In addition to polling voting preferences the poll also polled favorability ratings.

In this area, Nelson is far above water with a 53 percent to 41 percent favorability rating. Scott on the other hand is under water with a net negative 46 percent to 51 percent favorability rating.

President Donald Trump is also under water among Florida likely voters as he has a net negative 44 percent to 54 percent job approval rating in the poll.

Senator Nelson was attacked by Scott and the Florida Republican Party in August when he claimed that Russians had hacked Floridas election systems.

Scott is closely tied to President Trump, and has come under severe attack in Florida in recent weeks due to his lax environmental policies.

Another opinion poll released on Tuesday, the NBC/Marist Poll, also showed Nelson with a significant lead.

New NBC/Marist Florida polls (likely voters) Senate

Nelson (D) 48%

Scott (R) 45% Governor

Gillum (D) 48%

DeSantis (R) 43% ***

Trump job performance

Approve 46%

Disapprove 48%  Steve Kornacki (@SteveKornacki) September 25, 2018

Things are looking good for Democrats in Florida, although the battle is far from over with nearly six weeks to go until election day.450 SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard

This is something you rarely see in congressional elections: a national party abandoning its own incumbents with just weeks to go before the election takes place.

But that is exactly what the National Republican Campaign Committee (NRCC) is doing to Republican candidates  including incumbents  right now. They are pulling the plug on spending for these candidates who are so far behind in the polls that they have decided they have no chance to win.

For example, last week the House GOPs campaign arm cancelled its remaining ad buys in the Pittsburgh media market, effectively dooming incumbent GOP Rep. Keith Rothfus (R-Pa.). Rothfus is in a losing battle, trying to hang on to his seat in a race against Rep. Conor Lamb (D-Pa.) who won a hotly contested special election last spring.

According to The Hill, Rothfus has been seen as a dead man walking since redistricting left him with a Democratic-leaning district and a difficult opponent in Lamb.

What happened to Rothfus may now start happening to many more GOP candidates who are struggling in what could be a Blue Wave year for House Democrats.

The NRCC as well as the Republican National Committee are targeting their electoral funds in the races most likely to save its majority. They do not have any extra money they can waste on districts that they do not view as competitive, with less than 6 weeks to go before the election.

Republicans are defending dozens of seats that are seen as vulnerable, but Democrats need just 23 to take control of the House.

On prominent Republican had this to say:

Its a giant chessboard. Theres obviously limited resources, and you need to make tough decisions. This is sort of an art form as opposed to a science.

The NRCC must decide if it wants to spend more of its limited money in close races that are in Democratic-leaning districts that Hillary Clinton carried in 2016. The other choice is to spend more money protecting Republican incumbents in districts that they thought were safe but now will be in play if the Blue Wave election does happen.

This means the NRCC may have to abandon more of its incumbent GOP House members, and that will not sit well with many party members.

One former NRCC staff member said:

There could be a bunch more incumbents who the party gives up on. It all depends on the polling. People evaluate these things on an hourly, daily basis. These decisions arent made lightly. If you have a race thats just not winnable and you have limited resources, you cant spend just to make somebody feel better.

Besides Rothfus, the following GOP incumbents are in races which the polls show to be heavily tilted in Democrats favor: Barbara Comstock (Va.), Erik Paulsen (Minn.), Jason Lewis (Minn.) and Rod Blum (Iowa).

According to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, an elections forecaster, all of these current Republican House members are likely to lose. They, of course, are not giving up and are still fighting hard. This makes it even more difficult to accept when their own party gives up on them.

Any time you cut bait, especially on a member of Congress, its a hard decision  but one that has to be made, said the former RNCC staffer. Its always a stab in the back whenever that happens to a campaign.

Desperate times require desperate measures, and this is exactly what the Republican Party is facing during this difficult midterm election season.2.4k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard

Trump used his perch as chairman of the UN Security Council meeting to accuse China, not Russia, of election meddling because Trump claimed that he is winning on trade.

Video:

Trump said, Regrettably we found that China has been attempting to interfere in our upcoming 2018 election, coming up in November against my administration. They do not want me or us to win because I am the first president ever to challenge China on trade, and we are winning on trade. We are winning at every level. We dont want them to meddle or interfere in our upcoming election.

Trump is going to blame China if Democrats Win Congress

Trump has found his scapegoat if Democrats take back the House and Senate in November. Trump is going to claim that the Chinese helped the Democrats win because they were losing on trade. The reality is that Trumps trade war is hurting America more than China. Prices are rapidly increasing and potentially millions of workers could lose their jobs due to the trade war. Farmers are worried about losing their farms, and Trump is claiming victory at the UN. Experts are warning that Trump is ignoring the impact that higher prices are going to have on consumers and that the result will be decreased consumption.

Decreased consumption means lower profits, which translates to layoffs and job losses.

Trump isnt winning. The American worker and consumer are losing.

Russian election meddling continues

The Russian election meddling efforts are ongoing, and in some ways have become more overt. None of this was mentioned by Trump. China is not interfering in the election to help Democrats. Trump is feeding another one of his delusions, as the president cant grasp the reality that the voters may be preparing to hand him and his party and overwhelming rebuke.

The presidents comments show just how far he has retreated into a psychological unreality, as his real presidency is collapsing around him.

For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group.

Follow Jason Easley on Facebook.4.3k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard

As Republicans push forward to give Brett Kavanaugh a lifetime promotion without investigating his character or mounting evidence that suggests he is a sexual predator, Oregons Senator Jeff Merkley filed a lawsuit to halt the Kavanaugh confirmation process until Kavanaughs full record is made available.

Merkely (D-OR) argued that the Trump Administration and other Republicans have conspired to withhold information, and by withholding substantial parts of Brett Kavanaughs record have violated the constitutional separation of powers and hindered Senators from fulfilling their constitutional duty of advice and consent on the Presidents nominee to the Supreme Court of the United States.

The lawsuit names as defendants Republicans President Donald Trump, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, who it says worked with the Trump White House to conceal documents, as well as Kavanaugh lawyer William Burck, Julie Adams, Secretary of the Senate; and Michael Stenger, Senate Sergeant at Arms.

Merkleys suit charges:

1. The Defendants conspired to conceal from the Senate and public all of the documents from Kavanaughs three most formative professional years, as Staff Secretary in the George W. Bush White House.

2. The Defendants conspired to conceal 100,000 documents from Kavanaughs time of service as a lawyer in the White House Counsels Office under President George W. Bush. The Defendants empowered Mr. William Burck, a partisan lawyer with profound conflicts of interest, to utilize executive privilege on behalf of President Trump to block Senate access to the relevant documents.

3. The Defendants conspired to further limit access to documents by utilizing the services of William Burck to label 141,000 pages Committee Confidential, limiting the ability of Senators to speak about them and to communicate with experts and members of the public about the contents.

The events of the past ten days have only underscored how critical it is that the Senate conduct a careful and comprehensive review of a nominee before giving its consent, Merkley said. But this President has gone to lengths never seen before to make sure we cant do that job. The unprecedented obstruction of the Senates advice and consent obligation is an assault on the separation of powers and a violation of the Constitution. The President and Mitch McConnell want to ram through this nomination come hell or high water, without real advice or informed consent by the Senate, but thats just not how our Constitution works.

Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said, At every turn, this process has been one shrouded in secrecy and is discordant with the process as laid out in the Constitution.

Even with the credible accusations of three women hanging over their head, Republicans are pushing forward to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the highest court in the land- a huge, lifetime promotion, even though he has been caught lying during a confirmation process twice, and even though they dont have any answers regarding the allegations because they refuse to investigate. Additionally, there are tens of thousands of documents Republicans have kept hidden from the public, contrary to normal procedure and their role to advise and consent.

This lawsuit appears to be based on arguments with merit, but its doubtful that any court will want to interfere in this process. Over and over again, we have seen the safeguards that are supposed to protect us from wild abuses of the constitution and a takeover by extremists fail in the wake of Donald Trump and his Republican enablers.

Merkley is right, what Republicans have done is wildly in contrast with their duty to the constitution and role.1.1k SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard

Senate Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) showed how low he is willing to go be praising Republican male Senators outsourcing their hearing hit job on Dr. Christine Blasey Ford to woman Republican Arizona prosecutor.

Video:

McConnell said on the Senate floor, I am encouraged by the committees choice of Rachel Mitchell, a career prosecutor with decades of experience in sensitive investigationsIts time, Mr. President for senators to hear from both Dr. Ford and Judge Kavanaugh under oath. Tomorrow, well do just that and then it will be time to vote.

Republicans didnt need a prosecutor to question Dr. Blasey Ford

Mitch McConnell was praising the men on the Republican Judiciary Committee for a cowardly abandonment of their responsibilities. A bunch of old white men who are scared to face the nation and attack a woman who has a credible story to tell about sexual assault. The Republican men need to stand behind their words, instead of hiding behind a hired gun prosecutor.

The hearing is not a criminal trial. The move to bring in an outside counsel to question Dr. Ford and Kavanaugh was another attempt to confuse people into believing that there is a legal threshold for credibility. The hearing on Thursday isnt about Christine Blasey Ford. It is about the honesty, credibility, and fitness of Brett Kavanaugh for a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court.

If Republicans really believed Kavanaugh, they would investigate the sexual assault allegations against him. If the White House believed Brett Kavanaugh, they would direct the FBI to investigate the sexual assault allegations. The fact that no Republican who supports Kavanaugh is willing to back an investigation to prove his innocence should tell you all that you need to know.

Republicans dont believe Brett Kavanaugh, but with a midterm election less than two months away, they are rushing to fill the seat before they are voted out of power.

Senate Judiciary Republicans deserve the scorn of a nation for the hit job they have set up for their sham hearing on Thursday. It wont wont work. What they are doing is going to live on in the minds of voters long after the Kavanaugh confirmation vote has come and gone.

For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group.

Follow Jason Easley on Facebook.673 SHARES Facebook Twitter Whatsapp Pinterest Reddit Print Mail Flipboard

The Senate Judiciary Committee will hear tomorrow from four people who corroborate Dr. Christine Fords claims of sexual assault by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

Although the four people will not be allowed to testify in person, the attorneys for Ford announced that they have sworn and signed declarations from all four people.

The documents have been sent to the Judiciary Committee by Fords attorneys, according to USA TODAY.

They include signed and sworn declarations from Fords husband and three of Fords friends who support the California college professors sexual assault accusation against Kavanaugh.

Ford claims that the Supreme Court nominee pinned her to a bed, groped her and attempted to pull off her clothes at a private house party while both were high school students in Maryland in 1982.

The Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday may decide the fate of Kavanaughs embattled nomination.

Although Kavanaugh is now facing a second accusation of sexual assault, from Yale University classmate Deborah Ramirez, the hearing tomorrow will not address those claims. Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley said that Ramirez will not be allowed to testify during Thursdays hearing.

According to Ramirez, Kavanaugh exposed himself and pushed his genitals into her face at a drunken party during the 1983-84 academic year at Yale.

Kavanaugh has denied all accusations from Ford and Ramirez. He did a national television interview on Fox News Monday night where he, with his wife sitting alongside him, denied all claims against him and vowed to fight them and continue his attempt to be confirmed to the Supreme Court.

In one declaration, Ford friend Adela Gildo-Mazzon said Ford told her about the Kavanaugh assault during a meal at a restaurant in Mountain View, California in June of 2013.

Gildo-Mazzon contacted Fords attorneys on September 16 to tell them Ford had told her about the alleged assault five years ago. Her declaration reads:

During our meal, Christine was visibly upset, so I asked her what was going on. Christine told me she had been having a hard day because she was thinking about an assault she experienced when she was much younger. She said she had been almost raped by someone who was now a federal judge. She told me she had been trapped in a room with two drunken guys, and that she had escaped, ran away and hid.

According to her declaration, Gildo-Mazzon has known Ford for more than 10 years.

In another declaration Fords friend Keith Koegler said Ford revealed the alleged assault to him in 2016. He said they were watching their children play in a public place while discussing the light sentence received by Stanford University student Brock Turner who had been convicted of rape.

Christine expressed anger at Mr. Turners lenient sentence, stating that she was particularly bothered by it because she was assaulted in high school by a man who was now a federal judge in Washington, D.C., Koegler said.

It is not known how much weight these declarations will carry in a Judiciary Committee hearing, but they will definitely add credibility to Dr. Fords expected testimony.

Without hearing from more witnesses, and without an FBI investigation, the full truth will not be heard by the American people. What the Senate Judiciary Committee is doing is a sham and a travesty because they are not seeking the truth and they are not seeking justice. Their only goal is a quick confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh, and they will do everything in their power to ram through his nomination to the Supreme Court as quickly as possible.The Second Eurasian Womens Forum held in St. Petersburg last week reportedly brought together 2,000 politicians, entrepreneurs, scientists and public figures from 110 countries to discuss a raft of political and economic issues.

According to organizers, the highlight of the event was the plenary session titled Women for Global Security and Sustainable Development, featuring an address by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

But for Russian state media, an event dedicated to the empowerment of women was seized on as an opportunity to lavish praise on the Russian president.

One video, published by Russian Insider under the title Women Went Crazy Around Putin! Russian President Was A Superstar At Eurasian Womens Forum, insinuated that the Russian president was the reason the women had gotten dolled up for the event.

While footage from that report shows attendees giving Putin a cordial welcome, Margarita Simonyan, editor in chief of RT, told Russia-1's Evening With Vladimir Solovyov that the Russian president received a reception more befitting of a rock star, claiming that a serious international audience of women were rushing in a last ditch effort to meet him like schoolchildren at a Beatles concert.

But when Solovyov pitched a seemingly pre-prepared question -- Why do women from different countries, not all (of whom) treat Russia unequivocally well, why do they react like this to Putin?  Simonyan responded with a false claim.

Im always arguing with my acquaintances and friends working in the so-called or not so-called opposition media  who love to repeat the phrase: the whole world is against us, Simonyan said. I always want to point out to my friends: And what, China isnt the world, India isnt the world, the Arab world, almost all of which is completely on our side, well a significant part of it, isnt the world? Latin America isnt the world? People dont notice their own snobbism and their well, what borders on xenophobia. They dont respect other nations, because for those people, the world is the Western world, and not just people from the so-called Western world, but the Western establishment

Simonyan went on to state that the largest part of the world in terms of population shares Russias annoyance with the hypocrisy emanating from the West, adding that even Nino Burjanadze, former chairperson of Georgias parliament, reacted very positively despite the fact that Georgia is the only country with which Russia has officially gone to war. She added that American representatives were also in attendance.

But what about the claim that disdain for Russian policy in general and Putin in particular is strictly a manifestation of the Western establishment?

According to 2017 poll results released by Pew Research Center, Russias international image is more negative than positive, with 34% of respondents viewing Russia in a positive light overall, and 40% viewing it negatively.

Decidedly mixed opinions were found in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and Latin America.

Of the countries surveyed in the Middle East, where the United Nations has implicated Russia in war crimes in Syria, 93% of Jordanians, 62% of Turks and 61% of Israelis expressed a negative view of Russia, according to Pew. The Lebanese were relatively split, with 48% expressing negative sentiment vs. 47% positive, while Tunisians were also narrowly divided at 37% negative vs. 39% positive.

But Simonyan was correct that Indians do generally hold a favorable view of Russia, with 47% expressing a favorable view and only 13% indicating an unfavorable one.

Data for China was unavailable, but a plurality of South Koreans (41%) and a majority of Japanese (61%) hold an unfavorable opinion of Russia. By contrast, 83% of Vietnamese and 53% of Filipinos have a positive view of Russia.

In Latin America, a slim plurality of Brazilians (36%) expressed a negative view of Russia (vs. 35% positive). Argentinians were split at 27% each, while a slim plurality of Columbians (32%) expressed a positive attitude toward Russia (vs. 31% negative). Other countries where pluralities expressed positive sentiment were Mexico (32%), Peru (41%) and Venezuela (38%).

A plurality of South Africans and Kenyans expressed a negative view of Russia (40% and 29%, respectively), while a plurality of respondents in Ghana (33%), Nigeria (45%), Senegal (34%) and Tanzania (45%) maintained a positive attitude towards Russia.

Regarding the Russian president, the center reported that worldwide, a median of 60% say they lack confidence in Putins global leadership.

A 2017 survey by the Worldwide Independent Network/Gallup International Association (WIN/GIA) did find the Russian president had gained ground, moving from a 33% favorability rating in 2015 to 43% in 2017 (with 40% that year holding an unfavorable opinion). But that plurality of support falls far short of a global embrace.

In January, Gallup International released its 41st Annual End of Year Survey. While that survey did find that Putin is globally more popular than U.S. President Donald Trump, majorities from India, Iraq, South Africa and nearly two dozen other countries reject both Trump and Putin.

As noted by Gallup International Association (GIA) Vice President Andrey Milekhin: The choice between these two Presidents is not an easy one and at the end the candidate against both won.

As for Georgia, Simonyans account of Burjanadzes warmth towards Putin doesnt erase the fact that 75% of Georgians have an unfavorable or very unfavorable attitude toward the Russian president, according to the results of a GORBI survey released this month.

So while global opinion on Putin and Russia is clearly mixed, claims that opposition to the Kremlin is the sole purview of the Western establishment are patently false.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.Mary Katherine, who also goes by MK, covers health care for The Post and Courier. She is also pursuing a master's degree in data science. She grew up in upstate New York and enjoys playing cards, kayaking and the Blue Ridge Mountains.U.S. District Judge P. Michael Duffy stands in his chambers on Sept. 24, 2018. He will retire at the end of the month after 23 years on the bench. Photo by Brian HicksTony Bartelme, senior projects reporter for The Post and Courier, has earned national honors from the Nieman, Scripps, Loeb and National Press foundations and is a four-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Twitter: @tbartelme Signal: 843-412-2283.Robert Behre works as an editorial writer with a focus on local government, transportation and the built environment.Joseph Cranney is an investigative reporter in Columbia, with a focus on government corruption and injustices in the criminal legal system. He can be reached securely by Proton mail at jcranney@prontonmail.com or on Signal at 215-285-9083.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.The Post and Courier provides a forum for our readers to share their opinions, and to hold up a mirror to our community. Publication does not imply endorsement by the newspaper; the editorial staff attempts to select a representative sample of letters because we believe its important to let our readers see the range of opinions their neighbors submit for publication.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.LAKE CITY  How the expansion of a Wabasha County dairy would impact water near the farm was the main concern brought forth during a public hearing hosted by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.

Brian and Ashley Yotter, owners of Scotch Prairie Farms LLC, plan to triple the size of their existing dairy operation in West Albany Township, about 8 miles south of Lake City.

The current operation includes 600 mature dairy cows, 141 dairy heifers and 300 dairy calves for a total of 998.7 animal units. The expansion would extend those numbers another 1,385 mature dairy cows, 159 dairy heifers and 500 dairy calves  or 2,150 more animal units  for a total of 3,149.

George Meyer, who lives east of the dairy, said the expansion will jeopardize his health and his water supply.

"Im requesting right now ... we put an extension on this and hold a public hearing so further review can take place," Meyer said.

The Sept. 17 meeting was designed as a forum where residents could give their input on the environmental assessment worksheet presented by the MPCA. The MPCA is in a 30-day comment period on the worksheet. Once that period closes Oct. 3, the MPCA plans to answer questions and concerns brought forth, and determine whether the project gets permitted or a more stringent environmental impact statement is ordered.

The environmental assessment worksheet both outlines the animal expansion of the project, the new buildings to be constructed  including several barn extensions, new barns, new underground concrete liquid manure storage pits, and milking parlors  and a new manure management plan that includes more than 1,600 acres for spreading the increased amount of manure.

Nancy Drach, a project manager with the MPCA, said the dairy has plans for spreading the more than 20 million gallons of liquid manure, which includes manure, dairy waste, wash water and other waste, on farms in three different townships.

The dairy would spread manure five days in the spring and 45 days in the fall, she said.

The project also would require a new well to supply water for the cattle and for the dairy operation.

"Cathy Rofshus, a public information officer with the MPCA, said the agency is just one of several governmental bodies that will need to sign off on the project. Others include the Department of Natural Resources, which would permit the new well, and Wabasha County, which would need to approve a conditional-use permit for the dairy expansion.

Also included in the environmental assessment worksheet is an air quality modeling report. That report, Drach said, shows that even on the worst potential day around the dairy, the air quality  measured in parts per billion of hydrogen sulfide  would not exceed state standards.

"The EAW is an information gathering tool," Drach said. "It is not an endorsement, approval or rejection of a project. Were trying to put together various potential impacts and were asking people whats not in there."

Meyer, who called the family-owned farm a factory farm, said, "When the factory farms come in, they ruin the family farms."

Brian Yotter said the expansion was a necessity for this dairy operation. "For the future of the family farm, he said, "this is what we feel we need to move forward."The two contenders for the Guam delegate seat shared their views with island business leaders Wednesday at the Hilton Guam Resort & Spa.

Sen. Michael San Nicolas and former Public Auditor Doris Flores Brooks addressed the Guam Chamber of Commerce's monthly general membership meeting.

It was the first public exchange between the two candidates this general election season. The general election is on Nov. 6  39 days from now.

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Each spoke about the issues they believe are most important to the island, and their strategies for getting things done if elected to represent Guam in the U.S. Congress.

Mandates and strategies

In her opening remarks, Brooks focused on federal laws that take a financial toll on the government of Guam without adequate financial help from the U.S. government. Brooks said she's "seen the toll of unfunded mandates ... on GovGuam's revenues." She highlighted four that she said she would seek funding for if elected to Congress.

 The earned income tax credit, which costs Guam taxpayers more than $50 million to pay out every year.

 The low Medicare reimbursement rate, stuck at 1990 levels, that pays less than half the cost of providing services.

 Convincing Congress to increase Compact-impact funding  to help Guam bear the cost of public services to regional migrants  by working with the other affected jurisdictions to devise a common methodology to more accurately measure the costs.

 Getting federal funding for war reparations rather than having it come out of Guam's Section 30 funds.

San Nicolas also talked about mandates and "the inequity that we have in our Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements."

"The issues here on Guam that we are faced with federally aren't just Guam issues," San Nicolas said, "they're fundamentally American issues."

He also talked about the need for new strategies to get things done.

"If we're going to be moving our issues forward in Congress... we're going to have to employ new methods."

San Nicolas said he would use social media to target voters in the congressional districts of representatives whose votes are needed on the issues important to Guam.

Brooks also touched on strategy, pointing out that more CHamoru people live in the states than on Guam. She said she would harness their influence to effect change.

Military buildup

Both Brooks and San Nicolas declared their support for the military buildup.

"It's necessary for us to support it," San Nicolas said, "because it's going to create the opportunities ... to allow for our people to stay here on Guam and find jobs and not have to leave."

He said, "It's the exodus of our people that's actually the biggest detriment to our culture."

"I am a supporter of the military buildup," declared Brooks. "Guam has two major economies," she said, tourism and the military. "Anything that we can do to build that up, I am supportive of it."

However, both emphasized that the buildup should benefit everyone, not only those inside the military base but those outside the fence as well.

Differences

Neither candidate criticized the other directly but they did highlight their differences.

"One of the biggest differences between finance and accounting," said San Nicolas, whose background is in finance, "is that accounting looks at the day-to-day; finance looks at the future. Accounting looks at where you have been. Finance tells you where you need to go."

Brooks asked, "Who do you want to send to Congress? I have the experience, I have the maturity, I have the temperament," she said.

She also pointed out that she has worked on "both sides of the aisle" for Democrats as well as Republicans.

"No legislation can go forward without bipartisan support," Brooks said.BOYERTOWN  A lot can happen when small towns are given the opportunity to improve.

Community leaders and members of the Department of Community and Economic Development got a chance to see that firsthand on Tuesday, Sept. 25, during a downtown tour of Boyertown.

Despite the rainy weather, Dennis Davin, secretary of the Department of Community and Economic Development, and local community leaders took a walking tour of Boyertown Tuesday to take a look and how some of the state funding the town has received has helped boost Boyertowns tourism, development and community interest.

Were really here to showcase the increase in private investors that has happened because of this funding and all the different partners, all the businesses, residents and everybody really working together on the revitalization process, said Adrianne Blank, main street manager with Building a Better Boyertown.

According to the Department of Community and Economic Development, $50,000 in funding from the Wolf administration helped to provide facade work in the downtown area. Additionally, the anchor building at 39-45 S. Reading Avenue was supported by a $300,000 state grant to rehabilitate the property into a restaurant and mixed-use space on the first floor and renovate the five upstairs apartments.

The multi-phase railyard redevelopment project of Colebrookdale Railroad Preservation Trust, was also awarded a $1.5 million grant through the Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program earlier this year to construct a regional welcome center and community event center with a 100-foot tower, replicating landmark railway terminals from Pennsylvanias history.

The tour, led by Building a Better Boyertown, highlighted important areas including the new facades downtown, a stop inside the State Theater on North Reading Avenue; a brand new full service restaurant that is currently under construction and expected to open in the coming months, as well as a look inside some of the cars at the Colebrookdale Railroad.

I think the misconception is that every young person wants to go to Philadelphia or Pittsburgh in the west and there are communities like this that really redefine themselves and really continue to develop amenities that are able to attract younger people. They have the brewpubs and the wine tours and things like that so there are interesting things to do, said Davin.

What do we need to do in terms of support to help these communities? Well we looked at some of the things we funded throughout the downtown area and in the railroad area and its really great for us to see this first hand but also to see what the continued need is, said Davin.

Following the tour, Davin said he is hopeful for future projects in the borough given the strong community support they town has already received from its residents and private investors.

Walking through the main street district, you really get a sense of character and pride unique to Boyertown, said Davin. The progress made here is a testament to the strong partnerships in the area, and the Wolf Administration is proud to be part of that progress. Were excited to continue to support Boyertowns revitalization efforts in the years ahead.Even though Melissa Dougherty only lives about two miles from Pope John Paul II High School, it takes her son nearly one hour to be get to school on the bus service provided by Spring-Ford Area School District.

Monday night, she and two other PJP parents  Lisa DiRico and Colleen OBrien  asked the school board to provide a shorter ride.

I have two girls that go to Spring-Ford and they get home pretty quickly, and a son who goes to Pope John Paul and his ride is 55 minutes, Dougherty said.

And last week, a different school board fielded a different busing complaint from a different set of parents from a different Catholic school.

Three Pottstown parents whose children attend St. Aloysius Parish School in Lower Pottsgrove complained at the Sept. 20 Pottstown School Board meeting that once their children complete fifth grade, the district stops busing them, even though it had when they were younger.

In both cases, the answers the parents received are rooted in Pennsylvania law.

Although state law does not require a school district to provide transportation to its students at all, when it does, public school districts must provide transportation for all students, public and private  and under the same constraints.

According to the Pennsylvania Department of Education: When a school district provides transportation for its public pupils, it must provide transportation services to nonpublic pupils of the same grade level that it is providing for its own pupils. The nonpublic school must be nonprofit and located within ten miles of the districts boundary, measured by the nearest public road. If the school building in which the pupil is enrolled is not located within the ten-mile distance, the nonpublic pupil is not eligible for transportation, nor are his parents eligible for payment towards transportation costs.

And that is the primary rule governing the complaints made by Mary Robinson, Mike Scatarella and Michelle Gaski, all of whom wanted to know why Pottstown stops transporting their children after fifth grade at St. Aloysius Parish School, which educates children through the eighth grade.

A lot of the buses go right past our house, its not like were not asking them to make a stop they didnt always make, said Scatarella, who lives across town on Upland Street.

The simple answer is, Pottstown is a walking school district and all students walk, with the exception of those who have to cross Route 100 to get to school.

That road is considered a hazard by PennDOT and so the district must transport students who would cross it to get to school. But fifth grade is the last grade for which that transportation is provided, confirmed John Armato, the districts director of community relations.

That means, as Pottstown School Board President Amy Francis explained to the St. Aloysius parents last week, that it is the last grade for which transportation is provided to the Keim Street Catholic school as well.

If we provided bus transportation for your sixth-graders, then we would have to do it for the whole district, and that would be very expensive, said Francis, noting that Pottstown is already under-funded by the state by more than $13 million each year and had to raise taxes 3.5 percent for the current year to balance its budget.

Pottstown also completely outsourced its transportation department, laying off 14 employees.

Some corners have no crossing guards and we are counting on older siblings to get students home, said Spruce Street resident Mary Robinson.

According to the state education department, PennDOT regulations do not address hazards other than road or traffic conditions. The local district may assess conditions such as bad neighborhoods, secluded wooded areas, snow removal, etc., when developing transportation routes.Gaski, a resident of North Evans Street, said the school is three or four miles from her home. (A Google Maps check indicated it is 1.7 miles.)

According to state rules, a school district can ask a student to walk as much as 1.5 miles to a school or bus stop.

A single mother raising two children and a grandson, Gaski said she is currently using Uber to get her child to school, but that costs a lot of money and I dont make a lot of money, she said.

Francis said she sent her children to private school for a time, so I really do understand. Nevertheless, she told the parents that although the district has answered this question before, it would be re-examined.

She invited them to the Oct. 11 policy committee meeting where it would be discussed.

At Spring-Ford, the problem is not that the buses dont take their students, but that it takes too long, the parents said Monday.

Dougherty said the afternoon bus run takes just Pope John Paul II students and is not a problem. But the morning run takes nearly an hour, takes all the PJP students to Spring-Ford High School where they have to wait another 15 minutes, before a bus brings them to their school.

Were forced to drive our children, otherwise theyre on the bus for an hour, said DiRico who, like Daugherty, lives in the Providence Chase development off Hopwood Road in Upper Providence.

State rules set no time limits on how long a school bus ride can be.

Spring-Ford Superintendent David Goodin said the district strives to make all bus runs under an hour and said because the schools have different start times, the routes are made to be as efficient as possible.

But Dougherty, who said she pays $12,000 a year in taxes and should get better service for her money, argued that a bus ride of nearly an hour to travel two miles cannot be considered efficient.

And sometimes they have to sit three to a seat, said DiRico. Everybodys working and this is inconvenient. We should get tax reduction.

After the meeting, School Board President Tom DiBello told the mothers he would look into the matter and see if he could find them a better answer.The big Democratic talking point of the moment against moving to a confirmation vote on Judge Kavanaugh is the necessity of an FBI background check to investigate the Democrats late hits. Democrats amplify the talking point by dint of repetition among their media adjunct. Against the odds, then Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Joe Biden usefully explained the vacuity of this talking point under somewhat analogous circumstances in 1991. The next person that refers to an FBI report as being worth anything obviously doesnt understand anything, Biden said at the time. FBI explicitly does not in this or any other case reach a conclusion. Period.

Biden explained: The reason why we cannot rely on the FBI report, you wouldnt like it if we did, because it is inconclusive. They say he said, she said, and they said. Period. So when people wave an FBI report before you, understand, they do not  reach conclusions. They do not make  recommendations.

Biden added this: I said from the beginning, this is about whether or not sexual harassment occurred. And lastly, Judge, with me, from the beginning and at this moment, until the end, the presumption is with you. Now we are going to hear more witnesses. They are going to come in and corroborate your position and hers. And we will find out whether they are telling the truth or not, as best as we are capable of doing, just like you as a judge are when you look them in the eye and make a judgment.

Once more: Judge, this is less directed at you than it is to my pontificating colleagues, Democrat and Republican alike, so, Judge, I have not made my judgment, based upon this proceeding, because we have not heard all the evidence.

The committee of course has its own investigative staff to collect statements subject to the federal false statements statute and otherwise to collect evidence. It is necessary to assign the collection of evidence to the FBI.

Bidens departure from the Democratic talking point of the moment is an accident of history. NRs Mairead McArdle points out that Biden has now called for the FBI to look into the accusations of sexual assault against Judge Kavanaugh.Lawyers tell a story about the guy who was arguing an appeal and getting skeptical questions from a judge. Your Honor, if you dont like that argument, he said, I have two others that are equally persuasive.

This is where we are now with the Democrats attempt to derail Judge Kavanaughs Supreme Court nomination. Michael Avenatti, Stormy Daniels lawyer and purportedly a Democratic presidential candidate, has unveiled accuser number three, Julie Swetnick. The Democrats are obviously trying to make up in quantity what their claims lack in quality. Their problem is that Swetnicks story is the most absurd of the three they have unveiled so far.

Ms. Swetnick says that during the early 1980s she attended quite a few parties in the D.C. area where Brett Kavanaugh and Mark Judgea nice touch, trying to discredit the witness who blows Christine Fords fantasy out of the waterwere present. At these parties, she became aware that Kavanaugh and others spiked the punch bowl with drugs, and girls were commonly gang raped. Ms. Swetnick says she continued attending these drunken, depraved partiesher idea of a good time, apparentlybut she avoided the punch.

Nevertheless, she claims she was eventually gang raped herself, in approximately 1982. Not by Kavanaugh or Judge, of course. Sadly, she didnt think to report these serial gang rapes (including her own) to the police back in approximately 1982. Hey, better late than never.

For what its worth, Swetnick doesnt actually accuse Brett Kavanaugh of any wrongful conduct as to herself.

Swetnick graduated from high school in 1980, Kavanaugh in 1983. She had to place her purported gang rape in approximately 1982 in order to coincide with Kavanaughs high school years. If she had placed it when she herself was in high school, Kavanaugh would have been around 14 years old. So she claims to have been a college student attending high school parties.

Swetnicks story is absurd on its face. I doubt that anyone actually believes it, but that hardly matters: the headlines will scream that three women have accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct during his youth. We see here the fruits of Senate Republicans improvident decision to reopen Kavanaughs confirmation hearing and push back the vote on his nomination. (To be fair, that decision may have been dictated by squishy members of the GOP Senate caucus.) I dont doubt that the Democrats can scrape up a couple more obviously false stories if they are given a little more time.Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley today rejected the Democrats request to delay Thursdays hearing on Judge Brett Kavanaughs nomination to the Supreme Court. (The real hearing, of course, ended a couple of weeks ago, and this is a post-hearing farce.) His letter to Senator Dianne Feinstein is embedded below. A few choice quotes:

You suggest that Dr. Fords testimony should be further delayed because of allegations made in the New Yorker by Deborah Ramirez. I am unclear why Ms. Ramirezs claims should have any bearing on Dr. Fords testimony. In fact, the obvious connection between the two claims is that Senate Democrats hid both allegations of misconduct from the Committee and the public.

I think Grassley is losing patience. At last.

As of now, the only allegations of which the Committee is aware with respect to Ms. Ramirez are the allegations described in the New Yorker. As you know, false statements made to the press are not subject to criminal penalty, but false statements to Congress are. If Ms. Ramirez submits testimony and evidence to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which Committee investigators have requested, we can decide how to proceed. But, at this time, Democratic staff has not shared any such evidence it has with Republican staff.

Here is the letter; click to enlarge:





I should add that the letter comes from Margot Clevelands Twitter feed, the only place I have seen it.

Grassleys letter assumes that Ford will testify on Thursday pursuant to the Committees invitation, but it is not clear that Ford will actually show up. At last word, Committee staff were still going back and forth with Fords lawyerswho are obnoxious partisansabout the logistics of her testimony. In my view, Fords lawyers (who is paying them, by the way?) seem to be looking for a way out, an excuse for Ford not to appear.

Why might Ms. Ford want to dodge a Committee appearance? Grassleys admonition with regard to the criminal penalties for lying to Congress apply to Ford as much as to Ramirez, and, while there is probably zero chance of Ford facing criminal prosecutionhowever much she may deserve itlying under oath is uncomfortable for most people. I think it is entirely possible that Ford may not appear on Thursday, in which case the Democrats delaying tactics will collapse and Kavanaugh will speedily be confirmed. Alternatively, if Ford does show up, she will face cross-examination by an actual lawyer, which could have the same effect. Speaking for myself, I would gladly cross-examine her for free; or would have during my lawyer days, anyway. Her testimony, should she choose to give it, is ridiculously weak.

A reader raises some questions about Fords account that, while obviously secondary at best, given her storys patent falsity, are nevertheless interesting and could play a part in her apparent reluctance to testify under oath:

Could the house where the alleged party took place actually beChristines house? Maybe her parents were away. That would explain why (1) no one drove her there; (2) no one drove her home after the alleged incident; (3) why she couldnt tell her parents. She never left her own party which is why Leland didnt notice anything. Its not like her family wasnt relatively socially prominent in the area; her father was president of Burning Tree at one point. There would have been hell to pay if he ever knew that his daughter had been assaulted by Georgetown Prep kids. There were, supposedly 5 kids present. The party, as has been pointed out, must have been held at the home of one of them. Or are we to believe it was at the (empty) house of someone not present? No wonder she doesnt want to testify! I can see a great female criminal attorney or litigator destroying her in cross examination.

So can I. I will say, however, that the more salient reason why Ford couldnt tell her parents about the assault is that the assault never happened. It was manufactured decades after the fact for political purposes.Fact.MR

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The aerospace landscape is witnessing a paradigm shift towards additive manufacturing using innovative composite materials, on account of a greater emphasis on manufacturing more integrated aircraft structures and components. Growing demand for permanent autopilot and electrification continues to provide impetus to lightweight construction of aircrafts components. The buoyancy in the aerospace floor panel market can also be attributed to increasing focus on reducing overall weight to fulfill the broader goal of improving fuel efficiency. Moreover, innovations to improve structural strength and rigidity, thereby, replacing solid metals, will significantly influence the growth of aerospace floor panel market.Recently, a leading advanced composites manufacturer established a testing lab in Shanghai, China. The testing lab has been set up in joint collaboration with a a Chinese aerospace parts manufacturer. The testing lab will offer services in the wake of increasing consumer demands in the commercial aerospace landscape in APAC. More such accredited testing labs have been established to conduct R&D in composite materials.- Lead Analyst, Automotive Industry, Fact.MR Request For Sample Report- https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=S&rep_id=32 Additionally, to reduce the risk of losing valuable market share and potential contracts, key manufacturers are adopting quickly changing technology in the form RFID tags. With support from Air Transport Association (ATA) and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to use passive RFID tags for aircraft parts, the adoption of RFID will gain momentum in the coming years. RFID solutions, for manufacturers could mean efficient identification, tracking, and managing critical aircraft components and for operators, it would improve overall maintenance efficiency and performance. Determining replacement history for essential cabin components such as the aerospace floor panel through RFID is projected to reduce lead time and hazardous waste removal, by removing only what is required. Fact.MRs report on the global aerospace floor panel market anticipates significant growth for aerospace floor panel market for the forecast period 2017-2022.-The report also indicates that since flooring units determine the overall weight of the aircraft, increasing components costs could restrict the market growth to a certain extent considering high fragmentation and intense competition among key players.Sales of aerospace floor panel is projected to remain the highest in North America owing to the presence of key aircraft manufacturers including Bombardier and Airbus Group, Inc. However, an in-depth analysis by Fact.MR indicates that India, China, Russia will emerge as significant players in aircraft manufacturing, presenting a fair competition to the todays incumbent. In the coming years, the overall aircraft manufacturing landscape is likely to head towards consolidation, with a cost advantage on the side of emerging markets. The growing investments in their respective aviation sectors by China, Russia, and India are also likely to create significant growth opportunities for aerospace floor panel manufacturers during the assessment period.To Get latest insights on Aerospace Floor Panel Market, Visit - https://www.factmr.com/report/32/aerospace-floor-panel-market The report also suggests significant sales of aerospace floor panel through OEMs compared to aftermarket till 2022. Strategic partnerships and alliances between manufactures and OEMs will further strengthen the supply chain, in turn, improving sales of aerospace floor panel in the coming years. Moreover, sales of aerospace floor panel is expected to remain high considering fleet expansion of commercial and regional airlines, which would further call for increased aftermarket activities including retrofit and refurbishment tasks. According to the report, narrow-body aircrafts continue to account for the highest demand for aerospace floor panels. However, the status quo in the market is likely to change on account of growing proliferation of wide-body aircrafts. Fact.MRs comprehensive report on aerospace floor panel market delivers critical insights on key companies operating the market along with their winning strategies and key company developments. A leading name in the aviation components manufacturing, Triumph Group, in 2017, signed an agreement with Boeing to provide them with environmental control systems (ECS) ducting and floor panels. Strategic partnerships, M&A, and new product innovations are likely to be key forward market strategies adopted by other players in the aerospace floor panel market. The research study also offers comprehensive analysis and insights on the product strategies employed by other key players in the market including Rockwell Collins, Inc., Avcorp Industries, Inc., and Zodiac Aerospace ECE.To Buy Aerospace Floor Panel Market Report, Visit- https://www.factmr.com/checkout/32/S About Fact.MR Fact.MR is a fast-growing market research firm that offers the most comprehensive suite of syndicated and customized market research reports. We believe transformative intelligence can educate and inspire businesses to make smarter decisions. We know the limitations of the one-size-fits-all approach; that's why we publish multi-industry global, regional, and country-specific research reports.PR-Inside.com: 2018-09-26 19:08:02

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The Global Artificial Intelligence Market is anticipated to reach USD 54 billion by 2026. The advancements of robots and the rise in their deployment rate particularly, in the developing economies globally have had a positive impact on the global artificial intelligence market. Augmented customer experience, expanded application areas, enhanced productivity, and big data integration has highly propelled artificial intelligence market worldwide.Although, absence of adequate skilled workforce as well as threat to human dignity are some of the factors that could affect the growth of the market. However, these factors are expected to have minimal impact on the market attributed to the introduction of advanced technologies.Request sample copy of this report @ https://www.polarismarketresearch.com/industry-analysis/artificial-intelligence-market/request-for-free-sample An extraordinary increase in productivity has been achieved with machine-learning. For instance, Google, with the help of its experimental driverless technology has transformed cars including, Toyota Prius. Integration of various tools by artificial intelligence has helped in the transformation of business management. These tools include brand purchase advertising, workflow management tools, trend predictions among others. For example, the Googles voice accuracy technology has 98% of accuracy rate. Furthermore, Facebooks DeepFace technology has a success rate of approximately 97% in recognizing faces. Such accuracy in technologies is further anticipated to bolster the market growth during the forecast period.Currently, North America dominates the global Artificial Intelligence market attributed to the high government funding availability, existence of prominent artificial intelligence providers in the region, and robust technical adoption base. Also, the region is expected to continue its dominance during the forecast period. Moreover, the adoption of cloud-based services in key economies, such as the US and Canada, is considerably adding to the market growth in the North American region. The markets in Asia Pacific, MEA and South America region are expected to notice a high growth during the coming years. The growth in Asia Pacific region is attributed to the increasing demand for artificial technologies by the developing economies. Thus, the region is anticipated to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period.Major companies profiled in the report include Google Inc., Intel Corporation, Nvidia Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, IBM Corporation, General Vision, Inc., Qlik Technologies Inc., MicroStrategy, Inc., Brighterion, Inc., and Baidu, Inc. among others.Make Inquiry about this report @ https://www.polarismarketresearch.com/industry-analysis/artificial-intelligence-market/inquire-before-buying Key Findings from the study suggest North America is expected to command the market over the forecast years. APAC is presumed to be the fastest growing market, developing at a CAGR of more than 65% over the forecast period. The artificial intelligence market is presumed to develop at a CAGR of over 55.9% from 2018 to 2026. The high implementation of artificial intelligence in several end-user verticals including, retail, automotive and healthcare is projected to boost the growth of the market over the forecast period. Several companies are making considerable investments to integrate artificial intelligence competences into their portfolio of products. For instance, in 2016, SK Telecom and Intel Corporation signed an agreement for the development of the artificial intelligence based vehicle-to-everything (V2X) technology as well as video recognition.Snapshot  Table of Content:-1. Overview and Scope2. Executive Summary3. Artificial Intelligence Market Insights4. Artificial Intelligence Market Size and Forecast by Technology5. Artificial Intelligence Market Size and Forecast by End-use Verticals6. Artificial Intelligence Market Size and Forecast by Regions7. Company Profiles.Complete Report is Available at @ https://www.polarismarketresearch.com/industry-analysis/artificial-intelligence-market/ 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.com Web: www.polarismarketresearch.comDisclaimer: If you have any questions regarding information in this press release please contact the company added in the press release. Please do not contact pr-inside. We will not be able to assist you. PR-inside disclaims the content included in this release.Fact.MR

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The global womens wear market is prognosticated to get shot in the arm as fashion becomes a larger part of peoples lives. The reason for this is that it is not just women showing interest in fashion but also men as new products continue to fill shelves. Promotion and marketing of womens wear have also played a critical role in increasing the demand in the global market. This could be supported by rapid urbanization and industrialization witnessed in leading regions of the global womens wear market. Rise of online retail and e-shopping could act as another factor propelling the growth of the global womens wear market.Latest fashion trends becoming popular on social media are envisioned to provide a fillip to the growth of the global womens wear market. Increasing consumer confidence could help the global womens wear market to gain impetus in terms of sales growth. Improving disposable income, especially in APEJ, is expected to push the demand for womens wear. Growth in the number of working women around the world could also increase the demand in the global womens wear market.Request For Sample Report- https://www.factmr.com/connectus/sample?flag=S&rep_id=115 Fact.MR projects the global womens wear market to reach an US$829.6 bn valuation by the end of 2022. Among various categories of womens wear, ethnic wear is poised to be valued at a US$64.1 bn by the same year. This segment could also post a higher CAGR among other womens wear categories during the forecast period 217-2022. By revenue, it secures close to a tenth of the total share of the global womens wear market. Moreover, this share of the global womens wear market could increase in the near future. Womens wear can be classified into other categories such as footwear, accessories, trousers/skirts, sportswear, tops/shirts/T-shirts, sleepwear, winter wear, and innerwear.On the basis of demographics, the global womens wear market is segregated into 66+, 56-65, 46-55, 36-45, 26-35, and 18-25. By the end of the forecast period, a US$31.0 bn valuation could be obtained by the 18-25 womens wear market. This segment is foretold to post a 5.4% CAGR during the said forecast period. By the final forecast year, it could gain a significant share of the global womens wear market. Currently, it nearly collects a third of the total revenue share of the global womens wear market.As per sales channel, the global womens wear market is divided into online, specialty stores, franchise stores, and modern trade.To Get more information on Womens Wear Market, Visit - https://www.factmr.com/report/115/womens-wear-market From a geographical perspective, the global womens wear market is envisaged to witness the rise of APEJ as a leading region due to increase in population. On the basis of value, this region could show sheer dominance on the global womens wear market. This trend is predicted to continue until the end of the forecast period. Although it could grow at a moderate CAGR, APEJ could be one of the most attractive regions of the global womens wear market. Increasing experimentation with clothing and the sense of self-consciousness in some women, if not all, are expected to cause a surge in the sales of womens wear.Companies are expected to bank on different strategies for extending their presence in the global womens wear market. For instance, they could adopt merger and acquisition, collaboration, and new product launch to increase their share of the global womens wear market. Womens wear companies may also look to explore new markets and geographies for strengthening their position in the global market. Participating in fashion parades or shows could be a popular tactic to exhibit new product lines in the womens wear business. Word-of-mouth marketing is also expected to play an important part in popularizing new products offered in the global womens wear market.To Buy Womens Wear Market Report, Visit- https://www.factmr.com/checkout/115/S About Fact.MR Fact.MR is a fast-growing market research firm that offers the most comprehensive suite of syndicated and customized market research reports. We believe transformative intelligence can educate and inspire businesses to make smarter decisions. We know the limitations of the one-size-fits-all approach; that's why we publish multi-industry global, regional, and country-specific research reports.PR-Inside.com: 2018-09-26 08:03:01

Firm Partners with Ashoka to Launch Innovation Fund

Oliver Wyman Supports Inclusion Initiative in the Nordics

Oliver Wyman Media:

Julia Klein, +44 20 7852 7372

julia.klein@oliverwyman.com

Oliver Wyman announced today a new partnership with Ashoka, the worlds largest network for social entrepreneurs, to support a new inclusion fund called Hello Nordics.

This fall, ten social entrepreneurs  eight from Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden and two internationals  will kick off a large-scale inclusion effort across the Nordic region. The entrepreneurs each bring their own unique approach to fostering integration and inclusion. Their common goal: to scale their solutions to better both social and financial inclusion of marginalized people in the Nordic region.

The ten entrepreneurs have all been carefully selected based on their ability to address root causes in a systemic way, by involving policy makers, lawmakers, communities and target groups. The participants are Catalysts (NO), Sisters in Business (NO), Foreningen Nydansker (DK), GAME (DK), Startup Refugees (FI), Icehearts (FI), Mitt Liv (SE), Idrott Utan Granser (SE), Welcoming International (USA/Germany) and ACAF/Winkomun (Spain). (Learn more about each participant here: http://www.hello-europe.eu/nordics/)

Hello Nordics is part of a larger European integration effort and has been taken to the Nordic region by Ashoka in partnership with Oliver Wyman and several other organizations including Nordea, Acando and Vinge. The entrepreneurs enter a six-month accelerator supported by the partners to significantly scale up their activities, primarily by entering one or several Nordic countries outside their origin. Leveraging its expertise in wealth management and as part of a global ambition to use its core capabilities to achieve wide-reaching social impact, Oliver Wymans Stockholm office designed the innovation fund that will enable the entrepreneurs to scale their initiatives.

Oliver Wyman has been active on a global as well as Nordic level in promoting inclusion. Developing a fund to support entrepreneurs scale up their already successful activities was an easy decision, says Sean Cory, Nordic Market Leader at Oliver Wyman and member of the Hello Nordics Advisory Board.

Ashokas ambition is to create positive systemic change in society. We know that these ten entrepreneurs can create a more inclusive Nordic region by bringing their concrete and proven solutions to scale, said Emma Lindgren, head of Ashoka in Sweden and part of the Ashoka Nordic team.

About Hello Nordics

Hello Nordics is an accelerator program focused on scaling proven solutions around social and financial inclusion/integration across the Nordic region. Hello Nordics seeks to identify leading social entrepreneurs, provide support to scale impact and broaden the outreach. Between September 2018 and February 2019, the Hello Nordics project will support 10 leading social entrepreneurs focusing on inclusion/integration  eight initiatives from across the Nordic countries and two global initiatives with plans to spread to the region. Through the project the participants will get support to work on their scaling strategy for greater impact. Two main accelerator modules will include training, mentoring and workshops led by experts around a number of topics such as leadership, scaling strategies and impact goals. A final event will connect the participants with key scaling enablers in the region.

About Oliver Wyman

Oliver Wyman is a global leader in management consulting. With offices in 50+ cities across 26 countries, Oliver Wyman combines deep industry knowledge with specialized expertise in strategy, operations, risk management, and organization transformation. The firm's 3,700 professionals help clients optimize their business, improve their operations and risk profile, and accelerate their organizational performance to seize the most attractive opportunities. Oliver Wyman is a wholly owned subsidiary of Marsh & McLennan Companies (NYSE: MMC). For more information, visit www.oliverwyman.com. Follow Oliver Wyman on Twitter @OliverWyman.

About the partners

Ashoka is the worlds first and largest organization for social entrepreneurship and changemaking. Since 1981, Ashoka has supported more than 3,500 social entrepreneurs and over 50,000 young changemakers in 98 countries with the vision Everyone a changemaker.

Nordea is the largest financial services group in the Nordic region and one of the biggest banks in Europe. Nordea want to make a real difference - for their customers and for the communities in which they operate - by sharing its broad expertise based on 200 years in the banking business.

Acando combines deep technical knowledge with an understanding of human behavior. They innovate, streamline and mobilize organizations to achieve sustainable change.

Vinge has many of the most prominent business lawyers in Sweden. Together they number 450 co-workers in Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmo, Helsingborg and Brussels.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180925006The African Development Bank (AfDB) will be investing $24 billion in the African agriculture over the next 10 years to lift one billion people out of hunger globally.

Akinwumi Adesina, AfDB President, who disclosed this on Wednesday at an agriculture conference at Purdue University, Indianapolis, challenged global partners to join hands to lift one billion people worldwide out of hunger.

The report, which was released to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja, described the fund as the largest of such effort ever.

The banks president stressed that all must come together to fight the war.

He noted that the recent five UN agencies World Food Security and Nutrition statistics showed a decline in the global population living on less than two dollars per day.

Mr Adesina however said the statistics in reality showed that the number of hungry people in the world had increased from 777 million in 2015 to 815 million in 2016.

The bank leader warned the stakeholders not to get carried away because they were not winning the war against global hunger.

He told the audience including researchers, implementing organisations, business leaders, policymakers and donors that simple technical and scientific methods were already making a difference in farm yields and income in Africa.

While such technologies to deliver Africas green revolution exist, they are mostly just sitting on the shelves.

The release of water efficient maize varieties now allows farmers to harvest good yields in the face of moderate drought.

Today, rice varieties exist that can give yields of 8 tonnes per hectare; cassava varieties exist with yields of up to 80 tonnes per hectare.

Also, there are heat tolerant and disease resistant livestock and technologies for ramping up aquaculture, he said.

Mr Adesina said what was needed urgently was deployment of supportive policies to ensure technologies were cascaded down to millions of farmers.

All Africa needs to do is to harness the available technologies with the right policies and rapidly raise agricultural productivity and incomes for farmers and assure lower food prices for consumers.

He said the bank had launched its $1 billion initiative for Technologies for African Agricultural Transformation (TAAT), to extend the use of farm technologies.

Mr Adesina said TAAT was currently engaging seed companies, public and private entities, and financial institutions in 27 countries to make technology available to a total of 40 million African farmers.

He said the situation in sub-Saharan Africa particularly needed urgent intervention due to the ravages of climate change.

According to him, a recent report by the International Food Policy Research Institute estimated that Africa would add 38 million to its number of hungry people by 2050 as a result of climate change.

The institute also forecast that Africa will experience major food shortages by 2020 and beyond, while malnutrition will be on the rise over the next 20 years.

(NAN)The Executive Secretary, Nigerian Shippers Council (NSC), Hassan Bello, said on Wednesday that terminal operators at ports made significant investments estimated at N200 billion in the last 10 years.

Mr Bello made this known in Abuja at the ongoing Sub-Regional Workshop and Joint Standing Committee Meeting hosted by the NSC under the auspices of the Federal Ministry of Transportation.

The event was organised by the Union of African Shippers Council (UASC) in collaboration with the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

He spoke on the topic: Development of Trade Support Facilities/Infrastructure and Banefits to Trade Facilitation and National Economic Growth: Inland Dry Ports Transit Parks and Logistic Platform.

According to him, estimated investments have exceeded the N50 billion mark planned in the concession agreement for the entire period of the concession

This represented a multiple of about 400 per cent of the planned investment.

The port operators were still expected to make additional investments over the remaining years of the concession agreement.

Before the concession of the port, ship waiting time was 21 days and after the concession the waiting time came to zero.

Vessel Turn Around Time was five days before the concession and after 2006, the vessel turn-around time is 41 hours.

The Container Dwell Time was 28 days before 2006, while after the concession the Container Dwell Time is 14 days.

Port operation that was 9:a.m. to 4p.m. Monday to Friday is now 24 hours in a week.

The Inland Dry Ports (IDPs) are being developed to provide the impetus to revive and modernise the railway as a primary mode for long distance haulage.

The ICDs were established to lower the over-all costs of cargo to the hinterland as well as that of transit cargo to landlocked-neighbouring countries, Bello said.

The executive secretary explained the ICDs would bring shipping services closer to the hinterlands and local businessmen were encouraged to take part in the container trade.

He recalled that the Kaduna ICD was inaugurated by President Muhammadu Buhari, on Jan. 4, 2018, saying that the ICD was fully operational with cargo throughput of over 200 monthly.

Mr Bello said the development had opened trade window to landlocked countries bordering Nigeria, who were interested in using the port as transit point.

He further explained that Truck Transit Park (TTP) was another infrastructure project of NSC to facilitate trade in the sub-region, particularly with landlocked countries.

Mr Bello said the council was ensuring establishment of the TTP on major road corridors in Nigeria, saying that TTP was a rest area located off a highway, designed to provide temporary rest location for truck drivers.

The TTPs are primarily intended for short-term safety break and long-term parking services in highly-used road corridors.

According to him, the TTP is aimed at providing inter-connectivity with the seaports and the TTPs are being developed at Lokoja, Obollo-Afor, Illela, Benin bypass and Aviele.

The TTPs are being developed through Public Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement because it is 24-hour income stream and customers on road spend billions of naira yearly.

NSC also established Border Information Centres (BICs) in conjunction of USAID and West Africa Trade Hub (WATH), to facilitate trade and provide information for cross-border trade to facilitate effective and seamless trade.

The Border Information Centres had been established at Seme-Krake and Sokoto-Birnin Kebbi border posts and efforts are ongoing to establish more information centres in Jibiya-Maradi, Banki-Kirawa and Saki-Parakou, Mr Bello said.

He said that the council had also established the Ports Service Support Portal (PSSP), which was a complaints management portal for the maritime industry in general.

According to him, the International Cargo Tracking Notes (ICTN), which is also known as Advanced Cargo Declaration (ACD), was introduced as a means of improving the security around marine shipments.

He explained that the ICTN was a suitable tool for the collection of information on applied freight rates.

The NSC boss said that the PSSP warehouse the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) of service providers in the ports, which also promotes transparency of the procedures.

Mr Bello noted that an Act of the National Assembly of the Federal Republic of Nigeria was being initiated to establish a liability regime for the carriage of goods by land.

He, however, said that PPP had increasingly become a more effective vehicle for delivering transport and shipping infrastructure.

A paper entitled: State of Maritime Transport in West and Central Africa, was also presented by Luisa Rodriguez, Transport Section, Trade Logistic Branch of UNCTAD

Ms Rodriguez said that there was need for exports and imports to generate cargo and volumes to help achieve economy of scale and reduce trade imbalances.

She stressed the need for more participation of PPP in the transport and trade logistics sector, saying that an enabling business environment should be provided for the development of modern logistic service.

According to her, African countries are the best connected  such as Morocco, Egypt, and South Africa.

She said that sub-regional countries should be assessed by individual countries.

Ms Rodriguez said growth potential of the maritime sector in Africa was significant, saying that African countries were lagging behind in productivity but were catching up gradually.

(NAN)U.S. President Donald Trump should stop interfering in the Middle East if he wants the price of oil to stop rising, Iranian oil minister, Bijan Zanganeh, said on Wednesday.

Mr Trump is trying to seriously reduce exports of Irans oil and also ensure the price of oil does not go up, but these two cannot happen together.

If he wants the price of oil not to go up and the market not to get destabilised, he should stop unwarranted and disruptive interference in the Middle East.

He should not be an obstacle to the production and export of Irans oil.

Trump, not the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, is behind the recent rise in prices, Mr Zanganeh said.

According to him, Mr Trump blames OPEC for what he has created and caused the rise of the price of oil and disturbance in the market.

OPEC members do not have the capacity to increase production, Mr Zanganeh said.

In a speech at the UN on Tuesday, Mr Trump reiterated calls on OPEC to pump more oil and stop raising prices.

He also accused Iran of sowing chaos and promised further sanctions on the country.

The U.S. will apply sanctions to halt oil exports from Iran, the third-largest producer in OPEC, starting on November 4.

The pending loss of Iranian supply has been a major factor in the recent surge in crude prices.

(Reuters/NAN)Foreign airlines that fly on 20 popular long-haul routes to China will face fresh competitive pressure as Beijing begins to ease decade-old restrictions on October 1, allowing more Chinese carriers to offer service.

The inner view of a terminal hall of the new Daxing International Airport under construction during a government-organised media tour on the outskirts of Beijing, China August 30,

The change affects about 20 per cent of Chinese long-haul daily capacity, according to data compiled for Reuters by Chinese aviation data firm Variflight.

It will turn up the heat on U.S. and European carriers like United Airlines and Air France KLM which have higher costs, lower outbound demand from their countries and less cultural appeal to Chinese travellers.

The North American and European airlines are no match for the Chinese carriers, said Corrine Png, chief executive of Singapore-based transport consultancy, Crucial Perspective, citing the majority of traffic being driven by Chinese customers.

Some have already abandoned Chinese routes, with American Airlines recently planning to drop Shanghai-Chicago service after also cancelling Beijing-Chicago and describing the routes as a colossal loss-maker that cost it $30 million a year.

The one route, one airline policy had been in place since 2009; altering it now is a response to the changing aviation market, Chinas Civil Aviation Authority has said.

Two of the routes, Shanghai-Paris and Shanghai-Frankfurt, already have two Chinese airlines flying them, but can add one more, Variflights chief data analyst, Cong Wei, said.

Chinese airlines controlled about 50 per cent of the seats on the 20 routes, which include Beijing-Los Angeles and Shanghai-London, and had the potential for a much higher share.

These routes are divided up between state-controlled carriers China Eastern Airlines Corp Ltd, China Southern Airlines Co and Air China Ltd.

They compete against foreign airlines including Air France KLM, Lufthansa! Air Canada! British Airways! Virgin Atlantic [VA.UL], Air New Zealand. United Airlines, Delta Air Lines and American Airlines.

An Air France KLM spokeswoman said the company was monitoring the regulation change, but had very little influence on how this rule could evolve.

Competition between Europe and China is already present and increasing, the spokeswoman said.

We continue to enhance our existing partnerships to offer the most attractive products and services at competitive fares to all our customers.

This is undoubtedly the best response to this eventuality.

Delta Air Lines said China continued to be an important market for its long-term network and that it was well positioned because of its partnership with China Eastern.

Air New Zealand said it was aware of the change and was constantly assessing new route opportunities.

Lufthansa, Air Canada, British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, United Airlines and American Airlines did not respond to requests for comment.

The policy would also likely hurt incumbent Chinese airlines like Air China, which under the old rules had been able to dominate the Beijing-Los Angeles route.

Many Chinese airlines are already facing falling returns on their international business.

Rivals like Hainan Airlines, Chinas fourth-largest carrier, have been expanding their international business in secondary routes and could take on new ones, analysts said.

Out of the 20 routes opening for competition, Hainan only flies between Beijing and Toronto.

China Eastern and China Southern, headquartered respectively in Shanghai and Guangzhou, are also expected to launch new routes from the Beijing once the Chinese capitals new second airport opens in late 2019, giving the two state-owned airlines secondary bases.

The opening of Beijing Daxing International Airport was a catalyst for the governments decision to change the route policy, the Chinese aviation regulator said in May.

China Southern said it supported the policy change, while China Eastern declined to comment. Air China and Hainan Airlines did not respond to requests for comment.

Li Xiaojin, a professor at the Civil Aviation University of China, said foreign carriers could focus on developing services for the luxury end of the Chinese market or deepen recently forged tie-ups with Chinese carriers to try to retain a competitive edge.

Delta Air Lines and American Airlines respectively have small equity stakes in China Eastern and China Southern, while China Eastern owns an 8.8 per cent stake in Air France KLM.

But Mr Xiaojin said the ultimate winner would be Chinese travellers.

By liberalizing international air rights, airlines will put more capacity on popular routes, at hot timings  and provide passengers with safe, more convenient, more comfortable and economical services, he said.

(Reuters/NAN)French European affairs minister, Nathalie Loiseau, on Wednesday said Italian interior minister, Matteo Salvini, was behaving like Pontius Pilate, over his position on migrants.

Pilate was the Roman official who condemned Jesus Christ to death.

Ms Loiseau made the comments on French radio RTL as she discussed the situation regarding the Mediterranean rescue ship Aquarius.

France, Portugal, Spain and Germany agreed on Tuesday to take in migrants from the rescue ship sailing off the coast of Malta, after Italy refused to let the vessel dock.

Mr Salvini today, hes like Pontius Pilate. Its obscene, Ms Loiseau told media.

Far-right leader, Mr Salvini, who is also Italys deputy prime minister, has taken a tough line on the issue of immigrants arriving in Italy from Africa and the Middle East.

Earlier this month, he likened African immigrants to slaves at a European conference.

(Reuters/NAN)The Nigeria Labour Congress has called on all its members and affiliate unions to join its nationwide strike.

The NLC said the strike was called due to the refusal of the federal government to reconvene the meeting of the tripartite national minimum wage committee to enable it conclude its work.

The NLC President, Ayuba Wabba, said this while briefing journalists in Abuja on Wednesday.

According to him, the strike will commence from midnight of September 26.

In compliance with this mandate, all workers and private sector at all levels across the country have been directed to comply.

All public and private institutions, offices, banks, schools, public and private business premises including filling station are to remain shut till further noticed, he said.

PREMIUM TIMES reported how the second largest labour union, TUC, had also asked its members to commence the strike.

The workers are demanding a new minimum wage of about N50,000 instead of the current national minimum wage of N18,000. Most state governors as well as proponents of true federalism have, however, argued that states should be allowed to set their own minimum wage especially as many states are barely able to pay the current N18,000 minimum wage.

On Wednesday, Mr Wabba said the NLC was open to dialogue on the strike.Less than 24 hours to Osun State Governorship election rerun, the candidate of Social Democratic Party (SDP), Iyiola Omisore, has told his supporters to vote for any party that believes in the agenda of his party.

PREMIUM TIMES reported how the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, led some PDP chieftains to Mr. Omisores residence in Ife on Monday to canvass for his support.

On Tuesday, the APC National Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, also led some of his party chieftains to Mr. Omisore to seek the latters support.

However, Mr. Omisore on Wednesday in a statement signed by his media aide, Jide Fakorede, asked his supporters to support any candidate of their choice.

Osun state has always been a stellar example of democracy where the people have consistently and freely expressed their franchise to determine who governs them. This should remain so. Osun people have shown that it is not business as usual. It is a positive deviation from what was hitherto the norm.

I am telling my people that they should go with any political party that believes in what we in the SDP stand for; good governance, social justice and accountability. I have already detailed how we planned to restore Osun to the path of good governance through the five thematic pillars in the manifesto I shared during the electioneering. I will not negotiate for personal gains and abandon my people.

My alliance is with the people of Osun state irrespective of the political party they belong. I want my people to be treated with the dignity they deserve. I desire that they have a government that will be accountable to them. I want them to experience the good governance the founding fathers of this state envisaged.

The former Osun deputy governor said he told the parties that have solicited for my support to approach the electorates and ask for their mandate as I have assured them that I will not coerce them for political or social power. It is because I have kept my promise that has made me enjoy their unalloyed support all these years.

It is the right and democratic freedom of people to choose by their own free will. Their votes should not be coerced by money, vote buying, intimidation in form of militarisation, political and social power.

Their voices of demand for good governance, accountability and human dignity should continue to be heard as well as salaries paid. All these are what I stand for and which the SDP had promised the people all through our electioneering campaigns. They are still paramount to me as we collectively chart the way forward for the governorship elections rerun in Osun state, he said.

Mr Omisores stance appears to clarify claims by leaders of both PDP and APC that they have secured the ex-senators support.

Mr Omisore whose party, SDP, came third in the governorship election, stands no chance of being elected governor after Thursdays supplementary poll.

In the inconclusive election, Ademola Adeleke of the Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP) scored 254,698 votes to beat his All Progressives Congress (APC) rival, Gboyega Oyetola, who polled 254, 345 votes. Mr Omisore, who hails from Ife Central local government, polled 128,049 votes to occupy the third place.

The supplementary election was declared on Sunday after the electoral commission, INEC, declared the governorship election inconclusive. INEC said the margin between the two leading parties, PDP and APC, is less than the number of cancelled votes (3,498) in the seven polling units.

PREMIUM TIMES earlier reported how Mr Omisores support was crucial for any of the APC or PDP to win the supplementary election.

APC, PDP LOBBY

To convince the Ife-born politician to support the PDP, the opposition party sent a delegation led by Senate President Bukola Saraki to meet with Mr Omisore. After the Monday meeting, Mr Saraki said he believed Mr Omisore would support his party.

After meeting with him, I am more optimistic now that with his support, PDP will win. We are confident of a good outing. I am more confident now, the senate president said.

We have agreed to work together because our goals are the same. We all want good governance in Osun State. Over the next 24 hours, we will work out the details.

However, on Tuesday, an APC delegation led by the party chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, and governor-elect of Ekiti, Kayode Fayemi, met with Mr Omisore.

By Wednesday morning, a spokesperson for the Information ministry, Joseph Mutah, sent a message to journalists that Mr Omisore at the meeting agreed to work with the governing party.

The SDP Candidate in last Saturdays Governorship Election in Osun State, Chief Iyiola Omisore, has agreed to work with the APC in Thursdays rerun.

The deal was sealed after a meeting between Chief Omisore and an APC Team led by Chairman Adams Oshiomhole in Osogbo early Wednesday, Mr Mutah said in the short message accompanied by photos from the meeting.A meeting between the federal government and Nigerias organised labour unions failed to hold back the indefinite warning strike called by the unions.

As a result of the deadlock, the workers said the strike will start at 12:01 a.m on Thursday as scheduled.

PREMIUM TIMES earlier reported that the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) President, Ayuba Wabba, declared a total strike at a press conference in Abuja on Wednesday.

Mr Wabba said the strike will be total and comprehensive.

In compliance with this mandate, all workers and private sector at all levels across the country have been directed to comply.

All public and private institutions, offices, banks, schools, public and private business premises including filling station are to remain shut till further noticed, he said.

After the declaration, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, Wednesday afternoon called a meeting with the union leaders.

But the outcome was that the two sides will meet again on October 4, with organised labour announcing after the meeting the schedule for the warning strike stands.

We just had a meeting where the Minister of Labour, Ngige tried to update us. This is the first meeting and he tried to update us on what they are trying to do. The briefing needs to be communicated to our membership, Mr Wabba said.

According to him, our demand is that the tripartite negotiating council should be called back to conclude its assignment on minimum wage.

The National Minimum Wage Committee was inaugurated November 2017 but commenced work March this year and drew timelines to deliver a new national minimum wage by August/ September.

Mr Ngige had in February at the 40th anniversary celebration of the NLC, assured workers they would have a new minimum wage by September.

The workers are demanding between N50,000 and 65,000 as the new minimum wage. The current national minimum wage is N18,000.

Despite the insistence of organised labour, however, there is no consensus in Nigeria over a national minimum wage.

Most state governors as well as proponents of true federalism have argued that states should be allowed to set their own minimum wage, especially as many states are barely able to pay the current one.

Before the meeting with the minister, Mr Wabba Wednesday morning had issued a statement that there were clear signs government was not ready for a new national minimum wage, accusing it of taking workers for a ride.

Given this circumstance, this warning strike is absolutely necessary. It is a precursor to the main strike which will be the mother of all strikes!

Mr Wabba said the justification for a new national minimum wage cannot be over argued and is not about salary-earning Nigerians only.

May we remind all Nigerians that before this government increased the pump price of petroleum products by over 80 percent and devalued the Naira by over a 100 percent, commodity prices were considerably cheaper, tariffs were more friendly, rents and transportation charges were bearable, while wages of workers have remained static, he said in the statement.

After the meeting with the federal government on Wednesday, the deputy President of United Labour Congress(ULC), Achese Igwe, stressed that the strike will begin Wednesday midnight.

Mr Igwe said that the meeting called by the minister was to brief the organised labour on the update of the Federal Government activities as it concern the new national minimum wage.

I want to say that our demand still stands until government comply, he said

PREMIUM TIMES reported how the second largest labour union, TUC, had also asked its members to commence the strike.

But, the minister, Mr Ngige, said the tripartite committee on the new national minimum wage will reconvene its meeting on October 4, to conclude its negotiation process.

NLC president addressing journalist after the meeting.

Mr Ngige, who is also the deputy chairman of the tripartite committee, said one of the ways to show that the government is labour-friendly is by implementing the new national minimum wage.

We are resuming next week, precisely on Thursday, October 4 and the meeting may split over to October 5, as we normally use two days for the meeting.

The labour leaders have been informed about it and are expected to communicate to their members. We do not need to have any strike in the country, he said.

According to Mr Ngige, before the meeting on October 4, all necessary demands by organised labour would have been factored in.

Part of our consultation, means that the Economic Management Team which is managing the entire economy of the country would have something to work on. Already they are working on it and the National Salaries and Wages Commission and it is expected that before that meeting on October 4. They would have been through with the work, Mr Ngige said.

The minister said everything was subject to negotiation, while noting that the federal government will go back to the negotiating table October 4.

Both parties discussing

The 14-day ultimatum issued to the Federal Government did not get to me, otherwise we would have addressed it scientifically the way it should be done. We are optimistic that the committee would wrap up in October and all other processes as it concern the new national minimum wage for workers in the country, he said.

Mr Ngige agreed there was a breach in communication between the federal government and the unions.

I am in touch with the government and the committee. I can tell you that a lot of work has been going on. What we had is a breach in communication. There was communication from your office which didnt get to me and so the expected reply didnt come, he concluded.The candidate of the Social Democratic Party, Iyiola Omisore, has asked his supporters to vote for the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Thursdays supplementary election in Osun State.

Mr Omisore stated this when he addressed journalists on Wednesday afternoon in Ile-Ife, Osun State.

Mr Omisore, who came third in the main election held on Saturday, has been courted by both the APC and the Peoples Democratic Party.

PREMIUM TIMES reported how delegates from the two major parties held separate meetings with Mr Omisore to seek his support.

Mr Omisore whose party, SDP, came third in the governorship election, stands no chance of being elected governor after Thursdays supplementary poll.

In the inconclusive election held Saturday, Ademola Adeleke of the PDP scored 254,698 votes to beat his APC rival, Gboyega Oyetola, who polled 254, 345 votes. Mr Omisore, who hails from Ife Central local government, polled 128,049 votes to occupy the third place.

The supplementary election was declared on Sunday after the electoral commission, INEC, declared the governorship election inconclusive. INEC said the margin between the two leading parties, PDP and APC, is less than the number of cancelled votes (3,498) in the seven polling units.

The supplementary election holds in the seven polling units were elections were cancelled.

More details laterThe Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, has declared that there will be consequences if the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) succumbs to pressures from planted PDP presidential aspirants to move the partys National Convention away from Port Harcourt.

He further declared that the state will not support any desperate PDP presidential aspirant who is sabotaging the economy of the state by fighting the hosting of the partys presidential primary in Port Harcourt.

Mr Wike warned that Rivers People will teach the party a bitter lesson if it allows planted desperate presidential aspirants to scuttle the hosting of the presidential primary in Port Harcourt as agreed by all leaders of the party.

Speaking during a consultative visit by the Gombe State Governor and PDP presidential aspirant, Ibrahim Dankwambo, at the Government House Port Harcourt on Wednesday, Mr Wike said at the PDPs national meeting, no presidential aspirant opposed Port Harcourt as a venue.

He said any presidential aspirant fighting Rivers State should forget about the support of the state, during and after the National Convention.

He said: Let me warn the party, if you dare, Rivers State will teach the party a lesson. Those days have passed when they took Rivers State for granted. Nobody can use and dump Rivers State.

No presidential aspirant can use and dump Rivers State. We never lobbied for it, we never asked for it, but it will boost the economy of the state. People will make money.

Those who are against Rivers people from making money to improve their businesses, will not get our support.

The governor said that whether the National Convention holds in Jigawa or Adamawa, the winner preferred by the delegates will emerge.

I dont know why anyone who wants to be president, will be afraid of a venue. Then you are not prepared for the election.

Nobody should dare Rivers State any longer. Enough is enough. PDP should know that we are not a punching bag. We are not a people you can use and push. We are not harlots. Whenever you want, you come. When you finish, you push us aside.

We will retaliate at the appropriate time. When you go, tell your colleagues, the presidential aspirants. We were not interested, but having given it to us, you cannot insult us, Governor Wike said.

The governor pointed out that there are persons who are not presidential materials, but have bought forms simply because the presidency is zoned to the North.

He wondered why a presidential aspirant would declare that he is uncomfortable with Port Harcourt as a venue, but would love Rivers oil.

He said: You come here to deceive us about restructuring. Just that Rivers State is a venue, you fight it. Then, when you are there, what will happen? You think we are fools where you preach restructuring, then when you get the position, you abandon restructuring.

Governor Wike said that at the appropriate time, he will reveal the names of presidential aspirants working with the APC-led federal government to scuttle the presidential primary.

He added that no presidential aspirant will use a few members of the Board of Trustees of PDP to scuttle the decision of the party to host the presidential primary in Port Harcourt.

The governor described Governor Dankwambo as eminently qualified to contest the position of President. He said Mr Dankwambo will be considered when Rivers delegates meet to decide on who to support.

Earlier, Mr Dankwambo called on Rivers PDP delegates to support his aspiration as he has the capacity to set the country on the path of growth.

He said that the crisis of development being suffered by the country is a result of the leadership vacuum at the Federal Level .

While saying that he has the training, exposure and experience to lead the country in the right direction, Mr Dankwambo urged Nigerians not to make the error of 2015 when they chose promises ahead of performance.

The presidential aspirant said that he will support whoever emerges as presidential candidate, should it turn out that party delegates vote in a different direction.The Kaduna Police Command on Wednesday confirmed that 16 miners were abducted by armed bandits at Birnin Gwari Local Government Area.

According to the police, the miners were returning from a mining site in a truck when they were intercepted by the gunmen.

The incident occurred at Pole Wire bush, close to Bogoma village of the troubled Birnin Gwari town.

Among those kidnapped, according to a statement signed by the state police spokesperson, Yakubu Sabo, was one Isa Tanimu.

He said the command has already deployed officers to track down the suspects. He said the suspects have started communicating with families of those abducted demanding ransom.

We received an information that on 25/9/18 at about 1830hrs, bandits intercepted a truck in the bush of Pole Wire conveying local miners who were returning from site to Bogoma village.

They kidnapped one Isa Tanimu and 15 others all of the same village. Teams of policemen have been dispatched to the scene alongside the command anti-kidnapping unit for surveillance with the view to rescue the victims and arrest the criminals. The latest information available is that a link has been established with them (kidnappers).

They have started demanding for ransom, he said.

Mr Sabo said the police is making a discreet effort to track down the abductors.

Birnin Gwari is one of the areas most troubled by armed bandits in Kaduna State. Scores of people have been killed and several houses burnt by the bandits who also kidnap for ransom in the area and neighbouring communities.

The attacks have continued despite the establishment of an army barracks in the area.An Indonesian teenager who was rescued after drifting at sea for 49 days recounted being chased by a shark and drinking his own sweat while his travails lasted.

Aldi Novel Adilang was working on a wooden fish trap 125 kilometres off the coast of Indonesias North Sulawesi province when the raft came loose from the seabed because of a storm in July.

He was rescued on August 13 in waters off the U.S. territory of Guam by the Panamanian-flagged vessel, MV Arpeggio.

Aldi, 19, said in an interview with Detik.com news website on Wednesday that he survived by eating fish, drinking rain water and even his own sweat.

He said there was a stove, some prepared fish and bottled water in the raft, known locally as rompong, but soon the food and water ran out.

When there was no rain, I squeezed my wet shirt and drank the water, including my sweat.

There was a shark following the raft.

He said there were about 10 ships that passed near him before he was rescued, but his cries for help went unnoticed.

Then there was a ship travelling from Australia for Japan. I cried Help! Help! and waved a cloth, he said.

Aldi returned to his hometown of North Minahasa Manado on Sulawesi Island and was reunited with his family on September 8.

(dpa/NAN)The Edo State Government has reacted to pictures of Godwin Obaseki sleeping while President Muhammadu Buhari was delivering his speech at the United Nations conference in New York.

A statement signed by Crusoe Osagie, the special adviser to the governor on media and communication strategy, said Mr Obaseki can also experience fatigue and exhaustion, an indisputable fact of life, to which all humans are susceptible.

Our attention has been drawn to a mischievous campaign designed to smear the image of the Edo State Governor, Mr. Governor Obaseki.

The disparagers have populated the internet with photographs of the governor when he momentarily succumbed to fatigue after a long flight, preceded by a chaotic itinerary in Edo State before heading to New York for the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly, in the United States of America.

The idle hands and mischievous minds behind the smear campaign against governor Obaseki are clearly not people to be taken seriously.

Mr Osagie said the internet is awash with photographs of outstanding world leaders who have at one time or the other yielded to fatigue at meetings.

Highlighting his work schedule prior to the trip, Mr Osagie said despite Mr Obasekis rare work culture, unmatched by his peers, we have never portrayed him as a machine.The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) on Wednesday said airlines operating in the country recorded 19,323 cases of delayed flights in six months in 2018.

The regulatory agency said the airlines also cancelled 348 flights for various reasons from January to June.

Muhtar Usman, the NCAA Director-General, made the disclosure at an Interactive Forum with Aviation Agencies and Airlines Information Managers in Lagos.

Mr Usman said: The eight domestic airlines recorded a total of 16,880 delayed flights with 253 cancellations.

Also, 33 airlines on the international routes recorded 2,443 delayed flights and cancelled 95 flights.

According to him, flights can be delayed or cancelled for safety and operational reasons, especially during adverse weather conditions, but they must be done in accordance with standard civil aviation regulations.

He said all airlines had been warned against incessant flight delays and cancellations.

Mr Usman said aviation authorities were also working toward creating a more enabling environment for their operations.

He said NCAA had also intensified its economic and safety regulations on the airlines in line with the Nigerian Civil Aviation Regulation Act.

Mr Usman said: Airlines must render their monthly financial obligations in line with the provision of aviation regulations. Airlines must submit financial health returns.

Also, violation to safety regulations is viewed seriously by NCAA.

The director-general said NCAA had begun the process of streamlining aviation charge, saying that the charges were quite moderate when compared to other countries.

There are some existing charges in other countries that are not applicable in Nigeria and this is not to overburden airlines, Mr Usman said.

He said the goal of NCAA was to continue to collaborate with other agencies and stakeholders in order to create a robust aviation industry that could contribute more to Nigerias Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

(NAN)The Federal Executive Council (FEC) on Wednesday approved a memo from the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), requesting N500 million for the maintenance of its new office complex.

The EFCC recently moved into a new 10-storey permanent office building in Abuja.

Garba Shehu, the spokesperson to President Muhammadu Buhari, who briefed journalists at the end of the FEC meeting presided by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, said the anti-graft agency also got approval for the procurement of 700 computers, 100 laptops and 25 laser printers at about N459 million.

Mr Shehu said another memo for the purchase of 15 utility vehicles for the EFCC was also approved.

They are expanding and need the vehicles for their operations. All the vehicles are from local assembly plants, he said.

Mr Shehu also said FEC approved the purchase of five water patrol boats for the Nigerian Ports Authority, Marina, Lagos.

This is for coastline security, he said.

Also at the briefing, minister of water resources, Suleiman Adamu, said the council also approved the revised total estimated cost for the complete rehabilitation of Cham dam and development of 100 hectares of irrigation in Balanga local government of Gombe State.

This is part of our efforts to complete projects we inherited which started in 2011 and suffered from a supply of funds, he said.

The minister said work stopped at about 65 per cent completion, but the government needed to complete and renegotiated the project with the contractors.

He said he brought a request for augmentation for N612 million.

He said the project is being handled by the Upper Benue River Basin Development Authority.

It was originally constructed in 1982. It had to be reconstructed. The original contract cost was N832m re-awarded in 2011.

Mr Suleiman said he also briefed the council regarding the latest flood data across the country.

He said the water level in Lokoja, Kogi State had dropped by 6 centimetres while the water level in Lagdo dam in Cameroon is also going down.

So, we think that the worst is over, unless if any unforeseen incidence occurs now. We should be able to see most of the flood waters go down from now on, he said.The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has challenged President Muhammadu Buhari to show his zero tolerance for corruption by allowing for an open investigation into the N2.5 billion scandal, involving the aide de camp of his wife, Sani Baba-Inna, who is currently in SSS detention.

PREMIUM TIMES earlier reported how a scandal was brewing within the household of Mr Buhari.

His wife, Aisha, had caused the arrest of her own aide de camp, after accusing him of fraud, those familiar with the matter told PREMIUM TIMES.

The presidents wife alleges that the chief superintendent of police received huge donations from politicians and business people on her behalf and kept the cash to himself.

Mrs Buhari then requested the Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, to arrest and compel Mr Baba-Inna to refund the money, put at over N2.5 billion.

The police officer was initially arrested Friday by the police, who later cleared him after being unable to pin anything on him.

An unconvinced Mrs Buhari then asked the SSS to arrest him and carry out further investigations.

It is unclear how the presidents wife came about the allegation, but one source said another aide working for Mrs Buhari originated the claim.

An associate of the embattled police officer said Mr Baba-Inna strongly denied the allegation, saying he received no donation from anyone on behalf of his boss.

The opposition party in a statement signed by Kola Ologbondiyan, its National Publicity Secretary, on Wednesday said that nothing is more scandalous than the fact that while President Buhari is in the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in New York mouthing his war against corruption, a huge broth of corruption, in which his wife is mentioned, is simmering under his own roof.

It said Mr Buhari, by now, must have learnt that Nigerians are not buying the lame denial by our first lady, who had rushed to town to disown her detained security aide, Sani Baba Inna, just because the lid is off the can of worms.

The opposition party which came short of calling the president a hypocrite called on him to do the needful rather than sweep the matter under the carpet.

This scandal has further vindicated the stand of the PDP that President Buhari presides over a government of corruption, where his close relatives, officials and a cabal of associates are enmeshed in sleazy deals but parading as saints. It is instructive to note that the first lady has already admitted that her detained security aide defrauded unsuspecting associates and officials, a position which inadvertently exposes the attempt by the police to conceal the matter.

The PDP and indeed Nigerians have always pointed to the very expensive lifestyle and personal effects, including posh jewelry, daily paraded by close relatives of Mr President, thus belying gimmicks and stunts of the first family being saintly and pro-poor. Also, there have been allegations of acquisitions of sprawling and choice property in Nigeria and other countries by persons close to the President.

Since the First Lady, in her statement, confessed that her security aide defrauded unsuspecting associates and officials, the PDP demands that the aide de promptly docked in an open court and given the opportunity to defend himself and expose his accomplices in the alleged fraud. It is common knowledge that aides of former presidents and those of former first ladies are currently facing trial in open court over similar allegations and this should not be an exception.

The PDP, however, hopes that the detained aide will not be escorted out of the country to prevent him from opening up, as was the case of a disgraced former minister of finance, Kemi Adeosun.

Moreover, the PDP invites Nigerians to note that the Presidency has suddenly gone dumb on a N2.5 billion fraud under its roof. Does this not amount to an admittance of complicity by the Buhari Presidency, which is becoming notorious as a den of certificate forgers and persons of questionable character? the party said.Photo: Contributed

Kelowna needs more storage space, and the world needs fewer greenhouse-emitting buildings.

In other words, Vancouvers Ulmus Development Ltd. will be checking off both boxes when it builds EcoLock Kelowna at the corner of Ellis Street and Bay Avenue over the next 10 months or so.

EcoLock Kelowna is being billed as the first fully green self-storage facility in North America thanks to its interior walls made of waste hemp stock, its on-site solar panels and its future membership in the Zero Carbon Building Pilot Program. It will be completely off the electrical and natural gas grids.

It will be one of the most sustainable buildings in the world, and Im proud that it will be located right here in Kelowna, Ulmus CEO Don Redden said during Tuesdays groundbreaking ceremony at the buildings future site.

Redden noted that buildings are the biggest culprits when it comes to carbon emissions, even more so than transportation. In Vancouver, for example, more than 50 per cent of greenhouse gases come from buildings.

EcoLock Kelowna plans to do its part for the environment primarily through its interior walls, which will be made using blocks from the JustBioFiber company. They are made of hemp hurds, which is the core of the hemp plant, and lime. The pieces click together, and the final product is smoother than drywall.

The blocks also breathe, so youre basically living in filtered, fresh air, JustBioFiber vice-president Michael deChamplain said.

Read more at OkanaganEdge.netA man who allegedly sent threat messages to members of the Atiku Abubakar family has been arrested, the police said Wednesday.

Augustus Akpan, a 43-year-old multi-lingual native of Akwa Ibom State, was arrested in Lagos after police tracked the phone he used in sending the messages.

The Abubakars had reportedly petitioned the police last week, saying they were horrified by the messages and alleging threats to their lives.

Mr Abubakar, a presidential aspirant under the Peoples Democratic Party, was asked to drop out of the presidential race in one of the text messages sent to his family. The police, however, said the suspect confessed that the threat was only meant as a distraction, and not because his pestering conduct had political undertone.

Police spokesperson Jimoh Moshood said in a statement Wednesday night that Mr Akpan had owned up to defrauding many rich and affluent Nigerians in the course of his sinister plots, and he would be arraigned after investigation had been concluded.

A spokesperson for Mr Atiku said he could not immediately comment on the arrest. It was not immediately clear whether Mr Akpan had contacted a lawyer.

The full police statement, including the reproduced text messages which Mr Akpan allegedly sent to the Abubakars, can be read in full below:

PRESS BRIEFING

PARADE OF SUSPECTED KIDNAPPER AND NOTORIOUS FRAUDSTER WHO THREATENED FMR VICE PRESIDENT, ATIKU ABUBAKAR GCON, TO WITHDRAW FROM PRESIDENTIAL RACE OTHERWISE HE WILL KIDNAP, RAPE AND KILL HIS WIFE AND DAUGHTERS (MENTIONING THEIR NAMES)

Suspect

i. Augustus Akpan (From Edemaya village, Ikot Abasi LGA, Akwa Ibom State) 43Years

Exhibits

i. One (1) Samsung (Galaxy S6 Edge +) Mobile Phone and the SIM Card used by the suspect to send the threat messages to Fmr Vice President, Atiku Abubakar GCON, His wife and Daughter.

The Threat Text Messages

i. Text Message to Fmr Vice President, Alh. Atiku Abubakar GCON

Turaki Atiku, we are watching you and your family, we ask you right now to withdraw from the race for Presidency, we will kill, rape your wife and daughters. That your ambitious and black daughter Maryam who worked at CBN and left because we were going to mess her up. We will molest, rape, deform her and kill her. Your daughter Fatimah the former Commissioner of Health in Adamawa State, we have a lot of information about her. Also pictures of her naked body, we will mess your overly prostitute wife Jennifer up. We have a lot about. Let Buhari run against your against your PDP members. We know that you are bigger than all those candidates in PDP. That is why we need you to step down. We will blow your plane off from the sky and we will poison you and your family. Atiku Abubakar, take our words for granted and watch what will happen to your family before you. You are going to see what we will do to you and your family. We know where and where your children travel to. We have watched your daughter who is a strong supporter of her father (your daughter Maryam) at number 5, Buzi close and number 5, Lake Maracaibo close.

ii. Text Message to Wife of Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar GCON

Jennifer. Tell your husband to step down. We will blow up his plane and kill all of you his family. We will rape you and all his daughters and also kill all of you out there. Do not underestimate us. We know your office at 13 Danube Street Maitama. We will blow up the place and rape all your step daughters that we know you dont like already. Tell him to step down now and forget about running for the presidency

iii. Text Message to Daughter of Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar GCON, Rukaiya Atiku

Tell your dad to step down. He should forget about the Presidency. If he refuses, we will blow up his plane the Gulf Stream from the sky and also rape you and kill of his daughters. No amount of Police or protection will stop us. We know where all of you live in. We know number 5 Buzi close and number 5, Lake Maracaibo close. Try us and blood shall spread

On the receipt of complaint of THREAT AND INTIMIDATION from fmr Vice President, Alh. Atiku Abubakar, GCON, the Forty Three (43) years old Augustus Akpan (From Edemaya village, Ikot Abasi LGA, Akwa Ibom State) was trailed and eventually arrested by the IGP Intelligence Response Team.

2. The suspect, Augustus Akpan was arrested at toll-gate along Lagos-Ibadan express way, Lagos State, while on the run to escape arrest. During interrogation, he confessed to the crime and admitted that he resorted to the threat and intimidation when all efforts to extort money from the former vice president were unsuccessful.

3. The suspect, Augustus Akpan also admitted in his confessional statement that he is a professional fraudster and not working for any political party, that his mention that Let Buhari run against your against your PDP members in his threat message to the former vice president was merely to divert attention.

4. The suspect is fluent in English, Ibibio, Russian and Portuguese languages respectively. The Phone and the SIM card he used for the threat and intimidation were recovered from him and were discovered to have been robbed by him from a lady (name withheld) who identified him as the person that robbed her few months back.

5. The suspect, Augustus Akpan further confessed that he had threatened, defrauded and extorted huge sum of money in Naira and foreign currency from so many prominent personalities and their family members while posing as an Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent.

6. Investigation is being concluded and suspect will be arraigned in court on completion of investigation.

Ag. DCP JIMOH MOSHOOD

FORCE PUBLIC RELATIONS OFFICER

FORCE HEADQUARTERSThe Police on Wednesday arraigned Iliyasu Lawal, 28, Nura Iliyasu, 29, and Idris Suleiman 28, in a Wuse Zone 2 Magistrates Court FCT for allegedly trespassing the premises of the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

The trio, who are residents of Kaduna State, were accused of attempts to commit suicide inside the presidential villa.

Augustine Urom, the Prosecuting Counsel, had averred that Mr Lawal, on September 12 allegedly climbed an MTN telecommunication mast within the presidential villa to commit suicide while the others watched.

Mr Urom further told the court that the Department of State Service (DSS) had transferred the defendants to the FCT Police Command on September 18.

He further averred that the defendants allegedly invaded the Aso Rock Villa with various protestation placards capable of making the public to revolt against the federal government.

Mr Urom said the First Information Report (FIR) had alleged that the display of the defendants was capable of igniting uprising against a Constituted authority.

The prosecutor claimed the offences contravened Sections 79, 348, 114, 113 and 231 of the Penal Code.

The defendants, however, pleaded not guilty to the five-count charges of joint act, criminal trespass, inciting disturbance, disturbance of public peace and attempt to commit suicide levelled against them.

Uche Uwazuruonye, Counsel to Messrs Lawal and Suleiman thereafter filed an oral application seeking the court to admit his clients to bail.

Mr Uwazuruonye, said the alleged offences were bailable, adding that his clients would always be available to stand justice.

I assure the court that the defendants would not jump bail if admitted, he said.

Similarly, Dim Udebuani, Counsel to the second defendant, Mr Iliyasu, prayed the court to also grant his client bail, saying this will provide for him required right atmosphere to prepare his defence.

The Magistrate, Muhammad Abdulmumini, went ahead to admit the three defendants to bail in the sum of N250, 000 and a surety respectively.

Mr Abdulmumini said the sureties must be from a Grade Level Seven Officer and above in the Federal Civil Service within the jurisdiction of the court.

The Magistrate adjourned the case until October 16 for hearing.

(NAN)A former aviation minister, Femi Fani-Kayode, has accused Iyiola Omisore of betrayal over his endorsement of Gboyega Isiaka in tomorrows re-run election in Osun State.

Mr Fani-Kayode said in a statement to PREMIUM TIMES that the Social Democratic Party candidate assured him on Tuesday that he would not back the All Progressives Congress in the re-run, describing the contrary action as shameful.

Iyiola Omisores decision to support the APC in tomorrows rerun is shameful. It is sad that he would seek to deny Ile-Ife the position of Deputy Governor simply for money, Mr Fani-Kayode said.

He told me he would stand firm two days ago and he told our leader and father Baba Ayo Adebanjo the same thing last night.

Mr Omisore sent ripples through the political circles in Osun State on Wednesday afternoon after telling reporters he had finally settled on Mr Oyetola.

He said the had been under pressure to support either Mr Adeleke or Mr Oyetola since it became widely acknowledged that either candidate may need his influence to triumph on Thursday.

After a broad consultation, Mr Omisore said he ultimately backed Mr Oyetola and the APC because both the party and the candidate hold political virtues that align more with the SDP.

But Mr Adebanjo rejected the claim by Mr Omisore, saying the former senator assured him Tuesday night that he will support only the PDP candidate.

He told me last night that he will not support the APC, that only the PDP candidate will be supported because we all want to see the APC out off power across Nigeria, the octogenarian told PREMIUM TIMES by telephone Wednesday night..

In the inconclusive election held Saturday, Ademola Adeleke of the Peoples Democratic Party scored 254,698 votes to beat Mr Oyetola, his main rival who polled 254, 345 votes.

Mr Omisore, from Ile-Ife, took the third place with 128,049 votes. The Independent National Electoral Commission fixed September 27 for the re-run election after the Saturdays poll was declared inconclusive.

The electoral body said the margin between the PDP and APC (353 votes) is less than the number of registered voters (3,498) in the seven polling units where elections were cancelled for disruption or technical difficulties.

Mr Omisore did well in Ife North and South Local Government Areas, where re-run election will hold across combined three polling units.

His influence around Ile-Ife is considered too unwavering to be taken for granted by both the PDP and the APC, a reverence that tomorrows outcome will either reinforce or impugn with his endorsement of a side earlier today.U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday told scores of Heads of State and Government that his country rejects the ideology of globalism, both generally and in relation to international justice and the migration crisis.

Mr Trump, on the opening day of the Assemblys annual General Debate, rejected globalism in his speech to the 73rd Session of the annual debate at the UN General Assembly.

Mr Trump said: America is governed by Americans. We reject the ideology of globalism, and we embrace the doctrine of patriotism.

Around the world, responsible nations must defend against threats to sovereignty not just from global governance, but also from other new forms of coercion and domination.

He reiterated the U.S. commitment to making the UN more effective and accountable declaring: I have said many times that the United Nations has unlimited potential.

Mr Trump also re-echoed his past criticism of the world body, hitting out at the UN-backed International Criminal Court and the recently-proposed Global Compact on Migration.

He stressed that the U.S. will not pay more than 25 per cent of the UN peacekeeping budget, so as to encourage other countries to step up and share in the burden.

And we are working to shift more of our funding from assessed contributions to voluntary so that we can target American resources to the programs with the best record of success.

Only when each of us does our part and contributes our share can we realise the UNs highest aspirations.

He added that in spite of his warning to the Assembly in 2017 that the UN Human Rights Council had become a grave embarrassment to this institution, shielding egregious human rights abusers while bashing America and its many friends, no action at all was taken.

So the United States took the only responsible course: We withdrew from the Human Rights Council, and we will not return until real reform is enacted.

As far as America is concerned, the ICC has no jurisdiction, no legitimacy, and no authority.

The ICC claims near-universal jurisdiction over the citizens of every country, violating all principles of justice, fairness, and due process.

We will never surrender Americas sovereignty to an unelected, unaccountable global bureaucracy, he declared.

Mr Trump added that the U.S. would not participate in the new Global Compact on Migration, scheduled to be adopted in Morocco in December 2018, stressing that migration should not be governed by an international body unaccountable to our own citizens.

(NAN)The Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved $64 million for power supply to communities around the Escravos area in Delta State.

This was disclosed Wednesday by the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu, at the end of FEC meeting chaired by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

Mr Kachikwu said the execution of the contract will stop the N18 million spent monthly by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to provide power to the area.

Escravos is located in Warri South Local Government Area of Delta State. Communities likely to benefit from the provision of power supply include Ugborodu, Ogidigben, Jala, Madagho and Ajidubu.

Escravos also hosts to two major multinational oil companies, Shell and Chevron.

While Shell has three flow stations (Sagara, Otumara and Ogidigbe), Chevron has its flow station offshore.Justice A.O. Faji of the Federal High Court sitting in Ikoyi, Lagos on Wednesday adjourned till November 27 further hearing in an N8.5 billion fraud case involving Emmanuel Atewe, a former Commander of the Joint Military Task Force, JTF.

Mr Atewe, a retired major general, is standing trial alongside Patrick Akpobolokemi, a former Director-General of Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA, Kime Enzogu and Josephine Otuaga on a 22-count charge of conspiracy, stealing and money laundering to the tune of

N8.5billion.

The defendants allegedly conspired among themselves to defraud NIMASA of the said sum, using six companies namely Jagan Limited, Jagan Trading Company Limited, Jagan Global Services Limited, Al-Nald Limited, Paper Warehouse Limited, Eastpoint Integrated Services Limited and De-Newlink Integrated Services Limited.

At the last adjourned sitting, the second defendant, Mr Atewe, opposed the tendering of his statements in evidence by the second prosecution witness (PW) Adamu Usman, an operative of the Economic and FinancialCrimes Commission, EFCC, on the grounds that they were involuntarily obtained and that they were dictated to him.

He claimed that he was threatened by Kanu Idagu, the team leader of the Special Task Force(STF) Unit of the EFCC and that he was subjected to inhuman treatment.

The presiding Judge, however, ordered a trial-within- trial to determine the voluntariness or otherwise of the statement.

At the resumed sitting today, the prosecution counsel, Nnaemeka Omewa, asked the defendant if he had met Mr Idagu prior to his meeting with him at the EFCC, to which he answered in the negative.

I had not met Kanu before my visit to the EFCC, but he had my picture and I know he got it from the public domain.

Immediately he saw me, he told me I was under arrest and threatened me.

 As a military man, I had to apply soft strategy and succumb,  he said.

Mr Atewe also claimed that the office where he wrote the statement was highly restricted and fully armed with policemen.

He further added that no one was allowed into the office while he was writing his statement.

He, however, later said that one Mike Oyadogha, his account officer in the Army, came into the office before he finished writing the statements.

When he was asked if he was granted administrative bail by the EFCC, he answered in the affirmative, saying, I was granted bail by the EFCC , but with very stringent terms.

They asked me to get a Level 17 Officer who resides in Lagos, and this was a deliberate effort to further detain and frustrate me.

Even when I asked to see the Head of Operations, they did not allow me see him until after several pleas.

When I eventually saw him, he told me to volunteer my statement, that it was the routine.

I agreed to volunteer my statement. But while I was writing, Kanu came in and annoyingly tore all that I had written down. He said that was not what he wanted me to write.

He read the cautionary words to me and dictated all he wanted me to write down , which I did because of the threats and the yelling.

After writing them down, I appended my signature as a sign of protest, the way it is done in the Army.

When asked if it wasnt a sign of cowardice that a whole Major General chickened out at the purported yell of a mere civilian, Mr Atewe said: No. I had to succumb because of the environment I was. Besides, I had been trained to apply soft strategy in the face of an unknown enemy.

Consequently, Justice Faji adjourned the matter to November 27, 2018 for hearing of written addresses and responses respectively.The Governor of Borno State, Kashim Shettima, on Tuesday, announced the dissolution of his cabinet.

The dissolution is the first since his re-election in May 2015 and the second in the life of his seven years administration.

Announcing the decision, the secretary to the Borno State Government, Usman Shuwa, said the dissolution was in accordance with the provisions of the Nigerian constitution which empowers the governor to do so.

He said the governor wishes all the former commissioners the very best in their future endeavours.

His Excellency, the Executive of Borno State, Hon. Kashim Shettima has in accordance with the powers conferred on him by sect,192 sub-section 2 of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended, has hereby dissolved the state executive council, he said.

Secretary to the state government, Alhaji Usman Jidda Shuwa who announced this in a statement said all Honourable Commissioners are required to handover affairs of their ministries to the respective permanent secretaries on or before Friday, the 28th of September, 2018.

The SSG conveyed the profound appreciation of Governor Kashim Shettima to the outgoing Commissioners for their services and contributions to the unprecedented developmental progresses recorded by the administration. He said the Governor wishes all the former Commissioners the very best in their future endeavors. He also conveyed governments appreciation to all those who supported the Commissioners in the discharge of their duties.

The SSG said a new state executive council will be constituted in due course.No fewer than 119 delegates from Katsina State will participate in the forthcoming Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) National Convention for presidential primary election in preparation for the 2019 general elections.

The convention is scheduled to hold between October 5 and 6 in Abuja.

The PDP Chairman in Katsina State, Salisu Majigiri, disclosed this when the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, who is also one of the PDP presidential aspirants, recently visited the state.

He said the delegates included party chairmen for the 34 local government councils, members of the partys state working committee, among others, as enshrined in the partys constitution.

The chairman also said the party had Yakubu Lado, a former senator, as its consensus candidate for gubernatorial election.

He, therefore, urged party members to work toward ensuring victory of the party in the 2019 elections.

He also urged the supporters to ensure unity and support the party candidates for the victory of the party during the elections.

Mr Saraki, who was in Katsina to woo delegates, said Katsina is my home, the former governor, Ibrahim Shema and the late President Umaru Musa Yaradua were my good friends: I need your support during the convention.

(NAN)The flood disaster ravaging parts of Anambra has claimed the life of a nine-year-old girl, Benedict Uzo, in Amiyi, Ogbaru council area of the state.

Arinze Awogu, Chairman of Ogbaru Local Government Area, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday that the girl drowned while fetching water with a bucket.

He said Benedicts 11-year-old elder sister who tried to rescue her almost lost her life too, but was quickly rescued by neighbours.

The flood situation in Ogbaru Local Government Area of Anambra State has continued to take a turn for the worst and Ogbaru has lost two persons since it started.

The latest casualty is a nine-year-old Miss Uzo Benedict Onyebuchukwu, a primary 3 pupil of Light International School, Okoti.

The father of the victim, Mr. Izuchukwu Uzo told me that his daughter was swept away by the flood as she attempted to fetch water with her bucket.

He said that the council would set up an emergency boss called for a proactive response team to effectively handle emergencies.

The chairman urged people in flood prone areas to vacate their homes and move to safer areas or the Internally Displaced Persons camps.

We need better equipped hospital to enable us manage this emergency.

It is a sad moment for us, we assure the family of our solidarity and support in this time of grief; I promise to inform His Excellency, Governor Willie Obiano about the loss.

(NAN)The Imo State Deputy Governor, Eze Madumere, has resumed duties two months after he was sacked by the state lawmakers.

Upon resumption Wednesday, the official declared loyalty to the governor of the state, Rochas Okorocha.

For months, Mr Madumere had been embroiled in a supremacy battle with Mr Okorocha, who is backing his son-in-law, Uche Nwosu, as his successor, against his deputy, who is also in the race.

Mr Madumere was on July 30 sacked by 19 of the 27 members of the Imo House of Assembly. But the State High Court Tuesday held that the controversial removal did not follow due process, therefore making it illegal.

Benjamin Iheka, the presiding judge, in his ruling nullified the removal.

The political battle within the Imo State All Progressives Congress (APC) fold saw the birth of parallel factions in the party.

It is believed that Mr Madumeres removal from office was as a result of his dispute with Governor Okorocha as he was accused of gross misconduct and abandoning his duty for three months.

Governor Rochas Okorocha is my boss and will always remain my boss as long as I am the deputy governor of Imo State, Mr Madumere said in a statement by his special assistant, Uche Onwuchekwa on Wednesday as he resumed.

He said he had forgiven those who orchestrated impeachment procedure against him, adding that he bears no grudges.

I dont have any grudges against anybody; and those who orchestrated the impeachment plot against me, I have forgiven you. I am a child of God.

The deputy governor formally declared his intention to contest for the governorship seat of the state.

He also reeled out his seven-point social contract with the people of Imo state.

My covenant with Imo will be based on the following: youth empowerment, which will be anchored on agriculture and agro-business, information & communication technology and entrepreneurship across the local government areas of the State.

Massive industrialization & job creation with foreign Partners and emphasis on local raw material, the statement read.

Meanwhile, the state government is yet to officially speak on the deputy governors reinstatement.

When contacted Tuesday evening, Mr Okorochas spokesperson, Sam Onwuemeodo, said he was abreast of the ruling but cannot react until he sees the court judgement.

He neither returned or responded to subsequent text messages to his phone on the matter on Wednesday.Photo: Contributed

A Chinese citizen living in Chicago was arrested Tuesday for allegedly spying, including by helping with the recruitment of U.S. engineers, defence contractors and scientists for intelligence services in China, federal prosecutors said.

Ji Chaoqun, 27, is charged with one count of knowingly acting in the U.S. as an agent of a foreign government without prior notification of the attorney general, a statement from the U.S. attorney's office in Chicago said. He allegedly worked at the direction of high-ranking intelligence officials with the People's Republic of China and was given the task of providing information about eight people for possible recruitment.

Ji made an initial appearance in federal court in downtown Chicago, looking tired and fidgeting as he stood before U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael T. Mason. Ji huddled with a Chinese-language interpreter for much of the 15-minute hearing. But when the judge asked if he understood his rights, Ji lifted his head and said in English, "I understand."

Assistant U.S. Attorney Shoba Pillay said at the hearing that Ji faces up to 10 years in federal prison if convicted on the one count.

Through a lawyer, Laura Hoey, Ji also asked that the Chinese consulate be notified about his arrest. Judge Mason ordered that Ji remain in custody for now, and U.S. Marshal's agents handcuffed him and led him away. No additional hearings were immediately set.

A 17-page criminal complaint says Ji came to the U.S. in 2013 on a student visa to study engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. He enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserves in 2016 under a program that allows some immigrants living in the country legally to serve in the military if their skills could be vital to U.S. interests.

There was no answer at a number for the Chinese consulate in Chicago on Tuesday evening.

___

Follow Michael Tarm on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mtarmA student of the University of Lagos (UNILAG), Adeyeye Olorunfemi, who bagged four-semester suspension from the university authorities in 2016, has been reinstated. He has, however, been asked to face another disciplinary panel.

Mr Adeyeye, a student of the department of building, alongside some students union leaders, was suspended for participating in a students protest of April 6 and 8, 2016.

Those protests led to the school being shut and the indefinite suspension of the students union body.

Mr Adeyeye was also accused of criticising the leadership of the institution on their inability to manage situations as democrats in an article tilted: The Senate of the University of Lagos; a Conglomeration of Academic Ignorami, which he published on social media platforms.

The suspension of Mr Adeyeye was met with various reactions from civic groups and student organisations.

In the reinstatement letter addressed to Mr Adeyeye, dated September 20 and signed by the director of academic affairs, Aderonke Asiwaju, the management, after a meeting on September 17, ordered his reinstatement.

Having served out the four semesters (2nd semester 2015/2016, 1st and 2nd semesters 2016/2017 and 1st semester 2017/2018 sessions) of rustication imposed on you by the Students Disciplinary Board on social misconduct, you are now cleared for re-admission in to the university with effect from 2nd semester 2017/2018 session.

You are therefore warned in your own interests to desist from such acts of misconduct for the rest of the duration of your studentship, the letter highlighted.

However, in another letter dated September 24, the student activist was invited to appear before the students disciplinary board on October 9 over alleged acts of misconduct carried out during the period of the rustication.

While citing the acts of misconduct, the school accused Mr Adeyeye of leading a team tagged SAVE UNILAG COALITION comprising of students from the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) into the school campus to disrupt the activities of the office of the dean of student affairs on March 31, 2016.

On January 24, 2017, he gained entrance in to the 2017 convocation ceremonies and disrupted proceedings in a bid to seize the mace, the school alleged.

In a telephone conversation with the reinstated student, he acknowledged the receipt of the two letters and spoke on the reinstatement and allegations made against him.

Its not a reinstatement like that, it is an attempt to gag free speech. So it is like saying come in for them to win public opinion because people will be like; the four semesters have elapsed. Their plan is to frustrate me even after reinstatement.

Mr Adeyeye advised student activists facing victimisation not to relent in the pursuance of a sane society.

(A lie) can go (on) for twenty years but it takes just a day for the truth to be revealed. Because we are in a system that is very oppressive, they need to summon courage.

When quizzed whether he regretted the actions that led to his suspension, Mr Adeyeye stated that the only regret he had was not mentioning more names and not giving a detailed information in the article that got him suspended.

Meanwhile, an officer of the Anti-Neo liberal attacks on Nigerian students (ANSA), Oloniniran Gbenga, applauded the perseverance of the reinstated student and tasked Nigerian universities authorities and students on the need for justice and freedom of speech.

I commend the sacrifice of Femi Adeyeye. However, his reinstatement is not a total victory yet since he has been invited to face (a) panel for other charges. The administration of UNILAG is only afraid of defeat. Nigerian students must consolidate efforts to free him, he told PREMIUM TIMES.A suspected serial rapist, Chidi Okoye, who has been in the wanted list of Ekiti State University (EKSU) security unit for raping female students of the institution has been caught, two officials have confirmed.

The 18-year-old, who is not a student, was caught last Friday by the university security unit, PREMIUM TIMES was told.

Mr Okoye was arrested alongside an accomplice, Odunmbaku Kayode.

Students, who spoke with PREMIUM TIMES said rape cases had become rampant in their environment for months with students unable to apprehend perpetrators.

Narrating her experience, one of the victims reportedly raped by Mr Okoye who spoke with PREMIUM TIMES in a telephone interview under the condition of anonymity said she was threatened to succumb to the rapist.

I was coming from a night class and heading to my off-campus residence at Iworoko when Okoye double crossed me with gun. He pointed to the nearest bush and asked that I remove my clothes myself. I pleaded with him but he refused. At gunpoint point, I had nothing to do than to yield to his instructions, she said.

When contacted, the university chief security officer (CSO), Tunde Ajayi, disclosed that not less than seven female students had been reportedly raped by Mr Okoye in the last three months.

With a good knowledge of the neighborhood where Okoye himself resides, it was easy for him to unleash terror in the middle of the night and return to his room which he shared with an accomplice, Kayode Odunmbaku, he said.

PREMIUM TIMES was also informed that Mr Okoye confessed to the crimes.

When we called his father, the boy confessed, and even his father said the boy has been wayward from home. He ran away from home, Mr Ajayi added.

Exhibits reportedly recovered from him include several smart phones, ATM cards, a Raleigh bicycle, a cutlass and a pistol.

PREMIUM TIMES could not reach the state command public relations officer, but the investigating police officer, who identified himself as Sunday, an inspector, said the suspects have been arrested and will be charged to court as soon as police conclude investigation.Less than 24 hours to the supplementary Osun State governorship election declared inconclusive on Saturday, the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have accused each other of cloning of permanent voters cards (PVCs)

The two major parties made these allegations against each other in separate statements on Tuesday.

The chairman of the PDP in Osun State, Soji Adagunodo, in a statement alleged that the APC is cloning PVCs at the Government House, Annex, Oke-Fia in order to rig election at the polling units where the polls will take place on Thursday.

APC has gone to seven polling units on massive vote buying ranging from the sum of N50,000 to N100,000 per card. INEC is now selling uncollected PVCs to APC at the rate of N3,000 per one which will give them room to rig the election.

Just to ensure that we dont win the supplementary election slated for Thursday, APC government has connived with the security operatives to launch attack on some of the party members.

They attacked Alh. Asafa, Idowu Agbaje and some other prominent members of the party at their homes by security operatives and the APC thugs this morning just to intimidate our supporters but nothing will stop our victory on Thursday, he said.

Meanwhile, the acting publicity secretary of APC, Yekini Nabena, in a statement also said his party has received fresh reports from their field agents on the ongoing cloning of PVCs by PDP agents.

We view this development as bizarre and a sign of the desperation of the PDP to takeover Osun State by all illegal means.

While we call on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to urgently investigate the development and promptly arrest persons behind the cloning, we strongly advise INEC to ensure that its voters register is not tampered with.

Both parties also called on INEC and security agencies to speak publicly on measures being taken to stop the ongoing vote buying by agents which has become widespread in the state.

In the inconclusive election, Ademola Adeleke of the Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP) scored 254,698 votes to beat his All Progressives Congress (APC) rival, Gboyega Oyetola, who polled 254,345 votes.

Mr Adeleke could not be returned because his victory was by a slim 353 votes, much lower than the 3,498 cancelled votes from seven polling units where supplementary elections will now be held.Two persons were on Tuesday arrested for allegedly flying a drone over the private residence of former governor of Ogun State, Segun Osoba.

The aide of the former governor, Adekunle Adeyemi, disclosed this in a press statement made available to journalists.

The two suspects, a lady and a young man, whose identities were not disclosed were allegedly caught by the private security guards attached to Mr Osobas house, located within the Government Reservation Area, Ibara Abeokuta, Ogun States capital.

Mr Adeyemi said the suspects allegedly flew the drones to monitor activities in the compound, adding that the drone was later shot down by Mr Osobas security aides followed by the arrest of the suspects, who, on interrogation, could not give satisfactory answer for the action.

He described the action as a breach of Mr Osobas security, recalling that a few years ago, unidentified people invaded a part of the same building and dug out buried armoured cables.

He said the former governor just returned from a trip to the United Kingdom on Tuesday and was in his Abeokuta home in preparation for a meeting to discuss a hitch-free conduct of the presidential primary of the All Progressives Congress scheduled for Friday.

This will be another breach of security of Chief Osobas private security. A few years ago, unidentified persons invaded part of the compound and took reasonable time to dig out buried armoured cables. This was done in most professional manner.

It will also be recalled that sometime ago, two bungalows on the premises were vandalised by unidentified hoodlums. Another breach was when insulting graffiti were written round the fence of Chief Osobas house, not too long ago, the statement highlighted.

Mr Adeyemi added that, those involved in the latest action have been handed over to an arm of government agencies for investigations.

The Ogun State Police spokesperson, Abimbola Oyeyemi, when contacted, said he was not aware of the arrest.

I am not aware of such arrest, he said.Governor Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos State on Wednesday expressed his readiness to participate in Saturdays primary election where members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) across the state are expected to choose the partys flagbearer for the 2019 governorship election through direct primaries.

The governor said in seeking re-election, he was approaching the founding fathers and teeming members of the party with a grateful heart, open arms and a pledge to open and deeper attention to the concerns of this one, big family.

Mr Ambode, in a statement issued by the commissioner for information and strategy, Kehinde Bamigbetan, said he was restating his readiness for the primaries in line with the choice of the party in Lagos State and the validation given to the direct primary preference by the Governors Advisory Council (GAC).

As our great party approaches Saturday, September 29, 2018, earmarked for the direct primary election to choose the candidate to fly our partys gubernatorial flag at the next general election, I am happy to restate my commitment to participate in that process, having procured and submitted my nomination form and having formally declared my intention to seek a second term to continue on the path of unprecedented growth and development that our State has witnessed since 2015, the governor said.

He expressed profound gratitude to the national leader of the party, Bola Tinubu; party elders and executives; GAC members; all APC members and every Lagosian.

According to him, their support, understanding and prayers have assisted him in being used as an instrument through which the state has redefined the concept of greatness.

The statement said that a return of the partys ticket to Mr Ambode would guarantee the stability of the states growing economy, ensure the continuation of the growth and development it has witnessed over time and ensure that the opposition does not take root in the state.

It congratulated the governors co-contestants for the courage and commitment to the party and urged party faithful to come out en masse and vote peacefully in all the 20 local governments and 245 wards where the election would take place.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Jide Sanwo-Olu, the managing director, Lagos State Development and Property Corporation, and Femi Hamzat, a former commissioner for works, are also in the race for the governorship ticket of the party in the state.

Their fate would be determined at the partys direct primaries on Saturday.

In spite of mounting opposition to his second term bid ticket, Mr Ambodes kinsmen and women had on Saturday resolved to take the battle to God in prayers.

An indication to this effect came from Adeyemi Ikuforiji, a former Speaker, Lagos State House of Assembly, as he urged Epe indigenes to pray for Mr Ambodes successful clinching of the All Progressives Congress ticket at the governorship direct primary.

Mr Ikuforiji made the appeal at the grand finale of Kayokayo festival in Epe on Saturday night.

Epe is home to Mr Ambode and the late governor, Michael Otedola.

Mr Ikuforiji urged the people to be calm and support the governor in prayers for him to be successful in the re-election bid.

He said prayer became necessary because of the speculations that Mr Sanwo-Olu has been tipped to succeed Mr Ambode as the next governor on APC platform in 2019 election.

Several groups had also held rallies across the state to drum support for Mr Ambodes reelection.

Meanwhile, Mr Sanwo-Olu, Mr Ambodes major challenger, had said that he was motivated to seek the number one seat in the state out of the need to deliver an innovative and inclusive government.

He said he would bring about a state which everybody would be proud if elected as governor.

The aspirant said he would be a listening leader and would do so many things differently to actualise the Lagos of everybodys dream.

Mr Sanwo-Olu decried what he called the filthy state of Lagos environment and said that he would restore the cleanliness of the state if elected. (NAN)The Deputy Chief of Mission, United States Embassy in Nigeria, David Young, on Wednesday commended the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the decision to conduct re-run election in Osun State, saying it would enhance democracy.

Mr Young made the remarks at an interactive session with journalists after he inaugurated Magvoile Vocational Centre in Kaduna.

The deputy chief stated that the re-run would ensure that voters at the remaining seven polling units who were not able to vote on Saturday cast their votes.

Certainly the decision of INEC to go ahead and have a re-run in seven polling unit is one that we respect given the fact that there was only 355 vote margin between the two candidates.

Certainly this is a decision that make sense; we want to say that it is important for democracy that every person vote is secret and counted as we go forward with the vote tomorrow, he stressed.

Mr Young who commended the people of Osun over last Saturdays peaceful election, urged them to ensure same in the upcoming re-run.

He also urged contestants to accept the outcome of the election without rancour, in accordance with democratic norms.

We want to urge the victor to be magnanimous in victory and whoever loses to be gracious in defeat, this is part of democracy, he said.

(NAN)A former governor of Ogun State, Segun Osoba, on Wednesday kicked against the indirect primaries the All Progressives Congress (APC) approved for the state chapter saying the party should go for direct primaries.

The ruling party on Tuesday released guidelines for the conduct of primaries for its state chapters after months of controversy. While it approved direct primaries for some, it allowed others to conduct the exercise through indirect primaries.

Mr Osoba stated his position while addressing the partys governorship, National Assembly and state assembly aspirants at his Government Reservation Area (GRA), Abeokuta residence.

Mr Osoba said it was constitutional to follow the decision of the partys National Working Committee, which earlier embraced direct primaries for elective positions ahead of 2019 general elections.

Governorship aspirants at the meeting include: Gbenga Kaka, Dapo Abiodun, Jimi Lawal and Abayomi Hunye.

Mr Osoba warned against the danger of going into an election with a divided house, noting that division among the aspirants would not augur well for the success of the party at the polls.

He cited the case of the Osun State governorship election which held last Saturday noting that the division in the state chapter of the party, led to its almost poor performance, which warranted a rerun.

Let us learn from Osun State election. People voted for the candidate who never participated in any debate, never spoke at any of the campaign rallies. But the things the electorate consider before they cast their ballot have changed. When we were governors, myself and my colleagues had pedigree and substance.

We, (APC) went into that election (Osun ) divided. A divided house will crumble. The deputy speaker (Lasun Yusuf) was nonchalant and the SSG went into another party, Mr Osoba said.

In Ogun State, it is necessary to preach unity. Primary is just the first step, to win election, the party must unite. I am begging you today to learn from what happened in Osun State. I was born in Osogbo. All factions must close ranks and be united as long as we are all members of APC. We must not make any mistake which other political parties could exploit.

You could remember that Rotimi Amaechi became the Governor of River State, without going through any election, and there are other members of the National Assembly who got there through court judgments, he said.

He also appealed to members of the party to vote for President Muhammadu Buhari in the direct primary slated for Friday.

Other political leaders at the event include: chairman Board of Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation, Akin Odunsi; Ogun Central senatorial aspirant, Ganiyu Hamzat; House of Representatives aspirant from Yewa South/Ipokia federal constituency, Ayo Olubori; and House of Representatives aspirant from Yewa North/Imeko-Afon, Temitope Kuyebi, among others .The candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Ademola Adeleke, has reacted to the declaration of support for the All Progressives Congress (APC) by the candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) Iyiola Omisore.

PREMIUM TIMES reported earlier that Mr Omisore asked his supporters to vote for the APC in Thursdays supplementary election in Osun State.

He said the ruling party has agreed to adopt the manifesto of SDP.

However, reacting to the development, the director of publicity for Ademola Adeleke Campaign Organisation, Olawale Rasheed who spoke with PREMIUM TIMES in a telephone interview on Wednesday evening said his party will still emerge victorious without SDP support.

Omisore was not with us when we won on Saturday. If not for manipulation, we would have won with over 5000 votes.

We believe in the power of the voters. PDP will win because Ademola Adeleke is a popular liberation man. So, whether with the support of Omisore or not, victory is certain because we have started mobilisation since Sunday, he said.

Mr Omisore, who came third in the main election held on Saturday, has been courted by both the APC and the PDP.

PREMIUM TIMES reported how delegates from the two major parties held separate meetings with Mr Omisore to seek his support.

Mr Omisore whose party, SDP, came third in the governorship election, stands no chance of being elected governor after Thursdays supplementary poll.

In the inconclusive election held Saturday, the PDP scored 254,698 votes to beat APC, which polled 254, 345 votes. Mr Omisore, who hails from Ife Central local government, polled 128,049 votes to occupy the third place.

The supplementary election was declared on Sunday after the electoral commission, INEC, declared the governorship election inconclusive.

INEC said the margin between the two leading parties, PDP and APC, is less than the number of cancelled votes (3,498) in the seven polling units.

The supplementary election holds in the seven polling units were elections were cancelled.Photo: The Canadian Press A tanker is anchored in Burrard Inlet just outside of Burnaby, B.C.

The president of the company proposing the $16-billion Eagle Spirit Pipeline says his project could win regulatory approval if the federal government backs down on its plan to ban oil tanker traffic on the north coast of B.C.

Calvin Helin of Eagle Spirit Energy Holding Ltd. says his project to build a pipeline corridor from Fort McMurray in northern Alberta to Prince Rupert, B.C., has several advantages over the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion whose regulatory approval was recently overturned in court.

He says Eagle River has 100 per cent Indigenous backing along its route and the risk rating for shipping from its port near Prince Rupert is very low  thus avoiding two major stumbling blocks for Trans Mountain's conduit from Edmonton to the Vancouver area.

However, he repeated a threat to move the shipping point of the project to Alaska if the federal government approves Bill C-68, which would ban oil tankers from loading on the north coast.

Helin told reporters following a speech at the International Pipeline Conference in Calgary that the company hopes to announce deals with crude buyers or shippers in October and plans to apply for National Energy Board approval sometime next year.Photo: CTV

A racist letter containing veiled threats has shocked the Metro Vancouver real estate industry.

The anonymous letter sent to Sutton Group West Coast Realty in Coquitlam blames the region's housing problems on Asian buyers.

"The citizens who belong here, who were here long before you people pushed your way in, have no use for you," the letter states. "There is hatred beneath the surface. Believe it."

"You should tell your client that letting a house sit vacant leaves it open to vandalism."

The letter is just one example of troubling incidents targeting realtors, industry insiders say.

"We've seen incidents where bus benches have been targeted, where For Sale signs have been damaged," Phil Moore, president of the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, told CTV.

Realtors are easy targets, he said.

Coquitlam RCMP are investigating the incident and say charges are possible.

"My gut reaction is, very disappointed in (the) human race ... This is not what Canada and majority of the citizens stand for," said realtor Tina Mak.

 with files from CTV VancouverPhoto: The Canadian Press Carl DeMaio is leading the Proposition 6 campaign to repeal a recent gas tax increase in California.

Worried they would lack big-name candidates at the top of the ticket this November, California Republicans turned to a ballot measure that would eliminate a recent gas tax increase in hopes of exciting conservatives and ensuring they show up to support lower-profile legislative and congressional candidates.

A potential similar strategy for 2020 emerged Tuesday, when a conservative radio host who is the public face behind this year's gas tax initiative announced he will pursue another measure  this one eliminating the state's beleaguered high-speed rail project.

Though it's a presidential election year, California is overwhelmingly Democratic and a Republican hasn't won the state since 2006.

Early phases of construction have begun on the train meant to take passengers between Los Angeles and San Francisco in less than three hours. But the $77 billion project championed by Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown and his supporters has seen costs spike and the completion date pushed back.

"This is a colossal failure of these politicians, and you don't want to throw good money after bad," said Carl DeMaio, a former San Diego city councilman who now hosts a radio show.

The 2020 initiative also would change the state Constitution to require all fees related to transportation  from the gas tax to taxes on vehicle sales and car insurance  be spent only on transportation-related projects. Those dollars could not go to the general fund.

It's backed by DeMaio and others behind Proposition 6, which will ask voters this November if they want to repeal a 12-cent gas tax hike and increases in vehicle registration fees approved by lawmakers last year.

Proposition 6 was funded in part by California's Republican congressional delegation, including Kevin McCarthy, the No. 2 Republican in the U.S. House who is seeking to replace Paul Ryan as speaker. It was an unusual intervention by elected U.S. officials in a state political campaign.

They gave their support when it looked possible that no Republican would be in the races for governor and U.S. Senate this November. Republicans feared that would depress turnout among conservatives and allow Democrats to win close contests down the ballot, potentially giving them control of the U.S. House.

They dodged that scenario, however, when Republican businessman John Cox snagged the second position in California's gubernatorial primary, in which the top two finishers advance to the general election regardless of party. The U.S. Senate race has two Democrats and no Republicans.

California's high-speed rail project has become politically fraught. A poll conducted in March by the Public Policy Institute of California found tepid support for rail and overwhelming opposition among Republicans.

Forty-six per cent of likely voters said they support the project, with 52 per cent opposed. Among Republicans, just 28 per cent supported it, with 69 per cent opposed. Independents were evenly split, while two-thirds of Democrats supported it.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.



SHAOXING, China, Sept. 25, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- 2018 The First World Textile Merchandising Conference (2018 WTMC) kicked off at the Keqiao District, Shaoxing City of east China's Zhejiang Province on September 20.

Focusing on "Opening-up, Science & Technology, Fashion, Green Growth", the conference has seen participants share their ideas on the coordinated development of the global textile fashion industry and transformation of China's textile industry under the Belt and Road Initiative.

Shen Zhijiang, party secretary of Keqiao District, Shaoxing City, said that Keqiao District is an important gathering place of the global textile industry. Nearly a quarter of the world's textile products are traded in China Textile City which is located in the district, with an annual turnover of nearly 200 billion yuan.

"Textile industry boasts promising future in China. More countries will pay attention to the tremendous opportunities of the industry," noted Jaswinder Bedi, chairman of the International Textile Manufacturers Federation (ITMF) (2016-2018) and the African Cotton and Textile Industries Federation (ACTIF), adding that China is expected to surpass Europe and the United States to become the largest retail market in the world by 2020.

According to Sun Ruizhe, president of China National Textile and Apparel Council (CNTAC), the transformation of China's textile industry calls for upgrading of manufacturing so as to make it more intelligent, service-oriented and environmentally-friendly. In the meantime, efforts should be made to forge a professional and international industry cluster to enhance global cooperation.

During the conference, the World Textile Merchandising Conference Council -- consisting of 12 representatives from textile associations of countries like China, Egypt, Indonesia, Malaysia, France, Turkey, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos -- has been formally established, aiming to realize sustainable development of the textile industry.

SOURCE China Economic Information ServiceDES PLAINES, Ill., Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- As one of the world's leading website design and development firms, Americaneagle.com, along with partner PruTech Solutions, Inc., is proud to have been part of the recent launch of the new and greatly-improved New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE) website - www.schools.nyc.gov. The site was launched in July.

"Students and families need access to information to be truly empowered. This new website gives them meaningful, translated, easy-to-navigate information, right from their mobile devices," said Schools Chancellor Richard A. Carranza. "This website is designed to reach and support all New Yorkers, and I look forward to continuing to work with our communities to keep making it better and more responsive to their needs."

Americaneagle.com President Michael Svanascini said, "A great education ignites young minds, uplifts their spirit, and prepares students for continuous intellectual growth. We're extremely proud of the strategy, design and development work that culminated in this fantastic new website. We look forward to working with the NYCDOE as we constantly look to meet the needs of students, teachers, parents, and other users of the new site."

The DOE used web analytics to make design decisions, as well as feedback from families. The new, streamlined site is mobile-ready and accessible for individuals with disabilities. "As a visually impaired parent, the recent redesign of the New York City Department of Education's website 'equally' allows me to access information regarding my children's education," said Holly Bonner, a Staten Island public school parent and advocate.

The development of the new site was led by the DOE's Division of Instructional and Information Technology (DIIT), with collaboration from all DOE offices as well as partners including the Mayor's Office for People with Disabilities, the NYC Department of Information Technology + Telecommunications (DOITT), the Mayor's Office of Data Analytics, and the National Federation of the Blind.

About Americaneagle.com

Americaneagle.com, Inc., founded in 1978, is a leading Web design, development, and hosting company based in Des Plaines, Illinois. Currently, Americaneagle.com employs approximately 400+ professionals in offices throughout the country, including Chicago, New York, Boston, Cleveland, Dallas, Fort Lauderdale, Los Angeles, New York, and Washington DC. For additional information about Americaneagle.com, visit www.americaneagle.com.

About PruTech Solutions, Inc

PruTech Solutions, Inc. (PruTech) is an ISO 9001:2015 certified; CMMI-DEV Level 3 Appraised Information Technology business enterprise. PruTech has 20 years of experience in delivering Systems Integration, Application Development, and System Implementation services to public and private sectors and has provided exceptional Information Systems solutions to augment NYC Government's needs for over 14 years. PruTech is led by a strong and exceptional management team with a mission to help its customers achieve their business objectives by providing innovative, best-in-class IT services while ensuring the highest level of customer satisfaction.

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WHAT: The Boston Tea Party comes alive every December with one of the largest historical theatrical moving performances in the United States. Taking place at Boston's Old South Meeting House and the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum, the 245 th Boston Tea Party Anniversary & Annual Reenactment is an opportunity for the public to experience one of America's most iconic public protests on Sun., December 16, 2018, the actual Boston Tea Party anniversary. In 2018: Invitation to general public to participate and send loose tea to be thrown into Boston Harbor as part of the 245 th Boston Tea Party Anniversary & Annual Reenactment .

More than 100 reenactors tell the story of the infamous Boston Tea Party and theatrically recreate the evening of December 16, 1773 which sparked the American Revolution. It all begins with a fiery tea tax debate at Old South Meeting House, the actual historic hall where the colonists gathered 245 years ago. Then, the public joins a procession to the waterfront and witnesses the Sons of Liberty destroy actual loose tea from the general public (#tossthattea)!

HOW TO SEND TEA: Send dried loose leaf tea (NO used tea bags) to: Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum, 306 Congress St, Boston, MA 02210. Include name, address, e-mail & phone number.

An official certificate of participation will be sent to each partaker sending tea. Deadline to send tea: December 1, 2018.

EVENT INFO: SUNDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2018 - Actual Boston Tea Party Anniversary!

6:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m.

EVENT TIME LINE: 6:30 - 7:30 p.m.

The Meeting of the Body of the People - TICKETED PORTION (Ticket also includes access to reserved seating to view the Destruction of the Tea)

Old South Meeting House - 310 Washington Street

Ticket holders join an authentic, spirited and theatrical colonial debate at Old South Meeting House to protest the tax on tea and demand liberty from the British crown, just as colonists gathered in this very building 245 years ago. Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Paul Revere and other Patriot leaders join in a heated debate with crown-loving Loyalists in this final attempt to peaceably resolve the crisis before the midnight deadline. Visitors are encouraged to join the debate, letting their voices be heard in the very place where Boston's most famous act of rebellion began.

7:30 - 8:00 p.m.

Huzzah for Griffin's Wharf! - FREE TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC

Procession from Old South Meeting House to the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum - Milk St to Congress St to Pearl St

Led by booming fife and drums and accompanied by colonial reenactors, the public is invited to march from Old South Meeting House to Boston's historic waterfront where Griffin's Wharf once stood along the same route the Sons of Liberty took to Boston Harbor to destroy the tea in 1773!

8:00 - 8:30 p.m.

B oston Harbor, a Tea Pot Tonight! - FREE TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC

Destruction of the Tea at the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum - 306 Congress St on the Congress St Bridge

The public is invited, along with the re-enactors, to line the shores of Boston Harbor and watch as the Sons of Liberty storm aboard the Brig Beaver and destroy chest after chest of tea, just as colonists did 245 years before. In this fully narrated program, the Sons of Liberty board the ship, opening the hold and hoisting tea chests on deck. As they witness the dramatic conclusion of the single most important event leading up to the American Revolution, viewers are encouraged to cheer "Huzzah!" as tea chests are broken open and tea sent from the general public is spilled into Boston's historic waters.

TICKETS: GREAT DEALS ONLINE EARLY!

AS OF SEPTEMBER 1, 2018 - Discounted General Admission prices - $25 /per person

ON NOVEMBER 1, 2018 - General Admission pricing - $30 /per person

To purchase tickets go to: www.December16.org or visit Old South Meeting House at 310 Washington St, Boston, MA.

Tickets include admission to the Meeting of the Body of the People at Old South Meeting House and access to an exclusive reserved viewing area on Boston's Harborwalk for the Destruction of the Tea. All ticket proceeds support Old South Meeting House, a non-profit National Historic Landmark. This event takes place rain, sleet, snow or shine.

NOTES: Both Old South Meeting House and Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum will be free and open to the public on Sun., December 16, 2018 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

HOTEL INFO: Boston Harbor Hotel, a 230-room Forbes Five-Star luxury hotel situated on Boston Harbor, is offering a BOSTON TEA PARTY REENACTMENT PACKAGE starting from $495.00.

Deluxe accommodations overlooking Boston's historic waterfront

historic waterfront Celebratory Boston Tea Party welcome amenity

Afternoon tea at Rowes Wharf Sea Grille

Two tickets to the 245th Boston Tea Party Anniversary & Annual Reenactment

NOTES: Package is available from December 14 - 17, 2018 ONLY (must include the night of December 16), based on double occupancy. To book, call The Boston Harbor Hotel at 617-439-7000. The Boston Harbor Hotel is located at 70 Rowes Wharf.

The Colonnade Hotel, a 285-room modern luxury hotel located Boston's Back Bay, is offering a NO TAXATION MAKES FOR A GREAT VACATION PACKAGE , and sweetens the deal by deducting $17.73 off the room rate.

Overnight accommodations at the best available rate minus $17.73

Two adult (age 13+) tickets to the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum plus a gift box of tea

Complimentary tea via room service

A Boston Tea Party Guide

Bottle of Boston Blend wine from Boston Winery

Limited edition Boston Tea Party Reenactment commemorative coin

Transportation to/from the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum via the hotel's Audi Q7

NOTES: Package is available on for the month of December 2018 ONLY (based on double occupancy). To book, call The Colonnade Hotel at 617-424-7000. The Colonnade Hotel is located at 120 Huntington Ave.

HYATT REGENCY BOSTON, a 502-room luxury hotel located in Downtown Boston, is offering a BOSTON TEA PARTY DISCOUNT .

Overnight accommodations at the best available rate + 15% discount with special offer code: NEI1 and includes:

Complimentary Tea Station - Throw/create one's own tea party with a tea station located in Avenue One restaurant - available all day

- Throw/create one's own tea party with a tea station located in Avenue One restaurant - available all day

Two tickets to the 245th Boston Tea Party Anniversary & Annual Reenactment (valid Sun., Dec. 16, 2018 ONLY)

NOTES: Package is from available December 14 - 17, 2018 ONLY (based on double occupancy). To book, call the Hyatt Regency Boston at 617-912-1234. The hotel is located at 1 Avenue de Lafayette.

INTERCONTINENTAL BOSTON, a 424-room luxury hotel located closest to the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum, is offering a REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY: BOSTON TEA PARTY starting from $299.00.

Deluxe accommodations overlooking Boston's historic waterfront and the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum

historic waterfront and the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum Two adult (age 13+) combo tickets to both the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum and Old South Meeting House

Two tea infused beverages - choice of RumBa's hard tea rum cocktails ( Life & LiberTea or The Tea Act ) or hot tea

or ) or hot tea Tea Amenity - Boston Tea Company Connoisseur's Mini Wooden Tea Chest - includes 20 tea bags in five gourmet blends

- includes 20 tea bags in five gourmet blends Two tickets to the 245th Boston Tea Party Anniversary & Annual Reenactment (valid Sun., Dec. 16, 2018 ONLY)

NOTES: Package is valid year-round (based on double occupancy, blackout dates apply). To book, call InterContinental Boston at 877-747-BOSTON. The hotel is located at 510 Atlantic Ave.

INN AT HASTINGS PARK, Boston area's only Relais & Chateaux hotel located steps from the site of the first battle of the American Revolution, is offering a BOSTON TEA PARTY CELEBRATION PACKAGE .

Superior accommodations (from $325.00 ) / Suite (from $425 )

) / Suite (from ) Two tea-infused welcome amenity cocktails

Breakfast for two in Artistry on the Green

Take home tea amenity

Two tickets to the 245th Boston Tea Party Anniversary & Annual Reenactment

NOTES: Package is available the night of December 16, 2018 ONLY (based on double occupancy). Transportation to the reenactment can be arranged (additional fee). To book, call Inn at Hastings Park at 781-301-6660. The inn is located at 2027 Massachusetts Ave. in Lexington, MA.

THE LANGHAM, a 318-room luxury hotel located in the Boston's former Federal Reserve Bank, is offering ONE IF BY LAND, TWO IF BY TEA PACKAGE starting from $239.00

Deluxe accommodations

In-room tea amenity, inspired by The Boston Tea Party, served in a traditional New England lantern, featuring fresh lemon, ginger, mint and locally-sourced honey

NOTES: Package is available for the month on December 2018 (based on double occupancy). To book, call the Langham Hotel at 617-451-1900. The hotel is located at 250 Franklin St.

THE LOEWS BOSTON, a 222-room hotel located in former building of the Boston Police Headquarters in Back Bay is offering THE PAR-TEA AND TAX FREE PACKAGE starting from $275.00.

Tax free hotel accommodations for two

Two adult (age 13+) tickets to the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum

Complimentary Tea Forte tea served in the Apothecary Lounge 24/7

NOTES: Package is available through December 31, 2018 (based on double occupancy). A 2-night minimum is required. To book, call the Loews Regency Boston at 617-266-7200. The hotel is located at 154 Berkeley St.

BOSTON RESTAURANT & BAR SPECIALS

OFFERED THE MONTH OF DECEMBER 2018 -

BEST BURGER BAR (195 Washington, St., Brookline ) - TEA ROSE - England Vodka, rose-scented black tea (chilled), lemon juice, simple syrup, rosewater - $13





(195 Washington, St., ) - - England Vodka, rose-scented black tea (chilled), lemon juice, simple syrup, rosewater - B ON ME (313 Congress St) - DEVILED TEA EGG - eggs soaked in black tea topped with homemade spicy mayo, cayenne pepper, scallions - $2.50 each





(313 Congress St) - - eggs soaked in black tea topped with homemade spicy mayo, cayenne pepper, scallions - each BLUE STATE COFFEE (Available at all locations in MA, CT & RI) - REVOLUTIONARY TEA - English Breakfast Tea and Blueberry Rooibos blend - $2.75





(Available at all locations in MA, CT & RI) - - English Breakfast Tea and Blueberry Rooibos blend - CITY TAP HOUSE (10 Boston Wharf Rd) - #WHAT'STHET? - Triple8 vodka, iced tea, citrus - $10

(10 Boston Wharf Rd) - Triple8 vodka, iced tea, citrus - FLOUR BAKERY + CAFE (7 locations in Back Bay, Cambridge , Fort Point & South End) - MATCHA LATTE (with house-made raspberry syrup) $4.50 sm/ $5 lrg





(7 locations in Back Bay, , Fort Point & South End) - (with house-made raspberry syrup) sm/ lrg HA RPOON BR EWERY (306 Northern Ave) - A NEW version of the HARPOON BOSTON TEA PARTY craft beer made with Souchong tea, a classic black tea from the Wuyi Mountains of China will be launched on December 5, 2018 .. This tea, provided by the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum, is known for its very distinctive smoky aroma and is one of the five teas thrown into Boston's historic waters during The Boston Tea Party.





(306 Northern Ave) - A NEW version of the craft beer made with Souchong tea, a classic black tea from the Wuyi Mountains of will be launched on .. This tea, provided by the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum, is known for its very distinctive smoky aroma and is one of the five teas thrown into historic waters during The Boston Tea Party. THE MARLIAVE (10 Bosworth St) - THE BOSTON TEA PARTY - Lunazul Tequila, Earl Grey tea, ginger beer, lemon - $13





(10 Bosworth St) - - Lunazul Tequila, tea, ginger beer, lemon - THE RESERVE (located in The Langham Hotel - 25 Franklin St) - G&TEA - Two-level glass teapot with hotel's custom Reserve Gin, infused with The Langham's loose-leaf Palm Court Tea served with lemon, honey, soda water - $30 (serves 2)



(located in The Langham Hotel - 25 Franklin St) - - Two-level glass teapot with hotel's custom Reserve Gin, infused with The Langham's loose-leaf Palm Court Tea served with lemon, honey, soda water - (serves 2) OAK LONG BAR + KITCHEN (located in the Fairmont Copley Plaza Hotel - 138 St James Ave)

(located in the Fairmont Copley Plaza Hotel - 138 St James Ave) REVOLUTION - Classic Cognac milk punch made with tangerine vanilla rooibos tea - $15

- Classic Cognac milk punch made with tangerine vanilla rooibos tea -

SON OF LIBERTY - Cognac, orange sherbet tea syrup, Prosecco, lemon - $15 (available for brunch only - Saturdays & Sundays) - $1



- Cognac, orange sherbet tea syrup, Prosecco, lemon - (available for brunch only - Saturdays & Sundays) - $1 Parish Cafe (361 Boylston St) - FIG & TEA PARTY PB&J - Fig & chamomile tea chutney, pine nut butter, great hill blue cheese on a toasted baguette - $14.95



(361 Boylston St) - - Fig & chamomile tea chutney, pine nut butter, great hill blue cheese on a toasted baguette - R UM B A (InterContinental Boston - 510 Atlantic Ave):

(InterContinental Boston - 510 Atlantic Ave): LIFE & L IBER T EA - Rum steeped with Earl Grey tea, honey syrup, muddled lemons - $1

- Rum steeped with tea, honey syrup, muddled lemons -

TEA ACT - Rum, Domaine de Canton Ginger Liqueur , Mathilde Peche , iced tea , muddled ginger, lemon - $14



- Rum, Domaine de Canton Ginger Liqueur Mathilde Peche iced tea muddled ginger, lemon - SHOJO (9 Tyler St) - COLD TEA FOR TWO - Oolong tea-infused vodka, Peche de Vigne liqueur, oolong tea syrup, lemon - $20

OFFERED FROM DEC. 1 - DEC. 16, 2018:

DURGIN-PARK RESTAURANT (340 N Market St) - DURGIN-PARK HEARTY TEA PARTY - 1 cup of clam chowder, Boston cut of Prime Rib, Indian Pudding - $40

OFFERED FROM DEC. 14 - DEC. 16, 2018:

AVENUE ONE (Hyatt Regency Boston - 1 Avenue de Lafayette) - BRITISH BREAKFAST BUFFET - $27 /person (available 6:30 -10:30 a.m. Friday / 6:30 - 11:30 a.m. Saturday /Sunday)

OFFERED THE EVENING OF DEC. 16, 2018:

L'ESPALIER (774 Boylston St) - TEA DINNER - Exclusive 5-course dinner paired with a selection of teas thrown overboard during The Boston Tea Party. Includes a Historic Colonial Tea Punch - $95 /person

OFFERED THE EVENING OF DEC. 16, - DEC. 22, 2018:

ARTBAR (Royal Sonesta Hotel - 40 Edwin H Land Blvd, Cambridge ) - THE BOSTON TEA PARTY - Tea-infused gin, St. Germain, lemonade, iced tea - $13

ABOUT OLD SOUTH MEETING HOUSE:

Old South Meeting House is a non-profit museum and National Historic Landmark dedicated to continuing its proud tradition of free speech and assembly. Built in 1729 as a Puritan meetinghouse, this historic site is a living symbol of our country's quest for freedom and justice. It was here, in this famed National Historic Landmark that liberty found its allies and the American Revolution gained its voice. Within the walls of Old South Meeting House, meeting by meeting, vote by vote, a revolution began. Explore the rich history of the Meeting House through rare artifacts, such as a vial of tea from the Boston Tea Party and a 3-D historic model of Colonial Boston. Open seven days a week, the museum's hours are 9:30 am - 5 pm from April 1 - Oct. 31, and 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. from Nov. 1 - March 31. Closed on Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year's Day. For more information, visit www.osmh.org or call 617-482-6439. Old South Meeting House is located at 310 Washington St., Boston, MA 02108.

ABOUT BOSTON TEA PARTY SHIPS & MUSEUM:

The Boston Tea Party, "the single most important event leading up to the American Revolution," occurred the night of Dec. 16, 1773. Opened in June 2012, The Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum, owned and operated by Historic Tours of America, is dedicated to accurately reliving and representing a key time in history (1773-1775). Through actors, tea throwing reenactments, high-tech interactive exhibits, authentic replica ships: the Beaver and the Eleanor, and an award-winning multisensory film, Let it Begin Here. The Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum is open 7 days/week from 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. (Summer/Spring) and from 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. (Fall/Winter). Tours run every 30 minutes in fall/winter and every 15 minutes in spring/summer and last 1 hr. Closed on Thanksgiving and Christmas Day. The Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum was voted 'Best Historical Experience' in Yankee '2017 Best of New England', #1 'Best Patriotic Attraction' in USA Today's 10Best Readers' Choice Awards 2016, 'Best New Museum' by Yankee in 2012 and 'Best of the New 2012' by Boston Globe Magazine. To learn more visit www.bostonteapartyship.com or call 1-855-(TEA)-1773. The Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum is located on the Congress Street Bridge at 306 Congress St., Boston, MA.

MEDIA CONTACT:

Stephanie Loeber

Loeber Communications

Ph: 617-510-0577

E-mail: [email protected]

SOURCE The Boston Tea Party Ships & MuseumArcapita, a leading alternative investments firm with a track record of 80 transactions exceeding a total of $30 billion in value, has acquired a portfolio of senior living properties in Chicago, Illinois, bringing the firm's total assets under management in the sector to $350 million.

(Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/750113/Atif_A_Abdulmalik.jpg )



The transaction comes as Arcapita, which has been operating in the US since 1998, strengthens its market presence by moving to a new office in Atlanta and bolstering its US team with highly experienced real estate and private equity investment professionals.

The Chicago portfolio comprises two premium continuing care retirement communities with approximately 1100 units and is operated by Senior Care Development and Life Care Services; the second largest senior housing manager in the US with 130 communities across 32 states.

It is Arcapita's third senior living acquisition over the last 30 months, taking it to a total of eight transactions in the sector worth $1.8 billion. Arcapita has previously acquired six senior living communities with over 500 units in Washington D.C., Atlanta, Denver and Colorado Springs, and is a continuation of the firm's strategy of targeting quality housing assets in districts with affluent seniors across the US.

Atif A. Abdulmalik, Arcapita's Chief Executive Officer, said: "We have a strong track record in the sector, having previously managed and successfully exited five senior living portfolios, comprising over 70 properties in the US and UK, which delivered double-digit IRRs to our investors."

"The senior living sector is poised to experience outsized growth and is expected to continue to outperform the broader real estate market in the US. We intend to capitalize on the sector's performance to deliver a strong yield and attractive returns for our investors."

Martin Tan, Arcapita's Chief Investment Officer, added: "The demand for senior housing facilities in the US is underpinned by robust fundamentals. The 75 and over demographic is expected to double from 20 to over 40 million during the next two decades as the baby boomer generation reaches retirement age, and the supply of quality facilities remains limited."

"We are delighted to have acquired these assets. Both communities enjoy strong occupancies due to their strategic locations and offer continuum of care services which allow residents to age in the community. The properties are run by a seasoned senior housing manager with decades of industry experience and are anchored by significant demand from a sizeable and affluent senior population within their vicinity."

NOTES TO EDITORS

About Arcapita

Arcapita is a leading alternative investment manager, with offices in Bahrain, Atlanta, London and Singapore. Arcapita's principal lines of business are private equity and real estate, and its management has a 20-year track record of over 80 investments with a total transaction value in excess of $30 billion.

Further details on Arcapita can be found at www.arcapita.com.

SOURCE ArcapitaFORT WORTH, Texas, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- AZZ Inc. (NYSE: AZZ), a global provider of metal coating services, welding solutions, specialty electrical equipment and highly engineered services, today announced that it was awarded a contract from the Three Gorges Jinsha River Yunchuan Hydropower Development Co., Ltd. to provide 8 circuits of 550kV 4,000 Amp Gas Insulated Line ("GIL") for the Ningnan Baihetan Hydro Power Project. The Baihaten Hydropower Project and the Wudongde Project together form the second phase of four large hydropower projects being constructed downstream on the Jinsha River. AZZ had previously announced a contract award to provide 8,900 meters of GIL to be installed in two vertical shafts for the Wudongde Project.

Under the terms of the contract, AZZ will provide approximately 16,850 meters of 550kV GIL and auxiliary equipment for the Baihetan hydropower plant. The 16,000 MW capacity Baihetan project is the second largest hydropower plant in the world. The GIL will be installed in a series of vertical shafts that will transmit high voltage electricity from 120 to 300 meters. The total value of the contract award is estimated to be valued at approximately $50 million USD with delivery scheduled to begin the second half 2019 and complete by the third quarter of 2020.

Ken Lavelle, President of AZZ Electrical Systems, commented, "We are extremely proud to have been chosen as a partner to deliver a high voltage bus system for this critical power application in the Three Gorges River Delta Region, a large economic hub of the People's Republic of China. AZZ has a proven and successful history in delivering high voltage gas insulated lines for these demanding and challenging projects. We are pleased that the Three Gorges Region has invested their confidence in AZZ as its trusted partner to complete this very important project."

About The China Three Gorges Project Corporation

To construct the Three Gorges Project and develop the Yangtze River, the China Three Gorges Project Corporation was founded on September 27, 1993, with the approval of the State Council. On September 27, 2009, it was renamed the China Three Gorges Corporation (CTG). CTG is a clean energy group focusing on large-scale hydropower development and operation. Its main businesses cover the construction and management of hydropower projects, power generation, international investment and contracting, development of wind power and solar energy among other renewable energies, comprehensive development and utilization of water resources, as well as providing relevant professional technical services. After more than 20 years of rapid growth, CTG has become the largest hydropower development enterprise worldwide and the biggest clean energy group in China.

About AZZ Inc.

AZZ Inc. is a global provider of galvanizing services, welding solutions, specialty electrical equipment and highly engineered services to the markets of power generation, transmission, distribution and industrial in protecting metal and electrical systems used to build and enhance the world's infrastructure. AZZ Metal Coatings is a leading provider of metal finishing solutions for corrosion protection, including hot dip galvanizing to the North American steel fabrication industry. AZZ Energy is dedicated to delivering safe and reliable transmission of power from generation sources to end customers, and automated weld overlay solutions for corrosion and erosion mitigation to critical infrastructure in the energy markets worldwide.

Safe Harbor Statement

Certain statements herein about our expectations of future events or results constitute forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions of The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. You can identify forward-looking statements by terminology such as, "may," "should," "expects," "plans," "anticipates," "believes," "estimates," "predicts," "potential," "continue," or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology. Such forward-looking statements are based on currently available competitive, financial and economic data and management's views and assumptions regarding future events. Such forward-looking statements are inherently uncertain, and investors must recognize that actual results may differ from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. This release may contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties including, but not limited to, changes in customer demand and response to products and services offered by AZZ, including demand by the power generation markets, electrical transmission and distribution markets, the industrial markets, and the metal coatings markets; prices and raw material cost, including zinc and natural gas which are used in the hot dip galvanizing process; changes in the political stability and economic conditions of the various markets that AZZ serves, foreign and domestic, customer requested delays of shipments, acquisition opportunities, currency exchange rates, adequacy of financing, and availability of experienced management and employees to implement AZZ's growth strategy. AZZ has provided additional information regarding risks associated with the business in AZZ's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended February 28, 2018 and other filings with the SEC, available for viewing on AZZ's website at www.azz.com and on the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. You are urged to consider these factors carefully in evaluating the forward-looking statements herein and are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements, which are qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. These statements are based on information as of the date hereof and AZZ assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

Contact:

Paul Fehlman, Senior Vice President Finance and CFO

AZZ Inc. 817-810-0095

Internet:

www.azz.com

Lytham Partners

602-889-9700

Joe Dorame, Robert Blum or Joe Diaz

Internet:

www.lythampartners.com

SOURCE AZZ Inc.

Related Links

http://www.azz.com

Photo: The Canadian Press David MacNaughton, left, Canada's Ambassador to the United States, opens the door for Canada's Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland in Washington, Wednesday, Aug. 29, 2018.

Canada's envoy to the United States was asked for his opinion today  on a scale of one to 10  whether Ottawa and Washington are likely to strike a new trade deal by a Sunday deadline.

David MacNaughton, who has been involved in the high-level trade talks, estimates the likelihood is a "five."

The ambassador made the comment at a Toronto event hosted by Politico, during which he fielded numerous questions about the state of the negotiations on the North American Free Trade Agreement.

MacNaughton says reaching a deal is very much a question of whether or not the U.S. wants to have a agreement.

He says the process has been challenging and both sides know each other's positions on all of the major sticking points.

MacNaughton says Canada is anxious to strike an agreement to bring some certainty to the investment climate and to open the door for Ottawa to start working more closely with the Americans on some of the bigger issues that confront both countries.

But he says Ottawa won't sign a deal that lacks a robust dispute settlement mechanism, nor will it join an agreement if it means Canada will still be subjected to U.S. tariffs under the guise of national security.CLEVELAND, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Banyan Technology is excited to announce that Lynn Caldwell has joined the Banyan Technology team as the Senior Vice President of Business Development. Lynn brings over three decades of innovative sales solution experience in the logistics industry, most recently with UPS Freight where she led the 3pl national sales team.

"We are excited to welcome Lynn to Banyan and look forward to witnessing the strength of her talents as she begins to take our innovations straight into the transportation market," says Brian Smith, CEO of Banyan.

Lynn is joining Banyan during a record year in client additions and revenues. Lynn will be able to take advantage of Banyan's recent innovations including an integrated Local Carrier solution, Special Carrier Offerings, and leading multi-modal capabilities as a member of the Business Development team.

"No day is the same in this forever changing business." Lynn shares, "I am excited to be a part of a Company (Banyan) that is on the forefront of technology."

About Banyan Technology

Headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, Banyan Technology is North America's leading provider of live carrier and API connectivity for transportation management. With more than 1,400 LTL, TL and parcel carrier connections, over 30,000 clients accessing the application and hundreds of Local carrier connections, Banyan Technology provides commercial shippers, brokers, and 3PLs with unparalleled access to carrier data. These connections boost efficiency, improve visibility and deliver permanent reductions in shipping costs. For more information on Banyan Technology, visit our website banyantechnology.com .

SOURCE Banyan Technology

Related Links

http://www.banyantechnology.com

ANN ARBOR, Mich., Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- BlueWillow Biologics today announced the company has been awarded an NIH Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant for the development of an intranasal NanoVax vaccine for the prevention of chlamydia. There are more than 131 million new chlamydia infections worldwide each year1 and no approved vaccine currently exists to prevent the infection.

Many cases of chlamydia are not treated or reported because patients are asymptomatic and do not get tested. Untreated infections in women can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease (PID), which can cause permanent damage to the uterus, fallopian tubes and surrounding tissue. Consequences of PID include chronic pelvic pain, tubal factor infertility and potentially fatal ectopic pregnancy.

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), awarded BlueWillowformerly NanoBio Corporationa one-year Phase I SBIR grant (R43AI134168) to fund in vivo studies combining the company's patented NanoVax technology with a proven chlamydia antigen developed by Dr. James Mahony at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.

"When chlamydia goes undiagnosed, patients don't get the antibiotics they need to treat the infection. An intranasal NanoVax vaccine incorporating the novel BD584 antigen could prevent chlamydia infections from occurring in the first place, reducing cases of PID," said Mahony, an investigator under the grant. "Less PID means fewer women will suffer from pain and infertility, and healthcare costs incurred by the disease will be reduced. This vaccine could have an immeasurable global impact on quality of life, reproductive health and efficient healthcare utilization."

BlueWillow's NanoVax platform employs a unique oil-in-water nanoemulsion adjuvant that elicits both systemic and mucosal immune responses, which could play an important role in the prevention of chlamydia and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs).

"Initial data shows intranasal vaccination and mucosal immunity induction with NanoVax can reduce chlamydia infections and PID in mice. With this SBIR grant, we will continue our research with the goal of advancing this preventive solution toward clinical trials," said Dr. Ali Fattom, Senior Vice President of Vaccine Research and Development, BlueWillow. "Too many STIs including chlamydia go undiagnosed and untreated. BlueWillow remains dedicated to developing solutions that address this critical global health issue."

1 World Health Organization. Sexually transmitted infections (STIs). 3 August 2016. http://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/sexually-transmitted-infections-(stis)

About BlueWillow

BlueWillow Biologics is a privately-held biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, focused on developing and commercializing vaccines using its patented NanoVax technology platform. The technology employs a novel oil-in-water nanoemulsion adjuvant that is effective when administered via intranasal or intramuscular vaccination, and can elicit both mucosal and systemic immunity when applied intranasally.

BlueWillow is currently developing intranasal vaccines for infectious diseases, including RSV, pertussis, HSV2 and chlamydia, as well as intranasal vaccines for food and aeroallergens. Visit BlueWillow.com for details on the company's vaccine pipeline and studies completed to date.

SOURCE BlueWillow Biologics

Related Links

http://www.bluewillow.com

PASADENA, California, September 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

Brazil Minerals, Inc. (OTC: BMIX) (the "Company" or "Brazil Minerals") announced today that Marc Fogassa, CEO of Brazil Minerals, will be a featured presenter at the MicroCap Conference on Monday, October 1, 2018 at 11:00 AM. The conference is being held on October 1-2 at the Essex House in New York City.

Mr. Fogassa will provide an overview of the Company's business model and growth strategy, and will be available for one-on-one meetings. Institutional investors may request a meeting time at http://www.microcapconf.com.

BMIX Mineral Claim Bank:

Gold: 119,989 acres

Diamond (kimberlites): 92,961 acres

Diamond (alluvial): 27,612 acres

Cobalt/Copper/Nickel: 5,011 acres

Iron/Titanium/Vanadium: 4,938 acres

Lithium: 288 acres

Manganese: 4,970 acres

Aquamarine/Beryl/Tourmaline: 288 acres

Sand (construction industry): 4,995 acres

About Brazil Minerals, Inc.

Brazil Minerals, Inc. (OTC: BMIX) along with its subsidiaries has a business model focused on: 1) mining specific areas for gold and diamonds, and 2) generating projects from its portfolio of high-quality mineral rights for transactions leading to attractive equity positions and/or royalties. Our first equity holding from such strategy is Jupiter Gold Corporation (OTC: JUPGF). More information on Brazil Minerals is at http://www.brazil-minerals.com. Follow us on Twitter: @BMIXstock.

About the MicroCap Conference

The MicroCap Conference is an exclusive event for investors who specialize in small and microcap stocks. It is an opportunity to be introduced to and speak with management at some of the most attractive small companies, learn from various expert panels and mingle with other investors. For more information please visit: http://www.microcapconf.com or contact Ashley Allard at [email protected].

Safe Harbor Statement

This press release contains forward-looking statements made under the "safe harbor" provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward looking statements are based upon the current plans, estimates and projections of Brazil Minerals, Inc.'s management and are subject to risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ from the forward- looking statements. Such statements include, among others, those concerning market and industry segment growth and demand and acceptance of new and existing products; any projections of production, reserves, sales, earnings, revenue, margins or other financial items; any statements of the plans, strategies and objectives of management for future operations; any statements regarding future economic conditions or performance; uncertainties related to conducting business in Brazil, as well as all assumptions, expectations, predictions, intentions or beliefs about future events. Therefore, you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements. The following factors, among others, could cause actual results to differ from those set forth in the forward-looking statements: business conditions in Brazil, general economic conditions, geopolitical events and regulatory changes, availability of capital, Brazil Minerals, Inc.'s ability to maintain its competitive position and dependence on key management. This press release does not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy any security and shall not constitute an offer, solicitation or sale of any securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of such jurisdiction. We advise U.S. investors that the claims listed in the BMIX Mineral Claim Bank are exploratory in nature, and as of now do not have "reserves" as such term is defined in the Securities and Exchange Commission's Industry Guide 7.

Contact:



UCS Advisors and IR, LLC

[email protected]

(213)-590-2500



SOURCE Brazil Minerals, Inc.DALLAS, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- C2K Partners, a joint venture between LTK Engineering Services of New York LLP and CH2M Hill New York, Inc.  now Jacobs Engineering Group Inc . (NYSE:JEC)  has been retained by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's New York City Transit (NYCT) to provide post award consulting services for new, state-of-the-art R211 subway cars.

C2K will provide technical and program management support services to NYCT during the design, manufacturing, delivery, testing and acceptance of the new cars that will feature expanded doors designed to reduce delays and increase train movement by speeding the boarding process and reducing the amount of time trains wait in stations. R211 cars will be equipped with monitoring systems that will have the capability to transmit information about performance to the wayside, making it possible to examine the trains before equipment failure and mitigate incidents which are critical to safety and service performance of the subway. The cars will also include digital displays providing improved information about service, enhanced grab rails, brighter lighting and improved signage.

"This award is a crowning achievement of our long-standing relationship with NYCT, having assisted them with the procurement of several generations of subway cars, including the concept design, specifications development and procurement of the R211 subway cars," said Jacobs Buildings, Infrastructure and Advanced Facilities Americas Executive Vice President and General Manager Greg McIntyre. "We are very proud of our collective ability to collaborate on this chapter of NYCT's modernization."

The contract also calls for support of testing of two trains that will include open gangways, a feature that permits passengers to walk between cars without opening doors. These open gangway sections, which feature accordion-like connector walls between cars, are expected to help ease crowding. A third part of the program will be to oversee customization of the standard cars to meet the different requirements for the Staten Island Railway.

"We have been working with New York City Transit for more than 25 years," said LTK President Dominic DiBrito. "This contract award reflects NYCT's appreciation of our past work and we are looking forward to delivering a successful outcome on this ambitious undertaking."

According to NYCT, the project calls for Kawasaki Rail Car Inc. to fill a base order of 535 cars, with options for up to 1,077 additional cars. The first R211 cars are expected to be delivered for testing in 2020.

About Jacobs

Jacobs leads the global professional services sector delivering solutions for a more connected, sustainable world. With $15 billion in fiscal 2017 revenue when combined with full-year CH2M revenues and a talent force of more than 77,000, Jacobs provides a full spectrum of services including scientific, technical, professional and construction- and program-management for business, industrial, commercial, government and infrastructure sectors. For more information, visit www.jacobs.com , and connect with Jacobs on LinkedIn , Twitter , Facebook and Instagram .

About LTK

LTK Engineering Services, which was founded in 1921, has offices in 22 locations around the world and a staff of over 400 that includes more than 300 engineers and other professionals with expertise in all areas of passenger rail. LTK has participated in the planning, design and development of nearly every rail transit system in North America, providing unmatched technical expertise and managerial capabilities in rail vehicle engineering, rail systems engineering (traction power, overhead contact systems, signaling and train control, communications systems and supervisory control, rail systems integration, and rail maintenance facilities), revenue systems and technology, and operations planning and simulation. For more information, visit www.ltk.com, and connect with LTK on LinkedIn.

Statements made in this release that are not based on historical fact are forward-looking statements. We base these forward-looking statements on management's current estimates and expectations as well as currently available competitive, financial and economic data. Forward-looking statements, however, are inherently uncertain. There are a variety of factors that could cause business results to differ materially from our forward-looking statements. For a description of some of the factors which may occur that could cause actual results to differ from our forward-looking statements please refer to our Form 10-K for the year ended September 29, 2017, and in particular the discussions contained under Items 1 - Business, 1A - Risk Factors, 3 - Legal Proceedings, and 7 - Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations. We do not undertake to update any forward-looking statements made herein.

For press/media inquiries:

Jacobs

Kerrie Sparks

214.583.8433

Brian Morandi

720.286.0719

SOURCE Jacobs Engineering Group Inc.

Related Links

http://www.jacobs.com

ROME, Ga., Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Candor USA, a technology and marketplace company established to democratize healthcare coverage, has been selected by the National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) as a representative for the healthcare industry at the 2018 Global Board Leaders' Summit in October.

The National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD), representing more than 19,000 corporate board members, is the recognized authority on leading boardroom practices.

According to NACD, "Dancing With the Start-Ups, features some of the most innovative and promising companies in four industries (financial services, energy, healthcare, and discovery), defending their ideas to a panel of judges and the audience. This is a fast-paced, Shark Tank-style challenge where promising startups from key industries have minutes to showcase their company's vision."

"Candor USA will express some of our leading-edge ideas and technologies that are shaping and disrupting our core business," stated Michael Beck, Chief Operating Officer. He continued, "We have applied our technology and insurance expertise to create an algorithm that provides consumers with the true cost of healthcare that reflects holistic coverage, clarity and choice all in one marketplace."

Candor's mission is to be the healthcare companion of every American. They bring together integrated groups, brokers, carriers and individuals to enable Americans to reduce their true cost of healthcare coverage.

Visit www.candor.insurance for more information.

About Candor

Candor USA is a technology and marketplace company established to democratize healthcare coverage. Candor USA leverages blockchain to help consumers, brokers, carriers and integrated groups achieve valuable outcomes.

Candor contact

Jeremy McLendon, Vice President

[email protected]

706-254-7370

SOURCE Candor USA

Related Links

candorinsurance.com

NEW YORK, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Centinel Spine, LLC announced today that Dr. Arvind Dubey, MD, FRACS, Neurosurgeon and Spine Surgeon at Hobart Brain and Spine Centre in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia, performed a milestone procedure implanting his 1,000th level of the STALIF C-Ti Anterior Cervical Integrated Interbody device. The procedure was a 2-level ACDF and took place at the Royal Hobart Hospital. Centinel Spine is the largest privately-held spine company focused on anterior column reconstruction and remains a leading provider of Integrated Interbody solutions, with over 30 years of clinical history and over 50,000 devices implanted.

After implanting his momentous 1000th STALIF level, Dr. Arvind Dubey commented, "The STALIF C system offers me a very simple yet clinically effective system for treating my patients with degenerative disc disease. The STALIF design and lag screws provide constant compressive fixation between the endplates and graft material. The compressive fixation coupled with the titanium surface give me the best opportunity to achieve fusion and has resulted in great outcomes for my patients."

STALIF Interbody devices are currently offered in three material options: PEEK, titanium-surfaced PEEK, and the recently launched 3D-printed, all-titanium FLX technology. FLX implants feature a combination of solid and porous radiolucent titanium sections developed with the goal of reducing mechanical stiffness and improving visibility, as compared to solid titanium implants. The devices also feature a proprietary FUSE-THRU trabecular scaffold, designed to allow for bony in-growth and on-growth throughout the implant. Furthermore, all three materials options are utilized with a single, streamlined instrument set.

"We are proud to announce Dr. Dubey reaching 1,000 STALIF levels implanted and congratulate him on this significant achievement. This milestone further exemplifies Centinel Spine's mission in partnering with surgeons throughout the world to become the world-wide leading spine company, addressing spinal disease anteriorly with the widest breadth and depth of technology platforms," says Centinel Spine Chairman & CEO, John Viscogliosi.

Centinel Spine will highlight the Company's latest anterior column reconstruction technologies at the North American Spine Society (NASS) Annual Meetingheld September 26-29, 2018 in Los Angeles, California at the Los Angeles Convention Center. At the annual meeting, the company will demonstrate its commitment to advancing technology platforms for both fusion and motion preservation. In Booth #2123, the company will showcase its recently acquired prodisc Total Disc Replacement portfoliothe most extensive total disc replacement portfolio in the worldas well as its recently launched proprietary FLX 3D-printed, all-titanium devices for both cervical and lumbar fusion. Additionally, Centinel Spine technologies will be highlighted in multiple podium presentations and hosted industry events.

About Centinel Spine, LLC.

Centinel Spine, LLC. is a privately-held spinal device company leading the development and commercialization of the No Profile, Integrated Interbody fusion technologies. The company recently acquired the prodisc Total Disc Replacement portfolio, an extensive cervical and lumbar disc replacement platform with the longest history of global clinical use. For more information on Centinel Spine products and technologies, please visit the company's website at www.CentinelSpine.com.

The company began operations in August 2008, through the merger-acquisition of two pioneering medical device companies: Raymedica, LLC and Surgicraft, LTD. Today, Centinel Spine still embraces the pioneering culture developed at both originating companies, and continues its corporate mission of becoming the leading anterior column reconstruction spine franchise, providing elegantly simple implants and instruments that are tissue-sparing and generate superior clinical outcomes.

Centinel Spine derived its name from the "Sentinel Sign", the radiographic confirmation of a successful fusion anterior to the interbody device.

For more information, please contact:

Varun Gandhi

SVP, Corporate Finance & Strategic Planning Centinel Spine, LLC

900 Airport Road, Suite 3B

West Chester, PA 19380

Phone: 484-887-8871

Email: [email protected]

Wendy F. DiCicco

Chief Operating and Chief Financial Officer Centinel Spine, LLC

900 Airport Road, Suite 3B

West Chester, PA 19380

Phone: 484-887-8837

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Centinel Spine

Related Links

http://www.centinelspine.com

Catherine Ngo will continue to serve in the capacities of President and Chief Executive Officer of CPB, President of CPF, and director of the CPF and CPB Boards of Directors. John Dean, the current Chair of the CPF and CPB Boards of Directors, will remain a director of both boards.

"I am delighted to have invited Paul to take on this position and my recommendation to our Board for his appointment was based on recognizing the significant added value he could provide to our organization, especially in the areas of business development, digital transformation, and IT strategy," said Catherine Ngo, President and CEO. "We are very fortunate to have someone of Paul's caliber joining our team with his leadership, vision, and understanding of our local market."

"Paul brings with him a wealth of experience and successful achievements in the financial services and technology solutions industries and we believe that his proven leadership, vision and global perspectives will greatly enhance the strength of the executive management team," said John Dean, Chair of the Board. "On behalf of the Board, I applaud Catherine's decision to bring Paul into this role, which was endorsed by the board with their vote. We look forward to continuing to work with Catherine and to working with Paul in his new role."

Yonamine, age 61, currently serves as Executive Chairman of GCA Corporation, the largest independent M&A advisory investment bank in Japan listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. GCA specializes in technology based, cross border M&A advisory services with 18 offices across America, Asia and Europe. Commencing October 1, 2018, Yonamine will be Non-Executive Chairman of GCA Corporation, Japan.

Yonamine served as President and Country General Manager of IBM Japan, Ltd. until March 2017, and established the company as one of the best performing divisions of IBM with approximately $9 billion in annual revenues, and was recognized by Nikkei, Japan's leading business journal, as a leader in workforce diversity. Yonamine joined IBM Japan, Ltd. in May 2010 as Senior Managing Director in charge of Sales and Distribution, and was Executive Vice President from January 2013 to December 2014.

Previously, Yonamine served as President and CEO of Hitachi Consulting Co., Ltd. from 2006 to 2010, where he founded the first consulting and solutions business for Hitachi Ltd. From 2004 to 2006, he was a senior advisor to the Mayor of the City & County of Honolulu where he led a private-public partnership initiative to reengineer City government operations. Yonamine also served as Executive Vice President and Chairman of BearingPoint Asia Pacific, President of KPMG Consulting in Japan, Managing Partner of KPMG, LLC  Hawaii Operations, and Partner in Charge of Japanese Practice of KPMG in Southern California. As President of KPMG Consulting, Yonamine managed the due diligence and divestiture work on non-performing loans for several major Japan banks, as well as the systems implementation for numerous financial services companies in Japan.

Yonamine is a graduate of the University of San Francisco with a degree in accounting and holds a CPA designation. He also serves as Chairman of the Board of Councilors of the U.S.-Japan Council and is a member of the Young Presidents' Organization, Japan Chapter. In Hawaii, Yonamine was actively engaged with numerous community organizations, including the Hawaii Business Roundtable and the Child and Family Services.

About Central Pacific Financial Corp.

Central Pacific Financial Corp. is a Hawaii-based bank holding company with approximately $5.7 billion in assets. Central Pacific Bank, its primary subsidiary, operates 35 branches and 78 ATMs in the state of Hawaii, as of June 30, 2018. For additional information, please visit the Company's website at http://www.centralpacificbank.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

This document may contain forward-looking statements concerning projections of revenues, income/loss, earnings/loss per share, capital expenditures, dividends, capital structure, or other financial items, plans and objectives of management for future operations, future economic performance, or any of the assumptions underlying or relating to any of the foregoing. Forward-looking statements can be identified by the fact that they do not relate strictly to historical or current facts, and may include the words "believes," "plans," "expects," "anticipates," "forecasts," "intends," "hopes," "should," "estimates," or words of similar meaning. While the Company believes that our forward-looking statements and the assumptions underlying them are reasonably based, such statements and assumptions are by their nature subject to risks and uncertainties, and thus could later prove to be inaccurate or incorrect. Accordingly, actual results could materially differ from projections for a variety of reasons, to include, but not limited to: the effect of, and our failure to comply with any regulatory orders or actions we are or may become subject to; oversupply of inventory and adverse conditions in the Hawaii and California real estate markets and any weakness in the construction industry; adverse changes in the financial performance and/or condition of our borrowers and, as a result, increased loan delinquency rates, deterioration in asset quality, and losses in our loan portfolio; the impact of local, national, and international economies and events (including political events, acts of war or terrorism, natural disasters such as wildfires, volcanoes, tsunamis and earthquakes) on the Company's business and operations and on tourism, the military and other major industries operating within the Hawaii market and any other markets in which the Company does business; deterioration or malaise in economic conditions, including destabilizing factors in the financial industry and deterioration of the real estate market, as well as the impact from any declining levels of consumer and business confidence in the state of the economy in general and in financial institutions in particular; the impact of regulatory action on the Company and Central Pacific Bank and legislation affecting the financial services industry; failure to maintain effective internal control over financial reporting or disclosure controls and procedures; changes in estimates of future reserve requirements based upon the periodic review thereof under relevant regulatory and accounting requirements; the impact of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, other regulatory reform, and any related rules and regulations on our business operations and competitiveness; the costs and effects of legal and regulatory developments, including legal proceedings or regulatory or other governmental inquiries and proceedings and the resolution thereof, and the results of regulatory examinations or reviews; the effects of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act; the effects of and changes in trade, monetary and fiscal policies and laws, including the interest rate policies of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System; inflation, interest rate, securities market and monetary fluctuations; negative trends in our market capitalization and adverse changes in the price of the Company's common shares; changes in consumer spending, borrowings and savings habits; technological changes and developments; changes in the competitive environment among financial holding companies and other financial service providers, including fintech businesses; the effect of changes in accounting policies and practices, as may be adopted by the regulatory agencies, as well as the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, the Financial Accounting Standards Board and other accounting standard setters; changes in our capital position; our ability to attract and retain skilled directors, executives and employees; changes in our organization, compensation and benefit plans; and our success at managing the risks involved in any of the foregoing items. For further information on factors that could cause actual results to materially differ from projections, please see the Company's publicly available Securities and Exchange Commission filings, including the Company's Form 10-K and 10-K/A for the last fiscal year and, in particular, the discussion of "Risk Factors" set forth therein. The Company does not update any of its forward-looking statements except as required by law.

SOURCE Central Pacific Financial Corp.

Related Links

http://www.centralpacificbank.com

LITTLE ROCK, Ark., Sept. 25, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Charter School Capital, the first national financial services provider exclusively focused on charter schools and the students they serve, announced today that it has acquired the LISA Academy West Middle School property, located at 21 Corporate Hill Drive in Little Rock, Ark., for $3.4 million. Executed on September 5, 2018, this is the first transaction for Charter School Capital in Arkansas.

As part of the acquisition, Charter School Capital has assumed the existing lease on the 18,796 square foot property through 2027. The property was built in 1994.

LISA Academy West Middle School is part of a larger organization, Little Scholars of Arkansas, which operates a total of five schools in three buildings, serving approximately 2,100 students. The A-rated LISA Academy West Middle School teaches a STEM curriculum to 356 students in grades 7-8, and has a waiting list that exceeds 300 students. The school holds a 13-year charter which expires in 2030.

"We are delighted to assure LISA a long-term home in which to provide students with a rigorous college preparatory program," said Stuart Ellis, president and CEO of Charter School Capital. "We believe strongly in the mission of LISA, and as the facility owner we want to do all we can to support the school in preparing its students for future academic challenges and adventures."

"At LISA Academy, we strive to be a leader in the provision of STEM-focused K-12 education in Arkansas", said Dr. Fatih Bogrek, CEO/Superintendent. "Our new partnership with Charter School Capital fits nicely in our vision for Central Arkansas".

According to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools access to adequate facilities is one of the biggest challenges charter schools face today. With many charter schools operating in suboptimal buildings, the lack of facilities is a serious obstacle to growth. Charter School Capital focuses solely on charter school needs, providing customizable facilities financing options to charter schools. Charter leaders retain control of their buildings and are afforded the flexibility to make the modifications necessary to expand their enrollment and academic programs.

About Charter School Capital:

Launched in 2006, Charter School Capital delivers access to growth capital and facilities financing to charter schools nationwide, opening the funding options charter schools historically have not had. Charter School Capital has provided $1.6 billion in funding to 600+ charter schools, providing high-quality education to more than 800,000 students across the United States. For more information, visit charterschoolcapital.org or email [email protected].

SOURCE Charter School Capital

Related Links

http://charterschoolcapital.org

DUBLIN, Sept. 25, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

The "ADAS and Autonomous Driving Industry Chain Report 2018 (II) - Automotive Vision" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

Car camera is the one installed on the car to realize sundry image acquisition and video recording functions, mainly covering inner-view camera, rear-view camera, front-view camera, side-view camera, and surround-view camera.

Camera installations amounted to 6.39 million units in the Chinese passenger car market in 2017, and the figure is expected to grow to 31.80 million units by 2021 with an AAGR of 49.3%.

The camera is mainly used for reverse image (rear view) and 360-degree panoramic view (surround view), with forward- and inner-view cameras soon to become the main growth drivers. Major applications of the front-view camera are FCW, LDW and AEB, while the inner-view camera the driver monitoring system.

Being capable of capturing static images and videos, the camera being the most important imaging device, is primarily made up of; lens, motor, filter, image sensor, and image signal processor (ISP).

Lens:

The leading automotive lens manufacturer in the world, shipped 18 million lenses in the first half of 2018. The company also forays into the field of LiDAR optical parts.

The ADAS and Autonomous Driving Industry Chain Report 2018 - Automotive Vision, highlights the following:

Overview of the automotive camera industry;

Lane detection function;

Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB);

Night vision system and intelligent headlight;

Driver monitoring system (DMS);

Study into foreign automotive vision companies;

Study into Chinese automotive vision companies

Automotive vision enterprises fall into two parts:

Car Camera-Related Companies; the enterprises that are engaged in visual software development based on car camera to help achieve specific ADAS

Autonomous Driving Functions

As a main sensor of ADAS autonomous driving era, the camera is widely used in;

Lane Detection

Traffic Sign Recognition

Obstacle Monitoring

Pedestrian Recognition

Fatigue Driving Monitoring

Occupant Monitoring

Rear-view Mirror Replacement

Reverse Image

360-Degree Panorama

Having to seek for a transition, Chinese vision ADAS vendors can take the following three paths into account.

Firstly, the providers of partial ADAS function solutions grow to become providers of comprehensive autonomous driving and intelligent connected vehicle solutions (TIER 1) by means of mergers.

Next, vision ADAS vendors may become providers of mobility service technology solutions by starting with surround-view business to tap into automated parking and then foray into mobility services. The OEMs are successively transferring to be providers of mobility services.

Last, products with core technologies are focused. For instance, prioritizing AI chip or a binocular stereo camera as its hit product. Most suppliers boasting core technologies will be ultimately either merged or acquired by the listed companies, while those that fail to forge core competitiveness will be knocked out.

Companies Mentioned



ONSEMI

Sony Image Senor

Mobileye

MCNEX

Magna

Veoneer (Autoliv)

Valeo CDA

Continental

Bosch

Clarion

FujitsuTen (Denso Ten)

Gentex

ZF

Denso

First Sensor

Foresight

EyeSight

Sunny Optical

Smarter Eye

Horizon Robotics

Minieye

Forward Innovation

Intesight Information Technology Co., Ltd.

ZongMu Technology

Suzhou INVO Automotive Electronics

JIMU

Maxieye

Sphyrna (Shuangjisha Technology)

Roadefend

CelePixel

Tsingtech Microvision

CalmCar Vehicle Vision System

Dowcause

PixArt

Shenzhen Autocuis Technology

SOTEREA

Black Sesame Technologies (BST)

Eyemore

For more information about this report visit

https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/8npkxl/china_adas_and?w=5

Media Contact:

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

[email protected]



For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470

For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630

For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900



U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907

Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716

SOURCE Research and Markets

Related Links

http://www.researchandmarkets.com

WASHINGTON, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- B2B research, ratings, and reviews company Clutch announced the top 67 business service providers in Central America and the Caribbean. Today's report includes companies with presence in Costa Rica, Panama, Bahamas, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico.

A variety of industry segments were featured in the report, including marketing, design, development and IT services. Clutch Analysts conducted in-depth research by interviewing and verifying each company's clients to evaluate work quality and client feedback.

Top B2B companies in Puerto Rico in 2018 Top B2B companies in Costa Rica in 2018

Top B2B Companies in Costa Rica

4Geeks

Technologies 4Thought

Marketing 77 Digital AgilityFeat Bridges Strategies Client Services

Inc. GEP Gorilla Logic Kareo McCann ParallelDevs Pop POSSIBLE Premper Renovatio Cloud

Solutions

Top B2B Companies in Panama

Asylum Marketing Cogniter Technologies Discover the World Hyper6 IA interactive LatinOL Lingo24 Neonety Quattro Medios Digitales Zoada Digital Marketing

Top B2B Companies in Bahamas

242 Jobs Amicorp Group Digitech Bahamas Itelbpo PMH Proficient Business Services Synergy Bahamas







Top B2B Companies in Dominican Republic

Acquire BPO Adventures Call Center

Pros Comunique Control

Digital ICON Business Consulting,

LLC Infinite

group Padilla Talk2Rep TrueShore

Top B2B Companies in Jamaica

ADS Global

Advantum

Limited DG BPO Etech Global

Gateway GO

Solutions Itelbpo QualityWorks Consulting

Group Startek VXI Jamaica

Top B2B Companies in Puerto Rico

Buena Vibra

Group CommSense Contactica GTA Horizon

Multimedia INGELLICOM Limonade Inc Mediatek Ojo

marketing Palestra Digital Pixelogic Populicom Unlimited

Studio Wovenware YCS PR

"The companies featured in Clutch's research have superior technology skills, according to conversations with their clients," said Clutch Business Analyst Aaron Morales. "Their work portfolios prove that nearshoring projects for your business can yield high quality results."

Clutch's research on business service providers in Central America and the Caribbean is ongoing, and Clutch welcomes companies to apply to get listed in next year's report.

The results are a snapshot of Clutch's Leaders Matrices on September, 19 2018. Rankings may change daily and currently many not be reflected on Clutch's website.

Full research:

https://clutch.co/cs/top-service-providers

https://clutch.co/pa/top-service-providers

https://clutch.co/bs/top-service-providers

https://clutch.co/do/top-service-providers

https://clutch.co/jm/top-service-providers

About Clutch

A B2B research, ratings, and reviews firm in the heart of Washington, D.C., Clutch connects small and medium businesses with the best-fit agencies, software, or consultants they need to tackle business challenges together and with confidence. Clutch's methodology compares business service providers and software in a specific market based on verified client reviews, services offered, work quality, and market presences.

Contact

Ricardo Real Preciado

[email protected]

202-470-0488

SOURCE ClutchPhoto: Drager The Drager Drugtest 5000 in operation.

It's unclear if police in Kelowna will be using a controversial drug-screening device to catch impaired drivers.

Recreational cannabis becomes legal in just three weeks, but two B.C. police forces have expressed concerns with the federally approved roadside testing device.

The Drager DrugTest 5000 tests saliva for cannabis, methamphetamine and cocaine. It was approved by Ottawa in August, and the feds pledged $161 million for police training and equipment over the next five years.

But, the Vancouver Police Department says while it will be purchasing the device to learn the new technology, it will not be using it immediately. The VPD cited concerns over the machine's size, the fact it doesn't work below 4 C, and the amount of time it takes to administer the test.

Delta Police share those concerns.

There are a lot of issues that still need to be looked at and determined. For example, we still do not know the cost of the unit, the requirements in regards to training, requirements in regards to maintenance, etc., said Cris Leykauf with the Delta Police Department.

Kelowna RCMP would not say if they'll be rolling out the screening devices on Oct. 17, but instead directed inquiries to the national RCMP office, which then directed inquiries to Public Safety Canada, the federal organization that's determining how many devices each jurisdiction gets. Public Safety Canada has not returned a request for comment.

Paul Doreshenko, a longtime criminal lawyer in Vancouver, managed to buy a Drager DrugTest 5000 before the company clamped down on public sales, and he says he has several concerns, echoing the VPD's.

Doroshenko says a study has shown the machine can also produce false-positive results 12 to 15 per cent of the time for marijuana  and 86 per cent for cocaine.

He says he personally tested the device on a medical marijuana patient more than nine hours after using the drug, and while Doroshenko says the man showed no signs of impairment, he still tested positive.

The fear is the medical user, the guy who has been using for a long time and has large concentrations of THC, but it's not impairing for them anymore, ends up with (a positive reading), Doroshenko said.

Rather than using the Drugtest 5000, the VPD says it will have 140 officers trained to administer standardized field sobriety tests, or SFSTs, by the end of the year.

Doroshenko says while the SFSTs are great for identifying those under the influence of alcohol, studies have shown they're not great when it comes to cannabis.

The thing with cannabis is it affects your cognitive abilities, but not necessarily your fine motor skills, and it doesn't affect your muscle control unless you get to freaky-high levels, Doroshenko said. You lose your ability to make sound judgments.CHAPEL HILL, N.C., Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- College Consensus (https://www.collegeconsensus.com), a unique new college ratings website that aggregates publisher rankings and student reviews, has published their ranking of the 100 Most Affordable Colleges & Universities of 2018 at https://www.collegeconsensus.com/rankings/most-affordable-schools/.

To create our ranking of the 100 Most Affordable Colleges & Universities, we started with schools that qualified for a College Consensus score (see https://www.collegeconsensus.com/about/) and then ordered them from lowest to highest according to their most recent out-of-state tuition & fees published by the National Center for Education Statistics.

The 10 most affordable Consensus ranked schools are (in alphabetical order):

Alcorn State University

Brigham Young University-Idaho

Brigham Young University-Hawaii

Brigham Young University-Provo

Dickinson State University

Midwestern State University

United States Merchant Marine Academy

University of Texas-Permian Basin

West Texas A&M University

Youngstown State University

"In the age of rapidly rising tuition," as Managing Editor Carrie Sealey-Morris explains, "affordability is no joke." With student loan debt making up the "second-largest consumer debt class," students are looking for bargains: "earning a college degree without setting yourself up for a life of loan repayment [...] has turned into the Holy Grail." While tuition may be higher than ever, and getting higher, Sealey-Morris explains that getting a degree is still worth it: "Male and female, young and old, every race, the stats hold true: a college degree holder makes more money than a worker without a college degree." That means that prospective college students are looking for affordable tuition, but also a degree that will pay off. According to College Consensus, "Reasonable costs, market-ready skills, in-demand professions: these are the things that make the most affordable colleges in the US a smart investment for tomorrow's professionals and leaders."

"Most college rankings don't take the wide view - they look at their own particular criteria and make their rankings from a narrow set of qualifications," Managing Editor Carrie Sealey-Morris explains. Instead, "College Consensus aggregates rankings and reviews to take in all of the perspectives." The Most Affordable ranking gathers "a highly diverse assortment of colleges, including large regional public universities, small liberal arts colleges, evangelical and Catholic colleges, military academies, historically black colleges and universities, and even some of the fastest-growing up-and-coming universities in the US." College Consensus not only helps students, but calls attention to "the heroes in the higher education landscape," giving affordable colleges the chance to "stand on their own merits, recognized not only for excellence and reputation, but for being the most affordable colleges in the US."

College Consensus is a new approach to college rankings. We combine the latest results from the most respected college ranking systems with thousands of real student review scores from around the web to produce an aggregate College Consensus rating for each school. Students will not find a more comprehensive ranking of the top colleges and universities anywhere. In addition to rankings, College Consensus also offers expert advice and guidance on all aspects of college life, from finding the perfect college, to getting accepted, paying for it, and finding your professional path after graduation.

Carrie Sealey-Morris

Managing Editor, College Consensus

[email protected]

(512) 710-9901

http://www.collegeconsensus.com/

https://www.facebook.com/collegeconsensus/

@CollegeConsens

SOURCE College Consensus

Related Links

https://www.collegeconsensus.com

MADISON, Wis., Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- EatStreet has been named as one of Madison's Best Places to Work in 2018 by Madison Magazine.

The national online food ordering and delivery company headquartered in the heart of Madison, EatStreet ranked eighth in the large category, which includes companies with 101-plus employees. Read the Madison Magazine article featuring the winners here, or check out the feature on EatStreet's innovative office.

For EatStreet CEO and co-founder Matt Howard, the company's most precious resource has always been its people. They're the backbone to creating an environment that allows every employee to be successful, he said.

"Being recognized as a great place to work is a testament to our employees," Howard said. "We may be a technology company, but it's the EatStreet people  their hustle, humility and intellect  that make coming to work each day a rewarding experience."

EatStreet, which has previously been named to the Best Places to Work list, continues to move the tech scene forward in Madison. While company perks, such as a dog-friendly office, are abundant, Howard said it's vital to continually nurture a healthy culture, especially as the company continues to grow nationally.

"We build trust within our organization to create an environment where employees feel they can be authentic, ask questions and share ideas freely," Howard said. "When everyone knows they can create without criticism or backlash, it allows us to foster the innovation needed to be successful."

Madison Magazine's Best Places to Work survey begins with an open call to businesses for nominations. All employees are sent a 60-question web-based survey from an independent company to measure:

Communication and resources Individual needs Manager effectiveness Personal engagement Team dynamics Trust in leadership

The results are compiled and analyzed to determine which organizations have the highest levels of employee engagement, according to Madison Magazine. Winners were selected from more than 125 nominees.

About EatStreet

EatStreet, one of the largest independent online and mobile food ordering and delivery services in the U.S., is the smartest shortcut between hungry and happy. Founded in 2010 by three UW-Madison students, EatStreet is now in over 250 cities nationwide connecting customers to more than 15,000 restaurants. EatStreet is a privately held company with more than 1,000 employees based in Madison, Wisconsin. For more information, visit eatstreet.com/press.

SOURCE EatStreet

Related Links

https://eatstreet.com

As a creator and technological innovation pioneer of marble tiles, GANI Marble Tiles was invited to attend for the fourth time. The opportunity was the perfect moment to showcase GANI's outstanding original design and product standards and unveil their 11 th generation of new products. At CERSAIE 2018, GANI demonstrated how life flows through marble by creating a pulse originating from the center of their booth which spread through the walls and floor, attracting a lot of attention and becoming a real talking point amongst visitors.

New 11th Generation Products Debut Globally with Stunning Aesthetic Concepts

On the evening of 25th September, the MARBLE+ 2019 new product range was launched by GANI Chief Designer, Stefano Trovato. Simultaneously, May Chan, GANI's International Marketing Center General Manager, unveiled the company's international marketing plan at the 2018 GANI Global Conference, held in the Royal Hotel Carlton Italy.

The 2019 range has seven new color series, including grey, white, beige, red, yellow, orange and blue. With pure coloration and great color scale, they can offer brilliant diversity to any stylish home. In addition, GANI products are the perfect solution for a variety of spaces, including indoor spaces, external walls, balconies and terraces, basements, and mosaics. GANI Marble Tiles also offer a vast range of textures for each marble tile allowing maximum design freedom and minimum limitations, including polished, honed, matt(R10), antique, sandblast, relief, and natural.

This new generation of products has been created by upgraded technology, making them not only achieve the best decorative effect, but also have a great physical performance meaning they are slip resistant and abrasion resistant helping bring a safe and healthy home environment to customers. With GANI's exclusive zero-joint paving technology, gaps can be controlled to as little as 0.5mm which ensures the products look more natural than ever before.

From one tile to a whole space, GANI provides a perfect solution for design aesthetics. GANI Marble Tiles, the first choice in high-end decoration.

SOURCE GANIGROTON, Conn., Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- General Dynamics Electric Boat Monday delivered the nuclear-powered attack submarine South Dakota (SSN 790) to the U.S. Navy. Electric Boat is a wholly owned subsidiary of General Dynamics (NYSE: GD).

South Dakota is the 17th ship of the Virginia Class, which provides the Navy with the capabilities required to retain undersea dominance well into the 21st century. South Dakota is also the seventh of the eight-ship group of Virginia-class submarines known as Block III. These ships embody a Navy and industry commitment to reduce costs while increasing capabilities through an initiative comprising a multi-year procurement strategy, improvements in construction practices and the Design For Affordability program.

"Delivering South Dakota is a significant achievement that represents the hard work and excellent performance of our shipbuilders, helps the Navy meet its shipbuilding goals and contributes to the nation's defense," said Electric Boat President Jeffrey S. Geiger. He also recognized the contributions of the Navy and the supplier base.

Virginia-class submarines displace 7,835 tons, with a hull length of 377 feet and a diameter of 34 feet. They are capable of speeds in excess of 25 knots and can dive to a depth greater than 800 feet, while carrying Mark 48 advanced capability torpedoes and Tomahawk cruise missiles.

General Dynamics Electric Boat has established standards of excellence in the design, construction and lifecycle support of U.S. Navy submarines. In its position as an industry leader, Electric Boat remains committed to applying its technical and business expertise to effectively manage the challenges of nuclear-submarine production. The company's three primary locations are in Groton and New London, Conn.; and Quonset Point, R.I. Its current workforce is approximately 16,800 employees.

For more information about Electric Boat, please visit www.gdeb.com. For more information about General Dynamics, please visit www.generaldynamics.com.

SOURCE General Dynamics Electric Boat

Related Links

http://www.gdeb.com

ALBANY, New York, September 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

The global microwave oven market is anticipated to witness an intense competition during the forecast period 2017- 2022 owing to innovation of new products along with presence of global as well as regional players in the market. Major players in the market are adopting numerous strategies to procure larger share of market. Major strategies obtained by players are launch of new products, acquisition and merging with regional players in order to get a better grip in new areas. Generally major players such as SHARP Corporation, Haier Group Corporation, LG Electronics, Panasonic Corporation, and Alto-Shaam have a firm grip in the market with a large customer base. Apart from these the companies spend money behind marketing which makes them popular. Recently major number of players are concentrating on energy efficient appliances.

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On the basis of the product type, the global microwave oven market is segregated into convection, solo microwave opens, and grill. Amongst these, convection dominates the market is anticipated to hold the top position during the assessed period owing to its application in preparation of various cuisines across the world. On the basis of geography, the market is segregated into Europe, Middle East and Africa, Latin America, Asia Pacific except Japan, and North America. Amongst these, North America is prophesized to hold the major share owing to faster acceptance of technology along with the presence of major players in the region.

According to a research report by Transparency Market Research, the analysts have anticipated that the global microwave oven market is anticipated to rise at a 5.8% of CAGR. The market which was valued at US$18.9 bn in 2017 is likely to touch USS25.0 bn by the end of the assessed period.

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Rise in Disposable Income to Increase the Number of Sales

The global microwave oven market is anticipated to exhibit a stellar growth in the years to come due to impressive increase in disposable income along with rising working class people in developing countries such as that of India, Brazil, South Africa, and China. Growing inclination of consumer towards spending on appliances to help in doing kitchen chores has triggered the demand for microwave ovens. Rapid urbanization has resulted in a busier lifestyle in which one prefer work being done by machines. Adoption of such convenient and stylish appliances welcomes compliments for living standards. Rise in demand for energy efficient kitchen appliances along with rising popularity of smart appliances have fueled the demand for microwave open market. North America contributes the most in terms of revenue in the market.

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High Consumption of Electricity to Deter the Market Growth

However, keeping aside the positive sides, the high energy consumption of microwave is anticipated to deter the growth of the global microwave oven market. In various regions, expensive electricity cost constrains the use of such appliances. Countries which are still developing countries prefer using traditional ways of getting the work done. Commercial microwave ovens are known to be working for hours thus consuming high amount of electricity thus burning the pockets of the owner. Nonetheless, major companies in the market are trying to find better ways to deal the problem.

The study presented here is based on a report by Transparency Market Research (TMR) titled, "Microwave Oven Market (Product - Grill Microwave Ovens, Convection Microwave Ovens, and Solo Microwave Ovens; End Use - Commercial and Household; Structure - Countertop and Built-in) - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2017 - 2022"

Browse Press Release - https://www.transparencymarketresearch.com/pressrelease/microwave-ovens-market.htm

The Microwave Oven Market is segmented on the basis of

Product

Microwave Ovens

Convection Microwave Ovens

Solo Microwave Ovens

End Use

Commercial

Household

Structure

Countertop

Built-in

Popular Research Reports by TMR:

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About Us

Transparency Market Research is a next-generation market intelligence provider, offering fact-based solutions to business leaders, consultants, and strategy professionals.

Our reports are single-point solutions for businesses to grow, evolve, and mature. Our real-time data collection methods along with ability to track more than one million high growth niche products are aligned with your aims. The detailed and proprietary statistical models used by our analysts offer insights for making right decision in the shortest span of time. For organizations that require specific but comprehensive information we offer customized solutions through adhoc reports. These requests are delivered with the perfect combination of right sense of fact-oriented problem solving methodologies and leveraging existing data repositories.

TMR believes that unison of solutions for clients-specific problems with right methodology of research is the key to help enterprises reach right decision.







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SOURCE Transparency Market ResearchCHICAGO, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Golden Apple , a leading Illinois nonprofit committed to recognizing exemplary educators and developing future educators, today opened nominations for the highly respected -- Golden Apple Award for Excellence in Teaching and Golden Apple Award for Excellence in Leadership in honor of Stanley C. Golder . New this year, nominations for exceptional teachers and principals/school leaders have expanded beyond the Chicagoland area and are being accepted statewide.

Nominations of 9th-12th grade full-time teachers and Pre-K through 12th-grade principals/heads of school may be submitted at www.goldenapple.org/awards .

The Golden Apple Award for Excellence in Teaching honors outstanding teachers for their roles in having lasting, positive effects on students' lives and therefore building stronger communities. Teacher candidates must demonstrate  in their teaching and results  significant, positive impact on their students' growth and learning.

The Golden Apple Award for Excellence in Leadership, presented in memory of Stanley C. Golder, a founding board member of Golden Apple, honors exemplary performance in school leadership by a principal or head of school who has had a significant and sustained positive impact on the school, created a culture of inclusivity, and delivered dramatic student growth.

"Our founders, Mike and Pat Koldyke, created these awards to shine a spotlight on incredible educators who have the passion, drive and perseverance to transform the lives of students," said Alicia Winckler, Golden Apple CEO. "Last year, Golden Apple received a record number of award nominations. To meet the increasing demand for recognition of teachers and leaders, we are thrilled to expand our prestigious awards throughout Illinois to highlight the importance and lasting, positive effects of highly effective educators, master teachers, and exemplary school leaders."

Golden Apple's selection committee is comprised of master educators who use industry and research-based professional standards to identify exemplary teachers and school leaders. Members of the selection committee will review video evidence of instruction, observe finalists' teaching in-person in their classrooms, and interview finalists' colleagues, school leaders, students, parents, and community members during the selection process.

The 2019 Golden Apple Award recipients will be notified in the spring with surprise visits at their schools. As a highly-valued component of the award recognition, Northwestern University, Golden Apple's partner for more than 30 years, generously offers a Spring Sabbatical to Award recipients at no cost.

In addition, each Golden Apple Award for Excellence in Teaching recipient also receives a $5,000 cash award. The Golden Apple Award for Excellence in Leadership recipient receives a cash award of $10,000 with $5,000 going toward the leader's professional development and $5,000 to the school for a project of the recipient's choosing.

Award recipients become Fellows of the Golden Apple Academy of Educators, a community of educators who work to advance the teaching profession and deepen the learning of students in addition to mentoring Golden Apple Scholars, who are aspiring teachers with a desire to teach in Illinois' schools-of-need. All recipients also will be featured on a Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) one-hour TV program and livestream marketed to local school communities.

About Golden Apple

Founded in 1985, Golden Apple innovates teacher preparation and leadership to transform both the careers of teachers as well as the lives of students in Illinois. Its signature initiative, the Golden Apple Scholars Program, provides exceptional teacher preparation, resources and lifelong support to advance educational excellence for Illinois' most underserved students in schools-of-need. Aspiring teachers/Scholars are recruited from the communities in which they return to serve -- with a passion for teaching and a drive to create positive change for young people in their communities. Scholars commit to teach at an Illinois school-of-need for five years after graduation. More than 1,000 Scholars currently are teaching across Illinois. Visit http://www.goldenapple.org for more information.

Media contact:

Kellie Kennedy

312-933-4903

[email protected]

SOURCE Golden Apple

Related Links

http://www.goldenapple.org

"We are excited to bring on Tee as a member of the HTI Plastics team," said Troy Just, President of HTI Plastics. "Tee has an impressive background and a great deal of knowledge. We look forward to the leadership he will provide our plant, and the improvements he can make to our processes and efficiencies."

Prior to joining HTI, Tee worked as the Vice President of Operations at S & S Cycles Inc. in Wisconsin. Previously to that, he worked for Intel Corporation for 14 years as a Shift Manager, Purchasing Lead and Automation Systems Engineer. He received his Bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering, as well as an MBA from the University of New Mexico. He also received a dual Master's degree in Electrical Engineering and Management from the Leaders for Manufacturing Program at MIT.

ABOUT HTI PLASTICS

Since 1985, HTI Plastics has provided high-quality injection-molded plastic parts to customers in the U.S. and overseas, with a strong focus on both responsive expertise and exceptional value. HTI's knowledgeable team is dedicated to working in partnership with customers to provide innovative solutions and timely deliveries in an atmosphere of continuous improvement. For more information, visit htiplastic.com.

PCE Inc., a privately held corporation founded in 1993, has three divisions with manufacturing capabilities in blow-molding, injection molding and profile extrusion. HTI Plastics and Lincoln Plastics are located in Lincoln, NE, while Apex Plastics is located in Brookfield, MO. PCE, Inc. serves customers across the global and offers solutions for every size of company. www.pce.us.com

SOURCE HTI Plastics

Related Links

http://www.htiplastic.com

CHICAGO, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Hydro's North American Extruded Solutions business unit, formerly known as Sapa, unveiled its updated profile and logo following its acquisition by Hydro in late 2017. With a significant presence in all parts of the aluminum value chain, the company is marking this new chapter in its 112-year history by renewing and modernizing its profile and logo after a year-long process with involvement from its 35,000 employees worldwide.

"We are still the same purpose-driven company that was founded in Norway more than a century ago. That has not changed," says President & CEO Svein Richard Brandtzg. "Our new visual identity reflects the change that Sapa is making within our company, with expansion into new global markets and regions, and the onboarding of more than 20,000 new colleagues."

New logo reflects Nordic heritage

Developed by the Norwegian architecture and design company Snhetta, Hydro's new logo retains the distinctive "sail" of past logos to reflect the company's heritage and business continuity, but also brings a more modern look that acknowledges the renewal of Hydro as a company.

"Our purpose is to create a more viable society, and our contribution is to help engineer the future and lightweight our planet through innovative and sustainable aluminum products and solutions," Brandtzg says. "We have low-carbon aluminum products that are best in class, and with our engineering competence, we work with customers to use this metal in solutions that are bringing society forward.

"This marks the start of our next chapter."

Hydro aspires to become better, bigger and greener through continuous improvement of existing operations, selective growth and expansion, and setting new standards for responsibility and sustainability within the global aluminum industry. The acquisition of Sapa represents a strong step forward with these aspirations, expanding Hydro's footprint and capabilities with more than 150 locations and over 20,0000 employees around the globe.

Hydro's 23 Extruded Solutions facilities and roughly 6,000 employees across North America will begin utilizing the new branding effective immediately, with a complete transition of physical signage expected by mid-2019.

About Norsk Hydro

Hydro is a fully integrated aluminum company with 35,000 employees in 40 countries on all continents, combining local expertise, worldwide reach and unmatched capabilities in R&D. In North America, Hydro is a supplier of rolled aluminum, extrusions and other metal products with over 6,500 employees. Hydro's domestic operations include two dedicated aluminum re-melting facilities in Kentucky and Texas, more than 20 extruded products manufacturing locations and nine casting facilities. Hydro is committed to strengthening the viability of its customers and communities, shaping a sustainable future through innovative aluminum solutions.

Contact:

Joseph Tateoka

(312) 729-1710

[email protected]

SOURCE Norsk HydroMINNEAPOLIS, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- In the newest rounds of grants marking its 20th anniversary, Hyundai Hope On Wheels 501(c)(3) celebrates National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month by awarding the $300,000 Hyundai Hope Scholar Grant to Peter Gordon, MD, PhD, physician, University of Minnesota Masonic Children's Hospital and assistant professor of pediatrics, University of Minnesota Medical School. This September, 38 new physician-researchers will receive a combined $14.1 million in grants to support novel therapeutic approaches and innovative research options in pediatric cancer. The award will be officially presented to Dr. Gordon at Masonic Children's on Thursday, September 27th at 10 a.m.

Childhood cancer researchers depend largely on private funding for groundbreaking therapies to get off the ground and to advance treatment approaches to the next phase of testing, ultimately, bringing better therapies and cures to kids with cancer. With this latest award, Masonic Children's has received more than $1.4 million in grants from Hope On Wheels, contributing to the organization's $145 million in the organization's total lifetime giving.

"Throughout the country, talented doctors are working tirelessly to help kids fight cancer by conducting research or providing bedside care," said Scott Fink, chairman, Hyundai Hope On Wheels Board of Directors. "Our goal at Hope On Wheels is to provide these doctors with the grant funds they need to perform their lifesaving work."

During the event, children being treated for cancer at Masonic Children's will participate in the program's signature Handprint Ceremony, in which they will dip their hands in paint and place their handprints on the Hope Vehicle, a white 2018 Santa Fe. As "Every Handprint Tells a Story," the colorful handprints of brave pediatric cancer fighters represent their individual and collective hopes, dreams and journeys.

Supporters are encouraged to visit the HHOW website ( www.HyundaiHopeOnWheels.org ) to view this year's grant winners along with stories of brave cancer survivors and passionate doctor-researchers. Once there, supporters may add their handprint to a wall of hope to show their support for the cause. They will also find information on additional ways to support HHOW through social media efforts and events throughout the month. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram at facebook.com/HyundaiHopeOnWheels , twitter.com/HopeOnWheels or instagram.com/HyundaiHopeOnWheels .

HYUNDAI HOPE ON WHEELS

Hyundai Hope On Wheels is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that is committed to finding a cure for childhood cancer. Launched in 1998, Hyundai Hope On Wheels provides grants to eligible institutions nationwide that are pursuing life-saving research and innovative treatments for the disease. HHOW is one of the largest non-profit funders of pediatric cancer research in the country, and primary funding for Hyundai Hope On Wheels comes from Hyundai Motor America and its more than 835 U.S. dealers. Since its inception, Hyundai Hope On Wheels has awarded more than $145 million towards childhood cancer research in pursuit of a cure.

HYUNDAI MOTOR AMERICA

Hyundai Motor America, headquartered in Fountain Valley, Calif., is a subsidiary of Hyundai Motor Company of Korea. Hyundai vehicles are distributed throughout the United States by Hyundai Motor America and are sold and serviced through 835 dealerships nationwide. All new Hyundai vehicles sold in the U.S. are covered by the Hyundai Assurance program, which includes a 5-year/60,000-mile fully-transferable new vehicle limited warranty, Hyundai's 10-year/100,000-mile powertrain limited warranty and five years of complimentary Roadside Assistance.

For more details on Hyundai Assurance, please visit www.HyundaiAssurance.com

Please visit our media website at www.hyundainews.com

Hyundai Motor America on Twitter | YouTube | Facebook

SOURCE Hyundai Hope On Wheels

Related Links

http://www.HyundaiHopeOnWheels.org

Stefan Wolff will step down as CEO on Oct. 1. The former CEO and current CTO, Jim Cable, will serve as pro tem CEO. To support the transition, Stefan will remain as strategic advisor until December, when he will return to Germany to be closer to his family.

"It is with a heavy heart that I announce I must return to Germany in December to be with my family," says Stefan Wolff, CEO of pSemi. "pSemi is only beginning to harness and deliver its innovative products on a large scale. We have a fantastic team to deliver what the market needs next, a full design-win pipeline, an award-winning patent portfolio and outstanding support from our parent company, Murata. In my time at pSemi, we've made tremendous progress, and our team, our business and our product portfolio have grown substantially. With our simplified organizational structure and the addition of further industry expertise to our leadership team, I am confident pSemi can effectively scale the business to the next level and become Murata's center of excellence for RF, mixed signal, power, optical and ASIC semiconductors."

The company will promote Donna Fenn to vice president of HR and Anil Tata to vice president of IT, effective Oct. 1. Donna Fenn joined pSemi in 2016 as director of HR, and under her leadership, the company's headcount has grown to more than 580 employees. Anil Tata joined pSemi in 2015 as director of IT, and he has effectively scaled the enterprise's systems. Both positions will report directly to the CEO and will support additional internal needs and more collaboration with Murata.

About pSemi

pSemi Corporation is a Murata company driving semiconductor integration. pSemi builds on Peregrine Semiconductor's 30-year legacy of technology advancements and strong IP portfolio but with a new mission: to enhance Murata's world-class capabilities with high-performance RF, analog, mixed-signal and optical solutions. With a strong foundation in RF integration, pSemi's product portfolio now spans power management, connected sensors, optical transceivers, antenna tuning and RF frontends. These intelligent and efficient semiconductors enable advanced modules for smartphones, base stations, personal computers, electric vehicles, data centers, IoT devices and healthcare. From headquarters in San Diego and offices around the world, pSemi's team explores new ways to make electronics for the connected world smaller, thinner, faster and better. To view pSemi's semiconductor advancements or to join the pSemi team, visit www.psemi.com.

The Peregrine Semiconductor name, Peregrine Semiconductor logo and UltraCMOS are registered trademarks and the pSemi name, pSemi logo, HaRP and DuNE are trademarks of pSemi Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective companies. The pSemi website is copyrighted by pSemi Corporation. All rights reserved.

Editorial Contact:

Elizabeth Brown

Townsend Team

Phone: 619.993.4648

[email protected]

SOURCE pSemi Corporation

Related Links

http://www.psemi.com

Photo: The Canadian Press Blake Goldring

AGF Management Ltd. says chief executive and chairman Blake Goldring is moving to the role of executive chairman.

The investment management firm says Kevin McCreadie, president and chief investment officer, has been named as his successor in the top job, effective Dec. 1.

Judy Goldring, executive vice-president and chief operating officer, will become president and chief administration officer.

Blake Goldring was named president in 1997 and as CEO in 2000.

During his tenure, the firm has grown from $12.8 billion in assets under management to $38.8 billion.

AGF has also diversified its business with growth on the institutional and private client side of its operations.NEW YORK and SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- EPIC Insurance Brokers and Consultants announced today that Iron Cove, a division of EPIC, was named Best US Insurance Provider by Hedgeweek, a Global Fund Media publication, which reaches over 98,000 financial services executives globally.

Principal Louis D'Agostino attended the Hedgeweek recognition event at the Intercontinental Hotel in NYC to accept the award on behalf of the Iron Cove team.

The winner of the prestigious award is determined by Hedgeweek readers, consisting of investors, managers, and industry professionals, who cast their ballots to determine which firms are the "best of the best" in their respective categories, making this a truly peer-reviewed accolade.

"Winning the US award for a second year in a row confirms our long-term commitment to the asset management industry," D'Agostino said. "After winning Hedgeweek's Best Global Insurance Provider Award earlier this year, and given our team's continuing growth as a division of EPIC, we are very excited about our future."

Iron Cove Partners currently serves many of the world's most prominent financial institutions. As Principal, D'Agostino is responsible for the oversight and management of the Iron Cove Financial Services Practice, which provides its expertise and experience to hedge funds, registered advisers, private equity funds, and broker-dealers.

"Receiving votes from your clients and industry peers acknowledging the quality and value of your work is a great feeling," D'Agostino said. "It never gets old!"

About Iron Cove  a division of EPIC:

Iron Cove, a division of EPIC is a leading full-service insurance brokerage business serving the financial services industry from its headquarters in New York City. A trusted adviser with decades of experience and over 150 Hedge Funds as clients, Iron Cove provides cutting edge brokerage and consulting services to some of the world's largest financial institutions, including Employee Benefits Consulting, Commercial Property & Casualty Insurance, Transactional M&A Insurance as well as Private Client, Life Insurance, and Estate Planning services.

For more information, contact Louis D'Agostino, Principal at [email protected] or (646) 452-4031.

About EPIC

EPIC is a unique and innovative retail property & casualty and employee benefits insurance brokerage and consulting firm. EPIC has created a values-based, client-focused culture that attracts and retains top talent, fosters employee satisfaction and loyalty and sustains a high level of customer service excellence.

EPIC team members have consistently recognized their company as a "Best Place to Work" in multiple regions and as a "Best Place to Work in the Insurance Industry" nationally.

EPIC now has more than 1,400 team members operating from 50 offices across the U.S., providing Property & Casualty, Employee Benefits, Specialty Programs and Private Client solutions to more than 20,000 clients.

With run rate revenues greater than $400 million, EPIC ranks among the top 20 retail insurance brokers in the United States. Backed by Oak Hill Capital Partners, the company continues to expand organically and through strategic acquisitions across the country.

For additional information, please visit https://www.epicbrokers.com/.

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This release was issued through Send2Press, a unit of Neotrope. For more information, visit Send2Press Newswire at https://www.Send2Press.com

SOURCE EPIC Insurance Brokers and Consultants

Related Links

https://www.epicbrokers.com

As guests enter the JUSTIN Downtown Tasting Room, they are met with an elegant space featuring an expansive wine-tasting bar, lounge, and a full dining room, all ideal for exploring JUSTIN's portfolio of award-winning Bordeaux-style wines. Guests can enjoy JUSTIN's seasonal wine-tasting flight and select wines by the glass, which can be savored alongside a locally-sourced artisanal cheese platter or pate board. Those looking for a more formal dining experience are encouraged to indulge in the rotating menu of a la carte items or a seasonal pairing flight, both inspired by the award-winning Restaurant at JUSTIN.

Every detail of the new space was artfully curated and customizedfrom the "infinity" underground bottle display at the front alcove down to the pattern of the floor tile, which is a reproduction of the famous "Gaudi tile" designed by Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi in the early 20th century. Kaoru Mansour, a Japanese-born artist now based in Los Angeles, created the series of six paintings displayed throughout the dining area and French artist Christophe Come created the room's dramatic metal and glass divider. Throughout the space, 14 state-of-the-art high-definition screens take guests on a visual enological journey coined, "Liquid Containers." The rotating digital installations produced by Mill+, a collective of the Oscar-winning studio The Mill, feature a series of different JUSTIN wines being slow-poured at 1,000 frames per second.

"This is a special day for JUSTIN as we expand the footprint of our brand and our commitment to the Paso Robles community," said Clarence Chia, Vice President of Marketing and Direct-to-Consumer for JUSTIN Vineyards & Winery. "Nearly 40 years after first establishing our roots in Paso Robles, we are thrilled to welcome our neighbors and wine lovers alike to our second location in the heart of downtown for a taste of JUSTIN's world-class wines in one of California's most distinguished wine regions."

"The Chamber of Commerce is thrilled to welcome a new tasting room experience of JUSTIN's caliber to beautiful Downtown Paso Robles," said Gina Fitzpatrick, CEO of the Paso Robles Chamber of Commerce. "It's exciting to be bringing one of the region's pioneers into such a historical space in the Paso Robles city center, knowing it will only add to the character and prestige our region and community is best known for. Welcome, JUSTIN!"

The new JUSTIN Downtown Tasting Room is located at 811 12th Street (next to the historic Acorn Building) and is open to the public Sunday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., as well as for private events by reservation only.

About JUSTIN Vineyards & Winery

Located in Paso Robles, JUSTIN Vineyards & Winery was founded in 1981 and is known for crafting world- class wines using Bordeaux grape varieties. Widely recognized for their iconic ISOSCELES Bordeaux-style blend, JUSTIN is also known for their Cabernet Sauvignon. The estate, located at 11680 Chimney Rock Road features a Tasting Room, luxury five-star accommodations at the JUST Inn, and a Restaurantmaking it one of the only wineries on the Central Coast to offer all three options. In addition to its stellar hospitality, JUSTIN consistently receives top honors around the world, establishing itself as a leader in Bordeaux-style winemaking. JUSTIN wines are available through discerning fine wine retailers and restaurants throughout the United States, or directly from the Winery via JUSTIN's Tasting Room, online store or to members of the exclusive JUSTIN Wine Society wine club. To discover more about what makes JUSTIN unique, visit www.justinwine.com.

SOURCE JUSTIN Vineyards & Winery

Related Links

http://www.justinwine.com

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Lacework, the industry's first solution to bring automation, speed and scale to cloud security, has received Service Organization Control (SOC) 2, Type II Certification, which provides independent validation that Lacework security controls comply with the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants' applicable Trust Services Principles and Criteria. The certification demonstrates Lacework's unremitting commitment to the most rigorous security standards for its own operations and handling of customer data.

"Customers and partners need assurances that their data and workloads are operating with trusted services," said Stefan Dyckerhoff, President and CEO, Lacework. "As a security company, Lacework is proud to lead by example and demonstrate that a continuous, comprehensive approach to security in the cloud is critical for maintaining a secure environment."

The SOC 2 examination was conducted according to attestation standards developed and managed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), and provides detailed information related to, and assurance of, an entity's controls surrounding the security, availability, and processing integrity of the systems used to process users' data and the confidentiality of the data processed by these systems.

Lacework was able to implement the required guidelines in an exceedingly short time frame due mostly to the company's advanced internal IT infrastructure, and because it was able to rely on the Lacework product to identify and validate SOC 2 specifics. "Lacework is optimized for continuous compliance, so we are able to quickly identify any issues within our own environment," said Dan Hubbard, Chief Product Officer. "This enables us to identify issues quickly and immediately apply the necessary requirements to meet the needs of SOC 2."

Lacework customers, prospects, and partners can receive a copy of the SOC 2 report upon request. For more information on Lacework and the Lacework Cloud Security Platform, please visit www.lacework.com.

About Lacework

Lacework is the industry's first solution to bring automation, speed, and scale to cloud security enabling enterprises to safely innovate fast in the cloud. Unlike conventional security tools built for static datacenters, Lacework is designed to self-adapt to the cloud ever-changing configuration and workloads. Just like DevOps automates code deployment, Lacework automates cloud security, empowering IT to continuously keep cloud environments secure and compliant. Based in Mountain View, California, Lacework is a privately held company funded by Sutter Hill Ventures, Liberty Global Ventures, Spike Ventures, the Webb Investment Network (WIN), and AME Cloud Ventures. Find out more at www.lacework.com .

Media Contact

Jacqueline Meyler

Lumina Communications on behalf of Lacework

(669) 234-9775

[email protected]

SOURCE Lacework

Related Links

http://www.lacework.com

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Sharon Woodworth, FAIA, ACHA, has joined the San Francisco office of national architecture and engineering firm Harley Ellis Devereaux (HED) co-leading the national healthcare design practice as Studio Leader. Woodworth is an accomplished architect with more than 20 years of experience that builds on her earlier career as a nurse and her ongoing work as an educator. This unique personal background and experience makes her an exceptional asset to clients across the healthcare sector. She provides an integrated perspective on care and the care environment that includes the latest research on stakeholder engagement, planning efficiencies, wellness and healing, and evidence-based design strategies.

Architect, clinician, author, and educator Sharon Woodworth, FAIA, ACHA, has joined the San Francisco office of architecture and engineering firm Harley Ellis Devereaux (HED) co-leading the national healthcare design practice as Studio Leader. Woodworth has two decades of healthcare architectural experience. Her nurse-turned-architect perspective on the care environment includes the latest research on stakeholder engagement, planning efficiencies, wellness, and evidence-based design.

"Sharon brings a unique perspective to HED's healthcare team from her early career days as a nurse to her extensive background in medical planning and design," says HED CEO J. Peter Devereaux, FAIA, LEED AP. "Her energy and expertise are a great addition to our healthcare practice, enhancing design excellence and thought leadership for our clients."

Prior to joining HED, Woodworth operated her own consultancy and worked with national architecture firms. She is an Assistant Professor at UCSF, where she teaches "Leadership in Healthcare Environments" to those earning a Master's in healthcare administration.

"As a healthcare architect," Woodworth says, "I help clients visualize a pathway forward, where the end goal is a model of care that isn't frozen in the past but is fluid enough to operate in tomorrow's complex future. This is the first step for 'healthcare in the age of the unknown,' where each step in the dance must balance a shifting choreography. I am thrilled to have joined HED because the firm shares my commitment to advancing design for healthcare providers and patients."

ABOUT Harley Ellis Devereaux (HED)

Founded in 1908, HED seeks creative solutions that have a positive impact for its clients, the community, and the world. HED has earned a reputation for excellence in all facets of architecture, including design, consulting, engineering and planning services. The firm serves clients in a broad range of market sectors including Healthcare, Workplace, Housing, Mixed Use, Science + Technology, Higher Education and Pre K-12 + Community Education from six U.S. offices. See how HED advances your world at www.hed.design .

contact:

Kira Gould, [email protected] , 415 690 0182

Nicole Marshall, [email protected] , 504 644 7335

SOURCE Harley Ellis Devereaux (HED)

Related Links

http://www.hed.design/

NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Former Attorney General of Louisiana Charles C. Foti, Jr., Esq. and the law firm of Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC ("KSF") are investigating the proposed sale of Nevada Gold & Casinos, Inc. ("Nevada") (NYSE: UWN) to Maverick Casinos, LLC. Under the terms of the proposed transaction, shareholders of Nevada will receive only $2.50 in cash for each share of Nevada that they own. KSF is seeking to determine whether this consideration and the process that led to it are adequate, or whether the consideration undervalues the Company.

If you believe that this transaction undervalues the Company and/or if you would like to discuss your legal rights regarding the proposed sale, you may, without obligation or cost to you, e-mail or call KSF Managing Partner Lewis S. Kahn ([email protected]) toll free at any time at 855-768-1857, or visit https://www.ksfcounsel.com/cases/nyse-uwn/ to learn more.

To learn more about KSF, whose partners include the Former Louisiana Attorney General, visit www.ksfcounsel.com.

Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC

1100 Poydras St., Suite 3200

New Orleans, LA 70163

SOURCE Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC

Related Links

http://www.ksfcounsel.com

Nubeva Collaborates with Microsoft to Integrate & Enhance VTAP Azure Traffic Feeds Providing Complete, Advanced Solution for Enterprise Customers.

SAN JOSE, Calif., Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Nubeva Technologies Ltd. ("Nubeva" or the "Company") (TSX-V: NBVA, OTC: NBVAF), today announced full support for Microsoft Azure Virtual Network TAPs (VTAPs) in its Nubeva Prisms product. With the combination of VTAPs and Nubeva Prisms, customers have the most complete, easy, advanced and affordable solution to capture, aggregate, process and replicate traffic from Virtual Machines and containers in Azure VNETs to one or many tool destinations. With Microsoft Azure VTAPs and Nubeva Prisms, customers can get the right packet traffic in the correct formats to their tools and enable full visibility and control.

"Azure Virtual Network TAP provides continuous mirroring of virtual machine network traffic to a packet collector without using agents," wrote Yousef Khalidi Corporate Vice President, Azure Networking on his blog on Monday (Link: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/azure-networking-fall-2018-update/) . "Out of band monitoring, security, and performance solutions can now be deployed in your Virtual Network. Solutions are available from...Nubeva."

As a Microsoft Virtual Network TAP Partner, Nubeva will provide production support within 30 days of Azure VTAPs general availability. Nubeva will provide early access and preview options in Q4 of calendar 2018. Customers desiring Azure packet traffic visibility today can make use of Nubeva Prisms' zero-touch sensor technology which currently provides a high-performance traffic tapping solution for Azure resources. Customers will have a seamless upgrade path to VTAPs instrumentation when released. When VTAPs are G.A. and in use in customer environments, Nubeva Prisms enhances VTAPs through simple yet sophisticated policy-based management, support for traffic aggregation, filtering and replication of traffic to multiple tools.

Azure Virtual Network TAP is a native platform capability that provides deep copy of virtual machine network traffic to a network packet collector like Nubeva Prisms. Microsoft unveiled its VTAP at the its Ignite conference in Orlando, FL, on September 26, 2018 (Link: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/ignite).

Nubeva Prisms is engineered to work with and enhance Microsoft VTAPs. By consuming VTAP feeds then processing, refining and replicating that traffic, Nubeva Prisms automatically creates finely-filtered feeds for tool sets with unlimited elastic scalability. Together, VTAPs and Nubeva Prisms provide tool vendors and customers with unprecedented visibility and control of their cloud network traffic.

"The innovative access and visibility solution from Nubeva Prisms on top of Microsoft Virtual Network TAPs is a leap forward for enterprises transitioning to the public cloud," said Ramon Peypoch, Chief Product Officer at ProtectWise. "With solutions like this that combine access, advanced packet refining, automatic scaling and disruptively affordable pricing, ProtectWise can make our cloud-native security, monitoring and detection capabilities available to more organizations than ever before. This will only help companies accelerate their digital transformation and do so with confidence."

Nubeva's Prisms solution is able to consume traffic from a Microsoft VTAP and then apply processing, refining and replication capabilities to the traffic streams. Nubeva Prisms will then forward the processed traffic to destinations such as security tools, network performance monitoring, application performance monitoring, packet capture and other compliance tools, including destinations outside of the VNET in which the VTAP exists.

Nubeva Prisms is also able to directly tap virtual machines and containers in Azure to deliver either point-to-point or point-to-hub-to-multiple destinations traffic mirroring, filtering and replication.

VTAPs are an important input into the Nubeva Prisms solution in Azure environments as they deliver full stream, raw packet traffic. Nubeva Prisms augments VTAPs by applying smart filters, routing, forwarding, replication and a host of other traffic refining and grooming capabilities to the VTAP streams.

"We are extremely excited about innovating with Microsoft in order to deliver both access and full support for packet traffic visibility and control in Azure," said Randy Chou, CEO of Nubeva.

Microsoft VTAPs In Early Limited Availability, Nubeva Foresees Positive Business Impact

Nubeva Prisms is engineered to deliver elastic automation for visibility in Azure. Users of both Microsoft VTAPs and Nubeva Prisms can automatically apply their visibility, capture and monitoring rules to any system in their VNET. This helps to eliminate errors from forgetting to include visibility and monitoring capabilities when adding new compute capacity. It also helps to reduce or even eliminate delays from waiting to instrument new capacity or images with ad hoc monitoring capability. Nubeva Prisms delivers focused filtering of VTAP feeds which provide security, application/network monitoring and compliance tools exactly - and only - what they need. This eliminates extraneous transport charges, CPU and bandwidth consumption.

Together VTAPs and Nubeva Prisms deliver coverage that is as elastic as the Azure cloud.

About Nubeva Technologies Ltd.

Nubeva Technologies Ltd. develops Software-as-a-Service ("SaaS") software and services that enable enterprises to run best-of-breed cybersecurity in public cloud environments. Nubeva's products provide enhanced visibility and control over network traffic and simplified automation and operation that is essential to run top-tier security technologies and services in the cloud easily and at low costs. With Nubeva, organizations can leverage existing policies, technologies and operations and accelerate their move to the cloud with confidence. San Jose, CA-headquartered Nubeva is committed to the vision of dramatically broader and lower cost availability of the world's best security to confront the rising cyber-crime threat. Visit www.nubeva.com for more information.

Forward Looking Statements

This news release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws relating to the Company's business plans and the outlook of the cybersecurity industry. Although the Company believes in light of the experience of its officers and directors, current conditions and expected future developments and other factors that have been considered appropriate that the expectations reflected in this forward-looking information are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on them because the Company can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct. Actual results and developments may differ materially from those contemplated by these statements. Specifically, there is no assurance that the Pre-Sale Offering or the Token Offering will be completed or as to the amount of proceeds that will be raised. In addition, there is no assurance that the required regulatory approvals can be obtained. The statements in this press release are made as of the date of this release and the Company assumes no responsibility to update them or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances other than as required by applicable securities laws. The Company undertakes no obligation to comment on analyses, expectations or statements made by third-parties in respect of the Company, its subsidiaries, their securities, or their respective financial or operating results (as applicable).

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

For further information, please contact:

Nubeva Technologies Ltd.

Steve Perkins

Chief Marketing Officer

1(844)538-4638

Marcel Valentin, Investor Relations

[email protected]

1(647)697-0498

SOURCE Nubeva Technologies Ltd.

Related Links

http://www.nubeva.com

COLLEGE STATION, Texas and PORT WASHINGTON, N.Y., Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- G-CON Manufacturing, the leader in prefabricated, prequalified cleanroom solutions, and Pall Corporation, a global leader in filtration, separation and purification, are collaborating to bring turnkey continuous bioprocess or viral vector production facility solutions to the industry. G-CON PODs will be customized with advanced Pall Biotech bioprocess equipment, including automation and utility supplies; these will be predesigned into the G-CON cleanroom units for scalable deployment.

"Together, Pall's cutting-edge technology and G-CON's flexible cleanroom platform take the concept of modularity one step further, delivering a complete, reproducible, scalable facility solution that is easy to place or relocate, as well as clean, sanitize and even repurpose," said Mario Philips, Vice President & General Manager at Pall Biotech. "This strategic collaboration is particularly important to Pall, as we continuously improve bioprocesses for the industry by offering innovative solutions like G-CON PODs customized with Pall technologies. This solution addresses customer demand for higher efficiencies, while enjoying more flexibility through scale-out and localization of manufacturing."

PODs from G-CON are mobile, and include integrated process piping and heating and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. Deploying the customized PODs is simple by design, allowing a customer to focus on the target molecule, while relying on the G-CON and Pall teams to optimize the facility design and process. Once designed, the PODs ease verification, qualification and validation challenges by providing comprehensive site acceptance testing and even IQ/OQ support. The PODs' flexibility allows them to support multiple products, and they can be easily repurposed. In addition, the cost of "building" a facility is drastically reduced, as is build time, which increases the return on investment.

"G-CON's prefabricated cleanroom units feature a complete, yet compressed footprint for Pall's continuous bioprocessing and viral vector production designs. The implementation of the Pall processes into our POD infrastructure creates an ideal turnkey solution for our customers. These solutions will be readily deployable and scalable, as they reduce the typical design, verification and qualification efforts by standardizing processes and cleanroom environments," said Maik Jornitz, President and CEO of G-CON Manufacturing. "We are looking forward to combining our PODs with Pall's process knowledge and designs to serve our joint customer base. The industry requires optimized, fast, scalable solutions, and these requirements will be met through this collaboration."

Engineering teams from G-CON and Pall will align to design and deliver the mobile, prefabricated cleanroom units to meet individual customer needs. Process solutions will also be addressed in response to customer needs and applications. Both companies will continue to offer their products and services independently, in addition to the collaboration.

Drawing: Continuous PD Bioprocessing

Drawing: Viral Vector Platform

About G-CON

G-CON Manufacturing designs, produces and installs prefabricated cleanroom PODs. G-CON's cleanroom POD portfolio provides a variety of dimensions and serves multiple purposes, from laboratory environments to personalized medicine and production process platforms. POD cleanroom units are unique among traditional cleanroom structures in terms of scalability, mobility and the ability to repurpose the PODs once the production process reaches the end of its lifecycle. For more information, please visit the Company's website at www.gconbio.com or follow us on social media via LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and Facebook.

About Pall Corporation

Pall Corporation is a filtration, separation and purification leader, providing solutions to meet the critical fluid management needs of customers across the broad spectrum of life sciences and industry. Pall works with customers to advance health, safety and environmentally responsible technologies. The company's engineered products enable process and product innovation and minimize emissions and waste. Pall Corporation serves customers worldwide.

For more information visit www.pall.com. Or follow us on social media: YouTube - LinkedIn - Twitter - Facebook

For more information:

G-CON Media Contact

Brittany Berryman

Director of Marketing

G-CON Manufacturing, Inc.

6161 Imperial Loop, College Station, TX 77845

Phone: 979-204-7975

e-mail: [email protected]

www.gconbio.com

Pall Corporate Media Contact

Mariann Kourafas

Director of Communications

Pall Corporation

Phone: +1-508-871-5469

www.pall.com

Pall Biotech Media Contact

White Matter Communications

Beth Willers

[email protected]

+1-415-905-0324

SOURCE Pall Corporation

Related Links

http://www.pall.com

"We're now seeing people discover the outdoors in new ways and at a pace that we've never seen before. While we often go outside to disconnect, we have also seen that technology can be a powerful enabler in helping people fall in love with the outdoors," says REI CEO Jerry Stritzke. "These new roles reflect our belief that we can inspire outdoor adventures through all touchpoints: in stores, through guided outdoor experiences, in local communities and via thoughtful use of technology."

Chief Customer Officer

REI Chief Creative Officer Ben Steele has been promoted to an expanded role and will serve as executive vice president and the co-op's first chief customer officer. In his new role, Steele will lead REI's digital, marketing, brand, stewardship and customer insights capabilities.

"I am incredibly lucky to work for an organization with such a clear purpose. We believe that REI can reach more people and help them get outside to enjoy the outdoors on an even broader scale," says Steele. "That's good for the co-op, our customers and our communities."

Steele served as REI's chief creative officer for four years, leading brand engagement efforts including #OptOutside and Force of Nature. He has a deep brand and agency background and has previously served in creative and leadership roles at a variety of leading advertising and design agencies. He also serves on the board of NatureBridge.

"This appointment reflects Ben's outstanding contributions to REI during his time as the co-op's chief creative officer. His teams continue to bring REI's brand and storytelling to new levels," says Stritzke. "In this new role, in partnership with our excellent retail leadership team, Ben can help us present a seamless co-op experience to all of our audiences in an increasingly digital world."

Chief Digital Officer

Curtis Kopf is REI's first chief digital officer and will report to Ben Steele. He joins REI from Premera Blue Cross, having worked previously in senior roles at Alaska Airlines, Microsoft and Amazon. He has a track record of leading transformation and a passion for building great digital teams and products.

"I have always considered REI one of the iconic, mission-driven companies that sets the bar for everyone else," says Kopf. "I love REI, and am thrilled to have the opportunity to ensure the co-op's incredible culture shines through all of our digital platforms."

Kopf will be responsible for all of REI's digital efforts, including REI.com and the REI app.

"Curtis is a great addition to our leadership team. He will build from the strong foundation and performance we have in digital today," says Stritzke. "Curtis' reputation as an inspiring leader precedes him, and I couldn't be happier to welcome him to the co-op."

Join the REI team

Candidates interested in joining the co-op are encouraged to browse open positions at REI.com/jobs. New employees will receive a variety of benefits, including generous product and service discounts, competitive pay and retirement contributions. For 21 consecutive years, REI has been recognized as one of Fortune magazine's "100 Best Companies to Work For."

About the REI Co-op

REI is a specialty outdoor retailer, headquartered near Seattle. The nation's largest consumer co-op, REI is a growing community of more than 17 million members who expect and love the best quality gear, inspiring expert classes and trips, and outstanding customer service. REI has 153 stores in 35 states and the District of Columbia. If you can't visit a store, you can shop at REI.com, REI Outlet or the free REI shopping app. REI isn't just about gear. You can take the trip of a lifetime with REI Adventures, a global leader in active adventure travel that runs more than 170 custom-designed itineraries worldwide. The REI Outdoor School is run by professionally-trained, expert-instructors who teach beginner-to advanced-level courses about a wide range of activities. To build on the infrastructure that makes life outside possible, REI invests millions annually in hundreds of local and national nonprofits that create access toand stewardthe outdoor places that inspire us all.

SOURCE REI Co-op

Related Links

http://REI.com

WASHINGTON, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Sandler, LLC (d/b/a Sandler Law Group), has acquired the business operations of McGlinchey Stafford & Youngblood and Associates PLLC (MSYA), a premier closing and fulfillment services provider for the mortgage lending industry.

This acquisition further enhances the mortgage compliance and origination ecosystem built by regtech investor and regulatory expert Andy Sandler. Asurity Technologies, a leading provider of compliance management and mortgage loan document technology, expands its operations into mortgage closing and fulfillment. All legal services previously undertaken by MSYA will now be performed at Sandler Law Group.

"With this acquisition, Asurity Technologies and Sandler, LLC have further implemented our strategy to set a new mortgage industry standard for economically efficient and fully compliant software and transaction support services," says Andy Sandler, CEO of Asurity Technologies and Managing Partner of Sandler, LLC.

"We are excited to join the family of companies Andy Sandler has built to offer our clients expanded mortgage closing services. We are now able to provide mortgage lenders access to a powerful ecosystem with known experts in legal, compliance, services, and technology. This is a great opportunity to provide the marketplace with deeper resources and increased efficiencies," says Vicki Murphy-Gee, Vice President of Sales, Asurity Services and Executive Director, Sandler Law Group.

Asurity Technologies now provides a full range of compliant mortgage documents and mortgage closing and fulfillment services including outsourced closing functions and CD preparation and legal review, wire orders, funding, and shipping, through a team of over 150 mortgage lending specialists and technologists and affiliated legal experts at Sandler Law Group.

For additional information about Asurity Technologies, please visit www.asurity.com.

About Asurity Technologies

Asurity Technologies is an integrated compliance solutions company built by regulatory and technical experts. Our goal is to make compliance a competitive advantage and ease the burden of complex and expensive regulatory management. We provide 100% compliant smart loan packages and compliance analysis and reporting, with state-of-the-art infrastructure, an ecosystem of engineering and regulatory experts, and a committed customer and technical support team. To learn more about Asurity Technologies, please visit www.asurity.com.

About Sandler Law Group

Sandler, LLC (Sandler, PLLC d/b/a Sandler Law Group in Texas) offers mortgage companies a holistic residential mortgage loan process that includes compliance management strategies, regulatory expertise, document preparation, closing and fulfillment services for the mortgage lending industry. To learn more about Sandler Law Group, please visit www.sandlerllc.com.

SOURCE Asurity Technologies

Related Links

https://www.asurity.com

WASHINGTON, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The Deluxe Corporation Foundation has presented SCORE, the nation's largest network of volunteer, expert business mentors, with a $476,500 grant to support diverse volunteer recruiting. The grant supports SCORE's new volunteer recruitment and onboarding initiatives designed to attract and retain an increasingly diverse volunteer base. Officially announced at SCORE's 10th Annual Awards ceremony, the grant marks the latest milestone in a longstanding relationship between SCORE and Deluxe.

The Deluxe Corporation Foundation has presented SCORE, the nations largest network of volunteer, expert business mentors, with a $476,500 grant to support diverse volunteer recruiting. The grant supports SCOREs new volunteer recruitment and onboarding initiatives designed to attract and retain an increasingly diverse volunteer base. Officially announced at SCOREs 10th Annual Awards ceremony, the grant marks the latest milestone in a longstanding relationship between SCORE and Deluxe.

"For nine years, Deluxe has been an exceptional supporter of SCORE," said SCORE CEO Ken Yancey. "We are extremely grateful for their continued dedication to our mission of fostering vibrant small business communities through mentoring and education. SCORE is humbled and honored to accept this generous grant, which supports our ongoing commitment to diversity and inclusion."

The grant from the Deluxe Corporation Foundation will help to fund updates and standardization of recruitment and onboarding procedures across SCORE's 300 chapters. These improvements are designed to ensure that new and prospective volunteers have an even more positive experience with SCORE, and to grow diversity among SCORE's base of 10,000 volunteer mentors, which will help SCORE to reach and serve even more diverse clients.

"For more than 100 years, Deluxe has been dedicated to helping small business owners achieve their dreams," said Malcolm McRoberts, Senior Vice President of Small Business Services for Deluxe. "Through our relationship with SCORE, we share a common goal of empowering small business owners. This grant furthers that goal by training the next group of exceptional SCORE mentors."

Past Deluxe Corporation Foundation grants have funded SCORE Public Service Announcements and have enabled SCORE to develop key online training materials for its volunteers, including the current Mentoring Methodology. At last year's SCORE Awards, Deluxe Corporation received SCORE's top honor, the Lou Campanelli Award, for its unwavering commitment to supporting the U.S. small business community.

"We are incredibly grateful to the Deluxe Corporation Foundation for enabling this game-changing opportunity, which positions SCORE with increased resources to support our volunteers and small businesses," said SCORE VP of Development Resa Kierstein.

About SCORE

Since 1964, SCORE has helped more than 11 million aspiring entrepreneurs. Each year, SCORE's 10,000 volunteer business experts provide 750,000+ free small business mentoring sessions, workshops and educational services to clients in 300 chapters nationwide. In 2017, SCORE volunteers helped to create 54,506 small businesses and 61,534 non-owner jobs.

For more information about starting or operating a small business, visit SCORE at www.score.org. Follow @SCOREMentors on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for the latest small business news and updates.

About Deluxe

Deluxe Corp. is a growth engine for small businesses and financial institutions. Nearly 4.4 million small business customers access Deluxe's wide range of products and services, including customized checks and forms, as well as website development and hosting, email marketing, social media, search engine optimization and logo design. For our approximately 4,900 financial institution customers, Deluxe offers industry-leading programs in checks, data driven marketing, treasury management and digital engagement solutions. Deluxe is also a leading provider of checks and accessories sold directly to consumers. For more information, visit us at www.deluxe.com, www.facebook.com/deluxecorp or www.twitter.com/deluxecorp.

Contact Information:

SCORE

Betsy Dougert

571-318-3763

[email protected]

SOURCE SCORE

Related Links

http://www.score.org

JI'NAN, China, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- East China's Shandong Province plans to promote 600 major projects in an effort to foster 10 industries as the new economic growth drivers at the upcoming first Shandong Conference on Confucian Entrepreneurship, according to a local official.

"Some 1,200 representatives have confirmed attendance to the event, 70 percent of whom come from other provincial-level regions, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and foreign countries," said Sun Laibin, deputy chief of the provincial office for accelerating shift of growth drivers, when briefing the press on the preparation for the conference on September 25.

The event is slated to take place in Shandong's capital city Ji'nan on September 28-30. Revolving around transforming old economic development drivers to new ones, the conference will launch 11 forums to showcase investment climate and incentives and exchange information on the latest technological innovations and emerging business trends.

"Foremost research institutions, prestigious academicians and experts, specialists and representatives from companies of Fortune Global 500 and private sectors will meet and share their wisdom on how to better facilitate the conversion of economic growth drivers and achieve high-quality development," said Sun.

Agreements on 130 projects with a total contract value of 536.62 billion yuan will be signed during the conference. "All projects should be carried out in one year. And a follow-up mechanism will be established to track and supervise the implementation," Sun illustrated.

High-end talents will bolster high-quality development. The Shandong Conference on Confucian Entrepreneurship will represent not only a huge gathering of business partners, but also a platform for attracting global talents to settle down in Shandong. "To substantiate the 536.62-billion-yuan projects, there should be researchers and experts who have core technologies and independent intellectual property rights," said Li Boping, provincial chief of human resources.

An online platform for investment and recruitment is to be launched at the opening ceremony of Conference. By means of cloud computing, big data, and other technologies, demands and supplies of potential projects, talents and capitals in the 10 major industries and over 180 industrial development parks in 17 cities across the province have been integrated on the platform. Visitors are able to select specific business sector, investment intent, recruitment description or other preferences to find a perfect match. The online service is available both on laptops and mobile devices.

The organizing committee of the Conference has established a talent pool specifying information on some 2,000 experts and researchers and released more than 1,500 key job vacancies in 539 organizations and companies. There will also be a pamphlet explaining incentives and career prospects for high-level talents to work in Shandong. The local government also encourages businesses to take the initiative and explore partnerships with academicians in terms of commercializing their technological achievements.

To keep the investment and talents attracted via the platform, Shandong proposed a long-acting mechanism by institutionalizing the conference as a biennial event. With the secretariat for the Conference on Confucian Entrepreneurship as a standing body when the event is not on, competent government departments and leading business insiders will convene special committees on topics like business and commerce, technology, education, tourism, healthcare, finance and young startups. Each committee will launch exchange programs on a regular basis and offer services to facilitate entrepreneurial endeavors.

The 2018 Conference on Confucian Entrepreneurship sends a robust signal to the whole nation and the entire world that Shandong is determined to open wider to the outside world and spares no efforts in attracting businesses and talents for high-quality development, according to local government.

In January, the State Council, China's cabinet, approved Shandong's action plan to build itself as a comprehensive pilot zone with the specific purpose of transforming old economic development drivers to new ones, upgrading the construction of the zone to a national strategy. Shandong is expected to trial new practices in restructuring the economy and gain replicable experiences for the rest of China.

To this end, the province plans to foster 10 industries as new drivers for economic growth. In specific, the 10 industries cover five emerging sectors, namely new-generation information technology, high-end equipment, new energy and new materials, modern maritime industry and medical and healthcare services. The remaining five industries include green chemicals, modern high-efficiency agriculture, cultural creativity, tourism and modern finance, which will be upgraded from traditional industrial base into a more environmentally-friendly development path.

"To gain new competitive advantages in developing Shandong's open economy, it is imperative to promote the Confucian entrepreneurship in the new era and give full play to the role of entrepreneurs," said Sun.

Home to the birthplace of Chinese ancient great philosopher Confucius, Shandong has a profound history and a rich culture. Besides inviting businesspeople of Shandong descendants back to contribute for the prosperity of their hometown, the event will also exhibit traditional handicrafts, cultural heritage and the hospitality of local people.

The themes of the 2018 Conference on Confucian Entrepreneurship include "Great Way to Confucian Entrepreneurship: Integrity and Credibility," and "New Era, New Growth Drivers, New Confucian Entrepreneurs and New Vision." Throughout the event, various exchange programs will be held in all 17 cities across Shandong Province.

SOURCE Information Office of the People's Government of Shandong ProvinceLaunching today at Tanger Outlets across the United States and Canada, the Tanger PINK Campaign offers shoppers using the Shop Pink Card the opportunity to receive additional savings on the best brand name and designer fashions while helping to unite in the fight against breast cancer.

"We are excited to continue working with the Breast Cancer Research Foundation and local organizations to support the fight against breast cancer," said Steven B. Tanger, Chief Executive Officer of Tanger Outlets. "We, along with our participating retailers, are committed to supporting the research that will one day lead to a cure for this disease that has impacted so many families."

Tanger's Shop Pink Cards offer shoppers 25% off any item at participating stores, once per day, per store with unlimited use through October 31, 2018. Shop Pink Cards are available for $10, in two formats: a mobile card saved on your phone or a physical card to save in your wallet. Tanger's Shop Pink Cards can be purchased at any Tanger Outlets nationwide, online at www.tangeroutlet.com/pink or on Tanger's app.

Individual centers will also host local PINK events, including 5K Walk/Runs, Pink Party Socials, and other Pink activations to enhance the shopping experience and to shine the light on breast cancer awareness.

Proceeds from the campaign will support local breast cancer organizations as well as the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF), the nation's highest-rated breast cancer organization according to Charity Watch and Charity Navigator. Through BCRF, Tanger donations have directly supported pioneering studies in breast cancer, including research conducted by Dr. Kenneth Offit at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Dr. Katherine Nathanson at The University of Pennsylvania, and Drs. Elizabeth Jaffee and Leisha Emens at Johns Hopkins University.

Since 1994, Tanger has contributed more than $17 million to breast cancer research through the PINK Campaign, 5K races, on-site events and other breast cancer-related fundraising initiatives across the U.S.

About Tanger Factory Outlet Centers, Inc.

Tanger Factory Outlet Centers, Inc. (NYSE: SKT), is a publicly-traded REIT headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina that presently operates and owns, or has an ownership interest in, a portfolio of 44 upscale outlet shopping centers. Tanger's operating properties are located in 22 states coast to coast and in Canada, totaling approximately 15.3 million square feet, leased to over 3,100 stores which are operated by more than 520 different brand name companies. The company has more than 37 years of experience in the outlet industry. Tanger Outlet Centers continue to attract more than 188 million shoppers annually. For more information on Tanger Outlet Centers, call 1-800-4TANGER or visit the Company's website at www.tangeroutlets.com.

Quentin Pell | [email protected]

SOURCE Tanger OutletsABU DHABI, UAE, September 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

' Shadow ' Economies e stimated to b e over US $3 trillion

UAE ranks 34th in the Global Illicit Trade Environment Index

From counterfeit goods to illicit financial flows, to human trafficking and drugs; the 'shadow' economy is estimated to reach over US$3 trillion[1]. With an aim to create a dialogue and address the root cause of illegal trade, The Economist Events will host the third Global Illicit Trade Summit on October 30th, 2018 at the Etihad Towers, Abu Dhabi.

Newer technologies, crypto-currency, taxation, legal loopholes, rise of freezones, eCommerce and regional socio-economic instability have opened new opportunities for counterfeit, terrorism, Intellectual Property crimes and other illicit trade. The event offers a platform to facilitate dialogue between the private and public sector/ policy makers to forge an international response against illegal activities and protect society, consumers and the economy.

"Ranked 34 out of 84 nations worldwide, UAE is a paradigm of governance showing they will not tolerate illicit activities," said Christopher Clague, Managing editor, Asia and global editorial lead, trade and globalization, The Economist Intelligence Unit. "Criminals have been quick to take advantage of ever changing market condition and loopholes. Therefore, a conversation and cooperation between the private and public sector is imperative. The event brings a diverse group of people from different industries who will share best practices and thought leadership on how to tackle a multi-faceted global problem," Clague added.

The Summit will feature a range of panel discussions, candid interviews and presentation from prominent influential leaders and experts. Some of the speakers include John Mair, Director, head of Project Integrity, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), Abdelhak Senhadji, Deputy director of fiscal affairs, IMF; Brendan LeMoult, Vice-president, global compliance investigations, training and anti-illicit trade, JTI (Japan Tobacco International); Wael Adhami, Head of brand protection, Middle East, Africa and Pakistan, Johnson & Johnson, amongst others.

More than ever before, there is a clear business case for bringing the fight against illicit trade into the mainstream. "Wherever there are big price differences between markets, which are mostly driven by taxation, illegal trade takes place," says Brendan LeMoult, Anti-illicit trade and fiscal affairs Vice-president, JTI. He emphasizes, "Regulators, law enforcement experts and the private sector need to work together on the issue. Our joint efforts with law enforcement agencies across the world have proven to be successful. Over the last nine months, over 2 billion illegal cigarettes worldwide were seized thanks to the information we shared."

The event is open for the media. For more information about the summit or to register, please visit https://events.economist.com/events-conferences/emea/global-illicit-trade-summit-2018-middle-east/

About The Economist Events

Economist Events, the organiser of the summit and part of The Economist, has hosted over 80 events annually across more than 30 countries on topics that convene world-class thought leaders on a range of strategic business issues.

For more information: https://events.economist.com/

[1] Global Illicit Trade Environment Index 2018 released by The Transnational Alliance to Combat Illicit Trade (TRACIT) and The Economist Intelligence Unit

Press enquiries:

Zeba Ahmad, [email protected] , +971-50-4942989

SOURCE The EconomistNEW YORK, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- For the past six years, The Event Planner Expo has been synonymous with top tier events. Hosted by EMRG Media in New York City, it brings together under one roof an exceptional calibre of planners, services, spaces, and influential CEOs. Year after year, attendees come away from this meeting of the minds with countless new connections and fresh industry insight.

Attendees at The Event Planner Expo Event Planners Networking at The Event Planner Expo

With connecting and networking in mind, EMRG Media is delighted to be bringing hundreds of top executives from major influential companies to the annual trade show. "We realize that the best planners in the business come to our event each year in search of not just the latest trends, but also top tier clients," says Jessica Stewart, Vice President, EMRG Media. "The planners that attend our Expo collectively book tens of thousands of events annually from their connections made at The Event Planner Expo. One of our main objectives is to connect the best services and venues with these incredible corporate planners in attendance."

What makes the Expo such a robust networking hub? "It's all about the unparalleled access to the biggest names," Stewart adds. "While the list of major companies in attendance is extensive, some of the names include JP Morgan Chase, MTV, Estee Lauder, Google, UBS, Thrillist, Columbia, Barclay's, and Vayner Media."

That said, it is not just big companies and planners that benefit from the impressive turnout to the Expo. Smaller scale planners benefit equally, booking major gigs that propel their business to the next level and put them on the map in a meaningful, lasting way.

The Event Planner Expo, taking place on October 2nd and 3rd, is an ideal milieu for all kinds of networking--in addition to the inevitable connections that are made just by being in attendance, EMRG Media has even introduced an exclusive networking lounge, available to VIP and All Access ticket holders.

Tickets to the Expo range in price and are selling quickly. For more information and to secure your spot, visit: http://www.theeventplannerexpo.com/.

SOURCE EMRG MediaWith over 20 years of real estate experience spanning across development, planning, entitlements, leasing, community relations, government relations, and design and construction management, Mr. Fitchitt led the effort to gain Howard County Council's approval in 2016 of a $90 million TIF for public infrastructure and a comprehensive plan for affordable housing in Downtown Columbia. He recently secured approval of an additional million square feet of development in Downtown Columbia's Lakefront district.

"We are fortunate to have Greg's talent and leadership at the helm of Columbia to propel forward our dynamic vision for the community and continue the visionary legacies of Jim Rouse and John DeWolf," said Grant Herlitz, President of The Howard Hughes Corporation.

Mr. Fitchitt chairs the Downtown Columbia Partnership board and serves on the Greater Baltimore Committee's Board of Directors, the Howard County Chamber Board of Directors, and the ULI Transit Oriented Development Council for the ULI Baltimore and Washington District Councils.

"I am excited for the vibrant future that lies ahead for Columbia and look forward to continuing to grow boldly with our community as we build upon the great work of my esteemed predecessors," said Fitchitt.

About The Howard Hughes Corporation

The Howard Hughes Corporation owns, manages and develops commercial, residential and mixed-use real estate throughout the U.S. Its award-winning assets include the country's preeminent portfolio of master planned communities, as well as operating properties and development opportunities including: The Seaport District in New York; Columbia, Maryland; The Woodlands, The Woodlands Hills, and Bridgeland in the Greater Houston, Texas area; Summerlin, Las Vegas; and Ward Village in Honolulu, Hawaii. The Howard Hughes Corporation's portfolio is strategically positioned to meet and accelerate development based on market demand, resulting in one of the strongest real estate platforms in the country. Dedicated to innovative placemaking, the company is recognized for its ongoing commitment to design excellence and to the cultural life of its communities. The Howard Hughes Corporation is traded on the New York Stock Exchange as HHC. For additional information visit www.howardhughes.com .

About Downtown Columbia

A development of The Howard Hughes Corporation, Downtown Columbia is located at the center of Columbia, MD, one of the first master planned communities in the U.S. founded by legendary developer James W. Rouse in 1967. Conveniently located between Washington, DC and Baltimore, Columbia is comprised of 14,000 acres including ten completed residential villages and a deep pipeline of commercial development opportunities within its Downtown. At full buildout, the redevelopment of Downtown Columbia will include three new and reconfigured neighborhoodsMerriweather District, Lakefront District and Central Districtand feature more than 14 million square feet of mixed-use development comprised of 4.3 million square feet of commercial office space, 1.25 million square feet of street retail, 6,244 residential units, and 640 hotel rooms, as well as cultural and civic spaces including public parks, trails and more.

The underdeveloped core of Columbia became the subject of an extensive five-year process that culminated with the passage by the Howard County government of the Downtown Columbia Plan in 2010, a guide to creating a vital area in which residents can live, shop, work, entertain, and enjoy cultural opportunities in an enriched natural setting. More information is available at www.howardhughes.com/properties/downtown-columbia .

Safe Harbor Statement

Statements made in this press release that are not historical facts, including statements accompanied by words such as "will," "believe," "expect," "enables," "realize", "plan," "intend," "assume," "transform" and other words of similar expression, are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are based on management's expectations, estimates, assumptions, and projections as of the date of this release and are not guarantees of future performance. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in these statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially are set forth as risk factors in The Howard Hughes Corporation's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its Quarterly and Annual Reports. The Howard Hughes Corporation cautions you not to place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements contained in this release. The Howard Hughes Corporation does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect future events, information or circumstances that arise after the date of this release.

Media Contacts

The Howard Hughes Corporation

Vanessa Rodriguez, 410-964-4891

Director of Marketing, Columbia

[email protected]

Cristina Carlson, 347-454-4259

Vice President, Corporate Communications & Public Relations

[email protected]

For HHC Investor Relations

David O'Reilly, 214-741-7744

Chief Financial Officer

david.o'[email protected]

SOURCE The Howard Hughes Corporation

Related Links

https://www.howardhughes.com

WASHINGTON, Sept. 25, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia welcomed the statement by His Excellency the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Federal Republic of Germany Mr. Heiko Maas, which included his intention to work towards strengthening the bilateral ties and enhancing cooperation in all areas between the Kingdom and Germany.

The Kingdom affirms the deep strategic ties it enjoys with the Federal Republic of Germany, as it is a historic and important relationship for both countries. The Kingdom and Germany play a leading role in bolstering international security and stability, and the global economy.

His Excellency Adel Al-Jubeir extended an invitation to His Excellency the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Germany to visit the Kingdom at the earliest opportunity, so that both countries may begin a new phase of close cooperation in all areas to the benefit of both our countries and peoples.

SOURCE Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia, Information OfficeLAFAYETTE, Ind., Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Tissue Source, a Lafayette, IN based supplier of porcine tissues used in medical products, has announced it will provide sponsorship for, as well as exhibit at, the American Society for Matrix Biology (ASMB) Biennial Meeting to be held in Las Vegas, NV, October 14th  17th.

The theme of the meeting is "ECM Microenvironments in Disease, Aging, and Regeneration" and the program promises to integrate the interests of a wide scientific audience. The ASMB promotes basic, translational, and clinical research on the extracellular matrix (ECM), cell-ECM interactions, and ECM-based therapies and devices which form the foundation of many regenerative medicine treatments, both currently available and in the developmental pipeline.

"The ASMB biennial meeting is a premier gathering for academia, scientific societies, industry, and government involved in the research and development of biological matrices. We are committed to support the communities that are developing the leading-edge technologies in tissue engineering, xenotransplantation and other facets of regenerative medicine through the use of ECM technologies," said Sherry Ziobro, CEO and founder of Tissue Source.

About Tissue Source

Tissue Source LLC is a privately-held, woman-owned business headquartered in Lafayette, IN For over 10 years, Tissue Source has supplied porcine tissues and organs to medical device, biologic, pharmaceutical, biomedical research and development, and academic communities. For more information, please visit www.tissue-source.com.

SOURCE Tissue Source LLC

Related Links

http://www.tissue-source.com

(Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/750103/URGO_Medical_Logo.jpg )

(Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/750104/SteadMed_Logo.jpg )

The newly formed entity created today, September 26th, takes the name Urgo Medical North America. Its headquarters will remain in Fort Worth, Texas, under the leadership of the former management team.

With a yearly turnover of approximately $20M, Urgo Medical North America will operate in the USA and Canada with ambitions to become a global leading player in the world's largest advanced wound care market of North America. There is a perfect fit between the range of products of both companies that will enable the new entity to offer best in class treatments to treat acute and chronic wounds.

As a global leader in wound care (number 2 in Europe), URGO Medical is constantly looking for new opportunities to strengthen its international growth. Last year in 2017, 65% of the revenues of URGO Medical were generated abroad, and the company has now a direct presence in more than 20 countries. "Setting foot in the USA represents both a key milestone for our development and a strategic priority. We are happy to enter this new market with our partner SteadMed, who also has a strong expertise in advanced wound care and who will help us to develop innovative solutions to assist healthcare professionals in reducing healing time. Our two companies share the same values: a history of entrepreneurship and the long term vision of a family business," announces Pierre Moustial, URGO Group CEO.

SteadMed Medical LLC (SteadMed) is a US company based in Fort Worth, Texas, that commercializes advanced wound care products (for optimizing wound bed preparation). The company was created in 2010 by Michael Steadman who is still at the head of the company. SteadMed distributes its range of products Primarily in North America and employs 41 people locally. "This new partnership with URGO is a great opportunity for us to enhance our growth in North America and to launch together new innovative products in advanced wound care, for patients who suffer from wounds associated with diabetes, blood circulation problems, infection and other wound healing complications," says Michael Steadman, SteadMed Chairman, newly named CEO of URGO Medical North America.

The new entity's objectives within the next 5 years are to reach $50M in annual turnover while doubling the workforce in Texas and throughout the United States.

URGO Medical North America will dedicate its activities to products that offer relief to patients who suffer from severe wounds, thanks to its portfolio optimized solutions and protocols for healthcare professionals:

- Specifically adapted dressings and treatment protocols for different types of acute and chronic wounds such as Venous leg ulcers, diabetic foot ulcers, pressure ulcers or burns. URGO Medical North America product portfolio will be built upon SteadMed Medical products (e.g. Vashe, Drawtex) along with URGO Medical products (the Restore Triact product line). In the near future, these products will be rebranded to Urgo Medical brands.

- Medical trainings to continue improving care and treatment for patients;

- Investment strategy in medical studies to demonstrate the clinical efficiency of treatments to reduce the burden of chronic wounds.

- The company's digital solution for optimizing the care and treatment pathway, to assist healthcare professionals with diagnosis, customized treatments and care protocols, wound monitoring with alerts relative to the healing trajectory.

About SteadMed

SteadMed Medical provides medical devices and products to hospitals, nursing homes and home health agencies - and the patients they treat - with a focus on acute, chronic, and surgical wounds, and additionally skin moisturization. Our extensive portfolio of products establishes proven protocols for the care and management of wounds, skin, and skin breakdown. By listening to clinicians' concerns, SteadMed has been able to provide the highest-quality and most innovative products available, while keeping costs competitive. Its dedicated field representatives and customer service department, as well as clinical personnel on staff, are committed to supporting the needs of the clinician. These professionals enable SteadMed to bring comprehensive solutions to those with wound and skin care complications.

For more information, please visit http://www.steadmed.com

About URGO GROUP

French Family-owned URGO Group is an international leading company and world expert in advanced wound care and selfcare. With its two divisions Urgo Medical and Urgo Consumer Healthcare, URGO Group is engaged on day to day basis with patients, healthcare professionals and the general public. The Group develops innovative wound dressings that have proven their medical superiority through clinical studies, to address an increased need worldwide for the care of chronic wounds. It gives access to responsible healthcare solutions in the areas of first aid, nutritional supplements, sexual well-being, cold and allergies. The Group has a presence in 22 countries and a turnover of $690M (2017). 3 100 collaborators participate in these missions, among which 9 industrial sites serve the needs of our clients. URGO developed a sound portfolio of very well-known brands such as Mercurochrome, Alvityl, Juvamine, Sonalto, Ricqles, Urgo, all serving the Group's global ambition.

To prepare the future, UrgoTech, the group's internal start-up has the mission to explore and offer patients the benefits of connected healthcare through artificial intelligence, digital and neurotechnologies which can bring life-changing therapies.

For more information, please visit http://www.urgo-group.com

SOURCE URGO Medical and SteadMedSOUTH BEND, Ind., Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Global vehicle solutions provider, AM General, has been awarded a $51.3 million contract to recapitalize High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles (HMMWV) for the U.S. Army. The company will utilize its longstanding and proven Public Private Partnership (PPP) program with the Red River Army Depot (RRAD) to deliver mission-capable, like-new M1152 and M1165 HMMWV variants.

"We recognize the value of a modernized vehicle fleet for the U.S. Army and this contract award is a testament to our commitment for continued innovation and vehicle system improvements to ensure mission readiness for our service men and women," said Chris Vanslager, AM General Executive Vice President  U.S. Defense. "The HMMWV platform is incredibly nimble and adaptable; over the life of the program, it has received a multitude of improvements."

The current program will recapitalize existing U.S. National Guard assets. Selected vehicles will be disassembled at RRAD, go through a rigorous initial inspection, and modified in accordance with the recapitalization requirements. The recapitalized vehicle bodies will then ship to AM General's Mishawaka Manufacturing Campus, where they will be mated to a new production rolling chassis. The resulting product is a modernized HMMWV with automotive improvements including substantial increase in overall vehicle reliability, improved steering geometry for maneuverability, and increased-capacity 4L85E transmission, improved front mounted HVAC system, addition of Antilock Braking System and Electronic Stability Control, and an improved powertrain cooling system.

About AM General

AM General designs, engineers, manufactures, supplies and supports specialized vehicles for military and commercial customers worldwide. Through its military business, the company is widely recognized as the world leader in design, engineering, manufacturing and logistics support of Tactical Vehicles, having produced and sustained over 300,000 vehicles in over 70 countries. Through its heritage companies, AM General has over 100 years of experience meeting the changing needs of the defense and automotive industries, supported by its employees at major facilities in Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio, and a strong supplier base that stretches across 43 states. Please see more information about AM General at www.amgeneral.com.

Media Contact: Deborah Reyes

Global Marketing and Communications Director / AM General

Phone: 248-309-5897

E-mail: [email protected]

SOURCE AM General

Related Links

http://www.amgeneral.com

About Wind Creek Hospitality

Wind Creek Hospitality is an authority of the Poarch Band of Creek Indians. Wind Creek Hospitality manages the Tribe's gaming facilities including: Wind Creek Atmore, Wind Creek Wetumpka, Wind Creek Montgomery, Wa She Shu Casino in Nevada, Renaissance Aruba Resort & Casino, Renaissance Curacao Resort & Casino as well as racetracks in Alabama and Florida.

The Poarch Band of Creek Indians is the only federally recognized Indian Tribe in the state of Alabama, operating as a sovereign nation with its own system of government and bylaws. The Tribe operates a variety of economic enterprises, which employ hundreds of area residents.

SOURCE Wind Creek Hospitality

Related Links

http://www.windcreekhospitality.com

MARTINSVILLE, Va., Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- 14-year-old NASCAR Whelen All-American Series Late Model Racer Mini Tyrrell is preparing for the granddaddy of all NASCAR late model short-track races, the ValleyStar Credit Union 300 at Martinsville Speedway in Martinsville, Virginia on Saturday, Sept. 29, announced Timmy Tyrrell Racing. He's going to have a very busy race week leading up to the event.

The outgoing young driver attended the media dinner at Martinsville Speedway, Tuesday, Sept. 25, and spent time with those who will be covering this major event.

Timmy Tyrrell Racing

Practice begins on Thursday, Sept. 27, so Tyrrell and the team will be doing much of the preparation on the car prior to that week. Tyrrell is really looking forward to his first NASCAR start.

"I am very lucky to have the opportunity to race the ValleyStar 300 this weekend," he said. "My family, crew & sponsors have worked very hard to afford me this opportunity. I have not lost sight of what it takes to get here. Without the help of my sponsors, I would not be able to race. TireX is our main partner this weekend and I am so thankful for their faith in me. This weekend is important to me as it is my first ever NASCAR start. The race draws over 70 cars and it is the best of the best in NASCAR late model racing that competes there, so we know we have our work cut out for us. But we believe we're ready and we're looking forward to the weekend."

Young Mini is known for his compassion toward others, as he has worked in conjunction with Jeff Gordon to raise over $400,000 for childhood cancer research and awareness. Even while preparing to race on the biggest stage of his young career, he was focused on others who need prayers and support.

"I would like to ask that everyone prays for my friend Bobby Watson, the owner of Carteret County Speedway in North Carolina," he said. "Bobby had a stroke a few weeks ago and is battling health issues. We are also aware of how important it is for us to help those in North and South Carolina affected by the Hurricane. Most importantly, please remember that September is childhood cancer awareness month and more needs to be done to find a cure for this awful disease called cancer that everyone is affected by. My hope is that I can take my passion for racing and turn it into a career, where I can someday build a hospital to help children in need like my friend Jeff Gordon has done. It is very humbling when you can take something that you love and make it work for you to help others."

The Valley Star Credit Union 300 begins with practice on Thursday, Sept. 27th. Qualifying will be on Friday, Sept. 28 with the main event being run under the lights on the -mile oval on Saturday, Sept. 29. For more information visit www.martinsvillespeedway.com.

The ValleyStar Credit Union 300 at Martinsville Speedway will be available to fans for free on FansChoice.tv for fans who cannot attend in person.

KEEP UP TO SPEED WITH MINI:

Website: http://minityrrell.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MiniTyrrell

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MiniTyrrell

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/minityrrell

GIVING BACK:

Mini's Mission: https://www.facebook.com/MinisMission

Media/Sponsorship Contact: Rod Wortham  Race Face Brand Development

Email: [email protected]  Ph: (727) 999-2628

Related Images

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Mini Tyrrell

minis-racecar.jpg

Mini's Racecar

minis-mission.png

Mini's Mission

image4.gif

SOURCE Timmy Tyrrell Racing

Related Links

http://minityrrell.com

WASHINGTON, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, the American Federation of Government Employees announced its endorsement of Lauren Baer for election this November to the U.S. House representing Florida's 18th Congressional District.

"We are thrilled to announce our support of Lauren Baer because we know she stands for workers and believes in public service," said AFGE National-Secretary Treasurer and former District 5 National Vice President Everett Kelley. "As a native Floridian, Lauren knows exactly what her constituents need, and will fight for them in Congress."

The nation's largest federal employee union, the American Federation of Government Employees, has endorsed Lauren Baer for election this November to the U.S. House representing Floridas 18th Congressional District.

"From her staunch support for federal employees' pay and benefits, to ensuring our agencies are fully-funded and operational, Lauren is exactly the kind of person we need in Congress," said Kelley. "We're so excited for her to win this fall so she can fight to protect our environment, our rights at work, and the outsourcing of public servants' jobs."

More than 79,000 federal workers and retirees live in Florida  more than 19,000 of whom live in the 18th district  supporting the military, caring for veterans, ensuring the safety of the flying public, and getting Social Security recipients their benefits accurately and on time.

"It is against America's core values to deny retirement benefits to federal employees who have paid into the system for years," said Baer. "These proposals put an undue burden on those who have dedicated their lives to working for the federal government - they should not have to pay the price of the federal deficit."

AFGE is the largest federal employee union in the country, representing 700,000 federal and D.C. government workers in all functions of government. District 5 has more than 50,000 dues-paying members in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.

The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) is the largest federal employee union, representing 700,000 workers in the federal government and the government of the District of Columbia.

For the latest AFGE news and information, visit the AFGE Media Center. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.



SOURCE American Federation of Government Employees

Related Links

http://www.afge.org

WASHINGTON, Sept. 25, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The Arab coalition to restore legitimacy in Yemen has established three safe corridors for civilians to travel between the cities of Sana'a and Hodeidah. Spokesman Col. Turki Al-Maliki said on Monday that the corridors between the former capital that was seized by the Houthi militia in 2014 and the country's biggest port on the Red Sea have been set up in cooperation with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

"The coalition is working with OCHA in Yemen to establish safe humanitarian corridors to help in the delivery of aid... between Hodeidah and Sanaa," Al-Maliki told a press conference in Riyadh. Al-Maliki said progress in Hodeidah has been slow because the Coalition wants to avoid harming civilians there. He said the Iranian-backed Houthi militia continues to use civilians as human shields in the city of Hodeidah and has taken oil tankers heading for Sana'a. He also accused the Iranian regime of continuing "to violate international law and destabilize the security of the region and the world." Al-Maliki also reported that the coalition had discovered what was thought to be an Iranian-registered commercial ship but was actually a military ship named Safiz. The Iranian vessel is monitoring ships passing through the Strait of Bab Al-Mandeb by using listening devices.

He said the coalition will continue to watch "suspicious" ships that threaten international navigation. Al-Maliki said the corridor being opened in Hodeidah is part of an effort to ensure the safety of civilians. Corridors will be on different routes between the cities for the transportation of humanitarian aid between 6 am and 6 p.m. daily. An United Nation's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) statement confirmed the organization was in "ongoing discussions with the coalition and other stakeholders on safe, reliable access routes into and out of Hodeidah."

SOURCE Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia, Information OfficeSAO PAULO, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Atento S.A. (NYSE: ATTO), the leading provider of customer relationship management and business process outsourcing services (CRM/BPO) in Latin America, and one of the five top providers worldwide, and T-Systems, a Deutsche Telekom group company with a broad digital portfolio of IT solutions and services, today announced a strategic agreement on Atento's data center operations in Brazil. The agreement includes a long-term contract for T-Systems to manage Atento's data centers operations in Brazil for the next 10 years. The agreement is subject to regulatory and customary closing conditions. Financial terms of the operation have not been disclosed.

T-Systems will ensure Atento's data center operations access to state-of-the-art technology and will guarantee the highest degree of data and operational security thanks to its unique expertise and proven track record in the data center industry. T-Systems will also migrate 100% of Atento's data center operations in Brazil to the cloud contributing to the digital transformation of Atento and enabling faster and efficient roll out of its customer experience services and solutions.

Dimitrius de Oliveira, Managing Director of Atento Brazil commented, "The strategic agreement with T-Systems is a step forward in the evolution of our Company to become a digital business process outsourcing solutions provider. Strengthening and outsourcing the management of our data center operations is a component of our strategy to focus on Atento's core business, providing our clients with the best customer experience solutions in today's increasing digitalized and competitive environment."

For Rogerio Ribeiro, Atento's Chief Information Officer, "This partnership is an important step in our transformation journey, and it will strengthen the data centers operations that support our customer experience solutions business with state of the art technology and the expertise of an industry leader like T-Systems"

According to Ideval Munhoz, CEO of T-Systems Brazil, "This new step in our growth strategy with Atento's partnership will enable T-Systems Brazil to expand its know-how and operational base to provide IT services to large Brazilian companies in several Industries." In addition, it is a first step into a partnership we expect to offer to other operations in Latin America. In general, the market is looking for more partners with strong capabilities/portfolio and competencies to run big mission critical operations, this deal reinforces our strategic growth in Brazil and South America," Ideval Munhoz added.

The agreement between T-Systems and Atento includes only Atento's data center operations in Brazil and encompasses 3 sites that will be consolidated on the T-Systems platform. T-Systems will take on all of the Atento employees operating the sites incorporating their know how about the contact center business and further strengthening T-Systems technical capabilities to deliver world-class services.

About Atento

Atento is the largest provider of customer relationship management and business process outsourcing (CRM BPO) services in Latin America, and among the top five providers worldwide, based on revenues. Atento is also a leading provider of nearshoring CRM/BPO services to companies that carry out their activities in the United States. Since 1999, the company has developed its business model in 13 countries where it employs 150,000 people. Atento has over 400 clients to whom it offers a wide range of CRM/BPO services through multiple channels. Atento's clients are mostly leading multinational corporations in sectors such as telecommunications, banking and financial services, health, retail and public administrations, among others. Atentos ordinary shares trade under the symbol ATTO on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). In 2016, Atento was named one of the Worlds 25 Best Multinational Workplaces by Great Place to Work for a fourth consecutive year. For more information visit www.atento.com

Media relations

Maite Cordero

+ 34 91 740 74 47

[email protected]

Investor relations

Shay Chor

+55 11 3293 5926

[email protected]

Fernando Schneider

55 11 3779 0967

[email protected]

About T-Systems

With a footprint in more than 20 countries, 37,900 employees, and external revenue of 6.9 billion euros (2017), T-Systems is one of the world's leading vendor independent providers of digital services headquartered in Europe.

T-Systems is partnering with its customers as they address the digital transformation. The company offers integrated solutions for business customers. The Deutsche Telekom subsidiary offers one-stop shopping: from the secure operation of legacy systems and classical ICT services, the transition to cloud-based services (including international networks, tailored infrastructure, platforms and software) as well as new business models and innovation projects in the Internet of Things. T-Systems can provide all this thanks to its global reach in fixed-network and mobile communications, its highly secure data centers, a comprehensive cloud ecosystem built around standardized platforms and global partnerships, and the ability to offer top levels of security.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is making its presence felt in the business world  the real-time world has reached the engine room. Sensors can measure the current state of different factors with virtually no delay time and immediately pass on data such as location, temperature, vibrations or any deviations from predefined normal ranges. This is the basis for new business models and depends crucially on fast networks for the transmission of data and a high-performance cloud to transport the data to where it is stored and analyzed. In addition, the transmission channels and data pools must be secured against unauthorized access. Deutsche Telekom and T-Systems have spent billions on connectivity, cloud, IoT and security to ready themselves for the connected world.

Media relations T-Systems

T-Systems Brazil

Claudia Forgas  [email protected]  11 2184-2550

Renata Kyrillos - [email protected]  11 2184-2544

F2 Conteudo - Assessoria de imprensa

Fabio Barros - [email protected]  11 97310-7767

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "may," "should," "expects," "plans," "anticipates," "believes," "estimates," "predicts," "intends," "continue" or similar terminology. These statements reflect only Atento's current expectations and are not guarantees of future performance or results. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, competition in Atento's highly competitive industries; increases in the cost of voice and data services or significant interruptions in these services; Atento's ability to keep pace with its clients' needs for rapid technological change and systems availability; the continued deployment and adoption of emerging technologies; the loss, financial difficulties or bankruptcy of any key clients; the effects of global economic trends on the businesses of Atento's clients; the non-exclusive nature of Atento's client contracts and the absence of revenue commitments; security and privacy breaches of the systems Atento uses to protect personal data; the cost of pending and future litigation; the cost of defending Atento against intellectual property infringement claims; extensive regulation affecting many of Atento's businesses; Atento's ability to protect its proprietary information or technology; service interruptions to Atento's data and operation centers; Atento's ability to retain key personnel and attract a sufficient number of qualified employees; increases in labor costs and turnover rates; the political, economic and other conditions in the countries where Atento operates; changes in foreign exchange rates; Atento's ability to complete future acquisitions and integrate or achieve the objectives of its recent and future acquisitions; future impairments of our substantial goodwill, intangible assets, or other long-lived assets; and Atento's ability to recover consumer receivables on behalf of its clients. In addition, Atento is subject to risks related to its level of indebtedness. Such risks include Atento's ability to generate sufficient cash to service its indebtedness and fund its other liquidity needs; Atento's ability to comply with covenants contained in its debt instruments; the ability to obtain additional financing; the incurrence of significant additional indebtedness by Atento and its subsidiaries; and the ability of Atento's lenders to fulfill their lending commitments. Atento is also subject to other risk factors described in documents filed by the company with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.

These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date on which the statements were made. Atento undertakes no obligation to update or revise publicly any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise

SOURCE Atento S.A.

Related Links

http://www.atento.com

SEATTLE, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Bardy Diagnostics, Inc., ("BardyDx"), a leading provider of ambulatory cardiac monitoring technologies and custom data solutions, including the Carnation Ambulatory Monitor ("CAM"), the world's first P-wave centric ambulatory cardiac monitor and arrhythmia detection device, announced it was selected as one of six winners of the "Make Your Medical Device Pitch for Kids!" Competition hosted by the Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation at Children's National Health System.

Eleven finalists from a field of 45 worldwide submissions were selected to present their products this past weekend at the Sixth Annual Pediatric Device Innovation Symposium. A distinguished judging panel of industry experts awarded BardyDx a $25,000 prize based on the CAM patch's pediatric-friendly design, innovative P-wave centric technology, and potential to address significant unmet needs in pediatric healthcare.

"BardyDx is excited to receive this award and this honor reinforces our commitment to the advancement of pediatric cardiology care," said Ken Nelson, BardyDx Chief Commercial Officer. "The CAM patch is one of only a few FDA-approved products that is commercially available for patients weighing 10 kg (22 lbs) or more. This award prize will be used towards development efforts to expand our labeling to cover all of pediatrics and make the CAM patch the gold-standard for pediatric ambulatory cardiac monitoring."

The competition is one of the highlights of this year's symposium, themed "Using Real-World Evidence to Drive Pediatric Innovation," organized by Children's National to bring together medical device innovators, investors, researchers, clinicians and policy makers to advance pediatric healthcare and address the unmet surgical and medical device needs of children. Along with the theme, BardyDx's body of clinical evidence recently expanded, highlighting the significance of the CAM patch's P-wave focused clinical value in this month's issue of the American Heart Journal.

The published results of the head-to-head comparison study with the iRhythm Zio XT patch, "Comparison of two ambulatory patch ECG monitors: The benefit of the P-wave and signal clarity," (Am Heart J 2018; 203:109-117) revealed that the CAM patch identified 40% more arrhythmias and resulted in better, more informed clinical decision-making in 41% of patients over the Zio XT patch primarily due to the enhanced design of the CAM patch to provide unparalleled clarity of tracings. These promising results have spurred interest in additional CAM patch studies to drive innovation in the pediatric population, especially in the younger sub-groups, where off-label use of devices is common.

"We are honored to recognize these outstanding innovations and we already envision the ways they can advance care for children," said Kolaleh Eskandanian, PhD, Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer at Children's National and Principal Investigator of the National Capital Consortium for Pediatric Device Innovation (NCC-PDI).

About Children's National Health System:

Children's National Health System, based in Washington, D.C., has served the nation's children since 1870. Children's National is one of the nation's Top 5 pediatric hospitals and, for a second straight year, is ranked No. 1 in newborn care, as well as ranked in all specialties evaluated by U.S. News & World Report. It has been designated two times as a Magnet hospital, a designation given to hospitals that demonstrate the highest standards of nursing and patient care delivery. This pediatric academic health system offers expert care through a convenient, community-based primary care network and specialty outpatient centers in the D.C. Metropolitan area, including the Maryland suburbs and Northern Virginia. Home to the Children's Research Institute and the Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation, Children's National is the seventh-highest NIH-funded pediatric institution in the nation. Children's National is recognized for its expertise and innovation in pediatric care and as a strong voice for children through advocacy at the local, regional and national levels.

About Bardy Diagnostics:

Bardy Diagnostics, Inc. is an innovator in digital health and remote patient monitoring, with a focus on providing diagnostically-accurate and patient-friendly cardiac patch and other monitors to the industry. The company's CAM patch is a non-invasive, P-wave centric ambulatory cardiac monitor and arrhythmia detection device that is designed to improve patient compliance for men, women, and children through its lifestyle-enabling patch design. Designed to be worn comfortably and discreetly, the female-friendly, hourglass-shaped CAM patch is placed on the center of the chest, directly over the heart for optimum ECG signal collection. The innovative and broadly-patented technology of the CAM patch provides optimal detection and clear recording of the often difficult-to-detect P-wave, the signal of the ECG waveform that is essential for accurate arrhythmia diagnosis. Additional information can be found at the recently launched redesign of the BardyDx corporate website at www.bardydx.com.

MEDIA CONTACT:

Jonathan Wu

Director, Marketing

Bardy Diagnostics, Inc.

1-844-422-7393

[email protected]

SOURCE Bardy Diagnostics, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.bardydx.com

MADISON HEIGHTS, Mich., Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The Editorial Advisory and Securities Review Committee of BetterInvesting Magazine today announced Intel Corporation (NDQ: INTC) as its December 2018 "Stock to Study" and Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Inc. (NDQ: CBRL) as its December 2018 "Undervalued Stock" for investors' informational and educational use.

"The committee selected Intel for its inroads into data centers and surprising strength of the PC market combined with a reasonable valuation," said Adam Ritt, editor of BetterInvesting Magazine. "For the Undervalued selection, the committee cited Cracker Barrel's solid execution amid challenging industry fundamentals and current dividend yield."

Check BetterInvesting's December issue for more details about these selections. Go to the trial version of BetterInvesting's online tools to study the investment potential of Intel and Cracker Barrel by viewing their fundamental data and applying judgments.

Committee members are Robert M. Bilkie, Jr., CFA; Daniel J. Boyle, CFA; Marisa Bradbury, CFA; Philip S. Dano, CFA; Maury Elvekrog, CFA; Walter J. Kirchberger, CFA; and Adam Ritt.

As stated, the BetterInvesting committee's Stock to Study and Undervalued Stock choices are for the informational and educational uses of investors and are not intended as investment recommendations. BetterInvesting urges investors to educate themselves about the stock market so they can make informed decisions about stock purchases.

About BetterInvesting

BetterInvesting is a national nonprofit organization that has been empowering individual investors since 1951. Founded in Detroit, the association (formerly known as National Association of Investors Corporation) was borne of the conviction that anyone can become a successful long-term investor by following common-sense investing practices. BetterInvesting has helped more than 5 million people become better, more informed investors by providing webinars, in-person events, easy-to-use online tools for analyzing stocks, a monthly magazine and a community of volunteers and like-minded investors. For more information about BetterInvesting, visit its website at www.betterinvesting.org or call toll free (877) 275-6242.

Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

SOURCE BetterInvesting

Related Links

http://www.betterinvesting.org

Barcelona's Bicing bike-sharing network is about to enter a new era! PBSC, through a joint venture with renowned infrastructure and services operator Ferrovial, was entrusted under a ten-year contract to roll out a total of 7,000 bikes, including 1,000 industry-leading pedal-assist BOOST e-bikes, all slated to be in operation in 2019 across the city's ten districts. In both the planning and deployment phases, PSBC will be working in close collaboration with Barcelona de Serveis Municipals, B:SM, the organization responsible for the city's bike-sharing system as mandated by the City of Barcelona.

This massive rollout will leverage the fruit of years of research and development conducted by PBSC's tech labs by a talented team of mechanical, electrical and electronic engineers to deliver the most convenient and flexible experience. Riders will be able to unlock bikes using a mobile application, a smart card, or NFC technology.

"Barcelona is a city of unparalleled dynamism! Often featured as one of the world's most thriving cities in the fields of gastronomy, culture, urban planning, architecture and sports, Barcelona continues to set the bar higher and higher with new initiatives, each more inventive than the last. We are extremely excited to bring both our BOOST and ICONIC bikes, as well as our latest hybrid bike-sharing technology to Barcelona, thus contributing to the city's reputation as a capital of innovation. We couldn't possibly think of a better partner than Ferrovial Services to help bring to life this urban mobility revolution and promote it as an even more attractive and convenient option for everyday commuting."

 Luc Sabbatini, CEO, PBSC Urban Solutions

BOOST: Game changer for pedal-assist e-bikes

Designed with passion for riders, operators and modern transit ecosystems, PBSC's BOOST bike is by far the most impressive and advanced electric pedal-assist shared bike the market has seen so far:

High-capacity battery integrated in the aluminum bike frame with an autonomy range of more than 60 km for peace of mind

Propels riders smoothly and comfortably without noise or vibrations

Single-speed and rear propulsion motor that adjusts to provide each rider with assistance tailored to their needs

Patented PBSC docking stations act as responsive power hubs, ensuring bikes are always charged and ready to go

Mobile application provides a user-friendly interface that allows riders to customize their experience by setting their assistance threshold and logging their user preferences for automatic configuration

In-app gamification to further motivate riders and encourage a fun and healthy lifestyle

Offering the same comfort and world-class ergonomics as the award-winning ICONIC bike, BOOST bikes will allow a wider array of riders to enjoy a smooth, fun and easy ride across longer distances, up steeper hills and against stronger headwinds. They will go further and faster, without even breaking a sweat.

Smart Docking Stations for a Smarter overall System

Unlike dockless shared bikes, which have made headlines for being scattered chaotically around cities and ravaging our planet, PBSC bikes have proven their efficiency, reliability and sustainability. They are intelligently integrated in city planning initiatives and public transit systems.The smart stations offer:

FLEXIBILITY : smart stations continuously monitor and report on bike health, battery charge, diagnostic information and riding data. Smart hybrid stations can also accommodate both the ICONIC and BOOST electric pedal-assist bikes with smart technology that recognizes and charges the e-bikes as needed.

: smart stations continuously monitor and report on bike health, battery charge, diagnostic information and riding data. Smart hybrid stations can also accommodate both the ICONIC and BOOST electric pedal-assist bikes with smart technology that recognizes and charges the e-bikes as needed. PERFORMANCE : unlike other electric pedal assist suppliers, PBSC developed a system that does not require any manual recharging or swapping of batteries. It is a simple dock, charge and play approach that guarantees increased efficiency and availability. With a single connection point per station, getting power from the grid is a breeze for cities, reducing installation cost to a minimum.

: unlike other electric pedal assist suppliers, PBSC developed a system that does not require any manual recharging or swapping of batteries. It is a simple dock, charge and play approach that guarantees increased efficiency and availability. With a single connection point per station, getting power from the grid is a breeze for cities, reducing installation cost to a minimum. SAFETY: the system is certified according to the most stringent safety and quality standards in the world.

About PBSC Urban Solutions

Through sustainable technology solutions for smart cities, PBSC is changing the world, one city at a time. As a leading global provider of bike-sharing solutions and urban mobility pioneer, PBSC's team develops, markets and operates  directly through its subsidiary operator, or indirectly through a global network of local partners  the most advanced and customizable urban solutions for smart cities. Recognized as a catalyst for social innovation, PBSC currently has three models of bicycles  ICONIC, FIT and BOOST (e-bike)  deployed around the world and continues to expand its global footprint of 65,250 bikes and 5,750 stations - with more than 240 million rides so far!

For more information, visit www.pbsc.com.

SOURCE PBSC Urban SolutionsWESTBOROUGH, Mass., Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- BJ's Wholesale Club Holdings, Inc. ("BJ's" or the "Company") (NYSE: BJ) announced today the pricing of an underwritten public offering of 28,000,000 shares of its common stock by certain selling stockholders at a public offering price of $26.00 per share. Such selling stockholders also granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 4,200,000 shares of the Company's common stock. BJ's will not receive any of the proceeds from the sale of the shares of its common stock being offered by the selling stockholders and will bear the costs associated with the sale of such shares, other than underwriting discounts and commissions. The offering is expected to close on October 1, 2018, subject to satisfaction of customary closing conditions.

BofA Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC, J.P. Morgan and Deutsche Bank Securities are serving as joint lead book-running managers and as representatives of the underwriters for the offering. Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Jefferies and Wells Fargo Securities are also serving as book-running managers for the offering. Nomura, Baird, William Blair and Siebert Cisneros Shank & Co., L.L.C. are serving as co-managers for the offering.

The offering of common stock is being made only by means of a prospectus. A copy of the final prospectus relating to the offering, when available, may be obtained from any of the following sources:

Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated, Attention: Prospectus Department, 200 North College Street, 3rd Floor, Charlotte, NC 28255-0001, or via email: [email protected] ; or

28255-0001, or via email: ; or Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC, Attention: Prospectus Department, 200 West Street, New York, New York 10282, via telephone: 1-866-471-2526, or via email: [email protected] ; or

10282, via telephone: 1-866-471-2526, or via email: ; or J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, c/o Broadridge Financial Solutions Attention: Prospectus Department, 1155 Long Island Avenue, Edgewood, NY 11717, or via telephone: 1-866-803-9204; or

11717, or via telephone: 1-866-803-9204; or Deutsche Bank Securities Inc., Attention: Prospectus Department, 60 Wall Street, New York, NY 10005, via telephone: 1-800-503-4611 or via email: [email protected] .

A registration statement on Form S-1 relating to the offering of common stock has been filed with, and declared effective by, the Securities and Exchange Commission.

This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction.

About BJ's Wholesale Club Holdings, Inc.

Headquartered in Westborough, Massachusetts, BJ's Wholesale Club Holdings, Inc. is the leading operator of membership warehouse clubs in the Eastern United States. The Company currently operates 215 clubs and 135 BJ's Gas locations in 16 states.

The Company's common stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: BJ).

Cautionary Statement Concerning Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements contained in this press release constitute forward-looking statements. Management has based these forward-looking statements on its current expectations, assumptions, estimates and projections. While they believe these expectations, assumptions, estimates and projections are reasonable, such forward-looking statements are only predictions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond management's control. These statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause BJ's actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements.

SOURCE BJ's Wholesale Club Holdings, Inc.SACRAMENTO, Calif., Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Blue Diamond Growers, the world's leading nonprofit almond processing and marketing cooperative, applauds the signing of the updated United StatesRepublic of Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS) by President Trump and President Moon in New York City on September 24. With South Korea representing a topten export market for California almonds, the continuation of the KORUS agreement is vital to the livelihood of California almond growers.

KORUS has provided significant benefits to California's almond industry by removing or eliminating burdensome tariffs on almonds and almond products. Since implementation of the agreement in March 2012, almond shipments from California have more than doubled in value from approximately $84 million in pre-KORUS 2011 to nearly $174 million in 2017. The continuation of KORUS will allow for further growth and expansion of California almonds into South Korea.

Blue Diamond Growers extends its appreciation to President Trump and his trade negotiators for their dedication in successful completing this important initiative. The cooperative believes free trade agreements, such as KORUS, are necessary for American industries to thrive in an increasingly competitive global marketplace. We look forward to the completion of future and ongoing negotiations of agreements, particularly the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

About Blue Diamond

Blue Diamond Growers, a grower-owned cooperative representing over 3,000 of California's almond growers, is the world's leading almond marketer and processor. Established in 1910, it created the California almond industry and opened world markets for almonds. Blue Diamond is dedicated to delivering the benefits of almonds around the world and does so by providing high-quality almonds, almond ingredients and branded products. Headquartered in Sacramento, the company employs more than 1,500 people throughout its processing plants, receiving stations and gift shops. To learn more about Blue Diamond Growers, visit www.bluediamond.com and follow the company on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter.

SOURCE Blue Diamond Growers

Related Links

http://www.bluediamond.com

OAKLAND, Calif., Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Broadly, the leading mobile-first chat platform for local businesses, today announced it has raised a $10M Series B round, co-led by original investor Foundry Group and new partner Calibrate Ventures. They are joined by Team Builder Ventures, also a repeat investor.

Broadly will invest the funding into refining and expanding new communications tools that enable local businesses to better connect with mobile-first consumers, who prefer real-time, responsive communications via text, email, and phone. This marks an evolution in Broadly's product suite, which began with helping local businesses gather social proof of their credibility through authentic online reviews on popular consumer review sites. The company also intends to hire a number of product and technical roles over the remainder of the year and into 2019.

"Consumers today expect the convenience and speed of Amazon, but also want to support the local businesses that are part of their own communities," said Josh Melick, CEO and Co-founder of Broadly. "But most local business owners simply haven't had the time and opportunity to integrate the tools that would fuel that responsive communication.

We're developing web chat, mobile apps, and other tools that painters, roofers, pool and spa repair experts, veterinarians, and other local businesses can use to win business and connect with their customers."

"Small businesses keep the American economic engine accelerating," said Seth Levine, partner at Foundry Group. "To stay relevant and expand their revenue, local business leaders need simple, easy-to-use software that help them meet customers where they are: online, on mobile. Broadly's ability to understand this often analog audience, and their actionable product roadmap, made it easy to see their vision translating to reality."

"It's easy to dismiss the SMB market as too broad," said Kevin Dunlap, partner and founder of Calibrate Ventures. "But just like their big company counterparts, great local businesses embrace great tools that enable seamless operation and communication. Broadly is capable of delivering that innovation."

In addition to this new investment, Broadly also earned the #107 spot on the 2018 Inc. 500 list of fastest-growing private companies in America.

"We're thrilled to make the Inc 500 list," said Melick. "The small business market is one of tremendous range and diversity - and making 107 on the list is validation that others see it the way we do: filled with untapped potential."

About Broadly

Broadly is a mobile-first communications platform enabling local businesses to engage with customers at every stage of their journey. Thousands of business owners, managers, and team members depend on Broadly every day to run their businesses from anywhere, in real time. Broadly is a venture-funded startup based in Oakland, CA. Visit broadly.com .

SOURCE Broadly

Related Links

http://broadly.com

HOUSTON, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation (NYSE: COG) will host its third quarter 2018 earnings conference call on Friday, October 26th, 2018 at 9:30 a.m. Eastern Time. The Company plans to issue its financial and operating results prior to the market opening on the same day.

To access the live audio webcast, please visit the Investor Relations section of the Company's website at www.cabotog.com. A replay of the call will also be available on the Company's website.

Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation, headquartered in Houston, Texas, is a leading independent natural gas producer with its entire resource base located in the continental United States. For additional information, visit the Company's website at www.cabotog.com.

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT

Matt Kerin (281) 589-4642

SOURCE Cabot Oil & Gas Corporation

Related Links

http://www.cabotog.com

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- CADD Microsystems, an Autodesk Platinum Partner and consulting firm, is pleased to announce it has partnered with Duncan-Parnell to provide best-in-class Autodesk expertise to architecture, engineering, construction and owner/operator (AECO) clients in the Carolinas and the Southeast region.

Working closely with the executives at Duncan-Parnell, CADD Microsystems will be laser-focused on supporting the region's Autodesk needs, and Duncan-Parnell will continue to focus on their core business - engaging with these clients to provide geospatial, 3D print, wide format printing and reprographic products and services.

"This truly is a case of how 1+1=3," said Jeff Anselene, Chief Revenue Officer at CADD Microsystems. "We are combining CADD's Platinum service and expertise with the strong relationships that Duncan-Parnell already has in the area. The customer service and level of support will be unmatched, and we are very excited to continue to build relationships with Duncan-Parnell and the AECO firms in the region."

"The partnership between Duncan-Parnell and CADD Microsystems was an easy decision," said Mark Duncan, president of Duncan-Parnell. "Both of our organizations are committed to providing the best customer experience. We understand that the mutual success of our organizations and our clients rests on our ability to develop tailored solutions with Autodesk, reprographics and Trimble geospatial services."

CADD Microsystems is an Autodesk Platinum Partner, providing top-rated software, training, consulting and support services to firms in the AECO industry, as well as federal, state & local government agencies. CADD Microsystems builds solutions to achieve long-term success for its clients, combining advanced design technology, BIM process consulting, professional services, and employee development and training programs, all aimed at achieving client goals. This is done through proprietary resources like CADD Community and BIM Interoperability Tools, and through strong business partnerships with Autodesk, FM:Systems, Global eTraining, and now Duncan-Parnell. Combining CADD's core services with Duncan-Parnell's expertise in high-end color graphics, surveying and mapping equipment, large format and 3D printers, and reprographics provides our collective clients with a full spectrum of tools and equipment to ensure success.

"CADD Microsystems has been a presence in the Carolinas for a while, as part of our mission to support current clients and provide new clients in the area the Autodesk Platinum experience they deserve," said Anselene. "We are pleased to be doing this with Duncan-Parnell, and look forward to exceeding our clients' expectations as we help them achieve their goals."

CADD Microsystems' event schedule is has been released through the end of the year, with Revit User Groups, Tech Tour User Conferences, and Executive Briefings that provide the opportunity for CADD Microsystems, Duncan-Parnell and clients to interact face-to-face.

About CADD Microsystems

From Civil to BIM to FM and everything in between, CADD Microsystems can assist with structuring your mission-critical technology and processes to increase collaboration, improve quality, reduce cost and benefit your bottom line. We are an Autodesk Platinum Partner, Government Specialized, and build solutions to address our clients' individual needs with solutions spanning Autodesk and FM software, custom software development, BIM process consulting, professional services and employee training.

We've worked hard to build our industry expertise and reputation to set ourselves apart. We are an Autodesk Platinum Partner, an FM:Systems Certified Partner, a Global eTraining Partner, an iOffice Certified Implementation Partner, and one of the largest providers of Autodesk products and services to the Federal government and commercial firms. We've won numerous partner and industry awards, including the prestigious Autodesk Reseller of the Year award and the #1 Autodesk instructor in North America.

But the greatest metric of our success is our long-term client relationships and the loyalty we've earned. Our focus is first and foremost on the needs of our clients, which is why we consistently score best-in-class customer satisfaction scores. Learn more at www.caddmicrosystems.com.

About Duncan-Parnell

Since 1946, Duncan-Parnell has been the trusted supplier to construction contractors, engineers, surveyors, architects and designers. From Trimble geospatial equipment to 3D products to wide format printers and cloud-based construction information management systems, Duncan-Parnell specializes in providing high quality hardware, innovative software, and invaluable services to make projects successful. Today, we're proud to remain an independent, family-owned business with 15 locations across the Southeast delivering excellent customer experiences to help our clients make their projects successful.

Autodesk and the Autodesk logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk, Inc., and/or its subsidiaries and/or affiliates in the USA and/or other countries.

SOURCE CADD Microsystems, Inc.

Related Links

https://www.caddmicrosystems.com

DUBLIN, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

The "Research Report on China's Adult Incontinence Product Industry, 2018-2022" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

As the population of China is aging, the number of people aged 65 and over is growing in China. In 2017, China's population in this age group reached about 150 million, ranking first in the world. The growth of the elderly population provides a huge consumer group for the adult incontinence product market. In recent years, the living standards of Chinese residents have improved. Easy and comfortable to use, adult incontinence products can reduce the burden on home-based care for the aged and improve the life quality of the elderly. More and more families and nursing homes begin to use these products. From 2013 to 2017, the market size of adult incontinence products in China soared from CNY 4.07 billion to CNY 9.28 billion.

Adult incontinence products are fast-moving consumer goods. Brand awareness and sales channels have a great impact on sales. For the enterprises in the industry, it is essential to establish trustworthy brands and huge sales networks. High-end and low-end products coexist in China's adult incontinence product market, and the competition among international brands, domestic famous brands and local brands is becoming increasingly fierce. At present, there is no leading enterprise holding overwhelming superiority in the industry. The market concentration is very low. The broad market space will attract a large number of new entrants in the future.

According to the researcher, there are many brands of adult incontinence products in China, and the prices vary greatly. The low-end market is highly competitive. In 2017, the penetration rate of adult diapers in China was about 4%, far lower than the global average of 12%. As the elderly take up a higher proportion of China's population, there will be greater market demand for adult incontinence products in China. At present, there is hardly any brand that specializes in the production of adult diapers in China, which means a plenty of market opportunities in the next few years.

It is expected that from 2018 to 2022, the consumption of adult incontinence products will increase sharply and reach 14.3 billion pieces in 2022. Meanwhile, the market size will reach about CNY 28 billion.



Key Topics Covered:



1 Concept of Adult Incontinence Products

1.1 Definition of Adult Incontinence Products

1.2 Classification of Adult Incontinence Products

1.3 Overview of Global Adult Incontinence Product Industry

1.4 Methodology of Report



2 Analysis on China's Adult Incontinence Product Industry, 2013-2017

2.1 Development Environment of China's Adult Incontinence Product Industry

2.1.1 Economic Environment

2.1.2 Policy Environment

2.1.3 Social Environment

2.2 Supply of Adult Incontinence Products in China

2.2.1 Production Capacity of Adult Incontinence Products

2.2.2 Production Volume of Adult Diapers

2.2.3 Production Volume of Adult Nursing Pads

2.3 Market Demand for Adult Incontinence Products in China

2.3.1 Overview of Market Demand

2.3.2 Market Size of Adult Diapers

2.3.3 Market Size of Adult Nursing Pads

2.4 Import and Export of Adult Incontinence Products in China



3 Competition in China's Adult Incontinence Product Industry, 2015-2018

3.1 Barriers to Entry

3.1.1 Technical Barriers

3.1.2 Brand Barriers

3.1.3 Capital Barriers

3.1.4 Distribution Channel Barriers

3.2 Competition Structure

3.2.1 Bargaining Power of Suppliers

3.2.2 Bargaining Power of Consumers

3.2.3 Internal Competition

3.2.4 Potential Entrants

3.2.5 Substitutes



4 Major Manufacturers of Adult Incontinence Products in China, 2017-2018

4.1 Hengan International Group Co., Ltd.

4.2 Tianjin Xinglin Hakujuji Medical Health Material and Necessities Co., Ltd.

4.3 Hangzhou Coco Healthcare Products Co., Ltd.

4.4 Little Nurse (Tianjin) Industrial Development Co., Ltd.

4.5 Everbeauty Industry (Shanghai) Co., Ltd.

4.6 New Sensation Sanitary Product Co., Ltd.

4.7 Yiwu Anrou Sanitary Article Co., Ltd.

4.8 Hangzhou Zhenqi Sanitary Products Co., Ltd.

4.9 Shanghai Biyoufu Daily Appliances Co., Ltd.

4.10 DAIO PAPER CORPORATION

4.11 Unicharm Corporation

4.12 Kimberly-Clark Corporation

4.13 Procter & Gamble

4.14 Swedish Cellulose Company



5 Analysis on Production Costs and Prices of Adult Incontinence Products in China, 2015-2018

5.1 Production Costs

5.2 Prices



6 Prospect of China's Adult Incontinence Product Industry, 2018-2022

6.1 Factors Influencing Development of China's Adult Incontinence Product Industry

6.1.1 Major Driving Forces and Market Opportunities

6.1.2 Threats and Challenges

6.2 Forecast on Supply of Adult Incontinence Products in China

6.3 Forecast on Demand for Adult Incontinence Products in China



For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/rz2wwt/china_adult?w=5



Media Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

[email protected]



For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470

For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630

For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900



U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907

Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716

SOURCE Research and Markets

Related Links

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NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Former Attorney General of Louisiana Charles C. Foti, Jr., Esq. and the law firm of Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC ("KSF") are investigating the proposed sale of Command Security Corporation ("Command") (NYSE: MOC) to Prosegur SIS (USA), Inc., a subsidiary of Prosegur Compania de Seguridad, S.A. Under the terms of the proposed transaction, shareholders of Command will receive only $2.85 in cash for each share of Command that they own. KSF is seeking to determine whether this consideration and the process that led to it are adequate, or whether the consideration undervalues the Company.

If you believe that this transaction undervalues the Company and/or if you would like to discuss your legal rights regarding the proposed sale, you may, without obligation or cost to you, e-mail or call KSF Managing Partner Lewis S. Kahn ([email protected]) toll free at any time at 855-768-1857, or visit https://www.ksfcounsel.com/cases/nyse-moc/ to learn more.

To learn more about KSF, whose partners include the Former Louisiana Attorney General, visit www.ksfcounsel.com.

Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC

1100 Poydras St., Suite 3200

New Orleans, LA 70163

SOURCE Kahn Swick & Foti, LLC

Related Links

http://www.ksfcounsel.com

AMSTERDAM, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Core Laboratories (NYSE: "CLB US" and Euronext Amsterdam: "CLB NA") will broadcast its third quarter 2018 conference call over the Internet at 7:30 a.m. CDT / 2:30 p.m. CEST on October 25, 2018.

David Demshur, CEO, Larry Bruno, President, Chris Hill, CFO, Monty Davis, COO, and Gwen Schreffler, SVP Investor Relations, will discuss financial and operating results. An earnings press release will be issued after market close on October 24th and may be accessed through the Company's website at www.corelab.com.

To participate in the live webcast, simply log on to www.corelab.com at least fifteen minutes prior to the start of the call. For those who are not available to listen to the live webcast, a Podcast will be available immediately following the conference call and a replay will be available on Core's website shortly after the call which will remain on the site for 10 days.

To listen to the conference call via telephone, please contact Elizabeth Blanchard at [email protected] for the dial-in number.

Core Laboratories N.V. (www.corelab.com) is a leading provider of proprietary and patented reservoir description and production enhancement services and products used to optimize petroleum reservoir performance. The Company has over 70 offices in more than 50 countries and is located in every major oil-producing province in the world.

SOURCE Core Laboratories N.V.

Related Links

http://www.corelab.com

(Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/750079/Crypto_Logo.jpg )

(Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/750080/Crypto_Advisory_Board.jpg )

Kris Marszalek, Co-Founder and CEO of Crypto.com, said, "As we begin the global rollout of our products, we are excited to announce the formation of our Advisory Board. This is a group of incredibly talented, seasoned executives who bring a track record of success and expertise in areas ranging from AI, trading technology, product to operations and talent. Our entire management team will benefit greatly from their advice, experience and network as we scale and expand globally."

The inaugural advisory board members are as follows:

Antoine Blondeau , Founder and Managing Partner at Alpha Intelligence Capital

, Founder and Managing Partner at Alpha Intelligence Capital Rob Bier , Founder and Managing Partner at Trellis

, Founder and Managing Partner at Trellis Chien-Liang Chou , VP Engineering at Flexport

, VP Engineering at Flexport Chris Corrado , Group Chief Operating Officer and Group Chief Information Officer at London Stock Exchange Group

, Group Chief Operating Officer and Group Chief Information Officer at London Stock Exchange Group Huey Lin , Chief Operating Officer at Affirm

, Chief Operating Officer at Affirm Dimitri Tsamados , Partner at Eric Salmon & Partners

Antoine Blondeau (AI) - Chairman of the Advisory Board

Antoine Blondeau is Founder and Managing Partner of Alpha Intelligence Capital, a global venture capital fund focused on deep Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning technology companies. Antoine has 25 years of experience in the technology industry, having held senior leadership positions at Good Technology, Salesforce.com, and Sybase. Antoine's career highlights include founding Sentient Technologies, as well as leading Dejima as CEO, the company that powered DARPA's foundational CALO project that later evolved into Apple's Siri. Antoine was also COO of Zi Corporation, whose smart text input software was embedded in hundreds of millions of devices.

Rob Bier (Organization Design & Scaling)

Rob Bier is Founder and Managing Partner of Trellis Asia, helping entrepreneurs develop high-performing teams and build hyperscaling organizations. Rob also serves as the non-executive chairman of MoneySmart. Rob began his business career at Monitor Group, where he rose to Senior Partner and head of their London office. He co-founded antfactory, one of Europe's first digital venture capital firms, and founded and led SPARCK. After the acquisition by Citigroup, Rob became Operating Partner at TowerBrook Capital Partners, a US$10b private equity firm.

Chien-Liang Chou (Engineering)

Chien-Liang Chou is VP, Engineering at Flexport - a high growth startup. Prior to Flexport, he led LendingClub's investor and platform groups, handling US$20b's worth of asset transactions between borrowers and investors. Before LendingClub, he built and led all aspects of engineering at LOYAL3, an investment banking and IPO platform. Prior to that, he ran the application architecture committee at Salesforce for the CRM and call center product lines, where he was granted multiple patents and played an integral role in the company's M&A activities.

Chris Corrado (Trading Technology)

Chris Corrado is Group Chief Operating Officer and Group Chief Information Officer of London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG). Prior to this, he was Managing Director at MSCI, responsible for technology, data services and program management, CIO/CTO, since 2013. Chris has held a variety of senior CTO roles in leading banks, including Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, Merrill Lynch, and UBS. He has also worked for high growth technology companies such as eBay as CTO and AT&T Wireless as CIO.

Huey Lin (Operations)

Huey Lin is COO of Affirm which offers services that empower consumers to advance their financial well-being. Affirm was founded by Max Levchin and is one of Silicon Valley's fastest growing fintech startups, having raised over US$500m. As COO, Huey is responsible for all aspects of operations, and scaling the company. Prior to Affirm, Huey spent nearly 12 years at PayPal in several key roles, including director of international risk policy & strategy and senior director of Asia-Pacific operations. She played an instrumental role in helping PayPal expand in Europe, meet critical global compliance requirements and was one of the first product managers.

Dimitri Tsamados (Talent)

Dimitri Tsamados is Partner at Eric Salmon & Partners, a leadership advisory and executive search firm. Drawing from over 20 years of experience in Asia and a long history of working with high growth companies Dimitri advises technology players across Asia. Before joining Eric Salmon & Partners, Dimitri was a founding partner of DTCA and a partner at CTPartners. He also founded Amhurst Gordon International, a search firm which he grew across East Asia and sold in 2005.

About Crypto.com

Crypto.com, the pioneering payments and cryptocurrency platform, seeks to accelerate the world's transition to cryptocurrency. Crypto.com is headquartered in Hong Kong. For more information, please visit: http://www.crypto.com.

SOURCE Crypto.comComprised of six stunning new hues, the Stonika Collection draws inspiration from the most coveted natural stone materials  with spectacular shine and unrivaled durability. New findings in the manufacturing process also allow for sharper designs and in turn, an ultra-realistic appeal. The Stonika Collection also offers the best resistance to thermal shock and impact in the market. This comes as a result of the manufacturer's continued commitment to staying at the forefront of design and durability through its industry-leading research and development.

"Dekton Stonika is a next-generation, high-test version of our celebrated Dekton XGloss Natural Collection," says Massimo Ballucchi, Director of Marketing for Cosentino North America. "At Cosentino, our R+D team is constantly pushing the envelope  finding ways to beat our very best to help drive both our brand and the industry as a whole forward, and to continue to inspire those who specify our materials."

The Dekton Stonika Collection includes the following six colors, bringing the total color offering to 53:

Olimpo takes inspiration from the very best Carrara marble for the most discerning customer. Dramatic, elegant veining against a soft white background is accented by its dazzling shine.

Bergen channels the perfection of Portobello natural stone. Its intricate, sculptural structure is strengthened by its lustrous finish.

Arga embraces the iconic texture and soft warmth of Taj Mahal quartzite. The soft, creamy background with subtle veins intensifies its dramatic structure.

Taga , also inspired by Taj Mahal quartzite, offers a more modern interpretation to align with the latest trends while maintaining the true character of the stone, with gray tones and marble veins to highlight the structure.

Sogne captures the distinctive, weathered beauty of Gris Pulpis natural stone. With a texture that blends natural stone and aged concrete, it evokes an industrial aesthetic with the juxtaposition of it's ultra-glossy shine.

Korso embodies the same texture as Sogne, but with warm, luxurious earth tones. Gray veins coupled with its intense base makes a stunning statement.

Dekton Industrial Expansion

Building off the award-winning Dekton Industrial Collection designed by Phoenix-based architect and designer Daniel Germani, the colors add a calm, careful aesthetic to the existing collection, now comprised of seven colors. The hues showcase Cosentino's continued mastery of the industrial aesthetic, putting rough, unexpected materials such as cement back at the forefront of design.

"The Industrial Collection emphasizes unexpected beauty of aging and decay," Germani says. "These new colors continue to showcase the unique, urban look of cement surfacing but with the incomparable technology and performance of Dekton."

The three new Dekton Industrial Collection colors are:

Laos (left) a dark and weathered reinterpretation of the industrial look with golden tones, grey veining and a matte finish.

Soke (center) is strongly inspired by traditional cement, with realistic cracks set over a detailed background of grays.

Lunar (right) boasts a smooth structure and white base, offering an intriguing minimalistic yet modern approach.

"Designers and consumers alike have been wowed by the Dekton Industrial Collection since it first launched in 2016," says Massimo Ballucchi, Director of Marketing for Cosentino North America. " We 're proud to be at the forefront of the industrial aesthetic and we are grateful for our continued collaboration with Daniel Germani, and his vision that continues to shape the Dekton Industrial Collection."

Created from a sophisticated blend of raw materials from glass, quartz and porcelain, Dekton has a high resistance to UV rays, scratches, stains and thermal shock. Its durability and ease of care offer a wealth of applications, including flooring, facades, wall cladding, worktops, stairs and more. It is available in large format and a variety of thickness which allows for seamless creative possibilities for architects and designers for both residential and commercial projects.

Dekton by Cosentino

Dekton is a sophisticated mixture of the raw materials used to manufacture glass, porcelain and quartz surfaces. The Dekton by Cosentino ultra-compact surface is a new and innovative category of materials created in pursuit of global primacy in the world of architecture and design for both indoor and outdoor spaces. The Dekton surface can recreate any type of material at the highest level of quality. Dekton is offered in large format slabs, measuring 56" X 126", and in four thicknesses: 0.8cm, 1.2cm, 2cm, and 3cm. Dekton retails for $58-$96 per square foot, depending on thickness and color, at Cosentino Centers and Kitchen and Bath retailers nationwide.

www.dekton.com

About Cosentino Group

Cosentino Group is a global, family-owned company that produces and distributes high value innovative surfaces for architecture and design. As a leading company, Cosentino imagines and anticipates together with its customers and partners design solutions that offer value and inspiration to peoples' lives. This goal is made possible by pioneering brands that are leaders in their respective segments such as Silestone, Dekton, and Sensa by Cosentino. Technologically advanced surfaces create unique designs for the home and public spaces.

The group bases its development on international expansion, an innovative research and development program, respect for the environment and sustainability, and its ongoing corporate commitment to society and the local communities where it operates, education, equality and health & safety.

Cosentino Group currently distributes its products and brands in more than 110 countries from its headquarters in Almeria, Spain. Currently Cosentino is present in 40 countries with its own assets in 29 of them. The group has eight factories (seven in Almeria and one in Brazil), one intelligent logistics platform in Spain and more than 120 commercial and business units throughout the world. More than 90% of Cosentino Group's financial turnover comes from international markets.

www.cosentino.com

SOURCE Cosentino Group

Related Links

http://www.cosentino.com

The Top Achiever program recognizes students across Botswana and provides them with the ability to study in premier universities around the world. Students then come back to Botswana and contribute towards its economic diversification. D.E.F. has contributed to the Botswana Top Achievers program since 2011.

In his remarks thanking the D.E.F., President Masisi recognized that through D.E.F.'s Diamonds Do Good initiative, the Botswana diamond story is reflected in a hugely positive way, emphasizing how ethically sourced diamonds have made and continue to make enormous contributions to Botswana's economy, an example of good governance and industry best practices.

"Everyone from Botswana attending this reception tonight in some way benefits from diamonds. We thank the Diamond Empowerment Fund for investing in the future of our next generation of leaders," President Masisi said. Added D.E.F President, Anna Martin, "We are thrilled that through our supporters in the diamond industry, we are able to give back to Botswana which is one of the top producers of diamonds in the world. Diamonds truly do good."

SOURCE Diamond Empowerment FundDI's Timeline:

1988 : 1st store opens in St. Thomas

1991 : DI opens stores in St. Maarten, Cozumel, Antigua, and Ketchikan

1997 : A 30th store debuts in Mexico. Almod Diamonds Ltd. began manufacturing polished diamonds from rough

2001 : Success in Mexico warrants expansion to Cabo San Lucas

2006 : Almod Diamonds Ltd. granted Sightholder status with De Beers Group of Companies

2008 : Almod Diamonds Ltd. adds another Sight with Namibia Trading Company, following the opening of a cutting/polishing factory for the patented Crown of Light diamond.

2010 : Forevermark diamond brand is sold exclusively at DI across the Caribbean

2012 : Almod Diamonds Ltd. creates a massive shipping center and jewelry warehouse in Florida

2016 : 3rd factory opens in Ukraine. Luxury of Time by DI is launched in Orlando

2017 : 10th anniversary of the Crown of Light diamond

2018 : DI's 30th Anniversary

According to Albert Gad, CEO & President, "As a family owned business, we've never strayed from keeping our customer top priority in everything we do. We attribute the success of our proprietary brand, Crown of Light to consumer demands for that premium diamondwhich often out-paces our supply. On our 30th Anniversary, we've recommitted ourselves to delivering what consumers demand--- the latest styles, top-brands and the widest array of goods at unparalleled prices they've come to expect."

Cruisers consider DI to be a favorite destination list with designer brands like Tag Heuer, Gabriel & Co., and more.

Exclusive brands like Crown of Light, Safi Kilima Tanzanite, Sara G and Gift satisfy all budgets and tastes.

Visit DI's sister stores; Tanzanite International, DI Watch & Design, Luxury of Time by DI to explore all their offerings.

About Diamonds International:

Established in 1988, Diamonds International (DI) is the largest tax & duty-free watch and jewelry retailer in the Caribbean. With over 100 retail locations across 27 ports including Caribbean countries, Florida, Mexico and Alaska, DI serves millions of tourists and cruise ship passengers annually with an unrivaled selection of certified loose diamonds, rare gemstones, designer jewelry and timepiece brands. DI is the exclusive retailer of the US-patented Crown of Light diamond and rare Safi Kilima Tanzanite brands. Staff engagement, customer experience, and brand variety are the fundamental pillars DI abides by  including their support for ethical mine-to-market practices. Almod Diamonds Ltd. is the manufacturing affiliate of DI and its sister stores Tanzanite International and DI Watch & Design. For more than 30 years, DI remains a privately-held and family-run business with corporate offices in New York's prestigious diamond district and Miami, known as a top home cruise port destination worldwide.

SOURCE Diamonds InternationalDUBLIN, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

The "Europe Smart pills Market, Companies Profiles, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast to 2025" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering.

Europe smart pills market is expected to grow at a healthy CAGR in forecast period. The new market report contains data for historic years 2016, the base year of calculation is 2017 and the forecast period is 2018 to 2025.



The major factors contributing to the growth of the market includes factors such as increasing prevalence of gastrointestinal disorders, rising cancer screening awareness programs and technological advancements and R&D investment in smart pills market.



The Europe smart pills market is segmented on the basis of application into capsule endoscopy, drug delivery and patient monitoring of cancer. In 2018, capsule endoscopy segment is expected to dominate the market.



The Europe smart pills market is segmented on the basis of disease indication into occult GI bleeding, crohn's disease, small bowel tumors, celiac disease, inherited polyposis syndromes and mental disorders. In 2018, the occult GI bleeding segment is expected to dominate the market.



The Europe smart pills market is segmented on the basis of type into multiparameter monitoring and single parameter monitoring. In 2018, multiparameter monitoring is expected to dominate the market and is expected to grow at the highest CAGR in the forecast period.



The Europe smart pills market is segmented on the basis of end user into hospital, diagnostic centers and others. In 2018, hospital monitoring is expected to dominate the market and is expected to grow at the highest CAGR in the forecast period.



Key Topics Covered:



1 Introduction



2 Market Segmentation



3 Executive Summary



4 Premium Insights



5 Market Overview

5.1 Drivers

5.1.1 Increasing Prevalence Of Gastrointestinal Disorders

5.1.2 Rising Cancer Screening Awareness Programs

5.1.3 Technological Advancements And R&D Investment In Smart Pills Market

5.1.4 Favourable Reimbursement Policies For Capsule Endoscopy

5.1.5 Rising Need Of Minimally Invasive Surgeries

5.2 Restraints

5.2.1 High Costs Of Smart Pills

5.2.2 Ethical Concerns Related To Smart Pills For Drug Delivery

5.3 Opportunities

5.3.1 Need For Rapid Drug Development Process

5.3.2 Rising Need For The Focus And Motivation In Daily Life For People

5.4 Challenges

5.4.1 Lack Of Trained Staff

5.4.2 Possible Health Risk Associated With A Smart Pill Inserted Into A Body



6 Europe Smart Pills Market, By Application

6.1 Overview

6.2 Capsule Endoscopy

6.2.1 Small Bowel Capsule Endoscopy

6.2.2 Colon Capsule Endoscopy

6.3 Drug Delivery

6.4 Patient Monitoring Of Cancer



7 Europe Smart Pills Market, By Disease Indication

7.1 Overview

7.2 Occult Gi Bleeding

7.3 Crohn'S Disease

7.4 Small Bowel Tumors

7.5 Celiac Disease

7.6 Inherited Polyposis Syndromes

7.7 Mental Disorders



8 Europe Smart Pills Market, By Type

8.1 Overview

8.2 Multiparameter Monitoring

8.3 Single Parameter Monitoring



9 Europe Smart Pills Market, By End User

9.1 Overview

9.2 Hospital

9.3 Diagnostic Centers

9.4 Others



10 Europe Smart Pills Market, By Geography

10.1 Europe

10.1.1 Germany

10.1.2 France

10.1.3 U.K.

10.1.4 Italy

10.1.5 Spain

10.1.6 Switzerland

10.1.7 Netherlands

10.1.8 Russia

10.1.9 Belgium

10.1.10 Turkey

10.1.11 Rest Of Europe



11 Europe Smart Pills Market, Company Landscape

11.1 Company Share Analysis: Europe



12 Company Profiles



Medtronic

Otsuka Holdings Company Limited

Olympus Corporation

CapsoVision Inc.

Check-Cap

IntroMedic

JINSHAN Science & Technology

Lucid Group Limited

For more information about this report visit

https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/nlk4p6/europe_smart?w=5

Media Contact:

Research and Markets

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

[email protected]



For E.S.T Office Hours Call +1-917-300-0470

For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call +1-800-526-8630

For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900



U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907

Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716

SOURCE Research and Markets

Related Links

http://www.researchandmarkets.com

CHICAGO, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The Chicago office of FCB, an Interpublic Group creative agency, today announced that it has received International Standards Organization (ISO/IEC) 27001:2013 certification for information security from one of the world's leading ISO management systems registrars, National Quality Assurance (NQA).

This certification reaffirms FCB Chicago's commitment to continually improving and enhancing its data security practices based on a comprehensive Information Security Management System that meets internationally recognized standards of excellence.

FCB Chicago CEO and President Michael Fassnacht emphasized the certification's importance  for the agency and its clients  in today's data-driven world.

"Now, more than ever, we believe creative agencies need to show clients and consumers that we are committed to being responsible data stewards by finding ways to protect sensitive information that they entrust to us," he said. "We see our continued investment in evolving our information security practice as table stakes for our industry, allowing us to offer our clients more peace of mind as we focus on creating great, impactful work together."

The Chicago office of FCB is the first agency within the FCB Network and currently the only agency within holding company Interpublic Group to hold this certification. With the rollout of GDPR across Europe and privacy becoming a hot legislative topic in the U.S., responsible data protection will continue to be of utmost importance to marketers.

In preparation for the ISO certification, the agency underwent "a year of meetings, discussion and significant documentation," said FCB Chicago Chief Financial and Technology Officer Mark Jungwirth. FCB Chicago successfully achieved certification after passing two rounds of internal and external audits. The agency also put a task force in place that will undergo formal ISO reviews annually going forward.

Jungwirth said the process, while rigorous, was worth it.

"In certain categories, such as insurance, finance and healthcare, it goes without saying that strict and careful adherence to information protection should guide and inform all that agencies do for their clients, but we anticipate this will become a critical issue for marketers across all industries," he said. "As such, we hope to see more agencies taking steps to achieve this level of certification in the coming months."

About FCB

FCB (Foote, Cone & Belding) is a global, award-winning and fully integrated marketing communications company with a heritage of creativity and success dating from 1873. With its largest and founding office in Chicago, FCB focuses on creating "Never Finished" campaign ideas that have the power to transform brands, businesses, and communities. With more than 8,000 people in 109 operations in 80 countries, the company is part of the Interpublic Group of Companies (NYSE: IPG). Visit fcb.com or follow @FCBglobal on Instagram and Twitter and FCB Global on Facebook.

SOURCE FCB

Related Links

http://www.fcb.com

NEW YORK, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Finn Partners has named Jane Madden as Managing Partner, Sustainability and Social Impact Practice Leader. Madden will leverage more than 25 years of experience in ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) performance, Sustainability and Corporate Reputation to build the practice globally.

As an award-winning advisor to Fortune 500 companies, Madden will work with FINN's offices in the US, Europe and Asia and across its practice areas including financial services, technology and health and will be based in FINN's Chicago office.

Jane Madden, Managing Partner, Global Sustainability and Social Impact

"It's exciting to bring Jane onboard during this time of transparency, when more and more companies are being held responsible by consumers, investors and other stakeholders, to make a positive contribution to their communities, their regions and to society overall," says Richard Funess, senior managing partner, FINN. "Jane understands the positive impact of corporate responsibility on a company's bottom line and on its overall image and reputation."

Prior to joining FINN, Jane led the U. S. Corporate Responsibility & Sustainability Practice at Burson-Marsteller based out of Chicago. Madden doubled the size of the practice developing sustainability communications and strategies for clients such as Astellas, Chipotle, Colgate, FedEx and the International Olympic Committee. She also developed an expertise in ESG disclosure and investor communications.

Prior to this, she served as a Partner and the Sustainability Practice Leader at Environmental Resources Management (ERM) where she directed corporate sustainability policies and strategy, green technologies, energy efficiency, ESG reporting and supply chain issues. Her depth of experience also includes launching Edelman's Chicago CSR & Sustainability practice as Executive Vice President and working as a World Bank official, advising governments on ESG policies, stakeholder engagement and public-private partnerships.

"In today's business and political climate, sustainability is no longer a 'nice to do' for corporations; it is a business imperative," says Madden. "I look forward to helping FINN's clients navigate this complex space to reach a variety of stakeholders to increase value, build reputation and attract top talent."

Jane is a sought-after speaker on sustainability issues, particularly innovation, ESG disclosure, investors and conflict minerals. She has toured Mongolia and Moldova as guest speaker on sustainability for the U.S. State Department and has spoken at the Milken Global Conference, the Chicago council on Global Affairs and the Jonas Salk Centenary Symposium on Sustainability. She has been named PR Professional of the Year and CSR Professional of the Year by PR News.

Finn Partners

Founded in 2011 on the core principles of innovation and collaborative partnership, Finn Partners has more than tripled in size in six years, becoming one of the fastest growing independent public relations agencies in the world. The full-service marketing and communications company's record setting pace is a result of organic growth and integrating new companies and new people into the Finn Partners world through a common philosophy. With 600 professionals, Finn Partners provides its clients with global access and capabilities in the U.S., Europe and Asia, in addition to PROI worldwide. Headquartered in New York, Finn Partners' other offices are in Chicago, Detroit, Fort Lauderdale, Frankfurt, Jerusalem, London, Los Angeles, Munich, Nashville, Paris, Portland, San Francisco, Shanghai, Singapore and Washington, D.C. Find us as finnpartners.com and follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @finnpartners.

Contact:

[email protected]

212.646.6334

SOURCE Finn Partners

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"Shea brings a wealth of hands on mission assurance experience to Firefly," said Firefly CEO Dr. Tom Markusic. "As Firefly's technology matures, we continue to augment our senior leadership with individuals that have a proven track record of driving complex aerospace development projects to successful completion. This signals to our customers that we are serious about maintaining both quality and schedule. Shea's knowledge and in-depth experience with numerous orbital launch vehicles will be a tremendous asset for the Firefly team."

Ferring is an expert in launch vehicle design, qualification, integration, test and flight and holds a Master of Science in Aerospace Engineering from Arizona State University. Ferring's leadership, multi-discipline engineering expertise and passion allow him to deliver impactful strategic guidance and mentoring to the Firefly team.

"Firefly's culture is being developed to integrate the best blend of key heritage Mission Success principles while also capitalizing on NewSpace innovation that is driven by vision, passion, and employee empowerment," said Shea Ferring. "This perfect blend will set Firefly apart from the competition with a highly reliable system that both government and commercial customers can rely on for their most mission critical needs. I am excited to help mentor and lead the Firefly team in developing this culture to dominate the small and medium launch markets."

ABOUT FIREFLY AEROSPACE

Firefly is developing a family of launch vehicles to provide industry-leading affordability, convenience and reliability for dedicated light to medium lift launches. Firefly's Alpha and Beta vehicles utilize common technologies, manufacturing infrastructure and launch capabilities, providing LEO launch solutions for up to one and four metric tons of payload respectively. Alpha and Beta will provide the space industry with access to frequent launches at the lowest cost/kg, enabling ambitious commercial and exploration missions from LEO to the Moon. Headquartered in Cedar Park TX, Firefly has additional presence in Washington, D.C., Dnipro, Ukraine and Tokyo, Japan. Firefly is financed by Noosphere Ventures of Menlo Park, CA.

Contact

Eric Salwan

512-277-6959

[email protected]

SOURCE Firefly Aerospace, Inc.

Related Links

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HOUSTON, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Flotek Industries, Inc. ("Flotek" or the "Company") (NYSE: FTK) will, as previously announced, be meeting with investors today at the Johnson Rice Energy Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana. Flotek's Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, John Chisholm, will meet with investors on Wednesday, September 26th. In conjunction with these meetings, Flotek is publishing an updated presentation on its website this morning which contains important information regarding the Company's business update and outlook for its shareholders.

About Flotek Industries, Inc.

Flotek develops and delivers prescriptive chemistry-based technology, including specialty chemicals, to clients in the energy, consumer industrials and food & beverage industries. Flotek's inspired chemists draw from the power of bio-derived solvents to deliver solutions that enhance energy production, cleaning products, foods & beverages and fragrances. In the oil and gas sector, Flotek serves major and independent energy producers and oilfield service companies, both domestic and international. Flotek Industries, Inc. is a publicly traded company headquartered in Houston, Texas, and its common shares are traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "FTK." For additional information, please visit Flotek's web site at www.flotekind.com.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements set forth in this Press Release constitute 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) regarding Flotek Industries, Inc.'s business, financial condition, results of operations and prospects. Words such as expects, anticipates, intends, plans, believes, seeks, estimates and similar expressions or variations of such words are intended to identify forward-looking statements, but are not the exclusive means of identifying forward-looking statements in this Press Release.

Although forward-looking statements in this Press Release reflect the good faith judgment of management, such statements can only be based on facts and factors currently known to management. Consequently, forward-looking statements are inherently subject to risks and uncertainties, and actual results and outcomes may differ materially from the results and outcomes discussed in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences in results and outcomes include, but are not limited to, demand for oil and natural gas drilling services in the areas and markets in which the Company operates, competition, obsolescence of products and services, the Company's ability to obtain financing to support its operations, environmental and other casualty risks, and the impact of government regulation.

Further information about the risks and uncertainties that may impact the Company are set forth in the Company's most recent filings on Form 10-K (including without limitation in the "Risk Factors" Section), and in the Company's other SEC filings and publicly available documents. Readers are urged not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this Press Release. The Company undertakes no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements in order to reflect any event or circumstance that may arise after the date of this Press Release.

SOURCE Flotek Industries, Inc.

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MAUMEE, Ohio, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- 1 Natural Way, a provider of insurance-covered breast pumps and accessories, is now offering a lactation consultation tele-health service to military families. The complimentary service will be available to military moms with Tricare insurance who order their breast pump through 1 Natural Way.

The 25-minute e-consults are live video chat sessions  an ideal format for military families who are often on the move or who may be stationed overseas.

Each year, between 90 and 120 thousand babies are born to U.S. military families. Roughly half of those births take place outside of a U.S. military facility to families living off base, reservist and retiree families, and families stationed abroad, making it more challenging for new mothers to access all the excellent benefits that Tricare affords its members.

"We've become very invested in our military families, and we are always looking for ways to make things just a little easier for them because of the unique challenges they face. Many are PCS'd or their spouse may be deployed and they are managing the family on their own. The lactation e-consults can be accessed from anywhere at a time convenient for them," said Ryan Wright, CEO of 1 Natural Way.

The e-consults will be conducted by an IBCLC-certified Lactation Consultant from Lactation Link, a leading resource for breastfeeding assistance and support. Mothers will have the opportunity to focus the consultation on their specific needs or concerns  whether they need assistance with increasing milk production, establishing successful night breastfeeding or addressing difficulties with latching.

"We've had the privilege of helping thousands of parents all over the world reach their breastfeeding goals," said Lindsey Shipley, RN, IBCLC, and Lactation Link's founder. "I'm thrilled to have this opportunity to connect with and support so many military families."

1 Natural Way offers military families a complete array of products and services to make moms more comfortable and confident throughout their pregnancy and breastfeeding journeys. In addition to e-consults, 1 Natural Way provides Tricare members with Medela, Spectra and Lansinoh brand breast pumps, monthly breastfeeding supplies, maternity compression stockings and postpartum recovery garments, as well as expert and compassionate advice and top-notch customer service.

"We're really excited to be able to offer this service as part of our overall commitment to serve military families," said Wright. "1 Natural Way delivers a range of products and services that no other breast pump provider can. It's all tied to our purpose, which is simply to help moms provide breast milk to their babies."

About 1 Natural Way

1 Natural Way is a Specialty Women's Health and Wellness Company that provides products for new moms across the USA, including breast pumps, breastfeeding accessories, maternity compression stockings, and postpartum recovery garments. 1 Natural Way's purpose is to help moms provide breast milk to their babies through products, education and service, with the goal of supporting moms, whether they are first-timers or veterans, to make their breastfeeding experience a success. 1 Natural Way is accredited by the Healthcare Quality Association on Accreditation (HQAA).

SOURCE 1 Natural Way

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NEW YORK, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Product Innovation is the Answer for Sustainability in a Dynamic Market

The governments and providers in Asia-Pacific (APAC) are focused on reducing medical expenses while improving population health and well-being.A shortage of medical professionals is seen across multiple specialties in various APAC countries; moreover, clinicians are concentrated in urban areas leading to disproportionate clinicianto-patient ratios in many areas.



Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05496025



To address these challenges, APAC has been investing in healthcare digitalization to increase efficiency, reduce expenses, and automate/eliminate redundant processes.As a result, the adoption of IT is spurring a new wave of development across both public and private hospitals in APAC.



The most notable of the IT upgrades are the Electronic Medical Record (EMR) and Electronic Health Record (EHR) technologies.



On one hand, an EMR is a legal, digitized record of all encounters an individual has with a particular healthcare provider, supported by one or more of the following applications: clinical data repository (CDR), clinical decision support system (CDSS), controlled medical vocabulary (CMV) and/or computerized physician order entry (CPOE). On the other hand, an EHR is a legal, digital record of all encounters that an individual has with possibly all the healthcare provider organizations within a community, state, or region.



This research identified the growing emphasis on patient experience, increasing emphasis on evidence-based care, increasing demand for Population Health Management (PHM) and competition amongst healthcare providers as the top four industry transformations driving EMR and EHR adoption in this region.According to HIMSS APAC, 42 hospitals in the region have achieved Stage 6, and 8 hospitals have achieved Stage 7.



More hospitals are moving in the same direction.



However, significant investments in EMR, particularly from the public sector, have received widespread criticism from APAC due to the below-expectation returns that they have generated in the past.A key reason for this is the inadequate integration of diverse systems and lack of attention to system interoperability.



Therefore, despite investing in the best of solutions healthcare, providers are unable to reap the benefits because they are not able to streamline workflows and gain efficiencies in organizational processes.System interoperability has emerged as a top priority amongst several governments and efforts are being made in this direction by governments, not-for-profit organizations and the private sector.



This research also identified poor user interface, cost management and lack of robust training as the top challenges and unmet needs amongst healthcare providers. The report also suggests potential solutions that the EMR/EHR vendors can consider to address the emerging market needs.



New technologies such as telehealth, artificial intelligence, and open API continue to make way into the healthcare systems as they hold potentials to further improve clinical and operational efficiencies. These technologies are either capturing clinically significant patient data or leveraging patient data for analysis; both require seamless integration with the EMR/EHR systems.



Market development across APAC has been extremely uneven and countries stand at varying levels of adoption and sophistication of EMR and EHR. While developed nations such as Australia, Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong are exploring solutions that help analyze health data to support predictive population health management, developing markets such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand are still focusing on improving their information capture systems.



Research Highlights

This report identified key trends shaping the future EMR /EHR market in this region as well as in individual countries and highlight growth opportunities for EMR/EHR vendors.The private sector in APAC will continue to present greater potential as it has the budget to invest in innovative EMRs.



Private hospitals will invest in providing high-quality care enabled by technology to attract patients.Japan and China present the greatest opportunity, followed by Australia.



These countries are innovating in this space and have a high number of hospital base. South Korea contributes the highest percentage of regional revenue concentrated with local players and it has stringent regulation on data sharing outside of the hospital.



Key Conclusion

In the next 5 year, EMR vendors in APAC will compete by offering different EMR software packages for developed and developing nations: highly scalable and affordable EMR packages for developing nations and sophisticated EMR packages for developed nations.



Read the full report: https://www.reportlinker.com/p05496025



About Reportlinker

ReportLinker is an award-winning market research solution. Reportlinker finds and organizes the latest industry data so you get all the market research you need - instantly, in one place.



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LONDON, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Global Bioprinting Market to Reach $4.7 Billion by 2025



3D printing has emerged significantly with broader applications areas especially in the healthcare sector. 3D printed customized medical devices, such as hearing aids, dental implants and prosthetics, have become quite successful. Bioprinting which is a subset of 3D printing works on the same principal of 3D printing except the procedure is performed using living cells, tissues, and organs, where the complexities of tissues and cells, such as cell types, functionalities, growth, and differentiation patterns, are addressed. It is the artificial construction of living tissues through placing layer upon layer of living cells. It is a variant of biomedical application of rapid prototyping technology or layer by layer additive bio-fabrication of 3D tissue and organ constructs for the replacement, repair, and regeneration of damaged and diseased human organs and tissues. Although, bioprinters come in various configurations, the basic process is the same. All machines extract an adequate number of cells, which comes from a bio print head in order to build up a three-dimensional organic object. Most of the bioprinters extract a dissolvable gel (as a scaffold) to protect and support cells during printing.



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The advent of 3D bioprinting technologies has led to significant progress in the manufacturing of large bioartificial organs, such as bones, livers, hearts, cartilages, and skins.It can produce living tissues, blood vessels, and potentially whole organs for its usage in medical procedures, drug discovery & testing, tissue engineering research & study, and others.



The advantages of 3D bioprinting over other fabrication techniques are: it enables fabrication of anatomically correct shapes, allows fabrication of porous structures, can co culture multiple cell types locally, and control the delivery of growth factors and genes, as well as can generate tissue models in high-throughput manner and integrate vascularization.



The widening gap between the demand and the supply of organ transplants represent a huge unmet need amongst the patients and doctors.The emerging bioprinting technologies has a strong potential in filling this gap.



The eventual goal of researchers is to be able to produce bio printed organs for organ implants.The market is expected to progress gradually over the coming years with the focus of shifting from research to commercialization.



The early success of the bio-printed organ transplants is likely to provide additional boost in the subsequent years.



This research study includes an extensive analysis of the global bioprinting market by product, application, technology and geographical region, allowing the researcher to develop a comprehensive outlook of the market. Each of these segments has been analyzed based on their current and future market size, considering the macro and micro environmental factors.



The market report presents a detailed and investigative study of the entire market and provides a comprehensive insight into various forms of development, trends, and the key market participants. While highlighting the key driving and restraining forces for this dynamic market, the report also provides a comprehensive section on competitive landscape, market share analysis, competitive benchmarking, and the position of the competitors within the global bioprinting market.



The following key questions have been addressed in the report:

 What are the major market drivers, challenges, and opportunities of the global bioprinting market?

 How did the advanced bioprinting technologies evolve and what is its scope in the future?

 What were the market shares of the leading segments and sub-segments of the global bioprinting market in 2016 and what will be its shares in 2025?

 How will each of the segments of the global bioprinting market grow during the forecast period and what will be the revenue generated by each of the segments by the end of 2025?

 How did the market share of the leading companies change in 2016, and which country will lead the market in 2017?

 How will the bioprinting industry evolve during the forecast period 2018-2025?

 What are the key developments and strategies implemented by the key players to stand out in this market?

 Which product, application and technology will dominate the global bioprinting market by the end of the forecast period, and which one is growing at the highest CAGR during the forecast period 2018-2025?

 What will be the growth rate of different segments during the forecast period? Which is the leading segment by product, application, technology and region?

 Who are the key players in the global bioprinting market?

 Which region will lead the global bioprinting market in revenue generation through the forecast period?

 Which country will be growing at the highest CAGR during the forecast period?



The key players who have significant contributions to the bioprinting market are Organovo Holdings Inc., Aspect Biosystems, Advanced Solutions Inc. (Life Sciences), Allevi (BioBots), 3Dynamics Systems, Cellink, Cyfuse Biomedical K.K., RegenHU, Regenovo Biotechnology Co. Ltd., and Poietis, among others.



Executive Summary

The 3D printing market has continuously evolved in the past three years, proving to be one of the most promising industries to look up to in terms of investment. Suitable for today's technological and commercial areas, the 3D is the process used to produce three-dimensional objects.



3D printing is a well-known concept having advanced ability to use digital instructions (software guidance) to manufacture specific shapes using ceramics, plastics, polymers, metal alloys, and other materials. The 3D printing industry has experienced a rapid growth rate in the past few years due to its diverse applications. Active support of government and industry players in increasing the awareness regarding the benefits of using 3D printing over conventional methods of manufacturing serves as a strong factor attributed to the growth of the global 3D printing market. Moreover, the ongoing technological advancements, such as incorporation of new materials and surface enhancement of the final model, ease in the development of customized products, reduction in manufacturing cost, and government investments in 3D printing projects are some of the other favorable factors for the growth of the 3D printing market.



With the advancement in modern science and technology, organ failure or deterioration caused by the acute/chronic diseases, congenita malformations, and traffic accidents have become the most prominent social problems. As per the Journal of Chinese Medical Ethics, there are around 1.5 million patients who require organ transplantations in China every year, but only less than 1% of patients can obtain suitable organs. As compared to the traditional artificial organs made up of polymers or metals, the bioartificial organs are made up of living cells and biomaterials. A wide variety bioprinting strategies have been developed to tackle the challenges for the manufacturing of bioartificial organs with physiological functions. The objective of these strategies is to build complex organ geometries through a spatiotemporal pattern of heterogenous types of bio-inks, especially cells.



Developments in 3D bioprinting technologies have made possible printing of bioartificial organs, such as heart, liver, bones, cartilages, and skin.Using 3D bioprinting technologies in living tissues, blood vessels and whole organs can be developed for use in medical procedures, drug discovery & drug trials, tissue engineering research and other medical and biomedical applications.



Advantages of 3D bioprinting, when compared with other tissue fabrication techniques, include, fabrication of anatomically correct shapes, fabrication of porous structures, co-culture of multiple cell types locally, controlled delivery of growth factors and genes, high-throughput tissue model generation and enabling vascularization of the tissues.



There is a huge gap between the demand and the supply of organs for transplantation.The 3D bioprinting technology has the potential to bridge this gap soon.



Extensive research is underway to develop complete bio printed organs for transplantation purpose.The market for bio-printed organs will develop gradually over the coming years as the 3D bioprinting technology matures and moves out of laboratories towards commercialization.



The initial success of bio printed organ transplants will likely provide the additional boost to the market in coming years.



Growing demand for organ transplantation, rise in public & private funding to support 3D bioprinting research activities, increasing usage of 3D bioprinting in drug discovery process, increasing geriatric population, and active participation of the government and the industry players in the technological advancement in the field of 3D bio printing are the factors have boosted the overall growth of this market.



Although the scientists and researchers are still working to print 3D functional human organs, 3D bioprinting already has numerous applications in toxicity testing, tissue engineering, drug discovery, consumer product testing, bone transplants, and cosmetic dentistry. Moreover, the creation of living organs and human tissue could be potentially used to replace the traditional in vivo practice been performed for the testing of drugs for various therapeutics.



However, the shortage of skilled professionals to understand the complexity of life sciences and cellular biology, the high cost of bioprinting platform and lack of regulatory guidelines governing the 3D bioprinting serve as a restraint for the growth of this market. The industry players are trying hard to get regulatory approvals for their tissue models and organs to be used directly within the human bodies.



The product segment of the market comprises of bioprinters, consumables, software, services, and others (models and molds, among others). The bioprinters acquired the highest market value in 2016, growing at the CAGR of 13.8% during the forecast period 2018-2025. However, software solutions are growing at the highest CAGR of 18.4%.



The application segment of the market comprises of research application (3D cell culture, regenerative medicine, and drug research, among others), clinical applications (dental, orthopedic, skin substitutes & grafts, and vascular tissues & organs, among others), and other applications (tools, prototypes, and molds). The research applications constituted the highest market value in 2016, growing at the CAGR of 11.9% during the forecast period 2018-2025. However, clinical application is expected to grow at the highest CAGR of 19.4% during to the forecast period 2018-2025.



The technology segment comprises of extrusion based, inkjet-based, magnetic levitation, and photocuring technology, among others. The extrusion-based technology accounted for the highest market value in 2016 which is anticipated to reach $2.59 billion by 2025. However, the magnetic levitation is expected to grow at the highest CAGR of 19.6% during the forecast period 2018-2025.



North America generated the highest market value in 2016, growing at the CAGR of 14.4%. However, Latin America, (comprising Brazil and Mexico, among others) is expected to grow at the highest CAGR of 16.8% during the forecast period 2018-2025, followed by the Asia Pacific.



Advancements in 3D bioprinting technologies coupled with the high demand for organs and tissues, government initiatives & rising investments for R&D, customization of products and competitive advantages are some of the key drivers that boost the growth of the bio-printer market globally. A wide variety of 3D bioprinters have been developed in the recent years and are still being developed from high cost to low-cost, many of them are yet to be launched in the market.



Countries Covered

 North America

 The U.S.

 Canada

 Europe

 Germany

 The U.K.

 France

 Italy

 Spain

 Asia-Pacific

 Japan

 China

 India

 South Korea

 Australia

 Latin America

 Brazil

 Mexico



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BUDAPEST, Hungary, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Oracle Retail Industry Forum  Despite global awareness of new privacy regulations like GDPR (52 percent) and their desire to exercise data protection rights (86 percent), a majority of consumers value personalized offers in their shopping experience (56 percent) according to a new global consumer study by Oracle Retail. The research signals that retailers have a new responsibility to earn the right to remember customer data by delivering more meaningful brand interactions and rewarding experiences. Retailers are wrestling with this new responsibility as consumers push for more visibility into the service and supply chain and emerging markets seem poised to adopt innovative retail technologies that depend on customer data.

In addition to identifying a desire for more personalized interactions, the New Topography of Retail study also found consumers in North America (87 percent) would request brands remove their personal information if given the option. This trend extends globally with 45 percent of consumers in North America and 34 percent of Europeans noting they would remove their data from all brands they engage with if given the option. Comparably, 90 percent of consumers in LATAM would exercise the right to select which brands have access to their data, as would 91 percent in the Middle East and India and APAC respectively.

"As consumers question the benefit of sharing their information, research shows they want to receive offers that are both relevant and personalized while maintaining a level of anonymity. Retailers have the opportunity to deliver personalized incentives, converting an emotional response towards privacy into a meaningful interaction," said Mike Webster, senior vice president and general manager, Oracle Retail. "As retailers address data privacy issues head-on, brands who reinvent their approach to consumer engagement, look towards attracting the right customers and recognize that capturing shoppers at the point of intent will drive increased engagement and retention."

The New Topography of Retail research was conducted in 2018 with over 15,500 consumers across five key regions: Europe (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden and UK), North America (Canada and USA), LATAM (Brazil, Chile and Mexico), Middle East (Saudi Arabia and UAE) & India and APAC (Australia and China).

Navigating Privacy and Personalization

Although consumers are demonstrating fatigue around sharing personal data, they do continue to want personalized offers and incentives that are dependent on insights from prior brand engagements. Consumers do not feel that brands are successfully recognizing them, as only 16 percent of European consumers agreed that the offers they receive from retailers are always personalized or always relevant. Similarly, only 22 percent of consumers agreed globally. However, 47 percent of global consumers indicated that it would be awesome to receive real-time offers based on what they've been browsing online. They also recognize the nuance in offers, with 75 percent of consumers believing that personalized offers from retailers are different to relevant offers.

Emerging Markets Embrace Retail Innovation

Across the board, consumers in emerging markets (57 percent of respondents across Brazil, Chile, China, India and the Middle East) think in-store facial recognition, virtual sale assistants in fitting rooms, kiosks where you can upload an image of an item and get recommendations, and automatic replenishment based on subscription preferences are important compared to only 28 percent of consumers in Europe, Australia and North America.

Trends across emerging markets include:

LATAM: Forty-two percent of consumers think that virtual sales assistants in the fitting room are important to their retail experience compared to 45 percent of consumers in emerging markets and 20 percent of consumers in developed markets.

Middle East : Consumers recognize the opportunity of facial recognition in their shopping experience: 59 percent believe using the technology to instantly recognize a loyalty member or be used as purchase security (57 percent) is important. Emerging markets also love the idea of being recognized with facial recognition technology to ensure purchase security (61 percent) while only 26 percent of consumers in developed markets share this enthusiasm.

: Consumers recognize the opportunity of facial recognition in their shopping experience: 59 percent believe using the technology to instantly recognize a loyalty member or be used as purchase security (57 percent) is important. Emerging markets also love the idea of being recognized with facial recognition technology to ensure purchase security (61 percent) while only 26 percent of consumers in developed markets share this enthusiasm. India : Sixty-one percent of consumers noted that they love the idea of deliveries by drone or driverless car - nearly double the statistic for consumers in developed markets (32 percent).

: Sixty-one percent of consumers noted that they love the idea of deliveries by drone or driverless car - nearly double the statistic for consumers in developed markets (32 percent). APAC: Chinese consumers (57 percent) note that they view kiosks where you can upload an image of an item and get recommendations on similar items as important, more than double their peers in Australia (26 percent).

Across emerging markets consumers (64 percent) identified that they loved the idea of using virtual reality to navigate a personalized in-store experience with only 33 percent of consumers in developed markets agreeing on the potential of VR.

Consumers Demand Visibility into Service and Supply Chain

Consumers are demanding greater transparency into retailer operations, service history and supply chains. Over half (52 percent) of consumers state that a key influence on loyalty is knowing that retailers are acting sustainable. This is especially true for grocery (56 percent) and fashion (52 percent) shoppers that state knowing that retailers are acting sustainably and limiting their impact on the environment would influence their loyalty.

Consumers (54 percent) also expect to have visibility into store inventory and be able to research and reserve items for same day pick up in-store. If items are being delivered to their homes, a massive 72 percent of customers expect real-time updates on the location of an item throughout the delivery process.

The New Topography of Retail also identified a new global expectation of service staff to be armed with more information than ever before. A majority of consumers (74 percent globally and in North America respectively) think knowledgeable in store staff are important to their brand experience. Consumers (58 percent globally and in North America respectively) also expect retailers to always know the reason for their returns. North American consumers have even greater expectations of retailers: 60 percent expect customer service teams to know the date of their original purchase and 57 percent expect teams to know the method of payment.

Additional Resources

To download the full report click here.

View extended comments from Mike Webster , senior vice president and general manager, Oracle Retail, on The New Topography of Retail.

About Oracle

The Oracle Cloud offers complete SaaS application suites for ERP, HCM and CX, plus best-in-class database Platform as a Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) from data centers throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia. For more information about Oracle (NYSE:ORCL), please visit us at oracle.com

About Oracle Retail

Oracle provides retailers with a complete, open, and integrated suite of best-of-breed business applications, cloud services, and hardware that are engineered to work together and empower commerce. Leading fashion, grocery, and specialty retailers use Oracle solutions to anticipate market changes, simplify operations and inspire authentic brand interactions. For more information, visit our website at www.oracle.com/retail.

Trademark

Oracle and Java are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

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LONDON, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Global Fixed-wing VTOL Aircraft Market to Grow at a Significant CAGR from 2018-2028



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The global fixed-wing VTOL aircraft market is expected to witness significant growth over the forecast period 2018-2028 due to the rising demand across various end-users including commercial, military, and law enforcement.Fixed-wing VTOL aircraft have the capabilities of both fixed-wing aircraft and rotorcraft.



These aircraft are able to takeoff and land vertically and then transit into a horizontal flight which eliminates the need for long runway infrastructure without compromising the speed and endurance.This high scale growth of the fixed-wing VTOL aircraft industry is subsequently influencing its market.



Therefore, new advanced VTOL technologies are developed such as electric VTOL (eVTOL). The growing demand for the fixed-wing VTOL aircraft in defense applications, faster travel and runway-less platforms, and rising demand for UAVs in the agricultural sector are some of the key drivers for the growth of the global fixed-wing VOTL aircraft market.



Moreover, emergence of More Electric Aircraft (MEA), increasing demand for VTOL aircraft in commercial applications, on-demand urban air transportation, growing importance of VTOL aircraft in cargo transportation, and increasing usage in humanitarian relief operations are some of the opportunities for the growth of the global fixed-wing VTOL aircraft market.There are mainly two types of fixed-wing VTOL aircraft: fixed-wing VTOL manned aircraft and fixed-wing hybrid VTOL UAVs.



In addition to this, the market for the fixed-wing hybrid VTOL UAV is expected to have the highest growth rate during the forecast period 2018-2028 due to the extensive demand for VTOL UAV in commercial applications.Furthermore, the fixed-wing VTOL aircraft have been deployed by various end-users into multiple industries including commercial, military, and law enforcement.



Until 2017, the fixed-wing VTOL manned aircraft was used only for military applications.However, now it is expected to have application in law enforcement as well as in the commercial industry.



The military end-users acquired the most significant market share of the global fixed-wing hybrid VTOL UAVs in 2017; however, commercial end-users are expected to have the high growth rate during the forecast period, 2018-2028.



According to BIS Research analysis, the global fixed-wing VTOL aircraft market generated $2,009.6 million in 2017 and is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 21.7% during 2018-2028. North America dominated the global fixed-wing VTOL aircraft market in 2017 with the U.S. acquiring the most significant market share, globally. However, Asia-Pacific is expected to have the highest growth rate during the forecast period 2018-2028.



Following points provide a detailed description of the report content and the topics covered in the report:

 This report identifies the global fixed-wing VTOL aircraft market under different segments such as type, end-user, and region.

 It examines the prime supply-side factors, which affect the growth of the market, and the current and future trends, market drivers, restraints, and challenges prevalent in the global fixed-wing VTOL aircraft market.

 The report also highlights the value chain of the industry with the primary focus on the technological roadmap.

 Detailed competitive analysis has been included in this report which focuses on the key market developments and strategies followed by the top players in the market. Additionally, the competitive benchmarking map has been included in the existing study which analyzes the competitive strength of the players in the global fixed-wing VTOL aircraft market.

 The market for different types of the fixed-wing VTOL aircraft, such as fixed-wing VTOL manned aircraft and fixed-wing hybrid VTOL UAVs, has been estimated and analyzed.

 Different end-users of the fixed-wing VTOL aircraft, such as commercial, military, and law enforcement, have been estimated and analyzed in the report.

 The global fixed-wing VTOL aircraft market has been analyzed in the report for the major regions including North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Rest of the World.

 The global eVTOL aircraft market analysis has been provided in the report.

 A detailed Porter's Five Forces analysis has been included in the report. Furthermore, the report also focuses on providing information on the key participants and future opportunities in the global fixed-wing VTOL aircraft market.

 The study provides detailed analysis of the 15 key players in the global fixed-wing VTOL aircraft market including AeroVironment, Airbus, Arcturus UAV, Aurora Flight Sciences, BAE Systems, Boeing, Leonardo, Lockheed Martin, Israel Aerospace Industries, Textron Inc., ALTI UAS, Autel Robotics, Lilium, XTI Aircraft, and Kitty Hawk in the Company Profiles section. This section covers business financials, company snapshots, key products and services, major developments, future programs (if any), and the individual SWOT analysis.



Executive Summary

Aircraft are the most valuable asset in the global aviation industry and are used across various military as well as commercial applications.The aviation industry mainly offers two types of aircraft such as fixed-wings and rotorcraft which can be used for military as well as commercial applications.



Fixed-wing aircraft are majorly used for commercial air passenger transport to cover longer distances.These can be used for military applications in transporting the troops from place to place.



A fixed-wing aircraft requires proper runways for its takeoff and landing.Rotorcraft are another category which is majorly utilized for defense applications including intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, among others.



Rotorcraft are best-suited for such applications due to their hovering capability and vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) capabilities. However, these are not as fast as compared to the fixed-wing aircraft. Therefore, the combination of both the technologies gives rise to the development of hybrid kind of aircraft which is named as fixed-wing VTOL aircraft.



Fixed-wing VTOL aircraft are capable of vertical takeoff and landing along with the higher endurance and speed due to their aerodynamic structure.After the vertical takeoff, these aircraft transit into horizontal flight to attain the desired speed and altitude.



Fixed-wing VTOL aircraft are more beneficial than the other traditional aircraft as they are not dependent on any runway infrastructure.Military is the prominent end-user of fixed-wing VTOL aircraft that enables them to carry their troops to any location as and when required.



The manufacturers of unmanned aerial vehicles are also using the hybrid technology for better endurance and speed.These hybrid UAVs can be deployed in various industries such as military, commercial, and law enforcement.



There are many research and development organizations that are continuously putting their efforts in developing more efficient fixed-wing hybrid VTOL UAVs. Furthermore, the manufacturers and research organizations are focused on developing electric fixed-wing VTOL aircraft which is more cost-effective and is commercialized for various industries. This will also help in enhancing the endurance for the requirement of longer flights. The global fixed-wing VTOL aircraft market is expected to show robust growth in the areas that do not have runways due to increasing usage in military, commercial, and law enforcement applications. AeroVironment, Airbus, Arcturus UAV, Aurora Flight Sciences, BAE Systems, Boeing, Leonardo, Lockheed Martin, Israel Aerospace Industries, Textron Inc., ALTI UAS, Autel Robotics, Lilium, XTI Aircraft, and Kitty Hawk, among others, are some of the major players in the fixed-wing VTOL aircraft market.



The market reported a revenue of $2,009.6 million in 2017 and is expected to grow at a significant CAGR during the forecast period 2018-2028. Military, commercial, and law enforcement are the three major end-users of these aircraft.



The emergence of hybrid VTOL technology has increased the potential of fixed-wing aircraft because of combined advantage of vertical lift with forward flight.The application of fixed-wing hybrid VTOL UAVs has been actively adopted by commercial, military, and law enforcement users to carry out operations including search and rescue, reconnaissance, surveillance and situational awareness, and survey and monitoring, among others.



The fixed-wing hybrid VTOL UAVs in the commercial sector are expected to have the highest demand during the forecast period and, hence, will prove as the largest potential market segment for the utilization of fixed-wing hybrid VTOL UAVs.The fixed-wing VTOL manned aircraft have only been adopted by military end-user as of now.



However, the law enforcement and commercial end-user sectors are also expected to have the demand for fixed-wing manned VTOL aircraft during the forecast period 2018-2028.



North America is expected to have the highest market during the forecast period (2018-2028), followed by Asia-Pacific, Europe, and the Rest of the World (RoW).The increase in the demand for fixed-wing VTOL aircraft in North America is due to the need for commercial and military applications.



The commercial market for fixed-wing hybrid VTOL UAVs in the U.S. is increasing due their incorporation in oil and gas and agricultural applications. The U.S. is expected to dominate the overall market during the forecast period 2017-2026. The U.K., one of the prominent countries in Europe, is currently focusing on the development of fixed-wing VTOL aircraft for public safety and security. Some of the other countries include Germany and France.



The Asia-Pacific region majorly consists of China, Australia, India, and South Korea in the fixed-wing VTOL aircraft market.The countries in the region are experiencing a trend of extensive investment in all forms of fixed-wing VTOL aircraft technology.



China, currently, is having a large number of manufacturers while Australia is expected to grow at the highest rate. Moreover, there are ample opportunities for new entrants in this region as the demand for fixed-wing hybrid VTOL UAVs is increasing for both commercial and military applications.



Countries Covered

 North America

 U.S.

 Rest of North America

 Europe

 U.K

 Germany

 France

 Rest of Europe

 Asia-Pacific (APAC)

 China

 Australia

 India

 South Korea

 Rest of Asia-Pacific

 Rest of the World



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About Reportbuyer

Reportbuyer is a leading industry intelligence solution that provides all market research reports from top publishers



For more information:

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Email: [email protected]

Tel: +1 (718) 213 4904

Website: www.reportbuyer.com

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LONDON, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Global Human Centric Lighting Market to Grow at a CAGR of 37.2%, in Volume, from 2018 to 2024



Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/5470657



The evolution of smart technology has considerably changed the overall lighting industry in terms of energy and money saving and has improved the safety norms for the convenience of the users. Since the early 1990's scientists have studied the effect of light in the improvement of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) in humans. In 1989, it was successfully concluded that light can have anti-depressant impact on SAD patients. Studies have also shown that the natural color of daylight triggers melatonin and serotonin production in humans. These hormones control physical, mental, and behavioral changes or their circadian rhythm in humans.



Human Centric Lighting (HCL) is a lighting solution intended to improve a person's well-being, mood, and health by varying the Correlated Color Temperature (CCT).HCL solutions are designed to mimic the effects and illuminance of natural sunlight.



HCL is used in various applications such as healthcare, education, workplaces, retail, and residential applications, among others. HCL, which is also known as Circadian lighting or lighting for health, is expected to gain recognition and drive the lighting industry during the forecast period 2018-2024.



The HCL market is expected to grow at a significant rate during the forecast period.This is due to increasing benefits of human centric lighting, joint effort from regulatory bodies, manufacturers and distributors, and increased adoption of solid state lighting.



The effect of lighting on humans has been studied for more than a decade now.In 2002, a study stated that gangolin cells in the retina produce melanopsin which control hormone production.



The light intensity and temperature associated with the fixture can affect production of various hormones, such as dopamine, serotonin, cortisol, and melatonin, which control important aspects of our body.For instance, melatonin secretion leads to drowsiness which can provide better sleep and low body temperature.



The main aim of human centric lighting is to mimic daylight conditions throughout the day. Our body perceives light in a more complicated way than we understand. HCL along with the light therapy treatment can trigger the body's internal clock. Bright blue light can be effective during the morning to improve the effectiveness and alertness of an individual, whereas less or no blue light should be used during the night to improve sleep.



The demand for HCL solutions vary according to various geographical regions.The HCL market holds a prominent share in various countries of North America, Asia-Pacific (APAC), Europe, and Rest-of-the-World (RoW).



Geographically, Europe led the global HCL market in 2017 in terms of volume and value and is expected to witness the highest growth during the forecast period (2018-2024).This is mainly due to the increased adoption rate of HCL solutions across the region.



Furthermore, the support from the government and other regulatory bodies in this region have led to the development of HCL solutions.



The major countries in the Europe HCL market include Germany, the U.K., France, and Spain. Germany and the U.K. The U.K. and Germany together held approximately 65% of the total Europe HCL market. Europe has been on the forefront of HCL in the global scenario and the market in Europe is expected to grow at the highest rate during the forecast period (2018-2024). The early adoption of HCL solution in this region is primarily driven by the regulatory bodies providing enough research to showcase the benefits of HCL across various applications.



In the past five years, the global HCL market has witnessed several strategic and technological developments undertaken by the different market players to attain their respective market shares in the emerging domain.Some of the strategies that have been adopted by the HCL solution providers are expansions, new product launches, partnerships, collaborations, contracts and agreements, and mergers & acquisitions.



Among all the strategies, launch of new products has dominated the competitive landscape to become the most widely adopted strategy by the HCL solution providers. The key market players in the global HCL market are Acuity Brands, Inc., OSRAM GmbH, Hubbell Incorporated, Legrand, Philips Lighting, Glamox, Digital Lumens, Inc., Zumtobel Group AG, Seoul Semiconductors, Cree, Inc., Waldmann Lighting, Lutron Electronics Co., Inc., and Hevlar, among others.



The report is a compilation of different segments of global HCL market including market breakdown by component type, control type, region, and application.The report further takes into consideration market dynamics and competitive landscape.



The report also discusses in detail about the key participants involved in the industry.



The report answers following questions about the global HCL market:

 What will be the global Human Centric Lighting market value by 2024 along with the estimated CAGR?

 What are the driving factors for the global Human Centric Lighting market through 2017 to 2024?

 Which factors are impending the growth of the global Human Centric Lighting market?

 What are the recent trends and developments in the global Human Centric Lighting industry?

 Who are the leading players in the global Human Centric Lighting market along with their leading players analysis?

 Which Global Human Centric Lighting control type will lead the global Human Centric Lighting market by 2024?

 What is the revenue generated by Human Centric Lighting (fixture & controls) across different application verticals during the forecast period?

 Which application will dominate the global Human Centric Lighting (fixture & controls) market by 2024?

 Which region will lead the global Human Centric Lighting market by 2024?

 Which application will dominate the global Human Centric Lighting market across various regions by 2024?



Executive Summary

The evolution of smart technology has considerably changed the overall lighting industry in terms of energy and money saving and has improved the safety norms for the convenience of the users. Since, the early 1990's scientists have studied the effect of light in the improvement of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) in humans. In 1989, it was successfully concluded that light can have anti-depressant impact on SAD patients. Studies have also shown that the natural color of daylight triggers melatonin and serotonin production in humans. These hormones control physical, mental, and behavioral changes or their circadian rhythm in humans.



Human Centric Lighting (HCL) is a lighting solution intended to improve a person's well-being, mood, and health by varying the Correlated Color Temperature (CCT).HCL solutions are designed to mimic the effects and illuminance of natural sunlight.



HCL is used in various applications such as healthcare, education, workplaces, retail, and residential applications, among others. HCL, which is also known as Circadian lighting or lighting for health, is expected to drive the lighting industry in the forecast period 2018-2024.



The global HCL market is expected to grow with a CAGR of 37.2% and 35.2% in terms of volume and value, respectively during the forecast period 2018-2024.



Some of the factors driving the growth of HCL solutions in the global market are increasing benefits of human centric lighting, joint effort from regulatory bodies, manufacturers and distributors, and increased adoption of solid state lighting.The effect of lighting on humans has been studied for more than a decade now.



In 2002, a study stated that gangolin cells in the retina produce melanopsin which control hormone production.The light intensity and temperature associated with it can affect production of various hormones, such as dopamine, serotonin, cortisol, and melatonin, which control important aspects in our body.



For instance, melatonin secretion leads to drowsiness which can provide better sleep and low body temperature.The main aim of human centric lighting is to mimic daylight conditions throughout the day.



Our body perceives light in a more complicated way than we understand. HCL along with the light therapy treatment can trigger the body's internal clock. Bright blue light can be effective during the morning to improve the effectiveness and alertness of an individual, whereas less or no blue light should be used during the night to improve sleep.



The HCL solutions are widely used in healthcare, office, education, residential, and hospitality, among others.Of all the applications for HCL solutions, healthcare segment is expected to witness the highest growth during the forecast period (2018-2024) in terms of volume and value.



The major factors contributing to the growth of this segment include health benefits, such as reduced therapy times and enhanced drug efficacy, associated with HCL for the patients, doctors, and workers.Additionally, studies conducted to understand the impact of light on humans in various medical centers and hospitals have provided enough evidence to cater to the growth of this market.



Healthcare has seen the most early and widespread adoption of HCL, and the key players have developed a significant product portfolio for the same in the recent years. The majority of players, such as Philips Lighting, Glamox, OSRAM, and Helvar, among others in this industry are catering to the healthcare application.



Geographically, Europe led the global HCL market in 2017 in terms of volume and value and the region is expected to witness the highest growth during the forecast period (2018-2024).This is mainly due to the increased adoption rate of HCL solutions across the region.



Furthermore, the support from the government and other regulatory bodies in this region has led to the development of HCL solutions.



The major countries in the Europe HCL market include Germany, the U.K., France, and Spain. In 2017, Germany and the U.K. contributed majorly to the Europe's HCL market. The U.K. and Germany together held approximately 65% of the total Europe HCL market. Europe has been on the forefront of HCL market in the global scenario and the market in Europe is expected to grow at the highest rate during the forecast period (2018-2024). The early adoption of HCL solution in this region is primarily driven by the regulatory bodies providing enough research to showcase the benefits of HCL across various applications.



In the past five years, the global HCL market has witnessed several strategic and technological developments undertaken by the different market players to attain their respective market shares in the emerging domain.Some of the strategies that have been adopted by the HCL solution providers are expansions, new product launches, partnerships, collaborations, contracts and agreements, and mergers and acquisitions.



Among all the strategies, launch of new products has dominated the competitive landscape to become the most widely adopted strategy by the HCL solution providers. The key market players in the global HCL market are Acuity Brands, Inc., OSRAM GmbH, Hubbell Incorporated, Legrand, Philips Lighting, Glamox, Digital Lumens, Inc., Zumtobel Group AG, Seoul Semiconductors, Cree, Inc., Waldmann Lighting, Lutron Electronics Co., Inc., and Hevlar, among others.



Countries Covered

 North America

 APAC

 Europe

 Rest-of-the-World (RoW)



Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/5470657



About Reportbuyer

Reportbuyer is a leading industry intelligence solution that provides all market research reports from top publishers



For more information:

Sarah Smith

Research Advisor at Reportbuyer.com

Email: [email protected]

Tel: +1 (718) 213 4904

Website: www.reportbuyer.com

SOURCE ReportBuyer

Related Links

http://www.reportbuyer.com

Dr. Walid Phares ( Fox News National Security Expert ) was invited to speak about the entirety of the civil war in the totality of Yemen, and the challenges, influences and analysis of the future towards a hopeful peaceful resolution to the crisis. Grassroots P.C. LLC also invited Mr. Abdulsalam Mused ( Southern Transitional Council, i.e. STC, U.S. Foreign Minister ), who spoke about STC, its role in providing defense, stability and human rights to the population in South Yemen. Dr. Mused gave a comprehensive overview of the situation in South Yemen, and the desire to have his organization, Southern Transitional Council, be a party to the peace negotiations so that the people of South Yemen can be enabled to have the right to self-determination, a democratic representative government and path to peace with North Yemen.

Attendees were Congressional staffers from the U.S. House, U.S. Senate, think tank representatives, diplomats from the Embassy of Yemen, media and other interested parties for the important discussion on the situation in Yemen.

"I was proud to host this interactive briefing, which provided an opportunity for essential staff to listen to a non-simplistic and candid assessment on the true situation on the ground in Yemen, as well as regional and international influences. Our speakers shared their unique perspectives on what is transpiring, as well as proposals of what could work to solve this devastating civil war. The provocative question and answer session were truly the most intriguing aspect to hear from the Hill, the media and others in a civil dialogue," said Daniel Faraci, Director, Grassroots Political Consulting, LLC.

**FARA Disclosure Statement: This material is distributed by Grassroots Political Consulting LLC on behalf of the Southern Transitional Council. Additional information is available at the Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.**

SOURCE Grassroots Political Consulting LLCBELLEVUE, Wash., Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- This year's 33rd annual Gun Rights Policy Conference attendance hit a record high of more than 800, and for the first time, the entire event was live-streamed via Facebook and more than 115,000 people visited the site, according to the Second Amendment Foundation.

"The impact of this year's GRPC was far greater than it had been for the past 32 years," said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb.

He said the turnout was impressive, especially for an event held in Chicago. But Gottlieb said rights activists from across the country converged on the event because it was essentially being held "in the belly of the beast." The Windy City is not gun-friendly.

Visitors were able to hear rousing comments from Florida high school student Kyle Kashuv, a survivor of the Feb. 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. He has provided a remarkable alternative view of the event, sticking up for the Second Amendment and the rights of gun owners. For his efforts, he was recognized with the Gun Rights Defender of the Year Award. He received a standing ovation for his courage and commitment to the Second Amendment.

Former MLB all-star pitcher Curt Schilling was pitching gun rights during his presentation, and received the very first "Gun Rights Hall of Fame" award at the conference. He delivered a no-hitter against gun control.

SAF co-hosted the event with the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. Representatives from the National Rifle Association, Gun Owners of America, Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership and Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership were also present and had speaking roles on different panels.

Next year's event will be held in Phoenix, Arizona. Planning is already underway.

The Second Amendment Foundation (www.saf.org) is the nation's oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms. Founded in 1974, The Foundation has grown to more than 650,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control.

SOURCE Second Amendment Foundation

Related Links

http://www.saf.org

"Verity was our unanimous choice, and we could not be happier," said Director of the Board of Elections Sherry Poland. "Our due diligence began in 2017 as we viewed demonstrations from each vendor. As bipartisan decision makers for one of the largest counties in Ohio, we take this process very seriously," said Poland, who has more than 14 years' experience managing elections.

Two finalists in Hamilton County were asked to stage weeklong mock elections. Election officials and experienced poll workers scored the vendors' systems on criteria including opening and closing polls, voting ease, ballot reports, recounts and audits. Members of the public, including those with disabilities, voted in the mock election and gave feedback also.

Verity was the clear choice.

"Hamilton is the first Ohio county to choose Verity, and we appreciate their confidence in Verity and Hart," said Phillip Braithwaite, President and CEO of Hart InterCivic, which has more than 100 years' experience working with elections. "We've partnered with Hamilton County since 2006 and are proud to take this step forward with them. Verity will serve the County for many years to come."

"Our Board and Commissioners are familiar with Hart's customer service and have confidence in their people and technology," said Deputy Director Sally Krisel, who has worked in elections for two decades. "Over the years, we've conducted many recounts and post-election audits, which have proved the reliability of Hart's systems. That builds trust."

Election Director Poland took the additional step of visiting an established Verity user to see the system in action. "I went to Prince William County, Virginia, to witness a recent primary election," she said. "We were glad to hear poll workers describe how easy it was to learn and use Verity. I saw it for myself."

Election managers also appreciate Verity's compact size, briefcase design and collapsible ballot boxes. "With 345 polling locations and 2,400 election workers, the flexibility of easy-to-transport equipment will streamline delivery and pickup," Poland said.

Voters may not notice much of a change when they go to the polls, as Hamilton County has used paper ballots since 2006. Those requiring help with accessibility will use the Verity Touch Writer, a paper ballot marking device that provides seamless accessibility and privacy.

The County will take delivery of the new equipment after the first of the year, and Krisel is looking forward to the thorough, hands-on training she knows her team will experience with Hart. "Not only are they eager to help us learn, but they are willing to teach us everything to be self-sufficient.

"It is important for our voters to know that elections are programmed by our bipartisan staff, not by an outside agency. Hart trainers taught us what we need to know to do it ourselves," she said.

Poland agreed. "For a large county in a state often watched nationally, even as a swing state in a presidential election, it is extremely important to us that bipartisan election officials program, test and maintain the equipment, rather than having a vendor do it for us. We have always programmed and tested our own elections. Hart gives us the ability to do that," she said.

Yet, when needed, Hart is just a phone call away.

"Hart has always been quick to respond, and even quicker to anticipate our needs," said Poland. "Our staff is on a first name basis with their staff. When we call, we know we are talking to someone who knows us, our system and our expectations."

Additional Ohio counties are considering Verity, and Braithwaite expects more announcements in the coming months.

For more information about the Verity Voting system, please visit https://www.hartintercivic.com/ohio/

About Hart InterCivic, Inc.

Austin-based Hart InterCivic is a full-service election solutions innovator, partnering with state and local governments to deliver secure, accurate and reliable elections. Working side-by-side with election professionals for more than 100 years, Hart is committed to helping advance democracy one election at a time. Hart's mission fuels its passionate customer focus and a continuous drive for technological innovation. The company's new Verity Voting system makes voting more straightforward, equitable and accessibleand makes managing elections more transparent, more efficient and easier. Request a Verity demo: 866-216-4278

SOURCE Hart InterCivic, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.hartintercivic.com

NEW YORK, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Generali Global Corporate & Commercial (GC&C), a leading provider of multinational property, casualty, and specialty insurance and part of the global Generali Group, today announced that Bill Skapof, chief underwriting officer and head of Generali GC&C North America, has been invited to speak at the Reactions annual North American Re/Insurance Conference on September 27 in New York City. Reactions, the business intelligence publication for the global insurance market, is part of the Euromoney publishing group.

The conference will address the various strategies employed by leading insurance and reinsurance companies, while looking at the how they are utilizing the latest innovations to stay at the forefront of the industry. The ongoing trends of increased M&A activity, the rise of insurtech, the growth of alternative capital markets, and a focus on new investment opportunities and distribution channels will be key to remaining relevant in an increasingly competitive marketplace.

Bill Skapof, Head of Generali Global Corporate & Commercial North America, commented on today's news, "Today's market has become increasingly more sophisticated and, as a result, has generated significant shifts in liability across the board. Too often, underwriters have been behind the curve on these shifts, learning from claims that come in, as opposed to forecasting out on potential risks."

Skapof will be part of the Property and Casualty Trends panel that will take place from 2:30  3:30 EST on September 27. The panel will look at issues ranging from the record-breaking losses incurred from hurricanes and wildfires in 2017 to the industry's concerns about a surge in casualty claims. The conference takes place at Cipriani 25 Broadway.

Skapof concluded, "The industry will continue to learn by taking advantage of new technologies and innovations  but as we do, we must not forget about the crucial role that human capital plays in our business. There still is no substitute for top-notch, seasoned underwriters when it comes to being able to anticipate the risks of tomorrow."

GENERALI GLOBAL CORPORATE & COMMERCIAL (GC&C)

Generali Global Corporate & Commercial division offers complete insurance solutions and services to businesses and brokers in 160+ countries around the world, with a total premium income of  1.9 billion in 2017. With offices in Europe, Asia and the Americas, the division's global network of over 1,000 dedicated professionals and 100+ risk control engineers speaks your language and partners with your company, using Generali's global experience, local knowledge and sector insights to provide integrated and custom tailored insurance solutions in property, casualty, engineering, marine, aviation and specialty risks. Multinational Programs, Claims and Loss Prevention teams work alongside you and your business to make sure you have the answers you need, when you need them.

THE GENERALI GROUP

Generali is an independent Italian insurance group, with a strong international presence. Established in 1831, it is one of the largest global insurance providers, present in 50 countries and with 2017 total premium income of more than 68 billion. With nearly 74,000 employees serving 57 million customers, the Group has a leading position in Western Europe and an increasingly significant presence in the markets of Central and Eastern Europe and in Asia.

Corporate Communications

Jesse Tron (for Generali Global Corporate &

Commercial U.S.A.)

M Group Strategic Communications

T +1 646.859.5952

E-mail: [email protected]

Generali Global Corporate & Commercial U.S.A.

7 World Trade Center, 33rd Floor

250 Greenwich St

New York, NY 10007

T +1 212.602.7600

F+1 212.587.9537

www.generaliusa.com

SOURCE Generali Global Corporate & Commercial

Related Links

https://www.generaliusa.com

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Hyperledger , an open source collaborative effort created to advance cross-industry blockchain technologies, today announced 14 members have joined its growing global community. More than 270 organizations are now contributing to the growth of Hyperledgers' open source distributed ledger frameworks and tools.

"Our community ranges from technology giants and industry leaders to start-ups, service providers and academics," said Brian Behlendorf, Executive Director, Hyperledger. "We are gaining traction around the world in market segments from finance to healthcare and government to logistics. This growth and diversity is a signal of the increasing recognition of the strategic value of enterprise blockchain and commitment to the adoption and development of open source frameworks to drive new business models."

Hyperledger is a multi-project, multi-stakeholder effort that includes 10 business blockchain and distributed ledger technologies. Hyperledger enables organizations to build robust, industry-specific applications, platforms and hardware systems to support their individual business transactions by creating enterprise-grade, open source distributed ledger frameworks and code bases. The latest general members to join the community are: BetaBlocks, Blockchain Educators, Cardstack, Constellation Labs, Elemential Labs, FedEx, Honeywell International Inc., KoreConX, Northstar Venture Technologies, Peer Ledger, Syncsort and Wanchain.

Hyperledger supports an open community that values contributions and participation from various entities. As such, pre-approved non-profits, open source projects and government entities can join Hyperledger at no cost as associate members. Associate members joining this month include Ministry of Citizens' Services of British Columbia, Canada, and the Government of Bermuda.

New member quotes:

BetaBlocks

"We are proud to join Hyperledger and thrilled about the opportunity to collaborate with some of the most talented individuals in the distributed ledger space," said Antonio Manueco, CTO of BetaBlocks. "At BetaBlocks, we educate and help entrepreneurs build the next generation of amazing companies using blockchain through our co-building program. It is important for us to support The Linux Foundation and Hyperledger in order to help the open source community continue building world class software. We are looking forward to collaborating with some of the other important members of these great organizations."

Blockchain Educators

"Blockchain Educators is excited to join the Linux Foundation and Hyperledger," said Thomas Rivera, CEO of Blockchain Educators. "We firmly believe blockchain technology will usher in the next generation of business activity and that Hyperledger is at the forefront. Blockchain Educators is fully dedicated to increasing awareness and enhancing blockchain education for beginners, entrepreneurs, corporations and developers. We look forward to working closely with Hyperledger and its community members."

Cardstack

"To achieve broad adoption of blockchain technologies, we need to focus on orchestrating cohesive experiences on top of decentralized protocols as well as cloud services, so new value networks can form over existing data assets and market relationships," said Chris Tse, Founding Director of Cardstack. "We are honored to join the Linux Foundation and Hyperledger to contribute open source software, compile architecture patterns, and share solution templates to bring real use cases to the marketplace. Since 2017, we have been developing on the Hyperledger Sawtooth platform with our client-partner dotBC and their network of music industry innovators to architect and develop a new decentralized media rights registry. Cardstack is excited to leverage other Hyperledger projects and share our experience building decentralized ecosystems with our open-sourced framework and tools."

Constellation Labs

"We are honored to be a part of the premier organization in technology and the blockchain space. Constellation is working with the Hyperledger community to explore new architectures and frameworks that will usher in a new era of applications built on distributed ledger technology," said Benjamin Diggles, VP of Business Development at Constellation Labs. "Contributing to this project will be imperative to our focus of applying blockchain scalability to real-world, viable enterprise use cases."

Elemential Labs

"We're excited to join Hyperledger and bring blockchain infrastructure to the Indian growth story," said Raunaq Vaisoha, CEO at Elemential Labs. "With our membership, we look to offer additional value to our customers."

FedEx

"We believe that blockchain has big implications in supply chain, transportation and logistics," said Kevin Humphries, Senior Vice President, IT, FedEx Services. "We are excited for the opportunity to collaborate with the Hyperledger community as we continue to explore the applications and help set the standards for wide-scale blockchain adoption in our industry and others."

Honeywell International Inc.

"Honeywell Aerospace, whose solutions are found on virtually every commercial, defense and space aircraft in service today, is pleased to join Hyperledger," said Sathish Muthukrishnan, Chief Digital and Information Officer for Honeywell Aerospace, "We look forward to leveraging the blockchain technology to solve critical customer needs and enable our position as a leading Software-Industrial Company through the Power of Connected."

KoreConX

"In Hyperledger Fabric, we found a credible blockchain platform designed especially for financial transactions," said Oscar A. Jofre, CEO of KoreConX. "This is a highly professional community of technologists who are thoughtful and focused on creating enterprise-class applications, keeping safety and security foremost. A number of respected financial institutions are also building applications with Fabric, which raises our level of confidence and comfort."

Northstar Venture Technologies

"Northstar is thrilled to join Hyperledger and The Linux Foundation," said Dean Sutton, CEO of Northstar Venture Technologies. "Having direct access to the Hyperledger resources and community is of great value in our work with enterprise, financial services and capital markets organizations. We look forward to being active contributors to this open standard of ongoing innovation and bringing new platform solutions to market for Northstar and our clients."

Peer Ledger

"Peer Ledger is the creator of the MIMOSI blockchain application for Responsible Sourcing and an Identity Bridge product, which provides identity resolution services among identity systems and multiple blockchains. With MIMOSI, we showcase how the highly modular Hyperledger Fabric can be implemented using a hybrid governance model, providing subscribers with the now-accustomed convenience of zero installation, while still using the Fabric's distributed consensus mechanism correctly to ensure data consistency and to detect and prevent double spend. No blockchain outside the Hyperledger family would allow us as much flexibility around implementation governance," said Dawn Jutla, CEO at Peer Ledger. "Hyperledger Fabric's flexibility and its community of developers enabled our firm to produce this sophisticated blockchain-based SaaS for Responsible Sourcing in under two years. We are thrilled to join and to contribute further as a member of the Hyperledger community."

Syncsort

"We see blockchain emerging as a next-generation platform with tremendous potential that can be enabled by data integration and data quality," said Tendu Yogurtcu, CTO, Syncsort. "Connecting blockchain to existing infrastructure and legacy platforms across the enterprise is consistent with Syncsort's leadership in Big Iron to Big Data, making enterprise-wide data accessible to next generation platforms and applying it to pressing business use cases. We are excited to join Hyperledger and to identify areas where Syncsort can contribute to maturing the platform and making its benefits more achievable for our customers."

Wanchain

"Wanchain is honored to join Hyperledger and become a part of this ecosystem to advance an open standard for distributed ledger technology," said Jack Lu, Founder and CEO of Wanchain. "Wanchain is working to bridge blockchains and connect the world's digital assets. We are excited to collaborate with member organizations and enterprises to further develop and advance the industry as a whole. The Wanchain team is looking forward to cooperating with such a diverse and global community of industry leaders and contributing our insights on cross-chain technologies."

Join industry peers in helping build and shape the ecosystem for blockchain technologies, use cases and applications. More information on joining Hyperledger as a member organization can be found here: https://www.hyperledger.org/members/join .

About Hyperledger

Hyperledger is an open source collaborative effort created to advance cross-industry blockchain technologies. It is a global collaboration including leaders in finance, banking, Internet of Things, supply chains, manufacturing and Technology. The Linux Foundation hosts Hyperledger under the foundation. To learn more, visit: https://www.hyperledger.org/ .

Contact:

Jessica Rampen

The Linux Foundation/Hyperledger

[email protected]

650.787.3548

SOURCE Hyperledger

Related Links

http://www.hyperledger.org

DALLAS, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. (NYSE:JEC) announced executive promotions to further support the company's leadership and profitable growth in the professional services sector. The appointments become effective Oct. 1, 2018.

"These promotions reflect the strong contributions these executives have made to Jacobs' growth and success and our belief that, in these new roles, they can help take the company even further," said Jacobs Chairman and CEO Steve Demetriou.

Terry Hagen and Bob Pragada each have been promoted to the newly created chief operating officer (COO) roles, reflecting expanded leadership responsibilities.

Hagen will continue to lead the Aerospace, Technology, Environmental and Nuclear business. He will also oversee several corporate teams, including Federal Government Relations; International Relations; Information Technology (IT); and a newly created Technology and Innovation function to address growing demand for advanced, technology-driven solutions that differentiate Jacobs within the industry.

Pragada will continue to lead Jacobs' Buildings, Infrastructure and Advanced Facilities business, which is being expanded to include global (non-nuclear) environmental solutions. In addition, Jacobs' Energy, Chemicals and Resources (ECR) business will align to Pragada in his COO role, with Vinayak Pai, ECR president, reporting to him. This consolidates Jacobs' major consulting, engineering, maintenance and project delivery lines of business under Pragada, whose purview also will include the company's Contracts Management function, as well as State and Local Government Relations.

The company will continue to go to market in and report financial results for three lines of business.

Kevin Berryman, chief financial officer, will assume an expanded scope of responsibility. In addition to leading finance, investor relations, strategy and M&A, Berryman will assume the additional responsibilities of leading real estate, Global Business Services, strategic project integration and corporate communications functions.

Joanne Caruso will be promoted to chief legal and administration officer. In this role, Caruso will oversee Legal, Human Resources, Compliance, and Insurance functions, as well as the company's Sales and Operational Centers of Excellence. The latter includes project delivery, global supply management, sustainability, health, safety, environment, global security and resilience.

About Kevin Berryman

Before joining Jacobs in 2015, Berryman spent nearly six years as EVP and CFO at International Flavors and Fragrances Inc., an S&P 500 company and global creator of flavors and fragrances used in a wide variety of consumer products. Prior to that he worked at Nestle for 25 years where he held various financial and operational roles including treasury, M&A, strategic planning, and CFO of Nestle's largest ever acquisition, Ralston Purina. Berryman earned his undergraduate degree at Occidental College, and MBA from UCLA Anderson School of Management.

About Joanne Caruso

Prior to her current role, Caruso was senior vice president of human resources and previously vice president, global litigation, within the legal organization. Prior to joining Jacobs in 2012, Caruso was a partner in two international law firms, Howrey LLP and Baker & Hostetler. She was named one of the top 100 attorneys in California and repeatedly was named one of California's Top 75 Women Litigators. She is a graduate of Boston College and Boston College Law School.

About Terry Hagen

Since joining Jacobs in 1987, Hagen has served in a variety of senior operational and sales roles for various markets, including as executive vice president of global sales and marketing, and most recently, as president of Jacobs' Aerospace, Technology, Environment and Nuclear business. Hagen is a graduate of the University of Kansas, where he earned a Bachelor of Science in civil engineering.

About Bob Pragada

Pragada joined Jacobs in 2006, holding several senior management positions over nine years. He returned to Jacobs in 2016 after serving as CEO of the Brock Group, a $1.5 billion provider of industrial specialty services. After graduating from the United States Naval Academy, he began his career in the Navy as a Civil Engineer Corps and Seabees officer, providing base construction and maintenance services and international contingency operations, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Commander. He also earned a Master of Science in engineering and management from Stanford University.

About Jacobs

Jacobs leads the global professional services sector delivering solutions for a more connected, sustainable world. With $15 billion in fiscal 2017 revenue when combined with full-year CH2M revenues and a talent force of more than 77,000, Jacobs provides a full spectrum of services including scientific, technical, professional and construction- and program-management for business, industrial, commercial, government and infrastructure sectors. For more information, visit www.jacobs.com, and connect with Jacobs on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Statements made in this release that are not based on historical fact are forward-looking statements. We base these forward-looking statements on management's current estimates and expectations as well as currently available competitive, financial and economic data. Forward-looking statements, however, are inherently uncertain. There are a variety of factors that could cause business results to differ materially from our forward-looking statements. For a description of some of the factors which may occur that could cause actual results to differ from our forward-looking statements please refer to our Form 10-K for the year ended September 29, 2017, and in particular the discussions contained under Items 1 - Business, 1A - Risk Factors, 3 - Legal Proceedings, and 7 - Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations. We do not undertake to update any forward-looking statements made herein.

Jacobs Contacts

Investors:

Jonathan Doros, 817-239-3457

[email protected]

Media:

Lorrie Paul Crum, 303-525-2916

[email protected]

SOURCE Jacobs Engineering Group Inc.

Related Links

http://www.jacobs.com

HAUPPAUGE, N.Y., Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- LOOP-LOC, safety pool covers manufacturer discusses ways to keep debris off your pool cover this winter.

A reliable safety pool cover not only preserves and protects your pool liner from inclement weather, but it also won't allow children, pets, and other animals to gain access to the pool. LOOP-LOC covers meet and exceed the ASTM safety standards for Safety Swimming Pools Covers that mandate a cover must be able to support a certain amount of weight, not permit gaps that a child or pet could squeeze through and remove standing water. They have also undergone extensive outside testing through Underwriters Laboratories (U.L.) and have earned the U.L. seal of approval for their safety swimming pool covers.

Although a pool cover keeps your pool safe during the winter, debris will ultimately fall on it at some point. To clean up or clear debris from all types of covers, use a leaf blower, long-handled broom, skimmer, or simply hose it down. Always be sure to follow your LOOP-LOC safety pool cover care instructions to ensure that your cover lasts for seasons to come.

To keep debris off a solid safety pool cover, remove any standing water with the automatic pump that comes with the cover. Remember that mesh covers allow rain and melting snow to easily drain through.

If the winter is particularly harsh, take some time to check the cover for signs of UV deterioration, which can occur as a cover ages, and affect its safety features. A pool professional can offer guidance during this endeavor.

About LOOP-LOC: There's only one company known for manufacturing safety pool covers strong and tough enough to support an elephant: the legendary LOOP-LOC pool safety covers. LOOP-LOC is a global leader in the pool industry with a 200,000-square-foot headquarters in Hauppauge, New York, and 300 employees. Through its network of dealers, the company has sold safety swimming pool covers on every continent on earth except Antarctica. LOOP-LOC removable pool fence now also manufactures a line of luxury in-ground pool linerswith more exclusive designer patterns than any other companyas well as the BABY-LOC removable fencing, a convenient, cost-effective additional layer of protection to help deter toddlers from gaining access to a swimming pool. Media Contact: Jacqueline Routh, fishbat media, 855-347-4228, [email protected]

SOURCE LOOP-LOC

Related Links

https://www.looploc.com

GENEVA, September 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --

The L'OCCITANE Group, the leading manufacturer and retailer of natural cosmetics comprising five beauty brands, announces today the opening of OBRATORI, its startup studio in the heart of the Cite de l'Innovation et des Savoirs Aix-Marseille (CISAM), the former emblematic art-deco building of the Castel, in Marseille.

(Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/748567/OBRATORI_Logo.jpg )

The L'OCCITANE Group unveils OBRATORI, its startup studio located, in Marseille, in the heart of the Cite de l'Innovation et des Savoirs Aix-Marseille, to reveal the future of cosmetics and well-being

For Reinold Geiger, CEO of the L'OCCITANE Group, the opening of the startup studio OBRATORI will enable new ideas to be explored and developed in a fast-moving world. "The L'OCCITANE Group has always been keen to initiate entrepreneurship and perpetual renewal, it's in our DNA." He continues: "The creation of startups around the world is an economic revolution whose consequences will be seen very quickly, they have become the most important actors in the entrepreneurial system."

OBRATORI, a partner since the genesis of this project led by Aix-Marseille University and the Metropole Aix-Marseille Provence, will welcome a dozen of selected startups within the Cite de l'Innovation et des Savoirs Aix-Marseille (CISAM). It occupies the second floor of the famous Castel building and can accommodate up to 108 workstations that will be dedicated to entrepreneurs.

Amaury Godron, General Manager of the startup studio OBRATORI says: "We are aware that innovation is key to identify new breakthrough ideas. We are proud to bring the next generation of entrepreneurs through our partnership with Aix-Marseille University and the support of the Aix-Marseille Provence Metropole and the South Region."

The startups sought are those in cosmetics and well-being, as well as in the digitalisation of solutions for retail and early growth which require technical, financial, commercial, marketing or other support. The blend of product, digital and other startups is a must-have, according to OBRATORI, to jointly develop strong synergies of innovation and to explore new concepts, ideas, products, services and brands.

Specifically, the selected startups will follow a support program lasting a maximum of 23 months. They will benefit from an adapted workspace, the support of the internal resources of OBRATORI, a network of experts and mentors, and the ecosystem of the L'OCCITANE Group. For Ingo Dauer, General Manager at OBRATORI: "These are tailor-made programs. A startup may need research expertise, marketing expertise, international visibility..."

In order to better meet the technological needs of its incubated startups, OBRATORI has equipped the 950m2 space with an L2 cellular research laboratory and a MIT compliant FabLab.

OBRATORI offers its guidance and tailored-made support to French companies and international start-ups based in Marseille.

About OBRATORI

OBRATORI, the startup studio that boosts your ideas and transforms your achievements into business. OBRATORI is the incubator and accelerator of innovation-oriented projects in the fields of cosmetics, wellbeing, and digital solutions for distribution. Created by the L'OCCITANE Group and supported by many private and public partners, OBRATORI aims to promote job creation in the South region, through the creation of innovative companies.

For more information: https://obratori.com / @Obratori

About the L'OCCITANE Group

The L'OCCITANE Group is a leading natural ingredient-based cosmetics and well-being producer and retailer with more than 3,000 retail outlets in 90 countries. A global leader in the premium beauty market, the group offers high quality products that are produced using cutting-edge technology and natural and traceable ingredients that respect the environment. The L'OCCITANE Group has five brands: L'OCCITANE en Provence, Melvita, Erborian, L'OCCITANE au Bresil and LimeLife by Alcone.

For more information: https://group.loccitane.com/

SOURCE OBRATORIRALEIGH, N.C., Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Leland Little Auctions of Hillsborough, NC, in partnership with Iron Horse Auction Company of Rockingham, NC, to offer the complete Collection of NOA Living. This Important Collection, with a retail valuation of over $7 million will be offered unreserved at public auction. This event will occur on October 3rd, 4th and 5th at the Hilton North Raleigh/Midtown at 3415 Wake Forest Rd. Bidding will be available in-house at the Hilton North Raleigh, as well as by absentee bidding, telephone bidding, and live Internet bidding. Visit www.LelandLittle.com to view the catalogue, register for this auction, and bid.

The Collection of NOA Living is a curated collection of treasures from around the globe. This Important Collection consists of over 2500 unique objects including furniture, traditional and modern rugs, sculpture, statues, masks, pottery, and art. Public previews will be held at NOA Living, located at 3051 Spring Forest Road, Raleigh, NC on Saturday, September 29th and Tuesday, October 2nd. A media day will be held at NOA Living on Friday, September 28th.

The bankruptcy proceedings for NOA Living were ordered by the Honorable Joseph N. Calloway, United States Bankruptcy Judge of the Eastern District of North Carolina, with the oversight of United Sates Bankruptcy Trustee John C. Bircher III, in case no. 17-02097-5-JNC.

For more information or interviews contact auction managers:

Leland Little

Leland Little Auctions, Ltd.

[email protected]

919-414-1269

Will Lilly

Iron Horse Auction Company, Inc.

[email protected]

704-985-9300

SOURCE Leland Little Auctions

Related Links

http://www.LelandLittle.com

Citco's Head of Fund Services, Jay Peller and Ares' Chief Executive Officer and President, Michael Arougheti, join as board members

NEW YORK, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- LightPoint Financial Technology ("LightPoint"), a trading, risk and analytics technology provider, today announced the completion of a Series A investment round. The Citco Group of Companies, a leader of alternative asset services with over $1 trillion assets under administration, and Ares Management L.P. (NYSE: ARES), a global alternative asset manager with over $121 billion in assets under management, led the round, substantially growing LightPoint's total funding. TAP Advisors, LLC advised LightPoint on the transaction and will take a Board Observer seat.

The Series A financing builds on an exceptional year for LightPoint, which since its inception in 2017, has rolled out its fully integrated investment-grade platform developed using proprietary modules  The LightPoint Platform  which is seeing a rapidly growing roster of clients.

Michael Arougheti, Chief Executive Officer and President of Ares Management, has been appointed as a board member and will be joined by Citco's Head of Fund Services Jay Peller, who will provide strategic consult and insight into future product development to build upon Citco's domain knowledge of fund servicing and alternative investment operations. These board member additions add to an already unique management team that sees a powerful partnership between both veteran Wall Street fund managers and seasoned technology business professionals. This partnership allows for a holistic view of the product space and ensures that the technology is solving the right problems and use-cases in an efficient and timely manner.

"We are delighted to have Citco and Ares as strategic investors, and we believe their support reflects the significant value that our technology provides for our clients. Managers are increasingly realizing the rising costs and diminishing returns of in-house platforms," said Patrick Hughes, CEO of LightPoint. "Our technology solutions are built with one thing in mindsupporting managers and their alpha-generating activities."

The LightPoint Platform provides a fully integrated, scalable cloud-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution designed by front-end users for front-end users and built by engineers to scale. Its cloud-agnostic structure supports entire workflows, including portfolio management, trade execution, settlement, compliance, reconciliation, finance, risk, administration and client reporting. Users have a unique capability of analyzing their collective data to meet the technological challenges of increased regulatory, compliance and investor demands, while staying protected by state-of-art cybersecurity architecture. The LightPoint platform additionally provides a bi-directional API that allows platform integration with custom and third-party software.

"We have innovated a new business architecture that sees our comprehensive and highly-configurable trading and risk workflow sit on top of an extensible bi-temporal cross-asset book-of-record (BOR) core. This provides managers with a one-stop solution for accessing their data and running analyses," Brant Arseneau, President of LightPoint, explained.

"With our deep experience, global footprint, and wide range of business relationships, Citco has a unique perspective on our industry's needs. We are happy to extend support to LightPoint and very much look forward to a continued relationship of growth," commented Jay Peller.

"LightPoint provides a great solution to tackle some of our industry's most pressing concerns, and we continue to support the platform's significant growth potential," stated Michael Arougheti. "We believe LightPoint's enhanced flexibility and comprehensive front-to-back technologies meaningfully enhance asset managers' ability to expand their scalability and efficiency."

LightPoint will continue to innovate its platform's capabilities, constantly improving its modules and expanding into new offerings while applying new proven technologies. Currently, LightPoint aims to leverage its distributed-ledger-technology (DLT) capabilities and transform the core book-of-records into a shared ledger which would be distributed to a trading community. The use of a shared ledger will eliminate many laborious processes and costs, thereby reducing operating risks and costs for their clients and the entire trading community.

About LightPoint Financial Technology

LightPoint is a Fintech company that provides solutions that futureproof institutional clients' data against regulatory requirements, and constructs a data fabric that enables expedient pricing and risk calculations through a cloud-based, SaaS LightPoint Platform. The platform gives managers instant access to institutional quality, cross-asset, end-to-end platform that offers unprecedented functionality and value.

About Citco Group of Companies

The Citco Group of Companies is a worldwide network of independent financial service companies serving the world's elite hedge funds, private equity and real estate firms, institutional banks, Global 1000 companies and high net worth individuals. Citco companies service these sectors in their respective geographic areas by offering hedge fund administration, custody and fund trading, financial products and corporate governance services solutions. Citco has offices in over 40 countries with more than 6,000 staff.

About Ares Management, L.P.

Ares Management, L.P. is a publicly traded, leading global alternative asset manager with approximately $121.4 billion of assets under management as of June 30, 2018 and 18 offices in the United States, Europe, Asia and Australia. Since its inception in 1997, Ares has adhered to a disciplined investment philosophy that focuses on delivering strong risk-adjusted investment returns throughout market cycles. Ares believes each of its three distinct but complementary investment groups in Credit, Private Equity and Real Estate is a market leader based on assets under management and investment performance. Ares was built upon the fundamental principle that each group benefits from being part of the greater whole. For more information, visit www.aresmgmt.com.

About TAP Advisors, LLC.

TAP Advisors LLC., is a boutique investment bank focused on mergers and acquisitions, and private capital raise activities. The global firm is headquartered in New York City, with subsidiary offices in London and Stockholm.

Media Contact

Kseniya D. Melnikova

Peregrine Communications

[email protected]

+1.646.274.1423

SOURCE LightPoint Financial TechnologyRYE, N.Y., Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Insight Vacations, the award-winning global leader in premium escorted journeys, is thrilled to show guests the insights  not just the sights  of Europe with the launch of its new 2019 Europe and Britain collection.



Travelers can live the stylish travel life on their next vacation with a choice of 96 unforgettable journeys, including three brand new trips to Scandinavia and Greece. In addition, Insight Vacations has further enhanced several itineraries, such as its 'Jordan Experience,' which now includes a meaningful visit to the Iraq Al-Amir Women's Cooperative, an Insight Cares and TreadRight project that is managed and run by local women. More than ever, it's important to book a holiday with a company that cares. Insight makes travel matter. Powered by TreadRight, a joint initiative among The Travel Corporation family of brands, Insight Vacations helps safeguard the people, planet and wildlife in the places they visit so they can be enjoyed by generations to come.



Insight Vacations offers over 70 unique Insight Experiences which allow guests to get up close and personal with their destination and connect with the local culture. Guests become insightfully stylish by staying at hotels handpicked for their great locations and dine in a variety of styles, from an elegant evening at the five-star Ashford Castle, to a rustic dinner with the matriarch of an Italian family. Insight's knowledgeable Travel Directors are masters of logistics and deliver a seamless, stress-free vacation; they are living proof that magic isn't imaginary, it's just very well planned.



"As the top Europe specialists for the past 40 years, we continue to innovate in 2019 by offering travelers incredible experiences, meaningful interactions and the best value," said Jon Grutzner, president of Insight Vacations. "We want our guests to truly connect to these amazing places in the most authentic way and at the best times, such as during Venice Carnival, Bastille Day, Oktoberfest, Edinburgh Tattoo and Christmas market season."



A journey with Insight Vacations introduces new friends and faces across Europe, from like-minded traveling companions, to accomplished locals. For example hosts like chef Alessandro, who founded an organic farm-to-table trattoria with his Nonna, introduce guests to Italian cuisine in the most memorable way. In Dublin, Joseph O'Gorman, a Trinity College scholar, welcomes guests to the 400-year-old university and shares his in-depth knowledge about the ancient manuscript and precious artifact, The Book of Kells. In San Sebastian, Spain, renowned for its lively culinary scene, local gourmet Clara Fernandez takes guests on a pintxos foodie excursion in the Old Town. In Asturias, guests enjoy a Dine-at-Home experience with a meal cooked by Flor Santiago, sample her famous cider and make the perfect pisto (ratatouille).



Guests can view the full collection of 96 Europe and Britain itineraries here, including these three new premium escorted journeys:

Northern Lights of Scandinavia: This 10-day Country Roads journey begins in Helsinki, a seaside city replete with beautiful architecture. Guests then board a scenic flight to the charming village of Ivalo, where they'll (hopefully) see the spellbinding aurora borealis through the glass ceiling of their hotel room at the Aurora Village near Urho Kekkonen National Park. Then it's onward to stunning Norway, where guest visit Nordcapp, a legendary place where the Northern Lights are also known to dance across the night sky. Next, during an unforgettable drive to Alta, guests can admire the majestic fjords and enjoy the local ice bar. This itinerary includes a one-of-a-kind Insight Experience where guests visit a working sled dog farm and meet Trine Lyrek, a champion dog sledder, and her adorable Alaskan Huskies. Guests join an exhilarating dog sled ride with some of the best racing dogs in the country.

Greek Island Hopper: This 12-day adventure begins in Athens, where guests see ancient sights such as the Acropolis and the Parthenon with a Local Expert. They then board a ferry to Santorini and spend four days exploring this volcanic island (and Instagram hotspot) with a local geology expert, viewing spectacular sunsets, and sipping cocktails while unwinding. The adventure continues in scenic Mykonos, where guests spend another four days exploring the vivid blue and white streets, sun-kissed beaches and fresh Mediterranean cuisine, including delightful Welcome and Celebration Dinners. They'll also meet a local boat captain and enjoy a leisurely cruise around the island.

Greek Island Stays: (Mykonos & Athens and Santorini & Athens): Travelers can unwind in style on either the spectacular islands of Mykonos or Santorini and enjoy the vibrant neighborhoods of Athens with a short break that is a perfect addition to any of Insight Vacations' European journeys.

Insight Vacations is offering a one-time-only opportunity to save 10% with its popular Early Payment Discount, available for guests who book and pay in full by January 31st, 2019. It is highly recommended for travelers to book as early as possible for the biggest choice of trips and available departure dates. Past guests can also receive up to an additional 5% savings if they book by October 31st, 2018.

For reservations, contact your favorite travel agent,

call Insight Vacations at 1-888-680-1241, or visit www.insightvacations.com.

* Terms and Conditions

Early Payment Discount (EPD): New bookings only. Prices are per person, land-only, and consider double occupancy (single supplements apply). 10% EPD: Applies only to trips featuring the EPD in the price panel  see 2019 Europe brochure for details. ALL OFFERS: based on availability, do not apply to all trips/departures, and may be withdrawn at any time and without notice. PAYMENT: A deposit of up to $200-$550 per person is due within 3 days of booking with full payment by Jan 31, 2019 or 45 days before departure, whichever is sooner. Further restrictions apply. Contact your Travel Agent for details. CST No. 20687545-20.

SOURCE Insight Vacations

Related Links

http://www.insightvacations.com

KELOWNA, BC, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ - Marapharm Ventures Inc. (CSE: MDM) (OTCQX: MRPHF) (FSE: 2M0) ("Marapharm" or the "Company") is very pleased to announce, further to its news releases dated June 25 and August 21, 2018, the Company has completed its due diligence and has completed the acquisition (the "Acquisition") of all outstanding securities of Full Spectrum Medicinal Inc. ("FSM").

10 fully-funded 10,000 sq. ft. engineered bio-secure facilities, will be constructed in two phases, maximizing our potential of a 100,000 sq. ft. ACMPR licence, once approved by Health Canada.

FSM's organic cultivation methods, stand-alone proprietary technologies and supplemental power are intended to reduce our carbon footprint, cost of production and improve profitability. We will benefit by setting new industry standards for cultivating premium cannabis products on a commercial scale.

Ground preparation is now complete and delivery of our first facility is on schedule.

The Acquisition

On September 25, 2018, the Company signed the Definitive Agreement and has completed the Acquisition pursuant to a share exchange agreement made effective as of September 25, 2018 (the "Acquisition Agreement") among the Company, FSM and the shareholders of FSM (the "Selling Shareholders"), whereby the Company issued a total of 88,182,102 common shares of the Company, at a deemed price of $0.31 per share to the Selling Shareholders in exchange for all of the outstanding common shares of FSM. These shares are subject to an eighteen (18) month release schedule with twenty-five (25%) percent released on closing and twenty-five (25%) percent released every six (6) months thereafter. Following the completion of the Acquisition, FSM is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Company. As part of the Acquisition, the Company issued 9,945,000 common share purchase warrants with an exercise price of $0.20c in exchange for cancelled FSM common share purchase warrants.

A finder's fee in connection with the Acquisition was paid to a group of finders in the amount of 4,513,944 common shares on the Company at a deemed price of $0.205 per share.

The Acquisition Agreement supersedes the operating agreement with FSM as previously disclosed in the Company's August 21, 2018 news release.

Debenture Financing

The Company is pleased to announce that it intends to complete a non-brokered private placement of unsecured convertible debentures (the "Private Placement") in the principle amount of up to C$1,500,000 (the "Debenture") convertible debenture of the Company (the "Debenture") having an aggregate principal amount set forth below (the "Principal Amount") and bearing interest at a rate of 10% per annum payable at maturity, maturing on September 30, 2019.

The Debenture is convertible into common shares of the Company (the "Shares") at $0.20c per share with a $0.50c warrant exercisable for one year. On conversion, the Subscriber will receive any accrued and unpaid interest in cash. The Debenture will be subject to a certificate, the form of which will be approved by the Company.

Closing of the Private Placement is subject to all necessary regulatory and stock exchange approvals and execution of final documentation. All securities issued in connection with the Private Placement will be subject to a four-month hold period from the date of issue under applicable Canadian securities laws, in addition to such other restrictions as may apply under applicable securities laws of jurisdictions outside Canada.

ABOUT MARAPHARM VENTURES INC.

www.marapharm.com

Marapharm is a publicly traded company investing in the medical and recreational cannabis space, since 2014. Marapharm has rapidly expanded to include having cultivation, production and dispensary locations in the key North American states of Washington, Nevada, and California, and are seeking expansion opportunities worldwide.

In preparation for the federal government's legalization of non-medical cannabis in October 2018, British Columbia has made a number of decisions about what our provincial regulatory framework will look like. https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/safety/public-safety/cannabis

SOCIAL MEDIA:

facebook.com/marapharm

twitter.com/marapharm

STOCK EXCHANGES:

Marapharm trades in Canada, ticker symbol MDM on the CSE, in the United States, ticker symbol MRPHF on the OTCQX, and in Europe, ticker symbol 2M0 on the FSE. Marapharm also trades on other recognized platforms in Europe including Stuttgart, Tradegate, L & S, Quotnx, Dusseldorf, Munich, and Berlin.

Neither the CSE, the FSE nor the OTCQX has approved nor disapproved the contents of this press release. Neither the CSE, the FSE nor the OTCQX accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

MARIJUANA INDUSTRY INVOLVEMENT:

Canadian listings (CSE) will remain in good standing as long as they provide the disclosure that is rightly required by regulators and complying with applicable licensing requirements and the regulatory framework enacted by the applicable state in which they operate.

Marapharm owns marijuana licenses in California and Nevada. Marijuana is legal in each state however marijuana remains illegal under US federal law and the approach to enforcement of US federal law against marijuana is subject to change. Shareholders and investors need to be aware that adverse enforcement actions could affect their investments and that Marapharm's ability to access private and public capital could be affected and or could not be available to support continuing operations. Marapharm's business is conducted in a manner consistent with state law and is in compliance with licensing requirements.

This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any of the securities described herein in the United States. The securities described herein have not been registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act"), or any state securities law and may not be offered or sold in the "United States", as such term is defined in Regulation S promulgated under the U.S. Securities Act, unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or an exemption from such registration requirements is available.

Copies of licenses are posted on Marapharm's website. Marapharm has internal compliance procedures in place and has compliance focused attorneys engaged in jurisdictions to monitor changes in laws for compliance with US federal and state law on an ongoing basis. These law firms inform any necessary changes to our policies and procedures for compliance in Canada and the US.

FORWARD - LOOKING STATEMENTS:

All information in this news release concerning FSM has been provided for inclusion herein by FSM. Although the Company has no knowledge that would indicate that any information contained herein concerning FSM is untrue or incomplete, the Company assumes no responsibility for the accuracy or completeness of any such information

Certain statements in this release are forward-looking statements, which include regulatory approvals, building of facilities, improved costs and profitability, closing of the debenture financing and other matters. Forward-looking statements consist of statements that are not purely historical, including any statements regarding beliefs, plans, expectations or intentions regarding the future. Such information can generally be identified by the use of forwarding looking wording such as "may", "expect", "estimate", "anticipate", "intend", "believe" and "continue" or the negative thereof or similar variations. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, as there can be no assurance that the plans, intentions or expectations upon which they are based will occur. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve numerous assumptions, known and unknown risks and uncertainties, both general and specific, that contribute to the possibility that the predictions, estimates, forecasts, projections and other forward-looking statements will not occur. Forward-looking statements are necessarily based upon a number of factors that, if untrue, could cause the actual results, performances or achievements of the Company to be materially different from future results, performances or achievements express or implied by such statements. These assumptions, risks and uncertainties include, among other things, the state of the economy in general and capital markets in particular, present and future business strategies, the environment in which the Company will operate in the future, and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of the Company. While such estimates and assumptions are considered reasonable by the management of the Company, they are inherently subject to significant business, economic, competitive and regulatory uncertainties and risks.

Forward-looking statements are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual events, level of activity, performance or results to differ materially from those reflected in the forward-looking statements, including, without limitation: that laws and regulations may become more onerous; the ability of the Company to obtain necessary financing; the economy generally; the future growth, results of operations, performance and business prospectus and opportunities; changes in and the effect of government policies; demand for products; competition; anticipated and unanticipated costs; reliance on management; claims and legal proceedings; conflicts of interest; and market price and volatility of the Common Shares. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, continued availability of capital and financing and general economic, market or business conditions, the loss of key directors, employees, advisors or consultants, technology and equipment failures, increase in costs, failure to obtain permits, failure of counterparties to perform their contractual obligations and fees charged by service providers. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the Company's expectations include, litigation, global economic climate, loss of key employees and consultants, additional funding requirements, changes in laws, competition, and failure of counterparties to perform their contractual obligations. Forward-looking statements contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. Investors are cautioned that forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance or events and, accordingly are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking statements due to the inherent uncertainty of such statements.

The forward-looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date of this news release. Except as required by law, the Company disclaims any intention and assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Additionally, the Company undertakes no obligation to comment on the expectations of, or statements made by, third parties in respect of the matters discussed above.

The Canadian Securities Exchange has not reviewed, nor approved the contents of this news release.

SOURCE Marapharm Ventures Inc.

Related Links

http://www.marapharm.com/

HOUSTON, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- McDermott International, Inc. (NYSE: MDR) announced today the results of its Annual Meeting of Stockholders held Wednesday, September 26, 2018 in London, England.

Based on the voting results from the meeting, stockholders elected Forbes I.J. Alexander, Philippe Barril, John F. Bookout, III, David Dickson, L. Richard Flury, W. Craig Kissel, Gary P. Luquette, James H. Miller, William H. Schumann, III, Mary L. Shafer-Malicki and Marsha C. Williams to McDermott's Board of Directors, each for terms extending until McDermott's 2019 Annual Meeting of Stockholders, with the average percentage of votes cast "for" each director being approximately 96 percent of the votes cast by stockholders.

In addition, stockholders approved, on an advisory basis, McDermott's named executive officer compensation with an affirmative vote of over 96 percent of the votes cast by stockholders and ratified the appointment of Ernst & Young LLP as the Company's independent registered public accounting firm for the year ending December 31, 2018.

About McDermott

McDermott is a premier, fully integrated provider of technology, engineering and construction solutions to the energy industry. For more than a century, customers have trusted McDermott to design and build end-to-end infrastructure and technology solutionsfrom the wellhead to the storage tankto transport and transform oil and gas into the products the world needs today. Our proprietary technologies, integrated expertise and comprehensive solutions deliver certainty, innovation and added value to energy projects around the world. Customers rely on McDermott to deliver certainty to the most complex projects, from concept to commissioning. It is called the "One McDermott Way." Operating in over 54 countries, McDermott's locally focused and globally-integrated resources include approximately 40,000 employees and engineers, a diversified fleet of specialty marine construction vessels and fabrication facilities around the world. As used in this press release, McDermott includes McDermott International, Inc. and its subsidiaries and affiliates. To learn more, visit www.mcdermott.com.

Contacts:

Investor Relations

Scott Lamb

Vice President, Investor Relations

+1 832 513 1068

[email protected]

Global Media Relations

Gentry Brann

Global Vice President, Communications

+1 281 870 5269

[email protected]

SOURCE McDermott International, Inc.

Related Links

https://www.mcdermott.com

MemorialCare Long Beach Medical Center was named both the Press-Telegram Reader's Choice Best Hospital and the Beachcomber's Best of Long Beach Best Hospital. In the Beachcomber competition, MemorialCare Medical Group, with more than 2,000 employed and affiliated physicians, was voted Best Medical Group and Best Urgent Care Center for its Los Altos Marketplace location.

This is the second year Orange Coast Medical Center in Fountain Valley ranked first and fifth year it appeared among Orange County's top three hospitals in the Orange County Register readership vote. Saddleback Medical Center in Laguna Hills gained the top spot three of the last five years, this year ranking in the top two.

"We are proud of the tremendous achievements of our 16,000 extraordinary physicians, nurses and other clinicians, support staff, volunteers and donors throughout our more than 200 locations in Orange and Los Angeles Counties," says Barry Arbuckle, PhD, MemorialCare President & CEO.

In addition to Long Beach, Orange Coast and Saddleback Medical Centers and MemorialCare Medical Group, MemorialCare includes Miller Children's & Women's Hospital Long Beach, Greater Newport Physicians, Seaside Health Plan, and numerous convenient, community-based ambulatory surgery, medical imaging, kidney dialysis, breast health, urgent care and health centers.

And there are many more accolades for MemorialCare.

U.S. News & World Report ranked Orange Coast Medical Center #37 nationally for Diabetes and Endocrinology, among the Top 10 Hospitals in Los Angeles and Orange counties, Top 21 in California, and conferred several "high-performance" rankings. These include Heart Failure, Geriatrics, Colon Cancer Surgery, Nephrology, Neurology and Neurosurgery, and Urology. It also received several "A" grades in The Leapfrog Group Hospital Safety Scores, the gold standard measure for hospital safety.

Saddleback Medical Center's Heart Failure and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease programs ranked as "high performance" by U.S. News & World Report. Additionally, it was named among America's 50 Best Hospitals and honored as a Truven Health Analytics Top 50 Cardiovascular Hospital in the U.S. It has appeared on the Becker's Hospital Review and Thomson Reuters' lists of America's Best Hospitals and also received an "A' grade from The Leapfrog Group for excellence in hospital safety.

Long Beach Medical Center appears frequently in U.S. News & World Report Best Hospital categories. For 2018 these include a national listing for Orthopedics and "high-performance" rankings for Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery, Diabetes & Endocrinology, Congestive Heart Failure, Colon Cancer Surgery, Gastroenterology & GI Surgery, Geriatrics, Nephrology, Neurology & Neurosurgery, Pulmonology, Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm, Hip Replacement and Knee Replacement. It ranks among Los Angeles County's Top 5 Hospitals, Top 8 in Los Angeles and Orange counties, and Top 14 in California.

One of Southern California's most experienced and respected medical groups, MemorialCare Medical Group is adding new physician practices and ambulatory surgery, imaging, urgent care and dialysis centers that provide greater access and quality care throughout Orange County, Long Beach and surrounding communities. It repeatedly earns Elite Status from America's Physician Groups national association and recognition as one of the state's top medical groups.

SOURCE MemorialCare

Related Links

http://www.memorialcare.org

This new Malaysian image-improving multimedia campaign was launched first on social media over the past weekend, to be followed on international television early this week and print starting with a full-page ad in The New York Times this Friday the 28 th of September when the Prime Minister delivers his UN General Assembly address in New York. The campaign is also being timed to coincide with the Prime Minister's upcoming visits to other European and Asian countries before the year-end.

This campaign will cover TV, Print and Social Media in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, South Asia and the USA. It is targeted to run for a solid three months following Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad's initial visits to Japan and Indonesia, and his first visit to China and prior to his subsequent attendance of the UN General Assembly's opening this week.

For television, the international campaign will run worldwide on Bloomberg and CNN International and USA. For print, it will run in The Economist, Fortune, The New York Times, Nikkei Shimbun, China's Economic Observer and Time USA. And for social media, the campaign will be on eSimon, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube.

The creation and production of this campaign is being provided pro-bono by the ISC Innovators agency, the same group that also produced on a pro-bono basis the successful economic confidence-restoring campaign called "Malaysia: Bullish on Bouncing Back" during the 1997-98 Asian Economic Crisis.

As was done also 20 years ago for "Malaysia: Bullish on Bouncing Back", the media cost for this new image-improving international campaign is being borne by the sponsors for a total of MYR12 million. A handful of Malaysian private corporations -- led by Berjaya, Naza and U Mobile -- are sponsoring this global campaign.

"You have to be a hermit to miss the New Malaysia's message to the world," said one of the campaign's main sponsors, as the campaign is being shown to world leaders, captains of industries, business leaders, potential foreign direct investors (FDIs), relevant influencers as well as the media and general public around the world.

(Note: the picture attached/above shows the full-page, full-colour print advertisement.)

For more information head to www.facebook.com/NewMalaysiaToday/

YouTube Video (60 sec): www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nn--FWCXXTI

About ISC Innovators Sdn Bhd

ISC Innovators is an award-winning, integrated marketing communications agency offering branding, strategy, creative, production, digital/social media, PR/activation and media services. We have a proud history in Malaysia, having won over 120 local and international awards for creativity and marketing effectiveness in all major industry categories since our beginnings in 1975. In addition to our membership in ICOM -- a network of independent agencies with more than 80 agencies in more than 60 countries -- our own expert, extensive network of business allies and associates in Asia-Pacific and around the world provides an extensive resource platform for clients looking to expand beyond Malaysia. We are perhaps best known for our conception and work on the multi-awarded "Malaysia: Truly Asia" international campaign for Tourism Malaysia, quadrupling annual visitors to Malaysia and quintupling annual tourism earnings for the country in the campaign's first 12 years.

SOURCE ISC Innovators Sdn BhdWASHINGTON, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- On behalf of more than 1,000 mental health hospitals and addiction treatment centers, the National Association for Behavioral Healthcare thanks Congress for reaching an agreement to address America's deadly opioid crisis.

The final package includes many NABH-supported measures and contains the first substantive change to the Medicaid program's burdensome Institutions for Mental Diseases (IMD) exclusion since the early 1970s.

"NABH thanks House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.) for his strong leadership in the House, which helped ensure that his colleagues paid close attention to the IMD exclusion, an antiquated regulation that has denied access to inpatient treatment for those who need it," NABH President and CEO Mark Covall said in a statement. "We also thank Reps. Mimi Walters (R-Calif.) and Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.) and Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Ben Cardin (D-Md.) for their tireless efforts to understand the IMD exclusionand do all they can to repeal this provision and remove access barriers to behavioral healthcare services for millions of Americans."

NABH is also pleased with several other provisions in the final package and urges lawmakers to pass this legislation as soon as possible. Lives depend on it.

About NABH

The National Association for Behavioral Healthcare (NABH) advocates for behavioral healthcare and represents provider systems that are committed to the delivery of responsive, accountable, and clinically effective prevention, treatment, and care for children, adolescents, adults, and older adults with mental and substance use disorders. Its members are behavioral healthcare provider organizations that own or manage more than 1,000 specialty psychiatric hospitals, general hospital psychiatric and addiction treatment units and behavioral healthcare divisions, residential treatment facilities, youth services organizations, and extensive outpatient networks. The association was founded in 1933.

SOURCE National Association for Behavioral Healthcare

Related Links

https://www.nabh.org

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The National Association of Professional Employer Organizations (NAPEO) announced today that NAPEO's member companies have elected Steve Politis, President and COO of Alcott HR Group, LLC, to the association's Board of Directors.

Politis is among ten new PEO industry leaders to serve on the association's Board of Directors for the 2018-2019 term. NAPEO membership elected the new slate of candidates on September 6, 2018, during NAPEO's Annual Conference and Marketplace in Phoenix, Arizona.

Founded in 1987 by Lou Basso and Barry Shorten, Alcott HR is longtime member of the PEO industry. Politis joined in the company in 2015. He is a former chair of NAPEO's New Jersey Leadership Council.

"Steve's leadership will be a great value to our Board and membership," said NAPEO President and CEO Pat Cleary. "Steve's experience will serve as a great asset as he works alongside other Board members to take new approaches to further strengthening the PEO industry."

About NAPEO

The National Association of Professional Employer Organizations (NAPEO) is The Voice of the PEO Industry. NAPEO has some 250 PEO members that provide payroll, benefits, and other HR services to 175,000 businesses employing 3.7 million people. An additional 200 companies that provide services to PEOs are associate members of NAPEO. For more information, please visit www.napeo.org.

SOURCE National Association of Professional Employer Organizations (NAPEO)

Related Links

http://www.napeo.org

NEW YORK, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- As the number of older New Yorkers explodes with the aging of the Baby Boomer generation and as New Yorkers live longer with more chronic conditions, unpaid family caregivers need help  and a new report from AARP outlines a host of potential solutions ranging from a middle class tax credit for out-of-pocket caregiving expenses to an expansion of "telehealth."

The Future of Family Caregiving: Leading the Change resulted from a summit AARP convened with the New York State Health Foundation (NYSHealth) and the state Health Department and Office for the Aging with family caregivers, aging-service organizations and advocacy groups. The summit and report were funded by the New York State Health Foundation and AARP Foundation, the charitable affiliate of AARP, which works to end senior poverty by helping vulnerable older adults build economic opportunity and social connectedness.

"We now have a great roadmap for how to better support New York's nearly 2.6 million family caregivers - the backbone of our long-term care system who provide unpaid care valued at over $31 billion a year," said AARP New York State Director Beth Finkel. "This report should serve as a blueprint for our elected officials and policymakers as we face an aging population that will put more and more stress on caregivers."

"Caregivers play a critical role in the health care systemproviding vital unpaid care to family members or loved ones," said David Sandman, Ph.D., President and CEO of NYSHealth. "The physical, financial, and emotional impact of caregiving can take a big toll. This report offers solutions that can help alleviate some of that burden and ensure that New Yorkers have the support they need to remain effective in their caregiving roles."

"As life expectancies among New Yorkers continues to increase, we remain committed to working with AARP and our partners in government and communities throughout the state to make it easier for family caregivers to not only provide care to their aging relatives, but to also improve the health and wellbeing of these vital caregivers," said State Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker. "The findings from the AARP's The Future of Caregiving: Leading The Change summit will go a long way towards identifying additional resources and solutions to support family members who care for aging loved ones."

"Family caregivers make a profound difference in the lives of those they care for, and are integral to helping loved ones remain at home," said Greg Olsen, Acting Director of the New York State Office for the Aging. "As New York State continues to create more age-friendly, livable communities for people of all ages to grow up, thrive, and grow older, we must ensure that family caregivers have the necessary resources to allow them to focus on their own wellbeing."

Unpaid family caregivers help loved ones with everyday tasks like cooking, traveling to doctor appointments, and managing multiple medications, as well as bathing, dressing, and feeding - and ever-more complex medical tasks like wound care that used to be handled by nurses or hospitals.

The new report shows caregivers face a lack of respite and other challenges that include:

Lost time at work, which can reduce income and retirement earnings and deny potential promotions;

Balancing caring for a parent with working and raising young children in many cases;

Fear of strangers and financial concerns in hiring outside help - and the inability of finding someone qualified, affordable, and available;

Out of pocket caregiving costs that average nearly $7,000 a year  and over $10,600 if caring for a loved one with dementia  and eat up 20 percent of income on average but a whopping 44 percent for Hispanic caregivers and 34 percent for African American caregivers;

a year  and over if caring for a loved one with dementia  and eat up 20 percent of income on average but a whopping 44 percent for Hispanic caregivers and 34 percent for African American caregivers; Wait lists for home- and community-based services, which support caregivers in helping their loved ones avoid unwanted moves to costlier and mostly taxpayer-funded nursing homes;

Social isolation and other mental health issues.

The needs of family caregivers are growing; by 2050 the number of Americans 85 and older will more than triple, and as many as 34 percent of older adults could experience functional limitations and need full or part-time help to avoid or delay institutional care. Yet the availability of family members to provide unpaid care will dwindle.

Building on New York's strong paid family leave law and the CARE Act, which requires hospitals to better prepare caregivers to care for their loved ones after discharge, the report includes these potential solutions:

A state tax credit for out-of-pocket caregiving costs such as wheelchair ramps, food and medical supplies.

Expanding the CARE Act to include skilled nursing and rehabilitation facilities.

Expanding telehealth and tele-mental health to allow doctors to monitor an older adult's vital signs like heart rate, blood pressure, and blood sugar remotely via smartphone and alerting family caregivers whether medication has been taken, if the stove was left on, or if there's been a fall  building on a 2018 state initiative to broaden the use of telehealth under Medicaid.

More "age-friendly" hospital emergency departments with non-glare lighting, non-skid flooring, large print information, handrails, warmer room temperatures, improved sound-proofing, room for family caregivers and specially trained staff.

An accessible, streamlined, and culturally appropriate compendium of statewide and local services that includes eligibility requirements, cost, and paid and volunteer assistance for transportation to medical appointments, minor home repairs and visits that allow caregivers respite.

More caregiver respite centers like those at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx and Northern Westchester Hospital.

and Northern Westchester Hospital. "Virtual" support groups and online chats and hangouts for family caregivers lacking the time or energy to attend in-person groups.

Expanding the reach of broadband services to underserved areas of the state.

An in-home services provider registry that allows consumers to connect with qualified, local long-term services and support workers.

Nationwide, 44 million Americans including nearly 2.6 million across New York stateprovide care and support to someone because of a limitation in their physical, emotional, or cognitive functioning. This unpaid care is worth $31.3 billion annually in New York and $470 billion across the country.

AARP is urging 50+ Americans to "Be the Difference" and vote in the upcoming midterm elections - and to consider candidates' positions on supporting family caregivers.

An AARP New York/Siena College survey of New York Baby Boomers and Generation Xers released last fall found strong support for in-home services, with two-thirds or more of respondents saying transportation services, respite for family caregivers and assistance providing meals and managing household chores would be helpful.

Follow us on Twitter: @AARPNY and Facebook: AARP New York

AARP is the nation's largest nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to empowering Americans 50 and older to choose how they live as they age. With nearly 38 million members and offices in every state, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, AARP works to strengthen communities and advocate for what matters most to families with a focus on health security, financial stability and personal fulfillment. AARP also works for individuals in the marketplace by sparking new solutions and allowing carefully chosen, high-quality products and services to carry the AARP name. As a trusted source for news and information, AARP produces the world's largest circulation publications, AARP The Magazine and AARP Bulletin. To learn more, visit www.aarp.org or follow @AARP and @AARPadvocates on social media.

SOURCE AARP New YorkSTOCKHOLM, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The members of the Nomination Committee for Electrolux Annual General Meeting in 2019 have now been appointed.

In accordance with decision by the Annual General Meeting, Electrolux Nomination Committee shall consist of six members. The Nomination Committee shall include members selected by each of the four largest shareholders in terms of voting rights that wish to participate in the committee, together with the Chairman of the Electrolux Board and one additional Board member.

The members of the Nomination Committee have now been appointed based on the ownership structure as of August 31, 2018. Johan Forssell, Investor AB, is the Chairman of the committee. The other members are Kaj Thoren, Alecta, Marianne Nilsson, Swedbank Robur Funds, and Carine Smith Ihenacho, Norges Bank Investment Management. The committee will also include Staffan Bohman and Fredrik Persson, Chairman and Director, respectively, of Electrolux.

The Nomination Committee will prepare proposals for the Annual General Meeting in 2019 regarding Chairman of the Annual General Meeting, Board members, Chairman of the Board, remuneration for Board members, Auditor, Auditor's fees and, to the extent deemed necessary, proposal regarding amendments of the current instruction for the Nomination Committee.

The Annual General Meeting will be held on April 10, 2019, at Stockholm Waterfront Congress Centre, Nils Ericsons Plan 4, Stockholm, Sweden.

Shareholders who wish to submit proposals to the Nomination Committee should send an email to [email protected].

For further information,

please contact Electrolux Press Hotline

+46-8-657-65-07

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

http://news.cision.com/electrolux/r/nomination-committee-appointed-for-electrolux-annual-general-meeting-2019,c2627407

The following files are available for download:

SOURCE ElectroluxMILWAUKEE, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Northwestern Mutual is dedicated to ensuring an inspiring, inclusive workplace in which everyone feels highly valued and actively engaged. This month, the company is a sponsor of two key diversity and inclusion conferences, including the National Black MBA (NBMBAA) Conference and Grace Hopper Celebration.

"At Northwestern Mutual, we believe that cultivating a diverse workforce makes us a better company for everyone, from our clients to our employees," said Raymone Jackson, director of diversity and inclusion, Northwestern Mutual. "We are excited to sponsor these two conferences that help us provide even more opportunities to women and African Americans."

Both conferences serve as a platform to connect with top talent and empower attendees with tools and resources to grow professionally. Northwestern Mutual and other companies have the opportunity to engage with top females in the technology space at Grace Hopper as well as recruit attendees from the NBMBAA Conference.

NBMBAA:

The National Black MBA Association is committed to promoting education and economic empowerment of African Americans. Kicking off today, this year the conference returns to Detroit, a city that is symbolic of the work that the organization has done in the African American professional community. A longtime partner of the NBMBAA, Northwestern Mutual also sponsors the organization's local chapters throughout the country. Full agenda:

https://nbmbaa.org/conference-agenda

Grace Hopper Celebration:

Held September 26-28 in Houston, the Grace Hopper Celebration is the world's largest conference for women in technology. Produced by AnitaB.org and presented in partnership with the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the Grace Hopper Conference aims to inspire women to make career advancements, reject social standards and transform the technology industry. Northwestern Mutual's participation in the conference will include key activities such as an Open Source Code-A-Thon for Humanity offering attendees the opportunity to collaborate on projects in order to create change and a Senior Women's Program (SWP) designed to reignite the passion and address the varied needs of experienced women technologists.

Northwestern Mutual is also providing funding for several students to attend the conference through GHC Scholars. The scholarships are those in fields such as computer science, computer engineering or a related discipline such as electrical engineering and physics. Full agenda: https://ghc.anitab.org/2018-attend/schedule-overview

About Northwestern Mutual

Northwestern Mutual has been helping families and businesses achieve financial security for more than 160 years. Through a distinctive, whole-picture planning approach, we empower our clients to make the most of every single day and plan for important moments in their future. We combine the expertise of our financial professionals with a personalized digital experience to help our clients navigate their financial lives every day. With $265.0 billion in assets, $28.1 billion in revenues, and $1.8 trillion worth of life insurance protection in force, Northwestern Mutual delivers financial security to 4.5 million people who rely on us for life, disability income and long-term care insurance, annuities, brokerage and advisory services, trust services, and discretionary portfolio management solutions. The company manages more than $125 billion of client assets through its wealth management and investment services. Northwestern Mutual ranks 104 on the 2018 FORTUNE 500 and is recognized by FORTUNE as one of the "World's Most Admired" life insurance companies in 2018.

Northwestern Mutual is the marketing name for The Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company (NM), Milwaukee, WI (life and disability insurance, annuities, and life insurance with long-term care benefits) and its subsidiaries. Northwestern Mutual and its subsidiaries offer a comprehensive approach to financial security solutions including: life insurance, long-term care insurance, disability income insurance, annuities, life insurance with long-term care benefits, investment products, and advisory products and services. Subsidiaries include Northwestern Mutual Investment Services, LLC (NMIS) (securities), broker-dealer, registered investment adviser, member FINRA and SIPC; the Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Company (NMWMC) (fiduciary and fee-based financial planning services), federal savings bank; and Northwestern Long Term Care Insurance Company (NLTC) (long-term care insurance).

SOURCE Northwestern Mutual

Related Links

http://www.northwesternmutual.com

SAN DIEGO, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- TPT Global Tech (OTCBB:TPTW) www.tptglobaltech.com announced today the company is uplisted from the OTC Pink to the OTCQB, a much better trading venue with an aura of better companies. TPT will no longer trade under the "Pink Sheet" status on the OTCBB, potentially creating volume and liquidity for the company and its TPT Global Tech shareholders..

TPT Global Tech is a Technology/Telecommunications Media Content Hub holding company which executes Mergers and Acquisitions. TPT delivers Cloud Based products and platforms in the "Internet of Things" focusing on Domestic and International syndication and provides Technology solutions to businesses domestically and worldwide.

TPT Global Tech offers Software as a Service (SaaS), Technology Platform as a Service (PAAS), Cloud-based Unified Communication as a Service (UCaaS) and carrier-grade performance and support for businesses over its private IP MPLS fiber and wireless network in the United States.

TPT's cloud-based UCaaS services allow businesses of any size to enjoy all the latest voice, data, media and collaboration features in today's global technology markets. TPT also operates as a Master Distributor for Nationwide Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNO) and Independent Sales Organization (ISO) as a Master Distributor for Pre-Paid Cellphone services, Mobile phones Cellphone Accessories and Global Roaming Cellphones.

TPT Global Tech has successfully completed several acquisitions since 2015 including. ViewMe.Live, a Global Mobile Television and Social Media Platform; Trucom www.trucom.com, a Wireless and Fiber Optic Telecommunications company based in Phoenix; San Diego Media www.sandiegomedia.com, an e-commerce company, K-Tel, a smart Phone Distribution Company based in Seattle and Portland; and Lion Universe, a 3D Smartphone and Technology Company based company in Los Angeles. The Company has also recently announced the launch of its Cloud based Electric Scooter Technology platform and Surfincycle Electric Scooter www.surfincyle.com.

"This is a fantastic milestone in the continued growth of the company and I give great credit and thanks to all of the hard work from our financial and legal teams to get us to this point in our evolution as a company. We will continue to strive to create shareholder liquidity and ROI for our TPT shareholders as we move TPT Global Tech into the next phase of operations and growth," said Stephen Thomas, CEO TPT Global Tech.

Forward Looking Statements:

This press release contains various forward-looking statements that are based on our beliefs as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to us. When used in this press release, the words "believe", "expect", "anticipate", "estimate" and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These statements may include statements regarding seeking business opportunities, payment of operating expenses, and the like, and are subject to certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions which could cause actual results to differ materially from projections or estimates. Factors which could cause actual results to differ materially are discussed at length under the heading "Risk Factors". Should one or more of the enumerated risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those anticipated, estimated or projected. Investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, all of which speak only as of the date made. We will not undertake to update any forward looking statement or this news release in the future.

SOURCE TPT Global Tech

Related Links

http://www.tptglobaltech.com

HARRISBURG, Pa., Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Pennsylvania's Inter-Agency Election Preparedness and Security Workgroup and county officials from across the commonwealth participated in a tabletop exercise today to train on hypothetical situations when environmental or weather-caused issues could potentially impact voting on election day.

"These trainings, which create realistic election-day scenarios to which officials must react, allow for vulnerability assessments, crisis planning and practice in teamwork," Acting Secretary of State Robert Torres said. "They are invaluable in preparing us at all levels  local, state, and federal  for incidents like, in this case, environmental and weather challenges, such as those we experienced during the May primary election in Pennsylvania."

The half-day training, at the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA), simulated natural and manmade events such as inclement weather, power outages, and civil unrest disturbances on election day. It emphasized best practices in incident planning, preparedness and response, and encouraged building partnerships, creating templates for use in an emergency and utilizing online support and other training.

"In an emergency or unusual weather event, no single state agency is equipped to go it alone," said PEMA Director Richard D. Flinn Jr. "Collaborating with neighboring agencies at the state and local level creates a more robust response system for the safety and wellbeing of communities throughout the commonwealth."

Election directors, emergency management coordinators, information technology personnel, security staff and law enforcement from about 40 counties participated in person or online, along with officials from the eight workgroup agencies  PEMA, the Department of State, the Office of Administration, the Governor's Office, the state Office of Homeland Security, the Pennsylvania State Police, the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs and the Office of State Inspector General.

After the training, U.S. Department of Homeland Security gave participants an unclassified presentation on election security and answered questions.

This is the second joint election preparedness training the interagency workgroup has undertaken with counties in the last six weeks. On August 15, staff from approximately 10 commonwealth agencies and 10 counties participated in the national Tabletop the Vote 2018 training exercise, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. That event was designed to assist election, information technology and security personnel in training for cyber incident response.

In addition to providing free crisis preparedness and cybersecurity training to counties, the commonwealth has strengthened already tight election security and intensified local, state and federal partnerships. The Department of State works closely with all 67 county boards of elections, as well as state and federal experts, to ensure the security and integrity of Pennsylvania's election process. Some of the many measures in use include:

encryption of voter registration data hosted by the department

a layered set of protections to secure the state voter registration database

continuous monitoring of the commonwealth's technical environment

frequent independent vulnerability assessments of commonwealth networks, applications and systems

free anti-phishing and security awareness training software provided to counties.

For more information on election security in Pennsylvania, visit votesPa.com.

MEDIA CONTACT: Wanda Murren, 717-783-1621

SOURCE Pennsylvania Department of State

Related Links

http://www.state.pa.us

"Patriot will enhance Polish, European and NATO security while creating jobs in Poland and the US," said Tom Laliberty, vice president of Integrated Air and Missile Defense at Raytheon's Integrated Defense Systems business.

Patriot is the backbone of NATO and Europe's defense against ballistic and cruise missiles, advanced aircraft and drones. Fifteen other nations depend on Patriot to protect their citizens and armed forces, including the U.S. and six other European nations: Germany, Greece, the Netherlands, Spain, Romania and Sweden.

This contract is for Phase I of "WISLA," Poland's two-phase medium-range Integrated Air and Missile Defense procurement. Under Phase II, Poland has the potential to acquire additional Patriot fire units and has expressed interest in gallium nitride-based 360-degree active electronically scanning array radars, and SkyCeptor, a low-cost interceptor missile.

Raytheon's Patriot is a missile defense system consisting of radars, command-and-control technology and multiple types of interceptors, all working together to detect, identify and defeat tactical ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, drones, advanced aircraft and other threats.

About Raytheon

Raytheon Company, with 2017 sales of $25 billion and 64,000 employees, is a technology and innovation leader specializing in defense, civil government and cybersecurity solutions. With a history of innovation spanning 96 years, Raytheon provides state-of-the-art electronics, mission systems integration, C5I products and services, sensing, effects, and mission support for customers in more than 80 countries. Raytheon is headquartered in Waltham, Mass. Follow us on Twitter.

Note to Editors

The 16 Patriot Nations are:

United States of America

The Netherlands

Germany

Japan

Israel

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Kuwait

Taiwan

Greece

Spain

Republic of Korea

United Arab Emirates

Qatar

Romania

Poland

Sweden

http://www.raytheon.com

Raytheon Company

Integrated Defense Systems

Media Contact

Mike Nachshen

+1.520.269.5697

[email protected]

SOURCE Raytheon Company

Related Links

http://www.raytheon.com

FLORENCE, Ariz., Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Richmond American Homes of Arizona, Inc., a subsidiary of M.D.C. Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: MDC), is pleased to announce the Grand Opening of Crestfield Manor in Pinal County. The exceptional new community offers a distinctive collection of ranch and two-story homes with incredible featuresincluding attached RV garages.

GRAND OPENING EVENT:

Prospective homebuyers and real estate agents are invited to a Grand Opening Celebration on September 29, from 12 to 2 p.m. The event will feature complimentary lunch from the Burgers Amore food truck and tours of the brand-new, fully furnished Deacon, Raleigh and Yorktown model homes.

MORE ABOUT CRESTFIELD MANOR:

New homes from the $200s

Ranch & two-story floor plans

3 to 5 bedrooms, approx. 1,810 to 3,100 sq. ft.

RV & 3-car garages available on select plans

Hundreds of personalization options

The community is located at 9955 E. Harvest Drive in Florence. Call 520.316.4354 or visit RichmondAmerican.com for additional information.

About M.D.C. Holdings, Inc.

Operating under the name Richmond American Homes, MDC's homebuilding subsidiaries have built more than 195,000 homes since 1977. Among the nation's largest homebuilders, MDC's subsidiary companies have operations in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Virginia and Washington. Mortgage lending, plus insurance and title services are offered by the following MDC subsidiaries, respectively: HomeAmerican Mortgage Corporation, American Home Insurance Agency, Inc. and American Home Title and Escrow Company. M.D.C. Holdings, Inc. is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "MDC." For more information, visit MDCHoldings.com.

SOURCE M.D.C. Holdings, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.richmondamerican.com

Each scientist included in the SN 10 was nominated by a Nobel laureate or recently elected members of the National Academy of Sciences. All are age 40 or under, and were selected by Science News staff for their potential to shape the science of the future.

Science News is proud to present this year's SN 10 :

Shahzeen Attari, Indiana University Bloomington , Age 37

, Age 37 Emily Balskus , Harvard University , Age 38

, Age 38 Ibrahim Ciss e, MIT , Age 35

, Age 35 Christopher Hamilton , University of Arizona , Age 39

, Age 39 Paula Jofr e, University of San Diego Portales in Santiago, Chile , Age 36

Portales in , Age 36 Douglas Stanford , Institute for Advanced Study and Stanford University , Age 31

Institute for Advanced Study and , Age 31 Lisa Manning , Syracuse University , Age 38

, Age 38 Joaqu in Rodriguez-L opez, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign , Age 35

, Age 35 Anshumali Shrivastava , Rice University , Age 33

, Age 33 Jenny Tung , Duke University , Age 36

"Each year, I am more and more impressed by the scientists who are selected to this prestigious list," said Maya Ajmera, President and CEO of the Society for Science & the Public and Publisher of Science News. "These scientists are making an enormous impact. I congratulate all the members of the SN 10 class of 2018."

Nancy Shute, Editor in Chief of Science News, added, "It's not surprising that members of the SN 10 class of 2018 are looking to other disciplines to find solutions to some of our world's grandest challenges. Today's best scientists understand that they need to think beyond boundaries and what has been done before. There's a fearlessness and drive that made these researchers stand out."

View the 10 stories of these incredible scientists at www.sciencenews.org/SN10 .

About Science News

Science News has been published by Society for Science & the Public since 1922. It offers readers bold, contemporary, award-winning editorial content, detailed imagery, a blog network, and access to archives going back to 1924. Concise, current, and comprehensive, the magazine provides an approachable overview from all fields and applications of science and technology. For more information about Science News, please visit sciencenews.org or follow on Facebook and Twitter .

About Society for Science & the Public

Society for Science & the Public is dedicated to the achievement of young scientists in independent research and to public engagement in science. Established in 1921, the Society is a nonprofit whose vision is to promote the understanding and appreciation of science and the vital role it plays in human advancement. Through its world-class competitions, including the Regeneron Science Talent Search, the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, and the Broadcom MASTERS, and its award-winning magazine, Science News and Science News for Students, Society for Science & the Public is committed to inform, educate, and inspire. Learn more at www.societyforscience.org and follow us on Facebook , Twitter , Instagram and Snapchat (Society4Science).

Press Contact:

Gayle Kansagor

202-872-5103

[email protected]

SOURCE Society for Science & the Public

Related Links

http://www.societyforscience.org

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Scoot Networks, the original shared electric mobility provider, announced today that they will receive an investment of up to $750,000 from Elemental Excelerator (EEx), a global infrastructure innovation accelerator, to develop their services for low- to moderate-income (LMI) communities. The investment is being made through the accelerator's Equity & Access Track, which helps growth-stage startups deliver place-based, community-driven innovation to California's LMI and disadvantaged communities.

"The Equity & Access Track was designed to support innovative startups with earth-positive technologies, like Scoot, who understand their communities' needs and help bring solutions to the people and places that need it most," said Sara Chandler, Policy & Community Manager for EEx.

Last month, Scoot won approval from the SFMTA to launch kick scooters as an addition to their shared electric vehicle fleet in San Francisco. With EEx's Equity & Access support, Scoot can expand its mission of 'Electric Vehicles for Everyone' by providing affordable, fast, and carbon-free transportation for a new area of the city - Bayview Hunters Point. This project will pilot several new innovations in Scoot's technology to increase accessibility to their mobility services. The funding will be deployed over project milestones in 2019 that include:

Expanding Scoot's service territory to include LMI neighborhoods and coupling this with community managers to work in partnership with local organizations.

Increasing access for new customers by expanding language offerings in addition to the existing English and Spanish options.

Implementing a new payment strategy that accommodates alternatives to credit cards, which the company has found is a barrier to usage for customers who do not use credit cards.

"We are honored to be a part of Elemental Excelerator's first Equity & Access cohort and to have the opportunity to develop these much-needed technologies and services for our community," said Bob Walsh, San Francisco General Manager.

About Scoot:

Scoot operates shared networks of thousands of electric vehicles, ranging from electric bikes to motor scooters, to electric kick scooters. As cities worldwide search for alternative and sustainable solutions to curb increasing traffic congestion, Scoot offers a convenient, affordable and scalable solution that provides immediate relief.

Scoot operates in San Francisco and Barcelona serving tens of thousands of riders monthly who have logged almost six million electric miles and thereby prevented approximately six million pounds of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere.

Scoot's app is available for download on iOS and Android phones. The company launched in Barcelona this summer and plans to enter additional cities across Western Europe and the Americas over the next year.

About EEx:

Elemental Excelerator helps startups change the world, one community at a time. Each year, they find 15-20 companies that best fit their mission and fund each company up to $1 million to improve systems that impact people's lives: energy, transportation, water, agriculture, and beyond. To date, they have awarded over $30 million to more than 80 companies. For more information, visit elementalexcelerator.com.

Elemental Excelerator's Equity & Access track is designed for startups with both an innovative technology and growth strategy that increases access to clean technologies for low- to moderate-income communities, starting in California.

SOURCE Scoot Networks

Related Links

http://www.scootnetworks.com

HARRISBURG, Pa., Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- As the October 9 voter registration deadline approaches, Acting Secretary of State Robert Torres today reminded Pennsylvanians to check their registration status at votesPA.com, which now includes voting district information that reflects the new congressional district boundaries.

"Individuals who want to be sure they are registered can go directly to votesPA.com to verify their registration and polling place," Secretary Torres said. "Voters can also find in which congressional, state senate and state house districts they live. This is a new feature we added to make voting easier."

Tuesday, October 9, is the deadline to apply for new voter registration or make changes to an existing registration before the November 6 general election.

Eligible citizens who are not registered to vote can apply, and already registered voters can update their information, quickly and conveniently at register.votesPA.com.

Individuals wishing to register to vote must be:

A citizen of the United States for at least one month before the election.

for at least one month before the election. A resident of Pennsylvania and the election district in which the individual wants to register and vote for at least 30 days before the election.

and the election district in which the individual wants to register and vote for at least 30 days before the election. At least 18 years of age on or before the date of the election.

On November 6, Pennsylvania voters will be electing the Governor and Lieutenant Governor, one U.S. Senator and 18 U.S. House members. Even-numbered state Senate districts and all state House seats also will be on the ballot.

The votesPA.com website, available in English and Spanish, also offers printable voter registration applications (pdf), a polling place locator and county boards of elections contact information. It includes tips for first-time voters and military and overseas voters.

In addition, voters can familiarize themselves with the voting system they will use in their home county on Election Day.

For more information on voting and elections, call the Department of State's toll-free hotline at 1-877-VOTESPA (1-877-868-3772) or visit votesPA.com.

MEDIA CONTACT: Wanda Murren (717) 783-1621

SOURCE Pennsylvania Department of State

Related Links

http://www.state.pa.us

The "Make Your Medical Device Pitch for Kids!" competition this year focused on pediatric cardiovascular devices, an area where new devices can make a life-changing difference, especially for younger children. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that 40,000 children are born annually in the U.S. with a congenital heart defect (CHD) and approximately 1 million U.S. children currently live with a CHD.

The pitch competition was originally slated to award $100,000 in grants; however, because of the judges' response to the quality and potential of the technologies presented, Children's National expanded the award grants to $150,000 to include six awardees.

"It is my pleasure to congratulate this year's award-winning innovators and to applaud all the participants for their efforts to bring new devices to market that will improve care for children," said Kurt Newman, M.D., president and CEO of Children's National. "It is vitally important that we support advances in pediatric medical devices, especially in light of the challenges innovators face in addressing this specialized market. Children's National is committed to bringing together innovators, clinicians, policy makers, payors and investors to increase the pace of pediatric device development for the benefit of children everywhere."

Each of the award-winning companies received a $25,000 grant to help bring their pediatric medical device to market faster. Along with the funds, the awardees will receive advisory services from the Sheikh Zayed Institute's innovation resource network. The winners were selected from a field of eleven finalists, with a total of 45 device submissions received from national and international innovators. The awards were announced at the symposium's closing reception hosted by Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

This year's pediatric device competition award recipients are:

Bardy Diagnostics, Seattle, Washington - a single patient use, continuous recording ambulatory ECG monitor that records for up to 7 days and is useable for all pediatric patients

- a single patient use, continuous recording ambulatory ECG monitor that records for up to 7 days and is useable for all pediatric patients Design Mentor, Inc., Pelham, New Hampshire  VentriFlo, an extracorporeal blood pump for short-term cardiopulmonary support of pediatric open-heart surgery patients requiring full or partial cardiopulmonary bypass

 VentriFlo, an extracorporeal blood pump for short-term cardiopulmonary support of pediatric open-heart surgery patients requiring full or partial cardiopulmonary bypass Draper, Cambridge, Massachusetts  a pediatric valve designed for children, birth to age 6, that passively expands to a two-fold change in valve diameter to accommodate child growth

 a pediatric valve designed for children, birth to age 6, that passively expands to a two-fold change in valve diameter to accommodate child growth NuPulseCV, Raleigh, North Carolina  a minimally invasive, long-term mechanical circulatory support device for pediatric patients with cardiac dysfunction

 a minimally invasive, long-term mechanical circulatory support device for pediatric patients with cardiac dysfunction PECA Labs, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania - a novel expandable cardiovascular conduit that uses a minimally-invasive balloon catheter to allow for pediatric growth to reduce surgeries

- a novel expandable cardiovascular conduit that uses a minimally-invasive balloon catheter to allow for pediatric growth to reduce surgeries PolyVascular Corporation, Houston, Texas -- a minimally-invasive pediatric pulmonary valve replacement approach for young children with congenital heart disease

"We are honored to recognize these outstanding innovations and we already envision the ways they can advance care for children," said Kolaleh Eskandanian, Ph.D., vice president and chief innovation officer at Children's National and principal investigator of the National Capital Consortium for Pediatric Device Innovation (NCC-PDI). "We are delighted to welcome these new innovative companies to our family of pediatric device startups and entrepreneurs. Together we can address critical patient needs and bring important new pediatric devices to market."

Eskandanian said that, in addition to the financial support and consultation services through Children's National, the awardees can leverage the validation received through this highly competitive process to raise the additional capital needed for commercialization.

The eleven finalists each made five-minute presentations to the symposium audience and then responded to judges' questions. Finalists also included CardioSounds, Circadiance, EspeRare Foundation, Flow Forward Medical, Inc. and PyrAmes, Inc.

The following experts served on the distinguished panel of judges:

The pitch competition is one of the highlights of the annual one-day symposium organized by Children's National to bring together medical device innovators, investors, researchers, clinicians and policy makers to advance pediatric healthcare and address the unmet surgical and medical device needs of children. The nation's leading pediatric device symposium is a joint effort with The MedTech Conference powered by AdvaMed, the premier gathering of medtech professionals in North America.

Keynote speakers at the symposium, which was themed "Using Real World Evidence to Drive Pediatric Innovation," included Hemant Virkar, president and CEO of Digital Infuzion, Inc; Tonya Kinlow, vice president of community engagement, advocacy & government affairs at Children's National; Susan Sweat, senior vice president, Cornerstone Government Affairs; and Vasum Peiris, M.D., chief medical officer, Pediatrics and Special Populations, FDA, whose remarks were part of a live podcast "BioTalk with Rich Bendis," hosted by Richard Bendis, president and CEO of BioHealth Innovation, Inc.

About Children's National Health System

Children's National Health System, based in Washington, D.C., has served the nation's children since 1870. Children's National is one of the nation's Top 5 pediatric hospitals and, for a second straight year, is ranked No. 1 in newborn care, as well as ranked in all specialties evaluated by U.S. News & World Report. It has been designated two times as a Magnet hospital, a designation given to hospitals that demonstrate the highest standards of nursing and patient care delivery. This pediatric academic health system offers expert care through a convenient, community-based primary care network and specialty outpatient centers in the D.C. Metropolitan area, including the Maryland suburbs and Northern Virginia. Home to the Children's Research Institute and the Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation, Children's National is the seventh-highest NIH-funded pediatric institution in the nation. Children's National is recognized for its expertise and innovation in pediatric care and as a strong voice for children through advocacy at the local, regional and national levels. For more information, follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

SOURCE Children's National Health System

Related Links

http://www.childrensnational.org

MADISON, N.J., Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Sotheby's International Realty Affiliates LLC today announced that Tera Realty Limited in Shanghai, China is the newest member of its global network and will now operate as Tera Sotheby's International Realty.

Owned and operated by Ted Fang, the firm was established in 2016 and serves the residential real estate market in Greater Shanghai.

"As one of the key cities in mainland China, the expansion into Shanghai allows the Sotheby's International Realty brand to have a strategic presence in the market," said Philip White, president and chief executive officer of Sotheby's International Realty Affiliates LLC. "The Chinese buyer is a global consumer and with Shanghai being the second-most populated city in the world, we are strengthening the brand's foothold in Greater Asia. We proudly welcome Tera Sotheby's International Realty to our global network."

"The real estate market in Shanghai offers some of the most expensive and highest-quality homes in China," said Fang. "Our team of experienced real estate professionals have a wide network across China and we are focused on providing exceptional service to our clients. Affiliating with the Sotheby's International Realty brand allows us to expand the reach of our network around the world while being part of a largely-trusted global brand."

Tera Sotheby's International Realty is the fourth Sotheby's International Realty-branded company in China; also operating in the country are Beijing Sotheby's International Realty, Hainan Sotheby's International Realty, and Tianjin Sotheby's International Realty. With this addition, the brand now has 50 offices in the greater Asia Pacific region.

The Sotheby's International Realty network currently has more than 22,000 affiliated independent sales associates located in over 960 offices in 72 countries and territories worldwide. In 2017, the brand achieved a record global sales volume of $108 billion USD. Tera Sotheby's International Realty listings will be marketed on the sothebysrealty.com global website. In addition to the referral opportunities and widened exposure generated from this source, the firm's brokers and clients will benefit from an association with the Sotheby's auction house and worldwide Sotheby's International Realty marketing programs. Each office is independently owned and operated.

About Sotheby's International Realty Affiliates LLC

Founded in 1976 to provide independent brokerages with a powerful marketing and referral program for luxury listings, the Sotheby's International Realty network was designed to connect the finest independent real estate companies to the most prestigious clientele in the world. Sotheby's International Realty Affiliates LLC is a subsidiary of Realogy Holdings Corp. (NYSE: RLGY), a global leader in real estate franchising and provider of real estate brokerage, relocation and settlement services. In February 2004, Realogy entered into a long-term strategic alliance with Sotheby's, the operator of the auction house. The agreement provided for the licensing of the Sotheby's International Realty name and the development of a full franchise system. Affiliations in the system are granted only to brokerages and individuals meeting strict qualifications. Sotheby's International Realty Affiliates LLC supports its affiliates with a host of operational, marketing, recruiting, educational and business development resources. Franchise affiliates also benefit from an association with the venerable Sotheby's auction house, established in 1744. For more information, visit www.sothebysrealty.com.  2018 Sotheby's International Realty Affiliates LLC. All rights reserved. Sotheby's International Realty and the Sotheby's International Realty Logo are service marks licensed to Sotheby's International Realty Affiliates LLC and used with permission. Sotheby's International Realty Affiliates LLC fully supports the principles of the Fair Housing Act and the Equal Opportunity Act. Each office is independently owned and operated.

CONTACT

Lindsey Scharf Natalie Hernandez Director, PR & Communications Manager, PR & Communications Sotheby's International Realty Affiliates LLC Sotheby's International Realty Affiliates LLC (973) 407-5596 (973) 407-6142 [email protected] [email protected]

SOURCE Sotheby's International Realty Affiliates LLC

Related Links

http://www.sothebysrealty.com

WASHINGTON, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Below is a statement by U.S. Conference of Mayors CEO and Executive Director Tom Cochran on today's FCC final Order on removing barriers to small cell deployment:

"The U.S. Conference of Mayors conveys its strongest opposition to today's final Order issued by the Federal Communications Commission. While The U.S. Conference of Mayors supports the nation's efforts to win the race to 5G, today's FCC action misapplies federal law to federalize local public property as part of its efforts to bestow upon a class of private companies special rights to access local rights-of-ways and public property.

"Despite efforts by local and state governments, including scores of commenters in the agency's docket, the Commission has embarked on an unprecedented federal intrusion into local (and state) government property rights that will have substantial and continuing adverse impacts on cities and their taxpayers, including reduced funding for essential local government services, and needlessly introduce increased risk of right-of-way and other public safety hazards.

"This wrongful intrusion threatens to slow down and undermine the FCC's own efforts to accelerate the deployment of new wireless infrastructure. In another action, the commission even seeks to rewrite and overturn decades-old compensation agreements between local (and state) governments and cable providers.

"Over the past year and in several instances, the federal government  the Administration, Congress and/or FCC  chose not to make deployment of small cells a federal priority in its own actions, be it new statutes and rules pertaining to federal property use rules, federal tax policy, federal spending and/or even federal spectrum revenue uses; yet, today's Commission actions seek to use a misapplication of federal power to confiscate local taxpayer property to this end. Mayors and other local and state government leaders rightly and strongly oppose these actions.

"The Conference believes this aggressive, and surely unlawful, intervention will prove counterproductive. The record on 4G deployments shows that the nation's mayors with other local and state officials partnered successfully with the private sector to build out the nation's fourth generation (4G) network, with the U.S. today accounting for roughly 40 percent of the world's 4G facilities. Regrettably, the Commission is choosing conflict over cooperation, and subordination over partnership.

"The Conference and its members now look to the federal courts to review and rectify this unlawful taking of local property, actions which we believe will compel local elected officials to subsidize, or "gift", local public property to a small, favored group of private businesses."

About The United States Conference of Mayors -- The U.S. Conference of Mayors is the official nonpartisan organization of cities with populations of 30,000 or more. There are nearly 1,400 such cities in the country today, and each city is represented in the Conference by its chief elected official, the mayor. Like us on Facebook at facebook.com/usmayors, or follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/usmayors

SOURCE U.S. Conference of MayorsEMERYVILLE, Calif., Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- People pick a company to work for as much as they pick a job, so more businesses have to think of how to entice potential employees to their doors. As student loans become more of a fixation in borrowers' lives, that may mean more companies will start offering assistance with them. American Financial Benefits Center (AFBC), a document preparation service company that has worked with thousands of clients in helping them apply for federal repayment programs, wonders if this kind of benefit may be on the rise and might effectively help fight the student loan crisis.

"Sign-on bonuses can be really persuasive when it comes to picking between jobs, especially if it is something like help with student loan repayment," said Sara Molina, manager at AFBC. Only about four percent currently offer student loan repayment benefits, which means there is lots of room for potential growth - and potential competition. But for now, the numbers are low and for those few employees receiving this benefit, it is likely relieving a lot of stress.

However, some people might think that these benefits shouldn't be there at all. Is it right for companies to offer such benefits when borrowers are the ones who took out the loans in the first place? Or maybe they might think the government should be the one helping, not an employer. All things in life will be debated, especially as they become more popular like these student loan repayment benefits seem to be becoming. AFBC feels that borrowers shouldn't have to struggle with student loan repayment and has assisted qualified borrowers apply for federal income-driven repayment plans. Those payment plans have helped many borrowers receive lowered monthly payments and get on track for student loan forgiveness after 20-25 years of remaining in the particular plan. "AFBC has helped clients through the application process and continues to help them through the yearly recertification process because we believe in helping our clients achieve financial wellness in the ways that we can," said Molina.

About American Financial Benefits Center

American Financial Benefits Center is a document preparation company that helps clients apply for federal student loan repayment plans that fit their personal financial and student loan situation. Through its strict customer service guidelines, the company strives for the highest levels of honesty and integrity.

Each AFBC telephone representative has received the Certified Student Loan Professional certification through the International Association of Professional Debt Arbitrators (IAPDA).

American Financial Benefits Center Newsroom

Contact

To learn more about American Financial Benefits Center, please contact:

American Financial Benefits Center

1900 Powell Street #600

Emeryville, CA 94608

1-800-488-1490

[email protected]

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SOURCE American Financial Benefits CenterDALLAS, Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- TCIA Founding Board Member Patrick T. Moran presented to a packed house (https://www.facebook.com/TxCIA/) in North Dallas two Saturdays ago. Moran detailed the reasons why all District 32 residents need to vote for challenger Collin Allred over incumbent Pete Sessions. This past Saturday, he led the first-ever Texas Cannabis-based campaign team to block walk in District 32 on behalf of Allred.

Cannabis advocates have been trying to figure out why Sessions (who is current Chairman of the House Rules Committee) has so aggressively blocked all cannabis reform bills (35 just since 2016, including bipartisan legislation on banking, decriminalization, patient protection and education for Veterans). TCIA believes they have uncovered the answer: "Old-fashioned bigotry. Despite roughly equal usage rates, Blacks are 3.73 times more likely than whites to be arrested for marijuana." https://www.aclu.org/gallery/marijuana-arrests-numbers Reading from Rep. Sessions's Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Sessions), Moran states, "The ACLU gives Sessions 7 out of 100 on Civil Rights."

Reading down Sessions's Wikipedia, "He favors repealing the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which would end birthright citizenship." Moran, a Texas attorney, points out that would reverse key American judicial decisions like "Brown v. Board of Education." The 14th Amendment is literally why Abraham Lincoln fought the American Civil War. It provided citizenship rights and equal protection to the former slaves.

Moran, who voted Republican in the primary, pointed out that in relationship to Lincoln's Republican Party, Pete Sessions would be a member of the failed Confederacy. Asked by an attendee why Sessions has never been called out on these concerns, Moran replied "He's never had to really run. Collin Allred is the first viable challenger Sessions has had in several election cycles. I'm as guilty as anyone that we've let this evil gain power in our own backyard."

Go to https://votesmart.org/, search Pete Sessions and help get out the facts. "It is imperative that all District 32 residents know that their current Representative is publicly proud of his opposition to a key element of our U.S. Constitution, that we are all to be treated as equal under the law," says Moran.

TCIA's membership & followers are split almost equal among Democrats and Republicans, with several self-proclaimed Libertarians and a surprising number of new people coming in who have not voted until this election.

About Texas Cannabis Industry Association

Texas Cannabis Industry Association promotes and works to ensure the favorable social, economic and legal environment necessary for a legitimate & responsible cannabis industry in Texas. We serve as the voice of the industry, devoted to providing resources and support to legal cannabis businesses in the state.

We are founded on three pillars: Mentorship. Advocacy. Education.

SOURCE Texas Cannabis Industry AssociationLONDON, Sept. 25, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Download the full report: https://www.reportbuyer.com/product/5568376

The global glycomics/glycobiology market size is expected to reach USD 2.1 billion by 2025, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc. It is anticipated to expand at a CAGR of 14.4% over the forecast period. Rising focus on glycomics and proteomics research is driving the market. Huge investments have also enabled academic researchers to develop new glycobiology tools. This is a high-impact rendering driver for the market. As per many researchers, study on glycans helps understand biological processes more comprehensively, without specializing in glycobiology.



According to the 2017 BDO Biotech Briefing, the average R&D expenditure of mid-sized biotech companies has increased by around 18% from USD 65.9 million to USD 80.6 million during the span of 2015 to 2016. Growing drug discovery and development are leading to an increase in R&D investments by biotech companies. Thus, the need for glycomics research techniques to conduct comprehensive glycomes study is constantly growing.



Rise in number of initiatives being undertaken by the government to increase funding for research has led to the high need for glycomics techniques.For instance, the Australian government invested around USD 10 billion in scientific research and innovations for the period 2016 to 2017.



The Irish Government also announced a USD 5.6 billion spending program in 2015 aimed at increasing the number of scientific research activities from 25,000 to 40,000 in the next 5 years. Such funding initiatives are expected to enhance demand for glycomics research techniques in near future.



Key players are also undertaking extensive R&D initiatives to develop new and technologically advanced products. For instance, in 2016, ProZyme, Inc. launched Gly-Q Glycan Analysis System, an integrated platform that enables user-friendly and high-throughput glycoanalysis. In 2018, Shimadzu Corporation collaborated with PREMIER Biosoft, a global player in bioinformatics solutions, with an aim to introduce its LCMS-9030 Quadrupole Time of Flight (Q-TOF) mass spectrometry system for advance glycomics and lipidomics data research analysis.



Further key findings from the report suggest:

 Enzymes was the fastest growing product segment of the glycomics/glycobiology market in 2017, due to repetitive purchase and rising application in research and diagnostics

 In application segment, drug discovery and development accounted for the largest revenue share in 2017, owing to high focus on novel drug development and demand for personalized medicines

 North America is anticipated to continue to lead the global market during the forecast period owing to existence of large number of research laboratories and pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies

 Europe is expected to expand at the highest CAGR during the forecast period due to availability of advanced infrastructure coupled with rising number of pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies

 Some of the major market players include Danaher; ProZyme; Shimadzu Corporation; Agilent Technologies; Bruker; Merck KGaA; Takara Bio, Inc.; New England Biolabs; ThermoFisher Scientific, Inc.; and Waters Corporation.



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SINGAPORE, Sept. 25, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The 11th Singapore International Energy Week (SIEW) will bring together distinguished global energy leaders to share insights and perspectives on the theme, "Transforming Energy: Invest, Innovate, Integrate" from 29 October to 2 November 2018. Mr Chan Chun Sing, Singapore's Minister for Trade and Industry will deliver the SIEW Opening Remarks. The SIEW Opening Keynote Address will feature Dr Fatih Birol, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA) and John Abbott, Downstream Director and Member of the Executive Committee at Shell, who will discuss the investments, innovation and integration needed for a more resilient energy future.

For the first time, the 36th ASEAN Ministers on Energy Meeting (AMEM) and Associated Meetings will be held together with the 11th SIEW. Delegates can look forward to strategic discussions with policy makers and senior representatives from the industry and international organisations including:

Dr Koh Poh Koon , Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Trade and Industry, Singapore

, Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Trade and Industry, H.E. Suy Sem , Minister of Mines and Energy, Cambodia

, Minister of Mines and Energy, H.E. U Win Khaing, Union Minister for Electricity and Energy, Myanmar

H.E. Alfonso Cusi , Secretary of Energy, The Philippines

, Secretary of Energy, H.E. Dr Siri Jirapongphan , Minister of Energy, Thailand

, Minister of Energy, H.E. Dr Arcandra Tahar, Vice-Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources, Indonesia

H.E. Li Fanrong, Vice-Administrator, National Energy Administration, China

Dato Lim Jock Hoi , Secretary-General, ASEAN

, Secretary-General, ASEAN Adnan Z. Amin , Director-General, International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA)

, Director-General, International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) Liu Zehong, Executive Vice President, State Grid Corporation of China

Bambang Susantono, Vice-President, Knowledge Management and Sustainable Development, Asian Development Bank (ADB)

Dr D.J. Pandian , Vice President and Chief Investment Officer, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB)

, Vice President and Chief Investment Officer, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) Philippe Monloubou, Chairman of the Management Board, Enedis

Martin J. Houston , Vice-Chairman, Tellurian

, Vice-Chairman, Tellurian Yuji Kakimi , President, JERA

, President, JERA Sharbini Suhaili, Group CEO, Sarawak Energy

Piyush Gupta , CEO and Director, DBS Group

, CEO and Director, DBS Group Didier Holleaux, Executive Vice President, ENGIE

Ditlev Engel , CEO, DNV GL-Energy

, CEO, DNV GL-Energy Tim Holt , CEO, Power Generation Services, Siemens

, CEO, Power Generation Services, Siemens Wouter Van Wersch , President & CEO of GE Asia Pacific and Vice-President, General Electric

, President & CEO of GE Asia Pacific and Vice-President, General Electric Kazuhisa Yano , Chief Asia Representative, Osaka Gas

Other high-level discussions at SIEW 2018 include the 2nd Singapore-IEA Forum, SIEW Thinktank Roundtables, and SIEW Energy Insights. SIEW key partner events, Asia Clean Energy Summit (ACES), Asian Downstream Summit (ADS) and Gas Asia Summit (GAS) will also return this year, featuring discussions on clean energy, refining & petrochemicals, and gas & LNG respectively.

Register at www.siew.sg before 30 September 2018 to enjoy early bird discounts of up to S$300. SIEW 2018 will be held from 29 October 2018 to 2 November 2018 at the Sands Expo and Convention Centre, Marina Bay Sands, Singapore.

About Singapore International Energy Week (SIEW)

In its 11th edition, the Singapore International Energy Week (SIEW) is a premier platform in Asia for energy insights, partnerships and dialogues, which brings together the world's leading conferences, exhibitions and roundtables in one week, one location. SIEW enriches the global energy conversation by convening political, business, academic and energy industry thought-leaders to define and advance the world's leading energy challenges, solutions and actions across the energy spectrum of oil & gas, clean and renewable energy, and energy infrastructure financing. Please visit www.siew.sg for further information.

About the Energy Market Authority (EMA)

The Energy Market Authority (EMA) is a statutory board under the Ministry of Trade and Industry. Our main goals are to ensure a reliable and secure energy supply, promote effective competition in the energy market and develop a dynamic energy sector in Singapore. Through our work, we seek to forge a progressive energy landscape for sustained growth. Please visit www.ema.gov.sg for more information.

For media queries, please contact:

Ms Chiu Mei Ji Ms Linette Ong / Ms Vivian Low Energy Market Authority Edelman for Singapore International Energy Week 2018 Tel: +65 6376 7876 Tel: +65 6494 1589 / +65 6347 2336 Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected]

[email protected]

SOURCE Energy Market AuthorityOAK BROOK, Ill., Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- TreeHouse Foods, Inc. (NYSE: THS) will host an audio Webcast of its third quarter earnings results conference call on Thursday, November 1, 2018 at 9:00 a.m. EDT. Steve Oakland, Chief Executive Officer and President, and Matthew Foulston, EVP and Chief Financial Officer, will discuss the results for the third quarter and the outlook for the balance of 2018. An earnings release will be issued before the market opens on the same date. The Webcast will be accessible by visiting http://www.treehousefoods.com and by clicking on "Investor Relations," "Investor Overview."

In order to listen to the Webcast, users will need to have installed either Real Player or Windows Media Player software, which can be detected and downloaded by visiting the site. A Webcast replay will be available for one year following the event within the "Investor Relations," "Earnings Call Archives" section of the Company's website.

ABOUT TREEHOUSE FOODS

TreeHouse Foods, Inc. is a manufacturer of packaged foods and beverages with over 40 manufacturing facilities across the United States, Canada, and Italy that focuses primarily on private label products for both retail grocery and food away from home customers. We manufacture shelf stable, refrigerated, frozen and fresh products, including beverages and beverage enhancers (single serve beverages, coffees, teas, creamers, powdered beverages, and smoothies); meals (cereal, pasta, macaroni and cheese, and side dishes); retail bakery (refrigerated and frozen dough, cookies, and crackers); condiments (pourable and spoonable dressing, dips, pickles, and sauces) and healthy snacks (nuts, trail mix, bars, dried fruits, and vegetables). We have a comprehensive offering of packaging formats and flavor profiles, and we also offer natural, organic, and preservative free ingredients in many categories. Our strategy is to be the leading supplier of private label food and beverage products by providing the best balance of quality and cost to our customers.

Additional information, including TreeHouse's most recent statements on Forms 10-Q and 10-K, may be found at TreeHouse's website, http://www.treehousefoods.com.

SOURCE TreeHouse Foods, Inc.

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Digital video viewing has become omnipresent among European audiences, driven by the integration of mobile devices and social media platforms into daily lives. Among nearly 44 millions of viewers in the UK, almost two thirds watch video content on mobile and the average time spent is about an hour per day. Showing a market value of over 64 billion pounds, the UK digital media industry is expected to continue growing at around seven percent annually, validating the demand for quality video content and the urgent needs for effective video creation tools that content creators can leverage to keep up with the consumer demand.

With years of experience driving innovations and digital revenue for the country's leading media business and agencies, including GroupM, Omnicom, UM and IPG, and monetization solution platforms, including Microsoft Advertising and Playbuzz, Jane has witnessed first hand how video has transformed the digital space and the challenges publishers and brands face in striving to effectively produce compelling video content.

Jane elaborates: "many publishers and brands have realized the importance of video storytelling, but are restricted by limited resources, time constraints, and lack of video talent. The Wibbitz platform eliminates the creative bottlenecks in their daily workflow and put video production in the hands of more people. The powerful automation paired with a full spectrum of customization capabilities ensures an unprecedented scale of video while still meeting quality standards. I'm extremely excited to be part of the Wibbitz team and introduce our sure-fire video solution to the UK's thriving market."

"Our vision has always been to empower more storytellers in the world to tell their stories through video, and to break the creation barriers of region, language, and culture. Jane's expertise in digital media and her profound understanding of visual storytelling are in perfect alignment with the Wibbitz vision. We are thrilled to have her lead the development of our new branch in the UK and further growth in the European market," said Zohar Dayan, CEO and Co-founder of Wibbitz. "The new office will join our New York and Paris business teams in bringing the Wibbitz platform to more publishers and brands, helping to improve the quality of their content offerings and support their business growth."

Visit www.wibbitz.com/jobs for open positions in the Wibbitz UK office.

Media Contact:

Hilary Kay

Wibbitz

[email protected]

+1 925-518-9297

About Wibbitz

Wibbitz is an automated video creation platform that empowers professional storytellers at the world's leading publishers and brands. The platform leverages patented AI technology to simplify video production processes, helping content creators quickly and easily produce beautiful videos for every platform and channel. Creators have access to personalized video templates, intuitive editing tools, a team of in-house experts, and millions of licensed photos, videos, and soundtracks to ensure that each video captures their unique brand voice. Wibbitz supports video creation for over 600 partners, including Bloomberg, Reuters, Conde Nast, Hearst, TripAdvisor, and Birchbox. Wibbitz was founded in 2011 and has offices in New York City, Tel Aviv, Paris, and London. For more information, visit www.wibbitz.com and follow @wibbitz .

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Mumbai, Sep 26 : After showcasing her acting skills in films like "Akira" and "Fitoor", actress Teena Singh will now essay an important role in Viu's upcoming web show titled "13 Mussoorie".

As the name suggests, the series has been shot in Mussoorie, the queen of hill stations.

Born and brought up in Ludhiana, Teena has often visited Mussoorie during her childhood as the place is very close to her home town. So, through this show, her childhood memories got revived.

Teena said in a statement: "We actors were lucky enough to shoot at real-time location such as Mussorie. It is a beautiful place and goes without saying - a dreamland to shoot at. I have always been fond of this hill station right since childhood.

"Mussoorie was our summer vacation spot. It was a scenic five hours drive to the city and I used to thoroughly enjoy my stay out there. I was nostalgic shooting there. It was like walking down the memory lane."

Apart from Teena, the show will feature actors Ashwini Koul and Shriya Pilgaonkar. "13 Mussoorie" will air on October 5.United Nations, Sep 26 : Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Tuesday blasted the US-led sanctions against his country as "economic terrorism".

"World security is under threat by some states' recklessness and disregard of international values and institutions," Rouhani made the remarks at the ongoing General Debate of the 73rd UN General Assembly, Xinhua reported.

"Confronting multilateralism is not a sign of strength. Rather, it is a symptom of the weakness of the intellect. It betrays an inability in understanding a complex and interconnected world," he said.

Rouhani lashed out at US President Donald Trump in his speech, saying he is seeking an "overthrow" of the Iranian leadership.

Speaking of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), known commonly as the Iran nuclear deal or Iran deal, Rouhani said that "we are pleased that the international community did not acquiesce to the US illegal and unilateral withdrawal from that agreement."

President Trump called on the rest of the world to isolate Iran and said a US campaign of "economic pressure" would turn back "Iran's aggression," in his second address to the UN General Assembly.

At last year's General Debate, Trump criticized the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, calling it "one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into."

Iran deal is an agreement on the nuclear programme of Iran reached in Vienna on July 14, 2015 between Iran, the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council - China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, United States - plus Germany).

In May, US President Trump announced Washington's withdrawal from the landmark Iranian nuclear deal. Since then, the Trump administration has slapped a number of sanctions on Iran while vowing to apply more.United Nations, Sep 26 : French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday, as much anticipated, strongly defended multilateralism and the Paris Agreement on climate change at the ongoing General Debate of the 73rd UN General Assembly.

"I do not accept the erosion of multilateralism and don't accept our history unraveling," Macron said. "Our children are watching."

The French President urged "dialogue and multilateralism" to resolve the world's crises in his speech, Xinhua news agency reported.

Unilateralism will not work to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as well, he said, while touching upon some of the hot issues across the world.

"What can resolve the crisis between Israel and Palestine? Not unilateral initiatives, nor trampling on the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people to legitimate peace," he noted.

Without multilateralism, Macron said, global wars would return. He cautioned that "nationalism always leads to defeat."

When talking about the Paris Agreement on climate change, the president said: "We will no longer sign commercial agreements with powers that do not respect the Paris accord."San Francisco, Sep 26 : Twitter has announced to update its "hateful conduct" policy to include content that "dehumanises others" based on their membership in an identifiable group, even when the material does not include a direct target.

For the last three months, the micro-blogging platform has been developing a new policy to address dehumanising language that makes someone less than human, Twitter said late on Tuesday.

"Some of this content falls within our hateful conduct policy (which prohibits the promotion of violence against or direct attacks or threats against other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, religious affiliation, age, disability or serious disease).

"But there are still Tweets many people consider to be abusive, even when they do not break our rules.

"Better addressing this gap is part of our work to serve a healthy public conversation," Vijaya Gadde and Del Harvey from Twitter said in a blog post.

Many scholars have already examined the relationship between dehumanisation and violence.

Twitter is now asking its 336 million users to give feedback on this to ensure how this policy may impact different communities and cultures.

"For languages not represented on our platform, our policy team is working closely with local non-governmental organisations and policy makers to ensure their perspectives are captured," saod the blog post.

The users would have time till October 9 to provide Twitter with feedback on the new policy.

"We're experimenting with a new way to write and roll-out policy and rules. Let us know what you think," tweeted CEO Jack Dorsey.Shimla, Sep 26 : Over 1,500 tourists are still stranded in snow-marooned Lahaul-Spiti district of Himachal Pradesh, officials said on Wednesday adding that the evacuation is on but it might take days.

Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur has instructed officials to evacuate those stranded on a priority basis, a statement said.

A total of 300 people were evacuated by Tuesday evening most of whom were faculty and students from IITs Mandi, Roorkee, Guwahati and Mumbai and some foreigners.

On Wednesday as the weather cleared, the state government and the Indian Air Force (IAF) stepped up their efforts to airlift tourists stranded for the past four days.

"Choppers of the Indian Air Force and the state government are on the job to airlift those stranded. Most of them will be brought to Kullu town," Kullu Deputy Commissioner Yunus Khan told IANS.

The IAF has deployed three helicopters, while the state is using the Chief Minister's official chopper.

Early snowfall in higher reaches, cloud burst and heavy rains devastated large parts of the state from September 22 to 24. Kullu and Lahaul-Spiti were the worst affected districts.

Heavy snowfall on the Rohtang Pass has cut off the Lahaul and Spiti Valleys affecting a large number of tourists who went to Leh and Lahaul. They have been stranded at number of isolated locations, the Broader Roads Organisation (BRO) said.

The BRO, a wing of the Defence Ministry has started clearing the snow from various roads on a war footing. Some of the stretches had over eight feet of snow.

From the Project Rohtang Tunnel, a team under leadership of Major Shashi Chauhan and Captain Aashish Singla along with machinery have been deployed to clear road axis up to Sissu and Koksar in the Lahaul Valley to supplement efforts of the the BRO.

The BRO is also providing medical aid and refreshment to rescued people at the Project Rohtang Tunnel.United Nations, Sep 26 : United Nations Special Representative for International Migration, Louise Arbour, has said the Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, to be held in December in Marrakech, Morocco, would be a crucial inter-governmental conference.

During a meeting in New York with Moroccan Foreign Affairs Minister Nasser Bourita, she also commended Morocco's leadership on migration issues, under the leadership of King Mohammed VI, who was appointed at the 28th AU Summit as Leader of the African Union on the Question of Migration.

Arbour said the talks with the Moroccan official were an opportunity to discuss preparations for the international conference for the formal adoption of the Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, to be held on December 10-11.

She said the conference will be "the most important inter-governmental conference for the UN this year, as it will be held at the highest level and will therefore bring together heads of state and government as well as foreign ministers".

She also discussed the content of the Global Compact on migration, which is a testimony to the "strength" of multilateralism, she said, stressing that the Marrakech conference will see the launch of innovative partnerships and the implementation of the Global Compact itself.Mumbai, Sep 26 : Superstar Shah Rukh Khan has praised producer Sohum Shah's dark fantasy "Tumbbad" and called it an "extremely well-crafted film".

Shah Rukh, who saw the trailer of the film, tweeted on Tuesday night: "Saw bits of this extremely well-crafted film. A genre we normally don't push boundaries in. Wishing my friends the best with this venture and hope you all watch it and enjoy it. 'Tumbbad' the trailer."

Directed by Rahi Anil Barve and Adesh Prasad, "Tumbbad" tells the tale of 19th-century India, where a scheming man becomes obsessed with finding the mythical treasure of his ancestors.

"Tumbbad" premiered in the Critics' Week section of the 75th Venice International Film Festival, becoming the first Indian film to be screened there.

The film is an Eros International and Aanand L Rai's presentation and a Little Town Films production in association with Colour a Yellow Productions.

"Tumbbad" is set to release on October 12.United Nations, Sep 26 : Ministers from India, Brazil, Germany and Japan have expressed concern that although it has been almost 40 years since Security Council reform was put on the General Assembly agenda, it is still languishing.

The Ministers from the four countries known as G-4 convened on Tuesday at the Indian Mission to the UN for a meeting hosted by External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj to review the reform progress.

In a joint statement after the meeting, they said that they discussed "pathways to reform" the Council and tasked their diplomats "to consider the way forward to advance the reform" process known as Intergovernmental Negotiations (IGN).

The four countries of the G-4 advocate for Council reform and mutually support each other for a permanent seat on an expanded Council.

The other foreign ministers at the meeting were Aloysio Nunes Ferreira of Brazil, Heiko Maas of Germany and Taro Kono of Japan.

Looking back at the timeline of the reform movement, they noted that at the 2005 World Summit all the heads of state and government had unanimously supported the "early reform" of the Council. But despite an overwhelming majority of UN members supporting reform, the IGN had not produced substantive progress over the 10 years since its launch in 2009.

They "reaffirmed the need for an early reform of the Council including the expansion of both permanent and non-permanent categories of membership to enhance its legitimacy, effectiveness and representativeness" in order to "safeguard the legitimacy and credibility of this UN organ which deals with international peace and security", the statement said.

Although the majority of UN members support the reform, the IGN has not been able to produce even a negotiating text that would form the basis of discussion because of opposition from some countries like Pakistan and Italy that insist there should be a consensus on reforms before the agenda document could be framed.

The expansion of the permanent seats on the Council is of importance to African nations as none of them have that status on the body that intervenes the most in their continent.

The last General Assembly rolled over Council reforms to the current one - as happened over the years.

(Arul Louis can be reached at arul.l@ians.in and followed on Twitter at @arulouis)San Francisco, Sep 26 : Google is tweaking its ban on cryptocurrency-related advertisements it put in place earlier this year, planning to allow regulated cryptocurrency exchanges to buy ads in the US and Japan, the media reported.

Google in March announced a ban on advertisements for cryptocurrencies and other "speculative financial products" across its ad platforms.

"The Internet giant's updated policy applies to advertisers all over the world and it will go into effect next month," CNBC reported on Tuesday.

However, the ads can only run in the US and Japan, and interested parties will need to apply for certification to serve ads in each country individually, the report added.

"Google's parent company Alphabet gets roughly 86 per cent of its total revenue from advertising. The company booked more than $54 billion in ad revenue in the first half of 2018," said the report.

Facebook imposed a similar ban in January, but has subsequently lifted some restrictions.

After Facebook and Google, Microsoft also removed advertisements showing cryptocurrencies and related products from its Bing search engine.New Delhi, Sep 26 : In a landmark judgement, the Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the legality of Aadhaar restricting it to disbursement of social benefits and junking its requirement for cell phones and bank accounts.

In a majority judgement, a five-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra held that Aadhaar would be voluntary and not mandatory with an option to exit.

The bench also said no to creation of metadata and making it accessible to individuals and corporate entities.

In a minority judgement, Justice D.Y. Chandrachud held that passing the Aadhaar law as money bill was a fraud on the Constitution because it was not a money bill.

He also observed there was a risk of surveillance of people on the basis of data collected under Aadhaar scheme and that the data could be misused.

The court struck down Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act which allows private entities to demand Aadhaar to access their services.

The court also said that as of today "we do not find anything in Aadhaar Act which violates right to privacy of individual citizen".

The judgement, read out by Justice A.K. Sikri on behalf of the bench, also struck down the provision in Aadhaar law allowing the sharing of Aadhaar data, citing grounds of national security.

The judges who gave the majority ruling were A.M. Khanwilkar, Ashok Bhushan, Misra and Sikri who approved the passage of Aadhaar law as money bill.

"We are of the view that there are sufficient safeguard to protect data collected under Aadhaar scheme," the judgement said.

Linking of Aadhaar to issuing mobile phone connections and opening bank accounts was unconstitutional, the court held.

The majority of the bench held that Aadhaar was valid for linking with Income Tax returns.

The verdict said that it was better to be unique than the best because being the "best makes you number one, but being unique makes you the only one.

"Uniqueness is the fundamental difference between Aadhaar and other identity proofs. There is a fundamental difference between Aadhaar and other identity proof as Aadhaar cannot be duplicated and it is a unique identification," it said.

The judgement said that UIDAI was established as a statutory body, providing for authentication and all residents were eligible to get Aadhaar which cannot be reassigned to anyone.

"Minimal demographic and biometric data of citizens are collected by UIDAI for Aadhaar enrolment. We are of the view that there are sufficient safeguard to protect data collected under Aadhaar scheme."

The court said that Aadhaar was meant to give dignity to marginalised sections. However, authentication of data through Aadhaar cannot be stored for more than six months.

It said Aadhaar was meant to help benefits reach marginalised sections and it took into account the dignity of people not only from the personal but also the community point of view.

"No person will be denied benefits under social welfare scheme because of failure of authentication through Aadhaar," the court said.

"We direct the government to ensure that illegal migrants are not issued Aadhaar to get benefits of social welfare schemes."

The court said that institutions like the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and University Grants Commission (UGC) cannot make Aadhaar mandatory.

"Aadhaar for school education would not be necessary because it is neither welfare nor subsidy," the court said, holding that Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan does not require Aadhaar.Kabul, Sep 26 : The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said on Wednesday that 12 civilians, including 10 minors, were killed in an airstrike in the central province of Maidan Wardak but the Afghan government dismissed the claim.

The airstrike was conducted by pro-government forces in Jaghatu district on Sunday and according to UNAMA it killed 12 people from the same family, mostly women and children, aged between six and 15, reports Efe.

"Preliminary findings from the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan indicate that 12 civilians were killed," the Mission said in a statement.

The statement comes after the Mission had expressed concerns over a growing number of civilian casualties in airstrikes in the country.

The UN mission is reviewing reports of civilian deaths on the ground "from a number of alleged airstrikes in other parts of the country", said the statement.

However, a provincial government spokesperson, Rahim Mangal, denied the claims. "During the operation no civilian casualties occurred," Mangal told EFE.

"The claims made on social media regarding civilian casualties are false and are the work of anti-government elements to create distance between the people and the government," he added.

Mangal maintained that in the operation by the security forces 42 Taliban militants were killed and another 30 were wounded.

A record number of 1,692 civilians were killed in the first six months of 2018, mostly due to improvised explosive devices, according to latest data by UNAMA.Bangkok, Sep 26 : North Korea's state media on Wednesday demanded that Japan pay compensation for its colonization of Korea between 1910 and 1945, Yonhap news agency reported.

Japan would not be able to live confidently in the international community without repenting, apologizing and paying compensation for its wrongdoing, said the Rodong Sinmun newspaper, which is run by North Korea's ruling Worker's Party, reports Efe.

"Our people have not forgotten the past sin committed by Japan even for a moment," it added.

Talk of a summit between Japan and North Korea has increased since Pyongyang's summits with Washington and Seoul.

North Korean state media has insisted that Japan first make amends for the past.

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has indicated he would be ready to meet North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un concerning the fate of Japanese kidnapped by Pyongyang to teach Japanese to North Korean spies.New Delhi, Sep 26 : Two children and a 40-year-old woman died when a four-storey building collapsed here early on Wednesday, police said. Many people are still feared trapped in the rubble.

According to the Deep Chand Bandhu Hospital, seven others were seriously injured.

The building in Ashok Vihar was about two decades old and its condition had deteriorated.

The National Disaster Response Force and Delhi Fire Service were engaged in rescue work.Milan, Sep 26 : West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday welcomed the Supreme Court judgement upholding its validity but restricting it to disbursement of social benefits, saying it vindicates her stand.

"People should have some rights. If bank and mobile phones are linked to Aadhaar card then everything about the person will come into public domain. That this logic is correct and irrefutable has been proved today," Banerjee told the media here.

"We don't compromise or raise questions on government security or internal security. But if my account number becomes public, I may be cheated. This has already happened in ATM transactions," said Banerjee, who is visiting Italy in a bid to rope in investment for her state.

Similarly, if the mobile phone number is linked to Aadhaar, "then the messages you send, or the calls you make, all information gets leaked".

Calling the verdict a victory of the people, she said she has neither linked her bank account nor her mobile number to Aadhaar and have also asked people not to do so.

In a majority judgment, a five-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra held that Aadhaar would be voluntary and not mandatory with an option to exit.Chennai, Sep 26 : The Supreme Court order on Wednesday striking down the compulsory linking of Aadhaar card to bank accounts is welcome, said a top leader of the All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA).

AIBEA General Secretary C.H. Venkatachalam also said that banks should stop issuing Aadhaar cards as it was not a banking activity.

"The Supreme Court order making it unconstitutional the compulsory linking of Aadhaar cards with bank accounts is welcome," he said.

"As far as banks are concerned, an Aadhaar card is one more card for identification of a person while opening an account. No other purpose is served beyond that," Venkatachalam told IANS.

"The compulsory linking has resulted in lots of frauds by third party agents who canvas for loans. There are instances where with the same Aadhaar card number several loan accounts were created by the loan processing agents of banks to meet their targets," he said.

He said designated bank branches were issuing Aadhaar cards which should be stopped as it was in no way connected to banking activity.Kolkata, Sep 26 : State-run wagons manufacturer Braithwaite & Co. is expecting to clock a revenue of Rs 250-300 crore and a net profit of Rs 10 crore in the current financial year, an official said on Wednesday.

"The company's turnover was on average Rs 120-130 crore annually for the last 4-5 years. We are hoping to touch Rs 250-300 crore by this fiscal and projecting a net profit of Rs 10 crore," company's Chairman and Managing Director Yatish Kumar said.

The company posted a net profit of Rs 3 crore in the last financial year, he said.

The company, which is manufacturing wagons, cranes, foundry products, heavy structural for bridges and engineering applications, has been focusing on wagons repairing, he said.

The engineering company currently has an order book of Rs 600 crore, of which, wagons manufacturing order constitutes about Rs 400 crore, wagon repairing order Rs 100 crore and another Rs 100 crore of miscellaneous jobs, Kumar said.

"Demand for repairing of wagons has been increasing and sometimes they require immediate repairing. In terms of repairing wagons, we have jumped from 50 wagons a month to 200 monthly in the last two months.

"Now, we are progressing further to 350 wagons repairing this month," he said on the sidelines of Manufacturing Excellence organised by Confederation of Indian Industry here.

The city-based company is also extending its repairing services to on-site depots and bagged an order from East-Central Railway for repairing 1,000 wagons at its Mughalsarai depots, he said, adding that 350 wagons of the order have already been repaired.

The manufacturing company is expecting repairing orders from different divisions of Railways and is in discussions with them (different railway division) for long-term repairing contracts, he said.

In terms of manufacturing, Kumar said it was operating at 40 wagons a month and of late, it was able to expand it to 80 wagons a month though it has a capacity of manufacturing 200 wagons per month.

He said the company, under the Ministry of Railways, is looking to execute all the pending orders soon and is also eyeing container wagons manufacturing.New Delhi, Sep 26 : Terming the Supreme Court verdict on Aadhaar a breath of fresh air for Indian citizens, experts on Wednesday said a completely new regime has to be put in place to protect the Aadhaar data that is lying with private companies.

Stating that private entities or individuals cannot avail Aadhaar data to provide consumer services, the apex court struck down Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act which allowed sharing of data with private entities.

It means that telecom companies, e-commerce firms and private banks cannot ask for biometric and other data from consumers to provide their services.

"The Aadhaar verdict is a huge sigh of relief for citizens. The humongous task now is to ensure that the data that is already with private companies is not misused or sold," Pavan Duggal, the nation's leading cyber law expert, told IANS.

"The data now needs to be dismantled but the onus is to make sure companies do not make copies of the data and use it to monetise their operations. The big question is which agency will audit this humongous task," added Duggal, also a leading Supreme Court lawyer.

The apex court also said that Aadhaar data can't be shared with security agencies in the name of upholding national security and individuals too can complain about theft of their Aadhaar data.

"Private companies played a big gamble of integrating Aaddhar data with their systems wherein they spent a lot of money. The whole exercise is now futile and the country now needs a fresh Aadhaar ecosystem," Duggal noted.

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), said Duggal, had already lodged more than 50 FIRs against private companies for Aadhaar data breach.

"Today's judgment as read out in court signals massive changes in the Aadhaar project and the Act. The legitimacy of its stated purposes is destroyed. Even the majority signals significant concern by reading down portions," tweeted New Delhi-based lawyer Apar Gupta.

Although experts are yet to read the verdict in fine print, they said the Supreme Court's directive to Centre to bring a robust data protection law is the need of the hour.

"The Aadhaar data is saved in data centres outside the boundaries and law of our country. There is an urgent need for addressing newly emerging legal and cyber security challenges concerning Aadhaar ecosystem on an urgent basis," Duggal said.

The Supreme Court, in a landmark judgment last year, declared privacy a fundamental right. This set the government in motion to take steps to bring a new data protection legislation for the country.

The Justice B.N. Srikrishna Committee submitted the Personal Data Protection Bill 2018 in July, suggesting amendments to the Aadhaar Act to provide for imposition of penalties on data fiduciaries and compensations to data principals for violations of the data protection law.

The 213-page report suggested amendments to the Aadhaar Act from a data protection perspective.

According to Duggal, "not just cosmetic changes, there is an urgent need for addressing newly emerging legal and cyber security challenges concerning Aadhaar ecosystem on an urgent basis".

Supratim Chakraborty, Associate Partner at law firm Khaitan & Co, said the verdict that private parties cannot have access to individuals' data was a double-edged thing.

"From a socialistic perspective and individualistic perspective, you need to have proper safeguards as to how your information is being used by a private party.

"However, from a business perspective, it could increase their expenses if they need to collect too much information one by one from an individual. It compels us to ponder whether there is a correct way to do business while protecting the privacy of users," Chakraborty told IANS.

In Europe, as part of the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that came into force from May 25, EU citizens at any point may object to an organisation's handling of their personal data.

The regulation specifically names "direct marketing and profiling" as personal data uses to which individuals may object.

According to Duggal, India should not cut-paste any other country's law and must strive for data localisation.

"There is a need for more comprehensive legal frameworks to protect and preserve data and privacy of individual Aadhaar account holders in specific and the Aadhaar ecosystem stakeholders in general," Duggal noted.New Delhi, Sep 26 : Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday hailed the Supreme Court judgement junking the requirement of Aadhaar for cell phone and banking services and attacked the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) saying it was a "tool of surveillance" for them.

"For Congress, Aadhaar was an instrument of empowerment. For the BJP, Aadhaar is a tool of oppression and surveillance. Thank you Supreme Court for supporting the Congress vision and protecting India," Gandhi tweeted.

His remarks came soon after the apex court upheld the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar document with riders.Patna, Sep 26 : Around 75 students of a government school on an educational trip to Patna were forced to spend the night on a pavement near the zoo here after they could not return home as their vehicle developed a fault, officials said on Wednesday.

An inquiry has been ordered into the matter, said R.K. Mahajan, the Principal Secretary in the Education Department.

The students of the government middle school in a village in East Champaran district arrived in Patna to visit the Sanjay Gandhi Zoological Park and other places.

"After the trip was over, their bus driver told their teachers that the vehicle had developed a problem and expressed his inability to drive it on Tuesday night. With no other option, the students were asked to sleep on the pavement," an official said.

The students then forced spent the night under the open skies on a pavement off Bailley Road.Wayanad (Kerala) : Wayanad (Kerala) Sep 26 (IANS) Eight cows have been handed over to as many farmers in the hilly district of Wayanad in north Kerala under the 'donate a cow' campaign in the wake of torrential rains and consequent devastation in the state in the monsoon season.

District authorities had launched an online campaign, after which people expressed their willingness to donate money to buy cows for those who had lost their cattle during the Kerala floods.

The 'donate a cow' campaign was launched under the leadership of Sub-Collector M.S.K. Umesh and Agriculture Officer V.S. Harsha.

According to official estimates, 223 cows had died during the heavy rains recorded between May and mid-August in the district.

Mary Kurian, who received a cow bought with the money pooled in by a group of students of the state-run Veterinary College on Wednesday, said: "It is something out of the blue. I never ever thought that I will get this gift. I am really indebted to those who helped me."

She had lost five of her cows in the floods.

Umesh told the media that their campaign had received good public response and helped collect Rs four lakh.

"We appeal to the people to join our efforts... we assure that their money will reach the most appropriate and needy person," said Umesh.

He said those willing to help can contact them or mail to vforwayand@gmail.com.New Delhi, Sep 26 : A 65-year-old security guard was on Wednesday stabbed to death here when he was on his routine duty, police said.

Deputy Commissioner of Police Vijay Kumar said Ram Bahadur of Humayunpur in south Delhi used to work as a guard in that very area.

"He was stabbed in his neck by someone unknown person around 2.40 a.m when he was relaxing in an auto-rickshaw parked there."

"Ram Bahadur somehow reached his home, from where he was taken to a hospital by his son, but he couldn't survive," the officer said.

The police are scanning the footage of the nearby CCTVs to get clues about the killer.Chennai, Sep 26 : The Odisha government on Wednesday organised an investors' meet here ahead of the Make in Odisha Conclave scheduled to be held in November.

Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik met several industry captains during the roadshow organised in association with its industries partner Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI).

MAMR Muthiah, Managing Director, Chettinad Group, P.R. Venketrama Raja, Chairman, Ramco Group, R. Thyagarajan, Chairman, Shriram Group, M.M. Murugappan, Executive Chairman, Murugappa Group, Mallika Srinivasan, Chairman, TAFE and S. Ilanahai, MD, Cetex Petrochemicals participated in the roadshow.

Business leaders from over 350 Tamil Nadu-based companies participated in the roadshow to explore attractive growth opportunities across Odisha's focus sectors.

"I take this opportunity to invite you all to participate in the Make in Odisha Conclave -- our flagship biennial global investors' meet," said the Chief Minister.

"As you are aware, our natural strength lies in being a mineral rich state. During the last 18 years of my government, we have focused on enhancing the production levels of key minerals and value added products. There has been a significant increase in the metal output and today, Odisha is home to major aluminium and steel companies of the country," he added.

The Chief Minister said the port capacity has increased ten times to 190 million metric tonnes at present.

Similarly, power generation has increased more than three-fold and road network has increased over 50 per cent, he said.

He also announced the receipt of 400th investment proposal by GO-SWIFT (Government of Odisha-Single Window Portal for Investor Facilitation and Tracking) in the investors' meet.

The proposal was submitted by Tata Steel Processing and Distribution Limited to set up a manufacturing unit of steel doors and windows with a capacity of 1,80,000 units per annum at Kalinganagar Industrial Complex, Jajpur with a total investment of Rs 92 crore. The project would create employment opportunities for 250 people.

Notably, GO-SWIFT has received the 400 investment proposals within a short span of 10 months reflecting rising investor interest in Odisha.

Patnaik also launched the 36-hour Smart Odisha Hackathon in the run-up to the Make in Odisha Conclave 2018.

He called upon budding entrepreneurs and students to come up with innovative solutions to resolve the pressing challenges of public service delivery as well as those that concern the industry and consumers.

He said that the shortlisted ideas will be implemented as pilot projects and winners will be awarded attractive prizes.

During the meetings with investors, the strategic advantages of Odisha were highlighted: the low cost of doing business, incentives for investors, dedicated sector-specific clusters and over 1.20 lakh acres of land bank available for industrial development.

The industrial infrastructure at National Investment Manufacturing Zone (NIMZ), Kalinganagar, food processing park at Khordha and Chhatabar, textile parks at Ramdaspur and Dhamnagar, aluminium parks at Angul and Jharsuguda and the plastics park at Paradip was presented to the investors.Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley reversed course just hours after he said he would not reveal the name of the prosecutor hired by the GOP to question the woman accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of assault and released a statement saying Rachel Mitchell would be tasked with the job.



Mitchell, a career prosecutor from Maricopa County, Arizona, will be interviewing Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, a professor who accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when they were high school students in suburban Maryland.



Kavanaugh has strenuously denied the claims, saying he was not even present at the party she alleges the assault took place.



"The majority members have followed the bipartisan recommendation to hire as staff counsel for the committee an experienced career sex-crimes prosecutor to question the witnesses at Thursdays hearing," Grassley, R-Iowa, said in a statement released Tuesday night. "The goal is to de-politicize the process and get to the truth, instead of grandstanding and giving senators an opportunity to launch their presidential campaigns. Im very appreciative that Rachel Mitchell has stepped forward to serve in this important and serious role.



"Ms. Mitchell has been recognized in the legal community for her experience and objectivity," Grassley continued. 'I've worked to give Dr. Ford an opportunity to share serious allegations with committee members in any format shed like after learning of the allegations."



Mitchell is on leave as deputy county attorney in Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, and is the division chief of the Special Victims Unit, which deals with sex crimes and family violence.



She has worked as a prosecutor since 1993.



While Republicans plan to let Mitchell do the questioning, they may follow up on answers. Most Democrats have said they plan to do their own questioning during Thursday's hearing.



"I promised Dr. Ford that I would do everything in my power to avoid a repeat of the 'circus' atmosphere in the hearing room that we saw the week of September 4," Grassley said. "I've taken this additional step to have questions asked by expert staff counsel to establish the most fair and respectful treatment of the witnesses possible."



Grassley said Tuesday afternoon he would not release Mitchell's name in order to ensure her safety. The Washington Post reported it would be Mitchell about a half hour before Grassley released his statement.



Even Ford's legal team did not know who the prosecutor would be until the news broke late Tuesday.



Republican senators on the Judiciary Committee have made it no secret they are inclined to believe Kavanaugh's account over Ford.



A vote has been scheduled for Friday, before even hearing the testimony of Ford on Thursday. Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., while a frequent critic of President Donald Trump, agreed with Republican leaders that it's time to move to a vote soon.



"I think the longer this hangs out there, the more problematic that it is," he said. "As soon as the hearing is over, I plan to make known what I'm going to do but again, I go into it with positive feelings about him."

Copyright  2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.Toronto, Sep 26 : Sudden drop in glucose when you are hungry can have a negative impact on your mood, suggests new research.

The researchers wanted to investigate whether chronic, long-term hypoglycemia -- low blood sugar -- is a risk factor for developing depression-like behaviours.

"We found evidence that a change in glucose level can have a lasting effect on mood," said Professor Francesco Leri from University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada.

Published in the journal Psychopharmacology, the study examined the impact of a sudden glucose drop on emotional behaviour by inducing hypoglycemia in rats.

The rats were injected with a glucose metabolism blocker causing them to experience hypoglycemia.

They were then placed in a specific chamber. On a separate occasion, they were injected water and placed in a different chamber.

When given the choice of which chamber to enter, they actively avoided the chamber where they experienced hypoglycemia.

"This type of avoidance behaviour is an expression of stress and anxiety," said Leri.

"The animals are avoiding that chamber because they had a stressful experience there. They don't want to experience it again," she added.

The researchers tested blood levels of the rats after they experienced hypoglycemia and found more corticosterone -- an indicator of physiological stress.

The rats also appeared more sluggish when given the glucose metabolism blocker.

The findings showed that the animals experienced stress and depressed mood when they were hypoglycemic, Leri stated.

"When people think about negative mood states and stress, they think about the psychological factors, not necessarily the metabolic factors. But we found poor eating behaviour can have an impact," lead researcher Thomas Horman from University of Guelph said.Thiruvananthapuram, September 09 : Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala has accused the CPI(M)-led LDF government of accepting kickbacks for sanctioning three breweries and a distillery in the state.

Addressing a presser on Wednesday, Chennithala alleged that the sanction for the breweries and the distillery were given clandestinely. The matter was neither taken up during cabinet meetings nor mentioned in the state assembly or in the annual budget, he said.

Saying that it was for the first time in 17 years that a distillery was being sanctioned in the state, he alleged that the government handed over 10 acres belonging to Kinfra for setting up the distillery.

Alleging graft to the tune of crores of rupees, Chennithala charged that the alleged corrupt deals were struck with the direct knowledge of chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan.

The decision to give sanction to the breweries and the distillery went against the stated abkari policy of the state government, the opposition leader asserted.

Responding to the allegations, CPI state secretary Kanam Rajendran chose to distance himself and his party from the issue.

Mr. Rajendran told reporters that neither he nor the CPI nor its ministers were aware of the sanction given to the three breweries and a distillery. He also said that the allegations levelled against the government by the opposition leader should be looked into.New Delhi, Sep 26 : Leading hospital network for women and children Apollo Cradle on Wednesday unveiled its 'e-Neonatal Intensive Care Unit' (eNICU) with advanced technology to improve neonatal care capabilities in India.

Through the eNICU, Apollo Cradle specialists will now be able to monitor minute details including medication levels, nutrition, feeding pattern, calorie and growth charts of babies, whilst in the hospital and also remotely.

"The eNICU at Apollo Cradle will enable the care of babies that is difficult in most other hospitals. It will help doctors and medical officials monitor each baby from a central location," Anupam Sibal, Group Medical Director, Apollo Hospitals Group, said in a statement.

The real-time monitoring of pre-term babies, with complete digital records will improve clinical outcomes and provide world-class treatment in India.

"The cloud-based system also manages doctor's workflow, nursing workflow and resident doctor handovers," Sibal added.

Apollo Cradle offers maternity, gynaecology, neonatal and in-vitro fertilization (IVF) services in Delhi, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai and Amritsar.Shimla, Sep 26 : More than 650 people, including five foreigners, have been evacuated in the past two days and over 1,000 are still stranded in snow-marooned Lahaul-Spiti district of Himachal Pradesh, officials said on Wednesday.

Three stranded persons, including a pregnant woman from Nepal, have died in the past two days.

On Wednesday, as the weather cleared, the government and the Indian Air Force (IAF) stepped up efforts to airlift tourists stranded for the past four days.

"IAF choppers and the state government are on the job to airlift the stranded. Most have been brought to Manali and Kullu towns," Kullu Deputy Commissioner Yunus Khan, who is supervising the relief and rescue operation, told IANS over telephone.

The IAF has deployed three helicopters while the state is using the Chief Minister's official chopper.

Nine persons, hailing from West Bengal, were airlifted from Stingri and five from the snow-marooned Baralacha Pass (16,020 ft). Five tourists from Norway and Denmark were also rescued.

Most people who got struck at the Baralacha Pass were travelling to and from Manali to Leh in Jammu and Kashmir.

Early snowfall in the higher reaches, cloud burst and heavy rains devastated large parts of the state from September 22 to 24. Kullu and Lahaul-Spiti were the worst affected.

Heavy snowfall on the Rohtang Pass (13,050 ft) has cut off the Lahaul and Spiti Valleys affecting a large number of tourists. They have been stranded at number of isolated locations, the Broader Roads Organisation (BRO) said.

The BRO, a wing of the Defence Ministry, has been clearing the snow from various roads on a war footing. Some stretches had over eight feet of snow.

By Tuesday evening, 457 persons have been rescued from the Lahual Valley to Manali through the under constructed Rohtang tunnel.

The rescued persons include faculty and students from IITs Mandi, Roorkee, Guwahati and Mumbai and some foreigners who went trekking besides locals, a BRO statement said.

Construction of Rohtang tunnel, one of the world's most challenging motorable projects at 3,000 metres above sea level and which will provide all-season connectivity to the landlocked Lahaul Valley from Manali, is on and may be completed by 2020.

The most ambitious and expensive undertaking of its kind, the excavation of the 8.8-km long horseshoe shaped tunnel under the 3,978 metres Rohtang Pass in the Himalayas was completed last October. Now civil engineering work is on.New Delhi, Sep 26 : The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved assistance of Rs 825 crore for re-lining of Sirhind and Rajasthan feeder canal over five years till 2022-23.

The approved cost of re-lining of Sirhind feeder canal is Rs 671.47 crore and that of re-lining of Rajasthan feeder canal is Rs 1,305.267 crore. Out of this, the union government will give assistance of Rs 205 crore for Sirhind feeder and Rs 620 crore for Rajasthan feeder.

Re-lining of canal is done to increase the efficiency of canal irrigation through concretisation of canal boundary which prevents seepage.

The re-lining will address the problem of waterlogging in Muktsar, Faridkot and Ferozpur districts in south-west Punjab and will help improve irrigation in Rajasthan, the government said in a statement.

"Sirhind and Rajasthan feeders take off upstream of Harike Head works and flow through Punjab before crossing over to Rajasthan. The twin canals have a common bank and were constructed in the 1960s as lined (brick) channels to convey water to command areas in Punjab and Rajasthan.

"The Punjab government has reported considerable seepage loss due to damages in the lining of both Sirhind and Rajasthan feeders. As a result, apart from reduced flows in these canals, the adjacent areas have been affected by waterlogging causing huge agricultural losses," the statement read.Ranchi, Sep 26 : Two Maoist guerrillas involved in the killing of Pakur Superintendent of Police Amarjeet Balihar and five other policemen in Jharkhand in 2013 were awarded death sentence by a Dumka district court on Wednesday.

Additional District Judge Taufiqool Hasan pronounced the judgment against Praveer alias Sukhlal Murmu and Sanata Baski alias Tala Da.

Five others were acquitted by the court on September 6. Police had named seven accused in the killings.

The policemen were killed when they were returning after holding a meeting with senior police officials in Dumka district on July 2, 2013.

Maoist guerrillas ambushed them at Amrapara, around 400 km from Ranchi, and opened indiscriminate fire.New Delhi, Sep 26 : Congress President Rahul Gandhi's brother-in-law Robert Vadra on Wednesday accused the Narendra Modi-led BJP government of indulging in "witch hunt" against him and said that they should tell the nation the "truth rather than hiding behind a bunch of lies".

In a Facebook post, Vadra said that it used to "amaze" him in the beginning. "But now it has become a wholesale farce that the BJP rakes up my name every time they are cornered, whether it's the falling rupee, soaring oil prices or this latest number when they have been totally exposed selling out the nation on Rafale," he said.

Vadra's remarks come after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) alleged that there was a nexus between him and arms dealer and middleman Sanjay Bhandari due to which the Rafale deal with French firm was cancelled in 2012.

Vadra, who is married to Rahul Gandhi's sister Priyanka Gandhi, said, "Having all the agencies under their beck and call... No one knows better than the BJP that they have indulged in a baseless political witch hunt against me for the last four years."

"Instead they should man up with their 56 inch chest and tell the nation the truth about the Rafale deal rather than hiding behind a bunch of lies which the people are fed up of hearing," he added.

The BJP on Tuesday alleged that Bhandari, who has close links with Vadra, formed a company named Offset India Solutions (OIS) in 2008 and he formed a joint venture with Rafaut as he tried to enter into an offset clause in the Rafale fighter jets deal through the back door.

The BJP alleged that the then government mounted pressure on the French firm Dassault Aviation to give works to Bhandari's company.

The BJP also said that the Rafale deal was scrapped after years of negotiations as Vadra was not getting the commission out of the deal.

The party also alleged that Vadra had received a flat in London worth Rs 19 crore and air tickets to Zurich from Bhandari to secure defence deals for him.

The Congress has been accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of indulging in crony capitalism apart from violating procedures in the Rafale deal.New Delhi, Sep 26 : The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved multiple agreement proposals to be signed with Uzbekistan in various fields including health research, tourism, agriculture, and combating menace of illegal narcotics and psychotropic drugs between them, an official said.

The Cabinet approved an agreement in the sphere of "law and justice" for exchange of experience of "legal professionals, government functionaries and their training and effective legal aid mechanism for resolution", said a government statement.

Another agreement approved by the Cabinet was setting up of an Uzbek-Indian Free Pharmaceutical Zone in the Andijan Region of Uzbekistan, to be built "in view of the importance of the growth of the pharmaceuticals and biopharmaceutical industry in both countries".

A different agreement in the field of pharmaceuticals will "explore the possibilities for the production of medicines, including Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) in different therapeutic segments in both countries", according to the statement.

The Cabinet also approved an agreement with the Central Asian nation in agriculture and allied sectors for exchange of information on seed/ crop production, and research on genetics, breeding, biotechnology, plant protection, soil productivity conservation, mechanisation, water resources and mutual application of scientific results.

The pact will also explore the technologies for enhanced water use efficiency in agriculture and share experience in the field of animal husbandry, including animal health, poultry, genomics and setting up of quarantine facilities.

All agreements will be signed on October 1 during Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev's arrival here early next week, the government said.New Delhi : (Attn Editors: Drawing on the rich experience of his own life, bestselling author Paulo Coelho's "Hippie", dedicated to Kabir, Rumi and Tagore, among others, will hit the bookstores in India on Thursday. Presented below is an exclusive extract from the book)

In September 1970, airplane tickets were outrageously expensive, which meant only the rich could travel. OK, that wasn't entirely true for an enormous number of young people whom these outdated media outlets could see only their outward appearance: they wore their hair long, dressed in bright-colored clothing never took a bathA

They were a danger to an entire generation of diligent young boys and girls trying to succeed in life, with their horrible example of lewdness and "free love" as their detractors liked to say with disdain. Well, this ever growing number of kids had a system for spreading news that no one, absolutely no one, ever managed to detect...

The "Invisible Post" existed because people were always going to these concerts, swapping ideas about where they ought to meet next, how they could explore the world without jumping aboard one of those tourist buses where a guide described the sights while the younger people grew bored and the old people dozed. And so, that's to word of mouth, everyone knew where the next concert was to take place or where to find the nest great trail to be explored. No one had any financial restrictions because, in this community, everyone's favorite author wasn't Plato or Aristotle or comics from some artist who'd attained celebrity status, the big book, which almost no one who traveled to the Old Continent did so without, went by the name Europe on 5 Dollars a Day. With this book, everyone could find out where to stay, what to see, where to eat, where to meet and where to catch live music while hardly spending a thing.

Frommer's only error at the time was having limited his guide to Europe. Were there not perhaps other interesting places to see? Weren't there those who would rather go to India than to Paris? Frommer would address this failing a few years later, but until such time the "Invisible Post" took it upon itself to promote a South American itinerary ending at the once-"lost" city of Machu Picchu, with the warning not to mention anything to those who were outside of the hippie culture, lest the place be invaded by wild animals with cameras and extensive explanations (quickly forgotten) about how a band of Indians had created a city so wee concealed it could be discovered only from above - something they considered impossible, since men did not fly...

Returning to the trails: after Machu Pichu, the next hot spot was Tiahuanaco, in Bolivia. Then Lhasa, in Tibet, where it was difficult to enter because, according to the "Invisible Post" there was a war between monks and Chinese soldiers. Of course it was difficult to imagine such a war, but everyone took it seriously and wasn't about to risk an endless trip to later end up a prisoner to the monks or the soldiers . Last the era's great philosophers, who had just split up in April of that year, had a short time before proclaimed that the greatest wisdom on the planet was to be found in India. That was enough to send all the world's young people to the country in search of wisdom, knowledge, gurus, vows of poverty, enlightenment, and communion with My Sweet Lord.

"The Invisible Post", however, warned that Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, famed guru to the Beatles, had tried to engage relations with Mia Farrow. The actress had always been unhappy in love through the years. She had traveled to India at the invitation of the Beatles, possibly in the hope of finding a cure for other traumas related to her sexuality, which seemed to hound her like bad karma.

But everything suggests that Farrow's bad karma had accompanied her, John Paul, George, and Ringo on their trip. According to Farrow, she was meditating in the great seer's cave when he grabbed her and tried to force her into sexual relations. By this point in the trip, Ringo had already returned to England because his wife hated Indian food and Paul had also decided to abandon the retreat, convinced that it wasn't doing anything for him.

Only George and John remained in the Maharishi's temple when Mia came looking for them, in tears, and told them what had happened. The two immediately packed their bags, and when the Enlightened One came to ask what was going on, Lennon gave him a bruising response: "You're the f***ing Enlightened One, are you not? You ought to be able to figure it out."Now, in September 1970, women ruled the world -- or, more precisely, young hippie women ruled the world. Wherever they went, the men did so knowing these wren't about to be seduced by the latest trends -- the women knew much more about the subject than the men did. And so the men decided to accept once and for all that they needed these women; they constantly wore an expression of yearning, as though begging, "Please protect me, I'm all alone and I can't find anyone, I think the world's forgotten me and love has forsaken me forever." The women had their pick of men and never gave a thought to marriage, only to having a good time enjoying wild, intense sex. When it came to the important things, and even the most superficial and irrelevant, they had the last word. However, when the "Invisible Post" brought news of Mia Farrow's sexual assault and Lennon's reaction, these women immediately decided to change their itineraries.

A new hippie trail was created, from Amsterdam (Holland) to Kathmandu (Nepal), on a bus that charged a fare of approximately a hundred dollars and traveled through countries that must have been pretty interesting: Turkey, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and part of India (a great distance from the Maharishi's temple, it's worth noting). The trip lasted three weeks and an insane number of miles.

(Paulo Coelho is the bestselling author of several books, best known for "The Alchemist". Published with permission from Penguin Random House India): New Delhi: Union Communication Minister Manoj Sinha, Union Finance and Corporate Affairs Minister Arun Jaitley and Union Law and Justice and Electronics and Information Technology Minister Ravi ... Image Source: IANS/PIB

Union Communication Minister Manoj Sinha, Union Finance and Corporate Affairs Minister Arun Jaitley and Union Law and Justice and Electronics and Information Technology Minister Ravi ... Image Source: IANS/PIB

New Delhi, Sep 26 : Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday said that "bringing a money bill as a money bill" cannot be a fraud on the Constitution, and stressed that Aadhaar bill was indeed a finance bill.

"A money bill can only be brought as a money bill. The finance bill cannot be brought as anything other than a money bill," Jaitley said in response to a question by IANS whether the government could have brought the Aadhaar Bill as a non-money bill and stood the scrutiny of the Rajya Sabha.

In a minority judgment on Wednesday, Justice D.Y. Chandrachud -- who was on the five-judge constitution bench of the Supreme Court that examined the legality of Aadhaar -- held that passing the Aadhaar law as money bill was a "fraud on the Constitution" because it was not a money bill.

"When a government brings a bill as a money bill it runs another risk. If a normal legislation falls, the government does not resign. But if a money bill falls, the government resigns. Therefore, the government takes a risk (in bringing a legislation as a money bill)," Jaitley said.

The Minister pointed out that the Article 110 of the Constitution, which defines a money bill, says a bill shall be deemed to be a money bill "only and if only" certain conditions are met.

"It uses the word only and if only twice," Jaitley, who is also a senior Supreme Court lawyer, said.

"Suppose, a government is unsure of its majority in Lok Sabha, and it brings finance bill as an ordinary bill. So even if it falls I don't resign. That would be a fraud on the Constitution, not bringing a money bill as a money bill," he said.

The opposition has criticised the Narendra Modi government for bringing the Aadhaar bill as a money bill allegedly to bypass the Rajya Sabha, where the BJP was not in a majority at that time.

The Rajya Sabha can discuss a money bill but its amendments to a money bill are not binding.New Delhi, Sep 26 : The CPI-M on Wednesday urged the central government to immediately release, as a special grant, Rs 5,000 crore towards relief and rehabilitation following the deadly floods in Kerala.

A day after Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi here, the CPI-M said it appreciated the efforts being made by the Kerala government in the relief and rehabilitation work in the wake of the unprecedented floods.

The CPI-M Politburo urged the central government to immediately accede to the demands made by the Chief Minister including the release of at least Rs 5,000 crore towards meting the expenditures on this score.

"The estimated damage is to the tune of Rs 30,000 crore. The CPI-M on its part has collected and sent tens of crore of rupees to the CM's Relief Fund from all over the country," it said in a statement.United Nations, Sep 26 : French President Emmanuel Macron brushed off questions about the controversial Rafael deal saying he was not in charge when the agreement to buy the fighter jets was made and that he would defer to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the matter.

"I was not in charge at that time but I know that we have very clear rules and this is a government-to-government discussion," he said at a news conference here on Tuesday.

"I just want to refer to what Prime Minister Modi very clearly has said a few days ago and I (don't) have any other comment," he said.

He was replying to a question if France had been asked to use the Reliance group as the Indian partner for the Rafael deal made when Francois Hollande was the President. Macron clearly did not want to get involved in the controversy roiling Indian politics.

He said the Rafael deal was a part of a broader strategic relationship with India and was very important to him.

The Modi government has denied steering Dassault to Reliance, saying that was the French company's decision.

As a part of the offset component of the deal to buy 36 Rafael costing about 7.87 billion Euros (or Rs 58,000 crore), the manufacturer Dassault was required to outsource to India about Rs 30,000 crore of business.

Dassault picked Reliance Defence for that requirement in the agreement.

The Congress and the opposition have accused the government of inflating the cost of the jets and steering the business to a private company, rather to the government-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd, "This contract is part of a broader framework which is a military and defence relationship between India and France. And this one is very important to me because this is a strategic coalition and not just an industrial relation," he added.

"I would be very clear that it was a government-to-government discussion," he emphasised.

Macron took office last year in May while Modi announced the deal during a visit to France in 2015 and it was finalised the following year.

The controversy began when Hollande told a French publication that India had proposed Reliance Defence as the partner for the deal.New Delhi, Sep 26 : Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday ordered a magisterial probe into a building collapse in north-west Delhi's Ashok Vihar and announced Rs 5 lakh compensation to the families of the deceased.

Four children and a 40-year-old woman died and seven others were seriously injured when a four-storey building collapsed here early on Wednesday, police said.

Many people are still feared trapped in the rubble of the two-decade-old building.

Kejriwal visited the injured at Deep Chand Bandhu Hospital and also visited the site of building collapse with officials.

"I have ordered a magisterial probe. The Delhi government will also give compensation of Rs 5 lakh each to the kin of the deceased," he told reporters.

Kejriwal, attacking the BJP-led North Delhi Municipal Corporation, said MCD has the responsibility of a building's safety.

"Municipal corporation has the responsibility of safety of buildings. They (MCDs) will have to strictly enforce the law," he said.New Delhi : New Delhi,, Sep 26 (IANS) The Centre on Wednesday decided to transfer an incomplete ITDC hotel project -- Gulmarg Ashok in Gulmarg -- to the Jammu and Kashmir government, and the Hotel Patliputra Ashok in Patna to the Bihar government, as part of its disinvestment policy.

Briefing reporters here following a Cabinet meeting, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that it had earlier been decided that where state governments were not agreeable to jointly lease or sub-lease hotel properties together with the Central government, such properties may be returned to the states at their officially valued price.

"In continuation of Centre's disinvestment policy, the Cabinet has approved transfers of incomplete project of Hotel Gulmarg Ashok, Gulmarg, and Hotel Patliputra Ashok, Patna, to the respective state governments," Jaitley said.

He said that some of the old India Tourism Development Corp (ITDC) hotels had already been privatised.

"As per the disinvestment policy of the Government of India, it had been decided to lease /subAlease the ITDC hotels / properties / units / joint ventures jointly with the state governments," a Tourism Ministry statement said.

The policy of returning the properties to the states where they were not agreeable to joint leasing with the Centre "had been formulated keeping in view that running and managing hotels on professional lines is not the job of government or its entities", it said.

To date, the ITDC has transferred hotels Lake View Ashok (Bhopal), Brahmaputra Ashok (Guwahati), Bharatpur Ashok (Bharatpur), Janpath (New Delhi), Lalitha Mahal Palace (Mysore), Donyi Polo Ashok (Itanagar) and Jaipur Ashok (Jaipur) to the respective state governments, the statement added.New Delhi, Sep 26 : Superstar Shah Rukh Khan, who gave a warm send-off to Indian para athletes for the Asian Para Games 2018 on Wednesday, wants his children to take inspiration from the brave athletes.

"When I look at these athletes, I feel like I am doing so less in front of them. These para athletes are the true epitome of confidence and hard work.

"I want my kids (though AbRam is so young) to get inspired from these players and I want to make them learn how to be confident and how to keep up the spirit of working hard always," Shah Rukh said at the event here.

The 52-year-old actor revealed that a few months ago he wanted to "quit" everything.

"It was around August 15 or 16. I woke up in the morning... I felt like not going to work. I did not want to do more now. I wanted to cancel everything. I thought I have done so much, now I should stop everything and quit whatever I have been doing."

But he found inspiration in Para-athlete Deepa Malik, a discus star, and other such athlete's life stories which made him understand that life is not meant for giving up.

"I switched on the TV and all of a sudden, an interview of Deepa Malik flashed on the screen. I started watching it. When I watched her interview, she made me realise how wrong I was feeling about quitting everything," he said.

The occasion saw the presence of more than 190 para athletes including Deepa, the first Indian woman to win a medal in Paralympic Games and Para high jumper, Varun Bhatti.

As Shah Rukh's Meer Foundation has been associated with the Indian Para Olympic contingent, all the players were extremely happy with the actor's support.

Deepa felt having Shah Rukh's support will make people more aware about para athletes.

"Many people have no clue about us, but there are millions of people who follow Shah Rukh. So I believe through SRK's association with us, people will get to know about us also and follow us.

"Earlier, we all used to feel orphaned but now with support like this, we feel that we have a family out there," said Deepa, a mother of two girls.

Shah Rukh greeted the players and wished them luck. He also got a jersey with "Khan" written on it from Paralympic Committee of India (PCI) President Rao Inderjit Singh.

Asked if he wishes to have a team of para athletes, Shah Rukh, the owner of Indian Premier League (IPL) team Kolkata Knight Riders said: "Like we have Indian Premier League, I would love to see sport leagues comprising of nation's such strong para athletes.

"In future, if I get a chance, I will definitely get myself attached with a team of para athletes."

Shah Rukh also motivated the specially abled athletes with a few words of encouragement, saying: "We all are incomplete. Be it physically or emotionally or mentally, no one is complete in every aspect. Instead of feeling bad about it, we all should fight with our disabilities and make our life complete."

The Para Asian Games will be held at Jakarta in Indonesia from October 6-13.New Delhi, Sep 26 : The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Wednesday said it has busted a hawala network linked to the Pakistan-based Falah-e-Insaniyat Foundation (FIF) and arrested three persons from Delhi, including a Kashmir-based hawala courier.

The agency also seized over Rs 1 crore in cash and Rs 43,000 in Nepali currency and several incriminating documents from the arrested men.

This followed searches on Tuesday in the premises of Mohammad Salman, 52, Mohammad Salim aka Mama, 62, and Rajaram and Company in Old Delhi, an official said. Both men were arrested along with a hawala courier, Sajjad Abdul Wani, 34, of Srinagar.

According to the NIA, some Delhi-based individuals were receiving funds from FIF operatives based abroad and were using the money for terror activities in the country.

Salman was said to be in regular touch with a Dubai-based Pakistani national, who in turn was connected with the Deputy Chief of FIF, a charity group linked to the LeT.

"The accused have been receiving funds sent by FIF operators and associates, through hawala operators," he said.

According to the NIA official, FIF is a Lahore-based organization established by Jamat-ud-Dawa and acts as a front for LeT.

FIF was founded in 1990 by Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, the mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai terror attack.New Delhi, Sep 26 : The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved signing of an agreement between India and Russia for cooperation in the fields of social, economic, industrial and regional development programmes.

The memorandum of understanding (MoU) between India's NITI Aayog and Russia's Economic Development Ministry would explore the potential of cooperation in the framework of preparation and implementation of strategies and programmes in the said sectors, an official statement said.

"It provides a framework and enabling environment to understand each other's strengths, market, technologies and policies," it said.

According to the MoU, the two countries would conduct joint research projects and exchange information and research works related to issues of mutual interest, the statement said.New Delhi, Sep 26 : Calling the IL&FS crisis India's Lehman Brothers moment, the Congress on Wednesday sought a Supreme Court monitored multi-agency probe saying the irregularities in it has brought India on the verge of economic collapse.

Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari said the IL&FS Group, an infrastructure development and finance company, has a total debt of Rs 91,000 crore as on March 31, 2018 and was in no position to pay back its dues and had started defaulting.

"This is such a serious matter that a multi-agency investigation needs to be carried out under the Supreme Court's monitoring," Tewari said and questioned how a company with 40 per cent stake of government institutions was allowed to pile up Rs 91,000 crore debt.

The equity structure of IL&FS Ltd includes LIC's 25.34 per cent, Central Bank of India's 7.67 per cent and State Bank of India's 6.42 per cent. Besides, Orix Corp of Japan owns 23.5 per cent and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority owns 12.5 per cent.

He said a high-level probe was needed to ascertain how central government employees nominated by LIC, CBI and SBI in the IL&FS Board could allow the group's debt to rise 44 per cent in the last three years to a debt to a net worth ratio of 16.78 to one.

Tewari said the IL&FS crisis was seven times more than the combined economic offence of Vijay Mallya, Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi. He said the unlisted company has a very opaque corporate structure and rating agencies have classified its equity as junk.

"IL&FS is on the verge of collapse and if that were to happen it will have a domino effect like after Lehman Brothers one after the other financial institutions started tumbling. Already on Monday and Tuesday, the markets have been yo-yoing because of this," he said.

The Congress leader attacked the Modi government saying the Prime Minister's Office and the Finance Ministry were putting pressure on Reserve Bank of India (RBI), SBI, LIC and National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) to bail out the company.

While the government has maintained that as IL&FS is a private company it will not intervene, the biggest shareholder LIC has recently said it will not let IL&FS collapse and was open to all options including raising stake in the company.New Delhi, Sep 26 : Telecom service providers must provide a high level of consumer satisfaction and their resolutions should be based on the latest technological solutions, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Wednesday.

He said this while presiding over the 29th meeting of 'Pragati' -- the ICT-based, multi-modal platform for Pro-Active Governance and Timely Implementation.

"The Prime Minister said that resolution of issues related to the telecom sector should be based on latest technological solutions. He emphasized that service providers must provide a high level of consumer satisfaction," a statement from the PMO quoted Modi as saying.

The Prime Minister reviewed the progress in the resolution of grievances related to the telecommunications sector.

"... the Prime Minister reviewed the progress of eight important infrastructure projects in the railway, urban development, road, power and coal sectors.

"These projects are spread over several states including Uttar Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Haryana, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal," read the statement.

Reviewing the Pradhan Mantri Khanij Kshetra Kalyan Yojana, Modi noted that "significant resources are now available to several mineral bearing districts" and directed the officials to utilise the funds in a way that they bring "ease of living" to the people of these districts.Shillong, Sep 26 : Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma on Wednesday said his government would consult all stakeholders, including political parties, for conducting an exercise for National Register of Citizens (NRC) in the state on the lines of Assam.

He said the Centre has mandated the National Population Register (NPR), which envisages a comprehensive electronic database of for all residents of the country as a first step towards NRC.

The NPR database would contain demographic as well as biometric particulars, the Chief Minister told the Assembly while replying to a short-duration discussion on the NRC moved by the Opposition.

Noting that NRC exercise is a "huge" and "tedious", Conrad, however said that there is a need to have lots of consultations and discussions with different stakeholders.

"We need to move forward, but we can not do this exercise tomorrow or day after. It requires huge financial requirements, manpower, besides it also requires a lot of strengthening of departments at various levels," said the Chief Minister.

He said the government intended to call an all-party meeting, besides discussions with all stakeholders on the issue after the autumn assembly session.

Informing the members of the Assembly that government's top priority is to protect the citizens of the state, Conrad said, the state government has decided to strengthen the provisions of the Meghalaya Residents Safety and Security Act, 2016.Chandigarh, Sep 26 : Border Security Force (BSF) soldiers rescued three children from the flooded Ravi in the Amritsar sector along the India-Pakistan border on Wednesday.

"Due to recent incessant rains in Himachal Pradesh, the Ravi is in spate -- the water level has risen up to 20 feet," said a BSF spokesman.

"On September 26, a telephone call was received from a civilian caller that three children of Gujjar Basti were stuck in the flooded river," the spokesman said.

"The caller said these children would drown and may drift towards Pakistan if not rescued," the spokesman said.

Gujjar Basti is located near the Ravi, adjacent to border outpost (BoP) Shahpur in the Amritsar sector, around 300km from here.

"A BSF rescue team rushed to the spot and launched rescue operation with the help of force's water wing troops," said the spokesman.

"The troops successfully saved the trapped children and handed them to their parents. The condition of the children is normal except Mohammad Surmu who is under observation of doctors as he almost drowned and lost consciousness when rescued," the spokesman said.Mumbai, Sep 26 : Lender Punjab National Bank's Board will consider a proposal for capital infusion of Rs 5,431 crore from the central government by way of preferential issue of equity share.

According to a BSE filing made on Wednesday, PNB's Board of Directors will meet on September 27 "for considering infusion of Rs 5,431 crore by Government of India by way of preferential issue of equity share".

In addition, the board will fix the date of an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) for obtaining "shareholders' approval in this regard at a price determined in terms of SEBI (ICDR) Regulations".Bengaluru, Sep 26 : Asserting that Aadhaar is a unique identity project, its pioneer and Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani on Wednesday hailed the Supreme Court judgement on it as landmark.

"This is a landmark judgement in favour of Aadhaar, which is a unique identity project that is critical to the development goals of the nation," Nilekani tweeted hours after a five-judge constitutional bench of the apex court delivered a verdict in its favour.

Nilekani resigned from the city-based global software major to join the state-run Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) in 2009 and spearheaded its ambitious project and was its first Chairman till March 2014.

Noting that the Aadhaar Act 2016 had undergone the ultimate scrutiny in the highest court, Nilekani said a lot of recommendations were incorporated in the central government's flagship scheme.

"Through the democratic process of discussion and debate, we have created a better and stronger Aadhaar together," Nilekani said.

Nilekani said the top court had unequivocally validated the founding principles for Aadhaar.

"Aadhaar includes, it doesn't exclude. The resident was once again recognised as being at the heart of the project, and they have gained new rights that help them assert their ownership over their data," he said.

Nilekani, who is currently in the US, said Aadhaar had gone through 10 years of feedback and would do so in the future as well.

"I have to study the fine print of the verdict for the provisions that have been struck down," Nilekani told an Indian news channel.

Hoping that the data protection law would be passed soon by Parliament, the technocrat said it would not be an issue if using Aadhaar was a voluntary decision.

Nilekani, however, quit the UIDAI executive post to contest in the May 2014 Lok Sabha elections from the Bengaluru South constituency on a Congress ticket but lost to BJP's five-time member and Union Minister Ananth Kumar.

Nilekani re-joined the $10.9-billion IT outsourcing firm in August 2017 as Chairman after the company re-constituted its board.

Earlier, retired Justice K.S. Puttaswamy, one of the first to question the legality of Aadhaar, also welcomed the judgement upholding its validity but restricting it to disbursement of social benefits.

"After holistic consideration, my opinion is that the majority judgement on the validity of the Aadhaar Act is correct though I have not read it (verdict) yet," the 92-year-old retired Karnataka High Court judge told the media here.

A five-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra held that Aadhaar would be voluntary and not mandatory with an option to exit.

On linking of Aadhaar with Permanent Account Number (PAN) mandatory, the retired judge said those who pay income tax are limited and they belong to a separate class.New Delhi, Sep 26 : National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval on Wednesday attended a meeting in Iran on the threat posed by terrorism, including by the Islamic State (IS) terror outfit, to regional and global peace, security and stability during the course of which he reiterated India's commitment to global counter-terrorism efforts.

"The meeting provided an opportunity for exchange of views on the issue of terrorism and ways and means to cooperate for effectively dealing with this menace," the External Affairs Ministry said in a statement.

"NSA articulated India's abiding commitment to partner in bilateral, regional and global forums for tackling the scourge of terrorism which poses a huge threat to the entire humanity," it stated.

"NSA highlighted the need to not make a distinction between good and bad terrorism; greater cooperation, including through information sharing for disrupting support mechanisms such as training, financing and supply of weapons; need for disrupting cross-border movement of terrorists; and isolating those who support and sponsor terrorism."

Wednesday's meeting assumes significance after India last week called off a meeting between External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi that was scheduled on the sidelines of the ongoing UN General Assembly (UNGA) session in New York.

Just 24 hours after accepting new Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan's request for a meeting between Sushma Swaraj and Qureshi, New Delhi called off the talks on September 21 blaming Islamabad for the killing of security personnel in Jammu and Kashmir and accusing it of glorifying terrorism.

According to Wednesday's External Affairs Ministry statement, during the meeting in Tehran, terrorism in Afghanistan "was rejected unequivocally".

"Support was expressed to assist the government and defence forces of Afghanistan to deal with terrorist groups and narcotics smuggling; and to assist in reconstruction and economic development of Afghanistan," it stated.

"Importance was attached to promoting peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan which was Afghan-led, Afghan-owned and Afghan-controlled."

Security officials from Afghanistan, China, Iran and Russia attended the Tehran meeting.

According to Russian news agency TASS, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev said during the meeting that the military capabilities of the Afghan Taliban movement have been growing.

"The Taliban's growing military capabilities are worth mentioning, particularly their ability to carry out large-scale and well-prepared attacks on the country's provincial centres," Patrushev was quoted as saying.

NSA Doval also held separate bilateral meetings with his counterparts from Iran, Russia and Afghanistan on issues of bilateral mutual interest, according to the External Affairs Ministry statement.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is scheduled to visit India next month for the annual bilateral summit with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Earlier this month, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani was in New Delhi for a working visit during which he held a bilateral meeting with Modi.New Delhi, Sep 26 : The opposition as well as the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday welcomed the Supreme Court judgement that upheld the legality of Aadhaar but restricted its use for disbursement of welfare schemes and junked its requirement for cell phones, bank accounts and school admission.

Soon after the verdict came, Congress President Rahul Gandhi tweeted: "For Congress, Aadhaar was an instrument of empowerment. For the BJP, Aadhaar is a tool of oppression and surveillance. Thank you Supreme Court for supporting the Congress vision and protecting India."

Separately, the Congress party in a statement said the decision to strike down the Narendra Modi government's "surveillance tool" will put an end to the government's "abuse of power".

It said that through its judgment, the Supreme Court has firmly put an end to the "mass surveillance exercise" being carried out under the guise of Aadhaar and the "grotesque distortion of an idea conceived by the UPA".

Referring to the minority judgment by Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, the Congress said it is a scathing indictment of the government's clandestine and dishonest approach towards its parliamentary responsibilities.

The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M), too, hailed Justice Chandrachud's observation and reiterated that Aadhaar should not be mandatory for any welfare scheme.

The Left party pointed out that although the apex court has ruled that private companies cannot have access to the data, and Aadhaar is not required for bank accounts, mobile connections, admissions to educational institutions and entrance exams, private companies involved with the government would still have access to the Aadhaar data.

"While this may provide some protection to right to privacy, a major problem arises when this Central government has privatised and outsourced to private companies many government responsibilities.

"Such companies will have access to Aadhaar data. This is violative of the right to privacy -- a fundamental right -- ruled by the apex court itself," it said.

Welcoming the judgement, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said it vindicated her stand.

"People should have some rights. If bank and mobile phones are linked to Aadhaar card then everything about the person will come into public domain. That this logic is correct and irrefutable has been proved today," Banerjee told the media in Milan, Italy.

BJP President Amit Shah also welcomed the apex court's verdict, albeit for a different reason.

"Today's Supreme Court Judgment is a strong validation of Aadhaar as an instrument of service delivery. It gives further impetus to empowering the poor by ensuring that they get their rights," Shah said in a tweet.

"Aadhaar under (Congress-led) UPA government was 'Niradhaar' (baseless) and had no purpose. UPA spent thousands of crores to enrol people without any law or scrutiny. The Narendra Modi government gave it a strong legal backing and integrated it in service delivery. This ensured savings of Rs 90,000 crore and benefited the poor," Shah said.

The BJP called the verdict as "big victory for Modi government".

"We see this as a big victory of the pro-poor Modi government," BJP's national spokesperson Sambit Patra told the media.New Delhi, Sep 26 : R.S. Sharma, Chairman of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), on Wednesday welcomed the Supreme Court's judgment on Aadhaar and said he is "extremely happy" with the verdict.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the constitutional validity of the Aadhaar Act, although it disallowed private entities from seeking Aadhaar number from consumers. In turn, telecom companies, too, would not be able to seek Aadhaar numbers from new subscribers.

As the Aadhaar's constitutional validity has been upheld, "I am personally, extremely happy, because I have been a part of this journey... In its initial days, for four years, I worked with this (Aadhaar)...," he said speaking at the Annual General Meeting of Tower and Infrastructure Providers Association here.

Sharma's statement assumes significance as he has been a staunch supporter of Aadhaar and the safety of data collected.

He also got involved in a controversy when he revealed his Aadhaar number on Twitter in July and challenged Aadhaar critics to harm him using the number.

Following that, the Unique Identification Authority of India had to urge people to refrain from revealing Aadhaar numbers on social networking sites.New Delhi, Sep 26 : National Disaster Response Force chief Sanjay Kumar was on Wednesday given additional charge of the post of Director General of Fire Service, Civil Defence and Home Guards (FS, CD and HG).

Kumar, a 1985-batch Himachal Pradesh cadre IPS officer, was given the new responsibility after Prakash Mishra, IPS (retired), relinquished the post, said a Union Home Ministry statement.

He would hold the charge "till the appointment and joining of successor or further orders whichever is earlier", the statement said.United Nations, Sep 27 : US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will travel to Pyongyang in October to prepare a second summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, the Department of State said in a communique on Wednesday.

Pompeo met on Wednesday at the United National General Assembly with his North Korean counterpart, Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho, to discuss the upcoming summit, Efe reported.

At that meeting, Pompeo "accepted Chairman Kim's invitation to travel to Pyongyang next month," said the State Department.

During his visit to North Korea, Pompeo will "make further progress on the implementation of the commitments from the US-North KoreaSingapore summit, including the final, fully verified denuclearization of North Korea," the statement read, referring to North Korea by its initials standing for Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

He will also "prepare for a second summit between President Trump and Chairman Kim," the statement said.

"Very positive meeting with #DPRK Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho @UNGA to discuss upcoming summit & next steps toward denuclearization of #NorthKorea," said Pompeo on Twitter on Wednesday.

Trump said Tuesday that his second meeting with Kim will occur "quite soon" and explained that Pompeo would be making arrangements for that summit.

At their historic June summit in Singapore, Trump and Kim signed a declaration opening the door to denuclearizing North Korea in exchange for US guarantees for the survival of the Pyongyang regime headed by Kim, although the two leaders did not establish a timetable for those objectives.

In recent weeks, the bilateral dialogue between Washington and Pyongyang had stagnated due to differences on how to move the process forward.

Last week, the US government said that North Korea's denuclearization process must be finalized by January 2021, at the latest, when Trump's term ends.

North Korea, meanwhile, has demanded progress on signing a peace treaty putting an end to the technical state of war existing on the Korean Peninsula in exchange for its taking concrete steps to dismantle its nuclear arsenal, as demanded by the White House.United Nations, Sep 27 : President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he is open to meeting with his Venezuelan counterpart, Nicolas Maduro, at the United Nations.

"If he (Maduro) is here and he wants to meet - it was not on my mind, it was not on my plate, but if I can help people, that's what I'm here for," Trump told reporters upon his arrival Wednesday at the UN, Efe reported.

Nevertheless, the US leader said that all US options are on the table - even the "strong ones," an obvious reference to military action - to help end the Venezuelan socio-economic and political crisis.

"I just want to see Venezuela straightened out. I want the people to be safe. We're going to take care of Venezuela," Trump said, adding that Venezuela's current situation is a "disgrace."

Maduro is scheduled to deliver a speech before the General Assembly on Wednesday, but the Venezuelan government still has not officially confirmed whether the president will travel to the UN headquarters in New York.

Last week, Maduro had said he was assessing the "security" conditions with an eye toward attending the annual General Assembly meeting because - he claimed - he has been the target of assassins.

"We have many Venezuelans living in the United States, many of them live in ... Miami. These are great, great people," said Trump, adding that "The people are suffering tremendously in Venezuela and there's no reason for this. I'm willing to meet with anybody. Anytime I can save lives and help people, (even) if it's one life."

The US president on Tuesday said that the Maduro government had ruined Venezuela, adding that "We are announcing additional sanctions against the repressive regime, targeting Maduro's inner circle and close advisors."

Trump also told reporters that "It's a regime that frankly could be toppled very quickly by the military, if the military decides to do that."

Venezuela did not delay in responding to that comment, with Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza denouncing Trump's words and warning that if a military "intervention" is mounted against the Maduro government, the country will defend itself.Melbournes newest, masterplanned residential development by EIG Developments, Opalia, was last launched last Saturday.

The debut release, Eaglevale, had 31 lots ranging in size from 231 square metres to 670 square metres.

EIG Developments CEO George Georgiou said that as of four days after release, 95% of lots has sold and that affordability is critical for families.

In launching the development, the City of Melton Mayor, Bob Turner, said that Melton is one of the fastest growing municipalities in Australia.

He said the the area combined urban and rural lifestyles within a comfortable commuting distance of Melbourne.

"Melton Council embraces the opportunity to work collaboratively with developers and, across all levels of government to deliver quality infrastructure and services for our growing community," Turner said.

"Opalia is truly a community where residents can come together, to gain a real sense of belonging and feel they are part of something special."GUEST OBSERVATION

Following a review of the New South Wales Residential Tenancies Act 2010 in 2016 and extended consultations, the NSW government has introduced a number of reforms to parliament. Debate is expected to occur this week. However, without reform to current eviction proceedings, many housing advocates have expressed concern that these generally good proposals will have little effect. Today, 45 housing researchers from a range of disciplines have signed the following open letter.

We are academics who research and teach about housing. We come from a range of disciplines  for example law, economics, social sciences, planning  and many of us have worked variously with housing providers, tenants groups and government agencies on housing issues. We have in common commitment to the principle that everyone should have a secure, affordable home of decent standard, whether they own or rent.

Too often, however, our rental housing sector fails to deliver on this principle. There are numerous reasons for this; one of them is the legal insecurity of tenants under current New South Wales residential tenancy laws. In particular, the provision for landlords to give termination notices, with no grounds, at the end of a fixed-term tenancy or during a continuing tenancy is contrary to genuine security.

No grounds termination notices give cover for bad reasons for seeking termination, such as retaliation and discrimination. The prospect that a no grounds termination notice may be given hangs over all tenancies, discouraging tenants from raising concerns with agents and landlords and undermining the legal rights otherwise provided for by their leases and the legislation.

The deficiencies of our current laws are becoming worse, as more households rent, and rent for longer into their lives. About 32% of NSW households rent and this proportion is growing. Over the five years to 2016, 63% of the net growth in the number of NSW households was households in rental housing. And 42% of NSW renter households include children.

Our deficient current laws are also increasingly out of step with tenancy laws in comparable jurisdictions. Many European countries, as well as most of the Canadian provinces and the largest US cities, do not provide for no grounds terminations by landlords.

Last year, Scotland reformed its tenancy laws to remove provisions for no grounds terminations and replace them with prescribed reasonable grounds for termination. In Australia, Tasmania has for some years not allowed no grounds terminations of continuing tenancies. This month, the Victorian Parliament amended its residential tenancies legislation to remove provision for no grounds termination notices for continuing tenancies and for fixed-term tenancies, except at the end of the first fixed term.

We call on the NSW state government to improve security for renters, by legislating to end no-grounds termination by landlords and providing instead for a prescribed set of reasonable grounds for terminations.

These reasonable grounds would include grounds already in the legislation, such as rent arrears and other breaches by the tenant, and sale of the premises, as well as new grounds, such as where the landlord needs the premises for their own housing, and where the premises are to be renovated, demolished or changed to a non-residential use.

The prescribed reasonable grounds should have different notice periods, reflecting their different degrees of urgency and priority. Proceedings on notices should go, as they currently do, to the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal, and the tribunal should determine whether the ground exists and whether termination is justified in all the circumstances.

This reform would make all tenants feel more secure, without unduly restricting landlords in reasonable uses of their properties. The only inconvenience would be to the retaliators, the discriminators and those who cannot cope with even a modest level of accountability. If the reform prompted these landlords to leave the sector, they would sell to a new home owner or to a more professionally minded landlord  either of which is to the good.

There is more to be done across a range of policy areas to improve the functioning of all aspects of our housing system. We need more accessible home ownership, a differently structured and more professional market rental sector and a revitalised social housing sector. These changes require a comprehensive housing policy, coordinated across areas and levels of government and carried out over a long term.

But, in tenancy law, the single most important reform is ending no grounds termination by landlords. And the parliament could do it now.

Signatories

Dr Chris Martin, Research Fellow, Faculty of Built Environment, University of New South Wales

Professor Brendan Edgeworth, Faculty of Law, University of New South Wales

Professor Chris Gibson, Human Geography, University of Wollongong

Professor Keith Jacobs, Director, Housing Community Research Unit, University of Tasmania

Professor Alan Morris, Institute for Public Policy and Governance, University of Technology, Sydney

Professor Kath Hulse, Director Centre for Urban Transitions, Swinburne University of Technology

Professor Hal Pawson, Housing Research and Policy, University of New South Wales

Professor Pauline McGuirk, Director Australian Centre for Culture, Environment, Society and Space, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Wollongong

Professor Peter Phibbs, Urban Planning, The University of Sydney

Professor Bill Randolph, Faculty of Built Environment, University of New South Wales

Professor Eileen Webb, Faculty of Business and Law, Curtin University

Adjunct Professor Michael Darcy, School of Social Sciences and Psychology, Western Sydney University

Associate Professor Hazel Easthope, Faculty of Built Environment, University of New South Wales

Associate Professor Daphne Habibis, School of Social Sciences, University of Tasmania

Associate Professor Kurt Iveson, Urban Geography, The University of Sydney

Associate Professor Kristian Ruming, Department of Geography and Planning, Macquarie University

Associate Professor Judith Yates, School of Economics, The University of Sydney

Dr Gareth Bryant, Political Economy, The University of Sydney

Dr Nicole Cook, Lecturer in Human Geography, University of Wollongong

Dr Louise Crabtree, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University

Dr Laura Crommelin, Research Lecturer, Faculty of Built Environment, University of New South Wales

Dr Tanja Dreher, Associate Professor, School of Arts and Media, University of New South Wales

Dr Christina Ho, Senior Lecturer, Social & Political Sciences, University of Technology, Sydney

Dr Justine Humphry, Lecturer in Digital Cultures, Department of Media and Communications, The University of Sydney

Dr Edgar Liu, Senior Research Fellow, Faculty of Built Environment, University of New South Wales

Dr Sophia Maalsen, IB Fell Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning, The University of Sydney

Dr Daniel Ooi, Research Fellow, Victoria University

Dr Justine Lloyd, Senior Lecturer, Department of Sociology, Macquarie University

Dr Jean Parker, Research Associate, Department of Gender and Culture Studies, The University of Sydney

Dr Madeleine Pill, Researcher, Department of Government and International Relations, The University of Sydney

Dr Emma Power, Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University

Dr Dallas Rogers, Program Director, Master of Urbanism, The University of Sydney

Dr Ben Spies-Butcher, Senior Lecturer, Economy and Society, Macquarie University

Dr Adam Stebbing, Director of Bachelor of Social Science, Department of Sociology, Macquarie University

Dr Amanda Tattersall, Post-Doctoral Fellow, Henry Halloran Trust, The University of Sydney

Dr Lawrence Troy, Research Fellow, Faculty of Built Environment, University of New South Wales

Dr Robert Mowbray, Older Persons Project Officer, Tenants Union NSW

Deb Batterham, Researcher, Launch Housing

Zahra Nasreen, Researcher, Department of Geography and Planning, Macquarie University

Pratichi Chatterjee, PhD Candidate, Faculty of Science, The University of Sydney

Sophie-May Kerr, PhD Candidate, University of Wollongong

Craig Lyons, PhD Candidate, School of Geography and Sustainable Communities, University of Wollongong

Gemma McKinnon, Researcher, University of New South Wales

Bill Swannie, Academic, College of Law and Justice, Victoria University

Alistair Sisson, PhD Candidate & Research Assistant, School of Geosciences, The University of Sydney

John Watson, Section Editor: Cities + Policy, The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.WMIC 2018 The ability to detect multiple cancer biomarkers is critical for accurate tumor detection because the molecular profiles of most cancers, including breast cancer, vary greatly between patients.

Groundbreaking research in the field of cancer imaging was presented at the 2018 World Molecular Imaging Congress (WMIC), September 12-15 in Seattle, WA, USA. These presentations were chosen by the WMIC Reviewers and featured by Past WMIS President, Jason S. Lewis, PhD, WMIS Fellow, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, in the Highlights Lecture to recognize the top abstracts of the meeting.

Soyoung Kang, PhD, Yu Wang, PhD, and Jonathan Liu, PhD, at the University of Washington, were recognized for their work in breast cancer research using a new Raman-encoded molecular imaging (REMI) technique for intraoperative guidance of lumpectomy. Over 200,000 patients are diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer each year in the US, for which lumpectomy is a standard intervention.

Unfortunately, 20%40% of these patients require additional surgery if post-operative pathology reveals that the surgical margins are positive for cancer. Kang believes REMI could significantly reduce the costs, emotional trauma, and potential complications associated with multiple surgeries.

The ability to detect multiple cancer biomarkers is critical for accurate tumor detection because the molecular profiles of most cancers, including breast cancer, vary greatly between patients, said Kang.

A first-in-human clinical study was performed to assess the diagnostic accuracy of this study and found this technique to be successful. They plan to further improve REMI by working to improve imaging speeds and resolution.

Patricia Manuela Ribeiro Pereira, PhD, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY, USA, was also recognized for her work presented at WMIC 2018. The idea of Pereiras work is that administration of a statin may affect the patients response to Herceptin.

Pereira explains that if the tumor HER2 receptor is overexpressed (i.e. the protein levels are elevated) the patient may be selected for Herceptin treatment. However, her preclinical findings revealed that tumors with high levels of another protein, caveolin-1, might not respond as well to Herceptin therapy. Models of both breast and gastric tumors were treated temporally with a statin; the statin was found to deplete caveolin-1, increasing HER2 availability for binding of the therapeutic Herceptin.

MSK will continue to validate this inverse relationship between caveloin-1 and HER2 proteins, and statin intervention both prospectively preclinically and retrospectively in humans.

Pereiras team hopes to begin clinical trials in the next few years.

The WMIC meetings are excellent and a rare opportunity to discuss several areas of molecular imaging as well as to meet scientists with an excellent international reputation, said Pereira. These meetings and all the benefits that I have as a WMIS member have helped me tremendously in my own research and in my career development. I will continue to encourage researchers in becoming members of the WMIS.

ABOUT WORLD MOLECULAR IMAGING SOCIETY

The WMIS is dedicated to developing and promoting translational research through multimodality molecular imaging. The education and abstract-driven WMIC is the annual meeting of the WMIS and provides a unique setting for scientists and clinicians with very diverse backgrounds to interact, present, and follow cutting-edge advances in the rapidly expanding field of molecular imaging that impacts nearly every biomedical discipline. Industry exhibits at the congress included corporations who have created the latest advances in preclinical and clinical imaging approaches and equipment, providing a complete molecular imaging educational technology showcase. For more information: http://www.wmis.orgWe are very excited to add a first-class company with a long tradition of excellence to Alliances broker business platform.

Alliance Foods, Inc., a leading provider of consumer product sales, packaging and supply chain services to CPG manufacturers, announces the acquisition of Proactive Sales & Marketing (PSM), a retail food brokerage firm with a 112-year history serving the key markets of Chicago and Milwaukee, and with customers throughout the upper Midwest.

We are very excited to add a first-class company with a long tradition of excellence to Alliances broker business platform, said Sal Stazzone, President and CEO of Alliance Foods. PSMs longstanding presence and deep customer relationships are key factors of consideration when Alliance selects companies for acquisition. Together, our two companies have more than 200 years of presence and experience in the food broker business serving manufacturer vendors and retail customers.

The acquisition of PSM aligns with Alliances strategic plan for continued expansion of their broker business. Alliance currently sells to retailers across the U.S. through its National Sales and Marketing (NSM) business unit, which will benefit greatly from PSMs presence and key relationships in Chicago, Milwaukee and other markets.

This is a true win-win for both companies, said Stephen Diebold, President and CEO of PSM. Were looking forward to bringing valuable new sales opportunities to our manufacturer vendors through Alliances strong retail relationships, as well as to offering Alliances broad product portfolio to our retail customers.

Alliance Foods, through the NSM food broker business unit, offers manufacturers access to retail customers nationwide to a myriad of retail channels including retail and wholesale grocery, mass, c-stores, club, drug, home improvement, sporting/outdoors and farm and fleet. In addition, Alliance offers integrated services for packaging, supply chain, brand development and go to market strategic planning. For more information, visit alliance-foods.com.

About Alliance Foods, Inc.

Alliance Foods, a 100% employee-owned company with more than 90 years in business and recognized as a leader in food and non-food consumer product sales, packaging and supply chain services. Alliance represents more than 150 consumer packaged goods manufacturers selling their products to retail customers across the U.S. Founded in 1925, Alliance has offices in St. Louis, Missouri, Naperville, IL and Coldwater, Michigan.Ezequiel Escamilla treads the life of sacrifices and success of brave and selfless men and women of the CIA in his debut publication featuring The Team X Project (published by AuthorHouse). Thrilling and fast-paced, this novel charts the plight of Robert and Team X as all hopes of the nation and security of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness depend upon them.

The U.S. government trained them to be the best super spies that the CIA had ever seen. They do not exist except for the darkest of hours. Now the timing is crucial for the CIA and NSA to move on a plot to put a terrorist leader into power of the free world. The president is not Senator McNeal, who the American people had voted for in the last election. He is in fact the leader of a terrorist organization that wants to take control of the free world. Only the CIA cannot go through the usual channels to stop them. They must put all their trust in one team and pray for the best in their darkest hour.

My book is Mission Impossible, meets Face/Off, with a Jason Bourne and James Bond twist, Escamilla. I want to the readers to take way from my writing the enjoyment of a great story and anticipation for the next book.

A snippet from The Team X Project reads:

This would be the last time that he would be in here. As he went to close the door, he accidentally knocked the picture out of the box. It was of himself and John Carlton after the team graduated from the farm. As he put the box down, he noticed that frame was very weak and that there was something behind it. He picked up the picture and then looked at the envelope. It had his name on it. Robert took a breath as he opened the envelope to read what was inside.

To purchase and know more about the book, readers can visit https://www.amazon.com/Team-X-Project-Ezequiel-Escamilla/dp/1524654124.

The Team X Project

By Ezequiel Escamilla

Softcover | 5 x 8in | 182 pages | ISBN 9781524654122

E-Book | 182 pages | ISBN 9781524654115

Available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble

About the Author

Ezequiel Escamilla was born and raised in Dallas to a middle class Mexican American family. In elementary school, his teachers discovered his creativity for the arts and he was enrolled in the Talented and Gifted Program (T.A.G.). Before the end of his sixth grade, he was introduced to the Magnet Schools in Dallas. He was then accepted to W. E. Greiner Middle School for the Exploratory and Performing Arts. At the age of 13, he discovered he had a passion for writing stories. It was months before the 2004 presidential election that he got his ideas for his novel, The Team X Project. After six long years of writing off and on between job assignments, Escamilla finally finished the novel. After hearing words of encouragement, he decided to have his novel published and released."Auviks ease of use and multi-client capabilities bring proactive network visibility and management to the MSP toolset." - Patrik Erladsson, CEO of Upstream

Auviks network management software for managed service providers (MSPs) is now available in Scandinavia, thanks to a new deal with Swedish software distributor Upstream. The agreement, together with another recently signed distribution deal for Italy, marks Auviks entry into international distribution.

With Upstreams distribution network in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and its native Sweden, more European MSPs will learn about the opportunity to grow their businesses with proactive managed network services. Earlier this year, Auvik opened its head office for the EMEA region (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) in Milton Keynes, UK, and hired EMEA managing director Scott Tyson.

Upstream is focused on proactive and efficient IT operations, which aligns perfectly with Auviks commitment to helping European MSPs simplify the complexity of network management, said Scott Tyson, Auviks managing director, EMEA. Collaborating with an innovative company like Upstream means MSPs in Scandinavia now have access to a cost-effective, automated alternative to manual network management.

Auvik is Upstreams premier network management vendor. Auviks ease of use and multi-client capabilities bring proactive network visibility and management to the MSP toolset, said Patrik Erladsson, CEO of Upstream. With their month-to-month subscription and pay-as-you-grow model, Auviks network management system will help Scandinavian MSPs offer reliable managed network services for their clients.

About Auvik Networks

Auviks cloud-based software simplifies and automates network monitoring and management for IT managed service providers. Auvik gives MSPs better visibility, documentation, and monitoring for their client networks, and automates many time-consuming network tasks. With Auvik, MSPs have an efficient and profitable way to manage their client networks. Visit http://www.auvik.com or follow @AuvikNetworks on Twitter. Auvik is a registered trademark of Auvik Networks Inc.

Media contact

Sarah Cunningham-Scharf

Marketing Content Specialist

sarah(at)auvik.com

519-804-4700 x194The Dark Hills (published by Xlibris AU in June 2013) by TD Smith follows a womans mysterious and thrilling double life as a human and a wolf. This book reveals the difference between modern day living and the primitive origins of the womans forebears, and the lifestyle she chooses. It revolves around the variation of the city life and in the wilderness and the possible problems and discrimination associated with those differences.

The main character is a woman who believes she is having dreams about running wild in the dark hills however while she is being haunted by the same imaginings, she accidentally discovers a family in the wilderness. These exciting and mysterious characters will play an important part into the womans life. Can the woman trust these strangers or are they just another enemy waiting for their chance of attack?

Smith believes that the story is relevant in todays society because people are now more accepting towards believers of alternative lifestyles, natural healers and more open towards further possibilities and skills. Her intent is to mesmerize the readers with the idea of mystery and great imaginings. She also aims that readers will contemplate and ponder the impossible and make them feel what the characters are feeling, capture their imaginations and enjoy their exhilarating adventure.

The Dark Hills will appeal to people who are interested in the supernatural, who enjoy haunting, mystical stories with unusual twists and turns. It will be enjoyed by those who also have adventurous dreams and who relish hidden messages as well. Visit https://www.amazon.com/Dark-Hills-other-Stories/dp/1483656268 to purchase and know more about the book.

The Dark Hills

By TD Smith

Hardcover | 6 x 9in | 141 pages | ISBN 9781483656274

Softcover | 6 x 9in | 141 pages | ISBN 9781483656267

E-Book | 141 pages | ISBN 9781483656281

Available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble

About the Author

TD Smith was born in New Zealand of Polynesian/European descent. She first wrote and illustrated a story at 7 years old, and when she was 9, she wrote a play. The play is all about a Polynesian princess who had been kidnapped by another tribe and the adventures she has when being rescued. Her class was enthusiastic about the play, which they performed for the teachers and the rest of the school at the end of the year celebrations. Smith is an artist, a dancer, but her great passion has always been writing.

Xlibris Publishing Australia, an Author Solutions, LLC imprint, is a self-publishing services provider dedicated to serving Australian authors. By focusing on the needs of creative writers and artists and adopting the latest print-on-demand publishing technology and strategies, we provide expert publishing services with direct and personal access to quality publication in hardcover, trade paperback, custom leather-bound and full-color formats. To date, Xlibris has helped to publish more than 60,000 titles.For more information, visit xlibrispublishing.com.au or call 1800 455 039 to receive a free publishing guide. Follow us @XlibrisAus on Twitter for the latest news.The Jensen Deflective Separator (JDS) System has received certification by the California State Water Resources Control Board as a Full Capture System Device for Trash Treatment Control. The statewide certification enables full compliance with stormwater Trash Amendments for public and private retrofit and new development projects.

We are pleased the JDS System has achieved statewide certification, said Walter Stein, PE, Jensen Precast Stormwater Systems Division Manager. Our stormwater customers in California will enjoy full compliance with all trash control stormwater regulations at both state and regional levels. We are helping reduce and, in most cases, eliminate 100% of trash discharged from our stormwater drainage systems. We believe the performance of the JDS System to capture trash is unmatched.

Along with requirements to meet certification standards, Jensen Precast engineers provided additional research on the JDS System with the application, including:



Full scale and repeatable trash removal efficiency testing.

Full scale testing with particles smaller than the required 5 millimeter particle.

Scour testing verifying 100% retention of previously captured solids during flow bypass events.

Stormwater treatment continues to grow as a key area of research and product development for Jensen Precast. The company remains committed to dedicating the necessary resources for conduct quantifying performance verification tests to capture trash.

No other technology being offered has verified the bypass retention efficiency, Stein said. Once trash and debris go into a JDS System, its not getting out until properly cleaned. Jensen Precast is an innovator in this area of stormwater treatment, providing a proven system superior to all others.

In May of this year the Cities of Signal Hill and Long Beach, California, completed installation of dual JDS Hydrodynamic Separator units deployed inside two 16-foot diameter precast concrete structures at the southeast corner of the Long Beach Airport. The system has the capacity to take in 166 cubic feet of water per second. Jensen Precast collaborated on the design and construction of the Los Cerritos Channel Sub-Basin 4 Stormwater Capture Facility project with Tetra Tech Inc., Mike Bubalo Construction Company, and GDH Inc.

Our goal is to provide the best forward thinking solution for every customer every time and surpass expectations, said Eric Jensen, President of Jensen Precast. Certification of the JDS System is a great example. By streamlining state and regional compliance expectations, our engineering and contractor customers can complete their projects faster and more cost effectively.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Learn more about the Jensen Deflective Separator System at http://www.jensenprecast.com/jds.

See a timelapse video of the Long Beach Airport installation at https://youtu.be/xGZ-onl1XcM.

Contact Walter Stein about new projects at wstein(at)jensenprecast.com or (775) 352-6336.

Connect with Jensen Stormwater Systems at stormwater(at)jensenprecast.com or (855) 468-5600.

____________________________________________________________________________________

About Jensen Precast

Jensen Precast is one of the largest independently owned precast concrete companies in the United States. Founded in 1968, the company provides engineered solutions with precast concrete for communities, businesses, and government agencies throughout Arizona, California, Hawaii, and Nevada. Celebrating its 50th Anniversary in 2018, Jensen Precast employs more than 800 workers who design, engineer, manufacture, and deliver products and services to construction and engineering businesses.

Visit JensenPrecast.com for locations, products, quotes, and contact information for expert consultation.

To arrange interviews with Jensen Precast executives, engineers, and product experts, please contact Nicholas Drake at (775) 352-5275 or ndrake(at)jensenprecast.com.We can attribute a lot of our recent growth to the extensibility of our Blu Box technology platform, which has allowed us to expand outside of the payroll cards market and into other areas of consumer and corporate digital payments.

Cardplatforms announced it was recently ranked as the Fastest-Growing Private Company in South Florida with more than 970% revenue growth.

That impressive growth was also good enough to rank Cardplatforms fourth on the Florida Fast 100 list of fastest-growing private companies in the Sunshine State. These prestigious honors by the South Florida Business Journal, the regions premier business publication, recognize private companies, across various industries, for their financial growth from 2015 to 2017.

We are humbled to not only rank at the top of the list in our region but also be recognized as one of the fastest-growing companies in the entire state of Florida, commented Jeff Foster, CEO and Founder, Cardplatforms. We can attribute a lot of our recent growth to the extensibility of our Blu Box technology platform, which has allowed us to expand outside of the payroll cards market and into other areas of consumer and corporate digital payments.

Cardplatforms growth has been driven by the addition of new digital payment products such as the ability to use physical and virtual prepaid cards to pay insurance claims to consumers. This solution is a faster, cheaper and more convenient payment option for both the insurer and the insured compared to issuing paper checks.

Another reason Cardplatforms has more than doubled its revenue has been the continued expansion of InstantWage, the companys on-demand pay solution. InstantWage is a financial wellness tool for employees that reduces financial stress and improves workplace productivity by allowing employees to access their earned but unpaid wages in real-time, at any time between paychecks. InstantWage is changing how the hardworking American gets paid to better meet their financial needs.

About Cardplatforms

Cardplatforms delivers impactful payments solutions to underserved populations and markets, where traditional financial services have failed to provide affordable and convenient options. Leveraging a unique blend of industry expertise and proprietary technology, we design and develop white-label solutions for payroll, corporate expenses, incentives, government benefits, legal settlements and insurance claims that are specifically tailored to the needs of our partners and their cardholders. Our experience navigating an ever-changing payments landscape, combined with the control provided by our Blu Box technology platform, allows us to fully customize programs and get them launched faster. Learn more at http://www.cardplatforms.com.California Vacation Villas We have upgraded to dormakabas Oracode keyless access control locks over the past two years because we want greater unit security, guest entry control, and convenience for our staff.

Our company understands the importance of secure, controlled access for guests and homeowners. We have upgraded to dormakabas Oracode keyless access control locks over the past two years because we want greater unit security, guest entry control, and convenience for our staff. Oracode locks enable us to give each guest a unique code that is active only during the time they are occupying their unit. The locks communicate wirelessly with the Oracode Smart Controller providing real-time monitoring. The Smart Controller also works with our home automation platform, BeHome247, allowing us to control thermostats, lights and pool/spa settings which saves us hundreds of dollars each month. Quinn Tamm, president of California Vacation Villas.

Background

California Vacation Villas (CVV) is a full-service leasing and property management company that specializes in short-term vacation rentals. It manages a 70-unit inventory in Southern Californias beach and low desert resort areas. The company strives to provide a safe enjoyable experience to its guests as it maximizes revenue and asset protection for property owners. CVV prides itself on the use of the latest vacation rental technology to deliver a high quality stay and an efficient operation.

Challenge

CVVs President, Quinn Tamm, follows industry trends closely. He knew that operators who use metal keys in lock boxes for guest and vendor access had concerns about lost keys and unauthorized duplication. He became interested in the growing connected home technology movement and its benefits for temperature control, security monitoring, and overall guest convenience. Tamm wanted to work with his owners to implement a technology solution that would make its units more secure with flexible, convenient guest access, and guarantee a long-lasting product life. He also wanted to install networked energy management controls that would monitor and reduce unnecessary power use. Further, the companys desert properties are subject to high temperatures. Therefore, these units often have high utility costs from frequent air conditioner use. CVVs beach properties are exposed to salt air and beachfront weather conditions which may lead to corrosion.

The Solution

Oracode 480i and 660i keyless entry locks

Oracode Smart Controllers

BeHome247 Enterprise Property Control integration

Benefit

California Vacation Villas attained immediate benefits from its Oracode 480i keyless locks and Oracode Smart Controller integrated with BeHome247 Enterprise Property Control software. CVV now provides more secure, flexible unit access with reduced labor costs thanks to more efficient staff management. When the 480i locks are wirelessly connected to the Oracode Smart Controller, managers can monitor real-time unit access remotely. Additionally, the Smart Controller permits CVV management to control thermostats, lights and pool/spa settings. This enables optimization of each units temperature year-round, which saves owners hundreds of dollars each month. Plus, Oracode locks are extremely durable. They require little maintenance in high temperatures at the desert or beach.

Secure, Flexible Unit Access. Reduced Labor Costs

The only concrete way to provide unit security is with Oracode keyless locks, said Tamm. Oracode locks let us give guests their own unique code that activates for specific configurable time periods. This saves us a great deal in labor expenses because we do not have to staff a front desk.

Oracode gives property managers the ability to provide a unique time-and date-sensitive code to each guest, vendor, housekeeper, and owner. Owners or property managers may grant remote access from any web browser or mobile device to guests or vendors for greater control and flexibility. For example, property managers can create a code for guests that only works during their stay; they can also monitor when the code is used. Access codes, programming, and entry audit trails are stored in the Oracode lock to keep properties secure.

We track when guests leave the unit to verify if a late check-out is billable. For safety, only the highest level of management codes are set to override the deadbolt, not the codes we make for vendors and housekeepers. The Oracode lock also notifies us if an invalid code is used to attempt to open a door. Tamm said. For added security, the Oracode lock tracks and maintains an audit trail of the last 5,000 lock events including the date and time the lock event occurred. The lock records and identifies each person entering and exiting the doors.

Guests can customize their code once they are in the unit to something easier for them to remember. This makes it more convenient for them to enter with a personal code. CVV also programs emergency codes for guest safety.

Greater Energy Efficiency

Oracode 480i and 660i locks communicate wirelessly with the Oracode Smart Controller for a connected environment and real-time unit monitoring. When Oracode is integrated with the units Smart Controller it can communicate with BeHome247 Enterprise Property Control. This allows property managers to monitor and control thermostats, lights, spa, and other settings. A units temperature can be optimized year-round, saving hundreds of dollars a month. CVV managers control unit thermostat temperatures within a specific configurable range when a unit is occupied. Guests can set their temperature within a range CVV designates. CVV also programmed a cooling setback temperature when the room is unoccupied in the summer.

Reliable Lock Performance

Tamm said, The Oracode battery life is excellent. We have had no failures due to battery performance. We have found Oracode quality and battery life to perform much better than other locks, providing greater long-term durability and reliability. They stand up to high desert temperatures and the salt air at our beach units very well. The 480i electronic lock easily replaces a standard deadbolt allowing operators to install it using only a Phillips screwdriver. The 660 requires a detailed installation but removes both a deadbolt and door handle which eliminates the chance of failure.

Oracodes time-sensitive entrance code eliminates keys and saves property management a significant amount of time. The lock sends notifications through the website to property managers and owners informed in real-time of occurring events such as guest first arrival, early checkout or if the Internet is down.

dormakaba is a leader in the global market for access and security solutions. For more information on dormakaba vacation rental keyless access control locks, click here.

About dormakaba

dormakaba makes access in life smart and secure. As one of the top three companies in the industry, dormakaba is the trusted partner for products, solutions and services for access to buildings and rooms from a single source. With strong brands such as Dorma, Kaba and Best in its portfolio, the company and its numerous cooperation partners are represented in over 130 countries worldwide.

dormakaba is listed at the SIX Swiss exchange, is headquartered in Rumlang (Zurich/Switzerland) and generated a turnover of over CHF 2.8 billion with more than 16,000 employees in financial year 2017/18.

For more information about dormakaba USA Inc., please visit http://www.dormakaba.com.

https://www.dormakaba.com/us-en/solutions/products/lodging-systems/lodging-systems-290050Neil Anderson, CMO of Cask accepts Consulting Magazines Best Small Firms to Work for Award Cask strives to maintain a culture that reinforces an employee first approach creating an environment where our people feel appreciated and supported which trickles down to the amazing work we do for our clients.

Cask has been named one of 2018s Best Small Firms to Work For by ALMs Consulting Magazine. The company has been included on this esteemed list for seven out of the last eight years. Casks CMO, Neil Anderson, attended the gala awards dinner on Thursday, September 20th at the University Club of Chicago to accept this award.

Consulting Magazines 2018 Best Firms to Work For collected detailed employee engagement insights from more than 9,000 consultants, representing 300 consulting firms. For full editorial coverage including the final rankings and associated charts and data found in the September issue, visit http://www.consultingmag.com/the-magazine.

Cask strives to maintain a culture that reinforces an employee first approach creating an environment where our people feel appreciated and supported which trickles down to the amazing work we do for our clients, said Anderson. Just as Coopers are to barrel or cask making, we view our employees as artisan engineers. Only with Casks rare blend of deep domain expertise and technology knowhow can we deliver solutions to our clients most critical challenges.

Consultant responses represented staff levels from CEO to analyst. Participants were polled on employee satisfaction topics including client engagement, firm culture, firm leadership, compensation and benefits, work/life balance and career development.

Cask has a compensation and benefit program that is comprehensive and well-leveraged with our employees. Leadership has listened to what is important to our employees, and they work tirelessly to deliver benefits that are thorough and meaningful. Employee wellness and work-life balance are two of the top areas that we measure regularly and Cask takes significant initiative to ensure that our employees needs are met, Anderson continued.

This accolade is a great addition to a succession of marked achievements that Cask has recently announced, including the Inc. 5000 and the Inc. Best Workplaces lists.

About Cask

Cask is a results-oriented business and technology consulting firm that helps organizations change, grow and run their businesses at new levels  previously thought not possible. Our team is a rare blend of experienced business consultants and artisan engineers. This unique combination enables our customers to embrace organizational change, adopt transformational technology solutions and operate their business generating optimal results. For more information, visit http://www.caskllc.com.

About ALM

ALM, an information and intelligence company, provides customers with critical news, data, analysis, marketing solutions and events to successfully manage the business of business. ALM serves a community of over 6 million business professionals seeking to discover, connect and compete in highly complex industries. Please visit http://www.alm.com for more information, and visit http://www.alm.com/events/ to learn about our upcoming events. Please follow us on Twitter @ALMMedia.Margareth Henriquez, CEO of KRUG Champagne, will speak at wine2wine 2018 in Verona Every year we are striving to make slight but significant changes deriving mostly from requests we gathered directly from participants to the previous edition. We are especially mindful of the concept WIIFM - Whats In It For Me. -Stevie Kim (Vinitaly International)

wine2wine offers wine professionals the opportunity to meet, share ideas, and acquire in-depth knowledge on specific themes ranging from digital innovation, communications, and marketing to export, market focuses, sustainability, and more.

At wine2wine 2018, wine producers, export and marketing managers, consultants, journalists, and experts from all spheres of the wine business will gather for a unique chance to participate in educational sessions, labs, and workshops held by an impressive line-up of speakers of national and international standing.

Now at its 5th edition, wine2wine 2018 will open with a keynote address entitled Luxury brand communication and womens leadership: Margareth Henriquez shares her story. In this speech, President and CEO of Krug Champagne and the LVMH Wine Estates will address the way digital tools and storytelling techniques are best integrated into the promotion and brand communication of wines.

In addition to Henriquez, wine2wine will also feature the youngest Master of Wine in the world, Sarah Heller, who lives and work in Hong Kong. Heller will explain how younger Asian female consumers are driving wine consumption growth and changing the tone of the conversation across the Asian continent. She will discuss the way Italian wineries can make their branding campaigns and promotional messages resonate with this new wave of eager wine consumers.

Another international guest of the convention is Geoff Kruth, Master Sommelier and President of the sommelier association GuildSomm. Kruths speech is entitled Sommeliers and Their Influence in the US Market, and will address the growth and influence of the sommelier figure in the US wine market. Kruth will touch on crucial topics for Italian wineries that are looking to deepen their understanding of the US market: how sommeliers add value to restaurants and their customers; how to extend the reach of the sommelier through social media; and how wineries can work with sommeliers to reach new customers.

This year wine2wine will also showcase a new 45-minute format, with each session being made up by a 30-minute presentation followed by a 15-minute Q&A. At the end of each presentation, the speakers will highlight practical takeaways, that is, hands-on suggestions that participants will be able to apply directly to their business. The Q&A part calls for a direct interaction between speakers and attendees. In addition, there will be another 15-minute time window during which participants will have the chance to connect and network with other wine professionals.

Stevie Kim, Managing Director of Vinitaly International, commented on the new format: Every year we are striving to make slight but significant changes deriving mostly from requests we gathered directly from participants to the previous edition. We are especially mindful of the concept WIIFM - Whats In It For Me, since our main purpose is to give attendees solid takeaways to improve their business.

As part of the revamp of the new edition, #w2wLabs have been included in the program. These sessions are practical demonstrations open to a selected audience, who will have the opportunity to learn about optimizing a website, write a successful PR, or leverage Instagram to grow business.

Participating wineries will also have the chance to enrol for B2B sessions, where they will meet and present their products to buyers from some of the worlds developing wine markets such as South Corea, Poland, Mexico, and Switzerland. Once again, HireMeVinitaly will open the second day staging a speed dating between winery owners and professionals seeking to work in the wine industry.

For the third year at wine2wine, Wine Spectators Senior Editor and Tasting Director Alison Napjus will reveal the 100 Finest Italian wine producers chosen by the magazine for OperaWine 2019, which will be held on Saturday, April 6th. In a dedicated session during wine2wine Napjus will also explain what wineries need to do in order to be selected for the glamorous gala that traditionally opens Vinitaly.

The 2018 edition of wine2wine will also be remembered for the strong presence of wine producers, who will moderate some of the 60+ sessions included in this years program: Valentina Argiolas (Argiolas Winery), Matteo Lunelli (FerrariTrento), Andrea Sartori (Sartori Wines), Ettore Nicoletto (Santa Margherita Group), Jose Rallo (Donnafugata) and Carlo Franchetti (Franchetti Wines) are just a few of the top names in the world of Italian wine that will be present at the event.

Other speakers include:



Lynne Sherriff MW;

Lady Penguin, top Chinese wine influencer;

Lorenzo Montagna, Founder of SecondStarVR;

Marino Braccu, General Manager at 8 1/2 Bombana;

Paul Mabray, CEO at Emetry;

Ayana Misawa. Winemaker at Grace Winery;

Sue Tolson, wine writer and editor;

Armando Corsi, senior marketing scientist;

Xiaohan Zhang, marketing director at Zackys China.

Other titles of sessions at a glance:



How wine brands grow;

Cannabis, beer and gin, and experiential marketing: the challenges and opportunities the wine industry faces today;

Brazil, the real deal: opportunities and pitfalls of an alluring country;

The landscape of wine online in the US market: which companies are relevant for sales, marketing, and awareness;

Wine tourism: regulations and opportunities;

How to be listed in a Michelin-starred restaurant.

An Early Bird special tariff is now available until the end of the month. For further information, visit the wine2wine website on http://www.wine2wine.net or write to info(at)wine2wine.net. Share your experience by using the hashtag #wine2wine.

Special thanks to ICE, the Italian Trade Agency and the Ministry of Economic Development that supported and financed the fifth edition of wine2wine as part of their campaigns aimed at promoting Italian wine and Made in Italy around the world.

About:

The grand Vinitaly 2019 will be held from April 7th to the 10th. Every year, Vinitaly counts more than 4,000 exhibitors on a 100,000+ square meter area and 130,000 visitors from over 140 different countries with more than 30,000 top international buyers. The premier event to Vinitaly, OperaWine Finest Italian Wines: 100 Great Producers, which will be held on the 6th of April, one day prior to Vinitaly will unite international wine professionals in the heart of Verona, offering them the unique opportunity to discover and taste the wines of the 100 Best Italian Producers, as selected by Wine Spectator. Since 1998 Vinitaly International travels to several countries such as Russia, China, USA and Hong Kong thanks to its strategic arm abroad, Vinitaly International. In February 2014 Vinitaly International launched an educational project, the Vinitaly International Academy (VIA) with the aim of divulging and broadcasting the excellence and diversity of Italian wine around the globe. VIA this year launched the seventh edition of its Certification Course and today counts 151 Italian Wine Ambassadors and 11 Italian Wine Experts.Monica Eaton-Cardone, co-founder and COO of Chargebacks911, discusses the need for merchants to take preventative measures in combating chargebacks. Merchants cant let their guard down when it comes to criminal fraud and data breaches, but they really need to expand their fraud-prevention efforts to tackle chargebacks head-on, asserted Eaton-Cardone.

A new study found merchants shouldered nearly two-thirds of $31 billion in chargeback costs last year(1)though some experts estimate annual chargebacks surpass $80 billion(2)hindering profitability even as major retailers have recorded robust sales growth.(3) Other researchers noted that chargeback policy abuse, a form of cyber-shoplifting, was three times more prevalent in 2017,(4) and card-not-present (CNP) merchants face 34% more of this friendly fraud than their brick-and-mortar counterparts.(1) Chargebacks911, a leading dispute mitigation and loss prevention firm, delves into the data and advises eCommerce merchants to take immediate action to prevent chargebacks and fraud from eating into profits.

After a year of record store closings, merchants have risen to the challenge of consumers Amazon-driven expectations of instant gratification; today, big-box retailers such as Target and Walmart are experiencing their best sales growth in over a decade.(3) Yet the specter of chargebacks has become a growing concern, as new data shows merchants and issuers lose an additional $1.50 in fees and costs for every $1 in disputed transactions.(1) Of the $31 billion in chargebacks cited in the recent study, issuers were responsible for $11.6 billion while merchants took a $19.4 billion hit.(1) Nearly half (45%) of all consumers filed at least one dispute in 2017, and 25% filed two or more.(1) Not only did policy abuse/friendly fraud rise threefold last year, but it also increased notably in terms of the sophistication of attack methods.(4)

Monica Eaton-Cardone, co-founder and Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Chargebacks911, says these trends underscore the growing threat posed by chargebacks. Merchants have a habit of focusing on criminal fraud while writing off chargebacks as a cost of doing business to keep customers happy. So, its little wonder that cyber-shoplifters have become more brazen in their attempts to game the system when they discover how easy it is to get away with, she warned. eCommerce merchants cant afford to overlook chargebacks any longer, or rising fraud losses will continue to erode revenue and offset any sales bumps.

While $31 billion in chargebacks(1) may seem substantial, Eaton-Cardone believes the total is much higher when cumulative figures for every card network and cross-border transactions are taken into account. Upon examining industry data for The State of Chargebacks: 2018 Report, Chargebacks911 and partner Kount estimated annual chargebacks to be in the $80 billion range.(2) Likewise, though merchants surveyed feel roughly 34% of chargebacks result from friendly fraud,(1) Eaton-Cardones experience suggests that figure could be as high as 86%.(5)

Beyond the long-standing struggles eCommerce retailers and travel/hospitality services have had with chargebacks, studies show that restaurants are now feeling the sting as food-and-beverage fraud jumped 117% in 2017 compared to the prior year.(4) A 2016 Federal Reserve Bank report found that restaurants experienced an average chargeback of $84 on Visa and Mastercard eCommerce disputes, which was 23.5% higher than the $68 average for card-present transactions.(6)

Eaton-Cardone notes that while todays instant-gratification culture has contributed to an eCommerce boom for merchants that can deliver the ease and speed of Amazon,(3) its also fueling rising chargebacks and fraud. Delivery services such as Uber Eats, Amazon Restaurants and Grubhub allow consumers to order meals without interacting directly with the restaurant, so they may be more inclined to file a chargeback when they never see the victim face-to-face. Researchers believe that soaring food-and-beverage fraud is also likely due in part to criminals using these relatively low-value, anonymous meal orders to test if stolen credit card numbers still work.(4)

Merchants cant let their guard down when it comes to criminal fraud and data breaches, but they really need to expand their fraud-prevention efforts to tackle chargebacks head-on, asserted Eaton-Cardone. In some cases, consumers may not even realize theyre stealing from merchants; they just assume a chargeback is an easy, non-confrontational way to score a refund. Until retailers and restaurateurs start fighting back against unjust chargebacks, fraudsters will continue to take advantage of the system.

To mitigate fraud losses, Eaton-Cardone advises eCommerce merchants to implement a chargeback management solution that combines the rapid detection capabilities of technology with human reasoning and expertise. She recommends a merchant compliance review to correct internal missteps that lead to chargebacks and notes that customer-friendly return policies and proactive outreach can circumvent many disputes. When consumers approach sellers with a transaction issue, merchants are able to resolve the problem without a chargeback in 84% of all cases; yet 76% of cardholders take their dispute directly to their card issuer.(1) Thats why Eaton-Cardone also counsels merchants to engage in tactical representment, which helps recover lost revenue and discourage future chargeback abuse.

Chargebacks911 is committed to educating and supporting eCommerce merchants with services designed to preserve profitability, shrink chargebacks and prevent fraud. To that end, Monica Eaton-Cardone and her team will be participating in a number of upcoming industry events, including PayExpo 2018 in London, ADSUM 2018 in Scottsdale and TravelConnect 2018 in National Harbor, Maryland. For details on Chargebacks911s comprehensive risk management solutions, informative articles and other merchant resources, visit https://chargebacks911.com.

About Chargebacks911:

Chargebacks911, known as The Chargeback Company in Europe, safeguards over 2.4 billion online transactions every year, representing clients in 87 different countries. It is the first global company fully dedicated to mitigating chargeback risk and eliminating chargeback fraud, and the company has won the Customer Choice Award for Best Chargeback Management Solution at the CardNotPresent Awards for two years in succession. As industry-leading innovators, Chargebacks911 is credited with developing the most effective strategies for helping businesses maximize revenue and reduce loss in a variety of industries and sectors within the payments space.

Chargebacks911 provides comprehensive and highly scalable solutions for chargeback compliance, handling services and fraud strategy management. With unparalleled category experience and Intelligence Source Detection (ISD) technology, Chargebacks911 identifies the true source of chargebacks, optimizes revenue recovery opportunities, mediates disputes, safeguards reputations, monitors transactions 24/7 and helps proactively prevent future fraud. To learn more about Chargebacks911, visit http://www.chargebacks911.com.

1. Javelin Strategy & Research and Verifi. The Chargeback Triangle; May 2018.

2. Kount. What Are Your Top 5 Chargeback Challenges?; Blog Against Fraud; February 17, 2018.

3. Corkery, Michael. Hard Lessons (Thanks, Amazon) Breathe New Life Into Retail Stores; The New York Times; September 3, 2018

4. Merchant Risk Council. Forter Releases Fraud Attack Index: Alarming New Normal for eCommerce Fraud; posted in member news on November 22, 2017.

5. Chargebacks911. New eBook from Kount and Chargebacks911: Theres No Such Thing as Friendly Fraud; November 2, 2017.

6. Hayashi, Fumiko; et al. Chargebacks: Another Payment Card Acceptance Cost for Merchants; Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City report; January 2016.A Letter from David James to Paul: Do Good to Others: a charming story about godly behavior in action. A Letter from David James to Paul is the creation of published author Chris Sadler, an educator and married father of three from Wisconsin who uses his personal and professional experiences to write books that enrich the lives of children.

Sadler writes, Dear St. Paul,

My mom and dad tell me to pay attention in church. I try really hard. I look at the priest. I listen to the readings. I even know the Our Father. (I worked all year on that.)

Today in church, I heard one of the letters you wrote to the Thessalonians (I think thats how you spell it). It said

Comfort those who feel they cannot keep going on. Help the weak. Understand and be willing to wait for all men. Do not let anyone pay back for the bad received. But look for ways to do good to each other and to tell people.

You made me think about how I should help people in my community every day, sharing goodness and watching for others doing the same.

Published by Christian Faith Publishing, Chris Sadlers new book is an engaging story that encourages children to thoughtfully put Bible lessons into practice in their everyday lives.

As young David James thinks of various ways to do good to others, children will be motivated to think of other ways that they can do the same.

View a synopsis of A Letter from David James to Paul: Do Good to Others on YouTube.

Consumers can purchase A Letter from David James to Paul: Do Good to Others at traditional brick & mortar bookstores, or online at Amazon.com, Apple iTunes store, or Barnes and Noble.

For additional information or inquiries about A Letter from David James to Paul: Do Good to Others, contact the Christian Faith Publishing media department at 866-554-0919.Meet @Cloudifysource & @SDNEngineering to see a live demo of end-to-end network automation at upcoming industry events #ONS2018 #MEF18 #SDN #NFV #AfricaCom

Cloudify Platform Ltd., the award-winning open source cloud native orchestration platform, has teamed up with Datavision to deliver end-to-end automation solutions for software-defined networking (SDN), network functions virtualization (NFV), edge computing, 5G, open vCPE and VNF management, as well as customized networking stacks. These advanced solutions can be deployed across hybrid environments - including OpenStack, VMware, Azure, AWS, Kubernetes and even bare metal.

This collaboration, driven by customer demand, will enable Datavision to architect and implement systems built on open, best of breed stacks leveraging Cloudify to provide API pluggability and interoperability with popular networking technologies, standards and platforms such as: Netconf, TOSCA, YANG, Cisco NSO, Open Daylight, ONAP, Ansible, alongside tributary technologies integrating seamlessly into clients existing operations.

These joint solutions are already being delivered to leading Fortune 100 companies around the globe, including industrial, manufacturing, and communications service providers (CSPs).

A recent McKinsey Report states that as many as 70% of NFV and digital transformation initiatives fail when organizations are required to rip out old technology for new technology. Cloudify was built to power successful NFV transformations, by enabling organizations to integrate new technology alongside existing technology, by disaggregating the monolithic networking stack. This makes it possible for organizations to gradually achieve NFV transformation, realizing immediate time to value through reduced OPEX and CAPEX, increasing the success rate of cross-organizational transformation processes.

While many organizations are trying to undertake digital transformation initiatives, many initiatives fail when attempting the end-to-end fork lifting approach. An agile transformation approach lowers the barrier to entry for organizations looking to truly transform their legacy networks, says Nati Shalom, CTO and Founder, Cloudify. The technology partnership with Datavision makes it possible to architect real-world systems that run monoliths alongside traditional stacks, and any virtual network function (VNF), all while bringing DevOps concepts to the networking layer through intent-based networking - making NFV transformation initiatives much more attainable for the modern organization.

*** Meet Cloudify & Datavision to see a live demo of the end-to-end network automation solution at upcoming leading industry events:



Open Networking Summit Europe, Amsterdam, the Netherlands | September 25-27, 2018

SDN & NFV World Congress, the Hague, the Netherlands | October 8-12, 2018

MEF18, Los Angeles, California (USA) | October 29-Nov 2, 2018

Africacom, Cape Town, South Africa | November 13-15, 2018

The integrated solution demonstrated in a recent joint webinar, illustrates how both open vCPE and VNF management can be achieved through a simple declarative blueprint.

You can schedule an on-the-ground meeting with the Cloudify & Datavision teams here.

Solution Benefits



End-to-end best of breed, and fully managed solution built by Datavision

Built-in network configuration management through the integration of Ansible, Netconf, Restful plugins.

Cloud network automation which included support for Amazon VPC, Azure , OpenStack Neutron, VMware NSX, as well as public clouds, Azure ARM, AWS Cloud Formation, and tools such as Terraform.

Edge management using the support for Kubernetes on Bare Metal

Datavision and Cloudify are partnering to modernize legacy networks through standard-based automation and abstraction built on TOSCA, providing the interoperability critical to service provider transformation, says Mark Abolafia, Chief Operating Officer, Datavision Inc. With such flexibility, operators can reduce time to revenue through increased velocity, and improve margins by continuing to leverage existing stacks, while gradually introducing new and more cost effective technology.

About Cloudify

Cloudify specializes in IT operations automation technology that manages application and network services through open orchestration. The companys Cloudify software enhances the velocity and reliability of software deployment, lifecycle management and network functions in cloud-native environments. Built and maintained by an open source community, Cloudify is used by telecoms, internet service providers, financial services firms, e-commerce companies and others for NFV operations and cloud management & orchestration.

Cloudify is spearheading open standard initiatives in cloud management and NFV and is the leading orchestration provider behind the TOSCA specification. Cloudify is a founding member of ONAP, next-generation network automation standards, and an active member in OASIS and ETSI standard bodies.

Cloudify has corporate offices in the US, Europe and Asia. More at cloudify.co.

About Datavision, Inc

Datavision is a full-service information technology firm specializing in networking solutions for software-defined networking (SDN), network functions virtualization (NFV), edge computing, 5G, data center, network security and other next-gen technologies. Datavision brings their formidable expertise at leveraging innovative orchestration solutions such as Cloudify, accelerating customer access to service automation. The company has extensive experience across a multitude of orchestration platforms, with a long history of network engineering and software development experience in the SDN/NFV space. We work with our clients through the automation and virtualization journey with a complete approach, looking at the services to be offered as well as current processes, and how to optimize for automation. Our solutions help our clients to lower their operational costs and increase their agility while reducing their time to revenue.This year, conceptualist-as-artist Machine Dazzle will serve as Grand Marshal in New York Citys 45th Annual Village Halloween Parade. Machine will dazzle the streets of New York City, just as he has since his arrival in the Big Apple in 1994. The costume designer extraordinaire will lead parade-revelers up Sixth Avenue and exhibit his talents in a look that will bring to life this years theme: I AM a Robot!

Machine Dazzle is best known for his award-winning designs for Taylor Macs A 24-Decade History of Popular Music and has won the prestigious Henry Hewes Design Award.

I am absolutely thrilled about this opportunity and cannot wait to experience the collective celebration of individual imagination, said Machine Dazzle. Halloween perfectly embodies not only my work as an extreme costume designer and performance artist, but also my lifetime affinity for make-believe and fantasy. 

Machine Dazzle will host a $5,000 costume contest at the Official Halloween After Party, presented by the Research Foundation to Cure AIDS (RFTCA). The RFTCA is an alliance of leaders from diverse fields who are developing a cure for AIDS that is accessible and affordable for those in need worldwide. The official after party will begin at 10:30pm at Performance Space New York in the East Village.

We are thrilled this year to announce Machine Dazzle as this years Grand Marshal and to present an After Party for a Cause. At the 45th Annual Parade, Machine will dazzle like a jewel in the perfect setting! said Jeanne Fleming, Director of the Village Halloween Parade. Before there was the Gay Pride Parade, the Halloween Parade has always been a safe haven for the LGBT community to express themselves. This year, we celebrate the progress that has been made for LGBT rights and HIV/AIDS prevention while marching towards equality and the cure.

The legendary Village Halloween Parade has entertained the public on Halloween night for the past 44 years, on 6th Avenue North of Spring Street to 16th Street from 7:00pm - 10:30pm. The parade has been attracting millions of people from around the world. It will showcase hundreds of puppets, 53 bands spanning all genres of music, dancers, artists and thousands of New Yorkers donning costumes of their own creation in the nations largest public participatory event in the greatest city in the world.

For more information on the Parade, please visit http://www.halloween-nyc.com.

For more information on Machine Dazzle, please visit https://onassisusa.org/bio/machine-dazzle-1.

For more information on the Research Foundation to Cure AIDS, please visit https://www.researchfoundationtocureaids.org/.This agreement with Patterson Dental is a huge win for dental practices. Our passion at Dental Intel is helping dental practices to grow." Weston Lunsford, Dental Intelligence CEO

Dental Intelligence is pleased to announce a software distribution and support agreement with Patterson Dental, a business unit of Patterson Companies. This agreement gives many thousands of dental practices unprecedented access to Dental Intels powerful, best-in-class practice management tools and resources.

We are excited to be partnering with Dental Intelligence to help dental practices grow by better understanding how their business is performing, identifying where they can improve results and taking immediate action on information, said Brad Fromm, Director of Commercial Software Marketing. By selling and supporting the Dental Intelligence full product line, we will further help our customers achieve long-term success and improved patient care.

As part of this new agreement with Dental Intelligence, Patterson Dental will be the exclusive distributor of a new Mobile App and Reporting product bundle. Dental Intelligences products provide practices with actionable data, including provider-level information, easy-to-read dashboards, and tools to empower their team.

According to Dental Intelligence CEO Weston Lunsford, This agreement with Patterson Dental is a huge win for dental practices. Our passion at Dental Intel is helping dental practices to grow. Were thrilled to be working with Patterson in this shared objective and look forward to helping many more practices to improve patient care, team collaboration, and practice profitability.

About Dental Intelligence

With thousands of active practice providers, Dental Intelligence is the market leader in providing dentists and their teams with any time, anywhere actionable metrics in a cloud-based dashboard, designed around the objectives of improving patient care, profitability, and overall team performance. To learn more, visit http://www.dentalintel.com/

About Patterson Companies Inc.

Patterson Companies Inc. is a value-added distributor serving the dental and animal health markets. Learn more: http://www.pattersoncompanies.comIn a new review published by Dallas plastic surgeon Dr. Rod J. Rohrich and Dr. Min-Jeong Cho in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, the authors found a severe lack of information and few studies that focus on safety and efficacy of plastic surgery in the teenaged population. With over 200,000 teens receiving some type of plastic surgery treatment every year, the review offers guidelines based on the current research, and offers areas for future study.

"There is a myriad of literature on the psychological and ethical issues concerning plastic surgery in teenagers," the review found, "However, studies regarding the safety of performing plastic surgery in this population are scarce."

The study suggests that increased use of social media and associated peer feedback may contribute to body image and self-esteem issues among teens which plastic surgeons should consider when evaluating a teenage patient's candidacy for treatment.

While more research and established guidance exists for surgical procedures such as rhinoplasty and breast surgery, the study found little research on the more common and increasingly popular non-invasive procedures such as fillers, injectables, and various skin treatments.

"We were surprised to find that only eight studies have been performed that evaluate laser, chemical peel, and microdermabrasion use in adolescents, and zero outcomes studies on injectable use despite its high popularity," says Dr. Rohrich, who is also the Editor in chief of the Journal of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. "It's safe to say that more research is needed in these areas."

The review includes discussion about several considerations for teenage patients such as potential hormonal interactions with various treatments, acne and long term scarring, and the social and developmental impact that bullying may have on children and teenagers with congenital deformities, among others.

"While a rhinoplasty or ear surgery can be performed safely by a board-certified plastic surgeon and are, in many cases, appropriate for an adolescent, other cosmetic procedures such as breast augmentation, liposuction or injectables are typically not recommended for minors for several reasons, including lack of research," said Dr. Rohrich. "It's concerning that there has been a surge in the use of injectables in young patients to achieve augmented cheeks and lips when there is no evidence that these procedures are safe for adolescents."

Based on the literature reviewed, the study offered guidelines for some of the most popular procedures:

Rhinoplasty: In children and teens with significant nasal deformities, nose reshaping may be appropriate. It is recommended that surgery not be performed until nasal growth is completed  typically age 15 to 16 in females and age 16 to 18 in males. In some situations, such as a child with a cleft lip, a rhinoplasty may be performed at a younger age.

Breast reduction: To alleviate back and neck pain, breast reductions are commonly performed on teenaged girls; however, it's important to ensure that surgery is performed after the patient has completed breast development, which typically occurs between 12 and 19 years of age.

Otoplasty: Surgery to correct ear deformities can be performed as young as age five, as this is when the ear is almost fully grown.

Liposuction: Unless performed as part of a breast reduction surgery, it is not recommended that a teenager undergo liposuction.

Breast augmentation: Candidates with uncommon chest deformities or congenital breast asymmetry are generally the only cases in which a board-certified plastic surgeon should deem breast augmentation appropriate for a teenager.

"Patient safety should always be the top priority of any plastic surgeon," says Dr. Rohrich. "This important review clearly indicates the need for more research on the long term safety and efficacy of plastic surgery performed on teens, especially in the non-invasive areas which are rapidly becoming the most popular procedures."

About Rod J. Rohrich, M.D., F.A.C.S.

Dr. Rod Rohrich is a Dallas, Texas board certified plastic surgeon, Distinguished Teaching Professor and was the Founding Chair of the Department of Plastic Surgery at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas. Dr. Rohrich graduated from Baylor College of Medicine with high honors, and completed residencies at the University of Michigan Medical Center and fellowships at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard (hand/microsurgery) and Oxford University (pediatric plastic surgery). He has served as president of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, the largest organization of board certified plastic surgeons in the world. He repeatedly has been selected by his peers as one of America's best doctors, and is the only plastic surgeon to receive one of his profession's highest honors three times in his career-the Plastic Surgery Educational Foundation Distinguished Service Award, which recognizes his contributions to education in plastic surgery. Dr. Rohrich participates in and has led numerous associations and councils for the advancement of plastic and reconstructive surgery.Dr. Shon Shree Lewis, an ordained Christian minister with an honorary doctorate theology degree from GMOR Theological Institute of America, has completed her new book Christians Going Wild: Interrupted: a potent book that discusses the profoundness of knowing the true purpose of life despite sin and temptation as written in the Word of God.

Author Dr. Lewis enlightens and reminds readers to practice goodness and steadfastness that reflect Gods love and mercy for each human being: That is why God has made his supernatural words of instruction from the Bible available to you, to help guide your life in his wisdom and protection, so that you will not struggle with any temptation, which includes lust for companionship. In fact, if you follow Gods order of waiting for his guidance and perfect will, to have a relationship with the opposite gender, with someone who is a Christian believer and lives for God, the Lord will lead you to the right person at the proper time for marriage, with the person he chooses who is suitable for you.

Published by New York City-based Page Publishing, Dr. Shon Shree Lewiss engaging narrative assures a life-changing experience that helps readers recognize, use, and appreciate the omnipotence of God in blessing and prospering life to a holistic level.

Readers who wish to experience this magniloquent work can purchase Christians Going Wild: Interrupted at bookstores everywhere, or online at the Apple iTunes store, Amazon, Google Play, or Barnes and Noble.

For additional information or media inquiries, contact Page Publishing at 866-315-2708.

About Page Publishing:

Page Publishing is a traditional New York based full-service publishing house that handles all of the intricacies involved in publishing its authors books, including distribution in the worlds largest retail outlets and royalty generation. Page Publishing knows that authors need to be free to create - not bogged down with complicated business issues like eBook conversion, establishing wholesale accounts, insurance, shipping, taxes and the like. Its roster of authors can leave behind these tedious, complex and time-consuming issues, and focus on their passion: writing and creating. Learn more at http://www.pagepublishing.com.We look forward to working with East Stroudsburg University to achieve their goals and ultimately provide a more comprehensive student success system for their students.

Hobsons, the education technology leader and company behind Starfish, today announced that East Stroudsburg University (ESU) has partnered with Starfish to launch the Starfish Enterprise Success Platform to increase communication and connection between students, faculty, and staff across campus.

Located in East Stroudsburg, Pa., ESU serves about 6,500 undergraduate students and 700 graduate students annually. The delivery of the Starfish technology campus-wide is aligned with the Universitys strategic plan, Students First: Empowering Students through Collaboration, as well as its mission to to explore opportunities that will constantly energize and improve its mission as a learning community of the 21st Century.

For two years we have been studying software systems that would enable us to improve our student success and retention. We chose Starfish because it provides all the features we are looking for, integrates with our current systems, and is very user friendly, said Joanne Bruno, J.D., Provost and Vice-President for Academic Affairs. Our first objective is to establish a comprehensive advising system, and the second objective is to have an early alert system that helps us to proactively serve our students and to ensure they achieve their educational and career goals.

As faculty, we see thousands of students with different developmental goals, said Beth Rajan Sockman, Ph.D., Professor and Co-Chair of Professional and Secondary Education. ESU has resources to help students grow professionally and academically. Starfish has the ability to aggregate data across those resources so faculty, staff, and students are able meet personal-professional growth needs.

At Starfish, our mission is to provide the technology needed to help students attain their educational and career goals, said Howard Bell, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Starfish. We look forward to working with East Stroudsburg University to achieve their goals and ultimately provide a more comprehensive student success system for their students.

East Stroudsburg University joins a community of over 450 higher education institutions currently using the Starfish platform.

The Starfish Enterprise Success Platform helps more than 450 colleges and universities scale their student success efforts so more students can achieve their academic and life goals. By helping higher education institutions leverage reliable data to pinpoint areas of concern and opportunity within courses and student populations, as well as institutional programs and services, Starfish connects these findings to action by identifying at-risk students, connecting students with valuable resources, and building academic plans to achieve student goals with the least momentum lost.

To learn more about Starfish, visit http://www.starfishsolutions.com.

About East Stroudsburg University

East Stroudsburg University, a comprehensive university in northeastern Pennsylvania the scenic Pocono Mountains and adjacent to the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. Founded in 1893, it offers 57 undergraduate programs, 21 master's programs and 1 doctoral program. ESU is one of the 14 institutions in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education.

About Hobsons

A leader in education technology, Hobsons helps more than 15 million students to identify their strengths, explore careers, match to best-fit educational opportunities, create academic plans, and reach their education and life goals. More than 13,000 K-12 and higher education institutions partner with Hobsons and leverage our expertise and our solutions -- Naviance, Intersect, and Starfish -- to improve college and career readiness, college recruiting and admissions, and higher education student success to support millions of students.This is simply about telling our story better and accurately representing why it is that these large brands come back to our team over and over again.

When business partners and family friends Andrew Baker and Brian Bogus began their video production company in 2011, neither expected to work with global brands like Rolls-Royce and Shell Oil on projects having very little to do with actual video production.

Building a business in the Houston area plugged us into a community of large industrial companies, many of which had never considered using new media and emerging technology to improve their operations and training, said Bogus. The more video and animation work we produced for our clients, the more we found a need for interactive and software development as well. The expansion into those services was organic based on opportunities presented to us by our clients.

As a technology provider for large industrial companies, Abstract (formerly Abstract Media) focuses on streamlining, digitizing and increasing visualization of operations. They also target better ways to enhance knowledge transfer and retention for training employees and customers of their clients. The Abstract team consists of interactive development, software development, and visualization departments that fulfill custom solutions in the gaming simulation, web/software applications, and 3D space. They work with some of the largest industrial companies in the world on projects ranging from virtual reality and augmented reality training experiences to mobile apps and workflow applications.

The changes we made as a brand, and the reasoning behind those changes, came completely as a team effort, Baker said. Our team was talking one day about how we offer so much more than just a typical media company, but we were tied to this name that seemed to hold us back from realizing our true potential.

Around the same time, Bogus noticed an increase in canceled meetings after people would go to their website and see a heavy emphasis on video and animation.

They thought thats all we could do, he said. We felt it was time to reflect in our name and our online profile what it is that we really do.

Both Baker and Bogus noted that the design for the new website is agnostic of specific services to speak more to how Abstract caters to solving problems companies face with their training and operations. They also placed a stronger emphasis on their product offering, which couples with their custom interactive and software solutions. While this may still involve elements of video and animation, it wont rely on those options and is not the primary focus of the website and new brand.

We're technology agnostic in our approach to helping clients, so it makes sense that we take that approach in telling our story, Baker said. Dont focus on what exactly we created for other clients in the past, only that we solved their issue using a unique combination of new media and technology.

That unique approach to each project is emphasized by their company slogan, Creating Unique.

We want to get people dreaming about what they want to create right now, and save the logistics of how that happens for talks down the road once we have a direction, Baker said.

Bogus added that while they do handle service work, Abstract also has products currently utilized by clients out in the field as well. When asked if they will now be referred to in conversation simply as Abstract, Bogus said thats really how its always been.

Funny enough its what we get referred to by our clients already, he remarked. It fit for us to drop the Media from our name since no one uses it in conversation anyway, were just Abstract.

Visit https://www.abstract.tech to view the new website and branding. Email addresses for the team will also change, so clients and colleagues are encouraged to update their address book for anyone with a current @abstractmediaco.com email address to the new @abstract.tech address. These new email addresses are already in effect; however, the old addresses will continue to forward in the future, so nothing is missed. Contact andrew(at)abstract.tech with questions.

While the new website will look quite different to returning viewers, the team promised they will provide some elements from the old site for all the videos and animations, so viewers can still access that content.

We are not changing the mission of our company or what it is that we do for our current clients, Baker and Bogus agreed. This is simply about telling our story better and accurately representing why it is that these large brands come back to our team over and over again.

Abstract is a training and operations technology solutions provider for large industrial companies through engaging interactive and software development that improves effectiveness, efficiency, and safety while providing a transparent customer experience. Their experience ranges from Inventory Management Systems and Logistical Applications for improved workflow to web and mobile applications for documentation, procedures, and diagrams. They also specialize in cutting-edge augmented reality and virtual reality experiences to allow users to enhance the world that is in front of them for any purpose. They also have software products available that have already been tested in a live environment. Abstract boasts proven results from clients which include increased sales, improved efficiency in operations, and a reduction of cost through document digitization.

Clients include Texas Childrens Hospital, Schlumberger, Rolls Royce, and Shell Oil.Inspired by the literary success of J.K. Rowlings Harry Potter series, author Matthew MacDonnell wrote his debut fiction, in which a college-aged witch battles the forces of Satan, titled The Satanic Platforms: & the Whore of Babylon (published by AuthorHouse UK).

Elizabeth Brooks is a witch in training at the University of Anglesey  the best university for witches and wizards. As she moves through her studies, she finds herself fighting off the powers of the devil  powers that threaten the very existence of all witches and wizards in the realm.

The Satanic Platforms brings into play political, social and emotional themes, interwoven with the fictional story, to show readers the importance of power and trust.

As the society that we now live in there are a lot of problems with borders, faiths and people you can trust to run a country, MacDonnell says. These books will cover ways to gain a more trusting way to run a country without conflict.

To order a copy and know more about the book, readers may visit https://www.amazon.com/Satanic-Platforms-Whore-Babylon/dp/1496986598.

The Satanic Platforms

By Matthew MacDonnell

Hardcover | 6 x 9 in | 136 pages | ISBN 9781496986580

Softcover | 6 x 9 in | 136 pages | ISBN 9781496986597

E-Book | 136 pages | ISBN 9781496986603

Available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble

About the Author

Matthew MacDonnell is a first-time author based in Reading, England. He worked in the field of information technology for a long time and thought it was boring. The Satanic Platforms is his first attempt at conquering the artistic world and exercising his mind.

AuthorHouse, an Author Solutions, Inc. self-publishing imprint, is a leading provider of book publishing, marketing, and bookselling services for authors around the globe and offers the industrys only suite of Hollywood book-to-film services. Committed to providing the highest level of customer service, AuthorHouse assigns each author personal publishing and marketing consultants who provide guidance throughout the process. Headquartered in Bloomington, Indiana, AuthorHouse celebrated 15 years of service to authors in Sept. 2011.For more information or to publish a book visit authorhouse.com or call 0800 1974150. For the latest, follow @AuthorHouseUK on Twitter.The solution we implemented with Fides and Reval has helped us transform our treasury operations.  Eli Brown, Treasury Process Controller, UPS

Fides Treasury Services Ltd., the global leader in multi-bank connectivity and communications, announced today that two of its customers have been honored with 2018 EuroFinance Treasury Excellence Awards.

UPS was named the winner of the treasury excellence award for technology implementation. The award was based on the multi-banking solution the transportation and logistics leader implemented using Fides and the Reval TMS to deliver cash visibility across the business. A pressing need for cash visibility and to modernize pushed UPS treasury to achieve a real-time cash view with inbuilt flexibility for the future, with reduced risk and administrative time as overall benefits.

The solution we implemented with Fides and Reval has helped us transform our treasury operations, said Eli Brown, UPS Treasury Process Controller. The visibility provided by Fides has greatly increased our efficiency in managing cash and cash assets, which is ultimately what treasury is about.

Volvo Car Corporation won the treasury excellence business partnering for value-add award, based on finding imaginative yet practical ways in which its treasury could add demonstrable business results. Volvo Cars treasury team actively seeks the best solutions for the business, including new technologies that drive efficiency and automation throughout the company. Volvo Cars uses Fides to manage its payments workflows, leveraging Fides validation services to ensure payment and messaging continuity.

Each EuroFinance Treasury Excellence Award winner will present an in-depth case at the flagship International Treasury Management conference this week in Geneva, Switzerland, Sept. 26-28.

We are thrilled that our customers have received this recognition from EuroFinance, said Simon Kaufmann, Head, Client Relations and Marketing at Fides. It is a strong statement and great recognition to all the efforts their treasury departments have put into innovation and business best practices, keeping their businesses on the leading edge.

To showcase its clients many success stories, Fides recently launched an "Our Clients" web page. The site features customer logos and case studies designed to help corporate treasurers learn how their peers are using multi-banking solutions, the challenges they have faced, and how they overcame those challenges to achieve success.

Learn how UPS leverages multi-banking solutions from Fides and the Reval TMS to achieve close to real-time cash visibility, strengthen cash positioning, and streamline global bank messaging and payments processing.

ABOUT FIDES

Fides is the global leader in multi-bank connectivity and transaction communications.

With the industrys largest bank connectivity network, Fides helps over 3,000 active clients communicate with more than 10,000 banks globally. Our geographic reach spans 170 countries across the Americas, EMEA, and APAC regions.

Committed to helping corporations optimally connect and interact with their banks for over a century, Fides solutions deliver critical multi-bank account statement, payment workflow and reporting capabilities that allow treasury and finance teams to easily, accurately and securely communicate with their banks through any possible channel such as SWIFT, EBICS, SFTP or any alternative network.

Press Contact: Please email marketing(at)fides.ch for all press inquiriesSAE International bills the symposium as a venue at which will be discussed new concepts to provide passenger compartment heating and cooling, as well as heating and cooling of batteries and cooling vehicle fuel systems.

SAE International Member Daniel Kok, Ph, Manager of Advanced Electrified Power-train Systems, Ford Motor Co., will deliver one of the two keynote addresses at the Oc-tober 9-11 SAE International Thermal Management Systems Symposium in San Diego. In addition to the two keynote addresses (the other will be by Tony Vespa of Hyundai), the symposium will feature 12 sessions on topics ranging from regulations to simula-tion to cabin comfortand many areas in between. Multiple experts will speak at each session.

SAE International bills the symposium as a venue at which will be discussed new concepts to provide passenger compartment heating and cooling, as well as heating and cooling of batteries and cooling vehicle fuel systems. The event will include an exhibit.

Asked by SAEs Update what he plans to say at his keynote presentation on October 9, Fords Kok said:

The automotive industry is in the midst of rapidly expanding its electrified vehicle port-folio. Early adopters of hybrids (HEVs), plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) and battery electric vehicles (BEVs) have been willing to accept some attribute trade-offs like degraded performance for improved fuel economy or less interior space for more electric range. Fords next generation of electrified vehicles must appeal to a wide range of customers. This provides a challenge for product development engineers: How to minimize trade-offs and maximize customer satisfaction.

Fortunately, Kok continued, the latest advancements in battery and e-drive technolo-gy help us achieve these goals in better ways. I plan to share insights into new meth-ods of data analytics that help us understand electrified vehicle usage and thereby en-able us to set targets for high-voltage components like batteries, electric motors and on-board chargers. Most electrified systems require operation at temperatures lower than the traditional internal-combustion engine, so we need to carefully (re-)design the ve-hicle cooling system to allow these systems to operate correctly. Li-ion batteries in par-ticular may require some form of heating/pre-conditioning in cold climate conditions. Well look at the component requirements, quantify energy flows and focus on specific challenges and system interactions.

New challenges can also be found in the heating ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) system. Here, well discuss how exhaust gas heat recovery systems and heat pumps may play a specific role in the field of FHEVs, PHEVs and BEVs, Kok added.

Kok noted that HEV, PHEV and BEVs have more thermal system contents on board than vehicles with a traditional Internal Combustion Engine powertrain. Combined with the democratization of electrified vehicle technology, this drives the need for OEMs and the supply base to develop cost-optimized thermal system solutions, he said.

Asked to dispel some of the bigger misconceptions about thermal management, Kok mentioned two items:



Electrified powertrain components produce an order of magnitude less heat and hence are easier to cool. Unfortunately, these systems tend to operate at much lower temperatures and tighter temperature ranges, making them more complex to control.

The range capability of a BEV depends on a variety of factors including drive cycle, environment, and auxiliary vehicle loads such as climate control. Unfor-tunately, in the absence of free waste heat from an internal-combustion engine, a BEVs range can be significantly impacted by how much energy the HVAC system consumes for heating in cold climate conditions.

What is the most interesting thermal management technology that Ford is working on at the moment? We increasingly use big-data analytics to understand the environment and customers usage of our vehicles, Kok answered. This enables us to design bet-ter thermal management solutions for electrified and autonomous vehicles alike. A lot of our attention is given to integrating subsystems to reduce overall vehicle cost.

Kok has more than 20 patents to his name. Most are focused on energy management and relate to start-stop and hybrid operations, he said. As such they have an indirect impact on thermal management. One older one covers the use of thermo-electric mate-rials for in-vehicle use.

A seven-year SAE Member, Kok is involved with the organization mostly through con-ferences such as this one. It gives me the opportunity to stay up to date on latest de-velopment trends and connect with people from the industry, he said.

In his current position, Kok is responsible for powertrain system design of Fords next generation of HEV, PHEV and BEV vehicles. In 2011, he transferred from Fords Euro-pean operations to Fords Engineering Center in Dearborn, Mich.

SAE International is a global association committed to being the ultimate knowledge source for the engineering profession. By uniting over 127,000 engineers and tech-nical experts, we drive knowledge and expertise across a broad spectrum of industries. We act on two priorities: encouraging a lifetime of learning for mobility engineering pro-fessionals and setting the standards for industry engineering. We strive for a better world through the work of our philanthropic SAE Foundation, including programs like A World in Motion and the Collegiate Design Series.Allure Travel by CTM has won North Americas Leading Travel Agency in the 2018 World Travel Awards. The win marks the 4th consecutive year that Allure Travel by CTM has won this award.

Salv Silvera, Vice President of Leisure for North America, attended the Caribbean & North America Gala Ceremony held in Montego Bay Jamaica on Saturday, September 22st to collect the award.

Ive proudly accepted the award on behalf of our wonderful Allure Travel staff across the nation, says Silvera. Their dedication, knowledge and ability to care for each of our travelers is what has won this award for us.

Originating in Australia under the Corporate Travel Management family umbrella, the Allure Travel by CTM North America footprint, has been steadily growing since 2012; with the acquisition of agencies formerly known as Montrose Travel, Doug Fox Travel, US Travel and others.

Today, Allure Travel by CTM consists of seven branch offices and numerous home-based agents across the US. Were still growing, says Silvera. The value of using a travel agent is still very relevant in todays leisure travel market and were working hard to ensure our clients receive the best service possible.

Allure Travel by CTM has been nominated as a finalist as Worlds Leading Travel Agency hosted by the global 25th Annual World Travel Awards. Travel professionals and consumers can vote for Allure Travel by CTM by Wednesday October 24, 2018 at http://www.worldtravelawards.com/vote.

***

ABOUT ALLURE TRAVEL BY CTM

Allure Travel by CTM is North Americas leading full-service seller of travel experiences for vacation travelers who expect more. Specializing in cruises, tours, vacation packages and more, Allure Travel by CTM offers knowledgeable advisors providing more personalized vacations. A division of Corporate Travel Management, Allure Travel by CTM advisors provide access to options travelers cannot find on their own while saving them time and money. To learn more about Allure Travel by CTM, please visit http://www.AllureTravel.com.

ABOUT CORPORATE TRAVEL MANAGEMENT (CTM)

CTM is an award-winning provider of innovative and cost-effective travel management solutions to the corporate market. Its proven business strategy combines personalized service excellence with client facing technology solutions to deliver a return on investment to clients. Headquartered in Australia, the company employs approximately 2,350 FTE staff globally and provides local services solutions to clients in more than 70 countries.

ABOUT WORLD TRAVEL AWARDS (WTA)

WTA was established in 1993 to acknowledge, reward and celebrate excellence across all sectors of the tourism industry. Today, the WTA brand is recognized globally as the ultimate hallmark of quality, with winners setting the benchmark to which all others aspire. Each year, WTA covers the globe with a series of regional gala ceremonies staged to recognize and celebrate individual and collective success within each key geographical region.

WTA gala ceremonies are widely regarded as the best networking opportunities in the travel industry, attended by government and industry leaders, luminaries and international print and broadcast media.Dependent audits are a proven way to reduce rising healthcare costs. Employer savings from dependent audits can be applied to lower employee contributions, fund paid family medical leave or add executive benefits.

Is your organization wasting money insuring ineligible people? Learn how to determine and avert this costly, but common HR mistake by attending this complimentary webinar hosted by benefits delivery innovator, Hodges-Mace, LLC, on Tuesday, October 2, at 1:00pm ET. Register here to attend.

Busting the Myths of Dependent Audits is ideal for HR executives, CFOs and benefits managers seeking to ensure the integrity and boost ROI from their employee benefits programs. The one-hour webinar will be co-presented by two dependent verification experts from Hodges-Mace, Anna Simmons and Katy Dahlstrom. During their session, Anna and Katy will:



Reveal the top four myths employers believe about dependent audits

Share how Hodges-Mace has turned these myths around to create a great dependent verification experience for employers and employees

Showcase real world examples of ROI from dependent verification

Offer next steps on how to prepare for an audit

The webinar will conclude with a live audience Q&A and will be available for replay to those who register.

Dependent audits are a proven way to reduce rising healthcare costs. Employer savings from dependent audits can be applied to lower employee contributions, fund paid family medical leave or add executive benefits.

Hodges-Mace is highly experienced performing dependent audits, especially since acquiring the Sentry platform with the ContinuousHealth acquisition in 2014. Developed in 2006, Sentry is an inhouse eligibility verification software solution, which is consistently enhanced to meet current compliance standards.

Hodges-Mace typically guarantees a 3:1 ROI on its dependent-verification services. Take this online ROI test to calculate how much your organization could save with an dependent audit.

About the Speakers

Anna Simmons is a team lead at Hodges-Mace where she oversees the people and processes around SmartBen Gatekeeper and Sentry. Anna's extensive experience with dependent audits began when she worked for ContinuousHealth.

Katy Dahlstrom is the dependent verification guru within the sales operations team at Hodges-Mace. Specializing in Sentry demos, Katy knows the platform well and turns the word "audit" into a desirable word! She was a dependent verification supervisor for Hodges-Mace for three years, before her role in sales ops.

About Hodges-Mace

Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, Hodges-Mace, LLC is a leading provider of benefit management software and services. Their portfolio ranges from small-to-mid-size companies and Fortune 500 enterprises in a variety of industries, including education, energy, gaming, financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, and retail. Hodges-Mace is a respected leader in the employee benefits industry and is dedicated to helping employees and employers make smarter benefits decisions through a blend of innovative technologies and intelligent service solutions. The company was named a 2018 Top 10 Cloud Solution provider by HR Tech Outlook Magazine. Employees voted Hodges-Mace One of the Best Companies to Work for in Georgia in 2016 and 2017. For additional information visit http://www.hodgesmace.com.Lee and Sheri Putman, the master franchisees for Stratus Building Solutions in Indianapolis, have been named National Franchisee of the Year for Stratus Building Solutions, the nations leading green commercial cleaning and janitorial services franchise, by the International Franchise Association.

The Putmans opened the doors for Stratus in the capital of Indiana in May 2017 and quickly set a Stratus record  reaching the highest level of monthly recurring revenue through the first 15 months as a master franchisee. The company, which is the nations leading green commercial cleaning and janitorial-services franchise, nominated the Putmans for the award. The couple recently received the award at the annual Franchise Action Network fly-in conference hosted by the International Franchise Association in Washington, D.C.

The Putmans also have been instrumental new members of Stratus Franchise Advisory Council, providing support and advice to other new master franchisees as they set up their own operations in markets around the country.

The International Franchise Association established this award to recognize franchisees who have contributed to the growth and success of franchising as a method of distribution in the global economy, said Afshin Cangarlu, CEO of Stratus Building Solutions. Lee, Sheri and their Indianapolis team continue to accomplish a high rate of growth by delivering outstanding service to their customers and maintaining committed support of their unit franchisees. They are excellent representatives of what makes Stratus great from coast to coast.

Before joining the Stratus family, Lee Putman spent more than three decades as a successful sales and marketing professional in his native Indiana, including a 22-year stint at one of Americas oldest and largest makers of medical devices, pharmaceuticals and consumer packaged goods. He was in charge of two sales divisions that were responsible for a combined $600 million in annual revenue.

After that experience, Putman moved into an opportunity to help build a venture startup company from scratch. Up to that point, Id spent my entire life in corporate America, he recalled. The challenge of building something from the ground up was intriguing. Couple that with the opportunity to earn a bigger payday, and to have fun while doing it, and it seemed like the right decision.

At the startup, annual revenues rose to $100 million during Putmans nine-year tenure. But when the company wanted to consolidate all of its operations in a single location, outside of Indiana, the Putmans faced the dilemma of moving  or staying with their roots in their home state.

Around the same time, the Putmans also were harboring a greater desire to control their own career destiny  and to enjoy a better quality of life while doing so. Id spent the majority of my career crisscrossing the country and the world on business-related travel, Putman said. The quality of life wasnt what I wanted, and Sheri began pressing me to look for a backup plan. At the same time, the more deeply I dug into the possibility of entrepreneurship, the more enchanted I became. For my entire career, I had built business for other people. It made sense for me to build something for my own family.

Putman selected a master-franchise relationship with Stratus as the perfect fit for their future. Stratus offered us a fantastic and proven business model that included recurring revenue streams. It was right up our alley, he said.

The Putmans immediately proved able to plumb their knowledge of the Indianapolis community to obtain customers and satisfy them with the Stratus way. Were providing a partnership, he said, and it doesnt take long to notice the difference in customer service and satisfaction that Stratus provides.

Recruiting unit franchisees came a little more slowly, but soon the Putmans gained traction in that arena as well. With the assistance of the fantastic business model provided by Stratus, weve helped other people become and succeed as small-business owners, too, Putman said. Were helping to change their quality of life, and thats a nice benefit that I didnt foresee.

Stratus Building Solutions is an international franchise company in the commercial cleaning industry, founded in 2006 and headquartered in Los Angeles. Stratus was developed to provide environmentally friendly commercial cleaning services driven by dedicated, entrepreneurial, small-business owners and regional support offices.

Stratus has more than 1,500-unit franchisees in 46 major cities across the United States. Stratus is setting new standards in the commercial cleaning and janitorial services franchise industry by being the first to offer green janitorial services with their proprietary, Green Seal Certified line of cleaning chemicals.

For more information on Stratus Building Solutions, please visit https://www.stratusbuildingsolutions.com.

For more information on Stratus Building Solutions master- and unit-level franchise opportunities, please visit http://www.stratusclean.com.

About Stratus Building Solutions

Stratus Building Solutions is an international franchise company in the commercial cleaning industry, founded in 2006 and headquartered in Los Angeles, CA. Stratus was developed to provide environmentally friendly commercial cleaning services driven by dedicated, entrepreneurial, small business owners and regional support offices. Stratus has over 1,500-unit franchisees in 46 major cities across the United States and Canada. Stratus is setting new standards in the building services and maintenance franchise industry by being the first to offer green janitorial with their proprietary, Green Seal Certified line of cleaning chemicals."We are thrilled to honor Jay and these incredible real estate professionals. The creation of the list is a milestone in our 11 years of existence and is another major step forward in our work to promote LGBT and allied agents and teams who do so much in our communities." - Jeff Berger, NAGLREP.

The National Association of Gay and Lesbian Real Estate Professionals (NAGLREP) today unveiled the real estate industrys first recognition of top producing LGBT and allied agents and teams. The NAGLREP Top LGBT+ Agent List recognizes more than 60 organization members.

Jay Kipp, of Realogics Sothebys International Realty, was named to the list having produced over $28 million in sales volume in 2017.

We are thrilled to honor Jay and these incredible real estate professionals, said Jeff Berger, founder of NAGLREP. The creation of the list is a milestone in our 11 years of existence and is another major step forward in our work to promote LGBT and allied agents and teams who do so much in our communities.

Berger pointed out that NAGLREP.com receives more than 75,000 unique visitors a month, mostly consisting of LGBT home buyers and sellers, and Kipp will have a NAGLREP Top LGBT+ agent icon added to his profile page on the site to assist in marketing efforts.

NAGLREP, now in its 11th year, has 25 chapters around the nation and has grown to more than 2,000 members as one of the largest LGBT trade groups in the U.S.

With fifteen years of expertise in residential real estate, Jay Kipp brings a wealth of knowledge regarding appraisal, market analysis, capital markets and property marketing to every real estate transaction. For 2018, Jay ranked third in sales volume at RSIRs Seattle office. He is the only RSIR residential real estate member of the Forbes Real Estate Council, an invitation-only organization for executives in the real estate industry. Additionally, Jay is a member of the Sothebys International Realty Next Gen Affinity Group, a collection of 40 agentsof 21,000 companywide, hand-selected by Julie Leonhardt LaTorre, COO of Sothebys International Realtythat lend voice and insight in how to best shape the companys future. He is also an active member of the Sothebys International Realty Exceptional Agent Network, a collegial forum of brokers in all major metro-markets and select destination cities who share best practices and local market insight across North America.

Real estate is known as one of the most competitive industries in the world, where inspiration, drive and a deep consumer understanding are vital to succeed, said Kevin Thompson, Chief Marketing Officer of Sothebys International Realty, which sponsored the NAGLREP Top LGBT+ Agent List. Our success is directly connected to our ability to attract the best talent in the world, which needs to be as diverse and inclusive as the clients we serve. The first Top LGBT + Agent List gives us an opportunity to showcase real estates top professionals who combine outstanding service and unmatched market knowledge with an impeccable work ethic and insatiable desire to succeed.

All sales professionals and teams ranked in the NAGLREP Top LGBT+ Agent List appeared on the 2018 REAL Trends Americas Best Real Estate Professionals ratings sponsored by Adwerx and are ranked in the top one-half of 1 percent of more than 1.3 million Realtors nationwide.

Kipp looks forward to attending the NAGLREP National Conference in Palm Springs October 2nd to 4th along with fellow RSIR agent Joe Patterson, Patrick Martin of the Sothebys International Realty  Sunset Strip Brokerage, and Herman Chan of Golden Gate Sothebys International Realty.

Click here for full details about the NAGLREP Top LGBT+ Agent List.

###

METHODOLOGY

REAL Trends Americas Best Real Estate Professionals sponsored by Adwerx and honors America's finest real estate agents and their companies and is compiled and analyzed by REAL Trends.

The rankings are compiled based on surveys from virtually every national branded network, many state and local associations of Realtors, multiple listing services, all applicants from past years rankings, and the 1,752 largest brokerage firms in the United States. Verification from an independent source is required for all submissions. Also, REAL Trends senior staff reviews every submission for completeness and accuracy.

All NAGLREP members who appeared on the REAL Trends Americas Best Professionals sponsored by Adwerx were included on the NAGLREP Top LGBT+ Agent List if they opted in. Teams were included if the team lead was a NAGLREP member and opted in.

About NAGLREP (http://www.naglrep.com) - Established in 2007, The National Association of Gay and Lesbian Real Estate Professionals (NAGLREP) is a mission driven 501(c)(3) non-profit organization with nearly 2,000 members. NAGLREP advocates on behalf of the rights of the LGBT community on issues related to housing and discrimination laws. It hosts a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) and allied REALTOR referral network which also includes mortgage professionals, title agents, insurance agents, commercial agents, trainers and educators.

About REAL Trends (http://www.realtrends.com) - REAL Trends is a privately-held, Colorado-based publishing, consulting and communications company specializing in the residential brokerage and housing industries. REAL Trends provides a wide range of advisory services to a clientele of local, regional and national real estate organizations. REAL Trends areas of expertise include operational analysis, valuations, merger and acquisition advisory services, technology and digital marketing consulting, consumer and business research and strategic planning.

About Realogics Sothebys International Realty (http://www.RSIR.com) - Artfully uniting extraordinary homes with extraordinary lives, Realogics Sothebys International Realty is a leading global sales and marketing brokerage firm in the Pacific Northwest. Recognized by the Puget Sound Business Journal amongst the fastest-growing private companies in Washington State for 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016 with branches in downtown Seattle, Bainbridge Island, Kirkland, Issaquah and Madison Park. For the second year in a row, Lifestory Research has awarded Sothebys International Realty the acknowledgement as Most Trusted Residential Real Estate Brand according to a survey of consumers.Joi Scientific and MarineMax to transform marine power systems from polluting fossil-fuels to clean hydrogen. MarineMax, an innovator with a strong history of leadership, is an ideal partner to work with to develop Hydrogen 2.0 technology for the marine industry, bringing the benefits of hydrogen to boats, yachts, and seagoing marine vessels around the world.

Joi Scientific Inc., whose mission is to make clean and affordable hydrogen energy available to all, has signed the first-ever license agreement for its Hydrogen 2.0 production technology with MarineMax (NYSE: HZO), the worlds largest boat and yacht retailer. The license agreement grants MarineMax the exclusive rights to develop, manufacture, and sell propulsion and auxiliary boat power systems capable of running on hydrogen extracted from seawater using Joi Scientifics Hydrogen 2.0 technology for the worldwide marine industry. MarineMax and Joi Scientific will undertake joint development to bring hydrogen-based energy solutions to leading vendors in the marine industry.

Hydrogen 2.0 is the worlds first hydrogen production process based on the clean and affordable extraction of hydrogen directly from untreated seawater, on-demand, at the point of use. Hydrogen 2.0 technology will allow MarineMax to power boats, yachts, and ships using direct combustion, hybrid electric, or fuel cells to convert the hydrogen to power. This power can be used for multiple applicationsincluding auxiliary power for lighting, heating, cooling, and cabin services, in addition to primary or secondary propulsion of any vessel.

Joi Scientifics innovative Hydrogen 2.0 technology provides three major advantages to the marine industry, explains William McGill, Jr., Chairman and CEO of MarineMax. It uses seawater as the base fuel stock that is very readily available. It derives power from a safe and reliable conversion process that is sustainable; involves no combustion of hydrocarbons; emits no carbon; and when used with fuel cells, produces no noise. It is also highly versatile and can potentially scale from auxiliary power for boats at anchor to powering the main propulsion system of pleasure and commercial yachts and ships.

It is planned that the development of on-board power systems using Hydrogen 2.0 technology will be undertaken jointly by MarineMax, Joi Scientific, and their co-development partners who will work with vendors across the industry to develop complete solutions. Development work will initially focus on auxiliary power systems for yachts and for use in slow-speed cruising propulsion.

Hydrogen is the worlds best fuel. By weight hydrogen is energy dense, and its only by-product is clean water when consumed, says Traver Kennedy, CEO of Joi Scientific. MarineMax, an innovator with a strong history of leadership, is an ideal partner to work with to develop our Hydrogen 2.0 technology for the marine industry, bringing the benefits of hydrogen to boats, yachts, and seagoing marine vessels around the world.

About MarineMax

Headquartered in Clearwater, Florida, MarineMax is the nations largest recreational boat and yacht retailer. Focused on premium brands, such as Sea Ray, Boston Whaler, Meridian, Hatteras, Azimut Yachts, Ocean Alexander, Galeon, Grady-White, Harris, Bennington, Crest, Mastercraft, Scout, Sailfish, Sea Pro, Sportsman, Scarab Jet Boats, Tige, Aquila, NauticStar, Nautique and Yamaha Jet Boats. MarineMax sells new and used recreational boats and related marine products and services as well as provides yacht brokerage and charter services. MarineMax currently has 63 retail locations in Alabama, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina and Texas and operates MarineMax Vacations in Tortola, British Virgin Islands. MarineMax is a New York Stock Exchange-listed company. For more information, please visit http://www.marinemax.com.

About Joi Scientific

Joi Scientific was founded by a group of global business leaders, technologists, and social entrepreneurs who believe that plentiful hydrogen holds the key to giving the world a viable, no-compromise energy alternative. The companys Hydrogen 2.0 technology has the potential to be the worlds first hydrogen production process that is on-demand, economically competitive, and environmentally neutral. The company is licensing its Hydrogen 2.0 technology to a wide range of major power industries including electrical generation, heat generation, transportation, and specialty power. Joi Scientific is headquartered at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. For more information, visit http://www.joiscientific.com.

Joi Scientific and Hydrogen 2.0 are trademarks of Joi Scientific, Inc. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are property of their respective owners.Knight Security Systems Logo We are pleased to announce that The City of Arlington has chosen Knight Security Systems to provide support and administration for their citywide video surveillance system.

The third-largest municipality in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area, Arlington, TX, has selected Knight Security Systems as their primary security integrator, partner, and long-term architect for their security infrastructure overhaul.

According to Phil Lake, President and CEO at Knight Security Systems, We are pleased to announce that The City of Arlington has chosen Knight Security Systems to provide support and administration for their citywide video surveillance system. Knight was chosen for our extensive experience with large camera deployments and our unique ability to proactively monitor their video infrastructure for problems and to quickly resolve these issues. Knights DFW service team will be available 24 x 7 to keep these critical systems operational.

The overhaul is to be powered by KnightSentry, Knights upgraded system health monitoring solution, featuring new and enhanced software capabilities that enable partners like the City of Arlington to experience faster-than-ever resolution of system issues.

Backed by Vunetrix, Knight is committed to providing scalable benefits that alert clients to system-wide issues at any given time, including:



Hard-drive failure

System-wide power failure

Backup power failure

Video recording services

Critical services failure

Device data traffic throughput

Device website access

...and more

Too often security teams are unaware that a part of their security system is down or malfunctioning until its too late, says Curtis Nikel, CEO of Vunetrix. Learning that Knight Security Systems will be installing Vunetrix for The City of Arlington confirms the value that both Vunetrix and Knight contributes to municipalities both large and small.

Knight Security Systems has secured more than 5,000 Texas businesses since 1983, from large-scale security system builds for cities, to oil rig build-outs, to schools. With a focus on honor, integrity, and service, Knight is committed to providing a wholesale security system experience from conception to completion, and beyond. To learn more about Knight, visit http://www.knightsecurity.com.Koble Joins Celcom I am pleased to add Koble to our suite of solutions for SMEs and enterprises. Celcom and Axiata, with a wide LTE coverage and a suite of solutions, are excited to play a major role in assisting both small and large businesses. ~ Mohamad Idham Nawawi, Chief Executive of Celcom Axiata Berhad.

Today, Koble, a leading global business-to-business matchmaking platform, through its exclusive Asia-wide partnership with Axiata Business Services Sdn. Bhd., (Xpand), officially launched in Malaysia with Celcom Axiata Berhad, Malaysias telecommunications network provider.

By integrating Kobles app into the Celcom Business portfolio of services, the platform creates a network of business opportunities for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and larger enterprises in Malaysia at an unprecedented size and scope. Through the partnership, all Celcom Business customers will enjoy exclusive benefits such as preferential rates on Koble packages and tailored campaigns. While Celcom Business customers gain more from the exclusive partnership, the platform is also open to Malaysian enterprises that are outside the Celcom network.

We are thrilled to make our entry into Asia through our launch in Malaysia with Celcom to help small enterprises across the country solve their number one business challenge  finding new customers, said Fabrice Saporito, Koble Founder and CEO. I believe the Koble app and platform will quickly become the go-to business social network for Malaysian buyers to discover new customers for their businesses and ultimately close deals with them.

I am pleased to add Koble to our suite of solutions for SMEs and enterprises, said Mohamad Idham Nawawi, Chief Executive of Celcom Axiata Berhad. Celcom and Axiata, with a wide LTE coverage and a suite of solutions, are excited to play a major role in assisting both small and large businesses to increase productivity and potentially grow their business in the digital market.

Although B2B purchasing online is more than double B2C buying, the current $300B digital advertising market is primarily geared towards consumers and dominated by platforms such as Facebook and Google. The lag in B2B advertising spend behind purchasing is largely due to the complex nature of B2B sourcing and buying.

Koble is eliminating the friction of B2B buying and selling online by blending consumer networking for faster adoption with the requirements businesses need such as authenticity and privacy. In doing so, it makes it easier for professionals to meet each other for mutually beneficial business conversations by removing the following issues:



Frustration from the lack of access to qualified buyers leads.

Nuisance and discomfort from cold unsolicited outreach and rejection.

Wasted resources from the time spent searching and high marketing cost.

Members of the Koble network now have access to free and premium features including:

Targeting: Allows businesses to pick the exact group of professionals or companies they want to start conversations with for their business - whether its a specific company or buyers of a matching interest.

Readometer: Helps businesses to know how much time people have actually spent on their profile and content. It applies to pictures, PDFs and embedded videos.

Anonymous Chat: Enables buyers to hold their personal identity from their company ID and reveal it whenever they want to in the business relationship.

Peer Performance Comparisons: Gives businesses the ability to compare their engagement and potential leads against the performance of peer vendors.

TrueReview: Offers a Yelp-like element to B2B buying. Suppliers and buyers are ranked based on their reviews; meaning the better the recommendation, the higher the ranking.

Koble enters the market with an innovative pricing strategy. Unlike most social networks or lead generation technologies that charge per impression or per click, Kobles subscription pricing is largely driven by successful connections with other businesses. Koble users can start for free, paying only after their first two conversations get responded to by other businesses. This pricing model focuses on creating genuine connections between businesses and generating a return on investment for both buyers and sellers. Koble outpaces any business networking solution on the market today with a 33% response rate on the platform.

With monthly subscription starting at RM40 a user per month, Koble reduces to the cost of a qualified lead to a fraction of the cost Malaysian businesses are paying for qualified leads today. A Google Survey commissioned by Koble in July 2018 found that Malaysian businesses are currently paying between RM300 to RM900 Malaysian for a qualified lead.

Celcom customers, existing and new, will gain even more from the partnership by benefiting from exclusive pricing and special campaigns:

3 months of the Koble Pro Plan for free with an annual commitment to the plan.

50% off the Koble Starter and Pro Plan list prices.

Celcom Axiata is the first to market Koble in Asia. The Koble platform, accessible on the web at Koble.com, and through the iTunes App Store and Google Play Store, is currently used by professionals working with GE, Oracle, Harley Davidson, AXA, Sprint, Carlsberg and thousands of SMEs seeking to do business globally.

About Koble

Koble is a business-to-business (B2B) matchmaking platform that is reimagining the way larger companies and smaller businesses connect. The Koble platform is a buyer-friendly community that encourages business professionals like you to use content to spark genuine conversations and mutually beneficial engagements. Matches between business buyers and sellers are created through the Koble platform and the Koble mobile application when a user shows interest in the content posted by another user or by viewing a company profile page. By improving upon current B2B social networks and platforms that are designed solely for building personal brands, businesses on Koble see message response rates twice as high as the response rates on other professional networks and click-through rates more than five times the industry average.

By encouraging our users to ask for help or share original content from their company with the community they join, weve seen new relationships being formed in over 1 out of 3 matches!

Koble is headquartered in Boston. To learn how Koble can help you make more valuable business connections and signup for free, visit http://www.koble.com.

About Celcom

Celcom is Malaysias leading data network provider, with 9.6 million customers. Established in 1988, it boasts the widest national 2G, 3G and 4G LTE networks, covering over 98% of the population. Currently the largest mobile broadband and corporate services provider, Celcom is now moving towards integrated multi-access and multimedia services, in line with evolving technologies and consumer behaviour in Malaysia. A culture that places the customer FIRST is reflected in our award-winning customer service, products, and other corporate accolades at a regional level. Celcom is part of the Axiata Group of Companies, one of the worlds largest telecommunications companies, with close to 350 million customers across 11 Asian markets. For more information on Celcom, log on to http://www.celcom.com.myThe goal with each evening is to bring members together for an unforgettable celebration of exceptional farming, food and wine, says Damon Wong, Director of Hospitality for Kosta Browne Winery.

California Pinot Noir and Chardonnay producer Kosta Browne announces the Chef Series lineup of winery dinners. The first eventalready sold-outwill take place on November 9, 2018, and feature a custom menu from Chef Kyle Connaughton of two-Michelin-starred SingleThread. The dinner series will continue into 2019 with Mauis Chef of the Year, Chef Mike Lofaro from Humuhumunukunukuapua`a restaurant at Grand Wailea, a Waldorf Astoria Resort in Maui, and Chef Christopher Kostow from three-Michelin-starred The Restaurant at Meadowood in Napa Valley.

The goal with each evening is to bring members together for an unforgettable celebration of exceptional farming, food and wine, says Damon Wong, Director of Hospitality for Kosta Browne Winery. Each evening presents a custom multi-course menu paired with rare Kosta Browne library selections, current releases or wines from the newly minted Observations series.

Farming is at the core of what we do at Kosta Browne," says Winemaker Nico Cueva. To collaborate with culinary artists who share our appreciation of the land is a true treat. The wines selected to pair with these dinners represent our commitment to site-specific vineyard sourcing and farmer relationships, as well as our signature approach in the cellar. Wine pairings for the Chef Series come from the rugged Sonoma Coast, foggy Russian River Valley, chilly Santa Lucia Highlands, powerful Sta. Rita Hills, and the wild, untamed Anderson Valley.

SingleThread, an acclaimed restaurant and five-bedroom inn founded by Chef Kyle Connaughton and Head Farmer Katina Connaughton, is known for its ethos of Japanese omotenashi: the spirit of selfless hospitality. We are excited to kick-off the Chef Series with Kosta Browne, says Chef Connaughton. We share a dedication to hospitality and a commitment to working with the very best farming sources. Its a natural partnership, and were looking forward to showcasing some of the best that Sonoma County has to offer.

Anticipated Chef Series menus will include Chef Mike Lofaros Hawaiian-fusion style, inspired by his quest to support the preservation of the Hawaiian Islands through invasive plant management and sustainable fishing partners. Later in the year, Chef Christopher Kostow will bring his love for working with local artisans, growers, foragers and other members of this dynamic area to Kosta Browne for a three-Michelin-starred dining experience.

For questions or further information, please contact Krisna Bharvani (kbharvani(at)colangelopr.com) or Gabe Ramirez (gramirez(at)colangelopr.com) at Colangelo & Partners.

About Kosta Browne:

Located in Sebastopol, Sonoma County, Kosta Browne is a trusted authority on California Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. They produce appellation and single-vineyard wines from the most coveted cool climate vineyards across the Russian River Valley, Sonoma Coast, Anderson Valley, Sta. Rita Hills and Santa Lucia Highlands appellations. A commitment to quality, stewardship of the land, and customer relationships has made Kosta Browne an industry-leading producer of inspiring wines that transcend their origins and represent California on a global stage.Leadspace is a best fit for B2B marketers looking for a data platform with advanced data integration and management capabilities.

Leadspace, the first Audience Management Platform for B2B Sales and Marketing, has been designated by Forrester as a leader in its reports, The Forrester Wave: B2B Marketing Data Providers, Q3 2018.

The report, released this month, highlights the growing importance of data in B2B Sales and Marketing, listing Three strategic catalysts [that] have raised the importance of data and the insights it engenders cementing its place as the foundation for all successful B2B marketing and sales. Summing up why data has become so crucial, Forrester notes in the report: Account-based engagement is built on it (data); customer marketing requires it; [and] customer obsession is impossible without it.

Building a data-agnostic data management platform is the optimal strategy for long-term success, according to Forrester. The report states that Leadspace leverages AI and analytics...to create rich account and contact profiles for use across the martech and sales stack.

Whether driving an ABM or inbound marketing approach, data and AI are the foundation of success to identify the right accounts, buying groups and personas, surface relevant fit, behavior and intent signals" said Doug Bewsher, CEO Leadspace. "B2B Marketers are increasingly turning to Customer Data Platforms as the foundation for all marketing and sales.

Customers want both the right data and intelligence as well as integration into their current marketing and CRM systems. An integrated solution enables our customers to bring the best data and insights into their existing workflows to speed execution and ROI. Amnon Mishor, Co-founder and CTO Leadspace can claim industry giants as customers due to the powerful and comprehensive data management platform the team has built.

Forrester concludes in its vendor profile, Leadspace is a best fit for B2B marketers looking for a data platform with advanced data integration and management capabilities.

About Leadspace:

Leadspaces Audience Management Platform enables B2B companies to better engage customers and drive faster growth by allowing marketers to find and know their audiences. As internal and external data multiplies, Leadspace uses AI to provide a single source of truth across all sales and marketing data, identify net new account and individuals, and recommend the best marketing activities. Updated in real time, data and intelligence remains constantly accurate and actionable and can be consistently used across sales, marketing and advertising channels. Based in San Francisco and Israel, Leadspace is trusted by more than 130 B2B brands and 7 of the 10 largest enterprise software companies, including Microsoft, RingCentral and Marketo. For more, visit: http://www.leadspace.com

To learn more about Leadspaces position within the Forrester Wave for Marketing Data, check out our blog post: http://bit.ly/2NMyZlC

Like this story? Tweet this: @Forrester names @Leadspace a Leader in #B2B #Marketing Wave. Get the report now http://bit.ly/2MYhbP3Turning Patient Responsibility into Lasting Loyalty Whatever the model or initiative, the patient must remain at the center of the discussion. Quality service at a reasonable cost is achievable under any model if we can move healthcare out of the political discourse and begin to change the adversarial arena of the participants to one of mutual benefi

Across the United States, there is one issue of common concern to most Americans - In almost every survey on issues of concern to Americans, the availability and cost of healthcare is at the top of the list. As healthcare costs continue to rise, better solutions are being sought and new models are evolving - all with the goal of delivering high quality and effective healthcare at a reasonable cost. In this article, well examine models for the delivery and payment of healthcare in modern, industrialized economies, and explore the dynamics that are driving fundamental change here in the U.S.

In the United States, healthcare has always been an adversarial arena for participants  providers, payers, clinicians, administrators, employers and patients. The economic incentives for each of these constituencies do not align. The payer insurance company is focused on controlling costs and managing premiums, the provider is focused on the best possible care at any cost, the employer is looking to manage its expenses and exposure to risk, and the patient just wants to get well without incurring unbearable personal expense.

Historically, the economics behind the American healthcare industry have wrongly incentivized volume-based fees-for-service over value-based care delivery at a mounting cost to the American economy, costs that affect every stakeholder. Consequently, payers, providers and patients are all looking at new models to achieve high quality health services at reasonable costs.

Incremental adjustments to the U.S.s traditional multi-payer model are being attempted, but so far they have fallen short of meeting the objectives for a sustainable, affordable healthcare delivery and payment model.

Matt Bierbaum, VP of Managed Services and Enterprise Partnerships at Philips stated that With (the markets) revised expectations for quality and value comes a need for higher degrees of coordination and new models of strategic partnership among all participants in the healthcare economy. Many hospitals, payers and community organizations are already finding ways to work together as partners to deliver new care delivery options or payment choices to patients. However, in most of these "partnership" arrangements, the parties are simply trading better long-term prices or more broadly scoped service and purchasing agreements. While these types of collaborations can make near-term incremental improvements, they are still not aligned to meet the long-term challenges of the new healthcare economics.

A Comparison of Healthcare Financial and Delivery Models

Multi-Payer System - The American Model

The United States has no single nationwide system of health insurance. Health insurance is purchased in the private marketplace or provided by the government to certain groups. Private health insurance can be purchased from various for-profit commercial insurance companies such as United Healthcare or from nonprofit insurers such as Blue Cross/Blue Shield. Approximately 61% of health insurance coverage is employment related, largely due to the cost savings associated with group plans that can be purchased through an employer.

The United States possesses a multiplayer system in which a variety of third - party payers are responsible for reimbursing health care providers. Thus, we face the first disconnect, where the insurance company is focused on reducing patient care outlays and the provider is focused on delivering the highest quality of patient care which, coincidently, generally increases the profit of the healthcare provider whether that provider is a doctor, hospital or pharmaceutical company.

In addition to private health insurance, nearly 26% of the U.S. population is covered by public health insurance. The two major types of public health insurance, both of which began in 1966, are Medicare and Medicaid. Medicare is a uniform national public health insurance program for aged and disabled individuals. Administered by the federal government, Medicare is the largest health insurer in the country, covering about 13% of the population.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation's survey of employer health benefits, health insurance premiums have been rising faster than wages. Between 2012 and 2017, workers' earnings grew by 12 percent, while premiums went up by 19 percent. Between 2007 and 2012, premiums increased twice as fast as workers' earnings.

Former Apple CEO John Sculley, now the chief marketing officer for RxAdvance, a health tech company, has observed that The U.S. health-care system is unsustainable in terms of its costs, and the entire debate by political leaders  whether it is Democrats or Republicans  has focused on repairing and replacing Obamacare and the ideological differences.

Single Payer - Government Sponsored Systems

A single-payer system is a single public system that covers the costs of essential healthcare for all residents. It is this characteristic that distinguishes most of the industrialized worlds systems from the United States multi-payer system in which private, qualified individuals or their employers pay for health insurance with various limits on healthcare coverage via multiple private or public sources.

Single-payer systems (also referred to as socialized medicine) may contract for healthcare services from private organizations (Canada) or may own and employ healthcare resources and personnel (United Kingdom). These systems generally fall within one of three models: The Beveridge Model (UK) the Bismarck model (Germany), and the National Health Insurance Model, which contains elements of both the Beveridge and Bismarck models.

In any of these three models, healthcare providers and consumers deal with a single, governmental payer, which may own and operate its own healthcare delivery system, or may engage with private healthcare providers and payers with powerful government oversight. In each instance, universal coverage is assured with costs and care delivery closely managed by the government entity charged with the systems administration. The programs are funded either by taxes (Beveridge), Employer/Employee private insurance (Bismarck) or Government run insurance (National Health)

The lower costs and universal coverage provided by many single payer systems have led to successful employer-sponsored experiments here in the U.S. At present, it may be these or similar models that prove to be the solution to Americas seemingly intractable healthcare challenge.

Privately funded, multi-payer systems: Managed Care  an Integrated Delivery System (IDS)

An Integrated Delivery System (IDS) is a health system with a goal of logical integration of the delivery of health care rather than a fragmented system or a disorganized lack of system. The term has sometimes been used in a broad sense with reference to Managed Care in general (as opposed to fee-for-service care), but in the United States it now more often refers to any specific network of health care organizations constituting a corporate group that attempts to integrate care to some degree.

One of the most successful of the Managed Care systems in the United States started during World War II.

In 1942, 20,000 Kaiser Shipyard workers were provided healthcare services through the Kaiser Permanente Health Plan. Workers paid a very small premium (6 cents a day) and healthcare was provided at the job site, thereby minimizing healthcare costs and improving healthcare services to workers. Last but not least, it also reduced employee absence time through on-the-spot healthcare services. Kaiser Permanente has remained a very large and successful healthcare delivery model, combining the services of a payer and provider across several states.

Today, other efficient integrated healthcare systems generally are found in large multi-specialty medical group practices with transparent links to hospitals, labs and pharmacies. These organizations provide complete carefrom the doctor's office to the hospital to home care, and everything in between. They often have their own insurance arms and work under contracts in which they agree to deliver comprehensive medical services to consumers for a fixed-dollar amount.

The relative success of a Managed Care model evolves around two propositions:

1. The system has moved from a linear structure to a closed-loop model. In traditional models, care and costs associated with equipment, services, and software are considered as separate, isolated events at every step in each patients journey. In the Managed Care model, there is full transparency providing visibility to the all players in the continuum of care.

2. Partners share risk (and reward) for outcomes. This is a particularly critical component as our healthcare market shifts from a volume- to value-based model. In the most innovative business models, risk (financial, clinical or operational) is appropriately distributed to each partner to ensure a shared focus and contribution to the joint goals of the partners.

Strategies to mimic the Managed Care Model in Traditional Care Delivery Environments

Due to the success of Kaisers and other Managed Care models, many hospitals and health systems are making merger and acquisition moves to implement value-based care, manage costs and sustain profitability. Its easy to see why. According to a 2016 HFMA report, The transition from volume to value and the corresponding move to population health management require major capital investments and sophisticated management expertise of the sort that may prompt even the most independent-minded hospitals and health systems to consider their consolidation options.

The Managed Care model has recently accelerated in growth as the result of the dramatic increase of mergers and acquisitions across industry verticals. Payers (insurance companies) have entered the provider (hospital business) and drug store companies have acquired payers.

These companies are moving into an industry where the lines between traditionally distinct areas, such as pharmacies, insurers and providers, are increasingly blurry. CVS Healths deal to buy the health insurer Aetna for about $69 billion is just one example of the changes underway. Separately, Amazons potential entry into the pharmacy business continues to rattle major drug companies and distributors.

An Evolving Fourth Model

During the last two years, a new model has emerged, the result of employers tackling the problem of healthcare accessibility and cost. Employers are using their considerable purchasing power to influence provider and health plan behavior and discovering new means to control healthcare costs. If implemented, these initiatives would help inaugurate the transformation critical to the industry's financial survival.

Many large employers are now negotiating payments to providers based on the value of the services provided. Theyre also offering incentives and information for consumers to allow them to choose high value providers thereby aligning private purchaser actions with public purchasers. Leveraging their market and cultural influence, these employers are, in effect, applying the same economic pressures wielded by government payers in single-payer and our own Medicare/Medicaid systems.

Recently three corporate behemoths  Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase  announced that they would form an independent health care company for their employees in the United States. The alliance was a sign of just how frustrated American businesses are with the state of the nations health care system and the rapidly spiraling cost of medical treatment. It also caused further turmoil in an industry reeling from attempts by new players to attack a notoriously inefficient, intractable web of doctors, hospitals, insurers and pharmaceutical companies.

Will more companies adopt an Amazon - Berkshire Hathaway -JP Morgan Chase model? Or will they join the model where the employer is the payer and provider of healthcare services? Will the Amazon triumvirate begin to acquire hospital systems, pharmaceutical companies and healthcare technology providers?

Does the Model Really Matter?

Essentially, this is a question without an answer. Each model has its benefits and costs. Single payer proponents will argue that the United States should adopt this model and follow the European model. The American model delivers choice and convenience. The Managed Care model is efficient and comprehensive and the new evolving Amazon model is untested.

Whatever the model, payers, providers and patients can work together to build a better mousetrap by focusing on several key objectives and solutions:

Patient Level Initiatives:



Simplify and standardize health care administration, such as codes and billing, across health care industries.

Offer incentives for processes that improve patient care such as electronic health records.

Streamline the Patient Registration Process.

Together with the patient, create a Custom Patient Financial Plan.

Incorporate Estimated Patient Share financial tools into the patient financial management process.

Incorporate a Patient Financial Assessment into the registration process.

Incorporate Estimated Patient Share financial tools into the patient financial management process.

Consolidate and democratize patient medical and financial information

Ensure that information technology enables self-management by improving patients access to personal health information.

Provider and Payer Level Initiatives:

Implement comparative effectiveness studies for treatment practices.

Develop a national initiative to reduce preventable hospital admissions and readmissions.

Expand hospice through support to community-based programs.

Reduce relative values for services undergoing high rates of growth in volume.

Promote bundled payment covering all providers for acute episodes of care and post-acute care.

Fund research to identify key elements of effective self-management programs.

Support self-management through benefit design such as using financial incentives for patients to encourage the use of care that is proven to be effective and discourage care that has less evidence of success.

Support self-management through provider incentives, linking payments to increases in patient activation.

Ensure that information technology enables self-management by improving patients access to personal health information.

Promote provider support for patient-centered care.

Organizations are seeking new capabilities for a value-based, consumer-oriented health system. These capabilities include data analytics and care coordination across the healthcare continuum. Whatever the model or initiative, the patient must remain at the center of the discussion. Quality service at a reasonable cost is achievable under any model if we can move healthcare out of the political discourse and begin to change the adversarial arena of the participants to one of mutual benefit and cooperation.

Kevin Fleming is the CEO of Loyale Healthcare, LLC.

About Loyale Healthcare

Loyale Patient Financial Manager is a comprehensive patient financial engagement technology platform leveraging a suite of configurable solution components including predictive analytics, intelligent workflows, multiple patient financing vehicles, communications, payments, portals and other key capabilities.

Loyale Healthcare is committed to a mission of turning patient responsibility into lasting loyalty for its healthcare provider customers. Based in Lafayette, California, Loyale and its leadership team bring 27 years of expertise delivering leading financial engagement solutions for complex business environments. Loyale currently serves approximately 2,000 healthcare providers across 48 states. Loyale recently announced an Enterprise level strategic partnership with Parallon including deployment of its industry leading technology to all HCA hospitals and Physician Groups nationwide.The Chartis Group, a leading provider of comprehensive advisory services and analytics to the healthcare industry, is pleased to announce that Dr. Mark Krivopal has joined the firms Performance Practice leadership team. Dr. Krivopal brings over 20 years of consulting and provider experience to Chartis.

Dr. Krivopal has deep experience with and expertise in the development, leadership and optimization of hospital medicine programs and other hospital-based services. His extensive experience also includes value-based clinical and care management programs, coverage models, transformational system integration strategies, service-line optimization, patient access and throughput, and clinical leadership development. Dr. Krivopal has also transitioned a large provider organization to value-based care and overseen the operations of a multi-state hospital-based clinical service line. His physician executive experience began when he co-founded and then led Beth Israel Deaconess HealthCare Hospitalist Services, spanning several acute care facilities.

Stacy Melvin, Chartis Director and Performance Practice Leader noted, Marks comprehensive experience as a clinical practitioner, provider executive and consultant make him a valuable addition to our firm. His deep experience with hospitalist medicine and hospital-based services, transitioning provider organizations to value-based care, and leading and guiding physicians and other providers through complex changes will complement the firms growing team of performance excellence leaders.

Prior to joining The Chartis Group, Dr. Krivopal was Vice President at the General Electric Healthcare Camden Group, where he served as a consultant in various areas of clinical and operational performance improvement. He was also with Kyruus, Inc., where he served as Vice President of Clinical Programs. In this role, he established clinician engagement and alignment strategies leading to the successful deployment and adoption of healthcare information technology products focused on patient access at client sites.

Dr. Krivopal earned his Doctor of Medicine from the University of Massachusetts Medical School and completed his residency training at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School. He also received a Master of Business Administration with honors from Babson College, F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business.

About The Chartis Group

The Chartis Group (Chartis) provides comprehensive advisory services and analytics to the healthcare industry. With an unparalleled depth of expertise in strategic planning, performance excellence, informatics and technology, and health analytics, Chartis helps leading academic medical centers, integrated delivery networks, childrens hospitals and healthcare service organizations achieve transformative results. Chartis has offices in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, New York, Minneapolis, Portland and San Francisco.

For more information, visit http://www.chartis.com.

Contact:

Jim Brown

National Marketing Director

The Chartis Group

jbrown@chartis.com

+1 312 932 30512018 Analytical Instrumentation for Food Applications report The 2018 Analytical Instrumentation for Food Applications report is the most accurate, detailed and concise market research document available anywhere.

One important task of science and technology is to help to ensure the security of the food supply. Food security is the availability and access to food, and advances in crop science have helped to increase yields so that the supply of food is adequate for the earths population. With the world population growing at a significant rate, food production has become a massive global issue, and that means we need to be more careful to prevent food contamination.

This report provides in depth analyses of 11 different technologies including electrochemical and basic analyzers, how demand is distributed across industries and regions, and how the market will change in the future.

Technologies covered:



Chromatography

Mass Spectrometry

Molecular Spectrometry

Atomic Spectroscopy

Materials Characterization

Surface Science

Life Science Instrumentation

Basic & Electrochemical Analyzers

Lab Automation

Lab Equipment

Process Analytical Tools

The goal of this report is to provide a detailed overview of this $7.7 billion market and projected potential for key analytical instruments for food applications. This report identifies, in both quantitative and qualitative terms, the structure and composition of the worldwide analytical instrument market for food analysis. Technical, business, and economic trends are assessed with emphasis on the impact these forces have on technology demand. The market information in this report, with the exception of the end-user survey, represents estimates of the market and provides perspectives and the relative significance of specific trends within this market.

The analytical instrument industry for food testing applications is expected to grow by 6.6% reaching $10.6 billion by 2022, said Mike Tice, Senior Vice President, Business Intelligence at SDi.

A complimentary report overview can be downloaded here: https://strategic-directions.com/product/2018-food-applications-market-analysis/

Pure food is a very complicated mixture of many different kinds of molecules, not to mention the potential contaminants, adulterations, and toxic elements that one hopes to measure in this overly -complex matrix. Therefore, our report addresses another primary application of science and analytical technologies: food safety. The Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Health Organization, and other government agencies are making an important effort to standardize food testing practices around the world. Depending on what analysis (microbiology, allergen, chemistry, etc.) is needed, specific technologies such as spectrometers, refractometers, titrators, moisture analyzers, etc. may be utilized.

Strategic Directions International (SDi), a leading international management-consulting firm in the highly specialized field of analytical instruments, was acquired by BioInformatics Inc in 2014. The two firms combined to form the premier research and advisory firm serving the life science and analytical instrument industry. By leveraging our verified online professional network of tens of thousands of scientists in The Science Advisory Board, we have supported more than 500 companies and provided insights that lead to better business decisions. Our expertise includes assessing the size and attractiveness of markets, optimizing product configurations and pricing, validating corporate acquisitions, measuring customers' brand loyalty, and evaluating brand strength and positioning, validating corporate acquisitions, measuring customer loyalty, and evaluating brand strength and positioning. SDi and BioInformatics Inc are members of Science and Medicine Group, supporting life science, radiology, dentistry, analytical instrument, and clinical diagnostic companies.Michelle Longmire (Medable) and the DPharm Idol 2018 Judges

Medable Wins DPharm Idol 2018

Medable was named the winner of DPharm Idol at this years DPharm: Disruptive Innovations to Advance Clinical Trials conference. Medable is a platform that aims to build the first human digitome, a digital representation of human health and disease, by removing the separation between clinical trial and real-world data through a seamless integration of all data sources. Dr. Michelle Longmire, Co-Founder and CEO of Medable, explained that their approach aims to transform clinical trials by building a connected team of researchers and patients by providing rich digital experiences on their mobile app for the patient. Through the digitome, they hope to transform the idea of health from a binary perspective to one that is complex and includes actionable, real-world insights.

Medable had six minutes to present their goals in disrupting the current paradigm of clinical trials and pitch their product to DPharms esteemed panel of judges, which consisted of:

Esther Dyson

Executive Founder, Way to Wellville

Sandra Freeman

Associate Director, Global Clinical Operations, Johnson and Johnson

Cindy Geoghegan

Patient Advocate

Rob Goodwin

VP, Operations Center of Excellence, Global Product Development, Pfizer

Christian Gossens, PhD, MBA

Global Head Early Development Workflows, pRED, Informatics, Roche Pharmaceutical Research and Early Development (pRED)

Hassan Kadhim, MSc

Senior Associate Director, Head, IT Clinical Trial Planning & Management, Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc

Joseph Kim, MBA

Sr Advisor, Patient Experience and Design Innovation Design Hub Foundations, Eli Lilly and Company

Jacob LaPorte, PhD

Head of Digital Development, Novartis

Chandra Ramanathan, PhD, MBA

Head, East Coast Innovation Center, Bayer, US

Dan Rothman

Chief Information Officer, Roivant Sciences

John Varaklis

Head of Global Clinical Operations, Roche Pharmaceutical Research and Early Development (pRED)

The judges liked Medables idea of a human digitome providing a new possibility to explore data that did not exist before, by creating an ecosystem of the patients data both in clinical trials and in the real world. Several of the judges made comments about the potential of the digitome to transform healthcare, with Hassan Kadhim explaining that the technology is very much futuristic and wed love to see it implemented.

The panel of judges deliberated for two hours to determine the winner. The judging process was not easy, as Esther Dyson commented, I gave a five to everyone on the list, in the terms that they were all solving a lot of problems we have within clinical trials. Although they were triumphant, Medable had strong competition from our other DPharm Idol presenters:

Edetek

Peter Smilansky, SVP of Product Strategy

Quest Diagnostics

David Freeman, MBA, General Manager, Information Ventures

WCG

Steven Beales, SVP IT and Market Owner, Safety Solutions

Clinical Pipe

Amit Shah, Founder and Chief Technology Officer

BioSensics

Joseph Gwin, PhD, VP of R&D

DPharm Idol is the signature event that took place at the 8th annual iteration of DPharm: Disruptive Innovations to Advance Clinical Trials. DPharm, organized by the Conference Forum, reports on industry and out of industry innovation and how to change the paradigm of clinical trials to reduce the burden to patients and investigators, streamline processes and ultimately get therapeutics to patients faster. DPharm connects pharma, biotech, clinical research partners, as well as patient advocacy to inspire and encourage the most innovative technologies and ideas in clinical trials and drug development. Mark your calendars for next years event, which will be held September 17-18, 2019 in Boston.

About the Conference Forum

The Conference Forum is a life science industry research firm that develops conferences primarily around how to get therapeutics to patients faster. They examine and challenge the complex ecosystem of drug development and delivery, bringing ideas together from a variety of sources to help advance clinical research with common goals that are patient-focused. For more information, visit http://www.theconferenceforum.org

About Medable:

Medable is about transforming health care by providing an enterprise platform for Direct-to-Patient clinical care and clinical trials, enabling patient-generated data to drive health care delivery, research and personalized and predictive medicine. For more information visit http://www.medable.comMediaclip, the premier developer of product personalization software, is proud to announce that the latest features of its Designer will be available in time for Photokina 2018. These features will enable retailers, photo labs and printers to offer novel high-end products with several additional embellishment options, such as a book with customizable dust-Jacket, support for popular enhanced finishes like embossing, engraving, foil stamping, and the likes.

During the Photokina exhibition, taking place 26-29th Cologne, visitors will be able to see and try these new revenue-generating features. Nonetheless, the new software release is not the only thing that will be presented at the show, since other major innovations such as their new Shopify App as well as their Magento and Photoshop extensions will also be on display during the event.

We are very excited about what we bring to this years show. Said Marion Duchesne, C.E.O. and Founder of Mediaclip. She adds: Providing more high-end creative options for the user to preview and use during their customizing process is a powerful way to differentiate a brand in a saturated market such as the photobook one.

With its flexible open architecture, the Mediaclip solution is versatile and can address any personalization business vision. The plug and play software can connect to any e-commerce platform or third-party apps, produce every type of products, which can either be fulfilled directly or by using one of the many print providers from the Mediaclip network. The solution is available as self-hosted OnPremise version or as a hosted solution called Mediaclip Hub, leveraging the reliability, security, and scalability of Azure cloud computing services.

Mediaclips team will be dazzling Photokina 2018 visitors with all these innovations at Stand B-41, Hall 5.1 during the conference, which takes place from Sept. 26th to 29th in Cologne, Germany. To pre-book an appointment, register online at https://go.mediaclip.ca/join-mediaclip-at-photokina-2018 or contact us via email (sales@mediaclip.ca). For more information about Mediaclips presence at Photokina or how product personalization can increase your revenue, read our blog and e-books in the knowledge section at http://www.mediaclip.ca.

ABOUT MEDIACLIP

Mediaclip is a leading provider of white-label software solutions allowing its customers to offer online personalization of any product. Our delightful user experience is designed to work on any device, and our technology allows you to customize the look and feel of the tool to reflect your brand and differentiate yourself from everybody else in the market. Our solutions are offered in a wide range of business models to address your specific needs and help you execute your market strategy.

A privately-held company headquartered in Montreal, Mediaclip offers worldwide support. Our software solutions are currently integrated into hundreds of leading photo websites around the world.Metro Storage LLC announced the purchase of a parcel of land in Randolph, New Jersey to build a new self storage facility which will be the companys 7th store in New Jersey. Located at 353 Route 10 East in Randolph, the new 118,000 GSF state of the art facility will be a three-story building offering approximately 86,000 RSF of storage.

After working through a two-year entitlement process with the township and overcoming design challenges along the way were excited to add another store and further expand the Metro presence in the New York City MSA, said Marty Gallagher, President of Metro Storage LLC.

The new 838-unit store will be located on a major east/west thoroughfare with excellent visibility, in a strong demographic market close to residential areas and major retailers. Features of the store will include 100% climate-controlled storage, drive -up access units, large interior drive-in loading/unloading bays with additional access points around the building, elevator access, state of the art security, and a large, modern retail office.

We look forward to breaking ground on this new store, said Blair Nagel, CEO of Metro Storage LLC. The facility will be a valuable addition in the Randolph area, providing the latest in self-storage amenities and security in a convenient location to meet the various needs of residents and businesses.

Construction is scheduled to commence later this year with expected completion in the third quarter of 2019.

About Metro Storage LLC

Metro Storage LLC is a privately owned, fully integrated, international self-storage company specializing in the development, construction, acquisition, and management of self-storage facilities in the USA, Brazil, and Central America. Metro operates under the trademark Metro Self Storage in the US, being one of the top 10 largest owner/operators of self-storage facilities in the United States with over 130 stores covering 14 states. Metro Storage International (MSI) has an affiliate/partner in Brazil which operates under the trade name MetroFit. MSIs affiliate/partner in Central America operates under the trade name Mr. Bodeguitas, and is Central Americas leading self-storage operator with locations throughout Guatemala, El Salvador, and Costa Rica. More information about the firm is available at http://www.metrostoragecorporate.com

About Fremont Realty Capital

Fremont Realty Capital (FRC) is the real estate private equity business unit of the Fremont Group, the investment office of the Bechtel family of San Francisco. Since formation in 1997, FRC has provided its investors with superior risk-adjusted returns and value-creation through investments in non-traditional and traditional real estate sectors, both domestically and abroad. FRC has been has been investing in U.S. and European self-storage businesses since 1998. Its success is based on a disciplined investment strategy, enduring long term relationships with best-in-class operating partners, and the collective experience of the firms principals. FRC has made investments in 365 properties in 11 countries, totaling over $5 billion.From Miami Beach to Downtown Miami, Brickell, Wynwood, Little Havana and most recently Coconut Grove, many of Miamis neighborhoods have undergone or are undergoing drastic evolutions and are emerging with distinctive identities. These neighborhoods have taken inspiration from their individual surroundings and translated them into design-driven restaurants, bars and hotels.

As part of its ongoing mission to showcase excellence in architecture and elevate public consciousness of great design, the Miami Hospitality Design Awards brought together some of South Floridas leaders in the hospitality industry for its inaugural panel discussion, Distinctive Hospitality Design in Miamis Evolving Neighborhoods.

Hosted by the awards founders Oberhausen Marketing & Public Relations, the Greater Miami & The Beaches Hotel Association and AIA Miami and in support of IIDA South Florida, the panel took place on Sept. 20 at the Hyatt Centric Brickell and featured Stantec Director of Interiors, Susan LaFleur; The Barlington Group Co-founder, Bill Fuller; and The Genuine Hospitality Group Chef and Owner, Michael Schwartz. Moderated by Indulge Magazine Editor in Chief, Evan Benn, the panelists discussed how neighborhoods and consumer demands are affecting hospitality architecture, design and programming.

We take into account what speaks to us about the neighborhood and translate it into the architecture and interiors to make each project relatable to its location, said Susan LaFleur.

Although the food has to be great, Ive always said its not the one thing that makes a restaurant successful, said Michael Schwartz. We want our restaurants to fit with the neighborhood, so we look at where we are, what were trying to accomplish and how that plays into the design.

Little Havana is a passion project for me because of my Cuban American background, said Bill Fuller. We seek out historic properties in Miami to give them a new life, but always wrap the propertys history into what we do to keep the buildings and neighborhoods authenticity.

The panel is part of the awards program leading up to the second annual Miami Hospitality Design Awards to be held spring 2019. The awards will honor the architects and designers whose hospitality projects have enriched Miamis built environment. Next years awards will include new categories, giving additional designers an opportunity to showcase their work.

Stay tuned for details on the 2019 Miami Hospitality Design Awards by visiting http://miamidesignawards.com.

ABOUT MIAMI HOSPITALITY DESIGN AWARDS:

Founded by Oberhausen Marketing & Public Relations, the American Institute of Architects Miami Chapter and the Greater Miami & The Beaches Hotel Association, the Miami Hospitality design Awards recognize the diversity and excellence in Miamis hospitality, architecture and design industries. For more information, visit http://miamidesignawards.com.

ABOUT AIA MIAMI:

Located at the Miami Center for Architecture & Design, AIA Miami has over 800 members and offers professional development and support for member architecture professionals in South Florida. Embracing their responsibility to serve society, AIA members engage civic and government leaders and the public in helping find needed solutions to pressing issues facing our communities, institutions, nation and world. For more information about AIA Miami, visit http://www.aiamiami.org.

ABOUT THE GMBHA:

The Greater Miami & The Beaches Hotel Association is a membership organization comprised of hoteliers and allied members across Miami-Dade County. The associations goal is to promote the interest of its members through advocacy, education and partnerships and advance Miami as the visitors destination of choice. The GMBHAs calendar of events includes monthly hoteliers breakfast series, awards events, networkers as well as luncheons featuring top leaders and educators in the hospitality industry. For more information, visit gmbha.com or call (305) 531-3553.

ABOUT OBERHAUSEN MARKETING & PUBLIC RELATIONS:

Oberhausen Marketing & Public Relations is a full-service communications and brand development firm comprised of senior level experts with a proven approach to doing business. The agency focuses on the architecture and design, real estate, construction, hospitality, healthcare and lifestyle industries. Oberhausens mission is to create connection, engagement, and transaction between its clients and their key audiences through the deployment of customized, strategic marketing and public relations programs. For more information, visit http://www.obrmarketing.com.Mission Data to host Innovation Forum at FSTEC 2018 This is a critical time for restaurants to discover whats truly possible as the industry faces pressure to reduce operating costs while delivering a winning customer experience

Mission Data, developer of the OpSense platform bringing remote operations monitoring to restaurants and retail establishments, is proud to present a breakout session at this years Foodservice Technology Conference (FSTEC). The conference takes place in Orlando, FL, from October 1-3, 2018.

The session, Store of the Future: Beyond the Hype, will be a lively discussion on Tuesday, October 2, on the emerging technologies that are transforming foodservice. Alongside Mission Data CEO Stuart Gavurin, the panel will include Josh Patchus, Chief Data Scientist at CAVA; Stephen Smittle, Chief Operating Officer of Gusto Farm to Street; and Michael Zettler, Business & Partner Development, The Kroger Co.

Attendees will hear strategies for staying on top of technology trends that are truly creating value for food retailers and restaurants, such as the Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence, voice-first interfaces, cashierless checkout, and data analytics. They will also hear which technologies are years away from implementation, such as machine vision and autonomous robotics.

For the second year in a row, Mission Data is participating as a Silver Sponsor at FSTEC. As the restaurant industry's most compelling tech conference focused solely on foodservice, this annual event gives attendees insight into security, software development and marketing while celebrating the newest and most innovative solutions in technology. For more information about FSTEC, visit fstec.com.

Mission Data has decades of experience applying leading technology in practical ways for all types of companies, including quick-serve restaurants, said Gavurin. This is a critical time for restaurants to discover whats truly possible as the industry faces pressure to reduce operating costs while delivering a winning customer experience. Our mission is to develop restaurant technology products that ensure quality control and maximize productivity for employees so they can focus on customers.

Visit Mission Data at Booth #520 at FSTEC 2018 at the Rosen Centre Hotel in Orlando, FL, from October 1-3, 2018.

About Mission Data

Founded in 1996, Mission Data works with companies of all sizes to manifest their visions into real digital solutions. Mission Data applies leading technology in practical ways to drive results, grow revenue, and make meaningful impacts on organizations and their users. Mission Data is located across the country with primary offices in Louisville, KY and Washington, DC. For more information, visit http://www.missiondata.com.Headquartered in the United States with locations in Boston, Israel, Mexico, Switzerland, Texas, and the UK, MassChallenge strengthens the global innovation ecosystem by accelerating high-potential startups across all industries, from anywhere in the world. This week, Mobile Pixels was selected out of a pool of over 1,600 applicants as one of the top 26 teams selected to advance to the final round of judging in this years MassChallenge Boston. During its 35-day run on Kickstarter, MIT-backed startup Mobile Pixels raised $862,433 for DUO, their portable, foldable second screen designed for any laptop.

After attaching DUO to the back of a laptop with the provided magnets, consumers can then connect it via a single USB-C cable and slide it out, to the left or right, as needed. DUO weighs just 1.5 pounds and features a 12.5-inch screen, enabling it to fit almost any laptop, no matter the size. While the video driver has an energy star rating to help reduce battery drain and give users a long-lasting battery life, DUO also provides a full 270 rotation with the option for a 180 presentation mode, so consumers can choose an optimal viewing angle for any situation.

After its highly successful Kickstarter campaign, DUO continues to collect pre-orders on Indiegogos InDemand platform. While on InDemand, DUO reached $1 million in pre-sales and gained nearly 1,000 new backers and counting.

Today, Mobile Pixels will compete amongst 26 other startups for shares of $1.5M in equity-free prizes in Boston. The team will have five minutes to pitch and 10 minutes for a question and answer segment, the panel of judges made up of industry visionaries will then evaluate DUOs ability to demonstrate growth and impact worldwide. To register for this years award ceremony held on Wednesday, October 17 at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, click here. To purchase DUO, visit bit.ly/DUO_IGG.

About Mobile Pixels

The Massachusetts-based team made up of manufacturing engineers and computer scientists has combined the best technology to create a lightweight portable monitor that increases productivity and makes it easy to work efficiently while traveling. Backed by MIT and Northeastern University, Mobile Pixels aims to give consumers the freedom to swivel the screen freely while adjusting the angle at their discretion. To learn more visit, https://www.mobilepixels.us/.All of us at Movoto Real Estate are very proud to be at this years summit in Las Vegas.

Movoto Real Estates VP of Real Estate Operations, Maximillian Diez, is thrilled to be speaking at the 2018 realtor.com Results Summit, which will take place at the Aria Resort & Casino in Las Vegas on October 1-2. With over 1000 agents attending, the event is expected to be completely sold out, and Diez is one of the summits select expert speakers.

Im very excited to be speaking again at the summit this year, says Diez. Diez spoke last year about how agents can better control their digital footprint; this year he will speak on the technology-focused panel How to Serve Consumers with an On Demand Mindset, which occurs at 2 p.m. on Oct 1.

Diez is a highly accomplished real estate agent and broker with over 19 years of experience of industry experience. He has a keen eye for an interest in how technology and real estate intersect, and why technology is becoming increasingly important in all aspects of real estate.

Real estate technology is constantly evolving, says Diez. Realtor.com is at the forefront of making the agents they work with better equipped to provide an incredible real estate experience. All of us at Movoto Real Estate are very proud to be at this years summit in Las Vegas.

Movoto Real Estate generates two leads per minute and had over 137 million home searches in 2017. Its cutting-edge lead generation system and high-tech approach to the industry consistently attracts agents from all over the country.

About Movoto

Movoto Real Estate is the second largest online real estate brokerage in the US and the only one licensed in all 50 states. With over 100 million people searching for homes annually on Movoto.com and over 30,000 properties sold, Movoto is one of the most influential online real estate platforms in the United States.

Movoto is expanding to click-and-mortar locations in California and Nevada to provide their customers: home buyers and sellers, agents and brokers with unmatched services and technology solutions. For more information see our news and press resources and real estate market trends. Sell your home with Movoto or search for available homes for sale."These awards are a testament to NopSecs commitment to provide best-in-class cybersecurity solutions for the industry and customers. We're proud to enable organizations to effectively manage vulnerability risks and remediate with confidence." - Lisa Xu, NopSec CEO

NopSec has earned the prestigious Gold status in the Golden Bridge Awards for their Unified VRM v4.6. The annual Golden Bridge Awards program celebrates the worlds best companies according to a variety of achievements. Some of these award categories include organizational performance; innovations; products and services; executives and management teams; women in business; innovations; best deployments; product management; public relations; marketing; corporate communications; international business; and customer satisfaction programs. Organizations worldwide are eligible to submit nominations, regardless of company size or type.

Winners will be honored in San Francisco on Monday, October 29, 2018 during the annual Red Carpet Golden Bridge Awards Ceremony.

NopSecs flagship product, Unified VRM, is used by government entities and private organizations to manage and remediate vulnerabilities, reduce risks, and validate security controls. Unified VRM is a cloud-based SaaS platform powered by the world's most advanced attack simulation and data analytics technology, E3 Engine. The platform provides IT Security and Risk teams global visibility of their infrastructure risk levels, enabling them to prioritize and remediate their most imminent cyber threats.

Its an honor to be named a winner by Golden Bridge Awards for this esteemed industry and peer recognition, said Lisa Xu, CEO of NopSec. These awards are a testament to NopSecs commitment to provide best-in-class cybersecurity solutions for the industry and customers. We're proud to enable organizations to effectively manage vulnerability risks and remediate with confidence.

About the Golden Bridge Awards

Golden Bridge Awards are an annual industry and peers recognition program honoring best companies in every major industry from large to small and new startups in North America, Europe, Middle-East, Africa, Asia-Pacific, and Latin-America, Best New Products and Services, Best Innovations, Management and Teams, Women in Business and the Professions, Case Studies, Customer Satisfaction, and PR and Marketing Campaigns from all over the world. Learn more about Golden Bridge Awards at http://www.goldenbridgeawards.com

About NopSec

NopSec provides automated IT security control measurement and risk remediation solutions to help businesses protect their IT environments from security breaches. The company's flagship SaaS product, Unified VRM, utilizes passive analysis, active exploitation and contextual enrichment that enables security teams to visually forecast threat risk, and dramatically reduce the time to remediation of critical security vulnerabilities across infrastructure and applications. For more information, visit https://www.nopsec.com or follow us on Twitter @nopsec.One River School of Art + Design, whose mission is to transform art education by developing the first national network of contemporary art schools, has embarked on a national commitment to raise awareness for breast cancer.

Throughout the month of September, Teen Students across the United States created an original artwork honoring women with breast cancer. The company has partnered with Chicago based BrightPink to raise awareness and has also committed itself to raising money for the organization. One River School has selected artist Liz Luisada to make an original painting that will be celebrated through a limited edition print. The company is making the print available at oneriverschool.com and brightpink.org and all net proceeds from sales will go to the charity.

One of the best moments at One River is when we teach our students the value of doing well by doing good, said One River Founder and CEO Matt Ross. Our students get to learn about the courage women have to command to deal with breast cancer and they get to honor them with an original work of art. It teaches the very basic lesson that art making can have an important message and you can have a voice that makes a difference via your art at a really young age.

The company operates eights school in five states including schools throughout metro New York and others near Dallas, TX, Portland, OR and Chicago, IL. One River plans to open a dozen new schools over the next twelve months and Ross believes that One River has created a platform that changes lives for people of all ages.

There are so many layers to our program that teaches so many compelling things. Art making needs to be fun first," says Ross. And when we can tie some real social value to our lessons, I know we are making a real difference with our students and our communities. One of the best things of all us we are going to exhibit our students work in public places so that this art project can have an even greater impact promoting breast cancer awareness.

Bright Pink, the beneficiary of One Rivers fundraising program, is saving womens lives from breast and ovarian cancer by empowering them to live proactively at a young age. They target 52 million women between the ages of 18-45, as well as the people who love and influence them. Visit them at BrightPink.org.

For information about the PINK ART PROJECT and One River School of Art + Design, visit https://oneriverschool.com/, or Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/OneRiverSchool/

# # #

MEDIA: Interviews, hi-res images, and video are available

About One River School of Art + Design

Founded in 2012 Englewood, NJ, one river west of New York City, One River School of Art + Design has embarked on a mission to transform art education in America. One River School of Art + Design uses proprietary teaching methods, world-class instructors and interactive processes to deliver an experience that changes peoples lives. The company plans to open 75 new locations across America over the next five years to help solve the void in art education across America. One River School is also committed to becoming the voice of contemporary art in the communities it serves and to do so the company will produce over 40 exhibitions from the most compelling emerging artists in the world during the next 12 months.We are innovating the healthcare market with solutions that merge patient preference with provider necessity.

OSG Billing Services (OSG), a leading provider of omnichannel billing and payment solutions, customer engagement and critical customer communication management, today announced that it has completed the acquisitions of AppRev and the billing and payments business of Diversified Data and Consulting, Inc. These pivotal transactions further heighten the momentum surrounding OSG in the healthcare space through its OSG Diamond Healthcare Solutions division. Additionally, the acquisitions complement OSGs leading municipal utility billing business.

Diversified Data is a billing and payment solutions provider headquartered in Ferndale, Michigan, primarily focused on healthcare billing and municipal utility billing. AppRev is a healthcare business intelligence company based in Temple, Texas, providing services and technology that allow providers to improve revenue cycle performance. The two companies align perfectly within OSG's matrix of integrated customer communications, offering solutions that are both comprehensive and configurable. These acquisitions also extend OSGs market leadership and broaden OSGs reach to more than 500 providers, physician groups and revenue cycle management companies.

"We are innovating the healthcare market with solutions that merge patient preference with provider necessity, states Scott W. Bernstein, OSGs Chairman and CEO. Diversified Datas user-friendly billing and payment solutions and AppRevs pricing analytics and revenue cycle solutions add tremendous value to leading healthcare providers. Were excited to bring their capabilities to more of our healthcare customers as a means of improving their revenue cycle process and patient engagement. We also welcome Diversified Datas non-healthcare customers to OSG, where they can benefit from the significant investments we are making across the business, encompassing everything from advanced analytics to artificial intelligence. We look forward to working with the talented teams at both companies.

Our organizations share a customer-first philosophy and a pioneering approach to technology, and the healthcare and other Diversified Data customers will greatly benefit from the investments made by OSG, states Jason Bierkle, President of DivDat. The company will retain its kiosk business and focus on growth opportunities for the kiosk network.

This is an exciting new chapter for AppRev, states Seth A. Avery, President and CEO of AppRev. By joining forces, we now offer more data-driven, comprehensive solutions to our customers and significant opportunities to our employees and partners. Greenberg Advisors acted as financial advisor to AppRev on the transaction.

About OSG

For more than 25 years, OSG has been a leading outsourced provider of omnichannel billing and payment solutions, offering a full suite of integrated customer communications and engagement solutions that transform the way our clients reach their customers. From transactional documents to strategic marketing initiatives, OSG employs cutting-edge digital technology to expertly craft communications that enhance the customer experience. OSGs reputation for excellence is based upon award-winning communications solutions and long-term investment in clients success."We built Plutoshift to give companies an easy way to bridge the relationship between their industrial data and financial performance to improve plant operations, said Prateek Joshi, CEO and founder of Plutoshift

Plutoshift today announced its cloud-based asset performance management (APM) solution for the process industry, which includes verticals such as food, beverage, and chemical. Using artificial intelligence (AI), Plutoshift automatically and continuously connects asset data with financial metrics so companies can easily measure performance to achieve their business outcomes and increase profit margins.

Companies in the process industry are expected to generate more revenues using less resources and without buying new assets. The vast amount of industrial sensor data that manufacturers rely on to meet these challenges is often trapped in aging, on-premise systems that cannot correlate the impact of asset performance over future revenue metrics. In addition, these legacy systems lack the capabilities, features, and ease of use that todays tech savvy end-users expect.

Plutoshifts AI-enabled APM platform lets plant managers discover process inefficiencies and find new opportunities to increase throughput and eliminate wasteful spending. Its proprietary machine learning algorithms leverage a plants existing historical and real-time data to visualize complex and dynamic relationships, extracting actionable insights between asset behavior and revenues. With its SaaS-approach, the Plutoshift APM platform is not only cost effective, but also works with existing data systems seamlessly. It also can be accessed from anywhere.

Plutoshifts secure, cloud-based platform is the only solution vetted by global forums of leading industrial technology evaluation committees. Key features include:



Deep analysis and intelligence: Easily connects to multiple data streams including SCADA, ERP, and CMMS to produce actionable insights on the costs, risks, and potential efficiencies of plant operations to achieve optimal performance.

Agile integration: The solution can seamlessly integrate with every process historian available on the market today.

On-demand insights: Interactive, easy-to-use dashboards, and alerts are accessible anywhere, providing expanded mobility for plant operators.

Pre-built asset templates: An expansive and growing library includes assets such as membranes, cooling towers, CIP systems, clarifiers, dryers, and more.

Plutoshift partnered with its Fortune 500 customers in the food, beverage, and chemical industries to create its APM solution.It was specifically designed to connect and analyze data to provide insights that let organizations better manage excess resource consumption.

We built Plutoshift to give companies an easy way to bridge the relationship between their industrial data and financial performance to improve plant operations, said Prateek Joshi, CEO and founder of Plutoshift. AI is only as good as the business outcomes it supports, so our biggest priority is to make it as easy as possible for our customers to achieve their business goals and generate ROI as quickly as possible.

For more information or to arrange a demonstration, please visit http://www.plutoshift.com/contact-us.

About Plutoshift

Plutoshift helps the process industry unlock the value of their assets. The company offers a secure, SaaS asset performance management (APM) solution that connects asset data with financial metrics. Plutoshift's proprietary Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms help its Fortune 500 customers monitor performance, discover inefficiencies, reduce resource consumption, and eliminate waste. Headquartered in Palo Alto, Calif., Plutoshift is privately funded by Fall Line Capital, Unshackled Ventures, Refactor Capital, and others. For more information, visit https://www.plutoshift.com.Bobby G. brings us industry leadership at the highest level, and his experience with both corporate flight departments and high-net-worth customers is second to none. The other reason were so fortunate to have Bobby is his talent as a builder of great cultures. Mike Dwyer, Managing Partner

Guardian Jet (guardianjet.com), the Guilford, Connecticut-based business aviation consulting and brokerage firm, is pleased to announce the appointment of Robert Garrymore to Vice President-South Central. A highly regarded business and general aviation veteran, Garrymore, in his new position, is leading Guardian Jet aircraft sales in Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and New Mexico.

In his role, Garrymore is responsible for establishing and maintaining relationships with Guardian Jets brokerage and consulting clients at the senior-most levels of corporate flight departments and family offices. He also manages vendor relationships and alliances to expand the companys client base.

Mike Dwyer, Managing Partner of Guardian Jet, is delighted that Garrymore has joined the company. Bobby G. is a great boost for Guardian Jet! he said. He brings us industry leadership at the highest level, and his experience with both corporate flight departments and high-net-worth customers is second to none. The other reason were so fortunate to have Bobby is his talent as a builder of great cultures. He certainly shares our DNA of putting the client first.

Previously, Garrymore served as President of the Corporate Sales division for Wheels Up. Prior to that, he was President of Executive Jet Management (EJM), a subsidiary of NetJets (a Berkshire Hathaway Company). In addition to his executive role at EJM, Garrymore served in a variety of positions during 15 years at NetJets, including roles in management, sales and operations.

Speaking about his new job, Garrymore said, I feel privileged and honored to be among such smart, dynamic, dedicated and caring people as I am here at Guardian Jet. It says a lot that in spite of the incredible pressure that comes with the growth and success Guardian Jet has achieved, the company and its employees remain committed to a client-centric mission that sets them apart from other companies. Im eager and excited to help in any way I can to continue this companys leadership and momentum in the industry.

In addition to his extensive aviation industry background, Garrymore holds a BA degree from Widener University in Chester, Pennsylvania. He is a commercially rated pilot and former certified flight instructor.

About Guardian Jet

Founded in 2002, Guardian Jet, LLC, offers business aviation brokerage, consulting and oversight services for thousands of clients worldwide. The company distinguishes itself with its focus on integrity and industry expertise, and by consistently providing business value to clients. Guardian Jets core mission has always been to earn the right to buy and sell aircraft on behalf of its clientele by providing great consulting advice, market intelligence and flawless execution. For more information, visit guardianjet.com.Purespectrum Inc. (PSRU:OTC) is pleased to provide its shareholders with a corporate update. On September 7th, 2018, Purespectrum purchased Opportunity Knocks Television LLC (OKTV). In exchange for majority control of the corporation utilizing the existing preferred shares, Xavier Mitchell then became the majority, controlling shareholder as he was the sole managing member of OKTV. As part of the transaction, a divestiture of Nutrafill LLC occurred. All the existing management team resigned and Xavier Mitchell was appointed as CEO and sole director.

The focus of Purespectrum Inc. will now be exclusively on its fast growing, wholly-owned subsidiary, OKTV, a world wide streaming network (broadcasted in specific territories) that is employing a refreshing approach to television distribution by fusing a combination of time tested network strategies with todays new approach to media utilizing technology and catering to consumers desire for smart compelling content.

Among other exciting developments, OKTV is currently in negotiations to form a joint venture with a prominent network and studio in Georgia. The JV will not only provide OKTV with an exponentially larger viewer base but the use of the studios state of the art production facilities for its own proprietary content.

With respect to a reverse split, we will not perform a reverse split in the foreseeable future. Due to our rapid growth, we anticipate the eventual buy back of shares.

The company will begin the necessary steps to become current with OTC Markets Group Inc. including, but not limited to, posting the necessary disclosure statements.

All news releases will be distributed via news services and will be Tweeted at @oktvlive. Shareholders are welcome to email any questions or concerns using our website http://www.myok.tv but, due to the recent surge in calls, we cannot respond to all, so we ask that shareholders send emails with a guaranteed response in 48 hours.

Updates will be forthcoming

Legal Notice Regarding Forward-Looking Statements:

This press release contains forward-looking information within the meaning of section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and is subject to the safe harbor created by those sections. This material contains statements about expected future events and/or financial results that are forward-looking in nature and subject to risks and uncertainties. That includes the possibility that the business outlined in this press release cannot be concluded for some reason. That could be as a result of technical, installation, permitting or other problems that were not anticipated. Such forward-looking statements by definition involve risks, uncertainties and other factors, which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of Purespectrum Inc. to be materially different from the statements made herein. Except for any obligation under the U.S. federal securities laws, Purespectrum Inc. undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

For more information http://www.myok.tv

Contact

Pam Broussard

747.666.5677

publicity(at)myoktv.com

Social media

@oktvliveQualidigm, the mission-driven national healthcare consulting think tank based in Wethersfield, Conn., was recently awarded a contract by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) to continue the companys 17 year support of the Medicare Patient Safety Monitoring System (MPSMS), which is considered the Gold Standard in hospital adverse event reporting. In this version of the contract, Qualidigm will assist AHRQ in transitioning the program from a chart-abstraction-based system to a new web-based chart-abstraction-system based on Quality and Safety Review System (QSRS) software and the AHRQ Common Formats for Surveillance. The new award supports further analysis to detect adverse events among patients from all hospitals across the United States.

MPSMS is the nations largest and most robust source of medical record abstraction-based database designed for patient safety tracking. The system focuses on patient harm rather than medical error by identifying patient exposures to specific in-hospital patient care processes and associated adverse events, along with patient characteristics, co-morbidities, antecedent conditions, and patient outcomes. MPSMS relies on manual abstraction of patient records which can be labor intensive. This award supports AHRQs future vision of a monitoring system that relies less on manual chart abstraction and is designed to transition to the use of structured data and other data contained in electronic medical records (EMRs). The QSRS will offer other important adverse events such as those associated with inpatient opioid administration that are not measured in MPSMS.

The movement toward electronic measures increases dramatically the nations ability to monitor many more hospitals simultaneously in near real-time, said Qualidigm president and CEO, Dr. Tim Elwell. Seventeen years ago, Qualidigm developed the MPSMS surveillance system with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS) and AHRQ, which is used by the Federal Government and researchers across the country to assess and measure national patient safety trends. We are thrilled to support the transition to the QSRS by providing our expertise to improve algorithms for extracting patient safety information, said Elwell.

MPSMS is a primary source of information for the National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Reports and national initiatives sponsored by CMS to improve healthcare quality and patient safety. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services received a Pinnacle Award from the American Pharmaceutical Association for the Departments work to reduce adverse drug events, which was demonstrated by the use of MPSMS data in the Partnership for Patients. Additionally, the team has published several articles on MPSMS findings in leading publications including the New England Journal of Medicine and Journal of the American Medical Association.

About Qualidigm:

With its corporate headquarters in Wethersfield, Conn. and offices in Manchester, Maine; Dover, NH; Barre, VT; and Providence, RI, Qualidigm's mission is to improve the quality, safety, and cost-effectiveness of healthcare through transformational change. Qualidigm provides consulting services to public and private sector clients nationwide. These services include consulting, data analysis, health information technology, patient safety, quality improvement, and utilization review. Qualidigm is part of a team that is serving as the Medicare Quality Innovation Network Quality Improvement Organization (QIN-QIO) under contract with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services for New England. Qualidigm is also a Patient Safety Organization (PSO) as designated by the State of Connecticut. http://www.Qualidigm.orgRegina Wood, a real estate agent and current CEO of Newmoneytaxes, LLC after a thirty-year government career, has completed her book Picture for the Frame: Finding Joy through Our Trials: a memoir to encourage readers that regardless of the obstacles they face, they can overcome all with perseverance and, above all, faith.

Many have definite plans about how the story of life goes, but the purpose of God prevails. Author Regina S. Wood narrates how she learned to embrace the unplanned and how she kept faith in Gods promise.

In this memoir, she tells a story about the power of a promise, the power of love, and the power of faith. Through her personal experiences and challenges during her life, Wood offers advice for the following:



Having a grateful heart.

Coping with lifes unchangeable circumstances.

Making the best choices for the maximum result.

Living life to the fullest.

Realizing that giving up is not an option.

Striving to fulfill our purpose.

Picture for the Frame serves to inspire and encourage the masses to never give up, to hear the inner voices, and to remember that each person can persevere and achieve regardless of the not-so-idealistic circumstances presented in life.

Published by New York City-based Page Publishing, Regina Woods book shares her personal challenges and how she found the strength to move forward and enjoy living every day with a grateful spirit.

Readers who wish to experience this inspiring work can purchase Picture for the Frame: Finding Joy through Our Trials at bookstores everywhere, or online at the Apple iTunes store, Amazon, Google Play, or Barnes and Noble.

For additional information or media inquiries, contact Page Publishing at 866-315-2708.

About Page Publishing:

Page Publishing is a traditional New York-based full-service publishing house that handles all the intricacies involved in publishing its authors books, including distribution in the worlds largest retail outlets and royalty generation. Page Publishing knows that authors need to be free to create - not bogged down with logistics like eBook conversion, establishing wholesale accounts, shipping, taxes, and the like. Its roster of accomplished authors and publishing professionals allows writers to leave behind these complex and time-consuming issues to focus on their passion: writing and creating. Learn more at http://www.pagepublishing.com.The aim of the San Leandro Center for Autism is to provide resources to local families who have children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder.

This Saturday, September 29 from 10:00AM  2:00 PM, the San Leandro Center for Autism, a division of Autism Learning Partners, will be launching its renovated center through a free open house carnival for local families with special needs children. Vice Mayor, Debora Cox, is scheduled to attend at 10:00AM where she will help launch the carnival with a ribbon cutting ceremony.

This event will host free games and activities for children, food, and a raffle of items including a family pass to both Californias Great America and the Childrens Creativity Museum. Parents are encouraged to view the new facility and meet the staff, getting all their questions answered about center-based ABA therapy.

The aim of the San Leandro Center for Autism is to provide resources to local families who have children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. The center offers ABA services from certified behavior therapists and the opportunity for children on the spectrum to learn social skills through interaction with other children at the center.

Autism is a developmental disorder affecting more than 3.5 million Americans ability to communicate and socialize with others. Given how widespread autism is, (approximately 1 in 68 people have the disorder), chances are you know someone on the autism spectrum! While autism cannot be cured, there are options to help teach a child with autism methods of communication and tactics to interact with others. These options help set a child up for success in life, through school and beyond into adulthood.

The ability to diagnose autism at an early age is key to a childs progress. The earlier an intervention takes place the better chance the child will have to succeed in school, work, and eventually living an independent life. The only form of therapy recommended by the US Surgeon General and supported by research to treat autism spectrum disorders is the science of Applied Behavior Analysis, often referred to as ABA therapy.

One family described their experience with ABA therapy with a national autism therapies provider, Autism Learning Partners, and their three children who were diagnosed with autism:

ABA was the best choice for our family and allowed our children to maintain their personalities while working through the anxiety and sensitivities often found in autism spectrum disorders.

This familys three children who underwent ABA therapy eventually went on to be in gifted and talented programs, with one child even attending an international baccalaureate program. Without ABA therapy, this level of independence may not have been possible. ABA was imperative to their successes, stated the mother of these three children.

While Autism Learning Partners, who is opening the San Leandro Center for Autism, has been serving its community for the over 30 years, the recent increase in demand for services from local families meant that the center would need to expand to serve more families.

For more information, visit autismlearningpartners.com/Eastbay. Press who would like to attend, please contact eastbay(at)autismlearningpartners.com.For the fourth year in a row, in 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2018, leading eminent domain lawyers, Jennifer Polovetsky and Philip Sanchez, partners and founders at Manhattan based Sanchez & Polovetsky PLLC, have been selected to the Super Lawyers list. Each year, no more than five percent of the lawyers in the state are selected to receive this honor by the research team at Super Lawyers, a Thomson Reuters business.

We are deeply honored to have been selected by this prestigious organization for the past four years, says Philip Sanchez, partner at Sanchez & Polovetsky PLLC. Our firms mission is to support clients of every size that are faced with eminent domain. We take great pride in helping enterprises, which are often family owned, to keep their businesses and often have the opportunity to improve with a fresh start at a new location.

Super Lawyers, is a rating service of outstanding lawyers from more than 70 practice areas who have attained a high degree of peer recognition and professional achievement. The annual selections are made using a patented multiphase process that includes a statewide survey of lawyers, an independent research evaluation of candidates and peer reviews by practice area. The result is a credible, comprehensive and diverse listing of exceptional attorneys.

This honor is especially meaningful because the New York Metro Area is where we work and live. To be recognized by our peers for our efforts speaks volumes to our commitment and drive in serving the community at large. Super Lawyers is an elite industry group and we are thrilled to have been selected, says Jennifer Polovetsky, partner at Sanchez & Polovetsky PLLC.

Super Lawyers, is a rating service of outstanding lawyers from more than 70 practice areas who have attained a high degree of peer recognition and professional achievement. The annual selections are made using a patented multiphase process that includes a statewide survey of lawyers, an independent research evaluation of candidates and peer reviews by practice area. The result is a credible, comprehensive and diverse listing of exceptional attorneys.

The Super Lawyers lists are published nationwide in Super Lawyers Magazines and in leading city and regional magazines and newspapers across the country. Super Lawyers Magazines also feature editorial profiles of attorneys who embody excellence in the practice of law. For more information about Super Lawyers, visit SuperLawyers.com.

ABOUT SANCHEZ & POLOVETSKY, PLLC

Sanchez & Polovetsky, PLLC focuses its practice on eminent domain and commercial real estate. The attorneys at the firm have over three decades of combined legal experience. The firm has successfully represented clients in the New York Metro Area in all stages of eminent domain proceedings.Dells Boat Tours offers cruises thorughout fall; a great way to see the changing canopy of color in Wisconsin Dells. Fall is one of the most beautiful times to enjoy a relaxing cruise on the Wisconsin River

Warm fall days and crisp cool nights are the perfect combination to bring out natures bounty of fall color. As the autumn season emerges in Wisconsin Dells, the changing landscape along the Wisconsin River comes alive. Colorful trees, with hues of yellows, orange and red, line the scenic sandstone bluffs along the river flowing through the Dells. One of the best ways to take in the spectacular scenery is by way of Dells Boat Tours.

Fall is one of the most beautiful times to enjoy a relaxing cruise on the Wisconsin River to see natures last hurrah before the leaves begin to fall, said Amanda McGowan, assistant manager of Dells Boat Tours.

Daily river excursions run through October 28, giving visitors plenty of time to see the changing landscape of color in Wisconsin Dells. Boat tours generally depart hourly from 10:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. during the week, with boats leaving every half-hour during the busy fall weekends. Visitors should call (608) 254-8555 for departure times or visit http://www.dellsboats.com for tickets and additional information. Peak color time in Wisconsin Dells is typically late-September to mid-October.

Land and Water Adventures

Visitors can take an adventurous journey through the colorful scenic trails along the Lower Dells aboard Original Wisconsin Ducks. Passengers travel along the quiet exclusive trail system surrounded by the beautiful canopy of color, all aboard an open-air Duck. The amphibious excursion splashes down into the Wisconsin River to see more of the regions beautiful scenery. A second water entry goes into Lake Delton, the banks lined with stunning fall color, before coming back up on shore for more trail time on the one-hour round-trip adventure. Tours depart throughout the day this fall through October 28 from 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Late fall season tours depart from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. October 29 to November 11. Call (608) 254-8751 or visit http://www.wisconsinducktours.com.

Specialty Fall Season Ghost Boat

For those who are more daring, Dells Ghost Boat takes on a Halloween flair each fall. Ghost Boat: Season of the Witch ventures out on Friday and Saturday nights in September and October, traveling upriver to a creepy dark canyon. The crisp fall air sets the stage as passengers settle in for an after-dark 1-hour excursion upriver. Stories of the Dells ominous past fill the air as the boat navigates the dark, rushing waters of the Wisconsin river. Anticipation builds, as the boat makes its way to Cold Water Canyon. Docking at the eerie gorge, passengers leave the safety of the boat behind and walk on foot. The bluffs hug you in and darkness is all around; its unknown who or what may be around the next bend or lurking in the shadows. Ghost Boat: Season of the Witch generally runs Friday and Saturday nights in September and October. Advanced tickets are highly recommended. Ghost Boat tickets can be purchased online at http://www.dellsghostboat.com. For information call (608) 254-8555.

Inside Exploration  Hands-on Science Center

Fall visitors can let their natural curiosity take charge and learn about the world in which we live at the Tommy Bartlett Exploratory in Wisconsin Dells. The Interactive Science Center features more than 175 hands-on exhibits exploring science and technology, allowing families to sneak a little bit of learning into their fall getaway. The Exploratory has four sectors of activities that visitors can explore at their own pace. Some activities are simple brain-teaser puzzles or optical illusions that will keep you doing more than a double-take. Others, such as the Giant Lever, get your whole body in on the experiment. The Exploratory also features a unique space sector dedicated to the marvels and milestones of space exploration. Open daily, year-round. Fall hours 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 pm. Call (608) 254-2525 or visit http://www.tommybartlett.com.SignAll Co-Founder and CEO Zsolt Robotka with the SignAll translation system SignAll has pioneered the first platform that allows instant communication between ASL users and non-signing people.

Research and development startup SignAll is the first to use technology to facilitate real-time American Sign Language-to-English translation. The technology is now available to businesses and organizations that want to increase accessibility for their Deaf and hard-of-hearing employees and customers.

More and more companies are striving to be inclusive, and SignAlls technology allows Deaf and hearing people to communicate without barriers, SignAll Co-Founder and CEO Zsolt Robotka said. We invite those who are interested to be part of our pilot program.

American Sign Language  the main language of many Deaf and hard-of-hearing people in North America  is a complex visual language that incorporates distinct signs, facial expressions, and body movements and positions, which made it a challenge to translate via computer. Budapest-based SignAll has pioneered the first platform that allows instant communication between ASL users and non-signing people.

The SignAll team, made up of Deaf and hearing researchers, mathematicians, developers and linguists from the United States and Hungary, spent seven years developing the SignAll Automatic Sign Language Interpreter System, which uses machine vision and natural language processing.

Four cameras pick up the signers visual cues; NLP software translates ASL to English text; and a speech-recognition feature processes spoken English into text. Text is displayed on a chat-like interface on two monitors.

SignAll collaborated with Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., the only university in the world created specifically for the Deaf and hard of hearing, to fine-tune the program. SignAll debuted to the public June 2018 at Gallaudets Maguire Visitor Center, allowing Deaf and hard-of-hearing signers to seamlessly interact with hearing visitors who do not sign.

"Gallaudet provided expert information on American Sign Language and computer language processing and translation, and students assisted with development by acting as sign language models and testing software, said Dr. Patrick Boudreault, associate professor in the Gallaudet Department of Translation and Interpretation. The goal of the partnership with SignAll is to create full accessibility for Deaf and hard-of-hearing people, and SignAlls use of native ASL signers is a value-added feature that other companies skip over in their rush to develop new translation technology.

SignAlls vision includes expanding to public and private organizations, such as government offices, schools and universities, and companies that want to improve communication with Deaf employees and customers.

We are proud that SignAll has been developed jointly by Deaf and hearing people, Robotka said. We are concentrating on installing more systems in the United States. Our plans for the future include the development of a SignAll mobile application and making it available for systems like Siri or Alexa.

Online Press Release

For more information, please visit signall.us or contact us at pr(at)signall(dot)us

About SignAll:

Founded in Hungary, SignAlls diverse team of 15 deaf and hearing American and Hungarian professionals has over 100 years of combined experience. SignAll has offices in Budapest, Hungary, and Arlington, Virginia, and has been collaborating with Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., since January 2017."I am excited for these two individuals to join our experienced sales team and help further develop SNS business. They provide a great blend of experience, passion and knowledge that will make them a key addition to the SNS family. - Stan Sroka, Solution Net Systems' President and CEO

Solution Net Systems (SNS), a member of the Datalogic Group, is proud to announce and welcome Steven Smith as its new Sales Director and David St. Leger in the role of Strategic Account Manager, New Business Development.

Steve comes to SNS from us most recently from Bell and Howell, LLC where he served in various roles responsible for the sale of production mail, card and secure ID, parcel management, sorting and E-commerce solutions in the Mid-Atlantic and Southern regions. Steve brings over 25 years in sales, sales management and general management with a proven track record of success in material handling automation. His experience will help support and expand the SNS goals and objectives. Steve can be reached at steven(dot)smith(at)solutionnetsystems(dot)com.

David joined SNS in September from Lee Hecht Harrison where he served in the role of Vice President of Business Development, responsible for providing workforce transformation and human capital solutions. Davids vast sales experience includes positions with Hewlett-Packard, Bell and Howell and Kodak. He has extensive background knowledge in material automation solutions in production mail, parcel management, sorting, label print & apply, and E-commerce solutions. As a retired US Air Force Senior NCO Officer, it is no wonder that David has an unparalleled work ethic and dedication for success. These priceless characteristics will be helpful for him to support and expand the SNS customer base with an emphasis on new business development. David can be contacted at david(dot)st(dot)leger(at)solutionnetsystems(dot)com.

Stan Sroka, President and CEO said, I am excited for these two individuals to join our experienced sales team and help further develop SNS business. They provide a great blend of experience, passion and knowledge that will make them a key addition to the SNS family.

About Solution Net Systems

Solution Net Systems, Inc. is a global leader in developing automated logistic solutions. SNS specializes in upgrading warehouse management systems giving you real time information, connectivity of a fully integrated system, or developing solutions of all sizes. Over the 45 years, our unique approach allows for custom systems in the transportation, e-commerce, retail, postal, food and pharmaceutical industries.

Solution Net Systems, Inc. is wholly owned by Datalogic. The Datalogic Group is listed on the Milan Stock Exchange and it is a global leader of bar code readers, mobile computers, sensors, vision systems and laser marking systems.

Contact

Solution Net Systems

Alicia DiDomenico, Marketing Specialist

alicia(dot)didomenico(at)solutionnetsystems(dot)comThe 25-foot roof clearance allows for pallets to be stacked atop one another, while the steel centre row columns provide wide-open space. MSC designed, supplied and erected a pre-engineered steel building for Okanagan Spirits Craft Distillery, one of the oldest distilleries in Western Canada.

Spirits are flowing thanks to a Kelowna-based steel building company that has helped an award-winning craft distillery grow its storage facilities.

Metal Structure Concepts (MSC) designed, supplied and erected a pre-engineered steel building for Okanagan Spirits Craft Distillery, one of the oldest distilleries in Western Canada that uses Okanagan-grown fruit to craft more than 25 internationally awarded spirits.

The 16,720 sq. ft. steel structure in Vernon, BC has been built as an addition to an existing storage building, which MSC helped retrofit to connect it with the new building.

We decided to have MSC help design and install the 16,000 sq. ft. addition to our existing storage facility in Vernon for three very important reasons: 1. They were a local Canadian company with a base right here in the Okanagan Valley. 2. They were extremely prompt and professional on answering any of our questions and also in coming up with solutions to logistical and structural issues. And 3, they were honest and every aspect of what they did or represented was done with the highest standards of integrity, says Okanagan Spirits CEO Tyler Dyck.

Led by MSC owner Steve Ivanitz and assisted by consultant Rob Penny, MSC worked closely with Dyck in making sure all specifications and requirements for the building were met before any construction began.

We took them step-by-step through the project and answered all their questions on how we could connect the two buildings and what engineering would be required, says Penny. This is part of the service MSC provides. Steve cares about all of his projects, wants to do quality work, and wants his customers to be informed on all aspects of the job.

With a design plan in hand, MSC worked with Vernon-based Bourcet Engineering in providing the site planning and elevations and sent all of its plans to pre-engineered building fabricator American Building Company to manufacture the parts.

We used them because the existing building was also manufactured by them. We wanted the same colors and have a good tie-in, so that both buildings matched and fit with each other. We matched the roof colors and gutters (hunter green), and the sheeting (sandstone) for a seamless look, says Penny, adding KCW Construction set the concrete foundation.

With the main purpose of the building being storage, the 110-by-152 ft. structure has a 25-foot roof clearance inside that allows for three pallets to be stacked atop one another, while center row columns made from steel anchored to cement provide a wide-open space. The building also features custom steel building touches such as a covered loading bay, which features a roof and open walls. MSC also did some roof work on the existing building so that it matched with the new building. The R20-rated insulated building also features a fire rated end wall.

All together it took 12-14 weeks for the parts to be manufactured and only 30 days for the building to then be erected.

We had a tight schedule so it was important for us to be on time and on budget, says Penny. That is one of the reasons why MSC gets orders over other vendors. When our estimators come up with metal building prices, they think through everything so that there are no extras, and we always try our best to deal with unforeseen challenges.

The result is another satisfied MSC client.

The team at MSC worked seamlessly with our contractor and with myself, and helped enable our project to hit all building timelines and expectations without a glitch. I would not hesitate to recommend them to anyone who is thinking of going the metal structure route for their building. You will not be disappointed, says Dyck.

About Metal Structure Concepts

Since its inception in 2002, MSC has been designing and erecting pre-engineered steel buildings across Western Canada, and beyond. By combining a talented team of in-house designers with highly trained field workers, MSC carries out installations to rigorous standards, guaranteeing a professional product that looks, performs and lasts exactly as intended. MSC creates innovative steel building plans to suit any industry or application, including industrial, commercial, mini-storage, retail, agricultural, and community-multi-purpose.

For more information, contact:

Steve Ivanitz

Owner, Metal Structure Concepts

1-800-979-2993

steve[at]mscsteel[dot]com

http://www.mscsteel.comWe are excited to see how the partnership of Surg.io and SimplyRFID takes both platforms to new heights that were previously impossible. It is a real 1 plus 1 = 10 scenario. --Jeff Claeson

Surg.io, an emerging leader in software solutions for the management of orthopedic instrument and implant inventory as well as hospital sterile processing and perioperative solutions, has partnered with SimplyRFID, a veteran leader in tracking technology and inventory visibility solutions, announce an exclusive healthcare partnership to provide a fully integrated inventory management system that brings real-time visibility, tracking, and analytics to the entire hospital supply chain.

The medical device supply chain is inherently complex and full transparency has remained elusive for the majority of the healthcare industry. Hospitals and manufacturers alike have difficulty gaining oversight of even their highest-dollar assets.

Recent studies and surveys show that 80% of hospitals still manage their inventory via manual processes. Without tracking, up to 30% of their inventory expires on the shelves and hundreds of thousands - and often millions - of dollars in charges go uncaptured and unnecessary purchasing practices continue unabated.

The agreement combines two technology platforms that enable real-time location tracking plus artificial intelligence to reduce the potential for human error while increasing supply chain efficiencies. Surg.io and Simply RFID have jointly created the most advanced software/hardware solution to provide transparency and actionable analytics to the orthopedic & spine clinical arenas.

The new partners plan to launch the products in Los Angeles this week at the North American Spine Societys Annual Convention on September 26-19 (Booth 1135). We are excited to see how the partnership of Surg.io and SimplyRFID takes both platforms to new heights that were previously impossible. It is a real 1 plus 1 = 10 scenario. Jeff Claeson, Surg.ios Co-Founder & Chief Technology Officer.

Carl Brown, President/Founder of SimplyRFiD said: "It's a perfect match! Surgio makes healthcare supply chain management simple. We make supply chain tracking simple. By bringing these two technologies together - a trusted hospital scheduling / management product from Surgio and an accurate tracking system from SimplyRFiD - we give hospitals the best solution for managing their resources. Together, we create the complete solution that improves healthcare for everyone."

About Surg.io

Surg.io is a complete inventory tracking system created for the orthopedic and spine industry. ERP systems were not built to effectively facilitate the fast-paced logistical environment of medical device supply chains. They are complex and often rely on tribal knowledge of each system to manage effectively. Healthcare suppliers and institutions rely on Surg.io to streamline communication between disparate teams to ensure continuity. By offering a user-friendly and intuitive interface, you dont have to be a power user to manage inventory. Leverage Surg.io to enhance processes and optimize supply chain strategy.

About SimplyRFID

Since its founding in 2003, SimplyRFID has been at the forefront of developing tracking technology software. With over 100 million tags shipped and thousands of systems deployed worldwide in industries ranging from defense to healthcare, SimplyRFID is the expert industry leaders turn to for tracking solutions. Its largest deployment was developed in support of a major pharma group, which chose SimplyRFID due to its 15+ years of industry-leading expertise in RF-data capture solutions. The deployment created a solution with unmatched reliability, accuracy, and scalability, enabling real-time tracking of tagged pharmaceutical items in hospitals and at healthcare providers worldwide.TextUs Hires Ericka Hyson to Lead New Staffing Industry Initiatives We are extremely excited to have Ericka join our executive team. I have great confidence in her leadership skills, her operational acumen, and industry knowledge and experience. Ericka innately understands our mission to help our staffing and recruiting clients connect and close faster.

TextUs announced today that Ericka Hyson has joined the executive team as Chief Operating Officer. In this role, Hyson will drive team development, ensure client success, and further TextUss impressive growth trajectory, which landed them on the prestigious Inc. 5000 list this year.

Hyson comes to TextUs from her position as COO of ettain group, one of the fastest-growing staffing firms in the nation. She was named to Staffing Industry Analysts Global Power Women in Staffing for two years and has been honored by the Charlotte Business Journal with a 2018 Women in Business Award. Erickas innovation, drive to create value for customers, and commitment to team growth dovetail with TextUss culture and positions TextUs for continued expansion throughout the staffing and recruiting industry.

As a 20-year veteran in the Staffing Industry, I have a passion for people, said Hyson. I enjoy building relationships, creating opportunities for others, and building economies of scale in fast-moving, growing companies. Im excited to join this incredibly talented team of tech innovators who are revolutionizing how the industry is engaging in real-time, authentic conversations.

TextUs President Ted Guggenheim said: We are extremely excited to have Ericka join our executive team. I have great confidence in her leadership skills, her operational acumen, and industry knowledge and experience. Ericka innately understands our mission to help our staffing and recruiting clients connect and close faster. She will help us continue to provide unparalleled service to our clients and growth opportunities for our team.

About TextUs

TextUs is the world's leading real-time communication platform changing how businesses communicate with their leads, candidates, and customers. With 10x the response rate of traditional communication channels, TextUs empowers professionals to provide a one-to-one connection to their customers, engage contacts with personal outreach, and dramatically accelerate the way we get business done.

Visit http://www.textus.com and connect with the company on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn .The Ritz-Carlton, Rancho Mirage is offering guests the opportunity to join in its support of those affected by breast cancer. In an effort to raise awareness, the luxury resort will 'go pink' for the entire month of October.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and The Ritz-Carlton, Rancho Mirage is offering guests the opportunity to join in its support of those affected. In an effort to raise awareness, the luxury resort will go pink from the front drive all the way to the picturesque Reflection Fountain.

After driving up the winding road to the resort, guests will be greeted by pink lights lining the Porte Cochere. The lobby will be filled with fresh floral arrangements comprised entirely of pink and red hues. An assortment of blush-colored candies such as Swedish Fish and pink Starbursts will adorn the daily Candy Bar offerings at the Concierge desk, and guests can enjoy complimentary rose-infused water while checking in.

Those dining at State Fare Bar + Kitchen will have two opportunities to support Breast Cancer Awareness Month. With the purchase of a specialty box of pink macaroons or The Pink Lady Martini, partial proceeds from each will be donated to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. After dinner, guests can walk down the stairs outside of State Fare to find the Reflection Fountain glowing pink as three light orbs gently rest on top of the water.

The Ritz-Carlton Spa, Rancho Mirage is showing its support for Breast Cancer Awareness Month too, with an exclusive treatment that includes a rejuvenating facial, pink sparkling wine and a donation of $25 to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. The Pink Ultimate Radiance & Renewal Facial was designed to restore skins vitality and reveal a bright, smooth and radiantly youthful complexion. Combining an age-defying pink crystal facial massage, two lifting and refining masks and a soothing pink hair and scalp treatment, guests can join in the support of Breast Cancer Awareness Month while indulging at the spa.

The Breast Cancer Research Foundation is a nonprofit group dedicated to advancing preventative treatments and a cure for breast cancer. They offer funding for critical cancer research all over the world to fuel advances in tumor biology, metastasis, treatment, genetics, prevention and survivorship.The web-based training course is cost-effective, easy to deploy and provides employers with a new approach to sexual harassment training that can help them effectively address the issues and challenges of the #MeToo era.

Traliant, an innovator in online compliance training for the modern workforce, today announced the availability of a new sexual harassment training course to help employers in New York City and New York State meet new sexual harassment training requirements and fast-approaching deadlines.

New York State recently issued draft model training guidelines requiring that New York-based employers conduct annual sexual harassment training for all employees starting October 9, 2018. All employees  including part-time and temporary workers  must complete the training before January 1, 2019, and new employees must be trained within 30 days of their start date.

The New York Edition of Traliants industry-leading Preventing Discrimination and Harassment meets the training requirements and covers all the essential topics required under New York States anti-harassment legislation and New York Citys Stop Sexual Harassment in NYC Act.

For more information, please visit: New York Sexual Harassment Training

This special edition enables organizations doing business in New York to start training their employees today and feel confident they can meet the new standards and January 1 deadline, said Mike Pallatta, Traliants CEO and Co-Founder. The web-based training course is cost-effective, easy to deploy and provides employers with a new approach to sexual harassment training that can help them effectively address the issues and challenges of the #MeToo era.

Traliants interactive sexual harassment training explains and presents realistic examples of sexual harassment, discrimination, retaliation, bystander intervention and other timely topics, including diversity and inclusion, unconscious bias and workplace civility. Employees explore these topics in a series of bite-sized episodes, featuring video scenarios that challenge them to choose alternate endings. Quizzes, assessments and thought-provoking exercises are woven into each episode to raise awareness of sexual harassment and other workplace misconduct, and promote positive behavior and attitudes.

About Traliant

Traliant was founded by industry veterans from some of the worlds most successful compliance training companies to meet the challenge of transforming compliance training from boring to brilliant. Backed by Martinson Ventures, Traliant delivers immersive, bite-sized training on an eLearning platform that enables fast and easy customization. For more information visit: https://www.traliant.com and follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.Neal Simon, unaffiliated candidate for the U.S. Senate for Maryland, today released a statement today regarding Sen. Ben Cardins vote on Jackie Wolcotts appointment as Ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The statement is as follows:

On Monday, senators from both parties came together to confirm Jackie Wolcott to serve as our Ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency. The IAEA Ambassador serves a critical role in working with our allies in the international community to prevent nuclear proliferation and maintain the security of the U.S. against nuclear attacks. Ms. Wolcott was nominated for this key role in January and is indisputably qualified for the position.

Seventy-five Republicans and Democrats voted to confirm Wolcott. Sen. Cardin was not among them. Instead, he followed the extreme members of his party  Sens. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris  who put partisan politics over the security of our country and voted against confirming Wolcott.

Two years ago, Cardin said that the IAEA responsibilities are greater today than at any point in its 60-year history. It already monitors the nuclear programs of more than 1,200 nuclear facilities around the world to ensure these facilities are not used to produce nuclear weapons. In the coming years, the IAEA will be responsible for monitoring and verifying the nuclear agreement with Iran, confronting North Koreas nuclear program and dealing with a variety of other non-proliferation threats.

On Monday, Sen. Cardin refused to join a bipartisan group of Senators to fill a role that is critical to both our national security and American influence in the global community and that has already been vacant for 20 months. I am disappointed in this decision and am pleased that Jackie Wolcott was confirmed in spite of the dangerous partisan game he played.

For more information, visit http://www.nealsimon.com and follow on Twitter: @nealjsimon.

Paid for by Neal Simon for U.S. Senate.Water Softener Market 2018-2024 Asia Pacific, led by South Korea, Japan, India and China water softener market, is estimated to surpass USD 5 billion in the estimated timeframe.

Expanding manufacturing sector in India, China, and the U.S. may create vast opportunity for water softener market growth. Mounting need for water treatment has incurred high cost for the manufacturers, which have promoted the product usage, thus driving industry growth.

Water softener market for 120,000 grain from office building application is poised to observe gains of over by 4% 2024. Increase in consumer health consciousness has led to rise in demand for healthy and safe drinking water which is likely spur product demand.

Global water softener market size is set to surpass USD 10 billion by 2024. Intensifying demand for soft water owing to growing industrialization and urbanization may expand water softener market growth by 2024. Growing penetration of multinational brands along with its features including high effectiveness in decreasing formation of scale in boilers, pipes and tanks are likely to further propel product demand. This equipment improves product lifespan of water using appliances by removing salts and minerals, which can damage product quality. Growing customer spending on water treatment equipment supported by increasing contamination issues will propel product demand.

Request for a sample of this premium water software market research report @ https://www.gminsights.com/request-sample/detail/2887 .

Supporting government regulation in Europe and Asia pacific reinforced by R&D activities on water softener manufacturing will promote product demand. Additionally, rising industrial sector and manufacturing industries may fuel water softener demand owing to application of soft water in steam generation, product manufacturing and cleaning.

Italy salt free water softener market size is anticipated to reach over USD 125 million by 2024. Presence of large number automotive manufacturers in this region supported by stringent industrial safety norms pertaining to clean water and quality standards will favor industry growth.

New product innovation and rising demand for safe water in residential buildings is projected to drive regional market over forecast timeframe. Increasing monetary standards along with growing awareness about damaging properties of hard water are likely to boost the market growth.

Browse key water softener market insights spread across 1800 pages offering 3896 data tables & 27 figures & charts from the report along with detailed table of contents at:

https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/water-softener-market .

Growing application potential in oil & gas sector and food processing units to reduce waste water & protect interior corrosion and damage of equipment is likely to promote salt based water softener market product demand.

Russia salt based water softener market size of 9,00,000 grain is projected to witness gains of over 7.5% in the forecast timeframe. UK salt-based water softener market size in 900,000 grain from hotel/restaurants is likely to surpass USD 3 million due to its usage in removing lime scale on toilets, tile and faucets. It eliminates scale causing minerals in water, subsequently resulting in cleaner fittings and tiles, which may propel product demand.

Make an inquiry before purchasing this report

@ https://www.gminsights.com/inquiry-before-buying/2887 .

China water softener demand in 1200,000 grain from laundries units is projected to witness gains of up to 7%. Fabric quality is adversely affected along with high amount of detergent is required when hard water is used thus, softener is needed for both cleaning and washing applications. Softening equipment is used in this industry to maintain quality, easy cleaning of fabrics and reduces the amount of detergent required, which may boost market growth.

Global water softener market share is competitive and moderately consolidated with key industry precipitants includes, Culligan International Company, General Electric Company, Pentair, Whirlpool, Honeywell International and 3M. Increasing consumption of soft water has encouraged sellers to invest intensely in R&D for the product. Companies are spending more on product design, increasing efficiency and reducing environmental impacts.

Related Report:

Boiler Water Treatment Chemicals Market Size, Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook (U.S., Canada, Germany, UK, France, Italy, Russia, China, India, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Australia, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, UAE, South Africa), Application Development Potential, Price Trends, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2017  2024 :

With increasing usage of boilers in numerous end-user industries, the global boiler water treatment chemicals market size is expected to rise significantly over the forecast timespan. Other prime factors responsible for driving global boiler water treatment chemicals market are requirement of fresh water by Asia Pacific and Middle East countries. In addition, strategies incorporated by industry share contributors to reduce investment on raw water treatment equipment maintenance and installation will complement business growth. Furthermore, the global boiler water treatment chemicals market share is propelled by various indirect economic benefits offered by the product such as improved boiler efficiency along with expanded life of boiler components. Read more at https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/boiler-water-treatment-chemicals-market .

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.

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Latest News: http://allchemresearch.com/Jamey Jackson, EVP of Malone Workforce Solutions and West Central Chapter Director for the Georgia Manufacturing Alliance "Apprenticeships are not offered as much as they could be due to some liability concerns employers have, but students who participate in these programs graduate with a high school diploma, earn college credits, and industry credentials which starts them on a career path to full-time employment."

How can communities better prepare high school students for success and ensure that businesses have the pipeline of skilled workers they need to thrive? Cities and states across the country are facing this dual challenge  and a growing number are looking to high school apprenticeships as a solution. The Building a Successful Workforce Development Program educational session at the Georgia Manufacturing Summit will address the critical challenges manufacturers are facing in finding qualified talent for their industry and the positive impact these apprenticeship programs are having in the community.

The Workforce Development panel for the Summit is made up of industry thought leaders who have incorporated these apprenticeships into their workplace and daily culture.

Latesa Bailey, Senior Manager for Human Resources at Kia Motors Manufacturing Georgia (KMMG)

Kia has partnered with THINC College & Career Academy to implement the Expeditions Internship Program which rotates students through 4 departments  production, paint maintenance, mechanical, and assembly -- to get a true understanding of the manufacturing environment. The selected departments present challenging objectives for the students to gain valuable experience while giving us (KMMG) the ability to realize the potential of our future workforce.

Kathy Carlisle, CEO of the THINC College and Career Academy

This Troup County charter school, which opened August 2015, is tailored for 9th -12th grade students interested in Mechatronics, Engineering, Energy, Healthcare, Business and Marketing careers. This program equips students with technical and career-specific skills as well as strong work ethic and critical thinking skills.

Kathleen Edge, EVP of Human Resources at Southwire

A leader in technology and innovation, Southwire Company, is one of North Americas largest wire and cable producers. Southwires 12 for Life program is a cooperative education system that provides high school students with classroom instruction, on-the-job training, key work/life skills, and employment opportunities.

Tim Vinson, Youth Apprenticeship Program Coordinator for Pratt & Whitney

Pratt & Whitney has developed a youth apprenticeship program that engages community stakeholders, educators and students in meaningful internships with business partners. This program guides students in their career goals while training them to meet the needs of business and industry.

High school apprenticeships have been available for quite some time for employers, especially in the manufacturing community, said Jamey Jackson, EVP of Malone Workforce Solutions and a provider of talent for KMMG. These opportunities are not offered as much as they could be due to some liability concerns employers have, but students who participate in these programs graduate with a high school diploma, earn college credits, and industry credentials which starts them on a career path to full-time employment.

About the Georgia Manufacturing Summit: The 2018 Georgia Manufacturing Summit, held October 10th at the Cobb Galleria, is expected to attract over 800 attendees from across the Southeast. The theme will be on the Aerospace Industry, the number one export for the state of Georgia. Mark Burns, President of Gulfstream, and Eric Rojek, V.P. of Sales & Marketing for Thrush Aircraft will be this years keynote speakers. This event is for all sectors of the manufacturing industry and allows attendees to make face-to-face connections with other manufacturers, customers, and suppliers.

In addition to the keynote presentations, this event will have over 30 of the top industry leaders from Chart Industries, Cloud & Wire, Decartes, KIA, Kumho Tire, Nisshinbo, Pratt & Whitney, Siemens, Southwire, and more. They will provide educational workshops that focus on Manufacturing Success in Georgia in the key sectors of Disruptive Technologies, Financial Perspectives, International Manufacturing, Sales & Marketing, Supply Chain, and Workforce Development. REGISTRATION INFORMATION: http://www.GeorgiaManufacturingSummit.com

Media contacts that that are interested in covering this event may call 770-338-0051 or email marjorie@georgiamanufacturing.com to request a complimentary PRESS PASS.News

From Bulgaria

The procedure for selecting a strategic investor for Belene NPP will be ready by the end of October

The procedure for selecting a strategic investor for Belene NPP will be ready by the end of October

AUTHOR: publics.bg



 Ministry of Energy



Energy Minister Temenujka Petkova expects the procedure for selecting a strategic investor and the structure of the Belene project to be completed by the end of October. This became clear after a meeting of the Energy Minister with representatives of the employers' organizations. According to her, the documentation is prepared according to the parameters laid down in the decision of the National Assembly - the project to be implemented on a market principle and without granting a state guarantee.

The representatives of the employers' organizations supported the work on building new gas connections between Bulgaria and its neighboring countries in order to guarantee the national consumption at competitive prices.



Minister Petkova informed the participants about the upcoming talks with Gazprom after the decision of the European Commission in the gas company case, which allowed the contractual conditions with it to be changed. It was clear that diversification and competitive energy supplies are a top priority for the government and it is working actively for its realization.



The challenges for the Bulgarian energy sector, related to rising carbon prices, were also among the topics discussed. In recent months, carbon prices have grown significantly, reaching levels of 25 euros / tonne. A working group is currently being set up at the Ministry of Energy to propose short-, medium- and long-term measures to get out of the situation. The group analyzed the experience of other countries, including Germany, Italy and Belgium. The measures are expected to be presented to stakeholders in October.With book 13 in his wildly popular Wimpy Kid series due out on October 30, author-illustrator Jeff Kinney is setting out on an eight-city East Coast bus tour fit for a middle-grade rock star. Wimpy Kid Live: The Meltdown Show is arriving in Boston and Plainville, Mass.; Rhinebeck, N.Y.; Madison, Conn.; Princeton, N.J.; Washington, D.C.; Raleigh, N.C.; and Decatur, Ga. At each of the tour stops, Kinney will perform a live, interactive show in celebration of The Meltdown.

As part of the tour, Kinney will visit retailers in three additional U.S. cities: Books-A-Million in Scranton, Pa.; Costco in Pottstown, Pa.; and Barnes & Noble in Charlotte, N.C. The author will also be appearing at five elementary schools in the cities where he is hosting public events. The following eight international countries are also part of the fall tour: Denmark (a new stop for Kinney), the U.K., Germany, Finland, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Canada.

Kinney said in a statement, Im incredibly excited to hit the road and tour this fall, visiting some of my favorite bookstores on the East Coast. Were doing something really different and daring this year by creating an interactive stage experience. Its a whole new way of connecting with fans, and I hope they enjoy the show!

More than 200 million copies of the Wimpy Kid books have sold around the world. The first book in the series, which was released by Abramss Amulet imprint in 2007, has remained on the New York Times bestseller list through the release of the 12th book, for more than 640 weeks total. The new book takes place during a snowstorm, when hero Greg Heffleys school is closed and his friends and neighbors wage a dramatic snowball battle.

Along with book 13, Abrams will publish a new boxed set containing the full Wimpy Kid series, including The Meltdown and the Wimpy Kid 2019 wall calendar. In addition to the tour, publicity plans for the new book include national advertising and television spots, social media campaigns, retail promotions, and a Wimpy Kid balloon at the annual Macys Thanksgiving Day Parade.When Chester Raccoon is hesitant to leave his mother on the first day of school, she shares with him a family secret called The Kissing Handinvolving planting a kiss on her hand and transferring it to her little ones handto reassure him of her love while they are apart. For a quarter century, the premise of Audrey Penns The Kissing Hand has eased separation anxiety of children; the picture book has sold more than six million copies in North America alone, has spawned a handful of sequels, and is now available in a 25th-anniversary edition which, like the original version, contains heart-shaped stickers that represent the transfer of kisses. Released this month by Tanglewood Publishing, the new edition features the original art by Ruth E. Harper and Nancy M. Leak.

Audrey Penn found her inspiration for The Kissing Hand quite unexpectedly. The Maryland resident was enjoying a train ride through a local park with her four-year-old son when the train came to a sudden stop. It soon became apparent that there was an animal on the tracks, and the engineer left to fetch a park ranger to remove it, instructing passengers to remain seated. Sensing that a deer was likely the interloperand that it just might provide her with a story ideaPenn defied the order, told her son to stay put, and climbed off the train.

She discovered a story, but it wasnt the one she expected. I tiptoed to the front of the train to catch a glimpse of the deer when I suddenly realized I was face-to-face with an enormous raccoon, she recalled. I slowly backed away, keeping my eyes lowered, when I suddenly spotted the tiniest raccoon Id ever seen. While I stood there, open-mouthed and in awe, the mother got down on all fours and faced her cub. She lifted his front left hand and spread open his fingers into a fan. She then bent down and placed her face in the babys palm. The baby then put his hand on his cheek. That moment in time showed a loving connection between a mother and child that I hope is conveyed in The Kissing Hand. It is this connection that offers comfort and trust to a child when separated from their parent or caregiver.

Penn wrote her story and submitted the manuscript to a host of trade publishers but received no offers. She then found a home for her book with the publication division of the Child Welfare League, which made The Kissing Hand available to its members. Stoked by Penns presentations at social worker conferences, word of the books effective message spread through teacher and parent networks like wildfire.

Following a Soaring Trajectory

The Kissing Hand met with immediate success: it landed on the top of bestseller lists, Scholastic licensed book fair rights to the title, and chains and wholesalers began clamoring for the book. In 1999, Peggy Tierney joined the CWL as an editor and became the director of book publishing in 2000.

The books popularity and sales had grown to a new level by the time I came on the scene, and I knew it was likely to live onas did Audrey, said Tierney. I suggested she write a sequel, and she wrote several other Chester Raccoon stories. But the League was going through some turmoil at the time, and had financial issues, and decided to shut down its book publishing program in 2005. I had moved to the Indianapolis area, and Audrey urged me to start a company to publish a childrens novel she had written, Mystery at Blackbeards Cove. And so, in 2003 Tierney founded Tanglewood Publishing, and in fall 2004 the company published the mystery as its first release. In 2006, Penn transferred the rights to The Kissing Hand to Tanglewood, and the picture book had a new home.

In addition to the anniversary edition, Tanglewood is commemorating The Kissing Hands milestone with Letters to Chester: 25 Years of The Kissing Hand, a collection (compiled by Tierney) of letters, drawings, and tributes that children, educators, teachers, and parents have sent to Penn and to Tanglewood. As Ive read these letters over the years, and we receive boxes and boxes annually, I am constantly flabbergasted at the different ways people have used the bookincluding helping children deal with death and loss, said Tierney. We have spent time weeping in the halls over these notes, realizing how Chesters simple gesture has had such a profound effect on the lives of so many. I wanted to collect these messages in a book as a thank you to booksellers, librarians, and teachers for carrying and handselling The Kissing Hand.

Tanglewood mailed copies of Letters to Chester to members of the Association of Booksellers for Children, and gave away hundreds of copies at ALA. We still have some 300 copies left, and if a bookseller or librarian wants a copy, wed be happy to send one, Tierney reported. We have a special promotion right now for people who purchase the anniversary edition, providing a code to use on the anniversary website page to access a digital copy, and at some point in the fall, we will post it on the website for anyone interested.

I have been honored and humbled by the number of individuals and families who have invited me into their private lives by sharing how The Kissing Hand has affected them, Penn said. Their letters have bridged the years with first days at school, the birth of babies, first day of college, the death of children, connections made at hospice, a class of kindergarten and first graders gunned down, and the loss of all things personal in storms. The book has been to Afghanistan and Iraq with soldiers who have sent videos of themselves reading it to their children. When a child receives a kissing hand before separating from a loved one, he or she has something tangible to have and hold making this all-important connection a reality.

Having The Kissing Hand as the cornerstone of Tanglewoods list, Tierney observed, makes me feel like Im the luckiest publisher alive. And not just because of the sales, but about what the story does for children. This is the power of childrens booksthey can have a life-changing impact. To be the publisher of this book is an enormous honor, and I am proud to be releasing this anniversary edition.

To Penn, the new edition means more than I could ever hope to explain. There was something so honest, so pure and so loving about that mother raccoon and her cub all those years ago, it is not hard to understand why their story still resonates from one generation to the next. This book is a reminder to all of us to stop and take a tiny moment out of our hurried schedules to take our childs hand in our own, place a kiss in their palm and say, You are loved. You are cherished. I will miss you until I see you next. I am forever indebted to Peggy Tierney and Tanglewood for their steadfast belief in The Kissing Hand.

The Kissing Hand 25th Anniversary Edition by Audrey Penn, illus. by Ruth E. Harper and Nancy M. Leak. Tanglewood, $19.99 Sept. ISBN 978-1-9391-0018-4To see the children's and YA deals for the week of October 1, 2018, click here.





Pam Gruber at Poppy has acquired The Bold Type creator Sarah Watson's Most Likely, a contemporary YA novel about four best friends in their senior year of high school and the events and relationships that will shape one of the girls into becoming President of the United States 30 years laterthe mystery is which girl it will be. Publication is slated for spring 2020; Kate Schafer Testerman at kt literary brokered the two-book deal for North American rights.

Melanie Nolan at Knopf has bought, in an exclusive submission, Kester Kit Grant's Goldenpaw, a middle-grade animal fantasy series. A Mauritian-Creole author, Grant has drawn on her cultural heritage to create the world and history of books. The author's YA trilogy A Court of Miracles was acquired at auction by Nolan and has been licensed in eight international markets ahead of its fall 2019 debut. Publication for Goldenpaw will begin in spring 2020; Josh Adams at Adams Literary negotiated the two-book deal for North American rights.

Krista Marino at Delacorte has acquired a new YA novel by Kathleen Glasgow, author of the bestseller Girl in Pieces. Her new book, How to Make Friends with the Dark, is about resilience in the aftermath of significant loss. Publication is planned for April 9, 2019, with an announced first printing of 75,000 copies; Julie Stevenson at Massie & McQuilkin Literary Agents did the deal for U.S., Canadian, and open market rights.

Emilia Rhodes at HarperTeen has bought Autumn Krause's A Dress for the Wicked. Pitched as The Devil Wears Prada meets The Selection, the book is set in a re-imagined Europe and stars 17-year-old Emmaline Watkins. When Emmaline wins a competition to become a dresser at the Fashion House, center of all that is haute couture, she finds herself thrust into a world of intrigue, backstabbing, and aristocratic elitism, with an attractive young journalist as her only respite. Publication is set for summer 2019; Elizabeth Lynch will edit. Susan Hawk at Upstart Crow Literary brokered the deal for world English rights.

Kheryn Callender at Little, Brown has acquired When the Stars Lead to You, a contemporary YA debut by Ronni Davis. The book is about an intense first-love romance complicated by marginalization, mental illness, and prejudice. Publication is scheduled for fall 2019; Nikki Garcia will edit. Caitie Flum at Liza Dawson Associates handled the deal for world rights.

Amy Fitzgerald at Lerner/Carolrhoda has bought, in a preempt, Amber Lough's historical YA novel Summer of War. In 1917, with the Russian army embroiled in World War I, teenage Katya joins the controversial women's battalion, but her act of patriotism becomes complicated by the realities of war and politics. Publication is slated for spring 2020; Laura Rennert and Jennifer March Soloway at Andrea Brown Literary Agency negotiated the deal for world rights.

Namrata Tripathi at Penguin/Kokila has acquired The Night Diary author Veera Hiranadani's new middle grade novel, The Sound of Summer, set in 1967 shortly after the Loving v. Virginia ruling. Sixth grader Ariel Goldberg finds her world rapidly shifting as her older sister elopes with an Indian college student against her parents' wishes, leaving Ariel to navigate family illness and her dysgraphia diagnosis on her own. Publication is planned for fall 2020; Sara Crowe at Pippin Properties handled the two-book deal for North American rights.

Emily Feinberg at Roaring Brook Press has bought author-illustrator Celia Krampien's Sunny, about a girl who looks on the bright side in the face of worsening situations, from a rainy day, to being lifted up by her umbrella and dropped into the ocean, to being carried away by a flock of birds. Publication is set for winter 2020; Andrea Morrison and Steven Malk at Writers House brokered the deal for world rights.

Kelly Delaney at Knopf has acquired four picture books written and illustrated by Vanessa Brantley-Newton, beginning with Girl Canvas, a tribute to modern girls of all types. Publication is scheduled for spring 2020; Lori Nowicki at Painted Words negotiated the deal for world rights.

John Morgan at Macmillan/Imprint has bought animator and storyboard artist Louie Zong's debut picture book, tentatively titled Book Science. The story follows two scientists, a bear and a frog, who conduct hands-on experiments answering the age-old question, How do books work? Publication is planned for summer 2020; Brent Taylor at Triada US did the deal for world English rights.

Joy Bean at Kane Press/StarBerry has acquired the picture book Blue Cat by author-illustrator Charlie Eve Ryan. A curious cat goes about his very cat-like day when a sound in the distance sparks an exploration. The book is slated for fall 2019; the artist represented herself in the deal for world rights.

Marissa Moss at Creston Books has bought world rights to Hello by Aiko Ikegami, author-illustrator of Seed Man. The picture book is about the friendship between an alien and the girl he meets on earth. The projected pub date is fall 2019; Anna Olswanger at Olswanger Literary represented the author-illustrator.

Maggie Lehrman at Abrams has acquired world rights to Sandra Nickel's (l.) picture book, The Stuff Between the Stars, a poetic look at Vera Rubin, a trailblazing scientist whose discoveries about dark matter revolutionized what we know about space. Aimee Sicuro will illustrate; publication is set for fall 2020. Victoria Wells Arms at Wells Arms Literary/ HSG Agency represented the author, and Andrea Morrison and Steven Malk at Writers House represented the illustrator.

Connie Hsu at Roaring Brook Press has bought world rights to Kevin Noble Maillard's Fry Bread, illustrated by Juana Martinez-Neal. Told in verse, the book explores the culture and history surrounding this Native staple, and how it brings together family and community through love and tradition. Publication is scheduled for fall 2019; the author represented himself, and Stefanie Von Borstel at Full Circle Literary represented the illustrator.

Karen Boss at Charlesbridge has acquired world rights to co-authors Jessica Betancourt-Perez (l.) and Karen Lynn Williams's (center) picture book, A Thousand White Butterflies, illustrated by Gina Maldonado. Isabella is new to the United States from Colombia, and she misses her papa; a snow day delays her starting school, but then she makes a new friend. Publication is planned for summer 2020; the authors represented themselves and Lisa Musing at Advocate Art represented the illustrator.

Chad Reynolds and Alexis Orgera at Penny Candy Books have bought world rights to I Can Do That!, a picture book co-authored by Little Gym Europe Founder/CEO Alexander de Witt (l.) and National Book Award finalist Beth Kephart. Artist, sculptor, and photographer William Sulit will illustrate. The book introduces an acrobatic child who learns the power of collaboration from her differently-talented friends. Publication is slated for fall 2019; Karen Grencik at Red Fox Literary represented both the authors and the illustrator.

Karen Lotz at Candlewick Press has acquired, in a seven-house auction, librarian and Ambassador of School Libraries for Scholastic Book Fairs John Schu's debut picture book, This Is a Story. The story is an exploration of books, humanity, and the need for connection. Caldecott Honor artist Lauren Castillo (Nana in the City) will illustrate; the book is set to publish globally in 2022. Molly O'Neill at Root Literary represented the author in the two-book deal for world rights, and Paul Rodeen at Rodeen Literary Management represented the illustrator.

Krista Marino at Delacorte Press has bought, in a preempt, Liz Lawson's debut, The Lucky Ones. Pitched as Thirteen Reasons Whymeets One of Us Is Lying, the book follows May and Zach as they struggle to heal in the aftermath of a school tragedy. Told in two POVs, the novel explores grief, survivor's guilt, PTSD, and learning to trust again. Publication is slated for summer 2020; Andrea Morrison at Writers House brokered the deal for world rights.

T.S. Ferguson at Inkyard Press has acquired world rights to a new short story anthology edited by Saundra Mitchell. A contemporary follow-up to the historical anthology All Out, the book will feature LGBTQIA+ characters in modern times, written by LGBTQIA+ authors. Contributors include Eliot Schrefer, CB Lee, Mark Oshiro, Kosoko Jackson, Hilary Monahan, among many others. The book is scheduled for spring 2020; Jim McCarthy at Dystel & Goderich Literary Management negotiated the deal.

Alexa Pastor at S&S has bought, in a preempt, Marisa Kanter's contemporary YA, To Be (Mis)read. The story follows a viral pseudonymous teen book blogger who moves to a new town and starts running into her internet BFF absolutely everywhere IRLin class, at the library, at synagogue. The only problem is, he has no idea who she really is, and while he's in love with her online persona, she's falling for him in person. Publication is slated for spring 2020; Taylor Haggerty at Root Literary did the two-book, world rights deal.

Chelsea Eberly at Random House has acquired, in a preempt, world rights to debut author K.C. Johnson's This Is My America, pitched as Dear Martin meets Just Mercy. High school senior Tracy Beaumont appeals to Innocence X to help exonerate her father from death row, until her brother is accused of killing his white girlfriend, and Tracy must expose a small town's racist history in order to save her family before time runs out. Publication is planned for summer 2020, with an untitled standalone novel to follow; Jennifer March Soloway at Andrea Brown Literary Agency brokered the two-book deal.

Simon Boughton at Norton Young Readers has bought, in an exclusive submission, Rex Ogle's middle grade memoir Free Lunch. The story follows the authors experience as a sixth-grader on the free lunch program and coming-of-age while dealing with poverty, racism, and domestic violence in Texas. Publication is slated for fall 2019; Brent Taylor at Triada US sold North American rights.

Jordan Brown at Walden Pond Press has acquired Tying the Devil's Shoestrings by Eden Royce, a middle-grade historical Southern Gothic. It tells the story of Jezebel and her twin brother Jay, who begin their lessons in rootwork and must learn to embrace their darkness to keep their family safe as they battle against malevolent spirits and the specter of racism in pre-Civil Rights-era Charleston. Publication is planned for summer 2020; Adriann Ranta Zurhellen at Foundry Literary + Media negotiated the deal, along with an additional untitled middle grade novel, for North American rights.

Dana Carey at Random House/Lamb has bought Michele Weber Hurwitz's The Girl and the Lake. The story stars a 12-year-old girl who was abandoned as a baby in a small Wisconsin town and teams up with her friends to find an innovative solution to save a contaminated, algae-filled lake, which is the town's livelihood. Publication is planned for summer 2020; Alyssa Eisner Henkin at Trident handled the deal for North American rights.

Ann Rider at HMH has acquired world rights to the first two books in an early chapter book series by The Lemonade War author Jacqueline Davies (l.), illustrated by Deborah Hocking. The series introduces Lewis, a hedgehog, and Clark, a skunk, who decide it's high time to leave their cozy burrow and go out into the Whole Wide World to have an adventure. The first book, Lewis and Clark: Launch an Expedition, is scheduled for fall 2020, and the second, Lewis and Clark: Try to Fly, will follow six months later; the author represented herself, and Lori Kilkelly at LK Literary Agency represented the illustrator.

Tamar Brazis at Abrams has bought world rights to Along Came Coco, a picture book biography of Coco Chanel written and illustrated by Eva Byrne, illustrator of Princesses Wear Pants. Publication is set for spring 2019; Anne Moore-Armstrong at the Bright Agency represented the artist.

Deirdre Jones at Little, Brown has acquired Stephanie Lucianovic's (l.) tribute to space, science, and supernovas, Hello, Star. In the book, a girl who feels compassion for a dying star is inspired to one day travel to space to meet it. Bestselling artist Vashti Harrison will illustrate; publication is planned for fall 2020. Jordan Hamessley at New Leaf Literary & Media represented the author, and Carrie Hannigan at Hannigan Salky Getzler represented the artist in the deal for world rights.

Clarissa Wong at HarperCollins has bought world rights to Peppermint Post by Bruce Hale, illustrated by Stephanie Laberis. The humorous holiday tale is about the North Pole's Peppermint Post Office Postmaster who makes it his mission to deliver a sweet girl's lost Christmas gift left behind by Santa, before it's too late. Publication is slated for fall 2020; Anne Moore Armstrong at the Bright Agency represented the illustrator.

Carol Hinz at Lerner/Millbrook has acquired Lights by Sue Fliess (l.), an exploration of the many forms light can take, from sunbeams and lightning bolts to fireflies and birthday candles. Khoa Le will illustrate; publication is planned for spring 2020. Jennifer Unter at the Unter Agency represented the author in the deal for world rights, and Alison Berson at Astound US represented the illustrator.

Alexis Orgera and Chad Reynolds at Penny Candy Books have bought world rights to poet Stephanie Ellis Schlaifer's (l.) debut picture book, The Cloud Lasso, about a girl named Delilah who learns to lasso all the clouds out of the sky as she overcomes her feelings of sadness and isolation after her grandfather dies. Artist Melodie Stacey will make her debut as a picture book illustrator; the book will be published on October 10, 2019. The author and illustrator were unagented.

Julie Bliven at Charlesbridge has acquired world rights to Nanette Heffernan's Earth Hour. The nonfiction picture book is about the annual Earth Hour event that encourages individuals, businesses, and communities worldwide to turn off non-essential electric lights for one hour, on a specific day in March, as a symbol of global energy conservation. Bao Luu will illustrate; publication is set for spring 2020. Jill Corcoran at Jill Corcoran Literary Agency represented the author, and Alison Berson at Astound Illustration Agency represented the illustrator.The 2018 American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW) conference attracted more than 480 attendees to Nashvilles Gaylord Opryland Hotel from September 20-22, offering workshops on honing the craft of writing, opportunities to meet with agents, and more. Attendance was up from last years conference, according to the directors, and nearly 35% were first-time attendees.

The four-day conference, which kicked off with a keynote speech from bestselling author Debbie Macomber, is largely geared toward aspiring writers, but both independently and traditionally published authors also attended in strong numbers.

Its a place where things can happen, said Cynthia Ruchti, professional relations liaison for ACFW. Its the beginning of a relationship, either between an author and editor or an author and an agentand authors can understand just how far they have to go to get a contract.

Publishers and agents also use the conference as a place to hold meetings, network, scout new talent, and see their authors. Raela Schoenherr, acquisition editor at Bethany House, said ACFW helps her maintain a pulse on upcoming and potential projects and general industry happenings.

Agent Steve Laube, who had 34 clients in attendance, said the conference "continues to be a leader in the fiction industry."

Popular topics among attendees included the need for more diversity when it comes to both authors and characters in Christian fiction, womens issues such as #MeToo, and questions over whether or not Amish fiction is dying. One librarian said that reader interest in Christian fiction remains, while publishers reported fewer authors in the category today.

Also noted during the conference, some houses are increasingly interested in past book sales for indie fiction authors. Tyndale and Revell each are publishing books by previously self-published authors this spring; Lulus Cafe by T.I. Lowe and We Hope for Better Things by Erin Bartels, respectively. But as Karen Watson, associate publisher, fiction, at Tyndale pointed out: There are a lot of potholes moving from indie publishing to traditional.

Its great to have a built-in audience, but to these authors, it seems things happen at a glacial speed, [and] there is a lack of control, she said.

Sessions at ACFW 2018 included Writing a Series Your Readers Will Love, Emerging Trends (in which this writer served as panelist), Engaging the Culture Through Fiction, Business for Indies, and How Not to Lose Hope.

Ever since the advent of the internet, everyone believes they can write, said Cynthia Ruchti. There is training here, through various workshops and critique groups, and it is the tipping point for authors to decide if this a hobby or a career, and to become more efficientgiving editors and agents fewer reasons to say no.

New to the conference this year was the milestones celebration dinner, which honored bestselling authors as well as those who have published 25+, 50+, and 100+ books. And the culmination of the conference, the ACFW Awards Gala, recognized industry professionals as well as books published in 2017 with Carol Awards. This years winners included author Liz Curtis Higgs, who won the Lifetime Achievement Award, Jim Hart of the Hartline Literary Agency (Agent of the Year), and Revells Andrea Doering (Editor of the Year).

One of the highlights of the ACFW conference is the awards gala where the writers gave full-throated support for each winner, said Janet Grant, founder and president of Books & Such Literary Management. That spirit of cheering each other on showcases the camaraderie the conference engenders.

For the full list of winners, click here. ACFW 2019 is taking place in San Antonio, Tex. from Sept. 26-29.The stock photo industry has been in existence since the 1920s but interestingly makes the list of unfamiliar business ideas here in Africa. It is not what will come first to the minds of most budding Motherland Moguls. For Josiane Faubert though, stock photography is highly imperative for the African continent.

Pulse.com.gh was fortunate to have an exclusive interview with the Gabonese mogul to find out what her drive, her aim and aspirations, amongst other things are.

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READ ALSO:Ghanaian bank staff want to quit over unrealistic targets and low salaries

Tell us a little about your background?

I am Gabonese and French to be exact, and have a Bachelors degree in Economics. I moved to France while I was still in high school and after two years of university in Paris, decided to take a year off and moved to the US to learn English. I stayed there for five years to finish my education and got some experience working in international development projects for a couple of years.

In 2005, I moved to London where I worked for a marketing research agency. I had started my family at this point and it became challenging finding a balance between raising my children and working. I was really passionate about photography at the time so I quit my job to become a portrait photographer.

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When and why Stock photography?

The tought of PICHA started when i was working as a social media manager . I use to buy contemporary photos of Africa/African people and all. That was when i began to conceptualize stock photography a little more clearly as a business idea.

Fortunately for me, i have been a photographer for many years, so I was already familiar with the stock photography industry.

As a photographer, I was regularly solicited by friends and relatives working in web/graphic design for photos of Africans doing everyday things. Then, I helped them find some photos from Africa from my own database.

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How did you start PICHA?

Every experience from the professional roles i had taken up over the years was what equipped me with the necessary skills required to set up and run PICHA. I did my business plan and understood that for a while, I would not be able to sell.

I started with my own collection of images because it was easier to sign up photographers if they could see and understand how the website worked. I used my savings to set up the website, and a huge chunk of that money went to legal fees because of the licensing aspect of the business as well as setting up terms and agreements.

How different has PICHA shared the African image to the world?

Our catalogue is fresh and contemporary, it reflects a dynamic and diverse Africa. With this diversity, It has changed the image of Africa and Africans.

PICHA is a marketplace that allows photographers to sell their photos and that allow creatives to have access to these photos. Our goal is also to allow photographers to get money from their photos.

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What are some of your challenges that come with Stock Photography?

PICHA is a user-generated content platform so we need to constantly educate our community on the benefit of being a contributor. We also need to educate them on various points ranging from legal to quality.

Many photographers never request a release form when photographing someone. In our industry it is problematic!

What are the prospects of PICHA?

PICHA is growing and in 5 years I see it being a necessary tool for creatives in Africa.

Wed also like to have presence in West, East and South Africa. To achieve this, we are reaching out to photographers across Africa.

Your best shot ever and why?

A few year ago, I used a few taxi-moto in Lome and there was this taxi-moto driver who would only dress in a suit. He had such an amazing personality.On April 13, 2018 the presidency announced the appointment of Mr. Attah-Mensah as head of the Coastal Development Authority to be assisted by four deputies: Jerry Ahmed Shaib, Bob-Charles Agbontor, Mona Gertrude Effah and Emmanuel Affram Anim.

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It is being reported that Sammens was unhappy with the management style of the sector minister including certain contracts being awarded.He referred to the demise of Justice Crabbe as the falling of a great tree.

Speaking during a courtesy call on him by the family of Justice Crabbe last Tuesday, the former President said he had revered the departed constitutional expert for so long and was recently honoured to have sat close to the late jurist when he led a delegation of Ga Dangme chiefs to call on him.

"I have always respected the man from a distance. I dont think theres anybody in this country who does not think highly of Justice Crabbe. He was a quiet, very pensive, and very methodical person. Wisdom sat well with him," former President Rawlings told the visiting family delegation.

Justice Crabbe, former President Rawlings stated, had remained prominent for so long and was always alive to issues even as he aged and represented the past all the way to the present. He said people like Justice Crabbe, Justice Annan and Nathan Quao were a huge source of inspiration to their community and society.

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The former President said it was hard to come by personalities of Justice Crabbes kind who did not belong to any political, economic or social constituency and have so much to impart to society.

Former President Rawlings said when he last met Justice Crabbe, he had a grand plan to exorcise the anger and discontent within the Ga community in a bid to instill a sense of unity within the Ga State.

"I was preparing myself to see how best I could help in my small way, but the problem solver is gone," the he said.The Kenyan journalist said he would be happy if he could achieve "10 or 20% of what Komla Dumor did" in his life.

As part of the prize, he will spend three months at the BBC in London and travel back to the continent to report on a story there.

Mwaura is the fourth winner of the award.

READ MORE: Ugandan journalist wins BBC World News Komla Dumor Award

"Komla Dumor meant a lot of things to me as a journalist and as an individual," he said.

"If I can only achieve just 10 or 20% of what he did, I feel like I would have made my contribution to journalism.

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"As an African, I feel proud to have the opportunity to be able to tell the African story to audiences across the world," Waihiga Mwaura added.

The award was established to honour Komla Dumor, a presenter for BBC World News, who died suddenly aged 41.

Komla Afeke Dumor was the main presenter of its programme "Focus on Africa".

READ MORE: Komla Dumor Center for Broadcast Journalism inauguratedHe said he should lose his job for the embarrassment he has caused the Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia by distributing expired products to flood victims in Wa.

The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the Upper West Region was the first to raise the alarm about the expired food items that were distributed following devastating floods that displaced thousands of residents as a result of the spillage of the Bagre Dam in Burkina Faso coupled with heavy rains.

In a post on Twitter, Gabby said the scandal puts a blip on the government and the Vice President.

He said: "When you serve flood victims expired goods, your job also deserves to expire. You dont treat victims and the Veep this way."

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However, the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) raised certain concerns, insisting some of the relief items had expired.Welcome to the Pulse Community! We will now be sending you a daily newsletter on news, entertainment and more. Also join us across all of our other channels - we love to be connected!Some of the aspirants, according to YDF, in a desperate bid to clinch victory in the upcoming internal contest were going around constituencies with a campaign message that says the former President, John Mahama has chosen specific aspirants to the national office who he can comfortably work with.

In other words, the former President has his favourite candidates who he openly supports for national office.

READ ALSO: undefined

In a petition to the former President, YDF warned that the trend if not addressed immediately will create massive division in the party after the national congress, hence the call on him to openly announce his stance.

We sincerely want to believe that this is not truly coming from our highly respected and unifying former President. However, the phenomenon of fake news has come to stay and must be disclaimed with urgency to maintain our unity as a party after the partys internal elections, said YDF in the petition.

It is our believe, it continued, that those forces spreading such divisive and misleading messages among delegates of the NDC are doing the NDC and its future Presidential candidate a great harm. And these people must, ther efore, be exposed now.

READ ALSO:Accompanied by the Minister of Foreign Affair and Regional Integration, Shirley Ayorkor Botchway, President Akufo-Addo touched on a number of issues in his address.

READ ALSO: IGP orders arrest of NDC MP Collins Dauda

"I wish to extend our heartfelt gratitude to the United Nations Secretariat, led by the Secretary-General, His Excellency Antonio Guterres, and the whole world community for the outpouring of grief and condolences that we received on the passing of Kofi Annan. We were deeply touched that so many world leaders and people took the trouble to come to Accra to bid him farewell."

Nana Addo also touched on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Ghana's readiness in attaining them. "We intend that Ghana will in July 2019, take her turn to present our Voluntary National Review during the ECOSOC High-Level Political Forum, and we will share our successes and challenges as well as opportunities for new and continuing partnerships."

Since Nana Addo was sworn in January 2016, he has championed a Ghana beyond aid agenda. And he said: "We have the necessary sense of enterprise, creativity, innovation and hard work to engineer this transition. Hence, our vision of a Ghana Beyond Aid, indeed, of an Africa Beyond Aid."

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Akufo-Addo also spoke about China and its current influence in Africa. "It was at the turn of the 20th century that Chinas first railways were built by Western companies, financed by Western loans to a nearly bankrupt Qing Dynasty, and it was under those circumstances that a certain strategic port called Hong Kong was leased for 99 years, and the rest, as the saying goes, is history."Thanks for signing up for our daily insight on the African economy. We bring you daily editor picks from the best Business Insider news content so you can stay updated on the latest topics and conversations on the African market, leaders, careers and lifestyle. Also join us across all of our other channels - we love to be connected!As part of its mission to promote financial inclusion in Nigeria EFInA desires to improve the existing financial awareness and literacy of the un(der)banked through the existing media infrastructure so that Media can play an increasing role in the efficient adoption of financial services in Nigeria.

Giving the welcome address, EFInA Board Chair, Segun Akerele, emphasized the importance of collaboration amongst all stakeholders including the media to reduce the rate of financial exclusion.

Temitope Otumara, Communication Specialist for EFInA said that financial inclusion and inclusive growth aren't just policy choices, but are policy imperatives, which determine the long-term financial stability and sustainability of the economic and social order, going forward. Temi further explained we need to ensure that all of us are collectively willing to walk that extra mile to ensure that our fellow countrymen get easy access to the financial system by leading the initiative and spreading our message far and wide.

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EFInA Grants Manager, Suzanne Adeoye, said no organization can drive financial inclusion alone so EFInA will be working with the media to increase financial services awareness and literacy to the un(der)banked during her presentation on Introduction to EFInA .

During a presentation at the event Nimi Akinkugbe laid emphasis on the 3 core purpose of the media is to inform, influence and entertain. She further explained that an improved Financial Awareness & Financial Literacy effort from the media could result in more discerning choice of investment and other financial products by consumers which would make financial institutions respond innovatively to consumer demand, leading to a more efficient financial system.

Nimi concluded her presentation stressing the fact that a better-informed public will exert greater scrutiny over the risks of financial institutions and the quality of their products and services.

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Presenting on the Role of Media in driving Financial Inclusion, Editi Efiong, Ceo of Anakle educated the Marketing managers of different banks, fintechs and journalists from different platforms including Channels TV, Wazobia, Businessday, EbonyLifeTv, CNBC, Nairametrics amongst others about the essence of simplifying the message for the un(der)banked. Editi further explained that the messaging will need to be localized on a community basis to drive adoption in the rural areas as most of these people still have low trust in the financial system based on little or no understanding on how it works.

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The event involved a panel session where panelists including Nimi Akinkugbe, Aisha Isa- Olatinwo Head Banking & Payments CBN; Arese Ugwu; Founder SmartMoneyAfrica, Adia Sowho; Managing director Mines, Ugo Dre Okechukwu; founder Nairametric, Lehle Balde; Businessday strategist and Folasade Agbejule; EFInA Payment Specialist discussed issues relating to: The Role of Media in driving Financial Inclusion.

The panel, moderated by Tunji Andrews and Temi Otumara identified improved Trust, financial awareness and literacy as forces affecting adoption of financial inclusion that can only be changed by the media.Musicians sing about it, Poets write about it, Artists conjure images inspired by it, religious doctrines are filled with instances where it was all that mattered. Yet, we are saddled with some situations where it has been abused and we ask ourselves why things go south between couples once considered as role models in love.

Here is a story.

The First

Mofe just clocked sixteen and she is excited to finally get the permission needed from her Mom to attend Prom, she had planned her outfit for the special evening, a velvety little black dress, with bell cuffs, and slits on both sides. Her older sister lent her a statement neckpiece, matching shoes and clutch to complement her ensemble.

I look smashing ugh? She asked Tito as she stared at her reflection, adjusting her bra cup to further enhance her natural endowment.

Tito walked up to her and tucked a stray strand back into the sleek up do braids she had on. Mofe had insisted on this particular hairdo but Tito preferred a chignon to the somewhat messy look staring back at her, it was a dinner but her rebellious little sister wouldnt budge.

If you can manage to keep yourself together all through the night, without having your hair fall out? I think you should be fine Tito replied.

She snorted and picked up her cellphone from the dressing table, walked towards the door and paused.

If you dont hear from me by 4am, call the police.

You will be fine baby, Boye is a nice guy.

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The doorbell rang and Tito answered it, it was her sisters date for the night.

You guys should run along, I will stay up until Mom gets back.

With that, the two young people left amidst oohs and ahhs in excitement of how the night would unfold.

Reminiscing

About ten years ago, Tito was just like her sister; Happy, carefree, fearless and so trusting. She had worn a grey pant suit to Prom, it was a little overboard but she liked thinking outside the box. She was the cynosure of all eyes, her friends were green with envy and it climaxed when she was crowned Homecoming Queen alongside Soji her crush. Cliche right?

Afterwards, she gained admission into one of the private universities and life was good until she ran into him on her way home from lectures one fateful afternoon.

Look who we have here, my runaway queen. Soji was genuinely surprised to see her or so she thought, she was just smiling sheepishly. He always had that effect on her, she walked up to him and they hugged.

Where have you been? I tried getting your contact after school but no one seemed to know where you went to.

Oh me? I have been away, took a gap year to volunteer at a charity organization set up by my Mom in the Middle East. I am back now though, trying to sort out school and stuff.

Tito couldnt hide her excitement; the thought of having Soji attend her school was exhilarating.

You sure made a great choice, back in high school you didnt strike me as one who would give up a whole year of school to charity.

Well you never can tell about me, I surprise myself sometimes. He replied.

He walked her back to her hostel that day, and it was the beginning of the best days of their lives, or so she thought

Soji

Life with him was a roller coaster; we had glory days, and extremely low days. He was a great guy, we had so much in common and we felt complete together. School went by in a haze and NYSC came, at this point I thought he was the one I would share my life with. I loved him and he loved me too, we had our differences but we were so deliberate in making things work out between us until tragedy struck.

I was posted to Abuja for NYSC Orientation camp and Soji remained in Lagos, this was the first time we were separated for three whole weeks without seeing each other. I was reluctant to go all the way, but Soji assured me all would be fine. I relocated to Lagos after camp and we served together, although posted to different zones.

Three months after service year, Soji was diagnosed of a terminal illness. It was Leukemia, his parents and I was devastated. It was a heart wrenching moment for him, he was flown out for treatment and I waited patiently, praying and hoping for a miracle. Soji lost the battle to the disease; his remains were brought back to be cremated and his ashes were kept in a jar entrusted to me for safe keeping.

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Today

After several months of grieving for him, I got a call from Mrs Soleye (Sojis Mom) to come over to their house. I rushed there, a part of me was hoping for a miracle but I got the most shocking news. Apparently Soji had an affair in camp with a lady who had a baby for him. I couldnt believe Soji could hide such from me, everyone in his family knew about this but I was kept in the dark. I felt my knees give way, I blacked out.

I woke up in a hospital two days later and the pain was still there, I had difficulty breathing and my Mom was frustrated. I was finally coming out of depression from losing the love of my life and this happened, she couldnt stand me go through so much pain.

I was speechless for several days, refusing to see anyone and making sure all our mutual friends stayed far from me. I couldnt bear the fact that I loved Soji but he hurt me so much, even in death, I wanted to hate him, I thought he loved me too but it was all a lie. I considered taking my life but I couldnt hurt my family that way This was four years ago.

The doorbell rang and Tito opened the door for her Mom.

Hey love, how was your day? Her Mom asked.

Well Better than yesterday plus Mofe was really the highlight of my day. She was so beautiful I almost didnt let the poor girl go Tito replied.

They laughed .

That girl is definitely growing into a young woman, soon she will be asking to move out. That reminds me Mom, she asked me to call the Police if she isnt back by 4am.

They laughed again.

Mofe needs to get over this paranoia, not every man is a serial killer. She needs to open her mind to the endless possibilities of love.

Mom you make love seem like the ultimate, look at me, look at you, has love ever been enough not to cause pain or anguish? Mofe has learnt a whole lot from our stories to keep her head out of the clouds. I am sure she will come back safe and sound.

I am sure she has. Good night dearest, please get some sleep.

Not tonight, the memories are too real, I will wait up till she comes home Goodnight Mom.According to Punch, the Holy Father did on the last day of a four-day trip to the three Baltic nations of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.

Speaking to young people at a Lutheran church in Tallinn, the Pontiff noted that the youth no longer has faith in the church as a result of the many cases of clergy sex abuse and financial scandals.

In his words, "Some of them expressly ask us to leave them alone, because they feel the Church's presence as bothersome or even irritating.

"They are outraged by sexual and economic scandals that do not meet with clear condemnation, by our unpreparedness to really appreciate the lives and sensibilities of the young.

"When we adults refuse to acknowledge some evident reality, you tell us frankly: 'Can't you see this?' Some of you who are a bit more forthright might even say to us: 'Don't you see that nobody is listening to you anymore, or believes what you have to say?'"

Pope Francis concluded by acknowledging the need for a change in the Church.

"We have to realize that in order to stand by your side we need to change many situations that, in the end, put you off," he said.

Sex abuse in the Catholic church

The pope's statement is in response to the ongoing worldwide scandal that has hit the church.

Recently, a new report discovered that 1,670 priests, which is 4.4 percent of the Catholic clergy in Germany, have sexually abused 3,677 people between 1946 and 2014.

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According to this research, the victims were mostly underage boys under the age of 13 with one in six cases related to accusations of rape.The union's chapter in Lagos at a press briefing at the University of Lagos reportedly rejected the N20bn the Federal Government released on Monday, September 24, 2018, to fund for Nigerian Universities.

The union at a press briefing at the University of Lagos on Tuesday, September 25, 2018, rejected the offer describing it as a blackmail.

Moreover, the National President of the union, Professor Biodun Ogunyemi has said the union will not back down in its efforts to sanitise the university system in the country, saying the government the should do the needful or the union goes on strike again.

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According to Punch, Ogunyemi said that governments disposition to the development of education in the country, especially the university system, was becoming worrisome.

We are very saddened by the way the government is handling the various agreements and Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) it has entered into with us.

We have remained focused and committed on our part to ensure that we keep our own side of the bargain, just as we have equally been patient.

Now, in the face of all these, we still discover that government seems not bothered about what might happen, and that is why we are stating categorically that we will not hesitate to take necessary action to get government to understand us in our struggle to revitalise our universities.The Public Affairs Officer, US Consulate, Lagos, Mr Russell Brook on Tuesday, September 25, 2018, at the Education USA College and Career Fair in Lagos said Nigerian students population in the country is the highest from Sub-Saharan Africa.

And in a bid to increase the number of Nigerian students studying in the country, the US embassy encouraged more Nigerian students to enrol in the U.S. higher education institutions programme.

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ALSO READ: 5 times foreign universities have attracted Nigerian students in 2018

According to Brooks, out of the over one million international students currently studying in the US, 35,364 of them are from Sub-Saharan Africa and over 11,000 of them are from Nigeria.

He said, a top priority for us is to support Nigeria in its effort to develop the huge potential of its economy and of its human capital and in order to do that, one leg of our effort is to help enhance educational opportunities for young Nigerians.

And one major reason for the increase of Nigerian students in the U.S. is the value that Nigerians place on a quality education, which he said the US schools offered''.

US University offers direct admission to Nigerian students

Recall that in July 2018, a tertiary educational institution in America, Dayton University announced its readiness to give Nigerian students direct admission with just West Africa Examination Council (WAEC) results.

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The institution which believes Nigerian students are academically brilliant said it's ready to attract them to the institution through incentives including scholarships.Rukky, who held a birthday dinner for herself with several Nollywood stars led by Omotola Jalade Ekeinde in attendance, she had taken out time to also make her wish come through.

ALSO READ: Rukky Sanda leaves us breathless!

Though she had always wanted to job from a 30,000 feet plane, she ended up jumping from a plane flying at 13,000 feet with an expert.

She took to her Iinstagram page, a month after her birthday, to share the pictures of how she made her wish come true.

Watch Rukky Sanda skydiving here

Rukky Sanda complains about power supply in Lagos

Rukky Sanda, in 2016, complained about the poor state of power supply in Lagos.

On Instagram yesterday (February 16) Rukky Sanda criticized the erratic supply of electricity in Nigerias commercial nerve center.

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This is seriously not making any sense, running diesel + Petrol + Inverter*** on rotation daily then when they finally bring d bad light everything starts to burn* fluctuate* not to mention the whole card zapping off* the madness is gradually becoming normal like why complain? Can't deal* seriously considering relocating* (which is do easier said than done) #thisLagosLifeIsTiring... Sigh***#cantdeal* wrote the actress.The premiere of the romantic comic, which held on Tuesday, September 25, 2018 at the Silverbird Galleria on Victoria Island also had Yaw, Doris Ariole, Chioma Nwosu, Bridget Chibufue, Teni Stuffman and Omobala Akinde.

Written and produced by by Teni Stuffman and Doris Ariole, The Kinsman is a faith-based story directed by Doris Ariole.

The movie is scheduled to start showing in Nigerian cinemas on October 5, 2018.

Speaking to Pulse on the inspiration behind the comic, Teni Stuffman said that she realised that one of the best ways to pass a message is to mix it with comedy as attention span is very important.

In her words,So as people are laughing and you are making the messages very subtle, they will easily internalize it.

About 'The Kinsman'

The Kinsman tells the story of Nneoma who decides to return to Nigeria from Cotonou after losing her husband and two sons.

Nneoma's devoted daughter in-law, and late son's widow, Nadia, insist on following her back.

In appreciation of Nadia's loyalty, Nneoma's sole desire and pursuit, is to help Nadia get a good husband, by playing cupid.ece-auto-gen

The rep, Adekunle Adeyemi confirms that the drone was shot down. It was reportedly used to monitor the activities of Osoba who returned from a trip to the United Kingdom on Tuesday, September 25, 2018.

This will be another breach of security of Chief Osobas private security. A few years ago, unidentified persons invaded part of the compound and took reasonable time to dig out buried armored cables. This was done in most professional manner.

It will also be recalled that sometime ago, two bungalows on the premises were vandalised by unidentified hoodlums.

Another breach was when insulting graffiti were written round the fence of Chief Osobas house, not too long ago.

Those involved in the latest action have been handed over to an arm of government agencies for investigations," reads a statement captured by Punch.

ALSO READ: Governor charged in the alleged murder of pregnant girlfriend

ece-auto-genWho is Leah Sharibu?

She is the 15-year old daughter of of Dapchi, Yobe State, Nigeria.

She is the girl who refused to renounce her Christian faith in the face of danger and threat to life. She is a national hero.

She was one of the 113 girls taken hostage on February 19, 2018 at Government Girls Science and Technical College, Dapchi, Yobe by terrorists who brought 18 trucks, loaded with heavy artillery.

After weeks of negotiations, 107 of the 113 girls were released. While Khadija Grema, one of the released girls told Channels that five of the girls died of stress-related issues, Leah was held back because she refused to renounce her Christian faith.

Today, September 26, 2018, news broke that Leahs mother, Rebecca Sharibufiled a suit at the Lagos State Federal High Court on September 19, 2018.

The named defendants in the suit were Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris and Attorney-General of the Federation, AbubakarMalami, demanding N500 million in compensation.

Her grounds for complaint were that these powerful institutions failed to ensure the safety of her daughter.

Who are human rights activists?

They are simply the people who fight for the rights of people, usually pro bono or for a fee upon the success of the suit, which means no guarantees.

They have a passion for setting wrongs right and it has helped people in the past. A major activist in Nigeria is Chief Femi Falana and another is FestusKeyamo.

The legal clinic by BudgIT, Citizen Gavel, ran by the young Lawyer, Nelson Olanipekun has done well, but they have neither the means nor the pedigree to do what senior Lawyers can do.

ALSO READ: Why are Nigerian drivers and mechanics so dishonest?

The days of the real ones are numbered, nigh gone

However, it seems the days of the human rights activist like the late legal pillar,

The problem seems to be that people are content with doing the ones they can and leaving the rest to fate and I don't blame them, Nigeria is hard enough as it is.

However, someone has to fight for the little guy who has nothing while staring down a barrel of uncertainty, he might or might not be guilty of.

Even worse, the little guy who has been wronged by powers that be needs a legal force backing him, so he gets what belongs to him.

Fawehinmi was a notorious force that ensured people got theirs, to the best of his ability and it held him back in his personal goals and life, even got imprisoned several times by the Military Governments.

If he were alive and in his prime, he would have sued the governmental powers on behalf of Leah Sharibus family a long time ago.

The world misses the late, great and influential Lawyer who wanted to help people, regardless of the consequences, even on himself.

He would have made the federal government feel the heat and might even have attracted international attention to the matter, piling pressure on the government.

It is a matter that would have made a stronger reaction long before September. Not that this current suit will achieve nothing, but who backed it?

If a pivotal Lawyer would throw their weight behind it, it would definitely shake a few tables.

But now, it probably would die a lukewarm death, even though it is or guaranteed. Passion could help the Lawyers who aided Rebecca Sharibu.

The problem with the continued lack of human right activists is self-preservation by Lawyers who would rather preserve themselves for cheap political favours that do things worthwhile.

It is the nonsense we get served. I dont blame them however, not everybody will be like Baba Gani, who constantly risked it all, even his life.

These days, we would rather let evil through to have a field day than attempt stop it, regardless of who backs it. We will all die, and nothing is given.

On August 27, 2018, Leah appealed to President Buhari to secure her freedom.

"I am Leah Sharibu, the girl that was abducted in GGSS Dapchi. I am calling on the government and people of goodwill to intervene to get me out of my current situation.

"I am begging you to treat me with compassion, I am calling on the government, particularly, the president to pity me and get me out of this serious situation," she pleaded.

After killing another captive, a nurse, recently, the Boko Haram faction holding Leah Sharibu have threatened to kill her in a month if the government does not respond to it.

"The other nurse and midwife will be executed in similar manner in one month, including Leah Sharibu," a terrorist spokesman had said.

Still, nothing has been done.Beer is a Nigerian necessity and people love the lager feel to their beer. Asides the price, the lack of proper smooth, lager feel is why Nigerians will drink Goldberg or 33 over Heineken or Orijin.

While a lot of Nigerians also drink to drown their problems, drinking will never be a coping mechanism for problems, but Nigerians still drink.

Its so hilarious that in the 2000s, then Nigerian President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjojustified the increment in fuel price to N150 with how Nigerians conveniently buy multiple bottles of beer for prices in that region every night - Stupid analogy, yeah I know.

It is a culture that never dies, but only gains more credence and validation from consumers.

As such, brands keep prospering and keep increasing in size, by taking over or merging with erstwhile brands to increase their own size and take advantage of uncertainties.

ALSO READ: Why do Nigerians still drink jedi?

Why uncertainties?

The beer consumption tide in Nigeria is uncertain. No brand is ever at the top for more than 1015 years and brands know that.

To avoid going obsolete with one brand, they spread their tentacles across other brands which cover people and locations that their major brands would mostly not cover, so transition is easy.

The beer business is slightly volatile, though success is almost guaranteed when the going is good.

But when the consumers move on, when another new and exciting brand come around, you might crash and hear your own thud as you tumble off the ladder of premier brands.

Okada riders might even mock you on your way down because you failed to take caution.

Even while you are trendy, your brand must both be a lager, be smooth and be cheap.

Brands like Heineken are not moving with the major Nigerian market in Nigeria  lower middle class to lower class  because they are more expensive.

Asides that, theres a reason why Liquor, Spirits, Liqueur and other types of drinks dont sell like beer in Nigeria. Its affordability and the lager taste.

The most successful beer brands brands in Nigeria have prices mostly ranging from N100-N200. Success and general acceptability are not just about your quality, its about who drinks you.

If the Mekunu  lower middle class, to lower class  accept you, then you have a really good chance.

However, geopolitical zones also have a preference when it comes to beer brands.

A particular brand might be more successful in a particular zone than another zone or a particular state than another state.

First, we will examine the generic brand that is consumed by people all over the country, regardless of zone or state

Goldberg, Star, Gulder, Orijin, Heineken, Satzenbrau, Guinness

Mostly, these brands might be a product of preference by class or sex, but these brands are more widely accepted across several geopolitical zones than other brands.

Goldberg is drunk across Nigeria for reasons nobody understands. Other brands like Star and Gulder are household names that still get loyalty from consumers.

Orijin and Heineken mostly appeal to richer Nigerians who can afford to spend N300 on their favorite brands, but they are definitely not more consumed in one zone than another zone.

Satzenbraus rebrand makes then really cheap and accessible, thus they have become popular across Nigeria. Guinness Stout is another legacy brand that enjoys a lot of loyalty.

Nonetheless, Guinness might enjoy more love in the South-West and the South-East.

ALSO READ: Here is why you should stay off social media

South West: Trophy, 33 and Legend

These brands are more consumed in Nigeria as some of these breweries are closer to the South West.

Asides that, success breeds imitation and some of these brands gain power from communal consumption.

Trophy might be derogatorily termed, Oti carpenter or bricklayer which roughly means the beer for carpenters or bricklayers, but bankers and other professionals also drink them so it doesnt matter.

South-East: Hero and Life

Hero is made by Intafact industries in Anambra State while Life is made by Nigerian Breweries targeted at the South-Eastern market and boy, is it moving?

It is rumoured that Hero is more than just a drink for the Igbo because of certain unconfirmed BIAFRA symbolisms on its bottle.

Whatever it is, these beer brands are moving mad in the South-East.

South-South: Champion

Champion beer is made in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State. Its popularity in Akwa Ibom and certain parts of the South-South is no surprise.

Lagos: Moore

Moore recently started moving in Lagos. As a female beer enthusiast who prefers to remain unnamed puts it on September 26, 2018, Moore is really moving in Lagos now.SheTrades is a proud initiative of the International Trade Centre (ITC) established to a contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals by creating an ecosystem of integrated solutions that empower women economically through trade.Through country-based activities, SheTrades enables women entrepreneurs to improve the quality of their products and services.

Speaking on the collaboration Tara Mulhare, International Sector Specialist, International Trade Centre said  SheTrades platform aims to integrate and connect women to global trade, promoting sustainable and inclusive socioeconomic development. Lagos Fashion Week has proven to be an integral partner for us in order to achieve our goal to open up trade opportunities for African female -owned businesses.

The viewing will feature designers: A.A.K.S, Afrodesiac, Aprelle Duany, Anyango Mpinga, Christie Brown, Eclectic Chique, Grey, Iamisigo, Nkwo. Maki Oh, Style Temple, Tilayo and Zashadu.

Commenting on the collaboration, Founder Lagos Fashion Week, Omoyemi Akerele stated:

 With the goal to strengthen the capacities of over 3,000 women - owned businesses with a view to generating sales worth of $38 Million by 2020, the collaboration with SheTrades, supports our agenda to create access to market opportunities for our designers which is a key aspect of our work at Style House Files and Lagos Fashion Week. In addition to tackling SGDs by providing intensive training, mentoring and opportunities for wealth creation within fashions ecosystem, decent work, economic growth and gender equality.

The showroom viewing at Gallery Sakura, Paris is the first of other activities to be explored in partnership with SheTrades, Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) and Lagos Fashion Week with the aim to drive increased sales, competitiveness for women entrepreneurs and women- owned companies to ensure they play an active role in international trade.

Media Partners: BellaNaija Style, Pulse NG, Guardian Life, Konbini, Genevieve, George Britton, Glitz Africa, Business Day, and Ventures Africa.

RSVP: showroom@stylehousefiles.comThe Royal Palace of the Oba of Benin is the most prestigious sites in Benin and one of the top things to see when in Benin City, Edo state. It is one of the most famous Royal Houses in the whole of Africa. It is The palace, built by Oba Ewedo (1255AD  1280AD), is situated at the heart of ancient City of Benin. It was rebuilt by Oba Eweka II (1914  1932) after the 1897 war during which it was destroyed by the British. The palace was declared a UNESCO Listed Heritage Site in 1999.

It is seen as a sacred site so it has its dos and don'ts  including no wearing of black, no whistling, no pointing at the Oba or his chiefs, etc.

1. Whistling

Whistling is seen as a way for mortals to wake up the dead, so in the Oba's palace where there are a lot of deities, whistling is seen as a rude act in Benin City, especially at the Palace.

2. Pointing

Pointing is seen as sacred, an act with deep spiritual for blessing and cursing so pointing fingers at either Oba or his chiefs are not allowed at the Obas palace. It is a punishable offence.

3. Using umbrellas

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During festivals, only the Oba of Benin is allowed to use an umbrella, no matter the weather.

4. Wearing black

Anyone wearing a black attire is not allowed entrance into the palace because black is seen as a symbol for mourning. It is a taboo for the Oba to set his eyes on the colour black.

5. Carrying palm fruits

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The colour red is not allowed near the Oba's palace at all. Hence, palm kernel in its fruit form, which is as red as blood is considered a bad omen when seen around or in the Oba's palace.

6. Dogs

Dogs do not enter the Oba's palace if not they will die. This is because, after human sacrifice was abolished in Bini Kingdom, dogs replaced humans as offerings to the gods.

7. Male visitors

___8906020___2018___9___26___20___Oba-of-Benin-wives ece-auto-genThe News Agency of Nigeria, (NAN) reports that Obasis boss, Onu was the first Executive Governor of Abia, from February 1992 to December 1993.

Let me use this opportunity to inform you all that I am in the race for the coveted office of governor of Ebonyi state come 2019.

I have nursed this aspiration for some time now but it has become more manifest as a result of fortuitous combination of very negative acts of bad governance, narrow-mindedness, lack of genuine fear of God, brazen impunity of present regime.

Despotic tendencies; manifest insult to elders, particularly the genuine founding fathers of our dear state, neglect of the civil and public service and general maladministration of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)-led government in Ebonyi.

Ebonyi needs a new style of leadership anchored on righteousness, discipline, genuine fear of God, development/people-oriented and respect for human dignity; this is what I am promising to do if elected governor of Ebony, Obasi said.

The governorship aspirant, who wooed the SWC members ahead of the governorship primary said that he would deliver good governance.

He promised to foster peace, create job opportunities through industrial development anchored on innovative science and technology and to make agriculture more attractive if given the mandate.

Obasi, who briefed newsmen after the meeting with the APC SWC at the partys secretariat, said his decision to run for the plum job was to bring progressive governance, expand the frontiers of governance.

He also listed youth empowerment, civil service reform, prompt payment of pensions and gratuities to retired workers, security and agriculture as critical areas of intervention if elected.

We will rebuild our civil service, restore the local government administration and make it more functional and more service-driven to meet the yearnings of the people at the grassroots.

We will rebuild ailing industries and our moribund factories through adequate funding and putting competent hands in order to create employment opportunities and revenue generation, he added.

Obasi, who hails from the same Uburu community in Ohaozara Local Government Area with the incumbent governor, Chief Dave Umahi promised to serve for one tenure if elected governor in 2019 to complete the tenure of Ebonyi South Senatorial District.

He debunked alleged claims that he was being foisted on the party by the minister and other powerful politicians within the APC.

Contrary to claims that I am being sponsored by Onu and powerful elders and leaders of our party, my decision to run for the governorship is personal.

This is based on my conviction that I posses the requisite experience, capacity and capability to rescue our people from bad governance.

Serving as PA to the first class and international personality of Dr Onu, the size and importance of the office of the national chairman of defunct All Nigerians Peoples Party (ANPPP), coupled with serving as PA to the minister entails a great deal of experience.

The raising of memos, the workshops and seminars involved foreign trips which took me to not less than 25 countries of the world, including America, Russia, China, Japan among others makes me see myself qualified for any political assignment.

I served as the chairman of the 2015 Kebbi state APC governorship appeal panel and in addition to so many other positions I have held which have given me enough experience to lead the state.Mr Arinze Awogu, Chairman of Ogbaru Local Government Area told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday that they drowned while fetching water with a bucket.

He said Benedicts 11-year-old elder sister who tried to rescue her almost lost her life too but was quickly rescued by neighbours.

The flood situation in Ogbaru Local Government Area of Anambra State has continued to take a turn for the worst and Ogbaru has lost two persons since it started.

The latest casualty is a nine-year-old Miss Uzo Benedict Onyebuchukwu, a primary 3 pupil of Light International School, Okoti.

The father of the victim, Mr. Izuchukwu Uzo told me that his daughter was swept away by the flood as she attempted to fetch water with her bucket.

He said that the council would set up an emergency boss called for a proactive response team to effectively handle emergencies.

The chairman urged people in flood prone areas to vacate their homes and move to safer areas or the Internally Displaced Persons camps.

We need better equipped hospital to enable us manage this emergency.Umahi disclosed this during a meeting with the leadership of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), its affiliate unions and managements of the state-owned tertiary institutions over the disbursement of the second tranche of N7.6billion-Paris Club refund to the state.

The governor remarked that the threat did not bother him as it was the legitimate right of the workers to make agitations but advised that it should be done peacefully.

The state-owned institutions for instance, are autonomous and instead of embarking on strike, I feel that the workers should instead dialogue with their managements to find solutions to their problems.

The government does not inquire how the institutions manage their funds because it has problems managing its own funds and spends 10 per cent of its gross earnings on the institutions.

The institutions are at liberty to recruit or reduce their staff but the governments own duty is to offer subventions in which the state ranks the highest in the country.

In a situation where you embark on strike, we will transfer the students to the Alex Ekwueme Federal University, Ndufu Alike Ikwo and use the augmentation due to you to pay their fees, he said.

The governor noted that N1.56 billion had been allotted to workers from the second tranche of the refund, noting that it could either be used for the contributory pension scheme or health insurance scheme.

We can use the funds to offset what the government and the workers are supposed to pay from the contributory pension scheme because both sides do not have the ability to pay the funds.

This will ensure the commencement of the pension scheme but you can still deploy it for the National Health Insurance Scheme if it is convenient for you, he said.

He noted that the first tranche of N8.3 billion was put in a fixed deposit account, pending the appropriation for its usage by the state House of Assembly.

The government received an interest of N700 million within the period the money was fixed as its policy is to fix any fund that would stay over 24 hours in the bank before being used.

We have generated over N3billion within three years of our administration as interests from fixing such funds and I will never cheat civil servants or tamper with their funds even at the point of death, he said.

We gave the Local Government Areas N2.9 billion which was used to pay over 40 per cent of gratuities, offset pensions and workers salaries.

The state government used N4.6billion to also pay over 40 per cent of gratuities, outstanding pensions, promotion arrears and leave allowances, he said.

Mr Leonard Nkah, Chairman of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) in the state thanked the governor for his favourable disposition towards workers which had enhanced the relationship between government and workers.

This is the first government that will grant workers audience to discuss pressing issues and ensure the payment of their salaries before the 15 of every month.

We however, suggest that funds appropriated to workers for the Paris club refund be used to commence the contributory pension scheme while the health insurance scheme will follow suit.

We however, make special case for the parliamentary staff workers union and the review of arrears of promotion and leave allowances due to workers, he said.

Chief Frank Ogbuewu, Pro Chancellor of the EBSU, which received N1.1 billion from the second tranche called on the government to grant the institution more autonomy to run its affairs.The Trade Union Congress (TUC) had earlier announced that it would begin strike from the early hours of Thursday, September 27, 2018, following the federal governments failure to honour its ultimatum on the new minimum wage.

Leaders of both unions had earlier cautioned the Federal Government against foot-dragging on the new minimum wage.

Last Thursday, the NLC resolved to commence an indefinite nationwide strike after the expiration of the 14-day ultimatum given to the federal government which will elapse Wednesday.

In a press statement signed by the NLC General Secretary, Peter Ozo-Eson, the congress resolved that the strike commence in the midnight of Wednesday.

Representatives of organized labour, after due consultation and meetings, have therefore agreed that all unions and our Civil society allies should embark on a warning strike from midnight of Wednesday, 26th September, 2018, the statement said.

All affiliates and state councils are therefore expected to mobilize their members nationwide to ensure total compliance.

The nationwide warning strike will remain in force until further directives are conveyed, the release added.In the suit filed on September 19, 2018 at a Lagos division of the Federal High Court, she accused Idris and Malami of dereliction of their statutory duties in securing her daughter's release.

The N500 million is determined in the suit to be compensation for the indignities and human deprivations suffered by the plaintiff as a result of this dereliction.

The suit also prayed to the court to direct the defendants to secure the immediate and unconditional release of Leah from the custody of her captors.

The suit, with reference no FCH/L/cs/1528/18, read, "An order of the Honourable court directing and mandating the defendants to secure the immediate and unconditional release of the plaintiff from the custody of her captors forthwith.

"An order compelling the defendants to employ every means in securing the plaintiff from the custody of her captors; an order compelling the defendants to pay the plaintiff the sum of N500 million being compensation for the indignities and human deprivations suffered by the plaintiff as a result of the defendants' dereliction of statutory duties in securing her release from her captors since the month of February, 2018 till date of this action."

The suit required the defendants to appear personally or by a legal representative by filing the appropriate response in the court, with failure to do so within a stipulated time recommended to be dealt with at the discretion of the presiding judge.

The other plaintiffs in the suit are Daniel Kadzai and Lift-Up-Now Incorporation, a non-governmental organization in the United States of America.

How Leah Sharibu was abducted

When terrorists raided Government Girls Science and Technical College in Dapchi, Yobe, on February 19, 2018, Leah was abducted alongside 112 other hostages. After weeks of negotiations with the government, the terrorists released 107 of the 113 originally abducted on March 21.

While it was reported by some of the released hostages that five of them that were taken had died of heart attack and stress and buried in the bush, Leah Sharibu was kept in captivity by the terrorists because she refused to renounce her Christian faith.

In an audio message published on August 27, 2018, Leah appealed to President Buhari to secure her freedom.

"I am Leah Sharibu, the girl that was abducted in GGSS Dapchi. I am calling on the government and people of goodwill to intervene to get me out of my current situation.

"I am begging you to treat me with compassion, I am calling on the government, particularly, the president to pity me and get me out of this serious situation," she pleaded.

After killing another captive, a nurse, recently, the Boko Haram faction holding Leah Sharibu have threatened to kill her in a month if the government does not respond to it.Muhammed reported that the cattle herder, identified as Sama'ila Muhammad, was killed by armed Irigwe men in an attack that took place on Monday, September 24, 2018.

"The victim was attacked around Tipper garage, Rukuba road, in Bassa council. His body was found yesterday by the men of the Operation Save Heaven about 13:00 hours.

"The case was reported to the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) in Bassa and the security agencies promised to investigate," he said.

With the discovery of the body creating tension in the area, Mohammed has appealed to Fulani communities to not embark on any reprisal attacks and allow security agencies to conduct their investigations.

He said, "I am, however, appealing to all Fulani to remain calm and wait for the outcome of the investigation. I don't want any of my people to take laws into their hands by planning revenge, we should trust the security agenies to give us justice according to the law.

"I know the efforts made by the Plateau State government to end these conflicts, but some criminals are bent on frustrating it. So I appeal to my Fulani people to respect the government and remain calm."The Osun governorship re-run election is scheduled on hold on Thursday, September 27, 2018.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared the governorship election which held on Saturday, September 22, 2018, inconclusive.

According to Tribune, one of the party leaders, Prince Adesoji Masilo called on members of the coalition to come out en masse and vote for the APC.

Masilo also said that the APC has shown that it has the capacity to develop the state.

The statement reads: Gentlemen of the Media, we, the Alliance of Collaborating Political Parties (ACPP) in Osun State welcome you to this media briefing.

The ACPP comprised of more than 20 political parties, majorly from the opposition fold, including the All Progressives Congress (APC) before it became the ruling party in Osun. We are stakeholders in politics and political activities in the state and we are key players in the development of Nigerias democracy.

We participated in the September 22, governorship election which was declared inconclusive by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and for which a rerun has been scheduled for Thursday September 27, 2018.

We commend the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the conduct of the governorship election which local and international observers adjudged free, fair, peaceful and credible.

We are keenly interested in the rerun of the governorship election which is coming up tomorrow in seven polling units of Orolu, Osogbo, Ife-South and Ife-North Local Government Areas.

We commend the people of Osun for coming out in large numbers to vote and for conducting themselves peacefully and in orderly manner during the election. In the face of provocations in some quarters, the people of the state exhibited Omoluabi ethos by remaining calm and law abiding during and after the election. This is commendable.

Similarly, we laud the security agencies for their professional conduct and for upholding democracy. Of course, Osun has never had a tension soaked and well contested election like the September 22 governorship election. Despite the tension, there was no violence anywhere in the state. There was no harassment, intimidation or oppression of the electorate by security agents.

Gentlemen of the media, we are left with two candidates in the rerun election the All Progressives Congress (APC)s, Gboyega Oyetola and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)s, Ademola Adeleke. As stakeholders and lovers of development, we consider competence, good track record, education, private and public sectors experience, intelligence and good conduct as factors in choosing who to support. Considering all these, we are left with no choice than to declare our support for Gboyega Oyetola, the APC candidate. We fully endorse his candidature.

It is our firm opinion that he has the capacity to govern Osun and continue the development of the state. Oyetola is a God-fearing, capable, well educated, humane, honest and a man of integrity. We urge the people of Osunwho are voting in the seven polling units in Ife-North, Ife-South, Orolu and Osogbo Local Government Areas to massively vote for him tomorrow.

We also urge the people to be orderly, peaceful and law abiding during and after the runoff election.

We condemn strongly the monetisation of election in Osun by the PDP as manifested in buying voters card, paying for votes and making voters to swear to satanic oaths in exchange for cash. This amounts to political corruption that is capable of subverting and undermining the foundation of democracy in Nigeria and Osun in particular.

We call on law enforcement agents to investigate this matter, apprehend the perpetrators and make them to face the law. This evil and cancerous development must be excised from our body politic.

We call on all the security agencies to be at alert and ensure that nobody, irrespective of political affiliation, is allowed to jeopardise the peaceful atmosphere of the state during and after the election.According to Daily Post, the former vice president saidthe reason is because Nigerians elected the wrong President.

Atiku said this during a meeting with Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) delegates in Anambra state.

The former Vice-President also said that the government needs to restructure Nigeria and allow every region to grow at its own pace.

He said Our country is at a cross road today. I have never seen this country so divided than it is today.

We are more divided as a country today simply because we mistakenly elected a president who has succeeded in dividing us the more. I have seen the pre-civil war days, the civil war days and the post civil war days, but I have never seen Nigeria as divided as we are today.

This is because we elected a government that is completely insensitive to our diversity, and completely insensitive to our welfare. We elected a government that crashed Nigeria into a recession from an economy that was growing at a 6 per cent GDP and up till now we are trying to recover from the recession.

Today we have the highest unemployment rate in our history. Over 12million young men and women. Today our health sector is performing very very minimal. Nigeria is at the bottom as far as health care is concerned. Almost every African country is ahead of Nigeria.

In almost every socio-economic indicator, we are doing worse today. This is a government we must vote out next year. For the welfare of our children and grand children, this is a government we must not allow to return to power next year. I beg of you all, it is not about me, but about the future of our children, we must unite to make sure we dont vote for APC any more.

Intl airport

Atiku also promised to build an international airport in the South-East if he is elected President.

I promise you that as your president we will build an international airport in the east, not the type they(APC) are talking about, but one that is truly international, that would have flights to parts of the world, so that you dont have to travel to Abuja or Lagos before traveling out of this country.

I want to beg you to give me that opportunity. To give me the opportunity is to let me have the ticket. I urge you to join hands with me so we can develop our regions again and reclaim our country again.Speaking after a closed door meeting with members of the committee at the PDP national secretariat in Abuja, Okowa said partys convention would position it for victory in the 2019 general elections

We had a fruitful deliberation and our desire is to take steps to further unite our party, be fair to all in such a way that we will inspire the confidence of stakeholders and party faithful," Okowa said.

"We are aware of the fact that the task of rebuilding our party is an onerous one and the decisions and actions we take as a committee occupies a very central position in the desire of our party to demonstrate to Nigerians that we are repositioned to turn things around for the overall good of Nigerians.

Last night, I and the leadership of the party met with a good number of the Presidential aspirants with a view to listening to them and securing their buy-in on how best we can be on the same page in our desire to carry everybody along ahead of the Convention."

He explained that the meeting was to secure the understanding of all on the need to organise a free, fair and very credible convention that will produce the Presidential party flag bearer.

"As Chairman, I am convinced that members of our party understand that Nigerians are looking up to the PDP to get it right and reposition the country's economy," he added.Pulse is covering the Osun governorship election which has been declared inconclusive by INEC Returning Officer, Professor Joseph Adeola Fuwape; with a rerun slated for Thursday, September 27, 2018. We caught up with this top ranking Tinubu aide while grocery shopping in an Osogbo mall during the election.

Tinubu's rift with Ambode

'He is a bad man'

It is finished for Ambode. He is gone. He is a bad man, this aide said without mincing words, even though he asked that his name be left out of this story because he hadnt been authorized to speak on the record.

The phrase 'AmboGone' has been coined by Tinubu's loyalists working behind the scenes to cripple Ambode's second term bid, Pulse has learnt.

This Tinubu aide would go on to disclose how preferred candidate ahead of the governorship primary election,Babajide Olushola Sanwoolu, has been told by Bourdillon (Tinubu's famous home address) that he is the anointed candidate and handed all the funds to aide his cause.

Sanwoolu recently held a meeting with Muiz Banire, a former legal adviser of the APC who fell out with Tinubu because of Ambode.

That meeting should tell you that Sanwoolu is making peace with everyone who fell out with Tinubu because of Ambode. We are all working towards a common goal at this point. Everyone is needed for this project to be successful. Ambode Weve told him all of this on numerous occasion. Why he hasnt taken this advice is beyond me, this aide added.

A string of endorsements

Sanwoolu has been endorsed by 57 Council Chairmen and 57 Vice Chairmen in Lagos, ahead of the primary. Waste managers in Lagos and a host of APC chieftains in the nations commercial capital have been making a beeline to support Sanwoolu.

Tinubu's political structure, the Mandate Movement, has made it clear that Sanwoolu is its candidate ahead of the primary contest.

Ambode has been begging Tinubu and dispatching emissaries to plead with Tinubu as he seeks a second term ticket on the APC platform.

Last Thursday, Ambode held a closed door meeting with President Buharito discuss his troubles back home in Lagos.

Buhari reportedly told Ambode that there was nothing he could do to help him at this point and that Tinubu has the final say on the crisis, Pulse has learnt.

"It's too late to beg Tinubu. That ship has long sailed",another source confided in Pulse last week.Russia's annexation of the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 means ships must now pass through a narrow strait bordered by Russian-controlled territory on both sides, while Kremlin-backed rebel regions of eastern Ukraine are uncomfortably close to Mariupol.

In a growing crisis, Kiev and the West accuse Russia of deliberately blocking ships from entering the sea.

"The whole time I've worked here, I've never seen anything like it," said Sergiy Kostyrko, a tanned foreman who has worked at the Mariupol docks for 23 years. "Ships have become very rare visitors to our port."

Ukraine criticises what it sees as a deliberate move by Moscow to block the Kerch Strait, the only shipping route into the Azov Sea, where Ukraine's commercial ports of Mariupol and Berdyansk are crucial gateways for its metallurgy industry exports.

'Military operation'

Kiev has warned that Russia could even launch an attack on Mariupol.

Russia is trying to block Ukraine's ports on the Sea of Azov acting "to escalate tensions and, it cannot be ruled out, to carry out a military operation (including) attacks on Mariupol", Ukraine's President Petro Poroshenko declared in July.

AFP

In a sign of the conflict's growing scale, the United States has condemned Russia for impeding maritime transit as part of a campaign "to undermine and destabilise Ukraine".

"We call on Russia to cease its harassment of international shipping in the Sea of Azov," the US Department of State said in a statement late August.

The European Union's delegation to Ukraine said earlier this month that Russia "has increasingly and deliberately hindered and delayed the passage of vessels, including vessels from EU member states".

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova insisted this week that "Russia's actions in checking ships are aimed solely at security."

"It is precisely Kiev's actions, those of its uncontrollable radicals, that force Russia to strengthen security measures," she said.

Five-day checks

The problems started upon Russia's completion this spring of a bridge over the Kerch Strait connecting its southern mainland to Crimea.

The link spanning 19 kilometres (12 miles) was one of Moscow's mega-projects personally endorsed by President Vladimir Putin, who opened it in May at the wheel of a lorry.

The bridge's 35-metre arches are too low for some ships to pass under and there are also restrictions on length.

AFP

In addition, ships heading under the bridge now face lengthy checks by Russian maritime border guards, causing additional financial losses for both ports and shipping companies.

"The check takes three to four hours but waiting for the inspectors takes up to five days," said Mariupol port director Oleksandr Oliynyk. Previously "the ships would be stopped for maybe 10 hours."

The result for Ukraine is a significant drop in shipping traffic and subsequent economic losses.

Shipping companies lose between $5,000 and $15,000 with each day of delay for a cargo in the Kerch Strait, Oliynyk said. "At some point, the ship's owner will say 'That's it, I'm not interested'."

Ukrainian media reported that the ports of Mariupol and Berdyansk saw earnings fall by almost a quarter during the first seven months of this year, compared with the same period last year.

Risk of military conflict

So far this is purely a trade conflict, but there is a risk it could escalate into a military standoff between Ukraine and Russia, on top of Kiev's ongoing four-year war with Kremlin-backed rebels in the east that has claimed more than 10,000 lives.

Mariupol is located just 20 kilometres west of the frontline with Russian-backed separatists.

AFP

Russia moved an additional five ships into the Sea of Azov in May, the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington-based research institute, wrote in a report.

Kiev in July claimed Russia had some 40 warships in the Sea of Azov.

This month, following an emergency meeting of Poroshenko's top brass, Ukraine bolstered its naval force in the Sea of Azov with two gunboats.

The gunboats were deployed "to prevent the illegal stopping of ships by an aggressor country," deputy infrastructure minister Yuriy Lavrenyuk said.Why?

The name-change is an effort to overcome a 27-year-old argument with neighbouring Greece, which has refused to recognise Macedonia's name since the Balkan country declared independence from Yugoslavia in 1991.

Athens argues that the name belongs solely to its northern province called Macedonia, accusing Skopje of harbouring territorial ambitions.

In protest, Greece has blocked Macedonia from NATO and the EU.

Athens has also forced the country to use the clunky name FYROM (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) in the UN.

The animosity deepened when Macedonia's former premier Nikola Gruevski went on a construction spree in the capital Skopje, erecting massive statues of Alexander the Great -- a hero both countries claim as their own -- and plastering government buildings in hellenic-inspired facades.

Athens, fiercely proud of its ancient history, blasted the moves as cultural appropriation.

But Gruevski's downfall and the arrival last spring of a new government led by Macedonia's Social Democrats, allowed for an opening.

Prime Minister Zoran Zaev and his Greek counterpart Alexis Tsipras met several times and inked an agreement in June that voters are now being called upon to approve.

What is in the deal?

It is not just about the country's official name.

The deal also delves into history, language and identity.

The key clause is Article 7, which says the terms "Macedonia" and "Macedonian" refer to "a different historical context and cultural heritage" for each country.

For Skopje, a core victory was maintaining that their language can be called Macedonian, plus guarantees that Athens would stop blocking the path to NATO and the EU.

But Macedonians will no longer be able to claim ties to the "ancient Hellenic civilization, history, culture and heritage" of Greece's Macedonia province, according to the deal.

In recent years, Macedonian textbooks were rewritten to draw a link between present day Macedonians, who are ethnic Slavs, and the ancient Kingdom of Macedon which was led by Alexander the Great.

Macedonian officials say history books will likely have to be revised and that explanatory plaques will be laid before statues of Alexander the Great and other contested monuments.

Passports and car plates will also have to change.

Does a 'yes' vote solve the issue?

No. The referendum is only "consultative," according to Prime Minister Zaev.

The next hurdle will be getting two-thirds of parliament to ratify the agreement and make necessary changes to the constitution.

Currently, the right-wing opposition VMRO-DPMNE party is standing in the way.

The nationalist party has criticised the deal, though they have stopped short of publicly calling for a boycott.

They have instead come out to announce their positions individually, with President Gjorge Ivanov, from VMRO-DPMNE, saying this weekend that he personally will not vote.

Zaev is hoping a strong approval from the public will make it difficult for the party to ignore the people's will.

Surveys suggest the referendum has a strong chance of passing, despite a lack of enthusiasm about the new name.

For many Macedonians, the key driver to the polls is their desire to start EU accession talks in hopes of injecting life into a flat economy.

Is Russia meddling?

AFP

The US has accused Russia -- which is openly opposed to NATO's enlargement -- of running a disinformation campaign pushing for the referendum to fail.

"No doubt that they have transferred money and that they are also conducting a broader influence campaign," US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis said last week on a visit to Skopje.

Premier Zaev played down the allegations, saying, "we don't have proof about Russian influence".

Historically, Moscow has less clout in Macedonia than in other Balkan neighbours such as Serbia and Montenegro.

But Russians have been accused of fomenting protests against the deal in neighbouring Greece, forcing Athens to expel two diplomats over the allegation in July.

Where is the 'no' campaign?

For now, mostly on social media, trailed by the hashtag #Bojkotiram", which means "boycott" in Macedonian.

Thousands of fake accounts on Facebook and Twitter are helping amplify its affect, according to Macedonia's Investigative Reporting Lab, an NGO.

Macedonia was notorious as a hub for fake news producers who tried to influence the 2016 US election.

Now some sites are using their skills to sow confusion at home.

In August a story went viral alleging NATO would use depleted uranium at a Macedonian army base. The Defence Minister later denied the report, calling it "fake news".

What happens if the vote fails?

In an interview this month with AFP, Zaev warned that a failure to pass the referendum would isolate the country and could open a new "chapter of insecurity and instability in the whole region".

The fragile Balkans are home to a host of complex disputes, some of which date back to the brutal 1990s wars that undid Yugoslavia and left 130,000 dead.

Zaev is hoping that a successful vote could make the deal a role model for other regional disputes.

"It would just be a real setback, on all sorts of levels, if this didn't go through," said James Ker-Lindsay, a Balkans expert at the London School of Economics.WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind.  Pregnant women could use a wearable app to detect whether they have or are susceptible to a condition that leads to serious health complications for them or their unborn child.

A Purdue University research team, led by Craig Goergen, an assistant professor in Purdues Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering, is developing a low-cost automated early detection sensor of preeclampsia, a pregnancy complication that can lead to high blood pressure and cause both organ damage and premature birth.

We hope this will allow us to predict and prevent preeclampsia and reduce the number of children born prematurely each year. This could also reduce the long-term health complications for mothers, Goergen said.

According to the Preeclampsia Foundation, 5 to 8 percent of pregnancies are diagnosed with preeclampsia, affecting nearly 7 million women worldwide. Preeclampsia is the No. 1 reason that doctors decide to deliver a baby prematurely.

This is a device that women are going to be able to use at home with a minimal amount of training. That is an important aspect to remember as preeclampsia is a worldwide medical concern, Goergen said.

The World Health Organization estimates that nearly 10 percent of all maternal deaths in Africa and Asia are associated with hypertensive disorders during pregnancy, and the figure is 25 percent of all maternal deaths in Latin America. Most of those deaths are avoidable, according to WHO.

The most innovative aspect to our technology is that it uses a simple supine pressor test that can estimate a patients risk for developing preeclampsia, Goergen said. The test assesses blood flow through the kidney, and 90 percent of women with a positive test eventually develop preeclampsia. The early detection enables more effective detection and prevention strategies.

Women using the app can send the results to a doctor's office, a health care system or a centralized network where the results can be reviewed and where they could receive counseling focused on care management and treatment options as early as possible.

The researchers received a $100,000 Grand Challenges Explorations grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2017 to advance the technology. The program is part of a family of initiatives by the foundation fostering innovation to solve key global and health development problems.

The Gates Foundation is looking for something that's going to have an impact in the immediate future in low- and middle-income countries, Goergen said. They are interested because the treatment and management of preeclampsia in sub-Saharan Africa, India, China and other developing countries is typically very poor.

Dr. David Reuter of Seattle Childrens Hospital, a Purdue alumnus and a member of the research team, said the primary goal of clinicians is to prevent disease.

Addressing the problem of prematurity and preeclampsia could have profound implications for women and children globally, Reuter said. Our scientific insights provide an exciting road map to start revolutionizing the care of pregnant women.

The financial costs are great as well. The American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology issued a report in 2017 estimating the costs to the U.S. health care system for preeclampsia at $2.18 billion for the first 12 months after birth  $1.03 billion for mothers, and $1.15 billion for infants.

A video about the app and wearable device is available at https://bit.ly/2HkCqIA.

While the Gates Foundations goal is to help women in developing countries, Goergen said the device the Purdue researchers are working on also could help women in inner cities and rural areas of the United States and other developed countries. They plan to initially test the device on low- and middle-income pregnant women in and around Indianapolis once the researchers receive the institutional approval.

It will be a great way to make sure that these patients are not going down a road that is going to lead to problems for both them and their baby, Goergen said.

Other team members include George Wodicka, the Dane A. Miller Head of Biomedical Engineering at Purdue, and Kirk Forster, a senior research engineer at the Weldon School. The team is working to combine available existing technologies such as smartphones, a conventional inflatable blood pressure cuff, and a wireless accelerometer (which measures body position) to build an innovative prototype that will detect preeclampsia before it develops.

The technology aligns with Purdue's Giant Leaps celebration, recognizing the universitys global advancements made in health, space, artificial intelligence and sustainability as part of Purdues 150th anniversary. Those are the four themes of the yearlong celebrations Ideas Festival, designed to showcase Purdue as an intellectual center solving real-world issues.

The researchers have obtained a provisional patent with the help of the Purdue Office of Technology Commercialization.

The Purdue research team is looking to collaborate with companies with technological expertise in these areas as the team works advance the development of this technology.

About Purdue Office of Technology Commercialization

The Purdue Office of Technology Commercialization operates one of the most comprehensive technology transfer programs among leading research universities in the U.S. Services provided by this office support the economic development initiatives of Purdue University and benefit the university's academic activities. The Purdue Research Foundation manages the office, which received the 2016 Innovation and Economic Prosperity Universities Award for Innovation from the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities. For more information about funding and investment opportunities in startups based on a Purdue innovation, contact the Purdue Foundry at foundry@prf.org. For more information on licensing a Purdue innovation, contact the Office of Technology Commercialization at innovation@prf.org.

Purdue Research Foundation contact: Cynthia Sequin, 765-588-3340, casequin@prf.org



Sources: Craig Goergen, cgoergen@purdue.edu

David Reuter, david.reuter@seattlechildrens.orgDisgraced entertainer Bill Cosby will spend at least three years behind bars after he was sentenced for sexual assault.

In April, the 81-year-old comedian was found guilty on three counts of aggravated indecent assault for drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand, a one-time friend.

On Wednesday morning (NZ time), Judge Steven O'Neill said Mr Cosby is a "sexually violent predator" who would serve between three and 10 years behind bars.

Lisa Bloom, the attorney who represented Janice Dickinson, who alleges Mr Cosby drugged and raped her in 1982, told RadioLIVEs Wendyl Nissen that Ms Dickinson felt absolutely elated when the sentence was announced.

Janice went to court, to Pennsylvania from Los Angeles, to sit in at the sentencing hearing with some of the other Cosby survivors.

She had a statement that she was prepared to read, though the judge did not allow any of them to read statements except the primary accuser who the case was about, Andrea Constand, she said.

Ms Bloom posted some of Ms Dickinsons statement on Twitter.

Her statement reads: The harrowing memory of the rape continues to this day. I have reoccurring nightmares, I wake up in fear, I fear the dark.

The rape shattered my ability to trust.

Ms Dickinson outlines she struggles to talk to her husband of six years about her experience with Mr Cosby.Prefabs and tiny homes could give New Zealanders another option to own property in expensive markets like Auckland, suggests PrefabNZ.

There just needs to be more variety than just a four-bedroom detached house with a 30-year mortgage, says Pamela Bell, chief executive of PrefabNZ.

The housing alternative has certainly caught New Zealand by storm, particularly in a country where the average asking price is creeping towards $600,000.Railnews Ltd is not responsible for the content of external sites.

PASSENGERS on the Piccadilly Line of London Underground have been warned to be clear of the route by 13.00 today (Wednesday), as three days of strikes begin.

The RMT said the dispute is over a comprehensive breakdown in industrial relations, abuse of procedures and the reneging on key safety and operational improvements promised by management after previous rounds of industrial action, but TfL accused the union of failing to engage with managers during talks at Acas.

The walkouts mean that the Piccadilly will be closed from early on Wednesday afternoon for 48 hours.

Services should return on Friday afternoon, but a further stoppage will begin towards the end of the evening, and there will be no Night Tube. TfL is hoping to restore trains between Cockfosters and Heathrow by 07.30 on Saturday morning, with the remaining section between Acton Town, Rayners Lane and Uxbridge seeing services again by 08.30.

RMT general secretary Mick Cash said: RMT is angry, frustrated and disgusted that tube bosses have wrecked the planned Acas talks today by denying reality and refusing point blank to make serious progress on the core issues that have reduced industrial relations on the Piccadilly Line to a powder keg.

That is a deliberate and irresponsible act by an LU management hell-bent on confrontation. The attitude of tube managers on the Piccadilly Line has been deliberately provocative and obstructive and it is that stance, including the back-tracking on operational, staffing and safety improvements agreed after previous rounds of action on the line, that led to the current dispute in the first place.

He also said Underground management had turned the talks at Acas into a talking shop [which] has deliberately slammed the door on any possible progress.

TfLs director of network operations on London Underground Nigel Holness responded: The RMT has unilaterally ended discussions at Acas and informed us that their strike on the Piccadilly line will go ahead.

They have made no attempt to engage with us to try and resolve this dispute. We continue to uphold all our commitments following discussions with the RMT earlier in the year and their claims that no progress has been made are totally untrue. We are hugely disappointed that customers will suffer three days of disruption for no good reason.

TfL Rail services from Paddington offer one alternative route to Heathrow, but TfL warned that Oyster cards and Travelcards will not be accepted on the faster Heathrow Express.Younger follows Liza, a woman who lies about her age at her publishing job. As Lizas personal and professional lives have become irreversibly intertwined over time, keeping the secret proves more and more difficult.Produced by TV Land, the series is written and executive produced by Darren Star (Sex and the City). It stars Sutton Foster, Hilary Duff, Debi Mazar, Miriam Shor, Nico Tortorella, Peter Hermann, Molly Bernard and Charles Michael Davis,Its fifth season premiered in the US on 5 June, and a sixth season has already been confirmed.ESI are thrilled that NHK has secured Younger for their Japanese audience. It is another huge success for this incredibly relatable and empowering series that has an immense and loyal fan base around the world, said Cathy Payne, chief executive, Endemol Shine International The show has been sold to 160 countries worldwide, with existing partners in the Asia-Pacific including AXN, South Koreas Hyundai Media, Neon in New Zealand, Stan in Australia and Indias Viacom18.After accusing Omega Apparel of discrimination, the Department of Labor proposed a remedy for the veteran-owned Tennessee military clothing supplier: Hire more men.

Fifty-six, to be exact, to achieve more equity among its disproportionately female sewing machine operators. The disciplinary action against Omega, which included a settlement of over $200,000 paid out to men passed over for jobs, shows what can happen to a seemingly straightforward policy through expansive federal regulations within a sprawling bureaucracy.

Affirmative action has long meant taking action to avoid discrimination against minorities and women  and across much of the workplace it still does. But to the Labor Department agency holding power over all $500 billion in federal contracts it frequently means the opposite.

The film title says one thing, but with diversity bean-counting in the federal-contracting workplace, even white men can rise. 20th Century Fox/Impawards/Wikipedia

Landcare, a commercial landscaping company, has learned this the hard way. It ran afoul of a requirement from the Labor Departments Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs that contractors hire not just the right proportions of blacks and women, but correct proportions of whites and men too. After determining this year that the company's hiring numbers in Texas were off, it told Landcare to offer jobs to 21 white men who applied but were not hired, as well as to nine women and 15 African-Americans.

As with all other hiring violations made public by the office this year, it cited no direct evidence of discrimination. This violation was based purely on the numbers. Edwin Nieves, a Labor Department spokesman, confirmed individual procedures of the agency but declined a request for an in-depth interview about its seemingly against-the-grain policies and their legal rationale.

Asked to comment on what RealClearInvestigations found in reporting on the office, Roger Clegg, president of the Center for Equal Opportunity, a think tank critical of affirmative action, recognized the oddity that government bean counting can result in hiring preferences for whites and men. But, he said, the Landcare example is an aberration. By and large the purpose of these regulations is to push employers to engage in politically correct discrimination in favor of minorities and women, Clegg said.

All federal contractors must show efforts to diversify their workforces, and larger companies with larger contracts must create affirmative action programs. Such efforts identify the potential pool of qualified applicants for race, sex and ethnicity, and then compare these numbers with a companys hires. If that result is, according to the governments language, less than would reasonably be expected, the company has to set a hiring goal.

According to human resources professionals, what this really means is that companies must make an effort to hire in exact proportions to the available labor pool. For example, if 10 percent of the employees in a certain division are women, but population statistics say twice that many women could do the job, then the firm can risk losing its government contract if it doesnt try to hire more women to meet the higher percentage.

Although such practices sound like quotas, which the Supreme Court has deemed illegal except in extreme cases of discrimination, federal regulators and supporters of affirmative action policy proponents insist that they are not.

Hilary O. Shelton, senior vice president for advocacy and policy at the NAACP, said that unlike quotas, goals and timetables are much more flexible. If a companys goal is to hire 10 percent more women, it will not necessarily lose its contract simply for missing its goal. However, it must demonstrate that it is making an effort.

To enforce these hiring goals, along with laws prohibiting discrimination against veterans and the disabled, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs in 2017 had 563 employees and a budget of $104 million.

Between 2014 and 2018, the agency completed over 9,800 investigations based on complaints and evaluations. In 2017, such investigations resulted in over $23.9 million in compensation for victims of discrimination, according to the offices congressional budget justification.

You better plan on [being audited], said Carolyn Alexander, president of Easy AAP, a company that sells software to help contractors create affirmative action programs. "Its like when you do your taxes.

Complying with the regulations is so complex that many companies hire consultants to craft affirmation action programs for them. An industry of human resources professionals has sprung up to help businesses determine which racial or gender groups they need to try to hire.

Frequently, businesses dont have the time to write an [affirmative action plan], said Angela Rao-Brown, executive vice president of Effective Resources Inc., a human resources company. They dont have the know-how.

'They're Gonna Cave'

A company must find out whether there is a discrepancy between the race/ethnicity of its workforce and that of the labor pool. What counts as the labor pool can vary by job category  one of the many complicating factors that prompt many businesses to outsource affirmative action to professionals.

But without resorting to quotas, contractors risk suffering a financial penalty because of government-mandated hiring preferences  even for men and whites. When under federal scrutiny, companies without the right numbers may be accused of discrimination. Although they can fight the charge, it often makes better business sense just to do as theyre told, even if that means paying large settlements and giving preferences to certain groups in their hiring.

Contractors are told: Were the federal government, we dont like your numbers, youre gonna lose your contract if you dont get your numbers right, said Clegg. In the vast majority of cases theyre gonna cave.

Human resources professionals agree that having the wrong numbers is a serious concern. [The OFCCP] will push it pretty far with just the stats, said Allen Hudson, chief operating officer of HudsonMann, an affirmative action consulting company.

The OFCCPs records show no direct evidence of discrimination in any the 17 hiring violations that it made public in 2018. In 13 of these cases, the office cited only statistics as evidence. And four times where the government mandated race- or sex-based hiring preferences, they were in favor of whites or men.

There are some indications, though, that affirmative action enforcement may be slowing down under the Trump administration. For 2019 the OFCCP requested a budget of $91 million, and 450 employees. This would be about $13 million and 150 fewer employees than in 2017.

But with a conservative Supreme Court majority, there may also be legal barriers. If a law requires racial preferences or quotas, said George Mason law professor Ilya Somin, it would very likely be struck down, particularly if Brett Kavanaugh or another conservative is ultimately confirmed for the remaining spot on the high court. Currently it is unclear if the policy and enforcement are constitutional. I am not aware of the Supreme Court ever hearing a case [about this policy] said Somin.

Supporters are confident that the policy is constitutional and insist that goals and timetables are crucial for increasing diversity. Not everyone agrees. They are also bad policy, said Clegg. "Its unfair and divisive and inefficient to hire by the numbers.,



We're sorry, this article is not currently availableBy Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 11/03/2021



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Which couples are still together and which MAFS couples have split up and divorced? And where are they now?

has featured 44 different couples getting married at first sight during it's first twelve seasons -- so which couples are still together, who has split up and divorced, and where are they all now?Each season of -- which premiered in the United States seven years ago and is based on a Danish series -- features couples (previously three couples, but four couples on Seasons 8 and 9, and five couples beginning with Season 10) being matched together by relationship experts and agree to marry when they first meet.Complete strangers become husband and wife in a matter of minutes, and the couples' lives are then documented by TV cameras over the course of the next four to eight weeks (eight weeks, in the case of 's most recent seasons).The couples typically enjoy their first night together in a hotel after exchanging vows -- with some couples deciding to consummate their marriage immediately -- and then embark on a honeymoon, move in together, and simply attempt to deal with the struggles of daily life as man and wife.At the end of the extreme marriage experiment, each couple must decide whether they'd like to stay married or get a divorce on "Decision Day."has experienced very mixed results over the years. While a significant number of couples decide to stay together and continue their new marriage at the end of their season, the real world seems to hit them hard after the cameras leave, resulting in the couple splitting up only months later.Do cast members see a different side of their spouses once cameras are gone, or do the romances naturally fizzle over time?Some couples are still together to this day and are extremely happy. Jamie Otis and Doug Hehner from Season 1, for example, have had two children.Several other couples have also had children -- including Ashley Petta and Anthony D'Amico Shawniece Jackson and Jephte Pierre Danielle Bergman and Bobby Dodd , and Deonna McNeill and Greg Okotie However, there are also relationships that ended badly. Jessica Castro from Season 2, for instance, accused Ryan De Nino of alleged death threats, and she went on to file a restraining order and lawsuit against him.Some couples have also never even made it to "Decision Day" and ended their marriage prematurely, including Season 4 couple Heather Seidel and Derek Schwartz as well as Season 6 couple Molly Duff and Jonathan Francetic Are the remaining couples now lovers, friends or enemies?! What about early season couples like Cortney Hendrix and Jason Carrion, Jaclyn Methuen and Ryan Ranellone, Vanessa Nelson and Tres Russell, Sonia Granados and Nick Pendergrast, and Lillian Vilchez and Tom Wilson?And how about more recent season couples like Danielle DeGroot and Cody Knapek Sheila Downs and Nate Duhon Jaclyn Schwartzberg and Ryan Buckley Dave Flaherty and Amber Martorana , and Tristan Thompson and Mia Bally Keith Dewar and Kristine Killingsworth , and AJ Vollmoeller and Stephanie Sersen Click thelink below to see photos of each couple and find out!

BEGIN GALLERY >>

Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade.COLLINSVILLE  Sue Foley is performing Sunday, Oct. 21 at 6 p.m. at Bridge Street Live in Collinsville.

Sue Foley is a multi-award-winning musician and one of the finest blues and roots artists working today. Shes a triple-threat as a lead guitarist, songwriter and vocalist. Fo-ley has a long history of defying convention, and being a positive role model for aspir-ing, young female musicians.

She began her recording career in Austin, TX with Antones, the esteemed blues label and historic nightclub that helped launch the career of Stevie Ray Vaughan and many others.

In 2001, she won the prestigious Juno Award (Canadian equivalent of the Grammy) and also holds the record for the most Maple Blues Awards in Canada and has earned three Trophees de Blues de France. She has also garnered several nominations at the Blues Music Awards from The Blues Foundation.

The Ice Queen was recorded in San Marcos, Texas, in March. The album represents Foleys full circle journey - her return to the roots of her career in Austin and her re-connection with many old friends. Joining Foley as special guests is a trio of legendary Texas guitarslingers - Jimmie Vaughan, Z.Z.Tops Billy F Gibbons and Charlie Sexton  as well as a host of other Lone Star State all-stars.

Bridge Street Live is located at 41 Bridge St., Collinsville. Tickets are $20 and $30. For information and reservations, call 860-693-9762 or go to http://www.41bridgestreet.com/LAKEVILE  On Oct. 6, Crescendo presents the famed Polish harpsichordist Wadysaw Kosiewicz, who comes to Lakeville, the former home of the visionary performer Wanda Landowska, to play a concert in honor of her legacy. There will be one performance only, at 6 p.m. at Trinity Church in Lakeville, 484 Lime Rock Road.

A conductor and world-renowned interpreter of early music, Kosiewicz is one of todays greatest harpsichordists. He performs internationally at the worlds leading festivals and with the most prominent soloists and conductors specializing in 17th and 18th century music. He has recorded over 100 hours of harpsichord music for radio, television stations and compact disc companies. He will be performing similar solo programs memorializing Landowska on Wednesday at Carnegie Halls Weill Recital Hall, and on Oct. 7 at Yales Collection of Early Instruments.Viktoria Sundqvist / Hearst Connecticut Media

NORTH CANAAN  State police are helping police from Sheffield, Mass., find a missing man who may have gone off the roadway into the Housatonic River, they said Wednesday.

Trop B in North Canaan was contacted Tuesday around 8 p.m. by Massachusetts officers who were looking for a man whose last point of contact was in Lakeville. The man was identified as German Perez, 60, of Ashley Falls, Mass.See Rock City, Inc.s President and COO Susan Harris was awarded Tourism Manager of the Year for a large organization at the Tennessee Governors Conference on Tourism held in Kingsport, Tn., last week. The Tennessee Hospitality and Tourism Associations Stars of the Industry Awards recognized an individual at the executive level who had a proven track record of management excellence, industry involvement and community service  with outstanding job performance that goes above and beyond normal job responsibilities, including excellent service to the property, guests and community. Harris was also recognized in the same category locally in July at the Greater Chattanooga Hospitality Associations annual awards.

Susan has continued to develop the culture of our business in a way that delivers our mission, said SRC Inc. CEO Bill Chapin. Her leadership by example to create memories worth repeating for our guests and our partners is the way she produces the results that have helped increase attendance and profitability for SRC at all of our properties.

Ive had the chance to work with Susan since 2008, when I served as president and COO for SRC Inc., said SRC Board Member Andrew Kean. Instantly, Susan brought a level of excellence in leadership, people development and enthusiasm to our hospitality and tourism businesses. In her original role at SRC as director of human resources and organizational development, she led initiatives that raised the bar to a new level as we sought to increase the quality of our guest service and experiences. The organization has benefitted tremendously from Susans steady and thoughtful guidance over the years, as well as her execution of expansion in such lines of business as Clumpies Ice Cream Co. and the newly updated RiverView Inn.

The TnHTA represents the interests of Tennessees lodging, dining and tourism establishments and the related businesses involved in the hospitality and tourism industry. Currently in its 88th year of operation, the TnHTA is a not-for-profit trade association representing the states industry and preferred vendor partners, headquartered in Nashville.Crye-Leike Real Estate Services congratulates managing broker of Crye-Leike Hixson, Kathy Tucker, on her recent installment as Tennessee Realtors 2019 president. Ms. Tuckers announcement was made during the Tennessee Realtors annual fall convention held in Knoxville and shared with members via press release. Her new role will consist of serving as board leader over the statewides associations 10-member executive committee, where she will represent 28,500 members.

I am extremely humbled and honored to serve as the Tennessee Realtors 2019 president, said Ms. Tucker. Given this opportunity, I am excited to work hard to earn and keep the trust and respect of our members across the state of Tennessee. In the year ahead, we will continue to grow and rise toward the top.

Ms. Tucker has served in the real estate industry for over 40 years, she is a member of the National Association of Realtors, Greater Chattanooga Associate of Realtors, and the Tennessee Realtors. She has earned national recognition as a Certified Residential Specialist (CRS) and Graduate, Realtors Institute (GRI).

Ms. Tucker has served in various leadership roles throughout her career to include President-Elect, Secretary-Treasurer, Division 3 Vice President of East TN, President of the Tennessee Real Estate Education Foundation (TREEF), Chair of the Professional Standards and Governmental Affairs committees, and Director for over 15 years. On a national level, she served as the National Association of Realtors (NAR) Director and a member of the MLS Issues & Policies and Professional Standards committees.

In addition to her career accomplishments and roles, Ms. Tucker is involved heavily within her community through Habitat for Humanity, the YMCA, and United Way. Her volunteerism led her to receive Crye-Leikes Good Neighbor Award. All of us here at Crye-Leike are extremely proud of Kathy, said Harold Crye, CEO of Crye-Leike Real Estate Services. Her dedication to this industry and her community is beyond exemplary and Im thrilled to see her hard work and determination pay off to become the Tennessee Realtors 2019 president.

For further information about Managing Broker Kathy Tucker, she may be reached at 423 595-2058 or ktucker@crye-leike.com.Student safety is of the highest priority on any college campus these days, according to Pete McDonald, president of Georgia Northwestern Technical College (GNTC).

This is why Georgia Northwestern has recently created and gained state approval for its own police force to handle incidents and promote student, faculty, staff and visitor safety at each of GNTCs six campuses.

The safety of our students, faculty and staff as well as visitors to our campuses is of the highest priority, said Mr. McDonald. A safe campus environment is critical to learning and skill development. Our new police officers are highly experienced officers who bring many years of knowledge to the challenge of developing and maintaining a safe college experience for everyone.

In the past, GNTC employed part-time, off-duty officers from other agencies to police its campuses in the nine county service area.

If you have an officer from another police department working for you, and as something happens, they have to follow the policies and guidelines for their department, said Chad Cardin, chief of GNTC Police.

One of the key advantages to GNTC having a campus police force is that it allows the college to set its own policies and procedures which allows a concentrated focus on policing in the college environment.

This means that we have more control, said Mr. Cardin. It is also advantageous to have a campus police department because you can operate it with less expense than hiring officers from other agencies.

Mr. Cardin was named chief of GNTC Police in March of 2018. A veteran police officer in the northwest Georgia region, Mr. Cardin has served as a police officer and trainer for the Tunnel Hill Police Department, assistant chief of police and captain for the Ringgold PD, police officer for the Fort Oglethorpe PD, police officer for the Dalton PD, and a detention officer for the Catoosa County Sheriffs Office.

Mr. Cardin earned his bachelors degree in Criminal Justice, masters degree in Public Administration, and masters degree in Adult Education and Training from the University of Phoenix.

The police department at GNTC is a fully certified state police agency as signified by the Peace Officer Standards and Training Council and the Georgia Crime Information Center, according to Mr. Cardin.

Campus police officers have full police powers and we are the same as other law enforcement agencies in the state of Georgia, said Cardin.

The jurisdiction for GNTC Police, as defined by Georgia law, is public or private property under the control of Georgia Northwestern Technical College plus a 500 feet perimeter. GNTCs police department operates under the authority of the Technical College System of Georgia.

So far we have hired four full-time officers and I have 12 part-time officers who will join the department soon, said Mr. Cardin.

GNTCs police force has also reached out to other law enforcement agencies in the area to work together whenever necessary. In early September, Mr. Cardin hosted a regional meeting of police chiefs on the Gordon County Campus to introduce GNTC police officers to other law enforcement agencies in the northwest Georgia region.

Agencies that participated in the regional meeting included the Basic Law Enforcement Academy at GNTC, Chatsworth PD, Calhoun PD, Dalton PD, Fort Oglethorpe PD, GNTC Police, LaFayette PD, Lookout Mountain PD, Rockmart PD, Ringgold PD, Tunnel Hill PD, and Varnell PD.

The Basic Law Enforcement Academy at GNTC provided a presentation during the regional meeting to discuss how their graduates could help facilitate the needs of the region.

GNTC Police have also entered into mutual aid agreements with surrounding counties and municipalities. Under these agreements, college police officers can operate off campus when requested by other agencies to assist them.Authorities on the democratic island of Taiwan have begun demolishing a shrine to the Chinese Communist Party on the site of a former Buddhist temple, sending in hundreds of police and security guards to "maintain order" at the site.



The Changhua county government and police dispatched 14 heavy bulldozers to raze the temple, much of which was illegally built on land zoned for agricultural use, local media reported.



Temple owner Wei Ming-jen was arrested for obstructing police after he tried to resist the demolition, throwing a punch at a county official who led workers to cut off power and water to last of the buildings.



"I would like to say to everyone today that the Chinese people have been hoodwinked for too long, and the Chinese people on Taiwan have been lied to for too long," Wei said on Wednesday.



"Today, President Tsai Ing-wen has the gall to spit on the Chinese people," he said. "Well, the day will come when we spit back."



The demolition will likely take seven days to complete and cost the taxpayers some U.S.$16.31 million,.deputy county magistrate Lin Ming-yu told reporters,



"We have had [Wei] under surveillance since the early hours of this morning," Lin said. "It has been a week since we formally notified them in writing [of the demolition work]."



"We basically didn't meet with any resistance," he said.



Dispute with nuns



The illegal structures were part of a slated expansion project at the 100-year-old temple overseen by retired soldier Wei, who allegedly evicted nuns from the premises after using fraudulent means to get them into unrepayable debt, according to Taiwan media.



The legal dispute between Wei and the nuns was ongoing on Wednesday.



"The county had previously pledged not to tear down the illegal structures until after the legal dispute between the nuns and Wei was settled, but that changed when the temple was featured in a New York Times report published on Sept. 20," the news website Focus Taiwan reported.



A National Security Bureau official has previously told reporters that Wei's "Patriotic Education Base of Socialist National Thought in Taiwan Province of the People's Republic of China," represented a national security threat to the island, which has never been ruled by the Chinese Communist Party.



Wei has previously claimed that Beijing supports his activities, which included blaring the Chinese national anthem across the valley during daily ceremonies at the temple to raise the flag of the People's Republic of China.



Portraits of late supreme Chinese leader Mao Zedong and Premier Zhou Enlai replaced Buddhist art on the walls, while Wei had announced his determination to "speed up the reunification" of Taiwan with the People's Republic of China.



The demolition comes amid public concerns that Wei may be an agent of the Chinese state, or at least supported by Beijing's United Front Work Department, and amid criticism of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) for not doing enough to prevent the temple from taking shape in the first place.



Local councilors said Beijing's People's Liberation Army (PLA) currently has more than 800 missiles targeting Taiwan, making it a hostile foreign power.



Plans for possible invasion



China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) is gradually preparing for a possible invasion of Taiwan, according to a military analysis published by the Pentagon in Washington earlier this year.



Armed forces under the Chinese Communist Party "continued to develop and deploy increasingly advanced military capabilities intended to coerce Taiwan, signal Chinese resolve, and gradually improve capabilities for an invasion," the U.S. Department of Defense said in an annual report on China's military capabilities.



Taiwan was ruled as a Japanese colony in the 50 years prior to the end of World War II, but was handed back to the Republic of China under the nationalist Kuomintang government as part of Tokyo's post-war reparation deal.



When the regime fled to Taiwan in 1947 after losing a civil war to Mao Zedong's communist troops, the Republic of China government ceased to control most of China, though it continues to be the official name of the Taiwan government.



The island began a transition to democracy following the death of Chiang's son, President Chiang Ching-kuo, in January 1988, starting with direct elections to the legislature in the early 1990s and culminating in the first direct election of a president, Lee Teng-hui, in 1996.



Recent opinion polls indicate that there is broad political support for self-rule in Taiwan, where the majority of voters identify as Taiwanese rather than Chinese.



But Beijing regards the island as part of China, and has threatened to invade if Taiwan seeks formal independence. Beijing has succeeded in isolating Taiwan diplomatically by insisting that its diplomatic partners break off ties with Taipei under the "One China" policy.



Reported by Chung Kuang-cheng for RFA's Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.The ruling Chinese Communist Party is pushing ahead with an ever-widening ban on religious activity among government employees, including schoolteachers and medical personnel, RFA has learned.



Teachers working in high schools in some parts of the eastern province of Zhejiang are being asked to sign a letter pledging to hold no religious beliefs, Protestant Christians said.



The move is linked to a recent visit to Wenzhou city, whose numerous Christian churches have earned it the nickname "China's Jerusalem," by investigators from central government in Beijing, a Zhejiang-based Christian said.



"[Authorities in Wenzhou's] Ouhai district put out a short video that was mentioned when the schools were holding their meetings," the Christian said. "It was saying that teachers mustn't hold any religious beliefs, and particularly that they mustn't proselytize in schools."



"Now all the schools are requiring teachers not to follow any religion, because there is an investigation team from the central government in Zhejiang from mid-September to around Oct. 10," he said.



"They will probably be carrying out incognito visits to schools to see if this is happening, so all the schools are holding meetings [about it]," he added.



Photos posted to social media of a "Teachers Commitment Letter" issued to teachers at a school in Yueqing requires them to "adhere to the correct political direction, promote atheism, firmly establish a Marxist religious outlook, not believe in any religion, and not teach any religious knowledge to students."



If the signatory is found in violation of these rules, they are "willing to accept punishment," the letter says.



Christian believers say the crackdown on religious belief among teachers comes alongside increasingly probing questions asked of students, who are being issued forms to fill in with personal details.



Students who tick the box owning up to religious beliefs, as opposed to "no religious beliefs," will be called in for a "chat," a Christian church member from Rui'an district of Wenzhou told RFA.



"The students can no longer tick the box that says they hold religious beliefs; they're not allowed to be Christians," the church member said. "If you tick the box saying you do have a religion, you will have to be interviewed by the school."



Healthcare professionals



Similar "letters of commitment" are being handed out to healthcare professionals in Yueqing, local residents said.



Medical staff at the Yueqing Maternal and Child Health Hospital were recently issued with a letter requiring them to pledge not to follow any religion or participate in religious activities, according to a copy seen by RFA.



"Medical staff must discover, stop, and report violations of laws and discipline with regard to religion to police or administrative departments in a timely manner, including their family members, children, relatives, friends and neighbors," the letter says.



Any staff organizing or participating in religious activities in the hospital may be fired if the circumstances are judged to be "serious," the letter says.



Staff are also banned from wearing any clothing linked to any form of religious belief, and may subjected to "education." Further offenses will be penalized by dismissal, it says.



A second pledge letter posted to social media requires medical staff to "pledge to strictly conduct themselves in accordance with the standards set out in the party charter, strengthen their ideals and beliefs, enhance party spirit and strengthen party discipline."



An official who answered the phone at the Yueqing government's health department declined to comment when contacted by RFA on Wednesday.



"Sorry, we can't give you an interview because we have no way to verify your identity," the official said.



'Veil torn aside'



A Protestant pastor in Hangzhou city who asked to remain anonymous said the banning of religious beliefs is continuing across schools and medical facilities in Zhejiang.



"Yes, this is actually happening," the pastor said. "And now [the authorities] are being very obvious about it, whereas before they tried to hide what they were doing."



"The veil has been completely torn aside now, and the [anti-religion movement] is spreading through schools and hospitals, and anywhere that is under [government] control," he said. "There is less and less room for religion to spread now."



Similar moves are afoot in the eastern province of Jiangxi, a Protestant church member told RFA.



"Hospitals in Xinyu now have banners and notices up [about this], while teachers in schools are banned from following religion," the church member said.



Health authorities in Jiangxi's Wanzai county issued an "emergency notice" all medical and healthcare facilities calling on them to set up a mechanism "to prevent religious beliefs among medical personnel," and another to punish offenders.



Hospitals were ordered to report back on their progress by Sept. 3, the notice said.



Schools in Zhejiang, Jiangxi, and Henan have already asked students to register any religious beliefs, as well as carrying out a census of churches, their sources of funding and possible links to overseas organizations.



Reported by Yang Fan and Qiao Long for RFA's Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.Yangon regions attorney general appeared in High Court in the commercial city on Tuesday along with five other civil servants to face charges of taking bribes totaling tens of thousands of dollars in exchange for dropping a murder case.

Authorities arrested Han Htoo and the five others earlier this month on suspicion that they accepted bribes to dismiss a case against three men who allegedly beat to death Facebook comedian Aung Yell Htwe on New Years Eve, local media reported.

The others are Yangon Eastern District Court Judge Aung Kyi, Yangon Region law officer Thein Zaw, Yangon Eastern District law officer Ko Ko Lay, Yangon Eastern District deputy law officer Thit Thit Khin, and police Lieutenant Chit Ko Ko, reports said.

The three suspected killers were allowed to walk free on July 25, sparking public outrage and a request from Myanmar President Win Myint who asked the Union Attorney General and the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) to investigate, the online journal Frontier Myanmar reported.

The ACC filed a case on Sept. 13 against Han Htoo under Article 55 of the Anti-Corruption Law and against the five others under Article 56 of the same law, said prominent Myanmar legal activist and human rights lawyer Robert San Aung, who was present at the High Court hearing on Tuesday.

The ACC has accused them all of accepting bribes totaling 72 million kyats (U.S. $44,400) in cash and in kind, including bottles of scotch whiskey, with Han Htoo reportedly receiving 15 million kyats ($9,250), and Aung Kyi accepting the largest sum of 33 million kyats ($20,350), according to local media reports.

Han Htoo, who was dismissed from his post following his arrest, was sent to Insein prison along with the others on Tuesday.

Because today is the first day of prosecution, we will be evaluating the case and holding hearings on Oct. 4 and Oct. 5, Robert San Aung told RFAs Myanmar Service.

The cases will be the first high-profile corruption proceedings to go to trial under the civilian-led National League for Democracy government since it came to power in 2016.

If found guilty, Han Htoo and the others will face sentences of 10-15 years in prison, Robert San Aung said.

On Sept. 24, the Yangon High Court ordered that the case against the alleged murderers be reopened in Yangons Eastern District Court, Frontier Myanmar reported.

Earlier this year, the ACC investigated allegations against Kyaw Win, former minister for planning and finance, but the charges were dropped due to a lack of evidence, the journal said.

The Anti-Corruption Law, which took effect in 2013 under the previous military-backed government led by the now-opposition Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), was amended in 2014, 2016, 2017, and June 2018.

The most significant change under the last set of amendments allows the 15-member ACC to launch investigations of civil servants on its own, instead of opening probes only when it receives formal complaints citing allegations of corruption with strong supporting evidence.

Reported by Wai Mar Tun for RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.A view of the Potala Palace, the former residence of the Dalai Lama which is now a museum and UNESCO World Heritage Site, in Lhasa, capital of western China's Tibet Autonomous Region, in a file photo.

The United States House of Representatives on Tuesday passed a bill that will deny U.S. entry to Chinese officials who prohibit American citizens from entering western Chinas Tibet Autonomous Region, following heavy lobbying by Tibetan-Americans and Tibet supporters for members of Congress to pass it.

The bipartisan Reciprocal Access to Tibet Act aims to open up the isolated and repressed region to U.S. diplomats, NGO workers, journalists reporting on human rights abuses, and others whom Chinese authorities prevent from traveling freely.

Today is a great day for human rights, said Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), co-chair of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission in Congress, who introduced the legislation. If China wants its citizens and officials to continue to travel freely in the U.S., then Americans  including Tibetan Americans  must be able to travel freely in China, including Tibet, beginning now.

A formerly independent nation, Tibet was taken over by and incorporated into China nearly 70 years ago when military forces drove the Dalai Lama, Tibetan Buddhisms spiritual leader, and 80,000 of his followers into exile in India. Chinese authorities maintain a tight grip on the region, restricting Tibetans political activities and peaceful expression of ethnic and religious identities, and subjecting Tibetans to persecution, torture, imprisonment, and extrajudicial killings.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) said the bill is important as a means of supporting Tibetans and for addressing Chinas hostility toward the U.S.

I have been increasingly worried about the impact of Chinas intimidation tactics on U.S. policy toward Tibet, but with this bill, we are sending a clear message that we will not let Beijings immoral, unjust, and destabilizing treatment of the Tibetan people go unaddressed, she said in a statement. The United States must make Tibet a priority in our relations with Beijing, and I am very pleased we are moving in that direction with this important bill.

In remarks to Congress on Wednesday, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) expressed her support for the act.

[W]e're very proud of that; that takes an important step forward to advance the future of freedom, dignity and prosperity for the Tibetan people, she said.

Americans can only travel to the region under monitoring by Chinese authorities, while Chinese citizens are free to travel anywhere in the U.S., noted the Washington,D.C.-based International Campaign for Tibet in a statement issued Thursday.

The approval of the Reciprocal Access to Tibet Act by the House is an indication of Congress continuing concerns about Chinas treatment of the Tibetan people, said Matteo Mecacci, the organizations president.

It is a strong statement by the United States that puts pressure on the Chinese government to open up Tibet to the outside world and shows that their propaganda is hollow, he said.

Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), cosponsor of the Senate version of the bill, tweeted on Wednesday that he and Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) are working hard to get the bill on the desk of President Donald Trump before the end of the year.Vietnamese defendants charged with disrupting public order by participating in a violent protest in June against a proposed law on special economic zones stand during an outdoor trial in southeastern Vietnam's Binh Thuan province, Sept. 26, 2018.

Vietnamese authorities jailed 15 more protesters from southeastern Vietnams Binh Thuan province on Wednesday on charges of disrupting public order for participating in a violent demonstration in June against a proposed law concerning special economic zones.

The defendants, who ranged in age from 18 to 33, were handed prison terms of two to four and a half years each during a one-day trial, state media reported. Their indictment said they had attacked riot police with bricks, sticks, and Molotov cocktails, destroyed government vehicles, and caused traffic jams.

During the protest, police used water cannons and tear gas to disperse the crowd, some of whom burned a dozen vehicles and damaged property at several government buildings.

Nguyen Cu, father of 19-year-old protester Nguyen Van Thuan who was sentenced to three and a half years in prison, said his son turned himself in to police and admitted to the court that he had hurled three or four rocks at officers.

He also told RFAs Vietnamese Service that he could not afford a lawyer for his son because his family is poor.

They [authorities] let us attend the trial, he said. The police previously came to my house and told me not to hire a lawyer because it would be a waste.

Nguyen Cu added that none of the other defendants had attorneys.

In July, the Binh Thuan court sentenced six other protesters to up to two and a half years in prison on the same charges after finding them guilty of throwing rocks, bricks, and Molotov cocktails at riot police.

The protest was one of several held in cities and provinces around the country in early June to express public opposition to the proposed law that would grant 99-year leases for the economic zones to foreign investors.

Many feared that the leases would be snapped up by investors from neighboring China, with which Vietnam has had tense bilateral relations in recent years, in part due to territorial disputes in the South China Sea.

Dozens of others who participated in demonstrations in other cities and provinces have already been sentenced or are awaiting sentencing.

Vietnamese authorities beat and arrested demonstrators who took part in what began as a peaceful protest in the southern commercial hub of Ho Chi Minh City, including an American citizen of Vietnamese descent who later released and deported.

Thousands of others in central Ha Tinh province, southern Binh Duong province, and the capital Hanoi demonstrated in opposition to the economic zone draft law.

Some of the demonstrations also focused on a recently-passed cybersecurity law that protesters said would limit free speech in one-party communist Vietnam, where dissent is rarely tolerated and public unrest is quickly suppressed.

Following the protests, the government postponed the passage of the bill until more research on it could be conducted.

Reported by RFAs Vietnamese Service. Translated by Viet Ha. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.This week, The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga will play host to theatre artist Kate Robards for a 3-day artist residency.

Ms. Robards, an award-winning playwright and performer, will present several free public programs as part of the residency, including a performance Wednesday evening and a talk on Thursday about how artists promote themselves.

Theres an old adage of write what you know - which Ms. Robards follows to a T. Her childhood experiences growing up in Orange, Tx. are a central element of her autobiographical play Aint that Rich, which explores how growing up poor profoundly impacts how people relate to, manage and spend moneyincluding on health care. Its not just an academic question  the different attitudes towards money that we develop as children can have a profound impact on family, relationships and life experiences in the rest of our lives.



Aint that Rich has been staged across the United States and Canada, including a bestselling 6-week engagement at The Marsh in San Francisco and critically praised runs in Montreal and Hawaii. Mixing humor with incisive explorations of deep life issues, Ms. Robards was praised by Montreal Theatre Hub as A true gem who has audiences chuckling up one moment and tearing up the next.

Chattanoogans will be able to see the play for free at Wednesday at UTCs University Center Auditorium, 7:30-8:30 p.m., with Q&A to follow.



During her residency, Ms. Robards will also talk with students about the strategies, challenges and rewards of working as a writer and performing artist. A talk (also free and open to the public) will be given on Thursday at 11 a.m. in the UTC Library, Room 131, titled, "How to Get Reviewed by The Washington Post: Self-Promotion in the Creative Economy."





For many, it didn't come as a big surprise when Pakistani authorities went after Nawaz Sharif following the thrice-ousted prime minister's suggestion in an interview that militants active on the country's soil had been allowed to cross into a neighboring rival state to carry out a major terror attack.

But shock ensued after an arrest warrant was issued this week for the messenger -- Cyril Almeida, the journalist who conducted the wide-ranging interview published by the Dawn daily in May.

Rights groups, independent media, and opposition politicians in Pakistan reacted critically to news that the Lahore High Court had on September 24 issued the order, without the possibility of bail, in relation to Sharif's ongoing treason case. Almeida was barred from leaving the country, and the authorities were ordered to bring the popular columnist before judges on October 8 for Sharif's next hearing.

The underlying suggestion is that Almeida is being targeted for simply doing his job at a time when Pakistan's free press is coming under unprecedented pressure from the military -- an institution that has an oversized role in domestic and foreign affairs and which many see as the intended target of Sharif's comments.

Almeida has not yet been charged with a crime and it is unclear if he has been arrested and is being held as he awaits his appearance in court. The formal court hearing on October 8 will determine what charges, if any, might be brought against the reporter.

'Parallel Governments'

Sharif faces treason charges for allegedly attempting to defame Pakistan's state institutions in his headline-grabbing interview with Almeida. Prosecutors see Almeida as a facilitator to Sharif's alleged treason.

Sharif told Almeida during the exclusive interview that Pakistan had "two or three parallel governments," a reference to the army's alleged attempts to control Pakistan's political system, and that "there can only be one government: the constitutional one."

Sharif was also seen as insinuating that the military had backed the militants who carried out a series of deadly attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai in 2008. The Pakistani military has long been accused of supporting militant groups fighting in India and Afghanistan.

"Militant organizations are active," Sharif said. "Call them nonstate actors, should we allow them to cross the border and kill 150 people in Mumbai?" he added, referring to the November 2008 attacks in which at least 160 people were killed by 10 gunmen over the course of three days. The Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e Taiba was accused of being behind the attacks.

Only days after Almeida's interview was published, authorities disrupted the distribution of Dawn -- Pakistan's oldest newspaper -- across most of the country.

Sharif was dismissed from office by the Supreme Court in July 2017 for allegedly concealing assets abroad and other corruption allegations. He denies any wrongdoing. Allies of the three-time prime minister, who was toppled in a military coup in 1999 and lost his premiership in 1993 when the National Assembly was dissolved, called the proceedings a political vendetta and suggested the army might be behind it.

'Climate Of Fear'

Rights groups and journalists in Pakistan have denounced the court order for the arrest of Almeida, saying it was an attempt to stifle the free press.

"This step has added another sword to the many already hanging over the heads of journalists in Pakistan," Asma Shirazi, a Pakistani journalist and political commentator who hosts a primetime current-affairs show on Aaj News, told RFE/RL.

"First it was the [military] establishment, then banned [militant] outfits, and now the courts," Shirazi added. "This warrant for Cyril Almeida will further increase the climate of fear for journalists and the already existing self-censorship in Pakistan."

Iqbal Khattak, the Reporters Without Borders representative in Pakistan, told RFE/RL that the arrest warrant for Almeida risked "criminalizing journalism."

"Writing a report, story, or an interview is the responsibility of a journalist," he said. "How can one charge a journalist for an interview? This will further cement self-censorship in Pakistan. Who else will dare to speak out or report the truth without any fear when a gigantic media organization like Dawn can face such consequences?"

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), an independent rights organization in Islamabad, said Almeida was "being hounded for nothing more than doing his job -- speaking on the record to a political figure and reporting the facts."

The HRCP said placing Almeida on the Exit Control List and issuing a warrant against him was "excessive."

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), said he was dismayed by the court order. "This adds on to the perception that media is under siege in Pakistan. Mr. Almeida was doing his job -- nothing less, nothing more," he said in a statement.

#IStandWithCyril was trending on Twitter on September 25-26 with many colleagues and politicians backing the reporter.

Banned From Leaving

The court order for his arrest is not Almeida's first brush with the authorities.

Almeida was barred from leaving the country in 2016 shortly after he wrote an article about a rift between the government and the military. He left for New York when the government order was lifted weeks later.

Almeida recently returned to Pakistan. The journalist tweeted on September 24 that a warrant for his arrest had been issued and his name was placed on a list of individuals who cannot fly out of the country.

The Lahore High Court said it had taken the measure because Almeida had twice failed to appear in court in relation to Sharif's case, but Dawn said in a statement that the two earlier notices were never delivered.

Stifling Free Press

Almeida's arrest warrant comes as the Pakistani media bear the brunt of unprecedented pressure.

Veteran reporters have been leaving after being threatened, the country's most popular TV station has been forced off the air, and leading columnists have complained that stories that are critical of the army are being rejected by outlets under pressure from the military.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said in a report released in September that the climate for press freedom in Pakistan was deteriorating as the powerful army "quietly, but effectively" restricts reporting through "intimidation" and other means.

The report said journalists who push back or are overly critical of the authorities were attacked, threatened, or arrested. The CPJ also said the Pakistani military, intelligence, or military-affiliated political groups were suspected in the killings of 22 reporters over the past decade.Moldovan President Igor Dodon says he will host his Turkish counterpart in Chisinau in October, weeks after Moldova expelled seven citizens of Turkey, in a move criticized by human rights organizations.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will make the official visit from October 17-18 for the opening of the presidential palace in the Moldovan capital, which was renovated with funds from Ankara, Dodon wrote on Facebook on September 26.

Erdogan is also set to travel to the autonomous Gagauzia region, which is populated mainly by ethnic Turkish Gagauz who speak Russian and have adopted Russian Orthodox Christianity.

Dodon said the Turkish presidents trip will consolidate bilateral relations "in areas of common interest."

The date of Erdogans visit was announced less than three weeks after seven Turkish teachers were detained in Chisinau in a joint operation with the Turkish intelligence service, and were expelled from Moldova on September 6.

Moldova's state security service, the SIS, said the seven teachers posed a "risk to national security," without providing details.

They were staff members of a Turkish high school in Chisinaus Durlesti neighborhood that is linked to U.S.-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara blames for a failed coup in 2016.

Gulen, who lives in the United States, rejects the claim.

Their expulsion sparked harsh criticism among Moldovan and international human rights organizations, with Amnesty International saying authorities "didnt just violate these individuals' rights once by deporting them -- they put them on a fast-track to further human rights violations such as an unfair trial."

The seven Turkish nationals, whose whereabouts are unknown, had requested asylum in Moldova, claiming they would face persecution in their homeland, according to the London-based human rights watchdog.

With reporting by AP and Balkan InsightBRUSSELS -- European Union ambassadors have agreed a new mechanism to sanction people anywhere in the world blamed for using chemical weapons, according to EU sources.

The sources in the European Council told RFE/RL that envoys from the EU's 28 member states approved the regime in Brussels on September 26.

However, they said that the bloc was still far away from listing specific individuals under the regime, which is expected to be endorsed by EU foreign ministers when they meet in Luxembourg on October 15.

The regime will need the support of all EU governments for names to be added, according to a preparatory paper seen by the Reuters news agency.

The move follows repeated use of chemical weapons in Syria and the poisoning of a Russian double agent and his daughter in Britain in March.

The attack in the English town of Salisbury left Sergei and Yulia Skripal in critical condition, but both have recovered after weeks in the hospital.

British authorities charged two Russian men with carrying out the poisoning with a military-grade nerve agent.

The two suspects denied they were agents of the military intelligence service widely known as the GRU.

Russia also denied involvement, and a diplomatic confrontation over the case has led to sanctions and the expulsion of more than 150 Russian diplomats from two dozen Western countries.

With reporting by ReutersAction-movie actor Steven Seagal has an answer to the Kremlin's political problems in the Primorye region: himself.

Seagal, who has personal ties with President Vladimir Putin and was given Russian citizenship in 2016, told an audience in Vladivostok that he "would like" to be Primorye's governor, the Interfax news agency reported on September 26.

His remarks came amid controversy over the gubernatorial election in Primorye, where the results of a September 16 runoff were thrown out after the Communist Party cried foul when the Kremlin favorite overtook its candidate in the final stages of the vote count.

The head of the Central Election Commission said the runoff was marred by "serious violations," including machinations with the ballot count, and a new vote is to be held in December.

The runoff was one of three this month that failed to produce a win for United Russia, the ruling party that is loyal to Putin.

A scheduled runoff in a fourth region was postponed after the United Russia candidate withdrew at the last minute, citing health concerns.

Speaking at a film festival in Vladivostok, the regional capital, Seagal said he had ancestors from the area.

"I want to study Primorsky Krai, to see more. And become your governor," Interfax quoted him as saying.

The report did not indicate whether Seagal, who received an ovation after the remark, may have been joking.

Seagal, 66, starred in Hollywood action movies such as Above The Law (1988), Hard To Kill (1990), and Under Siege (1992).

His films were popular in the Soviet Union and then in Russia and other ex-Soviet republics.

One of several Western actors and athletes who have been granted Russian citizenship under Putin, he was appointed by the Foreign Ministry as a special envoy for cultural ties with the United States in August.

In Vladivostok, Seagal noted that the appointment was recent and said he is "still in the stage of talks with the Foreign Ministry," Interfax reported.

"While I have not held the post for long, I continue to do what I have always done: strengthen links between the countries," it quoted him as saying.

He was quoted as saying he does "the same thing for Japan -- I discuss issues in diplomatic relations."

With reporting by InterfaxRussian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has criticized Norway for arresting a Russian parliamentary employee last week, calling the espionage accusations against the man "propaganda."



"You have been brainwashed with propaganda. We want to understand what happened to our citizen," Lavrov said on September 25 while answering a Norwegian reporter's question on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York.



"Do you realize he was invited by the Norwegian parliament? Norwegian hospitality breaks all records," he added sarcastically.

Mikhail Bochkaryov was detained on September 21 at Gardermoen airport outside the Norwegian capital, Oslo, on suspicion of illegal intelligence activities.



Bochkaryov is an information technology adviser to the Russian parliament, and his behavior at a conference on strengthening cooperation between Europe's parliamentary administrations prompted officials to contact the intelligence service, according to Norwegian media.



Calling the case an example of "spy mania around Russia," the Russian Foreign Ministry on September 24 summoned Norway's ambassador to Moscow, Rune Resaland, to demand the immediate lifting of the absurd charges against Bochkaryov and his release.



The ministry said Bochkaryov is an employee of the upper house of Russias parliament, the Federation Council, and traveled to Norway at the invitation of the European Center for Parliamentary Research and Documentation to attend an international seminar.

Andrei Klimov, the deputy head of the Federation Councils Foreign Affairs Committee, on September 25 suggested that Norways authorities had arrested Bochkaryov with the intention of swapping him with Norwegian citizen Frode Berg, who is facing espionage charges in Russia.



"It actually closely resembles kidnapping," Klimov said. "In reality, this practice may have a bad outcome. If someone's agent failed, it doesn't mean you should grab civilians for a future swap."

Bergs lawyer, Ilya Novikov, told the TASS news agency that he does not rule out such a swap, but added, "It is too early to speak about it because no charges have been brought against the Russian, there has been no trial yet."

Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg has said the case was not political and was "a police matter that is being investigated."



Bochkaryov will be held in custody for two weeks due to the risk of destruction of evidence, Norwegian media reported.

With reporting by AP, TASS, and InterfaxMacedonia is holding a referendum on September 30 that has provoked passionate protests in the country, as well as in neighboring Greece. The referendum asks whether the country's name should be changed to North Macedonia, opening the path to NATO membership for the Balkan country.The URL has been copied to your clipboard

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The Communist Party rallied supporters outside the State Duma building in Moscow, as the lower house of the Russian parliament voted on a controversial plan to raise the retirement age.A German hospital says it has discharged Russian dissident activist Pyotr Verzilov after he made significant progress in his recovery from suspected poisoning.

The Charite hospital in Berlin said that Verzilov was discharged on September 26. He arrived in the German capital in mid-September after initial treatment in Moscow.

"The patient's health has considerably improved," the hospital said in a statement, adding the "absorption" of a poison was the "most plausible explanation" for Verzilov's ill-health.

Verzilov, 30, fell ill in Moscow on September 11 with symptoms that his friends say included diminished eyesight and an inability to speak or move.

After his initial treatment in the Russian capital, he was transferred to the Charite hospital.

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, a member of the punk art collective Pussy Riot and Verzilov's ex-wife, said in an interview with Current Time TV that he and those close to him were under around-the-clock protection by German police while he received treatment for the suspected poisoning.

Tolokonnikova told Current Time TV, the Russian-language network run by RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA, that police in Berlin implemented the security measures after a friend of the activist reported being followed by unidentified men.

"They sleep in the same building as police, and if they go somewhere, then it's only in a police minivan," Tolokonnikova told Current Time TV, the Russian-language network run by RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA, on September 25.

Tolokonnikova, who returned to Moscow on September 23 after visiting Verzilov at the Berlin hospital, said the German police protection came after Verzilov's friend, Hunter Heaney, noticed unidentified men following him in Berlin on two separate occasions.



Those incidents on September 22 and 23, respectively, came after reports by Kremlin-friendly Russian media outlets featuring images of Tolokonnikova that appear to have been taken surreptitiously while she was shopping for clothes in Berlin.

The reports by the REN-TV network downplayed Verzilovs illness and suggested Tolokonnikova was more interested in shopping that in Verzilovs treatment.



"We dont know who it was. I didn't see anyone. There is speculation that it could have been officers of Russian security services or people affiliated with them who then leaked the photographs of us to the REN-TV network, Tolokonnikova said, adding that she was buying underwear for Verzilov at the time the images were taken.



Heaney, a friend of Verzilov who has visited the activist in the hospital, told RFE/RL that he noticed two men watching the front door of his apartment in central Berlin on September 22.



The following day, he saw one of those men in the passenger seat of a red compact car "that pulled out on a deserted street I had just walked down and doubled back...to come in my direction and sped off as I looked closely in the windows," Heaney said in an e-mail.



Heaney, who said he provided information about the car to police, confirmed that he and others close to Verzilov are now under constant police protection.



A spokesman for Berlin police told Reuters that they were in touch with Verzilov and those with him but declined to comment on possible security measures "in detail."



'Like Being In A Black Hole'



Verzilov on September 25 posted his first lengthy tweet since he fell ill, writing: "I've been relatively conscious now only for the past three days, and before that it was like being in a black hole."



"I am spending my days in the friendly company of wonderful poisons. But not polonium-210 or Novichok, but something new and surprising," he added.





Novichok is the Soviet-developed toxin that British authorities say Russian operatives deployed in the March poisoning of Russian former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in southern England. Radioactive polonium-210 caused the 2006 death of former Russian security agent Aleksandr Litvinenko in London.



Another doctor at the Charite hospital, Karl Max Einhaeupl, said last week that there was so far no other explanation for Verzilov's condition other than poisoning and that there was no evidence that the activist was suffering from a long-term illness.



He added that the symptoms indicate a disruption of the part of Verzilov's nervous system that regulates the internal organs, but that the substance responsible for the poisoning hasnt been yet determined.



Tolokonnikova said it remains unclear precisely how or when Verzilov might have been poisoned and that his associates did not notice anything suspicious before he fell ill.



That tells us that most likely this operation was not carried out by idiots, but rather with relative sophistication, she told Current Time.

Tolokonnikova said she believes Verzilovs alleged poisoning may be linked to an investigation he was working on into the the killing of three Russian journalists in the Central African Republic (C.A.R.) in July.



Russian journalists Orkhan Dzhemal, Aleksandr Rastorguyev, and Kirill Radchenko were killed on July 30 in the C.A.R., where they were working on a documentary about the possible activities there of a shadowy Russian paramilitary group with alleged Kremlin ties.



Tolokonnikova said that the day before he fell ill, Verzilov, publisher of the Russian news outlet Mediazona, received a report from an associate in the C.A.R. investigating the killings.



"As far as I know, [Verzilov] is interested in pursuing this investigation further, because the current report is far from finished," she said.

With reporting by Current Time TV, Carl Schreck, and ReutersSeveral hundred mothers and pregnant women have staged a protest in Serbia's capital, Belgrade, against cuts in state financial support for families with children.

The women, accompanied by husbands and children, including babies, marched through central Belgrade to the Serbian government headquarters, blowing whistles and singing children's songs.

The protest was organized by Mothers Are The Law, an informal group organized on social media.

Three months ago, Serbia's lawmakers adopted controversial changes to the law on financial support for families with children, which provide for the reduction of financial allowances for young and future mothers.

According to the changes, the monthly allowance for young mothers in Serbia was reduced to 1,000 dinars (less than 10 euros).

The measure comes despite the government having set a goal of increasing natality rates back in 2016.Police in Russia's Ingushetia region have detained several protesters demonstrating against what they say is the unfair handover of parts of Ingushetia to neighboring Chechnya under a controversial deal establishing the border between the two North Caucasus republics.

Truncheon-wielding police began detaining demonstrators after a crowd of more than 100 gathered on the outskirts of the regional capital, Magas, ahead of the signing of the border deal on September 26, eyewitnesses said.

The protest came amid growing tension over preparations for an agreement aimed to set out a firm border between the two regions, which were part of a single republic in the Soviet era but were split in two following the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991.

Law enforcement authorities established tight security and restricted access to Magas, where Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov and the heads of other nearby regions were meeting along with President Vladimir Putin's representative in the North Caucasus, Aleksandr Matovnikov.

Residents of Magas and other parts of Ingushetia said there were severe outages in cellular-phone service that they suspected were part of an effort by the state to suppress unsanctioned protests.

The Interior Ministry branch in Ingushetia said that it was conducting "a complex of measures aimed at maintaining public order and proving public safety" across the small republic.

It warned that people attempting to hold public gatherings without permission from the authorities would be prevented from doing so, but did not say how many people had been detained.

Russian news agencies later reported that Kadyrov and the head of Ingushetia, Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, signed a border agreement that says it includes what state-run TASS called an "equal exchange of uninhabited land" in the Nadterechny district of Ingushetia and the Malgobek district of Chechnya.

Ingush opponents of the deal, including the protesters, have contended that Ingush land is being unjustly handed over to Chechnya, whose strongman leader Kadyrov wields powerful influence and has been accused in the past of interfering in the affairs of neighboring Ingushetia and Daghestan. Activists also claim that Chechens have been illegally building a road in a protected part of Ingushetia's Sunzha district.

Ingushetia's prime minister, Zyalimkhan Yevloyev, called for calm and said that "establishing firm and fair administrative borders" was a priority for Ingushetia despite the difficulties it entails.

In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Putin's administration was aware that "there are some internal tensions" in the region, and that Putin was being kept informed about the "unfolding events."

Chechnya is the site of two devastating post-Soviet separatist wars from 1994 to 2001 and the epicenter of an Islamist insurgency that spread across much of the North Caucasus, igniting violence in Ingushetia and other mostly Muslim republics in the region.

With reporting by TASS, Interfax, Dozhd, and MeduzaU.S. President Donald Trump goes before the United Nations Security Council on September 26 to make his case against Iran, one day after urging all nations at the UN to work with him to isolate Tehran's leaders.

But with key Iranian allies Russia and China sitting on the 15-member council, and Washington's European allies at odds with Trump over his decision to walk away from Iran's 2015 nuclear deal, the meeting may do little more than highlight the significant divisions over Iran among the world's powers.

Trump will be wielding the gavel because the United States this month holds the presidency of the Security Council, the top UN body dealing with pressing global security issues.

During his address to the General Assembly on September 25, Trump assailed Iran's leaders, accusing them of sowing "chaos, death, and destruction" throughout the Middle East and calling on world governments to join him in isolating Tehran.

Iranian President Hassan Rohani shot back in a speech hours later, denouncing what he called Washington's policy of disregarding international agreements and pursuing "might makes right" around the world. He also slammed the planned council meeting as a "preposterous and abnormal act."

The meeting will show a rift between the United States and its European allies over the Iran nuclear deal that Trump abandoned in May, claiming it would not prevent Iran from eventually developing nuclear weapons.

The United States has moved to reimpose sanctions that had been lifted under the landmark deal and has vowed to punish foreign firms that do business with Iran.

On September 24, the five remaining parties to the agreement -- Britain, China, France, Germany, and Russia -- announced that they would set up a special payment system to continue trade and business ties with Iran.

The United States initially said the council meeting chaired by Trump would focus on Iran but later broadened the agenda to include nuclear nonproliferation and weapons of mass destruction.

That opens the door to addressing allegations of chemical weapons use in Syria and Britain this year, as well as Trump's and the council's efforts to curb North Korea's efforts to develop nuclear weapons.

The usual practice is for the chair to speak last at council meetings, but in this instance Trump will be the first to address the chamber, followed by other heads of state.

French President Emmanuel Macron will address the council, as will British Prime Minister Theresa May. Russia and China will be represented by their foreign ministers, Sergei Lavrov and Wang Yi.

Iran has not requested to speak at the council meeting, diplomats said, although Rohani will hold a press conference soon after it is due to end.

It will be only the third time in UN history that a U.S. president will chair a Security Council meeting. Barack Obama presided over two meetings in 2009 and 2014.

U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said she expects Trump's appearance "to be the most watched Security Council meeting ever."

Trump is one of around 130 world leaders attending the UN General Assembly in New York, which formally began on September 25.

With reporting by AP and AFP

U.S. President Donald Trump says he will outline a two-state peace plan for the Middle East in the coming months -- in the clearest indication so far of his administration's support for such an outcome.

Trump, speaking at a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in New York, said that it was a "dream" of his to bring about a peaceful solution to the conflict.

Netanyahu's position is that any future Palestinian state should be demilitarized and recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people.

"I would say over the next two to three to four months," Trump said, referring to the prospective time frame for presenting the peace plan.

The Trump administration has in the past said it would support a two-state solution if both sides agreed to it.

"I like a two-state solution. That's what I think works best.... That's my feeling," Trump said.

But a senior Palestinian official rejected Trump's comments, saying his White House's policies were ruining hopes of peace.

"Their words go against their actions and their action is absolutely clear [and] is destroying the possibility of the two-state solution," said Husam Zomlot, head of the recently closed Palestinian mission in Washington.

Based on reporting by Reuters, AFP, and dpaThe URL has been copied to your clipboard

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U.S. President Donald Trump told the UN Security Council Russia and Iran enabled "butchery" by the Syrian regime, but also thanked them for "slowing down" a new offensive in Syria's Idlib Province.U.S. authorities have unsealed an indictment against a Turkish-American businessman charged with lying to congressional investigators regarding a trip by U.S. lawmakers to Azerbaijan five years ago.

The indictment, which was handed down in April, was released on September 24, about three weeks after the businessman, Kemal Oksuz, was arrested in Armenia on a U.S. warrant.

Oksuz, a Houston-based businessman who used to run two organizations -- Turquoise Council of Americans and Eurasians and the Assembly of the Friends of Azerbaijan -- was charged by the grand jury with lying on congressional disclosure forms regarding the 2013 all-expenses-paid visit to Azerbaijan made by 10 members and 32 staffers of Congress.

According to the five-count indictment, the trip was funded with the help by Azerbaijan's state-run SOCAR oil company, which provided $750,000 toward the effort.

Armenian police announced last month that Oksuz had been detained in the country, and they later released a video of his police interrogation. In the video, Oksuz said that SOCAR covered the travel expenses of the U.S. officials and gave them expensive gifts in 2013.

"That may have been corruption, I don't know," he said.

It was not immediately clear when Oksuz fled to Armenia, or why; Armenia has long had strained with both Azerbaijan and Turkey.

As of September 26, Oksuz remained in police custody in Armenia.

After U.S. news reports in 2015 raised questions about the funding of the trip, several of the U.S. lawmakers returned some of the gifts that they had received as part of the trip.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Armenian and Azerbaijani servicesA top U.S. official has met with the Ukrainian foreign minister in New York to discuss cooperative efforts against Russias malign influence, among other things, the State Department says.

A statement said the September 25 meeting between U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan and Ukraines Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly also touched upon Russias use of energy projects to extort and intimidate Ukraine and other European allies, as well as Kyivs progress in implementing political and economic reforms.

Sullivan reiterated that the United States will never recognize Russias attempted annexation of Ukraines Crimean Peninsula and reaffirmed strong U.S. support for the countrys sovereignty and territorial integrity, according to the statement.

Relations between Moscow and the West have deteriorated to a post-Cold War low over issues including Russia's seizure of Crimea in March 2014, its role in wars in Syria and eastern Ukraine, its alleged election meddling in the United States and Europe, and the poisoning of a Russian double agent and his daughter in Britain in March.

Fighting between Ukrainian government forces and Russia-backed separatists has killed more than 10,300 in eastern Ukraine since April 2014.

Moscow's support for the separatists and its illegal annexation of Crimea prompted the United States, the European Union, and others to impose sanctions on Russia.

Washington has also threatened to impose sanctions over the construction of an underwater natural gas pipeline to deliver Russian natural gas directly to Germany under the Baltic Sea, circumventing the traditional route through Ukraine.

Speaking at the UN General Assembly on September 25, U.S. President Donald Trump said that Germany "will become totally dependent on Russian energy if it does not immediately change course" on the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which aims to double the capacity of an already existing pipeline.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko was scheduled to address the assembly later in the day.U.S. President Donald Trump has taken his case against Iran before the United Nations Security Council, a day after urging all nations to isolate the Iranian government.

Trump presented his arguments on September 26 at a Security Council meeting that he chaired on the nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction -- accusing the Iranian government of exporting "violence, terrorism and turmoil."

"It illicitly procures sensitive items to advance its ballistic missile program and proliferates these missiles all across the Middle East," Trump said. "The regime is the world's leading sponsor of terror and fuels conflict across the region and far beyond. A regime with this track record must never be allowed to possess a nuclear weapon."

But his calls for other countries to join U.S. sanctions against Tehran were rejected by the other signatories of the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran -- Britain, France, Russia, China, and Germany.

Meanwhile, Iranian President Hassan Rohani told journalists on the sidelines of the UN meeting that Tehran would continue to meet its obligations under the nuclear deal as long as his country benefits.

The response from Washington's European allies also served to highlight their disagreement with Trump's decision earlier this year to unilaterally withdraw the United States from the 2015 accord, which Trump insists will not prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

Trump told the Security Council he withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal because he believes it is enabling Iran to develop nuclear weapons and carry out other "malign" activity.

He argued that in the years since the Iran nuclear deal was signed, "Iran's aggression only increased."

"This horrible, one-sided deal allowed Iran to continue its path toward a bomb and gave the regime a cash lifeline when they needed it the most," Trump said. "They were in big, big trouble. They needed cash. We gave it to them."

"The regime used new funds from the deal to support terrorism, build nuclear-capable missiles, and foment chaos," Trump said.

Trump also repeated a threat to punish any person or company that does business with Iran in violation of renewed U.S. sanctions.

That threat came just a day after the five remaining world powers that signed the nuclear deal announced they'd set up a special payment system to continue trade with Iran.

Trump said that after renewed U.S. nuclear-related sanctions against Iran come "in full force by early November," the United States will "pursue additional sanctions, tougher than ever before, to counter the entire range of Iran's malign conduct."

"Any individual or entity who fails to comply with these sanctions will face severe consequences," Trump said. "I ask all members of the Security Council to work with the United States to ensure the Iranian regime changes its behavior and never acquires a nuclear bomb."

'Crisis Of Confidence'

But French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Theresa May both disagreed with Trump's assessment on the Iran nuclear deal, insisting that it is the best way to prevent Tehran from developing nuclear weapons.

Macron and May also implicitly referred to the "America First" foreign policy that Trump enunciated on September 25 in his speech to the UN General Assembly.

Ensuring nonproliferation of nuclear weapons "requires collective leadership of the type that led to the agreement" on the Iran nuclear deal in 2015, May said.

"For many years, the scale and nature of Iran's nuclear program raised serious international concerns," May said.

The Iran nuclear deal "remains the best means of preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, and we are committed to preserving" the accord "as long as Iran continues to abide by its obligations in full."

Macron said Trump had created a "serious crisis of confidence" by unilaterally withdrawing the United States from the deal, and that UN Security Council resolutions supporting the accord need to be "respected by all members of the Security Council."

"We need to build together a long-term strategy in order to manage this crisis and it cannot just boil down to sanctions and containment," Macron said.

He also said there needed to be a "basis for new negotiations, created first by the framework" of Security Council resolutions on the nuclear deal, in order to address "the issue of the increased scope and accuracy of Iran's ballistic missiles."

Macron said that should be "part of an international strategy in order to reduce the dangers for the region and also attain the goal that we all want -- namely that Iran does not ever attain a nuclear weapon."

"Permanent members of the UN Security Council must not attack and undermine the international nonproliferation regimes and the institutions that underpin them," Macron said. "All members of the council must fulfill their responsibilities to safeguard them in support of international peace and security."

Macron said that since the nuclear deal was signed in 2015, the pathways of the signatories" had "diverged."

But Macron said he was convinced that they all "retain the same objective in mind -- namely, preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and guaranteeing strict international control on the peaceful use of their nuclear program."

May said Iran's "proliferation of missile and sophisticated military technology to groups like Hizballah in Lebanon" or to Shi'ite Huthi rebels in Yemen is "not in compliance with Security Council resolution."

"It risks a dangerous escalation, so we need to see further decisive action in this council to tackle both the transit and proliferation of these technologies and increase the costs for those responsible," May said.

Russia's 'Destabilizing Activity'

She blamed Russia for allowing that situation to continue by vetoing or otherwise blocking UN Security Council resolutions on the issue.

"It is regrettable that Russia continues to prevent the council from upholding its responsibility to stop this destabilizing activity," May said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the Security Council that Trump's decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal "poses a serious threat" to the international nuclear-nonproliferation regime.

He said Russia was actively working with the European Union, China, and Iran to preserve the Iran nuclear deal.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told the Security Council the Iran nuclear deal was a "hard-won achievement of multilateralism" that bolstered nuclear nonproliferation as well as peace and stability in the Middle East.

Wang said that "there is no international agreement that is perfect," but the Iran nuclear deal "has been endorsed unanimously by the UN Security Council" and the past three years had shown it is "a "viable agreement."

"China encourages Iran to continue to fulfill all commitments it has made," Wang said. "At the same time, the legitimate right of all countries to normal economic relations and trade with Iran should be respected."

"China calls on the relevant parties to bear in mind the big picture, think long-term, and uphold the sanctity and integrity" of the Iran nuclear deal, Wang said.The UN mission in Afghanistan has expressed strong concern over the rising numbers of civilian casualties caused by aerial operations, as two separate air strikes over the weekend appear to have killed a total of 21 civilians.

Citing preliminary findings, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) on September 26 said that 12 women and children from the same family were killed when an "aerial ordnance" destroyed their house in Maidan Wardak Province, west of Kabul.

The incident took place late on September 23 in the village of Mullah Hafez, Jaghato district, during operations conducted by pro-government forces in the area, a statement said.

Provincial council member Ahmad Jahfari told the AFP news agency that the strike targeted Taliban militants.

In a separate statement issued on September 25, UNAMA said it had received "multiple, credible allegations" that a September 22 air strike hit the house of a teacher in Kapisa Province, north of the capital, killing nine members of the same family.

Those killed included three women and four children, it said. Six other people were wounded.

UNAMA said it was unclear whether the two air strikes were carried out by Afghan or NATO forces.

Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammad Radmanish confirmed civilian casualties in Kapisa during a joint operation by Afghan and U.S. forces that involved air support and said an investigation was under way.

The U.S. military carried out an air strike in support of Afghan ground troops in Kapisa but killed "only militants," said David Butler, a spokesman for U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

Afghan security forces have struggled to counter attacks from the Taliban and other militant groups since the withdrawal of most NATO combat troops in 2014.

UNAMA said it was currently reviewing reports of civilian casualties from "a number of alleged air strikes in other parts of the country."

It also reiterated its call on all parties to the conflict to take additional measures to prevent harm to the civilian population.

About 7 percent of all civilian casualties in the Afghan conflict in the first half of 2018 were attributed to air operations, the UNAMA statement said.

The mission said it recorded a 52 percent increase in civilian casualties 149 deaths and 204 injured  from aerial attacks compared to the same period in 2017.A U.S. intelligence worker has been sentenced to prison for transferring top-secret material to a home computer that was allegedly accessed by Russian intelligence through Kaspersky software.

Nghia Hoang Pho, 68, a 10-year veteran of the National Security Agency's (NSA) elite Tailored Access Operations hacking unit, was sentenced to 66 months in prison on September 25 after pleading guilty in December to willfully retaining classified national defense information.

Authorities discovered that between 2010 and 2015, he had taken home what they called "massive troves" of top-secret data that eventually ended up in the hands of Russian intelligence.

Vietnam-born Pho put the information on his home computer, which was protected by the popular Kaspersky antivirus program.

U.S. authorities believe that Russian intelligence was able to access his computer through Kaspersky.

The leak was one of the most devastating ever for the NSA, one of the U.S. government's most important spy agencies, and significantly set back its operations against foreign targets' computers.

"As a result of his actions, Pho compromised some of our country's most closely held types of intelligence, and forced NSA to abandon important initiatives to protect itself and its operational capabilities, at great economic and operational cost," said U.S. Attorney Robert Hur.

The incident is believed to be a key reason for the U.S. government's ban last year on using Kaspersky software on government computers, warning that the company has suspected links to Russian intelligence.

Kaspersky denies any ties to the Russian government or its spies.

In order to function, the Kaspersky program needs a computer owner's blanket permission to access the machine's systems.

It then communicates the results of its antivirus scans to Kaspersky headquarters in Moscow.

The Wall Street Journal reported last year that a 2015 penetration of Pho's computer led to Russian intelligence obtaining information on how the NSA itself infiltrates foreign computer networks and protects itself from cyberattacks.

Kaspersky later confirmed the theft, saying what was stolen included essential source code for so-called Equation Group hacking software from the NSA.

With reporting by AFP and Reuters

MOSCOW -- On September 19, 17-year-old Kamilla Yarycheva was pulled out of algebra class and summoned to the school director's office.

According to a post she wrote on Facebook later that day, a man was waiting for her there in worn jeans, a tucked-in T-shirt, and a pouch attached to his belt that was "the size of a pistol."

Yarycheva writes that she immediately recognized the man as an agent of the Interior Ministry's Antiextremism Center, or Center E.

"The [Aleksei] Navalny campaign taught us well how to recognize them," she said in reference to training offered by supporters of the jailed opposition politician and barred presidential candidate.

"Don't be afraid," the presumed agent told her ominously. "I'm not going to frighten you. We'll just have a talk."

The agent presented Yarycheva with a thick folder -- "the size of both volumes of War And Peace" -- filled with screenshots from videos taken at an unsanctioned demonstration in Moscow on September 9 against the government's controversial proposal to raise retirement ages.

"On the screenshots, the faces of the ones they were searching for had been circled in red," Yarycheva wrote. "There was a photo of me. I couldn't lie. 'Yes, that's me.'"

Yarycheva's mother, Maria Starostina, tells RFE/RL the experience was terrifying for her daughter.

"Kamilla telephoned me," Starostina says. "Her teeth were chattering from fear. She told me that during the talk, the agent asked for her passport data. Kamilla didn't remember it, so she left the room to get her passport. My daughter was running around the school trying to find a teacher who would defend and support her. She didn't find one and had to return to the office."

She calls it a "horrible" ordeal for a 15-year-old. "Running around in shock like a little animal, looking for one person she could trust," Starostina says. "I burst out crying when I imagined it."

When Yarycheva refused to name anyone in the agent's photos or to answer any other questions, citing Article 51 of the Russian Constitution against self-incrimination, the agent threatened to summon her to Petrovka 38, a Moscow police station that earned a notorious reputation during the Soviet era.

"The agent also advised Kamilla to talk with another girl who had already been to Petrovka," Starostina says. "That girl -- whose parents have asked me not to give her name or details of what happened to her -- was threatened with prosecution under extremism charges and a prison term for her participation in the demonstration."

Starostina's lawyer informed the Antiextremism Center that Yarucheva would not communicate with them further without an official summons.

'I'll See You In Three Years'

These cases are among many across the country in which antiextremism police have monitored protests or other political actions and reportedly sought to intimidate students and youths who participated in them.

In Vladimir in June, three students were detained for distributing leaflets in support of Navalny.

"They took us to a police station and [began to question us]," said Yaroslav Lomov, one of the detainees, in an interview with RFE/RL at the time. "Then they took us to separate rooms. Danil and Ivan refused to incriminate themselves. I was talking with an officer who introduced himself as Igor and who suggested we address each other using the familiar pronoun 'ty.'"

They filed a complaint alleging that the Antiextremism Center agent who detained them threatened to kidnap and sexually abuse them.

"He said: 'You are just 15. We'll see each other again in three years. They'll take you into a cell and pull down your pants and turn your guts inside out,'" Lomov recalled. "The whole time he was laughing and swearing.... He wrote down my address and said someone would drop by."

'Illegal Contact'

Starostina doesn't blame Yarycheva's school for what happened to her daughter.

"The school tries to protect the students as much as it can," she says. "After the interrogation, the school psychologist told the agent that none of their students would do anything illegal and none was trying to undermine the foundations of the state. In many cities in Russia, we are hearing reports like the incident that happened to my daughter. The police have long demanded that teachers conduct 'political work' with their students. School administrations have to explain to the police why opposition-minded students are studying within their walls."

Andrei Kozlov, the director of Moscow School No. 1567 where Yarycheva studies and in whose office the interrogation took place, claimed to have no knowledge of the incident and declined RFE/RL's requests to comment on it.

"I won't discuss this topic with you," he said. "I have read a little bit of what is on the Internet and I did not see anything that violates the law."

Aleksei Glukhov, a lawyer with the Agora human rights group, disagreed. "I see a violation of the law in the fact that the director of the school created the circumstances for the unannounced, forced communication of a student with the police," he tells RFE/RL.

"The director was obligated to inform the student's parents that he had been contacted by the police. The director or a representative of the school administration should have asked Kamilla if she agreed to speak with the police, because the school is responsible for protecting the rights of its students. And the director was obligated to tell the agent of Center E that he had to officially summon the student and inform her parents. No one has the right to force a student to speak with the police or force the school to provide a venue for such conversations."

'Why Should I Leave?'

Ahead of the March presidential election, Navalny supporter Pyotr Istomin in Stavropol was repeatedly detained and interrogated. He said he was beaten by police on one occasion.

He was eventually expelled from his university on the instigation of the Antiextremism Center. In August, Istomin requested asylum in Finland.

Sixty-five-year-old former KGB officer Vladimir Putin won a fourth term in March, all but ensuring his reign atop Russian politics extends well into a third decade. His grip on society has tightened with time, in part through authorities' weeding out of critical media, legislative and other obstacles to public protest, and jailings or other persecution of dissenters.

Yarycheva tells RFE/RL she doesn't want to emigrate. "Why should I leave my country because of a bunch of bandits?" she says. "I was born here. I grew up here. I am studying Russian literature and art."

"Our country is run by a horrific system that is consuming everyone," she adds, "unless we stand up for our right to human dignity."

For Yarycheva's mother, that means, first of all, resisting what is happening in Russia's schools. "They want to turn our schools into organs of control," she tells RFE/RL. "And that is what they are doing -- while we just sit around and watch them do it."

Written by Robert Coalson based on reporting by Darina Shevchenko of RFE/RL's Russian ServiceCalcagno, a former concrete laborer and union member, has walked her own picket lines and wanted to support the hotel workers strike. But when she complained to the union about the noise, which she says amplifies as it rises, she was told to call the Sheraton because they could stop this right now if they want to. Instead, she called the Sheraton to see if they needed help.Mexican navy takes over Acapulco police force, US issues new travel alert for Guerrero

Acapulco, Guerrero  The Navy of Mexico has taken over the entire police force of Acapulco after ongoing suspicions of inside corruption.

On Tuesday, the Secretaria de Marina-Armada de Mexico moved in, arresting two Acapulco police commanders who are allegedly linked to murders. Federal forces also arrested the director of the highway police for carrying unofficial weapons.

Authorities have confirmed that so far, three police officers from the city of Acapulco have been taken into custody due to alleged connections to organized crime.

Roberto Alvarez, security spokesman for the state of Guerrero, explained that soldiers from the navy, along with federal and state police, deployed a ground and air operation around the facilities of the Municipal Preventive Police in Acapulco to disarm their agents and review the weapons and radio communication equipment.

Alvarez said that the secretary of municipal public security, Max Lorenzo Sedano, along with the rest of the agents that make up that dependency, are also subject to investigation.

The decision, implemented by the Guerrero Coordination Group, was due to the increase of the incidences of crime that has been registered in the municipality and the lack of action by the municipal police to deal with the crimes, he added.

Immediately after the take over, the US Embassy in Mexico City issued a new no-travel alert for its citizens for the state of Guerrero.Two Americans rescued off coast of Quintana Roo after boat hits reef

Mahahual, Q.R.  Two American citizens have been rescued from waters in the Chinchorro Reef zone after their boat ran aground.

The Mexican Navy says two Americans were rescued from their boat after it was found stuck in the Chinchorro Reef zone along the coast of south Quintana Roo.

The secretary of the Navy of Mexico says that personnel from the Naval Search and Rescue Station of Mahahual headed out sea to rescue two people reported stranded after a call from the National Commission of Protected Areas.

Mexicos vessel, Defender, was ordered deployed. Due to the US vessel being hung up on reefs, a rescue swimmer was sent to the boat, Amazing Grace, since it was not possible to approach.

Photo: Secretaria de Marina-Armada de Mexico

Both American citizens were safely returned to shore. Eduviges Martinez Sandoval of the navy said that the American crew members did not suffer any injuries, but were still transferred to the town of Mahahual for medical treatment.

There was no update regarding the situation of the boat or what may happen since it ran ground in a state-protected reef zone.Charles Muhammad, of Merillville, was born in 2006 with a buildup of fluid in the brain, spina bifida and other permanently debilitating abnormalities, according to the lawsuit, filed in 2012 in Cook County Circuit Court. The lawsuit alleged that the medical problems were caused by a drug, Depakote, prescribed to his mother before and during her pregnancy to treat mental illness.2 new daily flights from Amritsar to Bangkok and Goa

SpiceJet on Tuesday marked the launch of its two new daily flights from Amritsar to Bangkok and Goa, commencing on November 6, by handing over the first ticket to Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh. A three-member team from SpiceJet, led by Chief Customer Service Officer Kamal Hingorani, met Captain Amarinder Singh here at his official residence to announce the launch of the new flights from Sri Guru Ram Das Jee International Airport.

A three-member team from SpiceJet

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Lauding the initiative, Captain Amarinder Singh said that there was a huge potential of tourism in Punjab, especially the holy city of Amritsar, which is visited by a large number of devotees thronging from around the world to pay obeisance at Sri Darbar Sahib and Durgiana Mandir, besides paying tributes to the great martyrs at Jallianwala Bagh.

The Chief Minister also asked the SpiceJet authorities to start more flights between Amritsar and other destinations in the country and abroad. He also emphasised the need to start a direct flight from Mohali International Airport to Singapore in view of the huge demand from the people in the region. Hingorani apprised the Chief Minister that SpiceJet was the first and only carrier to offer daily direct connectivity on the routes of both Amritsar-Bangkok-Amritsar and Amritsar-Goa-Amritsar.

SpiceJet authorities to start more flights between Amritsar and other destinations

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Bangkok is notably the second international destination after Dubai that SpiceJet will be connecting via a direct flight from Amritsar. Bangkok is one of the most preferred international destinations for Indian tourists. Goa is also one of Indias favourite travel destinations. Prominent amongst those present on the occasion were Media Advisor to CM Raveen Thukral and Principal Secretary to CM Tejveer Singh besides AVP and Head-Liaison CS Palani and Airport Manager Manish Pandey from SpiceJet.In 1997, they moved the restaurant to a larger space at 1470 N. Milwaukee, where its been ever since, growing from 20 seats to 80 seats literally overnight; they ran out of eggs and milk the first weekend. In 2003, after 10 years, the duo were finally in a position to open a second location in the South Loop. I was ready to do something more, because we had been consistently busy for a long time, Robles says. But it's true what they say: It takes seven years before you see a light at the end of the tunnel.MOREAU N.Y.  The following events are planned at Moreau Lake State Park in October.

* October 1: Baker Loop Hike (10 a.m.-noon). Roughly three miles.

* October 3: Moreau Overlook to Ridge Run Hike (10 a.m.-1 p.m.) Strenuous hike, bring water and lunch.

* October 4: Knee High Naturalist (10 a.m. and 1 p.m.) These classes are for children ages 1-6 and their parents/guardians along with siblings. Classes have short story or two based on the outdoors followed by a short hike. Fee is $1 per child.

* October 5: Hudson River Kayak (1-4 p.m.) Park naturalist will lead this paddle along the river pointing out signs of wildlife while teaching strokes and kayaking safety. Kayak rentals for $15, must be 18 years old to rent. Meet and pay at the park office.

* October 6: Baker Trail Hike (10 a.m-noon). About two miles.

* October 8: Friends Meeting (7 p.m.) Friends of Moreau Lake State Park is a non-profit organization dedicated to the support and promotion of environmental education programs and other activities at Moreau Lake State Park. Guests are welcome at monthly meetings to discuss next events and general members information. New members are always welcome. Meetings are held in the park Nature Center.

* October 9: Waterfall to Lake Ann Hike (10 a.m.-2 p.m.) This will be about a 5-mile hike starting at the Lake Bonita parking lot.

* October 11: Moreau Kayak Trip (10 a.m.-noon) Park Naturalist will lead this paddle along the river pointing out signs of wildlife while teaching strokes and kayaking safety. Kayak rentals for $15, must be 18 years old to rent. Meet and pay at the park office.

* October 12: Lake Bonita/Lake Ann/Cottage Park Hike (1-5 p.m.) This will be a long hike (about 6.5 miles) starting at Lake Bonita to the Lake Ann Trail to the Eastern Ridge trail all the way over to the Cottage park trail and down the mountain. Meet and pay at park office. Fee for kids and anyone 62 and older is $1; others $2.

* October 13: Lake Bonita Hike (1-3:30 p.m.) About two miles with views of the lake.

* October 16: Potter Point Hike (11 a.m.-1 p.m.) A trail-free parcel of the park with views of the Hudson River. This is a flat, bushwhacking hike. Meet and pay at park office. Fee for kids and anyone 62 and older is $1; others $2.

* October 18: Knee High Naturalist (10 a.m. and 1 p.m.) These classes are for children ages 1-6 and their parents/guardians along with siblings. Classes have short story or two based on the outdoors followed by a short hike. Fee is $1 per child.

* October: Moreau Kayak Trip (5-7: p.m.) Park Naturalist will lead this paddle along the river pointing out signs of wildlife while teaching strokes and kayaking safety. Kayak rentals for $15, must be 18 years old to rent. Meet and pay at the park office.

* October 20: Spring Overlook Hike (1-3:30 p.m.) Steep, two miles round trip. Meet and pay at park office. Fee for kids and anyone 62 and older is $1; others $2.

* October 23: Western Ridge Hike (9:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m.) Meet and pay at park office. Fee for kids and anyone 62 and older is $1; others $2.

* October 24: Stonewall Run Hike (1-3:30 p.m.) This trail is about 3.5-miles round trip.

* October 24: All About Bats (4-5 p.m.) Educator talks about the bats of New York and why they are important. Fee is $1 for children and seniors over 62; $2 for adults.

* October 25: Full moon hike led by park naturalist (7-9 p.m.).

* October 26: Eastern Ridge Hike (10 a.m.-2 p.m.) A nearly six-mile hike; bring plenty of water, snacks and a lunch.

* October 26: Moreau Kayak Trip (6-8 p.m.). Twilight paddle around the lake. Kayak rentals for $15, must be 18 years old to rent. Meet and pay at the park office.

* October 27: Haunted Halloween Walk (6-7:30 p.m.) Sponsored by Friends of Moreau Lake. Take a haunted walk with refreshments and activities afterwards. Advance registration and a $5 per car fee are required. Call park office (518)-793-0511 to make reservations or for questions. Proceeds benefit park educational programs.

* October 29: Stonewall Run Hike (1-4 p.m.) This trail overlooking the Hudson River is about

3.5-miles round trip.

* October 30: Critter Crawl (5-6 p.m.) A search for small creatures. Meet at park office.

* October 31: Turtle Talk (5-6 p.m.) Learn about turtles in the park Nature Center. Fee is $1 for children and seniors over 62; $2 for adults.

Programs are weather permitting and are subject to change. Call the park office to confirm event date, time and location. Participants should be prepared to spend time outside and are

encouraged to wear appropriate clothing and footwear.

There are program fees with all classes and many activities.

Registration is required for most activities as well.

If there are no participants signed up, classes can be cancelled at the discretion of the park.

Moreau Lake State Park is located off Exit 17S of the Northway.

For information or to make reservations call (518) 793-0511.Using newly refined analysis methods, scientists have discovered that a North Korean nuclear bomb test last fall set off aftershocks over a period of eight months. The shocks, which occurred on a previously unmapped nearby fault, are a window into both the physics of nuclear explosions, and how natural earthquakes can be triggered. The findings are described in two papers just published online in the journal Seismological Research Letters.

The September 3, 2017 underground test was North Korea's sixth, and by far largest yet, yielding some 250 kilotons, or about 17 times the size of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. Many experts believe the device was a hydrogen bomb -- if true, a significant advance from cruder atomic devices the regime previously exploded. The explosion itself produced a magnitude 6.3 earthquake. This was followed 8.5 minutes later by a magnitude 4 quake, apparently created when an area above the test site on the country's Mt. Mantap collapsed into an underground cavity occupied by the bomb.

The test and collapse were picked up by seismometers around the world and widely reported at the time. But later, without fanfare, seismic stations run by China, South Korea and the United States picked up 10 smaller shocks, all apparently scattered within 5 or 10 kilometers around the test site. The first two came on Sept. 23, 2017; the most recent was April 22, 2018. Scientists assumed the bomb had shaken up the earth, and it was taking a while to settle back down. "It's not likely that there would be so many events in that small area over a small period of time," said the lead author of one of the studies, Won-Young Kim, a seismologist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. "These are probably triggered due to the explosion."

After looking at the series of aftershock reports, Kim's group sifted more closely through the data and spotted three other aftershocks that had not previously been recognized, for a total of 13. The tremors were all modest, all between magnitude 2.1 and 3.4, and almost certainly harmless. In the past they would have been hard to pick out using far-off seismometers, he said. However, under new international cooperation agreements, he and colleagues obtained recordings from relatively nearby instruments including ones in Ussuriysk, Russia, a borehole in South Korea, and Mudanjiang, northeast China.

The group then used a new analysis method developed in part by Lamont seismologist David Schaff that looks at energy waves that are much lower frequency and slower-moving seismic than those used in conventional earthquake analyses. These slow-moving waves allowed Schaff and the rest of the team to pinpoint the locations of the quakes with far greater precision than with conventional recordings. Instead of the random scatter initially seen, the quake locations lined up in a neat 700-meter-long row about 5 kilometers northwest of the blast -- indication of a hidden fracture.

Seismometers have long been routinely used to verify nuclear test treaties, and scientists have become increasingly confident that they can detect even small tests and distinguish them from natural earthquakes. But the link between explosions and subsequent quakes is less studied. Seismologists documented a handful of apparent aftershocks near a Nevada test site in the 1970s, and near a Soviet test site in Kazakhstan in 1989. However, they were not able to pinpoint the locations of these quakes with the technology then available. With more instruments and the new analysis method, 'now we can see everything," said Paul Richards, a Lamont seismologist who coauthored the papers. "It's a radical improvement in cataloging even tiny, tiny earthquakes. It shows not just what we can do with natural earthquakes, but that we can monitor what the North Koreans are doing. North Korea can't do anything at all now [in secret] and expect to get away with it."

Richards said the exact location of tiny quakes could also help in the so far largely fruitless quest by some seismologists to predict bigger quakes. Richards did not assert that quakes could eventually be predicted, but said, "If you're ever going to do this, you have to understand locations, and how one earthquake affects its neighbors."

This spring, the North Koreans made a show of blowing up part of the Mt. Mantap site, though it may already have become largely unusable due to the destruction caused by previous explosions. And no nuclear tests have been detected since North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and U.S. president Donald Trump met in June to discuss ending North Korea's tests. However, despite boasts by Trump that North Korea's program has been neutralized, U.S. diplomats have noted evidence suggesting that the North continues to quietly develop its weapons.

Lamont scientists have studied previous North Korean tests, including ones in 2013 and 2009; they concluded that reports of one in 2010 was a false alarm. The current studies were coauthored by Eunyoung Jo and Yonggyu Ryoo of the Korea Meteorological Administration.Researchers from The University of Queensland (UQ) and the University of Munster (WWU) have purified and visualized the 'Cyclic Electron Flow' (CEF) supercomplex, a critical part of the photosynthetic machinery in all plants, in a discovery that could help guide the development of next-generation solar biotechnologies.

The findings, made in collaboration with an international team of scientists from the Universities of Basel, Okayama and New South Wales, have been published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences and provide new insights into the process of photosynthesis at the molecular level.

"By the year 2050, we will need 50% more fuel, 70% more food, and 50% more clean water. Technologies based on photosynthetic microalgae have the potential to play an important role in meeting these needs," says Professor Ben Hankamer who is based at UQ's Institute for Molecular Bioscience and directs the Centre for Solar Biotechnology. Solar powered microalgae-based biotechnologies will be advanced through a better understanding of how these organisms capture and store solar energy at the molecular level.

Over three billion years, plants, algae, and blue-green bacteria have evolved elaborate nano-machinery that enables them to perform photosynthesis, in which solar energy is captured and stored in the form of chemical energy.

This chemical energy takes the form of the molecules ATP and NADPH, which are essential for a vast number of cellular processes.

"ATP and NADPH enable photosynthetic organisms to grow, and as they grow, they produce atmospheric oxygen as well as foods and fuels that support life on Earth," says Professor Hippler, based at WWUs Institute for Plant Biology and Biotechnology.

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Photosynthesis runs in two modes: linear electron flow (LEF) and cyclic electron flow (CEF). To work efficiently under constantly changing light conditions, a photosynthetic organism must balance the light that it absorbs with the energy, ATP and NADPH that it needs. It does this by continuously fine-tuning the levels of these two modes in relation to one another.

"Biochemical evidence had been reported that a large macromolecular assembly called the cyclic electron flow (CEF) supercomplex plays a critical role in this fine-tuning process. However, due to its dynamic nature it was difficult to purify this supercomplex for structure determination," says Professor Hankamer.

To address this, the team used sophisticated methods to purify and characterise the CEF supercomplex from micro-algae, and then analysed its structure using electron microscopy.

The researchers painstakingly imaged about half a million protein complexes extracted from microalgae in search for the supercomplex. Only about one thousand of these turned out to be the CEF supercomplex.

Structural analysis revealed how the light harvesting complexes, photosystem I and cytochrome b6f components assemble into the CEF supercomplex and how their arrangement enables them to dynamically connect and disconnect to perform different functions that allow the organism to adapt to varying light conditions and energy requirements.

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This information, coupled with additional experimental evidence, enabled the researchers to propose a new hypothesis for how the CEF supercomplex works.

"The CEF supercomplex is an excellent example of an evolutionarily highly conserved structure," says Prof Hippler, explaining that it appears to be conserved across many plants and algae and likely hasn't changed significantly in millions of years.

"The work is central to the efforts of the Centre for Solar Biotechnology to develop next generation solar biotechnologies and industries," Prof. Hankamer explains.

The Centre has expanded to include 30 international teams across Europe, Asia, the US, Australia and New Zealand, and is dedicated to developing next generation solar driven biotechnologies based on photosynthetic green algae.

The team aims to optimize green-algae's photosynthetic machinery to produce technologies that help address the world's growing energy, food and water needs, says Professor Hankamer.

"To achieve these aims, we need to understand how the photosynthetic processes work at the molecular level," he says.After decades of conflicting evidence and numerous publications, scientists at international conservation charity ZSL's (Zoological Society of London) Institute of Zoology, have finally put the 'world's largest bird' debate to rest. Published today (26 September 2018) in Royal Society Open Science -- Vorombe titan (meaning 'big bird' in Malagasy and Greek), has taken the title reaching weights of up to 800 kg and three metres tall, with the research also discovering unexpected diversity in these Madagascan creatures.

Until now, it was previously suggested that up to 15 different species of elephant birds had been identified under two genera, however research by ZSL scientists boasts new rigorous and quantitative evidence -- that shows, in fact, this is not the case. Armed with a tape measure and a pair of callipers, Dr Hansford analysed hundreds of elephant bird bones from museums across the globe to uncover the world's largest bird, while also revealing their taxonomy is in fact spread across three genera and at least four distinct species; thus, constituting the first taxonomic reassessment of the family in over 80 years.

Elephant birds (belonging to the family Aepyornithidae) are an extinct group of colossal flightless birds that roamed Madagascar during the Late Quaternary, with two genera (Aepyornis and Mullerornis) previously recognised by scientists. The first species to be described, Aepyornis maximus, has often been considered to be the world's largest bird. In 1894, British scientist C.W. Andrews described an even larger species, Aepyornis titan, this has usually been dismissed as an unusually large specimen of A. maximus. However, ZSL's research reveals Andrew's 'titan' bird was indeed a distinct species. The shape and size of its bones are so different from all other elephant birds that it has now been given the new genus name Vorombe by ZSL.

Lead Author at ZSL's Institute of Zoology, Dr James Hansford said: "Elephant birds were the biggest of Madagascar's megafauna and arguably one of the most important in the islands evolutionary history -- even more so than lemurs. This is because large-bodied animals have an enormous impact on the wider ecosystem they live in via controlling vegetation through eating plants, spreading biomass and dispersing seeds through defecation. Madagascar is still suffering the effects of the extinction of these birds today."

Co-Author Professor Samuel Turvey from ZSL's Institute of Zoology said: "Without an accurate understanding of past species diversity, we can't properly understand evolution or ecology in unique island systems such as Madagascar or reconstruct exactly what's been lost since human arrival on these islands. Knowing the history of biodiversity loss is essential to determine how to conserve today's threatened species."

Analysing this data in a novel combination of machine learning combined with Bayesian clustering, Dr Hansford applied modern techniques to solve a 150-year-old taxonomic knot, that will form the modern understanding of these enigmatic avian megafauna. The revelation that the biggest of these birds was forgotten by history is just one part of their remarkable story.Today, an international group of researchers, including Carnegie Mellon University's Rachel Mandelbaum, released the deepest wide field map of the three-dimensional distribution of matter in the universe ever made and increased the precision of constraints for dark energy with the Hyper Suprime-Cam survey (HSC).

The present-day universe is a pretty lumpy place. As the universe has expanded over the last 14 billion years or so, galaxies and dark matter have been increasingly drawn together by gravity, creating a clumpy landscape with large aggregates of matter separated by voids where there is little or no matter.

The gravity that pulls matter together also impacts how we observe astronomical objects. As light travels from distant galaxies towards Earth, the gravitational pull of the other matter in its path, including dark matter, bends the light. As a result, the images of galaxies that telescopes see are slightly distorted, a phenomenon called weak gravitation lensing. Within those distortions is a great amount of information that researchers can mine to better understand the distribution of matter in the universe, and it provides clues to the nature of dark energy.

The HSC map, created from data gathered by Japan's Subaru telescope located in Hawaii, allowed researchers to measure the gravitational distortion in images of about 10 million galaxies.

The Subaru telescope allowed them to see the galaxies further back in time than in other similar surveys. For example, the Dark Energy Survey analyzes a much larger area of the sky at a similar level of precision as HSC, but only surveys the nearby universe. HSC takes a narrower, but deeper view, which allowed researchers to see fainter galaxies and make a sharper map of dark matter distribution.

The research team compared their map with the fluctuations predicted by the European Space Agency Planck satellite's observations of the cosmic microwave background radiation -- radiation from the earliest days of the universe. The HSC measurements were slightly lower than, but still statistically consistent with Planck's. The fact that HSC and other weak lensing surveys all find slightly lower results than Planck raises the tantalizing question of whether dark energy truly behaves like Einstein's cosmological constant.

"Our map gives us a better picture of how much dark energy there is and tells us a little more about its properties and how it's making the expansion of the universe accelerate," Mandelbaum said. "The HSC is a great complement to other surveys. Combining data across projects will be a powerful tool as we try uncover more and more about the nature of dark matter and dark energy."

Measuring the distortions caused by weak gravitational lensing isn't easy. The effect is quite small and distortions in galaxy shapes can also be caused by the atmosphere, the telescope and the detector. To get precise, accurate results, researchers need to know that they are only measuring effects from weak lensing.

Mandelbaum, associate professor of physics and member of the McWilliams Center for Cosmology at Carnegie Mellon, is an expert at controlling for these outside distortions. She and her team created a detailed image simulation of the HSC survey data based on images from the Hubble Space Telescope. From these simulations, they were able to apply corrections to the galaxy shapes to remove the shape distortions caused by effects other than lensing.

These results come from the HSC survey's first year of data. In all, the HSC survey will collect five years of data that will yield even more information about the behavior of dark energy and work towards other goals such as studying the evolution of galaxies and massive clusters of galaxies across cosmic time, measuring time-varying objects like supernovae, and even studying our own Milky Way galaxy.Egoism, Machiavellianism, narcissism, psychopathy, sadism, spitefulness, and others are among the traits that stand for the malevolent dark sides of human personality. As results from a recently published German-Danish research project show, these traits share a common 'dark core'. So, if you have one of these tendencies, you are also likely to have one or more of the others.

Both world history and everyday life are full of examples of people acting ruthlessly, maliciously, or selfishly. In psychology as well as in everyday language, we have diverse names for the various dark tendencies human may have, most prominently psychopathy (lack of empathy), narcissism (excessive self-absorption), and Machiavellianism (the belief that the ends justify the means), the so-called 'dark triad', along with many others such as egoism, sadism, or spitefulness.

Although at first glance there appear to be noteworthy differences between these traits -- and it may seem more 'acceptable' to be an egoist than a psychopath -- new research shows that all dark aspects of human personality are very closely linked and are based on the same tendency. That is, most dark traits can be understood as flavoured manifestations of a single common underlying disposition: The dark core of personality. In practice, this implies that if you have a tendency to show one of these dark personality traits, you are also more likely to have a strong tendency to display one or more of the others.

As the new research reveals, the common denominator of all dark traits, the D-factor, can be defined as the general tendency to maximize one's individual utility -- disregarding, accepting, or malevolently provoking disutility for others -- , accompanied by beliefs that serve as justifications.

In other words, all dark traits can be traced back to the general tendency of placing one's own goals and interests over those of others even to the extent of taking pleasure in hurting other's -- along with a host of beliefs that serve as justifications and thus prevent feelings of guilt, shame, or the like. The research shows that dark traits in general can be understood as instances of this common core -- although they may differ in which aspects are predominant (e.g., the justifications-aspect is very strong in narcissism whereas the aspect of malevolently provoking disutility is the main feature of sadism) .

Ingo Zettler, Professor of Psychology at the University of Copenhagen, and two German colleagues, Morten Moshagen from Ulm University and Benjamin E. Hilbig from the University of Koblenz-Landau, have demonstrated how this common denominator is present in nine of the most commonly studied dark personality traits:

Egoism: an excessive preoccupation with one's own advantage at the expense of others and the community

Machiavellianism: a manipulative, callous attitude and a belief that the ends justify the means

Moral disengagement: cognitive processing style that allow behaving unethically without feeling distress

Narcissism: excessive self-absorption, a sense of superiority, and an extreme need for attention from others

Psychological entitlement: a recurring belief that one is better than others and deserves better treatment

Psychopathy: lack of empathy and self-control, combined with impulsive behaviour

Sadism: a desire to inflict mental or physical harm on others for one's own pleasure or to benefit oneself

Self-interest: a desire to further and highlight one's own social and financial status

Spitefulness: destructiveness and willingness to cause harm to others, even if one harms oneself in the process

In a series of studies with more than 2,500 people, the researchers asked to what extent people agreed or disagreed with statements such as "It is hard to get ahead without cutting corners here and there.," "It is sometimes worth a little suffering on my part to see others receive the punishment they deserve.," or "I know that I am special because everyone keeps telling me so." In addition, they studied other self-reported tendencies and behaviors such as aggression or impulsivity and objective measures of selfish and unethical behaviour.

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The researchers' mapping of the common D-factor, which has just been published in the academic journal Psychological Review, can be compared to how Charles Spearman showed about 100 years ago that people who score highly in one type of intelligence test typically also score highly in other types of intelligence tests, because there is something like a general factor of intelligence.

"In the same way, the dark aspects of human personality also have a common denominator, which means that -- similar to intelligence -- one can say that they are all an expression of the same dispositional tendency," Ingo Zettler explains.

'For example, in a given person, the D-factor can mostly manifest itself as narcissism, psychopathy or one of the other dark traits, or a combination of these. But with our mapping of the common denominator of the various dark personality traits, one can simply ascertain that the person has a high D-factor. This is because the D-factor indicates how likely a person is to engage in behaviour associated with one or more of these dark traits', he says. In practice, this means that an individual who exhibits a particular malevolent behaviour (such as likes to humiliate others) will have a higher likelihood to engage in other malevolent activities, too (such as cheating, lying, or stealing).

The nine dark traits are by no means the same, and each can result in specific kinds of behaviour. However, at their core, the dark traits typically have far more in common that actually sets them apart. And knowledge about this 'dark core' can play a crucial role for researchers or therapists who work with people with specific dark personality traits, as it is this D-factor that affects different types of reckless and malicious human behaviour and actions, often reported in the media.

'We see it, for example, in cases of extreme violence, or rule-breaking, lying, and deception in the corporate or public sectors. Here, knowledge about a person's D-factor may be a useful tool, for example to assess the likelihood that the person will reoffend or engage in more harmful behaviour', he says.

Fact box:

Dark personality traits studied in the research project:Chicago Brewhouse used the name for 30 days on its menu for Chatham Rib Tips with Lems Bar-B-Q sauce. The Crusader claimed that the sauce on the ribs was not the same as the one served at Lems, but Chicago Brewhouse owner Kevin Vaughn told the Crusader that it was indeed from the South Side institution.Howard Johnson built a coast-to-coast network of eponymous restaurants and motel franchises that fed the wanderlust of mid-20th-century North Americans.

In so doing, he transformed Howard Johnson's into a cultural phenomenon known to millions for its signature orange roofs, "tender-sweet" fried clams and 28 flavors of ice cream.

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"Every chain restaurant you see today is a direct result of Howard Johnson," said Mike Butler, who is manager and part-owner of the Howard Johnson's in Lake Placid, N.Y., one of the last two HoJo's restaurants in existence. "He was a man ahead of his time. He was the first to have turnpike restaurants, and the roofs were orange so travelers could see them a mile away. He was the first with kids' menus and games, and the first to package his most famous items for retail.  Any franchise restaurant has something Howard Johnson pioneered."

Born in Boston in 1897, Johnson got his start in 1925 when he took over a drugstore in the Wollaston section of Quincy, Mass. As The New York Times noted in Johnson's 1972 obituary, business boomed when he bought the ice cream recipe of an "elderly German pushcart vendor." The ice cream was far richer than anything else on the market because it had twice the butterfat and used all-natural flavorings and colors.

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"It was the best ice cream ever made," said Butler. "He used the finest ingredients. Everything was top-notch."

Johnson began building his ice cream business, opening stands along the nearby beaches. He had 25 restaurants along Massachusetts highways by 1935, the Times reported. While Johnson franchised the restaurants, he kept firm control of the food and the food quality.

Among those helping him: a young Jacques Pepin, who would go on to become one of America's most prominent chefs, cookbook authors and television cooking show hosts. The French-born Pepin refers to his time with Howard Johnson as his American apprenticeship.

"He was always going forward, taking chances. He was always enthusiastic and as generous with his spirit as with his money," Pepin recalled.

Howard Johnson's restaurants offered travelers and locals alike a familiar setting and menu, convenience and, for the thirsty, a cocktail if they wanted it.

"The whole concept of Howard Johnson's and its formulas is antithetical to the concept of road food," said Michael Stern, who brought needed attention to the nation's mom-and-pop restaurants as co-author of such books as "Roadfood." Yet he has fond memories of HoJo's.

"They did it with a certain amount of style," said Stern, noting no one in Howard Johnson's heyday would ever have dismissed the restaurants' fare as junk food.

"It seemed to have a quality of, if not gourmet or delicious, of being sort of well-bred. It was what a WASP aunt would serve for dinner. You knew you were getting something of decent quality that was predictable."

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Yet that lack of surprise eventually spelled trouble as times changed. Pepin wrote in his 2003 autobiography, "The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen," that Howard Johnson's lost its raison d'etre  reason to be  after the death of its founder.

"He was a true American hero with American spirit," Pepin said. "Everyone gravitated around him, even if they didn't know who he was. He had a magnificent presence."

New England clam chowder

Prep: 25 minutes

Cook: 2 hours

Servings: 4 to 6

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Note:

Celebrity chef Jacques Pepin worked for Howard Johnson in the 1960s developing and refining some of the chain's most popular dishes. Pepin's autobiography, "The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen," contains this chowder recipe. "Although HoJo's clam chowder recipe was made in 3,000-gallon amounts and canned, it was quite good. I reproduce that taste at home when a bit of Howard Johnson's nostalgia creeps in,'' Pepin wrote.

Ingredients:

5 quahog clams or 10 to 12 large cherrystone clams

4 cups water

4 ounces pancetta or lean, cured pork, cut into 1-inch pieces (about 3/4 cup)

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1 tablespoon olive oil

1 large onion, cut into 1-inch-thick pieces (1 1/2 cups)

2 teaspoons chopped garlic

1 tablespoon flour

2 sprigs fresh thyme

1 pound Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled, cut into 1/2-inch dice (2 1/4 cups)

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1 cup each: whipping cream, milk

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

1. Wash clams well under cold water; put in saucepan with 2 cups water. Heat to a boil; boil gently, 10 minutes. Drain off; reserve the cooking liquid. Remove the clams from their shells; cut the clams into 1/2 -inch pieces (1 1/2 cups). Put the clam pieces in a bowl; carefully pour the cooking liquid into another bowl, leaving behind any sediment or dirt. You should have about 3 1/2 cups stock. Set aside the stock and the clams.

2. Put the pancetta or pork pieces in a large saucepan; cover with the remaining 2 cups water. Heat to a boil; boil, 30 seconds. Drain; rinse pancetta under cold water. Rinse the saucepan; return the pancetta to the pan with the oil. Place over medium heat, cooking gently, stirring occasionally, 7-8 minutes. Add the onion and garlic; cook, stirring, 1 minute. Add the flour; mix it in well and cook briefly. Add the reserved stock and thyme; heat to a boil. Add the potatoes and clams; heat to a boil. Cover; reduce the heat to very low. Cook gently, 2 hours.

3. At serving time, add the cream, milk and pepper; simmer until warmed through. Remove thyme sprigs.

Nutrition information:

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Per serving: 305 calories, 21 g fat, 11 g saturated fat, 70 mg cholesterol, 22 g carbohydrates, 8 g protein, 279 mg sodium, 2 g fiber.

wdaley@tribune.comXocome Antojeria opened over the summer in Archer Heights, and it's a genuine family operation, as Garcia works with her son David Rodriguez and his wife, Sarah Mendoza. While none of them has owned a restaurant in Chicago before, Rodriguez does have 14 years of experience as a chef in area kitchens. Over the phone, he revealed that he has worked for some very big organizations, including Gibsons Steakhouse and the Boka Group. While he enjoyed his time, he realized he needed a break. "I was tired and burnt out from the whole thing," says Rodriguez. "I wanted to get back to where I grew up, and cook honest, straightforward food."With her time at Marvel Comics seemingly over, author Chelsea Cain will now focus on her creator-owned title "Man-Eaters" at Image Comics. (Bryan Aulick / Bloomberg)On September 26, 2018, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged the co-founders of a New York-based crowdfunding portal with misappropriating more than $1 million from investors.

According to the SEC's complaint, New York resident William C. Skelley and New Jersey resident Sohin S. Shah, the co-founders and senior executives of iFunding LLC, raised more than $3 million from 42 investors in 17 states, with fraudulent claims about iFunding's plans to use the funds to build an online real estate equity crowdfunding portal. The complaint alleges that Skelley and Shah in fact diverted more than $1 million of investor funds for their personal use. The complaint also alleges that Skelley made materially false and misleading oral statements to investors and, in a later period, iFunding LLC and Skelley used two private placement memoranda to solicit investors that contained false statements about the use of funds and misrepresented the number of real estate projects that iFunding had financed, and the amount of funds that had been raised on iFunding's portal.

The complaint alleges that Skelley violated antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws, including Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933 (the "Securities Act") and Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the "Exchange Act") and Rule 10b-5 thereunder, that Shah violated Sections 17(a)(1) and (3) of the Securities Act and Section 10(b) of the Exchange Act and Rules 10b-5(a) and (c) thereunder. Further, the complaint alleges that Skelley and Shah are each liable as a control person of iFunding, LLC and iFunding Holdings under Section 20(a) of the Exchange Act for the two entity's violations of Section 10(b) of the Exchange Act and Rule 10b-5(b) thereunder.

The SEC's complaint seeks injunctions, the return of allegedly ill-gotten gains plus interest and civil monetary penalties against both defendants.

The SEC's investigation was conducted by Ruta G. Dudenas and Luz M. Aguilar of the Chicago Regional Office. The case was supervised by Amy S. Cotter. Doressia Hutton and John E. Birkenheier will lead the litigation.Rebeck is anxious to paint her heroine not as a saint but a transgressive tigress of a diva as fascinating offstage as Lady Gaga or Beyonce: Bernhardt is a role model to the other cowed women in her orbit (such as Brittany Bradfords Lysette), but she also has an offstage appetite for men, especially of the married variety, and much of the play deals with her affair with playwright Edmond Rostand (Jason Butler Harner), who finds himself drawn to Bernhardts dressing room even though he has  or maybe because he has  a colic baby at home. He is a mumbling sycophant around the object of his desire, especially when he gets to undress a man and, as he says, find a woman inside.Commuters arriving at the Transbay Transit Center to catch buses home on Tuesday afternoon were stunned to find their gleaming, six-week-old transportation base abruptly closed because of a potentially dangerous defect.

This is par for the course for San Francisco, said Eric Tisch, 39, of Oakland, who was redirected just after 5 p.m. to the grounds of the old temporary transbay terminal two blocks away. If its a crack in a steel beam, well, thats generally not something theyll fix overnight.

The temporary transbay terminal  which had been mothballed behind chain-link fencing last month  was brought back to life, fast, as an emergency backup. Arriving commuters looking for their buses there had to walk around the fencing to find their way in.

Once inside, they searched their phones for information as they scrambled to locate their buses. The signs and timetables that once guided them were taken down after the new Transbay Transit Center opened on Aug. 12.

Some commuters had been inside the new transit center waiting on the third floor for their buses when they were told to leave. One of them was Lora Martinenko, who said she had been unaware that the cracked steel beam was looming just above her when officials began ushering riders down escalators.

They hadnt said anything about this until now, Martinenko said.

Confused, the passengers hurried toward the old terminal, asking officials for more information only to be met by a curt, Thats all I can tell you.

Reaction on social media to the sudden closure of the $2.2 billion center was swift.

This building is doomed!

The city is falling apart in more ways than one.

That whole area feels like a death trap, wrote a woman named Nette, who said in her profile that shes a San Francisco native.

Indeed, the new terminal sits in the shadow of San Franciscos infamous Millennium Tower, the victim of another kind of crack  in a 36th-floor window  of mysterious, ominous origins. Plus there has been sinking and tilting that has made that building an unexpected tourist favorite.

The neighborhood does seem a bit cursed of late. Just a month after the Transbay Transit Centers grand opening, the walkways on its rooftop garden started to crumble with potholes.

At the drab temporary terminal, frustration boiled over at times.

I made the schlep all the way to the (new) terminal and back, then they made me walk around this fence, said Jean Walsh, 49, who was trying to head home to Oakland on the F-bus.

Carin Sauerwein, 32, found out about the cracked beam as she waited to board the F bus back home to Oakland.

Thats horrifying, she said. I would not want to continue using the transit center.

Sauerwein said she would consider taking her car rather than the bus.

This makes me question the whole system, she said.

Sauerwein stood in a line that snaked along the temporary steel fencing along the old transbay terminal along with dozens of other riders eager to get home. Riders scrolled through Facebook and Twitter, looking for clues of the closure.

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.

Emily Choi, 25, said she couldnt believe what was happening.

I am definitely kind of shocked, Choi said. Its a brand new terminal, and now they have people standing in front of it saying its closed and we should go to the old one.

Rene Dicherri, 36, said she was believed that transit officials waited too long to inform riders as they shuffled to catch buses, instead of sending alerts ahead of time.

This could have been messaged somehow, Dicherri said. Now Im definitely going to miss my bus for sure.

Two hours after the center was evacuated, commuters continued to show up at the new terminal, only to find entrances and sidewalks blocked by dozens of police officers and transit officials.

Head to Howard and Beale to the temporary terminal, officials barked at pedestrians shuffling along Howard, refusing to provide any additional information.

Pedestrians clung to police tape lining the sidewalk of the Beale Street, trying to catch a glimpse of any movement inside.

One passerby joked to friends that the center may collapse at any moment as they shuffled past the lip of the center.

Lauren Hernandez, Lizzie Johnson, Jill Tucker and Erin Allday are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: lauren.hernandez@sfchronicle.com; ljohnson@sfchronicle.com; jtucker@sfchronicle.com; eallday@sfchroniclelcomSan Franciscos Transbay Transit Center closed on Tuesday during the afternoon rush hour after officials found a crack in a 60-foot-long steel beam that supports the rooftop park above and bus deck below. A second cracked beam was found during overnight safety inspections.

Read the latest developments here.

See full coverage on the Transbay Transit Center.

What is the Transbay Transit Center? The $2.2 billion publicly funded structure opened just a month ago with bus service, a rooftop park and potentially future connections to Caltrain and high-speed rail. It stretches from Beale Street nearly to Second Street, between Mission and Howard streets. The structure is officially called the Salesforce Transit Center after the tech giant, which has its headquarters next to the center, bought naming rights. Read this story from Chronicle Urban Design critic John King to learn more.

Whats new? A second crack was found during an overnight safety inspection of the transit center, although it is not considered as severe as the first crack. The new crack was found in a steel beam adjacent to the original cracked beam. Transportation officials said will remain closed at least through the end of next week.

Whats next? Inspectors are planning to continue evaluating the structural integrity of the building, as well as have outside engineers review the initial design, to make sure there were no other flaws.

What caused the cracks? Unknown. Officials are still investigating and are unsure of the severity of the problem.

Is this normal? No. A structural beam should never crack, said Joe Maffei of Maffei Structural Engineering in San Francisco. He told The Chronicles urban design critic that there are implications to a crack in a structural steel beam, because they can grow. And their failure can be sudden.

What are the beams made of? The beams steel is American-made and was fabricated by Herrick steel in the Central Valley, Zabaneh said.

How much steel was used in the center? The cracked beams among more than 22,000 tons of steel that make up the skeleton of the building, according to construction documents.

So what went wrong? Many things could have caused the problem, including an imperfection in the beams when they were manufactured, a problem with their installation or too much weight above the beams.

Is the crack related to the sinking, tilting Millennium Tower, which is next to the center and has a crack of its own? Transit officials say the problems are not related.

Is the Transbay Transit Center anchored in bedrock? That is unknown, but the building has a massive foundation  think a 5-foot-deep, 60,000-ton concrete mat. According to a news release from a structure engineer released in 2014, The buildings concrete and steel structure is designed to survive a maximum-strength earthquake without major structural damage or significant loss of function.

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.

How does this affect my commute? Muni, AC Transit, WestCAT and Golden Gate Transit are redirecting their routes to the Temporary Transbay Terminal, which is bounded by Folsom, Howard, Beale and Main streets.

Westbound traffic exiting at Fremont Street from the Bay Bridge will likely encounter delays. Traffic has been bottle-necking in the area.

Fremont, between Mission and Howard streets, will be closed until the end of next week because the crack is near Fremont Street. This also is the exit that buses and carpools generally use to get to the carpool dropoff and Temporary Transit Terminal.

Who built the center? General contractors Webcor and Obayashi managed construction of the center, which lasted from August 2010 to August 2018. The architect was Pelli Clarke Pelli, the same firm that designed the adjacent Salesforce Tower. Thornton Tomasetti is the structural engineer.

Is this the first problem at the center? No, the centers grappling with a number of problems. The rooftop concrete walkway is already crumbling just a few weeks after opening. The center cost $800 million more than expected, in part because its security features were upgraded as construction started. A judge ruled that the Transbay Joint Powers Authority must also pay the legal fees for the developers of Millennium Tower. The developer, Millennium Partners, is being sued by homeowners and the city, and has blamed the Transbay authority for allegingly causing the sinking during construction of the center.

Lizzie Johnson and Roland Li are Chronicle staff writers. Email: ljohnson@sfchronicle.com, roland.li@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @LizzieJohnsonnn @rolandlisfIts too early to know why the structural steel above the Transbay Transit Centers bus deck is cracked, but here are a few starting points on what might be involved.

Q: Is such a discovery typical, like the usually innocuous cracks that emerge in a stucco wall?

A: No. A structural steel beam should never crack, said Joe Maffei of Maffei Structural Engineering in San Francisco. It should not crack.

Q: This is obviously bad news. How bad might it be?

Now Playing: Claudine takes a tour of the nearly finished Transbay Transit Center in downtown San Francisco. Video: KTVU

A: Any kind of a crack in a structural steel beam has potential implications, Maffei said. You need to always be careful about cracks because they can grow. And their failure can be sudden.

Q: What might be the cause?

A: Two possible culprits are a fabrication problem  something went wrong when the beam was manufactured  or the beam is supporting more weight than its designed to bear.

If its a manufacturing problem, there could be hidden stress in the beam. These giant slabs of metal often consist of plates of steel welded together, and one area inspectors are sure to examine is any hint of imperfections in the steel.

Mark Zabaneh, who heads the Transbay Joint Powers Authority, offered scant details at his news conference Tuesday evening on the problem, but he did say the crack had been found near a weld.

The process of welding can cause stress, Maffei said.

If the weight above the beam is the problem  remember, theres a 5.4-acre park on the roof  one indication could be the configuration of the crack.

If theres a horizontal crack running the length of the beam, there could be too much weight on the beam, said David Friedman, a senior principal at Forell/Elsesser Engineers.

Q: Could the crack mean that the transit center is sinking and tilting, like the Millennium Tower next door? Or could the two problems somehow be linked?

A: Not likely. The transit centers foundation is a 5-foot-deep, 60,000-ton concrete mat. Work on the foundation was completed in 2014, and there has been no evidence since then of ominous settling.

Q: What about the cracks and erosion in the rooftop parks walkway? Are they connected to the cracked beam?

A: Again, not likely. The pathway consists of decomposed granite, and has nothing to do with the structure.

Q: How will they fix the problem?

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.

A: It depends, of course, on the source of the problem. But, according to Friedman, its easier to strengthen a steel beam than a concrete one.

If the crack is an isolated problem, the beam can be reinforced by welding additional steel panels to its underside.

Q: What will the inspections involve?

A: There are any number of tests, such as taking samples of steel from the beam  without weakening it, of course  and seeing how much strain they can withstand. But there are also straightforward measurements of the cracks length and depth to be done.

If its a horizontal crack running the length of the beam, then the problem could be the load, Friedman said.

And if thats the case? Id start looking at similar beams in similar (stress) conditions  which can take a lot of testing and time.

John King is The San Francisco Chronicles urban design critic. Email: jking@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @johnkingsfchronBernie Ward, the Lion of the Left, as he was known for years on KGO radio before his 2008 conviction for possession and distribution of child pornography, popped up in a Washington Post story this week on embattled Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

Ward recounted his years as a marriage and sex education teacher at Washingtons Georgetown Prep, where his students included both Kavanaugh and sitting Justice Neil Gorsuch.

Ward described how an atmosphere of excess pervaded the Jesuit boarding school where he taught in the early 1980s.

The drinking was unbelievable, Ward told the Post. It was part of the culture. A parent even bought the keg and threw one of the parties for the kids. They took umbrage when I compared their rooting around with girls to dogs in heat.

The once-talkative Ward has mostly been silent since his release from federal prison in December 2014 after serving a six-year sentence for the child pornography conviction.

Ward, who is back living at his familys westside home in San Francisco these days, was not available for comment Monday and apparently he isnt interested in giving any more interviews.

I dont think he wants to do that again, his wife told us when reached by phone.

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.

San Francisco Chronicle columnists Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross appear Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays. Matier can be seen on the KPIX TV morning and evening news. He can also be heard on KCBS radio Monday through Friday at 7:50 a.m. and 5:50 p.m. Got a tip? Call (415) 777-8815, or email matierandross@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @matierandrossWelcome back to Tech Chronicle. If youre not a founding subscriber to this newsletter, lets start this up.

Do founders matter?

I found myself asking that question as Marc Benioff, a co-founder of Salesforce, prowled the stage at Dreamforce Tuesday, as the Saleforce Transit Center seemed to be crumbling blocks away.

The day before, news broke that Instagrams co-founders, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, were leaving Facebook, the company that bought the photo-sharing app six years ago.

This prompted instant hand-wringing: Would Instagram lose its way without its founders? Who would keep it on track? Who would stand up to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg? How could anyone match the moral authority of a founder?

My mind flashed back to another moment the year Facebook paid $1.2 billion for Instagram. Jack Dorsey was then the co-founder of both Twitter and Square, but CEO only of the latter, and as such something of an expert on the confounding subject of founders.

Lea Suzuki / The Chronicle 2012

Dorsey got on stage at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference and declared his second-in-command at Square, Keith Rabois, a founder. (He wasnt.) He said Marissa Mayer, then CEO of Yahoo, was a founder. (She wasnt, of course.) And we could consider Dick Costolo, then CEO of Twitter, a founder. (If you say so.)

Over time, Dorseys examples did not stand up well. He replaced Costolo as Twitter CEO not long after declaring him a founder. Rabois departed amid a scandal over his personal relationship with a Square employee and is now a venture capitalist. And theres no longer a Yahoo for Mayer to be a CEO or founder of.

But there was something to Dorseys argument, which was that you dont have to be a founder to act like one. (Ask Elon Musk, who has been playing the part of Tesla founder for years.) What matters, Dorsey said, is that at crucial pointsat founding moments, as he put ityou play the part.

In the 1990s, investors looked to replace founders with professional managers as soon as possible. Think of Jim Barksdale taking over for Marc Andreessen at Netscape, or Meg Whitman for Pierre Omidyar at eBay.

That changed after the dot-com bust, because Web 2.0. Companies became cheaper to start and grow, giving venture capitalists less sway. And entrepreneurs-turned-investors like Andreessen declared a preference for founder-led companies. Steve Jobs turnaround at Apple served as a powerful example of a company that lost its way without a founder and regained it when he returned, as did Mark Zuckerbergs stewardship, from trouble to triumph and back again, over and over, of Facebook.

Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle 2011

Im not convinced that founders have a special ability. They can fail, and many do: Think Parker Conrad at Zenefits or Elizabeth Holmes at Theranos. And professional managers have racked up success. LinkedIn struggled when co-founder Reid Hoffman was in charge. It flourished under non-founder CEO Jeff Weiner, who sold it for $26 billion to Microsoft.

Sign Up for the Newsletter Want to get the latest on Silicon Valley in your inbox? Subscribe to Tech Chronicle. See More Collapse

Will Instagram founder without its founders? People seem to take that for granted. I find the historical evidence unconvincing. If Facebook puts someone in who acts like they own the jointand convinces employees of the sameInstagram will be fine. If a Zuckerberg crony just warms Systroms chair, Instagrams growth may well falter.

After talking for a while about trust and equality (and Salesforces soaring revenue), Benioff brought his co-founder Parker Harris on stage. Harris is known for his outlandish Dreamforce costumes, but this time he was wearing an Italian suit  an homage to Italian clothier Brunello Cucinelli, a Salesforce customer.

Im wearing my Brunello costume, Harris said.

Air Quality Tracker Check levels down to the neighborhood Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes

Maybe the founder thing is as simple as putting on a suit. Playing the part. Silicon Valley invented the modern founder fetish. Do we really need the founders themselves  or just someone to fill the role?

 Owen Thomas (othomas@sfchronicle.com)

Quote of the week

I didnt think I would start a very successful company. It has worked out much better than I thought, and now I can put my money where my mouth is.  Craigslist founder Craig Newmark to Forbes, on the online classifieds business that helped make him a philanthropist  and whose revenue he wont discuss.

Coming up

Google CEO Sundar Pichai, after pulling a no-show during recent congressional hearings, will meet privately with members of Congress this week, CNBC reports. Look for strategic leaks of the discussions, which will probably center on the question of whether Google tilts search results to match employees political views. (The company says it doesnt.)

What Im reading

Whos giving away Salesforces money? San Francisco native Ebony Frelix. Ashley McBride delivers a revealing profile. (San Francisco Chronicle)

Apples Siri is spreading fake news, Charlie Warzel reports. (BuzzFeed News)

Tech Chronicle is a thrice-weekly newsletter from Owen Thomas, The Chronicles business editor, and the rest of the tech team. Follow along on Twitter: @techchronicle and Instagram: @techchronicleCalifornia Attorney General Xavier Becerra and San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon announced a $148 million nationwide settlement Wednesday resulting from a data breach at Uber.

The 2016 breach affected people in several states and exposed personal information, including names and drivers license numbers for drivers, as well as customers names, email addresses and phone numbers. In California, 174,000 drivers  more than a quarter of the 600,000 affected nationwide  saw their data taken.

California will get $26 million, or 18 percent, of the settlement money. That sum will be divided between the offices of the attorney general and the district attorney.

The $148 million settlement dwarfs similar data breach cases in recent history. In May 2017, the attorney generals office announced an $18.5 million national settlement with Target after hackers stole 40 million customers credit card information, and Lenovo in Semptember 2017 agreed to pay a $3.5 million multistate settlement for installing software on its computers that compromised users security.

Uber agreed to report data breaches to state officials four times a year and adhere to state laws about gathering personal information.

In 2017, Uber acknowledged that the 2016 hack had affected 57 million Uber customers and drivers around the world. The revelation, coming a year after the incident, violated California law, which requires that companies notify state authorities and individuals when customer data is stolen.

This settlement does not resolve any liability to consumers themselves directly if they suffered damages, Becerra said at a news conference. If they were hacked and had their information used in ways that undermine their credit, there are actions that individuals can take, but that was not part of our settlement.

Air Quality Tracker Check levels down to the neighborhood Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes

Gascon said resources from the settlement would help the state and county pursue other violations.

The breach happened under the watch of Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick, who was forced out of the company last year and replaced by Dara Khosrowshahi, the former CEO of Expedia, a fact Gascon noted.

I believe that Uber is moving in a new direction and under the new leadership will take a very different approach, he said.

Ashley McBride is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: ashley.mcbride@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ashleynmcbSometimes, history disappears.

The Chronicles archive is home to hundreds of thousands of photos and millions of stories, but its dense and dusty. Much of it is precisely organized, but parts are a mess. Its easy to flip through decades of dramatic moments, but when youre looking for something specific, you learn that treasured mementos of San Franciscos past can go missing.

That was the case with our most important Coit Tower photos.

Dig deep into Chronicle Vault Like what you're reading? Subscribe to the Chronicle Vault newsletter and get classic archive stories in your inbox twice a week. Read hundreds of historical stories, see thousands of archive photos, and sort through 153 years of classic Chronicle front pages at SFChronicle.com/vault. See More Collapse

Major Bay Area landmarks have their own historical folders in the 901 Mission St. archive, but on a recent trip to the basement we realized that the Coit Tower folder was missing. Luckily, we had options.

Our first stop was the room that houses the packs of negatives that go back decades. We found images that had been tucked away for years, and we started scanning them for digital preservation. Then we went hunting for stories as far back as the 1920s about Coit Tower that match the negatives. Its a history thats worth a quick retelling.

Lillie Hitchcock Coit moved to San Francisco from the East Coast, and she quickly became the biggest fan of Knickerbocker Volunteer Fire Co., No. 5. She visited firefighters when they were ill, sent flowers on somber occasions and attended funerals for fallen heroes. The company embraced her and made her an honorary member.

According to Coits obituary in The Chronicle on July 24, 1929, her first interaction with the volunteer firefighters happened when she was a girl walking home from school. She saw the engine of the Knickerbocker Fire Co. stalled on a hill, and she dropped her books and joined the firefighters, encouraging her friends and others to pitch in and help.

When the eccentric Coit died, she bequest several hundred thousand dollars to San Francisco, with instructions that the supervisors will expend the money to add to the beauty of said city, which I have always loved.

The Board of Supervisors and executors of Coits will determined that a tower would be built atop Telegraph Hill and that it should surpass the Russ Building as the tallest man-made structure in the city. But it wouldnt be an easy path. Telegraph Hill property owners began a battle over the plans, and the newly formed San Francisco Arts Commission objected, demanding a say in how the money would be spent.

These hurdles were overcome, but another controversy rocked the tower. Artists employed by the Works Progress Administration had been contracted to paint murals inside the tower, and some of the frescoes were interpreted by critics as having communist overtones. Eight panels ended up covered, after the Park Commissions secretary, Capt. B.P. Lamb, declared that they were architecturally inharmonious.

The 210-foot Coit Tower opened in 1933 and immediately became one of the citys greatest landmarks. The Chronicle covered the controversies and the opening, of course, and the papers photographers captured the most historic moments. Many of those moments, however, were misplaced with the folder years ago.

Just as workers and artisans have restored the art deco tower over the decades, were on a mission to rescue and republish classic Coit Tower photos from its debut through the 1990s. Some of those shots are included here, such as the 1950s aerial photos by Barney Peterson and Bob Campbell and the Christmas images shot by Chronicle photographers in the 1970s.

Well be publishing more in the coming months, and if you have a particular moment youd like us to search for, reach out at the contacts below.

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.

Barney Peterson / The Chronicle 1952

More from Chronicle Vault

Red scare: The murals in Coit Tower, which vividly depict California life during the 1930s, are seen by thousands of people a year. But when they were created, these artworks were so controversial that the tower was padlocked and its windows painted over for more than three months.

Tip-top shape: Take a quick look back to 2014, when Coit Tower reopened after a much-needed restoration.

A San Francisco original: Read more about Lillie Hitchcock Coit, the towers benefactor and the patron saint of all the pioneer firemen in the city.

Get to the point: Everyone loves the Transamerica Pyramid, right? That wasnt the case in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when many locals were furious that such an odd-looking skyscraper was being built.

S.F.s most-hated boats: The history of the Fort Sutter is a colorful one. The journey of the retired riverboat that entrepreneur Barney Gould planned to turn into a floating restaurant and theater showcase ended in flames, but it wasnt Goulds only nautical folly in San Francisco.My former colleagues should bear no brunt of any outrage, Jones wrote. I was proud of my conduct and my life up until this point, both as a professional, and a human being. It is because of my values and not despite them that I am so deeply ashamed. I know I have a lot of work to do, and Im doing it.Uniformed Department of Homeland Security officers seen patrolling BART trains and stations this week are members of a Transportation Security Administration team, according to BART and Department of Homeland Security officials.

Photos posted to social media, including a tweet by Janice Li, a San Francisco resident running for the Bay Area Rapid Transit Board of Directors, show a line of at least eight armed, uniformed DHS officials walking in the aisle among seated passengers on a train bound for the Civic Center BART station in San Francisco. Roughly five DHS officials were seen standing in the Powell Street BART station on Market Street on Tuesday morning.

Each official was outfitted in a black bulletproof vest emblazoned with the word POLICE and had a firearm, radio and flashlight holstered in a black utility belt.

As a regular transit rider, their presence doesnt make me feel safe and it makes you think that something out of the ordinary is happening, Li said.

Now Playing: Nearly half a million trips are taken on BART every single day around the Bay Area. In 2017, BART police made 428 arrests for violent crimes, though the majority of arrests are for petty crimes. Video: Edited by Katie Wood / SFGATE

Li described the train as being eerily quiet when the armed officials walked through the train.

It was scary because Im an immigrant and its not a normal sight to see an entire squad of armed officers on BART, Li said.

Alicia Trost, the chief public information officer of BART, told The Chronicle that the DHS officials were from the Transportation Security Administration, and not members of Immigration and Customs Enforcement  a fear that some riders have communicated on social media and to transportation officials.

Trost said the DHS officials are part of the Transportation Security Administrations so-called VIPR team, which stands for Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response.

The idea is that they help patrol transit systems and airports, and this is a transit arm, Trost said. This is nothing new.

Trost said the VIPR teams patrolling BART trains and stations are not part of the Homeland Security Investigations team, which investigates cross-border criminal activity, including immigrantion fraud, transnational gang activity and human rights violations, according to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement website. There is a field office for the Homeland Security Investigations team, which is under the umbrella of ICE, located in San Francisco.

BART officials could not immediately confirm how long the transportation agency has partnered with the Department of Homeland Security.

Thomas Kelly, an assistant supervisory air marshal in charge of public affairs for the TSA, confirmed in an email that the response team deployed alongside BART police officers Tuesday morning as part of regular transportation operations.

Working in partnership with the Bay Area Rapid Transit, TSA deployed a Visible Intermodal Prevention & Response (VIPR) team to augment law enforcement and screening capabilities to mitigate terrorist risk to the traveling public, Kelly said in an email statement. In addition to the capabilities that the TSA personnel bring to these operations, BART law enforcement officers also deploy their own capabilities.

Kelly said the TSA team regularly participates in transportation operations such as these throughout the country in partnership with law enforcement and security authorities in all modes of transportation including rail, air and maritime.

Though Department of Homeland Security officials did not state why the team was deployed on BART trains and stations Tuesday morning, a TSA pamphlet states TSAs security partners may request random, unpredictable operations in an effort to deter terrorism.

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.

TSA informational pamphlets also say that these teams can be deployed in transportation systems that are at high risk of potential terrorist threats or during events where the number of travelers increases.

Kelly declined to state any plans for DHS patrols on BART stations, but said the VIPR teams vary in size and are typically made up of federal air marshals to increase the safety of the traveling public in all modes of transportation.

It is unclear how often DHS officials patrol BART trains and stations, but Jim Allison, the media relations manager for BART, said via email that the TSA team patrolled BART trains during the 2016 Super Bowl week and during the Golden State Warriors victory parades in recent years.

The DHS presence comes weeks after BARTs Board of Directors announced it would hold public hearings regarding purchases in spy technology. Activists at a recent board meeting said the rail lines security cameras sent 57,000 license plate scans to a database that could be shared and accessed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

BART Police Chief Carlos Rojas said at the time that he didnt have any information that would suggest that any data was shared with ICE or with the Department of Homeland Security.

Lauren Hernandez is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: lauren.hernandez@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @LaurenPorFavorWhen Christine Blasey Ford appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday and accuses Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her 36 years ago, she will be questioned by a woman who prosecutes sex crime cases.

Rachel Mitchell, an Arizona prosecutor, was retained by Republicans over the objections of Ford, who did not want to be grilled like a criminal suspect. But a witness at the last Senate hearing for a Supreme Court candidate accused of sexual misconduct says the selection of an outside lawyer, particularly a woman seems justifiable  even if the decision to hire her was probably politically motivated.

The Judiciary Committees 11-member Republican majority, all males, have hired a female attorney in order to distance themselves from the political fallout of questioning her, said Joel Paul, now a law professor at UC Hastings in San Francisco.

Still, he said, an attorney would probably ask more thoughtful, coherent questions and would have more followup questions that would get to the facts. Speaking from experience Paul added, Senators are inclined to perform for the cameras.

In 1991, Paul, then an assistant law professor at American University in Washington, D.C., agreed to testify to a Senate committee that his friend and colleague, Anita Hill, had told him in 1987 that she had been sexually harassed by her boss, Clarence Thomas.

Now Playing: Led by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Democratic Representatives gathered to express their frustration at how GOP Senators are handling the questioning about allegations of sexual assault against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. (Sept. 26) Video: Associated Press

He told the all-male panel that Hill was a truth-teller and had no political bias against Thomas, the Supreme Court nominee who was then confirmed and now sits on the court. The witnesses were interrogated by the senators, rather than staff members or outside lawyers. Republicans, in the minority on the panel, took turns calling Hill a liar or a prisoner of her own sexual fantasies, and suggested she had lifted one description of Thomas conduct from the horror film The Exorcist.

On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee, now with a Republican majority, is scheduled to hear testimony from Ford, a psychology professor at Palo Alto University who says a drunken Kavanaugh tried to rape her after a party in 1982, when he was 17 and she was 15.

Republican leaders have agreed to a few of Fords conditions, such as keeping Kavanaugh out of the room while she testifies. But they have declined to call other witnesses or seek an FBI investigation of her allegations, or to hear sexual assault allegations by two other women against Kavanaugh.

Committee leaders also hired Mitchell after rejecting Fords request to be questioned directly by the senators. Republicans, seeking a quick confirmation for Kavanaugh, have schedule a committee vote for Friday and plan a Senate floor vote for early next week.

Other congressional panels have retained outside counsel for high-profile hearings, most notably in 1987, when a Democratic-led Senate committee hired attorney Arthur Liman to lead an investigation and 40 days of Iran-Contra hearings, looking into President Ronald Reagans secret sale of arms to Iran and his use of the proceeds to arm Contra rebels in Nicaragua.

More commonly, lawmakers turn to attorneys on the committee staff to question witnesses. Perhaps the most visible was Roy Cohn, Sen. Joseph McCarthys lawyer in the Red-hunting sessions of the early 1950s and later a mentor to future President Trump. Another McCarthy aide who took part in hearings in the early 1950s was Robert F. Kennedy, the future attorney general and U.S. senator.

But Paul said the chief counsel to the current Senate Judiciary Committee, Mike Davis, most likely disqualified himself as Fords interrogator when he said on Twitter last week that he was unfazed and determined to get Kavanaugh confirmed.

Its not a truth-seeking mission, he said. But I dont think its a bad thing (to hire a lawyer), even if its done for political purposes.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter:@BobEgelkoUpcoming political events in the Bay Area.

TUESDAY

Assembly candidates forum: Jovanka Beckles and Buffy Wicks, candidates in Assembly District 15 in the East Bay, participate in a League of Women Voters forum. 7-8:30 p.m., Berkeley City College, 2050 Center St. More information is here.

The Browns and California: Journalist Miriam Pawel, author of The Browns of California: The Family Dynasty That Transformed a State and Shaped a Nation, discusses Pat Brown, Jerry Brown and the modern history of the state, at the Commonwealth Club. $20 for nonmembers, $7 for students. 6-7:15 p.m., 110 Embarcadero, San Francisco. More information is here.

Berkeleys revolution: A conversation on the political revolution that Berkeley underwent in the mid-20th century between Carole Davis Kennerly, the first African American woman to be elected to the City Council, and Betty Reid Soskin, a veteran of Berkeley activism and, at 96, the countrys oldest National Park Service ranger. Presented by Berkeley Historical Society. Free. 2-4 p.m., South Berkeley Senior Center, 2939 Ellis St., Berkeley. More information is here.

Amazon rain forest: Jeremias Petsein Peas, a leader of the Achuar indigenous people from the Peruvian Amazon rain forest, discusses the cultural, legal and political efforts to defend their territory. Free. 5:30-7:30 p.m., Room 133, Humanities Building, San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway Ave. More information is here.

WEDNESDAY

Postcarding for Ammar Campa-Najjar: Indivisible Marin sponsors a postcarding session for Campa-Najjar, the Democrat running against the GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter the 50th Congressional District in Southern California. 7-8:30 p.m., Sports Basement, 100 Vintage Way, Novato. More information is here.

THURSDAY

State ballot measures: League of Women Voters hosts a pros-and-cons session on the measures on Californias November ballot. 6:30-9 p.m., Berkeley City College, 2050 Center St. More information is here.

Francis Fukuyama: Political scientist and author Francis Fukuyama discusses identity politics. Sponsored by the Commonwealth Club. $25 for nonmembers, $10 for students. 6:30-7:30 p.m., 110 Embarcadero, San Francisco. More information is here.

FRIDAY

Oakland mayoral forum: Ten candidates for Oakland mayor take part in a forum sponsored by the League of Women Voters. 7-8:30 p.m. in the City Council chambers, 1 Frank Ogawa Plaza, Oakland. More information is here.

Barbara Lee: Forum with Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, celebrating her 20th anniversary in Congress. Sponsored by the Commonwealth Club. $30 for nonmembers, $10 for students. 6:30-7:30 p.m., 110 Embarcadero, San Francisco. More information is here.

Families and voting: Parent Voices Oakland holds a voter education forum focusing on families with young children. Free. 6-9 p.m. at Bananas, 5232 Claremont Ave., Oakland. More information is here.

FRIDAY-SATURDAY

Women and Spirit of the New Deal: Authors, scholars, historians and activists gather at UC Berkeley to examine womens contributions to the New Deal and their growing role in political leadership today. Full conference schedule is here. Registration and more information is here.

SUNDAY

Civic engagement: A forum on getting involved in local activist issues, with presentations from political and community groups. Sponsored by the Womens March San Francisco, League of Women Voters and the Womens Building. Free. The Womens Building, 3543 18th St., San Francisco. More information is here.

OCT. 9

Emeryville candidates: League of Women Voters hosts a forum for Emeryville City Council and school board candidates. 7-9 p.m., City Council chambers, 1333 Park Ave. More information is here.

OCT. 10

Pussy Riot: Nadya Tolokonnikova, founder of the Russian art collective Pussy Riot, discusses her new book Read & Riot: A Pussy Riot Guide to Activism. $12.50. 7 p.m., Kanbar Hall, Jewish Community Center, 3200 California St., San Francisco. More information is here.

Danica Roem: Virginia House of Delegates member Danica Roem, the first openly transgender member of a state legislature, discusses her career and life story. Sponsored by Jewish Community Center of San Francisco. $10. 7 p.m., 3200 California St., San Francisco. More information is here.

Left, Right and Center: A rollicking examination of national issues, with panelists Ana Marie Cox, host of With Friends Like These; Washington Post columnist Megan McArdle; and Business Insider senior editor Josh Barro. Sponsored by Inforum and NPR member station KCRW. $35, $10 for students. 7-8 p.m., 110 Embarcadero, San Francisco. More information is here.

Postcarding: A postcarding event encourage voters to turn out for progressive legislative candidates. 6-8 p.m., Richmond Republic Draught House, 642 Clement St., San Francisco. More information is here.

OCT. 11

Progressives in Latin America: Giorgio Jackson, member of Chiles Congress and founder of the Democratic Revolution Party, discusses the challenge for progressives in Latin America. Free. 6-7:30 p.m., Goldman School of Public Policy, Room 250, UC Berkeley. More information is here.

OCT. 12

East Bay candidates forum: Candidates for Oakland City Council District Two, BART Board of Directors District Four and Alameda County assessor take part in a forum, sponsored by the League of Women Voters. 6-8 p.m., Oakland City Hall, 1 Frank Ogawa Plaza. More information is here.

OCT. 14

D4 supervisor forum: Candidates for supervisor in San Francisco District Four take part in a forum sponsored by the Outer Sunset/Parkside Residents Association. 6-8:30 p.m., Lawton Alternative School, Lawton Street between 30th and 31st avenues, San Francisco. More information is here.

OCT. 16

D4 supervisor forum: Candidates for San Francisco supervisorial District Four participate in a forum sponsored by the Outer Sunset/Parkside Residents Association. 6-8:30 p.m., Ortega Branch Library, 3223 Ortega St., San Francisco. More information is here.

New radical majority: D.D. Guttenplan, editor at large for the Nation, and Rabbi Michael Lerner lead a discussion on the rise of a radical new majority in the U.S. $12 in advance, $15 at the door. 7:30 p.m., St. Johns Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave., Berkeley. More information is here.

OCT. 17

Nicaragua: James Quesada, anthropology professor at San Francisco State University, discusses the violence in Nicaragua in response to the April 19 uprising. Free. 1-2 p.m., Room 525, Fine Arts Building, San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway Ave. More information is here.

OCT. 18

Hacking politics: Keynote address for weekend conference on how the political system is being hacked. Sponsored by UC Berkeley Center for New Media, SFMOMAs Public Knowledge Initiative, the UC Berkeley School of Journalism and Boalt School of Law. Free. 6 p.m., Phyllis Wattis Theater, SFMOMA, 151 Third St., San Francisco. More information is here. Symposium runs from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Oct. 19 at 310 Banatao Auditorium, Sutardja Dai Hall, UC Berkeley. More information is here.

Berkeley voter information: UC Berkeleys Science Policy Group hosts a voter information night, focuses on state ballot initiatives. 5:30-8:30 p.m., Anthony Hall, UC Berkeley. More information is here.

OCT. 20

Race and politics: Panel discussion on the impact of race in politics. Sponsored by the African American Community Health Advisory Committee and the African American Library Advisory Committee. 2-4 p.m., San Mateo Public Library, 55 West Third Ave. More information is here.

OCT. 23

Women in leadership: Former U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer and University of California President Janet Napolitano discuss opportunities and challenges for women in leadership. Moderated by Politico California Playbook senior writer Carla Marinucci. Free. 4-5:30 p.m., Banatao Auditorium, UC Berkeley. Registration and more information are here.

Rick Wilson: Republican strategist and Daily Beast columnist discusses dark politics in the age of Trump. Sponsored by the Commonwealth Club. $30 for nonmembers, $10 for students. Noon-1 p.m., 110 Embarcadero, San Francisco. More information is here.

OCT. 25

Max Boot: Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow and Washington Post columnist discusses his book The Corrosion of Conservatism: Why I Left the Right at the Commonwealth Club. $25 for nonmembers, $10 for students. Noon-1 p.m., 110 Embarcadero, San Francisco. More information is here.

OCT. 26

Julian Castro: Former Housing and Urban Development secretary and former mayor of San Antonio, Texas, speaks at the Commonwealth Club. $30 for nonmembers, $10 for students. Noon-1 p.m., 110 Embarcadero, San Francisco. More information is here.

NOV. 7

Jeffrey Rosen: Scholar and author examines constitutional questions and the post-Anthony Kennedy Supreme Court. Sponsored by Commonwealth Club. $25 for nonmembers, $10 for students. 6:30-7:30 p.m., 110 Embarcadero, San Francisco. More information is here.

NOV. 8

Susan Rice: Former President Barack Obamas national security adviser and U.N. ambassador discusses U.S. foreign policy priorities and national security interests. Sponsored by the World Affairs Council. $40 for nonmembers, $10 for students. 6:30-7:30 p.m., Marines Memorial Theater, 609 Sutter St., San Francisco. More information is here.

To list an event, email Politics Editor Trapper Byrne at tbyrne@sfchronicleOn Sunday, a Santa Rosa Apple store was robbed for the second time in less than one month.

That same day, a group of thieves made off with more than $50,000 in merchandise at a Palo Alto Apple store. The store was also robbed of $57,000 in iPhones, computers and other electronics the day before.

UPDATE: 17 arrested, charged in $1 million Apple store robbery ring, CA officials say

These mob-style robberies have occurred at least nine times at six Bay Area Apple stores over the span of a month, from late August to late September. In that time, thieves have pilfered at least $281,000 worth of iPhones, iPads and other Apple devices. Few arrests have been made.

Though the tactics are similar, police have yet to conclude that the same suspects are responsible for the recent string of thefts.

The operation usually goes something like this: A handful of hooded individuals storm an Apple store. They unplug and gather as much merchandise as they can in a few seconds, then run to a getaway vehicle idling out front as customers and security guards look on.

Since mid-May there have been at least 21 run-and-grab thefts at Apple stores in California, with losses exceeding $850,000 since the start of the year, KGO reported.

The bright open floor plan and wide entryways of Apple stores, which are designed to entice potential customers, may tempt thieves to steal with the promise of few obstacles. Likewise, many offenders seem to be aware of the "hands-off" policy for store security.

Apple has remained mum on the subject of store thefts in recent months. A representative of the company declined to provide comment for this article. Nonetheless, experts have long speculated about the company's store security plan.

Matthew Green, an associate professor of information security at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, told The Chronicle earlier this month that Apple likely makes it difficult to use stolen demo products. The company controls the activation process required to make the products work, he said, and could ostensibly track down stolen gear.

The blog 9to5Mac said devices contain a software "kill switch" that disables the demo gadgets as soon as they leave the range of the store wi-fi. Apple has not confirmed these rumors.

Even if the phones are disabled, they could be dismantled for their parts or used without cellular service, Neil Broom, the owner of Technical Resource Center, a computer forensics firm in Huntington Beach, told The Chronicle.

The display phones, Broom said, are only demonstrations of the devices' capabilities.

A possible deterrent to thieves may be the presence of uniformed officers, San Francisco Police Officers Association President Tony Montoya told KGO. Though Apple stores have been targeted from the North Bay to the South Bay, San Francisco stores, which have uniformed officers onsite, have not been recently hit.

Read Michelle Robertson's latest stories and send her news tips at mrobertson@sfchronicle.com.

Start receiving breaking news emails on wildfires, civil emergencies, riots, national breaking news, Amber Alerts, weather emergencies, and other critical events with the SFGATE breaking news email. Click here to make sure you get the news.Bauer was the highest-ranking Chicago cop to be killed in the line of duty in decades when he was fatally shot outside the Thompson Center in the Loop on the day before Valentines Day. The gold star Bauer was given when he became commander of the Near North patrol district was presented to his family.Qualcomm accused Apple of stealing proprietary software and sharing it with rival chipmaker Intel as part of a scheme to reduce Apples reliance on Qualcomm technology.

The claim, made in documents filed Monday night in California Superior Court in San Diego, add to charges that Qualcomm leveled last year and escalates a broad legal battle that has been raging between the two technology giants since early 2017.

Qualcomm said Apple had engaged in a multiyear campaign of sloppy, inappropriate and deceitful conduct to steal Qualcomms information and trade secrets to help improve the performance of Intel chips so they could match Qualcomm products.

The material taken included computer source code, software development tools and log files providing data about the performance of Qualcomm products, according to the filing.

An Apple spokesman referred on Tuesday to statements since it began the legal struggle by suing Qualcomm in early 2017 over patent royalties that handset makers are required to pay the San Diego company. Apple argues that Qualcomms business practices are illegally harming Apple and the entire tech industry.

In court documents, Apple complained that Qualcomm has failed to provide evidence of any stolen information, though Apple has provided extensive access to corporate records. Qualcomm, in turn, accuses Apple of dragging its feet on providing information needed to bolster its charges.

An Intel spokesman declined to comment.

Qualcomm, the leading supplier of modem chips that allow smartphones to communicate over cellular networks, became Apples main source for those kinds of chips in iPhones in 2011. But Apple has moved to drop Qualcomm as a supplier; the new iPhones announced this month use only Intel modem chips.

Qualcomm, which has also been sued by the Federal Trade Commission and foreign regulators over its patent licensing practices, filed patent-infringement suits and other actions in response to Apples suit. In the San Diego case, Qualcomm initially accused Apple of violating a key agreement governing the use of the two companies proprietary technology.

That agreement contained a series of restrictions aimed at protecting Qualcomm source code and other information, restrictions that Apple violated, in part, by sharing information with Intel, Qualcomm said in the initial complaint.

In its latest move, Qualcomm provided more claims in its effort to persuade a judge to broaden the suit to cover theft of trade secrets. That question is expected to be considered at a hearing on Nov. 30. A trial has been set for April.

Qualcomm officials, and some analysts, believe the dispute with Apple is essentially a dispute over how much the smartphone maker pays to license Qualcomm patents. Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf has held out hope that a settlement might be reached.

That really creates a much better environment for us to be able to resolve at least the licensing business issues that we have, Mollenkopf said in July.

Don Clark is a New York Times writer.Starbucks plans to thin out its executive ranks as part of a corporate reshuffling that it hopes will help revitalize sales and hasten its growth overseas.

The global coffee behemoth will lay off some non-retail employees at the vice president and senior vice president level, a spokeswoman said this week. In a memo last week, CEO Kevin Johnson notified employees of a reorganization that is designed to help the company expand internationally, particularly in fast-growing markets like China.

We must increase the velocity of innovation that is relevant to our customers, inspires our partners, and is meaningful to our business, Johnson wrote in the note. To accomplish this, we are going to make some significant changes to how we work as leaders in all areas of the company and how functional groups are structured to support our retail stores.

Johnson, a veteran of several corporate shake-ups while at Microsoft, did not detail his plans in the memo. Starbucks, which has about 5,000 employees at its corporate headquarters, declined to say how many people would be affected, or how many employees held the senior vice president or vice president titles.

The coffee chain, based in Seattle, employs 277,000 people globally, according to its most recent annual financial filing. Most of those employees work in Starbucks stores or support facilities.

The restructuring will conclude in mid-November.

Starbucks founder Howard Schultz stepped down as executive chairman in June. Later that month, the company announced that its chief financial officer, Scott Maw, would retire in November, sending the stock tumbling.

And Starbucks executives have outlined steps to improve sales growth, including plans to close up to 150 underperforming stores in the coming fiscal year, even as the company continues to open new stores.

The expansion plans are a counterweight to the companys stagnant sales in the United States, where smaller, regional rivals have gained ground, and customer demand for Starbucks signature Frappuccino has waned. Same-store sales  one measure of performance  rose just 1 percent in the most recent fiscal quarter, a sign that the company must find new areas for growth at home and abroad.

This month, hundreds of Italians lined up to sample the espresso and cappuccino at the countrys first Starbucks cafe.

The Seattle Times contributed to this report.

Rachel Abrams is a New York Times writer.U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has been working with airlines on using facial recognition technology to verify identities of international air travelers, with a goal of covering all foreign departures at the nation's 20 largest airports by 2021.

But a new report from the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General has uncovered "challenges" that might slow down the program. And regrettably, US citizens are much more likely to be rejected by the systems that others.

The agency has been testing facial recognition at more than a dozen major airports (including Mineta San Jose airport) to confirm the identities of both departing passengers at the gate and arriving travelers at CBP checkpoints. It does this by using a camera to capture an image of the traveler's face and digitally comparing it to passport and visa images on file in government databases.

During the initial testing, the Inspector General's report said, "CBP encountered various technical and operational challenges that limited biometric confirmation to only 85 percent of all passengers processed." The agency's target rate is 97 to 100 percent confirmation.

Critics of the program have questioned the reliability of the technology's image-matching capabilities, and the report suggested there is some validity to those concerns. "Due to missing or poor quality digital images, CBP could not consistently match individuals of certain age groups or nationalities," the report said.

Specifically, it said the study found that the program's biometric "match rates"  i.e., successfully matching a passenger's airport photo with one in the database  were lowest for individuals who were under age 29 or over age 70. This may be due to how much an individual aged between the time his or her passport or visa photo was taken and when a current image is captured at the airport. That timespan could be "several years, during which time a person's facial features might have changed," the report noted.

Finding accurate matches was also "problematic" for some nationalities, the report said: "U.S. citizens accounted for the lowest biometric confirmation rate and were up to six times more likely to be rejected than non-U.S. citizens." The Inspector General suggested the reason might be that U.S. citizens had "fewer photos available in the digital gallery than foreign visitors who had to meet passport requirements," and because the U.S. only requires its citizens to renew their passports every 10 years.

There were also disparities among non-U.S. citizen confirmation rates. In that group, the lowest rates of confirmed biometric matches were for Mexican and Canadian citizens. It noted that Mexican citizens had fewer photos available in the database, "which CBP attributed to the high volume of Mexican citizens who entered the United States illegally."

Another problem with obtaining successful image matches was the quality of photos in the government's image database. Those photos "might be ineffective for matching if individuals were photographed at an angle," the report said, or if individuals' faces in earlier photos in the database were "obscured by hats or scarves, or if individuals stand too close or too far away from the camera."

Besides problems with accurately matching images, the pilot program also ran into logistical difficulties at the airports, the Inspector General said, with the result that some passengers were not able to go through the facial recognition process at all.

In some cases, the number of CBP officers on site was insufficient to handle the demands of the program. In other instances, the biometric matching didn't work because of technical problems with the airport cameras or network communications. And if an incoming flight arrived late, CBP often didn't have time to run the test on outgoing passengers without delaying their departure.

CBP had expected that during the several months of pilot testing in 2017, it would process more than 2 million passengers through biometrics, but instead it only processed 220,000.

"Collectively, these challenges pose significant risks to CBP scaling up the biometric program to process 100 percent of all departing passengers by 2021," the Inspector General's report said.

Has your face been scanned at the airport yet? How'd that go? Please leave your thoughts and experiences in the comments.

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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.NEW YORK  One evening this summer I left work around 6, ducked into a storefront in Midtown Manhattan and stood at the back of a line, waiting to become myself. I was at the threshold of the Rose Mansion, a pop-up experience that is themed around pink wine but promises much more. I had been beckoned there by an Instagram ad featuring a woman with heart-shaped glasses on her face and a plastic cup in her hand. Be fiercely and uniquely yourself at Rose Mansion, it said.

What I am at the Rose Mansion is, mostly, standing around. Though a friend and I had $45 tickets to enter the manse at 6:30 p.m., we were moored in its sweaty lobby for another half-hour, left to stare at the ROOFTOPS AND ROSE pink tanks on display in the gift shop until a Rose Mansion ambassador unhooked the velvet rope to unleash us and dozens of other patrons into the space.

This was a familiar feeling. I spent the past few months going to as many temporary experiences as I could find in New York, to explore every broadly themed mansion and factory and museum possible before they all shutter and reconvert into the empty storefronts of high-rent blight. They included Color Factory, stocked with participatory installations of colors; Candytopia, an outrageously interactive candy wonderland; 29Rooms, a groundbreaking art experience dedicated to expanding your reality; and the Museum of Ice Creams spinoff space, featuring a Pint Shop and tasting room created in collaboration with Target that re-envisions the grocery store, enabling a hyper-sensory experience.

I realize that I have a fun job that its annoying to complain about: Oh no, I have to drink free wine and eat ice cream. But as my summer of pop-ups dragged on, I began to dread my evenings. What began as a kicky story idea became a masochistic march through voids of meaning. I found myself sleepwalking through them, fantasizing about going to a real museum. Or watching television. Or being on Twitter.

And yet, the experience has emerged as one of the defining fads of my generation, the millennials. There have been New York experiences centered on tea, dreams, eggs, illusions and cereal. Soon the Museum of Pizza, the worlds first and only immersive art experience celebrating pizza, will open. Theres one for dogs now, too: Humans Best Friend, which offers 20 photo moments for your pet to endure.

By classifying these places as experiences, their creators seem to imply that something happens there. But what? Most human experiences dont have to announce themselves as such. They just do what they do. A film tells a story. A museum facilitates meaning between the viewer and an artwork. Even a basic carnival ride produces pleasing physical sensations.

The central experience delivered at all these places is one of waiting. At the Color Factory, I first waited for a half-hour past my ticket time, outside in the 90 degree heat. Then I waited inside the lobby, just outside a roped-off area. After being allowed inside the roped-off area, I was offered mochi ice cream while I waited. Then I was shown an orientation video and ushered into a rainbow-painted hallway, which turned out to be another line in disguise.

What are we waiting for? Places that are themselves reminiscent of lines. At 29Rooms, a pop-up from the womens website Refinery29, I waited outside big white tents to get into makeshift rooms like Star Matter, a space curated in collaboration with Nicole Richie, which features big fake rocks, little fake stars and a hanging red orb. The aesthetic recalls the line for Disneylands Splash Mountain, except in here Fleetwood Mac was playing. One feature of the Rose Mansion is a fake gold throne that you can sit on while wearing a fake gold crown, which can make you feel as if you are hanging out in the lobby of Medieval Times in New Jersey. Each of these experiences culminates in a ball pit  filled with marshmallows at Candytopia, champagne bubbles at the Rose Mansion and blue-colored balls at Color Factory  a feature pioneered by the McDonalds PlayPlace.

Yet these line-adjacent experiences are pitched as somehow transformative. In a plaque outside the Star Matter room, the experience was teased as a cosmic pilgrimage of love, music, and connectedness into the California night sky and back in time to the 1970s, a decade defined by progressive group thinking. The Color Factory says its designed to invite curiosity, discovery and play. The Museum of Ice Creams Pint Shop is said to inspire and empower audiences to be their most creative selves. Mostly, were expected to have the time of our lives. A Candytopia employee announced: The first rule is to be happy and always smile! Frowns make other people sad!

The most that these spaces can offer is the facsimile of traditional pleasures. They take nature and art and knowledge-seeking, flatten them into sight gags and stick them to every stray surface. At a preview party for the Museum of Pizza  held inside a real museum, the New Museum  such items as a guitar shaped like a pizza slice (donated by musician Andrew W.K.) were displayed in glass boxes, as if to conjure an air of significance. The Museum of Ice Creams Pint Shop offshoot (now closed) was only creative insofar as taking photographs inside a store creates a kind of content. And the discovery offered by the Color Factory mainly involves following directions: Trace a flow chart on the floor to find your secret color, which corresponds with a random dance move  air guitar like youve never air guitared before  youre instructed to complete on the light-up floor in the next room.

Inside the Rose Mansion, I was ushered into a space called the patio, handed a sheet of round purple stickers representing various wine grapes and instructed to affix them to the patios all-white walls and deck chairs and fake plants. It is a blatant rip-off of Yayoi Kusamas signature piece, her Obliteration Room. That piece was designed to evoke the dot hallucinations the artist has experienced her whole life. The Rose Mansion version instead evokes the idea that we like to get tipsy and put stickers on things.

The Rose Mansion doesnt even manage to take wine seriously. Its walls are papered with facts like sweet wines have been the most famous and sought after wines in the world for the past 5,000 years. At a blend your own rose station, you can tick off your preferred levels of acidity and fruitiness on a piece of paper, then hand it to an employee wearing lab glasses who pumps a bunch of different wines into one cup. As she put it, Im like Dr. Frankenstein, but with wine.

Even the loose themes of these places often arent enough to sustain full experiences. Candytopias main attraction is its candy statues  a fox made from candy corn and jelly beans, a dragon of Swedish Fish and licorice strings  but it also contains inexplicable items like a punching bag labeled Candytopia and a wax figure of Katy Perry. The Rose Mansion is designed through very, very free association: There are two Cialis-esque bathtubs filled with rose petals, because rose sounds like rose, and a room plastered with pink flamingos because rose is also pink. Occasionally, this approach revealed irreverent charms: At the Color Factory, a rainbow conveyor belt served macarons; at Candytopia, a candy pig spewed confetti. More often its just confusing, as when the Rose Mansion styles more than one experience around fake landline telephones.

In an interview with New York magazine last year, the millennial marketer behind the Museum of Ice Cream, Maryellis Bunn, compared her site favorably to real museums and also to Disneyland. I love Disneyland, she said, but its not for today. Im no Disney evangelist, but come on. Disneyland has a ride that lets you experience life as Mr. Toad as he is being sentenced to hell. To hell!

There arent characters in these spaces. Instead there are uniformed young temp workers tasked with wiping down surfaces, chasing balls that have escaped the pit and fostering cults of personality around the museum creators. At the Museum of Ice Creams Pint Shop, an employee in a sprinkle crown, pink feathered leg warmers and a lab coat calling himself Slush told an assembled crowd about how Bunn experimented with 7,000 different combinations of vanilla to perfect one of the museums flavors.

There is one way these experiences are better than real life. While standing on the lip of the Grand Canyon, taking in the Mona Lisa at the Louvre or witnessing a seal pup shimmy onto a rock, we might pull out our phone to take a picture, only to find that what we experienced as grand feels dinky through the lens. But these experiences often look cheap and grimy in person. Theyre made to pop on camera.

These places are often described as Instagram museums, and the real experience plays out only after we post photographic evidence on social media. The internet is an increasingly visual space, and these experiences, with their enormous pools of candy and gargantuan emoji props, are designed to fit the shrunken-down Instagram grid. Whats the point of anything else?

Walter Benjamins The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction suggested that the technology to endlessly replicate images had compromised the aura of art, the unique presence of an original piece. These spaces offer a canny, if cynical, response: The guests supply the aura. That logic has so permeated the culture that these experiences need to offer little to activate that impulse. The Museum of Ice Creams Pint Shop, now closed, was essentially a store stocked with racks of $25 Vanillionaire hats and $10 churro clothes patches. And yet on an afternoon in July, it was filled with people taking their photos in front of the shelves.

The central disappointment of these spaces is not that they are so narcissistic but rather that their designers seem to have such a low view of the people who visit them. Observing an artwork or climbing a mountain actually invites us to create meaning in our lives. But in these spaces, the idea of interacting with the world is made so slickly transactional that our role is hugely diminished. Stalking through the colorful hallways of New Yorks experiences, I felt like a shell of a person. It was as if I was witnessing the total erosion of meaning itself.And when I posted a selfie from the Rose Mansion saying as much, all of my friends liked it.

This article originally appeared in The New York TimesSome of these patients engaged in alarming behaviors, the study reported, such as two who used the same batch of synthetic cannabinoids again after their initial treatment. One patient tried to donate plasma and was readmitted because of prolonged bleeding from the injection site. Because superwarfarin lasts so long in the body, it took patients two to three months to fully recover and required up to 15 vitamin K pills a day.This story originally appeared in The Daily Californian.

The Berkeley location of La Mediterranee, or Cafe La Med, a Middle Eastern and Mediterranean-style restaurant in the Elmwood neighborhood, is for sale after 36 years of business.

Cousins Garbis Baghdassarian and Levon Der Bedrossian opened the 2936 College Ave. location in 1982, according to the Cafe La Med website. The chain has two other restaurants in San Francisco, as well as a catering business.

Baghdassarian, who manages the Berkeley location and is in his 70s, said he is selling the restaurant because he wants to retire, but he hopes it continues to be a Middle Eastern and Mediterranean restaurant.

"I need to retire," he said. "Of course it's bittersweet. .... I have a lot of other projects. I want to travel."

Baghdassarian said he values Elmwood having a diverse food scene and wants to ensure it still has a Middle Eastern presence, adding that they have a customer base that expects Middle Eastern food from the location.

ALSO: Mel's Drive-In revamps location with caviar, $12 cocktails and dry-aged, locally sourced burger

"Whenever a restaurant came and duplicated something, I was unhappy because I wanted something new in Elmwood," Baghdassarian said.

Both customers and employees said they were sad about the sale of the business, which is a well-loved spot in the area.

Allen Flemming, a Cafe La Med customer for 25 years who said he wrote his graduate school thesis at a table in the restaurant, said La Med is the "loving soul" of Berkeley.

"I understand why he's selling it, but it's sad. I hope the person that buys it will continue the history of this place," Flemming said. "It's got this peace in here that you don't really get on the rest of the avenue."

Baghdassarian said the staff is "like family"  many of the employees have worked there for over a decade  and he hopes the new owner will employ some of the current staff.

Hugo Lastra, a server who has worked at the restaurant for eight years, said he loves working at the restaurant and will really miss the customers.

"I know almost all the customers, and the customers know me," Lastra said. "The people make my day everyday."

Several employees said Baghdassarian created a community at Cafe La Med. Assistant manager Beatriz Munez started working at the restaurant 20 years ago when she was 16.

"The owner makes you feel like you're at home," Munez said. "When you work, you feel like you're part of the team. It makes me feel really comfortable."

Munez added that she is sad, but that "it's time for a change" for her too. Lastra said Baghdassarian is someone you can talk to about anything and "really count" on as a friend.

"It's hard for us," Lastra said. "All of us are really, really sad."**This is excerpted from a longer article in the Journal of Alta California. Read the full piece here.

There is a point at which an animal stops being wildlife and starts being food.

For most of the animals we eat, that point occurred many thousands of years ago, when their ancestors were first domesticated, slowly altered from the wildlife they once were into the livestock they are today. But for those animals that have so far escaped becoming permanent fixtures of our modern agricultural machine, that point lies somewhere between the time you shoot it and the time you place it into a cooler with ice to keep from spoiling.

For me, it was about the time when the duck I killed was splayed in front of me, ready to have its feathers plucked.

On a chilly January morning, a pair of mallards sailed from left to right just a few dozen yards above me and my hunting mentor, Holly Heyser, as we sat inside a duck blind at the Howard Slough Unit of the Upper Butte Basin Wildlife Area, about 70 miles north of Sacramento.

I quickly raised a shotgun to my shoulder and disengaged the safety. I pointed the barrel of the gun toward the rightmost one of the pair. As the bird flapped across the sky, I traced its path with the muzzle of the gun for only a few milliseconds before slapping the trigger  twice  and launching a few hundred beads of steel hurtling through the air toward what I hoped would become dinner.

"You got it!" Holly shouted. I re-engaged the safety on my shotgun, placed it down and heaved myself out of the blind to retrieve my quarry, massive amounts of adrenaline still coursing through my veins.

Every hunter's goal is to kill an animal as quickly as possible to limit the chances of suffering and as cleanly as possible to maximize the amount of usable meat. Turning the bloodied bird over in my hands, it appeared as if I'd achieved a clean headshot. Her eye was unresponsive; all signs pointed to dead. And the meat, at least as far as I could tell, was reasonably intact.

The closest I had ever come to harvesting my own food was picking from my grandparents' fruit trees in an L.A. suburb. But now I was standing in a wetland in California's Central Valley having acquired food directly from the wilderness for the first time in my life, just as most humans in every culture have for millions of years. She was the first wild animal I'd ever killed...

Read the full story at AltaOnline.com and subscribe to Journal of Alta California here.Where Andy Wibbels is from, you don't see a lot of men walking around in leather chaps. So when the 43-year-old goes home to Indiana, he's figured out a few ways to explain what goes down at the Folsom Street Fair.

"I tell them it's like a gay leather prom," he said. "Or like a really slutty Halloween."

Wibbels, who will be attending his 10th Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco this weekend, has been planning for the leather and BDSM event for weeks. He and his partner Ron are hosting friends from out of town and know the parties (and afterparties) they'll be attending; Wibbels has even been asked to model for promotional events. But like many kink enthusiasts who grew up far away from Folsom, it took him a while to warm up to the leather community.

"At first it was very intimidating," he said, "but you start getting to know the people in the community and you realize they're all a bunch of good-time gals."

Folsom Street Fair, the largest leather fetish event in the world, is known for its proliferation of near-nude bodies, the (not-so) occasional flash of a phallus, the endless booths boasting kink accoutrements, and for promoting kinky sex and those who like to have it. For Wibbels, it's really about the celebration of sexuality that  in his mind  is tied into the fabric of the city.

"San Francisco has always had a baseline libertine attitude," he explained, referencing Burning Man and Bay to Breakers. "It's not the kind of thing that's accessible everywhere."

This attitude is why people from all over the world will be streaming onto Folsom Street between 8th and 13th streets this weekend to experience the fair, which is packed with so many parties it needs a guide (written, with popular demand, by Wibbels).

But some Folsom Street old timers remember when it wasn't nearly as popular, taking up a smaller section of SoMa, and composed primarily of locals.

Race Bannon is one of those guys. He's a writer, activist and longtime spokesperson for the leather community. He was introduced as "everyone's uncle" for his role welcoming people into the kink community, and has been going to Folsom Street Fair since its incipience in the early 1980s.

Back then, it was called "Megahood," a reference to the fact that Folsom was a hotspot for the gay leather community. Even so, the first Megahood had very little to do with kinky sex. Instead, it was SoMa's response to fast-approaching urban development.

"Even back then the gentrification movement was threatening to displace people," Bannon marvelled, remembering the "Urban Renewal Program" era, when municipal agencies were attempting to redevelop the more industrial, less-affluent parts of town. Namely, SoMa, which was home to blue collar, commercial workers, vast amounts of racial diversity, and many "leathermen."

"There was an assumption that SoMa was industrial ... that it didn't have anyone who felt it was their community," Bannon said. "The fair was an attempt to show developers and the city government there are people who call this home."

The first Megahood was a roaring success, earning $20,000 and allowing it to continue the next year as "Dancin' in the Street." Later, it was "Hot 6 in the City," until it finally settled into Folsom Street Fair in 1991.

In that time, the fair also became a rallying place for "kinksters," and by 1988  equipped with "Leather Week," a pre-Folsom lineup of parties  it was a fully leathery affair. It wasn't a coincidence that this was also the year that 62,000 people died of HIV/AIDS in the US, many of whom were gay men.

"A lot of these parties came in response to the AIDS crisis." Wibbels said, referring to the myriad events that popped up in and around Folsom Street, but weren't technically affiliated with Folsom Street Events, the charity that runs the fair.

In some ways it was unavoidable that the AIDS crisis became a focal point of Folsom, for in the early 1990s, the number of attendees dwindled so drastically that they considered closing the entire thing. Soon, charities and nonprofits like AIDS Emergency Fund and Grass Roots Gay Rights, which donates to local LGBT foundations, were folded into the event, making it a place of unity for those who remained to face the debilitating crisis.

"I've talked to a lot of men who didn't expect to be alive right now," Wibbels said. He described the current sentiment among this group as celebratory. "We're gonna dance for the people who can't," he says  not just those who died, but those around the world who don't have the liberty of the San Francisco spirit.

It's this history that connects the kink community to the LBGT community explicitly, but there are more reasons that the two are so closely intertwined.

"We often reference it as a second coming out," said Bannon, a self-described "kinkster," about the process of telling others about his sexual proclivities. "It's not just something I do erotically ... It forms a significant part of how I think about the world." One way this manifests itself is in his emphasis on consent, a concept that is at the core of kink communities.

"I personally identify strongly enough if you were to take it away from me I would feel quite lost," he said.

But he realizes that's not the case for everyone. And these days, you don't need to be a leather daddy to try it out. In fact, you don't really have to be anything in particular to go to the fair.

"It's for everyone as long as you're willing to be respectful," Bannon said.

And over the past ten years, the gay men of Folsom have indeed been joined by a more diverse crowd. "There are a lot more straight people," Cecil Russell, one of the party promoters, told SFGATE. "Lots are teachers, lawyers, accountants. It's like gay pride but for everyone ... I think a lot more people are into it than they like to admit. Even if it's just for that Sunday day. "

Despite some grumbling, a lot of the original Megahood attendees see the change as a good thing.

"I prefer it now," Russell said. "When it's more inclusive, it's more fun."

Wibbels and Bannon agree. They think the increased diversity of Folsom Street Fair is a more realistic representation of the kink community.

"Kinky people come from every educational background, every race, gender, every economic strata," Bannon said. This "complete cross section of humanity," as Bannon put it, is one of the reasons Wibbels recommends going to the fair. He says that being there is a way to understand yourself better  and to have a great time dancing. He thinks everyone should go once  if not for someone who identifies with kink, it's for someone who identifies with San Francisco.

"The Folsom Street Fair is a uniquely San Francisco thing," he said. For more reasons than one, "it's essential to experiencing the city."

Emma Heath is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her with comments or questions at Emma.Heath@sfchronicle.com and follow her on Twitter @emmabheath.CLEVELAND  A second Roman Catholic Diocese in Ohio plans by the end of October to release its list of priests who have been removed from parishes because of sexual abuse and misconduct allegations, the Associated Press has learned.

The decision by the Steubenville diocese, the smallest in Ohio with 34,000 members, comes in the wake of the Pennsylvania grand jury report that listed the names of more than 300 priests and outlined the details of sexual abuse allegations.

Steubenville diocesan officials and attorneys will review files dating back to its formation in 1944, spokesman Dino Orsatti said. He estimated that a list would include 12 to 20 names.

Other dioceses in the state said they have previously released the names of priests who have been removed from ministry although its not clear how far back those lists reach.

Orsatti said Tuesday that Bishop Jeffrey Monforton wants the list released in the interest of transparency and accountability.

He would welcome any investigation like the one in Pennsylvania, Orsatti said.

The U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops approved a zero-tolerance policy called the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People in 2002 in the midst of a national scandal over the churchs failure to address and, in some cases cover up, sexual abuse and misconduct by priests. The policy requires dioceses to alert authorities when they learned of abuse allegations, conduct their own investigations and remove accused priests from their duties during such reviews.

The Youngstown diocese announced in early September that it would release a comprehensive list following the release of the Pennsylvania report.

Youngstown broke off from the much larger Cleveland diocese in 1943. Monsignor John Zuraw has said that while names of priests have been made public over the years, there has never been a complete list released. Youngstown Bishop George Murry believes there is a need for transparency within the church and wants to assure the people of God that no ones in harms way, Zuraw said.

He said the diocese plans to examine the files of every priest who has served in Youngstown.

Mark Gillispie and John Seewer are Associated Press writers.BILLINGS, Mont.  A court ruling that blocked grizzly bear hunts in the U.S. West carries far wider political implications amid a push by Congress for sweeping changes to how imperiled species are managed.

The ruling restored protections for more than 700 grizzlies in and around Yellowstone National Park. It likely will force federal wildlife officials to reconsider their piecemeal approach to restoring bruins across the Northern Rockies.

As wildlife advocates celebrated the ruling, it was quickly seized upon by Republicans as the latest example of supposed flaws in the Endangered Species Act, a 1973 law meant to shield plants and animals from potential extinction.

A House committee on Wednesday considered changes to the law that critics said would dramatically weaken it.

Bears and wolves in particular are in lawmakers sights, although only wolves are up for immediate action.

Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney wants Congress to reverse U.S. District Judge Dana Christensens ruling on Yellowstone grizzly bears of protections and prevent the move from being challenged in court by wildlife advocates.

A spokeswoman for Cheney, Maddy Weast, said the proposal would not be heard at Wednesdays hearing and she was still looking for the best way to advance it.

A second Republican proposal, from Rep. Sean Duffy of Wisconsin, would end protections for gray wolves across the contiguous U.S. and prevent legal challenges. Thats another animal for which the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service previously sought to end protections only to be denied by the courts.

Federal protections for wolves and bears are a sore spot in many rural communities where the animals are found, in part because it limits the ability to control the animals numbers through hunting. The grizzly hunts that had been planned in Wyoming and Idaho this fall would have allowed up to 23 of the animals to be killed.

Supporters said that could have helped address rising numbers of grizzly-human conflicts. Bears frequently attack livestock and occasionally people, including a Wyoming hunting guide killed by a pair of grizzlies earlier this month outside Grand Teton National Park.

Defenders of Wildlife attorney Jason Rylander acknowledged grizzly bears and wolves have become a flashpoint for dispute, but said politics should not decide any species fate.

In both the cases of grizzly bears and wolves, work on recovering them in the Lower 48 is not complete, Rylander said. We have to decide if were willing as a nation to recover them beyond the pockets where they have been resurgent.

Pressure for change to the Endangered Species Act has increased since President Trump took office, putting both the legislative and executive branches under Republican control.

Matthew Brown is an Associated Press writer.CHICAGO  A Chinese citizen living in Chicago was arrested this week for allegedly spying, including by helping with the recruitment of U.S. engineers, defense contractors and scientists for intelligence services in China, federal prosecutors said.

Ji Chaoqun, 27, is charged with one count of knowingly acting in the U.S. as an agent of a foreign government without prior notification of the attorney general, a statement from the U.S. attorneys office in Chicago said. He allegedly worked at the direction of high-ranking intelligence officials with the Peoples Republic of China and was given the task of providing information about eight people for possible recruitment.Todd Heisler / New York Times

When nearly the entire power grid of Puerto Rico was knocked out by a pair of ferocious hurricanes last year, utility companies from across the United States sent crews and equipment to help.

It was a power emergency on a scale rarely seen before and companies spent tens of millions of dollars to mobilize. A utility in Sacramento, sent 30 workers and a dozen trucks. Ameren, which serves over 2 million customers in Missouri and Illinois, sent 225 workers. New York dispatched workers on at least five deployments to repair power lines and assess damaged substations. Florida Power & Light sent more than 100 trucks, several tons of equipment and 800 employees, many of whom spent Thanksgiving and the winter holidays working 16-hour days.1. The man whose 911 call set events in motion the night Laquan McDonald was shot explained how it all started. Truck driver Rudy Barillas testified he was parking in a secured lot on Chicagos Southwest Side in October 2014 when he spotted a black youth inside a truck, told him to leave, then called police. He pulled out a knife, and he wanted to hurt me, Barillas said through a Spanish interpreter. He came towards me and tried to stab me. Barillas said he was able to fend off the attack by throwing his cell phone at the male and then gravel at his face. He said the man fled when he heard him calling the police. Barillas, however, was never asked to identify McDonald as his attacker, and he described the suspect  referred to by the defense in police parlance as male black during his testimony  as being 5-foot-6. McDonald was 6-foot-2.The eight people were naturalized U.S. citizens born in mainland China or Taiwan who were working in or had recently retired from jobs in the science, technology or aerospace fields, according to the 16-page complaint. At least seven of those people were employed by U.S. defense contractors.Several clergy members spoke out, calling for police reform in Chicago and decrying the defense tactics in the trial so far. The Rev. Marshall Hatch, pastor of New Mount Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church, noted that the animated video stopped at five shots, far short of the 16 bullets that hit McDonald.Yolanda Sayre showed jurors a worksheet she has used to instruct officers-in-training that deadly force can be used in certain circumstances, including when necessary to prevent someone from killing or seriously injuring another person; to prevent someone escaping an arrest who has committed or attempted certain felonies; and to prevent someone escaping arrest by use of a deadly weapon, including a knife.Just after 1:30 p.m., a 39-year-old man told police that he was sitting on a porch at a home in the 7400 block of South Kenwood Avenue when a man inside a dark-colored sedan pulled out a handgun and opened fire, striking the victim in the arm, police said. The man, who told police he didnt know his attacker, was taken to U. of C. in good condition.SAN FRANCISCO (BCN)



An 83-year-old woman was fatally stabbed with a knife in San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood early this morning and a 30-year-old man has been arrested in her death, police said.



The homicide was reported at about 12:25 a.m. in the 800 block of Howard Street.



The names of the victim and suspect were not immediately released, and police did not release any other details about the crime.





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."During our meal, Christine was visibly upset, so I asked her what was going on," Gildo-Mazzon says. "Christine told me she had been having a hard day because she was thinking about an assault she experienced when she was much younger. She said that she had been almost raped by someone who was now a federal judge."SAN FRANCISCO (BCN)



California Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson paid a visit to a San Francisco elementary school this morning to highlight the record number of bilingual students graduating from California high schools.



During his visit to Bryant Elementary School in the city's Mission District, Torlakson announced that 55,000 State Seals of Biliteracy were awarded to students across the state last school year.



State Seals of Biliteracy are awarded to graduating high school seniors who have proven they can read, write and speak at least two languages.



The record number of seals awarded last school year are helping advance Torlakson's Global California 2030 initiative, which aims to expand foreign language instruction and dual-language immersion programs at state schools.



"I'm thrilled that so many of our students are learning a second language that will improve their cognitive abilities, better prepare them for the global economy, and broaden their horizons and understanding of other cultures and nations," Torlakson said in a statement. "This is a great start in meeting the goals of Global California 2030."



The initiative seeks to have tripled the number of biliteracy seals currently being awarded to graduating seniors in California to 175,000 by 2030. Additionally, the initiative seeks to quadruple the number of dual immersion programs in the state from about 400 last year to 1,600 by 2030.



During Torlakson's visit this morning to Bryant Elementary School, Torlakson visited several classrooms and watched the school's Spanish Biliteracy Pathway program in action.



According to San Francisco Unified School District officials, since the biliteracy program's implementation at Bryant Elementary School, they've seen significant growth in the academic performance of the students enrolled.



The program has been implemented at several other SFUSD schools. Last year, SFUSD awarded more than 700 seals, with about 400 recognized for speaking Mandarin, 230 for Spanish and 50 for Japanese.



Statewide, last year 77 percent of students qualified for the seal demonstrated proficiency in Spanish, while 8 percent showed proficiency in French and 6 percent in Mandarin.



The gold seals are affixed to the qualified students' diplomas.



According to Torlakson's office, the State Seals of Biliteracy program began during the 2011-2012 school year, when only about 10,000 students were recognized.



More information about the state seals program can be found at https://bit.ly/2GK2NaU.





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.ANTIOCH (BCN)



The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has filed a lawsuit against Target Corp. on behalf of a man who says the company refused to interview him because he is deaf.



John Hayes applied online for an entry-level front clerk position at Target's Antioch store in September 2014.



When Target's human resources representatives called him, they reached a Video Relay Service, which allows him to communicate with hearing people through a sign language interpreter.



Target representatives called twice and hung up without leaving a message, which is unusual during their hiring process, according to the EEOC.



"Target's deviation from its standard operating procedures is strong evidence of discrimination," Roberta Steele, an EEOC regional attorney, said in a statement.



Hayes said he returned each call and spoke to an HR representative who told him they would call back to schedule an interview. Target never called back and instead hired seven non-disabled applicants to fill the vacancies in the Antioch location.



EEOC officials said Hayes previously worked with a major medical provider for 17 years before retiring, a job he says made him more than qualified for an entry-level position at the national retailer.



This is the second lawsuit the EEOC has filed this month on behalf of a qualified deaf applicant denied the opportunity to interview. The commission recently announced an $88,000 settlement and a job for another qualified deaf applicant.



"These are candidates with valuable skills and experience, and it is wrong to shut them out of the workplace based on fears and stereotypes about being deaf," trial attorney Debra Smith said.



Target officials weren't immediately available for comment on the lawsuit.





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 federal judge in San Francisco closely questioned a government lawyer today about the administration of President Donald Trump's decision to end temporary protected status for immigrants from El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua and Sudan.



Temporary protected status, or TPS, is granted to people from countries facing upheavals such as natural disasters or civil wars.



The Trump administration has withdrawn the status, previously in effect for eight to 21 years, for people from the four countries. The terminations will begin at various times between November and next September.



Nine immigrants and five citizen children are asking U.S. District Judge Edward Chen for a preliminary injunction blocking the termination. Chen took the request under consideration after a nearly two-and one-half-hour hearing, but said, "I understand the urgency of resolving" the case soon.



Chen asked Department of Justice attorney Adam Kirschner, "What is the America first policy in relation to TPS? What does that refer to?"



The judge was speaking of a private memo in which former Acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke wrote that ending the TPS program for these countries "is the result of an America first view of the TPS decision."



Kirschner said that Duke's comment indicated "a general kind of perspective" for the acting secretary, but maintained that she made the decision herself, as authorized by the law providing the TPS program.



Lawyers for the immigrants claim the Trump administration pressured Duke to decide on the termination and that it was motivated by racism toward immigrants from the four countries.



"The racial identity of the program is a motivating factor," American Civil Liberties Union attorney Ahilan Arulanantham told Chen.



The immigrants' civil rights lawsuit, filed in March, claims the administration's action denied them equal treatment and due process. Their lawyers obtained Duke's memo while gathering evidence for today's hearing.



Chen's questions during the hearing also seemed to favor a second argument in which the plaintiffs claim the administration's action violated the federal Administrative Procedure Act by making a substantial policy change without providing a reasoned explanation.



Plaintiffs' attorney Alycia Degen told Chen the termination could affect up to 300,000 people now living in the United States, most of whom are from Haiti and El Salvador. But she said some may be eligible to apply for other types of deportation protection, such as asylum status.



The immigrants have a total of 200,000 citizen children, according to the lawsuit, which claims they would be unfairly forced to choose between their right to remain in the country and their right to be raised by their parents.



If Chen grants a preliminary injunction, it would remain in effect until a full trial is held on the lawsuit. One factor a judge must consider when evaluating an injunction request is balancing the potential hardships for the two sides while awaiting a final resolution in a trial.



Degen argued that there is a "dramatic difference in the inequities" because the deportation would severely harm TPS holders and their children.



Government lawyers contend that any harms are "inherent in the temporary nature of TPS status," and that an injunction would "frustrate and displace" the homeland security secretary's judgment.





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 Walnut Creek man who worked as a school groundskeeper is being held on $12 million bail after being arrested on suspicion of seven counts of felony child molestation, according to the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Office.



Enrique Pina, 71, was arrested Monday after detectives investigated allegations involving a female victim who is not a student where he worked at Palmer School at 2740 Jones Road in unincorporated Walnut Creek.



School officials sent a letter to parents, clarifying that the allegations against Pina do not involve any Palmer School students.



"Following our own policies and procedure, we have begun a full review and are fully cooperating with the Sheriff's Department to assist them in conducting a full and comprehensive investigation into the matter," the letter said. "We have also conducted an internal review of Henry and can share that a background check was performed, as is standard with all employees, and found that he had and has no criminal record."



Sheriff's deputies are asking anyone with additional information about the case to call investigators at (925) 313-2600.





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)



San Francisco school kids will get an inside look into the city's sewer system through an animated educational video created by the city's public utilities commission and the California Academy of Sciences.



The Story of Poo, a short video about a 6-year-old girl's visit to the Southeast Treatment Plant, was created to teach elementary school students about what happens to human waste after it's flushed down the toilet, commission officials said today.



"Our agency looks for new and innovative ways to teach youth about our systems, and how they can make sustainable choices at home, school and as they move throughout the world," Blair Randall, arts and education manager with the SFPUC, said in a statement. "With The Story of Poo, we're introducing our city's youngest residents to our combined sewer system with a fun, age-appropriate video to help them understand the upgrades we are making to our sewer infrastructure to support future generations."



With the video, students will get to see how wastewater is treated, from the first initial toilet flush, to its treatment at the Southeast Treatment Plant - where 80 percent of the city's wastewater is treated - to its final discharge into the Bay.



The video also teaches children the importance of keeping sewer pipes clean by introducing the three Ps -- pee, poop and toilet paper - the only things that should be flushed down the toilet.



"Our hope for this project is that every young person in San Francisco has the knowledge and inspiration to help keep our water systems healthy through their daily choices," Elizabeth Babcock, chief public engagement officer for the California Academy of Sciences, said in a statement.



To watch The Story of Poo and for more information about the educational project, residents can visit https://sfwater.org/index.aspx?page=1244.





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.OAKLAND (BCN)



The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleges in a suit filed today that educational after-school camp Cooking Round the World violated federal law when it relieved an employee of her duties after she tested positive for latent tuberculosis.



The EEOC alleges in its suit in U.S. District Court that Alexis Le successfully worked for the Oakland-based company as a chef educator for several months before she tested positive for an inactive form of tuberculosis in March 2017.



The federal agency says that although Le explained that she was not contagious and had received a doctor's certification permitting her to work in a school environment and as a medical assistant, CRTW director and owner Mindy Myers refused to allow her to continue to work as a chef educator, claiming that she could never again work with children or in schools.



The EEOC said the alternative leafleting job Myers offered Le paid less per hour and provided few hours per week, forcing Le to find other work to support herself.



The EEOC also charged that CRTW breached Le's confidentiality by disclosing her diagnosis to a co-worker and failing to segregate employee medical records from non-confidential personnel records.



According to the EEOC, the Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits employers from discriminating against employees based on a disability or a perceived disability.



The agency said the act also requires that all medical information about a disability be kept confidential, and maintained in separate medical files.



The EEOC said its suit seeks compensatory and punitive damages and injunctive relief designed to prevent such discrimination in the future.



Myers said she feels "sad" that Le and the EEOC sued Cooking Round the World and said she fears that the suit may force the company, which she started six years ago, to go out of business.



Myers said Le felt sick when she was around food so she tried to accommodate Le "in multiple ways" such as offering positions that didn't require her to be around food or children.



Myers said, "We offered her (Le) lots of opportunities but she turned around and sued us."



Myers said Cooking Round the World uses cooking lessons in different types of foods around the globe to teach children about geography and foreign languages and cultures.



William Tamayo, the director of the EEOC's San Francisco office, said in a statement, "Ms. Le loved her job working with children and was shocked when her boss would not accept her medical certification. The ADA protects qualified workers who are perceived as having a disability, in addition to those who actually do have a disability or a record of one."



EEOC regional attorney Roberta Steele said, "While it's true that California law requires that staff working with students be free of infectious TB, Ms. Le had been certified by her doctor as non-contagious and safe to work in a school environment."



Steele said, "When Meyers relied on her own misperceptions over medical expertise to remove Le from her position she violated the ADA."



EEOC trial attorney Debra Smith said, "No employer, no matter how small or well-intended, is above the law. By disbelieving Ms. Le's medical proof that allowed her to work with children, this employer caused her emotional distress and limited employment opportunity."





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.The San Francisco-based ride-hailing service Uber has reached a $148 million settlement over allegations that it violated state data breach reporting and data security laws, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon announced today.



The two prosecutors held a news conference in San Francisco today to announce the nationwide settlement in connection with accusations regarding a 2016 data breach that exposed about 57 million users' data and Uber's paying of hackers to cover up the breach instead of report it to authorities.







Alameda County sheriff's deputies resumed their search today for a 71-year-old Tracy fisherman who is believed to have fallen into the Delta-Mendota Canal in a rural area near Livermore on Monday evening, a sheriff's spokesman said.



The man, who is retired, fishes at the canal from about 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. every day and his family became concerned when he didn't return by 10 p.m. Monday, Sgt. Ray Kelly said.



Kelly said the man's sons began to search for him at about 3 a.m. Tuesday and sheriff's deputies joined the search at daylight but he hadn't been found by the end of the day on Tuesday.



Deputies are using a drone, a helicopter, dogs, motorcycles and a foot search to look the man.



The 71-year-old man's sons found his car, which contained the man's tackle box and personal items, in a parking lot near the canal Tuesday morning but so far there's no sign of the man, according to Kelly.



There's evidence that the man slipped down a slope into the canal and his hat was found 3 miles downstream, Kelly said.



The water in the canal is about 18 feet deep, according to Kelly.







An 83-year-old woman was fatally stabbed with a knife in San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood early this morning and a 30-year-old man has been arrested in her death, police said.



The homicide was reported at about 12:25 a.m. in the 800 block of Howard Street.



The names of the victim and suspect were not immediately released, and police did not release any other details about the crime.







A Lake County man was arraigned this morning in Sonoma County Superior Court for the involuntary manslaughter of a Santa Rosa man at the Graton Resort & Casino near Rohnert Park earlier this month.



James Morgan Lewis Jr., 44, of Hidden Valley Lake, delayed entering a plea until Oct. 16 on charges that also include battery causing serious bodily injury and assault causing great bodily injury, brain injury or paralysis.



Dondiego Hermilo Andrade, 55, died three days after the confrontation that occurred outside the casino around 11:30 p.m. on Sept. 15.



According to the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office, Andrade was with several men at the casino when an argument between the men and Lewis occurred after the men's Honda SUV door struck Lewis' truck.



During the argument, Lewis' girlfriend allegedly was pushed to the ground and Lewis was punched in the face, sheriff's officials said.



Lewis and his girlfriend did not request prosecution for the assault because they were not sure which man assaulted them, sheriff's Sgt. Brandon Cutting said.



Deputies who responded to the incident left the scene, but returned 10 minutes later regarding another altercation, Cutting said.



Deputies learned Lewis saw Andrade, one of the men he believed was involved in the earlier assault, and shoved him backwards, causing Andrade to fall and hit his head, Cutting said.



Members of Andrade's family said this morning that he was employed for 30 years as a custodian at Santa Rosa Junior College and also worked at the Alvarado Street Bakery.







An elderly woman was taken to a hospital to be treated for injuries she suffered at a fire at her home near the Berkeley-Oakland border this morning, according to fire officials.



The fire at the woman's two-story home at 44 Alvarado Road, a short distance above the Claremont Club & Spa, was reported at 6:05 a.m. and was contained in less than a half-hour, Berkeley Assistant Fire Chief Keith May said.



Firefighters discovered the woman in a room on the first floor in a section of the house that was away from the flames, which also were on the first floor, according to May. He said he doesn't know her condition.



The cause of the fire hasn't yet been determined, he said.



Oakland firefighters also responded to the fire because one of the calls that reported the blaze said the fire was at 66 Alvarado Road, which is on the Oakland side of the border, according to May.



But the Berkeley Fire Department became the lead agency battling the blaze after it was determined that the fire was actually in Berkeley, May said.







All lanes have been reopened after a solo crash that injured a motorcyclist on northbound Interstate Highway 680 near Sunol this morning, according to the California Highway Patrol.



The motorcyclist was taken to a hospital with major injuries, CHP Officer Tyler Hahn said.



The crash was reported just before 10 a.m. on the highway near the CHP truck scales along the Mission Grade.



Three lanes of the freeway were initially blocked.







Nearly 4,900 PG&E customers briefly lost power in the area of Oakley in Contra Costa County this morning, a utility spokeswoman said.



The outage was initially reported at about 6:40 a.m. and was the result of a bird hitting an overhead power line, PG&E spokeswoman Karly Hernandez said.



The outage initially affected 4,878 customers, but more than 3,300 of them had their power restored within minutes, Hernandez said.



Three customers remain without power as of 8 a.m. and their estimated restoration time is noon, according to Hernandez.







A 27-year-old Glen Ellen resident was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon for a road rage attack that involved him allegedly striking another motorist in the head with a flashlight and kicking him after a crash on Tuesday afternoon, according to the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office.



The assault was reported around 3:50 p.m. Tuesday in the area of Adobe and Stage Gulch roads east of Petaluma, sheriff's officials said.



Witnesses said the suspect, Robert Lind, was seen pulling a 62-year-old Sonoma resident out of his vehicle, striking the vehicle with a flashlight and then kicking him before being stopped by bystanders.



Sheriff's officials said the bystanders also took Lind's car keys away from him sometime before deputies arrived on the scene and took him into custody. The victim was treated at the scene for blunt force trauma, injuries to his head, face, and scratches to his arm and legs before being released.



Lind has been booked into Sonoma County Jail.







The historic Women's Building in San Francisco's Mission District is seeking grant funding for much-needed retrofits, organizers said.



Supporters are asking people to vote online to secure up to $150,000 from the Partners in Preservation campaign to retrofit the structure's windows.



The building at 3543 18th St. is known for its colorful MaestraPeace Mural, painted in 1994. But the structure serves tourists and residents alike, according to Noemi Zulberti, facilities director for the Women's Building.



A non-profit hub of nine organizations housed at the building includes Dolores Street Community Services, Mujeres Unidas y Activas and Mission Neighborhood Centers Inc.



The building's community resource room offers individualized assistance in Spanish and English and is the first place many go when in crisis, according to supporters.



For more information and to vote for the Women's Building through Oct. 26, people can visit VoteYourMainStreet.org/sanfrancisco, or text votetwb to 484848.





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.The Salesforce Transit Center in downtown San Francisco, which opened last month, has been closed indefinitely after a crack was discovered in a steel beam.



The crack was discovered Tuesday morning.



Workers installing ceiling panels discovered the crack around 10 a.m. on the third-level bus deck in an area near Fremont Street, Transbay Joint Powers Authority Executive Director Mark Zabaneh said.



The discovery has resulted in the closure of the $2.2 billion facility and the closure of a portion of Fremont Street, between Howard and Mission streets.



All transit operators, including the San Francisco Municipal Railway and the Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District, will now resume service at the formerly shuttered Temporary Transbay Terminal at Howard and Main streets, at least until noon today, according to TJPA officials.







The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors agreed to a 6-month pilot program for the Hope Village homeless encampment, a temporary housing solution that officials hope will be a model for the region.



The agreement was made Tuesday.



Per the agreement, introduced by Supervisors Cindy Chavez and Dave Cortese, the county will lease a parcel of land from the city of San Jose for $1 a month and provide space for up to 14 people.



The county will decide to extend the agreement and accommodate 30 people after monitoring the small tent city.



At the supervisor's meeting Tuesday, organizers and residents of Hope Village thanked the city and county for their support, but stressed that housing 14 people was a small step toward creating a model that can be replicated throughout the area.



Seven people currently live at the camp, which popped up in a state-owned parking lot next to Mineta San Jose International Airport on Sept. 9, then was pushed to an adjacent lot owned by the Service Employees International Union Local 1877.







At an emotional sentencing in Sonoma County Superior Court, a Petaluma woman was sentenced to the maximum term of 19 years and four months in prison for the fentanyl overdose death of her son and two prior felony burglary convictions.



The sentencing was Tuesday morning.



Danielle Faletto, 35, pleaded guilty in July to felony child endangerment of 16-year-old Brayden George, who died on April 16 at a residence on Vallejo Street in Petaluma.



The prison term includes 12 years for child endangerment and consecutive terms totaling seven years and four months for two serious or violent felony strikes for burglaries.



The emotions erupted outside the Sonoma County Courthouse after the sentencing when members of the large, extended family, not all of them related but all fractured by the teen's death, exchanged angry words and threats and nearly came to blows. More than a dozen sheriff's deputies responded quickly to separate them.



Faletto, the teen's birth mother, who refused to leave the county jail and come to court last week, showed no visible emotion during sentencing.







A federal judge in San Francisco closely questioned a government lawyer about the administration of President Donald Trump's decision to end temporary protected status for immigrants from El Salvador, Haiti, Nicaragua and Sudan.



The questioning occurred Tuesday.



Temporary protected status, or TPS, is granted to people from countries facing upheavals such as natural disasters or civil wars.



The Trump administration has withdrawn the status, previously in effect for eight to 21 years, for people from the four countries. The terminations will begin at various times between November and next September.



Nine immigrants and five citizen children are asking U.S. District Judge Edward Chen for a preliminary injunction blocking the termination. Chen took the request under consideration after a nearly two-and one-half-hour hearing, but said, "I understand the urgency of resolving" the case soon.







Two people have been arrested on suspicion of felony arson in connection with a series of four vegetation fires that burned at least 17 acres and injured two firefighters over the last month, according to the San Ramon Valley Fire Protection District and East Bay Regional Park District police.



The most recent incidents were during a period of high fire danger on Sunday in San Ramon and Monday in Las Trampas Regional Wilderness. The first fire burned 7 acres and injured one firefighter. The second fire burned 6 acres near that same location.



Investigators working with the San Ramon Police Department identified 39-year-old William Priest at his home Monday evening. He's been booked into county jail on $75,000 bail.



Another suspect who has not been identified was arrested in two previous arson wildfires, according to the San Ramon Valley Fire Protection District.







San Francisco school kids will get an inside look into the city's sewer system through an animated educational video created by the city's public utilities commission and the California Academy of Sciences.



The Story of Poo, a short video about a 6-year-old girl's visit to the Southeast Treatment Plant, was created to teach elementary school students about what happens to human waste after it's flushed down the toilet, commission officials said Tuesday.



"Our agency looks for new and innovative ways to teach youth about our systems, and how they can make sustainable choices at home, school and as they move throughout the world," Blair Randall, arts and education manager with the SFPUC, said in a statement. "With The Story of Poo, we're introducing our city's youngest residents to our combined sewer system with a fun, age-appropriate video to help them understand the upgrades we are making to our sewer infrastructure to support future generations."



With the video, students will get to see how wastewater is treated, from the first initial toilet flush, to its treatment at the Southeast Treatment Plant - where 80 percent of the city's wastewater is treated - to its final discharge into the Bay.





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 U.S. Department of Transportation report released Tuesday is the first to include details on regional carriers, a huge part of the airline industry that was absent from the department's performance surveys for several decades. This year, more than half of domestic flights were on regional airlines or "branded codeshare partners" as DOT terms them, carrying about one quarter of U.S. air travelers.She plans to keep some angels but has hired an auction company to sell most of them. She says she hopes the angels can stay together.The chain of events that came to be known as the Saturday Night Massacre was different. President Richard Nixon was trying to get rid of Archibald Cox, the special prosecutor investigating his 1972 campaign. Nixon fired Attorney General Elliot Richardson and his deputy because they refused an order to dismiss Cox. Solicitor General Robert Bork, the third-ranking official in the Justice Department, finally fired Cox after Richardson advised him not to resign and leave the department leaderless. FBI agents sealed Cox's offices and files. Nixon seemed to be proclaiming himself above the law. But the court of public opinion turned swiftly against the president. He was forced to allow appointment of a new special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, who ultimately brought him down.I have been thinking of that victim-survivor as I see the expressions of offense taken by those hurt by what I said in interviews in late August. It was a mistake for me to even mention that the church has a bigger agenda than responding to the charges in the letter by former papal nuncio Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano. What I should have said, because it has been my conviction throughout my ministry, is that nothing is more important for the church than protecting young people. I apologize for the offense caused by my comments. It pains me deeply to think that my poor choice of words may have added to the suffering of victim-survivors. For they, like that man who trusted me enough to share his story, deserve our admiration for calling us to purge the church of this evil.To deal with the issue, Michigan is going to get the lead out. Literally. The states new rules will require water utilities to replace lead service lines in the next 20 years to eliminate the risk of contamination. In most places around the country  including Illinois  water utilities require homeowners to cover the cost of replacing the portion of the pipe that runs from the property line to the home. Partially because of that cost, service lines sit under our yards, representing a significant, but invisible, risk. If water is appropriately treated, the risk of contamination can be reduced, but the blight of lead contamination can only be fully addressed by pulling entire lead pipes out of the ground. In Illinois, concerns have also been raised about whether there is appropriate treatment in many communities.The first must-take step here is to understand the scope and intensity of the risk over time. Yet the testing done in May gave only a snapshot of the problem. Long-term air monitoring would provide a much more accurate picture, and it would tell residents of surrounding communities whether the new equipment Sterigenics installed in July has actually made a difference. That information would help regulators and other public officials decide whether to take other actions. DuPage County Board Chairman Dan Cronin and state Sen. John Curran have called for revoking the companys current state permit to operate.You identified a witness who you claim was in the room when this alleged incident that quite clearly never happened happened. We will not be calling that witness, or any other witnesses, or be referring to any of the other outrageous allegations of sexual assault brought up as part of this smear camp  sorry, I get flustered when anyone tries to hold a fine man accountable  brought up as part of this careful and considerate process of vetting Judge Kavanaugh.He asks the FBI to resume its background check on him, in the hope that the FBI can determine the truth of the accusations now before him. He vows that if no evidence of misbehavior on his part can be discovered, he would readily forgive his accusers for their false accusations; he is capable of empathizing with the pain and suffering they have endured in their lives, even if he is not the cause.A photo of two senators in quiet conversation set off a speculative tweetstorm Wednesday as the Senate prepares to vote on the controversial nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.

The photo, tweeted by CBS reporter Bo Erickson, shows Senators Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, speaking in close proximity, with Feinstein's hand resting on the wall above Murkowski's head.

Other reporters took to Twitter to share what the conversation looked like from their perspective.

"Feinstein just ran into Murkowski in the hall and they hugged and then Feinstein said 'this is just between us' and then they started whispering," tweeted Hill reporter Peter Sullivan.

ALSO: Former KGO host and child porn convict Bernie Ward recalls Kavanaugh school

The pictures set off a flurry of speculation (and jokes), as people wondered what the two senators could be whispering about.

Many assumed they must be discussing Brett Kavanaugh, the judge President Trump nominated to fill a Supreme Court vacancy. Kavanaugh has been accused of sexual assault while in high school and sexual misconduct when he was a student at Yale. Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who said Kavanaugh held her down and tried to take her clothes off when they were teenagers, is set to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday. Murkowski is seen as a potential swing vote on the judge's confirmation.

ALSO: New accuser says Kavanaugh had role in sexual assaults

Others likened Feinstein's dominating stance to that of President Lyndon B. Johnson, who was known to tower over his opponents in conversation as an intimidation tactic.

Click through the slideshow at the top of this story to see some of the reactions on Twitter to the viral photo.

Read Alix Martichoux's latest stories and send her news tips at amartichoux@sfchronicle.com.

Start receiving breaking news emails on wildfires, civil emergencies, riots, national breaking news, Amber Alerts, weather emergencies, and other critical events with the SFGATE breaking news email. Click here to make sure you get the news.Apple's glass-cube stores have become as familiar as Subway sandwich shops. But when Steve Jobs opened the first in 2001, the retail venture was expected to fail. "I give them two years before they're turning out the lights on a very painful and expensive mistake," Apple's former chief financial officer, Joseph Goldstein, told Businessweek in an article titled "Sorry, Steve: Here's Why Apple Stores Won't Work."

Apple has 423 stores, as of March, and it makes more money in sales per square foot - $4,551 - than any other U.S.-based retailer, according to eMarketer Retail. The stores' success has a lot to do with their design, a fact not lost on Apple, which has patented its distinctive store layout, glass cube and floating staircase in the U.S. The company recently won permission to apply for trademark protection in the European Union.

In a recent interview, Tim Kobe of design studio 8 - the designer who worked closely with Jobs to create the computer stores' look - talked about how Apple changed the retail landscape:

Prototype far, far away: Shortly after returning to Apple as chief executive officer in 1997, Jobs developed a prototype of the retail concept away from the gaze of the U.S. press: He opened 34 outlets across Japan.

"Those were shops inside big-box consumer electronics stores," Kobe said. "Steve flew over and took a helicopter all around Japan to see the installations, and that was really the first trial of the retail." If those outlets hadn't passed muster, Jobs wouldn't have had the confidence to bring the idea stateside and launch the inaugural store in MacLean, Va.

Around the same time, Apple struck a deal to insert mini-stores in CompUSA and staff them with Apple-trained employees in an effort to boost flagging computer sales. Jobs quickly put the kibosh on the program. "Steve's sense was that the CompUSAs were a dying business, and that he shouldn't become connected with them." He was right: The superstore chain was sold in 2007 and finally closed in 2012.

The product is not the most important thing: When Apple opened its first store, it had thousands of square feet to fill with only four product lines. Computers occupied the front quarter of the showroom. The rest of the space was devoted to services (a kids' area, a theater for educational programs, the soon-to-be-signature Genius Bar), software programs (movies, music, photos), and additional electronics and accessories.

"All these elements were new ways for people to interact with technology - to extend the ease-of-use analogy into a broader dimension rather than just the software interface," Kobe said. Jobs knew from the outset that he could lure customers into an inviting environment with the promise of free Wi-Fi: "There are 36 computers on display on this floor," he breathlessly announces in a video. "Every single one of them is connected to the Internet."

Obsess over the smallest details: Jobs notoriously sweated details - "down to the screw heads," Kobe said. His drive for perfection drove people around him crazy, but it also brought out some of the best work from the designers around him. The stainless steel wall panels that were first used in the Stanford Shopping Center store took three months to develop. "We were trying everything we could think of, and Steve kept rejecting it, rejecting it," Kobe recalled. "So finally we decided to do the most impossible thing: Make a matte surface reflective." Jobs loved it.

"When I look at it historically," the designer continued, "the idea of making something that someone couldn't copy as well was at the heart of a lot of the material selections that ended up in the stores."

Apple Stores didn't always feature cantilevered shelving, gray sandstone floors and mobile checkouts. Those are all part of an evolutionary process driven by Jobs' obsessive efforts to improve the design, customer experience and sales. Those rectilinear wooden tables didn't appear until the second generation (or vintage, as the versions are known as internally); originally, the desktop and laptop computers sat on kidney-shaped white tables, which worked well for the candy-colored iMacs but not when the product line turned white. The designers then updated the display surfaces with a wood palette neutral enough for any future computer designs.

Kobe, who is still on retainer with Apple, says the recent push to trademark the store design marks a fundamental shift from setting standards, as Jobs did, to looking backward. "When you start defending something so hard, it reads like there's not a whole lot more in the pipeline, whether that's the case or not," he says.If the Chicago Bears do complete the purchase of Arlington International Racecourse and build a new stadium on the 326-acre property in Arlington Heights, what might it include? A look at the seven newest NFL stadiums might provide some ideas.A woman flying from Sydney to San Francisco International Airport with her 8-month-old son this week had a stressful time when a flight attendant berated her over her child's crying, she wrote in a Facebook post detailing the incident.

"I'm beyond infuriated at the inflight experience I'm having with our head flight attendant as she just told me it's 'ABSOLUTELY UNACCEPTABLE' for my baby to cry on the plane," Krupa Patel Bala wrote of her experience in business class on Flight 870 to San Francisco Monday.

YIKES: First-time flier attempts to open plane's exit door while looking for the bathroom

Bala said the flight attendant insisted on criticizing her for the crying even though she was attempting to soothe her child  a stressful confrontation especially considering Bala wrote there were still 13 hours left on the flight from Australia.

"I was told it's part of the rule book that the babies are not allowed to cry for more than 5 minutes," she went on. "When I asked to see the rule book, I was laughed at and told I could see it when we landed because there's no internet. Yet. Here I am. Posting this in-flight via WiFi that I specifically purchased to post this for $28.99."

She added the flight attendant told her that some airlines don't allow babies to fly in business class and that they could only discuss the issue in economy.

In a statement, United clarified, "Young families are welcome on our flights, including in business class."

Bala said the flight attendant told her that crew members and fellow passengers were complaining about the crying, but when asked, they said that wasn't the case. The saga allegedly continued with the pilot walking over and apologizing for the flight attendant's conduct.

"While I appreciate that, it's not his apology I'm interested in," she wrote.

United sent representatives to the gate to meet Bala's family as their flight landed in San Francisco, apologize, and offer her a refund, the company said.

ALSO: The 'gate wait' situation at SFO riles flyers

In a Wednesday update, Bala clarified that she'd had a positive experience with the other United employees who helped her deal with the situation and its aftermath, although she said the flight attendant she argued with "remains unapologetic."

"Over the last day, we have spoken with numerous representatives from United. Like the captain and rest of the cabin crew, they are all kind, lovely, wonderful humans," she wrote. "From what I understand, United is handling the situation and ensuring that no one else ever has an experience like ours where a flight attendant makes up her own rules."

Filipa Ioannou is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at fioannou@sfchronicle.com and follow her on TwitterIt's not clear what caused the death of a whale that was found in an advanced state of decomposition at Fort Funston last Wednesday.

Scientists with the Marine Mammal Center and the Cal Academy of Sciences went out to the beach, part of the Golden Gate Recreation Area in southwest San Francisco, Thursday to examine the whale. What was left of the humpback whale measured about 32 feet long.One of the most popular of recent memes, "the distracted boyfriend," has been deemed sexist by Sweden's advertising regulator.

The Swedish internet company Bahnhof used the image  a stock image that shows a man ogling a passing woman while his girlfriend looks on with disgust  to advertise job vacancies on Facebook, according to the Swedish news site The Local. It labeled the boyfriend, "You"; the girlfriend, "Your current workplace"; and the second woman, "Bahnhof."

The advertising watchdog Reklamombudsmannen (RO), which can criticize ads but not impose sanctions, found the use of the image demeaning to women and sexually discriminatory to both men and women.

"The advertisement objectifies women," the RO stated. "It presents women as interchangeable items and suggests only their appearance is interesting ... It also shows degrading stereotypical gender roles of both men and women and gives the impression men can change female partners as they change jobs."

The company defended the ad on Facebook, saying its aim was "to illustrate a situation that shows Bahnhof is an attractive employer, and that people who have a slightly duller workplace might be interested in us."

The Guardian reported that the ad received nearly 1,000 comments, many from women complaining it was sexist, including this one from Sofie Sundaker:

"It doesn't matter if it's a popular meme. If you do not see how this picture is sexist whatever words are on the people, you are clearly not a workplace for any woman who wants to be taken seriously in her work."

The stock photo, titled "Man Looking at Other Woman" by Barcelona photographer Antonio Guillem, has been applied countless times in an effort to put a humorous spin on all kinds of topics. It was named meme of the year in April.

Most recently it was used on Twitter to mock the Swedish advertising watchdog's ruling.

---

Read Mike Moffitt's latest stories and send him news tips at mmoffitt@sfchronicle.com.

Start receiving breaking news emails on wildfires, civil emergencies, riots, national breaking news, Amber Alerts, weather emergencies, and other critical events with the SFGATE breaking news email. Click here to make sure you get the news.PARIS  The first paying guests to the ground-floor studio flat newly posted on Airbnb were innocuous enough: A family, come to experience the joys of Paris, like many millions of others.

Franck Briand, who lives in the apartment directly above, now looks back on that moment as the start of what he calls his Airbnb nightmare. The ensuing four years, he says, have been an incessant carousel of late-night parties, drunken revelers and the rattle of newly arrived groups, sometimes 15 at a time, dragging wheeled suitcases across the cobbled courtyard.

I want to leave, Briand says. But I said to myself that it shouldnt be the weakest, those under threat, who give in.

Paris, long one of the worlds top destinations, is still grateful for the billions of dollars that tourists pump into the French capitals economy and the 300,000 jobs they sustain. But Parisians and City Hall officials also are expressing deep qualms about having so many visitors directly in their midst, no longer largely corralled in hotels but instead living, albeit temporarily, cheek-by-jowl with locals in properties rented online.

The backlash in Paris against intrusive, on-your-doorstep tourism hasnt yet reached the proportions of other heavily visited cities. Venice and Barcelona, among other destinations, have seen repeated protests. But concerns voiced in top European destinations are often the same: That mass tourism and its online platforms are hollowing cities out, driving away locals with higher prices, higher rents and sheer inconvenience.

Jacques Boutault, mayor of Paris central 2nd arrondissement, is among those sounding the alarm. The rectangular district he oversees, boxed in by some of the citys must-visit sites, including the Pompidou art museum, has experienced a precipitous population decline as Airbnb has taken Paris by storm, with more listings than any other city worldwide.

The population is changing completely, from those who have been here for years to one that is just passing through, says Boutault, the district mayor since 2001. The 2nd arrondissement has lost 3,000 inhabitants in the past four years, more than 10 percent of its total and many of them families, he says.

I dont want to be the mayor of a museum, thats to say pretty walls where people spend a bit of time and then leave, Boutault says.

In 2012, Airbnb had 4,000 Paris-area listings. Currently, Airbnb counts 65,000 listings inside Paris alone.

John Leicester is an Associated Press writer.BEIRUT  Israel should think carefully before attacking Syria again once it obtains the sophisticated S-300 defense system from Russia, a Damascus official said.

The warning followed pledges from Moscow to deliver the missile system after last weeks downing of a Russian plane by Syrian forces responding to an Israeli air strike.

Syrias Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad said late Tuesday that the S-300 should have been given to Syria long ago.

Israel, which is accustomed to launching many aggressions under different pretexts, will have to make accurate calculations if it thinks to attack Syria again, he said.

The Russian Il-20 military reconnaissance aircraft was downed by Syrian air defenses that mistook it for an Israeli aircraft, killing all 15 people on board.

Russia laid the blame on Israel, saying Israeli fighter jets were hiding behind the Russian plane, an account denied by the Israeli military.

On Monday, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced the S-300s will be delivered to Damascus within two weeks.

U.S. national security adviser John Bolton said the delivery would be a significant escalation in already high tensions in the region and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he would raise the matter this week with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov at the U.N. General Assembly.

Mekdad said the missiles are for defensive purposes, adding that Syria will defend itself, as it always did  a reference to missiles Syrian forces fired at Israeli warplanes carrying out air strikes inside Syria over the past months.

Meanwhile, preparations were under way to set up a demilitarized zone around the rebel-held province of Idlib, the last major area controlled by a mix of Turkey-backed opposition fighters and other insurgent groups.

Bassem Mroue is an Associated Press writer.This is sort of a neighborhood block party that we try to have once a quarter, and we want people to get together and spend time with their neighbors, said the churchs administrative coordinator Jennifer Pawlowski. One of our church members knew about this lab and asked if we could borrow it. We like being able to offer something educational to kids as well as having some family fun.(Shira Stoll, a Multimedia Specialist for the Advance/SILive.com, is the filmmaker behind the "Where Life Leads You" documentary and the Staten Island Holocaust Survivor series.)

MAPLEWOOD, N.J. -- It was a cold January afternoon when I first walked into Egon Salmon's home in Maplewood, N.J. I was met with a hefty booklet which detailed his life story.

"Read this and then we can do the interview," he said.

I laughed, thinking he was joking. Egon and I had spoke three times on the phone before I arrived to interview him for the Holocaust survivors project.

But he was not joking. He wanted me to understand how hard the story of the Holocaust is to comprehend.

"It's almost impossible to describe," Egon explained. And he wanted me to have a firm grasp on the concept that I would be trying to teach to others.

We had met two month prior at the Kristallnacht and the S.S. St. Louis event at Wagner College in November of 2017, where I first heard about his family's journey to freedom.

Egon is also a prominent figure on Staten Island. He started Salmon Real-Estate in 1956, making it the oldest independent real-estate firm on Staten Island. His two sons, Jon and Henry Salmon, continued his legacy, and Jon Salmon is now the President of the firm.

But before he was able to start this successful business, he and his family went through a long journey to escape the Nazis.

"Why don't you start by telling me your birthday and where you were born," I began.

"O.K.," he said. And he took a long pause to gather his thoughts. "I was born in the town of Rhyedt, Germany, which is the western part of Germany, near the French, Belgium, and Dutch border."

The interview continued as such, with such precise details, to make sure that I could understand geographically where everything was, and when exactly everything occurred.

After Hitler took power in Germany in 1933, Jewish life became very restricted.

Nine-year-old Egon was not able to go to restaurants or to the movies, and many people didn't want to associate with his family anymore, solely because they were Jewish.

On the evening of Nov. 9, 1938 through Nov. 10, 1938, the Nazis destroyed Jewish shops, lit synagogues on fire, and killed many Jews. This pogrom, known as Kristallnacht or the Night of the Broken Glass, is recognized as the beginning of the Holocaust.

Egon's father, Paul Salmon, was arrested by the Gestapo during this time, and he was taken to the Dachau concentration camp.

After a few months, Paul Salmon was let go and he planned the journey to get himself and his family out of Germany.

We invite you to watch the above video to hear Egon's chilling story about how he and his family escaped to the United States.CITY HALL -- Mayor Bill de Blasio does not think the New York Wheel is going to be an economically viable project, and therefore won't float the non-taxable bonds the company is seeking.

But if the New York Wheel is willing to put forth a plan that does not involve tax-free financing from the city, the mayor said Wednesday he is willing to consider hearing developers out again.

"It's the kind of tax-free bond financing that we would reserve only for situations that we felt were smart investments for the city and that were economically viable projects," de Blasio said at a press conference in the Bronx. "And so far, what we've seen in this case, unfortunately is a project that is not going to be economically viable."

Investors from the New York Wheel told the Advance last week that the project, which has been in the works for six years, will not happen without the help of the de Blasio administration.

What NY Wheel LLC wants are non-taxable bonds.

But in the meantime, Wheel investors said they will allow the multi-million dollar parts for the 630-foot tourist attraction to be auctioned next month by its former contractor, the Holland-based Mammoet-Starneth, if the city doesn't provide support.

An initial plan for the city to provide tax-exempt bonds was denied by the city Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) earlier this month.

De Blasio said last week on the Brian Lehrer Show that if the Wheel floated a new option or request, the city would be willing to evaluate it. Hizzoner emphasized that the bar would be high.

WILLING TO LISTEN

But on Wednesday, when pressed on exactly what kind of proposal he would like to see from developers, the mayor said he wanted them to come up with ideas of their own.

"I'm not going to put forward ideas to them ... it's their money," de Blasio said when asked what kind of proposal he would want to see from the Wheel. "It's their project, they have to figure out something that they think would be helpful but is not tax free financing, and we'll listen."

The mayor pointed to the previous administration for the project's shortfalls.

"I think the previous administration was willing to do certain types of subsidies and public support for private sector activity that I never would have been willing to do," de Blasio said. "But to be fair, to the Bloomberg administration, they did not offer public subsidies in this case, they said it's supposed to be done with private dollars."

"[But] along they went, and they had cost overruns, followed by more cost overruns, followed by more cost overruns," de Blasio continued. "So, the problem now is we've got what's supposed to be a purely private sector endeavor that now costs a whole lot more money and so developers have come to the city... what they've asked for, is something that we did not feel is appropriate to offer."

MAYOR: 'NOT OUR PROJECT'

The mayor pointed out that city officials have met with representatives from the Wheel "for years" and insisted they had been in "constant communication" with developers.

"Not our project, someone else's project that has not been made right, that's the problem," he said.

As for what will become of the city-owned site, the mayor said either the Wheel will go there if developers get their act together, or the site will house "something else that will benefit the people of Staten Island."

De Blasio did not elaborate on what he thinks should be built on the site if the Wheel goes south.

In an interview with the Advance, Jeffrey Feil of The Feil Organization, who is one of the lead investors in the project, said: "The developers and myself are still committed to the project. We have hope the city could provide some tax-free bonds. ...We have been meeting with the city for months now and they have been throwing roadblocks up rather than helping us with this endeavor."

While the project is being built on city-owned land, it has been fully funded by private investors, and through the Eb-5 program, which allows foreign investors to fund a project in exchange for help facilitating their green cards.

MORE RECENT STORIES ABOUT THE NY WHEEL:

NY Wheel: Without the city, 'it's not going to happen'

Source: Here's how $400M in NY Wheel money was spent

Exclusive: NY Wheel says project is still being pursued

NY Wheel applies for an extension to get the project back on track

New York Wheel deadline is Wednesday. What happens next?

One NY Wheel investor's reason for pulling money out of the project

50 days into NY Wheel agreement, no word on getting project back on track

Exclusive: NY Wheel gets green light to hire new contractor

New York Wheel stalled for 10 months: How did we get here?

Exclusive: Former NY Wheel CEO Rich Marin now involved with Eye of Texas Wheel

Former contractor pushing to auction $9M NY Wheel legs, other parts

FOLLOW SYDNEY KASHIWAGI ONSTATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- City public school students made gains on state English and math exams this year, according to results released Wednesday by the state Education Department.

There were 51,609 students on Staten Island who took the English and math state standardized exams in 2018.

Forty-seven percent of students met math proficiency standards, an increase of 5.2 percentage points from the previous year.

Meanwhile, 53 percent met English proficiency standards, an increase of 5.9 percentage points from last year.

"Our students' performance on these exams is one measure of the strength of New York City schools -- the hard work of our students, and the dedication and support of our teachers, staff, and families," said city Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza.

CITYWIDE, STATEWIDE NUMBERS

By comparison, only 42.7 percent of students citywide met the standards in math in 2018. That was a 4.9-point increase from 37.8 percent last year.

In English, 46.7 percent of students citywide met proficiency standards, a 6.1-point increase from 40.6 percent last year.

Statewide, 45.2 percent of test takers met proficiency standards in English, a 5.4-point increase from last year.

This is the third year city students outperformed their New York state peers in English.

"We came into office to shake the foundation of a system that neglected too many students, parents, teachers and schools," said Mayor Bill de Blasio. "We now have a school system that is steadily improving before our eyes. We've seen steady gains across our students' State math and English exams, proving that equity and excellence go hand in hand. I salute our students on their progress."

Across New York state, 44.5 percent met proficiency standards in math, a 4.3-point increase from last year.

Standardized state test scores were released a month later than usual as a result of the decision to reduce testing days from three to two. In recent years, scores have come out between late July and mid-August.

LAST YEAR'S SCORES

FOLLOW ANNALISE KNUDSON ON FACEBOOK AND TWITTER.The columns that Ive written on the Nimer murders have generated an outpouring of reader reaction from across the country. Many people either remember the case or were told about it by family members or friends. Others include retired members of law enforcement who worked on the matter, their descendants, lawyers and court personnel. I even heard from a child whos so intrigued by the baffling crime that shes vowed to do her own research on it. Since numerous readers have posed questions to me, I thought it appropriate to answer the most common queries in this weeks column.

Many people want to know what happened to Dean Nimer and his younger siblings, Gregory and Jennifer, after the monstrous murder of their parents in 1958. Fortunately, the childrens care was assumed by loving, closely knit family members in Utah. Dean was raised in Orem by his aunt and uncle, Dr. Harold Nimer and his wife, Arlea. Although he did well both at home and in school, Dean was provided with intensive counseling for about a year to deal with the extraordinary emotional trauma to which he had been subjected.

Dean graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in accounting. Since he was a devout member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (the Mormons), he willingly interrupted his college education to spend two years in Finland in missionary service to the church.

Dean has been known by his first name, Melvin, since he was 12 years old. Hes married, has three children from a former marriage, and remains active in the business world.

Gregory and Jennifer are employed in the real estate field and doing well.

Court proceeding

Several people have asked whether Dean was ever arrested, prosecuted or jailed in connection with the murder of his parents. While he was certainly neither incarcerated nor found guilty of anything, a proceeding was initiated against him in Childrens Court, the predecessor of the Family Court. It should be noted parenthetically that, under New York law at that time, no person under 16 could be criminally prosecuted as an adult for any crime, including murder.

Dean, who was 8 at the time of the murders, remembers going to Childrens Court, being represented by an attorney retained by his family, and being sent to Bellevue Hospital by the presiding judge for a mental health evaluation. He even recalls learning to play chess and to dance the two-step while at that facility.

Since the resultant psychiatric report was confidential by law, its precise findings remain unknown. Clearly, however, the boy was not found to be a danger to himself or to others, or he would not have been cleared to return to Utah.

The petition filed against Dean was dismissed without even generating a hearing. District Attorney John Braisted stated that he chose not to pursue the matter because of the boys tender age. While that would have been consistent with his reputation as a fair-minded prosecutor, he had absolutely no chance of winning the case.

The dying declarations of both parents identifying their murderer as a masked intruder raised more than enough doubt as to Deans culpability. Moreover, his actual innocence was established to a moral certainty by a surgeons finding that Lou Jean Nimers fatal wound was inflicted by a knife driven with terrific force to a depth of five inches between her sixth and seventh ribs. That the tip of the blade was then flicked on an arc inside her body, a maneuver indicative of an experienced knife-wielder, further underscores the absurdity of believing Dean to be the perpetrator.

Before the murders

Since my family and I lived two houses away from the Nimers and knew the family well, some readers have asked about our impressions of Dean before the murders. My younger sister, Maureen, who often played with him in his backyard, describes him as a friendly kid, not at all scary in any way. She especially remembers making little trails with him and then maneuvering their toy trucks along them. Maureen also enjoyed the cookies and soft drinks that his mother, Lou Jean, often brought out to them.

Although my interaction with Dean was more incidental, he struck me as a perfectly normal, likable kid. Another former neighbor, who as a child played board games and cowboys and Indians with Dean, recalls him being very obedient to his parents, and frequently talking about God and religion.

Several readers who lived near the area at the time told me how frightful the murders were to them and their families. Other people offered theories about the case and potential perpetrators.

The Nimer case not only remains Staten Islands most intriguing murder mystery, but has been labeled by some in the national media as the crime of the century. Reader response to these columns leaves little doubt that it continues to generate interest, passion and debate to this day.

Email Daniel D. Leddy at column@danielleddylaw.com. Follow him on Twitter @LegalHotShots.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!Engel said that milk is a nutrition-rich product that is currently under-valued. There is no reason why we cant get it into the hands of those who need it most.The royal commission's top lawyers have raised the prospect of banning the sale of insurance through cold calls, scrapping kickbacks, and prohibiting add-on insurance sold at car yards, among a raft of possible changes to stamp out misconduct.

After the commission heard revelations of customer mistreatment earlier this month, a new document, which sets out the wider policy questions raised by the hearings, has opened the door to a shake-up of insurance laws and regulations.

Commissioner Kenneth Hayne is due to deliver an interim report to the government by Sunday. Credit:Eddie Jim

The submission, prepared by counsel assisting the commission and published on Wednesday, comes as commissioner Kenneth Hayne puts the finishing touches on an interim report that is due with the government by Sunday, but may be published as soon as Friday.

Among the ideas raised in Wednesday's submission was an outright ban on selling insurance through outbound call centres.Former Veda boss and current Westpac board member Nerida Caesar paid $100,000 for 317 shares in Fulcrum, according to documents filed with ASIC. Sydney businessman Anthony Meyer, Big Uns largest investor before its collapse, picked up $200,000 worth of shares. They joined investment bankers, fund managers, and Boart Longyear founder John Grill who invested $500,000. Former Westpac NZ Boss Peter Clare also put more money into the venture. There is a reason for the strong Westpac connection. The code at the core of Fulcrum was developed for Westpac New Zealand and the bank remains one of its major customers.

According to ASIC records, the last parcel of shares changed hands on July 10 this year. It will be the last time any shares are traded in the company. Former Veda boss and current Westpac board member Nerida Caesar paid $100,000 for 317 shares in Fulcrum. Credit:Jessica Hromas In August, Fulcrums banker appointed receivers to the New Zealand subsidiary which formed the core of the company. It housed most of Fulcrums customers and all of its intellectual property (IP). Weeks later New Zealands Inland Revenue Dept successfully applied to have the company wound up - which ensured there would be no return from corporate purgatory. This month the Australian operating subsidiary - which handled some of its Australian customers - was also wound up.

Adding salt to the wounds for Fulcrums shareholders is the fact that the New Zealand subsidiary - The Fulcrum Ltd - has been sold as a going concern to a new owner. Loading And given that Fulcrum investors, including the Westpac investors, will lose all their money - it is interesting to note that the new owner of the business, N3 Hub - has Westpac New Zealand as a 20 per cent shareholder. The receivers have completed a sale of the business and assets of the company, including the transfer of staff, to a third party purchaser who is continuing to operate the business and service the customers, said McGrath Nicols Andrew Grenfell who was appointed receiver of the New Zealand business. Westpac declined to comment on the matter, but the bank's involvement appears to confirm there was a viable business inside Fulcrum.

"I think they got a bargain, it all happened so quickly," said one party closely involved with Fulcrum. Which only raises more questions from about what went wrong. Losing your dough in a failed startup goes with the territory. Losing your dough in a successful business like Fulcrum, however, involves either incompetence or a major governance failure, as one investor put it. Costs ramp up It could be another month or more before the official autopsy arrives from the corporate undertakers. "It's still early days," said Andrew McCabe, the receiver appointed this month to Fulcrum's Australian subsidiary, The Fulcrum Aus Pty Ltd. "We are still investigating the company's affairs and will report our findings to the regulators and creditors in due course," he said.

While the liquidators diligently go about their collective task of working out what went wrong, Fulcrum investors, employees and company associates are already coming to their own conclusions. There is a clear consensus among those who spoke to Fairfax that the ramp up in costs this year - its Sydney office hired as many as 30 people ahead of the planned IPO - caused problems. They were hired for growth that never materialised. Pomeroy left the business. When a pre-IPO round of funding failed in July, Fulcrum's banker, New Zealand's Heartland Bank, called in the receivers. How did the board let it come to this? Apart from the chairman Kelly, who declined to comment, there were two directors from Foundry Innovations Ltd - the company which incubated Fulcrum and its largest shareholder.

They were Andrew Robertson and the colourful entrepreneur Christina Domecq - a descendant of the famous Spanish sherry-making dynasty. Christina Domecq's Foundry Innovations was a major shareholder in Fulcrum. She became a darling of the British press after founding the pioneering voice-to-text startup Spinvox. Her reputation never recovered when a BBC report alleged that most of the voice to text conversion was done manually in third world countries rather than by technology. She strongly denied this. Her notoriety followed her to New Zealand but her entrepreneurial streak continued with a string of business startups including The Foundry. Insiders point to Domecq as a key figure at Fulcrum thanks to Foundry Innovations' major shareholding. Unfortunately for Fulcrum, Foundry Innovations was also in financial trouble. The investors buying shares this year were not pumping money into Fulcrum. Foundry was raising cash by selling some of its Fulcrum shares.Good organisations have clearly defined roles, responsibility and accountability. Its becoming very obvious that the ABC has none of the above and thats causing chaos and controversy.

The furore that has engulfed the national broadcaster since its board sacked managing director Michelle Guthrie, and the controversies now engulfing chairman Justin Milne, appear to owe as much to the ill-defined nature of the roles within the upper echelons of the organisation as the undoubted failings of the individuals themselves.

The sacking of Michelle Guthrie and pressure on Malcolm Turnbull's friend Justine Milne highlight failings and conflicts in the ABC's governance structures. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Guthries failures were her inability to manage either up or down. In the end she didnt have the faith and backing of her board, her financial sponsor  the federal government  or her staff.

She was, it appears, a self-confessed failure. A CEO who reportedly offered to change their management style and work with an executive coach to retain their job is sending a pretty clear signal that they arent up to, or at least ready for, the demands of a role as responsible, demanding and sensitive as the one Guthrie was hired to perform.Because everyone calls their pool cleaner a Kreepy Krauly you have people contact us and complain about their broken cleaner. We ask which one they have and go help them and its more often than not, not our product," he said. They all get lumped together and people unfortunately abuse our trademark as well. Sarah said while people might look to the cheaper option, they usually come back. We typically get the third purchase, she said. They bought a Kreepy first, theyve gone down the path of a cheaper option and then they come back.

The reduction in pool ownership due to smaller lot sizes doesnt concern Kreepy Krauly either. Kreepy Kraulys have a lot of competition from cheap international knock-offs. According to Roy Morgan research in 2015 Australian pool ownership sat at about 12 per cent. Sarah said houses were getting smaller but there still plenty of pools out there that needed cleaning. People still do love the great Australian dream with a pool, she said.

We also get repeat customers. The pools in the ground still need to be cleaned and gone are the days when people do go out there and manually clean it. Andrew said they developed their 'sprinter' cleaner in response to the changing pool market. He said while smaller block sizes was an issue, it wasn't critical and general population and housing growth more than took up the slack. He said FIFO workers had grown into a huge customer base. Clean transition

One of the biggest challenges was taking over the business from their father but fortunately the succession has been a successful one. Like many sons and daughters of business owners the siblings had been a part of the business throughout their entire life My parents never believed in school holidays, Andrew said. I could have walked if I wanted to but my school holidays were spent in the factory. During my uni days if I wasnt at uni I was expected to work at the factory. At uni I probably had a lot more context than most people.

Sarah said she also worked at the school factory during the holidays, though not as much as Andrew. He quipped this was because she had a social life. It was about understanding the world a little bit more and understanding where hard work came from and how hard work could pay off, Sarah said. Andrew was totally committed from a young age while Sarah got a job outside of Kreepy Krauly as an engineer at a big iron ore miner for a few years before coming back later. It was just something I always wanted to do, Andrew said. I liked the problem solving of running your own business. Its stressful but I think having the chance to steer your own destiny is pretty powerful. I loved the challenge.

Sarah said when she left her well paid job running a team of engineers in Perth, her parents asked: "why?" I guess its the fact that I like the problem solving but also you can create change, she said. Its great in big business that you can run multimillion dollar projects and see them through but thats typically through lot of red tape, its many years in the works. Its nice to come in and say I have this idea, can this be realised. Even though the brother and sister directors dont always agree Sarah and Andrew still have a great relationship outside of the office.Santos announced it will double its gas output, targeting a production rate of more than 100 million barrels of oil equivalent by 2025, driving its share price to its highest point since 2015.

This massive expansion is driven in part by Santos $US2.2 billion ($3 billion) takeover of West Australian Quadrant Energy, which comes with the highly prospective WA offshore Dorado oil wells.

Santos has set a massive growth target only months after it rejected a $15 billion takeover offer. Credit:Brendan Esposito

Energy rival Woodside is targeting 100 million barrels of oil equivalent (mmboe) by 2020.

Santos share price shot up to $7.47 on the back of the announcement, its highest point since mid-2015 and a 189 per cent upwards movement in the space of 12 months, before slipping 1.5 per cent to $7.25.Finding clean, affordable hotels in India can be a traveller's nightmare. Too often, what looks good on a website turns out to be a roach-infested room in a crumbling building where water has to be schlepped to the bathroom in a bucket.

Ritesh Agarwal Ritesh Agarwal got the idea for Oyo while travelling India on a shoestring budget and lodging at some questionable guest houses. Credit:Bloomberg

Ritesh Agarwal's solution is a booking app that promises truth in advertising and branded hotels that don't deliver unpleasant surprises. The chain he started in 2013, Oyo Hotels, has already become the largest in India, a chaotic market worth $US4.5 billion ($6.2 billion), according to New Delhi-based researcher Hotelivate.

Now Agarwal is going overseas with his franchise model, which combines a reservation site with a full stack of services for small hoteliers who want to up their game. Yesterday the company said it's raising $US1 billion from SoftBank Vision Fund, Sequoia Capital and other investors to fund expansion in countries including China, where Oyo opened in November. Last week it started service in the UK, bringing the business to a developed market for the first time.

"By 2023, we will be the world's largest hotel chain," the 24-year-old founder said in a recent interview at an Oyo hotel in a suburb of New Delhi, where the company is based.The breakdown in the relationship between ABC chairman Justin Milne and former ABC managing director Michelle Guthrie is believed to have been exacerbated by his overly-familiar language when referring to his managing director and other female staff members.

Mr Milne, a company director who is close to former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, is alleged to have referred to Ms Guthrie as the missus in front of staff. Fairfax Media has spoken to a media executive who claims Mr Milne also referred to women as chicks and babes.

ABC chairman Justin Milne at his home on Thursday morning. Credit:Nick Moir

Ms Guthrie is understood to have found this language inappropriate and told confidantes that it contributed to her increasingly fractious relationship with Mr Milne.

Ms Guthrie was dumped by the public broadcasters board on Monday after falling out with the board over her management style, low staff engagements levels and her relationships with MPs in Canberra. She had served half of her five-year term."These lakes speed up permafrost thaw," Walter Anthony said. "It's an acceleration." There was only so much the team would learn from the instruments they had hauled here. To get a firsthand look, they would have to get in. They'd brought their wet suits. Walter Anthony, who grew up close to Lake Tahoe, was captivated by Arctic lakes at 19, when she spent a summer at Siberia's picturesque Lake Baikal. Research technician Philip Hanke moves a measuring chamber that records greenhouse gas fluctuations. Credit:Washington Post photo by Jonathan Newton "I love the solitude of remote lakes and the mystery of what lies beneath the water surface."

Two decades and several academic degrees later, she was asked by a Native Alaskan group, the NANA Regional Corporation, to search for methane seeps in north-west Alaska, since the gas, despite its climate downsides, could provide a fuel source for remote communities. How do you find a lake in Alaska that leaks methane? Well, there's one telltale sign: they don't fully freeze over. In April 2017, Walter Anthony put out word among residents of Kotzebue, Alaska, that she was looking for weird lakes. An email that month from a pilot led her to the Noatak region, not far above the Arctic Circle. Last September, she made her first visit to the lake - set against sloping hills covered with rust-coloured mosses and blueberry bushes. She brought her family and a graduate student to the spot, so remote it required several days of camping and was completely off the grid. Frederic Thalasso takes gas samples from the lake via boat. Credit:Washington Post photo by Jonathan Newton At first, the sheer volume of gases at Esieh Lake was slightly terrifying, but as Walter Anthony grew accustomed to the lake's constant spluttering, her fear gave way to wonder.

Her sounding devices picked up huge holes in the bottom of the lake. Pockmarks, she called them, "unlike anything I've ever seen in any Arctic lake". Most of Esieh is quite shallow, averaging only a little over a metre deep. But where the gas bubbles cluster, the floor drops suddenly, a plunge marked by the vanishing of all visible plant life. Measurements showed that the lake dips to about 15 metres deep in one area and nearly 4.5 metres in another. When they first studied them, Walter Anthony and her graduate student Janelle Sharp named these two seep clusters W1 and W2, short for "Wow 1" and "Wow 2." Philip Hanke pulls the boat carrying scientific supplies through a narrow passage. Credit:Washington Post photo by Jonathan Newton The next discovery came from the lab. When the scientists examined samples of the gases, they found the chemical signature of a "geologic" origin. In other words, the methane venting from the lake seemed to be emerging not from the direct thawing of frozen Arctic soil, or permafrost, but rather from a reservoir of far older fossil fuels.

If that were happening all over the Arctic, Walter Anthony figured - if fossil fuels that had been buried for millennia were now being exposed to the atmosphere - the planet could be in even deeper peril. For the second trip, Walter Anthony had brought a larger team of researchers, more equipment and her family - her husband, Peter Anthony, and sons, Jorgen, 6, and Anders, 3. The team brought instruments for sampling gases, four inflatable boats, large crates of food, eight tents, a satellite phone for emergencies, and two shotguns. As with much of the Alaskan wilderness, the lake is frequented by grizzly bears, and the bear scat around the camp kept everyone keenly aware of their surroundings. A rainbow shines over Esieh Lake, with the seep field of methane gas visible in the centre. Credit:Washington Post photo by Jonathan Newton A week before the trip, Walter Anthony had published a major study delivering worrisome news about Arctic lakes in general. Her husband - also a scientist at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks - was a co-author.

The research tackled the central question now animating scientists who study permafrost soils, which can reach depths of nearly 1.5 kilometres and were laid down over tens of thousands of years or more as generations of plants died and sank beneath the surface. Because of the cold, those carbon-rich remains never fully decomposed, and the soil preserves them in an icy purgatory. Now, though, as the Arctic warms, decomposition is starting up - and it gives off greenhouse gases. Loading Scientists know the permafrost contains an enormous amount of carbon - enough to warm the planet catastrophically if it were all released into the atmosphere. But they don't know how fast it can come out and whether changes will be gradual or rapid. That's where Walter Anthony's work came in. The authors examined the prevalence of thermokarst lakes, which form when the wedges of ice within permafrost melt and create voids that then fill with water. And they found that the continuing growth of these lakes - many of which have already formed in the tundra - could more than double the greenhouse gas emissions coming from the Arctic's soils by 2100. That's despite the fact that the lakes would cover less than 6 per cent of the total Arctic land surface.

Scientists have been puzzling over a dramatic spike in atmospheric methane levels, which since 2006 have averaged 25 million tonnes more of the gas per year. Walter Anthony's study found that Arctic lakes could more than double this increase as well. Loading Overall, if Walter Anthony's findings are correct, the total impact from thawing permafrost could be similar to adding a couple of large fossil-fuel-emitting economies - say, two more Germanys - to the planet. And that does not take into account the possibility of more lakes like Esieh, which appears to be a different phenomenon from thermokarst lakes, emitting gases faster. The landscape around Esieh Lake itself bears the mark of rapid thermafrost thaw. Along the shore, a large section of the hillside had collapsed, a change that, according to two members of the team, had occurred just since May, when they were last here.

This "thaw slump" was a textbook example of fast-moving permafrost thaw. It had left behind an exposed wall of muddy ice and small islands of peat and mosses. Loading If it weren't for the bubbles, the large patches of silty water they create and the slightly unsettling fact that you could light the emerging gases on fire (at one point, Walter Anthony did just that), Esieh Lake might be an idyllic scene. But these features, combined with the fact that it appears to be frequented by grizzly bears, render it more alien than bucolic. But Walter Anthony and her research technician Philip Hanke, 25, were determined to explore it from within. On the second day of the trip, they donned wet suits and snorkels and plunged into the cold water, which was below 15 degrees Celsius. They wanted to see the methane seeps up close and learn what they could by swimming among the bubbles.

Hanke went first, venturing into the more vigorous bubble site, Wow 2. There was very little visibility. But, groping in the darkness, Hanke could feel the shape of things. Loading "It's kind of freaky," he reported after he surfaced. "Right where the hole goes in, it slopes, and it's flattened out, and it coned back down, and that was where some really loose sediment was, and I could stick my hands into it." "So there's different ledges, you're saying?" Walter Anthony asked. "Yeah, it was a ledge."

The second, much deeper site was less murky, more peaceful. Walter Anthony was still in awe when she came up for air. Loading "You're just looking down into this stream of bubbles coming up right into your face, and they're so soft they go all around you," she said. "And the sunlight's on them. It's like out of this world but under this world." Another scientist, Frederic Thalasso, had travelled from Mexico City and spent days taking gas measurements around the lake. His initial results: emissions from Esieh were very high - and clearly had something to do with fossil fuels. The lakes where he had witnessed similar bubbling activity were in the tropics and polluted - ideal conditions for the production of methane, said Thalasso, a scientist with the Centre for Research and Advanced Studies at the National Polytechnic Institute in Mexico.

But those lakes have gas flows that are "probably 100 times lower than in this lake," he said. Loading His instruments also detected ethane, butane and propane - classic signatures of a fossil origin. Later, after processing his data, he produced an initial estimate that the lake was producing two tonnes of methane gas every day - the equivalent of the methane gas emissions from about 6000 dairy cows (one of the globe's biggest methane sources). That's not enough to be a big climate problem on its own, but if there are many more lakes like this one - well, that's another story. After four nights of camping, the team packed up to make the two-hour boat trip to Kotzebue, Alaska, the first leg on the journey home. Walter Anthony wouldn't have all the new data processed for a while, but she did have a pretty good hypothesis about what is happening at Esieh Lake.

Permafrost contains a lot of carbon - but in some locations, permafrost soil and its characteristic wedges of embedded ice also sit atop ancient reserves of fossil fuels, including methane gas. So as the Arctic warms - which it is doing twice as fast as the rest of the earth - these gases could be liberated into the atmosphere. Loading The holes in the bottom of Esieh Lake could therefore be an underwater cousin of odd craters that have appeared in the Siberian tundra in recent years, suspected to have been caused by underground gas explosions. If this is right, then Esieh Lake becomes a kind of hybrid - and a worrying one. It's not a pure thermokarst lake, though some thermokarst appears to be forming around the lake's expanding edges, tipping shoreline trees as the ice in the permafrost melts and the ground destabilises. But the thawing of permafrost at the lake bed might also have unleashed older fossil gases from a reserve that had been sealed - creating another kind of worrisome lake.

"This is an additional source," Walter Anthony said. Carolyn Ruppel, who leads the Gas Hydrates Project at the US Geological Survey, said Walter Anthony's theory made sense. Permafrost thawing could indeed release ancient fossil fuels in areas where they intersect. But it would take more study to prove that this phenomenon is leading to widespread emissions across the Arctic, she cautioned. Nobody knows how long ago the seeps started bubbling or what the trigger was. From a scientific perspective, the fact that these lakes are emitting methane rather than carbon dioxide does have an admittedly limited upside.

Methane hits the atmosphere hard and fast and then mostly dissipates after a decade or two - far different from carbon dioxide, which is less potent but lingers for centuries or even millennia. So while methane impedes climate progress and amps up the planet's immediate temperature, it does not leave the same long-term legacy. Meanwhile, some scientists say they're not sure yet how bad Arctic lakes will be for the climate or whether they will indeed cause emissions from permafrost to double. "It's not the final number," said Vladimir Romanovsky, one of Walter Anthony's colleagues at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks and a noted permafrost expert. At this point, it would be premature to call Esieh Lake a sign of climate doom. It is a strange and dramatic site, but its message remains partly veiled. The coming years will probably reveal what's behind Esieh and whether it has many cousins across the top of the world.The Lansing TV report does go on to say Aklasou was a paramount chief, chosen to represent many cantons. But because that does not translate well into English, the title of king was given to him as a sign of the respect for the important role he serves, in much the same way, added Muhammad, people would give respect to any U.S. governor traveling to other parts of the world.Come down and stick your greenie nose in our area and see what happens  I shoot what I want! Including stinking eagles.

Bet your Toorak tracktor has not gone past the local shops. We watch foxes, wild dogs and eagles take young baby lambs at a rate over the last ten yrs, you wouldnt even know. Nobody in Dans Labour party gives a fk. Fine us farmers - good luck!

What would a Labour voting greenie from Hurstbridge living in a McMansion know about us 5th generation farmers in Gippsland, the handwritten note read.

The letter to Steven after dozens of dead eagles were found in East Gippsland.

The Melburnian, who grew up in rural Tasmania, had written of his upset and anger on hearing that 136 wedge-tailed eagles had been found dead on a property in far-east Victoria. He was not expecting this feedback.

On a yellowing piece of paper was a message in neat, black capital letters, under a copy of a letter to the editor that Steven had written to a local newspaper.

On a cool July morning this year, Steven opened the mail at his home in Melbournes north-east.

Yet farmers organisations, while also condemning the practice, say the issue is not clear-cut.

Eagle experts say that, while the most recent incident is shocking, the practice itself is neither new nor limited to Victoria. They worry it could have national consequences for the species if action isnt taken.

But the discovery of the eagles has had ramifications far beyond Tubbut.

The department has stressed that the investigation is ongoing and more legal proceedings could be on the horizon.

He was sentenced to 14 days in jail and fined $2500 with a conviction. It was the first ever custodial sentence for destruction of protected wildlife in Victoria.

This week in the Sale Magistrates Court, Murray James Silvester, 59, pleaded and was found guilty of causing the death of 420 wedge-tailed eagles through the use of bait impregnated with poison between October 2016 and April this year.

It was short, sharp and characteristic of a debate that has resurfaced since June, when the Environment Department discovered scores of wedge-tailed eagle carcasses on a remote property in Tubbut, a tiny rural community in East Gippsland near the Snowy River National Park.

But around Tubbut, there were many who werent surprised.

We understand people are outraged by this crime  Be assured we are taking all steps we can to investigate this thoroughly, said Mr Bruce.

Investigators believe the number killed was significantly higher than seized, said Ian Bruce from the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning after they found 136 birds in May.

The carcasses were hidden in bush and scrub, scattered across the vast property and concealed under vegetation, making it almost impossible to estimate exactly how many eagles were killed.

It took three days, dozens of officers from the Environment Department, two motorbikes and several four-wheel-drives to thoroughly search the 2000-hectare Tubbut property to find the dead birds.

A police officer holds the remains of one of the birds after 136 carcasses were found. Credit:Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning

We need them to be there. They are working for us all the time.

All the top-order predators, sharks in the oceans, they are really important for the jobs that they do, which we don't always appreciate, but we would certainly notice if they weren't there.

They are really important to the ecosystem, says Healesville Sanctuary keeper James Goodridge, citing the eagles' ability to clean up dead and dying animals as vital to a healthy environment.

Successive studies have since found that, while eagles are capable of killing lambs, its rare for them to do so. They mainly feed on rabbits and carrion, as well as lizards, possums, foxes and feral cats.

Pictures from that time show the birds  which can weigh up to five kilograms  strung on fences and hung from trees, killed by farmers convinced that the native predators were taking their livestock.

Though the wedge-tailed eagle is now protected by state legislation, some researchers estimate that more than 300,000 were killed Australia-wide in the decades before the late-1960s when some states offered bounties for carcasses.

Eagles are special to me because, I suppose, I look at it through an old falconry point of view, says Goodridge.

They can also carry prey weighing up to five kilograms through the air, attacking with a fast swooping motion that often kills their target instantly. When hunting in groups, they can kill a kangaroo. Their eyesight is eight times sharper than humans.

With a wingspan that can reach up to 2.5 metres, wedge-tailed eagles are able to soar, particularly on warm winds, as high as two kilometres from the ground, and for up to 90 minutes in one flight.

A thousand years ago, kings and royals would have birds like this and it was a way of remaining really humble in yourself  you have the majestic animals which are so much better than we are  they can fly, see things so much further away.

"It makes me feel quite humble to be in the presence of an animal like this.

The birds have special significance for the Indigenous Kulin people of central Victoria, with Bunjil, a wedge-tailed eagle, one of the creator ancestors of the land.

Despite studies finding that the overall threat eagles pose to farming communities is negligible, environmental advocates say the belief has barely shifted in some farming communities.

University of New England professor and leading raptor expert Steve Debus grew up in farming communities in the NSW Riverina, and remembers seeing eagles strung from fences.

They have been accused of killing lambs. Theyd be capable of killing them, but a lot of the time they are seen scavenging on a dead one and farmers jump to conclusions, he said.

There is the drought and all sorts of other things that cause lamb deaths. Its a combination of things. With farmers under stress - and maybe the economics have changed - theres clearly a need for current research on the problem, and on eagle populations.

John Hermans, president of the Gippsland Environmental Group, says the killing of eagles is fairly widespread.

Traditionally, farmers have done that sort of thing in their ignorance and they dont realise the eagles arent all that much of a problem to them. Its dogs and foxes.

They are not just knocking out the eagles in one locality, they are sucking them out of a much broader landscape. Because eagles fly so far and travel so widely, to kill over 100 would be to reduce the number of eagles across a broad range of Australia.

I live in Bairnsdale, and Id be lucky to see a wedge-tail once a month. They have significantly reduced.

Dead wedge-tailed eagles in a picture which appeared in The Age Literary Review on May 28, 1966.

Roger Bilney was at the start of his career when he joined the environment department in Victoria in 1973. He spent two decades working for the organisation before becoming the chief ranger in Queensland with responsibility for wildlife protection for more than two and a half years and then returning to Gippsland.

He has been researching eagles for four years, looking at sea eagles on the Gippsland Lakes, and is a founding member of the Australian Raptors Association.

And while he recognises the recent headline-grabbing incidents in Victoria have dominated discussion, he says the problem extends far beyond Tubbut.

Its going on everywhere, he said. I was an officer in the area for 20 years. Tubbut is not on its own.

Its not all necessarily one-sided because eagles are very capable of killing ... even significant-sized sheep. Even sea eagles are causing problems in some areas. I dont know if it's a lack of prey, he said.

Bilney also says the resurgence of the wool industry means the practice will continue and probably get worse unless something is done.

The biggest worry is that sheep are on the increase and there is a significant return for wool and lambs, so they see eagles in the paddock and see they might be about to lose $2000 a month and take action. Youve still got the old school who will shoot because they can when there is a drought on, the sheep have low energy and lambs are dying due to a lack of energy and that will be exacerbating the problem.

Four properties in Tubbut and Orbost in East Gippsland were raided by DELWP in June, uncovering more remains. Credit:DELWP

Environment Department officials say that since 2007 there have been 20 to 30 reports of alleged poisoning, trapping and destruction of wedge-tailed eagles in Victoria.

The department was unable to pinpoint eagle-specific cases, but say in the last decade they have successfully sanctioned 100 people for unlawful destruction of wildlife. They say there does not appear to be a rise in reports of wedge-tailed eagle deaths in the state.

But Bilney is worried that if something isnt done urgently - and nationally - the result could be disastrous for the species.

If youre having hundreds of birds taken out every year on the eastern seaboard, and WA, and SA, then yes youre having an enormous effect, he said.

We are not talking hundreds, we are talking thousands each year. Can the population withstand it? I say it cant, but we dont know.

A wedge-tail in profile. Credit:Shutterstock

The official farming body for Victoria has condemned the mass killing in East Gippsland, as well as the practice generally.

But theyve also called on both sides of the conversation to listen to lived experience rather than dismiss it.

First of all, we dont want to see anyone breaking the law, Victorian Farmers Federation president David Jochinke says.

Secondly, with the numbers we saw at Tubbut and the huge impact on the population, it does open the discussion about if you are impacted by an introduced or native species. How do we manage that as a community? Are people compensated if they are losing lambs? How do we have a coexistence?

A possibility touted by the federation is to compensate farmers who lose lambs to eagles.

There are also permits in Victoria that allow for farmers to kill birds of prey if they are threatening livestock but it is rare for the department to issue them and none have been issued in the past nine years.

It's understood that two permits were issued in 2009 in the Hume region, near Yea north-east of Melbourne, for a total of five eagles, and in 2015 a scare only permit was issued in Swan Hill.

We need a more mature discussion rather than everyone going to corners and saying 'you cant do that', Jochinke says. We need to look at solutions.

He said there needed to be a better understanding of how the birds operate, urging increased research for a solution which doesnt affect the total population.

I understand it can be polarising and I do empathise ... As farmers, I like to think we are good stewards. We do need to have a broader discussion about how we do it with this issue.

If we dont look after the environment, it doesnt look after us. The time is right to have mature people around to have that discussion.

An eagle dead on a property in Tubbut, East Gippsland. Credit:Facebook

At the 2016 census, Tubbut registered a population of 11. People know their neighbours.

Recent events have seen many in the community fall silent, as anxiety ripples through the area. As one local put it: Entire families, friendships and communities could be torn apart over it.

In a statement to The Age, an Environment Department spokesperson said it could not comment while investigations were still ongoing, but underscored the illegality of killing the birds.

Wedge-tailed eagles are protected under the Wildlife Act 1975 and anyone living or working in the proximity of these birds should be aware that it is categorically unacceptable to destroy them without the appropriate authorisation, a spokesman said.

With potential jail time and thousands of dollars in fines in play, recent events have highlighted a need for change.

The state and federal government should step in and look at significant research, says Bilney.

The research we are quoting goes back to the '60s and early '70s. A lot has changed. We need to look more at a national level rather than state level.

That's where I think farmers have to accept what may really be going on, and bird lovers have to accept more might be at play than disgruntled farmers.

It was considered the most persecuted bird in the world at the time it was protected in the early '70s. Even people who dont like them still look up and admire them. It would be a shame if we lost that.

Reports of any suspected illegal activity regarding wedge-tailed eagles can be made to the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning contact centre on 136 186 or to Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.In coming days, legislation allowing the deliberate destruction of thousands of hectares of pristine World Heritage-listed wilderness is likely to become law, without an assessment of the environmental, cultural, or economic impacts.

Far from the actions of a tin-pot dictatorship, this unprecedented environmental attack is championed by the NSW government and affects areas on Sydneys doorstep.

Contentious: The Warragamba Dam.

It is illegal to flood national park land with a dam, so the Berejiklian government needs to change that if they press ahead with plans to spend an estimated $800 million raising the wall of Warragamba Dam by 14 metres.

The land to be flooded is not only of the highest conservation value, it is among the most highly-protected and significant natural landscapes in Australia: World Heritage-listed; National Park; declared wilderness; declared wild river; and National Heritage status.As she transitioned from women's rights campaigner to royal wife, Markle has toed the line  so far. The nude stockings (on previously nude legs), the cutting back on public displays of affection, the end of her popular blog, the all-round attempt to blend in rather than stand out.

One thing that endeared her so strongly was that her feisty determination to speak up on gender equality appeared to be such a part of who she is. It emerged as far back as her primary school days when, aged 11, she famously took her complaint about sexist advertising all the way to Hillary Clinton  and won her battle to get a multinational to tone the offensive ad down.

Meghan Markle's fan army had high hopes for the impact she could make on social issues, especially with regards to women, once she landed her feminist self on the global stage .

Some have suggested Markle's tacit acceptance of "the rules" around how royal wives behave, and what they can and can't be seen to say or support, is a sign she will disappoint women who had expected her feminism to mean more than a line on her royal bio. At least one has gone so far as to suggest "adoration" of Markle and her sister-in-law is "anti-feminist".

Then again, the sense from Buck House appears to be Markle has the blessing of the Crown to use her position to "fight for feminism". Surely someone labelling themselves a proud feminist infiltrating patriarchal Buckingham Palace is better than no one who calls themself a feminist being in there at all.

Having enjoyed a royal honeymoon period that has, for once, not descended quickly into a click-baity chain of take downs, Markle arrives in Australia in October with nothing but goodwill preceding her.

Meghan Markle could add her voice to many local equality and social justice causes in a very meaningful way. Credit:Reuters Pool.

What would be excellent is if Markle chose her first visit to the less stitched-up colonies to come out of her obedient new shell and speak out a little bit  or a lot  on gender issues, especially given the fact so many vital ones are top of mind.If you were losing sleep over the disappearance of a portrait of Mark Tedeschi QC from the Crown office, you can rest easy.

On Tuesday we revealed the terrible news that Tedeschis successor as senior Crown prosecutor, Christopher Maxwell QC, had to launch an all-person search after the painting went missing from the Liverpool Street digs.

After some sleuthing, the portrait was recovered. Credit:Shakespeare

We can now report it was found. Face down, in a broom closet.

What did Tedeschi do to deserve such a fate? The answer to this question remains a mystery, but at least we can rule out the artwork having been stolen for its artistic value.A 15-year-old boy has been charged over a fatal traffic crash in Stafford in Brisbane's north on Saturday.

Queensland police said at 2am on Saturday morning a car driving along Appleby Road left the road, crashed through a fence and hit the front of a house.

A male passenger in the car, also 15, died at the scene. Another teenager was taken to the Lady Cilento Hospital for treatment for non-life-threatening injuries.

A Queensland Police spokesman said on Wednesday morning the boy was charged with dangerous operation of a vehicle causing death, unlawful use of motor vehicle and driving without a licence.Two workers have been seriously injured at a workplace in Yarrabilba, south of Brisbane.

Paramedics were called to the Yarrabilba Drive address at 11.30am, and a Queensland Ambulance Service spokesman said the triple-zero call detailed a concrete pipe falling on the two men.

The Toowoomba-based RACQ LifeFlight Rescue helicopter was called to airlift one of the men. Credit:RACQ LifeFlight Rescue

A man in his 60s sustained a serious hand injury and was taken to the Princess Alexandra Hospital by road.

A second man in his 20s suffered a serious leg injury and was being airlifted to the Princess Alexandra Hospital just before 2pm.WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT

In the nursing home she was independent, cared for and saw the doctor regularly.

Then she moved in with her son and his family and the caring gave way to squalor and neglect. Doctor visits became irregular, the medicine stopped coming. Then came the bed sores and soiled nappies.

By the time she died from bronchial pneumonia, in October 2013 at age 83, she had not seen a doctor or taken prescribed medicine for 16 months, had been unable to speak or swallow for a week and was lying in a filthy bed in a putrid room, all while her son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren lived under the same Melbourne roof.

Throughout this, carer payments kept coming to her daughter-in-law, who had been approved as the elderly woman's carer years earlier despite her own struggles trying to run the household.Last year she broke her tibia and needed surgery after her leg came into contact with a kerb. Earlier this year she also required surgery on her shoulder for a ripped tendon. She described the past several years as extremely stressful. "We try to be as positive as we can," she said. "I'm disappointed and hurt, we placed our trust in these people.

"I have my good days and my bad days but the whole process has been extremely stressful." Mrs Augustine said she tried to go back to work, but found it very hard. "I did go back last year but it was just too much, eventually I just could not do it," she said. Mrs Augustine's husband Gerald said the entire process had been financially worrying and consuming. "We did not know where to turn," he said.

"But we hope others can learn from our situation. One of the reasons why we are speaking out is to warn others, to make people aware." Central to the entire case, Maurice Blackburn lawyers say, is a meeting Mrs Augustine and her husband had with a financial adviser, years before her cancer diagnosis. An application for insurance through OnePath Life was made by the adviser electronically during one of the meetings. The adviser asked questions as he completed the form, which Mrs Augustine answered. She later signed all the necessary forms to process the application. But the electronic application was riddled with mistakes, Maurice Blackburn allege.

For example, the application stated Mrs Augustine had never been pregnant, when in fact she has four children. OnePath Life claim Mrs Augstine did not fully disclose her medical history, and would have reached and exceeded the maximum number of exclusions under the policy. The exclusions OnePath Life claim should have been put in place relate to knee, back, shoulder, and other health issues. But Maurice Blackburn lawyers point out none of those exclusions related to the reasons why Mrs Augstine stopped working. "Marjory met with an insurance adviser and gave honest and open answers to all questions put to her," Maurice Blackburn principal Phil Gleeson said.

"The rejection of Marjory's insurance claim is a terrible blow for someone battling cancer. "It is made more hurtful when the rejection is for non-disclosure and yet it is glaringly obvious to anyone reading a form where a mother of four children denies ever being pregnant that her actual answers clearly have not made their way into her application form. OnePath Life is owned by the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ). An ANZ spokesman told WAtoday on Tuesday it was "aware of the matter and was looking into it". "We are continuing to engage in good faith with the customers solicitors about some of the complex details involved in this matter," the spokesman said.UPDATE: Police have charged three men from Perth's northern suburbs over the incident.

Three men from Perth's northern suburbs have been charged after allegedly torturing and killing kangaroos.

Police are hunting for three men believed to have tortured and killed two kangaroos in two separate cases of animal cruelty earlier this year.

Police believe the men carried out their alleged attacks on Saturday May 19, and Saturday June 16.

On these dates, two kangaroos were tortured and killed, WA Police spokesman Mick Slaughter said.Britain will "plant a flag" and signal its interest to join an Australian-led Trans Pacific Partnership after it withdraws from the European Union, its Minister of State for Trade says, as the world prepares for a reshuffle of the global trade order.

In the strongest comments on the British government's post-Brexit intentions to date, Baroness Rona Fairhead said Australia was one of its top trading priorities and the UK would look to begin bilateral discussions with Canberra through the technology, science and education sectors.

It will also look to establish London as a funding and facilitation hub for China's $US2 trillion Belt and Road initiative - a program that Australia has been wary of as China's power grows in the Pacific - but that Australian companies could take advantage of via Britain.

Britain's Minister of State for Trade Baroness Rona Fairhead in Melbourne on Tuesday Credit:Eddie Jim

Baroness Fairhead said she had been urged to make the UK a very strong global "champion for free trade" despite the political turmoil unleashed by Brexit, as it prepares to lose access to the EU's single market and force it renegotiate its terms world-wide.Beijing: China's trade war with Donald Trump has prompted the world's second-largest economy to mend fences with Australia, a major supplier of China's energy needs.

The first diplomatic encounter between foreign affairs minister Marise Payne and her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi was "a very excellent meeting", Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Wednesday.

Marise Ann Payne Minister for Foreign Affairs and China State Councilor Wang Yi meet at the UN. Credit:Fairfax Media

China's foreign ministry had highlighted Australia's support for free trade, "highly complementary" economy, and said Beijing was ready to rebuilt mutual trust, in a statement released after the pair met in New York.

"China has its hands full with Trump and it's looking for friends, especially on trade," said Lowy Institute senior fellow Richard McGregor.Liverpool, England: British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has promised to deliver free childcare and reduce UK greenhouse emissions to zero, and has laid down a challenge to the Prime Ministers Brexit plans in a rapturously received speech to his party conference in Liverpool.

"We represent the new common sense of our time," Corbyn declared.

The speech, which Corbyn unapologetically described as "radical", set out Labours strategy to win a snap election that could be triggered by the collapse of Brexit negotiations, or the rejection of the governments Brexit divorce deal by parliament.

"When we meet this time next year let it be as a Labour government," he told the party faithful.Helsinki: A Finnish court on Tuesday remanded in custody a Russian and an Estonian detained on suspicion of aggravated money laundering following a police raid described by officials as exceptionally large.

The two were held over the weekend, when about 400 police and other officials searched 17 locations and found more than 500,000 ($AU800,000) in cash on the suspects' premises on islands in southwest Finland, officials said.

Finnish President Sauli Niinisto. Credit:AP

Several media reports have said the case was linked to the purchase of islands and properties worth millions of euros in the Turku archipelago near strategic military locations.

Commenting on the raid, Finnish president Sauli Niinisto told reporters late on Monday: "This was an exceptionally extensive operation.... which gives a signal that in Finland we take this kind of investigation seriously."On Monday, the conjecture over Rosenstein's job status began anew after Axios reported that the Deputy Attorney-General had "verbally resigned" to White House chief of staff John Kelly in anticipation of being fired by Trump. Later reports said he had merely offered to quit. After two hours of feverish speculation and conflicting reports, the White House announced that Rosenstein was staying on the job  at least until he and the President could meet in person on Thursday. As the host of The Apprentice, Trump honed the tactic of teasing and trumpeting coming firings to build suspense. Credit:AP The meeting, at the very least, is likely to be unpredictable. White House aides stress that they believe that the only way Rosenstein would leave his post is if he resigns, while Justice Department officials say they believe he would have to fired  a potentially problematic action by Trump that could be interpreted by Mueller and his investigators as obstruction of justice. People close to the Trump predict that the meeting could be deeply uncomfortable for Rosenstein, especially if the President presses him on the veracity of the reporting about his alleged disloyalty. As one outside Trump adviser quipped, Rosenstein would be wise to arrive "wearing some Depends."

But for now, Rosenstein simply awaits his fate. 'Totally neutering the person' In his 20 months as President, Trump has elevated routine, if high volume, staff turnover into a sport, prompting media outlets to turn every plot twist into a breaking-news headline. For some senior officials, like Tillerson and Trump's first chief of staff, Reince Priebus - both of whom Trump ultimately fired unceremoniously on Twitter - the President first made them submit to a months-long period of public purgatory. He peppered friends and advisers with questions about whether he should fire the men - private doubts that quickly surfaced in embarrassing news reports - and openly undermined them in internal meetings. Sean Spicer, the first White House press secretary, resigned before Trump took action against him, but he, too, faced months of humiliating headlines generated by the President himself, who would call Spicer in one moment to reassure him of his job security and rail against and mock him in the next.

The result was, in the words of one former White House official, was "totally neutering the person." Chris Whipple, author of The Gatekeepers, a history of White House chiefs of staff, said Trump's management style is detrimental to the proper functioning of the federal government. As one outside Trump adviser quipped, Rosenstein would be wise to arrive "wearing some Depends." "It's a recipe for paralysis," Whipple said. "This has been the most dysfunctional White House in modern history, and it makes it even more so when you have senior officials who don't know from day-to-day whether they'll be around the next morning." The President's behaviour also further heightened the existing factionalisation in his West Wing. After Trump showed signs of turning on an underling, many staffers would use the opportunity to either further marginalise or mobilise against an aide they disliked.

This happened with Tillerson, who had few natural allies, even in his own State Department. Increasingly, the National Security Council cut him out of deliberations, some foreign leaders stopped interacting with him, and the Foggy Bottom bureaucracy turned against him. Alternatively, Trump's game of will-he-stay-or-will-he-go has sometimes resulted in bolstered support for the persecuted staffer. This occurred with McMaster, who, despite his sometimes-toxic relationship with Trump, was well-respected by many colleagues who worked to help prolong his White House tenure. Yet his ouster, when it finally came last March, was still viewed as inevitable. Trump's method dates back to his earliest days as an executive. At the Trump Organisation, his family real estate company, Trump would torment junior executives, both as a means of inspiring loyalty and because he enjoyed exploiting people's vulnerabilities and keeping them off-kilter, according to Barbara Res, a former Trump Organisation vice president who has become a critic of her former boss. But, she added, he rarely actually fired employees. "He did like to torture people, the way he tortures Sessions - 'You're stupid!' 'You're no good!' 'You're this, you're that!' " Res said, referring to the President's frequent taunts of the Attorney-General. "But nobody feared they would get fired because he didn't fire anyone."

Other presidents have struggled with dismissing staff. "Presidents historically are terrible at firing people," Whipple said. Whipple recalled President George H.W. Bush's unwillingness to personally fire John Sununu despite his struggles as White House chief of staff, ultimately outsourcing the dirty work. President Bill Clinton, too, was a reluctant executioner, keeping aides on his staff well past what many others felt was their due date. As the host of NBC's The Apprentice, Trump honed the tactic of teasing and trumpeting coming firings to build suspense  and goose the show's ratings. Similarly, in the White House, Trump likes to air out personnel dramas to gauge public sentiment. Early in his administration, as cabinet secretary after cabinet secretary was ensnared in ethics scandals, the President was sometimes reluctant to let them go, uncertain of what his base might think. This was particularly true in the case of Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt, who for months weathered a string of damning controversies until he finally resigned under pressure in July. Trump has also said he thinks keeping his aides perpetually insecure about their status encourages a cutthroat environment that ultimately inspires loyalty. But in the case of Rosenstein, it may have inspired something more akin to fear.His granddaughter later wrote that he was wearing new shoes that were tight, so he took them off while sitting. She and his interpreter said that when Khrushchev stood up, he pounded the table so hard with his fists that his watch fell off, and when he went to retrieve it, he saw the shoe and switched to banging that instead. The Berlin Wall went up the next year. A holster protrudes from under Yasser Arafat's jacket as he clasps his hands over his head during his appearance before the United Nations General Assembly in 1974. Credit:AP Arafat's olive branch and gun Yasser Arafat was the embodiment of the Palestinian quest for independence - a road littered with displacement and death. In 1974, he was invited to represent the Palestine Liberation Organisation and his people before the world body, where he made it clear he was ready to use any means for statehood.

He spoke of oppressed people and liberation the world over. Wearing his trademark Palestinian keffiyeh scarf, he concluded with an enduring quote: "Today I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom fighter's gun. Do not let the olive branch from my hand." Castro's long speeches Cuban leader Fidel Castro gave many speeches at the UN, railing at those he characterised as his country's capitalist oppressors. The UN asks leaders to keep their speeches brief. But that was never for Castro: his General Assembly address in 1960 was timed at four-and-a-half-hours. Clad in his trademark green military fatigues, Castro said the revolution he led 20 months earlier had ended the country's status as "a colony of the United States," but the US still believed it had "the right to promote and encourage subversion in our country." Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro speaks to United Nations General Assembly in 1960. Credit:AP

In the rambling speech, Castro defended Cuba's links to the Soviet Union, expressed serious concern that America's "imperialist government" might attack Cuba, and called US President John F Kennedy "an illiterate and ignorant millionaire." Castro also complained of undergoing "degrading and humiliating treatment" in New York, including being evicted from his hotel. Gadhafi goes free form Libya's Moammar Gadhafi also had a predilection for long, rambling monologues in his speeches at the world body. His 2009 address, clocked in at 1:40. Dressed in flowing brown Bedouin robes and a black beret, he chastised the UN for failing to prevent dozens of wars, suggested that those who caused "mass murder" in Iraq be tried, and defended the Taliban's right to establish an Islamic emirate.

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi shows a torn copy of the UN Charter during his 2009 address to the 64th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Credit:AP At one point, Gadhafi waved a copy of the UN Charter and appeared to tear it, saying he did not recognise the document's authority. Later that day, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown told the assembly: "I stand here to reaffirm the United Nations Charter, not to tear it up." Chavez and the devil The late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez drew gasps at the UN in 2006 when he said of US President George W Bush, "Yesterday, the devil came here," adding that the podium "still smells of sulfur." The US was at the time heavily embroiled in the Iraq War, which Chavez had vehemently opposed.

Ahmadinejad and 9/11 Iran's hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad prompted disgusted walkouts from the assembly in 2010 when he questioned whether the September 11 attacks were staged. A jet airliner seconds before it slams into one of the World Trade Centre towers in New York on September 11, 2001. Credit:AP He suggested an inside job, arguing that only an explosion, not planes, could have brought down the twin towers. His visits to New York prompted fury among locals, but delighted the hard-line wing in Iran. Bibi and the bombGREAT BAY(DCOMM):--- According to the Meteorological Department of St. Maarten (MDS), Tropical Storm Kirk which is located more than 600 miles southeast of Sint Maarten as of Wednesday afternoon, is forecast to pass approximately 194 miles south of the country Thursday night into Friday.

Tropical storm force winds extend up to 115 miles from the center. While this storm does not pose a direct threat to Sint Maarten, MDS expects that the country could experience based on Wednesday afternoons information, gusty winds, high s, as and heavy rainfall is also a possibility with the passage of the system.

The Fire Department/Office of Disaster Management (ODM), is advising residents of Sint Maarten to closely monitor the progress of Tropical Storm Kirk.

ODM request residents to use the time now to review their hurricane season preparations and to re-check their disaster supply kit.

The MDS along with the ODM is closely monitoring the progress of this system and will keep the community of Sint Maarten informed with respect to the approach of Tropical Storm Kirk to the Lesser Antilles.

For official local weather and Government related disaster/hurricane information please visit (www.meteosxm.com); the Government of Sint Maarten website (www.sintmaartengov.org) or the Government of Sint Maarten social media Facebook Page (www.facebook.com/SXMGOV), or tune into Government Radio 107.9 FM.PHILIPSBURG:--- There were smiling faces as agendas were handed out to some of the students of the Charlotte Brookson Academy of the Performance Arts.

The Rotary Club of St. Maarten-Mid Isle has donated 150 agendas to the students of the Charlotte Brookson Academy in Philipsburg. This donation was made possible by Premier Promotions of Fort Lauderdale. These agendas were overstock and were due to be dumped when they were offered to Mid Isle, who gratefully accepted them. The principal Mrs. Claudette Forsythe  Labega and students of CBA were very appreciative and grateful for the donation.

The Rotary Club of St. Maarten-Mid Isle meets Tuesdays at 7 pm at Pineapple Pete in Simpson Bay. For more information please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or visit our facebook page Rotary Club of St. Maarten-Mid Isle.USA TODAY Publishes an Op-Ed Article from Uranium Energy Corp Chairman Spencer Abraham on U.S. Uranium and National Security

Posted by Publisher Internet

Uranium Energy Corp (NYSE American: UEC, the ?Company? or ?UEC?  http://www.commodity-tv.net/c/search_adv/?v=298360) is pleased to announce USA TODAY published an article on September 20, by UEC Chairman Spencer Abraham titled ?Domestic uranium necessary for national security, healthy nuclear energy programs.?? Mr. Abraham is a former U.S. Secretary of Energy and U.S. Senator.

The following is provided with the permission of? USA? TODAY.

USA TODAY

Domestic uranium is necessary for national security, healthy nuclear energy programsSpencer Abraham | Opinion contributor

Published 7:00 a.m. ET Sept. 20, 2018

America used to export uranium, but now it is dependent on other countries. In order to protect ourselves, we need to increase uranium mining.

When I served as Energy secretary under President George W. Bush, our administration was deeply concerned that over 50% of our oil was imported, with much of it coming from unstable places. We considered this a major national security matter.

Today, that national security concern has been solved through a combination of American ingenuity, technology and fully embracing our abundant natural resources. But now, we face a similar national security challenge. The U.S. nuclear fleet, generating 20% of this country?s electricity (and about 60% of our carbon-free energy) has become almost entirely dependent on foreign uranium, much of it from countries with elevated geopolitical risks.

At its peak in 1980, U.S. uranium production stood at 43.7 million pounds, enough to supply all of our U.S. reactors and a substantial portion of our allies? requirements.

In 2017, U.S. uranium production was less than 2.4 million pounds, accounting for about 5% of the nation?s requirements, even though our uranium reserves are sufficient to meet our domestic demand.

Please click here: https://usat.ly/2PQfx3K for the full article.

About Uranium Energy Corp

Uranium Energy Corp is a U.S.-based uranium mining and exploration company.? The Company?s fully-licensed Hobson Processing Facility is central to all of its projects in South Texas, including the Palangana ISR mine, the permitted Goliad ISR project and the development-stage Burke Hollow ISR project. ?In Wyoming, UEC controls the permitted Reno Creek ISR project. Additionally, the Company controls a pipeline of advanced-stage uranium projects in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Paraguay, and a large, high-grade titanium project in Paraguay.?The Company?s operations are managed by professionals with a recognized profile for excellence in their industry, a profile based on many decades of hands-on experience in the key facets of uranium exploration, development and mining.

Stock Exchange Information:

NYSE American: UEC

WKN: A?JDRR

ISN: US916896103

In Europe:

Swiss Resource Capital AG

Jochen Staiger

info@resource-capital.ch

www.resource-capital.ch

Safe Harbor Statement

Except for the statements of historical fact contained herein, the information presented in this news release constitutes ?forward-looking statements? as such term is used in applicable United States and Canadian laws. These statements relate to analyses and other information that are based on forecasts of future results, estimates of amounts not yet determinable and assumptions of management. Any other statements that express or involve discussions with respect to predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions or future events or performance (often, but not always, using words or phrases such as ?expects? or ?does not expect?, ?is expected?, ?anticipates? or ?does not anticipate?, ?plans, ?estimates? or ?intends?, or stating that certain actions, events or results ?may?, ?could?, ?would?, ?might? or ?will? be taken, occur or be achieved) are not statements of historical fact and should be viewed as ?forward-looking statements?. Such forward looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such risks and other factors include, among others, the actual results of exploration activities, variations in the underlying assumptions associated with the estimation or realization of mineral resources, the availability of capital to fund programs and the resulting dilution caused by the raising of capital through the sale of shares, accidents, labor disputes and other risks of the mining industry including, without limitation, those associated with the environment, delays in obtaining governmental approvals, permits or financing or in the completion of development or construction activities, title disputes or claims limitations on insurance coverage. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements contained in this news release and in any document referred to in this news release.First Cobalt Announces Inferred Mineral Resource for Iron Creek Project  Open at Depth and Along Strike

Posted by Publisher Internet

First Cobalt Corp. (TSX-V: FCC; ASX: FCC; OTCQX: FTSSF) (the ?Company?  http://www.commodity-tv.net/c/search_adv/?v=298244) is pleased to announce results of its first NI 43-101 Mineral Resource Estimate for the 100%-owned Iron Creek Cobalt Project in Idaho, USA.

Highlights

Inferred mineral resources of 29.6 million tons (26.9 million tonnes) grading 0.11% cobalt equivalent (0.08% cobalt and 0.30% copper) under a base case scenario pit constrained and deeper mineral resource. An alternative underground-only scenario results in 4.9 million tons (4.4 million tonnes) grading 0.30% cobalt equivalent (0.23% cobalt and 0.68% copper)

Resource contains 45 million pounds (20,411 tonnes) of cobalt and 175 million pounds (79,379 tonnes) of copper for 62.9 million pounds (28,528 tonnes) of cobalt equivalent

Resource is considered to be open along strike and at depth, with true widths between 10m and 30m

Preliminary metallurgical testing concludes that simple flotation methods are applicable, yielding recoveries of 96% for cobalt and 95% for copper in rougher floatation

30,000m drill program ongoing to double the strike length for an updated resource estimate planned for early 2019

Trent Mell, President & Chief Executive Officer, commented:

?The initial resource estimate and the pace of progress at Iron Creek have exceeded our expectations. We have delineated a sizeable primary cobalt deposit on patented property and mineralization continues to expand to the east, west and at depth. The mineralogy is simple and initial metallurgical test work is very encouraging with high metal recoveries. Cobalt is associated with pyrite rather than minerals containing arsenic, which may offer processing and offtake advantages.?

Mr. Mell went on to say, ?Idaho has a long history of mining and we have enjoyed strong support from the State and in Washington, DC. This initial Inferred Resource estimate is an important step forward to a potential source of ethical cobalt in America. Drilling is now underway to test the mineralization strike length from 450 metres to over 900 metres, while also systematically testing depth extensions to over 300 metres to support an updated resource estimate in early 2019.?

Mine Development Associates (MDA) in Reno, Nevada was retained to prepare a resource estimate for the Iron Creek cobalt and copper project, located in Idaho, USA. The resource estimate was based on data from 62 diamond drill holes, totaling 49,983 feet (15,235 metres), drilled by the Company in 2017 and early 2018.

The estimate of Inferred cobalt and copper resource is 29.6 million tons (26.9 million tonnes) at average grades of 0.08% cobalt and 0.30% copper, for a cobalt equivalent grade of 0.11%. These are reported at a cutoff of 0.03% CoEq for pit-constrained mineralization and 0.18% CoEq cutoff for potentially underground mineralization. As an alternative, an underground only scenario was estimated at a cutoff of 0.18% CoEq.

The tabulations at 0.15%CoEq, 0.20%CoEq and 0.35%CoEq represent material that could be available if only an underground scenario is to be considered.

Technical and economic factors likely to influence the ?reasonable prospects for eventual economic extraction? were evaluated using the best judgement of Mr. Steven J. Ristorcelli, C.P.G., Principal Geologist for MDA and a Qualified Person under NI 43-101. Potential for underground mining was assessed by running stope optimizations using mining costs, processing costs, and anticipated metallurgical recoveries for similar size operations in the western United States. For evaluating the open-pit potential, MDA ran a series of optimized pits using variable cobalt and copper prices, mining costs, processing costs, and anticipated metallurgical recoveries related to flotation recovery and smelting of the concentrates, and hydrometallurgical extraction for cobalt, and appropriate G&A costs for modest-sized open pit and underground mining operations.?

MDA reports resources at cutoffs that are reasonable for deposits of this nature given anticipated mining and processing methods and approximate though current operating costs, while also considering economic conditions. MDA used an inverse distance estimation methodology to estimate block-diluted Inferred resources at several cobalt equivalent grades.

MDA identifies a little over half of the resources as lying within the No Name Zone, with the remainder in the Waite Zone, in the footwall to the No Name Zone. More drilling internally should upgrade these resources. The deposit remains open along strike in both directions and at depth.

Flotation Tests

McClelland Laboratories Inc. (McClelland) conducted preliminary mineral processing and metallurgical testing commissioned by First Cobalt which is described within the report. Flotation results indicate that a fairly standard bulk sulfide flotation reagent suite (a combination of dithiophosphate and PAX) worked well for generating high rougher flotation cobalt and copper recoveries of 96% cobalt and 95% copper.

Preliminary flotation tests were completed using three bulk samples extracted from one of three adits on the property. McClelland notes two samples had copper grades close to 1.0% and all three had cobalt grades in the range of 0.25% to 0.40%. All samples responded very well when subjected to rougher flotation using standard conditions. Copper recovery into the bulk concentrate averaged over 97% for the two high-grade samples and 92.5% for the low grade sample. Cobalt was recovered in the pyrite product. For all three bulk samples this product contained more than 90% of the cobalt at grades of 1.2% to 1.8% cobalt.

No testwork has yet been done on recovery of the cobalt from the pyrite concentrates. However, McClelland states that two approaches appear to be technically viable. One is to roast the concentrate, followed by leaching the cobalt from the resulting sinter and concentrating the cobalt using solvent extraction. Final recovery of the cobalt would be as a salt or electrowon metal. The second approach is the use of an autoclave to oxidize the pyrite and solubilize the cobalt, to be subsequently recovered by solvent extraction.

Iron Creek Property

The Iron Creek property consists of mining patents and exploration claims covering an area of 1,698 acres. Significant infrastructure is in place to support multiple drills and underground activity. Historic underground development includes 600 metres of drifting from three adits and an all-weather road connecting the project to a state highway.

The No Name and Waite Zones are roughly parallel and dip roughly 75? to the north, remaining open at depth. Additional mineralization has been encountered during drilling and some holes in the 2018 program are intended to confirm the potential for additional mineralized zones beyond No Name and Waite. The No Name Zone and the Waite Zone have true widths between 10m and 30m. Mineralization also occurs between the No Name and Waite Zones as 1m to 5m pods.

Cobalt-copper mineralization occurs as semi-massive and disseminated pyrite and chalcopyrite along stratabound bands within finely layered meta-sedimentary rocks consisting of interbedded argillite and quartzite. Cobalt is associated with pyrite. Thin veins of chalcopyrite also cut the bands and meta-sedimentary rocks. Quartzite units make up the hangingwall and footwall to the mineralized meta-sedimentary horizon. This stratigraphic sequence has been mapped at surface and by drilling to extend along strike for at least two kilometres.

The principal mineral assemblage consists of pyrite, chalcopyrite, pyrrhotite, and magnetite with much lesser quantities of native copper and arsenopyrite locally. Scanning-electron and microprobe tests indicate the cobalt occurs largely or entirely within pyrite and there is a distinct lack of cobaltite, a common cobalt ore mineral containing arsenic. Drill results demonstrate that the cobalt and copper mineralization are in part separated from each other spatially, and in part overlapping.

Recommendations

MDA notes that thicker zones can be correlated with the present drill spacing with moderate confidence. Infill drilling will be required for upgrading the Inferred resources to Measured and Indicated classifications. MDA also concludes that the resource estimate should be considered only as a snapshot in time as the Company is continuing to explore the Iron Creek deposit.

MDA concludes that the Iron Creek Project is a project of merit requiring additional exploration and infill drilling along strike and at depth. They believe that First Cobalt?s planned exploration drilling, both inside and outside the main resource area, totaling 70,000ft (21,336m) and a total planned budget of ~$8.6 million is justified.

On June 11, First Cobalt announced a $9 million program intended to extend the known mineralization along strike and bring a portion of the Inferred Mineral Resource estimate into a Measured and Indicated Resource estimate. Longer holes will test cobalt-copper mineralization intersected by 2017 drilling in the footwall, which may extend to surface. Drilling will also test the down dip extension of mineralization below the existing underground adits.

An NI 43-101 Technical Report to be prepared by MDA with an effective date of September 18, 2018, will be posted on www.firstcobalt.com and the Company?s profile on SEDAR at www.SEDAR.com within 45 days of the date of this news release.

Qualified and Competent Person Statement

The technical content of this press release has been reviewed by Steven J. Ristorcelli, C.P.G., P.G. of Mine Development Associates, a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101. Dr. Frank Santaguida, P.Geo., is the Qualified Person who has reviewed and approved this news release. Dr. Santaguida is also a Competent Person (as defined in the JORC Code, 2012 edition) who is a practicing member of the Association of Professional Geologists of Ontario (being a ?Recognised Professional Organisation? for the purposes of the ASX Listing Rules). Dr. Santaguida is employed on a full-time basis as Vice President, Exploration for First Cobalt. He has sufficient experience that is relevant to the activity being undertaken to qualify as a Competent Person as defined in the JORC Code. The term ?Competent Person? is not recognized by Canadian securities regulatory authorities, and the term is used by the Company with reference to the JORC Code, and to ensure compliance with the ASX Listing Rules and applicable reporting requirements in Australia.

About First Cobalt

First Cobalt is a vertically integrated North American pure-play cobalt company. First Cobalt has three significant North American assets: the Iron Creek Project in Idaho, the Canadian Cobalt Camp and the only permitted cobalt refinery in North America capable of producing battery materials.

On behalf of First Cobalt Corp.

Trent Mell

President & Chief Executive Officer

For more information visit www.firstcobalt.com or contact:

Heather Smiles

Investor Relations

info@firstcobalt.com

+1.416.900.3891

In Europe:

Swiss Resource Capital AG

Jochen Staiger

info@resource-capital.ch

www.resource-capital.ch?

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This news release may contain forward-looking statements and forward-looking information (together, ?forward-looking statements?) within the meaning of applicable securities laws and the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements, other than statements of historical facts, are forward-looking statements. Generally, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of terminology such as ?plans?, ?expects\-\-, ?estimates?, ?intends?, ?anticipates?, ?believes? or variations of such words, or statements that certain actions, events or results ?may?, ?could?, ?would?, ?might?, ?occur? or ?be achieved?. Forward-looking statements involve risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results, performance and opportunities to differ materially from those implied by such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements are set forth in the management discussion and analysis and other disclosures of risk factors for First Cobalt, filed on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Although First Cobalt believes that the information and assumptions used in preparing the forward-looking statements are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on these statements, which only apply as of the date of this news release, and no assurance can be given that such events will occur in the disclosed times frames or at all. Except where required by applicable law, First Cobalt disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Cautionary Note to Investors  Resource Estimates

In accordance with applicable Canadian securities regulatory requirements, all mineral resource estimates of the Company disclosed or incorporated by reference in this news release have been prepared in accordance with Canadian National Instrument 43-101  Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects (?NI 43-101?), classified in accordance with Canadian Institute of Mining Metallurgy and Petroleum\-\-s \CIM Standards on Mineral Resources and Reserves Definitions and Guidelines\ (the \CIM Guidelines\).

The Company uses the terms \mineral resources\, and \inferred mineral resources\. While those terms are recognized by Canadian securities regulatory authorities, they are not recognized by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (the \SEC\) and the SEC does not permit U.S. companies to disclose resources in their filings with the SEC. Pursuant to the CIM Guidelines, mineral resources have a higher degree of uncertainty than mineral reserves as to their existence as well as their economic and legal feasibility. Inferred mineral resources, when compared with measured or indicated mineral resources, have the least certainty as to their existence, however, it is reasonable to expect that the majority of inferred mineral resources could be upgraded to indicated mineral resources with continued exploration. Pursuant to NI 43-101, inferred mineral resources may not form the basis of any economic analysis, including any feasibility study. Accordingly, readers are cautioned not to assume that all or any part of a mineral resource exists, will ever be converted into a mineral reserve, or is or will ever be economically or legally mineable or recovered.Flooding on the Great Pee Dee River near Yauhannah bridge on Highway 701 the morning of Sept. 26.Apollo 12 was the second crewed mission to land on the moon. The mission lifted off on Nov. 14, 1969, a little less than four months after two members of the Apollo 11 crew became the first people to walk on the moon. The target for Apollo 12 was a large basaltic plain on the moon's surface called the Ocean of Storms. Like its predecessor mission, the primary goal for Apollo 12 was to explore the area and prepare for future landing missions.

The Apollo 12 mission had several memorable moments, the first of which was landing on target. That didn't happen during Apollo 11, in part because Commander Neil Armstrong needed to steer around boulders on the surface to find a safe landing spot. Some accounts also claim that excess oxygen in the hatch between the spacecraft pushed Apollo 11's lunar lander (or lunar module) off course when it undocked from the command module.

The Apollo 12 mission is also remembered for surviving two lightning strikes during launch and for the strong camaraderie of its three astronauts, who were close friends before they were selected as a crew.

Apollo 12 flight crew

Prior to joining NASA in 1962, Cmdr. Pete Conrad graduated from Princeton University and joined the U.S. Navy, where he was a flight instructor. He took his first space flight on Gemini 5, in 1965, which set an endurance record at the time (eight days in space). That mission also pushed the U.S. ahead of the Soviet Union in accumulated hours in space. Conrad additionally commanded the Gemini 11 mission in 1966. After Apollo 12, he commanded the first mission to space station Skylab, in 1973, and participated in several tricky spacewalks to restore the space station, which was badly damaged at launch.

Lunar module pilot Alan Bean was a student of Conrad's at the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School before joining NASA in 1963. One of his first assignments for NASA was to work on missions after the moon landings. In interviews for journalist Andrew Chaikin's 1994 book "A Man on the Moon" (Penguin, 2007), astronauts said that Bean was Conrad's first pick for Apollo 12, but C.C. Williams, a rookie astronaut, earned the spot instead. Tragically, Williams died when his Northrop T-38 Talon supersonic jet crashed on Oct. 5, 1967. Conrad again asked NASA to bring Bean on board, and the agency agreed. Bean went on to command the second Skylab mission, in 1973.

The command module pilot for Apollo 12 was Richard "Dick" Gordon, who came to NASA in 1963 after setting flight speed and distance records and performing test flights for the Navy. His skill in the pilot's chair came in handy for the Gemini 11 mission, when he and Conrad piloted the docked spacecraft to 853 miles (1,373 km) above Earth, an altitude record at the time. Apollo 12 was Gordon's last spaceflight.

Kicking up dust in the Ocean of Storms

Lightning struck Apollo 12's rocket, a Saturn V, twice during the launch. While the astronauts had some trouble with the displays on board after the lightning strikes, the rocket remained functional and placed the spacecraft in its target orbit around Earth. NASA carefully evaluated the risks of the mission after the lightning strikes, and decided it was safe enough to proceed to the moon. (Several biographies say the agency later revised the launch safety rules to protect future spacecraft from lightning strikes.)

The command module, Yankee Clipper, and lunar module, Intrepid, safely arrived at the moon on Nov. 18. As planned, Gordon remained behind in Yankee Clipper while Conrad and Bean went into Intrepid for their trip to the lunar surface. During landing, Conrad and Bean anxiously looked outside, hoping that what they saw on the surface would correspond with what they had memorized from maps while back on Earth. When Conrad spotted a familiar crater, he whooped, "There it is! Son of a gun, right down the middle of the road!"

The planned landing point was too rocky for Conrad's taste, so he took the command stick in hand and carefully steered to an alternate landing site.

Intrepid's descent stirred up a large dust cloud on the lunar surface as the astronauts glided into the Ocean of Storms. Conrad landed with little fuel to spare, and within shouting distance of Surveyor 3, a robotic spacecraft that had landed on the moon more than two years earlier.

When it was time for Conrad to head down the ladder to the surface a few hours later, he joked about his height (5 feet, 6 inches tall, as opposed to Neil Armstrong's 5 feet, 11 inches): "Whoopee! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but it's a long one for me."

Surveyor 3 gets a visit from the Apollo 12 crew in 1969. (Image credit: NASA)

Apollo 12 legacy

The Yankee Clipper is on display at the Virginia Air & Space Center in Hampton, Virginia. Intrepid's upper stage, which carried the astronauts back to Yankee Clipper, no longer exists, as it crashed into the moon on Nov. 20, 1969. Apollo 12's 50th anniversary is in 2019.

The Apollo 12 crew, who were close friends, were always disappointed that Gordon never got the chance for a moonwalk. Years later, Bean  in his next career, as an artist  did a painting portraying Gordon, Bean and Conrad on the surface of the Ocean of Storms. Bean titled the piece "The Fantasy," one of a series of paintings showing "buddies forever" on the moon.

NASA flew five more crewed missions to the moon from 1970 to 1972, with four of those crews making it to the surface as planned. (Apollo 13 was safely aborted due to severe mechanical issues.) The agency next turned its attention to near-Earth science, principally through the space shuttle program and the International Space Station.

In 2017, President Donald Trump's administration directed NASA to send humans to the moon in the coming decade, before sending astronauts to Mars. NASA is also working on a concept for a crewed space station, called the Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway, as well as the Orion spacecraft, designed for long-distance voyages.A lunar map produced by NASA in 1979 is one of more than 2,000 different planetary maps included in a new database.

Maps are a key tool for making sense of places we live or hope to one day explore, so it's no wonder that for hundreds of years, humans have been creating maps of other worlds in our solar system.

And more than 2,200 such maps, created over the course of four centuries, are now gathered on one website, unveiled at last week's European Planetary Science Congress held in Berlin. The website, called the Digital Museum of Planetary Mapping, allows you to browse images by the decade of their creation, the world they depict or the type of data the map displays.

"We live in a transition period where static maps that characterized the last 400 years may become extinct, replaced by dynamic digital map services and tools," Henrik Hargitai, a planetary cartographer at Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest, Hungary, and one of the co-creators of the website, said in a statement.

"In the digital platforms it is becoming difficult even to define what we consider to be a 'map,' and not just layers of spatial data," he said. Hargitai also said he was inspired by the sheer number of such maps and how hard they can be to find.

Right now, the oldest map available on the website is a sketch made between 1600 and 1603 of the moon's surfaces, drawn without the aid of a telescope. That's a far cry from, for example, a 2011 map of the moon based on Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter data.

Earth boasts just one entry to date, an 1869 black-and-white drawing comparing Africa, Eurasia and Australia to Mars, and the moon and Mars are both particularly well-represented. But plenty of other worlds are featured as well, from fuzzy 1940s observations of Jupiter's four largest moons to a 2010 globe of Titan.

The collection also highlights a range of different types of maps, including tactile maps and maps for children. A few entries also display additional images, like a series of photographs showing the construction of large globes of Mars using Mariner 9 data.

Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her @meghanbartels. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.Humanity could have an outpost on Mars just a decade from now, Elon Musk said.

Musk's company SpaceX is building a huge, reusable rocket-spaceship duo called the BFR to help our species explore and settle Earth's moon, Mars and other worlds throughout the solar system.

The billionaire entrepreneur's long-term vision involves the establishment of a million-person city on the Red Planet in the next 50 to 100 years. But we could get the founding infrastructure of such a settlement  an outpost Musk calls Mars Base Alpha  up and running much sooner than that, he said. [The BFR in Images: SpaceX's Giant Spaceship for Mars & Beyond]

"Probably 2028 for a base to be built," Musk said on Twitter Friday (Sept. 21), in response to a question about when Mars Base Alpha could graduate from artistic rendering to reality.

See more

Musk's timelines are famously aggressive, and a lot would have to go right to hit that 2028 target. After all, the BFR (which stands for "Big Falcon Rocket") is still in the development phase. The first orbital flights of the 100-passenger spaceship and its giant booster probably won't come until 2020 or 2021 at the earliest, Musk said last week during an event at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California.

Neither Musk nor Maezawa revealed how much the latter is paying for the flight (though Maezawa did confirm that the artists will fly for free  he bought all the seats). But Musk said Maezawa has already made a substantial down payment and that his purchase is a big help in defraying the BFR's development costs. Those expenses will probably run around $5 billion when all is said and done, Musk said Friday.

"This has done a lot to restore my faith in humanity  that somebody's willing to do this  to take their money and help fund this new program that's risky, might not succeed [and] is dangerous," Musk said. "He is ultimately helping to pay for the average citizen to be able to travel to other planets. It's a great thing."

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.Europe's workhorse Ariane 5 rocket aced its 100th launch tonight (Sept. 25), carrying two telecommunications satellites to orbit in a drama-filled liftoff.

An undisclosed issue brought the countdown clock to a halt 94 seconds before the targeted launch time of 5:53 p.m. EDT (2153 GMT; 6:53 p.m. local time at the launch site in Kourou, French Guiana). The webcast of the French company Arianespace, which boasted more than 3,000 viewers at that point, suddenly went silent as a scrolling banner relayed that the launch was on hold.

Few updates followed for the next 45 minutes. But at the end of tonight's launch window  6:38 p.m. EDT (2238 pm GMT; 7:38 p.m. local time)  the Ariane 5 rose into the dark sky, lighting up banks of clouds shrouding the humid launch pad. [The Most Exciting Space Missions to Watch in 2018]

The rocket sped into space, first deploying one satellite and then the other. Arianespace mission control at the Guiana Space Center erupted in applause as the second spacecraft successfully deployed around 7:20 p.m. EDT (2320 GMT; 8:20 p.m. local time).

"The heavyweight launcher has once more performed flawlessly. Congratulations to all," Arianespace CEO Stephane Israel said in a speech broadcast on the Arianespace YouTube channel minutes after the second satellite deployment.

An Arianespace Ariane 5 rocket launches on its 100th mission, lifting off Sept. 25, 2018, from Europe's Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. (Image credit: Arianespace)

Israel gave a special thanks to the longstanding customers of Arianespace; the company has launched more than 200 satellites using the Ariane 5 alone.

"Ariane 5 is known for delivering, and we are very appreciative of another flawless launch," Ken Lee, senior vice president of space systems for the satellite communications company Intelsat, said after Israel's speech. He joked that the launch did not go exactly as planned, but it was "flawless nonetheless."

Intelsat is a joint venture partner in both of the spacecraft that launched toward geostationary orbit this evening. These satellites are called Horizons 3e and Azerspace-2/Intelsat 38.

Both spacecraft are expected to improve communications for consumer, corporate and government customers. Horizons 3e (in partnership with Japan's SKY Perfect JSAT Group) is intended to improve broadband coverage in the Asia-Pacific region. Meanwhile, Azerspace-2/Intelsat 38 (in partnership with Azerbaijan's Azercosmos) will host direct-to-home television programs in the Asia-Pacific area, as well as parts of Africa and central and eastern Europe.

Though the first Ariane 5 test flight in 1996 failed spectacularly, the rocket line quickly became known for its reliability (98.1 percent success rate heading into tonight's launch) and payload capacity (the ability to carry 20 tons to low Earth orbit). The rocket is therefore an attractive option for customers with heavy telecommunications satellites.

The Ariane 5 has five operational versions; the variant that launched tonight, called Ariane 5 ECA, has now flown 67 times.

The Ariane 5 has notable competitors, such as SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket and United Launch Alliance's Atlas V vehicle.

Arianespace is expecting to debut a successor rocket called Ariane 6 around 2020. One of the major goals of the new rocket will be to significantly reduce the cost of launch services, according to the European Space Agency. In 2014, a typical Ariane 5 launch cost roughly $137 million, according to a SpaceNews report.

Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.An artist's illustration of the Japanese startup ispace's lander and rover (on ramp) on the surface of the moon.

A Japanese company that aims to help humanity explore and settle the moon will fly its first two lunar missions with SpaceX.

The Tokyo-based startup ispace has contracted to launch its lunar lander and mini-rovers as secondary payloads atop SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets in 2020 and 2021, representatives of both companies announced today (Sept. 26).

"We share the vision with SpaceX of enabling humans to live in space, so we're very glad they will join us in this first step of our journey," ispace founder and CEO Takeshi Hakamada said in a statement. [Moon Base Visions: How to Build a Lunar Colony (Images)]

The two-phase first step is known as Hakuto-Reboot, or Hakuto-R for short. The name is a reference to Team Hakuto, an ispace-managed entrant in the now-defunct Google Lunar X Prize (GLXP), a contest that promised $30 million in prizes for the first teams to successfully land privately built rovers on the moon. The GLXP ended earlier this year with no winners.

The 2020 ispace mission will be considered a success if the lander achieves lunar orbit, company representatives said. The following year, the goal is to put a lander down softly on the moon's surface and to deploy data-gathering rovers from the craft.

Both of these missions  which ispace is bankrolling via its Japanese-record haul of more than $90 million in "Series A" investment funding  are technology demonstrations designed to lay the groundwork for the startup's ambitious future plans. Eventually, ispace aims to set up a robotic lunar transportation service and use its bantam rovers to identify and help exploit the resources available on Earth's nearest neighbor, such as water ice.

Such work could help lead to the establishment of a permanent human settlement on the moon in the not-too-distant future, company representatives have said.

ispace also released imagery of its newly redesigned lunar lander and rover today. The company had previously stated that the lander would be capable of toting 66 lbs. (30 kilograms) of payload to the moon, and that the rover would be based heavily on the 9-lb. (4 kg) vehicle that Team Hakuto was planning to launch as part of the GLXP.

ispace isn't the only company interested in selling transportation services to the moon's surface and tapping lunar resources. For example, the plans of the U.S. companies Astrobotic, Blue Origin and Moon Express all seem to overlap at least somewhat with those of ispace.

"We are entering a new era in space exploration, and SpaceX is proud to have been selected by ispace to launch their first lunar missions," SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said in the same statement. "We are looking forward to delivering their innovative spacecraft to the moon."

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.NASA scientists are meeting to discuss how best to identify signs of other technologically advanced civilizations in the universe.

We love our technology, so maybe it's natural to hope that somewhere else in the universe, another form of life also clings to similarly shiny tools, and perhaps in ways we could spot at a distance.

Scientists have been looking for the signatures of such civilizations for decades, so far in vain. But this week, NASA is hosting a conference dedicated to rethinking the quest: NASA wants scientists to evaluate how far the search for technosignatures has come and what the most promising possibilities for the future are.

You can watch that conversation take place live today (Sept. 26) through Friday (Sept. 28) on Space.com, courtesy of NASA TV.

Presentations will include discussions of different types of technosignatures, how different types of technology can pick them up and what other developments like the rise of big data offer to the field. The workshop includes many speakers who have been leading the search for extraterrestrial intelligence for decades.

And if just listening isn't enough, several panelists from the conference will be participating in a Reddit Ask Me Anything tomorrow (Sept. 27) at 1 p.m. EDT (1700 GMT).

Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her @meghanbartels. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.Left-Right: Simonetta Di Pippo, Director of UN Office for Outer Space Affairs, Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca, President of Malta and Namira Salim, Founder and Executive President of Space Trust. (Image credit: Courtesy of Namira Salim)

NEW YORK (September 26, 2018)  A High-Level event, "Space2030: Space as a Driver for Peace," was held yesterday on the side-lines of the 73rd Session of the UN General Assembly during the High-Level Segment. Convening partners United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, United Nations Office for Partnerships and Space Trust engaged world leaders on a global platform to highlight the importance of utilizing space as a driver for peace and sustainable development on Earth, as a driver for innovative space diplomacy and as the New Frontier for Peace on Earth."

The event was held at the UN Headquarters in New York in the presence of Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca, President of Malta, as well as High-Level representatives from Austria, Brazil, Cyprus, Indonesia and Italy, High UN officials, academics, and prominent leaders of the space industry.

"The Space2030 Agenda is a multi-disciplinary and international effort to capitalize on the immense potential and benefits of space and space technologies for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. Through stronger partnerships in the peaceful uses of space at all levels, we can enhance access to space for non-spacefaring and emerging space nations alike and allow the diverse benefits of space for sustainable development to improve our lives and protect our planet," said Simonetta Di Pippo, Director of the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs.

High level speakers at the event asserted the importance of peaceful uses of space science and technology on Earth for the benefit of humanity. They raised awareness about the potential in using space-based data for disaster risk reduction and poverty alleviation and the importance of public-private partnerships for the successful implementation of the 2030 UN Sustainable Development Agenda.

The event was opened with the VVIP unveiling of Space Trust's Black Marble Earth, a monumental 12-foot high Earth with glowing city lights, depicting the precise NASA imagery of the night view of Earth from space as captured by the Suomi NPP Satellite in 2012. The exhibit provided the audience with a fully immersive experience into the "Overview Effect," the view of Earth from space, which transcends national boundaries, to capture the powerful emotion of human spaceflight  one that creates a paradigm shift for all astronauts.

Left-Right: Manlio Di Stephano, Under-Secretary of State of Italy, Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca, President of Malta, Simonetta Di Pippo, Director of UN Office for Outer Space Affairs and Namira Salim, Founder and Executive Chairperson of Space Trust pose with the Black Marble Earth. (Image credit: Courtesy of Namira Salim)

In her address, Namira Salim, Founder and Executive Chairperson of Space Trust, announced her organization's maiden mission to space, which will develop a CubeSat to broadcast messages of peace in the voices of world leaders, eminent personalities, space industry pioneers and peacemakers in orbit. This Space Trust initiative aims at aligning all UN member states for this mission to promote space as a tool for sustainable peace-making on Earth.



"I believe the unique thought leadership behind the event made a distinct statement in raising awareness about the importance of innovative space diplomacy for inspiring international cooperation and peace-making between nations  one that transcends national boundaries," said Namira Salim, Founder and Executive Chairperson of Space Trust, who was also the organizer and sponsor of the event.

The industry partner for the event was the Commercial Spaceflight Federation and the Media Partner was Space.com, a leading industry publication.



"The impressive gathering will further the global dialogue about the importance of the peaceful exploration of space to benefit humankind. We are all partners in the journey to democratize space and will remain steadfast in our commitment to do so in a peaceful manner. Growing a space economy is closer than we think, and involving the international community and other key stakeholders is critical to our collective success," said Eric Stallmer, President of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation.

"Space.com is extremely excited to be the media partner with Space Trust, UNOOSA and UNOP for Space2030 during this year's General Assembly at the United Nations. For nearly 20 years, Space.com has sought to showcase the wonder and excitement of space exploration by all countries, and only through peaceful exploration will humanity reach its full potential in the final frontier," said Tariq Malik, Managing Editor of Space.com.

Space Peace Prize: Awarded to the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) and Simonetta Di Pippo, Director UNOOSA

Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca, President of Malta presents the Space Peace Prize to UNOOSA and Simonetta Di Pippo, Director UN Office for Outer Space Affairs, which was awarded by Space Trust on Sept. 26, 2018 for work dedicated to international cooperation in outer space affairs, space exploration and to the peaceful application of space science and technology on Earth. (Image credit: Courtesy of Namira Salim)

Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca, President of Malta presented the Space Peace Prize to UNOOSA and Simonetta Di Pippo, Director UN Office for Outer Space Affairs, which was awarded by Space Trust for work dedicated to international cooperation in outer space affairs, space exploration and to the peaceful application of space science and technology on Earth for everyone, everywhere. This medal was established by Space Trust in 2015 and was first presented by His Serene Highness Prince Albert II, Sovereign Prince of Monaco and Namira Salim, to ROSCOSMOS, the Russian Space Agency, for international cooperation and peaceful applications of Space Science and Technology on Earth, in their role as one of the lead partners of the International Space Station.

For more information on UN Office for Outer Space Affairs and its mission, please contact pesce@un.org.

For more information on Space Trust, please contact info@spacetrust.com.



WARNING: THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS, READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.



New Amsterdam has the arduous task of debuting into an oversaturated genre. It is yet another medical drama competing with Grey's Anatomy, The Good Doctor, The Resident, and Chicago Med. In addition to treading over the graveyard of a plethora of other medical dramas that didn't make it past one season in the recent years due to said genre bloat. So what does New Amsterdam have going for it to set it apart from its competition and predecessors?





THE SET-UP

NEW MEDICAL DIRECTOR

A NEW HOME FOR JEMMA

AN EBOLA SCARE

A NEAR FATAL MISDIAGNOSIS

THE C WORD

FINAL VERDICT

STRAY THOUGHTS

FAVORITE LINES

The premise is fairly simple. New Amsterdam is one of America's oldest hospitals but it has fallen into disrepair and been overrun by greedy doctors more interested in a paycheck than giving their patients necessary care. Doctor Max Goodwin (Ryan Eggold), is an agent of change aiming to shape the hospital into the place he knows it is capable of becoming.What I think will setis its keenness to delve into a fractured healthcare system. I think there are definitely parallels to be drawn between the specific epicenter of this hospital and the medical world on a grander scale.focuses on environment more than bolstering doctoral careers and career achievements. Out of this crop of characters, none of them are prodigies. They don't all have fancy pedigrees. It feels like everyone is on level ground and therefore they're growing from the same place. Max wants the hospital to focus on bettering care for patients specifically. The set of this show is something to marvel at. The production did an excellent job at making New Amsterdam feel realistic and grounded. They've created a set that trulylike an old hospital that's seen its fair share of wear and tear over the years. There are a lot of long walking & talking tracking shots, almost like a little homage to, and something I noticed more of in the second episode than the first but they help maintain an immersive experience for the audience and generate space for the actor's to move within. I appreciated how the hospital rooms looked worn in and high-tech or glossy like we see on other medical dramas.Max (Ryan Eggold) is the shows main focus for now. He is the central character and the one we learn most about in the pilot. His tenure as medical director begins with a hospital-wide forum in which he tries to generate suggestions as to how he can help his doctors make the hospital better and more specifically, how he can help them help their patients. Max's motto is, I work for you so you can work for your patients. He wastes no time in trimming the fat by firing the entire cardiac surgeon team, due to their negligence and greed. Then he promises to hire fifty new attendings and accepts Doctor Lauren Bloom's (Janet Montgomery) proposal to nix the waiting room in favor of getting patients straight to a bed. It's easy to see Max's passion for this ailing place. He and his sister Luna were born there and a few years afterwards, Luna died there. Her cause of death? A preventable hospital infection. He uses his own tragic tale as a cautionary one. No one should have to die over something avoidable.To his credit, Max does indeed spend the entirety of the episode assisting patients and doctors alike. He steps in when necessary but he is not omnipotent. Max is allowed to make mistakes. He's human, he oversteps, he makes assumptions, but he also does the best he can. The medical drama bread and butter is doctors with god complexes but this show avoids retreading, at least where Max is concerned. Ryan Eggold's surprisingly genuine and affecting performance probably helps.Max certainly has struggles of his own too, outside the hospital. He and his pregnant wife, Georgia (Lisa O'Hare) are estranged and Max is having a health scare of his own if the throat biopsy he gets done at the beginning of the episode are any indication. It turns out he does indeed, have cancer. Then, towards the end of the episode, Max gets a panicked call from Georgia. She's bleeding on the bed and scared about the baby. Luckily, everything turns out okay. The baby was in distress but the doctors were able to stop the bleeding and find the heartbeat. We even get a name for the little girl.The resident child psychologist, Doctor Iggy Frome (Tyler Labine), has his hands full with a foster child named Jemma (Lizzy DeClement). Shes been in several foster homes and in almost every single one of them, she was abused. Iggy desperately wants to find her a new home where she might actually be comfortable and able to flourish. He has a crisis of conscience as he thinks about his job description: to get these troubled kids back to a baseline and then stick them back in the system. Its clearly not sitting right with him but many of his superiors have their hands tied. Iggy has to do some work on his own to track down the only woman Jemma ever felt comfortable, a Spanish woman named Camila. Unfortunately, Camila has since passed away but Iggy hopes her daughter, Blanca (Nathalie Carvalho), might be willing to create a home for Jemma.Iggy winds up leaving Jemma's notebook with an apprehensive Blanca. A notebook where she has recorded pages and pages about her time spent with Camila. There is a sweet sincerity in the way Iggy informs Blanca that Jemma received all of the love Camila could not give to Blanca, he wants Blanca to see her love did not go to waste. You can see why this show is a great fit to be paired withWe follow a young kid from Liberia from the beginning of the episode up until he winds up in the New Amsterdam waiting room and passes out. It turns out he got roped into a scam and was injected with a virus in Liberia before being flown back to America. The NYPD shows up and proclaims the kid, named Alain (Jason Kisare), is an agent of terror due to a video released by ISIS proclaiming they sent someone with Ebola to the states to infect everyone. They think this supposed agent is Alain. Max disagrees, if that were the case he could have stayed in a youth hostel in Times Square like hed initially planned and infect far more people, but instead, he came to New Amsterdam because it was the only American hospital he had ever heard of.Luckily for everyone, especially Lauren, who wound up in the contamination unit without the proper equipment due to an act of reckless bravery, he was injected with the LASSA virus which, while still very dangerous, is entirely treatable with antiviral medication.At the beginning of the episode, Lauren saves a woman from being tossed into the morgue after she is mistakenly presumed dead. The woman, Patricia, is given to Doctor Vijay Kapoor (Anupam Kher). It looks like Patricia (Rose Bianco) has a case of Parkinsons disease but Kapoor isnt so sure. He takes his sweet time with Patricia, running tests, asking plenty of questions, to the point Max threatens to take Patricia away because he isnt treating her Parkinson's.Vijay refutes this claim by explaining her misdiagnosis. In fact, her current course of treatment worsened her condition. Patricia actually has a tumor. A tumor so small no one caught it before but it laid ruin to her immune system. Had Vijay continued to treat her for Parkinsons she would have gone into cardiac arrest and died. His acute and thorough examination has bought her another year of life to spend with her family.As foreshadowed in the beginning of the episode and mentioned at the beginning of this review, Max Goodwin has cancer.Enter, Doctor Helen Sharpe (Freema Agyeman), a woman Max had initial misgivings about because she spends more time flying around the country giving lectures and going on talk shows rather than actually practicing medicine. He issued her an ultimatum, either she return to the hospital within 48 hours or she doesn't return at all. She decides to come back and practice medicine because of Max. She says Max has people excited to be doctors again and she wants to feel excited too. She left because she felt she had become immune to all the death and trauma doctors experience every day. Max gives her hope and in return she is there for him to come to terms with his cancer diagnosis.I loved their scene together. Freema and Ryan have excellent chemistry and while Im not sure if theyll end up being romantic, I would love to see their friendship develop. I think they could be a great support system for one another.Isworth checking into? Personally, I think so. I found myself enjoying the episode much more than I expected to, although the episode is somewhat bloated. There were a few story threads that should have been given more time to develop and a few that could have been held until future episodes. They craminto one episode but I still liked it. I do hope future episodes flesh out the characters more, I feel like I know who Max Goodwin is but the rest of the main cast I'm not as sure about yet.It is a little melodramatic, you can certainly feel theinspiration but it's almost unavoidable nowadays given the behemoth of a show it has become. The ending montage withby Coldplay felt like it was lifted straight out of theplaybook. Still, there is something special here and I think thecrowd will warm to it in particular.- Have to say, I'm impressed by Ryan Eggold's performance. I had only seen him previously inand while he was charming enough on there I didn't expect the emotional range we get from here, especially carrying into the next episode. Freema is a stand out for me too, although I'm hoping Helen will have more to do as the show continues. Really, the whole cast is quite good. Janet Montgomery is another one I'll be keeping an eye on, I could see Lauren becoming a fave of mine easily.- Doctor Lauren Bloom is agreeable to Maxs changes, except one. She wants him to re-hire Doctor Floyd who is different from the rest. Max takes her advice and checks out Floyds folders. He admits he may have made a mistake and re-hires Floyd as the new head of the cardio, the cardio department which no longer exists due to his mass firing but it's okay, Floyd has been instructed to build a new one and build it better. We don't learn too much about Floyd's character in this episode so I hope the opportunity he's given to rebuild the cardio department will give him a chance to flourish.- I am curious to know more about Lauren and Floyd. Lauren shows up to work rather disheveled, possibly hungover? But we dont really learn more about her backstory beyond that. We do learn she and Floyd are sleeping together and their relationship is complicated.: Any department who places billing above care, no matter how much money you make this hospital, you will be terminated.: Can we do something about healthy food?: What do you want to do about it?: Uh, have some.: You know we all feel like the system is too big to change, but guess what, we are the system. And we need to change.: If I were you and I analyzed our performance I would have done the same.: By performance do you mean the highest mortality and infection rates in New York City because thats like, the Beyonce of performance, if Beyonce, you know, killed people.: You do know the whole systems rigged, dont you? I mean theyre not gonna let you come in here and just help people.: So lets help as many as we can before they figure us out.oftitled  will premiereaton. Check back here for my review after it airs!WASHINGTON - The Trump administration appears virtually certain to miss its self-imposedweekend deadline for reaching an agreement with Canada on a new North American trade deal, according to U.S. officials and people close to the talks.

A downbeat U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said Tuesday that negotiators are "sort of running out of time" to include Canada in the trade deal with Mexico, which was finalized last month.

If the remaining gaps cannot be bridged in the next few days, the administration will request congressional approval of a Mexico-only deal, Lighthizer said in New York at the Concordia Summit, an annual policy conference.

That would open President Donald Trump to intense criticism from key Republican lawmakers, including Sen. John Cornyn, Texas, the No. 2 Senate Republican, as well as leading business groups, which favor preserving a unified North American market.

"Everyone's desire is for this to be a three-country agreement," Rep. Kevin Brady, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, told reporters at the Capitol. "That still is the top priority for everyone - Canada, the U.S., Mexico as well - and lawmakers."

The administration wants to make public details of a new North American accord by Sunday to meet a timetable permitting the current Mexican president, Enrique Pena Nieto, to sign it on his final day in office November 30.

Major disagreements remain over Canada's dairy management program, a dispute resolution process and the fate of U.S. tariffs on metals imports from Canada.

"There's still a fair amount of distance between us. There are very large issues," Lighthizer said, playing down chances of a deal.

At a separate event in New York, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau showed no interest in accepting the U.S.-Mexico terms as written. That deal would raise to 75 percent from the current 62.5 percent the percentage of each vehicle that must be made in the United States or Mexico to qualify for duty-free treatment.

It would also require a significant portion of each vehicle to be produced by workers making at least $16 per hour, a challenge for Mexico's low-wage manufacturing centers.

"There's a possibility there to build on what they agreed, but we know that Canada's interests are what we have to stand up for and we will," Trudeau told the Council on Foreign Relations. "My focus on this throughout has been simply not escalating. Not opining. Not weighing in. My job is very simple. It's to defend Canada's interests, stand up for Canadians."

The chief U.S. trade negotiator is scheduled to meet with Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland on the sidelines of the annual United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York. But there is little chance of a last-minute deal, according to a senior administration official, who asked for anonymity to discuss confidential talks.

The two officials have no additional negotiations scheduled between now and the deadline, according to a second official who asked not to be named.

Under the president's existing trade promotion authority (TPA), the administration must make public the text of any new treaty 60 days before it is signed.

Though officials want to wrap up a three-way deal by this weekend so Pena Nieto can do the honors, there is no legal reason that the talks can't continue, according to some trade experts.

"You should view TPA as a political guide more than a strict legal guide," said John Veroneau, a partner at Covington & Burling. "I don't think Sept. 30 is a deadline to end all deadlines."

Under any circumstances, Congress is unlikely to vote on any trade deal this year. Once the agreement is signed, the International Trade Commission has 105 days to prepare a required evaluation of the likely consequences.

Brady, whose panel has jurisdiction over trade, said it would be difficult for Congress to act even in a lame-duck session.

President Trump has long been a vocal critic of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, blaming it for the loss of millions of American manufacturing jobs and the closure of thousands of factories.

The president recently said Canada had "taken advantage" of the U.S. on trade and threatened to impose tariffs on autos and auto parts imported from Washington's northern neighbor.

Canada is expected to insist that Trump drop that threat before it agrees to a new trade deal. The Commerce Department is currently investigating whether auto imports threaten U.S. national security, a conclusion that is required before Trump can unilaterally impose import taxes.

Negotiations aimed at a new agreement have been underway for 13 months, but Canada and the U.S. remain at loggerheads. "There's a whole series of issues," said Eric Miller, president of Rideau Potomac Strategy, who has been briefed on the talks.

Lighthizer praised the trade deal with Mexico for containing state-of-the-art provisions governing digital trade and financial services as well as protections for worker rights. The accord also will narrow or "rebalance" the U.S. $71 billion trade deficit with Mexico, he said.

"It's very good for us and it's very good for Mexico," Lighthizer added.

Failure to meet this weekend's deadline would open the door to unpredictable consequences, including "a new negotiation" with the incoming Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, he said.

If Canada does not soon join the U.S.-Mexico pact, the U.S would reach "a separate deal as soon as we can," Lighthizer said.

The administration is likely to face stiff opposition from key lawmakers and the business community to the idea of proceeding with a new trade deal without Canada, which ranks behind only China as a U.S. trading partner. More than $582 billion in goods last year crossed the northern U.S. border.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Business Roundtable and National Association of Manufacturers released a joint letter saying "it would be unaccceptable to sideline Canada" in a new trade agreement.

"It's hard to imagine a scenario where we have a new arrangement with Mexico and regression with Canada. That just doesn't make a lot of sense," said Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing.

Many U.S. labor unions, including the auto workers, have memberships that span the border and would also likely reject any proposal that excluded Canada, he said.

Lighthizer's public comments punctuated several days of escalating administration warnings that Canada's refusal to make concessions threatened prospects for a deal.

"We're getting very, very close to the deadline where we're going to have to move ahead with Mexico all by themselves," Kevin Hassett, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said Sept. 21st on Fox News.

Earlier in the week, House Republican Majority Whip Steve Scalise said there was "a growing frustration with many in Congress" over Canada's approach to the talks.

- - -

The Washington Post's Selena Ross in Montreal contributed to this report.W ouldnt it be nice to get a big fat dividend every year, not just the measly Christmas bonus but a whopping great lump of money, enough for a new kitchen or perhaps a luxury holiday? Thats what the bosses get, the privilege of being an owner, entitled to a share in the annual profit, unlike a lowly worker on a fixed wage.

But what if everyone was an owner? Thats the tempting idea that John McDonnell is dangling in front of us. Labours shadow chancellor is proposing that companies that employ more than 250 people should be forced to hand over up to 10% of their shares to staff.

At a stroke of the legislative pen, employees all over the country would get a stake in their workplaces, boosting not just incomes but morale, motivation, solidarity and performance. We would be like John Lewis partners, our pockets upholstered with lovely dividends as we sashay through the soft furnishings department.

Its a very old idea that is getting a new lease of life; the Employee Ownership Association says there are now 300 employee-owned firms in Britain contributing 30-40 billion to the economy and a study done by Cass and Manchester Business School, The Ownership Effect, suggests there is a positive link between employee ownership and performance  profit-sharing makes us all try a little bit harder.

Sadly, McDonnell is not really talking about profits for workers; he is talking about shares for the state. Take United Utilities, a company that paid 271 million in dividends in 2017/18. If it had divvied up a tenth of that amount to the 5300 people employed directly by the water company, each worker would have walked home with almost 5100. You can almost hear the whooping among retailers as the nations newly enfranchised staff load up on new fridges, curtains and tellies.

Not so fast. There is a little grinch hiding in the heart of McDonnells socialist Santa; under his scheme the dividend has a maximum payout of 500 per employee. What would happen to the remaining 4600 dividend owed to each United Utilities employee? It would be paid to the state, of course, to create a huge pot of money  the Labour Party reckons it could reach 2 billion per year  to be used by government to boost infrastructure programmes.

So, a Labour government would force an infrastructure firm to pay dividends to its workers which would then be expropriated by the state and used by civil servants to build infrastructure.

Except that would not happen because McDonnell has another agenda. He intends to nationalise the water companies, and their workers would end up toiling for the state with no prospect of ever owning a share in any business.

Under the guise of wider share ownership, the shadow chancellor has hidden a plan to expropriate a tenth of the distributable profits of almost half of the nations successful private enterprises. Even more depressing: the attempt by the Labour Party to piggy-back its tax grab on a workers rights programme has probably set back the cause of wider employee ownership by a decade.

It ought to be a good thing; extending share ownership has to make sense to good employers even if there is no easy way of proving that an employee-owner is more productive than a mere wage-taker. A work ethic is not a collateral obligation that attaches to a share certificate; it is part of your personality, something you learn at a very early age, probably from parents.

For an employee ownership scheme to work well it must be more than just a dividend. It has to be about management too. The right to share in the profit must imply taking on some of the obligations of ownership, including responsibility for the outcome of business decisions. If the John Lewis partners dividend is shrinking this year, it is because of poor management decisions. If all the employees own the business, they must accept responsibility for that failure and the need to pull together and make it right.

Successful employee-owned companies are often smaller businesses that espouse a collegiate culture. Its a world very far away from the top-down state-controlled monolithic enterprises that the shadow chancellor would like to direct in his fantasy command-and-control economy.T he maker of Black Jacks, Refreshers and Flumps shrugged off rising ingredient costs last year to boost sales, results showed.

Tangerine Confectionery, which also makes retro sweets such as Dip Dabs and Wham bars, raised turnover by 5% to 114 million despite weaker sterling and public concern over sugary treats.

Underlying earnings rose 11% to 9.8 million, which the Blackpool-based firm described as a creditable performance.

These numbers exclude Butterkist popcorn which was sold to KP in July 2017.

The business has 1180 staff in Blackpool, Pontefract, York, Cleckheaton and Liverpool.

Tangerine was formed in 2005 through a management buyout of the UK arm of Danish sweet-maker Toms.

It bought divisions from Burtons Foods and Cadburys and was bought last month for more than 100 million from its private equity owner Blackstone by Valeo.I was dreading Labour Party conference. After a hot, ugly summer scarred by the anti-Semitism row , talk of deselecting MPs and the rising tension about Brexit, I developed agoraphobia and didnt want to leave my flat to get on the train. Eventually, I did and watched a movie Filmstars Dont Die in Liverpool, praying that political parties didnt either.

But the general consensus (in a whispery voice) is that its kind of gone OK. There wasnt the big bust-up that was predicted. A lot of angry or upset people decided to stay away including MPs, former party staff and once-active members and do something more productive with their time and money, like go on holiday or do DIY.

The mood feels less aggressive than it has done over the past three years. Yes, there were a few stalwarts with the old GET OUT BLAIRITE placards but the booing was light, and it wouldnt be the same without them. Even Right-wing commentators noted an absence of hostilities.

I think a lot of people are exhausted. Being at war is tiring work. And given that most people argue with each other on social media, sometimes meeting your sworn enemy on Twitter in real life at something like conference can have a civilising effect  theres a big lesson there.

Both factions of the party also seemed more subdued. Some Corbyn supporters privately acknowledge that the absolute boy had an absolute stinker of a summer and the moderates have calmed down too. They are more reflective about the scale of their defeat. They realise that the way forward is not conjuring up a shiny new political leader; its about developing a political vision.

Many moderate MPs, who have been critical of Corbyn, also spoke passionately against any talk of splits or a new centre-ground party.

Strong, impressive MPs such as Stella Creasy and Alison McGovern made an ardent case to stay and fight for positive change and theres a frustration at the armchair generals who do a lot of strategising on social media.

They also sense that, despite their misgivings, the Labour Party is far from finished and has a fighting chance of winning power. It was telling to see so many businesses and lobbyists flocking to Liverpool to try and meet the main man  shadow chancellor John McDonnell. This has been his conference.

He is seen as the brains of the operation and driving an interesting, radical and not unpopular policy agenda.

"This has been McDonnells conference. He is driving an interesting, radical and not unpopular policy agenda"

I did a small business event with him yesterday and hes a man on a mission  to win power and be a reforming Chancellor. Which is why he appeared to change his position on Brexit. When I heard him speak, he seemed to concede that staying in the EU was still an option, despite earlier ruling out a remain option if there was a second referendum. He was smart enough to praise Keir Starmer and deferred to his Brexit position of not taking anything off the table, which has delighted party members across all wings and is a victory for the grassroots.

Sometimes in politics, you can have your fudge and eat it.

The Liverpool family who welcomed dad

When my dad first came here from India in the late Sixties he ended up in Liverpool. He had also had a job offer in Los Angeles but in those pre-Google days his research got him as far as The Beatles and he fancied a colder climate. It was a bit on the chilly side at first, especially socially, and he was desperately homesick.

A nurse on the ward where he worked, called Audrey, took pity on him and invited him round for Sunday lunch. This became a regular thing. She taught him about British life and culture and he would often cook her proper curries. He even had his first pint around at Audreys.

They fed him and looked after him when he was sick or a bit down. Her home became his. So it felt rather fitting that on Sunday I escaped the madness of Labour conference and sought sanctuary in the home of Audreys daughter, who still lives in Liverpool. She greeted me with hugs, plied me with tea and fed me a chicken dinner.

It was so great to see her and a reminder of all the good that can happen when people and cultures come together with love.

My dad and Audrey didnt just become lifelong friends, they created a wonderful new family. And happy 100th birthday, Audrey!

*Ive always wanted to appear on a late-night pretentious arty show where everyone wears a black polo-neck and riffs on Dostoyevsky. Last Friday my wish was granted  although I wore a purple dress.

Mary Beard / BBCF irst, a public service announcement: do not underestimate the popular traction of Jeremy Corbyns attack today on what he called the whole edifice of greed-is-good, deregulated financial capitalism.

The sentiment is scarcely new: it was commonplace long before the crash of 2008, whose continuing impact, a decade on, was one of the core themes of the Labour leaders conference speech in Liverpool. Indeed, in the 31 years since Michael Douglass character, Gordon Gekko, in the movie Wall Street, declared that greed, for lack of a better word, is good, the aphorism has been endlessly quoted to capture the intrinsic wickedness of so-called neo-liberalism.

This resilient outrage does not alter the no-less-stubborn fact that financial services remain the engine of the British economy, that liberated enterprise is still its best hope, and that the fiscal conservatism of the past eight years was a necessary response to the soaring deficit.

Yet what Corbyn grasps is that Donald Trumps success is not accidental: in a world in which fact is increasingly overshadowed by feeling, a banal slogan  Make America Great Again  can get you surprisingly far. It would be a mistake to dismiss the extent of Corbyns potential appeal to those who have been bruised by austerity, resent what they see as the widening gap between a tiny elite of the super-rich and ordinary people struggling to pay the bills, and look ahead with foreboding to the economic prospects of post-Brexit Britain.

Statistics and graphs are of no use in the battle to address these fears. Corbyns political opponents must come up with a better story, a better narrative, than he has.

Matthew d'Ancona

Notice, too, that the Labour leader sought to neutralise the charge that he would simply turn the clock back by embracing green technology, including solar panels on thousands of roofs, 13,500 onshore and offshore wind turbines, and a plan for renewable energy that would make Britain the only developed country outside Scandinavia to be on track to meet our climate change obligations.

This is appealing as far as it goes, though it amounts to little more than a series of benign environmental pledges that have been made, in various forms, by countless politicians with mixed results. What matters is the specious modernity in which Corbyn sought to wrap himself today by morphing from 1970s red to 21st-century green: having reverted to old-fashioned socialism, Labour needs all the help it can get not to resemble the political Amish.

Corbyn, quite rightly, assumes that he must be ready for another general election at any time. Theresa Mays Government resembles a tottering Jenga tower that  buffeted by the cross-winds of Brexit and the leadership ambitions of her rivals  may crash down at any moment. This could indeed be Labours last conference before Corbyn gets his second and (one assumes) final shot at the top job.

On the basis of his performance in Liverpool, the inescapable conclusion is that he is simply not up to the task. True, he has a grip upon his party that even the iron-willed stage managers of the New Labour era must envy. The veneration of the rank-and-file is undiminished  indeed, it has, if anything, become more impassioned as a reflex response to the alleged smears of the mainstream media. Again, like Trump, Corbyn has reframed all criticism as slander and used it to shore up his political base.

"Like Trump, Corbyn has reframed all criticism as slander and used it to shore up his political base"

Yet, instead of using his unchallenged strength within the tribal walls to reach beyond them, he has, on the contrary, become less flexible, more ideologically limited, sharper in his response to scrutiny. Witness, for instance, his captious refusal to say in a Channel 4 News interview yesterday whether he regretted having worked for the Iran-backed Press TV  even though he was asked the question four times.

Indeed, it is hard to imagine a senior politician less suited to the cut-and-thrust of daily life in No 10. Often hailed as a conviction politician, Corbyn uses his conviction as a firewall against debate rather than as a navigational tool.

He rarely budges: it was left to Sir Keir Starmer to say  in a declaration not included in the official text of his speech  that Remain had not been ruled out as an option in a prospective second referendum on Brexit. A wise leader would have insisted on doing this himself: to show that he had watched the shambles of the negotiations, heeded his party members and modified his position. But  as ever  doctrine prevailed: in this case, Corbyns essential hostility to the EU. Instead, the moment was Starmers.

In Liverpool it has also been embarrassingly clear that, having gone through the motions of addressing Labours anti-Semitism crisis , Corbyn still feels no great sympathy for the hurt sensibilities of Jewish people. No party leader who really wished to repair the damage would be happily photographed with an activist who asks, Holocaust: yes or no?  as Corbyn was with Miko Peled on Monday.

What does Corbyn offer? A programme of renationalisation, schemes to force larger companies to give up to 10 per cent of their shares to employees, and sprees of Keynesian spending that would unstitch Britains hard-won economic stability. Such a strategy would gravely imperil the very prosperity that is needed to fund the public services that Labour claims are its priority. It is economic populism, not economic policy.See you again in February, fashion month is over for another season.

It ended fittingly with a Louis Vuitton show dedicated to female empowerment, in a fashion month that brought the role of fashion and the female gaze to the forefront of the agenda.

Aside from Vuitton, the Paris Fashion Week schedule was, of course, filled with some of the world's most prestigious French designers - think Chanel, Dior and Givenchy - so it's hardly surprising that the front rows would be brimming with a legion of glamorous A-listers.

When Maria Grazia Chiuri showcased a mesmerising Dior Spring/ Summer 2019 collection, for instance, the runway was complete with choreographed dancers and dreamy ball gowns - and there were plenty of VIPs sitting on the FROW to witness it.

Clearly she received the fairy tale memo because Blake Lively arrived looking like a modern day princess, in a delicate mesh dress, layered under a caged metallic skirt.

Blake Lively attends Christian Dior / Antonio Barros / SplashNews.com

And she wasn't the only VIP serving up style inspiration as the Haim sisters, Chiara Ferragni and Amelia Windsor all arrived in equally elegant outfits.

Kate Moss at Saint Laurent / SplashNews.com

Saint Laurent's spectacular show under the Eiffel Tower attracted the biggest star-studded crowd of the schedule.

Supermodels Cindy Crawford and Kate Moss were joined by the likes of Salma Hayek, Nicole Richie, Lindsay Lohan and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley.

Karl Lagerfeld created his very own Chanel beach for the brand's SS19 show, complete with sand and real waves which took 10 days to create inside Paris's Grand Palais. It was perfect then that sitting front row was Baywatch star Pamela Anderson.

Pamela Anderson attends the Chanel / Getty Images

Other designers, including Balmain, Off-White and Givenchy also showed off star-filled front rows.The Little Black Dress will always be en vogue. That was the message on the Saint Laurent catwalk last night as Anthony Vaccarello presented an ode to the fashion icon throughout the decades.

In a showcase which sought to chart both the evolution and timeless appeal of style classics, including the LBD and the impeccably-cut suit, the designers offering for next spring spanned plunging power-shouldered cocktail dresses straight out of the Eighties to crystal-trimmed Sixties micro-shifts.

Of course, this being Saint Laurent - one of the most powerful and successful brands on the Paris Fashion Week schedule - these werent just any old black dresses shown against a blank backdrop.

Instead, Vaccarello transformed his catwalk - staged outside in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower - into an infinity pool shrouded in darkness and lined with sun-bleached palm trees. As models splashed down the catwalk, clad in towering platforms which proved to be just as effective at stomping through water as stealing the spotlight on the dance floor, party wear hits topped the bill.

Vaccarello's Saint Laurent was all about the Little Black Dress / Getty Images

Citing Seventies It-girl and Yves Saint Laurents muse Paloma Picasso as a key inspiration, fashion from Studio 54s heyday came to define this show.

From the cropped velvet kick flares to the star-spangled suede jackets teamed with short-shorts, this was a collection which sought to delight the brands modern rock n roll fan base - including Kate Moss, who was among those sat front row.

The houses famed Le Smoking tuxedo jackets were also given a Western influence for the occasion, with studded lapels or Bolero-style embroidery, and presented alongside gold lurex bombers or marching band jackets.

Kaia Gerber wore a retro-inspired jacket / AFP/Getty Images

For his finale, Vaccarello sent out a procession of sheer LBDs - this time long, not little, some slashed to the hip, others backless - which were alternated with sequinned, skimpy bodysuits. Or, as the designer suggested backstage, swimsuits.

Saint Laurent took pool party dressing to new levels / AFP/Getty ImagesReview at a glance









Q uite the most striking thing about this exhibition on the art of the Pacific islands is the sheer scale of the area it covers: Oceania.

A map at the beginning shows us where these islands and archipelagos are  in terms familiar to us, from Australia and New Zealand at the bottom left up to Hawaii in the north and the Pitcairns in the south. Thats a third of the worlds expanse, mostly accounted for by ocean.

Yet the remarkable thing about this exhibition is that it presents, quite plausibly, the art and culture of this vast region as a relatively coherent whole. Theres an extraordinary wooden Siamese twin image of a god with two heads from Tahiti near a forbidding figure of the god Ku, the Island Snatcher, his face a giant snarl, from Hawaii. What the artefacts have in common, besides their function in worship, ritual and navigation, is their materials: shell, feathers, shark teeth, bark, wood and leaves.

Then theres the temporal range of the exhibits. The islands were settled over centuries but the artefacts here are only datable from the time Captain Cook arrived in the Pacific in the mid-18th century to the present day  Westerners only really explored Papua New Guinea between the world wars. And some pieces given to Cook may have been much older at the time. But even within this range of 250 years, its hard to find any obvious development in terms of style.

Theres a strikingly scary canoe shield  a man with uplifted arms above a crocodile prow  from the early 20th century, not far from a Maori carving of extraordinary elegance and abstraction with a squat god image at its centre, perhaps for a gateway, 14th century. There is no obvious chronological evolution there; the earlier artefact is more beautiful and more abstract.

Not surprisingly, then, the exhibition is ordered by themes, of which Voyaging and Navigation is the key to Oceania. There are intriguing navigational maps: criss-crossed lines made from wood, fibre and snail shells, which chart not longitude and latitude but ocean swells and perhaps the movement of birds and stars. It is in this sense that this exhibition is a depiction of a different way of thinking, a mindset.

Usefully, the exhibition helps debunk the notion that the contact between the colonising Cook and his successors and the indigenous inhabitants was altogether exploitative on the one side or merely threatening on the other  as the cheerful invitation issued in one island: Come on land so we can kill you! suggests. The curators make clear that the artefacts presented to Cook were meant to tie these curious people into a reciprocal relationship of gift exchange as in the rich, feathered cloak of Kalani Opu in Hawaii (drab but prized Maori cloth impressed the Brits less).

The Duchess of Sussex opens 'Oceania' at The Royal Academy Of Arts 1 /8 The Duchess of Sussex opens 'Oceania' at The Royal Academy Of Arts September 25, 2018 Meghan arrives at Royal Academy of Arts Getty Images September 25, 2018 Meghan arrives at Royal Academy of Arts Getty Images September 25, 2018 Meghan arrives at Royal Academy of Arts Getty Images September 25, 2018 Meghan arrives at Royal Academy of Arts Getty Images September 25, 2018 Meghan arrives at Royal Academy of Arts Getty Images September 25, 2018 Meghan arrives at Royal Academy of Arts Getty Images September 25, 2018 Meghan arrives at Royal Academy of Arts Getty Images September 25, 2018 Meghan arrives at Royal Academy of Arts Getty Images

The most striking exhibits are the figurative pieces, of gods (mostly) and men. And the trouble is not so much their inutterably enigmatic strangeness as their familiarity, from inspiring primitivist artists of the 20th century. Its hard, looking at Tino Aitu, a male deity, smoothly carved, almost without features, and not think, ooh: Modigliani/Picasso! There are other familiar elements: the figure of a woman with parted legs showing her bits is instantly recognisable as a Celtic sheela na gig. Incidentally, theres earthy humour here, not least the beam painting of a story about a chiefs wife whose insatiable lust is only satisfied by a penis stretching across a lagoon.

This is an exhibition that brings together an extraordinary collection of bits and pieces from museum basements and collections and turns them into a riveting whole so a new generation can encounter Oceania. A feat.Smith & Wollensky

Smith & Wollensky is the place for an American steak. Since opening in 2015, everything has been fine-tuned, upgraded, made better: director of operations Nathan Evans has evidently cracked the whip. The dining room is art deco gorgeous, the bar is first rate and the wine list justifiably pricey. Steaks are slabs of the New York highlife; the 28 day dry-aged T-bone is a whopping 700g and probably the most convincing evidence in London that USDA beef tastes remotely of anything. They also do Irish beef for those who prefer grass fed to grain fed. Just a word of advice: be sure to stick to your guns when they ask how you want yours cooked  we were swayed by (otherwise charming) staff insisting on the meat being medium rather than rare, and regret it. Still, its the sort of place to come for dry martinis, lobster and white wine, rib-eyes and red wine, and brandy to cap it all off. Eat lots, drink lots, feel magnificent.I f you were given a tenner every time someone in the film Crazy Rich Asians said they met at either Oxford or Cambridge, you would be almost as wealthy as its characters.

The romantic comedy is set in Singapore and the plot revolves around loyalty to home. But before settling down in the family Singaporean skyscraper, the Crazy Rich Asians have to get a proper education and that means going to England. Even New Yorkers are looked down on. The films lead, Rachel Chu, an economics professor at NYU, is seen as inferior because she didnt attend an English boarding school. The film is based on a true story, so how realistic is the film and who are Londons Crazy Rich Asians?

The draw

Despite fears that Brexit would put people off, the number of Asian people applying to British universities continues to rise, says Jess Harris, head of education at Quintessentially. This luxury lifestyle management service assists with applications.

Parag Khanna, whose book The Future is Asian is out in February, says the draw is simple: A degree from a London university is a prestigious accoutrement.

Leading the influx is Wang Sicong, the son of one of Chinas richest men, Wang Jianlin, who studied Philosophy at UCL. He is known for buying an Apple Watch for his dog. He paid 80 million for a student pied-a-terre in Kensington.

The cast of "Crazy Rich Asians" at the Premiere in Los Angeles / Getty Images

Ice Min, co-founder and CEO of coconut healthfood company MightyBee, came here from Chengdu to go to school at Westminster. I was dying to leave China, she says. The education system there is so different  I had to get up at 6am and work until 10.30pm. Abroad you can study different things like art history.

After school, says Khanna, there is pressure to prove yourself with a plum post. It used to be banking but now tech jobs are sought after. People want to pick up the deep tech to take it back to Asia.

As Asia gains financial clout, Khanna sees a shift: Asians are still leaving for education but thinking more of going back. US universities are responding with new campuses in China but the UK still reigns.

The network

Crazy Rich Asians, in pictures 1 /6 Crazy Rich Asians, in pictures Crazy Rich Asians, in pictures Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. and RatPac-Dune Entertainment LLC Crazy Rich Asians, in pictures Crazy Rich Asians, in pictures Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. and RatPac-Dune Entertainment LLC Crazy Rich Asians, in pictures Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. and RatPac-Dune Entertainment LLC Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. and RatPac-Dune Entertainment LLC Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. and RatPac-Dune Entertainment LLC

Asian people come to London to network with other Asians, says Khanna. They know that they are eventually going back to Asia so they need friends there.

Its a small expat world, says Min. If I say a name, my friends know them. If I need anything, theres always someone who can help.

On location

The Crazy Rich Asian diaspora is confined to Zones 1 and 2. Holland Park, Notting Hill, Belgravia, Mayfair and St Jamess are all popular, according to Penny Mosgrove, CEO of Quintessentially Estates. Proximity to peers and business associates is important. The average Asian buyer we work with is spending 9.5 million on London property, 1.7m if its an investment.

Agents often view properites with feng shui masters before they invite buyers to look. Mosgrove recently took a feng shui expert to One Hyde Park for a client: He used a feng shui compass (known as a Luopan) that was triggered by air flow  thankfully it passed the test. For this buyer, we had already had to turn down 15 other properties because they didnt meet feng shui requirements. Another family will only look at properties with a square layout because it supports wealth.

They dont want tradition, they want it straight out of the packet. New builds such as Park Crescent, 20 Grosvenor Square and 88 St James are being snapped up  viewings by drone are available so they dont have to be there physically.

The best buys

Crazy Rich Asians premiere - in pictures 1 /7 Crazy Rich Asians premiere - in pictures Ken Jeong, Constance Wu, Henry Golding, Gemma Chan and Awkwafina attend the premiere Dave Benett Constance Wu, Gemma Chan, Awkwafina and Jing Lusi attend the special screening in west London Dave Benett Henry Golding arrives for the London premiere Dave Benett Henry Golding, Gemma Chan and Awkwafina Dave Benett Jing Lusi attends the event at The Ham Yard Hotel Dave Benett Josh Berger, Ken Jeong, Constance Wu and Henry Golding Dave Benett Ken Jeong poses for photos ahead of the event Dave Benett

Khanna recalls a report on Channel NewsAsia after Brexit. The first reaction was that the British pound is suffering, so go blow your money with retail therapy in London because everything will be cheaper.T he Raft at Chigborough is a two-storey floating cabin that offers guests a simple, but stunning setting for a stay on the lake.

At just 40 miles from London, the Chigborough Lakes are the perfect setting for a countryside weekend escape, with plenty of old-style village pubs nearby.

You can access the raft via a floating ferry platform and guests also have use of a rowing boat.

The Raft hot tub sits on its own separate platform / Cool Stays

The simple, cosy wooden cabin sleeps four. There's an outdoor kitchen with a gas hob and fridge, a dining area with table and chairs out on the deck, and back on the bank, a fire pit for an old-school barbecue.

It also features a living area complete with sofa bed, a lake-view shower and a double bed up on the mezzanine level, which can be converted to twin beds. A balcony on the upper level offers guests some of the best views over the lake

The Raft outdoor kitchen / Cool Stays

Bikes are also available for hire on the bank, which allow guests to explore the local area. There's a nearby deli which can provide food hampers for picnic, as well as the Cart Lodge restaurant and tearoom. The village of Goldhanger has a couple of recommended pubs, perfect for real ale, fish and chips, and Sunday roasts.

Where: Chigborough, Essex

Sleeps: 4B ill Cosbys publicist compared the shamed TV star to Jesus moments after he was handed a prison sentence for a sex crime.

The 81-year-old was jailed on Tuesday for a sexual assault conviction and will serve between three and ten years behind bars.

Speaking to reporters after Cosbys sentencing, publicist Andrew Wyatt said the former actor was doing great, before likening him to Jesus.

Mr Wyatt said: Mr Cosbys doing great and Mr Cosby knows that God is watching over him. He knows that these are lies.

They persecuted Jesus and look what happened. [Im] not saying Mr Cosby is Jesus but we know what this country has done to black men for centuries

Bill Cosby's custody image / REUTERS

So Mr Cosby is doing fine, hes holding up well and everyone who wants to say anything negative  youre a joke as well.

Earlier in the day, Mr Wyatt said that Cosbys trial was racist and sexist.

He claimed that Cosby was one of the greatest civil rights leaders in the United States for 50 years, before decrying the trial as the most sexist and racist in the countrys history.

The former Cosby Show actor was jailed after he was found guilty of sexually assaulting Andrea Constand at her home in 2004.

Bill Cosby leaves the courtroom after being sentenced / Mark Makela/Getty Images

Cosbys lawyers have vowed to appeal the sentence.

Montgomery County Court Judge Steven O'Neill said it was "time for justice" as he handed Cosby the prison term and also fined him $25,000.

Bill Cosby, centre, leaves the courtroom after being sentenced / AP

"Mr Cosby, this has all circled back to you," he told him. "The time has come."L ondoners were tricked out of more than 860,000 last year by conmen claiming to be offering help to fix computer problems, new figures show.

A total of 1,073 people in the capital fell victim to crooks pretending to be from tech support attached to big firms such as Microsoft or Apple . The problem is so serious that Microsoft has seconded an employee to work with City of London polices fraud intelligence unit to help combat the scammers.

The victims, mostly elderly, are targeted with either a phone call, an email or a pop-up message on their computer stating something is wrong with the machine or the internet connection. The message will claim to be from a group such as Microsoft Tech Support, or will ask for credit card information to validate your copy of Windows.

A demand for payment to fix the issue follows, or criminals install software to access personal and financial details.

Another scam tells people they have won the Microsoft Lottery. Action Fraud, the reporting centre for cyber crime, has launched a campaign to help people avoid becoming a victim. Londoners lost a total of 862,585 in the financial year 2017/18. City polices fraud intelligence bureau said the average age of victims was 63. There were 22,609 reports of such frauds across Britain, with losses of 21.3 million, but officials believe the figures are far greater as many people do not report cases.

Lara Xenoudakis, temporary detective chief inspector at City of London police, said: These fraudsters prey on vulnerable victims, doing everything they can to convince them there is something wrong with their computer as a way to gain immediate and in some cases multiple payments from the victim.W estminster Bridge attacker Khalid Masood was identified as a threat to national security in 2010 after he was linked to al Qaeda operatives going to Pakistan for terror training, a senior MI5 official said today.

Masood first appeared on the radar of the security service in 2004 when his telephone number was on a contact list of a jihadist behind the so-called fertiliser bomb plot in Crawley.

His name came up again in February 2010 when MI5 was investigating UK-based jihadists plotting to travel to the semi-autonomous tribal areas of Pakistan for training. Officers were passed vague information that a Saudi Arabia-based man called Khalid Masood was helping the extremists, the inquest heard.

Giving evidence this morning, the MI5 official confirmed that Masood was given a holding code that identified him as a possible threat. It indicated we believed he posed a threat to national security, he said.

Asked what they knew of Masood, he said: Not very much. Simply that there was an individual not fully identified called Khalid Masood based in Saudi Arabia who was thought to be an extremist.

The scene outside the Palace of Westminster, London, where Pc Keith Palmer was fatally stabbed by Khalid Masood after he ploughed into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge. / PA

The official, giving evidence from behind a screen to protect his identity, said agents later decided that Masood was not involved in the plot. By March 2010, we were satisfied the individual facilitating travel [to the tribal areas] was not Khalid Masood, he said.

At a meeting in December 2010, Masood was downgraded to an individual who may be of interest to national security, but the MI5 official said the change was information management and would not have affected any investigation. In a statement to the inquest, lawyers for MI5 said no record was kept of the reason why Masoods status was downgraded, but that there are limits to what it is feasible for the security services to record about decision-making processes.

Masood became a closed subject of interest to MI5 in 2012, and stayed that way until he mounted the Westminster terror attack in March last year.

The MI5 official said Masood was among 20,000 other closed subjects of interest, at a time that the service was monitoring around 3,000 potentially active suspects while facing an unprecedented terror threat.

Masood, who had a history of violence before converting to Islam in prison in 2004, attended the same mosque in Crawley as the fertiliser bomb plotters, and lived among extremists in communities in Luton and Birmingham, the inquest has heard.

On March 22 last year the 52-year-old drove a car at pedestrians on Westminster Bridge, killing four people, and then stabbed to death Pc Keith Palmer in the grounds of Parliament before being shot dead.A young man was doused with ammonia and his left hand sliced off with a machete after he was enticed into meeting two teenage girls involved in a plot to murder him, a court was told.

Francis Doherty, 21, spoke on the phone to Ellie Elston, 18, and a 17-year-old, who pretended they were interested in meeting him, it was claimed. When Mr Doherty arrived to meet the girls, however, he was allegedly ambushed by a former friend, Miles Connors, 23.

Mr Doherty was sprayed with ammonia, and as he tried to defend himself from Connorss blade, his left hand was chopped clean off, Isleworth crown court was told.

Prosecutor Roger Smart told the jury that Elston and the other girl had played a key role in the alleged murder plot, while Connorss brother Daniel, 19, is accused of acting as getaway driver.

In footage from a police body-worn camera, Mr Doherty named Miles as the attacker and can be heard screaming: My whole hands on the floor ... Im dying, Im dying.

The attack took place in a residential street in Northolt in the early hours of March 23. The jury was told that the Connors brothers, Elston, and the 17-year-old girl had earlier kidnapped a 14-year-old boy, who had gone to the shops for Coca-Cola.

Mr Smart said: [The boy] was told to call Francis Doherty and say that he had met two girls who are interested in meeting him.

Both [the 17-year-old] and Ellie Elston took turns speaking to Francis, enticing him to come and meet them.

They told Francis to attend alone and to look out for a white BMW. Francis agreed to join them and hurriedly made his way to the location.

The court was told that Mr Doherty hid behind a parked car after his hand had been sliced off, and flagged down a passing police car.

Mr Smart added that the attack may have been sparked by a street fight three days earlier. He said both men, part of the traveller community, had been friends but fell out after Miles made disparaging remarks about Mr Dohertys sister.

The 14-year-old boy was said to have been stripped and wiped down with bleach, dressed in girls clothing, then released and told to leave London.

Miles Connors, of no fixed address; Daniel Connors, of Northolt; Elston, who lives in north-west London; and the 17-year-old girl, who cannot be identified, have all pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to kidnap, conspiracy to falsely imprison, conspiracy to murder, and conspiracy to wound with intent. Miles Connors also denies attempted murder and causing wounding with intent.

Also in the dock are the Connorses sister Christina, 18, and her boyfriend Aidan Mason, 20, who are accused of offering 50,000 in cash if Mr Doherty refused to co-operate with police. Mason, from Tottenham, and Christina Connors, who lives in north-west London, both deny perverting the course of justice.A popular Instagram cat named Mr Muk has been reunited with his owner as police arrested a man on suspicion of theft.

The 10-year-old Siberian Forest cat, which has its own Instagram account with hundreds of followers, has been found following an appeal in the Standard in mid-September.

Police said the cat was snatched from outside his home in Petherton Road, Canonbury, nearly two months ago.

A Met Police spokesman said a 22-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of theft at a property in West Hampstead shortly before midnight on Tuesday.

Mr Muk with Izabela Mnich on Instagram / Izabela Mnich

"The cat is now back with its owner," the spokesman added,

Police had launched a manhunt earlier this month for a suspected catnapper accused of grabbing Mr Muk before boarding a train at Canonbury Station on July 30.

At 11.50pm on Tuesday, a 22-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of theft," a Scotland Yard spokesperson said.

"He has been taken into custody at a north London police station."

Mr Muk's owner Izabela Mnich, 34, who was left very upset after the cat vanished, has now been reunited with Mr Muk.

Speaking to the Standard before he was returned, Ms Mnich said: My lovely cat has been ripped away from me.

I do not know what to say to the person that took him, only that I want Muk to come back to me where he is safe and happy.A healthcare worker has become the third person in England to be diagnosed with monkeypox.

Public Health England (PHE) confirmed the person contracted the rare disease after caring for a patient who was later diagnosed with the illness at Blackpool Victoria Hospital.

The latest patient has been isolated and is being looked after in the specialist unit at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle.

The symptoms of monkeypox, an infectious virus, include developing a fever, swollen glands and extensive blistering on the skin, as well as muscle aches, headaches and exhaustion.

Dr Nick Phin, deputy director of PHE's National Infection Service, said: "This healthcare worker cared for the patient before a diagnosis of monkeypox was made. We have been actively monitoring contacts for 21 days after exposure to detect anyone presenting with an illness so that they can be assessed quickly. It is therefore not wholly unexpected that a case has been identified.

"This person has been isolated and we are taking a highly precautionary approach to ensure that all contacts are traced."

The first two cases of monkeypox both involved people who had travelled to Nigeria, with one case in Cornwall as well as Blackpool.

Dr Phin added: "We know that in September 2017 Nigeria experienced a large sustained outbreak of monkeypox and since then sporadic cases have continued to be reported. It is likely that monkeypox continues to circulate in Nigeria and could, therefore, affect travellers who are returning from this part of the world.

"However, it is very unusual to see two cases in such a relatively short space of time. We are working hard to contact individuals, including healthcare workers, that might have come into contact with the individual to provide information and health advice."

An early case of monkeypox from Liberia, pictured in 1971 / CDCP

Dr Mike Beadsworth, clinical director of the Tropical and Infectious Diseases Unit said: "We are treating a patient who has tested positive for monkeypox. The patient is being cared for on our specialist infectious and tropical diseases unit, by highly trained staff who are experienced in dealing with a variety of infectious diseases."

Monkeypox is a very rare viral infection that does not spread easily between humans, but is more likely from contact with "bush meat" or wild game. Most people recover within a few weeks, but some can have much more severe reactions.

The infection can be spread when someone is in close contact with an infected person, but there is a very low risk of transmission to the general population, PHE said.

A rash can develop in those affected, often beginning on the face, then spreading to other parts of the body. The rash changes and goes through different stages before finally forming a scab, which later falls off.

The World Health Organisation said monkeypox was first documented in humans in 1970, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, soon after smallpox was eliminated in the area.

Since then, the majority of cases have been reported in rural, rainforest regions of the Congo Basin and western Africa, usually due to handling of infected monkeys, Gambian giant rats and squirrels, and often resulting from eating inadequately cooked meat.P eople who are obese or underweight are less in touch with their emotions than those at a healthy weight, London academics claimed today.

Research by Brunel University and Imperial College found an association between extreme body mass index (BMI) and the capacity to understand and handle feelings.

They compared BMI scores and psychometric tests performed over a 15-year period on people aged 31 and 46 and found that those whose weight changed most, either increasing or falling, were most likely to have alexithymia. This is defined as a difficulty identifying and expressing emotions, and is said to affect one in 10 adult Europeans.

Obesity and anorexia have previously been associated with alexithymia. Todays study, involving more than 3,200 Finnish people and published online in PLOS One, is the first to apparently confirm that people with extreme weight problems are less able to process emotions.

Alexithymia is a key factor in autism, which shares several genetic causes with obesity . Depression also has been linked to alexithymia and obesity.

Professor Alex Blakemore, of Brunel, said: There might be something about being overweight that blunts peoples ability to identify and discuss their own emotions. Perhaps the overwhelming social stigma or, as our study suggests, a higher level of depression.

Another possibility is that whatever affects the brain to cause alexithymia also affects the brain signals that control eating which might explain why it is associated with both anorexia and obesity.

It is not known what causes the link between BMI and alexithymia. Some people eat in response to emotions, without understanding the underlying trigger.

Professor Blakemore said weight management programmes should offer emotional support.T eenage girls in Britain are among the heaviest drinkers in Europe, World Health Organisation research suggests.

Those aged 15 in Wales were the second only to Denmark in terms of being most likely out of the 36 European nations to have been intoxicated at least twice in their lifetime, according to the statistics from 2014.

In Wales, 33.6 per cent of females that age said they had been under the influence of alcohol two times or more.

Scotland took fourth spot, with 32.9 per cent reporting so and England came in six, with a figure of 30.9 per cent.

Teenage girls in Britain were also recorded as more likely to drink than boys of their age now as well, The Telegraph reported.

The country with the least prevalence of drinking amongst 15-year-old girls was Israel, at 5.4 per cent.

After issuing the report, which compared drinking habits between 2002 and 2014, Dr Zsuzsanna Jakab, World Health Organisation regional director for Europe, said: Young people are regular drinkers at an age where they should not be drinking at all.

As we know that any alcohol consumption at this critical developmental stage in life is especially harmful, policy-makers have a responsibility to implement the measures we know are effective, such as limiting access, enforcing age checks and restricting any type of alcohol marketing, including digital marketing.

However, despite these figures regarding adolescents still being seen as a concern, the report does show that overall drinking amongst them in Europe has fallen since 2002.

But the research, which has been led by the University of St Andrews, still shows excessive drinking is still common.

Dr Jo Inchley, lead editor of the report, said Overall reductions in harmful drinking have been greatest in countries that traditionally have had higher prevalence, such as Great Britain and the Nordic region.

This makes it clear that change is possible; however, more should be done to ensure that adolescents are effectively protected from the harms caused by alcohol.C arey Mulligan went to the United Nations in New York to campaign for help for children caught up in conflicts, as she praised the Standards Learn to Live campaign.

The Hollywood star, who is supporting our work to twin London children with youngsters in refugee camps, joined War Child bosses yesterday to meet political leaders attending the UN General Assembly, after saying that our appeal had highlighted the importance of the issue.

I think the campaign is brilliant, she said. The more we can do to understand people in all different walks of life gives perspective on the world and really builds empathy. We are all stuck in our own lives and its fair to say there is a lot going on for everyone.

She added: People are sitting on the Tube and reading these stories when they might not otherwise. Thats why this campaign is so exciting.

It will be particularly important in the cases of the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo where these conflicts have been going on for so long they are not part of the daily news cycle. This is bringing them back into peoples minds.

The Learn to Live campaign aims to increase empathy and understanding between children from different backgrounds. The pupils will carry out joint projects and learn about different cultures and ways of life. Mulligan said: I have a romantic idea about pen pals  there is something wonderful about having the ability to connect with someone you have never met. This is a variation of that.

She added that knowing other children are thinking of them will give young people in war zones great comfort as it takes a great deal of hope and courage and inner strength to spend year after year in a refugee camp. As for the London children taking part in the project, she said it would be a bit challenging and eye-opening. It would have been for me when I was that age  but it is important and really enlightening.

Mulligan has visited refugee camps in Jordan and the Democratic Republic of Congo in her role as a global ambassador for War Child. She said the camp in Goma in DRC was one of the worst places I have ever been in my whole life. Two children had died that week of malnutrition. It was just horrendous.

Rob Williams, the CEO of War Child UK, said the visit to the UN General Assembly enabled the messages being highlighted in the Standard campaign to be raised with world figures.

Join our campaign: how your school can helpM eghan Markle has been praised as down to earth and humble by fans after shutting her own car door during her first solo engagement as the Duchess of Sussex.

The 37-year-old former actress embarked on her first ever engagement without the support of Harry or other royals at the Royal Academy of Arts on Tuesday night.

As she arrived for the Oceania exhibition and had her car door opened for her, Meghan stepped out and then closed it herself which is not often seen during royal engagements.

The Duchess slightly broke protocol after greeting one of her hosts for the evening and was praised for doing so by royal fans online.

The Duchess of Sussex closes her own car door as she arrives at the opening of 'Oceania' at the Royal Academy of Arts in London / REUTERS

While one called Meghan completely down to earth and humble, another wrote: I had to smile  Meghan is closing the door of that car herself  you know shes still used to doing that.

Another said: I really dont think it occurs to her that someone else is there to do that. It is something shes always done herself like the rest of us.

Emily Andrews, royal correspondent for The Sun, added: A princess who still takes the time to shut her car door. Well done Meghan!

The Duchess of Sussex at the opening of Oceania at the Royal Academy of Arts / PA

Meghans first solo engagement in central London on Tuesday comes four months after becoming a member of the monarchy.

The Duchess of Cambridge carried out her first solo engagement almost six months after her wedding day, when she stood in for the Prince of Wales at a fundraising dinner in October 2011.

The event celebrated the art of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia, encompassing the vast Pacific region including New Guinea, Easter Island, Hawaii and New Zealand.

Meghan performed a hongi, a symbolic pressing of noses, with a group of performers after touring the UK's first exhibition of historic and contemporary artefacts and art from the Oceania region.

The Duchess of Sussex receives a Hongi, a traditional Maori greeting / PA

Wearing a black Givenchy dress, the duchess was taken to four specific pieces from Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Tonga, nations she will be visiting on her first major overseas tour with Harry.

Some of the group, called the Mata Aho Collective, also welcomed Meghan with the traditional Maori greeting.

Artist Sarah Hudson said: "We thought it might be a nice bit of practice before she comes to the Pacific next month and it's nice to be able to practice something that's customary for us.A female cyclist has been rushed to hospital after being hit by a lorry on Piccadilly during the morning rush hour.

The woman, aged in her late 20s, suffered serious leg injuries in the crash outside the Ritz hotel in central London, shortly before 8am.

Rachel Burford

An air ambulance was dispatched to the junction with Albermarle Street as police closed the A4 Piccadilly eastbound, causing major delays to buses and motorists.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said: Police were called at 7.55am to Albermarle Street. A female cyclist in her late 20s was in collision with a lorry.

A bike can be seen crushed beneath a lorry / Rachel Burford

She has gone to hospital with serious leg injuries. We wait an update on her condition.

The lorry driver stopped at the scene, police said.

A spokesman for London Ambulance Service said: We treated a woman at the scene and took her to a major trauma centre as a priority by road."

Piccadilly was closed eastbound on Wednesday morning / Rachel Burford

Motorists have been urged to avoid the area as the Piccadilly Underpass eastbound was closed after the crash.

There is also no access to Piccadilly from Hyde Park Corner.

A TfL spokesman said: A4 Piccadilly is fully blocked eastbound opposite St Jamess Street due to a collision. No traffic is getting past. Use other routes if you can.W estminster Bridge killer Khalid Masood was a controlling and arrogant person who believed he was "a genius", an inquest heard.

In a psychological profile, Dr Brock Chisholm told the Old Bailey how Masood had believed he was extraordinary since he was a child.

Masood killed four pedestrians on the bridge in March last year, before fatally stabbing PC Keith Palmer.

Dr Chisholm told the inquest on Tuesday: Masood believed he was more intelligent than other people.

Police secure the area on the south side of Westminster Bridge after the attack on March 22, 2017 / AP

"He enjoyed dominating people and viewed himself as special in the eyes of God. Indeed, like a genius.

"He believed he was extraordinary and believed this since he was a child.

"When this was threatened he behaved in a way that masked that. When he didn't get into grammar school he blamed his mother for this."

A rant recorded by Westminster Bridge terrorist Khalid Masood

He added: "Masood appeared unable to form meaningful and long-term relationships, this is likely because he had impaired ability to empathise to understanding the emotions of others and act accordingly."

Gareth Patterson QC, asking questions on behalf of the families of the four victims who died on the bridge, told the witness a copy of Masood's CV was found in the car the killer was driving to carry out his plan.

Dr Chisholm said there were a number of reasons to have done this - to avoid the wrong person being framed, or to seek recognition for his achievements.

The scene outside the Palace of Westminster in London, where PC Keith Palmer was fatally stabbed by Khalid Masood after he ploughed into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge / PA

He also suggested Masood may have been in two minds over whether or not to go through with the rampage, and was looking to his qualifications for a possible way out.

Dr Chisholm agreed with Mr Patterson that there was nothing to suggest the killer was insane at the time of the attack, nor that he had been radicalised by others - although he had adopted an extremist version of Islam.

The inquest continues.T his is the bizarre moment Barry Gardiner whistled the Labour conference to a close, with a tuneful rendition of the party's anthem "The Red Flag".

The Shadow International Trade Secretary delighted delegates as he serenaded the room following Jeremy Corbyn's keynote speech in Liverpool.

Labour politicians and party members who had gathered to hear Mr Corbyn then joined in to sing the socialist song on Wednesday.

It came after Mr Corbyn set out the a radical left-wing agenda for the party, declaring that Labour now represents "the new common sense" and is ready to govern.

Barry Gardiner whistles at Labour conference / PA

The Labour leader said his party was "ready to take charge" and deliver "a real alternative to the people of Britain - a radical plan to rebuild and transform our country".

Keynote speech: Jeremy Corbyn delivers a major address at Labour conference in Liverpool / Jeremy Selwyn

Delegates lauded the Labour leader as he called on Prime Minister Theresa May to call an early general election, which he said could see him in 10 Downing Street by this time next year.

Mr Gardiner's performance on Wednesday is not the first time he has entertained audiences with his hidden talent.

The shadow cabinet minister joined up with ITV's Robert Peston earlier this year for a rendition of the EU anthem.

And he was filmed attempting a quickfire whistle challenge on the Daily Politics with Andrew Neil in February.Prosecutors said the matter was first investigated in 2002 when Williams disclosed to his therapist that he had romantic involvement with a female student. The therapist reported that to the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, prompting a police investigation, but at that time both Williams and the teen girl told officials that their sexual relationship began after she turned 18 and had graduated from high school, prosecutors said.B ritain could face a logistics crisis with companies going bankrupt and a shortage of food on the shelves if Brexit caused border delays of just half an hour.

One in 10 British transport firms say they are used to frictionless trade and it is feared small delays at customs would drive them out of business.

A quarter of logistics companies are stockpiling products amid Brexit fears, and warn of a potential crisis as one in 10 would "likely go bankrupt", supply chain managers have said.

If Brexit causes custom delays it could mean an overnight crisis for British imports.

A lorry passes through UK Border Control at the Eurotunnel site in Calais, 2015. / PA Archive/PA Images

Firms would struggle to find suppliers and skills, according to the Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply (CIPS), in a survey of 1,310 UK and EU-based supply chain managers.

John Glen, economist at CIPS, said: The UK economy could fall off a cliff on Brexit day if goods are delayed by just minutes at the border. Businesses have become used to operating efficiently with exceptionally lean, friction-less supply chains, where quick customs clearance is a given. Customs delays would not only affect businesses, but would also lead to a shortage of products on shelves and an increase in prices for consumers as well.

Longer queues at the border due to added paperwork would be such an existential threat to the companies, that up to 30 minutes delay would put 10 per cent out of business - and more if the delays went on for hours.

The research comes at a crucial time for negotiations between the UK and EU about future trading relationships a Theresa May tries to unit the Conservative Party behind an amended deal to take to the European negotiators, and the Labour Party announces that if she can't strike a deal they approve of, they will force her into a general election.

But some logistics managers said they would actually prefer the prospect of a "no-deal" Brexit - but the overwhelming majority say that delays would put their time-sensitive contract under pressure, with hundreds of firms planning to stockpiling goods to prepare for Brexit Day.

Half of all the respondents said they would struggle to re-shore parts of their supply chain in the UK if they had to.

The Brexit deadline is drawing nearer and while most businesses are trying to prepare, they are limited on what they can do until a final Brexit deal has been agreed," added Mr Glen, who called on the government to prevent an "economic meltdown".

"Stockpiling goods is an option for some businesses, but many do not have the facilities available to store surplus stock, and those working with perishable goods simply wont be able to."

Britain's fate is edging closely toward a "no-deal" Brexit. With no firm trade agreements in place on March 29, companies would have to fall back on World Trade organisation Rules for duties, which would put even more pressure on importers.

The Prime Minister's "Chequer's Deal" was met with hostility at the Salzburg summit with EU leaders last weekend, particularly on the sticking point of a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland.A Holocaust survivor, who lost more than 50 relatives during the atrocity, has warned of the dangers of remaining a bystander to anti-Semitism as she urged Jeremy Corbyn to demonstrate leadership on the issue.

Susan Pollack, 88, received two standing ovations from the emotionally-charged Labour conference fringe event on Tuesday as she said Mr Corbyn should say "unfounded" attacks against Israel are "not acceptable" in his upcoming speech.

In her moving testimony, Ms Pollack recounted how she was resettled to the concentration camp in German-occupied Poland, where her mother was gassed upon arrival and her brother was made to dispose of dead bodies. Her father was deported to a camp in March 1944.

Standing up to anti-Semitism - however small - is so important, because it can lead to unstoppable, terrible things, she told the packed meeting, which was flanked by tight security. In 2018 we have to talk about anti-Semitism. Have we learnt nothing?

Her comments came as Mr Corbyn said he had done "everything I can" to tackle all forms of racism.

Ms Pollack told the Holocaust Educational Trust event in Liverpool: It's dangerous. It didnt start with Auschwitz, but having been through and experience these years, lets look after each other because it affects all of us at the end.

Following the outbreak of the Second World War, Ms Pollack said anti-Semitism in her hometown Felsogod became more visible, with anti-Jewish graffiti appearing on the streets.

After the German invasion of Hungary in March 1944, she and her family were ordered to leave their home.

Ms Pollack said she took a portable sewing machine with her on her back, believing they were to be resettled. I was pretty good at the sewing machine, she said.

However she and her family were sent by cattle truck to Auschwitz-Birkenau - after time in a ghetto - where her mother was sent directly to the gas chambers.

Ms Pollack carried out slave labour, working until she was relocated to Bergen-Belsen, another camp in northern Germany.

When she was liberated by the British army on April 15 1945, Ms Pollack said she couldnt walk or move. If the British hadnt of liberation Bergen-Belsen the day they did, I wouldnt have been here the next day, she said.

Ms Pollack, who was attending a rally on anti-Semitism for the first time on Tuesday, urged the room to demonstrate and say we do not tolerate this.

To think nearly 80 years on we are still talking about anti-Semitism, she said.

Labour Party Conference 2018 1 /22 Labour Party Conference 2018 Britain's shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer John McDonnell delivers his keynote speech Reuters The Labour Party's shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer John McDonnell speaks to party leader Jeremy Corbyn at the party's conference in Liverpool, Reuters Jeremy Corbyn (left) and Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer John McDonnell during the Labour Party's annual conference PA Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn looks out from the podium at the party's conference REUTERS Jeremy Corbyn applauds as shadow Chancellor John McDonnell AFP/Getty Images Cuff links featuring an image of Jeremy Corbyn in the style of Che Guevarra are seen for sale at the Labour Party's conference REUTERS Labour MP Dennis Skinner listens to speeches Getty Images Comedian and Labour activist Eddie Izzard listens to speeches Getty Images Sweets with names based on politically themed puns and word games are seen for sale REUTERS Sweets with names based on politically themed puns and word games are seen for sale REUTERS Labour MP, Luciana Berger arrives to speak at a fringe meeting at the Liverpool Pub PA Labour Party Member of Parliament Dennis Skinner arrives the party's conference Reuters Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer John McDonnell talks to breakfast television ahead of his speech later today at the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool PA John McDonnell (C) walks through the Exhibition Centre Liverpool Getty Images Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is interviewed by the BBC's Andrew Marr in Liverpool PA Jeremy Corbyn and Owen Jones smile to the audience at a Momentum "The World Transformed" event Getty Images Jeremy Corbyn poses for photographers at a vigil for peace in Yemen during the annual Labour Party Conference Reuters Labour Deputy Leader Tom Watson cycles at the party's annual conference at the Arena and Convention Centre PA Campaigners take part in a 'People's Vote' March in central Liverpool EPA Demonstrators dressed as the "Brexit Unicorn" take part in the March For The Many, calling for a people's vote on the final outcome of the government's Brexit negotiations Getty Images Members of the public march in support of the People's Vote campaign in Liverpool PA Britain's opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn on stage at the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool AFP/Getty Images

She said Mr Corbyn must prove his right to be leader of the party and be constantly vigilant in rooting out the issue.

In an interview with the BBC on Tuesday, Mr Corbyn set out the steps the party had taken to address concerns about anti-Semitism.

"We've adopted a definition. We've adopted a principle, we are opposed to anti-Semitism in any form," he said.

He added: "I've done everything I can, within this party to make sure we have a process.

"I've done everything I can in my life to oppose racism in any form, and I will continue to do so."

Labour MP Luciana Berger, who has faced threats and abuse in the wake of her criticisms of the Labour leadership's handling of the anti-semitism row, said: "I unfortunately don't share Jeremy Corbyn's view that everything has been done."J eremy Corbyn today made a dramatic offer to Theresa May to do a deal on Brexit.

The Labour leader said that if she agreed to the UK staying in a customs union, and several other changes to her Chequers blueprint for leaving the EU, he could back such a sensible deal.

Mr Corbyn made the surprise move in his speech to Labours annual conference in Liverpool. He also called for party unity in the face of a possible early general election.

The Prime Ministers Brexit plan is under fire from Brussels, her own party and the Opposition.

But Mr Corbyn said: If you deliver a deal that includes a customs union and no hard border in Ireland, if you protect jobs, peoples rights at work and environmental and consumer standards ... then we will support that sensible deal ... a deal that would be backed by most of the business world and trade unions too.

Jeremy Corbyn speaks at Labour's annual conference / Jeremy Selwyn

Repeating his call for a general election, Mr Corbyn, who is due to meet EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier tomorrow, added pointedly: But if you cant negotiate that deal ... then you need to make way ... for a party that can. It was not clear how his offer would go down among Labour delegates, the Government or the EU. MPs may see Mr Corbyns proposal as an attempt to put pressure on Mrs May ahead of the Conservative Party conference next week rather than a serious overture. Even so, the move opened up the faint possibility of a Commons majority for a Brexit deal.

It would mean Mrs May riding roughshod over one of her own red lines, which is that the UK will leave the customs union. And any such agreement between the party leaders could still be rejected by EU leaders.

Mrs May would also face fury from Tory Right-wingers if she sided with Mr Corbyns proposal.

After days of division at Labours conference over Brexit, Mr Corbyn called on his party to listen a bit more and shout a lot less.

Keynote speech: Jeremy Corbyn delivers a major address at Labour conference in Liverpool / Jeremy Selwyn

The Labour leader set out principles of no more forgotten communities and a different kind of Britain to explain how Labour would govern with a radical agenda if it won an election.

Mr Corbyn also told the party faithful that they must create a greater culture of tolerance and stamp out abuse of individuals after a year of bitter rows over anti-Semitism and moderate MPs being threatened with deselection.

If we are to get the chance to put those values into practice in government, we are going to need unity to do it, he said.

Mr Corbyn stopped short of apologising for the anti-Semitism storm in Labour, but vowed to fight with every breath to eradicate it.

He also put his party on an election war-footing, saying the fragility of Mrs Mays Government, divided by Brexit, meant that Labour could be in power by the time of the next conference in autumn 2019.

When we meet at this time next year, let it be as a Labour government, investing in Britain after years of austerity and neglect, bringing our country together after a decade of division, he said. Labour is ready, confident in our ideas, clear in our plans, committed to rebuild Britain.

Jeremy Corbyn arrives to give his keynote speech at Labour conference / Jeremy Selwyn

But to win, Labour needed to broaden its appeal beyond its core Left-wing vote. Our party must speak for the overwhelming majority in our country, he said. The party must offer the new common sense and occupy the new centre ground, he argued.

However, in words that will alarm the financial sector, Mr Corbyn ferociously laid into the City. We can no longer tolerate a set-up where the real economy, in which millions work, is just a sort of sideshow for the City of London and for banks fixated on piling up profits around the world, he said.

He vowed to democratise the economy, echoing shadow chancellor John McDonnells plan to give workers shares that would provide them with a say in the running of firms. The CBI has said Labour risks cracking the foundations of this countrys prosperity with such policies.

Mr Corbyn also denounced greed-is-good capitalism and offer a green jobs revolution to create 400,000 skilled posts. In another key section of his address, Mr Corbyn appealed to the older generation who built modern Britain. This included a pledge to continue the triple-lock on pensions, free bus passes, and the winter fuel allowance for the elderly. The promises, painted as solidarity between the generations, appeared to be a response to polling evidence that shows pensioners are the most consistently hostile group of voters to Labour.A shadow minister sparked controversy at Labours annual rally today by calling for a general strike to bring down the Government.

Laura Smith, a shadow Cabinet Office minister, backed a nationwide workers walkout if Theresa May refuses to hold a general election and won a standing ovation, including from at least one other shadow cabinet member, Richard Burgon.

She was speaking at a Momentum-organised festival called The World Transformed, which is running alongside the Labour Party conference in Liverpool.

Today weve heard calls for a true peoples vote. A general election, the MP for Crewe and Nantwich said. Comrades, we must topple this cruel and callous Tory government as soon as we can.

"And if we cant get a general election, we should organise with our brothers and sisters in the trade unions to bring an end to this government with a general strike.

After the crowd rose to their feet in applause, she added: That went better than I thought it wouldve gone.

This morning shadow cabinet colleagues distanced themselves from the call by former teacher Ms Smith, who is a member of the Unite and Unison unions.

Deputy leader Tom Watson said her speech was 'not particularly helpful' / PA

Deputy leader Tom Watson said: Its not particularly helpful, but she is a new MP and she was at a big fringe event, nothing to do with the party organisation, and Im sure she got a little bit carried away with herself, because if you actually look at the history of the General Strike, most trade unions will tell you it was an absolute failure for the working class. It did not work on its own terms.

Rebecca Long-Bailey, shadow Business Secretary, added: Laura is an absolutely amazing MP, shes so full of energy and enthusiasm, but were certainly not advocating general strikes as Labour Party policy.

Labour Party Conference 2018 1 /22 Labour Party Conference 2018 Britain's shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer John McDonnell delivers his keynote speech Reuters The Labour Party's shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer John McDonnell speaks to party leader Jeremy Corbyn at the party's conference in Liverpool, Reuters Jeremy Corbyn (left) and Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer John McDonnell during the Labour Party's annual conference PA Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn looks out from the podium at the party's conference REUTERS Jeremy Corbyn applauds as shadow Chancellor John McDonnell AFP/Getty Images Cuff links featuring an image of Jeremy Corbyn in the style of Che Guevarra are seen for sale at the Labour Party's conference REUTERS Labour MP Dennis Skinner listens to speeches Getty Images Comedian and Labour activist Eddie Izzard listens to speeches Getty Images Sweets with names based on politically themed puns and word games are seen for sale REUTERS Sweets with names based on politically themed puns and word games are seen for sale REUTERS Labour MP, Luciana Berger arrives to speak at a fringe meeting at the Liverpool Pub PA Labour Party Member of Parliament Dennis Skinner arrives the party's conference Reuters Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer John McDonnell talks to breakfast television ahead of his speech later today at the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool PA John McDonnell (C) walks through the Exhibition Centre Liverpool Getty Images Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is interviewed by the BBC's Andrew Marr in Liverpool PA Jeremy Corbyn and Owen Jones smile to the audience at a Momentum "The World Transformed" event Getty Images Jeremy Corbyn poses for photographers at a vigil for peace in Yemen during the annual Labour Party Conference Reuters Labour Deputy Leader Tom Watson cycles at the party's annual conference at the Arena and Convention Centre PA Campaigners take part in a 'People's Vote' March in central Liverpool EPA Demonstrators dressed as the "Brexit Unicorn" take part in the March For The Many, calling for a people's vote on the final outcome of the government's Brexit negotiations Getty Images Members of the public march in support of the People's Vote campaign in Liverpool PA Britain's opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn on stage at the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool AFP/Getty Images

Jeremy Corbyn is demanding a general election if the Government fails to deliver a Brexit deal that protects jobs and the economy. The next election is not due until 2022.

The Prime Minister argued on a visit to New York for a United Nations meeting that it would not be in the national interest to hold an election before Brexit day on March 29.

An eight-day general strike co-ordinated by the Trades Union Congress took place in 1926, in support of coal miners who had been locked out of their workplaces in a dispute with the owners.

The Conservative government of Stanley Baldwin remained in power, although the strike had not been expressly intended to unseat him.T ory Brexiteer Nadine Dorries has called for Theresa May to resign as Prime Minister, saying she has let me down.

Ms Dorries said Ms May isnt delivering as the UK continues to struggle with its Brexit negotiations.

She also joined Jacob Rees-Mogg in calling for a Canada-style trade deal with the EU as opposed to Ms May's much maligned Chequers plan.

Speaking to ITVs Peston programme on Wednesday, the Mid Bedfordshire MP said: I say it [the call to resign] in sorrow because I was delighted when Theresa May was Prime Minister and I have been saying for many, many months to people: 'Trust her, she will deliver.'

"Sadly, she has let me down and she's let other people down because she isn't delivering, she isn't delivering because she has handcuffed herself to this Chequers deal.

My personal belief is that we need somebody who can invigorate the party, who can articulate the sunny uplands, who can tell us what all the great opportunities that are going to be there.

Theresa May is not doing that."J eremy Corbyn today called for party "unity" in the face of a possible early general election as he closed Labour's annual conference in Liverpool.

Mr Corbyn's speech followed four-days of impassioned debate by leading Labour politicians and delegates.

After more than 100 motions on Brexit were submitted, the party settled its position on leaving the European Union.

The Labour leader faced scrutiny following this summer's row over anti-Semitism.

Here's five things we learnt from the 2018 conference.

Jeremy Corbyn's Labour conference speech highlights

Radical change for the UK

The party has moved towards a radical left-wing agenda, which Jeremy Corbyn today set out as the new common sense.

Mr Corbyn said his party is "ready to take charge" and deliver "a real alternative to the people of Britain - a radical plan to rebuild and transform our country".

The plans include:

A "green jobs revolution" to create 400,000 skilled jobs in windfarms and home insulation;

An extension of free childcare;

Workers' seats on company boards, and the creation of employee shareholding funds;

An end to the "racket" of privatisation and outsourcing;

Public services with "fairness and humanity" at their heart;

A new tax on second homes to pay for house-building;

A foreign policy driven by "progressive values and international solidarity", with no more "reckless wars, like Iraq or Libya".

Jeremy Corbyn set out a radical agenda for the Labour Party / Getty Images

Labour will vote against Brexit as it stands

The Labour Party will not support Theresa Mays Chequers plan in its current form and oppose a no-deal Brexit, Jeremy Corbyn has confirmed.

Setting out the partys stance on Brexit, Mr Corbyn said his party would call for a general election if Parliament votes down a deal reached by the Prime Minister and Brussels, and told delegates in Liverpool that "all options are on the table" if that fails.

But in a shock announcement, directed at Mrs May, Mr Corbyn vowed to back a "sensible deal" - saying he would support an outcome that features a customs union and no hard border on the island of Ireland.

However Labour would vote against "any reduction in rights, standards or protections and oppose a deregulatory race to the bottom", he said.

Labour Party conference: Five key speeches

But there were still divisions over leaving the EU

Debate over the partys position on Brexit dominated the annual conference this week.

Divisions emerged among Mr Corbyns shadow cabinet and delegates as the wording of Labours composite motion on leaving the EU was finalised on Sunday.

The party agreed a motion to keep a second referendum on the table following pressure from pro-EU members, however leading Labour politicians were at odds over whether the vote would include an option to remain in the EU.

Keir Starmer: Nobody is ruling out Remain as an option

Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell insisted it would only be on the terms of the Brexit deal, but Sir Keir Starmer declared in an off-script speech - to a roaring standing ovation - that no one is ruling out Remain.

Further divisions were highlighted when Steve Turner, assistant general secretary of Unite, stepped on to the podium to slap down Sir Keir by saying despite what [he] may have said it would be a public vote, thats a vote on terms of our departure.

On Wednesday, Mr Corbyn urged the party to unite if it wanted to be fighting for democracy and social justice against poverty, inequality and discrimination in government.

Pledge to eradicate anti-Semitism

Labour offered further assurances to the Jewish community after the summer was overshadowed by claims of anti-Semitism.

It came after a bruising summer which saw the party dogged by criticism over Mr Corbyn's handling of the row.

The Labour leader attempted to draw a line under the issue as insisted his party is an ally of the Jewish community, promised to "eradicate anti-Semitism, both from our party and wider society" and guaranteed support from a Labour-led government.

Corbyn: Labour rejects anti-Semitism and racism in all its forms

Leading Jewish Labour MPs had called for greater action from Mr Corbyn over anti-Semitism.

Luciana Berger told a fringe event on Tuesday she did not think everything had been done to tackle the issue.

Emily Thornberry's 'leadership pitch'

Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry emerged as a leader-in-waiting following a passionate speech on Tuesday.

In what some interpreted as a leadership pitch, the MP compared anti-Semites in the party to fascists and urged Labour to act to great cheers from the conference floor.B usiness leaders today lined up to condemn the RMT union for strike action that will shut most of the Piccadilly line from this afternoon until early on Saturday.

They said the strike  deliberately timed to cause maximum impact on the line used by 800,000 passengers a day  will hit the economy and cause misery for commuters.

The CBI, Federation of Small Businesses, London First and the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry urged the union to resume negotiations and settle the dispute, which could lead to more walkouts.

Transport for London warned of little to no service from this afternoon until Friday afternoon.

Passengers queue for buses during a previous walkout in 2017 / Getty Images

A second strike will begin at 8.30pm on Friday lasting until 1.30am on Saturday, halting Piccadilly Night Tube trains.

A full service will not resume until 8.30am on Saturday. David Leam, infrastructure director at London First, said: Instead of pointing fingers the RMT must keep talking to London Underground and keep our capital moving.

Colin Stanbridge, chief executive of the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said: I would urge the RMT to pursue dialogue not disruption.

The RMT was accused by Nigel Holness, LUs director of network operations, of having unilaterally ended peace talks at Acas.

He said: They have made no attempt to engage with us to try to resolve this dispute.R escue teams are on standby to ensure than a Beluga Whale spotted in the River Thames does not become stranded.

It was spotted by Dave Andrews, a consultant ecologist who wrote on Twitter: Can't believe I'm writing this, no joke - beluga in the Thames off Coalhouse Fort.

Rescue teams are monitoring the animal's location to ensure its safety.

Robb Lott, a marine mammal scientist at Whale and Dophin Conservation told BBC Radio 5Live: It's a monitoring operation at the moment, obviously the longer it stays in the Thames estuary then it will become more of a concern, so we'll see what happens in the morning.

Beluga Whale in the Thames- In pictures 1 /23 Beluga Whale in the Thames- In pictures Pictures of the Beluga whale taken in Gravesend by British Divers Marine Life Rescue British Divers Marine Life Rescue A beluga whale nicknamed "Benny" by the media, continues to cause interes PA Members of the public stand on the river bank near Gravesend in Kent PA PA PA Pictures of the Beluga whale taken in Gravesend by British Divers Marine Life Rescue British Divers Marine Life Rescue Pictures of the Beluga whale taken in Gravesend by British Divers Marine Life Rescue British Divers Marine Life Rescue AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images PA Sky News PA Reuters Sky News Reuters Reuters BBC/PA Reuters Reuters BBC/PA Reuters Reuters

He added that to see a Belgua whale by itself is concerning.

Beluga whales can grow up to 20 feet in length and are usually found in the icy waters around Greenland, Svalbard or the Barents Sea.

They are said to be social animals.

Members of the public have been urged to keep their distance.

The British Divers Marine Life rescue is sending an area coordinator down to the river to monitor the situation.

The network of volunteer "marine mammal medics" has whale rescue pontoons at the ready that can be used to re-float stranded animals in an effort to move them to safety.

A beluga whale breeches near a buoy on the River Thames near Gravesend / Toby Melville/Reuters

The last reported sighting of Beluga in UK waters was in 2015, when two were spotted off the Northumberland coast and one in Northern Ireland.

In 2006, a whale died after it swam up the river into central London despite efforts to rescue the animal.A beluga whale spotted in the Thames near Essex on Tuesday has swum further up the river towards London and been sighted again near Gravesend.

Marine life rescuers hoped that the whale had swum back out to sea after it was not seen for more than 15 hours.

But witnesses said it had been resurfaced again on the Gravesend side of the estuary at about 9.30am on Wednesday. It was last seen near Coalhouse Fort, Essex at 6pm on Tuesday.

Dave Andrew, an ecologist and ornithologist who first spotted the whale, told the Standard it had been spotted in the water again by his friends.

A beluga whale in the Thames / REUTERS

Skys Edna Brady also saw the whale, writing on Twitter: It had just surfaced on the Gravesend side of the estuary.

They said its acting same as yesterday so all seems well, also its just past low tide and hasn't become stranded, so all good, Mr Andrew said.

The British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) said it was sending teams back to the scene.

The sea mammal was first spotted near Coalhouse Fort, Essex, on Tuesday / Reuters

Lucy Babey, head of science and conservation for ORCA, a charity which studies whales, dolphins and porpoises, is working in conjunction with BDMLR.

She said: They [BDMLR] are getting some volunteers down there at the moment. Theyre going to launch one of their boats to investigate. They have had people phone in as well.

Its a shame because wed hoped it would have gone into deeper waters.

She said teams will monitor its behaviour to see what condition it is in and if action needs to be taken.

Beluga Whale in the Thames- In pictures 1 /23 Beluga Whale in the Thames- In pictures Pictures of the Beluga whale taken in Gravesend by British Divers Marine Life Rescue British Divers Marine Life Rescue A beluga whale nicknamed "Benny" by the media, continues to cause interes PA Members of the public stand on the river bank near Gravesend in Kent PA PA PA Pictures of the Beluga whale taken in Gravesend by British Divers Marine Life Rescue British Divers Marine Life Rescue Pictures of the Beluga whale taken in Gravesend by British Divers Marine Life Rescue British Divers Marine Life Rescue AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images AFP/Getty Images PA Sky News PA Reuters Sky News Reuters Reuters BBC/PA Reuters Reuters BBC/PA Reuters Reuters

This animal is thousands of miles away from where it should be. Its slightly concerning, she said.

Teri Charlton, of the BDLMR, said: The best thing for it is for it to get out to the sea. She added that the animal had been swimming strongly and had been feeding.

Whale watchers are advised to make every effort to not disturb the creature if they see one and should watch from land and not make attempts to see it from on the water.

Beluga whales can grow up to 20ft long and are usually at home in the icy waters across Greenland, Svalbard or the Barents Sea.

A spokesperson for the RSCPA said the organisation continues to monitor the whale, which it is hoped would make its return to the sea of its own accord.

They said: At the moment, there are no major concerns for the welfare of the animal, as it seems to be swimming strongly and feeding normally, able to move fast in the water and dive.E xperts claim that extending the timetable for the UKs European departure talks may be essential.

A new report by the Fraser of Allander Institute think tank, based at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow warns about the impact of sleepwalking into a no-deal Brexit.

It insists that an orderly transition for Brexit is vital.

As a result its director Professor Graeme Roy said extending the Article 50 negotiating period - something Prime Minister Theresa May has already ruled out - could be "essential", even if it proves "unpalatable" to the UK Government.

Ms Sturgeon has insisted that extending the timetable for Brexit negotiations must remain on the table / PA

He spoke out as the think tank cautioned: "Sleepwalking into a 'no-deal' outcome cannot be viewed as an effective economic plan."

The report also demanded: "Now is the time for effective and strong leadership from all our political leaders."

The pleas came in the organisation's latest economic commentary, which noted the "Scottish economy has outpaced the UK for the last two quarters".

The report was published less than a week after Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon insisted extending the timetable for Brexit negotiations must remain on the table if the UK is to "avoid an economic cliff edge".

Prof Roy said: "Whether you agree or disagree with the decision to leave the EU - and irrespective of the nature of the final settlement - it is essential that we have an orderly transition. To enable firms to prepare and develop contingency plans it is vital that a deal is reached. Should this require more time to negotiate a workable solution, then so be it.

"Extending the Article 50 negotiation period - but maintaining the same transition timescale to 2020 - may be unpalatable for some but could be essential to protect jobs and livelihoods."

While the Fraser of Allander Institute said it expected economic growth of 1.3 percent this year for Scotland, followed by 1.4 percent in both 2019 and 2020, it stressed there was a "heightened degree of uncertainty" about forecasts at the current time.

"Our forecasts are based upon a broad-based agreement between the UK and the EU," the report said.

Theresa May has ruled out the idea of extending the Article 50 negotiating period / AFP/Getty Images

"Should this not happen, then our forecasts are likely to change significantly."

The think tank said it would provide more detail about the impact of a no-deal Brexit in December, but recalled it had already warned a hard Brexit, leaving the UK out of the single market and customs union, would be a "significant drag" on the UK economy.

The report continued: "It is the risk of a 'no-deal' scenario that is of most concern in the immediate term.

"Whether you agree or disagree with the decision to leave the EU - or the final agreement the UK should negotiate with the EU - the need for an orderly transition is vital. As both the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Governor of the Bank of England have agreed, a 'no-deal' outcome would cause hardship for many firms, workers and families across the UK."

Brexit: Article 50 Triggered - In pictures 1 /20 Brexit: Article 50 Triggered - In pictures Britain's ambassador to the EU Tim Barrow delivers British Prime Minister Theresa May's formal notice of the UK's intention to leave the bloc under Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty to European Council President Donald Tusk in Brussels AFP/Getty Images Prime Minister Theresa May speaks during Prime Minister's Questions in the House of Common PA Britain's ambassador to the EU Tim Barrow delivers British Prime Minister Theresa May's formal notice of the UK's intention to leave the bloc under Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty to European Council President Donald Tusk in Brussels AFP/Getty Images European Council President Donald Tusk holds a news conference after receiving British Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit letter in notice of the UK's intention to leave the bloc under Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty to EU Council President Donald Tusk in Brussels, Belgium Yves Herman/Reuters Prime Minister Theresa May takes her seat after announcing in the House of Commons PA The time 12:20pm shows on Big Ben on March 29, 2017 in London, England. The British Prime Minister Theresa May addresses the Houses of Parliament as Article 50 is triggered and the process that will take the United Kingdom out of the European Union begins Carl Court/Getty Images D-day: pro-EU protesters outside of the Houses of Parliament today as Theresa May prepares to trigger Article 50 AFP/Getty Images EU Council President Donald Tusk holds British Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit letter which was delivered by Britain's permanent representative to the European Union Tim Barrow (not pictured) that gives notice of the UK's intention to leave the bloc under Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty in Brussels, Belgium Yves Herman/Reuters PMQ's in The House of Commons PA Jeremy Corbyn speaking at PMQ's in The House of Commons Sky News Theresa May leaving for the House of Commons Jeremy Selwyn Mayor of London Sadiq Khan at the headquarters of Vivendi in Paris where he took part in TV interviews to discuss the imminent triggering of Article 50 by the UK to leave the EU Stefan Rousseau/PA Britain's permanent representative to the European Union Tim Barrow arrives at the EU Council headquarters for as meeting before hand delivering British Prime Minister Theresa May's notice of the UK's intention to leave the bloc under Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty to EU Council President Donald Tusk in Brussels, Belgium Yves Herman/Reuters Britain's ambassador to the EU Tim Barrow arrives at the British representation of the European Union in Brussels Aurore Belot/AFP/Getty Images A giant headed Theresa May in Parliament Square, London during a protest by Avaaz after PM signed a letter to trigger Article 50 that starts the formal exit process by the UK from the European Union David Mirzoeff/PA British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson walks down Whitehall Jack Taylor/Getty Images Britain's PM Theresa May signs the official letter to European Council President Donald Tusk, invoking Article 50. AFP/Getty Images

Prof Roy added: "As we outlined in June, assuming that a broad agreement on Brexit can be struck, we are cautiously optimistic about prospects for this year and next.

"However, the greatest risk to this assessment is the possibility of a no-deal outcome to the Brexit negotiations.

"Our latest work shows that most businesses in Scotland are unprepared for Brexit, with the lack of certainty over any final deal being a key stumbling block.

"As the Chancellor, Governor of the Bank of England and head of the IMF have all warned, leaving the EU in March next year with no agreement in place has the potential to cause serious disruption to the UK and Scottish economies."

A UK Government spokesman said: "Our White Paper outlined our vision for a principled and pragmatic plan which will ensure that all of the UK, including Scotland, is well placed to capitalise on the opportunities of Brexit.

"We firmly believe it is in the interests of both the EU and the UK to strike a mutually beneficial deal.

"That remains the goal on both sides and we are confident that this will be achieved."I t all began with a Miss Charlton, who mixed up her lines in September 1979. About the beer? she asked host Robin Day at the start of the first Question Time. Oh, Im doing the wrong thing, arent I? she added, fiddling in her handbag  before Day stepped in to rescue her: Ill tell you what it was: what do the team like doing on a night out?

After that wobbly start in front of a panel including the then Labour leader Michael Foot, a Right-wing Tory, a bishop and a token woman, no one would have guessed that 40 years on the show is taken seriously enough that the choice of its next presenter has something close to constitutional significance. For the lighthearted start to the show soon gave way to a seriousness that has made it the definitive choice for politicians to communicate with the public.

Today, applications close in the search for a replacement for David Dimbleby, the third regular presenter to hold the role  there have been twice as many Prime Ministers in that time. While many of the usual suspects are being considered for the plum post, BBC insiders say that there is growing panic at rumours that Piers Morgan is gunning hard for the job. It would be an audacious choice: its undeniable that Morgan would make compelling viewing, but the question is whether his appointment would prove too disruptive for the Beeb.

David Dimbleby is to leave Question Time at the end of the year / Getty Images

Other shows have majored on tough interviewers but only Question Time has them chairing a panel of rivals, before a noisy crowd. Ive helped to prepare people for the show and tried to cheer them up after staggering off it. If you thrive, your political share price shoots up. Fail, and everyone knows about it.

There are three things people say about Question Time: that its got too raucous, that its panel isnt balanced (too much Nigel Farage , too many air-headed celebrities, too few scientists) and that no one watches it any more.

The latter definitely isnt true. Even if the programme doesnt make the top 30 most-watched on BBC One (for real national fame, appear on Countryfile), it shapes debate. And thats the BBCs big challenge. Should it change a winning formula or just try to keep an old one fresh?

Some of the guests on the first few programmes four decades ago  former Labour leader Neil Kinnock, for example  are among those still being invited on today. But Britain is a different place.

"The BBC will get complaints if it chooses a host from the old mould - the pressure to pick a woman is irresistible"

Day set the pattern for hosts which seems dated today: male, established, opinionated and white. All three of Question Times  Day, Peter Sissons and David Dimbleby, who has clocked up 25 years  have been brilliant at the job. The trick isnt just to be the highly respected journalist and figure of authority required in the BBCs five-page internal advert for Dimblebys successor but someone who can bring the public into that conversation.

Thats why, when the BBC last tried to fill the post and pitted Jeremy Paxman against Dimbleby in tests, the latter won hands down. You need warmth, not just incisive contempt.

On air, you have to be able to handle a crowd  and you have to be fair. Theyll be newcomers to the show as well as old hands. Political neutrals as well as party bruisers. Cabinet ministers (the best, anyway) know their stuff inside out but its your job to jump in with a correction:  but minister, thats not what you promised six months ago  and then nail that point right away.

Dimbleby is a past master at it, which is why people watch and why they want to appear on the show. If the BBC gets his successor wrong, it will soon know about it. But it will get complaints, too, if it just chooses a figure from the same old mould.

So, yes, if it wants to play safe, Andrew Neil is the obvious choice. Hed terrify politicians but hed come over as the audiences friend. He knows his stuff twice over. Hes the continuity candidate and, for a programme which in many ways works, theres plenty to be said for continuity.

But then some things should change. Maybe the show, like politics, has got too divisive  more mob rule than heated discussion? Its impossible to imagine the hosts job being described as a lighter assignment, which is what The Times said on Days arrival in 1979. Is it becoming the TV equivalent of Twitter just too angry?

In which case, theres no shortage of other options on who might keep a grip but change the tone. Newsnights Kirsty Wark says she wants the job and theres no doubt shed thrive. Shes surely a failsafe frontrunner. The BBCs Nick Robinson would be a strong contender  but hes a man, political to his core and the pressure to pick a woman fourth-time running must be close to irresistible.

According to Nick Pisani, whos had his fair share of worrying about absent guests on late trains as editor of the show, there are five tips for getting the job: dont be a man, enjoy dealing with the public, command respect from the panel, have a sense of humour and be on top of your brief. That might point to another frontrunner, Emily Maitlis  with Wark perhaps getting the top slot at last on a revamped Newsnight.

These talents might sound a bit familiar, though. If so, what about Mishal Husain, who is friendly, sharp and steered her way impressively through the egos of some of her fellow Today presenters (Its not pretence, we really dont like each other, one of them once told me). The BBCs media editor Amol Rajan has also been mentioned  his switch from editor of The Independent to a TV personality has gone smoothly.

Radio 4 presenter Carolyn Quinns talents are surely bigger than the shows shes been given so far. And then theres Samira Ahmed, who presents Radio 4s Front Row and lobbed in her application on Twitter. Good though they are, these names are still terribly BBC. And maybe bosses will go for a high-voltage shake-up, to keep it a must-watch  at least for those who like a scrap on screen.

If so, perhaps it will be Morgan after all who gets the call. The political classes might recoil in horror  but then if any show is designed to make them do that, then surely Question Time is it.

Runners, riders and rank outsiders

Andrew Neil 30/1

Strong form like his cant be discounted. Hes the most acute and persistent political interviewer out there. A safe choice for BBC bosses if they go with a man  but theyd have to be prepared to face down criticism over his supposed views on Brexit.

Kirsty Wark 5/2

The frontrunner  no one doubts that shed handle the guests, though keeping the audience eager as well as angry would be a new test. But leading from the front in any race is difficult, and she could just be overtaken on the last circuit.

Emily Maitlis 6/1

At home across all sorts of TV ground, shes got what it takes to become the next Dimbleby. Less favoured so far in the stakes but dont rule out an impressive run-in to take the prize.

Mishal Husain 9/1

Today would be sorry to lose her but Husain might be the right pick if the BBC wants to steady the shouting on a show where public passions risk driving the calm centre away. On the right day, an outside tip to win.

Piers Morgan 50/1

He wouldnt just present the show, hed be the show. But isnt that what they said about Robin Day? If you want someone to pick up politicians with the one question they hadnt prepared for, hes got form. But maybe if hes in the chair certain politicians will simply stop coming on?

Samira Ahmed 18/1R oyal Mail has been forced to ask customers not to post loose empty crisp packets to Walkers after a flood of wrappers were sent by environmental activists.

Campaigners have begun posting crisp bags back to Walkers in protest at the company's use of non-recyclable packaging, calling on supporters to "flood their social media with pictures of us popping them in the post".

Royal Mail is obliged by law to deliver the bags to Walkers' freepost address, but they must be processed by hand as loose packaging cannot go through sorting machines.

A Royal Mail spokesman said: "We strongly encourage customers not to post anything into the postal system which is not properly packaged. And if they are taking part in this campaign we would urge them to put crisp packets in an envelope before posting.

"Crisp packets can't go through the machines, they are not normal mail items therefore my hardworking colleagues need to manually sort them, which adds to time."

A petition by campaign group 38 Degrees, calling for Walkers to use more environmentally friendly packaging, has now gained more than 310,000 signatures.

Geraint Ashcroft, a retired assembly line engineer and teacher from Pontypridd who started the petition, claimed many people will be unwittingly trying to recycle the crisp packets.

He said: "I have always recycled crisp packets but I was shocked to learn that they weren't actually recyclable.

"People don't want this stuff going into landfill and they keep talking about making them compostable, but nothing is happening.

"As a nation the UK alone consumes approximately 6 billion packets a year. That's an awful lot of landfill and poison for the environment."

The snack company, based in Leicester, confirmed it has started to receive the empty packets.

A Walkers spokesman told Leicestershire Live: "We have received some returned packets and recognise the efforts being made to bring the issue of packaging waste to our attention.

"The returned packets will be used in our research, as we work towards our commitment of improving the recyclability of our packaging. The firm is committed to using completely recyclable packaging by 2025 - but campaigners say this isn't fast enough."

People have been posting selfies on Twitter as they mail their crisp packets with hundreds tweets emerging with the hashtag #PacketInWalkers.D onald Trump has accused China of meddling in the US congressional elections because it doesnt like his aggressive trade stance.

In his latest outburst, the president told the UN Security Council meeting that China is targeting the November elections  without offering any evidence.

Mr Trump, who was chairing the meeting in New York on Wednesday, said: "China has been attempting to interfere in our upcoming 2018 election, coming up in November. Against my administration.

They do not want me or us to win [Mr Trumps Republicans are in charge of the House of Representatives and the Senate] because I am the first president ever to challenge China on trade and we are winning on trade, we are winning at every level.

We don't want them to meddle or interfere in our upcoming election.

China's foreign minister Wang Yi listens to Donald Trump address a UN Security Council meeting on Wednesday. Diplomat Yang Li immediately denied the president's allegations / Carlos Barria/Reuters

Chinas top diplomat immediately hit back with a strong denial.

Yang Li told the council: "We did not and will not interfere in any country's domestic affairs. We refuse to accept any unwarranted accusations against China.

Donald Trump listens to Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi during the UN Security Council meeting on Wednesday / Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images

The US and China are embroiled in a trade war sparked by previous accusations by Mr Trump.

He later claimed on Twitter that China placed a propaganda ad in an Iowa newspaper. He was referring a Chinese government-run media companys four page supplement promoting the benefits of US-China trade.

He said: "China is actually placing propaganda ads in the Des Moines Register and other papers, made to look like news.

That's because we are beating them on Trade, opening markets, and the farmers will make a fortune when this is over!"A Good Samaritan has died after being hit by a car while giving CPR to a dying motorcyclist in Australia.

Emily Bartley, 27, a mother of two, was struck on a dimly-lit road in Melbourne after pulling over to help the man.

The motorcyclist, 37, who police said was driving irresponsibly before the crash, also died.

Her family said in a statement: We are truly devastated. She was a genuinely caring person.

Police are investigating both crashes.

Acting Detective Inspector Brad McArthur told 3AW that Mrs Bartley's husband John was "trying to take on board what's happened".

"This is a life-changing event for him and he will never get over this. These children are now without a mother," he said.N azanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is hoping beyond hope that the British Government can secure her release after Theresa May held talks with the Iranian leader, her husband said today.

The Prime Minister met Irans president Hassan Rouhani at the UN General Assembly in New York and called on him to free the jailed mother-of-one from Hampstead.

Talks between Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt and his Iranian counterpart Javad Zarif have also been taking place at the summit. Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, 39, a dual British-Iranian national, has been in imprisoned in Tehran since 2016 after being charged with spying against the regime, which she denies.

Richard Ratcliffe told BBC Radio 4s Today programme: All you can do is keep pushing and keep pushing a bit harder. I dont think the option of giving up is one to take.

Theresa May met with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to discuss the case / AFP/Getty Images

He said he had given Mr Hunt a stone to symbolise the promise his predecessor Boris Johnson had made, as well as a stone to hand to the Iranian foreign minister, plus a letter.

He added: I was really reassured by the Foreign Secretarys tone ... Boris Johnson promised to leave no stone unturned in bringing Nazanin back and of course it requires two governments to do that. Jeremy Hunt took up the stone and its in his office, and he showed it to me and said, Listen, I promise you Ill keep going.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe returns to prison after Iran denies extension of her temporary release

Asked about his wife, Mr Ratcliffe said: I heard from her a day ago, shes calmer than she was before, having battles around getting access to medical services and so on, and theres always something that youre battling for.

The shock of being let out but then being brought back in, which was really tough for a week or so, things have really calmed ... just hoping beyond hope the Government can unlock something. He has not seen his wife or daughter Gabriella since they were detained at the airport in Tehran in April 2016 at the end of a two-week family holiday. The Thomson Reuters Foundation worker was taken to Evin prison. Gabriella is being cared for by her grandparents.

British mother Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe with her husband Richard Ratcliffe and their daughter Gabriella / PA

A Government spokesman said Mrs May raised UK consular cases in Iran at her meeting with Mr Rouhani yesterday, adding: The Prime Minister expressed her serious concern at Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffes ongoing detention, and called for her release.P rince William hailed the beauty and sheer remoteness of Namibias landscape as he spotted a rare black rhino during a trip to learn about wildlife conservation.

The Duke of Cambridge joined rangers on a 5am trek in Kunene, where he spotted a critically endangered black rhino, as well as elephants and giraffes.

The prince also met with those from the Kunene Peoples Park Initiative, which provides Namibian communities with greater control and benefits from their wildlife.

He said afterwards: I was staggered by the beauty and sheer remoteness of this incredible landscape. And I was humbled by the dedication of the rangers who protect the unique population of desert rhino from poachers.

The prince met with people from the Kunene Peoples Park Initiative / KensingtonRoyal/Twitter

"Whatever approach we take to end wildlife crime, it must be based on evidence of what works on the ground with local communities. This why I wanted to come to Namibia  to listen and learn.

William will also visit Tanzania and Kenya, as part of his private working trip in his capacity as president of United for Wildlife and patron of Tusk Trust. The UK government will host the 2018 conference on the Illegal Wildlife Trade next month.

William will also visit Tanzania and Kenya / KensingtonRoyal/TwitterThe Bellingcat group said the suspect named as Ruslan Boshirov is actually Anatoliy Chepiga, a colonel in Russian military intelligence agency the GRU.

UK authorities have charged him and another suspect, Alexander Petrov, with the attempted murder of Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury in March.

A European arrest warrant has been issued for the pair, who police believe were using aliases when they travelled to Britain.

Novichok suspects Alexander Petrov (left) and Ruslan Boshirov / PA

The incident is also linked to the death of Dawn Sturgess, who died after coming in contact with a discarded bottle that contained Novichok, in July.

Chepiga, 39, served in wars in Chechnya and Ukraine, the Telegraph reported. He was made a Hero of the Russian Federation by decree of President Vladimir Putin in 2014.

Vladimir Putin says Russia knows real identities of Skripal Novichok attackers

It comes as Theresa May attacked Russia for its "desperate fabrication" over the poisoning as she addressed world leaders in New York on Tuesday.

She told the United Nations Security Council: "We have taken appropriate action, with our allies, and we will continue to take the necessary steps to ensure our collective security.

"Russia has only sought to obfuscate through desperate fabrication."

Former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia both survived the nerve agent poisoning

Russia has denied any involvement. There was no immediate comment from Moscow on Bellingcat's claim.

The two suspects appeared on Russian channel RT earlier this month claiming they visited Salisbury as tourists and had nothing to do with the poisoning, leading Britain to accuse the country of "lies and blatant fabrications". The pair told RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan they worked in the fitness industry.

The UK government knows both their real identities, sources close to the investigation have said.The Prime Minister told Iranian president Hassan Rouhani on Tuesday that she had serious concerns about the jailing of the 39-year-old.

The London charity worker and mother of one is serving a five-year sentence in Tehran after being arrested by Iranian Revolutionary Guards for spying, a charge she denies.

During talks on the fringes of the United Nations General Assembly, Mrs May called for the British-Iranian womans release.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is reunited with her daughter for the first time since her arrest in April 2016 / PA

It came after Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt demanded rapid action to secure Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffes freedom during his first face-to-face meeting with Irans foreign minister.

He told Javad Zarif that Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe must be returned home quickly.

In a statement Mr Hunt said: I again pressed for Nazanins swift release  she deserves to be back at home with her family.

Ms Zaghari-Ratcliffe was arrested at Tehran airport as she was attempting to board a flight back to the UK with her daughter following a trip to see family in the capital.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe cuddles Gabriella, 4. / PA

She was separated from her daughter, now four, and was jailed for allegedly conspiring against the Iranian regime.

Last month she was handed a three day temporary release where she was reunited with her daughter. Despite attempts to get the release extended, she returned to prison.

The 39-year-old remains in a political prisoners wing in the jail.

During Mrs Mays meeting with President Rouhani she underlined the UKs commitment to the Iran nuclear deal.

Britain and its European allies responded with dismay to US president Donald Trump's decision to pull out of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that relieved sanctions on Tehran in return for an end to Iran's military nuclear ambitions.T wo young children may face losing their sight after violent magpie attacks left both of them with facial injuries.

There have even been calls to kill the magpie, which was reportedly protecting its young in "swooping season", when the birds are known to become more aggressive.

Australia's 7Plus news reported on Wednesday morning that two children, four-year-old Indi and five-year-old Finn, needed eye operations after a "savage" attack from a magpie in the Clarko Reserve on Saturday.

"They had operations to repair the iris and corneas of their right eyes," the channel said, and the "same magpie is being blamed for the savage attacks".

This is the "worst swooping period" in the year according to reports, with male birds across Australia defending their eggs and young in nests. They can be particularly responsive to children as they run around and make noise.

There are many signs on the site "which can't be missed", the reporters added. Doctors will not know for six months whether the two children's eyes will repair properly after surgery.

Authorities in the city of Stirling, near Perth, have applied to the Department of Biodiversity Conservation and Attractions for a "Dangerous Fauna Licence", which would allow the bird, which has caused significant grief to people in the northern suburb of Perth, to be killed.

Finn described the bird as naughty, after it attacked him while playing around in the trees.

His mum, Stacey Kelly, told The West Australian she saw him running towards her covering her eye with blood streaming down his face.A man had to be escorted off a flight in India after he reportedly tried to enter the cockpit to charge his phone.

Staff on the IndiGo flight to Kolkata had to remove the passenger from the flight after he tried to get into the cockpit as the flight prepared to take off from Mumbai.

While an IndiGo aircraft was on the ground, an unruly passenger tried to enter the cockpit saying that his mobile needs to be charged, a spokesman for the airline told The Guardian.

After being removed from the plane on Monday afternoon, the man was handed over to police for questioning on the grounds of a security violation before being released shortly after.

The Hindu newspaper quotes an airport official as saying: [The passenger] was drunk and wanted to charge his mobile phone. So he moved towards the cockpit.

"Police did not find any offence against him to charge a case.S chools in Nevada have put out a ban on snow days for pupils and will ask that they work from home if they cannot make it in.

Children in the Washoe County School District will be among some of the only kids in the whole of the US to be expected to do school work on a snow day as the district sends out new rules this week.

The authority which runs schools in the area sent out messages to parents stating: "This year Middle School will implement a plan for missed instruction due to snow days, or days when the school building is closed. Such days are known as digital days because students learn digitally at home.

"Students will be required to complete all class assignments from digital days. Please ensure that you complete all work that is assigned on digital days so that we can count your student as "present" on digital days."

ABC6 reported that the letter was sent home to parents yesterday, informing that two practice runs of the new process will take place in October.

Washoe County School District website gives pupils instructions on how to access assignments from home in "online classroom days".

The news follows a similar announcement in South Carolina in July, when Anderson County piloted its first "e-learning programme", for teachers to send assignments to their students' school-provided Chromebooks.

With today's technology, it makes so much sense, from the practical standpoint and financially," the District's Superintendent Tom Wilson told Anderson Independent Mail. "Technology has changed every profession, and we have the technology in place to keep kids working during the snow days and eliminate the makeup days.U S National Security Adviser John Bolton has warned there will be hell to pay if Iran harms America or its allies.

Let my message today be clear: We are watching and we will come after you, Mr Bolton told Tehran in a no-holds-barred speech in New York. His sabre-rattling remarks came hours after Donald Trump accused Iran of sowing chaos, death and destruction in the Middle East and called on all nations to isolate its regime as long as its aggression continues.

The president added: We cannot allow the worlds leading sponsor of terrorism to possess the planets most dangerous weapons. We just cant do it.

Mr Trumps comments, in his speech to the UN General Assembly yesterday drew a swift response from Irans president Hassan Rouhani, who blasted the US for bullying and an authoritarian approach to international diplomacy.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has accused the US of 'bullying' / AFP/Getty Images

Mr Bolton, speaking at the United Against Nuclear Iran conference, called Tehran the worlds worst kidnapper of US citizens. He dismissed the Obama-era 2015 Iran nuclear deal  which lifted sanctions on Tehran and which America pulled out of earlier this year  as the worst diplomatic debacle in American history. He added: According to the mullahs in Tehran, we are the Great Satan, lord of the underworld, master of the raging inferno.

So, I might imagine they would take me seriously when I assure them today: If you cross us, our allies, or our partners; if you harm our citizens; if you continue to lie, cheat and deceive, yes, there will indeed be hell to pay.

He said sanctions restored by the Trump administration last month were having a crippling effect on the Iranian economy. More severe measures against Irans oil and banking sectors are due to take effect in November.

The United States is not naive, added Mr Bolton, a former US envoy to the UN. We will not be duped, cheated, or intimidated again. The days of impunity for Tehran and its enablers are over. The murderous regime and its supporters will face significant consequences if they do not change their behaviour.

Mr Rouhani, who denies his country spreads terrorism, said America should stop making threats and end its unjust sanctions, adding: The United Statess understanding of international relations is authoritarian. In its estimation might makes right. Its understanding of power, not of legal and legitimate authority, is reflected in bullying and imposition.

Sanctions were originally imposed by Western powers who accused Tehran of trying to build a nuclear weapon, which it denied. In the 2015 deal with the US, UK, France, China, Russia and Germany, Tehran agreed to limit nuclear activities and allow in inspectors, in return for the lifting of sanctions.S pice Girls fans were left questioning if the friendship really never ends after the group posted a reunion snap without Victoria Beckham.

Mel B shared the image on Instagram with fellow Spices Geri Horner, Mel C and Emma Bunton all looking excited over a FaceTime call.

She captioned the photo: Nothing like a spice girls face time #friendshipneverends #girlpower #chitchat yipppeeee.

However, die-hard fans of the pop group were left feeling disappointed after Posh Spice was nowhere to be seen.

One user wrote: @victoriabeckham, please. We need you!

Another commented: No Victoria.......no spice girls I'm sorry. What a sham!

A third added: Your only missing @victoriabeckham - loving the #facetimewish I looked that gorgeous hehehehehe. [sic]

Meanwhile another posted: Where was Victoria?

The news comes after speculation that Beckham will not be joining the group if they do make a comeback.

This Morning: Emma Bunton on Spice Girls reunion

The 1990s girl group sent nostalgic fans into a frenzy after they reunited at Geri Horners house earlier this year, with the five-piece all together for the first time in six years.

However, despite speculation that the pop group will be making their musical return, Fuller appears to have suggested that Beckham will not be joining the line-up.

Speaking to TMZ, Fuller said: It may be four, not five.

However, Scary Spice Mel B was quick to insist that fans will definitely see all five back together this year and not in Geris front room, at the Americas Got Talent launch earlier this year.The judge, known for his critical comments, dusted off his one paddle  the lowest score available  for Constantines Carmen Miranda routine.

Revel Horwood told The Sun Online: [She was] One of the worst. I think the last time I gave someone a one was nine years ago. So shes broken my silence on my vow of never giving anyone a one.

Bless her. I had to talk to her after the show and we just had a really good chat in the BBC bar about it just saying look youve just got to relax and pull yourself together and try and get on with it, pick yourself, forget that ever happened.

Samba: Susannah Constantine and Anton Du Beke failed to impress with their routine / BBC/ Guy Levy

Revel Horwood actually had given a one since 2009, awarding Nancy DellOlio and, coincidentally, Anton Du Beke, the measly score for their Waltz to In Napoli.

Fashion expect Constantine scored 12 overall from the panel for her dance floor debut, hoping to climb up from the bottom on the leaderboard this week with a Foxtrot.

Meanwhile, Constantine shared a brutally honest training update on her Instagram on Wednesday morning, saying that she is walking on a tightrope of disaster.

She told her followers: When Anton says What foot are you standing on? Ill go, right and itll be my left.

"And hell go again, What foot are you standing on? front or back and Ill go the front and Im standing on the back.

"Its like I just cant get my brain to engage and I dont know if thats age orI just dont know what it is. Or maybe its fear.

Anyway, I think its not going very well. Anton is much more positive than me, and he is an amazing man. And I am loving the friendship thats building between us. That is the best thing that I could ever wish for.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Evanston first sued ComEd and Nicor in October 2014 for allegedly failing to mitigate hazardous substances in and around the city's water line, soil and ground water, according to court documents. The city's suit alleged that waste oil from the former Skokie Manufactured Gas Plant site leaked into the surrounding environment and contaminated it.Math readiness benchmarks saw a similar decline for black and white students, but a slight rise for Hispanic students. Twenty-one percent of black students met college readiness benchmarks in math for school year 2017-2018, compared to 25 percent in 2014-2015. Seventy-one percent of white students met math college readiness benchmarks for 2017-2018, compared to 81 percent in 2014-2015. For Hispanic students, 36 percent hit math college readiness benchmarks 2017-2018, compared to 35 percent in 2014-2015.The International Film Festival Anim'est - the 13th edition, that will take place during the period of September 28 - October 7, is dedicated this year to experimental and avant-garde animations, bringing together some of the most unconventional and innovating animated visual experiments from the 20's and today, emblematic productions that marked the history of cinema and especially that of animated films.

"This year's Anim'est Festival edition is dedicated to the avant-garde and experimental film, a film that basically stood at the base of film in general, not just animation. It is a quite ample perspective from five programs, that required a half-year search through all the world's archives," the director of the festival Mihai Mitrica told a press conference, on Tuesday.

The festival will be opened with one of the most spectacular animated feature film of the year, "Another Day of Life", a production of the multi-award Polish studio Platige Image, co-directed by Spanish Raul de la Fuente and Polish Damian Nenow, announced Vlad Ilicevici, executive director of Anim'est."Five films will be presented in the competition for the best feature film - "Ruben Brandt - Collector" (Hungary, directed by Milorad Krstic) that premiered this summer at the Locarno Film Festival, "Cinderella the Cat" (Italy, directed by Alessandro Rak, Ivan Cappiello, Marino Guarnieri, Dario Sansone), a reinterpretation of the famous fairy tale on a darker note, inspired by the corruption and false promises of Italy and the city of Naples, in particular, "Hoffmaniada" (Russia, directed by Stanislav Sokolov), the only stop-motion feature film of the competition, ""A Man is Dead" (France, directed by Olivier Cossu), an emotional story about the workers' strikes of Brest in 1950 and "Tito and the Birds" (Brazil, directed by Gustavo Steinberg, Gabriel Bitar, Andre Catoto Dias), movie that premiered in Annecy this summer.The winner of the competition will be awarded by a jury composed of Luce Grosjean, from France, Pavel Horacek, from the Czech Republic, the program director of the International Animated Film Anifilm, from Trebon and Romanian director Sergiu Negulici, the winner of the Romanian Anim'est competition of 2017, recently awarded with Grand Prix at Hiroshima IAFF for the short film "Splendida Moarte Accident (The Splendid Accidental Death)".The international short film competition, which decides the winner of the Anim'est Trophy, contains 42 short films, of the over 1,200 submitted. Some of the titles of this section are "This Magnificent Cake!", "III", directed by Marta Pajek, selected this year in the short series competition of Cannes, "The Cat's Regret", directed by Alain Gagnol and Jean-Loup Feliciolo" or "Love He Said", directed by Ines Sedan, adapted after a poem by Henry Charles Bukowski. In the international short film competition we find a Romanian animated film - "Telefonul (The Telephone)", directed by Anca Damian.The student short film section gathers 41 of the most special, non-conforming and personal stories, fresh out the benches of the largest animation schools in the world, such as the Film Academy Baden-Wurttemberg - Germany, The Animation Workshop - Denmark, Gobelins - France, The Royal College of Art - London or Supinfocom - France.The animation studio invited to Anim'est 2018 is Cartoon Saloon, from Ireland.The country invited to the 13th edition of Anim'est is Austria, a country with a rich tradition in experimental animation, present on the festivities' agenda and with the support of the Austrian Cultural Forum.Invited to this year's Anim'est is also Anifilm, the International Festival of Animated Films in Trebon, whose artistic director, Pavel Horacek, will be presenting the audience a Czech contemporary animation program.The 21 selected short films, from a total of 1,200 submitted, are addressed to children ranging from 3 to 12, they tackle topics such as friendship, caring for nature, tolerance, curiosity and courage. A jury formed of children will be selecting the winner of this section in which they can find adaptations of classical stories, such as "La Tortue d'or", a production of famous French animation studio Les Films du Nord, of some famous books, such as "The Highway Cat", or "A Little Light", directed by Vladislav Bayramgulov, who has also been directing the famous animated series "Masa and the Bear" since 2011.Anim'est is the only festival in Romania that proposes films for the Oscar Awards. Starting with 2017, the winner of the Anim'est Trophy automatically enters the long list of nominations for the Oscar Awards, in the category of Best animated short film, voted by the Members of the American Film Academy.AGERPRES National News Agency is media partner of the event.Eurodeputatul PSD Emilian Pavel semneaza o scrisoare deschisa adresata liderilor UE, prin care solicita o investigatie a Comisiei LIBE din Parlamentul European sau chiar o dezbatere tematica in plen, in privinta protocoalelor incheiate intre SRI si institutii din Justitie.

Emilian Pavel aminteste in scrisoare si de faptul ca MEDEL, organizatie a magistratilor europeni, a adoptat o rezolutie prin care a condamnat implicarea serviciilor secrete in justitie.

Demersul lui Pavel vine in contextul in care premierul Viorica Dancila urmeaza sa participe la o dezbatere in Parlamentul European, pe tema situatiei statului de drept din Romania si a incidentelor din 10 august din Piata Victoriei.

Scrisoarea europarlamentarului Emilian Pavel:

Dear Brigit, Claude and Joe,

I am writing with regards to the critical situation in Romania regarding the unlawful secret protocols between the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI) and the General Prosecutors Office (through DNA - National Anti-Corruption Agency), and the High Court of Cassation and Justice (supposedly). This raises major threats to the Independence of the Judiciary and the Rule of Law in Romania and, respectively, Europe, and I request your help in tackling it at least through a hearing or investigation in the LIBE Committee, or even a thematic debate in Plenary.

Two classified protocols that have been recently discovered and further declassified were concluded between the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI) and the above-mentioned key institutions that are part of the Romanian judicial authority. This allowed the courts to become a tactical field of operations for this intelligence agency (May 25, 2015, Medel), as well as enabled SRI to take part in criminal investigations based on classified procedures and secret protocols with prosecutors (May 16, 2016, Medel),

Added to this, the 2nd protocol, between SRI, General Prosecutors Office and the High Court of Cassation and Justice, is a forged one. The former president of the High Court of Cassation and Justice, Nicolae Popa, who presumably signed this protocol, has stated that his signature was forged and the date of the signing of the protocol was in fact, one day after he had officially gone in retirement.

On its Council of Administration held in Brussels on May 25th 2018, MEDEL (Magistrats Europeens pour la Democratie et Les Libertes) approved a resolution condemning the interference of the Secret Services in the Romanian Judiciary. They have asked the Romanian President, Klaus Iohannis, to take a firm public stand in denouncing these protocols and to take concrete steps, as president of Supreme Council of National Defence (CSAT), in ensuring that the intelligence agencies are not interfering anymore with the judiciary process in any way. MEDEL has also remarked that the EU authorities have been silent on the interference of the Romanian intelligence agencies in the judiciary, since they reduced the analysis of the Romanian judiciary system to the narrow viewpoint of fighting corruption. MEDEL referred to the report made by the Romanian Judges Association on the current threats to the independence of the Romanian judicial system and the Rule of Law. You can find both reports enclosed in my email.

No public statement of the Romanian President has been made on this topic, yet.

As I discussed with Birgit and Joe, I am also sending you a detailed document with the background information on these protocols and the MEDEL Resolution which condemns the collaboration between the Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI) and the prosecutors.

I would really appreciate a hearing in LIBE on this topic as well as a Question with an oral answer with debate on this case, as this situation raises major threats to the Independence of the Judiciary and the Rule of Law in Romania and, respectively, Europe.

I look forward to hearing your views on this!

Thank you in advance.

Best,

EmilianFounders of the Romania Together Movement say, in a press release issued on Wednesday for AGERPRES, that our country risks losing at the end of this year European funds of almost 1.4 billion euro due to disengagement.

The founders of the Romania Together Movement demand that the Government present a plan to avoid the loss of European money allocated to our country for the current year and state that in 2017 funds worth 1.2 billion euro were lost.

"The Government has at its disposal until the end of the year to access European funds worth almost 1.4 billion euro, otherwise risk their disengagement by the European Commission. Given that the Dancila Government succeeded the counter-performance of accessing European funds worth just 70 million euro in the last 3 months, the risk that the 1.4 billion euro will be permanently lost is extremely high," the press release reads.According to the cited source, through the Regional Operational Program, the amount that can be lost is almost 800 million euro, through the Human Capital Operational Program the amount that can be lost is 561 million euro, and through the Administrative Capacity Operational Program over 39 million euro may be lost."At the same time, we draw attention to the fact that Romania registered a real absorption rate of only 14pct of the European funds for the period 2014-2020, plus 6pct pre-financing paid automatically, our country being the 21st in the EU in this respect," the release adds.President of the Senate Calin Popescu-Tariceanu on Wednesday welcomed the French Senates' France-Romania friendship group delegation, led by Senator Bernard Fournier, on which occasion he emphasized the opportunity that the future presidency of the Council of the EU to be held by Romania next year represents for promoting Francophone values according to Agerpres.

"In what concerns the collaboration inside the EU, the Senate President underscored that the future presidency of the Council of the EU represents an occasion for Romania and France to work together to promote Francophone values and increase French language's visibility among the EU member states," reads a release of the Senate sent to AGERPRES.

Tariceanu hailed the presence in Bucharest of the French delegation representing the Romania-France friendship group, in the context of the 10th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration on Strategic Partnership between Romania and France, and underscored the special relation existing between the two countries, rooted in the deep European spirit.Participating in the meeting was also Senator Titus Corlatean, the head of the Romania-France friendship group of the Romanian Senate.Senator Bernanrd Fournier, the head of he Romania-France friendship group of the French Senate is currently paying an official visit to Bucharest together with French Senators Olivier Cadic and Patrice Joly, members of the group.During a presentation to the Village Board Sept. 24, he rated La Grange in several key areas, giving it high marks for a place to live and a place to visit. But the report ranked it somewhat lower as place to start a business, possibly due to the high retail rents.resedintele Klaus Iohannis a declarat miercuri ca liderii mondiali au datoria sa explice mai bine provocarile actuale la adresa pacii si sa propuna solutii clare la acestea, punctand ca Romania actioneaza in acest sens in regiunea sa.

"Avem datoria sa explicam mai bine care sunt provocarile actuale la adresa pacii, echitatii si sustenabilitatii societatilor noastre si sa vorbim mai mult despre rolul jucat de ONU in abordarea acestora. Este necesar sa explicam ca ne confruntam cu amenintari grave la adresa securitatii, ca terorismul trebuie sa primeasca un raspuns coordonat la nivel global, ca proliferarea armelor de distrugere in masa si mijloacele lor de livrare raman amenintari existentiale pentru securitatea globala. Evidentierea acestora este necesara, dar nu suficienta. Trebuie sa le abordam propunand solutii clare. Romania actioneaza in regiunea sa in acest sens. Exista in continuare conflicte nerezolvate in zona extinsa a Marii Negre, care reprezinta amenintari serioase pentru regiune si pentru securitatea internationala", a afirmat Iohannis in cadrul dezbaterilor generale ale celei de-a 73-a sesiuni a Adunarii Generale a Organizatiei Natiunilor Unite.

*****

Discursul in limba romana al presedintelui Klaus Iohannis

Onorabile Presedinte al Adunarii Generale,

Domnule Secretar General,

Excelentele Voastre,

Doamnelor si domnilor,

Sunt deosebit de onorat sa sustin aceasta interventie in cadrul sesiunii din acest an, 2018 fiind un an simbolic pentru Romania. Acum o suta de ani, romanii si-au indeplinit marele vis, acela de a trai impreuna intr-o singura tara unita.

Centenarul Romaniei Moderne Unite nu se refera doar la trecutul tarii mele, cat mai ales la viitorul ei. Este convingerea mea ferma ca un viitor mai sigur si mai prosper pentru poporul roman nu poate exista decat alaturi de societati pasnice si durabile din intreaga lume.

La randul sau, Organizatia Natiunilor Unite are motive sa sarbatoreasca in acest an. Declaratia Universala a Drepturilor Omului implineste 70 de ani, la fel si Comisia de Drept International, principalul organism al Natiunilor Unite al carui rol este sa contureze dreptul international, astfel incat comunitatea internationala sa devina un loc mai bun, in care Statul de Drept International guverneaza pretutindeni.

Aceste aniversari ne reamintesc de hotararea noastra politica de a lupta pentru drepturile si legile noastre fundamentale, desi drumul nu a fost nici scurt, nici usor.

Actiunile noastre ca lideri politici sunt determinate de responsabilitatea pe care o avem fata de cetatenii nostri.

Suntem in slujba popoarelor noastre atunci cand lucram alaturi de Natiunile Unite si fiecare cetatean ar trebui sa vada rezultate concrete in viata sa de zi cu zi si o schimbare in bine.

Salut, asadar, invitatia Presedintelui Adunarii Generale de a discuta cu privire la relevanta pe care Organizatia Natiunilor Unite continua sa o aiba pentru viata si bunastarea tuturor popoarelor.

Avem datoria sa explicam mai bine care sunt provocarile actuale la adresa pacii, echitatii si sustenabilitatii societatilor noastre si sa vorbim mai mult despre rolul jucat de ONU in abordarea acestora.

Este necesar sa explicam ca ne confruntam cu amenintari grave la adresa securitatii, ca terorismul trebuie sa primeasca un raspuns coordonat la nivel global, ca proliferarea armelor de distrugere in masa si mijloacele lor de livrare raman amenintari existentiale pentru securitatea globala.

Evidentierea acestora este necesara, dar nu suficienta. Trebuie sa le abordam propunand solutii clare.

Romania actioneaza in regiunea sa in acest sens. Exista in continuare conflicte nerezolvate in zona extinsa a Marii Negre, care reprezinta amenintari serioase pentru regiune si pentru securitatea internationala.

Doamnelor si domnilor,

In urma cu trei ani am adoptat Agenda 2030 pentru Dezvoltare Durabila  o agenda universala pentru progres unica  si am stabilit 17 obiective ambitioase, cu un impact semnificativ asupra celor mai presante provocari legate de viata de de zi cu zi a cetatenilor nostri.

Romania, asemeni multor alte tari, se afla intr-un proces de invatare, un exercitiu foarte util fiind prezentarea Raportului National Voluntar in cadrul Forumului Politic de Nivel Inalt, care a avut loc in luna iulie.

Totodata, avem multe de impartasit din propria noastra experienta. Astfel, in aprilie 2019, Romania va gazdui, in parteneriat cu Comisia Economica a Organizatiei Natiunilor Unite pentru Europa, conferinta regionala cu tema Agenda 2030: Parteneriate pentru Dezvoltare Durabila (2030 Agenda: Partnerships for Sustainable Development).

Tarile din regiunea noastra vor avea ocazia de a face schimb de bune practici si lectii invatate in cadrul procesului de implementare a Agendei 2030 si in identificarea de oportunitati strategice de abordare a factorilor cheie de dezvoltare sociala din regiunea noastra, precum si a domeniilor de sustenabilitate si de interes comun.

Pe de alta parte, suntem multumiti de efortul comun de pregatire pentru adoptarea, pana la sfarsitul anului 2018, a unor cadre de cooperare internationala foarte importante. Compactul Global privind Refugiatii (The Global Compact on Refugees) si Compactul Global pentru Migratie Reglementata (The Global Compact on Regular Migration) vor genera o abordare comuna referitoare la migratie si la persoanele stramutate, la nivel global. De asemenea, negocierile pentru un Pact Global pentru Mediul Inconjurator (Global Pact for Environment) urmeaza sa inceapa in curand. Elaborarea conventiei asupra conservarii si utilizarii durabile a diversitatii biologice marine a zonelor din afara jurisdictiei nationale este in curs de desfasurare.

O noua conferinta dedicata oceanelor va avea loc in curand, cu scopul de a continua promovarea gestionarii oceanelor in mod rational, sigur, curat si durabil la nivel global. De asemenea, Strategia Globala ONU de Combatere a Terorismului (UN Global Counterterrorism Strategy) si Planul de Actiune pentru Prevenirea Extremismului Violent (Plan of Action to Prevent Violent Extremism) raman de o importanta capitala.

Lista de realizari cu impact direct asupra vietilor noastre nu se opreste aici, dupa cum nici noi nu vom inceta sa lucram impreuna in cadrul ONU si este convingerea mea ca putem face mai mult.

Este necesar sa continuam sa lucram pentru ca intregul sistem ONU, inclusiv Consiliul de Securitate, sa fie intr-adevar coordonat, eficient, operativ, transparent, responsabil si adaptat realitatilor comunitatii internationale in secolul 21.

Urmatoarele luni vor fi decisive pentru reforma ONU. Implementarea cadrului instituit ca urmare a muncii neobosite a Secretarului General, cu sprijinul statelor membre, va reflecta nivelul determinarii politice a fiecarei tari in parte. Romania va continua sa sprijine acest efort.

Ca stat detinator a Presedintiei Consiliului Uniunii Europene in prima jumatate a anului 2019, Romania este determinata sa consolideze parteneriatului UE-ONU. Atunci cand vorbesc despre angajament nu ma refer doar la politicieni si diplomati. Trebuie sa implicam si tinerele generatii, reprezentantii societatii civile, jurnalistii, oamenii de afaceri. Avem nevoie de toti acestia pentru a promova cauza multilateralismului si a leadership-ului global.

Dupa cum stiti, Romania candideaza pentru un mandat de membru nepermanent in Consiliul de Securitate pentru perioada 2020-2021. Prin aceasta candidatura, ne asumam partea noastra de responsabilitate in efortul de a spori eficacitatea Consiliului. Speram ca intreaga noastra evolutie de pana acum in cadrul ONU va va convinge inca o data ca Romania este determinata sa sprijine ONU in activitatile sale de promovare a pacii si dezvoltarii pentru toti membrii sai.

Pacea, dezvoltarea si justitia sunt piloni fundamentali ai strategiei noastre multilaterale.

Ne respectam partenerii si ne bazam pe dialog. Contam pe sprijinul dumneavoastra extrem de valoros pentru candidatura noastra. Romania va fi un partener responsabil in promovarea agendei comune a ONU.

Doamnelor si domnilor,

Am recunoscut responsabilitatea principala a Consiliului de Securitate cu privire la mentinerea pacii si securitatii internationale, in conformitate cu Carta ONU. Intrucat multe crize curente sunt multidimensionale, Consiliul de Securitate ar putea juca un rol mai proeminent in abordarea mai multor aspecte care afecteaza pacea si securitatea.

De exemplu, schimbarile climatice au devenit una dintre cele mai grave provocari la nivel global. Consecintele  fie ca este vorba de scaderea rezervelor de apa, insecuritatea alimentara, stramutarea oamenilor sau cresterea nivelului marilor  ameninta viata oamenilor din intreaga lume.

Pe langa eforturile depuse de alte platforme ONU pentru combaterea riscurilor legate de schimbarile climatice, Consiliul de Securitate ar putea crea un cadru de abordare a acestora intr-o maniera integrata.

Am salutat organizarea unei dezbateri in Consiliul de Securitate in luna iulie pe aspecte privind pacea si securitatea legate de schimbarile climatice si suntem pregatiti sa lucram in continuare pe aceasta tema in cazul in care vom fi alesi ca membru nepermanent al Consiliului.

In pregatirea Summitului pe problema schimbarilor climatice a Secretarului General de anul viitor, in timpul exercitarii Presedintiei Consiliului Uniunii Europene, Romania va gazdui, in aprilie 2019, o conferinta internationala cu tema Cresterea rezilientei la dezastre naturale (Building resilience to natural disasters)  o platforma care sa faciliteze schimbul de opinii privind evaluarea si abordarea riscurilor de securitate cauzate de schimbarile climatice intr-un mod mai eficient si intarirea fundamentelor care sa asigure un viitor durabil.

Onorabile Presedinte al Adunarii Generale,

Va multumesc pentru tema pe care ati ales-o pentru aceasta dezbatere si va felicit pentru importantele responsabilitati pe care vi le-ati asumat. Dati-mi voie sa va transmit urarile noastre de succes si sa va asigur inca o data de intreaga cooperare din partea Romaniei.

Va multumesc!

*****

Discursul complet in limba engleza a lui Klaus Iohannis:

Honourable President of the General Assembly,

Mr. Secretary General,

Excellencies,

Ladies and gentlemen,

I am particularly honoured to address this years session, as 2018 is a symbolic year for Romania. One hundred years ago, the Romanians accomplished their great dream, the dream of living together in one united country.

The Centenary of the United and Modern Romania is not only about the past of my country but even more about the future. And my strong conviction is that a safer and prosperous future for the Romanian people can be accomplished only alongside peaceful and sustainable societies all over the world.

In its turn, the United Nations has reasons to celebrate this year. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is turning 70 years old, and so is the International Law Commission, the main UN body whose function is to shape international law in order for the international community to become a better place where International Rule of Law governs all of us.

These anniversaries are a reminder of our political determination to stand up for our fundamental rights and law, although the road has neither been short nor easy.

Our action as political leaders is driven by the responsibility towards our people.

We serve our people when working with the United Nations, and each and every citizen needs to see a concrete impact on his or her daily life, and a positive change.

I therefore welcome the invitation of the President of the General Assembly to comment on the continuing relevance of the United Nations for the lives and wellbeing of all peoples.

We have to explain the current challenges to peace, equity and sustainability of our societies and to speak more about the role of the United Nations in addressing them.

We have to explain that we face serious threats to security, that terrorism needs a globally coordinated response, that proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery remain existential threats to global security.

Pointing them out is necessary, but not enough. We need to address them by coming up with clear solutions.

Romania is working in this respect in its region. Unfortunately, there are unresolved conflicts in the wider Black Sea area that pose serious threats to the region itself and to the international security.

Ladies and gentlemen,

We adopted three years ago the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development  an unique universal agenda for progress  and we have set 17 ambitious goals with significant impact on the most pressing challenges on the everyday-live of our people.

Romania, like many other countries, is in a learning process, a very useful exercise being the presentation of our National Voluntary Review in the High-Level Political Forum this July.

At the same time, we have a lot to share from our own experience. Therefore, Romania will host in April 2019, in partnership with the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, a regional conference on 2030 Agenda: Partnerships for Sustainable Development.

Countries from our region will have the chance to share good practices and lessons learned in the process of implementation of the 2030 Agenda and in identifying strategic opportunities for addressing key social drivers in our region, as well as looking at areas of sustainability and common interest.

From another perspective, we are satisfied with our joint effort to prepare for the adoption, by the end of 2018, of some very important international cooperative frameworks. The Global Compacts on Refugees and, respectively, on Regular Migration will generate a common approach on migration and displaced persons at global level. Also, the negotiations on a Global Pact for Environment are about to start. The elaboration of the convention on conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction is in progress.

A new Ocean Conference will take place soon - aimed at continuing the involvement for safe, secure, clean and sustainably managed oceans at a global level. In addition, the UN Global Counterterrorism Strategy and the Plan of Action to Prevent Violent Extremism remain paramount.

The list of achievements having a direct impact on our lives does not stop here, as we do not stop to advance our work together in the United Nations and I believe that we can do more.

We still have to work on making the whole United Nations system, including the Security Council, truly coordinated, efficient, effective, transparent, accountable and fit for the realities of the international community in the 21st century.

The next months will be decisive for the United Nations reform. The implementation of the framework put in place as a result of the tireless work of the Secretary General, with the support of the member states, will reflect the level of political determination of each country. Romania will continue to support this effort.

As the next Presidency of the EU Council in the first half of 2019, Romania is determined to strengthen the European Union  United Nations partnership. And when I speak about engagement I dont just mean politicians and diplomats. We have to reach out to our younger people, representatives of the civil society, journalists, businesspeople. We need them all for the cause of multilateralism and global leadership.

As you know, Romania runs for a non-permanent seat in the Security Council for the term 2020-2021. Through this candidature, we take our share of responsibility in the attempt to increase the effectiveness of the Council. We hope that our track-record within the United Nations will convince you once more that Romania is committed to support the United Nations work for peace and development for all its members.

Peace, development and justice are foundational pillars in our multilateral strategy.

We respect our partners and we rely on dialogue. We count on your most valuable support for our candidature. Romania will be a responsible partner in promoting a common agenda of the United Nations.

Ladies and gentlemen,

We have recognized the primary responsibility of the Security Council for international peace keeping and security in accordance with the UN Charter. As many crises are multidimensional today, the Security Council could play a more prominent role in addressing more aspects that impact peace and security.

For example, climate change has become one of the toughest global challenges. Its consequences  be it water shortage, food insecurity, displacement of people or rising sea levels  threaten lives all around the world.

In addition to the efforts of other UN platforms to tackle climate related risks, the Security Council could create the framework to address them in an integrated manner.

We welcomed the organisation of a debate in the Security Council this July on aspects of peace and security related to climate change and we are ready to follow-up on the topic if elected as a non-permanent member.

Ahead of the preparation of the Secretary-Generals Climate Summit next year, Romania will host during its Presidency of the EU Council, in April 2019, an international conference on Building resilience to natural disasters  a platform to exchange views on how to assess and address more effectively climate-related security risks and to enhance the base for a resilient future.

Honourable President of the General Assembly,

I thank you for the topic you have chosen for this debate and I congratulate you for the important responsibilities you have assumed. Let me extend our wishes of success, and reassure you of the full cooperation of Romania. Thank you!Romania and Austria are working together to ensure continuity at the level of the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, said Minister Delegate for European Affairs Victor Negrescu, who paid a working visit to Vienna on Tuesday, according to a Foreign Ministry (MAE) press release for AGERPRES.

The Romanian official had a meeting with Alexander Schallenberg, Coordinator of the Austrian Presidency at the EU Council within the Federal Chancellery, with whom he had an exchange of views and good practices on the exercise of the rotating presidency at the EU Council and the obtaining of the Austrian side's evaluation on the state and developments expected on files such as the Multi-Annual Financial Framework post-2020, Brexit, respectively the topics related to internal security and migration.

According to MAE, Victor Negrescu welcomed the good cooperation between the two parties in the context in which Romania began to exert, from July 1, the shadow presidency's attributions with Austria's Presidency of the EU Council, through the commitment to follow the negotiation process, especially at trialogue level with the European Parliament and the European Commission. In this respect, two temporary positions were created at the Embassy of Romania to Austria, with support from a member of the "EU Diplomat" network, which was re-launched this year."The common aim of our successive mandates at the Council of the European Union is to contribute to the promotion of a European agenda based on unity, cohesion and inclusion. Therefore, cooperation with the Austrian Presidency is essential in terms of the process of reflection on the directions of evolution of the European policies, and in order to calibrate the objectives and the level of ambition that Romania will set for their own work program according to the progress and results of our partners," Negrescu said.At the same time, they tackled the opportunities for joint promotion of the EU Strategy for the Danube Region in the context of Romania's holding the presidency for a period of one year starting from 1 November, as well as the fact that Romania ensures, in partnership with Austria, the secretariat."I am glad that Romania and Austria, as co-initiators of the European Union Strategy for the Danube Region, continue to fully engage in its effective implementation. We are fully aware of the potential of macro-regions to inspire economic, social and territorial convergence between the participating states and we want this form of regional collaboration to have a continuous development in the next period," Negrescu said.During the visit, he gave a speech on "The Future of Europe: Is There a Way to Continue Together?" at the international conference "Generation Next", organized by the Aspen Institute, in collaboration with the Institute of Human Sciences in Vienna.National Defence Minister Mihai Fifor on Tuesday stressed in Washington, D. C., the efforts made by Romania for the enhancement of the North Atlantic Alliance's Eastern Flank's security, as well as the commitment to answer the principle of fairly sharing the roles, risks and responsibilities within NATO, a release sent to AGERPRES by the National Defence Ministry (MApN) reads.

Minister Fifor participated in a round table organized by the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., that brought together Heritage experts, representatives of the US Congress and Administration, alongside noted specialists in international security.

"I have stressed on the security challenges in the Black Sea region, from the perspective of this region's strategic importance included, a fact confirmed by the NATO Summit decisions this July. Moreover, I have emphasized the efforts made by Romania on the Alliance's Eastern Flank consolidation line, as well as our country's commitment to answer the principle of fairly sharing the roles, the risks and responsibilities within NATO," Minister Fifor said at the end of the talks.The National Defence minister also had a series of meetings with the representatives of Bell Helicopter, Boeing, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, at their seats in Washington, D.C.The talks with the US companies' officials focused mainly on the cooperation opportunities in the defence industry.On this occasion, Minister Fifor reiterated the Romanian gov't's intention that the unfolding of all the national programmes of strategic procurement be carried out on conditions of industrial cooperation in defence and technology and know-how transfer in the Romanian defence industry.Mihai Fifor added that in the context of the 2pct allocation of the gross domestic product for Defence for at least 10 years starting with 2017, Romania has kicked off a procurement programme to answer the needs of increasing the national defence capabilities and contribute to the enhancement of the status of our country as ally and credible, solid partner in the Black Sea region.The Romanian official was accompanied by the secretary of state for weaponry Andrei Ignat and the Chief of the General Staff, General Nicolae Ciuca.The net average monthly wage at the level of the national economy was, in 2017, 2,338 lei, up by 14.3 percent (+292 lei) in comparison with the previous year, while employers have spent on average, in a month, 4,008 lei / employee, according to a press release sent by the National Institute of Statistics to AGERPRES on Wednesday.

The gross average wage in 2017 was 3,223 lei, 14.7 percent higher (+414 lei) than the one in 2016.

The largest net average monthly salaries, that are above the national average, were recorded in 2017 in the information technologies activities sector (twice), financial intermediaries and insurance (+84.3 percent), public administration (+64.3 percent), extracting industry (+56.8 percent), the production and supply of electric and thermal energy, gas, hot water and air conditioning (+47 percent), professional activities, scientific and technical (+33.9 percent), health and social assistance (+14.3 percent) and in education (+2.1 percent).The net average monthly salaries that were below the national average were achieved in the hotels and restaurant sector (-39.1 percent), other service activities (-33.5 percent), constructions (-27.5 percent), agriculture, forestry and fishing (-20.5 percent), administrative service activity and support service activities (-20.1 percent), real estate transactions (-17.2 percent), water distribution, sanitation, waste management, decontamination activities (-15.9 percent).The average number of employees in 2017 was 4,945.900, up 186,500 people, in comparison with the previous year.The number of employees on 31 of December 2017 stood at over 5.362 million people, higher by 138,600 people, as compared to the end of last year.At the end of 2017, the number of employees from companies with private capital hit the majority (75.9 percent) and recorded a rise of 2.0 percent, from the previous year.The employees distribution by the legal form of the companies they work for, reveals that the workers employed in commercial companies represented 79.4 percent from the total number of employees, by 2.7 percent higher as compared to the prvious year.Prime minister Viorica Dancila on a working visit in Brussels met on Tuesday with the Chairman of the European People's Party group, Manfred Weber, whom she had "an open exchange of opinions" with regarding the situation in Romania, a release by the Romanian Gov't sent to AGERPRES informs.

The meeting was also attended by European Funds minister Rovana Plumb and Romanian MEP Dan Nica.

The gov't says that during the talks the current files on the European agenda were approached, in the view of the taking over by Romania of the Presidency of the Council of European Union starting with 1 January 2019. At the same time, the premier talked about the stage of the preparations carried out by the Bucharest authorities "assuring upon the tight cooperation with the European Parliament with a view to finalising the legislative files and ensuring a successful mandate," the release adds.Premier Dancila has had "an open exchange of opinions with her interlocutor regarding the situation in Romania, in the perspective of the debate due in the European Parliament at the beginning of October, stressing upon the availability of the Romanian gov't and her own for an open dialogue with the European bodies' officials on all of the issues of interest," the gov't release says.The premier affirmed on this occasion "the dedication of the Romanian gov't to the democratic values and principles." Moreover Dancila said that the answer to the challenges the European project is currently confronted with could be learned by showing solidarity among the member states and not by creating new cleavages inside the Union, the release says.Prime Minister Viorica Dancila, who is paying a visit to Brussels, met on Wednesday with co-chairs of the European Parliament's Greens-European Free Alliance (Greens-EFA) Franziska Maria Keller and Philippe Lamberts, whom she presented the political situation of Romania and the reform programme initiated by the Government.

According to a release of the Executive sent to AGERPRES, the discussions were also attended by European Funds Minister Rovana Plumb.

The talks focused on the two coordinates highlighted during the meetings on Tuesday with the political group leaders of the European Parliament, namely Romania's internal situation and the European agenda, the Gov't mentions."PM Viorica Dancila briefly presented the political situation of Romania, in view of the debate which will take place at the European Parliament in the beginning of October. Moreover, the PM presented the reform programme initiated by Romania's Government, showing that this is the result of an extensive process of transparent consultation and interinstitutional cooperation, at an internal level, as well as of a collaboration with the European partners," the release mentions.The PM reconfirmed "her entire availability for continuing the open dialogue with the European institutions."The discussions continued with a presentation of the stage of preparations in view of Romania taking over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, in January 2019, the release revealed.PM Viorica Dancila is paying a working visit to Brussels on Tuesday and Wednesday, context in which the PM scheduled a series of meetings with representatives of the European Parliament political groups. On Tuesday the PM met with head of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats of the European Parliament Udo Bullmann and with leader of the European People's Party Manfred Weber.PNL (National Liberal Party), USR (Save Romania Union), PMP (People's Movement Party) and the non-affiliated Deputies from Pro Romania organisation on Wednesday filed a proposal to modify the Chamber Regulations, in the sense that the vote of three thirds of the Deputies will be enough to sack this forum's Speaker from office, seeking thus to remove Liviu Dragnea from this position, the leader of the group of Liberals, Raluca Turcan, announced on Wednesday.

"PNL, together with the USR, PMP and the non-affiliated Deputies from Pro Romania have submitted today the proposal to modify the Regulations of the Chamber of Deputies, so that we will be able to remove the Speaker of this forum by a vote of three thirds of the Deputies. This is a legislative proposal that we also had in the previous session and it got rejected, but, in the context in which it became more and more clear that the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies is also the person to be blamed for discrediting Romania's image abroad, for he is the person who uses the first legislative forum in Romania in his personal interest, we believe that we must have a real debate again on the possibility of removing Mr. Liviu Dragnea from office as Speaker of the Deputies' Chamber," stated Turcan.

She said she was hoping that this time the debate will be "more substantial.""We are hoping to make it so that other parliamentary groups too, besides the ones that proposed the Speaker of the Deputies' Chamber initially, will be able to vote for the removal for, obviously, we need a majority to vote in favour, in order to be sure that the proposal will pass," said Raluca Turcan.According to the current provisions of the Regulations, the Speaker of the Deputies' Chamber can only be removed upon the proposal of the parliamentary group that proposed him in the first place.President Klaus Iohannis Tuesday had a bilateral meeting with the King of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan Abdullah II, on the sidelines of the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly, on which occasion the former reiterated his invitation to the latter to pay a visit to Romania next year, a press release of the Presidential Administration informs.

"During the meeting, Romania's president reiterated the invitation extended to the King of Jordan to pay a visit to our country next year, an invite the acceptance of which was reconfirmed with pleasure and interest by His Majesty,' the Presidential Administration shows.

"The Romanian president and the King of Jordan appreciated the excellent character of the political bilateral relations, the meeting proving a good opportunity to talk about concrete ways to deepen the bilateral relations, with emphasis on the economic dimension, wish voiced by both high dignitaries. Thus President Klaus Iohannis brought to mind the enhanced potential for collaboration in this area. In this respect it was discussed the organisation of the second edition of the Romanian-Jordanian Economic Forum in 2019 in Bucharest. Moreover the two high expressed their appreciation for the special cooperation that exists in the medical and educational fields, as well as the potential for development therein," the release specifies.The president underscored the special role Jordan has in the region, appreciating the balanced foreign policy and its efforts to promote regional stability in a troublesome and complex environment.In his turn, Jordan's King voiced his appreciation for the Romanian community in the kingdom, as well as its contribution to the development of the Jordanian society.The two high dignitaries also tackled topical subjects on the UN and international agenda and pointed out the need to strengthen cooperation both regionally and globally, through a coordinated and comprehensive response, in view of more efficiently handling regional security challenges. At the same time, the two high-ranking officials talked about the opportunities presented by Romania's exercising the Presidency of the Council of the European Union in the first semester of 2019, President Iohannis highlighting our country's availability to pursue action in this quality in view of consolidating the relationship between the EU and Jordan.President Klaus Iohannis also had talks with his Cypriot counterpart, Nicos Anastasiades on Tuesday on the sidelines of 73rd session of the UN GA and participated, alongside Romania's delegation formed by Foreign Affairs Minister Teodor Melescanu, Deputy Prime Minister for the Implementation of Romania's Strategic partnerships Ana Birchall, presidential advisors Bogdan Aurescu and Andrei Muraru, Romania's Ambassador with the UN Ion Jinga, in the opening of the high-level end of the talks within the 73rd session of the UN GA. On this occasion the US President, Donald Trump held a speech.Minister of Foreign Affairs Teodor Melescanu pointed out, in an event organized in the USA in partnership with the Community of Democracies, the need to capitalise on the potential of the young in democratically consolidating a society and on their capacity to recover after crisis, as well as to face current challenges.

According to a press release sent by MAE (Ministry of Foreign Affairs), the topic on young people will be amongst Romania's priorities throughout its future presidency of the Community of Democracies, starting with September 2019, for a two year term.

On Romania's initiative, an event organized in partnership with the Community of Democracies, with the topic of "The role of young people in the democracy's resilience" took place on the sidelines of the general debates of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. During his address, Minister Melescanu pointed out the need to capitalise on the potential of the young people in democratically consolidating a society and on their capacity to recover after crisis, as well as to face current challenges, MAE specifies.Attending the talks was also Thomas E. Garrett, the Secretary General of the Community of Democracies, Tudor Ulianovschi, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Moldova, as well as the representative of the UN Youth Association to Romania.On the sidelines of the event, Minister Melescanu had a meeting with his counterpart from the Republic of Moldova, Tudor Ulianovschi, during which they discussed about elements of the bilateral relationship, as well as the evolution of relations between the EU and the Republic of Moldova.Furthermore, Melescanu had a meeting with the Foreign Affairs Minister of the Palestinian National Authority, Riad Al Malki, where the head of the Romanian diplomacy reiterated Romania's traditional position towards the Peace Process in the Middle East and expressed his satisfaction towards the recent positive developments of the Romanian-Palestinian bilateral relationship.According to the quoted source, the discussions highlighted the shared interest for developing and consolidating the bilateral cooperation, and the two dignitaries agreed on the importance of organizing a new meeting of the Romanian-Palestinian Intergovernmental Committee, in order to identify new cooperation opportunities in shared interest fields. The two ministers also approached a series of current topics on the regional agenda, with emphasis on developments in the Middle East Peace Process.On Tuesday, the Minister for Foreign Affairs took part in a transatlantic dinner, hosted by the US Secretary of State, Michael Pompeo.Melescanu is part of the delegation that accompanies President Iohannis to the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly, that takes place in New York, at the organization's headquarters.The U.S. Marshals Service  Gulf Coast Regional Task Force contacted the Great Lakes Regional Fugitive Task Force with information Jones was staying in the area, Covelli said, which led to surveillance and the gathering of further information as to where Jones was located.According to federal regulations, a notice was published in the National Register where any tribe with an affiliation could claim the items. The Ho-Chunk Nation expressed a desire to receive the remains of their ancestors at the earliest possible opportunity, Buckardt reported to the forest preserve board. After 30 days, which ended June 21, 2018, no additional tribes came forward. The head of the U.S. Department of Interior must also sign off on the transfer.There have been ups and downs in the relationship between Russia (the Soviet Union) and the US, but both nations have become accustomed to the fact that their arsenals of offensive nuclear weapons are under the control of an agreement to prevent an arms race in this area. Some type of treaty has been in place since the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was concluded in 1963. Since 1972, when the first Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT I) agreement was signed, there have always been negotiated constraints on nuclear arsenals. But today, there are ominous signs that the system that has worked so well to push the superpowers back from the brink of the nuclear abyss is being unraveled.

Andrea Thompson, Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security, speaking before a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Sept. 18, claimed that Russia's new strategic weapons that were announced by President Vladimir Putin last March were an obstacle to Washingtons agreement to extend the New START treaty. She also asserted that the issue has not been discussed through the formal New START process. She did not explain why not. The official said the final decision had not been made as yet and, "All options are on the table." The same applies to the other remaining treaties that Washington is accusing Moscow of violating.

The options under consideration are: withdrawing from the New START; renegotiating the provisions related to the verification process; or signing another treaty instead, such as the 2002 Moscow Treaty or the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT). The undersecretary said that the US administration wanted Russia's recently unveiled strategic nuclear weapons to be included in the count.

Negotiations are possible over the issue of the new weapons that are being tested or are already part of Russias arsenal. Moscow has been calling for a strategic dialog for quite some time, and Russia is not to blame because Washington is reluctant to start the process, whatever its motivation. A duplication of the 2002 treaty is unacceptable. It has already been finalized. No such radical reduction is possible without other nuclear states joining in, and they are not doing so. Its really hard to understand why the undersecretary would bring this up, knowing perfectly well the proposal would have no chance.

David Trachtenberg, Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, also insists that the extension of New START was uncertain, despite the fact that on-site inspections and monitoring were useful.

The Senate hearings showed that the lawmakers are divided on the future of arms control and are prone to putting the blame on Russia for violating each and every agreement in existence without taking a proper look at what the US is doing. There is slim chance of an extension of the New START and hardly any prospects for a new deal.

The New START will expire in 2021 unless extended by agreement of the US and Russian presidents or replaced by a follow-on treaty. The US and Russian presidents discussed the New START during a phone conversation in January and at the Helsinki summit in July, where the Russian leader suggested that the parties thoroughly review all the components of the arms-control regime, including New START and the INF treaty, the 2011 Vienna Document on confidence-building measures in Europe, and the Open Skies Treaty. After meeting Nikolai Patrushev, the head of Russias Security Council, US National Security Adviser John Bolton said the extension of the New START was far from a slam-dunk decision. Meanwhile, the United States is moving ahead and designing a new ground-based missile that is in open violation of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force (INF) Treaty.

The long-range Kalibr sea-based cruise missile that was added to the arsenal of the Russian armed forces in late 2017 would violate the presidential nuclear initiatives (PNIs) of 1991 if it were equipped with a nuclear payload. Technically, it is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead but it does not. Russias non-strategic arsenal is large and sophisticated enough as it is  there is no need to violate its obligations under the PNIs. The US has a great numerical advantage in sea-based long-range missiles, and there is no verification mechanism in place to ascertain whether or not they are equipped with nuclear warheads.

The US has always been reluctant to discuss ways to enhance the PNIs by adding verification measures. The long-range cruise-missile capability demonstrated by Russias Navy during the Syrian conflict came as a surprise, but this does not mean it is a violation. Things change and its only natural to adapt to a new reality. Its widely believed that the best way to tackle the problems related to national security is through talks, but the US administration and many people in Congress see it differently.

There is something important to remember  the US sea-based nuclear-tipped TLAM/N missiles are still part of the US arsenal, and there is no way to make sure they are not clandestinely installed on nuclear attack submarines. This issue could be discussed separately from the strategic nuclear agenda. The problem cannot be neglected. No one is standing in the way of launching a dialog. President Bush and President Gorbachev managed it. In theory, President Trump and President Putin could do the same thing, but the American leader should be prepared to be attacked for dealing with Russia. Those in America who stand in the way of an arms-control dialog between the two leading nuclear powers are actually undermining the countrys security, but they will do it anyway in order to pursue their own political ends, because they are filled with hatred against both the US president and Russia.

The 2018 Nuclear Posture Review states that the United States will pursue a nuclear-armed, submarine-launched cruise missile in order to provide a needed nonstrategic regional presence, an assured response capability. How does this jibe with the fact that the PNI is still in effect? It looks like the initiatives future is as uncertain as the fate of other treaties.

Of course Russian strategists have never forgotten that the US still has 50 empty silos ready to hold ICBMs, with several hundred additional warheads that are also in storage and could potentially be loaded.

There are only three years left until the New START expires. The experience of history demonstrates that that is hardly enough time to prepare a new treaty that actually has no chance of being ratified by the Senate in an era when the overall bilateral relationship is at its lowest ebb. The US still has no clear idea of what its future nuclear triad will be like. Discussions are underway. All we know is that it is investing more than $1.2 trillion over the next 30 years to modernize its aging nuclear forces, which will include new ground-based missiles, new missile submarines, and a new bomber.

No major arms-control treaty will be concluded until the administration and Congress know exactly what components will be included in the arsenal and what programs are to be implemented to achieve the established goals once all the assessments and estimations are complete and the guideline documents in place. Thus, an automatic five-year extension is the only hope for the New STARTs survival. That could be accomplished through a simple executive agreement. Without a New START in effect, other agreements, such as the INF Treaty and the PNIs, have no chance. The very real prospect of an end to arms control and the non-proliferation regime is looming. Thats something leading experts in Russia were warning about as far back as 2015. Very serious discussions must be launched right now in order to prevent such a scenario. Its a scary prospect!

The good news is that the patient can still be saved. There is still a little time left, although not much. There are no options but for Russia and the US to put their differences aside, forget about Ukraine, Syria, trade wars, and other issues that divide the two nations and concentrate on ways to save arms control or whatever is left of it. With their relationship at its lowest point since the end of the Cold War, it is even more vital to keep the nuclear risks in check and prevent a new nuclear arms race. Russia (Soviet) and US officials have always emphasized that any plan that keeps nuclear weapons under control and subject to proper verification procedures is a better option than an unfettered arms race. The US administration and its lawmakers seem to disagree.Charles PIERSON

What a relief to learn that even though Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are bombing the crap out of Yemen, they are doing so humanely. On September 12, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, pursuant to the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019 (NDAA), certified that Saudi Arabia and the UAE are undertaking demonstrable actions to reduce the risk of harm to civilians and civilian infrastructure in their war on Houthi rebels in Yemen.

This was demonstrable horseshit. The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights released a report on Yemen at the end of August. Kamel Jendoubi, chairperson of the Group of International and Regional Eminent Experts on Yemen which authored the report, stated: There is little evidence of any attempt by parties to the conflict to minimize civilian casualties. This puts the lie to Secretary of Defense James Mattis claim that the US military presence in Yemen helps to restrain the Saudis.

Nevertheless, Pompeo had to make the certification. Not to do so would mean the Trump Administration could not continue to assist the Saudi-led war effort. Those were the terms Congress had set in Section 1290 of the NDAA. Pompeos action would become understandable very shortly.

On September 20, the Wall Street Journal disclosed that Secretary Pompeo had decided to bless the Saudi coalitions conduct after the State Departments Bureau of Legislative Affairs advised him that withholding certification could jeopardize future US arms sales, including a pending sale of more than 120,000 precision-guided missiles to the Saudis and UAE. The seller in the $2 billion deal is Raytheon, one of the five largest US arms makers. Oh, in case youre interested, the State Departments legislative affairs team is headed by Acting Assistant Secretary of State Charles Faulkner, a Trump appointee, who was a lobbyist for Raytheon until he joined the State Department in June.

Ending an Illegal War

Since 2015, the US, under both the Obama and Trump administrations, has provided the Saudi coalition with arms, intelligence, targeting advice, and in-air refueling of warplaneswithout Congressional authorization as required by the US Constitution.[1]

Some Members of Congress are trying to end the unconstitutional US involvement in the war by invoking the 1973 War Powers Resolution. Invoking the War Powers Resolution would compel the Trump Administration to terminate military action in Yemen unless the White House gets Congress to authorize the US role in the war.

Congress has already tried twice, unsuccessfully, to invoke the War Powers Resolution. The resolution introduced in the House in September, 2017 never came to a vote. A second resolution was tabled by the Senate in March of this year.

On September 6, eleven House Democrats announced that they would make a third attempt, this time in the form of a privileged resolution, a parliamentary maneuver which means that the resolution cant be tabled; it has to be voted up or down. Which will it be?

Why Are We in Yemen?

The War Powers Resolution has a better chance at success this time around. Thanks to the Journal, Washingtons stated justifications for supporting the Saudi coalition appear questionable. Washington says that the US must support the Saudis in order to oppose Iran which is backing the Houthis. Washington also says that the US must fight Al-Qaedas local branch, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), as well as ISIS. Never mind that AQAP has only grown as strong as it has due to the chaos of the war.

No, following the Journal expose, it looks an awful lot like the US is in Yemen simply to fatten the wallets of US arms dealers. Saudi Arabia is a very wealthy nation, President Trump said during Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salmans visit to the White House in March, and theyre going to give the United States some of that wealth, hopefully, in the form of jobs, in the form of the purchase of the finest military equipmentanywhere in the world.[2]

The US must end this monstrously destructive and illegal war. Speaking in 2016, Bruce Reidel of the Brookings Institution said that if the United States of America and the United Kingdom told King Salman that this war has to end, it would end tomorrow. The antiwar movement must put pressure on the White House to see that this happens. Peace activists must push Congress to invoke the War Powers Resolution as well as block arms sales to the Saudis. The left must insist on a Congressional ethics investigation and must also demand the resignations of Pompeo and Acting Assistant Secretary of State Charles Faulkner.

Notes.

[1] For anyone just beginning to learn about the conflict in Yemen, a recent article by political scientist Rajan Menon, Yemens Descent into Hell: a Saudi-American War of Terror, TOMDISPATCH (Sept. 20, 2018), is a fine way to get up to speed.

[2] Remarks by President Trump and Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Before Luncheon, whitehouse.gov, Mar. 20, 2018 (emphasis added).In mid-2018 the Chinese Navy proclaimed that its new AIP (air independent propulsion system) equipped submarine had performed very well. Actually, as described the Chinese AIP performed about as well as early Western AIP systems. For the Chinese that was good enough because they have had problems getting their AIP (apparently based on the Swedish Stirling AIP system) to perform adequately and reliably. China has been working on getting a working AIP system in one of their Yuan class Type 39B subs for over fifteen years but until now no Chinese AIP equipped boats were seen in action. That changed earlier this year when new Yuan class sub went to sea and operated like an AIP boat (staying underwater for more than seven days at a time). According to the Chinese press releases their AIP sub stayed under for over two weeks at a time, which is typical of what a Stirling AIP system can do.

China may now have three of these AIP equipped boats. That is because in late 2016 China apparently resumed building more of its Yuan class subs. These are based on the late model Russian Kilo class diesel-electric boats. Construction of the Yuans appeared have halted in 2013 for reasons unknown. Then at the end of 2016 three more of these Yuan class (Type 39B) subs were seen being built. The last new Type 39B appeared in late 2013 but even before that, there were indications that this was another pause to absorb user experience with the current model and plan modifications for the next batch. This new batch is apparently the three new ones that recently went to sea. When these enter service China will have ten Type 39Bs, plus three of the earlier Type 39A versions.

In late 2016 it was believed the three latest 39Bs would have many modifications and upgrades, some of them visible because of minor changes in the conning tower or hull features. China was apparently upgrading its sensor and fire control electronics but the capabilities of these wont be detected until foreign subs encounter the new 39Bs at sea. At that point, U.S. subs will be able to construct an acoustic and electronic signature of the new 39Bs so they can be more easily and quickly identified in the future. That process also confirmed that the latest 39Bs had working AIP. How reliable the AIP is will come only after thousands of hours of use.

One thing was certain about the latest Type 39Bs; the Chinese are continuing their relentless effort to create world-class subs, one tweak and improvement at a time. Since the late 1980s, China has been designing and building a rapidly evolving collection of "Song" (Type 39) class diesel-electric submarines that emphasize quietness and incremental improvements. The changes have been so great that the four Songs completed in 2013 were recognized as a new type and designated the Yuan class (Type 39A). The original design (Type 39) was a 1,800 ton Kilo type sub that first appeared in the late 1990s and 13 have been built. The larger (2,800 ton) Type 39A first appeared in 2006. The Type 39A quickly involved into the larger and more lavishly equipped Type 39B showed up. The evolution continues, and there are now thirteen "Type 39 Yuan Class" subs (of at least four distinct models). These latest models were thought to have AIP along with new electronics and other internal improvements. Now the presence of AIP has been confirmed.

This rapid evolution of the Type 39 appears to be another example of China adapting Russian submarine technology to Chinese design ideas and new technology. China has been doing this for as long as it has been building subs (since the 1960s). But the recent versions of the Type 39B design shows Chinese naval engineers getting more creative. The Yuans were meant to have an AIP that would allow them to cruise underwater longer. Western AIP systems allow subs to stay underwater for two weeks or more. China has been working on AIP since 1975 and the first working prototype was available by 1998. A decade later it seemed that design was ready for regular use but it wasnt. The first Chinese AIP had less power and reliability and does not appear to be nearly as capable as Russian or Western models. In part, this was because that AIP used lead-acid batteries. The Chinese kept improving on their AIP, and the last half dozen AIP systems were designed to use a more efficient lithium battery system. This AIP 2.0 has numerous other tweaks and appears, on paper at least, to match what most Western AIPs can do and thats the version that was installed in one (or all three) of the latest Type 39B subs.

The Songs look a lot like the Russian Kilo class and that was apparently no accident. The 39s and 39A/Bs are both similar in appearance but the type 39A/Bs appear larger than the 1,800 ton Type 39s. Both have with crews of 60-70 sailors and six torpedo tubes. This is very similar to the Kilos (which are a bit larger). China began ordering Russian Kilo class subs, then one of the latest diesel-electric designs available, in the late 1990s. The first two Type 39Bs appeared to be a copy of the early model Kilo (the model 877), while the second pair of Type 39Bs appeared to copy the late Kilos (model 636). The latest Yuans still appear like Kilos but may be part of an evolution into a sub that is similar to the Russian successor to the Kilo, the Lada. The Type 39s were the first Chinese subs to have the teardrop shaped hull. The Type 39B was thought to be just an improved Song but on closer examination, especially by the Russians, it looked like a clone of the Kilos. The Russians now believe that the entire Song/Yuan project is part of a long-range plan to successfully copy the Kilo. If that is the case, it appears to be succeeding.

The Chinese Navy currently has 13 Song class, 12 Kilo class, 13 Type 39A/B (Yuan) class, and 18 Ming (improved Russian Romeo) class boats. But at least a dozen more Yuans are apparently planned. The Song/Yuan class subs are meant to replace the elderly Mings.

The Chinese nuclear sub program has been less successful. There are only 3 Type 91 Han class SSNs (nuclear attack subs), as the Chinese are still having a lot of problems with the nuclear power plant in subs. Despite that, the Hans are going to sea, even though they are noisy and easily detected by Western sensors. Five Hans were built (between 1974 and 1991) two have already been retired. There are six newer Type 93 Shang class SSNs in service, but these are still pretty noisy. There is one Type 95 Sui class SSN undergoing sea trials with another building, The first Type 95 is expected to enter service in 2020 and if it is as quiet as hoped, a lot more will be built. There are also ten SSBN (ballistic missile carrying nuclear subs) in two classes and these have had a lot of problems and rarely go to sea.

China is also offering their improved Kilo designs to export customers. In late 2016 China confirmed that final details have been agreed to on the sale of eight Chinese S20 diesel-electric submarines to Pakistan. These are export versions of the Type 39A that lack many of the advanced features. Four of these will be built in China while at the same time Chinese personnel will assist Pakistan in building another four in Pakistan. Final cost is expected to average somewhere between $500 million and $600 million each and the first one will enter service by 2023. Since early 2014 China and Pakistan have been negotiating prices and terms for the sale of the S20. At first, it was believed that Pakistan wanted six subs, but the final deal specified eight. Currently, the Pakistani Navy has five submarines and plans to use all of them against India (which is also considered a Chinese foe). In 2017 China sold three of those export model Yuan class subs to Thailand. Construction on the first one began in early September. These boats will cost over $400 million each.Bay of Plenty

We are looking for a storeman with an OSH forklift license. You will need to be physically for as the job is about 70% forklift...



View or Apply on GoodWork.co.nzPolice Commissioner Mike Bush has outlined how a further 500 police will prevent and combat organised criminal networks and serious offending to reduce crime and harm in communities.

The 500 are part of the 1800 additional officers to be recruited by Police, following a $298.8 million increase for Police in Budget 2018.

They will be supported by a further 200 district-based officers focused on preventing serious and organised crime, that were recently announced.

Police currently does a great job in a tough environment but gangs are getting more sophisticated, growing their links with international syndicates, and continuing to be financed through the supply of methamphetamine and other drugs, says Mike.

The injection of 500 national-level staff to combat serious and organised crime is unprecedented in this country.

It will enable police, alongside their partners, to disrupt, deter and dismantle organised criminal networks.

Police will be targeting the most serious criminals, but will also work closely with our partner agencies to help others to walk away from a life of crime.

"For many this will mean breaking a cycle of intergenerational crime, addiction and social dysfunction."

The 500 positions include a mix of constabulary investigators and specialist authorised officers with specific constabulary powers relevant to their particular area, including in cybercrime, financial forensic investigations and asset recovery.

Increasing our specialist capability is key as we continue to adapt to the challenges of 21st century policing.

"These new positions represent a significant boost to Polices digital frontline.

"These 500 new police are a serious boost that, deployed the right way, will make a real difference and help strengthen communities that have suffered under the shadow of gangs and addiction.

It will also help free up the additional frontline police officers who are coming on board to keep people safe."

The 500 roles will be located across the country and work alongside district staff but will be nationally managed to ensure a coordinated approach to combating organised crime.

Extra Police Where Purpose 106 National Organised Crime Group Detectives and technical specialists working to target New Zealands most serious criminals and dismantle organised crime networks. 118 Financial crime Specialists targeting illicit money flows leading to the restraint and forfeiture of criminal assets. There is a specific focus on targeting organised crime through new Anti-Money Laundering legislation. 77 Cybercrime Boosting Polices capability around high tech crime. Includes a major focus policing the dark net and combatting the trade of illicit commodities (including child exploitation). 81 Covert (technical) Providing crime monitoring and technical support for field staff for priority and large-scale operations. 81 Covert (operational) Increasing our surveillance, undercover, witness protection and intelligence gathering capability. 24 International and National Security Focusing on transnational crime and counterterrorism in a global criminal environment. 13 Special Tactics Group Expanding Polices highest trained, fully-armed, full-time unit to combat our most dangerous criminals and manage high risk tactical situations.

District positions (previously announced as part of district allocations):Syracuse, N.Y. -- The demolition of buildings at the former Roth Steel scrap yard in Syracuse started Wednesday, marking an important step in the sites redevelopment.

The Onondaga County Industrial Development Agency is paying ERSI, a demolition and remediation company based in East Syracuse, $500,000 to knock down eight buildings at the 23-acre former scrapyard at 800 Hiawatha Blvd. W.

Roth Steel Corp. closed the scrapyard in February 2014 and filed bankruptcy nine weeks later. American Iron & Metal Co. bought the 23-acre property for $687,500 in a bankruptcy sale and planned to use it as a "pick-and-pull" auto parts scrap yard. But it wound up selling it in November 2015 to the industrial development agency for $787,500 after county officials expressed concern about another scrapyard starting up at the site.

Onondaga County Legislature Chairman Ryan McMahon said demolishing the buildings will help make the site "more marketable."

The county plans to use the rear of the site -- the part closest to Onondaga Lake -- to extend its "loop the lake" pedestrian and bicycle trail. The industrial development agency plans to seek proposals for development of the portion of the property along Hiawatha Boulevard. Approximately 10 to 15 acres of land will be available for development, McMahon said.

The industrial development agency has spent approximately $2.3 million to buy the property, clean up pollution and, now, on demolition.

Additional cleanup will be required, but McMahon said state brownfield cleanup tax credits will be available to the developer who winds up taking over the site.

Contact Rick Moriarty anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 315-470-3148"Saturday Night Live" star Pete Davidson is "presenting" a standup comedy show in Syracuse this weekend, days after he called the Salt City "trash."

Comedians Joey Gay and Dave Sirus will perform at Funk 'n Waffles in downtown Syracuse on Sunday, Sept. 30, at 9 p.m. The event is open to attendees 18 or older.

Tickets are on sale now through TicketWeb.com for $15; additional fees may apply.

The event is billed as "Pete Davidson Presents: Joey Gay & Dave Sirus - FnW SYR," but Davidson is not scheduled to appear at the event, according to a promoter for Funk 'n Waffles.

Davidson has faced heavy criticism after making disparaging comments about his time filming "Big Time Adolescence" in Central New York this summer. In an interview with Howard Stern on Monday, he said he and fiancee Ariana Grande love spending time with each other, and hung out together in Syracuse during production.

"Dude, I was shooting this movie out in Syracuse. Syracuse, you know, it's trash," Davidson said. "Worse than Staten Island. The nicest hotel in Syracuse is, like, a f---ing Ramada."

Gay and Sirus also hung out with Davidson while the 24-year-old "SNL" star shot the upcoming movie. The three comedians performed together at a surprise charity comedy show at the former A.V. Zogg Middle School in Liverpool, now the home of filmmaker Jeremy Garelick's Syracuse Studios and film school.

Gay, a Brooklyn native, was arrested in August for unlawful possession of marijuana and a fourth-degree felony for possession of concentrated cannabis when Davidson was pulled over by Manlius police in Fayetteville.

Sirus is a Syracuse University alumnus best known for his confrontational reporter character Brick Stone on YouTube. He was also hired as a writer for "Saturday Night Live" in 2015 and frequently tours with Davidson.

Davidson, Gay and Sirus have not publicly commented on Davidson referring to Syracuse as "trash."

No release date has been set for "Big Time Adolescence," which will star Davidson as a college dropout who corrupts a 16-year-old virgin with a growth hormone deficiency. The movie, produced under Garelick's American High banner, also stars Sydney Sweeney ("The Handmaid's Tale"), Griffin Gluck ("American Vandal"), Thomas Barbusca ("The Mick"), Oona Lawrence ("Pete's Dragon") and Jon Cryer ("Pretty in Pink," "Two and a Half Men").SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Crouse Hospital in Syracuse was placed on heightened security after a family was upset after a relative had died, according to Syracuse police.

Three employees told Syracuse.com | The Post-Standard that the hospital was on lockdown.

Bob Allen, a spokesman for the hospital, said this afternoon that the hospital was on heightened security but was not on a lockdown. He said the extra security was caused by an emotional family.

Two employees said family members had made threats after a loved one died.

Syracuse police responded to the hospital after Crouse had issues with a family after a patient died, said Sgt. Richard Helterline, a spokesman for the Syracuse police.

There is no active threat, Helterline said shortly after 4 p.m. The police and security were increased as a precaution, he said.

An Onondaga County 911 dispatcher shortly after 3 p.m. confirmed that the hospital had been placed on lockdown but could not confirm whether it was still locked down.

At 3:45 p.m., there were at least four Syracuse police cars at the hospital. People were being allowed into the hospital, but there appeared to be extra security and checks being made.

The 465-bed hospital is at 736 Irving Ave.

This article will be updated if new information becomes available.

FORT DRUM -- A 21-year-old Fort Drum man was arrested and charged with rape Monday for having a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old, according to New York State Police.

Michael Estes Jr., 21, of Fort Drum, faces charges of rape, criminal sexual act and endangering the welfare of a child, police said.

An investigation found that Estes was having a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old, police said. He was arraigned in the Town of LeRay Court and remanded to the Jefferson County Public Safety Building in lieu of $1,000 cash bail, police said.

Estes is scheduled to reappear in Town of LeRay Court on Sept. 27 at 2 p.m., police said.

Estes, who is originally from Alabama, is in the U.S. Army, stationed at Fort Drum.ROME, N.Y. -- Three friends were playing video games Tuesday evening in Rome when one of the men decided to get a snack.

The 34-year-old man left an apartment near the 100 block of South Madison Street and walked to a nearby Burger King, police said. The two remaining men then grabbed a pellet gun, stepped onto the home's front porch and fired at their friend, police said.

When their friend walked back from Burger King with his food, the men shot at him again, police said. And this time, pellets struck the man in his chest and back.

The two men rushed to help their friend after he fell to the ground, said the Rome Police Department. When they realized their friend was wounded, the men called 911.

Police rushed to South Madison Street at 8:32 p.m. By then, the three friends had agreed to tell officers they didn't know who the shooter was, police said.

The injured man was transported to St. Elizabeth's Hospital, where he remains in stable condition. He is not cooperating with investigators, police said.

No one has been arrested so far. Police said charges are possible.To the Editor:

Re:

(Sept. 13, 2018):

I would like to offer Syracuse Deputy Mayor Sharon Owens some ideas for the Syracuse anti-poverty initiative she oversees. Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) is a research style designed to assess a community from a strengths-based perspective, identify priority public health issues, design and conduct interventions, and disseminate findings to the community. Academic researchers, city leaders, community members and other stakeholders collaborate to assess the strengths and dynamics the community. Community members are acknowledged as the experts of their own neighborhoods and are given as much voice as all other stakeholders involved.

It's easy to focus on the negative aspects of Syracuse. CBPR focuses on community strengths and identifies ways to build from there. Syracuse University and SUNY Upstate offer both bachelor's and master's degrees in public health. These two institutions could be a valuable source of interns, ideas and professional collaboration for the anti-poverty initiative to tap into.

Evidence-based anti-poverty programs exist and could be implemented here. The P-Tech program mentioned in the article is operating here and has shown some success. The Health Profession Opportunity Grant (HPOG) funds training programs in high-demand healthcare professions, and it specifically serves families with low income and those on temporary assistance to needy families. Currently HPOG operates in Rochester, Buffalo, New York City and Schenectady. Public health research exists that can help us to improve Syracuse for everyone to enjoy.

Kellie Crouse

NedrowRobert H. Tembeckjian is administrator and counsel to the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct.

By Robert H. Tembeckjian | Special To The Washington Post



In 1972, roughly 10 years before the small Maryland party where Christine Blasey Ford alleges she was assaulted by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh when they were teenagers, a 25-year-old man named Bryan R. Hedges, who would later become a New York State Family Court judge, sexually abused his deaf 5-year-old niece.

The claim against Hedges was not made to authorities until 40 years after the event, at which point he had been on the bench for 27 years. His now-adult niece, who struggled for decades with the traumatic consequences of the abuse, summoned the courage to come forward in 2012. The investigation, which eventually led to the removal of Hedges from his position, tore fissures into her family. But it resulted in exactly what we should hope for in terms of holding alleged perpetrators of sexual misconduct accountable: a fair and thorough ethics investigation.

In an ideal world, this is how the allegations against Kavanaugh, which he vehemently denies, would be handled. The only problem? The federal court system has no equivalent to the independent state commissions that conduct disciplinary hearings and impose sanctions on offending judges. This needs to change.

My office investigated the claim against Hedges. While the statute of limitations had long lapsed, precluding a criminal prosecution, there is no time constraint in New York on examining unethical behavior that might render a judge morally unfit to remain in office. All 50 states have some form of independent ethics enforcement entity such as the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct that investigates claims of wrongdoing against judges and may impose sanctions for misconduct committed on or off the bench.

Though there were only two people in the bedroom when Hedges abused his niece, the lawyers and investigators on my staff examined schematics of the premises and interviewed numerous people who were in a position have pertinent information, including relatives to whom the victimized girl recounted the event years before she made it public. The process took less than a month. Hedges himself gave ambiguous accounts of the episode during the investigation, eventually admitting that at least some indefensible sexual contact had occurred that, he claimed, the 5-year-old had initiated.

That partial confession was the result of confronting him with his own words to a third party. Our determination that he should be removed from judicial office was upheld by New York's highest court, which said that even though the disciplinary petition was based solely on conduct that occurred 40 years earlier and before the judge had assumed office, the demonstrated misconduct was "grave," undermined public confidence in his integrity and "rendered him unfit for judicial office."

There is a code of conduct for federal judges that would similarly render Kavanaugh unfit for office should the sexual misconduct allegations against him be proved in an ethics proceeding. But at the moment, ethics complaints against federal judges are handled in-house and closely guarded by the judges themselves. In 2016, there were more than 1,300 such complaints throughout the country, but only four were investigated. An average of fewer than one judge per year is criticized by his or her colleagues for misbehavior.

Ironically,Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has repeatedly proposed legislation to create a judicial inspector general, which would have authority to investigate and report on allegations such as those recently levied against Kavanaugh. As my office did in the Hedges case, such a federal inspector general would collect extrinsic evidence and take sworn testimony in a professional deposition setting from many more witnesses than the two principals whom the Senate Judiciary Committee will limit itself to interrogating in a political setting.

Short of a stunning mea culpa by Kavanaugh or an equally unlikely confession by Ford that she made up her story, Senate questioning of only these two will result in stalemate, leaving both advocates and opponents of Kavanaugh's confirmation with their predetermined views. The same goes for the accusations made against Kavanaugh by his Yale University classmate Deborah Ramirez. At the very least, taking testimony from any eyewitnesses to these incidents -- such as Kavanaugh's high school friend Mark Judge, who Ford said was present in the room during her alleged attack, as well as others to whom Kavanaugh's accusers may have confided -- would give the Senate and the public more information with which to evaluate the credibility of both accuser and accused.

The only path to truth in the Kavanaugh matter is a thorough inquiry, just as it was in the Hedges case. Putting Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court without a full vetting of allegations against him will not stop a free press or even a Maryland prosecutor from developing new leads in the allegations. That could put Congress and the country in the grotesque position of having to deal with this matter after a rush to confirmation by the only means available should the claims appear substantiated: impeachment. Nobody should want that.



Kavanaugh fight shows we still don't understand sexual assault (Commentary)Marc Molinaro, the Republican candidate for governor, said during a visit to Syracuse Tuesday that the state should erase income taxes on small manufacturers as well as large companies organized as so-called "C-corporations."

The move would reduce taxes on manufacturers organized as "S-corporations", which are usually small and family-owned, by about $90 million per year, he said. The idea already has support in the Senate.

Molinaro said he will reveal later this week how the state would make up the difference for that change in tax policy and other proposals he is releasing in pieces this week.

"Only in government do you identify giving people their money back as a cost to you," he said. "Keeping money in the pockets of New Yorkers is actually letting people have their money."

Molinaro said he is releasing details in parts because it is such a massive plan, he wants people to have time to digest it.

Molinaro first unveiled the plan Monday at the New York State Business Council's annual meeting. Cuomo addressed the group Tuesday.

Molinaro, the Dutchess County executive, also proposes the state take over the $7.6 billion Medicaid program from county governments, which raise most of their money from local property taxes. He said it would be more efficient for users and government to have one point of entry.

Molinaro also wants to double the amount of senior pension income that is exempt from New York state income taxes. The current exemption is $20,000. It would increase to $40,000 over four years. The proposal has already passed the Senate with only one no vote. Such a cut would cost the state about $275 million.

Molinaro also said he would ban state grants to private corporations. By contrast, county governments are prohibited from making direct grants to businesses. Molinaro said there are better ways to help businesses, for example, clearing up regulations.

It also would protect the state from the kind of corruption that has embroiled Cuomo's office, he said.

Under Cuomo's direction, the state spent $14.4 million on a new building in DeWitt intended for the film industry. Cuomo promised it would create 350 new jobs and bring Hollywood to Onondaga County. So far, the film hub has only served to shine a light on corruption in state government.

That building and other projects were the focus of two bribery and bid-rigging trials that resulted in federal convictions for two Syracuse developers, a Buffalo builder, a top Cuomo aide and the SUNY Polytechnic Institute president who oversaw the projects.

Molinaro has started a website called "Cuomo Leaks" that asks people to send in tips and about corruption in state government. He said the site has already taken in 100 submissions.

"It's not to be gimmicky," he said.

In his address to the Business Council, Cuomo said his strategy to tailor economic development projects specific to each region has resulted in 6,300 projects.

"Now, I'm not saying all 6,300 have succeeded and gone on to great triumph," Cuomo said. "You find a bank that has invested in 6,300 projects. There will always be projects that work and don't work and startups that work and don't work. But these projects have made a difference all across upstate New York."

Also Tuesday, Cuomo questioned where the state would get $7.6 billion to take over Medicaid from the counties. He called it a shell game and said the state has already given "extraordinary relief" to the counties.

Cuomo also criticized the many layers of local government in New York and pointed to a state law that limits local government spending to 2 percent increases year over year.

"We have 10,500 local governments in this state," Cuomo said. "Not every local government has to do everything. Not every local government has to have their own evacuation fleet, their own maintenance garage and their own services. They have to work out savings in consolidations because we can no longer sustain the growth."WASHINGTON (AP) -- Senate Democratic leader Charles Schumer is urging Brett Kavanaugh to withdraw as nominee for the Supreme Court because of the sexual misconduct allegations against him.

Schumer speak in the Senate after a third woman publicly accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct in the early 1980s. Kavanaugh denies the allegation, saying it is from the "Twilight Zone."

Schumer says there are multiple credible misconduct allegations against Kavanaugh. The New York senator says that if President Donald Trump won't withdraw Kavanaugh's nomination, Trump should at least order the FBI to investigate the claims.

The Senate Judiciary Committee says it's reviewing the new allegations being provided a statement from the new accuser.A third woman has come forward accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct.

Attorney Michael Avenatti released a signed statement Wednesday from Julie Swetnick, who says she knew Judge Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge in high school in the 1980s. She claims she witnessed both attempting to get teenage girls "inebriated and disoriented so they could then be 'gang raped' in a side room or bedroom by a 'train' of numerous boys."

"I have a firm recollection of seeing boys lined up outside rooms at many of these parties waiting for their 'turn' with a girl inside the room," she said in the statement. "These boys included Mark Judge and Brett Kavanaugh."

Swetnick said she was one of the victims of a gang rape at a house party, believing she was drugged with Quaaludes or something similar in her drink.

USA Today reports she did not accuse Kavanaugh of assaulting her, but said she saw him grab and fondle women without their consent when he was drunk at those parties.

Here is a picture of my client Julie Swetnick. She is courageous, brave and honest. We ask that her privacy and that of her family be respected. pic.twitter.com/auuSeHm5s0  Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) September 26, 2018

The Senate Judiciary Committee says it is reviewing the new allegations, according to the Associated Press.

Kavanaugh is also facing allegations of sexual misconduct from Christine Blasey Ford and Deborah Ramirez. Ford claims Kavanaugh held her down and tried to rape her when they were both in high school. Ramirez says he exposed himself and caused her to touch his penis without her consent when they were freshmen at Yale University.

Ford and Kavanaugh are both scheduled to testify Thursday before the Judiciary Committee.

Kavanaugh has denied all wrongdoing. He told Fox News on Monday that said did not question that perhaps Ford at some point in her life was sexually assaulted, "but what I know is I've never sexually assaulted anyone."

"I was not at the party described," Kavanaugh said. "I have never had any sexual or physical activity with Dr. Ford... I've never sexually assaulted anyone, in high school or otherwise."

The AP reports Avenatti declined to expand on Swetnick's allegations in an interview Wednesday on ABC's "The View," saying he would not add detail beyond what was in the statement.

Avenatti also represents porn star Stormy Daniels, who says she was paid by former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen to keep quiet about an alleged sexual relationship with President Trump.On the morning of Sept. 22, 1913, people in Syracuse saw a strange sight.

Nearly the entire high school student body of the Syracuse school district had gone on strike from their classes and were marching through the streets of the city.

Tensions between students and leaders at the city's three high schools, Central High, North High and Technical High, had reached a boiling point the week before over the district's new school hours.

The "committee" of students who organized the student strike of 1913 are seen in the top image. The bottom image shows a photo from a group of strikers. The sign reads: "WE WANT OLD HOURS."

Joining cities like Rochester, Buffalo and New York City, the school day in Syracuse was lengthened in 1913. A student's day now ran from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. rather than the old schedule of 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Students were required to stay in school for their lunch.

School administrators thought the new schedule allowed for students to have more study time, left time in the morning for a good breakfast and guaranteed a nutritious lunch, either purchased at the school or brought from home.

Students, and many of their parents, hated the new hours. They forced cash-strapped families to provide money for lunches, disrupted the traditional family routines around the mid-day meal and, most importantly, prevented many students from working after-school jobs, which many families desperately counted on to make ends meet.

Talk of a possible strike were floating around all three schools on Friday, Sept. 19, but put into action the following Monday morning.

At Central High School, students met at the front door and strike leaders told them not to enter. At North High, the school day started as normal, when one or two boys in every classroom got up and shouted:

"Everybody strike!"

"This," according to the Syracuse Journal, "the agreed signal, acted like magic. Students poured from every door into the open air."

The 600 or so Central students formed up and marched downtown toward Clinton Square. On Salina Street, they entered shops and bought horns to make as much noise as possible. A drum corps, which "sprang from nowhere," was placed at the head of the procession.

Banners with slogans like "We want Shorter Hours" or "We want our old hours" were seen.

Parents, in automobiles and carriages, joined their children's cause.

The Central students, now joined by 400 North students, made their way to Technical High and shouted for the students there to join them.

Teacher and guards had been posted at the doors, so students escaped through the cellar or out of the windows.

Principal Henry Denham tried to stop the rush.

"Don't make bally-asses of yourselves. Come back here!" he shouted to no avail.

Newspapers estimated that between 1,000 to 1,200 students participated in the first day of the strike.

Leaders were chosen, and victory was promised, despite all students being placed on indefinite suspension.

"We'll win," said leader Donald Derby. "Stick till the strike is settled in our favor. Don't give up. Get your parents interested."

Top and bottom images shows strikers at Technical High School, while the middle images shows students parading through downtown.

Strike numbers were even higher the second day but attempts at a similar demonstration were stopped by Syracuse police, who ended all parades and marches because the students did not have a permit.

The scene shifted to City Hall on Sept. 24, where one of the most memorable meetings in the city's history took place.

Leading citizens, parents and even physicians, who considered the new hours unhealthy, rallied with the students.

The assembly room at City Hall was standing room only before the session started.

"Such an audience has never before assembled in the City Hall," the Syracuse Herald reported. "It was a meeting of boys and girls, the men and women of tomorrow."

Despite speeches from parents, business leaders and students, and the possibly unwanted help of the Socialist Party, the Board of Education held their position.

Newspapers were sure that it was only a matter of time before the board would crack under pressure and restore the old hours, but school leaders knew they had time on their side.

They knew that if students were not back in class soon they would not be eligible for the state's Regents exams.

On Sunday night, Sept. 28, the strike was over, with both sides claiming victory.

The Board had made no concessions, only a promise to review the school hours issue.

Students said they would be returning to school unified as ever and would boycott school lunch counters. Their issue with the hours would be addressed by their parents while they returned to their studies.

"We are going back, not as a bunch of defeated scholars but as a bunch of winners," said strike leader Marjorie King, of North High.

The principals at North and Central then pulled a fast one.

Despite the students promising they would never agree to such a thing, the school's principals demanded that returning students sign a pledge to not strike again before they could reenter a classroom.

When the signed pledges of King and fellow strike leader, Leonard Herzog, came up, they were refused and the two were expelled for a week.

Students at Central High were eventually allowed to go home for lunch, provided they did not smoke, but despite the tireless work by parent groups, the new school schedule remained.

This feature is a part of CNY Nostalgia, a section on syracuse.com. Send your ideas and curiosities to Johnathan Croyle: Email | 315-427-3958.Policias entraron a casa de abuelos y...laluks Distinguished - BHPian



Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: Bangalore Posts: 6,541 Thanked: 15,900 Times

Re: S-Cross'd : Gokak 16th September 2018



After a very good dinner from one of the dhabas at Khandala, we reached Kharad for our stay at Royal Palace hotel, which is on the service road of NH. We chose that hotel for easy access and easier to find in the night. It's always irritating to go search for a hotel after a hard days drive in some city center. We got ourselves two ac double rooms with breakfast for under 5K.



By the time we reached it was midnight and by the time I settled off with all the stuff in the car it was 01:30AM.





Trip meter read 1747Kms from our MSH4 drive. If you deduct the first 600Km run to MH and last 300Km run to Kharad, it is easily 700-800Km of coast hugging drive on Konkan! We will talk about it some other day.





We offered ourselves a well deserved sleep, the rooms were pretty good, with clean linen. By 09:00 assembled for our complimentary breakfast.



Everybody happy after a good nights sleep





Breakfast had a choice of items, which we could order. I thought the complimentary ones would have a buffet spread, but this place being one that is not always full, we had to chose form the fixed menu, which they will make and serve. Not bad.



Idlis were instant disappointment, and felt like little pieces of marble. So hard





Masala Dosas were Ok, but batter seems to have gone sour!





Bread Butter shocked us!





Saving grace was onion uthappam.





You'd be wondering where are the omlettes and stuff. This place is a strict vegetarian hotel.



By 09:30 we were done with our breakfast and was ready to roll. Disappointed over breakfast, I did not discuss the plan at all. Everybody was like we will reach home soon, and can have great home cooked food, lets be done with this.



Thus we start from Kharad our drive home.



continued... After a very good dinner from one of the dhabas at Khandala, we reached Kharad for our stay at Royal Palace hotel, which is on the service road of NH. We chose that hotel for easy access and easier to find in the night. It's always irritating to go search for a hotel after a hard days drive in some city center. We got ourselves two ac double rooms with breakfast for under 5K.By the time we reached it was midnight and by the time I settled off with all the stuff in the car it was 01:30AM.If you deduct the first 600Km run to MH and last 300Km run to Kharad, it is easily 700-800Km of coast hugging drive on Konkan! We will talk about it some other day.We offered ourselves a well deserved sleep, the rooms were pretty good, with clean linen. By 09:00 assembled for our complimentary breakfast.Breakfast had a choice of items, which we could order. I thought the complimentary ones would have a buffet spread, but this place being one that is not always full, we had to chose form the fixed menu, which they will make and serve. Not bad.You'd be wondering where are the omlettes and stuff. This place is a strict vegetarian hotel.By 09:30 we were done with our breakfast and was ready to roll. Disappointed over breakfast, I did not discuss the plan at all. Everybody was like we will reach home soon, and can have great home cooked food, lets be done with this.Thus we start from Kharad our drive home.continued...Did you know that Microsoft doesn't back up your 365 data? Avoid data loss. Back up your company's Office 365 mailboxes, Teams, and files stored within OneDrive and Sharepoint. Get your free trial of Altaro Office 365 Backup.

Theres a rumor in circulation that Amazon has beenworking on a DVR that would allow users to record live TV, and thenstream that content to a smartphone and other mobile devices.

Amazon aims to mount a direct challenge to DVR pioneer TiVo  a company that was at theforefront of digital video recording 20 years ago  according to a flurry of reports stemming from a Bloomberg article published earlier this week.

The Amazon DVR, reportedly codenamed Frank,will work with Fire TV devices, but it is unclear if it will feature Amazon Prime Video streaming as well.

Amazons Lab 126 research and development center  the groupbehind the creation of the Echo speaker  has been working on the DVR, according toBloomberg.

Amazon isnt exactly late to this market, but its Fire TV products currently stream live content only from partners such as HBO via the Amazon Channels service. The Amazon Fire TVset-top boxes, which are among Amazons best-selling products, areunable to record or otherwise store video locally. Nor can they stream content to another device, such as a mobile phone.

By adding DVR functionality, Amazon essentially could take on cable/satellite pay-TVservices, providing the ability to record and location-shift content in a similar fashion.

DVR for Cord Cutters

Amazons strategy could be to go after the growing cord cutter andcord never market  individuals and households who opt not tohave a pay-TV service, and instead get content from other sources,including streaming media.

Its likely aimed primarily at cord cutters and cord nevers; bothgroups are growing quickly as users turn away from traditional TV andlegacy delivery from pay-TV operators, said Jim ONeill, principalanalyst at Ooyala.

But its very likely that even users who have pay-TV in their homesare watching video from OTT providers and, depending upon where theyget their broadband services, that a storage device would be worthhaving, he told TechNewsWorld.

More than half of households that subscribe to pay-TV also subscribeto an SVOD service like Netflix, Hulu or Amazon Prime, added ONeill.If they want to keep content on hand, they very well may use theAmazon box.

Capturing Content

The key missing piece to Amazons strategy is where, exactly, users ofits DVR would get content. While premium content could come via AmazonChannels, that still would leave the ability to access local content bothfiguratively and literally up in the air.

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

One possibility is an antenna, which is actually an important sourceof TV for a minority of U.S. viewers, suggested Colin Dixon, principal analyst at nScreen Media.

While there has been aslowdown in adoption, antennas picked up last year, he toldTechNewsWorld.

Another possibility could be streaming of broadcast network content,including from local stations.

We are seeing an uptick in the number of broadcasters  localbroadcasters  who are making locally generated content availableonline, and we expect that number to accelerate, said ONeill.

You can watch CBS All Access through Amazons Fire devices, so thatcontent also is likely to be available to save; and Fox, ABC, and NBCall have an increasing amount of their programming online, so havingthe Amazon box likely would allow you to record and save thatcontent, he added.

Another possibility is that Amazon could take the route of pastproducts  including some TiVo units as well as the now defunct Moxibox  and utilize a cable card to replace a subscriberstraditional set-top box.

I would actually be shocked if Amazon would support cable cardstoday, said Dixon. That technology has been on the decline, and fewTVs actually ship with a cable card slot, so cable card support islukewarm at best.

Live Play

Live content could come from online channels and other streaming services. Instead of providing another device that simply could be used torecord traditional linear channels from pay-TV outlets,Amazon could pioneer a DVR service for streaming content.

Over the past 18 months and longer weve seen a renaissance in livecontent, and a lot of that content is moving online with consumerhabits, said Brett Sappington, senior director of research at ParksAssociates.

It isnt just traditional broadcasting but is Facebook Live andPeriscope, and now Twitch is live-streaming content, he toldTechNewsWorld.

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

Amazon is getting rights to cover sports, which a few years ago wouldhave been unthinkable  so this just shows how the market ischanging, Sappington added. For a company that has online and cloud services,it makes sense for this live play.

Prime Objective

Another unanswered question is where Amazon Prime Video will fit in, butit would seem like a natural extension. A DVR offering could allowAmazon to gain traction on Netflix, which has forged deals to beaccessible not only through smart TVs and Blu-ray players, but morerecently on pay-TV set-top boxes.

Amazon recently has been making headway in the latter category.

A few weeks ago there was news that Amazon Video would launch onComcasts Xfinity boxes, said Kristen Hanich, research analyst atParks Associates.

Weve also seen that Apple is forming partnerships to act as astreaming media portal, and that is a direction Amazon might be goingdown as well, she told TechNewsWorld.

Such partnerships with streaming media services suggest that the pay-TV companies understand that the market has been changing in terms of how viewers get content, and it shows a willingness to accept that more people may forgo the cord in the future.

This likely is not a short-term play for operators, although theremay be some that begin to look at Amazon Prime Video as an alternativeto offering their own pay-TV services, especially among Tier 2 andTier 3 providers, said Ooyalas ONeill.

Offering a TV service is an expensive proposition, and some smallertelcos and cable companies have already opted out, choosing to focuson their broadband business, he added.

Interestingly, Charter and Comcast, during their earnings callsor investor meetings in the past few months, also have chosen to directmore attention to their broadband businesses, noted ONeill.

There are just far better margins in the broadband businessthan there are in the pay-TV business.

So, could Amazon Prime be offered as an alternative to pay TV?pondered ONeill. Absolutely. It already is the option millions ofcord cutters and cord nevers have decided on.

The TiVo Killer

Why Amazon is going after TiVo specifically is another questionto consider, especially as other early DVR pioneers  notably Replay TV have gone by the wayside. TiVo remains a significant player, butAmazons strategy to take on that company is sort of like anew smart phone manufacturer wanting to target BlackBerry today.

It is strange that Amazon would be thinking about TiVo, notednScreen Medias Dixon.

There are so many solutions out there already, and most pay-TVservice operators have ways to watch content on mobile devices anyway, he said,so I am not sure who Amazon is even targeting right now.

Perhaps the BlackBerry comparison is apt, as TiVo is no longer justa retail offering.

Today TiVos significant business is with pay-TV operators, includingin Europe, where there are TiVo boxes that are a premium offering,said Parks Associates Sappington.

Today TiVo is almost a software player, he added, but another comparison is howRoku had success as a set-top device but now they are in smart TVs andother things.

Risky Business

The DVR market has been a competitive one. While TiVo hasendured, many rivals  including Replay TV and Moxi  have not been aslucky. Amazons attempt to enter this market could be a risky one.

The devil is really in the details, knowing that Amazon has beenconsistently launching products within areas it knows, notedSappington.

What we know is that it will be related to Fire TV and that it willhave a strong online component, and we must remember that Amazon Videois already the second largest OTT service, so it makes sense that itwill be part of this DVR, he suggested.

Selling Amazon products has been a big part of its business model,but hardware can be tricky, remarked Sappington.

Amazon also could follow TiVos lead and have success in other markets,where DVR penetration isnt as high. However  in the United States, at least the risks may not be worth the reward.

Everyone enters with a splash, but there isnt news when you leave, Sappington noted. Inthis case, Amazon doesnt need a home run to be successful  even asingle is fine. But if it fails, this will be obvious to everyone.Highly anticipated: Nvidia just revealed an October 17 release date for the RTX 2070. Although we'll have to wait for the benchmarks, it arrives as a powerful card that is within reach for far more enthusiasts than the top of the line options.

Following the GeForce RTX 2080 and RTX 2080 Ti, Nvidia is now readying the launch of the more affordable GeForce RTX 2070. October 17 will be the day that the GeForce RTX 2070 finds its way into online marketplaces and stores.

Nvidia's Turing architecture offers a factor of six performance gain in ray tracing compared to the previous generation, but as we learned in our recent RTX 2080 review -- or rather, didn't learn -- we have no idea what that means with no possible way to test ray tracing and take advantage of the latest generation GPU's most important feature.

Considering the lofty prices of the RTX 2080 Ti and RTX 2080, the still powerful RTX 2070 will be of consideration by a larger audience of gamers looking to upgrade and check out the fancy new lighting made possible by Turing... once again, when we find out how feasible it is to turn those on current generation boards.

Beautiful any way you look at it.



The GeForce RTX 2070 will be available on October 17th. #GraphicsReinvented



Shop starting at $499 ($599 Founders Edition)  https://t.co/ammFWibyFy pic.twitter.com/IsScoXm5rZ  NVIDIA GeForce (@NVIDIAGeForce) September 25, 2018

RTX 2070 Founders Edition cards have a boost clock that can reach up to 1710 MHz compared to the standard 1620 MHz. The Base Clock is set at 1410 MHz for all RTX 2070 models. Both versions arrive with 8GB GDDR6 memory with memory speeds up to 14 Gbps. Utilizing a 256-bit memory interface, bandwidth measures in at 448 GB/s.

Cooling on the Founders Edition consists of two 13-blade fans with a newly designed vapor chamber. A 185W power rating has been given to the Founders Edition while the standard model is rated at 175W. Video output consists of DisplayPort, HDMI, USB Type-C, and DVI-DL ports. As always, other manufacturers may offer different configurations of output options.

Those wishing to obtain Founders Edition cards can expect to part ways with $599, while board partner offerings are expected to come in many different flavors starting at a more attractive $499 for the vanilla models.What just happened? A working Apple I computer has just sold at auction. When it originally went on sale back in 1976, the machine sold for $666.66. Yesterday, it was bought with a winning bid of $375,000.

The original buyer of this particular Apple I sold the machine a year after purchasing it for just $300. The owner who put it up for auction said he tried to sell it back to Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak in 1982 for $10,000 but received no response. He had used the machine to learn BASIC and ultimately decided to keep the device because it "could one day be a piece of computing history."

Steve Jobs and Wozniak built 200 Apple I computers in the mid-1970s and sold them through a deal with local computing store The Byte Shop in Palo Alto, California. Its estimated that just 79 are still in existence today, and only about 15 of those are still working.

"The Apple-I was ghastly underpowered compared to the Apple-II, Wozniak told the BBC. "But this Apple-I computer showed the world the formula for an affordable USEFUL computer."

An anonymous businessman purchased the Apple I, which was auctioned off by RR Auction at WeWorks in Boston, Massachusetts, on Tuesday.

"Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak and the company that they created together turned the ugly and unappealing world of technology and made it much more user friendly bringing it mainstream, and infinitely making the world a better place to live," said Bobby Livingston, Executive VP at RR Auction.

"This is the machine that launched Apple Computer, a company that would define an industry and was recently able to achieve a $1 trillion valuation milestone."

Apple I expert Corey Cohen gave the unmodified system an 8.5 rating after it worked for eight hours without fault during testing. A different Apple I that had spent most of its life under a glass cover received a 9.5 score and sold for $905,000 in 2014 to the Henry Ford museum.

Back in March, a one-page job application form filled out by Steve Jobs three years before he co-founded Apple brought $174,000 at auction. Jobs leather jacket sold for $22,400 in 2016, while a magazine he signed went for over $50,000 last year.Why it matters: Re-releases of fan favorites like Castlevania are a win-win, allowing gamers to enjoy classics all over again - or perhaps discover them for the first time - on modern platforms while simultaneously providing an additional revenue stream for publishers / developers that isn't burdened by the full production cost of a new game.

Sony on Wednesday announced that two classic Castlevania games are heading to the PlayStation 4 next month as part of an exclusive bundle.

Castlevania Requiem is a digital download comprised of Castlevania: Rondo of Blood and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. The former was originally released in Japan back in 1993 for the PC Engine with the latter serving as its direct sequel when it launched in 1997 on the PlayStation. Both were highly praised at launch and are considered to be among the best ever in the platform-adventure category.

Sony says both games are the originals emulated for the PlayStation 4 with enhancements like 4K / 1080p upscaling, high-resolution backgrounds, different rendering options and support for the DualShock 4s vibration, analogue stick and speaker. Theres also full Trophy support although the company warns that the Platinum Trophy will be tough to obtain.

Castlevania Requiem launches on October 26, the same day Netflix plans to drop season two of its animated Castlevania series. Expect to pay $19.99 for the opportunity.

Castlevanias spiritual successor, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, was recently delayed until 2019. We also learned over the summer that a version for the PlayStation Vita has been cancelled due to Sonys plans to discontinue the handheld.Humans are causing the Earth to wobble as it spins on its axis, found a recent in-depth study conducted by NASA.

Based on measurements from the 20th Century, scientists were able to discover that the planet's spin axis has drifted to about 4 inches or 10 centimeters per year. Over the past century, the Earth has drifted more than 10 meters or 11 yards.

The study was published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters.

The Earth Moving In Odd Ways

Part of the reason why the planet wobbles as it spins on its axis is the uneven distribution of weight on the surface. Earth is not a perfect sphere; it is actually an oblate spheroid. When it rotates on its spin axis, it drifts and it wobbles. The process is called "polar motion."

However, researchers from NASA believe that there are three factors that are primarily responsible for the wobble: glacial rebound, mantle convection, and melting of ice.

"The traditional explanation is that one process, glacial rebound, is responsible for this motion of Earth's spin axis," explained Surendra Adhikari of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "But recently, many researchers have speculated that other processes could have potentially large effects on it as well."

The redistribution of mass on Earth in the past century, particularly the melting of ice sheets into the ocean in Greenland, has affected the planet's natural rotation. While ice melts in different locations around the world due to rising temperatures caused by climate change, Greenland is believed to be a primary suspect because of its location.

Throughout the 20th century, 7,500 gigatons of Greenland's ice has melted into the ocean.

The two other causes, however, naturally occurs. During the last ice age about 26 thousand years ago, vast expanse of land was covered with heavy glacier, causing the depressed land underneath to bulge upward and around the perimeter of the glacier.

However, when the glaciers melted, the land slowly rebounded or regained its original position. This is what scientists call glacial rebound and, because it is a very slow process, the land is still trying to rebound from the last ice age.

Meanwhile, mantle convection is the movement of the tectonic plates under the surface of the Earth. This is caused by the heat coming from the planet's core.

What Can Be Done

While the human race cannot do anything to control the glacial rebound and mantle convection, the redistribution of mass caused by the melting of ice into the ocean can still be remedied. If Greenland continues to lose ice because of climate change, polar motion will likely accelerate, too.

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.Qualcomm accused Apple of stealing confidential information and trade secrets to help improve the performance of Intel chips, which were eventually used in the company's iPhones.

The allegation is the latest entry in the long-running legal battle between the two companies. Will this finally force Apple to agree to a settlement?

Qualcomm Accuses Apple Of Stealing Trade Secrets

Qualcomm alleged that Apple stole a massive amount of confidential information and trade secrets, and then passed them on to Intel to improve the rival chipmaker's products. The improved Intel chips opened the opportunity for Apple to switch suppliers, which may have resulted in billions of dollars of lost sales for Qualcomm.

The new charges are part of a lawsuit filed in November, when Qualcomm claimed that Apple was violating the agreement that placed Qualcomm chips in iPhones. Apple was required to protect the source code and tools from Qualcomm, but Qualcomm claimed that Apple was preventing the chipmaker to monitor the usage.

Qualcomm has now made a more explosive allegation, with the claim that Apple gave the source code and tools to help Intel solve the engineering problems in its chips that are making them perform poorly in iPhones. Qualcomm claimed to have discovered evidence that engineers from Apple repeatedly forwarded confidential information to engineers from Intel.

Apple used to have Qualcomm's modem chips in its iPhones. However, starting with the iPhone 7, Apple switched to Intel modem chips in certain models, and started removing all Qualcomm components this year. Teardowns of the latest models, the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR revealed that Intel has become the sole supplier of modem chips to Apple.

Apple vs Qualcomm Continues

Apple and Qualcomm have been engaged in tumultuous legal disputes, with many allegations thrown between the two tech companies.

Early last year, Apple filed a $1 billion lawsuit against Qualcomm, claiming that the chipmaker has unfairly charged the iPhone maker for royalties that have nothing to do with it. For example, when Apple doubled the maximum storage capacity of the iPhone to 256 GB, Qualcomm demanded for larger royalty fees.

Qualcomm responded with a lawsuit that wanted to prevent Apple from selling iPhones in China, which is where the devices are manufactured. Qualcomm claimed that Apple is using technology that it developed, but is not paying for them.

It remains unclear when the Apple and Qualcomm legal battle will end. Will Apple finally break with the latest allegations by Qualcomm, or will this last much longer?

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.Appendicitis, or the inflammation of the appendix, has long been treated with surgery, but new research confirms that it may be cured without the patients having to go under the knife.

A study from Finland revealed that appendicitis may be cured using antibiotics, following several previous reports on the method. The new research debunks the need for immediate surgery and reveals the effectiveness of treating appendicitis with antibiotics instead.

Appendicitis Does Not Require Surgery

This is not the first time that the possibility of treating appendicitis without surgery was taken under consideration. In June 2015, a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association revealed that 186 of 257 patients given antibiotics for appendicitis treatment no longer required appendectomy over the following year. The findings were echoed in a December 2015 study that focused on appendicitis in children and in a March 2016 study that claimed antibiotics may reduce the number of appendectomies by 92 percent.

The new study, also published in JAMA, was a follow-up to the June 2015 research, which was criticized as the long-term effects of treating appendicitis with antibiotics remained unknown. Three years later, researchers finally have an answer.

Of the patients treated with antibiotics, about 60 percent did not need to undergo appendectomy. The remaining 40 percent needed to have surgery to have their appendix removed.

Antibiotics vs Surgery When Treating Appendicitis

"I think the big issue is this  can physicians and patients accept the fact that there could be close to a 40 percent chance of recurrence in five years?" said Dr. Robert Glatter, an emergency physician from New York City's Lenox Hill Hospital. For Glatter, the percentage may still be too high for many patients.

The new study's lead author, Dr. Paulina Salminen, however, said that the findings show that antibiotics, at the very least, are an effective first option for treating uncomplicated appendicitis.

Salminen said that if most cases of uncomplicated appendicitis will be treated with antibiotics, that will save a lot of patients from having to go through an appendectomy, alongside the risks that come with any surgery such as incisional hernia, infections, and abdominal pain after the operation.

The antibiotics method of treating appendicitis is continuing to gain more traction, especially with the advancement of medical technology to show whether or not emergency appendectomy is really needed or if appendicitis may be cured through antibiotics.

However, further studies are needed to check if antibiotics will also be effective to treat other complications of appendicitis, such as appendicolith, which were excluded from the new study.

 2021 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.As the data-based world evolves by the day, the risk of sensitive data getting compromised continues to grow. To fight back, government offices across the country are hiring dedicated staff to ensure that policies and systems put in place to do the people's business aren't unnecessarily jeopardizing the information of private citizens.The role is most often called chief privacy officer. In California, three counties  Santa Clara, San Diego and Ventura  have designated privacy officers.sister publicationhas a nationwide roundup of jurisdictions, complete with an interactive map. For our California-focused readers, here's who you need to know:Michael ShapiroTitle: Chief Privacy OfficerDate Hired: December 2017Bio: LinkedIn Fast Fact: Shapiro previously trained government agencies and corporations on data breaches and program development.coverage: "Who's Minding Your Business?" Bob BorntragerTitle: Chief Compliance and Privacy OfficerDate Hired: December 2002Bio: LinkedIn Fast Fact: Borntrager has also served as an instructor of Ethics and Compliance at San Diego State University since 2007.Robert WoodTitle: Chief Information Security Officer and Privacy Officer and IT Project Management OfficerDate Hired: November 2011Bio: LinkedIn Fast Fact: Wood is an instructor and guest lecturer at the University of Southern California, Fullerton College, the University of Evansville and the University of Southern Indiana.The struggling Lafayette economy, which has shed thousands of jobs from an oil-driven recession, will turn the corner in 2019 and move into a relatively strong growth period according to Dr. Loren Scott during his economic outlook speech Wednesday morning.

Outlining his annual Louisiana Economic Outlook report for the audience of Acadiana business leaders on Wednesday morning, Scott said rising oil prices  now above $70 per barrel  are expected to hit $80 by 2020, meaning hope lies ahead for the Lafayette area. Scott also predicts the Lafayette region will add 1,400 jobs, or 0.7 percent in 2019, and a stronger 4,900 jobs, or 2.4 percent, in 2020.

A reviving energy sector will make 2018 a trough year and 2019 will be the beginnings of a very solid recovery for Lafayette, Scott said.

Statewide, Louisiana has recovered from its 28-month recession and is expected to add 23,400 jobs, up 1.2 percent, in 2019 and 36,100 jobs, up 1.8 percent, in 2020. The state is now in relatively healthy growth mode, Scott said.

But those projections depend on oil prices rising to $80 a barrel and a national economic expansion continuing. Low natural gas prices, which have fueled industrial expansions in Louisiana in recent years, should continue a modest decline.

Threats like President Donald Trump's administrations ongoing trade war with China could be devastating to the economy if tariffs continue in the long term, Scott said.

"The biggest major threat to all of this is the tariffs that President Trump has put into place," he said. "Economists are very, very concerned about this. Our forecasts are based on this being just a negotiating gambit and there's indications that this is the case.

"Because if this is just the president and his trade representatives saying, 'We need to protect our domestic industry from foreign competition,' then we're going to see in late 2019 and 2020 a recession way worse than what we experienced in 2008 and 2009. We're going to have a trade war that's going to be very bad across the world."

During the period 2015 to 2018, Lafayette will be down an estimated 21,600 jobs, or 10 percent, compared to 2014, Scott said. The area has the highest concentration  6.8 percent  of its jobs directly from the exploration sector among Louisianas nine metro regions. The state average is 1.7 percent.

However, the Lafayette regions big six  jewelry maker Stuller Inc., Acadian Ambulance, health care consultant Schumacher Group, home nursing giant LHC Group, delivery service Waitr and tech firm CGI  will continue providing stability to the areas economy. CGI is expected to double its workforce in Lafayette as part of a deal announced earlier this year.

Scott also said that there will be big news soon of a new business coming to the area that will make it the region's "big seven" and create around 400 high paying new jobs, but he couldn't go in to any more details.

If oil prices beget a resurgence of drilling activity in the Gulf of Mexico, energy companies in Lafayette project expansions. The Port of Iberia and Acadiana Airport are expected to see some job growth from existing tenants.

Public roads and airports also are expected to bring some economic activity, Scott said. Demolition for a $90 million expansion of the Lafayette Regional Airport to double the size of the terminal have started. About $234 million in new state road project bid openings will come over the next two years, including $101 million to widen Interstate 10.

Inside info on doing business in Acadiana We'll keep you posted on the Acadiana economy. Sign up today. e-mail address * Sign Up

As of July, Louisiana was already adding jobs at a 26,000-a-year rate, or 1.3 percent, which is about the national average. In 2020, several large industrial projects, including liquefied natural gas export terminals, are expected to make final investment decisions. Rising oil prices should lift the states energy sector, Scott predicted.

Heres the outlook for the states other metro areas:

NEW ORLEANS: Industrial megaprojects in places like St. James and Plaquemines parishes, as well as job infusions from the tech sector, will drive growth in the region. New Orleans is expected to add 6,500 jobs, up 1.1 percent, in 2019 and 9,100 jobs, up 1.6 percent, in 2020. In 2018, the region began to grow again, adding 3,500 jobs, or 0.8 percent, below Scotts previous forecast. Scott projects the region will rank seventh out of Louisianas nine metro areas in percentage job growth.

BATON ROUGE: A brief lull in industrial construction is over and the capital region will add 6,000 jobs, or 1.5 percent, in 2019 and 8,100 jobs, or 1.9 percent, in 2020. The region is expected to post the second-highest job growth in the state, aided by big petrochemical expansions and public construction projects. Clearly, the lull is over and a new burst of activity is at hand, Scott said.

LAKE CHARLES: The Lake Charles area was the fastest-growing in the country over the past five years, Scott said, on the back of an unheard of $117 billion in projects announced since 2012. As of June, nearly a quarter of Lake Charles workforce were construction jobs. Three LNG export facilities are expected next year, and Lake Charles will continue to be the fastest-growing metro area in the state. Scott projects it will add 4,000 jobs, up 3.3 percent, in 2019 and 5,300 jobs, up 4.3 percent, in 2020.

HOUMA-THIBODAUX: After experiencing a severe oil-driven downturn in recent years, the corner appears to have turned in the Houma MSA, Scott said. Fabricators and shipbuilders are starting to find non-extraction clients, and an oil price of $80 a barrel should bring a serious revival in Gulf drilling by 2020. In 2019, Houma is expected to add 700 jobs, or 0.8 percent. In 2020, that growth will ramp up to 2,100 jobs, or 2.4 percent, Scott said.

HAMMOND: Avoiding major budget cuts to Southeastern Louisiana University spells a positive future for the Hammond area in the next two years. The region is expected to add 800 jobs, or 1.7 percent, in both 2019 and 2020.

SHREVEPORT-BOSSIER: After falling well below its 2008 employment peak, the region will return to a positive though modest growth trend over the next two years, Scott said. Activity at the areas port and in technology will help add 600 jobs, or 0.3 percent, in both 2019 and 2020.

MONROE: Major area employers like IBM, Graphics Packaging and Vantage Health Plan will provide stability, but Scott remains concerned about the Monroe area. The future of CenturyLink after a merger is a source of concern, Scott said. The area is projected to add 400 jobs, 0.5 percent, in 2019 and 200 jobs, 0.3 percent in 2020.

ALEXANDRIA: The regions growth will be flat for the next two years, after a special two-year information technology project at Cleco ends and few announcements exist to take its place. Alexandria will remain flat in 2019 and add 500 jobs, 0.8 percent, in 2020, Scott predicts.

Dan Boudreaux contributed to this report.Purchases made via links on our site may earn us an affiliate commissionA man who trafficked a 15-year-old girl for sex by transporting her from Baton Rouge to New Orleans and back to the capital city was sentenced to more than eight years in federal prison Wednesday.

Udraka Roberts-Bey, 28, of New Orleans, pleaded guilty earlier this year before U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick to conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking of a minor.

New Orleans man admits to trafficking 15-year-old girl for sex A New Orleans man has admitted to trafficking a 15-year-old girl for sex by transporting her from Baton Rouge to the Crescent City and back to

Dick ordered Roberts-Bey on Wednesday to spend 105 months in prison, followed by five years of federal supervision.

The 15-year-old girl, who lived in Arkansas, was rescued in June 2017 during an undercover operation at a Baton Rouge hotel, the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff's Office has said.East Baton Rouge's top prosecutor released details Friday about a March 2017 incident in which a sheriff's deputy and a suspect were both killed, calling the shooting of the civilian "wholly justified."

District Attorney Hillar Moore III explained the sequence of events that led to the deaths of East Baton Rouge sheriff's deputy Lt. Shawn Anderson and suspect Brandon Wiley an encounter that began as an attempt to take Wiley into custody in a rape investigation but quickly escalated.

+2 New report on BR deputy killing: Why Anderson went to salon, more on man there On Monday, the East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff's Office released an affidavit of probable cause, detailing new information on what reportedly 

Anderson, who was promoted from sergeant to lieutenant posthumously, was called by a sheriff's detective around 10:40 p.m. on March 18, 2017, to assist with an investigation of accusations that Wiley, 30, had raped a 15-year-old girl.

Detective Lt. Eric Strickland, identified Friday by Sheriff's spokeswoman Casey Rayborn Hicks, had found Wiley's vehicle at his place of employment, the Classic Cuts hair salon on O'Neal Lane and called for assistance. Anderson quickly responded that he could join Strickland, according to radio calls between the men.

When they arrived at the scene, the deputies found Wiley tattooing a juvenile and asked him to step outside to speak with them, Moore said.

Moore said after Wiley agreed to speak to the deputies, he began packing up his tattoo supplies, while Strickland moved to call another detective for further support drafting a search warrant.

+3 Sgt. Shawn Anderson: What we know about life of slain East Baton Rouge deputy East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff's deputy Shawn Anderson, who was slain late Saturday night while conducting an investigation at a barbershop o

Meanwhile, Anderson searched the salon for any other dangers, then patted Wiley down. At that point, the detective spotted a weapon holstered on Wiley and shouted 'gun' to alert Anderson, Moore said.

At this point, Moore said, Wiley "removed his Glock 23, 40-caliber pistol and brought the gun forward and upward," according to his final report on the investigation. Anderson, in response, tried to immobilize Wiley's arm with the weapon, at which time a physical encounter between the two men ensued over the gun.

Wiley then fired three rounds in "close proximity" to Anderson, striking him twice, one shot mortally wounding him, Moore said. Anderson fell to the ground.

Wiley then fired a fourth shot in the direction of the Strickland and the juvenile, missing them both, Moore said. The detective returned fire at Wiley, striking him three times, forcing him to fall to the ground, Moore said.

Trying to locate Wiley's weapon, Strickland got on top of Wiley, holstered his weapon and searched for the gun underneath Wiley, Moore said. However, Wiley grabbed the detective's arm, so Strickland unholstered his gun and fired again at Wiley, Moore said. The detective then took Anderson's handcuffs and shackled Wiley.

Moore's depiction of the incident is based on the investigation of the incident by State Police, which mainly focused on forensic and ballistic evidence and Strickland's statements. The incident was not caught on any video, Moore said. The juvenile inside at the time of the shooting was not facing the incident, only hearing it.

In her 911 call, the girl told a dispatcher she didn't see the shootings.

"I was facing the other direction," the unidentified juvenile said, sounding frantic. "I just heard it."

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Baton Rouge firefighters who responded to the scene, heard Wiley say "he could not breathe, his handcuffs were too tight, and the whole incident was captured on camera," according to Moore's report. However, the camera investigators found had been set for motion notification, not recording, and had no storage, Moore said.

Anderson was pronounced dead at the hospital; Wiley died days later. Strickland and the juvenile were not injured in the incident.

BR man involved in shooting death of sheriff's deputy dies from injuries, LSP says Brandon Wiley, the man involved in the shooting death of East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff's deputy Sgt. Shawn Anderson, died Tuesday evening, S

Moore said State Police Crime Lab investigators were able to match the fatal ammunition to the gun from which it fired to determine who fired which shots. Both weapons used were 40-caliber pistols, however Strickland's was a Glock 22 instead of 23. Moore said the ammunition used was the same brand, but a different type.

"It's pretty clear that Mr. Wiley's weapon was the one who shot and killed Shawn Anderson," Moore said. "And (Strickland) killed Mr. Wiley. ... The detective had no choice but to protect himself under these circumstances."

Anderson never drew, or fired, his weapon, Moore said. The weapon Wiley used was not stolen, Moore said, though he did not know how he obtained it. Wiley was not legally allowed to possess a firearm because he is a convicted felon. He had a significant criminal rap sheet, including being convicted of aggravated battery, inciting a felony and felon in possession of a firearm.

Neither Anderson nor the detective were wearing bulletproof vests, though based on the location of Anderson's fatal wound  close to his armpit  a vest would not have protected him, Moore said.

Moore said in the front pocket of Wiley's shirt that evening, investigators found a printed out document titled 'Suicide by Cop,' calling that "somewhat unusual."

He said Wiley's family told him their relative had a history of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, as well as PTSD from an incident while incarcerated. However, Moore said none of those illnesses are documented and it has "nothing to do with the deputy's actions that night."

However, Wiley's sister-in-law Labrittany Woods-Selders said the entire night seems out of character.

"Brandon wouldn't hurt anybody," Woods-Selders said Friday. "Brandon was getting his life together, he had a daughter on the way, he had just graduated, he was trying to get his business off the ground."

She called the justified shooting ruling from Moore "bulls***, that doesn't sound like Brandon at all."

Moore said he understands the family is upset, but "the facts are what they are."

Woods-Selders said Wiley has two children, one who was born a month after he was killed. She said she knows Wiley shouldn't have had a gun, but he had it to protect their family because they lived in a bad area.

"I understand that Brandon has a past, but everyone deserves a second chance," Woods-Selders said. "He was taken too quick from us."East Baton Rouge Parish sheriff's deputies on Wednesday unveiled new bullet-proof vests capable of deflecting high-power rifle rounds, the first step in a local nonprofit's mission to outfit all area first-responders with state-of-the-art protection.

Coordinated with new "mandatory-wear" policies, the Capital Area Law Enforcement Foundation is hoping to better protect local public safety officers  a goal that took shape in the aftermath of a July 2016 ambush in which a lone gunman attacked Baton Rouge law enforcement officers, killing three and wounding three.

"I made a promise that I was going to do everything in my power that I could to not have to allow another wife, or even a husband or any family member to have to go through what Ive been through: to lose my husband in the line of the duty," said Dechia Gerald, the widow of Baton Rouge police officer Matthew Gerald, who was killed in the ambush July 17, 2016. "On that particular day, he had a vest, but his vest was not able to handle rifle rounds.

Gerald was killed in that attack along with fellow city police officer Montrell Jackson and East Baton Rouge Parish sheriff's deputy Brad Garafola. Three were wounded: Baton Rouge Police Department Officer Chad Montgomery and sheriff's Deputies Bruce Simmons and Nick Tullier. Tullier remains in critical care after he was shot multiple times, including in the head. Simmons and Montgomery have returned to work. The gunman who came in from out of town, Gavin Long, of Kansas City, Missouri, was killed by a Baton Rouge police sniper.

Group on mission to outfit Baton Rouge area officers with higher quality bullet-proof vests The Capital Area Law Enforcement Foundation on Monday will take the first step toward outfitting all local officers with higher quality bullet

"Eight-hundred-and-one days it's been since that  date, and we keep that in the back of our mind every time we try to help somebody," said Pat Englade, former Baton Rouge police chief and chairman of the Capital Area Law Enforcement Foundation.

"We want to make sure that never happens again. ... The movement is to make sure that everyone who serves us is able to go home every night."

The foundation has raised $1 million, Englade said, and will continue to raise money so it can outfit all local officers and first-responders, including firefighters and Emergency Medical Services personnel, with the vests.

The Sheriff's Office used $25,000 of federal grant funds, coupled with $125,000 from law enforcement foundation to purchase 180 of the vests for deputies who patrol the streets. In the coming months, the foundation will begin to outfit Baton Rouge uniform patrol officers with the vests in waves, BRPD Deputy Chief Jonny Dunnam said. Each vest costs about $1,500.

The new vests are a product of Angel Armor, a Colorado-based technology company, which Englade said has designed a vest that is the most protective while being much lighter and more comfortable for officers. While most local law enforcement officers have bullet-proof vests, including ones that protect from rifle rounds, Englade said they were bulky, impractical and often not used.

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Becky Anderson, wife of Deputy Shawn Anderson, who was killed in the line of duty in March 2017, talked Wednesday about how her husband was not wearing any bullet-proof vest when he was shot while attempting to apprehend a rape suspect.

+10 Details revealed in death of deputy Shawn Anderson; shooting of suspect 'wholly' justified, DA says East Baton Rouge's top prosecutor released details Friday about a March 2017 incident in which a sheriff's deputy and a suspect were both kill

"Had a vest helped? We don't know," Becky Anderson said. "We can't go back and do the what-ifs. But what I do know is that every man and woman, police, fire or first-responder, deserves to have a vest for their protection so they can go out and do their very best. ... They deserve the best equipment."

Since the effort began, both East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff Sid Gautreaux and Baton Rouge Police Chief Murphy Paul have signed a mandatory-wear policy for on-duty officers. Englade said the foundation will provide vests only to agencies that have mandatory-wear policies in place.

"Our range personnel tested this vest," Gautreaux said. "They shot it with multiple handgun rounds, with multiple different rifle rounds, and none of it failed. The vest did not fail."

And that was the goal for Angel Armor, to find the most innovative solution to best protect officers, said Josh Richardson, a company co-founder.

"We work all across the United States, and I have never, nor has the Angel Armor team, ever seen the the support of so many businesses and communities come around their first-responders like we have seen in Baton Rouge," Richardson said.

Can't see video below? Click here.The president of the Louisiana Federation of Teachers is praising a federal court ruling that says Louisiana charter schools have to recognize and bargain with teacher unions.

The decision, issued last Friday by the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, upheld one by the National Labor Relations Board in a dispute involving International High School of New Orleans.

"Educators in charter schools do not have elected boards they can appeal to when policies should be adjusted," LFT President Larry Carter said in a statement.

"And the voting public has no say in their operation," Carter added.

"This ruling at least gives experts, the teachers and school employees in the classroom, a voice when it comes to the best practices for creating an excellent learning environment," he said.

Charter schools are public schools that are supposed to offer innovative teaching methods, without the red tape typical in traditional public schools.

Again, state aid for public schools will go unchanged for 2018-19 school year Basic state aid for public schools will be frozen for the 10th time in 11 years under legislation that won final approval Thursday in the Loui

They can be authorized by local school boards and the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.

About 80,000 students attend 145 charter schools statewide, with most located in the New Orleans area.

LFT officials said that, in 2016, more than 65 percent of teachers at International asked that United Teachers of New Orleans serve as their bargaining agent during contract negotiations.

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The holder of the charter, Voices for International Business and Education, rejected the request and said collective bargaining requires the approval of the employer.

Louisiana Supreme Court sides with charter schools in challenge of state funding system The Louisiana Supreme Court sided with charter school backers Tuesday in a lawsuit that had threatened state aid for about 18,000 students.

"This is a victory for teachers, students and parents in New Orleans," Jim Randels, president of UTNO, said in a statement.

"It means that more people will be working together to improve our schools as partners in education," Randels said.

The key issue in the case was whether Voices was a political subdivision of the state, and thus exempt from the rules of the National Labor Relations Board.

The court said it is not.

"Because Louisiana chose to insulate its charters from the political process Voices, like most other privately-controlled employers, is subject to the National Labor Relations Act," according to the 12-page ruling.

Officials of the Louisiana Association of Public Charter Schools could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Ben Franklin High School, Morris Jeff Community School and the Mary D. Coghill Carter School already have colllective bargaining agreements with the UTNO, according to the union.La. Attorney General Jeff Landry speaks, Tuesday, March 27, 2018 to report his office's findings, that there are no state criminal charges to be pursued against Baton Rouge Police Dept. officers Blane Salamoni and Howie Lake II, who were involved in the fatal shooting of Alton Sterling, a 37-year-old black man, in July 2016 outside a convenience store. The U.S. Department of Justice declined to bring federal civil rights charges against the two white police officers last May. Attorneys for family members still plan on pursuing civil charges, though.Election opponents of Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin are crying foul over an official letter he wrote reassuring elderly participants in a program that allows absentee voting by mail.

Ardoins staff dismisses the criticism saying the letter is just part of the job of educating voters.

Not really, his Democratic and fellow Republican opponents countered in a nearly identical voice. An official letter, they say, mailed at taxpayer expense 47 days before an election in which Ardoin is a candidate, smacks more of cynicism than public service.

The recipients are over the age of 65 or disabled, have a proven record of actually casting ballots, and choose to vote absentee mail in all elections. Only the secretary of state, as Louisianas chief elections officer, has access to the list.

Like Ardoin, the candidates in the Nov. 6 election are largely unknown outside the political world and they are competing in an election that has attracted little interest and little money to fund a credible statewide campaign.

Only Ardoin has access to that list. By sending the letter under his name, he knows that he was taking advantage of his position for the benefit of his campaign, said A.G. Crowe, a former Republican state senator from Pearl River who is running as a Republican.

Its really unfair, said Turkey Creek Mayor Heather Cloud, who also is running as a Republican. The sentiments Ardoin expressed in the letter are laudable, but the timing and the fact that its the first time any secretary of state felt the need to send such correspondence doesnt appear to be a true reflection of his motives, Cloud said.

As the offices chief deputy, Ardoin became interim secretary of state in May when Tom Schedler resigned after being accused of sexually harassing an employee.

Ardoin mailed 47,039 letters  at a cost to taxpayers of $23,964.63. My office and your parish registrar of voters will never disclose that you are enrolled in the program, and state law prohibits voter harassment, coercion or intimidation by candidates or third parties, Ardoin wrote in the letter dated Sept. 20.

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Ardoins press secretary, Tyler Brey, said the letter was part of an outreach campaign that includes public service announcements and social media to help educate voters of their rights. While the office received less than a dozen complaints about the mailer, more than a dozen have communicated their appreciation, he said.

Ardoins campaign staff said the critics only want to create name identification for their candidacies  going so far as to complain about informing senior citizens of their rights, just so they can win a political race, said Lionel Rainey III, the campaigns spokesman.

Apparently, Secretary Ardoin's opponents don't think he should be doing his job, or they don't understand what the job is. I'm not sure which is worse, Rainey said.

Candidate Rick Edmonds, a Republican state representative from Baton Rouge, said: Sending an unprecedented campaign-oriented letter on the taxpayers' dime to a confidential list is blatantly wrong.

Though Edmonds and state Rep. Julie Stokes, the Kenner Republican who has raised the most money in the field, agree on little, they spoke similarly about the letter. "This is the very reason Im running. People cant stand when politicians do things like this, and I want to change it, Stokes said.

While angry, the opponents say they realize Ardoin broke no ethics rules  largely because those laws have not been adopted. A legislative effort  House Bill 53  that would have at least raised a legal question about a candidate mailing such correspondence on a state agency letterhead was defeated in the Louisiana House during the regular session earlier this year. Both Edmonds and Stokes voted in favor of the legislation.

Its arguably legal to do that, said Renee Fontenot Free, a Democratic candidate from Baton Rouge who was chief assistant to earlier secretaries of state before joining the Attorney Generals office. But unarguably its in very bad taste. Its shameful.Why are U.S. citizens, many of them Christians, among the most virulent supporters of the border wall, deporting people to their deaths, and iOchsner Health System President and CEO Warner Thomas speaks to the Louisiana State University Board of Supervisors about the management transfer of the safety-net hospitals in Shreveport and Monroe, on Friday, Sept. 7, 2018. Ochsner will jointly manage the hospitals with LSU, starting Oct. 1.A proposed sweeping rewrite of New Orleans controversial rules for short-term rentals got its first public airing Tuesday, the first of what are likely to be several debates about a revamp already proving as contentious as the law it could replace.

The City Planning Commission ultimately held off until next week on making any recommendations about the proposal its staff recently unveiled, citing a need for more time to review the proposed rules and various opinions about them.

The commission has until Oct. 5 to present its suggestions to the City Council.

"After reading this very thorough report, I thought I had formed an opinion on how I felt on each particular change or amendment," Commissioner Kelly Brown said.

But after hearing from dozens of residents who showed up Tuesday to praise or decry various parts of the proposal, I just have a lot of questions," she said.

New Orleans residents, housing advocates mull new proposals for short-term rentals Short-term rentals would be limited to residential properties with an owner or permanent resident on site, and multi-unit buildings in busines

In a nutshell, the proposed new rules would largely limit short-term rentals to homes with a permanent occupant or to commercial properties that rent less than a quarter of their rooms to tourists.

The new rules also would lift the ban on short-term rentals in most of the French Quarter and would require sites like Airbnb and HomeAway to share more data with the city about their listed properties. The city also would be authorized to collect more in per-night fees from the rentals to help pay for more affordable housing for long-term residents.

The commissions eventual recommendations will be sent to the City Council, which will have the final say on whether all or some of them become law.

The move to require homeowners to live in their rental properties responds to widespread complaints that short-term rentals of homes where no one lives any longer are destroying the fabric of some city neighborhoods and that a local resident should be on hand and accountable for the behavior of tourists.

The proposed 25 percent cap on rentals at commercial properties, meanwhile, is a response to complaints about owners who have converted entire complexes into rentals for tourists, also limiting available housing for local residents.

A separate proposed ban on commercial rental licenses in mostly residential neighborhoods comes after critics have complained about property owners turning old corner stores or other small businesses in certain neighborhoods into rentals.

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If the City Council decides to keep some version of the citys most popular rental license, which allows owners to rent out entire residential properties, the planners suggest the council cut the current 90-day limit to only two weeks a year. But even that would be hard to enforce, they said.

The removal of the French Quarter ban is a bid to put that neighborhood in line with others in the city, while the suggested hike in per-night fees  from $1 a night to $8 a night for certain kinds of rentals  is a bid to give the city more funding for affordable housing.

Airbnb and other platforms also would be required to provide the city with full information on all the listings on their site and to collect and remit taxes to the city. Airbnb already does the latter, but other platforms do not.

But many residents who spoke Tuesday found fault with one or all of those proposals.

The Greater New Orleans Housing Alliance, a key housing advocacy group, said that every commercial short-term rental license that is granted should provide funding for an affordable housing unit and that commercial license restrictions should apply in every neighborhood.

HousingNOLA says city falls short in push for more affordable housing The group behind a 10-year plan for more affordable housing in New Orleans is giving itself a D for 2018, saying the city has not kept pace wi

That organization and Breonne DeDecker, of the Jane Place Neighborhood Sustainability Initiative, also said Airbnb and other rental companies should be made to delete illegal listings from their platforms.

This is the entire ballgame, DeDecker said. If you dont force platforms to remove them, they will still be up, no matter what rules the council may pass.

Meanwhile, Meg Lousteau, of the Vieux Carre Property Owners, Residents and Associates, urged the council not to lift the ban on rentals in the French Quarter, while Rose Ali said that ban makes it hard for the Quarters property owners to afford and maintain their historic houses.

The lengthy hearing also drew comments from property owners who dont live in the buildings they rent out and who said any requirement that they do so would punish them for investing in neighborhoods that had long been underserved.

All of the properties I own were blighted properties that I put my hard-earned money in to renovate, said Jimmy Taylor, who said he owns at least one short-term rental. To have you guys now look at pulling the rug from under us is not fair in any sense of the word.NEW CASA VOLUNTEERS: Clemencia Brewer and Dawn Amato, both of Slidell, have been sworn in as Court Appointment Special Advocates. A program administered by Youth Service Bureau, CASA volunteers work on children's cases serving as the child's advocate in all court proceedings. For more information, contact the bureau at (985) 649-4092.

HOMELESS VETS DONATION DRIVE: Southeast Louisiana Veterans Health Care System is collecting donations to help support homeless veterans from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. Mondays and Wednesdays through Oct. 17. Volunteers are collecting nonperishable food, toiletries, blankets, new undergarments and gently used clothing, shoes and backpacks. The items will be given out at Stand Down for Homeless Veterans Oct. 27. To volunteer, contact cynthia.white19@va.gov or call (504) 507-2033.

YOUNG ARTISTS WANTED: The Wild Things Youth Art Contest and Exhibition seeks artists ages 5-18 for the annual competition that spotlights southeast Louisiana's native wildlife and habitats in National Wildlife Refuges. The contest is sponsored by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Deadline to receive art is Wednesday, Sept. 26. The exhibit will be Saturday, Oct. 13. For information, call (985) 882-2021. Rules, entry forms and suggested subjects can be found at www.fws.gov/refuge/Big_Branch_Marsh/COSA/WT_Youth_Art.html.

COUNCIL ON AGING PUBLIC HEARING: The four-year plan of the Council on Aging St. Tammany Parish will be the subject of a public hearing at 10 a.m. Wednesday, Sept. 26, at the council chambers, 21490 Koop Drive, Mandeville. The hearing is for public review and comment on the plan that will be submitted to the Governor's Office of Elderly Affairs. For information, call (985) 892-0377 or see coastseniors.org.

GOP LUNCHEON: St. Tammany Parish Sheriff Randy Smith will speak at the Slidell Republic Women's Club luncheon at 11:30 a.m. Thursday, Sept. 27, at Pinewood Country Club, 405 Country Club Blvd. Cost is $23, and reservations are required. Contact Betty Hooper at bettysuew@bellsouth.net. For more information, see www.lfrw.com/SlidellSRWC.

FREE SHRED DAY: Metairie Bank Northshore is hosting a chance to shred outdated financial documents at no cost. The Covington Shred Day is from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday, Sept. 28, at 1000 S. Tyler St. The bank will also collect donations for the Youth Service Bureau. For information, call (985) 898-0950.

100,000 POETS FOR CHANGE: Poets and performers will have their say during a fundraiser for the Womens Center for Healing and Transformation from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. Sept. 29 at the women's center, 71667 Leveson St., Abita Springs. Sliding-scale donation of $5 to $25 is requested. For information, call (985) 892-8111. The group 100,000 Poets for Change will also present two KinderPoem events earlier that day:

Poets Dennis Formento and Maggie Sorrels and artist Jane Hill will read poems by children's authors from noon to 2 p.m. Sept. 29 at Counter Culture Frozen Yogurt, 154 E. Hall Drive, Slidell.

Organizer LeAnn Pinniger Magee and poet Eliana Gradishar will present poems "for kids, by kids and from kids" from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. Sept. 29 on the lawn of the Womens Center for Healing and Transformation, 71667 Leveson St., Abita Springs. Kids of all ages are welcome in company of an adult. To read or for information, call Magee at (985) 205-2261.

ADULT EDUCATION ORIENTATION: Northshore Technical Community College will hold registration and placement testing for adults 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday, Sept. 28, and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday, Oct. 1. Northshores WorkReady U/Adult Education Department has been providing literacy services and preparation for the HiSET exam for students to earn their high school equivalency diploma while readying them for a successful future in college or a career pathway at six locations. For information, call (800) 732-6640, ext. 128 or email adultedinfo@northshorecollege.edu.

VOTE RALLYS: The Progressive Northshore Democrats and the St. Tammany Indivisible Chapter will co-sponsor a "Get-Out-The-Vote" rally at 4 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 29, at Abita Town Hall, 22161 Level St. Candidates for congressional, state and local offices will speak, plus discussion of a proposed state constitutional amendment.

PANCAKE BREAKFAST: The Slidell Noon Lions Club will hold its monthly pancake breakfast at 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 29, at the Lion's Den, 356 Cleveland Ave., Slidell. Flapjacks, sausage and coffee or milk is $6, with proceeds to support the Lions' vision programs. Up next will be the pancake decorating contest for children Oct. 27.

NIGHT OF HOPE: One Way Love Ministries for homeless teens will hold a fundraiser at 6 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 29, at Slidell Auditorium, 2056 Second St. The evening includes dinner, a silent auction and speaker the Rev. Bill Miller, rector of Christ Episcopal Church of Covington. Tickets are $20. To purchase tickets, see www.onewaylove.org/?risen_event=5th-annual-night-of-hope.

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FOOD FOR LIBRARY FINES: Through September, the St. Tammany Parish Library is offering a Food for Fines program. Each nonperishable food item donated will reduce library fines by $1. Food donations will be distributed to the library's partnering food banks: the First Baptist Church of Slidell Food Bank, the Northshore Food Bank in Covington and the Samaritan Center Food Bank in Mandeville.

TOTALLY TOASTMASTERS: The group meets on the first and third Fridays of each month at 7:15 a.m. at Avanti Senior Living, 2234 Watercross Parkway, Covington. Toastmasters provides experience to develop communication and leadership skills. Contact Michelle Biggs at (504) 460-3048 or michellejbiggs@gmail.com.

BOARD GAME ADVENTURES: St. Tammany Parish Library plans a host of upcoming events to challenge the brain and meet like-minded people while having fun. Puzzles and games are provided by the library.

Game Night  Pandemic; 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 3, Slidell Branch, 555 Robert Blvd., (985) 646-6470.

Get it Together  Puzzling; 10 a.m. to noon Thursday, Oct. 4, Madisonville Branch, 1123 Main St., (985) 845-4819.

Scrabble Night; 6 p.m. to 7:45 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 10, Lacombe Branch, 28027 U.S. 190.

Dabble in Scrabble; 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, Oct. 16, Mandeville Branch, 844 Girod St., (985) 626-4293.

Get It Together  Puzzle Time; 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 24, Slidell Branch.

Game Afternoon; 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 27, Slidell Branch.

THE GALA PREMIERES: St. Tammany Hospital Foundation will summon the circus for "THE Gala," a benefit for St. Tammany Cancer Center on Thursday, Oct. 4, at the Southern Hotel in Covington. "Step Into the Ring" will be the theme for the Parisian-based circus gala, with music, auctions, games and more. Tickets start at $150. For information, visit sthfoundation.org/thegala or call (985)-898-4141.

DEW DROP JAZZ HALL CONCERTS: The fall concert series at the Dew Drop Jazz Hall, 430 Lamarque St., Mandeville. continues Oct. 6 with the Jason Marsalis Vibes Quartet at 6:30 p.m. The concerts feature home-cooked dinners available for purchase from the First Free Mission Baptist Church, located next door. Soft drinks, water, beer and wine are available for purchase. Admission for each concert is $10 per adult. Students and children are free. The concert series will continue with:

BOOK SALE: Friends of the Slidell Library will hold a used book sale from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 6, with a preview from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. for members Friday, Oct. 5 at the library, 555 Robert Blvd. Memberships will be available at the door, $5 each or $8 per family. The sale includes a variety of paperback, hardcover, fiction, nonfiction and books in large print. For information, contact fsl70458@yahoo.com.

"5KIWANIS FOR KIDS": Northshore Kiwanis will hold its annual 5K race and 1-mile run/walk to benefit Project Graduation at 7 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 6, at Varsity Sports, 2021 Claiborne St., Mandeville. Early registration is $20 for adults, $10 for students. For information, see www.facebook.com/events/295637294545315/?notif_t=event_calendar_create & notif_id=1534279828111800

FLEUR DE FALL: The annual Mary, Queen of Peace Catholic Church fundraiser will be held at 6:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 6, at Beau Chene Country Club. The event, to raise money for the parish and school, features food, auctions, music and raffles. Tickets are $55 and up. For more information, see maryqueenofpeace.org or call (985) 626-6977.

VETS BENEFIT: Dress Up For Our Vets Gala is a fundraiser to help Camp NORA (No One Rides Alone). The event features music dancing, raffle, auctions and more 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 7, at Benedict's Plantation, 1144 N. Causeway Blvd., Mandeville. Tickets are $125. for information, go to rideofthebrotherhood.org.

LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS CANDIDATE EVENTS: The League and the Abita Springs Women's Society will hold a candidate event for November elections. The meet and greet will be Thursday, Oct. 11 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. All events are at the Abita Springs Town Hall, 22161 Level St. For information, visit lwvofst.org.

MUSTANG CLUB CAR SHOW: The Northshore Mustang Club will hold its annual "Open Car Show" from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 13, at Banner Ford, 1943 N. Causeway Blvd., Mandeville. Proceeds will benefit pancreatic cancer research. Registration is open through Monday, Oct. 1, and is $25 per car. Judging for a variety of categories will be held at noon. For more information, see northshoremustangclub.com/2018show or call (985) 974-8261. Rain date will be Oct. 20.A New Orleans man pleaded guilty to sexually abusing three young girls moments after a judge swore in his jury for trial on Tuesday.

Orleans Parish Criminal District Court Judge Karen Herman sentenced Gerald Page to 20 years in prison under the terms of his agreement with prosecutors.

Page pleaded guilty to second-degree rape, three counts of indecent behavior with a juvenile and three counts of sexual battery. The 65-year-old man will be eligible for parole after serving 15 years, Herman said.

Page would have faced life imprisonment if convicted as charged of first-degree rape.

The judge said she was glad that Page admitted his guilt in the end. She also addressed the three victims who were assaulted as children.

Im very glad all of you will be able to feel some measure of closure without having to to talk about very painful subjects in front of complete strangers in court, Herman said.

Investigators said the first victim to come forward was 11 years old in October 2014, when she told her father that Page had raped and molested her between January 2012 and that month. The victim had been left in Pages care, according to the District Attorneys Office.

The father went to police, who opened an investigation. Special Victims Section Detective Nigel Badoo soon established that Page had at least two other victims. The other victims said they were molested between January 1996 and December 1997, when they were in their early teens.

Those girls had likewise been left in the care of Page by trusting family members, prosecutors said.

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In statements to the court, victims said that Pages actions left them emotionally scarred.

One of the victims in the 1990s assaults said that she did not want to see Page rotting in jail, but she was glad that justice had been served.

I only did what I knew was right when I decided to step up, she said. I just want you to seek the help that you deserve. You need help.

The most recent victim said Pages actions reduced her from an honor-roll student to Ds and Fs, and sent her into depression.

All these years, this has been eating me alive. I am finally done. Even though I never received an apology from you, I forgive you and all your sick actions, she said.

Page did not offer an apology before deputies led him away to jail. He was represented by staff attorneys Zach Orjuela and Hannah Lommers-Johnson of the Orleans Public Defenders.

Assistant District Attorneys Angad Ghai and Hilary Khoury prosecuted the case.

In a statement, District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro said he was pleased with the outcome.

"To secure what likely amounts to a life sentence without having to put these victims through the rigors of a trial is a result we and they certainly appreciate," he said.Rupert Murdoch is officially walking away from Sky, the satellite broadcaster he helped build over three decades, marking the end of an era for both the billionaire and UK media.

21st Century Fox Inc., which Murdoch controls, agreed to sell its 39 per cent stake in Sky to Comcast after an intense bidding war that lasted months. Comcast was already poised to acquire the other 61 per cent of the company, but it wasn't clear until Wednesday that Murdoch would capitulate and sell the remainder as well.

Wouldn't have the foggiest, Rupert Murdoch makes quite an entrance to Australia. Credit:Bloomberg

The move lets Fox focus on another megadeal underway: The majority of the company will be sold to Walt Disney in a $US71 billion ($98 billion) transaction that's slated to close next year. Disney supported the decision to sell Fox's Sky stake, which is worth more than $US15 billion. The move will help Disney reduce the amount of debt it has to take on in acquiring Fox.

Fox will get 17.28 pounds a share for Sky, the amount of Comcast's winning bid submitted at an auction on September 22.Uber will pay $US148 million ($204 million) for failing to disclose a massive data breach in 2016, marking a costly resolution to one of the biggest embarrassments and legal tangles the ride-hailing company has suffered.

The settlement follows a 10-month investigation into a data breach that exposed personal data from 57 million Uber accounts, including 600,000 driver's licence numbers. Credit:AP

The settlement with 50 US states and Washington, D.C. brings closure to one of several high-stakes legal battles Uber is seeking to resolve before an initial public offering next year, while also delivering a national rebuke against Uber's history of flouting laws and basic business ethics.

The amount is the largest among attorneys general settlements in privacy cases. By comparison, the multi-state settlement with Target Corp in 2017, over a breach in which 41 million people had their data stolen, was $US18.5 million.

The settlement follows a 10-month investigation into a data breach that exposed personal data from 57 million Uber accounts, including 600,000 driver's licence numbers. Uber's new chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi disclosed the breach in November, more than a year after the company was hacked under the previous CEO. Khosrowshahi has said the incident should have been disclosed to regulators at the time it was discovered in 2016.There was no shortage of armchair quarterbacking about Nike's decision to feature Colin Kaepernick in a recent ad campaign and thus insert itself into a simmering culture war. Social media was afire with a debate over whether the sports-apparel giant made a mistake by highlighting the former National Football League player who protested police brutality against African Americans by kneeling during the national anthem. But Nike's first-quarter earnings report on Tuesday served as a reminder of why those questions were always misguided. Nike saw things continue to perk up in its home market, with sales in its North America division rising 6 per cent over a year earlier.

Of course, the quarter ended before the Kaepernick ad debuted, so the campaign's impact isn't reflected in these figures. But the numbers show this segment of the business built on the momentum it generated in the previous quarter, when it returned to growth after three quarters of declines. The progress in North America suggests that Nike is putting key challenges behind it. The brand has been working to speed up its design process and supply chain to deliver more covetable products and beat back an insurgent Adidas AG. And it has been sweetening its NikePlus membership program to encourage more shoppers to buy clothes and sneakers from its own stores and websites. Thus, if there is any sustained negative impact from the Kaepernick ad - and I suspect there won't be - Nike showed Tuesday that its home market is well-positioned to withstand it. Loading Also, Nike once again delivered booming sales growth in international markets. Greater China, for example, recorded a sales increase in the latest quarter of 20 per cent over a year earlier, adjusting for currency fluctuations; its Europe, Middle East and Africa division saw growth on this measure of 9 per cent. It was always illogical to think the Kaepernick dust-up would resonate much with consumers outside the US, if it reached them at all. And this matters immensely, since overseas markets deliver more than half of Nike's annual brand revenue.Six Australian universities have dropped down a prestigious league table of the worlds top 200 institutions but the University of Melbourne has held onto its prized ranking.

The latest Times Higher Education world university rankings were accompanied with a warning that funding cuts and intense competition are damaging the reputation of Australian institutions.

The University of Melbourne has been ranked the top Australian institution. Credit:Simon Schluter

The University of Melbourne continued its reign as the top-ranked Australian institution, retaining an overall rank of 32.

It was among nine Australian institutions that made the coveted list of the world's top 200 universities and was followed by the Australian National University, which fell one place to 49.Jimi Bani's family story is universal  about connection and identity.

When Thursday Island-born actor Jimi Bani sat down with his father Dimple Bani to write their play My Name is Jimi, they mapped out a four-generation story in which their family members would play themselves.

Dimple would appear on stage alongside Jimis mum Agnes. Audiences would learn of the pending initiation of Jimi, their eldest son, as ninth chief of the Wagadagam tribe, keeper of lore on the western island of Mabuiag in the Torres Strait, presently home to just over 200 people.

The play stars four generations of Banis.

But Dimple, initiated as the eighth chief on Mabuiag in 2005, died before being able to see the play at its 2017 premiere in Cairns.I have been a long-time supporter of The Block. In this age of "knock them down and erect a new monstrosity", I love that The Block gives new life to old buildings. In this season, at The Gatwick, they highlighted the plight of those dealing with mental issues  well done to contestants Kerrie and Spence in what must be an exceedingly stressful environment. What a shame The Block hasnt dealt with the issues of respect for one another. Hayden and Sara: are you really role models for the thousands of young people who watch the show? Maybe you could take some lessons from the supposed bogans, Jess and Norm, the girls Bianca and Carla. They are in the same stressful environment but they treat others with respect.

Marie Burgin, Mentone

ABC PUSHES OFF-SWITCH

It's sad but not unexpected to read the story "ABC Radio breakfast crashes to a 40-year low" (GG, 20/9). It seems that Michael Mason, ABC's director of radio  seeing a "slow but steady decline of Aunty's capital city radio stations over the past few years"  decided to push ABC Melbourne off a cliff. His attempts to talk up Red Symon's replacements, Jacinta Parsons and Sami Shah, to imaginary new "heartland audiences" are laughable. I and many other of Red's former listeners may have been in slow decline as an audience (and perhaps individually as well), but at least we were listening. I switched off when Red left and have no intention of switching back on.

Lawrie Bradly, Surrey Hills

TURNED AWAY FROM BREAKFAST

Michael Mason, you should have sat on your hands rather than turn us away from the ABC Melbourne breakfast program we enjoyed for more than 15 years.

Roger Christiansz, Wheelers HillIt also occasionally feels like something of an apology from Ferguson, to his DAAS colleagues Richard Fidler and Paul McDermott, as much as to his fan base.

This two-part documentary feels in parts like a eulogy for someone who hasnt yet died, but really its an explanation of what happened to the trio, who effectively disappeared at the height of their fame.

When comedian Tim Ferguson, best known as part of the musical comedy trio The Doug Anthony All Stars, was diagnosed with Multiple sclerosis, the doctor told him, Theres good news and theres bad news. Ferguson asked for the good news and the doctor said, You dont die from it. And the bad news? You dont die from it.

Opening with Ferguson starkly stating there is no cure for MS, the film initially moves between his pieces to camera about how he dealt with  or rather, didnt deal with  his early symptoms of the disease, and a biographical look at DAAS rise to fame, from busking on Canberra streets to global success with their anarchic live shows and the sci-fi comedy series DAAS Kapital in the early 1990s, which screened in 18 countries.

The story of their rise to fame, told from the points of view of each of the members, and using archival footage, is intercut with Ferguson soberly discussing his MS, explaining how he spent years ignoring symptoms, keeping any worries he had from his bandmates.

We also hear from other comedians: Wendy Harmer and Jeanne Kitson, with whom they starred on The Big Gig; comedians Steven K Amos and Mark Trevorrow; and British comedian Al Murray, who cajoled them into reforming and funded their 2014 tour to Edinburgh, with long-time collaborator Paul Flacco Livingstone on guitar (Richard Fidler having now become an ABC announcer and too famous for travelling around in a Tarago van).

When we do see the original trio all together, its hard not to be moved when they discuss Ferguson disbanding the group at the height of their fame without explanation, especially when he breaks down. (And yes, they touch on the controversy that arose earlier this year when a journalist claimed shed been bullied by Ferguson via fax; the outcry isnt given much airtime  arguably rightly  but they all express regret at their puerile behaviour over the years, which had been very much part of their schtick.)

The most compelling part is intimate insight into what seems an extraordinary friendship between Ferguson and McDermott, who becomes emotional several times. When we see the reformed DAAS on stage in Edinburgh, Ferguson using a wheelchair and with reduced mobility in his arms, the gravity of his condition is apparent. They open with a song in which McDermott gleefully sings of the trio, A pensioner, a cripple and a superstar, but off stage we see him struggling to get Fergusons chair down laneways and across cobblestones. And we watch Ferguson labouring to get out of bed and pull on pants, and being showered and dressed by a nurse in his hotel bathroom. Touring internationally isnt just for the young artist, its for the able-bodied, but Ferguson maintains an unconscious optimism. Theres no point railing against fate, he says. Joy can be found, fun can be found, rules can be broken and youthful disregard for convention can still exist."He came under my board and he was well bigger than my twelve-foot-six paddleboard, which scared the crap out of me," he said. "I only made it maybe three quarters of the way out to the whale carcass and then turned around and paddled back in." The whale's body became lodged on rocks near the beach on September 17. It has since broken free and washed onto the sand. A warning sign is seen on Monday in front of a large whale carcass that washed up on Wattamolla Beach, in the Royal National Park, south of Sydney. Credit:AAP The presence of the carcass has resulted in increased shark activity in the area and the NSW National Park and Wildlife Service has warned visitors to stay out of the water.

Asked why he chose to defy the warning, Mr Reid said: "I've always been on the water. I'm not really that scared of sharks. "I was really keen to see it up close, [then] all the things started swimming up underneath me and it scared the absolute crap out of me, to be honest, so I got out of there as quick as I could," he said. Welfare group ORRCA has said the whale was male but its species was yet to be confirmed. Ben Reid used his GoPro camera to capture sharks in a feeding frenzy around a whales body off Wattamolla Beach in the Royal National Park. Credit:Ben Reid A member of the group estimated the whale was 20 metres long, although no formal measurements have been taken.

Mr Reid described the sheer size of the animal and its presence as "pretty amazing". "It's the first time I've ever seen anything like that," he said. "I've always loved David Attenborough, growing up, and it was a bit of a David Attenborough experience firsthand. Ben Reid's photos show sharks feeding off the dead whale. Credit:Ben Reid "On the paddleboard, it was a bit hairy because you can't really see what was going on; I had my mate on the rock yelling at me, going, 'Get out, get out, it [a shark] is following ya.'

"Then I saw the shadow going under my board and I thought, 'Oh Jesus, maybe he's right' and paddled back in." From the safety of the rock ledge, Mr Reid filmed the experience as he stood in the water. "I was just leaning out as far as I could and he [the shark] could see me on the rock," he said. Loading "I think the big guy was defending his territory because every time I leant out over the rock and he'd have a bite, he'd come straight back in towards me just to say 'get out of the water' kind of thing and then take back off again - which was pretty bloody cool."

Mr Reid told how the biggest of the sharks, which he estimated was four metres, grabbed hold of the carcass and ripped chunks off it. "They must be bloody hard, whale skins, because the chunks that they were taking out weren't that big," he said. "It didn't look like much was coming off, it was just like a bit of skin and stuff coming off there and then there'd be bits of loose skin floating around in the water. "You can sort of see that in the footage, little bits of flesh floating past." The emergence of Mr Reid's videos came after two Sydney brothers filmed themselves swimming near the carcass at the weekend.A former staff member at one of Canberra's most exclusive schools will face court proceedings this week, after revelations he or she acted inappropriately towards students in the 1980s.

Canberra Grammar School principal Justin Garrick sent an email to parents on Wednesday afternoon informing them that a former staff member was the subject of legal proceedings based on past behaviour.

The Canberra Grammar School senior campus at Red Hill. Credit:Graham Tidy

[F]or some time now, the school has been working actively and sensitively with a group of former students, staff and the police to identify a former member of staff who is alleged to have acted inappropriately towards students in the senior school in the early 1980s, he said.

Although the email didnt give details about the offence or the staff member, Dr Garrick said the historical matter does not involve any current students or staff.Can I enter Chris Smith's "Was Dave Sharma the youngest ever Australian ambassador competition" by stating that, compared with Sharma who was 37, I was 35 when in April 1982 I was appointed as Australian high commissioner to Tanzania and also ambassador and high commissioner to five neighbouring countries. My other significant claim to fame is that on Sunday, at the age of 72, I completed my maiden Canberra Times 5km Fun Run in 38:49. John R Baker, Griffith It's about relationships I am surprised Toni Hassan has been told aged care in Canberra is "pretty good" ("Aged care fine, but could be improved", September 24, p33 ). She later quotes Associate Professor Maree Bernoth's observation that the most important aspect of aged care is the relationship between the older person and the worker, and I would like to point out that such a relationship requires time and continuity, which most age care workers in this city's institutions do not have.

I recently had to choose a nursing home for a beloved relative. On the advice of medical staff, I chose a place in a nearby rural town. I did this because, despite a lack of chandeliers, I could see the staff were local and had been working for longer periods and were more dedicated to the residents than in similar homes in Canberra. Send your letters to the editor to letters.editor@canberratimes.com.au. I was also glad to allow my relative to be accommodated in a shared room because I could see that this meant that he would see his carers twice as often, hence increasing his chance of enriching his relationships with them. It seems obvious to me that, if we are to be wrenched from our loved ones and placed among strangers for our last years, we should at least be given the option of forming a fond relationship with a team of workers who can, over time, celebrate who we are and have been. In the best circumstances, these workers can encourage a resident's family and friends to come into the home because it fulfils their need for continuity as well. And yet we hear that 50 per cent of Canberra's nursing home residents have no visitors at all. I would suggest the atmosphere of alienation and lack of hospitality that can be experienced in Canberra's aged care homes needs urgent attention. Jill Sutton, Watson

Care for the aged If someone is hit in the street, we confidently expect the police to follow up and lay charges, particularly if there is good photographic evidence and the assailants can be traced. This also applies in domestic violence. Why is it different if the event takes place in an aged care setting, such as we saw on the recent Four Corners episode? Is the current situation a reflection of the way we treat and regard the older members of our community? I hope that those who come after us will have realised that having the most experienced members of our society staying with us longer is an asset that we should utilise and not treat as a burden, with individuals regarded as less than human. Minister, your response to the current situation will show what you are capable of, which currently does not appear very positive.

Audrey Guy, Ngunnawal The drug menace Bronis Dudek (Letters, September 24) suggests that since we do not charge police for failing to prevent deaths through not having speed traps, RBTs and red light cameras whenever idiot motorists cause death, we should not think about charging those responsible for preventing pill-testing. There is a very great difference between events that are totally unpredictable, and those that are organised and publicised. We should never try to make police or roads authorities responsible for random events that they have no control over, but when every conceivable piece of evidence shows that drug dealers will take advantage of large numbers of festival goers, then there is a responsibility to do what can be done to minimise harm. It is known that pill-testing reduces deaths and hospitalisation  there is a responsibility to act on the facts, not on some unsupported "war" rhetoric. It is a distinct no-brainer that when large numbers of young people gather together for a music festival, drug pushers will take advantage of the situation. Personally, I agree with Bronis that taking drugs, the composition of which cannot be known, is a very high-risk  even stupid  decision, but decades of phenomenally expensive law enforcement has made no impact at all on the likelihood of young people doing exactly that. In fact, the war on drugs has created the very situation where those who would consume drugs cannot know what they contain. Sending people to prison for consuming illicit drugs has only succeeded in pushing them further into criminality. Requiring the police to impose counterproductive laws is a gross mis-direction of resources and a highway to corruption.

Properly controlled, those drugs that are currently illicit could be freed of deadly contaminants, packaged with warnings as we do with tobacco and alcohol, and taxed appropriately to their harm. Please don't take any of this as criticism of the police  they are doing the job that they are required to do. It is the job that is stupid. John Walker, Queanbeyan Let's move on anthem

I thank Peter Burrett (Letters, September 18) for promoting replacement of the Australian national anthem. For many years I have hoped that the final (five-line) chorus of I am Australian would replace Advance Australia Fair. Indeed, I had hoped that the replacement would occur before the Sydney Olympics. First, the words of Advance Australia Fair are embarrassingly ridiculous, as Mark O'Connor pointed out (Letters, September 24). Second, the chorus of I am Australian is a work of genius which while being extremely uplifting succinctly includes two important aspects of an Australian anthem: the heritage of all Australians; and a major component of our culture  our acceptance of diversity  which probably began with the First Fleet when survival depended on a "We're all in this together" attitude. I understand Christopher Jobson's concerns (Letters, September 25). Waltzing Matilda details the suicide of a man mentally depressed by an economic depression. Ned Kelly is not a hero, but perhaps was a victim of a class divide. These events are appropriate in the song to illustrate hardships which helped forge the Australian character, but they are certainly not appropriate in an anthem; however, they are not part of the chorus. I recommend that the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition, in the spirit of the chorus, together ask Bruce Woodley to create an anthem based on the chorus, and together work to get it approved by Parliament and adopted by Australia Day 2019.

Bob Salmond, Melba Sanitising our words Philip Telford (Letters, September 25) claims the word "fair" in Advance Australia Fair has Freudian overtones which suggest it means advancing "fair-skinned" people only. By that logic we should jettison our national saying "fair dinkum" too. And, obviously, the term "fair go" just means we're giving someone a "white go". Could everyone curb their outrage about the need to sanitise wording please? For instance the last line in the theme song for the 1960s cartoon show The Flintstones states "We'll have a gay old time". Should I automatically assume Fred and Barney were more than just bowling partners? As for making I Am Australian into our national anthem, I'll caution everyone that Indigenous people won't automatically sing it with gusto. Abbey Crawford, Macquarie

Open the conversation The Prime Minister's latest foray into the public debate about Australia Day shows much the same imprint as the government's response to the Uluru Statement from the Heart  rule something out and then suggest something different. So Australians are supposed to accept that January 26 is fixed in its current form, and that another date is appropriate for a separate recognition of the history of the first peoples. Apart from appearing to confirm the division in our country, it offers negotiation on a predetermined set of conditions. When will our government open the conversation with Australians (especially the originals) by listening rather than speaking? David Purnell, Florey

Different days divisive So Scott Morrison is planning Australia Day being celebrated on different days: one for the Aboriginal people and another for the rest of Australians. Isn't that apartheid? As heroic Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander men and thousands of other Australian men and women fought for our freedom in WWII together and celebrate together our freedom won, we can all celebrate this great country they fought and died for together on Australia Day. Christine Anu's grandfather was in Merauke with my father, a squadron leader with the RAAF. Penelope Upward, O'Connor Being 'one of the boys'

Alayne Richardson (Letters September 24) loves Morrison's "plain speaking". I interpret it, along with his daily photo-ops, as deliberately trying to make himself appear "one of the boys". This, together with his blatant attempts to buy his way back into election-winning mode rather than developing good policy, are more likely to take us even faster down the road to becoming a "banana republic". I want as prime minister a dignified, thoughtful and innovative leader who will earn the respect of all Australians, not just the ones whom he thinks will re-elect his self-serving, male-dominated party room. Eric Hunter, Cook Supermarkets complicit Albert White (Letters, September 25) hit the nail on the head as usual with his letter titled "Milk move cynical".

Coles is just as complicit in the shafting of farmers as Woolies in supposedly bringing "you" the best price it can. The major supermarket chains will probably give an extra 10c a litre to dairy farmers by charging the public more and maintaining profits while presenting a seemingly benevolent face to camera. If the major chains displayed morally ethical standards and weren't screwing the producers over to begin with then milk production would be better paid and the levy wouldn't be necessary on that score. Rory McElligott, Nicholls Modesty no liability

In lamenting our lack of political talent, Frank Breglec (Letters, September 25) compares Opposition Leader Bill Shorten with Clement Attlee, the UK Labour prime minister immediately following the Second World War, who Winston Churchill said was "A modest man with much to be modest about". Has modesty no place in politics? Churchill's one-liner maybe demands more than superficial analysis, because among scholars, critics and the public, Attlee is consistently rated as one of the greatest British prime ministers. The reviewer in The New Yorker magazine of the 2017 biography Clement Attlee: The Man Who Made Modern Britain wrote of it as "a study in actual radical accomplishment of how real social change can be achieved, providing unimaginable benefits to working people, entirely within an embrace of parliamentary principles as absolute and heroic as any in the annals of democracy". Much to be modest about, indeed.

Ed Highley, Kambah TO THE POINT EVERYBODY'S ANTHEM When I saw Christopher Jobson's assertion that I Am Australian in effect praises a killer thief, Ned Kelly, and also a suicidal thief, the waltzing swagman (Letters, September 25), I thought he was expressing his support for our possible new anthem: after all, the anthem should belong to everyone, shouldn't it. Philip Telford, Tarago, NSW

THE RIGHT BALANCE Maybe "righties" persist in seeing the ABC as a leftist plot because the far-right view of things always lands so far away from a balanced one. Barrie Smillie, Duffy JUST VISITING? There's been a bit of a kerfufflement and rumour lately about Rupert Murdoch coming to Australia, having high-power meetings with senior staff, and working to have Malcolm Turnbull replaced.

As Rupert's a US citizen (and they don't allow dual-nationals, so he can't be an Australian citizen) one wonders what sort of visa he's arrived on. Dallas Stow, O'Connor LIFE IS AT STAKE The National Capital Authority's refusal to have pill testing on Commonwealth land during the Spilt Milk festival is ridiculous, but does that really have to be the end of the story? Why can't the ACT government allow a pill testing station on the nearest and most convenient non-Commonwealth land? It's a second-best, but if anybody's life is at stake surely it's worth the try.

Gordon Soames, Curtin TELL US YOUR PLAN OK Jenny Goldie (Letters, September 26), what is your plan? Border control? No new land releases so we become an increasingly expensive enclave? A fence? Lesley Fisk, Barton WATER IS A WORRY

The Canberra Times reports ("Corin ... Corin ... but not gone (yet)", September 26, p1) that Canberra's water storages are 67 per cent full and that Icon Water people tell us not to worry we have plenty of water and that there will be no summer water restrictions. Are these the same people that several years ago cancelled the arrangement whereby Canberra could access Snowy scheme water? Don't these Icon Water people believe or look at global warming scenarios for Canberra? It's a worry! Rod Holesgrove, O'ConnorThe actress who accused Geoffrey Rush of inappropriate behaviour during a Sydney Theatre Company production made the allegations during an "off the record" conversation at a bar and her claims were not investigated at the time, the Federal Court has heard.

Rush, 67, is suing publisher Nationwide News for defamation over a series of articles in The Daily Telegraph alleging he behaved inappropriately towards a female cast member during a 2015-16 production of King Lear. He has vehemently denied the claims.

Geoffrey Rush and Eryn Jean Norvill, photographed at the Sydney Theatre Company ahead of the King Lear production. Credit:Nic Walker

Eryn Jean Norvill, who played Cordelia in the production, allegedly made a complaint to the Sydney Theatre Company but did not wish for it to be brought to the attention of Rush and did not speak to the Telegraph for its story.

At a preliminary hearing of the case on Wednesday, Rush's barrister, Sue Chrysanthou, told the Federal Court there was no record of a formal complaint and documents produced ahead of the three-week trial, slated to begin on October 22, revealed Norvill made the allegations to two people during an "off the record" conversation at a bar in April 2016.Queenslanders will take centre stage as the core of the cast in Australian musical Priscilla, Queen of the Desert with four Brisbane boys working alongside Ray Meagher.

Young actors Oliver De Los Santos, 9, Mason Kidd, 10, Jordy Campbell, 11 and Flynn Nowlan, 11, are learning from the best while touring the world with the musical as one of the main character's son Benji.

The four boys sharing the role of Benji, the son of one of the main characters, Tick.

Ray Meagher will take the stage in Brisbane. Credit:Fairfax Media

"The story really revolves around Tick owning up to responsibilites of fatherhood... and taking up his responsibility but needing some help and encouragement on the way, which he gathers from the friends he takes on that journey with him," resident director David Spencer said.Catholic school enrolments are projected to stagnate over the next decade as state schools squeeze more than 270,000 extra students into their classrooms.

While Catholic education chiefs say fee rises are to blame, others say confidence in the public school system is increasing and question whether the royal commission into child sex abuse has hurt confidence in the Catholic sector.

The Education Department projections, obtained under freedom-of-information laws by the Australian Education Union, forecast state school enrolments in Victoria will grow at almost 10 times the rate of those in the Catholic sector.

And in NSW, 8412 students are expected to leave the Catholic sector between now and 2027.The council at the centre of a long-running battle over thousands of useless, worthless beach blocks that cannot be developed is billing owners for a "waste infrastructure charge".

The impost has appeared on notices sent out recently, enraging owners who say they have been paying rates for years on land that cannot be built upon, and which are, in many cases, worth almost nothing.

Seng Tan, who now lives in Perth, bought a block on Ninety Mile Beach in 1970.

Seng Tan, who bought a block at The Honeysuckles for about $970 in 1970, said that his waterfront property was now nominally worth $1000  and he had been paying the rates for decades.

Mr Tan has no waste collection on his property and no use for any waste infrastructure, as his land, which was once zoned residential, cannot now be developed because of changes to planning rules.Two Melbourne housemates who held down and beat an Airbnb guest during a sustained assault that killed him have been jailed.

Ryan Charles Smart, 38, and Craig Jonathon Levy, 37, each pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Ramis Jonuzi, who died last October.

Former chef Craig Levy has been jailed for 7 years

Smart was jailed for nine years with a minimum of six years, while Levy was sentenced to 7 years with a minimum of 4 years.

Mr Jonuzi, 36, was renting a room in the pair's Brighton East home on Airbnb but was asked to leave the day he died after not paying a $210 bill.A police officer from Victoria's east has been taken off the job after he was charged with stealing a car, unlawful assault and criminal damage.

The officer from the Eastern Region was charged following an internal police investigation.

The policeman has been suspended without pay after an internal investigation.

"The leading senior constable has been charged with multiple offences following the March incident," a spokesman said.

The man was charged with theft of a motor vehicle, attempted theft of a motor vehicle, two counts of unlawful assault, two counts of criminal damage, interfering with a motor vehicle and tampering with a motor vehicle.Police have confirmed human remains found in the backyard of a Perth home are those of murdered woman Ah Bee 'Pauline' Mack.

Workers preparing to install a swimming pool for the new owners of the Mount Hawthorn property discovered her bones on Wednesday afternoon.

Police attended the address on Fairfield Street in Mt Hawthorn and a spokesperson later confirmed officers were conducting ongoing inquiries into the murder of the missing woman.

Brent Mack was in 2012 convicted of murdering his mother, Ah Bee (Pauline) Mack, in 2008.

Just after 2pm, police said officers had found skeletal remains believed to belong to the murdered woman.Pressure is mounting on the federal government to commit to a national suicide prevention target, after the latest data revealed deaths had risen by 9 per cent in just a year.

Lifeline chairman John Brogden said the increase in suicide deaths was "an outrage", and called for a 25 per cent reduction target over the next five years.

"We need stark action and we need a breakthrough," Mr Brogden told Fairfax Media.

"Clearly, we're not doing enough or doing it right": Lifeline chairman John Brogden has called for a 25 per cent suicide reduction target. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

"It will focus the governments, funders and the community on getting the numbers down and putting funding in all the right places."Hanoi: Vietnam's late President Tran Dai Quang has been mourned at his funeral as a great loss and praised for his contributions to his country.

Long lines of family members, officials including General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong and Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, police and soldiers streamed through the National Funeral House in downtown Hanoi on Wednesday. Some wept as they passed his flag-draped coffin.

Vietnamese acting President Dang Thi Ngoc Thinh prays before the coffin of late Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang in Hanoi, Vietnam. Credit:AP

"He devoted his whole life and made numerous contributions to the country's glorious revolutionary cause. His passing is a great loss to our Party, State and people," Deputy Prime Minister Truong Hoa Binh said in a prayer ceremony broadcast live on state television.

Quang died on Friday aged 61. A government doctor said he had battled a rare viral illness for more than a year but did not reveal the virus.Cologne: Judging from some of the headlines the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has produced, one wouldn't assume that it's also seeking to be an alternative for Germany's Jewish voters.

AfD supporters wave flags in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany last May. Credit:AP

For instance, party leader Alexander Gauland stated quite recently that "Hitler and the Nazis are just a speck of birds in over 1000 years of successful German history." Last year, leading AfD figure Bjorn Hocke called Berlin's Holocaust memorial a "memorial of disgrace" and urged Germans to stop feeling guilty for Nazi crimes. Then there's AfD politician Martin Hohmann, who just celebrated his return to Parliament after more than a decade's absence following his expulsion from the mainstream conservative CDU party over anti-Semitic remarks.

Yet, on October 7, the AfD is expected to launch its first Jewish association, in a move that has triggered a fierce backlash among other Jewish organisations. The announcement comes as the AfD's popularity is growing, with polls showing it is ahead of the centre-left Social Democrats as Germany's second-most-popular party.United Nations: US President Donald Trump has long argued that the United States has been taken advantage of by other nations - a "laughing stock to the entire World", he said on Twitter in 2014 - and his political rise was countenanced on the premise that he had the strength and resolve to change that.

But at the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, Trump got a comeuppance on the world's biggest stage. Delivering a speech that aimed to establish US "sovereignty" over the whims and needs of other nations, the President's triumphant moment was marred in the first minute when he was met by laughter - at his expense.

The embarrassing exchange came when Trump boasted that his administration had accomplished more over two years than "almost any administration" in US history, eliciting audible guffaws in the cavernous chamber hall.

The President appeared startled. "Didn't expect that reaction," he said, "but that's OK."Faith Leaders Deliver Petition to Ford Headquarters to Stand By Clean Car Rules

Dearborn, Mich. - Clergy and religious leaders from across Michigan and the Midwest walked into Ford Motor Company Headquarters today to deliver a message of faith that calls on the company to publicly stand by national clean car standards, without compliance loopholes or flexibilities, which would erode its strongest benefits for those who are impacted most by climate change and air pollution.

"As a person of faith, we were called to ask Ford to use their power and influence to stand up for strong clean car standards, as they exist," Marchelle Phelps, president of Detroit Conference United Methodist Women. " The standards are good for all humanity and creation, and we know automakers can meet them."

Recently, Ford and other automakers have claimed they need greater "flexibility" in meeting the standards. And the Environmental Protection Agency has followed suit with a proposal to weaken them. The delivery of the petition coincided with the last day of hearings being held across the country, where the public was invited to weigh in on the agency's proposal.

"As people of faith we are sensitive to what is good and what is just," said Robert Chapman, executive director at Michigan Interfaith Power & Light."Automakers are already delivering the safest and cleanest cars this nation has ever known. It would be good for Ford to keep doing what it is doing, make cleaner and cleaner cars. It would be just for Ford to say that we need to leave clean car standards alone."

In 2011, Ford was part of a historic breakthrough in cooperation on climate solutions when the company supported the clean car standards, which would raise fuel efficiency to a fleet average of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. This represents a 50 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, in addition to reductions in air pollution. With 24 million American, including more than six million children, suffering from asthma, these standards safeguard the health of vulnerable communities.

"The natural world is a gift from God and we are called to care for this gift," said Bishop David Alan Bard, Michigan Area of The United Methodist Church. "Climate change is a significant threat to the health of our planet and human communities and it is, therefore, a moral and spiritual imperative to address climate change. For these reasons, we oppose any attempts to weaken the nation's clean car standards. We hope Ford will join us in supporting the health of people and the planet, keeping its past commitments to reduce carbon emissions."

"We are called to be stewards of God's creation and care for the least of these," says Elizabeth Chun Hye Lee, executive for economic and environmental justice for United Methodist Women. "We are deeply concerned that the increase in air pollution will disproportionately affect communities situated near freeways and high traffic areas, often low-income communities and communities of color. We urge Ford to strengthen not weaken existing clean car standards."

"Transportation is the number one emitting source of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., with pollution from that sector impacting the health of our families and communities," said Rev. Susan Hendershot, president of Interfaith Power & Light. "By meeting with Ford Motor Company today, people of faith are living out our calling to care for our neighbors and God's gift of this beautiful earth."

###

*Interfaith Power & Light* https://www.interfaithpowerandlight.org/* is mobilizing a religious response to global warming. **With a network of 20,000 congregations across the country and 40 state affiliates, Interfaith Power & Light (IPL) reaches millions of people of faith.*

*United Methodist Women* https://www.unitedmethodistwomen.org/* is the largest denominational faith organization for women with approximately 800,000 members turning faith, hope and love into action to improve life for women, children and youth around the world*

*With 5,000 churches and nearly 900,000 members across the U.S., the **United Church of Christ* <http://www.ucc.org/* (UCC) serves God by seeking a just world for all. With roots among the Pilgrims and Puritans, it today strives to embody and further God's love through a rich diversity of ministries across the United States.*AAPC Statement on Japan Free Trade Announcement







WASHINGTON, D.C.  Gov. Matt Blunt, president of the American Automotive Policy Council, issued the following statement on the Trump administrations initiative to potentially establish a free trade agreement with Japan:

"We are closely following the Administrations efforts to reset our trading relationship with Japan. While Japan exported 1.7 million vehicles, worth $40 billion, to the United States last year, it has not reciprocated with similar openness to U.S. auto imports. Automotive trade is the biggest contributor to the decades-long U.S. trade deficit with Japan  totaling $51 billion in 2017.

Any potential trade agreement with Japan should lead to truly reciprocal market access for U.S. automakers. It must address long-standing non-tariff barriers in Japan, and include strong and enforceable provisions that prevent Japan from manipulating its currency. The trade playing field between the U.S. and Japan must be leveled.

The American Automotive Policy Council (AAPC) is a Washington, D.C. association that represents the common public policy interests of its member companies FCA US LLC, Ford Motor Company and General Motors Company.Research by Robert Epstein and his team shows how Big tech companies such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter can affect millions of voters, without anyone noticing.

10 Ways Big Tech Can Shift Millions of Votes in the November ElectionsWithout Anyone Knowing

A noted researcher describes 10 ways Google, Facebook, other companies could shift millions of votes in the US midterms

Authorities in the UK have finally figured out that fake news stories and Russian-placed ads are not the real problem. The UK Parliament is about to impose stiff penaltiesnot on the people who place the ads or write the stories, but on the Big Tech platforms that determine which ads and stories people actually see.

Parliaments plans will almost surely be energized by the latest leak of damning material from inside Googles fortress of secrecy: The Wall Street Journal recently reported on emails exchanged among Google employees in January 2017 in which they strategized about how to alter Google search results and other ephemeral experiences to counter President Donald Trumps newly imposed travel ban. The company claims that none of these plans was ever implemented, but who knows?

While U.S. authorities have merely held hearings, EU authorities have taken dramatic steps in recent years to limit the powers of Big Tech, most recently with a comprehensive law that protects user privacythe General Data Protection Regulationand a whopping $5.1 billion fine against Google for monopolistic practices in the mobile device market. Last year, the European Union also levied a $2.7 billion fine against Google for filtering and ordering search results in a way that favored their own products and services. That filtering and ordering, it turns out, is of crucial importance.

As years of research Ive been conducting on online influence has shown, content per se is not the real threat these days; what really matters is (a) which content is selected for users to see, and (b) the way that content is ordered in search results, search suggestions, newsfeeds, message feeds, comment lists, and so on. Thats where the power lies to shift opinions, purchases, and votes, and that power is held by a disturbingly small group of people.

I say these days because the explosive growth of a handful of massive platforms on the internetthe largest, by far, being Google and the next largest being Facebookhas changed everything. Millions of people and organizations are constantly trying to get their content in front of our eyes, but for more than 2.5 billion people around the worldsoon to be more than 4 billionthe algorithms of Google and Facebook determine what material will be seen and where it will turn up in various lists.

In randomized, controlled, peer-reviewed research Ive conducted with thousands of people, Ive shown repeatedly that when people are undecided, I can shift their opinions on just about any topic just by changing how I filter and order the information I show them. Ive also shown that when, in multiple searches, I show people more and more information that favors one candidate, I can shift opinions even farther. Even more disturbing, I can do these things in ways that are completely invisible to people and in ways that dont leave paper trails for authorities to trace.

Worse still, these new forms of influence often rely on ephemeral contentinformation that is generated on the fly by an algorithm and then disappears forever, which means that it would be difficult, if not impossible, for authorities to reconstruct. If, on Election Day this coming November, Mark Zuckerberg decides to broadcast go-out-and-vote reminders mainly to members of one political party, how would we be able to detect such a manipulation? If we cant detect it, how would we be able to reduce its impact? And how, days or weeks later, would we be able to turn back the clock to see what happened?

Of course, companies like Google and Facebook emphatically reject the idea that their search and newsfeed algorithms are being tweaked in ways that could meddle in elections. Doing so would undermine the publics trust in their companies, spokespeople have said. They insist that their algorithms are complicated, constantly changing, and subject to the organic activity of users.

This is, of course, sheer nonsense. Google can adjust its algorithms to favor any candidate it chooses no matter what the activity of users might be, just as easily as I do in my experiments. As legal scholar Frank Pasquale noted in his recent book The Black Box Society, blaming algorithms just doesnt cut it; the responsibility for what an algorithm does should always lie with the people who wrote the algorithm and the companies that deployed the algorithm. Alan Murray, president of Fortune, recently framed the issue profoundly: Rule one in the Age of AI: Humans remain accountable for decisions, even when made by machines.

Given that 95 percent of donations from Silicon Valley generally go to Democrats, its hard to imagine that the algorithms of companies like Facebook and Google dont favor their favorite candidates. A newly leaked video of a 2016 meeting at Google shows without doubt that high-ranking Google executives share a strong political preference, which could easily be expressed in algorithms. The favoritism might be deliberately programmed or occur simply because of unconscious bias. Either way, votes and opinions shift.

Its also hard to imagine how, in any election in the world, with or without intention on the part of company employees, Google search results would fail to tilt toward one candidate. Googles search algorithm certainly has no equal-time rule built into it; we wouldnt want it to! We want it to tell us whats best, and the algorithm will indeed always favor one dog food over another, one music service over another, and one political candidate over another. When the latter happens  votes and opinions shift.

Here are 10 waysseven of which I am actively studying and quantifyingthat Big Tech companies could use to shift millions of votes this coming November with no one the wiser. Lets hope, of course, that these methods are not being used and will never be used, but lets be realistic too; theres generally no limit to what people will do when money and power are on the line.

1. Search Engine Manipulation Effect (SEME)

Ongoing research I began in January 2013 has shown repeatedly that when one candidate is favored over another in search results, voting preferences among undecided voters shift dramaticallyby 20 percent or more overall, and by up to 80 percent in some demographic groups. This is partly because people place inordinate trust in algorithmically generated output, thinking, mistakenly, that algorithms are inherently objective and impartial.

But my research also suggests that we are conditioned to believe in high-ranking search results in much the same way that rats are conditioned to press levers in Skinner boxes. Because most searches are for simple facts (When was Donald Trump born?), and because correct answers to simple questions inevitably turn up in the first position, we are taught, day after day, that the higher a search result appears in the list, the more true it must be. When we finally search for information to help us make a tough decision (Whos better for the economy, Trump or Clinton?), we tend to believe the information on the web pages to which high-ranking search results link.

As The Washington Post reported last year, in 2016, I led a team that developed a system for monitoring the election-related search results Google, Bing, and Yahoo were showing users in the months leading up to the presidential election, and I found pro-Clinton bias in all 10 search positions on the first page of Googles search results. Google responded, as usual, that it has never re-ranked search results on any topic (including elections) to manipulate political sentimentbut I never claimed it did. I found what I found, namely that Googles search results favored Hillary Clinton; re-rankingan obtuse term Google seems to have invented to confuse peopleis irrelevant.

Because (a) many elections are very close, (b) 90 percent of online searches in most countries are conducted on just one search engine (Google), and (c) internet penetration is high in most countries these dayshigher in many countries than it is in the United Statesit is possible that the outcomes of upwards of 25 percent of the worlds national elections are now being determined by Googles search algorithm, even without deliberate manipulation on the part of company employees. Because, as I noted earlier, Googles search algorithm is not constrained by equal-time rules, it almost certainly ends up favoring one candidate over another in most political races, and that shifts opinions and votes.

2. Search Suggestion Effect (SSE)

When Google first introduced autocomplete search suggestionsthose short lists you see when you start to type an item into the Google search barit was supposedly meant to save you some time. Whatever the original rationale, those suggestions soon turned into a powerful means of manipulation that Google appears to use aggressively.

My recent research suggests that (a) Google starts to manipulate your opinions from the very first character you type, and (b) by fiddling with the suggestions it shows you, Google can turn a 5050 split among undecided voters into a 9010 split with no one knowing. I call this manipulation the Search Suggestion Effect (SSE), and it is one of the most powerful behavioral manipulations I have ever seen in my nearly 40 years as a behavioral scientist.

How will you know whether Google is messing with your election-related search suggestions in the weeks leading up to the election? You wont.

3. Targeted Messaging Effect (TME)

If, on Nov. 8, 2016, Mr. Zuckerberg had sent go-out-and-vote reminders just to supporters of Mrs. Clinton, that would likely have given her an additional 450,000 votes. Ive extrapolated that number from Facebooks own published data.

Because Zuckerberg was overconfident in 2016, I dont believe he sent those messages, but he is surely not overconfident this time around. In fact, its possible that, at this very moment, Facebook and other companies are sending out targeted register-to-vote reminders, as well as targeted go-out-and-vote reminders in primary races. Targeted go-out-and-vote reminders might also favor one party on Election Day in November.

My associates and I are building systems to monitor such things, but because no systems are currently in place, there is no sure way to tell whether Twitter, Google, and Facebook (or Facebooks influential offshoot, Instagram) are currently tilting their messaging. No law or regulation specifically forbids the practice, and it would be an easy and economical way to serve company needs. Campaign donations cost money, after all, but tilting your messaging to favor one candidate is free.

4. Opinion Matching Effect (OME)

In March 2016, and continuing for more than seven months until Election Day, Tinders tens of millions of users could not only swipe to find sex partners, they could also swipe to find out whether they should vote for Trump or Clinton. The website iSideWith.comfounded and run by two friends with no obvious qualificationsclaims to have helped more than 49 million people match their opinions to the right candidate. Both CNN and USA Today have run similar services, currently inactive.

I am still studying and quantifying this type of, um, helpful service, but so far it looks like (a) opinion matching services tend to attract undecided votersprecisely the kinds of voters who are most vulnerable to manipulation, and (b) they can easily produce opinion shifts of 30 percent or more without peoples awareness.

At this writing, iSideWith is already helping people decide who they should vote for in the 2018 New York U.S. Senate race, the 2018 New York gubernatorial race, the 2018 race for New York District 10 of the U.S. House of Representatives, and, believe it or not, the 2020 presidential race. Keep your eyes open for other matching services as they turn up, and ask yourself this: Who wrote those algorithms, and how can we know whether they are biased toward one candidate or party?

5. Answer Bot Effect (ABE)

More and more these days, people dont want lists of thousands of search results, they just want the answer, which is being supplied by personal assistants like Google Home devices, the Google Assistant on Android devices, Amazons Alexa, Apples Siri, and Googles featured snippetsthose answer boxes at the top of Google search results. I call the opinion shift produced by such mechanisms the Answer Bot Effect (ABE).

My research on Googles answer boxes shows three things so far: First, they reduce the time people spend searching for more information. Second, they reduce the number of times people click on search results. And third, they appear to shift opinions 10 to 30 percent more than search results alone do. I dont yet know exactly how many votes can be shifted by answer bots, but in a national election in the United States, the number might be in the low millions.

6. Shadowbanning

Recently, Trump complained that Twitter was preventing conservatives from reaching many of their followers on that platform through shadowbanning, the practice of quietly hiding a users posts without the user knowing. The validity of Trumps specific accusation is arguable, but the fact remains that any platform on which people have followers or friends can be rigged in a way that suppresses the views and influence of certain individuals without people knowing the suppression is taking place. Unfortunately, without aggressive monitoring systems in place, its hard to know for sure when or even whether shadowbanning is occurring.

7. Programmed Virality and the Digital Bandwagon Effect

Big Tech companies would like us to believe that virality on platforms like YouTube or Instagram is a profoundly mysterious phenomenon, even while acknowledging that their platforms are populated by tens of millions of fake accounts that might affect virality.

In fact, there is an obvious situation in which virality is not mysterious at all, and that is when the tech companies themselves decide to shift high volumes of traffic in ways that suit their needs. Because Facebooks algorithms are secret, if an executive decided to bestow instant Instagram stardom on a pro-Elizabeth Warren college student, we would have no way of knowing that this was a deliberate act and no way of countering it. And just as virality can be deliberately engineered, so can it be deliberately suppressed, as Facebook executives have acknowledged.

The same can be said of the virality of YouTube videos and Twitter campaigns; they are inherently competitiveexcept when company employees or executives decide otherwise. Google has an especially powerful and subtle way of creating instant virality using a technique Ive dubbed the Digital Bandwagon Effect. Because the popularity of websites drives them higher in search results, and because high-ranking search results increase the popularity of websites (SEME), Google has the ability to engineer a sudden explosion of interest in a candidate or cause with no one having the slightest idea theyve done so. In 2015, I published a mathematical model showing how neatly this can work.

8. The Facebook Effect

Because Facebooks ineptness and dishonesty have squeezed it into a digital doghouse from which it might never emerge, it gets its own precinct on my list.

In 2016, I published an article detailing five ways that Facebook could shift millions of votes without people knowing: biasing its trending box, biasing its center newsfeed, encouraging people to look for election-related material in its search bar (which it did that year!), sending out targeted register-to-vote reminders, and sending out targeted go-out-and-vote reminders.

I wrote that article before the news stories broke about Facebooks improper sharing of user data with multiple researchers and companies, not to mention the stories about how the company permitted fake news stories to proliferate on its platform during the critical days just before the November electionproblems the company is now trying hard to mitigate. With the revelations mounting, on July 26, 2018, Facebook suffered the largest one-day drop in stock value of any company in history, and now its facing a shareholder lawsuit and multiple fines and investigations in both the United States and the EU.

Facebook desperately needs new direction, which is why I recently called for Zuckerbergs resignation. The company, in my view, could benefit from the new perspectives that often come with new leadership.

9. Censorship

I am cheating here by labeling one category censorship, because censorshipthe selective and biased suppression of informationcan be perpetrated in so many different ways.

Shadowbanning could be considered a type of censorship, for example, and in 2016, a Facebook whistleblower claimed he had been on a company team that was systematically removing conservative news stories from Facebooks newsfeed. Now, because of Facebooks carelessness with user data, the company is openly taking pride in rapidly shutting down accounts that appear to be Russia-connectedeven though company representatives sometimes acknowledge that they dont have all the facts.

Meanwhile, Zuckerberg has crowed about his magnanimity in preserving the accounts of people who deny the Holocaust, never mentioning the fact that provocative content propels traffic that might make him richer. How would you know whether Facebook was selectively suppressing material that favored one candidate or political party? You wouldnt. (For a detailed look at nine ways Google censors content, see my essay The New Censorship, published in 2016.)

10. The Digital Customization Effect (DCE)

Any marketer can tell you how important it is to know your customer. Now, think about that simple idea in a world in which Google has likely collected the equivalent of millions of Word pages of information about you. If you randomly display a banner ad on a web page, out of 10,000 people, only five are likely to click on it; thats the CTRthe clickthrough rate (0.05 percent). But if you target your ad, displaying it only to people whose interests it matches, you can boost your CTR a hundredfold.

Thats why Google, Facebook, and others have become increasingly obsessed with customizing the information they show you: They want you to be happily and mindlessly clicking away on their content.

In the research I conduct, my impact is always larger when I am able to customize information to suit peoples backgrounds. Because I know very little about the participants in my experiments, however, I am able to do so in only feeble ways, but the tech giants know everything about youeven things you dont know about yourself. This tells me that the effect sizes I find in my experiments are probably too low. The impact that companies like Google are having on our lives is quite possibly much larger than I think it is. Perhaps that doesnt scare you, but it sure scares me.

The Same Direction

OK, you say, so much for Epsteins list! What about those other shenanigans weve heard about: voter fraud (Trumps explanation for why he lost the popular vote), gerrymandering, rigged voting machines, targeted ads placed by Cambridge Analytica, votes cast over the internet, or, as I mentioned earlier, those millions of bots designed to shift opinions. What about hackers like Andres Sepulveda, who spent nearly a decade using computer technology to rig elections in Latin America? What about all the ways new technologies make dirty tricks easier in elections? And what about those darn Russians, anyway?

To all that I say: kid stuff. Dirty tricks have been around since the first election was held millennia ago. But unlike the new manipulative tools controlled by Google and Facebook, the old tricks are competitiveits your hacker versus my hacker, your bots versus my bots, your fake news stories versus my fake news storiesand sometimes illegal, which is why Sepulvedas efforts failed many times and why Cambridge Analytica is dust.

Cyberwar, a new book by political scientist Kathleen Hall Jamieson, reminds us that targeted ads and fake news stories can indeed shift votes, but the numbers are necessarily small. Its hard to overwhelm your competitor when he or she can play the same games you are playing.

Now, take a look at my numbered list. The techniques Ive described can shift millions of votes without peoples awareness, and because they are controlled by the platforms themselves, they are entirely noncompetitive. If Google or Facebook or Twitter wants to shift votes, there is no way to counteract their manipulations. In fact, at this writing, there is not even a credible way of detecting those manipulations.

And what if the tech giants are all leaning in the same political direction? What if the combined weight of their subtle and untraceable manipulative power favors one political party? If 90 million people vote this November in the United States, with, perhaps, a third undecided at some point in time (thats 30 million people), I estimate that the combined weight of Big Tech manipulations could easily shift upwards of 12 million votes without anyone knowing. Thats enough votes to determine the outcomes of hundreds of close local, state, and congressional races throughout the country, which makes the free-and-fair election little more than an illusion.

Full disclosure: I happen to think that the political party currently in favor in Silicon Valley is, by a hair (so to speak), the superior party at the moment. But I also love America and democracy, and I believe that the free-and-fair election is the bedrock of our political system. I dont care how right these companies might be; lofty ends do not justify shady means, especially when those means are difficult to see and not well understood by either authorities or the public.

Can new regulations or laws save us from the extraordinary powers of manipulation the Big Tech companies now possess? Maybe, but our leaders seem to be especially regulation-shy these days, and I doubt, in any case, whether laws and regulations will ever be able to keep up with the new kinds of threats that new technologies will almost certainly pose in coming years.

I dont believe we are completely helpless, however. I think that one way to turn Facebook, Google, and the innovative technology companies that will succeed them, into responsible citizens is to set up sophisticated monitoring systems that detect, analyze, and archive what theyre showing peoplein effect, to fight technology with technology.

As I mentioned earlier, in 2016, I led a team that monitored search results on multiple search engines. That was a start, but we can do much better. These days, Im working with business associates and academic colleagues on three continents to scale up systems to monitor a wide range of information the Big Tech companies are sharing with their userseven the spoken answers provided by personal assistants. Ultimately, a worldwide ecology of passive monitoring systems will make these companies accountable to the public, with information bias and online manipulation detectable in real time.

With November drawing near, there is obviously some urgency here. At this writing, its not clear whether we will be fully operational in time to monitor the midterm elections, but were determined to be ready for 2020.

Robert Epstein is a senior research psychologist at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology in California. Epstein, who holds a doctorate from Harvard University, is the former editor-in-chief of Psychology Today and has published 15 books and more than 300 articles on internet influence and other topics. He is currently working on a book called Technoslavery: Invisible Influence in the Internet Age and Beyond. His research is featured in the new documentary The Creepy Line. You can find him on Twitter @DrREpstein.

CORRECTION: This article has been updated to more accurately reflect expected voter turnout in November.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.1. NYPD Chief of Patrol Rodney Harrison speaks to 75th Precinct officers during roll call, Apr.9, 2018, Brooklyn, New York. (Courtesy NYPD)

American Policing: Leadership, Trust, Community

Policing is critical to American society and must perpetually stand on the pillars of ethical leadership, trust, and community.

When these principles are honored, communities are safeguarded, and Americas way of life is protected from discord, lawlessness, and turmoil.

Yet, one would be naive to miss the challenges policing in America is experiencing.

The spotlight on policing illuminates the critical need for improving police-community cohesiveness. Society will thrive when character, moral courage, and respect are catalysts for police-community partnerships.

Effective policing in America is mission critical for a harmonious society. Strengthening this noble profession through police-community unity must be a priority for the country.

Our nation deserves a commitment to police-community collaboration, underscored by principles of justice, accountability, and transparency. These qualities are essential not only to law enforcement professionals but to everyone privileged to call America home.

Restoring Trust, Building Community

In my article titled America Policing: Restoring Trust, Building Community, published in the Epoch Times on Oct. 20, 2016, police-community controversies are addressed.

The article underscores Americas need for a clarion call to renew, restore, and rejuvenate police-community unity.

The indisputable reality of negative repercussions of police-community controversies are also addressed.

The article highlights that any breakdown of trust between community and police demands an urgent, unwavering, and complete dedication to remedy the problem. Building trust and enhancing human contact with respect as its foundation is crystalized as mission critical.

Additionally, the article asserts that respect, the heart of policing, must always be complemented by improving use of force standards, enhanced training and certification initiatives, transparency and accountability, and a renaissance of ethical values in policing and throughout all of society.

NYPD Chief of Patrol: Leadership, Trust, Community

The importance of leadership, trust, and community was stressed by Chief Rodney Harrison of the NYPD at an event I attended on Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2018 in lower Manhattan.

Read More Principles of American Policing

Chief Harrison was the featured speaker to a standing room only audience for the First Precinct Financial Area Security Council. The council is a partnership of law enforcement, private security professionals, and community leaders dedicated to safeguarding New York City.

Prior to his appointment as Chief of Patrol, Chief Harrison has worked in every borough of New York City in his well-decorated 27-year NYPD career.

As Chief of Patrol, Chief Harrison is responsible for over 17,000 members of the NYPD Patrol Bureau. This is the largest and most visible bureau in the NYPD. It is divided into eight borough commands comprised of 77 police precincts throughout the city.

These precincts are comprised of diverse populations, and the typical NYPD precinct is the size of a midsize American city, ranging from 70,000 to 150,000 people.

During his presentation, Chief Harrison stressed that the record crime reduction trends in New York City are only possible through police-community collaboration.

He also stressed that the heart of this collaboration is a shared responsibility and bridges of trust between the police and community.

Chief Harrison also stated that shared responsibility and trust is the pillar of the extraordinary Neighborhood Policing commitment.

Neighborhood Policing is a comprehensive crime-prevention, and crime-fighting philosophy. It is built on communication and collaboration between all members of the NYPD and the community.

Essential to Neighborhood Policing, as expressed by Chief Harrison, is the Neighborhood Coordination Officers (NCOs). These are police officers who serve as liaisons with the community, and also serve as crime-fighters and problem solvers.

The NCOs work closely not only with community residents and leaders, but with local detective squads. In their leadership roles for the NYPD, NCOs are able to effectively respond to incidents and issues due to their iron-clad community partnerships.

Belleville Police Department: A Shining Moment

The importance of leadership, trust, and community was also the focus of another law enforcement event I attended. The event was summarized in my Sept. 10, 2017 article for the Epoch Times titled Best Time to be a Cop in America.

Read More Best Time to Be a Cop in America

On Thursday, Aug. 31, 2017, I had the privilege of attending the Belleville Police Department promotion ceremony at their New Jersey headquarters.

During the ceremony, a newly promoted captain, Nicholas G. Breiner, as with Chief Rodney Harrison, also represented the ideals of law enforcement. This was expressed through the introduction of his well-decorated career and through his inspirational remarks.

In short, Captain Breiners illustrious career includes over twenty-five years of progressively responsible security, law enforcement, and military accomplishments.

Captain Breiner served as the Commander of the Professional Standards & Training Bureau for the Belleville Police. This role led to the Belleville Police Departments accreditation by the New Jersey State Association of Chiefs of Police on March 9, 2017. The accreditation involved his service as the subject matter expert on departmental policies and procedures, and working with officers and supervisors to increase the efficiency of their organization.

Aside from law enforcement, he is also serving as a Major as well as Director of Operations for the 204th Intelligence Squadron of the New Jersey Air National Guard.

After honestly addressing contemporary policing challenges of mistrust in communities, Captain Breiner inspired his audience stating that this was the best time to be a cop in America.

He first graciously acknowledged family, friends, and guests. Then, he called upon the future leaders of policing to understand the privilege of their profession. Captain Breiner urged them to lead by example, serve selflessly, and build bridges of trust with the people they serve.

As with Chief Harrison, his remarks to a standing room only audience, crystallized police professionalism, dignity, and respect. Captain Breiner stressed that this is a time for law enforcement to build on the pillars of courage, innovation, dedication, and building bridges of trust. These pillars, according to Captain Breiner, stand as the hallmarks of effective policing.

Final Reflections

These are indisputably challenging times for policing in America. Yet, as articulated by both Chief Harrison and Captain Breiner, it is the time for leadership, trust, and community.

In conclusion, I would humbly refer readers to my article titled Principles of American Policing, published in the May 1, 2015 edition of the Epoch Times.

The first principle states that Being pro-police and pro-community are inseparable, indefatigable, and pre-eminent. Police must at all times remain fully committed to protecting and serving the public through character, ethics, and leadership that is total and wholehearted. Police must be guided by a moral compass that honors the community, Constitution, and Bill of Rights.

America will be on the path of a reawakening when this principle, so alive by NYPDs Neighborhood Policing commitment, and at the Belleville Police Departments promotion ceremony, is imitated nationwide. We must all be dedicated to ethical leadership, building trust, and a shared responsibility to safeguard communities across America.

Vincent J. Bove, CPP, is a national speaker and author on issues critical to America. Bove is a recipient of the FBI Directors Community Leadership Award for combating crime and violence, author of 275 works including four books, and former confidant of the New York Yankees. His newest book is Reawakening America. For more information, see www.vincentbove.com, or twitter.com/vincentjbove

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.Falun Gong practitioners protest the persecution of the spiritual practice at the United Nations in New York, on Sept. 25, 2018. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

At UN, Falun Dafa Adherents Demand End to 19-Year Persecution

NEW YORKA crowd of Falun Dafa practitioners from across the greater New York area gathered outside the headquarters of the United Nations on Sept. 25, to seek an end to the barbaric persecution of adherents taking place in China.

This year marks the 19th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) commencing an unprecedented campaign against the spiritual, peaceful community; this week, the regimes foreign minister, Wang Yi, is attending the U.N. General Assembly.

We gathered here today to stand up for the practice, stand up for whats right, said He Yingsheng, who is from China. We want the Chinese Communist Party to immediately end the persecution of Falun Gong and release all of them at once.

He also called for former CCP leader Jiang Zeminwho initiated the persecution in 1999to be brought to justice.

This years General Assembly session officially began on Sept. 25.

Falun Dafa, also known as Falun Gong, is a practice of five meditation exercises and, at its core, is based on the three principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. Today, it is practiced by tens of millions of people in more than 70 countries worldwide.

The CCP is very afraid that more people believe in truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance rather than people who believe in communismthats the reason why they started the persecution, said Rong Yi, spokesperson for the New York Falun Dafa Association.

Theres no freedom of belief. The CCP wants to control everything, she explained.

Another practitioner at the rally said she made the trip, despite the wet weather, to raise awareness of Chinas history of human-rights violations. Qi asked not to have her photo published for fear of repercussions, since some of her relatives (who practice Falun Gong) are still living in China.

I want the American people [and] Chinese tourists to hear our plea, that China is still persecuting these Falun Gong practitioners and other people of faith, said Qi, who learned the practice from her parents.

Falun Gong practitioners are all very good people. But because there are so many in China, the CCP became scared of losing control.

An International Plea

Today, the Chinese Communist Party continues to persecute spiritual groups, including Christians, Tibetans, and Uyghurs, among others. In August, a U.N. human-rights panel said it received credible reports that 1 million ethnic Uyghurs in China are held in what resembles a massive internment camp that is shrouded in secrecy.

A member of the U.N. committee estimated that 2 million Uyghurs and members of Muslim minorities were forced into political camps for indoctrination in the western Xinjiang autonomous region.

A 2016 report exposed in detail Chinas lucrative practice of organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience. The reports authorsDavid Kilgour, a former Canadian Secretary of State (Asia/Pacific) and crown prosecutor; David Matas, the senior legal counsel of Bnai Brith Canada and human-rights lawyer; and investigative journalist Ethan Gutmannexplain how transplant patients can go to China and get an organ within days or even hours if they can pay for it.

By contrast, patients in other countries can be stuck on waiting lists for years.

From 2000 to 2015, Chinas regime is estimated to have performed 60,000 to 100,000 transplants each year, with the bulk of the extracted organs coming from Falun Gong practitioners, according to the 700-page report. Hundreds of thousands of practitioners held in labor camps across China are extremely vulnerable to being put on lists for forced organ extractions.

Practitioners in China are still under severe persecution, Rong said. We have to use every opportunity, especially when Wang is here to come outwe want basic human rights and we want the international community to help us stop this persecution.

Theres nothing wrong in the belief of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance, she continued. This should, in fact, be protected. We need freedom of belief.Australia to Launch Inquiry Into Embattled Public Broadcaster

SYDNEYAustralia will hold an inquiry into the crisis-ridden public broadcaster ABC following allegations its chairman succumbed to political pressure from the Turnbull government by calling for the removal of a senior journalist, Emma Alberici.

According to local reports, around 350 journalists of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation gathered outside its Sydney office on Sept. 26, demanding that their chairman, Justin Milne, stand down from his role immediately, pending an independent investigation of his actions.

Get rid of her. We need to save the ABC  not Emma, Milne had written in an email on May 8 to the former managing director Michelle Guthrie, who was fired just days ago by the ABCs boarda decision that Milne publicly backed.

According to The Australian, Guthrie defended Alberici from Milnes attacks.

What a week to be back in a hosting chair ! #PM @abcnews pic.twitter.com/WzqX6bpIDX  Emma Alberici (@albericie) August 21, 2018

Minister for Communications Mitch Fifield said in an emailed statement he had asked the secretary of the department of communications and arts to undertake an inquiry to establish the facts around the ABC.

It is important for community to have confidence in the independence of the ABC, he said.

The ABC is funded by the government but is an independent body.

Fairfax Medias Sydney Morning Herald on Sept. 26 cited a May 8 email in which Milne had urged Guthrie to sack Alberici, who is the ABCs chief economics correspondent, over her coverage of the Turnbull governments corporate tax policy.

They hate her, Milne allegedly wrote in the email. We are tarred with her brush. I think its simple.

Milne did not comment on the accuracy of the Fairfax report in a statement, saying instead that the job of the ABC board is to independently govern the corporation, protect its best interests, ensure that it is well funded, well managed and that our content is of the highest standards.

That is precisely what the board has done and will continue to do. I do not propose to provide a running commentary on day to day issues which arise in pursuit of our duties.

An ABC spokeswoman did not comment on the issue, directing all inquiries to the board spokesman, Andrew Maiden, who was not immediately reachable.

Milne was appointed chairman of the ABC by his close friend the former progressive prime minister Malcolm Turnbull in March 2017. Milne previously served as a senior executive for Telstra and the NBN Co., also under an appointment by Turnbull.

Earlier in the week, Milne was facing pressure to disclose the reason behind the firing of Guthrie.

Conservative Liberal Party senator Eric Abetz, who has in the past been critical of the ABC for left-wing bias, demanded an explanation for Guthries sacking.

The dismissal of the Managing Director, seemingly without notice, requires a full and detailed explanation from the ABC Board, Abetz said.

I am hopeful that the new managing director will ensure that that the Ultimo-centric broadcaster is more in line with the aspirations of Australians including by delivering benefit to the taxpayer, stopping the left-wing bias and bringing an end to the frolics masquerading as news and comedy from some ABC employees.

But in an interview with the ABC, Milne said he would not reveal the details of why Guthrie had been dismissed.

We feel that we need different leadership to take us through what are very obviously very challenging times, he said. The board had made the decision and the details, the ins and outs of that decision I am not sharing with you.

The board felt in the end that her leadership style was not the style that we needed going forward.

Guthrie has since said that she is considering legally appealing the boards decision as she believes the termination was not justified.

While my contract permits the board to terminate my appointment without cause and with immediate effect, I believe there is no justification for the board to trigger that termination clause, she said.

At no point have any issues been raised with me about the transformation being undertaken, the Investing in Audiences strategy and my effectiveness in delivering against that strategy.

Additional reporting by Epoch Times staff

Watch Next:

Communisms Destruction of Civilized Debate

An in-depth look at Communist policies that have destroyed civilized debateAutistic Boy Still Missing in North Carolina, Mother Pleads for Help

Three days after a 6-year-old autistic boy went missing from a North Carolina park, the mother has pleaded to the public for help to find her little boy.

Carrie Ritch, mother of the autistic boy, urged the public during a press conference on Sept. 25 to call the tip line if they saw her son, Maddox Scott Ritch, at Rankin Lake Park in Gastonia on Sept. 22.

Continue praying for him, Carrie pleaded. I just want my baby home, please. Whatever you can do.

Maddox was last reported to have been wearing an orange t-shirt with the words I am the man on the front and black shorts with a white stripe.

The FBI has offered $10,000 for any information that leads directly to the location of Maddox. He is described as being non-verbal.

The police said authorities at the local, state, and federal level have already searched a two miles radius around the park. Joining the authorities are hundreds of investigators, analysts, and others who are continuing to search the 250-acre park, Fox 13 reported.

To lure out the young boy, the police recorded spoken messages by his parents and blasted them all over the park.

If hes lost in the woods, hell be able to hear those messages played, FBI supervisory special agent Jason Kaplan told reporters. And were hoping that hell come to the words of his mother and his father.

Since the search is beginning to expand beyond the park, the authorities have deployed drones and ground teams with canines. They have also expanded their search capabilities by using sonar and infrared technology.

Just in case young Maddox is concealed in water, Gastonia Police Chief Robert Helton said authorities are draining water from the lake in the park to expose the shoreline for examination.

We want to make sure that were checking every possible spot to find this child, Helton said.

Officials said that they wanted to speak with a professional photographer that was taking photos of children in Dr. Seuss costumes the day Maddox went missing. Authorities are hoping that he may have captured some needed clues.

They also want to talk to a jogger who was present when Maddox, his father, Ian Ritch, and the fathers friend were going around the lake, reported WSOCTV.

When the jogger passed by, Maddox took off and ran behind them, Ian told people.com.

Ian said that it was common for him to let Maddox to leave his side and run around for fun.

Usually when he takes off running hell slow down and stop for me to catch up with him, Ian said.

This time he never stopped, Ian said.

Ian told people.com that Maddox had run out of sight. I was terrified. I didnt know which direction he went so I looked as hard as I could, I went different ways and everything. I tried to find him. I dont know where he went.

The grieving father told people.com that he was overwhelmed with guilt and wished he had done things differently.

Every time it gets dark at night, I burst into tears because Im thinking, My little boy is out there alone, the 42-year-old father said. The longer [the search is] going, the harder it gets because Im so worried. He hasnt had anything to eat or drink.

Contact the Gastonia Police Department for any tips at (704) 869-1075, your local FBI office, or the nearest American Embassy or Consulate.

Watch Next:

I Was a Communist Slave

A story of tragedy, faith, and resistance in the face of brutal totalitarianism, Memoir of a Communist Slave is one mans journey to uncover what he believes has held him and his people hostage for too long.Bill Cosby Behind Bars: Appeal Looming, Lawsuits Pending

Their famous client behind bars, Bill Cosbys legal team is readying a long-shot bid to get his sexual assault conviction overturned. Theyre also fighting civil lawsuits filed by some accusers that threaten to drain his vast fortune.

The 81-year-old Cosbys lawyers gave glimpses of their expected appeal as his April retrial crashed toward a conviction. They were dismayed by Judge Steven ONeills weighty decision to let five additional accusers testify and moved for a mistrial when one of the women called Cosby a serial rapist from the stand.

Cosbys lawyers again demanded a mistrial when a prosecutor suggested they were wrong to help a star defense witness write a statement outlining how she said Andrea Constand, the woman Cosby was convicted of drugging and molesting, mused about framing a celebrity.

Recently, Cosbys teamnamely his wife, Camillehas been lashing out at ONeill and accusing prosecutors of using illegal evidence.

Just before Cosby was taken away in handcuffs on Sept. 25, to begin his 3-to-10-year prison sentence, his lawyers alleged that prosecutors had played a doctored audiotape for the jury. They argued that the development was enough to keep Cosby out on bail while he appeals, but ONeill refused.

Still, legal experts say, Cosby faces long odds of winning on appeal.

Appellate courts give trial judges broad discretion to make decisions affecting how a case is tried, and they overturn only a tiny fraction of convictions. Cosby would stand a better chance, experts say, if he could show that ONeill made serious errors that violated his constitutional rights.

The prosecutors who tried Cosby say theyre confident his conviction will stand.

Bill Cosby is out of options, said veteran Pennsylvania prosecutor Jarrett Ferentino, who wasnt involved in the case. His only option now is to blame the court system. His attempt to disparage and discredit his victims failed. He has every right to file an appeal. His chances of success are limited.

Cosby, once revered as Americas Dad for playing wise, caring Dr. Cliff Huxtable on The Cosby Show, is now known as Inmate No. NN7687.

He spent his first night as a prisoner in a single cell near the infirmary at a new state lock up a mere 20 miles from the suburban Philadelphia mansion where, a jury found, he assaulted Constand in 2004.

Here are some of the issues Cosbys lawyers could argue in his appeal and the other legal trouble hes facing:

Doctored Tape

In a failed, last-ditch bid to keep Cosby free on bail pending his appeal, his lawyers on Tuesday accused prosecutors of playing a doctored tape for the jury.

Cosbys publicist said afterward that a forensic expert found that a tape Constands mother made of a 2005 telephone call with Cosby had been manipulated in two places and was not an authentic recording.

During the call, Cosby talks about a plan to pay for Constands education.

District Attorney Kevin Steele rejected the allegations, saying it was widely known that Gianna Constand started her recorder after the call began.

If thats what theyve got, its beyond a Hail Mary, Steele said.

Parade of Accusers

The biggest difference from the first trialwhich ended in a mistrialwas ONeills decision to let jurors hear from five other women who say Cosby had also drugged and violated them. The judge allowed just one other accuser to testify the first time around.

The new witnessespermitted by state law to show that a charged crime fits a larger pattern of offenseshelped prosecutors bolster what had been a he-said-she-said case.

That one is front and center because he didnt rule that way on the initial trial, Loyola Law School professor Laurie Levenson said. It raises the question of why is he doing so this time? Why is he trying to put his thumb on the scales of justice?

Cosbys lawyers blasted the womens testimony as excessive and prejudicial, and twice demanded a mistrial over their charged rhetoric.

Pennsylvania courts have long grappled with how many prior bad act witnesses to allow. Prosecutors in the Cosby case originally wanted 19 women to testify, but an appeals court could have seen that as too many.

Monsignor William Lynn, a former Roman Catholic church official, had his 2012 child endangerment conviction thrown out after 23 such witnesses took the stand.

Accusing the Judge and Jury of Bias

As sentencing neared, Cosbys wife issued a blistering statement accusing ONeill of unethical behavior and traveled to Harrisburg to file a complaint with a judicial ethics board. Camille Cosby alleged that ONeill was biased because of an old feud he had with the prosecutor who declined to bring charges against Cosby in 2005.

Cosbys lawyers tried to get ONeill to step aside before the retrial, but never mentioned the feud. Instead, they suggested he was being influenced by his wife, a social worker who has described herself as an activist and advocate for assault victims. ONeill declined, saying hes not biased or prejudiced by her work.

Cosbys lawyers also took issue with the makeup of the jury.

During jury selection, they accused prosecutors of illegally removing a black woman from the pool on the basis of her race and alleged that a prosecution team member said something that was discriminatory and repulsive.

Later, they sought to remove a juror after a rejected juror alleged he told her: I just think hes guilty, so we can all be done and get out of here.

ONeill questioned jurors in chambers and allowed the man to stay.

Other Legal Worries

Cosby is also defending defamation lawsuits filed by at least 10 accusers in Massachusetts and California, which were mostly put on hold during the criminal case but should now pick up. The women say that Cosby and his agents deemed them liars by denying their sex assault accusations.

Cosby has countersued the seven women in the Massachusetts case, alleging they engaged in a campaign to assassinate his honorable legacy and reputation.

He says his reputation was harmed, their womens lawyer, Joseph Cammarata said. Im going to say he had no reputation to harm.

Cammarata will ask a judge next month to schedule a trial date and let him take Cosbys deposition. Cosbys lawyers deposed the women and Cammarata deposed Cosbys wife, Camille, but Cosby himself got a reprieve while the criminal case loomed.

At least we know where to find him, Cammarata said.

By Michael R. Sisak and Maryclaire DaleThe Guangzhou City skyline in Guangdong Province on May 22, 2014. (VCG/VCG via Getty Images)

Chinas Coastal Economies Struggling Under US Tariffs, Dominant State Sector

Chinas coastal provinces and cities, prime drivers of the countrys economic growth, are straining to cope with the tandem pressures of an overbearing state sector and escalating tariffs imposed by the Trump administration.

The private sector along Chinas affluent coast has long been squeezed for profits and markets by the wide reach of Chinas inefficient and corruption-riddled state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Tax changes set to go into effect in 2019 will saddle firms and workers with an additional $300 billion in taxes each year.

Coastal Trade Crisis

The affluent provinces of Guangdong, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang, as well as the directly administered city of Shanghai, not only play an important role in Chinas economy but are also the source of its $500 billion trade surplus with the United States that Washington is targeting with current and proposed tariffs.

On Sept. 24, the United States introduced a tariff on a further $200 billion worth of Chinese exports that starts at 10 percent and may be increased to 25 percent next year. The Chinese regime responded immediately, placing tariffs on $60 billion of U.S. goods.

In 2017, exports from the three affluent provinces accounted for almost half of the national total, and imported 56 percent of all goods from abroad. Chinas trade surplus comes almost entirely from these three provinces and Shanghai.

As a result of the Sino-U.S. trade conflict, however, Chinas trade surplus has dipped by almost one third since last year.

Guangdong Province is Chinas biggest exporter. According to China customs data, in the first eight months of 2018, its exports dropped and imports rose, cutting trade surpluses by one quarter since last year. Trade data from Jiangsu and Zhejiang show similar trends.

The State Advances, the Private Sector Retreats

In China, key industries are overwhelmingly dominated by state-owned enterprises (SOEs), which gives the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) more control over the economy, at the cost of innovation and profitability.

Since the CCPs implementation of wide-reaching economic interventionary measures, privately run companies have been struggling to meet government regulations, affecting the three coastal provinces that host much of Chinas private economic activity.

Guangdong Province, the go-to success story during Chinas economic reform era that began in the 1980s, now reports serious deficits in the manufacturing sector as the state takes greater control over industry.

According to official statistics in Jiangsu Province, 2,461 enterprises dropped off the list of designated enterprisescompanies with revenue that tops 20 million yuan (about $3 million)representing 5 percent of the total number of such companies. Private investment, as well as industrial revenue, has dropped.

In the first six months of this year, investments in the Jiangsu private sector fell to 765.6 billion yuan ($111.30 billion) from the 976.5 billion yuan in the same period last year.

The Chinese private sector that grew vibrantly in the past several decades is now on the verge of collapse, a victim of being squeezed for profits by the CCP, and as the Party doubles down on its positions in the Sino-U.S. trade war. New U.S. tariffs will target Chinas high-end manufacturing and consumer exports, and expand to cover all goods imported from China.

In recent years, as part of supply-side reforms and deleveraging, the Chinese regime has shifted massive debts from SOEs to the private sector. Meanwhile, the Party has imposed a $300 billion taxation and social security plan aimed to generate funds for deficit-ridden local governments, also at the cost of the private sector and the general population.

Recently, the regime rolled out new policies to allow the crash of small-scale financing platforms, as reflected by the P2P lending bust, and strengthened state-owned liabilities. Authorities have directed local governments and the SOEs to cover their debts chiefly by appropriating private capital.Fearing Depreciation, Chinese Are Breaking the Law to Move Their Money Abroad

China has implemented tight control over its foreign exchange reserves due to the depreciating value of the yuan and to prevent rapid capital outflow. However, the Chinese people who want to withdraw cash (in foreign currency) from their banks are finding it difficult to do so. So they use different channels to get their money out. Some hire professional agencies to help, while others ask their relatives and friends to take the cash with them abroad.

Chinas foreign exchange reserves stood at $3.1097 trillion at the end of August, $8.2 billion less than a month ago, according to data from the Peoples Bank of China. In 2014, the Chinese foreign exchange reserves reached $4 trillion, nearly reduced by $1 trillion within 3 years.

Tsinghua University professor Wei Jie said that China must stabilize the foreign exchange by maintaining the margin above $3 trillion, then China wont be hit hard by the Sino-US trade war.

In July 2017, Peoples Bank of China launched new rules for large-sum and suspicious transactions in financial institutions, making it difficult for people to withdraw cash. The foreign cash withdrawal is only limited to a few areas such as holidays, overseas study and non-investment insurance. The financial institution has the right to refuse transactions that violate the rules.

A Taiwanese worker living in mainland China said that although his annual transaction doesnt exceed the 50,000 yuan ($7,273) limit, he still prefers to use private channels to transfer money. He said it is too difficult and complicated to transfer the money through the official way (a bank) because they require all sorts of background checks. So hed rather use his friends company and pay for the extra service charge to send money home.

The Taiwanese works for a Taiwan company in China. During the Chinese New Year, his boss asked 3 to 4 colleagues to take money back with them to Taiwan. Each person would take 6 to 8 bundles of banknotes, one bundle was about 20,000 yuan.

The law allows each individual to carry a maximum of 20,000 yuan out of China, and violators will have their money confiscated by customs officials.

Although the Chinese authorities strictly control the investments of large enterprises abroad, some rich individuals have been caught buying investment property overseas. These people may not have investment companies overseas, but they still have enough money to set one up. The enterprises illegal operation is the major channel for Chinas capital outflow.

American scholar Christopher Balding who taught at Peking University HSBC Business School was interviewed by Germanys Suddeutsche Zeitung. He said that a Chinese company ordered $15 million worth of foreign products, but the actual imported goods were only worth $10 million. The $5 million difference went into an overseas bank account, and it is impossible for the customs officers to inspect each container and match all the value of the goods.

This has not only happened with the purchasing of goods, the same method is also used with the purchasing of services. Some consulting companies charge high fees. But in fact, they help their clients buy property abroad and the service charge is only a small percentage.

Some people in mainland China, including the Taiwan citizens who live there, said that it is getting more and more difficult to transfer money out of China. The Chinese authorities tight control only works on people who are fully law-abiding, but there are those who risk breaking the law to take their money out of the country.

Republished from the Central News AgencyFeinsteins Own Weakness Led to Disgraceful Kavanaugh Smear

Commentary

The late smear of Brett Kavanaugh by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) is bringing disgrace to the U.S. Senate, and her own weakness is to blame.

The incentive for the timing of this ambush of Kavanaugh has much to do with Feinsteins own political weakness. She knew about the allegation for weeks but held it back, as criticism of her own ineffectiveness mounted.

Liberal Criticism

Rebukes of Feinstein by liberals grew to a crescendo during the Senate confirmation hearings. As the ranking Democratic member on the Judiciary Committee, Feinstein was expected by her political base to Bork Kavanaugh in order to deny him the nomination, as Reagan nominee Robert Bork was blocked in 1987.

Yet Feinstein struck out completely, failing even to land a glove on Kavanaugh. She never asked a single question about Kavanaughs character, despite her knowledge of a letter attacking it.

The conservative Kavanaugh emerged from the confirmation hearings stronger than when they began. Liberals became despondent at the prospect of Kavanaugh becoming a potential fifth vote to overturn Roe v. Wadethe ruling that made abortion legal in the U.S.on the high court.

At one point, Feinstein even apologized to Kavanaugh for the disruptive protests during the hearing. The left was furious at Feinsteins apology, and a California law professor tweeted that Feinstein should retire.

Re-election

Progressive Democrat Kevin de Leon, who is running against Feinstein, is the popular and charismatic former president pro tempore of the California Senate. The election is in less than 45 days, with early voting starting sooner.

Last year, fewer than half of likely California voters said that Feinstein should even run again. At age 85, Feinstein is the oldest member of the U.S. Senate and her approval rating in California has lagged below 50 percent.

Throughout the spring, Feinstein was booed by her own political base at town halls, and there have been protests at her office and home. Her re-election this fall was never a sure thing.

Then, on July 14, a political earthquake rattled Feinstein when the California Democratic Party endorsed de Leon instead. Feinstein pathetically obtained only 7 percent in support by her own party delegates.

Five days earlier, President Donald Trump had nominated Kavanaugh, a pro-life conservative, to the U.S. Supreme Court. This put Sen. Feinstein on the hot seat to stop it. It was up to Feinstein to derail the nomination of Kavanaugh by asking him tough questions about Roe v. Wade and other controversial issues, but instead, it was Kavanaugh who flew circles around Feinstein.

California liberals were furious at how weak Feinstein was. Instead of sealing her re-election with a strong performance against the confirmation of Kavanaugh, Feinstein bungled it.

Meanwhile, more political earthquakes have shaken the Democratic establishment, as unknown progressive challenges have toppled entrenched incumbents.

First in New York, where the outspoken socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defeated a 10-term incumbent, Joe Crowley, who was also the chairman of the Queens County Democratic Party. More recently, another primary upset of a Democratic incumbent has occurred in Massachusetts, where a challenger sent a 20-year congressional incumbent to an early retirement in a stunning 5841 percent upset.

Feinstein has flip-flopped on some of her longstanding positions in order to stave off defections to her more liberal rival. For example, she changed from supporting capital punishment to opposing it.

But Feinstein has remained stuck at somewhere between 39 percent and 46 percent support among voters throughout the summer and into the fall. She has been unable to reach 50 percent in polling for her re-election, and that is a red flag for incumbents.

A large bloc of California voters remain undecided, and the incumbent rule predicts that most undecided voters break against the incumbent when they vote. In presidential elections, that last-minute shift can be more than 6-to-1, as President Jimmy Carter learned the hard way when he led, but then lost in a landslide to challenger Ronald Reagan.

De Leon is hitting Feinstein hard for her past support of a crackdown against illegal immigration, a position taken by Feinstein in 1994 to hold on to her seat during the GOP landslide nationwide. Now, de Leon is criticizing Feinstein for how she withheld the allegation against Kavanaugh.

So Feinstein is rolling the dice for her own political career, hoping it will come up double-sixes rather than snake-eyes. It is quite a gamble to take, and, either way, the Senate itself will be a loser for allowing this.

Andy Schlafly is a conservative attorney who has been active in politics since his mother Phyllis Schlafly took him to the Republican National Convention 50 years ago. He worked as an electronics engineer in Silicon Valley and elsewhere, and then survived being on the Harvard Law Review with Barack Obama.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.The advertisement tested well with consumers and focus groups, leading the Ketchum agency to audition Orvilles eight grandsons for the purpose of selecting one to don a glasses, sweater vest and signature bow-tie reminiscent of Orvilles usual attire to appear solo with Grandpa in future TV commercials, advertisements and for personal appearances. As Orville never had any sons, the only way for the familys famous name to continue (and for the added benefit of promotional ease) was for Gary, selected without any input from Orville, to legally change his last name from Fish to Redenbacher.Fire Displaces 9 People in Antioch

Nine people were displaced following a one-alarm fire at a home in Antioch, early in the morning on Sept. 25, according to the Contra Costa County Fire Protection District.

The blaze was first reported at 1:03 a.m. in the 2900 block of Elizabeth Lane, Battalion Chief Bob Atlas said.

Fire crews arrived to see a truck on fire in a driveway.

Atlas said crews were able to contain the blaze by 1:20 a.m. but the exterior of the home sustained fire damage.

None of the occupants of the home were injured, but spent the night with family after the blaze knocked out an electrical meter and disabled power and gas to the home.

The cause of the fire is under investigation, Atlas said.

By PFFiscal Watchdog: States Unfunded Liabilities Grow to $1.5 Trillion

Report finds hidden debts, ranks New Jersey worst for taxpayer burden

On account of primitive and often misleading accounting, states continue to expand liabilities without the awareness of taxpayers.

A thorough 136-page report released by Truth in Accounting (TIA) on Sept. 24 seeks to cut through the jargon of financial reports. The nonprofit found the combined taxpayer burden of unfunded state debt to be $1.5 trillion for the 2017 financial year, up $53.4 billion from 2016.

TIA offers state profiles via its State Data Lab, although only 10 states have met their debts and attained surpluses in the 2017 fiscal year. In the worst 10 states, each taxpayer owes, on average, over $20,000 to meet balanced-budget requirements. New Jersey is by far the worst culprit, with a per-taxpayer burden of $61,400, followed by Connecticut at $53,400, Illinois at $50,800, Kentucky at $39,200, and Massachusetts at $33,500all sinkhole states, as described by the report.

This is the ninth edition of the annual Financial State of the States, and it does give positive marks to some states. Alaska stands out, since the surplus is $56,500 per taxpayer. Alaska has over $15 billion in spendable assets, and is one of the five sunshine states, along with North Dakota, Wyoming, Utah, and South Dakota. These states are the best performers with enough money to cover all budget liabilities.

Sneaking Under the Radar

TIA research director Bill Bergman shared with The Epoch Times that states in general do not have enough money to pay all of their bills. They have accumulated massive debts off their balance sheets. He points the finger at budgeting practices based largely on cash (as opposed to accrual) accounting principles.

The pay-as-you-go approach fails to account for commitments to be paid in the future. The elephant in the room, according to TIA, is the rising and ominous cost of pensions and retiree medical-care for state employees. A combination of the Great Recession and baby boomer retirement has exacerbated the fiscal shortfalls and IOU blind spots of the states, akin to the Social Security dilemma at the federal level.

Bergman wants expenses reported when incurred, not when they are paid. He contends that a lack of awareness means politicians can campaign on misleading numbers: Unfunded retiree pension and health-care benefits [grew] significantly since 2009, despite the economic and financial market recoveries since then. He hopes that this report will give citizens and taxpayers the tools to hold officials accountable.

Letter Grades

Every year, the TIA report estimates the tax surplus or tax burden of each state. In addition to finding 40 states in the red, the authors contend that individual reports reveal mismanagement.

Bergman explains that all states are not alike, and some states have actually done very well, in terms of walking the talk on balanced budget requirements advertised to their citizens. To better illustrate individual financial performance, the organization has, for the first time, given a letter grade to each state.

Those with an A or B meet their debts and have taxpayer surpluses over $10,000 or $100 respectively. TIA finds three states in the first group and seven in the second. The C and D grades go to the states unable to meet their debts with taxpayer burdens under $4,900 and $20,000 per taxpayer, respectively. Twelve states get a C, and 18 get a D.

The states that have not balanced their budgets and have taxpayer burdens exceeding $20,000 get an F10 states this year.

With this grading system, Bergman contends citizens have an easily accessible tool to be responsible and informed. He also wants this to be a fair metric for comparison across states.

Having a surplus in spendable assets does not, however, equate to having the best accounting system or timely reporting. While companies take an average of 45 days to issue their financial reports when each fiscal year is over, state governments take more than double that.

Michigan got a D grade and needs $53 billion to pay its debts, but it was the only state to publish its financial report within 100 days, the time suggested by TIA. Alaska took 224 days from the end of the fiscal year, just 48 days fewer than New Jersey.

Both states failed to meet even the 180-day term suggested by the Government Finance Officers Association. In fact, 22 states went over that recommendation, and Alabamas data was not published when the TIA researchers compiled their report.

TIA identifies new financial-reporting rules from the Governmental Accounting Standards Board that will take effect in the 2018 fiscal year and bring hidden debt out of the shadows. However, rules 74 and 75, which apply to post-employment benefits, allow states to take the figures from the previous year, a delay that TIA rejects and describes it as ripe for misuse.

TIA identifies as nonpartisan, and makes no policy recommendations beyond improvements to budgeting and accounting practices. Within that scope, though, the organization advocates Full Accrual Calculations and Techniques or FACT-based budgeting. That includes the most recent pension data, timely releases available online, and audits by certified public accountants.

Their message to politicians is to simply stop claiming to balance the budget while putting off expenses into the future, placing a larger debt onto incoming generations.

One scholar who does take a stand on state fiscal reform is Eileen Norcross of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University in Virginia. For many years, she has pointed out not only the lack of reporting but misleading discount rates that devalue future payments. Norcross says this could be avoided with defined contributions, rather than defined benefits for state employees.A police officer detains Saeed Noori after he drove a carinto pedestrians at Flinders St station in Melbourne, Australia, on Dec. 21, 2017. (Twitter / @LACHLANVE/ via Reuters)

Flinders Street Car Attack Suspect Gave Contradictory Answers, Official Tells Court

An official told the Melbourne Magistrates Court that the man who allegedly drove his SUV into Melbourne pedestrians gave multiple answers about the incident to the authorities, ABC reported on Sept. 25 .

When Paramedic Brett Overend brought 32-year-old Saeed Noori to the Royal Melbourne Hospital after the car attack on Dec. 21, 2017, he asked Noori to tell him what had happened. Overend said that Noori gave contradictory answers.

Mr Noori was saying no comment to me at one point, Mr Overend said. In relation to the incident [he gave] multiple answers.

Detective Senior Constable Simon Bray gave evidence that Noori had said I should be locked up, it was deliberate, there were voices in the hospital.

Lead investigator Detective Chris Saulle had received a different response. He said hed committed the act to have his voice heard, Saulle told the court.

Not long after the attack, a police official had told media that Noori blamed the mistreatment of Muslims for some of his activities. Noori is of Afghan descent.

In the court hearing, Noori pleaded not guilty to a murder charge for deceased 83-year-old Antonio Crocaris who died from the incident, 15 counts of attempted murder, and one dangerous driving offence.

An 83-year-old Melbourne grandfather has become the first person to die following the Flinders Street rampage. #9News pic.twitter.com/W5qkInkBX9  Nine News Australia (@9NewsAUS) December 29, 2017

The court was shown a collection of footage of the incident. One of them showed an SUV driving into the Flinders Street tram lane and then heading off into the intersection where pedestrians were crossing the road at around 50 kilometers per hour.

Hours before the incident, Noori withdrew $7,000 from his bank account to hire a rental SUV. After failing to hire an SUV from two car rentals in Prestongiven his history of mental illness, violence, and drug useNoori went to Oak Park and borrowed his mothers Suzuki SUV to drive to the city.

Francis Adams, an off-duty police officer who rushed to the SUV and restrained Noori gave his testimony in court, The Australian reported.

I approached the vehicle  I tried to restrain his arms and put my head on the side of his head, Adams said. He eventually stopped moving  I believed he was faking losing consciousness.

Prosecutor Mark Gibson said that he yelled Allahu Akbar two or three times after he was arrested.

The police found files on Nooris computer relating to car attacks including images of the Westminster Bridge attack in London and the Charlottesville attack in the United States. Other photos included images of the Twin Tower attack on Sept. 11, and a Taliban execution, The Herald Sun reported.

Magistrate Camerson said that she was satisfied that there was enough evidence for a conviction, but a psychological evaluation must be done before Noori can plead not guilty on the basis of mental impairment, The Australian reported.

Victoria Police asked an Islamic studies expert who had assisted them in the past to help with the case. The expert suggested that Noori could have been radicalised. There were signs and patterns in his initial statement and material he consulted online, the expert said, adding that there could be a fair degree of radicalisation.

Noori is due to stand trial in Victorias Supreme Court on Oct. 2.

Watch Next:

The First Ever Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom Inspires Hope

The freedom of belief was at the center of the United States founding.Florence Flooding Slowly Envelops South Carolina Homes

GEORGETOWN, S.C.A week ago, firefighters in Conway, South Carolina, went to a neighborhood and told surprised residents their houses would flood from Hurricane Florence even though they had never had water in them before.

On Sept. 24 and 25, those same firefighters checked on those same neighborhoods with maps that detailed each of the nearly 1,000 homes that could expect to be inundated.

Its kind of playing out exactly like we forecast, Conway Fire Chief Le Hendrick said.

Twelve days after the once-fierce hurricane arrived on the coast, and more than a week after it blew north and dissipated, rivers swollen by its relentless rains are still flooding homes and businesses in their paths as they make their way to the sea.

The slow-moving disaster has allowed forecasters to pinpoint exactly who will flood. There have been few rescues or surprises in South Carolinajust black, reeking water slowly seeping in and even more slowly receding.

You find yourself sitting around a lot and thinking, What if, or, I wonder what things are like right now,' said Vivian Chestnut, who left her home in Conway a week ago and might not get back until well into October. And wondering what you are going to find when you finally get back.

The Waccamaw River, which flows through the city of 23,000, was expected to crest on Wednesday at 21.7 feet (6.6 meters). It surpassed the previous record high of 17.9 feet (5.5 meters) set in 2016 by Hurricane Matthew on Friday.

The waterway was not expected to drop below 18 feet (5.5 meters) or so until sometime next week. The river floods at 11 feet (3.4 meters).

All that water is making its way to Georgetown, where five different rivers reach the sea. Officials there said the worst of the flooding would start Wednesday and last until Thursday, likely leaving only one highway into the city.

And if that werent bad enough, more weather was forming off the coast in a hurricane season that still has two months to go. National Hurricane Center forecasters watching a low-pressure area about 200 miles (320 kilometers) south of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, said it could become a tropical depression as it approaches the coast before moving quickly to the north.

While it will likely dump some additional rain on the Florence-battered city of Wilmington, it wasnt expected to be significant enough to worsen the flooding.

It shouldnt put much of a dent in the rivers, said Reid Hawkins, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Wilmington.

Officials at South Carolinas state-owned utility were still warily monitoring two coal-ash ponds near Conway. Santee Cooper officials said floodwater from the Waccamaw River had already made it into one pond, but most of the ash had already been removed from it during an earlier cleanup project.

The river is likely to flood the second pond soon, but the utility promised it has taken steps to lessen the environmental impact, such as installing silt fencing and a floating environmental containment boom.

Not far from the ash ponds, engineers are keeping an eye on U.S. Highway 501, the main link to Myrtle Beach. Water is now touching a temporary barrier of sand and plastic that has been erected to keep water off the bridge. Called the Lifeline, the temporary wall will remain effective if the water doesnt rise more than an additional 5 feet (1.5 meters) from its current level, according to the state Department of Transportation.

In North Carolina the rivers have stopped rising, but the recovery process is really just beginning. In rural Jones County, between Kinston and New Bern, two of the countys six schools will have to be demolished after floodwaters left mold and mildew in their wake, School Superintendent Michael Bracy said.A young girl lays a rose at a memorial stone for the victims of the 2013 al-Shabaab attack on Westgate shopping mall in the Kenyan capital Nairobi on Sept. 20, 2015. (Tony Karumba/AFP/Getty Images)

Horn of Africa Still at Risk From Violent Extremism

NAIROBI, KenyaCountries in the Horn of Africa continue to face a growing threat from extremist Islamic groups, particularly the Somali militant group al-Shabab.

In recent years, the problem has largely been compounded by rising levels of youth unemployment, according to security analysts.

We cannot underestimate the nature of the problem; this is a major regional security challenge, said Mutuma Ruteere, director of the Center for Human Rights and Policy Studies, a Kenya-based regional security think tank.

Ruteere, a former U.N. special rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, and related intolerance, says violent extremism has also become a social problem for communities and families, which have seen their young men and women embrace ideologies of groups like al-Shabab, and even sign up as active members.

It is for sure one of Kenyas major security challenges, he added.

Deadly Attacks

Kenya has suffered a string of deadly terrorist attacks in the recent past since sending its troops into Somalia in 2011 to fight against the al-Qaeda affiliate in East Africa.

The Somali militant group al-Shabab has claimed responsibility for major assaults, including the 2013 terrorist attack on Westgate shopping mall in the Kenyan capital, which killed at least 67 people and left scores of others wounded.

In April 2015, the terrorist group carried out another massacre on Kenyan soil when the extremist fighters attacked Garissa University College, killing 148 people, the majority of them students.

Officials said the Garissa attack was the deadliest in Kenya since the 1998 terrorist bombings of the U.S. embassies in East Africa, which claimed more than 200 lives, including 12 Americans.

But as Kenya marked five years since the Westgate Mall massacre on Sept. 21, the memories of the event still lingered.

Fresh Memories

Eunice Kavetsa, 30, whose husband was among the security guards killed by the attackers, said the deadly incident is still fresh in her memory.

I still live in fear five years later, said the mother of two children.

She said that on that fateful day, her husband, Maurice Adembtsa Ombisa, had been called by his junior colleagues to find out why the would-be attackers did not want their car to be inspected by security guards. No sooner had he arrived, than he was shot at point-blank range and died instantly.

Its not been easy coping with the trauma, Kavesta said.

In a statement, President Uhuru Kenyatta said, We will never forget all those who lost their lives on that day.

But Kenyatta said Kenya remained unbowed. It is a war that we shall not let up, he added.

Kenyan officials say security agencies have effectively reduced the attacks by al-Shabab.

Security Response

It has taken many years to learn, but overall, we have seen significant progress in reducing the incidences of attacks, especially in cities and urban areas, Ruteere said.

The problem still remains, particularly in the border areas.

In its latest report, the International Crisis Group (ICG)a nonprofit that works to prevent warssaid, al-Shabab remains focused on recapturing power in Somalia, but it continues to plot attacks inside Kenya and Tanzania.

According to the report, titled Al-Shabab Five Years after Westgate: Still a Menace in East Africa, the Islamist group appears committed to striking targets across East Africa.

As a result, the militant group continues to pose a security risk, despite its weakened capacity.

Murithi Mutiga, a senior analyst at ICG, said that al-Shabab remains a threat, its a potent threat, but that they are less likely to stage regular assaults, especially in major urban areas.

Security experts say that al-Shabab has in recent times found new areas of operation, including forging links with militants in southern Tanzania and northern Mozambique.

Confronting Violence

Analysts say authorities remain alert, even as security agencies adopt new ways of confronting the problem.

[Terrorism] is also global in nature and its rapidly changing, which makes it a problem for the state in how it responds, said Ruteere, who has co-edited a new report titled Confronting Violent Extremism in Kenya.

Remember, those involved in violent extremism are also adapting, he said.

In a bid to tackle the growing threat from extremism, Ruteere said the Center for Human Rights and Policy Studies has launched an online platform that focuses on countering violent extremism.

Some say youth unemployment and religious and ethnic marginalization are the root causes of radicalization among Kenyan youths.

To contain the growing threat, the ICG report says authorities should avoid blanket arrests and extrajudicial killings, and involve local leaders in efforts to tackle recruitment.

They should also take steps to address broader grievances that the Islamist insurgents exploit, including the political and economic exclusion of Muslim minorities in East Africa.

According to the researchers, the Somali terrorist group is likely to remain a formidable force inside Somalia and a menace in the neighboring countries in the Horn of Africa.Jamaicans Publicly Question Chinese Investment and Influence

Jamaicas open arms to Chinese investment in recent years has led many island residents to fret about possible adverse effects on the local economy.

Allan Hope, the Jamaican poet, musician, actor, and talk-show host better known as Mutabaruka, recently voiced his concern during his Cutting Edge radio talk show that Chinese road projects in Jamaica will put his country on a path toward debt default, according to a Sept. 25 article by Caribbean news site Loop.

We must look at what is happening in other parts of the world as it relates to China. Other countries are faltering on loans and they have to take land and seaports, Mutabaruka said.

Loop highlighted the case in Sri Lanka, when China took control of a Sri Lankan seaport and 15,000 acres of nearby land included in a 99-year lease, after the Sri Lankan government defaulted on a Chinese bank loan.

Beijing is currently financing several road-rehabilitation projects in Jamaicas capital of Kingston, including projects at Three Miles, Constant Spring Road, Hagley Park, and Mandela Highway. The total cost of these projects would be roughly $88.6 billion.

Additionally, Jamaican government signed a loan agreement with Chinas Export and Import Bank in February 2017, for $384 million to renovate 110 kilometers (about 68 miles) of the South Coast Highway, which runs from the Harbour View in Kingston to Port Antonio in Portland, a parish on Jamaicas northeastern coast, according to the Jamaican government.

You think it cant happen to we [sic], after all these pretty lights and motorways? Mutabaruka said.

Currently, Jamaica sits on a mountain of debt. According to a May 16 article by Jamaica information website DigiJamaica, total debt stands at roughly $15 billion as of the end of March, citing data from Jamaicas Ministry of Finance. The countrys external debt is roughly $10 billion. It isnt known how much of that is owed to China.

Chinas Interests in the Caribbean

Aside from road-rehabilitation projects, Beijing has invested heavily in Jamaica under the One Belt, One Road initiative (OBOR, also known as Belt and Road).

OBOR, first announced by Beijing in 2013, seeks to build Beijing-centered land and maritime trading networks by financing infrastructure projects throughout Europe, Asia, Africaand most recently, the Caribbean and Latin America.

Under the OBOR initiative, Beijing has begun investing heavily into Jamaica, including a $721 million investment into Highway 2000, Jamaicas first toll road, which taken over by the state-run China Harbor Engineering Co. in 2014; and the purchase of Jamaicas Alpart aluminum refinery, which was previously owned by a Russian mining company. Chinas state-run Jinquan Iron and Steel bought it for $3 million in 2016, according to Chinas official OBOR website.

The Alpart refinery purchase is part of Chinas desire to tap into Jamaicas rich deposits of bauxite, a clay rock that can be refined to produce aluminum. Jamaica has one of the worlds largest deposits of the material.

Separate from OBOR efforts, in June 2013, Beijing offered a $3 billion loan with favorable rates to nine Caribbean countries, including Trinidad and Tobago, and Jamaica, according to Chinas finance website Caixin.

While Beijing has claimed its investments and loans to Jamaica are for the benefit of both countries, the formers motives could be read between the lines in a policy paper on Latin America and the Caribbean issued by the central government in November 2016.

In the document, Beijing called for greater military cooperation with the two regions in the realms of training, trade, and technology. Politically, Beijing stated that it would engage with countries in the region on the basis of the One China principle.

According to the Chinese Communist Party, the One China principle stipulates that both mainland China and Taiwan are inalienable parts of a single China, and Taiwan must one day be united with the mainland, by military force if necessary. However, Taiwan is self-ruled with its own constitution, democratically elected government, and military.

Beijing has targeted the Caribbean for dollar diplomacy, because many of Taiwans diplomatic allies are in the region: Haiti, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. The Dominican Republic was Taiwans ally before Beijing pressured the country to recognize one China and drop ties with Taiwan in May.

The U.S. Department of Defense, in its annual report on Chinas military and security development prepared for Congress in May, pointed out that China had increasingly used professional military exchanges to build its influence in the region and counter the United States presence. The report noted that many countries in the Caribbean and Latin America have sent officers to the Chinese-military-run National Defense University in Beijing.



Jamaican Economy

A letter to the editortitled Chinas Colonization of Jamaica appeared on the Caribbean regional news site Caribbean News Now on Sept. 4, questioning how much the Jamaican economy and Jamaicans have really benefited from Chinese investment.



For one, Chinese investors often hire Chinese instead of local Jamaicans to work on Chinese infrastructure projects. Such imported Chinese laborers was one reason that Jamaicas GDP hasnt shown any significant growth, despite all the direct investment from China, according to the letter.

Between 2013 to 2017, when Chinese investment began pouring in, Jamaicas GDP has more or less hovered around $14 billion, dipping to a low of $13.9 billion in 2014 and registering a high of $14.4 billion in 2017.

In March 2016, an unidentified local contractor told The Gleaner that Chinese workers were often preferred because they were cheaper to hire: $1 and a bowl of rice for a Chinese worker per day, compared to $4 daily wages for a Jamaican worker.

Meanwhile, the jobs created by Chinese investment were often limited to cheap subservient marginal jobs in wholesale and on infrastructure projects, the letter pointed out.

Chinese companies that have invested in Jamaica and dominated its construction sector has inevitably pushed out local construction companies. In August 2017, Peter Bunting, former minister of Jamaicas National Security, called the Chinese presence a form of economic colonization, according to a report by The Gleaner.

He said Chinese companies had an unfair advantage because they were supported by Beijing and had virtually unlimited resources.Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe delivers a speech to the General Assembly at the United Nations during the United Nations General Assembly in New York City on Sept. 25, 2018. (Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)

Japans Abe Said to Be Willing to Make Trade Concessions to Avoid US Tariffs

Japan is willing to make concessions to Washington and enter into bilateral trade negotiations in hopes of avoiding U.S. tariffs, as the two sides met for a second round of discussions, according to Japanese media.

On Sept. 25, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer met in New York with his counterpart, Toshimitsu Motegi, Japans economic revitalization minister. The meeting followed the first talks held in Washington in August, when the negotiators failed to reach an understanding.

After the second-round meeting, Motegi told reporters that they now have a general idea of how to promote bilateral trade.

We were able to reach a common understanding over the broad direction that things should go in, he said, according to Japanese news agency Kyodo. The specifics may be announced after the summit between President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, he added.

Trump and Abe are scheduled to meet Sept. 26 on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly session in New York.

According to Japanese media, Abe would prefer a multilateral trade relationship with the United States under the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). But to avoid additional tariffs, he has caved to Trumps demands for bilateral trade talks.

Given our position (close diplomatic relationship), we would have to swallow their demands, said one Japanese official, according to the Japan Times.

Tokyo is concerned about U.S. tariffs on cars, since the auto industry is integral to Japans manufacturing and economy. Automotive exports to the United States are a key source of growth for the country, accounting for nearly 1 percent of its gross domestic product.

Japan may enter negotiations on a bilateral deal if the Trump administration promises to hold off on imposing additional tariffs on Japans auto sector, according to Kyodo, which cited another source.

Trade relations with Japan regressed last year after Trump pulled the United States out of TPP, a multilateral trade pact involving 11 Pacific Rim countries.

Trump also raised concerns about the trade deficit with Japan and demanded a bilateral trade agreement to address that.

Before holding a working dinner with Abe on Sept. 23 ahead of the U.N. meetings, Trump wrote on Twitter that he would be talking military and trade.

We have done much to help Japan, would like to see more of a reciprocal relationship. It will all work out! he wrote.

Barriers to US Exporters

The U.S. trade deficit in goods with Japan was nearly $69 billion in 2017, the same as the prior year. And nearly two-thirds of it comes from the Japanese automotive sector.

The Trump administration demands that Japan removes barriers to U.S. exporters, including tariffs and other barriers to entering and expanding in the Japanese market.

According to a report by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), American manufacturers are facing difficulties in accessing Japans automotive market. Due to non-tariff barriers that impede access to the market, overall sales of American-made vehicles and automotive parts in Japan remain very weak, states the report.

The non-tariff barriers in Japan include issues relating to certification, standards and testing protocols, transparency, and hurdles in distribution and service networks. USTR claims that these issues combined with other past and current policies have put American companies at a disadvantage.

On May 23, Trump directed the secretary of commerce to launch a Section 232 investigation into whether imports of automobiles and auto parts threaten to harm national security. The investigation may result in tariffs as high as 25 percent on auto imports, which would hurt foreign carmakers.

The outcome of other trade talks, including the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), may have an impact on the investment landscape, as well. Japanese carmakers are concerned about the fate of NAFTA, as most have supply chains in Mexico and Canada. In the past decade, Mexico has become an important production hub for Japanese carmakers like Toyota, Honda, Nissan, and Mazda.

Trade experts speculate that Abe could make concessions to the United States by offering greater access to American exporters on agricultural goods to avoid tariffs on cars.

Japan is the worlds fourth-largest importer of agricultural products and has a $12 billion agricultural trade deficit with the United States. With a 25 percent market share last year, the United States was the top supplier of agricultural goods to the country.Justice Dept. Meeting With State Officials Focuses on Data Privacy

WASHINGTONA Justice Department listening session with state attorneys general on Sept. 25 focused on protecting consumer privacy when big tech companies amass vast troves of data, but came to no immediate conclusions, three participants said after the meeting.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions led the discussion with attorneys general or other representatives from 13 states and the District of Columbia, the department said.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood, and Nebraska Attorney General Doug Peterson said after the meeting, which lasted about an hour, that much of the discussion focused on whether concerns about the collection of consumer data can be addressed using antitrust law.

The group made no immediate plans to file a case or open any investigation, Becerra said.

The discussion had been expected to focus on companies like Facebook Inc., Twitter Inc., and Google owner Alphabet Inc., which have been accused by some conservatives of seeking to exclude their ideas.

Hood said that a minute portion of the meeting was focused on the issue of potential, online political bias.

Peterson said talks among the federal and state law enforcers were at the initial stage, and had been triggered by a presentation about the collection of consumer data which was given at a June meeting of the National Association of Attorneys General.

Hood, whose office has already sued Google, said that he would like to see private, consumer information treated like intellectual property.

Becerra said that much of the discussion focused on grappling with how best to use a slow-adapting legal system to address issues related to data use, sale and collection, most of which is invisible to the ordinary consumer.

There are growing concerns that the sector is moving into spaces that most people couldnt have thought of or imagined and trying to understand what that means. And so whether or not there is a definition within our current legal architecture that fits or embraces what is going on these days is part of the question, said Becerra.

The meeting, first announced on Sept. 5, was called by Sessions to discuss whether social media companies have intentionally stifled the free exchange of ideas.

Becerra said he expects a larger group of state attorneys general to address the issue at an upcoming meeting of the National Association of Attorneys General.

Consumer data is a powerful tool that companies use to decide where to place advertisements, what content to feature, and which consumers might be interested in the product.

The easiest step would be for antitrust agencies to consider opposing mergers of companies that combine large caches of consumer data if that data can enhance market power, such as Apples acquisition of the music recognition app Shazam, said Diana Moss, president of the American Antitrust Institute.

Moss also noted that mergers that combine data processing capability, which relies increasingly on artificial intelligence, could also enhance the market power of already powerful companies in a way that could violate antitrust law.

Data and data processing can absolutely be a strategic asset that can be enhanced by a merger (and) can be used by a dominant firm to exclude rivals, she said.

By Jan Wolfe & Diane BartzThe Kavanaugh Attacks: From Spartacus Moment to Unverifiable Belated Allegation

First the absurd: During the confirmation hearings earlier this month on the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to replace Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court , Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) compared himself to Spartacus, characterizing, in heroic terms, his proposed release of 12 pages of classified documents containing emails from Kavanaughs service as an aide in George W. Bushs White House.

Booker was most likely referencing the cable television series named after the historic rebel. The characterization is so grandiose, and so beyond the pale, that it seems unlikely that the reference was based on the 1960 film Spartacus, starring Kirk Douglas and directed by the legendary Stanley Kubrick, written by Dalton Trumbo and based on the novel by Howard Fast.

The senators ersatz bravery would seem more likely to be based on the ersatz hero, the more contemporary Spartacus of Starz cable TV, who, much like the senator himself, has much bluster and little depth.

The real Spartacus, a Thracian (perhaps Jewish) escaped gladiator-slave, led a revolt of fellow slaves against the Romans in the first century B.C. Demonstrating extraordinary courage and exposing himself to great danger, he sacrificed all in a desperate effort to obtain freedom for his people, dying in battle in 71 B.C.

Booker, on the other hand, faces no greater risk than perhaps a paper cut as he waves a sheaf of documents to emphasize a point concerning Kavanaughs stance on racial profilinga baseless point, as a close reading of the now-public documents reveals.

It seems more than mildly absurd for Booker to compare his proposed release of papers to the act of Spartacus, who routinely risked his life fighting against heavily armed soldiers, while greatly outnumbered. The very fact that the senator would equate his proposed release of a handful of documents, regardless of the content, to the Herculean feats of one of historys great rebel-warriors demonstrates the senators lack of comprehension as to what true heroism encompasses.

The self-aggrandizement is rendered all the more ridiculous by reports that his office had previously been informed that the documents were to be declassifiedand had, in fact, been made public prior to Bookers ascension to valor, having been released the night before by Bill Burck, the George W. Bush attorney charged with reviewing Bush-era White House emails for declassification and dissemination.

Bookers self-admitted groping of a young woman, which he wrote about in a Stanford University newspaper in 1992, provides an appropriate segue for the next act in the theater of the absurd into which the confirmation process has evolved: the Kafkaesque, unverifiable allegations made against the Supreme Court nominee.

As described by Deanna Paul in the Washington Post, [Christine Blasey] Ford has alleged that Kavanaugh pinned her down and clumsily groped her during a prep school party when Ford, 15, was a sophomore and Kavanaugh, 17, a junior. Allegations werent contemporaneously communicated by the complainant, and, intentionally or not, shes now been transformed into a political pawn, with a legal team no less, whose financing it would be interesting to know.

It seems unlikely that Ford is footing the bill for a passel of lawyers working long hours. And to what end? To rehabilitate her reputation? To raise awareness of all teenaged women of their rights to confront sexual abuse? Or, as is more likely, to accomplish by circuitous methods what couldnt be executed directly: the character assassination of a politically undesirable nominee?

Lost in the painstaking efforts by Republican lawmakers to avoid even the remotest possibility of appearing to not accord the alleged acts an appropriate level of gravitas, is a critical question regarding adolescence and responsibility. Taking Fords accusations as true in their entirety, should such an incident disqualify Kavanaugh from appointment to the Supreme Court?

Does an isolated clumsy gropingor worse, depending on which version of the allegations one is relying onby a teenager truly inform a mature adults persona and exercise of judgment? Does anyone over the age of 30 truly believe that it does? Or, as is the case with the groping by the senator from New Jersey, should such episodes, when true, be categorized as bad acts from which good people can still evolve? There are no facile answers, but the issues are worthy of examination and calm debate.

What this entire episode has demonstrated, from Spartacus to Ford, is the devolution of the confirmation process, of the Senates role of advice and consent regarding executive and judicial nominees. A circus atmosphere prevails, and reasoned exchange of opinions is now a quaint notion of the past.

If the Kavanaugh appointment is derailed, the result will be that, henceforth, no one can be confirmed to any position. I suggest that anyone and everyone will be vulnerable to attacks similar to the one being perpetrated by the Ford team, as evidenced by the emergence of Deborah Ramirez, whose singularly uncorroborated and belated accusationfiltered by a self-admitted alcoholic hazehas been deemed worthy of print by a hitherto respected journalistic outlet.

Phantoms formed from the past, real or imagined, can and will be used to haunt any and all.

Epoch Times contributor Marc Ruskin is a 27-year veteran of the FBI, an adjunct professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and the author of The Pretender: My Life Undercover for the FBI. He served on the legislative staff of U.S. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan and as an assistant district attorney in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.Mexican Navy members escort the Secretary of Public Security of Acapulco Max Lorenzo Sedano (R) after they took control of the local Public Security Secretariat in Acapulco, Mexico, on Sept. 25, 2018. Mexican military forces arrested at least two police officers in Acapulco and took control of the local Public Security Secretariat due to possible links to organized crime. (Francisco Robles/AFP/Getty Images)

Mexican Marines Arrest and Disarm Acapulco Police Over Drug Ties

MEXICO CITYHeavily armed Mexican marines and soldiers on Sept. 25 stormed the police force of Acapulco on suspicions of ties to organized crime.

Acapulco police were disarmed and at least two of its officers arrested as Mexicos military seized equipment and weapons.

The arrested officers have been accused of homicide.

The violent port city of Acapulco, in southern Guerrero state, was once a glamorous beach resort for Hollywoods rich and famous. The city has fallen on hard times as entrenched drug crime has transformed it into one of the most murderous places in the world.

Guerrero is a hub for opium poppy production and the scene of frequent violent clashes between warring drug cartels.

The military personnel, along with federal and state police and the Guerrero states attorney generals office, disarmed Acapulco municipal police officers and arrested at least two of them for their probable responsibility in homicide, they said in a joint statement.

Acapulcos other police officers are under investigation, the group said, without specifying how many, adding that weapons, bulletproof vests, ammunition, and radios were seized.

There were over 30,000 murders across Mexico last year, the highest in records going back to 1997, as rival drug gangs splintered into smaller, more bloodthirsty groups following more than a decade of a military-led campaign to battle the cartels.The mans son, who was playing video games upstairs, heard his mom and dad scream, according to the affidavit, and came to see his father struggling over control of the shotgun with Del Real. Del Real, who appeared to have the most control over the shotgun, pointed the barrel of the gun at the teenager and said what, what as if he was warning him to stay away, the affidavit states.People take part in the Daybreaker dance party on a boat in the morning before going to work in New York, August 6, 2014. (Samira Bouaou/Epoch Times)

Millennials Could Be a Force in the MidtermsIf They Vote

In a party obsessed with identity, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) may be doing more to hurt than help. She is white, affluent, upper-class, older, and, to many, represents the establishment that her party collectively distrusts.

Twenty-eight-year-old congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was noncommittal when asked about voting for Pelosi for House speaker if the Democrats take back control of the chamber. And some others in the party have been talking about replacing her with Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina to show black voters that the party does care about them.

Her counterpart in the Senate, Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), has a similar problem, although hes not up for reelection till 2023. But their collective age, 145, may put their party at a disadvantage when appealing to a younger generation of voters who are more diverse than in any before and are more likely to take to the streets than to the voting booth for issues that they care about.

Three years ago, the census reported that millennials, which the census defines as 18 to 36-year-olds, were larger than any other generation alive, and a plurality46 percentidentify as Democrat, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll of 16,000 registered voters ages 18 to 34. Sixty-two percent said they preferred Democrats running for Congress this year, a Pew Research survey of 21- to 37-year-old registered voters found.

The Democrats will win if the millennials that theyve been working on will turn out and vote the way they want, said George Barna, founder of research and polling organization Barna Group. Millennials do not have a good track record in terms of turnout. They have a lot of passion, but we havent seen them actually put that into action in the voting booth.

Indeed, only 23 percent of 18- to 34-year-olds participated in the 2014 midterms, according to the census, and about 51 percent participated in the 2016 elections, according to Pew.

Voter turnout across the board is lower for midterms than in presidential election years, and young voters are no exception. Millennials (21- to 37-year-olds, according to Pew) were eligible to vote in the past four midterms, but only about 20 percent turned out, compared to the national average of 42 percent.

Shifting Tide

While Millennials, however theyre defined, lean largely Democratic, the tide may be shifting.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll found a 9-point decline in the number of Millennials who identified with the party compared to two years earlier. In the first three months of 2016, 55 percent identified with the Democratic Party, compared to only 46 percent now. Thats only one poll, but anecdotal evidence lends credence to it.

Brandon Straka, a Nebraska-born hairdresser who lives in New York City, decided to walk away from the Democratic Party after President Donald Trump was elected, starting the #WalkAway movement.

Like many liberals, he wondered what the world had come to when his candidate, Hillary Clinton, lost the presidential election. But his views started to change when he then spoke with people back home who had supported Trump.

A friend sent him a video compilation of things the media had said about the president that werent true, and Straka began to do his own research. The narrative around Trump that he had come to believe unraveled, and so did his faith in the Democratic Party, and liberalism in general.

But it wasnt just the false narratives that turned him off; it was the silencing of dissenting opinions and ideas with loud, and sometimes violent, reactions that made him ultimately turn away.

I reject a system which allows an ambitious, misinformed and dogmatic mob to suppress free speech, create false narratives, and apathetically steamroll over the truth, he said in his political coming-out video.I reject hate.

Shortly after he published his testimonial, other people began publishing theirs as well, including Grammy-nominated Argentinian composer Al Conti.

Its hard to say how big the #WalkAway movement has become. Strakas two Facebook pages, the The Unsilent Minority and WalkAway Campaign, have 88,966 and 86,639 followers, respectively. Strakas video on Facebook has 2.5 million views, and the same video on Youtube has 340,000. Whether there are enough to make a difference in the polls may become clearer on Oct. 27, when the #WalkAway movement hosts a march in Washington.

Straka says his movement isnt about getting people to vote for a particular party or candidate, and he encourages people to do their own research on issues and stand up for their truth. If these #WalkAway never-again-Democrats are leaving the party, theres no guarantee theyre joining the Republican Party, or that theyre planning to walk into the voting booth. The only trend that can be surmised from the movement is a move away from identification with the Democratic Party.

Republicans in Favor?

While the Reuters/Ipsos poll doesnt show much difference in Millennials who identify as Republican compared to two years ago, a Gallup poll taken this month shows a more favorable view now, among all age groups, of the Republican Party than in the past seven years.

That falls in line with what Charlie Kirk has been seeing since the 2016 presidential election. At 24, he is the founder and executive director of Turning Point USA, a nonprofit founded to organize and educate around issues like free speech, limited government, and free market economies on high school and college campuses. The organization, which has a presence on 1,300 U.S. campuses, has seen its membership increase by 40 percent since the 2016 presidential election.

Since the election of Donald Trump, weve seen just limitless amounts of students come out of the woodwork and support the organization, and our ideas and the events were having on campus are having record turnout, Kirk said.

Much like Straka, Kirk says students are engaging with Turning Point USA members because they want to hear another perspective, and they dont want to be told what to think. He credits Trumps candidness and lack of political correctness as starting a conversation that many didnt feel comfortable having before.

There are a lot of students who dont want to live in a politically correct box, he said. And were present saying you shouldnt be afraid to hear something you disagree withits healthy.

Millennial Turnout

The good news is, Trump really motivates Republicans. The bad news is, he really motivates Democrats, said Lee Chatfield, a 30-year-old Republican in Michigans House of Representatives. We saw many first-time voters for Trump. The question remains, are the first-time voters in 16 going to return to the ballot in 18.

Chatfield, who chairs the Michigan House Republican Campaign Committee, says what he and other Republicans in his committee are doing to get the Millennial vote is to first get them in the habit of voting.

Whether its because of Trump or that Millennials are becoming older and more civic-minded, they are ostensibly more motivated to vote this year than in past midterms. A Pew poll found that 62 percent of Millennial registered voters say they are looking forward to the midterms, compared to 46 percent in 2014 and 39 percent in 2010.

TargetSmart, a Washington-based political research company, found that voter registration among 18- to 29-year-olds was up 4 percent in this years primaries compared to 2014; theres a similar trend for those ages 30 to 39.

The state-by-state analysis shows that younger voters are poised to have an outsized impact in key battleground races, Tom Bonier, CEO of TargetSmart, said in a release.

Those states are going to be crucial in deciding the makeup of Congress, which Republicans currently have a majority in: a 5149 edge in the Senate and a 236193 advantage in the House. If Democrats take over, its likely they will be at loggerheads with Trump, who has already gone head-to-head with them on issues like immigration, Obamacare, and confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

While Millennials generally dont give Trump high ratings, the presidents policies on the economy are likely to help them in the long-term. The things that millennials seem to agree about are wages, job growth, and income inequality, according to a GenForward survey.

Whether an improving economy will be enough to motivate them to vote, though, remains to be seen.Polish President Andrzej Duda (R) and the leader of PiS (Law and Justice) party Jaroslaw Kaczynski attend the prime minister's nomination ceremony on Nov. 13, 2015. (Janek Skarzynski/AFP/Getty Images)

Poland Plans to Build Baltic Sea Canal to Bypass Russia

Poland is planning to construct a new canal so that its ships no longer have to pass through Russian waters to get to the Baltic Sea.

The president of Polands governing party says the country is pressing ahead with the plans in order to cut Russias influence. It is important for Polands status, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, head of the Law and Justice party, said in a radio interview, according to the Daily Telegraph.

In the end, Poland needs to shed the last traces of being a dependent state. We need to show that the times Russia dictated what we could or could not do on our territory are over, Kaczynski said.

The canal is intended to be dug through a thin strip of land between the Vistula Lagoon and the Baltic Sea, on Polands northeast coast. The canal will be 1,100 yards long and 16 feet deep, and is expected to be completed by 2022.

Currently, Polish ships exiting the lagoon from the port of Elblag must sail through Russian waters.

Russia has complained to the European Commission that it hasnt been consulted about the canal and that construction could damage the ecosystem in the lagoon. However, Kaczynski said that Russia has always been opposed to the canal and the complaints are an attempt to block this strategic investment for Poland.

Poland Praised by Trump

The day before Kaczynskis remarks, U.S. President Donald Trump praised Poland for its efforts to decrease its reliance on Russia, particularly with regard to energy.

Russias Gazprom and its European partners are developing the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, designed to double natural gas volumes pumped to Germany from Russia via the Baltic Sea, avoiding the traditional transit route through Ukraine.

Reliance on a single foreign supplier can leave nations vulnerable to extortion and intimidation and that is why we congratulate European states such as Poland for leading construction of a Baltic pipeline, so that nations are not dependent on Russia to meet their energy needs, Trump said in a speech at the U.N. General Assembly.

Most eastern European states and the United States argue that the proposed Russian pipeline could ultimately limit supply routes and the energy security of the European Union, as well as hurting Ukraines efforts to reform its economy as bypassing the country would deprive it of billions of dollars in gas transit fees.

The Baltic pipeline is planned to provide Denmark and Poland with direct access to Norways gas fields, expanding Europes gas transmission capacity by up to 10 billion cubic meters per year. It would be completed by the end of 2022; a final decision on investment is expected at the end of this year.

Poland has also called on the United States to help counter Russian aggression by building a permanent military base in Poland. President Andrzej Duda even suggested such a base could be called Fort Trump.

We will enhance cooperation in military relations and intelligence, missile defense, technology, and training, Trump said.

The proposal from the Polish defense department was first uncovered in late May and asserts that Poland is willing to contribute as much as $2 billion to pay for the new base. The plan would see 15,000 U.S. troops and 250 armored vehicles deployed in Poland, a move that could provoke ire from Russia.

The proposal stated, Establishing such a force is necessary to present an unequivocal challenge and deterrence to Russias increasingly emboldened and dangerous posture that threatens Europe.

However, a Russian spokesman told Tass news agency that these expansionist steps, certainly, result in counteractions of the Russian side to balance the parity, which is violated every time this way.

Reuters contributed to this report.Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during the United Against Nuclear Iran Summit on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York City on Sept. 25, 2018. (Reuters/Darren Ornitz)

Pompeo to Return to North Korea Next Month to Prepare Second Trump Summit

UNITED NATIONSSecretary of State Mike Pompeo said he had a very positive meeting with North Koreas foreign minister on Sept. 26 and will visit Pyongyang again next month to prepare for a second summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

Pompeo wrote on Twitter that his meeting with Ri Yong Ho on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York was to discuss the summit and next steps toward denuclearization of #NorthKorea.

Much work remains, but we will continue to move forward, Pompeo said.

The State Department said Pompeo accepted an invitation from Kim to visit Pyongyang next month, for what will be his fourth visit this year.

Referring to North Korea by the acronym of its official name, the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, it said the aim would be further progress on the implementation of the commitments from the U.S.-DPRK Singapore summit, including the final, fully verified denuclearization of the DPRK, and to prepare for a second summit 

Trump held an unprecedented first summit with Kim in Singapore on June 12 that yielded a broad pledge by Kim to work toward denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.

Kims commitments and actions, however, have fallen short of Washingtons demands for a complete inventory of North Koreas weapons programs and irreversible steps to give up a nuclear arsenal that potentially threatens the United States.

Trump said on Sept. 26 the United States and North Korea had a wonderful relationship going and he would announce the timing and location of his next meeting with Kim in the very near future.

Pompeo told CBS This Morning earlier that U.S. officials were working to make sure we get the conditions right for a second summit. He said any future summit could happen in October, but more likely after that.

Trump said there had been a tremendous amount of progress since last year, and added: Theyre denuclearizing North Korea.

His remarks on North Korea this year have been dramatically different from those in his speech last year at the U.N. assembly, when he threatened to totally destroy the country and called Kim Rocket Man on a suicide mission.

If you go back a year, if you go back certainly to the time I took office, it looked like we were going to war with North Korea. It doesnt look like that any more. It looks like just the opposite. So were very happy about that, Trump said during a subsequent meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe

Sanctions

In his address to the General Assembly on Sept. 25, Trump praised Kim for his courage in taking steps to disarm, but said much work still had to be done and sanctions must remain in place on North Korea until it denuclearizes.

On Sept. 26, Trump told the U.N. Security Council that many positive things were happening behind the scenes on North Korea, away from the media.

So I think you will have some very good news coming from North Korea in the coming months and years.

Trump said Kim had reaffirmed his commitment to complete denuclearization to him directly in a very strong letter form.

I think we will make a deal, he said.

But, unfortunately, to ensure this progress continues, we must enforce existing U.N. Security Council resolutions until denuclearization occurs, Trump said, while complaining that some nations were violating the U.N. sanctions.

Asked by CBS if Kim had agreed to allow international inspectors into nuclear sites, Pompeo said, Yes, while adding that verification was important in any nuclear agreement.

Weve talked about this verification from the beginning, he said. Were not going to buy a pig in a poke. Were going to get this right. Were going to deliver on this commitment [to denuclearize] that Chairman Kim has made to the world.

By Michelle Nichols, David Brunnstrom, and Lesley WroughtonRussia Ups Ante in Arctic Arms Race With Supersonic Missile Deployment

The Russian military has deployed anti-ship missiles in the Arctic, in a sign thatif necessarythe nuclear power intends to protect its claims in the resource-rich region by force.

A video released by the countrys defense ministry on Sept. 26, showed multiple launches of supersonic P-800 Onyx missiles, which are part of Russias Bastion coastal defense complex.

The ministry said the launches were a part of tactical drills by the North Navy Fleet.

A North Navy Fleet spokesperson told Interfax the missiles system had been delivered to a base on Kotelny Island, in eastern Siberia, to take part in the drills.

Rocket fire will be launched at a remote target simulating a group of enemy surface ships, the spokesman was quoted as saying, according to Interfax.

Moscows interest in the Arctic stems from the discovery of immense untapped oil and natural gas reserves in the region, as well as from the desire to secure access to the Northern Sea Route (NSR).

Russias future lies in the Arctic, says Malte Humpert, a senior fellow at the Arctic Institute, The Economist reported. It will become an essential corridor to extract and transport resources to Asia and Europe.

The missile deployment comes just days ahead of the expected arrival in the port city of St. Petersburg of the Venta Maersk, a specially strengthened vessel that is the worlds first container ship to venture into the Russian Arctic. The maiden voyage of the Russian ship is reported to be a test run to determine the feasibility of NSR as a shipping routeand a sign of increased interest in the Arctic.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a military doctrine into effect in 2014, entrusting Russias armed forces with maintaining the countrys strategic interests in the Arctic, according to the Moscow Times.

The recently released footage showed an Onyx missile, which can travel at speeds of up to 1,980 mph (3,186 kph), shooting up in the air and then gliding above the sea towards a mock target designed to simulate a group of hostile ships.

A Bastion launcher can carry two Onyx anti-ship missiles, which can engage targets as far away as 186 miles (300 kilometers), RT reported.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov said on Wednesday, Sept. 26, that Russias new weapons show the country is to be reckoned with, according to state-run news agency TASS.

These efforts have shown the whole world that Russia is something to be reckoned with, he said, in reference to a series of new weapons presented by Putin in March of this year. To put it mildly, the whole world underestimated Russian industry, Russian defense industry, and all our achievements, saying that everything is rusty, their rockets dont fly.

We have some very good beginnings, and to some extent, we are trend-setters, Borisov said, according to TASS.Starbucks Plans Significant Changes to Companys Structure

Starbucks Corp. is planning an organizational shake-up, including corporate layoffs that will start at top levels, as the coffee chain tries to reverse stagnant sales and rekindle investors interest.

We must increase the velocity of innovation that is relevant to our customers, inspires our partners, and is meaningful to our business, Chief Executive Officer Kevin Johnson said in a memo to employees viewed by Bloomberg News. To accomplish this, we are going to make some significant changes to how we work as leaders in all areas of the company.

The leadership and organizational changes will begin this week and carry on into November, Johnson said. He sent the email after the company held its quarterly town hall meeting in Seattle last week. Starbucks employed about 10,000 in U.S. support facilities, store development, and roasting, manufacturing, warehousing, and distribution operations, as of Oct. 1, 2017.

Contacted by Bloomberg News, a spokeswoman said the changes will entail an undetermined number of layoffs and include some employee shifts between company departments.

The coffee behemoth, now one of the worlds largest restaurant companies, is fighting back against fast-growing regional chains as demand wanes for its signature Frappuccinos. To counter this, Starbucks wants to speed the arrival of new menu items at its more than 28,000 cafes. Its also pushing innovation in other areas including automating its back-of-store inventory system to reduce waste and let staff spend more time with customers.

New Items

Starbucks in June added a strawberry Frappuccino and chorizo sous vide egg bites to its permanent menu. It has also added a non-dairy, plant-based cold brew drink made with almond butter. To boost afternoon traffic, the company has expanded its line of grab-and-go salads and sandwiches.

Starbucks is testing delivery, too. The chain earlier this month began working with UberEats in more than 100 locations in the Miami area. Its also teamed up with Alibaba to offer the service in its quickly growing Chinese market this year.The sun rises over the United States Supreme Court on the morning of July 10, 2018 in Washington, DC. (Alex Edelman/Getty Images)

The Christine Blasey Ford Affair

Only two weeks ago, the Democrats seemed to have lost hope and Brett Kavanaugh appeared to be cruising towards the United States Supreme Court. President Trump was poised to score another judicial nomination victory.

Then the Hail Mary. Senator Dianne Feinstein publicized the accusation of sexual misconduct against Kavanaugh from a woman called Christine Blasey Ford. Feinstein referred the allegation to the FBI on Sept. 13. The bureau declined to investigate, saying the matter should typically be handled by local authorities.

The timing of Feinsteins forwarding of the letter to the FBI appeared to have one goal: to delay Kavanaughs confirmation . The Senate Judiciary Committee was scheduled to vote on Kavanaughs nomination on Sept. 20. The California Senator is said to have sat on the letter since July.

Apparently, the Democrats hoped that if the accusation didnt derail Kavanaugh outright, it would delay the confirmation until after the midterm election. The calculation is, if the Democrats win the Senate in November, they can deny Trumps second nominee to the top court.

According to the Washington Post, Ford alleged that Kavanaugh sexually assaultedher in 1982 when she was 15 and he was 17 in an alcohol-fueled party of high schoolers.

However, Ford couldnt remember the exact date or even the year when the incident allegedly happened. She couldnt recall the address of the location of the purported attack. She named two male witnesses who were said to be present when the incident took place. But the two men, Mark Judge and Patrick Smyth, both strongly denied they were at the alleged party or heard anything inappropriate involving Kavanaugh.

There was allegedly a third witness, a woman named Leland Keyser (nee Ingham), a long-time friend of Ford. Keysers lawyer told Politico, Keyser does not know Mr. Kavanaugh and she has no recollection of ever being at a party or gathering where he was present, with, or without, Dr. Ford. Curiously, the Washington Post knew Keysers name and identity, but never mentioned this in the Sept. 16 story.

So far, there hasnt been a single piece of evidence that links the incident Ford alleged to have taken place to Kavanaugh. There is no evidence that supports the said attack ever occured. On the contrary, Kavanaugh, two male witnesses, and a female witness all denied knowledge of the alleged incident.

A former classmate of Ford claimed to have heard about the attack on social media. Upon inquiry, she quickly backpedaled and deleted her post, saying she didnt know if the incident happened.

Even Dianne Feinstein sought to distance herself from Ford, stating she cant say everything Ford said was truthful.

Accusation is not evidence. It can be false. The Duke LaCrosse scandal and Rolling Stones fantasy titled A Rape on Campus are two examples. Both turned out to be total fabrications. They also demonstrated there are people on the left who are willing to do anything to advance a political agenda.

Last week, a professor argued on the New York Times that the allegation alone is sufficient to disqualify Kavanaugh. So if someone accuses the professor of having murdered people, should she step down from her job immediately? This is totally nuts, something one would expect to see in Stalins Russia or Maos China. How this person can be a professor of law anywhere in the United States is beyond me.

I have nothing against Ford. I dont believe him. Neither do I believe her. I believe in due process and evidence. As far as Im concerned, before Kavanaugh is proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt, he remains the most qualified nominee for the top court and the best legal mind in this country. Sadly, given our current political climate, regardless what happens next, there will be no winner in this affair.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.The Creepy Line Documentary Shows Tech Giants Influencing Voters

Film by M.A. Taylor features Jordan Peterson and Peter Schweizer

When considering election interference, news of state actors such as Russia and China engaging in fake news campaigns on social media has dominated the headlines.

Largely missing from the discussion, until recently, has been the power available to tech giantsspecifically Google and Facebookto influence the behaviors of their users, including voting behavior, in ways that are extremely difficult to track or even perceive.

Thats a power with the potential to subvert democracy, and one that must be kept in check, according to The Creepy Line, the latest film by M.A. Taylor and Peter Schweizer, which premiered Sept. 17 in New York and Sept. 19 in Washington. The premiere coincides with President Donald Trumps recent drafting of an executive order tasking federal agencies with examining online platforms for bias and antitrust issues.

The film gets its title from former Google CEO Eric Schmidts now-infamous 2010 declaration, shown in the film: Theres what I call the creepy line, and the Google policy about a lot of these things is to get right up to the creepy line, but not cross it.

He goes on to say, I would argue that implanting things into your brain is beyond the creepy line  at least for the moment.

Yet this is exactly what is happening, the filmmakers contend, based in part on research by Dr. Robert Epstein, a Harvard-trained psychologist and former editor-in-chief of Psychology Today, who is featured in the film.

In 2015, Epstein published a study demonstrating that search results favoring a political candidate can dramatically influence undecided voters (pdf) to vote for that candidate, and can be done in such a way that the voters are largely unaware they were influenced.

During the 2016 presidential election, he gathered search engine data using a Nielsen-ratings-type network of confidants, documenting what results their searches yielded. The resulting study showed a significant pro-Clinton bias in Google search results, which Epstein estimated could have influenced millions of voters in her favor.

The Creepy Line trailer includes this negativity bias graphic, depicting a way search engine results can influence voters: the presence or absence of negative results in a candidates list. (The Creepy Line)

In response, Google said it didnt seek to manipulate political sentiment, or make ranking tweaks to search results. But Epstein said hes not contending Google actively changed its rankings. The point, he told The Epoch Times, is they have the power.

I dont think they should have the power.  Wherever that statistical bias came from, it shifts opinions, it shifts votes, it changes decisions, it affects beliefs, it affects attitudes, Epstein said. Who caresin a waywhere it came from. You cant allow that to happen, at least not with elections.

From this comes Taylors motivation for making the film. I believe theres one day in America where we all get to be equal: billionaires, and businessmen, and baristas, and thats Election Day, he told The Epoch Times. We all get one vote  so that day needs to be protected. At all costs.

While it doesnt show any deliberate efforts on Googles part to bias voting-related search results, a leaked post-2016 election video of a Google meeting recently published by Breitbart includes co-founder Sergey Brin saying he is deeply offended by Trumps election, and reveals that Google staff have strong biases against the administration.

Its a question of convince me youre not doing it if you can, psychology professor Jordan Peterson says in the film, in which he explores the ethical considerations around the films revelations.

Peterson believes that the onus is on the tech giants to prove themselves to the public and regulators. Theres no reason for me to believe that youre not subject to the same dark motivations of power and domination that are characteristic of any system that has the capacity for power and domination, he says.

So whats the solution? Schweizer, in the film, says regulation. Epstein, for his part, told The Epoch Times he believes that regulation takes much too long to enact, especially with the elections being mere weeks away. He is working with business partners and academics on three continents to create a monitoring system, involving the network of confidants he developed for 2016. If, while using this system, his team were to find evidence of bias or manipulation, they could report it immediately to all the stakeholders.

I think its just a must. You have to set up these systems, Epstein said.Trump Administration Reviewing Contracts With Fetal-Tissue Providers

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) says its reviewing contracts with fetal tissue providers after dropping a contract it had with a California-based provider earlier this week because of sourcing issues.

On Sept. 24, HHS announced the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) canceled a contract with Advanced Bioscience Resources, Inc., located in Alameda, California, because it was not sufficiently assured that the contract included the appropriate protections applicable to fetal tissue research or met all other procurement requirements.

The nearly $16,000 contract, awarded in July, was used to develop testing protocols, by injecting the tissue into lab mice, according to HHS. The agency also said it would review all other acquisitions of fetal tissue to ensure they comply with the law, and would be looking into alternatives for research receiving HHS funding.

In addition, HHS has initiated a comprehensive review of all research involving fetal tissue to ensure consistency with statutes and regulations governing such research, and to ensure the adequacy of procedures and oversight of this research in light of the serious regulatory, moral, and ethical considerations involved, the department said in a statement.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) still has contracts this year worth about $103 million for research involving fetal tissue, according to its own database. Its not clear though how much of that is for the actual purchase of tissue from fetuses.

Earlier this month, 85 House members wrote to FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb addressing the agencys contract with Advanced Bioscience Resources and urging him to cancel it. The company was alleged to be upselling the tissue for profit, which is against federal law, the letter says. It also said the matter was referred to the Department of Justice and the Riverside County District Attorneys Office. The Justice Department did not respond to an inquiry about the investigation. A public information officer for the Riverside County District Attorneys Office said he was unable to comment at this time.

Unborn children are not commodities to be bought and sold, the letter reads. The practice of conducting research using the body parts of children whose lives have been violently ended by abortion is abhorrent. We urge you to cancel this contract immediately.

The Abortion Debate

While fetal tissue isnt necessarily gleaned from aborted fetuses, the majority is, putting it inside the debate over the controversial practice of abortion that has people almost equally divided into pro-life and pro-choice camps.

Those who support using fetal tissue for medical research say that alternatives are limited, and dont yet provide a complete substitute for the more malleable and adaptable stem cells found in fetuses. Those who oppose the practice say its unnecessary and unethical, and that selling aborted fetuses creates an industry around them, instead of putting money toward developing alternatives.

The Trump administration has shown that is squarely in the pro-life camp when, shortly after coming into office, President Donald Trump reinstated the Mexico City Policy, which prohibits U.S. aid from going to NGOs that perform or advocate for abortion or forced sterilization.

Trump and Vice President Mike Pence became the first president and vice president to address the March for Life in Washington this January, and Trump proclaimed Jan. 22 as National Sanctity of Human Life Day.

Shortly before that, HHS announced a new division of Conscience and Religious Freedom within HHSs Office for Civil Rights to enforce federal laws protecting the right to conscience in health and human services.

No one should be forced to choose between helping sick people and living by ones deepest moral or religious convictions, and the new division will help guarantee that victims of unlawful discrimination find justice, OCR Director Roger Severino said in a statement.

Great meeting today with Marshall Pierite, who was elected chairman of the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana on Sunday. Looking forward to working with you. #LA05 pic.twitter.com/lfUbY0Li7d  Rep. Ralph Abraham (@RepAbraham) April 12, 2018

Rep. Ralph Abraham (R-La.), a medical doctor and one of the signatories of the letter to Gottlieb, hailed the terminated contract with Advanced Bioscience Resources as a step in the right direction.

HHS was right to end this contract, and I look forward to seeing the results of its review, so that we can know for certain that none of our federal dollars are going toward this kind of activity, he said in a Sept. 26 statement.

At least one pro-life organization has challenged the administration to go further, pointing out that HHS still has contracts involving fetal tissue for 2019 worth an estimated $95 million.

Canceling a single contract and conducting a review is a small step forward, but overall is completely inadequate, Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony List, said in a statement. [HHS] Secretary [Alex] Azar must put an immediate moratorium on funding for research using aborted baby organs and tissue purchased from the abortion industry.

On Sept. 27, this article was updated with a response from the Riverside County District Attorneys Office.British Prime Minister Theresa May speaks at the U.N. headquarters in New York on Sept. 25, 2018. (Peter Foley/EPA-EFE/Pool via Reuters)

US Business Executives Ask UK Prime Minister May: How Bad Can Brexit Get?

NEW YORKBritish Prime Minister Theresa May was reminded of how worried businesses are about Brexit on Sept. 26 when a rallying speech to executives in New York was met with a single stark question from the floor: Just how bad can things get?

May assured her audience that Britain will flourish after Brexit and remain an attractive place to invest, seeking to ease concerns about the countrys future after it leaves the European Union in March 2019.

She said shes confident that Britain will be able to achieve a good deal with the EU over its future trading relationship. But in a question-and-answer session following her speech, Stephen Schwarzman, chief executive of private equity firm Blackstone Group, asked May to confront the downside risks to Britains EU exit.

I guess we are believers, said Schwarzman, whose firm was part of a joint venture that agreed to buy the commercial-property portfolio of Britains rail network owner for $1.9 billion. But on the other side, things could really go off with a bad Brexit and ultimately a change of government. What we really worry about is how bad things can get?

In response, May said, I absolutely appreciate and understand from thatyoure making decisions and looking ahead to what the future holds. And, at the moment, there is that uncertainty about what the future will hold in terms of Brexit.

She pledged Britain would make a success of Brexit, whatever the outcome of negotiations.

Earlier, Ginni Rometty, the chief executive of IBM, asked May how she suggested businesses should manage the risks of Brexit.

If you were us  what would you do in our shoes to be planning right now. What would you do now to balance that risk?

Pro-business

Mays Brexit proposals were savaged by EU leaders at a summit last week, and many in her own party have criticized her approach. That has raised concern that she will fail to strike any agreement and that Britain could leave without a deal, something business leaders fear would be hugely damaging.

Were at the point of the negotiations where weve got a few weeks to go, May said. We dont know where the negotiations will end. Im confident about getting a deal, but we have to make sure were prepared for any eventuality.

In her speech, May said she wouldnt abandon her current Brexit plan, shrugging off criticism at home and in Brussels.

She said her proposal to keep a close trading relationship with the EU on goods, protect manufacturing jobs, and resolve arguments over the borders of Northern Ireland, while ending unrestricted immigration from the EU, is the only way forward.

However, with many of her own lawmakers and the opposition Labour Party saying they will vote against such a deal in Parliament, there are major doubts over the final outcome of negotiations and Mays long-term future as leader.

In her speech, May promised that businesses investing in Britain would get the lowest rate of corporation tax among the G20 group of leading economies.

By William JamesLast week, Judge Tailor denied Keystone Montessoris request for an injunction prohibiting the village from enforcing the property tax agreement, Village Administrator Eric Palm said in a statement. We are pleased that Judge Tailor denied the motion, and the village will continue to defend the agreement, which has been in place for 20 years. Keystone Montessori has experienced significant financial troubles unrelated to its agreement with the village, and the village remains ready and willing to help it relocate its school to a suitable location so it may continue educating children.Police investigate the scene of a shooting near the Chinatown neighborhood where four people were shot in an apparent road rage incident on September 19, 2018 in Chicago, Illinois. A 6-month-old infant boy and a thirteen-year-old girl were among the victims. (By Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Violent Crime Down in 2017 After 2-Year Spike, FBI Says

Americans committed fewer violent and property crimes in 2017, according to statistics collected by the FBI. Some areas, however, have significantly deteriorated and others, despite improvements, still need attention.

The violent crime rateincluding offenses such as murder, robbery, and aggravated assaultdropped by almost one percent and is still about 4 percent above the 2014 rate. The murder rate dropped by 0.7 percent.

The decline in crime, albeit small, cut short a worrisome spike in violence in previous years. Between 2014 and 2016, the murder rate had increased by more than 20 percent, to 5.4 per 100,000 residents, from 4.4. The last two-year period that the rate soared so quickly was between 1966 and 1968.

The rate of property crimes, such as theft and burglary, has declined 3.6 percent since 2016 and is down more than 26 percent since a decade ago.

After historic increases in violent crime in 2015 and 2016, we are beginning to see encouraging signs, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement. But our work is not done. While we have made progress, violent crime and drug trafficking continue to plague our communities and destroy the lives of innocent, law-abiding Americans.

Pervasive Problems

Of the estimated 17,284 murders in 2017, more than half occurred in larger citieswith populations of more than 100,000.

There are fewer than 300 such cities in the United States, and while they account for less than 30 percent of the countrys population, many of them contribute far beyond their share to national crime rates and have done so for years, even decades.

While the national murder rate inched down to 5.3 per 100,000 residents, it spiked by 15 percent in Philadelphia, to a rate of more than 20 per 100,000 residents. Columbus, Ohio, saw a massive 54-percent murder rate increase, reaching nearly 16.3 per 100,000 residents.

The murder rate in St. Louis rose by more than 10 percent and reached 66 per 100,000 residentsthe highest among larger cities.

Baltimores murder rate rose by nearly 8.5 percent, reaching some 56 per 100,000 residents.

And Baton Rouge, Louisiana, saw a historic homicide surge of 85 percent, leading to a murder rate that topped 38 per 100,000.

Cincinnati, Kansas City, Stockton, California, and the Nashville, Tennessee, metro area also saw significant increases.

Firearms were used in 72.6 percent of the nations murders, 40.6 percent of robberies, and 26.3 percent of aggravated assaults, the report said.

Emerging Problems

Some crime surges occurred in areas historically considered safe. In Honolulu, 32 people were murdered last year, twice the 2016 count, while the 27 murders in Seattle pushed the homicide rate up nearly 38 percent.

The murder rate in Portland, Oregon, jumped nearly 70 percent, although the city has seen worse in previous years. However, robbery, burglary, and aggravated assault also rose to numbers unseen for at least a decade.

Among other surprises, murder rates more than doubled in Reno, Nevada, and Des Moines, Iowa. Only a few years ago, the annual number of murders in Des Moines was in the single digits. But it finished 2017 with 28 murders, the most in at least four decades.

Positive Change

Many cities historically thought of as crime-ridden experienced notable improvements in 2017.

After a shocking crime wave over the previous two years, the Chicago murder rate declined by 14 percent, though it still stands above 24 per 100,000 residents.

Washingtons murder rate fell by more than 17 percent, yet the city still sits near 17 per 100,000 residentsmore than three times the national average.

Milwaukee got a break too, with the murder rate down almost 16 percent after two years of deadly violence not seen for decades.

In a massive improvement, the murder rate dropped by more than 30 percent in Atlanta. The city hasnt seen so few homicides (79) since the 1960s.

And the New York City murder rate declined by more than 13 percent in 2017 to less than 3.4 per 100,000.

Rest of the Country

Americans experience criminality drastically differently based on their zip code. Of the nearly 9,600 cities reporting crime data to the FBI, more than 7,500 didnt report a single homicide and 1,100 didnt even have a violent crime to report. Granted, many of the cities have tiny populations.

All in all, 66 cities with over 5,000 residents went the whole year without reporting a single violent crime.Wife of Former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Questioned by Anti-Graft Investigators

KUALA LUMPURRosmah Mansor, the wife of former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak, arrived on Wednesday, Sept. 26 at the countrys anti-graft agency for a second round of questioning over a corruption probe at state fund 1MDB.

Her questioning comes amid indications that more charges could be filed in the investigation into how billions of dollars went missing from 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).

Najib, who was ousted in a general election in May, has already been charged with money laundering, abuse of power, and criminal breach of trust. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges and has consistently denied wrongdoing.

Rosmah arrived at the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) headquarters flanked by her lawyers and looking solemn.

Her first round of questioning in June lasted three hours.

Last week, a MACC official said more charges could be brought against individuals over 1MDB.

When asked if Rosmah could face charges, the official said, Im not denying that.

567 handbags, 423 watches, and 12,000 pieces of jewelry

Rosmah, 66, has long been in the public eye for flaunting a range of Hermes Birkin handbags and showy jewelry, and spending thousands of dollars in shopping sprees around the world.

Her penchant for designer goods has raised eyebrows in Malaysia, with many asking how she has been able to afford the luxury items on her husbands government salary.

The couples world has been turned upside down since Najib suffered a shock election defeat on May 9 to his one-time mentor Mahathir Mohamad, who swiftly reopened a probe into 1MDB.

The U.S. Department of Justice has alleged more than $4.5 billion was misappropriated from 1MDB and that about $680 million ended up in Najibs personal bank account.

Najib and Rosmah have both been barred from leaving the country and their home and other properties linked to them have been searched by the police as part of the 1MDB investigations.

The haul seized from their homesMalaysias biggest and worth up to $275 millionincluded 567 handbags, 423 watches, and 12,000 pieces of jewelry, including 1,400 necklaces, 2,200 rings, 2,800 pairs of earrings, and 14 tiaras.

Rosmah has drawn comparisons to Imelda Marcos, who left behind more than 1,200 pairs of shoes when her husband Ferdinand Marcos was ousted as president of the Philippines in 1986.

Najib has said most of the items seized from his houses were gifts given to his wife and daughter and had nothing to do with 1MDB.In 2014, burglaries in Connecticut dropped to a level not seen in more than 50 years, with the FBI reporting less than 12,000 incidents statewide across both residences and commercial establishments, an 8 percent decline from the year before.

While several factors play into deterrence, the decline has occurred at the start of a new era of app-enabled home security systems that send alerts to homeowners as people arrive at their doorways and driveways.

Of homes selling these days in Darien, New Canaan and other upscale towns in southwestern Connecticut, less than one in five properties have smart locks, in the estimation of Amy Barsanti, an agent in the Darien and Rowayton offices of William Pitt Sothebys International Realty based in Stamford, whether on a stand-alone basis or as part of a larger home-automation system that might include internet-enabled thermostats and other appliances.

I think more and more people are getting cameras, Barsanti told Hearst Connecticut Media. I would say that number is probably higher, but overall I think people love the whole smart system (idea) these days so they can check on things.

Making the market ready for digital

In mid-October, the Yale subsidiary of Assa Abloy plans to launch a new line of smart locks that can be controlled with a mobile app. Assa Abloy indicated it is the first time it has hooked up a Yale lock to the cloud-based platform of its Connected by August brand, with the locks made in Berlin, Conn., and selling for under $300. Assa Abloy acquired August Home late last year for an undisclosed amount.

The new line of Assure brand locks allow Yale customers to swap in a keypad for their existing dead bolt locks and keys, allowing them to punch in an entry code to gain entry, unlock the door using the app, or have the lock do so automatically as the system senses the customers smartphone approaching the door.

The new smart locks are compatible as well with major voice assistant platforms from Amazon, Apple and Google, and can work with lock systems for Airbnb, HomeAway and SimpliSafe.

Speaking on an April conference call, the new CEO of Assa Abloy acknowledged his companys sales pipelines through Amazon and Google bring significantly lower profit margins, but that the sales volume more than makes up for that.

Gross margins ... for our Amazon orders, as well as for our Nest orders, are lower than average, said Assa Abloy CEO Nico Delvaux in mid-April. On the other hand, of course, it adds also an important way to volume.  Its a very good business to be in. It gives us volume leverage, it helps us to spread our brand name in the market, and it also helps to make the market more ready for digital solutions.

Unlikely a weak point of security

In August, the Yonkers, N.Y.-based parent company of Consumer Reports published ratings on Assa Abloys August and Yale systems and those of rivals Kwikset and Schlage, testing the devices across a range of criteria from their initial setup; to alert and visitor log functionality; to ability to withstand a physical blow from a steel battering ram weighing 100 pounds.

The physical security of a smart lock was the top consideration for nine of 10 people polled in a 2016 survey sponsored by Assa Abloy that was published in the security trade publication IFSEC Global, with three in four citing the importance of a mechanical key as a backup in instances where the digital lock function went offline or other problems surfaced.

Far lower on the list were criteria related to mobile app functionality; also given consideration was a locks vulnerability to any attacks by sophisticated hackers. This summer, the Canadian company Tapplock was forced to scramble for a quick fix for what it calls the worlds first fingerprint-enabled padlock after a British firm posted a video purporting to depict it cracking the lock open in a few seconds with the assistance of a laptop computer program.

In 2017, Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers hit the August Home lock with a series of attacks that hackers might employ, prior to the Assa Abloy acquisition, giving the system mostly good marks while noting a few vulnerabilities they postulated a sophisticated hacker might be able to exploit, and that could extend to other smart locks.

None of our attacks have revealed serious vulnerabilities, the MIT researchers stated in their report. For a typical user, it seems unlikely to be a weak point of defense in home security.

Alex.Soule@scni.com; 203-842-2545; @casoulmanFarooq Kathwari, the president and CEO of Ethan Allen Interiors, was presented with the Legacy Award by the Connecticut Institute for Refugees and Immigrants at a gala dinner held last week in Westport.

The institute, known as CIRI, honored Kathwari for what it called his commitment to humanitarian causes, justice and the plight of displaced people across the world. Kathwari is a board member of International Rescue Committee and a chairman emeritus of Refugees International.

As an immigrant myself, I know that everyone who comes to America has the opportunity to contribute and enrich his or her new home, Kathwari said in a statement. But no one can succeed alone. CIRI provides the necessary services that new Americans need to start down the path to success.

The dinner marked CIRIs 100 years as a champion for refugees, immigrants, survivors of torture, and survivors of human trafficking. It was founded in 1918 as the International Institute of Connecticut.

Because we believe most Americans value the contributions that immigrants and refugees make to our nation, we continue to fight for their rights in a difficult political climate, Claudia Connor, CIRI CEO and president, said. Our mission is to provide comprehensive and compassionate legal and social services for vulnerable foreign-born residents of Connecticut. This mission has never been more essential than it is now.

Connor said Kathwari is a prime example of how foreign-born Americans have helped to shape the country.

As a respected business leader, he has grown Ethan Allen into a leading furniture and design company that employs more than 5,000 people in Connecticut and North America, she said. He embodies the American dream of building a better life for his family and community and has given back many times over through his nonprofit and charitable work.

Kathwari emigrated to the United States in 1965 and joined Ethan Allen in 1980. He became president in 1985 and board chair and chief executive officer in 1988.

Earlier this year, Kathwari was named a recipient of the 2018 Ellis Island Medal of Honor.

The writer may be reached at cbosak@hearstmediact.com; 203-731-3338The president of a Virginia seafood company pleaded guilty in federal court Wednesday to netting millions by fraudulently labeling hundreds of thousands of pounds of recalled, old or returned foreign crabmeat as fresh Chesapeake blue crab, according to court records.

The staggering bait-and-switch shocked the local food industry and highlighted the problem of mislabeled blue crab, which by some accounts is prevalent in restaurants and markets across Virginia, Maryland and The District. The case comes in an era when eating local has gained a fresh currency.

Federal prosecutors in Virginia say Casey's Seafood, Inc. of Newport News, Virginia, mixed discount "distressed" crabmeat from Indonesia, Brazil and other locales with Chesapeake blue crab and labeled it as a "Product of the USA." At times, court documents show the crabmeat Casey's sold as Chesapeake blue crab contained only foreign meat.

Casey's sold nearly 360,000 pounds from 2012 to 2015, but the fraud may have begun as early as 2010, according to court documents. The crab was worth $4.3 million at wholesale prices and sold in District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia and other states.

James Casey, 74, the president of Casey's, pleaded guilty to violating the Lacey Act, a federal law on the labeling of seafood, during a hearing in Norfolk, Virginia. Casey faces up to five years in prison when he is sentenced on Jan. 9. His attorney declined to comment.

"There was a significant decline in blue crab harvests, making it increasingly more expensive to purchase live blue crab, and increasingly more difficult to make a profit from the labor-intensive process of picking blue crab," prosecutors wrote in court documents. "As a result, Casey and the company could not and did not process sufficient quantities of blue crab to meet its customers' demands."

The investigation was launched by a tipster, who told authorities Casey's was adulterating its meat, according to a search warrant.

Investigators from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration then purchased Casey's crabmeat from markets in Virginia, Delaware and North Carolina and sent it out for DNA testing, which showed the meat was cut with species other than Chesapeake blue crab.

It is difficult to gauge how widespread such fraud is, but watermen, politicians and environmentalists have expressed concerns about mislabeled crab in recent years. A 2015 report by the ocean conservancy group, Oceana, found nearly 40 percent of crab cakes labeled local that it tested had imported meat.

In 2015, Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va., Tim Kaine, D-Va., and Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., before her retirement, wrote to President Barack Obama urging greater regulation of crab processing to stamp out fraud.

"The fraudulent labeling of Chesapeake Bay and Atlantic Ocean blue crab meat has a detrimental impact on an industry that plays an important role in the Virginia and Maryland economies," they wrote.

Environmentalists say crabs caught abroad are sometimes fished in unsustainable fashion. Chefs and crab lovers say the crab species sometimes mixed with Chesapeake blue crab are not as tasty as the local catch.

New federal rules aimed at cutting down seafood fraud went into effect at the start of 2018. The rules require importers to document blue crabs and other species of fish are sustainably caught abroad. But they do little to combat fraud that takes place inside the United States.

"Bad actors must be held accountable," said Dustin Cranor, spokesperson for Oceana. "This type of mislabeling cheats consumers, disguises imported and sometimes illegally caught crab as local and harms the livelihoods of local watermen and processors that are playing by the rules. When you intentionally mislabel foreign crab meat as American, it's fraud, plain and simple."Kurzman worried about group homes being taken off the tax rolls. Stein said organizations dont automatically get taken off, and must go through a request procedure with Cook County. They arent always successful, he said. Kurzman also asked if the village or Boys Hope Girls Hope had talked to local school districts, who work to keep out of district students from illegally attending.NORWALK  Norwalks Italian-American community will celebrate its heritage during a Columbus Day parade along West Avenue on Oct. 7.

The event will come a year after plans for a 2017 Columbus Day parade fizzled for logistical reasons. That was the same year statutes of Christopher Columbus were vandalized in Norwalk, Bridgeport, Middletown and New Haven, and in other states.

The Norwalk Traffic Authority approved the parade route, from Wall Street to Heritage Wall, on Tuesday afternoon. The parade is a joint effort between the Italian American Police Society of Southern Connecticut, the Norwalk Sons and Daughters of Italy, the Knights of Columbus and the St. Ann Club of Norwalk. It will be the first such parade, say organizers, in what they hope will become an annual event.

Were going to have the Knights of Columbus in regalia starting off the parade, said Albert Latte, a St. Ann Club member, Knights of Columbus trustee and organizer of the parade. We have the Knights of Columbus marching. Were going to have St. Ann Club, who will be marching and have a float. Were going to have the Sons of Italy marching and in cars. Were probably going to have the police cadets and were going to have the Italian-American police.

The parade will step off around noon on Oct. 7 from the Eagles Club on Mott Avenue and proceed down West Avenue to the Christopher Columbus monument at Heritage Wall, where former state House Republican Leader Lawrence F. Cafero Jr. of Norwalk will speak. Afterward, St. Ann Club will host a Mass and dinner at its headquarters on Hendricks Avenue.

Latte hopes to see a couple hundred people march in the parade with more people watching along the route.

Last year, police said the vandalism to Columbus statues might have been an action coordinated by an anarchist group. On the eve of the 2017 holiday honoring the Italian explorer, blood-red paint was thrown across three of the statues.

In Norwalk, the Christopher Columbus monument at Heritage Wall had FAKE NEWS stenciled in white paint on its base.

While long revered in the Italian-American community and beyond as a master navigator, Columbus is viewed by critics as a colonizer whose voyage to the Caribbean in 1492 led to the destruction of native peoples in North and South America.

For Norwalks Italian-Americans, however, the upcoming parade is about their heritage rather than an individual, according to Fred Bondi, a former city councilman and St. Ann Club member.

We just wanted to bring something back to Norwalk  our heritage and so forth, Bondi said. There was an Irish parade, so we want to do something for our heritage. Were having it on when Columbus Day, but its more of an Italian-American parade. Theres still a lot of Italians that live in Norwalk.

While many Norwalkers are of Italian descent, their engagement in the citys Italian-American organizations has fallen over the years. Thats one reason for holding the parade, according to Marie Iannazzi, president of the Norwalk Sons and Daughters of Italy.

We want to see young people participating, said Iannazzi, who presented the parade plan to the Traffic Authority on Tuesday. Our numbers our small  St. Anns is doing a little better  and we want to keep our tradition going and have some pride in the American dream, what our ancestors brought with them.

The Traffic Authority approved the parade route after discussing how to minimize the traffic impacts, according to Rilling, Norwalks former police chief. He said Norwalk has few parades left  Memorial Day and St. Patricks Day  and hed like to change that.

Lets have some things happening in Norwalk, revelry and celebrations and so forth, because we look at other communities have parades for a lot of different things, Rilling said.

At Norwalks 2017 St. Patricks Day Parade, Rilling asked the Italian-American Police Society to help put together a Columbus Day Parade for October, but the event never came together in time. Among other reasons, a band couldnt be found.

Iannazzi said shes pleased that several groups representing Norwalks Italian-American community worked together to arrange this years parade.

We started earlier this year and tried to be a little more organized, Iannazzi said.NORWALK  State and local leaders celebrated the opening of the Norwalk Center for Specialized Learning in Literacy Tuesday afternoon. The clinic teaches students with dyslexia and other learning disabilities.

Quite simply, the goal of the Center for Specialized Learning in Literacy is to eliminate illiteracy in our community, said Yvette Goorevitch, chief of specialized learning and student services for Norwalk Public Schools.

Since the summer of 2017, 36 students have received interventions inside the center. Its the first public literacy clinic in any school district in the state, staff said.

Dyslexia is a range of conditions that make it difficult to read or interpret words.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, who is dyslexic, was at the event. He has been vocal about his experience and urges school districts to address the needs of students with learning disabilities.

Disproportionately, people with dyslexia are incarcerated because theyve not had the series of interventions that children have had here, he said.

People of color who have dyslexia are at an even higher risk for incarceration, he said.

Staff at the clinic offer additional after-school services to students struggling with disabilities.

Its not just reading, said Eileen Madaffari, teacher at the clinic and Rowayton Elementary School. Its spelling, fluency, comprehension, and writing skills. It covers all the areas. We dont just focus on one set skill, there a progression.

Fairfield University collaborated with Norwalk Public Schools to make this the first clinic of its kind in Connecticut. The school also gave a grant from its Noble Trust Fund to help open the clinic.

School administrators have worked on the clinic for three years, Goorevitch said. School districts are often unequipped to teach students with learning disabilities so children are often sent out of the district and parents must sometimes pay hefty additional school fees.

Kojo Cromwell and his wife, Christina, were considering outside placement for their dyslexic daughter who goes to Roton Middle School. Shes been using the clinics services for two years. The clinic previously was at Brookside School and had two-hour sessions during the summer.

Kojo Cromwell said his daughters difficulties started in elementary school. Teachers kept telling them the girl needed to read more often.

Its so important for teachers to be aware ... that this could be an issue, Christina Cromwell said.

Staff at the clinic say the facilitys opening has begun to address that.

Reading is key to life and if youre struggling, that is such a painful and unfortunate thing, Madaffari said.

All teachers at the clinic work at regular schools during the day and teach struggling students who need more assistance, after school. Staff at the clinic are considering making the program full-time, year-round, said Stacey Heiligenthaler, assistant director for the department of specialized learning and student services.ROME - The Italian TV interview with Steve Bannon was going so well.

Sitting in a top-floor suite of his five-star hotel looking out on an ancient church dome, the self-proclaimed populist hit his talking points: The global elite is brutalizing the little guy, European nations need to take back decision-making from an overbearing European Union government, and he and his new Brussels-based group, The Movement, are ready to provide polling, data analysis and messaging to help nationalist parties across Europe.

Then came an unwelcome question. "Do you actually believe in anti-fascism values?" the interviewer asked.

Bannon's eyes cooled.

"Anti-fascism values?" he repeated slowly.

He sighed, not hiding his annoyance.

"We're the anti-fascists," he said, then proceeded to lecture the journalist, whose nation was ruled for 21 years by dictator Benito Mussolini and his National Fascist Party, on the definition of fascism.

"The problem is," he said, "you deal in a world of no facts, OK, and all you are is spoon-fed: 'Oh, these guys are fascists.' " He ripped "the opposition party media" and "people like yourself, sitting there sanctimoniously telling Trump voters: 'Not only is Trump a racist, but you're a racist. Not only is Trump a fascist, but you're a fascist.' "

The interview ended, a little awkwardly. The camera shut down.

Then Bannon brightened immediately, shook the reporter's hand and said, "Thanks, guys."

Someone on the TV crew said maybe next time he could come to their studio.

"Yeah, we can do that; I'd love to do that," Bannon said, suddenly as shiny as the Roman sun beating down on his private terrace high above the Piazza del Popolo.

More than a year after being forced out as White House chief strategist, Bannon, the combative former Breitbart News chief who was a key architect of President Donald Trump's America First doctrine, has now set his sights on igniting that brand of nationalism in the rest of the world.

He argues that nationalist and populist forces, in part inspired by Trump, are poised to claim political power in capitals from Pakistan to Japan to Australia, Brazil and Colombia, and he says he's on the horn to all of them.

He says he's going to Australia for five days in November, then Singapore over Thanksgiving, and he's even had feelers from Israel and Egypt.

"We're open for business," Bannon says. "We're a populist, nationalist NGO, and we're global."

But first, Europe, where Bannon started the week here in the Italian capital before heading to the Czech Republic, Hungary and beyond.

The globe-trotting role marks a bit of a reinvention for Bannon, who months after leaving the White House in 2017 was booted from Breitbart and lost the lucrative financial backing of the billionaire Mercer family in the wake of the publication of "Fire and Fury," a book that painted a grim portrait of Trump, with Bannon as a key source.

At the center of Bannon's global efforts is The Movement, which was formed last year by Belgian right-wing politician Mischael Modrikamen, and which Bannon formally joined this summer. Bannon, who earned many millions as a Goldman Sachs banker, said some of the group's financing is coming from his own pocket - but that most of the funding will be from European donors he declines to identify.

In a series of interviews with The Washington Post, Bannon said he is trying to build The Movement into a "connective tissue" that offers nationalist and populist political parties across Europe U.S. know-how in polling, messaging and "war-room" strategy for responding immediately to political attacks.

So far, the results have been mixed. Some on the European far right have expressed either indifference or no interest in Bannon and his cause, and many establishment Europeans dismiss him as a stubble-chinned huckster who is overstating the strength of the European right.

They say he is exaggerating his ability to translate his Trump experience to the world stage, especially in Europe, where Trump has disrupted long-standing alliances and is deeply unpopular.

Bannon's European critics also say he is misjudging Europe's appetite for an American offering advice to a diverse constellation of parties that have deep historical and political differences.

Bannon's arrival in Europe on Friday sparked immediate reaction.

Antonio Tajani, president of the European Parliament, said at an Italian political conference: "Dear Mr. Bannon, Go home. If you want to be a tourist, be a tourist. It's better for you to keep quiet." At the same event, another European Parliament leader, Antonio Lopez-Isturiz, called Bannon "a dangerous extremist" and a "disgraced ideologue" trying to destroy the European Union with "cheap nationalism."

Bannon also provoked response in the Italian press.

"When sovereignists let themselves be maneuvered from abroad," read a headline Monday in Il Giornale, a conservative newspaper, on a story raising skepticism about Italian parties signing up with Bannon.

At the other end of the political spectrum, the self-described "communist daily" Il Manifesto on Monday blasted Bannon's ideas about Europe as "a simplistic rereading of human society and of the last ten years of globalization."

But Bannon has won high-profile endorsements from far-right political leaders - most notably Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

In Italy, Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, the highest-profile politician in new left-right coalition government, has also pledged to support The Movement. Salvini is a hero to his followers for his aggressive crackdown on immigration, which his critics call needlessly brutal. Bannon has praised Salvini for being "Italy's version of Trump."

Bannon says that the unusual coalition-of-extremes government in Italy shows that populists and nationalists on the left and the right can put aside old dogma and govern together against immigration, for strong borders and in the economic interests of middle-class and working-class people.

"If it works here, the revolution will spread," he says.

As he did in the Italian TV interview, Bannon has run up against questions about fascism in a nation with painful memories of it. The questions are mainly about whether nationalism and populism, if unchecked, can lead to authoritarianism and suppression of political opposition.

In one of Bannon's many interviews here, Lucia Annunziata, executive editor of the Italian HuffPost, asked him whether Orban, who has been harshly criticized by European officials who say he is eroding judicial independence and free speech and growing corruption in Hungary, is a fascist.

"No, absolutely not," Bannon said. "I think Orban represents what all of these parties represent: the defense of one's own country. Orban is a man who loves his country, a patriot, a man who puts Hungary first."

Bannon has also created a nonprofit agency, Citizens of the American Republic, to boost Republican candidates in the midterm elections in November. But after that, he says, he'll spend most of his time in Europe until key European Parliament elections in May 2019.

Bannon says neither he nor The Movement would presume to choose candidates or offer campaign strategy or funding. He simply wants to provide services that he believes can help populist and nationalist parties organize, grow, win elections and ultimately restructure the European Union into a confederation of stronger states with less intrusive regulation from Brussels.

"I'm not here to tell Europeans what to do," he said.

He's planning an EU-wide poll of voter attitudes about European governance and other key issues, which he says will be overseen by veteran U.S. pollsters John McLaughlin and Pat Caddell.

Bannon said he expects The Movement's efforts between now and May to cost $25 million to $50 million.

Two months short of his 65th birthday, Bannon is evangelizing for his nationalist vision across Europe with ferocious energy, lots of espresso and little sleep.

He uses his big, unpredictable personality as a tool for showmanship and communication. He shifts his public persona dramatically - sometimes with jarring speed. He can be a genial and famously scruffy salesman, spinning folksy tales about how his dad and granddad were phone company linemen.

Then moments later he's a dark doomsayer, telling millennials in a speech to ultraconservative activists here that they are "modern-day Russian serfs" who will always be "two paychecks away from absolute financial ruin," and warning of elites with control of artificial intelligence and genetic engineering who will "redefine what a homo sapien is" and lead to the "ultimate destruction of the human race."

He constantly trashes the media and accuses them of being part of the "Party of Davos," his go-to shorthand for out-of-touch global elites. But he cultivates media attention to spread his gospel of "economic nationalism." He lines up interviews with journalists like bowling pins from morning until late at night. With reporters, he can be gracious, funny, self-deprecating and likable - until something sets him off.

Early Sunday in Rome, Bannon, who is a devout Catholic, banned The Washington Post from accompanying him on a trip he was making that day to Prague and Budapest after expressing anger that a Post photographer took a picture of him attending morning Mass.

Bannon's European travels, which take place aboard a leased private plane, have the feel of a political campaign in the final weeks of an election.

He is surrounded at almost all times by an entourage of friends and aides: Modrikamen, the Belgian politician who founded The Movement last year; Raheem Kassam, the former head of Breitbart in London; Dan Fleuette, who has been Bannon's friend and film producer for 15 years; Benjamin Harnwell, founder of the Institute for Human Dignity, a conservative advocacy group based in Rome; Federico Arata, a former Credit-Suisse banker and writer with strong ties in Italian politics and business; Sean Bannon, the son of Bannon's younger brother; and a stocky personal bodyguard who used to be in the British Army. An independent documentary filmmaker also follows Bannon everywhere.

His crew acts as his road family - as security, schedulers and advisers on everything from how to contact Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan to the best backdrop for video interviews. On Saturday, Bannon wanted context for a bit of Roman history, so he turned to Kassam and Harnell for help.

Bannon then booted the entourage out of the suite so he could work on a speech he would deliver that night at an annual conference of Italian right-wing party activists.

A couple of hours later, everyone piled into a black Mercedes van and sedan for the ride across town to Isola Tiberina, an island in the Tiber River, where the conference was taking place next to the stone walls of a 10th-century basilica.

Bannon arrived like a right-wing rock star into a huge gaggle of jostling photographers. With police officers, private security guards and his own bodyguard leading the way, Bannon waded into the scrum carrying a thin can of Red Bull.

Bannon walked down a long flight of steps to the conference site and was led first into a small private tent for a meeting with Giorgia Meloni, leader of the right-wing Brothers of Italy party, which was hosting the event and has joined The Movement.

With late-afternoon temperatures still close to 90 degrees, Bannon and Meloni sat in white leather chairs and chatted about Italy's coalition government and their shared distaste for French President Emmanuel Macron.

Photographers stuck cameras through the tall shrubs set up to protect their privacy, while Bannon's aides tried to block their view.

Kassam gently interrupted and handed Bannon an orange notebook asking for an autograph for someone who was waiting outside.

"MAGA!!!" Bannon wrote, a reference to Trump's "Make America Great Again" slogan, and signed his name.

Bannon stood, took a sip of espresso, and the security bubble formed around him again as he made his way across a packed courtyard to the main stage, where people wore T-shirts that said, "People not Elites," or "Patriot."

In a tent filled to standing-room, several hundred people cheered as Bannon climbed to the stage and picked up a wireless microphone.

He fixed the audience with a hard stare. His jaw muscles were visibly clenching. And he launched into a speech that sounded a lot like a Trump rally speech, tailored for an Italian audience.

He hammered all his favorite phrases and themes: Party of Davos. Corporatist elites. Central bankers. The people who preach that "You're all racists and xenophobes and nativists." The same ones who caused the 2008 financial crisis, then bailed themselves out at the expense of the working class.

Big applause.

Bannon was getting warmed up, pacing the stage.

"You are the backbone of society. You are the glue," he told them.

"The scientific, managerial, engineering, financial, cultural elite detests you and everything you stand for," he warned. "And they will stop at nothing, including targeting and destroying your leaders, and including coming after you."

The crowd loved it.

One attendee, who asked not to be identified, said it was no surprise that Bannon was beloved at a conference of far-right activists. "It's like you ask people to a party and then ask if they like you," she said.

Bannon took questions, then was whisked back into the security bubble to sit for another Italian TV interview, then another half-hour of questions from a couple of dozen English-language reporters.

Kassam, emceeing the questioning, said the first question would go to CNN.

"Let's start with the haters!" Bannon said, with a big smile toward the CNN reporter. He was clearly making a joke. But moments later he was back to bashing the "opposition party media."

Afterward, the police and security guards led Bannon and his crew back to the waiting Mercedes, still surrounded by cameras.

It was 8:30 p.m. Bannon had been on the go since before dawn.

Now he had three more media interviews scheduled back at the hotel.

Then the next morning, the Bannon entourage would head for the airport. On the schedule: a private jet to Prague for meetings, then on to Budapest for meetings over dinner, then back to Rome after midnight.

- - -

The Washington Post's Stefano Pitrelli contributed to this report.Braiman said staffs focus on restricting future plaza use to retail or possibly a hotel meant negotiating with the property owners. As a result, the permission they were granted comes with restrictions making it difficult for them to put anything but regular retail or restaurants into the space in future.Rye goes 1-1 on first day of 2A state volleyball

Rye girls volleyball lost to Meeker in the second round of the Class 2A state tournament after beating Limon in the first round.Their famous client behind bars, Bill Cosbys legal team is readying a long-shot bid to get his sexual assault conviction overturned. Theyre also fighting civil lawsuits filed by some accusers that threaten to drain his vast fortune.

The 81-year-old Cosbys lawyers gave glimpses of their expected appeal as his April retrial crashed toward a conviction. They were dismayed by Judge Steven ONeills weighty decision to let five additional accusers testify and moved for a mistrial when one of the women called Cosby a serial rapist from the stand.

Cosbys lawyers again demanded a mistrial when a prosecutor suggested they were wrong to help a star defense witness write a statement outlining how she said Andrea Constand, the woman Cosby was convicted of drugging and molesting, mused about framing a celebrity.

Recently, Cosbys team  namely his wife, Camille  has been lashing out at ONeill and accusing prosecutors of using illegal evidence.

Just before Cosby was taken away in handcuffs on Tuesday to begin his three-to-10-year prison sentence, his lawyers alleged that prosecutors had played a doctored audio tape for the jury. They argued that the development was enough to keep Cosby out on bail while he appeals, but ONeill refused.

Still, legal experts say, Cosby faces long odds of winning on appeal.

Appellate courts give trial judges broad discretion to make decisions affecting how a case is tried, and they overturn only a tiny fraction of convictions. Cosby would stand a better chance, experts say, if he could show that ONeill made serious errors that violated his constitutional rights.

The prosecutors who tried Cosby say theyre confident his conviction will stand.

Bill Cosby is out of options, said veteran Pennsylvania prosecutor Jarrett Ferentino, who wasnt involved in the case. His only option now is to blame the court system. His attempt to disparage and discredit his victims failed. He has every right to file an appeal. His chances of success are limited.

Cosby, once revered as Americas Dad for playing wise, caring Dr. Cliff Huxtable on The Cosby Show, is now known as Inmate No. NN7687.

He spent his first night as a prisoner in a single cell near the infirmary at a new state lock up a mere 20 miles from the suburban Philadelphia mansion where, a jury found, he assaulted Constand in 2004.

Here are some of the issues Cosbys lawyers could argue in his appeal and the other legal trouble hes facing:

DOCTORED TAPE

In a failed, last-ditch bid to keep Cosby free on bail pending his appeal, his lawyers on Tuesday accused prosecutors of playing a doctored tape for the jury.

Cosbys publicist said afterward that a forensic expert found that a tape Constands mother made of a 2005 telephone call with Cosby had been manipulated in two places and was not an authentic recording.

During the call, Cosby talks about a plan to pay for Constands education.

District Attorney Kevin Steele rejected the allegations, saying it was widely known that Gianna Constand started her recorder after the call began.

If thats what theyve got, its beyond a Hail Mary, Steele said.

PARADE OF ACCUSERS

The biggest difference from the first trial  which ended in a mistrial  was ONeills decision to let jurors hear from five other women who say Cosby had also drugged and violated them. The judge allowed just one other accuser to testify the first time around.

The new witnesses  permitted by state law to show that a charged crime fits a larger pattern of offenses  helped prosecutors bolster what had been a he-said-she-said case.

That one is front and center because he didnt rule that way on the initial trial, Loyola Law School professor Laurie Levenson said. It raises the question of why is he doing so this time? Why is he trying to put his thumb on the scales of justice?

Cosbys lawyers blasted the womens testimony as excessive and prejudicial, and twice demanded a mistrial over their charged rhetoric.

Pennsylvania courts have long grappled with how many prior bad act witnesses to allow. Prosecutors in the Cosby case originally wanted 19 women to testify, but an appeals court could have seen that as too many.

Monsignor William Lynn, a former Roman Catholic church official, had his 2012 child endangerment conviction thrown out after 23 such witnesses took the stand.

ACCUSING THE JUDGE AND JURY OF BIAS

As sentencing neared, Cosbys wife issued a blistering statement accusing ONeill of unethical behavior and traveled to Harrisburg to file a complaint with a judicial ethics board. Camille Cosby alleged that ONeill was biased because of an old feud he had with the prosecutor who declined to bring charges against Cosby in 2005.

Cosbys lawyers tried to get ONeill to step aside before the retrial, but never mentioned the feud. Instead, they suggested he was being influenced by his wife, a social worker who has described herself as an activist and advocate for assault victims. ONeill declined, saying hes not biased or prejudiced by her work.

Cosbys lawyers also took issue with the makeup of the jury.

During jury selection, they accused prosecutors of illegally removing a black woman from the pool on the basis of her race and alleged that a prosecution team member said something that was discriminatory and repulsive.

Later, they sought to remove a juror after a rejected juror alleged he told her: I just think hes guilty, so we can all be done and get out of here.

ONeill questioned jurors in chambers and allowed the man to stay.

OTHER LEGAL WORRIES

Cosby is also defending defamation lawsuits filed by at least 10 accusers in Massachusetts and California, which were mostly put on hold during the criminal case but should now pick up. The women say that Cosby and his agents deemed them liars by denying their sex assault accusations.

Cosby has countersued the seven women in the Massachusetts case, alleging they engaged in a campaign to assassinate his honorable legacy and reputation.

He says his reputation was harmed, their womens lawyer, Joseph Cammarata said. Im going to say he had no reputation to harm.

Cammarata will ask a judge next month to schedule a trial date and let him take Cosbys deposition. Cosbys lawyers deposed the women and Cammarata deposed Cosbys wife, Camille, but Cosby himself got a reprieve while the criminal case loomed.

At least we know where to find him, Cammarata said.Wolfgang Kaehler | LightRocket (Getty Images)

Gov. Bruce Rauner has vetoed legislation that would allow experts to study the impact of supplemental feeding of wild deer.

The proposal, put forth by Chapin Rose for the University of Illinois Prairie Research Institute, was rejected Tuesday.GLEN CARBON  Residential Home Health held a ribbon cutting ceremony Monday at their new offices at 4215 Route 159 in Glen Carbon.

The company occupies the entire second floor of the building that is home to ToDos and a ReMax office on the first floor.

The company, based in Troy, Michigan, is a home health and hospice provider. They previously had an office in Shiloh.

We have about 30 people in this office and about 200 people working in the area, said Grace Andres, Regional Marketing and Brand Manager for the company.

Justin DeWitte, CEO of Hospice, and David Curtis, CEO of Home Health, attended the ribbon cutting, as well as Glen Carbon mayor Rob Jackstadt and members of the Edwardsville-Glen Carbon Chamber of Commerce.

The company was growing, DeWitte said. We needed a larger space and this property met our need.

The company completely designed the entire second floor of the building.

DeWitte said that the company serves patients from Springfield to Marion and east almost to the edge of Illinois.

Were taking care of close to 800 patients in the area currently, Curtis said. We probably admit about 5,000 over the course of a year.

The 30 workers in this location will provide support to field workers in the area. We have IT, HR, nursing supervisors and schedulers here, Andres said.

The company provides home health, palliative, and hospice care.

We have physical and occupational therapists, RNs, LPNs, speech pathologists, nurse practitioners and home health and hospice aides, Andres said.

They will occasionally be at the office for training, she said.Southern Illinois University Edwardsville will honor eight remarkable graduates at the 2018 SIUE Alumni Hall of Fame ceremony, A Night Among the Stars, on Friday, Sept. 28 in the Morris University Center. The impressive alumni have made exceptional contributions in their chosen fields, in their communities and at SIUE through their leadership, character and hard work.

A cocktail reception in the Meridian Ballroom will begin at 6:30 p.m., followed by dinner and an awards presentation at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $50 and can be purchased online at siue.edu/alumni/hall-of-fame. Complimentary valet parking will be available in Lot C.

Those selected for the Alumni Hall of Fame represent the best of SIUE, said Alan Kehrer, SIUE Alumni Association president. It is our honor to induct these outstanding individuals.

The 2018 honorees listed by their college or school:

 School of Business: Tania Seger, BS Accountancy 87, MBA 96

Seger is vice president and chief financial officer for Monsantos North America commercial business unit covering business analysis and long-range planning, credit, and manufacturing for the U.S., Canada and Latin America North. She has held multiple finance roles at Monsanto in both U.S. Commercial and Technology. Prior to joining Monsanto in 2008, she worked for Solutia as manager of corporate planning and analysis, and for Ameritech Mobile Communications where she held various roles, including director of corporate operations. Seger is also a certified public accountant and a member of the St. Louis Federal Reserves Agribusiness Industry Council. She is an active SIUE School of Business alumna providing presentations on career development and participating in industry networking events for students.

 College of Arts & Sciences: The Honorable David R. Herndon, BA Government 74

Herndon, district judge for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, was confirmed by the Senate on Oct. 21, 1998. His federal tenure followed seven years as an associate judge in the Third Judicial Circuit of Madison County. Prior to that, Herndon worked as a trial attorney, specializing in plaintiffs personal injury cases, with an emphasis on Federal Employers Liability Act (FELA) litigation, for 14 years. An undergraduate degree from SIUE preceded his law degree from SIUC in 1977. Herndon served as chief judge from October 2007 through September 2014 and currently serves as chair of the Judicial Conference Committee on Judicial Security. He was a 2017 inductee in the Trial Lawyers Hall of Fame.

 College of Arts & Sciences: Dr. Roderick Nunn, BM Jazz Performance 93

Nunn serves as executive vice president, head of education and employment for the Concordance Academy of Leadership, a national organization leading the way in reducing recidivism for returning citizens. Before joining the Academy, he served as president of St. Louis Community College-Forest Park, and vice chancellor of economic development and workforce solutions. Under Nunns leadership, the college won several national, state, and local awards for excellence and innovation in workforce development. He also led workforce development for three governors in Missouri and Illinois. He serves as an adjunct professor in the doctor of management program at the University of Maryland University College.

 SIU School of Dental Medicine: Dr. Patricia Tish Nihill, DMD 82

Nihill served as a faculty member in the School of Dental Medicine from 1984-2000. During that time, she completed the gerontology certificate program at SIU, and earned a prosthodontic certificate and masters degree at Northwestern University. She has served as a faculty member at the University of Illinois-Chicago College of Dentistry and the University of Kentucky College of Dentistry, where she served as the division chief of comprehensive care until her retirement. In retirement, she volunteers at the Chicago Dental Society Foundation clinic in her hometown of Wheaton and teaches part time as an adjunct faculty member at Midwestern University College of Dental Medicine-Illinois.

 School of Education, Health and Human Behavior: Fredna Carlson Scroggins, EdD, Instructional Process 81

Scroggins devoted 35 years to her career in education. She is retired from St. Louis Community College (STLCC) at Meramec where she was a professor in the Department of Behavioral Sciences and served as department chair for 10 years. She taught in the teacher education program at Blackburn College, Westminster College in Salt Lake City and Missouri Baptist University, before joining STLCC. She was named to Whos Who in Americas Teachers, received the Missouri Governors Award for Excellence in Teaching, and the Meramec Faculty Lecture Award. She was a member of the District Academic Governance Council, District Education Steering Committee, and the Missouri Commission on the Future of Teaching.

 School of Engineering: Angela Heise, BS Computer Science 96

Heise is president of the civil group at Leidos. She is responsible for providing solutions to U.S. Cabinet-level civil agencies, and major elements of the public and private sector across the globe. Focus areas include air traffic automation, energy and the environment, federal infrastructure and logistics, information technology and cybersecurity, and transportation security. Prior to this role, she served as vice president of commercial markets for Lockheed Martin-Commercial Cyber, where she was responsible for delivery of a portfolio of cybersecurity and information technology solutions and services to commercial Global 1000 customers. She is an alumna of Harvard Business Schools Advanced Management Program. She was recently named to Washington Execs Top 25 Executives to Watch in 2018.

 School of Nursing: Lisa Klaustermeier, BS Nursing 93, MS Nursing 01

Klaustermeier serves as the chief nursing officer at Anderson Hospital in Maryville. She began her nursing career at Saint Louis University Hospital, where she quickly moved into a management position and continued there for four years. She then started at Anderson Hospital, where she has been in leadership positions for 20 years, serving as the chief nursing officer since 2009. During her tenure, she has been instrumental in mentoring staff and students, expanding and improving patient care service lines, providing leadership to more than 400 nurses and staff members, and leading performance improvement programs. An adjunct faculty member in SIUEs School of Nursing, she is a member of the American Organization of Nurse Leaders, American Nurses Association, and Illinois Organization of Nurse Leaders where she served as a regional president.

 Graduate School: James D. Campbell, PhD, BA Sociology 68, MA Sociology 70

Campbell earned a doctorate in sociology from the University of Missouri-Columbia (UMC). He began his career as an instructor in 1970 at Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, but spent most of his career in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at UMC, where he recently retired as emeritus professor. He was a pioneer in developing innovative curricula for medical students that incorporates the social and behavioral sciences. He played a key role in developing and implementing an innovative longitudinal inter-professional experience at UMC, as well as developing videos that are used widely for training in educational institutions and public health departments. He and his wife, Anne, were instrumental in creating the Central Missouri Kidney Association, of which Jim is the president.

For more information on A Night Among the Stars call (618) 650-3630.

Southern Illinois University Edwardsville provides students with a high quality, affordable education that prepares them for successful careers and lives of purpose. Built on the foundation of a broad-based liberal education, and enhanced by hands-on research and real-world experiences, the academic preparation SIUE students receive equips them to thrive in the global marketplace and make our communities better places to live. Situated on 2,660 acres of beautiful woodland atop the bluffs overlooking the natural beauty of the Mississippi Rivers rich bottomland and only a short drive from downtown St. Louis, the SIUE campus is home to a diverse student body of nearly 14,000.Step into the darkness of the 1820 Col. Benjamin Stephenson Houses candlelit parlor on October 28 to ponder the works of Edgar Allen Poe. Anne Williams, a historic interpreter certified with the National Association of Interpreters will perform a selection of Poes famous poems and short stories as dramatic recitations. The recitations are framed in the context of the authors life, interspersed with excerpts from newspapers, letters, and observations by contemporaries.

Selections will include several (not all) of the following: The Black Cat, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Oval Portrait, The Cask of Amontillado, Morella, The Raven, Annabel Lee, The Bells, For Annie, A Dream Within A Dream, El Dorado, The Haunted Palace, The Fall of the House of Usher (abridged), or excerpt from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.EDWARDSVILLE  A second pair of solar farms was approved by the Madison County Zoning Board of Appeals Tuesday.

This follows the approval of another solar farm by the full Madison County Board last week. The action was among seven requests acted on by the board. Another request was pulled from consideration after numerous objections, and is expected to be amended and refiled.

Edwardsville Solar LLC and property owner Sharon Wentz Evans had requested special use permits to allow two separate 2-megawatt solar farms on land at 5729 New Poag Road, Edwardsville.

At last weeks County Board meeting, a special use permit was approved for SolarStone Illinois LLC, and property owners James Mannhard and Kathleen Trees, to allow the development of a solar farm on Walnut Road near St. Jacob was approved.

Both developments were split into two separate 2-megawatt plants because of state regulations.

The Poag Road location would take up about 35 acres. Each 2-megawatt facility would produce enough electricity to power about 300 homes.

The request now goes to the Planning & Development Committee, then to the full Madison County Board.

A request by Brian Forbes to rezone 1.2 acres from residential to business was withdrawn because of objections by neighbors. The property, located at 4700 Nameoki Road and 2104 Harrison, in Granite City, was zoned residential but through a court case from the 1970s a special use permit for a professional office was allowed.

Forbes said he wants the property rezoned to allow him to market it for professional office space.

Board Member Art Asadorian spoke against the request, and a resident presented a petition opposing the rezoning signed by 77 neighbors.

Much of the concern was that if the property was rezoned to B-1 Limited Business District it would allow more than 70 potential uses, including retail.

After some discussion, Forbes withdrew his request, with plans to resubmit it as a B-5 business district, which would limit the property to use as a professional office building.

The ZBA also approved denying a request by Stephen Edwards and property owner A&H Mechanical Contracting Inc. for a special use permit to allow a drive-up window for a restaurant proposed at 9070 Illinois Route 162 in Troy.

The ZBA tabled action on the issue in January so the developers and owners could bring a detailed floor and site plan, but that has never materialized.

Four requests were approved, including:

 A request by Victor Olvera-Ramirez for a special use permit to continue to place a manufactured home at 3113 Amherst Ave., Collinsville.

 A request by Iona Bertels for variances to create a tract with a 30-foot property width and setback, and a private sewage system on less than one acre for property at 4610 Okke St., Dorsey. Bertels wants to split a residential property from agricultural land to allow the sale of the residence.

 A request by John and Deborah Miller for a 37-foot front yard setback and a 57-foot rear yard setback to replace a demolished residence with a modular home on Illinois Route 162 in Glen Carbon.

 A request by Chad Wernle for a variance to place a detached garage at 13300 Fawn Creek Road, Highland, that is 2.5 feet from the property line, rather than the required 15 feet.

Reach reporter Scott Cousins at 618-208-6447.This appeared in Wednesdays Washington Post.

  

Close as the two countries are geographically, a great asymmetry characterizes the relationship between the United States and Canada. The latter necessarily focuses a lot more on the former than vice versa. And Canadians, as much as they generally like and appreciate the United States, worry about it, too. They worry U.S. media will overwhelm theirs; that U.S. imports will flood their markets; and that the United States will close its markets to their exports. These concerns, rational or not, exist even at times, unlike the present, when that relationship is going well. Accordingly, there will be no solution to the current dangerous impasse over hemispheric trade if the Trump administration fails to take Canadas concerns into account.

So far, however, President Donald Trump has gone out of his way to hector Canada over the purported unfair advantages it gets from the North American Free Trade Agreement, which he seeks to renegotiate. Now time is running out before the Sept. 30 deadline for the Trump administration and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to reach a deal, complementary to the one Trump already struck with Mexico, that would salvage NAFTA.

Both sides say publicly they are far apart, with the sticking point being Chapter 19 of NAFTA, one of those issues that matters immensely north of the border yet barely registers in the public mind south of it. Basically, Chapter 19 allows Canada to bypass U.S. courts and take the United States to arbitration when it attempts to impose penalties for allegedly improper Canadian exports to the United States  especially the perennial bilateral irritant known as softwood lumber. Canada insisted on this as a sop to its own nationalists back when it proposed the first Canada-U.S. free-trade pact during the Reagan administration, and President Ronald Reagan understood the wisdom of meeting Canada halfway on this point. Trump, by contrast, has insisted on getting rid of Chapter 19 and has succeeded in persuading Mexico to abandon the version that applied to it.

For Canada, though, Chapter 19 still seems a dealbreaker, even if, truth be told, its importance today is more symbolic than economic. The best  indeed, the obvious  approach for Trump would be to concede most or all of what Canada wants on Chapter 19, which is, after all, a matter of legal procedure, in return for some concession in a substantive area, such as a relaxation of Canadas unwarranted protection against U.S. milk products. The advantages of such a compromise have been apparent to experts on U.S.-Canada trade for some time, and you would think they would be evident to Trumps negotiators as well.

We hope the Trump teams dramatic statements Tuesday about running out of time to include Canada in a new hemispheric deal were just last-minute posturing before a deal gets done. Congress would look askance at a U.S.-Mexico-only trade pact, as it should. For reasons both economic and political, such an agreement would not work, and would gratuitously isolate the United States from a democratic country that has been something even more valuable than a neighbor: a friend.ISMAILIA, Egypt-Hassan Ragab, the director of the Confucius Institute at the Suez Canal University in Egypt, has hailed the Chinese language institute for enhancing mutual understanding and cooperation between Chinese and Egyptian people.

Egyptian students are eager to learn about the Chinese language and culture as they see China as the model for developing countries, says Ragab.

Ragab, who received a PhD in Chinese literature in China in 1995, has just returned from a two-week summer camp in China, in which 20 Egyptian students learned about Chinese cooking, writing and literature, in addition to taking part in sightseeing tours.

More than 1,500 Egyptian students are now studying in Chinese universities, while some 600 others joined the Confucius Institute in 2017, he says.

In 2018, more than 300 students applied to join the Chinese Department in the Language Faculty of the Suez Canal University, which originally planned to enroll just 30 students, says Ragab.

There are two Confucius Institutes in Egypt, one at the Suez Canal University and the other at Cairo University, with branches in other provinces.

The Confucius Institute at the Suez Canal University also holds classes at the China-Egypt TEDA Suez Economic and Trade Corporation Zone, the British University and the Helwan University, with more classes to be opened soon in three other universities.One of the world's oldest captive giant panda alive today, Xin Xing, enjoyed her feast, a mooncake with fruits and bamboo shoots on its top, at Mid-Autumn Festival in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality.



The mooncake was a special present from Chongqing Zoo and some panda lovers in the municipality, made from rice, eggs, soybeans and seasonings including salt and vegetable oil.

In the morning, the zoo staff decorated her house with lanterns and served the giant panda a mooncake with her favorite bamboo shoots and sliced apples, cucumbers and pitayas as the icing.

Born in 1982 in Baoxing County, southwest China's Sichuan Province, Xin Xing is a 36-year-old mother panda to six cubs, equivalent to more than 100 human years. She is also the grandmother of a male panda Bili at Ueno Zoological Park in Japan, named Ri Ri in Japanese, said the Chongqing Zoo.

The festival, falling on the 15th day of the eighth month on Chinese lunar calendar, is a major occasion for family reunions in China, with the tradition of enjoying the full moon and eating mooncakes.China will celebrate its National Day very soon, and in Chicago, local students and their parents are enjoying a taste of China as a grand festival is taking place in the city.



The Whitney Yang public school, located in the center of Chicago, is decorated with red lanterns, Chinese knots and beautiful kites, and the students have been showcasing their skills in calligraphy, traditional Chinese music, and paper cutting.

"It's a beautiful culture. It's very beautiful. I wish I had known about it more when I was younger," said one parent.

A student said, "I like Chinese culture because I like all types of Chinese dances, all the activities and the music and all the decorations...."

Chicago Art Museum has brought in a model of a bronze plate and encouraged students to try their hand at an ancient form of printing.

"This year, the culture festival coincides with the Mid-Autumn Festival and the National Day holiday. So people are pretty excited. I think more and more Americans would like to get to know more about Chinese culture as China develops," said Yang Jingyue, headmaster of the Chicago Confucius Institute.

This year's Chinese Culture Festival is being held by the Confucius Institute in Chicago, the Chicago public school district and the Confucius Institute affiliated to the Valparaiso University in Indiana.The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), along with its fruitful results, was introduced to the Cubans on Tuesday at an exhibition that revealed the breakthroughs of the initiative proposed by China five years ago.

The event, inaugurated at Cuba's National Library "Jose Marti," exhibited 60 photos that illustrate from the beginning the results in various areas with the BRI framework, which Chinese Ambassador to Havana Chen Xi says "helps the whole world."

The BRI not only promotes China's development but also accelerates the development of the countries that join the initiative, including the Caribbean island.

Chen said the Chinese government appreciates Cuba's efforts in advancing the initiative and hopes to "have concrete projects in the near future."

"In the past five years, this initiative has received great attention and has been well received by many countries in the world, including Latin American nations," he said.

The ambassador said Beijing attaches great importance to cooperation with Cuba.

"We have advanced conversations with the Cuban side so that this initiative can also achieve success in this country," Chen said.

The exhibition, which will run until late October, displayed photos of cooperation projects established within the BRI framework that have helped lift hundreds of thousands of people out of poverty.

It also exhibited photos themed "Events of the Belt and Road," which highlighted Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation held in May last year.

The photos also show the routes once used by Chinese merchants hundreds of years ago to conduct businesses with the West.

Meanwhile, the Chinese embassy in Havana donated televisions, computers and Chinese books published in Spanish to the National Library in Cuba.

"The books about China are very important for us because they can help us learn about that nation," said Lourdes de la Fuente, deputy director of Cuba's National Library.

According to official data, as of July 2018, more than 100 countries and international organizations had signed Belt and Road cooperation documents with China, extending the initiative's scope from the Eurasian continent to Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the South Pacific region.Medical marijuana trials to start soon

BANGKOK: The Government Pharmaceutical Organisation (GPO) will start clinical trials of marijuana soon as a preliminary step to producing medicines for four diseases, it said yesterday (Sept 25).

drugshealth

By Bangkok Post

Wednesday 26 September 2018, 08:29AM

While cannabis remains a Class 5 narcotic, the government has passed special legislation to legalise research into medicinal uses. Photo: Bangkok Post / File

It will also build a special greenhouse in which to grow the premium-grade cannabis, it added.

The trial project will use 100 kilograms of confiscated marijuana provided by the Office of the Narcotics Control Board (ONCB), the state agency overseeing the current crackdown on narcotics.

Sophon Mekthon, chairman of the GPOs board committee, said the research team expects to extract 10-15 litres of pure oil from the supplied plant.

The oil will be used to develop medicines for the treatment of epilepsy and peripheral nephropathy, and others aimed at reducing the side-effects of chemotherapy and morphine substitutes, according to Mr Sophon.

The first phase of the trial starts this month and will be completed by December, he said.

This trial is definitely a great leap forward for our country to develop medical marijuana, Mr Sophon told media.

The GPO, meanwhile, has asked the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to approve its plan to build the greenhouse to grow the marijuana. This is expected to produce several tons of the plant every year.

GPO director Withoon Danwiboon said the office has its eyes on a site in Chonburi and it will work with Kasetsart University in developing a premium strain.

We will then cultivate the plant upstream and send it to our laboratory research centre to get the best by-product for medical treatment so Thai people can have affordable access to good medicine, Dr Withoon said.

The Ministry of Public Health is also now promoting marijuana as an alternative form of treatment.

A raft of peer-reviewed studies suggest the plant can help to reduce pain associated with a number of diseases and could also be used by patients afflicted with Alzheimers and Parkinsons.

The medical trial and greenhouse project are considered exciting new milestones in Thailand, where the terrain and climate are well-suited to cultivating the plant. However, it has been labelled a Class 5 narcotic since 1979, meaning it is illegal to grow or sell the drug.

In May, the cabinet approved draft legislation permitting more research into the effects of medicinal marijuana.

It can already be legally used for medical purposes in Canada, Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic and France, as well as a number of American states. Patients in the Netherlands can even be reimbursed for purchasing medical cannabis given the right health insurance policy.

Over 72% of Thais support the move to legalise marijuana for medical purposes, according to an opinion survey by the National Institute of Development Administration, or Nida Poll.

But more than half of respondents said it should be restricted to hospitals.

Read original story here.Traffickers jailed over child flower sellers

MAE SOT: The Mae Sot Provincial Court has sentenced two men in a human trafficking case to 12 years in jail and ordered them to pay almost B1.3 million in compensation to the victims, according to the Human Rights and Development Foundation (HRDF).

crimepoliceimmigrationMyanmarviolencetransport

By Bangkok Post

Wednesday 26 September 2018, 08:45AM

The Mae Sot Provincial Court has jailed a Myanmar migrant couple for exploiting and trafficking in child labour. Photo: Screengrab via Google Maps

According to a statement released yesterday (Sept 25) by the organisation, the court ruled on Sept 17 in the case filed against a Myanmar migrant couple, Mrs Zarabi Abdullah and Charlie (last name unknown). Both were convicted under the Anti-Human Trafficking Act 2008 and the Child Protection Act 2003.

In the statement on Jan 22 this year, the HRDF said its Mae Sot Labour Clinic and the Confederation of Trade Unions of Myanmar (CTUM) had assisted a migrant worker in reporting to police that his 14-year-old nephew, known as Min in court, had been lured by brokers from Myanmar to work in Thailand.

Min had allegedly been sent to work for an employer in Nonthaburi in 2014 selling flowers at night to tourists on Khao San Rd in Bangkok. While selling flowers, he managed to escape and had sought help and complained about being abused by the employer.

On Feb 4 this year, police from Nonthaburi, the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Division and officers from Mae Sot arrested the employer at a residence in Nonthaburi. Only the employer was found there and no other children were found during the raid.

Another perpetrator was also taken into custody; the person who drove the children to work and picked them up afterwards.

The statement said the ruling illustrates a pervasive form of trafficking in persons in Thailand including the use of forced child labour.

The HRDF urged the Thai government to pay more attention to this problem and come up with policies for the effective prevention of all forms of trafficking against children.

Read original story here.Governor Kristi Noem announces re-election campaign for 2022

Gov. Kristi Noem announced her campaign for re-election on Friday afternoon.Canada, a relatively modest participant in the global soybean market, is poised to leap into the fray with a chance to boost exports to China, which has shunned shipments from the U.S. amid an escalating trade war.

Theres a big opportunity for Canadians to fill some of that void that were seeing in China, Joel Merkosky, co-president of Johnstons Grain brokerage in Calgary, said in a telephone interview.

The conflict between China, the worlds top soybean consumer, and the U.S., the biggest exporter behind Brazil, means traditional trading patterns have gone haywire. Argentina, the leading shipper of soybean meal, took the unusual step of buying the oilseed from the U.S. to meet domestic demand while shipping its own crop to China. That shift may also occur in North America.

Youre going to see more U.S. beans come into Canada, and more Canadian beans go to China, Merkosky said.

Brokers such as Johnstons Grain are looking at importing cheap U.S. soybeans into Canada for processing, and exporters may explore arbitrage opportunities for shipment overseas, Merkosky said. Prices for U.S. soybeans have plunged as demand from China declined and a bumper harvest looms.

Trump Trade War Divides Farming World as China Demand Shifts

Farmers in Canada are currently harvesting soybeans and canola to make meal for livestock and oil for cooking and fuel.

In the past two decades, Canada became the fifth-largest soybean exporter as farmers expanded acreage. Overseas sales are a fraction of the 75 million metric tons from Brazil and 56 million tons from the U.S. forecast to be shipped during the 2018-2019 crop year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The USDA this month lowered its forecast for Canadas shipments during the 2018-2019 crop year to 5 million metric tons from an earlier estimate of 5.5 million as drought reduced the crop. Still, Canada has exported 156,000 tons of soybeans since Aug. 1, more than double the same period a year earlier, the latest Canadian Grain Commission data show. The data does not break down shipments by destination.European efforts to import more liquefied natural gas are starting to pay off, moving the region further away from Russias energy orbit and potentially creating more opportunities for U.S. producers.

Shifting to LNG has been a significant turning point for countries such as Lithuania and Poland, whose energy bills have fallen since they built LNG terminals in 2014 and 2016, respectively.

The new LNG terminals on the Baltic Sea, Russias former backyard, are expected to prompt the opening of other European facilities that can turn to shipments of natural gas from places like the U.S. and Qatar, industry experts said.

There are currently about six LNG projects in development or on the drawing board in Europe, most of them in countries that are in Russias former sphere of influence. Earlier this month, German energy company RWE AG signed up to take a chunk of the future capacity of a planned LNG terminal in Hamburg, Germany.

The success of the Baltic terminals should give investors and industry participants more confidence in the economics of these projects, experts said.

More European LNG import terminals would be welcome news for U.S. energy companies such as Cheniere Energy Inc., as they have been eagerly awaiting new projects abroad to eat into a glut of natural gas that has kept the U.S. benchmark price below $4 per million British thermal units for years. Natural-gas futures for October delivery settled at $3.0820 a million British thermal units Tuesday on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

More than a dozen export projects are awaiting regulatory approval in the U.S., according to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

In the first half of the year, the U.S. delivered 9.8 million tons of LNG globally, with 59% of its exports going to Asia and only 4% to Europe, according to Andy Flower, a U.K.-based independent LNG consultant and industry veteran.

LNG has also taken an important role in the trade spats between the U.S. and its major trading partners. In July, the European Union said it would buy more U.S. LNG as part of an attempt to dial down trade tensions with President Trump. Last week, China said it would impose a 10% tariff on U.S. LNG imports as part of its retaliation against new Trump administration tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods.

To be sure, Russia is still the biggest supplier of natural gas to Europe, with a market share of over 30%, according to the European Commission. A new gas pipeline, Nord Stream 2, would allow Russia to export even more natural gas to Germany. It began construction this year despite U.S. pressure on Berlin to withdraw its support.

The U.S. administration has opposed the pipeline over concerns that it would increase Europes already-high dependence on Russian natural gas and give the Kremlin political leverage and substantial revenues.

The LNG terminals offer an alternative supply of natural gas and force Russia to compete, according to analysts. Earlier this year, Russias state-owned gas giant PAO Gazprom agreed to set its prices in line with open Western European markets after the EU brought an antitrust case against it. A representative at Gazprom declined to comment.

Around the world, countries are moving to gas to wean themselves off more polluting energy sources such as coal and oil, and because a glut of new supply from U.S. shale and elsewhere means its plentiful and cheap.

For Europe, seaborne LNG has also become an alternative to the dominance of Russias piped gas.

We have had many historical challenges with Russia, but now gas supply has been depoliticized, said Zygimantas Vaiciunas, Lithuanias energy minister. The LNG terminal is the key card in our negotiations with Gazprom, he said.

Lithuanias fuel import bill fell by 22% between 2014 and April 2018, while in Poland it fell by 11% in the same period, even as both countries consumed more gas and oil, according to data provider CEIC.

In the past, Lithuania was paying 20% to 25% above most other European Union countries for its Russian pipeline gas imports, said Mindaugas Jusius, chief executive of Lithuanias terminal operator Klaipedos Nafta. With the LNG terminal, Lithuania was able to bring Gazprom to the table and renegotiate its contract for pipeline gas, he said.

Since the initial goal was security of supply, Im not sure if we were expecting such a quick pay-back, said Mr. Jusius.

The EU has made LNG a big priority, helping fund the terminals in Lithuania and Poland and one in Malta, while committing money to a project in Croatia.

The objective of the Energy Union strategy is to diversify the energy sources and ensure that no EU member state is dependent on a single supplier, said a spokesperson for the European Commission.

Other countries also want to use more LNG.

Gas is expected to be 24% of the worlds energy mix by 2040, up from 22% in 2016, according to the International Energy Agency. LNGs share of that market is set to rise to almost 40% in 2023, from around a third in 2017, the IEA forecast.

Read more about:Turning dilapidated inner city walls into works of art has helped build a community in Luyano, one of the oldest neighborhoods in the Cuban capital of Havana.

The award-winning project, called Muraleando, or Making Murals, has brought residents together, generated a sense of pride in their environment and fostered an appreciation for art among the youths.

"The main protagonists of this change are from here, from the neighborhood ... they took part in the process of changing things both visually and in (community) spirit," resident and project leader Manuel Diaz Baldrich told Xinhua.

Diaz, 54, who has lived here his entire life, launched the project in 2001 along with three other artists.

"This is the neighborhood where I was born, where I grew up, played, studied, got married and where my children were born. And I always felt I needed to give back what it gave me," said Diaz.

Muraleando, which won the National Community Culture Prize in 2014, began with four "crazy" artists painting murals in public spaces and starting a painting workshop at a nearby school, according to Diaz.

The project got a boost in November 2010, after he discovered a giant century-old water tank, the kind used to supply steam engines, in an abandoned lot. Suddenly, Muraleando had a headquarters.

Today the tank serves as an art gallery and cultural center for craft workshops, music classes, recitals and screenings. It also hosts two popular bands and a rock group, all made up of neighborhood residents.

Part of the profits from the sale of artwork was donated to a community fund used to build space and buy musical instruments, tables, chairs and other material for free children's workshops.

Each Saturday, the tank bustles with kids attending workshops, as well as scores of senior citizens who take part in a craft workshop.

This labor of love has already seen first fruits: 10-year-old Anthony Williams recently won the third place in a national contest held by Cuban television show La Colmena TV.

Beyond the colorful murals and Saturday workshops, Muraleando transformed the community, which organized activities to clean up local trash dumps.

"It's a growth process and that is very important and beautiful," said Diaz.

Thanks to the project, local kids and teens have a productive way to use their free time, said Yudelmis Montero, whose 12-year-old son, who suffers from a mild mental disability, is learning to play the drums.

"In addition to painting and playing drums, the professors educate him, they show him how to interact with other children and that helps them prepare for life," Montero said.

Muraleando now draws tourists keen to see how art has helped transform a neighborhood.

Argentine wife-and-husband performing duo Nina Perrone and Jorge Baduy, who perform as clowns "Cala" and "Zulemo," have been traveling across Latin America for the past nine months.

In Havana, they stumbled across Muraleando and were impressed with the scope of the community project.

"Honestly, this project has surprised us very much because of its important social impact. We have not seen anything like it in any of the countries we have visited," Baduy said.

"You can tell this work has been going on for years, it is like a well-oiled machine. And to see so many people coming here on a Saturday -- and above all else so many children taking different workshops -- that's extremely exciting," Perrone said.EDMONTONAn Edmonton bus driver is in hospital after being stabbed 13 times in an overnight assault at Mill Woods Transit Centre on Wednesday, says the local transit union.

Mark Tetterington, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 569, said the driver was going out of service around 3:40 a.m. when a teen approached him and asked for a ride downtown.

Tetterington said the driver followed protocol by phoning the control centre to ask if he could and he was told they would send a peace officer to pick the boy up.

He told the kid, got off the bus, and as he got off the bus, the kid pulled out a knife, and from what I understand, he stabbed him 13 times, Tetterington said.

But for the grace of God, the puncture wounds didnt hit any main arteries or any vital organs. Apparently he made his way to the washroom in the transit centre and phoned 911, told them hed been stabbed.

Edmonton police say the teen, a 15-year-old boy, was in the drivers seat attempting to put the vehicle in gear when they arrived. Officers arrested him, but there is no immediate word on charges.

Police say the driver is 65 and remains in hospital with serious, but not life-threatening injuries.

The last update Ive heard, hes going to be OK physically, I guess. But mentally, thats a different story, Tetterington said.

He said the incident is evidence the Edmonton Transit Service does not have enough security at transit centres.

The city plans to add retractable shields on a handful of buses to protect drivers as part of a pilot project. Tetterington said that would protect drivers in most cases, but would not have helped in Wednesdays attack because the driver was exiting the vehicle.

Tetterington said another bus driver was dragged out of his seat and punched for about five minutes straight at the Lewis Farms station in July. He said that driver is still off work after being left with bruises, black eyes, and a knee injury that requires surgery.

Police arrested a 24-year-old man last week after a 19-year-old man was stabbed in what they called an unprovoked attack at the South Campus LRT station.

What Id like to see ideally  and I dont care what the cost is, because you cant put a cost on someones life or someones safety, and the public safety  is to have peace officers stationed at all these transit centres 24 hours a day. Have a team of two peace officers and one patrol car, Tetterington said.

We have to put that focus on safety, not only for our operators, but for the public so they can feel safe riding the transit system.

Mayor Don Iveson said he is very concerned to hear about the violence and the city is working closely with the driver and his family.

He said city administration is working on an inquiry about bus shields that should come back in the next couple of months.

Iveson said the city has increased peace officer deployment, but is open to more suggestions on how to boost safety.

Im confident that overall the system is safe, notwithstanding these incidents, which remain the exception. But I also acknowledge that the public has real questions about their safety on the system that we need to be able to address, Iveson said.

The city recorded 128 assaults on bus drivers in Edmonton through 2016 and 2017, which equates to more than one a week.

The assaults include a range of activities, including touching, spitting, throwing objects, hitting and use of weapons, according to transit spokesperson Rowan Anderson.

Operator and public safety will always be our top priority, Anderson said in an email. Incidents like this are unacceptable and we continue to work very hard with our partners, such as Edmonton Police Service, Transit Peace Officers, the Amalgamated Transit Union and city council to advance our safety and security priorities.

According to the Canadian Urban Transit Association (CUTA), approximately 2,000 assaults against bus operators are reported every year across Canada.

With files from Kashmala Fida

Read more about:TAANAYEL, LEBANONEvery part of Lebanons national drink, arak, is infused with tradition  from distilling the aniseed-tinged liquor to the ritual of mixing it at the table, when the transparent liquid suddenly turns milky white as water is added.

Arak is a staple of big Sunday meals. With a sweet taste and high alcohol content, around 40 per cent, its best consumed with food  lots of it. That makes it perfect for Lebanons traditional meze, spreads of never-ending small dishes that family and friends linger over for hours.

Aficionados say arak is vital to digesting the homemade raw meat dishes that are central to a meze. The real impact comes at the end of the meal, when you stand up after all that eating and the alcohol from glass after glass really hits.

But the tradition is facing competition in Lebanon as young generations opt for liquors like vodka or whiskey that are easier to mix and drink  without a meal.

Arak is comparable to Greeces ouzo or Turkeys raki, which are also grape-based drinks with the licorice-like flavour of anise. Lebanese say arak is smoother. Many families make it at home, each boasting their particular flavour and kick. Restaurants often serve both commercially produced versions and homemade varieties, known as Arak Baladeh. Regulars usually opt for the homemade.

With so much home production, it is hard to tell how much arak is made. Lebanons Blom Bank estimated in 2016 that around two billion bottles annually are produced in the country, with nearly a quarter of it exported, mostly for Lebanese expats yearning for their local drink.

At a recent festival in Taanayel, a town east of Beirut, several commercial companies and smaller boutique houses showcased their araks in a celebration aimed at promoting the drink to the young.

Christiane Issa, whose family owns one of Lebanons largest arak producers, Doumaine de Tourelles, said the drink is a natural digestif. It was a nod to Lebanons growing market for holistic and natural products.

The most important thing about arak is that our grandfathers used herbs to treat illness, not medicine. They believed in herbs, so they chose to make arak with green anise because it has anethole, a compound that aids digestion, said Issa, the companys administrative manager.

Some Beirut bars have introduced an infused version of arak, adding a twig of basil or rosemary, to attract young drinkers. Issa suggests watermelon.

Passions run strong over every detail of arak tradition.

It is to be drunk from small glasses  bigger than a shot glass but smaller than an Old Fashioned glass  arranged on a tray at the top of a table laden with meze. A new glass is used with each new serving. Some prefer to drink it in a tall glass.

It is often mixed in a traditional glass pitcher, round with a short beak-like spout. That makes it easy to drink straight from the pitcher when the party really gets going.

Drinkers staunchly debate the best way to mix.

Some prefer half water, half arak  a strong, sweet mix, usually not for the newbies. More common is one-third arak to two-thirds water, to prolong the drinking and the gathering.

The ice cubes are another discussion. For some, the glass is filled with ice cubes first before pouring the drink. Those truly religious about the drink insist that ice must come last.

No one can clearly explain the difference, but theories abound. Some say arak is further weakened if the ice is already sitting in the glass. Others say, dont question tradition.

The making of arak is a family affair, with secrets passed from one generation to another.

Central to the process is a triple distillation using a still called a karakeh in Arabic.

The harvest is in September and October. The grapes are crushed and left to ferment for three weeks. The mix is then put in the lower part of the karakeh, where it is heated until it evaporates and cooled in the top part by a stream of cold water. At this stage, it is pure alcohol. Anise and water may be added in the second or third distillation. The mix is what makes each houses taste unique.

Homemade arak usually goes straight into gallon containers after distillation, ready for drinking. In commercial production, the arak sits in clay jugs for a year, making it smoother, Issa said.

Wine ages but arak rests, Issa said.

Issas father introduced a new technique, letting it sit in the clay jugs for five years before going to market. Her family bought Doumaine de Tourelles 18 years ago and now it produces 350,000 bottles a year of Arak Brun, named after the Frenchman who founded it in 1868.

At the Taanayel festival, visitors sipped on the sweet drink with their meals.

Michel Sabat was marketing his new Arak al-Naim, or Arak of Paradise. He said with so many producers, arak can only get better.

There is a lot of competition here in Lebanon, so those who produce arak have to make sure it is very good quality.How can you hate maple syrup? the hordes asked, as they banned me from Vermont and declared me persona non grata throughout Canada. Revolted by a New York Times article celebrating ranch dressing, I had tweeted: Plays to everything thats wrong with the typical American palate. Even worse than maple syrup if thats possible.

How can I hate it? Let me count the ways. But first, Ill allow that I respect the dedication of the craftsmen producing it, enabling devotees to pour it liberally over pancakes, waffles and every other edible in sight. (And though I appreciate the lore of sugaring off  the early spring ritual of gathering sap from maple trees  the phrase has always seemed like an euphemism for something more salacious.)

Basically, what I detest about maple syrup is everything, meaning both texture and flavour. As a rule, I do not like intense sweetness, nor do I like syrups unless they are diluted  as chocolate syrup in soda, for example, or honey in hot tea, or as the defining ingredient in honey cake.

But what do you put on your pancakes? some on Twitter asked, to which I replied: I dont like pancakes either. Too soggy. What I do love are crisp-on-the outside-mellow-within waffles, lightly spread with unsalted butter, then topped with a light snowfall of confectioners sugar. Never would I sog them down with syrup!

Most of all, it is maples flavour that bothers me  even in its most artisanally correct form, as compared with the even more insipid Log Cabin. Truth is, as a child I was beguiled by the adorable cabin-shaped can that held that brand of syrup, so I happily poured it over  what else?  pancakes! As my palate matured, I found that maple flavour tastes cheap, like penny candy, and frankly it is a taste that I do not associate with food. (Mostly when I think maple, it is as trees that are the source of the beautifully mellow wood that distinguishes some of the best Early American and Colonial furniture, as well as for birdseye maple, which makes twinkling golden veneers.)

Perhaps even worse than the syrup are those little maple-leaf-shaped sugar candies sold at tourist sites throughout maple syrup country. I am not alone in this, having heard agreements from a few fellow tweeters and  long ago, as I recall  from Craig Claiborne, the first New York Times food critic, on whose shoulders we all stand.

But as the exception that might prove the rule: I do recall one maple-informed dish that I enjoyed enough to have several times. It was a maple-glazed roasted chicken that was the specialty of Waldy Malouf when he was chef at the bygone Hudson River Club in downtown Manhattan. Perhaps the open roasting caused the sugar to caramelize, adding a slightly bitter burnish that mitigated the awful sweetness. It also tenderized the chicken and, mingling with melted butter, kept the meat moistly supple.

Right about here I should apologize to a couple of my cherished Canadian friends (who live in New York, of course) because I keep offending them by publicly disliking so much of their native fare. That would include the thin, sweet-instead-of-salty Montreal bagels with their glassy toppings of brittle seeds; the presumptuous smoked meat claimed to outclass New York deli pastrami; and Quebec-invented totally disgusting poutine, the stultifying mess of fried potatoes smothered in thick brown gravy and clumps of melting cheese curds.

Pour one out:

But, making amends, I can say I do cherish Canadas great smoked salmon, its tangy cheddars and, midsummer, the tiny, pungent blueberries that ripen earlier than usual, thanks to global warming.

There probably is no one around in tweet country who respects the following old admonition, but as we used to say generously, De gustibus non est disputandum, or, In matters of taste, there can be no dispute.

Wanna bet?When you think of the quintessential Toronto food, what comes to mind? Is it the peameal bacon sandwich  in particular, the one from Carousel Bakery in the St. Lawrence Market which honours our hogtown history? Or how about the Jamaican patty? Street meat? Roti?

Consider the sushi pizza. Its a Japanese-inspired dish typically consisting of a fried rice patty topped with salmon sashimi, spicy mayonnaise, tobiko (flying fish roe), a sprinkling of green onion, and occasionally, avocado slices. The dish is ubiquitous at all-you-can-eat and mid-priced sushi spots in the city, but seldom seen outside of the GTA, so it could be a uniquely Toronto creation to call our own. It isnt authentically Japanese, but its an entry point to sushi for beginners. Sushi purists, however, despise this deep-fried, mayo-covered creation while lovers of the dish enjoy the layers of textures and taste.

The origins of the sushi pizza are not clear, but I decided in order for it to be in contention to be a Toronto dish, I had to find out exactly where, and who, first conceived of it.

There isnt much reliable information online, but one of the first hits is a questionable Wikipedia entry for sushi pizza that notes a female chef in Montreal claims to have invented the dish in 1992, linking to a 2008 thread on food website Chowhound, that quoted a post from a 1999 thread about sushi pizza in a still-active Usenet forum called alt.food.sushi. The poster there recalled that he first had it at a spot called Atami on Edouard Montpetit Blvd. in Montreal where he was told by the female Japanese chef that it was her invention.

His description says:

It was raw fish with mayonnaise and tobiko on a cooked, thin, rice crust like the one on MOS Burgers (a Japanese burger chain) rice burgersThey were quite small, about six inches in diameter.

I messaged him to ask about the meal he had nearly 30 years ago. Surprisingly, he responded after a few hours but wrote that he doesnt remember anything beyond what he originally wrote, and that he ate there when he was studying at the nearby university.

Atami is still open, but after repeated calls to the restaurant, I couldnt get anyone to talk to me about sushi pizza.

A restaurant review of Atami by the late Helen Rochester in the Montreal Gazette noted that it opened in January 1995, three years after the online poster claimed to have eaten there, with a female sushi chef, and the space was previously an Italian restaurant. The article doesnt mention sushi pizza, but the restaurants current online menu does show pictures of two sushi pizzas. The Deluxe Pizza consists of four triangular fried rice cakes topped with a mixture of crab, smoked salmon, cream cheese, tempura bits, green onion and fake crab meat.

While the female sushi clue was common in both narratives, the online poster must have been mistaken about the date since the restaurant wasnt open when he claimed to have eaten there.

So, acting on a hunch, I turned back to Toronto.

Karon Liu talks about finding the chef who invented sushi pizza.

Former Star restaurant critic Cynthia Wine first wrote about the sushi pizza in May 1993, predating when Atami opened in Montreal in 1995.

The high cost of sushi has inspired local Japanese restaurants to new tricks, she writes. Nami Japanese Seafood Restaurant now sells a comical-looking sushi pizza, using a fried rice cake as the crust, then topped with tuna, onions and fish roe. Bounded by a Japanese-style mayonnaise, it looks convincing and tastes good. At that time, the sushi pizza cost $8.

She wrote about the sushi pizza at Nami again in 1995, this time calling it goofy and that it would be a great joke if it werent eight bucks a laugh.

Wine still remembers it. The first time I had it was at Nami, the now-retired Wine said. I was surprised that it spread because I found it so opposite to what sushi is and is meant to be: The cleanness, the freshnessWhen I saw that, it was a deep-fried base with stuff piled on top. Why would you wreck the taste of fresh fish? It was the 90s, people were crazy for novelty.

Still, she saw the appeal of the dish, with the different textures and tastes. I guess if I was writing that review now, Id say it tastes good but it has no business being good.

Nami opened in 1985 and still operates at its original location on Adelaide St. E. Perusing their website, I suddenly felt Id found the answer to my quest:

why not try a modern classic, the Sushi Pizza, invented by Nami many years ago and now copied by Japanese restaurants around the globe.

Bingo.

Unfortunately, Nami general manager Reo Watanabe didnt work there when the sushi pizza first appeared on the menu more than two decades ago. All Watanabe knew was that the chef who created the sushi pizza had moved to Western Canada decades ago. He didnt have a name or a contact, but wished me luck.

I had more than luck, I had the Stars librarian, Astrid Lange, who took my vague tip and found the name of the man who may have invented the object of my obsession, thanks to a 1996 Star recipe column identifying Namis chef.

Kaoru Ohsada was working in the backyard when I called his home in Canmore, Alta. His wife, Noriko, answered the phone. I asked if her husband worked at Nami all those years ago and if she had heard of the sushi pizza.

Oh, yes, he invented it, she said, casually.

At 58, Ohsada is on the verge of retirement, with six more weeks to go at his current job as a sushi chef at the Samurai Sushi Bar and Restaurant at the Fairmont Banff Springs resort. He and his wife have three daughters who love to skate. His oldest daughter, Meg, is a competitive figure skater who captured two silver medals at the Special Olympics World Winter Games in Pyeongchang in 2013.

Originally from Kobe, Japan, Ohsada trained in French cooking, working at a French restaurant for five years before moving to Canada in 1985. First, he worked at a teppanyaki restaurant in Niagara Falls before taking a job at Nami in 1987, working various positions in the kitchen, sushi bar, dining room, and offices. In Canada, he got his first taste of the California Roll, the North-Americanized sushi roll consisting of fake crab meat, cucumber, tobiko and avocado. Unlike a lot of Japanese sushi chefs who are sticklers for tradition, Ohsada says he was impressed by it.

My background is as a French chef, not a sushi chef, in Japan, he says. Thats probably why I can accept it.

It also explains why, while he was working at Nami, he didnt hesitate when it came to experimenting with a new sushi creation.

In the early 90s, I had smoked salmon on top of a thin-crust hash-brown at a restaurant along Bloor, I cant remember the name of it, said Ohsada. I thought this was very unique and that I could do something like that at the restaurant. I took some sushi rice, salmon from the sushi bar, chopped onion, fish eggs and made something that looked like a pizza.

It became a hit with customers. Management also liked it, he says, as it was a way to reduce food waste by using leftover rice from the sushi bar to make frozen rice patties to fry up the next day.

The first iteration of the pizza was a deep-fried rice patty (it didnt have the golden-brown batter like the ones now) topped with a drizzle of spicy mayonnaise, raw salmon with a drizzle of soy sauce mixed with wasabi, diced raw onion and a mixture of red and black tobiko. We stopped using black tobiko because it was more expensive, says Ohsada, explaining that it is pricier because the fish eggs are coloured with squid ink. But customers would still come in and ask for the original sushi pizza because it had the more expensive ingredient.

He worked at Nami until 1996 when he took a job at the Fairmont where he has been ever since. Theres no sushi pizza on the menu, though on occasion, Ohsada does get asked by customers if hes ever had one before.

Most of the time, I pretend I dont know about it, or else Ill have to make it. Ill make it for fun for the staff, he said. His wife also told me he makes it at home and that he made it for her before it appeared on the menu at Nami.

Ohsada is surprised that the sushi pizza has taken off and has become a menu staple at sushi restaurants in the GTA, but he says hes proud and happy about it.

Next time we debate what a Toronto dish is, consider Ohsadas sushi pizza and the legacy that it has left. His is a story of an immigrant who combined his heritage and training with the different cuisines of his city to create a unique dish now enjoyed across the GTA, be it downtown or the suburbs, east or west of Yonge Street.

Whats more Toronto than that?

Do you have any tips regarding the origin of the sushi pizza? Email karonliu@thestar.caFREDERICTONStanding in front of New Brunswicks historic Government House, a sandstone mansion on the banks of the St. John River, Brian Gallant laid out the next steps Monday for the fractured province.

The Liberal leader, the provinces incumbent premier seeking a second term in office, announced he had met with Lt.-Gov. Jocelyne Roy-Vienneau and received permission to seek the confidence of the legislature.

Thats despite earning fewer seats than the Progressive Conservatives. After all the votes were counted in Mondays election, the seat count sat at 22 for the Tories, 21 for the Liberals and three seats each for the Greens and the Peoples Alliance.

Gallant pledged that if he loses the confidence of the house, he would step aside and allow Tory Leader Blaine Higgs to lead  or trigger another election.

Still, many questions remain about how New Brunswicks political future will unfold after voters turned their backs on the provinces entrenched two-party system and put the balance of power in two smaller parties:

How is it that Gallant gets a chance to form government, even if he has fewer seats?

In a parliamentary system, the convention is that the existing premier has the first opportunity to form government.

The incumbent premier can always test the legislature, explains Kelly Lamrock, a Fredericton constitutional lawyer and former Liberal cabinet minister and house leader.

Theoretically, in 2010 after (then-premier) Shawn Graham lost all but 10 seats he still could have gone to the lieutenant-governor and said, I think I can pull this off, and he would have had every right to march into the house and make Conservatives turf him.

How and when will his attempt be tested?

The most important principle is that the premier has the confidence of the legislature, says Gabriel Arsenault.

The key test will be the throne speech, explains the Universite de Moncton political science professor.

Well have a throne speech and that will lead to a confidence vote and if the government wins the vote that means the government managed to form a coalition or gain the support of the legislative assembly.

Does Gallants clear win of the popular vote matter?

The short answer is no.

Perhaps it should from a democratic perspective, but in terms of the rules and conventions it doesnt matter, Arsenault says. The only thing that matters is the number of seats.

Lamrock says while the popular vote doesnt matter in a legal sense, it could help the optics of Gallant refusing to back down.

The Liberals were six percentage points ahead of the Tories in the popular vote, largely due to staunch support from francophone voters in northern New Brunswick.

Lamrock suggests that Gallant is trying to signal to the public that rather than pathetically clinging to power more people voted to make him premier than any other leader.

The Liberals will want to protect their brand, he says, and winning the popular vote adds credibility to Gallants hold on power.

Is there a precedent for this in New Brunswick?

New Brunswick hasnt elected a minority government for nearly a hundred years, and this is the first time the party with the most MLAs has so few seats, Arsenault points out.

But in 2006 the government of then-premier Bernard Lord found itself unexpectedly in a minority situation.

After the defection of MLA Michael Tanker Malley to sit as an independent, the Lord government shrewdly appointed him Speaker.

Malley would cast the deciding vote on the spring budget, breaking the tie between the 27 Progressive Conservative MLAs and 27 opposition members.

Bernard Lord governed in a 27/27 house for a year with a Speaker in the chair ... because the Speaker by custom does not vote to take down a government, Lamrock says.

However, after another Tory MLA indicated he would be leaving caucus, Lord called an early fall election to avoid a minority government.

Would party alliances need to be explicit to convince the lieutenant-governor they can govern, or can Gallant indeed try to go vote by vote?

The lieutenant-governor will look for assurances that the premier will have the confidence of the house.

If youve got a signed letter from somebody with three seats saying, Ive agreed that for 18 months I will not bring down this government on a confidence vote, that becomes a powerful inducement, Lamrock says.

Meanwhile, instead of a formal pact to work together for a set period of time, Arsenault says the premier could go vote by vote.

However, he says thats unstable and could trigger another election  something no one will likely want.

The strategy is usually to find if not a coalition than a stable alliance like we see now in British Columbia, Arsenault says.

Lamrock says there is one other play on the board: The Liberals and the Tories could work together.

I dont think those two are the types to go fishing together, he says. But in some ways the two of them having to each act with some humility might be exactly what people would prefer rather than letting either of the two more extreme parties hold this thing hostage.

Could a recount change the electoral outcome?

Under New Brunswicks election laws, a recount is triggered automatically if there are 25 votes or less separating the winning candidate.

But candidates can request a recount even if there is a bigger margin, Arsenault says.

I wouldnt put high hopes in any changes in that respect, he says. Our system is fairly efficient. Its possible mistakes are made but I would be surprised.

The Tories won Southwest Miramichi-Bay du Vin riding by 35 votes, and Shippagan-Lameque-Miscou by 99 votes.

Could New Brunswickers be heading back to the polls soon?

Lamrock says if Gallant loses confidence of the legislative assembly quickly, Higgs will likely have the opportunity to form government.

But he says if the Liberal leader manages to hold on to power for a year or longer, the loss of a confidence vote at that point would likely trigger an election.

The constitutional expert pointed to the KingByng affair, in which the governor general refused a request by the prime minister to dissolve parliament and call a general election. The crisis prompted the role of governor general to evolve, adopting a tradition of non-interference.

Parliamentary convention is that if a premier falls quickly then the lieutenant-governor should be guided by trying to avoid an election and trying to make the peoples will work, such as calling in a second option, Lamrock says.

But if it goes over a year, the custom would be if the premier comes out and says Im about to lose a vote, I want an election, generally the lieutenant-governor is obligated to let him call it.

Read more:

Opinion | Susan Delacourt: All eyes are on New Brunswicks tiny kingmakers

Gallant plans to continue as New Brunswicks premier after Liberals, Tories in dead heat election

How the two potential New Brunswick kingmaker parties radically differ in policies, leader styles

Read more about:OTTAWAAn endangered whale that has only been seen off Canadas west coast twice in the last 50 years and was feared to be extinct from those waters is alive and well.

Thomas Doniol-Valcroze, a research biologist with the Department of Fisheries of Oceans, is the lead scientist conducting a federal survey trying to count or estimate the populations of all the marine mammals that live in the Pacific Ocean in Canadian jurisdiction.

He says the results of the survey wont be ready for another year, but notes scientists saw as many as six sei whales swimming in a pod of fin whales.

The sei whale is listed as endangered in Canadas Species at Risk Act and Doniol-Valcroze says it is very exciting to know they still exist, even if in very low numbers.

The survey found the whales after scientists heard what sounded like their calls on sonar recording devices floating beside Canadian Coast Guard ships.

Doniol-Valcroze says nobody on his team had ever seen a sei whale before this summer.

TOP STORIES. IN YOUR INBOX: For the days top news from the Stars award-winning journalists, sign up for our daily headlines newsletter.VANCOUVERThe son of a couple whose small private plane disappeared during a flight from Edmonton to Chilliwack, B.C., is thanking searchers for their efforts.

James Pickards parents Geoff and Judy Pickard boarded the plane on Sept. 14, and the Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre officially called off the search six days later.

Pickard says in a statement issued through the Victoria-based centre that his father was a cautious and careful pilot who did not hesitate to cancel flight plans due to poor conditions.

He says that before the flight, his father repeatedly checked the weather, which can change in an instant in the Rocky Mountains.

The last known location of the Pickards white, single-engine home-built plane was northwest of Blue River, near Murtle Lake in B.C.

Pickard says the family intends to continue searching for the couple from Chilliwack and is appealing to anyone flying, hiking or skiing in the area to keep a lookout for aircraft.

Read more about:UNITED NATIONS, N. Y.Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is opening the door to debate on whether to strip Burmas de facto leader of her honorary Canadian citizenship.

The Trudeau government has faced pressure to revoke the honour given to Aung San Suu Kyi in 2007  but had refused to state whether it was considering this measure.

Suu Kyi has been widely criticized for not speaking out against the atrocities being committed against Burmas Rohingya people.

When asked Wednesday about Suu Kyi, Trudeau said its up to MPs to decide whether to take away the citizenship that they bestowed upon her.

Thats one of the questions that certainly Parliament can reflect on, Trudeau told reporters at the United Nations, where he attended this weeks General Assembly.

It was Parliament that granted her honorary citizenship, and thats a conversation that we certainly could have.

Read more:

Rosie DiManno | Opinion: The disgraceful metamorphosis of Aung San Suu Kyi

Aung San Suu Kyi says handling of Rohingya situation could have been better

International Criminal Court launches preliminary probe into Rohingya crisis

But he cautioned that the humanitarian crisis in Burma will not be fixed whether Canada revokes Suu Kyis citizenship or allows her to keep it.

The hundreds of thousands, indeed millions, of people who are affected by this Rohingya crisis, by this genocide  whether or not Aung San Suu Kyi has Canadian citizenship or not, honorary or not, makes no difference in solving this crisis, Trudeau said.

The federal government, he added, is focused on solutions to put an end to the ongoing crisis. Ottawa has pledged $300 million over three years to support displaced people and other vulnerable populations.

Last week, the House of Commons unanimously adopted a motion to recognize the crimes against the Rohingya as genocide.

The motion also endorsed the findings of a UN fact-finding mission outlining how crimes against humanity have been committed by Burmas military against the Rohingya and other minorities.

The extensive report documented the systematic targeting of civilian Rohingya by the military, including mass gang rape, sexual slavery and the razing of hundreds of villages.EDMONTONAlbertas biggest residential landlord is banning pot, legal or not.

Boardwalk sent a notice to tenants Tuesday informing them that they will not be allowed to smoke or grow cannabis in their units when the drug is legalized Oct. 17.

The company owns about 13,000 units in Edmonton, 5,500 in Calgary, and close to 22,000 across the province.

The use and cultivation of cannabis can result in noxious smells, higher than average electricity usage, and excessive moisture buildup, the letter reads.

David McIlveen, Boardwalks director of community development, said the decision to ban was pretty simple.

Cultivation and/or smoking cannabis can negatively impact both the safety and the reasonable enjoyment of residents in a multi-family property, he said.

Boardwalk allows smoking tobacco in its properties, however, and will continue to do so.

McIlveen said the company is treating cannabis differently because it impacts the peaceful enjoyment of peoples homes and second-hand pot smoke is possibly dangerous for children.

Edibles and oils will not be banned, and he said vaping is not a concern thats come up.

McIlveen said Boardwalk could make exceptions for medical cannabis under certain circumstances.

The company is banning growing over concerns that it could require additional hydration, which he said multi-family buildings are not intended for.

Its the moisture that can cause mould, and its dangerous for people. So thats a safety issue for us, and we would like to just avoid it, McIlveen said.

Anand Sharma, president of the Canadian Condominium Institutes northern Alberta chapter, said condo corporations are grappling with rewording their bylaws to prepare for legalization.

He said some will likely take the chance to go entirely smoke-free, while others will just update rules on conditions for smoking pot or cigarettes without disturbing tenants in neighbouring units.

Sharma said there is some talk of grandfathering, which could allow current tenants to continue smoking even if its banned for new tenants, rather than force lifelong smokers to quit or move out.

He said Boardwalks choice to ban weed but not tobacco is interesting.

Both are legal as of Oct. 17, so why one and not the other is the question people would have, he said.

Sharma said a lot of property owners likely wont ban pot because it doesnt make financial or business sense to put additional restrictions on tenants in a market with high vacancy.

Growing is where renters will likely see the most pushback, he said, because owners are unsure how much humidity tenants will create and how that could affect the buildings.

Federal rules allow each household to grow up to four plants, but Service Alberta stipulates landlords can overrule that.

Condo corporations that want to ban smoking or growing will need approval from three-quarters of tenants, however, which they might not be able to get anyway.

The 75 per cent threshold is very high, especially in the larger condo corporations. To get 75 per cent of owners to even engage on an issue is difficult, Sharma said.

So even if a condo boards intention is to go in that direction, they may not be able to achieve it.

Sharma said condo corporations and apartment owners are in the dark on potential legal challenges from tenants who might push back against cannabis bans, as there is currently no precedent in the courts and might not be for several years.

Theres going to be a lot of wrangling and challenges, I think, by cannabis activists and people who utilize it on a day-to-day basis, he said.

Read more about:CALGARYCalgary police are taking a strict approach to cannabis consumption, and will entirely ban officers from using recreational cannabis after legalization.

Supt. Darren Leggatt said that under the new HR policy, any CPS members qualified to carry firearms who are capable of being operationally deployed  in other words, called to a scene  will not be allowed to use recreational cannabis in any form.

That means any officers beyond those restricted to desk duty or in strictly administrative roles wont be able to consume, even off duty, after Oct. 17. The ban also applies to sworn police recruits.

Leggatt, who leads the Calgary Police Service cannabis legalization project, said that because there isnt enough research on how a body metabolizes cannabis and how long impairment can last, the service is proceeding with caution.

There is really no safe abstinence period that we can recommend that would apply to everybody, he said.

We believe its the most responsible thing to do to embrace full abstinence.

Read more:

Vancouver officers can smoke all the weed they want, if they arrive fit for duty, police board says

What we know  and dont know  about smoking legal weed in Alberta

Meet the man helping Calgary craft its cannabis rules

Calgary Police Association president Les Kaminski said he thinks the blanket ban is likely to be challenged almost immediately.

Hes already heard from Calgary officers who are concerned about whether its reasonable for CPS to bar them from using a legal substance off the job.

Its not necessarily they want to use (cannabis), but they dont believe that jurisdiction exists to stop them from using it, he said.

Have your say

Officers are already familiar with the standard of being fit for duty, Kaminski added, but there are still questions around how, exactly, a policy that extends to off-the-job time will be implemented.

The service took the path of least resistance by implementing it this way, he said. I only got the policy a day before they introduced it to the members and (legalization) is less than a month away.

Albertas Police Act already mandates that officers must not use alcohol or drugs in a way that is prejudicial to duty, which includes reporting for duty under the influence of drugs. Leggatt said the CPS policy reflects an increased awareness about cannabis as it becomes a legal substance.

Calgarys new policy is stricter than some other law enforcement agencies. Vancouver police will be allowed to use cannabis off the job, provided they show up to work fit for duty. In the Canadian Armed Forces, policy instructs members to abstain from cannabis at least eight hours before coming to work, and at least 24 hours before using any firearms. Positions such as pilots are required to abstain for longer periods of time.

Police work is one of the professions thats considered a safety-sensitive workplace, making cannabis legalization a tricky issue.

For policing, Leggatt said, Its a new world, while Kaminski said he likens it to the wild west.

Dr. Charl Els is an Edmonton-based addiction psychiatrist who sits on the board of the Occupational and Environmental Medical Association of Canada (OEMAC). The group recently released a position statement on cannabis use for safety-sensitive workplaces, which recommends workers abstain from cannabis for at least 24 hours before they come to work.

But in the absence of a national standard for impairment, employers are in a precarious position trying to create policy to deal with cannabis legalization, he said. Most casual users would likely not be considered impaired 24 hours after smoking a joint, but there are unknowns about heavy users.

Still, Els said a total ban, on or off the job, is not something that OEMAC includes in its recommendations.

Making a blanket prohibition that they cannot use at all begs the question whether there will be pushback on a legal level, he said.

Dr. Scot Purdon, a neuropsychologist at Edmontons Alberta Hospital, said CPS is correct that theres a significant lack of research on the long-term effects of cannabis use.

Purdon is currently working on a study on the cognitive effects of cannabis consumption, examining a group of 120 heavy cannabis users  for the purpose of his work, that means people who use at least one gram of cannabis every week.

We have fairly good data on how poor your cognitive skills will be during intoxication  thats a few minutes to a few hours after youve used the product, he said. But when we stretch it out to 48 hours or beyond 48 hours, the number of studies just drops precipitously.

More funding is needed for this type of work in Canada, he said, especially for efforts to identify a reliable marker that can measure impairment at a similar standard to alcohol.

We need a comprehensive picture of what skills are affected by cannabis, and how long it takes each skill to return to normal.

At CPS, Leggatt said that uncertainty about public safety led to the services tougher approach.

Where circumstances may dictate an officer has to use force in order to protect someone, protect themselves, take somebody into custody, our major concern is cannabis can impair things like their reaction time, their ability to assess, their ability to make really quick decisions, he said.

Drug testing wont be an aspect of monitoring whether officers violate the policy. Information about the new policy is being distributed on a learning module thats mandatory for CPS employees, and Leggatt said supervisors are also being trained to recognize signs of impairment.

He said the service will be monitoring how the policy works, and it may be reconsidered in the future.

Bottom line, the role in the community is inherently dangerous, very unpredictable, and we actually have obligations and duties to protect the public.

Read more about:Two months after Chinese President Xi Jinping paid a landmark visit to the United Arab Emirates (UAE), both sides have taken concrete steps to lift their ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership as agreed between Xi and the UAE leadership.

Xi paid a visit to the UAE in July, the first by a Chinese head of state in 29 years to the Arab state. The Chinese president and UAE Prime Minister Sheikh Mohamed bin Rashid Al Maktoum and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan agreed that both countries will strengthen their in-depth cooperation in various fields, and promote continuous development of bilateral ties.

Consequently, a number of delegations from Chinese provinces and cities visited the UAE afterwards, while UAE entities traveled to conduct roadshows in China.

In August, an economic and trade delegation from Nanjing, capital of east China's Jiangsu Province, visited the UAE and met with government officials and representatives from trade associations, in order to boost trade between Nanjing and the UAE.

On Sept. 8, a memorandum of understanding was signed between the UAE financial free zone Abu Dhabi Global Market and the Beijing Financial Street Services Bureau, for "greater bilateral cooperation in areas including the development of financial centers in both countries, investment facilitation, joint research and closer exchange of information," the two sides said.

At the ongoing Light Middle East in Dubai, one of the biggest fair and exhibition for light technology and design in the region, exhibitors from China lead the list of top 10 exhibitors. "We've already exported our light technology to the United States and to Europe, and we regard Dubai as a hub to reach out to the Middle East and Africa. This is why we exhibit for the first time at Light Middle East," said Peter Zhao, commercial manager of CL Lighting from Shenzhen.

Chinese official statistics show that bilateral trade between the UAE and China reached 41 billion U.S. dollars in 2017, a 1.06-percent increase from the previous year. In 2017, Chinese visitors to the UAE surged to over 1 million.

The expansion of Sino-Emirati ties is also reflected in the deepening of cultural bonds between the two countries.

On Aug. 26, Dubai-based Chinese businessman Ninghai Ma announced the launch of the "1% Drive Master UAE to China," a tour by 30 Emirati and Chinese drivers who will drive this autumn all the way from Dubai to Xi'an, capital of China's Shaanxi Province.

Atiq Hassan Mubarak, director-general of Emirates Motor Sport Federation, said the upcoming trip underlines the UAE's support for the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative and will foster friendship between the two peoples.

Earlier in the month, a delegation of the Department of Culture and Tourism of Abu Dhabi (DCT Abu Dhabi) traveled to China's Shanghai, Shenzhen and Kunming for a five-day trip to promote the UAE capital as a tourism destination.

Form January to August, China remained as Abu Dhabi's number one tourist source market.

Earlier on Monday, UAE's biggest developer Emaar Properties launched celebrations in Dubai to mark the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival and the "Golden Week" observed during the first week of October by offering Chinese investors a value proposition with a "Golden Month Offer" until Oct. 24, 2018.

Chinese buyers of most Emaar residential properties in Dubai will receive 50 percent off on registration fees and can enjoy a three-year post-handover payment plan, said Emaar, the developer behind the world's tallest tower Burj Khalifa.

In January, the UAE became the 11th country to have mutual visa exemptions with China for ordinary passport holders.

More than 200,000 Chinese nationals live in the UAE, and 4,000 Chinese firms run branches and operations in the Gulf Arab state.The Trump administration may be pulling out of the Paris Climate Accord, tearing up environmental regulation and doing everything possible to make coal great again. But none of these jarring setbacks are going to stop the world from succeeding in solving its climate crisis, a defiant Al Gore said Wednesday.

In a keynote speech in Toronto, Gore told a standing-room-only audience of Canadian technology innovators at the Sony Centre that while the absence of American leadership does harm, the big harm can still be avoided.

Citing the spate of extreme weather events including ongoing flooding in the Carolinas, the former vice-president told the Elevate festival that watching the nightly news now is like a hike through the Book of Revelations.

But just as Americans prevailed against setbacks in the campaign to abolish slavery, so too will the global cause for sustainability ultimately prevail, with U.S. technological innovation leading the way.

Have faith, Gore said, noting that a new president, in as little as 30 days from taking office, could restore U.S. engagement with the Paris Accord. For anyone who thinks we lack the political will to do this, Ill just remind you that political will is a renewable resource.

In informal remarks following his speech, Gore, a board member of Apple, was interviewed by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt. Both singled out the Toronto-to-Waterloo corridor for its dynamic, diverse and fast-growing technology sector.

Gore dryly observed that Ontario advocates for climate action were facing their own political headwinds, given recent events. But he acknowledged that American, uniquely, is the only country with a persistent climate-denial movement.

Asked why that was so by Schmidt, Gore noted how large carbon polluters inject billions into tilting American opinion away from climate action, using the same blueprint of disinformation that Big Tobacco used when studies first began to link cigarettes with cancer.

U.S. democracy was hacked long before the Russians hacked it, said Gore, referencing the Kremlins efforts to bolster Trumps presidential campaign. The average U.S. congressman now spends five hours a day begging lobbyists for money. I know that sounds radical, but its a fact.

Yet none of that is stopping other levels of American innovation and change, said Gore. He pointed to how California, after a summer buffeted by wildfires, this month fast-tracked a bill that will make the state 100 per cent carbon free by 2045. And he noted how Google itself, employing its DeepMind machine learning subsidiary, was able to reduce by 56 per cent the energy consumed by its server farms, without having to replace so much as a single piece of hardware.

We cannot go on using the sky as an open sewer, he said. The next generation is demanding a better world. Were going to win this thing.The creation of Canadas first LGBTQ community legal clinic  the funding for which was announced in March by the previous provincial government  is being held up by the Progressive Conservatives, as the new government conducts a review of funding for programs.

Egale, a national LGBTQ rights organization, was supposed to get funds to run the clinic as well as provide inclusivity training to Ontarios more than 70 legal clinics. Had the money come through, the clinic was expected to be and up running this fall, likely in Toronto.

Now, the creation of the clinic is in doubt, as the new government has not yet committed to funding it.

When Egale was advised that we would receive funding to open Ontarios first and Canadas only legal clinic dedicated to the unique needs of LGBTQI2S people, it was a significant step forward for our community, said Egale executive director Helen Kennedy in a statement to the Star.

Withholding this funding means that we will be denied full access to our justice system.

Kennedy said the clinic would have helped clients with matters including family law, immigration and refugee cases and end-of-life planning, such as wills and estates, as well as any high-priority areas affecting members of the LGBTQ community.

Egale was expected to receive about $1 million per year for the clinic for three years.

The funding for the clinic was part of a larger announcement made by the Liberal government in March for its gender-based violence strategy, which would have seen up to $242 million invested over three years into programs supporting survivors of abuse and to address the root causes of violence, according to a news release at the time.

The funding was announced by three Liberal ministers: the attorney general, the minister of the status of women, and the minister of community and social services. Its unclear how much money has been provided since March to other programs targeted by the strategy.

In response to questions from the Star as to whether the government still intends to invest the full $242 million, or at least the funds required for the LGBTQ legal clinic, a spokesperson for Attorney General Caroline Mulroney sent the following statement:

Ontarians deserve to live free from the threat of violence and abuse. Our government for the people is committed to continuing to invest in programs that provide supports to survivors and those at risk of violence, such as emergency shelters, counselling, sexual assault centres, and court-based victim/witness assistance, said spokesperson Jessica Trepanier.

The government is currently looking at all programs and funding commitments. More information will be available at a later date.

In her statement, Kennedy said that Egales survey of 34 Ontario legal clinics revealed major gaps in services and that there was an immediate need to provide specialized legal support for LGBTQ clients.

The majority of existing clinics surveyed explained that they are not equipped to respond to the needs of their LGBTQI2S clients, she said.

According to that survey, nine clinics said they had a lack of referral resources and connections within the LGBTQ community, and eight clinics said they had internal barriers, such as lack of specialized or trained staff.

Read more about:Investigators are trying to determine the identity of a man who they believe attacked an 11-year-old boy in Brampton before school, Peel Regional Police said.

Police responded to a call at 7:44 a.m. on Wednesday of an assault from Sunny View Public School at 30 Chapparal Dr., near Sandalwood Pkwy. and Torbram Rd. The school told police one of their students walked into the middle school and told them hed been assaulted.

Police said the boy suffered minor injuries that were treated at the scene by paramedics. Const. Mark Fischer said the injuries were not serious and the boy was not transported to a hospital.

The school has not been locked down and police said there were no other safety issues for the school or its students.

Officers and a canine remained at the scene, trying to determine what exactly happened, said Fischer, adding police were searching for any video surveillance in the area.

Fischer said the man is described as 6 feet tall and was last spotted wearing a black hoodie, black or blue sweatpants, and black Nike shoes, said Fischer. He added that there was no given age.

He said police are asking anybody with information to come forward.

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:Wanted: A contractor to help immigration officials use algorithms and data-mining to assess the personal risks of sending a failed refugee claimant home and to calculate if a migrant is well-established enough to stay in Canada on humanitarian grounds.

This is not a fictional ad but a tender notice recently issued by Ottawa to explore the potential use of artificial intelligence and data analytics in Canadas immigration and refugee system.

According to a new University of Toronto study, the job ad is just the latest example of government replacing human decision-making with machines  a trend it says is creating a laboratory for high-risk experiments that threaten migrants human rights and should alarm all Canadians.

The nuanced and complex nature of many refugee and immigration claims may be lost on these technologies, leading to serious breaches of internationally and domestically protected human rights, in the form of bias, discrimination, privacy breaches, due process and procedural fairness issues, warned the 88-page report being released Wednesday by U of Ts International Human Rights Program and Citizen Lab.

These systems will have life-and-death ramifications for ordinary people, many of whom are fleeing for their lives.

Concerned about the human impact of automated systems, researchers dug into public records such as public statements, policies and media reports of the federal governments adoption of the technologies in the immigration system. More than 30 experts were consulted, including computer scientists, technologists, lawyers, advocates and academics from Canada, the U.S, Hong Kong, South Korea, Australia and Brazil.

Researchers have also submitted 27 separate access to information requests to eight different government departments and agencies, but have yet to receive any data or response.

Study co-author Petra Molnar said Canada has used automated decision-making tools since at least 2014 to triage immigration and visa applications into simple cases and complex ones that require further review by officers due to red flags the machines were trained to look for.

Algorithms are by no means neutral or objective. Its a set of instructions and recipes based on previous data analyses that you use to teach the machine to make a decision. It doesnt think or understand the decision it makes. Its a rubber-stamping process, explained Molnar, a research associate with the International Human Rights Program.

Biases of the individuals designing an automated system or selecting the data that trains it can result in discriminatory outcomes that are difficult to challenge because they are opaque.

The study, for instance, looked at an algorithm used in some U.S. courts to assess the risk of reoffending when ordering pretrial detention and found racialized and vulnerable people were more likely to be held behind bars than white offenders.

Cynthia Khoo of the Citizen Lab said the increasing use of artificial intelligence or algorithmic decision-making tools speaks to the broader trend of technosolutionism that assumes technology is a panacea to human frailties and errors.

The problem, however, is that technology  which is made and designed by humans and trained on human decisions and human-produced data  comes with these exact same problems, but wrapped up in a more scientific-looking box, and with the additional problem that not everyone realizes those problems remain, said Khoo.

The report recommends Ottawa establish an independent, arms-length oversight body to review all uses of automated decision systems by the federal government. It also wants Ottawa to publish all its current and future uses of artificial intelligence and create a task force to better understand the current and prospective impacts of these technologies.Repeated sexual advances from colleagues and superiors, prompting her to wear a fake engagement ring. Frequent remarks from fellow officers about the bodies of female cops and sexual assault victims. Pornographic images posted in common areas in the police station, sometimes with racist comments scrawled overtop.

During her nearly decade-long stint as a Toronto police officer, Const. Firouzeh Effy Zarabi-Majd alleges she has endured demeaning, sexist, racist and Islamophobic comments and regular sexual harassment  discrimination thats enabled by a culture in which misogyny and racism are normalized, she claims.

Zarabi-Majds allegations are detailed in a claim filed with Ontarios Human Rights Tribunal last week, in which the 37-year-old Iranian-Canadian alleges workplace discrimination based on gender, race, ethnic origin and more during her time at 51 Division, a busy downtown detachment.

In one instance, she alleges she was sexually assaulted by a male superior she trusted. Repeatedly, she says she was denied opportunities to advance due to discriminatory promotions favouring white, male officers. All the while, shes felt shes had nowhere to turn for help.

Her claim is the second in less than a year in which a female Toronto police officer alleges her workplace is poisonous for women, where complaining risks professional consequences including threats to on-the-job safety. Another sexual harassment complaint by Const. Heather McWilliam, filed in 2014, is currently before the human rights tribunal.

What I experienced at 51 Division is a reflection of a deep, systemic culture of racism and sexism, writes Zarabi-Majd. My story is only one among many stories of women officers in the Toronto Police Service.

Read more:

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Toronto cops complying with sex harassment rules, internal review says

None of the allegations has been tested at the human rights tribunal.

Toronto police spokesperson Mark Pugash said he could not comment on the any of the allegations contained in the complaint, citing the ongoing human rights tribunal process. The service has not yet received the claim.

Zarabi-Majds claim comes on the heels of an internal review of Toronto police sexual harassment policies commissioned by the police board earlier this year, after Toronto police Sgt. Jessica McInnis filed a human rights claim alleging repeated sexual harassment on the job and ineffective accountability mechanisms.

The review concluded the service was in compliance with industry best practices and legislation. According to the June report by Chief Mark Saunders, that includes procedures communicated to all members about workplace harassment and clear expectations about freedom from reprisal for members who report harassment.

There was also recent presentation to senior officers on zero tolerance of workplace harassment, Saunders report said.

Zarabi-Majd claims there is nowhere to turn within the service for officers feeling harassed or discriminated against, a result of a matrix of policies which are either unenforced, inaccessible, or otherwise ineffective, reads the claim.

In her case, she worried shed be labelled a troublemaker if she complained and when she did, her concerns were laughed off. She alleges a steward of the Toronto Police Association (TPA) once told her to consider the potential ramifications of formally complaining about sexist comments from male colleagues, saying they were kids who may not know their remarks were offensive.

Mike McCormack, president of the TPA, which is named as a respondent in the claim, said the union had not yet been served with the claim. He said it would not be appropriate comment on a case before the tribunal.

A spokesperson for the Toronto police board, which is also named as a respondent, also said they have not yet been served and declined to comment on a case before the tribunal.

Female Toronto police officers who allege sexual mistreatment are caught between a rock and a hard place, said Barry Swadron, who is representing Zarabi-Majd alongside Marshall Swadron and Lisa Leinveer.

Depending on the circumstances, there can be myriad reasons why a female officer may want to or should come forward with her complaint. All the while, there may be compelling reasons why she is hesitant to or fears coming forward.

Zarabi-Majds claim spans her Toronto policing career, starting when she was hired in 2009 until June 2018, when she went on leave as a result of the impact of the ongoing discrimination on my mental health. She has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety and depression, according to the claim.

During her time at 51 Division, Zarabi-Majd says she heard a regular barrage of sexist and racist comments. She alleges she has been subjected to aggressive sexual advances by colleagues and superiors, some of whom inquired about her sex life and personal grooming. In 2014, she began wearing a fake engagement ring to discourage sexual harassment, the claim states.

She alleges she regularly witnessed male colleagues discuss female officers and other women in a sexual way, including: discussions about the breast size of female colleagues and new officers coming to the division; openly gossiping about the appearance of sexual assault or harassment victims; and negative judgments made about the supposed actions of a sexual assault complainant, including drinking alcohol.

The claim also alleges pornographic photos of women were regularly torn out of magazines kept in the booking hall, then taped to the walls. Misogynistic comments were sometimes written on top, and when the woman was racialized they were often racist, the claim states.

I was disgusted by the photographs that were taped up and often surreptitiously removed them, which annoyed some of the male officers, Zarabi-Majds claim says.

In one recent alleged incident, she says she was asked if she was a Musi by a superior, referring to her Muslim faith, which then prompted others to call her this behind her back and to her face, the claim states.

As one of the few female officers at the division, however, Zarabi-Majd says she felt it was best to stay quiet and pretend I was not affected by the comments. She worried that if she spoke up she could be ostracized or worse  I could become the subject of intense scrutiny for the purpose of discrediting me.

The claim also details specific encounters with officers that Zarabi-Majd said left her feeling demeaned and unsafe.

In a 2014 incident, Zarabi-Majd was socializing in a residence with two of her male colleagues when one of them suddenly asked to have sex with her. When she refused and got up to leave, he blocked her path to the door and said: If you dont f--- us both tonight, I will tell everyone that you f---ed us both, according to the claim. The other officer then allegedly said, OK, just show us your tits then.

In 2015, Zarabi-Majd claims she was sexually assaulted by a male superior whom she respected and considered a friend. She alleges he was over at her home for coffee when he suddenly forced his lips on hers and grabbed her back, pressing his tongue into her mouth. When she pulled away, he asked her to have sex with her, a request he repeated in phone calls to her in the following weeks.

I thought about this incident every day for a long time and I kept asking myself whether any of it was my fault. I became distant from most of my male colleagues because it was becoming increasingly difficult to trust anyone, Zarabi-Majd writes in the claim.

Earlier this year, a male superior was complaining about facing professional repercussions for being present at a now-infamous work party in 2015 when it was alleged three 51 Division officers sexually assaulted a parking enforcement colleague (the officers were acquitted last year).

Speaking to a group of officers at the division, he allegedly said: Next time you guys have a shift party then go to the strip club and (Zarabi-Majd) wants to go back to the hotel with you, I cant be involved.

I was embarrassed and infuriated by this comment, Zarabi-Majd writes.

Finally, in June, she was advised that five male colleagues had discussed her personal grooming in a private group on social messaging app WhatsApp, one officer allegedly asking: Is (Zarabi-Majd)s bush all brillowy like a (Black) chick?

Zarabi-Majd said she worried that if she came forward about any of the alleged incidents, it would negatively impact her reputation and risk her safety. For instance, she worried that any radio requests she made for backup would not be answered or would be met with a purposefully slow response, she writes in the claim, saying shes witnessed such behaviour when fellow officers dont like another cop.

She also said she has seen negative repercussions for female officers who have brought forward complaints of sexual harassment to the services professional standards unit, which conducts internal investigations. They were treated with disdain and their allegations did not lead to meaningful consequences for their perpetrators, the claim says.

I have witnessed many women police officers who experience sexual harassment in the workplace and seek transfers to different divisions or remain silent because of fear of reprisal, she says.

Zarabi-Majd also alleges she and other female and racialized officers are the victims of biased promotional practices, because they are given disproportionately fewer opportunities for the professional development necessary to gain new skills and advance in the organization, the claim states.

Decisions respecting the allocation of courses, committee assignments and placements are at the discretion of an officers supervisors. This wide discretion allows for supervisors to assign courses, committees and placements in discriminatory ways, the claim states.

Zarabi-Majd lists requested remedies, including human rights training for management at 51 Division with special emphasis on sexual harassment; that the police service properly fund and staff its Diversity and Inclusion Office; and that the police association establish a position, staffed by a woman, to whom TPA members can report sexual assault and harassment.

She is also seeking $575,000 in damages and reimbursements for lost income and expenses.After three days of furor over a photo of Doug Ford posing with a white nationalist, the premier took to social media Wednesday to denounce hate speech  saying he wont tolerate it from anyone, including Faith Goldy.

I have been clear. I condemn hate speech, anti-Semitism and racism in all forms  be it from Faith Goldy or anyone else, the premier tweeted at midday regarding the controversial Toronto mayoral candidate, who had posted the picture taken at the Ford Fest barbecue on the weekend.

Robocalls for Goldys Toronto mayoralty bid surfaced earlier in the day, in which the candidate says she stands with Doug Ford  prompting the New Democrats to again demand that the premier distance himself from her.

In the recorded call to Toronto households, Goldy says she wants to crack down on crime and make our streets safe again. Im a common sense conservative who will put the taxpayer first.

Im the only candidate who stands with Doug Ford shrinking the size of city council. And Im against bringing in more illegal migrants to our communities.

On Monday and Tuesday, Ford was asked to directly denounce Goldy after the photo of the two appeared on social media. The premier had pointedly refused, instead saying he denounces hate and has zero tolerance for hate speech.

Read more:

Doug Ford denounces hate speech, but wont name Faith Goldy

Opinion | Bernie M. Farber: Doug Ford must denounce Faith Goldy and her ideas

Opinion | Martin Regg Cohn: Doug Ford and Faith Goldy  whats wrong with this picture?

In the legislature Wednesday, New Democrat MPP Laura Mae Lindo urged the government to apologize and condemn Goldy.

We have to do better. The people need the government to do better. There is a candidate, Ms. Goldy, who represents unvarnished hateful polarizing views about race and diversity that has appeared in at least two photos with the premier, said Lindo, referring to an earlier picture of the two that also surfaced online.

The premier wont denounce Faith Goldy specifically, or apologize for taking these photos. Will the minister responsible for anti-racism initiatives in this government denounce Ms Goldys campaign and apologize on behalf of the government for the seeming endorsement  whether it was an intentional endorsement or not, asked Lindo, who directed her question to Michael Tibollo, as Ford was not in the house at the time.

Tibollo, the MPP for Vaughan-Woodbridge, responded that both he and the premier have said there is no place for racism in this province. Weve been very, very clear that this is an inclusive province.

And we will work as a government to ensure that those policies are continued and they are put into effect ... so that the government and the entire province is rid of racism, he said, referring to his anti-racism file.

Ford said Monday that his photo was taken with thousands of people at Ford Fest. He had come under mounting pressure from anti-hate and religious organizations to speak out against Goldy.

Bernie Farber, chair of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, said Monday that Fords refusal to disassociate himself with those who enable white nationalism should frighten us all into action.

Much of my professional life has been dedicated to exposing and battling white supremacy and neo-Nazism, tweeted Farber, a former CEO of the Canadian Jewish Congress. Never in Canada has any mainstream politician given credence to those who associate with or enable white supremacy until today.

In an opinion piece for the Star published Wednesday, Farber wrote: Goldy is well-known to Ford. She was a colleague of the premiers when they both appeared on Sun News panels. He was also interviewed by Goldy before she was fired from the ultra-right Rebel Media for her support of neo-Nazis in Charlottesville.

The National Council of Canadian Muslims has also called on Ford to categorically reject the hateful and divisive ideas of those, like Ms. Goldy.

Goldy was fired by Rebel Media last year after she went to Charlottesville, Virginia to cover the Unite The Right rally, then appeared on a podcast affiliated with The Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi website.

Canadians still expect decency and leadership from those we put in office, Farber also wrote. Ford can still make this right, but not until he fully dissociates himself from those like Faith Goldy and their vile ideas.

In an email to the Star, Goldy said shes the only mayoral candidate who stands shoulder to shoulder with Premier Ford. Rather than working against him, Im going to work with him.

When asked if she had met Ford or spoken to him before, she responded, Everyone knows Premier Ford. The Fords are the first family of Canada.

Read more about:Three candidates vying to unseat Mayor John Tory in the upcoming municipal election laid out their plans to make the TTC more affordable at a transit-focused debate Wednesday evening.

Tory was absent from the event at the University of Toronto Scarborough, which was co-hosted by advocacy group TTCriders, the Scarborough Campus Students Union, and the Scarborough Civic Action Network. His campaign cited a scheduling conflict with a fundraiser at an Etobicoke golf course earlier in the evening.

Jennifer Keesmaat, whom polls indicate is Torys strongest challenger in the Oct. 22 vote, began her remarks by taking a veiled shot at the mayors absence. I have to say there is nowhere else that I would rather be this evening than in this room, talking about and debating transit, because its so critical to our city, she said, to applause from the audience.

Keesmaat, who served for five years as the citys chief planner before stepping down last fall, slammed what she described as the past two administrations inaction on getting new projects built.

Our problem in this city is we have been wasting time ... Weve been drawing up plans on the back of a napkin, she said.

She touted her own network plan, which would prioritize the relief line subway and remove city funding for the Scarborough subway extension, but is mostly similar to the council-endorsed plan already on the books.

Read more:

City Hall reporter Jennifer Pagliaro answers your Toronto election questions

Crowded buses, long commutes  why transit is top of mind for Toronto voters

Which Toronto mayoral candidate is telling the truth about the relief subway line?

Keesmaat said the Fair Pass program, which provides fare discounts for low-income riders, is a good plan, but that it was a mistake for the city to roll it out in three phases over several years, rather than making it available to all low income residents at once. It is currently only available to residents who receive provincial social assistance.

The risk of course as a city is that we dither and delay, that we act too slowly. We have the plan, it is a good plan, but were taking too long to implement that plan, Keesmaat said. She pledged to make the discount available to all low-income passengers immediately.

Environmental activist Sarah Climenhaga proposed making transit free for senior citizens, citing the success of Mayor Torys policy that allows kids 12 and younger to ride without paying.

I think weve seen how well free transit for children has worked. Now its time to have free transit for seniors, Climenhaga said.

Lawyer Saron Gebresellassi went a step further, and pledged to make transit free for all riders. While the idea has been panned by critics as unrealistic, Gebresellassi said she believed it is gaining traction among the public, and argued transit should be thought of as a right of all citizens akin to health care and education.

My position is it is entirely, entirely realistic to have free transit, she said. I would like to see the city of Toronto become the first metropolis in the country to implement a free transit system.

The TTC currently collects about $1.2 billion a year in fares. Gebresellassi said part of the lost revenue could be paid for by putting a property tax surcharge on more expensive homes, and getting contributions form other levels of government.

Its really political will and believing that transit is a right, she said.

In one of the few combative exchanges of the night, Keesmaat called Gebresellassis free transit proposal a ridiculous idea that would ruin our transit system by cutting off revenue needed to pay for service. She agreed however that fares are too high and said she would work to lower them.

Ben Spurr is a Toronto-based reporter covering transportation. Reach him by email at bspurr@thestar.ca or follow him on Twitter: @BenSpurr

Read more about:CHICAGOA Chinese citizen living in Chicago was arrested Tuesday for allegedly spying, including by helping with the recruitment of U.S. engineers, defence contractors and scientists for intelligence services in China, federal prosecutors said.

Ji Chaoqun, 27, is charged with one count of knowingly acting in the U.S. as an agent of a foreign government without prior notification of the attorney general, a statement from the U.S. Attorneys Office in Chicago said. He allegedly worked at the direction of high-ranking intelligence officials with the Peoples Republic of China and was given the task of providing information about eight people for possible recruitment.

Ji made an initial appearance in federal court in downtown Chicago, looking tired and fidgeting as he stood before U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael T. Mason. Ji huddled with a Chinese-language interpreter for much of the 15-minute hearing. But when the judge asked if he understood his rights, Ji lifted his head and said in English, I understand.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Shoba Pillay said at the hearing that Ji faces up to 10 years in federal prison if convicted on the one count.

Through a lawyer, Laura Hoey, Ji also asked that the Chinese consulate be notified about his arrest. Judge Mason ordered that Ji remain in custody for now, and U.S. Marshals agents handcuffed him and led him away. No additional hearings were immediately set.

A 17-page criminal complaint says Ji came to the U.S. in 2013 on a student visa to study engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. He enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserves in 2016 under a program that allows some immigrants living in the country legally to serve in the military if their skills could be vital to U.S. interests.

There was no answer at a number for the Chinese consulate in Chicago on Tuesday evening.

Read more about:The gunman in the Las Vegas mass shooting was armed with 23 AR-style weapons, 14 of them fitted with bump stocks that allowed them to mimic fully automatic fire.

The devices were little-known before they were used in the Oct. 1 rampage, the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. And in the immediate aftermath, there were calls from a wide spectrum of lawmakers and advocates on firearms issues to have them banned.

Heres what has happened with the devices since the attack that left 58 dead:

Legislative action

In the shootings immediate aftermath, there appeared to be a growing desire to ban the sale and possession of bump stocks, which federal authorities previously deemed legal and not subject to the same tighter restrictions reserved for fully automatic firearms.

Most notably, U.S. President Donald Trump vowed to ban the devices, which attach to the stock end of an AR-style firearm, greatly increasing the rate of fire so it mimics a fully automatic long gun.

Read more:

Authorities confirm Las Vegas massacre had no motive, no second gunman

MGM offers deal to Las Vegas shooting victims its suing

Lawyer enters not-guilty plea for man who sold ammo to Las Vegas shooter

Trump in March tweeted: Obama Administration legalized bump stocks. BAD IDEA. As I promised, today the Department of Justice will issue the rule banning BUMP STOCKS with a mandated comment period.

The government determined in 2010 that bump stocks couldnt be regulated unless Congress changed the law.

But as with many restrictions on firearms in recent years, more action has taken place at the state level than by the federal government.

Ten states and three cities have enacted bans on the devices. California made bump stock-style devices illegal there decades ago.

What has happened at the federal level?

Trump expressed support for banning the devices and directed the Justice Department to rewrite the federal regulations.

The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives this spring sought public comment on a proposal to reclassify bump stocks, but no action has been taken.

The proposed rules drew more than 35,000 comments.

The company

Slide Fire Solutions, Americas largest bump stock manufacturer, closed its website in June and stopped taking orders. However, its remaining stock of the devices is now being sold by another company, RW Arms, based in Fort Worth, Texas.

The devices were originally intended to help people with disabilities and were little-known until the Las Vegas shooting.

Gun owners and enthusiasts frequently call bump stocks a novelty item. Gun dealers said very few of the devices were sold before the Las Vegas shooting, but demand soared afterward amid concern they might be banned.

Read more about:CAMEROON, CAMEROONFor the first time since taking office, President Donald Trump endorsed a two-state solution as the best way to resolve the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians as he met Wednesday at the UN with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Trump told reporters that he believes that two states  Israel and one for the Palestinians  works best. He has previously been vague on the topic, suggesting that he would support whatever the parties might agree to, including possibly a one-state resolution, which might see the Palestinian territories become part of Israel.

I like (a) two-state solution, Trump said as he posed for photographs with Netanyahu. Thats what I think works best. Thats my feeling. Now, you may have a different feeling. I dont think so. But I think two-state solution works best.

Later, Trump told a news conference that reaching a two-state solution is more difficult because its a real estate deal but that ultimately it works better because you have people governing themselves.

He added that he would still support Israel and the Palestinians should they opt for a one-state solution, though he believed that was less likely. Bottom line: If the Israelis and Palestinians want one-state, thats OK with me. If they want two states, thats OK with me. Im happy if theyre happy.

In his earlier comments, Trump said his much anticipated but still unreleased Mideast peace plan could be presented in the next two to four months, but was not specific as to timing.

Trump has been heavily criticized by the Palestinians for a series of moves that they say show distinct bias toward Israel, starting with his recognition last year of Jerusalem as Israels capital. The Palestinians also claim the holy city as the capital of an eventual state. Earlier this year, Trump followed up on the recognition by moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a step that was widely protested by Palestinians and others in the Arab world.

His administration has also slashed aid to the Palestinians by hundreds of millions of dollars and ended U.S. support for the UN agency that helps Palestinian refugees.

The Palestinians reacted cautiously to Trumps remarks, noting that a two-state solution has long been the goal of peace efforts, including a broader Arab-Israeli plan that would see Arab states all recognize Israel if the Palestinians got an independent state.

Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, said the Palestinians remain committed to their demand for a state based on the borders before the 1967 Mideast war and with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Peace requires a two-state solution, where the state of Palestine is based on the 67 boundaries with East Jerusalem as its capital, he said. This is the Arab and international attitude, and all final status issues need to be solved according to the international resolutions and the Arab Peace Initiative.

Trump and his national security team have defended their position, saying that decades of attempts to forge Israeli-Palestinian peace have failed.

He said Wednesday that the embassy move would actually help peace efforts by recognizing the reality that Israel identifies Jerusalem as its capital. But he added that Israel would have to make concessions to the Palestinians in any negotiations.

Israel got the first chip and its a big one, Trump said. By taking off the table the embassy moving to Jerusalem, that was always the primary ingredient as to why deals couldnt get done. Now thats off the table. Now, that will also mean that Israel will have to do something that is good for the other side.

Netanyahu thanked Trump for his support and his decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal and said U.S.-Israel relations have never been better than under his administration. On Tuesday, Trump lashed out at Iran in his annual address to the UN General Assembly, accusing its leaders of corruption and spreading chaos throughout the Middle East and beyond. He also vowed to continue to impose sanctions on Iran.

Thank you for your strong words yesterday in the General Assembly against the corrupt terrorist regime in Iran, Netanyahu said. They back up your strong words and strong actions.

Read more about:Starbucks Corp is planning to make "significant changes" to its organizational structure, while an industry expert said the coffee giant's new delivery services in China won't serve as a major boost.

According to a letter sent to employees by CEO Kevin Johnson, the restructuring, which could include corporate layoffs, is an attempt to combat the popular coffee retailer's falling sales and reignite investor interest, Bloomberg reported on Monday.

"We must increase the velocity of innovation that is relevant to our customers, inspire our partners, and is meaningful to our business," Johnson said in a memo. "To accomplish this, we are going to make some significant changes to how we work as leaders in all areas of the company."

Starbucks's third-quarter fiscal results ended July 1, 2018, showed that its global store sales increased 1 percent, but China store sales decreased 2 percent.

The world's largest coffee chain hosted its first-ever China Investor Day in Shanghai on May 16, where the company announced plans to build 600 new stores annually over the next five years in China, a goal that will double the store count from the end of 2017 to 6,000 across 230 cities by year 2022.

Starbucks China launched its delivery services on Sept 19 in Beijing and Shanghai. It plans to expand such services to more than 2,000 stores in 30 cities in the country by the end of this year. More than half of its current Starbucks stores in China will be covered by then.

"Starbucks Delivers" is the first delivery services offered by Starbucks globally. It will be available through both the Starbucks and Ele.me apps. The delivery fee for each order will be 9 yuan ($1.31).

Starbucks, which takes up the majority of the coffee chain market in China, has faced mounting challenges from emerging local coffee brands that have offered delivery services. Luckin Coffee has opened 1,100 stores and has free delivery for items priced above 35 yuan ($5.09) or 6 yuan for each order under 35 yuan.

Cristina Wang, a senior manager at a major tourism service provider in Beijing's central business district, said she is looking forward to trying Starbucks' delivery service but will keep most of her purchases in stores as the delivery fee is quite high if ordered on the daily basis. "Starbucks coffee is already pricey compared with other brands," said Wang. "Adding 9 yuan for each order only makes it even more unaffordable."

The development of Starbucks businesses in China in recent months of this year has been volatile, said Zhu Danpeng, an independent analyst specializing in the food and beverage sector.

"Though the new delivery services will help Starbucks to catch up with peers in delivery sector, its core competence could be weakened by its pricey delivery fee."BENGHAZI, LIBYAA recent bout of heavy fighting in the capital Tripoli has come to a halt after warring militias signed a new ceasefire agreement, Libyan authorities said Wednesday.

The UN-backed government said in a statement it welcomed the ceasefire agreement, which was brokered by local representatives and tribal leaders.

Fighting in Tripoli first erupted on Aug. 26 when the 7th Brigade comprised of militias hailing from Tarhouna, a town about 60 kilometres south of Tripoli, attacked southern neighbourhoods of the capital.

The Tripoli Revolutionaries Brigades and the Nawasi Brigade, militias which support the UN-backed government, came to the citys defence. Clashes flared up again last week, breaking a previous, UN-brokered ceasefire that began earlier this month.

At least 117 people, including civilians, have been killed in the fighting and another 404 wounded. Twenty people remain missing since fighting first began there, the Health Ministry said.

In the past two days, 1,700 families have been displaced due to renewed fighting, the UN aid agency said Tuesday. A total of 5,000 families have sought refuge with relatives in safer parts of Tripoli and its outskirts since Aug. 26, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.

The clashes have led to a breakdown in basic services such as electricity and water, UN Humanitarian Coordinator Maria Ribeiro said.

Also on Wednesday, the UN envoy for Libya, Ghassan Salame, told the UN Human Rights Council that armed groups loyal to both the self-styled Libyan National Army, led by Field Marshal Kahlifa Hifter in the east, and the UN-backed-government in Tripoli continue to violate international law and human rights and use foreign mercenaries, especially in southern Libya.

Impunity of armed groups must be challenged and all grave violations punished, sanctions imposed and perpetrators brought to national courts or the International Criminal Court, Salame tweeted.

He warned of terror attacks on the rise, ISIS resurgent, with 57 dead in 14 attacks since years start, including latest on the National Oil Cooperation headquarters in Tripoli.

Two people were killed and 10 others wounded earlier this month when suspected militants invaded the headquarters of Libyas national oil company, shooting randomly, setting off explosions and taking hostages, officials said.

The fighting in Tripoli underscored the countrys lingering lawlessness more than seven years after the uprising that toppled and later killed longtime ruler Moammar Gadhafi. Libya is currently ruled by rival authorities in Tripoli and the east, each backed by an array of militias.

Read more about:WASHINGTONU.S. President Donald Trump says he turned down a meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau because of his unhappiness with Canadas dairy tariffs and Canadas stance at the NAFTA negotiating table  but Trudeaus office says the prime minister never requested a meeting at all.

Trump also appeared to take a rare shot at Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, Canadas chief representative in the trade negotiations, and repeated his threat to impose tariffs on Canadian-made cars, saying that this would be even better than making a trade deal with Canada.

We are very unhappy with the negotiations and the negotiating style of Canada. We dont like their representative very much, Trump said at a Wednesday news conference, although he did not specify who he was talking about.

Theyve taken advantage  I love Canada, by the way ... so many friends ... but that has nothing to do with this.

Asked whether he turned down a meeting with Trudeau, Trump said flatly, Yeah, I did. Asked why, he said, Because his tariffs are too high and he doesnt seem to want to move and Ive told him forget about it.

And frankly were thinking about just taxing cars coming in from Canada. Thats the motherlode. Thats the big one, he said.

Trudeau spokesperson Cameron Ahmad said in an email: No meeting was requested. We dont have any comment beyond that.

Trump has been known to make false and dubious claims about his interactions with Canada, appearing to relish opportunities to portray himself as the dominant figure in the relationship with Trudeau. He appeared angry during much of the lengthy news conference, during which he aggressively defended Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh against allegations of sexual assault.

Regardless, the presidents comments underscored the intense animosity he now feels toward the prime minister and his government.

Trump took a far friendlier stance toward North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, whom he praised at length Wednesday. Asked why he planned to hold a second major meeting with Kim soon after the first, Trump responded: Because hed like it.

Trump nonetheless said that there was still a good chance of a trade deal with Canada  although he said he would not concede to anything near the kind of deal Canada wants. He also said a three-country deal would be renamed USMC for U.S., Mexico and Canada.

The two men had a brief interaction at a United Nations luncheon on Tuesday, shaking hands when Trudeau approached Trump as he read over notes for a speech. Trump did not stand up.

Trudeau said Wednesday that people should not read into the briefness of the exchange, noting that, like many other UN interactions, it was quick but cordial.

I have continued to engage regularly with the president. We had a very good call just last week. We continue to have regular conversations whenever necessary, whenever we want to, Trudeau said.

There are all sorts of opportunities for me to speak to President Trump, and that was not the time.

Trump had been rumoured to be unhappy with Freeland. Canadas foreign affairs minister has taken pains to avoid criticizing Trump upon emerging from NAFTA negotiating meetings, but the White House was said to be annoyed by a speech she gave in Washington in June. Upon receiving Foreign Policy magazines Diplomat of the Year award, Freeland criticized Trumps mano-a-mano approach to international relations.

Trumps renewed threat on auto tariffs came on the same day that Canadas ambassador to the U.S., David MacNaughton, said Canada is insisting on protection from such tariffs as part of a NAFTA deal. Without such protection, he said, the agreement would not be useful.

There are things where, basically, were just not prepared to give in because it would really render the agreement meaningless, MacNaughton said in a public interview with Politico in Toronto. I mean, if you cant resolve disputes in a fair and balanced way, then whats the use of the agreement? If you cant have some curb on the arbitrary use of tariffs under the guise of national security, with a member of NORAD and somebody who is your closest defence partner, then I dont think its much of an agreement.

MacNaughton made the comments in response to a question about whether Canada might simply call Trumps bluff and make a take-it-or-leave-it offer, daring the president to carry out his tariff threat. MacNaughton said the government would not be playing chicken with the future of the Canadian economy in such a manner, but that it has positions it cannot surrender.

Trump has used an obscure national security provision of U.S. trade law to impose tariffs on imports of Canadian steel and aluminum. He has threatened to use the same provision to impose tariffs on imports of Canadian cars, a move that would likely do much more damage to Canada.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, Canadian officials had previously said they were pushing for tariff protection as part of the deal. MacNaughton was the first to say publicly that a deal would be bad without such protection.

Trudeau did not respond directly on Wednesday when asked at a United Nations news conference if Canada needs an ironclad commitment that Trump will not impose auto tariffs. He said Trump has told him directly, a few times, that if we renegotiate NAFTA, if we get to a NAFTA deal, there will be no need to worry about these other things.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said Tuesday that the steel and aluminum tariffs would not be addressed until after a NAFTA agreement is reached, although he had originally wanted them to be part of the NAFTA deal.

Joseph Galimberti, president of the Canadian Steel Producers Association, said that not resolving the tariff issue as part of the broader agreement would be a missed opportunity.

Canada is facing a U.S. deadline to make a trade deal by the end of the month. Lighthizer said Tuesday that the administration will immediately submit the text of a U.S.-Mexico deal to Congress if Canada does not sign on by then.

On Wednesday, Bloomberg cited three sources as saying the U.S. plans to publish the text on Friday, two days prior to the previously announced deadline. But that would not necessarily mean Canada would be left behind for good: Lighthizer said Tuesday that negotiations with Canada would continue.

Were certainly not going to give up, he said.

It is possible that Congress, which strongly prefers a trilateral agreement, would allow Canada to be added to the U.S.-Mexico text at a later date.

Asked if a good deal for Canada is possible even if the U.S. does move forward this week with Mexico alone, Trudeau said, We will keep working on a broad range of alternatives. A broad range of paths are ahead of us. Were going to keep focusing on trying to get to the right deal for Canadians.

Read more about:BERLINA German hospital on Wednesday discharged a member of the Russian protest group Pussy Riot after he made significant progress in his recovery from a suspected poisoning.

The Charite hospital said Pyotr Verzilov is no longer showing the symptoms of disorientation that he had when he arrived in mid-September after his initial treatment in Moscow. It said theres still an issue with the reaction of his pupils, but doctors are confident that will disappear.

Verzilov and other members of Pussy Riot served 15-day jail sentences for disrupting the World Cup final in Moscow in July to protest Russian police brutality.

German doctors treating Verzilov have said reports that he was poisoned are highly plausible, but stressed they cant say how this might have occurred or who was responsible.

Verzilov fell ill on Sept. 11 after attending a friends court hearing in the Russian capital, and was admitted to a Moscow hospital that evening with symptoms that included disorientation and widened pupils. Russian doctors suspected possible poisoning and treated him accordingly, emptying his stomach and performing a dialysis, German doctors say.

The Charites Dr. Kai-Uwe Eckardt said the diagnosis of an anticholinergic syndrome hasnt changed, and an intake or absorption of an exogenous substance as the cause of this syndrome still appears to be the most plausible explanation for his acute illness on Sept. 11.

Tests during his stay at the hospital have produced no indications of another cause, Eckardt added.

Charites chairman, Dr. Karl Max Einhaeupl, added that tests so far havent produced any clear indication of a specific substance that might have caused his illness. He said the Berlin hospital remains in contact with its Moscow counterparts to get more information on Verzilovs initial treatment.

Read more about:To an untrained eye, USAReally might look like any other fledgling news organization vying for attention in a crowded media landscape. Its website publishes a steady stream of stories on hot-button political issues like race, immigration and income inequality. It has reader polls, a video section and a daily podcast.

But this is no ordinary media startup. USAReally is based in Moscow and has received funding from the Federal News Agency, a Russian media conglomerate with ties to the internet Research Agency, the troll farm whose employees were indicted by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, for interfering in the 2016 presidential election.

Caught flat-footed by the influence campaigns of 2016, intelligence agencies and tech companies in the United States have spent months looking for hidden Russian footprints ahead of the midterm elections.

USAReallys website, which began publishing in May, does not advertise its Russian roots. But in many ways, it is operating in plain sight.

Its founder, Alexander Malkevich, is a Russian journalist with little previous experience in American media. Its domain was registered through a Russian company, and its formation was announced in a news release on the Federal News Agencys website. The project, originally known as USAReally, Wake Up Americans, was intended to promote information and problems that are hushed up by major American publications controlled by the political elite of the United States, according to the release.

Today, USAReallys website depicts the United States as a democracy in decline, riddled with crime and divided by partisan rancour.

Many of the sites stories are similar to the divisive content that Russian trolls circulated on social media in 2016, down to their conspiratorial tone and telltale grammatical errors. (Rabid Squirrels Is Terrorizing Florida, read one headline.) Some of its articles appear to have been lifted word-for-word from legitimate U.S. news websites.

The amateurish appearance of USAReally has led some critics to assume that it is either a bizarre vanity project or a decoy meant to attract attention away from more covert Russian campaigns happening elsewhere. But some cybersecurity experts believe the website may be a part of a retooled Russian propaganda operation that is experimenting with new tactics ahead of Novembers midterm elections, and testing the boundaries of what American social media companies will allow.

Its a very overt operation, said Lee Foster, an intelligence analysis manager with the cybersecurity firm FireEye. Perhaps its an attempt to move this type of activity more into the mainstream, to try to legitimize it as a media entity so that its tougher to take action against it.

Last month, in a two-hour interview while travelling in New York, Malkevich, USAReallys founder, explained his vision.

Red-bearded and combative, Malkevich wore a T-shirt printed with an image of cartoon spies, accompanied by a Russian sentence that translates as the motherland is listening. Accompanied by a translator but mostly speaking in his own heavily accented English, he peppered his speech with American political catchphrases like fake news and witch hunt, and he denied that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election, calling it a paranoid conspiracy theory.

I cannot imagine how several people from Russia or from Australia or from Japan can change the electoral situation in the United States, he said. Why do some representatives of a deep state think that Americans are so foolish?

Malkevich acknowledged that he had received funding and other support from the Federal News Agency. Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, a wealthy Russian businessman who has been nicknamed Putins chef because of his close ties to the Russian president, is believed to oversee the news agency. Prigozhin faces criminal charges stemming from the Mueller investigation, and he and several associates have been placed under sanctions that forbid them from entering the country.

But Malkevich, who said he had several types of visas that allowed him to enter the United States, denied any connection to the internet Research Agency. He quoted a Russian proverb  translated roughly as the son is not responsible for his father  to distance himself from the groups 2016 trolling campaigns.

I dont know anybody from so-called troll farms, he said.

A video interview posted to YouTube in June provided a glimpse of Malkevich in USAReallys office in Moscow, which featured a large portrait of U.S. President Donald Trump and two flags on the wall  one American, one Confederate. Behind Malkevich was a Russian-language map of the United States, in which states were labelled with topics such as crime, poverty, and Second Amendment (mass-shooting).

Malkevich characterized the map as normal, and said it helped the sites editors focus their work on different states.

Spokeswomen from the Justice Department and FBI declined to comment on USAReally.

Malkevich said he aimed to turn USAReally into a kind of digital-first version of RT or Sputnik  both Russian media organizations that broadcast pro-Kremlin views inside the United States  and a counterweight to organizations funded by the United States, like Radio Free Europe, that broadcast in Russia and other countries.

A 2017 U.S. intelligence report concluded that both RT and Sputnik were part of Russias state-run propaganda machine. But they have been allowed to remain on Facebook and Twitter, because government-funded media is generally allowed on those platforms as long as it is created by authentic users and doesnt violate the sites content guidelines.

USAReally, by contrast, was quickly banned by both Facebook and Twitter, although it recently opened a second Facebook page. A Twitter spokesman said that USAReallys account was suspended for violating the sites rules against spam. A Facebook spokesman did not provide details about why the first page was banned. He said the groups second page was currently being investigated, and that the company had been aware of the account before being contacted by The New York Times.

Despite Malkevichs claims, there are hints that USAReally may be drawing from the internet Research Agencys playbook, in addition to adopting the more open tactics of RT and Sputnik.

Last week, users on the popular message board Reddit complained that links to USAReally stories were being posted on the sites largest pro-Trump forum, r/the_donald. The links were disguised, appearing to belong to websites like geotus.army and geotus.band. But when users clicked on the links, they were redirected to stories on USAReallys website. (GEOTUS, or God Emperor of the United States, is a nickname for Trump popularized by users of r/the_donald.)

Reddit banned USAReally, geotus.army and geotus.band, along with a separate Russian-linked website called Brutalist.press. A Reddit spokeswoman said that the company had taken action against the domains for breaking the companys policies, which prohibit manipulative behaviour.

In a text message, Malkevich called the Reddit ban just another illustration of censorship in America. He said he had never heard of the GEOTUS domains, and that USAReally had no need to post its stories to Reddit, given the small amount of traffic it received from the site.

Without a presence on major social media networks, it has been difficult for USAReally to build an audience. Malkevich said USAReallys website typically receives 5,000 to 10,000 visitors a day, a pittance compared to more established news sites, although several recent posts have received thousands of views apiece.

Malkevich, 43, was born in Leningrad, now called St. Petersburg, and has had a career trajectory similar to other successful post-Soviet media managers. He started in music journalism, spent time in political public relations, then ran a television station in Omsk, Siberia.

Recently, he has positioned himself as a champion of freedom of speech. In a column on the Federal News Agencys website, he wrote that American social media networks were guilty of selective censorship that Orwell did not dream of.

Malkevichs fumbling misadventures in American media have, at times, made him seem more like a Sacha Baron Cohen character than a sinister propagandist. In June, he planned a rally outside the White House, but cancelled the event, he said, after failing to obtain the proper permit. He scheduled a round-table discussion about fake news inside a WeWork office in Washington, but his membership was abruptly terminated. An NBC News story about Malkevich carried the headline, This man is running Russias newest propaganda effort in the U.S.  or at least hes trying to.

Im an easy victim for American media, Malkevich said. You can showcase this Russian journalist  he wants to destroy our democracy with his bad English. But I dont want to destroy. I want to build.

USAReally has a full-time staff of 15 in Moscow, according to Malkevich, and a handful of American writers who contribute to the site. One of those writers, Jeffrey K. Silverman, said that USAReallys Russian origins werent a concern. He had previously written for other pro-Kremlin sites, and when he learned that USAReally was looking for American writers, he volunteered. The site paid him $50 to $100 for each of his articles, he said, and didnt instruct him to cover particular subjects or parrot a party line.

Whenever I write for anything Russian, they dont censor me, Silverman said. If I write for American publications, I get censored.

Unlike the Russian trolls of 2016, who posed as Black Lives Matter activists, pro-gun Republicans and other American groups, many of USAReallys writers use their real names. Several of them also write for a variety of other pro-Kremlin media outlets and think tanks.

Theres a wide-ranging collection of Russian propaganda sides online that are connected, said Renee DiResta, the head of research at New Knowledge, a cybersecurity firm that specializes in disinformation networks. USAReally has drawn from many of them to create a site that appears to be using the less-academic style of IRA content to reach a much broader American audience, DiResta said, using the initials of the internet Research Agency.

When not recruiting writers, Malkevich has been busy touring America, conducting interviews and posting dispatches to a group of supporters on the messaging app Telegram.

In New York, he posed for a photo in front of Trump Tower, then stopped at a bookstore, where he filled a shelf with books about Russian collusion, took a photo and posted it to his followers, mocking what he sees as a conspiracy-obsessed American public.

Malkevich said that despite the bleak vision of America that his website paints, he was not interested in sowing discord and division.

I am interested in co-operation and friendship between our two great countries, he said.

Read more about:The hole is deep, Ontario Treasurer Vic Fideli told a downtown business audience last Friday as he announced the findings of his financial review. And it will require everyone to make sacrifices, without exception.

As politics goes, its a fine message.

But its not real. The Conservatives election promises, unless abandoned, will dig Ontario into an even deeper financial hole. And much of the digging will be done to shovel cash to large corporations and high-income earners.

Basic math shows the Conservatives tax cut promises, made in full knowledge of the true extent of Ontarios deficit, would trigger cuts multiple times deeper than the 3 or 4 per cent voters were told prior to the June 7 election.

Fidelis Friday report pegged this years Ontario deficit at $15 billion, not the $6.7 billion reported in the Liberals spring budget. The headline is dramatic. But the news is old.

Long before this springs budget, Ontarios auditor general had been publicly objecting to the Liberals accounting practices. The auditor general said the Liberals were improperly excluding the cost of subsidizing electricity. She said they were improperly including pension plans.

Back on May 2, the independent Financial Accountability Office restated the Liberals budget using the auditor generals accounting rules, as does Fedelis report. And that FAO report, four months ago, projected a deficit almost identical to Fedelis Friday $15-billion finding.

The FAO projected revenues would be $600 million higher and expenses to be $1.6 billion lower than in Fidelis report. But on a $165-billion budget, those are variances of less than one per cent.

Fedelis findings are an insubstantial nothingburger. In no material way did it turn up anything new or surprising. It just confirmed what the FAO found four months ago.

That timing matters. Thanks to the FAO report, Ontarios political leaders all knew Ontarios true financial situation before the election started.

But they chose to do very different things with that information. NDP Leader Andrea Horwath proposed to raise tax rates on personal incomes over $220,000 and reverse some McGuinty-era corporate tax cuts. The Ford Conservatives went the exact opposite direction.

Ford offered big-ticket giveaways. To large corporations he offered a $1.3-billion tax cut. He told polluters hed end the $1.9-billion cap-and-trade plan. For affluent Conservative voters, he pledged a $2.3-billion income-tax cut.

In total, the Conservatives pledged $8.05 billion in revenue cuts, even through they knew the deficit situation. When youre in a hole, youre supposed to stop digging. Not these guys.

They had a different strategy. Throughout the campaign, the Ford Conservatives wouldnt show Ontarians a fiscal plan. They eventually stated the costs of their promises. But they didnt add them up. And they never showed the deficit impact. Or any plan for their cuts.

Ford repeatedly waved away Horwaths concerns about cuts and privatization, arguing only 3 or 4 per cent efficiencies would be required. Basic math shows thats wildly wrong.

Ontarios program spending will be about $152 billion this year. A $15-billion deficit hole thats dug $8 billion deeper by Fords tax cuts isnt solved with a cut of 3 or 4per cent. Cutting $23 billion from Ontarios $152 billion in program spending slashes about 15 per cent.

Thanks to the McGuinty-era corporate tax cuts, Ontario already has Canadas lowest per-person program spending, including the lowest per-person investment in health care. Theres a reason school repairs are backlogged and hallway medicine has made a comeback.

Now a 15 per cent cut threatens to take people from bad to worse. Already, Ford has cut $330 million a year from mental health and $100 million from school repairs.

As quick fixes to past tax cut-induced deficits, the last Conservative government privatized Highway 407. The Wynne Liberals sold Hydro One. Now theres a new risk of asset sell-offs, including Torontos subway system, which Conservatives say they will take from city councils control.

Working-class people are already struggling with low wages, no benefits and unaffordable everyday life. The middle class worries what society they are leaving the next generation. Now this.

All over again, now in a different way, its promises for the few  paid for by the people.

Tom Parkin is a social democratic political commentator based in Toronto.

Read more about:Freedom of expression in a #MeToo world, Sept. 24

Thomas Walkom suggests that Ian Burumas departure from the New York Review of Books after publishing an essay by Jian Ghomeshi is a blow to freedom of speech. A simpler explanation is that Mr. Buruma was almost comically bad at his job.

Interested in exploring the experience of men who face public scorn for sexual indiscretions despite being cleared by the court, Mr. Buruma settled on the case of Mr. Ghomeshi. This seems a poor editorial choice, and maybe a fireable offence.

#MeToo arose because North American legal systems cannot protect women from sexual assault on the streets or sexual harrassment in the workplace. As a result, millions of women have been sexually assaulted in Canada and the U.S., and millions of womens careers have been damaged or ended. It is as much an indictment of the inability of our legal systems to protect womens bodies and careers as it is of violence and sexual aggression toward women.

People used the #MeToo hashtag to finally tell these terrible stories, and to give witness and support to others telling their part of this story. How this affects others is for the courts to decide. Anyone fired inappropriately can seek redress in the judicial system.

Women are not responsible for how telling the truth affects others. To vilify victims of violence for telling their own stories is to wade into dangerous waters.

The #MeToo movement is not, as Mr. Buruma and Mr. Walkom agree, a corrective on male behaviour. It is, and always has been, women telling their own stories.

That two such accomplished male storytellers seem to miss this simple fact is a bit on the nose.

Catherine Murton Stoehr, North Bay

The portion of Jian Ghomeshis essay dealing with why he was fired and why his reputation is in tatters is incomplete, misleading and self-serving. The NYRB should not have published that portion unless he agreed to make it more accurate.

Ian Buruma is an important and well-respected writer, and he will remain so.

It is unfortunate that a number of university presses threatened to withdraw their advertising from the NYRB. I hope the University of Toronto Press was not one of them.

Bruce Couchman, Ottawa

Read more about:We should seek greatness, as Paris does, Sept. 25

Toronto used to think it was another New York, and now Toronto should seek greatness  like Paris?

Toronto is now nothing but urban sprawl, with no real plan except to just build and build. This will probably end when we reach North Bay!

Unless, of course, the article was talking about Paris, Ont.Is Premier Doug Ford about to open the door wide for more and more private health care in Ontario?

Thats the fear among public health-care supporters who see growing signs that Ford will allow more for-profit health-care facilities in Ontario as part of his drive to slash government spending.

Even inside the Ontario health ministry, there are mounting concerns about how to deal with the pressure being exerted on Ford by private health-care cheerleaders who insist Queens Park can save vast sums of money by permitting more for-profit clinics and hospitals.

These advocates, including politicians, insurance companies and conservative doctors and medical groups, are pushing hard right now because they see a perfect opening for their agenda. Thats because Ford has vowed to cut spending by 4 per cent a year. The health ministry budget is the biggest at $61 billion annually, making it the largest target for Ford.

They argue that private clinics providing diagnostic testing and minor surgeries operate more efficiently and are less costly than publicly funded hospitals. Such clinics treat private patients who want to buy their way to the front of the waiting line and patients whose treatment is covered by OHIP.

But the fact is that if Ford lets private clinics loose in Ontario we will be in real trouble, with higher costs and no real improvement in overall wait times.

Since his election, Ford has turned to private health-care advocates for key advice. He appointed Reuben Devlin, an outspoken former Tory party president and former Humber River Hospital president, to head a task force on health-care reform. He also appointed former B.C. premier Gordon Campbell to lead an inquiry into Ontarios finances.

Campbell is a strong proponent of two-tier medicine, coming out in support recently of private B.C. clinics and their right to extra-bill patients.

What Campbell and others like him ignore is that allowing the wealthy to buy their way to the top of the queue with cash or private insurance leaves a dwindling amount of capacity for publicly funded services because theres only so much capacity in the system. In almost every country with two-tier medicine theres a two-tier waiting list linked to the ability to pay, not the need for care.

This month, Campbell also wrote a newspaper opinion article with former Saskatchewan premier Brad Wall in which they suggested Canada needs private clinics to deliver more health-care services. In doing so, they ignored widely available evidence that their solution could actually increase government costs without any increase in needed services.

Sadly, Ford may be easily swayed by these enticing, albeit misleading, statements about cheaper, faster and better services.

In truth, private clinics have little real interest in saving the government any money. Rather, they often operate in areas where there are too many inappropriate tests and procedures, doing easy tests, such as MRIs, where they can get patients on and off the table quickly, and leaving serious cases to major hospitals.

Indeed, in their drive to make a profit, private clinics offer services that may actually inflate government health costs by increasing the number of unnecessary tests and treatments.

For example, Choosing Wisely Canada, a health organization that partners with the Canadian Medical Association, suggested in a recent report that about 30 per cent of all medical services are unnecessary or inappropriate.

This is especially true with tests such as MRI scans, in particular those of the back, hip, shoulder and knee. The same is true for arthroscopy treatment for arthritis of the knee, which countless studies have shown has no real positive impact.

Across Canada, including in Ontario, health ministry officials are searching for ways to lower fees paid to hospitals, clinics and doctors for inappropriate services.

And yet private clinics, to be profitable, may well accept virtually every request from patients or family doctors for such often-elective procedures, rather than advising against them.

In the coming months, private health-care advocates will be touting their virtues and ignoring their flaws when they make their case with Ford for more clinics and even hospitals.

The pressing question now, though, is: Who will stand up for public health care in Ontario?

Read more about:The most interesting election result in Canada this year is unfolding in a province too often mocked as the least interesting one in the federation: New Brunswick.

Now embroiled in a fascinating tug of war between Liberals and Conservatives  over nothing less than who will end up as premier  the provinces political drama could even foreshadow some bigger trends to play out on the national stage in 2019.

Populism, diversity, environmentalism and the power of smaller parties are all part of the mix in New Brunswick, as is the starting-to-be-familiar tension this fall between the rule of law and raw, majority-rule democracy.

Fresh out of Ontarios recent dalliance with opting out of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, this explosion of political uncertainty in New Brunswick is yet another story of how the Crown and the constitution cannot be taken for granted, even in 2018.

On Tuesday, New Brunswicks Lieutenant-Governor waded into the contentious results of Mondays election and gave Liberal Leader Brian Gallant the right to stay on as premier, even though Gallant won fewer seats than his Conservative rivals. Its not like Jocelyne Roy-Vienneau had a choice  this is how parliamentary democracy works.

Still, it was a sharp rebuke to Conservative Leader Blaine Higgss premature declaration of victory. Higgs told the crowd on Monday night that citizens, just like customers, are always right. However, democratic mandates are not simply won through marketing.

Read more:

B.C. could provide clues as to how New Brunswick electoral results shake out

Gallant plans to continue as New Brunswicks premier after Liberals, Tories in dead heat election

Opinion | Thomas Walkom: Right-wing populism on rise in New Brunswick

By Tuesday, Higgs was forced to postpone plans to move into the premiers office, thwarted by the constitutional rule that allows incumbent premiers to have first crack at forming government in a minority legislature.

I'd like to just get on with it. I think all this is doing is prolonging it, Higgs said on Tuesday. You could say that this Conservative leader is finding, as is Premier Doug Ford in Ontario, that power isnt simply a numbers game when it comes to constitutional law and convention.

The fact is that neither New Brunswick leader has the 25 seats necessary for a majority government, so the future premier will be the one who can woo support from one of the smaller parties that made huge gains on Monday night: the Peoples Alliance or the Green Party, each of which won three seats.

Confusing? Yes. Constitutional? Absolutely. What makes it compelling, though, is how this vote result could be a portent of things to come on the larger national stage.

We should assume that in the days and weeks ahead, federal parties will be studying whether the dynamics at work in the New Brunswick vote are going to be factors in the 2019 federal election.

Could smaller parties, for instance, become kingmakers in 2019 as they are in New Brunswick in the fall of 2018?

Certainly, Green Party Leader Elizabeth May is seeing possibilities. Slowly, steadily, Greens are expanding their footprint in the provinces, winning their first-ever seat at Queens Park in June and now increased representation in New Brunswick. Including British Columbia and Prince Edward Island, there are now a total of nine Greens in four provincial legislatures across Canada.

New Brunswicks results also might prove encouraging to Maxime Bernier, leader of the newly formed Peoples Party of Canada, whose breakaway movement shares more than a similar name with New Brunswicks Peoples Alliance.

Both parties see themselves as populist and conservative, and challengers to conventional wisdom on accommodating diversity  the Peoples Alliance against bilingualism, Berniers party against what it calls extreme multiculturalism.

It should be noted that this isnt New Brunswicks first flirtation with this kind of political force  the old Confederation of Regions party made inroads in New Brunswick in the 1990s. Nor is this the first time that New Brunswick has produced election results for the history books. In 1987, Frank McKenna won every seat in the Legislature  a feat that had only happened once before in the history of the federation.

New Brunswick, in short, has been very interesting before, despite its reputation as the province where not much happens. And it promises to be worth watching for some time to come  not just for who eventually wins, but for what we can learn about politics to come in Canada as a whole in 2019.

Susan Delacourt is the Star's Ottawa bureau chief and a columnist covering national politics. Reach her via email: sdelacourt@thestar.ca or follow her on Twitter: @susandelacourt

Read more about:VANCOUVERWhether Canadian cannabis workers will be permitted to cross into the United States may hang on the outcome of the November midterm elections, says an American policy expert.

Rep. J. Luis Correa, a Democratic congressman from California, sent a congressional letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen last week expressing concern that Canadians engaged in lawful business activities were being penalized unnecessarily, citing reporting in StarMetro Vancouver.

But a power shift in the House of Representatives is necessary for Correa to truly make waves with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), said Sanho Tree, director of the Drug Policy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C.

It all hinges on what happens Nov. 6, Tree said in an interview, referring to the date of the upcoming U.S. midterm elections.

American politics, said Tree, is a winner-take-all system. And since Correas Democrats are currently the minority party in the House of Representatives, they have little power to affect meaningful political change. If they were to claw back a majority in Novembers mid-terms, however, they could cause all kinds of problems for the DHS, he said.

The congressmans committee assignments  Correa is a member of the Committee on Homeland Security and the Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security, as well as the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Management Efficiency  mean that, backed by a majority Democratic House, he could be a deeply effective agent of change for the cause of reforming border policy.

Read more:

Meet the B.C. man who has been banned from the U.S. for 40 years because of a cannabis fine

Provincial cannabis employees  from premier to liquor store clerk  could face lifetime U.S. ban, lawyer says

Canadians who smoke marijuana legally, or work or invest in the industry, will be barred from the U.S.: Customs and Border Protection official

Correa himself was blunt in a Wednesday interview. Lifetime bans for Canadian cannabis workers are a result of American laws lagging behind contemporary, reputable evidence on the potential health benefits of cannabis and the economic benefits of cannabis legalization, he said.

This is one of those cases where politics has prevailed over good, common sense public policy, Correa said. This is an unintended consequence of our legal environment being seriously flawed.

He said many of his constituents are veterans suffering from conditions such as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder who have personally attested to cannabis effectiveness as a medicine that has improved their quality of life. Economically speaking, he added, banning Canadians from the U.S. for participating in a legitimate business practice north of the border would have a chilling effect on relations with the States largest trading partner.

With that in mind, said Correa, the congressional letter to Nielsen represents two things: a request that DHS clarify what rules and regulations it uses to administer lifetime bans on Canadian cannabis workers; and a nascent push to determine what needs to be changed to permit those Canadians access to the United States.

What we want is common sense regulations when it comes to our Canadian brothers and sisters, he said. Thats the end goal.

Have your say

But resolving this issue with any finality will require a change in law, Correa said in a followup statement by email. Cannabis is currently a federally controlled substance, and immigration law has various regulations and restrictions on controlled substances and persons associated with them.

Determining what, exactly, needs to change and how, wrote Correa, is what he and his staff are working on now.

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment, but Correa stated in an email that his office has received a response from the department acknowledging his submission.

Under past presidential administrations, a congressperson might find purchase across the party aisle for her or his ideas, said Paul Quirk, a professor in the department of political science at the University of British Columbia. But the unusual deference shown by Republicans to Trump  and intense federal Republican opposition to easing cannabis laws  means Correa will almost undoubtedly need a big Democratic win in the November mid-terms to make real headway, he said.

Correas next moves may include making speeches, reaching out to other members of Congress and trying to drum up enough support to prompt action, said Quirk.

(But) at this point, with the election coming up, hes probably counting on a Democratic House and a better chance for action, (or) at least critical oversight, beginning in January, he said.

The response of Canadas federal politicians to the ongoing issue has been less definitive, with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau himself citing the impotence of foreign governments in influencing drug policy in the U.S.

Whether Ottawa is involved in or is even aware of Correas push for change is unclear. Bill Blair, minister of border security and organized crime reduction and Canadas new lead on the cannabis file, did not respond to a request for comment.

Back in the U.S., Scott Railton, an immigration and naturalization lawyer based in Bellingham, Wash., said that even if there is a power shift in the House of Representatives, the U.S. federal government moves slowly.

Sometimes it takes a while for Homeland Security or even Washington D.C. to get real action on something, Railton said. And in the absence of a real perceived fire, it might take a while (for Correa to see results).

The long-term success of Correas bid for change in border policy, he added, may ultimately be decided by whether other interests step up to show support.

Senators in the northern border states will likely show interest in the issue once cannabis legalization officially takes effect in Canada on Oct. 17, he said. But whether business owners, other elected representatives or even voters take notice remains to be seen.

If there are slowdowns at the border or anything affecting local commerce that can be directly pinned on changing law in Canada, he said, thats going to inspire action on the U.S. side.

Correa, however, was adamant that he is in it for the long haul.

As both our nations continue to advance legal cannabis, it is vital we work together and grow together, he wrote in his email to StarMetro Vancouver. With the cannabis industry poised to be a multibillion-dollar industry, ensuring our two countries can work together will allow us to share in the economic boom legal cannabis will bring.

Read more about:The London-based index business FTSE Russell will announce its decision concerning the inclusion of the Chinese mainland's A shares early Thursday morning.

The move comes less than one month after FTSE Russell's New York-based rival MSCI implemented the second stage of its partial inclusion of A shares.

Mark Makepeace, CEO of FTSE Russell, said earlier this month that the weighting for the A shares in its index will "go more than 0.8 percent", which is the weighting used in the MSCI index.

But he added the amount of A shares included will be based on the limits on foreign ownership and trading restrictions imposed by Chinese mainland regulators.

Wei Tao, assistant president of Pacific Securities, estimated that the initial weighting of A shares in the FTSE Russell index will be around 5 percent and rise to 32 percent gradually. As the index has attracted total capital of about $1.5 trillion, the inclusion will bring in at least $500 billion to the A-share market, he said

Zhang Shenfeng, then-assistant-chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, said at a meeting in late August that the commission fully supports A shares' inclusion into the FTSE Russell index and a higher weighting on the MSCI index. That was the second time in a month that the commission had stated its opinion publicly.

In fact, this is now the third time that A shares have applied to be included in the FTSE Russell index. During the last attempt, in 2017, FTSE turned down the application due to the relatively high rate of trading halts on A share bourses. The CSRC immediately amended the trading suspension regulations, introducing stricter punishments.

FTSE Russell is the world's second-largest index service provider. About 40 percent of the world's passive funds that track global and emerging market indexes are based on the FTSE Russell index, while the remainder refers to the MSCI index.

Li Daxiao, chief economist at Shenzhen-based Yingda Securities, said FTSE Russell's offer of a heavier weighting than MSCI will accelerate inflows from overseas.

The A-share market has further opened to the international market this year. The daily quota for the stock connect mechanism between the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong has risen fourfold since May. Overseas individuals meeting certain criteria have been allowed to invest in A shares since Sept 15.

The highly anticipated Shanghai-London stock connect mechanism is likely to start trading by the end of the year.

As the A-share market accelerates its internationalization, northbound capital inflows via the stock connect mechanism with Hong Kong have risen. According to Shanghai-based information provider Wind Info, the monthly capital inflow into the A-share market had reached nearly 6.4 billion yuan ($930 million) by Sept 21, with the total topping over 230 billion yuan so far this year.Transcription

By Kate Atkinson

Little, Brown. 339 pp. $28

---

It may be just my impression, but the Brits and Irish seem to worry less about keeping up appearances than American writers do. I'm thinking of novelists like Kazuo Ishiguro, John Banville, Emma Donoghue and Julian Barnes, who blithely bounce from literary fiction to fantasy to detective stories with little worry that their reputation as "serious writers" will be damaged. (Ishiguro's win of the Nobel Prize in literature last year is reassuring in that regard.) Certainly, it's not that literary novelists of other nationalities don't experiment with genre fiction - Jennifer Egan, Philip Roth and Margaret Atwood come to mind - but the Brits don't seem to fret as much about the whole business of categories.

Kate Atkinson is one of the most prolific of those British literary shape-shifters. Her non-mystery novels, like the award-winning 1995 book "Behind the Scenes at the Museum," stands shoulder-to-shoulder alongside her suspense series starring private eye Jackson Brody. Atkinson's two most recent novels, "Life After Life" and "A God in Ruins," span the two World Wars and owe a lot to the conventions of historical fiction.

Now, in "Transcription," Atkinson has wandered out from the preserves of "high art" once again by writing a traditional spy story. And I do mean traditional, as in double agents, disappearing ink, corpses spirited away in rugs, recording devices hidden in walls and a plucky young heroine who knows how to use a pistol - and even a sharp knitting needle - when backed into a tight corner.

Juliet Armstrong is an 18-year-old file clerk in 1940 when fate, in the form of the British Security Service otherwise known as MI5, plucks her out of her routine and throws her into the dodgy world of "counter-subversion." Together with a couple of recording engineers, Juliet spends days crouched over listening devices in a London flat, eavesdropping on conversations that her boss, Godfrey Toby, conducts next door with his visitors, all of whom are "fifth columnists," or British Nazi sympathizers. Since Juliet's job is to transcribe these conversations, some of the humor in "Transcription" derives from her frustrations in trying to make sense of what's often a mass of mumbles. She's a bit concerned that the outcome of the war may well turn on whether one of Toby's guests is "thinking of taking a train ... or cleaning the drains."

Atkinson's many fans know better than to expect a straightforward chronological narrative from her; instead, she prefers to jump around, intensifying the poignancy of her characters' lives by giving her readers godlike glimpses of how they will eventually turn out. The very first page of "Transcription" opens on Juliet's death in 1981 - a death we witness with different emotions when we return to the scene briefly at the very end of the novel. Scattered in between are long sections of the story set in 1950, when Juliet is employed by BBC radio as a producer of educational programs with titles like the "Explorers' Club" and "English for the Under-Nines." But all is not well in Juliet's placid and somewhat dull postwar world. She senses she is being followed: a man with a pockmarked face and a woman wearing a headscarf garishly decorated with parrots keep popping up. Adding to the weirdness are those anonymous notes that someone has begun dropping off at the BBC. Addressed to Juliet, the notes warn that "you will pay for what you did."

What Juliet "did" during the war - and beyond - makes for suspenseful reading, and Atkinson clearly has fun resuscitating classic white-knuckle moments from old espionage novels and films. Thus, Juliet is followed in a pea soup London fog by someone "tap-tap-tapping" their cane closer and closer; in another scene set at an aristocratic cocktail party, she sneaks into a library to photograph incriminating documents when - gasp! - a man moves out of the shadows toward her. As in the best spy stories, no one and nothing are as they seem. Not even our intrepid Julia is an open book.

Espionage is a grim business, but Atkinson's wry style imbues the world of "Transcription" with moments of brisk cheer, as if Ian Fleming had been crossed pollinated with Barbara Pym. Take, for instance, this description of Juliet eating her lunch outside in the chill London spring:

"The sandwich was no comfort, it was a pale limp thing ... Recently she had bought a new book , by Elizabeth David - (BEGIN ITAL)A Book of Mediterranean Food(END ITAL). A hopeful purchase. The only olive oil she could find was sold in her local chemist in a small bottle. 'For softening earwax?' he asked when she handed over her money. There was a better life somewhere, Juliet supposed, if only she could be bothered to find it."

Juliet does indeed find a kind of "better life somewhere," but it's one that readers would never wish on her. That ultimate paradox is a testament to Atkinson's inventiveness as a storyteller, as well as to her powers for creating characters too real for comfort.

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Corrigan, who teaches literature at Georgetown University, is the book critic for the NPR program "Fresh Air."A senior agricultural official said local authorities must respond swiftly and effectively when an outbreak of African swine fever occurs to stop the disease from spreading.





Yu Kangzhen, vice-minister of agriculture and rural affairs, made the remark during a four-day inspection he led to sites crucial for control and prevention of the disease in Heilongjiang and Jilin provinces and the Inner Mongolia autonomous region between Sept. 18 and 21.





The sites included pig farms, ports of entry on the China-Russia border and animal health inspection stations on highways, a statement released by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs said on Sunday night.





The supervision team included officials from the ministry, the National Health Commission and the Ministry of Public Security. Problems they found were reported to local governments.





Customs officials across China have intensified their efforts to control and prevent the disease. In Hefei, Anhui province, where eight African swine fever cases have been identified since August, customs officials have stopped importing products made of pork from countries and regions where the disease is prevalent, and inspections have been intensified for the carry-on items, parcels and luggage of inbound passengers.





Yu urged local officials to take prompt measures following an outbreak, including the quarantine and slaughter of pigs, so the disease can be contained and eliminated in the shortest possible time.





Local authorities and businesses will be held accountable for failing to take responsibility for disease control and prevention to ensure the safe production and supply of pork, he said.





China has reported 20 African swine fever outbreaks as of Monday, since the first case of the disease was discovered in Liaoning province on Aug 1.





The latest case killed two pigs in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, on Saturday. Quarantine measures were imposed in the area, the ministry said.





Zhu Zengyong, an agriculture analyst at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, said China still faces risks of African swine fever being imported, as the disease has been in circulation in countries close to China - even in some Eastern European countries.





"How well the disease can be controlled is to a great extent decided by the implementation of disease control and prevention measures, such as quarantines and the slaughter of animals suspected of having it," he said.





There is currently no treatment or vaccine available to cure or prevent African swine fever, which is highly contagious and has a mortality rate of virtually 100 percent in pigs. It does not affect humans.





Since the outbreaks, agricultural authorities in China have taken many measures to control and prevent the disease, including conducting monitoring and inspections covering the raising, trade and slaughter of pigs to eliminate risks.





In Shandong province, the provincial animal husbandry and veterinary department has closed all live pig trade markets in the province, and suspended transport of live pigs out of or into the province.





In a circular released last week, the department also urged pig farmers in the province to seriously carry out disease control and prevention measures, including slaughtering infected animals, sterilizing the carcasses and avoiding feeding pigs kitchen leftovers.ALTON  The Lasting Legacy edition of the annual Vintage Voices will bring the Alton City Cemetery to life in October, while celebrating the programs 17th anniversary.

Director Lee Cox (who also portrays Sophie Demuth) said this years lineup has some of the most interesting people who have been featured on the tour so far.

Utilizing stories from the archives at Hayner Library, Cox said the legacy version will hopefully, leave visitors with messages of hope and inspiration, while looking toward new beginnings. Legacies of strong women, gentle strength, love and literacy, philanthropy, life lessons, hometown pride, arts and culture, tolerance and inclusion will be represented by the people who are portrayed.

For me, Vintage Voices has never been about a boring history lesson, Cox said. It is about learning something that peaks my interest and makes me look at the facts of the world a little differently. I have such reverence for traditions and for the pioneers and visionaries who came before me. But I know that even people I love and admire are flawed  and I believe that flawed people are still good people and can do great things.

The program will feature veteran actors, who have appeared in Vintage Voices in past years, along with some new actors and glorious costumes, with entertaining aspects to the individual presentations.

Pat Kulish will appear as Dorothy Colonius, founder of Alton Little Theater. Cox said Colonius was not just a do-gooder; she was tough as nails because she had to be.

She was a great director, educator, fundraiser and scholar, and she loved dogs, but not young children, and she ran a very tight ship at ALT for 46 years, Cox said. She would just smile when people whispered she could be a benevolent dictator.

Kulish admitted she was a little nervous playing the incomparable Colonius, who was such a revered theater figure.

Lief Anderson appears as Edward Lovejoy (Elijah P.s only son).

Edward was only 18 months old when he left Alton after his father was killed by a mob, Anderson said. But he did come back to go to Shurtleff College.

Alongside Lovejoy, Anson B. Platt is portrayed by Lorian Warford, a young boy who witnessed another youth set fire to the warehouse where Elijah P. Lovejoy guarded his printing press. Platt strongly disapproved of violence.

Dr. Gordon Moore is depicted by Brant McCance, who was a general practitioner and founder of Pride, Inc. The well-utilized Gordon Moore Park is, of course, his namesake. People around the area said Moores greatest talent was in cajoling politicians, union workers, business leaders and everyday volunteers to work together to create the park. It is said he rode up and down the hills of the park in his white Cadillac with his pet bulldog, Molly, with a cigar in hand.

McCance said he feels the role is a bit of a challenge because Moore was such a visible person in the community.

He made some amazing accomplishments, and he didnt take no for an answer, McCance said.

Mary White Ovington was a gifted writer and scholar who also happened to be the only Caucasian woman to ever sit on the executive board of the NAACP. Portrayed by Gail Drillinger, Ovington inspired Congress to act upon some early legislation when she wrote, You cannot fairly judge the merit of an individual or race without creating a level playing field. She was a big supporter of the YWCA because they were the first organization to offer temporary housing to the homeless of any race or nationality.

Nick Trapp will push the envelope a little when he appears as Robert Wadlow. Nick and his father have put much effort into providing metal leg braces and stilts, forming shoes and even hands out of foam to create the illusion of the 8-foot, 11-inch man. Trapp will also be a part of the citys 100th birthday celebration for Wadlow.

Ive done a lot of research on Robert; read many stories about him; and listened to radio interviews to get an idea of his speaking voice, Trapp said. He is such an iconic figure, and he was known as a gentle, happy person, with natural charm.

Michael Cox will appear as Charles Robert Goulding (known as Roy to his friends), who built the first skyscraper in Alton that even had a public elevator (the former First National Bank building and the current home of Riverbender.com). A jeweler, Goulding created Wadlows Masonic ring (size 25).

Loretta Williams will appear as Mother Jones, a role she first presented at the Union Cemetery Walk in October 2017. Since then, she has become Mother Jones in every sense of the word and appears at various assisted living facilities as part of ALTs Legacy Girls program. Williams even travelled to Ireland to perfect Joness Irish brogue. There, she took part in the Mother Jones Festival and was asked to be part of a podcast called The Hands that Built America.

Sophie Demuth (who has been portrayed before by June Elliott) is represented by Lee Cox this year (Cox will portray Mother Jones on Oct. 7). Demuth was behind the creation of The Alton Foundation, which still funds worthwhile causes for families. She was also the first female police matron in town and established a juvenile court system. She and Mother Jones were made of grit and fire in their determination to right the wrongs done to children, the indigent and unskilled laborers. Demuth was known for carrying a standard-issue derringer with her at all times, and had total disdain for any man who mistreated his wife or children.

Mother and daughter Florence Ellen Hayner and Lucy Jane Haskell are portrayed by Diana Kay and Nadja Kapetanovich. Lucy Haskell became well-known for the playhouse named after her, and her untimely death. Her mother loved her children and left her legacy to establish a library and a small park for the children of the city.

Don Alonzo Spaulding, portrayed by Kerry Miller, was a noted surveyor, who used his wealth to help fund the Underground Railroad. He witnessed the wickedness of politicians in the treatment of African-Americans and Native Americans, and he wanted better for Illinois. He worked diligently to bring integrity to political office.

The tour also includes two visiting historians who share additional stories about the region and their early involvements in Altons history with characters dating back to 1779 through 1986. The event also commemorates anniversary celebrations for Illinois (200th), the YWCA (100th) and Robert Wadlows 100th birthday.

Vintage Voices has evolved into many other programs, including ALTs Living History tours, Dinners at Lincolns Table (at My Just Desserts on Oct. 24), the Legacy Ladies, and the soon-to-be-launched Godfrey Legacy Trail.

The guided walking tours will run from noon to 3 p.m., Oct. 6 and 7; 13 and 14 in the Alton City Cemetery. Tours will leave from the main gate of the cemetery at Vine and 5th streets every 15 minutes. Tickets cost $15 for adults; $10 for students under 18, and are available at the Alton Regional Convention & Visitors Bureau and at the main gate of the cemetery 30 minutes before tours. A non-walking brunch will be held at 10 a.m., Saturday, Oct. 13 at the ALT Showplace, catered by My Just Desserts, which will include presentations by the actors. The cost for the brunch and presentation is $25. Seating is limited. Tickets for the brunch can be purchased at ALT by calling 618-462-3205 or at altonlittletheater.org.Internet inequality produces economic inequality, which is why all residents of Illinois should be extremely worried about the lack of access for communities of color. For Illinois Latino communities in particular, the digital divide has made it increasingly difficult to participate in the rapidly evolving modern economy. Yet certain lawmakers in Congress are supporting misguided and draconian regulations that would make the problem even worse by pumping the brakes on broadband expansion.

Instead, Congress must develop 21st century policies that protect an open internet for all Americans for generations to come and promote investment in high-speed, high-quality broadband infrastructure that reaches underserved communities.

The lack of opportunity that has resulted from inadequate broadband access has far-reaching consequences for Latino communities across the United States. Despite the fact that Latinos make up almost 17 percent of all U.S. workers, they account for less than seven percent of employees in the computer and math industries  and the numbers are hardly getting better. Just about 3 percent of the workforces at Facebook, Amazon and Google are Hispanic, and studies have shown that between 2007 and 2015 the number of Latinos employed by Silicon Valley tech companies has sharply declined.

This troubling national trend is plain to see in Illinois. At Groupon, whose headquarters are in Chicago, just five percent of the U.S. workforce is Latino. Meanwhile, as Latinos lack access to the internet, the technology industry is booming. The Land of Lincoln ranks second in tech industry employment which accounted for $117.2 billion for the states economy.

Expanding high-speed broadband to reach the over 11 million Latinos living in Illinois is a must to address this gap, as schools, skills-training programs and job application services depend on internet connectivity. In Cass County for example, where 19 percent of the population is Latino, over three-thousand residents lack adequate access to broadband.

Advocacy groups here and around the country are working overtime to bridge these divides. The National Association of Latinos in Information Sciences and Technology, for example, launched a program called Techno Centro, which aims to provide Latinos the tools they need to enter the tech workforce and thrive. But their critical work can only go so far in the absence of common-sense action from Congress.

Unfortunately, some Congressional members are taking us in the wrong direction by advancing a bill that would impose Depression-era regulations on the internet that have been shown to slow investment in high-speed broadband expansion where it is needed most. While supporters of the effort have said it is necessary to promote net neutrality  a critical goal we can all agree on  this would achieve nothing more than increased net inequality.

Instead, it is time for lawmakers in D.C. to step up to the challenge of solidifying a free and open internet for all by passing comprehensive legislation that would expand high-speed broadband to communities across the country that continue to lack access.

This can enable more education programs to be implemented so minority communities here in Illinois and throughout the U.S. will be prepared for the jobs of the future.

Jose A. Marquez-Leon is president, CEO and founder of Latinos in Information Sciences and Technology Association.Applicantsclaiming a U.S. Veterans preference must submit written documentationconfirming eligibility (e.g., Member Copy 4 of Form DD-214, Letter from theVeterans Administration, or certification documenting eligibility under theVOW Act with an expected discharge no later than 120 days after thecertification is submitted) by the closing date of the vacancy announcement. Ifthe written documentation confirming eligibility is not received in the HRoffice by the closing date of the vacancy announcement, the U.S. Veteranspreference will not be considered in the application process. Specific criteriafor receiving a U.S. Veterans preference may be found in HR/OEs Family MemberEmployment Policy (FMEP).Mott MacDonaldis a leading, employee-owned global management, engineering and developmentconsultancy with 1 billion revenue and more than 14,000 staff working in 140countries for both the public and private sectors. Our InternationalDevelopment Services Unit, IDS, operates portfolios within the internationaldevelopment sectors of Environment, Climate, Water, Roads, Rural & UrbanDevelopment, Education, Health, Social and Economic Development in over 40countries. Together we implement and manage projects in developing countriesand emerging economies around the world, supporting national governments andmunicipalities in policy, planning, project design and delivery. We arecommitted to support the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and toprovide our expertise to improve the lives of people in need.